The NEXT LAST R600 Rumours & Speculation Thread

[compres]

So far:

Nvidia has better AF
Nvidia has better AA (sharper picture > less edges). Ati blurring the pic doesn't make it better IQ for me.
The 8800GTX remains untouched
The 8800GTS will trade back n' forth with the x2900xt
All hope lies on Drivers from Ati.

From what I've seen so far, I'd rate this product a 6/10. Late, worse IQ and does not clearly beat the competitor at the same price point, let alone their flagship card.

Before I get called a nvidia fanboy, my video card purchases since I got into the enthusiast PC hobby include: x800xtpe, x1800xtx, x1900xtx (currently).

If there were a lots of DX10 games coming out in the new few months, I'd say that'd be a wildcard but by the time DX10 games do become the norm, these cards will be atlest 1-2 generations behind.

I hate to say it, but I agree. I had much higher hopes for this card...

[ChrisRay]

Interesting and quite honest to. The only bizzare thing was the Inq writers comments! :lol:

The inquirer comments sure did add some spice!

[kresek]

Is there any possibility of the R600 supporting double precision math - for the GPGPU folks?

[rendezvous]

Is there any possibility of the R600 supporting double precision math - for the GPGPU folks?

Since we haven't heard anything yet I seriously doubt it.

[ChrisRay]

After reading that inquirer article. And their comments almost make me think they take offense to it all. :P

[BRiT]

The 8800GTX remains untouched
The 8800GTS will trade back n' forth with the x2900xt
All hope lies on Drivers from Ati.

From what I've seen so far, I'd rate this product a 6/10. Late, worse IQ and does not clearly beat the competitor at the same price point, let alone their flagship card.

From what I've seen, that mostly mirrors my thoughts too, except for the IQ part. As for the AA modes, I have yet to see narrow-tent and edge-enhanced modes. I haven't seen any AF comparisons that do not also use wide-tent AA at the same time.

I'm rather disappointed with the performance and price. It would be different if it traded performance with the 8800GTX or it soundly bests the GTS.

[SugarCoat]

http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/1100/ati_radeon_hd_2900_xt_amd_s_long_awaited_r600_dx10 _gpu_arrives/index.html

and another one bites the dust!

We are having massive server issues bringing you the HD 2900 XT review.

We will put it online tomorrow when other sites release their reviews to balance the load.

Sorry but our servers aren't up to this amount of hits.

[fellix]

Is there any possibility of the R600 supporting double precision math - for the GPGPU folks?
Even if it do so, it won't be at full speed (think of Cell). ;)

and another one bites the dust!
TweakTown == TweakDown :lol:

[kresek]

Even if it do so, it won't be at full speed (think of Cell). ;)
Yes, but it would be a first then - even with much lower performance. NV has a DP part in the works - and I guess the first DP chip to hit the GPGPU market would stir it up a little bit.

[Rebel44]

and another one bites the dust!

And what did they expect:?: :roll: :shock:

[Kaotik]

Maybe the AA is angle-dependent? Aliasing is particularly noticeable on nearly-horizontal or nearly-vertical lines, and much less noticeable at 45 degrees. So perhaps if a polygon edge is close to vertical or horizontal it turns up the AA, and then turns it back down for diagonal lines?

It's been always like that due the AA sample patterns, 6xAA on ATI was a bit better since it has sparse pattern.

[Rangers]

I was actually somewhat impressed with the benches on this card, it seems to beat a GTS and approach a GTX in many cases. For $399 it seemed worthy.

However, once you factor in the lame IQ and high power requirments, it's probably a no sale.

BTW, I like how the Vr-Zone article several times blames poor results on X2900XT's "bandwidth", when it has more bandwidth than any other card. Clearly they mean texture capabilities, but apparantly dont understand it. I expect to see most sites not understanding the extremely low texture abilities of R600 are clearly responsible for it's poor performance.




Default
http://www.vr-zone.com/?i=4946&s=9

Power Consumption of Total System Idle/Load

PowerColor HD X2900XT..........245/365 watts
Inno3D 8800GTX 575/900MHz..........250/348 watts
ASUS EN8800GTS 640MB 513/792MHz..........240/300 watts
EVGA 8800GTS 320MB Superclocked 576/850MHz..........235/276 watts
ASUS EN1950XTX..........195/325 watts

And I was jumped all over for suggesting the card was a power hog a ways back..



Default
Still, far from a GTX killer (let alone an Ultra).
It will all come down to a price-war between the GTS and the XT, just like i suspected.

