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GeForce 7800 GTX Review
ThinSkin writes "ExtremeTech has the first review of nVidia's latest GPU architecture, the Geforce 7800 GTX. Benchmarked against nVidia's previous 6800 Ultra and ATI's latest Radeon X850 XT PE, the 7800 GTX comes out as the fastest video card to date. The unit ships today with a price tag of $599. While nVidia may enjoy this brief moment in the limelight with the fastest card, it may be short-lived once ATI comes out with their latest GPU technology, code-named R520, which is suspected to come out within the next two months."
So now I can almost play Doom 3.
I refuse to engage in a duel of wits with the unarmed.
While nVidia may enjoy this brief moment in the limelight with the fastest card, it may be short-lived once ATI comes out with their latest GPU technology, code-named R092064262670, which is suspected to come out within the next two minutes.
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
So you can have the whole scene rendered and lit too!
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
I'll only buy nVidia because it's the only one with halfway decent drivers for Linux.
100 watts... joy.
Someone needs to build a card that draws single digit wattage and will drive 2048x1536 displays, and they will sell loads of them. I cannot be the only one sick of the jet engine noise and space heater performance.
Ya know, like an Mac Mini, only with high resolution.
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The 7800 has it too.
/ nvidia_7800_gtx-04.html
http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20050622
Lots of somewhat bogus postings.
The 7800 performs significantly better than 6800. In fact, reading through the (many) reviews that all popped up with NDA's expiring, in higher res / anti-aliasing a single 7800 is beating dual 6800's SLI. Of course, choice of benchmark affects these results, but it does look like a generational increase in speed.
In addition, it uses LESS POWER. No one seems to be mentioning this, but these cards suck up rediculous amounts of power. This bodes well for cheaper versions.
And cheaper versions are going to be coming, this release is for the insane gaming crowd that is already spending $1k on SLI setups. The price/value at this point is not the point, it is just about how fast you can go.
ATI feels like they are a generation behind to me. They are coming out with first gen SLI, first gen Shader 3, while Nvidia is already on their second spins.
The key of course is when they release their next gen part (and by this I mean actual retail volume, not a paper launch). In six months another cycle of cards will be coming through, so one has to be careful to compare apples to apples.
Plus of course there is the nice AMD64 and Linux support (not perfect, but good) from Nvidia. Bottom line, will wait to see the ATI part, and how available it actually is, before singing its praises.
I understand what you all are saying, but this is basically the heart of the PS3. It is what was running at E3, and no one would put that much effort into developing for a temporary vid card (especially the Unreal engine). Nothing major is going to be different between this and the RSX, just small tweaks... otherwise the transistor count wouldn't be similar nor the featureset.
Sony needs the price to be reasonable, these will be stable in production by then and even if there are slight differences in production the major core will be the same. The costs will be down and this will indeed be basically the heart of the PS3. HDR, transparency, AA/AF, all these will be what the PS3's new titles utilize. Any variation from the 7800GTX to the RSX will be minimal.
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I saved my pennies and bought a GeForce2...MX...and found out what a horrible decision that was. That card was actually worse than the card I already had AND the GeForce 1 Ultras
This was standard practice well before Nvidia released the GeForce 2 MX. Nvidia already pissed off the world by releasing the TNT2 M64, which performed worse than the original Riva TNT.
Your venerated 3DFX is also guilty of such actions, by releasing the Banshee six months after the Voodoo 2. This single-pipe combo card performed worse than a single Voodoo 2, and offered no SLI upgrade path.
You'll get no condolences from me. Price normally relects performance in this market. The GeForce 2 MX was actually a steal at the time it was released; it was one of the best-performing budget cards ever. It bested the previous generation GeForce SDR in performance, something you wouldn't expect from a budget card. It was, however, beaten in performance by the GeForce DDR...and the later breakdown into the models 200 (64-bit) and 400 (128-bit) only cheapened the MX brand.
As far as I know (as in, this might not be the case in the recent past with the new PCI-X cards) ATI's numbering scheme is straightforward.
Actually, ATI has been the WORST offender in this category, especially in the 9xx0 series of cards. For a simple example, the Radeon 9000, 9100, 9200 and 9250 are all DirectX 8.1 cards, and are all actually slower revamps of the Radeon 8500. This is contrary to the "9000" series numbering, which at the very least would imply these cards would have *some* defining new features.
But let's look at your examples, thay have issues too...
A 9600 is worse than a 9700. A 9600 Pro is worse than a 9700.
True, but is a 9600 XT faster than a 9700? The performance is closer than you'd think. IS there really a need for the 9600 XT when the 9700 already exists? ATI sure thought so.
A 9700 Pro is worse than a 9800, etc.
Not true.
9700 Pro: 325Mhz Core, 620MHz DDR memory.
9800: 310MHz Core, 580Mhz DDR memory.
There was little change in the core between 9700 and 9800, so the clock speeds can be directly compared.
This, of course, ignores the extremely annoying lower cost "128-bit" Radeon 9800 cards (which are not well marked), 9600 SE cards that are barely as capable in performance as a 9200, the 9550 series (introduced well after the 9500 was replaced by the 9600).
Its much easier than trying to explain to them "Oh, get the 7800GT, not the 7800LT" (or whatever their latest business-class card is for that generation)
While Nvidia is just as guilty as ATI of playing the name game and causing ludicrous overlap (Nvidia FX series especially), they have really cleaned up their act with the 6000 series.
This is the entire lineup:
6200 TC, 6200
6600, 6600 GT
6800, 6800 GT, 6800 Ultra
That's it. Compared to ATI's xXX0 PCIe lineup numbers, this is a walk in the park. Furthermore, there is no overlap between series (except say, overlap created by companies like BFG Tech who sell overclocked parts, but that's out of Nvidia's hands).
The 6200 is slower than the 6600.
The 6600 GT is slower than the 6800.
And now, the 7800 is faster than the 6800 Ultra.
What's so confusing here?
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.