First 9600GT review

[Epsilon84]

And the threadcrapping begins...

Cmon, did you really expect v_rr to say something DECENT about nVidia?

[v_rr]

DX10.1 & SM4.1 are right now nothing but words on paper & PR speak. Save that lame duck of an excuse for when there's even a single DX10.1 game on the market.

No one here is discussing DX_10.1 or not.
Just a fact, Sis and ATI cards suport it while Nvidia not. Whats the problem about it?

For the $150-200 the stock to OC cards will cost it's proving to be more than a match for the 38x0's especially when they can expose AMD's poor AA performance. nVidia's performance is causing AMD to lower prices so they can compete which is not a good thing for AMD.

Again ATI has process manufacter advantage. Margins are no problem for ATI and 9600GT don´t change things because is stil a bigger die.
To prove that:

the focus has shifted instead to lower-than-expected gross margin in the fourth quarter - at 45.7%, gross margins were down about 50 basis points sequentially, due to higher production costs for the GeForce 8800 line of graphics chips.

http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderd...d=yahoobarrons

Despite god Nvidia Q4, this and other factors are bringing shares down.
Nvidia is sufering the same that AMD CPUs are sufering from Intel witch is lower margins to mantain their product competitive because the competitor has manufacter advantage (Phenon 65nm - Intel 45nm).

This case is ATI HD 3xxx 55nm - NV 8xxx and 9xxx 65nm. In Q4 Nvidia had to drop margins. Q1 2008 should be equal to Q4 2007 and Q2 2008 depends on Nvidia 9xxx and ATI RV7xx.
RS780 IGP 55nm will be very very important to ATI to go up in market share and have the maximum margins in this low-end sector.

[SKYMTL]

Nice DX10 benchmark with Half Life there.... /end sarcasm.

And I can tell you from my own experience with the Half Life 2 benchmark that I have never EVER seen the HD3870 lagging that far behind the 8800GT.

[Starscream]

No one here is discussing DX_10.1 or not.
Just a fact, Sis and ATI cards suport it while Nvidia not. Whats the problem about it?

for me personally the problem is that i dont care one bit aslong as there are no dx10.1 games around. And tbh i doubt we will see any decent ones until Nvidia has products that use it. And even whent hey are around id love to see a comparison between it and dx10 that actualy shows any noticeble diffrence.

Further pls let Sis out of your comparison unless you rly expect people to use their products to play games. For SiS the usage of Dx10.1 is purely a marketing feature as DX10.1 is a thing for gaming and nobody will buy their product for gaming.

[grimREEFER]

i dont think the lack of dx10.1 will affect sales. Still disappointed in nvidia for releasing a card at this point with no dx10.1 support. I mean, amd did it months ago...

[Lightman]

Just to clarify - all you guys mentioning SIS and DX10.1 have on mind S3 righit?

[DeathReborn]

No one here is discussing DX_10.1 or not.
Just a fact, Sis and ATI cards suport it while Nvidia not. Whats the problem about it?



Again ATI has process manufacter advantage. Margins are no problem for ATI and 9600GT don´t change things because is stil a bigger die.
To prove that:

http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderd...d=yahoobarrons

Despite god Nvidia Q4, this and other factors are bringing shares down.
Nvidia is sufering the same that AMD CPUs are sufering from Intel witch is lower margins to mantain their product competitive because the competitor has manufacter advantage (Phenon 65nm - Intel 45nm).

This case is ATI HD 3xxx 55nm - NV 8xxx and 9xxx 65nm. In Q4 Nvidia had to drop margins. Q1 2008 should be equal to Q4 2007 and Q2 2008 depends on Nvidia 9xxx and ATI RV7xx.
RS780 IGP 55nm will be very very important to ATI to go up in market share and have the maximum margins in this low-end sector.

You were the first person in the thread to say the words DX 10.1, one person mentioned SM 4.1 being missing as a surprise but not DX 10.1. It's a matter of interpretation but since you consistently place DX 10.1 & SM 4.1 as 2 seperate words they are for your purposes, seperate.

As Lightman pointed out, it is S3 not SiS.

Those financials do not take into account GeForce 9 sales so are for this point, worthless.

