The X800 is here

[Arrowhead]

DOnt forget these cards are no where near a total refinement stage, drivers are in the early stages and the card ranges have yet to develop, id wait and let these beasts mature even more, and hey they might even be cheaper by then!

[Wildcard]

Just like you there a lot of people who would like to get any of these cards ASAP. This is where ATi has a slight lead with its cards hitting stores in this week. Moreover ATi "no nonsense" single slot design with single molex will be a huge hit with manufacturers like Dell etc.,

Kinda like the Geforce 6800 GT ?

[jerry]

Kinda like the Geforce 6800 GT ?

exactly !

I like this card most out of all these newcomers. Its got 16 pixel pipelines (compared to 12 of X800 Pro) and its got a very good overclock. The overclocked benches beat the Ultra Extreme's standard benches. Check them on FiringSquad. :devil:

[benostiguy]

Woah, the screenies at TechReport look awesome!!!! :woot:

I am impressed by the card/cards. Hopefully they will be affordable at first though...i don't want to buy a video card at 500 bones frickin' Eh!

Anyways, they look sweet, finally some cool cooling on them as well. But from the screenies i saw they were still AGP cards, soooo will they have then in the new PCI Express?

[DirtyLarry Veteran]

Hey larry hows it goin fella! :p

very good mate i cant complain. how about you?

and jerry... very, very valid points. not only did ATi obviously release a very damn solid product 2 weeks after Nvidia announced the 6800, but they will be available sooner (correct me if i am wrong but i have still yet to see any release dates for the 6800's?) and also without the need to have to possibly upgrade power supply, etc. in this regard clearly ATi is the winner.

and adamp2p, i never said Nvidia was the winner, I was just simply making a point that one can report facts from a bias perspective if one chooses to, thats all.

with that said i feel we, the consumers, are the winners here. all i want is competition, which despite what some may believe, i personally believe we finally got some.

[adamp2p]

very good mate i cant complain. how about you?

and jerry... very, very valid points. not only did ATi obviously release a very damn solid product 2 weeks after Nvidia announced the 6800, but they will be available sooner (correct me if i am wrong but i have still yet to see any release dates for the 6800's?) and also without the need to have to possibly upgrade power supply, etc. in this regard clearly ATi is the winner.

and adamp2p, i never said Nvidia was the winner, I was just simply making a point that one can report facts from a bias perspective if one chooses to, thats all.

with that said i feel we, the consumers, are the winners here. all i want is competition, which despite what some may believe, i personally believe we finally got some.

Hey guys, I am just trying to bring the most information possible to the discussion. But when the entire tech community is saying the same thing, it is hard not to go along with what they are saying.

This is an interesting article by Sander Sassen:

http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/article/1711/

This is just one of those days when you have to pass judgment on two products that are both excellent but designed from two different perspectives. At one hand you have ATi?s Radeon X800 XT, small, quiet, low power, but with plenty of processing power. On the other hand there?s Nvidia?s GeForce 6800 Ultra, big, powerful, lots of raw processing power and plenty of new features, but also requiring more power. The Radeon X800 XT reminds me of a polished ruby, as there?s already a solid base of drivers because it is based on a previous architecture, the Radeon X800 XT will therefore be able to shine from the start, but will also not be much more than that, a polished ruby.

The 6800 Ultra however is a diamond in the rough, freshly excavated and off to be cut and polished. That cut and polishing process is what?s going to make or break the diamond, it can be either a true 24-carat diamond or one of lesser quality. What I?m referring to is that the success of the GeForce 6800 Ultra is largely determined by how Nvidia chooses to tap into the potential locked inside this new architecture. We?re talking about drivers, industry support for pixel shader 3.0 and 32-bit rendering, all these things have to fall into place to turn a rough diamond into a true 24-carat diamond. I?m quite sure Nvidia will go the distance to make sure their new architecture delivers on its promises but it?ll take a while for drivers and industry support to mature.

So at the end of the day we have the Radeon X800 XT, a card that?s able to perform right out of the box, which has drivers that are mature enough to receive a WHQL certification soon but also has a performance level that?s basically set in stone. ATi has been working on similar drivers for the past two years, so don?t expect big leaps in performance, a marginal increase is about the best you can expect. And then there?s the GeForce 6800 Ultra, with release candidate drivers at best, drivers that show promise, even though they?re still an early build. But the potential is there to boost performance significantly, offering performance levels far beyond what we?ve seen up till now.

