[O/C]Are ATI and NVIDIA Running in the Same Race?

mdcomp · Nov 24, 2009

Are ATI and NVIDIA Running in the Same Race?
by ratbuddy

Now that several outlets have released both the performance numbers for the ATI HD 5870 (see Anandtech, Tom’s Hardware and [H]ardOCP) and the official specifications for the Fermi, we can draw some conclusions regarding their expected performance.

Despite having double the Stream Processors (SPs) as compared to the HD 4870 (1600 vs. 800), the HD 5870 does not perform 2x faster. It runs neck and neck with the 4870X2 which also sported 1600 SPs, although on two separate GPUs. On the memory front, there is roughly 30% more bandwidth available to the HD 5870 compared to the HD 4870. All in all, decent improvements, and about as expected for a GPU that is essentially a 4870X2 on a single die. Yes, there are DX11 instructions and other tweaks, but the HD 5870 only offers minor performance gains in the latest games.

Click here to continue reading.

Discuss this article below. If you are interested in contributing to the front page (www.overclockers.com), please feel free to contact me.

Thanks,
Matt (mdcomp)

I.M.O.G. · Nov 25, 2009

Thanks Ben, I enjoyed reading this - it was really a well written perspective.

John1975 · Nov 25, 2009

performance numbers for the NVIDIA HD 5870

Small question, should this not read as below?

performance numbers for the ATI HD 5870

Other than that, good job!

ratbuddy · Nov 25, 2009

John1975 said:
performance numbers for the NVIDIA HD 5870

Small question, should this not read as below?

performance numbers for the ATI HD 5870

Other than that, good job!

I don't know who the hell edited the thing but it sure didn't say that when I submitted it. Quote from my locally saved copy:

Now that the numbers(http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3643&p=1) are(http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-5870,2422.html) in(http://www.hardocp.com/article/2009/09/22/amds_ati_radeon_hd_5870_video_card_review) on the HD 5870, and the specifications(http://www.nvidia.com/object/io_1254288141829.html) released for Fermi, we can draw some conclusions regarding the expected performance gap.

I.M.O.G. · Nov 25, 2009

Looking at this now. Sorry for confusion.

EDIT: Fixed. With the launch yesterday, there was a flurry of activity which wasn't well managed. This included a lot of rapid edits to a lot of articles. It has now been corrected and thank you for bringing it to our attention!

Temo Vryce · Nov 25, 2009

The article itself is fixed, but the front page news teaser is still reading Nvidia HD 5870.

Nice article though.

I.M.O.G. · Nov 25, 2009

Fixed again. Thanks for the heads up.

mdcomp · Nov 25, 2009

Whoops, I'll take credit for that. Totally my bad. There is no Find and Replace like in MS WORD, so I kind of went through too quickly.

Great article though! Read it like 4 times, Doh!

Matt

MattNo5ss · Nov 25, 2009

mdcomp said:
Whoops, I'll take credit for that. Totally my bad. There is no Find and Replace like in MS WORD, so I kind of went through too quickly.

Great article though! Read it like 4 times, Doh!

Matt

Considering how many articles you guys have to read, I'm impressed that there aren't more careless errors/typos.

Good job, ratbuddy!

Shiggity · Nov 25, 2009

Good article, but would have liked to see more discussion on HPC.

ratbuddy · Nov 25, 2009

Shiggity said:
Good article, but would have liked to see more discussion on HPC.

I got ideas brewing on that front, as well as a few other things. That was just a gaming performance opinion thingy :beer:

Shiggity · Nov 25, 2009

ratbuddy said:
I got ideas brewing on that front, as well as a few other things. That was just a gaming performance opinion thingy

Nice, lemme know if you want / need any help.

I.M.O.G. · Nov 26, 2009

Shiggity said:
Nice, lemme know if you want / need any help.

Your welcome to write your own stuff too.

Help is always appreciated with articles however if you prefer working with someone.

ratbuddy · Nov 26, 2009

Shiggity said:
Nice, lemme know if you want / need any help.

I'm trying to wrap my head around single precision vs double precision, and exactly why it matters, but my math abilities are not so great. If you want to help with that angle, and can translate it all into English, well, welcome aboard

SuperDave1685 · Nov 26, 2009

I don't understand this article. I think you forgot to address the issue of driver maturity. Its seems as if you wrote this article before the 5970 could even get off the shelves? Even if Fermi is as good as its' specs say it is, Nvidia has lost a significant edge with not releasing cards to compete with the 5xxx series on time. Add to that Nvidia's re-naming old technology scheme, and you have a market ripe for ATI's picking. I for one, hope team red can win this round, as I have stock in AMD and would like them to do well.. Just my 2 cents. But as always, competition is great, and I look forward to the Fermi line of video cards.

ratbuddy · Nov 26, 2009

SuperDave1685 said:
I don't understand this article. I think you forgot to address the issue of driver maturity. Its seems as if you wrote this article before the 5970 could even get off the shelves? Even if Fermi is as good as its' specs say it is, Nvidia has lost a significant edge with not releasing cards to compete with the 5xxx series on time. Add to that Nvidia's re-naming old technology scheme, and you have a market ripe for ATI's picking. I for one, hope team red can win this round, as I have stock in AMD and would like them to do well.. Just my 2 cents. But as always, competition is great, and I look forward to the Fermi line of video cards.

I did submit the article before the 5970 was released. I do stand by my educated guess that a single GPU Fermi card will beat a dual GPU 5970, though. If not, it's going to be close, and really, either card is more power than any modern game needs :beer:

edit: Oh yeah, I don't think the market is ripe for ATI's picking until they can actually get their next-gen cards onto shelves

dribblesnort · Nov 27, 2009

I read it but as far as I'm concerned, there's no race going on.

Specifications don't render games. ATI is the only mfgr with product on the shelves.

Race? LOL.

Neural Net · Nov 27, 2009

A little too much skewed speculation there. Not very balanced and assumes great things from Fermi just because it's a different architecture, and there's no comparison of theoretical performance numbers on paper versus practical performance that we could learn from the last generation. Namely the higher TeraFLOPS performance of the 4870 X2 compared to the GTX 295 but the actual lower real world performance.

As it's only speculation, adding that in would have made for a more rounded article, IMO.

ratbuddy · Nov 27, 2009

Neural Net said:
A little too much skewed speculation there. Not very balanced and assumes great things from Fermi just because it's a different architecture, and there's no comparison of theoretical performance numbers on paper versus practical performance that we could learn from the last generation. Namely the higher TeraFLOPS performance of the 4870 X2 compared to the GTX 295 but the actual lower real world performance.

As it's only speculation, adding that in would have made for a more rounded article, IMO.

I was just looking at known performance of the GTX 280/285 with 240 SPs compared to the Fermi's 512, as well as the memory bandwidth difference. I don't think the HPC related stuff is going to change much to do with gaming performance. As far as that goes, it's not really a different architecture at all. Ditto for the 5870 compared to 4870. Both 'next gen' cards are pretty much the same but made smaller so they can cram more in.

Neural Net · Nov 27, 2009

ratbuddy said:
I was just looking at known performance of the GTX 280/285 with 240 SPs compared to the Fermi's 512, as well as the memory bandwidth difference. I don't think the HPC related stuff is going to change much to do with gaming performance. As far as that goes, it's not really a different architecture at all. Ditto for the 5870 compared to 4870. Both 'next gen' cards are pretty much the same but made smaller so they can cram more in.

Fermi is rated at 3 TeraFLOPS isn't it?

[O/C]Are ATI and NVIDIA Running in the Same Race?

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