Things look bleak for nVidias latest generation of graphics cards

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Quidam

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Ultimate Geek

#57761 24-Feb-2010 09:01

This article, although rather technical (or perhaps because of it) seems to paint a dark and ominous cloud on the horizon for nVidia.

It looks increasingly likely that AMD will be in a one Horse race with it's 5 series cards having no real competition. They have already come to market well ahead of nVidia, and when nVidia finally do launch, it seems likely the cards are going to be very dissapointing, on pretty much every aspect of their hardware design (performance; power consumption; heat; size) not to mention price

http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/02/17/nvidias-fermigtx480-broken-and-unfixable/

I should mention I've owned mostly nVidia cards, but am currently running an HD5770 in my gaming rig and have been blown away by the performance it offers, at such a reasonable price and low power consumption. Furthermore, this card is ideal for a crossfire setup (again due to it's low power; size and price). Reviews have shown in crossfire it scales amazingly well.

Maybe still a bit too early to make the call, but I think this round is going to belong to AMD in a very big way

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#301742 24-Feb-2010 09:16

That was an interesting article, i stumbled on it last week, it took an age to read but was well worth it.
To really understand it you need to read another article which is on the same scale, but is AMD/ATI's perspective on the whole thing, and how they went in the other direction (smaller chips, scalable, economic)

Amd showing upto the fight

Ragnor

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#301817 24-Feb-2010 14:39

The Semi accurate site is run by a well known ATI/AMD fanboi who hates Nvidia.. I would take it with a large grain of salt and just wait for real reviews by the better independent hardware sites.

Quidam

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Ultimate Geek

#301819 24-Feb-2010 14:48

Yeah, I read that article before the one I posted, and you are right, it gives some good context.

I think the main point is that AMD went through their learning curve with the HD4770, and based on the issues they had with that, it allowed them to modify the design of the HD5 series to mitigate the low yields inherent in 40 nanometer processors.

In contrast, nVidia seem to have gone into this cold, with the bottom line being they are going to really struggle to make their cards economic.

I think we are going to see scarce supply; high power requirements; and cards with similar performance to ATI but costing substantially more.

Maybe it's just me, but I place a premium not just on performance, but performance per watt.

In my view the aim is to produce GPU's that for the same power demands can produce greater processing capacity.

This is why I like the HD5770 so much. In terms or raw performance, it falls a little short (when compared to an HD4850 for example) but if you factor in the reduced power demand; smaller size; quiet cooler; reduced heat etc then this card becomes a real winner. Put 2 of them together and you can equal or better the HD5850. Considering each card only requires a single PCI-E 6 pin power supply, then running a crossfire setup is actually a viable proposition as an upgrade path.

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Quidam

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Ultimate Geek

#301830 24-Feb-2010 15:00

Ragnor, you are probably right that Charlie has bad blood with nVidia, but the article was definately well researched and contained a lot of solid rationale.

All I'm saying is, don't set your hopes too high on nVidia for this round of cards. It's a fact they are way late to market already, and due to the nature of the design lifecycle (for GPU's) it is simply too late for them to address the flaws in their architecture that are being speculated on.

If you ask me, the speculation is solid, especially given the challenges AMD had with 40 nanometer and how they then adapted (midstream) by altering the design. They did their homework, and they changed things around for evergreen to deal with what they learnt. I don't think nvida can say the same and I think Fermi itself will proove to be that very expensive learning ground.

If I'm wrong, that's great, competition is good, and AMD already have great cards with the 5 series, but by the same token, nVidia has been top dog for quite some time, it would actually be good to see AMD gain some market share.

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Adamal

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Ultimate Geek

#301995 25-Feb-2010 10:59

Its getting to a point where nVidia are bringing new stuff onto the scene too late. The 5XXX series of cards has been out for a while now, and nVidia's next gen is due out 'soon'. It'll no doubt be better than ATI's current offering, but by the time its release, ATI will be working on its next generation of chips that will probably blow the Fermi out of the water.

garvani

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#302035 25-Feb-2010 12:15

ATI's next generation is due in a couple of months so yes, nvidia are well behind at this stage.

