ATI Comeback?

[MrWizard6600]

Amazing how the 3850 beats the 3870

thats a typo.

 

[Silus]

By the way, I feel the 8 series remix known as the 9 series is a waste. I tested a 9600gt and yes it is fast but IQ is lacking and at 1920x1200 in a cod4 shipment match, you wanna kick the cat. well maybe thats just me.

For a $120 card its great but I wouldnt buy it again.

There is no graphics chip, that provides better IQ than G80 and all it's derivatives, including the one in the 9600 GT, so if you don't like the 9600 GT, there's nothing for you out there, much less at that price...

 

[Silus]

Amazing how the 3850 beats the 3870

thats a typo.

It's not a typo. They said why this happens in a few cases, with an explanation from AMD itself:

However, have a look at the difference in scores between the Radeon HD 3850 and 3870 in the simple vertex shader test. This is not a fluke; I re-tested several times to be sure. The 3850 is just faster in the simple vertex shader test—at least until you get multiple GPUs involved. After consulting with AMD, I believe the most likely explanation for the 3870's low performance here is its use of GDDR4 memory. GDDR4 memory has a transaction granularity of 64 bits, while GDDR3's is half that. In certain cases, that may cause GDDR4 memory to deliver lower performance per clock, especially if the access patterns don't play well with its longer burst length. Although this effect is most pronounced here, we saw its impact in several of our game tests, as well, where the Radeon HD 3850 turned out to be faster than the 3870, despite having slightly slower GPU and memory clock frequencies.

http://techreport.com/articles.x/14168/4

 

[young boy]

Why Gddr4 then?

 

[Silus]

Why Gddr4 then?

Marketing gimmick ?
GDDR4 does have advantages in power consumption. But performance wise, it brings nothing significant over GDDR3.

 

[Slyr7.62]

I'm anxious to see an AMD GPU having such a good bang4thebuck(and performance in general) as a 88GTS512/98GTX etc. I've gone through an Nv FX5200, FX5950 Ultra, and 6800GToc($380) while an OC'd 88GT is rather inexpensive.

 

[NEVERLIFT]

oh no thanks lol my friend bought one to hold him over while he waited for his gts (g92) from rma. At 1920x1200 he started lagging in game and he complained it didnt look the same. He tried to have evga rush next day ship his rma lmao

After this new hotfix from ati this 3870 is impressing me. its the lil engine that could. Think i will play with crossfire now as long as the second doesnt revert to 2d mode or some crazyness ...

Ya the 9600gt sli is more impressive thou.

look for yourself...
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3266&p=5
http://techreport.com/articles.x/14355/8
for the money nothing beats the 9600gt imho

 

[Silus]

I'm anxious to see an AMD GPU having such a good bang4thebuck(and performance in general) as a 88GTS512/98GTX etc. I've gone through an Nv FX5200, FX5950 Ultra, and 6800GToc($380) while an OC'd 88GT is rather inexpensive.

Well, the HD 3850 is a pretty good bang for your buck, but with the 9600 GT around, that kind of faded.

 

[Niceone]

Well, the HD 3850 is a pretty good bang for your buck, but with the 9600 GT around, that kind of faded.

Well 9600 GT is still 20% more expensive than HD3850 256..but performance difference is more like 30% in DX9 and 50% in DX10.

 

[Silus]

Well 9600 GT is still 20% more expensive than HD3850 256..but performance difference is more like 30% in DX9 and 50% in DX10.

To be competitive, only the HD 3850 512 counts and that one is at about the same price as a 9600 GT, which is why the HD 3850's best bang for your buck kind of faded.

 

[Kuma]

Ya the 9600gt sli is more impressive thou.

look for yourself...
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3266&p=5
http://techreport.com/articles.x/14355/8
for the money nothing beats the 9600gt imho

For 120 bucks..your right. but i have seen it in person not read about it and i would not get it for 1920x1200 gaming.

as for the person who said that nothing beats the g80 core for iq ...that is a very absolute answer that am sure many would argue against. Not saying the iq is bad. its damn good but to say nothing beats it..from my personal experience haing actually owned all these cards i would disagree. oh and the lowly 3870 in my tower is just 1k shy of my recently sold gts (which is great freakin card imo)

 

[NEVERLIFT]

For 120 bucks..your right. but i have seen it in person not read about it and i would not get it for 1920x1200 gaming.

as for the person who said that nothing beats the g80 core for iq ...that is a very absolute answer that am sure many would argue against. Not saying the iq is bad. its damn good but to say nothing beats it..from my personal experience haing actually owned all these cards i would disagree. oh and the lowly 3870 in my tower is just 1k shy of my recently sold gts (which is great freakin card imo)

Ya I'm talking SLi here, not one card.
And the [H], Techreport, Toms and Anand all show that the 9600GT's kick major ass in SLi.

PS: the g80 cores do have the best IQ out right now.

 

[{NG}Fidel]

The 8x00 and 9x00 series by Nvidia have the undisuputed best IQ within games this generation. Now on the desktop that may be diffrent (Movies and such), but in games nothing beats Nvidia for great IQ. Its mainly in AF really as the AA produced looks damn near

 

[Silus]

For 120 bucks..your right. but i have seen it in person not read about it and i would not get it for 1920x1200 gaming.

as for the person who said that nothing beats the g80 core for iq ...that is a very absolute answer that am sure many would argue against. Not saying the iq is bad. its damn good but to say nothing beats it..from my personal experience haing actually owned all these cards i would disagree. oh and the lowly 3870 in my tower is just 1k shy of my recently sold gts (which is great freakin card imo)

Nothing currently on the market beats it. It's not subjective when it's easily proven with screenshots, since obviously, when in motion, it's hard to see any differences.

