Your Tech Insight [First Edition 5/16/2009]

Hello to all! After a while of being absent from the forums due to work, life, and all that comes with the two, I am back.

For those of you who don't know me, let me tell you a bit about myself before I explain this odd post. I am the head moderator for the Tech Corner, and have current plans to modify several parts of the forum for ease of navigation, up to date news, and the best help available not just for Guild Wars, but all PC related issues.

I hold a doctorate in advanced particle physics, and am currently employed with nVidia in the Process Design division. As a result, I stay updated on everything there is to know about computer graphics solutions. But, there is another side to my work. In addition to knowledge of the graphics solutions, I am also very knowledgeable about all things technology (specifically hardware).

This weekly article will be founded on that basis; my keen interest in technology, and my desire to share it with the rest of you. So, what can you expect from this weekly address? Well, let's start with what you won't find in here.

Things you will not find:

• Inside information on anything protected under nVidia NDA (non disclosure agreement)
• Information regarding nVidia's internal affairs or finances
• Information on other nVidia employees
• Insider information on any company associated with nVidia or otherwise

Things you will find:

• Some new, exciting information on the happenings at nVidia as the NDA permits.
• My views on up and coming technology releases
• Information regarding new technologies and their impact on the industry
• Facts regarding myths surrounding technologies
• Big stories and their impact in the tech world

<font color="red">As this weekly address is to be done in a blog-like style, it will be filled with my personal (albeit professional) opinion. I encourage you to respond by posting a reply to any one part of the address, but with a few ground rules.</font>

Rules for posting replies:

• Do not flame, defame, or otherwise mock me or any poster. I will be closely monitoring this, and will deal with it according to Guru policy.
• Do not argue a point in the article, as it may be highly opinionated and could contain bias in one way or another.
• If you disagree with a point, feel free to make your own in a professional, well mannered, and understanding way. Again, do note call out anyone for being "wrong", as I will correct any information that is obviously incorrect.

This is an experiment in progress, and if it causes too much trouble, I will regrettably have to pull the plug on it. I want this to be a place for those interested in technology to be able to express their views and see the views of someone who is deeply entrenched in this world everyday.

This first weeks Tech Insight will be shorter, because of it's introductory nature. Future editions (if we can keep this civil) will be filled with far more information. So without further to do, here is your first ''Tech Insight".


<font color="green">nVidia Happenings, Oh my.. </font>

I recently returned to work at nVidia after a break due to project loss. Work has been busy, but not hectic. We are beginning to prep for our next major release, which I think should really shake up the industry. Why? Well, GT300 is a fundamental step in the evolution of graphics cards, and redefines what a GPU is capable of. In next weeks insight, I am going to touch more on the technology of GT300, but suffice to say, it is quite the wonder chip.

Work at this stage for me is verifying silicon integrity for our design with TSMC (our process provider). My design implementation for GT200 and GT300 play a critical role in how the core was engineered. Keep in mind, my work isn't engineering, but the designing of a process that our engineers can work with to make a functional finished unit within their engineering parameters. I check the physics behind the silicon and metal/metalloid doping (addition of materials into a rod used to create the actual chips) to ensure integrity for the engineering put into the actual chip parts (layman's terms are somewhat difficult to come up with here)

Most of my work in this last week has been doing confirmation on gate dielectrics, and doing final simulations on electron flow integrity and heat dissipation. It's long, tedious, and can get boring at times; however, the thrill that comes when your design makes a graphics chip that can do what GT300 is capable of is exhilarating beyond compare.


<font color="blue">AMD's Gambit, will it work?</font>

Consider for a moment where AMD was 4 years ago. Consider where they are now. Now, look at why they were there 4 years ago, and what fundamentally brought them there. They developed a 64 bit processor with an amazing register system capable of 32+32 operation. Intel stumbled and eventually fell to AMD, losing huge tracts of market share to the Athlon64.

Now, Core i5/i7 are trouncing AMD. AMD's PhenomII CPUs are impressive, but they just can't muster the performance of the Corei5/i7 series from Intel. Are we soon to see this change? In my honest opinion, yes; absolutely. Bulldozer is coming, and it carries with it innovation that may very well return AMD to the top.

