[SadisticSid]

http://www.dailytech.com/ATI+Radeon+HD+2900+XTX+Doomed+from+the+Start/article7052.htm

This certainly doesn't look very good for ATI. dailytech is pretty reputable, and was tested with release drivers too, so I'd guess at the figures being authentic.

[CP5670]

That article has been the subject of a lot of controversy over the last few days. They don't seem to match up with DT's own benchmarks of the XT model earlier, and some other sources are reporting quite different figures. Although it looks like the XTX is still going to be a letdown one way or another, if it ever gets released at all.

[IceFire]

There's allot of speculation that the XTX they have there is an early build of the board and that it has more in common with the 2900XT than the final production 2900XTX.  Pretty pathetic if it is the final board...or close to...its basically the same performance as the XT.

I don't care if your a ATI or nVidia fanboy...ATI/AMD needs to do well with this one...if only to keep nVidia on their toes and keep producing some top cards at good prices.  As soon as one side looses its a loss for everyone.

[Nuke]

well its certain doom when the 8800 ultra comes out. im convinced that nividia will own this generation in terms of raw performance. i dont think it will kill ati at all if they fail to come up with an equal or better rival. they can still get into the bang for your buck market.

the big problem i have with this generation of video cards, is the total lack of frequent driver updates. i updated my 8800 drivers once sence i got the card, and thats about it. without a good compeditor from ati i dont think nvidia will see any reason to pucsh for driver optimizations. if nvidia doesnt clean up their driver act, i might be forced to switch to ati some years in the future.

[Herra Tohtori]

I dunno... i hear the 8600 series doesn't perform up to expectations, and mid-price cards are probably better source of income for NVidia than the super high end products. In 6600 and 7600 versus ATi's equivalent mid-price cards, NVidia's cards were way ahead, but we'll see what ATi can pull together for their mid-price range card this time.

[Scooby_Doo]

It's getting to the point of wait and see what the 8900 will be like.

[SadisticSid]

I don't care if your a ATI or nVidia fanboy...ATI/AMD needs to do well with this one...if only to keep nVidia on their toes and keep producing some top cards at good prices.  As soon as one side looses its a loss for everyone.

I'm hoping that the actual margins are more favourable too. It'll damage confidence (from investors and consumers) in ATI if its touted flagship product released 6 months after NVidia's equivalent is a flop. It wasn't that long ago that AMD produced the best CPUs and ATI the best GPUs - the market needs them as parity to keep NVintel in check.

[diceman111]

I don't care if your a ATI or nVidia fanboy...ATI/AMD needs to do well with this one...if only to keep nVidia on their toes and keep producing some top cards at good prices.  As soon as one side looses its a loss for everyone.

I'm hoping that the actual margins are more favourable too. It'll damage confidence (from investors and consumers) in ATI if its touted flagship product released 6 months after NVidia's equivalent is a flop. It wasn't that long ago that AMD produced the best CPUs and ATI the best GPUs - the market needs them as parity to keep NVintel in check.

Yeah I have always had Intel and Nvidia (Mainly cause when I have bought my computers they had the best hardware at the time) but I think they need competion from AMD/ATI to keep the development going, and the better graphics card the better looking games we get.

(Also shouldent this be in the Pub section, all the other hardware topics are there atleast)


/Dice

[IceFire]

I dunno... i hear the 8600 series doesn't perform up to expectations, and mid-price cards are probably better source of income for NVidia than the super high end products. In 6600 and 7600 versus ATi's equivalent mid-price cards, NVidia's cards were way ahead, but we'll see what ATi can pull together for their mid-price range card this time.

The initial reviews on the 8600 seemed to indicate that it wasn't stacking up against the competition...which was namely the 7600GT and the Radeon X1950Pro which has dropped dramatically in price and is selling quite well apparently.  That said...the last few reviews I read...especially the one from Hard OCP seems to recommend the BFG 8600GTS as it pulls out ahead of the X1950Pro in nearly all of their tests.  Often it will end up with the same FPS but with more features enabled.

