Nvidia’s GF100 Gets Scaled Back
We presented the GF100 GPU, based on Nvidia’s Fermi architecture, back in January. At the time, we forecasted the potential for a 2x performance boost transitioning from GT200-based cards like the GeForce GTX 285 to a GF100-based flagship. Of course, that was also based on the assumption we’d be seeing graphics cards equipped with the complete GF100. As it turns out, that isn’t the case.
In its full form, the three billion transistor GF100 features 512 CUDA cores (derived from four Graphics Processing Clusters [GPCs], each with four Streaming Multiprocessors [SMs], and each of those sporting 32 CUDA cores). But the GeForce GTX 480 employs 480 CUDA cores, while the GTX 470 is armed with 448—32-core drops in each case. Nvidia achieves this by disabling one of the GTX 480’s SMs and two of the GTX 470’s.
Because each SM also contains its own texture units and PolyMorph engine (the fixed-function logic responsible for the architecture’s exceptional geometry performance), both new cards sacrifice performance in those two areas, as well. The GeForce GTX 480 retains 60 texture units (down from 64) and 15 PolyMorph engines, while the GeForce GTX 470 offers 56 texture units and 14 PolyMorph engines.
GF100’s back-end is of course independent of the GPCs, so even with its scaled-back GeForce GTX 480 configuration, Nvidia is able to maintain all six ROP partitions. Each partition is capable of outputting eight 32-bit integer pixels at a time, totaling 48 pixels per clock. The GeForce GTX 470 isn’t as lucky; it loses one of the ROP partitions (dropping total pixels per clock to 40).
A complete GF100, with all of its ROP partitions intact, sports a 384-bit GDDR5 memory interface (one 64-bit interface per partition). The GeForce GTX 480 comes to the table with this exact configuration, serving up 256MB per interface for a total of 1.5GB of GDDR5 memory (that’s 177 GB/s, when you take the 924 MHz clock rate into account). Naturally, the GeForce GTX 470 gives some of that up. Its 320-bit interface plays host to 1.25GB of GDDR5 at a lower 837 MHz clock rate, which adds up to nearly 134 GB/s.
So there you have it. We’re looking at the same graphics processor presented back in January. As a result of yield issues, however, Nvidia’s new flagship and second-in-command are forced to employ a scaled-back version of the chip. While we’re certainly not expecting to multiply the performance of GeForce GTX 285 anymore, these should still compete aggressively with AMD’s Radeon HD 5870 and 5850 cards. Speaking of cards…
