Anand's 9800XT vs NV38 "Review"

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lifeguard1999

Platinum Member
Jul 3, 2000
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Was it just me, or did anyone else get the impression that this was not a normal review???

First Tip off: "NVIDIA has counterattacked by letting us publish benchmarks from their forthcoming NV38 GPU (the successor to the NV35 based GeForce FX 5900 Ultra)." NVidia directly or indirectly controlled the configuration it sounds like.

Second Tip off: The configuration box (CPU, Memory, Hard drives, etc.) was nonexistent. All it had was 3 lines saying what was used. This is a departure from past reviews.


I am looking forward to the other parts of the review, especially CPU scaling, but this one left a bad taste in my mouth.
 
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Lifer
Jun 3, 2002
10,518
271
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Originally posted by: lifeguard1999
Was it just me, or did anyone else get the impression that this was not a normal review???

First Tip off: "NVIDIA has counterattacked by letting us publish benchmarks from their forthcoming NV38 GPU (the successor to the NV35 based GeForce FX 5900 Ultra)." NVidia directly or indirectly controlled the configuration it sounds like.
Click to expand...

Huh? Where do you get "NVIDIA controlled everything" from "NVIDIA gave us an exclusive on NV38"?

Second Tip off: The configuration box (CPU, Memory, Hard drives, etc.) was nonexistent. All it had was 3 lines saying what was used. This is a departure from past reviews.
Click to expand...

Yeah, not sure why Anand is doing this, though he has done it before and just recently did it in his Athlon 64 CPU review. Still, I'm not sure how this would be some sort of tip off to anything.

In addition, I have no idea what the purpose of this thread is except to somehow prove that AnandTech's review was "not normal"?
 
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Peter D

Diamond Member
Oct 28, 2002
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rolleye.gif
 
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Genx87

Lifer
Apr 8, 2002
41,091
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This is interesting......

Although we did provide some insight into the ?next generation? of games with scores from Halo, the real question on everyone?s mind is still Half Life 2 as well as Doom3. The performance crown under Doom3 is still in NVIDIA?s camp apparently, and although the latest drivers have closed the gap significantly, ATI is still ahead in Half Life 2. The numbers we?ve seen indicate that in most tests ATI only holds single digit percentage leads (< 5%), although in some cases ATI manages to pull ahead by double digits.



If Nvidia manages to get within single digit performance of ATI in HL2 that is a major coup de tat.

Overall they tested some new games, old games, and future games.

6-4 in ATIs favor with a basic deadheat in 5 tests. Interesting to note even the new games the FX card seems to perform just fine. I am interested in finding out what is going on with FS2004 as every single ATI card hit the exact same frame rate. I could believe 9700 Pro-->9800 XT could possibly get close to doing this but a 9600 Pro kind of makes me wonder.

Could it be Nvidia has a half way descent shader compiler in the det 50s? I guess we will only have to wait and see :)
 
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SectorZero

Member
Sep 29, 2002
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I thought it was an excelent review. Good intro too. Lot's of common sense stuff that a lot of people just dont' seem to want to acknowlege.

To summarize:

-1: ATI has washed away their reputation as dealers of crappy harware and drivers.
(You're damn right they have)

-2: Nvidia's driver team is still comming to grips with the FX archetecture
(we can expect better performance down the road)

-3: Developers are still comming to gripps with DX9.
(the playstation analogy hit the nail on the head)

As far as the benchmarks go, I like it. Quake 3 is still fun to play, but essentially useless as a benchmark. Synthetic benchmarks are crap. In game benchmarks are the way to go.

Way cool to see a prescott in there. How about an Athlon FX now?


 
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lifeguard1999

Platinum Member
Jul 3, 2000
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Evan Lieb:
An answer to a simple question will calm my fears, and prove me wrong. Yes or No: Did you have the NV38 in your lab and run benchmarks on it?

What I fear is that NVidia sent you benchmarks for their NV38. You tried to match their configuration closely, and run the 9800XT benchmarks. Then you did a comparison review. Not that this is decidedly a bad thing to do. I now have a information on which to make my purchase decision that no other site could give me. It just feels like NVidia then is indirectly controlling the hardware setup.
 
