Slashdot Mirror
GeForce 7800 GTX Review
ThinSkin writes "ExtremeTech has the first review of nVidia's latest GPU architecture, the Geforce 7800 GTX. Benchmarked against nVidia's previous 6800 Ultra and ATI's latest Radeon X850 XT PE, the 7800 GTX comes out as the fastest video card to date. The unit ships today with a price tag of $599. While nVidia may enjoy this brief moment in the limelight with the fastest card, it may be short-lived once ATI comes out with their latest GPU technology, code-named R520, which is suspected to come out within the next two months."
...has hardware H.264 codec support.
And this technology is, in part, targeted at low- to mid-range systems and laptops, meaning it's not going to be part of video chipsets that only cost $599...further meaning that it wouldn't be beyond the realm of comprehension, since Apple is already an ATI customer, for Apple to use something like this in a Mac mini-type product, answering the questions of "how could the Mac mini possibly play back HD?" in the Mac-mini-as-HD-media-center Mac-mini-as-iTunes-HD-Movie-Store-player scenarios.
Off-topic? No, the R520 is mentioned directly in the submission, and one of its primary features is H.264 hardware acceleration. This is huge.
Hmm, $600?
...
I think I have a spare kidney.
Bastards.
MoM++ - A Classic Expanded - [Master of Magic 1.5]
http://mompp.sourceforge.net/
How does this compare to the RSX planned for the PS3?
So now I can almost play Doom 3.
I refuse to engage in a duel of wits with the unarmed.
That's not limelight but the healthy green glow of a power supply pushed to the limit.
While nVidia may enjoy this brief moment in the limelight with the fastest card, it may be short-lived once ATI comes out with their latest GPU technology, code-named R092064262670, which is suspected to come out within the next two minutes.
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
... because people continue to pay outrageous amounts of money to get the best card...
Supply and demand, the demand is still high, so they can sock it to us...
MoM++ - A Classic Expanded - [Master of Magic 1.5]
http://mompp.sourceforge.net/
From TFA they mention that according to the stats, the 7800 isn't much of an upgrade; Are those specs similar to what the GPU in the PS3 will have, or are they starting to hold back to get more users intrested in sony's system?
In some respects, laptops will always lag behind desktops as it always takes longer to miniaturize than to develop in the first place. So I wonder what the best graphics chips are for laptops and how much of a time lag we can expect between the release of a new card and the time it takes to put it into a portable machine.
Desktops are very cumbersome and difficult to carry to LAN parties and elsewhere, which is why I prefer laptops (even desktop-replacement laptops are more portable than true desktop computer). Gaming is one aspect that suffers on laptops because of the lag between CPU/graphics card release and eventual laptop release.
Is there a general rule of thumb regarding how long this lag takes? Does either NVidia or ATI seem to keep this lag to a minimum?
I suppose it also makes sense to ask whether anyone bases their laptop purchases on what graphics chips are built into the machine.
Supply and demand, my friend. When you have a customer base willing to shell out the big scrilla for a new piece of kit, why not charge them as much as they're willing to pay for it?
It'll all be nanoconfigurable bitgranular CPUs. Of course.
Transcend Humanity. Please.
Who needs these? I thought 640...I mean, 6800 was all anybody needed?
6600GT seems to be the best bang for the buck right now, and unless you have money to burn and do nothing but play video games (or you make money off of using such a high quality video card) then there's no point in buying it.
So much money for a card that hardly performs all that much better than a 6800 Ultra. I'm an nVidia fan, but if R520 is as good as everyone says, I'm getting that...in a year or two of course...unless an IT job actually pays me good money... *runs to closet to cry*
Thats because it is1 !!
EEEEEEEEEEXTREEEEEEEEEEEEME!!!!!11!!!1!!!1111
I know the lines have been drawn between the Nvidia folks and the ATI folks. Having used both myself, I'm more of an Nvidia guy personally, but I respect both sides... I'm just glad that both companies are actively involved in making better products, because without competition, I think the market would stagnate pretty quick. Its competition that drives us (ok, them!)
;)
As much as I'm not happy about a $600 card, I'll probably wait a year or two until it drops to maybe around $400, then I'll bite. I'd like to keep my kidneys as long as possible, and not have to sell one off just to by hardware that will eventually become obsolete. I guess that competition is a double-edged sword after all!
And they said zombies weren't real!
