Q: this is all pure speculation
NV30 will probably outperform the 9700, but it has not much more transistors and still comes out in 5 months or so. I do not know if it is even possible. I know its supposed to be the latest and greatest, and here we are talking about Nvidia. I think ATI Nvidia completely overwhelmed with this and even when it is released IMO probably a GF4 vs R8500 gap.
EDIT level: I personally hope that it blows the pants off the 9700, but I have option 2, because it will working to get another ace up their sleeve ati: D
Re:Originally posted by: guy
The Radeon 9700 makes Matrox's offering look mighty weak
My dual-DVI rig says otherwise 
Re:I think if the NV30 had identical specs to the 9700 it would still beat it just because of drivers, so yes the NV30 should walk all over the 9700 from what we know.
Re:More then likely the NV30 will beat the 9700. However, in 5ish months, ATI could have out (or be ready to release) an update to the 9700 that could eliminate any gap Nvidia can muster with NV30. I have a feeling we're going to be seeing the performance leader change hands a lot more often.
Re:The Radeon 9700 makes Matrox's offering look mighty weak
It does I agree. We are all so fickle it just shows how many change their minds about certain products. It goes to show how ruthless this market it turning out to be. It wouldn't supprise me if this latest offering from ATI puts another nail in the coffin of Matrox Parhelia. It's a shame, but how will a company withstand spending that amount of cash on development (3 years or what ever it was) and come out of it with I would say a very specialised market card. What I mean is not a mass market card, unless it sells for $100. I feel a little sorry for Matrox, they need to respond with a better product and quickly.
ATI however, have impressed me greatly. I really fancy one of these Radeon 9700's I can tell you. For a few years now I have been nVidia's biatch with purchases of the TNT2, GeForce, Geforce 2 GTS and my current GeForce 3. Why no Geforce 4 I hear you say, well it was getting too damned expensive buying new technology. My GF3 cost me ￡404.00 delivered (appx $585). I was seriously considering one of these ATI babies, but then some of you mentioned that the .15 process is or will soon will be .13. Damn, when is this likely to be? Comes to a grinding stop, puts his hands in the air and goes back from where he came from.
I believe that nVidia and it's NV30 will again show how exceptional their product is by beating the 9700 in benchmarks, but not by as big a margin as the R300 v's the GF4 4600. Good times are here, the next few months of ATI having the limelight is great IMO. It's just a shame that Matrox is already forgotten! :frown:
"Let the games begin….."
Re:There are a few reasons why nVIDIA's NV30 will crush the R300….but not all of them lie in benchmarks.
First off, I don't think that the NV30 will be that much faster than the R300 in current (DirectX 7) games that don't make any use of vertex shaders. However, in games that make heavy use of vertex shaders (DX8 and DX9 games) nVIDIA will most likely win. nVIDIA is shooting for a 400M poly/sec fill rate (which is faster than ATi's 325M poly/sec fill rate), and will include faster memory on the DDR bus. Also, nVIDIA will be able to achieve higher clock speeds through the use of the .13um manufacturing process. These three advantages will enable the NV30 to achieve a nice performance advantage over the R300 in DX8 and DX9 games (I don't think that DX7 games will notice much of the NV30's improvements).
One of the big advantages that the NV30 will have over the R300 is it's programmability. While it will offer the same functionality as the R300, it will include looping, branching, etc. for both vertex and pixel shaders. Although this may not be big immediately, it will play a role in future games. Also, 3D animators will notice these programmability advantages. I do a lot of 3D animation, and looping and branching will enable more pixel shading operations to be done in a single pass, since ATi's card can only do 160 instructions per pass. What this means is that soon our GPU's will be able to accelerate 3D rendering through hardware (which will be [/b]much[/b] faster than any CPU).
Lastly, I still think that nVIDIA will have superior drivers, which should help them in every situation.
[EDIT]
My rambling post has now been fixed. It was late last night. 
Re:The Radeon 9700 makes Matrox's offering look mighty weak
Re:Good god………..so much GPU power! I can't play most quake III based games for more than 10 min or I get sick:D. Only game that I'll need more GPU power is Warcraft III………and seeing that I'm a avid WC2 player and this game totally takes away the skill starcraft/wc2 required…………Imma be playing mainly starcraft/wc2……..GeForce 4/Radeon 9700 is over kill for me………my GeForce 2 GTS does everything fine……:)
BTW how the heck do you guys play those games for more than 30min without getting sick……..:D
Re:i think the real fight is going to be nv30 .13 vs. r9700 .13 especially since ati will have more time to do some driver revisions before nvidia even gets its card out the door.
Re:However, it is highly unlikely that it delivers the 9700 quite the beating that the 9700 gives the GF4.
And why should it? NV30 is DX9, that competing with another DX9 product, completely new generation. GF4 is 6 months old.
While we at it, when 4xFSAA is used, GF4 is approximately 2.5 faster than Radeon 8500…otherwise, it's about 40% faster. We can argue about the implementation, but the fact remains….
guy
Re:There is no doubt in my mind that the NV30 will beat the 9700. It better, considering it is coming to the market several months later. However, it is highly unlikely that it delivers the 9700 quite the beating that the 9700 gives the GF4.
Re:I think what ATI did was incredible for one huge reason. They took a chip that everyone said would require a .13 micron die shrink and made it possible with .15 micron. It does not matter how you look at it, its one fantastic piece of engineering.
Nvidia can no longer consider ATI their whipping boy, ATI promised and delivered!!
Re:Hello everyone.
