G80: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX

Originally Posted by Pookeyhead
Three Hundred and Fifteen Watts!!!!! I wonder how the 65nm chips due later on will fare against this. To me, this is getting stupid now. Kentsfield, two of these bad boys in SLI, and all the rest of the gear in your rig, and your looking at one serious amount of power.

Perhaps I'm being stupid, but I was under the impression that those figures were the entire PC's draw, not just the graphics card. Clarification would be good, although could well make me feel like a right plonker :D

tbh, some of it was a little tech heavy for me, so i skipped a bit.

you mentioned the dual SLi connector, then "more on that later"

is that in the article, or do you mean another, future article?

Think I'm gonna have to get one.

Anyone got any word on any good waterblocks being developed for it?

Also, you think it would be good to couple it with a 680i mobo or stick with current gen?

Originally Posted by Omnituens
tbh, some of it was a little tech heavy for me, so i skipped a bit.

I have to agree with this. It seemed to make the assumption that we all have some idea of how things work and if I'm honest it felt more like reading a book written by a technical author than a magazine article about a graphics card, so I skipped straight to the benches.

Originally Posted by Pookeyhead
Three Hundred and Fifteen Watts!!!!! I wonder how the 65nm chips due later on will fare against this. To me, this is getting stupid now. Kentsfield, two of these bad boys in SLI, and all the rest of the gear in your rig, and your looking at one serious amount of power.

Am I the only one concerned about the cost of running today's high end rigs?

Having said that... I still want one really badly :)

The 1950xtx is cheaper and less hungry, I still want one of these but I dont want to have to go out and buy a 1kw power supply.

Originally Posted by specofdust
Perhaps I'm being stupid, but I was under the impression that those figures were the entire PC's draw, not just the graphics card. Clarification would be good, although could well make me feel like a right plonker :D

I hope you're right and I'm wrong, but I would think it's a graphics card figure rather than a whole system figure.

Originally Posted by Omnituens

you mentioned the dual SLi connector, then "more on that later"

is that in the article, or do you mean another, future article?

what i was about to ask, i searched the whole article and found nothing on SLI setups for the 8800gtx?

Originally Posted by Pookeyhead
I hope you're right and I'm wrong, but I would think it's a graphics card figure rather than a whole system figure.

I'm not so sure y'see. The system may have had a G80 in it, but I'm guessing it was a bench setup with no case fans, no PCI add-in cards, it only had a single hard disk, probably no opticals. People vastly over-estimate system needs in terms of wattage, and while I can't say I'd be hugely surprised if it turns out that those numbers are graphics card only, I would say I'd be surprised if the overall system wattage for the G80 then breaches 500W on that system.

Originally Posted by airchie
Think I'm gonna have to get one.

Anyone got any word on any good waterblocks being developed for it?

BFG have a factory watercooled model, using Danger Den blocks.

The "Early Z" feature mentioned in the article... Isn't that what ATI's Hierarchical Z buffer does already?

Originally Posted by BioSniper
If I'm honest it felt more like reading a book written by a technical author than a magazine article about a graphics card, so I skipped straight to the benches.

Maybe so, but I prefer to have the option of skipping bits rather than them not being there at all.

Cheers Tim, can't wait to see Oblivion at maximum

I wonder how you can claim the 8800's AF is as good as ATI's while you can still clearly see moiree in the cobblestones on the 8800 screenshots. Was it a case of "there cannot be what must not be"?

to power hungry for me.... i will wait untill it gets less hungry.

Originally Posted by karx11erx
I wonder how you can claim the 8800's AF is as good as ATI's while you can still clearly see moiree in the cobblestones on the 8800 screenshots. Was it a case of "there cannot be what must not be"?

I would doubt that - Bit-tech just wrote off most of Nvidias middle range a couple of weeks ago in their X1950 Pro review.

I do see what you point out, but only in the in-page versions of the pictures. If you click for the big versions and look flick between the 8800 and the ATI versions they look near identical. Certainly I couldn't say either had any noticable moire in the big pics. In the small ones it does appear like there is some in the 8800 though. Interesting that it shows in one and not the other.

