Nvidia vs ATI in Dx10

[spittledip]

http://www.tomshardware.com/20...9/directx_10_shootout/

ATI gets spanked!! Every single DX10 game they tested ATI was way behind except in the highest resolutions. Ati was still way behind though. Not good at all for competition. I hope the ATI parts in November will be good performers b/c it is not going to be pleasant for our wallets otherwise.. except maybe in the mid-range .. hopefully.

 

[apoppin]

one thing i DID notice ... NONE of the DX10 games run very well on any single GPU - except BioShock and they didn't test with AA - at 19x12 with everything maxed and 4xAA/16AF ... in fact, they *couldn't* benchmark all their games with everything maxed out
...pretty pathetic

... and the 2900Xt does what it supposed to ... mostly fits in with the 8800GTS performance-wise ... it also appears to be waiting for drivers for the very latest titles.

THG's conclusion:

Today, the Geforce 8800 GTS and the Radeon HD 2900 XT constitute the new mid-range. They offer sufficient frame rates for a smooth game experience in current titles, although FSAA may need to be disabled in higher resolutions. Of these cards, the Geforce 8800 GTS 320 has a minor advantage in performance and a major one regarding its pricing. The pricing of the Geforce 8800 GTS with 640 MB positions it directly against the Radeon HD 2900 XT.

 

[kknd1967]

Not against AT. I have been using 9800Pro and X850XT.
but 2900XT/PRO is indeed lame from technical point (pricewise, maybe PRO makes a lot sense)

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: kknd1967
Not against AT. I have been using 9800Pro and X850XT.
but 2900XT/PRO is indeed lame from technical point (pricewise, maybe PRO makes a lot sense)

*totally agreed*

the 8800-640GTS is just as lamely priced ... only the 320 and the 2900p seem a "bargain" re: bang-for-buck

i got my 2900xt for $320 back in June [with Orange Box] ... that was *the reason* i chose it over the 640-OC. Performance is very similar

 

[Matt2]

Sadly, according to my own experiences in DX10 with a 2900XT, these numbers are right on.

I've seen small increases in performance as drivers come out, but ATI has failed to deliver that one decisive driver release that sends the 2900XT to the top. I thought they'd be able to do it, but it hasnt happened and it raises the legitimate question of whether or not it will ever come.

Seeing that ATI is already rolling out new hardware, the prospects for a driver solution seems bleek. My concern is that ATI is taking a brute strength approach to fixing its performance issues by just adding more clockspeed to the equation. Eventually they are going to hit the wall and just slap two chips together like Nvidia did with the 7950GX2.

Bottomline: Anything other than a 8800GTX/Ultra is a waste of money right now if you want to play DX10 games at an above-average resolution with above-average settings. With new games rolling out in bunches, even the 8800GTX/Ultra might end up being a waste.

I feel like we're in a video card "dark age" right now.

 

[kknd1967]

given the limited visual improvement so far, should we all blame DX10/M$ ?

Originally posted by: Matt2
Sadly, according to my own experiences in DX10 with a 2900XT, these numbers are right on.

I've seen small increases in performance as drivers come out, but ATI has failed to deliver that one decisive driver release that sends the 2900XT to the top. I thought they'd be able to do it, but it hasnt happened and it raises the legitimate question of whether or not it will ever come.

Seeing that ATI is already rolling out new hardware, the prospects for a driver solution seems bleek. My concern is that ATI is taking a brute strength approach to fixing its performance issues by just adding more clockspeed to the equation. Eventually they are going to hit the wall and just slap two chips together like Nvidia did with the 7950GX2.

Bottomline: Anything other than a 8800GTX/Ultra is a waste of money right now if you want to play DX10 games at an above-average resolution with above-average settings. With new games rolling out in bunches, even the 8800GTX/Ultra might end up being a waste.

I feel like we're in a video card "dark age" right now.

 

[apoppin]

Matt2 ... i feel bad for you and your attempt to run 19x12 on a budget card.
--but ... you can't say i didn't warn you - multiple times and on several occasions based on my own experience with 2900xt/GTS640 - that you would be terribly disappointed

i have mixed emotions ...
... another apoppin prediction comes true ... sadly

 

[Matt2]

Originally posted by: kknd1967
given the limited visual improvement so far, should we all blame DX10/M$ ?

Originally posted by: Matt2
Sadly, according to my own experiences in DX10 with a 2900XT, these numbers are right on.

