Nvidia posts loss this past financial quarter

[thilanliyan]

Originally posted by: Genx87
They could be dropped out of a plane from 30,000 feet and then nuked it wouldnt matter. They are sold.

Lol yeah that's what I was trying to figure out. 🙂

Here's an interesting thread (they actually discuss margins, writedowns, etc. although I don't really know how much they actually know):
http://forum.beyond3d.com/show...ad.php?t=48843&page=25

Starting from post #611 is where the new financial info was available I think.

 

[Cookie Monster]

Originally posted by: Keysplayr

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: evolucion8
the 8600 cards are pathettic DX10 videocards which cannot outperform the previous high end DX9 cards and burns out with the bump problems in Dell/HP laptops and everywhere.

Yet it still beat the pants off of the entire 4800 series in the steam survey. The 4800x2, 4870, 4850 and 4890 combined could not surpass it.

If you are going to rely on the steam survey to support your argument you can't go and just ignore this fact.

Even though you are ignoring the steam data from the 9xxx series that most 4800 cards actually compete with.

Evolution, are you excluding 9xxx series cards? Because since day 1, the 4850's direct competitor was the 9800GTX. Just curious if you left them out of your "analysis".

Its competitor was the 9800GTX+ not the 9800GTX or any other 9 series because those were just too slow to compete.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: thilan29
Thank you that was what I was trying to understand. Do rebates really come out of nV or ATI? They don't come from their partners?

Depends on the rebate program, i.e. who is trying to clear inventory. If XFX stuffed too many 9800's and their resellers (newegg, etc) are trying to clear them out of the warehouse then XFX might have a rebate program to move the inventory...and then it comes out of their coffers.

If NV stuffed the channels with too many 9800's, and everyone is sitting with them in their warehouses trying to figure out how to move the chips downstream then NV will have a rebate program to assist the moves and it comes out of NV's coffers. Some of it is contractual and some of it "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" type partnership/relationships.

And if there was no channel stuffing then there need not be any creative accounting invoked for Q2'09.

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: Cookie Monster

Originally posted by: Keysplayr

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: evolucion8
the 8600 cards are pathettic DX10 videocards which cannot outperform the previous high end DX9 cards and burns out with the bump problems in Dell/HP laptops and everywhere.

Yet it still beat the pants off of the entire 4800 series in the steam survey. The 4800x2, 4870, 4850 and 4890 combined could not surpass it.

If you are going to rely on the steam survey to support your argument you can't go and just ignore this fact.

Even though you are ignoring the steam data from the 9xxx series that most 4800 cards actually compete with.

Evolution, are you excluding 9xxx series cards? Because since day 1, the 4850's direct competitor was the 9800GTX. Just curious if you left them out of your "analysis".

Its competitor was the 9800GTX+ not the 9800GTX or any other 9 series because those were just too slow to compete.

You're talking speed difference between + and non +, while everyone else is lumping the entire 4xxx series against an 8600. LOL. Gimme a break CM. 😀

 

[Cookie Monster]

Never! Plus, the speed difference between + and the non + is what makes the 9800GTX competitive or not competitive to the HD4850 😛

 

[SirPauly]

Originally posted by: Creig

Originally posted by: SlowSpyder
I think you are saying having Physx, even if it's not a factor in your purchasing decision, is a plus being there on a card you buy. I think any of us would agree, if it's there for free, than why not? I would not pay extra for a card just for DX10.1, but it's there and it's possible a game I may buy one day will use it and have some extra eye candy or be sped up because it is there. You can say the exact same for Physx.

I'll let Creig speak for himself, but what I think he was saying is that the out come of the poll was not a positive for Nvidia... not that Physx itself isn't a minor plus if you have a card that supports it, just that the out come of the poll shows that the majority of gamers do not care if they have it or not... that is not a plus for Nvidia.

Thanks SlowSpyder, that's exactly what I was trying to get across. There's nothing wrong with having a video card that supports PhysX. That's why I didn't include the percentages of people who voted that PhysX support was a detriment. I personally don't see how it could be detrimental to have a PhysX capable video card. But on the other hand, it's quite obvious that most people don't feel that PhysX support or lack thereof is of any importance when considering purchasing video hardware or software. To me, those 3/4 to 4/5 of people who place little to no value in PhysX support casts an overall negative feeling towards PhysX, not positive.

