What's up with Nvidia?

[Zillatech]

They are seriously lagging on the their next generation DirectX 11 cards, at this rate AMD will have their refreshed DX11 parts out about the same time Nvidia delivers their first DX11 cards.

Why is Nvidia taking so long on these? Did they over-shoot again (FX Series), or is the 40nm process all jacked up. They are giving AMD a real opportunity to take some market share back. I'd probably pick up the new Sapphire Vapor-X 5870 if I could find them in stock but I'm not in a real hurry to upgrade my GTX275 yet. I was hoping Nvidia would have something out by now or at least more information.

Whats going on with them???

 

[nOOky]

In a nutshell they are feeling the holiday spirit. The are letting ATI sell their newest cards during the busy holiday season as a friendly gesture. The purpose of this is to try and convert some of their diehard fanboys into ATI people. Then the converts will realize that the ATI drivers aren't bad, like they have been thinking for the past 10 years. Nvidia wants more competition, so the idea is to let some customers go to the other side, then sometime in spring when the main gpu buying season is over, only the nvidia faithful who've waited patiently will buy the newer, overpriced cards.
Then their graphics unit will have to come out with even better, cheaper cards, and a price war will ensue which will benefit everyone.

Okay, so I'm rambling, the above is only what it appears they are doing. Black friday shopping will do that to ya

 

[Seero]

They are seriously lagging on the their next generation DirectX 11 cards, at this rate AMD will have their refreshed DX11 parts out about the same time Nvidia delivers their first DX11 cards.

Why is Nvidia taking so long on these? Did they over-shoot again (FX Series), or is the 40nm process all jacked up. They are giving AMD a real opportunity to take some market share back. I'd probably pick up the new Sapphire Vapor-X 5870 if I could find them in stock but I'm not in a real hurry to upgrade my GTX275 yet. I was hoping Nvidia would have something out by now or at least more information.

Whats going on with them???

QFT

I wasn't on top of news, but it appears that they have been dropping the balls this year. Those 9800/9600 were suppose to be using Gt200 core, and GT240 was supposed to be released at June. Some say they are having a really bad management, I say Nvidia is trying to concentrate their resources to other things lilke Gt300. Then there comes the TSMC problem, which further reduces the process. Aside from that, the Gt300 core is a new architecture, more or less like the jump between Intel dual core -> C2D.

Now instead of pushing the development of hardware, Nvidia spent a lot of resources on promoting what they already have, which is CUDA and PhysX. Lots of games are using PhysX with Nvidia's help, and apps are using CUDA, also with Nvidia's help.

Rumors said that they are more active in making GPU servers to attack the IT market, GPU based servers are much cheaper than CPU based servers. Fermi is actually developed for server use as the RAM it uses have EPP, which isn't useful in displaying/computing graphics. However, EPP is very useful in terms of GPU computing.

What I fear the most is not the performance of the new cards, but its price.

 

[Qbah]

The DX11 is kinda moot still, as there are hardly any games for it (though that should change in the near future). The new HD58xx and the HD5970 cards are the fastest cards even in today's DX9/DX10 games and that is their selling point imo. The fastest single GPU and the fastest card available for pretty much any game on the market (not counting nVidia's own technologies which for obvious reasons don't work on AMD cards).

Fastest nVidia card that's still supported is the GTS250 (aka 9800GTX aka 8800GTS 512MB), The whole GTX series has been EOL'ed. Of course you can still buy the GTX cards in most places, but as far as support goes, you never know (let the Aegia PPU card be an example where nVidia dropped support in general for Win7 starting from a certain driver version).

So yeah - they are seriously lagging behind. AMD has them beat on pretty much every front.

 

[james1701]

Have you not heard, they are not lagging, they are just skipping this generation, and jumping to the next. That way they can say they are ahead of ATI, and it gives the PR side something new to talk about and not look bad to the loyal costumers .

 

[Spike99]

I'm definitely an NVIDIA fan... and never really thought about buying ATI... I need to upgrade my card and I don't think I'm willing to wait till Feb/March for FERMI card... I'm currently waiting for availability for 5870 at this time... I guess I'll be switching soon to ATI.

 

[TantrumusMaximus]

I'm definitely an NVIDIA fan... and never really thought about buying ATI... I need to upgrade my card and I don't think I'm willing to wait till Feb/March for FERMI card... I'm currently waiting for availability for 5870 at this time... I guess I'll be switching soon to ATI.