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lifeguard1999

Platinum Member
Jul 3, 2000
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In the CPU forum, they are saying that this review was run on a 2.8 GHz Prescott. The review lists it as a 2.8 GHz Intel Processor. That would explain a bit about the lack of hardware information since the Prescott is probably under NDA.
 
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Ackmed

Diamond Member
Oct 1, 2003
8,499
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This "review" is useless without comparing quality, and with the use of beta drivers. Expecially with these beta drivers that have been known to degrade quality.
 
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bunnyfubbles

Lifer
Sep 3, 2001
12,248
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I noticed this too. In the HL2 teaser the article hinted that even with special code paths the image quality was noticably not as good as that on ATI hardware with the full DX9 code path. Sure, nVidia might be catching up in performance but are they just boosting frame or are they boosting frames and image quality? Just my opinion I guess, if one card can offer equal or slightly better performance on all levels but the game simply does not look as good, I'm going to pick the card that can give me the same or similar frames but looks better as long as the frames are playable to begin with.
 
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*kjm

Platinum Member
Oct 11, 1999
2,222
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det 3.8 enables the automatic overclock, they used 3.7 for the review.... so more will come down the road.
 
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Lifer
Jun 3, 2002
10,518
271
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Originally posted by: lifeguard1999
Evan Lieb:
An answer to a simple question will calm my fears, and prove me wrong. Yes or No: Did you have the NV38 in your lab and run benchmarks on it?

What I fear is that NVidia sent you benchmarks for their NV38. You tried to match their configuration closely, and run the 9800XT benchmarks. Then you did a comparison review. Not that this is decidedly a bad thing to do. I now have a information on which to make my purchase decision that no other site could give me. It just feels like NVidia then is indirectly controlling the hardware setup.
Click to expand...

No editor I know on any web site that I can think of would ever do that, and I know AnandTech most certainly wouldn't. To me, doing something like that would be like...I dunno, committing suicide or something. :)
 
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jiffylube1024

Diamond Member
Feb 17, 2002
7,430
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Wow, I must say I am impressed by Anand (yet again) with this review. The huge benchmarking suite, the Intel "mysterious" platform he used was cutting-edge, and the inclusion of fan-favourites such as the 9800 non-pro was excellent.

I am also impressed with nVidia in some of these tests (did you see the FX 5600 Ultra in Wolfenstein: Enemy Territority?). The FX5900 seems to be a pretty damn good card for most games out there.

That said, I also have my reservations about nVidia's drivers. The numbers look good (except for the FX 5600, which sucks in everything but Wolfenstein), but I have my doubts as to the credibility of their many "optimizations". I couldn't recommend an nVidia FX card to anyone right now either, not with the Half-Life 2 questions still out there, among other problems. I guess we will have to wait and see.

The "Neverwinter Nights" score for the FX5600 is also terribly fishy. There is no way it can perform 15% better with AA and AF enabled!
 
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jiffylube1024

Diamond Member
Feb 17, 2002
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Originally posted by: Genx87

If Nvidia manages to get within single digit performance of ATI in HL2 that is a major coup de tat.
Click to expand...

If Nvidia manages to get within single digit performance relative to ATI's cards that would be a major coup. Not a coup d'&eacute;tat. They're not overthrowing a government, here!
 
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Genx87

Lifer
Apr 8, 2002
41,091
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If Nvidia manages to get within single digit performance relative to ATI's cards that would be a major coup. Not a coup d'&eacute;tat. They're not overthrowing a government, here!

Have you seen the army of ATI fanatics? There has to be a central govt somewhere controlling the masses :)

 
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Sazar

Member
Oct 1, 2003
62
0
0
Originally posted by: Evan Lieb
Originally posted by: lifeguard1999
Evan Lieb:
An answer to a simple question will calm my fears, and prove me wrong. Yes or No: Did you have the NV38 in your lab and run benchmarks on it?

What I fear is that NVidia sent you benchmarks for their NV38. You tried to match their configuration closely, and run the 9800XT benchmarks. Then you did a comparison review. Not that this is decidedly a bad thing to do. I now have a information on which to make my purchase decision that no other site could give me. It just feels like NVidia then is indirectly controlling the hardware setup.
Click to expand...

