Hands On With Nvidia's New GTX 280 Card

notdagreatbrain writes "Maximum PC magazine has early benchmarks on Nvidia's newest GPU architecture — the GTX 200 series. Benchmarks on the smokin' fast processor reveal a graphics card that can finally tame Crysis at 1900x1200. 'The GTX 280 delivered real-world benchmark numbers nearly 50 percent faster than a single GeForce 9800 GTX running on Windows XP, and it was 23 percent faster than that card running on Vista. In fact, it looks as though a single GTX 280 will be comparable to — and in some cases beat — two 9800 GTX cards running in SLI, a fact that explains why Nvidia expects the 9800 GX2 to fade from the scene rather quickly.'"

Comments

Power vs Intel

[SolidAltar]

Let me say I do not know anything about chip design but I have a question -

How is Nvidia able to year after year make these amazing advances in power while Intel makes (although great) only modest advances?

As I said I do not know anything about chip design so please correct me on any points.

Re:Power vs Intel

[the_humeister]

Because graphics operations are embarrassingly parallel whereas regular programs arn't.

Re:Power vs Intel

[cliffski]

As a game dev, and from what I see, I'm assuming its a stability thing.
Intel's chips have to WORK. and I mean WORK ALL THE TIME. getting a single calculation wrong is mega mega hell. remember the pentium calculation bug?
People will calculate invoices and bank statements with that intel chip. It might control airplanes or god knows what. It needs to be foolproof and highly reliable.

Graphics chips draw pretty pictures on the screen.

It's a different ballgame. As a game dev, my 100% priority for any new chips is that they ship them with stable, tested drivers that are backwards compatible, not just great with directX 10 and 11.
If someone wrote code that adhered correctly to the directx spec on version 5 or even 2, the new cards should render that code faithfully. Generally, they don't, and we have to explain to gamers why their spangly new video card is actually part of the problem in some situations :(

Power Consumption

[squoozer]

Something that has always concerned me (more as I play games less often now) is how much power these cards draw when they aren't pumping out a zillion triangles a second playing DNF.

Most of the time (90%+ probably) I'm just doing very simple desktop type things. While it's obvious from the heat output that these cards aren't running flat out when redrawing a desktop surely they must be using significatnly more power than a simple graphics card that could perform the same role. Does anyone have any figures showing how much power is being wasted?

Perhaps we should have two graphics cards in the the system now - one that just does desktop type things and one for when real power is required. I would have thought it would be fairly simple to design a motherboard such that it had an internal only slot to accept the latest and greatest 3D accelerator card that suplimented an on board dumb-as-a-brick graphics card.

Re:Power Consumption

[SolidAltar]

More detail (sorry):

You may be wondering, with a chip this large, about power consumptionâ"as in: Will the lights flicker when I fire up Call of Duty 4? The chip's max thermal design power, or TDP, is 236W, which is considerable. However, Nvidia claims idle power draw for the GT200 of only 25W, down from 64W in the G80. They even say GT200's idle power draw is similar to AMD's righteously frugal RV670 GPU. We shall see about that, but how did they accomplish such a thing? GeForce GPUs have many clock domains, as evidenced by the fact that the GPU core and shader clock speeds diverge. Tamasi said Nvidia implemented dynamic power and frequency scaling throughout the chip, with multiple units able to scale independently. He characterized G80 as an "on or off" affair, whereas GT200's power use scales more linearly with demand. Even in a 3D game or application, he hinted, the GT200 might use much less power than its TDP maximum. Much like a CPU, GT200 has multiple power states with algorithmic determination of the proper state, and those P-states include a new, presumably relatively low-power state for video decoding and playback. Also, GT200-based cards will be compatible with Nvidia's HybridPower scheme, so they can be deactivated entirely in favor of a chipset-based GPU when they're not needed.

Re:Power Consumption

[CastrTroy]

This is how graphics cards used to work. You would plug a VGA cable from your standard 2D graphics card to your, for example, Voodoo II card, and the Voodoo II card would go out to the monitor. You could just have the 3D card working in passthrough mode when not doing 3D stuff. Something like this could work on a single board though. There's no reason you couldn't power down entire sections of the graphics card that you aren't using. Most video cards support changing the clock speed on the card. I'm wondering if this is a problem at all, with any real effects, or whether it's just speculation based on the poster assuming what might happen. Anybody have any real numbers for wattage drained based on idle/full workload for these large cards?

