Yeah, the nVid coolers are pretty poor. The new cards won't ahve an enforced reference design, though, will they? (Both Nvidia and ATI)

I'm sure the ATI's aren't enforced, but I am not sure about the NV's.

That's good, should mean we some some with some nice aftermarket cooling preinstalled.

The INQUIRER talking about Nvidia's upcoming cards...

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/ ... s-revealed



Also, today came the announcement that ATI are going to adopt Intel's Havok (Intel bought out Havok a short while back)...

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/ ... ok-physics

It looks like NV is in trouble, sure, but remember that Nvidia's PhysX is open for ATI to use via their CUDA API? This means that Intel can use some of NV's technology and not only keep them in the game but enhance ATI GPU performance in Unreal Engine 3, Frontlines: FOW, GRAW2, etc. or maybe we'll just go down the hardware Havok route after all - Havok is really good after all, and now that it could be hardware accelerated, well that's even better isn't it.

So now that the tables have truly turned and ATI will definitely have the performance crown - I wonder when NV will release their next set of cards?

That said... I wonder what Larrabee will bring to the gaming scene? Larrabee will be announced at Siggraph 2008...

Heh, I think AMD are going for CPU physics optimisation first.

Still, it's quite interesting that they're basically co-operating with Intel.

Yeah it is quite interesting.

If ATI are adopting Havok from Intel, then I would imagine that ATI are going to focus on GPU accelerated Havok, because CPU accelerated Havok was Intel's bag, as you can see from their Geek Out site: http://game-on.intel.com/eng/geekout/havok/default.aspx - what are your thoughts?

Clicky. Third paragraph.

I think I'll take my usual "wait and see" approach, lol.

Ah ha it says CPU's and GPU's. I guess that's an interestingly good thing.

I think they're trying to get CPU phyiscs better first as it is much more widely used.

I made a beautiful comparison in HTML that I'm going to type up here in a non-tabled format unfortunately.

Nvidia GTX 280 vs ATI Radeon HD 4870

Fabrication
GTX280: 65nm
4870: 55nm
ATI +1

Interface
GTX280: PCI-Express v2
4870: PCI-Express v2
No win

Shaders
GTX280: 240
4870: 800
ATI +1

Memory (Min)
GTX280: 1024MB
4870: 512MB
Nvidia +1

Memory (Max)
GTX280: 1024MB
4870: 1024MB
No win

Memory Type
GTX280: GDDR3
4870: GDDR5
No win *

Memory Bus
GTX280: 512-bit
4870: 256-bit
Nvidia +1

Core MHz
GTX280: 602MHz
4870: 750MHz
ATI +1

Shader MHz
GTX280: 1296MHz
4870: 750MHz (?)
Nvidia +1

Memory MHz
GTX280: 2214MHz
4870: 1800MHz **
Nvidia +1

GigaTexels/s
GTX280: 48.2 GT/s
4870: 27.2 GT/s
Nvidia +1

GigaPixels/s
GTX280: 19.3 GP/s
4870: 16.8 GP/s
Nvidia +1

GigaBytes/s
GTX280: 141.7 GB/s
4870: 115.2 GB/s
Nvidia +1

DirectX Version
GTX280: 10
4870: 10.1
ATI +1

OpenGL Version
GTX280: 2.1
4870: 2.1
No win

GigaFLOPS
GTX280: 933 GFlops
4870: 1200 GFlops
ATI + 1

Power Requirement
GTX280: 236W
4870: 150W
ATI + 2 ***

Price
GTX280: £300+
4870: £150-£200
ATI + 2 ***

FINAL SCORE
GTX280: 7
4870: 9

* GDDR5 is usually faster (MHz) but usually brings higher latency
** 1800MHz with GDDR5 means there is a lot of headroom for overclocking
*** Weighted score, I consider these areas to be more important

ATI win.

However...

3x GTX280 looks really nice...

Interesting, I think ATi have it purely on being 50% cheaper.

We'll have to wait for the benchmarks, I guess.

Well, those prices are still estimates, and they are after Euro to GBP conversion. Being in the UK, we will very likely have to pay more...

Yeah, but they'll still scale similar amounts, so the relative prices will be the same.

No really, we pay more in the UK for computer hardware

Yes, but we generally pay a percentage more, so they'll both have the same prices relative to each other (and every other card on the market).

So what you're basically saying is that you agree and that UK prices suck?

Oh yes, they suck completely. I was looking at RAM the other day and stumbled across it on NewEgg - the sticks I was looking at cost less in dollars than they did in pounds, so that's less than half the price!

ATI are soon to Unleash One Tera...

http://www.unleashonetera.com/

LOL, corny webpage.

Yay, 800 'cores' in the 4850.

That's a lot of shaders

I really hope these are a good price, because they should give great performance!

The funny thing is... it's the shader processors that do the muscle work and also give the physics acceleration its juice. If ATI adopted Nvidia's PhysX - it'd probably be doing it better than an Nvidia card could...

Yeah it has a lot more, but everything but the GPU is at a lower frequency, and the shader clock is the same as the GPU clock, whereas the shaders are massively overclocked in the Nvidia cards. Although, simply down to the fact that ATI has 2.5x the number of shader's, I think it's already won the battle and will win the war this year - especially if the rumours are true about the 4870X2... I'd imagine it'll have the same clocks as a 4850, but there will just be 2 on one PCB. I'd imagine this will give 2 TFlops, and 4TFlops in CFX. Sweet!

We'll just have to see the benchmarks!

The physics stuff is interesting, we already know the CUDA technology and concept is fantastic, I really hope it takes off for both nVidia and ATI.

ATI News Roundup of the Day

4870 Shortages until April
Apparently, the 4870 will likely be delayed or in short supply for a while as there are some global GDDR5 shortages.
This is pretty much confirmed now.
I still think they're going to have a better supply than both GTX260 and GTX280 though!

Price Drop on 3870X2
It is predicted that on the day of of the 4850 and 4870 cards, the prices will drop on existing 3850, 3870 and 3870X2 cards as they will basically be EOL'd and phased out quickly.
If the 3870X2 falls under £200, it might be a nice cheap addition to my girlfriend's computer as she already has a 3870 and a CF X38 motherboard.

4870 Bags 12600 3DMarks with Q6600
In 1280x1024 3DMark06, 4870 gets a cool 12600. 4850 gets about 11300 which is really good also.
GTX 280 happens to get 16500 and 3870X2 gets 16700. Ohh.. confuzzlage here?
My conclusion is that synthetic benchmark's suck as a performance indicator but they sure do look pretty!

4850 Bags 14254 3DMarks on a 4GHz QC (Link)
So if this is really true, then either a) 4870 will get a LOT higher scores than those mentioned above or b) 3DMark06 scales will with the MHz.

Interesting stuff. Shortage till APRIL? That sucks. Hopefully I can get one if they're good.

As for the other benchmarks, I'll wait till we get real world benchmarks.