Quote: "First of all, XT is like a normal radeon on steroids, they've tweaked it to maximum, but it is still the same card. Just faster"
Checkout the technology page on ATi about them... they've updated their features to be onpar with the GeForceFX 52/5600 cards, thier speed has been increased from a top of 800mhz ro 1,000mhz coupled with an intelligent speed sensor which will prevent dangerous overclocking that ATI card owners are used to (something the FX and 4ti have had for over 3years now!)
Add this they're now using an .11 die rather than the .13 they were using, which means smaller but more heat expensive VPUs.
if you think its just a Radeon on steriod then be my guest and LOOK at the specifications of it.
The Radeons are currently by far top of the Market according to most online sources, as a company you don't spend stupid money ... the R480 is due out next year, give me a REASON why they would release the RadeonXT if they seriously had nothing to fear from nvidia.
I'm perfectly serious here, out of ALL of the companies around ATI are certainly as hell not known for throwing money around they don't need to, the only reason the 9500's were recalled and replaced with 9600s is because they were too expensive for budget cards but the XT range isn't ment for the budget market they're top of the line cards. And they're to replace the Pro series there, who are also not shifting to budget.
The industry runs on money, how much you can make to the loss of development ... ATi might be hailed as Creme of the crop right now, but people are not going to be willing to spend out another $380 just to get this newer installment of the Radeon.
Quote: "HL2 is a big game. People want to play it and if NVIDIA cards can't run it without specific optimizations to the shaders, well consumers have easy time picking out their gfx card. Would you want a GFX card that runs some games ok, others not because there's no shader optimization for it OR would you like a card that runs ok in any case? "
Half-Life2 has been optimised for ATI use, there are no 2 ways around it ... its not a case that the GeForceFX is performing badly because it in unoptimised, the Radeon's shaders are optimised whereas the GeForceFX, Quadrat & Perhelia are all in the same boat.
but Half-Life 2 is just ONE game out of over 100 games released for the PC format every year ... it might be the most highly publicised however just where the HELL is it??
I don't have it, you don't have it... NO ONE HAS IT!
Latest Doom3 reports are that the GeForceFX using the 51.83 WHQL Candidate is performing at breakneck speeds.
Jedi Academy also performs FAR FAR greater on GeForceFX and 4ti cards than it does on the Radeon equivilants, even STALKER is reporting its far greater speed on the FX range over the Radeons.
just because these games aren't AS high profile as Half-Life2, its hard to ignore that this socalled speed loss between the cards is the created facts of two very pathetic companies.
Benchmarks show the FX are faster than the Radeon equivilants, and with each DetonatorFX/Foreware driver they're getting better all the time with the Radeons speed now at a stand still as far as optimisation goes.
As an Artist i personally prefer the GeForceFX over the Radeon equivilants because it has FAR FAR greater image quality, it's interchangeable FSAA Quality levels and depths of FSAA along with AF are unparralelled - i keep trying to see this so called better quality from the Radeons, but all i constantly see are washed out colours and very poor FSAA sampling ... considering the Radeons are suppose to be working from a SampleX5 rate whereas the GeForce standard sampling is SampleX3/5/9 with the XS being 9x9 Sampling and much smoother graphically under DirectX.
We should probably believe everything that is being said by Valve and ATi though, i mean they didn't lie that Half-Life2 supported FSAA did they? Oh wait no, there have been benchmarks with it.
But they didn't lie that thier partnership wouldn't give favouritism, did they? Oh wait no, Gabe Newell at Alcatraz pretty much sunk that one.
I'm sorry but I'm not going to buy my brand new graphics card based on a SINGLE TITLE... i don't give a damn if it holds the answer to life, the universe and everything - over $100 for a new graphics card and I WANT some damn proof that it is the best.
And from the real-life tests this is just NOT what i'm seeing.
1 game out of over 200 tested over the past years, that particular game being 'sponsered' by ATI - and cooincidentally that is the ONE game that happens to be showing the FX in poor colours.
Quote: ""There was little mention about any new FX cards or the current ones. The NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun made it quite clear that the graphics industry would no longer be the primary focus point of the company. They then continued to demonstrate a wide range of new multimedia products.""
i followed the link, i'd strongly suggest you checkout the links from nvidia.com about the conference where the GeForceFX line won 8 of the industries top awards for excellence (wonder how many ATI went home with ::coughnonecough:
There is a message within the words said though, over the past 2years nVidia has brached out into motherboard and multimedia for the home. nVidia's primary consern is the Multimedia market... to say that they're no longer primarily just about the graphics is true, however it doesn't mean that this isn't thier primary consern STILL.
the GoForce for the Mobile Market and GeForceFX 6000 / GeForceFX 2 are prime examples of this, ATI only has the graphics market ... nVidia are starting to offer the full package,
from Graphics, Sound, Networking, Motherboard Solutions, Etc...
And it is no secret that thier graphics card and Creative's Sound Blaster ranges perform quite stunningly upon thier own chipsets.
Thier motherboards are now the industries fastest, combined with the unlimited power of the new Athlon64 FX and a GeForceFX - not to mention Crucial Ram who they bought out earlier this year who are one of the most well know Ram developers.
nVidia haven't stepped back from giving the end users anything, what they're doing is giving you the ENTIRE package...
Quote: "3DFX and their groovy voodoo cards where you could use 2 cards at the same time by connecting them via CLI, yeah man that's where the fun is at rofl! good in their day though. <- this is how an opinion *should* end.. IMO "
the term is SLi, and what the hell do you think the GeForceFX are?
the
CLUE is in the name.
