ATI to bridge their chips

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: Acanthus
The sad part is both parts from both companies will perform within 1% of each other, regardless of the solution used. The cards dont need the bandwidth yet, period.

This is most likely true. However, I am still interested to know if there is any overhead from having a bridging chip (either way) that will affect performance. Also, does the brigde chip increase the cost?

 

[Creig]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003

I think you better take a step back my friend and calm down. If you cant post friendly, then I believe you have no right to tell anyone not to post and should refrain from posting yourself. Take your own advice. As usual, somebody takes a simple topic and goes waaaayy off kilter about it and gets all passionate about it. ITS FRIENDLY CHAT!!!!!!!!!!!! Hello?

Wow, I'm saving that quote. Be prepared to have it thrown back at you in the future. Numerous times.

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: jiffylube1024

Originally posted by: LTC8K6
I read the story this way: ATI is making two seperate cards now. A native AGP and a native PCI-E.

Later on, when PCI-E has taken over and AGP is relegated to second fiddle, they will bridge the PCI-E cards to AGP for those that still need AGP cards.

Makes perfect sense and is nothing like what NV s doing as far as I am concerned.

You may be correct - they may have two flavours now. In that case, it just means that they are producing a lot of PCI-E cards already, which explains the shortages of X800 AGP series cards right now.


Also, you have to put this article in perspective and take it with a whole shaker of salt - this is how the article begins:

JEN HSUN, NVIDIA'S CEO, SAID

You think he's going to say ATI has a smarter solution Nvidia? Not likely!

If your going to quote something, quote it all.

Article begins like this: "JEN HSUN, NVIDIA'S CEO, SAID that ATI will bridge future chips and as we reported earlier, ATI's Dave Orton confirmed this separately.

That was the first paragraph. So, not only did JEN HSUN say it, ATI's Dave Orton confirmed it.

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: Creig

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003

I think you better take a step back my friend and calm down. If you cant post friendly, then I believe you have no right to tell anyone not to post and should refrain from posting yourself. Take your own advice. As usual, somebody takes a simple topic and goes waaaayy off kilter about it and gets all passionate about it. ITS FRIENDLY CHAT!!!!!!!!!!!! Hello?

Wow, I'm saving that quote. Be prepared to have it thrown back at you in the future. Numerous times.

Knew I could count on you Creig.

 

[jasonja]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003

Originally posted by: jasonja

Originally posted by: Lonyo
Seems like thay are going to be bridging their R420 from AGP to PCI-E NOW, then later, they will bridge the R423 from PCI-E to AGP?
Ie: temp solution until they make their native PCI-E core R423 cards?

No, you're wrong. ATI already has native PCI-E parts. Soon all their parts will only be PCI-E internally. When that happens they will still support AGP systems by adding a bridge that makes PCI-E chips work on the AGP bus. They have no reason to slap PCI-E bridges on their AGP parts since they already have native PCI-E equivalents to sell. This is not the case for nVidia right now. That's the difference, if you don't still understand the difference, then perhaps you should avoid posting.

As for the jackass ringing the retard bell. I'm well aware that AGP isn't a limiting factor, but in my example there's clearly a theoretical difference and bottleneck.

I think you better take a step back my friend and calm down. If you cant post friendly, then I believe you have no right to tell anyone not to post and should refrain from posting yourself. Take your own advice. As usual, somebody takes a simple topic and goes waaaayy off kilter about it and gets all passionate about it. ITS FRIENDLY CHAT!!!!!!!!!!!! Hello?

Oh my bad, I didn't realize that indirectly calling me a retard was "friendly chat".

 

[LTC8K6]

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=16332

 

[dragonic]

Originally posted by: LTC8K6
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=16332

and continuation to that:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=16651

 

[gsellis]

Originally posted by: Insomniak

Originally posted by: jasonja
Because PCI-E is faster so bridging it to a slower AGP bus should NOT hurt performance since the bus is the limiting factor. nVidia's approach makes the card/bridge the bottleneck since it's on a faster bus.