55nm & DX 10.1/SM 4.1 are little more than marketing tools for AMD right now. Power Consumption for the 3650 is marginally less than the 2600XT but not as good as you'd expect with 65nm > 55nm.

Lets not forget, this is XtremeSystems and Performance is what the people here expect, performance that for those that can't afford a 3870X2 or a 8800GTS/GTX/Ultra they can find in the 9600GT, especially when gaming with AA on.

Carp on all you like, you just keep coming across as a desperate ATi fanboy who believes all the hype & tries to derail any thread which might contain any form of positives for nVidia.

Just to clarify - all you guys mentioning SIS and DX10.1 have on mind S3 righit?

Nice spot, even I missed that one.

[v_rr]

You were the first person in the thread to say the words DX 10.1, one person mentioned SM 4.1 being missing as a surprise but not DX 10.1. It's a matter of interpretation but since you consistently place DX 10.1 & SM 4.1 as 2 seperate words they are for your purposes, seperate.

What´s the problem of talking of it. Or you didn´t expected 9xxx suport it?

If for you talking about DX_10.1 is stupid, i can tell you that ignoring it is equal or more stupid

Those financials do not take into account GeForce 9 sales so are for this point, worthless.

Offcourse not. They where from Q4 2007, but you are just in the midle of Q1 2008 and there is no Geforce 9xxx in the market, also process manufacturing still 65nm in 9xxx. This delays will also hurt then this quarter.

55nm & DX 10.1/SM 4.1 are little more than marketing tools for AMD right now. Power Consumption for the 3650 is marginally less than the 2600XT but not as good as you'd expect with 65nm > 55nm.

Think what you want. For some people is important, for others aren´t, but in one think you are very wrong and that´s 55nm.
That will give ATI more margins and specially much impact in mobile sector.
In Q4 2007 ATI grow 8% in mobile, and by digitimes ATI will continue to grow throw the year to very big numbers.

For example Puma plataform have now more then 100+ OEM contracts. That means all AMD mobile laptops will include RS780 IGP with HD 3200/3300 in 55nm and OEM are very interested in that. In China RS780 is already pushing up AMD low-end CPU sales.

Nvidia will be strong in desktop despite ATI also have strong products now, but in mobile Nvidia will run into problem. They can take some discrete mobile, but centrino and Puma plataforms are closed and it closes doors to Nvidia IGPs, and that´s a very very very large market. Intel is leader in GPU mobile because of this.
The second probem is that even in discrete mobile Nvidia has 65nm chips, and ATI 55nm chips.

So all in all for mobile should be great year for ATI, and for desktop Nvidia should mantein good share.

Lets not forget, this is XtremeSystems and Performance is what the people here expect, performance that for those that can't afford a 3870X2 or a 8800GTS/GTX/Ultra they can find in the 9600GT, especially when gaming with AA on.

I don´t say the oposite....

Carp on all you like, you just keep coming across as a desperate ATi fanboy who believes all the hype & tries to derail any thread which might contain any form of positives for nVidia.

Ya right, I said a number of facts and everyone is a fanboy

[Starscream]

Offcourse not. They where from Q4 2007, but you are just in the midle of Q1 2008 and there is no Geforce 9xxx in the market, also process manufacturing still 65nm in 9xxx. This delays will also hurt then this quarter.

why would the delay of the 9 series hurt Nvidia?
ofc it will slightly show in the sales figures but it isnt like they have no other GPUs for sale atm. And ATIS new lineup also stil isnt here but ofc we wont mention that.

Besides why do u keep going on about the manufacturing process of the GPUs?
GPU cost isnt only defined by the manufacturing process of the die.
There are several factors wich influence cost price of a GPu the process the GPU is made on is just 1 of them.
SO were are you getting that Nvidias profit margin on the geforce 9 series per GPU is lower then AMD/ATIs?


Further you mention that the Puma platform is closed so would only allow for ATI chipset and GPU.
Asfar as i know it is an open platform on the chipset and GPu side and everyone can deliver a chipset or GPu for it aslong as it has the OK from AMD.
Atm Nvidia chipsets and GPUs are also part of the Puma platform.
Unless ofcourse that you can back up that it is closed.

So saying 100+ OEM deals to the Puma platform doesnt mean 100+ OEM contracts for AMD CPU, chipset and GPU.

