GT300 almost certainly will be faster than ATI 5870.. but at what cost?

Alright guys/gals.. this will probably turn into a major flame war, but I just had to post my opinion of the news that came out a few days ago regarding the upcoming GT300 specs.

Nvidia says it will have 512 cores (up from 240 on GTX285!), and have GDDR5 memory running on a 384-bit bus. Don't freak out about the memory bus being narrower than the 512-bit bus on the GTX 285.. Remember, ATI's 5800 series uses a 256-bit bus but still manages over 150gb/s of memory bandwidth due to the speed of GDDR5.

Here's why I'm almost certain that the GT300 high-end part will be noticeably faster than the 5870-

-GTX 285 is faster than the HD4890

-5870 has twice the stream processor count of the 4890 (and same GPU clock speed)

-GT300 will have MORE than twice the stream processor count of the GTX 285. So this establishes, at least theoretically, that the GT300's GPU will be a fair amount more powerful than the Cypress core on the 5870.. assuming that Nvidia's stream processors scale the same way as ATI's when you double the count.

-The memory bandwidth of GT300 should be signifcantly higher than 5870. I drew this conclusion from the fact that both GT300 and 5870 use GDDR5 memory, but the new Nvidia card will have a 384-bit memory bus, as opposed to the 256-bit on Cypress.

So.. faster GPU and more memory bandwidth usually means faster card, right? It looks as though Nvidia and ATI are still playing the same game that they have been since the release of the Geforce 6 series in 2004. Nvidia provides the fastest product in each generation, but USUALLY at a significantly higher cost.

So from the specs and the reports of Nvidia's AWFUL GT300 chip yields, it's fairly safe to assume that GT300-based cards are going to cost a fair amount more than ATI's high-end parts that were recently released. Just how much more is the only question left..

And how many gamers will pay for the performance that so few games really need?.. when ATI provides a product that will likely be less expensive and give more than adequate performance.

Alright guys/gals.. this will probably turn into a major flame war, but I just had to post my opinion of the news that came out a few days ago regarding the upcoming GT300 specs.

Nvidia says it will have 512 cores (up from 240 on GTX285!), and have GDDR5 memory running on a 384-bit bus. Don't freak out about the memory bus being narrower than the 512-bit bus on the GTX 285.. Remember, ATI's 5800 series uses a 256-bit bus but still manages over 150gb/s of memory bandwidth due to the speed of GDDR5.

Here's why I'm almost certain that the GT300 high-end part will be noticeably faster than the 5870-

-GTX 285 is faster than the HD4890

-5870 has twice the stream processor count of the 4890 (and same GPU clock speed)

-GT300 will have MORE than twice the stream processor count of the GTX 285. So this establishes, at least theoretically, that the GT300's GPU will be a fair amount more powerful than the Cypress core on the 5870.. assuming that Nvidia's stream processors scale the same way as ATI's when you double the count.

-The memory bandwidth of GT300 should be signifcantly higher than 5870. I drew this conclusion from the fact that both GT300 and 5870 use GDDR5 memory, but the new Nvidia card will have a 384-bit memory bus, as opposed to the 256-bit on Cypress.

So.. faster GPU and more memory bandwidth usually means faster card, right? It looks as though Nvidia and ATI are still playing the same game that they have been since the release of the Geforce 6 series in 2004. Nvidia provides the fastest product in each generation, but USUALLY at a significantly higher cost.

So from the specs and the reports of Nvidia's AWFUL GT300 chip yields, it's fairly safe to assume that GT300-based cards are going to cost a fair amount more than ATI's high-end parts that were recently released. Just how much more is the only question left..

And how many gamers will pay for the performance that so few games really need?.. when ATI provides a product that will likely be less expensive and give more than adequate performance.

im guessing easily 100 dollars more over the 5870.. however if thats going to be there BEST card they will have a lot to work around a competitively priced 5850x2 or 5870x2

hartsickdiscipl

Interesting conclusions.

Personally iam expecting the top NVIDIA GT300 card to be more powerful than the 5870 but i think NVIDIA will charge a LOOOT for it thus offering like normal for their high end cards turd price/performance!

Iam planning on buying probably their mid-range card which will hopefully give me a 3x increase in Folding@Home results :D

Personally iam expecting the top NVIDIA GT300 card to be more powerful than the 5870 but i think NVIDIA will charge a LOOOT for it thus offering like normal for their high end cards turd price/performance!

Iam planning on buying probably their mid-range card which will hopefully give me a 3x increase in Folding@Home results :D

Daytona_178

history shows that nvidia is usually quite a bit more expensive (especially when it comes to their high end) and ati recently has been giving people so much bang for their buck that nvidia can't compete with the price/performance ratio of ati. ati is stealing so many customers away with the 5870 and 5850 that nvidia would have to price their cards so high to actually make a profit because i don't see why anybody would even need something faster than a 5870 and when something comes around that needs that much power (late next year probably) ati would have come out with something EVEN BETTER and price it less than the nvidia cards. ati cards might not have as much power as nvidia cards, but you just can't beat their deals

[QUOTE="Daytona_178"]

Personally iam expecting the top NVIDIA GT300 card to be more powerful than the 5870 but i think NVIDIA will charge a LOOOT for it thus offering like normal for their high end cards turd price/performance!