Um. Because it's a brand new videocard? Try giving it three months and let the price drop. Besides, the videocard is the part that will make the most difference in gameplay for most people. The most kickass componants won't mean a damn thing if you're trying to play Half Life 2 on a $80 64MB GeForce-2.
$600 gets you a pcb, connectors, the fastest RAM available, not to mention the latest consumer-grade GPU. I think that video cards are still a steal compared to the latest CPUs.
Or consider this-- you get a lot more transistors per dollar with video cards.
Tom's also has a set of reviews and links available.
1 /index.html/
http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20050622
you could get both the next gen systems from Sony and MS. It seems to me that PC gaming is falling more by the wayside with every new video card release...
Ban Engadget - moderators censor comments!
From the article:
Defendant slashdot.org is an far-right wing Internet news website that posts libelous and defamatory content and is used by Open Source Community members to anonymously post hate speech, death threats, threats to murder and promotes and advocates acts of domestic terrorism within the United States. The address and location of defendants is believed to be within the State of California, but is unknown at the present time.
Far right wing Internet news website??
This statement is wrong on so many levels.
...why is this called Geforce 7? It behaves and performs more like a Geforce 6 refresh. It should've been a 6900.
On another note, is the price tag worth it? Theres a lot of geforce 6800 Ultra/Radeon x800XT/850 users who arent going to see nothing more than a 10fps increase in Doom3 at 1600x1200 4xFSAA.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not trolling. I'm disappointed. I like many other doubtlessly are, are checking these reviews with a view in mind on maybe purchasing such a card in the future. I'm actually concerned R520 could hit a similar performance 'wall' now...
Or maybe we are just seeing the restrictions of CPU tying due to less than large increases in CPU performance and speeds in the last two years versus graphics. It'll be interesting to see a site test the 7800/R520 out on a FX57/59 etc or higher. Maybe when nvidia releases their multithreaded drivers, we may see some better gains.
"...gamers and PC builders staunchly defend their favorite brands while throwing mud in the face of the other, treating anecdotal evidence as gospel"
Am I truly the only person willing to switch happily between Nvidia and ATi, depending on which best fits my needs at the time?
A few things:
a) They are pricing themselves beyond reason for even enthusiasts. Not too long ago, the top level for a graphics card was $400. That was expensive but within reach. I think they may be passing the point were even the enthusiast crowd will purhcase this.
b) Most people will wait until the next products come out from them and ATI. I mean, when you know that cheaper products will come out with most of the performance AND that better products will come out with better performance in this same series, why buy this? Just one example - remember ATI's 9700.
c) It's just for prestige anyway. That's the real reason this card has been released. They'll wait until ATI comes out with a reply card, wait a few months, and come out with something faster again and get good PR OR not have anything faster and suffer the consequences in bad PR.
Huh?
While ATI may enjoy this brief moment in the limelight with the fastest card, it may be short-lived once Nvidia comes out with their latest GPU technology, code-named S9000, which is suspected to come out within the next two months."
What was your username again? -BOFH
I have a new Dell, 3.2G box, with a PCI-e ATI x300 card, everyone knows about the ATI Linux drivers not being as good as nVidia, so I want to buy a new PCI-e card. The big question is; what do I NEED to play things like UT2005 and Doom3? (I'm really waiting for the next Quake, but I figure if I am running Doom3 I should have enough horsepower (haha)... What is recommended w/o breaking the bank? (in other words, less than 200$)
bad_outlook
--
Is this vague enough for you?
"Scrilla" is a term used to denote "money" in BAE.
Tell me about it, I almost choked on my breakfast once I read that.
I know the parent comment to this was modded offtopic, but I had to investigate, and heres what I found:
32. Defendant slashdot.org is an far-right wing Internet news website that posts libelous and defamatory content and is used by Open Source Community members to anonymously post hate speech, death threats, threats to murder and promotes and advocates acts of domestic terrorism within the United States. The address and location of defendants is believed to be within the State of California, but is unknown at the present time.
I think the only part of that that is true is the part that says 'Internet news website'. Far-right wing? Jeez...
One of the most impressive aspects of this launch is that the part is available now. I mean right now. Order it today and plug it in tomorrow. That's right, not only has NVIDIA gotten the part to vendors, but vendors have gotten their product all the way to retailers. This is unprecedented for any graphics hardware launch in recent memory. In the midst of all the recent paper launches in the computer hardware industry, this move is a challenge to all other hardware design houses.
