Slashdot Mirror
GeForce FX Reviews Roll In
Defender2000 writes "GeForce FX NDA lifted today, reviews are up at ExtremeTech, Tom's Hardware, and HardOCP. So far, it is indeed better overall than the 9700Pro, but not enough for it's price. Perhaps NVIDIA has something up its sleeve for the long term?" There's also a review at Anandtech, about which reader StrongBad writes "Unlike the rest of the reviews, however, wonderboy
gets down and dirty with the FX's antialiasing and anisotropic filtering methods
using some nifty on mouseover java commands."
The geforcemx noise levels are ridiculous. I can't believe how voodoo5/3dfx-goes-out-of-business the card seems. Brute force instead of finesse, they went more overboard than I can believe, and the results aren't very impressive.
Whale
....the review that I saw over at Tom's hardware had this thing as some sort of 2-card incarnation. Call me old fashioned but didn't this 2 card crap always fail? I mean...that is like sooooo 3Dfx.
The Nvidia FX is amazing, but it will be interesting to see what ATI can do with the next gen Radeon if they too can get down to .13 microns...
[n8.r0n] http://petesweb.spymac.net/
He probably means javascript rollovers instead of java effects..
-- signed for your pleasure --
This article bears a stunning resemblance to this fake one posted by Stoatbringer on this Fark Forum.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
The Graphics card that breaks the 10,000 product number will take up two PCI slots as well as the AGP one, need an IDE channel all to itself, and may or may not require you to sell your first born.
:-P
They probably wont go with the last one though. Who is going to have both children AND a next-gen graphics card?
-Mark
1) It's cheaper than the new Geforce FX.
2) Performance on average is almost as good.
3) It doesn't sound like a jumbo jet.
4) It doesn't gobble up a PCI slot
I'm amazed nVidia have "released" this card now (well, a vapour release... you can't actually buy them yet). The performance is barely faster than the ATi card... when ATi released their 9700 it would WAY faster than nVidia's fastest (Ti4600).
It's also interesting to note that ATi's drivers seem to behave better than nVidia's... now that's something I didn't think I'd hear myself saying 12 months ago.
Sorry, but my karma just ran over your dogma.
It seems such a short time ago that TNT2 was a chipset to be proud of... [sigh]
Anyone who is buying this is just wasting their hard-earned money and time. Especially since it costs near $400.
All the GeForce FX does it improve effects using the DirectX 8 dynamic pipeline improvements, and it's been 2 years and 3 generations of cards since DirectX 8 came out, and there have been only 2 cards using the dynamic pipeline.
Also, the GeForce FX is a monstrosity. In order to keep it cool, there is a huge fan mounted on it, which causes it to take up an AGP slot and PCI slot, and the card still isn't cooled adequately.
In short, if you're buying this, you're either rich and/or stupid. It doesn't even support Linex fully yet.
"Buy the new Geforce FX - not only will your games run smoother than ever before but you'll ALSO receive a free heater and vacuum cleaner built in!"
Sorry, but my karma just ran over your dogma.
Users may need to beef up their cooling systems..
Not only that, but the number of games which actually utilise a Geforce 3's features (let alone a Geforce 4) are few and far between.
Sorry, but my karma just ran over your dogma.
I always wanted to put a vapor-phase cooling system in my computer. I have always decided against this due to the noise the compressor makes. Now we finally have a video card the is louder than a compressor when its 3-d pipeline is running (73db). I am going to have to install it this summer. For now my room is cold, and I may run a heat pipe from the card in front of my feet.
Sigs? We don't need no stinking sigs!
I've been telling people for a long time to avoid nvidia cards because they get too warm inside a case. Now they've released a card with heat sinks on one side and some kind of toad-shaped fan thing on the other.
Anyone ever spit (or put snow) on a hot stove?
I'll bet the same thing would happen if you spit on those heatsinks while this card is running.
Ridiculous.
I'm not going to sit here and say that this card has more power than it needs. Someday, in about three years, there probably WILL be computer games that need that much power.
But in the meantime, how much extra environmental work will the hobbyists and system builders using this SOB need to do to keep their PCs stable, cool and quiet? Seems to me that if nvidia invested all the extra time in designing a cooling solution such as the one that's been shown so far, maybe they could've done some extra engineering work to make sure they didn't NEED a cooling solution along those lines.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
So many new cards seem to accentuate their 3D performance, is there anything done to really make for excellent 2D performance, or is that langiushing?. I know there is a much bigger market for 3D and its the sexy exciting thing, but is there more than can be done for the 2D work too?
But did they pull a Quake/Quack type of trick?
Repeal the DMCA!
But how about getting us a card that normal people can afford? I can't even afford a G4 right now - damn military...
/shrug
/suits up in flameproof suit
I realize that these things cost money, but let's get realistic... You have to keep the prices low, otherwise people won't buy the product...
And I think that the 2 slot thing is jsut wrong...
Why not simply put all the hardware on the OTHER side of the card. (I'm sure there's a reason for this) Then you don't need that goofy looking heatsink/fan combo...I would think that maybe you could reroute the heat that way....
That's my take....
ATI is still the king of crap. Their drivers are a joke. I have a friend who purchased a laptop with the ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 w/64MB and he cannot install a single game. If you go to their website it says NOTE - Display drivers and multimedia applications for Laptops and Notebooks are NOT available for download from ATI CustomerCare.
What a crock of shite. I never have any problems with my GeForce 2 Go in my Inspiron or any of my nVidia based cards in Linux, Mac or Windows. ATI is a whole different matter.
Save yourself the trouble and skip ATI altogether.
Heres a hit as well, never spend more than $125-150 on a graphics card. By the time the games need the $300-400 card you just bought you could have bought it for $125-150. A graphics card is the best thing to upgrade in a system to get better gaming performance but wasting your money on a 9700pro or a geforce FX is plain stupid. I didn't need to go from a GeForce 2 to a GeForce 4 until I got neverwinter nights.
