Besides, there is a reason why Intel is far more successful than AMD. Intel simply sells more CPUs, far more people own Intel powered systems, you've gotten it wrong. Now hardware enthusiast sites such as Anandtech most likely do not represent population distribution of AMD and Intel CPUs, as many if not most users here build their own rigs and because of this many resort to AMD to save money.
Tom's Hardware does not use both systems to review these new cards, instead an nForce based AMD system has been used, and that's it. I've found it interesting where here at Anandtech the review of the GeForce FX 5800/Ultra pretty much was that the NV30 left a lot to be desired and that it did not live up to expectations, while over at Tom's Hardware they practically crowned the GeForce FX 5800 Ultra the new king.
Now I know the question has been asked about whether or not you can run an ATI video card in an nVidia powered motherboard, you can. But when comparing the new FX boards and the new Radeons, how much does nForce play a factor in there? Or is it just that the FX's do better and/or Radeons do worse on any AMD bases system?
It would be interesting to find out...
NOW, as far as the 5600 and 5200...
I think ATI might have this one won. The 9500 Pro is a good example of how the 9600 Pro might perform, only that the 9500 Pro has twice the pixle pipes, something that gives it a big advantage over the 5600 Ultra. Clearly the 9500 Pro is the $199 board to buy. Although I can see the 9600 Pro having it's advantages over the 5600 Ultra despite the doubt that the 9500 Pro > 9600 Pro.
First off the 9600 Pro @ 400MHz has a faster core than the 5600 Ultra, which is 350MHz. The second point is that despite the 9600 Pro having a slower memory speed, 300MHz to the 5600 Ultra's 350MHz, ATI's memory efficiency has been incredible with their current cores. Worst case senario I could see happening would be the 9600 Pro and 5600 Ultra being practically evenly matched, but I could be wrong, it is somewhat suspicious that ATI has not yet sent out preview boards despite their claim that the 9600 is "ready". Although that could be good news as well, ATI might just be making sure their products come out of the gates as fast as possible learning from their mistakes with the 8500.
As far as the driver issue stands, it seems somewhat unreasonable to put blind faith in nVidia's "miracle" driver performance boosts. Why would nVidia want to flaunt their seeminly poor performing products if the performance issue was solely due to poor drivers? Wouldn't they be aware of ATI's 8500 situation, and how ugly it was? If you ask me I'd say the FX drivers might not deliver any future performance boosts as large as we were used to in the past, nVidia simply cannot toy around with such things with the competition being as stiff as it currently is.
The one thing nVidia really has going for them is that their entire GeForce FX line supports DX9. Boards from $80-400 are all on the same page, and despite ATI's having sold 1,000,000 DX9 9700 parts, developers aren't going to ignore the wide rage of DX9 support offered by nVidia. People won't care of the possability that the 5200 or even the 5600 will be too slow to even run DX9 games, the cards support DX9 and that's that.
Tom's Hardware does not use both systems to review these new cards, instead an nForce based AMD system has been used, and that's it. I've found it interesting where here at Anandtech the review of the GeForce FX 5800/Ultra pretty much was that the NV30 left a lot to be desired and that it did not live up to expectations, while over at Tom's Hardware they practically crowned the GeForce FX 5800 Ultra the new king.
Now I know the question has been asked about whether or not you can run an ATI video card in an nVidia powered motherboard, you can. But when comparing the new FX boards and the new Radeons, how much does nForce play a factor in there? Or is it just that the FX's do better and/or Radeons do worse on any AMD bases system?
It would be interesting to find out...
NOW, as far as the 5600 and 5200...
I think ATI might have this one won. The 9500 Pro is a good example of how the 9600 Pro might perform, only that the 9500 Pro has twice the pixle pipes, something that gives it a big advantage over the 5600 Ultra. Clearly the 9500 Pro is the $199 board to buy. Although I can see the 9600 Pro having it's advantages over the 5600 Ultra despite the doubt that the 9500 Pro > 9600 Pro.
First off the 9600 Pro @ 400MHz has a faster core than the 5600 Ultra, which is 350MHz. The second point is that despite the 9600 Pro having a slower memory speed, 300MHz to the 5600 Ultra's 350MHz, ATI's memory efficiency has been incredible with their current cores. Worst case senario I could see happening would be the 9600 Pro and 5600 Ultra being practically evenly matched, but I could be wrong, it is somewhat suspicious that ATI has not yet sent out preview boards despite their claim that the 9600 is "ready". Although that could be good news as well, ATI might just be making sure their products come out of the gates as fast as possible learning from their mistakes with the 8500.
As far as the driver issue stands, it seems somewhat unreasonable to put blind faith in nVidia's "miracle" driver performance boosts. Why would nVidia want to flaunt their seeminly poor performing products if the performance issue was solely due to poor drivers? Wouldn't they be aware of ATI's 8500 situation, and how ugly it was? If you ask me I'd say the FX drivers might not deliver any future performance boosts as large as we were used to in the past, nVidia simply cannot toy around with such things with the competition being as stiff as it currently is.
The one thing nVidia really has going for them is that their entire GeForce FX line supports DX9. Boards from $80-400 are all on the same page, and despite ATI's having sold 1,000,000 DX9 9700 parts, developers aren't going to ignore the wide rage of DX9 support offered by nVidia. People won't care of the possability that the 5200 or even the 5600 will be too slow to even run DX9 games, the cards support DX9 and that's that.