Information

Did you know you could become an X-bit labs fan on Facebook or follow us on Twitter?



Discussion

Discussion on Article:
Directly Unified: Nvidia GeForce 8800 Architecture Review

Started by: Andres | Date 11/09/06 11:22:17 PM
Comments: 51 | Last Comment:  07/07/07 09:36:48 PM

Expand all threads | Collapse all threads

[1-10]

1. 
I really hope that the full review comes with at least Intel X6800 Core 2 Extreme :D, or better QuadCore Extreme :).

PS. A pair of Corsair Dominator memories too.
0 0 [Posted by:  | Date: 11/09/06 11:22:17 PM]
Reply
2. 
When exactly are you going to publish the gaming performance article ?
i'm looking forward to it!
0 0 [Posted by:  | Date: 11/10/06 12:15:40 AM]
Reply
3. 
Is really impressive to see from reviews of 8800 that nVidia is able to pull off a huge task of delivering the 8800 in large quantities as it the CPU is a very complex chip. Big contrast to PS3.
I see a lot of big number but I honestly have not seen much new innovations. I am hoping to see ATI making some innovative moves on their new chip. I'll be disappointed if ATI simply boost transistors and specs number up to be fast like 8800.
0 0 [Posted by:  | Date: 11/10/06 12:34:32 AM]
Reply
- collapse thread

 
no innovations, are we even talkling about the same product?
Unified Architecture with Streaming processors, direct-x 10 , higher quality AF, CSAA, GPGPU- with a C compiler. I say the improvements are atleast satisfactory.

in anadtech, it was said that this chip took 4 years to develop and cost 475million $ , it usually takes less time.
0 0 [Posted by:  | Date: 11/10/06 03:20:13 AM]
Reply
 
Many of these things you are talking about already exists in current Ati products.

I agree with James.
0 0 [Posted by:  | Date: 11/10/06 03:42:05 AM]
Reply
 
ok which of these then exist in current ati hardware?
0 0 [Posted by:  | Date: 11/10/06 06:51:28 AM]
Reply
 
none - except for the high quality AF (ok, nVidia's may be better in theory but probalby not noticeable in real games)

The GPGPU is the most impressive new feature in my eyes. I'd love to play with it or see some applications using it :)
0 0 [Posted by:  | Date: 11/10/06 07:30:20 AM]
Reply
 
High Quality AF came with the FX5900/FX Series, but ATi was "cheating" at the time and was using angle-dependant AF, which was a less demanding form of filtering. nVidia's GF6 Series went back to an angle dependant AF when ironically ATi turned to a higher level of filtering... (still not quite as good as the FX series IMO). Now nVidia finally came back and its better than ATi's filtering mode :).
0 0 [Posted by:  | Date: 11/10/06 09:29:20 AM]
Reply
 
Euclidean distance calculation anisotropic filtering was present even on the original GeForce architecture, but limited to 2-tap; GeForce2 generation did not improve on this, just added more raw power.
What you call "High Quality AF" came with the GeForce3 chip, as it was the first 8-tap euclidean anisotropic filtering GPU. So did the GeForce4, who despite their incredible DX8 performance was losing in some tests to an ATI 8500 when mid-high resolution and heavy anisotropic filtering were being applied, due to the high demands of its aniso method.
And much later came the FX series.
Just a little clarification.

Cheers
0 0 [Posted by:  | Date: 11/11/06 08:41:59 AM]
Reply
 
Oh, I just noticed the ('s) after nvidia -which indicates that you're talking about the AF quality not the performance itself-, my bad then.
Anyway, check TechReport review to see for yourself that G80 AF quality is higher than those of ATI R580+ in real games.
0 0 [Posted by:  | Date: 11/10/06 10:17:50 AM]
Reply
 
Unified Architecture with Streaming processors - Xbox360 Ati GPU
direct-x 10 - nvidia first. Xbox360 has some directX10 functions.
higher quality AF- Since Ati X1800.
CSAA - Ati as Temporal AA since R300 would give 12X equivalent.
GPGPU- with a C compiler - There is already software running in Ati GPU like Folding Home, Ati already opened their GPU to applications programmers 1 year ago.
0 0 [Posted by:  | Date: 11/13/06 04:32:38 AM]
Reply
 
"CSAA - Ati as Temporal AA since R300 would give 12X equivalent."
Forget about temporal AA. You need 60+ fps @ 6xAA to be able to use it. The new 16x
CSAA modes may look even better, perhaps run faster and you can use them with 30 or 40 fps (min fps)...

