Poll: Is the Geforce FX a flop?

[bluemax]

Originally posted by: EdipisReks

Originally posted by: Xentropy The problem *is*, is 20% performance worth a >70dB fan? Tough call

wow, i certainly hope that it isn't over 70db. that isn't too far away from a jackhammer. my guess is that the fan is about 35 DB, max.

I recall the numbers to be 54db and 58db but that 4db doubles the amplitude.
Therefore, the FX is double the fan volume. Yecch.

 

[Markfw]

Originally posted by: EdipisReks

Originally posted by: Xentropy The problem *is*, is 20% performance worth a >70dB fan? Tough call

wow, i certainly hope that it isn't over 70db. that isn't too far away from a jackhammer. my guess is that the fan is about 35 DB, max.

YES, it really is >70 db per every review site I have read !!

Quote from Anand's article :
"To give you an idea of how loud the GeForce FX 5800 Ultra can get we've recorded two videos several inches away from a GeForce FX 5800 Ultra and a Radeon 9700 Pro for comparison purposes......"

and then later on

"GeForce FX 5800 weighed in at 77 dBA on our sound meter with the fan spun all the way up vs. 64 dBA on the Radeon 9700 Pro. "

I know they won't be that volume once inside the case, but still, remembering that about 4 db doubles the volume, 64 up to 77 is a lot !

 

[spaceman]

is this the card that comes with the "foreman grille" add on bracket"

 

[merlocka]

Oh, and although all signs point to ATI kickin butt from this initial review, you monkeys need to quit flippin your poopoo about the fan thing.

nVidia already commented that it was too loud, and they have also commented that the card-makers are free to use whatever cooling they want.... now, time will tell if AIB makers will be able to use standard cooling, but we know that the ABIT OATES system works fairly well and produces less sound than the DustBuster FX.

No need to make generalizations based on the three (3) cards nVidia had ready to show the world by today

 

[Viper GTS]

Originally posted by: Markfw900

Originally posted by: EdipisReks

Originally posted by: Xentropy The problem *is*, is 20% performance worth a >70dB fan? Tough call

wow, i certainly hope that it isn't over 70db. that isn't too far away from a jackhammer. my guess is that the fan is about 35 DB, max.

YES, it really is >70 db per every review site I have read !!

SPL falls off exponentially with distance, so it all depends on how far away you measure it.

Headphones can produce damaging sound levels, yet you wouldn't be able to hear them from 20 feet away.

Viper GTS

 

[bluemax]

Originally posted by: merlocka
Oh, and although all signs point to ATI kickin butt from this initial review, you monkeys need to quit flippin your poopoo about the fan thing.

I'm sorry - that fan SUCKS! Edit: That fan is AWFUL. No suck/blow jokes please.

 

[CraigRT]

#2

I think we'll see.. you can't totally prove it crap just yet..

 

[NFS4]

Originally posted by: Viper GTS

Originally posted by: Markfw900

Originally posted by: EdipisReks

Originally posted by: Xentropy The problem *is*, is 20% performance worth a >70dB fan? Tough call

wow, i certainly hope that it isn't over 70db. that isn't too far away from a jackhammer. my guess is that the fan is about 35 DB, max.

YES, it really is >70 db per every review site I have read !!

SPL falls off exponentially with distance, so it all depends on how far away you measure it.

Headphones can produce damaging sound levels, yet you wouldn't be able to hear them from 20 feet away.

Viper GTS

Geez, you're taking this a lot lighter than most. It sounds like a friggen TORNADO!! There is no way in hell that I would put up with that crap!! And aren't you the one that (not to long ago) was talking about DOWNCLOCKING your Athlons so that you could put slower fans on them so that you could have a quiet system?

Your comments now about the FX seem to contradict your philosophy.

 

[Thor86]

Man, that fan is waaay too noisy. And what is this crap on automatic throttling? I'm so glad I skipped both the Geforce 4 and now the 5800 generations. Good bye Nvidia. Maybe we will see you again when you release the NV35 with less noise, better performance, and release it on time.

 

[Auric]

Auto-throttling is a nice feature to save energy. The same can be done with Rage3D Tweak by setting the clocks at whatever you like for normal 2D use and then having a custom setting for each 3D executable (game). That NVIDIA employee was just plain lying when calling the FX system a silent-running feature though from what I saw and heard of tomshardware review. At no point was it ever off and even in the slower mode it was noisier than even the regular GPU fans which I find too noisy. Plus, at least with regular cards you can disconnect the fan and use a much quieter larger fan to blow across the existing HS. The FX would require removing that plastic duct to expose the HS and even then it runs so hot it might not work. Double plus, you are actually paying more for that extra noise. Sheesh.

 

[Leo V]

I've just listened to those sound clips. I am stunned :Q

This is worse than the 66CFM air peltier fans I once had. (At least they were 60mm fans; GFX fan is obviously smaller.) Hopefully people will begin to realize that noise should not be tolerated as a necessary evil.

