GeForce 7800 GTX Review 377
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."
And the ATI R520... (Score:3, Informative)
And this technology is, in part, targeted at low- to mid-range systems and laptops, meaning it's not going to be part of video chipsets that only cost $599...further meaning that it wouldn't be beyond the realm of comprehension, since Apple is already an ATI customer, for Apple to use something like this in a Mac mini-type product, answering the questions of "how could the Mac mini possibly play back HD?" in the Mac-mini-as-HD-media-center Mac-mini-as-iTunes-HD-Movie-Store-player scenarios.
Off-topic? No, the R520 is mentioned directly in the submission, and one of its primary features is H.264 [apple.com] hardware acceleration. This is huge.
Re:And the ATI R520... (Score:3, Interesting)
-Jesse
Re:And the ATI R520... (Score:4, Insightful)
I say this as one of the aforementioned nutjobs.
uh, BFD? (Score:4, Informative)
http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20050622
Re:uh, BFD? (Score:2, Interesting)
Some of the R520 family offerings will be targeted at entire computers that are under $500.
So, yes, BFD.
Re:uh, BFD? (Score:3, Insightful)
In fact, nVidia is the choice of many enthusiasts right now specifically because they pulled through with a solidly performing mid-range card in the 6600 where ATI failed to do so. ATI's competitor to the 6600GT was supposed to be the X700XT - IE: the card that was paper launched and *NEVER* made it to market. So while ATI had a slight lead on the high end this time around, nVidia was the way
Re:And the ATI R520... (Score:2)
Re:And the ATI R520... (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.nvidia.com/object/IO_16213.html [nvidia.com]
If you download The latest Windows Media Player and have a 6xxx series video card with "pure video" you can run hardware accelerated H.264 video.
Even the ultra-cheap 6200 line (which would work just fine in a mac-mini)can do this.
Re:And the ATI R520... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:And the ATI R520... (Score:3, Insightful)
Costs as much as a new low end PC or 2! (Score:3, Funny)
I think I have a spare kidney.
Bastards.
Attention, marketing drones: (Score:2)
However, having my naughty bits tied to Redmond is unappealing; if you haven't the guts to GPL the drivers, at least make sure that the media-video/nvidia-kernel
<lumberg voice>Thanks,</lumberg voice>
Chris
Re:Costs as much as a new low end PC or 2! (Score:2, Interesting)
if they bundled a driver which emulated a x86 processor on the GPU and showed up as a normal cpu in Windows or Linux, so then you could run highly optimized vector and matrix math on it they might open a whole new market for these cards in the scientific communities.
Re:Costs as much as a new low end PC or 2! (Score:3, Interesting)
For me at least, a lot of the chrome they put in games nowadays is a distraction from what I'm trying to do in-game, and I'd rat
Re:Costs as much as a new low end PC or 2! (Score:2)
Question:
Much has been made of the costs associated with transplantation and graft maintenance. I have heard that end stage renal disease and end stage liver disease total costs place the costs of transplant in a very favorable light. What are the average costs associated with these health care choices? Are there any trends in costs which will affect these averages in the fu
RSX (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:RSX (Score:3, Funny)
Re:RSX (Score:3, Insightful)
Wonderful (Score:5, Funny)
GLOOM 3 (Score:5, Funny)
So you can have the whole scene rendered and lit too!
Brief moment in the limelight (Score:3, Funny)
In the year 2025... (Score:5, Funny)
What about for laptops? (Score:2, Interesting)
Desktops are very cumbersome and difficult to carry to LAN parties and elsewhere, which is why I prefer laptops (even desktop-replacement laptops are more portable than true desktop compu
The reason why laptops lag behind (Score:2)
Oh and cooling them isn't too easy either.
Even when laptop versions of GPUs are released, they're usually castrated versions with lower clocks and fewer pipelines (and occasionally completely different cores than the name would suggest).
As with all things, you have to compromise. You want the fastest performance - you have to pay a premium. You want
Still going to buy the 6600GT (Score:2)
Re:Still going to buy the 6600GT (Score:2)
Performance margin hardly worth it (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Performance margin hardly worth it (Score:3, Insightful)
Stick with nVidia, especially if you're running an OS other than Windows. ATI drivers in Linux still stink.
unless an IT job actually pays me good money
So.. much.. pain.. felt.
