The GT300/Fermi Thread - Part 2!

[Pekalion]

Well I just saw on nvidia driver site they already have 300 series on the list for driver downloads. So it must be getting close.......errrr

That is for the OEMs products, like GT340, GT320, etc. They have nothing to do with this one, that actually are GTX480.

So, the big impact is with tessallation ON that Nvidia gains a good margin of FPS than Ati, isn't it? So disabling tessallation in Ati will make things better for Ati... FPS are like around 40 FPS average without AA and only 1 of Aniso for both of them in Heaven benchmark, wich is like a huge demanding tittle... Bleh, lets wait for Fermi2 and HD6000 :p

[eric66]

avp maybe, haven't played it. dirt 2 and stalker? if 1 pixel changes because of tessellation I don't call it tessellation

what I call tessellation is the awesome rocky ground in Unigine Benchmark. I don't care if the left pocket button of an enemy is rendered in tessellation or not

uhmm that all you get folks until further console upgrade of course sorry 2900xt had awesome shader power also nearly was 2 3 times better than 8800gtx but no games used it so that made 2900xt be marked as flop same thing is gonna happen to gtx 480 imho

[Chumbucket843]

those games dont have nearly as much (if any) tessellation compared to unigine. its a benchmark so it is designed to show how cards perform in games, not to provide some useless number. fermi is really good at handling the polys that tessellation creates.

[annihilat0r]

uhmm that all you get folks until further console upgrade of course sorry 2900xt had awesome shader power also nearly was 2 3 times better than 8800gtx but no games used it so that made 2900xt be marked as flop same thing is gonna happen to gtx 480 imho

which is why we don't need performance

[Behemot]

comments on razno's Fermi PCB photos:

As long as AMD uses digital VRM's, what is totaly different game, you just cannot compare it with NVIDIA's VRM.

This only confirms Fermi is really badly made and needs very clear voltage. More capacity is always better, but vendors tend to save costs. They will probably use less caps in order to save few bucks thus I expect (together with rumoured Fermi leakage etc.) very bad OC. At least compared to AMD's clocks targeting 1 GHz.

[cowie]

should be easy to make a samwich gx2 thing out of this

[Behemot]

should be easy to make a samwich gx2 thing out of this

Oh come on! NVIDIA is happy to actually make it run on full 512 shaders and about 600 MHz frequency, with TDP close or even over 200 W and you think they'll make GX2 the day after first cards launch?

If so, it won't came out sooner than mid to late summer and with far lower clocks. By that time with new AMD generation behind corner, it will be like with 9800 GX2: NVIDIA won the performance crown, but only for few weeks which means nohing, nobody was interested by that time...

[Jowy Atreides]

Lol, guys, look at this screenshot. Nvidia is magically using version 1.1 of heaven. This could bring an improvement to the FPS numbers of heaven. We don't know whether they used 1.1 or 1.0 for their HD5870 benchmarks... Also, the HD5870 seems to catch up with higher IQ settings. I would love to see a benchmark with atleast 8x AF and 8x AA.

Anti Aliasing = off.

Says everything.

[ElSel10]

2900xt had awesome shader power also nearly was 2 3 times better than 8800gtx

Not at all. The 2900XT was very underpowered in terms of shader power. The 4870 and 5870 have the same kind of shaders as the 2900XT and they perform very well, because they are not underpowered like the 2900XT was.

[Yvese]

So Charlie was right about its performance. No surprise there with his track record.

As long as the price is close to 5870 range for both the GTX470/480 I'll be happy. We need price drops bad.

[Nedjo]

So Charlie was right about its performance. No surprise there with his track record.

As long as the price is close to 5870 range for both the GTX470/480 I'll be happy. We need price drops bad.

I don't see how can pricedrop happen?! Fermi will nested price/performance like this: 5850-Fermi-5870-Fermi-5970

So why would price of any of those cards come down? NV for sure doesn't want to start pricewar w/o enough ammo, and AMD definitely doesn't want to chase around with NV when their product will be hard to find anyway?!

[annihilat0r]

If you're gonna sell only 5000 cards at launch you can price it whatever you want. Your losses or gains won't be incredibly high. And then you can continue mass production when yields have improved.

Say Nvidia prices the cards $200 lower than necessary to break even with production costs. What does it cost them at this stage (if the 5000 cards rumor is correct of course)? 1 million dollars. That's a lolzor amount for Nvidia.

[Solus Corvus]

When tessellation will only have a ON and OFF option and the ON option will enable heavy tessellation that only Nvidia h/w can handle and ATi's 5870 may have a difficult time handling heavy tessellation.

What Nvidia will have is a legit excuse of why the games perform better on Nvidia hardware than ATi one. Just like Nvidia Physx was the keyword for 2009, tessellation may as well be a keyword for Nvidia for 2010 !!

So what? At least DX11 tessellation is a standard that both companies can implement. If ATI isn't fast enough at tessellation then that gives them something to work on. It's not like they are a stranger to tessellation. IMO, pushing for heavy tessellation in games is 100x better then pushing for proprietary features that only one company can run at all.

There are plenty of Nvidia actions that I have issue with. But making games look better by pushing for adoption of standards isn't one of them. Frankly, you are barking up the wrong tree.

[Sadasius]

I don't see how can pricedrop happen?! Fermi will nested price/performance like this: 5850-Fermi-5870-Fermi-5970

So why would price of any of those cards come down? NV for sure doesn't want to start pricewar w/o enough ammo, and AMD definitely doesn't want to chase around with NV when their product will be hard to find anyway?!

