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

[Moose]

evry one still says ati has better IQ? in most of all the reviews i saw NV has equaly matched ATI's IQ .The iq issue dosent hold any ground any more

The NV40 is CAPABLE of nearly the same IQ. The problem is the optimizations that lower the IQ to artificially inflate benchmark scores.

Once the NV40 starts delivering the IQ its capable of then it becomes more of a non issue, but not until.

 

[Moose]

Anyway I don't think that the NV40 is far more advanced because of PS3.0 I am not sure it is that big of a deal except to developers.

Therein lies the problem. Everybody knows that PS 3.0 is the future. And yet ATI is holding us back with the R420.

Why is Nvidia staying in the past by limiting Farcry to Ps1.1 then???

What kind of future will it be with Ps3.0 if they can't or are afraid to do the present???

 

[Rican]

evry one still says ati has better IQ? in most of all the reviews i saw NV has equaly matched ATI's IQ .The iq issue dosent hold any ground any more

The NV40 is CAPABLE of nearly the same IQ. The problem is the optimizations that lower the IQ to artificially inflate benchmark scores.

Once the NV40 starts delivering the IQ its capable of then it becomes more of a non issue, but not until.

the only game has lower iq is far cry and is cuz the nv 40 is running that nv 30 pass but if you look at the [H] review where the compare the iq the look the same

http://hardocp.com/image.html?image=MTA4MzU2NDE4OTg4OEFkazcwdGVfNV84X2wuanBn


look at this spliter cell screenies and tell me if u find anything diferent on nv or ati

http://hardocp.com/image.html?image=MTA4MzU2NDE4OTg4OEFkazcwdGVfNV80X2wuanBn

 

[Rican]

Anyway I don't think that the NV40 is far more advanced because of PS3.0 I am not sure it is that big of a deal except to developers.

Therein lies the problem. Everybody knows that PS 3.0 is the future. And yet ATI is holding us back with the R420.

Why is Nvidia staying in the past by limiting Farcry to Ps1.1 then???

What kind of future will it be with Ps3.0 if they can't or are afraid to do the present???

Thats cuz the dev had to optimize the game for the poor performance of the fx card you know the suck on p.s 2.0 and it looks like the nv 40 is force to run the nv 30 pass i hope they fix it soon

 

[Joe DeFuria]

Therein lies the problem. Everybody knows that PS 3.0 is the future. And yet ATI is holding us back with the R420.

No, PS 4.0 is the future.

PS 3.0 is a baby step toward that, with as much of a future as PS 1.4 had. What's been holding us back is crappy PS 2.0 performance from a certain venfdor...

Since that's finally been sorted out, maybe we can now enjoy some DX9 games...including I guess 10,000 nVidia fans....of course, depending on whenever nVidia get around to actually shipping NV40 products...and launching a new chip that has more than handful of volume...

 

[Atomahawk]

Anyway I don't think that the NV40 is far more advanced because of PS3.0 I am not sure it is that big of a deal except to developers.

Therein lies the problem. Everybody knows that PS 3.0 is the future. And yet ATI is holding us back with the R420.

Like Nvidia has been doing with PS 2.0? Nothing stopping you from buying a 6800 when it's released, that's a choice you'll have to make on your own.

ATI did not invent PS 2.0 and PS 3.0 and neither did Nvidia, but they both know the when, hows and what's about it. They take different paths for different reasons, we'll just have to wait for 12 months and see who took the smarter path.

 

[Bjorn]

No, PS 4.0 is the future.

PS 3.0 is a baby step toward that, with as much of a future as PS 1.4 had. What's been holding us back is crappy PS 2.0 performance from a certain venfdor...

Not everybody agrees with you on that:

SM 3.0 is going to be good enough for some time. There is only one big step left (before GPU start evolving just like CPUs --> performance only) that should allow classic global illumination algorithms to be efficient on GPUs. I doubt SM 4.0 will provide that.

And i don't agree with your interpretation of the Dave Orton interview about Ati not supporting SM 3.0.

From Dave Orton interview:

I think the main feature that people are looking at is the 3.0 shader model and I think that’s a valid question. What we felt was that in order to really appeal to the developers who are shipping volume games in ’04 Shader 2.0 would be the volume shader model of use. We do think it will be important down the road.

