R600: Finally DX10 Hardware from ATI - Page 3

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Good links Grape.

I am working on coming up with some ways to test the shader horsepower. NV's G80 seems to be PS lopsided while it also has some serious texture horsepower. Based on some simple calcs, NV should not be able to fulfill uncompressed texture fill needs.

Mem B/W (MB/s)

8800 GTX 86,400
8800 GTS 64,000
2900 XT 105,600

Core clock (MHz)

8800 GTX 575
8800 GTS 500
2900 XT 742

Tex units

8800 GTX 32
8800 GTS 24
2900 XT 16

Tex fetch rate (Gtex/s)

8800 GTX 10.80
8800 GTS 8.00
2900 XT 11.87

One person at NV said I was correct while another said I was wrong... the person that said I was wrong has yet to tell me why... still waiting. Granted this calc does not take into effect compression but with HDR that is not a huge thing. There is a lot more to test and quite frankly, Nvidia does not like sharing how it does things. They believe there is no point in giving any detailed information out. They feel it is just like handing ATI and Intel their technology.

The stuff from http://www.ixbt.com/video3/r600-part2.shtml is just another confirmation of it.

It will only be a matter of time until we have some fully functioning DX10 titles. I have a CoJ demo but it does not always work. That being said, I was told of another title coming soon that we should be getting shortly.

It will be interesting to see how we it will do on G80 and R600.

Hehehe, glad you listened to me now aren't you?

You are right Dean, that was not very nice, edited my post.

ummm... actually, the 320mb's are going for $310 or so.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814122022
$269.99 after MIR.

Holy Tamales!!! Thanks for straightening that out.

Well I am gonna skip this generation of video cards from both ATI and Nvidia. The current DX9 video cards perform well and are cheap. There are no DX10 games out there. In a year the DX10 games should be out in full force and Vista should/will hopefully have all of the bugs worked out of it.

By then (in a year) the 8800 and R600 will be old technology and the next generation cards will be coming out. I can't wait!!!!! 8O


Just my opinion......

Haha you have a real way with people, Track.

Yeh, and they always flame me for it.

If they only knew what i know..

And to add to that claim, i will admit i only looked at one benchmark to come to the conclusion that the alphas dont suck.. but hey i may still be right.

omfg finally an article on hardware

Well said, everyone should "listen" up.


Now my .02 for those who don't understand - or don't want to know - economics and reasoning behind prices. And also for those fan b0is who can't take the praise and smiles behind what they bought to see light in something else. Some people either have too much pride in what they bought, or are too stubborned to to see things unbiased.

What everyone doesn't seem to understand is that in order to make money, a price point at which to sell a certain product is to be made at launch. Some are willing to pay that premium for a product regardless of the slight difference in performance than a cheaper counterpart. Why? Because it's a new product with new features.

Will the price stay at the same price point? NO! It will gradually decrease as demand by those who initially were willing to pay the premium goes down. Then after this occurs, the pricing battles will begin and there you go...the GTS (the competition) is suddenly a closer price/performance to compare to. Why would a company that knows it will sell many cards lower their price just because the competition was out for a few months early, with now reduced prices, if the performance isn't terribly worse?

Would one expect a new model BMW come out at a lower price point because their competition has been on the market for a year (which is now given as a clearance at dealers to make room for new cars or priced to compete with competition's new offerings) with the same performance? NO!

Maybe cars aren't good for analogies, but the picture should still be understood. Everyone needs to stop complaining about the price being too high when in fact it's at a good spot to begin with. If one would rather have that 8800GTS 320MB for $260 so be it; Some people would rather pay double for an 8800GTX which is only faster, not wipe the floor clean faster.

After both fall gradually close to each other's price points, which will then look like the better buy? Both have about the same performance (at least from initial launch reviews for the moment), both are DX10 capable, but the ATI card has theoretically better technology introduced with it.

I, for one, will wait. I will wait for both updated drivers, as well as the next offerings from both nVidia and DAAMIT. I like to keep an open mind, as should every true enthusiast.


PS: Great review for the Tom's staff. Great product from DAAMIT. Great alternatives from nVidia which already carved it's performance in stone.

Disclaimer: please don't take this post in any way, shape, or form as an intentional inflammatory statement directed towards any individual on this forum.

Um, the article says that was due to a hardware failure during testing--could that be why?

I find it interesting point 6 & 7 involving multi-pass to the stream output instead of single pass which relies on the higher speed that it enjoys instead of greater complexity, and the point 7 specifically stating to favour the vertex shader. It makes me want to revist the VS/GS relationship in the two architectures.

This could offer some insight into previous statements on the G80's GS; some interesting work arounds in there with the tetrahedra. Gonna have to unhook the linear headspace for that.

GREAT, now more interestng reading in addition to all the benchies!

Well I think technology wise it was meant to compete with it, so it's a fair comparison from that perspective (surely AMD would prefer to have an ultra-high end offering to maximize their return on investment in R&D) so the engineers were aiiming to get something to market that beat the G80.
But for whatever reasons (80nm leakage, GDDR4 issues or just plain miscalculation of the combatants and the playing field) it's a little short, so it was retargeted.

From a price/performance perspective it's obvious that the GTS is now the marketing target, and they hope to push enough through to recoup some of their costs and at least have a revenue stream.

Right now it's looking like it could turn out to be a good value for the money shortly, but it's still got a ways to go to compete at it's current MSRP versus the discounted GTSs which may be selling for more at someplace like BestBuy or CompUSA or such, but on NewEgg the GTS-320 and 640 are still very attractive.

