The Fermi Thread - Part 3

[Ramon Zarat]

The GF100 architecture is VERY different from anything that has been produced by Nvidia before. So much so, the emphasis is clearly put on GPGPU performance, not gaming. Therefore, I don't expect tremendous driver optimization to be even possible this time around. At least, surely not in the almost "magical" 20-30% range. And I support the view that Nvidia final silicon has been available at least 3-4 months ago to the driver developer. I believe the drivers to be quite refined already.

So, no dual GPU, no clock increase unless you go water cooling, little to no drivers optimization: I'll say it again: Unless Nvidia comes out with a REV2 silicon that draw far less juice and allow 512sp at higher clock (very doubtful in the short and even middle term), performance wise, what you'll see on the 26 is what you'll get for a VERY long time from these cards.

I really hope for Nvidia sake that the 480 is way over 20% better than the 5870 in the vast majority of benchmark because ATI will simply strike back with a 2GB 1Ghz 5890, undercut 480 price (RV870 is a LOT cheaper manufacture than GF100), and that's gone be the end of it.

[Yvese]

The GF100 architecture is VERY different from anything that has been produced by Nvidia before. So much so, the emphasis is clearly put on GPGPU performance, not gaming. Therefore, I don't expect tremendous driver optimization to be even possible this time around. At least, surely not in the almost "magical" 20-30% range. And I support the view that Nvidia final silicon has been available at least 3-4 months ago to the driver developer. I believe the drivers to be quite refined already.

So, no dual GPU, no clock increase unless you go water cooling, little to no drivers optimization: I'll say it again: Unless Nvidia comes out with a REV2 silicon that draw far less juice and allow 512sp at higher clock (very doubtful in the short and even middle term), performance wise, what you'll see on the 26 is what you'll get for a VERY long time from these cards.

I really hope for Nvidia sake that the 480 is way over 20% better than the 5870 in the vast majority of benchmark because ATI will simply strike back with a 2GB 1Ghz 5890, undercut 480 price (RV870 is a LOT cheaper manufacture than GF100), and that's gone be the end of it.

Not really. Nvidia fanboys have taught us they'll buy anything even if it's overpriced. The GTX470 comes to mind. Same MSRP as the 5870, yet performs less and people are still willing to jump all over it.

You can't stop the green fanboys.

[Ramon Zarat]

Not really. Nvidia fanboys have taught us they'll buy anything even if it's overpriced. The GTX470 comes to mind. Same MSRP as the 5870, yet performs less and people are still willing to jump all over it.

You can't stop the green fanboys.

LMAO

[annihilat0r]

Not really. Nvidia fanboys have taught us they'll buy anything even if it's overpriced. The GTX470 comes to mind. Same MSRP as the 5870, yet performs less and people are still willing to jump all over it.

You can't stop the green fanboys.

lulz, it performs on par with the 5870 if these benchies are to be believed, and it looks like you can get it for $359 now.

Nvidia has several advantages like PhysX, CUDA and allegedly better tessellation performance. DX11 titles seem to favor Fermi more than other games so I'll take that as a good sign also. All in all, I think it's fair for it to be priced at HD5870 levels.

[Ramon Zarat]

lulz, it performs on par with the 5870 if these benchies are to be believed, and it looks like you can get it for $359 now.

Nvidia has several advantages like PhysX, CUDA and allegedly better tessellation performance. DX11 titles seem to favor Fermi more than other games so I'll take that as a good sign also. All in all, I think it's fair for it to be priced at HD5870 levels.

On par with 5870 performance and cheaper would make the 470 a great buy indeed. We will confirm that in less than 30 hours now...


There is 10-12 games that support PhysX, out of which 10 are very bad. OpenCL is what will take the center stage in Q2-Q3 2010 and will be in full swing in 2011. Closed and proprietary CUDA won't be here for much longer on the desktop. Everything GPGPU on the desktop will soon be driven through OpenCl, including physics acceleration, transcoding etc...

EDIT:

Sorry, There is many more games than 10-12 on PhysX. I meant to say only about 10 games are actually half good...

[Sushi Warrior]

The GF100 architecture is VERY different from anything that has been produced by Nvidia before. So much so, the emphasis is clearly put on GPGPU performance, not gaming. Therefore, I don't expect tremendous driver optimization to be even possible this time around. At least, surely not in the almost "magical" 20-30% range. And I support the view that Nvidia final silicon has been available at least 3-4 months ago to the driver developer. I believe the drivers to be quite refined already.

So, no dual GPU, no clock increase unless you go water cooling, little to no drivers optimization: I'll say it again: Unless Nvidia comes out with a REV2 silicon that draw far less juice and allow 512sp at higher clock (very doubtful in the short and even middle term), performance wise, what you'll see on the 26 is what you'll get for a VERY long time from these cards.

I really hope for Nvidia sake that the 480 is way over 20% better than the 5870 in the vast majority of benchmark because ATI will simply strike back with a 2GB 1Ghz 5890, undercut 480 price (RV870 is a LOT cheaper manufacture than GF100), and that's gone be the end of it.

Don't you think that would make it more likely for better drivers? It looks really impressive on paper but the FPS is not reflecting that, maybe it just isn't using all of its power.

[Ramon Zarat]

Don't you think that would make it more likely for better drivers? It looks really impressive on paper but the FPS is not reflecting that, maybe it just isn't using all of its power.

You have a point. The new architecture is maybe so alien that even after 4 month of hard work from the Nvidia driver team, there is still 20-30% of untaped power to be unbleached.