ATI is particularly on the spot after today. Their recent history of announcing products that don't see any significant volume in the retail market for months is disruptive in and of itself. Now that NVIDIA has made this move, ATI absolutely must follow suit. Over the past year, the public has been getting quite tired of failed assurances that product will be available "next week". This very refreshing blast of availability is long overdue. ATI cannot afford to have R520 availability "soon" after launch; ATI must have products available for retail purchase at launch.
I would assume one of the reasons the price point is higher is the fact that this card was pushed to retail much faster than either nvidia or ati has been able to do before. I would suspect that, given an amount of time comparable to the normal lag between launch and having the card available on shelves, the price will be more comparable to launch prices we're accustomed to seeing.
From the Urban Dictionary:
1. scrilla
Money, One who spends a lot of money
"Yo, shes got mad scrilla, we're gonna rock the mall later."
"Scrilla in Manila, shlong in Hong Kong"
Source: studtaco, Feb 25, 2003
-- Given enough time and money, Microsoft will eventualy invent UNIX.
So you can have the whole scene rendered and lit too!
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
No doubt that this is the heart of the PS3, even the 302 million transistor comparisons were the same used at E3. We are seeing today what the GPU of the PS3 will be, and it is pretty darn impressive. However, even in volume the price point is very high... even a year down the road I can't see this bugger going lower than 300-400 retail.
Even at a loss the PS3 seems to be placing itself in the $400+ market as thought.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
Reportedly will come with a nail stuck in it!
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
is because the latest and greatest graphics cards guzzle power like there's no tomorrow and development of batteries is lagging way behind all the other bits.
Oh and cooling them isn't too easy either.
Even when laptop versions of GPUs are released, they're usually castrated versions with lower clocks and fewer pipelines (and occasionally completely different cores than the name would suggest).
As with all things, you have to compromise. You want the fastest performance - you have to pay a premium. You want the latest and greatest graphics card - you can't buy a laptop.
100 watts... joy.
Someone needs to build a card that draws single digit wattage and will drive 2048x1536 displays, and they will sell loads of them. I cannot be the only one sick of the jet engine noise and space heater performance.
Ya know, like an Mac Mini, only with high resolution.
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
Count me as one of those video card/PC gamer geeks that had to have the latest and greatest card to play the latest and greatest PC games on the market...
No more.
600 bones for a vid card that is going to showcase what reveloutionry/evolutionary new game? With the next generation of console machines hitting the market in the next year, supposedly in the $400-$500 price range, I take that along with the over priced vid card market as my cue to become a pure console gamer. HDTV, amazing graphics, home media, I see no need to be bleeding edge anymore on my PC.
There has been some talk about the death of PC gaming. With video cards costing this much, it's cheaper to just buy a gaming console and get better effects out of that.
I am Lord Snowbeam. Heed my call!
I for one, welcome our new Internet News overloads (*ahem* K5), whoever they may be.
Though the scores are a bit odd...
Link
Please, try not to sound so stupid...
The price of bleeding-edge computers hasn't changed that much in years. To get the high end brand new stuff end to end is still going to cost you a couple thousand dollars. Brand new video cards are always very pricy, but you can still get cards that will play all current games and probably most games that will come out in the next year for a hundred bucks.
Your games will run about 15-20 fps faster, or a general 30% performance gain.
Conclusion: Spend your money on beer instead.
video processor (gpu) die sizes are huge producing a lower yield from each wafer; that yield is then lowered even more after discarding the defective dies. then look at the total volume in market, while its a large number, its much smaller in comparison to total cpu volumes.
throw in design and manufacturing and additional components and your price for realizing a profit are rather high.
then factor in the niche demand and the knowledge that people within this group have, in the past, proven that they will buy it at an insane price initially...wa-la! high prices.
i suck at business, but thats my watered down 2c.
dude.
This is the latest, greatest top of the range graphics card with lots of RAM, the newest GPU core, onboard decoders and other things. Show me the latest, greatest PC with a top of the range CPU, lots of fast RAM and a large disk. The price disparaty wont be as obvious.
Your cheap components are not current generation.
Not only are there suspicions that ATI will release their new shiny card in two months, according to the article there is also speculation that Nvidia has an even more shiny Ultra just waiting for ATI's release. Of course the article also claims that ATI's card will be shipping in 4-6 weeks rather than two months, so who knows.
Two months is not a "brief moment" in the graphics card industry.
$8.95/mo web hosting
What a crap codename. If I was inventing what was going to be the fastest chip around, I'd have called it "Codename: BASTARDFIRE" or "SHITSTORM" or something. Let the marketing guys mod it down to R520 upon release.