Doesn't sound like they're going to go straight for SM4.0 in my book. And isn't a bit premature to say that SM4.0 will be the future (well, it'll be released in the future but.. ) since we don't really know when it's going to be released and what it actually is ? What if MS decides to wait with SM4.0 and if the X-Box2, next Nintendo will be SM3.0 (or at least close to) parts ?

 

[Zengar]

*sigh* I hope you realise how perverse you are being right now. You might aswell say the X800 is still the trend of the voodoo1, i.e.: colouring lot's of triangles really fast. This is what all 3d chips still do basicly, but you'd be ignoring all the technological improvements needed to make them draw much prettier and faster than before.

Oh, you are simplifying a way too much.
Every card is the trend of voodoo1, without doubt. I've got nothing against the card which is very fast and pretty, but I think it's a bit
uncool to use the same technology for several years now. Nvidia tried something new(NV30) and loose. But once more: ATI has a perfect marketing tactics.
And for everyone who's saying thet PS 3.0 is irrelevant: I'm a graphics developer myself, and believe me, I do know what i'm talking about. PS 3.0 is a VERY huge step since PS2.0 and I cannot imagine - by the best will - that PS 4.0 will bring more new things then PS 3.0

 

[Sabastian]

No, PS 4.0 is the future.

PS 3.0 is a baby step toward that, with as much of a future as PS 1.4 had. What's been holding us back is crappy PS 2.0 performance from a certain venfdor...

Not everybody agrees with you on that:

That might be. But there is little denying the fact that the NV3X series was playing second fiddle to the R3XX series in terms of pixel shader 2.0 performance comparatively speaking.

 

[Hanners]

Therein lies the problem. Everybody knows that PS 3.0 is the future. And yet ATI is holding us back with the R420.

That's a bit of a stretch, considering that we don't even know how 3.0 shader code will perform on NV40.

 

[Bjorn]

That might be. But there is little denying the fact that the NV3X series was playing second fiddle to the R3XX series in terms of pixel shader 2.0 performance comparatively speaking.

That's true of course and i don't think anyone is denying it. (I don't think even Nvidia denies it, althoug perhaps not to the public). And of course, the NV3X had more problems then just SM2.0 speed. It lacked a lof of the more important optional SM2.0 features, it had crappy FSAA compared to the R300 and the features that it had over the R300 was unusable other then for developers.

 

[Randell]

evry one still says ati has better IQ? in most of all the reviews i saw NV has equaly matched ATI's IQ .The iq issue dosent hold any ground any more

no gamma corrected AA

nVidia's 8xAA is unusable compared to ATI's 6xAA

thats what people are saying

 

[Sandwich]

*sigh* I hope you realise how perverse you are being right now. You might aswell say the X800 is still the trend of the voodoo1, i.e.: colouring lot's of triangles really fast. This is what all 3d chips still do basicly, but you'd be ignoring all the technological improvements needed to make them draw much prettier and faster than before.

Oh, you are simplifying a way too much.
Every card is the trend of voodoo1, without doubt. I've got nothing against the card which is very fast and pretty, but I think it's a bit
uncool to use the same technology for several years now. Nvidia tried something new(NV30) and loose. But once more: ATI has a perfect marketing tactics.
And for everyone who's saying thet PS 3.0 is irrelevant: I'm a graphics developer myself, and believe me, I do know what i'm talking about. PS 3.0 is a VERY huge step since PS2.0 and I cannot imagine - by the best will - that PS 4.0 will bring more new things then PS 3.0

Yes I was simplifying there to put things in perspective. Do you really feel the SM3.0 nametag is really so important? At this point?

Afteral, all these technologies are just about drawing prettier and faster, more efficiently(cheaper).
Does the 6800 do this better than the X800? If not, than why say the 6800 is more advanced?
You shouldn't just ask what SM3.0 can do, but also what can it NOT do. One of the advantages of NOT doing SM3.0, is fewer transistors, which in the case of the R420 lead to a more harmonious design.

 

[Atomahawk]

From Dave Orton interview

"I think the main feature that people are looking at is the 3.0 shader model and I think that’s a valid question. What we felt was that in order to really appeal to the developers who are shipping volume games in ’04 Shader 2.0 would be the volume shader model of use."

