NVIDIA, MSI, and Lucid speak about Hydra delay

[Rollo]

The HD5970 doesn't just beat a GTX295, it destroys it, 39-64% in Far Cry 2, 27% (outside CPU-limited tests) in Quake Wars, 20% in COD6 and a whopping 61% in Crysis just to start with. (On top of that, the 5970 actually matches two GTX295s in Q-SLI in Crysis).
Now add all the games the 295 doesn't run at 2560x1600 due to the memory performance, it's obvious.
I'd be very surprised if the Fermi single GPU card has anything on the HD5970, though I do expect it to outrank the HD5870.

I'd hope it beats a GTX295, what you're doing is like comparing a GTX295 to a 3870X2. As you say, the GTX295 destroys the 3870x2- but what's the point of comparison? When the 5970 launches it will be the fastest card for a while. If your prediction about Fermi is true, the dual Fermi card will supplant it and likely cost more.

What are "all the games the GTX295 doesn't run at 25X16"? I haven't run across one. I've seen one or two games in reviews where they tried to run 8XAA not working, but I've never heard of one at 4X AA.

I still maintain at 25X16 8X MSAA is largely irrelevant. For that matter I think the difference between 4X MSAA and 8X MSAA is very incremental- something that has to be looked for, not something that is noticed for the most part.

[shaffaaf27]

the 295 does beat the 5870 in most tests that anand did.

[Biscuit]

wow off topic again much... why are u guys even acknowledging Rollos posts anymore. Im just pretending he doesnt exist so i can get on with enjoying decent discussion... can we have some more please?

[Phage]

I've said it before, and I'll re-post it now.
We need NV to compete. C'mon NV, pull your collective fingers out and release something we can use.

[sammorris]

Agreed, we are just fanboy baiting here, it has nothing to do with the original post. Still, just to clear things up.
From TechPowerup (the most comprehensive HD5 series review imo) - all at 2560x1600 4xAA except STALKER Clear Sky and UT3.

Battleforge: GTX295 26% ahead of HD5870, HD5970 19% ahead of GTX295

Call of Duty 4: GTX295 20% ahead of HD5870, HD5970 30% ahead of GTX295 (CPU limited)

Call of Juarez Bound in Blood: HD5870 2% ahead of GTX295, HD5970 61% ahead of GTX295

Company of Heroes: GTX295 24% ahead of HD5870, HD5970 22% ahead of GTX295

Crysis (High?): GTX295 equal to HD5870, HD5970 132% ahead of GTX295

Dawn of War 2: GTX295 7% ahead of HD5870, HD5970 53% ahead of GTX295

ET Quake Wars: GTX295 28% ahead of HD5870, HD5970 19% ahead of GTX295

Far Cry: GTX295 81% ahead of HD5870, GTX295 11% ahead of HD5970

Far Cry 2: GTX295 19% ahead of HD5870, HD5970 44% ahead of GTX295

FEAR: GTX295 13% ahead of HD5870, HD5970 27% ahead of GTX295

HAWX: GTX295 30% ahead of HD5870, HD5970 11% ahead of GTX295

Prey: HD5870 2% ahead of GTX295, HD5970 51% ahead of GTX295

Quake 4: HD5870 6% ahead of GTX295, HD5970 26% ahead of GTX295 (CPU limited)

Riddick: Dark Athena: GTX295 10% ahead of HD5870, HD5970 42% ahead of GTX295

STALKER: GTX295 2% ahead of HD5870, HD5970 29% ahead of GTX295

STALKER Clear Sky: HD5870 106% ahead of GTX295, HD5970 158% ahead of GTX295

Team Fortress 2: GTX295 = HD5870 = HD5970 (CPU limited)

Unreal Tournament 3: GTX295 38% ahead of HD5870, HD5970 14% ahead of GTX295

World in Conflict: GTX295 34% ahead of HD5870, HD5970 12% ahead of GTX295

The most bizarre thing about this benchmark is that the HD5970 actually scales better from 2 to 4 GPUs than it does from 1 to 2 GPUs, presumably due to the immaturity of the internal crossfire setup. On that basis, when the HD5970 is ready for retail, quad crossfire with the cards is going to be insane. Also note that STALKER Clear Sky managed to cripple the GTX295 even without AA applied.

In short, the GTX295 is ahead of the HD5870 by reasonably minor amounts in a large number of titles, the only real leads it has in modern titles are in HAWX, World in Conflict, UT3 and Battleforge. The HD5870 that gets "slapped around" holds its own in Crysis, CoJ2, DoW2, Prey, FEAR, Quake 4, Dark Athena, STALKER, STALKER Clear Sky and TF2. That's quite a lot of games, many of them notable benchmarks.

Now I'll let you get back to saying what's already been said about nvidia buggering with PhysX. You aren't going to change anything by grizzling people... :S

[Rollo]

I've said it before, and I'll re-post it now.
We need NV to compete. C'mon NV, pull your collective fingers out and release something we can use.

NVIDIA will compete, just not for a couple months. It's not like they can schedule launches. The ATi HD2900XT came out half a year after the NVIDIA 8800GTX, the NVIDIA FX5800 came out almost half a year after the ATi 9700. The ATi X1800 came out half a year after the NVIDIA 7800GTX.

This is just the way it goes often as not. In this case, I'd almost expect NVIDIA to be later to market.
The changes in the Fermi are much more significant than the changes in the HD5XXX series. The leap from DX10.1 arch to DX11 is not huge, ATi (and NVIDIA with their DX10.1 parts for that matter) were most of the way there.

ATi kept the same basic 5 SP VLIW clusters they had, just doubled them up and added more TMUs again.

