Who's waiting for Nvidia Fermi

[ajones]

Oh Dear....

Welcome back Rollo.

So many statements to poke holes into...
So little will to try to bother

[Hicks12]

1234

1. It's no surprise ati probably has higher sales than nvidia now, they have their next gen parts out now, nvidia doesn't. Otoh, we don't actually know ati has higher sales. Last year when it seemed like every person on every forum on the planet was declaring "omg! 48xx ftw! No one is buying nvidia cards!", ati gained 2-3% marketshare, andn still trailed by a long way.

this maybe correct, i dont know but i bet low performance gpu sales were way higher then nvidia simply because it is cheaper/better on the ati cards! (and again this time with 5000).

2. You discount the fact that like their owner amd, ati does not have the mindshare of the public. People on forums are not "the public", they're computer hobbyists who aren't afraid to buy off brand and experiment. (e.g. I was using amd cpus for years when it was a mish mash of drivers and prayers to use their motherboards) the public sees the nvidia logo on every game they launch, knows nvidia is the market leader, and buys nvidia like they buy intel.

no, your right we arent the general public but when people like me do alot of upgrading for friends/family with new gpus'cpus etc, they all get the best performance because i look into it and funnily enough its been amd/ati all the bloody time! (apart from 3000 series,maybe). So that means having a good card in every price bracket is you gain alot more sales, nvidia fail to realise that they need to redesign their low end chips and not just rebadge because they simply cant compete until that (i do want fermi to be used in lower end if possible to shake market).

The public see the nvidia, 'the way to apple market' everytime on games that nvidia spent time on that however i believe its to much branding and does my nut in and discourages me to buy nvidia (petty but it does!). Amd are doing open source and are helping just as much and yet they dont go all in the publics face and makes them waste 10 seconds of their life while waiting for the logo!.

3. Ati's current generation offers only one feature beyond running games fast: Eyefinity. Nvidia's new cards will offer that, eyefinity in 3d, 3d, physx, cuda, more flexible/robust multi gpu drivers. Enthusiasts have seen that developers are indeed adopting physx and 3d optomization in popular games (e.g batman, re5, dark void, mirrors edge) and don't want to be left out. 3d is starting to take off in a big way- it was all over ces. Last but not least, nvidia cards will offer superior dx11 (and dx9/10) performance) and people will always pay for fastest.

yes it offers eyefinity, nvidias cards will not have that! Dont lie, get it right... Not allowed to be called the same, it will be like a chinese copy tactic but with a name change like this eyefinty or what ever nvidia reband it as, either way they are late with this idea and all credit goes to amd for this!. 3d, wow doesnt interest me unless the monitors/tv's hit an affordable level so really nvidia is aiming for the enthusiast market right where there is little in sales? Compared to low/mid ofc. Physix, havok is alright too so whats the main advantage here?. Cuda, that is actually a good idea but still needs to be refined.

People always pay for the fastest in their price bracket! Im sorry but having the fastest card at like £1000 compared to one that probably offers very close performance at £600 is crap really, no one will buy it apart from for e-peen and thats the same with intels extreme range, they dont sell much at all!.

So all the cost of developing 3d/physx/cuda etc has to be gathered somewhere and along with the r&d and the much more expensive manufactoring of the fermi chip (double die size!), means that nvidia is going to offer something at say £300 which is equivilant to a £200 amd gpu, i dont know many people who would pay £100 more for a little extra.... You said yourself companies dont aim for people on forums like these and actually to the general public and yet the public wouldnt worry about the extras as they dont know what it does!

Have fun rollo, look forward to fermi being released so i can finally make my gpu choice (hopefully it makes everything damn cheap!)


so while you as a consumer might think "nvidia has no chance", i think your analysis is flawed. (so is yours)

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

"nvidia is going to offer something at say £300 which is equivilant to a £200 amd gpu, i dont know many people who would pay £100 more for a little extra.... You said yourself companies dont aim for people on forums like these and actually to the general public and yet the public wouldnt worry about the extras as they dont know what it does! "

Well according to the poll I have made on Hexus a lot of people will not spend over £200 on a graphics card with many actually preferring not to spend more than £150 usually and this is on a hardware forum. This reflects what I have seen in real life with almost all the PC gamers I have known. Also most PC components shops in the UK also tend to stock graphics cards in this range with anything over £150 to £200 usually having to be specially ordered in. The only people I know who spend over £200 on a graphics cards seem to be hardware enthusiasts.

It is fine going on about HD5870,HD5970,GTX360 and GTX380 cards but I still suspect these will be still over £200 even in three months time and really not relevant to most PC gamers. TBH,even the HD5850 was to expensive for a long time and is now going back towards the £200 mark or less.

3D gaming whether it is done on any company's hardware is pointless ATM since you need special monitors which are more expensive than their non-3D equivalents. The only time when the tech is going to become popular is when the cost of 3D capable monitors is very close to that of the equivalent non-3D capable version and even then technologies where glasses are not needed is coming out soon which negates the need to be spending extra money on and wearing 3D glasses.

Of course then there is the threat of consoles too which don't need to be upgraded, are guaranteed to run the games developed for them well and the hardware last for yonks. Plenty of PC gamers are know gravitating towards consoles for these very reasons.

[Biscuit]

Nvidia doesnt really offer the multi display experience in the same way as ATI as you need to have dual card setups (SLI) for it to work with more than 2 displays. You can run up to 6 off each ATI card i believe.

Admitadly if you pushing that number of pixels your going to want dual cards (if you using a 200 series model) but i would expect a fermi to be able to run at least 3 at decent enough frame rate... but its capped at 2 FAIL!

