The GT300/Fermi Thread - Part 2!

[annihilat0r]

It definitely isn't real...

• a card only for sweden?
• that is only available at one retailer?
• every spec is 666 ? 666 MHz Core, 666 MHz RAM, 666 Shaders, 666 Bit... Yeah right...

100% fake. I'll eat my shorts if this card exists.

The shop definitely did it for teh lulz.

lol, I only saw the 666 shaders. I'd have called it earlier if I'd seen the 666mhz and 666 bit bus...

altho SA still hasn't called it it seems.

[Tim]

Nobody noticed it was posted under Graphics & Humor?

Even at humour they fail.

[FischOderAal]

Nobody noticed it was posted under Graphics & Humor?

Even at humour they fail.

Only read the first paragraphs with the specs

[Aerwidh]

wtf?

http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/02/...e-fermin-card/

The source page says the card has gone EOL and can no longer be bought, but according to Inet's facebook page it was just a contest where the first one to find a fake product page got 4 kilograms of candy/sweets sent to him.

The semi-accurate article was posted under what seems to be a Swedish joke-name (Gurra being a nickname used for people with the first name Gustaf and Aktersnurra being something like those engines with a propeller that you have on the back of a motorboat), probably posted as a joke

Edit: My guess is Lars-Göran Nilsson posted it. He's from Sweden, though he lives in Taiwan at the moment

[Your_Boss]

You're basically saying a GTX 470 will perform on par with a HD5870, but a GTX 480 can be 10 percent slower than that in some cases?

Yes, basically. Slower MHz 480 than 470 in both core and shaders. Memory I not sure of, probably about same speeds.

[annihilat0r]

Yes, basically. Slower MHz 480 than 470 in both core and shaders. Memory I not sure of, probably about same speeds.

So you have info about clockspeeds? I don't think 470 clockspeeds are going to be higher than 480, but that's only if what I heard about the 480 being 480SP and 700+mhz is correct.

Even if it's not, though, 470's speeds cannot be much higher than 480 can they?

[BenchZowner]

Yes, basically. Slower MHz 480 than 470 in both core and shaders. Memory I not sure of, probably about same speeds.

You do realize that:

1) The average performance delta between the 5870 and the 5850 is 10 - 15%.
2) The GTX 480 is the highest model of the line ( single-gpu at least ) and the GTX 470 is a high end model, not the top dog.
That being said, the GTX 470 is faster than the GTX 480 by your numbers

[jmke]

Like this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p49vOX-_LyU

something tells me that we won't see such textures in a game anytime soon
a tech demo is just that

the first Far Cry tech demo was also shown years before actual playable game

[annihilat0r]

As was Crysis, and the final game was downscaled even from the one year ago tech demos. Maybe we can blame AMD for this - for not being able to keep up with G80 and giving Dear Leader no incentive to produce a faster card

[jmke]

we can blame consoles for the poor advances in GFX on the PC; games are all DX9 at the most (with some DX10 features thrown in for good measure); and they all need to run butter smooth on modest hardware and limited resource
so we end up with console ports which don't take any advantage of the PCs extra power;

but it's a completely understandable decision if you start looking at sales figures.
Crysis did quite horrible compared to Call of Duty or Halo;

if they can't find an user-friendly way to block piracy, the industry might actually see more sales on PC platform than any other. As it stands though, I thought I saw some numbers on the Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 title;
the amount of total copies on PC (most part illegal) surpassed that of all console sales together by a healthy percentage. taking only into account legal copies, PC didn't even account of 10% of the sales.

why develop for a platform which doesn't generate the most income?

[-Sweeper_]

something tells me that we won't see such textures in a game anytime soon
a tech demo is just that

the first Far Cry tech demo was also shown years before actual playable game

well, rage uses MegaTexture...

[Your_Boss]

So you have info about clockspeeds? I don't think 470 clockspeeds are going to be higher than 480, but that's only if what I heard about the 480 being 480SP and 700+mhz is correct.

Even if it's not, though, 470's speeds cannot be much higher than 480 can they?

I didn't say they were "much" higher. Only shader is "somewhat" higher teh other just a little.

Just my guesses, can I not have any?