Plaintiff Jeffrey Vernon Merkey ("Merkey") is an individual who resides at 1058 East 50 South, Lindon Utah 84042.
Merkey has been involved in Open Source Development relative to the Linux Operating System and other platforms for almost 10 years.
He is? Never fucking heard of him. Hey Jeff, when people on Slashdot were telling you to go kill yourself, I think they may have been right on the money. You fucking looser.
Gah! You got my hopes up.
I thought you were talking about a new version of the best Quake 2 mod ever.
Bundle this card with two 17" flat panels and some means of driving both of them, for $1,000, and I might go knock over a few grocery stores. .ebuild is up to snuff.
However, having my naughty bits tied to Redmond is unappealing; if you haven't the guts to GPL the drivers, at least make sure that the media-video/nvidia-kernel
<lumberg voice>Thanks,</lumberg voice>
Chris
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
While it's true that this doesn't seem to be much of an increase in speed especially compared to moving from the nvidia 5xxx FX series to the 6xxx series of videocards, the 7800 gtx does make it faster than ATI's current fastest card. This makes it so when a regular (non-nerd) person who plays the occasional computer game asks his/her computer nerd friend "hey, who makes the fastest video cards right now" the response will be Nvidia. That means that the non-nerd person will be more likely to buy the Nvidia card based on the "recommendation" from their computer nerd friend. So nvidia just needs to make this product available even though few people will buy it to make it worth it.
...a 64 mb GeForce 2 doesn't cost 80$. if you can even find one, I'd imagine it'd be closer to 15 or 20$. Hell, the FX 5200 can be picked up for 35$, and that's with the GeForce 3s and GeForce 4s in between there.
They name the cards based on the GPU version. This is the Geforce 7 chip. This also isn't going to be the end-all, super-hi Geforce 7 as I would assume an Ultra version is to be released with a price tag that includes an arm and a leg.
When all those articles were coming out about Doom 3 being such a sophisticated engine that current hardware couldn't take full advantage of it, I couldn't help but wonder, how do you know that? How do you test a claim regarding performance on non-existent hardware? So, that got me wondering, was Doom 3 tested on nvidia 7800 prototypes, or maybe 8800 (pretending it exists)? Further to the point, if Id has access to this avant garde stuff, what can we expect?
I'm not writing this as a skeptic. I'm honestly just curious.
The 7800 has it too.
/ nvidia_7800_gtx-04.html
http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20050622
60fps is the sweet spot for most people where any increase isn't noticeable to the vast majority of people. Getting a 15-20fps boost can be the difference between tolerable (30fps) to nearly perfect (45-50fps)
Not that I would ever pay $600 for a video card, but 15-20fps is a huge, huge jump.
SCREW YOU SLASHDOT FOR MAKING ME PROVE I'M NOT A ROBOT
Wonderful stuff! Among the highlights I have gleaned thus far:
1) The defendant wants to make sure the court is crystal clear on the fact that he did not use peyote before filing his lawsuit.
2) Terrorists use Linux to view beheadings that they film.
Haven't gotten too far yet, but I hope this entices others to read some of this lunatic's rantings.
"As the intrepid kobold companion continues his journey, he begins to wonder... if priests raises dead, why anybody die?
Even if the R520 outperforms that 7800, I'm staying with nvidia because they have ACTUAL linux support. ATI doesn't even support multiple monitors.
Why hasn't some joker cobbled together a quake map where you're shooting black monsters with black weapons in black rooms on a black planet and flogged it as DOOM 3 1/2?!!!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
The ExtremeTech review is a little short on details.
There is a more comprehensive review here
This is precisely what is wrong, we need stagnation so that developers can actually focus on and utilize a video card. In the current state NONE of the features of current cards are being utilized properly.
Ever notice how it takes a year or so for console games to really begin to shine? This never happens because in 14 months 8-10 cards have come and gone. If there was some standardization and a slowdown the industry could focus on content rather than FPS in a two or three year old game that doesn't utilize ANY of the new cards features.
The FX line of cards had the ability to be great but needed to be programmed for directly, and because of trying to cover ATI and other vendors none of the cool features ever saw daylight (remember the cloth/trasparency demo's)
I know ATI and Nvidia will never try to standardize, nor will they slow the flow of cards with small increases in actual performance at high prices, but if they would PC's could actually get utilized to their fullest potential (hell this 7800gtx TURNS OFF TRANSISTORS to save power, just showing how under-utilized and un-needed they truly are)
Same for Game consoles, standardize, build them into consumer electronics... sell in quantity with less marketing, R&D, and loss and sell billions of games. It is a win/win for hardware manufacturers and developers... just as soon as people wake up.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
It is very similar to the GeForce 6800 series, with the exception of an additional "quad" (group of four) pixel-shader pipelines.
