RV670 to beat R600

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: Xolair
By the way, would my Nexus NX-3500 power source give enough juice for the Pro, if its TDP is ''only'' 104w? My PSU only has 16A on the 12V rail though... :roll:

Probably not ,unless you aren't planning on having a cpu, or fans, or a hard drive. 104 watts is 8 2/3 amps, all by itself, and according to Silent PC Review, your psu has a maximum +12v output of 156 watts, which is 13A. I highly doubt the rest of your system would be capable of only having 4.33 amps of 12v power.

Originally posted by: bsix
I am really not a fan of SLI type of systems, but with an X38 and under $200 price it just may make some sense.

They're available now, for $265. But I agree, at $199, Crossfire would actually not be a bad idea.

 

[bryanW1995]

I'll be impressed if 2950 pro outperforms 2900xt. Realistically, similar performance is a best case scenario. 2950 pro could be similar to 2900 pro in performance but still be a much better card with the improved thermals.

 

[bryanW1995]

Originally posted by: Xolair
By the way, would my Nexus NX-3500 power source give enough juice for the Pro, if its TDP is ''only'' 104w? My PSU only has 16A on the 12V rail though... :roll:

you need to buy my old agp geforce 2 gts with the plastic heatsink

 

[Matt2]

It'll be interesting to see where the GPU hits the 256bit wall and if 512bit is really necessary or even helpful.

 

[Xolair]

Originally posted by: myocardia

Originally posted by: Xolair
By the way, would my Nexus NX-3500 power source give enough juice for the Pro, if its TDP is ''only'' 104w? My PSU only has 16A on the 12V rail though... :roll:

Probably not ,unless you aren't planning on having a cpu, or fans, or a hard drive. 104 watts is 8 2/3 amps, all by itself, and according to Silent PC Review, your psu has a maximum +12v output of 156 watts, which is 13A. I highly doubt the rest of your system would be capable of only having 4.33 amps of 12v power.

Well, I have a Intel Core 2 E4300 @ stock, 2gb DDR2 667mhz, one HDD, and no external fans except for PSU, and GPU (Zalman VF-900), I think. Still not ''low'' enough?

 

[hans007]

Originally posted by: Xolair

Originally posted by: myocardia

Originally posted by: Xolair
By the way, would my Nexus NX-3500 power source give enough juice for the Pro, if its TDP is ''only'' 104w? My PSU only has 16A on the 12V rail though... :roll:

Probably not ,unless you aren't planning on having a cpu, or fans, or a hard drive. 104 watts is 8 2/3 amps, all by itself, and according to Silent PC Review, your psu has a maximum +12v output of 156 watts, which is 13A. I highly doubt the rest of your system would be capable of only having 4.33 amps of 12v power.

Well, I have a Intel Core 2 E4300 @ stock, 2gb DDR2 667mhz, one HDD, and no external fans except for PSU, and GPU (Zalman VF-900), I think. Still not ''low'' enough?

16amps is pretty bad...


you need an atx 2.01 compliant supply and i think you'd be fine. even new 250 watt psus have 22amps on 12v+.

 

[Canterwood]

The lower power requirements and less heat are an absolute must for me, so thats a good start.

Glad to see ATI finally getting their act together.

DX10.1 is a plus, but I'd like to see if its actually any good with DX10 gaming.

 

[Creig]

To me, having a single-slot cooler on a high-end video card is a step backwards, not forwards.

First of all, a lower-profile heatsink has less surface area to dissipate heat than a dual-slot heatsink would have so the core is going to end up running hotter. That's strike one.

Secondly, the lower-profile fan on the single-slot cooler is going to have to spin faster in order to move the same amount of air that a taller dual-slot fan can put out. And the faster a fan spins, the more noise it makes. That's strike two.

Thirdly (and most importantly in my book), a single-slot HSF simply dumps all the heat from the GPU, power regulators and memory back into the case. So now every component in your case is sucking in warmer air, including the video card which takes this warmer air and spews out even WARMER air. That's strike three.

