Tomshardware review is up and giving ATI the Crown...

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Regs

Lifer
Aug 9, 2002
16,666
21
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Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER
Originally posted by: LTC8K6
Yes, let's name all the bugs in everyone's drivers, add them all up, and declare a winner.

Sheesh.

:laugh:

Is that a new Icon? Cool. :laugh: It looks like big teeth to me.
 

chsh1ca

Golden Member
Feb 17, 2003
1,179
0
0
Originally posted by: Rollo
Actually, that's not a bad reason to buy nVidia:
1. I could care less who's working in Canada, and who's not. I want nVidia to be successful and employ people here.
2. nVidia is a publicly traded company here, their success earns American stock holders money, and is a piece of the overall tech market picture.
3. nVidia pays taxes here that help their state, where they could use the money.

Know what I get if I buy an ATI card? All of the above, for Canada and what looks to be a marginally better video card.

Like I said, to me at least, the porosperity of Canadians is secondary to the prosperity of Americans, and if the cards are fairly equal in performance, I might buy nVidia based just to support U.S. industry.
Except both companies employ more people in Taiwan, and ATI's design teams are on the west coast in the US. IIRC they also have a fab in Ohio. It's an ignorant misguided reason to buy NVidia. Besides, by simply consuming you are supporting many other nations in the world. Even if you buy "american made" stuff, some of it comes from Canada, various European countries, etc.. Which would you buy? Intel or AMD? Both of them employ more people outside North America than they do inside North America.
 

Marsumane

Golden Member
Mar 9, 2004
1,171
0
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NV's are slightly better, but ati's are very close (both VERY good overall except for nvs CUREENT drivers due to ENTIRELY new archetecture aka: they need some work on tweaking in farcry and overall perforamnce) I'm basing this over what I've read in the past on stability with games (John Carmack said something once about NV's being a little better also) and also what ive noticed in how much the 59XX series caught up to the 9800 series just through driver updates. (after the cheats were removed that is)

Secondly, it all depends on the game and also the rest of the hardware you are using. I mean just look at the numbers of say an nvidia chipset vs a via or sis chipset. You will notice that many nv chipset boards make it so the 5950 even does BETTER then the 9800XT. Y? Drivers, optimizations, other hardware, which card maker's card, etc. As anand stated, NV is prob going to be better for higher res and ATI for optimizing that res (AA+AS) = Both good cards in their own fashion and NEITHER sucking!

Based on what I said above, some of the differences between the sites may be due to this factor. Also, games arent all written the same. The numbers tend to flip flop on the diff games benched. Who knows how each card will perform on Doom3 and HL2 even. I bet if you used a P4 vs an A64 one card will beat the other card on one proc, where the other card had previously won. Same applies with game patches, and drivers (as mentioned above).

Thirdly, who cares?!?!?! What WE ALL NEEDED was ATI to release something within 5% of NV's top card OVERALL. What has it done?
1) the XT was released for benching earlier then expected
2) XT's speed was increased (20mhz core/100mem)
3) 6800U's speed was increased, but put into a new card cuz their Ultra was already officially released (50mhz).
4) They will probably release better drivers (NV already has one) and not delay their card's releases if given the choice.
5) This all causes prices to drop. (5900/9700/9800 series will drop in price due to 3454543 higher cards in the market)
6) BOTH companies will probably make money and stay in buisness against eachother (THE MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL FOR FUTURES SAKE)

Due to not knowing all of the variables mentioned way above, we might as well call these cards fairly equal in how fast they are at all types of games. (ex we dont know about how many optimizations each can make nor the true status of maturity of drivers, nor the hardware differences, etc, etc ,etc)

Finally, it all boils down to what u build. If you have such hardware as an FX or EE processor in your computer, a WD raptor hd, overclock above 3.5 gigs, or perhaps have a $1500+ custom build computer, then NV's TOP cards (6800U/6800UE) arent an issue with power sense i imagine a high psu is already in your system, or u have the resources to acquire one w/o hesitation. Think about it. Another point is that these people will already be willing to fork out an outrageous $500 for the card, therefore I imagine they will have the money to get the psu also. You will also get PS3.0 and FP32 out of the deal.

On the other hand, like most of us, you dont want to spend that much, and would settle for something more in the $250-$300 range (for sake of argument). You will NOT be buying the top NV card due to you not wanting to add a psu cost to your computer, and having ur current psu already (most likely) not being the best of psu's due to your non-compulsive tendancies to put 1/2 a grand into each component. ALSO you will not be buying the top ATI card, due to it being JUST as much (minus the cost of the new psu). It is already too much, so who cares about either of them!

