GeForce FX in trouble?

[pHaestus]

The DDR-II may well be somewhat affected by the high temps as well. If the GPU is 70C, other components on the PCB probably are as well. A pelt + water test would be VERY interesting. Wonder if NVIDIA would send me a FX to try it out on?

What if I said "Please?"

hehe

[Quickmcj]

I said it...HAIRDRYER!

[HMB]

Originally posted by bigben2k
Is this true? This would be comparable to a CPU's power dissipation!

Any links?

Tech-channel measured it somehow, the radeon 9700 pro puts out 54W, fulload ofcourse. I saw someplace else where it said the GFFX puts out 70W+. Since it was REAL-wattage (i think) it exceeds CPU:s output by a bit

Edit: Power dissipation while idle: http://www.tecchannel.de/hardware/11...011962_PIC.gif (remember the GFFX clocks down to 300/600, quite a nifty thing, wish ATI had it).

And here we have full-load: http://www.tecchannel.de/hardware/11...011973_PIC.gif

[gmat]

Originally posted by Brians256
Comparable to a CPU's power? It's higher than most CPU's! Most consumers are running CPU's with 40-60W of power consumption.

Right, but consider that those buying a $500 vid card arent likely to have a less than 70W CPU... More in the 80-90W range...
Anyway it's the rate things are going on, higher frequencies = higher wattage, and until Moore's law stops it will get even higher.

Originally posted by Brians256

Now, considering that they are trying to dump 75W of heat, isn't it amazing that they were able to do it in that constrained form factor?

CPU's in mini PC's are cooled down with similar (and less noisy) heatpipe systems. You can run a P4/3.06 in a tiny, cramped Shuttle.

Originally posted by Brians256

The GeForceFX GPU is begging for water and/or peltier cooling to make it run like it wants to.

You bet ! This looks like a challenge launched by NVidia. "Cool that puppy down, and silently"

I, for one, don't care about the 'vacuum cleaner' system that comes with ultra cards. Once watercooled, it won't produce any noise...

Besides it seems that [H] and Anand concentrated their efforts on ATI's advantages: AA (who cares about that, really), driver quality (6 month old vs unfinished..) etc. I've yet to see real DX9 tests, using shaders or even (gasp!) cg. Unreal2 and Doom3 may become the new reference tests.

[HMB]

Originally posted by gmat
Right, but consider that those buying a $500 vid card arent likely to have a less than 70W CPU... More in the 80-90W range...
Anyway it's the rate things are going on, higher frequencies = higher wattage, and until Moore's law stops it will get even higher.


CPU's in mini PC's are cooled down with similar (and less noisy) heatpipe systems. You can run a P4/3.06 in a tiny, cramped Shuttle.


You bet ! This looks like a challenge launched by NVidia. "Cool that puppy down, and silently"

I, for one, don't care about the 'vacuum cleaner' system that comes with ultra cards. Once watercooled, it won't produce any noise...

Besides it seems that [H] and Anand concentrated their efforts on ATI's advantages: AA (who cares about that, really), driver quality (6 month old vs unfinished..) etc. I've yet to see real DX9 tests, using shaders or even (gasp!) cg. Unreal2 and Doom3 may become the new reference tests.

There isnt one commercial unoverclocked CPU that puts out 75 real W of heat.

The little cooling (compared to a cpu) can only keep the core at about 80°C i think.

It will be interesting to see what pelt+water can do for overclockability.

If u have a r9700pro or GFFX u will want to run your games with AA and AF, see no point not to. I hope 3dmark03:s default bench will use AA and AF.

Anyhow UT2k3 and Doom3 will be the reference tests, no doubt about it since many games will use those graphicengines in future games, for lets say 3 years ahead. DX9 tests will be pointless to view since there will be a looooong time before any games will use em.

[DarkEdge]

My god, what is all this crap about the ATI drivers. There problems are a thing of the past, or going that way atleast. After 3dfx went under I purchased the original Radeon, then the 8500, and now the 9700. With each card and each release the drivers have gotten better. I had some minor issues with the original Radeon, and 1 with the 8500 where it wouldn't run commanche 4. Since I got the 9700 I havn't had any problems. Ati has also learned from there mistakes (QUACK fiasco, LOL)

At work, http://www.gladiatorsgaming.com we have GF4 TI4200's, I have had 1 issue with the drivers, but nothing I couldn't fix.

