5800 U vs 9600 XT: both 4 pipeline cards with a big gap in performance.

[VIAN]

Think about it, both are 4 pipeline cards, although the Nvidia part is 4x2, the 2 doesn't really come into play in shader games, also most games out there don't support stencil, so it's stencil advantage is not necessarily useful. All Nvidia has is 4 pipes and a possible theoric 8 pipes for z only vs 9600 XT and it's ATI efficiency. Could it be the memory bandwidth was making the cards here or is it that Nvidia has superior architecture?

For reference:

---- 5800 U -- 9600 XT -- X600 XT

FR - 2000Mp - 2000Mp -- 2000Mp

MB - 16GB --- 9.6GB ---- 11.8GB


FR - Fill-rate
MB - Memory Bandwidth

Taking into account driver evolution. Numbers pulled from VGA III and FiringSquad.

The 5800 U is 25% faster in COD w/out AA and AF at 1024x768.
The 5800 U is 12% faster in COD w/4xAA and 8xAF at 1024x768.
The X600 XT is 13% faster in COD w/4xAA and 16xAF at 1024x768.

 

[Keysplayr]

Sounds good, but more interesting is to explain the 5800's 128 bit mem bus as opposed to the 9600XT 128 bit mem bus. Thats more like apples to apples.

 

[PrayForDeath]

How about a 9800SE 256bit vs 5950 256bit?

 

[VIAN]

Good Idea. 5800 U vs 9600 XT makes more sense.

9800 SE is just asking for problems. We need something more concrete.

 

[ponyo]

:roll:

 

[reever]

Uh the 5800U's multitexturing fillrate is 3000 whie the 9600xt's is 2000, that and memory bandwidth

 

[VIAN]

Actually, it is 4000Mt, but multitexturing isn't used extensively in games that are DX8.1 and higher.

 

[kylebisme]

actually, multitexutreing is used in a lot of new games, includeing cod as is obvious by the benchmarks you posted.

 

[VIAN]

I don't think it's that obvious.

 

[yhelothar]

That's why 5800U isn't that much faster in shader intensive games.
But in regular games, multitexturing is used on pretty much every texture, so 5800U gets the fillrate of an 8 pipeline card.
That's why it's able to keep up with 9700/9800 in most games.

 

[Cerb]

Four pipelines, 500MHz.
128-bit RAM interface, 600MHz (ATi), 1000MHz (NV).
So, in memory bandwidth0limited situation, which for a 128-bit card consists of 90% of all frames drawn, the NVidia FX 5800U has a 67% RAM advantage.

Also, with my 9600 XT, the AF didn't do much to the performance. Cut it down, but nothing serious.
On my 5900XT, it is very noticeable, and I have percieved a definite performance gain (no benchmarks scores, I can clearly *see* it) with running my RAM at its rated speed of 900MHz, as opposed to the default 700MHz. However, with AA & AF off, my 3DMark score only went up 30-40 points in '03, about 200 in '01.

 

[BFG10K]

Could it be the memory bandwidth was making the cards here or is it that Nvidia has superior architecture?

Memory bandwidth and possibly even drivers too. In the case of ATi their AF and AA have a smaller performance hit than nVidia's past versions.

 

[reever]

Originally posted by: VIAN
I don't think it's that obvious.

So you're just guessing that multitexturing is not important? Or would you rather choose a smaller amount of architectural differences, seeing as how you picked 2 out of probably >10 to compare the cards to to prove another one of your stupid points which end up never actually being proven

 

[VIAN]

No, shaders are replacing multitexturing and since shading has been around since DX8, 2001. It is 2003 and some shaders should have caught on by now. Just as there will be more DX9 games in 2004, nearly 2 years after it's release.

I didn't pick these cards to prove my point. They are similar on paper and this is why I picked them.

If multi-texturing was so important, then the 5800 U would've massacred the 9700 Pro:

5800 U texel fillrate is 4000Mt.
9700 P texel fillrate is 2600Mt.

That's a big difference. If your arguement was correct about the the multitexturing being such a significant part to the performance difference, then how does the 9700 Pro stay so far away from the 9600 XT as well. In fact, on par/better than the 5800 U.