"GPGPU- with a C compiler - There is already software running in Ati GPU like Folding Home, Ati already opened their GPU to applications programmers 1 year ago."
F@H uses standard DX9 SM3 code which could run on G7x too if there weren't some hardware limitations (they use _very_ long shaders, _much_ longer than in games). ATI did not open their GPUs for GPGPU computing but they fixed their shader compiler in their drivers so the F@H client works.
nVidia's C compiler is something different and it remains to be seen how useful it is.
0 0 [Posted by:  | Date: 11/13/06 08:02:48 AM]
Reply
 
MatMan read this interview at the inquirer:

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=35626

I think you are wrong about the GPGPU.
0 0 [Posted by:  | Date: 11/14/06 01:46:54 AM]
Reply
4. 
You guys should check out Tom's guide for the review of this card.
0 0 [Posted by:  | Date: 11/11/06 02:34:16 PM]
Reply
- collapse thread

 
Ha! Tom's review was the worst in-depth review of the G80 that I have encountered.
0 0 [Posted by:  | Date: 11/11/06 09:58:45 PM]
Reply
 
Anandtech's was one of the best, IMHO.
0 0 [Posted by:  | Date: 11/11/06 09:59:41 PM]
Reply
5. 
you xbitlabs needs to get on the act!
A article on the preview of the
architecture, whlie other sites
are already providing benchmark results?!
0 0 [Posted by:  | Date: 11/11/06 03:26:26 PM]
Reply
- collapse thread

 
To dsfde: I for one, respect xbit labs reviews way more than toms. They are more detailed and actually can assist you in making a choice! Running such in depth tests must take time! So excuse them for not taking the cake out the oven too soon!

to toms: you suck

to XBIT: Respect aai
0 0 [Posted by:  | Date: 11/12/06 04:25:11 AM]
Reply
6. 
Hmm,

Seems like Nvidia's new 8x CSAA is pretty much equal to ATI's 6x FSAA, with roughly 6 samples for each anti-aliased jaggies when zooming in at least 400% using ATI's Compressonator program.

Of course, Nvidia's new 8x pure MSAA is true 8x, which is better than ATI's 6x MSAA.
0 0 [Posted by:  | Date: 11/11/06 03:31:01 PM]
Reply
- collapse thread

 
No anandtech is biased same with guru3d , Xbitlabs and rage3d show the real performance but anyway R600 will come and hopefully single R600 will beat G80 Crossfire/SLI
0 0 [Posted by:  | Date: 11/11/06 11:23:05 PM]
Reply
7. 
The upcoming performance review might clearly show that although ATI's 6x FSAA is roughly equal to Nvidia's 8x CSAA in terms of image quality, Nvidia's 8x CSAA brings less performance hit in many games, and that 8x CSAA is almost comparable in performance hit to 4x FSAA!

Notice how Xbit Labs will probably tell you that Nvidia's 8xQ FSAA (8x true MSAA) brings a large performance hit, significantly larger than that of ATI's 6x FSAA. I bet that's why 8x full MSAA has not yet been done on video cards before the G80, because the performance hit was too large and impractical in any of the current games. (Ahhh.. those stubborn engineers, only allowing what is really needed by at least 5% of the market.) Now the G80 has power, at the very top of the DX9 market as it is currently (just as when the GeForce 2 Ultra was at the top of the DX7 market, and, on a side note, can still perform some of the current DX9 games with little or bearable visual quality loss such as Half Life 2 in DX7 mode).

I think that the major reason for 12 memory chips (768 MB) or 10 (640 MB) is because Nvidia could not find enough of affordable 1 GB GDDR3 or GDDR4 memory. Obviously, it was either too expensive or too scarce if Samsung only made 1 GB video memory in 2 or more GHz GDDR4, or if Samsung has not yet started manufacturing 128MB chips (for 1 GB video memory). But, Nvidia really needed more than 512 MB for the resource-consuming 8800's, without having problems in supplying enough of the cards to meet demand.

I bet that such high FSAA modes will quickly become popular and then standard in the near future.
0 0 [Posted by:  | Date: 11/11/06 10:26:56 PM]
Reply
8. 
GPU made in TAIWAN ? ? [TaiJiDian 台积电]?
0 0 [Posted by:  | Date: 11/12/06 09:52:29 PM]
Reply
9. 
I like this part of analysis, but where is the sequel? It is 14.11 already. Are you always that slow?
0 0 [Posted by:  | Date: 11/14/06 03:01:25 AM]
Reply
10. 
A lot of talking about the 8800gts and gtx, but nothing to find/compare about the 8800gts in the tests. Nothing there,completely missing.
I have a 8800gts and hoped to find some answers.
0 0 [Posted by:  | Date: 11/28/06 02:06:25 AM]
Reply

[1-10]

Back to the Article

Add your Comment


Our Sponsors

Crucial.com Western Digital G.Skill