DX10 nVidia

Can anyone confirm that nVidia will release a DX10 GPU on the 7xxx line for notebooks? (And if so, what's the timetable looking like?)

 

7-series of nVidia does not support DX 10, I think you are mentioning the 8-series. I think those videocards will be released when Santa Rose comes out, so in a few months.

Charlie

 

Apparantly, Dell has an road map of a notebook which has a tweaked Go 7900/7950 based graphics card that *may* have DX10 support. I have no idea if this is true. I would suspect it is not, as adding DX10 to a core after its initial design is difficult.

 

I was hearing rumbles that the 8-series will not be usable in notebooks until H2 due to heat issues...but I assume based on your (Charlie's) statement, that this is not so, and they will be out with Santa Rosa?

 

I will give you 90-10 odds that the mobile 8 series will be out in february.

It will predate santa rosa. What gets released, might disapoint the consumer but the cards are already ready to go its just a manufacturing thing.

You see theres a short period of blindness they can take advantage of between the release of the os and the release of the games.
They can put out anything and call it dx 10 compatible and you cant tell them otherwise.

 

well they are making 65nano chips instead of 90one for desktop one
however it would take a long time until mobile one comes out
like between late 2007 to 2009
but i can't guarenty you though

 

Slightly unclear...you're saying 10% chance they'll be out in Feb?

Yeah, 'cept they'll get hit with 100 false-advertising suits from people like you and I when we do find out...

 

I'm willing to bet that there will *not* be any 7-series derivative with DX10 support. Ever. The changes required would be huge. And they already happen to have a DX10 architecture, so why would they spend countless millions on that project?

I also highly doubt there will be any major problems fitting the 8-series architecture into a notebook. Of course, it'll have to be scaled down, but that's nothing new. On the other hand, it offers better performance/watt than any other GPU on the market, so they can actually scale it down and get better performance at the same wattage compared to existing chips.

Whether they can do this within the february timeframe is questionable though... Guess we'll see.

They haven't announced anything about mobile versions of the chip though.

 

I give 90% the chance there will be an 8400 go chip released in february.

This is just because Ive seen the stats of the dell e1706. Its a non santa rosa 17 inch with the 8400 go.

Its supposed to be out if february. The first dell to ship with vista.

It might not Im definitely not in touch with dells exact dates. But I would bet 9 dollars to make 1.

There is already the asus a8jr with the ati x2300 going to ship in europe feb 1 with vista premium
The nvidia one should come out the same time. It would be weird if it didnt but computers are weird all the time so...

theres nothing else they are working on with the 8400 go I can at least tell you that its just a matter of making enough for a dell e1706

And selling the introduction to the highest bidder.

 

When Im talking about the 8400 and the ati 2300 they are dx 10 compatible but theres no dx 10 software. The first dx10 games, theyre not going to run very well on the ati 2300 and the nvidia 8400

Thats why they want to introduce them first.
Thats what I was refering to earlier a blindness period. The chips will come out but no one will have any idea what they do, theres no software.

The software itself still has to wait for the gamer chips because a game like crysis cant come out to a market of desktop owners with 8800 gtx.

To the best of my estimate the ati x2300 should not even meet its minimum specs.

So its not false advertising its just a gpu that will come out and not actually do what some people want it to do.

 

So what your saying is that there may be a supposed DX10 card out soon but it won't really work to the extent that most consumers will expect......in other words.....the DX10 software won't really work with these first supposed DX10 cards?

 

Ya I think I said that.

The only dx 10 software I know of is crysis and unreal tournament 07, so what purpose a ati x2300 has Im dubvious of.

 

Of course it will. It'll just be slow. Because it is a low-end card. Any card that ends in _400 or _300 is designed for the low end, which generally means they'll perform like crap. And DX10 cards are no different.

Buying a x2300 or 8400 (if these are the names they're going to use) will give you the cheapest possible DX10 card. With the lowest possible performance. Just like getting a 7200 gives you the lowest performance of any Geforce 7-series card.

 

The release names are ati x2300 and g84

the main difference between a low end dx 10 gpu and a low end dx 9 gpu,

is the only dx 10 software thats going to be coming out anytime soon is high end software. not sim city its unreal tournament and crysis.

So running this game low end is not that valuable

life is all about contradictions but if your rushing to get the gpu thats going to run special lighting effects in the next sim city.... when theres no sim city coming out for 6 months at least .... youre in sort of a contradiction

 

release? They haven't been released yet, and they haven't been announced by NVidia or ATI yet either.



