Looking at it now

I stumbled on this post and what a laugh reading all the comments by the prophets and Nvidiots. You guys are really the essence of the Internet! nice job

I find it absolutely incredible how many of you bash ATI, look at how terribad the 8600 was, it wasnt until the 3850 came out that Nvidia released a competitive low mid range card (the 9600gt.)

For what it was worth, the 3870 wasn't bad at all. And it never was intended to destroy nvidia. initially we all knew that.

Its the same this time, although there is alot and way too much of bad tone toward nvidia in this article... it is true that nvidia is spending more to build their chips.

Ati needs all the help it can get right now, and tbh im wondering how r800 will shape up.

The anandtech matchup of nvidia geforce 9800 GX2 vs. ati radeon HD 3870 x2 in http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3266&p=5 shows that nvidia is the performance king by at least 30%-50% margin over the ati card. Pricewise ->

PNY VCG98GX2XPB-FLB from Newegg.com - $430
Asus EAH3870X2/G/3DHTI/1G ASUS Radeon HD 3870 X2 from Newegg.com -
$315 (27% below $430)

which means ATI is simply lowering its price to match its low performance and that too is just not enough simply because the performance gap is way more. Whats worse is even the HD 3870 x3 (yes, 3 cards!) can barely keep up with the 9800 gx2.

In another article http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3326
intel's upcoming nehalem is already 20%-50% faster than their own penryn which in turn is already 20%-30% than AMD's competing product. In other words. AMD's cpu market share will only get eroded and there will be higher losses on what has already been a long trail of losses (http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=AMD). How will AMD compete with nvidia which has been making remarkable profits all along (http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=NVDA)? I don't see it happenning any time soon.

I am sure when the ati 4870 comes out, it will be barely competing with gt260 (gt280 will be too high to even touch) in performance. So the only way out for amd is to play the same old game, drop prices and we all know how that worked when competing with Intel.

Technologically Ati specs are usually equiped with the latest technology (GGDR 5 memory for example and faster memory clocks, 55nm)

Nvidia card on the other hand have a better GPU processor in terms of rendering physics, animation, shadows and textures as scores show regardless of the memory clocks. They utilise the current technology. Who cares if the ATI cards can do over 1 GFLOP. Single core Nvidia cards equal them anyway in game performance.

It takes a dual core 3870x2 55nm to slightly beat a single core 9800GTX 65nm..

9800GTX: 365 dollars
ATI 3870X2: 445 dollars
They both get 46 Frames Per Second in CRYSIS ! ( my favourite warefare shooter)
UT3: GTX:88fps ,X2: 106
World In conflict: GTX:27fps, X2 26fps

I have to agree that the 9800GX2 only out shines the others in sli (Quad sli). In this case a 9800GTX is the best choice, 3870x2 if u have money to spend but dont expect to beat the 9800gx2 in crysis, other games yes.


Same goes here. R700 vs GT200. This website is full of lies most of the time. Don't bother reading here anymore until the cards come out and are benchmarked. The specs for 4000 series are higher, but will they be able to outperform the Nvidia cards packed with more punch, and physx technology plus more stream processors then before ,same old memory clocks(single core vs single core ^^) ..We see ati boys. I doubt it though.

...that the inquirer writing staff are teh biggest trolls/fanboys/zealots/flamers on teh internet. so what? it's what makes them so schweet. and if ye don't like it, don't read it. it's that simple.
i for one think it's teh coolest HW news site on teh planet. KEKEKEKEKEKEKEKEKE
Greetings from Basel, Switzerland++

Yes I hope they DIE those bastards

3DFX ALL THE WAY

Iv bin waiting to get the nxt gen graphics card for a while & read alot of rumours & wud b facts about both ATI's & NV's offering & what this article says is to some extent the impression I get....HOWEVER... It just goes too far at NV bashing, if you'd just toned it down the NV fanboys might take sum notice but as it is they will just dismiss it as bias. The way I see: GTX 280 & 260 will b faster than 4870/4850, 280 much faster. However ATI knew this b4 they started designing the R700. & they dnt care, making th fastest card is nt wot they spent their money on. They spent it on small chips that are cheap, advanced & wrk well together, (at least that was their aim) The R700 shud b much better bang/buck.. Bt gamers wnt hav a 4870, they'll hav 2 or 3. & that is where is looks like ATI will win. 2*4870 ~ same price as GTX280 & the 2 4870's look like they'll beat 1 GTX280....bt who knows. Until the benchs r out, to me it looks like ATI's strategy is the more sensible.

