nVidia GT200 Series Thread

[solofly]

Originally posted by: Nemesis 1

Originally posted by: taltamir
first he said he was getting free AMD cards thanks to his posts ON THIS FORUM. then when nRollo called him on it he backtracked and said he wasn't supposed to admit it, but actually he invented a cooler block for a water cooler, and he is getting cards to do other improvement work upon, but he couldn't say that before because he has to keep it secret, so he lied and said he is getting them for his posts, but he couldn't let a claim against his reliability stand, so he is now admitting the truth and breaking his business secrecy to admit why he is really getting cards.

I don't ever recall saying I was gettting video cards from AMD . I have been getting free video cards from ATI vendor for free for quite some time. Recently my daughter threw me is getting hardware so we can prepare waterblocks. I simply test these stuff under load for temps . Thats all I have to say on it. We are getting the new hardware because of some post here in cases and cooling . TO test blocks.

I wouldn't use an ati card if somebody gave it to me for free...

 

[Extelleron]

Originally posted by: Leon

X800 beat 6800

Wrong. It was slightly faster in D3D and slower in OGL

X1800XT beat 7800GTX 256MB

X1800XT was released 6 months after 7800GTX.

X1900XTX beat 7900GTX

Wrong again

Sorry, your info is extremely selective, comparing products released at different dates, which makes your entire argument null and void.

The X800/X850 beat 6800 in D3D and how many OGL games were there? Besides Doom 3 & Quake 4, none that anybody played. The X800's were faster in Half Life 2 & Far Cry and that's all that mattered in 2004.

I never said the X1800XT wasn't released after the GTX, did I? It still beat it, and it didn't have any real competition from nVidia until the launch of G71 (X1900 launched in January of course, but I'm talking about nVidia cards). Cards that sell for $750 don't count. And the X1800XT wasn't much slower than even the 7900GTX, actually:http://www.firingsquad.com/har...performance/page11.asp

As for X1900XTX/X1950XTX vs. the 7900GTX, the above link confirms my point in most benchmarks, and does not tell the tale of image quality and that the 7900GTX would not do HDR + AA.

And if that isn't enough, look at these two results:

Crysis, 1280x1204 Medium: http://www.gamespot.com/features/6182806/p-5.html

ATI Radeon X1900XT 256MB: 30 FPS
nV Geforce 7900GTX 512MB: 17 FPS

Crysis, 1280x1204 Max

ATI Radeon X1900XT 256MB: 49 FPS
nV Geforce 7900GTX 512MB: 34 FPS

So the X1900XT 256MB demolishes the 7900GTX.... I don't have to tell you that the X1900XTX 512MB will demolish it by a wider margin.

But moving on, this topic has nothing to do with GT200.

Originally posted by: taltamir
The big deal with nvidias next release is that the CUDA physx drivers should come out with the GTX 280... those will work for every DX10 card from nvidia... so all us G92 owners will now have a physX card as well... ofcourse, physx runs on SP, so that means we will need more then ever before.

But with that there will be over 90 million physX capable machines out there... as a result of that 180 news games are currently in work to support physX (before there were just not enough cards in the market for it to be worthwhile)...

I have been waiting for physics effects for 5 whole years... (and no, extra particle effects isn't physics, shooting a barrel and having a realistic explosion with sharpnel causing terrain damage and character injury is physics, which can be done, but isn't supported by most games who used physX)

Anyways... how long do you think it will take for a GTX 290 GDDR5 + 512bit bus?

I don't think you will ever see a GTX 200 card with GDDR5 memory. nVidia has said they will not use GDDR5 until 2009, supposedly on their next gen card. GTX 290 with higher clocks + 2.4GHz GDDR3? Maybe, I don't know.

Originally posted by: solofly

Originally posted by: Nemesis 1

Originally posted by: taltamir
first he said he was getting free AMD cards thanks to his posts ON THIS FORUM. then when nRollo called him on it he backtracked and said he wasn't supposed to admit it, but actually he invented a cooler block for a water cooler, and he is getting cards to do other improvement work upon, but he couldn't say that before because he has to keep it secret, so he lied and said he is getting them for his posts, but he couldn't let a claim against his reliability stand, so he is now admitting the truth and breaking his business secrecy to admit why he is really getting cards.

