[germanjulian]

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=15902

Date: Thursday, May 13, 2004, 8:54:16 AM
Subject: For open discussion: Old technology vs. advanced, brand new design?

People are starting to get it:

http://www.firingsquad.com/features/nv40-r420faceoff/

So I'm sitting here looking at the benchmarks in the X800 Pro and X800 XT Platinum Edition preview and recalling a conversation I had with Brandon when he arrived in Toronto and attended ATI's press event. He came away with the highly erroneous impression that the X800 would be faster. Unfortunately for him, his own article proves me correct. The X800 XT isn't faster than the 6800 Ultra. In fact, ATI didn't even have the minerals to bring the real XT to the party, instead they come to the table with a Platinum Edition card. Why would you bring a ringer, unless you're scared that your regular product can't measure up to the competition?

Whatever, I'll let Brandon have his cheat card. It still gets beaten in half the benchmarks, despite having the more mature drivers in Brandon's own words. Mature drivers are all great and wonderful, on release, but this is still the pre-season, time for testing and tuning, and I don't remember anybody winning the Super Bowl in August. Plus, if we look back on NV3X, we know damn well just how much NVIDIA can squeeze out of its cards with every driver release. They went from gimp when the NV30 launched, to being neck-and-neck with ATI now with the 5950 Ultra. NV40 is a wildly different architecture, and I'm willing to bet a Tommyburger and Tommy's chili cheese fries that that NVIDIA will improve the performance of its card a lot more over the coming year than ATI can. I mean seriously, what is R420? ATI abandoned the forward-looking R400 in favor of a card meant for "today" performance, an overglorified R300 with double the pipes, one new feature (3Dc) and not even *half* as many shader instructions as the 5950 Ultra has. The cards are so similar, ATI could just stick a new name into the driver file and be as optimized as they'll ever be. So Brandon, if you want to defend technology ATI dug up in archaeological excavations from 2002, you're more than welcome. At best you'll just have another Alamo on your hands, Texan.

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uuuuhhh lol.. what an isnt the x800 pro just as fast in all the benchmakrs I have seen or was I dreaming... lol

[David Coleman]

He's right about the Nvidia drivers with the NV3x: every release, new cheats :lol:

[JigPu]

nVidia does beat out the XT a little over half the time on raw speed benchmarks from what I've seen. By "raw speed" I mean benches where they ran the cards at 1600x1200 0xAA/0xAF (no neato after-effects applied). However, it wasn't by much that the 6800 would beat the X800, and as soon as you enabled the AA/AF on the cards the X800 would pull into the lead.

Yes the 6800 is faster when you're not doing anything to the image, but the X800 beats it out handily once you apply AA/AF at any resolution.

JigPu

[ninthebin]

as soon as you enabled the AA/AF on the cards the X800 would pull into the lead.

indeed, the 6800 seems to take a little less of a hit with AA than the X800 with AA, but takes so much of a hit compared to the the X800 with AF, with both enabled the X800 comes out on top.

and its been said since the R300, NV30...your not buying a top end card like that and not enabling things like that so no IQ performance wont really be that important to you

[Mr.Guvernment]

LOL

that is from an Official Gainward employee? if i were Gainward i would claim other wise!

David Coleman, you took the words right out of my mouth!! I guess we know who's pocket Gainward is in! and it isnt ATI.

NVIDIA is often ahead in raw power - but as always - once you get into AA and AF ATI usually pulls ahead and usally by a considerable amount. - then you now the have "trust" factor with NVIDIA and their promises of %25+++ more speed with drives abc!

As i have mentioned before - when i buy a video card - i expect to get it's full potential out of the box! not have to wait a few months for some drivers that * might* give me more performance - or even take away from it for that matter.

[Crap]

Originally posted by Mr.Guvernment
As i have mentioned before - when i buy a video card - i expect to get it's full potential out of the box! not have to wait a few months for some drivers that * might* give me more performance - or even take away from it for that matter.

Then I guess you haven't been satisfied with any of your previous video card purchases? No newly released product will perform at 100%. There are always kinks in the system, which is why we get constant driver releases. If ATI had released a *new* product this time around, your arguement would be null, wouldn't it? I guess it is easier to follow the crowd and bash nvidia, though.

[johan851]

Hey now...that doesn't make him a crowd follower. Be nice.

I think he refers more to the fact that you shouldn't buy an nVidia card with the hopes that better drivers will give you the edge. Both cards are sort of in the early driver stage, so there definitely is potential for performance increase. Mr. Guvernment is just saying that the potential performance increase isn't something to bank on and/or base your purchase on. He's not really bashing nVidia - just pointing out some of their weak points as of late.

[HawainPanda]

driver enhancement is a must though..gpu's have to handle all sorts of ongoing changes with games..and so optimization of the software is natural...but for now...i like the 6800 ultra , the x800 is awsome too..but the 6800 ultra has the encoding stuff..which seem pretty awsome