| NVIDIA nTerresting News: 29 October 2010 |
| Written by NVIDIA - Brian Burke | ||
| Friday, 29 October 2010 | ||
NVIDIA nTerresting News: 29 October 2010In this issue:
3D: You Have To Do Your Own Work The launch of the new Radeon 6800 series by AMD brings consumers a 3D alternative to 3D Vision. AMD calls it an ‘open standard'. We believe that in this case ‘open' is just code for ‘we will let third parties do all the work, control all the quality, and support our customers with updates and profiles'. NVIDIA has a long history of embracing and supporting standards, but we also support standards that allow us to innovate in a timely fashion for our customers. We control the introduction and we are responsible for the experience our customers have. Two different approaches to the same problem. Now that reviews are out, we can compare NVIDIA's results with AMD's results for 3D. "Then we moved to gaming and to be completely honest it was a disaster on the Radeon's. What did that same reviewerhad to say about NVIDIA 3D Vision? "Add to that support for DirectX 11, 3D and PhysX and we have a system which offers the best gaming and movie experience available on PC today, bar none." The big issue is that AMD cannot fix any issues, because they do not provide the technology to their customers. They rely on others to do the work for them. "The problem is that the software provided for this task is nowhere near the level it should be for a mainstream product and pales significantly in comparison to NVIDIA's 3D Vision. There are a number of key issues with the middleware from iZ3D and DDD which essentially remove any hope of enthusiasts enjoying the 3D experience. Firstly both of these providers have been struggling to provide DirectX 10 and 11 capable software for some time now so we are essentially limited to DirectX 9 games for Stereoscopic 3D on AMD." The customer experience is important to NVIDIA, so we do the work ourselves. "By depending on middleware providers such as TriDef and iZ3D, it appears that AMD is relinquishing their duty to invest in 3D game optimizations and deferring it to their partners. These optimizations make a big difference, and working directly with the game developer can yield impressive 3D payback. For example, we recently discovered that the performance impact can be reduced to as little as 11% in 3D-optimized video games." At the end of the day, AMD customers lose out and are stuck with unsupported hardware. "We wouldn't recommend anyone purchase AMD hardware for Stereoscopic 3D gaming at this time and given that DirectX10 games and CrossFire are still not supported, never mind the cards key feature (DirectX11) we won't be holding our breath for any improvement to this situation in the near future." Unfortunately for AMD, the truth is their solution doesn't work well. AMD's disarray in 3D may be the consequence of a lack of strategy or the result of having insufficient resources to develop the technology they need. If the later is the case, the problem may resurface in other areas and affect their ability to compete in the future. The 3D Vision ecosystem has grown substantially, with over 1,000 components or products? now supported. 3D Vision unit sales are in the hundreds of thousands and will grow with the continued introduction of new 3D platforms. Some 30 million 3D PCs are expected by 2012. Already, six of the 10 largest monitor makers are shipping 3D displays; and Asus, Toshiba, Clevo and Acer are shipping notebooks with 3D Vision. Streaming web content, such as 3D Vision Live, and sporting events, like the US Open Tennis Finals, are happening. There are 3D cameras and projectors supported along with Blu-ray 3D players from Cyberlink and Arcsoft. And over 425 games support 3D Vision technology. NVIDIA is in the Air Apple announced the new MacBook Air ultraportable computer this week. This version of the MacBook Air is an excellent example of an optimized PC. An optimized PC is one that has the correct balance of CPU and GPU horsepower. "The reason why Apple chose to stay with a Core 2 Duo was so that it can benefit from a better graphics environment, specifically NVIDIA's integrated one." Apple has always placed a high value on graphics performance. "The multicore GPU integrated into the NVIDIA 320M handily spanks the (admittedly improved) Intel integrated graphics glued onto the Core i-series processors. And it's also compatible with OpenCL, something Intel has yet to support in its IGPs. Apple argued that the improved graphics power of the 320M was more important than improved CPU processing power when designing the recent 13" MacBook Pro update-that same logic (though you may disagree with the decision) still applies here." Apple knows that to get the best experience with today's visual computing applications you need to make sure your PC has the right mix of CPU/GPU horsepower. "So