NVIDIA's GeForce 8800 (G80): GPUs Re-architected for DirectX 10
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Derek Wilson on November 8, 2006 6:01 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
The Test
In our game tests, in every game we enabled the highest level of quality possible as far as features and effects are concerned. Where it was an option we enabled 16xAF in game. In games with "texture filtering" settings (like Battlefield 2) we endabled the highest level of filtering in game. In Oblivion we forced 16xAF in the control panel.
With the exception of Oblivion, we enabled AA in all our general performance tests. Where we were given the option, we chose 4xAA. In Black & White 2 and Company of Heroes we enabled AA in game (High for BW2 and Enabled for CoH).
| CPU: | Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 (2.93GHz/4MB) |
| Motherboard: |
EVGA nForce 680i SLI Intel BadAxe |
| Chipset: | NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI Intel 975X |
| Chipset Drivers: |
Intel 7.2.2.1007 (Intel) NVIDIA nForce 9.35 |
| Hard Disk: | Seagate 7200.7 160GB SATA |
| Memory: | Corsair XMS2 DDR2-800 4-4-4-12 (1GB x 2) |
| Video Card: | Various |
| Video Drivers: |
ATI Catalyst 6.10 NVIDIA ForceWare 96.97 NVIDIA ForceWare 91.47 (G70 SLI) |
| Desktop Resolution: | 2560 x 1600 - 32-bit @ 60Hz |
| OS: | Windows XP Professional SP2 |
A Few Words about Performance Per Watt
In the coming performance pages we will be looking at the performance of the 8800 series of graphics cards as well as power consumption and performance per watt of our test systems. Note that the power consumption and performance per watt we are reporting is for the entire system, and not just the GPU, so while you don't get an idea of the performance per watt of the GPU alone, you do get an idea of the performance per watt of the entire system configured as we have. This is an important distinction to keep in mind as performance per watt of the GPU alone could be very different than what we're reporting here. What these numbers will tell you however is the most power efficient setup we have configured here today.
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JarredWalton - Wednesday, November 8, 2006 - link
The text is basically complete, and minor spelling issues aren't going to change the results. Obviously, proofing 29 pages of article content is going to take some time. We felt our readers would be a lot more interested in getting the content now rather than waiting even longer for me to proof everything. I know the vast majority of readers don't bother to comment on spelling and grammar issues, but my post was to avoid the comments section turning into a bunch of short posts complaining about errors that will be corrected shortly. :)Iger - Wednesday, November 8, 2006 - link
Pff, of course we would! If I would like to read a novel I would find a book! Results first - proofing later... if ever :) Thanks for the article!JarredWalton - Wednesday, November 8, 2006 - link
Did I say an hour? Okay, how about I just post here when I'm done reading/editing? :)JarredWalton - Wednesday, November 8, 2006 - link
Okay, I'm done proofing/editing. If you still see errors, feel free to complain. Like I said, though, try to keep them in this thread.--Jarred
LuxFestinus - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link
Pg. 3 under <b>Unified Shaders</b>Should read as follows:
<i>Until now, building a GPU with unified shaders would not have <b>been</b> desirable, let alone practical, but Shader Model 4.0 lends itself well to this approach.</i>
Good try though.;)
shabby - Wednesday, November 8, 2006 - link
$600 for the gtx and $450 for the gts is pretty good seeing how much they crammed into the gpu, makes you wonder why the previous gen topped 650 bucks at times.dcalfine - Wednesday, November 8, 2006 - link
How does the 8800GTX compare to the 7950GX2? Not just in FPS, but also in performance/watt?dcalfine - Wednesday, November 8, 2006 - link
Ignore ^^^sorry
Hot card by the way!
neogodless - Wednesday, November 8, 2006 - link
I know you touched on this, but I assume that DirectX 10 is still not available for your testing platform, Windows XP Professional SP2, and additionally no games have been released for that platform. Is this correct? If so...Will DirectX 10 be made available for Windows XP?
Will you publish a new review once Vista, DirectX 10 and the new games are available?
Can we peak into the future at all now?
JarredWalton - Wednesday, November 8, 2006 - link
DX10 will be Vista only according to Microsoft. What that means according to some game developers is that DX10 support is going to be somewhat slow, and it's also going to be a major headache because for the next 3-4 years they will pretty much be required to have a DX9 rendering solution along with DX10.