I'm not sure if the early benches were done on a certain website and its just spread around the net or if it was pre release drivers or what was holding the 8600GTS back.  Not sure on the 8600 GT...but thats more like the 7600GS of the previous generation (gotta love the marketing people - gotta see through all that stuff and get to the nitty gritty of price/performance ratios).  And really the 8500 GT is meant to be the next 7300.  The 8300 and 8400 cards are for OEM distribution only...so that means the cheapest Dell's that don't have integrated video and people like eMachines

[Scooby_Doo]

Oh? Sweet, I'll have to look at more info on the 8600 then 

[Fury]

(Also shouldent this be in the Pub section, all the other hardware topics are there atleast)

Yeah, probably it should for consistency's sake.

[Prophet]

Is it me, or are they overusing the X? Where the hell is the X coming from? ****ing americans need to renew your alphabet and buy some vowels for gods sake.

It's eXtremely annoying, don't you think?

[redsniper]

Because X is l33t and eXtreme and eXcellent. All the cool kids like X.

[CP5670]

At least they got rid of the first X. Although replacing it with that other overused acronym, HD, isn't much better.

That said...the last few reviews I read...especially the one from Hard OCP seems to recommend the BFG 8600GTS as it pulls out ahead of the X1950Pro in nearly all of their tests.

That review should be taken with a grain of salt, as its conclusions are contrary to those of almost every other site, and it has come in for a lot of criticism for that. It's not the first time that [H] has come up with something off the wall like that either.

In any case, the 8600GTS's competitor  (at the same price) is actually the X1950XT, not the Pro. The X1950XT essentially demolishes it. The Pro is priced lower, at the same level as the GT model.

[Thor]

I currently have an radeon 9600xt, and will probably replace her with an Nvidia card of some sort, not having an nvidia card since the old Geforce2  my first card was a TNT2 Ultra...i loved that card, its still kicking around somewhere.  I haven't been impressed with ATI as of late, and getting into bed with AMD made me very disappointed.  I don't like consolidation like that, i think it'll just lead to trouble down the road (certain ATI cards that only work with AMD processors?  quite likely would be my uninformed guess).   At any rate, i can't wait to get a DX10 card....starting to see the slow downs now

[CP5670]

certain ATI cards that only work with AMD processors?

I doubt it. They can't afford to do that, given how far they have fallen behind Nvidia with their launch schedule. The fact that they started allowing Crossfire on non-AMD/ATI chipsets also indicates the same thing.

If you want DX10 support, avoid the 8600s and get an 8800 of some sort. Both GTSs in particular are excellent cards for their price points (about $260 and $330 for the 320MB and 640MB versions around here). The 320MB one isn't all that much more expensive than the 8600GTS, but is sometimes nearly twice as fast.

On a side note, check out the 8800 Ultra reviews that came out yesterday morning. That card has to be the biggest joke we've seen in years, probably since the 512MB 6800U.

[Sandwich]

Yeah, Nvidia goofed with the pricing on the 8800 Ultra. $830 for an increase of a few dozen Mhz on the GPU, and a couple of hundred Mhz on the memory and shaders?

I'm quite happy with my 8800 GTX, thank you. Quite happy indeed.

[asyikarea51]

Just because my brain kicked in. Pardon me.

$830 x 2 = $1,660 USD. Conversion to the rates here as ATTOT ---> $2531

(aa51 faints)

(springs back up and throws fist in air)

WTF!!!!!!! (And I agree; those "X" designations are becoming extremely annoying...)

[CP5670]

The worst thing is that there are already some pre-overclocked GTXs available that run at the same speed but cost $250 less. You're basically paying for having the fan in a different place.

[Nuke]

that 8800 ultra is definately a joke. you could probibly manually overclock the gtx to get about the same performance. ive seen a couple of benchmarks on the net where it had the same exact results between them.

for sli performance the best config is actually a pair of gts cards. which will boost your 3dmark06 score by about 3000 - 4000 points. pretty much the largest boost of any of the 8800 sli configs when compaired to a single card setup. a pair of gtx or ultra cards will perform better, but not much better than a single card config. if i can im gonna try to swing for a secod gts card this summer.