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ATI Radeon 9800 Pro vs. NVidia GeForce 5900
HardcoreGamer writes "Today ATI shipped its Radeon 9800 Pro 256 MB DDR-2 card in time for E3 and nVidia announced the NV35-based GeForce 5900 which will be available in June. Early tests seem to say that while nVidia edges ahead of ATI in specific areas, overall ATI still has the better card. The caveat is that the next generation of DirectX 9-based games (like Doom 3 and Half-Life 2, demonstrated with ATI at E3) will truly determine which is the better card. Lots of coverage at PC Magazine, PC World, The Register (ATI) (nVidia), ExtremeTech, InternetNews, and Forbes/Reuters. Either way, at $450-$500, serious gamers are about to get another serious dent in their wallets."
Just a small note, but one that's been bothering me with all of these reviews: Not all 'next generation' games are 'dx9.' Though the new cards are dx9, many games (coincidently, most of the best games) use OpenGL. Unfortunately, it's much easier to incorrectly call Doom3 a dx9 game than to cite the OpenGL extensions (like shaders) that are used.
(Also, I'll note that Doom3 may be technically a DirectX9 game because its sound and input MAY use it, but in the context that people have been talking about dx9 games, it is still incorrect.)
My basis is being in a zone with about 20
other people with a high GHz and Mbyte machine
and see if the card allows the graphics without
slowing down the game.
"...serious dent in their wallets."
Dont you mean 'hole'.
I'd like to add to this. At $400-500 serious gamers better get use to eating Ramen noodles.
when a new video card has more memory than what you have in system memory
$cat
My first freakin' PC had 20 meg HD.
I'm afraid until ATI starts producing better Linux drivers, I'll have to stick with nVidia's cards for the time being. nVidia has really gotten their act in gear as of late and their latest drivers work great for me under Linux. I see on ATI's website that their drivers don't even support XFree 4.3 yet. Weeeeakk! :)
When a new video card costs more than your entire system is worth.
Download my free songs!
Hmm, spend $500 for a video card or eat this month. Video card or food, video card or food. Hmm...
Anandtech and Tom's Hardware are more reputable sites than the story poster mentioned. They also perform more comprehensive benchmarks, including Doom 3 and Unreal 2, at multiple resolutions, with and without anisotropic filtering. The other reviews just seem shallow by comparison.
I'm not impressed with the Radeon 9800 Pro. What I really want is the Radeon 9500 ASC. The price is steadily coming down. Mmmmm, I can't wait to play Nethack in full 3D :-)
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
This is using unoptimized nvidia drivers on a pre-release card. I saw benchmarks that were pulled due to NDA that showed that with the Detonator 50.xx, the NV35 chip performs SO much better than with the current drivers. I say wait, before judging the performance of NV35.
ATI is starting to try but has anyone tryed ATIs drivers and compared them, both fetaure-wise, performance-wise and stability-wise with the NVIdia ones ?
so unless /. started covering HW 99% focused on MS platforms the duel is a non issue :-) Nvidia wins by K.O.under linux, and under even BSD :-) ...
Nice to see they got rid of the leaf blower that was on the 5800.
Nothing to see here; Move along.
ATI's drivers were given to the X crew, they didn't commit them. Check out their archives for more info.
Definitely, I don't care if -any- ATI card has a 2%-5%-10% performance advantage, having absolutely great drivers from NVidia (for Linux & windows) far outweighs any small performance gains the ATI card might supposedly have.
:)
If the situation is like this (where the cards are pretty much neck & neck) the balance swings even farther towards buying NVidia. The only NVidia card I'd have never ever considered buying would have been the dustbuster...
Given that I'm running an (ancient) dual p3-450 bought 3 years ago, I guess this Fall it might be time to upgrade
-- the cake is a lie
Whenever I've given into hype, my wallet's regretted it. But buying the current way-cool game a year-and-a-half or more later almost always guarantees it'll run just fine on my current hardware.
There's all the free walkthroughs, hints, and cheat codes on the web by then, too.
I bought an 9700 All in Wonder and it produces 'waves' on any resolution under 85hz. This seems to be a common problem with the 9700 while searching for google groups. Is this common with all ATI cards?
Every graphics engine since Quake 1, that John Carmack has made, has used OpenGL. In his latest .plan update he makes many comments about using OpenGL, though the most obvious is this: "Trying to keep boneheaded-ideas-that-will-haunt-us-for-years
out of Direct-X is the primary reason I have been attending the Windows
Graphics Summit for the past three years, even though I still code for OpenGL." Anyway, if an interesting read is his .plan update when he was first experimenting with OpenGL in quake. Basically, there are not as many problems with DirectX anymore, but he still uses OpenGL. Personally I like OpenGL better because of its design philosophy and because it's cross platform. Anyway, some links are below for those interested.
