Nvidia went SLI because they can't compete?

[ninelven]

Well, it seems that performance is the best use of SLi. If I were going to go sli, I think I'd get the top level cards each arch. generation (~18 months).

This way one would pay $1000 for the first time, and (guessing a resale value of ~200 for the cards) $600 for a set about every 18 months . Of course, the more fill rate dependant games are the greater the benefit, so I think it will be interesting to see what happens in the next few years.

 

[ANova]

You don't need to buy a new SLI motherboard every year, nor is the price differential $200. Since most people need to upgrade to PCI-E from AGP, they could go straight to SLI MB for next to nothing, or whenever they next upgrade their MB. Otherwise, you should factor in the cost of an PCI-E mainboard when running the scenario "User upgrades from 9700/9800 or X800 to R600"

Your theory and comparison fails for the following reasons:

a) some people don't want to wait an indeterminate 2 years for a hypothetical next-gen part

b) the hypothetical next-gen part may not perform as well you you think. 2x performance increase every 2 years is not a law of nature.

c) $500 in two years on a top-end is more costly than $200 in two years. In other words, if I spend $500 today on a topend, then spend $200 in two years, I will have bought my SLI for a total of $700. But if I spend $500 today for a non-SLI card topend, I'd have to handout another $500 to pay for my upgrade in two years, yielding a total of $1000. The SLI user's cost amounted to $700, the $500 GPU non-SLI user today, paid $1000 by the time he is done.

But again, we are talking about the scenario of early adopters buying top-end newly released cards, which are usually uber-expensive, because of low volume and because they haven't usually been tweaked yet to increase yields and margins. The mid-range and value cards always come later (2.5 years)

I just don't see people strapped for cash buying $500 GPUs and top of the line , FX-57 or Intel EE systems. The people I see buying these systems, of which I know many, generally have real jobs, and are not working in the college bookstore.

How do you justify buying the newest, latest and greatest top-end next-gen GPU as not "blowing money", since you know, if you simply way a few months, a "refresh" tweak will be out that is far cheaper. Where is your righteous indignation and condemnation over Platinum Edition, Extreme Edition, and Ultra Edition-style products?

There are lots of purchases in life that seem to be money "blown", like ridiculously expensive cars, or hyper-expensive stereo equipment. Just because you don't have the money to throw away, doesn't mean there isn't a market for these products that people *want*

You're missing the big picture. Most people who have the money to spend on a 6800U SLi system will not buy one card now and another later at a reduced price, they will buy both right away. Thats $1000 + $200 for a good SLi motherboard, because you know they will go for the best. On the other end you have one X850 XT for $500 plus a $100-$150 motherboard. Thats a difference of $1200 to ~$650, almost two times the price whereas the SLi system will be about 50%-60% faster.

Now, lets go with the other, less likely, option. You buy a single 6800U now and upgrade later for $200-250. That's a total of $750.

As far as one or two years down the path; the person with the $1200 system stays with his system and the person with the $650 system upgrades to the R600/NV60 for $500. Total is $1150, still less then the SLi system, and his rig is now capable of WGF and who knows what other improvements while the SLi guy is stuck with DX9 SM3. Not only that but if the two played NFSU2 (as an example) the person with the $1150 system would blow away the $1200 SLi system in performance since the game does not support SLi; it would probably be a fairly large difference even in SLi capable games. Yes the guy who waited with his $750 system will have saved $400, but the above still applies. He will have less performance and less features.

To answer your question, I don't justify people spending $1000 on an FX-55 or P4EE. That's even more absurd considering the difference between them is usually a measily 10% or less over the lower end CPUs. People who have the money can spend it as they wish, but just because they have the money doesn't mean what they are spending it on is a good decision. At least with cars or houses the difference is in quality of the parts and/or build, in the computer world it's the speed, which is usually much less of an improvement.

Furthermore how high can you clock a NV40 to match the estimated clockspeed of R520?

I'd expect a 90nm verient capable of 500-550 MHz. Of course nvidia could play the pipeline game as well.

