AMD to nVidia: Put Up or Shut Up

[ph0b0s123]

Heh, never ever buy the 1st generation of nVidia's latest. They always have heat and stability issues. The only two good cards they have right now is the GTX460 and the GTX580, both have acceptable heat and power usage.

I skipped on the 9800GT, waited for the revised version the GTS250. Skipped on the GTX470 and GTX480, went with the MSI N460GTX Cyclone. Barely hits 60celcius under full load in all games, idles at 34celcius, all in tropical weather and no air conditioning.

The GTX260m (G92b GPU) is also excellent for laptops along with its revised version the GTX360m and the fermi version the GTX460m.

AMD cards have better price to performance though, I've just had less issues with nVidia cards though compared to Raedeon architecture and their drivers.

Yeah, with Nvidia always best to wait for their 'refining' of an architecture. So GTX 500 rather than GTX 400 and GTX 2X5 rather than GTX 2X0.

 

[NuSix3]

If Radeon was truly confident in their product, they'd change their model number scheme to something the general public could actually decipher. Nvidia, I look at the name of the card and I know exactly how new or old it is, what parts it's made of and if it's the price friendly, overclocked version or the stable more expensive version. I can't do that for Radeon, I can't read the pattern to their model numbers and I never know what the latest and greatest Radeon card is.

That said, this is the first time I've ever heard of a Radeon card out powering a Nvidia card since the 6800 days. AMD is really good at being second place and whining about it in my opinion.

 

[CosmicCommander]

Some people, me included, are simply enthusiasts, we like maintaining and upgrading our PC's. It's similar to people souping up their cars really, negligible benefits outside of it being another way to spend your time and money.

I can understand the enthusiast market, and the market of professionals who need high-power Video Cards, but it just seems odd that they over-market these things, and for the average gamer, a return won't be seen by them. Running a game like Battlefield: Bad Company 2 at around 3 FPS better than the previous generation of graphics card seems... Peculiar.

Of all the components that go with computers, I find Video cards to be the most over marketed, completely overrated, and overly expensive.

That being said, my slick neons and beastly megahalem overclock has never, and will never, get me laid. Which makes it slightly less useful than souping up a car.

Maybe you can make a cloning machine to create a RL version of Erin. She seems the type who'd find PCs kinky.

(Then again, it does seem that her standards are low)

As for Crossfire/sli they used to be a shining example of "HAHA LOOK HOW RICH I AM!" but as of late two mid-range crossfire cards are outpeforming the fuck out of the higher end cards.

It just seems like a waste of space. And I'm yet to see the benefits of using two monitors simultaneously. Then again, I am poor.

Ahahahahahahaha xD

Yeah, that was all I needed to read.

I hate snideness.

I'm just saying, that it just doesn't seem practical to devs to chase better graphics at the rate it has been chased circa 2000-2009. Sure, graphics may become better over the next five years, but why would you want to invest as much in such a pointless juncture when we already have great visuals? As I believe Extra Credits put it a few episodes ago, it is becoming fruitless to chase the exponential growth in graphical capability that we chased over the past decade- as of such, the need for us to actually buy better video cards is lowering.

As said, only enthusiasts and the architects of the Tower of Babel Mark 2 will really need performance AMD and Nvidia are trying to sell to us.

Also- holy fucking shit twelve replies. I love being divisive.

 

[jamesworkshop]

Meh i'm still wait for a reason to even abbandon a 9800gtx

otherwise

Good call the 6990 is significantly faster

 

[deleted_by_strongbad]

I like how they are both strutting and knocking each other over what is pretty much just two of their old cards stuck together. Wow, way to push the envelope and develop something new, neither one has the right to brag about repackaging already released product, and the fact that it took them so long to do it. Both of these cards are scams, the only people who will use that power would get more out of a quadro/firepro.

They can debate on who has the best card when they both put out a new line of cards, my guess is they both ran into some delay with their upcoming generations not living up to the hype and are trying to create a smokescreen while they either try to revamp their next series or create enough corporate love that few will care.

...What? The 590 is two 580 GPUs downclocked and the 6990 is two 6970 GPUs downclocked. Both the 500 and 6000 series cards are brand spanking new.

