by Anton Shilov
03/11/2005 | 01:38 PM
Spring is again in
The sizes of CeBIT show are unbelievable and it will take at least a couple of days to view everything which is presented – this kind of presence is not intended for general observers, but actually for decision makers and professionals. This gives the show ability to sustain its leading position, as everyone is interested to exhibit provided that the attention of potential clients is virtually guaranteed.
Being strongly dedicated to personal technologies and entertainment, X-bit labs is on the CeBIT 2005 to bring you the latest information about present and future trends and products.
On the first day of the show S3 Graphics pulled the wraps off from its GammaChrome S18 processor – the firm’s first PCI Express graphics chip – and confirmed the next big thing for the company: the Shader Model 4.0 visual processing unit that, according to a confidential slide from the company’s presentation found on the Web, is called Destination Generation.
GammaChrome, as you might have read from the preview at X-bit labs, is a follow-up product to the DeltaChrome visual processing unit (VPU) with some tangible improvements in the internal design. Thanks to the improvements in the architecture, the efficiency of the GammaChrome S18 is close, or even is on par with that of ATI’s RADEON X600-series products. According to the benchmark results by the company, the GammaChrome S18 clocked at the speed of ATI’s RADEON X600 XT is faster than ATI’s VPU in 3DMark05 benchmark (which is understandable given that the benchmark is heavily dependant on the performance of vertex processors: GammaChrome has 4 of them, whereas the X600 has 2), a bit behind in the Doom III game, but is seriously outrun by the X600 XT in the Half-Life 2 possibly due to immaturity of the driver that still is not ideal.
S3 Graphics said it removed logic to support FP16 calculations from the pixel pipeline, leaving only full-precision FP24 capability. Furthermore, the firm improved vertex shaders processing and even incorporated four of them into the chip that has just four pixel pipes, which is a rather innovative configuration. Additionally, the Fremont, California-based company said its Early-Z hidden surfaces removal technology also improved from the DeltaChrome times.
With the GammaChrome the company will try to sell its graphics cards on its own, which is also a rather new business approach for S3, which may work now and later this year when the firm launches its GammaChrome S19, a chip that has 8 pixel pipelines.
While S3 Graphics pins hopes on the GammaChrome product series, it does not position them as competitors for $300+ graphics cards based on chips from ATI Technologies and NVIDIA Corp.. Nevertheless, the firm believes its next-generation VPU code-named Destination Generation will be able to compete with products by the two largest graphics processor designers positioned at the high-end of the market.
Destination Generation will be compatible with the Windows Graphics Foundation 2.0, which requires graphics processors to have unified pixel and vertex processors, allowing to dynamically assign them depending on the load. S3 Graphics has already initiated work on such architecture, which may indicate possibilities for the company to launch WGF 2.0-compatible product inline with ATI and NVIDIA.
As said last year, S3 Graphics will skip the Shader Model 3.0 product and will offer the graphics chip supporting the so-called Shader Model 4.0 right after its Shader Model 2.0-compliant GammaChrome. The Destination Generation is expected to be available in 2006, along with Windows Longhorn and its competitors.
The former leader of the chipset market, who has been having execution-related issues for a number of years now seems to be coming back.
The company’s spokesman Richard Brown said the company has tackled the execution-related problems that led to severe stretch of VIA PT-series as well as K8T890-series chipsets time-to-market. This may be correct, as the company shows a number of actual mainboards powered by the mentioned core-logic sets in its booth. While this may not necessarily mean that all the companies who display the platforms will come out with commercial products, this may indicate relative interest mainboard makers express towards VIA PT-series as well as K8T890-series chipsets.
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It is interesting to note that few mainboards based on VIA’s K8T890 that allows to install PCI Express and AGP graphics cards into one system actually feature two slots for graphics cards. In fact, only Biostar, EPoX and MSI do offer two types of slots for graphics cards, whereas ABIT, Albatron, ASUS, Chaintech, Gigabyte Technology, Jetway and Soltek offer mainboards only with PCI Express x16 slot.
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On the Intel side, AGP 8x-PEG x16 platforms are far more popular: all the mainboards presented – from ABIT, Albatron, ASUS, ASRock, Biostar, ECS, EPoX, Gigabyte Technology, Jetway and Soltek – featured two slots for different graphics cards.
VIA established shipments of the K8T890 for AMD64 chips only recently, while the PT-series products for Intel’s Pentium 4 processors are beginning their ramp right now. Therefore, actual mass availability of the PT-series powered products is still a couple of month away.
This is not a news that VIA has been pretty successful with its Envy multimedia products. Recently the company managed to ink another bunch of deals on audio processors supply with numerous sound cards makers, including Hercules. Unfortunately for VIA, on the desktop Creative Labs’ position with its Audigy and Live! products are rock-stable and VIA’s market share growth is a problem. But the company thinks there is a chance to sneak into the notebook field with its Envy 24 MT, providing relatively affordable world-class audio for people who use mobile computers.
At NVIDIA’s booth everyone is excited about the performance of the company’s Multi-GPU initiative: so far the firm has shipped about 350 thousand of NVIDIA nForce4 SLI media and communication processors (MCPs). According to the company’s probes, 80% of systems equipped with mainboards based on the nForce4 SLI actually featured two graphics cards. Furthermore, the most successful Multi-GPU configuration on the market is relatively expensive dual NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT setup, which was installed in the majority of the SLI-enabled systems, according to NVIDIA.
