ATI R600 graphics card benchmarked, cruises by NVIDIA's GeForce 8800 GTX
By Darren Murph 
posted January 1st 2007 4:24AM
posted January 1st 2007 4:24AM
If one of your New Year's resolutions involved spending a massive chunk of change to kick out as many frames per second as technologically possible, you may want to put the brakes on that impending NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX purchase. Lvl505 got their palms on a pre-release ATI R600 graphics card and put it up against the best NVIDIA currently has to offer, and the results thus far show ATI's device as "the clear winner." Of course, these benchmarks have to be taken with a certain grain of salt, as the drivers used were "a modified version of a 32-bit Vista pre-build version," which should have yielded less-than-optimal results; interestingly, the R600 still ran all over the optimized NVIDIA setup. Testing the cards on an Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700-powered machine with 2GB of RAM, the single R600 card bested the solo 8800 GTX in basically every benchmark they tried, with common applications seeing minimal gains, but games saw between ten-percent (Half-Life 2: Lost Coast) and 42-percent (1701 A.D.) hikes. Apparently, the R600 was exceedingly impressive, as reviewers actually suggested that you "return your NVIDIA" card as soon as humanly possible while patiently waiting for January 22nd, when you can gleefully drop your $630 or so to pick up your very own R600. Oh, and you might end up paying somewhat of a monthly surcharge to use this bad boy too, as the 230-watts (which beats the estimations, actually) it'll require to operate could kick your power bill up a notch or two. Nevertheless, it's not exactly shocking to see a newer graphics card outgun one that's been on the shelf a moment or so, but we're still holding out for a finalized unit before making any final judgments on the combatants.[Via Inquirer]
I really'd like to get a list of people that drop more than $400 for JUST a video card.
I'd really just like to beat them with some [EPIX].
Chris
who cares how expensive that power plant is?
230 watts is just plain crazy!
that electricity bill will be huge.
i see people going bankrupt just over playing their fav fps ^^
Agreed.
I hate assholes that spend $600 on a video card. Wouldn't you rather have a PS3 if you had that much to spend (waste) on gaming? Or do people who buy those cards like to sit in their rooms by themselves and brag on irc about the extra 5 fps they got by keeping the A/C on during winter?
PS3? Sure, if you wanted to wait a year for anything worth dropping sixty bucks(or longer).
Brace yourself comments section, we'll see a lot of ATI hatred with very little basis, it won't be pretty, but we're goin' in.
Nobody wants to buy a shitty PS3 with a controller. Games OF ANY TYPE were meant for keyboard-mouse. You 12 year old consolers are just pissed our graphics cards are faster and more effective than any console you have combined. To every console that comes out, a PC is faster and better to play games on.
ATI has always been in tight with M$. With ATI's new chip having a higher clock and unified shader processors, I knew it will beat nvid in the fps battle. nVid will of course releases all kinds of cracked out, OC'd cards on steroids just to keep up with ATI, like they have done in the past. Generally speaking, because I know ATI has done it on one or two occasions. x850 xt pe anyone?
@DK, you obviously dont know physics very well. A card of that type needs the juice. Its nothing a 650w PSU cant handle. But that depends entirely on the rest of the system as well. Power calculators are on the internet. Use google.
About the power bill going up. It might be a few dollars. 10 or 15 at the most. If thats a problem with you, GTFO THE INTERNET. If you unplugged your fridge, you would be saving more. So you home would pull another 230w, big deal. The avarage home, with no system, pulls allot more than that.
clawhammer, you probably don't have your bios configured properly, that ALWAYS yields bad performance. If you cant configure a system, or make the right purchase for the system, you shouldn't be trying to build them. Pay people like us to do it, and stop moaning. Your system is capable of much better performance if you set it up correctly.
Its about time ATI picked up there game and beat nVidia!! I don't really care which one is the fastests because as was said above there is no way I'd spend that kind of money on a GPU, but its interesting to see that ATI are climbing back to the top.
I actually prefer nVidia to ATI - Thier dual moniter support is much better under Linux.
I also run very few games (on my PC), and am likely to spend less than that on my next entire PC. I'm poor. :P
But, it's still a good thing. This means massive price-drops in the older cards - which I can still be fine with. (I'm not going to run Vista anyway - Ubuntu is so much better.)
Well my power supply is 500 watts and my sound system is 500 so I dont think 230 will kill most people. Dont plan on getting it but just saying.
Oh PLEASE. I don't believe this is a true benchmark for a SECOND.
-8800GTX FPS rates are off...
-No pictures? ID Tagging bogus excuse? Uhm... if you can grab an R600 level card, Im sure you can use MS Paint
-WHY do they refer to it as the "R600" all the time? The retail name for the 2 cards have been chosen, why arn't they using it? Which one are they using?
