The Fermi Thread - Part 3

[Motiv]

2 hrs 45 minutes remaining until DH review.

I just hope it's not dirt2, Bad company 2 and hawx

[annihilat0r]

The question actually is how much is it that the architecture is influencing performance in those said games?

As B3D users have pointed out, Fermi might have changed how the card does setup and tri/clock, which is corroborated in its performance in HAWX (a triangle intensive game). In traditional shader/texture games, like BFBC2 and Crysis, it doesn't seem to do all that much better than previous generations - then again, with lower ROPs and same TMU's as a GTX 285, that might be why it has limited gains.

So my point is that "up and down" performance isn't indicative of drivers when the other variable, a different architecture, is in play - if Fermi improves triangle rate, then it's not drivers at play - its architecture taking advantage of a game's engine for example.

We'll need the full review of the architecture to see whats at play here, but that's probably the biggest reason there IS a performance delta that big between games

yeah but completely disregarding the new architecture argument, even ATI has been able to bring 5800 cards' performances up by an avg of 10% just with drivers. At least the same should happen to Fermi's.

[zerazax]

No doubt about that, I'm just pointing out that a giant performance delta / up-and-down scores is not an indication drivers are at fault

[kaktus1907]

I just hope it's not dirt2, Bad company 2 and hawx

3DMark Vantage
Dirt 2
Metro 2033
Crysis Warhead
Resident Evil 5
World in Conflict Russian Assault
Batman Arkham Asylum
Unigine Heaven 2.0
S.T.A.L.K.E.R Call of Pripyat
FarCry 2
Just Cause 2

Power Consumption
GPU Temperatures

[annihilat0r]

I just hope it's not dirt2, Bad company 2 and hawx

It's a video review and I never found DH's reviews to be above average, or even average. There's very little talk about anything but performance numbers and then a conclusion which can be completely irrelevant to what they've been showing

Also something from the DH reviewers:

"Our Gigabyte OdinWatt 800W PSU, which is able to run two 5870's in CF, shut down when we were trying to overclock the GTX 480.

To overclock GTX 480, you need a 1000+W PSU."

[eric66]

3DMark Vantage
Dirt 2
Metro 2033
Crysis Warhead
Resident Evil 5
World in Conflict Russian Assault
Batman Arkham Asylum
Unigine Heaven 2.0
S.T.A.L.K.E.R Call of Pripyat
FarCry 2
Just Cause 2

Power Consumption
GPU Temperatures

dirt 2 dx 9 nvidia dx 11 equal
metro nvidia
crysis equal
resident evil nvidia
wic nvidia
baa nvidia
heaven again nvidia
far cry again nvidia and just cause again nvidia lol here i go i benched for you

btw most of this games are nvidias favourite there is no way ati can do better in those games

[Manicdan]

To overclock GTX 480, you need a 1000+W PSU."

id be worried about the heatsink before the PSU.

[Solus Corvus]

So a 5970 is still the top card. Nvidia isn't really giving me any kind of reason to stop using my friend's 5970 (lol). I don't really care about temps (I like to watercool) or power draw (1250W PS). I just want the fastest card and that appears to be the 5970 ... still.

The Fermi drivers need a ton of work, IMO, based on what little we have seen so far. The performance numbers are all over the map. It's unclear how much performance new drivers could bring - but hopefully they would at least make performance more consistent. Those Quake Wars numbers make me think they still have some serious optimization to do for their OpenGL drivers - which has traditionally been Nvidia's strong point and ATI's weakness.

[zerazax]

Those lucky folks who picked up the 5970 (and 5870s) at MSRP at their launch really lucked out... who would've thought 6 months later, those cards would be more expensive and still be competitive

"Our Gigabyte OdinWatt 800W PSU, which is able to run two 5870's in CF, shut down when we were trying to overclock the GTX 480.

To overclock GTX 480, you need a 1000+W PSU."

YOWZA! They should connect the heatsink to a grill... get two uses out of the card for one!

[hallryu]

The wait for reviews has been killing me!

[gOJDO]

who would've thought 6 months later, those cards would be more expensive and still be competitive

Jen-Hsun Huang.

