ATI R600 with 720M transistors + 512-bit bus set to thrash G80~GF8800 ?

[RzR]

Roger Christie <rochrist@ wrote:
I just bit the bullet this week and am replacing it with a

7800 GS, even though the 1600 is only a couple of months old.

noone really cares about your inability to use ati products...buh bye

 

[chrisv]

The only time I've *ever* run into much driver difficulty and frustration
has been in Linux. But that has been with both ATI and NVidia.

Where Nvidia currently has a far better reputation. Personally I
don't consider ATI cards, because of the Linux support issue.

But, for either brand, if you buy a new SOTA card, don't be surprised
if you have to wait a few months for it to be supported by your
favorite Linux distribution...

 

[Tony DiMarzio]

Where Nvidia currently has a far better reputation. Personally I
don't consider ATI cards, because of the Linux support issue.

But, for either brand, if you buy a new SOTA card, don't be surprised
if you have to wait a few months for it to be supported by your
favorite Linux distribution...

I did not mention in my post that as of ATI Linux driver revision 8.26.18,
which was released on June 26, 2006, I have had good results with my ATI
cards in SUSE 10.1. Since then, ATI has released 6 monthly driver updates
and each one has improved on the previous. I am currently using "8.31.5",
and it looks like ATI has released "8.32.5" just today, along with Cat 6.12
for Win32. They have been very consistent with their monthly driver revs in
Linux.

The ATI linux installer is a single ELF with X86 and X64 Xorg and XFree86
drivers. It can be installed from the cmd line outside of X or in X, in
which case it will use a graphical installer. So, basically, there's only 1
file you have to worry about. The area that still needs work is getting
every setting that one might want to change into the GUI. Currently, one
still has to manually edit the XF86Config or xorg.conf to tweak certain
settings. It will only get better with each revision though and I'd say they
are definitely on the right path and making solid progress.

The ATI/Linux world has gotten much better. You might be pleasantly
surprised.

Tony

 

[Tony DiMarzio]

http://tinyurl.com/y3w4uz


"R600 is the ?? 80nm craft manufacture, the core area is 428mm2,
has 720 million transistors"

we already know R600 will have a 512-bit bus.



the top-end G80~GF 8800 has a 384-bit bus and 680~691M transistors

ATI's architectures have tended to out-perform Nvidia's given a level
playing field on shader-generation.

Nvidia was ahead for awhile with shader 3.0 GPUs while ATI only had
shader 2.0 GPUs
(GeForce 6 and 7 series vs ATI X800 and X850, a few years ago) but
once ATI caught up with shader generations with the X1800 and X1900,
ATI took back the performance crown. of course Nvidia is on top right
now because they've released the GeForce 8 series while ATI has yet to
release the next-gen Radeon, but when it does, looks like ATI (ahem
AMD) will be back on top.


yes, it is true that transistor count alone does not ensure top
performance. the 107M transistor ATI R300 trashed the 125M transistor
Nvidia NV30 in 2002-2003, but ATI has shown that it can beat Nvidia
with fewer transistors because their architectures are superior. now
with ATI likely to have more transistors, Nvidia could be in for an
even bigger thrashing. the 512-bit memory bus is actually the bigger
deal. however the MOST important thing is, the architecture of the
GPUs, the inner workings. Nvidia's 128 stream processors vs ATI's
64 (or more) unified shader ALUs.

will be interesting to watch.


If only ATI could write a driver that wasn't crap.

From YT_Damnit's 12/13/06 post at
http://ve3dboards.ign.com/message.asp?topic=25775562 :

Quote: "Ugh.
[soapbox]
I just spent $1700 converting to 680i, 8800GTX and C2D 6600 over the last
weekend. I already miss my ATI drivers and a FUNCTIONAL (though not very
elegant) control panel. Whoever thinks Nvidia drivers are better than ATI
has clearly never used Catalyst drivers in the last year.

The 96.89 beta drivers (I think they were beta?) have working Flat Panel
Scaling. In the official (yet non-whql) drivers 97.02 it is broken!? But no
fear...the 97.44's come out...and it's STILL broken?!? WTF!?

It's funny, I remember having a folder years ago with Nvidia drivers named
for the games they did or did not work with =) 4 years ago! and it's still
the same shit. Unreal (no pun intended).
[soapbox/] "

So... The same argument can be made against NVidia drivers as well... it all
depends on who you ask and what their personal experiences have been I
guess.

