Sapphire 4GB '5990' unvieled

Once the 'single GPU' Fermi dust has settled, it will be interesting see what nvidia do when/if they release a dual card to compete with the 5970.

The current scorecard is:

1. 5970 = fastest single physical card (not to be confused with single GPU)

2. GTX 480 = fastest single GPU (theoretically, speculatively)

3. 5870 = Fastest ATI single GPU

etc

It looks like history is repeating itself again.

Regardless of brand, the bottom line is we are paying more for high-end video cards again, but gaining much better performance. And once again, each brand/model will have their own strengths and weaknesses.


It will still be some time before a 28nm card hits the market, considering all the teething troubles they had going to 32nm.

Everlong18 said:

The GTX480 was never aimed at the 59xx's. Its competitor is the 5870.

all playing aside, i know that the 5970 is a dual gpu card while the gtx480 is a single gpu card. really should be no comparison between the two--to compare them is not an apples-to-apples comparison.

but... whether it was from the press who covers and writes about this stuff or actually a decision of nvidia--the gtx480 has been put up against the 5970. when the benchmarks first started showing up for the gtx480 somebody threw the 5970 in there for good measure. they showed the (ta da!) tessellation benches that trounced the 5870 and showed how close it came to besting the 5970.

we can all see it our own way, but if the gtx480 woulda had some numbers to really give the 5970 a real run for the money, the nvidia purists and fanboys alike all would have all cried that the war was over before the battle had begun! "ati is crap! they can't even make a dual gpu card to beat a single gpu card!!" we all woulda heard it and i'd go so far to say that rightfully so.

but... the gtx480 is (right now) putting up numbers (where it counts) that are only marginally better than ati's fastest single gpu card. you guys can't have it both ways! if the 5870 is the gtx480's main competitor, leave it at that. no need to bring the 5970 in the mix for whatever reason.

HAS THE CAN OF WHOOP ASS BEEN OPENED YET?
(and having said that, who was the can supposed to be opened upon? amd/ati? intel? via? apple? ibm? arm? who? enquiring minds want to know...)

Edit: figured out who the can was supposed to be opened upon... the consumers who buy nvidia's products!

The people who threw the 5970 in to the mix are the people on the SemiAccurate forums who follow and hang on to Charlie's every word. The Charlie who said the GTX480 was physically impossible to create due to manufacturing restrictions of today. Now we've seen a video of the GTX480 running, and kicking out higher numbers on Heaven. Okay, it's not as fast over the 5870 that it was made out to be, but remaining optimistic, quite a few brand new architecture used in Nvidia cards have underperformed due to drivers, such as the G80s, and the same goes for ATI cards, it takes a couple of driver revisions until they start to really shine.

Nothing more can be said really until it becomes widely available and proper real-world benchmarks are done on it. I'm not saying it's going to wipe the floor just from one benchmark, but at the same time I'm not going to say it'll get it's arse handed to it. The NDA for the cards ends in 3 weeks, that's when we'll see something proper.

Everlong18 said:

The people who threw the 5970 in to the mix are the people on the SemiAccurate forums who follow and hang on to Charlie's every word. The Charlie who said the GTX480 was physically impossible to create due to manufacturing restrictions of today. Now we've seen a video of the GTX480 running, and kicking out higher numbers on Heaven. Okay, it's not as fast over the 5870 that it was made out to be, but remaining optimistic, quite a few brand new architecture used in Nvidia cards have underperformed due to drivers, such as the G80s, and the same goes for ATI cards, it takes a couple of driver revisions until they start to really shine.

Nothing more can be said really until it becomes widely available and proper real-world benchmarks are done on it. I'm not saying it's going to wipe the floor just from one benchmark, but at the same time I'm not going to say it'll get it's arse handed to it. The NDA for the cards ends in 3 weeks, that's when we'll see something proper.

sorry Harry...... that bench was thrown together by a friend of mine over @ OCN using his own 5970, nothing to do with ''SemiAcurate'' or ''Charlie''

& while i love NV, the fact they only show us a heavily Tessellated bench is very worrying, b/c that will have no bearing in the current gaming line up or in real-world fps... we already know NV Tesselation is leaps & bounds ahead of ATI's 5 series offerings, & the bench shows nowhere near a 50% improvement.

more benches are required i agree, but i think the more benches that get run (without Tessellation) may not look so pretty.

mpcrsc562 has a point...

skunksmash said:

Everlong18 said:

The people who threw the 5970 in to the mix are the people on the SemiAccurate forums who follow and hang on to Charlie's every word. The Charlie who said the GTX480 was physically impossible to create due to manufacturing restrictions of today. Now we've seen a video of the GTX480 running, and kicking out higher numbers on Heaven. Okay, it's not as fast over the 5870 that it was made out to be, but remaining optimistic, quite a few brand new architecture used in Nvidia cards have underperformed due to drivers, such as the G80s, and the same goes for ATI cards, it takes a couple of driver revisions until they start to really shine.

Nothing more can be said really until it becomes widely available and proper real-world benchmarks are done on it. I'm not saying it's going to wipe the floor just from one benchmark, but at the same time I'm not going to say it'll get it's arse handed to it. The NDA for the cards ends in 3 weeks, that's when we'll see something proper.

sorry Harry...... that bench was thrown together by a friend of mine over @ OCN using his own 5970, nothing to do with ''SemiAcurate'' or ''Charlie''

& while i love NV, the fact they only show us a heavily Tessellated bench is very worrying, b/c that will have no bearing in the current gaming line up or in real-world fps... we already know NV Tesselation is leaps & bounds ahead of ATI's 5 series offerings, & the bench shows nowhere near a 50% improvement.

more benches are required i agree, but i think the more benches that get run (without Tessellation) may not look so pretty.

mpcrsc562 has a point...