Too bad for ATI R600 contains over 700 million transistors, and engaging in mid-range sub $300 price wars is not where they really want to be with the product. But hey, that's their own fault for not engineering performance.

I suppose in a bizzare way, R600 is probably more efficient than than R580. R580 was about twice as big IIRC for nominal perfomance over G70, this is probably roughly size parity for maybe 80% performance as G81. Could probably be considered an improvement. It's just that, performance is far more paramount in these sectors than anything else, so it's probably actually better to be in R580's shoes.

[Bjorn]

Ok, so it consumes lot's of power, reintroduces crappy AA blur modes just to be able to say "we also got 16X AA". Performs like crap in some games, really good in some games. Can't keep up with the GTX.

Hmm, i must say that it's currently very underwhelming. But i guess we'll see what happens in a month or so.

Might add that AMD's first explanation that they could have released the card much earlier seems pretty laughable considering the performance with the current drivers.

[BlizzardOne]

I'm a little dissapointed, so far.. though hard to tell really with the results we're seeing seemingly all over the place, some show it with a comfortable advantage over the GTS, closing on the GTX, others show it trailing the GTS (and 1950XTX..) :|

But re. the IQ, as somebody said earlier (either here or at AT), the AF tests seem to have the tent thing going on too.. which would kinda defeat the purpose of testing just the AF, wouldn't it? :???:

I think I'll hold my breath for B3D, Xbitlabs and FS' pieces :smile:

[Fornowagain]

Ok PNG lossless versions.

8800GTX vs 2900XT

http://img50.imageshack.us/img50/4821/gtx1wt7.th.png (http://img50.imageshack.us/my.php?image=gtx1wt7.png)http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/7563/xt1hd7.th.png (http://img442.imageshack.us/my.php?image=xt1hd7.png)
http://img03.picoodle.com/img/img03/8/5/13/t_gtx2m_5707e55.png (http://www.picoodle.com/view.php?srv=img03&img=/8/5/13/f_gtx2m_5707e55.png)http://img02.picoodle.com/img/img02/8/5/13/t_xt2m_b16ef13.png (http://www.picoodle.com/view.php?srv=img02&img=/8/5/13/f_xt2m_b16ef13.png)

All four frames in a zip file here.

http://www.sharebigfile.com/file/168282/pics-zip.html

[bigtabs]

Hmm.. Perhaps Kombatant's comments about 'a lot of people being very happy' did in fact refer to all those who had bought an 8 series card already. :cry:

[trinibwoy]

Interesting and quite honest to. The only bizzare thing was the Inq writers comments! :lol:

Yeah they didn't twist much, if anything at all. I guess there's no need for FUD when the truth does the job.

[Pete]

I can't remember if I've posted this already, but is R600 another case of ATI needing time to fully optimize its memory controller (as it seems to have taken a step beyond the R500 series' one)? Are these app-specific optimizations, with the MC tuned for specific games or engines, or just generically for various AA loads? Or is this just a cover for app-specific optimizations (not specific to the MC)? It does seem like they've got some tweaking to do, given how non-AA framerates are decent but drop like a stone with AA in some games.

That NV comparo that The Inq published claims R600 can filter INT16 at full speed but FP16 at half. Don't they require the same amount of info, both being 16bit? I mean, those fillrate #s NV published look crazy. Then again, R600XT spots G80GTS double the fillrate but benches even with it. So, WTF? Don't tell me NV's "wasting" die space with excess filtering power, b/c it seems a lot easier to tout "eleventy billion shaders!" than "eleventy billion bilinear filtered floating point pixels per clock, kids!"--IOW, that can't be for marketing alone.

Ignoring cache (but continuing with my ignorance), how much bandwidth would an FP16 bilinear filtered pixel require per clock? Is it the same as a single FP32 unfiltered pixel? Or do we have to go one step further and consider the minimum bytes per RAM chip access (e.g., a single FP32 fetch might be more efficient than two FP16 ones)? I'd like to know how each card's theoretical fetching/filtering ability matches up with its physical bandwidth (i.e., if a GPU has more filter/fetch hardware than its bandwidth can support b/c it assumes a certain level of cache hits).

I'll wait for more comprehensive reviews before clucking about IQ (though ATI does seem to have blur in full effect in some modes), but how did NV's PR dept get sshots of R600 in action before NDA lift? I know it's all a grey area, and they probably got a card as soon as anyone else simply b/c they must have better contacts than any of us enthusiasts/reviewers, but it seems a little weird that they're presenting sshots. (Weirder still is that they obviously ran some fillrate tests and their presenting that didn't make me blink an eye.)

