AT Exclusive Preview: The GeForce 7800 GS Hits the Scene
by Derek Wilson & Kristopher Kubicki on November 22, 2005 8:00 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Introduction
A little over a week ago we received an email from someone claiming to have a GeForce 7800GS. After checking out the card and the emails from NVIDIA confirming that this was in fact a GeForce 7800GS, we knew we had something special on our hands. Today we bring you an engineering prototype that only exists inside NVIDIA, but roadmaps and driver sets indicate this card is the eventual GeForce 6800GT replacement.
We have heard that this part was in the works over at NVIDIA, but we haven't yet heard when this product will be making its way out into the world. Apparently there are board floating around, and since we were lucky enough to get our hands on one we decided to put it through some performance tests and see what it could do. From what we have seen on roadmaps, the performance of the 7800 GS should fall between that of the 6800 GS and the 7800 GT.
Not knowing when this part will actually arrive, or how close to final this part is, means that we could see some small revisions in the card between now and release. Clock speed could change a little bit, but we don't see pipeline configuration changing. If total performance is anything like this in the retail product, we will be quite interested in this part when it is released to the public.
A little over a week ago we received an email from someone claiming to have a GeForce 7800GS. After checking out the card and the emails from NVIDIA confirming that this was in fact a GeForce 7800GS, we knew we had something special on our hands. Today we bring you an engineering prototype that only exists inside NVIDIA, but roadmaps and driver sets indicate this card is the eventual GeForce 6800GT replacement.
We have heard that this part was in the works over at NVIDIA, but we haven't yet heard when this product will be making its way out into the world. Apparently there are board floating around, and since we were lucky enough to get our hands on one we decided to put it through some performance tests and see what it could do. From what we have seen on roadmaps, the performance of the 7800 GS should fall between that of the 6800 GS and the 7800 GT.
Not knowing when this part will actually arrive, or how close to final this part is, means that we could see some small revisions in the card between now and release. Clock speed could change a little bit, but we don't see pipeline configuration changing. If total performance is anything like this in the retail product, we will be quite interested in this part when it is released to the public.
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nserra - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link
the 7800GTX512 is the card to buy because it's much faster than the others. ;)I want one but with 256MB memory, and less than 399$. Call it 7800GTX256 i dont care.
What happen to the Ultra (naming), doesnt sound good?
coldpower27 - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link
Your basically dreaming here, since the MSRP of the 7800 GTX 256 is 499US now, best we could hope for is GTX 256 Rev.2 at MSRP 549US.lexmark - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link
Could you guy possibly replace doom3 benchmarks with CoD2? The game is growing cobwebs now! :) Quake 4 should account for doom3 since its built with an optimized doom3 engine.KHysiek - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link
I think it needs a bit faster memory on release version. Something like 1.2GHz would be nice.coldpower27 - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link
The problem is both a lower product and a higher product, have the exact same memory bandwidth of 32GB/s, so it doens't look like they have much flexibility with the bandwidth. Unless you want to pull an ATI, and have memory bandwidth at different levels, across the entire line like X800 Series.Wesleyrpg - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link
I'm a bang for your buck sorta guy. Seems like its going to be a great card should it ever get released!How about the important stuff, does it overclock well, and how aboout those estra pipelines, are they unlockable?
DerekWilson - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link
Its a tough sell to even claim that the 7800 GS will ship with this pipeline and clock speed configuration, let alone to say that retail units will function similarly to this random early sample we happened to get our hands on.Up to 8 pipelines could be unlocked on this unit with RivaTuner, but if NVIDIA starts building G70 based silicon with only 16 pipes that capability could go away. And just becuase something can be unlocked doesn't mean it will work.
Finding out how overclockable this part will be is a big reason we want to see this card make it to market.
gibhunter - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link
Fine, since I've been a reader of AT for about 7 years (this is the first PC enthusiast site I visit every day) I'll give you guys a benefit of the doubt.Next time you write an article about an unanounced card, try not to sound so defensive. It makes you look guilty.
DerekWilson - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link
I didn't defend anything :-)My opinion on the subject is that the truth doesn't change if someone decides to believe a something else. And if you can't take us at our word in our articles then there's nothing I can say that will change your mind in our comments.
I would hope that our track record has proven us to be trustworthy and plain spoken with our readers. But that doesn't mean I want people to stop questioning us and keeping us honest.
Paratus - Tuesday, November 22, 2005 - link
Are any of these tested with AF?