Questions about Directx 11 and current gen gfx cards

[kageryu]

I am considering building a new computer next month and I have a BUNCH of questions.

Is the radeon 5770 is worth the purchase or should I just buy a radeon 4890 or GTX 275 instead? I'm considering getting a 1920 x 1080 resolution monitor and I want to play Crysis, GTA IV, Need for Speed SHIFT.

Is Directx 11 going to be a big deal soon?

Also, if Directx 11 becomes mainstream, does it mean that current gen cards like the 4890 and the GTX 275, 285 will not be able to play Directx 11 games like Dirt2?

Finally, I have read that just like how Vista was coupled with Directx 10, Windows 7 will be coupled with Directx 11, so people who want to use Windows 7 should get a Directx 11-compatible card?

Sorry for all these questions but I feel that I am lacking info regarding Directx 11 and how it will affect gfx cards.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

The thing about GDDR5 is that it won't go on forever, and I think XDR is going to need to be considered for the Heck-a-whatever-core thingy.

I know Hynix has 1.75GHz memory coming, but I think that about the 2Ghz mark will be a big barrier (don't know what this does for errors [yes there's error correction but errors are still bad]). People are talking about 2Ghz for the G300/F100 but I haven't seen anyone claiming production of that anytime soon. I would suspect slower memory on the G300 due to the benefit of a wider bus, they don't need 2Ghz, so it's likely a Fanboi pipe-dream.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Yea, 1.75 Ive seen in the works, and 2? Course, since Fermi taped out in Feb.... 😉

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Yeah exactly.

I am wondering about XDR though it would give us about twice the cap space, but we've been talking about it since just before the X1800 launch, when ATi got a deal together the year before, but nothing has come of it, friggin' RAMBUS and their silly games !!

Anywhoo, it'll be interesting as the shader requirements push the resolution and AA down whether or not the memory bandwidth matters as much as the raw shader power (which those tests show the HD5770 does have lots of in theory [outpacing the GTX295 and HD4890]), but at that point will it be bogged down elsewhere? The RBEs and TMUs have been tweaked to better handle Tesselation, but it still becomes a question mark, because the more you free things up in one spot, you move the bottleneck back somewhere else, and maybe it returns back to memory, I just don't know yet, it requires testing that even Rys @ B3D didn't get a chance to investigate when they got their HD5870. Can't wait for the follow-up to flesh out some of those details, or for Digit-Life/ixbt to run some more Rightmark tests on the HD5770, hopefully with the HD5870 and mature drivers.

 

[duzcizgi]

Well guys,
Before you speculate what XDR can do or not, get ready to keep your saliva when tessalation will be in use.

It'll be possible to define one leaf with two triangles but lifelike appearance.

That's the speed increase in DX11. Throw in DirectCompute for physics and call me on the funeral ceremony of nVidia PhysX.

(I agree that it's harder to code physical integrals in DirectCompute than in PhysX - hey, I studied theoretical physics for 6 years! - but it does not matter. Hardware independent API pervails on hardware dependent API.)

 

[kageryu]

Is ATI gonna be releasing any new 5XXX cards soon that may cause the 5850's price to drop? I read something about the 5850x2 card but I couldn't find much info on its release date