And how about the clockspeed both these graphics processors run at? ATi used to have a lower clockspeed than Nvidia, yet offering better performance. Things seem to have reversed now, ATi needs a 520MHz graphics processor to keep pace with Nvidia?s 450MHz processor, this means that Nvidia?s new architecture is faster and more efficient. Both use a 0.13-micron process to manufacture their processors, Nvidia talked to IBM and cut a deal with them, whereas ATi turned to TSMC for their silicon. Both these manufacturers have what it takes, but neither will be able to go around the clockspeed limits imposed by the process used. About 600MHz is as far as you?ll be able to clock a >150 million transistor 0.13-micron part. This means that ATi is already giving itself very little headroom, Nvidia however has got some room to play, a good 150 MHz, douAll things considered ATi?s Radeon X800 XT is an excellent performer, but also one that has little headroom left. If Nvidia has good yields on their parts and decides to crank up the clockspeed to 500MHz tomorrow ATi won?t be able to keep pace. If they also release a new driver which boosts performance by a considerable margin ATi will be left biting the dust. ATi however has a part out today that has mature drivers and excellent performance, Nvidia has yet to ship their first card based on their NV4x architecture. I?d say the best card to buy today is ATi?s Radeon X800 XT, as it is a safe bet, with solid drivers and performance and it'll be a top performer for a while. However tomorrow, I expect much more from Nvidia?s GeForce 6800 Ultra, ATi had to push real hard to keep pace with the first product of a new generation. To me that?s a tell tale sign that Nvidia's new architecture holds a promise.idia's new architecture holds a promise.

[Aryos]

Well,

we all know that ATI has a usual strategy of "unlocking" features in their new chips which existed in their previous hardware, but were "locked" by their drivers. Remeber the hardware DivX support they announced a couple of years ago or so which was enabled in their new-to-date chips and the older ones with the new (then) Catalyst drivers? For instance all the latest 1 nad a half year Radeons support displacement maps and such...

The 3D card and gaming developers work together, by raising the hardware needs of their games so people constantly buy new hardware. For instance, Far Cry is a huge example of crappy programming. For God's sake it just uses 1.x shaders and not any huge number of texture resolutions of hardware.

I have an ATI 9600 non Pro and in Far Cry, in high resolution, 1280x1024, 2x antialiasing and 4x anisotropic I get 130 frames.sec, with custom hardware, drivers and DirectX tweaks. I render in Maya 5 with OpenGL 1.5.x hardware support in about realtime. I encode 4 hours of DVD movie in DivX theatre quality in 17 minutes.

The next step in benchmarks is to test the ATI and NVidiot cards in PCI Express. ATI has native PCI XPress support in their chips, while NVidia uses a bridge chip.

It is really becoming rediculus.

[DirtyLarry Veteran]

Hey guys, I am just trying to bring the most information possible to the discussion. But when the entire tech community is saying the same thing, it is hard not to go along with what they are saying.

This is an interesting article by Sander Sassen:

http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/article/1711/

fair enough adamp2p (Y)

and that is a very interesting article, i actually read it before while i was on the hardware analysis site... it is that very article that actually has me leaning towards the 6800... and let me explain why before i am flamed...

yes, the X800 outperforms the 6800 in a good amount of benchmarks... so call me crazy, but i personally feel like i will not see the difference when you are dealing with those high numbers of FPS both cards are in the area to begin with... if it was a dramatic difference like 25 fps between the cards, then maybe i would think differently, but the truth is they are relatively close in most cases. i also personally have never been to concerned with high levels of AA and AF, again that is just my preference, because when a game is at 1600 * 1200, it always looks pretty damn good to me...

so with that being said, and knowing my personal habits when playing games... I like the fact that the 6800's architecture is thinking ahead... yes i realize that there is definitely the chance developers may not develop games using it, but a good amount of games i am playing right now, I see the Nvidia Way its meant to be played logo at the beginning of them, so I am hoping (really, really hoping) a good amount of developers will start to develop with the 6800's architecture in mind.

just my personal opinion. not trying to push it on anyone at all. just stating where my head is at and that is all. to each his own i have always said, and i still say.

[Premgenius]

Looks like I'll be bring home a ATI Radeon X800 XT with a Antec TruBlue 550 :D

[Turn It Down]

Far Cry

http://hardwareanalysis.com/images/articles/large/11131.gif

This is from X-bit labs article

This is FarCry with the highest settings possible. This is 1600x1200 resolution with 4x full-scene antialiasing and 16x anisotropic filtering activated. This is the RADEON X800. And this is absolutely playable. No comments are required for 85% performance improvement over the competing GeForce 6800 Ultra.

[Arrowhead]

interesting, with the same res and AA/AF but with settings on "high" i can attain about 35-40 fps, i guess i dont do so badly, i cant help think about the authenticity of that table.

Larry: yeah im doin fine just prepping for exams hehe, hows the job goin, you seem to be away from MSN an awful lot.

And as my post said above, Wait till the creases have been ironed out, no one can claim top spot as yet.

[DirtyLarry Veteran]

This is from X-bit labs article

http://www.xbitlabs.com/images/video/r420-..._1600_candy.gif

obviously there is a big difference between the two... which leaves the question... which one is right and which one is wrong? :blink:

[Arrowhead]

That table is utter bollocks looking at it again, how can the 6800Ultra lose to the X800 Pro with only 12 pipelines? Also according to that table, the 6800 is "about" on par with a 9800XT which is astoundingly laughable.

Fake.