Tony

 

[GT-Force]

Don't worry about 1982 guy. Assuming 1982 is his birth-year, he's still just
a kid, which means actually HE is a novice himself (or noob in his "hip"
vocabulary, and as he himself, for some reason, uses this as some sort of an
insult, I assume?), which is very obviously apparent from his attitude and
language. He'll learn how to talk and behave (I hope) in public (and online)
as he grows and becomes an adult. Currently, he's just a troll in these NGs,
as they say.
GT

 

[Mr.E Solved!]

Tony DiMarzio wrote:

Quote: "Ugh.
[soapbox]
I just spent $1700 converting to 680i, 8800GTX and C2D 6600 over the last
weekend. I already miss my ATI drivers and a FUNCTIONAL (though not very
elegant) control panel. Whoever thinks Nvidia drivers are better than ATI
has clearly never used Catalyst drivers in the last year.

The 96.89 beta drivers (I think they were beta?) have working Flat Panel
Scaling. In the official (yet non-whql) drivers 97.02 it is broken!? But no
fear...the 97.44's come out...and it's STILL broken?!? WTF!?

It's funny, I remember having a folder years ago with Nvidia drivers named
for the games they did or did not work with =) 4 years ago! and it's still
the same shit. Unreal (no pun intended).
[soapbox/] "

So... The same argument can be made against NVidia drivers as well... it all
depends on who you ask and what their personal experiences have been I
guess.

Tony

ATI Windows drivers game-wise these days are just fine! As a longtime
nvidia-amd-windows gamer, I have been pretty much stuck with that troika
for a decade, ever since the voodoo5500 days. While I recall the
problems 'others' were having, the nvidia side has just as many problems
but of a different nature.

Try and set a game or application profile with current Forceware
drivers, while nvidia has come a long way in actually making it
possible, the process is not only still intermittent, but clumsy.

Even the dark days of fudging 3DMark results by optimizing for 3DMark's
executable (gee, funny how nVidia can easily make a game profile!) by
downgrading trilinear filtering, were just damage control for a
fundamentally flawed hardware design. Partial precision, boo!

I'm an nvidia fanboy. I have all their schwag, but they have luckily
avoided bad mindshare (Think: Sony) from some of their shady past
involvements. Even with top-level financial shenanigans and hit or miss
engineering, in the end they ultimately seem to put out a variety of
chips, easily manufactured, that cover both high and low end.
Interestingly, to my knowledge, nVidia has had only had one GeForce
systemic incompatibility: an engineer mistakenly reversed a resistors id
number which placed a resistor that made the circuit work just enough,
but not enough enough. The feared nv4dsp.dll infinite loop blue screen!

What impresses me about both companies is they they have both adopted
reliable, frequent and effective driver distribution networks. You can
get beta Forceware drivers everywhere today, and beta ATI Catalysts are
probably just as easily available. Nvidia keeps theirs in the NZone
section of their homepage, Guruof3D hosts them both as well.

Sadly, even the new nVidia Control Panel is an unwieldy beast, and
unless you properly install nTune with it, it's limited in its
functionality. I'm thankful for the level of hardware control, but do
you get the idea the people who churn out these driver packages don't
really think like you and me? Cheers!

 

[Strutter1982]

Don't worry about 1982 guy. Assuming 1982 is his birth-year, he's still
just a kid,

So I'm a kid...so that makes you a grandpa (old fart) then i
guess...probably explains why so many of the (old & stuck in their ways)
people post on these news groups, bagging ATI or AMD. just because way back
in 'Nam they had shit(whoops, i mean "poor") drivers for their products.

which means actually HE is a novice himself (or noob in his "hip"
vocabulary, and as he himself, for some reason, uses this as some sort of
an insult, I assume?),

I guess they didn't use the word noob (nub) back when computers had 4meg of
ram...in your glory days?

which is very obviously apparent from his attitude and language. He'll
learn how to talk and behave (I hope) in public (and online) as he grows
and becomes an adult.

I used the "S" word...omfg! I better stop using it, in case some 6 year old
reads it...

Currently, he's just a troll in these NGs, as they say.
GT

If I'm a troll, then what are you? You write a msg bagging me....so that
makes you a troll as well.

