Looks like ATi won again...

nightelfmaster said:
but how much better will PS 3.0 actually look, and all of them would be backwards compatible because many are gonna buy the new ATIs. Most companies won't take advantage of it unless they have enough money, and how many people do you think are actually gonna go out and spend $400 on a video card. I can only think of one group, people with money, and are tech savvy (some of us lol)
Click to expand...

how are they gonna look, and that is the big question

basically we have shown that things will look the same between PS 3.0 and PS 2.0: http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NjA5
 
DoomMonkey said:
let's see have you seen the Unreal engine 3 demo or any normal mapped games?
Click to expand...

That demo was not using SM 3.0.

It WAS using Normal Maps, but again Normal Maps can be used regardless of shader version.

It WAS using Parrallax/Offset Mapping, which can be done in PS 1.1, 2.0 and 3.0.
 
Brent_Justice said:
none of that matters, it is only how you use the technology in games

right now there is NO visual shader difference between SM 2.0 and 3.0, in fact there are NO SM 3.0 games, now of course there will be, FarCry first, but even then I don't think we are gonna see an IQ difference between the 'old' X800 technology as you put it vs. the 'new' 6800U tech as you put it

quite frankly, if the R300 tech was working, as it has been shown to, then why not just improve on it?

we'll see how it all pans out through the year

when the next patch for FarCry comes out I am going to do an IQ/Performance comparison
Click to expand...

My understanding of PS3.0 is that it offers absolutely zero improvement in image quality...what if offers is like branching instruction type doodads that let you run stuff in one pass that would take 2 or 3 passes in 2.0...

The 6800U already outperforms the X800 series clock for clock without even tapping the potential of PS3.0 AND with beta drivers...how can you not be curious what PS3.0 can do?

Nvidia could have left off 60 million transistors and have the NV40 running at 500Mhz no problem...but they didn't...aren't you curious why? Why would a company as big as Nvidia put all their eggs in the PS3.0 basket if it was a worthless feature?

Am I the only one who's dying to see what the next driver release brings? Am I the only one dying to see what PS3.0 can do?

-eMpTy
 
eMpTy said:
With beta drivers...we all know the drivers are immature...and I've heard that leaked versions of the upcoming WHQL release drivers are showing the GT ahead of the Pro...

Care to comment on your expectations of performance on a 6800Ultra in Farcry with the PS3.0 patch and WHQL drivers?

-eMpTy
Click to expand...

I'm using a set of WHQL Candidate ForceWare drivers right now on the 6800U and the performance increase in FarCry is very promising.
 
Brent_Justice said:
I'm using a set of WHQL Candidate ForceWare drivers right now on the 6800U and the performance increase in FarCry is very promising.
Click to expand...

Here's the one thing I'm confused on...do the drivers enable the PS3.0 capabilities of Farcry? Or will the Farcry patch do that? Or do we have to wait for dx 9.0c?

-eMpTy
 
eMpTy said:
My understanding of PS3.0 is that it offers absolutely zero improvement in image quality...what if offers is like branching instruction type doodads that let you run stuff in one pass that would take 2 or 3 passes in 2.0...

The 6800U already outperforms the X800 series clock for clock without even tapping the potential of PS3.0 AND with beta drivers...how can you not be curious what PS3.0 can do?

Nvidia could have left off 60 million transistors and have the NV40 running at 500Mhz no problem...but they didn't...aren't you curious why? Why would a company as big as Nvidia put all their eggs in the PS3.0 basket if it was a worthless feature?

Am I the only one who's dying to see what the next driver release brings? Am I the only one dying to see what PS3.0 can do?

-eMpTy
Click to expand...

well, SM 3.0 does have the potential to increase IQ, but these cards are no where near powerful enough to use SM 3.0 to its fullist extent, just like how we don't even use SM 2.0 to its fullist extent right now cause performance would be measured in minutes per frame ;)

so realistically in games there will be no IQ difference, only performance difference

i am very curious as to what SM 3.0 can do on the 6800U, as everyone else is, I intend to test till my eyes bleed to find out how much of an improvement it really does make :D
 
eMpTy said:
Here's the one thing I'm confused on...do the drivers enable the PS3.0 capabilities of Farcry? Or will the Farcry patch do that? Or do we have to wait for dx 9.0c?

