GeForce FX (NV30) is finally here -- What a disappointment...

Asher · January 27, 2003, 02:12

ExtremeTech has the first review up that I know of. It's a bit flakey due to high load, but it'll be better soon: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/...,846356,00.asp

Summary: Noisy as hell (Fan is 59 dB at full load!), requires two slot spaces in the computer, requires an additional power connection, performs on par with the cheaper and 7-month old Radeon 9700 (R300). And in early March, ATI's R350 is coming out...

The ONLY redeeming value of this chip is the insane geometry performance: With 8 HW lights, the GeForce FX is 97% faster than the Radeon 9700.

The card:

Asher · January 27, 2003, 02:16

Oh, and the Ultra version is 500MHz core clock, 1GHz DDR-II RAM on a 128-bit bus (16 GB/s) and the MSRP is $399US

Nubclear · January 27, 2003, 02:18

Ok, that is pretty bad.

Urban Ranger · January 27, 2003, 02:22

Yo, just look at the beast.

Could this be a driver problem, again?

Asher · January 27, 2003, 02:24

No, the problem is definitely just screwups.

Nvidia's on a 128-bit memory bus, ATI's on a 256-bit now...

Nvidia's got unified drivers, they're tested with the same driversets as the TNT2 through GF4

The product was SUPPOSED to be out about 8 months ago, just before ATI's Radeon 9700.

TSMC screwed up manufacturing their chips. Nvidia gambled on 0.13, ATI on 0.15. 0.13 wasn't close to ready.

Nvidia missed a whole product cycle, and needs to play catchup...

optimus2861 · January 27, 2003, 12:35

I have never in my life seen a video card that needed its own power connection. That'll never see the inside of my tower.

Should've gone back to the drawing board

Sava · January 27, 2003, 13:42

It's still better than any crap ATI comes out with.

OneFootInTheGrave · January 27, 2003, 13:49

Nvidia got spanked

monkspider · January 27, 2003, 13:49

Ugh, two slots and a power connection? That's absurd.

Sava · January 27, 2003, 13:57

Ha! that stupid card looks like some plastic toy... but still, it's going to be better than any ATI or Voodoo crap. Personally, I'll stick with my GeForce 4. I usually skip a generation when buying new computer equipment. The last card I had was a GeForce 2 GTS 32meg, now I've got my GeForce 4 Ti4200 128meg...

monolith94 · January 27, 2003, 14:41

As if I could afford it or ATI's anyway?

*le sigh*

Asher · January 27, 2003, 16:42

monolith: The NV31 and NV34 chips are based on the NV30 (GeForce FX) but are intended for mass market.

They're also not going to require an extra power connector and won't need the absurd cooling.

The reason Nvidia went with the dustbuster was because they couldn't hit the speeds they did without it, and if they didn't hit those speeds, ATI would have spanked them with a product about to become obsolete in a few short months...

OneFootInTheGrave · January 27, 2003, 18:53

That could mean that R9500 pro will spank the NV 30 offspring, if it doesn't keep up the high clock rates as it seems to have underperforming AA algorithms and worse quality.

ah why doesn't the img tag work?

Asher · January 27, 2003, 18:56

The 400MHz NV30 (non-Ultra version) supposedly won't require the massive cooling on production boards either, and it does very well against the 9700, let alone the 9500.

Provost Harrison · January 27, 2003, 19:03

Oh well that is a pity, I thought that Nvidia were quite well on the ball with this kind of stuff. Ah well, everyone's winning streak comes to an end at some point.

Although I must say, it looks a right beast

OneFootInTheGrave · January 27, 2003, 19:06

Quote:

Originally posted by Asher
The 400MHz NV30 (non-Ultra version) supposedly won't require the massive cooling on production boards either, and it does very well against the 9700, let alone the 9500.

But that is not NV31, and it will be 299$ MSRP, NV31 was supposed to be GF4ti4600 or so speed and R9500 pro does that already and it does it better.