They are newish, but we are already fast approaching the Q2 2011 speculation that nvidia and amd were hinting at originally for their next line of cards, but as is the way of the world now they are "leaking" q3/q4, it'll probably continue until Q2 2012 with maybe an incomplete die released just before christmas. Sure they never released an official time that is "getting pushed back," but none of the tech companies give official release dates, they release rumors when they need to create more buzz/corp loyalty, and since those are only "rumors" it doesn't hold the company to any sort of obligation and we as consumers will gladly buy the intermission products like two down-clocked cards stuck together while the companies debate which of these is more powerful as if it is new tech, when it is last years tech being released on this years' tech's original release window.

 

[EvolutionKills]

Actually no. The consoles have largely been flops. They barely made a profit (only recently), and only after a revamp. They rely on taxes on developers to make money. This chokes developers and publishers who rely on AAA games with reputations to make some money. This doesn't work as Nintendo shown (repeating every game). Halo (or any franchise) every year does not work. Its losing money fast and rely on multiplatform sales to buffer the loss. Developers would rather sell a casual low budget game than a console AAA game who end up getting blindsided by high costs, low return, and high used game sales. Publishers are looking at a dreary console future and realize its casual, PC, or bust.

They are staying in this generation for so long because all companies are losing so much money, and another generation would kill the market entirely. 70$ games? Can you say market crash when used game sales increase? Costs increase? 70 million dollars for a console game's development? That is financial suicide no matter who it is. Normally they would jump to the next generation with no thought, now everyone's staying put. The market cannot take another sixth generation.

Regardless of their intent, my point remains true. Major publishers have been releasing shoddy ports on the PC of their console games, said games require PC power that greatly exceeds the consoles just to get it to look the same. There are a lot of bad ports out there, and I'm sick of them, and the publishers that put them out. Now weather they're doing this because they're more concerned about casual PC gamers or console gamers is debatable, but I'm rightfully irritated at their actions all the same.

That being said, I would LOVE to see some number to support the 'same game every year doesn't work', because I look over at EA and Activision, and I see mansions build on the foundations of Madden NFL and Call of Duty...

 

[Baneat]

Competition is healthy and all, but I couldn't give a fiddlers which one of them has the current fastest graphics card at the moment. I'd never spend that kind of money on a single piece of hardware for a computer, it's beyond the scope of what I need my computer to do.

The one reason I've stuck with Nvidia throughout the years is because I've never (Me, personally, this person here) have had an issue or problem with their hardware or drivers. I have had problems with ATI cards in other machines.

It's more of a space race e-peen thing, I wouldn't be suprised if developing these top-tier cards actually lost them money in sales(Consider the Veyron), but being the company with the highest performing graphics card is enough to justify trying it.

Is intel still winning over AMD? AMD were excellent during pentium, then it went to quad cores and they got murdered (I bought the AMD quad cause I assumed they were still better )

ATi are killing nVidia right now, though, all the cards are running cooler and using less power (I actually bought my ATi card because it uses so much less energy than the equivalent nVidia)

 

[MrTub]

Competition is healthy and all, but I couldn't give a fiddlers which one of them has the current fastest graphics card at the moment. I'd never spend that kind of money on a single piece of hardware for a computer, it's beyond the scope of what I need my computer to do.

The one reason I've stuck with Nvidia throughout the years is because I've never (Me, personally, this person here) have had an issue or problem with their hardware or drivers. I have had problems with ATI cards in other machines.

It's more of a space race e-peen thing, I wouldn't be suprised if developing these top-tier cards actually lost them money in sales(Consider the Veyron), but being the company with the highest performing graphics card is enough to justify trying it.

Is intel still winning over AMD? AMD were excellent during pentium, then it went to quad cores and they got murdered (I bought the AMD quad cause I assumed they were still better )

ATi are killing nVidia right now, though, all the cards are running cooler and using less power (I actually bought my ATi card because it uses so much less energy than the equivalent nVidia)

Intel is killing AMD untill Bulldozer comes out and even then Intel might be a better option, and I would say Amd is about the same as Nvidia, some might prefer AMD since they are cooler and a bit cheaper and some prefer Nvidia for the performance and 3d, cuda and physx

 

[Baneat]

Competition is healthy and all, but I couldn't give a fiddlers which one of them has the current fastest graphics card at the moment. I'd never spend that kind of money on a single piece of hardware for a computer, it's beyond the scope of what I need my computer to do.

