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
Oblivion Performance
We aren't listing the table with all the settings we used because this time it's easy. We cranked everything up to the maximum setting. Every slider maxed and every feature enabled (with the exception of bloom and AA which are precluded by HDR). Taking into account just how stressful this game is under balanced quality settings, we can easily see just how incredible the 8800 GTX really is.
Oblivion has been one of the most demanding games in terms of graphics requirements ever since its launch. Up till now, ATI had a pretty substantial performance lead over almost anything NVIDIA could offer in this game, short of the 7950 GX2. With the launch of the GeForce 8800 series, the tables have turned, and quite dramatically. Not only does a single 8800 GTX card outperform any other current configuration (with the likely exception of 8800 GTS SLI, which we weren't able to test yet), but even the GeForce 8800 GTS is able to perform nearly as fast as X1950 XTX CrossFire, and slightly better than 7900 GTX SLI.
The 8800 GTX SLI is still the bottleneck in this game at resolutions above 1280x1024, showing just how demanding Oblivion is when it comes to graphics cards. ATI's CrossFire also scales better than NVIDIA's SLI in this title, gaining on average ~75% with CrossFire versus ~65% with SLI. Of course, we have to temper that statement by pointing out that X1950 CrossFire did not run properly at 2560x1600.
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haris - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link
You must have missed the article they published the very next day http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=35...">here. saying they goofed.Araemo - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link
Yes I did - thanks.I wish they would have updated the original post to note the mistake, as it is still easily accessible via google. ;) (And the 'we goofed' post is only shown when you drill down for more results)
Araemo - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link
In all the AA comparison photos of the power lines, with the dome in the background - why does the dome look washed out in the G80 images? Is that a driver glitch? I'm only on page 12, so if you explain it after that.. well, I'll get it eventually.. ;) But is that just a driver glitch, or is it an IQ problem with the G80 implementation of AA?bobsmith1492 - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link
Gamma-correcting AA sucks.Araemo - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link
That glitch still exists whether or not gamma-correcting AA is enabled or disabled, so that isn't it.iwodo - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link
I want to know if these power hungry monster have any power saving features?I mean what happen if i am using Windows only most of the time? Afterall CPU have much better power management when they are idle or doing little work. Will i have to pay extra electricity bill simply becoz i am a cascual gamer with a power - hungry/ ful GPU ?
Another question pop up my mind was with CUDA would it now be possible for thrid party to program a H.264 Decoder running on GPU? Sounds good to me:D
DerekWilson - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link
oh man ... I can't believe I didn't think about that ... video decoder would be very cool.Pirks - Friday, November 10, 2006 - link
decoder is not interesting, but the mpeg4 asp/avc ENCODER on the G80 GPU... man I can't imagine AVC or ASP encoding IN REAL TIME... wow, just wooowwwI'm holding my breath here
Igi - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link
Great article. The only thing I would like to see in a follow up article is performance comparison in CAD/CAM applications (Solidworks, ProEngineer,...).BTW, how noisy are new cards in comparison to 7900GTX and others (in idle and under load)?
JarredWalton - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link
I thought it was stated somewhere that they are as loud (or quiet if you prefer) as the 7900 GTX. So really not bad at all, considering the performance offered.