Nvidia vs. AMD (ATI) Who is playing catch-up?

I'll start with my opinion.

Looks to me that both are neck-and-neck right now. My reasoning is that since AMD released the 5xxx series first with support for Tess/DX11/etc, Nvidia fired right back with their DX11 counterparts which performed a little better (Keeping in mind the power/heat concerns with the GTX 470/480).

That being said, it looks to me that AMD (ATI) has come a long way since their 3xxx series and have un-stilled Nvidia's waters and while AMD was ahead in releasing Tess/DX11/etc, Nvidia is still the performance king in comparison (single GPU cards)

Personally i am all for it, price drops are finally happening on a large scale since AMD released the 68x0 cards and the consumers are pleased.

Looking forward to GTX 5xx series release.

gtx 470 - 529mm2 salvage part
6870 - 255mm2 full part

gtx 460 1gb - 368mm2 full part
6850 - 255mm2 salvage part

You can see AMD has a huge lead on die size and power draw at the same performance level. Considering how godawful bad the 480 and 470 were, the 460 is almost like a miracle for Nvidia.

It's not close but it could have been a lot worse.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

True, but i suspect that Nvidia is going to just answer back with 5xx series which will be a stretch better than 470/480 in terms of power/heat as well as being slightly better than the 6xxx flagships...

OK, 20 minutes and 9 posts into it and already it's a heated discussion. PLEASE stop attacking one-another and flame-warring. I will get this thread closed if it proceeds.

Also, i am not dissing Nvidia for re-branding, if anything, it was ATI's fault that Nvidia was allowed to do this but they finally got it together and crept up on Nvidia's door with the 4xxx series and Nvidia was slow to recognize this.

I would have rebranded as much as i could and raked in the $$$ if i was in the same position as Nvidia at the time.

I'm going to have to ask for a source. AMD had 42% of the market back in May, I doubt they've lost much if any, especially since you won't be seeing Fermis in many OEM builds.

Well that will depend a lot on the 69xx cards, don't you think? We also haven't heard anything about the 5xx series except names. I think that is pretty up in the air.

As for who is playing catch-up, its a complicated answer.

In the retail market, they seem to be pretty close. The GTX 480 and 5970 are still unmatched respectively, the GTX 460 is still competitive against the 6850, the GTX 470 is still a great card for the money alongside the 6870, and the GTS 450 isn't a terrible card if your on a budget. Also, nVidia still has the full G104 to unleash, the GTX 460 IS a cut-down part. Though I think ATI has an edge, I would still say that they are close.

In the OEM market, I would say ATI has an advantage. Honestly, the only thing that I believe will keep nVidia afloat in the OEM market is their amount of sway with the Manufacturers. However, AMD has much more sway in the graphics world than the processor world, and they are probably getting more and more friendly with manufacturers. That said, if the OEMs want more performance than a GTS 450, then they are basically stuck with AMD since even the GTX 460 uses a lot of power by OEM standards.

Not really, how many OEM machine users boot up GPUz? Steam is also a pretty hardcore gamer application.

This is a very good point.

Here is a survey from July:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video [...] Chips.html

It accounts for those who do not game.

Basically it is the same as when nvidia had the entire market to themselves with the 88xx. The difference now is time, it will take time but unless all those 88xx owners replace them with nvidia the market will swing back to ATI in a big way.

Market share as recorded by likes of steam will always lag behind the real world as it only shows a snapshot as it is now. If those people upgrade to ATI it will be another few years before people probably upgrade again. Hell probably will require a new console for it to happen is the state of things.

As it stands now, when the dx10 cards are upgraded, nvidia will lose out.

Well, I would say the main problem with the 2xxx wasn't just nvidia failings and consequent bargaining with microsoft, it was that ATI were in cloud cuckoo land if they thought games were going to adopt dx10 instead of continuing as they were.

Nvidia could have made the same mistake by designing their chip for a market that is a few years away.

I think i have to agree with AMW & the stranger, looks like Nvidia, with GPGPU, is following the same path that ATI did circa 2xxx/DX10. If that is indeed what you were both saying.

Though, i do hope it doesn't lead to Nvidia falling behind, that could be good for AMD but bad for Nvidia+consumer

thanks for confirming what i just stated above

Nvidia still has a 3:2 lead in the dedicated video card market, its been obvious they are chasing ATI since the launch of the 5xxx series

It doesnt matter who is beating who, or who is "winning".. People buy into the band wagon at no cost.

If someone wants a nVidia then no matter what AMD offers, it terms of performance, power, looks.. etc people stick to what they know..
To be fair, when building computers or reading peoples requests, heat and power are usually the last talking point.. Fact is, who cares if Nvidia make a card which runs at 2000oC?? They have obviously designed the card for them temperatures...