Re:Performance margin hardly worth it (Score:2)
Completely off topic, but are there emu10k1 drivers for the 2.6.x kernel yet
Re:Performance margin hardly worth it (Score:2)
/salute
Re:Performance margin hardly worth it (Score:3, Informative)
Oh, try things like BRL-CAD [brlcad.org], Maya [alias.com], Custom VR applications (eg, built using things like Maverik [gnu.org]). There are a lot of other apps. Go cruise freshmeat for them. Some F/OSS, some not, but the reason nVidia puts a decent amount of effort into their Linux drivers is they want to be the 3D solution for GNU/Linux workstations.
I, personally, am learning BRL-CAD, and I've used Ma
Competition (Score:2)
As much as I'm not happy about a $600 card, I'll probably wait a year or two until it drops to maybe around $400, then I'll bite. I'd like to
Stagnation is what we need! (Score:4, Interesting)
Ever notice how it takes a year or so for console games to really begin to shine? This never happens because in 14 months 8-10 cards have come and gone. If there was some standardization and a slowdown the industry could focus on content rather than FPS in a two or three year old game that doesn't utilize ANY of the new cards features.
The FX line of cards had the ability to be great but needed to be programmed for directly, and because of trying to cover ATI and other vendors none of the cool features ever saw daylight (remember the cloth/trasparency demo's)
I know ATI and Nvidia will never try to standardize, nor will they slow the flow of cards with small increases in actual performance at high prices, but if they would PC's could actually get utilized to their fullest potential (hell this 7800gtx TURNS OFF TRANSISTORS to save power, just showing how under-utilized and un-needed they truly are)
Same for Game consoles, standardize, build them into consumer electronics... sell in quantity with less marketing, R&D, and loss and sell billions of games. It is a win/win for hardware manufacturers and developers... just as soon as people wake up.
Re:Stagnation is what we need! (Score:3, Insightful)
Tom's Hardware Review (Score:3, Informative)
http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20050622
Tom is a money grabbing sellout (Score:2)
er nvidia.. (Score:2, Interesting)
On another note, is the price tag worth it? Theres a lot of geforce 6800 Ultra/Radeon x800XT/850 users who arent going to see nothing more than a 10fps increase in Doom3 at 1600x1200 4xFSAA.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not trolling. I'm disappointed. I like many other doubtlessly are, are checking these reviews with a view in mind on maybe purchasing such a card in the future. I'm actually conce
Re:er nvidia.. (Score:2)
Naming (Score:2)
Re:Naming (Score:2)
Re:Naming (Score:2)
Re:er nvidia.. (Score:2)
It's a completely new GPU.
"refresh" = same GPU with faster clocked memory or something along those lines.
If you believe any of the rumors then Nvidia is waiting for ATI to announce their R520 before they unleash their own "ultra" 7800 model or whatever they end up calling it.
I wouldn't be suprised at all if this were true considering the conservative memory clockings on the GTX. GTX also only has 256MBs RAM on board and you gotta figure theres a 512 meg part waiting in the w
Re:er nvidia.. (Score:3, Insightful)
If you already own one of those cards, prossibly not, but not everyone has bought a new video card in the last six months. To someone with, say, a Radeon 9800 XT, perhaps the jump in performance has now gone from "not worth it" for a 6800 Ultra to "hey, that's a big step up". Similarly, the X800 was a worthwhile upgra
Brand loyalty... (Score:4, Insightful)
Am I truly the only person willing to switch happily between Nvidia and ATi, depending on which best fits my needs at the time?
Re:Brand loyalty... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Brand loyalty... (Score:2)
That said, ATI is working on rewriting their OpenGL implementation, and I heard they're expanding their Li
Re:Brand loyalty... (Score:2)
Re:Brand loyalty... (Score:2, Insightful)
Usually the reason for this is because that person has been burned by one company or the other in the past and have switched. Or, they've had exceptionally good performance from one brand and see others having abysmal performance in the other.
Personally, I'm an ATI fan because back when I was upgrading my computer for the first time I saw how all the GeForce2s were the best cards on the market (at the time VooDoo who I'd used before was in its death throes). I saved my pennies and bought a GeForce2...
Re:Brand loyalty... (Score:5, Informative)
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?
Re:Brand loyalty... (Score:2)
Re:Brand loyalty... (Score:2)
I don't think the new drivers are all that great. ATI Radeon 9600 here and a few games (OpenGL+fglrx) randomly exit during play leaving a 300x200 window on my desktop. Mouse locked up at this point.
I'm still switching back to Nvidia once I have the extra cash.
