ATi or nVidia, time to place your final bets.

[digitalwanderer]

I feel a launch is imminent, so I thought I'd open up a thread just for a final last call of who thinks who is going to be number 1 next round of viddy cards.

I'm still going with ATi to be retaining the crown, I just feel that nVidia is going to fall short again and we're going to have a whole lot of other shoes fall when the card is actually available...again.

Who do you call?

 

[ClyssaN]

I voted PVR and S3

 

[mreman4k]

Yea, I think the R420 will bust out of all the NV40 owns all rumours and beat NVidia again this round. If the 12x1 config for the R420 is true and if the 16x1 for the R423 is true, lights out for anything high end NVidia might try.

But midrange and lower end is where everything is a toss up for me.

 

[Rugor]

I'm on the ATI side.

NV40 does seem pretty good from what I've seen, and certainly a big jump from NV3x but I think it's not going to be until NV50/R500 that we'll see Nvidia really in contention.

ATI's playing too cool and comfortable not to have something very capable in their pocket.

 

[Evildeus]

I voted Nv till the rumors from partners of both companies give a little more performance to Nv. But if i had an alternative, i would call it a draw.

 

[cthellis42]

I rather think it will be just as arguementative as always, as people put weigh all the angles of "success" differently. Plus, we can always get flip-flopping between launches and refreshes, so who will overall "win this generation"? <shrugs> May end up being shorter than usual anyway.

 

[incurable]

NV40 for the big numbers in benchmarks.
R420 for the big numbers in units sold.

I voted ATi, but might as well end up buying NV40 myself.

 

[Pete]

I voted NV0, but it's based on nothing more than a hunch. I'm no longer interpreting ATi's wall of silence as strength, but potential weakness. Plus, Mu-to-the-fu said NV40 may be limited edition, which seems to indicate low-yield and high-perf. OTOH, ATi's previous insistence that they'd sacrifice margins to stay on top, coupled with their desire to launch second, may mean they're holding out for nV to show their cards before they decide how high to clock R420. I suspect ATi may have more headroom than nV on the GPU due to low-K, whereas both are probably limited to the same GDDR3 memory speeds.

I suppose the nth-hand rumor that Unreal 3 was looking faster on NV40, and the fact that NV40 will be PS/VS3.0 while ATi is stuck at 2.x, also hints at nV's architectural superiority. OTOH, I may be confusing feature superiority with architectural prowess.

In short, I haven't the foggiest. Bring on the marketers!

 

[Johnny Rotten]

I voted nvidia just because I'm hoping they rebound with a screamer. But truth of the matter is that my gut tells me its going to be pretty much a draw. My hunch is that the NV40 is going to be slightly faster bench for bench but that the r420 is going to have slightly better IQ (but the disparity between the two will be no where near what it was between the nv3x and r3x0).

 

[Fodder]

I wouldn't be surprised if NV40 is quicker (and has the architectural superiority), but with boths cards being so fast I have a feeling that R420 is going to have the features that will make a sale (for me at least). Size, heat/noise, power, and perhaps lower prices thanks to better yields.

 

[Hanners]

"Oh, how it pains me to do this..."

I voted NV40, from a raw performance perspective at least. But, considering how little we know about R420, it's up for grabs for either side.

 

[Rugor]

After the debacle that was NV30 it would do Nvidia good to retake the throne. But, after the debacle that was Nvidia's behaviour after NV30 I really don't want them to do well.

I don't mind brilinear, as an option, but not if you're trying everything you can to force trilinear. I don't want to give money to a company that's trying to deceive me. So I don't want Nvidia to have the better card again, not for a while at least.

 

[volt]

NV40 vs R420 = NV40 performance wise
NV45 vs R423 = R423 performance / image wise

 

[PatrickL]

Nvidia already won.

The hype campaign i mean.

That poll made one month ago would have been like 90 % in ati favor. And now with zero reliable info but a lot of carefully leaked PR hints made, result is 50/50.

I find that funny

 

[fallguy]

It depends on if you factor in everything, and not just speed as most people do. Im saying ATi, but who knows.

 

[Martin Eddy]

ATI for me.

18 months ago I would have said NV. How things change.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

I think it will come down to memory bandwidth. It doesn't matter how great the chip is if it chokes whenever you try to do these impressive things that have been hyped.

ATI did a great job with R3x0 and it's memory utilisation. Nvidia did a terrible job with NV30, and a bit better with NV35, but they have a lot of work to do in order not to produce a highly specced chip that doesn't bottleneck everytime you try to use any of those high end features.

 

[PSarge]

GREEN!

PURPLE!

No! GREEN!

NO! PURPLE!

 

[Dave Baumann]

No Yellow?

 

[PSarge]

No Yellow?

Cheeky!