ATI caught with it's pants down?

[nitromullet]

The graphs for SM3.0 have are labelled with "NV" in parentheses, indicating that the SM3.0 only applies to nVidia.

Edit: I really don't think AT would neglect to mention that the X800's don't support SM3.0.

 

[SickBeast]

I don't understand why the author of the article repeatedly wrote about the importance of geometry instancing when all R300 and greater ATi cards support the feature. He also stated that ATi's entire lineup is terrible which again is untrue. Try comparing the FX5200 with the R9100. The current mid-end hasn't even been established yet. If you want to compare what people are buying now as midrange cards, the R300's stomp all over their NV30 counterparts, even matching them in Doom 3. Even the 9600PRO matches up well against the 5600.

His bias is very apparent and his lack of knowledge is disturbing.

I agree that the current high-end situation seems to favor nVidia, but it is not nearly as serious a situation as he makes it out to be. If you read all of the major PC publications such as PC Gamer you will see that they rated the X800XT equal or greater than the 6800U. That doesn't mean it's as good or better, but it certainly tells me that neither card is substantially better than the other.

If you're going to base your graphics card purchasing decision on a single game, you'd better really like it and be willing to play it for $500 worth of your hard-earned money. Doom 3 doesn't seem like that sort of game; people are beating it over a single weekend.

 

[Drayvn]

I suppose since everyone says that ATI is just doing to much PR and marketing, i just wanted to remind everyone yes ATI are like that, but remember all those "leaked" presentations nVidia had, dumbing down all the ATis features and stuff?

I suppose nVidia asking their Add on manufacturers that they can OC thier reference designs doesnt show anything?

And again, im gonna say this again, OK, PS3, Unreal 3, 2006, they state, current GPUs as low to mid range, 6800Ultra highly OCed running the E3 Demo and still it was running at a very poor frame rate, so in the end, u would be playing Doom 3 lets say with a 5200 or maybe a ti4800, with everything turned off, and set to 640x480....

 

[Childs]

Originally posted by: Drayvn
I suppose since everyone says that ATI is just doing to much PR and marketing, i just wanted to remind everyone yes ATI are like that, but remember all those "leaked" presentations nVidia had, dumbing down all the ATis features and stuff?

That was ATI in response to the 6800 and SM 3

 

[Rage187]

Originally posted by: Drayvn
I suppose since everyone says that ATI is just doing to much PR and marketing, i just wanted to remind everyone yes ATI are like that, but remember all those "leaked" presentations nVidia had, dumbing down all the ATis features and stuff?

that was ATI

 

[ZobarStyl]

I don't think anyone else misunderstood that article ffstrike, and if you had actually read it in it's entirety instead of just looking at the bar graphs you would've seen this:

ATI cards are always run in SM2.0 mode (as they don't support SM3.0), so the labels on the graphs only reflect the code path that NVIDIA's cards take. Each level analysis will have an SM2.0 comparison (both NVIDIA and ATI on the same path) and an SM3.0 comparison (NVIDIA running SM3.0 with ATI running SM2.0).

As for the article and ATi, it is true that ATi seems to have coasted through the success of the R300 while nVidia, reeling from NV30, went all out and brought out a great product. And frankly for me it's not the performance crown (XT PE's hold the gold currently, albeit by a small margin) but rather the fact that the feature set is lacking, as well as a few other things. It's not 'if' but 'when' for SM3.0, though I will admit that 'when' is not now, but I'd much rather have it than not.

Also, the fact is that the ATi OGL rewrite is still MIA even though the entire world knew Doom was coming, and the best ATi could do was the 4.9betas that only help x800's. I doubt nV is lying around in wait for HL2 to hit and then release some pseudo-fix emergency driver, but rather if they're smart they are working right now on it (if Gabe lets them have a copy) and we won't see what we saw this month as ATi let its customers twist in the wind with Doom perf falling way short of what we expected.

Overall, they just seem to be, well, lazy this round. And the segment that matters the most (mid-high) is clearly GT dominated, so the article, though somewhat biased, has a valid point.

