Video cards developement cycle to slow down?

S

Stoly

Supreme [H]ardness
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Nvidia is famous because of its short development cycles, every 6 months we have either a new technology or a refresh. This not only allows them to introduce new technologies faster but also helps them recover from failed products like the Geforce 5800.

This strategy ultimately caused the demise of 3dFX, and apparently AMD won't be able to sustain a 6 month product cycle.

During Analyst Day, AMD announced that there will not be a new GPU architecture in 2008, which basically means that the R700 won't come out until early 2009. Their top of the line card for 2008 will be the R680 which is basically a card with 2 HD3800 GPUs ala Geforce 7900GX2.

That's bad news for gamers, since nvidia already dominates the enthusiast market with the G80 and G92, there is no need for them to release faster cards. The next generation GPUs from nvidia are rumored to come in February, but after AMDs announcement they may be pushed back until DX10.1 is out.
 
the 8800's have been out for a LONGG ass time in computer terms, the 8800gtx is still pretty much the performance king, and you could get them in november of last year, and its almost into 2008. I really hope we see something new soon. Crysis needs it :D
 
How long was the 9800 out?

edit: 9700 pro was released in August 2002, 9800 pro was released in march 2003, x800 was released in may of 2004, x1800 was released some time in october 2005.

Why people enjoy running around claiming that the sky is falling is beyond me. Also, it's not even the sky that's falling, it's just games.

edit 2: 5900 ultra released may 2003 ( but 5 series must have been earlier), 6800 in april 2003, 7800 in mid-late 2005 .

I'm tired now, some of the dates may be slightly skewed because I was going by review dates that looked like they came out when the card came out. Overall it seems kind of sporadic, some series came out after a year, some much earlier.
 
If the industry need a break im All for it. Health of both companies is more important than one "winning" cuz if one did there would be no more competition = bad
 
Dynafrom said:
God damn! I need a 9800 for crysis. :D
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Although the 9800 was great in its day, somehow I don't think it will do well in Crysis. :D Sorry, couldn't resist. ;) I hope that the rumors are right and there really will be a new generation in February/March. :)
 
The power that current generation cards have, even now "previous" generations, like the G80, is more than enough to run today's games. The break from higher end hardware might force software companies, especially gaming companies, from releasing beta crap that they call "gold" to market, in that they now must optimize their engines and games to use the hardware available.
 
Crysis is really the only game that requires more powah. Everything else runs perfectly fine with g80/g92 and hd38xx.. So it's not that the videocard companies are in that much a hurry. I wouldn't mind being able to play crysis at 2560 x 1600, 16x aa & 16x af with all settings at "very high". According to fraps my current 8800 gts gives me 0 fps with those settings. :p 60fps would be pretty sweet.
 
Mr. K6 said:
The power that current generation cards have, even now "previous" generations, like the G80, is more than enough to run today's games. The break from higher end hardware might force software companies, especially gaming companies, from releasing beta crap that they call "gold" to market, in that they now must optimize their engines and games to use the hardware available.
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That may well be the case.Nvidia is the clear leader in the graphics card race,and it doesn't look like that will change any time soon.They can afford to schedule their release of new products as they see fit,and they aren't going to change that timetable to accommodate game companies who may have overestimated when new cards would be released.And they aren't going to loose any sleep over the grumblings of gamers who want to play Crysis at the highest possible settings when none of their competitor's cards can match the level their cards can reach.
 
Having just bought a "green card" I am not sure NV is a leader in multiple gpu's. SLI lags behind Crossfire and NV SLI mobos are one of the true pot holes of PC tech. AMD and ATI working on Crossfire/multi-core should be a good reason for NV to not get lazy. Their single cards are slightly better but far from dominant. WIth Intel coming into game more it could be interesting next couple years.
 
I do not understand ATI's R700 delay into 2009.. it just does not make sense. Nvidia must be absolutely thrilled at this news!!

Oh well, let's see Nvidia get lazy all over again due to the absence of competition, only to be defeated by another "9700-Pro earth-shattering blow" from some company. What happened to S3 GPU's and Via CPU's? Somebody should be able to do it, and catch up with Nvidia real soon. Intel, perhaps? I know that Intel has the R&D to do it, so Intel better look into it before AMD comes out with a Kings-of-Aces tricks up its sleeves with CPU/GPU integration.
 
Now I'm really confused!

What the hell is wrong with Nvidia or ATIs pace of technology? The only game we have out that an 8800 of any flavor can't whip is Crysis. We have piles and piles of new games that are mostly ports from consoles that are already well behind the 8800 series in performance.

Where is the technological incentive to buy a newer/faster card when there is almost nothing on the horizon that will need it?