That's exactly why they held off on 3.0, they know what the developers are working on right now and what will be shipping in the near future not 18 months from now. Useing ATI's logic this round they figured hey these guys are working PS 2.0 more extensivley, lets give them a card that performs like the dickens with it. This makes perfect business sense under this context. Nvidia needs to get start thinking a little deeper into making certain their 6800 and cards derived from, implements PS 2.0 properly before trying to prove they can do PS 3.0. Because frankly if they can't get something done under 2.0 I doubt they will do 3.0 right.

Just my opinion.

 

[webmedic]

Pretty simple really, people who want to fiddle with programming etc. would be daft not to go with NV40 to access SM 3.0. I'd guess this is only a very small part of the market, however.

SFF fans are going to go with ATI and Linux fans will go with NV.

No not really nvidia drivers for linux really do pretty much suck and wont even compile on the current 2.6 kernel. Ati's drivers under linux are very comparable. This is comming from somebody using linux for 7 or so years now not some noob who just cant figure out how to compile things under linux.

Now instelation is a whole different story but for me mandrake provides rpm's of both so it is very easy for either card. accept as mentioned that nvidia does not work properly with the new kernels.

As usual the battle lines will really be drawn in the $200-$300 market so the main fight will be between RV4X0 and NV41/whatever.

Hopefully a third party will also release something to compete soon.

Interesting thought. I really liked the herc cards using the power vr chips. But nvidia torpedoed them for doing it.

 

[Snarfy]

evry one still says ati has better IQ? in most of all the reviews i saw NV has equaly matched ATI's IQ .The iq issue dosent hold any ground any more

no gamma corrected AA

nVidia's 8xAA is unusable compared to ATI's 6xAA

thats what people are saying

not to mention that ati can run it playably at 2 resolutions higher :?

 

[Bjorn]

That's exactly why they held off on 3.0, they know what the developers are working on right now and what will be shipping in the near future not 18 months from now.

I dont' buy that for one second. There were no developers working on PS2.0 games (as in, that would be released the same year) when they released the R9700. And i doubt that the R9700 series won't run all SM2.0 games released this year so i don't see how the X800 will help those developers. It'll help the consumers though but that's another issue.

 

[webmedic]

I don't understand the world anymore...

I cannot believe that noone sees that 6800 is a much more anvanced card then X800.

Well no not really it does some advanced features but nothing most game devs are going to use very much for right now. The main thing is not that it is so much more advanced than the r420 but that it is way more advanced than the nv3x series of cards.

Has nvidia redeemed themselves for the nv3x. Well yes partially but in the end the nv40 does not compete against the nv3x but the r420. Compared to the nv3x it is much more advanced though.

What is R420?
It's R300 with doubled pipeline count and minor advantages. It support nothing, nothing new. It's still register combiner hardware, much more advanced and complicated of course, but it's still the trend of GeForce256

Wrong it based on the 9600 series of cards not the r300 based cards

What is NV40?
It supports floating-point blending, much richer instruction set, PS3.0 etc.
Of course it is heavier, larger and consumes more watts. You must pay for the feature set.

Don't get me wrong, I'm also quite shure that ATI will win this round, because R420 targets existing DX9.0 segment, heavily optimising linear pixel-processing and NV40 targets future, what may be not so wise. ATI show here clear buissness mind, which does everything to get more profit. But it's Nvidia who provides the new technologies, not ATI(althougt ATI did it one, with 9700).
To say it short: the existing market is not ready for the 6800... it's an amusing card, and I can see nothing that could impress me on X800.

well the problem here for nvidia ia that they have been playing catchup becasue ATI delivered a superior card almost 2 years ago. Dont get me wrong they have more than caught up feature and speed wise but will it be enough?

I will say right here I dont really care about this or that stupid argument I'm refering to what people actually went out and bought. The majority of the consumers for almost the last 2 years have seen ati as superior product overall. This is waht nvidia needs to catch up to. Also if they pull any cheating this time around it is not going to look to good for them.

 

[Heathen]

I voted R420 assuming it gets into stores first.

 

[Randell]

not to mention that ati can run it playably at 2 resolutions higher :?

well I do subscribe to the notion far cry is a special case until the SM3.0 patch etc.

However, for people with restricted resolutions (LCD's mainly), the X800pro is ideal as it offers usable 6x AA, with prospect of many games working well with 4xAA/2xT (8xeffective) at 60hz.