Bulldozer is the codename for AMD's late 2010/early 2011 chip release. Aside from fundamental changes to architecture AMD so desperately needs, it seems AMD may have pulled another Athlon64 out of their hats. While we don't know what Sandybridge, from the Intel camp, will offer, we now know what Bulldozer has. AMD has created a register system that is 128 bit, capable of 64+64 or 32+32+32+32 operation. This means AMD's bulldozer chip will be doing double the work of any current 64 bit processor, but at the same speed and effort. In addition, AMD has their own instruction set; surely, this will shake up the industry. VA SSE5 is impeccable, and in short, genius. AMD may very well have a winner on their hands finally.

In addition to the chips internal design, AMD is betting on external communication with its Bulldozer to be second to none. With direct connection to the GPU and a Cell CPU capable, at Hypertransport 5.0 specifications, Bulldozer has set itself up to be bandwidth monster. AMD continues to focus on ridding the world of motherboard "middlemen", or as some of you know them, bridges.

This is it for AMD. If Bulldozer succeeds, it will succeed in a big way. If it fails, I fear it may take the very company we have grown to love into the ground; 6 feet under is a bad place to have your business. What the future holds for AMD is foggy, and very unstable. What Bulldozer holds is the next big step in processor technology and connectivity. Will the world be ready for Bulldozer to clear its own parking lot?

For more information of Bulldozer, you can check out these articles:

1. http://www.techpowerup.com/93637/AMD...erations).html
2. http://brightsideofnews.com/news/200...g-monster.aspx

Next weeks Tech Insight will feature information on:

1. Windows 7
2. nVidia GT300 and ATi's Radeon 5800 series
3. Computer Monitors and their continuing evolution
4. Various Technology new blurbs.

This was an excellent (although a little short) read, and it was written well enough even for me to read it. I will definitely make sure to check this again in a week after you have updated it!

Something you may want to consider though, is splitting the discussion and your posts, so that your posts are easier to read through. Discussion could occur in a separate topic.

I'll be looking forwards to reading your Tech Insights as you post them week by week as this was certainly an interesting read.

Having been using Windows 7 since it's first public BETA Release I am also looking forwards to reading and sharing views about that with you/ others who're interested next week.

I often find myself slipping on upcoming hardware. I'll be looking towards your insights for some basic information on that. This article was an interesting one.

Mildly interesting, no offense. Some people may not be able to comprehend the terminology, so take that into account for future references.

I think this would be best to post on a website such as Blogger and just link it in your sig.

So does that mean bulldozer would be faster on a 32 bit os? (4x concurrent vx 2x 64 bit operations)
And I think this is a great idea. Most of my tech news is from people in the reporting end of things, not the development. Im always up for new news.

i cant wait to read your thought on things. your opinion being an opinion i trust on things technical above. plus it never hurts to have another source for technical stuff to read which is something i do too much but enjoy

Hoping to alleviate the lack of terminology understand with the up and coming Tech Library that we are establishing. Once complete, it will provide a comprehensive listing of PC hardware, terminology, facts, and recommendations. You guys are going to love it.

I am glad you guys like the idea of Tech Insight, and I will make sure next weeks article will have some very interesting a conversation starting information.

I would also appreciate the Tech Library, as I'm just your average layman gamer: I'm more familiar with the meaning of AOE than AMD, and I'm not too up-to-date on my news, either.

This week's article made me Google up some news articles, but they're rather old... What exactly IS nVidia's relationship with AMD? Did they merge while I wasn't looking, or was that an April Fool's joke?

Are you guys planning on releasing a "stepping stone" graphics card in preparation for Starcraft 2? Similarly, is the Bulldozer going to be out before or after Guild Wars 2's projected release date? What other games are you thinking of, when you're designing the Bulldozer?

