So why is Nvidia lagging behind ATI in directx 11 cards?

[Bearded Frog]

Im only going off of information thats been released about it. Already half a year delayed and counting, power usage problems, then cutting back on processor cores... and its still not even done. It has gotten to the point where it was one of the major discussion points on podcast #88, so you tell me if im completely off my rocker and imagining things...
Well a lot of that isnt true. Power usage and cutting back power cores arent real issues. The cores were that was on the new Quadro card not the geforce cards. Nvidia said that it was not related. You aren't off you're rocker you're just a bit of a misinformed ati fanboy. It's okay because ATI has a lot to cheer about at the moment but careful taking speculations as facts.

also note that I never said Fermi is or will be a failure, dont put words into my mouth. And I call it over priced because I remember some of the first GT280 cards costing upwards of $1000 for the high end cards 1GB GDDR3... thats pretty steep. Even the GTX295 now listed at around $550 cost almost $800 when it first was released earlier last year.
Heh... No you didnt say it would be a failure you describe it as a failure. Price however is a silly thing to argue. The 295 gtx was released at $500 and it sold at $500 on the day of release and had damn good stock levels. I know I bought it on release day. The new dual gpu ati card's price however is not $500. Theres only one 5970 on newegg and its close to $700.

Now if it was November 2006 I'd be pro green since that when Nvidia started to really dominate discreet graphics again with the release of its G80 architecture since the people didn't accept the 6 series well because of the NV30(FX) series still hanging around in people minds... and the NV47 (7xxx series) was only a refinement of the NV40 (which was being overshadowed by the newer architecture hype of the upcoming CUDA based G80). You can easily compare it to Microsoft with its Windows Millenium Edition, it made people weary of getting into Xp because of how soon after it was released after the OS Debacle, but later XP was adopted quite well once the stigma of microsoft failure was overcome with evidence (Cant compare it to vista, since vista was pretty much a complete failure, the difference between vista and win millenium edition, is that people actually bought millenium edition :/ ).
See thats why Fermi is set to be a great release. it is a very innovative design like when the g80 came out. I can only go by what's released but what's released looks good. The current line of ATI cards aren't innovative nor a very large jump over the prior generation. However they are good cards and right now they're a good buy (unless you end up like poci I guess).

Im only going off the evidence/information I'm presented. If it seems bias to you, then that is your opinion.
You're going off speculation and junk that has been cleared up. Yes it's late but thats the only negative thing it has going for it right now. Which isn't even Nvidia's fault it is TSMC's. The same reason ATI has had almost no stock of their new cards. TSMC's failure has been hurting Nvidia, ATI, and the consumer and from recent news articles it doesn't look like it is getting better either.

I honestly could care less if im running green or red, at the moment im running red because right now (I emphasize 'now' as i did in my first post) its the better deal for its price point.
Good thats how you should buy, and I don't doubt it right now. You can still be a fanboy in the way that you want one side to be that winner though :P

[JSLEnterprises]

I love how I’m called a fan boy.... when I had an 8800GT I LOVED the card, I was able to play doom 3 without stuttering and battlefield 2142 on a setting other than low and it didn’t cost me and arm and leg since I bought it when they were putting out the 9xxx series. And even now it’s in the HTPC I built for my mother to watch movies.

They haven’t cut back power cores.... where did you get that? There are power cores?! Do you mean Caps? :P . They're cutting back on the originally stated 512 shader cores, now it’s around what, 448 or something like that. That bit of information isn’t junk, it’s the latest info that leaked out, and it has not been cleared up (unless you can link me to news that says otherwise other than Nvidia’s PR Blog). There was a power issue stated though, their prototypes are at the limits of the 6pin/8pin power dongles and still creating an excessive amount of heat from what I read back in November (and it wasn’t about the Quadro, has not been cleared up, it may also be the reason for the cutback of shader cores). The delays of the product are also hurting the hype, it’s not that they've got it working and are making it better, it’s the fact that they got it working, but not to the basic levels that it SHOULD be at. When a product is delayed repeated by problem after problem if gives doubts on how it will be when it actually is released.... this stems to all types of hardware and software, not specifically video cards.
Right now, I'm happy with my 4890 which I picked up for $162.98 back in August which was a steal. It outperformed my 8800gt and was much more affordable than a 285GTX which still lists for $380 Canadian, but I do miss the PhysX capability.

