ATI HD2900XT beats 8800GTS and comes close to 8800GTX

[Spank_Me_Hard]

Either way, regardless if I'm imagining it or not. Nvidia and ATi are finished fighting for the performance crown. The real tussle will definitely be in the midrange. If their able to be beat Nvidia's strong midrange for price vs performance, we'll have an interesting fight in the trenches. Very interesting...

This may very well be.

From what I've read, the 8600 series has not been the great buy that previous generations (i.e. 7600 and 6600) have been.

ATi may be really focusing on the mid range cards.

But I'm still waiting for work on the 2900XTX!

[Nater]

I made mention of the 8xxx series being part of this generation. You respond by saying that nVidia is close to launching the 8900... which is... you guessed it... part of the 8xxx generation.

The 8900 will be no leap in architecture like jumping from the 7xxx series to the 8xxx series was. It will be a moderate improvement... not a ground shaking one.

And you made a couple comparisons within the 7xxx generation itself (i.e. not a radical jump either).

That all being said, if I were to buy a card RIGHT NOW, it'd be the 8800GTX. And in fact, I'm in the market for a new card.

But I'm also planning on going quad core CPU when the price cuts happen... and it turns out that the 2900XTX is supposed to be out at about that time... so I'll wait to see what the final verdict is before jumping to any conclusions.

Bottom line is that when the time comes, I'll be going 2900XTX if it's worth it, or 8800GTX (and hopefully, the rumoured price drops here are true as well) if not.

nVidia has been talking up their next generation chip in HPC circles. There was a little bit mentioned about it with their recent release of G80 based GPGPU parts. They're talking about 64bit double precision FP, that means a completely new GPU design, by the end of the year. That makes sense, as you usually see a completely new GPU around 9-12 month intervals.

I don't think we're going to see a refresh of the G80 (hypothetical 8900GTX) this time around, as the competition from AMD just isn't strong enough to warrant that. The best they're going to do is the 8800 Ultra.

I think it's great what AMD has done with the driver releases, it makes the R600 far less disappointing. That and it's ability to overclock like hell. I'd say with a gig of GDDR4 and another 100MHz of core clock, it would be a really compelling product. I think that AMD might kick ATi's *** into shape by the time of the next launch.

[oc2001]

...
I think it's great what AMD has done with the driver releases, it makes the R600 far less disappointing. That and it's ability to overclock like hell. I'd say with a gig of GDDR4 and another 100MHz of core clock, it would be a really compelling product. I think that AMD might kick ATi's *** into shape by the time of the next launch.

One can only hope that AMD gets ATI going and cleans house, probably a lot of dead weight management. These cards that are just coming out should of been out 6 months ago, and if they had been, we would have greater choices now in the mid range market.

[Spank_Me_Hard]

nVidia has been talking up their next generation chip in HPC circles. There was a little bit mentioned about it with their recent release of G80 based GPGPU parts. They're talking about 64bit double precision FP, that means a completely new GPU design, by the end of the year. That makes sense, as you usually see a completely new GPU around 9-12 month intervals.

No doubt that the sucessor is in the making. I'm sure even ATi has theirs planned. If you look at CPUs... there are rough plans even two to three years down the road.

But reasonably, if nVidia is talking about the end of the year... realistically I'd say more like the middle of next year. Seems like nothing in computers ever comes out on the time stated.

And this is really what I'm talking about when I mention "next generation"... not moving from the 8800GTX to theoretical 8900GTX crap. People need to learn what a "generation" means.

Glad that you "got it".

I don't think we're going to see a refresh of the G80 (hypothetical 8900GTX) this time around, as the competition from AMD just isn't strong enough to warrant that.

You may be right. But... as with the quad core Core2's, they could still do it if they really wanted to make ATi look bad. Much worse than even now.

I think it's great what AMD has done with the driver releases, it makes the R600 far less disappointing. That and it's ability to overclock like hell. I'd say with a gig of GDDR4 and another 100MHz of core clock, it would be a really compelling product.

Which is why I'm still interested in what the 2900XTX may do (hopefully). And going from a 80nm to a 65nm fab process would probably also really help the power and the heat issues as well.

I think that AMD might kick ATi's *** into shape by the time of the next launch.

They may be down for the count this generation... but I'm confident that they'll be back.

ATi now has eceonmies of scale in their favour that nVidia doesn't have.

[OpStar]

I don't see any reason why the "new" generation from nVidia won't be out this winter. It'd be a full year from the g80 release, which is right on schedule for them, if even a bit slow.

[Russell]

ATi may be really focusing on the mid range cards.

Nope. Pre-release benchmarks show both the 2400 and 2600 series to suck compared to 8400 and 8600.

I don't see any reason why the "new" generation from nVidia won't be out this winter. It'd be a full year from the g80 release, which is right on schedule for them, if even a bit slow.

Word on the street is that we can expect a release around November, just like last year. Personally though, I wouldn't be surprised if nVidia took their time and waited until Q1 2008 since they likely won't have any real competition until then. It won't be a next-gen architecture in the sense that G80 was. More like the 6800-7800 series upgrade. Faster, smaller process, but kind of more of the same, which is hardly a bad thing. Or so they say...

[oc2001]

I would not put too much stock in pre-release benchmarks considering the ATi drivers are continualy being improved upon as a basis for concluding that Nvidia is faster. I would not even make a review of the cards right after they came out, but wait a month or two for the drivers to catch up.

[Spank_Me_Hard]

Nope. Pre-release benchmarks show both the 2400 and 2600 series to suck compared to 8400 and 8600.

Saw the Anandtech article today. Thought that ATi may have a shot in this arena... especially with nVidia's offering not impressing, but apparently not.

Word on the street is that we can expect a release around November, just like last year.

I thought the word on the street was that the Oilers were going to sign Redden or trade for Pitkanen?!?

[r'aggro]

Saw the Anandtech article today. Thought that ATi may have a shot in this arena... especially with nVidia's offering not impressing, but apparently not.



I thought the word on the street was that the Oilers were going to sign Redden or trade for Pitkanen?!?

heh just saw that.

Now ...hands off!

edit: actually the latest word on the street has Kubina + going your way for ... i forget.

[Nater]

I think the next generation of nVidia's cards will start hitting at the end of the year. I've heard rumblings that the mid-range will come first with the high-end/ultra high-end coming later. Who knows.

I am confident that they'll have the high-end stuff out by the end of the year, in time for Christmas. Then I'll be able to retire my 7900GTX cards to the storage rack.

[agello24]

i feel sorry for the intel proc holders and the new ati cards.

[rimmerchant]

I hate pc gaming... so expensive to be in and life cycle so short...

but I'm in it...