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

lol - yeah! all power to matrox, true gods of 3d cards!!!!! wOOOOO! :?

 

I was speaking from personal experience. Unfortunately most of the 5200's we sell are using the 64bit memory width and these are the ones that are in most people's OEM branded computers.

And yes.. the 9200 slaughters these cards. Perhaps I should have been more specific.

To be more specific I am talking about a specific price bracket - under £40 and at that price no 5200 I have personally come across uses the 128bit memory bus.

The 5500 I am talking about that I have received and tested for speed is 128Bit but its memory is crippling slow (266MHz vs the 9200 400MHz) and the core clockspeed is 250MHz (IIRC). I guess I cannot directly compare these cards until a customer asks for a 5500 in their system. (We already sell PC's with 9200's).

Currently the 9200 is at around the £50 mark but surprisingly the 9600 is at the £70 mark. IMHO ATI should be pushing to get this card to the £50 mark.

So yea I stand by what I said but hopefully it is a little clearer now - I am talking about my own experience as a retailer/sales guy/tech guy/support guy all roled into one for a specific market (UK), but I can see what I have seen applying to the rest of the world.

 

I think nvidia needs to incorporate a 6xAA mode in order to compete. The X800 proves it's usable and even at fairly high resolutions.

That said I am waiting for peg/btx/939 etc before I make any decisions regarding my next system. My 9700pro still runs the games I play just fine. r500/nv50 next spring would be nice.

 

I voted ATI because of the increadable speed when it matters, in the few dx9games and esspecially their AF-power.

This review says it all:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/r420-2.html

The X800XT PE is allmost CPU limited everywhere til 1600x1200 on the fastest CPU's

I need an Athlon FX@3 gHz to keep it working

 

Well, Tahir, maybe in UK, but I can buy a 5200 Ultra in the states for $99 (ok, with $10 rebate) which is about 55 GBP, so they seem to be in the same price range for me as the 9200 non-SE.

I really don't count that as a "slaughtering" in any case.

 

Yes. X800 seems to have hands down better performance once the AA is upped past 4x.

And I understand the talk about feature set, but people seem to buy cards based on how they perform in certain games. People bought nvidia cards to play halflife (cs) and quake 3 long after they were current tech, soley based on the games popularity and performance of the cards in those games.

 

Well isn't that what RV370 is all about? A 4-pipe, budget OEM DX9 card based on RV350 and fabbed on 0.11u, such that it will be even cheaper to manufacture than the 9600. Now if only Dave or someone else would give us the tiniest of hints as to when this part will be reviewed. :?

 

NV45

Well, I would say 6800 series has more room for speed
improvement than X800 series which is running out of optimization.

Unless, ATI can speed up R500 series, they will be behind NV45
by fall.

For this round it's toss up. but I will little nodge toward 6800
for
- video engine
- SM 3.0 support

 

In terms of performance it is a toss up until you crank up your AA past 4X then the R420 begins to pull ahead. High resolution also has a similar same effect. I like high resolution but won't use AA if it effects the frame rate horribly.

On features it is pretty hard to ignore PS3.0 but what good is it going to be in terms of gaming? 3Dc is a nice feature on the R420 and so is temporal AA.

The power draw and two slot heat reduction solution are a negative IMO for the NV40.

ATi impressed me by making their high end as compact is it was. I thought that they would have to use a two slot solution for the X800XT. That was a real surprise.

I am thinking though that the 6800GT might end up the best bang for the buck in the end. Have to wait and see the price disparities to contrast and compare. I most certainly despite the 6800ultra/6850 performance would not bother with the card.. if I had the choice I think I would take the X800XT. It just seems like a smarter choice with no PSU concerns. I like the compact design.

I think ATi has a marketing advantage in terms of their design. They should be able to put these cards to market cheaper/faster really. Third party card makers will prefer them as well considering the PCB and cooling disparities. Already big players like ASUS, FIC, GIGABYTE, MSI, Sapphire et al are on board to carry it. ATi ought to be able to make the pricing of the chipset considerably more flexible then the NV40 chipset. Straight out the number of transistors will effect the NV40s yield. ATi having nearly 60million less transistors should be able to manage a higher yield. (then there is that counting transistors thing.. whatever.)

I won't vote for ether though I think it is a little early to say one way or the other. We can learn all sorts of things about these cards after they are actually in peoples PCs.

 

Yeah, I think I'm going to give it to ATI this round, at least for the time being. The reason I say that is because we don't have retail boards or retail drivers from either company, nor do we know what SM3.0 or 3Dc might bring to the table. In terms of pure, maximum performance and "package", I'm leaning towards ATI. That X-bit article, as well as the other reviews that I've looked at today, are pretty convincing.

While it seems to be a toss-up in some places, turning on AA/AF really separates the cards and gives ATI the edge. And let's be real. If you pay $499 for a card you'd better use AA/AF. I will say good job to NVIDIA for pulling out a part capable of making up for NV3x's failures. And congrats to ATI for proving that they have what it takes and that these past few years weren't a fluke like some thought they were.

 

ditto - those xbit results are quite eye-opening, seeing the x800pro beat the 6800 ultra makes ya think - do i need to spend the extra 100 for the XT???

Hell yeah!

 

Holy cow! That's ~ 30 to 50W difference between the r420 vs the nv40. Wonder how much faster the r420 would be if you slap a 2 slot cooler and pump another 40W into it.

 

Err, why don't you quote it all? You left out the most important part!

"This PSU is only 350 watts total, but capable of delivering up to 26A on the 12V rail, four amps more than the Antec TruePower I bought at Fry’s a few weeks ago for the 6800 Ultra test bed."


26A is pretty insane for a 350W PSU. Most 350W PSUs deliver less than 20A, usually like 15-18A. (Fortron 16A, Chieftec 17A).

The Antec TruePower 430W delivers 20A in the 12V rail, the Zalman ZM400B 18A - most 400-430W PSUs don't even come close to 26A.

So chances are that your average 350W quality PSU might run into problems.

 

I was considering that, but then I figured most ppl on this board know that. Besides, my main reason for quoting it for Natoma was to indicate the type of rig that was used.

 

Most people know that the Enermax 350W delivers more ampere on the 12V rail than most quality 430W PSUs? I am not so sure about that.

My point really is that Nvidia's 480W recomendation seems pretty accurate for most PSUs. It's on the safe side for sure (there are people who run 4 10kupm HDs in some RAID configuration and stuff) but not too far off.

 

NV40 if you are looking for features.
R420 for performance and system friendliness.

I want one of these ASAP and it's a very tough call.

But there is one other option which I am confident
will be the new OpenGL champion.

3dlabs Wildcat Realizm - PCI-Express - VSU and 2 VPUs.
80 GB/s of bandwidth with 500 MHz (1000 MT/s) GDDR3.

Hopefully Dave will be reviewing the monster sometime this
summer.

 

the 6800U uses vapor-liquid refrigeration, I heard. It has to be good for keeping temperature low and stable in summer.

My vote for NV40.

P.S.: the performance of X800 seems more consistent w/wo AF. Nvidia bad drivers?

 

I voted for the R420 because both of these cards will run any game that comes out this year with EASE, but I like the 6x fsaa of the ATI, and the smaller size/less power requirments. Also, about the PS.3.0, I really think that by the time games use that, they are going to be more taxing in other areas.... Basically, I console and PC, so by the time my R420 is old, I'll be xbox2ing and ps3ing (then I'll get back into PCs when I get tired of those, oh say around, R700/Nv70 timeframe )