NVidia Killer

[arn]

This Inquirer article reports on upcoming ATI video card technology which is apparently due in late summer:

SOURCES TOLD the INQUIRER that its R300 product is likely to be introduced now in late summer, while the RV250 will also incarnate around about the same time.

The company believes that its technology will be far in advance of its main competitor Nvidia, giving it a windows of around five months or so to outsell Nvidia's current generation.

NVidia has hinted that their new architecture would be a "fundamentally new architecture" from their most recent video cards.

 

[Mr. Anderson]

Which is a curious thing. I read about this earlier last month, what got me was that its an AGP8x

'We also expect that the R300 will support AGP8X, be out before Direct X9.0 and support it, include both MPEG 2 encoding and decoding, video acceleration and the rest.'

Could this be in conjunction with the new macs? Maybe....

 

[AlphaTech]

I'm fairly certain that the new cards will come out for the peecee first, especially since the article is referencing the peecee side. I wonder how long it will be before the games coming out will demand a video card upgrade to something of that power level. It would really suck if I only get about a year to year and a half out of my current card (paid almost $300 for it last summer when the 8500 first hit the market).

IF I had to guess as to when ATI's new cards will be available for the Mac, I would have to say, about 3 months after they are for the peecee. That seems to be ATI's current trend, get the card out for the peecee market, and then work out the bugs on the Mac version. I would LOVE to be proven wrong and have ATI do a simo release fo the cards...

 

[Mr. Anderson]

Originally posted by AlphaTech
I would LOVE to be proven wrong and have ATI do a simo release fo the cards...

I would love to see that too. But it amazes me the power of some of these new cards, that and having 256 megs of ram, totally insane. But it would be great for my 3D modeling and animation, I'll hope to get one of these when I buy a new system beginning of next year.

That brings up a good question, would Apple switch over to ATI or stay with NVidia?

 

[AlphaTech]

Originally posted by dukestreet
I would love to see that too. But it amazes me the power of some of these new cards, that and having 256 megs of ram, totally insane. But it would be great for my 3D modeling and animation, I'll hope to get one of these when I buy a new system beginning of next year.

That brings up a good question, would Apple switch over to ATI or stay with NVidia?

I hope that Apple offers more ATI options for people. I have had NOTHING but GOOD results with ATI cards, which is why I only purchase those.

I have a 64MB card inside the game peecee at home(Radeon 8500), but there is a 128MB version on the market now (and not that much $$ either). A 256MB card, using DDR as well (my 64MB card does too, as do most video cards these days), would be sweet. I can only imagine how great the card will be when it comes out. One thing I would suspect though, is that nVidia will release a driver update to try and compete with ATI's card until they can get their next generation card out. It seems like they keep leap-froggin each other, with the customers (usually) reaping the benefits from that.

 

[topicolo]

Originally posted by dukestreet


I would love to see that too. But it amazes me the power of some of these new cards, that and having 256 megs of ram, totally insane. But it would be great for my 3D modeling and animation, I'll hope to get one of these when I buy a new system beginning of next year.

That brings up a good question, would Apple switch over to ATI or stay with NVidia?

You guys are getting waaay too excited by rumors of just ONE product announcement. ATI and NVIDIA are on overlapping product cycles. Whereas ATI releases a product every summer, NVIDIA releases a new GPU every spring and updates it in the fall. Just because ATI is going to leapfrog NVIDIA for a couple of months doesn't me apple should jump ship again and piss off a company as powerful and innovative as NVIDIA. Besides, didn't the rumors say that the Geforce5 will have 1Ghz DDR ram or something? the R300 only has 700Mhz DDR ram.

 

[Aqua OS X]

I thought this was going to happen

I had a feeling that ATi had something really good coming out.

The ID guys decided to run DOOM III on ATi hardware at E3. ID gets new hardware months before we even hear about it, and John Carmack tends to demo his games on the best of the best.

Up until now John and ID have really favored nVidia. They have had the fastest hardware and the best support for developers. So, it's fairly odd to see a Doom demo on an ATi box. And in other new, the next xbox is said to use ATi hardware as well. Microsoft is dropping nVidia too.

I would imagine that ATi finally has a powerful and scalable architecture.. that has always been nVidia's strong point. ATi must be dishing out some veeeeeery impressive demo hardware to ID and microsoft.

 

[whawho]

Re: I thought this was going to happen

Originally posted by Aqua OS X

ATi must be dishing out some veeeeeery impressive demo hardware to ID and microsoft.

Probably that with an unbeatable price.

At least with Microsoft.

 

[Rower_CPU]

Sounds cool to me...maybe something to _really_ make those QE requirements look like true "minimums".

 

[GPTurismo]

ATI has promised a lot, and failed to deliver on a large percentage of it.

