INQ challenges ATI, Nvidia

AS OUR dear Nebojsa asked in his opinion article here, the question really is how ATI will respond to Nvidia's 7800GTX 512MB threat.

The company responded with two things: an internal presentation and a BIOS which overclocks the X1800XT from 625 to 700 MHz for GPU chip and video memory from 1.5 to 1.6 GHz, as reported here.

So, instead of offering solutions to AGP market, which DOMINATES the overall share of PC computers out there, ATi overclocked the X1800XT and made a presentation running around the erroneous calculation which claims GeForce 7800GTX 512MB will "die" after 1170 hours. Also, the claim has been done that an average gamer can play 30+ hours on ATi's X1800XT 512MB hardware and only mediocre 7.5 hours weekly before nV's hardware will fail.

As you can see, ATi's is claiming you'll be able to play for 56 hours a week three years after you have bought the product and 42 hours four years after you have bought the X1800XT. At the same time, nVIDIA's 7800GTX-512MB stands at 7.5 hours weekly in three years time, and mediocre 5.7 hours of gaming per week four years after you have shelled out 600+ euros for the board.

However, this powerpointery is something we at The INQ cannot tolerate. With so many FUD being floated to distributors and AIB's to keep the company's image safe and bombing our inboxes, ICQ/MSN/Skype lines, we have decided to slap our white glove on faces of both Captain Canuck and Green Goblin. We dare both companies to a duel of fates.

Seven of INQ challenge rules are as follows:

1. Hardware invited: ATi X1800XT in single or CrossFire, nVIDIA 7800GTX 512MB single or SLI

2. Each company needs to deliver either a graphics card or a complete system, at their preference

3. The system will be configured by ourselves(details will be published in a separate article)

4. The systems will be run for 1170 hours, 11 minutes and 7 seconds straight, under 100% GPU load in today's shader intensive apps.

5. Resolution of 1280x1024 with maximum AntiAliasing and Anisotropic filtering shall be used.

6. During the duel, our estimate is that 22.083.010.560.000 pixels (22 trillion, 83 billion 10 million 560 thousand pixels) will be rendered on screen.

7. The boards will be monitored thermally in 8 hour intervals with an external laser-guided IC thermometer; a separate software utility will check the internal sensors 24x7 to see temperature variables.

Winner gets a special INQ "I Survived the 1170 Hour 11 Min 7 Sec Marathon" T-shirt and bragging rights.

ATI, Nvidia, do you dare to take the challenge? µ

L'INQ
TechPowerUp's showing ATi's FUD presentation