I love how everyone gets worked up when Charlie or Fuad make comments. 

The Fanbois can never think that their own personal Jebus would do anything wrong.

These same people whined when someone suggested that the G92 might not have up to snuff yields, then the CFO says it, OMG now what?

This isn't the first chip to have issues and it won't be the last for either camp.

I'll reserve judegment until the products arrive, but the fanbois will buy crap regardless, and pretend their drivers don't stink.

Really is it's going to be a great fight, this isn't a n R600 vs G80 battle, it's more of the GF6800 vs X800 battle and the roles are reversed with nV pushing their PlutoniumEdition and ATi pushing the features and checkboxes of their champion.

And for the company and shareholders it doesn't matter who's the Bungholiomark / eWang winner so much as what makes the most money for the company, and there's little doubt the GTX280 will be money losing, the question is will the midrange be money making. There's little doubt with it's design flexibility and small footprint that the HD48xx will be money making if priced accordingly in it's many configurations.

nV might win the Performance battle but that doesn't guarantee they'll win the profitability battle, which is not what they want right before being confronted by another strong competitor in intel. Whoo cares about China, the battle for the gold will be on NewEgg, etc.

Let the games begin!

..This is pure gold - I am going to print this article and paste in on a wall, just to remind myself of what not to do when I get the sh@#s. A financial analysis/forcast, wow!! However, WTF , apart from shareholders, cares if NV don't make a cent initially off gtx2***? Performance is what we crave and if you can't afford it usually ,' oh it's so hot and power hungry' is the excuse given for buying , err , brand X, even though brand X is LOC. I'm not an ATI h8er, nor am I a NV fansta - I still own a 9800pro - but a PC enthusiast I am and to constantly hear 1 person, for no apparent reason slag off a product(NV do seem to deserve a measure of derision, given certain behaviors) he hasn't even seen is both insulting and bad for INQ brand, as I have said b4. MB if NV hadn't banned you....???
Only my .02 worth, no offence meant to any1, even you Charlie....

Let's face it: Multi-GPU is the future. But a lot still needs to be done to go beyond 2 GPU's. There is simply to much overhead so adding a 3rd or 4th GPU will barley yield a performance increase.

So nvidia has the single GPU solution. Being probaly just as fast as the 2 GPU ATi solution. And it will always be faster when drivers are not optimized for multi-GPU's.

Now make it SLi. That means a perframnce increase of 80-90% for the nvidia solution. Adding two extra GPU's to the ATi solution will result in 5-15% performance increase.

Ergo: nvidia wins.

And how about power usage ?

nvidia has Hybrid SLi so that in 2D scenario's the onboard GPU does the job whill the powerfull 3D card is powered off. Early tests show that it works (it still needs some finetuning though). So, using Hybrid SLi you can build a system that beats any ATi solution in 3D and still uses less power in 2D.

Ergo: nvidia wins again

I've no dount nvidia is working on a multi-GPU solution. But currently a single GPU solution is simply better. Untill they found away to handle the hugh overheat that comes with the multi-GPU solutions..

