Nvidia Launches New Affordable GPU

mikemuch writes "Today Nvidia unveiled a new low-cost, high-power graphics processor SKU. ExtremeTech's Jason Cross has done all the benchmarking, and concludes ' This makes for an impressive bargain and a huge step up from the generic GeForce 6800. The big question: How will this fare against ATI's similarly priced X1000 series card, the Radeon X1600 XT?'"

Tech Report Review

[hattig]

Pretty decent review here I read earlier:

nVidia 6800GS [techreport.com]

Uninformative: Here's a summary

[fuzzy12345]

It's been some time since we last ran our last GPU Price-Performance shootout. Despite nine months having passed, not a whole lot has changed the landscape.

The real sweet spot for graphics is in the $250 to $300 price range.

We have no idea what the heck is going on here.

The big question: How will this fare against ATI's similarly priced X1000 series card, the Radeon X1600 XT? In short, we don't know.

This is a rebadged 6800

[amcdiarmid]

http://theinquirer.net/?article=27493 [theinquirer.net]

Nice of them to cut the price. I would like them to keep the SKU so I didn't have to keep up with anotherone: Although I suppose if they hadn't rebadged it, everyone who bought the 6800 would be pissed at the price cut.

Re:Which card for Linux?

[Tyler Eaves]

Nvidia is really the only way to go for 3D in linux. If you really only need 2D, I've heard good things about the old Matrox cards, but good luck finding one.

Nvidia Launches New Affordable GPU

[springbox]

This is great, but this title seems like an oxymoron at first (NVIDIA = Cheap?) They used to make cheap video cards in the past that were crippled and preformed poorly (the GeForce 4 MX cards.) A good NVIDIA card used to cost 1/2 the price of an affordable computer, around $400. The last time I checked, all the value cards were around this $100 price range. I hope they can actually make something that's cheap and decent.

You can probably get that previously $400 GeForce 4 card now for around $80. Probably would be more than enough for most people.

Comparison / Review

[DanteLysin]

Review of GeForce 6800 GS and ATI Radeon X1600 XT

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=ODgy [hardocp.com]

Re:Tech Report Review

[LehiNephi]

There are lots of other reviews out there, too. Looks like the 6800GS kicks the X1600 where it hurts. Over and over and over again.

- [H]ard|OCP [hardocp.com]
- Avault [avault.com]
- Computer Base [computerbase.de]
- Driver Heaven [driverheaven.net]
- Guru3D [guru3d.com]
- Hartware [hartware.de]
- HotHardware [hothardware.com]
- Noticia3D [noticias3d.com]
- nV News [nvnews.net]
- The Tech Report [techreport.com]

I shamelessly stole this list from Hardocp.com

Re:This is a rebadged 6800

[ameoba]

It's not simply a 'rebadged' card. Not only did they bump the clock speeds from the 6800's 325MHz core and 700MHz memory to 425MHz core and 1000MHz memory, they also switched from DDR to DDR3 memory to achieve the new memory clocks. This is as much of a difference as there is between the 6600 and the 6600GT.

It's not so much of a price cut on the 6800GT as it is an clock-speed (and price) boost to the vanilla 6800 that brings its performance to the same level as the 6800GT while still keeping a lower price point (the 12-pipe 6800 being cheaper/easier to produce than the 16-pipe 6800GT).

Re:Video card naming schemes: CONFUSING

[StaticEngine]

If you're confused about what to buy, you should check out this site:

http://www.gpureview.com/database.php [gpureview.com]

Specifically, the "Compare Cards" feature on the left. I just upgraded my ATI 9600XT to a nVidia 6600GT AGP (because I'm not yet ready to drop a grand on an all new PCIe 64-Bit system), and that site helped me decide what was "enough" of an upgrade for how much money I was willing to spend.

Old Trick

[Nom du Keyboard]

Once upon a long time ago I worked for Control Data Corporation (anyone remember them?). CDC had a trick, which wasn't new to them, of re-badging essentially the same system with a new model number and a lower price. An example at the time was their popular CDC 3300 mainframe becoming the CDC 3170. The only difference between the models was that the CDC 3300 had a 1.75uS clock, compared to the CDC 3300's 1.25uS clock. Move one wire (the right wire!) inside and the CDC 3170 became the CDC 3300 in all respects except for the name badge on the equipment bays and console.

Why do this I wondered? The problem was in government contracts. After you'd paid back the design costs addition computers could be pumped out at a cheaper price while still both making a profit and remaining competitive. The fly in this ointment is that the government, who often bought quantities of the earlier models where cost was not the first concern (when has cost ever been a concern to governments spending tax money?). I was told that the government contracts stipulated that if you ever lower the price on something you've sold them you have to rebate them the entire difference on every system delivered. Of course that would bankrupt any company, so they resorted to this rather transparent subterfuge.

Perhaps some form of that's what's happening here as well.

Re:Uninformative: Here's a summary

[ruiner5000]

Yeah, Extremetech is after all a big tech publishers attempt at a tech enthusiast site. If you are in the $250-$300 range then you should spend $33 extra bucks and go with this evga 7800GT. [dealtime.com] It is worth the extra chunk of change. Not only will it be much faster than the cards that Extremetech recommends, but it also uses less power than the 6800GT, and therefor puts off less heat. That is a no brainer in my book.

Re:Multi Core / Processor

[KitesWorld]

There's a Dual-GPU version of the 6600 available from Gigabyte. The problem mostly comes down to power consumption and heat.

That's more or less why SLI and X-fire are multiple-card solutions as opposed to expandable single-card solutions - it's that or have a single card with a heatsink so heavy it breaks the PCB.

Re:What's a "SKU"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Three clicks and three keystrokes in Firefox, once you provided the "acronym finder" to highlight, beeotch.

It's Stock Keeping Unit

Re:The Irony!

[Anonymous Coward]

Per instruction executed, GPUs are actually much more efficient than modern CPUs. The Pentium IV averages about 8 nJ/instruction, while the NVIDIA 7800 GTX averages about 0.9 nJ/instruction. The difference is that while the clock is slower on a GPU, there are many more cores executing in parallel - the 7800 for instance has over 30. So GPUs are getting a lot of performance for a little power (per core), which adds up to a lot of power. They're still not running into the same hotspot problems as CPUs because things are a bit slower and a bit more distributed.

Re:Your comment is woefully obsolete

[oddfox]

Too bad you make no mention of the lackluster performance of the ATI drivers for Linux, it seriously sucks compared to the Windows drivers. Sure you get hardware accellerated 3D with the drivers, but it's laughable how they perform.

I really wanted to keep my 9800 Pro, but this GeForce 6600GT just performs worlds better in 3D under Linux, and it performs just about equally in Windows. Plus the drivers are a bit of a PITA under Linux, imho, but that's just me.

Re:Multi Core / Processor

[Jozer99]

Um, been done many times before. Not only do you have SLI, which combines two cards, but there are several "SLI on a single card" monsters with two geForce 6600s or 6800s on a single card. The first dual GPU card was way back in the day, I think it was an ATI Rage. Also, Creative makes high end workstation graphics, and they have a non-SLI dual GPU card. Are you talking dual core? Well, it will probably be done soon enough, the problem is that the software support for multiple GPUs is really crappy (SLI is really not that practical for everyday use). Now, at least with PCIe, the hardware restrictions imposed by AGP are gone. I would expect to see something within six months, probably from SiS. It might take a little while longer for nVidia and ATI to come out with a dual core card, although I'm sure it will perform better.