Ati/AMD coming kinda late to the market?

Im curious as to why Ati is dragging its heals getting its parts out, So far ive only seen one or two notebooks that plan to be released with the HD 2xxx line whereas there is a plethora of Nvidia series 8 notebooks already out and ready to buy with heaps more scheduled for release. From preliminary reviews it looks like the Ati cards dont perform all that well either. With a failing CPU, huge debt from buying Ati and the plan to outsource chip manufacturing I dont understand why they have missed the boat so massively on the notebook market. When are they officially scheduled for release anyway?

 

In early July we should be seeing some notebooks come out with the HD series notebook cards.

 

Personally, I wouldn't actually say that they were late. ATI was focusing much more on their DX 10 than what nVidia has done. the 8800 gtx is meant more for DX 9 gaming rather than Dx 10.

I was reading on PC PRO magazine, the HD 2000 series (including 2300, 2400, 2600, and 2900) should be coming out from July-August. The high end ATI RADEON HD 2900 XT actually out performed the 8800 GTX on all DX 10 games. On company of heroes, the 8800gtx had 91 FPS, while the HD 2900 XT had 102 FPS.
However, on the DX 9, the 8800 gtx out performed the 2900 XT.


This is now my opinion/ analysis.
My guess is, the HD 2900 XT is the future of DX 10 video cards and gaming. It has very good performance on DX 9, but it's not meant for DX 9 gaming

The 8800 GTX has better performance on DX9, but, it's only by 5 more FPS than the HD 2900 XT. THe 8800 GTX has great performance on the DX 10 and DX 9, but it's meant for early DX 10, and meant for late DX 9 gaming. My guess is, nVidia is likely to make an all out DX 10 card that would outperform ATI. However, ATI would then probably make the HD 2900 XTX as a response.


ATI has spent more time on the DX 10 video cards than what nVidia has done. Even though nVidia has dx 10 cards, it doesn't perform as well as ATI does. ATI focuses more on DX 10 rather than DX 9 for gaming.


My opinion conclusion- ATI will win for now, but nVIdia is coming up with a powerful punch I think.

 

I wasnt reffering to Desktop cards, Only Mobile, And the 8600GT outperforms the 2600 in the preliminary tests Ive seen.

 

Oops, my bad, I forgot you were talking about notebooks, not desktops.

 

Ghost_Recon23, please go read reviews of the 8800GTX and the 2900XT again. I don't want to have to pull out a massive list of contradictions to your stated facts/opinions.

For the most part, the 8800GTX is solidly ahead of the 2900XT in performance, but then again the 2900XT is priced at 8800GTS 640MB levels so I wouldn't expect it to perform on par wit the 8800GTX. Your statement of 5FPS is useless without a baseline - a 5FPS improvement over 10FPS is 50%. A 5FPS improvement over 300FPS is negligible.

DX10 performance is a crap shoot right now due to drivers as well as game codelines. Both ATI and Nvidia have pointed fingers at game devs that certain optimizations are being made for the competition. I repeat DX10 performance reviews should be taken with a large brick of salt at this time. (I even found a DX10 CoH review that showed the 8800GTX crushing a 2900XT, contrary to your evidence.)

 

I read everything from the PC PRO magazine my post was based off their article. They even showed at what frame rates of what they played it on. 1920 x 1200 and 1600 x 1080.

 

Personally I think Nvidia have released better quality cards far more quickly. But maybe Ati has lower power and heat output as ive read their using 65nm, while nvidia is using 90 or something.

 

Since I don't have the PC Pro magazine you speak of, I'll believe you; however that doesn't change the fact that the overwhelming majority of reviews on the net show otherwise.

 

Whu?
No, both cards are focused on performing pretty damn well in DX10. The fact that they also perform well in DX9 is obviously no coincidence either, but no, NVidia's card is every bit as much a DX10 GPU as ATI's.
And they're still late. They came out with the card 6 months after the competition, and 6 months after they'd planned to.

