AMD's Radeon HD 5870: Bringing About the Next Generation Of GPUs
by Ryan Smith on September 23, 2009 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Lower Idle Power & Better Overcurrent Protection
One aspect AMD was specifically looking to improve in Cypress over RV770 was idle power usage. The load power usage for RV770 was fine at 160W for the HD4870, but that power usage wasn’t dropping by a great deal when idle – it fell by less than half to 90W. Later BIOS revisions managed to knock a few more watts off of this, but it wasn’t a significant change, and even later designs like RV790 still had limits to their idling abilities by only being able to go down to 60W at idle.
As a consequence, AMD went about designing the Cypress with a much, much lower target in mind. Their goal was to get idle power down to 30W, 1/3rd that of RV770. What they got was even better: they came in past that target by 10%, hitting a final idle power of 27W. As a result the Cypress can idle at 30% of the power as RV770, or as compared to Cypress’s load power of 188W, some 14% of its load power.
Accomplishing this kind of dramatic reduction in idle power usage required several changes. Key among them has been the installation of additional power regulating circuitry on the board, and additional die space on Cypress assigned to power regulation. Notably, all of these changes were accomplished without the use of power-gating to shut down unused portions of the chip, something that’s common on CPUs. Instead all of these changes have been achieved through more exhaustive clock-gating (that is, reducing power consumption by reducing clock speeds), something GPUs have been doing for some time now.
The use of clock-gating is quickly evident when we discuss the idle/2D clock speeds of the 5870, which is 150mhz for the core, and 300mhz for the memory . The idle clock speeds here are significantly lower than the 4870 (550/900), which in the case of the core is the source of its power savings as compared to the 4870. As tweakers who have attempted to manually reduce the idle clocks on RV770 based cards for further power savings have noticed, RV770 actually loses stability in most situations if its core clock drops too low. With the Cypress this has been rectified, enabling it to hit these lower core speeds.
Even bigger however are the enhancements to Cypress’s memory controller, which allow it to utilize a number of power-saving tricks with GDDR5 RAM, along with other features that we’ll get to in a bit. With RV770’s memory controller, it was not capable of taking advantage of very many of GDDR5’s advanced features besides the higher bandwidth abilities. Lacking this full bag of tricks, RV770 and its derivatives were unable to reduce the memory clock speed, which is why the 4870 and other products had such high memory clock speeds even at idle. In turn this limited the reduction in power consumption attained by idling GDDR5 modules.
With Cypress AMD has implemented nearly the entire suite of GDDR5’s power saving features, allowing them to reduce the power usage of the memory controller and the GDDR5 modules themselves. As with the improvements to the core clock, key among the improvement in memory power usage is the ability to go to much lower memory clock speeds, using fast GDDR5 link re-training to quickly switch the memory clock speed and voltage without inducing glitches. AMD is also now using GDDR5’s low power strobe mode, which in turn allows the memory controller to save power by turning off the clock data recovery mechanism. When discussing the matter with AMD, they compared these changes to putting the memory modules and memory controller into a GDDR3-like mode, which is a fair description of how GDDR5 behaves when its high-speed features are not enabled.
Finally, AMD was able to find yet more power savings for Crossfire configurations, and as a result the slave card(s) in a Crossfire configuration can use even less power. The value given to us for an idling slave card is 20W, which is a product of the fact that the slave cards go completely unused when the system is idling. In this state slave cards are still capable of instantaneously ramping up for full-load use, although conceivably AMD could go even lower still by powering down the slave cards entirely at a cost of this ability.
On the opposite side of the ability to achieve such low idle power usage is the need to manage load power usage, which was also overhauled for the Cypress. As a reminder, TDP is not an absolute maximum, rather it’s a maximum based on what’s believed to be the highest reasonable load the card will ever experience. As a result it’s possible in extreme circumstances for the card to need power beyond what its TDP is rated for, which is a problem.
That problem reared its head a lot for the RV770 in particular, with the rise in popularity of stress testing programs like FurMark and OCCT. Although stress testers on the CPU side are nothing new, FurMark and OCCT heralded a new generation of GPU stress testers that were extremely effective in generating a maximum load. Unfortunately for RV770, the maximum possible load and the TDP are pretty far apart, which becomes a problem since the VRMs used in a card only need to be spec’d to meet the TDP of a card plus some safety room. They don’t need to be able to meet whatever the true maximum load of a card can be, as it should never happen.