GX2 Cheaper and Faster

[Colonel Korn]

In most reviews, the 9800GX2 is faster, and it's also $200 cheaper. As a multi-GPU card it has some problems with scaling, and micro-stutter makes it very jumpy like all existing SLI setups.

I'm not well versed in the cause of micro-stutter, but the results are that frames aren't spaced evenly from each other. In a 30 fps situation, a single card will give you a frame at 0 ms, 33 ms, 67 ms, 100 ms, etc. Add a new SLI card and let's say you have 100% scaling, which is overly optimistic. Frames now render at 0 ms, 8 ms, 33 ms, 41 ms, 67 ms, 75 ms, 100ms, and 108ms. You get twice the frames per second, but they're not evenly spaced. In this case, which uses realistic numbers, you're getting 60 fps might say that the output looks about the same as 40 fps, since the delay between every other frame is 25 ms.

It would probably look a bit better than 40 fps, since between each 25 ms delay you get an 8 ms delay, but beyond the reduced effective fps there are other complications as well. For instance, the jitter is very distracting to some people. Also, most LCD monitors, even those rated at 2-5 ms response times, will have issues showing the 33 ms frame completely free of ghosting from the 8 ms frame before the 41 ms frame shows up.

Most people only look at fps, though, which makes the 9800 GX2 a very attractive choice. Because I'm aware of micro-stutter, I won't buy a multi-GPU card or SLI setup unless it's more than 50% faster than a single-GPU card, and that's still ignoring price. That said, I'm sort of surprised to find myself now looking mostly to AMD's 4870 release next week instead of going to Newegg for a GTX280, since the 280 results, while not bad, weren't quite what I was hoping for in a $650 card.

Re:GX2 Cheaper and Faster

[Colonel Korn]

You don't have SLI... I do, and micro stutter is barely noticeable at worst. And I can play at resolutions and anti-aliasing that no sigle card could've made playable. I've had three SLI setups (an ancient 3dfx X2 and two nVidia pairs). I liked my first SLI rig but I felt not to satisfied with the feel of the last two when compared to a single card, and now that I've learned about this issue I know why. Lots of people say that microstutter is barely noticeable, but lots of people also insist that a $300 HDMI cable gives "crisper" video over a 6 foot connection than a $10 HDMI cable. The micro-stutter effect that you can barely notice is the inconsistency in frame delay, which I mentioned ("For instance, the jitter is very distracting to some people."), but beyond that, there's the problem I described with the bulk of my comment. It's not just a question of whether you can tell that frames are coming in in clumps. It's a question of whether you can tell the difference between 60 fps delays, which is what you paid for, and 40 fps delays, which is what you get. SLI definitely improves performance and for those of us who don't mind the jitter (I never did, actually), it is an upgrade over a single card, but even with 100% scaling of fps, the benefit is more like a 33% increase in effective fps.

It almost seems like micro stutter is some kind of viral ATI anti-marketing bs. Definitely not, and definitely not BS, but speaking of ATI, rumor has it that the 4870x2 may adapt the delay on the second frame based on the framerate, eliminating this problem. If it's true, then it will be the best dual-GPU card relative to its own generation of single card ever, by a very large margin. But of course, the rumor may just be some kind of viral ATI marketing bs. ;-) I hope it's true.

Noise leveb

[eebra82]

Looks like NVIDIA went back to the vacuum cleaner solution. Blatantly taken from Tom's Hardware:

During Windows startup, the GT200 fan was quiet (running at 516 rpm, or 30% of its maximum rate). Then, once a game was started, it suddenly turned into a washing machine, reaching a noise level that was frankly unbearable - especially the GTX 280.

Frankly, reviews indicate that this card is too f*cking noisy and extremely expensive ($650).

Re:Vista cuts performance...

[Colonel Korn]

Why would Vista make the performance gains so much less? I could see XP running say 20% better with both cards, but why does Vista penalize the new card so much?

Digital Restrictions Management strikes again, I guess...

Vista: where do we want you to go today?

TFA has some very weird numbers compared to Anandtech and Tomshardware and all the other real review sites that actually tell you all the details of their testing. The 280 looks more like it's 50-75% faster than the 9800GTX in most reviews, and most of those are done in Vista. Framerate in XP vs. Vista is completely even on a 9800 GTX with current drivers (the Vista slowdown went away a long time ago), except on Oblivion where Vista is about 20% faster for no apparent reason, but maybe the drivers Maximum PC used weren't the same as those used by the serious review sites, or maybe they have something wrong with their Vista install.

