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8600GT is it worth it?
- Thread starter Tabasco
- Start date
So does G80 have too high a fill-rate or does R600 have too low a fill-rate?
I'm not really quite sure what to make of this since the HD2900XT has less than half the fill-rate that the 8800GTS does, but naturally makes up for it with the extra memory bandwidth. Could it be that if you had a card that met both in the middle on each of those specs, it would be absolutely perfect for current games?
I'm not really quite sure what to make of this since the HD2900XT has less than half the fill-rate that the 8800GTS does, but naturally makes up for it with the extra memory bandwidth. Could it be that if you had a card that met both in the middle on each of those specs, it would be absolutely perfect for current games?
what i think ati were trying to do was have all the data for 1 pixel go directly into the core, and the 320 streme processors would do all the work, like the texturing, shading, etc on all pixels then pump it all out in one go.
in the past sometimes 1 pixel would have to go through the pipeline a number of times e.g pixel 1 has gone into the pipeline where it has got its colour, shader effect, texture map, then it would come out ready to be displayed on the screen, but then sometimes that same pixel would need to be sent back to the start of the pipeline to get a second texture or another effect on top so if that would have to happen then basically fill rate would end up halved since it has to do the work twice before it can be put to screen.
cards like gf4 etc used 2 texture maps per pipe, that allowed multi texturing to be performed in 1 pass saving the need to shove that pixel through the pipeline again for another texture map.
now with the x2900xt i think ati is trying to get everything done in 1 go so the pixels do not ever need to be shoved through the pipeline more than once. in theroy if that works then overall fillrate required to render a scene would not need to be that high. even trying to get AA done by the streme processors in 1 pass too.
now if i think of it like that they only thing that could really be causing some iffyness my well just be the drivers themselves.
but i don;t have enough information at hand right now to say if ati's method is flawed or not, heck i don;t even know for sure if thats their method to begin with but i can;t see them using any other approach from thier results in the fill rate test.
only time will tell i guess if this card is really a flop. in theroy doing super effects like hdr, mega multitexturing, and post processing effects this card should blaze through them since each pixel only needs to go through the pipeline once.
now the gts/x may need to shove things through the pipeline more than once, but they use more pipelines and have lots more fillrate to probably account for that.
similar to how the x1900 cards ended up with 3 shaders per pipeline, its a cheaper method of building a card rather than having more pipes.
in the past sometimes 1 pixel would have to go through the pipeline a number of times e.g pixel 1 has gone into the pipeline where it has got its colour, shader effect, texture map, then it would come out ready to be displayed on the screen, but then sometimes that same pixel would need to be sent back to the start of the pipeline to get a second texture or another effect on top so if that would have to happen then basically fill rate would end up halved since it has to do the work twice before it can be put to screen.
cards like gf4 etc used 2 texture maps per pipe, that allowed multi texturing to be performed in 1 pass saving the need to shove that pixel through the pipeline again for another texture map.
now with the x2900xt i think ati is trying to get everything done in 1 go so the pixels do not ever need to be shoved through the pipeline more than once. in theroy if that works then overall fillrate required to render a scene would not need to be that high. even trying to get AA done by the streme processors in 1 pass too.
now if i think of it like that they only thing that could really be causing some iffyness my well just be the drivers themselves.
but i don;t have enough information at hand right now to say if ati's method is flawed or not, heck i don;t even know for sure if thats their method to begin with but i can;t see them using any other approach from thier results in the fill rate test.
only time will tell i guess if this card is really a flop. in theroy doing super effects like hdr, mega multitexturing, and post processing effects this card should blaze through them since each pixel only needs to go through the pipeline once.
now the gts/x may need to shove things through the pipeline more than once, but they use more pipelines and have lots more fillrate to probably account for that.
similar to how the x1900 cards ended up with 3 shaders per pipeline, its a cheaper method of building a card rather than having more pipes.
banja said:
thats why u don;t got for a gts but a gt. cheapest 8800gts 320mb is 165quid inc vat, cheapest 8600gt is 68quid inc vat.
8600gt is more than 240% cheaper for half the speed. damn good value for money if you ask me and also has a better video processor onboard compared to even a 8800 ultra.
Associate
- Joined
- 9 Jan 2006
- Posts
- 1,375
chaparral said:
Oh, I didn't know that. Oh well, still pleased with the 8600gt.
ken1307 said:cheapest X1950GT is 70 incl VAT and you can OC it to Pro level easy
that seals the deal then, unless you want lower power consumption and a more advanced video processor and card with a smaller footprint, then the 8600gt is better.
all depends on needs really.
I think ati have noticed the fill rate and texture power and may improve it on the r650.
http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1042&Itemid=34
http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1042&Itemid=34
Skipping the ati talk, responding to old post:
The 8600GT is nowhere near double the speed of a 7600GS, in a lot of games its slower than a 7600GT hence its a flop, and a rip-off card...
Source of benchy's where 8600GT is some cases is 20 % worse as 7600GT:
http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=637&p=5
The 8600GT is nowhere near double the speed of a 7600GS, in a lot of games its slower than a 7600GT hence its a flop, and a rip-off card...
Source of benchy's where 8600GT is some cases is 20 % worse as 7600GT:
http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=637&p=5
Wasn't there something about the 8600 GTS getting a makeover with 256-bit / 512mb memory in june/july sometime? Or so I heard anyway, due to the card being a bit of a flop (although not sure if it's true because I could imagine it to be as good as 8800 gts 320mb...)
Shame the card really isn't that good though, upgrading mine soon from a 7600 GT and after reading the reviews it just didn't seem worth it to get a 8600 GT/GTS and way more worth it just saving up a little extra for the 8800 GTS.
Shame the card really isn't that good though, upgrading mine soon from a 7600 GT and after reading the reviews it just didn't seem worth it to get a 8600 GT/GTS and way more worth it just saving up a little extra for the 8800 GTS.
Soldato
- Joined
- 11 May 2006
- Posts
- 5,786
Ulfhedjinn said:
Not necessarily.
Everyone seems to be forgetting that the 8600GTS only has 32 stream processors, a far cry from the 96/128 processors on its bigger brothers. Now compare that to the 36/48 dedicated pixel shader processors on the x1900 series and the fact that modern games are getting increasingly shader heavy, you quickly realise why the 8600 series is lagging behind, regardless of its memory bandwidth.
I'd imagine it would need both a 256bit bus, 512mb ram and 64 stream processors to be a worthy successor to the 7600GT, i.e. better than a 7900GTX as the 7600GT was to the 6800 Ultra.
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Aye, I agree, but even though it's lacking in stream processors the G84 GPU still has a hell of a lot more fillrate capability than similarly priced cards like the X1950Pro.
The problem with the 8800GT/GTS though is memory bandwidth, just not enough of it to keep up.
The problem with the 8800GT/GTS though is memory bandwidth, just not enough of it to keep up.