That's the model name for the top-of-the-line model of nVidia's new cards, what a mouthful it is. And Toms Hardware have finally got an extremely indepth review comparing it, a Ti4800, and a Radeon 9700 Pro against each other, which can be found here.

Most notable is the incredible sound the cooler makes - it sounds like a vacuum cleaner, with no exaggeration at all - they've posted three MP3s on this page of the review so you can see how bad it really is.

As can be expected, it outperforms the 9700 Pro in most cases, but most interesting is that they have the price listed for the Ultra model as the same as the 9700 Pro. Could certainly make things interesting.

Those looking for a new high-end video card, I certainly recommend you check out the review.

Well, that sucks.

bah hahahahahahah

great sound i just checked it out i was like "thats quiet" then
"rawweeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" the fan starts! lmao!

If I was considering getting it I wouldnt get it simply because of the noise - it pisses me when I'm trying to play cs and someone is vacumming somewhere else in the house... having the sound of a vacuum in the room whenever I'm playing would drive me nuts.

Yeh, I wouldn't buy it if it was that noisy.

i foresee the downfall of nvidia to ATi in the near future

Let's spell this out.

The GeForce FX is not faster than the Radeon 9700 overall

Tom's Hardware has been proven in previous reviews to bias benchmarks for cash

Of course, knowing this, this article will never get updated, and the people who never read the comments will never know. Hopefully, they'll read the numerous other reviews and get a clue there.

no, i knew this. that's why i think nvidia's going down, if they can only just beat the radeon 9700pro in biased benchmarks

what a ludicrous cooler

LMFAO!!

i bet that big text made you feel special spraynwipe.

ROFL that sounds louder than capt0s computer :P and thats LOUD heh ;p

1) ROFL HARRIS AT PARAGON@!

hahahah


2) Erik-The-Red, sorry, but I think you're jumping to conclusions... If we were to see a graph of sales, I think that we'd find Nvidia have a clear lead.

Believe me, I am not a fan of Nvidia at all, Best of luck to ATI at overthrowing the king...

3) I would like to have a rant, so tune out if you so desire...

I forsee something different to Erik, I forsee that we may have reached the ceiling of our capabilities in video performance using current techniques.

A quote from the review by tom's hardware

Despite this complex cooling solution, the card becomes quite hot during operation. While testing the card in an open environment (i.e., outside of a PC case), the heatsink on the back of the card reached over 68° Celsius/ 154.4 Farenheit. In a closed PC case, the temperature should increase even more.

Someone who has a 9700pro, how hot do they get?

Despite the extravagance of the cooler, the 0.13 micron process etc... to still produce 68° celcius, there is obviously something limiting chip makers.

Personally, I dont know if the predicted (and i mean 6 months ago) domination of the GF5 will actually occur.

This is how i see it...

the radeon 9700pro has the wood over the GF5 so far...

as far as performance goes, it is quite close, much less difference between the radeon and GF5 than there is between the GF4 and the radeon.

Mind you, we still havent seen which manufacturer can implement Dx9 features into their cards because there still arent any major games which use the technology.

theres my 2 cents

oh i love the photochop of the FX 5800 hairdryer..!!!

needs more bitchin fast!

http://www.lamerkatz.com/stories/images/bitchin.jpg

If I was considering getting it I wouldnt get it simply because of the noise - it pisses me when I'm trying to play cs and someone is vacumming somewhere else in the house... having the sound of a vacuum in the room whenever I'm playing would drive me nuts.

if you bought the card for a 90% of the time CS use it would be the biggest waste of money in the world!

If the fan is as bad as everyone is saying....surely Nvidia wouldnt be that stupid and sell it like that...would they? My computer is loud enough thank you very much (and its nothing compared to other people i know :S)

Scuzzy : bungholiomarks lmao!!


i like when tom's compared this card to the voodoo..

Firstly, the photo edit with the hairdryer. Beautiful *wipes tear*.

Secondly the noise, as I was reading through the cooling article, there is apparently a sound proofer you can get for it that makes the noise bearable, but I don't know. Sounds kinda dodgy... note the pun.

Thirdly, they make such a big deal about it's gonna set a new wave in gfx cards, and while there was obviously a nice gap on some of the benchmarks, the Radeon 9700 PRO kept up with it on the rest.

Fourthly, I can't afford it anyway :(. As always I look for the cheaper alternative for my comp. I never have the LATEST parts as they are expensive. So hopefully there will be some price drops to either nVIDIA or Radeon that I can take advantage of.

I think the 'Night Call' on Gone Gold sums it up pretty much.

