ATI Radeon X800 Pro and XT Platinum Edition: R420 Arrives
by Derek Wilson on May 4, 2004 10:28 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Final Words
I don't think anyone thought the race would be this close after what has been going on over the past couple years with ATI and NVIDIA. Clearly, both camps have had their wins and losses, but it is safe to say that ATI comes out on top when it comes to DX9 and PS 2.0 performance, NVIDIA leads the way in OpenGL performance, and NV40 and R420 split the difference when it comes to DX8 (and older) style games. Even though we haven't yet seen the performance numbers from NVIDIA's 6850 Ultra part, it is likely that there will be a price premium that goes along with that performance. On top of that, the 6850 is really just an overclocked 6800 Ultra part. We will take a look at the issue further when we are finally able to run some numbers.
It is very clear that both NVIDIA and ATI have strong offerings. With better competition in the market place, and NVIDIA differentiating themselves by offering a richer feature set (that doesn't necessarily translate into value unless developers start producing games that use those features), consumers will be able to make a choice without needing to worry about sacrificing real performance. Hopefully we will be able to say the same about image quality when we get done with our testing in that area as well.
Of course, we are still trying to gather all the pieces that explain why we are seeing the numbers we are seeing. The problem is really the amount and level of information we are able to gather is based on how the API maps to the hardware rather than how the hardware does things.
The two rather large issues we have encountered when trying to talk about hardware from the software's perspective are the following: it is easy to get lost when looking at performing tasks from slightly different perspectives or angles of attack, and looking at two architectures that are designed to accomplish similar tasks obfuscates the characteristics of the underlying architectures. We are very happy that both NVIDIA and ATI have started opening up and sharing more about there architectures with us, and hopefully the next round of products will see even further development of this type of relationship.
There is one final dilemma we have on our hands: pricing. From the performance numbers from both this generation and the previous generation, it doesn't seem like prices can stay where they are. As we get a better feel for the coming market with the 12x1 NVIDIA offering, and other midrange and budget offerings from both NVIDIA and ATI, there will be so much overlap in price, performance, and generation without a very large gap in functionality that it might not make sense to spend more money to get something newer. Of course, we will have to wait and see what happens in that area, but depending on what the test results for our 6850 Ultra end up looking like, we may end up recommending that NVIDIA push their prices down slightly (or shift around a few specs) in order to keep the market balanced. With ATI's performance on par in older games and slightly ahead in newer games, the beefy power supply requirement, two slot solution, and sheer heat generated by NV40 may be too much for most people to take the NVIDIA plunge. The bottom line is the consumer here, and its good news all around.
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ZobarStyl - Tuesday, May 4, 2004 - link
Jibbo I thought that the dynamic branching capability as part of PS3.0 could make rendering a scene faster because it skips rendering unneccessary pixels and thus could offer an increase in performance, albeit a small one. In an interview one of the developers of Far Cry said that there weren't many more things that PS3.0 could do that 2.0 can't, but that 3.0 can do things in a single pass that a 2.0 shader would have to do in multiple passes. The way he described it, the real pretty effects can come in later but a streamlined (read: slightly faster) shader could very well improve NV40 scores as is. This seems kind of analogous to the whole 64-bit processor ordeal going on; Intel says you don't need it, but then most articles show higher scores from A64 chips when they are in a 64 bit OS, so basically if you streamline it you can run a little bit faster than in less efficient 32-bit.In the end, it'll still be bitter fanboys fighting it out and buying whatever product their respective corporation feeds them, despite features or speeds or price or whatever. Personally, like I said before, I'll wait and see who really ends up earning my dollar.
Anyway, thanks for keeping me on my toes though, jib...I can't get lazy now... =)
Barkuti - Tuesday, May 4, 2004 - link
From my point of view, the 6800U is superior high end hardware. Folks, you don't need to be that intelligent to understand that if ATI needs 520 Mhz to "beat" nVidia's 400 MHz chip, as it will need to overclock proportionally to keep the same level of performance that means it will need a good bunch of extra MHz to stay at least on par on the overclocking front.I think the final revision of the 6800U will manage 500 MHz overclocks or around (probably more if they deliberately set the initial clock low waiting for ATI), so ATI's hardware may need around 650 Mhz, which I doubt it'll make. As for the power requirements, sure ATI is the winner, but the nVidia's card can be fed with more standard PSU's than they claim; I just think they played on the safe side.