Re:So, practically who bought 9800

[Jellybob]

AMD and NVidia are always going to release new cards. It's just the way of the industry.

If you buy a graphics card in the hope that it's going to be the top of the line card for longer then a few months then you're very much mistaken.

Buy a card that will do what you need it to, and then just stick with that until it stops being powerful enough for you. Anyone hoping their computer will be "future proof" is heading towards disappointment very fast.

DirectX 10 is the reason

[DrYak]

I could see XP running say 20% better with both cards, but why does Vista penalize the new card so much? Crysis is a DirectX 10 game.
When run under Vista, it features tons of additional effects. Those are the reasons why the speed improvement in Crysis aren't that much impressive under Vista.

PS: And for the record, Radeon HD3870X2 uses the exact same GDDR3, not GDDR4 as TFA's review says. ATI choose to go for GDDR3 to cut the costs of the dual GPU setup. (Only a few non standard boards by 3rd party manufacturer use GDDR4 and a PCI-express 2.0 bridge).

Re:DirectX 10 is the reason

[Anonymous Coward]

When run under Vista, it features tons of additional effects. Stupidly enough, a 20% loss in framerate is all you get by running the game in DX10 mode. All of the 'DX10' effects can be enabled in DX9 (on XP as well) with simple modifications to the game's configuration files. When you do it, it looks exactly the same as DX10 without the deleterious effect on framerate.

I suppose if the reviewers were stupid, they may not have run the game in DX9 mode on both XP and Vista, which would account for the difference even if the graphical options were set to the same levels. But it doesn't make the game look better just by running it in DX10 mode, the only difference is that it's slower.

For those who aren't familiar with this: in XP/DX9 mode the highest-level graphical options are grayed out. This is an entirely artificial limitation; the configuration changes I mentioned simply replace graphical options with a higher ones (they're just integers in a plaintext file), so for example 'High' (DX9) becomes 'Very High' (the 'DX10' effects) in practise.

The scene has changed.

[wild_quinine]

I used to be near the front of the queue for each new line of graphics cards. I used to wait just long enough for the first price drops, and then stump up. Cost me a couple of hundred quid a year, after the sale of whatever my old card was, to stay top of the line. Compared to owning and running a car, which I don't, owning and running a super-rig was positively cheap (in the UK). Some might call it a waste of money, and I have sympathy for that argument, but it was my hobby, and it was worth it, to me.

This year I put my disposable income towards getting in on all three next generation consoles, and the PC will languish for a long time yet.

I don't think I've changed, I think the market has changed.

They're getting bigger and hotter, and no longer feel like cutting edge kit. They feel like an attempt to squeeze more life out of old technology.

DirectX 10 as a selling point is a joke, with the accompanying baggage that is Vista all it does is slow games down, and none of them look any better for it yet. In any case, there are only five or six of them. You can pick up an 8800GT 512 for less than 150 dollars these days, and it's a powerhouse, unless you're gaming in full 1080p. There is no motivation to put one of those power hungry bricks in my rig. Nothing gets any prettier these days, and FPS is well taken care of at 1680x1050 or below.

Game over, graphics cards.

I wonder what will happen if everyone figures this out? Imagine a world in which the next gen of consoles is no longer subsidised, or driven, by PC enthusiasts...

Well, there goes my upgrade plan

[kiehlster]

No wonder people say Console killed the PC game star -- "Alright, got my hardware list done. Time to order. Oh, look what just came out, guess I'll wait for prices to drop. Alright, they dropped! No wait, a new processor is out, think I'll wait. Sweet, think I can order now. No, nevermind, Crysis just came out, I'll have to wait until I can afford the current bleeding edge. Awesome, I can afford it now! No, a new GPU just came out that runs the game better. Oh, SATA 600 is coming out. Ah, forget this, I'm buying an Xbox."

Re:Anandtech and TechReport reviews

[Kamidari]

Yes, they're comparing it to two 9800GTXs, which is what a 9800GX2 is: Two 9800GTXs on one board. RTFS indeed. It seems like a case of give and take. The GTX280 is more expensive, but is a single GPU solution, which tends to be more stable. The 9800GX2 is cheaper, runs about as fast, but is a dual GPU unit, so you might have a few more "issues" to deal with in your game playing adventures.