Will R520 kill 7800gtx?

[acrh2]

While the #'s show that 7800gtx is roughly equal to 2x6800U (especially where it's most needed, HDR), don't R520 specs look much more impressive?
I guess a chance for ATI to make a comeback, especially if their crossfire works.
Any thoughts?

[Zelda_fan]

Depends. ATI could very well pull another 9700, or they could completely fall on their faces.

[jolle]

If it has good HDR performance, and can do MSAA with HDR, that would prolly seal the deal for most people..
I would expect it to land somewhat close to the 7800GTX.. perhaps a bit faster, perhaps slower.. time will tell..
but looking how the X850XTPE manages to keep up pretty well with the 7800GTX at times, It might just turn out to be a "7800GTX killer"..
who knows.. we shall see tho.

[Lfctony]

If they manage to improve yields and release the R520 as they intend, I'd say a 25% advantage to ATI due to the extra pipes. Higher clocks won't do much I think, Nvidia cards seem to be doing more work per Mhz.

[Pandora's Box]

If they manage to improve yields and release the R520 as they intend, I'd say a 25% advantage to ATI due to the extra pipes. Higher clocks won't do much I think, Nvidia cards seem to be doing more work per Mhz.


well when the higher clocks are at 700mhz and the gtx is only at 430mhz it makes up for th difference in the gtx possibily doing more work per mhz. plus the rumor of r520 have 1800mhz memory versus the gtx's 1200mhz is going to kill the gtx. ofcourse its all rumors for now.

[SH64]

Not that i didnt like the GTX's performance but I think a single R520 will kill - performance wise - a 7800GTX & so 2xR520 in CF.
i even think that a Crossfired X850XT-PE will match or beat Dual 7800GTXs in some cases.
all that will be on ATi's side only if they can get the hardware in the right time.

[rohit]

Anandtech's review, the reviewer kept on saying " the reason why 7800GTX numbers are stuck with GF6800 SLi, is the CPU bottleneck, and the BW limitation" he repeats this several times, in different areas. if those limitations are overcomed..theriotically, the g70 should be 60% ahead of the 6800U. but the results show only 10-20% in area's we consider, there would be higher rise in..

So IMO, r520 with 256 BW and 256mb ddr3 with 32 pipes and insane hi-clocks will be max only a 10% ahead of the 78GTX. It will be facing those same limitations..right?

also, anandtech stated, nv focused on Performance of shaders processing per pixel pipe in g70..
well, this is what r300 did, and the success of 9700pro spoke..
this is what the FX didnt focus on, and got screwed..
even in nv40, the shader performance wasnt to the max.

the boost in performance was expected to be in FC with HDR. and Hevy use of AA/ASX. also insane hi-res..
Well, at the moment, i have a monitor, that max's at 1280x1024. so i dont consider the 7800GTX a good buy for me.. Anandtech didnt even test this res... LOL.

so you should understand, the 78gtx belongs to a entirely new category.. ppl with different and much hi'er demands..

[Lfctony]

well when the higher clocks are at 700mhz and the gtx is only at 430mhz it makes up for th difference in the gtx possibily doing more work per mhz. plus the rumor of r520 have 1800mhz memory versus the gtx's 1200mhz is going to kill the gtx. ofcourse its all rumors for now.

I don't think they'll manage to clock it that high though, that's where I'm making my assumptions from. But you are correct, higher frequencies will overtake better efficiency at some point. How high can ATI clock their chips though? That's why I said "depending on yields". July 26th is it? :)

[Nutty]

Thing is ATI need to make the architectural jump to SM3.0. This means alot of radical rework in the pixel pipes to enable looping etc... NV has already done this last generation, thats why the 7800GTX is pretty sweet. Its got the experience of SM3.0 behind it.

I reckon R520 might be faster, but not by much. But I think NV will counter launch pretty soon again afterwards.

[Lfctony]

Well, at the moment, i have a monitor, that max's at 1280x1024. so i dont consider the 7800GTX a good buy for me.. Anandtech didnt even test this res... LOL.

