Vertex/Pixel Shading Performance
Source: Tom's Hardware – Keywords: nvidia, gtx, 280
Vertex/Pixel Shading Performance
Since they should be able to draw some improvement from the near-doubling of the number of ALUs, first let’s see how the cards perform with the Rightmark Vertex Shaders test (all with the same performance).
Surprisingly, and despite different adjustments and successive tests, the GTX 280 not only posted poorer performance than the 9800 GTX, but fell 12% short! Nvidia also got the same results, and was able to change that only by enabling 4X antialiasing – surprising for a geometry test. We should note, however, that while processing power (and consequently transformation power) has increased strongly, the setup engine hasn’t been changed. As with the 9800 GTX, it’s capable of generating only one triangle per cycle. The latter’s frequency advantage (675 MHz compared to 600 MHz), might explain the difference.
As usual with RightMark 2.0, the first shader showed no improvement with the new card, whereas the second showed a 25% gain.
Though we’ve already devoted a lot of space to advanced pixel shaders via the preceding tests (arithmetic in particular), let’s look at simpler shaders, with the Fillrate Tester per-pixel lighting test we’ve been using for four years now.
We’ve come a long way since then! However, we really could have expected more than only a 40% gain from the GTX 280. Similarly, and without showing all the extensive results for ShaderMark (which uses Pixel Shader 3.0), the increases remain at between 20 and 26% for the last six shaders, and it did no better than 43%.
All the results are surprising, and show the gap between the theoretical increase in power (which should show up with Vertex and Pixel shaders, even old ones, in particular) and the actual gains in applications. We’d bet that the drivers aren’t fully optimized yet, and don’t forget that even when using a very specific benchmark, it’s still difficult to isolate a specific aspect without being influenced by the rest of the pipeline, especially with current architectures.
- Previous page Fillrate Tester Results
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hmm not as big an improvement as i thought. will have to wait and see on the drivers improving the cards , but the 260 gtx seems to be the much better option given the price. still , will have to see what ati bring to the fray first. patience will be reflected in price i have no doubt.
frankly depressing, Me WANTS MRAW POWER!!!!
I am so disappointed. Now if AMD delivers on the dual GPU single memory rumour (2 GPUs on a single card but without the Crossfire problems) NVidia could have a serious problem.
Why have they tested this system with only 2Gb of RAM? If you're testing a GPU with 1Gb of VRAM, surely you'd have more installed?
They also have 2 conflicting prices on page 28.
For the 280GTX- $846 and $650;
For the 260GTX- $450 and $400
Wouldn't it have been more prudent to test against a 8800gtx ultra as this is still the single most powerfull card.
It might just be me but 66.5dBa is unbearable unless you have your PC locked away in a cupboard somewhere. This business of supplying substandard fans on very expensive cards is intolerable. Why don't they strike a deal with Zalman / Thermalright for example, and ship cards that are quiet / silent? I'm sure that people who have the money to buy a £500 GPU could afford £10 more for a better cooling solution that's included.
where is that 20W to 30W idle you are talking about? The least in the graph is 199W!
mi1ez: Probably the reason for just 2GB RAM was that it allowed Tom's to stick with 32-bit OS architecture. If they tried using more RAM they'd be stuck with 64-bit Bindows which would not be pretty - aside from really needing 8GB to give a big difference over 2GB in 32bit Vista, there's the slight issue of stable signed drivers, which these cards probably won't have for a while. Good luck trying to get Vista 64 to even "see" the cards! XD
jhoravi: that idle power would only come up on newer nVidia mobos as the card would be shut down entirely when idle and hand over to the integrated chip.
And was it me or was the Noise text copypasted over the Temperature text on the next page? Oops.
Lets try again Mr THG (uhhhm try getting your fraking website working plz)...
Now lets see this puppy in action:
http://www.evga.com/products/pdf/01G-P3-1289-AR.pdf
!!
Bob