 

[ninelven]

+ $200 for a good SLi motherboard, because you know they will go for the best

more expensive != better or best (which is ironic given the topic )

As far as one or two years down the path; the person with the $1200 system stays with his system and the person with the $650 system upgrades to the R600/NV60 for $500. Total is $1150, still less then the SLi system, and his rig is now capable of WGF and who knows what other improvements while the SLi guy is stuck with DX9 SM3.

Why is he stuck? If he bought the SLi system he can probably afford the upgrade. Even if he is pressed for $$$ at the moment, he could sell the 2 cards and upgrade to a single next generation card for ~ $100.

Its a viable option if you want more fps.

 

[Sonic]

ANova, why are you arguing about SLI? It is a viable solution for those who want the best performance. You may not find it wise to spend the money on such a performance solution and that is ok. That doesn't mean others aren't willing to spend their money on it. It may not make sense financially but really who are you to care? They made the money, let them spend it as they see fit.

I'll be buying an SLI solution as soon as I find all the parts that I want. It may only be my primary gaming PC for one year, but then back to the drawing board.

 

[Geeforcer]

How is it different from everyone's faivorite Voodoo2? Those who want it get one card. Those who can afford it get two. Everyone is happy, with the exception of certain people who think they know what everyone should want better then the people themselves.

 

[Pete]

ATI's recent refreshes hardly offered any performance improvement to write home about, they have zero architecture differences, and are mostly to decrease costs, frankly, because they needed something to line up against Nvidia's 6800GT, which was in the driver's seat.

Agreed.

ATI slaps a leafblower on their cards and gets a free pass, NVidia introduces SLI and gets criticized. When Nvidia had the leafblower, it was a desparate hack, but leafblower + driver overclock? That's elegance.

Again, "leafblower" was used in terms of noise, not size. It was a double surprise that not only was the FX 5800's cooler noisy, but noisy even at twice the height of previous coolers.

The X850 w/512mb reminds of the GF3 days when Nvidia shipped some cards with more RAM and a slight clock bump during Christmas when everyone was expecting the GF4. (or was it the GF2->Gf3 transistion?)

You're thinking of the GF3"Ti," but the GF4 series' AGP 8x transition was about as fishy. While the 128MB 4200-8x actually gained memory speed, 4800SE and 4800 were basically marketing renames. At least the Ti200 and Ti500 were differentiated by different clocks and prices.

In fact, I'd say ATI has milked more, since the R420 and R300 have no importance differences, and the leap from GF4->GF5->GF6 was much more substantial.

Agreed. At this point, I think ATi has milked the R300 architecture (9700->9800->X800->X850) for longer than nV milked the NV20 architecture (GF3->GF3Ti->GF4Ti->GF4Ti-8x).

350,000 SLI nForce chipsets for the first revision alone doesn't sound like a "horrible waste of money" to me.

If the chipset was selling for $50-75, then it might have paid for its R&D, but I doubt that.

I meant it in the sense that--if nV's PR of 350K SLI-specific units shipped is true--it's a pretty good number for such a recently released product. Again, I don't know if nV is lumping regular nF4U chipsets in with the SLI variants, and they were probably referring to chipsets shipped, not sold through.

You can afford to buy (and desire to purchase) a new $4-500 videocard every year? Just to "keep up?" Incredible.

To be fair, that $4-500 card will be close to half price a year later, maybe even cheaper in used form.

 

[BRiT]

Agreed. At this point, I think ATi has milked the R300 architecture (9700->9800->X800->X850) for longer than nV milked the NV20 architecture (GF3->GF3Ti->GF4Ti->GF4Ti-8x).

Uhm, shouldn't that be the NV05 (NV10?) architecture?
TNT1 -> TNT2 -> GF -> GF2 -> GF3 -> GF3Ti -> GF4Ti -> GF4Ti-8x

The way I saw it was the GF was 2 TNT2s strapped together with a bolt-on TnL engine. The others are mere refinements of the same architecture.

