Ati's gaming gpu vs nvidia what you think

Hey everyone, What are your thoughts on how Nvidia and Ati is doing with the laptop seen. Here is mine. Also, If people can post benchmarks for the Ati or Nvidia cards for gaming, go right ahead. Just name your computer specs (CPU, GPU, RAM, OS, fps, and everything)
If you can, try not to include 3dmark scores.
Not to burst anyone's bubble, but I heard that Ati optimizes there card on 3dmark's score. so it will render them garbage, unless comparing them Ati vs Ati or Nvidia vs Nvidia.
So, if it is not any trouble, can some one post game benchmarks like:Crysis, Crysis Warhead, Fear, Oblivion, Farcry2, DMC4, World in Conflict, and any other game maxed out.
Also ATI does stand a chance against Nvidia's cards.

Ati's does stand a chance against Nvidia's cards.
Nvidia had the market for a while with gaming notebooks. They cheated us out with the 8 and 9 series card. Meaning they rushed them out and they said, "f the customers, we need to make money, just slap some stuff together and put it in one card and lets make a massive amounmt each with features that customers cant refuse to go up to the next level(gs,gts,gt,gtx) and let over charged to."

Also they said let keep the 256bit bus only on our top end card(*800) so the price can nearly triple. And lets stay with gddr3, because it is a old memory, and since we don't have to competition we can over charge on it, and make more money for doing nothing."

Ati's mobile cards are there desktop card wit lower clocks,(not literally but what i mean is that they fitted all there desktop specs into there laptops but lowered the clock speed) Like there shader cpu. It is still 320 and with crossfire, it is 640.

But not like Nvidia, they didnt name there cards right. I believe that they said the 8800m gtx is like a 8800 gs desktop, and a 9800m gtx is a 8800 gt desktop. Nvidia is also making all there cards the same and just disabling there stuff(my 8600m gs ddr2 and 8600m gt ddr2 is the same thing just with some stream processors disable). (8800m gtx and gts is the same with stream cpu disabled)

The only card that i have seen them work on, is the 9800m gtx with 112 stream cpu's. (also the 9series and 8series are the same) (plus you all aredy know that he 8700m gt is the exact same as the 8600m gt gddr3).


Everyone I just want you all to know that this is what i think and I'm not siding with any cards manufaturs. I love nvidia and always will, but, they seem to started to slack off latelty, and i'm glad that ati is doing something about it. But we will all see if ati keeps this up.

what is everyone's thought on this.

 

I'm not trying to be mean, but you could revise your post a bit, particularly the format, spelling and run-on sentences. I'm having a hard time keeping up with the post at some point.

For the response to your post, most of your arguments on nVidia's price justification is a bit unfounded. You bring up that nVidia keeps the 256 bit memory interface and 'old' GDDR3 because of lack of competition. This is not true. In fact, the reason for the high price is the manufacturing cost and yield. High-end GPUs tend to be considerably more expensive to produce due to the increased memory interface, stream processors, raster/texture units, etc. With more of the aforementioned, the GPU's die footprint increases. The larger the die, the more heat it produces, the more power it consumes, and this greatly affects yield.

Many of these mobile GPU, even if they are directly derived from their desktop cousins like the G92 cards, run at a considerably lower voltage. These parts are usually the cream of the crop; they pass rigorous testing and have been proven to be exceptionally stable at low voltage. This is why you don't have many high end mobile GPUs to pick from, and why they cost considerably more.

As for how many of the lower end parts come into being, such as your example of the 8600M GS/GT, is again, yield and utilizing available resources. In most cases, lower parts are simply the normal parts that did not pass certain requirement such as being able to run at X speed, or operate Y volt. Instead of simply throwing out the 'defective' parts, these companies simply modify them to be able to run at a lower speed or features in order to sell them as lower end models of that same series. The only exception to this would be if the company has an abundance supply of a certain GPU, and need to get rid of them. At that point, they will simply put the GPU in any models that the particular GPU works in (A great example is the ATi R580; the Radeon X1900/1950 series). ATi and nVidia both do this, and it's just smart business.

