***Official*** NV40 Benches (Updated as they go live) ANANDTECH Review Added

[BoomAM]

Originally posted by: Spicedaddy
The R300 series can decode DivX in hardware using its pixel shaders. You have to use the DivX Player though...

LOL.
As ive said, the R3x0 chips cannot do video decoding, they can only remove blockness from video streams if apps support it. The DivX support is just to remove any blockness from any DivX videos you might have. RealOne player supports it for all content it plays, but it still isnt decoded by the gfx chip, it done by the CPU, the gfx chip just "smooths" it out a bit.

 

[GTaudiophile]

Whether or not the R4XX core supports encoding/decoding of video in hardware is unknown, but what is known, is that ATI will be introducing a completely new Rage Theatre chip in the near future.

 

[BoomAM]

Probably, but it does give a nVidia fan ammo against ATI fans doesnt it. lol. What people do nowadays.

3D Performance is all that matters in my eyes. They were designed for games, so it doesnt really bother me that much if it can do decoding or not. If the 6800U is faster, then i`d buy one, if the X800XT is faster, then i`d buy that. Its as simple as that.

 

[Regs]

Originally posted by: BoomAM
If the 6800U is faster, then i`d buy one, if the X800XT is faster, then i`d buy that. Its as simple as that.

I wish I was around when voodoo and 3dfx got killed by Nvidia. How did that one go? Did 3Dfx make anything that would try to compete with the Geforce, or did they just drop completely?

You know it's never that simple Boom. You know it will be just like the 5900 vs the 9700/9800 all over again. IQ discrepancies and AA/AF performance compensations. But at least this time hopefully, Nvidia doesn't have to worry about floating point precision for DX9c. Not to mention having a card as the size of the engineering model of the 6800 in yur box is just disturbing to the mind.

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: Pariah
According to Tech-Report the 6800U uses less power than the 9800XT when idle, when under load the 6800U tops out at 206W's, while the 9800XT hit 177W's. It should be noted that the 5950 hit 198W's, so the 6800U is only an 8W increase over the card it is replacing. Not sure why that would require a second power connector. I don't know where the top end Prescott's are, but A64's and Northwoods are no where near 120W's.

As pointed out, those power numbers are huge overestimates. Mind you the 9800XT uses more power than I thought (although I was talking about the 9800 Pro not the XT).

The Xeon Northwood is 110W. Prescott is even higher, but my point was that it's not even as high as NV40. That the 5950 already uses almost as much power as NV40 just further illustrates the point that the power utilization these days is getting out of hand.

 

[BoomAM]

Originally posted by: Regs

Originally posted by: BoomAM
If the 6800U is faster, then i`d buy one, if the X800XT is faster, then i`d buy that. Its as simple as that.

I wish I was around when voodoo and 3dfx got killed by Nvidia. How did that one go? Did 3Dfx make anything that would try to compete with the Geforce, or did they just drop completely?

You know it's never that simple Boom. You know it will be just like the 5900 vs the 9700/9800 all over again. IQ discrepancies and AA/AF performance compensations. But at least this time hopefully, Nvidia doesn't have to worry about floating point precision for DX9c. Not to mention having a card as the size of the engineering model of the 6800 in yur box is just disturbing to the mind.

Suppose.
But i didnt buy my 9700 till 5800 was out, and so had time to decide what i wanted. Hence why i aint upgrading till june/july this year. So i can see what the strengths and weaknesses of both ATI and nVidias offerings.
Its all about surveying the field! lol.

 

[Elcs]

Originally posted by: BoomAM

Suppose.
But i didnt buy my 9700 till 5800 was out, and so had time to decide what i wanted. Hence why i aint upgrading till june/july this year. So i can see what the strengths and weaknesses of both ATI and nVidias offerings.
Its all about surveying the field! lol.

Thats one benefit of the UK. We can sit back and watch all the problems occur in the states and walk through upgrades relatively problem-free (apart from the ridiculous costs which are getting better)

 

[BoomAM]

Originally posted by: Elcs

Originally posted by: BoomAM

Suppose.
But i didnt buy my 9700 till 5800 was out, and so had time to decide what i wanted. Hence why i aint upgrading till june/july this year. So i can see what the strengths and weaknesses of both ATI and nVidias offerings.
Its all about surveying the field! lol.

Thats one benefit of the UK. We can sit back and watch all the problems occur in the states and walk through upgrades relatively problem-free (apart from the ridiculous costs which are getting better)

LOL. Right you are.

 

[gsellis]

@AIWGuru - CeBIT had a DVD settop company showing WM9HD chips in their new player. It was a European company that I had not heard of until then. T2 is available in WM9, but I am not sure it is HD.

