ATI caught with it's pants down?

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: VIAN
How can Nvidia talk about desperation when it was clear that the NV35 was such an act.

because they're familiar with it?

regardless of how good the actual performance is, the reality is that this generation ati looks very imcompetent on a variety of levels.

i've said numerous times i now have both products, and frankly their pretty comparable, but what the public sees is:

- how could ati have lost all of their previous dominance in 1 shot? why weren't they ready?
- why can't they deliver their product as promised? why are they refusing to say anything?
- nv announced very promising mainstream hardware. where's ati?

i honestly don't think sm3 has that much significance, nor that it ever will, but first you see ati scrambling to downplay sm3, then you see them scrambling to downplay sli, and on top of that almost no one can get their "flagship" part as they nearly don't exist. what gives?

meanwhile nvidia is announcing new products, new technology, new features. regardless of the actual impact of these things, it's glaringly obvious nvidia is on the move, while ati seems to be suspiciously quiet, with the only sounds being heard from up north is the sound of someone covering their ass..

among other things i've already stated, this certainly does not put ati in a good light in any way whatsoever, and while there's definately many areas you can see ati's success, this situation takes center stage. at the moment, it's a pr nightmare.

 

[Drayvn]

Originally posted by: CaiNaM

Originally posted by: VIAN
How can Nvidia talk about desperation when it was clear that the NV35 was such an act.

because they're familiar with it?

regardless of how good the actual performance is, the reality is that this generation ati looks very imcompetent on a variety of levels.

i've said numerous times i now have both products, and frankly their pretty comparable, but what the public sees is:

- how could ati have lost all of their previous dominance in 1 shot? why weren't they ready?
- why can't they deliver their product as promised? why are they refusing to say anything?
- nv announced very promising mainstream hardware. where's ati?

i honestly don't think sm3 has that much significance, nor that it ever will, but first you see ati scrambling to downplay sm3, then you see them scrambling to downplay sli, and on top of that almost no one can get their "flagship" part as they nearly don't exist. what gives?

meanwhile nvidia is announcing new products, new technology, new features. regardless of the actual impact of these things, it's glaringly obvious nvidia is on the move, while ati seems to be suspiciously quiet, with the only sounds being heard from up north is the sound of someone covering their ass..

among other things i've already stated, this certainly does not put ati in a good light in any way whatsoever, and while there's definately many areas you can see ati's success, this situation takes center stage. at the moment, it's a pr nightmare.

With ur first point, so did nVidia.....
With the FX series, nVidia tried to downplay the reason of having 256bit in their cards, while ATi used it.
nVidia are announcing new products, but that seems to counteract the products that are already announced by ATi
I havent seen much of any new technology from nVidia except what is on the 6800 series cards, while ATi have produced some new technology too for their cards also

ATi have the x300, x600 which are low to mid ranged cards, they are bringing out an x800SE card also, while nVidia are bringing out their 6600 card, they are matching each other blow for blow.

nVidia produced an amazing card called the GF4 Ti, then they made the dismal FX series, ATi had nothing while the Ti was out, then they have the Radeon 9700 and 9800 while the FX was out, the 6800 does slightly overtake the ATi in some benchies and other technology, but ATi have kept up, maybe slightly behind, and then their R500 which is totally new is coming out early next year

So the trend has been nVidia on top, nVidia on the bottom - ATi take the reins, nVidia on top - ATi lags behind sligtly, and it will change next time

In simpler terms, nVidia started off with a new gen card, a refresh, a new gen
ATi on the other had started off with well a crap card, a new gen, a refresh

And refreshes are always going to go bad in the end, but its amazing to see how ATi have kept up, well not in the form of new technology, but keeping thier cards up to pace with the competition...

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: Drayvn

Originally posted by: CaiNaM

Originally posted by: VIAN
How can Nvidia talk about desperation when it was clear that the NV35 was such an act.

because they're familiar with it?

regardless of how good the actual performance is, the reality is that this generation ati looks very imcompetent on a variety of levels.

i've said numerous times i now have both products, and frankly their pretty comparable, but what the public sees is:

- how could ati have lost all of their previous dominance in 1 shot? why weren't they ready?
- why can't they deliver their product as promised? why are they refusing to say anything?
- nv announced very promising mainstream hardware. where's ati?

i honestly don't think sm3 has that much significance, nor that it ever will, but first you see ati scrambling to downplay sm3, then you see them scrambling to downplay sli, and on top of that almost no one can get their "flagship" part as they nearly don't exist. what gives?

meanwhile nvidia is announcing new products, new technology, new features. regardless of the actual impact of these things, it's glaringly obvious nvidia is on the move, while ati seems to be suspiciously quiet, with the only sounds being heard from up north is the sound of someone covering their ass..

among other things i've already stated, this certainly does not put ati in a good light in any way whatsoever, and while there's definately many areas you can see ati's success, this situation takes center stage. at the moment, it's a pr nightmare.

