512 MB video cards are finally here!

[AutoPilot]

ATI 512MB Radeon X800 XL

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/05/05/hex_2.jpg

ATI launched its first consumer 512MB graphics board this week, and we've been evaluating it for the past few days. Nvidia announced a 512MB part not so long ago, with a 6800 Ultra variant based on the Quadro FX 4400 hardware they've had in the professional space for a wee while. ATI's new product has no immediate pro-level pairing, and with Nvidia looking like it will bring a 512MB 6800 GT to the table soon, we're beginning to see the arrival of true half-a-gig consumer products.

Full Review:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/05/05/review_ati_512mb_radeon/

http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

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[Lengis]

Still not as good at Xbox 360's chipset http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

[IgWannA]

i can't imagine the extra memory giving much better frame rates. from the video card comparison on tom's hardware it seemed that the 256mb versions of ATI cards were only around 2% faster than the 128mb versions. that means that the 512mb one will probably only be 3$ faster than the 128mb one.

i'd much rather wait til new chips come out, rather than spending more for memory which makes F-all difference

[Nessus]

^ I agree. It seems with every generation of cards they release a second batch with 2x the memory the card can make use of.

[Cerberus_e]

hardware forum?
Damien already posted it there

[Orochi Avlis]

Nessus said:
^ I agree. It seems with every generation of cards they release a second batch with 2x the memory the card can make use of.


I think it's just a company's way of getting you to buy a product, thinking it's much more powerful.

I mean, if you barely knew anything about hardware, and you had the choice of buying a x850 256MB or a x850 512MB, you would probably go for the latter.
Of course there's the monetary influence as well, but I'm not taking that into account.

[Drazula]

Surprisingly Anandtech's review (http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2406) didn't push the cards to find the 512MB benefits. I like Guru 3D's review (http://www.guru3d.com/article/Videocards/211/) review much better, as it is more insightful.

[IgWannA]

according to that review, i was right in saying the 512 isn't any better than the 256. at least, not until more games (and GPUs) come out to take full advantage of it.

[Kristian Joensen]

Exactly the games will have to take advantage of it, os it can still make sense to buy a 512 MB card becuase you will be ready for games of the future.

[Kev_Boy]

Or so, one would think.

Once games begin to require 512MB then your GPU won't be fast enough anymore to do it fluently anyway. It's best just to wait with 512MB cards, it's nice to know for sure now http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

[Damien_Azreal]

So for the time being I could just go to a 256MB card and be good. I was seriously thinking of going for a 512MB card when they came out... but if thier not gonna be much better I'll just go one step.

And hopefully this'll make some 256MB PCI express cards a little cheaper.

[John]

I have a Radeon 9600PRO 256MB card.

It's done me good for the past 2 years. \o/

[Damien_Azreal]

John said:
I have a Radeon 9600PRO 256MB card.

It's done me good for the past 2 years. \o/



I have a 128MB x800... and it's doing great. Doom3, HL2, Riddick, Far Cry... every game I throw at it runs smooth as silk. Just thinking... maybe with F.E.A.R. and some others coming up a 256 model of this card could help.

[avatar_58]

I'm hoping my 6800 GT OC won't fail me in the next few years. From what I can pump out of my machine right now I don't have any worries. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

[Detharin]

Why by a 600 dollar card now with features no games use when by the time the games arrive the 300 dollar cards will have those some features?

[avatar_58]

Detharin said:
Why by a 600 dollar card now with features no games use when by the time the games arrive the 300 dollar cards will have those some features?



Because people want "the best". I wanted an ultra, but when I had to settle on the GT and found out just how good the thing really is.....I realised how stupid it is to try to have the best out there. Besides, the rest of my PC graciously makes up for it! http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

[DLT]

Lengis said:
Still not as good at Xbox 360's chipset http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif



But the 360 isn't out yet so I don't see how this is relevant http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

[NetNessie]

DLT said:

Lengis said:
Still not as good at Xbox 360's chipset http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif


But the 360 isn't out yet so I don't see how this is relevant http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif



Lengis is just a Microsoft-whore http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif.

Any idea of the price?

[Airtraffic]

Drazula said:
I like Guru 3D's review (http://www.guru3d.com/article/Videocards/211/) review much better, as it is more insightful.


Interesting that my card (X850) beats this in allmost all tests,seems the extra ram actually slows it down!

[dark_angel]

^^^^
It should. This is actualy an XL version, you can compare it to a Geforce 6800 GT.

[Raidomarek]

we need to wait until Radeon X850 XL PE



AS u saw, PE version with 256 mb of ram owned the 512 card to the bits....

even in doom 3 with ULTRA details!