The reason why ATI is in bed with Microsoft is they are bending over backwards for them since MS and Nvidia had a dispute over Direct X 9.0 and MS kicked Nvidia of the development team.

Also Nvidia has always stayed ahead AND thats with ATI saying the exact same thing when the Radeon came out over 2 years ago, and the 8500s.

Promises and Delivery are two different things folks. ATI promises, Nvidia Delivers.

 

[drastik]

ATi

I would hate to see nVidia swept away, though, they are good cards and might get a lot metter. I like ATi too, though and could be convinced to go for this one.

As far as Miscrosoft dropping nVidia for ATi, I doubt it. Only because, with the new price wars on the platforms and sony dropping software and accessory prices as well as consistently scratchy Xbox products and poduct sold numbers so low that you'd be nuts to develop Only On Xbox titles, I don't think there will be an Xbox for much longer.

Mycrosoft may be rich and evil, but they aren't stupid enough to keep pushing a losing product that runs them a hundred buck loss a machine.

 

[AlphaTech]

Originally posted by GPTurismo
ATI has promised a lot, and failed to deliver on a large percentage of it.

Give examples, not just blanket statements like that.

In recent years (from the late 90's forward) I have not seen ATI make promises and then fail to deliver on them. They continue to develop and deliver cards for the Mac platform, so you can't be referencing that. I'm fairly certain that they were the first to offer consumer level video cards that offer daul monitor support. nVidia jumped on THAT bandwagon soon after ATI delivered on it.

Back up your statements...

 

[AlphaTech]

Originally posted by topicolo
Just because ATI is going to leapfrog NVIDIA for a couple of months doesn't me apple should jump ship again and piss off a company as powerful and innovative as NVIDIA.

I NEVER said that Apple should drop nVidia, but rather offer MORE ATI options... I would get a Gx tower with an ATI card inside it long before a nVidia card, even if I had to get it via the BTO option. I think Apple should offer the top end ATI cards along with the others. That way people who would rather have an ATI video card can do it right from Apple, and not have to yank the card that comes with their computer out in order to get what they really want.

 

[Rower_CPU]

Another interesting thing in the ATI vs. nVidia debate is the difference in the way each company approaches designing their products.

nVidia uses a "brute force" method which gets them faster frame rates by jacking up the GPU and RAM speed.

ATI chose to make their cards more efficient and get better framerates by designing a better card.

 

[AlphaTech]

Originally posted by Rower_CPU
Another interesting thing in the ATI vs. nVidia debate is the difference in the way each company approaches designing their products.

nVidia uses a "brute force" method which gets them faster frame rates by jacking up the GPU and RAM speed.

ATI chose to make their cards more efficient and get better framerates by designing a better card.

Sort of like using a sledge hammer to try and build a house. Sure, you CAN do it, IF you have ultra-tight control, but one slip and you either bust a stud, or a body part (yours or someone elses).

 

[whawho]

Originally posted by Rower_CPU
Another interesting thing in the ATI vs. nVidia debate is the difference in the way each company approaches designing their products.

nVidia uses a "brute force" method which gets them faster frame rates by jacking up the GPU and RAM speed.

ATI chose to make their cards more efficient and get better framerates by designing a better card.

ATI increases their GPU speed and RAM everytime they put out a better card, same as nVidia?

So they have the same tactics only nVidia cards are currently faster (gpu) and have more ram.

 

[topicolo]

Still, Nvidia has been known to implement innovations first. They came out with the first chip with twin texel processors (TNT), they were the first to support 32bit color in 3d apps (I think), they were the first to introduce a GPU, the first to add programmable per-pixel shaders, etc.

In the end tho, Nvidia did beat 3dfx into a bloody stain on the wall by using pure brute force and they'll continue using it keep their competition from nipping at their heels.

 

[Rower_CPU]

Originally posted by whawho
ATI increases their GPU speed and RAM everytime they put out a better card, same as nVidia?

So they have the same tactics only nVidia cards are currently faster (gpu) and have more ram.

Do some research. Of course they're going to speed up their cards, but they don't just throw MHz at the problem to get better performance. They make the texture pipelines more efficient, they improve AA...I'm not a video hardware guru, but if you read some reviews you will see what I mean.

 

[GPTurismo]

Originally posted by AlphaTech
Back up your statements...

Lets see...

The promised the rage pro way back when, when it would have been a killer card, and took pre orders and got the hype going...

a year and a half later it shipped, when nvidia had a card that was two generations better around the corner.

They promised apple quartz support in the radeons way back when, which we can see they failed to deliver, and apple has had to take different measures to speed it up.

They promised better driver support which they have never delivered.

they always have promised to be PRO MAC and distribute their cards simultaneously, which I am still waiting for.