ATI may or may not have something good. Remember that they did show HDV editing with Pinnacle at IDF. Pinnacle has its own customized card with ATI for editing (AIW derivative). Pinnacle also uses software to use the GPU to do renders (not for the final MPEG that I have seen though.) But, with encode/decode on the vid card, and already using the vid card for renders, that does give some thought to what both the nVidia and ATI cards could do.

BTW, I bought a Vantec 520a from newegg for $99. Before anyone whines about brand, I needed it for EPS12V (the Vantecs have 24pins and a 20pin adapter for P4/AMD ATX usage.) But, it only has 3 rails too.

 

[edmundoab]

I'd rather wait for the final product to be out,
and since we know NVidia and ATi are capable of cheating at certain games..
benchmark optimizing drivers

3dmark 03 may need to release another patch again.

 

[edmundoab]

I'd rather wait for the final product to be out,
and since we know NVidia and ATi are capable of cheating at certain games..
benchmark optimizing drivers

3dmark 03 may need to release another patch again.

 

[Acanthus]

Why are people complaining about power consumption and heat?

Its the price you pay to play the game.

More speed = more heat and more power consumption.

Unless you have some magical method to get us down to molecular level prossecing now, in which case i suggest you cash in at intel for 4 or 5 billion.

 

[flexy]

someone over at beyond3d postet some mysterious text snippet anonymously which CLAIMS that R420 will have PS3.0 and DirectX9.0c support.
I am aware that EVERYONE could just fake a text like this, but i just found it worth mentioning.

Mysterious text in thread

Do with that info what you like - i dont know either what to think about it. I just know that R420 at ~500mhz WITH PS3.0 would probably OWN Nvidia.....

a) either dumb joke b) or someone cut some *very interesting* info out off a pdf or similiar.....

You decide...

 

[MagamiAKO]

What happened to 3DFX was that they were busy executing a merger because they felt that it would be better if they had made their own video cards, since this is the route that ATI had gone for so many years. I don't know what they were thinking, but I guess they wanted to take their brand name to the "next level" and sell directly to the public. They had acquired the company known as STB.

This merger delayed the Voodoo3, which was the first 'real' 2D/3D chip from 3DFX. I say 'real' because the Voodoo banshee was a horrible piece of crap. The voodoo3 was merely a slightly beefed up Voodoo2 with a 2D core attached to it. It really wasn't all that phenomonal of a card. The Nvidia TNT2 and later the Geforce series sealed the fate.

3DFX was plagued with even more delays, and it took them quite a while to get the Voodoo 5 out the door (I believe the Voodoo 4 was going to be a PCI solution developed by 3DFX that I don't believe made it), and by this time Nvidia had the Geforce 2. The GF2 smacked the crap out of the Voodoo5. Not to say that the Voodoo5 wasn't a bad piece of hardware. It was faily decent, and had it NOT had been delayed, the card might've made it in the market, since it was originally meant to compete with the original Geforce.

What killed 3DFX was the constant delaying of products. All of their products were pretty good, but because they were forced to wait so long, the competition beat them out.

3DFX had some good products. The voodoo2 was probably the BEST video solution at the time, especially when you could upgrade to 2 of them and chain them together for SLI (Scanline Interleave) mode. This also increased frame buffer memory so you could actually run 1024x768. It's amazing how far we've come in 7 years, and this is MOSTLY thanks to Nvidia and Microsoft, both of whom have been driving forces behind this. Nvidia with their top end 3D Hardware releases, and Microsoft being the mediator of the DirectX specification.

7 years ago you had to have Glide to be a 'somebody', now it's DX9.....I remember when people would balk in disgust at DX

Ahh how the times change.

And just a little FYI, a dual Voodoo2 12MB SLI setup at the time was $600 USD. Each card was $300. I think a company known as Obsidian released a single Voodoo2 that had 6 3DFX chips on it to make a single card SLI board that ran for $600 as well.

So $500 graphics for the top end power is not uncommon.

Forgot something else, you also needed your own graphics card for rendering 2D at that. So you're looking for something good to render Windows + top end 3D power was running you nearly $700 and was a 3 slot video solution All of this just to run 1024x768x16 in games

 

[AIWGuru]

Originally posted by: flexy
someone over at beyond3d postet some mysterious text snippet anonymously which CLAIMS that R420 will have PS3.0 and DirectX9.0c support.
I am aware that EVERYONE could just fake a text like this, but i just found it worth mentioning.

Mysterious text in thread

Do with that info what you like - i dont know either what to think about it. I just know that R420 at ~500mhz WITH PS3.0 would probably OWN Nvidia.....

a) either dumb joke b) or someone cut some *very interesting* info out off a pdf or similiar.....

You decide...

That's ridiculous. When ATI was demoing their R420 in backrooms at cebit they clearly said it did not have this support.
Furthermore, several journalists who saw both R420 and NV40 said that R420 wasn't stacking up well with NV40.

