# AMD Aims Higher, 50% Market-share in Discrete-graphics in Sight



## btarunr (Aug 15, 2008)

Following the release of the R700 Spartan, the most powerful graphics card till date, AMD has noted that the ATI Radeon HD 4800 series products has boosted the company's market share in the discrete graphics industry from 30% to 40%. This has triggered optimism with the company, it expects to achieve the 50% mark against rival NVIDIA corporation, and that's as soon as late 2008, continuing the introduction of its products, surpass NVIDIA in 2009.

AMD also noted that it expects its discrete graphics card to IGP ratio in notebook shipments will be 35:65 in 2009. Meaning there will be growth in the sales of notebooks with discrete graphics in general against integrated graphics. NVIDIA rubbished AMD's comments saying it has the performance lead with its GeForce 200-series graphics products, while AMD claimed its Radeon HD 4800-series were clearly the more advanced lot.

*View at TechPowerUp Main Site*


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## NamesDontMatter (Aug 15, 2008)

One of the reasons I purchased one was to support ATI as the underdog! Go ATI!


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## Andy_007 (Aug 15, 2008)

NamesDontMatter said:


> One of the reasons I purchased one was to support ATI as the underdog! Go ATI!


Same here, Im sure they can get 50% as long as they do well with the 4400/4600 series cards.


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## PP Mguire (Aug 15, 2008)

Recent screenys of Deneb make it seem like a reasonable contender on the CPU front as well. So that will help with their revenue if its as good as its looking.


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## a111087 (Aug 15, 2008)

wow, if only they could do the same in CPU market


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## PP Mguire (Aug 15, 2008)

Well like i said, Deneb's engineering samples are looking good for performance and overclocking. Heres hoping.


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## JRMBelgium (Aug 15, 2008)

NamesDontMatter said:


> One of the reasons I purchased one was to support ATI as the underdog! Go ATI!



Same reason why I am going to buy one. Go ATI!


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## mdm-adph (Aug 15, 2008)

Well, competition is always good, but you know what I'd really like to see on the discrete graphics market?  

25% ATI, 25% Nvidia, 25% Intel, and 25% 3dfx  (or someone new).

Now, _that's_ a formula for innovation and great prices.


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## v-zero (Aug 15, 2008)

How can nVidia claim it has the performance lead when it doesn't? Are they blind or just stupid?

nVidia PR department:

PR guy no.1: "Right ATi are actually faster, what can we do to battle this"
PR guy no.2: "We could lie?"
PR guy no.1: "lie?"
PR guy no.2: "Yes, we pretend it's faster even though it isn't"
PR guy no.1: "Brilliant, that's brilliant - let's take the rest of the day off"


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## btarunr (Aug 15, 2008)

v-zero said:


> How can nVidia claim it has the performance lead when it doesn't? Are they blind or just stupid?



Perhaps it's the "3x GeForce GTX 280 > 2x Radeon HD 4870 X2" equation they're talking about.


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## cool_recep (Aug 15, 2008)

I was going to say the same. How the hell can say say that their pathetic GTX 280 has the crown?

/not a fan


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## v-zero (Aug 15, 2008)

btarunr said:


> Perhaps it's the "3x GeForce GTX 280 > 2x Radeon HD 4870 X2" equation they're talking about.



ATi can do Octo-Crossfire....


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## btarunr (Aug 15, 2008)

v-zero said:


> ATi can do Octo-Crossfire....



Nope. We won't see that happen, at least it's impossible now, NVIDIA still stands correct.


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## JRMBelgium (Aug 15, 2008)

cool_recep said:


> I was going to say the same. How the hell can say say that their pathetic GTX 280 has the crown?
> 
> /not a fan



Because it does. Look, I am not an Nvidia fan. But when it comes to single-GPU performance Nvidia wins. The ATI 4870X2 is faster, but look at the amount of power it uses. 

I don't know in wich country you live in, but where I live electricity is not cheap. If you own the 4870X2 for a year or more, then the Nvidia GTX280 is a lot cheaper, a lot.


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## mdm-adph (Aug 15, 2008)

v-zero said:


> How can nVidia claim it has the performance lead when it doesn't? Are they blind or just stupid?



They don't even need to claim it -- they have _legions_ of zealots to do it for them.  :shadedshu


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## mdm-adph (Aug 15, 2008)

Jelle Mees said:


> Because it does. Look, I am not an Nvidia fan. But when it comes to single-GPU performance Nvidia wins. The ATI 4870X2 is faster, but look at the amount of power it uses.
> 
> I don't know in wich country you live in, but where I live electricity is not cheap. If you own the 4870X2 for a year or more, then the Nvidia GTX280 is a lot cheaper, a lot.



