WARNING - Everything you read in the following post are the view of an nv*****!
I'd just say ATi *cough*Steg=fanboy*cough* J/k Steg...
That’s me! Nothing to deny there.
arnt the new cards that ati and nvidia anounced both pci express??? if so does that mean a new mobo too??
Nvidia will be releasing the NV40 (nice shiny new card) on an AGP8 interface and at the same time (it is said) the NV41 (an nv40 with an AGPtoPCIX converter glued to it) and at some point after the nv45 (a much tweaked nv40 with native PCIX support - thus more efficient.)
As for ATi the R420 is designed to run on AGP8 only with the R423 follows either shortly after or immediately with native PCIX support as far as I know.
So, if you buy AGP now then it won’t last the next round of motherboards (Socket 939 and Socket T) but if you buy PCIX then you need a new CPU and Mobo.
To add some truth to that post about the new core from ATI being two cores slapped together. You obviously haven't been getting facts from anywhere but an Nvidia fan site or your own head. No offense but your comment about the ATI core not having any new features is complete bull. As soon as my NDA runs out, as others do as well. You'll see all the new ATI card has to offer. Even if the Nvidia card has 16 pipelines as now rumoured I haven't seen anything from Nvidia yet. So we'll have to wait and see as always.
Please, I am not quite that stupid. Those stats I read straight off the Inquirer and ATi not long after officially claimed that the Inquirer had got it all wrong. However there is this :
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/display/20040213181043.html
it appears to show 2 more vertex engines which should do well for performance and
Improved FSAA patterns;
Improved anisotropic filtering patterns;
but both nvidia and ati have been claiming that with every new card for years. There is also
Overall improved architecture over R300
which actually tells us very little. There is nice news of GDDR 2 and 3 support which will help ramp up clock speeds without the problems of heat and power consumption. There is also the 500Mhz core clock will be nice. It mentions VS/PS 3.0 support which has been rumoured not to be supported and then rumoured that it is supported and then rumoured it is not supported etc. No mention of OGL 2.0 support - which nvidia have confirmed the nv40 will do. All in all it looks exactly like a heavily tweaked R360.
The difference with nvidia is that they have (apparently) completely redesigned their method of crunching pixel shaders and if the 16 pipeline rumours are true then the nv40 will simply steam roller everything. no arguments.
Also have to add, I've seen that at several places...some mis-informed souls think the R420 is to be a couple of RV360 cores....I can only guess this is because both are built using low-K dialetrecs (something nVidia has yet to do successfully?) as well as using the .13nm process....
and your proof is where? if all rumour are based on the process the core is manufactured with then the nv40 is 2 nv30 cores stuck together....I think not. nvidia has not used (as far as I know) the low-k 0.13 process and has instead gone for the 0.11 process - all sounds good to me - especially seeing as how hot nvidia cards seem to get.
And the bad news is that neither the nv40 nor R420/R423 will be show cased at CeBit - we will have to wait yet longer.
Just my $0.02
And all you ATi fans don't worry - I won’t hold it against you
Steg
EDIT - and a quote from Beyond3d to give hope to you nvidia supporters that have your doubts
NVIDIA’s CEO states that "if we’re not a lot more than 2 times faster I’m going to be very disappointed".
which bodes well for the nv40 - the r420 better be fast.