Full Review: 9800GX2 vs HD3870X2!!!

[cdawall]

would put good money on the fact that a month from now the scores will have changed completely due to new drivers for both cards.


and if i was getting one it would be the 3870X2 because cheaper+better design=purchase in my book even if the 9800 has a little bit of an advantage. lets face it NV drivers SUCK!

 

[niko084]

would put good money on the fact that a month from now the scores will have changed completely due to new drivers for both cards.


and if i was getting one it would be the 3870X2 because cheaper+better design=purchase in my book even if the 9800 has a little bit of an advantage. lets face it NV drivers SUCK!

True.... Honestly I don't care who comes out on top, as long as technology moves forward and we get away from ultra high power requirements and space heaters.

 

[imperialreign]

Cool thanks, just curious where you picked that up...

It's been reported on Fudzilla, The Inquirer, Dailytech and a couple other "grain-of-salt" sites.


Anyhow - as to the rest of this thread over the last 12+ hours I've been away . . . :shadedshu

yet another ATI/nVidia thread reduced to kindergarten antics

 

[rick22]

One big thing Nvidia has over ( AMD ATI ) money.....for the people who were saying Nvidia is scared of ATI ..nice try

 

[DarkMatter]

would put good money on the fact that a month from now the scores will have changed completely due to new drivers for both cards.


and if i was getting one it would be the 3870X2 because cheaper+better design=purchase in my book even if the 9800 has a little bit of an advantage. lets face it NV drivers SUCK!

Why do they suck? That's something that I read a lot in the forums, but I have never had a problem with them and I have used both WHQL and betas.

 

[das müffin mann]

ok can we please drop all this fanboy shit, its amazing what happens while your gone, anywho the reason for the nvidia drivers suck remark (i believe) is based off of early drivers for a card (ati is just as bad) i've never had problems with either camp, except a few of their earlier drivers. does it really mater at all which camp has the highest performing card? the difference in game is very minimal if any, as niko said who cares as long as technology advances and they use less pwer

 

[OrbitzXT]

When it comes to drivers, nVidias have always worked better for me over ATI's. ATI I've had a number of issues, and one of my gripes with them is that the Image Scaling doesn't work all the time. When someone brings up nVidia's bad drivers, the only thing I ever think about and especially lately was the ill fated 7950 X2. On paper it should have performed well, but drivers killed it. For the most part both companies are good enough when it comes to drivers. Now if you want to talk about bad drivers, lets all reach under our desks for our Creative! bashing club.

 

[Tatty_Two]

Damn and I thought I could be a bit of a fanboi! Both cards look good, top of the range cards account for only around 5% of the market, in the case of ATi with their pricing policy for the HD3870x2, that will probably stretch to about 8% of the market, in the case of NVidia with their 9800GX2 pricing policy, that will probably shrink to around 2% of the market

There are always some that want the best and are willing to pay almost anything for it, then again there are a lot more who are sensible enough to know where to invest their hard earnt cash, in this case I am afraid.....IMO thats in the direction of the HD3870x2 if the GX2 is really going to hit the shelves at near $600 .......and thats coming from a semi NVidia fanboi........Me!

 

[tkpenalty]

The reviewers never mentioned how hot the card got... I have to say the fact that it only works on 780i boards makes it very undesirable...

 

[yogurt_21]

Bottom line is both are at the same level with some subtle differences, some people like Ati's while others like Nvidia's, but difference is not enough to represent a purchase decision. When someone buys one instead of the other strongly believing he is buying better IQ, well, he is buying a quimera.

actually it should when you factor in ati's horrible scaling with aa enabled. IQ is really an argument for nvidia theses days. sure ati can do a 24x edge-detect aa, but I've yet to see that run smoothly on any resolution above 1024x768 on games made since 2005. (well at stock anyway, at 940 core is a different matter and even then the offerings are few)

so bottom line should be IQ and perfomance= nvidia, cheaper =ati.

sad really, I remember the 9800 days when ati had IQ, performance, and the cheaper price (the 128mb pro's, the xt was ridiculously priced at that time).

 

[cdawall]

Why do they suck? That's something that I read a lot in the forums, but I have never had a problem with them and I have used both WHQL and betas.

you want to know why they suck because NV cant offer support for cards they still fucking sell! there flagship top of the line agp card (the 7800GS) crashes in almost every god damn game and benchmark i for one see that as complete BS. its 2 gens old now not even a full year in my PC and is lost driver support? WTF NV thats shit! oh and i hope you don't want DX10 on agp because thats just not happening from the nvidia camp! lets just ostracize a huge chunk of users and force them to purchase new boards, well guess what NV as soon as my 939 sells im done say hello ATi 580X board and maybe a 3850!