A dual-slot cooler dumps almost all of the video card's waste heat to the outside of your case. In fact, a good dual-slot cooler can possible even lower overall case temps if the case didn't have very good airflow to begin with. By pumping air outside the case it ends up drawing cooler air into the case from outside.

There aren't too many situations these days where you would NEED a single-slot cooler. I realize some HTPC owners would disagree, but the majority of those aren't looking for powerhouse cards anyhow. And even HTPC systems these days seem to have enough room for dual-slot cards.

 

[Munky]

I believe the slower version of the rv670 will be single slot, while the faster version will be dual slot. But I agree, a dual slot cooler is more effective at removing heat, lowering noise and offers more headroom for overclocking.

 

[spittledip]

Yeah I was disappointed to hear that it would be single slot myself as I like the hot air outside my case...

 

[betasub]

Originally posted by: Creig
Thirdly (and most importantly in my book), a single-slot HSF simply dumps all the heat from the GPU, power regulators and memory back into the case. So now every component in your case is sucking in warmer air, including the video card which takes this warmer air and spews out even WARMER air. That's strike three.

Fans at strike three? LOL, that's strike-OUT!

 

[bryanW1995]

craig has good points. I think that it will be nice to have the option, kind of like I did with 1950 pro vs 1950 xt. I went with the xt b/c the performance reviews were so much better, but mATX users could often benefit from the single slot design so they'll be able to have decent performance without cramming everything into their cases like sardines. Everybody wins

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: bryanW1995
craig has good points. I think that it will be nice to have the option, kind of like I did with 1950 pro vs 1950 xt. I went with the xt b/c the performance reviews were so much better, but mATX users could often benefit from the single slot design so they'll be able to have decent performance without cramming everything into their cases like sardines. Everybody wins

well there are always after-market solutions to fit every need
- and the AMD partners probably still monitor our threads ... so just hang on awhile ... it only took a year to resurrect AGP ... they are responding to the consumer a bit faster now
-except with after-market drivers

 

[ronnn]

Originally posted by: bryanW1995
I'll be impressed if 2950 pro outperforms 2900xt. Realistically, similar performance is a best case scenario. 2950 pro could be similar to 2900 pro in performance but still be a much better card with the improved thermals.

I basically agree, but I often wonder if something is broken with the r600. So many respins and so forth.

 

[NullSubroutine]

R600

2900 XT 80nm 512bit memory bus
Core Clock 750 - 825Mhz
GDDR4 - 1GB
GDDR3 - 512MB

2900 Pro 80nm 512bit memory bus
Core Clock 600mhz
GDDR4 - 1GB
GDDR3 - 512MB

RV670 55nm 256bit memory bus

Core Clock 600-825mhz (rumor)
GDDR4 - 512MB
GDDR3 - 512/256MB

R670 55nm
two RV670 chips on single PCB
likely dual slot cooler (rumored pics)

In theory the RV670 core could clock 850mhz plus with their 55nm archietechture due to many 2900XTs being able to reach those speeds with adequate cooling. And the 55nm drops power more than 50% (if you do the math on the HD 2600XT specs).

 

[evolucion8]

Originally posted by: Matt2
It'll be interesting to see where the GPU hits the 256bit wall and if 512bit is really necessary or even helpful.

Yeah, It would be quite interesting, but the R600 architecture is a bit far from being Bandwidth bottlenecked, it doesn't have enough ROP's for hitting that wall, and even worse that the current R600 doesn't have Hardware Anti Aliasing working. If it works now, then there's another story.

 

[evolucion8]

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: Aznguy1872
I can't believe they busted out DX 10.1 when there aren't that many DX 10 games out yet. For those of us that got DX 10 cards, that just sucks ass for us. So angry!

why? ... it's gonna be a couple of years before it is really used - Devs are starting to play with it now - sure it'll be patched into some game ... but by the time it is needed, your current card will be slow ... really slow
[well, maybe like x800 series and SM3.0 .... do they care anymore?]

Did you not want them to go past DX8 or .. DX9b?