Why is this? AMD believes that the instruction streams generated by OCCT and FurMark are entirely unrealistic. They try to hit everything at once, and this is something that they don’t believe a game or even a GPGPU application would ever do. For this reason these programs are held in low regard by AMD, and in our discussions with them they referred to them as “power viruses”, a term that’s normally associated with malware. We don’t agree with the terminology, but in our testing we can’t disagree with AMD about the realism of their load – we can’t find anything that generates the same kind of loads as OCCT and FurMark.
Regardless of what AMD wants to call these stress testers, there was a real problem when they were run on RV770. The overcurrent situation they created was too much for the VRMs on many cards, and as a failsafe these cards would shut down to protect the VRMs. At a user level shutting down like this isn’t a very helpful failsafe mode. At a hardware level shutting down like this isn’t enough to protect the VRMs in all situations. Ultimately these programs were capable of permanently damaging RV770 cards, and AMD needed to do something about it. For RV770 they could use the drivers to throttle these programs; until Catalyst 9.8 they detected the program by name, and since 9.8 they detect the ratio of texture to ALU instructions (Ed: We’re told NVIDIA throttles similarly, but we don’t have a good control for testing this statement). This keeps RV770 safe, but it wasn’t good enough. It’s a hardware problem, the solution needs to be in hardware, particularly if anyone really did write a power virus in the future that the drivers couldn’t stop, in an attempt to break cards on a wide scale.
This brings us to Cypress. For Cypress, AMD has implemented a hardware solution to the VRM problem, by dedicating a very small portion of Cypress’s die to a monitoring chip. In this case the job of the monitor is to continually monitor the VRMs for dangerous conditions. Should the VRMs end up in a critical state, the monitor will immediately throttle back the card by one PowerPlay level. The card will continue operating at this level until the VRMs are back to safe levels, at which point the monitor will allow the card to go back to the requested performance level. In the case of a stressful program, this can continue to go back and forth as the VRMs permit.
By implementing this at the hardware level, Cypress cards are fully protected against all possible overcurrent situations, so that it’s not possible for any program (OCCT, FurMark, or otherwise) to damage the hardware by generating too high of a load. This also means that the protections at the driver level are not needed, and we’ve confirmed with AMD that the 5870 is allowed to run to the point where it maxes out or where overcurrent protection kicks in.
On that note, because card manufacturers can use different VRMs, it’s very likely that we’re going to see some separation in performance on FurMark and OCCT based on the quality of the VRMs. The cheapest cards with the cheapest VRMs will need to throttle the most, while luxury cards with better VRMs would need to throttle little, if at all. This should make little difference in stock performance on real games and applications (since as we covered earlier, we can’t find anything that pushes a card to excess) but it will likely make itself apparent in overclocking. Overclocked cards - particularly those with voltage modifications – may hit throttle situations in normal applications, which means the VRMs will make a difference here. It also means that overclockers need to keep an eye on clock speeds, as the card shutting down is no longer a tell-tale sign that you’re pushing it too hard.
Finally, while we’re discussing the monitoring chip, we may as well talk about the rest of its features. Along with monitoring the GPU, it also is a PWM controller. This means that the PWM controller is no longer a separate part that card builders add themselves, and as such we won’t be seeing any cards using a 2pin fixed speed fan to save money on the PWM controller. All Cypress cards (and presumably, all derivatives) will have the ability to use a 4pin fan built-in.
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JarredWalton - Thursday, September 24, 2009 - link
And what was the 8800 GTX Ultimate other than a pathetic clock-speed bump? After that we waited for the GT200 series which launched at $600. It took ATI to bring the price down, just like it took NVIDIA to bring the ATI prices down.NVIDIA stagnated while they were on top, just like ATI with the 9700/9800. NVIDIA made a huge misstep with the FX 5800 series, and ATI did the same thing with the X1800 series (and to a lesser extent the X800 parts). All companies have good and bad times. (Pentium 4 ring a bell? What about the Phenom?)
Your posts on this article have contributed nothing whatsoever other than ranting. Paper or hard launch? Paper is when *nothing* is out for a few weeks (or longer). If NVIDIA "launched" GT300 today, that would be paper. ATI has 5870 parts, albeit in limited quantities. GTX 275 certainly wasn't any better than this, but long term it all evens out.