Now if I was an ATI fan boy then I would have gone out and bought a 5890HD after I finished testing it... I haven’t. Yes the Fermi based cards look great on paper, but that’s just it, it’s paper and prototype cards that none of us will get our hands on. Until I have an actual product to test, to me it’s all talk. The hype for it has decayed as the wait continues and the issues with it continue to leak and more excuses for it being delayed continue, and yes, they're excuses. TSMC is another excuse, yes yields are not as high as the Green and Red giants would like, but oh well... my local Canada Computers has about 8x 5770, 12x 5750's 2x 5850 and 5x 5870's... so the ATI boards are not as scarce as people would have you believe.

If it actually is released in March/April and it is substantially better than the 5870, and it has a decent price point for the product, then I may buy it, but as of right now, the 5870 just looks a lot more attractive. I'm waiting it out. I'm not in a rush, the 3% system boost on my already super fast comp isn’t that important, and I can do without the advanced dx11 tessellation for a bit. I’m not an extreme enthusiast to blow money on whatever is the newest thing no matter the cost just as I'm sure you're not. But if I were to choose right now, it would definitely be the ATI card, rather than the Nvidia selection.

PS Bandito: nice try to play on words but “could care less” is a figure of speech meaning I don’t really care. 



I apologise if my reply seems all over the place, I'm getting ready for work, so I'm a little rushed.

[Poci]

Two weeks left till Bad Company 2 beta is realeased, a much more worthy display of DX 11 then Dirt 2. If I were atis driver team I would get things working right asap. Or they are gonna have a lot of unhappy customers. SOme already unhappy.....

[Brandito]

PS Bandito: nice try to play on words but “could care less” is a figure of speech meaning I don’t really care.

not a play on words or a figure of speech. could care less literally means you care to some degree. the correct usage is couldn't care less (could not care less) which means the level that you care is at the lowest point possible.

back on topic though, you seem pretty overly sensational about whatever leaked news you have. you have to remember, leaks are not usually from the most reliable of sources.

you say you want to wait to see what happens while at the same time you state leaked information as infallible fact. you can't have it both ways. either you're going to disregard any possible fud and see what happens when the cards are released or you're going to believe any sort of leak you find, even if it's from the troll over at semiaccurate.

if the inq is the equivalent of the tabloids for tech, semiaccurate is the weekly world news of tech.

i'll say that i do believe it'll be hard for fermi to not beat out the current line of ati cards, but ati could come back with a refresh that'll put things back on the level as well by the time fermi comes out. either way both companies are at the mercy of TSMC from the sounds of it.

at the end of the day the card that makes triple monitor gaming the most attractive is going to be the one that eventually ends up in my machine.

[Meridian]

The only comparison worth anything is one done with both cards in the palm of your hand. The number of leaks that occur before any new top-end card comes out is quite astonishing, with the manufacturer leaking good stuff (to stop punters buying the rival and hang on for their product), shills for the rival leaking bad stuff (to persuade the same punters to buy now and not hang on), along with a few dubious web-sites just making stuff up. Given how near impossible it is to know whether such rumours are true, and how little of this information turns out to have any basis in fact, I can fairly safely say: if the card isn't out yet then anything you say about it isn't worth a cup of cold spit. When it is out, then the gloves are off and you can bench the bejeezus out of the rivals and see who really measures up. Until then, you are just making stuff up.


M

[JSLEnterprises]

you seem pretty overly sensational about whatever leaked news you have. you have to remember, leaks are not usually from the most reliable of sources.

All I was doing was stating all the things that I've read from different sources over the past few months on the topic of Fermi. I've speculated, and if a good rebuttal was to be formed I would want proof to say either it is true or is not, I even asked for some rebuttal in my reply, but by far I’m not 'overly sensational' about it. I, just as much as you or anyone, want one thing... the truth. Would that not be a correct assumption?

you say you want to wait to see what happens while at the same time you state leaked information as infallible fact.

