techPowerUP! goofs and posts HD2900XT review early?

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Nightmare225
What I don't get is why people are complaining about NVIDIA's drivers when it's completely obvious that with the 6 month delay, ATI STILL has a load of kinks to work out.

*because * nvidia's card had been *released* - SINCE last November ...

that's SIX long months of torture for all but the fanboys

IF it takes AMD six months to sort out their drivers ... then i will be just as *bitter* as BFG10K is about his GTX drivers ... now

and we are not seeing double-digit performance increases from nvidia

from what i see ... so far ... i am buying a xfire MB ... probably RD680

it looks like there is a LOT of untapped potential in r600

that's 'why'

 

[Ap0c89]

3d mark 06 (The ones that loaded)

Overall
Vertex
Sm 3.0 Perlin

 

[Extelleron]

Originally posted by: Nightmare225

Originally posted by: Extelleron

Originally posted by: Gstanfor

SHOT DOWN

--in flames

Huh? Haven't we been saying for weeks now that R600 will perform around GTS levels? (not totally convinced about the GTS 640 scores I've seen so far either in this review, compared to the GTS 320). Thats still one or two (depending on if you count the g80 Ultra or not) levels below top performance. At this stage I'm still right on track to pick up two 675/2300 Ultra's when they arrive in stock.

The HD 2900XT is already outperforming the GTS in the vast majority of tests and clearly there are big improvements to come in terms of drivers. With the exception of those games that suffer from the "AA bug," the XT really encroaches on GTX territory when you turn the settings up. With new drivers that improve performance and fix the AA problems that some games suffer, you will be seeing GTX performance (or even higher in some cases) for GTS price.

All of you ATI fanboys are acting as if NVIDIA's cards have reached the end of their performance improvements, when it is mentioned several times in the review that the 8800s continue to get performance boosts.

Now we see a slightly bigger margin emerging, GTX beats the X2900XT by 10fps while the GTSes beat the X2900XT by 6fps. It does seem the new Forceware 158.22 drivers have boosted the performance of the 8800s quite a bit in Quake 4. Still the X2900XT beats it's predecessor by 36%.

Don't pretend that the G80 performance will remain static while the R600 starts to outspeed it in the next few driver releases, that's just not going to happen... :disgust:

nVidia is going to see performance increases, yes, but the vast majority of increases nVidia is going to get through drivers (with the exception of DX10 performance, which still is going to need much better drivers) have already been seen. ATI, on the other hand, has the potential for huge increases. With ATI, you'll see the majority of fairly large improvements within the next few weeks or a month or two, then after that you'll see small increases like nVidia has shown with their driver releases.

 

[Nightmare225]

Originally posted by: Extelleron

Originally posted by: Nightmare225

Originally posted by: Extelleron

Originally posted by: Gstanfor

SHOT DOWN

--in flames

Huh? Haven't we been saying for weeks now that R600 will perform around GTS levels? (not totally convinced about the GTS 640 scores I've seen so far either in this review, compared to the GTS 320). Thats still one or two (depending on if you count the g80 Ultra or not) levels below top performance. At this stage I'm still right on track to pick up two 675/2300 Ultra's when they arrive in stock.

The HD 2900XT is already outperforming the GTS in the vast majority of tests and clearly there are big improvements to come in terms of drivers. With the exception of those games that suffer from the "AA bug," the XT really encroaches on GTX territory when you turn the settings up. With new drivers that improve performance and fix the AA problems that some games suffer, you will be seeing GTX performance (or even higher in some cases) for GTS price.

All of you ATI fanboys are acting as if NVIDIA's cards have reached the end of their performance improvements, when it is mentioned several times in the review that the 8800s continue to get performance boosts.

Now we see a slightly bigger margin emerging, GTX beats the X2900XT by 10fps while the GTSes beat the X2900XT by 6fps. It does seem the new Forceware 158.22 drivers have boosted the performance of the 8800s quite a bit in Quake 4. Still the X2900XT beats it's predecessor by 36%.

Don't pretend that the G80 performance will remain static while the R600 starts to outspeed it in the next few driver releases, that's just not going to happen... :disgust:

nVidia is going to see performance increases, yes, but the vast majority of increases nVidia is going to get through drivers (with the exception of DX10 performance, which still is going to need much better drivers) have already been seen. ATI, on the other hand, has the potential for huge increases. With ATI, you'll see the majority of fairly large improvements within the next few weeks or a month or two, then after that you'll see small increases like nVidia has shown with their driver releases.

That's a good point. I'll wait for more reviews and the next driver release to pass judgement. IF ATI does continue to consistently improve their performance AND it outperforms the GTX in DX10 as reumored, I will sell my card and pick one of these up. Promise.