The one reason I've stuck with Nvidia throughout the years is because I've never (Me, personally, this person here) have had an issue or problem with their hardware or drivers. I have had problems with ATI cards in other machines.

It's more of a space race e-peen thing, I wouldn't be suprised if developing these top-tier cards actually lost them money in sales(Consider the Veyron), but being the company with the highest performing graphics card is enough to justify trying it.

Is intel still winning over AMD? AMD were excellent during pentium, then it went to quad cores and they got murdered (I bought the AMD quad cause I assumed they were still better )

ATi are killing nVidia right now, though, all the cards are running cooler and using less power (I actually bought my ATi card because it uses so much less energy than the equivalent nVidia)

Intel is killing AMD untill Bulldozer comes out and even then Intel might be a better option, and I would say Amd is about the same as Nvidia, some might prefer AMD since they are cooler and a bit cheaper and some prefer Nvidia for the performance and 3d, cuda and physx

When I was buying my card, no matter what scale I was on (enthusiast up to high end), I was seeing consistent better results on ATi cards no matter how high up I went (and now, it goes to the limit as you see). All nVidia has that might interest me is PhysX, and for something so rarely used I don't give it much consideration (wow batman: AA has a better cape animation).

Now, there was something stupid like a 100W difference in power consumption between my card and nVidia's offering at gaming-load, and slightly higher frames on my ATi card, and cooler too (probably due to the lower power consumption?). 100W for a few hours a day, for at least 2 years till I buy a new card's probably a decent sum saved.

 

[MrTub]

Competition is healthy and all, but I couldn't give a fiddlers which one of them has the current fastest graphics card at the moment. I'd never spend that kind of money on a single piece of hardware for a computer, it's beyond the scope of what I need my computer to do.

The one reason I've stuck with Nvidia throughout the years is because I've never (Me, personally, this person here) have had an issue or problem with their hardware or drivers. I have had problems with ATI cards in other machines.

It's more of a space race e-peen thing, I wouldn't be suprised if developing these top-tier cards actually lost them money in sales(Consider the Veyron), but being the company with the highest performing graphics card is enough to justify trying it.

Is intel still winning over AMD? AMD were excellent during pentium, then it went to quad cores and they got murdered (I bought the AMD quad cause I assumed they were still better )

ATi are killing nVidia right now, though, all the cards are running cooler and using less power (I actually bought my ATi card because it uses so much less energy than the equivalent nVidia)

Intel is killing AMD untill Bulldozer comes out and even then Intel might be a better option, and I would say Amd is about the same as Nvidia, some might prefer AMD since they are cooler and a bit cheaper and some prefer Nvidia for the performance and 3d, cuda and physx

When I was buying my card, no matter what scale I was on (enthusiast up to high end), I was seeing consistent better results on ATi cards no matter how high up I went (and now, it goes to the limit as you see). All nVidia has that might interest me is PhysX, and for something so rarely used I don't give it much consideration (wow batman: AA has a better cape animation).

Now, there was something stupid like a 100W difference in power consumption between my card and nVidia's offering at gaming-load, and slightly higher frames on my ATi card, and cooler too (probably due to the lower power consumption?). 100W for a few hours a day, for at least 2 years till I buy a new card's probably a decent sum saved.

define better results please.

 

[MR T3D]

Who ever wins...
We also win! =)

damn straight

 

[KalosCast]

I'm sure these benchmarks will be very helpful three years from now when these cards are in my budget range

 

[samsonguy920]

And here I thought AMD just made cpu's in competition with Intel. Makes me wonder where ATI stands in all this.
Guess I'm just behind on video cards.

AMD bought out ATi a couple years ago.

As of mid/late last year they stopped branding the graphics cards "ATi" and instead moved to straight "AMD" branding.

Thanks for the info good sir. If knowledge is power, then you have given me a can of spinach.

Who ever wins...
We also win! =)

That's pretty much it. nothing drives development like some good competition.

Ditto

AMD bought out ATi a couple years ago.

Which is, complete coincidence (sarc), around the same time as ATI drivers stopped being such stinking piles of shit.

I can concur about the drivers being a pain. I had decided to try ATI when going for my next card, and it worked fine, but the drivers were a complete pain in the butt to acquire and install. Maybe for my next I will try AMD, although Nvidia has been doing well for me. But I am not too greedy for Awesome Spectacular Jizztastic graphics. Just as long as I get decent framerates for my games, I'm content.

