Nvidia's latest offerings: Are you satisfied?

[yngtm27]

Nvidia's latest offerings: Are you satisfied?

[yngtm27]

I've noticed that ATI is really dominating the market right now and for good reason.  The 9700pro and 9500pro are great cards (not to mention the 9800 and future designs). Is anybody using the 5200, 5600, or 5900 cards? If so, how are the performance and image quality? Has the noisy cooling issue been resolved?

[crosscourt]

5200 performs like a gf4mx440 in dx8 and well below the 4200 in dx9. The ultra version is close to the gf4mx460 in dx8 and is close to the 4200 in dx9.

5600 is close to the 4200 in dx8 and slightly better in dx9. The ultra version is equal to the 4200 and a better performer in dx9.

5800 is about where the 9500pro/9700 are in terms of speed in both dx8/9. Its ultra version is closer to the 9700pro but still lacks the speed consistently to outperform it.

All the GFX cards in my opinion have poorer overall image quality in both 2d and 3d versus Ati cards.
In games the GFX cards have a slight edge with Anisotropic filtering but Ati is by far the better fsaa card and with color accuracy and overall saturation.

The GFX cards run hot and the 5800 is very noisey while playing 3d apps. Given the prices in relation to Ati products its hard to recommend them given Ati driver quality is very good and no longer an issue.

Thats a quick comment as we have too much info to include in one thread with detailed results. CC

[hstewarth]

I planning to get a 5900.. The 5600 Ultra seams to be very attracted - benchmarks have shown it to be about as same as my 4600 for DX8, but faster with DX9..

Benchmarks are a problem now adays... it is very hard to tell which one is better.. Also NVidia's latest card are primary aim at Direct X 9, and there is not anything out for DX9 ( 3dmark 2003 does not count - because recent news about it - just proves that results from it is not reliable. ).  I personally believe that we will not fine the true power of GeForce FX type cards until DX9 games are out there.  Doom 3 is probably the biggest one of these.

On visual quality, I been running my 4600 for over a year and fine it visual quality great.. what improved it - not the video card, but the monitor.. first I went to Viewsonic VG800 LCD and it was light and day and now I use a Viewsonic Ultrabrite A90f+ ( in dual with VG800 ) and for games the A90f+ with GF4 is unbelieveable.

The biggest problem with desiding on GPU, its getting though peoples opinions.. there is a lot of people on this board that Anti-NVidia and Pro ATI.  I personally like NVidia base video card  based on my years experience with them.  I recommend reading different reviews for different sites and also reading the competitors cards from the same sites.. in doing so you can fine how bias the site is toward a vender and make a better decsion.

[Wrawrat]

The FX5900 looks great. I didn't tried one though and I doubt I will as they'll be far too expensive (probably over 700$ CDN!). I hope they'll make a budget version based on the NV35.

Btw hstewarth, I don't think Doom3 will be the biggest one, as it's not a DX9 game AFAIK. Sure, it'll use some features, but maybe not all of them. I guess we'll see big DX9 games only next year unless there's a surprise (like HL2... I don't think it'll be superior to D3 in graphics though).  

[SurfMonkey]

If we put aside all the driver issues that have been highlighted in the past few weeks and look at the FX series in comparison to the GF4 series, then the whole range is shaping up quite nicely now. The only blip so far has been the NV30 which was crippled by being restricted to a 128bit memory bus.

The NV34 based cards (5200) have a performance that is roughly on par with the GF4MX but excels it when FSAA and\or AF is applied. The best thing is that they are bringing DX9 straight into the mainstream market which is something that ATI haven't managed to do yet. Passively cooled or with a standard fan, these are almost silent.

The NV31 based cards (5600) are sometimes outperformed by the Ti4200, though that is usually in multi-tetxturing situations where the extra TMU per pipe in the Ti allows it to gain ground. Again, as soon as you include FSAA and AF in the equation, the FX moves well ahead. The change from wirebond packaging to flipchip has allowed nvidia to crank up the clock speed, from 350MHz to 400MHz, and this has had quite a large affect on the performance. I would think that there should be some overclocking potential in this chip. The chips can throttle themselves depending on hwo much stress they are under, and can go from silent running to average card fan nopise levels.

The NV35 based cards (5900) are, I'm happy to say, real beauties. They perform very well and have lots of headroom to use high levels of FSAA and AF. At resolutions above 1024x768 with full FSAA and AF they are head and shoulders above their bretheren (and the competition ). It's a shame that nvidia didn't allow this chip to stand up for itself and resorted to driver *cough* optimisations to try and make it shine. The cooling solution is slightly! larger and you lose a PCI slot. But it is pretty quiet and can even become silent if the card isn't doing much. I think the various board makers are coming up with cooling solutions of their own which may take it back to a single slot solution again.

There will probably be a NV36 sometime in the future to replace the NV31 or maybe slip in a market between the Ultra high end and the Ultra mainstream.