I got my 9700 in the last week of August, and I simply can't believe that as of Jan 2003, NVidia has no compelling response.
Extremetech even points to the 9700 AS BEING FASTER when the eye candy is ramped at the high resolutions.
I can only imagine the puckered rectums and sleepless nights of Nvidia's engineering crew when the 9700 first came out. They must have really been caught by surprise. I suspect the last months have been spent furiously tuning their drivers to remain competitive. Which they have done - barely.
I've been telling the fence-sitters to stop waiting and jump on ATI. No reason to wait anymore, even for an Nvidia fanboy.
A month ago, I did something I hadn't done in years. I bought a new gaming console system. This is the first console system I've bought since my Colecovision. I have been, for the past twenty years or so, a die hard PC gamer. I turned my nose up at consoles.
For the last month, I've been having a blast. I picked up a few games, and all of them have been fun. I haven't touched a computer game in a month, other than nethack and zangband.
I'm now of the opinion that computer gaming is just a waste. Are there some good computer games? Yes. Do the very best computer games have better graphics than consoles, if you have good hardware? Yes. No console is beating out unreal tournament 2003 at 1600x1200 resolution. The console systems do have very nice graphics, though. More than good enough. And more importantly...
For the first time in 20 years I don't have to worry about whether my hardware is good enough to run the game I just bought.
PC gaming hardware is getting completely insane. $400 for a new 3d card? You can buy *two* console gaming systems for that! And a year from now, there will be a new $400 video card out, with endless articles about how it makes the $400 card you just bought last year look like garbage.
Who needs it? I'm enjoying gaming again more than I have for a long time. I don't have to run an OS I don't like by a company I don't like just to play some game that won't work under winex and doesn't have a Linux port. I don't have to mess around with installing anything. I don't have to sit in a stupid office chair at a desk. Just pop the game in, turn the console on, chill on the couch, and have fun.
I'm set til 2005 or 2006 when the new consoles com e out. Upgrading every 4 or 5 years to a new console, and then not having to sweat it again, is looking really nice.And the computer I currently have will be more than powerful enough to read web pages, send email, and write code on for a long, long time.
Apart from when you running wineX.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Anyone else think this name really sucks? The average Joe is going to think FX sounds a little too much like MX to be the new top-of-the-line model. I read that they got the name because this is the first card to use technology from the purchase of 3DFX. Anyway, regardless of where it came from, it's a bad name. Especially since the GeForce4 MX line is horrible, even worse than a GeForce3...
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
The drivers are still at the same development point as the card. More worrying is the poor memory interface which the Extreme Tech article pokes the big-stick-o-blame towards.
I'm willing to give nVidia the chance to improve their drivers and work out the bugs before I make a final decision.
The huge PCI gobbling cooling solution just doesn't do it for me though. I mean, sure. If you're using it mainly for games and you don't want to be bothered by the noise doubling+ when you use any 3D functions then you can just turn up the volume and deal with it but can you imaging doing any serious graphical rendering?
If you can't think of something nice to say then don't say anything at all. No, REALLY.
What's the refresh rate at 2048x1536?
I won't buy any card that doesn't do 2048x1536@75Hz... I hate the flicker.
I'm getting a "Broken Pipe" error at tomshardware-dot-com.. looks like one of ol' Tommy's water cooling rigs has finally sprung a leak..
The only sad thing about consoles is that you can't download games for free to try them out before you buy 'em. So, you have a higher risk of buying something crappy. Other than that, I have a good time with my PS2.
Stop the brainwash
AMD Athlon XP 1800 (1.53 ghz)
256MB pc133
Nvidia GeForce 2 MX 400 (64mb, AGP 2x, 150mhz GPU)
Guillemot Muse $15 sound card with stock C-Media chipset
Windows 98 SE
With this setup and I can play any modern game at maximum graphical settings at barely any performance loss (a tiny bit of skipping every now-and-again). Games that I currently own and play at maximum settings:
War Craft 3
No One Lives Forever 2
Grand Theft Auto 3
Operation Flashpoint
Jedi Knight 2
When the next generation of games comes out, I'll buy 256 MB more RAM and maybe a geForce 3. It's funny to me how many people actually buy the latest and greatest, too.
If the new fx is so wonderful then why don't they just release it and let us decide for ourselves . At this rate by the time it comes out for its huge sticker price the card its competing against (the 9700 pro) will be $179 and ATI will have rolled out something better . Sometimes i think that NVIDIA will always be doomed to have to follow behind .
New motherboard: $117
New CPU: $105
Radeon 9700 Pro: $320
Finding out that nVidia's upcoming card will cost more, offers little to no performance increase, and will be loud and hot: Priceless
e to the i pi equals negative one
So far, it is indeed better overall than the 9700Pro, but not enough for it's price.
Excellent drivers are priceless. I hope ATI will arrive at that point soon. At least two strong players are needed to create a competitive gfx card market.
If by vaporware you mean actual tested hardware by a third party then yes, you would be correct.
So now we get marginally better performance at the expensive an loud, extremely hot, very power hungry video card?
Certainly the law of diminishing returns has kicked in by now.
For the hardware argument, if your hardware is as old as mine, you can always play with lower resolution / detail, and still enjoy the game.
Also I don't get into a fight with my girlfriend over the control of the TV ;-)
>>> The Bottom Line: The GeForceFX 5800 Ultra is a very hot and noisy beast that may give you a bit of an edge over the current king of the hill, the ATI 9700 Pro in some applications. If you are an NVIDIA fanboy, this of course has your name all over it. At the current US$400.00 price point, the GFFX simply does not seem worth it to us. If NVIDIA can work some driver magic and pull an extra 20% increase in frame rate out of the bag like we have seen in the past; they had best start pulling. Either that or pull out the NV35 chipset, and quick.
