# NVIDIA GeForce 9900 GTX and 9900 GTS GT200 Powered Graphics Slated for July Launch



## malware (Apr 27, 2008)

NVIDIA is prepping the already confirmed GT200 graphics chip for an early July launch several sources reported last week. In order to counter ATI and their RV770 GPU which is almost complete, NVIDIA will launch GT200 powered GeForce 9900 graphics cards hoping to take the performance crown from ATI once again using old but proved tactics. The first two models from the GeForce 9900 series will be 9900 GTX and 9900 GTS instead of the previously speculated GeForce 9900 GT.

*View at TechPowerUp Main Site*


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## PVTCaboose1337 (Apr 27, 2008)

Sounds like ATI needs to catch up.  I cannot wait for the 4xxx series and comparing it to the 99xx series.


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## webwizard (Apr 27, 2008)

Maybe I should wait on buying that XFX 9800 GTX Black Edition card I have been saving for. 9900 GTX sounds like it might be a better upgrade.


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## PrudentPrincess (Apr 27, 2008)

webwizard said:


> Maybe I should wait on buying that XFX 9800 GTX Black Edition card I have been saving for. 9900 GTX sounds like it might be a better upgrade.



Yes, and with it you can take the crawn!


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## happita (Apr 27, 2008)

You guys also have to look out for the 4870x2


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## magibeg (Apr 27, 2008)

Wait.... i was pretty sure the 9900 series was a die shrink.... and i heard that its actually something more along the lines of a 3870x2. 2 chips on one board. Then again everything is a rumor anyway


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## happita (Apr 27, 2008)

Or better yet xfire 2 4870 w/ 1gb GDDR5 instead of the x2 because you know its always going to have slower clocked memory.


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## PrudentPrincess (Apr 27, 2008)

happita said:


> Or better yet xfire 2 4870 w/ 1gb GDDR5 instead of the x2 because you know its always going to have slower clocked memory.



Yeah I'm probably going to do xfire on my next build because its all matx boards can handle. (I'm not counting the socket 939 SLI board, its outdated.)


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## WarEagleAU (Apr 27, 2008)

Sounds like Nvidia speculats that AMD/ATI has a killer card coming up, finally.


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## MrMilli (Apr 27, 2008)

My guess is that nVidia is pulling the launch ahead to counter ATI. But the availability will probably be very limited the first month or two.
A Sapphire representative told me the same about RV770. In june the supply will be tight but will pick up in july.


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## zOaib (Apr 27, 2008)

its warr !! , niiice =)


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## Deleted member 24505 (Apr 27, 2008)

Or maybe nvidia is pulling a fast one again.


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## TooFast (Apr 27, 2008)

I hope ati blows away nvidia!


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## farlex85 (Apr 27, 2008)

Yeah I didn't see them waiting to the end of summer. They're not just gonna let ati rake in profits from a new tech w/o a challenge.


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## overclocker! (Apr 27, 2008)

TooFast said:


> I hope ati blows away nvidia!



i really hope so too!!!!


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## Selene (Apr 27, 2008)

ATI has not been ahead sence the 9800pro IMO, dont see them taking it any time soon.


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## HTC (Apr 27, 2008)

Selene said:


> ATI has not been ahead sence the 9800pro IMO, dont see them taking it any time soon.



The way i figure is ATI taking the crown until nVidia launches it's new series. However, i believe the distance ATI had to nVidia will get considerably smaller. This is only speculation, though.


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## jbunch07 (Apr 27, 2008)

very interesting...it will be lots of fun to see how the 99xx series does compared to the 4xxx series...but to be honest i thought with the release of a new core they would have had a new name...but i never really understood nvidia's logic for there cards names...at any rate it will still be nice to see how these cards battle it out over the upcoming months


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## HTC (Apr 27, 2008)

jbunch07 said:


> very interesting...it will be lots of fun to see how the 99xx series does compared to the 4xxx series...but to be honest i thought with the release of a new core they would have had a new name...but i never really understood nvidia's logic for there cards names...at any rate it will still be nice to see how these cards battle it out over the upcoming months



IMO, nVidia screwed up with the naming of their cards but, instead of correcting this with newer generations of cards, they kept their mistake ...

ATI also did this (the HD2900 comes to mind), but not as much.


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## candle_86 (Apr 27, 2008)

well if the GT200 rumors are true we can expect 384 real shader units, 64rops, a 512bit bus, and 1gb of ram.