While my wife may regret seeing a little less of me, I intend to read this faithfully. I have a fairly avid interest in developing hardware that will someday be on the market, but I do not consider myself a tech guru either. Still I understood at least 90% of the terms being used, and I'm confident that almost all who would be interested in reading such things will understand them as well. Kudos Rahjah.

looks nice, i am testing Windows 7 atm, so if you need help, you can PM me.

1. Windows 7
Check

2. nVidia GT300 and ATi's Radeon 5800 series
Interested in

3. Computer Monitors and their continuing evolution
I have one of these

4. Various Technology new blurbs.
Always good

Good article, look foward to reading the new articles as they come out.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bargamer Are you guys planning on releasing a "stepping stone" graphics card in preparation for Starcraft 2?

That'd be rather silly, as current graphics cards offer more than enough power to run SC2 fluidly. It's not going to be a very demanding game, especially not compared to various other games currently on the market.

AMD:
remember how A64 beat P4 at that time, heat, frequency but weak performance.

now PII is good, but not in the highend tier(which is dominated by i7). in terms of C/P, its hard to beat PII's 720 and 940.

Win7:
Although Im enthusiast of new tech stuff and used to install different OS on my PC, I will not get any RC win7. vista's compatibility alrdy scared me off. ill wait till ppl say "win7 is good nice quick and light".

looking forward to see more about GT300

win7 is good nice quick and light. it also comes with "XP compatibility mode", which allows you to run virtualized instances of programs in windows XP, but straight from your windows 7 desktop. unfortunately, this feature does not work on most of intel's mainstream and entry level processors, because none of them support hardware virtualization. AMD has a definite lead in this part, since just about every athlon x2 and phenom/phenom II supports it.

Welcome back, Rah - you curmudgeonly old ne'er-do-well.

Technological insight is always good, especially from someone who can give it to us "hot off the press", so to speak.

Be forewarned, potential respondents - Rahja is never wrong.

...even when he is.

Very concerned about the lack of balanced editorial but perhaps will give it some time and lets see.

I wonder if this 'blog' will be honest about the problems that have plagued recent nVidia GPU firmware builds including the notorious nvlldmkm driver issue under Vista that has driven many gamers (including myself) away from nVidia GPUs.

My 8600GT would cause everything from system hangs, screen corruption and BSoDs. nVidia have always been extremely unresponsive on the whole nvlldmkm issue blaming everyone else.

My solution, replace the 8600GT with an ATI 4770 which, to be perfectly honest is about as stable and perfect a GPU as I've ever seen.

Like I said, lets hope this 'blog' is actually a balanced and reasoned discussion on what's out there, what works and where the future is.

gl.

In Rahjah's defense I'd like to point out that he at several times has recommended AMD/ATI in builds that he has helped people here with. So while he may work on the inside of NVIDIA, that does not mean that he disavows the competition's strong points either. In any case, information/insight from a source very much in the thick of things is highly welcome, even if it was NVIDIA related only (and he has stated that it will be much more widespread and varied than that.( XD

It's funny you should mention this, but I recently swore to never buy an ATI card again for very similar stability issues.

The vast majority of games would run with no problems, but the few failures would be spectacular, some games would be unable to render ANY textures, others would simply crash frequently (one such game I've owned for 6 months and I played it for the first time a few weeks ago when upgrading to a computer /w an Nvidia card) Most of the crashes that I could track were usually caused by the Catalyst AI Driver optimizations, even with optimization turned off, my debugger would usually lead me to that one catalystai.dll as the culprit.

The only reason I bring this up is to let you know that it's no bed of roses on the ATI side either. Nvidia seems much more stable to with regards to the last gen games I currently own, but my hardcore gamer days are over, so whatever's most stable at the moment has my full support.

Well, that's because they had an 8600GT. Those things suck, I own two of them and they do the same thing to me, both of them. They could have bought a GTX260 or something and had been just as pleased, pretty much most Nvidia cards I've used lately are good except the 8600 series.

I swear against ATI to myself only because I've always had stability problems and crashes very similar to my 8600 from every ATI card I've ever had. I'm not fan of either company but I've been boned by ATI way too many times so I'm staying away for a while.