And who cares about how long a company produced the better product? What matters is what they have now. Pentium 4 stunk in comparison to Athlon 64; does that mean no one should even consider Core 2 or Core i7? According to your "logic" that's exactly what we should do. Give it a rest; when NVIDIA launches GT300, we'll see what it can do. We'll also see if it can compete on pricing. Being fastest is only part of the battle, and anything over $300 is going to be a lower selling part.
SiliconDoc - Thursday, September 24, 2009 - link
Well you are ABSOLUTELY LYING about the GTX275 availability, PERIOD.Next, you didn't refute a single thing I said, but more or less came closer to agreement in many ways, but were WRONG, too.
Now you've decided you can half heartedly claim both sides do the same thing, and even throw in AMD and Intel, let's get to your continuing bias.
You couldn't resist "pathetic clock increase" for the GT8800 Ultimate (would love to see where you said that about the 4890, or the HD2900XTX) , failed to note the OVERPRICED ati card I pointed out, and in your absolute ignorance and CYA, think "stagnation" is something that occurs when "on top" instead of just the natural time it takes to move forward with new technology, after having just completed a round of it.
Once a company makes it "on top" they HAVE SPENT their latest and greatest new tech, and IT TAKES TIME TO GET TO THE NEXT LEVEL.
However, in YOUR MINDS, that is "stagnation". You offer ABSOLUTELY NO TIMETABLE TO EVEN REMOTELY "PROVE" your insane assertion.
You simply want it "ACCEPTED", which is about the DUMBEST theory one can imagine anyway, and I already pointed out EXACTLY why it is SO STUPID.
Let me tell you again, so IT CAN SINK IN FELLA!
When a company "makes it on top" they have just spent their latest greatest newest wad of technology" - AND IT TAKES TIME TO IMPROVE ON THEIR OWN ACHIEVEMENT !
In fact, they, having just OUTDONE the competition, are to be expected to "NOT COME UP WITH SOME MASSIVE NEW WIN" for the second time, in a row, and "quickly" - the SECOND time, as you fools expect, and even SAY SO, without direct words, because of course, you are FOOLISH and have BOUGHT THE SPIN, like 3rd graders who cannot think for themselves.
You basically "expect the impossible" - another leap forward right after the one just accomplished, before anyone else can even catch up.
YES, IT IS IMMENSLY IDIOTIC! Now you know!
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You finally come to your senses a bit with: " All companies have good and bad times."
YES THEY DO. But not in your paranoid, conspiractorial, world of "stagnation" - once the top is reached. No, you expect a second miracle, in short order, and say so.
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You also excuse ATI's bad times I pointed - by kicking yourself in the face doing it, negating your OTHER conspiracy rant " And who cares about how long a company produced the better product? "
Well, if that were actually the case for you, you wouldn't have screamed about stagnation once a company is on top, because obviously YOU DEEPLY CARE ABOUT WHO HAS THE BETTER PRODUCT, AND FOR HOW LONG.
Not only that, you claim, once they are there, they turn flaccid and lazy.... and boy it burns you up !
ROFL, you CONTRADICT YOURSELF, and haven't got a clue you're doing it. That of course, means, that I have just made a major contribution TO YOU, straightening out your wacked conspiracy thinking, that no doubt was induced and locked in by the constant red fan hatred for nvidia, here at this site, over several years, and on the net widely, as well. Not like here is unique.
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Now, if you had sense, you'd be more likely to wonder why when some company is on top, that their competition cannot pass them up, or equal them, not "why they sit there stagnating" - meaning, in another sense, one we all relate to, it just drives you nuts the next thing isn't here already - because you, we, everyone wants the next greatest, and so, you BLAME the top dog for not fufilling your wish immediately, when, they just had, in fact, done so....
Yeah, there is NO END to how insane that rant of yours is, that the reds, widely repeat against Nvidia, and there is absolutely NO BASIS FOR IT AT ALL in reality.
Voo - Thursday, September 24, 2009 - link
Come on Jarred arguing with someone who actually believes"If either company dies, the other can move on, and there's very little chance that the company will remain stagnant, since then they won't sell anything, and will die, too."
won't do any good. I mean even my 13 year old nephew understands the basics of economy better than this guy.
I think every one in their right mind agrees that competition always leads to lower prices and more innovation.
