A nVidia G80 sneak peak?

[Silenced_Coyote]

I saw this article on X-bit Labs:


<Article>
A web-site has published photos of what it claims to be a graphics card based on Nvidia’s code-named G80 graphics processing unit (http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/display/20060929090635.html#) (GPU). The new board looks long and uses a new cooler with liquid-cooling capability.
The graphics card seems to be about the size of the GeForce 7900 GX2, at least, it seems to be longer than the GeForce 7900 GTX, which means that it may not be possible to install it into smaller computer cases. If the pictures are displaying a prototype of the graphics card based on Nvidia’s next-generation G80 chip, then the latter should be pretty power hungry, if it requires liquid cooling. The graphics card reportedly uses 1GB of GDDR4 memory.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/images/news/2006-09/g80_card_sm.jpg (http://www.xbitlabs.com/misc/picture/?src=/images/news/2006-09/g80_card_bg.jpg&1=1)
Alleged Nvidia GeForce 8800 originally found on BBS.PCOnline.com.cn. Click to enlarge.
The fact that an Asian web-site displays pictures of the G80 means that several prototypes of the product are at hands of China- or Taiwan-based graphics card manufacturers, which may be an indicator that the GeForce 8800 GPU is essentially ready for mass production.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/images/news/2006-09/g80_card1_sm.jpg (http://www.xbitlabs.com/misc/picture/?src=/images/news/2006-09/g80_card1_bg.jpg&1=1)
Alleged Nvidia GeForce 8800 originally found on BBS.PCOnline.com.cn. Click to enlarge.
Specifications of the G80 chip are not clear. Some sources indicate that Nvidia’s first DirectX 10 chip will incorporate 48 pixel shader processors (http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/display/20060929090635.html#) and an unknown number of vertex shader/geometry shader processors. Other, however, claims that the G80 has 32 pixel and 16 vertex and geometry shader processors. Yet another source has indicated that the G80 will have unified shader architecture and will consist of 700 million transistors (http://www.xbitlabs.com/web/display/20060919075610.html).
http://www.xbitlabs.com/images/news/2006-09/g80_angle_sm.jpg (http://www.xbitlabs.com/misc/picture/?src=/images/news/2006-09/g80_angle_bg.jpg&1=1) http://www.xbitlabs.com/images/news/2006-09/g80_angle1_sm.jpg (http://www.xbitlabs.com/misc/picture/?src=/images/news/2006-09/g80_angle1_bg.jpg&1=1)
Alleged Nvidia GeForce 8800 originally found on BBS.PCOnline.com.cn. Click to enlarge.
Nvidia did not comment on the news-story.
</Article>

I don't know if anyone read this already, so here it is. Not sure if this is for real or not but it was interesting nonetheless. Since there have been no official news from nVidia, I guess this would have to do...

[Slug Toy]

interesting. last thing i heard about g80 was that it missed the tape out date and was running behind schedule.

is that two extra power thingies i see on there? maybe the rumors of high power consumption are true.

[Silenced_Coyote]

Anand said this:
It looks like there are going to be two high end GPU specs for power, with a 225W and a 300W spec. We mentioned during Computex that we're expecting the upcoming DX10 GPUs from ATI and NVIDIA to begin pushing the power envelopes much higher than we've seen in the past, and the fact that we're seeing discussion of specs for 225W and 300W GPUs means that we should probably expect even higher power consumption cards from graphics vendors.

There looks to be a slide on AnanTech.com and I can't paste it in here. So here is the link to the page (http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=2845&p=3).

So maybe the high power consumptions rumors are confirmed now?

[Scotty]

is it me or are there two PCI connectors on that board? no wonder the power consumtion is high!

looks all powerful with car like cooler bits sticking out its 'hood'

[Silenced_Coyote]

That sure is two PCI connectors.

This board reminds me of the EVGA 7800GTX Black Pearl edition.

[GT40_GearHead]

http://www.xbitlabs.com/images/news/2006-09/g80_card1_sm.jpg

but what is with the the silver bits, they look like W/C barbs

O_o

[Silenced_Coyote]

That would be the best guess. But if you look closely through the plastic, the tubing looks like it only connects the two barbs and doesn't do anything else. Am I wrong?