I don't ever recall saying I was gettting video cards from AMD . I have been getting free video cards from ATI vendor for free for quite some time. Recently my daughter threw me is getting hardware so we can prepare waterblocks. I simply test these stuff under load for temps . Thats all I have to say on it. We are getting the new hardware because of some post here in cases and cooling . TO test blocks.

I wouldn't use an ati card if somebody gave it to me for free...

Hope you're joking... other wise that's not a good way to go. I went ATI with X1900, then nVidia with G80 because R600 wasn't competitive.... now I will make my decision based on performance and price on whether to go GTX 260 or HD 4870.

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: taltamir
first he said he was getting free AMD cards thanks to his posts ON THIS FORUM. then when nRollo called him on it he backtracked and said he wasn't supposed to admit it, but actually he invented a cooler block for a water cooler, and he is getting cards to do other improvement work upon, but he couldn't say that before because he has to keep it secret, so he lied and said he is getting them for his posts, but he couldn't let a claim against his reliability stand, so he is now admitting the truth and breaking his business secrecy to admit why he is really getting cards.

For what it's worth, the general consensus from the mods is that he's bluffing (to put it nicely). We have no rules against such a thing however, if he wants to make himself look biased that's his choice.

 

[solofly]

No I'm not joking. I wish I was joking but the reality is ati makes great hardware but can't write drivers worth shit. Takes months for game fixes and I when they do come they usually break something else along the way. No thanks, I don't need the headaches...

 

[Extelleron]

Originally posted by: solofly
No I'm not joking. I wish I was joking but the reality is ati makes great hardware but can't write drivers worth shit. Takes months for game fixes and I when they do come they usually break something else along the way. No thanks, I don't need the headaches...

You're living in pre-R300 days. AMD drivers today are good and I bet if you ask most owners, they are happier with the driver support than nVidia users are. With nVidia, you get a new beta driver everyday and you never know which to use. With AMD... there's a new official release every month.

TBH though I've never had driver problems at all.... I never had driver problems with my X1900XT, and I've never had any (serious) driver problems with the 8800 series cards that I have owned. Any people talking about driver issues from BOTH camps are probably over exaggerating.

 

[neocon]

I posted this question in another thread but got no response: "I am confused. Which is not hard to do when it comes to computers parts. Will somebody tell me which is the better/faster next high end video card? I am assuming everybody in the know, knows this by now. Please excuse if this has been answered already in this thread. Thank you".

 

[RussianSensation]

Originally posted by: Extelleron

Considering how fast the 8800GTX was at its release, I think the gains would have been pretty impressive if this card came out last November, a year later. But to me, the GTX 280 should be more than that; it is coming out nearly 2 years after the 8800GTX, and to me 45-65% faster is not very impressive.

1) 8800GTX was a completely new architecture from scratch over GF7 series. In much the same way that GF6 was revolutionary over GF5 and delivered 2x the performance, so was GF8 over GF7. You cannot expect the same performance increase from GF8-> GF9 (which is really what GTX series is because 9800 series are just marketing). GF7 was roughly 60% faster over 6800U upon release before drivers improved over time. Expecting GTX series to be what GF8 was over GF7 is just being ignorant towards understanding the gpu market (NV spends hundreds of millions of dollars on a new architecture and they do not design a brand new gpu from scratch every gen).

2) 8800GTX was released on Nov 8, 2006 which is far less than 2 years (more like 1 year and 7 months).

3) When you compare the leap that ATI will make from HD 2900 / 3800 series to HD 4800 series, the less obvious conclusion of course is that the reason for ATI suddenly looks so competitive is not because GTX 280 is disappointing, but because ATI's previous gen cards were disappointing compared to NV's. It's a lot harder for NV to improve on a design that was superior to begin with (ie. not lacking TMUs and using complex shaders).

 

[ronnn]

Originally posted by: neocon
I posted this question in another thread but got no response: "I am confused. Which is not hard to do when it comes to computers parts. Will somebody tell me which is the better/faster next high end video card? I am assuming everybody in the know, knows this by now. Please excuse if this has been answered already in this thread. Thank you".

Better and faster may be mutually exclusive. Should know soon!

 

[Cookie Monster]

Originally posted by: Extelleron
//snip//

Think your being too selective in picking benchmarks. Quotes like "nobody played doom3" would be close to a fanboy comment then go on to say how farcry and HL2 is all that mattered. If we walk down the history path of nV/ATi, theres several things that you forgot to include.