Also I can't see where there should be any bias - things like the temp of the 2 ati cards are clearly stated in the article and everyone who can read graphs and the text should be able to get a clear picture of the new card.
Just because some people just read every other sentence doesn't mean the review is biased..
SiliconDoc - Thursday, September 24, 2009 - link
Here, let me point out another problem with your "basic understanding", which is the point you start at, remain at, and finish at:" won't do any good. I mean even my 13 year old nephew understands the basics of economy better than this guy.
I think every one in their right mind agrees that competition always leads to lower prices and more innovation. "
LET'S TAKE A CURRENT EXAMPLE: PhysX vs Havok vs Bullet Physics vs Pix - all various forms of in game "physics".
Well, what competition done with this ?
You might call it "innovation", but in this case, it should be called FRAGMENTATION, and STAGNATION - due to your "basic understanding" in economy, you can't fathom such a thing, because it doesn't apply to your pat cleche, which you can ATTACK unfairly with.
Now, if there was a MONOPOLY, ( which is what the red fans have been screaming for, a SINGLE STANDARD, thrust down the throats of all the card makers and game makers, they claim, "open standard" is the very best!), a real monopoly, not an EDICT from a "standards board", why we'd already havce advancement far beyond what we currently do with the fragmented players and implementations.
So, NO competition does not always lead to BETTER END USER expereince or FASTER technological implementation.
So much for you and your 13 year old's "understanding".
In this case, competition has led to fragmentation, and lack of implementation in games, and slower advancement, due to the competing players.
JarredWalton - Friday, September 25, 2009 - link
That was the worst "counter" to an argument I've ever read. Standards are not the same thing as a monopoly, and I don't even need to use all caps to get that point across. Standards are what we have with memory types, interfaces, and yes even graphics. A "monopoly" on graphics that has everyone move to one standard can be beneficial; certainly having four competing "standards" doesn't really help.Eventually, the market will select what works best. There used to be a question of OpenGL vs. Direct3D, and that discussion has all but ended. MS put the money and time into DirectX and actually improved it to the point where most programmers stopped caring about using the alternative.
That's why PhysX isn't gaining traction: it has to compete with Havok, which the vast majority of content creators appear to prefer. So NVIDIA can pay companies to use PhysX in games like Batman, but until they actually get people to willingly use their stuff instead of Havok (by improving PhysX), it's not going to "win". And what the companies really want is a standard that works on all hardware, so we're more likely to see OpenCL or Direct Compute take over instead of a proprietary PhysX API. Hence, our discussion in this article about how OpenCL and Direct Compute are promising APIs.
It's not fragmentation, any more than a choice between Chevron, Philips, BP, Texon, etc. is "fragmentation" of the oil industry. Just because one implementation isn't dominant doesn't mean the problem is because of competition. Eventually, some implementation will actually get it right and companies will go that route. Clearly that hasn't happened yet, and your beloved PhysX (two titles where it actually matters so far: Mirror's Edge and Batman) is losing based on merit and nothing else. If it was better, people would use it. End of discussion. I guess all the hyper intelligent programmers making amazing games are too stupid to realize how awesome PhysX is without getting help from NVIDIA. It's so great that they'll pay money to Havok to license that API rather than use PhysX for free.
A monopoly on hardware is a different matter, and again no one is screaming for a monopoly except perhaps for you. Nice job trying to add weight to your position by being a rabid fanboy and accusing the opposition of doing exactly what you're doing. If there is only one hardware vendor, what drives them to improve? Nothing but themselves, which leads to stagnation. It really is basic economics that's apparently too much for a fanboy to grasp. I'd like to see more CPU and GPU vendors (well, *good* vendors), but it's difficult to do properly and thus we remain with the current status quo.
Tell me this: how would it hurt anyone for Company X to enter the graphics market and make something that is clearly superior to ATI and NVIDIA offerings and is 100% compatible with current standards like DirectX and OpenGL? The only people that would potentially hurt would be ATI and NVIDIA employees and shareholders. Similarly, how would it hurt for Company Y to come out with a new API for physics that is clearly superior in every way to PhysX, Havok, etc? If it's better, it would become the new de facto standard. Having competition isn't the problem; the problem is competition between lousy options (i.e. GMC, Chrysler, Ford, and Chevy) when what we want is something better.
