NV40 Reviews Up Now

[Reliant]

Originally posted by: Rudee
Looks as though it would be a waste to purchase a NV40 without a power supply upgrade and a CPU upgrade. I think anything less than a Athlon 64 3400 would be a waste. I'm probably going to wait until AMD releases their Athlon 64 3700 before I upgrade my video card. By then, the card will be lower priced and the new processors will mate perfectly with the performance of these cards. However, I do have a preference for ATI's AA settings, thus I'm going to wait for ATI's product to come out before I do anything.

I'm pretty sure my P4@ 3.4 will handle the card just fine.

 

[SneakyStuff]

WOW!, I think i've made up my mind, I'm gonna wait til socket 939 and PCI-E to get the PCI-E flavor of the 6800 I wonder what ATI has up its' sleeves though, they can't just release a dud.

 

[Rudee]

Disappointing overclocking results.

 

[CaiNaM]

I see these type of comments, and my head just starts to hurt. The same type of thing is often said about Intel or AMD "matching" the other at the last second. You CANNOT make these types of major architectural changes at the "last-moment". Whatever the number of pipelines, that type of decision was made LONG before "last-moment".

P-X

nope.. from a design/engineering point, yes.. but ati, rather than producing multiple chips, has simply "turned off" pipelines, etc, which is why the later 9800pro is the exact same gpu as the 9800xt (it simply has the od, hd monitoring, etc disabled). it allows them to ship gpu's w/ different performance even the the chip is that same, lowering manufacting costs.

their intention was to release their next card w/ 12 pipes enabled (even tho it had 16 actual pipes), holding back their "ace in the hole" for whatever reason. however, as reported by many reputable news sites, the decision was made just recently to release w/ 16 pipes enabled.

it's not such a stretch to think that nvidia "getting this one right" forced them to reveal their "ace in the hole" and release w/ all 16 pipes rather than the 12 they originally had planned.

 

[Marodeur]

I hope there will be a benchmark about CPU scaling for the new GPUs...

 

[NYHoustonman]

And I wanna see screenies of Far Cry now vs. w/PS3.0... I just read on another MB that the difference side-by-side was quite noticeable.

 

[Killrose]

Bummer about the 480watt psu recommendation, it will be interesting to see if you can get away with alot less or not.

 

[elkinm]

Me really want this performance if this is real, I don't really want a 480W PSU. Sometimes double the 9800XT is latest games. Now that is fun. It looks like Nvidia may have equated or surpassed the 9700 Pro release.

Now I just want to see how the X800s perform. They have a lot of ground to make up.

 

[Marodeur]

A german site (3dcenter.de) runs the test with only a 300Watt PSU...

480Watt is a recommendation.... not more, not less...

 

[Insomniak]

Originally posted by: PrinceXizor

Indeed, they deserve props for getting themselves on track again, and this performance certainly explains ATI's apparently last-moment solution of releasing a 16 pipeline GPU.

I see these type of comments, and my head just starts to hurt. The same type of thing is often said about Intel or AMD "matching" the other at the last second. You CANNOT make these types of major architectural changes at the "last-moment". Whatever the number of pipelines, that type of decision was made LONG before "last-moment".

P-X

Bingo. Architectures are designed a good 2 years before they're released or announced. Nvidia is very close to finishing it's design for NV60 right now (or already finished, one of the two), whether people believe it or not. This stuff is designed YEARS ahead of time.

There are NO last minute changes...anyone familiar with microprocessor manufacture knows this well.

 

[MichaelZ]

wow, so many reviews and so little time. it's 4AM and i'm frikken sleepy... i shall soldier on and read at least two tho!

edit: i sure would love to see the 6800 non ultra's performance figures.

 

[Tango57]

Originally posted by: Rudee
Looks as though it would be a waste to purchase a NV40 without a power supply upgrade and a CPU upgrade. I think anything less than a Athlon 64 3400 would be a waste. I'm probably going to wait until AMD releases their Athlon 64 3700 before I upgrade my video card. By then, the card will be lower priced and the new processors will mate perfectly with the performance of these cards. However, I do have a preference for ATI's AA settings, thus I'm going to wait for ATI's product to come out before I do anything.

yeah i agree, otherwise you won't see the maximum performance of these cards if your cpu and psu is chugging just to keep up. as far as pricing is concerned, these cards will stay in the $500 range for a long time to come so it's best to probably save up big and then make a major system upgrade all at once unless of course you can't wait that long and just have to have it now.