it was an NVIDIA GPU, the 320M, that Apple chose to put in the MacBook Air (that GPU, by the way, also integrates a chipset, saving space). "It seems they felt that giving up a little bit of processor performance for a lot of graphics performance was a reasonable tradeoff," says Nathan Brookwood, principal analyst at Insight 64." Whether you're using the latest operating systems, viewing or editing photos, finding directions, playing a game, or watching a Blu-ray movie, a balanced PC with an NVIDIA GeForce GPU yields the best experience. Intel Is Starting To Get It Back in 2008 NVIDIA rolled out the optimized PC concept to the computer industry. Almost immediately PC manufacturers around the world began to build optimized PCs and NVIDIA took the lead on educating consumers on how to configure their PCs to deliver the computing experience they desire. For obvious reasons the concept was not popular at first with Intel, but they are slowly showing signs of catching on. "It's a more balanced view of the platform. The (traditional) CPU is still the center of the universe--we're still adding cores...we've talked about eight, ten, and twelve cores--(but) it's not all about the CPU as much anymore. -Brian Krzanich, a senior vice president and general manager for manufacturing and supply chain at Intel The CPU will remain an essential part of the PC, but the benefits of investing in a high-performance GPU far outweigh the benefits of adding a powerful CPU. Photos, video, 3D graphics are the most popular and important forms of data today and the graphics processor is the perfect processor for this content and an area of exciting innovation. Undoubtedly, the GPU is destined to be the most essential processor of the 21st century. GeForce Is Still the Best Three months ago NVIDIA rocked the GPU market with the release of the GeForce GTX 460. Ever since then, AMD has been scrambling to catch up. They recently launched their response with the 6800 series and have fallen short of the mark. The GeForce 400 series still offers the best DirectX 11 gaming experience. AMD is trying to make their products look better by naming them 6800 series when in fact they are slower than the 5800 series. The truth is, the 6800 series offers nothing new to the GPU market. "The Radeon HD 6800-series didn't bring a drastic change to the GPU market..." GeForce 400 Series GPUs are still the best DirectX 11 cards available.
"Value for money lags behind the GeForce GTX 460s, and in straight cash terms a better bargain can be had in the form of the 768MB GTX 460." Be warned, some reviewers actually received product with more cores than the real Radeon 6850 GPUs will have. Please make sure you are informed of the real facts when reading reviews. "The big issue is that these sites scored much better results than what people will get with 960 shader enabled ‘normal' and regular Radeon HD 6850 card."
Besides better performance, only NVIDIA GeForce GPUs offer "Graphics Plus" features such as:
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Comments
Next, NVIDIA has seven different DX11 video cards: GT 430, GT 440, GTS 450, GTX 460, GTX 465, GTX 470, GTX 480. It's not the number of video cards, it's the price:performance ratio. The GTX 460 is currently winning that battle, and doing so by a large margin.
See how GTX 460 compared against Radeon 6850 here: /index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=631
Also, they've got seven DX11 cards on the market, so it's not even worth talking about anymore. AMD had a head start, and Fermi GF100 wasn't ultra-impressive, but GF104, GF106, and GF108 have all run very cool and used comparable power to AMD's Radeon counterparts.
While I think that NVIDIA?s PhysX and 3D Vision support far outweigh AMD?s feature set, it comes down to price. Even then, NVIDIA is fighting the good fight with the recent price reductions.
The 6870 compete with an overclocked GTX 460, which costs the same. The 6900 series isn't expected until late November or early December. When it comes out, we'll have to see where it's priced. If it beats a GTX 480, it might also cost more.
As for calling the 6800 a second generation, that would be like calling the GT 430 a fourth generation Fermi. The 6800 series is simply a reworked Cypress GPU, if I am to quote AMD.
So here's some food for thought: you don't know the market - you only know your own preference. Go search tech forums, and try to convince them that PhysX and 3D Vision doesn't matter. There are plenty of people that add these items into overall value, but clearly you do not.
Nvidia is comming out with the gtx 580 to go against AMD's Cayman (rumored to be 20% faster the gtx 480s for $499, and to be out in November?) Very interesting holiday season!
As for me ill wait till Kepler to upgrade from my gtx 480s sc since april 2010.
I love competition ( gpu wars that is)