Nvidia Launches 8800 Series, First of the DirectX 10 Cards

mikemuch writes "The new top-end GeForce 8800 GTX and GTS from Nvidia launched today, and Loyd Case at ExtremeTech has done two articles: an analysis of the new GPU's architecture, and a benchmark article on PNY's 8800 GTX. The GPU uses a unified scalar-based hardware architecture rather than dedicated pixel pipelines, and the card sets the bar higher yet again for PC graphics." Relatedly an anonymous reader writes "The world and his dog has been reviewing the NVIDIA 8800 series of graphics cards. There is coverage over at bit-tech, which has some really in-depth gameplay evaluations; TrustedReviews, which has a take on the card for the slightly less technical reader; and TechReport, which is insanely detailed on the architecture. The verdict: superfast, but don't bother if you have less than a 24" display."

WOW! This is FAST!

[Salvance (1014001)]

It's actually pretty surprising that the DX10-compatible 8800 runs $450-$600 given it's brand new and has huge performance gains over NVidia's current cards. I don't understand why someone would say only buy it if you have a 24" monitor though ... it seems like buying a single 8800 would be just as good (and cheaper) than buying a couple 7800's ...

Re:

[Ant P. (974313)]

What they're saying is that if you're only ever going to go up to 1600x1200, this is just going to waste drawing more frames than your monitor can ever display. Right now it looks like the only thing that could strain this card is one of those huge Apple LCDs.

Re:

[Kenja (541830)]

7800gtx and dual AMD Opterons.

Modern games still dont run at optimal frame rates at 1280x1024 with max graphics settings. Most recent of these is Neverwinter Nights 2, I get around 20fps which is enough, but I wouldn't mind it being a bit smoother.

Re:

[JohnnyBigodes (609498)]

Apparently Neverwinter Nights 2 has some sort of problem in it is *very* slow for some people with reasonably fast PCs. I've tried it and it also runs almost unbearably slow with things set to medium everything and a couple of lows (1024, no AA) on a 7800.

20fps with your 7800GTX in NWN2 is certainly not acceptable :)

Re:WOW! This is FAST!

[steveo777 (183629)]

Just play Ultima IX on 1028x768 mode without any of the fixes or patches. I do believe the 8800 will have met its match. (never met a configuration that could run it over 10fps, except my friends old 650Mhz PIII with some VooDoo card or another, ran it at 19fps)

Re:

[Nimey (114278)]

VooDoo

Stop that.

Re:

[mikael (484)]

But if you are doing general purpose computing that requires considerable floating-point performance (FFT signal processing, dynamic systems), then you won't be restricted by the refresh rate of the monitor. Both DirectX and OpenGL support floating-point framebuffers. However, for some simulations, you may have less than four floating-point variables per pixel. So just by using three out of four pixel channels, you are just wasting 25% or more of your processsing time. Having scalar processors would seem to

Re:

[Barny (103770)]

Hrmm, well running a pair of 7900gt cards atm, and on company of heroes, all settings maxed at 1902x1200 (dell 24") things get a little chunky, so yes, other than apple there are screens that need these.... mines pre-ordered btw :)

Re:

[Sj0 (472011)]

You know, I remember being impressed that Duke Nukem 3d ran at 640x480. The point where you need 1902x1200 AND anti-aliasing is the point where you're just doing it to make fun of the people without a Geforce 8800.

Re:

[Babbster (107076)]

It depends on the game. In the [H]ardOCP review [hardocp.com], this appears to be the first card that can do Oblivion with maxed in-game settings (the grass has been the problem area in the past, even with top-of-the-line cards) at very high resolutions and high AA settings while retaining solid framerates - the settings they considered ideal in their testing were 8x AA at 1600x1200 and 4x AA at 1920x1200. That would be impressive for a SLI setup, let alone a single card.

How worthwhile that is depends, of course, on

Re:

[Tyger (126248)]

Just because you have a DirectX 10 capable card doesn't mean you need DirectX 10. Most of those games/benchmarks are against DirectX 9, and the rest are against OpenGL. It will be a few years before most games require DirectX 10.

