svetli_pp
04-15-04, 11:14 AM
First I have to say I'm not ATI fan, I've always had NVidia cards and now 5900XT. But the similarities between NV30 and NV40 launches are too much that I can't refrain to shed some dark tones upon the exaltation going around. First lets face the facts.
1. NVidia creates enormous fuss about the grate new card almost 2 months before its real availability. I see it as marketing trick in NVidia style again. Surely ATI could also spread 100 pieces of their R420 at this moment but they announce their products immediately before they are at the market.
2. Undoubtedly 6800Ultra is a fast card, but it bears DX9 unsufficiency like its predecessor NV3X. In all reviews I've read the new card is about twice fast in every game with the exception of FarCry where it beats Ati9800XT with just 15%. With doubled pipelines it is ridiculous and comes to show that when Ati gets their pipelines to 16 in R420 it will bury down NV40 in every DX9 current and future title. BTW every review mentioned bad IQ in farcry which I suppose is due to intentional driver settings allowing NVidia to have margin at all. Here I think it's important to say again that I AM NOT ATI FANBOY!
3. NVidia is braging they have support for all the new stuff in DX9c that is PS and VS 3.0. It resembles the situation when NV3X even surpassed DX9 specification. And after real DX9 games come around it becomes clear that NV35 can't even run standard DX9 code at playable speed not to talk PS2.0+ and VS2.0+. I haven't seen more than one real DX9 game and Microsoft releases DX9c which mainly differs in the way the code is written not in effects that could be produced in games. I even wonder how NVidia do not support something higher than DX9c:)
4. When Ati releases R420 acording to current info it will sport 16 pipelines and is not clear whether it will fully support PS3.0 or PS2.X. But with the heritage of R300 and doubling its power I am really sad to see ATI as a winner.
And finally I could bet R420 score in 3dmark2003 will be above 15000 and games like farcry will finally become playable at high resolutions with AA and AF which is pittily not the fact with NV40.
I know what I've written will be called biased oppinion but it's only my oppinion right.
1. NVidia creates enormous fuss about the grate new card almost 2 months before its real availability. I see it as marketing trick in NVidia style again. Surely ATI could also spread 100 pieces of their R420 at this moment but they announce their products immediately before they are at the market.
2. Undoubtedly 6800Ultra is a fast card, but it bears DX9 unsufficiency like its predecessor NV3X. In all reviews I've read the new card is about twice fast in every game with the exception of FarCry where it beats Ati9800XT with just 15%. With doubled pipelines it is ridiculous and comes to show that when Ati gets their pipelines to 16 in R420 it will bury down NV40 in every DX9 current and future title. BTW every review mentioned bad IQ in farcry which I suppose is due to intentional driver settings allowing NVidia to have margin at all. Here I think it's important to say again that I AM NOT ATI FANBOY!
3. NVidia is braging they have support for all the new stuff in DX9c that is PS and VS 3.0. It resembles the situation when NV3X even surpassed DX9 specification. And after real DX9 games come around it becomes clear that NV35 can't even run standard DX9 code at playable speed not to talk PS2.0+ and VS2.0+. I haven't seen more than one real DX9 game and Microsoft releases DX9c which mainly differs in the way the code is written not in effects that could be produced in games. I even wonder how NVidia do not support something higher than DX9c:)
4. When Ati releases R420 acording to current info it will sport 16 pipelines and is not clear whether it will fully support PS3.0 or PS2.X. But with the heritage of R300 and doubling its power I am really sad to see ATI as a winner.
And finally I could bet R420 score in 3dmark2003 will be above 15000 and games like farcry will finally become playable at high resolutions with AA and AF which is pittily not the fact with NV40.
I know what I've written will be called biased oppinion but it's only my oppinion right.