This year will be interesting as both ATI and NVIDIA know it is all about having the best VidCard on the market when DOOM]|[ hits. <<<
Every nVidia card I have had suffers exactly this problem. Geforce2 MX200/400, tnt2, Geforce4. With the open source driver they are an absolute dream; with nVidia's driver - crashes of varying degrees. I would imagine that since the linux and windows drivers are now from a unified code base that exactly the same problem occurs under windows but noone notices because windows crashes so much.
How can they allow the open source X driver to be better? I mean seriously - what are nVidia doing? This sort of thing does not instill confidence. Open the source, if you can't because of patent issues then open the parts of the source that you can open. Hire the guys writing the open source driver as they are clearly infinitely better at it than your current lot.
Essentially we are buying graphics cards from a hardware company - the fact that we need drivers is an inconvenience that we all live with because the convenience of being able to mix and match our pc hardware outweighs it. I am not interested in the internals of your drivers - I just want the card to work. Here is an easy business plan for all hardware manufacturers:
Linux is coming, accept this and get ready to jump on the bandwagon.
Now they are putting out cards that apparently don't perform much better than their competition. This is a dangerous position to be in. Just one year ago, this would have been laughable - nVidia produced cards that were cheaper and better than everyone elses. Now... no one is blown away. This is a company that is on a downard slope.
Carpe Daemon
I really think Nvidia have shot themselves in the foot this time
no one in there right mind is going to buy a card that is only slightly better than the radeon 9700 which will drown out your TV and people can hear it from another room in your house
Nvidia say they are going to make is less nosiy but how?
there is a whole lot you can do to make a fan less noisy except reduce the cooling ability of it and toms hardware report that even know it runs at 60 degrees so reducing the RPM could posibly damage the card or at least make it unstable
put that refrigeration unit that sits on top of the GeForceFX chip in my 9700 pro and I bet it shall beat out all their numbers.
Sapphiretech is able to build a state-of-the-art ATI Radeon 9700 Pro without any active cooling. Seems nearly unbelievable if you compare these to the new FX cooling monsters.
Check it out for yourself.
Combine these with a good, noise dampened case, Verax coolers and a Barracuda V and you should get a PC that is much more quiet than most of the PCs on the market and faster than these too.
Bye egghat.
-- "As a human being I claim the right to be widely inconsistent", John Peel
I have a much slower system than yours (Athlon *Slot A* @ 700MHZ 384MB RAM) but I go from cold to Win2k in about 1 1/2 tops.
I guess YMRDV (your mileage really does vary)
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
probably because of all those 3dfx people they brought in. nv**** is almost dead.
im just joking so i must be funny.
I know you are psychotic, but please make an effort.
GF FX:8XSAA, 8XAF; 27fps
R9700pro:6XAA, 16AF; 62fps
I think those were at 1024x768(unless they reduced the image size), and don't anyone dare arguing that the fx was using 8x AA, because the 9700pro LOOKS better, not to mention 2x+ fps, just look at the "wire" thing near the upper left of the screen, it is significantly better looking on the 9700.
So far, it is indeed better overall than the 9700Pro, but not enough for it's price.
...eh. Wait, did I just nitpick Slashdot editors' grammar? I guess I should go do something more productive, like stand on one leg for as long as possible. :-)
Language police nitpicking:
it's - short for it is
its - possessive pronoun meaning belonging to it
In this case, the correct writing of the above sentence would be "...but not enough for its price".
I was planning on upgrading my system when Doom III becomes available to cope with it's hardware spec, and an FX was definitely looking like being the card. The test results are so disappointing tho I might as well opt for an Radeon 9700 Pro and pocket the change. Maybe the NV30 range will be out by then, and maybe they will be better, but honestly it looks like NVidia has clearly lost it's crown. All hail the new leader ATI! (and in next years surprise news Tseng Labs make a comeback and claim the crown of fastest video card).
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
Looks like Tom's going to need some new hardware to cope with the /.ing ;)
Miq
Let's see:
-It's huge (eats a PCI-slot) and noisy
-It costs more than 9700
-It's not available yet
-It has inferior AA and AF
-When using AA and AF it usually loses to 9700
-According to Anandtech, it's minimun FPS is alot lower than 9700's (it even loses to non-pro 9700!)
So how exactly it's "better overall"?
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
zangband is better. they should port it to a console.. oh yeah they dont have enough buttons for the game
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
But was too quick to blame the driver, myself: it crashed frequently in both Linux and Windows, whereas the open source driver worked without a hiccup (and without 3D acceleration, ugh...); however, replacing my power supply without changing any of the software made things perfectly stable as far as I could tell. If you can't afford to experiment with tearing your computer apart, you might want to at least try the closed source driver with AGP support turned off (Option "NvAGP" "0" or something like that in the XF86Config file) and see if it works any better.
May I suggest a GeForce 4 Ti4200 with dual video out and TV-Out as a purchase for many of you who are behind todays video curve. The prices should drop once the GeForce FX is available at retail. The water in NWN looks fantastic as does all of Morrowind. Unreal Tourney runs smooth as silk. Team them with a cheap nForce mobo and AMD 1800+ Thourobred (spelling argh!) and you are off to the races!
Build you own rigs, it rocks!
Somebody should buy one of the GeForce FX cards and write the most demanding 3D game/app imaginable and then make sure it only runs on Linux, then you won't have to worry about finding a way to convince people to give it a try...
Onward to the Aether Sphere!
Any news on Mobile GPU's from the FX line? Well I will be buying a laptop for college at the end of the year and hope there will be some kinda massive improvement in mobile GPU's, especially in terms of shading. I don't expect a mobile gpu to be available though due to the massive heat this generates, we can't afford having half the laptop dedicated to vacuum cleaners....besides I don't think the prof would appreciate so much noise from my laptop...
BTW, when is the 4200 Go slated to come out?