 

My only problem is (as you mentioned) how nvidia is producing mobile cards with misleading names - the ATI cards are more like downclocked versions of the desktop ones, whereas the nvidia cards are a significant step down compared to the desktop version. I think it is a bit underhanded. The 9600 gt in the notebooks is MUCH weaker than the desktop version for example.

 

Well nVidia didn't really have much competition from ATI (high end 3 series is hard to find, and prior to it, wasn't really as good or easy to find as the nVidia counterparts), so they didn't really need to change their 9 series up other than updating the 8 series. Only a few were truly 8 series parts, the rest are "new" (ie 8600M GT -> 9600M GT saw a pretty good improvement). A few of the 9 series has the new 55nm process (rather than 65nm, see my thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=318834).

Anyways, the desktop 4 series has put a lot of pressure on nVidia, though a lot more power hungry too - we'll see how that trickles into its notebook counterparts. It should vastly improve competition, as long as ATI can get more notebook manufacturers supporting their GPU. nVidia has way to many GPUs and I wish they would just stick with GDDR3 for the mainstream cards, instead of giving us even more GPUs (not only 9600M GT vs 9650M GT but 9600M GT DDR2 vs GDDR3).

 

I've really liked all of my ATI cards (specs in signiture). I've never had an Nvidia card in a laptop, only an old desktop. I have not choosen my computer's purely because of the card, just my last four (excluding netbook) have all had ATI. They have all been able to run the games I requested of them very well. (I do not have benchmarks for my card sorry...)

My friend has a T61p with the Nvdia Quadro FX 570M and his laptop barely outpaces mine... his cost double... Mine also has a weaker processor and double the HDD, same speed drive. I'm compring them with Age of Empires 3, which was painful for my old ATI Radeon 1100 IGP to play. But it did! That card was supposed to be worse than GMA 950... but the GMA 950 can't play that game. (I've loaded it on it... the compter started shooting pixels, I really don't know how to describe it. The lines went from one pixel and then blasted across the screen, bizarre)

I like ATI, I'm becoming more loyal to them, but I won't really be able to get one of them as my next laptop unless the 4850/4870 start to be used more, they should as they're supposed to be fantastic.

 

I fixed it. Plus I understand what you mean about the heat and power comsuption. but don't you think they could produce alittle more afford to produce these better cost performance cards.

agreed. There desktop card is 9600 gt had a 256bit bus and 64 shader cpu. Whoch i thought that there were going to include in there notebook. (even though it is almost the same as there 8800m gts)

 

Actually, they have. You guys know the desktop 9600GT in mobile form as the 9700M GTS. It's based on the same G94 GPU, but with less stream processors and clock speed.

 

Well, Yes I think that it is a big problem that ati should try and fix. Their desktop parts uses soooooo much more power and gets so much hotter than nvidia's. but i think that ati uses way to much things that could be more optimezed for a whole lot better perfomance(3870 uses 320shader cpu to nvidia 8800 gt use I think use 112.) plus ati's clock shader clock is there core clock. (which i'm happy that nvidia separted there shader cpu clock and there core clock) If ati separated there's(which i think nvidia will maybe sue) They will be alot better.

Well when they come out with it. it should be interchangble. I think this is a good thing for Budget customers. (like me)

 

Oh no. I never knew the 9700m gts has a 256bit bus. I thought it had 128bit bus. And i thought the 9800m gts is the 8800m gts With some more disabled shader cpus

 

I've ditched the laptop gpu's, but my experience with my 4870 desktop card from Radeon wasn't very impressive. I've owned a 8880m gts and gtx laptop and both where beyond my expectations. You can have great graphics cards, but if the drivers behind it aren't any good then your cards won't perform up to spec. Example would be Radeon's crossfire support. Right now we have people buying crossfire 3870 laptops and post nothing but 3dmark 06 scores. As you posted earlier the numbers are eye popping and make you want to go out and buy that laptop. Then you get it home and find out your games perform slower than a single nvidia 9800m card. Reason? bad drivers and only one graphics card ends up being utilized.