In order for PhysX to be shown in a good light, more people would have to had voted in the "Useful", "Important" and "Very Important" categories. Yet even combined, all three categories only added up to 15% of the overall votes in the "How important is hardware PhysX acceleration in buying software" poll and 21% in the "How important is PhysX in hardware buying decisions" poll.

To me, that hardly represents an overall 'thumbs up' rating.

Little value is not no value. Marginal importance is not any importance. There are levels of importance or positives:

1)Very Important
2)Important
3)Useful
4)Marginal

These are all positives to a degree --- obviously PhysX isn't Ideal or central to the buying mind by this poll. I can't for the life of me grasp how marginal is a negative when it clearly offers it is a bonus for a title one may play or like -- Not a huge positive -- not of huge importance but clearly a benefit for an end-user.

These are negatives:

Not useful
Detriment.

If you're offering that PhysX isn't central to the buying mind at this time -- don't disagree really and personally voted marginal myself. But this poll offers that gamers find a positive benefit over-all when it comes to PhysX to me.

You can't take a positive or some value/benefit and turn it into a negative -- how does one do things like that?

 

[SirPauly]

Originally posted by: Keysplayr

Originally posted by: Cookie Monster

Originally posted by: Keysplayr

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: evolucion8
the 8600 cards are pathettic DX10 videocards which cannot outperform the previous high end DX9 cards and burns out with the bump problems in Dell/HP laptops and everywhere.

Yet it still beat the pants off of the entire 4800 series in the steam survey. The 4800x2, 4870, 4850 and 4890 combined could not surpass it.

If you are going to rely on the steam survey to support your argument you can't go and just ignore this fact.

Even though you are ignoring the steam data from the 9xxx series that most 4800 cards actually compete with.

Evolution, are you excluding 9xxx series cards? Because since day 1, the 4850's direct competitor was the 9800GTX. Just curious if you left them out of your "analysis".

Its competitor was the 9800GTX+ not the 9800GTX or any other 9 series because those were just too slow to compete.

You're talking speed difference between + and non +, while everyone else is lumping the entire 4xxx series against an 8600. LOL. Gimme a break CM. 😀

For the life of me can't understand why some are blanketing an entire 48XX family to nVidia's higher-end family when nVidia was using the 9xXX and GTX/S family over-all to combat the 48XX family.

Think I may stay awhile in here and these sides is what I have defined as the "nVidia vs ATI paradox syndrome! An affliction that effects the logic aspects of the gaming mind and to date - still no cure.

 

[akugami]

Originally posted by: SirPauly
Little value is not no value. Marginal importance is not any importance. There are levels of importance or positives:

1)Very Important
2)Important
3)Useful
4)Marginal

These are all positives to a degree --- obviously PhysX isn't Ideal or central to the buying mind by this poll. I can't for the life of me grasp how marginal is a negative when it clearly offers it is a bonus for a title one may play or like -- Not a huge positive -- not of huge importance but clearly a benefit for an end-user.

These are negatives:

Not useful
Detriment.

If you're offering that PhysX isn't central to the buying mind at this time -- don't disagree really and personally voted marginal myself. But this poll offers that gamers find a positive benefit over-all when it comes to PhysX to me.

You can't take a positive or some value/benefit and turn it into a negative -- how does one do things like that?

http://mw1.m-w.com/dictionary/marginal

Definition 2b: Not of central importance: limited in extent, significance, or stature.
Definition 3: Located at the fringe of consciousness.
Definition 4a: Close to the lower limit of qualification, acceptability, or function : barely exceeding the minimum requirements.

I take "marginal value" to mean that it's barely worth mentioning as a feature and while it doesn't detract, it doesn't add much either. It's not only "[not] central to the buying mind at this time" it's also barely worth mentioning as a feature IMHO.

And let's look at the options one can choose in the Anandtech poll. We'll call option 1 as being of utmost importance and 6 the least important. The marginal option would be 4 and closer to the end of being useless than useful.

Now, physics acceleration is the future. That much should not be in question. However, at this point in time, buying a card with PhysX as a primary or even secondary feature is a waste of money. It's at best a tertiary feature. Games just don't utilize it to any degree that would call it a true enhancement to gaming.

 

[SirPauly]

News flash: Physics Acceleration is happening now.

