AMD to nVidia: Put Up or Shut Up

[Nurb]

Are the fast cards to the point where they don't turn your computer into a space heater or require a damn radiator?

With only a few big releases on the pc now, it seems hard for companies to justify dumping so much R&D into small incriments, and it means people are going to be spending money on video cards less frequently when there's only a few demanding games per year because it's hard for customers to justify spending 300-800 bucks on something that will only be able to max out the eye-candy for maybe 6-8 games in one or two years. After that the new bloated graphics engines will strain it releatively quickly if you absolutely need the best visuals.

Also, it'd be great if they slowed down development a bit; they're in such a rush, they don't improve performance enough per release cycle or whatever, so they push clock speeds to the point people are afraid their PC will catch fire, even with the huge fans and heatsinks.

 

[TiefBlau]

Better question- who is willing to pay £500 for some tech that only marginally performs better (in real terms) over it's apparently "outdated" predecessors?

Nvidia and AMD are getting nervous- graphics on the PC are plateauing-

Ahahahahahahaha xD

Yeah, that was all I needed to read.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Better question- who is willing to pay £500 for some tech that only marginally performs better (in real terms) over it's apparently "outdated" predecessors?

Nvidia and AMD are getting nervous- graphics on the PC are plateauing, and people are moving over to consoles, depriving them of a big money milker. So they just treat every card as if it's revolutionary, despite no real person being able to notice or care about any difference.

PS: Who the fuck does SLI or that Crossfire thing, anyway? Why would you need 2 cards, unless your monitor was the size of a shed?

Their flagship cards are only for publicity, you haveto remember most people are not all too bright, so they will look at which company has the fastest card then buy the cheapest product they sell...

To Nvidia and AMD the top end cards hold a measly percentage of their income, the big bucks come from the mid-range/integrated market and console chips.
So even if everyone moves to the consoles they still make tons of money.

 

[Zer_]

Am I the only one who shakes his head in disbelief when seeing that MASSIVE BLOCK of a card people are somehow supposed to jam into their cases?
I mean jeez, I thought mine was almost too big already.

Also how about instead of the "fastest", they make the coolest one for once?
Cause my graphics card loooves toiling towards over 90°C if I don't tone the graphics down and my laptop kept dying because its card fried itself.

AMD cards run cooler than nVidia's counterparts.

 

[MercurySteam]

I think that because the 6990 is built with two underclocked beastly 6970s inside at default and then has a switch that sends the whole card into overdrive, cranking the voltage up and restoring both the 6970s to their regular clock speed allows it to overtake the GTX 590. I never imagined that the 6990 would beat the GTX 590, though.

Goodonya AMD.

 

[pepitko]

Good on them, let's see them fight it out in public. Most reviewers indeed say that the AMD card is the fast one.

 

[Goody]

That's fair enough. But then the 'every single game' in your post should have read 'every single game I've tried', otherwise it is misleading.

I did actually mean to say that, I hate when I miss bits of sentences (it's not uncommon)

 

[Goody]

m8.. Cpu doesnt do graphics.

Try telling that to Dice (Bad company 2 is very Processor dependant)

 

[Pilkingtube]

"World's Fastest Graphics Card."

Not for long. I'll give it about 2 days before a better version comes out.

By my understanding, the reason that AMD is calling nVidia out is because it failed it's goals. Usually, they release one after the other so that the best card is the newest lineup from whatever company, E.g. AMD brings out new top-line card, it's fastest, nVidia brings out new top-line card, it's fastest etc etc.. but the nVidia card is actually the newest one, yet it's slower than the older AMD card, hence being called out on it.

What makes it worse is that it alos means that AMD is next to bring out a new line of cards, meaning that they've been top for a while.

(I think!)

Yes the 590 is a month newer then the 6990 and I do think Amd "won" that match and it wasnt even surprising considering Fermi loves their watt. But before that 580 was top of the line so I wouldnt really say AMD have been on top for a while...

Yeah! That's my point! It's supposed to go nVidia>AMD>nVidia>AMD>nVidia>AMD as each company brings out a new lineup, which is why the latest nVidia card not being the most powerful is so unusual.

 

[Radelaide]

Who ever wins...
We also win! =)

Pretty much this.

While the competition is going to get expensive, in the end the consumer will win. It'll force better quality products that will hopefully have a longer life.

 

[matt87_50]

nice!!!

...


now make some DAMN GAMES that actually use all that power!! seriously! **** the decrepit consoles.

this graphics card is by any measure, THIRTEEN TIMES more powerful than the ones in the consoles.

THIRTEEN!!!

(suddenly it doesn't look soo expensive either amirite?)

