ATI Radeon X800 Pro and XT Platinum Edition: R420 Arrives
by Derek Wilson on May 4, 2004 10:28 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Final Words
I don't think anyone thought the race would be this close after what has been going on over the past couple years with ATI and NVIDIA. Clearly, both camps have had their wins and losses, but it is safe to say that ATI comes out on top when it comes to DX9 and PS 2.0 performance, NVIDIA leads the way in OpenGL performance, and NV40 and R420 split the difference when it comes to DX8 (and older) style games. Even though we haven't yet seen the performance numbers from NVIDIA's 6850 Ultra part, it is likely that there will be a price premium that goes along with that performance. On top of that, the 6850 is really just an overclocked 6800 Ultra part. We will take a look at the issue further when we are finally able to run some numbers.
It is very clear that both NVIDIA and ATI have strong offerings. With better competition in the market place, and NVIDIA differentiating themselves by offering a richer feature set (that doesn't necessarily translate into value unless developers start producing games that use those features), consumers will be able to make a choice without needing to worry about sacrificing real performance. Hopefully we will be able to say the same about image quality when we get done with our testing in that area as well.
Of course, we are still trying to gather all the pieces that explain why we are seeing the numbers we are seeing. The problem is really the amount and level of information we are able to gather is based on how the API maps to the hardware rather than how the hardware does things.
The two rather large issues we have encountered when trying to talk about hardware from the software's perspective are the following: it is easy to get lost when looking at performing tasks from slightly different perspectives or angles of attack, and looking at two architectures that are designed to accomplish similar tasks obfuscates the characteristics of the underlying architectures. We are very happy that both NVIDIA and ATI have started opening up and sharing more about there architectures with us, and hopefully the next round of products will see even further development of this type of relationship.
There is one final dilemma we have on our hands: pricing. From the performance numbers from both this generation and the previous generation, it doesn't seem like prices can stay where they are. As we get a better feel for the coming market with the 12x1 NVIDIA offering, and other midrange and budget offerings from both NVIDIA and ATI, there will be so much overlap in price, performance, and generation without a very large gap in functionality that it might not make sense to spend more money to get something newer. Of course, we will have to wait and see what happens in that area, but depending on what the test results for our 6850 Ultra end up looking like, we may end up recommending that NVIDIA push their prices down slightly (or shift around a few specs) in order to keep the market balanced. With ATI's performance on par in older games and slightly ahead in newer games, the beefy power supply requirement, two slot solution, and sheer heat generated by NV40 may be too much for most people to take the NVIDIA plunge. The bottom line is the consumer here, and its good news all around.
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adntaylor - Tuesday, May 4, 2004 - link
I wish they'd also tested with an nForce3 motherboard. nVidia have managed some very interesting performance enhancements on the AGP to HT tunnel that only works with the nVidia graphics cards. That might have pushed the 6800 in front - who knows!UlricT - Tuesday, May 4, 2004 - link
Hey... Though the review rocks, you guys desperately need an editor for spelling and grammar!Jeff7181 - Tuesday, May 4, 2004 - link
This pretty much settles it. With the excellent comparision between architectures, and the benchmark scores to prove the advantages and disadvantages of the architecture... my next card will be made by ATI.NV40 sure has a lot of potential, one might say it's ahead of it's time, supporting SM 3.0 and being so programmable. However, with a product cycle of 6 months to a year, being ahead of it's time is more of a disadvantage in this case. People don't care what it COULD do... people care what it DOES do... and the R420 seems to do it better. I just hope my venture into the world of ATI doesn't turn into driver hell.
NullSubroutine - Tuesday, May 4, 2004 - link
Im fan boy for neither company and objectively I can say the cards are equal. Some games the ATI cards are faster other games the Nvidia cards are faster. So it all depends on the game you play to which one is better and the price of the card you are looking for. (Hmm, maybe motherboard companies could make 2 AGP slots...)About the arguement of the PS 2.0/3.0...
2.0 Cards will be able to play games with 3.0, they may not have full functionality or they may run it slower. This will remain to be seen till games begin to use 3.0. However...
The one thing bad for Nvidia in my eyes is the pixel shader quality that can be seen in Farcry, whether this is a game or driver glitch it is still unknown.
I forgot to add I like that the ATI cards use less power, I dont want to have to pay for another PSU ontop of already high prices of video cards. I would also like to see a review again a month from now when newer drivers come out to see how much things have changed.
l3ored - Tuesday, May 4, 2004 - link
pschhh, did you see the unreal 3 demo? in the video i saw, it looked like it ran at about 5fps imagine running halo on a gfx 5200. however you could run it if you were to turn of halo's PS 2 effects. i think thats how it's going to be with unreal 3Slaanesh - Tuesday, May 4, 2004 - link
Since PS 3.0 is not supported by the X800 hardware, does this mean that those extremely impressive graphical features showed in the Unreal 3 tech demo (NV40 launch) and the near-to-be-released goodlooking PS 3.0 Far Cry update are both NOT playable on the X800?? This would be a huge disadvantage for ATi since alot of the upcoming topgames will support PS3.0!l3ored - Tuesday, May 4, 2004 - link
i agree phiro, personally i think im gonna get the one that hits $200 first (may be a while)Phiro - Tuesday, May 4, 2004 - link
Hearing about the 6850 and the other Emergency-Extreme-Whatever 6800 variants that are floating about irritates me greatly. Nvidia, you are losing your way!Instead of spending all that time, effort and $$ just to try to take the "speed champ" title, make your shit that much cheaper instead! If your 6800 Ultra was $425 instead of $500, that would give you a hell of alot more market share and $$ than a stupid Emergency Edition of your top end cards... We laugh at Intel for doing it, and now you're doing it too, come fricking on...
gordon151 - Tuesday, May 4, 2004 - link
#14, I think it has more to do with the fact those OpenGL benchmarks are based on a single engine that was never fast on ATI hardware to begin with.araczynski - Tuesday, May 4, 2004 - link
12: personally i think the TNT line was better then the Voodoo line. I think they bought them out only to get rid of the competition, which was rather stupid because i think they would have died out sooner or later anyway because nvidia was just better. I would guess that perhaps they bought them out cuz that gave them patent rights and they woudln't have to worry about being sued for probably copying some of the technology :)