Nvidia/ATI musings

[orangat]

I just had a look at the xbitlabs benchmarks between the x800pro vs 6800GT. The GT looks to be slightly faster by 5-7% in about 14 games (including some like D3 which the lead was bigger) while the x800pro was only slightly faster in about 5 games.

AMDs lead over Intel in gaming for comparable socket754-socket478 is about 7% but with a 15% penalty in some video encoding applications. If people frequently say AMD blows Intel out of the water over that margin of improvement, isn't it fair to say then that Nvidia just 'blows ATI out of the water'?

 

[imported_tss4]

No, its not. I own a 6800gt but its obvious if you take a look around at the benchmarks that NVIDIA doesn't blow ATI out of the water. First off, you only compared 2 cars, the pro and the gt. Yes between the two, overall the GT appears right now to be a little better. 5% on average is hardly enough to call it a blow out. The other consideration, is that between the X800XT and the 6800 Ultra, the ATI offering appears on average to be better. In the previous generations 9800's appear on average to be slightly better than the 5900 series. There's no clear winner. Both companies make some great cards.

 

[Schadenfroh]

yet another flame bait thread.

both are great cards, if your a ATI fan, go with them, if your nvidia, go with them.

 

[Terranboy]

To me, AMD blows Intel out of the water simply by achieving better performance as 1.0+ Ghz slower clock.

 

[GeneralGrievous]

AMDs lead over Intel in gaming for comparable socket754-socket478 is about 7% but with a 15% penalty in some video encoding applications. If people frequently say AMD blows Intel out of the water over that margin of improvement, isn't it fair to say then that Nvidia just 'blows ATI out of the water'?

Well look at it this way:

AMD offers a mobile barton at $80, which blows any of the celerons out of the water.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2149&p=7

Now compare the Athlon 64 3000+ to the P4 2.8 C, which are similarly priced on pricewatch. I do consider 85.3 fps compared to 67 fps "blowing it out of the water". An Athlon 64 rig also allows you do use a NF3 chipset and tap into potential NF3/NV40 optimizations (though that has yet to be shown really).

I don't have to sit there while encoding large files, so I personally don't consider encoding speed all too important. For professionals and enthusiasts, though, that might not be the case.

 

[Childs]

I used to be down on AMD because of all the problems I used to have, but in retrospect those were VIA issues. The chipsets have vastly inproved in stability, and now IMO AMD has the price/performance with stability crown. They both have their advantages, just like ATI and Nvidia.

 

[Insomniak]

Originally posted by: orangat
I just had a look at the xbitlabs benchmarks between the x800pro vs 6800GT. The GT looks to be slightly faster by 5-7% in about 14 games (including some like D3 which the lead was bigger) while the x800pro was only slightly faster in about 5 games.

AMDs lead over Intel in gaming for comparable socket754-socket478 is about 7% but with a 15% penalty in some video encoding applications. If people frequently say AMD blows Intel out of the water over that margin of improvement, isn't it fair to say then that Nvidia just 'blows ATI out of the water'?

People are wrong on both counts.

First of all, those performance differences are not "blown out of the water". To me, that's 15% at least.

Where AMD is blowing Intel out of the water right now is execution - they were the first to desktop with 64 bits, their desktop and server processors all perform slightly better than Intels for less money, they aren't having the manufacturing and heat problems Intel is, and they are picking up more and more OEM contracts that used to go to Intel every day.

In other words, AMD is pumping on all cylinders while Intel is struggling. Intel is just such a behemoth that they can struggle for a while and still stay one of the biggest players in the market.


Similarly, r300 vs NV30. ATi was pumping on all cylinders while NV30 was having manufacturing problems, inferior cost/performance, heat issues....however, NV is such a behemoth that...


No one is really blowing anyone out of the water on a product to product fight right now, however, AMD is executing business strategy far better than Intel right now, and Nvidia and ATi are pretty much dead even - both ATi and NV have great products this time around that neither one of them can ship in volume.