Phew... Nvidia better move fast, and I hope ATI moves the prices down again when R350 comes. Btw R9700 goes for £200 in UK already which is I guess ~ $200/250 in US as this is rip off Britain, I think ATI owns Nvidia in all segments at the moment. But Nvidia has the name that can carry it for a long time to come.

Asher · January 27, 2003, 19:07

It kinda sucks for Nvidia, it really wasn't their fault at all for the most part.

The GeForce FX was supposed to be launched in August 2002, right around the same time as the Radeon 9700, but TSMC had problems with its 0.13 process. The Radeon 9700 is on the 0.15 still, so it went ahead on schedule, Nvidia's got delayed.

It makes perfect sense really. Nvidia told people the GeForce FX would launch at 350-400MHz. Then they found out they had to push back the launch date by about 4-5 months due to production problems, effectively missing an entire product cycle.

So what do they do? Strap on a dustbuster, crank it up to 500MHz, release the Ultra and regular product at the same time (historically there's a 6 month time period between the two).

Asher · January 27, 2003, 19:11

Quote:

Originally posted by OneFootInTheGrave
But that is not NV31, and it will be 299$ MSRP, NV31 was supposed to be GF4ti4600 or so speed and R9500 pro does that already and it does it better.

The non-Ultra version of the GF FX is targetted towards the non-Pro version of the Radeon 9700.

Nvidia is targetting NV31 at the Radeon 9500, and I'd expect they'd take measures to make sure it's comparable before release.

Quote:

Phew... Nvidia better move fast, and I hope ATI moves the prices down again when R350 comes. Btw R9700 goes for £200 in UK already

Are you serious? The cheapest 9700 Pro I can find here is $612CDN, or $400US almost exactly...plus tax.

OneFootInTheGrave · January 27, 2003, 19:21

Quote:

Originally posted by Asher

The non-Ultra version of the GF FX is targetted towards the non-Pro version of the Radeon 9700.

Nvidia is targetting NV31 at the Radeon 9500, and I'd expect they'd take measures to make sure it's comparable before release.

Like they made sure that NV30 is better than R9700pro

... I sure hope they do better than R9500pro

Quote:

Are you serious? The cheapest 9700 Pro I can find here is $612CDN, or $400US almost exactly...plus tax.

No the 200£ version (including VAT), like 168£ without VAT, is the R9700 non pro. The Pro version can be had for £233 I have heard from CrucialUK... lets check

... here you go http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/part...CTV9700P128A28 for all UK people going for a top end card.

Normally it is ~250£ now.

The 9500pro is £150... already, and look what else have I found on the web.

http://www.ocsystem.com/ocenrad97pro1.html

for $450 R300 at 415/733 with no fan

and that is being sold now. Huh - will R350 be better, well it better be as it seems that this GPU is rather good and can achieve good speeds, perhaps if Radeons used dustbuster fan they would be @450mhz now

.

Asher · January 27, 2003, 19:25

Quote:

Originally posted by OneFootInTheGrave
Like they made sure that NV30 is better than R9700pro

... I sure hope they do better than R9500pro

In most cases it is faster than the 9700 Pro, and that's what most people care about. I expect it'll become even after in a couple months when Nvidia releases their usual driverimprovements.

After all, this is the first totally new Core Nvidia has made since the TNT. It could stand to use a bit more optimization.

After all, the 9700 got a sizable boost a couple months ago from the Catalyst 3.0's.

OneFootInTheGrave · January 27, 2003, 20:03

While true, it is not even out yet and on performance only it performs better where FPS mean nothing (ie no AA or low AA), has worse quality AA or AF, and at max settings performs worse and looks worse.

:

Check HardOCP max quality settings comparison screenshot between both cards in UT2003 maybe you did, but with slightly worse IQ (not much but visible) NV 30 did 27FPS and with superior IQ R300 did 62 FPS.

Now that is worrying, and most of the future owners will want to play with AA and AF on, so the card is a flop. It migh be better "future proof" as it has more features, or better poly pushing power, but when those features are implemented the NV50's and R500's will be around the corner making it a value card at best, and those games will most likely ask more from the card on other fronts anyway. Perhaps for 800*600 gaming it will be good for many years to come but so will R300.

