Topic: Doesn't matter if AMD bought ATi (UPDATE: 8800GT Sale!)

[Pugnate]

They will still have cheap ass cooling components.

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2007/11/05/amd-hd3800-pricing-shock

The new ATi card coming is the HD 3870, which will compete with the Geforce 8800GT.It is priced at $230, $20 lower than the 8800GT.

From all reports it looked like this card was significantly faster, but rather than keeping it fast, ATi have decided to go with a cheaper cooling component. I guess consumers are partially to blame, because they see something slightly cheaper and go for it, without realizing the product will crap out in a few years.

Until my switch with the 7800GTX, I had always been an ATi guy. However my 9700 and 9800, as well as my brother's 9800 all crapped out very prematurely. They were giving artifacts and crap, and from the anandtech forums, it appeared a lot of people had the same problem.

Scottws mentioned the same issue as well, and a lot of people swore they wouldn't buy ATi after the X1900XTX cards started dying a year or so after the warranty expired.

The 2900XT is a great deal at $400, but requires a shit load of power, and produces a lot more heat than the 8800GTX despite giving fewer frames per watt. The flagship version of the 2900XT, the 2900XTX was scrapped and never released because it couldn't run at higher clock speeds. There have been tons of complaints from people regarding the X1900s that they had the worst coolers. There was no room for overclocking, hell some people had to underclock... and they were LOUD.

The real truth is that AMD started running into clocking walls (with a selected heatsink-fan combo) and again decided to crash the prices instead of gunning for a better cooling setup that will enable those 800 MHz+ clocks we saw earlier in development.

Now the upcoming HD3870 which was faster than the 8800GT has been deliberately clocked down so that they can stick another cheap ass cooler on it. Yes they had Nvidia beat, and are now more content with equaling them on performance, and undercutting on price.

In the end people are going to buy it, because it is $20 cheaper than the 8800GT. I guess I don't blame ATi entirely in this case, because they need more than a 15% performance boost to beat the 9800GT.

But it all makes sense why Nvidia partners often overclock their cards before selling, without modifying the coolers, while offering lifetime warranties. Hell... XFX offer two lifetime warranties.

Yet no ATi partner would dare offer that, and nor would they be foolish enough to overclock without using their own cooling components.

You have to wonder...

The Xbox 180s were really good in terms of durability, and were powered by Nvidia. This generation, with the 360s, MS went with ATi, and it is said one out of four 360s are dying within a year of being bought.

On a side note, do you guys think BFG, XFX and eVGA will be haunted in a few years by all those lifetime warranties? I mean those cards will die eventually right, then what? It will be like a sudden surge of people wanting another 7600GS when they are no longer in production. I hope they've thought this through.

Take a look at GM. It was offering all sorts of insane benefits to its workers in the past, which has gotten the company in a lot of trouble.

[scottws]

Excellent points, Pug.  I agree about ATi.  My experience with my 9800 XT was laughable.  It had this "Overdrive" software that would automatically overclock the card a bit.  That's funny because after 2 years I had to underclock the card a fair amount to get it to play a game for 10 minutes without artifacting or crashing.

I don't care if ATi beats nVidia in performance during a generation in the future. The headache is simply not worth it.

[idolminds]

Yeah, too bad. I'm probably going to stick with nvidia. My 9700 Pro has done well for me, though the fan did crap out and I've been running with a new one just sort of tied on with a shoelace (I'm completely serious). Some artifacting in some games, but that was mostly during the summer and before I blew the dust out.

Does seem kinda sucky that they didn't come out and just blow the face off the 8800GT for similar prices. They had no reason to beat them on price if they could beat them in performance for the same price. Spend a little on decent cooling and then clock up. People would have scarfed them up.

[Cobra951]

In other news, my GF FX 5900 is still going strong years later, OC'd at 450/900 MHz all this time.

[Xessive]

I never had any trouble with my Radeon X850 or my X1650 (well the only complaint on the X850 was the lack of Shader Model 3 support).

I actually have a GeForce 5200 lying around some where. It's a reliable card with TV-out although not impressive in any way.

I am happy with my 8800 GTS. The only minor complaint is the nVidia control panel, but it's not a major issue. I'll take that over the crap that is the Catalyst Control Centre. Although with my ATi cards I always used ATi Tray Tools (3rd party).