 

[orangat]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
yet another flame bait thread.

both are great cards, if your a ATI fan, go with them, if your nvidia, go with them.

You really should read my post carefully if at all.

I repeat, AMD-Intel performance comparisons are quite narrow. 5-7% margins is nothing to crow about when both system are quite comparable in price (Intel has to use dual chan memory which is possibly abit more). And AMD suffers a 15% penalty in some popular encoding apps.

In the same way 6800GT DOES LEAD the x800Pro by approximately 5-7% in many games and much more in about 3 games. So can the AMD-Intel analogy be used for Nvidia-ATI?

GeneralGrievous, you used a Doom3 bench to make your point, are you forgetting Nvidia is much faster than ATI in Doom3?

 

[GeneralGrievous]

It's a cpu comparison, not a video card one.

 

[orangat]

Originally posted by: Insomniak
People are wrong on both counts.

First of all, those performance differences are not "blown out of the water". To me, that's 15% at least.

Where AMD is blowing Intel out of the water right now is execution - they were the first to desktop with 64 bits, their desktop and server processors all perform slightly better than Intels for less money, they aren't having the manufacturing and heat problems Intel is, and they are picking up more and more OEM contracts that used to go to Intel every day.
.....

Good point, I just wanted to know why saying AMD 'blows' Intel is ok but saying Nvidia 'kicks ATI butt' gets more flak.

Intel is still faster by about 15% in some apps but Nvidia is similarly faster in the D3 engine/OpenGL apps.

 

[orangat]

Originally posted by: GeneralGrievous
It's a cpu comparison, not a video card one.

Your point?. AMD leads Intel pretty big in Doom3 and games in general. It is the same for Nvidia leading ATI in games benchmarks and having a big lead in Doom3.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: orangat

Originally posted by: GeneralGrievous
It's a cpu comparison, not a video card one.

Your point?

this is the video forum, we have a CPU forum too

 

[unipidity]

Nvidia has the lead in one market segment at the moment, and in low volume. Not to mention, not by much- and Ati seems to have a corresponding lead in the high end (excepting D3).

Moreover, AMD is the performance and value leader across the range. Celerons are a joke for gamers, and P4s are still too expensive to compete with equivalently rated A64s. If the x800 pro was another 40 dollar more expensive and the x800XE had 5% knocked off its performance, id agree.

i think Nvidia have clearly won this round, but not by much. Certainly not by a tenth of the length Ati won the last one. Also, HL2 might make a difference.

 

[orangat]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh

Originally posted by: orangat

Originally posted by: GeneralGrievous
It's a cpu comparison, not a video card one.

Your point?

this is the video forum, we have a CPU forum too

And examples given should support the argument.

If AMD blows Intel out of the water by just being 5% faster in games and 25% in Doom3 and slower by 15% in some popular encoding apps why is it unfair to say Nvidia kicks ATI butt when it is generally 5-10% faster in games, 20% faster in Doom3 and 3 other games and doesn't suffer a 15% penalty like AMD.

I disregard celery-Barton comparisons. This is about the average cpu a gamer would use. And not everyone including myself would want to pony up $550 for an ultra/xt.

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: orangat
I just had a look at the xbitlabs benchmarks between the x800pro vs 6800GT. The GT looks to be slightly faster by 5-7% in about 14 games (including some like D3 which the lead was bigger) while the x800pro was only slightly faster in about 5 games.

AMDs lead over Intel in gaming for comparable socket754-socket478 is about 7% but with a 15% penalty in some video encoding applications. If people frequently say AMD blows Intel out of the water over that margin of improvement, isn't it fair to say then that Nvidia just 'blows ATI out of the water'?

I am not qualified to say.

 

[Brackus2]

for myself its just a business decision.