X800XTPEs were rare (and price gouged), but they did prove to be overall faster than the 6800Ultra. But not many people bought both. Many enthusiasts instead shelled out on the 6800GT, which proved to be one heck of a card. Then you could add in SLi which further helped nVIDIA gain on the ultra-high end enthusiast market at that time.

7800GTX/GT was released 6 months before X1800XT. When the X1800XT was released, it was overall 5% faster at that time (which was disappointing). There was hardly any reason for someone to jump ship at that time unless the user wanted HDR+AA. By the time it showed any potential it was replaced with R580 i.e effectively making the card useless since there were better performing parts out there for the same money.

R580 obviously was the better overall card in terms of IQ and performance. But it was competing against G71 (a chip that sported 270~ million transistors i.e lesser than G70! and a die size roughly half of R580). When you look at the margins, nVIDIA had the edge and they had more power in adjusting the price of their cards. But later, 7950GX2 proved to be a much faster card than the X1950XTX (when comparing the fastest cards available)

When these cards were competing, there was no Crysis. Its clear ATi's architecture proved to be better indeed for the future. But by the time these cards do show the architectural strengths (such as now), theres always much faster and better performing cards. So its meaningless to now say, well X1900XT kills the 7900GTX in crysis. Well a 9600GT/HD3870 kills both, rapes their dead body, grind their bones and drinks it for breakfast the next day.

It would only apply to people who keep their cards for a very long time. But usually these people do buy the card that seems more future proof.

Anyway i didn't want to go OT but felt that there was alot of mis information and a slight touch of fanboyism in there.

With the launch of G200 (its G200 people! written big and clear on the IHS itself, so ignore the T) moved to June 17th, we have roughly couple more days of suffering o i mean waiting. Apparently the GTX280 will be released first, followed by GT260 on June 23rd. Hopefully they will have benchmarks for both on june17th, unless nVIDIA wants to see just how well the RV770 performs so that it could price the GTX260 accordingly.

edit - agreed with RussianSensation. I think the GTX280 is more like the 9800 series. Its the next architecture (DU12) after the refresh of G200 (DU11) that we will see something on the lines of GF7 -> GF8. That new architecture will likely to go toe to toe with larabee. Interesting times are ahead id say.

 

[Extelleron]

Originally posted by: RussianSensation

Originally posted by: Extelleron

Considering how fast the 8800GTX was at its release, I think the gains would have been pretty impressive if this card came out last November, a year later. But to me, the GTX 280 should be more than that; it is coming out nearly 2 years after the 8800GTX, and to me 45-65% faster is not very impressive.

1) 8800GTX was a completely new architecture from scratch over GF7 series. In much the same way that GF6 was revolutionary over GF5 and delivered 2x the performance, so was GF8 over GF7. You cannot expect the same performance increase from GF8-> GF9 (which is really what GTX series is because 9800 series are just marketing). GF7 was roughly 60% faster over 6800U upon release before drivers improved over time. Expecting GTX series to be what GF8 was over GF7 is just being ignorant towards understanding the gpu market (NV spends hundreds of millions of dollars on a new architecture and they do not design a brand new gpu from scratch every gen).

2) 8800GTX was released on Nov 8, 2006 which is far less than 2 years (more like 1 year and 7 months).

3) When you compare the leap that ATI will make from HD 2900 / 3800 series to HD 4800 series, the less obvious conclusion of course is that the reason for ATI suddenly looks so competitive is not because GTX 280 is disappointing, but because ATI's previous gen cards were disappointing compared to NV's. It's a lot harder for NV to improve on a design that was superior to begin with (ie. not lacking TMUs and using complex shaders).

1) I addressed this clearly in my post. You say that GF 6 was a vast jump over GF 5, and then G70 wasn't as big of a jump.... well, G70 came out just over a year after the Geforce 6800 cards came out. I said that if GTX 280 had launched last November, it would have been an impressive (and expected) gain over the 8800GTX. But that's not what happened. The GTX 280 is coming close to 2 years after the 8800GTX (1 year, 7 months is quite close to 2 years) so it's almost like nVidia skipped a cycle. GTX 280 should have been the card that came out last November, with GT300 coming out this year. But considering GT200 is coming nearly 2 years later, I expect it to be a huge jump over G80, and rightfully so.