Now go ahead and use half-coherent ranting and capitals while you ignore everything meaningful in this post and put up another tirade about how stupid and horrible I am with no clear comprehension of reality. I'm done.
SiliconDoc - Friday, September 25, 2009 - link
What brought this on, dummy ?" A "monopoly" on graphics that has everyone move to one standard can be beneficial; certainly having four competing "standards" doesn't really help. "
Your sainted competition brought it on, you fool. You go on to claim "eventually one standard will be adopted", but by then the MONOPOLY POWER will have won in it's forcing it's choice DOWN EVERYONE ELSE'S THROAT.
The problem YOU HAVE, is you want YOUR MONOPOLY choice, and you want to claim, as you did, the "competition" isn't innovation, it's just plain bad, and for you, that is of course, being the reg rager you are, PhysX, which is clearly superior to any of the others.
BUT, you want YOUR CHOICE FORCED on EVERYONE ( like MSFT and it's xbox pushing that has driven the console implementations with a giant was of cash! LOL ), then you can blandly call it "a standard", and claim it's "the best choice", because "the market decided" in your brainwashed moron manner (because you don't like NVidia pushing but pretend when another player does so "it's innocent and natural" and "happened without such preszure".
ROFLMAO - boy you are sure a tool.
The funniest part of your current STUPIDITY, is that MICROSOFT THE MONOPOLY, has decided to push HAVOK for it's 360 and as competitive lockout against Larrabee competition, hence you LIE as a MONOPOLY uses power to force more crap into the developer channels. roflmao
But of course, the mind controlled by the standard lies is all you've shown in all your commentary.
Here are the 2 games, BTW.
Game Title Developer Platform
2 Days to Vegas Steel Monkeys PC
10 Balls 7 Cups Graveck iPod
50 Cent: Blood on the Sand Swordfish Studios PC
Adrenalin 2: Rush Hour Gaijin Entertainment PS3, X360
Age of Empires III Distineer Studios PC, Mac
Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties Distineer Studios Mac
Age of Empires III: The WarChiefs Distineer Studios Mac
Age of Pirates: Captain Blood 1C: Sea Dog PC, X360
Aliens: Colonial Marines Gearbox Software PC, PS3, X360
Alliance of Valiant Arms Redduck PC
Alpha Prime Black Element Software PC
American McGee's Grimm Spicy Horse PC
APB Realtime Worlds PC, PS3, X360
Army of Two Electronic Arts PS3, X360
Auto Assault Net Devil PC
AutoFans AP-Games PC
B.A.S.E. Jumping Digital Dimentions PC
Backbreaker Natural Motion PC, PS3, X360
Beowolf Ubisoft X360
Bet on Soldier: Blackout Saigon Kylotonn Entertainment PC
Bet on Soldier: Blood of Sahara Kylotonn Entertainment PC
Bet on Soldier: Blood Sport Kylotonn Entertainment PC
Big Fun Racing Decane iPod
Bionic Commando GRIN PC, PS3, X360
Bionic Commando: Rearmed GRIN PC, X360
Bladestorm: The Hundred Years' War Koei PS3, X360
Borderlands Gearbox Software PC, PS3, X360
Bourne Conspiracy High Moon Studios PS3, X360
Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway Gearbox Software PC, PS3, X360
Buble Bang Decane iPod
Caribbean Legends Seaward.Ru Team PC
Cellfactor: Combat Training Artifical Studios, Immersion Games PC
Cellfactor: Revolution Artifical Studios, Immersion Games PC
Champions Online Cryptic Studios PC
City of Villains Cryptic Studios PC
Clive Barker's Jericho MercurySteam Entertainment PC, X360
Cluth Targem Games PC
Cosmosis Midnight Status iPod
Crazy Machines II FAKT Software PC
Crusaders: Thy Kingdom Come Neocore PC
Cryostasis Action Forms PC
Dark Sector Digital Extremes PC, PS3, X360
Dark Void Airtight Games PC, PS3, X360
Darkest of Days Phantom EFX PC, X360
Debris Midnight Status iPod
Destroy All Humans! Path of the Furon Sandblast Games X360
Divinity 2: Ego Draconis Larian Studios PC, X360
Dracula Origin Frogwares PC
Dragon Age: Origins EA PC
