***OFFICIAL ATI R360/RV360 Thread*** Anand's Review Part II Online

[boyRacer]

official launch in ~5 mins?

 

[Dean]

Originally posted by: NFS4

Originally posted by: Dean
I find the 9800XT nothing but a rehash of a rehash. Nvidia did the same thing with their previous products and now ATI does it. The 9600XT is at least offering a potential good speed increase.

I hope ATI does not decide to sit and constantly milk one wafer design like their competition did, if they do they might find themselves looking up at Nvidia again.

But the 9600XT is going to be basically using the same memory as the regular 9600 Pro

I think the 9600XT will benefit more from the clock increase than memory as it was basically fillrate limited from its beginning. It had more memory bandwidth than the 9500pro but really could not keep up with it. The clock increase may help it catch and surpass the 9500pro.

 

[sharkeeper]

official launch in ~5 mins?

LOL, like it's going to the moon or something!

NV38 may be able to sustain LEO with that cooler though.

Cheers!

 

[GTaudiophile]

BTW, here is ATi's Official Board Shot of the 9600XT.

 

[sharkeeper]

Looks like a 9700 Pro without the aux power connector.

Cheers!

 

[Dean]

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile

Originally posted by: Dean
I find the 9800XT nothing but a rehash of a rehash. Nvidia did the same thing with their previous products and now ATI does it. The 9600XT is at least offering a potential good speed increase.

I hope ATI does not decide to sit and constantly milk one wafer design like their competition did, if they do they might find themselves looking up at Nvidia again.

What do you expect? For them to pull rabbits out of their a$$? I mean, come on! People beg for something new every six months, so ATi and nVidia have to deliver something, but with 100+ million transistor counts, shrinking die sizes, and increasing R&D budgets, you cannot expect a new core every 6-12 months!

Its been over a year since the 9700 release, they very well could have released a .13micron version with higher clockspeed. Yes it would have required more work at the design table, but if you want to stay on top you cannot sit on your hands.

 

[GTaudiophile]

Originally posted by: Dean

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile

Originally posted by: Dean
I find the 9800XT nothing but a rehash of a rehash. Nvidia did the same thing with their previous products and now ATI does it. The 9600XT is at least offering a potential good speed increase.

I hope ATI does not decide to sit and constantly milk one wafer design like their competition did, if they do they might find themselves looking up at Nvidia again.

What do you expect? For them to pull rabbits out of their a$$? I mean, come on! People beg for something new every six months, so ATi and nVidia have to deliver something, but with 100+ million transistor counts, shrinking die sizes, and increasing R&D budgets, you cannot expect a new core every 6-12 months!

Its been over a year since the 9700 release, they very well could have released a .13micron version with higher clockspeed. Yes it would have required more work at the design table, but if you want to stay on top you cannot sit on your hands.

They are on top, and I guess they have sat on their hands...maybe as far as the R3XX core is concerned, but R420 is next...and the ArtX team is known to be working on R500.

nVidia got in hurry, threw out NV30, and look what happened to them...

 

[GTaudiophile]

Check out this Ultimate Visual Experiences (PR) video that ATi released today.

 

[Corporate Thug]

Originally posted by: Nebor

Originally posted by: shady06

Originally posted by: Nebor
The GF4MX is probably some kind of FPS/$ king.... I mean for only $17 in some places, it probably kills the 9600 in FPS/$. Dontcha think?

not a dx9 card and with aa/fsaa on you'll prolly get less than 10 fps

Alright then, a GFX5200 for $30. It ropes in around 20fps in HL2 in DX9 mode. It's FPS/$ smokes the 9600.

it you dont mind 20 fps, i guess its ok. for me, i need atleast 40 fps

edit: huge props to GTaudiophile for updating this thread

 

[Nebor]

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile

Originally posted by: Dean
I find the 9800XT nothing but a rehash of a rehash. Nvidia did the same thing with their previous products and now ATI does it. The 9600XT is at least offering a potential good speed increase.