No editor I know on any web site that I can think of would ever do that, and I know AnandTech most certainly wouldn't. To me, doing something like that would be like...I dunno, committing suicide or something. :)
Click to expand...

I know a few who have done so :)

anyways... I logged onto the site specifically coz I had nothing better to do...

evan... is there a particular reason WHY only a resolution of 1024x768 was utilised/ why there are no IQ comparisons/ why there is no discussion of the new dets that were tested/ why older dets would not work (seeing as the marchitecture is pretty much the same)/ why there is no explanation of the anomalies seen and finally why was TOMB RAIDER : AOD not benched ?

I am going to assume that the new dets expose the nv38's whereas it was not being recognised in the older dets... and will assume that a thorough IQ comparison will be presented @ a later time...

are you allowed to tell us how much influence (if any) nvidia did have over the testing... ie resolutions to use/benchmarks to use/architecture to use/settings to use ?

also... can someone please corellate this for me ?

We used ATI?s publicly available Catalyst 3.7 drivers and in order to support the NV38 we used NVIDIA?s forthcoming 52.14 drivers. The 52.14 drivers apparently have issues in two games, neither of which are featured in our test suite (Half Life 2 & Gunmetal).
Click to expand...

and

Although we did provide some insight into the ?next generation? of games with scores from Halo, the real question on everyone?s mind is still Half Life 2 as well as Doom3. The performance crown under Doom3 is still in NVIDIA?s camp apparently, and although the latest drivers have closed the gap significantly, ATI is still ahead in Half Life 2. The numbers we?ve seen indicate that in most tests ATI only holds single digit percentage leads (< 5%), although in some cases ATI manages to pull ahead by double digits.
Click to expand...

any insight would be appreciated...
 
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jimbal1982

Junior Member
Sep 25, 2003
6
0
0
Originally posted by: lifeguard1999
In the CPU forum, they are saying that this review was run on a 2.8 GHz Prescott. The review lists it as a 2.8 GHz Intel Processor. That would explain a bit about the lack of hardware information since the Prescott is probably under NDA.
Click to expand...

Actually, it says:

"2.8GHz Intel Processor Prescott
512MB DDR400
Intel 875P Motherboard"

Select the text. The "Prescott" part is in white type, and can't be seen without selecting it.

 
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Genx87

Lifer
Apr 8, 2002
41,091
513
126
TOMB RAIDER : AOD not benched

Because the makers of the demo took it down and said you cant use it for something it wasnt designed to be used for.

are you allowed to tell us how much influence (if any) nvidia did have over the testing... ie resolutions to use/benchmarks to use/architecture to use/settings to use ?


Why do you assume Nvidia had any control over the situation? The most control I would imagine them having is telling the reviewer the 52.xx drivers have to be used because previous versions wont recognize the 5950. Is it because the card isnt as slow as shady day advertises?
 
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Sazar

Member
Oct 1, 2003
62
0
0
Originally posted by: Genx87
TOMB RAIDER : AOD not benched

Because the makers of the demo took it down and said you cant use it for something it wasnt designed to be used for.

are you allowed to tell us how much influence (if any) nvidia did have over the testing... ie resolutions to use/benchmarks to use/architecture to use/settings to use ?


Why do you assume Nvidia had any control over the situation? The most control I would imagine them having is telling the reviewer the 52.xx drivers have to be used because previous versions wont recognize the 5950. Is it because the card isnt as slow as shady day advertises?
Click to expand...

considering a non-public driver set it being used I would presume there to be nothing wrong with a previously public benchmark patch being used...

as for why I assume... I am not assuming... I am asking if there WAS influence due to resolution/benchmarks used and due to the utter lack of ANY screenshots whatsoever showing any comparitive IQ differences between the detonator's used... was it time constraints or other limitiations or was there a specfic reason for this info ?
 
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Rogodin2

Banned
Jul 2, 2003
3,219
0
0
I don't believe the nv38 should have been included and the review should have been with the latest public released dets.

other than that it wasn't too bad


rogo
 
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