Dragonshard Atari PC
Driver :: Test Squad Interactive Media PC
Drop Point: Alaska Bongfish Interactive Mac
Dungeon Hero Firefly Studios PC, X360
Dusk 12 Orion PC
Empire Above All IceHill PC
Empire Earth III Mad Dog Software PC
Empire Total War The Creative Assembly PC
Entropia Universe MindArk PC
Evil Resistance: Morning of the Dead Openoko Entertainment PC
Fahr Simulator 2009 Astragon Software PC
Fairy Tales: Three Heroes Cats Who Play
Fallen Earth Icarus Studios PC
Fatal Inertia KOEI PS3, X360
Frontlines: Fuel of War Kaos Studios PC, PS3, X360
Fury Auran Games PC
G.B.R. The Fast Response Group OPenoko Entertainment PC
Gears Of War Epic Games PC, X360
Gears of War 2 Epic Games X360
Gluk'Oza: Action GFI Russia PC
GooBall Ambrosia software Mac
Gothic 3 Piranha Bytes PC
Grind WebGames3D.com iPod
GTown Interactive Community 2.0 9you.com PC
Gunship Apocalypse FAKT Software PC
HAZE Free Radical Design X360
Heavy Rain Quantic Dream PC
Helldorado: Conspiracy Spellbound Entertainment PC, PS3
Hero's Journey Simutronics PC
Hour of Victory nFusion Interactive X360
Hunt, The Orion PC
Huxley Webzen, Inc PC, X360
I-Fluid Exkee PC
Infernal Metropolis Software PC
Inhabited Island: Prisoner of Power Orion PC
Joint Task Force Most Wanted Entertainment PC
Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom Blueside Inc. X360
Kran Simulator 2009 Astragon Software PC
Kuma\WAR Kuma Reality Games PC
Landwirtschafts Simulator 2008 Astragon Software PC
Landwirtschafts Simulator 2009 Astragon Software PC
The Last Remnant Squre Enix PC, X360
Legend: Hand of God Anaconda Games PC
Legendary Spark Unlimited PC, PS3, X360
Lost Odyssey Mistwalker X360
Lost: Via Domus Ubisoft PC, PS3, X360
Mafia 2 Illusion Softworks PC, PS3, X360
Magic ball 3 Alawar Entertaiment PC
Magic ball 4 Alawar Entertaiment PC
Mass Effect BioWare PC, X360
Medal of Honor: Airborne EA Los Angeles PC, X360
Metal Knight Zero Online ObjectSoftware Limited PC
Metro 2033 4A Games PC
Minotaur China Shop Flashbang Studios PC
Mirror's Edge DICE PC, PS3, X360
Mobile Suit Gundam: Crossfire BEC PS3
Monster Madness: Battle for Suburbia Artificial Studios PC, X360
Monster Madness: Gravedigger Artificial Studios PS3
Monster Truck Maniax Legendo Entertainment PC
Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe Midway PS3, X360
Mascow Racer IRS Games PC
Myst Online: URU Live Cyan Worlds PC
Need for Speed: Shift Electronic Arts PC
Nights: Journey of Dreams SEGA Wii
Night of a Million Billion Zombies PowerUP Studios PC
Nurien Nurien Software PC
Open Fire BlueTorch Studios PC
Parabellum ACONY PC, PS3, X360
Paragraph 78 Gaijin Entertainment PC
Physix Michael Wuhrer iPod
Pirate Hunter DIOsoft PC, X360
Pirates of the Burning Sea Flying Lab Software PC
Point Blank Barunson Interactive PC
Prey 2 Human Head PC, X360
PT Boats: Knights of the Sea Akella PC
Pyroblazer Eipix PC, Wii
QQ Speed Tencent Inc. PC
Rail Simulator Kuju Entertainment Ltd PC
Red Steel Ubisoft Paris Wii
Rise Of Nations: Rise Of Legends Big Huge Games PC
Rise of the Argonauts Liquid Entertainment PC, PS3, X360
Roboblitz Naked Sky Entertainment PC, X360
Rocket Bowl 21-6 Productions X360
Rock'n'Roll Dice 3DA Interactive iPod
Rush Hour: Streets of Moscow Gaijin Entertainment PC
Sacred 2 ASCARON Entertainment PC
Shadow Harvest Black Lion Studios PC, X360
Shadowgrounds Survivor Frozenbyte PC
Shattered Horizon Futuremark Games Studio PC
Sherlock Holmes vs. Arsene Lupin Frogware Games PC
Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened Frogwares Game Development Studio PC
Showdown: Scorpion B-COOL Interactive PC
Silverfall Monte Cristo PC
Silverfall: Earth Awakening Monte Cristo PC
SkylineBlade Midnight Status iPod
Sledgehammer Targem Games PC
Sovereign Symphony Ceidot Game Studios PC
Sonic and the Black Knight SEGA Wii
Sonic and the Secret Rings SEGA Wii
Space Race SARGE Games iPod
Space Siege Gas Powered Games PC
Spectraball Flashcube Studios PC