 

[sandorski]

Meh, I think a lot of people are getting way ahead of themselves because of Doom 3 benchmarks. 1 game comes out that favours one side(though significantly) and suddenly the sky is falling. I suggest people wait.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: sandorski
Meh, I think a lot of people are getting way ahead of themselves because of Doom 3 benchmarks. 1 game comes out that favours one side(though significantly) and suddenly the sky is falling. I suggest people wait.

i felt this way b4 the Diii benchs . . . ati's failure to deliver despite constant reasurances and empty promises while continuing bombardment of marketing FUD is more an indication of the "sky's condition".

 

[Marsumane]

That first page i wont even comment on...
Basically he failed to mention of the newer games also supported 2.0b or not. Also, he seemed rather biased on game companys' tendancies, as well as ati's tendanies. How does he know what ati is doing for r500? NV has more features, but they also did with the 5800.... who knows if people will use them or if they even provide substantial performance over ati's ps2.0b decision. The article is entirely biased.

 

[Kobra]

Awesome write up, this guy knows his stuff, and is right on.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Marsumane
That first page i wont even comment on...
Basically he failed to mention of the newer games also supported 2.0b or not. Also, he seemed rather biased on game companys' tendancies, as well as ati's tendanies. How does he know what ati is doing for r500? NV has more features, but they also did with the 5800.... who knows if people will use them or if they even provide substantial performance over ati's ps2.0b decision. The article is entirely biased.

it is an "editorial" . .. expect bias.

unfortunately - for ati - he is correct.

i think everyone who posted in this thread is biased.

duh

i am . . . clearly biased . . . just not sure who to support anymore. I was a former ati fan-boy who is disgusted with their recent paperlaunch and accompanying marketing FUD . . . and i haven't "warmed" up to nVidia either (after years of arrogance).

:roll:

 

[VIAN]

ati HAD crappy drivers and a piss-poor performance product until the Rage chipset . . . nVidia was the one to chose for 'performance' and ati for IQ - ati had some DISasters (remember the MAXX that their programmers could NEVER make a good Win2k driver for) . . . then the 8500 made a very serious attempt at performance but was held back by CRAP drivers (and shut down bty the GF4) . .. it is only the LAST TWO years that ati has had a 'compelling' product - the r300 . . . and they have COASTED on that success ever since . . . nVidia, OTOH, has been quite productive in that same two years and it SHOWS.

Yeah, but that's the past. They are good now.

exactly, and ATI is touting this around like they have some ground-breaking technology here, when in reality, all it is is last seasons best, with ramped up clockspeeds, and more pipelines. I can't believe I was about to get an X800 Pro.

Does it really matter what it is. As long as it does what it's supposed to do, then it's alright with me. The X800 is a really fast card, no doubt about it, but some drivers need improvement in the OGL area. The ground breaking technology is something that noone else has about lossless compression of normal maps which offer more performance than previous compression methods, which is something to think about. They created that all on their own. Also the way they are integrating adaptive filtering is a great idea in my opinion as you can barely notice any difference. And if you bitch about that then go play D3 without any compression. Oh, that's right you can't. You won't notice anything from Ultra to Medium in the gameplay, so why ? Same thing here, Adaptive Trilinear is a beautiful thing.

Right now, Nvidia drivers offer more tweakability with drivers as well as caring just as much about OGL as D3D. I do keep defending ATI, but mostly that's what I like about them, that they find these cool kind of tweaks, but I also think that ATI sucks in that Nvidia is doing everything else like they're supposed to. So we have the greatness of Nvidia with it's tweakability and more options and better support, but the ingenuity of ATI. It's kind of a tough decision.

 

[SickBeast]

People keep on saying that the X800 cards have no new features. In reality they have:

-SM 2.0b support
-3DC technology

It seems that with SM2.0b they are able to keep pace with nVidia's SM3 solution in Far Cry (the only real-world example of SM3 that we have right now). I have read several interviews with game developer where they have stated that the 1024 instruction count on the R420 cards is perfectly adequate for the games coming out within the next year or so. From what I understand, Unreal 3 will be the first engine that really utilizes SM3 from the ground up, and it will apparently bring a 6800U to its knees at 640x480.