2) 1 year 7 months is close to 2 years. No reason to argue over this though.

3) AMD will be very competitive with GT200. The HD 4870 will not be that far way from the GTX 260 and I'm pretty confident that the 4870 X2 will beat the GTX 280.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: Extelleron

Originally posted by: solofly
No I'm not joking. I wish I was joking but the reality is ati makes great hardware but can't write drivers worth shit. Takes months for game fixes and I when they do come they usually break something else along the way. No thanks, I don't need the headaches...

You're living in pre-R300 days. AMD drivers today are good and I bet if you ask most owners, they are happier with the driver support than nVidia users are. With nVidia, you get a new beta driver everyday and you never know which to use. With AMD... there's a new official release every month.

TBH though I've never had driver problems at all.... I never had driver problems with my X1900XT, and I've never had any (serious) driver problems with the 8800 series cards that I have owned. Any people talking about driver issues from BOTH camps are probably over exaggerating.

I wouldn't use an ATI card even for free for the same reason... all that changed when AMD bought thems. I have been complaining about serious bugs with the installer for ATI drivers since about 2002 (in other people's computers, for whom I provided support. I wouldn't touch them). And those were fixed 2 or 3 a months since the month ATI was bought by AMD... They fixed 7 critical flaws in the installers in just a few months. And they have been releasing a new version every month since...

I am still quite irked at the structure of the driver installer though, nvidia uses a proper minimalist aproach, run the exe, click next, driver installs. None of that other crap like installing "free offers" and steam along with the drivers, it is an unnecessary risk..

From appearances, it seems that today AMD drivers are better then nVidia drivers. But I have yet to own an AMD card myself. (will probably own one soon though. that, or a GTX 280... time will tell, but so far the GTX doesn't look too hot)

 

[RussianSensation]

Originally posted by: Extelleron

2) 1 year 7 months is close to 2 years. No reason to argue over this though.

GF 7800GTX 256 came out 1 year and 2 months after 6800U, while we are going to get GTX 280 1 year and 7 months over 8800GTX. That's pretty close in release time if you ask me. But ifyou want to complain for NV taking this long to release their top end card, please point a finger to ATI for failing to deliver anything remotely competitive this gen.

3) AMD will be very competitive with GT200. The HD 4870 will not be that far way from the GTX 260 and I'm pretty confident that the 4870 X2 will beat the GTX 280.

I am not saying they will not be. I am just pointing out the fact that ATI is making a bigger leap relative to NV because their current cards were umm....*crap* Frankly, I hope ATI is more competitive so we have more choices and NV can work harder for GF11.

Originally posted by: Extelleron

The 8600 & 2600 series both sucked big time. You talk about paying a premium for high-end, but the point is that if you are paying a premium, you should be getting absolute premium performance. We saw this last generation with G80 & R600, and we saw it previously as well. If you paid 2-3x more for a high-end card, you got 2-3x the performance. Now though, nVidia is asking us to pay up to 4x more (8800GTS 512MB = $156, GTX 280 = $649) for 50-70% more performance.

8600 and 2600 were by far the most disappointing mid-range cards in a while. Generally you had to pay MORE % wise for LESS % performance increase for high-end over mid-range. Historically speaking this was one of those rare times were high end was "good bang for the buck". But high-end was never intended to be that.

Also, don't forget what really screwed AMD -> taking market share from Intel at a loss of profit margins. Sure ATI can sell 4850 all they want for $229......but how much are they going to make off those cards? You need to consider bottom line and not just performance from investor's perspective. You never want to gain market share at the cost of profit margins because such firm strategy is not sustainable.

 

[ronnn]

Originally posted by: RussianSensation

8600 and 2600 were by far the most disappointing mid-range cards in a while. Previously generally had to pay MORE % wise for LESS % performance increase for high-end over mid-range. i.e. 4200 vs. 4600, 5900xt vs. 5950U, 9800Pro vs. 9800XT, X850Pro vs. X800XT, X1950Pro vs. X1950XTX....I don't know what you are talking about but historically speaking this was one of those rare times were high end was "good bang for the buck". But high-end was never intended to be that.

Don't think anyone saw those cards as midrange.

