GeForce 7800 GTX no huge leap

[Maverickman]

From what I've seen from the specs - 24 pipelines, 8 shaders, 430 MHz core and 1.2GHz effective GDDR3, I don't think the 7800 GTX will obliterate the 6800 Ultra in performance. It will certainly be a faster card, but not 50% faster. If you remember, the 6800 Ultra offered more than DOUBLE the performance of the abysmal 5950 Ultra. I just don't see that much with the 7-series. Of course, I may have the specs a little low, but from what I've seen, they're all in the same ballpark as above. I may even skip this Nvidia generation and see what ATI's new R520 has to offer.

[***CENSORED***]

I myself think that, given the current rumored specs for both, the r520 will probably be faster. In any case, both will be faster than my Geforce 4. :)

[PSYCHODAD]

I'll probably skip the upcoming gen as well, my son will be doing a new build soon however, and will most likely go with two 7800 in SLI.

[jAkUp]

There are rumored 3DMark05 Scores of 9,000. ;)

24 Pipelines is gonna make a big difference...

[***CENSORED***]

And I've heard ATI's might be around 12,000...

[PSYCHODAD]

Anyone seen any actual benchmark scores yet?

[nutball]

I myself think that, given the current rumored specs for both, the r520 will probably be faster.

I've seen the rumoured specs for both, and I think the rumoured specs for R520 are wrong (or at least have been badly misinterpreted).

Anyway, on the original topic, I think that the days of huge leaps has gone. These guys (NV & ATI) are really hitting hard up against the limits of transistor count and power consumption for devices that are to be sold into the consumer market. The days of super-Moore-ian progress are behind us I think.

[anzak]

Ehh... just look at the fillrate difference.

400*16 = 6400 mp/s
430*24 = 10320 mp/s
540*16 = 8640 mp/s (X850XT PE for comparison)

Thats not all that far from double the fillrate. Now the memory speed will hold that back a little. My guess is that it will be at least 50% faster than a Geforce 6800 Ultra and 80% faster in games that use FP16 blending (which cuts fillrate in half).

This card is gonna rock in HDR enabled games. :cool:

[jolle]

Isnt HDR more of a memory bandwidth thing?
I mean fillrate is amount of pixels per second, HDR doesnt use more pixels, just heavier ones... the limit should be the memory bandwidth and RAM amount really.. the framebuffer should be twice as big as with 32bit color.
Or am I completley off here? where does the fillrate come in?

[anzak]

Isnt HDR more of a memory bandwidth thing?
I mean fillrate is amount of pixels per second, HDR doesnt use more pixels, just heavier ones... the limit should be the memory bandwidth and RAM amount really.. the framebuffer should be twice as big as with 32bit color.
Or am I completley off here? where does the fillrate come in?

Hmm... you have a point. I was always told that FP16 blending was fillrate intensive. I guess what we really need is eDRAM. o.O

EDIT: One thing I do remember, after unlocking the 4 pipes on my 6800nu, I saw a huge boost in HDR Far Cry. Even with the same memory clock.

[Red_Shift]

Actually HDR is very shader intensive, more memory bandwidth allways help but it's not the bottleneck I think.

[fivefeet8]

Actually HDR is very shader intensive, more memory bandwidth allways help but it's not the bottleneck I think.

It's not generally HDR that is intensive. There are other forms of HDR that doesn't use Pixel Shaders. It's the FP16 blending/filtering that the Nv4x cards have. It uses a lot of memory bandwidth, hence why AA is usually disabled with a game which uses it.

[***CENSORED***]

Anyone seen any actual benchmark scores yet?

Not that I know of...

[walterman]

The weakest point is the ram speed, if they use 1.6 ns chips, like in the leaked pics, running at 1.2 GHz +-, there won't be an important performance increase in very high resolution gameplay with FSAA/AF, from 6800U performance.

I think that they should use 1.6 - 1.8 GHz chips for next gen cards. Anything with more than 50GB/s of bw will really make a big difference.

[nIghtorius]

It's not generally HDR that is intensive. There are other forms of HDR that doesn't use Pixel Shaders. It's the FP16 blending/filtering that the Nv4x cards have. It uses a lot of memory bandwidth, hence why AA is usually disabled with a game which uses it.

AA is disabled on the NV4x with OpenEXR HDR FP16 buffers since the NV4x cannot do FSAA under these modes (no hardware support)

[Pandora's Box]

The weakest point is the ram speed, if they use 1.6 ns chips, like in the leaked pics, running at 1.2 GHz +-, there won't be an important performance increase in very high resolution gameplay with FSAA/AF, from 6800U performance.

I think that they should use 1.6 - 1.8 GHz chips for next gen cards. Anything with more than 50GB/s of bw will really make a big difference.



10 dollars says the 1.6 - 1.8ghz chips are going to be used on the 7800 Ultra.

[bkswaney]

There are rumored 3DMark05 Scores of 9,000. ;)

24 Pipelines is gonna make a big difference...


Yep. :)
Just wait tilll the 32 pipe this fall. :D :angel:

[jAkUp]

Yes 32 pipelines will be incredible :)

[Superfly]

im gonna wait for G80 or above before upgrading - new new mobo and all sorts u see.

also those A64x2 chips are seriously pulling ahead of the Pentium 800 series in Tom's "week-long Torture test"

This test is gonna run for 1 week - AMD have already nailed it on day 2.

http://www.tomshardware.com/stresstest/charts.html

[gsgrunt]

Yep. :)
Just wait tilll the 32 pipe this fall. :D :angel:

Or unlock the extra quads on the GTX next month. :drooling:

[Remij]

Yep. :)
Just wait tilll the 32 pipe this fall. :D :angel:


Who could possibly do that???? :D I need my next gen hardware for the summer!! Actually, if the card is that much better than the 24pipe, I wouldn't hesitate to get it, the only concern I have is availability because I don't expect the yeilds to be too great initially. Resellers.....I THINK NOT :mad:

But after re-reading the topic title, I'm gonna agree because yea the Ultra will obviously be better than the GTX.

[Maverickman]

I think I'm going to get a new computer before I upgrade my GPU. A P4 3.0C GHz is not much these days, and I know it will not come close to taking advantage of a 7800 GTX. It's an adequate CPU for most things except gaming.

[|MaguS|]

Honestly, Im in no real rush to get a new GPU. Our current ones are still very CPU limited, we need better CPUs right now...

Im happy with my 6800GT till the end of the year atleast...

[rohit]

I agree with maverickman, i dont expect much of a boost with a 24 pipe card. But ill still wait for the numbers. maybe they will change mi mind.

[Remij]

Honestly, Im in no real rush to get a new GPU. Our current ones are still very CPU limited, we need better CPUs right now...

Im happy with my 6800GT till the end of the year atleast...

I agree with this...but..

Most people could say...that for the average home environment..most CPU's are overkill. Thats why I'm hoping that these PPU's will become mandatory for gaming(in a way) Maybe not mandatory, but atleast fully supported. Cause for $300 I can have a CPU that will handle any task windows throws at it. If these PPU's cost $300..and offer great gaming performance and enhancement...So instead of buying a $700-800 CPU for gaming, having much of that power go to waste, why not just buy a cheaper CPU, and spend the rest on the PPU.

I dunno, maybe my logic is all wrong...and sure yea I know that PPU's aren't going to be good at everything, but atleast make a chip suited specifically for gaming.