How much faster does a new card need to be ?

[exAndrzej]

Ok...

Let's put it to the HEXUS Massive test

Bear in mind that 6800 Ultra = 5,700 while 7800 GTX = 7,600 which gives a hike of around 33%

The question is, when a new technology comes through - how much faster than its predecessors does it need to be ?

[sawyen]

say, at least 30%-50% improvement in actual gaming FRAPS over previous generation cards in either their trademark games or in general as a whole.. Or else there's very little point.. really..

Ohh.. It would be nice to implement new techies like new SMs or renderers as well..

[exAndrzej]

...improvement...

Sorry - was typing options

Now its voting time !

[Applecrusher]

I think a 25% increase.. But it should drag the other boards down in price mucho more.. As im a mid range man..

[exAndrzej]

I might see if the HEXUS Hierarchy want to look at running this as a front page poll

I am intrigued to see that there is a split on opinion !
(albeit on a handful of votes)

I just always assume that customers are frighteningly demanding and would not want to get off the 'next gen performance train' until they reach the last stop

[Speed]

I think gaming performance increases are far far more important than any increase in 3D mark. So as long as the card allows me to play smoothly (i.e. good FPS increase) at higher resolutions with more AA/AF than the previous generation cards I'm happy.

As for percentage increase, as long as it's gaming performance increase not 3D mark, 25-33% sounds good. So I voted 33%.

[exAndrzej]

...gaming performance...

Agreed !

However, the advantage of the synths (Ash/Bishop ?) is that results can be compared globally without having to worry about 'which map was used' etc

Also, as an indicator, it can give all of us a useful 'yard stick'

Take the 6800Ultra Vx 7800GTX results one of the major magazines published for three main benching games at 1600x1200 with 4x/8x:-

Doom 3 went from 44 to 54 which is an increase of 10fps and that is +23%
Far Cry went from 43 to 58 - up 15 which is +35%
Half Life 2 went from 49 to 72- up 23 which is +47%

Average increase ?

35%

Difference in 3DMark 05 score ?

Around 3%

Surprisingly accurate prediction

Not in all cases - but I am just explaining why I picked this test for this poll

[muddyfox470]

Where is ATI's new gen may i ask?

Or is this some way of guaging opinion so ATI can whoop NVidia's ass?

The thing that stops me from buying ATi (and i have owned them, been about 50/50 so far) is the drivers, and tv out. The drivers are just nasty to install, why can't they be like nvidia (sorry) so you just have to install one thing, and it does everything, and so that the tv out can be readable on a normal tv.

However IMHO this is flawed, as in current benchmarks, the newer graphics cards will only increase performance by not that much (as most of the stuff is CPU limited) but in future games, and why graphics cards are brought out, for future performance, the gap will be much larger!

For me to buy a new card the difference would have to be about 50%, or just something that will last me another year or too.

But for all sakes and purposes... i voted for the 4th option

Ian

[Yohji]

I think at least 30-50% increase, hardly next generation if we don't see a significant increase in performance.

[unreal]

Eventhough I have a 9800 Pro and I play games a lot, I cannot justify purchasing a 7800GTX or R520 gen card yet. Not because they aren't good (they are, I've seen one in action and its a dream) but I need an even bigger jump in order for me to upgrade once again.

[Apex]

My own opinion at least double what the old version did.

[maverick77_uk]

I'd say 25% and more features (ie the next DX support). However, I'm very much a budget-orientated buyer. When I build myself a new comp, the total cost usually comes to less than the latest graphics card generation! Therefore, although I'm interested to see what the latest and greatest graphics cards are capable of, I'm mainly happy coz it will proabbly mean the cost of the last generation will come down, and I'll be able to afford one!

I'd have thought that really people are looking over every two generations, as most probably can't afford to upgrade their card every generation (12 months-ish?), and skip a genaration before up-grading - ie people running Geforce FX (sorry to mention the nVidia bit!), will prob now be looking at the 7800 series. I would doubt people running a 6800 Ultra will be seriously considering spending another £300 on a 7800GTX. And people running a Radeon 9800 card would be looking to upgrade to a ....... hang on, where is the next gen after the X series????

FYI, I'm currently running a Radeon 9550 and am very happy with it. Runs Doom 3 fine, and for £40 rather than £300, I don't have any worries! However, If you'd like me to see what I'm missing and would like to donate an AGP X800, I'd happily test it for you!!!!

See ya!

[Scarlet Infidel]

Well personally i wouldnt buy a card thats less than 50% faster than my current card but in terms of new genrations i think around 40% is a good level.

[exAndrzej]

...double...

Possible in some game environments - but a tough call because the CPUs are not supplying double the geometry every 'x' months

When the 3.2GHz chips were out, I remember seeing roadmaps that showed 4GHz, 5GHz and so forth... but not any more

...9800 Pro... ...need an even bigger jump...

I guess the other factor will be the new games that kick in after the launch of XBox 360 + the possibility of new screens - i.e. if you bought/borrowed/hi-jacked/got from a relative@Xmas a 24" master screen...
...maybe - just maybe - you'd be crying out for a little 'next-gen' luvin

[StoneNewt]

I basically get a new card when newer games were geting to slow on low to medium settings & spent what I could afford at the time.
Well I think went GF2 GTS -> GF3 Ti500 -> Rad 9600 XT -> X800 XL
So on ave that's what a 3x performence step per upgrade?

[Nick]

I used to deliberately buy behind bleeding edge technology as I just couldn't justify the enormous expense of the cards... I mean, buying a separate card equalled roughly half of what you could get an entire brand new PC for..

The last card I bought was bleeding edge, but then the card was superceded 6 months later and although it still runs most games fine, it is starting to struggle with the latest games coming out.

The other time I bought bleeding edge was years ago and by the time the devs were supporting the cards new features, it was too slow to run anything...

With devs and manufacturers working more closely together, the latter issue isn;t so much of a problem now, but I do very firmly believe that this six monthly (roughly) cycle of new products is really just suckering the consumer.

I'd MUCH rather see a longer gap between card generations and then see some serious performance hikes and a similar boost in feature sets. Rather than bring out one type of card and then add three others which are similar in performance but with addeed features, just bring out one card that rocks big time and leave it at that... maybe do a version upgrade at the most if needed, but otherwise give me one card in your bleeding edge set.

Multiple cards per generation only leave me feeling confused... If I had the money to burn, I'd for the fastest card on the market with the most features that were ACTUALLY supported by games at the time of purchase. As I'm on a budget and I'm actually shopping around for a card right now, I'm looking at which gives me the best bang for my buck...

How do I figure that out? Easy.... add up all the benchy scores, average them out and divide by the cheapest price I can find for that card.

You could argue that this is flawed by the really cheap, nearly obsolete cards becoming the prmio choice, but then, if they offer the best bang per buck, why would I want to spend £400 on a bleeding edge card?

Sure my new 'old' card might be useless in 6 months time, but I can buy 4 'old' cards for the price of one new one... That means I can upgrade twice a year for HALF the cost of upgrading to bleeding edge once!

And anyone who wants to argue I could upgrade to bleeding edge and leave it two years... well, no... The point is, I don't have £400 to blow and after two years my once bleeding edge card will be seriously struggling... At least with my way of buying I can keep a decent rig going...

So in answer to the poll I'd go for the unseen option of 'Nah, sorry, too much money mate... But keep bringing out the new stuff, it knocks everything else down into my price range, cheers!'.