Just in case if anyone didn't notice, picture 1 and 2 are different. Picture 1 doesn't have water cooling and picture 2 does.

[Slug Toy]

well it said in that little report on the link that the option of watercooling is being looked at... or something along those lines, i cant remember 100% now. anyways, point being is that its not just a guess... its an EDUCATED guess.

as for pictures 1 and 2 being different... i think its just the shots. in picture one, the top of the card is cut off, so we really cant say anything about it... except that we cant see the top.

[GT40_GearHead]

this could be nice, a box water cooling solution, though it could take a bad turn, because you would need to pay for the rest of the setup

[Silenced_Coyote]

Pictures 1 and 2 are actually different. I first thought they were the same because the first one had the top cut off. BUT if you look through the plastic, you will see. In picture 1, the heatsink extends all the way to the top. In picture two, the heatsink doesn't because the water cooling tubing occupies that spot.

[public_eyesore]

I dont see what your talking about, care to post edited pics?

[DaveW]

Pictures 1 and 2 are actually different. I first thought they were the same because the first one had the top cut off. BUT if you look through the plastic, you will see. In picture 1, the heatsink extends all the way to the top. In picture two, the heatsink doesn't because the water cooling tubing occupies that spot.



I dont see what your talking about, care to post edited pics?

He's right-open the 2 pics in sperate windows. Look through the plastic of the HSF unit. In one, there's a pipe connected to the barbs. In the other, that space is occupied by extra heatsink.

-Dave

[Slug Toy]

evidently my head are broken today.

[GT40_GearHead]

evidently my head are broken today.

it must be the gerbils

[Silenced_Coyote]

Supposedly the 8800s are going to come out in mid November.

[Slug Toy]

thats what im hearing too, but then i keep hearing about the missed tape out date, and being pushed back to around christmas.

this is very confusing stuff. not like the 7 series release. i think i knew the exact date 4 months in advance.

[simon275]

I read it will hit the shevles sometimes after windows vista. Looks like we could b e in for a bit of a wait.

[Silenced_Coyote]

Just read up on some more news.

The 8800GTX will have 2 power connectors and the 8800GTS (lower version) will have one 1.

Recommended power:
450 for 8800GTX
400 for 8800GTS
800 for SLI

Full article here. (http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=4442)

[simon275]

800w SLI :eek:

Finally a reason for those pointless 1kw psu.

Gentlemen this is a beast.

[Silenced_Coyote]

128 bit HDR and 16x AA (http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=4450)

Details Revealed (http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=4441)

Hopefully you guys have the power to feed this beast and a PC case to contain it.

[simon275]

Case -- Yes
Power -- Can be fixed
Money -- NO!

[Slug Toy]

ok, i dont even know what to say now. i dont know whether to be super happy, or shocked. 768MB of ram? 384bit interface? 128 shaders at 1350MHz? WTF!!??

and on top of that... the HDR and antialiasing thing is crazy too. they finally fixed that issue of not being able to do both at the same time... and then put it on steroids.

now i was expecting something pretty interesting, but that is... thats... retarded. i thought maybe staying with 512MB of ram and a 256bit interface, and maybe half the number of shaders would be likely. evidently this is going to be an interesting launch this time around. maybe even more so than any previous... for me at least. so many awesome sounding things.

[simon275]

Heh the card alone is more powerful then the computer that I have that runs linux.

768MB of ram
1.35 GHZ

This thing is gonna put out a lot of heat.

If you wanted to water cool your computer you would need to sperate systems one to cool the GPU and one for the CPU.

[Silenced_Coyote]

What is kinda of funny is that before, PSUs that were quad SLI ready (4 PCIe connectors) are now only SLI PSUs.

[Slug Toy]

i really cant see a practicality for quad sli with these 8800 cards... well at least for the time being. im sure someone would pay for it, but id say anything over two cards is pointless... you're just adding on top of an already impressive frame rate and features... you wont notice any difference.

i really coudlnt imagine a quad setup like that. it looks to me like one 8800 stands a chance to beat a 7950, or two 7900's. quad would be somewhere around 8 times a 7900. thats enough to make a head explode. its been scientifically proven... very messy.

