GeForceFX 5900 vs Radeon 9600XT/9800np!: comparing quality of colors, drivers, FSAA/AF, etc..

[Dance123]

Hi,

In all reviews, I read that the Radeon cards have..

1/ much better colors
2/ better drivers
3/ better FSAA/AF performance..

..then the GeForceFX cards. Is all of the above really true, so that it would make sense to choose a Radeon 9600 Pro or XT over a GeForceFX 5900 non-ultra, and what if you would place the GeForceFX 5900 non-ultra against a Radeon 9800 non-pro?!

Could anybody please clarify this, as perhaps specs-wise the GeForceFX 5900 non-ultra would be better then the Radeon 9600XT and/or 9800 non-pro, but perhaps those Radeons would still give better colors, etc.. Oh, and what about those pixel pipelines. Radeon 9800 non-pro has 8, but what about GeForceFX 5900 non-ultra?

What's the truth about those 3 things I mentioned above if you place the cards I mentioned against each other?! I've read many reviews, but still can't figure out the truth about Radeon vs GeForce quality-wise.

Thanks in advance for all good feedback!

Mike.

 

[JammingJay]

Keep in mind FX5900nu is FASTER than a Radeon 9600pro or XT in majority of benchmarks. FX5900nu's competitor is more in line with the Radeon 9700/9800np line.

Unless you're a graphic design artist or someone who really pays close attention to detail, I couldn't really discern the difference in color quality between my Radeon 9700pro & FX5900nu running off a DVI signal to a LCD.

Radeon 9800np does offer better DX9 performance than a FX5900nu.

Drivers are debatable, but I haven't had any major trouble with either set. (Minor problems with NBA2K4 with ATI drivers, and minor problems with Splinter Cell with Nividia drivers, etc.. you get the point).

Thats my 2 cents, rest I'll leave to the fanatics to debate.

 

[McArra]

Ati: Better AA (quality), higher AF performance, higher AA+AF performance
Fx line: Better AF (quality), higher AA performance.

About colors: Some people claim Ati is more realistic. Some people claim Nvidia has more vivid colors. This is subjective and it depends on tastes.

9800np: 8x1 pipeline architecture
5900nu: 4x2 pipeline architecture

About drivers: I prefer ATI. In the past they were really bad but nowadays their drivers are at least as good as Nvidias. Also subjective in a way since both have very good drivers.

Hope this helps you

 

[Dance123]

From Tomshardware over here:

About pixel pipelines:

- ATI Radeon 9800 PRO (and also the non-pro by the way): 8

- NVIDIA GeForceFX 5900 Ultra:

4 for color & Z
8 for z
8 for stencil
8 for texture

Texture Units Per Pipe: 1 with all cards

My questions:

1/ why does the GeForceFX 5900 has only 4 for color & Z, and how is that a disadvantage compared to the Radeon 9800 (8 pixel pipelines).

2/ they only mention the pixel pipelines for the GeForceFX 5900 Ultra, what about the 5900 non-ultra?!!

3/ what about noise? They say the 5900 is better compared to 5800, but the Radeons still seem to be better in that department. Is that true, cause the ASUS V9950 GeForce FX 5900 seems be quiet according to the Asus website (under 30db), or are Radeons 9600XT/9800np and similar still more silent?!

4/ which card is prefered for EASports games like FIFA 2004, NBA 2004, in case you play those, as driver peformance apparently can be different between specific games!

 

[Regs]

I would imagine there would be a lot of memory swapping when making 2 passes of 4 pipelines other than only 1 pass using 8 pipelines. However, memory bandwidth is something the FX's certainly do not lack.

The reason why they do not mention pixel "pipelines" differences of the NU vs Ultra is simply because there is no difference between their architectures. Like any Ultra/Non Ultra or Pro/Non Pro, the only difference is their clock speeds and memory bus speeds.

As for noise, nothing louder than a normal case fan.

Drivers? Little difference. Only if the game is OpenGL where Nvidia seems to dominate by a margin of frames per second.

But that is just a guess, I don't know if im right. *Waits for Pete.

 

[Dance123]

Which card makes 2 passes of 4 pipelines. The GeForceFX 5900 has only 4 pixel pipelines for color & Z, but they don't mention 2 passes. Still I don't understand why it has 4 pixel pipelines for color & Z, and 8 for all the rest. How can this be a a disadvantage compared to Radeon 9800 (8 pixel pipelines).

Oh, anybody knows if these pixel pipelines specs are the same for the GeForceFX 5900 non-ultra, cause they only mention the specs for the ultra version?! Anybody can confirm this, as I would get the non-ultra version!!

 

[Regs]

I just told you that the pixel pipelines are the same between the NU and Ultra...

 

[Genx87]

1. Debateable and upto an individual.
2. Not buying into that just yet. Call of Duty crapped out of the gate with the Cats and needed a hotfix. Combat Mission still cant get fog in game with ATI drivers. And have they fixed the issue with Halo if you ask for anything less than trillinear it doesnt apply textures? Then the infamous HL bug where the driver would hardlock your machine. ATI apparently is getting there but not quite yet. At least it sounds like thier driver install wont blow up your system and has been simplified
3. ATI has better AA performance and better quality. ATI has better AF performance but worse quality.

