NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra: The Next Step Forward
by Derek Wilson on April 14, 2004 8:42 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
... And the Pipeline
The end of the pipeline consists of the ROP pixel pipeline. These are the units that take care of antialiasing, as well as z and color compression and final drawing of a pixel. There are 16 of these units, and they are capable of either computing one color+z pixel, or calculating 2 z/stencil operations per clock. This means that 32 z or stencil operations (think shadowing), or 16 pixels can be drawn per clock cycle. Thus NVIDIA has dubbed this architecture a 16x1 / 32x0 architecture. On a side note, they have retroactively dubbed the NV3x a 4x2 / 8x0 architecture.
Again, the antialiasing done in this unit is rotated grid multisample, Multiple Render Targets are supported, and floating point blending can be done.
Actually, this time around, NVIDIA is supporting front to back fp16 all the way from the software to the framebuffer. This will assist in things like HDR rendering, as the fp16 (or fp32) data calculated in the pixel shaders no longer needs to be converted to 8bit integer color for display.
Of course, we always have to wait a while before we can see the good stuff that comes of all this technology. So what else does this card have to offer?
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Da3dalus - Thursday, April 15, 2004 - link
I'd like to see benchmarks of Painkiller in the upcoming NV40 vs R420 tests...Brickster - Thursday, April 15, 2004 - link
Am I the only one who thinks Nvidia's Nalu is the MOST bone-able cartoon out there?Oy, get the KY!
Warder45 - Thursday, April 15, 2004 - link
Did any reviews try and overclock the card? Is it not possible with the test card?DonB - Thursday, April 15, 2004 - link
Would have been better if it had a coax cable TV input + TV tuner. For $500, I would expect a graphic card to include EVERYTHING imaginable.Pete - Thursday, April 15, 2004 - link
Shinei #37,"Speaking of DX9/PS2.0, what about a Max Payne 2 benchmark?"
MP2 doesn't use DX9 effects. The game requires DX9 compatability, but only DX8 compliance for full effects.
Xbit-Labs has a ton of benches of next-gen titles as well, and is worth checking out. NV40 certainly redeems itself in the HL2 leak. :)
Wwhat - Thursday, April 15, 2004 - link
Anybody happen to know if it's possible to use a second (old) PSU to run it, you can pick up cheap 235 watt PSU's and would be helped with both extra connectors and power.I'm not sure it won't cause 'sync' problems though as a small difference between the rails of 2 PSU's would cause one to drain the other if the card's connectors aren't decoupled enough from the AGP port.
Pumpkinierre - Thursday, April 15, 2004 - link
Agrre with you Trog #59 on the venting. Also with DX9.0c having fp32 as spec., does this mean that FX series cards redeem themselves? (As the earlier DX9 spec was fp24 which was'nt present on the FX gpus causing a juggling act between fp16 and fp32 to match performance and IQ). Still, full fp32 on the FX cards might be too slow.mrprotagonist - Thursday, April 15, 2004 - link
What's with all the cheesy comments before the benchmarks? Anyone?Cygni - Thursday, April 15, 2004 - link
"what mobo and mobo drivers were used? i hear that the nforce2 provides an unfair performance advantage for nvidia"The test was on an Athlon 64 3400+ system, so i doubt it was using an Nforce2. But ya, i agree, the system specs were short. More details are required.
Brickster - Wednesday, April 14, 2004 - link
Derek, what was that Monitor you used?Thanks!