 

[Pete]

CoD is not a "shader game." Quake 3 engine = multitexture out the wazoo, so the 5800U's "x2" most definitely comes into play (not to mention nV's superior OGL drivers).

Try comparing them in a D3D shader-heavy game like Far Cry, Deus Ex 2, or the like.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

All I know is that the 5800U was a great card for me, and after seeing Duvie turn one into a $800-$900 workstation card I wish I had never traded it away

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: Pete
CoD is not a "shader game." Quake 3 engine = multitexture out the wazoo, so the 5800U's "x2" most definitely comes into play (not to mention nV's superior OGL drivers).

Try comparing them in a D3D shader-heavy game like Far Cry, Deus Ex 2, or the like.

Yep, just the 2nd demo level of Farcry@10x7 no AA/AF with in-game details on high, killed it when I hit the caves.

 

[BFG10K]

CoD is not a "shader game."

COD does have a few shaders in there. As for multi-texturing, 8x1 should be roughly equal to a 4x2 since AFAIK the other four pipes can be used for the second layer and then combined at the end.

 

[ronnn]

I think the gap in performance is quite small.

 

[Corporate Thug]

Originally posted by: ronnn
I think the gap in performance is quite small.

between the 5800U and the 9600XT? the 5800U is substantially faster

 

[yhelothar]

Dunno what you guys are smoking.
Hardly any DX8 games include shaders, and even then, there are only small bits of shaders used for water. Take UT2004 for example, the only shaders used is for the water on 1-2 maps, everything else is just multitexture.
Only shader intensive game out is farcry, tr:aod, and any other game that puts bloom all over the place, basically the ones where 5800U falls back to 9600xt speeds in.

 

[PrayForDeath]

UT 2k4's engine is 2+ years old, we're talking about new games here, such as:
FarCry
Halo
Deus Ex 2 and some others..(I can't remember right now)
And Max Payne, COD, NFS UD, KotOR and Final Fantasy XI use some shaders, but not as much as the ones above.

 

[VIAN]

CoD is not a "shader game." Quake 3 engine = multitexture out the wazoo, so the 5800U's "x2" most definitely comes into play (not to mention nV's superior OGL drivers).

Try comparing them in a D3D shader-heavy game like Far Cry, Deus Ex 2, or the like.

ATI performs better in COD though.

I thought it was a modified Quake 3 w/ shaders. They gotta do that nice looking water. It's not the best looking game, but decent.

COD does have a few shaders in there. As for multi-texturing, 8x1 should be roughly equal to a 4x2 since AFAIK the other four pipes can be used for the second layer and then combined at the end.

That's true. 8x1 is = to 4x2.

Take UT2004 for example, the only shaders used is for the water on 1-2 maps, everything else is just multitexture.

Yeah, well, the watter looks like crap.

 

[Pete]

ATi's performance in CoD is strange, considering nV is usually better in OGL, and I don't think ATi does trylinear in OpenGL. Yet you see the 5800U distance itself with AA only, yet it's only tied with AF. The explanation is either the 9600XT has tri and AF optimizations whereas the 5800U doesn't, or the 5800U, like the GF4Ti, operates as only 4x1 with trilinear AF. I guess bandwidth doesn't play as great a role in AF as I thought. You can analyze other similar cards/architectures to draw out other trends (5950U vs. 5800U, 5900 vs. 5900XT, 9800P vs. 9700P, 9700 vs, 9600XT), but they didn't really make sense to me, so I deleted the post I was composing last night.

You can't have two pipelines work on the same pixel. 8x1 theoretically outputs eight dual-textured pixels every other clock, same as 4x2 (though 4x2 can also, obviously, output four dual-textured pixels every clock), but 8x1 can't output four dual-textured pixels in one clock, only eight in two.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: PrayForDeath
UT 2k4's engine is 2+ years old, we're talking about new games here, such as:
FarCry
Halo
Deus Ex 2 and some others..(I can't remember right now)
And Max Payne, COD, NFS UD, KotOR and Final Fantasy XI use some shaders, but not as much as the ones above.

halo is new?