Or there are people like me. These people are looking at the current, almost top-end cards taht are out now that cost ~$150-$200. We are the type that are looking to get that 2500+xp and oc it to 3200+ speeds and top it off w/ one of these cards. These people, as all three of these groups, MOST BENEFIT if the cards are very similar in performance. The prices of ALL of the cards (except the very top card at any given time) will drop in price. Who knows, maybe the 9800pro will be ~$120-$150 by mid-summer and these people can finally upgrade their GF3's.

You people get the point? Sorry for it not being more organized, and i knwo there are exceptions to these catagories of people, but most of all, I think 80% of people fall within these catagories or there abouts. The fact is, the benchmarks released today would have BEEN WORSE if ATI truely beat NV or vice versa. Just give it up, and try to educate people into thinking on what is actually the more important outcome of these releases and thank both companies for having archetecture that actually follows the direction of where the games are going (ex: no math/texture unit being in the wrong place like in NV30 w/ its long stupid pipeline that took forever to optimize the drivers for)
 

modedepe

Diamond Member
May 11, 2003
3,474
0
0
The feature set the Nvidia cards support won't be IN games until after this generation is obsolete.
LOL, ps2.0 was taunted a must have feature when the 9800 pro kicked but the 5900 sucked at it. But ps3.0 doesn't matter on the 6800? There's also other features that the 6800 has, such as video encoding.

Nvidia hasn't offered 'better' driver stability for quite some time.
Now, ati's drivers have had 'better' image quality, but not necessarily stability. If you look at the problems people on these boards have with their video card, there are STILL more with problems from ati cards.
 

Genx87

Lifer
Apr 8, 2002
41,091
513
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The feature set the Nvidia cards support won't be IN games until after this generation is obsolete.


There is a list of about 12 games coming out this year that will make use of PS3.0

have heard of the cross bar memory controller before and I vaguely remember talk of QC rambus way back when

Not the same thing.

What really useful features are missing that make you refer to it as pathetic ?

PS 3.0 = Flowcontrol, FP32, longer shader programs
VS 3.0 = hardware displacement mapping, texture lookups.

SM 2.0 is a good start but come on lets get with something a little more efficient.

And when I experience crashes what is the first thing they will tell me I need to do? Sorry, maybe you like running hardware subspec from what the vendor says it needs, but I don't think that leads to a stable machine. Should I undervolt my processor because "it will run [most of the time] at 1.5V instead of 1.65V?"


You assume everytime you crash it is power related? I think you are being a bit dramatic. For instance my dads computer has been having some serious issues the last 3 months. I took one of the 3 sticks of ram out and the issue was fixed. Nvidias recommended power supply is a bit over the top and if you really think you need a 500 watt ps to run a 6800 Ultra you are dreaming. Sure if you get a 15 dollar special from the computer show I have no doubts you will need a 600 watt PS because it probably delivers 50 ampres on the 3.3v rail and like 10 ampres on the 12 volt rail.

Anybody who is building a computer for themselves should know a 15 dollar PS arent built because they are of the highest of quality. Personally the whole PS issue doesnt matter because I was planning on getting a new one when I got my Athlon64 machine built next fall. I am eyeing a 430Watt True power and I will let you know how it works out.

The rig below is running on a 300 Watt PS without issue. The 6800 U doesnt draw more than 20% more power than the 5900 Ultra. That wont make my PS requirement magically jump to 480 watts from 300. Chances are I could get away with a 350 Watt with the same system execpt the video card.
 

jim1976

Platinum Member
Aug 7, 2003
2,704
6
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Originally posted by: Rollo
Originally posted by: crsgardner
ATi is canadian

I like that one. Good reason for not buying from a company. :p

Actually, that's not a bad reason to buy nVidia:
1. I could care less who's working in Canada, and who's not. I want nVidia to be successful and employ people here.
2. nVidia is a publicly traded company here, their success earns American stock holders money, and is a piece of the overall tech market picture.
3. nVidia pays taxes here that help their state, where they could use the money.

Know what I get if I buy an ATI card? All of the above, for Canada and what looks to be a marginally better video card.

Like I said, to me at least, the porosperity of Canadians is secondary to the prosperity of Americans, and if the cards are fairly equal in performance, I might buy nVidia based just to support U.S. industry.

LOL. LOL. LOL. RFLMAO.

ROLLO IN RECENT PAST: I will buy the card that has the BEST PERFORMANCE, if IQ is similar on both cards.

Unless you believe SM3 will make a tremendous change in things in the near future, then my friend YOU ARE SOMETHIN SPECIAL.

Now you care for USA's prosperity??? RFLMAO!!!!
 

jim1976

Platinum Member
Aug 7, 2003
2,704
6
81
Originally posted by: modedepe
The feature set the Nvidia cards support won't be IN games until after this generation is obsolete.
LOL, ps2.0 was taunted a must have feature when the 9800 pro kicked but the 5900 sucked at it. But ps3.0 doesn't matter on the 6800? There's also other features that the 6800 has, such as video encoding.

