The new Radeon 9500 Pro: the GeForce4's demise? [Archive]

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LuminousFriend

11-27-02, 12:56 PM

Don't look at me, I am as surprised as you.

The Radeon 9500 Pro outperforms its chief rival, the GeForce4 Ti 4200, in nearly every important way. Only in older games can the Ti 4200 snag a win or two. The 9500 Pro has significantly more computational power, in terms of both pixel and vertex processing, than either the GeForce4 Ti 4200 or its big brother, the Ti 4600.
:eek:

It's no contest. NVIDIA's product line is a generation behind, and with the debut of the Radeon 9500 Pro, there's little reason left to buy a GeForce4. I would take a Radeon 9500 Pro over a GeForce4 Ti 4200, easy, but don't stop there. I'd rather have a 9500 Pro than a GeForce4 Ti 4600, too. The Ti 4600's few advantages in older games aren't as impressive to me as the 9500 Pro's merits.

:eek: :eek: :eek:

http://www.tech-report.com/reviews/2002q4/radeon-9500pro/index.x?pg=1

Uttar

11-27-02, 01:36 PM

The Radeon 9500 will likely be the GF4 Ti4200 demise, yes.

However, it'll take a while for it to get general market acceptance. Also, Ti4200 price cuts should enable nVidia to be okay.

Also, remember that even if the Radeon 9500 Pro is faster than the Ti4200, and with a nearly identical price, the Radeon 9500 is *slower*.

Also, ATI isn't really able to price the Radeon 9500 Pro very aggressively because it also got about 100M transistors. The Ti4200 only got 60M transistors.

So, if nVidia reduces the Ti4200 price to be between the Radeon 9500 Pro and Radeon 9500 non-Pro, their brand recognition & drivers will likely do the rest of the job for the christimas season.

But then, the Radeon 9500 Pro will get market acceptance. That's why the NV31/NV34 are coming in H1 2003 - So nVidia will likely have one or two bad months in Q1, but after that, the good times will likely be there again.

Uttar

thcdru2k

11-27-02, 03:17 PM

nvidia can easily drop the prices of the geforce 4. its not over, but as far as the sub $200 market. ati has that locked up now.

Fotis

11-27-02, 03:40 PM

IMHO radeon 9500pro will be the demise of gf4 ti 4600.Radeon 9500pro is faster than gf4 ti 4600 at default an a lot faster with fsaa and aniso on.Radeon 9500pro is also cheaper.Its clear nvidia has lost his round but gf4 will continue to sell well.
Anyway I'm hoping to see GFFX benchmarks smashing radeon 9700pro but still the price is too high with Sparkle talking about a 600euro price.:eek:

SocketAzzWipe

11-27-02, 09:46 PM

Its funny how Pelly jumped at the 9500 news and posted it on the front page of nvnews.net the first day it was released...

I don't see anything about 9500pro...
Hey Pelly, get to it...since you like posting a lot about Ati, why haven't you posted anything about the 9500pro?

thcdru2k

11-27-02, 10:56 PM

get off his back and quit your whining, at least he and the other nvnews posters get around to posting ati news and news for other computer hardware. i don't see rage3d posting any news except for ati.

jbirney

11-27-02, 11:18 PM

i don't see rage3d posting any news except for ati.

And that great. Sorry but a site with the name of NV news should only post news on NV stuff. This is a fan sight after all so naturally any news posted on non-nV info may come off as sounding biased (not I did not say it was...just it could appear that way).

SocketAzzWipe

11-27-02, 11:20 PM

Originally posted by thcdru2k
get off his back and quit your whining, at least he and the other nvnews posters get around to posting ati news and news for other computer hardware. i don't see rage3d posting any news except for ati.

Hahaha...I'm not whinning. Just suggesting. I mean, isn't it a regular drill - if some news comes out by ATI, pelly is the one who posts it first...why not this time around? I was just curious, that's all.

I don't know if you read at all, but most news posted by nvnews explains the negative side of things when it comes to ATI.

Who said anything about Rage3d?

Bigus Dickus

11-27-02, 11:21 PM

I think Rage3D has made a "policy" of sticking to ATi only news, for better or worse. I could be mistaken though, since I haven't checked out their front page in months. :)

And Pelly... nVidia can't just arbitrarily reduce the board prices. They only control the chip prices, which aren't the largest part of the board cost to begin with. They can give them away for free and take a loss if they want to retain market share, but even in that case they can only reduce the final product price by whatever they are currently charging for chips ( 25$ ?).

