Are you ready for the GPU war?
IT IS STARTING to look like things are going to heat up on the GPU front as Nvidia and AMD go head-to-head in the next month or so.
Nvidia is expected to unveil the GeForce GT210, GT220 and GT240 in the fourth quarter. The cards will perform at 9400-9500GT levels and use DirectX 10.1.
The GT210 will come with 24-Cores, a 64-Bit Memory Bus, 512MB of DDR2 or DDR3 RAM clocked at 800MHz, and GPU and Shader units clocked at 600MHz and 1425MHz, respectively.
The GT220 has 48 processing cores to make it a bit faster, a 128-Bit Memory Bus, 1GB of RAM running at 1600MHz, and GPU and Shader clocks of 625MHz and 1375MHz, respectively.
Both of these will arrive just before the GT300 series in December.
AMD has lined up its troops to start appearing in October. These include the ATI Radeon HD 5770 and HD 5750. Both will come with 1GB GDDR5 memories and 128-bit memory interfaces.
The HD 5750 will have all the features of its higher end counterpart like 40nm, DX11, Eyefinity technology, ATI Stream, UVD2, and GDDR5 memory. It will be relatively cheap as chips as GPUs go.
The ATI Radeon HD 5870 X2 and Radeon HD 5850 X2 should be in the shops in November. These feature 25 per cent more shader processors compared to the RV770 GPUs. It looks like a seriously good chip which is much smaller than previous efforts.
But it looks like the sales pitches between the two sides will centre around DirectX11.
AMD seems to think that the world plus dog is ready for it while Nvidia is still lagging. The fact that Nvidia's GT210, GT220 and GT240 are an 'upgrade' to DirectX10.1 shows that the Green Goblin is either taking a conservative approach or can't produce DirectX11 capable parts yet.
Nvidia's GeForce G210 is for the budget conscious while the GT220 will be for the mainstream and the GT240 for gamers.
AMD will target its Radeon HD 5770 and 5750 into the $150 to $200 market and is going to use the Radeon HD 5890 as a reserve force if the battle gets tough.
Our sources indicate that Nvidia is going to start the war off by announcing a range of price cuts.
The Green Goblin has to move fast if it wants to match AMD in this war. In the first quarter of 2010, AMD will launch entry-level GPUs codenamed Redwood and Cedar, while Nvidia has nothing to offer and its technology could be perceived as being out-of-date if AMD convinces everyone that DirectX11 is the way forward. Either way, these will be interesting times. µ.
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... If you want to do scientific rendering. For games, expect it to be twice as expensive, twice as noisy, pull twice as much power and not be arriving until the middle of next year.
Good luck with that Nvidia...
I know what chip is going to be in my box next summer.
WOW does Nvidia live in a time warp or did someone forget to tell them that its DX11 cards the public is asking for. Perhaps now we will now get the 10.1 patches for games that we should have had 2 years ago. I will bet Nvidia will do its best to hold back game developers for another year if we are lucky since kissed their ass with DX10 why not DX11 or will MS just start calling DX10.1 DX11. Anyone wanna bet ?
If it's as good as BSN says, and they deliver soon
- this will really piss Charlie off!
- but more importantly, it looks like it could be a real Larabee killer
- and it's at least a year, probably two, before Larabee will be a real product.
- I guess that's why Kicking Pat G had to leave....
As for AMD - their DX11 parts look pretty good too
- so, it should be an interesting battle between the Green team & the Red team, with the consumer the winner!
It looks like the comment pasting from BSN got removed - so my comment looks out of place now...
- but assuming no one here minds, BSN have an interesting article on the GT300
http://www.brightsideofnews.com
You can expect your big, power hungry, expensive chip next year. I find hilarious that they can't produce a mainstream directx 11 chip to save their lives. I can read analysts headlines now. Drop this stock like it's hot.
Wait a minute people play games on a PC still? Why push so hard on improving hardware when PS3 and Xbox get all the new games.
Let's see if I have this right.