[Silenced_Coyote]

Of course you can't imagine a quad setup like that because these cards weren't meant for quad. nVidia would need to make major changes to make these cards quad ready. I mean, SLI recommends 800W... Quad SLI would mean somewhere around 1600W. That is just plain stupid. I'm guess that these 8800s have a very good chance of beating a 7950. And if I am right, then tomorrow's SLI is today's Quad (I hope that makes sense). If that is the case, then there is no need of Quad SLI.

All the features and stuff is amazing, but I want to see how hot these things really run.

[Slug Toy]

i just want to see these things... period.

i would also agree that these probably wont go any further than sli. its just not practical, not even possible to do quad sli. kind of interesting though... that means they kill off quad sli just as fast as they created it... unless they're planning an 8950gx2 somewhere down the line. but still... they need to do some serious power management. i wonder what the mid range cards and going to be like...

[chedabob]

how much these gonna be?

and whats the little sticky out bit on the back of the pci bracket?

[Slug Toy]

dont know and.... dont know.

[simon275]

I would say around the $550 to $700 level $US.

[Silenced_Coyote]

I just read that nVidia will launch the G80 AND their next-generation chipset at GeForce LAN 3.

Article (http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2006/10/11/nvidia_to_launch_g80_by_november_8th/)

[Slug Toy]

well... wasnt the 7800 introduced during computex? i remember quite vivdly that it was june, and june is not novermber no matter how many letters you rearrange. i also remember no mention of a lan party in any of the 7800's initial coverage.

anyways... novermber 8th is fine by me.

[Silenced_Coyote]

Maybe it was "introduced" during Computex and the "launch" was during GeForce LAN. Just a guess.

Oh, it seems that the nForce 590 Intel edition SLI chipset is scratched. It is now going to be the 680i SLI (I assume the "i" means that it is for Intel).

[Silenced_Coyote]

Picture Update:

http://www.bit-tech.net/content_images/news_images/680i.jpg
nVidia nForce 680i SLI motherboard (reference board)

nVidia said that they will be available in November.

[GT40_GearHead]

ooook
so... could somebody confirm that that looks sick,
i dont know why but i just love it,

BtW: where there othe reference boards made by nVidia

[Slug Toy]

just get everything on that board painted/anodized black... and thats a killer.

so it sounds like it might actually happen in november... maybe its not hype like i was thinking. i suppose it makes sense.. vista ships to the big companies and such in november as well... so why not dx10 cards and a new chipset?

[Redundant]

That is one nice looking motherboard; it kinda looks like an ASUS P5W/P5B.

Are there THREE PCI-express slots on that motherboard?!
What would the third one be used for? Perhaps they'll come out with Tri-SLI. lol

[Razors Edge]

hmm 6 USB 2.0 ports....intresting.....

[Silenced_Coyote]

That is one nice looking motherboard; it kinda looks like an ASUS P5W/P5B.

Are there THREE PCI-express slots on that motherboard?!
What would the third one be used for? Perhaps they'll come out with Tri-SLI. lol

Yes, that is 3 PCI-e slots. I think it has been rumored that the 3rd slot is for physics. I think that this was leaked on accident by a motherboard manufacturer on thier product page. Said something like, "3 PCI-e slots to be able to use SLI and the 3rd slot for physics processing". So nVidia might be coming out with something like ATI's "Tripple Play" (2 cards in Crossfire and a 3rd card doing physics). Oh, when I say physics, I do not mean the PhysX card by Ageia.

[Silenced_Coyote]

nvidia's counter-punch to ATI's Tripple Play will be called Quantum Physics Engine.
Article (http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=4444)

Also, PCI-e 2.0 should be coming out sometime in 2007. Intel's Bearlake chipsets will have it. I'm not sure when those come out. Q3 2007? So I guess motherboards from other manufacturers and GPUs will use PCI-e 2.0 around that date too.