I would never recommend a 9600 XT over a 5900 NU. 5900 NU will beat it in anything out today and most likely in HL2 also. Doom3 shouldnt be a surprise when it beats the 9600 XT also. I have heard 5200s running with 9800 Pros in Doom3 hehe

9800 NP is a better competitor but still not fast enough imo to justify not taking a 5900 NU.

 

[Andy22]

One of the negatives mentioned especially about the 5900 non ultra was concerning noise. Noise is definitely a factor for me so the amount of noise the new 5900 non ultras generate could sway my decision.

 

[Pete]

Quick answers without reading the rest of the thread:

1) Debatable. That may have been the case with the GF2/3/4, when nV had laxer signal quality restrictions and thus generally worse output. The FX line should be better, though.
2) Debatable. The consensus is that ATi has improved their driver from their Radeon/8500 days. ATi's DX9 line should have drivers about equal to nV's FX line, though they may still lag slightly. I expect them to reach parity once developers start basing games on Xbox2, which will have an ATi chip in it. This thread is surprising and encouraging, though.
3) It depends. All FX cards have worse-quality AA at the same settings (meaning 2xAA/4xAA/6xAA should look better/smoother on ATi's DX9 cards). The FX line, however, offers some mixed-mode settings (4xS, 6x, 8x) that will work on alpha (partially see-through) textures (like railings in CS) and textures in general (may reduce texture shimmer) that ATi doesn't (their AA doesn't touch textures), albeit at big performance hits. This is mainly useful for older games in which the FX line has framerate to spare. In terms of speed, the 9800 is slightly faster than a 5900, which in turn is much faster than a 9600XT.

ATi tends to have faster AF, though it's potentially (slightly) worse than nV's in terms of coverage (some textures at odd angles may not be as sharp) and possibly texture shimmer (3DCenter just ran an article on this topic, and Beyond3D has a corresponding thread debating whether or not nV's extra "lerping" results in less texture aliasing/shimmer). ATi's AF seems to extend further into the scene, though, whereas nV's seems to end at a certain point (you can see this in some Aquamark 3 screenshots). I think the 9800 and 5900 are about even in AF speed, with the 9600XT bringing up the rear again.

Any questions?

 

[Genx87]

One of the negatives mentioned especially about the 5900 non ultra was concerning noise. Noise is definitely a factor for me so the amount of noise the new 5900 non ultras generate could sway my decision.

My 5900 NU is less quiet than my GF4.

 

[Dance123]

1/ Are you sure about the noise?! The ASUS V9950 GeForce FX 5900 is under 30db according to there website or are the Sapphire and Hercules Radeons 9600/9800 still more quiet. Also, the size of the fan matters, cause little fans can give annoying high-pitched noise.

Anybody can tell more about how they compare in (annoying high-pitched) noise?!

2/ Oh, and I still don't know why the GeForceFX 5900 has only 4 for color & Z, and how this is a disadvantage compared to the Radeon 9800 (8 pixel pipelines)?!

 

[VIAN]

All of these issues are really debatable and really your best bet is to just get a card that you think looks prettier.

 

[Pete]

Dance123, Beyond3D's initial p/reviews of the FX 5900 and comparisons of the 9700 Pro to the 5800 Ultra should explain the FX's 4x2/8x0 architecture better than anyone here. I think the basic explanation is that the FX can use the storage normally reserved for color values to hold an extra stencil value per pipeline, so it's able to function as if it had twice as many pipelines with stencils.

The main disadvantage of a 4x2 architecture compared to an 8x1 one of the same speed is that the latter has the potential to be twice as fast with shader-heavy games, as it has twice as many pixel shaders. In regular, mainly multi-textured games (which are mainly optimized for nVidia cards and their 'two textures per pipe per clock' architectures), 4x2 should be equal to 8x1, if not ever-so-slightly faster due to slightly less downtime between passes per multi-textured pixel.

In short, for current games, 4x2 and 8x1 are about the same (though the latter sounds better because people like bigger numbers). That's mainly why nVidia tried to pass the 5800U off as an eight-pipeline card, when it's actually four-pipeline. But the difference should be more pronounced with shader-heavy titles, particularly DX9 ones, as evidenced by the early Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness and Half-Life 2 benchmarks. Obviously, nV will work hard to get developers to work around the FX's limitations, but the rather simplified theoretical view is that the Radeon high end should be faster at DX9-shader-heavy titles than the FX high-end. As always, benchmarks have the final word, so you'll have to refer to them to see how theory meets reality.

 

[BFG10K]

ATi has faster AA and AF performance. Radeon cards always excel when the image quality and settings are cranked up and tend to pull away from the FX line.

ATi also has much better AA quality (especially for horizontal and vertical edges) and additionally developers can reprogram the sampling pattern to better suit their game if they need it (eg Valve have done this for HalfLife 2).

AF quality is debatable but I found the 9700 Pro to have superior AF quality than the pinnacle of nVidia's AF quality, the NV25 (FX cards have worse quality). To me ATi produces sharper and crisper images for much longer distances too. You'll absolutely be blown away by a game like Serious Sam that uses hugely tiled floors stretching for miles.

The main disadvantage of a 4x2 architecture compared to an 8x1 one of the same speed is that the latter has the potential to be twice as fast with shader-heavy games

It'll also be twice as fast in all pixel rendering such as lighting, smoke, blood, particle effects and similar.