[Twinkie]

Originally Posted by Razor1

Actually not really a panic button, look at the price of the 8800 Ultra, that kinda started the hints off. I guess it was there just incase, but with a price like that, I think nV already had a good idea of what is coming out, thats was 2 weeks ago. But those emails also have the pics of the different AA modes. So either they go someone to take the shots for them or they took those shots themselves, either way, they had access.

Agreed. Plus, i think initially the ultras were clocked at 650mhz on the core, but as you can see the XT cant even beat the GTX. Being nVIDIA they put the core clocks down to 612mhz (even with the a3 revision it seems like some of them cant even reach 650), increase the yields a bit and called it a day.

Wonder if this will affect the launch date for G90 or the refresh of G80 since R600 is only competing against a crippled G80 core (GTS).

[INKster]

Originally Posted by Twinkie

Agreed. Plus, i think initially the ultras were clocked at 650mhz on the core, but as you can see the XT cant even beat the GTX. Being nVIDIA they put the core clocks down to 612mhz (even with the a3 revision it seems like some of them cant even reach 650), increase the yields a bit and called it a day.

Wonder if this will affect the launch date for G90 or the refresh of G80 since R600 is only competing against a crippled G80 core (GTS).

Only 4 months had passed between the 7800 GTX 512MB and the 7900 GTX launches.
So, if we extrapolate the same time frame now, i'd say... August.

[trinibwoy]

Originally Posted by Twinkie

Wonder if this will affect the launch date for G90 or the refresh of G80 since R600 is only competing against a crippled G80 core (GTS).

Depends on whether G90 brings significant cost benefits I guess. Also, Nvidia might want to move in for the kill if they think they have an architectural advantage.

[R300King!]

Left = HD 2900XT Right = 8800GTX

All I did was adjust the contrast a tiny bit and a bit of brightness to the HD2900XT image. NO sharp filter or blur or anything else was used at all. The GTX shot was left the same. Saved both back to a .png file and now look at them.

Do you notice anything different in the HD 2900 pic? I see the front of the airship loos better and the top of it too. What do you think?

Please note: the thumbnail images are the exact same as the original poster, I didn't feel the need to make a thumbnail pic of my new image.

[Dalton Sleeper]

But how can XT perform so good in FEAR, Oblivion and Prey, what makes these games so different?

[Skrying]

Originally Posted by Dalton Sleeper

But how can XT perform so good in FEAR, Oblivion and Prey, what makes these games so different?

Someone mentioned earlier about the memory controller. With the X1K series ATi did release several drivers that improved performance noticeably in several games. Could this be one of those cases? Maybe it has been tweaked for these games already?

[SugarCoat]

Originally Posted by R300King!

What do you think?

I want to see someone with an X1800/X1900 card take the same screenshot as i dont think its changed at all. Personally when it comes to IQ, so far, im very very dissapointed. IQ is HUGE with me. The card could of performed substantially worse but if they did some real improvements with IQ i'd easily of bought one. I dont think im the only one who was expecting this area to get some serious attention with this new core.

Speaking of which has anyone who owns the card done an AF test to see if the pattern has changed yet?

[Silent_Buddha]

Try holding off judging IQ until we can get a detailed analysis. And most especially some screens comparisons using 12x (8x+narrow tent) and 24x (8x+Edge Detect) CFAA modes.

I'm a little dissapointed that AF is still at 16x, however if Edge Detect is what I think it might be, that might be a moot point.

As well there is still a tiny bit of room to make the AF completely angle independant WRT X1k series. However, I don't expect something like that will even be noticable compare to the very slight dependance of the X1k HQ AF.

If edge detect is what I think it is, it might have the possibility of cleaning up aliased lines within textures while still leaving the rest of it untouched and thus unblurred.

Or edge detect could be completely and totally unrelated to what I think it might be. No way to find out until some site does a good job analyzing IQ.

Narrow Tent I'd imagine will have significantly less blurring, but will it help much with anti-aliasing if it does? The fact that it's labed as 12x CFAA vs 16x CFAA would mean it doesn't do as good a job with anti-aliasing as a wide tent. However, the question is, will it noticably improve on 8x AA while also not noticably blurring textures?

Regards,
SB

[DemoCoder]

Edge Detect sounds like the standard edge detect kernel filter used in most image software.

