Gffx 5900u (nv35)

[Embattle]

http://www.hexus.net/review.php?review=554&page=1 - Hexus
http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/20030512/index.html -Toms Hardware
http://firingsquad.gamers.com/hardware/nvidia_geforce_fx_5900_ultra/default.asp - Firing Squad
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1821 -AnandTech
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NDcy - HardOCP
http://www.3dgpu.com/reviews/5900u.php - 3DGPU

I find that while the tests are positive it still doesn't do enough, esp with it still requiring two slots. This might be solved at a later date by a manufacturers solution.

 

[Jonty]

I was going to post this but I thought people might think I was reverting back to my nVidia fanboy ways

Anyway, I'm happy for nVidia because the NV35 seems to sought out most of the negatives levelled at the NV30 (perhaps the NV35 is really what the NV30 should have been, been I suppose that's the benefit of hindsight ). As all the benchmarks demonstrate, nVidia are thankfully ahead of ATi's Radeon 9800 Pro, if only by a small margin (not that you'd be in anyway disappointed with the latter card).

As you say Embattle, and I completely agree, the size of the cooling system is unfortunate, and once again annoys Shuttle and other Small Form Factor owners. However, at least this time the cooling comes without the noise problems which thwarted the FX Flow system. And, as you also highlighted, I too don't doubt that, given time, a single-slot solution will become available.

What concerns me perhaps more than this, though, is the price: ~$500. Unfortunately nVidia rollout these amazing cards which receive a lot of press attention, and yet they're only aimed at the top 2% of the market. Just like ATi's 9800 Pro, the press attention these cards received is very much disproportionate to the number of people who will, or even can afford to, buy one. Thankfully the 128Mb 5900 variant sould be somewhat cheaper; although a truly mainstream version (the 5700?) remains under wraps

Anyway, rambling aside, both the 9800 Pro and (more importantly for the market) the GeForce FX 5900 Ultra are amazing cards. nVidia seem to have listened and learnt. Production has been going on for months, so supply won't be an issue; the noise concerns have been addressed; the memory bus bottleneck has been solved; even the drivers have been overhauled to truly show off tomorrow's games (the 5900 Ultra is perhaps designed with Doom III specifically in mind).

So it's well done nVidia, I guess The scene is now set for the nVidia's NV40 and the ATi's R400

Kind Regards

 

[Jonty]

Just some news relating to Doom III, which ought to be extremely good for Microsoft . . .

E³
We just arrived from the pre-E3 Xbox conference . . . but it should be worth noting that Microsoft opened the conference with a trailer of Doom III, supposedly running on the Xbox. There were also quite a few impressive demos and Microsoft has huge plans for Xbox Live, but Doom III on Xbox is a reality. A very, very impressive reality.

Whilst Microsoft may not have been able to tempt id software into making the the title an XBox exclusive, imagine how many people will prefer to just buy an XBox and Doom III rather than shelling out a great deal more upgrading their PC?

This is quite a coup for Microsoft, and it's rather impressive that Doom III runs stably on such a system (700Mhz CPU, GeForce3 etc). Here's hoping the minimum specs for the PC will be hovering around that level, if not a little lower.

Kind Regards

 

[Wilier]

Hmmm, a decent solution to the noise problem could be Water Cooling I guess *prods WC expert* eh Embeh???

 

[Jonty]

As you say, Embattle is the expert [ ], but Gainward have had a watercooled GeForce FX 5800 Ultra kicking around for a while. I don't believe it has gone retail as yet, and it still occupies two slots, but it can be done and works well, apparently

Water-cooled GeForce FX 5800 Ultra[/img]

Perhaps companies like [url=http://www.evga.com]eVGA may also develop a single-slot 5900 Ultra as they did, or at last planned to, for the 5800 Ultra.

Kind Regards

 

[nath]

I did read that Doom III will be coming to Xbox and that Id have said that it will look as nice as it does on the PC. Which is good, because I have an xbox but not enough cash/desire to upgrade my pc to *ninja* status.

It'd still be nicer to have it on a pc though, despite halo being fairly good on xbox and the controls not totally sucking, it's still nicer to have it on the pc.

 

[Jonty]

nVidia have updated their site with some pretty 5900 Ultra videos. Check out the collage to get a good idea what the card is capable of, as featuring nVidia's new Dusk character (Dawn ... Dusk ).

