6800 Review??

[DuschBaggins]

I have been visiting Tom's for at least 4 years now but this is the first time I've felt it necessary to post here. I have now read three reviews of nVidia's new flagship card and see some large discrepencies between the reviews. Specifically, Tom's seems to think the card came straight from the heavens while Anand was moderately impressed with it and HardOCP basically said it sucked.

What I find odd is that all three indicate that they used basically the same methods (apps, games, benchmark utils, underlying hardware platform, etc) to review the card. How is it possible that the results were so different?

Agree? Disagree? Am I just a bit 'off'?? It just makes me think that nVidia paid someone a bit on the side or made some deal with the devil in an attempt to revive their existence in the graphic card market.

-Dusch

 

[TheRod]

Reviews are always partially subjective.

I really liked the AnandTech conclusion that compared the <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=2023" target="_new">GeForce 6800 release</A> to the <A HREF="http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1683&p=1" target="_new">Radeon 9700 release</A>. When you compare benchmark numbers in these 2 articles, you clearly see that the nVidia leap is not that impressive, ATI made the same leap with the Radeon 9700. THG didn't step back to revisit the new-generation GPU reviews they made in the past.

On the other hand, HardOPC have a lot of complains and concerns that will mostly be corrected by drivers updates. They seemed to still think that the 6800 will be the next "FX" with lots of IQ problems. And I don't think it's the case here, because most of their complain are from FarCry.

My vote goes to AnandTech!

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Would you buy a potato powered chipset?<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by TheRod on 04/19/04 07:59 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

I really liked the AnandTech conclusion that compared the GeForce 8600 release to the...

See that proves it, Anand's in nV's back pocket, I mean they have access to a GF<b>8600</b> for review long before it's even been announced! :tongue:

I don't trust their guys when they get THAT kind of access from nV!


- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! - <font color=green>RED </font color=green> <font color=red> GREEN</font color=red> GA to SK

 

[TheRod]

Humm... I don't understand your point. I said that AnandTech was great to search in their archives to compare generation change "leap". This put in perspective the numbers we see in benchmarks.

What I concluded from this, is that THG article is telling people that this kind of improvment was never seen before, when it's not true.

- GeForce TI4600 to Radeon 9700 PRO was a BIG leap.
- Radeon 9800XT to GeForce 6800 is a BIG leap too. Not a never seen before, huge leap.

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Would you buy a potato powered chipset?

 

[hippo]

I agree with u. Even if some sites are not getting $$ from Nv, they really don’t want to get Nv pissed off. There are only 2 “real” gamers video card makers and upsetting one of the biggest isn’t a wise move. I'm not a fanboy of Nv or ATi (I use to have a GF ti200 and it's great for its generation, and now a AIW 9800pro) I just consider quality, performance & price when I thinking of buying a new card. I think HardOCP's review is more realistic. I'm most disappointed with the 6800U’s minimum frame rates. For most games it is the same as 9800xt. Given the spec of the 6800U I was hoping to get at least 5 more fps than 9800xt. Personally if my card is already running at 60 fps in some areas of the game and the 6800U can run over 100fps in the same area, it doesn’t matter to me if the 6800U can do 40fps more. I think the other reviews just avg out the frame rates. This makes 6800U appears to be some real break through product.

Now I wouldn’t say the 6800U is a bad card. I would wait until Nv to release a real driver and the retail version to make a conclusion.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Re-read, GF8600 is likely a few year off! :tongue:


- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! - <font color=green>RED </font color=green> <font color=red> GREEN</font color=red> GA to SK

 

[DuschBaggins]

I understand the point about not wanting to piss off nVidia, especially with it being basically just them and ATI in the real video card market. I guess I am bothered a bit by the clear differences in results reported by each site. It is obvious that you can choose the mean vs average, etc, to make the numbers appear better or worse based on your intention. I am curious to know why Tom's is basically the only *glowing* review that I have seen so far. What do they stand to gain here?

I do not think that the 6800 is a bad card in any right and I am sure that it would trash my 9800 Pro in FPS. And I'm sure that 8600 is going to kick some major arse... I expect to see that about the time DNF ships.

-Dusch

Athlon64 3200+
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(3) WD SATA 160G in RAID0
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[pauldh]

LOL, I caught that right away, funny one. GF8600

ABIT IS7, P4 2.6C, 512MB Corsair TwinX PC3200LL, Radeon 9800 Pro, Santa Cruz, TruePower 430watt

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Well alot of people have found THG's reviews to be overly nV-centric. I wouldn't agree, but I wouldn't disagree either (FX5600 in Buyer's Guide?!?)
Really I think they just 'GLOW' about EVERY new piece of hardware unless it's total crap. They, like us are EXCITED that there's new stuff, and really it is better than the old stuff (by what factor I don't care and won't guess). I respect LARS' reviews as being throrough, even if I don't always agree with the observations or conclusions.
I think in general you have to be happy, NEW GEAR, but maybe some sites are simply sceptical or hedging their bets in anticipation of the R42X. Some like myself may be a little cynical, since we've been waiting for so long for these cards, some may have expected somewhat more mythical numbers out of the cards. And if the original NV40 and R400 were supposed to be better than these refreshes at the toop of the hill, then the extra wait for these version 1.1.b cards (NV40/R420) doesn't impress.

I really can't speak to their motives, it's just guesses on my part, but basically, I'm not really caring what people 'SAY' right now, just the features and differences I can learn from the variety of reviews out there. In fact there are so many reviews out there that a good reader should always be able to discount any bias (or something missed) by any reviewer. Just give them the weight based on your review of the review, and decide what you are going to discount. I usually discount about 70+% of Annand or Rage3D's reviews. But sometimes they do expose info that no one else has pointed to, like unpopular/unique benchies or focuses, or even rig features.


- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! - <font color=green>RED </font color=green> <font color=red> GREEN</font color=red> GA to SK

 

[Vimp]

Personnally I have a liking towardss The Tech Report's reviews. They seem to really know what their talking about and at the same time manage to be down to earth when it comes to getting their info to be easily comprehended by people alot less technically minded. They even mention in their review that they did at least 2 runs per test and averaging the two together to insure the results were more acurate in terms of showing consistent results. For all we know the other review sites only did a once over per test and thus got results that wouldn't neccesarily be a good representation of what to expect.

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[TheRod]

Duh! I completly missed it! Thanks, I corrected my post!

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Would you buy a potato powered chipset?

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

No problemo, mistakes like that are just fun. Like when people ask/talk about the R98000PRO, etc.

We all knew what you were talking about, but it's nice to inject some humour in all this every once in a while. Especially with so little info really out there yet.


- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! - <font color=green>RED </font color=green> <font color=red> GREEN</font color=red> GA to SK

 

[TheRod]

... it's nice to inject some humour in all this every once in a while.

I totally agree with you, it's why I like Kinney!

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