-eMpTy
Click to expand...

These drivers expose the SM 3.0 caps finally.

However, with FarCry version 1.1 it does NOT use SM 3.0.

The patch 1.2 is rumored to add SM 3.0 specific support. This is what I'll have to test of course.

However, I don't know if even that will work until DX 9.0c is out.

I honestly don't know, so when patch 1.2 for FarCry is out believe you me I'll be on it like white on rice.
 
PS2.0 or 3.0, the images these cards put out are pretty damn good

the way i see it, PS3.0 is a good analogy for 64 bit CPUs, it is out, but wont be used completely for awhile

will i eventually upgrade to a 64bit CPU? yes when its shown be vital for programs

will i eventually upgrade to a PS3.0 compliant video card? yes when its shown to make a big difference and widely used in games

neither of which i see now.


and on the efficiency arguement, how is a card with 12 pipes, 60million less transistors, about 100w less of a power req., smaller board, smaller HSF(i think the 6800u is 2 slot?) and $100 less card keeping up with something like the 6800u? that is what efficiency is.

if ATI can produce more cards than Nvidia, their prices will be lower than Nvidias, and they perform about the same as Nvidias card....
 
retardedchicken said:
PS2.0 or 3.0, the images these cards put out are pretty damn good

the way i see it, PS3.0 is a good analogy for 64 bit CPUs, it is out, but wont be used completely for awhile

will i eventually upgrade to a 64bit CPU? yes when its shown be vital for programs

will i eventually upgrade to a PS3.0 compliant video card? yes when its shown to make a big difference and widely used in games

neither of which i see now.
Click to expand...

i like that analogy, cause that's the same way i'm playin the 64bit cpu right now
 
retardedchicken said:
and on the efficiency arguement, how is a card with 12 pipes, 60million less transistors, about 100w less of a power req., smaller board, smaller HSF(i think the 6800u is 2 slot?) and $100 less card keeping up with something like the 6800u? that is what efficiency is.

if ATI can produce more cards than Nvidia, their prices will be lower than Nvidias, and they perform about the same as Nvidias card....
Click to expand...

You misunderstand efficiency...clock the 16 pipe X800Pro down to 400Mhz (the NV40 clock) and see how it stacks up to a 6800U...it would lose horribly...when I say efficiency I mean that clock for clock the Nvidia card is a more efficient processor, it does more in less clock cycles...I could care less if it uses power efficiently...if you're buying a $450 video card, you can likely afford the electric bill...

-eMpTy
 
eMpTy said:
You misunderstand efficiency...clock the 16 pipe X800Pro down to 400Mhz (the NV40 clock) and see how it stacks up to a 6800U...it would lose horribly...when I say efficiency I mean that clock for clock the Nvidia card is a more efficient processor, it does more in less clock cycles...I could care less if it uses power efficiently...if you're buying a $450 video card, you can likely afford the electric bill...

-eMpTy
Click to expand...

the X800Pro is a 12 pipe card
 
Brent_Justice said:
i like that analogy, cause that's the same way i'm playin the 64bit cpu right now
Click to expand...

I agree as well...I'm not rushing out to buy an Athlon 64 or a PS3 vid card cuz I can't use it right now...but when it comes time to upgrade...you can bet my next proc will be 64bit capable and my next vid card will be PS3 compliant...

This whole thing reminds me of when the Geforce 1 came out and people were pissed cuz the TNT2 Ultra could beat it in several benchmarks...I needed to upgrade at the time so I bought a Geforce and not a TNT2 Ultra...seemed like the logical thing to do...and later driver revisions showed I made the right choice...

-eMpTy
 
Brent_Justice said:
the X800Pro is a 12 pipe card
Click to expand...