NVIDIA nForce4 SLI Intel Edition core-logic chipset is NVIDIA’s forthcoming high-end product for Intel-based computers. The new platform processors are expected to feature a number of capabilities that will differentiate them from currently shipping Intel Pentium 4 chipsets and provide some additional performance.
Leading memory maker Corsair Memory indicated that its forthcoming DDR2 667MHz memory modules with extremely low latencies of CL3 2-2 can overclock to 800MHz without much hassles on NVIDIA’s nForce4 SLI Intel Edition reference platform. At the same time another top memory maker OCZ Technology said it could not achieve overclocking results higher than those on i925XE-powered platforms on NVIDIA’s reference nForce4 SLI Intel Edition, which may indicate certain peculiarities of NVIDIA’s new memory controller.
ABIT, ASUS, Biostar, DFI, ECS, EPoX, Foxconn, Gigabyte and MSI are expected to start selling the nForce4 SLI Intel Edition mainboards once the chipset is formally unveiled within the coming weeks.
It seems like even rather conservative Intel Corp. is about to enable dual-graphics processor mode on its i945- and i955-series chipsets: a number of mainboard makers, including Intel itself are showing off platforms with two PCI Express x16 slots at CeBIT 2005. Such configuration of the slots may be helpful to those seeking to use two graphics cards in one system to enable 4 monitors, or use two graphics cards in parallel – or the so-called Multi-GPU, or, as NVIDIA Corp. brands it, SLI mode – to get higher performance in 3D games, provided that drivers of graphics cards support such operation.
BIOSTAR mobo
Jetway mobo
Intel’s mobo
Biostar and JetWay show off mainboards powered by Intel’s 945P/G Express chipsets with two PCI Express x16 slots, according to specifications list. Intel shows off its i955X Express core-logic powered platform claiming that the second slot is “utility connector – physical x16 connector routed x4 electrically”.
It is unclear whether it will be possible to use NVIDIA GeForce 6-series graphics cards in the dual-GPU SLI mode on Intel’s mainboards. At least one thing is absent for dual-card operation: the so-called SLI switcher that determines whether one or two graphics cards are installed and should operate. Still, the switch can be implemented directly into the core-logic.
Mainboards powered by i945- and i955-series chipsets are projected support Intel’s Pentium 4 600-series processors as well as the forthcoming dual-core Intel Pentium Extreme Edition chips and Intel Pentium 4 D products. Additional capabilities include dual-channel 667MHz DDR2 memory as well as advanced RAID configurations like RAID 5, RAID 10 with hotplug capability.
NVIDIA Corp. also displays rather exotic graphics cards: the GeForce 6800 Ultra with 512MB of memory as well as the GeForce 6600 board with single-slot passive cooling.
GeForce 6600
GeForce 6800 Ultra 512MB
Both products are expected to be available commercially, but it is not clear when exactly and at what price-points.
Corsair Memory, a leading producer or high-end memory modules, is currently very excited about its XPERT series of DDR SDRAM products and within the next couple of month DDR2 version of the product with exciting light LEDs are projected to come to the market. At the show the company showcases a system with XPERT memory which LEDs display “Welcome to CeBIT”, “Welcome to Rock” phrases in addition to typical technical information.
Even though Corsair produces a lot of high-speed DDR memory modules and dual-channel optimized kits with speeds of up to 550MHz even with relatively low latencies, the vast majority of its customers still prefer typical PC3200 products, but, when it comes to enthusiasts, with extremely low latencies like CL2 3-3-6 and CL2 2-2-5, which are the best-selling products at Corsair. The best-selling DDR2 product, after the Value Select DDR2 series, at the company is enthusiast-oriented DDR2 675MHz with CL4 4-4-12 timings.
The split ratio between DDR and DDR2 SDRAM shipments at Corsair Memory is 80/20, which is rather high for DDR2.
Within the next 30 days Corsair aims to unveil its low-latency DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz memory modules with CL3 2-2 settings. According to the company’s Joe James, director of marketing, these modules are capable of running at 800MHz with NVIDIA nForce4 Intel Edition reference mainboard, which is a respectable achievement.
XGI Technology taped out its XG47 value graphics processing unit for PCI Express systems just days ago. The processor contains 40 million transistors and incorporates 4 pixel processors that can draw up to 4 primitives per pass or perform 8 depth/stencil operations as well as 2 vertex processors. The chip is to be made using UMC’s 0.13 micron process technology and will run at up to 350MHz speed.
The XG47 is a DirectX 9.0 Shader Model 2.0 compliant chip developed by ex-Trident team at XGI. The product is mainly intended for mobile and value systems: it sports energy presuming technologies as well as capability to use system memory as frame-buffer. Nevertheless, the chip features such caps as HDTV output as well.
The next product to expect from XGI is XG45, a chip developed by ex-SiS graphics architects that sports Shader Model 3.0 and is to be made using 90nm process technology. XGI does not indicate much details about the product, but says it will be showcased at Computex Taipei 2005 in June.
The XG45 will be capable of working at up to 450MHz. With that chip the company aims mainstream market segment and offers speed similar to ATI’s RADEON X700 PRO, based on the company’s estimations.
XGI aims to tape out its next-gen XG50 and XG51 graphics processors already this year. Those chips are co-developed by ex-SiS and ex-Trident teams and inherit major advantages of XG45 and XG47.
