LeadTek 6800 and eVGA 6800 Ultra Extreme: New GeForce on the Block
by Derek Wilson on July 9, 2004 1:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
The Cards
First up, we have the LeadTek GeForce 6800. As with most (all?) cards at this stage in the game, this is just a reference card with a LeadTek HSF solution strapped on it. Of course, cooling solution can play a large role in purchasing decisions, and as we saw in our previous generation round up, the LeadTek doesn't have a bad design at all.
The core clock speed of the NVIDIA GeForce 6800 is 325, and memory is clocked at a relatively low 700MHz data rate, and it only has 128MB of RAM. Of course, the 400MHz drop in memory speed from its 16-pipe Ultra flavored big brother isn't as large a deal as it could be. The number of pixel pipelines running has a heavy impact on memory usage. Since this only has 12 pipes running at a lower clock speed, the slower (and cheaper) memory selection shouldn't have as large an impact as it might seem.
Pricing on the 6800 is looking to be about $300 USD.
Next up is the eVGA GeForce 6800 Ultra Extreme Edition. These Extreme cards will simply be highly overclocked 6800 Ultra GPUs. NVIDIA suggests 450MHz+ core and 1.1GHz+ memory. Vendors who decide to pick up one of these overclockable GPUs can (and probably should) decide to go with faster memory as well. A beefy cooling solution is also desirable. Our digging and prodding suggests that NVIDIA doesn't charge any more or less for this chip to vendors (though they don't discuss at what price they will sell their chips), since it's still a 6800 Ultra GPU, but only some vendors will be able to get their hands on them.
As we can see from the picture, this card is totally stock NVIDIA with the exception of the Tonberry image on the fan shroud rather than the mermaid. This particular 6800UE has a core clock speed of 450MHz and a memory data rate of 1.2GHz. We received our sample clocked at 460, but later received an update from eVGA that they would be shipping them at a lower speed. As we saw in our FarCry v1.2 patch article, this card was perfectly stable at 460 MHz, though mileage may vary.
We don't have any pricing information on the 6800 Ultra Extreme, but it will likely be very high as Ultras are going for $540 USD. We have been told by eVGA that the Ultra cards should retail for $500 while the Ultra Extremes should be $540, but vendors are simply selling the lower powered cards at a higher price right now. It remains to be seen what will happen with this, but price won't stabalize before availability does. For now, our greater concern is street price, which we estimate will be much higher than $540 (at least initially). But eVGA maintains that the card should be priced at $540 on their website when it becomes available. For that, we will have to wait and see.
Our comparisons will include plenty of ATI and NVIDIA current and previous generation cards.
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Drayvn - Friday, July 9, 2004 - link
Actually i just found it for $530 over here in the UKDrayvn - Friday, July 9, 2004 - link
In England the price of the XT-PE is about $565 and u could probably find it lower, at around $550 to $540...Noli - Friday, July 9, 2004 - link
Guys if you don't like the value information 'overkill', er... just don't hover your mouse over the graphs?Actually my beef is slightly different which is why do anandtech log the fps/$ ?? There may be a good reason but am not sure what it is...
Marsumane - Friday, July 9, 2004 - link
Something that I dont think is quite right is that they are doing these benchmarks to determine the value of a card. If you use SM2.0 for the 6800 series and the X800 series you will not be seeing the entire value of purchasing a 6800 based graphics card. SM3.0 IS A FACTOR IN VALUE!DarkKnight - Friday, July 9, 2004 - link
I completely agree with #18, just too much value information for me. In the end of an article just give a graph of the overall value, something like they do at THG.DarkKnight - Friday, July 9, 2004 - link
ZobarStyl - Friday, July 9, 2004 - link
I love my LeadTek 4200, and the 6800nu is right up my alley...not like I need 256 for anything I do anyway. Great article, now I'm sure that once the gouging stops if I can find one for 250 it's mine. And ATi fanboys please stop posting their prices like they are wrong, everyone is overcharging right now...and the XTPE does not equal the XT #17...if the PE costs the same as the XT, who the hell will buy the XT when the PE is clocked higher stock and performs better?Hell at my local Best Buy the Pro (yes, the Pro) is proudly sold for 499.99; so much for the MSRP...
rjm55 - Friday, July 9, 2004 - link
#18 - I infer that you meant "I am not implying . . ." in your comment.Derek - The "value" thing is a good idea, but using it in every graph is really more information than any of us need - which makes it more confusing than it needs to be. Not many are interested in comparing bucks per frame in Eve at 1600x1200 to bucks per frame in Halo, for example. What's in the article about value is geeky overkill, when what I want to know is true overall value, or bang for the buck.
Maybe you can settle on a bench ot two to best illustrate value instead of making it so complicated you have to run a computer analysis to figure it out.
binger - Friday, July 9, 2004 - link
nice article, but too bad you didn't touch the issues of heat and noise. for me, those factors are far more decisive than, say, a 10$ price premium or a performance difference of a couple of fps.deathwalker - Friday, July 9, 2004 - link
An after thought to my original post on this review...there seems to be a great deal of emphasis put on 1600 X 1200 performance in these reviews..I know there are still a great number of gamers out there still using CRT moniotors..but..with the growing popularity of LCD monitors this 1600 X 1200 performance range is unobtainable for most LCD owners as most 17" and 19" LCD monitors operate with 1280 X 1024 as the optimal native setting. I am not infering though that 1600 X 1200 is not revelant in this testing process...it's just an observation.