I meant XT...I keep getting them switched...same situation...take the XT...leads benchmarks by about what...5-10%? something like that? subtract 20% of its clock speed...put it at 400 with the 6800 Ultra...it loses...see my point?

Wow I'm posting up a small storm in here tonight...

-eMpTy
 
bobsaget said:
Quote HRslammR: "i'd say ATI won because they're doing more with less and not changing their manfacturing very much."


Hey HRslammR: what do you mean?
Click to expand...


well, look at the X800's and look at the 9800's. look a bit similar? their almost exactly similar. that means when it comes to production time it's easier to produce, thus at a lower cost. thus lower prices for we the consumer. didn't i see some x800xt's at like 440? on top of that, the lower power consumption (for the general consumer who's still sportin that 300watt PSU), and noise factor (small but there), then from an economic standpoint ATI dominated. because nvidia had to A. research (money) B. engineer (money) C. redesign production (money) D. gear up that marketing engine (money).

of course both sides do it, but nvidia is more likely to throw more into it than ATI is at the moment. but that's just how i base it.
 
eMpTy said:
I meant XT...I keep getting them switched...same situation...take the XT...leads benchmarks by about what...5-10%? something like that? subtract 20% of its clock speed...put it at 400 with the 6800 Ultra...it loses...see my point?

Wow I'm posting up a small storm in here tonight...

-eMpTy
Click to expand...

that's pointless to do that
 
HRslammR said:
well, look at the X800's and look at the 9800's. look a bit similar? their almost exactly similar. that means when it comes to production time it's easier to produce, thus at a lower cost. thus lower prices for we the consumer. didn't i see some x800xt's at like 440? on top of that, the lower power consumption (for the general consumer who's still sportin that 300watt PSU), and noise factor (small but there), then from an economic standpoint ATI dominated. because nvidia had to A. research (money) B. engineer (money) C. redesign production (money) D. gear up that marketing engine (money).

of course both sides do it, but nvidia is more likely to throw more into it than ATI is at the moment. but that's just how i base it.
Click to expand...

Where you see a smart move on ATI's part to "stick with what works" and cut production costs...I see ATI getting scared, pushing back thier roadmap, not introducing new features and "sticking with what works" because they know they couldn't compete with Nvidia on a features basis, so they took the high road, they say "your features are useless" and they introduce a card that is a pure speed upgrade...

I see the X800 as a sign of weakness on the part of ATI...at some point all the new technology that Nvidia keeps introducing will become viable and usable and ATI will have a metric butt-ton of catching up to do...

-eMpTy
 
Brent_Justice said:
that's pointless to do that
Click to expand...

Christ I'm not saying run your favorite video game at that speed...I'm saying that the Geforce is faster clock for clock...that's my only point...

-eMpTy
 
M4d-K10wN said:
You'd think, but it's the opposite.

-Intel has high speed but ineffecient CPU's, that must have a very high frequency to keep up with lower clocked AMD CPU's.
Same thing here, NV has more effecient GPU's that scale better; and they keep up with higher clocked ATi GPU's.

-Intel doesn't miss launch dates. ATi doesn't miss launch dates. Both AMD and NV paper launch with no products on the market for a while...

-Intel and ATi attempt using the "more numbers is better" marketing strategy.

I could think of more striking similarities, but I am very sleepy and they escame me ATM. I'll go zzzzz. :eek:
Click to expand...

Uhhhh intel does indeed paper lauch as well lol....remember how long it took to get 3.4ghz prescotts?....are they even out yet?....and im sure ATI has paper launches as well...almost all companies do it.