Nvidia is playing catch up now. Consider how long the 9700 series has been out. I'd bet you will see a considerable price drop on the 9700 range as soon as the FX cards are available. I also wouldn't be surprised to see ATI release the next model to blow the FX straight out of the market.

BTW, there is NFW I would buy a card that sounded even close to what this "prototype" does.

I've been very happy with my 8500LE for the last year or so and wouldn't hesitate in getting another ATI card.
(end non paid ad)

ET

i can see so many people ripping that cooler off and putting on their own coolers. one mate has a celeron cooler on his graphics card, another has an AMD cooler. wouldn't these work better than those others?

I dunno Erik, there are reports the thing hits 68 degrees celcius!

And on tonight's episode of "When ATI fans attack"...

Let's spell this out.


The GeForce FX is not faster than the Radeon 9700 overall



Tom's Hardware has been proven in previous reviews to bias benchmarks for cash


Of course, knowing this, this article will never get updated, and the people who never read the comments will never know. Hopefully, they'll read the numerous other reviews and get a clue there.

In all seriousness though, I'll probably still get an FX. Nvidia have done me well for many years now and never let me down, so I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and put my faith in them another time.

I might jump boat, get meself a raedeon, I dunno I hate vaccum cleaners, I can't beleive a company would make something like that and not look at noise as an issue :/

well. so far i dont know what to think. all this "biased benchmarks" and s***. i'm with khel on this one though. Nvidia have been with me ever since my TNT2 Ultra, through to Geforce DDR, GF2MX and now a gf4 ti4200. every single card has satisfied me.

the performance of the card based on Tom's review doesnt blitz the radeon but its still better in quite a few, and the 8 lights 3mark test is quite a good leap. yes, its loud. yes, its hot. yes, it is a bit more expensive, but considering its a brand new ULTRA card thats not a bad price. especially when you consider the extravagant cooling and PCB.

we'll soon see what the future holds anyway.

I'll get whatever is cheaper and performs well. I don't care about having the fastest card on the block, as it will still be outdated quickly, and most of its features will never be properly utilised. I feel it is better to get the second best card, and use that. It may not get 200 FPS, bit will get 150 (boo-hoo) and it is cheaper, so who cares when it gets outdated? Atleast you didn't have to take out a loan to get it.

Frankly I think anyone buying a GFFX in the first month or so after they're released is doing the wrong thing. It's worth holding off a little while to see what problems come to light once people actually have them. Or on a more positive note, for the price to drop (like it always does) and for the bugs to be ironed out and the performance to improve.

And for whoever it was saying the GFFX is more future proof than say the 9700 because it has better flow control on it's programmable pixel shaders. That is true - technically. But lets be honest here. The first game that is REALLY going to need that is probably 2 maybe even three years away. Doom3 certainly won't benefit from it - it's too far along in the development process.

So you're going to buy a REALLY expensive card NOW to play games that will be available in two years... That makes really good financial sense.

It's only worth buying a card based on what you want now and the short term future. Because most hard core gamers (and you'd have to be hardcore to buy a GFFX) are going to upgrade cards probably every 12 months, and definitely more often than two years.

Like what Kingah? My Radeon plays all the games I've thrown at it just fine. And don't come out with that nVidia never has problems with drivers BS. I've still got two nVidia cards and most of my friends have them too. And I see just as many dramas with the nVIdia cards as the ATI ones.

I have only ever had two cards a GF2 GTS 64Mb and a TNT2 Ultra. I have been happy with what they did for me at the time and the GF2 I have still gets me on average 35fps on BF42.

Money isn't a big deal if I'm only going to buy a card every 2 or so years and milk it for everything it's worth. But after waiting like many other people for the GF FX all I can say is that I'm pretty disapointed that it barely beats the 9700.

The noise alone is enough to put me off the GF FX plus the loss of one pci slot. But on the other hand the ATI drivers by all accounts are crap.

So what to do now? Buy a video card with a small plane hooked to it? Or buy a good card that has s*** software? Or wait for another couple of months to see whats coming next?

Or listen to the people who actually own radeon cards and can tell you first hand that their drivers are not crap. I had my PC running all the time I was at QGL without a single crash or reboot. And I run a Radeon 9700.

There are odd issues from time to time that get fixed promptly by the driver team. Anything "showstopping" is given immediate priority. Smaller problems may take a little longer.

I think one of the common denominators in people who have trouble with Radeons (and really ANY vid card) is that they don't take a bit of time to evaluate what they're buying and take the time to tweak their setups. So many people who complain overclock like mad bastards and/or have the cheapest nastiest mobos, ram and power supplies and they expect to have no problems when they put in a leading edge vid card.

