[rhagz]

Correct, it should hit a teraflop wheres the 8800 is around 330 GF.

Nvidia has also decided to adopt a new release schedule, putting the new cards out in November.

http://www.beyond3d.com/content/news/230

[rabb1t]

I'm still not going to believe it. A full generation in less than a year? That's supposed to have 3x the computing power? Nope. I think someone is taking something that isn't legal.

[rhagz]

Originally Posted by rabb1t

I'm still not going to believe it. A full generation in less than a year? That's supposed to have 3x the computing power? Nope. I think someone is taking something that isn't legal.

Meh, I don't care what you believe honestly.

[Fozzik]

The 8800 has been out for quite some time... a 9-series around Christmas this year would be ~15 months since their last full-gen step. Things are all screwed up because ATI is now something like 6 months behind on the release schedule, but it appears Nvidia is just going to keep plugging away.

Nvidia might delay a new product (of course) for any number of reasons, not the least of which is that they really don't have to rush since they have no competition for their current products. But I think if all goes well and they feel like continuing their release cycle, it's very plausible that the 9-series will arrive late this year.

As to how powerful it will be... we generally assume a 50%-100% increase in raw power each generation, and the methods of measuring are changing with the advent of general-purpose shader hardware. Saying 3X the power definitely doesn't mean 3X the performance in games... it's likely just a lot more general-purpose shader pipelines running in parallel and higher clock speeds. Certain games will of course take more advantage of the added parallelism than others... so I'm guessing the real-world performance increase will be much like other generations across the board... 50-100%.

[rabb1t]

I'm still not going to believe it. I got my series 8 at launch in early November. If they released a series 9 this November that would put the generation cycle at exactly 1 year. I just don't see how they can pull off a generation that quickly, particularly since they would be completely ignoring a half-generation step. Off the top of my head, last time I checked the cycles, it was something like 1.5 years and 1.25 years moving from the 6 to the 7 to the 8. (I forget which was which.) Technologically I just don't see how 1 year could yield the standard gain we've been seeing since the 8 was such a big jump in power requirements and redesign.

Also, consider the marketing. The series 8 is still very much looked at with an 'I'm not gonna touch it' attitude from a lot of the mainstream due to the fact that it uses DX10 and there aren't any DX10 games out there right now. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to be working up a redesign on a GPU when you don't have any knowledge about what you need to redesign. It would make more sense to wait until the power of the series 8 (DX10 features) are used, see how the games are hitting the card, and adjust accordingly. Releasing a series 9 before the series 8 features are used would seem to me like they are saying 'woops, sorry about that, now that DX10 is coming out we can fix the problems/things we cheaped out on the series 8' and I think that's how a lot of those people who are waiting will see it as well.

I'm just not gonna believe it till I see it. I just don't see how it makes sense technologically, nor in terms of marketing/advertising the product branding. I still think we won't see the series 9 till at least Spring, if not Summer.

Again, not arguing or disagreeing with anyone here on a personal level – I just don’t see how it ‘makes sense’ from a technological/feature and generational comparison level. I still think a 1 year cycle is just way too fast, especially considering the changes and features added to the series 8.

[Tomcrit]

And the fact that at the moment there is no real competition to beat off.

[Fozzik]

I doubt that the next-gen chip from either company will be a significant architecture change. Maybe a few refinements here and there...but now that these GPUs are almost entirely made up of simple parallel floating point pipelines (general shader engines), at least for the forseeable future all they really have to do is shrink the process and add on more pipelines and memory. In the big scheme of things, that's easy. It would be quite possible for Nvidia to double or triple the number of pipelines, drop the process size, go up to a gig or a gig and a half of memory, and call it a 9xxx.

Think back to the switch from the 6 to the 7 generation...much the same thing. The changes in the architecture were relatively minor. Sure, they waited for the timing to be right (and they probably will this time as well), but there's no reason they couldn't speed up the development cycle when they are making such minor changes to the design.

Not saying it's going to happen. The arguments about having no competition and no reason to market a new product are good arguments, and I agree they probably have no need at all of rushing out a next-gen card. I'm just saying the most certainly could... and quite often in this industry that's all the reason they need to go ahead and do it.

[rhagz]

If they release the 9 series this year it would pretty much doom ATI for the next couple of years. They will still be crunching hard to get the 2900's into better shape and release a decent revision while the 8 series price plummets and the 9's blow everyone away.

[rabb1t]

Originally Posted by rhagz

If they release the 9 series this year it would pretty much doom ATI for the next couple of years.

That and Intel's Quad core Q6600 dropping into the sub $300 range will pretty much do a fatality on AMD.

[tennex]

I would just like to add that nzxt cases are nice, except for those really colorful and "demon style" or whatever cases they have. Those are ugly if you ask me.

Let's see, based on what you described that you already know how to do. I would say follow Fozzik's guide, you'v already been inside a computer a few times it seems, you know where every component is going to mount, it's just a matter of plugging things in correctly. $1,500+ for an $1,100 worst case scenario, that is a pretty hefty markup. BTW If you have the XP license sticker for your last comp, you can probably use that code again for your new pc. You just need an install disc from anyone.

[dakyres]

Originally Posted by rabb1t

That and Intel's Quad core Q6600 dropping into the sub $300 range will pretty much do a fatality on AMD.

What an awesome pun

As for marketing though, havent you noticed that the thing is - stick it out there, make a few bucks, move on? Heck its been that way since Freuds nephew decided to revolutionize marketing ! If indeed all thats required to 'step up performance' now is to add a pipeline or two, toss in some memory and shrink the die, why not? SOMEONE will toss out 500$ for it. You then slowly sink the cost down to your actual marketing costs (remember, no research done here, just an add on, so no additional cost really) and you have a new resource for your actual development process. Sounds normal to me. Thats oversimplified mind you, but relatively true.