 

[BFG10K]

Considering how fast the 8800GTX was at its release, I think the gains would have been pretty impressive if this card came out last November, a year later. But to me, the GTX 280 should be more than that; it is coming out nearly 2 years after the 8800GTX, and to me 45-65% faster is not very impressive.

I think the gains are fine even in Jun 08. You've basically got a single card that is looking like it'll be 40%-50% faster than my 8800 Ultra which is about the gain I got from going from my 8800 GTS to a 8800 Ultra.

Like I said the only potential issue is how the 4870 turns out. If it's still substantially faster than my 8800 Ultra (say at least 20%) but the cost is much lower than the GTX 280 I might get it instead as I'm tired of nVidia's subpar driver support. Also doing this will allow me to pick up a cooler 55 nm GTX280 a few months later if ATi doesn?t turn out to be what I had hoped.

As for the 9800 GX2, that's not even in the picture as any "victory" it achieves is just a pretty graph that doesn?t tell the full story. Even now with the newest drivers there are benchmark situations it can?t even run, and that?s ignoring the other pitfalls of multi-GPU.

I have a large catalogue of legacy games and most of them don?t even have SLI profiles; adding an SLI profile is no guarantee of anything working given there are benchmarked games with nVidia included profiles that don?t run properly.

It wouldn't be that bad, but as I said earlier, with G92 cards at <$200 and that can compete with the 8800GTX, it becomes even less impressive.

Sure, but the top end seldom has a price/performance ratio that matches the mid-range. That and the 9800 GTX falls flat on its face when you start cranking up the AA because there?s not enough bandwidth and/or memory.

I push my GPU hard with AA as it?s one of the easiest ways to get old games looking better. Not just ?easy? MSAA either but combined mode super-sampling modes which can make even a 8800 Ultra cry like a little girl.

 

[taltamir]

the gains are larger the higher your resolution. This is key. It might very well be the only card capable of pushing a high end display... especially when a 2GB GDDR5 version comes out.

 

[RussianSensation]

Originally posted by: ronnn

Originally posted by: RussianSensation

8600 and 2600 were by far the most disappointing mid-range cards in a while. Previously generally had to pay MORE % wise for LESS % performance increase for high-end over mid-range. i.e. 4200 vs. 4600, 5900xt vs. 5950U, 9800Pro vs. 9800XT, X850Pro vs. X800XT, X1950Pro vs. X1950XTX....I don't know what you are talking about but historically speaking this was one of those rare times were high end was "good bang for the buck". But high-end was never intended to be that.

Don't think anyone saw those cards as midrange.

Ya I know what you are saying but my point is that consumers tend to pay more for less when it comes to top products. We shouldn't expect a linear price/performance ratio as you move up product offerings.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On another note...

ATI has chosen a smart strategy of targeting price sensitive consumers because we know a lot more sales take place in the mid-range. However, it's especially effective during recessionary economic conditions -- rising energy/oil/food prices, higher unemployment rates, credit/mortgage crisis. So what are people going to be doing?

1) going out less (watching movies at home, reading books, playing more videogames, etc.)
2) more price sensitive to purchases (I still want to play games, but you know what this time I just want a card sufficient enough to play my game, not necessarily at 2560x1536 4AA!)

So what card am I going to buy? As gamers we have to understand that sometimes whether or not ATI or NV have the top card might not be that important (I know it's hard to accept hehe). Let's look at the big picture.

ATI's strategy was less risky from an operational perspective. That was a very smart and a safe move considering they couldnt' afford to take the risk of trying to come up with a top of the line single unit GPU which could have failed against GTX 280, while incurring significant R&D expenses which frankly should be diverted towards K11. When you are losing $ and market share in every business segment, you have to go back to the basics (Athlon XP's success was just that - lets offer slightly slower performance for a lot lower price!) and show investors you can boost your earnings or you will not be able to secure external financing in the form of debt or equity.

ATI is no longer after the performance crown. Their goal is for everyone else who doesn't want to blow $500+ on a graphics card to buy their card. At the end of the day, the only cards that matter are mid-range and low end cards. As far as I understand historically both NV and ATI's idea was to communicate superiority of mid-range and low-end by having the most competitive high-end offerings and then consumers would know "oh GF8 is the best card", automatically assuming that 8600 series > 2600, etc. and 8400 > 3450, etc. Is this the only successful strategy? It has been for years!