First, computer magazines never know much about hardware. Fundamental law of the universe.
Second, the 8800 seems to win most benchmarks in general, and third, even where the 2900 outperforms it, you have to keep in mind that it is 6 months late.
GPU performance doubles roughly every 12 months. So if they're 6 months late, you'd expect it to be about 50% faster (I know the math doesn't exactly add up, but it's close enough for my purposes).
While in reality, it is at best as fast as the 8800.

And this means that it must be better at DX10?
I like that logic. "If a product sucks at A, then it logically must be the best on the market at B."
You forgot one little possibility. What if it sucks at A and B?
What makes you think it's so good at DX10? What about its architecture is more suitable for DX10 than the G80's? Which DX10 benchmarks show you this?

In some games by a lot more. And, as I said, it was out 6 months earlier, and most likely, its successor will be out in 6 months or so.

Again, more unfounded dreams. Which facts do you have to support this? What is so "early DX10" about the G80?
Or for that matter, that ATI's card isn't about DX9 performance?

They have?
Sources please. The G80 has been in development for something like 5 years. Are you saying that because NVidia can keep a schedule, they must be inferior to ATI, whose schedule keeps slipping? Again, interesting logic. But flawed.

Doesn't it? Which DX10 games have you seen it tested with?
Company of Heroes? I've seen benchmarks showing G80 as a clear winner in that game too. But more importantly, this is the only DX10 game out so far. And even then, it's only had DX10 support patched on. Hardly a representative for DX10 performance in general.

Interesting opinion. But I think you got the names mixed up. It is NVidia who is winning for now, and ATI who just came up with a powerful (but not quite powerful *enough* punch)

That's about the minimum of information you should expect from a performance benchmark. It would be sad if they did not show that.

So Prescott used less power too, because it switched to 65nm ahead of AMD's CPU's?
Nope, ATI's cards currently have huge power consumption compared to NVidia's.
The process size doesn't determine heat output.

As for why they're "dragging their heels"?
Three possibilities, I guess. One is that everything is confusion due to the AMD takeover. That has caused a lot of internal changes which is likely to make them lose a bit of time.
Another is that AMD is just slipping. They've had delays with their cards every generation for the last 3 years, so it's nothing new.
And finally, it could just be that AMD doesn't really understand the GPU market, and thinks they can afford to wait a few months in order to make final tweaks and build stock.

Or maybe it's just a combination of all three.

 

ATI cards has HUGE consumption coz ur looking at the HD 2900 with 90nm processing. I think you know that.

The HD 2600 XT compared to the 8600 GTS has no need for an external power input becoz it is just more efficient (due to the 65nm processing) than the 8600 GTS on 80nm. BTW, they should both offer similar performance.

 

Want me to type up everything on the article, word for word? I can do that, I have like 8 hours to kill..

 

Why not, at least i will read it

Edit: I reread Jalf message, i would like to point out that due to the 65nm of the HD 2600, the routes of the gpu could be better placed than on a 80nm based and since it is totally rerouted based on the hd 2900, it should dissipate heat better. The prescott example was not a good one, since it had 90nm processing at first. Even if it switched, the inefficient routing will cause it to have nearly the same problem as the 90nm counterpart but i believe it will produce a little less heat than the 90nm. Well that is all, this is wat i think but i dunno if it is the truth, i m no computer hardware engineer.

 

It's not that we don't believe you. It's that 90% of the rest of the material on the net contradicts what PC Pro is saying.

 

I think ATI is a bit late in the market.
Some new Santa Rosa notebooks whose previous non-Santa Rosa release were ATI based now are nvidia 8400/8600/Quadro based:
-Apple Macbook Pro
-Dell Inspiron 1520 & 1720
-Lenovo Thinkpad R61 & T61

 

Asus V1 There chipset is a bit pathetic in comparison to santa rosa but I suppose thats a different market.