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Alexvrb - Apr 14, 2004

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  Alexvrb Apr 14, 2004


I don't favor one company or the other, so it is more interesting for me. The FX line wasn't too impressive, but it is possible that their new cards will be what the GF4 Ti series was. That is to say, solid. The first volley... is sailing through the air towards ATI, lets see how they reply.

 it290 Apr 14, 2004
Bah. Every time a new card comes out from Nvidia, they tout it as the 'biggest performance leap ever'. Looking at the stats, it doesn't seem like that much. And I'm kinda sick of the Nvidia cards with friggin' huge heatsinks/fans. That thing won't even fit inside my case, so there's no way I'll be getting one.

edit - not to mention the power requirement. 480 watts? What the hell are they smoking?

 IceDigger Apr 14, 2004
Can't wait for ATI's next card to come out. Wonder who is going to win this round.

 gameboy900 Apr 14, 2004
I guess when you think about it it's not really that amazing that the new card is so much faster then the old ones. I mean after all the Radeon 9800 is year and a half old techonology. Which is still amazing compared to the former top of the line Nvidia card. Once the new ATI cards come out soonish we can do a proper comparision of the new next gen cards. Right now it's like comparing the brand new 2005 Vette to a 1940's Model-T Ford. Of course the new car is gonna be significantly more powerful.

 Pearl Jammzz Apr 14, 2004
C6...yummy.....427 supercharged...*fap fap fap......SpLoTcH~*

 mal Apr 15, 2004
mg:

This is just insane.

I can understand a dual slot cooling system if it's passive (for quietness' sake), but an active one?

Forget it.

 Alexvrb Apr 15, 2004

  
	
	

		
		

			Originally posted by mal@Apr 15, 2004 @ 06:14 AM



 mg: 



This is just insane. 



I can understand a dual slot cooling system if it's passive (for quietness' sake), but an active one? 



Forget it.


Dual slot is the way to go anyway. Think about it, modern GPUs dump out so much heat, its not smart to put another card right next to it TO BEGIN WITH. Doing so puts that card at risk, and also blocks airflow. I've seen people overheat their GPUs because they had a sound card or something stupidly smothering the fan on their graphics card. However, not all dual-slot solutions are equally good. My favorite design is the type that pulls in air from the case and exhausts it directly out the back, rather than dumping it into the case.

Oh, and part of the reason why they put a dual-slot solution on it at the last minute was because it was quieter than what they were going to use. Speaking of which, at lower RPMs, many bulky dual-slot solutions with fans can be pretty quiet, quieter than standard solutions.

it290: It actually is pretty fast. Look at some of the benchmarks, modern games running at playable speeds at 1600x1200 with anisotropic filtering AND FSAA??? I'm not saying their solution will turn out to be faster than ATI's, but there's no doubt that it is fast. Also, the card itself doesn't consume much more power than their previous flagship models. But it is still pretty gross (for those who don't know, 480W is the recommendation for the PSU, not the amount it eats). That's what happens with the newest highend cards lately. ATI isn't totally free of this taint, either.

 it290 Apr 15, 2004
Yeah, the benchmarks are nice, I'm just saying I don't thing they're quite as insane as Nvidia wants to claim. That's hardly surprising though. But it seems they still haven't quite caught up to ATi in the image quality department. High level FSAA and aniso are nice, but if you're going all out like that, the rest of the image quality should be up to snuff as well. I'm sure that's partially a driver issue however.

I don't know what the power recommendations are on the latest FX cards, but I know the GF4Ti's weren't anywhere near that. One of my PCs uses a 250W PS; I ran a Ti4600 in that with no problems whatsoever, and I'm currently running a Radeon 9500 Pro in it that also functions perfectly. Most people don't have more than 400W power supplies (if that); many people who might otherwise buy this card may be turned off by the fact that they'd have to shell out for a new PS as well. But I guess that's the way it often is with bleeding edge cards; I find it's usually better to wait for a budget model to come out that runs cooler with comparable performance..but again, ATi seems to be better at releasing those type of cards.

 mal Apr 15, 2004

  
	
	

		
		

			Originally posted by Alexvrb@Apr 15, 2004 @ 04:58 PM



 Dual slot is the way to go anyway. Think about it, modern GPUs dump out so much heat, its not smart to put another card right next to it TO BEGIN WITH. Doing so puts that card at risk, and also blocks airflow. I've seen people overheat their GPUs because they had a sound card or something stupidly smothering the fan on their graphics card.


