The Gauntlet has been thrown

[Brent_Justice]

From our article at [H]Enthusiast - http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTA3OSwxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

ATI left us saying, “Expect new Crossfire revisions early next year to overtake SLI. We are not here to play second fiddle.”

Discuss

 

[Mabrito]

Im excitied for this. Physic cards are now cheap lol. Get a X1600XT for 120-140 these days. Thats affordable. ATI claims even the X1600XT will be better than ageia so that is also a plus. Also, the havok engine is widely used, so it has alot more support, and will still continue to get the support. I dont think Ageia is in a good position now.

Question I have would I be able to do this with my 7900GT?

 

[Trimlock]

Question I have would I be able to do this with my 7900GT?

Nv hasn't said a whole lot about their's other then a few tech demo's and havok support

this is getting really interesting, as i suspected ATi wouldn't try to hype this portion of their X1k line ups if they weren't serious about it, and that quote at the end about playing second fiddle only gets me more worked up for the R600 series!

 

[Sharky974]

Uhh generic pr speak ftw.

If ATI doesn't stop TMU limiting their cards in a big way, as well as do better performance optomizing their drivers..they are gonna be in big trouble soon.

This actually makes some sense to me though, with the "spare card" idea. The whole reason physics on GPU was questionable before was that, who wanted to dedicate some precious GPU power to something else? This removes that concern, and so is a big step in the right direction.

I see a ton of positives here. This could be really, really big.

The main negative is the fact physics on a GPU are non-interactive.

But nonetheless, this is always the way I though Physics would go if anywhere. The GPU makers would make cards for it. Making cards is what they're already good at in a way Ageia is not. Look at the ageai physics card. It looks like a $99 or less GPU physically. But it's 299 because ageai dsoesn't have economy of scale or expertise on making cards.

The point is Nvidia and ATI can sell you a 6600GT or X1600XT to use as a physics card that probably runs circles around that ageia card in raw power, and all for <99 bucks were the whole concept is so much more attractive at that price point. Let alone if they tweaked there designs a bit to make an even better dedicated physics card.

Yeah, this is a big deal, quite possibly.

 

[Mabrito]

I meant will I be able to run my 7900GT for graphics and the X1600XT for physics, or will I need all ATI hardware like video cards and motherboards?

Meh second part is kinda a stupid question, but how about the first part?

 

[Trimlock]

hehe

well i believe it is dealt strictly with ATi hardware, as in X1k as the main GPU and your physic's GPU be a X1k family as well, possibly due to driver issues and conflicts with possibly having the Nv drivers in there not supporting this

who knows, maybe having an ATi chipset that supports this, a 7900GT as your main video card, with an X1600 as your physic's GPU will work, and the ATi drivers will be able to handle or notice that you aren't using strictly an ATi set up

not a whole lot is known, other then that ATi is seriously putting effort into this

 

[Brent_Justice]

Like I have said previously, right now Physics is at where the Voodoo 1 was at, it is gearing up for what will be a very kick ass thing. IMO 2007+ will be the year of Physics on the PC. This is just the start, I look forward to it evolving.

But what I am most interested in is that last quote from them, some new CF revisions early next year that they claim will beat SLI. THAT really has me intrigued.

 

[ManicOne]

3 X1900s...

You realise that this means in 6 months time there will be peeps on these forums with 3 R600 series cards.......

 

[Trimlock]

You realise that this means in 6 months time there will be peeps on these forums with 3 R600 series cards.......

man, i'd do that just to get that many fans to shove air out of my case! and holy crap, that would cost more money then a vacation in hawaii

 

[gersson]

LOL, ATI better start production early to avoid a massive shortage

Count me in

 

[FadedSpark]

if the option for us green loyalists (i have my reasons... stupid drivers and money...) to just buy say an x1600 and slap it in, and use that as a physics card along side our nV's, then ATi is in a good position, otherwise, its just another gimmick that probably wont be used too much... notice the PSU in that pic? yea thats right, 1kw oh how i long for 1000+ watts of heat being dumpe dinto my already hot and tiny room 0_0

 

[Trimlock]

its just another gimmick that probably wont be used too much...

i don't see how its a gimmick, just because the Nv camp won't be able to use it, thats like calling CF and SLi a gimmick because they can't be used on competition chipsets... if it works and works and is used, then it definetly isn't a gimmick

notice the PSU in that pic? yea thats right, 1kw

well ... uh yea? it has 3 X1900's in it, and on a core duo 2 board it looks like, that thing will definetly need quite a bit of juice

 

[FadedSpark]

yea but thats another FOUR HUNDRED dollars, that assumign you jsut went standard SLI, would be in your pocket and THENSOME...