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## jbunch07 (Apr 27, 2008)

HTC said:


> IMO, nVidia screwed up with the naming of their cards but, instead of correcting this with newer generations of cards, they kept their mistake ...
> 
> ATI also did this (the HD2900 comes to mind), but not as much.


yea very true imo nvidia messed up big time with the g92 gts and gt those should have been called 9 series cards if ya ask me...



candle_86 said:


> well if the GT200 rumors are true we can expect 384 real shader units, 64rops, a 512bit bus, and 1gb of ram.


if those stats are true than ATi might need to keep a close watch on this....


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## acperience7 (Apr 27, 2008)

HTC said:


> The way i figure is ATI taking the crown until nVidia launches it's new series. However, i believe the distance ATI had to nVidia will get considerably smaller. This is only speculation, though.


 +1


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## eidairaman1 (Apr 27, 2008)

Selene said:


> ATI has not been ahead sence the 9800pro IMO, dont see them taking it any time soon.



obviously a noob fanboy statement if ive seen one.


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## spearman914 (Apr 27, 2008)

ATI and Nvidia will have a big contest:
Nvidia GeForce 9900 GTX vs ATI Radeon HD4870X2


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## Valdez (Apr 27, 2008)

Selene said:


> ATI has not been ahead sence the 9800pro IMO, dont see them taking it any time soon.



850xtpe > 6800ultra
x1950xtx > 7900gtx


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## snuif09 (Apr 27, 2008)

for me its about bang for the buck i dont care if its ati or nvidia


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## spearman914 (Apr 27, 2008)

Valdez said:


> 850xtpe > 6800ultra
> x1950xtx > 7900gtx



The first comparison was right. The second one is wrong. 1950XTX is good when it comes to image quality but 7900 GTX pwns benchmarking and has a slight raise in frames per second over the 1950XTX


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## HTC (Apr 27, 2008)

snuif09 said:


> for me its about bang for the buck i dont care if its ati or nvidia



+1


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## spearman914 (Apr 27, 2008)

And theres one thing I hate about the GT200’s. Its still a DDR3, and ATI already has released DDR4 and by the time the 9900 GTX comes out ATI will be already released DDR5.


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## panchoman (Apr 27, 2008)

its time to prepare for the next gpu battle.. may some random non duoply company win!


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## Kovoet (Apr 27, 2008)

Damn gonna have twist the damn wife's arm again oh well it's well worth getting divorced for lol


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## Millenia (Apr 27, 2008)

candle_86 said:


> well if the GT200 rumors are true we can expect 384 real shader units, 64rops, a 512bit bus, and 1gb of ram.



512 bit bus? Not happening, the 9800 series had a 256 bit bus as compared to the 384 bit bus of the high-end G80 cores, they obviously rolled back for a reason.

ATI did the same thing after realizing that the 512 bit bus was way too expensive on the 2900XT for the little performance boost it gave.


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## Edito (Apr 27, 2008)

Im a nvidia fan but i think both are doin just fine and about the new cards its about the choices if u like ATI u can buy a ATI and if u like nvidia just buy nvidia we don't need 2 start a war because of this IMO we just need to buy the one with better price for us and the one we like more just that... 

lets leave the image quality and stuff like that apart cause in the very end well be playing the same games with the same quality no meter if u choose nvidia or ATI.

Don't get me wrong....


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## Edito (Apr 27, 2008)

spearman914 said:


> And theres one thing I hate about the GT200’s. Its still a DDR3, and ATI already has released DDR4 and by the time the 9900 GTX comes out ATI will be already released DDR5.



U can notice a big improvement in terms of performance between DDR4 and DDR3???

8800GT DDR3 kills the 3870 DDR4 and im not going to talk about 8800GTS G92 correct me if im wrong...


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## Millenia (Apr 27, 2008)

Edito said:


> U can notice a big improvement in terms of performance between DDR4 and DDR3???
> 
> 8800GT DDR3 kills the 3870 DDR4 and im not going to talk about 8800GTS G92 correct me if im wrong...



I _think_ that GDDR4 offers improvement mostly consumptionwise (some performance as well), but GDDR5 has the lower consumption of GDDR4 and monstrously high clocks.

"According to Qimonda, the new 512Mbit GDDR5 memory chips being sampled are three times faster than 800MHz GDDR3 RAM, and they can achieve bandwidth of 20GB/s per module. If I've got my math right, that translates to "effective" DDR speeds of around 5GHz and total maximum theoretical bandwidth of 160GB/s for a graphics card with a 256-bit memory bus and eight GDDR5 chips."

That's an enormous amount of bandwidth, I think my 8800GT's memory only has a bandwidth around 64GB/s


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## jbunch07 (Apr 27, 2008)

panchoman said:


> its time to prepare for the next gpu battle.. may some random non duoply company win!



i agree with that!
this is going to be one hell of a showdown


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## HTC (Apr 27, 2008)

Edito said:


> U can notice a big improvement in terms of performance between DDR4 and DDR3???
> 
> 8800GT DDR3 kills the 3870 DDR4 and im not going to talk about 8800GTS G92 correct me if im wrong...