Oh, sure, power may be a limiting factor when oc'ing the 6800U, but the reality is that people who buy these kind of harware already has top end computer components (including the PSU), so no worries here also.
And finally speaking, I think PS 3.0 will make some additional difference. With the possibility to somewhat enhance shader performance and the superior displacement mapping effect, it may give it the edge in at least a handful of games. We'll see.
"Just my 2 cents"
Cheers
Staples - Tuesday, May 4, 2004 - link
Everyone be sure to check out Tom's review. Looks like the X800 did better here than it did against the 6800. I have seen other reviews and the X800 doesn't really seem as fast in comparison as it does here.Anyway, it is a lot faster than I though. The 6800 was impressive but it seems that the reason it does really well in some games and not so great in others is because some games have NVIDIA specific code that the 6800 takes advantage of very well.
UlricT - Tuesday, May 4, 2004 - link
wtf? the GT is outperforming the Ultra in F1 Challenge?jibbo - Tuesday, May 4, 2004 - link
Agree with you all the way on the fanboys, ZobarStyl.Just wanted to point out that PS3.0 is not "faster" - it's simply an API. It allows longer and more complex shaders so, if anything, it's likely to be "slower." I'm guessing that designers who use PS3.0 heavily will see serious fill-rate problems on the 6800. These shaders will have potentially 65k+ instructions with dynamic branching, a minimum of 4 render targets, 32-bit FP minimum color format, etc - I seriosuly doubt any hardcore 3.0 shader programs will run faster than existing 2.0 shaders.
Clearly a developer can have much nicer quality and exotic effects if he/she exploits these, but how many gamers will have a PS3.0 card that will run these extremely complex shaders at high resolutions and AA/AF without crawling to single-digit fps? It's my guess that it will be *at least* a year until games show serious quality differentiation between PS2.0 and PS3.0. But I have been wrong in the past...
T8000 - Tuesday, May 4, 2004 - link
I think it is strange that the tested X800XT is clocked at 520 Mhz, while the 6800U, that is manufactured by the same taiwanese company and also has 16 pipelines, is set at 400 Mhz.This suggests a lot of headroom on the 6800U or a large overclock on the X800XT.
Also note that the 6800U scored much better on tomshardware.com (HALO 65FPS@1600x1200), but that can also be caused by their use of the 3.2 Ghz P4 instead of a 2.2 Ghz A64.
ZobarStyl - Tuesday, May 4, 2004 - link
I love seeing these fanboys announce each product as the best thing ever (same thing happened with the Prescott, Intel fanboys called it the end of AMD and the AMD guys laughed and called it a flamethrower) without actually reading the benches. NV won some, ATi won some. Most of the time it was tiny margins either way. Fanboys aside, this is gonna be a driver war nothing more. The biggest margin was on Far Cry, and I'm personally waiting on the faster PS3.0 to see what that bench really is. This is a great card but price drops and drivers updates will eventually show us the real victor.jibbo - Tuesday, May 4, 2004 - link
If I had to guess, DX10 and Longhorn will coincide with the release of new hardware from everyone.Akaz1976 - Tuesday, May 4, 2004 - link
Just thought of something. If i am reading AT review right, ATi now has milked the original Radeon9700 architecture for nearly 2 years (sure says a lot of good things about the ArtX design team).Anyone know when the true next gen chip can be expected?
Akaz
Ilmater - Tuesday, May 4, 2004 - link
---------------------------------------Hearing about the 6850 and the other Emergency-Extreme-Whatever 6800 variants that are floating about irritates me greatly. Nvidia, you are losing your way!
Instead of spending all that time, effort and $$ just to try to take the "speed champ" title, make your shit that much cheaper instead! If your 6800 Ultra was $425 instead of $500, that would give you a hell of alot more market share and $$ than a stupid Emergency Edition of your top end cards... We laugh at Intel for doing it, and now you're doing it too, come fricking on...
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This is ridiculous!! What do you think the XT Platinum Edition from ATI is? The only difference is that nVidia released first, so it's more obvious when they do it than when ATI does. I'm not really a fanboy of either, but you shouldn't dog nVidia for something that everyone does.
Plus, if nVidia dropped their prices, ATI would do the same thing. Then nVidia would be right back where it was before, but they wouldn't be making any money on the cards.