Yeah, but the X8X0XT/PE can run Bioshock with highest quality using the Asankel fix and it's a SM3.0 game. Probably the story would repeat again, having the horsepower but not having the feature supported, or half supported.

 

[Creig]

Originally posted by: evolucion8

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: Aznguy1872
I can't believe they busted out DX 10.1 when there aren't that many DX 10 games out yet. For those of us that got DX 10 cards, that just sucks ass for us. So angry!

why? ... it's gonna be a couple of years before it is really used - Devs are starting to play with it now - sure it'll be patched into some game ... but by the time it is needed, your current card will be slow ... really slow
[well, maybe like x800 series and SM3.0 .... do they care anymore?]

Did you not want them to go past DX8 or .. DX9b?

Yeah, but the X8X0XT/PE can run Bioshock with highest quality using the Asankel fix and it's a SM3.0 card. Probably the story would repeat again, having the horsepower but not having the feature supported, or half supported.

The X700/X800 series cards are SM2.0b, not SM3.0. But it appears a patch other than the Asankel fix is out there that allows SM2.0b cards to run Bioshock with near SM3.0 appearance (smoke, distortion, etc).

ShaderShock forum

 

[Dribble]

Originally posted by: Aznguy1872
I can't believe they busted out DX 10.1 when there aren't that many DX 10 games out yet. For those of us that got DX 10 cards, that just sucks ass for us. So angry!

DX10.1 means 64 bit calculations I think - not used in graphics but a key feature if you want to use the cards to do other things (e.g. super computing).

 

[evolucion8]

Originally posted by: Creig

Originally posted by: evolucion8

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: Aznguy1872
I can't believe they busted out DX 10.1 when there aren't that many DX 10 games out yet. For those of us that got DX 10 cards, that just sucks ass for us. So angry!

why? ... it's gonna be a couple of years before it is really used - Devs are starting to play with it now - sure it'll be patched into some game ... but by the time it is needed, your current card will be slow ... really slow
[well, maybe like x800 series and SM3.0 .... do they care anymore?]

Did you not want them to go past DX8 or .. DX9b?

Yeah, but the X8X0XT/PE can run Bioshock with highest quality using the Asankel fix and it's a SM3.0 card. Probably the story would repeat again, having the horsepower but not having the feature supported, or half supported.

The X700/X800 series cards are SM2.0b, not SM3.0. But it appears a patch other than the Asankel fix is out there that allows SM2.0b cards to run Bioshock with near SM3.0 appearance (smoke, distortion, etc).

ShaderShock forum

Oops, sorry, that was a typo about the SM 3.0 card, I mean the game, not the card. The Asankel Fix and AOH Fix compiles the shaders to fit 2.0b target in the game. Most effects fit with no problem, the banding issue is related to the HDR thing that when is not in use cause is not supported, it causes banding, like it happened on Rainbow Six Las Vegas, activating HDR cleaned up the image of banding issues.

After all like I said thousands of times, Pixel Shader 2.0b is just Pixel Shader 3.0 without dynamic branching since both have the same native 512 instructions slots in hardware, while Dynamic Branching allows pretty much unlimited instructions in SM3.0 (FP16 HDR is not a Pixel Shader feature and neither True Displacement Mapping). There's a fix somewhere to play it on 2.0 cards but it's a pain in the *** for the developer since quite a lot of shaders can't fit in the SM2.0 tarjet due to the number of instructions limitation.

 

[apoppin]

so ... now that we have the technical corrections out of the way ...


Did you not want them to go past DX8 or .. DX9b? ... or just stop with DX9c?

 

[evolucion8]

It would be great if DX9C stayed a little longer until a wall is hitted (maxed out), this is starting to look like in the 90's were each 6 months a new DX was released. DX9.0b was a nice addition to boost the artificial limitations of the original DX9, it was the first DX9 that provided very cinematic looking games like Far Cry. Original DX9 games looked nice, but not that great like Tomb Raider AOD. DX9.0c games now looks like CG Graphics which is very nice.