*rings the retard bell*

BUS SPEED MAKES NO DIFFERENCE!

Games aren't even using the 1.1GB of bandwidth that AGP 4X provides. 8X AGP is useless, and PCIE will be even more useless. It's nothing but a marketing buzz word designed to sell motherboards and video cards to ignorant sheep.

If you think the PCIE standard is going to make ANY differene in performance in the next two years, you're deluding yourself, so let's stop shoveling all this sh*t that a faster bus speed means something, ok?

Looking at the rope attached to that clapper... - Having fun with you Insomniac - because otherwise, you are totally on the mark, with this exception.

I do know of one example where it does matter that is in beta. ATI helped write this article, but it 'rings' true. Doing real-time High Definition exceeds AGP bandwidth.

Pinnacle, ATI, Intel announce HD Editing solution

There almost is always an exception to the rules. This is the one. Of course, the card will be a one-off Pinnacle-ATI card similar to the current Liquid Edition Pro card, which is based on the ATI Radeon 8500 All-In-Wonder setup.

 

[Keysplayr]

ATI is pretty sly. The thing of it is, if your going to be sly, make damn sure nobody finds out about it. Because if somebody finds one thing wrong, (brilinear/trilinear optimizations etc.) they will keep digging to find everything. Like digging a small hole and finding a gold nugget. That hole will be a canyon in a short time because the belief that more gold is in that thar hole.

So, it looks like its ATI's turn to be under the microscope. Hey, everybody gets a turn! LOL

 

[LTC8K6]

Except that we have already discussed ATI's future PCI-E to AGP bridge possibility and why it would make sense and why it is nothing like NV's current AGP to PCI-E bridge.

 

[gsellis]

Doing that war story thing...

I remember an old article in Autoweek when a company in Cali was making a car in the spirit of the Renault R5 Turbo-II. They were buying a Ford SHO Taurus, removing the engine and swapping it into a Fiesta as a mid-engine design. This was then called a SHO-Gun. They had to buy the SHOs as Ford would not sell them the Ford-Yamaha power plants. Some intrepid reporter then asked what they did with the Fiesta engines. Hey, they could put them in the Tauruses and call them SLO-Guns.

 

[oldfart]

The fan boy stuff on this forum is really something. Any little thing that goes on no matter how small is blown up into some big conspiracy.

Its not that hard folks.

ATi solution = native PCI-E. In order to sell the product to AGP users, they need to use a bridge chip.
nV solution = native AGP. In order to sell the product to PCI-E users, they need to use a bridge chip.

Neither are doing anything underhanded. They are just making provisions to sell their product to various market segments. It doesn't make economic sense to produce two different chipsets.

In reality, the performance difference will be minute if any from one to another.

 

[LTC8K6]

Except that there is no real evidence that ATI is doing so yet except some possibly misinterpreted X-rays.

The fact that NV is x-raying the competitions GPU and then making public speculations about it without proof has just tipped the scales in these flame wars for me. I will not be buying an NV card any time soon as I had planned to do.

I had actually planned to buy one of each mfgs card since I need to put two systems together.

 

[LTC8K6]

Are they trying to say that ATI has managed to get their bridge on-die or what?

It would be neat if ATI had actually gotten the PCI-E to AGP bridge on the die, but I don't really know what I am looking at with those x-rays.

 

[gsellis]

Originally posted by: LTC8K6
Except that there is no real evidence that ATI is doing so yet except some possibly misinterpreted X-rays.

The fact that NV is x-raying the competitions GPU and then making public speculations about it without proof has just tipped the scales in these flame wars for me. I will not be buying an NV card any time soon as I had planned to do.

I had actually planned to buy one of each mfgs card since I need to put two systems together.

It really does have that Wag the Dog taste to it.

 

[ZobarStyl]

Except that there is no real evidence that ATI is doing so yet except some possibly misinterpreted X-rays.

Please read the OP again; it was confirmed by ATi's Dave Orton that they do use the bridge chip.

