Wich card is the king of the hill (nv40 or R420)

[DemoCoder]

I think it's going to hinge on what the NV41 can deliver. NV41 will be 12-pipes and clocked much higher, single slot, and better yields. It will be the stop-gap before the higher clocked 16-pipe NV45s come out. The bread and butter of the the market starts at the midrange and goes down.

We need low-cost replacements for the 5200 and 9200 that run much better, that hopefully get integrated with many cheap PCs, so that developers can raise their lowest standards. (And hope they ignore Grantsdale integrated)

 

[Rican]

well the 6800 gt/pro did real good agaist the x800 pro in most cases and the both seem to be verry overclockable

 

[dr3amz]

lot of ati fan boys here, wouldn't you say trini?

 

[Rican]

lot of ati fan boys here, wouldn't you say twinny?

yea thats what it looks like

 

[Natoma]

Natoma, I'm surprised you give featureset to ATI, given the enormous number of new features (not just PS2.0) that NV40 has over R420, AND the fact that most if not all of what 3Dc does can be achieved today on current hardware by using an adjusted DXT5 compressor. I'm amazed how well ATI has successfully marketed a feature that almost all existing hardware can do.

NVidia has done a really poor job marketing their new features this round.

Yea that one was iffy for me. But then I took a look at those 3Dc pix again, especially for Serious Sam (so it seems like it's a rather trivial thing to add to a game) and that took it for me. However, it is certainly an open proposition in that regard for me.

 

[Tahir2]

5200 and 9200

These two cards performance and featurewise do not belong together. Performance wise the 9200 slaughters the 5200 and vice versa for features (if you can call them features since they wont run at anything but a slideshow).

NVIDIA have now got the 5500 which is a rebranded 5200 and is a bit of a farce again (looks to me like a half arsed attempt to get rid of 5200 stock by NVIDIA and further increase market share in the low end). ATI seems to be following NVIDIA's lead in the low end and updating their 9600SE with a rebranded 9550, however the standard 9600 should be the replacement of these ultra cheap cards and maybe this will happen later on this year. On NVIDIA's side I expect their 5700 to be discontinued and replaced with something else. The 5200 and 5500 = pants unfortunately but expect these cards to be the ones integrated into OEM systems for the forseeable future.

 

[LeStoffer]

I have been more impressed by the progress of the NV40 over the NV3x than the R420 over the R300, so my vote goes for the NV40. I should note, however, that my minority report isn't based merely upon which is faster.

Cool stuff in my book is VS3: Vertex Texturing & Geometry Instancing, in PS3 Static Flow Control (don't know about dynamic yet) and Floating Point Blending.

While the R420 is very fast, I'm frankly a bit dissapointed that we're not all moving forward with the Shader Model 3.0. I don't know what plan ATI have in this regard, but so far I assume that they are still on the 18 months cycle and that is too slow in my book.

The heat and power requirements of the NV40 ultra is a bit much OTOH, but then I don't think that I will replace my 9700 Pro before Fall. By that time it might be NV45 vs R480 so we will see by then.

 

[Rican]

so if the rumors are true and the NV45 has low-k it might be a sigle slot desing HOPFULLY

 

[PaulS]

People really need to stop citing Power Supply issues as a major negative for the 6800U. No reviewer has had any issues with any of their power supples, IIRC, and they've been using some in the 3xxW range. 2 Molexes? Fine. But not the power supply rating required.

 

[jimmyjames123]

I thought that R420 was supposed to have full support for VS 3.0, and therefore partial support for SM 3.0. Is that not the case?

 

[Ardrid]

This really is a toss-up. I'm slightly leaning towards R420 because of the lower power consumption and the overall performance. On the other hand, NV40 is no slouch and has SM3.0 support, not to mention killer OGL performance. This, however, is partially swaying me:

 

[Natoma]

People really need to stop citing Power Supply issues as a major negative for the 6800U. No reviewer has had any issues with any of their power supples, IIRC, and they've been using some in the 3xxW range. 2 Molexes? Fine. But not the power supply rating required.

And the question begs, what else do they have in their systems when they're reviewing? I doubt much. I have four hard drives, a wireless NIC, a DVD rom, CD-RW, 5 case fans along with a slot cooler, P4 3Ghz, and an LS-120, running off a 500W Enermax.

That's a high quality power supply, and I can tell you, I don't have two dedicated lines left over after everything is said and done. And of course you have many people going SFF, where that kind of power requirement and heat generation is a problem to be reckoned with.

The heat and power requirements of the NV40 ultra is a bit much OTOH, but then I don't think that I will replace my 9700 Pro before Fall. By that time it might be NV45 vs R480 so we will see by then.

This is what I don't get. The GT is a single slot, single molex solution running at 350Mhz. Basically an underclocked 6800U right? The 6800U, just 50Mhz faster, is dual slot and has two molex. How in the world are they going to get another 50Mhz out of that for an "Ultra Extreme" variant? I just don't know.