Your argument has a bit of a problem, though -- if electricity is such a problem, it doesn't matter who has the fastest card, and that factor doesn't even come into play.  You should be looking for something low-end like a 9500GT or a HD 3650, anyway.


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## JRMBelgium (Aug 15, 2008)

mdm-adph said:


> Your argument has a bit of a problem, though -- if electricity is such a problem, it doesn't matter who has the fastest card, and that factor doesn't even come into play.  You should be looking for something low-end like a 9500GT or a HD 3650, anyway.



I am just saying that Dual-GPU solutions is not for everyone. We are not poor, it's not like we can't afford it, but when you talk about "performance crown" you have to look at GPU's and not 2 GPU's.

You really think I would have the PC that I have if we couldn't pay our bills 

Two slightly slower cards are faster then one, but that doesn't give it "the peformance crown".


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## farlex85 (Aug 15, 2008)

Jelle Mees said:


> I am just saying that Dual-GPU solutions is not for everyone. We are not poor, it's not like we can't afford it, but when you talk about "performance crown" you have to look at GPU's and not 2 GPU's.
> 
> You really think I would have the PC that I have if we couldn't pay our bills
> 
> Two slightly slower cards are faster then one, but that doesn't give it "the peformance crown".



Except it is one card, with dual gpu's. Yes it has 2 gpu's used in the 4870, but 2 4870s does not equal the 4870x2. Why can't people wrap their heads around this? It's one card, and does indeed take the performance crown, albeit while using a very large amount of power and costing a lot of money.


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## waver_01 (Aug 15, 2008)

Jelle Mees said:


> but when you talk about "performance crown" you have to look at GPU's and not 2 GPU's.



oh riiiight 

I don't know about you but I buy cards, not just the GPU's. And as it stands now ATI has strongest card out there so obviously they have the performance crown


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## v-zero (Aug 15, 2008)

btarunr said:


> Nope. We won't see that happen, at least it's impossible now, NVIDIA still stands correct.



Incorrect.


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## btarunr (Aug 15, 2008)

v-zero said:


> Incorrect.



Which part is incorrect? Regarding 8x RV770, it's currently not possible. 

Regarding 3x G200 > 2x R700, prove I'm wrong.

Sure, the fastest graphics card one can possibly buy now is the R700, but the fastest graphics setup one can own now is 3-way SLI of 3 GTX 280 cards, unless proven otherwise.


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## waver_01 (Aug 15, 2008)

btarunr said:


> Which part is incorrect? Regarding 8x RV770, it's currently not possible.
> 
> Regarding 3x G200 > 2x R700, prove I'm wrong.



2xR700 is faster than 3x GTX 280 in most benchmarks and cheaper 

http://techreport.com/articles.x/15293/5


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## Widjaja (Aug 15, 2008)

AMD has a better price vs performance this round which is why they are better this time.
In my circumstance it was to do with card size and a bout of bad luck with 8800GTs.
I was asked if I wanted to replace my 8800GT with a 9800GTX but since my case would not allow it and the bad luck with the 8800GTs put me off I went back to AMD.

I hope AMD become superior over nVidia just for a change.

I'd just like to see them doing thier marketing thing like they did when they were in the lead with the X800 series.


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## GPUCafe (Aug 15, 2008)

Alienware seems to think 4870X2 CF is the fastest:

http://image.alienware.com/Images/microsite/ati/chart_oblivion_b.jpg
http://image.alienware.com/Images/microsite/ati/chart_ageofconan_b.jpg
http://image.alienware.com/Images/microsite/ati/chart_crysis_b.jpg

In Crysis, three GTX280s in SLI would still top the 4870X2 CF.


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## yogurt_21 (Aug 15, 2008)

waver_01 said:


> 2xR700 is faster than 3x GTX 280 in most benchmarks and cheaper
> 
> http://techreport.com/articles.x/15293/5



no see this is QFT

I mean seriously where have you all been? tri sli doens't scale well at all on the gtx280 in fact in most settings it's maybe only a frame or two above regular sli. 

2x 4870x2 is currently the fastest gpu solution on the planet. (except for crysis, which yeah is nvidia's baby and is proibabaly what they're basing their performance crown claims on wow one game.) nvidia may release a driver that fixes tril sli, but then again amd could also release a driver to enable the sideport on the 4870x2 potentially increasing scaling.


