[Karma Police]

Any idea if nVidia is releasing a $300 16-pipe card in the next few months to compete with ATi's X800XL? Or drop the price on it's existing cards?

[Pete]

At this point, they'd just have to release a $430+ card to compete with the X800XL. And they already have one: the 6800GT.

[fallguy]

Try finding a PCI-E 6800GT for $409, the price you can get a XL for. The XL has already dropped $90 in a week, it will drop more.

Dont compare AGP vs. PCI-E prices.

edit, make that $399 shipped.

[Karma Police]

Well, do any of you see nVidia dropping the prices on the 6800GT PCIe when the X800XL arrives in volume?

[Richthofen]

Originally Posted by fallguy

Try finding a PCI-E 6800GT for $409, the price you can get a XL for. The XL has already dropped $90 in a week, it will drop more.

Dont compare AGP vs. PCI-E prices.

edit, make that $399 shipped.

Try finding a X800XL for AGP.
Just as a side note. The AGP market still is by a huge amount bigger than PCI-Express.

[Richthofen]

Originally Posted by Karma Police

Well, do any of you see nVidia dropping the prices on the 6800GT PCIe when the X800XL arrives in volume?

Yeah. They will do that. Simple market rules. But until now there is no reason. ATI gets completly slaughtered in the AGP department and is loosing market share. So Nvidia still has a littlebit time to react. So far the X800XL has great value but its not available for AGP and it still has to ship in volume.

[Pete]

OK, aside from Chumbo selling an SLI package of two BFG 6800GTs + a 530W BFG PSU for $850, the lowest I see is an XFX dual-DVI for $445. You could argue that the GT's higher speed and extra DVI output is worth the extra 10%.

Sure, once the XL hits $350 and below, ATI's sitting pretty. But, it's been how long since they announced their "$300" XL?

BTW, I wasn't comparing AGP 6800GT prices, I just remembered seeing posts about $400 PCIe GTs, which I must have imagined. But, Rich is right, ATI doesn't have *anything* in between $200 and $400 on the AGP side--not even an overpriced "$300" card. Of course, I'm arguing this from a mindshare perspective. It's possible that ATi's lack of competitive solutions at that price point isn't hurting them much where it counts (in their bank accounts), but I doubt it.

[Moloch]

Originally Posted by Pete

OK, aside from Chumbo selling an SLI package of two BFG 6800GTs + a 530W BFG PSU for $850, the lowest I see is an XFX dual-DVI for $445. You could argue that the GT's higher speed and extra DVI output is worth the extra 10%.

Sure, once the XL hits $350 and below, ATI's sitting pretty. But, it's been how long since they announced their "$300" XL?

BTW, I wasn't comparing AGP 6800GT prices, I just remembered seeing posts about $400 PCIe GTs, which I must have imagined. But, Rich is right, ATI doesn't have *anything* in between $200 and $400 on the AGP side--not even an overpriced "$300" card. Of course, I'm arguing this from a mindshare perspective. It's possible that ATi's lack of competitive solutions at that price point isn't hurting them much where it counts (in their bank accounts), but I doubt it.

They have overpriced cards.. 9800 pro and 9800xt.
Overpriced since they only stand a chance againt a 6600gt when they run out of memory and/or memory bandwidth, which is really rare.

[Fox5]

Originally Posted by radeonic2

They have overpriced cards.. 9800 pro and 9800xt.
Overpriced since they only stand a chance againt a 6600gt when they run out of memory and/or memory bandwidth, which is really rare.

Their memory bandwidth is quite a bit higher than the 6600gt though.
Some manufactuers do make 9800pros with cut down memory though but I think full core(or 325mhz, not sure if it's cut down in speed) for around $130-$150.

[{Sniping}Waste]

Originally Posted by Pete

OK, aside from Chumbo selling an SLI package of two BFG 6800GTs + a 530W BFG PSU for $850, the lowest I see is an XFX dual-DVI for $445. You could argue that the GT's higher speed and extra DVI output is worth the extra 10%.

Sure, once the XL hits $350 and below, ATI's sitting pretty. But, it's been how long since they announced their "$300" XL?