I have no extra money for everything, but I love my computer so I compare prices on new parts many times a week. Here is my bottom line:

AMD really does kick Intel's ass as far as cpu's go because amd has more performance for less price, at least for sure on all processors $300 and down.

Doom3 needs good ram, vid card and cpu if you want to run it the way ITS SUPPOSED TO BE RUN

Nvidia has never steered me wrong, they were kicking butt with the 4Ti series, then got destroyed by the 95xx and 97xx/98xx radeons, finally with the 6800 they are even again. But WHO CARES??? I just want to play my games and apps as smoothly as possible for as little cost, somewhere some rich asshole is getting my money anyway, my choice as a single consumer means NOTHING AT ALL to the market.

Just read the benches, do your homework, decide for yourself what you want/need, then come to forums for advise. Anyone who wastes their time arguing over whose is better must really just have too much money and time and waste it all on their computers and forums arguing over which parts are better.

There are really only a few individuals on this forum that can give great insight to these answers, yet 90% of posts I see are usually idiotic people just writing a quick msg that really means nothing at all anyways,

end of my rant,

Dustin

 

[gururu]

Originally posted by: orangat



And examples given should support the argument.

If AMD blows Intel out of the water by just being 5% faster in games and 25% in Doom3 and slower by 15% in some popular encoding apps why is it unfair to say Nvidia kicks ATI butt when it is generally 5-10% faster in games, 20% faster in Doom3 and 3 other games and doesn't suffer a 15% penalty like AMD.

I disregard celery-Barton comparisons. This is about the average cpu a gamer would use. And not everyone including myself would want to pony up $550 for an ultra/xt.

Nonsense. The fastest product available will win the performance crown for the company that made it. Looking at mid range offerings, well, it depends on what you compare and who's doing the comparing. other sites show GT over the pro, others show the pro over the GT.

 

[Pete]

Originally posted by: unipidity
i think Nvidia have clearly won this round, but not by much. Certainly not by a tenth of the length Ati won the last one. Also, HL2 might make a difference.

There's nothing "clear" about an nVidia win that's "not by much." The only thing clear to me is that at the current MSRP segments, the GT seems overall superior at $400 and the XTPE at $500.

But you have to take street price into account, and the X800P can be had for much less than $400 more regularly than the GT, it seems. That makes up for its slight overall performance deficit, IMO. It's hard to directly compare a $340 X800P from Dell with a $400+ GT online. Sure, some people got their GTs for $300, but that was a one-shot (fantastic) deal.

Then consider that for the $430 you'd pay for a GT retail after tax, you can pick up a X800P VIVO that seems very likely to mod to a 16-pipe XT with just a BIOS flash. So there are prices to consider in addition to performance. AMD's lead over Intel is greater performance at the same price. It's not the same situation with ATi and nV if you take into account regular deals and the odd BIOS flashable deals.

 

[Drayvn]

The scales of "it blows it out of the water" is different for those 2 different types of hardware.

In CPU, we expect to see a larger difference than compared to the GPUs, nowadays we expect to see a big difference for gaming with AMD and Intel, and now even more we see the A64 outclassing even more expensive products from Intel in most situations.

But when it comes to the GFX, we dont expect much, because thats how it is fought, there are many differing things that a GPU has to abide by, the RAM, the Slot, the way technology is moving, the heat issues, and stuff like that.

But with the CPU, its not like that as the mobo and everything around it has to conform to the CPU, and not the other way round, and the fact that the CPU has to do more things than the GPU also adds to that.

So the A64 that u mentioned can outclass a similarly priced or more expensive offering from Intel, in most apps, while in some, it falls somewhat behind, but then u see GPUs, and it only depends on the visual performance and quality. And so in the scales it looks like the same percentage, as u say 5-7%

But the scale for CPU is 1000 to 2000 while for the GPU its more liek 100 to 200, so in fact a 7 percent increase for the CPU would be from what i said above, about 70, while for the GPU its only 7...