DASHlT
 
Brent_Justice said:
I'm using a set of WHQL Candidate ForceWare drivers right now on the 6800U and the performance increase in FarCry is very promising.
Click to expand...

sweeeeet :cool:
 
when you look at Nvidia's higher transistor count, there is more to it than sm3,
#1, fp32, bigger registers, more transistors, prerequisite of SM3
#2 FP texture filtering and blending, required to do HDR efficiently
#3 the feature no one talks about, despite its importance, an independantly clocked, fully featured, on die, video encoder/decoder that supports mpeg, mpeg2, mpeg4, and wmp9,
ati has nothing that competes (their AIW cards can't do all parts of the encoding/decoding, they leave the most computationally intensive parts to the cpu)

P.S. I think that the 9600xt counts as a paper launch for ATI, possibly the original 9600 as well
 
eMpTy said:
You misunderstand efficiency...clock the 16 pipe X800Pro down to 400Mhz (the NV40 clock) and see how it stacks up to a 6800U...it would lose horribly...when I say efficiency I mean that clock for clock the Nvidia card is a more efficient processor, it does more in less clock cycles...I could care less if it uses power efficiently...if you're buying a $450 video card, you can likely afford the electric bill...

-eMpTy
Click to expand...

i dont pay my electric bud, im only 15 :D
im paying for my x800 pro with my birthday money (arent i corny:p)


and Nvidia does more in less because it has more transistors and a bigger core, which produces more heat and needs more power.

if the 6800U had the same amount of transistors as the x800XT it would lose even more horribly than the x800XT downclocked
 
not really, as the extra transistors aren't from performance increasing features for the most part, ATI saves transistors by doing these things,

FP24- smaller registers, alus, etc, less transistors, and not much of a performance benefit over fp32 when properly implemented, (as is done on the NV40). If anything, this hurts NV40 performance compared to the R420

6bit texture filtering- less accurate texture filtering saves transistors at little performance delta compared to nvidia's 8 bit texture filtering, this can lead to texture aliasing though, once again, giving ATI a slight speed advantage, not Nvidia

no on board video encoder/decoder- this is a huge savings that has absolutely nothing to do with performance and eats up alot of the 60M difference

-no FP16 framebuffer and FP texture filtering and blending support, not used in current games, takes up space on die, needed for efficient HDR in the future, will give NV40 a boost over the R420 in the future when games utilize HDR.

as you can see, the 4 major differences that make up most of that 60M transistor difference have very little or nothing to do with the current performance delta between them. hence your speculation that if nvidia brought the NV40 transistor count down to R420 levels they would loose lots of performance is incorrect. In all likeliness a pared down
NV40 would be clocked at higher levels, and blow the R420 away. Also the primary reason for the lower power/heat of the R420 is the low-k .13u process, not the transistor counts, because the x800 pro is less power hungry than the 9800xt, yet it has twice the transistors.
 
eMpTy said:
I just thought it was funny to single out the Geforce name as being old...pretty silly imho

-eMpTy
Click to expand...


Try to think about it like this. I'm not saying that Geforce is an older name than Radeon. It just so happens that "Geforce" has gotten older *faster* than Radeon.
 
that is because there have been many more very successfull products under the geforce name, the same can't be said for the Radeon name, hence everyone has heard and said Geforce a lot more.
 
retardedchicken said:
i dont pay my electric bud, im only 15 :D
im paying for my x800 pro with my birthday money (arent i corny:p)


and Nvidia does more in less because it has more transistors and a bigger core, which produces more heat and needs more power.

if the 6800U had the same amount of transistors as the x800XT it would lose even more horribly than the x800XT downclocked
Click to expand...

Wrong again...the extra transistors are for PS3 and other "new features" which the X800 doesn't have...which aren't being used...if you take them off, nothing changes...except the 6800 could clock a lot higher...and the X800 would lose miserably...

-eMpTy
 
Mushroom Prince said:
Try to think about it like this. I'm not saying that Geforce is an older name than Radeon. It just so happens that "Geforce" has gotten older *faster* than Radeon.
Click to expand...

Well...they are both established brand names...while I agree that it would be cool to have a card named something new and different...most people recognize the name geforce...and nvidia wants to keep it that way...ask around to non-computer type peeps...see if they recognize the name "geforce" or "nvidia" the most...