From what I have been reading, 3DC has the potential to have a much greater impact in today's games than SM3. Just some food for thought. People should realize that these are indeed new graphics processors. They're simply based on an existing design. Intel and AMD do similar things. The last time I checked, the Athlon XP, Pentium 2, and Pentium 3 were are very successful and powerful products in their day. The GeForce 4 cards also come to mind.

People seem to be assuming that since Doom 3 runs faster on nVidia it means that the R420 cards are garbage. I agree that Doom 3 is a very important benchmark, but people should keep in mind the fact that the GeForce 6 cards were tailor-made for the Doom 3 engine. I'm sure someone could create a benchmark where the X800 cards would score 300% faster than the 6800 cards.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: SickBeast
People keep on saying that the X800 cards have no new features. In reality they have:

-SM 2.0b support
-3DC technology

It seems that with SM2.0b they are able to keep pace with nVidia's SM3 solution in Far Cry (the only real-world example of SM3 that we have right now). I have read several interviews with game developer where they have stated that the 1024 instruction count on the R420 cards is perfectly adequate for the games coming out within the next year or so. From what I understand, Unreal 3 will be the first engine that really utilizes SM3 from the ground up, and it will apparently bring a 6800U to its knees at 640x480.

From what I have been reading, 3DC has the potential to have a much greater impact in today's games than SM3. Just some food for thought. People should realize that these are indeed new graphics processors. They're simply based on an existing design. Intel and AMD do similar things. The last time I checked, the Athlon XP, Pentium 2, and Pentium 3 were are very successful and powerful products in their day. The GeForce 4 cards also come to mind.

People seem to be assuming that since Doom 3 runs faster on nVidia it means that the R420 cards are garbage. I agree that Doom 3 is a very important benchmark, but people should keep in mind the fact that the GeForce 6 cards were tailor-made for the Doom 3 engine. I'm sure someone could create a benchmark where the X800 cards would score 300% faster than the 6800 cards.

sure, "someone" (valve) has. . . IF it EVER comes out - HL2.


the main problem with lacking shader 3.0 is a PR loss for ati . . . i would find it embarassing (if i were ati) that the r500 GPU for the xbox next will depend heavily on shader 3.0 for game effects, yet the next x-box game programmers will have to use nVidia GPUs to program for it. :roll:

that's what i mean by "coasting"; perhaps ATI's attention has been diverted from r420 to take care of Mycrowsoft's project as a "priority"

the X800 isn't a "bad" GPU by ANY means . . . as a former ati fan, i am disappointed, that's all.

 

[Pete]

Didn't read the whole thread, but some comments on that editorial:

"In the older engines, HL2, Q3, and others, ATI has a slim advantage. On the newer ones, Nvidia rocks. Which one do you think will be more prevalent in the next few months?"
I didn't know HL2 was older than D3. Remind me again when was the first time we saw D3 demoed, and when we saw HL2 demoed?

" But it gets worse. ATI has no PS3.0 part, and never will."
What the f$%^? ATi has Xbox 2. Xbox 2 will be SM3.0 or greater. ATi will likely also bring a similar card to the PC market. So WTF was Charlie smoking when he wrote that?

"Here too, ATI is sucking wind, and has been for quite a while. ATI has a crappy line up other than the high end. This is nothing new, it started in the last generation. The capabilities of the Nvidia low end lineup hits most of the checkboxes that the high end 5950 cards do. ATI just rebadges the previous generation, and uses its numbering scheme to make it sound like they have something that it doesn't. It is more than enough to fool some of the consumers, but then again, there are a lot of machines sold with Celerons in them."
WTFBBQ? In terms of performance, I strongly disagree. In terms of marketing, I agree that the 9000, 9100, and 9200 are crappily named. I also agree that nV appears to be selling a boatload of FX 5200s. But ATi's low-end parts perform as well as nVidia's, so Charlie is just bitching about checkmark features. Does he work in the marketing department?

Also, ATi's midrange clobbered nV up until the 5700U, when nV pulled even, and the first few months of the 5900XT, when nV just won at the ~$175 price point.