[DudeMiester]

Well the 6800 Ultras with 512MB are due to come out very soon, so well see what the extra RAM does when coupled with a top of the line card. Although I don't expect anything fantastic, like it was previously stated, games need to be designed to use the memory. Also, another very good point is that lately IHVs have been spending little time integrating better compression algorithms into their cards. Certainly, with the complexity of GPUs these days they can spare some silicon for better compression techniques.

[AutoPilot]

I have a Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition (256 megs).

After seeing these benchmarks, I said WTF?, how can my 256 meg card run Doom 3 faster than a 512 meg card on Ultra High.

I ran the game on Ultra High and absolutely *nothing* is different. All other settings are at their highest. The screenshots are identical and the game runs at a constant 60 fps (I'm presuming that the FPS are capped at 60 in the ini file).

So my guess is that nothing happens unless the game knows your video card has 512 megs.

If that's the case, that would cast some doubt on the benchmarks by Anandtech and Beyond 3D. That would explain why the FPS are higher for the 256 meg card over the 512 meg card (because Ultra-high does nothing to the 256 meg card).

On a side note: the max video res I can run at is 1024 x 768 until I get my new 24" widescreen LCD. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

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[AutoPilot]

Update as to what the 516megs is used for in Doom 3.

http://www.beyond3d.com/reviews/sapphire/512/index.php?p=tb

ok, Sooooo... Ultra-Hhigh doesn't change the visual effects - the quality is identical - it just acts the same way more SYSTEM RAM works - it simply holds more data to prevent a FPS drop at the two places in the game where the card needs to dump and load some textures.

What's interesting is that other than these two places where the memory swap occurs in a level, My 256meg X850 XT PE noticeably and consistantly *outperforms* the 512meg X800 XL.

OK with me!

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[Steve]

That will cost an arm and a leg. No thanks http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[Destroyer]

I wouldnt get that yet gonna be too much $ for not a huge performancec increase of the good 256mb ones.

[Dr. Kill]

AutoPilot said:
ATI 512MB Radeon X800 XL

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/05/05/hex_2.jpg

ATI launched its first consumer 512MB graphics board this week, and we've been evaluating it for the past few days. Nvidia announced a 512MB part not so long ago, with a 6800 Ultra variant based on the Quadro FX 4400 hardware they've had in the professional space for a wee while. ATI's new product has no immediate pro-level pairing, and with Nvidia looking like it will bring a 512MB 6800 GT to the table soon, we're beginning to see the arrival of true half-a-gig consumer products.

Full Review:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/05/05/review_ati_512mb_radeon/

http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

-=AutoPilot=-



And I thought my Voodoo 5 was huge!

[FullMetalJacket]

What a waste. I'll just wait for DNF or the first DirectX 10 cards, whichever comes first, before I upgrade.

[Night Hacker]

IgWannA said:
i can't imagine the extra memory giving much better frame rates. from the video card comparison on tom's hardware it seemed that the 256mb versions of ATI cards were only around 2% faster than the 128mb versions. that means that the 512mb one will probably only be 3$ faster than the 128mb one.

i'd much rather wait til new chips come out, rather than spending more for memory which makes F-all difference



A 1024x768 32bit screen requires 8Megs of memory. A game using page flipping (most 3D games) will use 16megs. The rest is for textures and other images. Unless a game uses highres textures and alot of them, you won't see much (if any) difference in your frame rate.

Not worth buying, at least not yet.

[KillerByte]

Night Hacker said:
A 1024x768 32bit screen requires 8Megs of memory.



Actually:

1024 x 768 = 786,432 pixels.

768,432 pixels x 32 bits per pixel = 25,165,824 bits.

25,165,824 bits / 8 (bits per byte) = 3,145,728 bytes.

3,145,728 bytes / 1024 (bytes per kilobyte) = 3,072 kilobytes.

3,072 / 1024 (kilobytes per megabyte) = [u]3MB</u>.


Night Hacker said:
Unless a game uses highres textures and alot of them, you won't see much (if any) difference in your frame rate.



This will become more commonplace as more people buy higher end video cards. With the next generation consoles supporting high definition graphics, PC gamers are going to want their games to look the same graphically.

[DudeMiester]

Well actually you'll also have 32 bits more between depth and stencil, so it will take 6MB of space. Of course, the way we are going now indicates mostly floating point framebuffers, in which case at FP16 the colour is now 64bit, so now it takes 9MB. Of course, we may go as far as FP32, causeing that framebuffer to be a whopping, 15MB!

[Night Hacker]

3MB, you're right. Where in the hell did I get 8Megs from?! heh... sheesh... I think my old Voodoo 3-2000 has a whopping 16Megs! heh.