 

[PeregrineFalcon]

fucking awesome.....


I use both nVidia and AMD, and I honestly don't see much of a difference between the two other than pricing...

but to have one call the other out to show if it is faster... that takes balls..... probably made from some sort of metal....

A metal that is possibly brass?

I think steel would be better.

Spoiler

BALLSBALLSBALLSBALLSBALLSBALLSBALLSBALLSBALLSBALLSBALLSBALLS

OF STEEL

 

[Baneat]

Competition is healthy and all, but I couldn't give a fiddlers which one of them has the current fastest graphics card at the moment. I'd never spend that kind of money on a single piece of hardware for a computer, it's beyond the scope of what I need my computer to do.

The one reason I've stuck with Nvidia throughout the years is because I've never (Me, personally, this person here) have had an issue or problem with their hardware or drivers. I have had problems with ATI cards in other machines.

It's more of a space race e-peen thing, I wouldn't be suprised if developing these top-tier cards actually lost them money in sales(Consider the Veyron), but being the company with the highest performing graphics card is enough to justify trying it.

Is intel still winning over AMD? AMD were excellent during pentium, then it went to quad cores and they got murdered (I bought the AMD quad cause I assumed they were still better )

ATi are killing nVidia right now, though, all the cards are running cooler and using less power (I actually bought my ATi card because it uses so much less energy than the equivalent nVidia)

Intel is killing AMD untill Bulldozer comes out and even then Intel might be a better option, and I would say Amd is about the same as Nvidia, some might prefer AMD since they are cooler and a bit cheaper and some prefer Nvidia for the performance and 3d, cuda and physx

When I was buying my card, no matter what scale I was on (enthusiast up to high end), I was seeing consistent better results on ATi cards no matter how high up I went (and now, it goes to the limit as you see). All nVidia has that might interest me is PhysX, and for something so rarely used I don't give it much consideration (wow batman: AA has a better cape animation).

Now, there was something stupid like a 100W difference in power consumption between my card and nVidia's offering at gaming-load, and slightly higher frames on my ATi card, and cooler too (probably due to the lower power consumption?). 100W for a few hours a day, for at least 2 years till I buy a new card's probably a decent sum saved.

define better results please.

Simple - Higher frame-rates on the games that I play on the resolution that I play at

 

[MrTub]

Simple - Higher frame-rates on the games that I play on the resolution that I play at

well then i suggest that you go and read a couple of benchmarks cause nvidia have been outperforming AMd since gtx 400 serie (single gpu cards) i would Link some but i am using My iPhone atm

 

[Baneat]

Simple - Higher frame-rates on the games that I play on the resolution that I play at

well then i suggest that you go and read a couple of benchmarks cause nvidia have been outperforming AMd since gtx 400 serie (single gpu cards) i would Link some but i am using My iPhone atm

Bear in mind I was looking at price-price not release-release, basically I said, if I have x to spend who provides the better card at that price point? then I picked my price point (£125) and got a 5850

 

[EvolutionKills]

Exactly. A lot of companies RELY on ONE franchise and try to milk it every year. That doesn't work very well. A market needs variety, or it stagnates. Each generation game costs go up. ONLY 10% of the console developers make money, and those are the big dogs of gaming like Activision and EA. The rest either get debt or low returns. If its doesn't have a reputation from either the company or the franchise, it gets canned because it's too big of a risk. Even the indie scene in console gaming is a disaster, as profits are low compared to PC gaming.

Console gaming isn't where the money is at anymore, it's casual games now as Nintendo has proven. Next generation is feared to be the apocalypse of console gaming. Why? the costs are going up, as this is PC gaming's ability now:


All of this was created using current tech like the Nvidia GTA 590, and the Intel I-9 (coming soon).

http://playstationlifestyle.net/2011/02/07/bioshock-creator-no-new-consoles-please/

I got plenty of sources, but posting one is easier than tracking all of them down.

Once again, I'd love to see the sources for where you are pulling these numbers and statistics from. All you have is a link to 2 quotes from 1 developer lamenting the possible rise in the cost of games if they jumped to the next generation.

