Excuse me for being rude in the title, but do I have any other choice?
No, history always returns and after the total failure of the X1k launch one and a half years ago (X1800 XT not faster than the 1/2 year old 7800 GTX and soundly beaten by 7800 GTX 512), AMDs graphics divison, formerly known as ATi, noticed that they forgot to release their latest R600 GPU core.
In fact, they did not forget that, they just could not finish their work quickly enough. You may think that, needing so long, they must have a real nice product now. You may have thought just like that, but reality is back up and running.
We got to see 2900 XTX numbers one or two weeks ago and we understood that R600 may not have gotten enough spinach during its development.
Now, after the official 2900 XT launch we fully understand why AMD was so quiet about the R600: This GPU is just incapable of competing with G80. I thought the 2900 XT might have a place in the GPU market, but now I only see that I was wrong, very wrong.
Let me summarize:
The 2900 XT competes with the $150-cheaper-8800-GTS-320MB and may be able to compete with the 8800 GTS that is $50 cheaper when drivers are tuned for the R600.
The 2900 XT makes the 8800 GTX a "Greenpeace´s Choice" by consuming 60W more at load and 15W more in idle (remember that GeForce 8 cards do not like 2D power saving modes).
The 2900 XT establishes nVidia´s $300+ absolute monopoly: super high prices for G80 cards.
The R600 is perfectly in line with the upcoming failure of K8L which may look attractive from an AMD standpoint but simply will lack the steam to take any lead.
If want to do yourself a favor: Do not buy this card. Go for the Smarter Choice, GeForce 8 =)
Montag, 14. Mai 2007
Samstag, 5. Mai 2007
Automobiles - Gumball 3000, racer dead
The Gumball 3000, an actually illegal "race" in which participants are supposed to race their cars from one destination to another while collecting as many fines as possible, had to face reality after one racer died in a high-speed accident.
The Gumball 3000, being the world´s most famous non-commercial race event, has attracted a lot of attention in the past and also sponsors like adidas or the superstar Xzibit for example.
Even though adidas immediatly announced their retirement from the event after the accident, the event is very unlikely to lose its popularity.
The "goal" of the so called Rallye is that private drivers with rather big wallets take out their rides - we are talking about maybe $200.000 and up - in order to race against others on given routes. Its not necessarily the fastest driver who wins, but rather the one that has collected the most fines. Of course this can only be achieved by reckless driving for which the German Autobahn is exceptionally well suited since Germany does not have any legal speed limits.
OK, watching fast cars drive fast may be fun, actually I have learned that it really is after landing in the middle of a large group of racers in Austria after returning from a weekend trip to Italia. But we must not forget that the Gumball is an event with the sole purpose of disobeying road laws and now we face reality: The event will lead to dead drivers.
Furthermore, we must say that we are actually not talking drivers trained to drive performance cars but rather people that just have the money to burn. If the need arises, those people are not able to keep control over their car and that is what happened in the deadly accident.
So there is only one thing we can do: Pray that the madness will stop.
Come on, if you have a lot of money and want to race, just buy a Ferrari FXX, probably the fastest road legal race car there is. Ferrari will train you to drive it and let you drive it on real racetracks and will also do the setup for you. Having fun with the car is the only thing the FXX buyer has to do.
The Gumball 3000, being the world´s most famous non-commercial race event, has attracted a lot of attention in the past and also sponsors like adidas or the superstar Xzibit for example.
Even though adidas immediatly announced their retirement from the event after the accident, the event is very unlikely to lose its popularity.
The "goal" of the so called Rallye is that private drivers with rather big wallets take out their rides - we are talking about maybe $200.000 and up - in order to race against others on given routes. Its not necessarily the fastest driver who wins, but rather the one that has collected the most fines. Of course this can only be achieved by reckless driving for which the German Autobahn is exceptionally well suited since Germany does not have any legal speed limits.
OK, watching fast cars drive fast may be fun, actually I have learned that it really is after landing in the middle of a large group of racers in Austria after returning from a weekend trip to Italia. But we must not forget that the Gumball is an event with the sole purpose of disobeying road laws and now we face reality: The event will lead to dead drivers.
Furthermore, we must say that we are actually not talking drivers trained to drive performance cars but rather people that just have the money to burn. If the need arises, those people are not able to keep control over their car and that is what happened in the deadly accident.
So there is only one thing we can do: Pray that the madness will stop.
Come on, if you have a lot of money and want to race, just buy a Ferrari FXX, probably the fastest road legal race car there is. Ferrari will train you to drive it and let you drive it on real racetracks and will also do the setup for you. Having fun with the car is the only thing the FXX buyer has to do.
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