And did Google cache Tt's review, ffs? :grin:

[BlizzardOne]

Ok PNG lossless versions.

Hardly seeing any differences..

the first ATi pic, is lighter than the GTX.. could that account for the more defined lines on the roof? (bottom right - almost looks like the contrast has been bumped up a notch to make the edge stand out more?)

and in the second pics, the pointy rod on the front of the airship is ever so slightly more obvious - not seeing anything else that is different tbh..

[Twinkie]

By: Mr.Tweak (http://forums.tweaktown.com/member.php?u=874) on May 13, 2007, 1:56 pm

We are having massive server issues bringing you the HD 2900 XT review.

We will put it online tomorrow when other sites release their reviews to balance the load.

Sorry but our servers aren't up to this amount of hits.

:lol:

Btw, my first impressions on CFAA is not very good. Getting rid of jaggies is one thing, but blurring out the images? Cant wait til i read some more indepth review based on the IQ of R600.

[dnavas]

Well, in the first two images, I like the 2900's slightly thicker electric lines in left middle section of picture, but the ugly texturing in the bottom right is a clearer win for the G80.

The blimp on the second two shots are different, though. The R600 shot looks like it's got one narrow protusion, whereas the G80 looks like one central, and one off-center, more knobby structures. There are some slight aliasing differences on the top of the blimp as well. Would have to give that one to R600.

There are certainly sharper eyes out there, but, that's all I see.

-Dave

[3dcgi]

So this could just be a register pressure issue? Hmmmm reminds of a certain ill-fated architecture.....
A null GS could lead to potential register pressure, wasted ALU time (though should be minimal), thread buffer space, and memory used up for post-GS vertices. Maybe other performance wasting things too.

[Dalton Sleeper]

Third and last R600 review of it-review?

http://it-review.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1336&Itemid=91

[caffeinated]

::Sigh::: I went to the store (while on page 133 - I was catching up - 40 per page) now that I am back, I started reading again...I just switched to page 134 and now it's up to page 139 now! LOL

I'm hopelessly behind. Maybe I'll catch up to this post later this evening. Fascinating, though. So far, it seems that there are slight quality issues, perhaps due to drivers (that's what I have gathered from the screen shots I've seen - not just from jpeg compression - but nothing awful). Maybe by the time I actually get to page 140, a new driver will have corrected it..LOL.

[Rebel44]

Well, in the first two images, I like the 2900's slightly thicker electric lines in left middle section of picture, but the ugly texturing in the bottom right is a clearer win for the G80.

The blimp on the second two shots are different, though. The R600 shot looks like it's got one narrow protusion, whereas the G80 looks like one central, and one off-center, more knobby structures. There are some slight aliasing differences on the top of the blimp as well. Would have to give that one to R600.

There are certainly sharper eyes out there, but, that's all I see.

-Dave

Its so similar that I wont be able to tell difference in games so it doesnt matter whose IQ is 0,5% better.

[Dalton Sleeper]

Typing error again? GTS on first page, then they wrote GTX 640...

[Geeforcer]

Ok PNG lossless versions.

8800GTX vs 2900XT

http://img50.imageshack.us/img50/4821/gtx1wt7.th.png (http://img50.imageshack.us/my.php?image=gtx1wt7.png)http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/7563/xt1hd7.th.png (http://img442.imageshack.us/my.php?image=xt1hd7.png)
http://img03.picoodle.com/img/img03/8/5/13/t_gtx2m_5707e55.png (http://www.picoodle.com/view.php?srv=img03&img=/8/5/13/f_gtx2m_5707e55.png)http://img02.picoodle.com/img/img02/8/5/13/t_xt2m_b16ef13.png (http://www.picoodle.com/view.php?srv=img02&img=/8/5/13/f_xt2m_b16ef13.png)

All four frames in a zip file here.

http://www.sharebigfile.com/file/168282/pics-zip.html


http://img102.imageshack.us/img102/2586/xtgtx2ax0.th.jpg (http://img102.imageshack.us/my.php?image=xtgtx2ax0.jpg)

[Arnold Beckenbauer]

http://img119.imageshack.us/img119/7572/nvfud01wz6.th.jpg (http://img119.imageshack.us/my.php?image=nvfud01wz6.jpg)
Vs:
http://directupload.com/files/myjzmivzgmyw5iwzdgxi.jpg

Can this "fat"first SP do an instruction and SF per clock (parallel) or an instruction or SF?

