NVIDIA's Last Minute Effort - 6850

[Doomtrooper]

 

[muzz]

Doh! :?

*thwaps Carmack with a trout*

Only a trout?
You are kind...
I was thinking about something alot smellier like a whole boatload of sardines or mackerel....

 

[kemosabe]

This whole charade is all starting to sound dreadfully familiar...

"With only a couple of days notice, NVIDIA contacted us and asked us to take a look at two new derivatives of the GeForce 6800. Pictured left here, is the GeForce 6800 Ultra "Extreme" and GeForce 6800GT. The GF 6800 Extreme should be considered a "golden sample" type of card, with its GPU speed binned out to 450MHz, as opposed to the stock Ultra 400MHz core. The GT card is also a 16 Pixel Pipeline based product, with slightly slower core and memory speeds at 350MHz/1GHz. We should also point out that NVIDIA also sent in new drivers (version 61.11) for these two cards. However, in the interest of time, we were only able to re-run our Wolfenstein ET and Far Cry benchmarks with these new drivers. NVIDIA informed us that these two game engines, would be impacted most be the new driver set and other titles would see only small gains. They also pointed out a "Z-Cull" bug in their old 60.72 drivers, that has been fixed in Far Cry and as such the new driver improves performance greatly in this game. Unfortunately, with these new drivers, AA ended up being broken and we had to toss out our Far Cry numbers for the GT and Ultra Extreme cards."

http://www.hothardware.com/viewarticle.cfm?page=8&articleid=517

P.S. Just noticed the title on that review.

 

[AlphaOmega]

The simple fact of the matter is that ATI built a card that both gamers and OEMs are going to like.

Gamers want:

Speed
High resolutions during game play
High AA/AF during game play
Smooth frame rates
Did I mention speed?

OEMs want:

Market demand with strong brand recognition
Good supply from vendor
Good price from vendor
Power consumption that fits within normal specs
Single slot for obvious reasons
Smaller and quieter if possible

ATI delivered all of the above with IMMEDIATE availability. Just looking at the cards side by side tells you that NVDA is scrambling to remain competative. NVDA's brute force approach is obvious and leads to high power consumption, noisy fans, wasted space and more heat inside your case. ATI built it, delivered it and told you when to expect the rest of the R420 line. NVDA paper launched with no firm dates and a slew of "new" cards and beta drivers to confuse everyone.

NVDA is trying to deflect attention away from the R420 at all costs. It is really pathetic if you ask me and they are desperate. Anyone who is honest with themselves can see this. We all need questions to the following from NVDA:

1. Why release the review boards at 400/550 if that is not the intended specs? Why all of a sudden the Ultra Extreme?
2. Why paper launch instead of immediate availability like ATI? Can't you coordinate the launch and availability?
3. When are the boards going to be available? Which ones are going to be released and when?
4. Are the yields at IBM really that bad? 10,000 total NV40 cores of which only 2000 are Ultra quality and only 200 are Ultra Extreme quality? Will their be availability issues?
5. Why are you using beta drivers that have questionable optimizations? Why the sudden release of the 61.11 drivers?
6. What is going on with the Far(t) Cry benching issues? Isn't that a TWIMTBP game that has 3.0 support? Why isn't the 6800 excelling in these benchmarks?
7. Why did you build such a big power hungry chip? What about the reaction of the OEM market?
8. Why does the NV40 lag behind the R420 at high resolutions with AA/AF set higher?
9. If NV40 is going to "own ATI" and "they are smoking something hallucinagenic" and "low-k is dangerous", why is it that R420 was well received today and matches/beats NV40 in most cases?


I have nothing but questions from/for NVDA. They are spreading the FUD nice and deep with the willing/unwilling support of several sites and are desperately trying to deflect attention from ATI. Any idiot can jump up and down in a crowded room and say "Look at me! Look at me!". People will stop and watch the first or second time. But then it gets old and the people stop looking and reacting to your BS because there is no substance to your actions. NVDA is short on credibility and is doing NOTHING but making it worse. The analysts and OEMs will not forget about the NV30 debacle so soon. I smell an even worse debacle brewing now.

What are you ATI's PR man. Theres absolutely no need to say this. I think everyone on this forum has already read this somewhere or everywhere as it seems that anything with Nvidia is negative and everything to do with ATI is positive and the news spreads like fire these days. This is exactly what i think maintank was referring to. You take a nice video card, you take all your mistrust of Nvidia from the past 2 years and you put it together. I understand that you mistrust Nvidia, they lied to you and they did it in the most stupid way possible. They cheated and they were caught red handed. BUT you don't have to ruin the credibility of something a engineer made because PR of Nvidia is so dumb.