And why again is it a problem that in the mobile market Nvidia only has 65nm GPUs and AMD has 55nm GPUs?
Does a smaller die size per se mean alot loower heat output and power usage? NO.

[cegras]

Has anyone noticed that whenever the Radeon wins, they change the scale of the x-coordinate so their win is reduced, but in graphs like 3dmark06 they set the divisions to 500 so even if the 8800 GT wins, it seems like it's winning by a whole big margin?

What kind of failure of misrepresentation of data is this?

[Starscream]

Has anyone noticed that whenever the Radeon wins, they change the scale of the x-coordinate so their win is reduced, but in graphs like 3dmark06 they set the divisions to 500 so even if the 8800 GT wins, it seems like it's winning by a whole big margin?

What kind of failure of misrepresentation of data is this?

ya i also noticed that. But i myself nvr judge a product on just 1 review. that and i mostly check out the nrs instead of the size of the bar.


ps. the best misrepresentations are the ones on the grafix card boxes of the OC editions.
When they got 2 bars (1 oc and 1 non oc edition) and the OC edition bar is 10x bigger for 10% increase in score.

[WeStSiDePLaYa]

this review seems off. I'll wait for more before making up my mind.

[eric66]

Did you guys also notice how the author of the article stresses how "most people" are more comfortable with nvidia hardware these days?
The article seems somewhat biased, what do you all think?

+1 will wait for others

[Omastar]

If I'm not mistaken, DX10.1 is an incremental feature superset to DX10, same with SM4.1. They aren't new APIs on their own, but they do add some new features to the existing API. Right? So, then, why are people so distraught that this card doesn't support DX10.1?

[Epsilon84]

If I'm not mistaken, DX10.1 is an incremental feature superset to DX10, same with SM4.1. They aren't new APIs on their own, but they do add some new features to the existing API. Right? So, then, why are people so distraught that this card doesn't support DX10.1?

We're not, since there aren't even any DX10.1 games out at the moment. V_rr sure likes to harp on about it declaring ATI supremacy though.

[BrowncoatGR]

TweakTown has published Nvidia biased reviews in the past. I wouldnt trust them. BTW Puma is not closed afaik.

[s3rv3r]

8800GS is dead.

[v_rr]

why would the delay of the 9 series hurt Nvidia?
ofc it will slightly show in the sales figures but it isnt like they have no other GPUs for sale atm. And ATIS new lineup also stil isnt here but ofc we wont mention that.

Because 3600, 3400 catch the new year OEM contracts ands delays in this time are bad for that.

SO were are you getting that Nvidias profit margin on the geforce 9 series per GPU is lower then AMD/ATIs?

Geforce 9 don´t exist in the market but 65nm process tecnologie is the same used in 8800GT that brought margins problems in Q4 2007.

Further you mention that the Puma platform is closed so would only allow for ATI chipset and GPU.
Asfar as i know it is an open platform on the chipset and GPu side and everyone can deliver a chipset or GPu for it aslong as it has the OK from AMD.
Atm Nvidia chipsets and GPUs are also part of the Puma platform.
Unless ofcourse that you can back up that it is closed.

So saying 100+ OEM deals to the Puma platform doesnt mean 100+ OEM contracts for AMD CPU, chipset and GPU.

The key technologies that comprise “Puma” are AMD’s next-generation notebook processor, codenamed “Griffin”, matched with the next-generation AMD “RS780” mobile chipset.

http://www.physorg.com/news98714997.html

More info:
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/index.cfm?newsid=11753
http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/004427.html

The Puma plataform is so open as Intel Centrino is. Basicaly AMD is not negociating 100+ OEM deals to benefict Nvidia or others.
The basis of puma is Griffin + RS780. The fact here is that RS780 suport hybrid crossfire and OEM will chose discrete ATI grafic cards to benefict from this.

Ya is open, but in the end you will end up with 90% or more With all AMD and the rest with Nvidia parts too.
Why do you think that reports expect very strong ATI in mobile? They know this and know that all those contracts are made whith ATI chip7 and most of them with ATI discrete grafics because hybrid crossfire.
Also HD 3400 and HD 3600 mobile, and RS780 mobile where already launched and ready to fullfill all those contracts plus other contrats of ATI discrete with Intel laptops.

