ATI rebuttal for GFX

[Slappy00]

From FiringSquad

/* Quote */


The focus of our conversation with ATI was dealing with the misconceptions brought about by NVIDIA during the GeForce FX launch. ATI essentially feels that the RADEON 9700 is a more balanced solution than GeForce FX, which doesn?t have the bandwidth to perform many of the operations it?s boasting at an acceptable frame rate.

For instance, NVIDIA is proud to claim that GeForce FX boasts pixel and vertex shaders that go beyond DirectX 9.0?s specs, yet a 400-500MHz chip with 8 pixel pipelines running very long shaders would spend all of its time in geometry, bringing frame rate to a crawl. ATI feels that with RADEON 9700?s multi-pass capability, having native support for thousands of shaders is useless, as the RADEON 9700 can loopback to perform those operations. ATI ran a demonstration of a space fighter that was rendered using this technique.

As far as NVIDIA?s bandwidth claims of GeForce FX?s 48GB/sec memory bandwidth, ATI states that the color compression in their HYPERZ III technology performs the same thing today, and with all of the techniques they use in RADEON 9700, they could claim bandwidth of nearly100GB/sec, but if they did so no one would believe them, hence they?ve stood with offering just shy of 20GB/sec of bandwidth.

One other clarification is in regards to DDR2 memory support. Late last week rumors were floating around that ATI?s DDR2 demonstration wasn?t actually running as DDR2 memory. ATI reiterated that the RADEON 9700 memory controller does indeed support DDR2 and that was the memory type used in the demonstration board.

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Let the Flaming begin

 

[JeremiahTheGreat]

And add this to the fact that N30 doesn't even support Displacement mapping and it looks like nVidia is in a whole lot of trouble..

 

[NicColt]

Also keep in mind that the DoomIII demo they were running was a special optomized version of NVDOOM made specially for the GFX (for which they forgot to mention at the time). I don't have an issue with a special version of NVDoom but putting those number up against the Radeon Pro is quite misleading.

 

[Deeko]

True, true. I don't know why people are so mezmorised by clock speeds and fill rates, without the bandwidth and whatnot to back it up, it doesn't make a big difference....I think it will be very interesting to see the two compared, especially with FSAA, because that is a very bandwidth-intensive task, and something the 9700 excells at, and frankly that's what matters to me, I can't play games without FSAA anymore.

 

[mrman3k]

What I am pretty willing to say is that it is for sure that the FX is more powerful than the 9700 by a hefty margin, however like others have said, it came 6 months later than it was scheduled to. By the time it is actually released, ATI might put out a 400MHz+ 9700 with DDR2 memory.

 

[Spicedaddy]

As far as NVIDIA?s bandwidth claims of GeForce FX?s 48GB/sec memory bandwidth, ATI states that the color compression in their HYPERZ III technology performs the same thing today, and with all of the techniques they use in RADEON 9700, they could claim bandwidth of nearly100GB/sec, but if they did so no one would believe them, hence they?ve stood with offering just shy of 20GB/sec of bandwidth.

LOL, they should start using that number if nVIDIA is gonna use their inflated 48GB/s...


That's one of the things that bothered me with the NV30 previews. Reviewers should stick to real numbers for bandwifth, not theoretical suppositions from ideal situations.

 

[xSauronx]

personally, im not impressed by the FX that i saw based on the picture...

well, im sure it can perform incredibly, but to require a cooler so large it takes up an adjascent pci slot, so that it can move the heat completely out of the system, just seems unacceptable to me....or is this the future of video? my impression isnt "wow, hell of a card" but "wow, they clock it to the max (which, by the way, i think is OVERclocking) and pass it off as normal"

and who thinks itll retail for less than 500 bucks? maybe 450?

i envy those of you with boxes that really need a 500 dollar video card to get the most out of it, hell, my new system didnt cost much more than 650, god, id have to trade my whole box for a FX

i cant decide if thats just wrong, or just depressing....bah

 

[tapir]

a good point about the cooler. it is a good cooling design, but nVidia put PASSIVE coolers on their GF3 reference boards, so if the 5800 Ultra or w/e is going to need that mother of a fan just to run stably, odds are there'll be no overclocking these things. Which isn't a good thing considering you can sometimes get 400MHz out of the 325MHz R300 core

so ATi cards with standard cooling systems can run at 400MHz and nVidia cards can run at 500MHz with "enthusiast" class cooling systems.. NV30's core clock may not be that impressive after all.

 

[TourGuide]

If ATI can get their drivers worked out they may end up having nVidia on the ropes.

I'm loyal to performance and trouble free operation. The latter is my first priority and the former my second. I think there are lots of people who feel that same way also. It remains to be seen what will happen.

I look forward to seeing benchmarks from retail boards and seeing what ATI has to counter at that time.

 

[kylebisme]

so do you think nvidias brand new from the ground up design is going to have just as spot free of drivers as the rehashed hardware they have been putting out for years now?

 

[Deeko]

Originally posted by: TourGuide
If ATI can get their drivers worked out they may end up having nVidia on the ropes.