 

[ANova]

+ $200 for a good SLi motherboard, because you know they will go for the best

more expensive != better or best (which is ironic given the topic )

True, however SLi capable motherboards are generally the most expensive regardless.

Why is he stuck? If he bought the SLi system he can probably afford the upgrade. Even if he is pressed for $$$ at the moment, he could sell the 2 cards and upgrade to a single next generation card for ~ $100.

Its a viable option if you want more fps.

If he upgraded then he will have spent $1700 in total. The guy who didn't get SLi could sell his card as well. At any rate, the guy who bought SLi still spent double the amount of money for a 50% performance improvement that lasted 1 year over the single card guy.

ANova, why are you arguing about SLI? It is a viable solution for those who want the best performance. You may not find it wise to spend the money on such a performance solution and that is ok. That doesn't mean others aren't willing to spend their money on it. It may not make sense financially but really who are you to care? They made the money, let them spend it as they see fit.

I'll be buying an SLI solution as soon as I find all the parts that I want. It may only be my primary gaming PC for one year, but then back to the drawing board.

And nvidia thanks you.

 

[Sonic]

Anova, well let them thank me! They're the only company right now that offers such a solution that I can buy tomorrow. Why would you make such a statement like that? It is my choice on what to spend my money on, you shouldn't be so critical of that. I doubt you would know what else to spend it on besides that. I only upgrade my gaming rig once every two years or so and this is the time to do it. The only other upgrade that my gaming rig has gotten is a freaking CPU. I'm still on a 5900XT that can barely keep up in games at 1024*768 on medium detail.

You do not have to be so blind and biased towards ATI in order to see the benefits of SLI. It offers great performance today. I treat my PC's like I do my consoles, I only upgrade when absolutely necessary for the best game playing possible at the moment.

 

[ninelven]

the guy who bought SLi still spent double the amount of money for a 50% performance improvement that lasted 1 year over the single card guy

And the point is? What? You wouldn't? Who cares? Does the guy who would care what you think? Do you care what he thinks? No.

I see no reason to even be having this conversation except self gratification.

 

[digitalwanderer]

I'm still on a 5900XT that can barely keep up in games at 1024*768 on medium detail.

You do not have to be so blind and biased towards ATI in order to see the benefits of SLI. It offers great performance today. I treat my PC's like I do my consoles, I only upgrade when absolutely necessary for the best game playing possible at the moment.

Eew! Then you should have upgraded to at least an R300 looong ago, 59xx don't hold a candle to it.

I spent all afternoon testing out my son's 5950 ultra that I modded and I know of that which I speak.

 

[Sonic]

No crap, but I was only playing Neverwinter Nights like a mad fiend this whole time. Now I'm ready to catch up on all the FPS goodness, aside from Doom 3, and other games I missed out on. And if you can recommend any good RPG's or action games to play then please pm me with this information.

I'll be making the purchase within the next month, so I want it to last marginally well at least two years.

 

[AndrewM]

The way I saw it was the GF was 2 TNT2s strapped together with a bolt-on TnL engine. The others are mere refinements of the same architecture.

They added quite a bit to the combiner capability, which allowed the chip to do bump mapping and a few other things. They added S3TC(DXTC) and FSAA and a bunch of other misc things.

 

[Ailuros]

Furthermore how high can you clock a NV40 to match the estimated clockspeed of R520?

I'd expect a 90nm verient capable of 500-550 MHz. Of course nvidia could play the pipeline game as well.

B3D frontpage and I'm just quoting Michael Hara:

<snip>

Well, from an architecture standpoint we’re just still at the beginning of shader model 3.0. And we need to give the programmers out there some time to continue to really learn about that architecture. So in the spring refresh what you’ll see is a little bit faster versions...

...I think you’ll see the industry move up a little bit in performance. But I don’t think you’ll see any radical changes in architecture. I doubt you’ll see any radical changes in architecture even in the fall. When we came out with GeForce 6, we tend to create a revolutionary architecture about every actually two years. And then we derive from it for the following time. So even the devices that we announced this fall, that will be I think a lot more powerful than the ones we actually had a year ago. Architecturally we’re still in the shader model three type era.