Anyway, keep in mind that these cards will still be faster than low-end DX9 cards. And you don't know how low the upcoming DX10 games will scale. A number of the features supported by DX10 can be used to improve performance rather than provide more eye candy. In other words, simply supporting DX10 might boost performance a fair bit.

But of course, for anyone who want to be able to play with decent graphics, these probably aren't the most obvious cards to buy..

 

Alright so...theoretically, what's faster: nVidia 7800 or 8200? Or perhaps I should ask with a real example: 6800 or 7200?

 

nvidia 7800 would be faster, according to history. And to it, a 8600 would be on par with the 7800. Pure guesses... But u would never know since DX10 are more to more shaders and stuff rather than just transfer rate... not pro in this

 

SavantEdge: As lunateck said, historically N800 have always been faster than (N+1)200. And I'd expect the same to be the case this generation.

But this time around, there's the additional difference of a major performance leap. The 8200 (or whatever) will be able to do things the 7800 can't. And some of these things allow them to compensate for *some* of the performance difference. A 7800 will still be faster, yes, but the hypothetical 8200 would perform better in DX10-supporting games than in DX9 ones.

Then again, all of this is pure guesswork since none of these cards have been anounced yet, and we don't know the specs or anything, and there are no DX10 games either, no Vista drivers, and so on.

 

I'm curious to see how this all plays out. And as Jalf has pointed out--they have yet to be released officially.

 

I understand that the 8400 & 8200 would techincally be considered the low-end of DX10, but lets consider something.

for the 8800, (and I assume the whole g80 line) nvidia came out with a whole brand new architecture as well as giving the 8800 600+ million transistors, which is more than any video card or cpu in existence (that i know of)

so, even when you consider scaling down for the 84 and 82, isn't possible that the 8200 and 8400 be equal to or more likely greater than the old 7800, 7900 gpus?

 

No, probably not. nVidia will have modified so heaviliy that the advantages of the core would have dissapeared. They may have just designed a whole new core, which is smaller, consumes less power, and doesn't have the advantages that the proper G80 core has to achieve such high performance. You have to remember, that these cards are to be used in smaller 14.1" and 15.4" notebooks, so they have to be light on power usage.

The real G80 core, with all the benefits and the raw power, will come out much later, as nVidia has a much bigger job on their hands to reduce the power consumption at a resonable level, but they also need to keep the performance high, and efficient. This is why you will see slower models coming out first, from bith ATI and nVidia.

 

so no hope of anything at all close to a 7900 within a few months?....that sux.

 

Probably not. The thing is, that DX10 games will not be out for quite a while. Generally, the hardware debuts long before the software. Take 64-bit for example, processors for that were available years before. The only people to take advantage of that were those in the server sector, and some people who went out and bought Windows XP-64. The vast majority of users still carried on with normal Windows XP/2000. Only now, the demand has grown and Vista is being released.

The same is true for DX10. Games will take quite a while to come out, or until the market at least is ready for them. So, if you need something with Go 7900 GS power not, there is no reason not to buy it now.

 

lol now I'm feelin disappointed...I'm on nvidia's site right now looking at the tech specs of the cards and the 7400 looks like it sucks...

I guess what I need to ask is how well are the 82/84 cards gonna be able to handle last years games? will I be able to do most of them at relatively high settings? I'm sure older games should be okay but I'm getting a WUXGA screen so will 1900x1200 resolutions work? otherwise, games in lower resolution better not look bad because of upscaling.

that leads me to my next question: What about high definition video? I'm sure it'll have all of the Purevideo features in it but will it be perfectly smooth playback? If dell puts Blu-ray on the Inspirons in a few months, I'm getting BR with it.

 

Hey folks,

So, from what I gather - no one has any exact date when mid-range (x2600, 8600) gpus are coming out. But, I am starting university in the fall, and am wondering if I should hold off until the very last possible moment to get a laptop. (I'm thinking similarly spec'd to the G1, plus the mid-range DX-10 capable card). Is this a feasable option? Will the new lines of DX-10 cards be out by June/July of this year?

 

It seems like you want a bit of performance. If you want DX 10 with that as well, you may want to hold off until the mid-range GPUs are released. The lower level offerings will allow you to play games, but the question is at what settings do you expect? I wouldn't expect stellar performance out of a low-end GPU. And 1920x1200 is going to be a lot for even mid-range cards to drive with high settings.