You do realize that:

1) The average performance delta between the 5870 and the 5850 is 10 - 15%.
2) The GTX 480 is the highest model of the line ( single-gpu at least ) and the GTX 470 is a high end model, not the top dog.
That being said, the GTX 470 is faster than the GTX 480 by your numbers

Yes, having more SP but less MHz will mix the performance with the 470 a little. Depends on the game. Overall the 480 will win but very limited availability so can we even count that?

[BenchZowner]

Yes, having more SP but less MHz will mix the performance with the 470 a little. Depends on the game. Overall the 480 will win but very limited availability so can we even count that?

You are joking right ?

All is lost in this thread it seems... even common sense...

[jmke]

well, rage uses MegaTexture...

rage is a console engine

[Tim]

rage is a console engine

Not true. It's PC as well.

[Sly Fox]

Not true. It's PC as well.

Although in fairness id has been pretty clear that they want it to run excellently on all platforms.

It's just too bad Carmack is so busy with his aerospace stuff, or Doom 5 would probably be out by now!

Who cares about space anyways, video games where you blow stuff up are far more important.

[-Sweeper_]

Not true. It's PC as well.

yeah

http://s09.idav.ucdavis.edu/talks/05...Challenges.pdf

[Nedjo]

rage is a console engine

Rage is the game based on multiplatform engine called "id Tech 5"

[***Deimos***]

obvious facts (everybody already knows):

• Fermi GPU has ~50% more transistors than Cypress 5870
• Fermi GPU is bigger than Cypress 5870
• the yields at best can't be as good as Cypress 5870
• Fermi GPU costs more than a 5870 (price can be anything)
• expect disabling of chip units (harvesting) and clock speed binning
• Fermi has 2x SP and hence double shader performance of GTX2xx (like GTX295).
• Fermi will be faster than GTX2xx. Thats a fact.
• Fermi will require new (not yet available) drivers.
• Fermi DX11 and new features will get heavy marketing.
• Fermi will be dual-slot card.

Fermi in many ways is similar to other big projects like Boeing 787. Very ambitious. Rarely on time.

But even if things are 10x worse than we imagine, just like R600, it will still launch "as is". And, its not the end of the world. Fermi successor is already designed and being finished off.

Regardless if performance is +10% or -10% from expected, and whatever the availability, with new drivers and time, that will change dramatically over the months.

[mapel110]

• Fermi GPU has ~50% more transistors than Cypress 5870
• Fermi GPU is bigger than Cypress 5870
• the yields at best can't be as good as Cypress 5870
• Fermi GPU costs more than a 5870 (price can be anything)
• expect disabling of chip units (harvesting) and clock speed binning
• Fermi has 2x SP and hence double shader performance of GTX2xx (like GTX295).
• Fermi will be faster than GTX2xx. Thats a fact.
• Fermi will require new (not yet available) drivers.
• Fermi DX11 and new features will get heavy marketing.
• Fermi will be dual-slot card.

40% more Transistors, ~64% more die size.
Yields aren't comparable between two differenz chip designs, so costs are also not comparable. Different contract details with TSMC.

[570091D]

40% more Transistors, ~64% more die size.
Yields aren't comparable between two differenz chip designs, so costs are also not comparable. Different contract details with TSMC.

you beat me to it!

deimos, because transistor density is LOWER on fermi than it is on cypress, yields might actually be similar. sure a larger die has a higher probability of process failure (random failures on the wafer), but the lower transistor density means it's less complicated for tsmc to manufacture (relativly speaking). [speculation] about the manufacturing contracts, i have a feeling that tsmc is giving nvidia a better deal per wafer than it's giving amd. tsmc knows that amd will be going to gf fairly soon, so there is no insentive to lower it's prices to retain the customer. nvidia however, has the option to go either way, so i beleive it's safe to assume that nvidia is getting some good prices in an attempt to keep them happy with tsmc. [/speculation]

[zerazax]

you beat me to it!

deimos, because transistor density is LOWER on fermi than it is on cypress, yields might actually be similar. sure a larger die has a higher probability of process failure (random failures on the wafer), but the lower transistor density means it's less complicated for tsmc to manufacture (relativly speaking). [speculation] about the manufacturing contracts, i have a feeling that tsmc is giving nvidia a better deal per wafer than it's giving amd. tsmc knows that amd will be going to gf fairly soon, so there is no insentive to lower it's prices to retain the customer. nvidia however, has the option to go either way, so i beleive it's safe to assume that nvidia is getting some good prices in an attempt to keep them happy with tsmc. [/speculation]

Defect rate increases exponentially with die size, not linearly, so regardless of transistor density, Fermi is going to get more errors period

(And density isn't a big deal depending on how they do redundancy and error mitigation in the design, there's a lot more to it than just density = more errors)

[Chickenfeed]

Meh. Which card, EVER, was able to give that? On all modern games? We're talking about a med/high resolution with 4xaa and 16AF. And a MINIMUM of 60 fps?