Charlie charlie charlie... Forgive me my poor English but this article sounds like a fat guy mouthing off with foam at his mouth about his hot Canadian girlfriend who he gets plenty of "secks" from. Since R600 times we heard you and a few of your friends spit out fanboy propaganda about the sure ATI(AMD) victory across the board not only in the high end market, but also in the mid-range and so on. Don't get me wrong, so far ATI(AMD) delivered nothing but great products, but there were hardly ever close to receiving the GPU crown in any market. 
People who do research before buying their new card, will easily find out why NVIDIA remains on top. Solid performance in benchmarks + ok prices on the cheap stuff for the OEM market (Dell, etc). 
Also, if you still have any delusional ideas about ATI being anything worth spending your money on, check out the Valve hardware survey. Sure it's limited to people who have Stalin (Steam) installed, but I find it a pretty good indicator of how well NVIDIA is doing.
I will let the numbers speak for me from here...

http://www.steampowered.com/status/survey.html

Yields at 40%, I absolutely believe it. I have worked in a fab and have direct experience, let me detail a few problems.

Large die almost always have poorer yields. The problem is die on the edge of the wafer are the hardest to yield. Larger die means a higher ration of edge die per wafer.

As previously commented a wafer usually yields or does not.... that is completely false!!! It's easy to have a wafer that encounters 1 problem that will screw up half the die. You could have particle splatter take out ~20% on a wafer.

The shrink of this die is also going to take a long time. I figure these wafers take ~45 days to make with 400-600 steps. If you start your first wafer 55nm, it will be 45 days before you know how it turned out. Then you'll have to make adjustments and send others out.

ATI got it right on a manufacturing process. They went smaller die. Their R600 chips were yielding higher mature yield then expected. So what do they do? They redesign a better chip on the same processing node. I fully expect them to have very good yields on this part. 

Nvidia very well likely keep the top performance crown, but this time, it's going to be very expensive to them. 

And what's this about drivers? We all know that the majority of vista crashes were caused by nvidia drivers. Crossfire has always had good drivers compared to SLI.... SLI has just recently got caught up. 

ATi also faces the pressure nvidia has with gaming partners (assassins creed anyone?). They will be able to pressure development companies to optimize for their parts and not ATI, or alter the game to make their cards perform better. 

For anyone that loves computers and advancement, you should be cheering for ATI. AMD really needs a boost or intel is going to be a monopoly and be able to inflate their processor prices. Likewise, nvidia has been in a strong position for a long time and got lazy. They need competition to further advance GPU technology and keep costs down. Nvidia doesn't have to win every time (That would be bad for all of us!!!)

isnt it strange how it looks like just another R600 v G80 re run?

i remember how many many sites including this one sounded the death knell for nvidia last time round performance wise. swallowing the nonsense fed to us by ATI that the 2900XT would be as fast as the 8800GTX but only cost as much as a 8800GTS 640. when reality kicked in and the benches were in, the 2900XT cost slightly more than the GTS and performed worse overall than the same GTS part ATI claimed would be demolished. throw in the fact it gulped electricity, heated up like a toaster, suffered rubbish driver support and broken anti aliasing implementation.

i would say its likely we will see nvidia come out on top performance, and ATI price/performance. if so its simply not a loss for nvidia, because the fastest boards always end up with the most kudos regardless of their rivals hardware price performance ratio. the impetus will still be with nvidia.

the article is also clearly biased, the way its worded and how nvidia are lampooned madly for just mildly missing their target performance figures by a scant >7 percent. the author writes like thats a pathetic effort. when the overclocked boards (yes no doubt outrageously expensive) filter down, they will almost certainly break the teraflop barrier so i dont see the point of deriding a small miss of the target on reference parts.

I generally enjoy the stances you get on the stories at The Inq, as otherwise I wouldn't read anything off the site, but even I have to admit this one bends the truth too much.

Just look at a similar report on this and see how very different their take on the situation is:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/display/20080528160257_Nvidia_Projects_Long_Lifespan_for_Current_Generation_Flagship_Graphics_Chip.html

I'm no Nvidia fanboy I hasten to add. If anything, I've more of an AMD/ATI love, but this doesn't mean I'll blindly say they're best at everything when they're clearly not currently. I'd love to see DAAMIT trounce Nvidia in the next round, but all hopes aside, the information points to them catching up but not passing Nvidia.