Speedball 2 Kylotonn Entertainment PC
Squashem Jelly Biscuits iPod
Stalin Subway, The Orion PC
Star Tales QWD1 PC
Stoked Bongfish Interactive Entertainment X360
Stoked Rider: Alaska Alien Bongfish Interactive Entertainment PC
Streets of Moscow Gaijin Entertainment PC
Strike Ball 3 Alaware Entertainment PC
Stuntmanbob potatocows.com iPod
Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle Psyonix Studios PS3
The Swarm Targem Games PC
Switchball Atomic Elbow PC
Tank Universal Dialogue Design PC
Tension Ice-pick Lodge PC
Terminator Salvation GRIN PC
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter GRIN PC, X360
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 GRIN, Ubisoft Paris PC, X360
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas Ubisoft Montreal PC, PS3, X360
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2 Ubisoft Montreal PC, PS3, X360
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Double Agent (multiplayer) Ubisoft Shanghai PC, X360
Tortuga: Two Treasures Ascaron Entertainment PC
Trine Frozenbyte PC, PS3
Tunnel Rats Replay Studios PC
Turning Point: Fall of Liberty Spark Unlimited PC, PS3, X360
Turok Propaganda Games PC, PS3, X360
Two Worlds Reality Pump PC, X360
Two Worlds: The Temptation Reality Pump PC, X360, PS3
Underwater Wars Biart Studio PC, X360
Ultra Tubes Eipix PC
Unreal Tournament 3 Epic Games PC, PS3, X360
Unreal Tournament 3: Extreme Physics Mod Epic Games PC
Urban Empires Radioactive Software PC
U-WARS Biart Studio PC, X360
Valkyria Chronicles SEGA PS3
Virtual Tennis 3 SEGA PS3, X360
Viva Pinata: Party Animals Krome Studios X360
W.E.L.L. Online Sibilant Interactive PC
Wanted: Weapons of Fate GRIN PC, PS3, X360
Warfare GFI Russia PC
Warmonger: Operation Downtown Destruction Net Devil PC
Watchmen: The End is Nigh Deadline Games PC, PS3, X360
Way of the Samurai 3 Aquire X360
Welkin 4591 Outpop Digital PC
Winterheart's Guild Zelian Games PC, X360
WorldShift Black Sea Studios PC
X-Razer Rayd GmbH iPod
X-men Origins: Wolverine Raven Software PC
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ROFLMAO 2 games...
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Larrabee will use the x86 instruction set with Larrabee-specific extensions
Larrabee will include very little specialized graphics hardware, .... using a tile-based rendering approach
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Larrabee's early presentation has drawn some criticism from GPU competitors. At NVISION 08, several NVIDIA employees called Intel's SIGGRAPH paper about Larrabee "marketing puff" and told the press that the Larrabee architecture was "like a GPU from 2006".[8] As of June 2009, prototypes of Larrabee have been claimed to be on par with the nVidia GeForce GTX 285.[9]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larrabee_(GPU)">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larrabee_(GPU)
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So in this case we have 3 warring parties (your beloved "beneficial" competition), and endless delays, lack of game developement and content because of that, and the score won't be settled till the MONOPOLY POWER sets "the standard" (opencl you hope it seems/ aka JAVA for physx, or anything so long as it isn't PhysX, right?) as you call it, and even then, with the nature of game coding, it is highly likely that more than one type and implementation will widely survive. The "market competition" picked VHS over BETA, and nearly everyone calls that a mistake to this day (psst, their were powerful players behind the scene just like in the physics game wars).
What really happpens in what we're talking about is POWER picks what is brought forth for all, and you should well know instead of pretending the lie that you have, that OFTEN in this computing world something worse is shoved down everyone's throats because of that.