Re:

[Heembo (916647)]

The only reason I'd look to upgrade is to reduce the fan noise...

Just remove the fan and smear hear-absorbing paste all over your video card! Works wonders!

DNF!

[spacemky (236551)]

I heard somewhere that this will be one of the only supported video cards in Duke Nukem Forever.

*ducks*

Re:

[EvilIdler (21087)]

You're half-right; it will be the oldest supported card.

another review

[brunascle (994197)]

Hot Hardware has another review [hothardware.com]

More In-depth Analysis Here At HotHardware.com

[MojoKid (1002251)]

NVIDIA has officially launched their new high-end 3D Graphics card that has full support for DX10 and Shader Model 4.0. The GeForce 8800 series is fully tested and showcased [hothardware.com] at HotHardware and its performance is nothing short of impressive. With up to 128 Stream Processors under its hood, up to 86GB/s of memory bandwidth at its disposal and comprised of a whopping 681 million transistors, it's no wonder the new GPU rips up the benchmarks [hothardware.com] like no tomorrow. NVIDIA is also launching a new enthusiast line of motherboard chipsets in support of Intel's Core 2 Duo/Quad and AMD Athlon 64 processors. NVIDIA's nForce 680i SLI and nForce 680a SLI motherboard chipsets [hothardware.com] will also allow a pair of these monster graphics cards to run in tandem for nearly double the performance and the new chipset offers a ton of integrated features, like Gigabit Ethernet Link Teaming etc.

Does this mean..

[bigattichouse (527527)]

... you can get reasonable framerates with NeverWinter Nights? :)

Yeah, but...

[cp.tar (871488)]

... does it run Linux?

Seriously... when are the Linux drivers expected?

Re:

[rg3 (858575)]

In theory, the so-called NVIDIA binary blob used by the Linux driver is not platform specific and is used across several operating systems. This means that when that blob supports the new cards, any future driver releases should support them. AFAIK NVIDIA has been pretty fast at introducing drivers for new cards, so I would expect the next driver release to support these cards. Whenever that is, I'm not sure. Maybe 15 days?

Re:Yeah, but...

[by Anonymous Coward]

http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_downloads_linux_ display_x86_1.0-9742.html [nzone.com]
http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_downloads_linux_ display_x86_64_1.0-9742.html [nzone.com]

Re:Yeah, but...

[Ambassador Kosh (18352)]

Now

http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_downloads_rel70b etadriver.html [nzone.com]

Check at the bottom the 32 and 64 bit linux drivers are beta and you can use them right now. It looks like they also have bsd and solaris support today also.

Re:

[BRTB (30272)]

Is now [nzone.com] soon enough for you? =]

Sure, they're beta, if you want to be picky about it. Probably works just fine - their last beta drivers did.

Re:

[David McBride (183571)]

NVidia released new Beta drivers which support this card today.

See: http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_downloads_rel70b etadriver.html [nzone.com]

Re:

[Sj0 (472011)]

It makes the other nerds think you've got a HUGE wang.

Also GPGPU

[Krischi (61667)]

Don't forget general-purpose GPU computing. For those highly parallelizable applications that do not need to conform to the full IEEE-754 floating point specs, this card is a dream come true.

24" monitor?

[BenFenner (981342)]

So this will benefit my 13' projected monitor running at 1024 x 768 resolution (60 Hz refresh), and not my 20" CRT running at 1600 x 1200 resolution (100 Hz refresh)?

You don't say...

What about the DRM (DX 10 certs require it)

[plasmacutter (901737)]

Seriously.. last i checked certification for logo testing and DX 10 required DRM... not just DRM but enough lockdown to get hollywood to sign off on it.

They kept changing the standards over and over.. so the question is exactly what is required in terms of integrated DRM.

Finally...

[by Anonymous Coward]

...something that can run Vista Aero with 5 stars!!!

Virtualisation Support?

[TheRaven64 (641858)]

I was under the impression that one of the major advantages of DirectX 10 was it supported virtualisation. This means that the device needs to either be able to save its entire state to main memory (for switching) or, ideally, the ability to produce virtual devices that render to a texture rather than the main screen easily (for picture-in-picture).