To be clear, I love new tech, but it seems that the next gen of cards will arrive before the next crop of games that need them, even it that is after Q1 of next year.
 
Advil said:
Where is the technological incentive to buy a newer/faster card when there is almost nothing on the horizon that will need it?
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I can't speak for anyone else, but my reason for preferring to get a card that's overpowered for today's games is so that I don't have to upgrade again tomorrow. Ideally I'd get at least two, possibly three years out of my next video card, preferably being able to run max settings 16x10 until the tail end of that period, for most of the games I play. :) Maybe an impossible thing to ask for, but the closer I can get to that ideal, the better.
 
My reason is that I'm running a 1920X1200 monitor, and I love AA/AF.

My new 8800GT should do for now, but if something sufficiently powerful is released I'll shunt the 8800GT to my fiancee (who games at lower resolution) and upgrade.

Ideally, I'd game on a 30" 2560X1600 monitor, but currently cards just can't run that with sufficient eye-candy.

To say that current top-end cards can whip anything except Crysis is only true at lower resolution. Once AA/AF gets turned on, and the resolution rises everything we have just dies.

Hell, it looks like I'm going to end up with Quad-this or Triple-that, if only they iron out transparent integration (meaning that it works with all titles, not title-dependant).


Edit: Ah...found ideal gaming system:

WHUXGA - Wide Hex[adecatuple] Ultra Extended Graphics Array - 7680×4800 [36864k pixels] - 16:10. This would work as a, say, a 120-inch screen. Pixel density would be only 64% of what modern 24" 1920X1200 monitors have, but you'd be a little further back, I should think.
Give me that, along with 16XAF/16XAA and maxed eye candy, and I'll be happy. Until then, keep the advances rolling, please.
 
Even though it seems good news for nvidia being the undisputed champion since late 2006 to at least early 2009, I'm not sure its that good.

I don't think AMD will return in 2009 with a nvidia killer, for all I know AMD will focus on mainstream market both in cpus and gpus. There's no sign that the next generation CPU will be able to beat intel and IMO the same applies to the GPU.

But AMD does have an Ace under its sleeve, SWIFT (previously known as FUSION) may not be a killer cpu or gpu, but it has the potential to become the best mainstream cpu/gpu. That's the market AMD is aiming and not Intel, nor nvidia have anything that can compete with it. An early look at hybrid crossfire shows that AMD can deliver enough performance to wipe the entire mainstream market, that means bye bye Geforce 8600 and below. Swift will increase the performance and reduce the price.

So even tough nvidia will still be the king, it may loose a high portion of the market share.
 
Neuffy said:
To say that current top-end cards can whip anything except Crysis is only true at lower resolution. Once AA/AF gets turned on, and the resolution rises everything we have just dies.
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If by lower resolution you mean 1600x1200 then you are right.
 
Nothing is set in stone so far as release cycles go. In recent years, Nvidia hasn't really been following the six-month cycle; instead, they've been running 9-12 month cycles, with the occasional 6-month update.

GeForce 6 series: released April 14th, 2004. The only refresh happened over a year later in late 2005, when the 6800 series was quietly moved to 110 nm process with native PCIe (AFTER the release of the 7800 series).

GeForce 7800 series: released June 22, 2005, 14 months after the 6-series release.

GeForce 7900 series: released March 9th, 2006, 9 months after the 7800 GTX. This is just a process shrink to 90nm.

GeForce 8 series: released November 8th, 2006, the first 6-month product update Nvidia has done in a long time.

GeForce 8 G92: released October 29, 2007, about 12 months after the last update. This is a 65nm shrink, with architectural tweaks.

FACT: Nvidia hasn't been able to pull off a consistent 6-month technology update cycle since the GeForce 4. Complexity of design and manufacturing process means this is effectively impossible today.

You just think things have slowed down because of the absence of ATI. Prior to 3850/70, ATI had been sitting on their collective asses, making the graphics news quite boring.
 
I would add the Vista troubles didn't help them. I still remember the sites fans were making to "sue" NVidia because of the driver issues last winter. ATI got stuck in a lag/delay too. Vista's tortured development no doubt threw a lot of banana peels in front of
other players in computer tech/media
 
To find a silver lining in this for you all, Nvidia may have been wise to shrink the 8800 to 65nm now. This gave them an easy test to work the kinks out of the process before going to a whole new architecture.

We can look at a whole lot of examples in the CPU and GPU history books about how bad things can go wrong when a company tries to both release a whole new architecture AND try to do it on an untried die shrink all at the same time.

So perhaps it will all work out.
 
Dont u guys worry about AMD's health - the german government recently donated 400 million dollars to AMD because they feared AMD might not survive. The government will NOT allow AMD to fall.
 
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