 

[Ardrid]

People really need to stop citing Power Supply issues as a major negative for the 6800U. No reviewer has had any issues with any of their power supples, IIRC, and they've been using some in the 3xxW range. 2 Molexes? Fine. But not the power supply rating required.

And the question begs, what else do they have in their systems when they're reviewing? I doubt much. I have four hard drives, a wireless NIC, a DVD rom, CD-RW, 5 case fans along with a slot cooler, P4 3Ghz, and an LS-120, running off a 500W Enermax.

That's a high quality power supply, and I can tell you, I don't have two dedicated lines left over after everything is said and done. And of course you have many people going SFF, where that kind of power requirement and heat generation is a problem to be reckoned with.

The heat and power requirements of the NV40 ultra is a bit much OTOH, but then I don't think that I will replace my 9700 Pro before Fall. By that time it might be NV45 vs R480 so we will see by then.

This is what I don't get. The GT is a single slot, single molex solution running at 350Mhz. Basically an underclocked 6800U right? The 6800U, just 50Mhz faster, is dual slot and has two molex. How in the world are they going to get another 50Mhz out of that for an "Ultra Extreme" variant? I just don't know.

Does this help?

"To test our 12V rail theory out, I installed the GeForce 6800 Ultra Extreme in my personal system. It’s an Epox KT333-based motherboard with an Athlon XP 2100+, 512MB DDR266 memory, SB Live!, Promise RAID controller card, and 3Com 10/100 NIC. I also have my system outfitted with four hard drives, a DVD-ROM drive, and a CD-R/RW burner (for those of you who were wondering, I’ve been running it with a RADEON 9800 PRO 256MB).

On the power side, the real gem is the Enermax Whisper Quiet EG365P-VE PSU I purchased over a year ago to go with my Cooler Master aluminum case (it’s one of the later model ATC-110 series cases with exhaust/intake fans, before they messed it all up with the Wavemaster line).

As theorized in our 6800 Ultra preview article, the system ran flawlessly with this setup. 3DMark 03, Call of Duty, and UT 2004 all ran with complete stability on a 350-watt power supply with GeForce 6800 Ultra. Clearly, NVIDIA’s 480-watt PSU recommendation errs on the side of extreme caution, as a high quality sub-$50 350W PSU like the Enermax EG365P-VE can be used with no problems."

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/geforce_6800_ultra_extreme/page3.asp

 

[Natoma]

Indeed it does. Thanks!

If that's the case, why in the world would Nvidia make such an extreme case for their power requirements? Talk about negative advertisement for your product. :?

 

[Mize]

For me it was a toss up - right up until I saw the shameful nV tactics of getting a new driver out and having the likes of Firingsquad highlight nV's last minute answer over the 420.

I seriously was leaning toward my first nV card since the Ti4200 but this type of political crap is so distasteful I'll go with ATI in spite of their poorer Linux drivers.

[Edit]: In all fairness I should state that I'll probably stick with my 9700 Pro for yet another round. These two look great, but I'm not sure I want to be locked into an AGP mainboard so my next vid card will have to wait for a 939 chipset with PCI-X...maybe nV marketing can redeem themselves by then?

 

[DemoCoder]

5200 and 9200

These two cards performance and featurewise do not belong together. Performance wise the 9200 slaughters the 5200 and vice versa for features (if you can call them features since they wont run at anything but a slideshow).

9200 slaughters 5200 in performance? I just read 3 budget card shootouts and in none of them does the 9200 slaughter anything, in fact, for the majority of the benchmarks it was below the 5200. I know, AnandTech, NordicHardware, et al, heavily biased right?

 

[Tahir2]

People really need to stop citing Power Supply issues as a major negative for the 6800U. No reviewer has had any issues with any of their power supples, IIRC, and they've been using some in the 3xxW range. 2 Molexes? Fine. But not the power supply rating required.

If NVIDIA state a 480W PSU and someone buys an NVIDIA 6800 Ultra and states they used a generic 350W PSU and it blew the PSU taking out with it a few other components including the grapgics card will NVIDIA's partners (board manufacturer) honour the warranty?

Me thinks in some cases yes and in most NO.

So it is definitely not an issue which people should ignore. The reviewers also are probably using high quality PSU's at the lower wattage rating - unlike most users.

 

[Sxotty]

I say they're tied.

R420 is fast and all but I don't know why but NV40 seems just more robust to me. :?

Yeah well it seems robust like a tank I guess

BTW I voted for ati, but depending on what nv does in doom i might change my stance...

 

[MuFu]

Neither. They're both RUBBISH.

 

[LeStoffer]

If that's the case, why in the world would Nvidia make such an extreme case for their power requirements? Talk about negative advertisement for your product. :?

Its really more about how good the power supply is at supporting a lot of Current and a generic 300W might simple not be good enough where a 480 probably will because its just 'stronger'.

I have that Enermax 350 myself and it is very good at supplying a lot of Current, so it is really more a matter of quality, but how do you communicate that in easy to understand terms? Bigger is better! (which is not always true...)