Here are the specs of both:

nVidia






ATI (compared to a 8800 GT)






The ATI has higher speed for both memory and GPU but it functions much cooler then the nVidia. I'm assuming that's because of the GDDR4, though i may be wrong.


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## hat (Apr 27, 2008)

holy shit 160GB/S bandwidth?


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## Wile E (Apr 27, 2008)

spearman914 said:


> The first comparison was right. The second one is wrong. 1950XTX is good when it comes to image quality but 7900 GTX pwns benchmarking and has a slight raise in frames per second over the 1950XTX



No, nVidia didn't pull ahead until 8800 released. They spun out the 7950 series just after 1950's release to try and counter it, but they were at best equals.


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## jbunch07 (Apr 27, 2008)

im not exactly sure how the shader clocks work on Ati cards but i know that thats where they usually fall behind in performance compared to nvidia...nvidia uses really high shader clocks, while ati uses the core clock....however i could be very wrong about this, please enlighten me if i am...


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## LiveOrDie (Apr 27, 2008)

well my plan is to use evga step up program goin from the 8800GTS to 9800GX2 and if the 9900 GTX is fast than it ill more to that


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## EnglishLion (Apr 27, 2008)

All thumbs up from me! Competition is great for us.

I'm no fanboy but while nvidia continue to prevent sli on intel chipsets. It's in my interest that ATI have decent cards available. If the two cards are comparable, then I'll be going ATI on my X38 to keep my options open. I guess many others will do likewise.


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## Millenia (Apr 27, 2008)

jbunch07 said:


> im not exactly sure how the shader clocks work on Ati cards but i know that thats where they usually fall behind in performance compared to nvidia...nvidia uses really high shader clocks, while ati uses the core clock....however i could be very wrong about this, please enlighten me if i am...



That's about it, although ATI's HD4k series are to address this issue. We'll see how it goes.


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## jbunch07 (Apr 28, 2008)

Millenia said:


> That's about it, although ATI's HD4k series are to address this issue. We'll see how it goes.



yea it seems with every card they address some kinda of issue so maybe this time around there wont be much to complain about...but then again nvidia has been doing the same so im looking forward to the battle...


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## eidairaman1 (Apr 28, 2008)

whats with all the guys joinin, ive seen like 20 join so far, im wondering if a few of those are same person.


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## jbunch07 (Apr 28, 2008)

eidairaman1 said:


> whats with all the guys joinin, ive seen like 20 join so far, im wondering if a few of those are same person.



well when stuff like this gets posted and people Google "gt200" core or "9900gtx" this comes up as one of the first links so people wanna join and post their 2cents about it...thats what forums are for...to talk about and discuss things like this...but i doubt people would join more than once...unless they intend to spam us or something 

thats kinda off topic btw....sry mods


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## springs113 (Apr 28, 2008)

spearman914 said:


> The first comparison was right. The second one is wrong. 1950XTX is good when it comes to image quality but 7900 GTX pwns benchmarking and has a slight raise in frames per second over the 1950XTX



obviously you must not have read nvidias shady files...as they always dropped IQ to gain FPS...thats why they are in the lead by so much...i have both teams so i dont care....just get me another 8800gt vs 3870 pricing and im fine.


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## Weer (Apr 28, 2008)

TooFast said:


> I hope ati blows away nvidia!



ATI always did, my friend.

It's AMD that can barely catch up.


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## jocksteeluk (Apr 28, 2008)

the turnover of the high end cards over the last two years has been astounding.


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## jbunch07 (Apr 28, 2008)

jocksteeluk said:


> the turnover of the high end cards over the last two years has been astounding.



it really has...and its only getting better


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## springs113 (Apr 28, 2008)

to one of the poster's that spoke about ATIs shader clocks... i do believe that the 4800 series will have independent clocks...that should also be higher than previous iterations of their cards...i would think that they are trying to address their AA problems.

As for this post, I say bring it on Nvidia/ATI I want cheaper prices.  I am content with the current lows that we have and I do want both companies to prosper, but I do want a good battle.  Hopefully this round is even though in all or for the most part.