 

[wolf]

cmon man, fair enough your super p-o'd that its not working out for ya, but could you tone it down a tad?

 

[cdawall]

cmon man, fair enough your super p-o'd that its not working out for ya, but could you tone it down a tad?

ugh they go for $250 or so on ebay as of a month ago thats more than a 8800GTS! its stupid they wont do a good driver for them....oh well its going into a backup rig so i'm past it i have an 8600GTS now cause it was cheap well actually i got paid to take it thanks xazax

 

[DarkMatter]

you want to know why they suck because NV cant offer support for cards they still fucking sell! there flagship top of the line agp card (the 7800GS) crashes in almost every god damn game and benchmark i for one see that as complete BS. its 2 gens old now not even a full year in my PC and is lost driver support? WTF NV thats shit! oh and i hope you don't want DX10 on agp because thats just not happening from the nvidia camp! lets just ostracize a huge chunk of users and force them to purchase new boards, well guess what NV as soon as my 939 sells im done say hello ATi 580X board and maybe a 3850!

Well I have my 7900GTX running on my second rig very well and it's from the same generation. All games run pretty well except Crysis and that's because of the CPU not the card. Not a single crash in my entire life, not from Nvidia nor from Ati cards. I still don't think their drivers suck.

 

[cdawall]

Well I have my 7900GTX running on my second rig very well and it's from the same generation. All games run pretty well except Crysis and that's because of the CPU not the card. Not a single crash in my entire life, not from Nvidia nor from Ati cards. I still don't think their drivers suck.

PCI-e drivers are fine but the AGP 7800GS doesn't work worth a shit

 

[EastCoasthandle]

PCI-e drivers are fine but the AGP 7800GS doesn't work worth a shit

I thought they stopped supporting AGP? The last driver that I recall is the official 169.21 back in Dec 2007.

In any case I have to wonder if their driver support for the 9800 GX2 will be anything like the 7950GX2? We will soon find out!

 

[newtekie1]

Check their advertisements...

*BUILT ON THE 8800*
It is programmed directly to ONLY use 128 shaders.

So thats where I get my info. And yes it is programmed directly FOR nVidia cards!
Doesn't mean their ATI support is non existant, just means its not *tweaked* for them.

It gives a small slight advantage off the start. It shows when you compare how close these cards run and then hit Crysis....

Once again, advertising for nVidia because nVidia pays you to promote their cards doesn't mean it is built directly for nVidia cards, and it certainly doesn't mean it is only designed to use 128 shaders. The game simply sends commands to the card, how many shaders are used to complete those commands are up to the card. You can't tell software to only use so many shaders, it just isn't possible.

 

[EastCoasthandle]

Once again, advertising for nVidia because nVidia pays you to promote their cards doesn't mean it is built directly for nVidia cards, and it certainly doesn't mean it is only designed to use 128 shaders. The game simply sends commands to the card, how many shaders are used to complete those commands are up to the card. You can't tell software to only use so many shaders, it just isn't possible.

That's not entirely true. I recall you posting about this before suggesting that it's simple advertising:

I don't know where you got that it is programmed directly for nVidia cards. Just because it has the nVidia logo at the beginning doesn't mean it is programmed directly for nVidia cards, it just means nVidia paided them to put it there. It has Intel's logo at the beginning too, do you really think it was programmed directly for Intel CPUs too? It is just a marketting tool. 3Dmark06 has advertisements for Alienware computers in it, do you really think they programmed it directly for Alienware computers?

If the Crytek engine isn't using half the shaders, it is because there are too many shaders, though I doubt that is the case.

Read the quote below to get the correct understanding of how TWIMTBP program works.

...One point that Roy really wanted to hammer home was the fact that The Way It’s Meant To Be Played is not just a marketing programme like some would like you to believe. Instead, it’s about supporting the development community and helping them to create great content.

He talked to us about the developer tools that Nvidia creates to help developers optimise their code, things like NVPerfHUD and FX Composer. “These tools cost Nvidia millions of dollars every year to develop and maintain. We provide them to developers for free and they even work on our competitor’s hardware.”

That’s not all that Nvidia does to support developers in the programme though, as Roy explains, “in addition to our support team and developer tools, we also have our Games Test Labs in Moscow. Here we can run any build of a game through 250 different configurations and give the developer a full report and burn-in for its game – free of charge for TWIMTBP participants.”

