Strix, thanks for bearing with us as we hi-jack your thread... so much the better if some of it is actually useful info ;). Freon, >> You didnt need to type all that out Spanki.. Ok.. it's not always easy to tell in this online means of communication. I thought I'd fairly covered the issue, giving pros and cons on both sides and your response was the online equivelent of "Is not!" ;). I could have just come back with "Is so!" and we could take up from there, but I didn't think that would be overly productive ;). >> I happen to be quite knowledgeable in the area of computers and 3D hardware. I build my own systems, been following the 3D hardware scene since the S3 Virge3D days, and I am also an avid gamer. Cool, thanks for the info.. now I have better perspective to talk from. As for me, I started playing with and programming computers back in the early 1980s. I was a (mostly 3D related) Programmer and Producer in the Online Gaming Industry for 7 years and have been building computers, gaming, messing around with, programming and following 3D-related topics of all types for about the past 10 years of that time. I've written software 3D pipelines from scratch, as well as programmed in both DirectX (Direct3D) and OpenGL. >> However, one thing you should note from that review is dont get caught up in synthetic benchmarks (3DMark), and make comparisons based on them. Yep.. agreed, 100%. And I started to add similar statements to my previous reply, but - as you noted - it was already getting wordy. But let's step back and think about this for a minute... just 'how' do we determine that card X is 'faster' than card Y? We have a few choices... - we can look at the specs and devine the theoretical limits of each card, but that rarely gives the whole picture. It's too dependant on how efficient the drivers are for one thing and there's no 1-to-1 correspondence with actual real-world game/3D app performance. - we can run some synthetic benchmarks. these are usually set up to try to test the afore-mentioned theoretical limits of the hardware, but (again, as you mentioned), aren't always as meaningful as real-world apps/games. - we can run some real world app/game-based benchmarks. But keep in mind that there may be issues clouding these results as well (driver cheats being one, but the particular programing style/methods used may also favor one set of hardware over another). - lastly, we can just go by 'gut instinct' - but I doubt you'd get much respect as a hardware reviewer if you just went by that ;). ...When you factor in personal bias based on personal work/gameplay requirements/preferences, good/bad experience with previous products, reports of foul-play that taint your views of company X forever forward, fan-worship of a company/product/or reviewer X over reviewer Y, or otherwise, it's not always easy to come up with a 'definative' answer. I can definately state with 100% confidence that the current top of the line ATI card is faster in every repsect than the original Virge3D, 3Dfx Voodoo, etc., but when someone says the same thing about the latest rev NVidia hardware, I don't find the answer to that question as such a black and white issue. Each of the above methods have inherent problems/issues and none can tell the full story alone, so you try to use every method available to get an overall feel (gut instinct? ;) for which is faster or better suits your needs. Anyway, just one final note here before I wrap this up... you mentioned a few times issues about NVidia 'cheating' in their drivers... First off, not ALL of what has been reported as cheating is actually cheating, but SOME of it was and they got caught (and shame on them for doing it). But the fact that they did causes some exageration, speculation and lack of sympahy (or trust) on the part of some reviewers about the issue. For example, most fail to mention that this caused NVidia to implement stringent new company policies in regards to any future driver optimizations. Most fail to mention (or gloss over the fact) that they removed those cheats (that were cheats) from the newer drivers. Most fail to mention (or gloss over the fact) that ATI is guilty of similar 'cheats', etc. But as you say, we don't really need to get into all of that here ;). Sorry for the new novel... ;). - Keith

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