 

[Extelleron]

Originally posted by: Nightmare225

Originally posted by: Extelleron

Originally posted by: Nightmare225

Originally posted by: Extelleron

Originally posted by: Gstanfor

SHOT DOWN

--in flames

Huh? Haven't we been saying for weeks now that R600 will perform around GTS levels? (not totally convinced about the GTS 640 scores I've seen so far either in this review, compared to the GTS 320). Thats still one or two (depending on if you count the g80 Ultra or not) levels below top performance. At this stage I'm still right on track to pick up two 675/2300 Ultra's when they arrive in stock.

The HD 2900XT is already outperforming the GTS in the vast majority of tests and clearly there are big improvements to come in terms of drivers. With the exception of those games that suffer from the "AA bug," the XT really encroaches on GTX territory when you turn the settings up. With new drivers that improve performance and fix the AA problems that some games suffer, you will be seeing GTX performance (or even higher in some cases) for GTS price.

All of you ATI fanboys are acting as if NVIDIA's cards have reached the end of their performance improvements, when it is mentioned several times in the review that the 8800s continue to get performance boosts.

Now we see a slightly bigger margin emerging, GTX beats the X2900XT by 10fps while the GTSes beat the X2900XT by 6fps. It does seem the new Forceware 158.22 drivers have boosted the performance of the 8800s quite a bit in Quake 4. Still the X2900XT beats it's predecessor by 36%.

Don't pretend that the G80 performance will remain static while the R600 starts to outspeed it in the next few driver releases, that's just not going to happen... :disgust:

nVidia is going to see performance increases, yes, but the vast majority of increases nVidia is going to get through drivers (with the exception of DX10 performance, which still is going to need much better drivers) have already been seen. ATI, on the other hand, has the potential for huge increases. With ATI, you'll see the majority of fairly large improvements within the next few weeks or a month or two, then after that you'll see small increases like nVidia has shown with their driver releases.

That's a good point. I'll wait for more reviews and the next driver release to pass judgement. IF ATI does continue to consistently improve their performance AND it outperforms the GTX in DX10 as reumored, I will sell my card and pick one of these up. Promise.

I would just wait for a 65nm refresh. HD 2900XT will probably beat the GTX under DX10, and in some DX9 titles with new drivers, but I have a feeling this is another R520, and R580 (this time a 65nm refresh) is around the corner. A 65nm card based on R600 with much higher clocks (900-1000MHz GPU?), 1GB of GDDR4, and lower power consumption/heat will be great.

 

[apoppin]

Nightmare225 probably better to wait until September or so
:Q



for HD2950xt

AMD probably *hates* that ANYONE would bring it up
:evil:

 

[Nightmare225]

I'm actually interested to see how this card handles R6: Vegas, Splinter Cell: DA, and other xbox 360 ports in order to tell whether or not the similar architecture won't help performance...

Originally posted by: apoppin
Nightmare225 probably better to wait until September or so
:Q



for HD2950xt

AMD probably *hates* that ANYONE would bring it up
:evil:

Yeah, I'll probably wait. It's not like my GTX is getting slower or anything.

 

[Gstanfor]

tweak town r600 review

 

[Extelleron]

Tweaktown shows the 8800GTX ahead by a decent amount at 1280x1024 and 1920x1200, but things even out and the 2900XT and 8800GTX are very close at 2560x1600. They say it should retail for $350-$399, which is lower than I thought.

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: apoppin
some of us aren't so keen on spending $650 for a great card with crap drivers

wow.. a couple months ago you were telling us all the nvidia's driver's were much more stable (FEAR-XP was something you pointed out specifically) and mature than ati's, and didn't have the CCC you hated..

i guess you just advocate whichever brand happens to be sitting in your machine?

FYI I have no issues with forceware whatsoever (tho i don't run SLI) w/ my 8800 - and i'm running Vista full time.

to be fair tho the catalyst driver's i'm running have shown no particular issues either (XP).

 

[spittledip]

Originally posted by: Extelleron
Tweaktown shows the 8800GTX ahead by a decent amount at 1280x1024 and 1920x1200, but things even out and the 2900XT and 8800GTX are very close at 2560x1600. They say it should retail for $350-$399, which is lower than I thought.

This is only the XT against Nvidia's best, the GTX. Why didn't they test the XTX? that would have made more sense. Did they release the XTX yet?

Ah, ok,, saw that the XTX to be released in July (which I am sure someone else noted). Price-wise, the XT is very competitive. Of course, I would prefer if the benches included 8800 GTS as this is the rival part from Nvidia.. although there is a large discrepancy between the prices.

Looking at the VR-zone benches right now.. so slow!!
All I have to say is that ATI/AMD better hurry up with those drivers!

Me? I am going to save up for a 8800 GTS- they should be nice and cheap come fall. Unless the 2900XT drops in price and performs better with driver updates.

