Hold off on 7950's, read inside!

[LeAd_Poisoning]

wot kind of visual difference will i see on DX10 games (Crysis, BF2142) with a DX9 card, surely not that much?

wots this about DX10 games not running on DX9 cards, sounds like crap, why wud developers restrict themselves to such a small market demographic, its simple business to make the product broadly available to as many users as possible to maximise profits regardless of how poor gfx mite look on older cards, im sure it will even run, bare minimum on DX8 cards like the ATi 9800 and nvidia 5 series

 

[ViperJohn]

wot kind of visual difference will i see on DX10 games (Crysis, BF2142) with a DX9 card, surely not that much?

wots this about DX10 games not running on DX9 cards, sounds like crap, why wud developers restrict themselves to such a small market demographic, its simple business to make the product broadly available to as many users as possible to maximise profits regardless of how poor gfx mite look on older cards, im sure it will even run, bare minimum on DX8 cards like the ATi 9800 and nvidia 5 series

The visual difference is going to depend on the game developer and how codes the game. It may be very little or it may be a lot. Only time will tell the tale there.

A PURE DX10 game wouldn't run on DX9 max hardware (it also wouldn't run with DX10 hardware on Windows XP either) but it would be game suicide for any gamer maker to do that for another 18-24 months at the minimum. DX10 requires BOTH new DX10 hardware and Windows Vista to run. It is pretty safe to figure that with the costs involved it will be 18-24 months before fully DX10 capable systems (both hardware and the OS) will have 50% installed in the home penetration.

Game makers will code for a DX9 (or possibly openGL) fall back for quite a while to keep from cutting off the market available to them to sell to.

Viper

 

[UglyChild]

Now that I have your attention

I see number of people drooling over 7950's and planning to spend big $$$ to get one. Let me be the first one to tell you that you will be wasting your money!!!

Why?

G80 is being scheduled for release this Semtember most likely, if not early Q4. This will be a DX10 compliant card so it won't go to waste. It won't have full implementation of Shader Model 4.0, but it will be Vista ready and will give R600 run for it's money.

More info coming soon...

source: theinquirer

yeahhhh...okay dokay... ill belive it when i see it....

 

[RedDragonXXX]

Few more details about G80 have been poping out;

It will have 32 pixel pipes and 16 vertex and geometry shaders.

Most likely it will be clocked above 700MHz.

Nvidia G80 meets DX 10 spec with 'dis-unified' shader

Nvidia G80 is taped out

 

[LeAd_Poisoning]

Isnt the reliability of the enquirer sketchy at best, but alas, i shall indeed hold off on the transition to PCI-E for a few months. I was going to upgrade to a HIS X1900XT IceQ3 but i might aswell wait until the R600 or G80 is released, probably until the R600 hits the shelves -> competitive pricing