ATI\'s Southern Islands tapes out Game over for Nvidia

Edison

http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010 ... -islands-tapes-out/

ATI's Southern Islands tapes out
Game over for Nvidia
by Charlie Demerjian

April 21, 2010

Nvidia worldATI IS ON A ROLL, having taped out its next generation GPU family called Southern Islands. ATI might call it the HD6xxx series, and it could be out before Nvidia gets its GTX4xx line of GPUs fully fleshed out and to market.

The news is straightforward enough. Southern Islands (SI) taped out recently, and is now moving through TSMC. Although the schedule is very tight, if all goes really well we could see a demo or two at Computex in just over a month. This puts SI slightly behind where Evergreen was a year ago, but not by much.

Southern Islands is said to be a hybrid between the all new Northern Islands (NI) and the current HD5xxx Evergreen family. Those in the loop say that Northern Islands was meant to be on TSMC 32nm before that process was killed. Due to the ever-slipping nature of TSMC's 28nm high-K metal gate node, the SI hybrid GPU was slapped together to be fabbed on TSMC's current 40nm process.

Sources tell SemiAccurate that SI uses some of the NI uncore (unshader?), and wraps that around a mildly updated Evergreen shader. RAM is more of an open question. NI was set to use GDDR5+, but since DRAM makers might not be ready, we may end up with only GDDR5 on SI.

In any case, Nvidia has come out fighting with its GTX470 and GTX480, shipping hundreds, some say thousands, of units since ATI shipped Evergreen last September. If all goes well, and it appears to be doing just that, ATI might have Southern Islands on sale before Nvidia gets all of the GTX4xx variants out the door. The end of 2010 will see Nvidia fighting a new ATI line with a year late part that doesn't work within the promised specs, and can't be manufactured.

By the time Nvidia gets to 28nm next year, or possibly in 'GTX480' quantities this year, it is going to be fighting yet another new generation of ATI parts, Northern Islands. If the rumors are true, and the upcoming Fermi II is on TSMC's 28nm bulk process, and NI comes out on GloFo's 28nm high-K metal gate process, Nvidia won't even be in the game.

At this point, you really have to ask yourself if Nvidia will survive. Its chipset business is gone because it didn't understand Moore's law. Its GPU business is like a floating goldfish circling the drain. Its GPU compute business is wounded. And Tegra is being laughed out the door. Meanwhile, ATI is on a roll.S|A

asdfjkl

chery66 发表于 2010-4-22 09:29
我想问一句，Charlie预言到现在，有哪次失败过么?

你说，有哪次没失败过？

Elwin

我顶
斗士们，真正的南岛来了，nvidia快over了

PaulWong

shu0202 发表于 2010-4-22 12:11
个人预计RV970设计为480个4D ALU，总计1920sp。前端部分类似“北方群岛”，现存位宽仍为256bit，所以这方面 ...

不错哦，预测的蛮准的

Cc.

挖坟挖坟！挖挖更健康

asd1508

农企这次彻底丑大了

micko

悲惨啊

ilmic

好大一座洋坟。

goldman948

今天应该就是NV GAME OVER纪念日,哀悼一下

Cc.

围观几个AMD斗士，真是威武

rockyband

shu0202 发表于 2010-4-22 12:29
最近的游戏都不在刻意强调支持哪个版本的D3D，刺客信条2干脆就是一个DX9。DX11这两年恐怕就是一个菜单可选项 ...

语不惊人誓不休......你和楼上两个ID在错误的路上越唱越勇.敬佩.脸不红心不跳,本色依旧.

rockyband

牛奶不老 发表于 2010-4-22 10:02
每次都被不幸言中啊

每次你都是是错误的相信.

Edison

掘地武者 发表于 2010-12-14 22:36
查理的预言哪次准过，看看查理刚刚发表的预言：
http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/12/13/secret-amd-69 ...

这个是他今天的调侃吧。

掘地武者

chery66 发表于 2010-4-22 09:29
我想问一句，Charlie预言到现在，有哪次失败过么?

查理的预言哪次准过，看看查理刚刚发表的预言：
http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/12/13/secret-amd-6900s-second-switch/
What does it do? Easy enough, it swaps the shader count. The 'normal' count is 1920 for a 205W 6970 card, and the switch opens up the full force of all 2520 shaders. The reason this switch is set to 'low' is that between the clock speed advances, 730MHz/1920 shaders to 920MHz/2520 shaders, it blows the card through the 300W cap for PCIe cards.

This switch is an elegant way of going from sub-GTX570 performance to way way way over GTX580 performance, and still getting PCIe certification.

aibo

字数你阿妹的

SnakeLee

哟，又是坟贴...

羊库库

哈哈哈
笑看fanboys们回来自抽

goldman948

坐等nvidia Game over