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## farlex85 (Aug 15, 2008)

GPUCafe said:


> Alienware seems to think 4870X2 CF is the fastest:
> 
> http://image.alienware.com/Images/microsite/ati/chart_oblivion_b.jpg
> http://image.alienware.com/Images/microsite/ati/chart_ageofconan_b.jpg
> ...



Crysis is optimized for nvidia, and will always favor them in charts, and given that chart I'm not even so sure they would. Tri-sli isn't gonna scale very well, that may be just about equal going off that.


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## MadClown (Aug 15, 2008)

Even with ATI being the "underdog", they're allways the topdog in my book for the quality, but now they're pushing quantity of those quality frames, go ATI and AMD


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## GPUCafe (Aug 15, 2008)

farlex85 said:


> Crysis is optimized for nvidia, and will always favor them in charts, and given that chart I'm not even so sure they would. Tri-sli isn't gonna scale very well, that may be just about equal going off that.


I think its the other way, SLI is optimized for Crysis. 

The definition of the fastest setup depends on so many variables, so either camp wont be technically wrong in claiming the crown.


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## btarunr (Aug 15, 2008)

waver_01 said:


> 2xR700 is faster than 3x GTX 280 in most benchmarks and cheaper
> 
> http://techreport.com/articles.x/15293/5



OK...I was...wrong. GTX 280 x3 is chopped. NVIDIA is talking crap.


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## Darkrealms (Aug 15, 2008)

Jelle Mees said:


> Because it does. Look, I am not an Nvidia fan. But when it comes to single-GPU performance Nvidia wins. The ATI 4870X2 is faster, but look at the amount of power it uses.
> 
> I don't know in wich country you live in, but where I live electricity is not cheap. If you own the 4870X2 for a year or more, then the Nvidia GTX280 is a lot cheaper, a lot.


For a single GPU solution yes Nvidia wins.  BUT for a single CARD solution ATI wins.  That is all people are saying.  That can not be argued with at this time.  The 4870x2 right now is THE fastest card.


mdm-adph said:


> They don't even need to claim it -- they have _legions_ of zealots to do it for them.  :shadedshu


Don't start it can be said the same for both sides.  I am an NV fan and they aren't the fastest right now.

ON TOPIC
I didn't realize ATI's new chipset was that good.  I mean I heard good things about its possibilities.
Makes me happy.  AMD needs to start being more competitive in the market (market share).


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## Weer (Aug 15, 2008)

btarunr said:


> OK...I was...wrong. GTX 280 x3 is chopped. NVIDIA is talking crap.



Don't give up so easily. That review has mostly wrong figures, such as 260 SLi beating 280 SLi, and nVidia has the edge in Crysis so they technically still win. Although, yeah, AMD has placed 800 ALU's on a single GPU.. obviously they're going to win some battles. They did what they had to in order to win, no matter the manufacturing cost. nVidia could easily knock them out again, and they very likely will. I wouldn't be against AMD, if only their architecture wasn't so dated and they would finally move to Scalar. But this competition is great. I just think that nVidia fanboys want nVidia to come out a head a little bit.


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## Weer (Aug 15, 2008)

GPUCafe said:


> Alienware seems to think 4870X2 CF is the fastest:
> 
> http://image.alienware.com/Images/microsite/ati/chart_oblivion_b.jpg
> http://image.alienware.com/Images/microsite/ati/chart_ageofconan_b.jpg
> ...



Jesus Christ. Where did you find such senseless propoganda?


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## [I.R.A]_FBi (Aug 15, 2008)

What pisses me off the most in this round of gpu battles is, arguments that werent valid when ati was at the bottom, now stand when nvidia is at the bottom, for shame you sensless fanbois


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## btarunr (Aug 15, 2008)

Weer said:


> Jesus Christ. Where did you find such senseless propoganda?



From Alienware. Please choose your words better. There are better ways to disagree with things.