Why nVidia did forget to mention, that G80 can do one SF every four clocks? :wink:

[ChrisRay]

I'll wait for more comprehensive reviews before clucking about IQ (though ATI does seem to have blur in full effect in some modes), but how did NV's PR dept get sshots of R600 in action before NDA lift? I know it's all a grey area, and they probably got a card as soon as anyone else simply b/c they must have better contacts than any of us enthusiasts/reviewers, but it seems a little weird that they're presenting sshots. (Weirder still is that they obviously ran some fillrate tests and their presenting that didn't make me blink an eye.)

And did Google cache Tt's review, ffs? :grin:

You dont really think a company like Nvidia wouldnt have gotten their hands on an R600 by this point? Some are already leaking into the retail channel.

[Frank]

I can't remember if I've posted this already, but is R600 another case of ATI needing time to fully optimize its memory controller (as it seems to have taken a step beyond the R500 series' one)? Are these app-specific optimizations, with the MC tuned for specific games or engines, or just generically for various AA loads? Or is this just a cover for app-specific optimizations (not specific to the MC)? It does seem like they've got some tweaking to do, given how non-AA framerates are decent but drop like a stone with AA in some games.

That NV comparo that The Inq published claims R600 can filter INT16 at full speed but FP16 at half. Don't they require the same amount of info, both being 16bit? I mean, those fillrate #s NV published look crazy. Then again, R600XT spots G80GTS double the fillrate but benches even with it. So, WTF? Don't tell me NV's "wasting" die space with excess filtering power, b/c it seems a lot easier to tout "eleventy billion shaders!" than "eleventy billion bilinear filtered floating point pixels per clock, kids!"--IOW, that can't be for marketing alone.

Ignoring cache (but continuing with my ignorance), how much bandwidth would an FP16 bilinear filtered pixel require per clock? Is it the same as a single FP32 unfiltered pixel? Or do we have to go one step further and consider the minimum bytes per RAM chip access (e.g., a single FP32 fetch might be more efficient than two FP16 ones)? I'd like to know how each card's theoretical fetching/filtering ability matches up with its physical bandwidth (i.e., if a GPU has more filter/fetch hardware than its bandwidth can support b/c it assumes a certain level of cache hits).

I'll wait for more comprehensive reviews before clucking about IQ (though ATI does seem to have blur in full effect in some modes), but how did NV's PR dept get sshots of R600 in action before NDA lift? I know it's all a grey area, and they probably got a card as soon as anyone else simply b/c they must have better contacts than any of us enthusiasts/reviewers, but it seems a little weird that they're presenting sshots. (Weirder still is that they obviously ran some fillrate tests and their presenting that didn't make me blink an eye.)

And did Google cache Tt's review, ffs? :grin:
Like the previous generations, the R600 is optimized for calculating over texture fetches. Add to that, that it is much easier to schedule stuff for the G80 to keep all ALUs filled, and for the R600 lots of portential scheduling hazards for the ring bus (and memory controller).

If you go DX10, calculate as much of your geometry and lighting as possible, the R600 will most likely do very well, if they get the compiler and resource hazards sorted out. And, it seems that (for now) both of those things run quite a bit below par.

On current generation games that use filtered textures for just about anything, it won't surpass the GTX. On next generation games, that use point sampling (data arrays) for much of the workload, it could. It has rather complex texture units, that are very good in point sampling, but much less so in filtered samples, especially if those are floating point.

[INKster]

You dont really think a company like Nvidia wouldnt have gotten their hands on an R600 by this point? Some are already leaking into the retail channel.

If they have the right "contact" inside a shared partner, who knows ?
They may get one even before ATI's lesser partners to play with. :lol:

But the other way around is also plausible, considering all the "leaks" before the G80 launch last November.

[Razor1]

If they have the right "contact" inside a shared partner, who knows ?
They may get one even before ATI's lesser partners to play with. :lol:

But the other way around is also plausible, considering all the "leaks" before the G80 launch last November.


Oh they have had it for some time I'm sure :grin: , everything kinda points to that, they knew the performance at the conference call, the leaked emails were from last week.

[silent_guy]

Like the previous generations, the R600 is optimized for calculating over texture fetches.
...
If you go DX10, calculate as much of your geometry and lighting as possible, the R600 will most likely do very well, if they get the compiler and resource hazards sorted out. And, it seems that (for now) both of those things run quite a bit below par.
This is indeed the same story we heard when R580 was introduced, which was supposedly more future proof. I just don't understand, though, why they keep on targeting games that don't exists instead of focusing on what needs to be accelerated now? By the time those features become important (and they never really did within the lifetime of R580), faster and better HW will be available anyway.