Bottom line is the best you can hope for right now is speculation when it comes to the performance of future GPUs. I'd say use Jalf's assessment of the 7600=6800 and 6800*2=7800 as a guide.

I would skip it altogether at this point. Blu-Ray and HD-DVD need to duke it out first. I would want to see who's going to come out on top before dropping that kind of money on a new drive.

I would also wait until their prices come down some as well. If I wanted a Blu-Ray drive, I'd get a PS3 for $600 (cheaper than the Blu-Ray drive upgrade on a notebook).

I'd wait until summer anyway. Even if DX 10 midranges aren't out by then, you'll still be able to get in on Centrino Pro and the newer models that are likely to be released before you need a notebook for school.

 

well, I hope they are released on time. although really I could put them off until later summer, I'd really prefer not to. first of all, I have 3.5 GB left on my desktop as it is, (which is gonna get filled quick with 500 MB 1080i music videos). second of all, I have good reason to get a notebook for this thing I'm doing in the summer where I'll have access to some decent quality broadband compared to my crap DSL at home.


but anyways, I just found news about the upcoming 8600 and 8300 for desktop. can we draw any conclusions from this?

http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/Geforce-8600-Ultra-GT-8300-leaked-news-ftopict218320.html

 

I don't think we can draw any conclusions based on the release of desktop GPUs. We can merely speculate...

I would wait until summer anyway, with all of the new technology about to be released. It would also give you the best chance at a DX 10 card.

 

to clarify UT 2007 will have at least a dx9 mode if not be entirely dx9, epic would be shooting themselves if it was not, i imagine the same is true for crysis, these games have been in development for years.

 

Hope they make a Go version of those soon.. if the information would correct.. then they are priced verry low, plus find it hard to believe that they would make a 128MB version of the 8600GT

 

Let me start by saying that as some of you have pointed out - this is just speculation. There haven't been any leaked specs or benchmarks that I can find yet.

I think those of you that are saying the new generation of chips will have about 1 step up on the previous generation are right. I don't think this has much of anything to do with DX10 implementation; this is mainly the result of newer & better architecture coming out.

I'd say something like this is a good guess for pure frame rate power
8600 = 7800
8400 = 7600 = 6800
8200 = 7400 = 6600
x2600 = x1900
x2300 = x1450 = x600

For those thinking that they "need" to get a DX10 card to be able to play all the new games coming out, I think you are mistaken as well. With DX10 only being released on Vista (not XP) it won't have widespread adoption for at least another year. Game developers will slowly begin to support DX10 so they can use shader model 4 and some of the other new API's. But they will continue to support DX9 for years to come or risk loosing a percentage of their customers.

If you read interviews by game developers, they'll tell you that DX9 will be mainstream into 2008 with support into 2009. DX10 is not as big a jump in API's that some of the other levels had.

I think the idea that you'll get "better" response from an entry level DX10 card than you would a mid-level DX9 is also wrong. On the first round or two of DX10 games coming out (Crysis, Alan Wake, etc) I don't think you'll get anything other that the lowest settings possible on an G84/x2300 and the frame rates will still be lousy. When you drop to low settings you won't get complex shading or any of the bells and whistles with DX10. If you had a 7700/x1700 you won't get the DX10 bells and whistles either, but at least you can play it with moderate settings and decent frame rates.

For those expecting to see February releases, I think you are a bit too optimistic. There may 1 or 2 releases that make it out by the end of the month, but I'd put my money on March to get more than a single SKU and April before they are common place upgrades.

As I started out saying - this isn't gospel, just one guy’s opinion and I don't know any more about this than the rest of you. We'll just have to wait and see.

 

Hopefully Intel will be in this fast, so i get a low power gun toting 8800 equivalent GPU thanx to their 45nm k-gate... ermm... forget bout gun toting... just gimme low power consuming 8800 that i can put it into a laptop.

 

I found this today...

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=101280

 

I saw that, just din reply. What i want is not a tune down version of the 8800... i want full power... or at least at 90%

 

heheh looks like there is a lot of guessing going on in here

the new nvidia gfx cards will be called NB8 series >>> recent Asus Vista driver gave them away

NVIDIA_G84.DEV_0407.1 = "NVIDIA NB8P-GS"
NVIDIA_G86.DEV_0425.1 = "NVIDIA NB8P-SE"
NVIDIA_G86.DEV_0428.1 = "NVIDIA NB8M-SE"









I also thought it would be old news on this forum that X2300 is NOT a DX10 GFX card..................

first place you would see mention that capability would be a PR statement right >>> http://www.asus.com/news_show.aspx?id=5531
maybe not

http://www.hardware.fr/news/8554/radeon-x2000-avant-heure.html

 

By the way that is not a source I would quote as very reliable, they may have something but it is equally possible that they do not. I mean were in the world did they get that info when no one else has it. Seeing how AMD/ATI would be shooting themselves in the foot if they start releasing non DX10 cards this close to Nvidia's upcoming releases.