Edited May 5, 2004 by Arrowhead

[jerry]

Fake.

hmmm... if that is really from X-Bits Labs then I would believe it over any other hardware site cause they dont publish BS. Especially X-Bit Labs, they are known for their in-depth analysis of Videocards ... let me check their review.

[DirtyLarry Veteran]

interesting, with the same res and AA/AF but with settings on "high" i can attain about 35-40 fps, i guess i dont do so badly, i cant help think about the authenticity of that table.

Larry: yeah im doin fine just prepping for exams hehe, hows the job goin, you seem to be away from MSN an awful lot.

And as my post said above, Wait till the creases have been ironed out, no one can claim top spot as yet.

i got laid off from my job awhile back... it was actually the best thing that ever happened to me... i am my own boss right now and just working freelance and so far it has been beyond really good... so i have been off of msn trying to discipline myself and focus on work, and since there has been a good amount i spend the rest of my computer time playing games HAHA, but obviously i still have my addiction to neowin to deal with LOL

and no question good luck with your exams (Y)

and i also do agree, lets also give this all some time, see what happens over the next couple of weeks and or months...

[Chode]

My word many people on these forums are anal retentive.

Seriously, the amount of effort they spend on constructing elaborate (to the point of ridiculous) arguments illustrating only the points that support their own opinion and completely disregarding every other point...

Fan boys... I used to be one.

THEN I GREW UP

[ANova]

THEN I GREW UP

If you really grew up then it would just say fanboys make me mad. Instead it proves your still a fanboy only now you've grown to ignore all evidence that points towards alternate conclusions making you ignorant as well.

At least that's what I gather from that picture.

[Arrowhead]

Hard lines larry, although i guess if the money is still comming in then you cant complain, good luck tya fella. As regarding the cards jerry im simply putting forth my opinion which is the sole purpose of a forum.

Anova dont forget your a fanboy yourself, your older Sigs had many a bad word against Nvidia, so YOU cant talk mate.

[mauseum]

none of the cards are really better

one wins in some test, while other win in other, and ati seems to get ripped in call of duty

COD optimized for Nvidia :blink: :blink: :blink: :blink: :blink: :blink:

[Chode]

If you really grew up then it would just say fanboys make me mad. Instead it proves your still a fanboy only now you've grown to ignore all evidence that points towards alternate conclusions making you ignorant as well.

At least that's what I gather from that picture.

it's called context related comic relief....

and it's a recycled image that I used for something else altogether different ;)

[Krudomanic]

The benchmark results are already available. That is the problem!

Oooh I did nto realise this sorry... :blush: is this on HardOCP by any chance...

[Krudomanic]

im still having a slight problem with the people who are saying the ATi X800 "ownz" the Nvidia 6800, and furthermore taking quotes from sources only showing the X800 favorably... so I am doing my own post, simply taking quotes from the Harware Analysis Website Article... my point is to take these quotes and screenshots and paint a different picture than what others are choosing to tell on here. i am not saying I agree with it or not, but showing how one can easily just take snippets of information and make one card look better than the other...

and please note, I am taking 1600*1200 screenshots and using them as reference because if i am going to spend more than 400$ on a video card, I damn well expect that card to be able to play games at a high resolution like 1600 * 1200

Unreal 2004

http://hardwareanalysis.com/images/articles/large/11119.gif

Far Cry

http://hardwareanalysis.com/images/articles/large/11131.gif

Benchmarks Conculsion

have a good day all

May I add to your dissapointment that I have the res set to 1600x1200 and the card is waked up to the full limit on a Hercules 3D Prophet 9800 pro 128mn card and have no problems with Far Cry...

:)

[HeavyTwenty]

YEAH!!!!

Computers4Sure.com has the upcoming ATI Radeon X800 Pro 256MB AGP Video Card on pre-order for $341 with free shipping.

http://www.computers4sure.com/product.asp?productid=1909833

[DirtyLarry Veteran]

May I add to your dissapointment that I have the res set to 1600x1200 and the card is waked up to the full limit on a Hercules 3D Prophet 9800 pro 128mn card and have no problems with Far Cry...

:)

and is it enjoyable playing the game at a whopping 8 FPS? ;)

[Aryos]

Well, if someone's job is developing he can get a DirectX SDK and complile the sources to fit his machine configutation. Also consider installing ATI's GART driver or a virtual GART driver, even if your PC doesn't require it to have the card work properly (actually no PC requires this after the BX chipset era back in 1998..). You get a lot of extra FPS. It would be also good if ATI or NVidia offered differnet compilations of their drivers based on the user's chipset and CPU...

But working on machines based on a 28 year-old x86 architecture is becoming tiring. With a 533Mhz bus the AGP 8x offers we have asynchronus transfers ang HUGE bottlenecks anyway, so pushing the GPU to higher MHz an increasing the speed of the DDR on the card's board gives extra performance ONLY in very high resolutions and when very large textures are used, in the expence of needing a monter power supply or a second one. What we are really missing is better architecture. Fewer bridges, fewer buses, more anticipated chip-to-chip and chip-to-controller communication.