 

[Leo V]

Originally posted by: Ipno
I have spent over $200 modding my PC to be as quiet as it can be. There is no way in hell I'm gonna put a jet turbine in there, no matter how well it performs.

I have modded my overclocked GeForce4 4200 to be virtually silent using a Panaflo @5V (on PAL15 slim heatsink). My previous GF4/4200 was undervolted and ran completely without a fan.

There is no way in hell I could do this with a 75 watt chip. Even my 2.5ghz CPU is limited to ~56 watts max in a 7V Panaflo configuration. And this is only thanks to a PAL8942, AS3, and a specially constructed shroud. A videocard can afford none of these luxuries.

In other words, unless videocards like GeforceFX are seriously underclocked and undervolted, they will require horrific cooling methods. The crowded AGP slot makes matters much worse.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: XBoxLPU
I hate ATI Fan boys.... I hate fan boys period

. . . I only buy Nvidia video cards...

Notice anything "wrong" here?



And some days - very very rarely nowadays - I even hate myself . . . also.

 

[Leo V]

However... "In the final design, the noise level is supposed to be reduced considerably." -- THG

..but I really wonder how they would do that.

 

[XBoxLPU]

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: XBoxLPU
I hate ATI Fan boys.... I hate fan boys period

. . . I only buy Nvidia video cards...

Notice anything "wrong" here?



And some days - very very rarely nowadays - I even hate myself . . . also.

Yes You can say that I am a nvidia fan boy but I don't go around saying ATI sucks and how nvidia owns ATI,which they haven't and still don't.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Leo V
However... "In the final design, the noise level is supposed to be reduced considerably." -- THG

..but I really wonder how they would do that.

They are working on NV35 and NV40 as we type.

Not too much hope for the current Flop eXtreme. The only "hope" comes IF Nvidia's manufacturing partners (possibly) design their own NON-DustBuster cooling solutions.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: Xentropy
Personally, I don't see where the "no faster" comments come from. The FX beats the 9700 in almost EVERY proper benchmark by 20% or so. Benchmarks

Ignore the "perf aniso" results from the 9700 because those are not a fair comparison to the FX's "bal aniso". It's comparing the low quality anisotropic filtering from the 9700 to the high quality from the FX. Yes, in the image quality tests this made some sense, but nVidia's HQ still beat the 9700's LQ slightly, and the FX LQ problems seem to me to be just a driver issue, and knowing nVidia this will be fixed promptly.

So comparing apples to apples, HQ to HQ, the highest playable (60+ min fps) UT2003 benchmark is 108.6 fps (59.4 min) for the FX vs 90.4 fps (49.9 min) for the 9700. 20% faster. Speed advantage disappears as you increase resolution beyond 1024x768, but so does playability.

The noise and drivers are what I feel need to be addressed with this card. Speed is fine, driver optimizations and a fix for the LQ aniso issues will change the "same speed" comments due to improper use of benchmarks to "20% faster" like the FX really is. So the problem *isn't* lack of speed, and to call the benchmarks disappointing is to read them incorrectly. The problem *is*, is 20% performance worth a >70dB fan? Tough call.

I may end up getting a Ti4600 and waiting for the NV35 or NV40. I'm extremely disappointed with the sound issues with this card, since the performance is exactly what I was expecting, but I thought the fact the card takes an extra slot would allow for a QUIETER fan for cooling. If nVidia could improve yields/manufacturing in some way to reduce heat and allow for 5800 Ultra clocks WITHOUT the noise, I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

Just to clarify why my only listed options are nVidia, ATi is, to me, not an option due to driver incompatibility issues. (Don't tell me about how they've "fixed them over the past few months". That's not true in my experience. I LAN game with several people with 9700 Pro's who have to install different drivers for each game we play due to problems. I vastly prefer the nVidia "install the latest and you're set" driver paradigm.)

the low quality ATI AF is looking better than GFFX quality so whynot compare the 2 similar options?

 

[jeffrey]

Is the GeForce FX a flop?

IMO... Yes.

The card is too big and too loud. The size and sound border ridiculous.
Nvidia's omitted a 256-bit memory bus when ATI and Matrox have have had theirs for months.
The card was waaaaay late and did not convincingly outclass the Radeon 9700Pro that was out months ago.

The GeForce FX just isn't what I have come to expect from Nvidia.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: Xentropy

Originally posted by: gregor7777

Originally posted by: Xentropy


Just to clarify why my only listed options are nVidia, ATi is, to me, not an option due to driver incompatibility issues. (Don't tell me about how they've "fixed them over the past few months". That's not true in my experience. I LAN game with several people with 9700 Pro's who have to install different drivers for each game we play due to problems. I vastly prefer the nVidia "install the latest and you're set" driver paradigm.)

That's just BS and you know it.

What your friends are doing is upgrading their drivers because ATi puts out new releases so frequently.

Uh, no, it's upgrading for this game then downgrading for another game then back up to some midrange driver version for a third. If they don't, their system freezes within an hour or so, or they get visual artifacts, or some other issue. It's not like nVidia drivers, you can't just install 3.0a catalysts and walk away. You need v2 catalysts for this and v3 for that and v1 for another and pre-Catalysts for yet another. It's rather annoying because it adds like 30 minutes setup time between each game we play for the ATi graphics card users to get their systems working. Gives the rest of us time to eat some chips and salsa or something I guess.

