http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/ Engadget Comments for NVIDIA GTX 480 makes benchmarking debut, matches ATI HD 5870 performance (video) http://www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2012 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/
sorry, but i cant.]]>Mar 6th 2010 7:41AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/
MATCHES?

either engadget fails at graph reading or they cant see there are times during benchmark where the card achieves almost DOUBLE the performance of a 5870 and never goes below it?

Average at the very least 30% faster in that test alone. And i'm being conservative.

if 30 percent faster means "matching" then every cpu and gpu matches their predecessors.

i expected a bit more from engadget.]]>Mar 6th 2010 8:43AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/Did you read the article, stupid? The graph is from NVidia's own tesselation benchmark.
"NVIDIA's benchmarking stressed the GTX 480's superior tesselation performance over the HD 5870, but it was level pegging between the two cards during the more conventional moments."
They are evenly matched when running games and other things that were not NVidia's own (hardware optimized) tesselation benchmark.]]>Mar 6th 2010 8:54AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/
Engadget's comment was that it doesn't appear to have much difference in most games (ie: the 99.99999% of games that don't use tesselation yet). The guy in the video even points out the first part of the graph where the 2 lines are almost exactly the same framerate and says that's where there's no tesselation going on.

That's where Engadget is getting their 'not much difference' from - no tesselation = same performance, and quite frankly I expect for the next few years very few games will have any significant level of tesselation.]]>Mar 6th 2010 8:55AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/
If you've got an unrelated point to make, don't just reply to the first comment because you want it higher up in the viewing order. Unrelated replies to comments like this one will be deleted. I'm letting you off this one time just so everyone sees it and knows what NOT to do.]]>Mar 6th 2010 9:06AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/
The unigine heavan demo is an independently created software package used to demonstrate and benchmark various 3d technologies. It does not belong to either AMD or NVidia. The article states "Nvidias benchamrking" meaning they ran it, not that they wrote it, you even quoted it that way. Tessellation is a feature of DX11, and the benchmark is demonstrating how much better Nvidia is at it than AMD, using an independent benchmark.

There are times during the benchmark where Nvidia is twice as fast as AMD as someone has already posted.

Tessellation is a way for the hardware (AMD or Nvidia) to create extra detail based on a displacement map. A displacement map is a graphics layer which adds 'bumps' to the image in lieu of using real polygons. Tessellation is a way of giving more definition to those bumps by subdividing the area and adding real geometry. This allows for more detail, greater shadow realism, and more simplified character (or data) sets. In other words you get a greater perceived polygon count that uses less data to begin with. It is a good thing.


]]>Mar 6th 2010 9:10AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/
Being able to devote 100% of it's compute capacity to tesselation allows it to own that benchmark, but in a real game you want your graphics card to do other things than just sit there tesselating all day and on a realistic division of workload the two cards are basically evenly matched.

Which would be great, except the nvidia chip costs more to make, consumes more power, and is six months late to the party.]]>Mar 6th 2010 9:11AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/
being a gamedev myself, i can assure you that is not correct.
tesselation is a part of the dev pipeline of almost ANY game you play today, its just prebaked to LODs. Frozen meshes at dif detail levels.
Almost all highend games are modeled with subpatching, and being able to do the "meshing" in-game in realtime on a close-to-camera basis is a gigantic step in the right direction.
]]>Mar 6th 2010 9:31AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/Mar 6th 2010 11:35AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/
Most of the people on this blog are just gamers. And all they want is a new device that they can put in their computer tomorrow that will give them a boost in FPS. Fermi will probably not do this, or at least not enough for the price.

