8800gt\gtx g80 speeds\pipes

[casecutter]

Either way, it is painfully obvious that software companies are either going to dump the physics on either
a. a slave third PCI-E card or
b. a multi core processor.

Right now, the CPU is almost a non issue in almost all games. Even the graphics are not dependent on the CPU. The GFX cards just cannot process the information fast enough since there are only so many shaders and pixel pipelines. The next generation video cards (DX-10) are the first with unified shaders that are not reliant on these limitations, and they will rely heavily on the CPU to get them the information fast enough. I could care less what nitoxys says since not only does he not have the grasp of what it takes to run future games, he is also claiming it is a microsoft conspiracy. That fact alone tells me he is out of his mind and need to read things other than conspiracy theories.

Future games will be heavily dependant on multi core CPU's, and future video cards with unified shaders will also be heavily dependent on CPU power since they will easily outprocess ANY CPU. GPU's are already much more powerful than CPU's, and the trend is to unite them into one die. That is the main reason AMD bought ATI. They are looking to the future.

8800 cards are a complete waste of money anyways. There won't be any DX-10 software out for some time still, and they are costing roughly twice what they should. Nvidia rushed them to market since ATI was handing them their asses with the X1900 cards. So far, ATI is playing the cool caluclated game by NOT rushing DX-10 stuff out the door, and even if Nvidia manages to get ANOTHER series out before ATI does, the winner in the end will be the card that is not stupidly priced. 8800's are really only good for benchmark scores at the moment.

[AsianBatman]

Off topic, munkul what revision if your venice?

[Yawgm0th]

A few things...

1. Multi-threaded games already exist, and many more are being made. A few examples:
Call of Duty 2
Quake 4 (and possibly other Doom 3-based games)
Company of Heroes
Alan Wake
Source engine
Crysis
Almost all cross-platform titles seen on PS3/X360

2. Future games are going to be heavily dependent on the number of logical CPUs as well as their relative speeds, regardless of the video card. Hyperthreading beats single-core, dual-core beats Hyperthreading, quad-core beats dual-core. By 2008, there will be several titles out that require hyperthreading or dual-core.

3. To say that 8800 series cards are relatively overpriced is ignorant. Top of the line AMD cards cost 0-10% less than 8800 series cards that provide 40-100% performance improvement. The cards are priced quite appropriately with that in mind. I certainly would like to see them come way down, but what's good for the consumer and what's good for Nvidia and its OEMs are two very different things.

4. Nvidia was hardly losing prior to the 8800 series. ATI/AMD did and still doeshave the upper-hand at more price points, but Nvidia was doing fine and still is. Nvidia did okay even during the GeForce 5 vs. Radeon 9 days, and ATI's cards were much, much better than their nVidia counterparts at all price points. This last generation was at least competitive. Personally, I'd take a GeForce 7 series card over an ATI X1900 series card due to lower power consumption alone. Performance differences are negligible at most price points, though AMD has a commanding lead in most mid-range and entry-level price points IMO.

5. Even 8800s are not often CPU-limited. Anyone with an 8800 series card now is likely using it with a monitor capable of displaying 1920x1200, 2048x1586, 1920x1080, or higher. At these resolutions, any Core 2 Duo and most Athlon 64s are more than sufficient, and the GPU becomes the limitation, even with 8800 series cards. Some games in particular are incredibly GPU-limited. For example, Neverwinter Nights 2 can use a mid-range CPU and still see significant performance improvements with any GPU upgrades, right up to 8800GTXs. Basically, an 8800 series card is not necessarily going to be bottlenecked by the CPU. The system can do what these cards need. This will change with multi-threaded games, but for now there is no stopping the GPU bottleneck. Even SLI 8800s can be handled.

6. AMD is not playing a "cool calculated game." That's just fanboy talk. AMD's next-gen cards are not ready. Nvidia's were ready first. That's all there is to it. Perhaps AMD's cards will be better, or will be more affordably priced. For now, AMD is not competing with Nvidia for top-of-the line cards or for DirectX 10, and that is a victory, even if a temporary one.

[Munkul]

Originally Posted by AsianBatman

Off topic, munkul what revision if your venice?

LOL, quite a bit "off topic"!
i dont know, can i find out though cpu-z? not too chuffed about taking off my waterblock really :p

and why? can you help me get some more speed out of it?

[casecutter]

Show me 1 link to ANY ATI card costing $700, or even $500. There are none. To me, 8800's are far too overpriced. No video card should cost $700. The GTS is not too badly overpriced, but the GTX is just far too expensive. And almost any game that is currently able to use more than 1 CPU core has been patched to do so and not designed from scratch to do so. Most of those games you list are not out and are actually designed to use multi cores from the start so they will definitely shine.

As for fanboyism, I still think ATI's recent cards have been overpriced as well. I have run almost every conceivable combination of ATI/Nvidia Crossfire/SLI in the last few years and the money it takes to game smoothly over 1280X1024 is just crazy. Sure it is my fault for going with ultra high res monitors and such, but it would be nice to find 1 card for around $300 that could play most any game with some AA and AF above 1280X1024. Even with my current 7900GS, it struggles @ 1650X1080 with any AA and AF. Fortunately, the GS is a relatively cheap card so SLI isn't expensive. Either way, I sure hope this inquiry into video card prices being conducted gets the prices of mid high to high end video cards gets them down to more realistic prices. You can call me ignorant all you want. but it is you that is ignorant to be so willing to call those prices fair.

[Yawgm0th]

My 7800GT has no problems at 1600x1200 and 1280x960. NWN 2 and TES4 don't run at maxed settings or at 1600x1200, but BF2, FEAR, and CoH all do max or near-max at 1600x1200 and 1920x1080. What games are you struggling with?

8800GTX is only $600 USD for me. I'll agree to that being overpriced, although not because there's no equivalently priced AMD card. It's "twice" as powerful as any AMD card, so costing almost twice as much but some means make sense. I wouldn't consider buying one, and no one but the rich ultra-enthusiast with a high-resolution monitor would, either. The 8800GS is priced more appropriately, IMO.

I don't know how "fair" any video card prices are, when it's comes down to it. If the competition between AMD and Nvidia weren't so fierce, I'd suspect that there were some sort of discrete graphics cartel. A mid-range card alone costs as much as an Xbox 360 and needs a powerful system backing it to have about the same graphical power. The rate of discrete graphics inflation is a little too high, IMO. It's just bad for the PC gaming industry.

[casecutter]

Well, I cannot deny that the GTS is really not too high priced. It just kills me to see the GTX @ $700+ up here. I can get 2 7900GS video cards for $400 that can keep up to a single 8800 no sweat at any resolution, although no DX-10.

If Intel comes through with their threat to join the discrete graphics card market, we all gotta hope they can do it well. That would be the third party needed to reign in prices that are just out of control. AMD and Nvidia are being investigated for price fixing, but I doubt that will amount to anything. I realize that prices are not set to make me happy, it just really galls me to see them at $XXX now and half that price 6 months later. Anyhow, this is my last rant on prices. I still curse MS to no end for no DX-10 on XP and who knows what the new year is gonna bring.......