ATI to launch at same time as nvidia?

[gunblade]

Do you remember nvidia's "Are You Ready?" flash on it's website from before NV30's launch?

sure, but I don't think the guys at ATi are that stupid

Well, it definitely looks similar. At the very least, it certainly seems like ATI is taking a page out of nVidia's PR. Doesn't seem like the smartest move, however, given how well nVidia did with it.

It's only a bad move talking up your product if you can't deliver on your promises.

The bad thing is whether they are considered 'delivered' or not is relative to how much the competition delivered.

If it is not for the superior performance of R300, Nv30 itself is a pretty decent part. So, Nvidia's failure to deliver on last gen is basically because of the relative performance of R300.
Now, Ati themselve are subjected to the same thing now. If Nvidia managed to deliver a superior product(featurewise and performance-wise), Ati would be considered underachieved even if R420 is very decent in itself. So, I think it is a bad move unless you know your competition can't match or surpass your deliverable.

 

[KimB]

Well I'm not the one maintaining that one flash ad on a website one week before a new product release is somehow going to damage ATI's business, but it's not a problem for for Nvidia to start hyping NV40 weeks ago.

Your inconsistency is at least... consistent.

No, you're just the one that attacked my argument in a roundabout way, saying nothing of relevance.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

The bad thing is whether they are considered 'delivered' or not is relative to how much the competition delivered.

If it is not for the superior performance of R300, Nv30 itself is a pretty decent part. So, Nvidia's failure to deliver on last gen is basically because of the relative performance of R300.
Now, Ati themselve are subjected to the same thing now. If Nvidia managed to deliver a superior product(featurewise and performance-wise), Ati would be considered underachieved even if R420 is very decent in itself. So, I think it is a bad move unless you know your competition can't match or surpass your deliverable.

Well not necessarily. If you discount any comparison with the competition, there is always the "is it playable and does it look nice?" metric. If you look at the massive performance/IQ hits that shaders took on NV3x on games like TR:AOD, HALO, Far Cry, the unreleased HL2, etc, you get to the point where you say "this feature is not usable". When factoring AA/AF into the equation, you get even bigger hits, to the point where new hardware features are just not usable.

We've seen this time and time again over the years with Nvidia (T&L, AA, 32bit colour, large texture support, shaders, 32bit precision, etc). They introduce new features in a big burst of marketing, but these are not usable for a year or two because the performance hit makes any game unplayable. Nvidia get the marketing checkbox, and then hope they can get the next generation card out the door before someone brings out a game that actually uses those features.

Yes R3x0 being particulary good made the NV3x look particularly bad, but even discounting that comparison, I don't think you could have called NV3x impressive above it's Geforce predecessors - all the stuff that made it different wern't very usable for games.

 

[Evildeus]

I don't think you could have called NV3x impressive above it's Geforce predecessors - all the stuff that made it different wern't very usable for games.

Well, it was most of the time something like 2 times faster than a ti4600, which i find impressive. I would like to see the same thing on R420/NV40 over 9800XT...

 

[Joe DeFuria]

Well, it was most of the time something like 2 times faster than a ti4600, which i find impressive. I would like to see the same thing on R420/NV40 over 9800XT...

The big reason why NV3x was significantly faster than the ti4xxxx, was simply because it had much more bandwidth. This is also true (though to a lesser extent) with the R300. (R300 moved to 8 pipes, and a highly efficient AA system which futher put it out in front of the ti4xxx).

I don't think we'll see nearly the same leap in memory bandwidth this time around...particularly from nVidia who's pushing about 256 bit 500 Mhz DDR-2 with current parts.

Most are expecting "only" a move to about 600 Mhz DDR for this generation....though there's still hope that either nVidia or ATI will ship a 800 Mhz DDR part. (Perhaps this is what the X800 XT will be?)

Memory bandwidth is still going to be, IMO, the factor that decides the "speed increase" in traditional games, and in high AA situations.

On the other hand, there's lots of room to improve pixel shading performance, so there can be very significant increases in that area, irrespective of bandwidth.

 

[KimB]

The big reason why NV3x was significantly faster than the ti4xxxx, was simply because it had much more bandwidth.

The NV30 still had a 128-bit memory bus, so the bandwidth really didn't increase by that much.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

I don't think you could have called NV3x impressive above it's Geforce predecessors - all the stuff that made it different wern't very usable for games.

Well, it was most of the time something like 2 times faster than a ti4600, which i find impressive. I would like to see the same thing on R420/NV40 over 9800XT...

Yes, as a DX8 card it was better, but is was *supposed* to be a DX9 card. Wouldn't you say that the speed advantage over the Ti4600 was down to the smaller process and faster memory? What actual new, usable *features/functionality* did it bring us that made it better than it's predecessor for gaming?

 

[Moose]

We've seen this time and time again over the years with Nvidia (T&L, AA, 32bit colour, large texture support, shaders, 32bit precision, etc). They introduce new features in a big burst of marketing, but these are not usable for a year or two because the performance hit makes any game unplayable. Nvidia get the marketing checkbox, and then hope they can get the next generation card out the door before someone brings out a game that actually uses those features.

This is exactly why ATI took the high end lead. They delivered the new features AND they were useable.

 

[Evildeus]

Well, i don't know about features, but well DX9 was there even if slow and i'm not a dev, so i'm talking from a gamer, and it was a great improvement.

And even without the clock boost, it was more powerful clock for clock than a 4600, for exemple:

 

[jvd]

Well, i don't know about features, but well DX9 was there even if slow and i'm not a dev, so i'm talking from a gamer, and it was a great improvement.

And even without the clock boost, it was more powerful clock for clock than a 4600, for exemple:

I'm sorry what cards were they. Geforce 4 ti what ? 4200 , 4400 , 4600 ? What kind of geforce fx ? 5800 ultra ? 5950 ultra ?

I can tell you that my 5800 ultra was not 2 times better than my 4600 ti .It fell inbetween my 9700pro and my 4600ti .

 

[Joe DeFuria]

The NV30 still had a 128-bit memory bus, so the bandwidth really didn't increase by that much.

Um, the NV30 shipped with memory clocked at 500 Mhz, even though it was only 128 bit.

R300 shipped with ony 275 Mhz (IIRC) memory at 512 bits.

both cases, significantly higher bandwidth than 300 Mhz, 128 bit memory of the TI4600 series.

 

[Evildeus]

I can tell you that my 5800 ultra was not 2 times better than my 4600 ti .It fell inbetween my 9700pro and my 4600ti .

That chart is about the 9500pro/5800U and Ti 4600 at the same clock.
Otherwise, look at those charts:
http://www.hardware.fr/articles/453/page8.html

 

[jvd]

I can tell you that my 5800 ultra was not 2 times better than my 4600 ti .It fell inbetween my 9700pro and my 4600ti .

That chart is about the 9500pro/5800U and Ti 4600 at the same clock.
Otherwise, look at those charts:
http://www.hardware.fr/articles/453/page8.html

yey time to reinstall the 5800 ultra and compare it to the my 9700pro .

nevermind after looking at the date i can see what the problem is and why the fx 5800 ultra looks better than i remembered it to be.

 

[Pete]

R300 shipped with ony 275 Mhz (IIRC) memory at 512 bits.

9700P is/was 310MHz 256bit DDR. 9700 showed up later at 270MHz.