. html
http://www.bluesnews.com/plans/1/
http://www.exaflop.org/docs/d3dogl/d3dogl_jc_plan
People call games "DX9 games" because the various DirectX revisions give a rough dilineation of the different generations of graphics hardware. Roughly, they are:
DirectX 6: Software Transform and lighting. Most games from this category use lightmaps for lighting, rather than goraud(per vertex) shading.
DirectX 7: Hardware T&L. All those new T&L enabled games you heard about belong here. The opengl equivalent is calling glTranslate, glRotate, etc do to transformations, and using glLight to do lighting
DirectX 8: Vertex and Pixel Shaders. Let's you program the vertex transform and lighting part, and to a lesser extent, the pixel processing part, of the graphics pipeline. Corresponds to the OpenGL extensions NV_VERTEX_PROGRAM, NV_TEXTURE_SHADER, and NV_REGISTER_COMBINERS(for nvidia, similar extensions for ATI)
DirectX 9: Highly programmable Vertex and Pixel Shaders. The old pixel shader model let you do something like 8 operations max, while the new model greatly extends this number. OpenGL extensions are ARB_VERTEX_PROGRAM and ARB_FRAGMENT_PROGRAM.
This is really only a brief overview, there are many, many more OpenGL extensions(which you can see here, some of which have no DirectX counterparts. It's easier to tell non-graphics programmers "It's a DX9 game" than "Oh, it uses OpenGL 1.4, ARB_VERTEX_PROGRAM, ARB_TEXTURE_PROGRAM, etc", especially since DirectX is a well-known name. People generally aren't as aware of the various revisions of OpenGL(which are mainly exposed through extensions).
Doom 3 uses OpenGL for its graphics. In fact, the basic tech required is really DirectX 8 level(bump mapping and stencil buffer), but it looks better on DirectX 9 hardware(due to the higher programmability). It likely uses other Direct X APIs for sound, networking, etc on Windows.
ATI has never wanted to trouble themselves with Drivers. Historically they have abandoned hardware as quickly as they thought they could get away with. I got bit by this back with the introduction of the "new" windows driver model. A card less than two months old was "unsupported". I made the mistake of buying an ATI PCI TV Wonder while experimenting with HTPC setups. Fortunately that one is still quite useful in Linux. ATI dropped windows support for IT over a year ago. Shortly after I purchased one NEW. The ATI Windows apps still don't work right. Every time they invoke Windows scheduler to set up a scheduled show, they GPF.
I will never forget or forgive that blatant attempt to obsolete brand new hardware. The fact that they can't be bothered to stay current with Xfree doesn't help their case in my eyes.
The only windows box I have left is the one that I play most of my games on. Every machine I own runs only NVidia hardware. The fact that NVidia's drivers support every piece of hardware they've made back to the original GeForce (and I think the Riva) makes me much more comfortable in investing in hardware from them.
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
I bought my first 3D card from canopus because it had 6 meg. It was the absolute best 3DFX card available. It cost around $250 at the time. It was a sweet card but within 6 months a better and cheaper card came out and I decided I would never buy the latest and greatest card again. My rule of thumb is to stay 2 generations behind the best and you will have a card that can play any game out there. This may change as soon as a DX9 game comes out but I really can't see a game company "require" anything greater than a DX7 card or they wil really linit their audience....
Zoid.com
Actually, alot of times the "beta" hardware with the "beta" drivers runs FASTER than the final product.
:)
Hardware: The problem lies in that the "beta" hardware is carefully crafted and selected so that it lies in a very high yield of the manufacturing build. Later on, when mass production starts you have to clock things down and tone things down in general so you get a nice output yield. Otherwise you will run into the problem Nvidia already did with the 5800 Ultra, they tried to make the cards run like the "Beta" cards did, and nearly got NO cards that worked when trying to manufacture.
Software Drivers: Beta drivers can generally run slower, usually when extra debug info is turned on. However, when drivers are going to pre-release sites, alot of times they are running as fast as they can and are even tweaked to be more unstable just to get better performance... Also tweaked to run on the "beta" hand-select hardware.
All in all, alot of times beta hardware/software is better than the final shipments off of mass production. How much does a "Beta" board cost to make? Well, a company I worked for previously made a $150 board in mass production, but our beta development boards cost $5000.00 a piece.
This isn't always the case though, sometimes Beta hardware is junk, clocked slow, and drivers are slowed down by debug messages... In this video idustry though, anything about to be reviewed and is "Beta" gives the company a chance to Tweak things all to hell without fear when going to mass production, because that was "Beta" performance...
- Jeff
Modesty is one of life's greatest attributes
As much as I'd like that to happen, it doesn't seem very likely to happen anytime soon. Really, John Carmack singlehandedly keeps OpenGL alive; if he didn't have such a strong preference for it, DirectX would have just about all the major games out there and hardware support would be significantly worse.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Anandtech and Tom's Hardware have much better hardware reviews than that ZD reviews specified. They also have Doom 3 bench marks, which put the new NVidia card significantly ahead of the ATI counterpart.
