Non-Story? Vote with your Dollars [LWN.net]

Non-Story? Vote with your Dollars

Posted Feb 14, 2007 4:57 UTC (Wed) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

Supposedly around 2008-2009.

Supposedly a 16 core and 16 times faster then the current Nvidia G80 design. A monster, they are going to release high-end first, then move down the line.

I am thinking that if it's true then it's going to be about the equivelent of 16 X3000 cores packed into something similar to the size of a current Pentium CoreDuo2 cpu. (this should give you about 128 programmable pipelines)

I figure this makes sense because I know that when a CPU manufacturer does a move like from 45nm to 32nm proccess they basicly have to build a entire new assembly line for the new proccessors. So if you move to the next-generation proccessors you still have all the equipment for the previous-generation stuff laying around doing nothing then why not use it to make GPUs? (instead of celerons, I suppose) Intel's previous-generation is probably pretty close to Nvidia's next-generation.

from Vr-zone
From our non-Intel sources, we came to know about Intel's Visual Computing Group (VCG) discrete graphics plans. There seems to be a few interesting developments down the pipeline that could prove quite a challenge to NVIDIA and AMD in 2 years time. As already stated on their website, the group is focused on developing advanced products based on a many-core architecture targeting high-end client platforms initially. Their first flagship product for games and graphics intensive applications is likely to happen in late 2008-09 timeframe and the GPU is based on multi-core architecture. We heard there could be as many as 16 graphics cores packed into a single die.

The process technology we speculate for such product is probably at 32nm judging from the timeframe. Intel clearly has the advantage of their advanced process technology since they are always at least one node ahead of their competitors and they are good in tweaking for better yield. Intel is likely use back their CPU naming convention on GPU so you could probably guess that the highest end could be called Extreme Edition and there should be mainstream and value editions. The performance? How about 16x performance of any fastest graphics card out there now [referring to G80] as claimed. Anyway it is hard to speculate who will lead by then as it will be DX10.1/11 era with NVIDIA G9x and ATi R7xx around.

Complete rumors, of course.

Non-Story? Vote with your Dollars

Posted Feb 14, 2007 9:13 UTC (Wed) by lgb (guest, #784) [Link]

Well, I've chosen nvidia card into my Linux-only computer, since that's quite good supported and has enough performace at last for me. However, if there is a card with good/better support (in particular FOSS driver!) I would change immediately. Sure, there are guys think the same, however I think the market share of people wanting only FOSS drivers is quite a low percent :(

Vote with your Dollars

Posted Feb 14, 2007 20:48 UTC (Wed) by jstAusr (guest, #27224) [Link]

I look at it in the other direction, if I buy the best hardware I can get with freely licensed drivers then I am supporting the advancement of the hardware that I want. If I buy hardware with closed drivers I will be supporting the hardware that I don't want.

Intel is currently working in the right direction, I will support Intel with my next purchase.

Non-Story? Vote with your Dollars -- I did

Posted Feb 14, 2007 17:22 UTC (Wed) by AJWM (guest, #15888) [Link]

> when will AMD release a graphics cards with Free drivers that you can plug into your motherboard.

I already have one of those -- an ATI 9250 based card, free driver based on specs that ATI (now part of AMD) released.

(Granted, they haven't released any since -- hopefully that will change under the new ownership.)

Intel's Intentions

Posted Feb 14, 2007 7:42 UTC (Wed) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

In a recent Debian Miniconf Keith Packard basicly said that Intel says they are commited to open source drivers. (I beleive he works for Intel now, as well as other X/Linux hackers)

And not only releasing drivers, but releasing them the same day they release the hardware to public. So on the day Intel hardware starts showing up in stores there will be a Linux driver that will work out-of-the-box.

Supposedly. This is the sort of thing were I'll beleive it when I see it. I am optimistic though with the modification they made to the firmware to enable breaking away from that nasty userland daemon.

BTW it's hard to call Intel a 'smaller player' when they outsell Nvidia and ATI combined. But, obviously, they are not competitive performance-wise and I suppose the temptation to get into bed with Microsoft heavily is very strong if it means getting a nice performance boost for the largest majority of your customers (Windows users).

DirectX/Direct3D is one of those things that is tied very close to your hardware.. it's not like OpenGL were you can support newer versions with a driver update. If your running a DirectX 8 card your not compatable, or at least much less compatable, then if your running a DirectX 9 card with DirectX 9 games.

With ATI and Nvidia they introduce new features and new 'extra' capabilities and extensions with each new card they produce. Then game makers and such will pick which features they like and then you end up with a ATI or Nvidia label on the box indicating what manufacturer the game makers prefer.

I suppose that if Microsoft, when drafting a new API (say DirectX 10 or 11), were to favor Nvidia's alredy existing extensions over ATI's cards then that would give quite a large advantage to Nvidia (and visa versa). So I would expect that if Microsoft said 'no open support for Linux' to either party then that means no open support.

A curious artifact of history is that around about the time Nvidia announced it's contract with Microsoft to produce the graphics for Xbox, and around about the time ATI announced it's contract for Xbox360, was around about the time they closed up tight against Linux. I don't know if that indicates anything or not.

Intel's Intentions

Posted Feb 14, 2007 10:37 UTC (Wed) by jospoortvliet (subscriber, #33164) [Link]

> A curious artifact of history is that around about the time Nvidia
> announced it's contract with Microsoft to produce the graphics for Xbox,
> and around about the time ATI announced it's contract for Xbox360, was
> around about the time they closed up tight against Linux. I don't know
> if that indicates anything or not.

Well, as MS was supposedly involved with technical stuff concerning the
design of the GPU's, they must have made the deal to keep
their 'intellectual property' closed, hence ATI and NVIDIA can't release
all their drivers for free anymore.

Intel's Intentions

Posted Feb 14, 2007 12:07 UTC (Wed) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

Makes sense to me.

I wonder if AMD will make the effort to purge the Microsoft IP from their GPU designs then. I seem to remember reading something about it.

But since complex chips like that are designed two generations out then it's not something we are going to see happen very quickly, unfortunately.

I definately hope they get that 'IP' removed from their GPU designs before they start integrating them into their cpus!