Yeah, but does it give you more bass?
And the arms race continues...
A colleague of mine was in ATI's head office a short time ago and even though he is under NDA I am not.
There is a new card that they don't even have a name for. It supposedly is a year away from release. The research types would not allow 3d benchmarks to be run on it but they demo'd it for him with a few current GPU intensive games. Result? This card was truly a NEXT GENERATION GPU!
My buddy is pretty well informed since it is his job to review and report on these things and he was blown away.
ATI fanboy? Nope. Just an indication that as long as these flagship products are being developed that only a small percentage of pc users purchase the spinoff for the rest of us will continue. More processing power for less bucks.
Good on Nvidia and ATI for continuing the GPU arms race.
How long have you been in computers? You ALWAYS pay a premium for bleeding edge technology. 99% of everyone who reads this will be just fine with a much cheaper lower end card from Nvidia. Doom 3 and HL2 work perfectly fine on my 6800 with everything on.
I'm glad you weren't around when the 386 came out. I actually know someone who paid nearly 10,000 for one.
As I read this I thought it was a graphics card from 2056, and I wondered why the bandwidth was still limited by PCE express-x16!
"JEFFREY VERNON MERKEY VERIFIED COMPLAINT Plaintiff,
vs
MATT MERKEY a.k.a MERKEY.NET
BRANDON SUIT a.k.a. MERKEY.NET"
Looks like somebody with poor social skills got told to go stuff it and decided to sue -- his own brother, among others!!!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Lots of somewhat bogus postings.
The 7800 performs significantly better than 6800. In fact, reading through the (many) reviews that all popped up with NDA's expiring, in higher res / anti-aliasing a single 7800 is beating dual 6800's SLI. Of course, choice of benchmark affects these results, but it does look like a generational increase in speed.
In addition, it uses LESS POWER. No one seems to be mentioning this, but these cards suck up rediculous amounts of power. This bodes well for cheaper versions.
And cheaper versions are going to be coming, this release is for the insane gaming crowd that is already spending $1k on SLI setups. The price/value at this point is not the point, it is just about how fast you can go.
ATI feels like they are a generation behind to me. They are coming out with first gen SLI, first gen Shader 3, while Nvidia is already on their second spins.
The key of course is when they release their next gen part (and by this I mean actual retail volume, not a paper launch). In six months another cycle of cards will be coming through, so one has to be careful to compare apples to apples.
Plus of course there is the nice AMD64 and Linux support (not perfect, but good) from Nvidia. Bottom line, will wait to see the ATI part, and how available it actually is, before singing its praises.
I'll get right on that..
..."mod" turn gamma down..."/mod"
step 1:
step 2: release doom 3 1/2
step 3: profit!!!
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
It has been a long time since their reviews had any merit in my eyes. They generally favour their advertisers and aren't very sublte about that.
They fail to deliver useful drivers for *nix. X.Org developers should be able to implement all what they want, and for that they need better-documented hardware. Only then will we have a real eyecandy, hardware-accelerated desktop à la Quartz Extreme.
This is why the Open Graphics Project is so important.
The project has already been mentionned twice on Slashdot, but since then it has made a lot of progress. Skimming through their mailing list archives shows that they're even creating their own company to produce the graphics card. The company's name is "Traversal Technology". A website is coming soon.
War doesn't prove who's right, just who's left.
"$599 for a video card!?!" You are thinking of "video card as toy" and yes, a $600 toy is expensive but I've worked on video subsystems costing 100 times more than $600. For some applications $60K is reasonable. For many non-toy applications $600 is a total "steal" I'm thinking of scientific visualzation and enginerring. We spent $600 of the nVidia video card in this computer (the one I'm typing this on) It's a drop in the bucket compared to the department's budget for coputer hardware.
But it's stupid to spend $600 on a toy you don't need. If you have money to burn give it to the Red Cross or somthing.
Is it me or does saying "ATI will beat it in a couple of months" sound awful like "Longhorn will be better than this though"?
I am trolling
it's normally accepted to be a good thing.
