Why is AMD/ATI so slow?

L

laserbeam

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 9, 2005
Messages
168
Hi All,
I've paid virtually no attention to the GPU arena since buying 6800GT. I'm now approaching the time to upgrade my system and am probably going to an Intel based platform.

As part of that research I've realised that Intel chipsets don't support SLi (not ideal). And when I checked out the relative performance of AMD/ATI GPUs compared to NVidia I saw that they were generally outclassed. So it seems that while procesing headroom will be higher on Intel, GPU scaling will be significantly inferior.

I've not been able to find, yet, a surce of info that explains this state of affairs and whether or how long it is likely to stay so lopsided. Perhaps some luminary here might be able to explain the background to this or point me to a good source while offering an opinion on whether the apparent yawning performance gap will close in the short to medium term?

All opinions warmly received:)


Thx
D
 
R600 was generally ATIs FX5800, you cannot win everytime. Also one cannot change the course of architechture in one night, so here we are. AMD is also struggling in their CPU scene so its only natural that they try to patch their financial side with good middle range products.

But its not all gloomy and dooms day scenario, the new ATI 3850 and 3870 are great cards for their price line.

ps. I recomend you read some past review to get back on the horse so to speak, [H] article archive is good place to begin. I would not discuss the matter in lenght here in the forums, because that will lead to total flame war.
 
laserbeam said:
Hi All,
I've paid virtually no attention to the GPU arena since buying 6800GT. I'm now approaching the time to upgrade my system and am probably going to an Intel based platform.

As part of that research I've realised that Intel chipsets don't support SLi (not ideal). And when I checked out the relative performance of AMD/ATI GPUs compared to NVidia I saw that they were generally outclassed. So it seems that while procesing headroom will be higher on Intel, GPU scaling will be significantly inferior.

I've not been able to find, yet, a surce of info that explains this state of affairs and whether or how long it is likely to stay so lopsided. Perhaps some luminary here might be able to explain the background to this or point me to a good source while offering an opinion on whether the apparent yawning performance gap will close in the short to medium term?

All opinions warmly received:)


Thx
D
Click to expand...

You're a little slow here. That has been all that has been discussed for the past 2 years. Why don't you just go search and read some old threads. The short gist is that Nvidia simply had a better R&D cycle this time around. It's cyclical. AMD bought ATI and caused financial contrainsts that probably reduced the R&D capacity of both respectively. The answer is that it may turn around, or that it may never turn around and AMD will go down the drain within a year, it happens to technology companies all the time. You miss out on one product cycle and you are forever playing catchup.

Right now, buy an Intel Quad Core CPU and an Nvidia videocard and you are set. I have no idea why you think you can't have both. Probably the majority of people on this forum are doing that.
 
Spare-Flair said:
You're a little slow here. That has been all that has been discussed for the past 2 years. Why don't you just go search and read some old threads. The short gist is that Nvidia simply had a better R&D cycle this time around. It's cyclical. AMD bought ATI and caused financial contrainsts that probably reduced the R&D capacity of both respectively. The answer is that it may turn around, or that it may never turn around and AMD will go down the drain within a year, it happens to technology companies all the time. You miss out on one product cycle and you are forever playing catchup.

Right now, buy an Intel Quad Core CPU and an Nvidia videocard and you are set. I have no idea why you think you can't have both. Probably the majority of people on this forum are doing that.
Click to expand...

The acquisition had no effect on the R600.

but yeah, its cyclical. Imho, ATI won the last round (in the enthusiast arena anyway). The X1800 was here first and performed on par with the 7800. The X1900 was here first, performed on par with the 7900, and will stand the test of time much better.

The R600 (aka the HD 2900 XT) failed for many reasons, the biggest of which seems to me to be that massive memory bus. ATI engineered a 512bit memory bus. Managing 120gb/s on something that huge can be done without a sweat. 120gb/s! Snap your fingers a couple times... your Hdd's gone! The problem was the size that the memory controller for it took up on the die. It was so huge they were having trouble getting the density of the tracers in the damn wafer to make contact with the die. I don't know explicitally why it happened, but the rumors are that somewhere in development the ROPs were horribly destroyed. To this day it is believed many of the functions typically done by the ROPs (AA, AF) are done on the plentiful general purpose shaders. Performance dropped accordingly.

The new form of advanced 24X AA that was going to demonstrate the massive memory throughput of the R600 so well, instantly became a cruel ironic joke.

Its not all bad though. Nvidia dropped the ball with the G92, a part that promised to be more mainstream and fill the gap in the G80-based 8 series. The 8 series has a gaping hole: between the 8600GTS and 8800GTS. This also happens to be an area where alot of end consumers fit. AMD has exploited this hole, with the release of the RV670 SKUs: the HD3850 and HD3870. The HD3870 is decent, but the HD3850 is truly superb. Its priced to match the 8600GTS, and it whallups its Nvidia counterpart in the nads in every FPS chart released by anyone. There has been some controversy but apparently two HD 3870s in crossfire can outperform two 8800GTs in SLI.

