The graphics industry is on the eve of a storm. And while this storm is not a sudden occurence for enthusiasts, most people do not spend hours at a time searching the "intarwebs" for tech news. Thus, most gamers are often caught off guard when new computer vid cards hit the market. This can hurt a LOT when you spend $300 on a vid card only to see the price drop $100 in a week! Over the next two months, NVidia and AMD plan to shake things up with some new vid cards, and if you're not in-the-know here, you could easily waste $100 in a week! So pay attention and hold your wallets closed for just a minute more.

Now if you want the raw data on what makes these new GPU's tick, you can go straight to the sources on sites such as:

Anandtech - GT200 preview
Anandtech - GT200 pipeline update
Anandtech - Radeon HD 4850 preview

Beyond3D - GT200 analysis

ExtremeTech - Radeon HD 4850 article

TechConnect - G92b info

bit-tech.net - Radeon HD 4850 teaser

But I'm guessing you don't really understand or care for the nitty-gritty details of GPU design if you're reading this! Or you just want a perspective on what all this new tech means for the end user. If so, read on!


GT200

First on the list is the wonder that is GT200, NVidia's latest GPU. Or as I like to call it, "Nvidia's R600"! In other words, it has a lot of potential but I wouldn't buy one yet! Let's take a look at the specs before we pass judgement:

GeForce GTX 280 / 260
1.4 billion transistors
65 nm process
240 / 192 SP's
80 / 64 texture units
32 / 28 ROP's
602 MHz / 576 MHz core clock
1296 MHz / 1242 MHz shaders clock
1107 MHz / 999 MHz RAM clock
512-bit / 448-bit RAM bus width
141.7 GBps / 111.9 GBps RAM bandwidth
1 GB / 896 MB GDDR3
$650 / $400 initial suggested price point

This thing is a monster! Over one billion transistors! And nearly all of them are dedicated to logic! It's awe-inspiring, no doubt about that. A few of the other specs are also amazing, such as the voluminous RAM amount/bandwidth and sheer number of SP's. What's not-so-hot are the clock speeds. Compared to a 9800 GTX, for instance, even the GTX 280 is dog-slow! Where's the bite? Well, to be fair, the new GT200 GPU is actually much more powerful per clock than both G80 and G92. But to be blunt, there aren't enough clocks in these new offerings! That's why I'm calling GT200 NVidia's R600 - it really is quite good, but its debut vid cards are just not worth it. This is the exact same thing we saw with ATI's R600 and their Radeon HD 2900 XT vid card. Fortunately, AMD was able to clean up R600 into some respectable vid cards so let's hope history continues to repeat itself on NVidia's side.

But that requires time, something that can't be fixed right now for the GTX 280/260, just like it couldn't be fixed for the Radeon HD 2900 XT. What we need is a revision, akin to the Radeon HD 3870!

Bringing the point further home, we once again see a rather old process being used here: 65nm. The cure for R600 was to move from 90nm to 65nm/55nm, which is where AMD is today. And likewise the cure for GT200 will be to move from 65nm down to 55nm or lower, along with the requisite "clean-up" or revisioning process that is implied here. You know, like what happened from G80 to G92 (ie, from the 8800 GTX to the 8800 GT and 9800 GTX). The GTX 280/260 are just not giving enough oomph, as evidenced by their inability to top even a 9800 GTX in every test! Not to mention their insane launch prices ($650 and $400, respectively) and outrageous power requirements!

Big, hot, and slow. It's the R600 all over again. Even with regards to a severe lack of performance as compared to current NVidia vid cards! Oh the irony!