Unless Linux suddenly got a bunch of new latest-generation games, the issue of Linux drivers is a non-issue. 99% of gamers use Windows to play games, even those who use Linux for everything else (hell, CmdrTaco even reboots to Windows to play games).
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I have had a handful of video cards since my original trident 8900. Pretty much every time I plug the card in, boot to VGA resolution, install the drivers, and reboot. Everything is done.
I just got an ATI 9500 pro--my first ATI card. The driver installation was a five hour nightmare of crashing Windows, exception errors, hangs, and black screens. When I was done, I couldn't set the refresh rate. Nothing I did (including installing the latest drivers, and trying to use the 'secret' max. refresh setting in the ATI display controls--it wasn't there at all) could get me off of 60Hz.
Games crashed. Windows hung. Horridness. I talked to the manufacturer, and they said it was a bad card--get an RMA, and ship it back. This I can believe.
The problem is, I can no longer set the refresh rate on my OLD video card anymore! These damned drivers screwed up my system substantially! Removing them didn't help at all. I'm going to have to dig into the registry most likely.
If the replacement ATI card doesn't work any better (hardware AND software), then I'll be going back to nVidia permanently, or at least for another two generations. At least their stuff works.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
What it comes down to isn't which one is more powerful, but which one can become the most powerful... In this case I would take nVidia since a few registry mods will open up an overclocking menu in the video properties...
That's just one of the many "secrets" I know, let me tell you about Area 51, if you really want to fi-
Just a sec, someone's at the door...
Business \Busi"ness\, n.;
A scam in which all people involved perceive as beneficial...
dude. i won't even look at the responses, because you are probably getting flamed.
...yet.
my response: forgetting about 3d (both will acceptbly play ut2003, sof, quake, etc...both wil do good opengl)
the real problem? 2d.
take anyone new to linux (but with xp or os-x experience) and put them on a gnome/kde desktop. their first experience just click around will be vastly different.
1. xfree86 nv or radeon driver...the interface feels "laggy", and not quite as snappy as your typical os-x, 2k, xp desktop (all hardware being equal)
2. using Nvidia's proprietary driver, the interface in gnome/kde just hum along, window dragging, min/maximizing etc....nvidia's driver in 2d is at LEAST TWICE AS FAST as anything xfree86 drivers can muster.In fact it's so good, it seems faster then XP or OS-X for me.
If i'm introducing a non-techie to linux, I NEVER let them use the desktop unless i have the nvidia binary loaded....i don't want them to make their ENTIRE FIRST IMPRESSION on the basis of a laggy interface due to mediocre drivers (xfree86 itself works quite well, when in conjunction with a good driver)
most radeons are supported by xfree86 code...therefore are subject to the same poor 2d as well.
using a a firegl with ati/ibm drivers again proves that it's the xfree drivers that suck...as they are almost as good in 2d as nvidias.
my point? there's a world of difference in a single driver. linux is far more appealing to your average user when it's behaving snappily using the nvdia driver.
you might think i'm an nvidia fanboy.
guess again.
i own 1000 shares of atyt.
because when it comes to chip stocks, linux is still irrelevant. the chip market is not influence by linux
atyt
nvda
amd
intc
have the majority of their user base in windows & macs.
Tom's Hardware came to the same conclusion. Except for Splinter Cell and some synthetic benchmarks the FX 5900 was clearly the better card.
...because I love computer games, but I haven't owned a cutting-edge video card in about five years, and if anything my gaming experience has *improved.* Why? Because ninety percent of the time games that are written to use the features of brand-spankin'-new video cards are so intent on milking the most out of the card's technology that they fail to concentrate on the most important aspect - gameplay. If a game is actually innovative, challenging, and involving, then it's still going to be enjoyable two years from now despite the fact that its graphics aren't quite up to par with the latest offerings. Because I've got a wimpy 10Mb video card, all of the games I can play on my machine are a year or two old. Sure, this means that I miss out on a lot of the online gaming experience - a lot of the multiplayer servers for a game are dead by the time I get around to playing it. But if those servers have disappeared inside of eighteen months, then how good was the game in the first place? Half-Life is pushing five years now, and there are still tons of places to play it. $450 for a freakin' video card? Sheesh. Give me a break. I'll wait until they're $100, by which time all the mediocre games will have disappeared into a much-deserved oblivion while I'll just be ready to tackle the top ten of the bunch. Sure, a year and a half is like an eon in computer gaming, but the ones that last the eons are the best anyway. Chess, anyone?
Easy - I still don't own my first PC :pp
I see the Radeon 9800 on the shelf. I see the GeForce 5900 on the shelf. They're comparable in speed. Each supports next generation games. But I think the biggest feature, the thing that makes the choice for me, is the size of the box. That's what determines which one I steal.
Just a very curious question:
Does Linux do Direct-X ?
If Linux doesn't do Direct-X, then
How can we know which one runs better under Linux ?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Try this link -- they have later drivers, and they work quite well for me (though nVidia's offerings still are a lot more stable).
/* Steinar */
(This comment is of course GPLed.)