There are some things I don't like about the FX though. For one, WTF is up with the cooler. That will never make its way into my water cooled rig. (I don't WC GPU's) Also, the IQ, since I havn't seen them for myself at work YET, I'm going by the review sites. The FX compared to the 9700 is sub par. Then we come to the price tag. To me the little performance gain is not worth it. Coming from an older GF card though it would be. Every Radeon up grade has almost doubled my performance gains, so I would hope the same would apply to the GeForce line.

Then back to drivers, only time will tell. Looking at past history, yes, they do help. How much though, at most...20-25%? Personally I'll was until the R350 to make my conclusions. By then we should see a more mature, but not finished FX driver set.

[gmat]

Yep. I was browsing through a few forums, and what comes out is the driver set used by reviewers (Anand, [H] et al) did *not* support DX9 and had buggy shaders implementation. That says a lot on their current state...

As for the cooler it has been mention frequently that retail cards may use more 'conventional' solutions.

Finally for the price tag. If NV doesnt align its price to those of ATI, they'll be going under, and quickly...

(edit) ah "crap about ATI drivers" man ATI didnt start its life with the 8500. And even that one had drivers that reduced picture quality to improve framerates in various benchmarks & games... Thats for the trickery, but there's also a *long* history of highly unstable, quickly unsupported drivers (remember the Rage Pro ?). And try to run Linux with an ATI...

[bigben2k]

Here here!


I suspected that DX9 wasn't implemented yet.

I use an old ATI card, and it's always worked fine, but I had to cut off the video acceleration, otherwise it would crash. This is without any changes to the system, after a couple of years (corrupted driver? I reloaded it, same prob). what is nice about ATI is the video display options: you can tweak the output to no end, so it will work with any monitor.

So remember that these benchmarks are HIGHLY preliminary, and are by no means indicative of what's coming.

Also, these high end GPUs account for a very small margin of these companie's revenu: they're just as much for show/marketing than for performance. No one is going under with this. The price is almost irrelevant: this is all a showcase of ATI and NVidia's capabilities.

Isn't ATI supporting Linux now?

[HMB]

Since GFFX hasnt been tested on any DX9 benchmark (atleast i havent seen any) it doesnt matter if the drivers are DX9 or 8.1. DX8.1 will dominate for quite some while ( hey we have to respect those with slower graphicscards).

If u were to put a more common cooling (smaller) on the GFFX u probably wouldnt be able to run it at the rated speed. Since the GPU is well over 70°C with the current cooling.

bigben2k: I agree with u that the ultra high end cards doesnt make the most profit, but since nvidia doesnt have any cheap DX9 compliant parts it will hurt them.

[pHaestus]

I have refused to buy another ATi card after my dissatisfaction with the Radeon1. I do know that there were many more complaints about drivers wtih R8500 on forums and IRC than were mentioned by reviewers.

[jaydee]

I have used ATI quite a bit. Every system I have exept the laptop has a ATI card. 2 original Rage 98, Expert 128, and my main rig with A Radeon 32DDR. The 32DDR works great. The only probelm I have with the games i have is UT2003. There is 2 maps where the screen goes completly black when entering or exiting the doorway, but I belive that to be more of a programing error than ATI's. Granted UT2003 is the newest game I have. Nascar Racing 4 is probably the next best for load test. UT2003 plays smooth other than that. Granted FPS is low but it dosn't seem to matter all that much. Thinking about getting a 9500 one of these days. Would be a huge jump from the 32DDR. But have no real reason to yet. :shrug:

[airspirit]

The R350 (9900 Pro) should be out at the end of March (FX at the end of Feb), and will retail at $399. It is estimated to run 10-30% faster than the GFFX for $100-200 less. I dunno about you guys, but I think NVidia has a loser on their hands. Too expensive, too hot, and not fast enough to grab the crowd it is aiming for.

[bigben2k]

I haven't seen those estimates, but R350 is expected to use DDR-1, which is probably a good move, since DDR-2 looks like it'll be delayed until 2004.

The DDR-2 will be more expensive, but it will provide more memory bandwith than DDR-1. The GeForceFX should overclock nicely, where the ATI probably won't, but that's not news to anyone who's tried OC'ing a VC.

[airspirit]

Read the article on the Inquirer today about the choice of DDR1. It explains this situation a bit for us.

[webmedic]

To answer a few things. First when the fx is overclocked if it gets to hot it will clock itself right back to 300/600 for you to keep itself form overheating. I really dont think that is what I would call a good overclock.