But...

...As long as ATI is able to convince consumers that "Wait a second, you don't necessarily need top of the line card over competition to have great low-end and mid-range offerings," they are back in business. If I was in their marketing department discussing their turnaround plans, this is actually what I would have brought up. A lot of times all we focus on is who has the best performing card, but the management's #1 goal is to provide shareholder value. If there is an alternative strategy that will allow AMD to sell more AMD cards that doesn't involve having a top of the line card, then they will choose that path, as long as it is more cost effective and has a higher probability of success.

So to conclude, this battle is no longer who has the top of the line card. In this economic environment, it has to come to what is a better strategy - high volumes at lower profit margins OR low volumes at high profit margins? NV also bet that most consumers buy on emotional perception of what the best brand/product is (through high-end), hoping to capture those customers at low end segments. We know exactly which way each company bet.

It doesn't take a science wiz to realize what the general investor's concensus is when one looks at NV's stock as of late......Now ATI's greatest challenge is to convince consumers that having a top-of-the line card doesn't imply having superior offerings in lower price segments. "Joe Smith" will not focus on whether or not NV has a 10-15-20% faster card. He will will just hear that "NV has the fastest cards now [insert 'in general']." That imo is the greatest challenge.

My 2 cents.

 

[taltamir]

You know, they don't have to convince consumers of anything, just offer more performance per dollar in a market segment to own it.
They have trouble because intel can offer something that gives more bang per buck, they have trouble cause nvidia can do the same... rather then competing with those companies in "absolute fastest" they are trying to dominate in bang / buck...

the 0.001% that buy the absolute best regardless of cost will not even consider them... for the rest, the bang/buck matters most. lets be honest here. The 38xx series offers less bang/buck then the G92. They are simply overpriced, A 8800GT still costs less then a 3870 and outperforms it. But it seems like AMD is going to change that with the 48xx series...

With phenom they have a bust, they tried to get the fastest thing on the market, but failed, so intel gets to sell the fastest chips for 1000+$, while they have to sell them at 200$, where they compete with much cheaper to manufacture, and thus cheaper to buy, and thus more bang/buck wolfdales.

People are saying it as if it is some sort of magical war with winners, maybe for average joe who knows squat about PCs... but everyone who knows (and that is a very fast growing population) simply buys the best bang/buck in their pricerange based on reviews and performance tests. And if they DON'T know they are SURE to know someone who DOES... I know plenty of people who know jack about computers... But they ALL have some "computer whiz" whom they consult on every purchase.

 

[KhadgarTWN]

Have to agree with RussianSensation

But on the other hand, this smart strategy is risky also

While high end card always comes with unparalleled performance with even more untouchable price, it is much more then just symbols of fanatic user.
Decent midranges that conquer the market always come from the ruduction of the high end.

Think about it:
There will be no impressive 7900GS, if no powerful 7900GTX
There will be no wonderful 1950P, if no mighty X1950XT
No 6800Ultra, no 6600GT; No 9800/9700, no 9600/9500; No 4600, no 4200

So I have to say the stretagy of RV 670 can only be used once
Because there is nothing easier to catch the pace of the step of the rival
While almost doubling the performance of 8800GTS is impressive
doubling the performance of 3870 is no easy task, and for now, it seems luckily AMD did it.

If ATi had to give up the crown, then there will be no surprise they lag behind the step.
Once the lag begin, the result would be tredegic.

For instance, if 4870 is not so decent as we glance now, eg at the level of 9800GTX
then what would AMD do when midrange of G200 comes? Luckily it won't happen in this generation.

But if AMD cannot always catch the pace, one day their high end may lose to the midrange of their rival, and it is not funny that a company can only battle with price tags.

 

[tuteja1986]

Originally posted by: solofly
No I'm not joking. I wish I was joking but the reality is ati makes great hardware but can't write drivers worth shit. Takes months for game fixes and I when they do come they usually break something else along the way. No thanks, I don't need the headaches...

you sound like a blind fanboy , ATI and Nvidia both have had their share of driver problem. Since you only used one company for very long you are still stuck with state of mind that ATI driver horrible. Almost like Mac fanboy thinks his machine is vulnerability free.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: tuteja1986

Originally posted by: solofly
No I'm not joking. I wish I was joking but the reality is ati makes great hardware but can't write drivers worth shit. Takes months for game fixes and I when they do come they usually break something else along the way. No thanks, I don't need the headaches...

you sound like a blind fanboy , ATI and Nvidia both have had their share of driver problem. Since you only used one company for very long you are still stuck with state of mind that ATI driver horrible. Almost like Mac fanboy thinks his machine is vulnerability free.

