Caporegime
- Joined
- 18 Oct 2002
- Posts
- 33,188
I'm still finding it quite funny that Nvidia haven't released simulated and guessed upon numbers because they aren't sure how the final silicon will do speed wise, no one else is willing to guess on how it will perform without knowing any concrete numbers nor what A3 can do nor wanting to base their entire prediction on previous gen shader count vs next gen, but Rroff knows exactly how fast they will be based on the last generation.
The fact is we don't know where it will come, but for some reason Nvidia guys seem to think everyone is suggesting the 5870 will easily beat it, which I've never seen anyone suggest.
The general theory is the 380gtx would always beat AMD's high end single gpu card, but will cost significantly more. Considering its 50% larger, with a lot more memory and more expensive parts I'm not sure you'd expect otherwise.
But just like last gen Nvidia can either cut all profits out of its 360gtx to price match AMD while AMD makes a nice profit on each card, or Nvidia can sell it for significantly more and AMD crossfire setups will always offer better value for money with performance. IE if a 360gtx is circa £300, and you can beat it with 5770 crossfire you'd be mad to buy Nvidia. A £400 380gtx will not beat 2x 5850's though the prices will likely be very very close, and thats if Nvidia ever get good numbers of 380gtx's released.
The issue is best case scenario really is Nvidia are faster as expected but can't remotely come close to competing on price/performance. Worst case scenario is they don't hit clock targets, are marginally if at all ahead of AMD and cost even more than you'd expect due to yields, my guess would be somewhere in the middle.
Remember its not just the shaders that were slower, the core clock was only 500Mhz on A2 parts, targeted at 750Mhz. If they get shaders up, that won't be hugely beneficial if they are bottlenecked by 600Mhz rop clocks.
But as lets see, every single generation before has shown, doubling transistors, and doubling shaders DOES NOT EQUAL double the performance, ever. Bandwidth didn't need to double it will have plenty. The main issue this gen for Nvidia will be pricing and yields to determine how effectively they can drop prices and still make a profit.
The fact is we don't know where it will come, but for some reason Nvidia guys seem to think everyone is suggesting the 5870 will easily beat it, which I've never seen anyone suggest.
The general theory is the 380gtx would always beat AMD's high end single gpu card, but will cost significantly more. Considering its 50% larger, with a lot more memory and more expensive parts I'm not sure you'd expect otherwise.
But just like last gen Nvidia can either cut all profits out of its 360gtx to price match AMD while AMD makes a nice profit on each card, or Nvidia can sell it for significantly more and AMD crossfire setups will always offer better value for money with performance. IE if a 360gtx is circa £300, and you can beat it with 5770 crossfire you'd be mad to buy Nvidia. A £400 380gtx will not beat 2x 5850's though the prices will likely be very very close, and thats if Nvidia ever get good numbers of 380gtx's released.
The issue is best case scenario really is Nvidia are faster as expected but can't remotely come close to competing on price/performance. Worst case scenario is they don't hit clock targets, are marginally if at all ahead of AMD and cost even more than you'd expect due to yields, my guess would be somewhere in the middle.
Remember its not just the shaders that were slower, the core clock was only 500Mhz on A2 parts, targeted at 750Mhz. If they get shaders up, that won't be hugely beneficial if they are bottlenecked by 600Mhz rop clocks.
But as lets see, every single generation before has shown, doubling transistors, and doubling shaders DOES NOT EQUAL double the performance, ever. Bandwidth didn't need to double it will have plenty. The main issue this gen for Nvidia will be pricing and yields to determine how effectively they can drop prices and still make a profit.