 

[UtopiaV1]

Christ I hope neither side "wins". Who wants one side to have a goddam monopoly? That would only screw consumers.

I've always liked the rivalry between Nvidia and ATI, but I always thought it was a little more grown-up and not as heated as this. This is childish. Could both companies please go back to making superior graphics cards, and not start a boring PR battle.

Settle performance differences on gpureview.com for gawds sake!

 

[ph0b0s123]

Until nVidia launched their 400 series chipset they'd been behind ATI/AMD since the 9000 series. Basically nVidia had no answer to the ATI/AMD 4000 series chipsets and to be frank, if it wasn't for the 8800GTX and the 8800 Ultra even the nVidia 8000 series would have run 2nd place to ATI/AMD's 3000 series. Even discounting that, that's several series of 'also ran' chipsets against the 4000 series chipsets.

"Basically nVidia had no answer to the ATI/AMD 4000 series chipsets and to be frank"
The GTX 200 was acknowledged to be the same if not a bit faster than it's 4000 counterpart, so that is untrue. The 4000 series was ATI returning to being competitive with Nvidia after the 3000 series. Certainly the GTX 285 was faster than the 4870 when launched.

I have to call you out as your post was way too biased and generalised. The reality is that Nvidia and ATI have been trading blows all the way down the price range for the past few years. The only time ATI have had outright superiority is when Nvidia have not turned up to the party, with late GPU refreshes. 400 series was hideously late.

Nvidia normally put out faster GPU's, by using dumb brute force of more transistors, which means their GPU's are normally too hot and consume vast amounts of power. ATI on the other hand make optimised GPUs that need less transistors and so are cooler etc. GPU's that are great, but just are not as fast as Nvidia's monsters GPU vs GPU.

The side effect is that Nvidia with their approach have been late with their GPU's recently due to manufacturing complexity, so ATI have had months competing against old Nvidia GPU's. And as a second side effect Nvidia have big problems fitting two GPU's on to one card, so ATI get to claim fastest card.

Who has the fastest single card, was always a dumb battle. Who cares about about how many down clocked GPU's you can shoe horned on to a single card, when it is much more useful to know who has the fastest GPU and then buy two of those cards for about the same price instead. Why pay a premium just to have two GPU's on one card.

The GTX 280 was the same or faster than the Radeon 4870
The GTX 480 was the same or faster than the Radeon 5870 (but months too late)
The GTX 580 is than the AMD 6970

 

[matt87_50]

Christ I hope neither side "wins". Who wants one side to have a goddam monopoly? That would only screw consumers.

I've always liked the rivalry between Nvidia and ATI, but I always thought it was a little more grown-up and not as heated as this. This is childish. Could both companies please go back to making superior graphics cards, and not start a boring PR battle.

Settle performance differences on gpureview.com for gawds sake!

unfortunately this is nothing new, especially for nvidia... and they have done far more juvenile things than this over the years...

but really, they make graphics cards... for gamers... gamers are their target market... so I think its kinda cute that they try to tap in to the whole competitive gamer trash talk type thing. ultimately, the more they argue, the more they will compete... all in good fun! (though seriously... not that I'm taking sides... but some of the things nvidia have done - especially against Intel... SOOO LAME!!)

 

[ph0b0s123]

Heh, never ever buy the 1st generation of nVidia's latest. They always have heat and stability issues. The only two good cards they have right now is the GTX460 and the GTX580, both have acceptable heat and power usage.

I skipped on the 9800GT, waited for the revised version the GTS250. Skipped on the GTX470 and GTX480, went with the MSI N460GTX Cyclone. Barely hits 60celcius under full load in all games, idles at 34celcius, all in tropical weather and no air conditioning.

The GTX260m (G92b GPU) is also excellent for laptops along with its revised version the GTX360m and the fermi version the GTX460m.

AMD cards have better price to performance though, I've just had less issues with nVidia cards though compared to Raedeon architecture and their drivers.

Yeah, with Nvidia always best to wait for their 'refining' of an architecture. So GTX 500 rather than GTX 400 and GTX 2X5 rather than GTX 2X0.

 

[NuSix3]

If Radeon was truly confident in their product, they'd change their model number scheme to something the general public could actually decipher. Nvidia, I look at the name of the card and I know exactly how new or old it is, what parts it's made of and if it's the price friendly, overclocked version or the stable more expensive version. I can't do that for Radeon, I can't read the pattern to their model numbers and I never know what the latest and greatest Radeon card is.

That said, this is the first time I've ever heard of a Radeon card out powering a Nvidia card since the 6800 days. AMD is really good at being second place and whining about it in my opinion.

 

[CosmicCommander]

Some people, me included, are simply enthusiasts, we like maintaining and upgrading our PC's. It's similar to people souping up their cars really, negligible benefits outside of it being another way to spend your time and money.