"The point is not consumers, but OEMs. They are more than smart enough to actually look at the capabilities before they buy the chips by the hundreds of thousands."
That must be why ATi seems to be getting all the PCIe OEM wins.

The editorial was so stupid up to that point, that it's just not worth finishing, IMO. Sorry, I had to rant a bit about Charlie's meander down marketing lane. He's as bad as Fuad, he just hasn't proven to be as consistently bad yet. What happened to Paul Dutton? He wrote by far the most reasonable 3D articles there.

Honestly, in response to the article title, I really just had to say Xbox 2. I think it'll be even more important than Xbox 1 was to nVidia (WRT developer and consumer mindshare for its PC parts) as we start seeing more crossover titles. I don't want to downplay the 6800, as I think it's great. I just don't think the X800 is anywhere near as bad, and ATi anywhere near in as much trouble, as Charlie pens.

More Inq fuel for the internet fire: bah.

 

[Drayvn]

Originally posted by: Pete
Didn't read the whole thread, but some comments on that editorial:

"In the older engines, HL2, Q3, and others, ATI has a slim advantage. On the newer ones, Nvidia rocks. Which one do you think will be more prevalent in the next few months?"
I didn't know HL2 was older than D3. Remind me again when was the first time we saw D3 demoed, and when we saw HL2 demoed?

" But it gets worse. ATI has no PS3.0 part, and never will."
What the f$%^? ATi has Xbox 2. Xbox 2 will be SM3.0 or greater. ATi will likely also bring a similar card to the PC market. So WTF was Charlie smoking when he wrote that?

"Here too, ATI is sucking wind, and has been for quite a while. ATI has a crappy line up other than the high end. This is nothing new, it started in the last generation. The capabilities of the Nvidia low end lineup hits most of the checkboxes that the high end 5950 cards do. ATI just rebadges the previous generation, and uses its numbering scheme to make it sound like they have something that it doesn't. It is more than enough to fool some of the consumers, but then again, there are a lot of machines sold with Celerons in them."
WTFBBQ? In terms of performance, I strongly disagree. In terms of marketing, I agree that the 9000, 9100, and 9200 are crappily named. I also agree that nV appears to be selling a boatload of FX 5200s. But ATi's low-end parts perform as well as nVidia's, so Charlie is just bitching about checkmark features. Does he work in the marketing department?

Also, ATi's midrange clobbered nV up until the 5700U, when nV pulled even, and the first few months of the 5900XT, when nV just won at the ~$175 price point.

"The point is not consumers, but OEMs. They are more than smart enough to actually look at the capabilities before they buy the chips by the hundreds of thousands."
That must be why ATi seems to be getting all the PCIe OEM wins.

The editorial was so stupid up to that point, that it's just not worth finishing, IMO. Sorry, I had to rant a bit about Charlie's meander down marketing lane. He's as bad as Fuad, he just hasn't proven to be as consistently bad yet. What happened to Paul Dutton? He wrote by far the most reasonable 3D articles there.

Honestly, in response to the article title, I really just had to say Xbox 2. I think it'll be even more important than Xbox 1 was to nVidia (WRT developer and consumer mindshare for its PC parts) as we start seeing more crossover titles. I don't want to downplay the 6800, as I think it's great. I just don't think the X800 is anywhere near as bad, and ATi anywhere near in as much trouble, as Charlie pens.

More Inq fuel for the internet fire: bah.

Thats what i was thinking, maybe it looks like ATi are sinking or are waiting to bring out a uber powerful GPU, because of working in conjunction with AMD and Microsoft with multicore processors which in fact are the way forward it seems, and maybe ATi have put all their resources into that and thats why we are seeing only refreshes of old models, because they are concentrating on their new core which would hopefully have something to do with multicore technology, hopefully with help from AMD too.

 

[VIAN]

Yeah, it's gonna be a dual X800 XT card with a hypertransport bus and 512MB of RAM.

 

[Creig]

Originally posted by: Rage187

Originally posted by: Drayvn
I suppose since everyone says that ATI is just doing to much PR and marketing, i just wanted to remind everyone yes ATI are like that, but remember all those "leaked" presentations nVidia had, dumbing down all the ATis features and stuff?

that was ATI

It was ALSO Nvidia.