On current generation games that use filtered textures for just about anything, it won't surpass the GTX. On next generation games, that use point sampling (data arrays) for much of the workload, it could. It has rather complex texture units, that are very good in point sampling, but much less so in filtered samples, especially if those are floating point.
I understand that it's possible to shift some of the texture filtering load to the shaders and how that would benefit R600. But I don't understand the incentive of a developer to do this (and would very much appreciate it if they provide their thoughts on this.)

If it is currently doable to use the bandwidth of the texture units to do all kinds of fancy stuff that would otherwise required shader calculation power, doesn't it also make sense to keep this functionality in the TU's and use increased shader power for other stuff (like GS)? It seems that memory bandwidth is about to increase significantly during the coming years, this stuff has to be used for something: if ROP usage isn't increasing much, isn't it likely that it can be most efficiently used for texture operations?

I went through the slides of the Cascade demo: It seemed to me that they were still relying a lot on clever texturing techniques in combination with GS to get the best result. (One again, some insight from a 3D programmer would be most helpful.)

Also, even if there will be a shift, isn't this something that will take multiple years to complete? Most engines will still need to run decently on DX9, so for the foreseeable future, DX10 usage will be primarily used to add nice effect here and there. And there's, of course, the simple fact that programmers can fall back on tons of well documented existing techniques to make certain things happen, while they'll need to learn a bunch of new stuff to make full use of DX10.

Edit: If you saw the human head demo that was recently posted on the Nvidia developers blog, I had the impression that it used an incredible amount of textures to get just the right light behavior. I'd be surprised if this kinds of results can be obtained as efficiently with shaders.

[Subtlesnake]

I was actually somewhat impressed with the benches on this card, it seems to beat a GTS and approach a GTX in many cases. For $399 it seemed worthy.

However, once you factor in the lame IQ and high power requirments, it's probably a no sale.

BTW, I like how the Vr-Zone article several times blames poor results on X2900XT's "bandwidth", when it has more bandwidth than any other card. Clearly they mean texture capabilities, but apparantly dont understand it. I expect to see most sites not understanding the extremely low texture abilities of R600 are clearly responsible for it's poor performance.
Well, then why is there such performance variance from application to application? Wouldn't you expect texturing demands to be more consistent across games?

Given the huge performance increases we've seen over the course of a couple of driver releases and the fact that in certain instances the X2900 is close to the 8800 GTX (while in others it performs at X1950 XTX levels!) I think we can point to other factors.

Do we even know how R600's texturing capabilities stack up to R580's?

Too bad for ATI R600 contains over 700 million transistors, and engaging in mid-range sub $300 price wars is not where they really want to be with the product.
Isn't the 2600 intended for the sub $300 price points?

[Frank]

Creating geometry and lots of shader power are good things, as long as most of your potential game buyers have them. Creating geometry is needed for physics, clothing, hair, fluids and deformable terrain, while lots of shading power are great for weather and dynamic lighting.

[silent_guy]

Creating geometry and lots of shader power are good things, as long as most of your potential game buyers have them. Creating geometry is needed for physics, clothing, hair, fluids and deformable terrain, while lots of shading power are great for weather and dynamic lighting.

But does it replace the need for texturing throughput in any way?

[Razor1]

It won't replace texturing through put, but if there is a shift in the bottlenecks, which it seems probably won't happen at least not to the degree the r600 is held back (if infact it ends up the texture units are what is holding it back) then the extra shader power and again possible GS performance advantage will come in. I say possible because the GS problem seems to be actually something trival, but again take this last part with some salt I'm not certain if its really trivial or not but thats along the gist of what I hear.

[Frank]

Hm. What textures can we remove?

Simple, colored ones? Perhaps, for materials like wood, leaves, rocks, plastic etc. As long as we make sure each polygon uses only a single material. But that won't work for details and most objects.

Normal maps and bump maps? That could be done, in many cases, as long as the surface is reasonably smooth, or with lots of straight lines. But probably not for (N)PCs and most objects. And I don't think artists would like that.

Light maps? As long as you only use a single material for each polygon, you could remove most of them.

So, you could theoretically get rid of many textures that are used for static terrain.

[Geeforcer]

http://img102.imageshack.us/img102/2586/xtgtx2ax0.th.jpg (http://img102.imageshack.us/my.php?image=xtgtx2ax0.jpg)

Sorry for reply to myself, but after looking at this picture again, it seems that one is blurrier then the other. Not a lot, nothing compared to the jpeged mess - but noticeable. Of course, there is a chance that after staring at the monitor for hours my eyes are playing tricks, so what does everyone else think?