We asked Roy what the report contained, in general terms. “The report is quite simple – we want to make the gaming experience as good we possibly can on all of our hardware. We give the developers a list of per-GPU optimisations that they can make to their code to help improve the experience at any given spec – in our opinion, this is vital for any developer that is serious about making a great PC game.”...

source

In any case, I find it odd that this card doesn't do well with TWIMTBP games when AA is applied. I would think it wouldn't take a lot of R&D to get drivers up and running. Apparently, that doesn't seem to be the case right now per this review.

 

[cdawall]

I thought they stopped supporting AGP? The last driver that I recall is the official 169.21 back in Dec 2007.

In any case I have to wonder if their driver support for the 9800 GX2 will be anything like the 7950GX2? We will soon find out!

they stopped supporting anything that isn't an 8X00 series or higher card...bastards

 

[newtekie1]

they stopped supporting anything that isn't an 8X00 series or higher card...bastards

That isn't even remotely true. That was the case for a while after the 8800 cards were first released, but now. As they release drivers for the 8800 series card, they also release the same drivers for the 7 and 6 series cards. All the cards currently have the same 169.21 driver. Your 7800GS card uses the same driver also. The have released several beta drivers, that also work with all the cards. Currently I have 174.12 running on all my cards. The 174.16 drivers work with all the 6,7, and 8 series cards, however it is only WQHL certified for the 9600GT, which is why they only suppor that card by defualt. However, a hacked INF file exists that makes it work with all cards, but it really doesn't offer anything over the 174.12 drivers other than 9600GT support, so there is no reason to hassle with hacking it.

 

[DarkMatter]

That's not entirely true. I recall you posting about this before suggesting that it's simple advertising:



Read the quote below to get the correct understanding of how TWIMTBP program works.

source

In any case, I find it odd that this card doesn't do well with TWIMTBP games when AA is applied. I would think it wouldn't take a lot of R&D to get drivers up and running. Apparently, that doesn't seem to be the case right now per this review.

Every game have a diferent rendering paths and optimizations for almost each card. What Nvidia does with TWIMTBP is ensure that the path used for their cards are as best as possible. That doesn't hurt Ati's card in any way.

 

[TooFast]

nvidia 600$= 9800 GX2
ATI 600$= 3870x2+3870 nuff said!

 

[EastCoasthandle]

Every game have a diferent rendering paths and optimizations for almost each card. What Nvidia does with TWIMTBP is ensure that the path used for their cards are as best as possible. That doesn't hurt Ati's card in any way.

This is not revelant to the fact that TWIMTBP is more then just marketing hype as implied by newtekie1. Also, the fact that they go on record saying:
-

The Way It’s Meant To Be Played is not just a marketing programme

-

developer tools that Nvidia creates to help developers optimise their code

-

we want to make the gaming experience as good we possibly can on all of our hardware

specifically lets the reader know that TWIMTBP program is to help give nvidia based video cards the edge. Also, AMD/ATI told Bit-Tech that they are being locked out from developers with TWIMTBP program, specially with CF development.

The long of the short is that AMD believes that Nvidia is locking it out of the market with its TWIMTBP programme—something I’m sure Nvidia would disagree with—and that developers working with Nvidia often make it difficult for AMD to get access to code early enough to develop CrossFire drivers in time for a game’s launch.

Source

Based on this information that can and will hurt ATI. In hindsight of your post it comes off as bias when the facts contradict your comment. Not only does this show a pattern in how you post it also shows that you are not neutral regarding the subject. Therefore, I have to ask if you are part of the nvidia focus group? In any case, it's just odd they are not ready for release according to this review. Specially when it comes to AA and TWIMTBP games.

 

[gOJDO]

 

[warhammer]

================================================================================
Supported display modes for NV_DISP.INF Version 169.28, 12/18/2007
================================================================================

Format:
[INFSectionName]
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// PCI ID(hex) - Device Name
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
; Spanning Type
XRes x YRes bpp refresh1 refresh2 refresh3 ...