How did I make it infallible fact? I’m not disagreeing with you saying the information is infallible because it very well might be. But when you hear/read the same information, or very similar information, from several sources, you tend to lean towards it possibly being true. Weather it is or not is still yet to be proven. Waiting to see what happens is my own personal prerogative, I don’t trust any tech until it becomes matured enough to make the investment with minimal risk.

you can't have it both ways. Either you're going to disregard any possible fud and see what happens when the cards are released or you're going to believe any sort of leak you find, even if it's from the troll over at semiaccurate.

- Why can’t you have it both ways? We like to know what tidbits of information are floating around about something we may be interested investing into in the future. Though it is speculation most of the time, it creates a track record of that potential investment which causes us to lean either to welcoming it with open arms or putting it under even greater scrutiny. Even after reviews I still question things. There is a whole lot of gray area in between the ‘either/or’ statement you made.
-I don’t trust information on semiaccurate.com, it’s like believing the inquirer, or believing the creation stories of religious dogma’s word for word.


I enjoyed our conversation

[TheGlasMan]

Why can’t you have it both ways?

Cause you can't have your cake (future nVidia) and eat it too (ati). At this point there is no way to tell what nVidia will come up with. They have barely missed a beat the last few years, while ati is just getting there act together consistently since the merger. Wouldn't bet against nVidia, but this is the biggest change they have made in a while.

A lot of the commenting is that the 5000 series is not that great an improvement on the 200 series*, and the question is the new nvidia gong to be one of these rare apples. At this point there is no way of knowing.

*Normally a top card is about as good as the #2 card of the next generation and is not worth replacing for 2 generations.

[mr_raider]

Here in Southern Ontario Canada there's pretty much 2 main hardware retailers to choose from. Tigerdirect.ca (in Burlington/online) and Canada Computers (17 stores/online).

Ummmm...


www.ncix.com
www.newegg.ca
directcanada.com

TD is a ripoff, on either side of the border.

[Bearded Frog]

They haven’t cut back power cores.... where did you get that? There are power cores?! Do you mean Caps? :P . They're cutting back on the originally stated 512 shader cores, now it’s around what, 448 or something like that. That bit of information isn’t junk, it’s the latest info that leaked out, and it has not been cleared up (unless you can link me to news that says otherwise other than Nvidia’s PR Blog).
You really ran with that mistype didn't you? Hows this? It is from right here on Pcper. http://pcper.com/comments.php?nid=8160 scroll down to the update.

When a product is delayed repeated by problem after problem if gives doubts on how it will be when it actually is released.... this stems to all types of hardware and software, not specifically video cards.
Not really. The delay is specifically due to TSMC's 40nm process, the same process that has been causing ATI issues. Once yields are high enough the cards will be released. It isn't any different from any other release once yields are up.

Right now, I'm happy with my 4890 which I picked up for $162.98 back in August which was a steal. It outperformed my 8800gt and was much more affordable than a 285GTX which still lists for $380 Canadian, but I do miss the PhysX capability.
Great, glad you're happy. I am happy with my 2x 295 gtx too.

Now if I was an ATI fan boy then I would have gone out and bought a 5890HD after I finished testing it... I haven’t.
Wouldn't that really just make you rich not a fan boy?

Yes the Fermi based cards look great on paper, but that’s just it, it’s paper and prototype cards that none of us will get our hands on. Until I have an actual product to test, to me it’s all talk.
I like how you don't take released specifics about the card as truth but you'll take any rumor kicking around anywhere about it as truth. Theres a word for this...

The hype for it has decayed as the wait continues and the issues with it continue to leak and more excuses for it being delayed continue, and yes, they're excuses. TSMC is another excuse, yes yields are not as high as the Green and Red giants would like, but oh well... my local Canada Computers has about 8x 5770, 12x 5750's 2x 5850 and 5x 5870's... so the ATI boards are not as scarce as people would have you believe.
It isn't as bad for ATI right now as it was a few months ago. Their last run had better yields. For awhile it absolutely was that scarce. Ask how much people were paying to find a 5870.

