AMD Radeon HD 3800: The Empire Strikes Back

[cleeve]

Cleeve, I have to disagree on that point, as I have been banned before for disagreeing with someone and asking them a question about what I disagreed with.

I find that very, very surprising that happened on the Tom's Hardware forums.

Are you sure there wasn't more to it? I'd be really interested to know the details of that situation because nobody should ever be banned over a civil disagreement.

These aren't the apple forums, after all...

 

[trooper1947]

I find that very, very surprising that happened on the Tom's Hardware forums.

Are you sure there wasn't more to it? I'd be really interested to know the details of that situation because nobody should ever be banned over a civil disagreement.

These aren't the apple forums, after all...

I have been on here for years on and off with different nicks .... cause I dumped email addresses and changed online names .... and have seen some very hot and heavy exchanges and no bans I know of . I've even argued with the mods and big boys and gave them flak for some tests and opinions . This is one of very few places I enjoy coming to in what limited spare time I have and will do so till this old boy drops dead probably . Bans .... I must have missed them .... if some idiot posted porn on here he should have had a visit from his local neighbors ,,,, not just banned ! Of course cleeve you said that bad word ! " APPLE " ..... I'd like to choke those dings in their stupid commercials .... made for idiots with an IQ of 17 .

 

[Crashman]

" APPLE " ..... I'd like to choke those dings in their stupid commercials .... made for idiots with an IQ of 17 .

Oh surely you exhagerate, perhaps you meant 71? After all, they do know how to sign their name on a credit card application...

 

[Anoobis]

Don't get me started on Time Adverzine's "Invention" of the year.

 

[aadamszc]

The disscussion has just gotten rather ridiculous now, wouldn't you agree? I mean, we've got people going off on other people for random reasons, people talking about a frenchman's grammar in english, etc.

Just give it a break. Maybe the article wasn't exactly New York Times quality, but it was pretty good for the internet. If you don't like it here at toms(which has one of the better communities that I know of), then you can leave.

On a note that actually pertains to the card(which the article was about), it seems that people are now raising their prices due to the initial shortage. The place wher I'm buying my card offers a 3850 for ~$205.00. Sadly, they don't even have the 3870.

 

[cleeve]

On a note that actually pertains to the card(which the article was about), it seems that people are now raising their prices due to the initial shortage. The place wher I'm buying my card offers a 3850 for ~$205.00. Sadly, they don't even have the 3870.

Newegg claims to have Sapphire 3850's in stock for $180. THey used to have all sorts of brands in stock but sapphire looks like the lone gunman now... not sure how long that'll last, either.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Both NV's and ATI's programmable processor architecture took quite a while to develop. Don't expect ATI's ROP issue to just disappear that quickly. Things are going to look very different once ATI addresses the weak ROP issue but they could be too late by then.

Phrozt is partially right. These cards aren't "new arch" they're just 55nm refreshes of the R600. It still doesn't mean they're junk.

PS, alot of this isn't directed just at you but in the whole issue in general.


First, what's the point in remaking the ROPs if the future is render correct AA required by DX10.1, if anything you'll see nV drop their ROP dedicated AA hardware and move towards something similar to AMD. So the ROP issue is not a go-forward issue, it's a legacy issue where performance in older games benifits from the fixed AA and shader-incorrect AA where there is no need. The main thing that should've been revamped if possible was the texture section of the RBE not the ROPs.

Next if the R600 isn't a new architecture, then for damn sure the G92 isn't. They increased the number of texture address units to reflect the ratio used in the GF8400/8600, but that's not much of an architectural jump, and less so than the adition of actual function support. What D3D functions did the G92 add that the G80 didn't have? Then what did the RV670 add that the R600 didn't have. That should answer your question as to which is what.

And BTW, both skipped a step in the usual progression of things the G92 skipping a shrink and moving to a process jump, and the RV670 skipping a process jump straight into the optical shrink of that new process.

Who gives a crap who makes it?

However that last sentiment is the most important one.

Who cares what badge is on the box, as long as it's a good value and does what you hope it does for the price.

Both cards have their place and they occupy different segments, with different benifits.

The HD3850 is perfect for the HTPC, the GF8800GT is perfect to displace the big and expensive GF8800GTS; both lineups as already shown are about similar value.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

I'm offended that you don't think Don Woligroski or Thomas Soderstrom listens to you.

That first guy listens, but that last guy... ...