And I think you are on crack. How in the world is the price justified for a few more FPS? At least back in the days of the Voodoo 2 cards, there WAS a huge increase in performance, now it's percentages. So, for a 3 percent increase, I have to pay 600 dollars? Same goes for CPUs, they havent had a huge increase in performance for quite some time. As long of people like you find ways to justify spending a premium for mediocre gains in performance they will continue to gouge us with these insane prices.
Anybody else think that this sort of thing just isn't sustainable?
You can only drink 30 or 40 glasses of beer a day, no matter how rich you are.
-- Colonel Adolphus Busch
You can buy two perfectly good PCs for the price of this one card. It truly has become all about 'having the latest and greatest'. The evolvement of hardware power has finally gone that last step -- from ludicrous to stupid.
Oh, and just for kicks "yeah, but can it run under Linux?"
SYS 64738
WTF? How come I have ever heard of this lawsuit before today??
Nothing on Groklaw...
I skimmed through the complaint and found several instances of using "it's" where it seems obvious they meant "its". Well, it's one thing to use less than correct grammar on Slashdot, but in a legal document submitted to a court of law one would expect a more careful proofreading.
Deus Ex: Invisible War
Hell, I paid $250 for that GeForce2 64MB Nvidia card when it came out. UT and Unreal never looked better.
if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
all your money are belong to us.
What was your username again? -BOFH
You *don't* think there will be 7x00 offerings down that low? Cut some pipes, clockspeed, etc... instant 7200-TC.
Besides, the R520 isn't even out. None of this is a big deal until the dust settles on all the offerings.
HotHardware also has a full review with benchmarks here. Good stuff....
Nvidia / ATI; Intel / AMD;
it's not like a choice of good vs evil.
I consume with economics in mind,well, at least bottom dollar over the long run. What ever gives me the most stasifaction at the best price / performance ratio is what I am going to buy. It sounds simple, but to me it means researching purchases over $50, using pricewatch/ froogle, and driving a car thats fast / comfortable / fun/used/ cheap/ and easy to maintain.
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
I paid $350 for the leadtek geforce2 GTS.
Years later $300 for ATI Radeon 9800 pro 128mb.
But I have learned my lessons. Buying a card so fresh and new equals massive driver problems. It wasn't about a year later before all the driver problems are completely worked out.
I am disappointed. This seems to be a souped-up NV40 and not the new architecture I hoped for with the next gen Nvidia chip (NV50). The implications for the PlayStation3 are evident, as it's RSX will probably be just a higher clocked G70 :(
P.S. I wonder if this is an example of Microsoft stifling innovation, with graphics chip designers intentionally holding back until Longhorn (with WGF 2.0) is released?
a) Fanboys or elitists that have the cash and buy 'em
b) Lack of major competition
c) Hype
d) See (a), people buy them
It's like anything, if you want the latest-and-greatest you're going to pay for it. Go buy last year's model(s)... lower price, and for most gaming purposes does just as well. Hell, I'm playing HL2 on an FX5200 (desktop) and FX5600/go (laptop). A below $100 card and it plays just fine.
maybe i can finally get a new video card!
Anand's review was really good:
1
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=245
HJ
http://www.dvhardware.net/article5522.html
A short summary and a bunch of links to other reviews.
Umm, no it didn't. Some Chinese site had the first review yesterday before the NDAs. All the rest of the reviews (that's a roundup of them) came out at the same time, 9am this morning when NDAs fell. Oh, and extreme tech's reviews always blow.
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2451 Anandtech has an excellent review which includes power consumption information and a good overview of technology in the new chip.
d 3D as always has a fantastic writeup including information on: CPU Utilization for video decoding, noise, power consumption, etc.
http://www.beyond3d.com/previews/nvidia/g70/Beyon
I thought 6800 series were .13 micron process, while 6600GT had the smaller .11 process...
Did they actually proofread it yet? It had a lot of errors and typos and the graphics showed the ATI being faster at a high resolution than a low one.
There's been some confusion about this. Both ATI and nVidia have announced H.264 acceleration support, but neither one has shipped a driver that enables it. nVidia targets the fourth quarter for a driver that enables that feature. ATI hasn't said "when" but the time frame seems to be roughly the same. Right now, no shipping video card & driver accelerates H.264 decoding.
Didn't they change their name to NVIDIA like... several years ago? HJ
Now I can finally play StarCraft and Civilization3! Oh, wait a second. I've actually played through Doom3 and HalfLife2, and so far my list of favorite games remains: StarCraft, Civilization, and (at the time) HalfLife (original). I also sometimes play UT2004. Is it just me, or is it almost always the case that the games with the best replay value are usually not graphics intensive? If so, then what's the big deal about leading-edge graphics cards?