In any case, why are you reporting the upcoming death of a company when the products haven't even been released yet? It just seems like doomsaying for the sake of it. Of course I want you to be right, but that doesn't mean I can support your stance this time.

You're naturally as entitled to your opinion as we all are to ours, but please could you try and present both sides of the argument when it comes to Nvidia and DAAMIT? Even if you still slate Nvidia for given reasons, at least stop the unsupported analysis without firm proof.

In any case though, I still want to see you writing articles, unlike some posters.

I thought the article was just fine, but it sure seemed to rub a lot of people raw.

Die size directly affects yield, to say otherwise shows a lack of knowledge. This thing is a monster....

260W will be a killer - cmon people, just remember back to the P4. 

CD is usually right. We are watching a company lose its focus on its core business, and that usually means the company stops functioning and becomes irrelevant. 

NV has engaged in fairly underhanded marketing schemes in the past (as was accurately mentioned), and this article was not about other firms doing this. Not the point.

Chasing an x86 license/firm is also a major distraction and consumes lots of revenue.

Take it all in perspective and we have all of the symptoms of a firm ready to implode. The point is to watch and see if it does - or if it gets its act together and saves itself.

Can't prevent what's inevitable Charlie, can you?

"G80 sucks, R600 will annihilate it"
"Oh this new fancy 3800 series will turn the tables around!"

So in other words, GT200 wins ATI's offerings big time. Honestly, how much does AMD pay you? Don't tell me that you're writing their propaganda for free.

that's all that matters if your a gamer, real life, real apps benchmarks.
And of course, you have two types of gamers consumers, the ones that buy for price/performance (not necessarily the fastest gpu). And the ones that spends shit loads of $$$ to get 2coresGPU w/ SLI or QuadCF just to have the latest.

It´s impressive the number of nvidia fan-boys in the comments. You could discuss about the performance crow in each generation, but form me and the most part of the market the mid-range cards are the way that we go. I have a HD 2600 now and it's perfect for my use, and the best part, it's really quiet. Actually it's just my second Ati card after 8xxx generation a long time ago (I had gF 256, GF2, GF3, Gf4 4600...and other generations) and I can say that is much better to see videos and image quality. I think that ATI will never beat nvidia at games, but I prefer video quality (without "optimizations"), not a older generation rebranded card dustbuster.

Funny, I always thought Charlie was an Nvidia fanboy when they were riding high on the G80 (and G92) line of products. Then again, I favor ATI slightly more. Latest driver don't work on G80 parts when they are the "same" as G92 parts? (That is just what I read on one of the sites I visit regularly.)

Anyways, regarding to craig's comment on: "9800gtx vs rv770 sounds like a good match, and they would probably need gt200 to truly wipe the floor with ati."

I seriously think the rv770 needs to at least match the 9800 GTX and beat in some cases. If not beat it in everything. The G92 is basically a G80 and that is been out for how long? Seriously if ATI can't beat that, then maybe waiting to see what comes out after the GTX 280 and GTX 260 maybe the only option for those wanting to upgrade...

Although I am guessing the GTX 260 is their "mainstream" part so I seriously hope Nvidia got something under its sleeves...






I think that the worst will be the +200w tdp

I'm also curious as to which AIB partner is close to bankruptcy? If, as the article states, it's one of Nvidia's "biggest ones", then as Bernard pointed out above, that would seem to indicate either EVGA, BFG or XFX. So, which one?

Haha, Charlie do you sometimes wonder why you bother ?

There are some people asking Charlie out because of it's writing style. I, for one, I'm always looking forward for Charlie's articles. He's always trying to look into the future. That's not bad, it's just a try. Sometimes he's righth, maybe most of the times he's wrong. But it's good someone is trying a true 'analyst view'. Maybe some like the 'pertinent' views of some brokers or something like this, but I like an opinion from someone who analyze the products, not press releases from the companies...
There are other editors like Nick or Sylvie whos articles I enjoy reading, and they got their style too.

if the info is correct, which i do not doubt it is, Charlie is absolutely right and bravo to him for being caustic.

personally I think that with the GT280b they are just hoping to reduce power consumption and heat production to a level where they can make a dual GPU card so they will have an answer to ATI's R700/4870X2 when its released in August

Ok this was the longest drivel of Nv bashing in a long time..