[public_eyesore]

The INQ is saying that one 8800gtx is gonna hit 12k in 3dmark 06

[Silenced_Coyote]

Does INQ have any evidence to back that up? Do you have a link to that article?

[public_eyesore]

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=35195

[Silenced_Coyote]

Thanks for the link.

According to INQ, the whole 8800 line will hit around 12K in 3Dmark 06, not just the GTX version. Then the tiny mention of ATI.... I wish there was more info and better evidence. 2 sentences that was somewhat worthwhile to read....

[public_eyesore]

Yea, the INQ always gets straight to the point. Alot of times they hit the head on the nail, but sometimes they completly miss, thus some people don't trust much of waht they say. But Im pretty confident that this is true.

[Slug Toy]

kind of an interesting way to close that little write up... not quite enough to beat the r600.

now i really want to see these things out and battling. i dont think ati has had a nice solid lead for at least a year and a half now.

[Silenced_Coyote]

I think the X1900XTX cards are really nice. Don't they beat the 7900GTX cards? I guess this doesn't count as a "solid" lead. But at least ATI finally got rid of the Crossfire dongle.

I don't have any news on the DX10 cards by ATI... I think they will be coming out in 2007 about the time Vista launches.

[public_eyesore]

yea, the x1900xtx has a pretty solid lead over the 7900gtx

[Silenced_Coyote]

A small update concerning the nForce 600 motherboards.

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=4637

[Silenced_Coyote]

Update:

A few pictures that I saw in an article on X-bit Labs.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/images/news/2006-10/asus_gf8800_pic1.jpg

http://www.xbitlabs.com/images/news/2006-10/asus_gf8800_pic2.jpg

http://www.xbitlabs.com/images/news/2006-10/asus_gf8800_pic3.jpg

Maybe it comes with a copy of Ghost Recon?:rolleyes:

[Silenced_Coyote]

So.... nVidia is creating a new character named Dawn and it is modeled after Adrianne Curry. I guess Dawn will be representing the 8000 series.

[Slug Toy]

who and who now?

[Silenced_Coyote]

Dawn ("next-generation"): new character that nVidia is creating that I think is for the launch of their 8 series cards. Like Luna for the 6 series and Mad Mod Mike for the 7 series.

Adrianne Curry: I didn't know who she was either so I did some searching.
A few places where you might see her (info from Wikipedia):
Winner of America's Next Top Model in 2003
Appeard on the cover of Playboy February 2006 (U.S. version)
VH1's Surreal Life (4th season)
VH1's My Fair Brady

She announced on her blog that her virtual self ("next-generation" Dawn) will appear in a new demonstration by Nvidia for their next hardware, the Geforce 8 series.

Link to the article. (http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=34992)
This article says "next-generation Dawn". (http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=35310)

[Silenced_Coyote]

Quote from an article: (http://www.digitimes.com/mobos/a20061101VL200.html)
Both versions will be SLI ready, with 16x full-screen antialiasing and 128-bit floating-point high dynamic-range (HDR) lighting technology.

It doesn't sound like a single card setup will be able to perform both AA and HDR... If it does, then it would be at a lower setting.

[Slug Toy]

if a single card cant do AA and HDR at the same time... with that power... thats inexcusable. that would make it three generations of cards that havent been able to do that, and they should have corrected things after the geforce 6 series.

fortunately, theres enough power there to handle pretty much anything... so as long as they fix the ROP (i think thats where the problem was), those cards should be monsters. every time i read about what they'll have in them, i smile.

[Silenced_Coyote]

I think that power only grants users 16x AA on a single card. That is my opinion. But I really do hope that I am wrong!

Some more juicy tidbits!!! (http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=4812)

[Zephik]

Okay, I dont know if this was already discussed but I am not really in the mood to read 6 pages of people saying how cool it is lol.

So which will be better? nVidia's or ATI's? Is it a close call or is one of the two going to "blow the other out of the water"?

-SF

[Slug Toy]

everything im reading says ati has an edge. i dont know where thats coming from, because i havent seen anything about the r600 except speculation and guesses. right now no one knows i think.