I have a Geforce 2 MX400. It's fine for 2D. It's fine for 3D (Sure I can play UT2003 on it just about, but since it's not as fun as BZFlag, I don't). It also supports 2 monitors. Unfortunately, it only has a single 350MHz RAMDAC, and so I can't run my monitors at more than 1280x1024 if I want more than a 60Hz refresh rate. The Geforce4 MX (I know they're not as good as a GF3, but they're 50% faster than my current card, which is more than adequate) series has dual RAMDACs, so can run each monitor at silly resolutions, and so I'm tempted to upgrade. The problem? Very few manufacturers (none that I've found) actually install the second D-SUB connector on the board. This means that there is no graphics card availible that will actualy support dual display on 2 analogue monitors at the kind of resolutions I want to run (1600x1200@75 would be a nice start). Perhaps manufacturers could focus on broadening their feature set, rather than just putting more and more 3D speed into their cards.
(I know Matrox do some nice dual head cards, but their 3D performance is a joke).
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
http://firingsquad.gamers.com/guides/2dperformance /
I have no problems with my GeForce4 MX 440 and X, using the NVidia drivers.
;)
Hell, I play Quake 3 in Linux with no problems and bitchin' framerates.
IIRC, NVidia itself doesn't ship actual video cards. What brand name is on your GeForce cards? Brand has a lot to do with it - even the best of chipsets can be fscked by certain card manufacturers. Tip: Buy quality components. Sadly, it seems quality components are fast disappearing from the market.
Fuck that card, it won't fit in my Shuttle SK41G computer unless you ditch that ugly green toad fan. Picture of AGP/PCI
I think the last time I was able to use the PCI slot next to the AGP slot was before I had an AGP video card.
the last line of the review offers Kudos to your competitor.
(re: anandtech review)
You assume incorrectly, at least as far as stability under Windows. As a matter of fact I'd hazard to say that nVidia's drivers are a HUGE selling point under Windows. At least they are to me and most other people I know who use their home PC for more than word processing. nVidia's cards have been solid 3D performers since the TNT, but I like many others want a graphic card in my PC that just works. What other graphic card (or any other component manufacturer for that matter) has managed to increase performance by 40% with the driver alone?
I will agree the Linux binaries need help. Up until recently I ran a dual boot Mandrake/Win98SE install as my main rig. After upgrading to XP I have yet to reinstall a distro, though I'll get around to it. The nVidia drivers under Mandrake seemed almost as if they had come from a different company, given my favorable experiences under Windows.
Now that ATI not only has a product with comparable performance ~$100 cheaper than nVidia's latest but ALSO has stable drivers things are really starting to get interesting.
Don't write nVidia off yet though - far too many people did the same to ATI a few years ago.
How many of you people actually have all those PCI slots filled anyway? Granted yes, this thing sounds like a hulking beast, but, do you REALLY need that 5th PCI slot?
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
It seems like any jackass can be a hardware review site nowadays. They just check the 3d Mark scores, notice how they're not that much faster than current ATi, and then say the card sucks. What the hell is up with that?
Another thing.. about the cooling system. Look, the cooler is just part of the reference design. Other manufacturers are no doubt going to come up with their own solutions to the cooling problem that aren't perhaps as loud. I have my watercooling system, so I don't have to worry about such things.
As for people complaining about the price, I didn't hear anybody whining when the 9700 pro/etc. came out with a hefty price tag. And I can bet within a month or two of the FX coming out the price will drop $50 or more, easily. And once manufacturers start making their own boards and designs, it will probably drop even more.
There's nVidia fan boys and there's ATi fan boys. I've always tried to be in the middle, but I've constantly been upset by ATi's horrible drivers. I have owned 4 ATi cards in my years of computing, and all 4 are now sitting in the closet as junk (including my all-in-wonder radeon 7500) because of their driver sets. Their new "Catalyst" drivers are a step in the right direction (nVidia got it right the first time) but they still have major issues.
Not All Who Wander Are Lost
I just broke my streak of 3 consecutive nvidia card purchases and picked up an ati9500np (softmodded9700 =) and these reviews make me happy I made the choice.
I can't help but get a sense of deja-vu though, the geforceFX has all the markings of that last monstrosity 3DFX released just before they went out of business.
- Toby
Read the anandtech.com article, and then we speak again.
There is not a single 3d Mark score, there, but a lot of things that you may (or may not) find interesting.
... have destroyed yet another company.
Losers!!!!
Nvidia should not forget to debug their drivers, i've had problems with ALL of them for linux.
(Last bug report, they replied: "we know", but 2 months after, there's still no update)
Closed source is really not a solution in the long term
Ask your average ford tempo owner if their car is "fast enough" and they will say "of course! It gets me around"
Now go tell a porsche owner "Hey by the way, a ford tempo is fast enough" and they will look at you like you are a drooling idiot.
Your video card may get you from A to B and maybe for your needs that is sufficient but no, a tempo is not comparable to porsche by ANY stretch of the imagination.
- Toby
Somewhere in Canada there is a lot of high-fiving going on today. Plans for reducing the price of the 9700Pro are being scrapped. Due to recent NVidia incompetence, the ATi profittaking is about to begin... which means we the customers lose.
(not that I don't think this card is a loud and noisy waste of money - I still have my $300 GeForce3, and boy does that make vi look great!)
sic transit gloria mundi
But since 0.00000000001% of the population runs WineX, it is completely irrelevant!
/. seems to have become the home of a bunch of pansies. "My iMac doesn't have a fan!" "The fan noise is too loud!" "My ears are bleeding!" Bah. You're all sissies. I'm an Inspiron 8200 owner. It burns my lap and punctures my eardrums with fan noise! I have to turn my 400-watt Klipschs all the way up just to hear music! And I *like* it that way! This new GPU fan isn't so bad. I've got a 7000 RPM fan on my Athlon back home, and not only can I hear the jet-turbine noise in another room, I can hear it on another floor! And I *like* it that way! So bring it on NVIDIA! It's not like I can hear the damn thing anyway!