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## jbunch07 (Apr 28, 2008)

springs113 said:


> to one of the poster's that spoke about ATIs shader clocks... i do believe that the 4800 series will have independent clocks...that should also be higher than previous iterations of their cards...i would think that they are trying to address their AA problems.
> 
> As for this post, I say bring it on Nvidia/ATI I want cheaper prices.  I am content with the current lows that we have and I do want both companies to prosper, but I do want a good battle.  Hopefully this round is even though in all or for the most part.



that was me...and yea i hope they do address this issue, independent shader clocks would be a real threat to the gt200 based cards


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## wolf (Apr 28, 2008)

i wouldnt say that x850xt > 6800ultra and
x1950 > 79xx both of which are too close to call and can be made up with an oc, hell the x850 is a oc'ed x800 anyway. and my BFG 6800U OC kept up.

as for the new series'es, i really hope ATi comes thru on this one, id love to see genuine 50% gains over their old series (if they are that good ill buy one for sure), but nvidia has been preparing the GT200 since the 8800GTX was released, so i very much doubt ATi has given them anything to sweat about, theyre prolly jsut pulling the release ahead so ATi dont get as many sales in.

in any case its going to be a surely awesome time for gfx card fans, overclockers, tweakers, gamers, enjoy


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## flashstar (Apr 28, 2008)

Remember that ATI did a complete architecture rewrite after the 19xx series. Nvidia has kept the same basic core design since the 6xxx series. It is therefore much easier for ATI to increase the performance of their cards since most of the tough design challenges have already been conquered. All they have to do now is iron out the mistakes in the design and boost speed where is matters.


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## wolf (Apr 28, 2008)

sounds strangely reminiscent of the unified shader architecture.... GT200 will be the third good stab at it.


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## tkpenalty (Apr 28, 2008)

"According to several sources" I haven't seen any sources say that yet, not even fudzilla who are usually on top of this kind of news. AMD will get to launch their card first anyway...


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## Megasty (Apr 28, 2008)

Die shrinks & architecture re-works are fine but the 9900GTX is going to have to put up some serious smoke to match the 4870x2 especially pp wise. The winner there gets my cash


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## tkpenalty (Apr 28, 2008)

The thing is a 512 bit bus is a no no.... unless the card is THAT powerful its a total waste-expect  the card to cost around $800~$900 at launch!


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## jbunch07 (Apr 28, 2008)

tkpenalty said:


> The thing is a 512 bit bus is a no no.... unless the card is THAT powerful its a total waste-expect  the card to cost around $800~$900 at launch!



i seriously doubt it will...if they learned that faster mem out weighs the bus, like ATi did


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## tkpenalty (Apr 28, 2008)

jbunch07 said:


> i seriously doubt it will...if they learned that faster mem out weighs the bus, like ATi did



Err.... no. Faster mem will not outweigh a wider bus, however such a wide bus is not needed and the GPUs these days usually aren't able to make use of a 512 bit bus so its wasted. Faster mem will not provide the same bandwidth as a wider bit bus....

128bit vs 256bit... its pretty clear what the differences do.


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## jbunch07 (Apr 28, 2008)

tkpenalty said:


> Err.... no. Faster mem will not outweigh a wider bus, however such a wide bus is not needed and the GPUs these days usually aren't able to make use of a 512 bit bus so its wasted. Faster mem will not provide the same bandwidth as a wider bit bus....
> 
> 128bit vs 256bit... its pretty clear what the differences do.



true but im comparing 256bit to 512 and 384 there is obliviously a reason why the new standard seems to be 256... i think it seems to be the butter zone


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## tkpenalty (Apr 28, 2008)

jbunch07 said:


> true but im comparing 256bit to 512 and 384 there is obliviously a reason why the new standard seems to be 256... i think it seems to be the butter zone



Yep, thats correct. The transistor count worries me; as in AMD vs Nvidia, unless Nvidia are just using a relabled 55nm G92 as a G200 AMD might have something that will block the light at the end of the tunnel.


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## craigo (Apr 28, 2008)

this thread reminds me of this  http://tinyurl.com/3ogkh


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## jbunch07 (Apr 28, 2008)

tkpenalty said:


> Yep, thats correct. The transistor count worries me; as in AMD vs Nvidia, unless Nvidia are just using a relabled 55nm G92 as a G200 AMD might have something that will block the light at the end of the tunnel.



yes i agree
seems to be nvidias thing atm, but i dont really want to make any judgments one way or another because both rumored specs are a little flaky and they are just that "rumors" but it would be nice to see ATi make a come back for a change, its going to be very anticipating!


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## tkpenalty (Apr 28, 2008)

craigo said:


> this thread reminds me of this  http://tinyurl.com/3ogkh



QFT. How much can we trust the inquirer and VR Zone? I can certainly lay my trust on Fudzilla because they never actually put BS (and bother to correct themselves when something is wrong or updated).


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## Duffman (Apr 28, 2008)

we shall see which is faster in time i guess.

We all heard the ATI bells being rung before the 2900 was released and it didn't quite match up...


