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GX-Brandon (249)   Sep 26, 2007 - 02:21 pm

I think around this time next year is when you might start seeing the first signs. For the enthusiast shooting for the highest clock speeds, you will see them picking up DDR3 even sooner. I really don't think DDR3 is going to hit critical mass for at least a year though. When you see Intel release a DDR3 chipset for the mainstream segment, that will be the 1st sign that DDR3 has really arrived. That's going to have to be the last question for this chat session. It was nice talking with everyone! » Login to reply to this

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GX-Brandon (249)   Sep 26, 2007 - 01:23 pm

Really it's the RTS genre who have taken the lead on this. RTS games like Supreme Commander and World in Conflict are definitely pushing quad-core CPUs. In the FPS arena, the most notable quad-core game atm is Lost Planet, although I really haven't seen a tremendous performance boost w/ quad-core from that game. I guess Valve's EP2 is going to utilize quad-core, although I dont know what kind of boost we'll get from quad in that game. Crysis is of course, another game pushing quad-core CPUs. I really don't think this is the year for quad though. I don't think quad-core is going to really take off until 2008. That's when the apps will really be there, and the CPUs will be priced right. The Q6600 is pretty tough to beat though, if I had to make a purchase today that's what I'd get personally. » Login to reply to this

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GX-Brandon (249)   Sep 26, 2007 - 12:49 pm

As far as the games: yeah, the average game takes something like 2-3 years to develop. So obviously they're way behind the hardware cycle. I think games like Crysis though will REALLY push today's latest hardware. Cevat Yerli even said in his interview on nzone that they've got some features that they will turn on later in the game because its just too demanding for today's cards. Those guys are really pushing the tech it seems. They did the same thing with Far Cry as well of course. » Login to reply to this

GX-Brandon (249)   Sep 26, 2007 - 12:47 pm

Yeah, it definitely is disappearing. I don't think this is due to anything fundamentally changing though. IMO, NVIDIA just didn't feel the need to push the bar forward, instead it seems like they've been pretty content with the GeForce 8 line and you can't blame them all things considered. It sounds like AMD is going to have some competitve parts soon though so NVIDIA will have to respond, and the GPU war will heat up once again. » Login to reply to this

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GX-Brandon (249)   Sep 26, 2007 - 12:41 pm

Again, due to NDAs I can't give you a firm answer. But you can look at history to figure this one out. Historically as you know there's the 6-month product cycle. NVIDIA is obviously overdue for their G80 refresh part. And towards the end of this year AMD will be knocking on the door of 6 months for R600. So yeah, based on that I think you can assume something will be coming soon. The clearance sale on R600 (i.e. Radeon 2900 Pro announcement) is further proof of that imo. » Login to reply to this  Martimus (158)   Sep 26, 2007 - 01:06 pm | Edited on Sep 26, 2007 - 01:09 pm edit: I accidentally replied to this post, instead of creating a new one. » Login to reply to this  Martimus (158)   Sep 26, 2007 - 12:49 pm Thanks. I was hoping to see new nVidia cards in October/November and AMD cards early next year, but I haven't heard of anything so far; not even rumors. If AMD is getting rid of their inventory now, I expect them to release their new products earlier. » Login to reply to this  GX-Brandon (249)   Sep 26, 2007 - 12:56 pm » 2900 Pro I should also add that I haven't exactly given up on reviewing the 2900 Pro. But I can't give an exact date on when a review would go up just because this is such a limited launch. Again, because availability is so limited, my guesstimate is this will keep street prices a little higher than the MSRPs announced yesterday. That's just the nature of the beast unfortunately. » Login to reply to this  GX-Brandon (249)   Sep 26, 2007 - 12:51 pm I think AMD and NVIDIA are just getting better at keeping their stuff secret. That's really the only difference. Obviously they did a really bad job of this in the past (the specs for G80 and R600 were leaked well in advance of the actual launch), but they've now gotten better. » Login to reply to this

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GX-Brandon (249)   Sep 26, 2007 - 12:36 pm

To answer your question about why it's being produced: I think it's just a way for AMD to clear some inventory of R600 chips before the new GPUs comes out. » Login to reply to this

GX-Brandon (249)   Sep 26, 2007 - 12:32 pm

RE: X38: I can't comment on unannounced products, sorry. :( I think enthusiasts should wait until the dust settles in Nov before making a decision on that platform though. RE: 2900 Pro: Yes, it looks like a very nice card, but as you saw yesterday it's a VERY limited release with just a handful of board partners. PowerColor tells me they're going to be producing a very limited run of cards, so it looks like this GPU is going to have a very short lifespan. I think when you couple this with the limited availability, prices will probably end up being a little higher than the estimated MSRP from yesterday. That's just a guess on my part though based on the past. » Login to reply to this

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