NV40 3DMark 2003 scores

7 Apr, 2004 at 5:31pm ET Article published in Tech

NV40 3DMark 2003 scores revealed.

[blockquote]Numerous sources have confirmed that a Futuremark 3DMark 2003 score of [b]12,535[/b] has apparently been demonstrated by Nvidia on its pre-production engineering samples.

To put this in perspective, this story is brought to you by a tweaked AMD Athlon 64 FX system based on a Gigabyte GA-K8NNXP-940 mainboard with 1GB of Corsair XMS DDR, and is equipped with the current king of 3D gaming cards, an ATI Radeon 9800XT. This rock steady, real-world system benches a strong [b]7382[/b] under 3DMark 2003 Build 340 at default settings,[/blockquote]
More at [link=http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=15169]The Inquirer[/link]

Comments

7 Apr 2004 ~ 5:52pm Geeky1 Hmm. The new chips from nVidia and ATi are both 16 pipelines thom right? If so, the performance is about what I'd expect. Now let's just hope the R420 is faster.
7 Apr 2004 ~ 5:57pm TheSmJ I have a feeling it will be...
7 Apr 2004 ~ 5:57pm CyrixInstead Wow!

~Cyrix
7 Apr 2004 ~ 6:07pm Omega65 from the article

In back rooms at the CeBIT Messe, we heard talk of 3DMark03 scores of "over 10,000 3DMarks" for both ATI's R420 and Nvidia's NV40 but, for various reasons, we weren't particularly confident in our source. However, in light of today's news, we'll mention that that same source said that the ATI R420 was somewhat slower, though "not by much".

Sources close to ATI have said that a score of 10,000 3DMarks for ATi R420 "would be a dream", indicating that R420 Revision: CeBIT 2K4 wasn't pulling this level of numbers.

BTW Geeky1 the R420 has 12 pipelines
7 Apr 2004 ~ 6:09pm KingFish whoa, I want one. I'm kinda glad I held off on buying a vid card for now.

KingFish
7 Apr 2004 ~ 7:36pm RWB hrm... if only my current card wasn't so buggy, I hope these come soon cuase I'll be wanting a 3rd PC here soon
7 Apr 2004 ~ 8:13pm mmonnin OK I checked the motherboard and it has AGP 8X which means the ATI one will probably be AGP as well. If so and something else works out for me I will prolly get an R420. I hoping that I can use for what I want and it will kick ass at it.
7 Apr 2004 ~ 8:16pm drasnor Is that nVidia score before or after the "driver optimizations"?

-drasnor
7 Apr 2004 ~ 8:18pm Thrax Exactly Drasnor.

I don't see why people are particularly hyped about nVidia 3DMark scores, it's akin to not suspecting the only jewel thief in the city when a jewelry store is robbed.
7 Apr 2004 ~ 10:39pm RWB Was ATi not accused of doing the same?
7 Apr 2004 ~ 11:08pm mmonnin Not nearly as many times as nvidia. Their scores change drastically when using different drivers.
8 Apr 2004 ~ 9:44am Medlock That's awesome. I'm sure the R420 will own it though.
8 Apr 2004 ~ 10:20am mmonnin Well from what this says it has Full 16 pipelines while ATI only has 12.:(
8 Apr 2004 ~ 11:41am EyesOnly More is not always better. Remember Intel - AMD, David & Goliath, ...you know what i mean.
8 Apr 2004 ~ 11:50am Omega65 In any event - I'm looking forward to a 500mhz R420 video card
8 Apr 2004 ~ 12:18pm Templar Damn. Can't get a new card without a job :X
8 Apr 2004 ~ 3:44pm Thrax FACT: R420 has 16 pipelines

FUD-B-GONE.
8 Apr 2004 ~ 8:08pm Omega65 It seems ATI may have the ability to scale the R420/423 chip up and down (16, 12, 8? pipelines) according to need. Of course we wont really know until the 26th

From Tech-Report

Next-gen ATI bumped to 16 pixel pipes?

Clubic is reporting (Google translation here), that ATI will introduce a next-gen graphics chip with 16 pixel pipelines. Previous reports had R420 rolling out with 12 pipelines, but ATI may feel they need a few extra pipelines to compete with NV40.

According to our information architecture ' scalable' of R420 makes it possible during manufacture to privilege the yield (output/a number of chips functional and exploitable at exit of factory) or numbers it pixel pipelines. The chip of the R420 family (can be R423?) who comprises 16 pipes will be thus produced in small quantity and will address himself mainly to the top-of-the-range market. Let us add to that that this version 16 pipes of R4xx will be available in AGP 8x or PCI-Express train 16x.

If this is the case, it's probably only a matter of time before someone figures out how to unlock dormant pipelines in R420.
9 Apr 2004 ~ 5:05am Omega65 From Anandtech Tech Update R420

[blockquote]Update April 9, 2004:

We just received confirmation that X800 Pro (Due Apr 26th) and SE will run on 12 pipelines. Radeon X800 XT, (Due May 31st) on the other hand, will run on 16 pipelines. It is important to note that all three of these chips are based on the same R420/R423 core. ATI could have an overclocker's/softmodder's dream with the X800 Pro and SE derivaties![/blockquote]