 

[Extelleron]

Originally posted by: spittledip

Originally posted by: Extelleron
Tweaktown shows the 8800GTX ahead by a decent amount at 1280x1024 and 1920x1200, but things even out and the 2900XT and 8800GTX are very close at 2560x1600. They say it should retail for $350-$399, which is lower than I thought.

This is only the XT against Nvidia's best, the GTX. Why didn't they test the XTX? that would have made more sense. Did they release the XTX yet?

Ah, ok,, saw that the XTX to be released in July (which I am sure someone else noted). Price-wise, the XT is very competitive. Of course, I would prefer if the benches included 8800 GTS as this is the rival part from Nvidia.. although there is a large discrepancy between the prices.

Looking at the VR-zone benches right now.. so slow!!
All I have to say is that ATI/AMD better hurry up with those drivers!

Me? I am going to save up for a 8800 GTS- they should be nice and cheap come fall. Unless the 2900XT drops in price and performs better with driver updates.

Come fall we'll hopefully see 80nm G8900 and 65nm HD2950. Personally nVidia is going to have to have a huge advantage over ATI in the future to make me go back to them. My 8800GTS isn't a bad card but there's plenty of instability in the drivers (such as the fact I can't change my Medieval II profile settings without the control panel suddenly shutting down). I NEVER had a single problem with ATI drivers on my X1900XT or R9600. Not one.

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: Extelleron
The HD 2900XT is already outperforming the GTS in the vast majority of tests and clearly there are big improvements to come in terms of drivers. With the exception of those games that suffer from the "AA bug," the XT really encroaches on GTX territory when you turn the settings up. With new drivers that improve performance and fix the AA problems that some games suffer, you will be seeing GTX performance (or even higher in some cases) for GTS price.

huh? "majority"? and you have the audacity to call out others as "fanboys"?

aside from the fact they are using a 500mhz GTS (the HD2900XT "embarassingly loses" to the 320mb GTS in Q4 @ 2048 - the GTS runs a 575mhz clock), performance is pretty comparable.

it loses in Q4; wins slightly in HL2; wins by a wide margin on CoH (tho they couldn't test with AA as it doesn't appear to work with the 2900xt in this game); a push in bf2142; gets it's ass kicked in NWN2; and a push in Oblivion.

add AA and the GTS wins more often or by wider margin (driver issues?). and then there are, of course more games which weren't covered in this review (STALKER, SupCom, FEAR to name a couple), so overall performance evaluation is not exactly complete.

at any rate it never really approaches GTX levels.

all in all, the HD2900XT looks like a good alternative to the GTS as they both compete @ the same MSRP (tho GTS actual pricing is far below MSRP), tho it consumes ALOT more power (early reports, despite fanboy denials, are pretty accurate at 345W under load) and heat than the GTS. the addition of VIVO could overcome some of the negatives for some. 7 months ago competition would likely have been fierce, and it's competitive to the GTS in a race that nvidia has already won months ago...

Originally posted by: Nightmare225
Why does the GTS 320 perform faster than the 640 at such a high resolution?

it's running a higher core clock than the 640 GTS (575mhz vs 513mhz)

 

[Wreckage]

Originally posted by: Gstanfor
tweak town r600 review

Looks like the XT lost to the GTS 320 a few times. Considering you can get one of those for under $300, I think AMD will need to drop the price quickly.

 

[Extelleron]

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: Gstanfor
tweak town r600 review

Looks like the XT lost to the GTS 320 a few times. Considering you can get one of those for under $300, I think AMD will need to drop the price quickly.

Where the heck are you getting that from?

The XT is close to the GTX at 2560x1600, how the heck would it lose to a 320MB GTS? They didn't even use a GTS in the benchmark.

 

[swtethan]

I already knew weeks ago, extelleron=ati fanboy

 

[Extelleron]

Originally posted by: swtethan
I already knew weeks ago, extelleron=ati fanboy

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=1924249

I go for the best. I definately have a bias for ATI but if nVidia made better cards, stable drivers, and was a better company than I wouldn't bash them so much. I'm not a fan of their drivers now that I've used them, and I also don't like the way they market their products. Not just the viral marketing, but all the "The way its mean to be played" schemes they use to cover up bad performance.

 

[Pugnate]

Dude I like ATi a lot as well, but what vast majority of tests? But I won't make any decision without Anandtech's review.

The fact that there are so many discrepancies shows the card has potential to be much better after decent drivers though. But I wouldn't spend money on potential. I'd spend it on solid performance.

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: Extelleron

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: Gstanfor
tweak town r600 review

Looks like the XT lost to the GTS 320 a few times. Considering you can get one of those for under $300, I think AMD will need to drop the price quickly.

Where the heck are you getting that from?