 

[BoomAM]

Originally posted by: AIWGuru

Originally posted by: flexy
someone over at beyond3d postet some mysterious text snippet anonymously which CLAIMS that R420 will have PS3.0 and DirectX9.0c support.
I am aware that EVERYONE could just fake a text like this, but i just found it worth mentioning.

Mysterious text in thread

Do with that info what you like - i dont know either what to think about it. I just know that R420 at ~500mhz WITH PS3.0 would probably OWN Nvidia.....

a) either dumb joke b) or someone cut some *very interesting* info out off a pdf or similiar.....

You decide...

That's ridiculous. When ATI was demoing their R420 in backrooms at cebit they clearly said it did not have this support.
Furthermore, several journalists who saw both R420 and NV40 said that R420 wasn't stacking up well with NV40.

Ive read practially all the rumors & facts on both chips, and nowhere have i seen that ATI has said there is no SM3.0 support. So unless ive missed something, some ppl are still going off the original ATI statement that r42x is a "extreme" version of r360.

 

[flexy]

>>>
That's ridiculous. When ATI was demoing their R420 in backrooms at cebit they clearly said it did not have this support.
Furthermore, several journalists who saw both R420 and NV40 said that R420 wasn't stacking up well with NV40.
>>>

hey i wish they said ANYTHING "clearly" Whom to did who say anything to ?

Btw. just reading at b3d, dave has this sentence where he said (i try to cite): "The parts ATI showed were NOT the parts which will be introduced ito market later" <---- whatever he meant with that...talking about clockspeeds or prototype boards ???
Thats btw. the reason the rumor came up that R500 is comign earlier than expected. Because some people interepreted his words as they had R500 running, which (IMHO) of course must be a fantasy - nor woudl it make sense to demonstrate R500 at cebit....

But....did you read these alleged R420 specs ? Aren't they kind of very consistent in itself ? 8xAA, 160Mio transistors etc...

I know that posting this link and "info" might have potential to backfire in case it turns out as hoax.....nevertheless i found it worth to mention....

 

[flexy]

Ive read practially all the rumors & facts on both chips, and nowhere have i seen that ATI has said there is no SM3.0 support. So unless ive missed something, some ppl are still going off the original ATI statement that r42x is a "extreme" version of r360.

you're right - but i think we assume that from the fact that implementing 3.0 would just be a too big step and definatly NOT be only a 'better' R360. Also, i remember reading some of these rumor-sites with 'specs' and some of them said they will NOT go with 3.0 - some 'sounded' quite confident in that statement. The general 'knowledge' is it wont have 3.0.

On the other hand, you are right. There are NO clear statements and for sure not from ATI itself.

I just have to say...look at it this way (ok, this might be wishful thinking <----): Some of these cards will be out in JUNE....merely WEEKS before MS comes out with DX90c in summer.

How much sense does it make *knowingly* to release a non PS3.0 card right about THE SAME time, and they als knew long ago already (IMHO) that NV40 will have 3.0....something isnot right there...

As for AIWGurus comment regarding performance...even without PS3.0 i have doubt that R420 will do THAT bad against NV40...who knows what they actually saw there...its a 16 pipes card with gdd3 and AT LEAST 500mhz on the core...this thing CAN not be slow hardware-wise

 

[rbV5]

Whether or not the R4XX core supports encoding/decoding of video in hardware is unknown

Its not known what the level of support, but r3xx supports hardware encoding/decoding, its a given r4xx will also. BoomAM is mostly correct about the current level of video acceleration with r3xx. RM and Divx fullstream is for filtering primarily rather than truely accelerating the video. MPEG-2 encoding is only exposed in the AIW cards, and then primarily for filtering(video soap) and effects (Pinnacle Transitions real time preview) rather than faster than real time encoding.

WMV acceleration is possible on r3xx, but broken and last I heard (for what thats worth) ATI is waiting on MS for a fix before it can work. You can use VMR9 instead of the overlay, which does help decode WMV HD, but it still takes tremendous CPU power. If you think MS requirements are BS for WMV HD playback, try the Scooby Doo 1080p demo and look at the statistics(WMP9) and tell me how many frames you drop. The DRM solution alone is reported ~25% of the CPU load for the play back. T-2 extreme has both 720p and 1080p files (awesome btw) and there are other WMV HD DVD's available and more coming.

Obviously, even Nvidia's Programable Video Processor isn't trivial, as it seems to not yet be working. But IIRC, it will provide a 60% hardware assist (compared to ATI's current 5 to10% with the limited Cobra engine) pretty exciting stuff if you ask me considering the features it reputably priovides. Exciting stuff for the HTPC crowd on the horizon!

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: Acanthus
Why are people complaining about power consumption and heat?