Going by this theory, wouldn't you need to leave another slot free to act as a buffer? You know, a triple slot arrangement?

 Alexvrb Apr 15, 2004

  
	
	

		
		

			Originally posted by mal@Apr 15, 2004 @ 10:48 AM



 Going by this theory, wouldn't you need to leave another slot free to act as a buffer? You know, a triple slot arrangement?


Depends how it is arranged. You could pull in air from a different location, and the casing covering the cooling solution doesn't care if there's something pressed against it. If you pull air straight in (like they do), it shouldn't consume the entire second slot area, and should leave enough space. But they can always be stupid, too. The best solution would be for them to use a better case standard in which the GPU faces up (in a tower config).

There are always alternative solutions if it really bugs you. Watercooling lets you have it all, the quietest, coolest, fastest hardware out there. Yes, it can get expensive. If that bothers you too, don't worry about the high end. Let the performance freaks do that, and you can get a reasonably quiet and cool mid-range solution.

 Tagrineth Apr 17, 2004

  
	
	

		
		

			Originally posted by gameboy900@Apr 14, 2004 @ 11:11 PM



 I guess when you think about it it's not really that amazing that the new card is so much faster then the old ones. I mean after all the Radeon 9800 is year and a half old techonology. Which is still amazing compared to the former top of the line Nvidia card. Once the new ATI cards come out soonish we can do a proper comparision of the new next gen cards. Right now it's like comparing the brand new 2005 Vette to a 1940's Model-T Ford. Of course the new car is gonna be significantly more powerful.


That isn't really a valid analogy.

The 9800 IS based on the R300 that powered Radeon 9700, which is indeed slowly getting old... but the core is in fact updated and more powerful.

Saying it's outdated because "it's based on the same technology" is like saying a GeForceFX 5950 should only be compared to TNT-era cards, because hey, GFFX is technically an eventual derivative of the TNT architecture (yes, this is in fact the case - GF6 is the first ground-up new design from nVidia since TNT).

 Quakester2000 Apr 17, 2004

  
	
	

		
		

			Originally posted by it290@Apr 15, 2004 @ 03:15 AM



 Bah. Every time a new card comes out from Nvidia, they tout it as the 'biggest performance leap ever'. Looking at the stats, it doesn't seem like that much. And I'm kinda sick of the Nvidia cards with friggin' huge heatsinks/fans. That thing won't even fit inside my case, so there's no way I'll be getting one.



edit - not to mention the power requirement. 480 watts? What the hell are they smoking?


Remember this is what happened to 3DFX. There cards were enormous required lots of power e.g. a seperate power cable and just didnt give out such great performance and look where they are today. All we have to do is wait for nvidia to start making there own graphics cards and not do oem stuff and they will have made the same mistakes that 3dfx did.

 it290 Apr 17, 2004
Yes, Nvidia has certainly gotten a bit arrogant, but I think they're smart enough not to fail completely like 3dfx did. Although their high-end cards have gone a bit off the deep end in some respects, they still offer some excellent budget solutions and that is where the real money is, IMHO.

 Tagrineth Apr 23, 2004
Rumour has it R420 is going to give NV40 some 'heated' competition. What exactly that means, I'm not sure... but that's what's been said by the NDA jerks.

 racketboy Apr 23, 2004
I'm just hoping this makes the older ones cheaper.

I have never had even close to a top of the line GPU.

 mal Apr 23, 2004
I know what you mean - GPU envy is a terrible thing. :lol:

On the other hand, I've never really played any games that would need a top of the line card anyway.

 Curtis Apr 23, 2004
There seems to be some evidence... that nVidia are fudging the benchmark figures with this card as they have done in the past with other cards. I'm not really sure how significant this is...

 ExCyber Apr 24, 2004

  
	
	

		
		

			I'm just hoping this makes the older ones cheaper.


Amen to that. Hopefully fanless too, if they end up rolling the older cores over to newer processes. But I suppose that's the sort of thing that's likely to be confined to laptops.

 it290 Apr 24, 2004
Nah, I'm sure we'll see some new fanless models down the road somewhere.... I'm sure most businesses would prefer not having extraneous fans.

 Gallstaff Apr 24, 2004
Will I ever be able to say that my computer can run a game better than my xbox without droping over 300 bucks for a new videocard?

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