Kind Regards

 

[Xavier]

Vulcans procedural shader-fire rawks very impressive - especially when you see the full demo with a proper 5.1 environment, the booming, rumbling sounds and the weird chanting is fantastic

they've changed the cubemap on Dusk since we saw her yesterday in Santa Clara - fingers crossed the demo peeps get it all finished in time for tomorrow

/makes a note to take his hercules 9800 pro out of his waterchill rig when he gets home and drop in the reference 5900U

 

[Jonty]

Originally posted by Xavier
Vulcans procedural shader-fire rawks very impressive - especially when you see the full demo with a proper 5.1 environment, the booming, rumbling sounds and the weird chanting is fantastic

*Jonty is ever so slightly impressed*

Kind Regards

Jonty

Edit ~ Though I don't support Shakey-Cams, the E3 Doom III footage is nothing short of amazing

 

[Xavier]

tomorrow there should be a whole lot more

 

[Embattle]

Originally posted by Jonty
nVidia have updated their site with some pretty 5900 Ultra videos. Check out the collage to get a good idea what the card is capable of, as featuring nVidia's new Dusk character (Dawn ... Dusk ).

Kind Regards

One thing Nvidia remains good at, and manages to get out on time is marketing tosh

 

[Jonty]

Originally posted by Embattle
One thing Nvidia remains good at, and manages to get out on time is marketing tosh

hehe, true enough You may not have been able to get hold of the 5800 Ultra, but you can rest assured the demos and videos have always been available Joking aside, the NV35 has thankfully been in production for a long time now, so it shouldn't be long before the products go on sale and are widely available for people to buy (not that many will be able to afford them ).

Kind Regards

 

[Embattle]

I really do feel sorry for those that actually bought, got hold of, a GFFX 5800. Nvidia annoyed many with the 5800 and has now annoyed those that stuck with it by bringing out a product that the 5800 should of been, although Nvidia will bounce back I don't think any one should under estimate the amount of damage nvidia did to themselves with the 5800.

 

[Jonty]

I agree with you Embattle, and you know how much I love nVidia! As you say, the 5800 Ultra did nVidia a lot of damage. Their famous six-month product cycle was broken, people were getting impatient, and sadly the card produced just didn't live up to expectations. On paper it looked nothing short of amazing, and although powerful, in reality the sound issues, the 128bit memory bus bottleneck, the expensive components and the new 0.13 micron-level, 12 layer PCB design simply crippled the card. In fairness to nVidia, I think they were a victim of their own hype, but at the time they did nothing to stop this as they seemed so sure they could deliver.

And so, as you say, you're left with a handful (well, a few thousand) customers who have powerful products, I won't deny them that, but which have ultimately a $500 'dud'. In my opinion, nVidia should offer some sort of deal to these people, as Microsoft did to all the customers who bought the XBox, only to see it drop dramatically in price.

It has to be said nVidia, financially speaking, are doing extremely well, and their market share is still very strong, so I think a gesture of good faith is in order. As you say, nVidia lost a lot of fans with the 5800 Ultra, and the press suddenly woke up to the fact that nVidia weren't sitting pretty any more.

Thankfully, the NV35 represents what the NV30 should have been, and nVidia spokesmen have been honest, and gone on the record to effectively say 'Sorry, we screwed up', which takes some guts. However, without some sort of rebate, all the apologies in the world won't make the 5800 Ultra customers happy.

I still love nVidia, and I'm glad the NV35 is the product they deserve to have. I'll be very interested to see what the 128Mb 5900 performs like, as well as the budget, say, 5700 version. ATi's response should be equally interesting.

Kind Regards

 

[Embattle]

I want something fast, uses one slot, doesn't require another PSU and doesn't sound like a Jumbo Jet party

 

[Jonty]

Originally posted by Embattle
I want something fast, uses one slot, doesn't require another PSU and doesn't sound like a Jumbo Jet party

hehe, hence ATi's increase in popularity in recent times (amongst other things). Of course you could spent a 'professional' amount of money and buy yourself the Quadro FX Fast? Check. Single slot? Check. Doesn't require a new PSU? Kind-of check. Doesn't sound like a Jumbo Jet party? Check.

