How are ATI/Nvidia's new offerings over the 6800/x800 models? Have they strived to create products that are compelling upgrades?
When the 6800gt/ultra(and x800p/xt) debuted, they were the bomb. The 6800gt delivered double the fps over the 9800pro (which was a pretty beast in its day) at _playable_ resolutions and settings, not the super high 1600x1200/2048x1536 benchmarks in advertising blurbs. And this trend of 2x performance continued in newer games like HL2/Doom3/BV.
After several months of driver revisions (for Nvidia at least), games like HL2/Doom3 and even BF2/FEAR don't show a general 2x performance improvement over the older gen. Only the 7800 SLI seems to consistently deliver at least 2x improvement over older cards.
Is it because of the improvements are mainly in the pixel/shader units and not raw fillrate? How will the next gen of cards do? Will they continue in the trend of 1.5x perf improvement for $400?
Benchies (fixed link)
When the 6800gt/ultra(and x800p/xt) debuted, they were the bomb. The 6800gt delivered double the fps over the 9800pro (which was a pretty beast in its day) at _playable_ resolutions and settings, not the super high 1600x1200/2048x1536 benchmarks in advertising blurbs. And this trend of 2x performance continued in newer games like HL2/Doom3/BV.
After several months of driver revisions (for Nvidia at least), games like HL2/Doom3 and even BF2/FEAR don't show a general 2x performance improvement over the older gen. Only the 7800 SLI seems to consistently deliver at least 2x improvement over older cards.
Is it because of the improvements are mainly in the pixel/shader units and not raw fillrate? How will the next gen of cards do? Will they continue in the trend of 1.5x perf improvement for $400?
Benchies (fixed link)
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