Newer games might take advantage of the extra memory, but I doubt that will be for quite a while yet. I wouldn't go running out buying one. Mine has 128Megs and I am running everything at the maximum settings for quality.

I can think of much better things to spend my money on.

[Enragiated]

I still have my riva tnt from the quake 1 days, back when I let my computer gather so much dust it short circuted

[Night Hacker]

My current video card is a BFG 6800 OC and I am quite pleased with it. Before this I had a (still have it, but in another computer) GeForce FX5200 and I managed to run Doom 3 with it. heh.

Doom3 will take advantage of a 512 card but I honestly don't think the small improvement in quality will be worth the extra cost.

[Nexus_sa]

I'm picking up my X850 XT tonight. Not 512mb (only 256) but I think it's going to do quite nicely for a while http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

[Descent]

Actually, 512 MB has a bigger cache memory, which can be useful in playing games. First startup, it loads very fast, then when you, for example, load a game or change level, it takes ½ the time..

Doom 3, for example, is like they say possible for ultra high resolution textures, only available for 512 MB..?

I noticed this difference when I had 2 exactly same cards, but with 128 / 256 MB memory. I could actually see it load everything faster..

512 MB still seems a bit dodgy http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/doh.gif

[DudeMiester]

512MB isn't going to make your levels load any faster. All it will allow is for more data to be stored on the videocard, this mean you can have larger levels with less swapping from system RAM. This swapping kills your performance, as seen in Doom 3 where sometimes the game will stop as textures are loaded when you enter a new room.

[Twin]

DLT said:

Lengis said:
Still not as good at Xbox 360's chipset http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif



But the 360 isn't out yet so I don't see how this is relevant http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif



give it a few months after the release of x-box 360 and we'll see graphics cards twice as powerful as those seen in the 360 and ps3....the only reason ati and nvidia don't release a more powerful card right now is probably because of contracts and things like that stopping them...

[Descent]

DudeMiester said:
512MB isn't going to make your levels load any faster. All it will allow is for more data to be stored on the videocard, this mean you can have larger levels with less swapping from system RAM. This swapping kills your performance, as seen in Doom 3 where sometimes the game will stop as textures are loaded when you enter a new room.



That depends on the game.
If you look at Far Cry, it loads EVERYTHING up in the beginning, hence the loading time. That makes everything already unpacked, so your computer doesn't have to load everything up later.

[FireFly]

Descent said:
That depends on the game.
If you look at Far Cry, it loads EVERYTHING up in the beginning, hence the loading time. That makes everything already unpacked, so your computer doesn't have to load everything up later.


Even if that's true (and it can't load "everything" if you don't have enough video RAM), how does more capacity = faster loading times? Fewer loading areas, maybe (and remember we're talking about texture not geometry data here), but I don't see why existing loading times would be faster.


Twin said:
give it a few months after the release of x-box 360 and we'll see graphics cards twice as powerful as those seen in the 360 and ps3....the only reason ati and nvidia don't release a more powerful card right now is probably because of contracts and things like that stopping them...


Well you'll need more than twice the power to match the efficiency gains made by the Xbox 360's GPU. Its unified shader architecture means it can devote a lot more horsepower to vertex processing, enabling for vast numbers of enemies to be on screen at once.

Example:

http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/615/615539/dead-rising-20050517062832191.jpg

[DudeMiester]

Umm... they 7800GTX is basically what's in the PS3, just with a lower clockspeed.

[Jeff]

RAM does help loading times a bit. Just don't go overkill with it. Some say that having 1.5 GB of RAM versus 1 GB of RAM will definately increase loading times. I'm not sure about this. It's like saying that a 2.8 GHz CPU is much faster than a 2.4 GHz CPU. Hardly noticable performance gain. Hard drives also play a role in loading times. Having a RAID 0 array at 7200 or 10,000 RPM speeds up loading times in your system. With video cards, you can hold more texture memory, like DM said, it doesn't have to use the swap file or RAM to access textures as much. It would do it less often. My video card has 256 MB of VRAM. I don't notice that much of a performance loss, if any. Even in HL2. Most games allow you to preload texture files for faster level loading.

[DudeMiester]

Well system RAM could affect loading, because as it gets filled, data starts getting sent to virtual memory on the hard drive. Of course reading it off the harddrive is slow enough as it is, writing it back is just ridiculous. That would really hamper loading times. However, the videocard does use virtual RAM. It will just refuse to load anymore once it gets full, and the driver will load the necessary data from RAM (and virtual RAM) as it's needed, but this isn't until after loading and your actually in-game.