As for the ati cards I use them under linux all the time as most my systems run linux and the ati cards work great under linux. And to the contrary nvidia cards do not work correctly under linux. Because of the way nvidia makes thier drivers there are incompatability issues and only about maybe half the games play correctly. It may be better than that by now but probably not by much. Maybe 75% at most.

[BaconGrease]

I'm just waiting for one of you guys to remove the fan, seal the chamber and flood it with water... now that will interesting.

[webmedic]

It's already been done more or less. I've seen a project that a guy did with the whole system submerged in oil that was super cooled. You know with that kind of cooling you may be able to get the fx to actually perform. Remember this the problem with the fx is that it's killed by bandwidth. The gpu is basicly good although it was rushed and oc'd from the factory to perform at the level the radeon 9700 does.

If you really want to know even the ceo of nvidia admitted a few days ago that they got stomped by ati this time arround.

Some good news though the nv35 is supposed to be the killer card plus allot more of what nv30 was supposed to be.

So they lost this time arround it's good for competition. The next time arround the race should be much more even or even favour nvidia by a fair amount.

Really we need to look for the nv40 and r400 for this one though as these the current cards are just stop gaps till they can get the really good tech out the door.

[bigben2k]

The rumors are starting to fly... that NVidia will axe the FX!

click me

100'000 limited production. They might be able to sell that much.

[webmedic]

Yes I saw that. Wouldn't suprise me that way they can say it is a limmited edition and a special piece but I really didn't want to post that as I was really unsure of the sources.

[tim-may]

wow....im just gonna stick with HA! for now until i can think of something better to post...

[bigben2k]

Now I have to change my sig, AGAIN!

Oh well, I'll just stick to a ti4200-8x.

[pHaestus]

I am having to basically reverse my position. I am going to wait til R350 comes out and then get either that or a lower priced 9700Pro at that time. Don't see much option if I want modern 3d and good image quality. I still should be waiting on Doom3 I guess, but I want a card this spring...

[webmedic]

Thats probably the best choice. The r350 will suprise people it's not just a souped up r300 running faster. They added some goodies to it.

[joeiudi77]

Hello,

This is my first post here, so bear with me.

I'm not trying to be contrary but the drivers just aren't finished. They can't perfect drivers untill they have a complete working test sample. Sure they have been working on the FX for months now but most of that time was spent on streamlining the .13 micron chip process.
I'm sure they had the driver basics all written out in programmer lingo but I'm also sure they weren't complete or perfected for the finished product. They can't possibly predetermine how to write all the software for all that hardware before it is even built. That would be like Bush writing a complete editorial for the New York Times descussing the results of his Iraq bombing before he even started it. I'm sure were aware of where we think we should bomb but I'm sure we'll discover more possible targets to bomb after we get started. (We usually do!)
Lets face it I believe the Amandtech (maybe HardOCP) review included pictures with complete graphic glitches like the road disappearing in a race car game and such, does that sound perfected to you?

Also there's this tidbit to explain the bad screen shots...

"The GeForceFX's technology applies filters that effect AntiAliasing and Anisotropic filtering before the frame buffer and after the frame has left the frame buffer. In short, this means that all of our screenshots do not accurately represent the true in-game visual quality that the GFFX can and will produce, as the screen shots were pulled from the frame buffer (in the "middle" of the AA process). We have come to conclusions about the GFFX IQ (Image Quality) that may be simply wrong. While we cannot answer for other reviews of the GeForceFX it is very possible this is an issue with those articles as well, if they were in fact thorough enough to cover IQ.
"
From [H]ardOCP

Lastly the rumor mill says that the R&D department at Gainward has created a 7dB cooling solution for their FX cards instead of the current ~70dB. I'm sure the other manufacturers will try to copy this. Also I don't like the sound demos at Tom's Hardware....how many of you play video games with your ear pasted to the back of your mini-tower. I keep my tower on the floor like a normal person. Tom had that microphone in the exhaust for gods sake, microphones make the same noise when you blow on them with your mouth.

Alright I'm done! I hope you like the FYI. Please don't assault me, I'm defensive. Oh yes, I am an Nvidia fanboy. I think they make the best damn graphics cards and I bought stock now that they bottomed out. I know they will make a comeback someday soon!

[pHaestus]

I am also an NVIDIA fanboy, but only because I had a Radeon1. Your comments are mostly correct, but I have a counterpoint.

I refused to buy ATI for a long time due to their shoddy drivers. Why in the world would I buy a GF FX now, if they are shipping it with shoddy drivers while (wow this is hard to type without laughing --> ) ATI has a polished and functional driver set?

Answer: I won't