(using canadian prices now)

3 X1900's - 650 each, 2000 (tax)

1kw PSU - 600 (pretty sure... the 850 is 450 or osmething)
total - 2600


2 7900GTX - 600 each, 1300 (tax)
Physics card - 400
600W psu - 150

Total 1850

thats SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY BUCKS you save 0_0

[edit] a gimmick for the reason above, and the fact right now its only conroe + BadAxe + ATI, assuming its expanded to AMD, then its got potential, unless conroe truly sweeps the floor but im not gonna bother even glimpsing at conroe til its here... (cause face it, right now, who would you bank on ATI making more money with? AMD or intel? (assuming green had no influence)

 

[Trimlock]

[edit] a gimmick for the reason above, and the fact right now its only conroe + BadAxe + ATI, assuming its expanded to AMD, then its got potential, unless conroe truly sweeps the floor but im not gonna bother even glimpsing at conroe til its here... (cause face it, right now, who would you bank on ATI making more money with? AMD or intel? (assuming green had no influence)

of course i'd agree with everything said here

yea but thats another FOUR HUNDRED dollars, that assumign you jsut went standard SLI, would be in your pocket and THENSOME...

(using canadian prices now)

3 X1900's - 650 each, 2000 (tax)

1kw PSU - 600 (pretty sure... the 850 is 450 or osmething)
total - 2600


2 7900GTX - 600 each, 1300 (tax)
Physics card - 400
600W psu - 150

Total 1850

thats SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY BUCKS you save 0_0

i was starting to get lost with what you were saying with the price but after reviewing it, i think you are taking the ATi's set up a bit too much to heart, it was an absolute best case senario, ATi claims that the X1600 (which can even that price ALOT more) is still faster then Physic's card, of course everything we have right now is all hypothetical, we need support for it all before we can compare and right now the physic's in games isn't at all demanding so its really hard to even justify the physic's card add on.

but what would you rather do, brag about having two 7900GTX cards and some addin card no one heard of, or having a 1kw PSU running three turbo fans (or so it probably would seem ) X1900XTX's?

 

[FadedSpark]

id brag about being able to talk over my fans actually and having money in my pocket i think the only FEASABLE way is for the x1600 soultion.. and i bet im not the only one (yea the x1600 would even the price by alot but i still would not want to drop the PSU with a crossfire set up 0_0 so instead of 750 in the pocket, 350, which will still buy a kickass monitor or something

Either way, good news for everyone (even us... now nV has a reason to work harder )

[edit] sorry if im getting confusing, 4 in the morning 0_0

 

[Trimlock]

id brag about being able to talk over my fans actually

Loud noises! comes to mind when hearing that hehe

but i still would not want to drop the PSU with a crossfire set up 0_0

well, i've built two X1900XT crossfire set ups, both using the same 600watt PSU, none ever had a power problem, although one came back with a fried harddrive (unsure how it actually got burnt...) so i'm sure this system would run fine on the 600watt supply, although i don't know the draw on the intel CPU

 

[Netrat33]

unless I buy another computer (4th) I probably will never have crossfire since I have an SLI board (which in theory should work anyway).

But then again I am a sick bastard and would buy another computer

 

[ThirtySixBelow]

Wow, just when I thought 1200 was too much to spend on 2 cards, now you can spend almost 2000 on 3. Taking out a loan for internet video games. Yay computer.

 

[Jason711]

*yawn* you still wont be able to sell me on the notion of superficial physics..

 

[quadnad]

I'd love to see some games actually show the need for these kinds of physics accelerators. To be quite honest, I think one of the only ways that physics acceleration will make it into the mainstream is if it starts in a place that more people are at, or will be in the near future: using the untapped power of a multi-core processor.

Oh, and

'ATI left us saying, “Expect new Crossfire revisions early next year to overtake SLI. We are not here to play second fiddle,”'

made me laugh a bit. It's like during their previous PR events they left everyone with, "We've just debuted Crossfire, and we'll be playing second fiddle. It'll be great."

 

[BlackTigers91]

*Waits for massive price cuts?*

 

[ElMoIsEviL]

yea but thats another FOUR HUNDRED dollars, that assumign you jsut went standard SLI, would be in your pocket and THENSOME...