However things have only begun to get interesting.

Meh! It's worth it's price. Still their drivers are premature so maybe will see some good numbers with the right Catalysts.

132, 158, 192 fps....meh, it's all above a critical minimum so fine. A few frames here, a few frames there.....whatever. More importantly, NV and ATI can compete now. Good for us consumers!

I'm more curious about the heat on this sucker. I shudder when I think of my old X1900XT and the heat that baby put out. OUCH. So, how hot does this thing get? Honestly, I could care less about a few more frames if this thing will heat my house and make noise doing it.....ATI can keep it. I already have a furnace, I don't need one in my case too.

Benchies are fine, and true enthusiasts may push for ultimate performance, but what about all of us who care about the other factors: heat, noise, power consumption, control panel interface, ease of use, driver stability, overclockability, and so on and so on?? I'm sure there are MANY people that consider more than a few % points of difference in framerate when dropping hundreds and hundreds of dollars on a purchase.

Any comment from the author on all the "other" things besides framerate....even the practical stuff like will it easily fit into a regular ATX case with cables coming out the back of the hard drive cage?

Surely there must be more information than benchies provided??? The author went to such great lengths to practically beg people to take things "in context", and so I would ask the same in return.....what about all those other factors that should be taken "in context" when deciding which card is the best purchase for a consumer???

Yeah, I also have to agree. There are also always going to be drama quers that are like "nVIDIA IS DEAD! ARRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHH!".

R600 came out. Its SUCKS. DEAL WITH IT!!!

NV 1 - 0 ATi(AMD)

Nuff said :!:

My opinion is that is to early to say enything. The 2900 drivers have not matured yet. Until they do is not fair to compare it with the 8800 640MB

Hehehe, glad you listened to me now aren't you?

I agree the Sapphire HD2900 XT TOXIC, with it's overclocking and watercooling, looks like a very cool solution that should make ATI able to put up a decent fight with the GTX and Ultra cards.

Just look at the beauty

And it can even cool your CPU

Hmm, interesting to think about also: for many people, upgrading their video card to the R600 may be not only buying the card but a new PSU also, so the $399 may not be the bottom line--perhaps the 8800GTS runs on their PSU while the 2900 does not. Still, the 8800GTS doesn't exactly draw a small amount of power either.

So what they're trying to say is that, while the r600 NOW is not performing as well with the g80, in the future when games use more complex shaders, the r600's performance will be fairly constant while the g80's performance will dip?

I guess that's pretty cool. Seems like they'd advertise that aspect a little more though, if that is indeed the case. Kind of odd to release a product and it's selling point is "it might not be the best now, but give it a year or two and it'll beat what IS the best card now".

As a diehard AMD/ATI fan since K5 it really pains me to say this, but I will most likely be going with Intel/Nvidia in Q3-4. I do a lot of video and photo processing and my X2 4400+ is starting to show its age. I’ve upgraded from a 6MP camera to a 10MP and batch processing, Photoshop CS3 and Adobe Primer are really socking it to me in time. By going Intel I’ll be able to complete my work in almost half the time! Price wise, when AMD releases their new offerings (Quads) Intel will drop their prices and then its upgrade time for me just in time for Christmas.

However it is spun, ATI really dropped the ball with this card. Even if you want to just compare it with Nvidia’s lesser offerings (price vs price) its still spells failure due to the fact they could not offer a higher end card. Well, it looks like its going to be a losing year for ATI/AMD.

As a diehard AMD/ATI fan since K5 it really pains me to say this, but I will most likely be going with Intel/Nvidia in Q3-4. I do a lot of video and photo processing and my X2 4400+ is starting to show its age. I’ve upgraded from a 6MP camera to a 10MP and batch processing, Photoshop CS3 and Adobe Primer are really socking it to me in time. By going Intel I’ll be able to complete my work in almost half the time! Price wise, when AMD releases their new offerings (Quads) Intel will drop their prices and then its upgrade time for me just in time for Christmas.

However it is spun, ATI really dropped the ball with this card. Even if you want to just compare it with Nvidia’s lesser offerings (price vs price) its still spells failure due to the fact they could not offer a higher end card. Well, it looks like its going to be a losing year for ATI/AMD.

Q3-Q4 look to the 2950, it will be done on 65nm, plus may have that GDR4 in it. That will lower temps, lower power, and since the 2900 already ocs well, look for higher clocks as well

This is speculation, but it does bear it out. The XT was to compete with the GTS, as the XTX was to compete with the GTX. As weve read, the XT OC's very, very well. But you have 2 things against it. Its hot, very hot. It draws a lot of power. I currently own a 1900xt. If I want to, I can OC to xtx levels and higher, tho I dont. The XT was thre smarter buy IMO. Now look at the 2900XT. IF the 2900 didnt leak juice like a California orange, and IF the XT didnt use as much juice as battery power in a mega nympho party (all girls) then the XTX would be here now kicking the GTX. Just look at the 12 inch overheating monster that was sposed to be the XTX. Had to cool it somehow. And designing it with 1 gig of memory I think was a huge mistake. Now, as I said, IF the transition to 65nm goes well, the 2950 will rule the roost

As far as the AMD is king thing, just let em believe it heheh, its not that Have anything against Intel, nor do I think AMD is currently better, but I do like competition, and AMD unfortuanatelt needs those sales, just like when netburst was selling better cause they "went faster" heheh