I can understand the enthusiast market, and the market of professionals who need high-power Video Cards, but it just seems odd that they over-market these things, and for the average gamer, a return won't be seen by them. Running a game like Battlefield: Bad Company 2 at around 3 FPS better than the previous generation of graphics card seems... Peculiar.

Of all the components that go with computers, I find Video cards to be the most over marketed, completely overrated, and overly expensive.

That being said, my slick neons and beastly megahalem overclock has never, and will never, get me laid. Which makes it slightly less useful than souping up a car.

Maybe you can make a cloning machine to create a RL version of Erin. She seems the type who'd find PCs kinky.

(Then again, it does seem that her standards are low)

As for Crossfire/sli they used to be a shining example of "HAHA LOOK HOW RICH I AM!" but as of late two mid-range crossfire cards are outpeforming the fuck out of the higher end cards.

It just seems like a waste of space. And I'm yet to see the benefits of using two monitors simultaneously. Then again, I am poor.

Ahahahahahahaha xD

Yeah, that was all I needed to read.

I hate snideness.

I'm just saying, that it just doesn't seem practical to devs to chase better graphics at the rate it has been chased circa 2000-2009. Sure, graphics may become better over the next five years, but why would you want to invest as much in such a pointless juncture when we already have great visuals? As I believe Extra Credits put it a few episodes ago, it is becoming fruitless to chase the exponential growth in graphical capability that we chased over the past decade- as of such, the need for us to actually buy better video cards is lowering.

As said, only enthusiasts and the architects of the Tower of Babel Mark 2 will really need performance AMD and Nvidia are trying to sell to us.

Also- holy fucking shit twelve replies. I love being divisive.

 

[jamesworkshop]

Meh i'm still wait for a reason to even abbandon a 9800gtx

otherwise

Good call the 6990 is significantly faster

 

[deleted_by_strongbad]

I like how they are both strutting and knocking each other over what is pretty much just two of their old cards stuck together. Wow, way to push the envelope and develop something new, neither one has the right to brag about repackaging already released product, and the fact that it took them so long to do it. Both of these cards are scams, the only people who will use that power would get more out of a quadro/firepro.

They can debate on who has the best card when they both put out a new line of cards, my guess is they both ran into some delay with their upcoming generations not living up to the hype and are trying to create a smokescreen while they either try to revamp their next series or create enough corporate love that few will care.

...What? The 590 is two 580 GPUs downclocked and the 6990 is two 6970 GPUs downclocked. Both the 500 and 6000 series cards are brand spanking new.

They are newish, but we are already fast approaching the Q2 2011 speculation that nvidia and amd were hinting at originally for their next line of cards, but as is the way of the world now they are "leaking" q3/q4, it'll probably continue until Q2 2012 with maybe an incomplete die released just before christmas. Sure they never released an official time that is "getting pushed back," but none of the tech companies give official release dates, they release rumors when they need to create more buzz/corp loyalty, and since those are only "rumors" it doesn't hold the company to any sort of obligation and we as consumers will gladly buy the intermission products like two down-clocked cards stuck together while the companies debate which of these is more powerful as if it is new tech, when it is last years tech being released on this years' tech's original release window.

 

[EvolutionKills]

Actually no. The consoles have largely been flops. They barely made a profit (only recently), and only after a revamp. They rely on taxes on developers to make money. This chokes developers and publishers who rely on AAA games with reputations to make some money. This doesn't work as Nintendo shown (repeating every game). Halo (or any franchise) every year does not work. Its losing money fast and rely on multiplatform sales to buffer the loss. Developers would rather sell a casual low budget game than a console AAA game who end up getting blindsided by high costs, low return, and high used game sales. Publishers are looking at a dreary console future and realize its casual, PC, or bust.

They are staying in this generation for so long because all companies are losing so much money, and another generation would kill the market entirely. 70$ games? Can you say market crash when used game sales increase? Costs increase? 70 million dollars for a console game's development? That is financial suicide no matter who it is. Normally they would jump to the next generation with no thought, now everyone's staying put. The market cannot take another sixth generation.

Regardless of their intent, my point remains true. Major publishers have been releasing shoddy ports on the PC of their console games, said games require PC power that greatly exceeds the consoles just to get it to look the same. There are a lot of bad ports out there, and I'm sick of them, and the publishers that put them out. Now weather they're doing this because they're more concerned about casual PC gamers or console gamers is debatable, but I'm rightfully irritated at their actions all the same.

That being said, I would LOVE to see some number to support the 'same game every year doesn't work', because I look over at EA and Activision, and I see mansions build on the foundations of Madden NFL and Call of Duty...