[kemo]

I would be interested to see if a 1800MHZ Shader Fermi can beat down the HD5970

[Exa.bit]

I don't mean to bash fermi too bad but this is rediculous, what has Nvidia been doing for the past few yrs? I mean they invented the term gpu but this is the best offering from them... Are they too busy with intel to make a good gfx solution? Not to say fermi is a complete flop but Ati has them smashed on this one. Yeah fermi is a bit faster but at what cost? 100c underload, power requirements galore, huge die size. I sense alot of RMA with those temps. I'm really shocked that this is the best thing they could come up with. I guess innovation isnt part of their vocabulary anymore, or maybe it never was.

[zerazax]

I sense alot of RMA with those temps. I'm really shocked that this is the best thing they could come up with.

Did that rumor about them dropping warranty coverage years on the standard cards for the GTX4xx cards come true?

If so, that would make sense... I can't imagine Nvidia having had fun when the GTX280 went through RMAs

[Motiv]

3DMark Vantage
Dirt 2
Metro 2033
Crysis Warhead
Resident Evil 5
World in Conflict Russian Assault
Batman Arkham Asylum
Unigine Heaven 2.0
S.T.A.L.K.E.R Call of Pripyat
FarCry 2
Just Cause 2

Power Consumption
GPU Temperatures

Why does it seem everyone is using the same benchmarks. We could at least see cod:mw2, dow2, team fortress 2 (and oldie). it just seems everyone is benching the same.

Good to see just cause 2, it seems a little different to other reviews so far.

[annihilat0r]

I can say that this chart's aggregate performance scores are completely in line with the previous HD5850, 5870 and 5970 performance summaries I have seen from TPU and PCGH.

According to this chart, GTX 480 is 26 percent faster than 5870. Looks like the launch date is the only thing Charlie was right about... among the approximately 150 things he said about Fermi's specifications, price, performance etc.

[Mungri]

Supersonic Sled Demo is up on nVidia site.

Run only on GT4X0 Series

Cool, NVidia have some great wallpapers to download there.

[eric66]

Good to see just cause 2, it seems a little different to other reviews so far.

that bench list is like wet dream of Jen i guess there are some conditions to be met to get furby

[justin.kerr]

please add ARMA II and Dragons Age to the list of games to bench...

[annihilat0r]

that bench list is like wet dream of Jen i guess there are some conditions to be met to get furby

god, which game reviews would you like? These are all the popular games being played right now. what the hell can nvidia do if they perform good in Dirt 2, it's one of the titles AMD was so big on, they gave it free with their cards, now do you expect review sites to ditch it because nvidia performs good on it? lolzers.

[pentium777]

150W more than a 5870 is an absolute joke, no matter how you look at it. That's some serious heat it's going to be putting out, and an expensive way to play games.

150W extra so if I game at 100% GPU speed 24/7 for a month my electric bill will increase $4-$5..... So realistically I'm looking at 0.25-0.50 increase per month. I think I have this covered.

[eric66]

god, which game reviews would you like? These are all the popular games being played right now. what the hell can nvidia do if they perform good in Dirt 2, it's one of the titles AMD was so big on, they gave it free with their cards, now do you expect review sites to ditch it because nvidia performs good on it? lolzers.

lol all popular games played right now ? are you serious wic res 5 baa fc 2 ? nice cherry picking dirt 2 though

[annihilat0r]

do you have the polar bears covered also?

[Motiv]

god, which game reviews would you like? These are all the popular games being played right now. what the hell can nvidia do if they perform good in Dirt 2, it's one of the titles AMD was so big on, they gave it free with their cards, now do you expect review sites to ditch it because nvidia performs good on it? lolzers.

well 90% of them are Nvidias TWIMBP titles. I'm hoping that there would be more titles that are a little bit more neutral.

I'm not saying people aren't playing far cry 2 at the moment, or crysis warhead, which they probably aren't, but it just looks a little odd having so many titles from nvidias PR dept in.

[annihilat0r]

lol all popular games played right now ? are you serious wic res 5 baa ? nice cherry picking dirt 2 though

WiC, RES 5 and BAA are included in most of the reviews done before so I don't know why not in this one?

Which other games that are much more popular than the titles in that benchmark would you recommend, instead of just general bashing?