NVIDIA's GeForce 7800 GTX Hits The Ground Running
by Derek Wilson on June 22, 2005 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Final Words
It's taken three generations of revisions, augmentation, and massaging to get where we are, but the G70 is a testament to the potential the original NV30 design possessed. Using the knowledge gained from their experiences with NV3x and NV4x, the G70 is a very refined implementation of a well designed part.With a max of three times the MADD throughput, 50% more pixel pipes, and 33% more vertex power than 6800 Ultra, the GeForce 7800 GTX is a force with which to be reckoned. Putting this much processing power into a package that pulls less juice from the wall than a 6800 Ultra is quite a feat as well. The 300+ million transistors fabbed on a 110 nm process are quite capable, and NVIDIA's compiler technology is finally mature to the point of handling all games with no shader replacement.
Adding transparency AA and further enhancing the efficiency of their PureVideo hardware will be the most tangible feature additions of the GeForce 7800 GTX. The tweaks in the pipeline really only come in performance numbers rather than feature enhancements. As there has been no DirectX update since the last part, NVIDIA has opted not to introduce any extra features. Their reasoning is that developers are slow enough to adopt DirectX changes, let alone a feature that would only run using OpenGL extensions.
Even though features haven't been added to the vertex and pixel shaders directly, the increased power will allow game developers more freedom to generate more incredible and amazing experiences. Though not seen in any game out now or coming out in the near term, the 7800 GTX does offer the ability to render nearly "Sprits Within" quality graphics in real-time. Games that live up to this example (such as Unreal Tournament 2007) still have quite a ways to go before they make it into our hands and onto our hardware, but it is nice to know the 7800 GTX has the power to run these applications when they do come along.
It is quite difficult to sum up this launch. From what is essentially a very thorough refresh of NV4x, we've got something that is more than the sum of its parts. The GeForce 7800 GTX is capable of smooth frame rates at incredibly high resolutions. Succeeding in bringing hardware and compiler together for a solution that does a better job of keeping the hardware busy than previous generations is definitely one of the most important aspects of this part. Eliminating shader replacement and performing this well is no feat to be underestimated.
Aside from the well executed hardware, NVIDIA has pulled off an incredible launch with availability right now. A quick look in our RealTime Price Engine shows several brands already available as low as $569. We can't stress enough how happy we are with NVIDIA's push to provide product in the retail market on the same day the product is announced. ATI really needs to follow suit on this one with their upcoming Crossfire launches.
For $600 we would like to see 512MB onboard, but with the current gaming landscape we certainly agree that more than 256MB is not an absolute necessity. But the GeForce 7800 GTX would have no reason to exist right now if not to accommodate future titles that will be more taxing than current games.
Overall, we consider this a successful launch. Aside from the performance of the 7800 GTX, we can infer that the PS3's RSX will be even more powerful than the G70. As RSX will be a 90nm part and will still have some time to develop further, the design will likely be even easier to program, faster, and full of more new features.
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VIAN - Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - link
"NVIDIA sees texture bandwidth as outweighing color and z bandwidth in the not too distant future." That was a quote from the article after saying that Nvidia was focusing less on Memory Bandwidth.Do these two statements not match or is there something I'm not aware of.
obeseotron - Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - link
These benchmarks are pretty clearly rushed out and wrong, or at least improperly attributed to the wrong hardware. SLI 6800 show up faster than SLI 7800's in many benchmarks, in some cases much more than doubling single 6800 scores. I understand NDAs suck with the limited amount of time to produce a review, but I'd rather it have not been posted until the afternoon than ignore the benchmarks section.IronChefMoto - Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - link
#28 -- Mlittl3 can't pronounce Penske or terran properly, and he's giving out grammar advice? Sad. ;)SDA - Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - link
QUESTIONOkay, allcaps=obnoxious. But I do have a question. How was system power consumption measured? That is, was the draw of the computer at the wall measured, or was the draw on the PSU measured? In other words, did you measure how much power the PSU drew from the wall or how much power the components drew from the PSU?
Aikouka - Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - link
Wow, I'm simply amazed. I said to someone as soon as I saw this "Wow, now I feel bad that I just bought a 6800GT ... but at least they won't be available for 1 or 2 months." Then I look and see that retailers already have them! I was shocked to say the least.RyDogg1 - Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - link
But my question was "who," was buying them. I'm a hardware goon as much as the next guy, but everyone knows that in 6-12 months, the next gen is out and price is lower on these. I mean the benches are presenting comparisons with cards that according to the article are close to a year old. Obviously some sucker lays down the cash because the "premium," price is way too high for a common consumer.Maybe this one of the factors that will lead to the Xbox360/PS3 becoming the new gaming standard as opposed to the Video Card market pushing the envelope.
geekfool - Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - link
What no Crossfire benchies? I guess they didn't wany Nvidia to loose on their big launch day.Lonyo - Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - link
The initial 6800U's cost lots because of price gouging.They were in very limited supply, so people hiked up the prices.
The MSRP of these cards is $600, and they are available.
MSRP of the 6800U's was $500, the sellers then inflated prices.
Lifted - Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - link
#24: In the Wolfenstein graph they obviously reversed the 7800 GTX SLI with the Radeon.They only reveresed a couple of labels here and there, chill out. It's still VERY OBVIOUS which card is which just by looking at the performance!
WAKE UP SLEEPY HEADS.
mlittl3 - Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - link
Derek,I know this article must have been rushed out but it needs EXTREME proofreading. As many have said in the other comments above, the results need to be carefully gone over to get the right numbers in the right place.
There is no way that the ATI card can go from just under 75 fps at 1600x1200 to over 100 fps at 2048x1535 in Enemy Territory.
Also, the Final Words heading is part of the paragraph text instead of a bold heading above it.
There are other grammatical errors too but those aren't as important as the erroneous data. Plus, a little analysis of each of the benchmark results for each game would be nice but not necessary.
Please go over each graph and make sure the numbers are right.