Post your NV40 preview predictions

The problem I see with this method is that you have no idea on how much of impact (or little for that matter) the increased settings have on the other cards. So, these measurements are pointless in my opinion. For example, let's just say the in NFS, increasing the 9800XT to 1600x1200 reduces the FPS by only 5-10 (unlikely naturally of course), how would we know? Since the reviewer is taking the liberties to decide if the fps difference is enough or not is the problem. These numbers are pointless until the ENTIRE range of equal settings are shown and then the user can decide which settings is HIS / HER ideal gameplay settings / performance for their card.

 

Right, so I would think that PS2.0 would be kicking ass right now. Don't you?

Dave

 

Keep in mind that the 6800 Ultra is running at higher settings than the other cards in the benchmark. Because the reviewer didn't test at the same settings, we don't know what the difference between those settings is.

 

I think the only concern would be people offering opinions as opposed to facts. ATI has programmers who frequent the board and they only talk to the topics they know. I don't see why any company would have an issue with that (at least any normal company) if it doesn't expose any IP.

 

i'm confused about something http://mbnet.fi/elixir/NV40/10817474486qLMOmeutS_1_9_l.jpg
shows the board as version a1 yet there were a bunch of pictures on the web of board a2 and the board vegetto-ex posted about was also version a2. would a1 be a more recent board?
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10946&highlight=a2[/url]

 

No, A2 would be the more recent board, but unless there were major bugs in the A1 revision, I would expect that most reviewers would still get the A1 rev boards. HardOCP may have had their NV40 for a while.

 

actually from the talk on this board 3.0 is supposed to make things more efficient i believe.

i just pointed it out because the patch log says added nv40 support and ps 3.0 and the game is detecting it as nv3x hardware.

 

The key is that it can make things more efficient. There will be no change if the shaders in question don't use any of the added efficiency improvements in PS 3.0. There may be a speed drop if the programmer doesn't write a PS 3.0 shader properly (i.e. using dynamic branching for deciding whether or not to do a texture fetch, or just having a very small number of instructions to choose between in the branch).

 

True, but most of the time ATI takes a far greater hit from NoAA to 2xAA than from 2xAA to 4xAA. I don't think ATI will drop in score very much going to 4xAA.

I think we need to somehow get FarCry to do the same shaders on both cards. NV40 fixes a lot of image problems of NV3x, but some are still there.

Personally, I'm starving to see Shadermark scores, or maybe even some framerates from some of Humus' demos.

 

I want all nv3x,4x and R3xx,4xxx tested against each other in one giant arena of Quake 1 engine.

 

That and Half Life 2

 

Wonder why no one has run or shown NVShaderPerf stats? Also - does this only run on Nvidia hardware???

http://developer.nvidia.com/object/nvshaderperf_home.html

 

Last time i checked it reported performance only for the chips in the NV3X series.

 

One can get a few apples to apples comparisons from the IQ pics, of course only for one frame meh.

CoD:
NV40 - 214fps
9800XT - 114fps

Splinter Cell:
NV40 - 63fps
9800xT -35fps

???:
NV40 - 42fps
9800XT - 33fps

NV40 - 53fps
9800XT - 40fps

Anyway, I'm sure there will be much better information in the morning .

 

Random thoughts

1. Why is 6800U still running in NV3x fuglified mode in Far Cry? Note the 9800XT, in addition to not showing banding, also appears to show brighter brights (to coin a phrase). Puzzling, considering NV40's supposedly huge shader performance gains.

2. The majority of [H]'s tests appear to be CPU or bandwidth-limited. Why don't they use a synthetic that's known to stress the GPU, even if they have to acknowledge potential cheats? There was a big flap when Ace's showed how GPU-limited 3DM03 was, yet now it appears that same limitation makes it superior to bench these new cards.

3. Interesting to note the core is only 400MHz. NV has decreased GPU clock speed for each of their last three high-end cards, and all are 130nm. I don't remember that happening to them ever, though I'm sure they're hitting more process limitations and dealing with far greater architectural complexity now. I'm expecting ATi to debut with much faster clocks, but I wonder if that'll matter, given the frankly uninspiring performance leap of the 6800U (per Brent's review, though I suspect the CoD improvement may be more in line with what we'll see from more conventional reviews comparing cards at the same settings).

 

I think these two apples to apples comparisons shows off who has better 4x AA. Make up your own mind.

http://mbnet.fi/elixir/NV40/10817474486qLMOmeutS_8_4_l.jpg
http://mbnet.fi/elixir/NV40/10817474486qLMOmeutS_8_6_l.jpg

The power lines are pretty evident, good contrast as well.

 

Flipping back and forth between those two images, I am hard pressed to pinpoint any startling IQ differences between the two pics. The power lines show slightly differently between the two pics, and there is some difference in the color in the upper right hand corner of the pic, but that's about all I can see. Both very good looking pictures. What is obviously not very similar is the framerate achieved at these image quality settings

 

Definitely better on the 9800 XT. Although the difference isn't huge anymore like it was between R300 and NV3X.

 

to answer the question on the far cry fugly mode, there is a patch out to properly detect the nv40 and use ps3.0, currently the game just falls back on nv30/35 code path. We should see better visual quality and performance especially with the use of ps3.0.

 

I find that the 9800XT does a better job on the lines on the middle top (especially if you sit back a bit) but if you look at the top-left, the dark cables that are nearly 45 degrees are smoother on the 6800U.