Up until recently I always believed that ATi's problem was more in the software rather than the hardware.

[Pugnate]

My 9700 Pro has done well for me, though the fan did crap out and I've been running with a new one just sort of tied on with a shoelace (I'm completely serious). Some artifacting in some games, but that was mostly during the summer and before I blew the dust out.

That's insane. My brother's Geforce 2 MX still runs OK, and without a wheelchair.

[Pugnate]

So two new ATi cards have been released. The HD 3870 and the HD 3850. Why is it that they have a different name than the flaghship Radeon X2900XT, which is of the same bloody series? No one knows.

Anyway it looks like the rumors were true. Instead of matching price and beating Nvidia on performance, they went for cheaper cooling, so they could go for a lower price at the cost of lower performance. As a gamer it doesn't make sense to me, but that's the way the business works.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3151&p=6

All this brings us to AMD, and its proposed pricing/availability of the Radeon HD 3870 and 3850. The 3870 is supposed to retail for $219, while the 3850 will carry a $179 price tag. We've already mentioned that neither card is faster than the 8800 GT (we'll get to the numbers momentarily), but if AMD is actually able to hit these price points then the cards are still quite competitive.

Pretty good price at $219 actually. The 8800GT is supposed to go for $250. Personally I'd rather pay $30 more once, and get better performance for the years I own the card.

The question on everyone's mind is how well does the 3870 stack up to the recently launched GeForce 8800 GT? If you haven't been noticing our hints throughout the review, AMD doesn't win this one, but since the 3870 is supposed to be cheaper a performance disadvantage is fine so long as it is justified by the price.

Does the 3870 deliver competitive performance given its price point? Let's find out.

There are more benchies there, if you are interested in details... but you get the idea. The 8800GT does better in most titles.

Here's what's really interesting, on average the Radeon HD 3870 offers around 85% of the performance of the 8800 GT, and if we assume that you can purchase an 8800 GT 512MB at $250, the 3870 manages to do so at 87% of the price of the 8800 GT. The Radeon HD 3870 becomes even more attractive the more expensive the 8800 GT is and the opposite is true the cheaper it gets; if the 8800 GT 512MB was available at $219, then the 3870 doesn't stand a chance.

If AMD can actually meet its price expectations then it looks like the 3870 is actually competitive. It's slower than the 8800 GT, but the price compensates.

[Xessive]

So two new ATi cards have been released. The HD 3870 and the HD 3850. Why is it that they have a different name than the flaghship Radeon X2900XT, which is of the same bloody series? No one knows.

The Radeon series name changed with the Radeon HDxxxx series. The Radeon HD2900XT is the flagship you're talking about. So the Radeon HD3850 is consistent with that change.

I agree with you, I'd spend an extra $30 to get a better performing card which I would intend to keep longer.

[Pugnate]

No I don't mean the "HD" part. I mean the series number.

For example Nvidia could have easily named the 8800GT, into the 9800GT or something, but they didn't. The card was still of the 8 series chipset, and still not as fast as the GTX.

Similarly the 3870s and the 3850s are of the same chipset as the 2900XT, except slower. You can't tell that from the names.

These sort of things really confuse casual buyers. Heck even hardcore gamers shouldn't have to research this sorta thing.

[Xessive]

No I don't mean the "HD" part. I mean the series number.

For example Nvidia could have easily named the 8800GT, into the 9800GT or something, but they didn't. The card was still of the 8 series chipset, and still not as fast as the GTX.

Similarly the 3870s and the 3850s are of the same chipset as the 2900XT, except slower. You can't tell that from the names.

These sort of things really confuse casual buyers. Heck even hardcore gamers shouldn't have to research this sorta thing.

Oh yeah that! Yeah, I think that's actually the intention. They might have a newer interface, for example the my X850 is technically more powerful than my X1650, but it lacks the interface to run Shader Model 3.0.

Whatever the case may be, I'm not too pleased with ATI's direction. At first it was just the software I didn't like, but now they're compromising their hardware.

[gpw11]

In somewhat related news, apparently the Phenom chips just aren't good enough to put AMD ahead of Intel. 

[Pugnate]

Yea that's what the speculation was months ago.

In fact it seems like those processors are about as good as Core 2 Duo, but Intel is ready to release its new line that apparently is a fair improvement over C2D.