NVIDIA basically re-invented the stream processor for Fermi, I'v seen it said that their new SPs are more like CPU floating point units in terms of functionality than what we've thought of as unified arch SPs to date. I've heard this will pay off big time for both gaming and GPGPU from NVIDIA, but I haven't seen the launch webex we always get some weeks before NDA expires yet, so I haven't seen numbers.

[Rollo]

Agreed, we are just fanboy baiting here, it has nothing to do with the original post. Still, just to clear things up.

Now I'll let you get back to saying what's already been said about nvidia buggering with PhysX. You aren't going to change anything by grizzling people... :S

I would say people with GTX295s (or any last gen high end multi GPU) have little reason to buy one HD5870.

I'd also say anyone in the market for a card right now has very good reason to consider both the HD5870 and the HD5970- they're the current single and multi GPU performance leaders, and offer DX11.

I could make a case either way at 5850 and below.

[sammorris]

Oh of course, unless perhaps a very dedicated 2560x1600 user, a GTX295 owner has no need to buy an HD5870 (besides, given the comparative stock availability they should really just buy an HD5970 instead), but to those buying a new card today, HD5870 vs GTX295 is a no brainer.

[NVIDIA_tap]

Just wanted to thank everyone that took the time to discuss NVIDIA/Hydra/PhysX with me. Last thing before I signoff, I want to followup on the 295 issue at 25x16 8xAA described earlier on CrysisWarhead. Our testing has shown that this is related to the amount of system memory in the test rig. We are still looking at it to see if the textures are just so huge that they blow our 4G systems. I'll do one more post one that has our data is finalized.

Thanks for sharing your views.

Mahalo, TAP

[Zhaoman]

Oh of course, unless perhaps a very dedicated 2560x1600 user, a GTX295 owner has no need to buy an HD5870 (besides, given the comparative stock availability they should really just buy an HD5970 instead), but to those buying a new card today, HD5870 vs GTX295 is a no brainer.

Honestly you can't compare a 5970 to a GTX295 because they are in different leagues with respect to price and generation. As Rollo said it's like comparing a GTX295 to a 3870X2.

Also I don't think you can say with any certainty that the 5970 is so untouchable. nVidia have done it before during ATi's 3 series when the 9800GTX was holding it's own against the 3870X2 which was ATi's best effort and they may well do it again, you never know. Of course we all know what happened when the 9800GX2 came along so I think there is still everything to play for. nVidia are a little late to the party having had a huge span of 3 years since their 8800 architecture to develop something so I would imagine they have something up their sleeves. Point is: nothing is decided until we see this 'Fermi' gpu in the flesh so there's no point arguing who's DX11 part is better

[Rollo]

Honestly you can't compare a 5970 to a GTX295 because they are in different leagues with respect to price and generation. As Rollo said it's like comparing a GTX295 to a 3870X2.

Also I don't think you can say with any certainty that the 5970 is so untouchable. nVidia have done it before during ATi's 3 series when the 9800GTX was holding it's own against the 3870X2 which was ATi's best effort and they may well do it again, you never know. Of course we all know what happened when the 9800GX2 came along so I think there is still everything to play for. nVidia are a little late to the party having had a huge span of 3 years since their 8800 architecture to develop something so I would imagine they have something up their sleeves. Point is: nothing is decided until we see this 'Fermi' gpu in the flesh so there's no point arguing who's DX11 part is better

Well said. For now, 5XXX series is best. (if you can get one) Tomorrow, who knows?

[sammorris]

Honestly you can't compare a 5970 to a GTX295 because they are in different leagues with respect to price and generation. As Rollo said it's like comparing a GTX295 to a 3870X2.

Also I don't think you can say with any certainty that the 5970 is so untouchable. nVidia have done it before during ATi's 3 series when the 9800GTX was holding it's own against the 3870X2 which was ATi's best effort and they may well do it again, you never know. Of course we all know what happened when the 9800GX2 came along so I think there is still everything to play for. nVidia are a little late to the party having had a huge span of 3 years since their 8800 architecture to develop something so I would imagine they have something up their sleeves. Point is: nothing is decided until we see this 'Fermi' gpu in the flesh so there's no point arguing who's DX11 part is better

That's not actually what we're arguing at all. I have almost no doubt that nvidia will trump ATI's DX11 offerings, when they actually appear, but right now, it's rather like the period between the 8800GTX and the HD4870, for a few months at least, there is no competition.

[shaffaaf27]

but the 8800gtx to 4870 was like nearly two years not a few months

[sammorris]

Yes it was, the timescale is different, but the same principle applies.

[Rollo]

Yes it was, the timescale is different, but the same principle applies.

It's not "quite" the same.

In the two years between the 8800GTX and the 4870 ATi was competing at any level, the 2900s and 3800s were pretty bad. They weren't talking about 8X AA back then, they were talking about how we didn't really need 4X AA because those two generations couldn't even run AA at all without a huge hit. Coupled with lower performance across the board, it was lean times for ATi.

The NVIDIA products are still selling well for a couple reasons:
1. They offer some things ATi cards don't (PhysX, 3d Vision, CUDA) but don't have EyeFinity or DX11- so people are choosing which means more to them on parts that largely perform the same.
2. In the states at least, it's very hard to buy a 5XXX part. Vendors get a couple here and there, they sell out instantly.

If you're a kid who gets a GTX285 for Christmas instead of a 5850, what will the difference to you be? Basically the DX11 games that come out will run a little slower, but probably still more than fast enough. You'll be able to see the PhysX effects in games as an offset to that.

The only market ATi has sewn up now is the 5970 tromps everything.

[sammorris]

There was no need for any of that post. It was just more 'how dare you potentially be saying something about nvidia that might be bad?'. You knew what I was talking about, you just had to come back just to make sure your precious nvidia wasn't getting any abuse. Grow up.