This was why I bought the Radeon 9700 Pro back in the day nVidia fan here too but when you are ready to buy, the best card is going to get your dollars unless you are just a stubborn fan that refuses to accept reality.

I have a friend that is Fermi this Fermi that... well I'm sure it will be all that, nVidia has a damn good track record but I'm not so certain it's going to destroy ATI's best right now.

 

[nitromullet]

Fastest nVidia card that's still supported is the GTS250 (aka 9800GTX aka 8800GTS 512MB), The whole GTX series has been EOL'ed. Of course you can still buy the GTX cards in most places, but as far as support goes, you never know (let the Aegia PPU card be an example where nVidia dropped support in general for Win7 starting from a certain driver version).

This is nothing but FUD.

EOL doesn't mean support is withdrawn, just that they stop manufacturing the hardware. NVIDIA still supports the 6-series (from 2004) on Windows 7 in the latest drivers, and the 6-series has been EOL for a long time now.

To put this into perspective... Everything older than the Radeon HD 2000 (came out in 2007) is not officially supported on Win 7 by ATI.

Note: AMD’s DirectX 9 ATI Radeon graphics accelerators are not officially supported under Windows 7. If the user chooses to, they can install the ATI Catalyst Windows Vista graphics driver under Windows 7. Please be aware that none of the new Windows 7 graphics driver (WDDM 1.1) features are supported (as the Windows Vista level graphics driver is limited to WDDM 1.0 level support).

http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Legacy/Pages/radeonaiw_vista64.aspx

 

[SlowSpyder]

There have been a number of discussions in a number of threads about this. A lot of the members here who look at things from the business perspective have wieghed in their opinions and more or less pushed the opinion that with the TSMC 40nm production issues right now, it doesn't matter too much that Nvidia is behind. And they're probably correct for the most part.

But with that being said, from the enthusiast/gamer/consumer point of view, Nvidia appears to be behind AMD right now... AMD is the clear technology leader between the two. When Fermi launches, my guess is that it'll fit somewhere inbetween the 5870 and 5970. Obviously the 5970 isn't perfect as a dual GPU solution, but it is likely to be the faster part (Just my guess here, we don't know what Fermi will be capable of, or not capable of until we see some real numbers). So depending on when they launch, they may not even have the fastest part. That is what I see from an enthusiast point of view. I miss the price wars of last gen. :/

 

[dguy6789]

To make a long story short, I think Fermi is Nvidia's next NV30.

 

[Wreckage]

To make a long story short, I think Fermi is Nvidia's next NV30.

A lot of ATI fanz seem to be hoping and praying for that.

I guess after 4 bad launches in a row...ATI fans need something to hold on to.

 

[Absolution75]

To make a long story short, I think Fermi is Nvidia's next NV30.

I tend to think its a good posibility. Even if it is performance competative, the yields are likely to be crap because of its huge die area.

 

[nOOky]

At this point in time, nvidia fanz need something to hold on to. To be without a product that offers decent price/performance during the holiday shopping season should be inexcusable to shareholders. To the fanboyz it must really suck. I always buy whatever offers the best deal when I'm shopping for a card. Methinks the last good deal was the 8800GT512. It took ATI to bring current cards price down to reasonable levels with their products.

 

[Udgnim]

they got complacent until it was too late.

 

[Qbah]

This is nothing but FUD.

EOL doesn't mean support is withdrawn, just that they stop manufacturing the hardware. NVIDIA still supports the 6-series (from 2004) on Windows 7 in the latest drivers, and the 6-series has been EOL for a long time now.

To put this into perspective... Everything older than the Radeon HD 2000 (came out in 2007) is not officially supported on Win 7 by ATI.



http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Legacy/Pages/radeonaiw_vista64.aspx

Well, nothing I said was a lie. It is far fetched about nVidia dropping support, sure, but it also is a possibility (however remote it may be). Nothing will stop nVidia from doing what I said. They probably won't but at least they have a valid reason to do it - "we EOL'ed the old cards, you should've have jumped on Fermi the moment we released them" - this is a (not very likely but still) probable answer you could hear from nVidia in the future.

Hell, ATi did it with X19xx and lower - they're in legacy support now. Not that you will use those cards for anything but office tasks...

 

[dguy6789]

A lot of ATI fanz seem to be hoping and praying for that.

I guess after 4 bad launches in a row...ATI fans need something to hold on to.

Really trying to cause problems are ya? There's plenty of things to think about that make it very plausible.

I'll go into detail.

