NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra: The Next Step Forward
by Derek Wilson on April 14, 2004 8:42 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
FarCry Performance
This game captures brilliantly the look of an island paradise. Most amazing is the water, with its rich color, reflections, translucence, and ripples that break very naturally against the pure white sand of the islands. Equally amazing is the detail in the shadows on your gun as you pass through the dense jungle foliage. The Character models and structures are great, but set in such a rich environment almost seem dull. Weapon effects are very impressive however, but not over-the-top. The realistic explosions fit perfectly into the unique setting.
The 1.1 patch of this game makes note of the fact that PS3.0 is implimented on the NV40 path. We have (as of yet) been unable to determine exactly what function PS3.0 is serving. Maybe it's something useful like branching, or maybe it's marketing speak (technically fp32 is a PS3.0 requirement). We just won't know until we can get ahold of the developers.
We see the same scaling pattern here with the 6800 reaching a 60% performance improvement over the ATI Radeon 9800 XT at 1600x1200 with 4xAA and 8xAF.
Even more impressive is the fact that we were able to run the GeForce 6800 Ultra at playable frame rates at 2048x1536 with 16xAF (it didn't like enabling even 2xAA - this could either be a hardware or driver limitation, but we just won't know until the driver is more refined). Our demo we used ran between 30 and 40 fps and averaged 34. The game was very playable and very beautiful. It not only seems like we need a new power supply to run the card, but a new monitor to display the ultra high resolutions the card can render playable.
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mkruer - Wednesday, April 14, 2004 - link
Well I hope this card is on par with ATi's or visa versa. ATi is planning to see their best at $500 pop and Nvidia is selling their at $400. How long to you think ATi is going to see their card for that price if the performance is virtually identical. Finally in the terms of the Power. Makes me wonder why PCI-Ex doesn’t include enough voltage from the socket? VPU's are getting to the point that they are just as powerful and complex as their CPU brethren, and will require the same power requirements as the CPU. Some one didn’t do their homework I guess. Well hears hoping that it will be in the next specification.quikah - Wednesday, April 14, 2004 - link
Can you post some screen shots of Far Cry? The demo at the launch event was pretty striking so I am wondering if PS 3 were actually enabled since you didn't see any difference.Novaoblivion - Wednesday, April 14, 2004 - link
Wow nice looking card I just hope the new ATI doesnt kick its ass lolRudee - Wednesday, April 14, 2004 - link
When you factor in the upgrade price of a power supply and a top of the line CPU, this is going to be one heck of an expensive gaming experience. People will be wise to wait for ATI's newest flagship before they make any purchase decisions.Pete - Wednesday, April 14, 2004 - link
Nice review, Derek. Some impressive performance, but now I'm expecting more from ATi in both performance (due to higher clockspeed) and IQ (I'm curious if ATi improved their AF while nV dropped to around ATi's current level). I also have a sneaking suspicion nV may clock the 6800U higher at launch, but maybe they're just giving themselves room for 6850U and beyond (to scale with faster memory). But a $300 12-pipe 128MB 6800 should prove interesting competition to a ~$300 256MB 9800XT.The editor in me can't refrain from offering two corrections: I'm pretty sure you meant to say Jen Hsun (not "Jensen") and well nigh (not "neigh").
Mithan - Wednesday, April 14, 2004 - link
Looks like a fantastic card, however I will wait for the ATI numbers first :)PS:
Thanks for including the 9700 Pro. I own that and it was nice to see the difference.
dawurz - Wednesday, April 14, 2004 - link
Derek, could you post the monitor you used (halo at 2048 rez), and any comments on the look of things at that monstrous a resolution?Thanks.
rainypickles - Wednesday, April 14, 2004 - link
does the size and the power requirement basically rule out using this beast of a card in a SFF machine?Damarr - Wednesday, April 14, 2004 - link
It was nice to see the 9700 Pro included in the benchmarks. Hopefully we'll see the same with the X800 Pro and XT so there can be a side-by-side comparison (should make picking a new card easier for 9700 Pro owners like myself :) ).DerekWilson - Wednesday, April 14, 2004 - link
We are planning on testing the actual power draw, but until then, NVIDIA is the one that said we needed to go with a 480W PS ... even making that suggestion limits their target demographic.Though, it could simply be a limitation of the engineering sample we were all given... We'll just have to wait an see.