All your questions are so weak. WHY???? why did Nvidia do what it did, because their engineers were told to. Do it or ur fired, thats the business. He/she wasn't told the exact specs required to go by and what Nvidia wanted the GF6 to be, he was told to make a 2x and greater performace from the 5950. And obviously from the way the card came out in can be noticed that the engineers were brutely punished and pushed to get this thing out in time. And ur asking why???? NVDA PR does not make the design choices, and the head of NVDA doesn't either. Engineers are told some form of requirements and then they have to do it on their own. Did you not listen to the talk of the retired Head Engineer of Intel??? And you ask why. Its same game in all businesses only ATI engineers were working with a design which was far more finished then what the NVDA engineers had to begin with in the same period or shorter.

That said. I don't c your point. All i c are 2 nice video cards one with serious driver issues and the other performing excellent but not to its max. Why i say serious driver issues, well i seen in some benchmarks the 6800GT-(A0e2-stepping<- only difference) beating the 6800Ultra

Ive read quiet a few reviews, though i dont keep count the number is in the 10's(long and short) and ive seen benchmarks for the same games differing by 10-40% from review sites. But lets put that aside.

There is 1 reason i do not like your negative view of NVDA. All your negative points about em are in the past. Before the GF6. All your 6800 negative rumours are not proven. Not one of these cards is in stores. And if the X800PRo be in stories in a week is to be seen But my reason countinues.... For the past 3 weeks ive only been reading negative "experiments and fud" about the 6800. These "experiments and fud" have been done by ATI baised websites. How i know? Because i read them and listen to what they have to say. Just because i dont like your negative views does not mean i don't listen and think em over.
This -->> 10*10*10 times = fud, lies and experiments on 6800 past 3 weeks.(Exagerrating if you don't know?)

I just can't believe that ppl are ignoring all the negative fud about the 6800ultra which has been proven wrong(of course in a week of these "experiments") and yet you can base ur negative view on something that happened 1-2 years ago. Ignorance!.
I know what lets start speculating that the 6800 is a 8x2 again. Im sure these experiments can prove im right about that!. After all only 10% improvement over the 9800XT in farcry and with cheats on. Damn i swear this can't be a 16 pipe card or someone really doesn't know how to program drivers!!!!!!

Got better idea. Lets just Hail ATI king and have a monopoly in the graphic consumer market. Im sure you'd be satisfied for once ATI scrues over Nvdia(plus nvdias own scrue ups) whos left to scrue over? Customers???? Hmmm. Keep speculating.

PS 6800GT looks real nice so does X800XT but that do expensive for me.

 

[WaltC]

Personally, I don't see the big deal in releasing/announcing information about a new product to stifle your competitions happy-party. I mean, what's wrong with wanting to show that you have a better product than your competition? They are competition for Christ's sakes, there is no reason to play nice (and no, I'm not saying its okay to cheat). Firingsquad's play on this, however.. was pure shit - no arguments there.

So, OK, why didn't ATi prepare a bunch of cherry-picked, hot-rodded, overclocked 570MHz x800 PE's and dump them on websites they knew would be doing the initial nV40 reviews, and tell the eager, gullible nV40 reviewers, "Yea guys, about this card--all we can tell you is that somebody will be selling them at this clock sometime in the future, and sorry we can't be more specific as to cost--enjoy!"....???.....

Should ATi have rained on nVidia's nV40 parade with products it could not even verify would be made, and when, and at what cost to consumers? Maybe you think that would have been an OK tactic, but I was relieved ATi did no such thing. It wouldn't have been sporting not to give nVidia its own shot--these companies *deserve* those shots, don't they? Yes, even nVidia, despite all of the bogus PR crud the company vomited up during the entire year of '03, deserved the opportunity to make its best nV40 shot unobscured with "dirty tricks" played by competitors. No doubt in my mind that ATi was no less deserving of the same privilege for its R4x0 launch.

nVidia is nothing if not extremely slow on the PR uptake, and I wonder literally if the nVidia PR guys have cotton in their ears and mud between them. This is exactly what they did against 3dfx when they sent 175MHz prototypes to THG and Sharkey's, where these websites blissfully informed the world that the nVidia cards would ship at 175MHz *standard clock*, and gleefully benchmarked them against *stock clocked* 3dfx cards already shipping, and sang Hosannas as to the Glories of nVidia for any gullible fool who would listen. And, gracious, a *few months later* when nVidia AIB partners actually began *shipping* said products--they shipped at 125MHz, instead. Without apology, without retraction of previous statements, and totally without remorse.

nVidia still hasn't figured out that their little games fool few these days, and I find that utterly remarkable. I mean, it's like everybody there is "smoking something hallucinogenic," isn't it? JHH himself is quoted muttering public nonsense to the effect that "We don't compete with ATi, oh no, we compete with Intel!" Heh... Just which Intel 3d gpu is it that JHH would have us believe nV40 was designed to better?.... That's just so funny...I guess nVidia sends little white envelopes out to its employees, envelopes which contain hallucinogenic cigarettes, with a note that reads: "Hey, Pardner! Think ATi's kicking our tail? Smoke this, think differently, and become a believer in your company's Divine Manifest Destiny! I have seen the promised land, and I SWEAR TO YOU THAT ATI IS NOT IN IT! So, INHALE brother, and PREPARE FOR ASCENSION! Hallelujah!"