[DanceswithUnix]

3D gaming whether it is done on any company's hardware is pointless ATM since you need special monitors which are more expensive than their non-3D equivalents. The only time when the tech is going to become popular is when the cost of 3D capable monitors is very close to that of the equivalent non-3D capable version and even then technologies where glasses are not needed is coming out soon which negates the need to be spending extra money on and wearing 3D glasses.

Agree.

Also I looked recently and could only see 1680x1050 monitors with 3D support when 1920x1080 would be a minimum, so I don't see my wife's next monitor being 3D (and she plays WoW which supports it 3D it could have been a factor).

[Phage]

Very interesting Poll over at Ars.
http://arstechnica.com/media/news/20...out-for-3d.ars
It appears that no-one gives a rats about 3D.

[Pob255]

Sorry But I'm getting a bit sick of this eyefinity is brillent, 3d is rubbish and costs more rubbish.

Yes you need a 120khz capable monitor, Dual link DVI cable and the glasses to run 3d, and yes they are more expensive than most monitors, which are 60-75khz

However to run eyefinity you NEED a display port monitor, low and behold there's also very few monitors currently out that have display port and they are all MORE expensive than most monitors.
When you look at the price differences a high refresh rate monitor that you need for 3d is not really more expensive than the monitor with display port you need for eyefinity.

Looking at the total for a single screen 3d setup and a 3 screen eyefinity setup guess which is going to have the higher total?

One thing I will say is that nvidia really does seem to have just tagged the triple monitor setup on at the end because Ati did it and it's proving more popular than they thought.
By the reports nvidia cards cannot support 3 monitors on one card but need 2 in sli, although by the sounds of it you can use any old 3 monitors, there doesn't have to be any thing special about them at all.

To use the 3d surround however you'd need 3 high refresh rate monitors, this setup is going to be expensive.
On top of this there's also a performance hit due to the double render nature of 3, combine that with a 3 monitor out put and performance is going to take a massive hit.
Fermi is going to have to be very very beefy to susstain that, however if you cannot afford a pair top end cards you'd not be able to afford the cost of the setup.

[shaithis]

Actually, you do not need a DP monitor, you can get a DP > DVI adapter.

But otherwise you are correct....the main difference that I see though between the 2 techs though? A lot of people already have 2 monitors and even if you don't, it's cheaper to buy another then it is to replace your current screen.

At the end of the day, both are gimmicks for now at least.....and neither feature is going to make or break the two companies.

Once 3D gets a lot better then it is now, it could potentially sway a lot of peoples opinions, although it has a fair way to go yet IMO.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Haha!! Looks like ATI is also having a stab at 3D technology too:

http://www.nordichardware.com/news,10576.html

[Pob255]

Actually, you do not need a DP monitor, you can get a DP > DVI adapter.

Yep, but you need an ACTIVE display port adaptor which is around £100 or about the same amount extra to get a Display port monitor over a normal one.

However I do agree these are pritty much just gimicks atm
the one technology I'd of like to seen persued thurver was dual polarisation monitors, Like the Zalman Trimon, as this requires no special syncing of the glasses to screen and no added flickering
Granted they where not cheap and required an nvidia card (driver support) but still is probably the best way to do 3d

[ajones]

Sorry But I'm getting a bit sick of this eyefinity is brillent, 3d is rubbish and costs more rubbish.

I kind of agree, although I would have stopped there.

Eyefinity, and 3D are in my mind gimmicks and I'm not interested in them. I followed the PhysX news when it first came to light, but never to the point of purchasing dedicated hardware. IMHO, those are enthusiast features and hence a waste of time and money for the masses. I don't care about CUDA, rarely use AA etc (although with a 7800 and 3870 I have little choice ).

I want something that'll drive my 24" wide screen at nice rates without stuttering. I don't want to spend another 100 quid upgrading my PSU because the one I have doesn't have the balls. Most importantly, whilst a silent PC isn't a must, I'd rather not have a system that sounds like a Harrier Jump Jet.

[Phage]

I'd allow it to sound like a Harrier, if I can strap missiles to it.

[Hicks12]

"nvidia is going to offer something at say £300 which is equivilant to a £200 amd gpu, i dont know many people who would pay £100 more for a little extra.... You said yourself companies dont aim for people on forums like these and actually to the general public and yet the public wouldnt worry about the extras as they dont know what it does! "

Well according to the poll I have made on Hexus a lot of people will not spend over £200 on a graphics card with many actually preferring not to spend more than £150 usually and this is on a hardware forum. This reflects what I have seen in real life with almost all the PC gamers I have known. Also most PC components shops in the UK also tend to stock graphics cards in this range with anything over £150 to £200 usually having to be specially ordered in. The only people I know who spend over £200 on a graphics cards seem to be hardware enthusiasts.

It is fine going on about HD5870,HD5970,GTX360 and GTX380 cards but I still suspect these will be still over £200 even in three months time and really not relevant to most PC gamers. TBH,even the HD5850 was to expensive for a long time and is now going back towards the £200 mark or less.

My post was an example , same as having a £150 ati card or a £200 nvidia card who would pay £50 for a small amount of extra features? If they have a budget then they wont go above it, simples aint it really .

[ajones]

I'd allow it to sound like a Harrier, if I can strap missiles to it.

Lol!

Maybe that's a feature Rollo is under NDA not to talk about, plus the opportunities for friendly fire may be too great.

But anyway, if Fermi doesn't deliver on power/noise, to me it's just competition for ATi and hopefully cheaper 5hxxx cards

[shaithis]

We never know, perhaps nVidia found a use for all those unused Prescott heatsink/fans

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Anyway I am still hoping that the cards under the GTX360 are quite decent.