Leaked Nvidia slides from ATI-bashing presentation

I just got off the phone with NVIDIA PR front man Derek Perez. He did confirm that the slides linked above are NVIDIA's creation. The slide are just a few from a set of "20 or 30" that were developed by NVIDIA's USA Product Marketing team that were to be used only as a sales tool internally. Derek did say, "I am not going to apologize for them." He went on to explain how they need to outfit their sales teams as they see fit.

 

[Insomniak]

Originally posted by: Creig

Originally posted by: Rage187

Originally posted by: Drayvn
I suppose since everyone says that ATI is just doing to much PR and marketing, i just wanted to remind everyone yes ATI are like that, but remember all those "leaked" presentations nVidia had, dumbing down all the ATis features and stuff?

that was ATI

It was ALSO Nvidia.


Leaked Nvidia slides from ATI-bashing presentation

I just got off the phone with NVIDIA PR front man Derek Perez. He did confirm that the slides linked above are NVIDIA's creation. The slide are just a few from a set of "20 or 30" that were developed by NVIDIA's USA Product Marketing team that were to be used only as a sales tool internally. Derek did say, "I am not going to apologize for them." He went on to explain how they need to outfit their sales teams as they see fit.

Well, the funny part being, aside from the "didn't know how to implement SM3.0", there's nothing there that's really untrue...now, understand, Nvidia is just as guilty of Fishy Drivers as ATi is - but X800 is old tech, and it is feature lacking.

Nividia, on the other hand, has it's own issues. ATi could whip up a "6800 - Power snarking, heat producing, slot hogging beast!" production that would ring just like this one, and again, nothing in there would be untrue.

GPU manufacturers are, as the Inq said, "dangling something very shiny in front of a few minor problems, and hoping people don't notice." ATi is using its performance equality to hide from it's old tech and less expansive feature set, and NV is using it's performance equality and feature set to hide from it's power consumption and card size.

Marketing ahoy. All companies do it, and neither is more scrupulous than the other.

 

[Creig]

That's about it, too. It's up to the PR Depts to make their company look good and the other guy look bad.

 

[CaiNaM]

he has some valid points, however many of them are exagerrated. having both cards there really isn't a significant difference in performance either way, with the exception of doom3. ati didn't really get "caught with it's pants down" from that perspective, but i do believe they have from a marketing/pr perspecitve.

thier failure to deliver cards - the xtpe in particular, but to a lesser extent even the pro (some people have still had problems trying to get one), has certainly made them look bad.

while some people certainly place too much significance on the lack of sm3, their "12pipe" design on the pro, etc., (these parts are still extrememly fast and feature rich; it's not like it's comparable to the disparity that was r300 vs nv30), these facts have made them look bad as well. doom3 performance has done nothing to help, and neither has their association with valve (sorry.. regardless of how great hl2 turns out to be, valve has been a pr mess as well).

after 2 years of domination, their image has certainly taken a hit. no one can argue that.

but contrary to what the editorial suggests, ati has design wins all over the place (even stealing xbox away from nvidia), while nvidia has had few, if any, and ati completely own the mobile market in not only marketshare, but performance as well. mobility radeon performance destroys nvidia in every respect. features, performance, power & thermal mgmt; they're not even in the same league. even the low end mobility radeon chips are featured in a great majority of notebooks.

the bottom line is that the author's reference to 3dfx and such is completely ludicrous. ati may be suffering from an image problem this generation (and they've certainly bumgled enough things to deserve that), but they are hardly suffering financially.

bottom line? their high end desktop parts perform well, even compared to nvidia, but their "domination" has completely disappeared in one generation (tho it's really silly to have thought nvidia was going to sit back and do nothing, or even sillier, that they were incapable of a strong rebound), and coupled with their supply issues of high end desktop parts and (apparent; it's still early yet) lack of competetive mid/low range parts has definately tarnished the image they earned the last few years, and it will take some extraordinary effort to recover.

high end desktop parts, however insignificant they may be from a financial perspective, is what drives the image of these companies, and while nvida has impressed, ati has underachieved, even if only from an image standpoint.