9800m gts is nothing but a overclocked 8800m gts which is a 8800m gtx with a few disabled shader cores.

 

Yes, the score is really good and i'm planning on buying one to because it is crossfire and you can get one for under 1,600. i'm very please. but i'm worrying how long is ati going to take to make better drivers. That is one reason why i don't want to leave Nvidia, there are drivers every week(almost) and they get better and better almost everytime.

 

It's up to you, but whats the point in getting a laptop with two gpu's if you can only use one? =/ all you end up with is a extra heat source that does nothing.

 

Yes, I know that is very true. but i've found some benck mark which kind of convinced me Alittle
http://www.xoticpcforums.com/showthread.php?t=2519

 

>.> convinced you of what? Every single one of those benchmarks showed a single and crossfire comparison to a single 9800m graphics card. It lost in every single benchmark.

 

Yeah, it was to a gtx. If the drivers get better don't you think the score will skyrocket. I'm choosing this laptop over the sager because of the 2hdd slots and raid. there is a few more. But I'm trying to future proof my laptop.

 

if u wanna play 3dmark06 buy ATI, if u actually wanna play video games buy nvidia.

 

If you only buy one gpu now and save the money for later I'd say its a good deal. The 4800 cards are supposed to be much better, so I would only get one gpu now.

 

Yes the only reason why I don't switch to ATI is because they don't have a laptopvideo2go.com site. Drivers are very IMPORTANTE, in fact it keeps my 9700m gts modern by squeezing out more potential and I notice the performance of my games framerate improving with newer more optimized ones. It kept my 8600m gt's in SLI 1 alive and kicking by being able to play really demanding new games that wouldn't run if it weren't for the new drivers coming out. It's the cheapest, easiest and safest way to "upgrade" your notebook. But I just read that Nvidia is gonna be sued by some company, I forgot the details and where I read it, and it'll affect us as consumers in the future. I felt fear because like I said ATI doesn't have that kind of driver support. Hardware is nothing without software support.

 

true jacob I fully agree, even if they are beta drivers they release them every single week and I too see massive boost in performance compared to stock dell drivers for my 8800m GTX SLI.

ATI does not have that kind of site at all that´s why I shy away from ATI too. I had an X800XT before in my desktop but the driver updates were very scarce so I switched over to Nvidia instead and does not regret one single time I did it.

My next desktop GPU will definitely be another Nvidia GPU. I just like them more and the ATI control panel is in my opinion too flashy compared to Nvidia´s Control Panel where things are easily accessible.

Then as I know there is no equivalent to Nhancer on ATI too, correct me if I am wrong. But overall it seems like Nvidia is better supported over ATI. Both by drivers and other apps.

 

I think they do. It is not the greatest. It is called http://www.driverheaven.net/ And I don't think they support Laptop yet.
and i believe the website for the nvidia being sued is
http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/07/rambus-takes-aim-at-nvidia-over-alleged-patent-infringement-aga/
And that is a smart Idea to Only purchase one card. But how would i get the other If ati takes to long to come out with the 4870 mobilty.

 

I'm not sure if this is a reference to the HD4800 series or not, but if it is, it runs hot because ATi goofed the fan profile and it doesn't allow the fan to spin up over 1500 RPM. This makes the video card quiet, but in turn makes the GPU stay hot. Many 4870 owners have reflashed the VBIOS with a slightly more aggressive fan profile and their temperatures dropped as much as 30C on idle and load condition. For the power consumption, the RV770 runs at a considerably higher clock than the nVidias. Most recent nVidia GPUs are clocked around 600-650 MHz, the HD4870 starts at 775 MHz. Higher frequency, higher power consumption. I don't think the power usage is that much higher than the nVidia counterparts anyways, well, with the exception of the HD2900's R600.

