R520 Benchies at HA

[ZobarStyl]

Sander Sassen has put up a new article on R520 after apparently being snubbed by ATi. The numbers don't look too promising, but aren't a huge disappointment. Check it out.

 

[sheElf]

that is some introduction HA has. haha.

 

[ayabe]

Wow, this tech is garbage, I thought that extra 256mb of VRAM would help with the higher resolutions, but it appears it's necessary just to compete at the higher rez's with the GTX.

Again, how can ATI release the cards at the same MSRP at the GTX(even though the XT's and probably the XL's will be over MSRP on release) when they in most situations they offer barely par performance.

 

[compgeek89]

Actually, considering we waited 5-6months theyre a huge disappointment.

 

[BW86]

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=27&threadid=1690342&enterthread=y

 

[VIAN]

it's in general, doesn't matter.


Anyway it's a diappointment.

 

[MBrown]

What? How do they possibly plan to sell it at that price when it gets beat the the gtx that you can get for $460? It looks like nVidia won this. No wonder they cancelled the ultra card

 

[Richdog]

Complete and utter dissappointment from ATI... what were they thinking...

Nvidia won this round...

 

[compgeek89]

Im UB3R glad I bought my GTX 2 weeks ago

 

[sheElf]

Well it looks like it would take few more months before nvidia will cut the prices of their top-end cards.

 

[nemesismk2]

Originally posted by: Richdog
Complete and utter dissappointment from ATI... what were they thinking...

Nvidia won this round...

After reading the negative stuff in that review I have my doubts about the results. HA seem to have a problem with ATI so I would wait until Anandtech release a review for a fair review.

 

[compgeek89]

Originally posted by: sheElf
Well it looks like it would take few more months before nvidia will cut the prices of their top-end cards.

Theyre already as cheap as the 6xx series was in February-March.

Gee Qiz, how much do hey have to drop? WHen I was building in Dec of last year a 6800 GT in PCIe was $400 MINIMUM

 

[orwell84]

People seemed to expect the 1800 series to be a better performing card for the same money. I just don't think this happens in the hardware world. I'm not surprised the cards are neck and neck. It always seems to turn out this way.

NV has been beating ATI in terms of price and availability, but I never expected a clear performance winner. And I'm not concerned bya few lower fps from the ATI cards. I think better drivers will close the gap.

I think the info is reassuring to fans of both cards actually. Those who bought the 7800GTX won't feel bad for taking the plunge. Those who waited for an ATI card will eventually be able to get one. They I'm sure are both amazing cards. The real snag for ATI will be getting enough units to market to compete with the GTX. This has been my problem with ATI. I waited forever for the x800xt (nonPE) edition to reach MSRP and put off buying a 6800GT. I lost patience with the way ATI was handling the release of the r520 and circumstances were such I couldn't put off building my rig any longer.

Just to let you know where I am coming from, I have a preference for ATI, but took the plunge and bought a 7800GTX. I feel better about having done so after looking at these benches.

 

[vision33r]

It looks like ATI got their ass handed again. It looks like the new cards are only competitive against the 6800 series.

The drivers are RC, they are pretty much production quality. I expect a jump of 20% in performance when they mature somewhat but not gonna be more than 50% leap, whoever thinks that better drivers would do is just a "fool's hope" The 7800 series performance was evident even with beta drivers.

There's no question, the R520 is a dissappointment while the fanboys now will chant the "R580 will rock."

 

[mindgam3]

Originally posted by: vision33r
It looks like ATI got their ass handed again. It looks like the new cards are only competitive against the 6800 series.

The drivers are RC, they are pretty much production quality. I expect a jump of 20% in performance when they mature somewhat but not gonna be more than 50% leap, whoever thinks that better drivers would do is just a "fool's hope" The 7800 series performance was evident even with beta drivers.

There's no question, the R520 is a dissappointment while the fanboys now will chant the "R580 will rock."

Only competitive against the 6800 series? Are you on crack it actually beats the GTX in a few of the benchmarks and always beats the 6800 except on a few of the SLI tests... And why do you have to bring fanboy crap into the post .

 

[compgeek89]

And Ill chant G80 after this matchup.

nVidia has 32pp/800/1400 lined up for the g80

what about that r580?

 

[HDTVMan]

Last I heard the R580 taped out the first time around but you would have thought they would scrap the R520 if that were true.

Bummer on the R520 and the Pricing well lets just say I am glad I dont own any stock in ATI for the next couple quarters.

 

[Soccerman06]

The 7800GTX has not been around for 6 months. Why do people keep saying it has, when it was released to the market on June 22 (or atleast reviewed by AT). I would hope after 3 months of driver updates, the X1800XT could do a better.

Would I be wrong to say that the 7800GTX released at the same price (msrp)? hhhhm lets thing about that, it took basically 2 months to drop the average price around $500, ATI should lower the price of the cards about the same in 1 month if they want to make any money this round.

Wow, this tech is garbage, I thought that extra 256mb of VRAM would help with the higher resolutions, but it appears it's necessary just to compete at the higher rez's with the GTX.

