Not all Radeon 2xxx to be DX10

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: coldpower27
No some of the information provided is simply incorrect, Geforce 4 MX was an enhanced Geforce 2 MX with a Crossbar Memory Controller and better AA if I am not mistaken and since Geforce 2's all had HW T&L, then so did Geforce 4 MX's.

Ah, sorry, you're right about the HWT&L. I was thinking of the old TNT2, not the GF2. It's been a while since I've dealt with hardware that old.

It was fully complaint DX7.0 hardware.

Yes, but not DX8!

They were also much superior to the value cards they were replacing, a Geforce 4 MX 440 has equivalent performance to a full Geforce 2 GTS/Pro while a Geforce 2 MX is only 1/2 that or so.

True, but it's still a heck of a lot slower than a 'real' GF4 (or even a GF3 Ti200), and it doesn't have the same feature set by a long shot.

From the Geforce FX Generation onward, Nvidia has had hardware from the same generation in practically all segments.

...I think I said that?

ATI has had more situations of branding hardware that was old as new. Radeon 8500 came back in 2 forms, low end cards of Radeon 9000/9200 and the 9100 which was effectively the 8500 renamed.

Eventually the 9100 was phased out in favor of the 9000/9200, which was similar (but slower, and not based exactly on the 8500).

For the R4xx generation, Radeon X300, X550 and X600 was not based on the same technology as Radeon X700/X8x0 cards. They were still based on older RV3xx lines.

I didn't say they were based on exactly the same hardware, but they had the same capabilities (or very nearly so; they both supported SM2.0, but the X700/800 may have added a couple "SM2.0+" extensions that the X300/600 didn't have). What the actual underlying hardware is matters much less than what it can do and how quickly it can do it.

 

[coldpower27]

Originally posted by: munky

Originally posted by: coldpower27

Originally posted by: Matthias99

Originally posted by: Genx87
Does any of this surprise you? ATI has a history of rebranding old GPUs for their mid to lower end. How many generations did the 8500 hold down the low end for ATI?

Uh... that would be two (the 8500 was also the 9100). They moved to the X300 and then the X1300 after that, both of which had the same hardware capabilities as the other cards in the same generation.

NVIDIA has done the same thing too (although not on the last couple of generations). The Geforce "4" MX was the most atrocious example, containing hardware that was actually two full generations old at that point -- it didn't even have HWT&L, which the GF3 had, and prevented it from running newer games that other GF4 cards could handle.

It's stupid no matter who is doing it. If the card doesn't have the same hardware capabilities as the other hardware in the same 'generation', it needs to be differentiated more clearly than just having a different number or a suffix on the end. I've stated my dissatisfaction with both ATI and NVIDIA for this practice before, and I don't understand why ATI/AMD has done it again with their latest generation of hardware. If the underlying hardware is based on the X1300, call it an X1350 or something along those lines, not an X2300.

No some of the information provided is simply incorrect, Geforce 4 MX was an enhanced Geforce 2 MX with a Crossbar Memory Controller and better AA if I am not mistaken and since Geforce 2's all had HW T&L, then so did Geforce 4 MX's. It was fully complaint DX7.0 hardware. They were also much superior to the value cards they were replacing, a Geforce 4 MX 440 has equivalent performance to a full Geforce 2 GTS/Pro while a Geforce 2 MX is only 1/2 that or so.

From the Geforce FX Generation onward, Nvidia has had hardware from the same generation in practically all segments.

ATI has had more situations of branding hardware that was old as new. Radeon 8500 came back in 2 forms, low end cards of Radeon 9000/9200 and the 9100 which was effectively the 8500 renamed.

For the R4xx generation, Radeon X300, X550 and X600 was not based on the same technology as Radeon X700/X8x0 cards. They were still based on older RV3xx lines.

ATI has been behaving to my knowledge with the Radeon X1K Series, with all of them being Shader Model 3.0 capable.

If you want to get really picky, the 9000 series were not just renamed 8500's either. There were some parts cut out, like a second vertex shader, and the second TMU per pipe. Also, there were tweaks and optimizations added to boost the performance of the single VS.

Yes I am quite aware of that, I don't think I implied they were renamed 8500's I only claimed the 9100 is that. The 9000/9200 were value cores, cut down based on RV2xx technology rather then DX9 RV3xx tech.