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## Siman0 (Aug 15, 2008)

well if they even come close to actually surpassing the 4870 all DAAMIT has to do is use the extra/expand the die size to the same as Nvidia's; or they could jest increase the bit rate on the GDDR5 or actually clock it up to GDDR5's standards....with the R800 they increased the transistor count vary little so i suspect they are going to either increase the reference clock for the GDDR5 or incense the bit rate


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## waver_01 (Aug 15, 2008)

Weer said:


> Don't give up so easily. That review has mostly wrong figures, such as 260 SLi beating 280 SLi, and nVidia has the edge in Crysis so they technically still win. Although, yeah, AMD has placed 800 ALU's on a single GPU.. obviously they're going to win some battles. They did what they had to in order to win, no matter the manufacturing cost. nVidia could easily knock them out again, and they very likely will. I wouldn't be against AMD, if only their architecture wasn't so dated and they would finally move to Scalar. But this competition is great. I just think that nVidia fanboys want nVidia to come out a head a little bit.




your entire post is flawed



> That review has mostly wrong figures, such as 260 SLi beating 280 SLi



oh riiight the review is to blame



> and nVidia has the edge in Crysis so they technically still win



it's just one game so they dont win AT ALL



> I wouldn't be against AMD, if only their architecture wasn't so dated and they would finally move to Scalar.



wow what? outdated?

Rv770 is twice as efficient as GT200 in terms of die size/perf. 



> They did what they had to in order to win, no matter the manufacturing cost.



manufacturing costs are very low with Rv770 so I dont know what you're trying to say



> I just think that nVidia fanboys want nVidia to come out a head a little bit


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## mdm-adph (Aug 15, 2008)

All I've figured out from this whole thing is that there are a *LOT* of people everywhere that are suddenly very pissed off that ATI now has the fastest card. 

I mean, come on -- if you're an Nvidia fan, you shouldn't be getting defensive.  ATI now has the fastest card, big deal.  

It'll change in a few months, and then it'll change back again, and again, and so on and so on until ray-tracing is perfected and graphics have become so realistic-looking that there's no need to advance technology any further.

So, please, Nvidia fans:  please be good sports about this.  Stop with the name-calling and the insults.  Don't think of it as Nvidia "losing" -- you're just "passing the performance crown" for a little while.  

It's not this:

ATI -->  <-- Nvidia

It's this:

ATI -->  <-- Nvidia


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## X1REME (Aug 15, 2008)

hey dudes hd4870x2 cf beats anything nvidia has ever made or even ever thought of lol (except crisis) which is rigged most likely or unoptimised for the amd/ati on purpose. nvidia`s new plan are to send patches out from games to disable dx10 support so that nvidia stands a chance again. like anandtech did with 2 games making nvidia win when all the other sites say the contrary. well enjoy ur nvidia cards that are soon gonna explode (thermal package cheap/faulty)from what ive heard and seen lol

technology will always improve and get smaller in power usage and higher in performance


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## Megasty (Aug 15, 2008)

Wow, this thread has completely blown me over. At first, I thought it was about AMD evening up the market share in the discrete gfx department - then it switched over to 3 GTX280s vs 2 4870x2s. Anyway, Crysis is completely defeated by both options even though the 3 GTX280s have a few more fps here & there. I bet ppl will still be using the first game (in all its coded bs) as a benchmark long after the trilogy is over  AMD has finally returned us to the old days where they could either keep up with NV or thump them into the ground, no matter what the methodology.

Now if I can only find a BB with the card b4 the 31st...


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## PCpraiser100 (Aug 15, 2008)

X1REME said:


> hey dudes hd4870x2 cf beats anything nvidia has ever made or even ever thought of lol (except crisis) which is rigged most likely or unoptimised for the amd/ati on purpose. nvidia`s new plan are to send patches out from games to disable dx10 support so that nvidia stands a chance again. like anandtech did with 2 games making nvidia win when all the other sites say the contrary. well enjoy ur nvidia cards that are soon gonna explode (thermal package cheap/faulty)from what ive heard and seen lol



Personally, I think Crysis is not realistic anymore. I think its overkill in many ways. The shaders barely scale with any textures, post processing barely affects the distant textures and shaders, the AA isn't traditional multisampling, and the Physics in the game are completely unnecessary due to the number of resources it takes up. I like Half-Life 2 WAAAAY better this way, Valve barely uses shaders in the game only on NPCs and specific story-line props and vehicles. The textures, water, shadow, and volumetric details blow me away since they perfectly scale between each other. Not too detailed, not too incompatible. Perfect As for DX10, I don't know the reason why this is such a big issue as shaders are the cuprits to this frenzy. Thinking about games like Bioshock and Gears of War makes me think that its the developers that we should be worrying about, not the APIs and graphics cards. I remember the old days as barely any titles affected the gaming world unless if it were to promote something, like DX9 along with Crossfire and SLI. Now this is a more past-time version of right now. As we're not staying compatible anymore, we are just giving developers more fuel to piss the community off. This is kind of linked to the gaming consoles like PS3 and Xbox 360. Developers are not fully the culprits as its console gamers who keep asking "Can you develop games that blow me away with my LCD TV?" and the developers, who are just trying to fit with our PC requests like "I own a shitty dell so can you make this game run on it?" can be very challenging as to support those two kinds of requests, they have work in not only one game project, but two game projects. So what do they have to do? Make compromises for performance and stability. Thus, taking longer to create games rather than releasing them. The solution? Well if most of the world threw away their consoles and bought decent PCs (or vice-versa) this will put a more positive effect on the game industry. We should promote that instead if playing the same ol' titles until Half-Life 2 Episode Three is released.


