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^cliffro did not post the entire animation
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/s [...] 61,00.html

I was trying to figure out why a poster on the 1st pg was so unimaginative and narrow minded - didn't think it would be taken to this level!

hehehe I guess it can be both and it isnt turning either way.

Although the anticlockwise matches me more but I see it clockwise.

I can quite easily change it though. Seems to default on w/e I change it too.

If you look carefully, you will realize its actually your mind thats spinning, not the image.


But in all seriousness, you people are over thinking it. It is an optical illusion. Depending on how you perceive the movement of the image, you can imagine it spinning either way. Nothing about the gif is tricky. Its just an image moving. Our brains are the ones playing the trick, cause its busy trying to make sense of what it sees. And simply put, and right or left dominate brain draws different conclusions.

Edit: In the link above, the gif is running very poorly, so the gif is jerky pausing frequently....if thats what others are seeing, then I could understand the confusion. Do a google search and locate a better version that moves more fluid.

These cards are very reminiscent of the shift from 7800gtx to 7900gtx. There was not a huge jump in performance, but the price of the GPU was less and used less power than the previous iteration. This is the same thing Nvidia is doing with the 8800 to 9800 jump. I do not see the need to upgrade to any of the cards at this point in time as the next true leap will be something entirely different. I remember the jump from 7900gtx to 8800gtx because the 8800gtx by itself was about twice as powerful as the 7900gtx. From what I have read the next big leap will come sometime this summer. These new cards are so Nvidia can keep the lead over ATI until they both come out with their next series of cards. This is how Nvidia has always played the game. Come out with highest end card, then come out with lower priced cards in the series. Once you have the market work on optimizing the architecture i.e. smaller more efficient and less power consumption and then turn around and put out the next graphics monster and do it all again. The next graphics monster is still to be revealed. Don't forget the 8800 series and by extension the 9800 series is a significant difference over the 7 series at least in the higher end. These are phenominal cards and will be for some time. I never thought my 8800gtx would still be near the top of the heap almost 18 months after I bought it.
BTW to those who complain about Crysis still not playing well on the 9800 series what did you expect? There is literally no setup that can play the game at full settings at this time and probably will not be for a couple of years. Does anyone remember how difficult it was to play Far Cry at full settings? Part of it is also optimization of the game by Crytek as the latest patch has improved performance.
I would wait for the next true leap in graphics cards before buying if you can as these cards appear to be rehash with some extras like DX10.1 and PCI-E 2.0 with the g92 chipset.
P.S. I would like Nvidia more if they supported SLI on intel motherboards. Just my opinion.

Having seen the benchmarks for the 9600GT card, scoring around 11,000 on 3DMark06 (we're talking a mid-range product here)... wouldnt it be safe to say that nVidia's 9800 series is going to outdo that by quite a margin?

For instance... (going on the Average FPS on Toms VGA charts)

SAME SERIES COMPARISONS:

6600GT compared to 6800 Ultra (almost double performance)

7600GT compared to 7900GTX (over double performance)

8600GTS compared to 8800GTX (over double again)


NEXT GENERATION COMPARISONS:

6800 Ultra compared to 7900GTX (Over double performance)

7900GTX compared to 8800GTX (around 35% more performance)

8600GT/S compared to 9600GT (double performance)


Going on what I see there... nVidia's midrange parts always offer around half the performance of their High End parts. Although the performance jump from 7900GTX to 8800GTX wasnt so great according to the charts, the fact that the 9600GT's 3DMark06 score isnt far off the 8800GTX's would indicate that the 9800GTX may infact be quite a beast.
I dont expect anything revolutionary from the 9800GTX but I do believe it's going to be alot better than ATi's current 3870 offering, and since the 3870 X2 isnt beating the 8800 Ultra by a large margin, I'd expect the 9800GTX to trounce the X2, albeit for a higher price, with a later released 9800 Ultra for bragging rights, that'll most likely outdo the 8800GTX by a minimum of 60% (Crysis sounds playable finally)

ATi havent released an expensive top end card since the Radeon X1950XTX.... they've managed to keep all their cards under £330 for quite some time now... I dont expect much from the 9800GX2, but nVidia aren't going to stupidly release a new series that aren't some way ahead of ATi's newest offerings, if they're going to be demanding no less than $700 / £350 of our hard earned cash.

I'm no expert in the graphics card field but I've been following it all since the 6 series and nVidia haven't let us down with the goods yet on the top end parts since the FX Series. The 9800GTX will be a great card and I expect at least 50-60% more performance over the 8800GTX, without paying more than £400

Optimisations is what the 9800 will be all about, same as the 7 series over the 6. Im waiting for the 9800GTX benchmarks to come along before I make any decisions.... but if the 9600GT benchmarks are anything to go by, the 9800GTX is definitely going be a winner.

the geforce 9 serieds wont sell much

it is not a large enough improvement to motivate people to upgrade

it is just like SLI and anything that involves more than 1 GPU

twice the processing power but %70 is lost due to the SLI

instead of dual gpu's why not do dual core GPU's

when multiple cores are on the same ship, there is only around a 10-15% loss in performance but once they use SLI or seperate the gpus as 2 individual cores, theres a huge loss in performance

as the crap connecting the 2 gpu's together can only do so much bandwidth

on most processors, the L1 cache goes at over 100GB/s but the memory only goes at 8-12GB/s

2 cores on 1 chip can communicate with each other at a much higher speed than 2 separate chips connected together using cheap hardware designed for cheaper production

Having tried Crossfire with 2 x HD2900PRO's & SLI with 2 x 8800GT's, Ive decided High-End Dual GPU configurations are a total waste of my money.