The XT is close to the GTX at 2560x1600, how the heck would it lose to a 320MB GTS? They didn't even use a GTS in the benchmark.

they did in the vr-zone article, which used the slowest 640mb GTS in their revew. the 320mb uses was 573 mhz core (vs 513mhz on the 540mb card).

 

[Extelleron]

Originally posted by: CaiNaM

Originally posted by: Extelleron

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: Gstanfor
tweak town r600 review

Looks like the XT lost to the GTS 320 a few times. Considering you can get one of those for under $300, I think AMD will need to drop the price quickly.

Where the heck are you getting that from?

The XT is close to the GTX at 2560x1600, how the heck would it lose to a 320MB GTS? They didn't even use a GTS in the benchmark.

they did in the vr-zone article, which used the slowest 640mb GTS in their revew. the 320mb uses was 573 mhz core (vs 513mhz on the 540mb card).

There's no slowest 8800GTS. The 8800GTS is a 500/1600 card. Anything over that is overclocked. If you're going to compare the HD 2900XT to an overclocked GTS, then you should be testing it overclocked as well, @ 850/2000, not 745/1650.

 

[swtethan]

Originally posted by: Extelleron

Originally posted by: swtethan
I already knew weeks ago, extelleron=ati fanboy

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=1924249

I go for the best. I definately have a bias for ATI but if nVidia made better cards, stable drivers, and was a better company than I wouldn't bash them so much. I'm not a fan of their drivers now that I've used them, and I also don't like the way they market their products. Not just the viral marketing, but all the "The way its mean to be played" schemes they use to cover up bad performance.

drivers work fine for me, no problems whatsoever

 

[Gstanfor]

The Inquirer has an article up which contains images from a nvidia G80/R600 comparison / Q&A.

Unfortunately it also contains a lot of Inquirer FUD comments.

I've reposted the images in question and linked to them below.

1
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7
8
9

I've chosen to reproduce the text of Slide 4:

How does CFAA compare to CSAA?
When the GeForce 3 was launched in 2001, NVIDIA implemented an antialiasing scheme called Quincunx. This mode used four neighbouring samples per pixel to calculate AA. We received negative feedback from the press and end users as this mode caused blurring to the final image.

The Radeon HD 2900 supports 'custom filter' AA modes (CFAA) which use the same principle as Quincunx. Depending on the tent filter you chose, CFAA will borrow four to eight neighbouring samples to calculate AA. Despite weighting the samples by the tent filter, this method of AA will invariably cause blurring.

It is also worth pointing out that CFAA does not require hardware support: it can be done entirely in the driver. The GeForce 8800 can easily support CFAA or any 'custom filter' mode with a driver update. We have not gone down this path because gamers have told us that they do not want antialiasing features that blur the whole image. This is why we have not updated Quincunx to include more samples. Indeed the more samples taken from neighbouring pixels, the more blurred the image.

Coverage Sampling antialiasing (CSAA) offers true 16x coverage precision without any blurring artifacts. It is a hardware accelerated algorithm that offers better performance than CFAA. Coverage sampling is also supported through DirectX 10.

An excellent method of exposing any blur would be to run DeusEx. That game has an intricate HUD and a console featuring small, fine text. You can clearly see the blurring that Quincunx introduces in this game and I believe it will also highlight any CFAA blurring.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Gstanfor
The Inquirer has an article up which contains images from a nvidia G80/R600 comparison / Q&A.

Unfortunately it also contains a lot of Inquirer FUD comments.

i like the whole article


http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39578

Nvidia's FUD presentation revealed

we're presenting you with a couple of screenshots from the FUD doc that was spread around selected media. Since we did not receive the presentation from Graphzilla, we feel no obligation not to post information contained in this document.

Who is right, and who is wrong - we leave you to decide. µ

check out nvidia's BS presentation for yourself

you gotta link ... or google for nvidia's presentation

 

[Gstanfor]

I knew YOU would like the Inq spin...

Text

(Chris ray)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nebula View Post
Interesting and quite honest to. The only bizzare thing was the Inq writers comments!
The inquirer comments sure did add some spice!

 

[Nightmare225]

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: Gstanfor
The Inquirer has an article up which contains images from a nvidia G80/R600 comparison / Q&A.

Unfortunately it also contains a lot of Inquirer FUD comments.

i like the whole article


http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39578

Nvidia's FUD presentation revealed

we're presenting you with a couple of screenshots from the FUD doc that was spread around selected media. Since we did not receive the presentation from Graphzilla, we feel no obligation not to post information contained in this document.

Who is right, and who is wrong - we leave you to decide. µ

check out nvidia's BS presentation for yourself

you gotta link ... or google for nvidia's presentation

Looks hilarious. Although it may be true about the Call of Juarez demo that there was an MSAA bug... Rest is almost total BS of course.