[nutball]

Sorry for reply to myself, but after looking at this picture again, it seems that one is blurrier then the other. Not a lot, nothing compared to the jpeged mess - but noticeable. Of course, there is a chance that after staring at the monitor for hours my eyes are playing tricks, so what does everyone else think?

I think that your question is an answer in itself. After hours of staring you're starting to doubt your own eyes.

[leoneazzurro]

It won't replace texturing through put, but if there is a shift in the bottlenecks, which it seems probably won't happen at least not to the degree the r600 is held back (if infact it ends up the texture units are what is holding it back) then the extra shader power and again possible GS performance advantage will come in. I say possible because the GS problem seems to be actually something trival, but again take this last part with some salt I'm not certain if its really trivial or not but thats along the gist of what I hear.

I don't think it's texturing that holds back R600. Its filtering capabilities, from what comes from the slides, are far beyond R580, and while I think them being inferior to G80, I don't see so many games being only and so texture limited (and anyway in the worst case texturing power should be very similar to GTS according to what R600 is supposed to be). Other very strange topic of R600 is its behaviour with cranking up AA and resolution. Being a bandwidth monster, it should perform better where bandwidth is needed but it seems it lose a lot of performance (even in comparison to GTS) where it should have a lower hit.

So I think there are a lot of problems in optimizing with this architecture. In the VR-Zone review I saw a great result with 3D mark 06 sinthetic vertex shader, where pixel shader test was simply underwhelming. Probably the co-issue thing needs still a lot of work in order to extract maximum performance...

[Jawed]

Probably the co-issue thing needs still a lot of work in order to extract maximum performance...
Perlin noise test contradicts that assertion.

Jawed

[BlizzardOne]

Sorry for reply to myself, but after looking at this picture again, it seems that one is blurrier then the other. Not a lot, nothing compared to the jpeged mess - but noticeable. Of course, there is a chance that after staring at the monitor for hours my eyes are playing tricks, so what does everyone else think?

I took the original PNG's and used ATI Compressonator to do a comparison, put a negative filter on them to make the differences a bit easier to spot, unfortunately they're close to 4mb each, thus too big for imageshack! :( If anyone can suggest an alternative free host, i'll throw them up there..

There are differences, but in motion, i think 99.9% of them will go unnoticed..

[Geeforcer]

I think that your question is an answer in itself. After hours of staring you're starting to doubt your own eyes.

So, is that a "yes" or a "no" to one picture being blurrier?

[Pressure]

Oh they have had it for some time I'm sure :grin: , everything kinda points to that, they knew the performance at the conference call, the leaked emails were from last week.

I wonder because the Geforce 8800 Ultra has "Panic Button" written all over it.

[leoneazzurro]

Perlin noise test contradicts that assertion.

Jawed

Then why "pixel shader" test was so bad? This GPU should be way off the GTS in pixel shading power, even counting the "missing MUL" on the G80's based GPU.
And in the 3Dmark sinthetic test is on par with GTS. So? Where's the problem IYO?

[Geeforcer]

I took the original PNG's and used ATI Compressonator to do a comparison, put a negative filter on them to make the differences a bit easier to spot, unfortunately they're close to 4mb each, thus too big for imageshack! :( If anyone can suggest an alternative free host, i'll throw them up there..

There are differences, but in motion, i think 99.9% of them will go unnoticed..

I had the same problem with PNG. The original version of that picture was a 3.4mb file. I ended up going with 97% jpeg in Infran. However, since the quality of source material and the save settings are the same for both shots, it's not that one would suddenly start looking worse then the other.

[nutball]

So, is that a "yes" or a "no" to one picture being blurrier?

It's a ZOMG my eyes hurt from the staring! :grin:

Seriously though, I think the one on the right is blurrier around the white highlight, the one on the left is blurrier below that in the "valley" in the foreground. But really I think we'd need to see them in motion to assess the real impact in IQ (and honestly I think that a short movie clip would probably show a thousand times more info than a single still).

[Razor1]

I wonder because the Geforce 8800 Ultra has "Panic Button" written all over it.


Actually not really a panic button, look at the price of the 8800 Ultra, that kinda started the hints off. I guess it was there just incase, but with a price like that, I think nV already had a good idea of what is coming out, thats was 2 weeks ago. But those emails also have the pics of the different AA modes. So either they go someone to take the shots for them or they took those shots themselves, either way, they had access.

[Geeforcer]

Regarding Ultra, I wonder what is being talked about here (http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=852230&postcount=742).