And, the board manufacturers probably have a bit of room left in their margins to reduce prices, but even for them there is some point at which they just won't make any money if prices fall further, and they'll just stop producing the boards instead.

Lezmaka

11-27-02, 11:38 PM

I would think the ram would constitute a rather large portion of the overall board cost. Even though there isn't a direct relationship, but just image how expensive it would be to try and get 128megs of something like DDR600 for your system?

StealthHawk

11-28-02, 12:33 AM

Originally posted by jbirney
And that great. Sorry but a site with the name of NV news should only post news on NV stuff. This is a fan sight after all so naturally any news posted on non-nV info may come off as sounding biased (not I did not say it was...just it could appear that way).

i disagree. i want to know about everything else the competition has planned or has released. and i don't want to go to an ATI fan site to do that. or a SiS fansite. or a Matrox one, etc. i also don't want to needlessly dig through forums to find posts related to competitor's products either, i want to find them from a nice referenceable place like the front page.

MikeC

11-28-02, 07:30 AM

Originally posted by SocketAzzWipe
Its funny how Pelly jumped at the 9500 news and posted it on the front page of nvnews.net the first day it was released...

I don't see anything about 9500pro...
Hey Pelly, get to it...since you like posting a lot about Ati, why haven't you posted anything about the 9500pro?

Probably because he's busy wrapping up a review before heading out to celebrate Thanksgiving with his family.

thcdru2k

11-28-02, 09:07 AM

X-bitlabs.com reports that earlier this year we saw the roadmap of the Santa Clara, California-based VPU developer and, according to their plan, the company intends to launch NV31, NV34 and NV35 code-named visual processing units in 2003. The NV35 and NV34 seem to be delayed towards very late Spring or even Fall, whereas the NV31 should come a bit earlier. According to NVIDIA’s roadmap, the NV31 is to substitute the higher-end GeForce4 Titanium GPUs in the performance sector,the NV34 is planned as a next-generation mainstream solution and the NV35 is said to once again raise features and performance bar for enthusiasts.

hahaa i bet this is because of the r9500 pro.

SocketAzzWipe

11-28-02, 11:52 AM

jbirney

11-28-02, 02:42 PM

Originally posted by StealthHawk
i disagree. i want to know about everything else the competition has planned or has released. and i don't want to go to an ATI fan site to do that. or a SiS fansite. or a Matrox one, etc. i also don't want to needlessly dig through forums to find posts related to competitor's products either, i want to find them from a nice referenceable place like the front page.

This is why sites like Hothardware, Anandtech, TechReport, FiringSquad, Sharkeys, B3D, ect exist. They provide information on every one. Go there to find info on other products.

Do you honestly believe you are going to find honest, accurate and un-biased information on fans sites about other competting vendors? Its just like saying you get all your AMD info from an Intel fan site. It would be nice if we lived in a world like that but we dont.

Sorry but fan sites should stick to what they know best.

Probably because he's busy wrapping up a review before heading out to celebrate Thanksgiving with his family.

Well he had time to post today and chose not to say a peep about the 6+ reviews on the card... And this has nothing to do with Pelly as I dont think he is going out of his way to "harm" ATI.

Take a look at 3dgpu for years a dedicated nV fan site but they have made great strides to provide information that dose not come off as being baised. And at least they posted about the 9500pro :)

Its up to you guys to decide where you want NV news to go. Again I think you provide great value to the comminity. But you should either try to work more on how news gets posted to move to a more netural feild or stay with primarly NV news and leave other vendors out.

druga runda

11-28-02, 04:31 PM

Hey I like coming here and finding a lot about cards/industry... whatnot... and mainly it is great to get here and see something new. Nvidia doesn't have something new everyday, but the whole industry + plus if you throw in a link to a game or two - has!

Well at least I would like the site to go in that "variety" direction, there is no harm in being the "best" Nvidia source, but not "only" Nvidia. When I buy/test/play I like to see what the market has, and so variety is what I like, this site has plenty, and is great for it.

pelly

11-28-02, 05:23 PM

Thanks to those who stood up for me while I was away wrapping-up a two card review...