Since when does the amount of VRAM have anything to do with performance (on the high end)? The 9800pro 128 and 256 performed basically the same with their gen of games. The X800Xl 512 was just as fast (barely faster sometimes) as the 256 version and the same thing can be said about the 6800Ultra 512. The only game that can currently take advantage of 512mb of video memory is F.E.A.R. and only on high settings.

And how many 512mb 7800GTX are in production and buyable right now? Thats right, none.

Edit: But yes I am dissapointed by the performance of the card. I was not expecting a huge improvement over anything except being competative to the 7800GTX. The thing that did amaze me was the performance of the X1800XT in Doom3, its almost 40% faster in every bench. I was very disapointed at the HL2 benchy though, the X850XT PE almost beats the X1800XT and is actually faster than the X1800pro

 

[Munky]

Nice find, I can see a few interesting implications of this atricle:

1) Seems like Nv is still the best at what it did best with the gf6, and Ati is still good with what it was good at with the x850. I mean Ati was better at Farcry last gen, and it still holds true this gen. Nv was always better at D3, and things havent changed much. This implies that neither the g70 not the r520 are much different from their predecessors.

2) Look at the D3 benchmark - why are the fps so low for all the cards? Compare this to some benches from other sites, for example at Techreport the x850 gets over 100fps in D3 at 10x7 4x8x. What would cause it to only get 30fps in this case? I'd think a 9800p could get 30fps in D3 at 10x7.

3) As the resolution increases the r520 tends to do worse than the g70, which I would expect with a lower fillrate. But, it still manages to outperform the g70 in some benches, which means something else must be affecting performance. It's possible that the r520 was optimised for heavy shaders, and when a game uses enough complex shaders the r520 performs better, so I'd speculate that in shader-heavy modern games, maybe FEAR for example, the r520 may do better than the g70.

4) As usual, these benches are only a small preview, and cant be confirmed either, so I'll wait until some official benches are published before making a final judgement.

 

[compgeek89]

But the X1800 even gets beat in HL2 at 1600x1200

 

[ayabe]

Originally posted by: Soccerman06
The 7800GTX has not been around for 6 months. Why do people keep saying it has, when it was released to the market on June 22 (or atleast reviewed by AT). I would hope after 3 months of driver updates, the X1800XT could do a better.

Would I be wrong to say that the 7800GTX released at the same price (msrp)? hhhhm lets thing about that, it took basically 2 months to drop the average price around $500, ATI should lower the price of the cards about the same in 1 month if they want to make any money this round.

Wow, this tech is garbage, I thought that extra 256mb of VRAM would help with the higher resolutions, but it appears it's necessary just to compete at the higher rez's with the GTX.

Since when does the amount of VRAM have anything to do with performance (on the high end)? The 9800pro 128 and 256 performed basically the same with their gen of games. The X800Xl 512 was just as fast (barely faster sometimes) as the 256 version and the same thing can be said about the 6800Ultra 512. The only game that can currently take advantage of 512mb of video memory is F.E.A.R. and only on high settings.

And how many 512mb 7800GTX are in production and buyable right now? Thats right, none.

Extra VRAM is only for higher resolutions, that's always been the argument. Don't talk to me about the 9800 or the X800XL, those cards were given extra RAM as a marketing tool, which it appears ATI is doing here. I bet the XT would be getting trounced even more at 1600x1200 if it didn't have the extra 256. If you are touting it as useless, then why are you so proud that ATI is producing 512mb cards?

Don't refute your own arguments in the future.

Edit - Also, how many 1800XT's are in production are buyable right now?

Production - probably not many if the yields are as bad as they are rumored to be
Buyable - ZERO

 

[trinibwoy]

Originally posted by: Soccerman06[/i I would hope after 3 months of driver updates, the X1800XT could do a better.

ATi has had R520 hardware for a long time now. Nvidia also had NV47 hardware for a long time before release. The 7800's performance didn't improve much since release. Unless the R520 architecture is very tricky to optimize, I don't see massive performance jumps coming - they've had a long time to work out the kinks.

 

[gsellis]

Hmmm.. I looked at those with the RC drivers and saw that if I penciled in 6800GT and 800XT, it looked like the same graphs. Wow, more of the same old same old. Whodathunk!?!

Prediction... The X1800 prices will stay high for 1 mth and then drop to match nVidia. Why 1 month? Some fanboys just gotta have it and will pay for it. Get their cash and drop the price...

 

[VIAN]

I wouldn't call it a round won yet. It's not over.

First we need to see what kind of image quality and features ATI offers. Then we need to see what the final price is, they may change it. And finally, we need to see if there are any performance enhancements from new drivers that could flip the tables. Nvidia has won this battle, but the war is far from over.

 

[jiffylube1024]

We still need a better, more reliable source for these results (ie. an Anandtech review, among others), results over 1600X1200, etc.

However, with regards to these preliminary results: my socks are still on. They certainly aren't blowing anybody away at anything.