[Twinkie]

Actually not really a panic button, look at the price of the 8800 Ultra, that kinda started the hints off. I guess it was there just incase, but with a price like that, I think nV already had a good idea of what is coming out, thats was 2 weeks ago. But those emails also have the pics of the different AA modes. So either they go someone to take the shots for them or they took those shots themselves, either way, they had access.

Agreed. Plus, i think initially the ultras were clocked at 650mhz on the core, but as you can see the XT cant even beat the GTX. Being nVIDIA they put the core clocks down to 612mhz (even with the a3 revision it seems like some of them cant even reach 650), increase the yields a bit and called it a day.

Wonder if this will affect the launch date for G90 or the refresh of G80 since R600 is only competing against a crippled G80 core (GTS).

[INKster]

Agreed. Plus, i think initially the ultras were clocked at 650mhz on the core, but as you can see the XT cant even beat the GTX. Being nVIDIA they put the core clocks down to 612mhz (even with the a3 revision it seems like some of them cant even reach 650), increase the yields a bit and called it a day.

Wonder if this will affect the launch date for G90 or the refresh of G80 since R600 is only competing against a crippled G80 core (GTS).

Only 4 months had passed between the 7800 GTX 512MB and the 7900 GTX launches.
So, if we extrapolate the same time frame now, i'd say... August.

[trinibwoy]

Wonder if this will affect the launch date for G90 or the refresh of G80 since R600 is only competing against a crippled G80 core (GTS).

Depends on whether G90 brings significant cost benefits I guess. Also, Nvidia might want to move in for the kill if they think they have an architectural advantage.

[R300King!]

http://img03.picoodle.com/img/img03/8/5/13/t_gtx2m_5707e55.png (http://www.headlinerkaps.com/0000/ForumPics/Airship_2900_contrast.png)http://img02.picoodle.com/img/img02/8/5/13/t_xt2m_b16ef13.png (http://www.headlinerkaps.com/0000/ForumPics/Airship_GTX_normal.png)
Left = HD 2900XT Right = 8800GTX

All I did was adjust the contrast a tiny bit and a bit of brightness to the HD2900XT image. NO sharp filter or blur or anything else was used at all. The GTX shot was left the same. Saved both back to a .png file and now look at them.

Do you notice anything different in the HD 2900 pic? I see the front of the airship loos better and the top of it too. What do you think? :)

Please note: the thumbnail images are the exact same as the original poster, I didn't feel the need to make a thumbnail pic of my new image. ;)

[Dalton Sleeper]

But how can XT perform so good in FEAR, Oblivion and Prey, what makes these games so different?

[Skrying]

But how can XT perform so good in FEAR, Oblivion and Prey, what makes these games so different?

Someone mentioned earlier about the memory controller. With the X1K series ATi did release several drivers that improved performance noticeably in several games. Could this be one of those cases? Maybe it has been tweaked for these games already?

[SugarCoat]

What do you think? :)


I want to see someone with an X1800/X1900 card take the same screenshot as i dont think its changed at all. Personally when it comes to IQ, so far, im very very dissapointed. IQ is HUGE with me. The card could of performed substantially worse but if they did some real improvements with IQ i'd easily of bought one. I dont think im the only one who was expecting this area to get some serious attention with this new core.

Speaking of which has anyone who owns the card done an AF test to see if the pattern has changed yet?

[Silent_Buddha]

Try holding off judging IQ until we can get a detailed analysis. And most especially some screens comparisons using 12x (8x+narrow tent) and 24x (8x+Edge Detect) CFAA modes.

I'm a little dissapointed that AF is still at 16x, however if Edge Detect is what I think it might be, that might be a moot point.

As well there is still a tiny bit of room to make the AF completely angle independant WRT X1k series. However, I don't expect something like that will even be noticable compare to the very slight dependance of the X1k HQ AF.

If edge detect is what I think it is, it might have the possibility of cleaning up aliased lines within textures while still leaving the rest of it untouched and thus unblurred.

Or edge detect could be completely and totally unrelated to what I think it might be. No way to find out until some site does a good job analyzing IQ.

Narrow Tent I'd imagine will have significantly less blurring, but will it help much with anti-aliasing if it does? The fact that it's labed as 12x CFAA vs 16x CFAA would mean it doesn't do as good a job with anti-aliasing as a wide tent. However, the question is, will it noticably improve on 8x AA while also not noticably blurring textures?

Regards,
SB

[DemoCoder]

Edge Detect sounds like the standard edge detect kernel filter used in most image software.

