What if nVidia is able to challenge R700's performance?

[Hauk]

Simple "what if" questions...

What if nVidia manages to counter? What if they release a GT200b die shrink that's able to challenge R700's performance? What if it's still DX10? What if it's still GDDR3? What's important to you, sheer game performance, future proof, cost, synthetic benchmarks, power, heat, etc? What if performance margins shrink to under 20%? Will the single gpu solution be your first choice again?

 

[hooflung]

Competitive performance and cost. There is nothing else for a video card to be.

 

[GarfieldtheCat]

Originally posted by: SteelSix
Simple "what if" questions...

What if nVidia manages to counter? What if they release a GT200b die shrink that's able to challenge R700's performance? What if it's still DX10? What if it's still GDDR3? What's important to you, sheer game performance, future proof, cost, synthetic benchmarks, power, heat, etc? What if performance margins shrink to under 20%? Will the single gpu solution be your first choice again?

Great...competition and more options are always good for us as consumers.

Whenever you don't have competition, performance doesn't increase as fast, nor prices decrease as much.

 

[Genx87]

Am I missing something? The 280 is the fastest single GPU solution out there. The 4870x2 is the fastest single card solution but not out yet. Nvidia is fine. They are competing with their high end stuff on a process that is older than AMD's. It can only get better once they shrink it.

 

[Golgatha]

Give me a nearly silent fan, actual copper with heatpipes dual slot cooler than exhausts the hot air, proper power management at idle, and top of the line performance for under $400. That's what it will take to get me to give up my Crossfired 4850s.

My most important criteria is performance, followed (at a very close 2nd place) by nearly silent, and thirdly heat management. Heck, I might break my $400 price point if they (AMD, nVidia, Intel, don't care as long as drivers are reasonably stable) can deliver Crossfired 4850 performance in a single GPU that's properly cooled with the stock cooler.

 

[nemesismk2]

Competition is very good for reducing prices so if Nvidia can challenge then good on them!

 

[MarcVenice]

If they can equal the performance it be very good. It means the gtx280 will have to go down in price, again. Because a gtx280 ultra or whatever, can't compete with a HD4870X2 if it's priced to high.

 

[Cheex]

That would be good for us again....GTX 280 at OC GTX 260 prices!!!

 

[Lonyo]

I read a story that NV are planning to transition all their chips to 55nm, which makes sense.
Initially I don't see anything but a die shrink coming out, but maybe a little while afterwards when 55nm has ramped up they will release a specific faster chip, but you can be sure that partners will be overclocking anyway.
Don't see what the problem with continuing to use GDDR3 is. NV just took a different approach to ATI in going for a fat bus and lower speed memory rather than narrow bus and higher clocked chips. GDDR3 is a design choice and not something which has any effect on the end user.

DX10 vs DX10.1 doesn;t really add a whole lot of future proofing IMO. If it was a major change (yes, there are some advantages to DX10.1 obviously, but not huge) then it might be a problem, but I can see NV's POV in sticking with just DX10 (and I own an HD4850).

Honestly I don't think it matters if it's a single GPU on a single card or two GPU's on a single card. What matters is whether it's consistently fast (i.e. no scaling issues) and is competitively priced against the competition, so that it offers value for money. If it's a choice between two cards that are pretty much equal value for money, then the one with lower power requirements/which produces less heat is going to be better assuming it's also fairly quiet. But then (if it's not too expensive) you can always add aftermarket cooling to reduce temps/exhaust heat/reduce noise.

 

[Aberforth]

Originally posted by: SteelSix
Simple "what if" questions...

What if nVidia manages to counter? What if they release a GT200b die shrink that's able to challenge R700's performance? What if it's still DX10? What if it's still GDDR3? What's important to you, sheer game performance, future proof, cost, synthetic benchmarks, power, heat, etc? What if performance margins shrink to under 20%? Will the single gpu solution be your first choice again?

NV already has a video card that beats ATi in performance, but did it really matter in the end? Sane people always look for best bang for the buck only the later always look for bragging rights. Nv has proved again and again that they only care about customers as long as they own the latest and the best, like they do this by dropping driver updates, no optimizations for older cards and they've been pushing SLi agenda for years. So What if thingy...doesn't matter.

 

[Wreckage]

Well the GTX280 already beats ATI's top card.

So if the GTX280+ beats the R700, then having one GPU that is faster than 2 means you don't have to deal with profiles and scaling.

 

[chizow]

Nvidia just needs to improve their AA performance, as that's where the RV770 really wins. Otherwise GT200/b has enough merit and performance on its own to satisfy those who don't want to deal with multi-gpu issues.

 

[Hauk]

Good info. Should insiders from both camps be paying attention to this forum, this is the type of info they need to see.