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## btarunr (Aug 15, 2008)

yogurt_21 said:


> nvidia may release a driver that fixes tril sli, but then again amd could also release a driver to enable the sideport on the 4870x2 potentially increasing scaling.



That weapon is left in its stash...to counter 55nm G200s methinks.

I know this is Fudzilla but...http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8899&Itemid=34

HD 4850 X2 gives the GTX 280 a sound thrashing.


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## mdm-adph (Aug 15, 2008)

btarunr said:


> That weapon is left in its stash...to counter 55nm G200s methinks.
> 
> I know this is Fudzilla but...http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8899&Itemid=34
> 
> HD 4850 X2 gives the GTX 280 a sound thrashing.



Seeing as how cheap one HD 4850 is these days, they should be able to go lower than $400 for that 4850 X2, perhaps keeping pace with whatever lower price Nvidia will inevitably put on the GTX 280.  

Man, it's an exciting time for low prices!


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## magibeg (Aug 15, 2008)

btarunr said:


> OK...I was...wrong. GTX 280 x3 is chopped. NVIDIA is talking crap.



You go up in my books not for admitting one company is talking crap or better than the other, but because someone admitted due to evidence their opinion needed to be re-evaluated. 


I'm not sure AMD will be able to pull off 50% market share or not however they do seem fairly confident which makes me wonder when the next die shrink will happen.


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## PP Mguire (Aug 15, 2008)

Single fastest card = 4870X2
Single fastest *chip* is GTX280

Lets make the playing grounds more fair. It isnt exactly fair to compare 1 GPU to 2 GPUs. The 2 GPUs will almost always win in any scenario.
Lets put 2 G200 chips on a single board and see whos the winner. Im sure we'll find Nvidia wills till be top single card performance king. Not a fanboi but just stating the facts.

Sad thing is though i think we'll have to wait till 55nm process to see any kind of G200 GX2 variance.


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## GPUCafe (Aug 15, 2008)

mdm-adph said:


> All I've figured out from this whole thing is that there are a *LOT* of people everywhere that are suddenly very pissed off that ATI now has the fastest card.
> 
> I mean, come on -- if you're an Nvidia fan, you shouldn't be getting defensive.  ATI now has the fastest card, big deal.


Early adopters of GTX280 should thank AMD, for getting 15-20% of their money back.  Props to Nvidia's partners for adopting such a move, I'm sure the goodwill they have gained through this will result in brand loyalty.




btarunr said:


> That weapon is left in its stash...to counter 55nm G200s methinks.
> 
> I know this is Fudzilla but...http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8899&Itemid=34
> 
> HD 4850 X2 gives the GTX 280 a sound thrashing.









Note: This is the PR slide from AMD


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## WarEagleAU (Aug 15, 2008)

I dont think Nvidia could viably put two GTX2XX cores on a single card the way AMD does. Given the die size, I dont see that happening. However, if Nvidia were able to do it, Id respectfully bow out of my previous statement. Regardless of two gpus, its still a single card.

With the prices and performance of ATIs cards growing (and shrinking for prices) 50% market share is more than in the realm of possibility.


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## Darkrealms (Aug 16, 2008)

WarEagleAU said:


> I dont think Nvidia could viably put two GTX2XX cores on a single card the way AMD does. Given the die size, I dont see that happening. However, if Nvidia were able to do it, Id respectfully bow out of my previous statement. Regardless of two gpus, its still a single card.
> 
> With the prices and performance of ATIs cards growing (and shrinking for prices) 50% market share is more than in the realm of possibility.


They did it with the 9800x2 so they probably could.  I don't think it would sell for the price they would have to make it.  Nvidia may be content till next round just for the fact that the 4870x2 didn't take the world by storm and there are many "fanboys" out there that are still arguing its not faster.  Just a thought but who knows 
2¢


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## PP Mguire (Aug 16, 2008)

> I dont think Nvidia could viably put two GTX2XX cores on a single card the way AMD does. Given the die size, I dont see that happening. However, if Nvidia were able to do it, Id respectfully bow out of my previous statement. Regardless of two gpus, its still a single card.