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Okay... I have a P4 1.5ghz 384mb PC800 Nvidia Geforce 4 Ti4200 (normal clock) Win XP and I dont know what kind of crap you're talking about "Max Settings" Warcraft 3 for me is UNPLAYABLE past 1152x864, and it even slows down tremendously there (The max is 1600x1200) GTA3 for me wasnt playable beyond 800x600 when i had a Ge2 MX 400 in there.
"I've lost the game, and no one is to blame"
Radeon 9500 non-pro 128 meg
Softmods to the equivalent of a 9700, you can overclock it and it gets close to a 9700pro in performance. Has 2 RAMDACs, I was running 1600x1200 on both monitors yesterday.
IMO it blows nvidia cards away in 2D visual quality (I also own 2 geforces and a TNT2 ultra).
159 bucks USD at newegg.com
- Toby
The reviews disagree on some things, but every single one of them points out that ATi's drivers are far better and more mature than for the 5800FX. Get your head out of ... the past. ATi's dirver's are stable, mature and optimized. NVidia would be lucky to catch up before ATi releases their next great card.
Based on the 2 reviews, the Db level is much lower than that.
One reviewer said that it was 54 Db in 2D mode and 58 Db in 3D mode (opengl or DirectX) - Extreme Tech
The 2nd reviewer said that the noise was at 56Db in 2D mode and 60 Db in 3D mode. - HardOCP
Either way it's still way lower than 70Db, because every increase of 3 Db mean the sound is twice as loud (logarithmic scale). A GeForce FX is definitely not as loud as a compressor running at 70 Db, because that compressor would be actually 4 times louder than a GeForce FX.
First, as mentioned the last time the FX came up, manufacturers can put any kind of cooling they want on the FX. I've heard there are production models that look just like any other graphics card.
. pd f
And this card is ALL finesse and no brute force. That is why it loses in traditional tests. PROGRAMMABLE PIXEL SHADERS. The Radeon 9700 can only do a tiny fraction per pass that the FX can do per pass. This is what most of their R&D was spent on. Look it up
http://www.nvidia.com/docs/lo/2413/SUPP/Shaders
It will vastly improve the effects possible in consumer graphics.
It's kinda useless to speculate on what their next-gen cards can do. Let's face it, we haven't really even seen what the 9700 and FX can do yet. I am starting to feel like Rodney King while reading all the posts here, though. I just keep thinking to myself "can't we all just get along?!?!"
I never understood why people get so up-in-arms about graphics cards. I mean, I have my preference in cards, but that's based on feature set and power. I think a lot of ATi's technology will be adopted by game makers (because it's just so damned neato... just look at the demos), and a lot of nVidia's technology will too (because nVidia still holds the crown and you always program toward the common standard).
That said... unless I get a huge influx of cash, I'm sticking with my Radeon AIW. Y'know... that first powerful card ATi put out that's compatible with roughly 85% of games.
But that's the risk you take when you buy computer hardware. Sometimes you have to guess based on the specs (I bought it because it outperformed the GeForces on low-end PC test-beds, which was a lot more similar to my comptuer than 1.5+ GHz testbeds where the GeForces shine). If it's not so compatable, meh, deal with it.
-=-=-=-=-=
I'd rather be flamed than ignored.
"
:("
Nvidia should not forget to debug their drivers, i've had problems with ALL of them for linux.
(Last bug report, they replied: "we know", but 2 months after, there's still no update)
Closed source is really not a solution in the long term
And how many people out there with the above sentiment, are the same one's who when the "binary drivers" topic comes up on Slashdot or elsewere, were saying "I got what I want"? And giving all kinds of reasons why it was ok for Linux (the community) to accept them, consequences be damned. Now you all know why the saying "Those who forget history, are doomed to repeating it" was coined, instead of "We learned our lesson, and will never do it again".
I was using the ABIT Ti4200 with Abit's OTES which is very much like the cooler on the Geforce FX. I was fine with the noise for about a week. Then when when I actually turned the system off I felt like the room had gone completely silent, I knew that the card was not worth it.
Got a ATI 9500Pro now, I can run BF1942 at 1024x768 with 4XAA and 16XAF while actually playing the game. And for those of you who think AA and AF are just extras, you really gotta try a game with these features turned on, it really makes the game environment more engrossing. (and realistic)
Also what's up with the FX not supporting 16X AF??? The difference in performance with the 16X setting and the 8X setting on the 9500Pro is about 1%.
Talk about a company killer. Combine that with the fact that the Nvidia is hurting in the laptop 3d market now(ATI has the m9000 and S3 will have a even better chip god willing), things aren't looking too rosey.
-- taking over the world, we are.
I find it curious that a company such as Apple that has to worry about their margins on each and every item so much; has not received a deal with nVidia or ATi to supply all video cards for the entire product range.
I wonder if the updated iBooks (whenever that happens in this "year of the notebook/laptop") and PowerMacs (G4 Tower) will have nVidia included as well? (Currently iBooks are Radeon 7500 and G4 Towers are a mix of Radeon 9000 and GF4 models).
The sound difference is pretty amazing. And judging from the Sapphiretech card its at least possible to use a quiet alternative method of cooling. Looking at the FX I don't see how that's going to be an option. Couple the sound problem with the loss of a pci slot, performance that isn't significantly faster, and cost, I don't see how you could buy an FX over a 9700 right now. Of course I haven't paid attention to how the 9700 works on linux, but for windows use the 9700 seems to be the no brainer.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
My new Dimension 4550 is the quietest computer I have ever heard, and that's with a Radeon 9700, P4 2.66, and the usual other crap.
It is possible to have an off-the-shelf computer that doesn't sound like a Cessna taking off.
Or so I can see his uber-cool mouse over AA shots.
The article states that it ramps up the fan when in 3D mode, well what if you run a 3D OpenGL screensaver. Time to go deaf.
I want my rights back. I was actually using them when our government stole them after 9/11.
"So far, it is indeed better overall than the 9700Pro, but not enough for it's price."