I don't know s*** about vid cards I tend to watch what other people are getting and listen to what they have to say about it. So speak up :)

I have only a few things that I ask for in a card when I buy new one.
1)Reliabiltity
2)Performance for cost
3)Support from the maker (ie drivers)

My current system specs are
G4T-E mobo
P4 2Gig cpu
512 rd Ram
GF2 GTS64Mb (has to go)
SB Live plat 5.1

Taipan, I would get myself a GF4 ti 4200 they are very good for the price. $320 for a 128mb , Until the new raedeons drop prices

raedon 9000? $150 will do you fine for what it is?

radeon 9000's are very good budget cards

Well Taipain. I've got no problems with the reliability and the driver support is great. If you look at the Rage3D and Driver Heaven forums you'll see that there are ATI reps actually actively involved in discussions and seeking feedback from people. I think their driver support is top notch.

Performance wise, well I'd suggest waiting another month or so to see if there are any big price drops on the Radeon range when the GFFX is released. If you were going to buy today, I think that bang for buck the 9500Pro is a damned good deal. My friend Dysard (was at QGL on the weekend) bought one and it is pretty solid. Not quite as fast as the 9700 but still very quick and a damn sight cheaper. It is in fact quicker than the GF4 4600 in some situations.

With a reasonably high end system like you've got the 9500 or 9700 will perform really well. And it'll scale even higher if you upgrade to a 3GHz CPU at some point.

wait a bit Taipan and I'll sell you my Asus TI4600..just got to decide and see what the R350 from ATI promises. Month maybe two...

:)

There ya go Taipan. Those of us who have an ATI seem to be all happy. I hope you dont still think the drivers are crap. I must admit, I was worried before I purchased my 8500LE but it has served me very well.

ET

Great feed back guys I'll get back to this thread later when I'm not half asleep hehe. :)

Thanx

I have a Gigabyte Radeon 9000 Pro, and it is absolutely awesome for the price I payed.

That was me btw ^^^^^

And on tonight's episode of "When ATI fans attack"...

Cute.

However, the one Radeon I managed to get my hands on (an 8500) failed to support multimonitor without it being hideously unstable, and I couldn't get it to do anything in 3D, so my opinions of ATi cards are quite low at the moment. Thankfully it was a work card, so I could quickly switch back to the GF3 I was using previously.

However, stability or not, the benchmarks show that the 9700 is on par or faster than the FX. This is undeniable. And Tom's Hardware have shown to be biased before, when the P4 first came out their results were suspiciously out of line with everyone else too.

I find it interesting that this has drawn so much discussion - for me the possibility of buying one of these nVidia cards was immediately ruled out when I found out how much noise it makes.

yeh trog that and the heat it creates directly under your cpu location is a worry as well.

I dunno, I think Nvidia have dropped the ball slightly here, but with rumour of the NV35 being displayed at Comdex in November , maybe they can regain whatever ground they will lose when ATI release the R350.

Thought I'd support my buddy Skrybe here for a second.

I have owned NVidia cards for as long as they have been around. Never had a problem, but about two weeks ago I decided to jump ship, cuz the R9500 Pro was $395 and it whoops the Ti4600 in AA and Aniso tests. Has Dual monitor support and Tv Out. Skrybe have owned a R8500 and now his R9700 Pro, and I never saw him have any trouble with his cards and to be honest, every time I watch his screen I'm in awe at the excellent picture quality compared to what I had (Asus GF3 Ti 500).

For those who jump on the bandwagon and bag the Ati drivers, I wish you would wake up, own one and see for yourself that there is no damn issue involved!

I bought my card just before the last QGL. Didn't even uninstall my NVidia drivers. Basically ripped out my GF3 and slapped in my 9500 pro. Boot up, installed the Ati drivers and benched an easy 10 000 dickmarks with my 1.4Ghz tbird. Last night I benched 11 000 dickmarks, and I still haven't removed my dets. So there are two sets of drivers on there from two arch rivals. Bloody hell, if there was going to be an issue with the drivers, surely this will be the time for something to screw up!

C'mon Spray, if you really want to give the Geforce FX a kick in the balls, start proclaiming what a superior solution it is... cough*gamecube*cough.

I thought all that Toms hardware stuff was history now; guess not.

trog what are you looking at for the future?

I have to say that the noise that the FX card makes has really put me off getting one.It's not as if my pc doesn't make enough noise already.