Fact is, in my opinion, my GTX470's from Nvidia are perfect for my system.. So what if AMD 5990 (5890, 5980?? Not sure on the AMD version of a GTX470/480) Is drawing alot less power and has a lower operating temperature? People buy in what they believe in and experiance is key..

Same in any situation, you bought cars from Ford all your driving life, and the service has been exellent, why move to Vauxhall, its taking a risk most people dont like jumping.

I moved from AMD CPU's to Intels, glad i did, but still adiment that AMD are still better in terms of previous support, performance, stability, and general good'ness..

On the contrary my friend, I have talked MANY Nvidia "fanboys" into getting an AMD (ATI) video card. And i didn't even preach one side or the other, i simply introduced them to the 58x0 line of video cards and they changed their minds almost instantly, well, except for one of them, i had to pull a couple of his teeth out but let's keep that on the lo-lo. Once Nvidia came out with the GTX 460 1GB cards, i then flipped a couple of those same people to get 2 x GTX 460 1GB's for SLI.

I think you'll see that price/performance has a much bigger threshold over fanboy-ism these days, thanks in part to today's economy and AMD offering great products.

Not to say that Nvidia isn't offering great products, because they certainly are, in fact, it's kinda been the norm for them for quite some time... For AMD (ATI), it's only recently been around since 4xxx...

OK baby you are right so when he stated "If you look at the steam survey and at dx11 which will tell us about what is selling now, nvidia gets stomped. " he was completely wrong. Nvidia is stomping AMD with DX 11, you are completely correct on that

You said that it confirmed that nVidia has greater marketshare by 3:2 to AMD. What you quoted and what you just said have little to do with that, unless you are refering to the part where nVidia has been trailing ATI since the 5xxx series launch, which is true. However, it seemed like you were referring to both. I didn't know if it had another statistic that supported your first point or not, that is all. No reason to be some defensive.

Nvidia drivers are just as bad as ATI's and that's a plain fact. You can read nzone or nvidia's own forums after a driver release and all you'll see is whining about something being broken that wasn't before.

The reason you see more with ATI is ATI releases 3x faster drivers.

Look at what ATI has done with drivers this series already - MLAA is a software addition that will let any AMD dx11 card get almost free AA.

You wanna play SC2 on max details with AA? It's now possible because of ATI's driver team. As was Eyefinity a year before Nvidia caught up.

The problems with nVidias approach currently are many fold
Going large di, theyre hitting the dreaded acceptable TDP at most price/perf levels, not just halo/highend
Like was mentioned earlier, the OEMs have a certain TDP in mind, and going from huge to small, all the while trying to stay within price/perf and TDP is playing h2!! on nVidia now, besides the point that the lower ends will dry up with the igps on board with cpus coming soon.
Also, eventually, Intel is going to enter into the gpgpu arena, with all its resources, and previous findings on LRB type products show itll fare extremely well in this field
This will have huge impacts on nVidia, where both AMD and Intel retain there lower ends of gfx, with nVidia shut out
Theyve also lost their chips, where again, not so for AMD/Intel

This release shows what can happen, as it seems nodes are slowing somewhat, coming to market, as gpus catch up to cpus, or, the cutting edge, and is why 40nm has been such a pain, and going smaller also requires HKMG, again, another delay in nodes
Now, this means nVidia, which has such large di cant just respin and go without a node shrink, as those TDP levels, as well as immense complexity brings even more complications, and allows a leaner, full, power efficient design to do a respin easily, as seen with the 6xxx series
nVidia has to make some tough choices ahead

Im just wondering , and its a serious question. How much do you guys actually pay for a kWh? Because the way i see it for the difference between gtx480 and 5870 for 4 hours a day 100% load (unlikely) 365 days a year I would pay around 20$. In reality maybe half of that since while 4 hours a day isnt uncommon for my pc to be turned on, it really doesnt work full load all that time. SO while I understand the issue of noise made by hot nvidia cards, I fail to see why people are so obsessed with energy usage.

From ecology point of view it also doesnt make that much sense - if you care about environment, then driving 50km in a city emits more CO2 then fermi through a whole year. Take a bus once or twice to work and you are already ahead in those terms :0

Its not that simple
Can you use the same components using both cards?
PSUs?
The radiant heat is still released into your case, even tho the majority is pushed out the back, therefor raising temps thruout your rig
It does add up
And Im not doing wattage used per costs, but it too adds up

Well every card now of days if it has any umph makes your computer into a space heater under load. About the per/kWh might mean something to a person who does a lot of folding but that's s small segment of buyers.

please let AMD card could work under window mode without black for FFXIV.

Every game company tests their game under nvida card but not AMD which causes nVdia card has less problem. make sense?

So despite being happy with a brand of CPU you used and trusted you switched because someone else was offering a better product and you are glad you did... which is the exact opposite of what you are saying other people will do with regard to video cards... makes sense.