Plus, nVidia's little tactic didn't seem to be too successful anyway - like ExtremeTech said, ATI still had them beat. The XT Platinum is very fast and will likely be out sooner than the Emergency Edition (LOL, I like that one). I believe it was May 21st from what Anand said. Hopefully I'll have the money and willpower ready to snag it.

Of course it will be less than successful--Heh... How many times can you pull the same PR rabbit out of a hat before the act goes totally stale? Do it the first time to cheers and applause, but do it the fifth, or sixth, or seventh time, and you are more likely to hear snores from the balcony and people your act has put to sleep tumbling from their chairs to the floor, instead. nVidia is desperately in need of a new PR act as the old one is doing them no good at all. They seem stuck in an infinite loop of their own construction. In short, nVidia's current products deserve a lot better PR than they seem destined to get.

 

[Althornin]

Personally I think it's brilliant that competition is so close between this generation that these bullish marketing tactics are needed. If Nvidia trump ATI then hopefully ATI will come back with something better, which is why competition is so important for the consumer.

It seems like some people (the ATI supporters) want ATI to once again have a massive lead over Nvidia. But, apart from vicarious fanboy thrills, why is this a good thing? I want the competition to be close and cut thrust; I want to see desparate measures and last minute spurts. This is what drives progress, not complacency. Would Intel chips be as fast and cheap today if it wasn't for AMD? No. So why do the ATI supporters take so much glee in wanting to see Nvidia crushed? Apart from it being unhealthy to be fixated like that it's also bad for competition = bad for progress = bad for the consumer = you.

because i dislike lies and what i would term "shitty tactics".
Vote with your wallet, its the only way to make em listen.
I NEVER want to see dirty underhanded tactics. That doesnt drive competition, it drives shitty tactics.

 

[kemosabe]

Agree with WaltC. The irony is that NVDA had a very successful launch and was doing just fine until this panic set in and they started to forcefeed review sites with last-minute hardware and drivers. Yes, the stakes are high and the thought of finishing second best again must not jive well with Jen-Hsun (what will ATI be smoking this time, I wonder), but these type of stunts have had a tendency to backfire on them and first impressions suggest that this will be no exception.

 

[MrBond]

Personally, I think the game itself isn't bad. If you have a product that is legitimately better than your competitors, and you can push the release dates forward a little bit, then by all means use your PR skills. The fact is it's blatantly obvious and rains on your competitor's parade, but if you have something truly useful to bring to the table, then nobody's going to stop you.

The problem is that nvidia is a company with little scruples. They'll cheat on drivers, leak drivers that magically increase speed, and concoct new cards, when it really doesn't buy them all that much, and gets them a very public black eye when they get caught. The magical new Detonators given to test sites before the 8500 was released come to mind. Of course, if you play in this industry to be cutthroat, there's nothing wrong with it per se, but that doesn't mean people like it, or that they *have* to accept it.

When it's as blatantly obvious as "nvidia called us a few days ago and air mailed these to us" it's almost like watching a fish flopping around gasping for air.

 

[Rugor]

Yay! I read the whole thread.

I do have a problem with what FS did (and I've been a regular reader there for a few years now) especially on what should have been ATI's day. The very least they could have done was posted the ATI article first, regardless of what order they were finished in. Posting the Nvidia article first just looks cheap and slimy.

I still see "Green with NV & the bottom line" at Extremetech, so that's good.

I think the 6800 is a good card. It gave me hope that Nvidia could try to play the game since they had actually made a decent product, and weren't having to rely on driver tricks to support a poor performer. Then came the ATI X800 launch. Boy was I glad I hadn't laid any money on it.

Even with much more evenly matched cards, Nvidia still had to club everyone over the head with a PR offensive.

But having said all that, ATI is still the winner with a clear and undisputed lead. The X800 Pro is the fastest card anyone can actually buy.

 

[Operation Mindcrime]

Greetings gentlemen (And ladies, if there are any who visit here.)

I've been lurking here for a while and finally decided to see if I could add something of substance to these fine forums. Just to be safe, I decided to get a rabies vaccine before registering as this subject seems to have some of the people here (reads fanbois ) foaming at the mouth.

Poker...