[Silent_Buddha]

Originally Posted by DemoCoder

Edge Detect sounds like the standard edge detect kernel filter used in most image software.

That's what I was thinking. The implication then being that it's a further refining of the tent filters.

Whereas Narrow and Wide Tent filters are applied globally, my theory is that Edge Detect only applies the Tent Filter (no idea whether it's the wide or narrow) where it detects an "edge" within a texture as well as applying the Tent Filter to actual polygon edges.

Regards,
SB

[Razor1]

wouldn't be using a polygon edge, if they did that why not just do MSAA , its still after the fact with render targets. a combination of here is the edge this is the angle of the poly and location on the screen, then blur render target accordingly, is possible I guess, sounds expensive though.

[Faceless Rebel]

If anyone is interested in looking at what Tweaktown had before they pulled the review:

http://www.fooo.info/?p=384

[Silent_Buddha]

Well, I haven't gotten to see 8xAA in action yet. It's possible it might reduce edge crawl enough that I don't notice it anymore, however if it doesn't, a narrow tent on polygon edges might still be nice for people like me.

Either way, it's just speculation and guesswork at what exactly does ATI mean by 8x+Edge Detect. Considering the lead up to it is Narrow Tent -> Wide Tent -> Edge Detect, it's reasonable to suspect it's just a further refinement on how or where a tent filter will be applied.

As it's labeled as 24x. That would somewhat fit in with same levels of AA but without the general blur and with attendant performance hit greater than what you get with just 8X+Wide Tent.

Monday cannot come soon enough for me. Maybe if I go to sleep now, I'll wake up and be able to read some good quality reviews.

Regards,
SB

[aeryon]

Call of Juarez DX10 version supplied by AMD to show R600 DX10 power :



Nvidia provided 158.47 drivers to test this game, and well... you see it by yourself...

(Sorry no COJ DX10 bench with AA nor AF)


full review (in French) here : http://www.clubic.com/article-73608-...irectx-10.html

Interesting remark, AVIVO2 still not working properly. On HD-DVD Babel, CPU usage is higher than G80...



and finally another a bad news for ATI, AF is no better on R600 than R580... So G90 is still the king in this area

R580 AF16x



R600 AF16X



G80 AF16x

[Silent_Buddha]

They used Cat 7.4? Is that the 8.361 that came on the CD?

Regards,
SB

[aeryon]

Originally Posted by Silent_Buddha

They used Cat 7.4? Is that the 8.361 that came on the CD?

Regards,
SB

not sure but I think it's 8.37.4 as the last one AMD France provided to the press before end of nda

[INKster]

That review spells trouble for AMD...
Nvidia just has to lower the price on the GTS' and/or the GTX to match the R600 XT and they'll be completely cornered (in competitive terms) at the higher end of the market.
How much lower can the R600 XT go at their price-point ? I doubt a 512bit bus comes without expenses for the company's high-end GPU profit margin already.

Now we know why Nvidia decided to release the Ultra at that "stratospheric" price-point.
They just wanted to make a point ("since we're in charge of the performance crown, we can charge whatever we wish for it because AMD can't touch us").

Definitely not good for the enthusiast consumer in the next few months, although Nvidia's operational execution does have to be praised once again. They saw what was coming and adapted. AMD doesn't (or rather, can't) seem to understand that yet.

[aeryon]

Another french review and the weakest R600 point is exposed :



Very bad decision from ATI engineers. 512bits bus for what if your TMU power is so low ???

[LLB]

Originally Posted by Silent_Buddha

They used Cat 7.4? Is that the 8.361 that came on the CD?

Regards,
SB

According to the VR-Zone review:
"On the 8.37, there is no option of the 'High Quality' under AF options with the X2900XT while there is on the 8.36."
The Clubic review also mentions the lack of a high quality AF checkbox.
This would indicate the 8.37 driver was used.

LLB

[dnavas]

Originally Posted by Geeforcer

Regarding Ultra, I wonder what is being talked about here.

Wow, I was embarrassingly wrong

edit: I guess I should be more explicit. G80 is winning on texturing, while R600 would seem to have the computational edge.

[Farid]

Time to lock and archive this speculation thread, I think.

It's not yet the time to stop talking about R600, though, since it just made its way into the spotlights:

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=41241