I'm loyal to performance and trouble free operation. The latter is my first priority and the former my second. I think there are lots of people who feel that same way also. It remains to be seen what will happen.

I look forward to seeing benchmarks from retail boards and seeing what ATI has to counter at that time.

ATI does have good drivers now.

so do you think nvidias brand new from the ground up design is going to have just as spot free of drivers as the rehashed hardware they have been putting out for years now?

That's actually a pretty good point.

 

[mrman3k]

I would not be suprised if ATI comes out in a month or so just about the time of the actual launch of FX and beats the FX up a bit. Even if it doesn't totally outperform the FX in everything, but to think about how close it would be and to make their boards even cheaper, this could be very good for us overclockers. Again, I really like the new cooling solution on the FX. I don't know why people complain about it taking up a PCI slot because you should NEVER install any card in the PCI slot next to the AGP slot, very bad for cooling. So I am actually hoping for ATI to come up with some design like Nvidia did for their ultra high new graphics card.

 

[Deeko]

Originally posted by: mrman3k
I would not be suprised if ATI comes out in a month or so just about the time of the actual launch of FX and beats the FX up a bit. Even if it doesn't totally outperform the FX in everything, but to think about how close it would be and to make their boards even cheaper, this could be very good for us overclockers. Again, I really like the new cooling solution on the FX. I don't know why people complain about it taking up a PCI slot because you should NEVER install any card in the PCI slot next to the AGP slot, very bad for cooling. So I am actually hoping for ATI to come up with some design like Nvidia did for their ultra high new graphics card.

Some people don't have a choice. Some people have a limited amount of PCI slots available. What if you have a microATX board, and you want to say add a new sound card, it may or may not have integrated LAN, what if you want to upgrade to USB 2.0? Add a TV tuner or firewire of some sort? There are alot of PCI cards still out there. nvidia shouldn't just assume that everybody keeps that slot open.

 

[cmdrdredd]

well, I use all 5 PCI slots here...My Ethernet card, my Firewire card, my USB adapter (the one that adds 2 more ports), my sound card, and my Radeon 9700Pro goes in AGP obviously. Now...let's say I want to add SATA RAID or something later on. With the GFX I couldn't. Bad stuff

 

[nemesismk2]

Originally posted by: Deeko

Originally posted by: mrman3k
I would not be suprised if ATI comes out in a month or so just about the time of the actual launch of FX and beats the FX up a bit. Even if it doesn't totally outperform the FX in everything, but to think about how close it would be and to make their boards even cheaper, this could be very good for us overclockers. Again, I really like the new cooling solution on the FX. I don't know why people complain about it taking up a PCI slot because you should NEVER install any card in the PCI slot next to the AGP slot, very bad for cooling. So I am actually hoping for ATI to come up with some design like Nvidia did for their ultra high new graphics card.

Some people don't have a choice. Some people have a limited amount of PCI slots available. What if you have a microATX board, and you want to say add a new sound card, it may or may not have integrated LAN, what if you want to upgrade to USB 2.0? Add a TV tuner or firewire of some sort? There are alot of PCI cards still out there. nvidia shouldn't just assume that everybody keeps that slot open.

The people you mention with microATX boards probably couldn't afford the Geforce FX anyway or they wouldn't be using such a cr*p motherboard. The GFX like the Radeon 9700 will need a seriously powerful computer to get the most out of it so poor people should look elsewhere.

 

[WyteWatt]

cmdrdredd thats why you always try to buy a mobo with at least 6 pci slots. Plus its not good to put a pci card in pci slot 1 right next to the agp slot because they share irqs. It may effect performence. You should try and see if without a pci card in pci 1 effects your performence any.

 

[Deeko]

Originally posted by: nemesismk2

Originally posted by: Deeko

Originally posted by: mrman3k
I would not be suprised if ATI comes out in a month or so just about the time of the actual launch of FX and beats the FX up a bit. Even if it doesn't totally outperform the FX in everything, but to think about how close it would be and to make their boards even cheaper, this could be very good for us overclockers. Again, I really like the new cooling solution on the FX. I don't know why people complain about it taking up a PCI slot because you should NEVER install any card in the PCI slot next to the AGP slot, very bad for cooling. So I am actually hoping for ATI to come up with some design like Nvidia did for their ultra high new graphics card.

Some people don't have a choice. Some people have a limited amount of PCI slots available. What if you have a microATX board, and you want to say add a new sound card, it may or may not have integrated LAN, what if you want to upgrade to USB 2.0? Add a TV tuner or firewire of some sort? There are alot of PCI cards still out there. nvidia shouldn't just assume that everybody keeps that slot open.

The people you mention with microATX boards probably couldn't afford the Geforce FX anyway or they wouldn't be using such a cr*p motherboard. The GFX like the Radeon 9700 will need a seriously powerful computer to get the most out of it so poor people should look elsewhere.