-Who the HELL is lv505?
-WHY is their ENTIRE SITE FILLED with adds? Make up a story, have lots of adds, ???, PROFIT etc.
-Cmon people... It was originally linked from the INQUIRER
pshft
To the whiners, quit whining. Who cares if someone pays big bucks for the card when it comes out. Let them, that makes it cheaper for us down the line.
Also I gotta point out its very nice to have two competitors in this market who are relatively equal. Look at the output due to competition from these companies. Imagine where we would be if Intel/AMD were 50/50 owners of the market or if Apple/Microsoft were 50/50 owners. Competition would be great in those markets.
BTW, Vista is out to MSDN users and volume clients. THERE IS NO DRIVER available for the 8800 series cards, despite the big "VISTA Ready" sticker on the box, NADA, ZIP, no beta, no alpha, and will be none until late January. Forget about running Vista on an 8800 (not that most people care, but some early adopters do). You are stuck with VESA VGA modes and no 3D until you can buy Vista at bestbuy. There is really no reason to buy one now, so you might as well wait for the R600 and make your decision then.
People spend big money on cards because, 1, they can, and 2, most of them have huge displays to push in games, and/or huge multi-display settups they need to push in other games.
I, in fact, will have to get one of these cards for my 2407WFP, because my current card, which was top of the line a year ago, will not be able to push my computer in newer games.
So there is a method behind the madness.
Oh, also, I
Its just not Games anymore. I would suggest you to check out the latest article on anandtech.com on needing really high powered cards for the next gen of hidef movies.If you have anything encoded in H.264 then you really need a powerful graphics card to decode and display the movies on a high resolution hidef 50' TV. So although there is no way I can afford the 600$ card right now I will go for it as soon as I can afford it cause I don't have anything else to spend my money on :) and yeah the early adopters do bring the price down :D
if this is true, nVidia got a lot of catching up to do. maybe a 8900 GTX in a few month or so. (by then it will cost 300W, lol) I would reserve judgment until the retail version comes out in january to decide the best card, even though i would never get it. it's time ati catches up with nvidia after the 7600GT, 7900GTX, and 7950GTX blew ATI out of the water in those levels. Nvidia also caught early fame with its flagship 8800 series. GO ATI, so i can see some price drops.
some of you people who are cussing out others who buy expensive cards, i don't know your motive. if you can't afford a good card (or too cheap to do it), then just shut your yap and respect those who would. but for me, i'll stick with a 7600GT.
P.S. what are you talking about, Balls? 300 and 330 is totally perceivable =D
Good news ATI done their homework , great card so what should we call X2800XT ATI/AMD ?
Don't believe these benchmarks that quickly...This is from Dailytech:
If Level505's comments seem a little too pro-ATI, don't be too surprised. When asked if the site was affiliated in any way to ATI or AMD, the owner replied to DailyTech with the statement that "two staff members of ours are directly affiliated with AMD's business [development] division."
Haha, I got a Forbidden 403 error when I tried going to the site. See what you did, Arcygeical? You made them mad and they blocked incoming traffic from Engadget! Oh nos!
for the comment about there being no Drivers yet for the 8800 series on vista, it could be that because this was made for the home user market and vista's release was for enterprises that Nvidia is taking extra time to make sure the drivers work properly in the consumer release versions. anyone in enterprise needing this kind of power would be using any of the 7 series versions as they are proven, businesses don't go in for bleeding edge tech, preferring tech that has been proven as it is easier to judge whether it is a good investment of the company's money.
and I agree with Arcygeical about the auhenticity of the review. it just smells fishy.
230W!!
Can you imagine the power wasted in heat. and the noise level!
Hey ATI hardware techs! heat=bad, noise=very bad, 230W=indescribebly horrible
I skipped past the comments, been there done that.
I began my video days with an ATI card, (it was pre-Rage days) then moved over to nVidia for a few years.
Looks like I'll be hopping the fence if these early benchmarks have ant meaning to them once it hits the consumer market.
AMD + ATI, you just had to expect something like this to happen. Thats a powerful combo.
230W, wow man, just .... wow.
dropping $600 is a little crazy for me, but People need to remember that the card needs to match the display, or framerates will either suffer or be wasted. If your running at 1280x1024 or less, then yeah, that $100-$150 card will do you fine for almost every game out there so far. But push that to 1680x1050... Thats the reason I just got a 7950GT 512MB. The difference between that and even my 7800GT (anyone here want one for cheap?) is AMAZING. Go any higher and you really see the need for SLI/crossfire or a beefy 8800GTX/GTS. On the same token, if you have a fast card or an SLI setup on a smallish display then all those frames are just going to waste. your LCD only refreshes at 60-75Hz people! My little rule: Expect to spend the same on your video card as you did on your display.