Then I guess you have been limiting yourself to playing Doom 3 or so for eternity. I mean, current games are all console ports so they are light for the PC and all, but a minimum of 60 fps for high IQ is too much to demand.

It's just people seeing that there has been absolutely NO increase in graphics quality (except for Crysis) in like 3 years, while PC graphics capability has increased five fold; seeing the regular FPS numbers on the roof and then trying to find & justify the meaning for buying an expensive graphics card.

I am on 1920x1200 and I find that even a 5870 can be overkill most of the cases. Just think, I haven't overclocked the card even 1 mhz, and I didn't even install the 10.1 drivers (current is 10.3) because the system doesn't break a sweat on 4xAA and 16xAF in all games, except Crysis.

I am fine with not having min 60 fps in games. It's impossible to generalize it anyway. On Crysis 30-40fps average is perfectly fine whereas on some games the FPS changes from 50 to 200 in a matter of seconds, so you do want 60 fps. It's more like a matter of having constant FPS rather than a high one. If your avg Crysis FPS is 35, chances are it hardly ever goes below 30 and above 40. You get used to it and play the game perfectly.

Given my background is in competitive first person shooters, my demands are higher than most I will admit but I am someone who gets very annoyed with framerate drops / slowdowns. On the topic of Crysis I actually play them with a 360 controller as controllers tend to deal with lower framerates much better than mice. Now most things I play rarely dip bellow 60 but some the odd game does and sometimes frequently. Again, just my subjective demands for ideal gameplay. Don't take this as I *won't* play something at less than 60fps, I just greatly prefer 60+, if at all possible. This is more for input reasons, not visual reasons. 30 fps constant looks fine to me, but it doesn't feel fine. I confess I don't play things online nearly as much as I used to and as I find myself gravitating torwards single player games, I am not nearly as fussy as I used to be but I still demand a smooth experiance. Now this is mostly in regards to first person shooters, as RTS games and SIMS do completely fine at lower framerates ( eg Supreme Commander, World in Conflict ect )

Anyways back when 1680x1050 was the bees knees, I have to say the 8800GTX provided a very nice experiance for many months, probaley the best I've had with a launch card ever. I'm waiting for the next card that does this but at 1920x1200. We are getting closer but we still are not there yet and with the advent of advanced ambient occlussion and tessalation in current and upcoming games, its going to be a while yet.

[Sly Fox]

Given my background is in competitive first person shooters, my demands are higher than most I will admit but I am someone who gets very annoyed with framerate drops / slowdowns. On the topic of Crysis I actually play them with a 360 controller as controllers tend to deal with lower framerates much better than mice. Now most things I play rarely dip bellow 60 but some the odd game does and sometimes frequently. Again, just my subjective demands for ideal gameplay. Don't take this as I *won't* play something at less than 60fps, I just greatly prefer 60+, if at all possible. This is more for input reasons, not visual reasons. 30 fps constant looks fine to me, but it doesn't feel fine. I confess I don't play things online nearly as much as I used to and as I find myself gravitating torwards single player games, I am not nearly as fussy as I used to be but I still demand a smooth experiance. Now this is mostly in regards to first person shooters, as RTS games and SIMS do completely fine at lower framerates ( eg Supreme Commander, World in Conflict ect )

Anyways back when 1680x1050 was the bees knees, I have to say the 8800GTX provided a very nice experiance for many months, probaley the best I've had with a launch card ever. I'm waiting for the next card that does this but at 1920x1200. We are getting closer but we still are not there yet and with the advent of advanced ambient occlussion and tessalation in current and upcoming games, its going to be a while yet.

I couldn't agree with this post more.

[Rock&Roll]

Bravo!