You can't compare ATi's and nVidia's stream processors directly, they're like apples and oranges. The numbers you see advertised are actually marketing number, since ATi stream processors are capable of processing 5 tasks at once. This is true for all of the HD series; this whatever number you see advertise, divide it by five and that is the actual number of physical stream processors the card has i.e. The HD2400 is advertised with 40 stream processors, but in actuality it has 8. The 3870 is advertised with 320, but actually has 64.

 

At the moment, at least in the desktop segment, ATI is thoroughly raping Nvidia with it's 4xxx series cards. The reason is simple, you can get GTX 260 performance for about $160 with the 4850, you can get GTX 280 performance for about $250 with the 4870. The comes the 4870X2 which rapes the GTX 280, even when it's in SLi because currently single card Crossfire setups (X2 series cards) are scaling better than Sli.

You just get a lot more bang for your buck with ATI cards at the moment. With each new series release ATI improves on past designs unlike Nvidia which basically re-released the 8xxx series with their 9xxx series. Their only cards worth buying IMO at their GTX series which are priced higher than ATI counterparts.

 

+1, cant wait till the 4xxx series comes to laptops

 

While it's true ATI > nVidia for desktop right now, ATI's power consumption is also quite a bit higher than nVidia's. Which doesn't translate into something good when making a mobile part out of it...

 

This upcoming ATI Stream technology which can have the HD4600 and HD4800 cards accelerate the performance of programs like Adobe's CS4 Suite, Vista and several Microsoft applications sounds exciting.


http://www.trustedreviews.com/graphics/news/2008/11/13/AMD-Details-ATI-Stream/p1

 

Ati is for cheap people. For real power u go to nvidia. Especially if u want to do quad or triple SLI which rapes any Ati-fanboy in their butt holes Crysis in only playable on Nvidia cards. no ati will give playable framerates at 1920x1200 with 8xAA and 16xAF or even at higher resolutions.

 

time to pull out my lollerskates and head to the roflcopter. nvidia f@nb01sm at its finest

 

As I ve mention that earlier, have fun playing crysis on your laptop

 

Well, I don't have Crysis on my notebook, but I'm sure I'll have fun playing it if I thought it was a game worth buying.

 

You don't need to get all derogatory on ATI...

Crysis has a poorly optimized game engine. While in a notebook, 9800M GTX SLI might beat the current 3870X2, I'm sure the 4870X2 will change that. After all, in desktops, the 4870X2 beats out the GTX 280 SLI in majority of games and you can Quadfire with dual 4870X2. Quad SLI w/ 4x GTX 280 doesn't have the driver support yet to compete, plus you need 4x PCIe slots.

 

Also, ATi's power consumption is not really higher than Nvidia, its actually on par and sometimes even less.

Their current 4670 cards draw less power, not requiring an external power connector and match the performance of 9600 GSO cards. If they manage to translate these 4XXX series cards to mobile parts, we will have a heating battle.

I am not a fanboy of an specific company, but I love competition as it brings out better products. I have had both Ati and Nvidia, and Personally I have had less problems with ATi, yet that does not mean I hate on Nvidia one bit. I even got today a G50vt laptop with an nvidia 9800M GS for gaming power!

 

Yes, also remember than ATI uses 55nm chip technology where as Nvidia is still using 65nm, although they are transitioning to 55nm now.

ATI power consumption is quite on par with Nvidia. It is true that ATI cards run hotter with the stock cooler but slap on an aftermarket cooler and you will be rockin'.

ATI really showed Nvidia up with the 4xxx series, Nvidia was not expecting the 4xxx series cards to be as good as they turned out to be and so they did not really invest much time into improving their 9xxx series or GTX series.

Remember, competition is good for innovation!

 

A very heated debate as always =)

 

lets not get carried away in here X2 does not beat GTX280SLI in most games, and especially in crysis

 

For the laptop market, Nvidia holds the higher end market, but I believe they've always had a hold over most of the notebook GPU market anyways. ATI's efforts concentrated a bit more on desktops recently, where their price/performance ratio is better than Nvidia's in general terms.

