It continues: "The initial version of 3DMark Vantage shipped with a PhysX installer that only included support for CPU physics and the Ageia physics chip. The initial version didn't contain a GPU physics installer as nobody had that product. Once we brought physics to the GPU through our Ageia acquisition, we updated the PhysX installer to add support for GPU physics.
"The same thing applies to Unreal Tournament 3. All we’ve done is update the installer to add support for GPU physics.
"The installer will be available for everyone to download off the Nvidia website this week, so folks can play with it and enjoy the new GPU physics effects."
In response, AMD pointed us towards this quote from Oliver Baltuch, President of FutureMark, on the matter:
“We are adhering to the rules set out in our previously published documents (PDF). Based on the specification and design of the CPU tests, GPU make, type or driver version may not have a significant effect on the results of either of the CPU tests as indicated in Section 7.3 of the 3DMark Vantage specification and whitepaper.“
As a result, AMD is confident that Nvidia doesn't have Futuremark’s approval for their GPU acceleration of PhysX.
Power Draw Test Results
Power draw in Watts (W)
Of course, AMD will eventually offer physics-on-GPU code of its own, and Futuremark will have to revamp its tests to take into account the blurred line between CPU and GPU. For now, though, Nvidia can gain higher scores at the cost of ending apples-for-apples comparisons.
Unfortunately, we only had the Zotac for a short time before the business of driver 177.35 vs 177.39 kicked off, and we didn’t get the chance to compare the two back-to-back.
At the very least, Nvidia is sailing close to the wind with 3DMark Vantage, but outside the rarified domain of benchmarks and back in the real world, the idea of handling physics on the GPU makes perfect sense.
We love the Zotac GTX 280 AMP! to bits but it's very hard to recommend the level of expenditure that buying one entails. For the price of a single GTX 280 you can buy a PlayStation 3, and if you’re thinking of SLI or Tri-SLI GTX 280 that would pay for a decent 50in HDTV.
Verdict
Nvidia’s latest and greatest graphics chip truly is superb, but it is also monstrously big, horribly power-hungry and ludicrously expensive. We’re waiting for GT200b to bring DirectX 10.1 and GDDR 5 support to the party, and the sooner Nvidia rolls out 55nm fabrication the better.
Nvidia GeForce GTX 280
COMMENTS
PC Gaming has gone mad.
Recently I put together a nice powerful Quad Q9450 system and 4Gb RAM, plus a not too shabby 8800GTS, the newer type with 512Mb and other changes from the 320Mb models.
Now imagine my surprise when I put Crysis on it, foolishly thinking that I could put the settings on at least High (not highest), as I watched my system grind to a painful halt. You could measure the frames per second in minutes.
I haven't built a PC system in about four years before this one after realising that I got into that flow of buying the biggest fastest systems. I stopped when it went all sour when the games required MORE than what the latest gfx cards could process.
So it seems things carred on getting sourer and sourer to the state of utter madness.
And now it seems even this ridiculously expensive state of the art card STILL doesn't allow crysis to run at high settings at high resolutions. How old is Crysis now? I dread to think how badly it performed when it first came out.
Just madness.
I'm not a console gamer generally, but something led me down the path of getting an XBox 360, then a PS3. I still cringe at some of the arcadey shallow-arsed titles available, but the new GTA4 seemed to justify my decision.
...Not that Crysis is a cerebral piece of gameplay in itself!
There is a clear 1:1 relationship when designing games for consoles, 1xConsole performance = 1xGame performance. Easy to achieve seeing as all consoles are created equal.
PC gaming has just gone insane due to the inherent anti-equilibrium (cool new word combo!). I'm surprised the whole industry hasn't crashed and burned due to this hardware-Software divide.
.
And what is it with those graphs? the GX2 and 8800GT (in different tests) seem to come out better all round. I'm presuming this is because GX2 is two boards in one package, but still isn't it cheaper than the 280?
So why is the 280 better then?
Or, for the price of a GTX280 you could buy an Xbox 360
... and have some decent games to play on it as well.
@Brian Miller
> Feel free to differ in opinion but if you do beware,
> your just plain wrong and likely stupid.
But may be able to spell ..
clarification about the test system
Yes the Crysis figures look weird and yes that probably says more about Crysis than it does about the GTX 280.
I tested with Windows Vista Ultimate Edition SP1 32-bit and Crysis was a fresh installation patched to v1.21
I'm a power loving gadget geek but even I don't care about this
because in order to use DX10 or higher I have to pollute my gaming system with Vista. Which means my 8800 still doesn't run at full capability because Windows refuses to make DX10 for XP Pro. Why the hell would I want to buy an even bigger card that I can't take advantage of because of poor policymaking for the software that drives it?
Hell, I'll just strap on another 8800 in SLI, still come out with decent power usage, and save an arseload of cash, perhaps even get some performance boost in framerate, even though particle effects and such are still going to be castrated.
And I don't wanna hear *jack* about DX10.1 unless it RUNS ON XP!
