[Moloch]

Originally Posted by Chalnoth

He did say that

I would be willing to bet that the X1600 also gains over the X700 from the new memory controller.

So a card with a 2300mpixel fillrate and a better memory controllor can outperform a card with a 3800 mpixel and worse (slightly?) MC in a game that only uses pixelshaders to speed up the game?

[Pete]

Originally Posted by Chalnoth

I would be willing to bet that the X1600 also gains over the X700 from the new memory controller.

Among other things, apparently.

Is NV sacrificing the margins they tout (per Uttar's conference call summaries) by selling the 6800GS for so "little," or is that GPU and its components just very common/cheap by now?

[Ailuros]

Originally Posted by radeonic2

So a card with a 2300mpixel fillrate and a better memory controllor can outperform a card with a 3800 mpixel and worse (slightly?) MC in a game that only uses pixelshaders to speed up the game?

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/vid...-x1600_11.html

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/vid...n-x1600_3.html

[Dave Baumann]

I think you'll probably find that the performance differences not just lie in the RV5xx architectural advantages, but also because there are cases where the X700 PRO's memory bandwidth just isn't going to support 8 textures in general usage (and especially not 8 pixels). X700 is probably the more imbalanced of the two architectures here - its primary reason for existing was because ATI wanted an 8 fragment pipeline part, but R4xx didn't have the architectural advances to scale textures and ROPs differently from fragment pipes, so it was a convenience just to go 8:8:8 throughout.

[Moloch]

Originally Posted by Ailuros

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/vid...-x1600_11.html

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/vid...n-x1600_3.html

I read daves article

[Chalnoth]

Originally Posted by Pete

Among other things, apparently.

That's, um, exactly what I was talking about in relation to the memory controller. Nice to see that I was right, though

[Tim]

Originally Posted by radeonic2

And where is it getting this uber pixel pushing power from?
It's a 16 "pipe" card with 48 alus right?
So where's it going to get the additional fillrate from to maintain the lead at high res?

The R520 has enough fixed function fillrate to do 5000FPS at 1600x1200 - why do you need more? To increase the programable (pixel shader) fillrate, like they do with the r580, seems very logical to me.

[Mabru]

384 million of transistors.

[Joe DeFuria]

Originally Posted by Mabru

384 million of transistors.

Dynamic voltage and clockspeed control.

Is that new? (Dynamic voltage?)

[Mabru]

Originally Posted by Joe DeFuria

Is that new? (Dynamic voltage?)

I think R520 has it as well.

[overclocked]

384M transistors hmmm. That makes one pixelprocessor come in at slightly less than 2 million transistors.

[Geo]

Originally Posted by Mabru

384 million of transistors.

Nice! Rep love left in appreciation. . .

[Chalnoth]

Originally Posted by overclocked

384M transistors hmmm. That makes one pixelprocessor come in at slightly less than 2 million transistors.

It's unlikely that the additional pixel processors is the only difference between the designs.

[EX||illuminati]

Originally Posted by Mabru

I think R520 has it as well.

With my X1800 XL I can change the voltage and the clock speed with something like ati tool. However I would not call this dynamic. Dynamic to me means the card automatically ups the clock speed and voltage with increase load. It sounds like it shares some of the laptop power and heat saving features. Or maybe I am just reading to much into it.

[Joe DeFuria]

Also, I believe ATI does change clockspeed (and voltage?) when switching between 2D to 3D mode. That could be considered "dynamic", though it's impossible to tell from a bullet point if that's what is meant.

[Moloch]

Originally Posted by Tim

The R520 has enough fixed function fillrate to do 5000FPS at 1600x1200 - why do you need more? To increase the programable (pixel shader) fillrate, like they do with the r580, seems very logical to me.

ya ok.. 5000fps.. I'll get back to you on that.
Fillrate (and bandwidth) is king

[Geo]

Originally Posted by Joe DeFuria

Also, I believe ATI does change clockspeed (and voltage?) when switching between 2D to 3D mode. That could be considered "dynamic", though it's impossible to tell from a bullet point if that's what is meant.

Well, you can tell it to when OCing anyway. My X1800xl AIW has a checkbox in the Overdrive tab for telling it to only use the OC settings when in 3D mode. The clocks do seem to take that (I've had it open when gaming and could see them change). But the default clocks, so far as I can see, remain the same for 2d/3d --in other words, there is no UI exposed to let you underclock the advertised clocks for 2d. Given they've proved they have the capability, you'd think they could program it to have lower default clocks in 2d, standard "advertised" clocks in 3d, and let you just overclock the latter. Clearly the capability is there, it is just a matter of how they implement it.