If its loads faster than the old cards, then its not a lemon lol.

You guys are just bitter because they banned you from ringside. :-P

So, is Nvidia doomed? As in dead, kaput? The article makes it sound that way.

Yet again, Charlie, you have read the tea leaves and come to logical conclusions. From previous efforts, you explained why AMD had to acquire a graphics company. No question AMD made the right choice in choosing ATI as their target. 

Remains to be seen of DAMMIT can still stand up with the big boy, but at least they're trying; haven't thrown in the towel yet.

Nice investigation and analysis.

Anyone here has an idea about which big NVidia OEM is teetering on the verge of bankrupcy?

It has to be between EVGA, BFG and XFX.

I find it fascinating that you think AMD can give these cards away at the prices you imply. Are you forgetting they're losing BILLIONS? I don't think this will hurt Nvidia at all, it will just allow AMD to finally find a way to make a BIT of money while their cpu's continue to BLEED money. I was a bit upset at the cost of Nvidia cards over what reviewers stated ($60 premium for my 8800GT - so I waited for it to drop of course) but AMD did the exact same thing (much higher than they said in reviews also but crap performance) so I went Nvidia anyway. I mean there was a $20 difference between it an 3870 at the time so why not get massively better performance across the board? It was a no brainer. 

Lets not forget AMD was originally claiming the 3870 would sell for $300 or less and match nvidia's $500 cards. It was about as far from the truth as saying Barcelona would be 40% faster than ANYTHING Intel would have out at the time it released. We all know how that turned out. Last I checked it was 20% slower clock for clock and is about to become 700+mhz behind (Intel's about to release 3.33ghz and all mine do 3.6ghz easy so they could put one out if desired)...LOL. AMD can't give these cards away, they eventually have to charge enough to make a profit so Nvidia isn't in any trouble. If their stock drops any more Nvidia could just buy them and end it all...ROFL. With Intel getting into the market (if they weren't already even though crappy onboard, they sell tons of it) nobody would call them a monopoly by buying AMD. I say buy them, sell the fabs and go fabless as Nvidia is already. The AMD part of that company might make some money. Real MEN don't NEED fabs...LOL.

just more hot running crap from Nvidia i don't know how anyone would buy there crap, ha ha ati back on top, how do you like them bananas, if its true that is

I guess that can of whoop ass was filled with woose gas

As always a brilliant article by you Mr.Charlie! 

Just goes to show that nvidia have their head wayy up their a**es!

Here's hoping AMD wins the graphic war this time around.

Other than that...nvidia will do their usual...overprice their graphics card...minus DX 10.1 support...someone tell me why doesn't nvidia have this implemented in their to be released graphic cards!?

MS isn't retarted to release DX10.1 with just a fancy .1 extra name...definitely something fishy here...and what about game developers not implementing DX 10.1 what happened to Crysis the graphically most advanced game every on the planet...not having DX10.1 support? I'll tell you why coz nvidia shoved $$$ up their a**es not to implement it & if some game dev implements DX10.1 code...read..Assasins Creed....nv..bribes them again to issue a patch saying DX10.1 code was faulty...way to go nv...rip off the consumer!

Seems to me Intel/Nvidia are off the same breed...Intel deliberately delaying 45nm & Centrino 2 launch & pricing their processors high due to poor showing by AMD...(well if 10 fps makes a difference to you go with intel)...same with nv..we have market share & positive web reviews so we do whatever we want!

I have a feeling that even if Nvidia created a GPU that cured world hunger the tone and direction of the article describing said GPU would very similar to the above article.

This is why I like the INQ.

You have not a single idea what GT200's are like, yet call them botched. Yup. If you say so, it must be true.