But what people don't realize is that Nvidia has changed the architecture a lot for the developer. And it may take some time until games use the new improvements. Also, Nvidia made architecture changes for for HPC. They didn't put ecc memory on the thing for gamers.]]>Mar 6th 2010 12:17PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/I'd suggest you go and brush up on your understanding of this new nVidia's architecture. Fermi does not use all of it's resources for tesselation lol, And it does have a dedicated tesselator. I don't know where did you get that one from. What's the point in just blabbering.
Go read up a little if you're interested in technical aspects of this chip, there's a lot of interesting stuff, white papers etc, don't just blurt things out ]]>Mar 6th 2010 12:58PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/Actually when the 5970 was released, a tweeted screenshot from the Ungine game already surfaced, to think that they already have the card but was still testing it until today.]]>Mar 6th 2010 4:16PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/
"The graph is from NVidia's own tesselation benchmark."

Wrong.

This benchmark is completely third party, and is used because it is what ATI used to show off their card when first released. The reason their the same at some points is because nothing is happening there... the nature of benchmarks. Overall, if you would actually RUN the numbers, nVidia wins by 60%. Thats a huge performance increase.]]>Mar 6th 2010 8:14PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/Mar 7th 2010 10:11AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/
many people are remarking about the 5970, which is fair argument. but all these people have not mentioned the GTX 490 which is imminent. in no way am I condoning the wait time for these cards or the price, but many of your arguments against the card have had holes in your theory. i like nvidia and i run them. ATI has really stepped up the game and i think nvidia has to be holding back on some satiating information that will blow our minds]]>Mar 7th 2010 2:03PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/Mar 7th 2010 4:39PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/
As tom's noted in their 5970 review, "For example, ATI reduced the voltages it used and correspondingly dropped the 5970’s clock rates to Radeon HD 5850 levels. This was done to keep maximum board power to 294W—under the defined 300W PCI-SIG electromechanical specification"

There's simply no way for Nvidia to put two cores on one card and fit under the 300W limit. Nvidia focussed too much on GPGPU when most gamers don't care about that functionality.]]>Mar 7th 2010 5:32PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/
@bebop With respect, this analysis is flawed on a number of levels. First of all, in the benchmark the Fermi chip is not devoting "100%" of its capacity to tessellation, it is dynamically load-balancing. The ATI card on the other hand rapidly becomes bottlenecked, with most of its hardware sitting idle. You go on to claim such scenes are 'unrealistic' (in much the same way as engadget describes them as 'unconventional') - well, says who? In years gone by it was 'unrealistic' and 'unconventional' to apply bump-maps to every surface, or employ large, detailed textures, or to run games at more than 1024x768. Tessellation is, it could be argued, a better fit for existing development pipelines than bumpmapping was when it was introduced, because this time around game artists are already working with incredibly detailed source assets.

I'm aware of the other issues surrounding Fermi, such as yield, heat, power consumption etc, but I'm frankly baffled by the headline of this article, and its general tone. The big deal about DX11 is tessellation. The headline could just as well have been "NVIDIA GTX 480 makes benchmarking debut, up to double ATI HD 5870 performance under DX11".

What I see, looking at those graphs, is a dynamic load-balancing card versus one that has bet the farm on a particular ratio between tessellation and shader usage never being exceeded. I see one card with the potential to deliver more consistently playable framerates under DX11. In terms of gameplay, troughs are always more significant than peaks, wouldn't you agree?]]>Mar 16th 2010 8:57AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/Mar 26th 2010 8:51PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/Mar 6th 2010 7:45AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/
The test was against a 5870 single gpu. That's no where near ATi's 5970 or any of the 59xx's that they have / will have

I'm sorry Nvidia looks like you lost your spot at top graphics cards. ATi's got top, mid, and low range covered it looks like.]]>Mar 6th 2010 11:47AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/Mar 6th 2010 5:17PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/Mar 6th 2010 7:53PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/
Part of me wants Nvidia to be competitive to push graphics technology forward, but the other part of me is still pissed that I lost 2 laptops and a graphics card to "bumpgate" and was never reimbursed. ]]>Mar 6th 2010 9:59PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/