Enjoy,
pricing themselves out of reach (Score:3, Insightful)
a) They are pricing themselves beyond reason for even enthusiasts. Not too long ago, the top level for a graphics card was $400. That was expensive but within reach. I think they may be passing the point were even the enthusiast crowd will purhcase this.
b) Most people will wait until the next products come out from them and ATI. I mean, when you know that cheaper products will come out with most of the performance AND that better products will come out with better performance in this same series, why buy this? Just one example - remember ATI's 9700.
c) It's just for prestige anyway. That's the real reason this card has been released. They'll wait until ATI comes out with a reply card, wait a few months, and come out with something faster again and get good PR OR not have anything faster and suffer the consequences in bad PR.
Re:pricing themselves out of reach (Score:2)
Newest top end (Score:3, Informative)
Thing is, it doesn't matter. Doing so:
Price Point Comment (Score:3, Interesting)
One of the most impressive aspects of this launch is that the part is available now. I mean right now. Order it today and plug it in tomorrow. That's right, not only has NVIDIA gotten the part to vendors, but vendors have gotten their product all the way to retailers. This is unprecedented for any graphics hardware launch in recent memory. In the midst of all the recent paper launches in the computer hardware industry, this move is a challenge to all other hardware design houses.
ATI is particularly on the spot after today. Their recent history of announcing products that don't see any significant volume in the retail market for months is disruptive in and of itself. Now that NVIDIA has made this move, ATI absolutely must follow suit. Over the past year, the public has been getting quite tired of failed assurances that product will be available "next week". This very refreshing blast of availability is long overdue. ATI cannot afford to have R520 availability "soon" after launch; ATI must have products available for retail purchase at launch.
I would assume one of the reasons the price point is higher is the fact that this card was pushed to retail much faster than either nvidia or ati has been able to do before. I would suspect that, given an amount of time comparable to the normal lag between launch and having the card available on shelves, the price will be more comparable to launch prices we're accustomed to seeing.
Re:Price Point Comment (Score:2)
Out of context, this is the best sentence ever written.
This is the PS3 GPU for sure (Score:3, Interesting)
Even at a loss the PS3 seems to be placing itself in the $400+ market as thought.
Re:This is the PS3 GPU for sure (Score:3, Informative)
Don't be silly. PS3 is coming out in a year, there's no way Sony will be buying a chip that has been out in mass market for a year for their new flagship entertainment product. On top of that, this GPU is the same as the previous one from nVidia, with extra pipelines -- it's hardly impressive!
IMO, the PS3 will be using the next-generation GPU that will most likely be available for PC at about the same time as the PS3.
Re:This is the PS3 GPU for sure (Score:2)
Ha ha. Oh, that's good. Ha ha.
You get a D in "knowing what makes a video card fast."
Re:This is the PS3 GPU for sure (Score:2)
This is the GPU that was used at E3 for the PS3 demos. But this is not the same as the RSX GPU that is going to go into the PS3. They were just using the G70 because that's the best thing that they had immediately, and it's what they've been providing the PS3 developers to use until they can actually get RSX hardware to them. That's the same thing Microsoft was doing by sending Xbox 360 developers Apple PowerMac machines to develop with. It's
Re:This is the PS3 GPU for sure (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:This is the PS3 GPU for sure (Score:3, Informative)
The 7800 is relying upon having a really robust general-purpose shader engine. For example, they recognized that the MADD instruction is being used a lot so they've got it supported in multiple ALUs rather than one.
This is important for the PS3, f
The new ATI R520 card... (Score:2)
Need more power... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Need more power... (Score:3, Informative)
An MSI FX5200 has no moving parts, gets ~30-45FPS at 800x600 or so [1024x768x16bpp works fine too] in games like UT2K4.
Yeah, sure it isn't 1600x1200 with 16xAA and 78-bit colour
Tom
Re:Need more power... (Score:2)
My FX5900 is still doing a great job for me both in Windows and Linux. Considering that my most GPU intensive games are Half Life 2, Doom 3, and Neverwinter Nights, I see no reason to upgrade in the near future.
Maybe when Duke Nukem Forever [3drealms.com] is released I'll think about an upgrade. The 5900 was a pretty substantial leap from my previous 4MX and has held up pretty well in the year or so that I've been using it.
Re:Need more power... (Score:2)
Re:Need more power... (Score:2)
Maybe I'm not videophile enough but it's crisp enough to edit source code/papers [with odd fonts and symbols] and yet coo enough to handle a bttv device and run 3d games...
Tom
Re:Need more power... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Need more power... (Score:2)
But not even a vacuum cleaner video card will play Doom 3 at that resolution today. And as soon as you create a quiet, low-power card that can handle Doom 3 at that resolution, someone will write a game that only runs at 800x600 at 10 fps on that card, and you'll need to buy a newer card.