This is as close to personal experience as it gets for me since I won't put an ATi card in my own system. I'm afraid I trust my personal friends, and my own eyes, at LAN parties more than ATi fanbois on forums.

Sorry for being harsh, but you flamethrow at me, I fire back. BS, indeed, Troll.

99.9% of problems is between the user and the KBD. Trust me if you pop in a 9700Pro in a CLEAN system you will have no issue with the cat3 drivers. I don't and I play everything from Half-Life and Q2 and GLQuake to UT2003 BF1942 and RTCW and WC3.

The only way your "friends" have problems is they don't know how to properly uninstall old drivers before updating and they obviously clogged their system's registry with so many different iterations of ATi and Nvidia crap that they cannot get back to the ground level.

 

[smp]

Man I'm gonna get awesome framerates in warcraft with this puppy! I can't wait!!!

 

[Zoinks]

Holy Hairdryers Batman!

The fan produces an incredible racket on par with a vacuum cleaner - there's simply no other way to describe it. You can hear the card even if you're in another room of the house.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: Actaeon

Originally posted by: Chad

I looked at the pictures HardOCP back to back. I opened 2 different windows, each with a screen shot using full AA. To be quite honest, the gffx looked a hell of alot better. You guys should try it, you'll see what I mean. If you notice, the 9700 makes 3d images at a distance look blurry. I think they do this because it makes 3d objects look more realistic. It's my opinion ofcourse, but I like things to look sharp and crisp with full color. That's what the FX chip is doing in those screen shots.

Wow, I thought you were making stuff up, so I checked it out. In particular, I looked at these two...

image GeForce

image Radeon


Something's definately not right here! There's no way the GeForce FX can look THAT much better. Is there?

The GFFX is using 8xS AA. Radeon is using 6x. Thats probally why the GF FX looks alot better in that picture.

if you look closely at the lines around the car and the ground the ATI card blends them better and removes more jaggies.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: Xentropy

Originally posted by: Nemesis77

Originally posted by: Xentropy
Ignore the "perf aniso" results from the 9700 because those are not a fair comparison to the FX's "bal aniso". It's comparing the low quality anisotropic filtering from the 9700 to the high quality from the FX.

Even though the image-quality on both is apparently identical?

If you read the rest of my message, you'd see that I elaborated to say that: a) I feel the lack of performance (i.e. basically no change at all) of the FX's LQ mode to be a driver issue which will be resolved, and b) the FX's HQ is equivalent to the 9700's HQ, both of which are slightly, but not significantly, better than the 9700's LQ. There is currently no valid FX vs. 9700 LQ comparison until nVidia fixes the beta drivers and the FXLQ is also an insignificant step down instead of a huge one. The only valid comparison is HQ vs HQ, in which case the FX is ~20% faster than the 9700.

That wasn't even the point of my post, though. My point was that the noise issues make all of the above a moot point, because 20% performance improvement isn't (for me) worth going through the insomnia and insanity caused by my black label Delta all over again I quieted my PC for a reason. But there *is* 20% performance improvement for those who are willing to put up with the noise, or watercool, or something. The "lower performance" on top of the noise etc. is just a fabrication.

nVidia needs to do both of the above, fix their drivers and quiet down the cooling solution, to make this a card worth buying. Maybe a board launch partner will help come up with a solution in the coming months that's both quieter *and* will allow Ultra clocking. Until then, I'm left still waiting for a video card to properly pair with the 3.06Ghz system I wish to build. By the time a card comes out with all the features I want (speed, stability, QUIET), that 3.06Ghz may just become a Prescott anyway. Time will tell. Until then, my 1.26Ghz Thunderbird and GF3 is at least an okay gaming system for most stuff.

you have to compare what generally looks the same. It's clear that Nvidia's AF is NOT doing all that ATI's is so you have to use ATI's LQ setting because it is doing the same work as Nvidia's HQ. Simple as that

 

[Pariah]

Originally posted by: bluemax

Originally posted by: EdipisReks

Originally posted by: Xentropy The problem *is*, is 20% performance worth a >70dB fan? Tough call

wow, i certainly hope that it isn't over 70db. that isn't too far away from a jackhammer. my guess is that the fan is about 35 DB, max.

I recall the numbers to be 54db and 58db but that 4db doubles the amplitude.
Therefore, the FX is double the fan volume. Yecch.

3dB is twice the power. 10dB is perceived twice as loud. 3dB is generally accepted to be a noticable difference for adult human hearing.

GeForce FX 5800 weighed in at 77 dBA on our sound meter with the fan spun all the way up vs. 64 dBA on the Radeon 9700 Pro.

A 13dB difference is a bit over twice as loud and at those levels is pretty significant.

 

[JJWalker]

I wonder what speeds an ATI 9700Pro could achieve with that same cooling system?