What you expect them to release something in a new generation revision thats slower? Yeah I'm sure all the review sites suckling at the tats of the hardware companies will say "Oh no don't buy this it absolutely isn't worth it."
The problem is, after that, the drivers get worse and worse as they're keyed toward the new card. The older detonators were beautiful on my ti4600. The newer they got, the worse the quality / framerate was in the same game. It was very sad for me :(
Define need. You more than likely don't need a television, but it might be nice for recreation. The last time I checked, most people don't need jet-skis, dirt bikes, DVD players, and hot water heaters. Those are leisure and luxury items.
I must trot out the old and overused "it's all relative" phrase...
Thing is, it doesn't matter. Doing so:
Maybe because there are only two manufacturers left for video cards. No competition equals high prices.
For a stupid video card, where it will be 2/3 less in about 9 months, then a fool and his money are soon parted!
Where's your logic there? The top dogs are ATI and Nvidia lets see... one.. two... yeah Im fairly sure I remember how to count and I'm failry sure I can logically compare the number 2 and the number for no competition (1) and say that they are not equal.
oh well, maybe I'm wrong.
if you want to play Battlefield 2 make sure you get the 6600 series PCI-e style. the game for some reason does not support(at least right now) the AGP version of this card.
I prefer my rusty MCGA display, who needs 256 colors at 640x480 anyway?
I will buy this card when it's passive cooled, draws 15 watts of power and costs $50. This day will come in a couple of years.
So, you're saying ATi's vapor is more pungent than nVidias because they used more believable magic?
What total bullshit... Can't you all just wait until the stuff becomes generally available before spouting off who's got the bigger dick? Sheesh.
Have you actually TRIED HL2 on a GeForce 2? I had my GF2 running it while my 9600xt was on the fritz. Although I was missing out on some of the visual effects, I found that the game ran VERY smoothe. Possibly even BETTER than my radeon due to the fact that since it wasn't capable of showing the high quality, it opted for MUCH easier to process textures
>> Who needs these? I thought 640...I mean, 6800 was all anybody needed?
Just like with Gas Mileage, no matter how good it gets people will always want more.
My 120HP car gets 34MPG average. Better at times, worse at times. Compare that with the MPG that 120HP cars got in the 20's. Or better, compare the power output of the engine per gallon. This newer car has to waste a lot of power on AC, smog, XM radio...
So as MPG goes into the 50's, 60's, 70's and as GPU's get faster and faster -- we will always want more.
I am still waiting on my true virtual reality software. Imagine the CPU/GPU required to generate a believable 4D world with smell and all.
We're not even close.
I remember that mod :-P
that's a lot of beer
You're saying RTS, MMORPG, and other RPG's "don't really need that kind of processing power", but console-specific games like platformers, adventure/action games, etc. do? If people "don't really need" prettier graphics then why do we even have new consoles? I don't really see what you're trying to say. The PC has some highly entertaining games on it and so do consoles, and if it costs money to make them prettier on either platform, so be it.
Just like the Geforce 6 is a card series and the GPU model is the NV4x series, The Radeon X is the card series and the R520 is the GPU chip name. (The 8500-9200 used R200-based chips, the 9600-9800 boards were R300-based, etc.)
Scrilla man, scrilla.
Paper, the duckets, grip, clams, bucks, dollahs, denieros, mulah.
I personal favorite are grip and duckets.
I gots to get me some of dat grip!
Show me the duckets, biatch!
Your pimpjuice may vary.
faster nv40.
wait for the next, next-generation.
Science : Proprietary , Knowledge : Open Source
I'm surprised no one has posted screenshots yet but cnet has a couple of very nice looking ones. http://reviews.cnet.com/Nvidia_GeForce_7800_GTX_25 6MB/4505-8902_7-31422201-2.html?tag=top
There's no way I'm going to buy this card (maybe in 3 years) but it sure does make games look good.
Any idea how many different versions of the X800 there are? Ati's naming scheme is just as bad as Nvidia's.
X800
X800SE
X800XL
X800XT
X800XT PE
X850
X850XT
X850XT PE
X850XL
Which is easier to figure out now, smart guy?
In economics (game theory specifically, I suppose), there are a few different models of oligopoly (which pretty accurately describes the gaming card market, being that it only has two major contenders).