What?
Anandtech said of the FX, "A card that is several months late, that is able to outperform the Radeon 9700 Pro by 10% at best but in most cases manages to fall behind by a factor much greater than that."
And I like Tom's hardware comparing the card to the Voodoo 6000. True, he was referring to the snazzy looks of the card, but I suspect there was a bit of a dig in there as well. After all, that was one of the last cards 3dfx made before they went under...
1600 AMD XP GeForce 3 Ti200 512 MB DDR RAM XP Home I run Quake III @ 90 fps and UT 2K3 @ 80 fps at 1024x768. I can't imagine needing a faster machine for today's games. Running the Doom III Demo, I got a whopping 5 fps. Now, when that comes out, I may decide to upgrade to a 4200. But, I simply refuse to drop $300+ on a freakin video card. That's simply ridiculous.
" How many of you people actually have all those PCI slots filled anyway? Granted yes, this thing sounds like a hulking beast, but, do you REALLY need that 5th PCI slot?"
And how is this question different from the "640K is all you'll ever need" or "10 computers is all that's needed", or the 2GB limit mentioned awhile back? The question should really be "Why do I have to give up a slot with this particular brand of video card, when the competition doesn't?"
is this the son of Norman Vincent that you're quoting?
I converted from PC to console gaming about a year ago for all the reasons you stated. PC gaming just doesn't make sense anymore, especially with consoles going online. And I'm not so fastidious as to bitch about the precision advantage a mouse and keyboard afford over a controller. Halo, UC, and SOCOM are just as enjoyable to me despite their console controller control system.
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
(.)(.)
I just finished reading the [H] review.. and all I can say is ouch! I have been looking forward to this card... For weeks I have been saying it would be my next video card just in time for DOOM III. It will replace my aging Geforce 3 Ti500.
Now I am pausing. I will read more and wait for official benchmarks for released cards and make a informed decision... good lord Im losing my fanboy'ism for Nvidia..
And I can tell you why. I have spent $300+ on my last 3 video cards over the last 4 years. I am sick of it... These fuckers are going to give me something in exchange for that money that is a huge improvement or they can go piss up a rope!
Str8Dog
using System.Darkside; public
MS swoops in and buys up nvidia?
Having a flightless bird as a mascot is about the same as having a butterfly as a mascot. Both die fast and stupid....
Okay, so the performance isn't amazing.
Frankly, though, performance isn't the reason this card caught my eye in the first place. I'd very much like to see a review that takes visual quality (or potential) into account.
I was excited to hear that the card supports 128-bit floating point color and can handle its own high-level(ish) shader languange. Both of these are features Carmack seemed to be pushing for the last time I heard him speak at QuakeCon. Surely these features add some great visual possibilities that should be taken into account in reviews? Granted, current games may not use them... but that doesn't mean the features should be overlooked.
Looks like Nvidia tried to do too much too early (.13u/DDR-II) and ended up too little too late.
Pish.
SGI were touted as the reason that the IP could not be released, but from SGI themselves, they say there is no known impediment from their side.
What I've heard (so third-hand rumour), is that the only differences between the standard and the Fire (top-end) version of the GeForce cards is that the drivers allow the hardwareto do more stuff if you've got the more expensive one.
Itmay be pish too, but it covers the observed characteristics. Remember, just because the card does something that is IP encumbered, doesn't mean it has to be in the OS driver. See the S3TC available in modern cards, but missing because S3 won't give the DRI allowance to use it.Doesn't stop thosecards working, does it?
I've asked, but they won't say either what the IP is, or who theholderof the IP is (would an NDA have a clause "You shall not mention that you have entered a restrictive NDA..."? Why not?
to see all the windows weenies yell, 'Go Radeon, Go Radeon!' ..and all the linux folks yelling, 'Go Nvidia, Go Nvidia!'
for me, i'm not a Tom's Hardware visiting, overclocking, power hungry cooling expert. i play the hell out of games, but i can't tell the difference between 60 FPS and 100 FPS.
so, my argument rests with driver availability. i know that if i buy an NVIDIA card, i can play games in both linux and windows with superb performance.
if i buy a ATI card, looks like a windows only solution. i don't like being stuck in the corner, that's why i use linux in the first place...
i wonder how long it will take ATI to realize how much market share they are losing by not supplying either open or closed kernel module drivers for their cards under linux...
It seems that anandtech's entire review swung on the premise the nvidia's performance mode 'wasn't comparable' to ati's aggresive more, which led the anandtech to disqualify all the results from nvidia's performance mode, and furthermore not publish them. I would prefer if the reader were allowed to decide for him/her self what acceptable quality was and at the very least be able to see the bench marking statisitcs from the performance mode, and disregard them he/she choose.
For the kind of pr0n I enjoy, that kind of "hard"ware "comes" in very "handy"!
Is a DirectX9 game comparison. ATi only has 96-bit precision Pixel Shaders and other operations, while NVidia supports full 128-bit floating point precision. I wonder how this will affect image quality for later games?
A loss of 32bits of precision could give the GeForce FX a serious image quality advantage when DX9 games or the next generation of OpenGL games start becoming big. Hopefully ATi will correct this glaring oversight in their R350 or later.
Ok everyone do me a favor, after you've read the Tom's review PLEASE read the Anandtech review.
I started to feel sick to my stomach when I realized how sloppy and shallow Tom's review was done. Anand truly is "the wonderboy"; he reveals some highly critical issues and has some sweet rollovers comparing the antialiasing and anistropic filtering of each card. He reveals that at the same visual quality settings, the 9700 Pro tops the FX in almost all the benchmarks. "NVIDIA takes the crown! No question about it..." Oh paaleease Tom, research the product before you post! Kudos to Anandtech.
This statement is false.
All the new dual-head cards tend to come with 1 dsub and one flat panel connector on the backplane... they also come with dongles to convert from DVI to Dsub.