What if you bought a cheap computer, and want to upgrade it? You can throw a fast processor/vid card in a microatx board and turn it into a good system. Those people should have to upgrade their motherboard too, just for the purpose of getting an already expensive card?

imtim83, if you weren't supposed to use that slot, it wouldn't be there. Like I said before, some people don't have a choice. Here are a few things that could use your PCI slot:
1) sound card
2) LAN card
3) USB card
4) firewire card
5) TV tuner/capture card
6) RAID controllor
7) scsi controller
8) game port(some cards, like SB audigy, use another slot if you want that)

those are just a few there...granted its very unlikely to have all or half of those, but it IS possible to use even 6 PCI slots, especially if you have a motherboard without much integration.

 

[FuManStan]

Originally posted by: NicColt
Also keep in mind that the DoomIII demo they were running was a special optomized version of NVDOOM made specially for the GFX (for which they forgot to mention at the time). I don't have an issue with a special version of NVDoom but putting those number up against the Radeon Pro is quite misleading.

How do you know that?

Dissplacement mapping doesn't seem like a big deal to me, at least not a big enough feature to make someone not buy a Geforce FX.

As for the cooling, its been discussed in plenty of other threads. But honestly, isn't there supposed to be a slower clocked GeForce FX with just the standard cooling? Anyway, i agree that if you're going to spend 500 dollars on a graphics card that most of the people who would do that would also have a PCI slot to spare. And if not, there's a slower clocked card or a radeon 9700 pro for you. Competition is good

 

[Deeko]

Yea, there will be a slower card in single-slot format. But if it is likely to be close competition between the ultra and the 9700, a slow one will probably get smashed.

 

[WyteWatt]

Deeko yeah but i would love to see if you have any problems with all 6 pci slots filled up on a mobo. Some stuff just does not like to share with each other. Like sound cards, etc.

Deeko have you tried seeing if there is a performence difference without any pci card in pci 1 thats right below the agp card? Plus when you put a pci card in pci 1 you are not helping the video card's cooling. Espically with how hot the ATI 9700 pro runs and many other video cards. I would not put a pci card right below the agp card. It needs some breathing room.

 

[RazeOrc]

Hey now nemesismk2, careful who you're calling poor when you refer to people with mATX. I'm putting together a new machine that's mATX as a supplement to my monster ATX machine and I'm by no means poor in any sense. I know plenty o people who use mATX due to size restrictions or the fact that they like the look of smaller computers, not because they're 'poor.' Next time be a bit more careful before you start labeling people even if you weren't being serious cause it starts the flames and now I'm guilty of mini-moding.

However, I agree with you that if you're going to go with the FX and Nvidia keeps the current cooling setup that you prolly wouldn't put it into a mATX case if for no other reason than the heat, and it doesn't make sense, just buy a bigger case

One last thought, It's kinda funny but when the FX comes out it will be as fast as the fastest P3 3-4 years ago by clock but not including the memory bus and higher bandwidth. I think it's interesting that we're getting to the point where our GPUs are becoming mini computers in themselves yet put out much more heat due to the fact that voltage is much higher through the AGP cards than traditional CPUs, and the close proximity of INTEGRATED ram onto the PCB. Nvidia is at least attempting to address the problem of heat by exhausting it out of the machine to help keep overall case temps down. If anything they're being responsible with the 2 PCI wide card by helping to ensure that excess heat buildup due to the card in the case does not affect other components.

So while we all may grumble and groan about their solution because it requires change what we aren't considering is where the future of these cards is headed. I really believe that not only will they have to exhaust but they'll also eventually come up with AGP(or whatever standard is adopted in 3-5 years) Mini Mobos for GPUs with Ram and GPU upgradeability, why? why not? Technology will go where it wants. I personally want to be able to upgrade my vid card w/o buying and trashing my old one.

ATI and Nvidia are both going with bigger and fancier cooling solutions and sometime in the near future the traditional cooling designs of today will simply not be enough, silicon just can't handle it.

Enjoy ripping up what i've said as i've enjoyed saying it

 

[cmdrdredd]

my mobo has 6 slots...I used 5 and I'm holding off for a SATA card!

which is what i was saying...The GF FX would take that last slot away from me

 

[Sxotty]

Well what the nvidia engineers said themselves in relation to their bandwidth was
" and claimed that GeForceFX's effective maximum bandwidth may be closer to 20GB/sec. " That is what nvidia employees said, maybe that is PR, but I actually belive it b/c they have a decent track record for not having BS.

I think its very humorous that so many people used to say "Nvidia is lame b/c they rely on brute force" people did actually say that, and now they are apparently changing their minds and saying Nvidia is bad b/c they dont have the most brute force.

 

[spanky]

go ATi

 

[Bovinicus]

It's hard to make assumptions without seeing some actual benchmark results. Both cards have their advantages and disadvantages, but a real-world test is the only way to see who's on top. Furthermore, I don't even feel it right to compare the Radeon 9700 to the GeForce FX. The FX is coming out several months after the 9700. By the time the FX comes out, the R350 will be nearing a launch. The 9700 will have dropped significantly in price too, probably. I have a feeling the FX will perform better because it has a massive core clock advantage. However, that doesn't mean the FX will be a better deal, as it will probably retail for $400+ upon launch. The Radeon 9700 PRO is already as cheap as $310 on Pricewatch.