Iam planning on buying probably their mid-range card which will hopefully give me a 3x increase in Folding@Home results :D

ticktocktick201

history shows that nvidia is usually quite a bit more expensive (especially when it comes to their high end) and ati recently has been giving people so much bang for their buck that nvidia can't compete with the price/performance ratio of ati. ati is stealing so many customers away with the 5870 and 5850 that nvidia would have to price their cards so high to actually make a profit because i don't see why anybody would even need something faster than a 5870 and when something comes around that needs that much power (late next year probably) ati would have come out with something EVEN BETTER and price it less than the nvidia cards. ati cards might not have as much power as nvidia cards, but you just can't beat their deals

[QUOTE="ironman388"]

history shows that nvidia is usually quite a bit more expensive (especially when it comes to their high end) and ati recently has been giving people so much bang for their buck that nvidia can't compete with the price/performance ratio of ati. ati is stealing so many customers away with the 5870 and 5850 that nvidia would have to price their cards so high to actually make a profit because i don't see why anybody would even need something faster than a 5870 and when something comes around that needs that much power (late next year probably) ati would have come out with something EVEN BETTER and price it less than the nvidia cards. ati cards might not have as much power as nvidia cards, but you just can't beat their deals

GazaAli

Eyefinity anyone? Seems to me to be more useful, not to mention successful, on the same concept, immersion, than "3D vision".

[QUOTE="ironman388"]

history shows that nvidia is usually quite a bit more expensive (especially when it comes to their high end) and ati recently has been giving people so much bang for their buck that nvidia can't compete with the price/performance ratio of ati. ati is stealing so many customers away with the 5870 and 5850 that nvidia would have to price their cards so high to actually make a profit because i don't see why anybody would even need something faster than a 5870 and when something comes around that needs that much power (late next year probably) ati would have come out with something EVEN BETTER and price it less than the nvidia cards. ati cards might not have as much power as nvidia cards, but you just can't beat their deals

GazaAli

ATI innovated when they reworked their architecture for DDR5 and was smoking Nvidia last gen with less holes in the consumers wallet. While Nvidia kept the same ol stuff and just increased the power and price. I like Nvidia but you got it backwards. You speak of innovation when all I see is constant rebranding of the 8/9k series? and I havn't seen any game use physX that ended up being detrimental to ATI. But granted Nvidia had a winning formula with the 8k/9k series and why change what works right?

[QUOTE="GazaAli"][QUOTE="ironman388"]

history shows that nvidia is usually quite a bit more expensive (especially when it comes to their high end) and ati recently has been giving people so much bang for their buck that nvidia can't compete with the price/performance ratio of ati. ati is stealing so many customers away with the 5870 and 5850 that nvidia would have to price their cards so high to actually make a profit because i don't see why anybody would even need something faster than a 5870 and when something comes around that needs that much power (late next year probably) ati would have come out with something EVEN BETTER and price it less than the nvidia cards. ati cards might not have as much power as nvidia cards, but you just can't beat their deals

Human-after-all

ATI innovated when they reworked their architecture for DDR5 and was smoking Nvidia last gen with less holes in the consumers wallet. While Nvidia kept the same ol stuff and just increased the power and price. I like Nvidia but you got it backwards. You speak of innovation when all I see is constant rebranding of the 8/9k series? and I havn't seen any game use physX that ended up being detrimental to ATI. But granted Nvidia had a winning formula with the 8k/9k series and why change what works right?

I don't think that ATI "smoked" Nvidia last-gen. The GTX275 is a little bit faster than the 4890, and the GTX285 is even faster... The GTX295 is faster than any ATI card from that generation. I don't see that GDDR5 really didn't give ATI an performance advantage, though it did allow them to run it in conjunction with a 256-bit bus and still get good memory bandwidth. If you're talking about the 8/9 series.. yes, they were VERY successful, although I do hate the re-naming crap that Nvidia did. It's pretty stupid that you can buy a 512mb GTS 250 that is considered part of the current lineup, but it's really the same as a 9800gtx, 9800gtx+, and 8800gts 512. Throws alot of people off if they don't keep up with the industry as well as some of us.

I'm actually very impressed with alot of Nvidia's offerings. The fact that somebody could have bought an 8800gtx almost 3 years ago, and still be playing most games at high/max settings is very impressive IMO.

I'm very much price/performance at the moment. At moment ATI are offering the best performance for the price you pay. I'm still waiting for Nivida to make a move before I commit to anything.

Frankly, i have a gts 250 that does everything i need it to do efficiently, if i didnt own it i would have 4870, I all about the mid range, where you really get bang for buck.