Which are you asking for? You can get a quiet card that will drive a big-ass display, but don't expect it to
Re:Need more power... (Score:2)
You most surely are not. I see no need to buy a card that takes more power than most entire laptops. Sure, the exposions might be prettier, but do people not realize that the power that goes into their PCs actually comes from somewhere? These things are like the Ford Excursions of the comput
Re:Need more power... (Score:3, Informative)
Death of PC gaming (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Death of PC gaming (Score:2)
The Ultra and GTX boards are the super high-end enthusiast boards. And I doubt that Xbox 360 or PS3 GPUs will be better than the best PC GPUs even at the time of their release. If they are, it will be very short-lived. The PCs will
Summary: (Score:2, Funny)
Conclusion: Spend your money on beer instead.
Two months (Score:2)
R520 (Score:3, Funny)
What a crap codename. If I was inventing what was going to be the fastest chip around, I'd have called it "Codename: BASTARDFIRE" or "SHITSTORM" or something. Let the marketing guys mod it down to R520 upon release.
Maybe the true purpose of the card is exposure (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't suppose John Carmack is reading but... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not writing this as a skeptic. I'm honestly just curious.
Re:I don't suppose John Carmack is reading but... (Score:2, Insightful)
People tried that in the mid/early 90s saying you'd need 16MB of ram and a 90Mhz 586 to play a certain game or two. People didn't go for that then... why are they going for it now?
Of course I question the use of these cards and think that their mass production is just a pain of society in terms of wasted power. When people can render a game at 500FPS and still not enjoy it
Re:I don't suppose John Carmack is reading but... (Score:3, Insightful)
If you can, try to go to QuakeCon [quakecon.org] sometime. John's keynote is always enlightening (except that last year he gave it via a prerecorded DVD... which was kind of boring.... but I guess the bi
Nividia Solid (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Forget about ATI and NVIDIA ! (Score:3, Informative)
This is why the Open Graphics Project [duskglow.com] is so important.
The project has already been mentionned twice on Slashdot, but since then it has made a lot of progress. Skimming through their mailing list archives shows that they're even creating their own company to produce the graphics card. The company's name is "Traversal Technology". A website is coming soon.
Why mention the vapourware? (Score:2)
And For That Price (Score:3, Insightful)
Anybody else think that this sort of thing just isn't sustainable?
Re:And For That Price (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually you can't because the PS3 and Xbox 360 don't exist yet and no pricing info has been officially announced for either new console.
" both of which will have games that aren't technology demos masquerading as entertainment (hi id!)."
But instead will have games that are repeats of games we've all played a million times over again.
2 Additional Reviews Worth Mentioning (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.beyond3d.com/previews/nvidia/g70/ [beyond3d.com]Beyon
Re:WHAT?!? (Score:2)
Supply and demand, the demand is still high, so they can sock it to us...
Re:WHAT?!? (Score:2)
Or consider this-- you get a lot more transistors per dollar with video cards.
Re:WHAT?!? (Score:2)
Re:WHAT?!? (Score:3, Interesting)
Your cheap components are not current generation.
Re:WHAT?!? (Score:2)
I'm glad you weren't around when the 386 came out. I actually know someone who paid nearly 10,000 for one.
Re:WHAT?!? (Score:2, Informative)
1. scrilla
Money, One who spends a lot of money
"Yo, shes got mad scrilla, we're gonna rock the mall later."
"Scrilla in Manila, shlong in Hong Kong"
Source: studtaco, Feb 25, 2003
Re:WHAT?!? (Score:2)
Re:WHAT?!? (Score:2)
Re:For that price (Score:2)
I am currently running:
AMD64 3000
1Gb DDR
ATI Radeon 9600 Pro 256Mb
Appox Half a Tb of storage
Re:slashdot being sued (Score:2)
1) The defendant wants to make sure the court is crystal clear on the fact that he did not use peyote before filing his lawsuit.
2) Terrorists use Linux to view beheadings that they film.
Haven't gotten too far yet, but I hope this entices others to read some of this lunatic's rantings.
Re:Let's begin the discussion now (Score:2)
It's called progress (Score:2)
Re:Bleeding edge no more... (Score:3, Interesting)
Exactly. I'm pretty bored with all my FPS shooters. HL2 and Doom3 were both pretty cool and all, but I just don't find myself spending much time playing them. I think they added too much frustration and realism and forgot to make the games fun.
I spend way more time playing NwN online or running classic old DOS games like Master of Orion using DOSBox than playing these latest and greatest offerings.
The most recen