Your infantile "pure minded rhetoric" is just that, a big pile of BS, as usual.
SiliconDoc - Friday, September 25, 2009 - link
PS - I quite understand in your "only framerates matter" deranged high end video red rager gaming card mindset, THE ONLY GAMES THAT MATTER FOR YOU IN YOUR BS ARGUMENT are PC games that wind up on ANANDTECH PC videocard reviews. ROFLMAOYES IT'S TRUE!
Hence "two games!", only for PC, nothing else, is "your standard".
And IT'S DERANGED, given the facts.
JarredWalton - Friday, September 25, 2009 - link
Unlike you, obviously, I've tried NVIDIA and ATI, and both are fine. I've never suggested I want ATI to win, and I don't know why you continue to think that. PhysX is "used" in tons of games... where does it actually matter? How many of the games you list sold more than 100K copies? How many are actually good games? How often does it make a discernible and positive difference? (More trash flying around isn't really better.)Let's also not count chickens before they hatch and remove games that haven't even shipped. You know, sort of like removing GT300 from benchmark comparisons until it's actually available.
That list includes games that had super lame PhysX (all the Tom Clancy titles for sure), games that are completely trivial (skeeball anyone?), games where it degrades performance relative to not enabling it (umm, that's most of the titles). Unreal Tournament 3 has PhysX support... but only on the released-after-the-patch levels, and even then only the Tornado level is actually impressive visually. Almost no one played/plays these levels.
Since you've got so much time to promote NVIDIA, tell us all which games on this list are "Must Haves" and make good use of PhysX. I said there were "two games where it has mattered: Batman and Mirror's Edge". Now put your fanboy hat on and tell us which games in that list. I'm sure that 50 Cent, 10 Balls 7 Cups, Jericho, Cellfactor, Rock'n'Roll Dice, and Untra Tubes are at the top of the sales/preorder charts!
SiliconDoc - Friday, September 25, 2009 - link
The other SEVERE PROBLEM your massive bias holds is this:-
Just a few months ago, HERE, PhysX was given a run in Mirror's Edge, and NEVER BEFORE SEEN or IMPLEMENTED effects were present.
Anand loved it, couldn't get away...from the computer, as he said.
The Master declared it.
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But, when EMERGING TECHNOLOGY from the card company you must absolutely HATE comes forth, for you as a gamer, an advantage even, you have nothing but a big pile of dung for it.
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Get over there to the other fellow in the discussion and point out how competition brings innovation, right, and that PhysX IS INNOVATION !
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( Oh, that's right, after your tagteam preached it, you already breached it, and blew cookies all over your economic lessons.)
LOL -= hahahha -
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I guess this is another case of "NVidia stagnating" in BOTH your minds. (Yes, of course it is)
I do hope your conditions clear up.
JarredWalton - Friday, September 25, 2009 - link
Actually, Anand said Mirror's Edge with PhysX was the first (and at the time only) title where it made a palpable difference to the point where turning it off made him miss it somewhat. Actually, http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3539..." target="_blank">here are his exact words. He also goes on to discuss such things as Havok porting to OpenCL and how that won't happen for PhysX. Thanks master of hyperbole; taking things out of context is the sure sign of a weak argument. But yes, NVIDIA was highly "innovative" when they bought out a competitor because they couldn't do any better -- a competitor that to date had released hardware no one wanted and a few titles that didn't matter.You're so set on making me an ATI fanatic and throwing about words like hate and sadness and whatever. It's pathetic and funny that you're so delusional that you could even pretend to think that way. I mean, obviously you don't really think that and you're just some troll trying to stir up crap, but it boggles the mind that you have this much energy to put into spewing vitriol.
Love ATI? Hardly. I've ripped on their mobile components quite thoroughly for the past two years. After all, I review laptops so that's my area of expertise, and up until HD 46xx they had nothing compelling on laptops for years. Even the 4000 series on laptops is marred by their lack of mobile reference drivers, something I've praised NVIDIA for releasing (after saying it was absolutely necessary for the year or two before it happened).
So yes, put your blinders on and act as though you have any idea whatsoever about what people think. Someone disagrees with you and they become spawn of satan, worshiping all that is ATI. It's a reflection of your own insecurities that you can't accept the good of the competitor while at the same time pointing out flaws. Go check into a mental institute, or head back over to nZone and be secure with others that can't be objective when it comes to graphics cards.