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Positive Reviews For Nvidia' GeForce 6800 Ultra

Posted by timothy on from the my-hardware-cringes-in-shame dept.

Sander Sassen writes "Following months of heated discussion and rumors about the performance of Nvidia' new NV4x architecture, today their new graphics cards based on this architecture got an official introduction. Hardware Analysis posted their first looks at the new GeForce 6800 Ultra and takes it for a spin with all of the latest DirectX 9.0 game titles. The results speak for themselves, the GeForce 6800 Ultra is the new king of the hill, beating ATI's fastest by over 100% in almost every benchmark." Reader egarland adds "Revews are up on Firing Squad, Toms Hardware, Anandtech and Hot Hardware." Update: 04/14 16:54 GMT by T : Neophytus writes "HardOCP have their real life gameplay review available."

5 of 564 comments (clear)

  1. latest vs last-year by bwindle2 · · Score: 5, Informative

    They are comparing the latest nVidia GPU to the 9800XT, which is several months old. When ATI's next-gen chip comes out (two weeks?), only then will we be able to see who holds the GPU Speed crown.

  2. Holy mother of crap by l33t-gu3lph1t3 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Strong points of new Nvidia card:

    -Obscene performance boosts, on a scale I've never seen before
    -fancy new effects
    -massively improved image quality
    -heatsink fan still pretty quiet
    -basically free 4xFSAA and 8x ANISO

    Weaker points of new Nvidia card:

    -Expensive
    -it seems that shader precision is still not as pretty as ATI's, though that may be fixed by game patches
    -takes up 2 slots with the tall heatsink
    -480W recommended PSU
    -video processing engine isn't implemented in software yet

    I don't really object to the power requirements. This thing is more complicated, bigger, and has more transistors than a P4 Extreme Edition. It consumes about 110W, of which 2/3 is the GPU die's power draw. It is certainly NOT unreasonable to require a big power supply with this thing. It seems as though ATI's solution will have a power supply recommendation as well. Simply put, if you're gonna improve performance by such a margin by means other than smaller manufacturing, you're going to increase power consumption. Get over it.

    This thing isn't meant for SFF PCs or laptops, though I'm sure the architecture will be ported to a laptop chip eventually. As for the 2-slot size, well...It consumes 110W! To put this in perspective, it consumes more than any non-overclocked desktop CPU today! Think of how big your Athlon64/P4EE heatsink/fan is, then you'll realise that 2 slots aren't really that big of a problem.

    My own personal reason for wanting this thing: It can play any current game at 1600x1200 with 4XFSAA and 8x anistropic filtering at a good framerate, and is the only card that can claim to do this right now :)

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    ------- "From bored to fanboy in 3.8 asian girls" ----------
  3. Re:I like the reviews, but.... by JawFunk · · Score: 4, Informative
    I once heard that by leaving a computer with a measely 150 watt power supply (minute by today's standards) on 24 hours a day like most people do, it consumes more energy than the common refrigerator.

    Perhaps the survey you are referring to was measuring energy consumption of a mini-fridge for a single 12 oz.can of beer (served ice cold), but the common refridgerator, and I mean modern, not the one's from the 70s and 80s, as they improve with time, but the modern fridge draws about 700 - 750W. This is about double that of a computer loaded with hardware doing average browsing or word processing. The ratio is less when UT2004 is activated (W00T).

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  4. My blinders must be stuck by roystgnr · · Score: 4, Informative

    What you claim he said:

    "All he said was that Microsoft provided a platform for Windows."

    What he said:

    "Before the arrival of DirectX, developers had to program their software titles to take advantage of features found in individual hardware components."

    He didn't just say that Microsoft provided a platform for Windows, he said that before Microsoft provided their platform, developers had to write directly to the graphics drivers. This is untrue: although some programmers did write directly to hardware-specific interfaces like 3dfx's glide, they didn't have to. The availability of OpenGL for Windows predates DirectX, and the availability of OpenGL in general (remember, he said "developers", not "Windows developers") predates DirectX by years.

    For a quick reference, check out this Byte article, which discusses both the already existing OpenGL, "available on Unix, Windows NT and 95, and the Mac", and the soon-to-be-released Direct3D, "scheduled to ship in the second quarter".

  5. To all clueless fanboys taunting the power req. by francium+de+neobie · · Score: 4, Informative

    1. The power consumptions of the last generation nvidia and ati cards are indeed very similar. Please don't say ATI's cards consume less power

    Comparison 1
    Comparison 2

    2. The ATI Radeon X800s will require two power rails also. So stop dreaming about a "power efficient" part and buy a new PSU :(
    ATI needs extra power too

    That said, I'm no fanboy of nVidia or ATI though. The new GF 6800U is still occupying one extra PCI slot and blowing a whole lot of hot air inside the case. Imagine someone put another 100W+ Prescott next to it. I just feel uncomfortable for a GFX card to dissipate so much of heat right next to the CPU. But well... ATI is gonna do that too (except for the two-slot thing)

    If there's any reason I'd look forward towards the X800s, I hope they won't require two slots - that is just inelegant. But based on the two molex connectors on the X800s, and the power consumption of their older parts, I won't hold any hope that ATI would "save power".