When AMD were ahead of Intel, they rested on their rear ends and lost the lead. The time when AMD had good products, Intel had really bad ones. Now that Intel has learned its lesson, I don't know how AMD will catch up. Intel has just too many resources, and I can't see AMD bringing out some killer chip.

[Cobra951]

I have a different take on that, though the result is the same.  Intel was fat and lazy, driving on cruise control, when AMD went speeding by.  That woke them up.  They're on the throttle now, and AMD is going to have to become better than they ever were if they hope to catch up.

[Pugnate]

Yea exactly.

The problem is that Intel is The Empire. They have the money and influence, and they recovered because of their resources. Intel started as being the innovators and leaders in the processor industry. They were fantastic till the Pentium 2, when they just turned into what EA is today. They started getting lazy and releasing products with incremental improvements while continuing to charge top dollar solely because of their reputation.

AMD then entered the pictured and offered slightly faster processors at much lower prices. Between the P3 and the P4, Intel took punch after punch, yet AMD's market share was about 56%, while Intel was at 44% -- in America. Across the world Intel still had a much greater share, despite having a lesser more expensive product!

Why? Because Intel has been around making huge dough since forever. They had spread all over the world, and had a lot of goodwill from businesses all over. And yes, they even did illegal things to keep AMD from reaching the top in global markets. You might have heard about those police raids on Intel offices the world over.

So despite everything, the empire stayed on top worldwide and weren't beaten as badly as they should have been at home.

During the P4, Intel wised up and started producing the tech that would overnight render everything obsolete... that is the C2D.

AMD meanwhile just got lazy. They made a massive mistake thinking Intel wouldn't come back.

My point is that Intel could afford to be fat and lazy having made so much money till the Pentium 2.

AMD have a really tough time coming back because they have to top a fantastic product in the C2D.

You could argue that they did it before in the days of their T-Bird chip.

Well that's different. The T-Bird chip was competing with the worst processor in the history of processors... the Pentium 4.

And now Barcelona is looking to be a disappointing processor.

Are AMD going to shut down? Of course not.

AMD have a really profitable sector in cellphones and other stuff. Even if ATi's video cards don't bring a massive profit, it doesn't matter as they have plenty of their own profitable divisions.

We've all been reading about the massive losses AMD's been reporting. Well those are actually from the funds paid for buying ATi, and not much else. While AMD might not become leaders in the processor market for a while, they aren't going down either.

[MysterD]

I'm not a Radeon fan....

...But the DX-10 based PCI-E 512 MB VisionTek Radeon HD 2600 Pro is gonna be $99.99 at Best Buy on BLACK FRIDAY.
(I saw it on their Black Friday ad, on their own website here).

Pug, is that card worth $100 for Radeon users?

[Pugnate]

Put together another $120 and get the HD3870... or spend less and get the 3850.

There are some new $150 cards coming, so you could wait for those.

With games like Mass Effect already chugging on the 360, that card wouldn't be useful for playing some of the  newer games. However if you just want to catch up on what you missed, then sure.

Honestly, the 8800GTs and the HD3870s are basically the best thing since the 9800s from ATi.

[gpw11]

You know, I originally wanted to go AMD and was open to ATI for my PC.  I had never had a problem with my Athlon XP, and my 9500 Pro lasted longer than most people's cards from that line seemed to (it either lasted up until the end or something on the board was shorting for the last bit and causing reboots.  I never fully checked).  The only thing that made me kind of want to go with Nvidia again was the driver support, but I figured if I could get a better ATI deal, just go with that.

People convinced me otherwise, and I'm glad I did.  The CPU was pretty much a no brainer at the time of purchase.  The e6750 was the way to go.  I mean, there were higher clocked ATI chips available, but they didn't perform all that much better, and it was reccomended to me to go Intel because the C2D over clock so well. I didn't really think I'd get into it, but it was easy and just testing it out I raised it from 2.67GHz to 3.2 GHz without altering any voltages or anything like that. That should last a few years and I doubt I'd get the same potential longevity and performance from an equally priced AMD chip.

As for the videocard, it was more of a sale thing, but I'm really happy with my 7900GS.  I payed under $100 for it with a game included, and I haven't been letdown by it.  I guess the only thing that hurts games right now at all is the lack of memory (only 256mb), but apart from that it's great.   It's clocked at 480MHz core, 700Mhz(x2) Mem, but with rivia tuner it easily over clocks to 620/840. I'm sure I'll get a more modern card in the future, but for playing games from the last couple years, this is great.  I don't think ATI really had anything that matched at the time.

