ChrisW

Yes, there are bugs with individual games and the A.I. setting fixes them, which is what has been happening with all graphics card drivers from all manufacturers for many, many years. The performance increase or drop all depends on the game/program and the associated bug.

I happen to agree with some of your objections to the other things and I’m certainly no ATI apologist.

BWX

How about ATI hardware with Nvidia making the drivers for it? That's what I want.
I hate the CCC and all the other things the ATI drivers can't do, like custom resolutions, locking refresh rates per resolution, and game profiles for example. ATI hardware, to me, is better though. I don't see forums with hundreds of people reporting the conditions their x1900 cards died in... probably because they don't die anywhere near as often.

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ChrisW

Per game/application detection by the drivers to fix bugs or provide optimizations has always been a part of graphics card drivers and has been going on for years before it was ever discovered. Catalyst A.I. was simply providing a name and control over a feature that has probably been present forever (and yes, nVidia does it too). After nVidia announced their official position on optimizations, ATI asked their users what they should do. Some people wanted all optimizations turned off (A.I. Off). It was pointed out that doing so would make certain programs not function correctly due to bug fixes (A.I. Normal). Some people thought optimizations were fine as long as it did not alter image quality (nVidia's official position, A.I. Advanced). Instead of choosing one, they gave it a name and allowed us to choose which one we wanted.

BWX

So when does an optimization and bug fix become one? Just curious.

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Zardon

Well its an interesting thought I guess but it is not a road we have ever gone down on DH. Nvidia have not gave us any stipulation to testing the hardware apart from supplying the card and we get the drivers from nzone - just like anyone else would do so when buying the hardware.

I have very strong views on this and regardless of whether people believe me or not, this site does not pander to any political agendas to specific hardware companies.

For example we recently went to intel in munich and were shown Conroe benchmarks, this basically involved us sitting at a few systems and running prebuilt benchmarks on prebuilt systems. We then had the opportunity to publish these results and get a large number of hits in doing so. We declined to publish these results because we want to build the systems, we want to install the testing software and we want to ensure we test it the way we want, not the way any company feels is necessary to force upon us. Intel have a conroe setup with us now, so we will test this system thoroughly and report the findings when we are finished, and as accurately as we can. It would be a disservice to our public to not do so.

The same applies with nvidia or ATI, neither of these companies are heavy handed in their approach and neither force any testing methodology just "so we get hardware" to review, they are equally fair and equally appreciate our audience. I think it is somewhat a net myth that nvidia come round to your door and sit with you while you test their hardware making sure you run what they say. That is ludicrous. They arent the evil twin to ATI.....

This has been an interesting debate and I understand where ChrisW is coming from to a certain extent however please be aware this is not a GX2 v X1900 head to head review. It is a real world test with various setups running default quality settings to give an overall (and again real world) overview of how each piece of hardware handles a specific series of game results. In doing so we aim to inform our readers of possible increases/decreases and/or gains with their favourite games. Out of the box experiences are very important, I for one run all Nvidia games on my 7900GTX sli setup at "quality" and have done extensive testing with "high quality" and can see no difference in 95% of games. certainly under thorough photoshop analysis there has been some minor differences, but this does not in anyway affect ingame experiences and certainly no more than running Catalyst AI on or off - I feel people need to get away from another common myth that Nvidia IQ is vastly inferior, yes there was a time when NV IQ was drastically lower than ATI's but in 2006 this is no longer the case - yes I agree that Nvidia's AA isnt quite in the league of ATI's but on a default driver "out of the box" setting I find them very comparible and of the highest standard. It is also worth noting that we did run high IQ settings on a dedicated page for those interested, so I feel we have covered all bases and given the end user (hopefully) an educated, informed and entertaining look at how the GX2 would perform powering their gaming system.

Obviously you are our audience and we value all your opinions and we do read all the emails you send and the posts on the forums, that is why and how our forum and reviews have changed over the years, and I think for the better.

BWX

Interesting, maybe I should try running "quality" instead of "high quality".. I have never even looked at a game without going into the NV CP and setting it up for maximum IQ (all performance tweaks turned off). Maybe I could get a little more speed with just "quality", I'll have to try it.

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ChrisW

Thanks. If you say it, I know it must be true. It would be hypocritical of me not to criticize this review for the same things I criticize other reviewers for.
As far as the quality difference...that is not my objection. My point is that optimizations are being allowed on one card while not on the other. It is just as possible that the "Quality" setting may provide just as good of an image as "High Quality" on the ATI card, while providing a modest performance increase.

It can be said that ATI's 6x FSAA is of equal or better quality than nVidia's 8x. That said, nobody affords ATI the luxury of benchmarking these methods together (and see wonderful benchmark numbers). But it is perfectly acceptable to benchmark "Quality" on one card and "High Quality" on the other.

Shocky

If it happens it happens, if its going to fail id rather it did it sooner rather then later..

BWX

Well, I can't disagree with that. LOL..

To anyone else, if you go with Nvidia, go with EVGA. (just from my own personal experience)
They have the best customer service, better than any company I have ever dealt with.. They are so completely fair with the customer, and so "on top" of every little thing. Customer service like that goes a long way.

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me972

Hi..

I posted this: http://www.hardwareheaven.com/showthre...804#post923804

a few weeks ago... great card.. its a moster.

have a great day.
me972

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Intel 2600K - ASRock Fatality1 Pro(Gen3) -16GB Ram 8-8-8-24 - M4 128GB

Sandok

Wow you must be the kinda person that with Catalyst AI on would actually SEE a difference...

ronnn

Actually to use aa with hdr in oblivion catalyst ai must be enabled. AI is just game specific optimizations - should not effect IQ at low settings. Anyways most give Ati the IQ crown, but nv holds the fps per power crown. Now if they could only cooperate....

korda

Great review guys. Looks like a sweet card.

Big surprise to see Mr whiney commenting about IQ... Yawn.

SFOSOK

So Ya'll givin it away?


lol please : (

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*Warning* - Explicit Content Preceeding



METAL!!

madx

I had this card for about a week. I didn't like it because it ran very hot and put extra heat stress on my rig. I decided after years of using Nvidia products to send this card back and go with a ATI - X1900 XTX. I hope I did the right thing.

CDsDontBurn

lol.....i almost picked up a job at eVGA for customer support . didn't thought because they needed someone full time and to work weird hours (it is 24hrs. after all ), and it would interfere w/my schooling. my friend who almost got me the job does work for the customer support center, so if you call customer support, it's likely you'll speak w/him, lol. at least for the states.....dunno about anywhere else in the world

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