I saw no real performance gains on any of my games, although I did see a rise in the electricity bill. Hence my decision to go Single GPU in future.

However, Crossfire'd 2600XT's performed very favourably for the pricetag... back in July 07.... but I believe a single expensive card is always better than 2 cheap ones.

And 2 expensive cards.... well.... you may aswell flush your money down the toilet.

I think I'm going to settle with the 9600GT until the 9800GTX release... providing the 512MB version costs no more than £100, at which point the 8800GT would be the more viable option.

It spins both ways. They quickly switch the image about 30sec so that she is spinning the other way. Way to derail the topic dude. (no offense)

Ok I just had a look and she goes counter clock wise for me...But I live in Oz lmao.

I can't wait to see how this all pans out.Is Oz's will get it well after US as always.

I know one thing,the new cards will push the old 8800"s down on all levels, so some good news for those who can not buy them now.

I still run my 7950GX2"s and all games run well. So yes I will be a fan of the X2 class,Radeon/AMD back in the game will help.so more good new's.

I will wait for Tom's report before I jump to the 9800GX2's,my money can sit in my pocket,it is hard earned.

All good i think. I think they maybe faster then most think,but OC them with some good case cooling and you will end up with some fast FPS in the end.

well wtf when the hell is the new architecture coming out then?

I'm really surprised nVidia are leaving the door open, but maybe they have no choice? The 98xx series really is nothing "new". This is prime time to pretty much make AMD/ATI a non-entity and give IBM the go ahead to buy the failing company, so it would seem strange that nVidia don't nail the coffin shut.

Couple of ideas:
1. Has nVidia hit a GPU/Power wall for retaining an "in case" solution?
2. Has DX10's performance issues and lack luster Vista sales caused a rethink?
3. Are we going to see external GPU solutions sooner than expected?
4. Is nVidia devoting resources to a new console based GPU solution and hence the rebirth of older technology for the PC (no real threat from AMD/ATI)?

My guess is on #4 as that would be the best business decision.

P.S. just run FSX + Acceleration in DX10 mode and turn up the details at 1920 x 1080 or higher, you'll soon discover bad frame rates (worse than Crysis) and mediocre eye candy (and FSX doesn't support SLI nor Crossfire).

Please go into detail on this.

There are no real details, but if you look at the industry and how the console and PC market is evolving (or devolving - is that a word?) ...

1. Business apps, web surfing, Email, Office are not GPU demanding (even under Vista) - this is a big chunk of the PC market (60% as I recall)
2. Games do demand GPU/CPU performance
3. Games on consoles are selling at a ratio of about 15:1 over PC games
4. nVidia don't have an affordable solution to make Crysis play smooth (three 8800 Ultras and still drops into the teens)
5. Vista sales just didn't happen (please no debates on this - Microsoft have even admitted this) and DX10 has fallen short of expectations
6. XBOX360 has done VERY well for Microsoft, more specifically the titles that run on XBOX360

Microsoft are developing a new console to replace the XBOX 360 (suggestions are it will not be out til 2010-2011 or so - I'm guessing that is a bogus date to make Sony feel relaxed, I bet xMas 2009).

There are only two companies that can help Microsoft -- AMD/ATI and nVidia. At first glance one might think the perfect marriage would be AMD/ATI and multi-core GPU/CPU solutions from a single company. However, some key elements. Intel will have 8 core procs out sooner, Intel will have 32nm procs out sooner, Intel procs will run cooler and consume less power.

It's unlikely Microsoft would approach AMD/ATI in their current financial situation and rumors that IBM might buy AMD/ATI -- the IBM vs. Microsoft wounds are DEEP. So who is left, nVidia. Again, you might think no way will nVidia work well with Intel. But there are signs those doors are opening in the interest of both companies.

Now Microsoft can buy nVidia without much of a financial hit, but the Feds would most likely block that (maybe). Regardless of who buys whom, the GPU performance trend is shifting and nVidia appear to be very good at providing bang for the buck hardware (9600 & 8800GT) -- and that is just what Microsoft needs in a console - affordability.

So we have Microsoft saying 2010-2011 for the next console but I think that is really going to be XMAS 2009 to get the jump on Sony. nVidia is frantically working to come up with a solution for Microsoft's next XBOX. PC Gaming sales are rock bottom, console sales are booming, and nVidia is going where the money is - consoles (they really don't have much of a choice). No real threat from AMD/ATI in the PC market, so why devote a lot of resources to building GPU solutions for an ever smaller PC game market (hence the release of lower cost cards leaving 8800GTX on still on top) -- the 9800 variants appear to be revamps of existing technology -- as in they aren't devoting the resource to come up with a truely new GPU for the PC.

So where are all the resources going...it has to be consoles and I'm betting Microsoft's next XBOX.