I've seen small increases in performance as drivers come out, but ATI has failed to deliver that one decisive driver release that sends the 2900XT to the top. I thought they'd be able to do it, but it hasnt happened and it raises the legitimate question of whether or not it will ever come.

Seeing that ATI is already rolling out new hardware, the prospects for a driver solution seems bleek. My concern is that ATI is taking a brute strength approach to fixing its performance issues by just adding more clockspeed to the equation. Eventually they are going to hit the wall and just slap two chips together like Nvidia did with the 7950GX2.

Bottomline: Anything other than a 8800GTX/Ultra is a waste of money right now if you want to play DX10 games at an above-average resolution with above-average settings. With new games rolling out in bunches, even the 8800GTX/Ultra might end up being a waste.

I feel like we're in a video card "dark age" right now.

Nah. DX10 is just a tool and MS is just the supplier of the tool. There is no reason why developers can't make visually stunning games using DX10. The blame lies with NVidia and ATI for making insufficient hardware to run DX10 and as a result, consumers are less willing adopt DX10 cards. We (the consumer) are the reason why we keep getting half-assed, DX10 as an after thought, games. Why would a developer spend more money developing a DX10 path that actually makes a difference when only <10% of gamers would be able to run it, let alone run it at high settings and high resolutions?

 

[Munky]

The article left out Call of Juarez, in which Nvidia gets spanked. Otherwise, no surprises here...

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: apoppin
Matt2 ... i feel bad for you and your attempt to run 19x12 on a budget card.
--but ... you can't say i didn't warn you - multiple times and on several occasions based on my own experience with 2900xt/GTS640 - that you would be terribly disappointed

i have mixed emotions ...
... another apoppin prediction comes true ... sadly

Dude, stop Predictin, problem solved!

 

[kknd1967]

2900XT barely beats 8800GTS/320M
and 2900PRO is even a little slower
Call of J DX10

Originally posted by: munky
The article left out Call of Juarez, in which Nvidia gets spanked. Otherwise, no surprises here...

 

[AzN]

AMD is preparing to release its Catalyst 7.10 graphics drivers for ATI Radeon graphics cards later this week, and they're expecting to deliver big performance gains for Radeon HD and Radeon X1000-series GPUs with this update. Those improvements mainly focus on first-person-shooter games, hence the cheesy "Shoot 'em up" name AMD has given the driver update. Here's a quick run-down of the performance boosts AMD is expecting:

* Battlefield 2142 Crossfire? performance improves 5-23% on the ATI Radeon? HD 2600, ATI Radeon? HD 2400 and ATI Radeon? X1300/X1550 series
* Call of Duty 2 performance improves up to 6.7% on both single card and Crossfire ATI Radeon HD 2600 and ATI Radeon HD 2400 configurations
* Call of Juarez DirectX® 10 Crossfire performance improves up to 42% and single card performance improves up to 34% on all ATI Radeon? HD 2000 series products.
* Company of Heroes DirectX 10 Crossfire performance improves up to 80% on all ATI Radeon HD 2000 series products and single card performance improves as much as 31% on ATI Radeon? HD 2900 and ATI Radeon HD 2600 products
* Enemy Territory: Quake Wars Crossfire performance improves as much as 23% on ATI Radeon? 1000 series products and single card performance improves as much as 23% on both ATI Radeon HD 2000 and ATI Radeon 1000 series products
* FEAR Crossfire performance improves as much as 16% on the ATI Radeon? X1950 XTX, ATI Radeon? X1650 XT, ATI Radeon HD 2400 series and ATI Radeon X1300/X1550 series
* Supreme Commander Crossfire performance improves up to 30% on all ATI Radeon HD 2000 and ATI Radeon 1000 series products. The ATI Radeon? X1650 and ATI Radeon X1300/X1550 series products see even greater improvements of 82% or more.

Those are AMD's own numbers, so take them for what they're worth. The drivers should be available for download soon, and of course, we'll let you know when they are.

http://techreport.com/discussions.x/13352

 

[AzN]

ATI/AMD is slowly adopting to the new 2k series. Drivers take time for optimizing. It's a new architecture completely different compared to radeon 1k series. Geforce 8 is more like dx9/10 hybrid while Radeon 2k is more dx10 with AA through shader, etc... ATI will have a easier time adopting to dx10.1 than Nvidia and so on. Not to mention vista with dx10 is also new.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: sandorski