(using canadian prices now)

3 X1900's - 650 each, 2000 (tax)

1kw PSU - 600 (pretty sure... the 850 is 450 or osmething)
total - 2600


2 7900GTX - 600 each, 1300 (tax)
Physics card - 400
600W psu - 150

Total 1850

thats SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY BUCKS you save 0_0

[edit] a gimmick for the reason above, and the fact right now its only conroe + BadAxe + ATI, assuming its expanded to AMD, then its got potential, unless conroe truly sweeps the floor but im not gonna bother even glimpsing at conroe til its here... (cause face it, right now, who would you bank on ATI making more money with? AMD or intel? (assuming green had no influence)

So you went and looked at the most expensive x1900XTX and then looked at the cheapest 7900GTX to make your point seem valid.

x1900XTX's can be had for as little as $609CDN while the cheapest 7900GTX is $642.99 (or at least the cheapest I can find in Canada). So as you can see it's quite the opposite of what you were claiming above.
ShopRBC Canada

So..

ATi Setup:
Intel CoreDuo2 2.67GHz 4MB Cache = $ 625 CDN
ATi RD600 based motherboard = $ 229 CDN
OCZ Gold EL 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-5400 DDR2 Memory Kit = $ 285 CDN
2 * x1900XTX = $ 1218 CDN
1 * x1600XT = $ 169 CDN
OCZ GameXStream 600WATT SLI Power Supply = $152 CDN
Total: $2678 CDN

nVIDIA Setup:
AMD AthlonFX-62 2.80GHz 2MB Cache = $ 1242 CDN
Asus M2N32-SLI-WF AM2 motherboard = $ 269 CDN
OCZ Gold EL 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-5400 DDR2 Memory Kit = $ 285 CDN
2 * x7900GTX = $ 1286 CDN
1 * Ageia Physx = $ 345 CDN
OCZ GameXStream 600WATT SLI Power Supply = $152 CDN
Total: $3579 CDN

Even if you give the AMD setup a Conroe and conroe motherboard you still don't get as cheap as the ATi setup. Another difference is that when you get R600 hardware with the ATi setup you can keep an old x1900XTX and use it for physx... while for Ageia.. you'll need to prolly upgrade to a difference Ageia card as Physics become more and more demanding...

Hands down ATi has the best implementation.

 

[quadnad]

ATi Setup:
Intel CoreDuo2 2.67GHz 4MB Cache = $ 625 CDN
ATi RD600 based motherboard = $ 229 CDN
OCZ Gold EL 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-5400 DDR2 Memory Kit = $ 285 CDN
2 * x1900XTX = $ 1218 CDN
1 * x1600XT = $ 169 CDN
OCZ GameXStream 600WATT SLI Power Supply = $152 CDN
Total: $2678 CDN

nVIDIA Setup:
AMD AthlonFX-62 2.80GHz 2MB Cache = $ 1242 CDN
Asus M2N32-SLI-WF AM2 motherboard = $ 269 CDN
OCZ Gold EL 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-5400 DDR2 Memory Kit = $ 285 CDN
2 * x7900GTX = $ 1286 CDN
1 * Ageia Physx = $ 345 CDN
OCZ GameXStream 600WATT SLI Power Supply = $152 CDN
Total: $3579 CDN

Now I'm not defending the other guy here, but why are you bothering to add AMD and Intel to a comparison of SLI/XFire/PPU?

 

[ElMoIsEviL]

Currently available AGEIA setup or what ATi used in there own setup.

That's what I was comparing.. as I stated you can go with an nVIDIA/conroe/Ageia setup... but it will still be more expensive then the ATi/Conroe setup.

Hands down.. ATi has a win. So nVIDIA should move the same way. It's better for gamers.

I don't like AGEIA's overpriced physx.

 

[quadnad]

That's what I was comparing.. as I stated you can go with an nVIDIA/conroe/Ageia setup... but it will still be more expensive then the ATi/Conroe setup.
I don't like AGEIA's overpriced physx.

lol...I don't either, and I've said it countless times in the PPU forums, but lets be honest here: Why both to include system numbers which are obviously used to make one look significantly more expensive than the other. And surprise surprise, you chose to list the more expensive system with the nVidia card!

I don't want to get into some sort of arguement at all, for the sake of the thread, so lets just leave it at that.

As for the original post, I'm still wanting some reason to buy cards capable of displaying 20,000 boulders rolling down a hill.

 

[ElMoIsEviL]

lol...I don't either, and I've said it countless times in the PPU forums, but lets be honest here: Why both to include system numbers which are obviously used to make one look significantly more expensive than the other. And surprise surprise, you chose to list the more expensive system with the nVidia card!

I don't want to get into some sort of arguement at all, for the sake of the thread, so lets just leave it at that.

As for the original post, I'm still wanting some reason to buy cards capable of displaying 20,000 boulders rolling down a hill.

Because currently a Dual nVIDIA rig with the best of the best nVIDIA has to offer is significantly more expensive then it will be in a few months with an ATi setup.

There's no surprise surprise.. I'm trying to show you just how much you'll save going down the ATi path this time around.