================================================================================

[nv_SoftwareDeviceSettings]

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// 0040 - NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Series GPU/GeForce 6800 Ultra
// 0041 - NVIDIA GeForce 6800
// 0042 - NVIDIA GeForce 6800 LE
// 0043 - NVIDIA GeForce 6800 XE
// 0044 - NVIDIA GeForce 6800 XT
// 0045 - NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT
// 0046 - NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT
// 0047 - NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS
// 0048 - NVIDIA GeForce 6800 XT
// 004D - NVIDIA Quadro FX 3400/4400
// 004E - NVIDIA Quadro FX 4000
// 0090 - NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX
// 0091 - NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX
// 0092 - NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT
// 0093 - NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GS <<<<<<<<<<============ LOOK
// 0095 - NVIDIA GeForce 7800 SLI
// 009D - NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500
// 00C0 - NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS/XT
// 00C1 - NVIDIA GeForce 6800
// 00C2 - NVIDIA GeForce 6800 LE
// 00C3 - NVIDIA GeForce 6800 XT
// 00CD - NVIDIA Quadro FX 3450/4000 SDI
// 00CE - NVIDIA Quadro FX 1400
// 0140 - NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT
// 0141 - NVIDIA GeForce 6600
// 0142 - NVIDIA GeForce 6600 LE
// 0143 - NVIDIA GeForce 6600 VE
// 0145 - NVIDIA GeForce 6610 XL
// 0147 - NVIDIA GeForce 6700 XL
// 014A - NVIDIA Quadro NVS 440
// 014C - NVIDIA Quadro FX 540M
// 014D - NVIDIA Quadro FX 550
// 014E - NVIDIA Quadro FX 540
// 014F - NVIDIA GeForce 6200
// 0160 - NVIDIA GeForce 6500
// 0161 - NVIDIA GeForce 6200 TurboCache(TM)
// 0162 - NVIDIA GeForce 6200SE TurboCache(TM)
// 0163 - NVIDIA GeForce 6200 LE
// 0165 - NVIDIA Quadro NVS 285
// 0169 - NVIDIA GeForce 6250
// 016A - NVIDIA GeForce 7100 GS
// 01D0 - NVIDIA GeForce 7350 LE
// 01D1 - NVIDIA GeForce 7300 LE
// 01D3 - NVIDIA GeForce 7300 SE/7200 GS
// 01DD - NVIDIA GeForce 7500 LE
// 01DE - NVIDIA Quadro FX 350
// 01DF - NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GS
// 0211 - NVIDIA GeForce 6800
// 0212 - NVIDIA GeForce 6800 LE
// 0215 - NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT
// 0218 - NVIDIA GeForce 6800 XT
// 0221 - NVIDIA GeForce 6200
// 0222 - NVIDIA GeForce 6200 A-LE
// 0240 - NVIDIA GeForce 6150
// 0241 - NVIDIA GeForce 6150 LE
// 0242 - NVIDIA GeForce 6100
// 0245 - NVIDIA Quadro NVS 210S / NVIDIA GeForce 6150LE
// 0290 - NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GTX
// 0291 - NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GT/GTO
// 0292 - NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GS
// 0293 - NVIDIA GeForce 7950 GX2
// 0294 - NVIDIA GeForce 7950 GX2
// 0295 - NVIDIA GeForce 7950 GT
// 029C - NVIDIA Quadro FX 5500
// 029D - NVIDIA Quadro FX 3500
// 029E - NVIDIA Quadro FX 1500
// 029F - NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 X2
// 0390 - NVIDIA GeForce 7650 GS
// 0391 - NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT
// 0392 - NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GS
// 0393 - NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT
// 0394 - NVIDIA GeForce 7600 LE
// 0395 - NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT
// 039E - NVIDIA Quadro FX 560
// 03D0 - NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE nForce 430
// 03D1 - NVIDIA GeForce 6100 nForce 405
// 03D2 - NVIDIA GeForce 6100 nForce 400
// 03D5 - NVIDIA GeForce 6100 nForce 420
// 053A - NVIDIA GeForce 7050 PV / NVIDIA nForce 630a
// 053B - NVIDIA GeForce 7050 PV / NVIDIA nForce 630a
// 053E - NVIDIA GeForce 7025 / NVIDIA nForce 630a
// 07E0 - NVIDIA GeForce 7150 / NVIDIA nForce 630i
// 07E1 - NVIDIA GeForce 7100 / NVIDIA nForce 630i
// 07E2 - NVIDIA GeForce 7050 / NVIDIA nForce 630i
// 07E3 - NVIDIA GeForce 7050 / NVIDIA nForce 610i
// 07E5 - NVIDIA GeForce 7100 / NVIDIA nForce 620i
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////


My old card the 7800gs 512 worked well with NVIDIA drivers and XP and VISTA