Edit: And on the context of Marginal it was clearly defined: "PhysX is a bonus if a game I like supports it"

 

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: SirPauly

Originally posted by: Keysplayr

Originally posted by: Cookie Monster

Originally posted by: Keysplayr

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: evolucion8
the 8600 cards are pathettic DX10 videocards which cannot outperform the previous high end DX9 cards and burns out with the bump problems in Dell/HP laptops and everywhere.

Yet it still beat the pants off of the entire 4800 series in the steam survey. The 4800x2, 4870, 4850 and 4890 combined could not surpass it.

If you are going to rely on the steam survey to support your argument you can't go and just ignore this fact.

Even though you are ignoring the steam data from the 9xxx series that most 4800 cards actually compete with.

Evolution, are you excluding 9xxx series cards? Because since day 1, the 4850's direct competitor was the 9800GTX. Just curious if you left them out of your "analysis".

Its competitor was the 9800GTX+ not the 9800GTX or any other 9 series because those were just too slow to compete.

You're talking speed difference between + and non +, while everyone else is lumping the entire 4xxx series against an 8600. LOL. Gimme a break CM. 😀

For the life of me can't understand why some are blanketing an entire 48XX family to nVidia's higher-end family when nVidia was using the 9xXX and GTX/S family over-all to combat the 48XX family.

Think I may stay awhile in here and these sides is what I have defined as the "nVidia vs ATI paradox syndrome! An affliction that effects the logic aspects of the gaming mind and to date - still no cure.

Blame Wreckage, who said "The GTX series is outselling the HD4800 series".
People pointed out it wasn't, he didn't seem to care.
No sane person would argue that the HD4800 series is competing only vs the GTX, but Wreckage is the one who insisted it was HD4800 vs GTX and that GTX was winning.

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: MrK6
Actually everyone did buy them. ATI's 4800 series completely outsold NVIDIA's GTX series, it wasn't even close.

I would really, really like to see the proof you have to back this up.
I know you are purely lying to save face, but I will humor you.
Please back up with a factual link what you just posted.

Wreckage insists that the HD4800 series didn't outsell the GTX series.
(He also tries to suggest the HD4830 competes against the 9600GT, while it manages as far as I've seen to bea the 9800GT).

A lot of comparison between the GTX and HD4800 series comes from the fact that they are the current gen releases from both companies, and as such are being examined. They are both marked improvements on their predecessors respectively, and the 8800/9800 series provide the problem of not being able to isolate sales when looking at sources such as Steam (because they have been around a long time).
If sales for the 8800 and 9800 lines could be isolated for post-HD4800 launch and then compared along with GTX series numbers then it would be easy to compare, but counting 9800/8800 sales since Feb 08/2007 to HD4800 and GTX numbers since June or July 08 isn't really fair either.
Most people know that the HD4800 series doesn't compete 1 on 1 with the GTX series, but it definitely outsold it, and had a distinct affect on pricing of the GTX line (causing reduction through being competitive), so it is worthy of discussion especially since they came out at about the same time.

 

[SirPauly]

A lot of the blame may be the lack of tangible data to compare in an objective manner. With the 48XX family or 98XX family -- not in separate products sku's to compare and becomes guess work or confusion by some. Also, nVidia's naming schemes have been confusing with the G-92 fighting two separate family's from ATI - 38XX and 48XX families. It's daunting to stay on top of these chips.

Data, actual definitions of words, investigations and gaming passion is why I enjoy to post in forums. The drama and the ATI vs nVidia paradox syndrome -- while entertaining -- is sometimes tough, too but it's all good.

 

[GaiaHunter]

Results like this were expected for nVidia. Its an hard period for everyone.
These results however make the ATI results, that otherwise would be pathetic, much more extraordinary.

In time most companies is either losing money or making much less money, a company that has been a corpse for the last years, in the midst of a serious economic and financial crisis, competing with someone with twice has much market share profited, regardless of how pitiful it was, while the stronger opponent took a hit, not serious and hard to avoid in these times.

nVidia results are expected and they will cope just fine. ATI just showed it's still alive.

I think no one can deny that.

What will happen in the future we will, hopefully, be here to see.

 

[dadach]

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: Creig

Originally posted by: Wreckage
I think it also hurts when their best GPU can't beat NVIDIA's third best GPU.

And yet ATI cards are the ones primarily being recommended in the various forums due to their excellent price/performance ratio. I'm guessing that's why you've been so cranky lately. For somebody so completely pro-Nvidia as yourself, this trend must have your blood pressure up about 50 points.

