NVIDIA: Beyond G80...

[neliz]

Not from ATI, anymore:

Ati store is great if you live in northern america

Just as Uber eddition, at it's $800 prce point had to compete with GTX at $600.

yeah, it's great to compare different generations..

Anyway, power to nvidia, they can afford to run higher pricing because of their marketing and brand awareness. They're just cashing in on the 8800 cherry picks before launching a 8900 series. We've seen it before.

 

[Geeforcer]

yeah, it's great to compare different generations..

Heh, why should we not compare them considering that ATI released that... whatever.... months after G80 hit the market? I mean, it takes balls to introduce an inferior product at hefty price premium.

 

[turtle]

Heh, why should we not compare them considering that ATI released that... whatever.... months after G80 hit the market? I mean, it takes balls to introduce an inferior product at hefty price premium.

Come on now. Normally I sit back and laugh at your satiristic (yet realistic) viewpoint on the ATi/Nvidia sitch.

This, on the other hand, isn't exactly fair. Obviously that bundle is "unique" (in a ludicris way) and priced as such for several reasons beyond the performance of the actual cards.

 

[neliz]

Heh, why should we not compare them considering that ATI released that... whatever.... months after G80 hit the market? I mean, it takes balls to introduce an inferior product at hefty price premium.

If you want to compare them, go ahead and find that the product is faster than a G80GTX. the special edition (case mouse mat was indeed released after g80 but the products inside itself were available before. just don't compare them, otherwise we can pick all kinds of oc'ed cards and whatever.

Just what Turtle says, too much IF's, we have a lot of nice things to look forward to starting next week and ending a month later.

 

[Geeforcer]

Come on now. Normally I sit back and laugh at your satiristic (yet realistic) viewpoint on the ATi/Nvidia sitch.

This, on the other hand, isn't exactly fair. Obviously that bundle is "unique" (in a ludicris way) and priced as such for several reasons beyond the performance of the actual cards.

That's the thing though... I have been sitting here musing: 1) What is the point of that bundle? and 2)Who in the world would buy that? I am not a psychological profiler and don't play one on TV, but I have concluded that the type of person who bought 1950 Uber edition in February the same type of person who might shell out cash for 8800 Ultra. Hence, the comparison.

 

[Geeforcer]

If you want to compare them, go ahead and find that the product is faster than a G80GTX. the special edition (case mouse mat was indeed released after g80 but the products inside itself were available before. just don't compare them, otherwise we can pick all kinds of oc'ed cards and whatever.

Faster, yes. Inferior overall, yes.

 

[neliz]

Faster, yes. Inferior overall, yes.

I'll remember that for May 14th

 

[Anarchist4000]

Correct me if i'm wrong but wasn't the "Uber Edition" a pair of cards meant for Crossfire where the Ultras have been one card overclocked like crazy? My guess is the Uber bundle was just two cards that were both known to overclock to a certain point. Which could be difficult to achieve if you had to purchase the cards separately.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Except that ATI didn't create that limited edition bundle for the sole (meaning ONLY) purpose of releasing it to reviewers to claim they have the fastest card available even if they didn't plan on actually selling much (meaning a few hundred, if that) into the retail channel.

From that link you posted it's evidently a bundle created for the type of person who likes to collect things. IE - like a friend of mine who has purchased every single Blizzard product available. ALL versions of ALL their games (he has like 5 or 6 different versions of Diablo II) and all minitures, posters, mousepads, keychains, etc.

And at least one place is reporting that not even 100 and in fact less than 50, 8800 Ultra's will be made by Nvidia. With most of those going to reviewers, just so they can claim they have the fastest video card on the market.

[edit - including link]
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=38925

Although considering that place is the Inq, I'm a bit doubtful that only a few 10's of cards will be made. I'm rather thinking that it'll be another batch of a few hundred cards. Or hopefully, Nvidia has finally stopped doing these things and at least a few 10's of thousands will ship. I'm not holding my breath on that one however. Their past track record doesn't make such an outlook encouraging when it comes to this "type" of product.

Although to their credit at least the 7950 GX2, which was created solely to claim single "card" video dominance, shipped in quantity. Let's all hope the same will be true for the 8800 Ultra.

Then again, if the performance and IQ is there, I could care less. I'd be using an 8800 GTX right now if it weren't for Nvidia's absolutely non-stable Vista drivers for 8800. And if ATI's R600 drivers aren't as stable as their current X1k drivers, I probably won't be using that either.

Both companies make some truly boneheaded moves, it's only interesting when you see people that appear to be blind to one company's foibles yet will point out ever niggling thing about the other one, even if there is nothing to back up their assertions.

Regards,
SB

PS - apologies for the heated reply.

 

[trinibwoy]

It seems that the software is counting special function FLOPs.

I don't think it is. Apparently the increase shows up while running just MADs as well and the gpuinstr results are based solely on the completion time for some predetermined number of instructions (#mads per iteration * #iterations).