Even if you wait it out for nVIDIA conroe based systems with SLI.. the motherboards will be more expensive as will the AGEIA card.

Either way.. ATi's setup is cheaper.

 

[Jason711]

ati also provides cheapened physics. so it should be cheaper.

 

[psychoace]

ATI system is only cheaper because your using cheaper slower parts. Intel has a higher end dual core cpu which is $1,044 at newegg.com (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819116248)
Why do you include the high end cpu for amd but not intel? So add another $700 just because we know in canada it's probably near $1,300. So now the intel system is at about $200 cheaper then the Amd system. Then you consider the p4 extreme system is not even close to being the same speed in performance as the amd cpu you got to think is that $200 difference worth the extra speed in number crunching.

Also you do know ATI makes boards for amd right?

 

[ElMoIsEviL]

Uh?

I posted the benchmarked rig by ATi... you can't buy it.. it's Conroe.

Geez man.. I could post an identical rig using AMD parts for ATi.. but then you wouldn't get the darn ATi physics (3 PCI Express slots on the RD600).

Don't criticize if you don't understand...

Hell a Conroe based system clocked at 2.6GHz and compared to an AMD FX-60 clocked at 2.6GHz... the Conroe based system will run Doom3's timedemo at about 177FPS.. while the AMD rig will do 138FPS... that's right.. clock for clock Conroe is faster.

That's not even the Extreme Edition Conroe CPU's.

The point of my post is simple.. don't buy nVIDIA or AMD right now... wait it out. Bigger, better cheaper things are coming out in the next 2 months.

 

[ElMoIsEviL]

ati also provides cheapened physics. so it should be cheaper.

Not too sure I agree with that... given that Ageia is a Physics decelerator soo far.

 

[Jason711]

Not too sure I agree with that... given that Ageia is a Physics decelerator soo far.

those are software/driver flaws. no fault of the actual hardware.

 

[ElMoIsEviL]

those are software/driver flaws. no fault of the actual hardware.

And how do you know this? And why should we all pay $300+ for a faulty card?

 

[psychoace]

Arn't they going to come out with an Nvidia intel Conroe board? Since your price difference is mostly caused by the cpu price wouldn't it be a smarter decision to compare the graphics cost by nearly the same priced system all together not by two totally different setups?

The only reason the Nvidia system is overpriced is because your using different cpu and an expensive physics card. Take both of those out of the equation then ATI isn't that much cheaper if at all.

Also just like ATi physics will not help as much as Ageia's solution until game developers fully implement it's services. Hell even Ghost Recon is showing 3-5fps gain over non physics card install's. So the card functions and will do a better job then the ati card because Ati's is all faux physics and wont interact with the scene like Ageia's will.

 

[Jason711]

And how do you know this? And why should we all pay $300+ for a faulty card?

im sure if you looked through the physics/ppu subforum you might be able to find something.

 

[fallguy]

Interesting, but a lot can happen from now and then. Thats 6+ months away. PR isnt all bad, but Ill wait to actually see some results before getting all excited.

LOL, ATI better start production early to avoid a massive shortage

Good try, but thats been NVs problems lately, not ATi's.

 

[PRIME1]

ATI left us saying, “Expect new Crossfire revisions early next year to overtake SLI. We are not here to play second fiddle.”

I hear the dongle will be gone with the R600.

Of course I don't expect ATI's PR to say "We've got nothing...... game over man, game over"

I think nV one upped em again with the 7950. So what could be next in dual card (or dual chip now) tech?

 

[Nicker2009]

ATI will come back, i dont understand what all this fuss is about. i mean dont look at the names on the cards look at there specs and there oc options. ATIs cards have pipelines that can be unlocked too!!! and you know what, if you find an nv card you think performs better get it dont worry about what the trend is or what your friends picked up make those descisions for yourself.

 

[Brent_Justice]

if the option for us green loyalists (i have my reasons... stupid drivers and money...) to just buy say an x1600 and slap it in, and use that as a physics card along side our nV's, then ATi is in a good position, otherwise, its just another gimmick that probably wont be used too much... notice the PSU in that pic? yea thats right, 1kw oh how i long for 1000+ watts of heat being dumpe dinto my already hot and tiny room 0_0

Actually, the 1kW PSU doesn't put off more heat than a lower PSU, I know, I have one

 

[Jason711]

gad... that would be an inferno.

 

[Mabrito]

Good try, but thats been NVs problems lately, not ATi's.

LOL

I wasnt trying to bash ATI though. For the most part they have kept the shortages pretty low. I was just saying with one person buying 3 video cards a piece, supply is going to run out fast if everyone wants 3 video cards. Its hard enough with SLI/Crossfire. Probably the main reason Nvidia had the temporary shortage, everyone wants SLI.