And again, the promised the Radeon would be an Nvidia killer. Which as we all can see didn't happen.

I don't mind ATI cards. Especially for pci based cards. But they aren't going to beat out the Nvidia brainiacs anytime soon, if ever. DEM DARE BOYS OVER AT NVIDIA WERE SGI's THINK TANK.

 

[whawho]

Originally posted by Rower_CPU


Do some research. Of course they're going to speed up their cards, but they don't just throw MHz at the problem to get better performance. They make the texture pipelines more efficient, they improve AA...I'm not a video hardware guru, but if you read some reviews you will see what I mean.

I think both companies have created technologies to improve AA and make the texture pipelines more efficient. I just don't think mac OpenGl or the Nvidia mac drivers can take advantage of some of Nvidia's features yet (pixel/vertex shaders, FSAA, etc.) hopefully with the release of opengl2 some of these issues will be taken care of.

 

[Pants]

Originally posted by AlphaTech


Give examples, not just blanket statements like that.

In recent years (from the late 90's forward) I have not seen ATI make promises and then fail to deliver on them. They continue to develop and deliver cards for the Mac platform, so you can't be referencing that. I'm fairly certain that they were the first to offer consumer level video cards that offer daul monitor support. nVidia jumped on THAT bandwagon soon after ATI delivered on it.

Back up your statements...

excuse me?? from the late 90's?? I take it you never experienced driver joy with any of the rage series or 128 cards? the drivers were quite frankly ropey. In fact, I (and many others) got waaaay better performance running a voodoo 2 and 3 with beta drivers than official ATi cards and drivers. Unfortunately, once burnt twice shy.

ID have habitually gone for nVidia h/w mainly becuase of their better OGL support. If they are using ATi, its either for teh moolah, or OGL support is improved.

 

[Beej]

Interesting fact...
I was in a Computer Graphics lecture the other day (shock horror - I was in a lecture )... apparently, at the start of 1998 around 20% of PCs shipped with graphics cards. By the end of the year, around 80% shipped with graphics cards.

I don't think you could buy a PC now without a graphics card...

Anyway... useless but very interesting, I thought.

 

[topicolo]

Originally posted by Beej
Interesting fact...
I was in a Computer Graphics lecture the other day (shock horror - I was in a lecture )... apparently, at the start of 1998 around 20% of PCs shipped with graphics cards. By the end of the year, around 80% shipped with graphics cards.

I don't think you could buy a PC now without a graphics card...

Anyway... useless but very interesting, I thought.

umm, ALL pcs are shipped with graphics cards, except those with integrated graphics that no one ever touched anyway. You meant 3d cards, didn't you? You've gotta be more specific.

 

[AlphaTech]

Originally posted by Pants
excuse me?? from the late 90's?? I take it you never experienced driver joy with any of the rage series or 128 cards? the drivers were quite frankly ropey. In fact, I (and many others) got waaaay better performance running a voodoo 2 and 3 with beta drivers than official ATi cards and drivers. Unfortunately, once burnt twice shy.

ID have habitually gone for nVidia h/w mainly becuase of their better OGL support. If they are using ATi, its either for teh moolah, or OGL support is improved.

Maybe I am the exception to the rule, or maybe because I know how to get things more stable, or maybe I am just damned lucky...

With that said, when I got my first Mac system (a PowerCenter Pro 210) it had an ATI video controller integrated into the motherboard (as all Apple systems did from those days). I never had problems with any of the drivers that I would install or update to. I even got the thing up to 9.x before selling it. I also had installed a Rage 128 video card onto it at one point (PCI) and never had a problem with those drivers. In the G4 tower (I actually just spoke with the woman that purchased that from me, and she loves it still) I upgraded to the Mac Radeon card (before the 7xxx or 8xxx cards came out). That also has no driver issues, has full OGL support and makes the system faster (or at least seem like it is). I DID install the latest ATI drivers when I reconfigured the G4 before selling it, and it's running sweet (except when her daughter messes with it ).

I have an ATI Radeon 8500 (64MB version) inside the game peecee and have not had any driver issues at all. I am setting it back up again, since I have set up the RAID as the boot drive, and have to go through the process of installing all of windblows as well as my games back onto it. I installed the latest drivers onto it before shutting down last night... no issues at all there.

Bottom line, go with what you want/like, since we all do. Personally, I would like to see Apple include more ATI OPTIONS in the BTO section. If you want an nVidia card, then get it with one, but if you want the ATI card, you should have more then just one choice.

 

[GPTurismo]

You're lucky. Here at work we have 50+ macs and over 75% of them have had video problems due to the ati cards. especially when we install os x on them.

And I agree, I had a lot better success with the VooDoo beta drivers than the official ATI drivers.