I know what your saying but i was talking 55nm G200 chips and regardless of single card or not a single G200 is more powerful than a single RV770.


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## zithe (Aug 16, 2008)

PP Mguire said:


> I know what your saying but i was talking 55nm G200 chips and regardless of single card or not a single G200 is more powerful than a single RV770.



Not by a hell of a lot.


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## PCpraiser100 (Aug 16, 2008)

zithe said:


> Not by a hell of a lot.



zithe is right. In fact, NEWS FLASH ATI's RV770 cores are not showing full performance expectations due to driver optimization issues. If Nvidia thinks this will be easy, think again. With the 8.8 drivers on the way, HD 4870 will probably be right up to the GTX 280's face as well as HD 4850 with the GTX 260. Do you remember the Hd 3870's performance went it first came out? Once, the card could only top out at 12fps on Crysis and 15fps on HL2 EP2 (2560x1600) with max settings. Now, its maxed at 19fps on Crysis and 29fps on HL2 EP2. As for the Hd 4000 series with their 800 streams of graphics horsepower along with a little more transistors, the newest drivers will give the HD 4850 and the Hd 4870 a lot more extra juice than expected.


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## PP Mguire (Aug 16, 2008)

Lol same ol wait for drivers game.


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## Wile E (Aug 16, 2008)

Weer said:


> Don't give up so easily. That review has mostly wrong figures, such as 260 SLi beating 280 SLi, and nVidia has the edge in Crysis so they technically still win. Although, yeah, AMD has placed 800 ALU's on a single GPU.. obviously they're going to win some battles. They did what they had to in order to win, no matter the manufacturing cost. nVidia could easily knock them out again, and they very likely will. I wouldn't be against AMD, if only their architecture wasn't so dated and they would finally move to Scalar. But this competition is great. I just think that nVidia fanboys want nVidia to come out a head a little bit.


Ummm, you do realize that it costs more for nVidia to make that huge monolithic die, than it costs ATI to make their smaller dies, right?





PP Mguire said:


> Single fastest card = 4870X2
> Single fastest *chip* is GTX280
> 
> Lets make the playing grounds more fair. It isnt exactly fair to compare 1 GPU to 2 GPUs. The 2 GPUs will almost always win in any scenario.
> ...


It doesn't matter who has the fastest chip. As was stated earlier in the thread, we don't buy the chips, we buy the cards. How the card becomes faster does not matter at all, only the end result matters, and in this case, the end result is that ATI is faster, period. That's absolutely the only thing that matters for claiming the performance crown.


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## OzzmanFloyd120 (Aug 16, 2008)

Weer said:


> Don't give up so easily. That review has mostly wrong figures, such as 260 SLi beating 280 SLi, and nVidia has the edge in Crysis so they technically still win. Although, yeah, AMD has placed 800 ALU's on a single GPU.. obviously they're going to win some battles. They did what they had to in order to win, no matter the manufacturing cost. nVidia could easily knock them out again, and they very likely will. I wouldn't be against AMD, if only their architecture wasn't so dated and they would finally move to Scalar. But this competition is great. I just think that nVidia fanboys want nVidia to come out a head a little bit.





Weer said:


> Jesus Christ. Where did you find such senseless propoganda?



Fanboy much?


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## OzzmanFloyd120 (Aug 16, 2008)

Wile E said:


> It doesn't matter who has the fastest chip. As was stated earlier in the thread, we don't buy the chips, we buy the cards. How the card becomes faster does not matter at all, only the end result matters, and in this case, the end result is that ATI is faster, period. That's absolutely the only thing that matters for claiming the performance crown.



I don't think anybody is capable of saying that in any way to make it any more clear.


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## PP Mguire (Aug 16, 2008)

Ok then when the next GX2 comes out we will have the new performance king. Because the G200 chip is faster and you put 2 on one board (or 2 boards on one slot) it will be faster than 4870x2. It wont take long, Nvidia has their panties in a bunch now.


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## Wile E (Aug 16, 2008)

PP Mguire said:


> Ok then when the next GX2 comes out we will have the new performance king. Because the G200 chip is faster and you put 2 on one board (or 2 boards on one slot) it will be faster than 4870x2. It wont take long, Nvidia has their panties in a bunch now.