I hope ATI does not decide to sit and constantly milk one wafer design like their competition did, if they do they might find themselves looking up at Nvidia again.

What do you expect? For them to pull rabbits out of their a$$? I mean, come on! People beg for something new every six months, so ATi and nVidia have to deliver something, but with 100+ million transistor counts, shrinking die sizes, and increasing R&D budgets, you cannot expect a new core every 6-12 months!

Nvidia is coming out w/ a whole new core for NV38... But I guess they had a fire lit under their ass.

 

[GTaudiophile]

Originally posted by: Nebor

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile

Originally posted by: Dean
I find the 9800XT nothing but a rehash of a rehash. Nvidia did the same thing with their previous products and now ATI does it. The 9600XT is at least offering a potential good speed increase.

I hope ATI does not decide to sit and constantly milk one wafer design like their competition did, if they do they might find themselves looking up at Nvidia again.

What do you expect? For them to pull rabbits out of their a$$? I mean, come on! People beg for something new every six months, so ATi and nVidia have to deliver something, but with 100+ million transistor counts, shrinking die sizes, and increasing R&D budgets, you cannot expect a new core every 6-12 months!

Nvidia is coming out w/ a whole new core for NV38... But I guess they had a fire lit under their ass.

And where did you hear that? NV38 is not new. According to theInq, as reliable as they are, NV36 is a new design.

 

[Nebor]

I believe I read in Tom's review of the 9800XT.

I'm just hopin' for a new, awsome nvidia card... I know I just bought this expensive 9800 pro, but it just feels wrong. So soon as NV38 proves itself, this 9800 will find itself relegated to an mp3 server box.

 

[GTaudiophile]

Originally posted by: Nebor
I believe I read in Tom's review of the 9800XT.

I'm just hopin' for a new, awsome nvidia card... I know I just bought this expensive 9800 pro, but it just feels wrong. So soon as NV38 proves itself, this 9800 will find itself relegated to an mp3 server box.

I looked through Tom's article, and while I saw mention of NV38, there was no mention of it being a new core. I wouldn't expect anything revolutionary until NV40.

 

[XBoxLPU]

NVIDIA?s NV38 graphics processor is to be branded as the GeForce FX 5950 Ultra and will succeed the NV35 aka GeForce FX 5900 Ultra chip this fall. The difference between the former and the latter is supposed to consist in the clock-speed increase and maybe also in some micro-architecture tweaks. It is generally believed that the GeForce FX 5950 Ultra will be clocked at 500/1000MHz for core and memory, a bit higher than the GeForce FX 5900 Ultra speeds of 450/850MHz respectively. 3D graphics feature-set of the NV38 and NV35 products is expected to be the same.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/display/20030925053526.html

Apparently, the next-generation NV38 GPU will be officially launched in 10 days, next Wednesday, on the 10th of October, 2003. The core-clock, however, will lowered to 475MHz from the previously rumored 500MHz frequency, as The Inquirer now tells the world. The speed decrease may be a result of NVIDIA?s decision to provide enough GeForce FX 5950 Ultra graphics cards as soon as possible after the formal introduction, or lower than expected yield of the chips functioning at 500MHz stably enough.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/display/20030930090915.html

 

[GTaudiophile]

Hehe. NV38 on October 10. CAT 3.8 drivers enable OverDrive on October 8. Let the benches begin!

 

[Lyfer]

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile
Hehe. NV38 on October 10. CAT 3.8 drivers enable OverDrive on October 8. Let the benches begin!

Interesting.

 

[Nebor]

Hrmmm... I can still return my 9800 Pro to circuit city... Did I buy at the wrong time?

 

[BFG10K]

The card is nice but I'm not conviced that the performance gain over a 9700 Pro is worth paying full price.