<snip>

If you look at when we go to 90, my guess will be is we’ll have one or two products this year going from 90 in the second half.

www.beyond3d.com

 

[ANova]

Anova, well let them thank me! They're the only company right now that offers such a solution that I can buy tomorrow. Why would you make such a statement like that? It is my choice on what to spend my money on, you shouldn't be so critical of that. I doubt you would know what else to spend it on besides that. I only upgrade my gaming rig once every two years or so and this is the time to do it. The only other upgrade that my gaming rig has gotten is a freaking CPU. I'm still on a 5900XT that can barely keep up in games at 1024*768 on medium detail.

You do not have to be so blind and biased towards ATI in order to see the benefits of SLI. It offers great performance today. I treat my PC's like I do my consoles, I only upgrade when absolutely necessary for the best game playing possible at the moment.

Just because nvidia offers it doesn't make it good. Sorry but I don't see any benefits to SLi. Sure it seems great when you take a look at those 3dmark benchmarks but in the real world it's not so clear cut and dry for the reasons I mentioned and more. Price to performance wise it's the worst configuration you can get. That's imho.

As far as being blind and biased towards ATI, I'm not the one that got a Geforce FX despite all the evidence showing it wasn't a very good architecture.

And the point is? What? You wouldn't? Who cares? Does the guy who would care what you think? Do you care what he thinks? No.

I see no reason to even be having this conversation except self gratification.

What do you think a forum is for? It's to discuss things. You may not care, but others might.

 

[ninelven]

What do you think a forum is for? It's to discuss things. You may not care, but others might.

I'm sure the day someone cares about your opinion on any topic they will ask for it.

Price to performance wise it's the worst configuration you can get

Well, I could give you my old GF4 and that would have an infinite price/perf ratio because its free. As with all things in life, one usually pays a premium for the best.

So you don't like SLi... whoopee. I probably wouldn't use it, but that's for my own personal reasons which I'm sure no one gives a damn about. I mean seriously what the hell are you bitching about? What did SLi ever do to you? Do you have any legitimate reason for the continual whining? You already said you wouldn't use it, so why care about it?

EDIT: And really, I can't believe the first post wasn't just locked or deleted.... /boggle.

 

[ANova]

I'm sure the day someone cares about your opinion on any topic they will ask for it.

If you don't care what I have to say why the hell are you reading my posts and even replying to them?

So you don't like SLi... whoopee. I probably wouldn't use it, but that's for my own personal reasons which I'm sure no one gives a damn about. I mean seriously what the hell are you bitching about? What did SLi ever do to you? Do you have any legitimate reason for the continual whining? You already said you wouldn't use it, so why care about it.

Where exactly am I bitching or whining about anything? I posted why I didn't think SLi was a good idea, Demo challenged me and I explained further. Where's the confusion?

 

[Pete]

At retail prices, SLI is for ppl who have more money than time (rich or simply hard-core gamers), or to whom time is money (professionals), so arguing for it's irrelevance or foolishness or lack of appeal from the standpoint of price/performance at average resolutions at average framerates for average gamers isn't very interesting or useful, IMO. The fact is that SLI, in certain situations, offers performance beyond single cards. For that reason alone, it has potential value, and I'm guessing mainly for the two categories I listed above.

Yeah, SLI for gamers seems pricey, but it doesn't seem so outrageous compared to hot-rodding (or just buying) a car for fun.

 

[Sonic]

Exactly my point Pete, and I do happen to do those for cars.

Anova, would you turn up a free graphics card? My choice in that was not really thinking at the time. I looked into several graphics card options but a friend happened to give me an Nvidia card. Is that such a big deal? I guess to you it is.

 

[digitalwanderer]

And really, I can't believe the first post wasn't just locked or deleted.... /boggle.

Me neither, I thought the title just screams "troll". :?