 

[Rudee]

I'm willing to bet that ATI will be able to pull off equal or greater performance with the R420 (Radeon X800) without the ridiculous power supply requirements. That in itself will be enough of a deciding factor to swing opinion in ATI's favor. There's not many factory PC's that are shipping with 480w power supplies, thus this is going to hurt the bottom line when it comes to mainstream sales. And if ATI can capitolize on this by having lower hardware requirements, they will ultimately be more successful in overall sales.

 

[PrinceXizor]

Originally posted by: Rudee
I'm willing to bet that ATI will be able to pull off equal or greater performance with the R420 (Radeon X800) without the ridiculous power supply requirements. That in itself will be enough of a deciding factor to swing opinion in ATI's favor. There's not many factory PC's that are shipping with 480w power supplies, thus this is going to hurt the bottom line when it comes to mainstream sales. And if ATI can capitolize on this by having lower hardware requirements, they will ultimately be more successful in overall sales.

And just how many retail computers ship with a GeForce FX Ultra 5950 or a Radeon 9800XT? Not many.

If there ARE ones, how many DON'T have a large beefy powersupply? Even less.

I really don't think that the power supply issue will be that large. The lower end cards (the ones that will ACTUALLY appear in retail computers) will only need one connector and a less beefy supply.

Obviously, if ATI does a better job of it, its a feather in their cap. But I don't think the issue, in and of itself, is that big a deal.

P-X

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: Rudee
Disappointing overclocking results.

Yeah, with those performance marks, we will all need to overclock the 6800 to the hilt!

 

[Algere]

Originally posted by: CaiNaM

Originally posted by: BenSkywalker


GameSpy (Take a guess...)

this linkie points to the guru3d article, ben...

GameSpy

 

[Draco]

Originally posted by: PrinceXizor

Originally posted by: Rudee
I'm willing to bet that ATI will be able to pull off equal or greater performance with the R420 (Radeon X800) without the ridiculous power supply requirements. That in itself will be enough of a deciding factor to swing opinion in ATI's favor. There's not many factory PC's that are shipping with 480w power supplies, thus this is going to hurt the bottom line when it comes to mainstream sales. And if ATI can capitolize on this by having lower hardware requirements, they will ultimately be more successful in overall sales.

And just how many retail computers ship with a GeForce FX Ultra 5950 or a Radeon 9800XT? Not many.

If there ARE ones, how many DON'T have a large beefy powersupply? Even less.

I really don't think that the power supply issue will be that large. The lower end cards (the ones that will ACTUALLY appear in retail computers) will only need one connector and a less beefy supply.

Obviously, if ATI does a better job of it, its a feather in their cap. But I don't think the issue, in and of itself, is that big a deal.

P-X

Well said, i agree.

 

[Genx87]

their intention was to release their next card w/ 12 pipes enabled (even tho it had 16 actual pipes), holding back their "ace in the hole" for whatever reason. however, as reported by many reputable news sites, the decision was made just recently to release w/ 16 pipes enabled.


Then why are they waiting until June to release it?

As for the PS issue. I think this is really being blow out of proportion. People have apparently tested the thing with a lowly 300 watt PS without issue. I have a good feeling anybody with a 350+ will ok.

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: Rudee
I'm willing to bet that ATI will be able to pull off equal or greater performance with the R420 (Radeon X800) without the ridiculous power supply requirements. That in itself will be enough of a deciding factor to swing opinion in ATI's favor. There's not many factory PC's that are shipping with 480w power supplies, thus this is going to hurt the bottom line when it comes to mainstream sales. And if ATI can capitolize on this by having lower hardware requirements, they will ultimately be more successful in overall sales.

Considering your track record with predictions:

04/13/2004 11:06 AM

I predict disappointment. People are getting attached to buzzwords like "8x this" or "3 times that" and thinking that the NV40 will absolutely destroy the competition with benchmarks on popular games off the charts. It ain't going to happen... It's going to be more like people saying: "What, only an extra 15 frames a sec on UT200??? What a disappointment!"

...

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: Genx87
their intention was to release their next card w/ 12 pipes enabled (even tho it had 16 actual pipes), holding back their "ace in the hole" for whatever reason. however, as reported by many reputable news sites, the decision was made just recently to release w/ 16 pipes enabled.


Then why are they waiting until June to release it?