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Quidam

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Ultimate Geek

#302070 25-Feb-2010 13:33

Adamal: Its getting to a point where nVidia are bringing new stuff onto the scene too late. The 5XXX series of cards has been out for a while now, and nVidia's next gen is due out 'soon'. It'll no doubt be better than ATI's current offering, but by the time its release, ATI will be working on its next generation of chips that will probably blow the Fermi out of the water.

That's the thing, the fact that Fermi is so late is the biggest clue we have that nVidia are facing serious problems with their new architecture. It's fundamental that you don't just let your competition own the market unchallenged. For nVidia to have allowed this to happen seems to suggest that when Fermi finally does arrive, it's likely to dissapoint on multiple fronts: Cost; Performance; and Availability.

If the speculation is true that they have a design that is effectively "unfixable" in light of the 40nanometer fabrication process yields, then I think nVidia will already be looking to Fermi2 as their saviour. Still, it will be great when something actually does come out -I'm sure the likes of anandtech will do a great job of giving us a no bs assesment of their new hardware.

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Quidam

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Ultimate Geek

#302072 25-Feb-2010 13:36

garvani: ATI's next generation is due in a couple of months so yes, nvidia are well behind at this stage.

dude that's not true. Their next gen of AMD desktop cards, code named Northen Islands aren't due till 2011, and will be built on the 32nm fabrication process.

Maybe you mean additional models added to the HD5 series of cards?

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garvani

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#302137 25-Feb-2010 15:19

No i was referring to the Northern Islands gpu's. Ive read in several places they are due 3rd Quarter 2010.. I may have slightly exaggerated my few months.
I agree with everything youve said by the way. I believe Nvidia are in trouble, according to the article the BOM is costing them $500 per gpu because the yields are so low, compared to ATI's $50, thats going to hurt the bottom line a lot. Fermi2 probably can't come soon enough but they are going to have to change there processes and manufacturing/marketing to be competitive, big gpu's are not the way forward anymore.

Quidam

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Ultimate Geek

#302197 25-Feb-2010 17:12

lol yeah slight exageration :-) I'd also suggest 3rd quarter 2010 is a bit ambitious, especially with nVidia lagging so far behind, I can't see the motivation for them rushing to push their next gen of cards out. Also, I don't want to ugrade again so soon :-)

And yes also to big power hungry cards = yuk

I own a 8800GTX and I'm never buying an expensive big arse card like that again.

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dman

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#303536 2-Mar-2010 02:44

garvani: ATI's next generation is due in a couple of months so yes, nvidia are well behind at this stage.

sweet timing, I'll have the cash to buy an ATI graphics card for my AMD rig in a couple of months which is just perfectly timed to see a price job in the current generation as the new generation arrives :D

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#306307 11-Mar-2010 16:13

The latest nVidia drivers have caused issues with WoW (courtesy of Tom's Hardware).

On a side note, Blizzard has ruled out WoW crossing over to the console realm.

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#306423 11-Mar-2010 22:39

There was a series of articles in www.theregister.co.uk about Nvidia botching their chip's heat envelopes and lieing about it and having massive recall issues and troubles with Apple/HP/Dell etc with whole ranges of notebooks failing because of the Nvidia chips overheating.

The 'fix' was to limit the GPU and run the fan at full... I always brought Nvidia for gaming GPUS, but not I wouldn't touch them. Funny how times change.

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Snowflake

#306436 11-Mar-2010 23:38

yet for all the supposed technological superiority, ATI still have a poor record when it comes to blu-ray and h.264 decoding...perhaps we will need to run two gpu's - one for gaming and a seperate one for video

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Charles000

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#306860 13-Mar-2010 10:27

Regs: yet for all the supposed technological superiority, ATI still have a poor record when it comes to blu-ray and h.264 decoding...perhaps we will need to run two gpu's - one for gaming and a seperate one for video

I don't have any problems with my 5770. In fact, I'm very happy with it. I just got it in December 09, having used nvidia since 1999!

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