NVIDIA has 67% of the discrete market. That must make your "pro-ati" blood pressure go up about 1000 points. :roll:

Really for NVIDIA fans there is nothing to complain about. They really could not be doing better at this point.

Most websites recommend NVIDIA cards, most sites give them the top 3 spots for performance, most websites commend them for things like CUDA, PhysX, etc.

It's the ATI fans in here who are clearly upset and keep hurling personal insults and posting misinformation because, well I think they can see the writing on the wall.

So if you guys could stop baiting and stick to the facts, that would be....too much to ask I'm sure.

with 50 points up one would be still alive, although a bit incoherent, which could explain a lot...with 1000 points more a person is dead...you asked for the facts, there you go

 

[ShadowOfMyself]

This thread actually turned out quite funny, including the usual derailments

About the PhysX thing, it is obviously a bonus point, no one is saying otherwise... It would be pretty stupid if Nvidia had a feature that affected their cards negatively 😛
But the point is, when faced between a 180$ 48xx and a 200$ G200, people will buy the 48xx because physx doesnt justify the extra cost

By answering "Marginal" it means for PhysX to be a factor, the cards would have to be priced equally, and then, yeah, pick your favourite, dx10.1 or physx

(Personally, I would ignore both, there are other things I care about more than checkbox features)

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: ShadowOfMyself
This thread actually turned out quite funny, including the usual derailments

About the PhysX thing, it is obviously a bonus point, no one is saying otherwise...

Keys: Uh, that's exactly what they're saying. It's all negative, remember? 😉 xxx

It would be pretty stupid if Nvidia had a feature that affected their cards negatively 😛


But the point is, when faced between a 180$ 48xx and a 200$ G200, people will buy the 48xx because physx doesnt justify the extra cost

Keys: To be sure, but not everyone shares this view. Some would rather have PhysX ready cards than not. That might be worth the arbitrary 20.00 you mentioned. They just may prefer and Nvidia product over an ATI product, and search for a deal to get the card they want. xxx

By answering "Marginal" it means for PhysX to be a factor, the cards would have to be priced equally, and then, yeah, pick your favourite, dx10.1 or physx

Keys: Is that how "Marginal" was defined in the polls? Cause I didn't see that anywhere. xxx

(Personally, I would ignore both, there are other things I care about more than checkbox features)

Keys: My best friend asked me last week which card he should upgrade to. He had 2x 8800GTS 640's SLI. He was considering GTX216, HD4890, GTX275. I asked him what games he was playing or would be buying. He mentioned Cryostasis. As soon as he mentioned that, this eliminated the 4890 from his choices. He asked why, and I explained that ATI's offerings do not support PhysX but instead would use the CPU in his system instead of on the GPU which would be painfully slow. So tell me guys, which GPU would you recommend for Cryostasis? Should I have told my friend to save 20 bucks and go for the 4890? And just say to him, "Ah, don't worry about it. You can just turn PhysX off in the game." He'd most likely look at me cross-eyed. xxx

 

[dadach]

My best friend asked me last week which card he should upgrade to. He had 2x 8800GTS 640's SLI. He was considering GTX216, HD4890, GTX275. I asked him what games he was playing or would be buying. He mentioned Cryostasis. As soon as he mentioned that, this eliminated the 4890 from his choices. He asked why, and I explained that ATI's offerings do not support PhysX but instead would use the CPU in his system instead of on the GPU which would be painfully slow. So tell me guys, which GPU would you recommend for Cryostasis? Should I have told my friend to save 20 bucks and go for the 4890? And just say to him, "Ah, don't worry about it. You can just turn PhysX off in the game." He'd most likely look at me cross-eyed. xxx

you should have just told him you are on nvidia payroll and that its your job to tell him to buy nvidia, and that ati is bad

secondly, are there some MAJOR developments in physx department in last 2 months, since when i gave it a shot 2 months ago, it was an absolute crap in value

so?



Three days off due to your history of personal attacks against members. You've been warned multiple times about it previously.