TFA didn't seem to mention anything about this though. Can anyone comment?

Re:

[TychoCelchuuu (835690)]

Right now, although the card supports DX10, all your games and Operating Systems are in DX9. Until Vista comes out you're not going to see anything taking advantage of any neato DX10 doodads.

Re:

[pilkul (667659)]

Indeed. Less obviously, many games render to a texture in order to apply full-screen effects (e.g. your entire vision getting blurry when you are damaged) on them before sending to the screen.

More at ocp and toms

[llZENll (545605)]

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MT I xOCwxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA== [hardocp.com]

http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/11/08/geforce_880 0/ [tomshardware.com]
Although the toms article is pretty worthless as most benches are cpu bound with a fx64 cpu.

my favorite has to be this page, 8800 GTX SLI/3.80GHz Core 2 Duo SLI
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2053791 ,00.asp [extremetech.com]

[H]ard Review

[mr_stinky_britches (926212)]

For those of you who are interested in what the [H] has to say about this card..here is the direct link:

BFGTech GeForce 8800 GTX and 8800 GTS [hardocp.com]

Today marks the announcement of NVIDIA's next generation GeForce 8800 series GPU technology code named "G80." We have two new hard-launched video cards from BFG Tech representing the 8800 products. Gameplay experience TWIMTBP?

I found their review to be of typical [H] quality, which I think is pretty decent (when compared to other H/W review sites, that is ;)

-

Makes PS3 obsolete before launch

[ConfusedSelfHating (1000521)]

At least the Xbox 360 was released before it was obsolete. The PS3 graphics processor is similar to the 7800 GTX if I remember correctly. When the PS3 releases people won't be saying "Buy the PS3 for the greatest graphical experience", instead they'll say "Buy the PS3 for the greatest graphical experience, expect for the PC you could have bought last week". The PS3 will probably be about as powerful as the 8600 when it's released.

I know I sound very offtopic bringing this up, but many PC gamers also play console games. They will want to compare console graphics to PC graphics.

Re:

[Wesley Felter (138342)]

It's really not fair to expect a $500 console to have the same graphics as a $2,000 PC. For mainstream gamers, PS3 will probably compare favorably to a PC when it comes out.

Re:

[Elladan (17598)]

Graphics processors aren't really as important for a console system as a PC, though, since consoles target an output device with a typical resolution of 640x480 at 60 frames per second at most (and more like 30 in most cases). Sure, a few people might have HDTV, but not many.

Plus, the PS3 has a herd of vector coprocessors to assist the video engine. I don't think anyone is going not buy a PS3 because it fails to meet some artificial benchmark in the lab. They're going to complain that it costs a hell of

Re:

[PitaBred (632671)]

Consoles can tune games a LOT more than PC's, because the hardware is completely standard. They can do tricks and optimizations with rendering and such that you couldn't reliably expect to work on Joe Blow's random PC. The console still isn't out of the game.

Besides, the video card you can buy costs as much as a whole PS3. The PS3 is still better bang for your gaming buck. Either way, I'm ok with my Go7600 in my laptop and I'm gonna get a Wii, so y'all can go do your own thing when posturing about gam

Re:

[Sj0 (472011)]

You CAN, but I've found almost universally that they don't. The game development cycle is too tight, multi-platform compatibility is too important, and codebases are simply too large to justify optimizing the living hell out of the code you've got.

And the new gaming PC I'm building costs less than the PS3, and other than perhaps 100 bucks for the chibi version of this monster when it comes out, I don't expect to have to do much to keep the system I'm building competitive with the PS3 in terms of playing a b

NVIDIA CUDA, GPGPU initiative

[Vigile (99919)]

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?type=expert&aid=3 19 [pcper.com]

This review looks at gaming and such too, but also touches on the NVIDIA CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture), that NVIDIA is hoping will get super computing into mainstream pricing. What thermal dynamics programmer would love to access 128 1.35 GHz processors for $600?

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=319&type=expe rt&pid=5 [pcper.com]

"DirectX 10 Cards"?

[Deagol (323173)]

Isn't this the tail wagging the dog? Shouldn't the video card industry have hardware API standards and shouldn't the software vendors be releasing stuff compatible with the hardware?