Same here mate, I ditched my 19" CRT in favour of my 17" LCD, I prefer the cleaner image. One of the reasons that made me stick to my current setup instead of jumping on the 7800GTX wagon and switch to PCIe.

[gordon151]

Yes, it will. All R520s will come to life and proceed to destroy every 7800 they can detect. ATI has taken GPU competition to a whole new level.

[rohit]

ATI has taken GPU competition to a whole new level
I would certainly agree to that, if only you just define/describe that level.?!?!?..!?!?

[serenity]

Yes, it will. All R520s will come to life and proceed to destroy every 7800 they can detect. ATI has taken GPU competition to a whole new level.
Thread starter and this guy both need some attention by the mods, clearly this is flame-bait. :thumbdwn:

[GlowStick]

While the #'s show that 7800gtx is roughly equal to 2x6800U (especially where it's most needed, HDR), don't R520 specs look much more impressive?
I guess a chance for ATI to make a comeback, especially if their crossfire works.
Any thoughts?
Here are my thoughts

R520
What specs? So far the only specs for R520 seem to speculation or fanboi forumla specs*

G70
I read the reviews, and i know that two BFG G70's are being overnighted to me as i type this.

So really, how can we tell who will win, the only info we have is on G70???!??

[Riptide]

G70
I read the reviews, and i know that two BFG G70's are being overnighted to me as i type this.So I take it you aren't using the ASUS A8V any more? That's an AGP board.

[GlowStick]

So I take it you aren't using the ASUS A8V any more? That's an AGP board.
Monday I went to Fry's and bought a DFi nf4-sli-d mobo :D cant wait to install it tomorow if everything goes to plan (eg zzf ships it out). Honestly, i have come to despise the A8V, it now randomly resets its bios on me heh. I think its dieing :confused:

[Riptide]

Yeah sounds like it needs a warranty replacement then. I assume you've reflashed the BIOS?

[c4c]

So IMO, r520 with 256 BW and 256mb ddr3 with 32 pipes and insane hi-clocks will be max only a 10% ahead of the 78GTX. It will be facing those same limitations..right?
Well I don't know about specific figures, but the R520 will have the same bandwidth problems with high resolution + AA. (EDIT: Assuming R520 is using comparable memory + 256 bit bus)

The best gains to be seen right now with the G70 are in non-AA settings. These situations show off quite nicely just how powerful the GPU is when it is not constrained by memory. As soon as AA is turned on, though, things slow down. And the thing is nobody buying these cards will be running with AA off.

Hell, I wouldn't be surprised to see a G70 refresh part with ONLY an increase in memory speed. Kind of like the Geforce SDR and Geforce DDR back in the day.

Well, at the moment, i have a monitor, that max's at 1280x1024. so i dont consider the 7800GTX a good buy for me.. Anandtech didnt even test this res... LOL.
I'm in the same situation, but I would love to get a hold of one of these for gamma correct AA and the transparency AA. It looks great :D

[Shamrock]

I have heard rumors that NV is witholding the "ultra" version of G70, the out today is the "GT" model. NV is suppose to release the Ultra model when ATI releases R520 :) That's the rumor

[Nv40]

If all the rumours good and bad about incomming ATI products like R520 and crossfire happens to be true.. 32 pipes. more than 10k+ in 3kmark2k5 ,Very very low yield issues.. Crossfire having issues..

Then yes the R520 will kill the G70.... but it will not happen anytime soon. :D most likely around Sep-Oct when they might be able to release the card in retail quantities if the paper launch of the card is around ~July24.