The NVIDEA's are good for games, the ATI (Rage wonder, and Radeon) are good for all around, the wizard pro's are a little better at all around. Nvidea's price point stinks, and are typically retaredly late to Mac OSex based boxen.
Right now the only console that has RPGs worth playing is the PS1/2. If you don't have a PS1/2, then you won't be playing games that last more then 80 hours on average. Final Fantasy, Wild Arms, Lunar, Ring of Red, Xenogears, etc. The GC and XBox don't have as many games that last as long as RPGs do.
You're not really supposed to use that PCI slot anyway as it shares IRQs and whatnot with the AGP slot. I allways seem to run into stability issues if I put anything more demanding than a SoundBastard 16-PCI in that slot.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
I know the combat flight simulator 3 from microsoft requires dx9, and it has been out for some months now. I still cant get all the graphics options working properly.....
2d performance might be "ok", but it is getting worse with each generation of graphics card, not better.
My company measures data points on a regular 2d grid and displays the results on screen as a colour bitmap. There is a function in the Windows API that will scale a bitmap so that it will fill a specified area. For example, if you want to display a 3x3 bitmap in a 300x300 pixel area on the screen, the driver will expand each input point to a 100x100 area, and then draw it.
Now every time I get an "upgraded" computer and graphics card, this operation gets slower. It has gotten to the point where it is faster to display large bitmaps than smaller ones. It is faster to run code that expands the 3x3 bitmap to 300x300 and provide that to the API call than to let the driver do it. This is a pretty sad state of affairs, especially since my first job for the company in 1985 was to speed up this exact operation (we used a $3000 card that could do 800x600 in 256 colours with no 2d, let alone 3d, acceleration!)
This sorry state of affairs shows the danger of benchmarks. No one measures how fast 2d operations are anymore, so no company puts any development time into features that aren't typically measured. If 2d performance is important to you, you'd better do your own benchmarks, because there seems to be no correlation between 2d and 3d speeds.
-- Pot is safer than Beer
Im hoping to buy the NVIDIA FX but I would be using it only on linux with OpenGL programs. I havnt seen any thing about that. Dose any one know how well it preforms on linux and with OpenGL?
DX9 will be used to push some serious HDTV capable home theater PC's, Production and encoding machines.
:)
DX9 with DirectShow and what not will be able to accelerate WindowsMedia 9 media files and what not.
DX9 is a road to Microsoft's media empire. Having driver support in such a powerfull car just ads that much more functionality. Not everyone spends 350.00 on a card just for games. There are alot of us using these for Movie, Media, HDTV and image processing
ATI was the last resort. Maybe you'd think I tried that before complaining but then again I guess not.
I thought the problem was related to MS not the video card until after about 3-4 hours of testing everything I could on the laptop it kept coming back to the shitty ATI drivers. I have 1/2 my cards ATI and 1/2 nVidia (based) and I have never had a hardware/driver issue with an nVidia card. I've had about a 50/50 chance of an ATI card working, which is why I only buy nVidia.
Go look for new drivers for the high end 2+ GHz HP Pavilion laptops and see if there are any new drivers. Dipshit.
...but just how stable *is* a "tau lepton"?
Perhaps it would be a good idea to wait until the final version of the card is out with the final version of the drivers before jumping to conclusions?
How many of you are ripping on Doom III because the alpha version only runs at 2 FPS on your machines? None. Instead you marvel at how great it looks. This is because you realise that this is an alpha version and it has not been finalized yet.
Well the GeForce FX has not been finalized yet. Yet you act as if anandtech and whoever else are god and already know what the final version will be like.
Save your criticism for when the card has been officially released. Then if it fails to perform, you can rip it apart however you want.
I always found Nvidea to have the best drivers, and ATI ti have the best-engineered cards, both in preformance/capabilities AND in thermal solution arena.
ExtremeTech best put the noise issue in this ending sentence:
If you've already got enough fans getting air in and out of your CPU case to power a wind farm, then the GeForceFX will be right at home in your rig.
Live for the present, learn from the past, and dream of the future!
The problem with all these new GFX card reviews is that they don't compare to the cards most of us already have.
I highly dobut that anybody who owns a Gf4 Ti or Raedon 9700 wants a new graphics card. On the other hand, I have a Geforce I DDR (still adequate for most games, IMHO), and I have no clue how it stacks up against this beast. Is it THAT much better?, or do I save my money?
Another overlooked point is comparing to other more recent cards, such as ATI's 9500. This card, ignored in most reviews sells for under $150, and while not as fast as the 9700, it gives the Gf4 Ti a run for its money. Why are we always focusing on the absolute latest and greatest (and costliest)?
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
the THG reviewer was dead on -- the card sounds like a vacuum cleaner http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/20030127/gefor ce_fx-06.html
if this is not addressed in the production release then Nvidia is doomed
I was also dissappointed that Tom didn't mention just how noisy the NVidia is. I've heard of people comparing it to a Dustbuster, but a friend of mine just sent me an email pointing out that only the biggest Black & Decker Dustbuster is as noisy as NVidia's latest card. (He'd sent a link to B&D's website, but I've already deleted the email.)
I spend a lot of time and money keeping my systems quiet. For that reason alone NVidia has lost any hope of getting in the next box I need to set up (a couple weeks -- one was destroyed when my car was rear-ended while moving to the new place.)
Still, I'm glad to see the reviews before I go ahead and buy the ATI as I'd planned.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Those are the models where they stop playing games and the video card becomes the mobo that the CPU, memory, et. al. plug into. Hell, it's already over 40% of the cost of a decent gaming system!
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Nvidia has really captured the "DCC" pro graphics market, because frankly, the stratospheric prices of ATIs pro cards put them out of reach for most of us. I can buy a Quadro4 750xgl for $350 which will absolutly smoke a fire 8800. I imagine that the price point on the FX-based Quadro card will make it pretty attractive (although not as attractive as the inevitable deals on the 750xgl and the 900xgl). And on the driver note, try running Maya on a Radeon for new and ugly crashes.