And that's the thing,  here ati is offering a slightly lower card for slightly less money.   The thing is that most people are going to look at it and say "I might as well get the one that ships faster stock.  I throw $20 down on stupid things all the time, and this will have an effect for years."  It's not a bad decision, but if there core is fast enough, and they just clock it down because of the cooling being cheaper, why not release one card for cheaper, but release one at the same price that's equal to the Nvidia offering? 

As a side note, I think the fact that 64-bit didn't catch on very quickly really slowed AMD down.

[Pugnate]

I throw $20 down on stupid things all the time, and this will have an effect for years."

That's exactly what I think.

As a side note, I think the fact that 64-bit didn't catch on very quickly really slowed AMD down.

You could be right. I think the 64 bit thing was a marketing move. Everyone was talking about it, but not many were going for it.

Even today, gaming on 64 operating systems is problematic.

[MysterD]

Puggy, what do you think of the GF 8600 GT vs. GF 8800 GT when it comes to performance (in DX9 and DX10) and price?

[Pugnate]

Well they did a performance to price ratio on those two, and the 8800GT came up on top by a significant margin. From what I remember it was $100 more for twice the frames.

You know the 3870 isn't a bad card either once price reaches the targeted $230.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150252

That is a link for the 8800GT going for $260 with Company of Heroes. There is also one with Quake Wars.

edit:

I had a quick glance at this:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/10/29/geforce_8800_gt/page12.html

You can compare benchmarks between the 8800GT and the 8600GTS. As you can see there is a difference of roughly 300% at times! In Crysis the 8600GTS manages 5 fps while the 8800GT manages 17fps (maximum settings)

So for $130 more you are getting nearly 300% the performance. Plus an 8800GT will last you a good while. Keep in mind that all the tech that will be used for years to come, is out now. The 8800GT runs games on the Unreal engine beautifully. It runs Crysis at acceptable levels on high settings.

If you have the dough, go for it. You will be happy.

[scottws]

Even today, gaming on 64 operating systems is problematic.

I don't think that's true.  I haven't had any problems with the games I've played.

I could see issues with very old games though, since they are more likely to be 16-bit.

[Pugnate]

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/products/Games/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=eep&cs=2234&sku=A1348853

8800GT going for $207!

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/products/Games/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=29&sku=A1350995

Here for $234!

Saw these on another site, and thought some of you might be interested to know.

edit:

I noticed that shipping may take 1-2 weeks. The new 8800GTS will be out by then, and ATi is expected to slash prices a bit.

[MysterD]

Who you prefer? MSI or XFX?

And I'm lookin' on the site -- so, how much is shipping?

EDIT:
Pug, link #1 is now dead.

Link #2 is now $255.99 before shipping and tax.

[gpw11]

I'm surprised to see these on sale at so many places.  A lot of retailers have had these on backorder since the launch.

As for MSI vs. XFX, about all I can add is that XFX has the dual lifetime warranty, and as such probably also has the best quality control in the business (following all the bad press a year or so ago).

[Pugnate]

What GPW said. But I am sorry you missed out. I'll post more opportunities if I come across them.

[Cobra951]

Yea exactly.

The problem is that Intel is The Empire. They have the money and influence, and they recovered because of their resources. Intel started as being the innovators and leaders in the processor industry. They were fantastic till the Pentium 2, when they just turned into what EA is today. They started getting lazy and releasing products with incremental improvements while continuing to charge top dollar solely because of their reputation.

AMD then entered the pictured and offered slightly faster processors at much lower prices. Between the P3 and the P4, Intel took punch after punch, yet AMD's market share was about 56%, while Intel was at 44% -- in America. Across the world Intel still had a much greater share, despite having a lesser more expensive product!

Why? Because Intel has been around making huge dough since forever. They had spread all over the world, and had a lot of goodwill from businesses all over. And yes, they even did illegal things to keep AMD from reaching the top in global markets. You might have heard about those police raids on Intel offices the world over.

So despite everything, the empire stayed on top worldwide and weren't beaten as badly as they should have been at home.

During the P4, Intel wised up and started producing the tech that would overnight render everything obsolete... that is the C2D.