So far, what I've seen going on between Nvidia and ATI is an interesting game of poker. Nvidia bet first with the 6800U/NU. ATI seeing this raised, apparently in a literal sense with the X800P/XTP (the literal part being the 520mhz core speed and the activation of the 4th quad. I have a hard time believing that this was the planned release spec when this board taped out. ATI already admitted that the R420 was designed as a 4 quad core but didn't intend to activate the 4th quad until a later refresh. I'm wondering if all the earlier timetable release R5xx rumors aren't a direct result of ATI having to play their refresh card now?) Now that Nvidia has finally seen what it is up against, they have moved to the "call" stage with the 6850UE. Was this really a suprise to any one?

Why is everyone getting so upset over a fine game of poker?

What I have a hard time understanding is why aren't the ATI fanbois mad? By ATI's own admission, the X800XTP is really just a tweaked, optomized and refined R300. Anyone who payed $400-$500 for a 9800XT now has to pay another $400-$500 to get the card that the 9800XT should have been in the first place...

 

[Rugor]

Why is everyone getting so upset over a fine game of poker?

Because one of the players has a history of cheating. That same player is also making a big stink while it's the other player's turn to bet so the dealer can hardly hear what they're saying. It's bad manners.

As to why ATI fans aren't as angry as you may think it's because they know that R420 isn't what R350 or R360 should have been. Those were both .15 micron cards and R420 needed to use a low-k .13 micron process to get the core speeds out of a chip that big.

 

[mozmo]

I agree with the 9800xt should of been what the X800XT is, the 9800xt was an unneccessary refresh, with only a very small bump in core speed and a HL2 vapourware voucher. If I'd paid $400 for an xt i'd be extremely pissed right about now.

 

[karlotta]

I agree with the 9800xt should of been what the X800XT is, the 9800xt was an unneccessary refresh, with only a very small bump in core speed and a HL2 vapourware voucher. If I'd paid $400 for an xt i'd be extremely pissed right about now.

you didnt so you wont. :? How about if you bought a 5950u ? would you be pissed now too? HL2 is coming out...its been played by magazine editors, it will be shown at e3 with the x800. whats the problem?

 

[Bjorn]

you didnt so you wont. :? How about if you bought a 5950u ? would you be pissed now too? HL2 is coming out...its been played by magazine editors, it will be shown at e3 with the x800. whats the problem?

I agree. And we see these type of comments rather often. I'm guessing that almost everyone that bought the 9800 knew what they got so why feel sorry for them ? It's not like it's a bad card and and the X800 hardly offers anything new except more speed.

 

[Operation Mindcrime]

Because one of the players has a history of cheating.

Which one would that be? I seem to remember both companies being caught with their hand in the cookie jar at one time or another.

Bad manners just because Nvidia called immediately after ATI showed its hand? Like it or not, it's how the game is played. Frankly, I'd like to see this hand go one more round.

R420 needed to use a low-k .13 micron process to get the core speeds out of a chip that big.

This begs the question of what a refresh 6800U on low-k might be capable of...

I usually skip a generation between upgrades and as luck would have it I happen to be in the market for a new card. I'm hoping one of these companies will step up and offer something to make my decision easier. Right now it's too close to call. Low heat, less power, and marginal speed advantage versus feature rich and full implementation of a standard which may or may not see wide implementation (and *may* close the current speed gap) over the next 2-3 years which I will have this card...

 

[Bjorn]

I'm hoping one of these companies will step up and offer something to make my decision easier.

That's funny because i hope that the next stuff these companies will release will make my decision even harder. And hopefully we'll have another company to choose from also (something to do with Series 5 ).

 

[Rugor]

In this case Nvidia.

Yes ATI does have "quack" in its past, but Nvidia's more recent actions which I shouldn't need to detail have clearly put the onus on Nvidia to make sure they avoid even a hint of impropriety.

 

[karlotta]

Because one of the players has a history of cheating.

Which one would that be? I seem to remember both companies being caught with their hand in the cookie jar at one time or another.

Dont be daff

R420 needed to use a low-k .13 micron process to get the core speeds out of a chip that big.

its smaller than the 6800, its 160 trans..

This begs the question of what a refresh 6800U on low-k might be capable of...

there wont be a low-k 6800u

 

[Bjorn]

there wont be a low-k 6800u

How about low-k NV45 then ?

 

[mozmo]

ou didnt so you wont. How about if you bought a 5950u ? would you be pissed now too? HL2 is coming out...its been played by magazine editors, it will be shown at e3 with the x800. whats the problem?

Hehe i think anyone that bought a nv3X based card would be pissed to an extent. Last refresh cylce was bs i reckon, no real point to it at all. BTW i wouldn't be that optimisitc about HL2 comming anytime soon, latest news is that's it's only going to be shown in video form at E3 and there is no release date set, it's ready when it ready. We all know what that means....