The factor number 3 is that AMD can make special prices with the OEM´s that choose all AMD parts. That´s what Intel did and does actually.

And why again is it a problem that in the mobile market Nvidia only has 65nm GPUs and AMD has 55nm GPUs?
Does a smaller die size per se mean alot loower heat output and power usage? NO.

55nm let you have more power saving, more clocks and more chips per waffer -> more volume in the market

[Starscream]

@v_rr

but like said ATIs new lineup also stil isnt around.
And OEM isnt were the profit is tbh. The profit margin on chips sold to retailers is higher then the same chip in the OEM market.
OEM contracts are mostly used to cover the costs and also so that upfront the company know that theyl atleast sell a certain nr of products this will lower certain costs per chip so that they will have more room in the retail market when it comes to pricing.

And dont forget that the last few years ATI also managed to get certain big OEM deals but in the end of those years Nvidia usualy sold more, made more profit and grew more in the total market.

So if you get all the big OEM deals but in retail nobody wants your product ur stil screwed.

Further its normal that profit margin on a product goes down when that product line is going to an end. Why? Cause a fully new lineup is coming and the companys have to clear their stock of the old product thus wills ell them for a lower profit just to get rid of them. So having lower profit per sold product at the end of a product line is a normal thing. This is also explained by all the diffrent 8800 cards we suddenly see like the GS.

About Puma.
So now ur saying PUma isnt closed? Sorry but get your facts straight.
Maybe you should actualy look further then ur nose is long.
OEMs are completely free to use whatever they want aslong as it is on AMDs list.
And why do you post 3 links? those links are simple product presentations they say nothing about 100+ OEM deals or maybe could you point out to me were in those 3 links it says that AMD made 100+ OEM deals wich are all AMD CPU and ATI CHipset and GPU.

And about those links. they are product presentations ofc AMD will only mention their own products in their product presentation and will talk about how grt their products are cause that is what product presentations are for.

Btw package deals (CPU, Chipset and GPU) are nice for market share but usualy dont help much with profits. this cause the companys usualy sell their package deals for a very low price. On OEM deals themselves the profit is usualy low and on those package deals usualy lower. Like said OEMs are to cover the cost not to make profits.

And that a smaller process means lower heat output and lower power usage isnt a 100% guarantee. There have been countless situations in the past were a smaller process used more power and had a higher heatoutput then a similar chip at a bigger process.

Just check the review in the TS if you havent already and check the huge diffrence in power usage between the 9600GT and the 3870. If you havent noticed yet that was sarcasm.

edit: hmm a smaller process doesnt per definition mean more products out of a waffer.
Ofc if u have product 1 at 65nm and suddenly shrink the die size to 55nm youl get more product out of a waffer but if u compare Product A at 65nm to product B at 55nm it doesnt per definition mean that B will get more dies out of its waffer then A.
This also depends on yields and on the actual size of the die.
Further ive nvr doubted that a smaller process means more products. What ive said is that the die process is only 1 of many factors that decide on the cost price per product So just cause Product A is 65nm and Product B is 55nm doesnt per se mean that product B has a way lower cost price.
Further production volume isnt everything you also have to sell your product and performence is what sells your product.

Sorry v_rr on some bits your right but most bits in ur posts seems stuff that your fabricating urself fully based on rumors.
maybe in a year it turns out your right but atm you have nothing that fully backs up your claims.

[Piotrsama]

Has anyone noticed that whenever the Radeon wins, they change the scale of the x-coordinate so their win is reduced, but in graphs like 3dmark06 they set the divisions to 500 so even if the 8800 GT wins, it seems like it's winning by a whole big margin?

What kind of failure of misrepresentation of data is this?

Hehe, was about to put this graph.... (ET: QW in case it doesn't show)



....and say.... "nice scaling!"

[BGVirtual]

another review in chinese : http://www.pconline.com.cn/diy/graph...1/1205247.html

benches from it:

[v_rr]

@v_rr

but like said ATIs new lineup also stil isnt around.

It is arround
The exception is only RS780 in China.
You get HD 3870X2, HD 3800, HD 3600, HD 3400 on the market today.