AMD meanwhile just got lazy. They made a massive mistake thinking Intel wouldn't come back.

My point is that Intel could afford to be fat and lazy having made so much money till the Pentium 2.

AMD have a really tough time coming back because they have to top a fantastic product in the C2D.

You could argue that they did it before in the days of their T-Bird chip.

Well that's different. The T-Bird chip was competing with the worst processor in the history of processors... the Pentium 4.

And now Barcelona is looking to be a disappointing processor.

Are AMD going to shut down? Of course not.

AMD have a really profitable sector in cellphones and other stuff. Even if ATi's video cards don't bring a massive profit, it doesn't matter as they have plenty of their own profitable divisions.

We've all been reading about the massive losses AMD's been reporting. Well those are actually from the funds paid for buying ATi, and not much else. While AMD might not become leaders in the processor market for a while, they aren't going down either.

Are you sure about that?  AMD Phenom is broken!  This is terrible news, for AMD and eventually for all CPU buyers, because I don't think Intel needs to be as competitive now.

[Pugnate]

I read about these rumors a few days ago. Depressing shit yet at the same time, it seems like everyone seems to be taking a shot at AMD.

Yea AMD could be in trouble according to both Tom's HW. One issue with that is that they'd take ATi with them. Why the hell did they have to draw the video card market into hell with them?

[MysterD]

I read about these rumors a few days ago. Depressing shit yet at the same time, it seems like everyone seems to be taking a shot at AMD.

Yea AMD could be in trouble according to both Tom's HW. One issue with that is that they'd take ATi with them. Why the hell did they have to draw the video card market into hell with them?

To give Nvidia the advantage?

[Pugnate]

Thanks a lot AMD:

http://www.digitimes.com/mobos/a20071218PD212.html

Santa Clara (CA) - Digitimes is reporting that Intel has decided to adjust its scheduled release of three previous quad-core CPUs due to the problems AMD has been having with their Barcelona architecture and launch. A significant errata in AMD's processors, the temporary fix of which affects performance by as much as 20% on average, some applications see a 55%+ hit, is the cause of the delay. AMD has been relatively tight-lipped on answering questions relating to the impact, timeframes, etc.

According to Digitimes, Intel believes there will be little benefit to launching the CPUs now that AMD is significantly behind schedule. The three CPUs were Core 2 Quad Q9300, Q9450 and Q9550. The remainder of its 45nm lineup are on track for Q1 2008 launch, though no specific timeframe was given.

[Cobra951]

Thank them for this too while you're at it:

AMD Delays Introduction of Next-Generation ATI R700 Graphics Chips

[Pugnate]

...What the fuck?

I am starting to despise AMD. They really screwed up ATi and the GPU market. It is like they are on a sinking boat and are taking others with them.

[Quemaqua]

Maybe they're just trying to kill themselves slowly and painfully for... fun?  I don't know, but it sure doesn't make any sense.

[Pugnate]

Well apparently they are pushing resources away from research on the ATI cards and are your going to look to their gpus to just compliment their processors.

It really sucks, because Nvidia can continue to sit back on their asses. The R600 was supposed to be released a month after the 8800GTX, and it got delayed a year almost because of AMD. Nvidia have no need to release a better card, which means that landmark cards like the $200 8800GT are going to be fewer in between.

ATi's big GPU next year will be basically two R600s slapped together. In theory that should make for a very powerful GPU... but can you imagine the heat coming off that sucker?

[MysterD]

Looks like the GeForce 9600 GT is coming out by February, possibly....

...And might be released before the GF 9800.

Interesting.

[Pugnate]

I read about that. But the 9600GT is expected to be really low end, below the 8800GT.

[MysterD]

I read about that. But the 9600GT is expected to be really low end, below the 8800GT.

Bleh.

Y'know, I would've figured they'd put out the GF 9800 first...

They usually put out the higher x800 models first -- like they did with the 6800, 7800, 8800....

[Pugnate]

Until AMD get their act together they have little need to.

[MysterD]

Until AMD get their act together they have little need to.

Well, true....Good point.

[Pugnate]

Good news for GPU enthusiasts!

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2007/12/31/r700-taped

The R700 taped out. This contradicts claims by other sites that ATi won't release the R700 in 2008.

[MysterD]

A little bit on the upcoming GeForce 9800