One model predicts that if you have 2 firms, you get the same effects as perfect competition (infinite, infinitely small firms, more or less). However, that model makes some relatively unrealistic assumptions (which I forget at the moment, but I could probably find if really necessary; something to do with firms instantaneously setting prices at the same time and consumers unilaterally choosing the lower price).
A somewhat more realistic model predicts that the final price depends on the number of firms in the market. In the one-company limit, it tends toward monopoly pricing, whereas in the infinite limit, it tends toward a perfect competition price.
In other words, 2 firms isn't 'enough' competition to prevent artificially high prices. So count all you want, but 2 firms doesn't necessarily mean, "well, we've got all the competition we need."
I've come for the woman, and your head.
From the complaint:
32. Defendant slashdot.org is an far-right wing Internet news website that posts libelous and defamatory content and is used by Open Source Community members to anonymously post hate speech, death threats, threats to murder and promotes and advocates acts of domestic terrorism within the United States. The address and location of defendants is believed to be within the State of California, but is unknown at the present time.
46. The beheading and murder of United States Citizens in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and other countries have been videotaped, converted to MPEG and other images for viewing on the public Internet through the use of OSS and Linux software and computer technology developed and purloined by Linux and OSS members and illegally exported from the United States.
47. Companies which sponsor, endorse, and support OSS and Linux, and those acting in concert as their advocates have been unwitting participants in wholesale technology theft of United States developed technology and sponsors of domestic and international terrorism.
49. Companies who attempt to protect their rights to their intellectual property by filing lawsuits against members of Linux and OSS are attacked publicly on the public Internet through a variety of means, including identity theft, defamation, interference in their business and cultural relationships, violation of their rights of expressive association and freedom of speech, threats to murder them, intentional infliction of emotional distress to the extent they take their own lives, and Internet postings advocating they commit suicide.
72. Slashdot posted an article in response to Merkey filing an email complaint with the FBI in Richmond Virginia which alleged Merkey.net was hacking google and making threats to murder him. Slashdot then solicited comments, then posted comments Merkey should be murdered, killed, censored and other threats. These comments and threats remained posted on slashdot.org for over 6 months.
72. All of these comments and actions by members of OSS and Linux are a direct and proximate result of Perens posting and advocating Merkey's murder by posting statements on the public Internet that Merkey should be "placed in a file of people to be killed", and that he "stole Novell intellectual property" and that he "contaminated Linux within Novell intellectual property."
I like that there are two #72s...
We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
Wow, cool! Never heard of one of those before. So how many FPS you get with one of these "Red Crosses"?
I bet it *kills* at Doom 3...
...is that the 6800 GT is about to get $100 cheaper!
If you have money to burn give it to the Red Cross or somthing. It replenishes, so give it often.
Having had bad experiences with video cards in the past, I always wait a few months before buying the latest video card. I want to see at least 4 or 5 reviews of the hardware before I buy it. Sure, one website says its 50% faster than the old card, but just wait until one site says that it sucks...or doesn't work well with your favorite game....
I've been NVIDIA forever... until the 9800s came out and blew the FX line away. Found out after hours of heartache and after that any time I reset my CMOS I have to switch out my Radeon 9800 with my backup Ti4200 just to adjust a BIOS setting that will allow the 9800 to work properly at bootup. First time in my life I have ever had to do that... and I can count computers I've built/owned on more than 2 hands. Handecdotal?
:(
Not to mention the rubbish drivers they produce (and having to download a 3rd party app named PowerStrip just to fix the gamma when trying to play games!)
I'll be sticking with NVIDIA for the forseeable future... ATI gets sadface from me
i attended the lan party and took some interesting pictures and video.....
the card looks kickass
link
I've been a "loyal" purchaser of ATI cards for the last 2 years. But when I wanted to upgrade last autumn, it took me nearly 3 months to get hold of a Radeon X800XT Platinum Edition, which was "launched" in May last year. I eventually got one in November. And I work for an IT reseller, so I think you can see just how bad the situation must have been in the channel.
The reviews of the 7800 all seem very good, suggesting that after a miss with the 5800, a nearly with the 6800 Nvidia have finally hit the mark. But what impresses me (and a lot of reviewers) most is that the card is in stores *right now*. Saying it'll hold the performance crown for the next 2 months, until the R520 is launched could well be off the mark; ATI have a less than stellar record with availability, so I can well imagine they're sweating over getting the cards to retail fast right now.
leadtek 7800gtx for $566 http://www.actbuy.com/details.asp?item=LT10X7800GT X