I agree, if NV releases a 280GX2, they will have the fastest single card. The problem is, they can't even think about doing that until they get their 55nm process out the door. By then, it may be too little, too late. Time is gonna have to tell in this round. Although it is refreshing to see ATI being competitive again.


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## candle_86 (Aug 16, 2008)

They could do it right now with the 65nm die if they wanted to actully, Nvidia does what they want, when they want. It wouldn't be hard to make a dual PCB GX2 card from Nvidia again, the only thing they need to work on is cooling, which IMO i figured that out already  

Heatpipes from bottom card move heat to HSF unit on front card, making the cooling Tripple slot instead of dual, but this isnt really an issue because most with dual slot don't use that extra slot next to it anyway, and make it an internal duct system similar to the FX5950 Unit. Nvidia could do it and do it with style


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## xfire (Aug 16, 2008)

Nvidia is going to start looking at costs too, since they are seeing red.


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## Widjaja (Aug 16, 2008)

Good and all being the fastest but the thing is I don't want to see either of these card manufacturers pushing synthetic benchtest cards out the door just to say they are the fastest.

Then go to play a game and you see it plays like you have half the card, weird graphic glitches,  stuttering, lag spikes despite the super high fps etc. . .

Then everyone who bought the uber fast card hopes for the driver to mature when in actual fact, this is how just the card performs in games.


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## btarunr (Aug 16, 2008)

It's funny, how when one team sees red, the other sees green (opposite team's colour).


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## Wile E (Aug 16, 2008)

candle_86 said:


> They could do it right now with the 65nm die if they wanted to actully, Nvidia does what they want, when they want. It wouldn't be hard to make a dual PCB GX2 card from Nvidia again, the only thing they need to work on is cooling, which IMO i figured that out already
> 
> Heatpipes from bottom card move heat to HSF unit on front card, making the cooling Tripple slot instead of dual, but this isnt really an issue because most with dual slot don't use that extra slot next to it anyway, and make it an internal duct system similar to the FX5950 Unit. Nvidia could do it and do it with style


I don't know of too many people willing to buy a card with a triple slot cooling solution. It isn't nearly practical for NV to release a GX2 while still on the 65nm process.

And, although opinion, you say they could do it with style, yet most people I know find the 2 pcb GX2 designs to be a kludge. Albeit a kludge with potential, just in no way elegant or stylish. lol.


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## [I.R.A]_FBi (Aug 16, 2008)

when you compage a nvidia x2 vs an ati x2 the nvidia card seems to be more of a ghetto rig, lol


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## xfire (Aug 16, 2008)

btarunr said:


> It's funny, how when one team sees red, the other sees green (opposite team's colour).


AMD will still see red if their processor's don't perform.


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## btarunr (Aug 16, 2008)

I'm talking about this:


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## xfire (Aug 16, 2008)

If their CPU's don't perform the charts will start to dip but with their new IGP and the 4870x2 the chart will perform for now. Wonder if they can manage to get Phys-X support.


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## zithe (Aug 16, 2008)

Wile E said:


> I agree, if NV releases a 280GX2, they will have the fastest single card. The problem is, they can't even think about doing that until they get their 55nm process out the door. By then, it may be too little, too late. Time is gonna have to tell in this round. Although it is refreshing to see ATI being competitive again.



From what I've seen, 4870 crossfire scales better than GTX 280 SLI.

http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3354&p=7

That's old.


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## Ekklesis (Aug 17, 2008)

Go AMD go cause this will benefit all of us...


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## OzzmanFloyd120 (Aug 17, 2008)

I remember seeing somewhere that the 4870x2 gets 104% gains and every review I've seen of GTX280SLI shows like 60% gains.


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## [I.R.A]_FBi (Aug 17, 2008)

up to 104% as low as 50sumpn and average of 70 something


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## romboi99 (Aug 17, 2008)

yer nvidia are gonna eat so much shit if they don't jump to 55nm id buy 10 hd4850 for the sake of getting amd richer so they improve drivers and bring better shit out -- not so much of a amd cpu fan


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## romboi99 (Aug 17, 2008)

and have nv moved to mixed sli 
eg. 1x 280gtx and 2x 8800gt


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## zithe (Aug 17, 2008)

romboi99 said:


> yer nvidia are gonna eat so much shit if they don't jump to 55nm id buy 10 hd4850 for the sake of getting amd richer so they improve drivers and bring better shit out -- not so much of a amd cpu fan





romboi99 said:


> and have nv moved to mixed sli
> eg. 1x 280gtx and 2x 8800gt



What? ';


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## romboi99 (Aug 17, 2008)

zithe said:


> What? ';



i was woundering if nv is able to do what CrossFireX can, like mix a 260GTX with 280GTX with a 8800GT or simuler


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## Hayder_Master (Aug 17, 2008)

they must go more ati better now


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## Wile E (Aug 17, 2008)

zithe said:


> From what I've seen, 4870 crossfire scales better than GTX 280 SLI.
> 
> http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3354&p=7
> 
> That's old.