ATI's 5870 is MSRP'd at $379 and equals/shreds Nvidia's 295 (2xGPU's) which is currently priced at least $100 more on average. ATI's 5850 shreds Nvidia's 285 model (their fastest single CPU card), has a MSRP of $259, and is about $100 less than current average 285 prices. And ATI is thought to have 5700-type parts coming out below, at even cheaper prices, that will demolish 250, 260 and 275 Nvidia parts.
And should Nvidia's paper tiger (GT300) actually ever see the light of day, ATI has the even faster 5890 and, heaven's forbid, a 5870x2 (and possibly 5850x2) set of models available to throw into the fray!
Things haven't been going well for Nvidia on the 40 nm front recently, and the fact that their much-hyped GT200-series ATI-killer turns out to be merely DX 10.1 9500's or whatnot, should turn them (and their hyperbole-casting CEO) into the laughing-stocks of the industry. Turkeys unite! (Line up behind Nvidia).
GT220 has been out for quite a while. Dell are pitching tons of them in midrange machines.
Having just read the GT300 general specs on BSN, I don't see how it can possibly be competitive with the 5800 series for gaming.
It MAY be overall faster, but at 3 billion+ transistors and the CPU function cludge, it can't possibly compete on efficiency or price.
Why would game developers want to get entangled with this monstrosity that is going to be late, inefficient relative to gaming performance, power hungry and expensive. I think ATI is going to pull well ahead of Nvidia in market share this round and the devolopers are going to be optimizing their games enmasse specifically for the 5800 series.
...interested in gaming any more. They want to sell expensive scientific processors and pretend they have a CPU. This is so that they don't get killed between AMD and Intel, both of whom will be offering complete platforms (chipset/CPU/GPU). Nvidia can't compete as they don't have a CPU, so they've made their GPU into a pretend CPU.
Too little too late NV. the GT300 is the early P4 of the gpu world. too hot and limited in scope.
Rebranding cos you cant get the die shrink done. (Perhaps you should have followed the universal laws to ensure your chip COULD be die shrunk).
Screwing your consumers by "burying" the issues with laptops. Angering OEMs. (Especially Apple whos really put the boot in on their tech faq)
Now you are playing desperate catch up. Pretending dx11 isnt needed. (Hint folks. Its NV that got DX10 crippled as their cards could not run it and their hardware wasnt ready.)
Oh must not forget that you are that insecure you DISABLE physx on any system that has an ATI card in it. So instead of having ATI ppl buying a nv card to run physx on... they now wont buy your cards at all (well actually they will but take them back in frustation when they dont work).
At least your mobile phone chipsets are showing promise. Its your one saving grace.
Its a shame to see such a good engineering firm slide beneath the waves of the PR and poor management. It started when they kill soundstorm and it hasnt got much better since.
Fire your idiots and get your engineering back on track asap.
10.1 after ati releases 11 is pretty sad. That actually makes you look worse and shows how far behind you are. Because let's face it, if nvidia's directx 11 stuff was going to be ready this fall I don't think they'd be releasing a bunch of new 10.1 parts. And GT300 had better be good. I think maybe nvidia should have designed two chips in tandem, the gamer part and the professional part just in case. But we'll see I guess.
I HOPE YOU'RE READING THIS!
jump. ship.
Damn, I'm getting good!
I used to waste time trying to decipher what the poster was talking about only to see it was a Drashek/Utel/Stewie post.
I'm now able to identify a Drashek post in three words or less and ignore it.
Life is GOOD! :)
How many words does it take you to detect Drashekness?
I've yet to see a decent Flight simulator (Combat or General Avaiation)or Submarine Sim on a console. A simple Joystick and Throttle don't cut it these days. Even an FPS is much more enjoyable (the simplicity of WASD and aiming with a mouse)
MS Flight Simulator could have really made use of the eye-candy that should have come out with DX10, if not for interference from nVidia... looks like we'll finally get what we were promised in DX11
Of course if all you play on is a console... I suppose you'll have to be happy with DX9/10 performance, you won't enjoy what you're missing until that piece of electronics goes to the land fill. And then you have to throw the whole thing away... instead of replacing the portion that failed (PS, CPU, GPU, Soundcard) That's the real reason why we play on a PC
btw, I was able to filter Drashek out in 4 words... still need practise
Damn! It took me four words... still, nobody's perfect eh, Drashy?
