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zippyjuan
06-22-2005, 11:00 PM
NVIDIA Shows "The Way It’s Meant to Be Launched".
Graphics Company NVIDIA Unleashes GeForce 7800 GTX

Category: Video

by Anton Shilov

[ 06/22/2005 | 02:18 PM ]


NVIDIA Corp. unveiled Wednesday its latest graphics processor GeForce 7800 GTX, the fastest visual processing unit ever built so far. The company said graphics cards featuring the chip would be available at the day of the launch, which is something that is not common for the heavily-competitive graphics cards industry: for years graphics companies have announced products that were available at least a month afterwards.


NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX graphics chip features 24 pixel pipelines, 8 vertex pipelines and consists of more than 300 million transistors. By contrast, its top-end predecessor – GeForce 6800 Ultra – consisted of 220 million of transistors and had 16 pixel and 6 vertex processors. NVIDIA said its new graphics chip is aggressively more efficient than the previous-generation product, which was proved by X-bit labs’ measurements: by having more transistors and 30MHz higher clock-speed, the new chip consumes just 3W more than the former king of NVIDIA’s hill.

According to X-bit labs’ performance tests, the new GeForce 7800 GTX manages to be up to more than 100% faster in loads of games and industrial benchmarks compared to the GeForce 6800 Ultra graphics cards.

The new flagship product of NVIDIA features several enhancements that boost its performance compared to the GeForce 6800 Ultra when operating in high-definition range mode by up to 60%, according to NVIDIA. This will likely catalyze game developers to use HDR technology more widely compared to what they have offered by now.

An additional advantage the GeForce 7800 GTX brings over the predecessor is the so-called transparent antialiasing, which allows micro-geometry details to be displayed with much higher precision compared to traditional antialiasing.

NVIDIA said graphics cards powered by the GeForce 7800 GTX would be available for orders at the day of the launch with first supplies reaching the end-user shortly. Since the first DirectX 9.0 processor – RADEON 9700 PRO by ATI – was formally launched back in 2002, neither of the graphics companies could supply enough graphics processors to ship commercially to end-users in at least 30-days after commercial launch.

“We have been shipping GeForce 7800 GTX GPU-based graphics boards to our retail partners for several weeks in order to assure that they will be in stock and for sale today – the day NVIDIA announced,” said Eddie Memon, vice president at XFX. “Our customers love real product launches, and we are sure the reaction of end users will be extremely positive.”

Recommended pricing of the GeForce 7800 GTX is $599, higher compared to the price-bin of NVIDIA’s GeForce 6800 Ultra and ATI’s RADEON X850 XT Platinum Edition.

bachviet
06-23-2005, 02:09 PM
I don't have that kind of $$$ to blow on a card.

Showtime
06-23-2005, 02:54 PM
That card is some serious stuff. It beats out SLI cards in some games and pwns all ati across the board. Thank God I am done with my new rig.

-j

zippyjuan
06-23-2005, 02:55 PM
Used to seem that you needed the latest video card to play games well, but now the cards are so fast that they are more than you need to play. Also it does not do the game developers much good if they make their games mostly for the latest technology, few people could play and hence buy them. My Radeon 9700 still looks good. When I was building my computer, the friend who was advising me said I would probably need a new video card in less than two years. Yes, the technology has gotten better, but the need for it hasn't kept up.

Showtime
06-23-2005, 03:30 PM
For 90% of what I do, my old athlon/9700np computer is plenty. My last full build was based around my new (at the time) widescreen. I wanted to make sure I had enough power to game in ws. Not necessarilly 1680x1050 but one of the ws modes. So far it's been mostly overkill, but I still have to lower the res or turn off the eye candy for certain games. This card would make a nice addition, but I am going to resist for now. Especially since I hardly game anymore.

-j

AlpineJay
06-23-2005, 04:24 PM
Used to seem that you needed the latest video card to play games well, but now the cards are so fast that they are more than you need to play. Also it does not do the game developers much good if they make their games mostly for the latest technology, few people could play and hence buy them. My Radeon 9700 still looks good. When I was building my computer, the friend who was advising me said I would probably need a new video card in less than two years. Yes, the technology has gotten better, but the need for it hasn't kept up.
:stupid:

My R9800 has held up fine so far and I have zero complaints about its performance in what little games I play. I don't plan on upgrading to one of these uber cards anytime soon.

DarkFury
06-23-2005, 06:34 PM
Heh... you definitely could buy a complete computer for that much cash. :heh:

Nvidia... layin' the heavy lumber to the graphics competition. (now... we wait for ATI's answer, and subsequent price drops on all the rest of the stuff out there. :D )

shocky123
06-23-2005, 11:39 PM
....I'm really not at all that impressed. The lack of considerable performance gain for the non-SLI consumer, and for that matter, the complete lack of gain on anything other than power usage for the SLI consumer just boggles my mind.

However, as long as people are stupid enough to think they'll ever get a dual-channel'd dual-PCI-Express_16 motherboard, then people will pay $500 (x2) for this card.

If I wanted a huge power drain, I'd switch back to P4's.

~Kyle

Showtime
06-24-2005, 10:36 AM
....I'm really not at all that impressed. The lack of considerable performance gain for the non-SLI consumer, and for that matter, the complete lack of gain on anything other than power usage for the SLI consumer just boggles my mind.

~Kyle

Um, that card would give my no official SLI support board similar performance to a SLI set up. That is a pretty significant boost imo. I believe it delivers better performance in HL2 than SLI 6800GTs and 2 6800gt would be at least $700.
I think SLI will give way to dual core... but then you could go SLI dual core... :)

It doesn't matter to me. I am happy with my rig and I am not dropping any more cash til I cant play something at a decent FR.

-j

shocky123
06-24-2005, 01:54 PM
yeah, I agree with yah on that.
But honestly, if someone reaaaaly really needs to play Farcry in like 2400x1800 resolution, with 8xAA and stuff, then the processor likely bought before the 1000 dollar sli cards will likely be your limiting factor.. not your cards. As far as the 6800GT's.. they're nice, and problably not developed at the same level of marketing for SLI as the 7800. Dual Core's the way to go for sure, I'd hate to ever imagine my computer's framerate being limited by it's cpu instead of it's graphics card.

~Kyle

Bires
06-24-2005, 04:32 PM
...I believe it delivers better performance in HL2 than SLI 6800GTs...

This is not the normal result, just in HF2.

Most of the tech-based sites (non-fanboi sites) rank it about 30% faster than the 6800GT, but two 6800GTs in SLI beat it.
I like: http://www.techreport.com/reviews/2005q2/geforce-7800gtx/index.x?pg=10

Showtime
06-24-2005, 04:36 PM
maybe they got a cheater card.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2451&p=13

-j