HDMI?
GX2 SLI still faster?
Water cooling from BFG Koolance safe? ie copper getting friendly with the alu. radiator.
Any news/idea on what a 8800gt will be?

p.s. I gota love my 7800's for a little longer. *big smile*
and a 30" Dell on order for dec.1 (gota push my billing on it till Jan.07!!)

Originally Posted by specofdust
I would doubt that - Bit-tech just wrote off most of Nvidias middle range a couple of weeks ago in their X1950 Pro review.

I do see what you point out, but only in the in-page versions of the pictures. If you click for the big versions and look flick between the 8800 and the ATI versions they look near identical. Certainly I couldn't say either had any noticable moire in the big pics. In the small ones it does appear like there is some in the 8800 though. Interesting that it shows in one and not the other.

I agree with spec on this one.

You just need to look at the bigger picture (pun fully intended :D)

Originally Posted by karx11erx
I wonder how you can claim the 8800's AF is as good as ATI's while you can still clearly see moiree in the cobblestones on the 8800 screenshots. Was it a case of "there cannot be what must not be"?

The ATI's AF looks more blurred to me. It's clearly a compromise between blurriness and sharpness with moire becoming more obvious with the sharp lines and detail lost with the blurred lines. I'd have to say the ATI and NVIDIA AF quality are pretty evenly matched. Perhaps there's not much more they can do to improve the quality even with the G80's level of power.

Good review Tim. It's good to have an explanation of the changes to the architecture as it helps you understand the benchmarks a lot better. Of course if you're not interested you can always just skip to the benchmarks.

It's obvious that this card will need bigger and better games and heavy use of shaders to really put it to the test. I can't wait to see what developers do with this baby's power.

Oddly enough, the card isn't really released yet, and already there is a water cooler for it.
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=35613

And will the retail version ship with an extra SLI bridge so two of them can be put in SLI, or will they just expect customers to find a second bridge somewhere?

As far as I am concerned, it's too much money for too little improvement over the X1950 XTX, especially as I don't game any larger than 1280x1024, and don't plan on going widescreen. Besides, there's no way my current PSU and cooling could handle one of those monsters.

It's a record-smashing peice of hardware, but I'd rather wait, thanks.

Ouch! My life savings! <sarcasm>Time to drop out of college!</sarcasm>

That's crazy fast. Presumably over time the need for a large monitor to release the full potential will drop as game engines get more complex. Personally going to wait for a DX10 part from ATI - not due to fanboy love... but you've got to wonder how much of the high price is due to it being up there on it's own.


As for the wattage... well yeah. But it's cold this time of year and I was going to pay to heat the house anyway... :)

Originally Posted by BioSniper
I have to agree with this. It seemed to make the assumption that we all have some idea of how things work and if I'm honest it felt more like reading a book written by a technical author than a magazine article about a graphics card, so I skipped straight to the benches.

Heh I do the exact opposite usually. Don't really mind about benchmarks too much unless I want to compare a possible purchase.
Excellent review as always ;)

Originally Posted by Pookeyhead
Three Hundred and Fifteen Watts!!!!! I wonder how the 65nm chips due later on will fare against this. To me, this is getting stupid now. Kentsfield, two of these bad boys in SLI, and all the rest of the gear in your rig, and your looking at one serious amount of power.

Am I the only one concerned about the cost of running today's high end rigs?

Having said that... I still want one really badly :)

Good review as usual. ;)


Dugged.... or is that digged? Done it anyway. :)

We measured total power consumption of the system, since it's the easiest thing to do. :)

Originally Posted by ParoXoN
The "Early Z" feature mentioned in the article... Isn't that what ATI's Hierarchical Z buffer does already?

yes, it's very similar to what ATI does with Hierarchical Z already. :)

The Inquirer reports that SilenX have already started production of a w/c block for the 8800!

Link here:- http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=35613