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## jbunch07 (Apr 28, 2008)

Duffman said:


> we shall see which is faster in time i guess.
> 
> We all heard the ATI bells being rung before the 2900 was released and it didn't quite match up...



true...the 2900 was a flop and didn't quite meet expectations but they learn from their mistakes...hopefully


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## tvdang7 (Apr 28, 2008)

TooFast said:


> I hope ati blows away nvidia!



im guessing its just going to be as fast as the current gtx . but im hoping its so much better.


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## flashstar (Apr 28, 2008)

tvdang7 said:


> im guessing its just going to be as fast as the current gtx . but im hoping its so much better.



What?

My 2900pro is almost as fast as an 8800gtx (within 5 fps in most games). You're saying that a 50% boost in shaders and a 100% boost in TMU's as well as a 25% boost in clocks will only result in a 15% total speed boost??


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## tkpenalty (Apr 28, 2008)

flashstar said:


> What?
> 
> My 2900pro is almost as fast as an 8800gtx (within 5 fps in most games). You're saying that a 50% boost in shaders and a 100% boost in TMU's as well as a 25% boost in clocks will only result in a 15% total speed boost??



Theres a chance. Stay OT anyway.


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## tkpenalty (Apr 28, 2008)

http://forums.vr-zone.com/showthread.php?t=242644

Something to disappoint you guys who are rooting for AMD. Take it with a grain of salt tho 

EDIT: Its a fake.


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## hat (Apr 28, 2008)

tkpenalty said:


> http://forums.vr-zone.com/showthread.php?t=242644
> 
> Something to disappoint you guys who are rooting for AMD. Take it with a grain of salt tho
> 
> EDIT: Its a fake.



OMG!! ALL ON 0MHZ!!


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## tkpenalty (Apr 28, 2008)

hat said:


> OMG!! ALL ON 0MHZ!!



Not that, that's normal with cards that W1zzard hasn't received info/data on . 

If you notice where its supposed to display the res the last digit is a 4.... thats different to the real resolution where the last digit should be a 0. Its also funny how fast the Q6600 is running compared to the score


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## Edito (Apr 28, 2008)

HTC said:


> Here are the specs of both:
> 
> nVidia
> 
> ...



Ok Ok but i just want to see in game performance not just numbers and specifications cause whats the point getting higher clocks if we can't feel its impact in game performance???


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## Valdez (Apr 28, 2008)

spearman914 said:


> The first comparison was right. The second one is wrong. 1950XTX is good when it comes to image quality but 7900 GTX pwns benchmarking and has a slight raise in frames per second over the 1950XTX



1950xtx _easily_ outperforms the 7900gtx in _every_ game.

http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/hardware/grafikkarten/2007/test_nvidia_geforce_8800_gts_512/


1280 without AA, 36% (average) faster than 7900gtx 
1280 with 4xAA, 78% (average) faster than 7900gtx


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## candle_86 (Apr 28, 2008)

about the 512bit bus, if the GT200 is the rumored 384 shader, 64rop card we keep hearing about i wouldnt suprised at all to be honest.


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## newconroer (Apr 28, 2008)

Valdez said:


> 850xtpe > 6800ultra
> x1950xtx > 7900gtx



Individual cards ...yes at times, though as a whole Nvidia have been outperforming ATI in pretty much every class, and the prices keep dropping.


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## wolf (Apr 28, 2008)

no-one should wish to compare a GT200 against a 4870x2, thats stupid, single gpu vs single gpu people come on.

surely a 3870X2 beats a G92GT/S, but again, not an even comparison. when we go even stevens (G92 SLi vs 3870X2 or 3870CF) then we have a reasonable comparison.

it should be 9900GTX vs 4870
and           9900GTS vs 4850

maybe 9900GTX/S SLi vs 4870X2, thats acceptable, but it is completely unfair to compare single to double.

the only possible way they could compete together is if they both sell at the same pricepoint, i.e. 9900GTX and 4870X2 both retail at $499

wolf.


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## eidairaman1 (Apr 28, 2008)

reason saying is we dont have any gaming tests to compare them both, its just amazing AMD Managed to keep the 4 series so quiet until recently, I know it was expected but we shall see how everything flows, and to say this your better off skipping a few generations than jumping on every new thing in site, i went from a 9800 AIW to a 1950 Pro and the jump was huge


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## DarkMatter (Apr 28, 2008)

The surprise is that Nvidia is very secretive too this time. Yeah we have lot of "leaked" info, but chances of those being actual ones are so small:


96 TMU? Seems right. Pair it with clock increase for a two fold increase in performance.

384 SP? - Don't think so, not if 1. is true. G92 has 2 SPs per TMU, this is 4 per TMU, balance is broken IMO. Unless they do have other uses for them in mind. Ageia physics? It's very unlikely anyway. Another possibilitily is that they are doing like Ati and in reality it's 192 SPs with 2 ALUs each (one complex one simple), or 96 with 4 each. Unlikely for the latter, but 192 x 2 is possible. It's also possible that the TMUs unlike in G80/92 are capable of FP16 like Ati ones. VERY UNLIKELY, paired with SP number would make this card 3X faster per clock than G92. That's insane and won't happen, right?

