ATI's new cards

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2005-10-06 02:11pm

[H]ardocp wrote: Behold the link!
The long wait is finally over; ATI’s next generation graphics technology is here. It has been a very long time since we have seen a big architectural change from ATI.

The results? Not much better and somewhat worse than equvilant Nvidia cards. 7800GTX still holds the crown. Which sad to say, is a very bad thing for ATI.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2005-10-06 02:15pm

I've read most of the reviews online, its either equvilent or worse, the X1600 can't even match up to a 6600GT half the time, nevermind its competitor a 6800.

I have no idea what to make of ATi's new offering.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2005-10-06 03:05pm

Isn't it funny that somebody released fake benchmarks a while back to get back at ATI, and then the real ones turn out to be almost indistinguishable from the fake ones?

In any case, there are a couple of issues: The fact that the new Radeons are using beta drivers means that we can expect a significant increase in performance, perhaps enough to make the X1800 faster in most or all games than the 7800. As it stands, the XL is about the same as the GT performance-wise. More importantly, however, the new ATI cards have significant improvements in image quality with regards to anti-aliasing techniques and ansiotropic filtering. So if the performance is the same, but one card puts out a nicer looking image, then that card wins.

Because ATI could not muster a hard launch like NVIDIA did, I don't think we'll see their cards being sold nearly as cheaply as the 7800 series. In fact, they will probably command a premium over MSRP for a while. Some people will be swayed by the better image quality and the Avivo features and will pay the extra price, but most will probably continue to buy 7800's. That means that unless they pull a rabbit out of their asses, ATI loses this round.

Either because NVidia has been playing it close to their chests, or because everyone has been so focused on X1800 rumor-mongering, I haven't heard anything about when NVidia plans on refreshing their lineup, but if they can hard launch a significantly improved refresh card before ATI's paper launched products finally hit shelves at reasonable prices, ATI will be left with a product that's slower in most or all games and costs more, and may or may not retain an advantage in image quality and home theater. In other words, they'll be good and screwed.

The X1600 series trails behind the 6800 non-ultra in current games, but is about at parity in the newest games and demoes, so it should take the lead over the next couple of years. Still, the vanilla 6800's give so much performance for so little money that I don't consider the X1600 series to be a good buy, and doubt that it will ever be a good buy unless the price drops rapidly. It will be in an especially bad spot if/when a 7600 series or vanilla 7800 card emerges.

The X1300 series is not something I care about, and I hope no one is considering getting one. For the same price you could get a 9800 Pro that would make the X1300 its own personal bitch. Budget cards are always a ripoff.

So basically, ATI is not going to be taking any crowns this generation, although enough people may be willing to pay a premium for the improved IQ and home theater capabilities that they won't totally lose out. If NVidia comes out with a great refresh card, however, ATI could be totally up shit creek without a paddle.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2005-10-06 03:07pm

nVidia won't come out with the G80 anytime soon but they have Revision 80 drivers up their sleave with significent preformance increases.

Arrow · Post by **Arrow** » 2005-10-06 04:23pm

The kicker is that, at least according the anandtech review (IIRC), the new ATI card's don't have a clear image quality advantage over nVidia. And with nVidia prepping the G72, ATI's mid-range cards may find themselve at a huge disadvantage. Those that predicted that this was going to be ATI's "FX" might be right.

Hopefully the G80 vs R600 will be a more interesting fight.

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2005-10-06 04:31pm

Ouch.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2005-10-06 04:45pm

Arrow Mk84 wrote:The kicker is that, at least according the anandtech review (IIRC), the new ATI card's don't have a clear image quality advantage over nVidia.

Hmm. Didn't read that one. Just the HardOCP one.

EDIT: You must have read a different anandtech review than I did, because it devotes two pages to the image quality differences from the 7800 to the X1800.

Embracer Of Darkness · Post by **Embracer Of Darkness** » 2005-10-06 04:47pm

1.) The benchmarks for the X1800 XL/XT cards are almost identical to the supposedly fake benchmarks by Sander Sassen.

2.) The Guru3D website was given four of the new ATi graphics cards to test. The X1800 XT of the group was broken. I guess they didn't find a solution for their yields problem.

3.) The X1800 XL cards are still not available, and the X1800 XT cards aren't going to be available in large quantities until Christmas.

4.) Nvidia also has a 512MB 7800GTX on the way.

5.) ATi has just completed work on the R580 core, Nvidia has had a fully operational G80 in the warehouse ready for shipping for two months now.

6.) ATi suffered a $104 million net loss for this quarter.

7.) AnandTech recently reported that the final version of F.E.A.R. will be completely reoptimised, shortening the massive gap ATi claims the X1800s have over the 7800s. For this reason, they didn't even use the F.E.A.R. demo in a recent benchmark.

Not a good year for ATi, which is no skin off my nose, because as an ATi fan I am getting sick of paper launches and being lied to. Nvidia just gained a fan.

Arrow · Post by **Arrow** » 2005-10-06 06:23pm

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:EDIT: You must have read a different anandtech review than I did, because it devotes two pages to the image quality differences from the 7800 to the X1800.

Your right - I was thinking of the Adaptive AA vs Transparency AA in the "Final Words" section. Sorry for the mix up.

DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2005-10-06 06:23pm

So, how much do the various 7800 nVidia cards go for?

