Ruccus
04-14-04, 01:59 AM
In the era of 3D performance there was 3dfx and there was nVidia. 3dfx went bankrupt and nVidia reigned as King of the Performance Crown until late 2002, when ATi crept in like a thief in the night to blackjack nVidia over the back of the head with the unexpectedly stellar Radeon 9700 series, claiming the performance throne that nVidia had held for the previous few years.
But nVidia doesn’t take defeat lightly, and in the back rooms and shadows they were plotting, waiting, stalking. And today they’ve struck back, and struck back hard with 222 million transistors, 16 pipelines, two molex connectors, and rip-snorting performance.
HardOCP (and here’s HardOCP’s NV40 technology article)
Tom’s Hardware (http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/20040414/index.html)
The Tech Report (http://techreport.com/reviews/2004q2/geforce-6800ultra/index.x?pg=1)
Hardware Analysis (http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/article/1708/)
AnandTech (http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=2023)
Here are exerpts from some of the above reviews’ conclusion:
...we have never seen a graphics card perform this well or so convincingly beat the competiton in every single benchmark. When our GeForce 6800 Ultra sample first arrived we looked at it with mixed emotions, it’s bulky, requires two power connectors, has a large heatsink which takes up the PCI slot adjacent to the AGP, it simply looked like the GeForce FX all over again. At the end of the day the level of performance, it beats the best ATI currently has, the Radeon 9800 XT, by 60 to 120%, made us forget about all that, we love it and will continue to do so despite of it’s bulkiness and power requirements. The GeForce 6800 Ultra is simply built like a hotrod, big, bad and with performance that’ll put anything else out there to shame with the appearance to match. - Hardware Analysis
For now, I think we’ve established a few things about the NV40 with all of our testing. First and foremost among these is the fact that NVIDIA isn’t blowing smoke this time around. Many of our crazy tests in this mega-long review are aimed at exposing weaknesses or just verifying proper operation of the GPU, and the GeForce 6800 Ultra passed with flying colors. The NV40 is exceptionally good, with no notable weaknesses in performance or capability. NVIDIA has caught up to ATI’s seminal R300 chip in virtually every respect, while adding a host of new features that make NV40 a better graphics processor, including long shader programs, more mathematical precision, and floating-point framebuffer blends.
And it’s a freaking titan of graphics performance. - Tech Report
The GeForce 6800Ultra delivered the best realworld gameplay in every game we tested. NVIDIA has vastly improved performance over the GeForceFX series with the GeForce 6 series GPU. In most of today’s popular games, the GeForce 6800Ultra noticeably outpaces the ATI Radeon 9800XT. ...Here is what we know as of right now. The GeForce 6800Ultra will be priced at $499, contain 16 pipelines, require two Molex power connectors and in a two slot design clocked at 400/550. The GeForce 6800 will be priced at $299, contain 12 pipelines, require one Molex power connector, in a one slot design and clocks are yet to be decided. - [H]ardOCP
But nVidia doesn’t take defeat lightly, and in the back rooms and shadows they were plotting, waiting, stalking. And today they’ve struck back, and struck back hard with 222 million transistors, 16 pipelines, two molex connectors, and rip-snorting performance.
HardOCP (and here’s HardOCP’s NV40 technology article)
Tom’s Hardware (http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/20040414/index.html)
The Tech Report (http://techreport.com/reviews/2004q2/geforce-6800ultra/index.x?pg=1)
Hardware Analysis (http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/article/1708/)
AnandTech (http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=2023)
Here are exerpts from some of the above reviews’ conclusion:
...we have never seen a graphics card perform this well or so convincingly beat the competiton in every single benchmark. When our GeForce 6800 Ultra sample first arrived we looked at it with mixed emotions, it’s bulky, requires two power connectors, has a large heatsink which takes up the PCI slot adjacent to the AGP, it simply looked like the GeForce FX all over again. At the end of the day the level of performance, it beats the best ATI currently has, the Radeon 9800 XT, by 60 to 120%, made us forget about all that, we love it and will continue to do so despite of it’s bulkiness and power requirements. The GeForce 6800 Ultra is simply built like a hotrod, big, bad and with performance that’ll put anything else out there to shame with the appearance to match. - Hardware Analysis
For now, I think we’ve established a few things about the NV40 with all of our testing. First and foremost among these is the fact that NVIDIA isn’t blowing smoke this time around. Many of our crazy tests in this mega-long review are aimed at exposing weaknesses or just verifying proper operation of the GPU, and the GeForce 6800 Ultra passed with flying colors. The NV40 is exceptionally good, with no notable weaknesses in performance or capability. NVIDIA has caught up to ATI’s seminal R300 chip in virtually every respect, while adding a host of new features that make NV40 a better graphics processor, including long shader programs, more mathematical precision, and floating-point framebuffer blends.
And it’s a freaking titan of graphics performance. - Tech Report
The GeForce 6800Ultra delivered the best realworld gameplay in every game we tested. NVIDIA has vastly improved performance over the GeForceFX series with the GeForce 6 series GPU. In most of today’s popular games, the GeForce 6800Ultra noticeably outpaces the ATI Radeon 9800XT. ...Here is what we know as of right now. The GeForce 6800Ultra will be priced at $499, contain 16 pipelines, require two Molex power connectors and in a two slot design clocked at 400/550. The GeForce 6800 will be priced at $299, contain 12 pipelines, require one Molex power connector, in a one slot design and clocks are yet to be decided. - [H]ardOCP