When Tuesday does the G70 NDA expire?

that makes a lot more sense.

 

Well, you’d think there would be some consistency to the benches as they’re all running the same demo. amdzone also had BF2 benches which are similar to those of the other 3 sites I linked -- with the X850 XTPE comfortably ahead of the 6800U.

Any review where they have the X850 XTPE beating the 6800U in only 1/8 game benchmarks (12x10-4AA/16AF) is bias in the extreme. I can only conclude FS are hand picking benchmarks (games) to favor one IHV. That FS review looks like it was paid for by NV one way or another.

 

> "The real conclusion here to draw is that the RSX/PS3 won't have it, which is bad for Sony."

Hardly the deciding factor in the console race at all.

 

But......
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/nvidia_geforce_7800_gtx/page13.asp

 

DW, take a better look.

Anyway, different demo, different test ram, different operating system service pack, and most likely very different methodology.

 

From X850 review:

From 7800 review:

 

Maybe Dave was testing different levels on those different reviews.

 

Geeforcer .. so??

The GTX is a new Card .. the X850XT PE an older card.

If it was the older 6800Ultra I could understand.

Also note the low fps at low res.

Pat777 .. I don't think so .. that benchmark would've been standard FS benchmark.

The fact that FC patch 1.30 and 1.31 patches were used shouldn't make a difference .. unless changes in the changelog indicated so.

Actually i'm surprised Dave didn't use the Patch 1.32 .. but then again that's to fix a bug using the R520.

US

 

The low fps at low res is strange. That is typically due to driver inefficiency if I am not mistaking. It could also be that they are no longer replacing shaders...

 

As I get it, 7800 was running SM3.0 path and X850 SM2.0b path? What's the speed difference on nV between the two paths?

ondaedg: the 7800 does not replace shaders like the previous nV chips, that's been confirmed in a few reviews.

 

+ ~2-5 fps when running SM3 over SM2 on nvidia hardware.

 

Xbitlabs benchies including both 850 XT PE and 800 XL:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/geforce-7800_3.html

 

Has it been confirmed or merely repeated?

 

Yeah, I've kinda wondered about that too. At least the firmness with which it has been stated that it *never* does. That sounded to me a bit like an engineer saying "we won't need shader replacements much anymore" turning into "never" by the time marketing got done with it.

 

They need a whole new slew of different replacements due to the ALU changes, and the shader compiler needs more work too.

 

I was thinking of Chalnoth's saying that the one Doom 3 shader that touches most of the scene is optimized to the tune of 20% higher framerates (50 to 60fps). I'm guessing that optimization would remain for G70, though it may also be able to be further optimized to account for the revamped shaders.

 

Heh. So "We Have No Shader Replacements!" because the old ones suck now and we haven't had a chance to do new ones yet.

 

Hehe. "We are not doing shader replacements because the new ones aren't ready yet!"

 

Well, most games that use shaders use too many to make shader replacements viable.