Nvidia GF100

[Chalenge]

Im just a little worried that Nvidia will release the GF100 next month while Im in the PI. The Rocket sled demo they released makes it look good but I htink Skuzzy said they have issues to iron out yet. Im betting it will be an ATI-killer...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjIzoGnkCZs&feature=player_embedded

[Kazaa]

I really hope Nvidia bring this card out on time because...

the price of the ATI HD5850s will drop and I'll go buy a second one.

 

[Spikes]

I really hope Nvidia bring this card out on time because...

the price will drop on the 5850s and I'll go buy a second one.

 

+1

[Chalenge]

Sell out!  They are claiming March 27 for the GTX 480s but I wouldnt hold my breath on any prices dropping.

[Kazaa]

Competitive products, competitive prices.

It took Nvidia 6 months to become competitive again. The HD5850 actually raised in price as the months past, about £50 here in the UK.

[maddafinga]

I really hope Nvidia bring this card out on time because...

the price of the ATI HD5850s will drop and I'll go buy a second one.

 

I just ordered one yesterday!  I can't wait.  If they go down, I'll have to get a second one and two more monitors!!  You have any good setup or config tips for me?

[Chalenge]

Competitive products, competitive prices.

It took Nvidia 6 months to become competitive again. The HD5850 actually raised in price as the months past, about £50 here in the UK.

I dont know how Ati has anything stronger than the 295s are. DX11 games are few and far between and I havent found anything that the 295s dont run at refresh rate.

[Kazaa]

When it was time for me to buy a new graphics card I spent a lot of time looking around and reading benchmark reviews. The only Nvidia card that came close to the HD5850's performance was the 280GTX. But still the HD5850 was 10-15FPS faster and around £80-£90 cheaper before the prices got bumped up £40, just checked, they have dropped back down again.

Two HD5850's would cost me little over £30 more than a single stock GTX295, in addition I would get two free DX11 games (which come with each card) that I could sell on for £20-£30 each. Performance wise, game pending ofc, I've seen on average an additional 10-30FPS, in some cases even more performance. Also note that at the time, these benchmarks where done on beta drivers. The ATI 10.2 drivers are promising to support CrossFireX even better!

So, two HD5850's would give me better performance, 2 free games, DX11, built in multi-display support with eyefinity and in a month's time 3D multi-display support for an extra £30!

Now you know.

[Chalenge]

Im not sure how you can get 10-30 frames more than refresh rate but at least you can play the few DX11 games that there are out. Also you seem to be biased against the 295 as if its a single card yet it is not which is one reason it is more money. When the 480s are released I would bet the 295s come down in price but I doub the Atis will change much.

You know you can get 3D out of 8800s? I dont think its worth trying without the 120Hz monitors though.

[Skuzzy]

I am not in any hurry to see people rush to buy 'Fermi' based video cards.  With all the manufacturing issues NVidia has had with this part, I think it would be wise to wait and see if they really will be able hold up in real-world use.

It also appears retail products will not be available until April.

I do not see this as any type of ATI killer.  They take turns.  ATI has been kicking NVidia's butt for a few months now.  If NVidia can build Fermi, reliably, in quantities, then they might take number one back again, for a while.  It will never be as cheap as ATI's current cards though.  It is a very large piece of silicon.  That translates directly to the cost of manufacturing.

If Nvidia costs completes with ATI, they will lose thier short on this design cycle.

[Kazaa]

Chalenge, I have nothing against the GTX295 or Nvidia, I'm also not an ATI fanboi.

When a game is used for benchmarking, V-Sync will be turned off to record the maximum FPS achieved. The more overhead room you have the better.

[Chalenge]

They (Nvidia) throw out a lot of buzz phrases like 'enhanced tesselation' and 'live ray tracing' which sounds far beyond anything I have heard mentioned about Ati. I know it wont do any good for any of the games I play but I do have high hopes for the future of games just the same. Of course I have to buy at least one 'Fermi' to test out. 

[Skuzzy]

The "enhanced tessellation" is part of the DX11 spec and all of ATI's DX11 cards support it.  ATI made all the big noises about that 6 months ago.  The ray trace features are just making use of the advanced floating point processors in all video cards.  

The only difference is ATI is using an open standard for that compute power and NVidia is using a proprietary API.

You really have to read between the lines of a video card companies marketing spiel.

NVidia is actually behind the curve, by quite a bit.  They still have not said if they are going to have anything to compete with ATI's Eyeinfinity feature.  Right now, Fermi hopes to be faster than ATI's cards, but with fewer features and costing more.  

You have to remember that Fermi was supposed to ship in 10/2009 and at that time the feature set would have been state-of-the-art.  However, in 4/2010, that feature set is a bit blase'.

[Kazaa]

You would need to buy at least 12 Fermies in SLI to run "Ray Trace" in today's games. "Ray Trace" is 10 years away from being usable effect.

[Skuzzy]

Depends on the number of "rays" and the bounce/reflection depth Kazaa.  1 ray, with a bounce depth of 1 would render pretty quickly.  Several frames a second could easily be done, but it would look like crap.