GeforceFX on TechTV

[Wag]

Shown on The Screensavers, during an interview with Sharky. The reference card is certainly a wild looking thing, it's got an intake manifold that takes up a PCI slot. Blah. Sharky also said (for what it's worth) is that he's expecting the 9700 Pro and the FX to come pretty close in framerate, even though the FX is still 128bit as opposed to the 9700's 256. Interesting.

I don't know if I want to buy a card that takes up another slot. Well, I can see why they're using the FX name as homage to 3DFX, 2-slot videocards.

 

[TheWart]

Wow, if it is even relatively close to the R9700 Pro, then I think Nvidia is ina load of trouble. Debuting @ around $500 won't enthuse many gamers enough to shell out money when a Radeon 9700 Pro, which will be quite affordable by then, is right up there in performance. Especially if the R350 is right around the corner.

Anyway, I would resevre judgement until we see some real benchies!

 

[KingofFah]

r300 = dx9 spec
nv30 = way above dx9 spec

 

[Rand]

Originally posted by: KingofFah
r300 = dx9 spec
nv30 = way above dx9 spec

R300 is already beyond DX9 requirements insofar as PS/VS 2.0 are concerned.
Neither NV30 nor R300 are complicant with DX9 VS/PS 3.0 however.

Outside of instruction lengths I'd argue that their relatively close int erms of 3D feature set.

 

[Leon]

GeForce FX meets DX9 Extended specifications, Radeon 9700 doesn't. Extended spec was added in final build - now we have PS/VS 2.0, PS/VS 2.0 extended, and PS/VS 3.0

 

[KingofFah]

Ummm, comparison speeds between r300 memory speeds and nv30? I forget, but wasn't the nv30 550 and the r300 is only 310?

 

[jamesbond007]

Originally posted by: TheWart
Wow, if it is even relatively close to the R9700 Pro, then I think Nvidia is ina load of trouble. Debuting @ around $500 won't enthuse many gamers enough to shell out money when a Radeon 9700 Pro, which will be quite affordable by then, is right up there in performance. Especially if the R350 is right around the corner.

Anyway, I would resevre judgement until we see some real benchies!

I agree totally with your statements!!! I too hate the fact that the GeForceFX requires an extra slot, which I have none to spare at the moment. I wonder if the card is even worth waiting for? Perhaps people who are wanting to upgrade now should get the R9700 Pro instead of waiting for the FX?

Considering the prices in comparison, the FX had better show it's worthiness over ATi's lineup. I cannot see spending $150-$200 for an extra few FPS and a wasted PCI slot. Especially since ATi has a VERY solid and stable driver set now. (Phew!)

Only time will tell.

[edit]i r gr8 sp3lar [/edit]

 

[Spicedaddy]

Originally posted by: KingofFah
Ummm, comparison speeds between r300 memory speeds and nv30? I forget, but wasn't the nv30 550 and the r300 is only 310?

But since the 9700 uses 256-bit memory path, while the FX is still 128-bit, the 9700 has more bandwidth. MHz doesn't mean anything... (the FX would have to have 620MHz memory to match the 9700 Pro'semory bandwidth)

 

[Shalmanese]

Originally posted by: Leon
GeForce FX meets DX9 Extended specifications, Radeon 9700 doesn't. Extended spec was added in final build - now we have PS/VS 2.0, PS/VS 2.0 extended, and PS/VS 3.0

That is meaningless for anything more than marketing. Neither the FX or the 9700 can run any part of the Extended spec at useable frame rates. They are even struggling to run the base spec at a a decent frame rate.

 

[Lonyo]

Who cares whether either card can run the enxtended spec at all!?!? It will only be used in tech demos. By the time a game comes out that uses the extended spec, those cards will probably be to slow to play it at a decent res anyway, and you'll turn of any extra features. The next gen cards will have better support for the extended features, so if it bothers you that much you could just wait and buy one of them, by which time there'll probably be DirectX 9.1, and those new cards won't support somethign in it, and so on and so on.

 

[Crapgame]

People use the PCI slot that shares with the AGP ..... why?

 

[jamesbond007]

Originally posted by: Crapgame
People use the PCI slot that shares with the AGP ..... why?

Because I don't have a PCI slot 7 or 8 to use.

If I had a board with 8 slots, I could use them all right now.

 

[KingofFah]

Well it depends on how well that compression actually works on the nv30

 

[Rand]

Originally posted by: Lonyo
Who cares whether either card can run the enxtended spec at all!?!? It will only be used in tech demos. B

I would tend to disagree, in the Pro3D realm many of the NV30's enhancements over the R300 ARE immediately beneficial... and in most Pro3D applications one certainly does not need real time playback in many cases so frame rate is of considerably less importance.

In gaming... yes I agree. Hell, even 50 reasonably complex shader instructions can push the R300 down to sub 30FPS in 640x480 so one can only imagine more complex shaders then that. Light weight shaders may be able to push that limit to around 80-90 however... though that's still well within the R300's architectural capabilities let alone anything beyond.

Ummm, comparison speeds between r300 memory speeds and nv30? I forget, but wasn't the nv30 550 and the r300 is only 310?

R9700Pro: 310MHz DDR/256bit memory controller: 19.84GB/s peak physical memory bandwidth
GeForceFX: 500MHz DDR-II/128bit memory controller: 16.0GB/s peak physical memory bandwidth

The relative bandwidth efficiency is of course unknown as yet beyond the usual PR marketing hype.

 

[lifeguard1999]

While we cannot really know right now what the benchmarks will be, we can make one supposition. The FX will beat the 9700 Pro. It makes no sense otherwise. (Who would pay that much money for a FX or FX Ultra if it was slower?) The questions really are:

1) The FX and FX Ultra are faster than the 9700 Pro by how much?
2) Is it worth the price increase?
3) When is it really available?
4) What, When, and How Much is ATI's response?

My guess is

(1) less than 5% in regular gaming and more than 5% with all the eye candy turned on
(2) No, but who cares
(3) A month after "release"
(4) I don't know when the R350 (or whatever) is to be released.

 

[Thor86]

Originally posted by: lifeguard1999
While we cannot really know right now what the benchmarks will be, we can make one supposition. The FX will beat the 9700 Pro. It makes no sense otherwise. (Who would pay that much money for a FX or FX Ultra if it was slower?) The questions really are:

1) The FX and FX Ultra are faster than the 9700 Pro by how much?
2) Is it worth the price increase?
3) When is it really available?
4) What, When, and How Much is ATI's response?

My guess is

(1) less than 5% in regular gaming and more than 5% with all the eye candy turned on
(2) No, but who cares
(3) A month after "release"
(4) I don't know when the R350 (or whatever) is to be released.

The already have an FX Ultra?

 

[tapir]

The FX Ultra is the one with the extra cooling system and the high clock rates - and the high $499 price. The vanilla FX is $399 and less impressive. Considering you can get a R9700 for~$300, it's going to be hard to justify those high prices.

Most of this stuff is old news, though. Just wait until the card comes out.

 

[dguy6789]

They are making 2 versions of the geforce FX. the Geforce FX 5800 and the Geforce FX 5800 Ultra. They will be priced between $300-$400.
The 5800 Ultra will have 500 Mhz 128 bit ddr 2 memory,(effectively 1ghz) i dont remeber core speed but i belive that is 500 mhz as well. The geforce FX 5800 Ultra will out perform the 9700 period. But the question is by how much. We are going to have to wait until they release it and give some benchmarks.