Too add to that, the best platform out to date (again, IMHO) has just been released by AMD: the 790FX chipset. If AMD can manage to get Phenom to clock upwards of 3.0GHz, enthusiasts will have a real alternative to 680i/X38 to consider.

That said, even if you do go X38, guess what kind of graphics card your going to want? Thats right, AMD's bitter rival, Intel, supports AMD's Crossfire GPU system.

So lets wheel all this back to the OP:
In most respects, lazerbeam, it sounds like your going to want to get a nice P35 based mobo, a Core 2 of your choice, and maybe an 8800GT? or an 8800GTS 512mb?

But if you want more performance then that, guess what, theres AMD. two HD3850's =~ the performance of a single 8800GTX, at a cheaper price point. Two HD 3870s seem to outscore a single 8800 Ultra regularly, again, at a cheaper price point. P35 supports crossfire, (two AMD graphics cards), but does not support SLi.

If your REALLY looking for awesome performance, your going to want to go through the hoops provided by Nvidia chipsets. Nforce 680i, while feature rich and a good overclocker, is notoriously hot and unstable. It does NOT like quad core, it does NOT like 4 gigs of ram. But it allows you to stick three 8800GTX's in your system, which stands unrivaled in shier performance. Its a hell of a penny to pay, but you do get the best. The very best.

And theres just one more thing to include, Intel and Nvidia are in a little bit of a pissing match. Intel wanted to license SLI from Nvidia on their X38 chipset. Nvidia said no. Intel responded by pulling support for the new Penryn based Quad cores on 680i, or even 780i. The issue of support isn't hardware, its simply firmware.

All that said you can still make this statement: the Enthusiast (upward of $250) graphics card market is in majority green.

Heres what I suggest you do if your looking for a gaming PC, starting at the low and and working its way up:
CPU:....Any Core 2--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------> Any Core 2 Duo, Kentsfield based Core 2 Quad only ------------------------------------------------------------------------->
chipset;($100)P35------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------> ($160)X38/P35 (crossfire ready)----------------> ($150)680i/650i------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------->
VGA:...($200)HD 3850 ---> ($230)HD3870 ---> ($280)8800GT [512mb] ---> ($350)8800GTS [512mb] ---> ($400)2X HD3850 ---> ($460)2X HD3870 ---> ($550)2X 8800GT [512mb] ---> ($700)2X 8800 GTS [512mb] ---> ($1200)3X 8800GTX ---> ($1400)3X 8800 Ultra

As for the future, well, we'll know alot more in a few weeks, but it looks like AMD and Nvidia are going to have one more whack at each other in this round. Nvidia is going to release Tri-SLi for the 8 series, and AMD is going to release the R680. Preliminary results of Tri-SLI look astonishingly good. The R680 is rumored to be two RV670 wafers on a single die, in modular fashion. Further rumors indicate that the R700, likely going to be dubbed the HD4k or X4k series, is actually of completely modular design. Enthusiasts get 4 R700s (on a single die, wafer, or split between cards is not known, but probably a combination), Performance users get 3, mainstream users get 2 and the entry level consumers get a single R700. Theres also rumors of a refresh from Nvidia in february, weather or not this is just another refresh or a whole new generation (read: Geforce 9 series), I don't know.

If you want more information, you can get it at CES 2008, from Jan 3-7, where Nvidia is likely to make the official debut of Tri SLI, and where AMD is likely to make the official debut of the R680.
 
AMD is working on the cpu/gpu combination, and you can imagine that they got several heads of engineering doing dual tasks. This is a guess, but unless they made some serious hiring in the last year this would be happening.

Nvidia isnt working on a cpu, so they can dedicate the full team towards gpu's.

Both companies of course are also working on mobo chipsets that's why i didnt mention it.
 
MrWizard6600 said:
The acquisition had no effect on the R600.
Click to expand...
For the release hardware, AMD had no effect. On marketing and sales, definitely a very negative effect, to the tune of a 40-50% reduction of sales. As I said in the other thread, an independent ATI would have done a lot better than that. And now with a financially unhealthy AMD holding ATI's purse strings, I wouldn't really expect the ATI side to do as well in the future. See the December Analyst Day slides to see how product schedules are already slipping (Bulldozer, R700, etc).

The short-term benefit (ignoring massive long term debt) of the acquisition was to prop up AMD's sales figures in the prior 3 quarters. During the first 3 quarters of 2006, sales were of AMD products alone. During the last 3 quarters, AMD could post year over year gains because the figures included ATI sales. That trick is about to collapse in January.
 
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