AmberClad
Video Moderator

 

[Pantalaimon]

Keys: My best friend asked me last week which card he should upgrade to. He had 2x 8800GTS 640's SLI. He was considering GTX216, HD4890, GTX275. I asked him what games he was playing or would be buying. He mentioned Cryostasis. As soon as he mentioned that, this eliminated the 4890 from his choices. He asked why, and I explained that ATI's offerings do not support PhysX but instead would use the CPU in his system instead of on the GPU which would be painfully slow. So tell me guys, which GPU would you recommend for Cryostasis? Should I have told my friend to save 20 bucks and go for the 4890? And just say to him, "Ah, don't worry about it. You can just turn PhysX off in the game." He'd most likely look at me cross-eyed. xxx

I guess that depends on how compelling are the PhysX effects in this game to me. If it's just leaves swirling about like in Sacred 2 or some glass shards flying around like in Mirror's Edge, I can do without it and turn it off.

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: dadach

My best friend asked me last week which card he should upgrade to. He had 2x 8800GTS 640's SLI. He was considering GTX216, HD4890, GTX275. I asked him what games he was playing or would be buying. He mentioned Cryostasis. As soon as he mentioned that, this eliminated the 4890 from his choices. He asked why, and I explained that ATI's offerings do not support PhysX but instead would use the CPU in his system instead of on the GPU which would be painfully slow. So tell me guys, which GPU would you recommend for Cryostasis? Should I have told my friend to save 20 bucks and go for the 4890? And just say to him, "Ah, don't worry about it. You can just turn PhysX off in the game." He'd most likely look at me cross-eyed. xxx

you should have just told him you are on nvidia payroll and that its your job to tell him to buy nvidia, and that ati is bad

secondly, are there some MAJOR developments in physx department in last 2 months, since when i gave it a shot 2 months ago, it was an absolute crap in value

so?

Forwarded to mods. Enough is enough.

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: Pantalaimon

Keys: My best friend asked me last week which card he should upgrade to. He had 2x 8800GTS 640's SLI. He was considering GTX216, HD4890, GTX275. I asked him what games he was playing or would be buying. He mentioned Cryostasis. As soon as he mentioned that, this eliminated the 4890 from his choices. He asked why, and I explained that ATI's offerings do not support PhysX but instead would use the CPU in his system instead of on the GPU which would be painfully slow. So tell me guys, which GPU would you recommend for Cryostasis? Should I have told my friend to save 20 bucks and go for the 4890? And just say to him, "Ah, don't worry about it. You can just turn PhysX off in the game." He'd most likely look at me cross-eyed. xxx

I guess that depends on how compelling are the PhysX effects in this game to me. If it's just leaves swirling about like in Sacred 2 or some glass shards flying around like in Mirror's Edge, I can do without it and turn it off.

That's just the point. You have to do without it. You have to turn it off. This is not a choice, but a requirement.

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: Pantalaimon

Keys: My best friend asked me last week which card he should upgrade to. He had 2x 8800GTS 640's SLI. He was considering GTX216, HD4890, GTX275. I asked him what games he was playing or would be buying. He mentioned Cryostasis. As soon as he mentioned that, this eliminated the 4890 from his choices. He asked why, and I explained that ATI's offerings do not support PhysX but instead would use the CPU in his system instead of on the GPU which would be painfully slow. So tell me guys, which GPU would you recommend for Cryostasis? Should I have told my friend to save 20 bucks and go for the 4890? And just say to him, "Ah, don't worry about it. You can just turn PhysX off in the game." He'd most likely look at me cross-eyed. xxx

I guess that depends on how compelling are the PhysX effects in this game to me. If it's just leaves swirling about like in Sacred 2 or some glass shards flying around like in Mirror's Edge, I can do without it and turn it off.

If you look on Cryostatis forums, you'll see that there are countless problems with this game on both Nvidia and ATi hardware, with or without PhysX. There are people with GTX 295 that are reporting choppiness, so, overall, the performance is horrible and the stupid game doesn't know what to do with multi core cpus ( only uses one core ). So if one is buying a videocard, just for this game, then it surely must be something totally wrong with him.

 

[SirPauly]

Originally posted by: ShadowOfMyself
This thread actually turned out quite funny, including the usual derailments

About the PhysX thing, it is obviously a bonus point, no one is saying otherwise... It would be pretty stupid if Nvidia had a feature that affected their cards negatively 😛
But the point is, when faced between a 180$ 48xx and a 200$ G200, people will buy the 48xx because physx doesnt justify the extra cost

By answering "Marginal" it means for PhysX to be a factor, the cards would have to be priced equally, and then, yeah, pick your favourite, dx10.1 or physx

(Personally, I would ignore both, there are other things I care about more than checkbox features)

Neither are check mark features -- and both actually offer tangible advantages depending on game. If anything it's great that there are titles to take advantage of 10.1 and PhysX and desire more of them to take advantage moving forward.