64 ROPS? Definately false. 32 ROPs maximum. 24 would suffice IMO.

512 and 448 bit memory interfaces? Could be but it's too much bandwidth IMO even when still using GDDR3. 384 and 320 would suffice IMO. Unless they have the massive physics thing in mind and need that extra bandwidth, which could make sense.

All in all, the specs are plausible, but some of them seem too high to be true. It would be a monster chip, some leaked specs said 1,8 billion transistors and you do need all of them for that specs to be true and that doesn't seem profitable. Not to mention that such a chip would be almost 3x as fast as G92 or have too many spare shaders.


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## candle_86 (Apr 28, 2008)

remember though, back in early 2007 they said the next generation core would do 1TF, so it is plausable.


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## Wile E (Apr 28, 2008)

newconroer said:


> Individual cards ...yes at times, though as a whole Nvidia have been outperforming ATI in pretty much every class, and the prices keep dropping.



Only since 8800 came out. the 7900/1900 era belonged to ATI.


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## deathbyburk (Apr 28, 2008)

*Not jumpin the gun!*

I can see it already 9900's come out and a few weeks later 10,000 series will be in the rumor mill and the cycle will continue


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## imperialreign (Apr 28, 2008)

tkpenalty said:


> "According to several sources" I haven't seen any sources say that yet, not even fudzilla who are usually on top of this kind of news. AMD will get to launch their card first anyway...





+1 on that statement . . . I doubt that nVidia will be able to launch these cards prior to ATI unleashing the HD4000 series . . . just going by how things between the two companies usually roll, when nVidia declares a release month, estimate 2-3 months after that.  When ATI starts leaking specs for their next series, figure an initial release 2-3 months after that.

So . . . by that rule of thumb - we can figure a release of ATI's new goods around June-July; and nVidia's new release around Sep-Oct . . . which sounds about on par when both companies tend to release a new series of cards.


IMHO, this news is really just to start drumming up the support, and forum banter that will build the consumers expectations and start the anticipation process.  There's no concrete info, per se, and if we make out the new green camp hardware to sound bettern than ATI's already acknowledged HD4000 series, there's gonna be a ton of people who'd hold off on purchasing a new ATI card until they see the leaked benchmarks and specs of nVidia's newest demons - and I figure, too, we'll start seeing those leaked specs and benchies the closer we get to ATI's release.


So, let's all dry out panties off until we get some solid info.


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## newconroer (Apr 29, 2008)

Wile E said:


> Only since 8800 came out. the 7900/1900 era belonged to ATI.



Maybe, but how far back are we going to go with this? It will be two years since we saw the 8800s come Q4 of this year.

In that time frame we've seen a plethora of cards launched from both camps, even if some qualify as 'rehash.' Never the less, leadership  has primarily belonged to Nvidia. 


It's a point that even ATI's stance on controlling the non-high end market has been failing. Which further supports the observations that Nvidia doesn't squirm no matter what ATI does.

Even if ATI pulls off some card that out does the current Nvidia 'top dog,' it won't do it by much, and it definatley won't last long.

Hence these 9900s probably won't be anything to kill for, but could be a plentiful upgrade for some users, whether ATI or Nvidia owners previously. 

Finally, bringing it to my last point: Right now, and when the 9900s launch, the 9800 series are and will be at a good price, a very good price. I know there's people considering a 9800 card, but are worried it would be premature.  It wouldn't be 'stupid,' to get a 9800 now. 

If these 9900s aren't going to be that spectacular, I'd recommend the 9800


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## Wile E (Apr 29, 2008)

newconroer said:


> Maybe, but how far back are we going to go with this? It will be two years since we saw the 8800s come Q4 of this year.
> 
> In that time frame we've seen a plethora of cards launched from both camps, even if some qualify as 'rehash.' Never the less, leadership  has primarily belonged to Nvidia.
> 
> ...


I was only commenting on what was said in this thread, but if you do go back thru history, you'll see that ATI and NV have swapped as the top dog every few years. ATI is due to get back on top.


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## swaaye (Apr 29, 2008)

Wile E said:


> Only since 8800 came out. the 7900/1900 era belonged to ATI.



That's true. But X1800, X850, and X800 were basically behind NVIDIA. 9700/9800 were the first time ATI wasn't quite a bit behind. They were fortunate with R3x0 and NVIDIA messing up so bad with NV3x.