But let's harken back to reality here and discuss the GT200's positive aspects. It's still more powerful per clock than G80/G92. That means a stock GTX 280 could theoretically be OC'ed to a respectable level of performance. Afterall, a staple of the gaming market is the abundance of factory-OC'ed vid cards and enthusiast tools such as RivaTuner! The GT200 is FAB'ed at 65nm, the same as G92, which enjoys very high clock speeds itself. So the possibility is there for a healthy amount of OC'ing, provided you can stomach the price tag. Another advantage of the GT200 is the longevity aspect with its optimization for shader-intensive code and DX10 render path, something that is "in the genes" as far as history has shown us with the original 8800 GTX. Because game engines seem to be slowly adopting DX10 code, the extra power (balanced with OC'ing) and efficiency built into GT200 should at least keep it competitive for the next 12-18 months. Maybe not on top, but at least competitive. The RAM specs are also fucking awesome!! 1GB @ 141 GBps on the high-end!? No chance of this thing becoming obsolete in that category any time soon! Finally, if you happen to play those few games where the GTX 280 undeniably wins, then so do you! =P

In the end, the GTX 280/260 are merely teasers - just demo vid cards showcasing the possibilities locked within the GT200 GPU. And like the Radeon HD 2900 XT, I don't recommend buying one. But it's fun to see a glimpse of future vid cards.


RV770

On the complete other end of the spectrum, we have the upcoming RV770 GPU from AMD. This new GPU is also a 3rd-gen DX10 part, just like the GT200 from NVidia. However, this time around, AMD and NVidia have switched places! If NVidia is stuck with an R600 flashback, AMD is enjoying a G80 flashback! AMD is back on top, FTW!

Details of RV770 are limited due to the NDA's and embargos and sanctions and whatnot. What isn't limited is the posting of raw benchmarks! And in the area of performance, the only significant or "real" metric of a new vid card's worth, the Radeon HD 4850 is a complete win! It beats the HD 3870 in everything by a significant margin, which is impressive considering there are at least two more SKU's above it! We haven't seen any data on a presumed HD 4870, much less the now-infamous R700 GPU (whatever that ends up being). We also don't have a lot of specs outside of what one could determine from having an HD 4850 installed:

? transistors
55 nm process
625 MHz core
800 Stream Processors
40 texture units
16 ROP's
993 MHz GDDR3 (512MB)
256-bit RAM bus width
63.55 GBps RAM bandwidth

See that? 800 SP's!! The HD 3870/3850 have only 320 SP's! Of course, I've talked about the differences in SP count between NVidia and AMD before, so this isn't a direct comparison to what the GT200 offers. But beyond that, imagine what 800 of AMD's SP's can do vs the 320 they have now! Even with a core clock that's 125MHz less than the HD3870, it doesn't take a genius to see why this shiny new $200 vid card is tearing up the landscape!

Oh did you see that, too? $200? Did you see that? Check out that pretty number! Only $200 for this latest and greatest performance monster! Isn't that what you'd pay right now for an HD 3870? I believe it is! Kind of weird how AMD is fighting back now. Their possibly lower mid-range newbie that is competing with the high-end oldies is starting to get a big head with that price tag! Not that the price is out-of-line, just that it's interesting to see a "50" beat a "70" but have the same price. So does that mean the new "70" will be priced higher still? Probably. But that also means the new "70" should bring even more performance with it! And without having any details available as far as specs are concerned, there's no telling if the HD 4850 is merely a lower-clocked HD 4870, or if it actually has disabled units like the GTX 280/260 designs. My guess is that 800 is too round of a number to have any disabled units, so a presumed HD 4870 will simply have higher clock speeds. But anything is possible.

Don't even start me guessing on what the R700 GPU might contain!

On a reminiscing note, it's nice to see such a solid vid card at the $200 price point. 10 years ago, it was unheard of to pay $200 for a vid card! Things have changed considerably. I'm not complaining too much, mind you, since our current visuals are absolutely astounding these days, but I do like the fact that the lower price markets are getting some attention. Right now, if you can't spend at least $120 on a vid card, you might as well not bother! And that's sad to me because I paid $120 for a GeForce2 Ti back in early 2002 and it was a great mid-range vid card! The flip side of that coin, however, is the dirt-cheap prices we have enjoyed on CPU's since 2002 - so it's a give and take thing for gamers.

