To put it briefly: vigilance and secrecy meet industrial mass production and the technical preparations for it. It’s not like I don’t have any information at all that I could post in any form and with the necessary sense of responsibility, but you have to clearly separate between two things here. At the beginning, there is the technical lead time that the board partners need to understand a new generation in the first place or to be able to meet all thermal and electrical requirements. This process can take anywhere from months to a year, depending on the scope and severity of the changes.
If we remember Turing, I had already reported exclusively about the new PCB technologies (e.g. “backdrill process”) more than 7 months before the launch. All things that are needed to be able to use new products such as GDDR6X with the desired signal integrity. For this, you need a lot of technological lead time and also something like a longer learning phase. We encountered this again during the launch of the actually superfluous GeForce RTX 3090 Ti, where it was mainly about testing the power supply and the adequate cooling.
The PCB of the RTX 3090 Ti differs from that of the next generation in important aspects, of course, but we will find important assemblies exactly the same. This also includes the fact that the new boards, which are currently already being tested, are pin-compatible with the GA102, so that you can already “play around” extensively here using the 600-Watt BIOS (TBP). I had also reported on this exclusively.
And now we come to the point with the missing information. There is now a rather popular 2 to 3 month window, whether at AMD or NVIDIA, to get from the material list to finished mass production when the “learning phase” is already coming to an end. I’d also like to remind you of this, because if we extrapolate that the new cards could be launched in early September, then it’s not even time yet for board partners to have received working samples of the new GPUs. And yes, from my sources I reliably know that people are still playing with the GA102 and there is no AD102 to evaluate at all yet! Not to mention the AD104, for which there aren’t even paper fliers for the AIC to play around with.
If we take another look at the extrapolated period from now until September, we also know when we could expect more “reliable” leaks about the possible performance. Of course, all this is highly speculative and definitely not set in stone, but it would look roughly like this:
So much for that, because one can recognize the steps and time frames already quite well. And that’s exactly why I’m now getting straight to NVIDIA’s GLP (Green Light Program), the consequence of which seems quite logical if you look at the schedule above and know that NVIDIA leaves nothing to chance.
Moreover, this so-called Green Light Program is not really new:
- The Board Partner (Partner) receives and reviews program policies and specifications.
- Partner submits the CDP (Virtual Customer Design Project) to NVIDIA according to the guidelines.
- NVIDIA reviews and approves the CDP.
- The partner submits the mechanical designs (graphics card enclosures) and board design files for review.
- NVIDIA now sends chip samples to the partner (engineering samples).
- The partner will provide NVIDIA with board samples to generate the dBA curve (RPM vs. dBA) if they cannot generate this curve in their own acoustics lab.
- The partner performs the green light testing using the PREL software (VBIOS and driver) and submits the results to NVIDIA to get the green light to proceed.
– If NVIDIA gives the green light, a Partner Production (PP) VBIOS will be made available.
– If not, NVIDIA will notify partners of what needs to be corrected and the partner will need to resubmit with all items corrected. - The partner provides NVIDIA with the so-called box art for review. This box type is provided to NVIDIA through the Preferred Partner Portal and must comply with the brand’s GeForce guidelines.
- The partner starts mass production.
- The partner is obliged to deliver all production boards with the design approved by Green Light. Any changes to the product after approval are not permitted.
- Partners must have approval before they even provide cards to the press, and they must use the final, approved design for all press outreach. Leaking unapproved designs to the press could affect NVIDIA’s GPU supply.
That reads quite logically at first and, by the way, doesn’t look much different for AMD’s board partners. The fact is that in this way the set standards are virtually enforced and no deviations are tolerated.
Summary and conclusion
With these small calculation examples from a meanwhile almost 13 years of editor activity and the 25 years as a developer on very different sides of the force, I wanted to show you primarily, why I judge some things differently, than one would perhaps expect. As a reviewer who wants to judge a product objectively, you also have to know how such products are created, how production and distribution channels work, and where the sensitivities of chip manufacturers lie, for example. This includes assessing the information leaked in advance as well as its validity and it is also the reason why I don’t pick up some news yet, even if it would generate traffic.
As long as there is no AD10x for the AIC to test, we cannot get a true performance preview. And it will also take longer until there is a usable BIOS and, above all, functioning drivers. You should never forget that the board partners also only receive drivers with a very limited scope of performance, which have no significance at all in terms of games! And to finish with Intel: they currently make it so secret with the drivers that an NDA for the tester in question has to be countersigned by the vice president! Cleverly devised to keep those who might bring the truth to light under complete control. You can certainly do that, but you could also draw certain conclusions here. But that would be too much speculation at once and also unfair.
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