Final Words
On a final note, we’ll end with a quick look at Supersonic Sled, NVIDIA’s big “kitchen sink” demo for GF100. Supersonic Sled is a comically-themed simulation of a sled with a rocket attached (or perhaps the other way around) based on some real 1950’s US Air Force tests. It uses tessellation, DirectCompute, PhysX – every new thing NVIDIA could throw in to a demo and still have it run. We had a chance to see this in action on a 3D Vision Surround setup at CES, and we have to give NVIDIA’s demo team credit here, they rarely disappoint.
NVIDIA did give us a small (7MB) recording of it in action that we’ve posted here, in case you haven’t had a chance to see any of the recordings from the CES showfloor.
With that out of the way, there’s only so much we can say about NVIDIA’s new architecture without having the hardware on-hand for testing. NVIDIA certainly built a GPU compute monster in GF100, and based on what we now know about its graphics abilities, it looks like it’s an equally capable GPU gaming monster.
But the big question is just how much of a monster will it be, and what kind of monster price tag will it come with? Let’s make no mistake, at 3 billion transistors GF100 is going to be big, and from NVIDIA’s hints it’s probably going to be the single hottest single-GPU card we’ve seen yet. Barring any glaring flaws NVIDIA has what looks to be a solid design, but at the end of the day it almost always boils down to “how fast?” and “how much?”
NVIDIA has taken a big risk on GF100, first with its compute abilities for GPGPU use, then on its geometry abilities for gaming, and now the risk is time. Being 6 months late has hurt NVIDIA, and being 6 months late has hurt consumers through uncompetitive pricing from AMD. By no means is the situation dire, but we can quickly come up with some scenarios where it is if NVIDIA can’t convincingly beat AMD in gaming performance.
NVIDIA has shown their cards, and they’re all in. Now in the next couple of months we’ll see if they’re bluffing or if they really have what it takes to win. Stay tuned.
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x86 64 - Sunday, January 31, 2010 - link
If we don't know these basic things then we don't know much.1. Die size
2. What cards will be made from the GF100
3. Clock speeds
4. Power usage (we only know that it’s more than GT200)
5. Pricing
6. Performance
Seems a pretty comprehensive list of important info to me.
nyran125 - Saturday, January 30, 2010 - link
You guys that buy a brand new graphics card every single year are crazy . im still running an 8800 GTS 512mb with no issues in any games whatso ever DX10, was a waste of money and everyones time. Im going to upgrade to the highest end of the GF100;s but thats from a 8800 GTS512mb so the upgrade is significant. Bit form a heigh end ati card to GF 100 ?!?!?!? what was the friggin point in even getting a 200 series card.!?!?!!?1/. Games are only just catching up to the 9000 series now.Olen Ahkcre - Friday, January 22, 2010 - link
I'll wait till they (TSMC) start using 28nm (from planned 40nm) fabrication process on Fermi... drop in size, power consumption and price and rise is clock speed will probably make it worth the wait.It'll be a nice addition to the GTX 295 I currently have. (Yeah, going SLI and PhysX).
Zingam - Wednesday, January 20, 2010 - link
Big deal... Until the next generation of Consoles - no games would take any advantage of these new techs. So? Why bother?zblackrider - Wednesday, January 20, 2010 - link
Why am I flooded with memories of the 20th Anniversary Macintosh?Zool - Wednesday, January 20, 2010 - link
Tesselation is quite resource hog on shaders. If u increase polygons by tenfold (quite easy even with basic levels of tesselation factor) the dissplacement map shaders needs to calculate tenfold more normals which ends in the much more detailed dissplacement of course. The main advatage of tesselation is that it dont need space in video memmory and also read(write ?) bandwith is on chip but it actualy acts as you would increase the polygons in game. Lightning, shadows and other geometry based efects should act as on high polygon models too i think (at least in uniengine heaven u have shadows after tesselation where before u didnt had a single shadow).Only the last stage of tesselator the domain shader produces actual vertices. The real question would be how much does this single(?) domain shader in radeons keep up with the 16 polymorph engines(each with its own tesselation engines) in gt300.
Thats 1(?) domain shader for 32 stream procesors in gt300(and much closer) against 1(?) for 320 5D units in radeon.
If u have too much shader programs that need the new vertices cordinations the radeon could end up being realy botlenecked.
Just my toughs.
Zool - Wednesday, January 20, 2010 - link
Of course ati-s tesselation engine and nvidias tesselation engine can be completly different fixed units. Ati-s tesselation engine is surely more robust than a single tesselation engine in nvidias 16 polymorph engines as its designed for the entire shaders.nubie - Tuesday, January 19, 2010 - link
They have been sitting on the technology since before the release of SLi.In fact SLi didn't have even 2-monitor support until recently, when it should have had 4-monitor support all along.
nVidia clearly didn't want to expend the resources on making the software for it until it was forced, as it now is by AMD heavily advertising their version.
If you look at some of their professional offerings with 4-monitor output it is clear that they have the technology, I am just glad they have acknowledged that it is a desire-able feature.
I certainly hope the mainstream cards get 3-monitor output, it will be nice to drive 3 displays. 3 Projectors is an excellent application, not only for high-def movies filmed in wider than 16:9 formats, but games as well. With projectors you don't get the monitor bezel in the way.
Enthusiast multi-monitor gaming goes back to the Quake II days, glad to see that the mainstream has finally caught up (I am sure the geeks have been pushing for it from inside the companies.)
wwwcd - Tuesday, January 19, 2010 - link
Maybe I'll live to see if Nvidia still wins AMD / Ati, a proposal which is as leadership price / performance, or even as productivity, regardless of price!:)AnnonymousCoward - Tuesday, January 19, 2010 - link
They should make a GT10000, in which the entire 300mm wafer is 1 die. 300B transistors. Unfortunately you have to mount the final thing to the outside of your case, and it runs off a 240V line.