My 2 Cents: If the NV45/R423 can use the bandwidth of PCI-E already, then this is a moot point and we'll just see the benches later, however I doubt we'll see any notable increase in speed from PCI-E for at least 1-2 years. We aren't maxing out the current bus because we stick tons of highspeed memory on every vid card and just load up all the textures we can there, so this ultra-bandwidth won't come in handy until games start being programmed with this capability in mind. PCI-E is a spec currently better suited for things like Gigabit ethernet devices, but the graphics companies went ahead and made cards for those who get these new mobo's and can't use AGP anymore. Other than that, AGP still had (and has) a couple years of usefulness left in it, and bridged or not the chips will perform based how they are built, not on the interconnect.

P.S. Side note: another real benefit of PCI-E (and this has nothing to do with bandwidth) is that it will be relatively easy to find boards with 2 x16 PCI-E slots thus allowing for 2 video cards and finally making it where any non-Matrox owning person can use >2 monitors. Currently if you want 3 monitors or more you have to get either a parhelia or buy a PCI graphics card for the 3rd and 4th outputs...both solutions are completely incapable for modern gaming needs...this new system offers a huge jump in multi-monitor ability (or single monitor craziness like the Alienware Array system :laugh

 

[LTC8K6]

Please read the whole thread.

Dave confirmed that they will use it in the future, not that they are using it now. Besides, where is this confirmation quote seen firsthand?.

ATI has denied that NV x-rays show any bridges.

ATI said that it had heard that Nvidia was trying to do this, and that (Nvidia) had probably x-rayed its VPU and interpreted internal buffers as a 'bridge chip'.

 

[ZobarStyl]

If by "doing it yet" you meant that say, a current x800, is not actually PCI-E bridged, then yes, you are right, they aren't doing it. But if by doing it yet you meant that ATi uses no bridges anywhere in their development labs then no, that would be wrong since Orton confirmed they will be bridging later on, thus leading to the obvious conclusion that they are developing the tech right now. Either way, now or later they will be using it, which was, of course, the point of the original article, since ATi blasted Nv for their bridging vs native solution...and now ATi has confirmed that they too will do it, and thus (as is the case in the current brilinear situation) ATi cuts at its own well-earned moral high ground by lambasting the nV solution but then pretty much doing the same thing.

 

[LTC8K6]

Bridging PCI-E chips to be backwards compatible in the future with older AGP mobos is not the same as bridging AGP to PCI-E today. Something that has already been pointed out a few times in this thread.

NV and ATI are not doing the same thing at all, imo. I am not buying an AGP card bridged to work with PCI-E.

I have no problem with folks having to buy a PCI-E card bridged to AGP in the future so they can keep their AGP mobos.

Nobody has "confirmed" anything until I see the actual confirmation.

 

[LTC8K6]

NV's "brilinear" is nothing like ATI's algorithm, btw.

 

[Ackmed]

Once again, ignorance rears its ugly head.

Its not "just like nVidia is doing". You may want to research what you post, before posting so you dont look dumb.

 

[TStep]

Long gone are the days just researching the performance and IQ of a card and looking around to see it live, in action, before I bought it. Then live happily ever after until the next upgrade.

Last week I had to buy a magnifying glass to make IQ comparisons.
This week I need to find an X-Ray machine.
Who knows?, next week I may need a neutron microscope.

This is nuts.

 

[Acanthus]

Dude you cant buy a video card before you see the X-ray review.

Coming soon: Satellite photos reveal nvidias trucks use firestone tires. Firestones tires caused numerous ford explorer accidents killing americans. Terrorist kill americans. NVIDIA linked to terrorism, ATi rejoices.

 

[TStep]

A topic appropriate article.

 

[Killrose]

What I want to see is real world benchmarks on this technolgy before I give a rats-ass about who is doing what. As far as i'm concerened, if you can't buy it today and use it today with all the benefits, why do I need it?

Anything you buy for a computer today, is "obsolete" (or so the industry would like you to beleive) in less than 6mo., personally, i'm tired of buying anything for a "check-box" feature.