BTW, I wasn't comparing AGP 6800GT prices, I just remembered seeing posts about $400 PCIe GTs, which I must have imagined. But, Rich is right, ATI doesn't have *anything* in between $200 and $400 on the AGP side--not even an overpriced "$300" card. Of course, I'm arguing this from a mindshare perspective. It's possible that ATi's lack of competitive solutions at that price point isn't hurting them much where it counts (in their bank accounts), but I doubt it.

ATI did have a pre order for the X800XL with a coupon code that lowered the cost to $260 a month ago.

[BRiT]

Originally Posted by {Sniping}Waste

ATI did have a pre order for the X800XL with a coupon code that lowered the cost to $260 a month ago.

If you stacked another coupon on top of it, the price was dropped down to $221. I'm still waiting to see what happens with my order... 8)

[Pete]

Originally Posted by {Sniping}Waste

ATI did have a pre order for the X800XL with a coupon code that lowered the cost to $260 a month ago.

Those quick-fingered and patient few that pre-ordered the XLs for $220-260 obviously got in early on a sweet deal. How many of those people got their card, tho? And how does a very short-term sale tranform into the XL being available at retail price? Ppl have called ATI recently, and ATI told them not to expect XLs until mid-March. TR reviewed it mid-December. Good grief.

People got 6800GTs for $330 near launch when BB goofed, but the difference there is that they actually walked out of the store with the card. Have any ATI XL pre-orders even shipped yet?

Not everyone has to reply to prove to me that ATI cards have sold for retail or below at one point in ATI's history. This thread is about XLs, and the fact remains that they aren't yet available for purchase at retail price. This is not necessarily a normative statement, just one of fact, and not one you can argue with, AFAIK.

[ivzk]

Originally Posted by Richthofen

Try finding a X800XL for AGP.
Just as a side note. The AGP market still is by a huge amount bigger than PCI-Express.

I fail to see any logic in your response.

[Razor1]

Originally Posted by ivzk

I fail to see any logic in your response.

The market for 300+ cards is still alot bigger for AGP side.

Anyways its still very hard to find these cards at decent prices

the x800xl and the 6800gt pci-e are still around 30 bucks apart from each other x800xl around 370-420 and the 6800gt pci-e around 400-440. Right now the x800xl can't compete at those prices.

[whql]

The market for 300+ cards is still alot bigger for AGP side.

How do you figure this?

All the high end system builders are no longer using agp, all the system are pci express from here on - ati seems to be having no trouble offloading x850's through dell. Many end users looking in the $300+ range for graphics will also have been aware that agp has a limited life and now that there is a good selection of pci express motherboards the $300+ end is going to shift importance to pcie express much quicker than the sub $300 boards.

the x800xl and the 6800gt pci-e are still around 30 bucks apart from each other x800xl around 370-420 and the 6800gt pci-e around 400-440. Right now the x800xl can't compete at those prices.

Even at these prices, why can't it compete?

http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=757&pageID=1309

[Razor1]

Originally Posted by whql

How do you figure this?

All the high end system builders are no longer using agp, all the system are pci express from here on - ati seems to be having no trouble offloading x850's through dell. Many end users looking in the $300+ range for graphics will also have been aware that agp has a limited life and now that there is a good selection of pci express motherboards the $300+ end is going to shift importance to pcie express much quicker than the sub $300 boards.

Even at these prices, why can't it compete?

http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=757&pageID=1309

Nice to point out just about the only game that card as a lead over the GT forgot about the other tens of games out there that the GT leads of the xl. For similiar performance, hell of alot less features, and for 30 bucks swing doesn't do much for the x800xl

A person buying a full system now will buy the card with the system usually which will be pci-e and most of the systems sold usually sell with sub $200 pci-e cards not the higher end cards, what was the +400 market sales for ATi and nV like 5% of thier total sales? They won't be looking into adding in a card to a system they just ordered, so that doesn't hold true with PCI-e cards that are in retail channels or add in boards that are 300+ (retailer's selling oem cards).

[ivzk]

Originally Posted by Razor1

The market for 300+ cards is still alot bigger for AGP side.

Anyways its still very hard to find these cards at decent prices

the x800xl and the 6800gt pci-e are still around 30 bucks apart from each other x800xl around 370-420 and the 6800gt pci-e around 400-440. Right now the x800xl can't compete at those prices.

