Jump to content
The Inquirer-Home

Nvidia changes GT200 dates again

Also changes prices and adds a PhysX driver
Thursday, 12 June 2008, 13:53

NVIDIA IS CHANGING the GT200 launch date again, this whole 'let's prove them wrong when they leak' thing is getting tiring. That said, there are a few goodies here and there in the email that Ken Brown sent yesterday.

The meat of the email that went out to reviewers is that the launch date has moved from the 17th to the 16th at 6am PDT. They claim that the 280 will be available the next day, and the 260 comes later, on the 26th. One word to reviewers, make sure you check the retail prices with partners before you quote price/performance numbers, NV has a dirty tricks campaign lined up here, we told you they would have to drop the price when they saw the 770 number, and they did.

There are also a bunch of new things on the NV press FTP site, including 177.34 drivers, up from the 177.26 we tested with. We would be shocked if these were not special press-tweaked drivers, so beware of scores tested with these last-minute releases. Also included are a folding@home client, now possible due to the unbreaking of their architecture this time around, the Elemental "Badaboom!" encoding application, and a bunch of documentation.

Speaking of tweaked drivers, the next new one is coming next week, and it is a PhysX driver. Look for this one to pump 3DMark Vantage scores to the moon, you can do that when you own the API. Sigh.

The more things change, the more they are gamable. µ

Share this:

Comments
Cry me a river

Gaming the system is time-honored by both of our competitors here.

Cry me a river for ATI, which hasn't put out a groundbreaking card for a couple generations now, in this case. Just because the Green Machine bought a physics company and then made the "stream processors" progammable on their GPU, allowing it to act like a physics engine, isn't bad. The fact that ATI hasn't done so (as far as I know anyway) is doltish. Nvidia, ironically enough, has been pushing vid cards forward for some time now. What's the Red team been up to? Sucking fumes?

I don't feel pity for anyone over anything. Nvidia is looking to have the crappiest yields in the universe on their new chips, not my problem. ATI is looking to be down in performance yet again, not my freakin' problem. The only problem I have is whom do I hand my cash over to, and that goes to the fastest kid on the block overall when I buy.

Lose the bloody pedestal mate. DAAMMIT is not populated by engineers that were sent from heaven to help the consumer. Nvidia is not the epitome of evil Devil spawned cackling minions interested only in profits.

posted by : Joe Servov, 12 June 2008 Complain about this comment
okey dokey!

Mr "Joe Servov" is so clearly a victim of "we have the fastest gpu at any cost" that he fails to see what is actually innovative.

Also, drawing conclusions on the next gen products now, and clearly thinking r700 is doomed.

ok, when did we have 1024 bit mem bus, 512 external, dual gpu linked not via a pcie bus, nb, or sb, but by a hybrid chip allowing full memory sharing etc.

no not innovative at all.

oh, and cutting power consumption of r600 by 50%, whilst improving performance.

no, ati havnt been at the top for ages, and they have made many failings, but your clearly thick as mud!

posted by : craig, 12 June 2008 Complain about this comment
not this time

yes the inquirer staff might be resented while other are having fun at nVIDIA´s parties while they are at home getting fat, but if you check fudzilla, the scores of the ati 4850 are 20% than the 260 and the suggested price below $250. 

Thanks to this nvidia already had to lower their suggested prices by $100, yes performance might be improved, still the inquirer has a point: nvidias costs, die shrink time frame, and voltage are now a problem.

posted by : javier, 12 June 2008 Complain about this comment
Sucking Fumes?

Well, Joe, you do now that G80 chipset took 5 years development and G92 is nothing but refined version. I am not sure of GT200 series yet, maybe its something new or then its just beefed up version of G80 architechture

Some pre-records from HD 48x0-series looks rather good but I don't go sworn until we can put cards toe to toe for benchies and real life games.

nVidia has been since G80 chipset king in performance but prior that Ati has been claiming performance king title since Radeon 9800. So this is nothing new but peoples seem to have short memory.

We'll see in few weeks how HD 48x0 compeares with GT2x0. However for me choice is not hard: nVidia is simply too costly so I have to postpone getting card atleast when nVidia gets dieshrink done GT2x0-series or go for Ati. I simply refuse to pay $450 to $650 from card. Too expensive for the gains.

Not all peoples look pure raw performance. Some peoples are concerned about electrcity bill and cost of the card aswell.

8800 GT is topdog of the reasonable priced performance cards. I just hope nVidia can bring another wonderful product soon again. So far I am afraid GT 2x0 might not be able to do that prior Dieshrink.

posted by : T_Bear, 12 June 2008 Complain about this comment
Rootin' for DAMMIT!

I'm hoping DAMMIT do come round this time with a competitive offering. I've never bought an ATI card, but I'm willing to take the plunge *if* they offer something that's better then the competition (or at least equivilent). ATI/AMD (recently) seem to be playing second fiddle to their competitors in their respecitive fields, and it's a shame - competition is good - and frankly the way DAMMIT have been faring of late, they *need* a good product to keep the ship afloat. 

So yes, if ATI pop out a good high end card - and I *really* hope they do - I'll part with the money!

posted by : timmy, 12 June 2008 Complain about this comment
About bloody time

I think that Joe hit the nail on the head when he said that all that matters is who's got the fastest product out there. I also lose very little sleep when it comes to ATI/NVidia share price. However I also praise the "green team" for actually starting to put gpu accellerated software into the market, via aquisition of smaller companies (who cares), which will in turn force the competion to start doing the same (via Havok, or whatever). This can only be better for us, the consumer. As a bit of a folding geek, it's about bloody time my 8800gtx's got in on the action and only probably down to the fact that ATI got there first.

posted by : paul convey, 12 June 2008 Complain about this comment
More balanced journalism eh

Nvidia did not shove you in a locker when you were in high school. Get over this BS cheerleading and vilifying, you're making a fool of yourself.

posted by : Al, 13 June 2008 Complain about this comment
ATi have adopted physics

AMD has gone with Intel's Havok solution according to a lot of news sites, and their shaders are very programmable, in scientific applications they, more often than not, outperform GeForce cards.

posted by : Guy, 13 June 2008 Complain about this comment
Nvidia can't do anything right by you, can they?

GPU PhysX is going to be one of the biggest things to happen to PC gaming, just wait and see.

posted by : slackshoe, 13 June 2008 Complain about this comment
Let Me Clarify Speedic.

Speedic Means on other commentos of 900 mhz/s as next platform for Game Card to Sustain, little bit More. Speedic means 900 Mhz/s for entir puter core, as next Bed or platform of Extreme account. Especially for something as Dynamic as Todays ultie Software.
Stewie Drashek

posted by : Speedra, 14 June 2008 Complain about this comment
Review here

review here:
http://www.rise.com.ua

posted by : max, 05 April 2009 Complain about this comment
Advertisement
Subscribe to the INQ Newsletter
Sign-up for the INQBot weekly newsletter
Click here to sign up Existing user
Advertisement
INQ Poll

Windows 7 impressions

How is windows 7 working out for you?