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: fsstrike

Originally posted by: Jeff7181

Originally posted by: fsstrike
"I know where my money will be going, and an X800 seems like money badly spent if you don't plan on buying an new card every three months. "

So, by reading that article, you fully agree that buying an x800 (pro/xt) will call for an upgrade in 3 months? Think about it really hard.

You know what, I think he is right. The X800 XTPE ONLY gets 60FPS @ 1600x1200 4xAA 8xAF in Farcry SM3.0? Not sure about you, but I think that is REALLY BAD. 60FPS is almost unplayable. 3 months? I cant wait 3 months, I need to upgrade NOW because my x800 is a POS!

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2102&p=5

No... the x800 XTPE gets 0, yes ZERO, FPS @ 1600x1200 4XAA 8XAF in Far Cry SM3.0. Why? Because ATi cards don't support SM3.0

Im sorry, then Anandtech must be lying
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2102&p=5

So because it's posted on Anand's site, it must be absolute fact right? There's no possible way it could be a mistake or you could be misinterpreting it?

Notice how it says (NV) in the SM3.0 charts? Notice how the ATI numbers are EXACTLY the same as the SM2.0 numbers? Maybe they were included in the graphs just for comparison with nVidia cards?

 

[Drayvn]

Originally posted by: CaiNaM
he has some valid points, however many of them are exagerrated. having both cards there really isn't a significant difference in performance either way, with the exception of doom3. ati didn't really get "caught with it's pants down" from that perspective, but i do believe they have from a marketing/pr perspecitve.

thier failure to deliver cards - the xtpe in particular, but to a lesser extent even the pro (some people have still had problems trying to get one), has certainly made them look bad.

while some people certainly place too much significance on the lack of sm3, their "12pipe" design on the pro, etc., (these parts are still extrememly fast and feature rich; it's not like it's comparable to the disparity that was r300 vs nv30), these facts have made them look bad as well. doom3 performance has done nothing to help, and neither has their association with valve (sorry.. regardless of how great hl2 turns out to be, valve has been a pr mess as well).

after 2 years of domination, their image has certainly taken a hit. no one can argue that.

but contrary to what the editorial suggests, ati has design wins all over the place (even stealing xbox away from nvidia), while nvidia has had few, if any, and ati completely own the mobile market in not only marketshare, but performance as well. mobility radeon performance destroys nvidia in every respect. features, performance, power & thermal mgmt; they're not even in the same league. even the low end mobility radeon chips are featured in a great majority of notebooks.

the bottom line is that the author's reference to 3dfx and such is completely ludicrous. ati may be suffering from an image problem this generation (and they've certainly bumgled enough things to deserve that), but they are hardly suffering financially.

bottom line? their high end desktop parts perform well, even compared to nvidia, but their "domination" has completely disappeared in one generation (tho it's really silly to have thought nvidia was going to sit back and do nothing, or even sillier, that they were incapable of a strong rebound), and coupled with their supply issues of high end desktop parts and (apparent; it's still early yet) lack of competetive mid/low range parts has definately tarnished the image they earned the last few years, and it will take some extraordinary effort to recover.

high end desktop parts, however insignificant they may be from a financial perspective, is what drives the image of these companies, and while nvida has impressed, ati has underachieved, even if only from an image standpoint.

Very true, ok ATi arent doing well in the High End market, but thats a very small percentage of its revenue in the long term, and from what ive read ATi are still very dominant in the low end and mid ranged areas with its GPUs and only recently has nVidia been able to catch up, but havent been able to surpass them, so its a level footing this round, and yea the mobile chips are really blowing away the competition, especially the intel ones, even tho intel have the larger market share at the mo.

So yes its very true what u said Cainam, ATi has lost slightly in the High End market and thats what seems to be coming out from this reporter, he hasnt looked at all the other facts, the mid ranged and low end markets ATi are clean sailing with better performing and slightly cheaper GPUs.

 

[Drayvn]

And also, i think recently they just brought out an X800 mobile chip named the RS9800 i think?

 

[VIAN]

How can Nvidia talk about desperation when it was clear that the NV35 was such an act.