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Mactronix might take issue with part 1 but I think if you have part 2 then you need part 2a, 2b, 2c, which involve speculation about 2 X2s in crossfire, 2GX2s in SLi and then 4 X2s in Crossfire, all of which are 'technically possible' as people have been saying. But for now 2 is really not in the league of the others which are things we can discuss with facts, while #2 is speculation and in most cases full of #2 itself.

Also #7 while being correct forgets the main thing, "I am right, they are wrong!" and so shall it ever be.

edited, you can't put GX2s in Xfire of course. D'oh!

lol your talking like Im a dumb idiot. Are you also reading the other posts in this thread stating the same thing that I am trying to tell you. ATI has better color representation than Nvidia. Sorry if you dont like that, but that is how it is. Make all the excuses you want but its not gonna change the current.

Also putting your seem-to-be Nividia fan boy attitude away for a second. Lets look at its a fact these drivers need to mature for the X2, its a new technology having 2 GPUs on one card, ya ya ya its been done before, but it was also dumped into Limbo just as quick as it was brought in before. Even give the drivers at least one update to resolve any immediate issues they can and lets see some more benchmarks vs 8800 top end series.

No matter what the x2 is probably a better choice 100% over an 8800ultra due to the fact of price vs performance and its drivers are only gonna get better while the 8800 drivers are on the back burner now for Nvidia trying to scramble for the 9xxx series.

<OMITTED>

--Compukid
I'm not ignoring those other posts.. I'm disagreeing w/them as well. This "color representation" bs is myth that the ATI camp clings to. Maybe if there's an actual hardware limitation as Grape mentioned, you might see this, but the difference in "color quality" is going to be in your monitor... not the card. What I said to you still stands.

As for his wife.... all I said was that she wasn't a trained professional... because she's not a trained professional. I don't see why that would set someone off.

Basically, it would be like him saying, "well my wife runs a local restaurant, and I'd trust her opinion on [herb X seasoning] over professional cooks." So he's giving someone who does this as a hobby more credibility than the people who developed [herb x seasoning] themselves.... and besides... It's not like I called her names or anything.

--Grape
I don't think AA is important for "color representation" in the way that people on this thread are speaking. They make it sound as if ATI provides lush and vibrant colors over nVidia, and I think that's complete malarky. The AA might *blend* colors slightly differently, but a card isn't going to change the output of what color it produces, save for the depth that it is limited to which, as you pointed out, would put both cards even as of this date.

What the hell is "color representation" anyway, other than how you see colors on your monitor? It's not like one camp's card turns reds paler or darker... it's going to render the same color as the other card. If the colors appear off it's because of your monitor. As you said, color depth is a different thing.. but again, if both cards are set to the same color depth, then it's not going to be the card that makes the color look "off," it's going to be the monitor. Claiming that one camp makes cards that have "better colors" when color depth is the same is ridiculous.

Aye, wasnt saying you called her a name, but just didnt want 'words' to start over a misunderstanding is all.

Check this video benchmark for ATI vs Nvidia (more Purevideo vs avivo)

http://www.extremetech.com/article [...] 968,00.asp

Hmmmm how interesting it would be if Apple decided to go after and aquire AMD/ATI. It would always have a constant flow of GPUs and CPUs for its PCs and Laptops. Since it already prefers ATI graphics for its better COLORS ( oooh I know Phrozt will laugh at this one). Its bank account could help AMD back on course with its Quad core chip and future chip development. Plus it could indirectly put a little hurting on Microsoft by not supporting Intel anymore.

Just a thought.

None of that mentions "color representation"... and again you're comparing old architecture to old architecture... it's a 2 year old article (well, 2 years as of tomorrow).

That and it seems that the "ratings" that were given are at least to some extent subjective.

I was always under the impression that ATI had more vibrant colours, havent seen anything that suggests otherwise

This card really does rock though... IMO it wont beat the 9800GX2... there is just too big of a performance gap between this and SLI'ed 8800GT's, and the GX2 has 128 for each card.

Can see 2 of these wc'd being very popular with enthusiasts though. Just pure awesomeness... now all amd gotta do is get those 45nm phenoms out

Although heat isnt really an issue for this card.. good luck with that on the GX2

Agreed, the thing to remember is that without either a properly calibrated monitor or a properly grading colour representation the effectiveness of AA diminishes beyond point X because the pixel required to blend the line transition cannot be properly displayed. I don't say that is the case for either, but people do forget that requirement, so when some talk to me about the benefit of 16XAA or higher on a mediocre value LCD it just makes me laugh.

Well think about it as the ability to display the colour called for accurately. Be it either limited by the hardware in the card or the montior as well as how the software interprets that colour and what should be called for. The later would be how drivers and/or AA determines what to display and the former the card and monitor's ability to display it.

True to an extent, but remember it's also a question of how the algorythms balance those requests, and this work for artificial enhancement like Digital Vibrance. And both companies do handle their standard look differently, because even though you may have the colours properly calibrated in your computer, hardware algos or software drivers/apps may come up with a different output, which is why many people notice gamma level differences in the images rendered by either AMD/ATi or nVidia. It's hard to determine which is more 'right' without a reference image (usually produced by CPU only rendering), for most people it's a preference thing, and something that can be overcome by adjusting the control panel etc to compensate for AMD and nV's own view of what should be best out of the box, but this will appear in equal setups, and is mentioned quie often by many reviewers including those a Tom's, XbitLabs, Digit-Life, [H], Anand, TechReport and Andand to name a few. The thing is it's neither wrong or right or floptimized, it's just different, and can be adjusted by the user as well. So like I said before from my experience, the past was much more different, now the present and future is much closer with both doing one of the two factors better IMO based on their hardware and driver abilities.