I wasn't meaning the one you posted, I was on about a bunch of others that are floating around.

And this is only the first benchmark from Nvidia. Of course they're going to test it on a DX11 scenario first as that's what the card is aimed at. They'll let the world bench it on other things. That's like Land Rover releasing a 4x4 car and instead of testing it on off-road terrain first, they drive it round a city.

mpcrsc562 said:

Everlong18 said:

The GTX480 was never aimed at the 59xx's. Its competitor is the 5870.

all playing aside, i know that the 5970 is a dual gpu card while the gtx480 is a single gpu card. really should be no comparison between the two--to compare them is not an apples-to-apples comparison.

but... whether it was from the press who covers and writes about this stuff or actually a decision of nvidia--the gtx480 has been put up against the 5970. when the benchmarks first started showing up for the gtx480 somebody threw the 5970 in there for good measure. they showed the (ta da!) tessellation benches that trounced the 5870 and showed how close it came to besting the 5970.

we can all see it our own way, but if the gtx480 woulda had some numbers to really give the 5970 a real run for the money, the nvidia purists and fanboys alike all would have all cried that the war was over before the battle had begun! "ati is crap! they can't even make a dual gpu card to beat a single gpu card!!" we all woulda heard it and i'd go so far to say that rightfully so.

but... the gtx480 is (right now) putting up numbers (where it counts) that are only marginally better than ati's fastest single gpu card. you guys can't have it both ways! if the 5870 is the gtx480's main competitor, leave it at that. no need to bring the 5970 in the mix for whatever reason.

HAS THE CAN OF WHOOP ASS BEEN OPENED YET?
(and having said that, who was the can supposed to be opened upon? amd/ati? intel? via? apple? ibm? arm? who? enquiring minds want to know...)

Edit: figured out who the can was supposed to be opened upon... the consumers who buy nvidia's products!

all jesting, joking, and sarcasm aside...

we can all joke around with the predicament nvidia has theirself in with this forthcoming fermi launch. cool. personally, i hope it is launched on time without many problems. why? because the better nvidia does, the better ati will have to perform--and vice-versa. we--the geeks, fanboys, and enthusiasts will reap the rewards in better tech from either of these companies. just as a real enthusiast really did not want amd to go under in their battle with intel, i don't feel that a real enthusiast would want nvidia to lose too bad in this--it won't be good for anyone. the "funning" and playing with this whole scenario is really based on past experiences--ati driver support; comments from co-founder Jen-Hsun Huang as to what nvidia is/was going to do with their tech; the recently released faulty drivers from nvidia, etc.

in a perfect world, the very same day the 5000 series cards launched, the fermi cards would have launched too. but... if that would have happened, would we--on both sides--be having the fun we are having now?

i don't own any stock in amd/ati so in reality, they are just a product to me and i probably don't mean a thing to them. what i have owned from them, i have liked and have not had any problems with said products.

...so...

lastly (i thought of this one this morning )
those in the states will know the analogy perfectly...

you have a regional burger joint--not so small that they're in your city only, but maybe across a portion of your state or spread across to a few states. the fact is that this joint is too small to directly compete with the likes of burger king and mcdonald's. so, your regional burger joint puts out a commercial and in it states something to this effect: "Our customers really like our burgers! And, it has been shown in an independently held taste test that our customers say our fries taste better than McDonald's!" it's already stated that this place is too small to directly compete with burger king and mcdonald's, but they put this thing in their commercial about french fries. to have this "independent" study where your customers state that the fries at this joint taste better than mcdonald's (which, in the states, has in the past been the standard for fast food french fries), then what this joint has done is to put themselves in competition with mcdonald's--even if it is only with the fries.

i see this is exactly the situation with the gtx480 and the hd5970. true, one is a single gpu and the latter is dual gpu and a fair comparison between the two will never be an apples-to-apples comparison--but when the benches showed the gtx480 and the hd5970 in the same bench, then now the gtx480 is in competition with the hd5970! as i stated before, this could have been done intentionally by nvidia or on the part of over-zealous tech writers. either way, the gtx480 and hd5970 are in competition against each other.

your thoughts...

smarteyeball said:

Once the 'single GPU' Fermi dust has settled, it will be interesting see what nvidia do when/if they release a dual card to compete with the 5970.

The current scorecard is:

1. 5970 = fastest single physical card (not to be confused with single GPU)

2. GTX 480 = fastest single GPU (theoretically, speculatively)

3. 5870 = Fastest ATI single GPU

etc

It looks like history is repeating itself again.

Regardless of brand, the bottom line is we are paying more for high-end video cards again, but gaining much better performance. And once again, each brand/model will have their own strengths and weaknesses.


It will still be some time before a 28nm card hits the market, considering all the teething troubles they had going to 32nm.

hm.... i actually read they are skipping 32 and heading straight for 28

I just bought two 5770's, Also got a brand new motherboard ready to be put in and a crossfire cable, hopefully this will just about give the same performance as those new cards, haha!

Im not that rich that I can afford them :P

ThePizzaMan said:

hm.... i actually read they are skipping 32 and heading straight for 28

lol, I'm getting my GPU's and CPU's mixed up - all these damn new fabrications

I should have said 40nm...

Still, I doubt we'll be seeing a 28nm this year.