As CC said, FSAA on the Radeon series is by far the best. But the FX series have a slightly superior AF algorithm. In comparison the 9800Pro has the edge over the 5900Ultra in image quality and speed at lower resolutions but move beyond 1024x768 and the 5900 pulls ahead due to it's higher memory bandwidth. At 1600x1200 with 4xS FSAA and 8xAF it's quite a thing to see running. The 9600 and 5600 were quite evenly matched but the move to the flipchip design by nvidia has given them a distinct clock advanatge and the lead. I expect ATI board makers will respond by releasing overclocked versions of the 9600 though, so it might be a very even match.

Roll on Christmas and the NV40 Vs Loci battle, that's the one I want to see. All the technologies out there at the moment are test beds for the real contenders and I think they have been released to mainly recoup R&D dollars for the reall battle  

[hstewarth]

Quote
Originally posted by: Wrawrat
The FX5900 looks great. I didn't tried one though and I doubt I will as they'll be far too expensive (probably over 700$ CDN!). I hope they'll make a budget version based on the NV35.

Btw hstewarth, I don't think Doom3 will be the biggest one, as it's not a DX9 game AFAIK. Sure, it'll use some features, but maybe not all of them. I guess we'll see big DX9 games only next year unless there's a surprise (like HL2... I don't think it'll be superior to D3 in graphics though).

When I was referring to DX9, I ment DX9 shaders... on HL2... I not sure it..   it could be kind of like the new Matrix movie.. over hype and same old thing althought..   I am not big fan of Half Life and counter strike crowd...There is a alot of others that look very good... one is S.T.A.L.K.E.R which outdoor graphics look very realistic and Abducted which is suppose to take advantage of DX9 abilities..  Tron 2.0 ( Dirext X 9 is suppose to have specific logic implement for this game ).

[sirosis]

I'm not that satisfied with Nvidia right now.  They are better off with the 5900 now than previously, however.  This past year has been one for ATI because of the 9700 Pro.  That card was released ~10 months ago and only recently does Nvidia have anything that can answer to it.  I also feel ATI's mid range cards (9500Pro/9600Pro)are much better than Nvidia's offerings in this price range.

I generally buy at the sweet spot and for me that was the 9500Pro in December.  Replaced my GF2 32Mb GTS and never looked back.  Simply amazing IQ and I love playing with AF and AA on.  If Nvidia had something similar at that time I might have gone with an Nvidia card.  I think that ATI's solution is much more elegant.  Look at what cooling is needed for the FX even at 0.13u.  Brute force will only get you so far.

I figure the 9500Pro will last me ~2 years then we'll see what is out there when I want to upgrade.  

[SurfMonkey]

Quote
Originally posted by: Wrawrat
Btw hstewarth, I don't think Doom3 will be the biggest one, as it's not a DX9 game AFAIK. Sure, it'll use some features, but maybe not all of them. I guess we'll see big DX9 games only next year unless there's a surprise (like HL2... I don't think it'll be superior to D3 in graphics though).

HL2's graphics are easily on par with DIII, and maybe they are even better in ourdoor scenes Be prepared to be very suprised by HL2 and likethe first HL it will have a story that is interesting, unlike Quake and Doom

[crosscourt]

The advantage HL2 has is it was designed to scale much more easily with a variety of cards than Doom 3 that will need at least a 8500/gf3 card to see any of what was intended visually,CC

[yngtm27]

Interesting comments guys. It's been such a turnaround with ATI and Nvidia. I remember reading a lot of comments by fanboys saying Nvidia/ATI is the only way to go-not so much anymore.  I think the competition is really fostering some great new technology.

[Wrawrat]

hstewarth, yeah, I've heard of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. I wanted to say that game instead of HL2, but I didn't remembered its name so I didn't said it, hehe. The screenshots I've seen are amazing. I hope the whole game will look like that!

SurfMonkey, HL2 doesn't seem to have the same level of detail as Doom3 for the models & the maps, but I think the physics engine will be much better. That's why both will look really good, hehe. Then again, maybe it won't be good... or maybe Doom3 won't be good. I guess we just have to wait and see.

[crosscourt]

HL2 has the potential to look as good as Doom 3 and given the many outdoor environments that are really tough on performance HL2 runs remarkably well. Again the difference is HL2 will also look darn good with a dx7/dx8 card also and still runs well.

Doom 3 isnt that forgiving and in reality you really need a gf4 minimum or radeon 9500pro/Gfx 5600 or better to see the full visuals,CC

[SurfMonkey]

HL2 uses high detail models and textures to get its realism. DIII is using very low poly count models good textures and some very fancy lighting models to get its leel of realism. Also the physics engine in HL2 is far more accurate than DIII. I would lean towards HL2 being a better looking game, but DIII will be more atmospheric.

I don't think DIII will be that good a game, don't get me wrong, I like all the Quake games and I will be buying DIII. But like all ID games it's the uses that other people find for the engine that will be the interesting stuff.  

[hstewarth]

As far as what I seem from screenshots, Doom 3, Abducted, and S.T.A.L.K.E.R seam to have the best use textures.  There are probably going to be a lot others...What will be really interesting is see ones that use higher resolution textures...  that required the high end video cards from both NVidia and ATI..  Especially the ones that take advantage of ones with more 128Meg of memory.