As Mike stated above, the reason why I have not been able to pst much of anything ( including the 9500Pro news...as well as EVERY other bit of news regarding hardware ) is that I have been working on getting this review finished. I think there are a ton of people who have no idea how many hours go into writing these reviews...On top of that, I have had surgery AND was away long enough to spend Thanksgiving with my family...

Though I strive to bring you all the latest news around the net, I still have other things going on in life...cut me some slack guys!

:D

SocketAzzWipe

11-28-02, 06:23 PM

Originally posted by pelly
Thanks to those who stood up for me while I was away wrapping-up a two card review...

As Mike stated above, the reason why I have not been able to pst much of anything ( including the 9500Pro news...as well as EVERY other bit of news regarding hardware ) is that I have been working on getting this review finished. I think there are a ton of people who have no idea how many hours go into writing these reviews...On top of that, I have had surgery AND was away long enough to spend Thanksgiving with my family...

Though I strive to bring you all the latest news around the net, I still have other things going on in life...cut me some slack guys!

:D

I like the Abit OTES...has some funk-a-licious cooling.

StealthHawk

11-29-02, 02:33 AM

Originally posted by jbirney
This is why sites like Hothardware, Anandtech, TechReport, FiringSquad, Sharkeys, B3D, ect exist. They provide information on every one. Go there to find info on other products.

Do you honestly believe you are going to find honest, accurate and un-biased information on fans sites about other competting vendors? Its just like saying you get all your AMD info from an Intel fan site. It would be nice if we lived in a world like that but we dont.

Sorry but fan sites should stick to what they know best.

look, i'm not looking for nV News to post their opinions about ATI cards or even review them. but in the past, they have provided links to reviews to ATI cards. maybe not immediately when the reviews were done by other sites, but they linked them in a timely matter.

Bigus Dickus

11-29-02, 05:09 PM

I think I have to agree with jbirney here. It's pretty clear what kind of picture nVnews is going to paint with their news posts. If you don't mind getting a slanted view of the graphics world, then that's all well and good, the front page is your friend. If not, then there are places out there that give a fairly complete and level view of things.

I like Rage3D's decision not to post about the competition, good or bad news. It keeps them out of arguments just like this one. They are an ATi fan site, and keep their readers informed about ATi happenings, and openly recommend going elsewhere to get information on other IHV's.

MikeC

11-29-02, 05:41 PM

Bigus Dickus

11-29-02, 05:44 PM

Originally posted by MikeC
Fifty-four pages of slanted views on the Radeon and counting - http://www.nvnews.net/cgi-bin/search_news.cgi?keyword=radeon :D

Woohoo!!! :D Can't wait to catch up on all the news I've missed over the years. ;)

StealthHawk

11-29-02, 07:05 PM

Originally posted by Bigus Dickus
I think I have to agree with jbirney here. It's pretty clear what kind of picture nVnews is going to paint with their news posts. If you don't mind getting a slanted view of the graphics world, then that's all well and good, the front page is your friend. If not, then there are places out there that give a fairly complete and level view of things.

i'm not looking for opinion pieces, or even rumors. just links to reviews that exist.

i agree though, rumors about competitor's products that appear on an nvidia fan site should be taken with a grain of salt. but if well documented problems arise, then post, post, post away.

in the end it is the reader's job to form their own opinions. anyone who blindly believes any one source probably deserves to be deceived.

MtViewGuy

12-07-02, 03:26 PM

Originally posted by thcdru2k
nvidia can easily drop the prices of the geforce 4. its not over, but as far as the sub $200 market. ati has that locked up now.

I was at Fry's Electronics yesterday and I saw GeForce4 Ti4200 64 MB cards going for US$100!! :eek:

It appears that nVidia has taken the threat from the Radeon 9500 Pro seriously and allowed the card manufacturers to cut their prices dramatically in order to compete.

Gator

12-07-02, 05:36 PM

Nvidia will still hold strong with TI4200 sales at around only $100us Its an amazing deal, especially since most TI4200 can overclock to TI4600 speeds. But yes TI4600 is in trouble, since the R9500Pro is a pretty impressive card for less money. Nvidia would have to drop the TI4600 to $150 to compete and that's asking alot of them.

Only one question remains... how is the stability, compatibility, and driver support for R9500Pro VS TI4600? Only if it is just as good as Nvidia will ATI compete, because hardware capability & benchmarks mean nothing if the card doesn't work right from the start
;)