So if the R520 is as good and rumors claim, then people buying a pair of G70's TODAY in SLI i .. will be enjoying an ultra extreme version of the ATi best next generation card ,that can do 12k in 3dmark2k5 not in 3-6 months.. but today. :D

Its really uncertain the *real* release date of ATI answer to the G70. because we already know of the marketing tricks sometimes companies do to sell their products.. Im more skeptic now of any "Release date" of ATI products more when there are very strong claims from many realiable sources of their shields issues.. and we already know what happened with the X800xtpe fiasco..that were the issue was diferent ,still was a problem that delayed some months their product. announced in early May 2004 with the x800pro , and re-launched again 4-5 months later with only few hundreds of those available in late in summer..
So in the best case i see the R520 hitting shelves early SEpt. if they launch in the end of JUly. and in the worst case late December.. the Truth could be in the middle.. which puts October as the time when people will see the G70 killer in their hands. and thats a long wait for hardcore gamers.. looking the best possible experience in their games now. :)

a side note..If ATI delays too much the R520.. around the release of the Xbox360 ,they could end killing the sales of their own product ,victims of their own competition, because not many people will have the money to buy an $400-$500 console AND a top of the line $600+ graphics card. All PC Hardware gaming parts should go down by the end of year once Microsoft release their next gen console. So i think the *timing* of the release of G70 and R520 are more significant this year than in any other.. because of the console market competition.

[Sazar]

Why must a product "kill" something to be good?

I continue to use my AIW 9700pro not because it "kills" anything but because its a damn good product and does everything I ask it to do.

The 7800GTX is a nice card and I am sure if ATi can counter the yield issues it is currently being plagued with it might also bring forth a prety nice card.

The big money remains in the main-stream products and as of right now not too many people are selling dual configs. Dell for example still uses the x850XT PE as its top product on the XPS Gen 5, though look for that to change soon.

Dual core/dual card configs will also be out soon (gen 6?) per the current timeline.

Wrt nv40, don't judge sales of cards and the market solely on what we discuss in these forums. The majority of discrete cards are sold not off the shelves but through system builders and scoring deals with these system builders is key. The x300 is out-selling its competition not by being better, but being cheaper. Logistics in a market environment are determined by multiple factors, not simply by what you see some people buying and having in their sigs (congrats JakUp :D )

I think there is no surprise awaiting when Nv launches the Ultra version because it is expected. Going by the grapevine, it will be interesting to see what indeed Ati is able to introduce. Once that comes out, we can talk about competition :) not till then.

p.s. Glow, will your dad adopt me?

[wEEt]

We knew quite a lot about G70 before the launch. But what do we know about R520? Nothing! So no-one (in spite of ATi) can tell whether the R520 kills the G70 or not. I don't think so but I don't know. So let's wait and see what happens July 26th.

[Lfctony]

As far as the R520 is concerned, the only things I've heard and actually believe is that ATI plan to deliver an SM3.0 chip with 32 pipelines. However, nothing else has been announced and since they're having problems with yields, specs can't be finalised at the moment.

[Son Goku]

Ya know, and forgive me for saying; but I just find it a little funny. A new card (from nVidia) has just been released. Given some performance benchmarks, such as this one, I'm wondering if the drivers might have some performance issues that are holding it back:

http://hardocp.com/article.html?art=Nzg0LDEw

Notice the 6800 Ultra getting higher minimum and average fps in Doom 3. I'll look around more to see what comes of this. Suffice to say, this is telling me there's room for optomization in their drivers...

The ATI part hasn't even come out yet, and of course shamrock and saz does make a valid point about the Ultra... But all this talk of an un-released part killing a card we haven't seen yet. :D

[Lfctony]

The 7800GTX is running with higher AA in that test. It's the way HOCP benches now, best playable settings according to them.

In Doom 3, we were able to take the game up to 4xAA with Transparency MSAA at 1600x1200 in High Quality mode on the GeForce 7800 GTX. At this level of image quality, the game performed smoothly throughout. Raising the Anti-Aliasing settings at a high resolution seems to take a toll on performance in this game since it is very memory intensive. Both the GeForce 6800 Ultra and the Radeon X850 XT-PE played best at 1600x1200 with 2xAA in High Quality mode. The game already looks good with 2xAA at 1600x1200 since it is a dark game where aliasing is not noticed as much as some other games.