Originally posted by: Keysplayr
Because someone would use a 500.00 GTX295 as a secondary PhysX card, right?
Probably not. I'll give you that. Not really relevant though. The point is that you can't anyway, unless your other card is NVIDIA.
I'd like to know exactly how you think I'm mocking you. And focus group doesn't have a smidgeon of anything to do with it. I'd have bought the GTX295 anyway. And whatever else top end, or at least 2nd from top (which is my buying history) comes out.
IIRC, you were a solid second tier purchaser when it was your own dime...
http://endeavorquest.net:8880/2900xtvs8800gts/index.htm Nothing wrong with that, just that
paperweight schmaperweight regarding the loss of value is a little much from someone who gets their gear for free.
In the past, when someone bought a new card, their old one would usually be sold to recoup some of the money for their upgrade. Or, if they didn't need the money, they would keep it as a backup. Otherwise, it would go on eBay or FS/FT somewhere.
Yep, that's why the thought of being able to re-purpose the card as a discrete gpu was so appealing to some. NVIDIA was adding value to previously purchased products that were otherwise kinda worthless. This whole year NV has been fighting a value war with ATI, and here they actually had a value that ATI couldn't touch. What does NV do...? Screw it up.
Honestly guys, how many of you with ATI cards actually used your old NV card for discrete PhysX use? Maybe if ATI fans didn't slam PhysX as a useless feature constantly for the past year, and actually said they appreciated the extra value Nvidia provided as you stated above, "With the opportunity to use an NV card as a 'discrete Physics' card they just added value to a previous purchase.", that "good will" you mentioned may have materialized. But no, that didn't happen. With the exception of a rare few, and I do feel for them, PhysX has been slammed over and over again. That's fine and all, and it sucks for those users who genuinely appreciated it, but it probably really couldn't have hurt to show "good will" toward Nvidia as well. Then again, maybe that wouldn't have mattered at all from a business perspective.
That is the nature of "good will"... You don't have to take advantage of it, but it's there if you need it. NVIDIA was in a position to basically give all previous purchasers of their cards a 'free' PhysX card regardless of what card they used as their primary video card, but instead they choose to flex their muscle. They have the right to do it but IMO it's a myopic view.
With the introduction of G80, and ever since then, Nvidia has been a locomotive of innovation. Non stop. Excellent gaming performance and image quality, CUDA technology, PhysX, Tesla, 3DVision,
Pulled from another thread is:
"NVIDIA®® OptiX? engine for real-time ray tracing linky
NVIDIA®® SceniX? engine for managing 3D data and scenes linky
NVIDIA®® CompleX? engine for scaling performance across multiple GPUs linky
NVIDIA®® PhysX®® 64-bit engine for real-time, hyper-realistic physical and environmental effects" linky.
So tell me. Is Nvidia not pushing new technology for it's customers? Or does disabling discrete PhysX GPU when ATI card present wipe all of this out?
What kind of scale do you have?
NVIDIA is absolutely pushing technology, and they do make great stuff. I wouldn't buy it if I didn't honestly believe that.
What kind of scale do I have...? Not sure, it's all relative, and it depends on what the competition is offering. In the case of X58 vs. 780i, it wasn't a question. 780i has absolutely zero benefits over X58. The only benefit it had over X38/48 was SLI support, which I'm sure NV knew. The fact that NVIDIA made their chipsets SLI exclusive made X58 the
only choice for video card enthusiast because it lets you use all that the industry has to offer. I'd have actually opted for a Phenom chipset (performance hit and all) that did the same over a Core2Duo/Quad chipset that did not support SLI and CF.
Speaking from a video enthusiast's perspective, X58 is the best thing to happen to PCs since multi-gpu made it's comeback. Ironic that it takes a cpu manufacturer to come up with a better video platform than either of the dominant video card manufacturers. Something is wrong with that IMO.