-eMpTy
 
Here's how I see it. The smarter/better company is ATi. While nVidia was out there pumping the hype for they're 6800 cards ATi sat back and chilled and worked on the X800 series. While nVidia is out there promoting their card ATi is prepareing for release, and then BAM! X800pro drops before nVidia has a chance to react, but when they finally did react they were like "oh S@#%!!!" Now the X800XT isn't out yet but will be by the end of this month where as the 6800 still has yet to be seen. The benchmarks, visual quality and stablity are pretty darn even accross the board. So in reality all 4 of the cards (6800, 6800U, X800PRO, X800XT) are all very good cards, the main differance is you can actually buy the X800 cards as aposed to the 6800s. And from what I understand the 6800s will be slighty more expensive than the X800. Also ATi as managed to make the new line one slot and quiet, while the 6800 is still takes up 2 slots and is loud, while leads me to believe that its just another overclocked FX card.

ATi wins No Doubt, they beat nVidia to the punch. :D
 
eMpTy said:
if you take them off, nothing changes...except the 6800 could clock a lot higher...and the X800 would lose miserably...

-eMpTy
Click to expand...

you're making assumptions, it isn't good to make assumptions with such things
 
Brent_Justice said:
you're making assumptions, it isn't good to make assumptions with such things
Click to expand...

I prefer to call it deductive reasoning...has a much better sound to it...:)

-eMpTy
 
pistola said:
Here's how I see it. The smarter/better company is ATi. While nVidia was out there pumping the hype for they're 6800 cards ATi sat back and chilled and worked on the X800 series. While nVidia is out there promoting their card ATi is prepareing for release, and then BAM! X800pro drops before nVidia has a chance to react, but when they finally did react they were like "oh S@#%!!!" Now the X800XT isn't out yet but will be by the end of this month where as the 6800 still has yet to be seen. The benchmarks, visual quality and stablity are pretty darn even accross the board. So in reality all 4 of the cards (6800, 6800U, X800PRO, X800XT) are all very good cards, the main differance is you can actually buy the X800 cards as aposed to the 6800s. And from what I understand the 6800s will be slighty more expensive than the X800. Also ATi as managed to make the new line one slot and quiet, while the 6800 is still takes up 2 slots and is loud, while leads me to believe that its just another overclocked FX card.

ATi wins No Doubt, they beat nVidia to the punch. :D
Click to expand...

Actually it was ATI who knee-jerked when they saw the 6800 numbers...and thus the platinum edition was born...

ATI didn't sit back and chill, my understanding is they were planning on releasing a different core under the R420 moniker...but now that card will become the R500 since they realized that Nvidia would have won had they not resorted to a simpler design and higher clock...

Remember that only the Ultra is 2 slots...and noise is no longer an issue...also, as other manufacturers make thier own cards, single slot implementations will show up...

The 6800 is far from an overclocked FX card...the 6800 is the real deal...ATI is wide open with the platinum edition...that's as fast as they can possibly go...and they are still within striking distance of a driver upgrade...

The way I see it ATI made a strategic retreat with the X800...they dropped any new features and produced a speed upgrade card so they could beat the 6800 in the benchmarks...and it's working...tons of gamers think ATI has "done it again"...what most people forget though is that there is a huge market for opengl workstation cards...which Nvidia will now exclusively dominate...and most of the money to be made will be at the mid-range level, where nvidia will cut prices for the sake of market share...

All ATI has right now is speed...that's it...they are way behind on features...they are way behind on opengl performance...I've already seen benchmarks from the upcoming WHQL driver release for the 6800 (all benchmarks done till now have been on beta drivers) and I believe that ATI's performance lead will soon vanish...

I share everyone else's annoyance with the power requirements and double-slot design of the Ultra...but then again, the people who have the money/desire to buy a high-end card also likely have the available space and power...I know I sure do...

It seems to me that the X800 is core limited...as in it's not heat stopping them, it's just the process the card was made with that is keeping them from clocking it any faster...whereas nvidia is very much heat limited due to all those transistors...I'd love to see what kind of overclock you could get on these cards with some solid water cooling...

-eMpTy
 
M4d-K10wN said:
You'd think, but it's the opposite.

-Intel has high speed but ineffecient CPU's, that must have a very high frequency to keep up with lower clocked AMD CPU's.
Same thing here, NV has more effecient GPU's that scale better; and they keep up with higher clocked ATi GPU's.