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: error8

Originally posted by: Pantalaimon

Keys: My best friend asked me last week which card he should upgrade to. He had 2x 8800GTS 640's SLI. He was considering GTX216, HD4890, GTX275. I asked him what games he was playing or would be buying. He mentioned Cryostasis. As soon as he mentioned that, this eliminated the 4890 from his choices. He asked why, and I explained that ATI's offerings do not support PhysX but instead would use the CPU in his system instead of on the GPU which would be painfully slow. So tell me guys, which GPU would you recommend for Cryostasis? Should I have told my friend to save 20 bucks and go for the 4890? And just say to him, "Ah, don't worry about it. You can just turn PhysX off in the game." He'd most likely look at me cross-eyed. xxx

I guess that depends on how compelling are the PhysX effects in this game to me. If it's just leaves swirling about like in Sacred 2 or some glass shards flying around like in Mirror's Edge, I can do without it and turn it off.

If you look on Cryostatis forums, you'll see that there are countless problems with this game on both Nvidia and ATi hardware, with or without PhysX. There are people with GTX 295 that are reporting choppiness, so, overall, the performance is horrible and the stupid game doesn't know what to do with multi core cpus ( only uses one core ). So if one is buying a videocard, just for this game, then it surely must be something totally wrong with him.

PEBKAC most likely. I've run the game on both 9800GTX+ and GTX280. Seems to run fine for me. But then again, I keep a clean system.
Reason for believing this?
The last post in the thread you linked to:

"I run a i7, 6 gigs of ram, and 1 nvidia 260 with no problems at all. it is smooth sailing the whole way. Play with max settings and everything turned on. I've even gone into the Nvidia control panel and enabled supersampling, 8x antialiasing and anisoptropic and set it to enhance current settings.

I dont understand how you say that a 295 will have problems lol. It shouldnt. Maybe when it gets choppy at times you have something running in the background?

My only issue is that fly mode is on and clipping is turned off so everytime i start up the game i have to open the console and turn that crap off."

Leads me to believe that it is an individual's system that could be affecting the game as it obviously does not affect everyone.

And, I do believe there is a patch coming for Cryo that will allow it to utilize more CPU cores.

And besides, Error, it's not JUST Cryostasis that should be considered. That was just one game I was talking about.

 

[error8]

If you look higher at the thread I've linked you too, Keys, you'll find one person that says this : "I have a nVidia GTX 295 with 182.08 and PhysX enabled. At 1900x1200 it's still choppy at times at max settings." So, the game doesn't seem to run that consistent even on Nvidia cards. What could one have running in background that could make a game like this choppy? 😉

 

[MegaWorks]

Originally posted by: Keysplayr

My best friend asked me last week which card he should upgrade to. He had 2x 8800GTS 640's SLI. He was considering GTX216, HD4890, GTX275. I asked him what games he was playing or would be buying. He mentioned Cryostasis. As soon as he mentioned that, this eliminated the 4890 from his choices. He asked why, and I explained that ATI's offerings do not support PhysX but instead would use the CPU in his system instead of on the GPU which would be painfully slow. So tell me guys, which GPU would you recommend for Cryostasis? Should I have told my friend to save 20 bucks and go for the 4890? And just say to him, "Ah, don't worry about it. You can just turn PhysX off in the game." He'd most likely look at me cross-eyed. xxx

[/quote]

hmmm I would say the 4890. 😛

No seriously tell him to save some money and grab the GTX216, he can even buy two of them for SLI they're not that expensive anyway.

 

[Pantalaimon]

That's just the point. You have to do without it. You have to turn it off. This is not a choice, but a requirement.

And if the PhysX effects are as non-compelling as they are in those two games, I don't think ATI card owners has lost anything really. It is currently a non-issue to me. I can take it or leave it.

Sure they add more eye-candy, but it's not the kind of eye-candy that I would yearn for, not like anti aliasing or HDR. From what I've seen, the way the PhysX effects have been implemented in the current crop of games, they seem to be more annoying and gimmicky than making players to feel impressed. Oh, and before someone says I'm just envious because I don't have an NVDIA card, I do. I have two PCs. One with an HD4870 1Gb and one with a GTX260 216.