I believe that, rightly so, the NV-30 will be faster than the R300…but it won't make the kind of waves that ATI has created in just the past 48 hours!! I mean, look at just this forum…the ammount of discussions, flames, quotes and stats being hurled around here is really incredible when you stop and think about it. What other product release has done this much in this short of a time? Imagine what it's like all over the web.
Like 'em or not, ATI has created the standard of this generation of vid cards…the performance numbers prove it. Heck, the R300 is such a groundbreaking product, both in terms of shear power and ability as well as concept, that it is likely that the next two generations of cards may well be based on it's existence. There is no doubt that the nVidia/ATI "arms race" will produce ever more powerful cards at regular intervals (with a Creative/3DLabs offering thrown in for good measure.) But to think that either company will pull what ATI just did…offer a product so outstanding with performance that no one could have ever suspected…just does not seem possible anymore. No one, not ATI, nVidia or any other player, will let anyone get a jump on the market the way ATI just did.
Damn, I want this card…and I just bought my GF4 Ti-4400 a month ago! i/expressions/rolleye.gif
guy
Re:There's no doubt that the NV30 will be faster than the 9700 but I don't believe that the gap will be as large as the one between the Ti4600 and the 9700.
Then there's the other issue of the detonator 5s, which I'm sure are almost ready to be released. They'll likely throw a spanner into the works.
Re:Originally posted by: guy
I am a little surprised they're not trying to make the holidays with the NV30, but I suspect they think (and rightly so) that a lot more people know about and are saving their pennies to buy a GF4 than "whatever that other company makes", not like they're going to have a slow holiday without the NV30.
So I predict the NV30 will be faster, then the 9700 will go to .13 and tie or exceed it in certain marks and then bitboys will announce something even faster than either of them. At which point we'll all laugh, look at ATI and nVidia's future plans and start this all over again.
–Mc
haha right on!!!
Re:I am a little surprised they're not trying to make the holidays with the NV30, but I suspect they think (and rightly so) that a lot more people know about and are saving their pennies to buy a GF4 than "whatever that other company makes", not like they're going to have a slow holiday without the NV30.
So I predict the NV30 will be faster, then the 9700 will go to .13 and tie or exceed it in certain marks and then bitboys will announce something even faster than either of them. At which point we'll all laugh, look at ATI and nVidia's future plans and start this all over again.
–Mc
Re:Hmm…..really good TI4600 for $300….or 50% better performance for less than 50% more dollars……
Re:Based purely on nVidia's past performance and the (rumored) specifications for NV30, it will walk all over R300. And it'll be .13u with DDR-II. Looks good to me
Re:i love competition so put me down for #2;)
Re:I would say yes,Nvidia have the advantage now of knowing more or less how fast it`s over the GF4 Ti4600,the NV30 should be faster then the ATi 9700 but we don`t know by how much,also both ATi and Nvidia are always making faster cards so it really does not matter which card is faster since there will be faster cards down the road then another etc,this is progress & a never ending battle between the two companies and you never know we may see a third party come in with a top performing card,never say never
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Re:They will out perform the 9700 0.15 but lets see what happens when the R300 0.13 & NV30 0.13 go at it
Cheers,
guy
Re:Also a lot of times NVIDIA was competing with their own products though IE GF3 VS GF2 ULTRA but i dont think the ever demolished anything that badlyWell the GF4 was pretty big over the competition and nVidia's previous offering (50% at times) but stil, I agree, it is huge what ATi has doen
Re:Nvidia seems to be a little behind in their releases. It could be their transition to .13 micron or for whatever reason they are certainly behind ATI in the video segment and behind VIA in the chipset arena. ATI should go for Nvidia's jugular and release a killer notebook chip!
I didnt think the difference between the RADEON 8500 and TI series was that great. Especially when you factor in price!
Re:the thing is… how much faster can it be? well, theres clockspeed, but if nvidia is following their standard of letting the computers do all the layout work its not going to be that many more MHz even with the process shrink. memory will be faster then, of course. is NVDA's HSR good enought to match ATIT's occlusion? the canucks claim 100% removal. the nv30 will most likely be faster, but not by the extent that ATI is right now. and of course, the nv30 is 5 months from now or so.
Re:Anand seemed to think that the NV30 would be the 9700, but not by a large margin, and that the .13 version of the 9700 might be capable of retaking the crown. I think whichever card ends up being King, it will the first time in a long while since there were two excellent top-end cards. I wouldn't be surprised if they ended up each having distinct advantages without there being any clear or overwhelming winner.
Re:I was thinking on buying that 9700, the benches look sweet, but my GF3 will hold off to se the NV30 benches.
I hate to wait.
Re:With the specs that the NV30 has and NVidia's track record I think that we will see at least a 20% increase across the board over the ATI 9700. My biggest question is whether or not they will greatly improve their Anti-Aliasing so that it can be used *most* of the time. I think they will….
Re:Originally posted by: guy
Actually, ATI pulled an NVDA. So your question should be, "Would NVDA pull another one on ATI?"
I think I am right in saying that because nothing has ever beat the previous "top performer" that I was aware of by so much in a long long time maybe even since the Voodoo days
actually i think 2 Voodoo 2's in SLI was the last thing that dominated the competition by such a factor
Also a lot of times NVIDIA was competing with their own products though IE GF3 VS GF2 ULTRA but i dont think the ever demolished anything that badly
Re:Actually, ATI pulled an NVDA. So your question should be, "Would NVDA pull another one on ATI?"
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