ATI to show Nvidia no mercy!!

Lately ATI Technologies not only became indisputable performance and features leader across broad range of real-time computer graphics market segments, but also changed its policy, improved drivers and software support and became a lot more aggressive than it used to be about two years ago. When the company unleashed its RADEON 9700 PRO in July, some considered it to be a “khalif for an hourâ€, keeping in mind that NVIDIA originally promised to reveal its NV30 ‘breakthrough’ GeForce FX VPU in late August or early September. Eventually, NVIDIA’s unit appeared to be “too advanced to implement†and ATI’s RADEON 9700 PRO will remain to be the most powerful graphics card until February, when NVIDIA and friends will bring the GeForce FX on the retail track. About six month lead on the high-end arena isn’t “an hourâ€, is it?

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interesting that ATI is concidering whether or not to bring out R350.

I hope they do, and I hope it wipes the floor with GeForce FX in raw performance, and at least equal it in features.

16 TMUs sounds... well, more is more. could do 16 textures per clockcycle.
 
Key points i picked up on

If GFFX is a better performer then R300 then ATI will unviel the R350 which will run with a faster core, and faster memory on the 256bit mem bus, as well as a rumored 2 TMU's per pipe (which would just rock)

If GFFX does not blow the R300 away then ATI will just bring down the price on the their cards

R400 out in Summer 2003

Same agressiveness to continue for R400 and R500



Mikey likes :p
 
I kinda doubt the 16 tmu rumor. R350 WILL be .15u, how huge wouldn't that chip be I wonder? And even more transistors at undoubtedly even higher clock speed = more power draw still and thus heat.

I figure just a small increase in transistor count like GF4 compared to GF3.

*G*
 
Isn't the current R300 in normal situations and even in 1280*1024 with 4x AA showing that it is not bandwidth limited but fillrate limited?

So bump memory a notch (they already have more raw bandwidth than NVIDIA) and increase the core clock from 325MHz to ... [enter number higher than 325MHz] and repackage it.. remarket it and enable some nifty new feature in the Drivers and call them Catalyst Detonators or something.. your good to go!!
 
I wouldn't mind a 450 / 400mhz r300 of course an even more advance version of the chip would be great.
 
misae said:
Isn't the current R300 in normal situations and even in 1280*1024 with 4x AA showing that it is not bandwidth limited but fillrate limited?

MSAA is 'fillrate' free on R300, much like NVIDIA's pure Multisampling modes. The drops you are seeing is either bandwidth or due to other areas (caching?).
 
Would you expect anything else from a company competing in a market that completely changes every 6months and I hope nvidia can answer this with more aggressiveness.


I only hope that this aggressiveness does not mean that they would stop taking more risks. In terms of providing the fastest cards at the moment, ati are the clear winners. I would much rather see nvidia and ati thinking up of new, more creative ways of building graphics cards, then just pushing up the core speeds and memory speeds. And I hope in this department, nvidia does take a leaf out of 3dfx's old books.

We have still not heard anything on how the r300 and the nv30 match up in terms of directx9 performance. But the battle has yet to start but ati does appear to have the much bigger guns and i just hope that nvidia can pull a rabbit out of it's hat like it always seems to do when ati relase a new card.
 
if ATI is moving into a true 6 month cycle (new chip, then refresh) then Nvidia might have to move back to that cycle itself once again.

R400 - a late summer or fall 2003 part

R450 - a spring 2004 part

R500 - a late summer or fall 2004 part.

ATI kicking ASS!

Can't wait for Nvidia to kick it back into high gear.
 
megadrive0088 said:
if ATI is moving into a true 6 month cycle (new chip, then refresh) then Nvidia might have to move back to that cycle itself once again.

Yeah...they haven't managed that cycle since the Geforce 2 (interestingly that's when they killed their competition of that time: 3DFX). So, it will be interesting to see if Nvidia can kick it back into high gear.
 
sas_simon said:
But the battle has yet to start but ati does appear to have the much bigger guns and i just hope that nvidia can pull a rabbit out of it's hat like it always seems to do when ati relase a new card.

Nvidia needed to pull that rabbit out a few months ago.... Further it appears that ATi will be the one to pull the faster card launch thingy when the NV30 is released... people just don't seem to be getting it, nvidia is way behind at this point.
 
Unknown Soldier said:
improved drivers and software support

i dunno about that, am i the only one who remembers the countless 9700 driver posts after it's launch

as for nvidia's product cycle, i don't think nvidia intended for it to be a year, gffx was supposed to be out much sooner, they are gonna be busting balls with it's rehash in order to get back on their 6month cycle
 
Verge said:
i dunno about that, am i the only one who remembers the countless 9700 driver posts after it's launch

yes the drivers werent perfect at launch, yes they have their annoynaces still, but they're a long way ahead of the ATI of the original Radeon & 8500 launches and the 8500/9000 drivers are pretty good and mature now (except for the reduced AA quality).

I would be surprised if the GfFX as a new architecture compared to the Gf4 didnt exhibit more teething problems than the Gf4.

If the GfFX comes out with drivers as good as the 30.82's and the 9700 drivers havent moved on, then I might be tempted to move.
 
Verge said:
Unknown Soldier said:
improved drivers and software support

i dunno about that, am i the only one who remembers the countless 9700 driver posts after it's launch

Am I the only who remember the horrible first 6 months of GF3? :p ;)

Edit:smiley
 
nvidia is way behind at this point.