As for the PS issue. I think this is really being blow out of proportion. People have apparently tested the thing with a lowly 300 watt PS without issue. I have a good feeling anybody with a 350+ will ok.

Ditto, provided it's a high quality PSU and you aren't running a high speed/overclocked Prescott that's sucking hard off the 12v line too.

 

[yhelothar]

Originally posted by: Amused

Originally posted by: Rudee
I'm willing to bet that ATI will be able to pull off equal or greater performance with the R420 (Radeon X800) without the ridiculous power supply requirements. That in itself will be enough of a deciding factor to swing opinion in ATI's favor. There's not many factory PC's that are shipping with 480w power supplies, thus this is going to hurt the bottom line when it comes to mainstream sales. And if ATI can capitolize on this by having lower hardware requirements, they will ultimately be more successful in overall sales.

Considering your track record with predictions:

04/13/2004 11:06 AM

I predict disappointment. People are getting attached to buzzwords like "8x this" or "3 times that" and thinking that the NV40 will absolutely destroy the competition with benchmarks on popular games off the charts. It ain't going to happen... It's going to be more like people saying: "What, only an extra 15 frames a sec on UT200??? What a disappointment!"

...

owned

 

[Insomniak]

Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER

Originally posted by: Genx87
their intention was to release their next card w/ 12 pipes enabled (even tho it had 16 actual pipes), holding back their "ace in the hole" for whatever reason. however, as reported by many reputable news sites, the decision was made just recently to release w/ 16 pipes enabled.


Then why are they waiting until June to release it?

As for the PS issue. I think this is really being blow out of proportion. People have apparently tested the thing with a lowly 300 watt PS without issue. I have a good feeling anybody with a 350+ will ok.

Ditto, provided it's a high quality PSU and you aren't running a high speed/overclocked Prescott that's sucking hard off the 12v line too.

I think some of these review sites need to get off their arse and actually MEASURE HOW MUCH POWER THE GPU DRAWS dammit. That way, one can take the power ratings for the other components in their system, calculate, and figure out if they need a new PSU or not.

It's called math, it was invented a long time ago, and it's been the performance leader ever since

 

[KevinH]

Originally posted by: CaiNaM

Originally posted by: Lonyo
I love THG, saying it's an unprecedented leap.

It's 1.5~2x faster than current cards from what I've read so far.

The 9700Pro was about 2x the speed of the Ti4600 with AA/AF (mostly what's being used for all the benchmarks at the moment), so it's about average for a new card.
Looks promising so far.

you should actually read it:

You'd have to go back quite a bit in the history of graphics cards to find a performance leap of similar magnitude. Maybe the transition from 3dfx's Voodoo1 to the Voodoo 2 comes close. Or the jump from NVIDIA's TNT2 to the GeForce 256 DDR, or perhaps the transition from ATi's Radeon 8500 to the 9700 Pro

Exactly. Those sort of jumps in performance only occured during those aforementioned introductions. To say that the leap is average means you obviously haven't been following the #'s very closely the last 7 years.

 

[BlvdKing]

Tech Report gives power consumption figures in watts of the 6800U vs the 5950 and 9800XT.

Originally posted by: Insomniak

Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER

Originally posted by: Genx87
their intention was to release their next card w/ 12 pipes enabled (even tho it had 16 actual pipes), holding back their "ace in the hole" for whatever reason. however, as reported by many reputable news sites, the decision was made just recently to release w/ 16 pipes enabled.


Then why are they waiting until June to release it?

As for the PS issue. I think this is really being blow out of proportion. People have apparently tested the thing with a lowly 300 watt PS without issue. I have a good feeling anybody with a 350+ will ok.

Ditto, provided it's a high quality PSU and you aren't running a high speed/overclocked Prescott that's sucking hard off the 12v line too.

I think some of these review sites need to get off their arse and actually MEASURE HOW MUCH POWER THE GPU DRAWS dammit. That way, one can take the power ratings for the other components in their system, calculate, and figure out if they need a new PSU or not.

It's called math, it was invented a long time ago, and it's been the performance leader ever since

 

[BFG10K]

Some of the benchmark scores are just obscene, like seven times faster than the 9700 Pro in Jedi Academy! It feels like I'm on a TNT2 or something.

ATi really better have something good up their sleeve to combat this.

Oh and fully adjustable AF is excellent because it'll keep everyone happy. nVidia is really delivering the goods with this one