And dont forget that the last few years ATI also managed to get certain big OEM deals but in the end of those years Nvidia usualy sold more, made more profit and grew more in the total market.

From Q3 -> Q4 ATi won in mobile and desktop. That happened from Q1-Q3 2007 because bad R600 and to much delays in all products.

About Puma.
So now ur saying PUma isnt closed? Sorry but get your facts straight.
Maybe you should actualy look further then ur nose is long.
OEMs are completely free to use whatever they want aslong as it is on AMDs list.
And why do you post 3 links? those links are simple product presentations they say nothing about 100+ OEM deals or maybe could you point out to me were in those 3 links it says that AMD made 100+ OEM deals wich are all AMD CPU and ATI CHipset and GPU.

I just say that by reports ati mobile will have strong demand through 2008. And Puma help that. I continue saying that Puma is as open as Centrino is. You will end up with almost every designs with Griffin + RS780 and by hybrid crossfire lots of HD 3400 mobile.

Mobility

Another very positive piece of information presented at the call was that the upcoming Puma mobile platform has already achieved 100+ design wins with major OEMs, and the platform has not officially been released yet. Puma is AMD’s next generation mobile platform, and it is a pretty radical departure for AMD.

Puma is comprised of the RS780/SB700 chipset, which features the next gen DX10 integrated graphics technology from AMD, and the “Griffin” processor. The radical departure for AMD is that this is a custom designed processor for mobile use, and not simply a desktop processor that has been fabricated with mobile steppings in mind. Griffin is essentially an Athlon X2 that is tuned for mobile use, and it has a redesigned memory controller which more efficiently handles DDR-2 with greater performance. It also has the ability to power down different areas of the chip when not in use, and can even successfully power down the memory while in a lower power state.

The RS780 is based on TSMC’s 55 nm process and features the same graphics technology in the current RV670 chip and its upcoming derivatives. It is highly cut down from the full RV670, but the performance should redefine the integrated market. At least that is what quite a few partners are saying. Considering how well the previous generation AMD 690G performed against both NVIDIA and Intel parts, we have a pretty good feeling on how well this part should work. Users certainly should not expect to play DX10 games at high resolutions, but previously unavailable DX9 games should work fine up to resolutions of 1024x768.

AMD is very excited about Puma, and apparently many major manufacturers are excited as well. 100+ design wins on a product that has yet to be released does say a lot, and if it performs as expected then others will jump on board with designs of their own. AMD sees this as a very good area of growth for itself and its partners in 2008.

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid...e=expert&pid=3

Here you can see how PUMA is equal to Grifin + RS780. You can also have Intel CPUs with Vias or Sis board, but how many of them exist? Almost none.... the lion share is CPU + chip7 intel and AMD will follow that way.
For OEM is much better -> better prices, only 1 suplier, more markting, more guaraties of speed and stability, only need 1 contract with 1 manufacter (AMD), etc

Thats why I say Puma is AMD Centrino.

Ofc if u have product 1 at 65nm and suddenly shrink the die size to 55nm youl get more product out of a waffer but if u compare Product A at 65nm to product B at 55nm it doesnt per definition mean that B will get more dies out of its waffer then A.
This also depends on yields and on the actual size of the die.

55nm TSMC is just a half-node of 65nm TSMC and yields at 55nm are the same as 65nm.
Also in transistor count you will notice that HD 3800 have less transistors then G92.

[grimREEFER]

We're not, since there aren't even any DX10.1 games out at the moment. V_rr sure likes to harp on about it declaring ATI supremacy though.

well, when the geforce 6 series came out, there were no dx9.0c games.
If amd lowers the price of the 3870 to the price of the 9600gt, it could very well be a deciding factor, the 2 cards are so close in every other aspect.
on the other hand, if the 9600gt's are priced too high, then i think ppl will just pay the extra few bucks for an 8800gt

[i found nemo]

9600gt @ 850 = plus the ram is only clocked at 1ghz? c'mon. i'm sure other card makers will have higher bus speeds, hence why the card was getting worse as the resolution went up.

[Morais]

hmm...i suspected a OC'd card....Anyway, this should be my next graphix card.And what the heck is that noise levels?71 dB is too much!