It seems to me that NVIDIA has a generally more efficient architecture right now, and historically until you get back to NV3x.

What's most amazing is how R420 and RV670 are both 16 pixel/clock GPUs. Granted, they've gotten more efficient with those resources, but NVIDIA is *way* beyond that.


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## imperialreign (Apr 29, 2008)

swaaye said:


> That's true. But X1800, X850, and X800 were basically behind NVIDIA. 9700/9800 were the first time ATI wasn't quite a bit behind. They were fortunate with R3x0 and NVIDIA messing up so bad with NV3x.
> 
> It seems to me that NVIDIA has a generally more efficient architecture right now, and historically until you get back to NV3x.
> 
> What's most amazing is how R420 and RV670 are both 16 pixel/clock GPUs. Granted, they've gotten more efficient with those resources, but NVIDIA is *way* beyond that.



one can't really bring the X1800 series into the 7900/1900 era argument, as the 1800s were quickly replaced with the 1900s.

Anyhow, I can't say nVidia has a "more efficient" GPU architecture . . . nVidia has a long running reputation for running their cards at insane speeds, and having cards that run at thermonuclear temperatures . . . not ideal for those concerned about power consumption, and in many regards, nVidia hasn't made any drastic changes to their current GPU architecure in quite some time, whereas ATi has gone back to the drawing board on a fe occasions.  But, both companies' GPUs accel at certain tasks than their competitors.  Big reason why during the Phys-ex Bout Part I, ATI layed waste to both nVidia, Aegia and Intel.  ATI's GPUs are 1337 at mathematics, and with graphics engines that revolve around this as well.  Sadly, there aren't many games like that, so nVidia takes the cake near about always.  But the few games that are coded in a way that puts ATI on top - it tends to be a massive margin over nVidia.

I agree with Wile E's statement, every few years the crown gets swapped, and ATI is due to take the lead again.  Based on the leaked specs of the HD4000 series, it appears that ATI intends to address the issues that were holding back the RV670 in performance.


Either way, the competition between the two this year in regards to the 4000/9900 series will be very close.  The second half of this year will be very intriguing, and I'm damn-straight looking forward to it


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## swaaye (Apr 29, 2008)

imperialreign said:


> one can't really bring the X1800 series into the 7900/1900 era argument, as the 1800s were quickly replaced with the 1900s.


True, but that's because X1800 was like 6 months late. X1800 wasn't much of a match for  7800GTX. Well, unless you are more concerned with quality than simple speed. GF5/6/7 had plenty of texture filtering quality issues.



imperialreign said:


> Anyhow, I can't say nVidia has a "more efficient" GPU architecture . . . nVidia has a long running reputation for running their cards at insane speeds, and having cards that run at thermonuclear temperatures . . .


Not sure I agree here. You'll find that ATI ran their X800 and X850 chips >100MHz faster than NVIDIA 6/7 just to keep up. And they couldn't always keep up. X1800 and X1900 were again clocked very high and certainly were not cool-running. They also had very noisy coolers. GF 7900 was not well matched to X1900, true, but 7900 definitely was cooler and quieter.

I think that the fact that NVIDIA wins in just about every application out there says volumes about their architectural efficiency. R600 was anything but efficient compared to G80. All that touted shader power that went nowhere, pathetic AA performance, excessive memory bandwidth, and extreme heat combined to make a product less power-efficient, slower, and uglier than the competition. And now we have HD 3850/3870 outclassed by 8800GT, 8800GS and 9600GT. 3870X2 has some serious quirks to it (as does 9800GX2 though). At least RV670 was frugal on the juice.



imperialreign said:


> Big reason why during the Phys-ex Bout Part I, ATI layed waste to both nVidia, Aegia and Intel.  ATI's GPUs are 1337 at mathematics, and with graphics engines that revolve around this as well.


Physics on GPUs has gone absolutely nowhere aside from forgotten promises from NV & ATI. And there are synthetic tests out there that show ATI's shader design to be less efficient that NV's in multiple ways as well. Check out some of Digit-Life's reviews to see some signs of this. You'll find that while it can perform extremely well in some cases (geometry), it gets battered badly in others (SM4).
http://www.digit-life.com/articles3/video/rv670-part2.html

How good at math they are in some cases hardly matters when they are dramatically behind in texture fill-rate anyway. The chips are just totally off balance. I'm worried about RV770 after seeing how it may have 16 ROPs still. That means a max of 16 pixels per clock output.



imperialreign said:


> Either way, the competition between the two this year in regards to the 4000/9900 series will be very close.  The second half of this year will be very intriguing, and I'm damn-straight looking forward to it


Indeed. I like the ultra-agressive mid-range products we're getting. But, I think that NVIDIA has a monster GPU in the works while ATI is going to rely on dual RV770s for the top-end. I doubt that ATI can corner the high-end with a dual GPU design if NVIDIA does indeed have a 1.3 billion transistor chip coming. They just don't work out reliably/efficiently in all apps, as shown by current dual GPU cards and SLI/CF. A big single chip board doesn't have these driver issues and is going to be innately more efficient than two GPUs communicating externally.