Panag · January 27, 2003, 20:51

hi ,

so , has anyone info on dirextX9 for those new cards , ... ?

have a nice day

Sava · January 27, 2003, 21:00

panag, you are awesome

Panag · January 27, 2003, 21:13

Quote:

Originally posted by Sava
panag, you are awesome

hi ,

Sava , dont say that out loud , ......

now ; microsoft boosted last week that X9 improves all geforce cards with 20 % , .....

some story on a compnews site , .....

so , any scientific (" ") proof for that , .....?

have a nice day

Asher · January 27, 2003, 21:48

Quote:

Originally posted by panag
hi ,

Sava , dont say that out loud , ......

now ; microsoft boosted last week that X9 improves all geforce cards with 20 % , .....

some story on a compnews site , .....

so , any scientific (" ") proof for that , .....?

have a nice day

I've never heard any claims to that effect...

OneFootInTheGrave: Yeah, the R300 has more bandwidth (nearly 20GB/s vs 16GB/s) which allows it to do AA + AF faster, but you're being slightly misleading.

Those framerates from HardOCP are for the GeForce FX running 8xS (8x Supersampling AA), while the Radeon 9700 uses 6x MultiSampling AA in those benchmarks.

With AA +AF, the results are mixed, though they do tend to favor the R300 due to its ~25% greater memory bandwidth.

But it's not all cut and dry. CodeCreatures (which makes heavy use of pixel shaders) with 4x AA & 8x Balanced aniso (highest setting for Nvidia) gets 30.8 fps on the GeForce FX Ultra.
Similarly, a Radeon 9700 Pro with 4x AA and 8x Quality aniso (highest setting for ATI) gets 17.4 fps.

The source for that is anand: http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1779&p=17

Panag · January 27, 2003, 21:52

Quote:

Originally posted by Asher

I've never heard any claims to that effect...

OneFootInTheGrave: Yeah, the R300 has more bandwidth (nearly 20GB/s vs 16GB/s) which allows it to do AA + AF faster, but you're being slightly misleading.

Those framerates from HardOCP are for the GeForce FX running 8xS (8x Supersampling AA), while the Radeon 9700 uses 6x MultiSampling AA in those benchmarks.

With AA +AF, the results are mixed, though they do tend to favor the R300 due to its ~25% greater memory bandwidth.

But it's not all cut and dry. CodeCreatures (which makes heavy use of pixel shaders) with 4x AA & 8x Balanced aniso (highest setting for Nvidia) gets 30.8 fps on the GeForce FX Ultra.
Similarly, a Radeon 9700 Pro with 4x AA and 8x Quality aniso (highest setting for ATI) gets 17.4 fps.

The source for that is anand: http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1779&p=17

hi ,

the mail went in the bin , ....

well if you look at microsft , they seems to like it ( X 9 )

X 8.1 runs great for now

lets hope the price shall drop a bit

have a nice day

Zylka · January 28, 2003, 01:48

So

What does this all mean?

If anything?

wh

Nubclear · January 28, 2003, 02:06

Quote:

Originally posted by Zylka
So

What does this all mean?

If anything?

wh

OMG ZYLKA SIGHTING +1

tinyp3nis · January 28, 2003, 04:48

Do people still take HardOCP seriously after p4 3.06 Ghz mess?
How would radeon 9700 do @ 500/1000?

OneFootInTheGrave · January 28, 2003, 07:30

Quote:

Originally posted by tinyp3nis
Do people still take HardOCP seriously after p4 3.06 Ghz mess?
How would radeon 9700 do @ 500/1000?

Yes, not really seriously, but they still do reviews

... and this one seemed OK... anyway if they post an image comparison like this it is not like they didn't use the same settings that they claimed to (someone would crack them sooner or later like with PIV3.06 article, well that was easier actually than this image, but still).

The point is that yes Nvidia uses 8xS + 8xAF(lower sample there for AF) but the IQ of ATI at 6xMS & 16xQuality AF; is actually better in that image.

plus the perfromance advantage of over 120%.

Now that is trully dissapointing for NV30.