Just because you spend your life reading newsgroups and telling other people
what to do, doesn't make you any smarter or a better person.

 

[Tony DiMarzio]

Tony DiMarzio wrote:

Quote: "Ugh.
[soapbox]
I just spent $1700 converting to 680i, 8800GTX and C2D 6600 over the last
weekend. I already miss my ATI drivers and a FUNCTIONAL (though not very
elegant) control panel. Whoever thinks Nvidia drivers are better than ATI
has clearly never used Catalyst drivers in the last year.

The 96.89 beta drivers (I think they were beta?) have working Flat Panel
Scaling. In the official (yet non-whql) drivers 97.02 it is broken!? But
no fear...the 97.44's come out...and it's STILL broken?!? WTF!?

It's funny, I remember having a folder years ago with Nvidia drivers
named for the games they did or did not work with =) 4 years ago! and
it's still the same shit. Unreal (no pun intended).
[soapbox/] "

So... The same argument can be made against NVidia drivers as well... it
all depends on who you ask and what their personal experiences have been
I guess.

Tony

ATI Windows drivers game-wise these days are just fine! As a longtime
nvidia-amd-windows gamer, I have been pretty much stuck with that troika
for a decade, ever since the voodoo5500 days. While I recall the problems
'others' were having, the nvidia side has just as many problems but of a
different nature.

Try and set a game or application profile with current Forceware drivers,
while nvidia has come a long way in actually making it possible, the
process is not only still intermittent, but clumsy.

Even the dark days of fudging 3DMark results by optimizing for 3DMark's
executable (gee, funny how nVidia can easily make a game profile!) by
downgrading trilinear filtering, were just damage control for a
fundamentally flawed hardware design. Partial precision, boo!

I'm an nvidia fanboy. I have all their schwag, but they have luckily
avoided bad mindshare (Think: Sony) from some of their shady past
involvements. Even with top-level financial shenanigans and hit or miss
engineering, in the end they ultimately seem to put out a variety of
chips, easily manufactured, that cover both high and low end.
Interestingly, to my knowledge, nVidia has had only had one GeForce
systemic incompatibility: an engineer mistakenly reversed a resistors id
number which placed a resistor that made the circuit work just enough, but
not enough enough. The feared nv4dsp.dll infinite loop blue screen!

What impresses me about both companies is they they have both adopted
reliable, frequent and effective driver distribution networks. You can get
beta Forceware drivers everywhere today, and beta ATI Catalysts are
probably just as easily available. Nvidia keeps theirs in the NZone
section of their homepage, Guruof3D hosts them both as well.

Sadly, even the new nVidia Control Panel is an unwieldy beast, and unless
you properly install nTune with it, it's limited in its functionality. I'm
thankful for the level of hardware control, but do you get the idea the
people who churn out these driver packages don't really think like you and
me? Cheers!

Yes, I do get that idea. If the engineers/developers were left to write the
drivers' GUI the way they wanted to, without Marketing and Sales execs
"bright ideas" weighing down, then.... well.. in a perfect world right?

Tony

 

[John Lewis]

http://tinyurl.com/y3w4uz


"R600 is the =E7=A7=AF=E7=94=B5 80nm craft manufacture, the core area is 42=
8mm2,
has 720 million transistors"

we already know R600 will have a 512-bit bus.



the top-end G80~GF 8800 has a 384-bit bus and 680~691M transistors

ATI's architectures have tended to out-perform Nvidia's given a level
playing field on shader-generation.

The last gasp from ATi before becoming a AMD drone, turning out
AMD-only chipsets and integrated graphics??? Can't afford another
turn at high-end graphics; gotta pay off on the principal and interest
on the massive ~ $2billion bank loan to buy ATi and refinance ATi's
existing debt.

Just cost nVidia $425 million development for the 8800 family;
probably roughly the same for Ati for the R600. Nvidia makes a huge
profit and has done so consistently for the last 3 years. Where is ATi
(er, AMD) going to find similar cash for the next round beyond R600
while the joint company is saddled with massive debt and ATi's (er,
AMD's) segments of the lucrative workstation- and desktop-graphics
markets are rapidly shrinking before their eyes.

See:-

http://techreport.com/onearticle.x/11385

John Lewis