Yep it is overhyped when a part that costs half as much and has half the shaders as the full-fledged version (GTS 512) can still compete with it despite a deficiency in the "most important" check-box feature.
It doesn't matter if its playable or not at 1920, it just matters that the "playable" settings used weren't the same and confused readers such as yourself.
Or people with G80 class video cards with fewer SP or much lower SP clocks holding onto their cards a bit longer...oh wait.
Do you have AoC? I already pointed out the offending setting and its not any different than any other recent game. Shadows are going to be one of, if not the most, performance expensive features of any modern game. This would be like saying you were surprised that a card performed worst at 16x12 with 8xAA compared to 19x12 with no AA......
8800GT only recently dropped to within $20 of the 9600GT, before the few recent sales at BB/Amazon/Buy it was much closer to the GTS @$200. Regardless, the point was to show that a part with ~50% of the most over-hyped feature on modern GPUs performs much better than that in reality.
Rofl what? 3870 doesn't beat the 9600GT at the same settings, period. 8800GT does but that may not be due solely to SP, as the 8800GT also has more TMU which help in a texture heavy title like AoC.
I was referring to G92 cards with SP approaching near ~2GHz in OC versions showing little, if any improvement over G80 cards with a max of ~1.5GHz SP clocks. Simply put SP are an overrated check-box feature.
That the 3870 clearly isn't faster than the 9600GT in AoC despite its crippled SP.
And none of that discounts the fact the 9600GT with 50% fewer shaders performs much better than that relative to its other G92 counterparts.
And this is why HOCP catches heat for their reviews, because it has a tendency to confuse the untrained eye.
Like I said earlier, its like you're arguing a card will run worst at 16x12 with 8x AA vs. 19x12 with no AA. Its no surprise really, and again I have to wonder if you even play any games. Clearly you don't enable the more expensive features as you still don't seem to understand how they impact performance. In this particular example....the difference between Shadow "Everything" and Shadow "Character" is huge and much more expensive than the jump to 19x12 from 16x12 or any of the other features that were turned down. We've already gone through plenty of reviews where it doesn't, including one from your beloved Tech Report.
In unplayable settings that you're comparing as the 3870's "highest playable"? Its either playable or its not. Either way, the 9600GT outperforms the 3870 at the same settings at that resolution.
Really? In the apples-to-apples comparison there was 18% difference in performance (29.4 vs 34.9) between the 8800GT and 9600GT, certainly less than the 40% difference in shaders and about the same as their difference in price.
Rofl, well considering you somehow ignore the apples-to-apples comparison showing the 9600GT beating the 3870 at 1920 at "the highest playable settings we found for the GeForce 8800 GT", I'm not sure why I expect you to understand enabling a feature like dynamic shadows or AA would result in lower performance in a lower resolution compared to a higher resolution without such feature enabled.
Yep and the two different FiringSquad articles as well? I don't think anyone can dumb down their information to the necessary level for you to understand, but that's why I don't bother linking benches for you any longer.
Rofl, you're wrong and HOCP just shows once again why they have no business using Highest Playable as it only serves to confuse the masses. If you look at Highest Playable and Apples-to-Apples run at the highest settings for an 8800GT, the resultant FPS is THE SAME....34.9....which means they are run at the same settings in both slides as confirmed by the blurb I've already quoted. Now, look at those settings and compare them to what they had to turn down on the 3870 to get playable frame rates and you will see Shadows quality goes from Everything to Characters along with a slight change in viewing distance. Now, considering the 9600GT posted a 25% advantage over the 3870 at those settings and the 3870 somehow sees almost 2x performance boost by changing shadows from Everything to Character....ya, you're wrong......but hey this is what happens when you spend all your time talking about video cards instead of actually using them.
Huh? 9600GT and 8800GT have the same bandwidth...256-bit bus with ~1GHz memory. Are you going to just go down the feature check-list until you get it right? But that's the point really, graphics cards makers are going to present you with 2 cards that are nearly identical with every feature except for a massive difference in SP as reason to charge you 2x the price.
It was cheaper than that 2 months ago.... And back then 8800GT was closer to 2x the price too.
Its not a moot point when you continually ignore the setting that makes the game playable on one card and not the other, especially when the 9600GT has already shown its the faster card. Mentioning 8xAA was in an effort to help you understand Shadows in AoC have a similar impact on performance, but of course that flew over your head as well.
They don't need to be "hardware guys" to run benchmarks....you don't need a degree in CS or EE to run benchmarks...really, you don't. Technical knowledge doesn't mean much if you can't apply it to practical applications, like games in this case.
You still don't get it, you're just babbling at this point. The Apples-to-Apples (8800GT settings) comparison really does say it all as the 9600GT beats the 3870 in that test by 25%. That's higher settings than the 3870 was benched under Highest Playable. Do you REALLY think that the 9600GT is going to somehow run slower than the 3870 at lower Shadow settings after it beat the 3870 by 25% at the higher Shadow settings? But please continue, you just prove my point HOCP shouldn't be using Highest Playable subjective settings in their benchmarks with each of your replies....
That's just poor journalism and I've already posted there for clarification. I'd say this is certainly a poster child for why HOCP's reviews are flawed, its a shame apoppin isn't here to post on this one. Its obviously a case of poor testing methodology, which is a problem you run into when you use subjective standards. They found themselves lowering too many settings on the 9600GT except for the one that would yield the single-biggest improvement to performance....ya...lmao.
No, you tried to explain away a 40% difference in SP resulting in only 18% difference in performance by offering bandwidth differences as the reason when both cards have the same bandwidth.
I'm basing it on relative historical prices, not best price you can find today.
If its not playable on the 9600GT then its certainly not playable on the 3870. And even then we're talking about 10FPS difference between the 8800GT and X2 solutions. If 30 FPS on the 9600GT isn't playable I guess its barely playable on anything available today....
There's nothing wrong with FiringSquad reviews, there better than most out there today. Or are you going to post a link to that search engine again?
Right...the pixel hungry purple monsters again.....lmao.
Again, you make no sense. 9600GT outperforms 3870 at 1920, highest settings, shadows = high 29.4 to 23.X FPS. 3870 at 1920, settings turned down, shadows set to low and it gets 38.X FPS. What makes you think 9600GT wouldn't outperform it if you ran it at the lower settings when it already destroyed it at the higher settings? Resolution has nothing to do with it since its the same for both cards and already less demanding than a resolution/setting where the 9600GT won, by a lot.
No I hit reply before you edited your post. I don't mind their format either except when their results are clearly deceptive and in this case, their methodology is clearly flawed. Again, to say you had to turn down settings due to poor performance but leaving the single setting that would yield the largest gains untouched is simply careless and poor journalism.
You weren't even online when I had edited the message. :disgust:
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