I am going to disagree 100% with that statement, nvidia is behind ati by a few months interms of release dates. However, the geforcefx does appear to have little to no problem beating the 9700 in benchmark tests today (these benchmarks have been released by nvidia and mean next to nothing). From what I have heard, nvidia will be sending out working samples to the hardware sites in the middle of december, I am not sure how true that is. Too gain a true perspective by how far the geforcefx does beat the 9700, we only need to wait a few more weeks.


However, the performance of the r350 compared to the geforce fx ultra is still unknown and only a fool would comment on such a thing at this time. Nvidia does have the resources to pull itself back though and it has already designed a .13u part which would give them an advantage as ati still have to move to .13u.


But it is amazing that ati are finding all of this excess performance and speed from the .15u architecture but how high will they be able to take that before manufacturing starts to become a problem?
 
megadrive0088 said:
if ATI is moving into a true 6 month cycle (new chip, then refresh) then Nvidia might have to move back to that cycle itself once again.

R400 - a late summer or fall 2003 part

R450 - a spring 2004 part

R500 - a late summer or fall 2004 part.

ATI kicking ASS!

Can't wait for Nvidia to kick it back into high gear.

**** me, ATI have only just confirmed the R350 and already people have them executing perfectly, new products through to summer 2004!
 
sas_simon said:
nvidia is way behind at this point.

I am going to disagree 100% with that statement, nvidia is behind ati by a few months interms of release dates.

LMAO, the NV30 is more like 6 months behind.

Nvidia: Microsoft tiff tiny; new chip big

By Ian Fried
Staff Writer
May 1, 2002, 2:55 PM PT

"Also on Monday, Nvidia raised its financial outlook for the just-ended quarter, and Huang said he sees continued market share gains this year leading to more growth. Some of that will come from a new graphics chip slated to arrive in August.

The new chip will be manufactured on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.'s latest 0.13-micron manufacturing process, Huang said. Huang did not reveal the name or specific features of the chip, but did say it was a fundamentally new architecture from the GeForce 4 Titanium introduced earlier this year."

http://news.com.com/2100-1040-896850.html

Pinning hopes on the holidays

“Nvidia originally said the NV30 would be widely available by now. Analysts now expect that at best a few thousand high-end video cards using the chip will be available before Christmas.â€￾

http://news.com.com/2117-1040-963195.html?tag= ltnc

Nuff said.

However, the geforcefx does appear to have little to no problem beating the 9700 in benchmark tests today (these benchmarks have been released by nvidia and mean next to nothing). From what I have heard, nvidia will be sending out working samples to the hardware sites in the middle of december, I am not sure how true that is. Too gain a true perspective by how far the geforcefx does beat the 9700, we only need to wait a few more weeks.

Is the GeforceFX shipping? Where is it? Ans.. It isn't supposed to be shipping until February. I will say it again.. Nvidia is way behind ATi at this point. It is literally comparable to the amount that ATi was behind when they released the Radeon 8500 vs the Geforce 3 technologically speaking of course.

But it is amazing that ati are finding all of this excess performance and speed from the .15u architecture but how high will they be able to take that before manufacturing starts to become a problem?

It is impressive.. consider that ATi always has made more energy efficient chip designs (re: mobile parts) where nvidia has always made in the past hotter more power hungry cards. The reason I believe nvidia was forced to go with the .13um process is that they have difficulty with heat and power consumption. (Particularly where the Geforce 4 Ti series is concerned.) Basically they could not manage the NV30 at the .15um process as it seems their chip designs are short lived for each process. It seems nvidias designs have increasingly relied heavily on a newer smaller process so that they can manage their heat issues. For example the Geforce 3 core was the only real core made by nvidia for the .15um process, the Geforce 4 series was simply the same core with an extra vertex shader and memory controller enhancements resulting in an additional 6 mill transistors more on the Geforce 4 then the Geforce 3. While it seems ATi gets more life out of a process. eg: R200(60 million transistors) + R300 core (112 million transistors.) both @ the .15um process. The R300 core is nearly twice the number of transistors! This is mostly speculation on my behalf, but it certainly seems to be the case.
 
indeed Nvidia is way behind ATI at this point. NV30 is either 6 months late, or even upto a year late, depending on how you look at it. Nv30 was originally, originally ment to be a spring 2002 product with GeForce4Ti a fall 2001 product to go along with XBox.


Nvidia is behind, and R350, R400 seem to be coming along, like two trains ready for a ahead on collision.
 
megadrive0088 said:
indeed Nvidia is way behind ATI at this point. NV30 is either 6 months late, or even upto a year late, depending on how you look at it. Nv30 was originally, originally ment to be a spring 2002 product with GeForce4Ti a fall 2001 product to go along with XBox.


Nvidia is behind, and R350, R400 seem to be coming along, like two trains ready for a ahead on collision.

Err, Spring 2002? Who was suppoused to manufacutre it?
 
Randell said:
**** me, ATI have only just confirmed the R350 and already people have them executing perfectly, new products through to summer 2004!

Well the COO has already said R400 for about r300 time of year and mentioned r500 and now we have word of motherboard chips, whether they're any good or not is anyones guess but it seems someone has given ATI a big kick up the arse recently. imo, nvidia need to sort themselves out and get back on even terms as thier reputation won't last forever.
 
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