The fact is that 10.1 features can be done in 10.0 hardware with little to no performance loss on most. Back when 10.1 first came out NV showed that they could do 10.1 in software with little to no performance difference. So that's what we have here, 10.1 in software. It'll feature the same 10.0 hardware with drivers that do the calls. Since it's on the mainstream products and NV knows most of those customers aren't interested in benchmarking it doesn't have much to lose.
bringing butter knives to a gun fight!
That's what you get when you rely too much on underhand marketing(TWIMTBP) for far too long.
I don't even read a word of Drashek's blathering any more. I see the post with an overabundance of capital letters, and skip down directly to the author.
Nine times out of ten, it's him, and I go to the next post.
When it's not, it's most often because of acronyms that are heavily used, and I go back up and read it.
Let me count the ways.
1. Renaming old tech to bamboozle consumers.
2. Charging money for HDTV decoders when ATI offers them for free.
3. Denying shoddy workmanship until every man + dog knows you're flat-out lying.
4. "Massaging" benchmarks
5. Dangling carrot after carrot in front of loyal fanbois while ATI lovers merrily munch away on REAL carrots.
Nvidia = Contempt for consumers.
That's all folks(for nVidia)
Never, ever, ever again will I buy a product of yours.
BTW, ASUS I suggest you also jump ship.
I probably would've already bought 2 of your current notebooks if they didn't all have rebadged 9000 series GPUs.
Is this yet another year of Nvidia treading water and just giving us a die-shrink and a new number range?
Tweaking the clock rates for the high-end models isnt really enough Nvidia.
Bought Nvidia for years but will move to ATI/AMD as at least they are trying to bring some new tech to the party.
It amazes me at how many AMD/ATI fanboys are writing up in here...and some of hese posts are probably by the same person. You want AMD to slaughter NVIDIA and run it into the ground so AMD can jack up their prices? Then they get comfortable with their position on top and you'll all start complaining like 4 year olds again.
It's pretty pathetic if you ask me. A graphics card fight between the two giants in the industry is only good for consumers yet you all moan and complain like a lot of schoolgirls.
Get a clue before you go preaching for other companies to "jump ship" because in all honesty, you have no idea what you are talking about.
Good day.
So what exactly is wrong with deciding to try a different manufacturers products when they actually offer something new rather than just the same old product but with a new name and price? Fanboys have nothing to do with this. Why give your undying 'loyalty' to a tech firm? You know they dont actually know you exist or care about you?
There was a time that we had new effects and graphics features nearly every 6 months. This hasnt happend to any great degree in years.
Maybe jumping ship to the firm that actually brings something new to the table will make the other stop churnng out the same tired old crap?
Market forces and all that.
I pity the fool that keeps buying the same product over and over in the hope of keeping the status quo.
If we hadnt jumped ship all those years ago we might still be using 3dfx gear in glorious 16bit colour.
C'mon, nVidious, get your act together!
With the 5000 series, ATi has captured the speed crown, is using DX11, has solved most of its former heat and idle power usage problems, and by making the chips relatively small (for their performance) it has production efficiency and therefore good pricing. You, on the other hand, are still using rebranded versions of already rebranded cards as you hope and pray for the next chips to save the day. News: with fast but large (and thus expensive) chips and with DX10.1 not DX11, you're going to have problems.
If ATi dominates, there's no incentive to drop prices, so we need nVidia to push them. SO far, all it's pushing is PR up a hill.
If you people seriously think this is a war look at Nvidia's cards they are nowhere close to ATI and way outclassed. People say DX11 is irrelevant because of there being no DX11 titles but forgetting that current 58xx slaps Nvidia silly even in older DX and is cheaper. This is not ATI's new architecture but just an evolution the real thing is still coming. Why does Nvidia disable features on ATI cards if they are not threatened?