Either that, or someone who hasn't been updated... He did say ATI can't write drivers worth for shit, and that IS TRUE... AMD completely changed how drivers were handled the moment they bought ATI...
ATI drivers = pure shit
nVidia drivers = used to be awesome, went down
AMD drivers = win!

I love the mac analogy... it is so true.

 

[RussianSensation]

KhadgarTWN, if you look at current gen consoles with multi-cpus and the future direction of computing design of stacked processors, multi-cores and the general trend towards scaling of less complex tech vs. developing 1 overly complex design, I presume that ATI's intention is to catch this trend on the GPU side. From a cost perspective it might be a lot cheaper to manufacture R770 and slap 2 together for a high end card than to take the high-end card and scale it down for mid-range and low end.

Of course we won't truly know how well this implementation will be in practice with HD 48xx series considering large dependence of the graphics card driver. You then start to run into issues such as:

1) how well will multi-gpu cards scale with my older games?
2) how long will it take before my multi-gpu cards scale well with newer games (ATI can only target so many of the top games) <--- this also creates more pressure on ATI to work alongside developers prior to the game's release
3) how good will multi-gpu support be for my card when the "next gen" arrives and ATI stops focusing on my card?

One Achilles' heal of multi-gpu design is that there will inevitably be games that either don't scale well, or actually have no scaling whatsoever.

 

[BFG10K]

vr-zone's preview is up!

http://www.vr-zone.com/article...80_Preview/5872-1.html

 

[tuteja1986]

Originally posted by: taltamir

Originally posted by: tuteja1986

Originally posted by: solofly
No I'm not joking. I wish I was joking but the reality is ati makes great hardware but can't write drivers worth shit. Takes months for game fixes and I when they do come they usually break something else along the way. No thanks, I don't need the headaches...

you sound like a blind fanboy , ATI and Nvidia both have had their share of driver problem. Since you only used one company for very long you are still stuck with state of mind that ATI driver horrible. Almost like Mac fanboy thinks his machine is vulnerability free.

Either that, or someone who hasn't been updated... He did say ATI can't write drivers worth for shit, and that IS TRUE... AMD completely changed how drivers were handled the moment they bought ATI...
ATI drivers = pure shit
nVidia drivers = used to be awesome, went down
AMD drivers = win!

I love the mac analogy... it is so true.

This forum has doing downwards too , with members like you.

Give a list of ATI driver shitness ?

 

[HOOfan 1]

VR-Zone's preview of the GTX 280 with benchmarks

dunno how official it can be though, for them to have a sample and post a review of the actual card, someone broke an NDA

Edit: BFG you beat me to it by 3 minutes....

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: tuteja1986

Originally posted by: taltamir

Originally posted by: tuteja1986

Originally posted by: solofly
No I'm not joking. I wish I was joking but the reality is ati makes great hardware but can't write drivers worth shit. Takes months for game fixes and I when they do come they usually break something else along the way. No thanks, I don't need the headaches...

you sound like a blind fanboy , ATI and Nvidia both have had their share of driver problem. Since you only used one company for very long you are still stuck with state of mind that ATI driver horrible. Almost like Mac fanboy thinks his machine is vulnerability free.

Either that, or someone who hasn't been updated... He did say ATI can't write drivers worth for shit, and that IS TRUE... AMD completely changed how drivers were handled the moment they bought ATI...
ATI drivers = pure shit
nVidia drivers = used to be awesome, went down
AMD drivers = win!

I love the mac analogy... it is so true.

This forum has doing downwards too , with members like you.

Give a list of ATI driver shitness ?

In the first 3 months after bought by AMD, 7 major installer bugs were fixed with ATI's drivers... bugs that have plagued them since 2002... It was a serious risk just INSTALLING the drivers before AMD took over. I was really impressed at how quickly it was resolved.

Also, nvidia has ok drivers for linux.. ATI didn't have any.. AMD actually opened up the specs so that open source drivers could be written...