Looking forward to your "botched" comments when the cards release. I hope you like crow. Great with Garlic.

-Manic

interesting that the gt200b looks like it will just be a die shrink, not a mid-end part. there was a certain savvy to nvidia releasing the uber expensive 8800 gtx ultra and then leaving it unsurpassed, that they would die shrink their new king meanie so soon is a good indicator of abysmal performance.

i dont see how yields could be so low when faulty dies can be used on the GT260 and other future mid-batch chips.

From Crowing Pains
to
Growing Pains
Will IT Never cease and desist?
Poor, Poor, Poor, Poor, Pitiable
Scottish Prime Minister Gordon Brown

In the event of something happening to me,
There is something I would like you all to see.
Its just a photograph of someone that I knew.

Taps out. Incessant tapping. Clicking.
Careful lest you stir a landslide.

There are so many words to describe the feeling that i feel when i read a good article.
la Inq'ue produces the best, the article above proves it.

To the Inq' team: make me you groupie!

But to be serious for a moment, the way NV has acted toward different OEM's has been downright odd.
Shouting off has never been good(unless your really really really confident!), and usually the quiet boy end's up with the hot girl.
As a matter of fact, ATI has got a girlfriend, but she ain't so hot at the moment, but time will tell if AMD will turn into a beautiful butterfly or revert back to a catepillar.

Daniel

The above might all be true or fantasy, until we get some hard facts spreading vague "facts" that are always slanted to one side doesn't provide fair and balanced "news". Comsumers will decide what is best for there wallet and needs, expect Nvidia to still be top dog, if you think ATi is going to take spot then there pricing does not reflect that, if they do take the performance crown and have a massive pricing advantage we the consumer will benefit.

Though I have no doubt the GT200 series will be the performance "king" at its launch, I seriously question if they'll be making more money than ATi per GPU sold. You CAN make a card too fast for the current market and thats what I am seeing. They're churning out what essentially amounts to an engineering sample card while charging a premium. This will only leave a bad taste in the end-consumer's mouth.

On the issue of hiding the facts or coercing review sites to spread hype and / or half-truths about a new architecture, I can totally see that happening. I've been getting a very 3DFx vibe from nV lately. I guess it really began about the time Jen-Sun Huang started publicly talking "trash" about competitors. This is bad form in any sense and doesn't promote brand loyalty.

Sorry if this is a double post. First didn't appear to take.

Ok, i read your site all the time, but this has to be the most scathing attack on NV yet.

When i saw the die size of gt200, i was amazed, as r600 had enough issues, until ati salvaged the chip in the shape of rv670.

I do think ati are playing an excellent game latly.

What you say about NV makes sense, but surely they wouldn't just walk into such a position.

Mind you, what if their actual strategy is to keep top casrd no matter what. In which case this is actually sustainable.

9800gtx vs rv770 sounds like a good match, and they would probably need gt200 to truly wipe the floor with ati. By the time ati are releasing r700, to wipe nv's lead, they should have "gt200b" to market as a sustainable product, possibly cutting the 512 bus down to 256, putting on slightly more expensive gddr5 to make up for the bandwidth loss.

it really does seem that as a sound business strategy gt200 is only there to put rv770's nose ut of joint.

So after all, it seems I'll switch both of my 8800 for a new ATI toys. If your intel is true, I don't want to keep my hands on GT200 - not only too hot, but overrated and definately overpriced.

Mark what you said,especially this:
"This means that buying a GT260 board will cost about 50 per cent more than an R770 for equivalent performance. The GT280 will be about 25 per cent faster but cost more than twice as much. A month or so after the 770 comes the 700, basically two 770s on a slab. This will crush the GT280 in just about every conceivable benchmark and likely cost less."
and come back to it in a month.

Msr. Charles theINQ headwaiter assumes yields are 40%. NOT so, Its MECHANICAL Process, if One works, All usually work, Cutting est. Price to about 50 cents, err; i mean dollars.(Probably Nigerian)

Also to control cost Nividia Needs its Own FAB, that'll Smack another 50% off cost.