[Enscheff]

Thanks for all the help guys. I finally bought the following system for $1400 including shipping:

COOLERMASTER, Centurion 5
CORSAIR, HX Series 520W
ASUS, P5N-E SLI
INTEL, Core™ 2 Duo E6600
CORSAIR, 2GB (2 x 1GB) XMS2 PC2-6400 DDR2 800MHz
eVGA, e-GeForce 8800 GTS Superclocked
WESTERN DIGITAL, 250GB WD Caviar® SE16
CREATIVE, Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ XtremeGamer
MICROSOFT, Windows XP Home Edition w/ SP2b

I will couple it with the 20 inch Sceptre monitor. By the time I am ready to upgrade the GPU I will be looking at a 9-series, so I skipped the 640 meg.

Now when I get this PC, will Avadirect have loaded all the most recent drivers for everything?

Will they have disabled onboard sound since I bought a sound card?

Are there any other things I may have to look out for to make sure everything is set up to run games well?

Finally, I remember eading something about either the monitor or the GPU where the DVI output/inout is tricky to get working. Anyone know anything about that?

[rabb1t]

Originally Posted by Enscheff

Thanks for all the help guys. I finally bought the following system for $1400 including shipping

Now when I get this PC, will Avadirect have loaded all the most recent drivers for everything?

Hopefully any system builder would, but some are noobs and don't pre-configure systems correctly. I'd say double check to be sure.

Will they have disabled onboard sound since I bought a sound card?

No clue on that one. I'd say that would depend how thorough they are on going through and doing specific bios settings. It's not hard to do if they didn't.

Are there any other things I may have to look out for to make sure everything is set up to run games well?

I'd recommend just checking the driver versions, checking that the on-board sound is disabled, checking that the ram voltage has been set manually to Corsair's recommended voltage... aside from that I'd say just let it run 3dMark06 a couple of times off a fresh boot and see what it registers. Good for a base reading on the system and to test to see if it's 'fully functional'.

Finally, I remember eading something about either the monitor or the GPU where the DVI output/inout is tricky to get working. Anyone know anything about that?

Um... no clue what that is. The only thing I could thing that it possibly may be is that some monitors/GPUs are finicky about running in 1680x1050 res. But if you aren't currently running with a monitor with that res it wouldn’t be an issue. Early on though peeps were having to create special res settings in the drivers manually due to it not detecting properly for some reason. I'm sure that issue is all cleared up by now though.

The physical part is just as easy to plug in as the old school plug type. *shrug*

[Enscheff]

Thanks to all the help I got from this forum I ordered my PC from AVADirect and it arrived yesterday. Specs:

COOLERMASTER, Centurion 5 Black/Blue Mid-Tower Computer Case, ATX, No PSU

CORSAIR, HX Series 520W Modular Power Supply, 24-pin ATX12V EPS12V, Triple +12V, Multi-GPU Ready

ASUS, P5N-E SLI, LGA775, nForce 650i SLI, 1066MHz FSB, DDR2-800 8GB /4, PCIe x16 SLI /2, SATA RAID 5 /5, HDA, GbLAN, FW /2, ATX, Retail

INTEL, Core™ 2 Duo E6600 Dual-Core, 2.4GHz, 1066MHz FSB, 4MB L2 Cache, 65nm, 65W, EM64T EIST VT XD, Retail

CORSAIR, 2GB (2 x 1GB) XMS2 PC2-6400 DDR2 800MHz CL5 (5-5-5-12) SDRAM 240-pin DIMM, Non-ECC

eVGA, e-GeForce 8800 GTS Superclocked 576MHz, 320MB DDR3 1700MHz, PCIe x16 SLI, 2x DVI, HDTV/S-Video Out, Retail

WESTERN DIGITAL, 250GB WD Caviar® SE16, SATA II 300MB/s, 7200 RPM, 16MB cache

SONY, CRX320EE Black 52x32x52-16A DVD-ROM/CD-RW Combo Drive, OEM

CREATIVE, Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ XtremeGamer, 7.1 channels, 24-bit 96KHz, PCI

MICROSOFT, Windows XP Home Edition w/ SP2b, OEM

I hooked the new PC up to my new Sceptre 21" widescreen ($215 delivered from Newegg) and the game looks great. I am playing on High Quality and 1680x1050 resolution. Messing around in TK with my 25 DK I was getting 40-50+ FPS, so overall it seems to be playing VG fairly well. Of course I experienced the customary CTD while I was traveling, but once I got to TK everything was fine for the ~2 hours I played in there.

Overall I am very pleased with AVADirect. This rig cost me just under $1400 delivered (just over $1600 if you include the monitor). The only minor complaint I have is how long it took for the PC to be delivered. I ordered on 6/5 and it showed up 6/21. I would recommend them to anyone that wants to build their own PC but are hesitant to take the plunge and actually build one. I think the few hundred dollars extra to have it built was worth it.

Angain, thanks for all the help.

[rabb1t]

Two and a half weeks from ordering to delivery doesn't sound all that bad for a system builder. I haven't gone through a system builder, but the last time I checked with Alienware they wanted over a month from the order till it would be at my door, so 2.5 weeks sounds fairly quick.

[Loopy]

True. You have to realize they don't have these all together and ready to go when you order them. You have to give them time to put it together test it install any software etc. And remember yours is not the only system they would be building. So yah.. 2 1/2 weeks doesn't sound bad at all.