Nvidia hasn't offered 'better' driver stability for quite some time.
Now, ati's drivers have had 'better' image quality, but not necessarily stability. If you look at the problems people on these boards have with their video card, there are STILL more with problems from ati cards.


You might want to take into consideration that :

PS2.0 made over PS1.4 a big difference in both terms of performance and IQ.
How is that the same with PS3 over PS2? It seems for now that they have similar IQ and the performance is slightly better on ATI.
 

Acanthus

Lifer
Aug 28, 2001
19,915
2
76
ostif.org
Originally posted by: jim1976
Originally posted by: modedepe
The feature set the Nvidia cards support won't be IN games until after this generation is obsolete.
LOL, ps2.0 was taunted a must have feature when the 9800 pro kicked but the 5900 sucked at it. But ps3.0 doesn't matter on the 6800? There's also other features that the 6800 has, such as video encoding.

Nvidia hasn't offered 'better' driver stability for quite some time.
Now, ati's drivers have had 'better' image quality, but not necessarily stability. If you look at the problems people on these boards have with their video card, there are STILL more with problems from ati cards.


You might want to take into consideration that :

PS2.0 made over PS1.4 a big difference in both terms of performance and IQ.
How is that the same with PS3 over PS2? It seems for now that they have similar IQ and the performance is slightly better on ATI.

Because DX9.0c isnt out yet so its not enabled in SM3.0 games yet.
 

jim1976

Platinum Member
Aug 7, 2003
2,704
6
81
Originally posted by: Acanthus
Originally posted by: jim1976
Originally posted by: modedepe
The feature set the Nvidia cards support won't be IN games until after this generation is obsolete.
LOL, ps2.0 was taunted a must have feature when the 9800 pro kicked but the 5900 sucked at it. But ps3.0 doesn't matter on the 6800? There's also other features that the 6800 has, such as video encoding.

Nvidia hasn't offered 'better' driver stability for quite some time.
Now, ati's drivers have had 'better' image quality, but not necessarily stability. If you look at the problems people on these boards have with their video card, there are STILL more with problems from ati cards.


You might want to take into consideration that :

PS2.0 made over PS1.4 a big difference in both terms of performance and IQ.
How is that the same with PS3 over PS2? It seems for now that they have similar IQ and the performance is slightly better on ATI.

Because DX9.0c isnt out yet so its not enabled in SM3.0 games yet.

Ok I do agree with that. But seriously I don't believe that we will see visible IQ differences. And I seriously doubt that in the forthcoming games we will see difference in IQ.
It will all come down to Nvidia SM3 speed vs ATI SM2 speed. We will see.
 

chsh1ca

Golden Member
Feb 17, 2003
1,179
0
0
Jim, while IQ differences may not be evident, there will definitely be speed differences between SM2.0 and SM3.0, or so I've been lead to believe.
 

jim1976

Platinum Member
Aug 7, 2003
2,704
6
81
Originally posted by: chsh1ca
Jim, while IQ differences may not be evident, there will definitely be speed differences between SM2.0 and SM3.0, or so I've been lead to believe.

Agreed. It is true that SM3 is faster. But that doesn't nessecarily mean that overall performance will be higher on Nvidia I believe. Just different architectures.
 

Acanthus

Lifer
Aug 28, 2001
19,915
2
76
ostif.org
Im completely agree jim, ive been trying to get that across to people for days... but they keep coming back with IT WILL LOOK THE SAME!! :brokenheart:
 

Ackmed

Diamond Member
Oct 1, 2003
8,499
560
126
Acanthus, I wont be responding to your childish posts anymore. Resorting to name calling only shows you cant carry a conversation.

Why you cant admit the X800XT is a better (barely) card is beyond me.
 

Acanthus

Lifer
Aug 28, 2001
19,915
2
76
ostif.org
Originally posted by: Ackmed
Acanthus, I wont be responding to your childish posts anymore. Resorting to name calling only shows you cant carry a conversation.

Why you cant admit the X800XT is a better (barely) card is beyond me.

Browsing through anandtechs review i see the X800XT winning 6 games, and the 6800U winning 6 games. So your "superior" card is even with the 6800. I submit that not only are you biased to ati, but you talk down to everyone in this forum like we are idiots.

Edit: Going through Toms i see that it was 10 Ati, 9 NV, 2 Ties (within 1fps of each other or no noticable quality differences for the quality tests).

Not only do i not care that you wont respond to my posts anymore, i look forward to it, you tool.
 