 

Actually, I just went to that site and all of the drivers support mobility cards (check out the mobility modder page). I wonder how they perform...

 

I don't know I guess ati customers will all have to find out. And do you really divide it by 5 for there stream cpu's, If so, then I'm a fool wondering why there cards are cheaper then nVidia

 

3DMarks do matter. Wasn't 3DMark supposed to represent future gaming scenarios? So, it means that in the future, games will be optimised for 2 GPUs using CrossFire or SLi. It's the same argument as the dual-core, quad-core one. Why buy a quad-core if dual-cores get better performance now?

I really think ATI is better than nVidia. Despite the fact that ATI doesn't have as many drivers as nVidia, that's not a big problem. You can always get better drivers in the future, but you can't add shaders to your graphics card.

 

Well i think that 3dmark doesn't prove anything is real world gaming. Plus ati's cards are built for 3dmark. Have you noticed how big numbers they get from it, but when you put it up to a real gaming (not a syntenic benchmark) the results isn't that great.

 

I agree that 3dmark isn't very useful for real life situations. Where I differ is in the games that are played and the architecture they are best suited for. Take a look at GRID and Age of Conan, they play amazingly on ATI cards (they are shader heavy after all) while Nvidia cards do well in Crysis. It's mostly dependent on the architecture and for 3dmark, ATI does well since it seems to be a little on the shader-heavy side.

 

The problem is relearning the steps on how to upgrade the ATI drivers and the complications you'll most likely run into.

It was already intimidating learning the "have disk method" for nvidia's drivers and then all the trial and error and having to use system restore when some drivers don't install properly and the fear of the unknown. But now I'm comfortable with upgrading drivers for nvidia especially familiar with laptopvideo2go.com's drivers.

ATI may probably have better tech and I'd jump on board when they start getting as much support for drivers as nvidia is getting from the gaming community. The moment I see a site or sites that give as much support to ATI drivers as laptopvid2go. then ATI will be more enticing to everyone.

 

Ok, my question is, what are nvidia's and ati's strengths and weaknesses? in what games and how?

 

Depends on the resolution, nvidia is usually ahead at 1280x1024 above that, the graphics cards seem to be even. Crysis and Farcry 2 favor nvidia. Source games like the half life series favor radeon. Cod4 and 5 with the 8.7+ catalyst drivers favor radeon. UT3 games are on the nvidia side, DMC4 favors Radeon. Those are all the games I've compared myself between the 4870 1gb and a gtx 260 "196 shaders"

 

Well how is it At 1920*1200 since that is the max for notebooks now.
I'm looking now at the different features that make up the gpu.vAnd hoe ati and nvidia differs.

 

Well if your looking for defining features in the architecture or build of the gpu's you should look at AA modes. Ati's solution usually seems to be to toss more shaders onto their cards, but this often results in lower clock speeds for shader/core. There are games that show that core speeds do matter. Crysis for example on a 9800 gtx runs almost faster than a 4870. It even comes close to the 260, because of the faster core/shader clocks. Nvidia pretty much has sli worked out for laptops, while crossfire is still in the works.
I think the whitebook is definitely the right choice, but I think a single nvidia gpu would be the best option.

 

The ATI Catalyst drivers (since v8.10) allow for manual fan control.

BTW - The fan will speed-up automatically when a certain temperature threshold is reached.

 

So what are most games shader dependant or clock speed dependant

 

Quite true, I'm glad they did so. Well, my 4870 is flashed with a better profile, and it will stay cool even without drivers or under a different OS. Unfortunately this doesn't help the reference HD4850 out much though, the heatsink is just inadequate period. I always recommend for those looking for a 4850 to get one that already comes with an aftermarket heatsink.

 

Sorry was gonna add to the list last night, heavy shader games for example would be lost planet, call of juraez, and oblivion.

 

Ok, when you have the time you can post them up.
The ocz whitebook also fits the 9800m gtx. but only one can fit. It cannot use sli , only crossfire.