[Silent_Buddha]

Edge Detect sounds like the standard edge detect kernel filter used in most image software.

That's what I was thinking. The implication then being that it's a further refining of the tent filters.

Whereas Narrow and Wide Tent filters are applied globally, my theory is that Edge Detect only applies the Tent Filter (no idea whether it's the wide or narrow) where it detects an "edge" within a texture as well as applying the Tent Filter to actual polygon edges.

Regards,
SB

[Razor1]

wouldn't be using a polygon edge, if they did that why not just do MSAA :lol: , its still after the fact with render targets. a combination of here is the edge this is the angle of the poly and location on the screen, then blur render target accordingly, is possible I guess, sounds expensive though.

[Faceless Rebel]

If anyone is interested in looking at what Tweaktown had before they pulled the review:

http://www.fooo.info/?p=384

[Silent_Buddha]

Well, I haven't gotten to see 8xAA in action yet. It's possible it might reduce edge crawl enough that I don't notice it anymore, however if it doesn't, a narrow tent on polygon edges might still be nice for people like me.

Either way, it's just speculation and guesswork at what exactly does ATI mean by 8x+Edge Detect. Considering the lead up to it is Narrow Tent -> Wide Tent -> Edge Detect, it's reasonable to suspect it's just a further refinement on how or where a tent filter will be applied.

As it's labeled as 24x. That would somewhat fit in with same levels of AA but without the general blur and with attendant performance hit greater than what you get with just 8X+Wide Tent.

Monday cannot come soon enough for me. Maybe if I go to sleep now, I'll wake up and be able to read some good quality reviews.

Regards,
SB

[aeryon]

Call of Juarez DX10 version supplied by AMD to show R600 DX10 power :

http://img.clubic.com/photo/00499444.jpg

Nvidia provided 158.47 drivers to test this game, and well... you see it by yourself...

(Sorry no COJ DX10 bench with AA nor AF)


full review (in French) here : http://www.clubic.com/article-73608-1-amd-ati-radeon-hd-2900-xt-directx-10.html

Interesting remark, AVIVO2 still not working properly. On HD-DVD Babel, CPU usage is higher than G80...



and finally another a bad news for ATI, AF is no better on R600 than R580... So G90 is still the king in this area

R580 AF16x
http://img.clubic.com/photo/00499370.jpg


R600 AF16X
http://img.clubic.com/photo/00499261.jpg


G80 AF16x
http://img.clubic.com/photo/00499453.jpg

[Silent_Buddha]

They used Cat 7.4? Is that the 8.361 that came on the CD?

Regards,
SB

[aeryon]

They used Cat 7.4? Is that the 8.361 that came on the CD?

Regards,
SB

not sure but I think it's 8.37.4 as the last one AMD France provided to the press before end of nda

[INKster]

That review spells trouble for AMD...:???:
Nvidia just has to lower the price on the GTS' and/or the GTX to match the R600 XT and they'll be completely cornered (in competitive terms) at the higher end of the market.
How much lower can the R600 XT go at their price-point ? I doubt a 512bit bus comes without expenses for the company's high-end GPU profit margin already.

Now we know why Nvidia decided to release the Ultra at that "stratospheric" price-point.
They just wanted to make a point ("since we're in charge of the performance crown, we can charge whatever we wish for it because AMD can't touch us").

Definitely not good for the enthusiast consumer in the next few months, although Nvidia's operational execution does have to be praised once again. They saw what was coming and adapted. AMD doesn't (or rather, can't) seem to understand that yet.

[aeryon]

Another french review and the weakest R600 point is exposed :

http://www.matbe.com/images/biblio/art_ati-r600-radeon-hd2900xt/000000056988.png

Very bad decision from ATI engineers. 512bits bus for what if your TMU power is so low ???

[LLB]

They used Cat 7.4? Is that the 8.361 that came on the CD?

Regards,
SB

According to the VR-Zone review:
"On the 8.37, there is no option of the 'High Quality' under AF options with the X2900XT while there is on the 8.36."
The Clubic review also mentions the lack of a high quality AF checkbox.
This would indicate the 8.37 driver was used.

LLB

[dnavas]

Regarding Ultra, I wonder what is being talked about here (http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=852230&postcount=742).

Wow, I was embarrassingly wrong :lol:

edit: I guess I should be more explicit. G80 is winning on texturing, while R600 would seem to have the computational edge.

[Farid]

Time to lock and archive this speculation thread, I think.

It's not yet the time to stop talking about R600, though, since it just made its way into the spotlights:

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=41241