If it actually is released in March/April and it is substantially better than the 5870, and it has a decent price point for the product, then I may buy it, but as of right now, the 5870 just looks a lot more attractive.
Well duh a released product is more attractive.

I'm waiting it out. I'm not in a rush, the 3% system boost on my already super fast comp isn’t that important, and I can do without the advanced dx11 tessellation for a bit. I’m not an extreme enthusiast to blow money on whatever is the newest thing no matter the cost just as I'm sure you're not. But if I were to choose right now, it would definitely be the ATI card, rather than the Nvidia selection.
Right now ATI has the better product at almost every pricepoint. If you can find one. No question here.

[JoshMST]

Wow, this thread really got off topic!

From my understanding, and because the preview is out and we can talk about these things... there were many reasons why Fermi is late to market.

The biggest issue that NV had is that designing a 3 billion transistor chip is really hard, even with the cutting edge design tools they have. They also have radically altered the topology of their architecture as compared to the GTX280/285. By doing so, they have improved a lot of performance characteristics of the product, but getting it all to work together like it should proved to be a very rough proposition. The PolyMorph Engines in particular caused a lot of issues (or so says the grapevine) and a lot of hardware fixes had to go in so the separate engines did not do a lot of redundant work.

While looking at the architecture from 10,000 feet, it does resemble the previous chips, but the subtle differences made to increase efficiency caused a lot of headaches overall. So the short answer really is that NV just didn't have the engineering manpower to take on such a major project in the time allotted. Plus throw in that NV totally redesigned the CUDA cores, and those are fully custom portions of the chip, which requires a lot of man hours to properly layout (eg. hand layout vs. automated trace and route).

The final issue does appear to be due to TSMC's issues with their 40 nm process. GF100 is rumored to be more than 500 mm squared in size, and being able to successfully manufacture a chip such as this is hard even on mature processes. 40 nm TSMC is far from being mature. But this issue had far less to do with the time being spent to make the chip work in the first place. Design and engineering were the primary reasons the product was late. Oh, and perhaps the overly ambitious design had something to do with it too :P

[Windrunner]

Ack, sorry TheGlasMan, I was not trying to start trouble!


My best guess is that they'll launch it and it'll be another three months before anyone can get their hands on one. Those real time ray tracing demos made me drool though. I almost got really excited when I saw the demo vid, then heard "Three in sli" and sat back down.

Perhaps a question for another thread, but why have monitors settled around the 1920xwhatever mark? The eyefinity stuff confuses me as I think "Well, why not just build a bigger, better monitor?" Is it something to do with the angle?

3D eyefinity sounds like a migraine to me in so many ways. But the ray tracing and tessellation ( not together )...woot is an understatement.

[TheGlasMan]

Perhaps a question for another thread, but why have monitors settled around the 1920xwhatever mark? The eyefinity stuff confuses me as I think "Well, why not just build a bigger, better monitor?" Is it something to do with the angle?

Because this is the HDTV (1080i X 1920) and bluray (1080p) standard so this resolution has the greatest demand and production.
For pc this would be read as 1920x1080. A good resolution for small to mid size widescreen monitors

The larger higher definition monitors are a lot more expensive (3x$)

So you can get 3 1920x1080 24" monitors for the price of one 2560x1600 30" As far as immersion the 5760x1080 "super duper" wide screen is much superior (as far as view angles the 30" is the same as 1 1920) as you can see what is beside you by turning your head, not the viewing control and losing mental continuity

[Brandito]

don't forget 1920x1200 or 1200P

that's what pc monitors need to adhere to as a standard.

[JSLEnterprises]

Ummmm...


www.ncix.com
www.newegg.ca
directcanada.com

TD is a ripoff, on either side of the border.

I was specifically speaking brick and mortar stores (not including proprietorships), you know, where you can go in and exchange doa stuff without having to pay shipping.

[JSLEnterprises]

Wouldn't that really just make you rich not a fan boy?

Not Really, I know a couple low income fanboys of both red and green that would give up paying bills and eating normally for 2 weeks and blow their paychecks on the best card available.

Right now ATI has the better product at almost every pricepoint. If you can find one. No question here.

Then why comment if you're not questioning it?