-Intel doesn't miss launch dates. ATi doesn't miss launch dates. Both AMD and NV paper launch with no products on the market for a while...

-Intel and ATi attempt using the "more numbers is better" marketing strategy.

I could think of more striking similarities, but I am very sleepy and they escame me ATM. I'll go zzzzz. :eek:
Click to expand...

I don't recall ATi using that strategy. The FX line cards were always at higher speeds then the Radeon 9xx cards. nVidia is more likely to use the more numbers better thing due to all of it's transistors on the nV40.

Higher clocks doesn't mean ineficient, it's just using an advantage, which is a good thing. the geforce 6800 can't clock much higher because it will become outrageously hot. Kind of Like Presoctt:D
 
eMpTy said:
Actually it was ATI who knee-jerked when they saw the 6800 numbers...and thus the platinum edition was born...
Click to expand...

actually, that is not true

ati did not suddenly increase clock speeds and rename that part the X800XT-PE

the clockspeeds for the XT were solid in the middle of April

the renaming was because ati felt the performance was so high it deserved a special name
 
Brent_Justice said:
if that aint an assumption i don't know what is
Click to expand...

Yes empty do you realise why AMD can´t match Intels clock speeds? AMD was first to 1 gig you know? It´s because they do more operations per clock it´s as simple as that. A lower clocked AMD make as much work as a higher clocked intel.

And for higher clocks. A X800 PRO tends to clock higher than the X800XT:s from the early reports I have been given? Why you think? shouldn´t the X800XT PE:s core be the best? Well the extra 4 pipelines makes the card work harder and thus run warmer which limits their clocks.

The 6800 will probably never clock as high as the X800 series partly because of their bigger transistor count but also because it sure looks like the 6800 GPU works more efficient. But as we learned earlier clock speeds aren´t everything. nVidia was way ahead of ATI in clockspeeds with their FX series probably because of their 4x2 design mainly but guess what? That was one of the reason they didn´t perform as well they should have.

I am sure that if you would make the 6800 ULTRA a 8 pipeline card or something it would definiatly clock higher than the X800:s
 
you are disregarding the advantage that ATI gains from a low-k process, it cuts down on leakage, which is the primary power waster and heat producer, allowing the ati vpu to run cooler and hence faster, while making less heat. if the NV40 had been taped out on the .13 low-k process, it might well have been clock speed competative with the x800xt with a much lower power draw and heat output. But 222Million transistors on .13 volume process is hard enough to do sucessfully and the yeilds probably aren't great, doing it on .13 low-k probably would have been near impossible, and if done would have yeilds more abysmal than those of the fx series. (which according to JHH were the worst in the industry at the time)
 
well you people are just like stating the disadvantages and advantages... Anyone here actually have an opinion on which one is better/faster/better designed/more features?
Which card are you most likely to get?
Also, by the time nvidia's technology takes flight in games, the next-gen cards will arrive, be faster, and more efficient. Do you really need a hardware encoder/decoder? If u have a good graphics card u probably have a good cpu to handle the work? How many of you play a game and watch a movie at the same time? Not many unless you have a dual monitor setup, but i think its kind of hard to watch a movie/tv and play a game without sacrificeing attention to either...
Sure nvidia has great new technology never before seen in the market? but by the time it comes into use (it probably takes a long time for the industry to adapt and many won't want to, because how many are actually gonna have one specific card model?) everything will be outdated. I personally think the ati card is better, because it has the brute force that it needs and supports the basic requirements of todays games (PS 2.0 etc etc). All new PS 3.0 games will be backwards compatible so there is no use to get the 6800 to run them. Its not like its going to be a requirement...
 
Lemme just say something here because the AF quality of ATI is off and in halo(my favorite game) it looks horrible. I'll give a picture when i feel like uploading something. :p ATI better fix this AF problem because it makes me scream at my computer. About the X800 and 6800 thing...You'll want to use dx9c to its fullest because in shader 3.0 things looks the same but, are more optimized.
 
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