In the end, AMD is really impressing me with their "clean up" efforts on ATI's ill-fated R600 GPU. To see the Radeon HD 4850 give such solid performance numbers for a relatively good $200 price tag is refreshing in this era of "bigger, hotter, better". And AMD's dominance in the HTPC segment continues with the addition of 8-channel LPCM over HDMI. (If you understood that last line, chances are you're jumping for joy! =P) I'd say AMD's investment in ATI has finally hit the black! Now if only the battle against Intel were going so well for them...


G92b

Sneaksy NVidia! What were you doing up so late? Releasing G92b, you say? Very tricksy!

65nm is getting a bit big for modern GPU's, which is why AMD has been using 55nm for quite some time now. And with the release of G92b, so is NVidia! What's going on here? What's NVidia up to?

Testing out 55nm, it seems. Totally weird yet really cool, NVidia is making a 55nm 9800 GTX, called the *drum roll* 9800 GTX+! OMGZ, it's so tacky!! But at the same time, ya gotta admit the die shrink and clock speed boosts are really nice!

55 nm
738 MHz core (vs 675 MHz for GTX)
1836 MHz SP's (vs 1690 MHz for GTX)

The RAM isn't touched, obviously, because it's not part of the GPU die shrink. But this new news is a bit odd in light of the mediocre GT200 release. As if the GTX 280 weren't having enough trouble fighting against NVidia's own 9800 GTX, now they've upped the ante against their own new GPU again!! The current G92-based 9800 GTX already has sky-high clocks compared to the GT200 offerings without even counting OC'ing, and now NVidia is releasing a new SKU based on the very process shrink that the GT200 should have had? Of course Nvidia's story is that they were not willing to risk a new design on a new process (too many "new" things at once) but isn't that what got ATI in trouble with R600? History repeats itself...

In any case, the viability of round one for GT200 has already been killed, IMHO. This new G92b makes no difference in that respect. It does, however, mean some price re-orders! =) The 65nm 9800 GTX is being dropped down to $200 (wait, where have I seen that number before?...) while this new 55nm 9800 GTX+ is being priced ever so delicately at $230. Is NVidia responding to AMD and stepping up to the plate? There are some who believe this GTX+ would not have existed if not for RV770. I'm not about to make an uninformed opinion, however, so I'm just going to say that this new GTX+ rocks and leave it at that.


Time is an illusion; lunchtime doubly so!

Further releases and benchmarks and actual sellable products based on all this news will unfold over the next two months (or so we're told). I'm not making any final judgements on what the vid card market will hold over the next year until the rest of AMD's lineup is tested and posted. The HD 4850 looks damn good! But without an HD 4870 to complete the picture, much less the hidden beast that is R700, everything is still up for grabs. At least on the high-end of the spectrum.

With the mid-range now filled out, it's easy to see where the sub-$300 market is going. AMD finally brought the fight to NVidia (!) so now it's a mad dash for the finish line! RV770 vs G92b, as far as I'm concerned! Let the 55nm battle commence! AMD has publicly proclaimed their method: fight with CrossFireX and let scale win the war. NVidia stumbled on the high-end this time, but most likely only in anticipation of the future, leaving their tried-and-true warriors to fight the battles of scalability. So we see a 55nm teaser from them, banking on SLI (and perhaps even OC'ing). Not a bad way to go all-around considering what 8800 GT SLI has done for NVidia, and what HD 3870/3870 X2 triple-CrossFire has done for AMD. Not that pitting more than two GPU's together is the best way to fight on the high-end, but two is proving to be more than acceptable. So basically, anything under $400 is fair game for SLI/CrossFire these days! I see no fundamental change in this respect - only a change in which vid cards are used! HD 4800's for CrossFire, 9800 GTX+'s for SLI. That's pretty much it. In the sub-$200 market, a single HD 4800, a single 9800 GTX+. Very straight forward I'd say. I like it that way. Makes it easy to give recommendations.

Of course the only caveat here is that we all have to WAIT now for these new vid cards to be released! Grrrr. Two months isn't so bad (it could be worse!) and it's best to know these things beforehand so that you don't end up wasting $100 or more, but I still hate waiting! Especially if you were planning on buying right now, cash in hand! Very frustrating...