Common sense dictates that more than '10%' of console developers make money, or else nobody would be funding them. Flip side is, that those '10%' make so much more that they cover the loses from the other 90%, which still seems a bit extreme without hard data backing it up. The industry is making money, people are being paid, product is being delivered. Activision thought that their money was best spent on making the 360 version of Black Ops awesome, the other two platforms be damned. They wouldn't have done that unless they thought they were getting the biggest bang for their buck. Say what you will about Activision's corporate culture and attitude, but they know how to make money (and keep their investors happy at least).


Also, EA and Activision aren't developers, they're publishers. Bioware and Treyarch are developers, that are owned and have their games published by EA and Activision respectively.

 

[EvolutionKills]

I made this post in response to someone who called my "consoles are dying" theory bullshit. He didn't respond. It even spawned a thread for a while. I think its still valid here. AAA games going the way of the dinosaur don't help, as AAA games are the only games that make a profit now.

Thanks for re-posting that, it made for a good read. It all makes a lot of sense, and I'm curious as to where the industry will go next. While AAA development will continue to rise, I hope they find a way to offset it. My guess would be that (hopefully) the next generation of console hardware is more similar to PC architecture (no 9 CPU Cell processor setup Sony). With a simpler and more unified architecture, you drop overall development costs on multi-platform titles. This would help you reach a larger audience with less money.


My next bet is on the increasing use of middleware (including cross over with the film industry) and procedural content creation. Just look at SpeedTree, they're behind a middleware technology that handles foliage creation. It's been used in Oblivion, Resistance: Fall of Man, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Fallout 3, Gears of War 2, Crackdown, Infamous, and even James Cameron's AVATAR. That save develops time and money from creating all of their own foliage art assets, and leaves it up to a dedicated group of guys who are really good at making digital trees. I could see middleware develops sprout up for procedural animation, real world vehicles, architecture, hair, clothing, guns, procedural voice, etc.


Middlware already exists for physics (Havok), limited procedural animation (Euphoria), and foliage (SpeedTree). Hopefully game engines will become more compartmentalized, allowing develops to select which assets and piece they need for a given project, pull them off the shelf and get down to content creation.


Still, I get the importance of AAA development. New tech would cause developers to spend more money to reach AAA status. Yeah, there isn't money to be made on A or AA games that much, unless they're a niche product. If all the games are $60, I'm going for the one with the best value (that one of the problems right there, we need more than just a $50-60 price point). This ends up becoming a self fulfilling prophecy. Only AAA titles make money, so we only make AAA titles, which cost more money, which lead to fewer releases, which leads to more competition in the AAA space, etc...


I can't help but wonder if they released solid fun to play games that didn't push graphical limits, if they could make more money with a lower price point. I'd love to see more examples like XBLA 'Castle Crashers', created with a handful of develops for little money. It was cheap, and a ton of fun, and sold relatively well. It's not like you can't play these games on consoles. Why haven't they made an HD version of 'Angry Birds' for XBLA and PSN? Give it leader boards, achievement/tropies, and some sort of mulitplayer (local/party/online), and I bet you'd have a financial success. The market for videogames is expanding, but the core demographic isn't growing that fast. You'r mom might be playing games now, but good money says she's more interested in Bejeweled than Gears of War (and if EA is to be believed, most definitely not Dead Space 2).


I understand that core AAA console games are costly, but it's a shame that the industry is so focused on these games. Not every AAA game need to be bumped/normal/specular mapped and vomiting bloom lighting into your face to be successful. AAA games are more than the next big shooter or GTA clone. I want more variety in my games industry, and we're not going to get it if everyone spends all of their money chasing the same golden ring of graphical photo realism. You can still watch cartoons on your 1080i 3D enabled 52' widescreen TV, not everything need to be James Cameron's Avatar. Not every car has to be the 2.6 second 0-60mph, $2 million dollar Bugatti Veyron, because people still want/need Dodge Caravans, Honda Civics, and Ford F-150s. I still enjoy my cartoons, I wish more developers and publishers felt the same.

 

[Emptor]

fucking awesome.....


I use both nVidia and AMD, and I honestly don't see much of a difference between the two other than pricing...

but to have one call the other out to show if it is faster... that takes balls..... probably made from some sort of metal....

A metal that is possibly brass?

I think steel would be better.

Spoiler

BALLSBALLSBALLSBALLSBALLSBALLSBALLSBALLSBALLSBALLSBALLSBALLS

OF STEEL

Or you could exchange those for these:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IjgZGhHrYY