]]>Mar 31st 2010 11:52AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/Mar 6th 2010 7:45AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/Mar 6th 2010 7:45AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/
Many normal games don't use the same level of tessellation as the benchmark, but as more developers start using DX11 that number will go up, possibly along with the 480's and other Fermi cards' popularity.]]>Mar 6th 2010 11:30AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/Yeah, but by the time games are released that fully utilise tesselation it wouldn't matter, cause new video cards would be out by then. There's no point of designing a card TODAY that aims to beat the competition when tesselation is heavily used.]]>Mar 7th 2010 7:20AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/Mar 6th 2010 7:46AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/Mar 6th 2010 7:47AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/I just hope 5870 and 480 prices fall soon enough.]]>Mar 6th 2010 9:01AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/Mar 6th 2010 7:50AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/
It'd look horrible for NVIDIA if they couldn't at least match ATI and even with those results they don't demolish ATIs 5870]]>Mar 6th 2010 7:56AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/
Performance doesn't matter if ATIs cards are cheaper. And considering they've been around for 6 months, you can bet your ass that as soon as the Fermi cards are out, ATI will make a slight price drop to rub it in nVidia's face.

Important thing to remember is that nVidia is definitely loosing money on each of the GTX 480 cards when compared to ATI because their GPU chip is MUCH larger.]]>Mar 6th 2010 8:18AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/Mar 6th 2010 8:39AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/
The 5 series is complete - 54xx, 55xx, 56xx, 57xx, 58xx, 5970 are all out there and available for purchase. I can't even buy a GTX275 nowadays because they've all gone EOL. Six classes with multiple variants have been churned out by ATi and they are, in my opinion, the most successful graphics cards they made to date.

There's no denying the GTX480 beats the 5870 here, it does, almost doubling the frames at some points. But, we are watching nVIDIA bench an ATi card so I'd like to see some tech sites review it first. Not only that, they still have the 5970 and I am quite certain that ATi will beat nVIDIA at any price point when it comes to performance.

I have plenty of ATi and nVIDIA cards (currently using trusty 8800GT) but there's no denying ATi have come back hard. The 4xxx were a success and the 5xxx has also been brilliant.

Every aspect of the cards is impressive. The engineering and project management that went into it is simply astounding. There's a great read here that explains what happened to make it so successful - http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3740

All in all, nVIDIA have come late to this fight, can't match ATi on price, and haven't got anything I can hold in my hands today. This has been happening for several months. ATi are working hard on their next gen and I think the lead time they have will produce another winning product.

Be happy ATi are kicking nVIDIA's butt right now. The competition is great for consumers. nVIDIA are and always have been very successful, but for enthusiasts, ATi has won most of them over (.. for now).]]>Mar 6th 2010 8:58AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/
They were comparing the 480 to its equivalent *single-die* card. The 5970 is 2 5870's on one card, I think. No doubt that would kill the 480.]]>Mar 6th 2010 11:35AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/
you DO remember nvidia claimed 45% performance gain over the 5870]]>Mar 6th 2010 11:46AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/
Yeah... When they launch the Fermi they'll be owning ATI all right...

...For a day.

Then ATI will announce a mid-generation refresh with the 5890, 5990, etc. ATI will own them back. Nvidia will be back where they started.]]>Mar 6th 2010 9:34PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/Mar 7th 2010 2:22AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/
Neither ATI or NVIDIA will be going losing their share of the market anytime soon. As long as they are the only ones. (Hence the phones market)]]>Mar 6th 2010 7:53AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/Mar 6th 2010 7:54AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/Mar 6th 2010 10:17AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/Mar 6th 2010 7:56AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/Mar 6th 2010 7:57AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/Mar 6th 2010 8:00AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/Mar 6th 2010 8:09AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/Mar 6th 2010 12:34PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/06/nvidia-gtx-480-makes-benchmarking-debut-matches-ati-hd-5870-per/
I think Nvidia is falling behind. They are only going to have the lead for a short time.]]>Mar 6th 2010 8:07AM