NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra: The Next Step Forward
by Derek Wilson on April 14, 2004 8:42 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
The Card and The Test
This is our NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra engineering sample. No, it's not one slot, yes, it has 2 molex connectors, and generally its actually not very loud.
The 16x1 GeForce 6800 Ultra will be clocked at 400/550 (core/mem) and priced at $499, while its 12x1 little brother the GeForce 6800 non-ultra will be priced at $299 (clock speeds to be determined).
Here's a quick rundown of the key features:
. Vertex Shaders
° Support for Microsoft DirectX 9.0 Vertex Shader 3.0
° Displacement mapping
° Vertex frequency stream divider
° 65000+ instruction length programs
. Pixel Shaders
° Support for DirectX 9.0 Pixel Shader 3.0
° Full pixel branching support
° Support for Multiple Render Target (MRTs)
° 65000+ instruction length programs
. Next-Generation Texture Engine
° Up to 16 textures per rendering pass
° Support for 16-bit floating point format and 32-bit floating point format
° Support for non-power of two textures
° Support for sRGB texture format forgamma textures
° DirectX and S3TC texture compression
. Full 128-bit floating point precision through the entire rendering pipeline (64-bit max precision to framebuffer and display)
The chip is 222 Million transistors fabbed on a .13 micron process. Currently a 480W power supply and 2 free completely independent connections to the PSU are required. 8x Rotated grid multisample antialiasing, and 16x (128tap) anisotropic filtering are available.
Our test system:
AMD Athlon 64 3400+
1GB DDR RAM (OCZ Platinum at 2-2-3-6)
Seagate 120GB HD
PC Power & Cooling 510W ATX Power Supply
Other cards used in the tests:
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5950
ATI Radeon 9800 XT
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro
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Reliant - Wednesday, April 14, 2004 - link
Any ideas how the Non Ultra version will perform?segagenesis - Wednesday, April 14, 2004 - link
I cant agree with #45 more. People rush to judgement when its no secret that ATI will be coming out with thier goods very soon also. "Wow look this card is really fast!!! I cant believe it!" well this sounds like almost every other graphics card release from ATI or nVidia in the past. To me nVidia had better have come out with something good after ther lackluster Geforce FX 5800 wasnt anything terribly special. I used to like nVidia alot (heh my ti4600 still runs fine) but when it comes to looking for a new card, I'll pick whichever one is faster *and* has the features I want. If it wasnt for such turnoffs like the 2-slot design and now even 2 power connections required Im not sure I am ready to spend $500 just yet...Sorry if im obtuse but if ATI comes out with a part thats either equal (note the key term there) in performance or maybe even slightly slower... I'd go for ATI and thier better IQ that the Radeon 9700 series so impressed me on and made me wish for more out of my ti4600. That and a single slot/single power type design would probably put me in thier boat.
Fanboy ATI opinion? I've owned nVidia from the Riva TNT to the ti4600 and many in-between.
Lonyo - Wednesday, April 14, 2004 - link
#42, the jump from the Ti4600 to the 9700Pro wasn't good for you? I woul dhave thought finally playable AA/AF was quite a jump.Personally, it seems less of a jump than the 4600 -> 9700.
And I will reserve judgement on how much of an accomplishment nVidia have made until I see what ATi release.
If it's of similar power, but maybe has 1 molex, or is a single slot solution, they will have accomplished more.
It's not just raw performance, we'll have to see how it all stacks up, and how long it takes to release the things!
ChronoReverse - Wednesday, April 14, 2004 - link
Some site tested the 6800U on a 350W supply and it worked just fine.Myself, I think my Enermax 350W with its enhanced 12V rail will take it just fine as well.
Regs - Wednesday, April 14, 2004 - link
Yeah, Nvidia did make one hell of an accomplishment. They just earned a lot of respect back from both fan clubs. You have to respect the development and research that went into this card and the end result turns out to be just as we anticipated if not more.I really don't know how anybody could pick a "club" when seeing hardware like this perform so well.
Im hoping to see the same results from ATI.
Just too bad they are some costly pieces of hardware ;)
araczynski - Wednesday, April 14, 2004 - link
nice to FINALLY see a universally quantifiable performance increase from one generation to the next.but the important thing is how it competes with the x800 from ati, not against older cards.
as for the power supply, i think the hardcore crowd that these are geared at already have more then enough power, and quite frankly i would be suprised if these woudln't work fine on a solid 350W from a reputable source (i.e. not your 350W ps for $10 from some 'special' sale).
They're being conservative knowing that many of the people have crappy power supplies and don't know better.
klah - Wednesday, April 14, 2004 - link
"Anyone know when it ships to retail stores?"http://www.eetimes.com/semi/news/showArticle.jhtml...
"GeForce 6800 Ultra and GeForce 6800 models, are currently shipping to add-in-card partners, OEMs, system builders and game developers. Retail graphics boards based on the GeForce 6800 models are scheduled for release in the next 45 days."
Jeff7181 - Wednesday, April 14, 2004 - link
This has me a bit curious... maybe I didn't read close enough... but is this the 6800 or the 6800 Ultra?saechaka - Wednesday, April 14, 2004 - link
wow impressive. i really want one. wonder if it will run ok with my 380w powersupplyCygni - Wednesday, April 14, 2004 - link
Personally, im very impressed, and i havent had an Nvidia product in my main gaming rig since my Geforce256. The card may be huge, power hungry, hot, and loud (maybe), but that is some SERIOUS performance.How long has it been since Nvidia has had a top end card that DOUBLED the performance of the last top end card? Pretty awesome, I think. I dont have the money to pick one up, but hopefully the mid/low end gets some love from both ATI and Nvidia as well. The 9200/9600/5200/5600 dont really appeal to me... not enough of a performance leap over a $20 8500!