I agree with this as well. We will have to wait and see what kind of availability is going to be around as well as performance to determine a price war if it's going to happen.

[Yvese]

I don't see how can pricedrop happen?! Fermi will nested price/performance like this: 5850-Fermi-5870-Fermi-5970

So why would price of any of those cards come down? NV for sure doesn't want to start pricewar w/o enough ammo, and AMD definitely doesn't want to chase around with NV when their product will be hard to find anyway?!

Well ATi has had no competition for 6 months. They're in a very good position right now to ruin Fermi's launch ( Even though Fermi's launch is already ruined by having less than spectacular performance after 6 grueling months of waiting ). At the performance we've seen and is rumoured, ATi can easily reduce the price of their cards by $50 and call it a year. Doesn't matter if Nvidia prices their cards $100 higher than ATi's equivalent.

I just don't see anyone but die-hard Nvidia fanboys or those that will utilize GPGPU to buy these cards.

[RaV[666]]

So, after 7 months of waiting GTX480 in probabaly most favourable to it benchmark is on average around 20% faster than 5870?
Thats not good.Ati wont have any incentive to lowering prices .And it looks as if charlie was pretty much correct, its late, it will be VERY limited edition ,its HOT and power hungry.
If we take into consideration that 5870 2GB with 1ghz core clock are just around the corner, it looks nvidia with its huge chip will have really small lead, 5% ?
Damn why i havent bought 5850 just after it premiered .I said to myself "wait a month or two ,and after fermi introduction it will go down in price man..." DAMN YOU ATI!

[Solus Corvus]

Wow guys. Could we at least put off deciding if we are going to buy, or not, a fermi card until AFTER release when independent benchmarks from reputable sources have been done?

[Yvese]

Wow guys. Could we at least put off deciding if we are going to buy, or not, a fermi card until AFTER release when independent benchmarks from reputable sources have been done?

But we already know its performance so there's no need to wait. We know Fermi does Tessellation well. The guy in the video even says it's what sets them apart from the competition. This is exactly what Charlie said. He also said the GTX480 is only 0-5% faster than the 5870. He's been right for months now, so I'm going by his word.

Like I said, there's no reason to buy this card unless you're a die-hard Nvidia fan or use GPGPU apps.

[annihilat0r]

But we already know its performance so there's no need to wait. [...] This is exactly what Charlie said. He also said the GTX480 is only 0-5% faster than the 5870.

Mind if I sig this?

[Sam_oslo]

nVidia doesn't have to beat ATi with more than ~10-20% all over the line up to make a success out of Fermi. Don't forget that the 5870 with that hefting price tag (comperad to 5850), is only ~10-20% better than 5850.

If GTX 480 is ~10-20% better than 5870 then nVidia has a winner, for sure, even after 6 mounts. Unless ATi can release a new/refresh card to match/beat it at the launch time.

[zerazax]

So, after 7 months of waiting GTX480 in probabaly most favourable to it benchmark is on average around 20% faster than 5870?
Thats not good.Ati wont have any incentive to lowering prices .And it looks as if charlie was pretty much correct, its late, it will be VERY limited edition ,its HOT and power hungry.
If we take into consideration that 5870 2GB with 1ghz core clock are just around the corner, it looks nvidia with its huge chip will have really small lead, 5% ?
Damn why i havent bought 5850 just after it premiered .I said to myself "wait a month or two ,and after fermi introduction it will go down in price man..." DAMN YOU ATI!

Hardly ATIs fault the opposition has provided nothing

nVidia doesn't have to beat ATi with more than ~10-20% all over the line up to make a success out of Fermi. Don't forget that the 5870 with that hefting price tag (comperad to 5850), is only ~10-20% better than 5850.

If GTX 480 is ~10-20% better than 5870 then nVidia has a winner, for sure, even after 6 mounts. Unless ATi can release a new/refresh card to match/beat it at the launch time.

Lol what? When you're 6 months late with limited availability, and with the new heat and power rumors going around, I'd hardly call those numbers a winner for anyone but the most diehard fans. 6 months is an eternity for technology.

[zalbard]

If GTX 480 is ~10-20% better than 5870 then nVidia has a winner, for sure, even after 6 mounts. Unless ATi can release a new/refresh card to match/beat it at the launch time.

If 300W rumours are true then GTX480 will have to compete with 5970...

[annihilat0r]

cut nvidia some slack, guys. if everything is to be believed a GTX 480 will

- have HD5870 performance
- will consume 300w
- will cost 700$

How many of you believe all this? Give them a break!

[Sam_oslo]

Hardly ATIs fault the opposition has provided nothing



Lol what? When you're 6 months late with limited availability, and with the new heat and power rumors going around, I'd hardly call those numbers a winner for anyone but the most diehard fans. 6 months is an eternity for technology.

I didn't say anything about heat or power usage, it is your words. I said: "nVidia doesn't have to beat ATi with more than ~10-20% all over the line up to make a success out of Fermi". What would 6 mounts have to say about this, in your opinion? should be 200% better and why?

[Sam_oslo]

If 300W rumours are true then GTX480 will have to compete with 5970...

I believe power usage can play a big role, but it will only make sense compared to the performance. The heat is not a biggy, it can be solved with a good cooler.
I'm a OCer, you know, and I can assure you, there is not such a thing as a hot component, there is only bad cooling solutions. But both remains to be seen yet, and maybe we get a cool and power effective Fermi too?

EDIT:
Oops soowy double post, it was meant to be an edit to the last one.