"DirectX 10 Cards" sounds as silly as saying "Vista compatible PC BIOS". WTF?

Re:

[TheRaven64 (641858)]

The biggest difference between DirectX and OpenGL is the extension mechanism. OpenGL specifies a set of features which must be implemented (in hardware or sofware), and then allows vendors to add extensions. These can be tested for at runtime and used (and the most popular ones then make it into the next version of the spec). DirectX doesn't have a comparable mechanism; the only features it exposes are those that the current version of the API dictates.

In their rush to get a chunk of the big Windows mar

Re:

[Quasar1999 (520073)]

Oh please!

It's called the CAPS structure, and DirectX has had it for as many versions as I can remember. You check to see what Capabilites the card supports and decided what features you'll use. The OpenGL extensions are the same damned thing, except there you enumerate a big string list, while on the DirectX side you have all extensions visible and most available in software emulation mode, with the CAPS structure telling you what was hardware accelerated.

Besides, how do you think pixel shaders and

"You must be new here."

[uhlume (597871)]

Seriously, where have you been for the last 10-15 years, and were you somehow under the impression all this time that OpenGL, DirectX 3-9 and their predecessors were "hardware API standards"? The only difference in this respect between DirectX10 and earlier versions is that DX10 doesn't attempt to provide backward compatability for older hardware, so you'll need an explictly DX10-compatible card in order to take advantage of DX10 rendering paths.

Re: don't bother if you have less than a 24"

[Kris_J (10111)]

Or a Matrox Triplehead2Go [matrox.com]. A 24" panel is only a little over 2 million pixels. Three 1280x1024 panels are almost 4 million pixels. And you can get a TH2G plus three 17" or 19" panels for significantly less than a 24" panel.

Is anyone testing these video cards in 3840x1024 yet?

DirectX cards

[Sloppy (14984)]

Forget the review; what catches my eye here is the term "DirectX 10 Card." The very idea that it's categorized by limited software compatibility, rather than categorized by the type of hardware slot that it uses, is a new idea to me.

I can see a huge upside to it, though. As a time-saver, I would love for the amount of "closedness" to be how hardware gets categorized, so that I could just shop from the "open and compatible with everything" category instead of having to do research along the lines of "is t

Power consumption

[MobyDisk (75490)]

Dual power connectors, yeeeha! Video card manufacturers really aren't doing much about idle power consumption. 66 watts at idle just to display a static frame buffer. I can't imagine what will happen running Vista w/ Aero glass. I bet people's power consumption numbers will double.

Unifed sghaders in OpenGL already here ?

[S3D (745318)]

Looks like DirectX 10 functionality - unified (geometry) shader and like will be available in in the NVIDIA drivers very soon. Seems the entry points for new OpenGL extensions are already present in the driver nvoglnt.dll (96.89), including
GL_NV_geometry_shader4
GL_NV_gpu_program4
GL_NV_gpu_shader4
and new Cg profiles
All we need now is header file
Chances are, for OpenGL directX 10-like functionality will be here before VISTA. Another one for swith to OpenGL from DirectX. Also it will be at least couple of years before majority of the gamers switch to VISTA, but with OpenGL developers can utilize latest GPU to their full potential on the Windows XP.
More about it in this thread form OpenGL.org:
http://www.opengl.org/discussion_boards/ubb/ultima tebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=3;t=014831 [opengl.org]

Re:Coincidence?

[slughead (592713)]

Any coincidence that they launch the first DX10 card the same day that Vista goes gold?

No. M$ doesn't release its products until they go bismuth (to treat typical symptoms of M$' early adopters), which is still 4 release candidates away.

Re:

[theonecp (1021699)]

Er.. link here: http://www.bootdaily.com/index.php?option=com_cont ent&task=view&id=178&Itemid=56 [bootdaily.com]

Re:

[noSignal (997337)]

From nvidia.com:

Q: Do the new GeForce 8800 GTX and GeForce 8800 GTS GPUs support SLI technology?

A: Yes. All GeForce 8800 GPUs support NVIDIA SLI technology.