Its the price you pay to play the game.

More speed = more heat and more power consumption.

That is of course, incorrect.

Design has a lot to do with it. Why do think the Radeon 9800 series uses less power than the competing GeForce FX 5900 series?

It seems like nVidia is doing some brute force design lately, and this can't go on forever.

 

[BoomAM]

Originally posted by: flexy
you're right - but i think we assume that from the fact that implementing 3.0 would just be a too big step and definatly NOT be only a 'better' R360. Also, i remember reading some of these rumor-sites with 'specs' and some of them said they will NOT go with 3.0 - some 'sounded' quite confident in that statement. The general 'knowledge' is it wont have 3.0.

On the other hand, you are right. There are NO clear statements and for sure not from ATI itself.

Unless ATI actually say, or R42x doesnt have SM 3.0 on release, then its daft to speculate on rumors from tech sites that are basically guessing.

As for AIWGurus comment regarding performance...even without PS3.0 i have doubt that R420 will do THAT bad against NV40...who knows what they actually saw there...its a 16 pipes card with gdd3 and AT LEAST 500mhz on the core...this thing CAN not be slow hardware-wise

Even if it doesnt use SM 3.0, it`ll probably match the nV40 in most things, with the only major difference being SM 3.0 support. Ala 8500 vs GF3 and DX 8.1. And as ive said, we dont know one way or the other is r42x will support it or not.

Originally posted by: rbV5
Its not known what the level of support, but r3xx supports hardware encoding/decoding, its a given r4xx will also. BoomAM is mostly correct about the current level of video acceleration with r3xx. RM and Divx fullstream is for filtering primarily rather than truely accelerating the video. MPEG-2 encoding is only exposed in the AIW cards, and then primarily for filtering(video soap) and effects (Pinnacle Transitions real time preview) rather than faster than real time encoding.

WMV acceleration is possible on r3xx, but broken and last I heard (for what thats worth) ATI is waiting on MS for a fix before it can work. You can use VMR9 instead of the overlay, which does help decode WMV HD, but it still takes tremendous CPU power. If you think MS requirements are BS for WMV HD playback, try the Scooby Doo 1080p demo and look at the statistics(WMP9) and tell me how many frames you drop. The DRM solution alone is reported ~25% of the CPU load for the play back. T-2 extreme has both 720p and 1080p files (awesome btw) and there are other WMV HD DVD's available and more coming.

Obviously, even Nvidia's Programable Video Processor isn't trivial, as it seems to not yet be working. But IIRC, it will provide a 60% hardware assist (compared to ATI's current 5 to10% with the limited Cobra engine) pretty exciting stuff if you ask me considering the features it reputably priovides. Exciting stuff for the HTPC crowd on the horizon!

Any chance of a link to the info on this "true" hardware accelleration of video, and not just filtering. Cos ive never heard of anything but filtering outside of the AIW range, and am curious as to the details of it.

 

[XBoxLPU]

Drag, remember that the PCI Express will give 75Ws of power so R423 should be single molex connection ( maybe none ? )

 

[Regs]

Whoa, thanks for the info MagamiAKO. Very informative in deed.

 

[ectx]

Originally posted by: Regs
Whoa, thanks for the info MagamiAKO. Very informative in deed.

Agree. A pretty good history lesson. Reminds me of the good old days of debating whether or not one should go w/ Nvidia or 3DFx. Most of the current members are too young to rememeber those days.

MagamiAKO, welcome to the forum. First post!!

 

[flexy]

[slightly OT]

MagamiAKO,

its kinda funny to read all the praise about Microsoft and how they contribute to the whole tech devlopment with their DirectX.

Do you want to know something else ?

BEFORE DirectX we had most games running under DOS, *independently* from Microsoft's operating system.

I remember when DirectX was introduced how there was a debate going on - and i remember people were upset because

*) DirectX is a part of Windows

* ---> which meant that ALL 3dgames from now on WILL *require* Microsoft Windows

Microsoft did its fair share to *ensure* that even gamers need to purchase Windows, whether they like it or NOT....from that point of view DirectX also has a very negative side which some (maybe) might oversee or have forgotten

I know this debate is moot now since Windows is so mandatory its not even worth mentioning....but before someone praise Microosoft going up to heaven maybe think about this the next time you buy a game and it lists "Required: Microsoft Windows, DirectX X" on the box.

Sorry for being OT there a bit....

Edit:
You exactly got the point !!! Two cards for, one for 2D, one for 3D

Thats why i was incredible hyped when Nvidia (!) came out with the Riva128 which was everything in one chip and got fantastic reviews.
Lol i remember it like yesterday when i was sitting at home and was "dreaming" of someday getting/building my ultimate dream PC which was a P166 with a Riva128 PCI card.....when i finally had it i felt like the most elite person in the universe