Right now there is a 50/50 chance that the x2300 will be DX10. Until we hear some definite Press announcement from AMD/ATI (OK I am just going to call it ATI from now on ) or a notebook with a DX10 GPU in it, we don't know what the x2300 will be. Thats just my two cents.

 

fair enough but don't you think they would be screaming left right and centre about DX10 in a PR statement heh

 

I think they would be screaming all about DX10 if they could. It's possible that ATI is making them hold their tounge.

But I am definately of the opinion that we need to wait and see. All anyone is doing now is making blind guesses. But hey - that's what were here to do right?

 

Well you really can compare a DX10 card to a DX9 card... according to recent histor the 8800 gtx "should be" close to the same as the 7950 GTX, but really the 8800GTX is faster than 2 7950's in SLI. In my opinion comparing DX10 cards to DX9 cards is total crap.

 

Huh? According to recent history, it should be close to twice as fast. Which it is.
the 7800 was about twice as fast as the fastest 6xxx's. And the 6800 was about twice as fast as the 5xxx's.

And you certainly can compare them, as long as you pick games they can both run... Of course, in DX10 games the 8800 will be infinitely faster, since the game can't even run on other cards. But in DX9 games, there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to compare performance.

 

ok yes I agree with u there, in dx9 games they could be compared. But a low-end dx10 card in dx10 could look and perform just as good as a high-end dx9 card in dx9.

 

The Geforce 8600GT, 8600 Ultra, and 8300 for desktops was leaked a few weeks ago. They said the timetable for those cards was around February-March. If I'm not mistaken, it takes a while after desktops graphics cards are released to release laptop graphics cards, so my guess is we'll see some type of mobile 8000 series card in April-May.

http://www.mobilewhack.com/nvidias-new-8600-geforce-series/

 

No, in DX10, even the fastest DX9 card wouldn't work at all...

 

DX10 cards require different hardware to run DX10 effects...the DX9 cards don't have that hardware and hence will not work. Now DX9 cards will probably run DX10 games, but only because the game vendors release the game with both DX9 and DX10 DLLs and programming. The game decides what to use based off of which type of card is available.

 

Any DX10 card will outperform the highest end dx9 card in graphics - Now is 1 low end dx-10 card going to outperform 2 x Highest end dx9 card in frame rates on a dx10 game running in dx9L? probably not, but the dx10 graphics will still be visually better.

 

Er, running in DX9 mode, the graphics will be exactly the same. And under DX10, you obviously can't compare, because only one of the cards will be able to run it in the first place.
Similarly, a DX10 game will never run in DX9L.

(And I highly doubt the upcoming 8400 to outperform a 7900)

 

What I meant was that a low-end dx10 card in dx10 could still look better(graphics wise) than a high-end dx9 card in dx9. I never said that a dx9 card would play dx10.

 

I totally disagree here. There's much more to it than level of DX support. A low end DX10 card will perform about the same as a low end DX9 card. DX10 introduces shader model 4 and unified shaders (why it is concidered hardware incompatable with DX9 which had seperate vertex and pixel shaders). There are a few other new API's as well. But when we start comparing DX9 to DX10 cards things like number of shaders, clock speed, amount of memory, memory interface and throughput will still be the most important items. DX10 doesn't allow you do anything that you couldn't do in DX9, it just simplifies the programming. Read the comments by thos programming the new games and they'll tell you that DX10 is a minor upgrade from DX9.0c.

 

Just to be picky, DX10 does not require unified shaders, and that's not why it's not compatible. The reason it's not compatible with DX9 cards is simply that they don't support geometry shaders and a few other tricks. But there's no rule that these have to be supported with a unified shader model. Unified shaders just so happens to be a natural and efficient way to implement the DX10 functionality, but it's not required.

But yeah, a low-end DX10 card is still a low-end card, and as such, you'll have to run everything at low detail levels so a high-end DX9 card will look better. So as jak3676 said, it won't look better just because it's a DX10 card.