Point taken. However what does this line have anything to do in a thread dedicated to PCI-E cards?

"Try finding a X800XL for AGP"

[Razor1]

Originally Posted by ivzk

Point taken. However what does this line have anything to do in a thread dedicated to PCI-E cards?

"Try finding a X800XL for AGP"

Thats true thats why I kinda didn't dwell on that, just wanted to mention it.

[jb]

Originally Posted by Razor1

Nice to point out just about the only game that card as a lead over the GT

Only game? If you look at a few reviews you can see that the two are very close in perfromance. Sometimes faster in one games, slower in others. I could point you to reviews on sites where the 800xl was faster in more that just one game.... And "hell" of a lot less features? Come on Face it the two are pretty darn close in over-all and if the 800xl hits its MSRP then it becomes a no brianer..

[whql]

Originally Posted by Razor1

Nice to point out just about the only game that card as a lead over the GT

Well, I was pointing to the start of the benchmarks. The point being is that there is hardly a perforance difference - x800 xl is better for hl2, and appears to be better with aa/af in far cry in that review. The big win for nvidia, doom 3, is pretty slim there.

forgot about the other tens of games out there that the GT leads of the xl.

Those would be?

For similiar performance, hell of alot less features, and for 30 bucks swing doesn't do much for the x800xl

Hell of a lot less features? I count sm3, and hdr - the only things that use sm3 have hardly shown any advantage for sm3 and the only app to use hdr gives very poor performance with it on; for those you trade off worse quality usable aa and high def video playback.

A person buying a full system now will buy the card with the system usually which will be pci-e and most of the systems sold usually sell with sub $200 pci-e cards not the higher end cards, what was the +400 market sales for ATi and nV like 5% of thier total sales?

And that mix covers both retail and oem buyers.

They won't be looking into adding in a card to a system they just ordered, so that doesn't hold true with PCI-e cards that are in retail channels or add in boards that are 300+ (retailer's selling oem cards).

And what about the many users with current agp systems that have been waiting until pci express to upgrade?

[{Sniping}Waste]

Originally Posted by Pete

Those quick-fingered and patient few that pre-ordered the XLs for $220-260 obviously got in early on a sweet deal. How many of those people got their card, tho? And how does a very short-term sale tranform into the XL being available at retail price? Ppl have called ATI recently, and ATI told them not to expect XLs until mid-March. TR reviewed it mid-December. Good grief.

People got 6800GTs for $330 near launch when BB goofed, but the difference there is that they actually walked out of the store with the card. Have any ATI XL pre-orders even shipped yet?

Not everyone has to reply to prove to me that ATI cards have sold for retail or below at one point in ATI's history. This thread is about XLs, and the fact remains that they aren't yet available for purchase at retail price. This is not necessarily a normative statement, just one of fact, and not one you can argue with, AFAIK.

We are talking about PCI-E and not AGP. The PCI-E 6800GT came out later with no preorders discounts. The AGP ver was the one with all the discount pre orders and not the PCI-E. You can still at this time get a X800XL cheeper then a 6800GT PCI-E and about the same speed.

[Razor1]

Originally Posted by whql

Well, I was pointing to the start of the benchmarks. The point being is that there is hardly a perforance difference - x800 xl is better for hl2, and appears to be better with aa/af in far cry in that review. The big win for nvidia, doom 3, is pretty slim there.

Those would be?

Hell of a lot less features? I count sm3, and hdr - the only things that use sm3 have hardly shown any advantage for sm3 and the only app to use hdr gives very poor performance with it on; for those you trade off worse quality usable aa and high def video playback.

And that mix covers both retail and oem buyers.

And what about the many users with current agp systems that have been waiting until pci express to upgrade?

Well the benchmarks from different sites theres quite a long list where the 6800gt leads the xl, Firingsquad, Hardocp, tweaktown, a few others. Far Cry it depends on the level, if the level is outdoors most of the shaders used are sm 1.1 other then the water, and heavy geometry usage. I think there was an issue with Far Cry's use of HDR, we are using over 400k (closer to 500k with volumetric shadows) and only sm 2.0 or 3.0 shaders and at 800x600 with x2 aa and x4 af we get around 60 fps. Maybe just the way they built thier levels I don't know.