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2005-10-06 06:49pm

DPDarkPrimus wrote:So, how much do the various 7800 nVidia cards go for?

They now can be had for $450 and under for 7800GTX's with from small vendors and roughly $450 from major vendors like Newegg

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2005-10-07 12:48am

Arrow Mk84 wrote:The kicker is that, at least according the anandtech review (IIRC), the new ATI card's don't have a clear image quality advantage over nVidia. And with nVidia prepping the G72, ATI's mid-range cards may find themselve at a huge disadvantage. Those that predicted that this was going to be ATI's "FX" might be right.

Hopefully the G80 vs R600 will be a more interesting fight.

You mean R580.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2005-10-07 12:49am

The 7800 GT's are like $350 now, too. That's probably an even better deal. Although if I was looking to replace my trusty 9800 Pro (which I'm not), I'd probably jump on either the 6800 non-ultra for ~$160 or the X800 non-pro for ~$120. Can't get more power for the buck than that right now. Between those two, they make every card below the ~$220 price range look like a ripoff.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2005-10-07 01:07am

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:The 7800 GT's are like $350 now, too. That's probably an even better deal. Although if I was looking to replace my trusty 9800 Pro (which I'm not), I'd probably jump on either the 6800 non-ultra for ~$160 or the X800 non-pro for ~$120. Can't get more power for the buck than that right now. Between those two, they make every card below the ~$220 price range look like a ripoff.

X800GTO, those are either X800 chips or X850 chips being sold off to clear room.

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2005-10-07 01:20am

Ouch. ATI just got royally owned. They'd better hope that Crossfire is something special.

Meest · Post by **Meest** » 2005-10-07 04:06am

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphi ... index.html Hmm Tom's is getting some different numbers. Though they have an X1800 XT.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2005-10-07 04:21am

I gave up on ATI a long time ago. Even if the card was faster, I would still buy an NVidia because ATI's driver team is utterly contemptuous of Linux, which I use on a regular basis. It took them forever and a day to finally release Linux drivers for their cards, and when they finally did, they sucked. The installation sucks in particular, and as a general rule, if you can't install the driver in the first place, then it scores a big fat zero. Moreover, their customer support sucks. Back before they had any Linux drivers I tried E-mailing their feedback line to ask when they would be producing any, and I didn't even get a courtesy form-letter response.

Arrow · Post by **Arrow** » 2005-10-07 07:14am

Ace Pace wrote:You mean R580.

They changed the designation?

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2005-10-07 07:18am

R500 is Xenos, R520 is current generation, refresh is R520, R600 or R620 is probebly(not sure on this) their unified shaders card for the desktop(After reworking Xenos)

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2005-10-07 11:39am

After reading Anandtechs extended review, I'm going to have to change my opinion, aside from Price, ATi is very nice, equivilent and better once AA is enabled, but the price is still the dealbreaker.

Embracer Of Darkness · Post by **Embracer Of Darkness** » 2005-10-07 12:19pm

Master of Ossus wrote:Ouch. ATI just got royally owned. They'd better hope that Crossfire is something special.

Don't count on it. Crossfire is currently limited to 60hz refresh at 1600x1200, which means no high resolution gaming and no flicker-free play.

ATi claims it'll be fixed for the X1K series, but their word isn't worth a great deal to me anymore.

Ace Pace wrote:After reading Anandtechs extended review, I'm going to have to change my opinion, aside from Price, ATi is very nice, equivilent and better once AA is enabled, but the price is still the dealbreaker.

Price, and not to mention availability.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2005-10-07 12:28pm

I seriously doubt the 60HZ problem will remain in the X1xxx series.

The jury is still out on availability, they asked for time, they shall get time.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2005-10-07 02:49pm

Ace Pace wrote:
Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:The 7800 GT's are like $350 now, too. That's probably an even better deal. Although if I was looking to replace my trusty 9800 Pro (which I'm not), I'd probably jump on either the 6800 non-ultra for ~$160 or the X800 non-pro for ~$120. Can't get more power for the buck than that right now. Between those two, they make every card below the ~$220 price range look like a ripoff.
X800GTO, those are either X800 chips or X850 chips being sold off to clear room.

Only if you want to overclock / unlock pipes. Otherwise, it's identical to the vanilla X800, but costs a lot more. The only difference is that it's a champ overclocker.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2005-10-07 02:54pm

True, but if you have the GTO, why not overclock?

Embracer Of Darkness · Post by **Embracer Of Darkness** » 2005-10-07 06:22pm

Ace Pace wrote:I seriously doubt the 60HZ problem will remain in the X1xxx series.

It shouldn't have been in the X*** series in the first place. Being limited to 1600x1200, and at 60hz no less, utterly defeats the point of using a dual-card solution. Due to overhead, dual-card solutions often perform worse than single-card solutions in 1600x1200 or below. Even Rage3D (an ATi fansite) expressed utter distain at this crippling limitation.

Ace Pace wrote:The jury is still out on availability, they asked for time, they shall get time.

I've gotten to know a number of suppliers here in the UK over the last couple of years, and they (mainly Gib of OCuk) all tell me that the X1800XL launches this month and the X1800XT launches next month, but neither will be available in any respectable quantities until Christmas time or beyond. This is pretty pathetic, considering that the same paper-launching happened for Crossfire, especially when Nvidia had all their stuff this year available in massive quantities on the day of launch.