With ur first point, so did nVidia.....
With the FX series, nVidia tried to downplay the reason of having 256bit in their cards, while ATi used it.
nVidia are announcing new products, but that seems to counteract the products that are already announced by ATi
I havent seen much of any new technology from nVidia except what is on the 6800 series cards, while ATi have produced some new technology too for their cards also

their entire 6 series lineup is sm3 capable top to bottom, and they've announced sli for the line.. while one can certainly argue the impact of these features, one cannot deny they're there.

ATi have the x300, x600 which are low to mid ranged cards, they are bringing out an x800SE card also, while nVidia are bringing out their 6600 card, they are matching each other blow for blow.

from the performance expectations i've seen ati isn't matching anything in the mainstream segment.. do you have links? i'd be interested in this information.

nVidia produced an amazing card called the GF4 Ti, then they made the dismal FX series, ATi had nothing while the Ti was out, then they have the Radeon 9700 and 9800 while the FX was out, the 6800 does slightly overtake the ATi in some benchies and other technology, but ATi have kept up, maybe slightly behind, and then their R500 which is totally new is coming out early next year

actually, ati had the 9700 out prior to the fx series.. and again, i'm not arguing the performance of this gen, rather the appearance of performance/features, or lack thereof.

So the trend has been nVidia on top, nVidia on the bottom - ATi take the reins, nVidia on top - ATi lags behind sligtly, and it will change next time

In simpler terms, nVidia started off with a new gen card, a refresh, a new gen
ATi on the other had started off with well a crap card, a new gen, a refresh

And refreshes are always going to go bad in the end, but its amazing to see how ATi have kept up, well not in the form of new technology, but keeping thier cards up to pace with the competition...

the trend is quite different this time around. i've had cards from each camp since the original radeon 32 ddr, and while nvidia certainly had the better products, they certainly didn't totally demolish the competition as the r3xx has for the past 2 years (it's been sinde the original geforce that one product had held anywhere near that advantage). while they are certainly competitive this generation, to completely lose thorough & complete domination of you competitor in a high profile segement in one generation (at least in appearance) could almost be considered embarassing. from the pr debacle that was valve, to discovery of undocumented optimizations, inability to ship products, and getting it's ass handed to them in doom3, they've not had much good press.

the point is, i'm not discussing acutal performance, where again i believe ati is competitive, rather the appearance and image of ati, whose shiny armor has definately been tarnished this generation. an easy example would be the x800pro, whose performance is very good, but the general perception is it's a crappy performer (at least in enthusiast circles), in part because it's a 12 pipe card, which people apply undue significance to as they don't really understand what that means. it just sounds slower, which is an image/perception problem, not a performance problem...

 

[klah]

Originally posted by: Drayvn
ATi have the x300, x600 which are low to mid ranged cards, they are bringing out an x800SE card also, while nVidia are bringing out their 6600 card, they are matching each other blow for blow.

The x300(rv370) is a pci-e version of the 9600(rv350). The x600(rv380) is a pci-e version of the 9600XT(rv360). These are not new cards and are identical to their AGP counterparts.

Nvidia also had PCI-E versions of last-generation hardware; PCX5300/PCX5750/PCX5900.

ATI has not yet announced their competitor for the 6600/6600GT series(x700/rv410) but it should be available in the same time frame Sep/Oct.

 

[Pete]

ATi is looking rather sluggish in terms of new features, and that's probably because of their working on both the Xbox 2 and Gamecube 2. nV did the same with the GF3 -> GF3Ti -> GF4Ti, and they were still late with the GF FX. But the lack of top-line feature set didn't seem to cost them much, as it was performance that mattered most. Similarly, I don't see ATi's current lack of SM3.0 being reflected in the benchmarks (yet), and they're about even WRT performance (slower with the Pro, faster with the XTPE).* I think they're coasting, and they can get away with it just because of how perfect the 9700P was. I don't think they can coast for another generation, though, not unless they can compensate for their lesser feature set with clearer benchmark wins.


* That doesn't keep me from listing SM3.0 as one of the reasons I'd go with a 6800GT over a X800P, given their relatively close performance. I'm not convinced SM3.0 will offer a significant improvement over the X800's feature set, but it's probably better to have than not.