That site is most likely a scam for ad money as there is nothing else on the whole site but this "review"
I have 2 8800GTX's in SLI and even running in single card mode all my benchmarks are much higher that what they claim the 8800gtx can do. You can even validate this against other reviews of the 8800gtx.
Uhh, is everyone here in candy land or something? That site is obviously completely fake. And those benchmarks are WAY off, I've never seen any computer setup get 100+ FPS on Oblivion at that res.
Engadget, your BS meter seems to be malfunctioning.
I've heard that that site is run by two guys who work for AMD, which explains them having the card and them also praising it.
I thought 225W was the highest wattage a graphics card could use, I guess it could go slightly higher.
Most likely more layers on the BS cake, they're probably just some teenage attention whores.
Its interesting how every year, the power consumption in desktop CPU's goes down and down, but the consumption on GPU's skyrockets.. Hopefully the AMD/ATI deal can get ATI heading in the right direction..
Ha ha ATI beat nVidia nice this is what i waithing for long time R600 is best!!!
Don't believe this alone, check the benchmarks with other review sites. Granted the hardware is going to be a little bit different in each test right, but there are some huge discrepencies. Check out the Half Life 2 benchmarks here: http://www.hothardware.com/viewarticle.aspx and compare them to the ones shown on level505. The review at hothardware.com has the GTX running more than 40 fps faster at the same settings and the same resolution than level505's benchmarks say it does. Check the other benchmarks too, some are a little closer, but they are all off. I'm going to wait till theres an official review to make any decision on which way to go, but even as an ATI fan this seems a little bit odd.
What up!!If your a gamer then these new cards are the shiznit,ps3 and xbox 360 they are just little boys toys,if your willing to put your money where your mouth is then you will enjoy the real next gen!!!! P.S.KEEP ON DREAMING CONSOLE LOVERS.........
Would you stupid bitches shut up about PS3 and XBOX 360 already?!? WTF are you smoking you idiots?!?
My money is my concern and I want to drop it on things I like, not the things you like wussies!
For serious gaming nobody even considers any crappy console and I am sick of bastards who think that playing on low-res TV is better than cranking the resolution to 2560x1600 with 32xAA on a high-end PC.
I bought 8800GTX and you can all kiss my ass idiots because if I lack rendering power I will add another card. What can you add in the PS3? I'll tell you, your pathetic dick. Push it in and get electrocuted so you don't reproduce ever, retards!
you know, somehow, i know that that review is biased or somebody fooled around with the numbers. because there is NO WAY that the ATI 1950 could beat the Geforce 7950 in ANY benchmark due to dual gpus. and to top that, in one benchmark, the 1950 XTX bested all of the other cards. I'm not sure how they tested this, but whatever they did, they f*cked up. You can see many other tests and the 8800 whoops the ATI 1950XTX's ass, so before you start believing the whole review, compare it with other reviews. this is the most biased and sh*ttiest piece of crap review ever. And I'm not some Nvidia fanboy. My laptop has an ATI, but you should not believe this review.
Notice the x1950s were in crossfire. Also, one x1950 killed a 7950 GX2.
The math is all there for the R600 to beat nVidia. You guys just have to see it.
We run the 8800 xXx o/c version of the card on Vista Ultimate and it works awesome. FEAR and GRAW etc all play much better on Vista with the GTX vista drivers then it ever did on XP.
P.s. I dont really care if people think spending $500+ on a video card is stupid. We earn the money, pay our bills etc. Its our choice if we want to spend it on a video card or not. Besides what else would i put in my Thermaltake TaiChi liquid cooled case lol
I havea 1x8800 GTX and it sucks!!! Combined with an Intel X6800@2,940GHz , Asus Striker Extreme , 2x1GB Corsair Dominator 1066 MHz 5-5-5-15 and a WD Raptor 150 GB,and I sometimes get !!!!BELOW!!!!! 30 fps in games like Gothig III or Supreme Commander!!!Sometimes in Gothic the image even freezes for a second,can u fuc*ing belive it?And I bullsh*t you not!!!Its true my PC has Windows XP installed,but I use the latest drivers 97.92!!!!!!
I WILL NEVER BUY A HIGH-END PC IN MY LIFE!
Its all about marketing and fooling buyers to buy their filthy products.Why do u think nVidida didnt include DDR4,512 bit ,and 1 GB of RAM memory in 8800GTX so they can include it in 8900GTX and make us buy this one instead!!!
**** them and their stuff...they cant even make a card that can give 30 fps in a specialy developed benchmark to test the DirectX 10 capabilities!
I dont care if it gives 300 or 400 or 1 milion fps in other games,I want it to give over 30 at least in all the games that will appear this year...is that asking too much for a fuc*ing 600$ fuc*ed up card????