Kind Regards

 

[Embattle]

Forgot the sub £400 requirement

 

[Jonty]

Originally posted by Embattle
Forgot the sub £400 requirement

lol! Well that's one thing I can't really help with If it's any consolation, the reviewers tend to not rate the new 256Mb models (they understand the advantages in the future, but refuse to accept it's really worth $100 more at the moment).

Kind Regards

 

[Embattle]

Its all to do with resolutions dear boy, most people don't play high enough to notice any advantage of the extra 128MB

 

[Jonty]

True, but even with high-resolution compressed textures, today's games still don't need 256Mb of onboard memory. As for high resolutions, if I had a spare £1,500 and thus a monitor like this, trust me, I'd be playing GTA3 and Q3A in high-resolution widescreen to my heart's content

Kind Regards

 

[bodhi]

Originally posted by Jonty
Just some news relating to Doom III, which ought to be extremely good for Microsoft . . .
Whilst Microsoft may not have been able to tempt id software into making the the title an XBox exclusive, imagine how many people will prefer to just buy an XBox and Doom III rather than shelling out a great deal more upgrading their PC?

This is quite a coup for Microsoft, and it's rather impressive that Doom III runs stably on such a system (700Mhz CPU, GeForce3 etc). Here's hoping the minimum specs for the PC will be hovering around that level, if not a little lower.

Kind Regards

One problem. FPS are shit on consoles.

 

[Jonty]

Originally posted by bodhi
One problem. FPS are shit on consoles.

Whilst FPSs may be more suited to the keyboard/mouse combination, what about Halo? This game has won numerous awards and shifted the equivalent six copies every minute of every day since it was launched in 2001. Or Nintendo's GoldenEye? Widely acclaimed as one of the finest FPS ever produced on any format, picking up numerous awards including a BAFTA. Or don't these games count?

Kind Regards

 

[Wilier]

or did he mean Frames per Second?

 

[Testin da Cable]

First Person Shooters just don't work well on consoles.



See? I can change from "All consoles are shit"!! That's soo last year


but then I hasten to add I've only ever played one FPS on a console and that was so horrible I've passed on all the rest

 

[Jonty]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying consoles are the platform of choice for FPS, but to dismiss every such title as, well, you know what, is simply unfair and misleading. As for Frame Per Second, so long as the game runs smoothly, you can't ask for much more (BTW - It seems the Shakey-Cam footage of Doom III wasn't running on an XBox after all, but that the title may still be coming to that platform).

Kind Regards

 

[Jonty]

Sorry to harp on about such things, but if you're wondering why you should upgrade to either nVidia's or ATi's latest products, check out trailer one - direct feed

Kind Regards

Edit ~ Back on topic, well, almost, whilst still not officially available, the Detonator FX drivers are shaping up very nicely for nVidia owners

 

[Embattle]

I find the jump in 3Dmark 2001 worthless, when they released the 40s I gained 1000 marks but that was because they improved one of the scores by something like 50%....can't remember which one it was now.

 

[Jonty]

Originally posted by Embattle
I find the jump in 3Dmark 2001 worthless, when they released the 40s I gained 1000 marks but that was because they improved one of the scores by something like 50%....can't remember which one it was now.

I completely agree, but the performance results in other tests seem to indicate 'real world' gains too. As for 3D Mark 2003, I believe FutureMark ended up blacklisting several releases of nVidia's drivers because to show how synthetic, and thus manipulatable, the results could be, nVidia 'enhanced' certain driver sets to provide huge gains and thus discredit the program, which they did a pretty good job at Gains in 3DMark 2001, though, I believe were genuine, but as you say, the weighting system means improvements in one area can lead to a disproportionate increase to the overall results. Benchmarks, eh?

Kind Regards

 

[Jonty]

Bonjour

I've been asked by striiker to post the following link . . .

Striiker
Jon Bach of Puget Systems posted a news article comparing the latest graphic cards entitled "New Video Cards From nVidia and ATI". It can be found here; http://www.pugetsystems.com/articles.php?id=11

Although I haven't read it, it seems to take a brief a look at the nVidia's NV30, NV35 and ATi's R350.

Kind Regards

 

[bodhi]

Halo and Goldeneye were O.K, but I'd never choose to play either over a PC FPS.



And don't get too worked up about DetonatorFX and their gains in 3dmark. There are rumours floating round that the gains havent come through better coding, but through exploiting some bits of 3dmark only development partners know about. Apparently, all will be revealed next week.