 

[Adul]

Anand's review is up along with the new benchmark suite and the NV38.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1890

 

[Luagsch]

sweet, thnx adul

EDIT wow anand has some aces up his sleeves very nice

 

[Vonkhan]

I'd go with the 9800XT ... thnx Anand

 

[GTaudiophile]

Anad says this on page 2:

According to ATI, the Radeon 9600 XT should be the first mainstream part to outperform the Radeon 9700 Pro in all situations ? not bad for a $199 card.

WOW!

It's not hard to assume that Anand has a special relationship with nVidia. He's the only reviewer who got NV38???

The 52.14 drivers apparently have issues in two games, neither of which are featured in our test suite (Half Life 2 & Gunmetal).

All the more reason to have fun HL2 benches!

I look forward to Part II, the IQ article. nVidia has made all these improvements without a dent in IQ, allowing games like HL2 to be played like Gabe Newell wants them to be played? My a$$!

 

[GTaudiophile]

Here are some comments I just made to fellow fanATIcs at Rage3D:

There are a few comments I'd like to make:

1) Yes, Anand has to have some sort of special relationship with NVDA to be the ONLY reviewer to get his hands on NV38.

2) ATi's 1-year-old, .15 micron R3XX core can STILL best the un-released, future "king" from nVidia.

3) These results do not include the CAT 3.8s nor OverDrive, so the 9800XT still has more FPS to give.

4) Anand hints at NVDA IQ problems, and he will do a very thorough analysis in Part II.

5) NV38 won't even be officially announced until October 10. NVDA can make no hardware changes between now and then, so all they got are their drivers. We know that the 9800XT and 9600XT will be shipping in numbers in October. Does anyone think for a second NV38 will be on shelves by the end of the month???

6) ATi wins the 9800XT vs. NV38 battle. The real battle will be between the 9600XT and NV36. Anand says the 9600XT performs better than the 9700 PRO, but NV36 is something new.

 

[PrinceXizor]

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile
Here are some comments I just made to fellow fanATIcs at Rage3D:

There are a few comments I'd like to make:

1) Yes, Anand has to have some sort of special relationship with NVDA to be the ONLY reviewer to get his hands on NV38.

2) ATi's 1-year-old, .15 micron R3XX core can STILL best the un-released, future "king" from nVidia.

3) These results do not include the CAT 3.8s nor OverDrive, so the 9800XT still has more FPS to give.

4) Anand hints at NVDA IQ problems, and he will do a very thorough analysis in Part II.

5) NV38 won't even be officially announced until October 10. NVDA can make no hardware changes between now and then, so all they got are their drivers. We know that the 9800XT and 9600XT will be shipping in numbers in October. Does anyone think for a second NV38 will be on shelves by the end of the month???

6) ATi wins the 9800XT vs. NV38 battle. The real battle will be between the 9600XT and NV36. Anand says the 9600XT performs better than the 9700 PRO, but NV36 is something new.

Very well put.

A few of my own thoughts.

1. Nvidia is not dead. Thankfully. NV38 performed better than I expected and the soon-to-be-released drivers should make for an interesting next week or two.

2. The real battle is still to come in R4X0 and NV4X. ATI's coup de grace so far is that Nvidia has been playing catch-up for over a year. But now, its like round one is over (Scored to ATI) and now they're both going to come out swinging for round two. It should be fun.

3. Kudos to Anand for quite the test suite. Kudos again for having the gumption NOT to try and rush and cram everything into a review at one time. I think splitting the review up allows for a much better investigation of issues. Is there an IQ issue? Is it only applicable in some games? etc...Hard to "review" the card (i.e. benchmark it) and investigate deeply in the same article (let's face it....15 games = LOTS of benchmark time).

Ok...that's my $.25 worth....

P-X

 

[GTaudiophile]

Kyle from HardOCP now posts over at Rage3D. He told me that my first comment about Anand getting his hands on NV38 is incorrect. According to him, all "Tier 1" review sites have had NV38 for a week. Kyle refuses to bench with it until nVidia releases an official, WHQL driver.