The RV770 launched after the GT200. ATI took an approach of small and efficient while Nvidia took an approach of bigger is better. Both companies are continuing with this mentality. The advantages and disadvantages of both seem pretty obvious.(Early launch vs major delays and problems)

By remaining conservative with regards to die size, ATI was able to launch their next gen GPU before Nvidia could, even though Nvidia launched the last gen GPU before ATI did. Not only this, ATI even launched their dual GPU card just two months after the initial launch of their single GPU card. The earliest time that Fermi is likely to launch is in January. Multiple sources say March or April is more likely. Now let's think about that for a minute. September, October, November, December, January, February, March, April. It just may take that long for Nvidia to release a card that may or may not even be as fast as the 5870. Even if it is faster than the 5870, the odds of it being faster than the 5970 are just about zero.

Now what are the odds that the Fermi offers such a good price and performance ratio that people will agree that it was worth a possible 6+ month wait? Fermi is going to be Nvidia's largest, most complex, most expensive to produce design ever. I don't think there is any chance that it will be able to compete with the RV870 when it comes to price vs performance. When Fermi does finally launch, ATI can just drop prices again after enjoying 6 months of really high prices.

I think that RV8xx vs Fermi will be exactly the same as RV7xx vs GT200, with the exception being Fermi will be late this round.

Nvidia is making the same mistake with Fermi that ATI made with the HD2900 and Intel made with the Prescott.

Of course, this is just my opinion.

 

[Wreckage]

The RV770 launched after the GT200. ATI took an approach of small and efficient while Nvidia took an approach of bigger is better. Both companies are continuing with this mentality. The advantages and disadvantages of both seem pretty obvious.(Early launch vs major delays and problems)

Actually, no. NVIDIA is launching an new architecture, while ATI is still using its old one. So of course ATI was able to launch faster, but with no so significant performance boost from last gen.

 

[zagood]

Someone needs to get Seero and Nemesis in the same room...and bring a tape recorder.

 

[dguy6789]

Actually, no. NVIDIA is launching an new architecture, while ATI is still using its old one. So of course ATI was able to launch faster, but with no so significant performance boost from last gen.

Yep, RV870 is based on RV770 which is based on RV670.

Lacking a significant performance boost, however, is a statement I don't agree with. In fact, the performance boost was possibly more significant than any in a long time, just not at the highest end right away. At the very highest end, performance didn't improve by a huge amount until the 5970 came out, but for people without unlimited budgets, performance went up at other price points. With the launch of the 5870 and 5850, someone could get performance that was previously only available for $500+(GTX295) for $379. People could get >$300 performance(GTX 285) for $259. When's the last time a next gen graphics card family launched that allowed people to pay less money than previous high end cards and still get similar or higher performance? Of course, ATI did raise prices due to extreme demand and a lack of competition later.

 

[SlowSpyder]

A lot of ATI fanz seem to be hoping and praying for that.

I guess after 4 bad launches in a row...ATI fans need something to hold on to.

4 bad launches in a row?

The 5870 had a hard launch, cards were available on the day of the launch. Same with the 5850 (by the way, 5850's are in stock as of the time of this post at Newegg). Same with the 5970. Same with the 57xx cards. All hard launched. AMD is selling every single 58xx and 59xx they make almost instantly. Obviously they need to work to meet demand, but with zero competition from Nvidia in those segments, and probably none for at least a few months, they have some breathing room.

The 48xx cards were an amazing launch. Almost instantly they cut the price of the competing Nvidia cards in half. That's a good thing for all of us! Comparable cards for a very good price from both camps. I don't know how anyone could call that a bad launch. Infact the launch was so good that Nvidia was running around making 2:00AM calls to announce the 9800GTX+ and they revised the GTX260 to be a more powerful card... I guess they didn't like AMD's $299 card spanking their $450 card. The 48xx cards had a huge impact almost immediately. Pretty good launch if you ask me.

I don't remember many details about the 3870, but I do think that the 3870 was the card the 2900 should have been... DX10.1, UVD, much smaller die, much less heat/power use. The 3870 certainly didn't shake up the industry, but it was competitive at it's price point. Like I said, I don't know if it was hard launched or not, but I know AMD made money during this time period. Nothing earth shattering, but an ok part at it's price point.

The 2900 was a terrible launch. It was much later than the competition (Like Fermi) and wasn't fast enough to justify it's late entry in enthusiast's eyes. The card competed poorly with Nvidia's 8800GTS and ended up really being closer to 9600GT performance. We'll have to wait and see if Fermi will end up being Nvidia's 2900XT...