Sig removed because it was obnoxious
You say the 9700 isn't noiseless, but actually it can be made to be. This review shows a completely fanless 9700. The stock solution is louder then it needs to be for adequate cooling on a 9700.
The Geforce FX is a peice of crap. Even with 15% more performance from a future driver release (that's optimistic), it's still late, hot, loud, and not good enough. I'll wait for R350, thanks.
what are these *expletive deleted* on the review sites smoking. My Hercules 9700 pro certainly doesn't make 50/60db worth of noise like it says on anandtech, and it sure as hell doesn't sound like it does on the downloadable mp3 from nvidia fanboy central (tomshardware). My hercules 9700 pro produces 20db worth of noise, although its probably not this low, but thats what it says in the manual. either way I cannot hear it. I believe i'm a lucky guy to have a completly silent system. My system consists of the following. Verax P16 on a 2.4Ghz p4. Hercules 9700 pro with a silent copper cooler. Enermax silent 350watt PSU corsair XMS3200c2 512meg with elite heatspreader (NOFAN!) no doubt nvidia branded memory would come equiped with dust buster fitted as standard.
And how is this question different from the "640K is all you'll ever need" or "10 computers is all that's needed", or the 2GB limit mentioned awhile back?
Computer these days come with most components, that in the past, would have taken up a PCI slot. I've got 4 PCI on my mobo. None are used. Like most all motherboards, I've got onboard ethernet, onboard sound, onboard modem (don't use that), so the only slot of any kind that I use is my AGP. Losing a PCI slot is a nonissue for me and 90% of all computer users out there.
If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
I'm mad 'cause you got me all excited that I might be buying myself a 9700 Pro. Don't fool around with my emotions like that!
Good grief, you would think this was an Intel advocacy board. 'OMG, 9700 gets higher framerates at 1600x1200 with AA, nVidia suxor!' The FX involves itself in pushing what can be rendered in real-time, not just rendering the games of yesterday at obscene resolutions. In some respects it's a much more useful workstation card than consumer card. Games won't be taking advantage of its capabilities for a couple years yet. But, at least you can start *developing* those games now.
Not the intro page. Not the summaries or conclusions. Where was the one line you mention "prominently" included in Tom's review? I've been searching for the case-insensitive word "noise" and can only find it mentioned in a sidebar that I ignore as I would anything else that looks like an advertisement.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
The proof was there in the mouseovers. There is no way FX's performance mode was comparable with the Radeon's quality mode. In any case the Anandtech review did report the scores for the Radeon's quality mode as well as its performance mode.
I'm currently running a Radeon 8500. I'm using the older FireGL drivers, as I'm a little nervous about the new ones, given that I had to edit the source to get it to compile. But its running rock solid, with a few issues: UT for Linux has a bad mem leak which may be due to a driver bug, don't ask, its closed source so I can't easily debug it. Second, do not attempt to run to versions of X simultaneously, ie run X, then export DISPLAY=1:1 and startx again. You will not like it. However, considering that these two things don't really get in my way much, its no big deal. The drivers are nice.
Mentioning the rather serious noise issue on page 5 is hardly "prominent".
On a side note, I don't understand why your response was modded down -- you reference the correct page and other useful links. (I didn't bother chasing your links of the fan noise -- I'd listened to the ones at the Anandtech site many hours before.)
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
OUCH! I really was waiting for the FX to come out, i though it was going to be a huge step fordward, but it seems its not, but yes.. call me a retard idiot, but ill still gonna buy it, for $360~400 dlls the geforce FX offers good performance, plus lots of shaders and if you are saying the Ati is "cheaper" $350 dlls its not cheap for me.. i think the FX camed late, but we have to consider the beta drivers witch are a great come down.. and that its the only card that made more than 40 fps with max resolution in Doom 3, not like the 20 fps the Ati 9700 pro did, lets just wait a month and see what the new drivers make, I think the Geforce FX its gonna be better than ATI Radeon 97k pro, but it needs better drivers, and the price.. well there is not much diference
I think nvida should develop some penis attachments for this thing so that its air sucker can give me a blowjob
If I bought this thing I would catch flies and stick them in the air intake and watch them get chewed up and spat out.
I dunno about you guys but whenever I see the name "Tom Pabst" I can't help but think of "pap smear". Then when I think of "pap smear" I can't help think of the Naked Gun movie where the main dude is hypnotised and keeps repeating, "Must...kill...Pap...Smear". And then I laugh.
Are you sure it's not your inferior OS? The drivers run fine on FreeBSD and Windows.
commonly accepted (but incorrect)
I see this statement so often that I feel a need to make this point:
Who defines what is correct language and what is not correct language? (Usually, English teachers like to think it's more or less them personally. Not so.)
Language is defined by the people who use it. If I insert a previously unused word into an English-language sentence, and my intended meaning reaches the listeners of that sentence, then I have made a new word that works in English. No official approval is necessary. There is no three-letter agency that rubberstamps new words. You will find that a lot of words are invented on-the-fly by people who are extremely skilled in written English, the classical writers among them.
The major dictionaries have understood their role as documentative, not normative. However, partly as a result of school indoctrination, we like to think there is such a thing as "correct" or "incorrect" language. There isn't. The only applicable terms of correctness or inditto is that we have the possibility of choosing our nuance of language, and be perceived differently depending on how we express ourselves. This is nothing new -- even the old Romans had their language among elites, which happened to be Greek.
My [enormously offtopic] point is this: If a usage is commonly accepted, then there is no such thing as "incorrect".
I think it would be more accurate to say that the 2D APIs and hardware haven't advanced at anything like the pace 3D acceleration has enjoyed. Windows doesn't use the 3D hardware to do compositing and there are a number of operations you can get for free with modern hardware.
There are quite a few people interested in using the 3D hardware for 2D tasks. See this post for a comparison between GDI and D3D for 2D work.