Just another thought. I wonder how hard it would be to mod the cooling system of the FX card to take a fluid. Instead of having the intake sucking air you could probably fit it with some hose fittings and have it cycle water or some other cooling agent via a small radiator. This would have to make it quieter although you would have to find something to replace the fan but that should be to hard.

It's food for thought and I'm sure some smart cooky will do it.

trog what are you looking at for the future?

I'm not buying any top-of-the-line gear at all until Doom 3 is out or at least close to release. My next video purchase will probably be a mid-range GeForce (4?) card.

yeah thats the same as me i am waiting for doom3 and then upgrading at that time

what does carmack think of these cards?
http://www.shacknews.com/finger/?fid=johnc@idsoftware.com

props to shacknews n that

sprayNwipe what brand was the 8500 you had dramas with? As always you get what you pay for and it could be a cheap card or a faulty card. For that matter what drivers were you using? The early 8500 drivers sucked balls. But a couple months after they came out they released some really great drivers. This is unlike the 9700s - they've had solid drivers from day one.

Psycho - there is a report that CP (ColorPower) showed the ATI roadmap with the following info: r350 April, rv350 (the next "value" card) earlier and the r400 in July. Of course the dates may change but that means we should be seeing the next rocking ATI card in two months :)

Dysard - you forgot to mention the reason why you ended up with the ATI. Cos your GF3 blew up. When it was working it rocked. But it shows that even nVidia cards aren't immune to faults.

Carmack's comments are interesting. I like the way he said for an average user the choice is not clear :) Frankly I think if you're wanting a card that will play Doom3 with all the bells and whistles the only way to guarantee that is to wait till D3 is out and then decide.

artists' impressions of the GFFX, linked by RodM from overclockers. Worth a laugh :)

http://www.captured.com/savage/juiceweasel.jpg
http://www.nvnews.net/images/news/200301/blower2.jpg
http://min.midco.net/cshuff/classif...ise_missile.jpg
http://www.sierratel.com/cornerston...-01-27_bdfx.jpg
http://www.hot.ee/while/flow.gif
http://216.136.200.194/auction/Jan/...14533818696.jpg
http://members.shaw.ca/spiritwalker/main/nvmuffx.jpg
http://www.theforumisdown.com/uploa...02/flowbee2.jpg
http://home.attbi.com/~typedef.enum/fxoops.jpg
http://www.phas3d.com/ussForceFX.jpg
http://www.shoggy.com/sonstiges/flammenwerferfx.jpg
http://www.scoriox.com/fx2.jpg
http://www.photocountry.com/users/11150/ut2k3gf3.jpg
http://www.shoggy.com/sonstiges/motorradfx.jpg

sifn't the last one orbitor :D

I must admit it's been a while since I have seen a card get such a ribbing, not since the fabled Voodoo6.

Hehe now that was a mother hey, huge, ran really hot, needed own power source, noisy by all accounts...hey wait a minute!

funnily enough, isn't this the first nvidia card to incorporate 3dfx technology into it? :P

http://www.sandsconsulting.com.au/Files/engine.small.jpg

http://www.sandsconsulting.com.au/Files/fx.jpg

http://www.sandsconsulting.com.au/Files/jetpack.jpg

http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/dwegner/pics/fx.jpg

http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/dwegner/pics/fx2.jpg


Fast and HOT!...well pretty fast.

Surely nvidia has to be aware of the crap this card is coping and be trying to do something about it.

Having something that doesn't look much different from the bug catcher on the bonet of a funny and almost as noisy won't impress anyone. And it seems that most of the gamers in the world are treating the whole thing as a big bad joke, which is never going to be good for sales.

Like I asked b4 what are the chances that you'd be able to convert it to water cooled?

dunno about water cooling Taipan but one thing that might save them is that Nvidia will control productuion of the board apparently but vid card companies will be permitted to put their own cooling designs on it, provided they meet Nvidia minimum requirements.

Maybe someone like Asus or Leadtech or HIS will come up with something better and quieter?..and hopefully keep its temp down.

One site, I think it was Hardocp was pointing out a very important consideration. The thing gets really, really hot and its position in directly below your cpu location so that has to be a concerned for many too.

Hmmm. I wonder if nVidia has recently purchased some Water Cooling companies...

Bloody hell, my current CPU fan is loud enough. Buggered if i'm putting a video card in that's that loud on top of it. The R350's are looking mighty sweet right about now.

I have no real allegience to any video card company. I've owned a Legend ET6100+, a Voodoo2, a GF2 and a PowerVR Kyro2, so as long as they don't have any major problems (and I call 68 degrees a big problem!), and are priced within my reach, I have no probelms choosing one company over another.