Apr 14, 2004
1,599
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Browsing through anandtechs review i see the X800XT winning 6 games, and the 6800U winning 6 games. So your "superior" card is even with the 6800.

" Clearly, both camps have had their wins and losses, but it is safe to say that ATI comes out on top when it comes to DX9 and PS 2.0 performance"
"we may end up recommending that NVIDIA push their prices down slightly (or shift around a few specs) in order to keep the market balanced"

There's your winner there.
 

Acanthus

Lifer
Aug 28, 2001
19,915
2
76
ostif.org
Originally posted by: GeneralGrievous
Browsing through anandtechs review i see the X800XT winning 6 games, and the 6800U winning 6 games. So your "superior" card is even with the 6800.

" Clearly, both camps have had their wins and losses, but it is safe to say that ATI comes out on top when it comes to DX9 and PS 2.0 performance"
"we may end up recommending that NVIDIA push their prices down slightly (or shift around a few specs) in order to keep the market balanced"

There's your winner there.

Thanks i read the article. Since i dont agree with the reviewers conclusion based on his own data, i would go ahead and say 6-6 is a tie.
 

pakotlar

Senior member
Aug 22, 2003
731
187
116
Originally posted by: Acanthus
Originally posted by: LTC8K6
By all rights with those specs the X800XT shouldve SLAUGHTERED the 6800U, i dont know whats going on but with a clock advantage that huge something is holding the card back.

Drivers? :D

Its the same core as the 9800, only everything is doubled, and they tossed some high performance ram on there, then went .13 and low-k, and clocked it up.

The drivers are essentially the same. Even the same FSAA and AF methods.

The Radeon X800XT is more driver limited right now than the 6800 ultra is. If you need proof, look at the discrepency between fillrate/ bandwith numbers and performance figures. Also notice how the XT doesn't scale well with resolution. At low resolutions it is getting beaten often by the 6800ultra, while at high resolutions/AA it is vice versa. Rumblings have it that something big is coming soon from ATI. You heard it here first.
 

Insomniak

Banned
Sep 11, 2003
4,836
0
0
Originally posted by: Johnbear007


Your n00b is showing.

The feature set the Nvidia cards support won't be IN games until after this generation is obsolete.

Nvidia hasn't offered 'better' driver stability for quite some time.

Canadian? and that matters why?

The price / performance crown will most likely be for the X800 pro


9 games are expected to be using SM3.0 by the end of the year. Me: 1 You: 0

Nvidia's driver stability has always been better than ATi's and still is. This is a duh. Me: 2 You: 0

Because they're Canadian! Jesus Christ, don't you people know anything? Me: 345645674 You: -7

6800GT and X800Pro both look like price performance winners, but the 6800GT looks even more like one because when overclocked it outperforms a stock 6800UE.


Please stop talking :)
 

Acanthus

Lifer
Aug 28, 2001
19,915
2
76
ostif.org
Originally posted by: pakotlar
Originally posted by: Acanthus
Originally posted by: LTC8K6
By all rights with those specs the X800XT shouldve SLAUGHTERED the 6800U, i dont know whats going on but with a clock advantage that huge something is holding the card back.

Drivers? :D

Its the same core as the 9800, only everything is doubled, and they tossed some high performance ram on there, then went .13 and low-k, and clocked it up.

The drivers are essentially the same. Even the same FSAA and AF methods.

The Radeon X800XT is more driver limited right now than the 6800 ultra is. If you need proof, look at the discrepency between fillrate/ bandwith numbers and performance figures. Also notice how the XT doesn't scale well with resolution. At low resolutions it is getting beaten often by the 6800ultra, while at high resolutions/AA it is vice versa. Rumblings have it that something big is coming soon from ATI. You heard it here first.

Its not winning at high res... its winning with anisotropic filtering enabled, where NV takes a massive performance hit...
 

Rudee

Lifer
Apr 23, 2000
11,218
2
76
Originally posted by: Genx87
For your average gamer type who may not have a 450W+ PSU, the attraction will lend itself to ATI. Keep in mind that many people will still have to factor into the price of purchase the cost of getting a better PSU, and starting at ~$70 for a cheap 450W that takes a $299 card to $369. In terms of priceerformance for those of us who would have to upgrade, it's really a no brainer that ATI will win every time.


I grow tired of the avg ignorant continuing to spew the 450W PS BS. Many reviews did fine with a 350 watt PS and anybody should be just fine with a 430 Watt.

Sure, but the reviewers had test rigs with minimal hardware, thus they didn't need anything past a 350 w PSU. Typical gamers are running DVD burners with multiple harddrives and other hardware which sucks up power, thus if you're the "typical gamer" you'll certainly need the recommended power supply. So the edge definitely goes to ATI for their lesser PSU requirements.