 

[MrGuvernment]

For ATi to come back ahead of nVidia, they really need to make a modern-day R300, something that really blows nvidia away. If they merely tie nvidia, people still won't have a compelling reason to jump ship, unless prices are drastically cheaper.

Which is what they will do, ATI isnt going to waste time / money on the high end GPU crap, they will make mid range performers and slap2-4 of them on one PCB, just like the CPU market.... add more GPU's insteads of trying to make one super fast one

Now for me, if ATI can make these multi-gpu rigs work, with out driver profile crap or software based, basically your game sees 1 GPU and it works like that so that Xfire truely DOES work on ANY game out there, sign me up!

 

[MrGuvernment]

Currently, ATi doesn't have any cards that compete price to performance wise. For every ATi card out, nVidia has a card that performs virtually identically for less money, or better for the same money.

ATi needs to do something if they want to get back in the game. Right now, there is no reason to buy any ATi card unless you already have a Crossfire board and want to stick ATi cards in there for Crossfire.

HDMI out ports for 5.1 audio out.......

 

[Megalomaniac]

A good question that i thought of after reading {NG}Fidels post.
Does ATI still have the best Video support?

Ati has carved a name for itself with its AIW cards and the fact that their movie playback support was by far superior to Nvidias. Dont know if its still true, anyone?

 

[Kuma]

Well I guess we can all agree to disagree..
and also, if I or someone else can dispute the g80 as best IQ then it is subjective. Definitive would mean there is hard evidence. Just thought I would point that out. Feel free to post SS if you wish.

 

[kadozer]

A good question that i thought of after reading {NG}Fidels post.
Does ATI still have the best Video support?

Ati has carved a name for itself with its AIW cards and the fact that their movie playback support was by far superior to Nvidias. Dont know if its still true, anyone?

Short answer yes. ATI's UVD technology has support for all VLC,mp4,h.264 codecs for decoding HD. I believe the 9 series is still lacking certain codecs.

 

[MrGuvernment]

ATI hasnt made a new AIW series cards recently have they? the last one was the 19** series?

 

[APOLLO]

ATI hasnt made a new AIW series cards recently have they? the last one was the 19** series?

Yes, AFAIK there hasn't been a R600 or newer based AIW. There have been reports of ATI not planning of producing one for the foreseeable future, so I wouldn't hold my breath.

 

[eric66]

ATI hasnt made a new AIW series cards recently have they? the last one was the 19** series?

there won't be any cause ati said that they will never make another aiw

 

[Nahu1337]

Yes, AFAIK there hasn't been a R600 or newer based AIW. There have been reports of ATI not planning of producing one for the foreseeable future, so I wouldn't hold my breath.

Shame.. I still have my AIW 9000 lying around somewhere, great card.

 

[Megalomaniac]

i guess the AIW was a small niche market

 

[MrWizard6600]

thats a typo.

There is no graphics chip, that provides better IQ than G80 and all it's derivatives, including the one in the 9600 GT, so if you don't like the 9600 GT, there's nothing for you out there, much less at that price...

It's not a typo. They said why this happens in a few cases, with an explanation from AMD itself:

http://techreport.com/articles.x/14168/4

I stand corrected. GDDR4 has bigger bursts and higher latencies, which offers the higher or identical theoretical throughput while offering higher bus frequencies, I believe.

I'd be interested to know what he means by "playing nicely" with the GDDR4. The X1950XTX in no situation was ever outperformed by the X1900XTX. The only difference between the two was GDDR4.

 

[MrWizard6600]

thats a typo.

There is no graphics chip, that provides better IQ than G80 and all it's derivatives, including the one in the 9600 GT, so if you don't like the 9600 GT, there's nothing for you out there, much less at that price...

It's not a typo. They said why this happens in a few cases, with an explanation from AMD itself:

http://techreport.com/articles.x/14168/4

I stand corrected. GDDR4 has bigger bursts and higher latencies, which offers the higher or identical theoretical throughput while offering higher bus frequencies, I believe.

I'd be interested to know what he means by "playing nicely" with the GDDR4. The X1950XTX in no situation was ever outperformed by the X1900XTX. The only difference between the two was GDDR4.

Anyways, I come bearing the rebirth of AMD overclocking:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=183025

 

[Leepox]

love that... finally more than 3ghz... awesome.. they should keep this up... dont lose momentum. Cuz i am an AMD fan who has an Intel rig and not a single day passes that i feel guilty lol.

 

[pxc]

Anyways, I come bearing the rebirth of AMD overclocking:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=183025

LOL

He's only managed to do any significant benchmarking at 3.2GHz and even describes 3.4GHz as "somewhat stable" (as in not stable). Considering the unusual cooling he's using ("3 test benches create a lot of heat so I have water to water heatexchanger with 220L of rainwater as the cooling side. 2 20Mcoils of copper submerged in this create my loop"), it's not surprising that he kind of managed 200-300MHz over what other reviewers were doing *stable* on air with a large voltage bump (somewhere between 200-250W on the socket).

And he's getting offended by people asking pretty reasonable questions. Hopefully others at XS will do usual overclocking, benchmarks and stability testing soon. I saw one other user with 2 chips.

It would be great if the headline were true, but it's not. It's setting up many people for unrealistic expectations. Very few who have high end water cooling are even going to hit 3.4GHz stable if they're lucky going by that thread. It doesn't look like Tony is one of the lucky ones.