Nvidia admits defeat in G92 vs. RV670 battle
3DMark wars
IN THE FAR EAST, 3DMark is everything. You can say whatever you want about canned benchmarks, but nobody can dodge the influence of the 3DMark06 benchmark.
It's been the same story with previous iterations of graphics cards, and the same will happen with the next, DX10-only workout. When that is coming out, only Futuremark knows.
But something very significant happened in this round of the war, at least according to our highly-ranked sources.
This time around, Nvidia did not tout its G92_200 series as the fastest thing since Niki Lauda, but rather admitted defeat in this all-popular synthetic benchmark at the hands of a yet-unnamed Radeon HD part.
A reference board from Nvidia is capable of scoring 10,800 3DMarks, while a reference board from ATI will score around 11,400 3DMarks, or a clear 550-600 points advantage.
This is a massive leap over previous-gen parts. The current generation's high-end performer from Nvidia, the 8800Ultra scores 12,500 points. Seeing a mainstream, $250 part scoring barely a thousand less than a current $599 card only makes us wonder how those owners that coughed up so much will feel.
When it comes to ATI's part, you know what to expect in this synthetic benchmark - outscoring Radeon HD 2900XT is a default mode of operation for RV670XT. At least in lower resolutions.
Partners are less than happy with Nvidia board politics as well, but this is a subject of another story. µ
Comments
erm...
is it me or is the grammar and punctuation in this article appalling?3dMark is NOT everything
Perhaps the people are stupid in the far east then if 3dMark affects you THAT much. I mean honestly, 3dMark is for those who want to really show whose system is the best high-end one. I can't even imagine anyone actually buying their computer because of 3dMark scores, especially mainstream parts.So before we make such a big fuss of nothing, perhaps we should see some real tests. Gee, everything would be much better if 3dMark had never been created.
nothing changed..
2900XT scores higher 3D marks than 8800GTX. Nvidia sells far far more cards than AMD though...Why? Shiny boxes are for shelves, not for usage.
whaaa?
How can anyone post about 3dmark scores anymore? Everyone knows they cheat. Synthetic is great on paper, worthless in real life.3dMark, not quite useless
In this time 3dMark serves three purposes.1) It's a good loopable stress test (if you fork over the cash) to put pressure on multiple pieces of hardware to diagnose a gamers system problems.
2) It shows that the manufacturer has likely put in the features they brag about.
3) It serves up nigh useless marketing monkeys scores to slap on the box.
I don't care if someone with too much time and money on their hands liquid chilled this or that to get some insane score. I don't care if a card scores high in 3dMark at all. I care about game performance. For that I'll wait for real 3rd party reviews that test the video cards in real games, like Quake Wars or Supreme Commander or World of Warcraft, et al. Performance in video cards has become much like performance in race cars: just because it does good in a dyno test does not equal a race day victory.
Is Nvidia conceding this round? Maybe, and if so good. We need competitive pressure to keep pricing down. Will I ever buy a video card based on a nigh useless benchmark? Pah! Never. I don't care who is faster, Nvidia or ATI, as I am not some fanboy. I'll buy the fastest card I can when I'm looking.
Huge Advantage
So a synthetic benchmark has one card with a 5% advantage over the other.This is what is known in other fields as "statistically insignificant."
Even if ATi is that fast in real life...
so what? their drivers are crap in Windows and Linux anyways.At least when I buy an nVidia-based card, I don't have to go bald because I'm tearing my hair out trying to set it up in Linux dualboot.
Re: erm...
Half of the Inq's articles have grammar and punctuation problems. Sometimes sentences are constructed crudely beyond what the English language allows.Nothing against the good number of Eastern European writers they employ(ed), but it may do the Inq and as well as them some good if they get treated to an English 101 course.
site run by kids?
Hmm this site run buy kids? jeez! And the thing i hate about this site is everytime i read a article its 99.99% BS! come one guys try harder.apples to onions
well how are you going to decide which one is faster when you dont even know what kind of machine it was benchmarked on.i presume amd used thier own platform to run the test. maybe a next gen phenom part, or maybe a x2 3800+ how do we know.
nvidia may have used an identical setup, but the point is we dont know, they dont tell, so these numbers are useless.
Great news
Its great to hear more topend AMD cards are coming as their 2900XT is almost as fast as the 8800Ultra with the newest drivers & far better than the 8800GTS 640MB. The 2900Pro (2900GT soon) are the cards to have as they offer the best performance versus price at thew moment, again beating the 8800GTS 640MB (320MB) cards & at a lower price point.After having a couple of Nvidia cards & sufffering through their poor drivers having to change 3 to 4 driver versions simply to play a few different games, thats shocking. I am glad i changed over to AMD as their drivers have worked without a problem from day 1 with no changes, & my 2900pro (overclocked) is easily faster than my Nvidia 8800GTX which was giving me lots of grief.
Well done to AMD for having the best drivers & great performing parts.
eh?
OMG nooooooo they put a comma in the wrong place and i cannot sleep at night.Oh the agony and pain they put me through.ffs guys wise up and quit being so effing pompous.
uhh..yea who cares
The HD2900XT can score higher in 3dmark than an 8800GTX, but the 8800GTX always has faster frame rates in about 95% of all the games benchmarked.3dmark isnt everything, as another commentator stated. Wait until gaming benchmarks come out. Screw 3dmark.
well......
all BS.
3dMark is of course not that important but hey...it might show us it'll be a great and cheap card.ATI improves on Linux..
Altough I'm a big nVidia fan (because of the excellend Linux drivers), it seems like ATI (or AMD ;) has got the message:"we want GOOD drivers!!".
Just check out this article where ATI on Linux blows away Vista with ETQW (hehe):
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=897&num=1
Who knows if they keep delivering better drivers I may try 1 of those ATI cards 1 day ;)