9800GTX to get a new performance driver

[spajdr]

Significantly improved

Nvidia plans to launch a new Geforce 9800GTX driver and we’ve learned that you should expect a severe performance increase compared to current drives.

We know that this performance jump will affect 9800GTX but as its G92 based card the new driver might speed up some other G92 based products.

Nvidia is doing this simply as with current drivers Radeon 4850 and 4870 are getting too close to 9800GTX performance and Nvidia wants to make some stand.

The performance might be so good that internally Nvidia calls it 9800GTX+. If we see some big improvements that will clearly mean that Nvidia was holding some performance potential back and that it was waiting for the new ATI card.

It wouldn’t be the first time.

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7975&Itemid=65

[Toss3]

Significantly improved

Nvidia plans to launch a new Geforce 9800GTX driver and we’ve learned that you should expect a severe performance increase compared to current drives.

We know that this performance jump will affect 9800GTX but as its G92 based card the new driver might speed up some other G92 based products.

Nvidia is doing this simply as with current drivers Radeon 4850 and 4870 are getting too close to 9800GTX performance and Nvidia wants to make some stand.

The performance might be so good that internally Nvidia calls it 9800GTX+. If we see some big improvements that will clearly mean that Nvidia was holding some performance potential back and that it was waiting for the new ATI card.

It wouldn’t be the first time.

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7975&Itemid=65

When better performance comes out of thin air, IQ is going to come down significantly..

[Greasy]

Believe it when I see it. I would love for this to be true though. Just started playing crysis for the first time, so this would be a nice little treat for me.

[Razor1]

wow is this odd or what, we saw three gens of nv cards go through thiis........ and the last gen we saw nothin, suprising or over expecting.....

[Absolution]

Anything to get TF2 above 45fps consistantly...

[Viral]

Well it seems like this was false, since the GTX+ was actually a new product based on a smaller process and with higher clock speeds - and the 4850 is still a better choice.

[hordaktheman]

My guess is that it's the driver that enables PhysX functionality. 3dmark Vantage supports PhysX so I imagine the score to go up accordingly.

[Slappi]

Well it seems like this was false, since the GTX+ was actually a new product based on a smaller process and with higher clock speeds - and the 4850 is still a better choice.



I disagree. Either one will do comparitively.

[mtl]

The 9800 GTX+ beats the 4850 easily and is not nearly as hot. Stability and IQ are great.

[Vik1dk]

The 9800 GTX+ beats the 4850 easily and is not nearly as hot. Stability and IQ are great.

Link to benches? The ones ive seen showes the opposit.

[spajdr]

Truth is that some reviews have more wins for 9800 GTX+ then on Radeon 4850, but i got some infos from friends who send me various results and 4850 at end is better and hotfix released to 4850/70 cards add even more speed and crossfire profiles.

[hordaktheman]

Truth is that some reviews have more wins for 9800 GTX+ then on Radeon 4850, but i got some infos from friends who send me various results and 4850 at end is better and hotfix released to 4850/70 cards add even more speed and crossfire profiles.

Correct. There are a lot of sites using an older driver that show the 4850 in an unflattering light. The Tech Report and AnandTech (the two hardware sites I trust most) show the 4850 to be at least as fast and, in many cases, a good bit faster than the 9800-series.

I'm not quite ready to pass judgement yet but that's my impression so far.

[mtl]

Nvidia will continue to top ATI for the foreseeable future as they have far more resources. Competition is great for the consumer however!!

[pizzaguy]

Nvidia will continue to top ATI for the foreseeable future as they have far more resources. Competition is great for the consumer however!!

Maybe in the high end but not in the mid range. Nvidia cannot compete with ATI's best bang for buck cards 4850 and 4870.

[hordaktheman]

Nvidia will continue to top ATI for the foreseeable future as they have far more resources. Competition is great for the consumer however!!

Depends on where the market goes. There's been a lot of talk lately about GPUs scaling to multiple cores rather than bigger and bigger and more complex chips. ATi seems to have made a lot of progress in that regard that nVidia might take a while to reach. And while there's no denying that nVidia makes more powerful individual chips, they are also far more expensive to manufacture.

And given how popular consoles are becoming among gamers, these monolithic chips may not be as profitable as they used to be.

[jimmyjames123]

Truth is that some reviews have more wins for 9800 GTX+ then on Radeon 4850, but i got some infos from friends who send me various results and 4850 at end is better and hotfix released to 4850/70 cards add even more speed and crossfire profiles.

Of course it would be impossible for your friends to tell you that the 4850 is better because the 9800 GTX+ is not even available to the public until July!

Both NVIDIA and ATI are always coming out with better drivers, and both cards should see some performance improvements over time.

It depends on the game played, but for the most part performance is similar between 9800 GTX+ and 4850 (the GTX+ gets an edge in some games, and vice versa). The 4850 is single slot while GTX+ is dual slot, advantage to former. But 4850 as a result runs much much hotter vs GTX+, advantage to latter. PhysX and CUDA-application support not available for 4850 but available for GTX+, advantage to latter. The 4850 seems more efficient than 9800 GTX+ with 8xAA, but 9800 GTX+ can be used very efficiently with 16x CSAA, advantage to both. The 4850 has more limited overclocking potential due to how hot the card gets while 9800 GTX+ seems to have better overclocking potential with up to 15-20% performance improvement, advantage to latter.

So both are really good cards! And even though 9800 GTX+ will not be officially available for purchase until July, the current 9800 GTX OC editions will offer similar performance (albeit a little bit less overclocking potential).

Here is a summary:

Advantages for NVIDIA 9800 GTX+ vs AMD HD 4850
--> Runs much cooler thanks to dual slot design
--> Better overclocking potential since it doesn't get nearly as hot
--> Relatively efficient anti-aliasing with 16x CSAA
--> PhysX and CUDA support available in drivers
--> Higher framerates in some games depending on settings

Advantages for AMD HD 4850 vs NVIDIA 9800 GTX+
--> Takes up less space due to single slot design
--> Relatively efficient anti-aliasing with 8x MSAA
--> Higher framerates in some games depending on settings

[pizzaguy]

Of course it would be impossible for your friends to tell you that the 4850 is better because the 9800 GTX+ is not even available to the public until July!



Actually it would not be entirely impossible since most current 9800GTX's will hit GTX+ speeds without much trouble, most will even pass it and make it into the 800mhz core range.

I agree with everything else you said though as the two cards mainly trade blows with each other depending on the game and settings used.