Maybe tertsi will provide more insight once the drivers are public.

 

[INKster]

http://www.vr-zone.com/?i=4901

 

[Geeforcer]

I'll remember that for May 14th

Trust me, if/when a $1000 overclocked G80 comes out I will be pointing and laughing right along with everyone else.

 

[Geeforcer]

Except that ATI didn't create that limited edition bundle for the sole (meaning ONLY) purpose of releasing it to reviewers to claim they have the fastest card available even if they didn't plan on actually selling much (meaning a few hundred, if that) into the retail channel.

From that link you posted it's evidently a bundle created for the type of person who likes to collect things. IE - like a friend of mine who has purchased every single Blizzard product available. ALL versions of ALL their games (he has like 5 or 6 different versions of Diablo II) and all minitures, posters, mousepads, keychains, etc.

I understand game collecting. The don't know ATI's exact motivation since I've never seen "collector's edition" of a video card before. As it stands, it fits perfectly with the criteria you specified in your original post: limited/special edition with little retail presence released for marketing purposes. Again, as I said: whoever buys that for whatever reason is the type of person who might be interested in 8800 Ultra. I should also point out that we don't know many details of that product or motivations behind its release. If it also comes with Jen-Hsun signed mousepads and individual number etched in, would it suddenly give it as much/as little legitimacy as special edition 1950 Uber bundle? Without knowing what 8800 Ultra is exactly, you can't just point at that bundle and say "well, it's totally different".

Then again, if the performance and IQ is there, I could care less. I'd be using an 8800 GTX right now if it weren't for Nvidia's absolutely non-stable Vista drivers for 8800. And if ATI's R600 drivers aren't as stable as their current X1k drivers, I probably won't be using that either.

To say that Vista drivers are " absolutely non-stable" is a bit of a stretch at this point.

Both companies make some truly boneheaded moves, it's only interesting when you see people that appear to be blind to one company's foibles yet will point out ever niggling thing about the other one, even if there is nothing to back up their assertions.

Heh, that's interesting. Please find any posts of mine where I suggested 8800 Ultra or the cards of its ilk are a good idea. I will wait for the evidence of my "blindness to the foibles" right here. It seems to me that that with very little evidence one way or the other, you already decided what the Ultra is likely to be, and that it will totally different then Uber edition. What do you have to back up those assertions?

 

[Coz]

Ok, IF the rumoured price tag ($999) and specification (overclocked 8800GTX) are true then....

The 8800 Ultra has one purpose and one alone - to take the gloss off the R600 benchmarks when AMD launch their new card (duh!). It'll be available in such tiny quantities that the hugely-inflated price tag should discourage anyone from actually buying one (thus avoiding talk of a paper-launch). Give enough people pause to jump on the R600 bandwagon and maybe they'll be happy to wait for the 8900GTX in a few months to make their mind up on what to buy?

But it's still a big 'if'.

 

[Skrying]

And this would be...what? I sure hope it's not a tiny-supply-overpriced-limited-eddition kind of thing released for purely marketing reasons! Then again that might be hoping for too much.

The Uber Edition was two X1950XTX cards, where its price sort of made some sense at least. However, no rumor has indicated that the 8800 Ultra is really just two 8800GTX shipped in a box together. Not comparable at all.

I've already said my thoughts about the 8800 Ultra and that I think it is an out right wrong decision from Nvidia no matter how you look at it, though I received plenty of flame posts from that and was called and idiot (or was it stupid?) for no reason at all.

 

[Geeforcer]

The Uber Edition was two X1950XTX cards, where its price sort of made some sense at least. However, no rumor has indicated that the 8800 Ultra is really just two 8800GTX shipped in a box together. Not comparable at all.

Price made sense VS one XTX card. VS 8800 GTX, not so much.

I've already said my thoughts about the 8800 Ultra and that I think it is an out right wrong decision from Nvidia no matter how you look at it, though I received plenty of flame posts from that and was called and idiot (or was it stupid?) for no reason at all.

Since I don't know what 8800U is exactly I can't say it's right or wrong decision. If it is a $999 20% OCed G80 with few hundreds made, it's a rather pointless publicity stunt though.

 

[jamis]

Nvidia aren't desperate in any way so why would they release something like that ?

Were they desperate when they released Geforce 7800 512MB?

 

[INKster]

Going back to one of my earlier posts, what do you think about this ?

"Forceware version 158.16"
True or false ?

 

[trinibwoy]

Yeah saw that posted over at nvnews. Seems to be in line with single GTX scores on a 3.5Ghz Conroe.

 

[INKster]

Yeah saw that posted over at nvnews. Seems to be in line with single GTX scores on a 3.5Ghz Conroe.

Not quite a "Conroe" (the E6400 has a reduced 2MB L2 cache).