5punk

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3338

Good news for ATI fanboys (read: me and KV), the Radeon 4850 is the fastest card you can buy for $200; it beats the 9800GTX pretty much across the board. Two of the in crossfire mode are just about the same speed as the new GTX280. Hopefully this turns AMD around from its' current slump.


*cue fanboy praise*

what about the 9800GTX+?

Dr. kitteny berk wrote:what about the 9800GTX+?

I suspect that since the 9800GTX+ is just a die shrink and clock speed bump that it isn't going to significantly affect the performance/cost difference between the 4850 and the 9800GTX, but then again I don't know yet. I haven't seen any 9800GTX+ benchmarks yet.

9800GTX+ seems to be a couple of fps faster than the HD 4850 but also costs a bit more. ATI do have another advantage though, they'll be doing Havok physics acceleration soon which is far better than physx like nvidia are doing.

I'm looking forward to seeing what the HD 4870 can do, hopefully it'll do at least as well as the GTX 260 but at a much lower price to give nvidia a fright and horse them to be a bit more competitive.

Lee wrote:I'm looking forward to seeing what the HD 4870 can do, hopefully it'll do at least as well as the GTX 260 but at a much lower price to give nvidia a fright and horse them to be a bit more competitive.

Problem here, (as with last gen) is that ATI's top card will most likely equal nvidia's mid range high end card, and will be utterly trounced by nvidia's top end card.

Unfortunately, that makes ATI pretty much worthless to those seeking a top end card to last a while.


On the subject of physics engines, I'll be surprised if we don't end up with some level of emulation at some point.

Also worth remembering Valve are now in nvidia's TWIMTBP programme, so there's at least a small chance they may consider physx for their next engine.

Dr. kitteny berk wrote:
Problem here, (as with last gen) is that ATI's top card will most likely equal nvidia's mid range high end card, and will be utterly trounced by nvidia's top end card.

Unfortunately, that makes ATI pretty much worthless to those seeking a top end card to last a while.


On the subject of physics engines, I'll be surprised if we don't end up with some level of emulation at some point.

Also worth remembering Valve are now in nvidia's TWIMTBP programme, so there's at least a small chance they may consider physx for their next engine.

Well, ATI isn't going for a single GPU card for high-end. I am pretty sure in a bit they'll come out with a 4870X2 meant to compete with nvidia's high end parts.

But yeah if you want the absolute fastest single GPU (as multi-GPU setups can be rather wonky) then you'll still need to go nvidia.

Dr. kitteny berk wrote:On the subject of physics engines, I'll be surprised if we don't end up with some level of emulation at some point

Thanks to Trev: http://www.5punk.co.uk/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=24682

Oddly enough, I'm already running the 177.39 drivers in the hope of physx hax for the 8800gtx

I meant more Physx emulating Havok on hardware, and vice versa, Similar to non creative cards running EAX.

as if on cue, 4850 vs. 9800GTX+

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/731/1/

With CPUs going multi-core I don't see why we'd need the physics computations on the GFX card at all when there is a perfectly good CPU core that can do floating point calcs extremely well available already.

The speed of the link between cores of the (monolithic) cpu will put the speed of the link between a cpu core and a gfx card to shame.

In fact in the future I can see the need for separate 3d processing cards becoming redundant all together - a fair way off now tho.

deject wrote:as if on cue, 4850 vs. 9800GTX+

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/731/1/

as expected, nvidia release something just fast enough to fuck with amd.

I must say, I'm surprised the 8800GTX is keeping up that well in the tests too... want a GTX280 though

Fear wrote:With CPUs going multi-core I don't see why we'd need the physics computations on the GFX card at all when there is a perfectly good CPU core that can do floating point calcs extremely well available already.

It is becoming less needed these days, but I'm pretty sure the nature of graphics cards makes them much more suited for physics work than a CPU.

Fear wrote:In fact in the future I can see the need for separate 3d processing cards becoming redundant all together - a fair way off now tho.

I'd actually expect it to go the other direction, in a way, I'm thinking GPGPUs will take over from CPUs in a lot of things, mainly because GPUs are much more programmable than CPUs.

GPUs are very good at concurrent vector calculations.

I'd assume physics cards are very good at concurrent Newtonian mechanical calculations.

A generic CPU is good at everything.

So, if you were to add the instructions for vector calcs and Newtonian calcs to the CPU and increase the quantity of transistors in the CPU for improved concurrency, you'd have shock and awe in a cpu.

Just say in the future you have a 24 core CPU - imagine how powerful it would be if you could, on a whim, decide how many cores you are going to dedicate to gfx, to physics, to general game code, etc. The current system is quite wasteful, as right now there is a GPU doing fuck all while I write this post. Similarly when playing HL2 there is a CPU being wasted (underutilised).

I'll bet you a on it.

To be honest, right now it could go either way, either GPUs with CPUyness to them, or CPUs with GPUyness.

Whatever happens will be both interesting and awesome.

Wow, 9800GTX+ seems to be overclockable to near 9800GX2 speeds according to that review, seems like a really good value card.

ATI will aparently have a 4870X2 out within the next two months which will almost definately beat nvidias GTX 280 and they have no way of competing with that until the end of the year when they move the GT200s to 55nm.

I'm really going to laugh at the people who impulse bought GTX 260s and 280s on launch day when nvidia are forced to cut the prices by alot very soon.

Lee wrote:ATI will aparently have a 4870X2 out within the next two months which will almost definately beat nvidias GTX 280 and they have no way of competing with that until the end of the year when they move the GT200s to 55nm.

I'd expect nvidia have already got a GX2 280 planned for when the X2s drop, that'll put them back into the same position as they're in now, but more convincingly.

First 4870 review is out: http://en.expreview.com/2008/06/24/firs ... d-hd-4850/

Its faster than the GTX 260 yet costs alot less, seems to have very good antialiasing performance aswell. Only problem really is it reaches almost 100C so it'll probably need aftermarket cooling.

That site is full of engrish!

I'll be sticking with my gtx until the x2's drop from each maker and we get to see how the 280 fares against a 4870x2.

Given the fact that so far the ATi stuff seems to run really fucking hot and hungry, I can't see them being in any hurry to release an x2 because it'll need kilowatt psu's.

Nvidia still possess the fastest card on the market and that's bragging rights to them.

Also - I still get annoyed at price differences between here and merka too, case in point is the evga 280 gtx ssc edition here it's £560 but in merka it's £339. (prices taken from ocock and newegg)

HereComesPete wrote:Given the fact that so far the ATi stuff seems to run really fucking hot and hungry, I can't see them being in any hurry to release an x2 because it'll need kilowatt psu's.

Don't be ridiculous Pete. My 3870 doesn't draw any more power than an 8800GT, usually less. They do run quite hot, yes, but since they're built on a 55nm process they don't suck as much power. You might need a kilowatt for two X2 cards, but a single one can run on a decent 650-800W PSU with no problem.

deject wrote:
Don't be ridiculous Pete. My 3870 doesn't draw any more power than an 8800GT, usually less. They do run quite hot, yes, but since they're built on a 55nm process they don't suck as much power. You might need a kilowatt for two X2 cards, but a single one can run on a decent 650-800W PSU with no problem.

I think he is generalising, based on my HD2900's love of electrons.

Killavodka wrote:
I think he is generalising, based on my HD2900's love of electrons.

yes your GPU is crap.