Anyway, the last two launches have been great. The prior launches, were 'meh' and bad in my opinion.

Actually, no. NVIDIA is launching an new architecture, while ATI is still using its old one. So of course ATI was able to launch faster, but with no so significant performance boost from last gen.

You know why AMD to launch quicker? Because they created the 4770 using 40nm around six+ months ago. They used DX10.1. They've had hardware tesselation for many generations. They've innovated over the course of the last few generations enabling them to create the 5870 much quciker than Nvidia ccan introduce their next gen architecture. Nvidia has to create a tesselator for the first time. They have to jump from DX10 to DX11. They are just now starting to use 40nm. AMD's earilier innovations have allowed them to get the 5870 out quickly. AMD's small die strategy and earlier innovations have payed off.

 

[Wreckage]

The 5870 had a hard launch

There is still a lack of availability. It's an incredibly soft launch.

The 48xx cards were an amazing launch.

They came out after the GT200 and were slower.

You have an extremely loose definition of success.

 

[nitromullet]

Well, nothing I said was a lie. It is far fetched about nVidia dropping support, sure, but it also is a possibility (however remote it may be). Nothing will stop nVidia from doing what I said. They probably won't but at least they have a valid reason to do it - "we EOL'ed the old cards, you should've have jumped on Fermi the moment we released them" - this is a (not very likely but still) probable answer you could hear from nVidia in the future.

Hell, ATi did it with X19xx and lower - they're in legacy support now. Not that you will use those cards for anything but office tasks...

I never said you lied... I said you were spreading FUD, and you continue to do so.

Where are you getting this notion from that EOL = no support? The fact that any company can drop support for an EOL product line is true, but there is absolutely no reason to assume or even speculate that NVIDIA would drop support for the GTX 200 series anytime soon.

Both NVIDIA and ATI have a pretty solid track record of supporting their video cards for quite some time. IMO, they are supported well past their useful lifespan for gaming, and non-gaming applications generally don't need the latest drivers anyway.

 

[VirtualLarry]

This is nothing but FUD.

EOL doesn't mean support is withdrawn, just that they stop manufacturing the hardware. NVIDIA still supports the 6-series (from 2004) on Windows 7 in the latest drivers, and the 6-series has been EOL for a long time now.

To put this into perspective... Everything older than the Radeon HD 2000 (came out in 2007) is not officially supported on Win 7 by ATI.



http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Legacy/Pages/radeonaiw_vista64.aspx

To be fair, the Nvidia 6-series cards are not supported either with WDDM 1.1 drivers. They only have WDDM 1.0.

 

[thilanliyan]

To make a long story short, I think Fermi is Nvidia's next NV30.

I doubt it will be slower than a 5870 but it will (IMO) probably be noticeably slower than the 5970 (when it scales). As long as it's priced right it won't matter too much that it's late except for those who want a card right now.

OT, I really wish nV kept their newer cards (reference G80 and newer) compatible with older GPU waterblocks. Every time I consider which card to buy now I have to include the price of another block with the nV card as my Maze4 doesn't fit on any of the newer NV cards while it fits on all of the current ATI single GPU cards.

 

[Qbah]

There is still a lack of availability. It's an incredibly soft launch.

I just checked my online store here in Denmark and there are several models with 2 day shipping (so not overnight). Denmark is usually like a month or two behind the US, so it looks fine for me. Also, the cheapest ones are for around 25% more compared to when the HD4870 launched so it's "in-line" with the US market.

They came out after the GT200 and were slower.

HD4850 June 19 2008
HD4870 June 25 2008
HD4870x2 August 12 2008


GTX260 June 26 2008
GTX280 June 17 2008
GTX295 January 8 2009

Now granted, the GTX280 was the fastest card until the HD4870x2 launched. But the HD48xx and GTX2xx series launched at the same time. Not to mention the HD4870 was at least equal in performance while costing 2/3 (299 vs 449) compared to GTX260. This was shown at least once to you yet you conveniently ignore the facts and spread lies. Do I need to mention the 9800GTX that launched on April 1st 2008 at 300$? When you could buy a 8800GTS512 for a bit over 200$? That was the same technology. And 2.5 months later the HD4850 is launched that offers greater performance, yet for 2/3 of the price?

You have an extremely loose definition of success.

Start basing your opinion on facts not lies and you will see that as a success.