We already knew that AMD-ATI had succeeded to frighten nVidia with its new graphics cards, Radeon HD4850 and HD4870 (the latter are able to do as well as the nVidia GTX260, for less money). But the nVidia GTX280 graphics cards were left without real competition… up to the arrival of Radeon HD4870×2.

Two RV770 GPUs (identical to the one on the AMD Radeon HD4870 card and able to bring the raw power of a GTX280 card), this is the solution found by AMD-ATI. They did it before, they intend to win again.

The announcement arrives with two information bits important for potential purchasers and for nVidia: The price will be identical to the nVidia competition ($499) and the card will be sold starting 2nd August 2008.

nVidia reply? Maybe a “super GTX280″ that is still undescribed.

Absolutely not surprising news for people who read my post of yesterday about Radeon HD4870 performance: nVidia just announced a general price reduction for its new line of graphics cards in the GTX200 family. The GTX260 go under 300€ (still a little expensive to confront the Radeon HD4870 at 250€ and at a slightly higher performance point). The GTX280 fall under 450€.

Source: Hardware.fr.

This is the question asked by ArsTechnica in a confrontation between the latest of the fast-running graphics cards from nVidia and a few older cards. The conclusion is hard on them: The price is not right. It’s better to purchase a Palit 9800 GX2 for 150 dollars less. They even insist that all is in the price. You’d have to admit that 500+€ or $600+ cards could difficultly attract more than the most manic gamers.

After some searching, it seems possible to announce the very probable prices of the upcoming cards from nVidia and AMD-ATI:

• GeForce GTX 260: $449 (or maybe $399) in the US, 399€ (maybe 349€) in Europe
• GeForce GTX 280: $649 in the US, 599€ in Europe (street price at 575€)
• Radeon HD 4850: $249 in the US
• Radeon HD 4870: $349 in the US

It is worth noticing also that the performance of the nVidia GeForce cards starts to be evaluated by some web sites. It seems that -for the first time- it will be possible to buy a card able to run Crysis in its highest settings (there was none up to now). The nVidia GeFroce GTX280 should be capable of 30+ fps in High quality settings, 1920×1200 resolution (no AA). Of course, this shows that two GT 280 will be able to run Crysis to Maximum settings, on an enormous screen configuration of 2560×1600 with FSAA4x. That should make a blindingly fast and nice configuration, but power dissipation (heat! burning heat!) will still be enourmous.

At a lower performance level, people want to compare the HD4870 with the GTX 260. But we do not seem to have figures for the best AMD Radeon parts. Only for the Radeon HD 4850. The board should be roughly equivalent to a GeFroce 9600 GTX.

Last minute correction (via The Inquirer): There is a Turkish web site outting details and the Radeon 4870 will shoot the existing nVidia 9800GTX out of its water (performance improvements between 38% and 48%), while the Radeon 4850 is aiming at the 8800GT (performance improvements between 36% and 48%).

All in all, this is going to really create the anticipated earth-quake. All fans of the Green Goblin (nVidia) will find reasons to rejoice about the stratospheric performance point reached by the GT280. The fans of AMD-ATI (and some stock market investors) will remind us that performance is not all; The AMD products are perfectly aimed to grab the central market of most users (around and over $200) in the coming months.

Sources: The Inquirer, Hardware-Infos, OC Workbench, Presence PC, Donanim Haber.

The newest graphics cards from nVidia are upon us. In less than a week, they should be officially launched, but nearly everybody seems to know what there is to know about this new generation of cards targetting both avid video gamers and lovers of cinema-on-the-PC. Let’s do a small summary.

First, there will be a very large line of different cards. There will be a GeForce 9300 and GeForce 9400, both based upon the previous generation of technology, but hitting the market at very low prices – 120$. Higher in the range, there will be first the GTX 260 then the superb (and probably expensive) GTX 280. Performance figures start to flow onto the Internet (apparently many people have difficulties complying with the confidentialty clauses of the NDA signed with nVidia). Both cards will be VERY powerful, but the GTX280 seems to be longer than usual (and so, may not usable in some PC).

Finally, let’s not forget that nVidia should launch all this on June 17th June 16th. Only a few days to wait before every web site will show us all the details.

Every rumour points at a change of pace in the war between GPU designers (designers of processors for graphics cards), nVidia and AMD are preparing a big battle for this Summer.

While we have been observing a rush for always bigger GPU (G80 and R600 from nVidia and AMD-ATI are even bigger than central CPUs from Intel and AMD), we should see the arrival of the first modular processors for grpahics cards: one chip only for cheap products, but 4 or 8 for the high-end graphics card. It will be easier to design the silicium, and you will only have to choose how many GPUs you need on the video card. The question is still to know if this will be refelcted in the announcements of this Summer or in 2009.

Some photos of the ATI Radeon HD4800 line are now available on the Tom’s Hardware – Taiwan web site.

The long-expected HD4800 series from AMD will arrive on June 18th (with two cards: HD4850 and HD4870). The only limitation would be waiting for availability of GDDR-5-type memory (yet another memory technology for a new graphics technology). A turbo version HD 4870X2 (two high-end chips GPU on the same board) would be ready in Fall.

The HD4850 should be a performance boost over the current HD3850, but the HD4870 is expected to be a plain twice more powerful than the already nice HD3870X2. Let’s kick ass…

nVidia just revealed its low-cost GTX260 and a hig-performance GTX280. These would be the last launches before modular series. Under the public name of GT 9800 GTX with no less than 240 shader processors, 32 raster units, 1 GB of GDDR3, and a moderate 512-bit memory interface. The fastest version should be named GT 9900 GTX.

So, let’s look at the laucnhes in the sun and let’s watch the technological announcements for Fall (AMD R700 and nVidia G9x). The marketroids from both companies are cleaning their weapons under the eyes of video game players.

I waited a little while before reacting and writing, but these recent last weeks we have witnessed an interesting move in the little world of graphics cards. While ATI (now AMD) has recently been relegated to the troublingly systematic position of follower or challenger in the competition for the pockets of PC graphics cards buyers, they finally reacted through two noticeable actions:

• On the one hand, in the lower-end of the range, AMD/ATI launched a new nice price solution under $100: The new HD 3400 and HD 3600 are there to grab the awards for the lowest prices and simultaneous 3D graphics (DirectX 10.1, but don’t expect them to be enough for a crusher like Crysis) and HD video capacity (1920×1080p Full-HD resolution). The HD3400-based boards could even go under $65!
• On the other hand, at the star-end of the range which was recently left to nVidia, here is a solution obviously attractive even if not elegant: HD 3870 x2. When you’re short on performance, you can always double it by grouping 2 GPU on 1 card and crash prices down to kick the hell out of your competitors. It’s not 100% perfect (some games will not be optimized for two graphics cores) but this is a (realtively) easy technical solution to setup. ATI did it and robbed the limie light from nVidia (at least for now).

Ok! This is not enough to forget the raw performance of the nVidia boards. But it is interesting to see how AMD/ATI fights with all available tricks to be able to come back a little later with some still-undisclosed new graphics cards.