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NVIDIA's 1.4 Billion Transistor GPU: GT200 Arrives as the GeForce GTX 280 & 260

 by Anand Lal Shimpi & Derek Wilson on June 16, 2008 9:00 AM EST
108 Comments | Add A Comment
108 Comments

GT200 vs. G80: A Clock for Clock Comparison

The GT200 architecture isn't tremendously different from G80 or G92, it just has a lot more processing power. The comparison below highlights the clock for clock difference between GT200 and its true predecessor, NVIDIA's G80. We clocked both GPUs at 575MHz core, 900MHz memory and 1350MHz shader, so this is a look at the hardware's architectural enhancements combined with the pipeline and bus width increases. The graph below shows the performance advantage of GT200 over G80 at the same clock speeds:

Clock for clock, just due to width increases, we should be at the very worst 25% faster with GT200. This would be the case where we are texture bound. It is unlikely an entire game will be blend rate bound to the point where we see greater than 2x speedups, and while test cases could show this real world apps just aren't blend bound. More realistically, the 87.5% increase in SPs will be the upper limit on performance improvements at the same clock rate. We see our tests behave within these predicted ranges.

Based on this, it appears that Bioshock is quite compute bound and doesn't run into many other bottlenecks when the burden is eased. Crysis on the other hand seems to be limited by more than just compute as it didn't benefit quite as much.

The way compute has been rebalanced does affect the conditions under which performance will benefit from the additional units. More performance will be available in the case where a game didn't just need more compute, but it needed more computer per texture. The converse is true when a game could benefit from more compute, but only if there was more texture hardware to feed them.

NVIDIA's Dirty Dealing with DX10.1 and How GT200 Doesn't Support it Power and Power Management
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  • woofermazing - Tuesday, June 17, 2008 - link

    Isn't the R700 high-end model going to have a direct link between the two cores. Could be a false rumor, but i would think that would solve a lot of problems with having two GPU's on a single board, since games would see it as 1 chip instead of a Crossfire/SLI setup. And besides, why the heck does it matter what the card looks like under the cooler. If it delivers better performance than Nvidia's offering without driver headaches, I don't think most gamers are going to care.

  • VooDooAddict - Tuesday, June 17, 2008 - link

    Why am I the only one happy about this product?

    Since the release of the 8800GTX top end single GPU performance has been a little stagnant... then came the refresh (8800GT/8800GTS-512) better prices came into effect.

    Now we've got the new generation, and like in years prior, the new gen single GPU card has near performance of the previous gen in SLI. Price is also similar with when NVIDIA launched the first 8800GTX.

    Sure, I wish they came in at a lower price point and at less power draw. (Same complaints that we had with the original 8800GTX). Lower power and lower price will come with a refresh.

    Will I be getting one? ... nahh these cheap 9600GTs, overclocked 8800GT's and 8800GTSs will be the cards I recomend till i see the refresh. But I'm still happy there's progress.

    I'm hoping the refresh hits around the same time as Intel's updated quad core.

  • DerekWilson - Tuesday, June 17, 2008 - link

    i think its neat and has very interesting technology under the hood.

    but i'm not gonna spend that much money for something that doesn't deliver enough value (or even performance) compared to other solutions that are available. you pretty much reflect my own sentiment there: it's another step forward but not one that you're gonna buy.

    i think people "don't like it" because of that though. it just isn't worth it right now and that's certainly valid.

  • greenx - Tuesday, June 17, 2008 - link

    There are two ways I can look at this article.

    1)First an foremost at the heart of a real gamer ticks the need for good story lines fed by characters you will never forget, held by a gameplay you will fall in love with and finally covered by graphics that will transport you to another world (kinda like when I first played FF VII on my PC).

    Within the context of the world we live in today I wonder what is really going through the minds of these people selling $600+ video cards. Kinda like those $10 000+ PCs. Madness. Sure they have their market up there but I shudder to think of how much money has been poured into appeasing a select few. Furthermore for what reason? Glory? I don't know but seeing as how the average gamer is what has made the PC/Gaming scene what it is, where does a $600+ video card fit into the grand scheme of things?

    2) The possibilities that these new cards open up certainly seem exciting. The comparison with intel has been justified, but considering the other alternatives out there are much further ahead in development, who is going to bypass intel/amd/etc for a GPU technology based supercomputer?

  • DerekWilson - Tuesday, June 17, 2008 - link

    two address point 2):

    developers will bypass Intel, AMD, SUN, whoever owns Cray these days, and all other HPC developers when a technology comes along that can speed up their applications by two orders of magnitude immediately on hardware that costs thousands (and in large cases millions) less to build, run and develop for.

  • evolucion8 - Tuesday, June 17, 2008 - link

    LOL that was quite funny but incorrect as well, there's more than 4 Billion of people in China, in the future probably nVidia will launch a 4 Billion Transistors GPU hehe. It will require a Nuclear Reactor to turn it on, a and two of them to play games :D

  • 7Enigma - Wednesday, June 18, 2008 - link

    4 Billion? Did you just make that out of thin air. Latest tabs show approximately 1.4 billion (give or take a couple hundred million). The world population is only estimated at 6.6 billion, so unless 60% of the people in the world are living in China, you're clueless.

    http://geography.about.com/od/populationgeography/...">http://geography.about.com/od/populationgeography/...

  • Bahadir - Tuesday, June 17, 2008 - link

    Firstly I must say I enjoyed reading the whole article written by Anand Lal Shimpi & Derek Wilson. However, what does not make sense to me is the fact that "At most, 105 NVIDIA GT200 die can be produced on a single 300mm 65nm wafer from TSMC", but by looking at the wafer, only 95 full dies can be seen. Is this the wrong die?

    Also, it is not fair to compare the die of the Penryn against the GTX 280die because Penryn's die was made in 45nm process and GTX280 was made in 65nm die. Maybe it would be fair to compare it with the Conroe (65nm) die. But well done folks for putting an excellent article together!

  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, June 17, 2008 - link

    Thanks for your kind words btw :) Both of us really appreciate it - same to everyone else in this thread, thanks for making a ridiculously long couple of weeks (and a VERY long night) worth it :)

    -A

  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, June 17, 2008 - link

    You're right, there's actually a maximum of 94 usable die per wafer :)

    Take care,
    Anand
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