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Florian Charpentier wrote :

Please quote entirely. We said "Contrary to what their name may imply, let's right away cut through the marketing smoke screen, which AMD couldn't resist to pull once more; no, the Radeon HD 3000 does not introduce a new architecture at all, neither is it an important evolution compared to the Radeon HD 2900." We believe it is our role to determine what's marketing and what's not. Are we wrong?

I have to agree with hergieburbur on this one, despite disagreeing with some of the rest of his statements.

The thing is this is nothing new. So why focus on what has truly just become a fanboi point of contention?

IMO there is alot of that in history, with the GF6800->GF7900 being an evolutionary not revolutionary change, but it got a new name despite just being the NV47/48 (guess changing it to a G70 helped), the X800 was also evolutionary not revolutionary compared to the R9700/9800 yet it got a new name with little grief except for the fanbois, and the GF3->GF4 was equally just an evolutionary blip.

It's undeniable that this is a boost, but whether or not they want to call it an HD3800XL or HD2950XL or HD3870 doesn't really matter much to those of us truely 'au courant' as we all know it as the RV670, and while the G92 name implies a major redesign in the GF8800 series it doesn't get a new name, so if there is thefocus on one why not the other, or better yet why the focus on either?

This has been discussed before, the reality is that they could call it the nVidia Camaro and the ATi Charger, and it really wouldn't matter to anyone except those who couldn't tell the difference between a Corvette and a Chevette in the first place or have a Calvin wizzing on a Chevy symbol sticker ontheir back window and only pretend to care to make mountains out of PR mole hills.

I don't think marketing should ever enter the equation, because when people go out of their way to comment on it they look just as bad as if they go out of their way to feed it to people.

BTW, if AMD were to bring out an actual chip that was an R680 and had 50% more performance than a GF8800Ultra, and they were going to launch it shortly after the RV670 in the same way they launched the X1800XL followed by the X1800XT, would there be any of this whinning about numbering schemes?

I hate the new numbering scheme, but more because it plays down to the idiots in the crowd, and really they aren't any less confused by an HD3870 vs HD3850 compared to HD3800XL vs HD3800Pro.

 

[Crashman]

That first guy listens, but that last guy... ...

Yeh, he used to post in these forums quite frequently under some insanely-macho nickname that made one wonder what he might be trying to overcompensate for...but now he's never around. Gives excuses about being too bussy, but everyone suspects he simply quit caring...

On the other hand, a few of his reviews have shown that he's read at least three of these threads. I guess that's better than nothing.

 

[xx12amanxx]

You guys are something else..lol Seriously.

There is going to be thousand's of people who buy this card just for the sole fact that they like ATI better...Regardless of what is fact or not, does that matter when an opinion is waved? Pretty much the card look's badass! Has alot of neat features! And i own an 8800gt! And i can tell you that situation's like this is the absolutley best for us the consumer! ATI is going to try everything to get our dollar! They will entice us,seduce us, and offer better features/option's. Until they catch up/ pass NVidia and when that happen's how much do you want to bet we will get a better deal then as a consumer? Its the same thing with AMD!
If you realized what was happening here right now you would be happy for both companies!

Also this isnt really about AMD or ATI Or Intel/Nvidia this is a behavior that trailing companies do to try to get back consumers! Its a very good thing!

Anyway this isnt aimed at anyone we just all need to stop with the "your a fanboi" "no im not"crap already and grow up.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Yeh, he used to post in these forums quite frequently under some insanely-macho nickname that made one wonder what he might be trying to overcompensate for...but now he's never around. Gives excuses about being too bussy, but everyone suspects he simply quit caring...

On the other hand, a few of his reviews have shown that he's read at least three of these threads. I guess that's better than nothing.

I think after he reviewed the GF7150 integrated solution I think he lost the will to live/post.

I mean SpecviewPerf on a GF7150, OIE !!
MMMmm look at my ProEngineer project with..... 64mb of shared RAM.

 

[Crashman]

On the other hand, if you're a secretary in the engineering office and the boss says "print a copy of the exploded view under file xxx on letter-sized paper to add to our presentation" you can bring it up...and see it, using the office PC.

Or maybe I missed something.

 

[bojangles34]

Damn it. A local store had 2 HD 3870s today. I completely missed out. On a side note, they were selling for $258.

 

[sk291]

I must have missed it in the article, but are the fps results the minimum or average?