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## imperialreign (Apr 30, 2008)

swaaye said:


> I think that the fact that NVIDIA wins in just about every application out there says volumes about their architectural efficiency. R600 was anything but efficient compared to G80. All that touted shader power that went nowhere, pathetic AA performance, excessive memory bandwidth, and extreme heat combined to make a product less power-efficient, slower, and uglier than the competition. And now we have HD 3850/3870 outclassed by 8800GT, 8800GS and 9600GT. 3870X2 has some serious quirks to it (as does 9800GX2 though). At least RV670 was frugal on the juice.



TBH, I think when it comes down to their massive lead in gaming benchmarks, it has a little more to do with their collaboration with game devs.  I'm not claiming every title under TWIMTBP campaign, as they've also worked with others who didn't join up - and, as far as nVidia is concerned, this has been their biggest marketing achievment to date.  ATI doesn't collaborate with game devs anywhere near the level that nVidia does, and that is blatantly obvious in the massive performance differences between each company.  But, of note, games where ATI has spent a lot of time collaborating with the game devs, we see performance levels on par between the companies, and many times ATI will lead in those tests (at least, in regards to newer generation hardware, in lower AA levels).  Games like FEAR and Call of Juarez, for example.  ATi has the capability, but there's just no follow through with game devs, and no reach around for us consumers - which I think is kinda sad at times.



> Physics on GPUs has gone absolutely nowhere aside from forgotten promises from NV & ATI. And there are synthetic tests out there that show ATI's shader design to be less efficient that NV's in multiple ways as well. Check out some of Digit-Life's reviews to see some signs of this. You'll find that while it can perform extremely well in some cases (geometry), it gets battered badly in others (SM4).
> http://www.digit-life.com/articles3/video/rv670-part2.html
> 
> How good at math they are in some cases hardly matters when they are dramatically behind in texture fill-rate anyway. The chips are just totally off balance. I'm worried about RV770 after seeing how it may have 16 ROPs still. That means a max of 16 pixels per clock output.



The whole physics thing was brought up quick, and dropped rather fast as well - especially after ATI's announcement of physics in a crossfire setup . . . I agree as well, though that ATI's shader design have been sub-par since after the X1950 series.  Those cards were great with SM3, but ATI has been behind the gate with SM4 with newer generations.

True, for the most part a GPU being good at math has little to do with texturing performance - but, again, if ATI were to spend more time collaborating with game devs to the extent that nVidia has, it would make all the difference in the world - unless ATI just decides to revamp the architecture, which is what RV770 so far will be doing.  Sure, it might only have 16 ROPs, still, but if everything is clocked independantly, I don't think that will be a limitation at all . . . only time will tell, though.

[/QUOTE]Indeed. I like the ultra-agressive mid-range products we're getting. But, I think that NVIDIA has a monster GPU in the works while ATI is going to rely on dual RV770s for the top-end. I doubt that ATI can corner the high-end with a dual GPU design if NVIDIA does indeed have a 1.3 billion transistor chip coming. They just don't work out reliably/efficiently in all apps, as shown by current dual GPU cards and SLI/CF. A big single chip board doesn't have these driver issues and is going to be innately more efficient than two GPUs communicating externally.[/QUOTE]

We haven't really seen anything "high-end" from ATI since they exclaimed they're staying out of that market.  Sure, the 3870x2 is priced for that market, but it's more two 3870s in one package, which still doesn't qualify for high-end, IMO.  Although, if ATI get's back on the ball like they were during the X1900 series, watch that statement go out the window - I'm sure we'll see another 1337 card come from the red camp, but only if they feel it can compete with nVidia's 1337 beast.


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## Edito (Apr 30, 2008)

I think that ATI must re-think on their marketing strategy cause without marketing they will never catch or be on par with nVidia cause marketing its one of the big things that nvidia do better than ATI putting aside the core clock, frequencies and stuff, they should focus on their designs and slogans, cause many ppl prefer nvidia cards because of that. They should think on the image of ATI... its my opinion putting aside the performance quality of both...


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## allen337 (Apr 30, 2008)

I wouldnt believe chit ati or nvidia said about a reliese date. If your saving for a video card and thinking your going to get the new generation in june I got some land by the sea to sale ya also, in arizona.


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