[Moloch]

I have a evga 7800GT and it's always clocked at 445mhz.
whats up with that?

[EX||illuminati]

Originally Posted by geo

Well, you can tell it to when OCing anyway. My X1800xl AIW has a checkbox in the Overdrive tab for telling it to only use the OC settings when in 3D mode. The clocks do seem to take that (I've had it open when gaming and could see them change). But the default clocks, so far as I can see, remain the same for 2d/3d --in other words, there is no UI exposed to let you underclock the advertised clocks for 2d. Given they've proved they have the capability, you'd think they could program it to have lower default clocks in 2d, standard "advertised" clocks in 3d, and let you just overclock the latter. Clearly the capability is there, it is just a matter of how they implement it.

Yeah my card is the same, that’s one reason I like using ati tool so much I can set it to lower the voltage, clock speed, and fan speed for 2d making the card run silently. It would be nice if the R580 had something like AMD's cool and quiet built in.

[Geo]

Originally Posted by EX||illuminati

Yeah my card is the same, that’s one reason I like using ati tool so much I can set it to lower the voltage, clock speed, and fan speed for 2d making the card run silently. It would be nice if the R580 had something like AMD's cool and quiet built in.

I've been meaning to give ATI Tool a try, thanks for reminding me. Third party tools are great, don't get me wrong; but it'd be nice if ATI beefed up their own included interface in that direction, with whatever suitable safeguards they feel are necessary.

[SugarCoat]

Originally Posted by EX||illuminati

Yeah my card is the same, that’s one reason I like using ati tool so much I can set it to lower the voltage, clock speed, and fan speed for 2d making the card run silently. It would be nice if the R580 had something like AMD's cool and quiet built in.

It does, im kind of surprised nobody knows about it from the responces so far.

The R520 core dynamically clocks memory and core speed as well as voltage depending on the operation.

My X1800XT for example runs at 594 Core 693 Memory @ 1.3V in 2D
in 3D the card switches to 695 Core 792 Memory @ 1.48V

thats under PE bios, yes stock bios does the same thing, 594 goes to ~625 and 693 goes to ~750 while the voltage goes from 1.3 to 1.4

I'm sure the X1800XL does the same. Anyone can download Rivatuner 2.0 and run the hardware monitor in the background and go play a game and see this for themselves. Thats what the R580 will do as well. As i have already stated my gripe with this dynamic clocking is the drivers dont distinguish from windowed 3D apps and 2D mode so they dont increase clocks when you game in a window.

[EX||illuminati]

I did not know that, I will have to give it a try when I get home.

Originally Posted by SugarCoat

It does, im kind of surprised nobody knows about it from the responces so far.

The R520 core dynamically clocks memory and core speed as well as voltage depending on the operation.

My X1800XT for example runs at 594 Core 693 Memory @ 1.3V in 2D
in 3D the card switches to 695 Core 792 Memory @ 1.48V

thats under PE bios, yes stock bios does the same thing, 594 goes to ~625 and 693 goes to ~750 while the voltage goes from 1.3 to 1.4

I'm sure the X1800XL does the same. Anyone can download Rivatuner 2.0 and run the hardware monitor in the background and go play a game and see this for themselves. Thats what the R580 will do as well. As i have already stated my gripe with this dynamic clocking is the drivers dont distinguish from windowed 3D apps and 2D mode so they dont increase clocks when you game in a window.

[Mintmaster]

Originally Posted by Mabru

384 million of transistors.

Makes you wonder why ATI even bothered with R520. 20% more transistors, maybe translating into 10% more cost, and they'll probably get 20-100% increase in performance.

Myself, I can't wait until R600.

[Pete]

Heh, I like how they're advertising the transistor count and manufacturing process above all else.

Mint, I thought we'd all agreed that ATI got R520 out the door to meet their Oct 1st conference call and that BBQ flavor really is better than Sour Cream 'n Onion. In fact, I'm receiving the commemorative plaques tomorrow.

;^)

[Geo]

Originally Posted by Pete

Mint, I thought we'd all agreed that ATI got R520 out the door to meet their Oct 1st conference call and that BBQ flavor really is better than Sour Cream 'n Onion. In fact, I'm receiving the commemorative plaques tomorrow.

;^)

F@nboy LIES!! Don't make me start a poll. Sour Cream 'n Onion will CRUSH BBQ!