[Silenced_Coyote]

I think ATI will have the edge too, but their first DX10 card doesn't come out till later. I think there was an interview a while back with nVidia and one of the questions was about unified shaders. It sounded as if they weren't going to make the jump like ATI did. What may make a difference is that nVidia is using GDDR3 on their DX10 cards while ATI already put GDDR4 on some of their cards.


By the way, just scan this thread for my posts because I have links to articles if you don't want to read all 6 pages.

[Silenced_Coyote]

NIVIDIA launches their 8800 cards today!!! (http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=4864):eek:

Also the nForce 600i motherboards to coincide with the 8000 card launch. (http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=4866)

NIVIDIA roadmap points to another G80 card to be realease sometime in February. This is about the same time that AMD/ATI will release it's DX10 cards.

Small list of reviews of the new video cards. (http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=4863)

[Airbozo]

I am planning on going to the nVidia launch party at Fry's in sunnyvale this saturday (11th). _Supposedly_ they will have their new hardware there for all to see. If I make it (not sure I want to get up early on a saturday), I will post any info here. I have always been an Ati fan except when it comes to linux. Just so happens my next media center system will be linux, so I may be swayed by their offerings.

[GT40_GearHead]

talk about linux

what do you do with drivers, for..... the video card for example
AND what do you use when you want to play with the clock speeds on something

[Silenced_Coyote]

I am planning on going to the nVidia launch party at Fry's in sunnyvale this saturday (11th). _Supposedly_ they will have their new hardware there for all to see. If I make it (not sure I want to get up early on a saturday), I will post any info here. I have always been an Ati fan except when it comes to linux. Just so happens my next media center system will be linux, so I may be swayed by their offerings.

I'm going to be at their Reality Tour also! But... at the Microcenter in Orange County since I live in Irvine. I don't know what info I can post because I bet it is all over the web already. But if I hear anything new/interesting, I'll be sure to post it here.

By the way, does everyone remember the water cooled 8800GTX pictures I posted in the beginning. There is a water cooled version, but it doesn't look like the reference pics that I posted. To my knowledge, BFG is going to be the only making them and it will retail for around $800. It is a single slot cooler too. Here is the product page on the BFG website (http://www.bfgtech.com/8800GTX_768_PCIe_wc.html).

Here is an article that I found interesting. It is some technology called "CUDA" which is supposed to be in the 8800 cards. (Article (http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2054234,00.asp))

[Airbozo]

talk about linux

what do you do with drivers, for..... the video card for example
AND what do you use when you want to play with the clock speeds on something

Both Ati and nVidia have ported their drivers to linux, with no support. It has been over a year, but last time I went through qualifying a video card for linux, the nvidia drivers without a doubt were flawless on every system or linux version that I tried. The ati drivers, not so much. I do know that since sgi is using the FireGL in some of their high end graphics systems, ati has improved the linux drivers, but have not tested them lately.

For overclocking I am not sure. You will be stuck with the features of your motherboard/bios. Does anyone know if there are overclocking utilities for linux?

[Silenced_Coyote]

Hey Airbozo, did you go to the nVidia Reality Tour? What was it like at Fry's? I went to the one at Micro Center in Irvine/Tustin and I guess this city isn't full of gamers (or nVidia fans). I would say there were less than 50 people. Despite the good chances for the raffle, I didn't win anything...

There really isn't anything to report. They showed a few demos: Adrianne Curry demo, some frog demo, and one showing a smoke ball in a box. One girl working there said that the demo should be on nvidia.com within a few weeks. So you guys can check it out. I'm sure there would be a description pointing out the cool new stuff the cards can do.

One guy from EVGA told me that the card runs cool, but he didn't give me an exact temperature. But the cards were running in one of those giant Cooler Master 830 case (not equipped with max # of fans possible). The 8800GTX fit nicely in one of those, shouldn't be a problem for most cases I hope (10.5 inches long for the GTX).

Only surprise to me at the event was the lack of gamers and an appearance of Adrianne Curry to sign autographs. Oh, and one of the EVGA guys gave me his card and mentioned something about being a forum moderator and a few other things.