Well kinda off topic but anyways, yes the 5% considers both, but I think it was a very smart move by ATi to swtich over to PCI-e only for their high end cards. Now they don't need to answer questions about availablity, since the demand for these cards are less in retail. The prices would be lower if the supply is higher. Its been 3 months almost 4 since ATi has said they will be shipping in volume and the prices are still very high. And the only x series and the only pci-e you can buy directly from ATi right now is the x700. Everything else is agp 9800 and lower

Users looking into PCI-e need to buy the motherboard first, before they go with the card, might have to change the cpu too, possible ram as well, that will generally take some time since it costs more.

YES hell of alot less features, sm 3.0 is not small, although the video play back is somewhat broken still works for the most part.

I know the game we are creating works fine with SM 3.0 OpenEXR HDR, with lighting that uses dynamic branching not static braching like Far Cry's. I don't know why Far Cry had issues with it. we have doubled the polygon counts compaired to Far Cry (in some cases even tripled, and are using much more complex surface shaders) and it still runs exceptionally well on a 6600 and up.

[whql]

Well the benchmarks from different sites theres quite a long list where the 6800gt leads the xl, Firingsquad, Hardocp, tweaktown, a few others.

And they'll also show a list where the xl leads the gt.

Users looking into PCI-e need to buy the motherboard first, before they go with the card, might have to change the cpu too, possible ram as well, that will generally take some time since it costs more.

And that exactly why the $300+ categories of graphics boards are going to show a larger shift to pci express than the sub $300 boards because more people at that end are going to be wanting to upgrade to the correct platform instead of making a significant upgrade on what is now a legacy platform.

YES hell of alot less features, sm 3.0 is not small, although the video play back is somewhat broken still works for the most part.

At the moment, as far as i'm concerned sm3 is a bullet point - its given absolutely no value to anything so far and there is no clear indications that it will be adopted to the detriment of sm2.

I know the game we are creating works fine with SM 3.0 OpenEXR HDR

When was had part of sm3?

[Razor1]

Originally Posted by whql

And they'll also show a list where the xl leads the gt.

And that exactly why the $300+ categories of graphics boards are going to show a larger shift to pci express than the sub $300 boards because more people at that end are going to be wanting to upgrade to the correct platform instead of making a significant upgrade on what is now a legacy platform.

At the moment, as far as i'm concerned sm3 is a bullet point - its given absolutely no value to anything so far and there is no clear indications that it will be adopted to the detriment of sm2.

When was had part of sm3?

Does ATi have OpenEXR? No its just another feature they lack since they can't do fp 16 blending. Its a bullet point for you, but not for people that will want to play games in the future that support it. Games being made today will run on todays high end cards reasonable well, that goes for Unreal 3 too. I was looking into why it was only go around 20 fps. The Unreal 3 tech demo talked about using 2048x2048 textures on every surface. We also tried doing this in our game, we ended up around 1024 mb of total texture ram for a full level, and guess what our frame rates were around 15-20. Suprise Suprise the frame rates were due to page flipping. When we down sized our textures to 1024x1024 and this brought our texture ram usage down to just under 256 for a soon to be public demo, our frame rates shot up to around 60.

300 Plus cards for PCI-e for retial is not a major neccessity, not sayin there is no need just not as important as AGP for retail maybe in 6 months but the next lines will be out which will come out primarily with PCI-e for nVidia too.

[whql]

Does ATi have OpenEXR? No its just another feature they lack since they can't do fp 16 blending.

the point is hdr is not part of sm3.

Games being made today will run on todays high end cards reasonable well, that goes for Unreal 3 too.

Like I said, there's no evidence to say that sm3 will be used to the detriment of sm2 - todays high end cards includes both sm2 and sm3.

300 Plus cards for PCI-e for retial is not a major neccessity, not sayin there is no need just not as important as AGP for retail maybe in 6 months but the next lines will be out which will come out primarily with PCI-e for nVidia too.

And its going to be the high end boards that move to pci express move quicker than any other section of the market because, as you point out, the volumes are much lower and becuase these users will be looking to move the the latest platform rather than upgrading to a dead end.