Originally posted by: apoppin
Matt2 ... i feel bad for you and your attempt to run 19x12 on a budget card.
--but ... you can't say i didn't warn you - multiple times and on several occasions based on my own experience with 2900xt/GTS640 - that you would be terribly disappointed

i have mixed emotions ...
... another apoppin prediction comes true ... sadly

Dude, stop Predictin, problem solved!

the problem would still be there:
i.e. trying to run 19x12 on a budget mid-range card

the expectations were totally unrealistic
... and imo, the complaints are unjustified [especially now]

 

[Matt2]

Originally posted by: apoppin
Matt2 ... i feel bad for you and your attempt to run 19x12 on a budget card.
--but ... you can't say i didn't warn you - multiple times and on several occasions based on my own experience with 2900xt/GTS640 - that you would be terribly disappointed

i have mixed emotions ...
... another apoppin prediction comes true ... sadly

You also predicted a "dark horse".

I know I made a mistake, I'm over it. Halo 3 has cured all my 2900XT woes. I learned the hard way that my gaming needs can only be satisfied by my Xbox 360.

I spent 8800GTS 640mb money, hoping for closer to 8800GTX performance as drivers matured. Can't blame a guy for going out on a limb, can you? Stick it out, but dont be afraid to get it cut off, right?

 

[alcoholbob]

Wow, in some of the newest DX10 games the 8800 GTS 320 and 640 are barely any faster than the 8600GTS according to the THG article at higher resolutions. The only card that even shows "relatively playable" performance across the board (30fps+) is the 8800 GTX and Ultra, where the 8800 GTS at times are in single digit territory right next to the 8600GTS.

It seems like the 8800 GTSs scale well for their specs with the 8800 GTX/Ultra up to about 1280x1024, after which performance just plummets relatively.

If it's going to be like this there is going to be nearly ZERO reason to buy the 8800 GT line this November unless it's just to play older games at a better framerate.

 

[AzN]

That's why I don't trust tom's hardware. It's like reading neoseeker now a days.

 

[kknd1967]

It is not that THG is totally B$ing. if one really reads, it is quite clear.

"Nvidia Forceware 162.22"

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Matt2

Originally posted by: apoppin
Matt2 ... i feel bad for you and your attempt to run 19x12 on a budget card.
--but ... you can't say i didn't warn you - multiple times and on several occasions based on my own experience with 2900xt/GTS640 - that you would be terribly disappointed

i have mixed emotions ...
... another apoppin prediction comes true ... sadly

You also predicted a "dark horse".

I know I made a mistake, I'm over it. Halo 3 has cured all my 2900XT woes. I learned the hard way that my gaming needs can only be satisfied by my Xbox 360.

I spent 8800GTS 640mb money, hoping for closer to 8800GTX performance as drivers matured. Can't blame a guy for going out on a limb, can you? Stick it out, but dont be afraid to get it cut off, right?

i was right ... it IS [was] a dark horse.

Look at the earliest reviews when i made my prediction on Day 1 ... it was barely faster then a x1950xtx ... lagged behind the GTS pretty consistently ... sometimes way slower ... and AA *killed* it even at low resolutions; everybody was bitching about the 'noise' and "bad IQ".

Well ... look what happened ...

--It took TWO driver revisions to make STALKER even playable. That is when i ALSO put my money where my mouth was [$320 ] in early June.

Remember that i also got a GTS 640-OC to compare with ... and i BEGGED you NOT to buy either; that 2900xt was positively not enough for 19x12 [and it likely never would be].

now, if you were really "brave" ... you'd get another one [or a GTX]
[that would finally be sufficient, imo]



Actually, i am still thinking of it .. i think - apoppin's dark horse theory cont'd - AMD is going to get DX10 X-Fire right pretty soon ... i bet by the end of the year they match the GTS in 2-GPU scaling

[gasp!]

i just want to try it for cheap ... like a sub-$250 2900p

and don't get too wrapped up in that xbox360 ... you might have another crysis soon

 

[bryanW1995]

for CRYSYS-IN OUT LOUD apoppin, stop it!

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: bryanW1995
for CRYSYS-IN OUT LOUD apoppin, stop it!

stop what ? posting?

forget it

 

[kmmatney]

Wow...ATi is not looking too great here, but I think the 2900Pro would have fared well. The top 8 cards in the bang-for-buck category were all NVidia cards.

 

[alcoholbob]

And somehow the 8800 GTX is as good as a buy as the 8800 GTS!

 

[BFG10K]

nVidia gets some impressive performance in Bioshock and that performance nicely translates into being able to enable AA under DX9.

 

[jonmcc33]

Who reads THG these days?