What Nvidia NEEDS With Such High Power is GDDR5 to Compete(& just to make Cards work right), loping ATI 50% Deeper into Pit.

Its SAD day when 5 billion dollar company goes Begging ME.
Drashek


There's one thing about this article that I disagree with, and that's the performance predictions. RV770XT might beat the GTX280 and even more the GTX260 in terms of theoretical GFLOPs and will therefore be the better GPGPU, but in terms of a) TMUs (80 vs. 32) and b) ROPs (32 vs. 16), the Geforce is too strong to not beat the RV770 in games.

But then again, even if the Geforce is 1.7 times as fast, if it costs over 2 times as much and has very low availability, time for a market share shift might indeed have come.

And: The RV770 has a yield rate of ~70%, and is 2.28 times smaller. That means AMD gets roughly FOUR TIMES as many working chips per wafer. I think everyone can do the maths what that will mean for price and availability.

... Yeah right! Charlie and ATI up a tree...

please fire charlie, he is bringing down this website. he is a horrible biased writer and inquirer looses a lot of respect from the readers.

Guys, come on , you "hatred" towards NV is a bit unjustified.
No doubt NV200 is a big hot chip but it's purpose not to sell but to beat AMD in the "who has fastest card" game.

Then more usable (and gain generating version) will come , NV200 here just to be first thats it.

When it comes to PC CPU's and GPU's

You are trying to say - if you don't fab your own chips on your own process, you (NV) are doomed.

AMD / ATI may still have a chance.

NV - no CPU and no Fabs Hmmmmmm

Consumers need AMD but...

ATI/AMD did the same thing with the 2900... You really should point this out.

One big difference though, ATI didnt try to jack up the prices when they briefly got the lead back with the 3870x2.

Nifty article there & good and informative analysis.

I am not in the market for a new video card, but looking at things it is hard to justify Nvidia's prices, particularly in view of the modest improvement the current gen has over the previous gen.

What say Nvidia gives this thing an impressive and misleading name, kills off all of the lower priced NV products with similar performance and then blackmails the hardware sites into not comparing the new with the old?

Whatever did happen to the 8800GT 512 board on all the hw site comparisons, eh?

Turd or not, nVidia is still my card of choice until AMD gets their Linux drivers in gear.

Seems to be developing into some sort of obsession here, the need to 'defend' r700 against a card that is clearly causing you to soil yourself.

Meanwhile people with common sense are just buying the GTX 280, enjoying Crysis maxed out and laughing at each article as it comes!

If Charlies track record is any indication of graphic predictions than you can almost assuredly bet that he is 180 degrees in the wrong direction. 2900 vs. 8800 anyone? "Watch for this to melt down once NV loses the high end.

"Watch for this to melt down once NV loses the high end."

That is a laughable statment. Charlie makes nvidia out to be nothing more than a bunch of chimps running the show. 

You dont think nvidia has learned since the 5800 series eh?

Consider its successors, the 6x00 series, 7x00 series and 8x00 series. All shining example of what nvidia has learned from its blunder with the 5X00 series.

Even if ATi manages a more powerful card than the new GTX series (they wont) then they have to overcome their abyssmal driver support and shameful crossfire performance.

a major failure for nvidea comeing soon. intel and DAMMIT will steamroll over poor nvidea this summer it almost makes u feel sad...well kinda.

If the 4870 could compete with the GTX260 or GTX280 does anyone actually think that AMD would price it at half the cost? It's obvious 4870 is trying to win the price/performance ratio in the mid-level most likely competing directly with current 9800GTXs. My prediction is the 4870 will be about 60% the speed of the GTX280.

...if it happens like this... UAU ! :-O

...but i won't be sorry for them :-p

I can't take it anymore. I have to say something. I can tell you with 100% certainty tat the information provided in the article is complete BS. It is either flat out wrong or misleading at best.

You have to wonder why this guy is being so dishonest.