New 3DLabs "killerchip"?

[Indiana]

Nobody read the supposed specs of 3DLabs new "P10" VPU architecture?
256Bit DDR RAM with >20GB/sec, massive parallel design with multiple CPU-like SIMD units that are freely programmable and are supposed to speed up nearly anything from Shaders to Photoshop filters..., DX9 and OGL 2.0 compliance

Sounds quite nice - and Matrox really should get their chip out, otherwise they might again be too late.

P.S.: Anyone here thinks (like me), that they did release these specs at this time only to spoil Matrox' party?

[roadie]

is there a link for that or is it speculation???

it should make for an interesting summer and fall

[Indiana]

All links I have are in german language..
But now I've found that this announcement has already been posted - just in the SoapBox (isn't the SoapBox supposed for speculations about future Matrox gfx-cards?) and with a title that has 'bout nothing to do with the content of the thread

[Guru]

Originally posted by roadie
is there a link for that or is it speculation???

it should make for an interesting summer and fall

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1614

[Kruzin]

You know what would be interesting?
If Matrox and 3DLabs colaborated on their chip designs.
Similar chip designs, with subtle differences.
Each ship could contain elements from the other, with each chip tuned to each market's needs.

Hmmmm.....

[KeiFront]

3DLabs and Creative No thanks

[Nuno]

DX9 and OGL 2.0 compliance

No it isn´t. It´s Dx8 compliant.

[Ant]

Hmmm.....

P10

P

PP

PPPPParhelia

Originally posted by Kruzin
You know what would be interesting?
If Matrox and 3DLabs colaborated on their chip designs.
Similar chip designs, with subtle differences.

Each ship could contain elements from the other, with each chip tuned to each market's needs.

Hmmmm.....

[roadie]

As unexpected as 3DLabs' announcement was (we weren't anticipating it for another few weeks) it's just the first in a line of new technologies in the graphics sector.

wow it looks good, but the last half of the quote above caught my eye

[Indiana]

@KeiFront: I second your disliking of Creative, but 3DLabs? I would not be unhappy if Matrox OGL ICD was provided by 3DLabs....

@Nuno: If the descritption of the chip is only halfway correct, you can easily make it DX9 (maybe even future versions) compatible, since those SIMD units are supposed to be freely programmable, so you can add most future functionality in easily even afterwards. And it does have the 40Bit depth that's said to be needed for DX9.

Honestly, I didn't really expect much from 3DLabs, but if they can live up to the hype, this "P10" thing will be a serious contender. Only thing that could really spoil it was if Creative wrote the drivers for it

(Still, the "timing" for this announcement does make you wonder...)

[Joel]

Where have I seen simular specs? Oh yeah I remember. Front page at MURC, but it's considered vaporware.


Joel

[KeiFront]

Indiana, sorry 3DLabs they make good products and OpenGL drivers.

But Creative, I had my share of bad Creative drivers no more Creative for me.

[Ant]

Well Indiana I do declare, who have you been talking to?

Originally posted by Indiana
I would not be unhappy if Matrox OGL ICD was provided by 3DLabs....

[Nuno]

Indiana, a quote from anandtech.com

The P10 has a total of 64 floating point coordinate generator processors that help determine texture coverage while another 64 integer processors are used to calculate the final pixel colors. As you can expect, all of these processors are fully programmable and as we just mentioned they support a superset of all currently available DX8 Pixel Shader functions.

It is important to note that although the P10 does offer a superset of all DX8 Pixel Shaders, this isn't a true DX9 part. One of the requirements for DX9 are floating-point pixel pipelines from start to finish, and as we just mentioned this simply isn't the case for the P10. Moving to floating point processors throughout the pipeline simply isn't economically viable for 3DLabs with the P10 when you take into account the increase in gates over the present mixed fp/integer setup. 3DLabs hypothesizes that they will need to be on at least a 0.13-micron process and maybe even a 0.1-micron process before full DX9 compliance will be possible.

So, it´s not a DX9 part. But it´s a damn nice piece of hardware (finally a 256bit DDR) for sure.
I think it´s a risky time to launch hardware and claim DX9 support. DX9 isn´t even in beta stage yet.

[Novdid]

Looks very impressive, nv and ATI better hurry up!!!