I agree to a large extent, but remember that the cards still aren't limited to just the hardware alone, they are also influence by their drivers and the preferences and choices that go into that. And like I said now, they are far more closer in such things than they were before. I still read about colour issues with the G80 cards, but I still can't find anyone who has enough information about them, and this even appears in the FireGL Quadro discussions. Until I can find anything further I simply discount them as personal preference, but it still makes me curious since the people who do mention this on forums or to myslef directly are image application professionals who rely on their eyes. But considering how easy it is to 'create' differences in the mind's eye in order to find that difference one is looking for, I would need a little more information to pass along such reservations. I still personally believe it's a question of default settings and different methedologies or preset for the drivers, and not the hardware itself that is causing this.

FYI, the link below for CompuKid is about VideoPlayback, which is not the same thing we're talking about. Comparing HQV scores is more about drivers than the hardware and it's about displaying videos not rendering in 3D. Also, the ratings while subjectiver are set by a clear enough guideline that a poor / acceptable / good shoudl yield consistent results across reviewers. The problem with that test though is that it's even greatly affected by the OS let alone the driver version or hardware;
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/1 [...] page9.html

Yes, I did read the articles, and they do establish a pattern over the years. The article was crucial to my argument because it acknowledged the issue of optimizing for framerates leading to a shimmering, blurry effect in the 7xxx series, something that my wife noticed when comparing my 7600gs to her X1650 Pro. The 8xxx series improves things and I'd like to see a comparison between 8xxx and HD 3xxx series cards in image quality instead of just framerate.

The article Pure Overclocker gave it to Nvidia based on the 8000 series compared to the 1000 series. My basic premise that Nvidia optimizes for fps and then tries to correct that with drivers that maintain the fps while slightly improving image quality stands proven in generations prior to the 8000, and I suspect it's true today.

Nvidia took shortcuts that ATI doesn't because Nvidia wants to have the fastest card out of the gate under their "the way it's meant to be played because we bribe the game companies for sourcecode" program. No wonder Nvidia wanted to charge Intel for SLI, they need to keep the cash flow to the game company's solvent. Am I the only one who sees this as the GPU equivalent to Intel's OEM rebate program questioned in many antitrust investigations on several continents?

Did you read the following before you reminded me that Nvidia was the clear winner?

AA Comparison:

AF Comparison:

All Nvidia did is play catchup to ATI and I'd like to know whether ATI has gotten ahead of Nvidia with their recent series.

I'm hopeful (based on prior comparisons) that if the 8800 series were compared to the 3800 series in image quality, we'd see a win for ATI at best and a draw at worst. Perhaps Tom's or Anandtech will do one when the next two refreshes arrive.

Sure, it's subjective to some extent, but it's real in a technical sense, and I believe the reason that most Nvidia fans don't see it is they prefer FPS to CRPG's and RTS titles. Me, I prefer CRPGs and RTS. The only FPS I've ever played is Farcry, and I got that used a couple of years after it arrived.

Doesn't really make sense though, because to cut off intel or Microsoft after finally increasing sales due to opening up to them, becoming a closed shop again makes little sense.

AMD most likely buyer would be IBM which has the money, and IP to do something with it. Others have mentioned chip players like Samsung and such, but I think the best fit for a shared future would be IBM more than any other. The only problem with that is IBM once again putting more focus on the hardware side of the equation kinda undoes the direction they've been taking for the last decade basically.

Overall there would be little to no benifit for Apple to acquire any hardware company and lock into that. Their best move was letting people buy both M$ and OSX to run on their apples. If they wanted to do any damage to M$ or intel, they need only open up further and then let VIA and AMD sell them hardware solutions, and then start selling OSX to the general PC crowd. The only drawback about that last one is that it will greatly undo the hardware gains they made this past year (increasing over 30% year over year and pulling up to 3rd in overall PC sales).

I see no reason for Apple to change their succesful strategy now, despite their colour preferences (they're pretty monochromatic nowadays with the borning logo ) .

While that could happen, it would mean I'd have to buy Nvidia or Intel discrete GPU's.

I recently made a joke about being saved from the desktop equivalent to dianetics when I didn't buy one of the original Macs in 1985, and I was right. My experience with friends who prefer Macs is that they never acknowledged when the PC caught up and they are much more fanboyish than us ATI or Nvidia, or AMD or Intel fans.

No one should buy AMD. I want to see independent companies making a profit and putting out competitive products. All AMD has to do is offer Apple a good deal on B3 Phenoms for low end Macs.

Too much consolidation isn't quite the "We Say So" Corporation from Dinosaur's but it's not good for tech innovation or for market prices.

The only reason I think someone should buy AMD is because right now they are so distracted by their debt woes that they are losing their way and canabalizing themselves too much simply to shift assets and investment around to cover interest payments instead of putting the money into their future through R&D and such.

It would be nice to think AMD is spending anywhere near the amount on graphics R&D that ATi did and anywhere near what they should on the CPU side of things, but right now I doubt it.

What a sugar daddy would let them do is focus on their core and not act like a bunch of accountants.

To Phrozt, try a 8800GTX and a 3870, same monitor, same resolution, ATI wins hands down in colour appearance, brighter, sharper, not dull and faded. You have to be blind not to notice how much more vivid and vibrant the colours are using an ATI video card. Yes, I own both cards and can see the difference, it's not some biased opinion.

I'm convinced that Nvidia sets their drivers/hardware for providing 16 bit colour where as ATI uses real 32 bit colour. This would explain why Nvidia products typically offer better FPS when they sacrifice Image Quality.