It being an old review can can be a negative for ATI as well as NV. NV's performance improves with drivers as well.

And that's at 1 resolution, what about some more common resolutions, like 1920x1200 or 1680x1050?

Got any more links? I'm actually having a hard time finding reviews that include both the X2 and GTX in SLI.


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## candle_86 (Aug 17, 2008)

it wouldn't be the most elegant, but if its an internal cooling solution its taking up no more case room than a dual slot with air intake from the case does, or do a rear intake whatever works, but with an open side intake most of us do not put a PCI or PCIe card right next to it so as not to contrict airflow, If nvidia did a triple slot it would work the same way as long as no side intake. This is Nvidia remember, first to market with dual slot cooling. Taking up 3 slots total remember? Also yalls statements to buy only ATI graphics boarder on lunacy, you should by best price/preformace and if your an OC'r calculate in the average OC range of each card. Its that simple buying 10 cards for no reason besides to help AMd is one of the stupidest things ive heard. By best card for your wallet. My next card will be Nvidia again simply because of the massive OC you can get with them


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## Wile E (Aug 17, 2008)

Dual slot cooling doesn't take up 3 slots. It only takes up 2, thus *dual* slot. And there are many reasons not to go to triple slot cooling. One big one is, many mobos only offer 2 slots between gfx slots. Going SLI would be impossible. The other is that people actually have to use that PCI(e) slot that would be covered if the card was triple slot.

A GX2 on 65nm still just doesn't make sense.


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## ThorAxe (Aug 17, 2008)

Fuel to the fire 

As far as SLI vs Crossfire goes it looks like Nvidia wins this battle more often than not. 

Below is a comparison based on running a game at the highest resolution and settings over 60fps (except Crysis and STALKER) with the highest AA/AF possible from this website http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/..._hd_4870_cf_geforce_gtx_260_sli/20/#abschnitt...[erbase.de]

Crysis 1680x1050 4xAA/16xAF the GTX260 (29fps) SLI is 9% faster

Company of Heroes 2560x1600 4xAA/16xAF and the GTX260 (70.4fps) SLI is 27% faster

Lost Planet 2560x1600 1xAA/1xAF the GTX260 SLI (61.9fps) is 32% faster and this goes up to 118% at 8xAA/16xAF but the game is not playable at this frame rate.

World in Conflict 2560x1600 4xAA/16xAF the GTX260 SLI (62.4fps) is 50% faster

Assassins Creed 2560x1600 4xAA/16xAF and finally a win for the 4870 CF (62.5fps) which is 7% faster.

Unreal Tournament 3 2560x1600 4xAA/16xAF another win for the 4870 CF(86fps) which is 9% faster. 

STALKER 2560x1600 1xAA/1xAF the GTX260 SLI (52.6fps) is 28% faster.

Rainbow 6 2560x1600 1xAA/16xAF another win for the 4870 CF(80.8fps) which is 34% faster. However when you go to 2560x1600 4xAA/16xAF the difference is 1% but the FPS is only 40.6.

Gothic 3 2560x1600 1xAA/16xAF the GTX260 SLI (60.3fps) is 164% faster. Clearly CF is not working in this title.

FEAR 2560x1600 8xAA/16xAF the 4870 CF (79fps) is 16% faster. Oddly when AA is off the GTX260 SLI is 29% faster.

Clive Barker's Jericho 2560x1600 1xAA/1xAF the GTX260 SLI (68.9fps) is 39% faster.

Call of Duty 4 2560x1600 4xAA/16xAF the 4870 CF (79fps) is 6% faster

Call of Juarez 2560x1600 1xAA/1xAF the GTX260 SLI (68.9fps) is 3% faster.

If the GTX260 performs better at higher resolutions in most games and is still above 60fps in the games it "loses" then you would get better all-round performance from a GTX260 SLI configuration at lower resolutions as well.

The GTX260 therefore is better value in the long term as games become more demanding since you can add a second card for more performance and SLI appears to have better support in more games at present.


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