Simple yes or no poll: Comparing GPUs

[Leon]

Simple question, is it legitimate to compare a dual-GPU video card (i.e. the new ATI R700 card, which is a dual-card version of the R770 chip) to a single-GPU card (i.e. the new nVidia GTX280)?

Is it apples and oranges, or is it a fair comparison?

Don't feel pressured to answer one way or another; I just want to get an idea of what people really think on this matter. It's come up in a discussion recently and our group can't agree on whether it's fair or not, so I'm doing this to get more feedback to help our discussion.

[shadowmazer]

Ultimately, the goal is to see which GPU is better, and if that is the case, avoiding the comparison is rather foolish.

[Suicide]

I'll agree with Shadows, we are ultimately trying to find out which GPU is the best choice and for what value. Would it be better to get one dual-GPU card or 2 single-GPU cards in SLI/Crossfire like you said yesterday?

If anything it is the next step in the process, right?

[Leon]

Well the specific argument that we're having is this:

The new 4870 X2 is 2 GPUs
The new GTX280 is 1 GPU

The comparison chart presented shows the 4870 X2 outperforming the GTX280. Now, since these are pre-release "benchmarks", many of us are flat out dismissing the numbers. But, let's assume these numbers are correct. Is it fair to call the R700 (the dual-GPU chip based on the R770 single-GPU chip) better than the GTX200 chip? It is REALLY fair to say the R700 dual-GPU chip is better than a GTX200 single-GPU chip? How is that not apples vs oranges?

Now let's look at it from the opposite view:

If we were to compare the 9800GX2 to any single-GPU ATI card, ATI fans would be whining about it. So again, is it REALLY fair to compare a dual-GPU chip to a single-chip GPU? Or is it only a fair comparison when looking at one specific setup?

Clearly the 9800GX2 absolutely smashes every single current ATI card to bits. Just google it, you'll see. Only when it comes to super high resolutions with AA does the 9800GX2 struggle.

[shadowmazer]

All I'm saying is, if you were to buy a single GPU, or processor, or anything, you would want to know what performs the best for a certain price.
If you could only put one card in your PC, wouldn't you want to compare any cards?
If you split the comparisons into groups based on GPUs and whatnot, all you end up with is the best of each category.
If you never venture to compare those, you never know what is actually best.

I would think the "apples to oranges" issue would come up is someone, wanting to increase performance, asked if they should replace their CPU or GPU.

[Leon]

Ok thanks for the responses. Seems like people generally agree on this.

Now the issue we're discussing is how long it's taken for ATI to catch up. Considering their response to the 8800 Ultra took over a year to be released (the 3870 X2) and whatnot, nVidia is definitely ahead. They've even decided they don't want to bother making a dual-GPU card for the new GT200 chip. ATI is so far behind that they still need a dual-GPU card just to keep up. So nVidia seems to be pretty comfortable with their position right now.

But basically, the single-GPU nVidia card is going to do better than the single-GPU ATI card, and the same for dual-GPU cards (in 90% of cases; the only time ATI has the advantage is at super high resolutions with AA turned high).

Though I'm not going to upgrade my 8800GT until the next release 6 months from now (or maybe 12, depending on how much better games and hardware get).

[Leon]

FYI, the GTX260 is supposedly able to run Crysis at 2560x1600 on Very High with 15-20fps. And it seems no card up until now could run more than 1fps at those settings. I'm highly anticipating the performance of the new chip.

[Leon]

Can't wait, check out the projected specs:

GeForce GTX 280:

1GB GDDR3
512-Bit
240 Stream Processors
PhysX Ready
CUDA Technology
PureVideo HD technology
Full MS DirectX 10 Support
Open GL 2.1, SLI, PCIe 2.0 Support
2nd gen. Unified architecture delivers 50% more gaming performance over 1st gen. through 240 shader processors
GeForce GTX 260:

448-Bit
896MB GDDR3
192 Stream Processors
PhysX Ready
CUDA Technology
PureVideo HD technology
Full MS DirectX 10 Support
Open GL 2.1, SLI, PCIe 2.0 Support

http://www.dvhardware.net/article27294.html

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.ph...d=179&Itemid=1

240 streamers man, hell yeah.

[Leon]

Wow, the Tom's Hardware review seems...disappointing. Was expecting more performance, especially for having a $650 price tag. Apparently there's a lot of noise for a single-GPU card too. Maybe nVidia's driver support is just bad or something, but I was definitely expecting more.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...0,1953-28.html

Then again, I know there are people out there who don't like the Tom's Hardware reviews, so maybe they just had a bad experience where others will have very good ones. We'll have to see.