Nvidia launches Geforce 7800 + possible info on the PS3 GPU

That's basically the PR story, which really doesn't give much facts. If you want more specific info, you can check out the Nvidia site here:
http://www.nvidia.com/page/geforce_7800.html

You can also read some of the reviews of the card that are out now, although they may be pretty technical and long (haven't had a chance to read them yet, though):
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2451
http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20050622/index.html
http://www.beyond3d.com/previews/nvidia/g70/

One interesting thing about this situation is that Nvidia was able to announce the card and release it at the same time. For anyone who has $600 and wants to spend it, you can buy the card right now. FWIW, it doesn't like it is worth it, at least not right now. The card is really powerful, and the some of the new features are nice, such as the TSAA feature, which can be demonstrated below:
http://www.hardspell.com/pic/2005/6/21/df1cb8d8-7f00-4c82-85e8-bb517f00c25a.jpg

It just seems to be slightly underwhelming in some cases, especially since not too many games will be taking advantage of its power until probably later in the year. It is more powerful than two 6800 Ultra's in SLI in some instances, but in games that rely more on the CPU or more on vertex shading, it doesn't really have too much of an advantage over most cards out today. This might change later on in the year when new games come out that are made to use the features in this card, or the new ATI card.

Plus, if you are one of those people that wants the top-of-the-line graphics card no matter what, besides the fact that ATI still has their card to show, there are rumors that Nvidia still may have a 7800 Ultra up their sleeves, despite what they say about sticking with the GTX suffix. For example, for a maxed out card, some people have already been able to overclock it pretty easily (from 430 MHz to ~520MHz with stock cooling, IIRC). The card also has some things disabled, which means it could have more shading power if enabled by Nvidia. The reviews might explain this better than me, although again I haven't read them yet. But just don't be surprised to see an Ultra version of the card. Unless you have the money and want to spend it now, I would wait until the end of the year at the earliest until really deciding on a top-end card (can see what next-gen games are really using). Even if you don't want these cards, the prices for the other cards should go done. I've been wondering what a 6600 or 6800 would be priced at the end of the year since I've been in need of a new card lately (no BF2 for me).

So what does this have to do with the PS3 GPU (RSX)? For those that don't know, Nvidia is basing the RSX on this GPU. Whether this means that it is basically the same with some modifications (EX:from PCI-E of PC to Flex-IO of PS3), or if they have some surprise features, no one really knows; however, many, including myself to a degree, assume that RSX will basically be a beefed up 7800. It will probably provide the same things, only it will be clocked at 550 MHz instead of 430 MHz. There's also the HDR improvement planned, I believe, but since both GPUs are ~300M transistors, there's not much more that they can put in. RSX won't need the transistors devoted to video playback, due to Cell's performance in this area, so they might be able to do something with that, although who knows if all the modifications to make it a console GPU eat those up. So again, chances are we may have a pretty good idea of what to expect from the RSX, which is cool since there is already a good amount of info on the Xbox 360's GPU, Xenos. Here's a chart supposedly from Nvidia that a Chinese review site put up that compares numbers of the 7800 (G70), the RSX, and Xenos. Take it with a grain of salt, although a lot of numbers seem to match up with what has been said by Nvidia, Microsoft, ATI, etc.:
http://www.hardspell.com/newsimage/2005-6-21-16-10-14-654986702.gif

Going from this and everything else, it appears as though the RSX and Xenos should be pretty close in theoretical numbers, although that was sort of assumed. It seems like the RSX will have more raw power, and features like TSAA mentioned above, although Xenos may have the same or similar features. What is still up in the air is how efficient each will be. Xenos has unified shaders, which means each of the shaders can do either vertex or pixel shading, while the RSX has the normal setup of X pixel shaders and Y vertex shader that just do their job. Using Xenos, you can assume that you'll be using almost all the shaders almost all the time, while some shaders on the RSX will probably be idle some of the time. However, Nvidia claims that a unified shader is not as efficient as a pixel/vertex shader in shading. In other words, if Xenos is 90%-95% efficient, the RSX may match it while only being 70%-75% efficient. Of course, those numbers are mostly made up since we really don't know how inefficient PC GPUs are. Putting the RSX in a closed box should help increase the efficiency, but there is a reason why both Nvidia and ATI plan to go the unified shading route later down the road. So, if the RSX can be used efficiently, it will probably be the better GPU (and maybe a by a good deal, depending on how efficiently). If it can't, then Xenos shows how great unified shading it, even if its theoretical numbers aren't as high as the RSX. Although either way, developers will have some GPU beasts to take advantage of, which means we will be getting some gorgeous looking games.

Sorry about me rambling on about so many random things. I got a little carried away. I can turn PC news into console news very easily. So, back to the main point of the thread, is anyone planning on getting this card? Way too expensive for me, but it would be cool to hear some impressions. While I have an idea on how much of the board is into similar news for consoles, I don't really have an idea on how many care about the PC world of gaming.

edit: Forgot to post these videos from Nvidia that show off the new GPU:
http://download.nvidia.com/downloads/nZone/videos/nvidia/MadModMike_720p_8Mbits.wmv
http://download.nvidia.com/downloads/nZone/videos/nvidia/Luna_720p_8mbits.wmv

 

Thanks. I'm more into the console type of tech than PC cards, but with ATI and Nvidia supplying GPUs based (or will be based) on their PC cards, I kind of expanded into the PC market as well. The more I know about the G70, chances are the more I know about RSX and the PS3. Of course, despite all this talk, the most hi-tech graphics card I've really been around is the one in my PC, which is like 2-3 years old and was kind of a mid-class card when I got it. I'd be excited just to use a card with shader model 2.0.

The comments you made on the "mystery card(s)" are interesting. If I had to guess, I could only think of the R520 from ATI. Guess that would be the X900 if I remember their naming behavior correctly. The X850 XT PE outperforms the 6800 Ultra in several categories, some by a lot (heck, the X800XL, which I saw in some benchmarks with the 6800U and 7800, compares well even to the 7800 in some ways). I could see how ATI could come up with a much more powerful card than the 7800 if they upped the clock some, added some more pipes for shaders, not to mention shader model 3.0 support. Performance wise, the top end X900 could outdo the top end 7800 (not counting the Ultra, although that may be true as well) pretty easily, although it will probably cost more as well. Plus, if ATI is to be believed, their Crossfire solution is better than SLI, so there may even be a bigger leap with two X900's compared to two 7800's. And I'm not even touching the rumors of a 4 card setup using Crossfire (imagine spending $2000-$3000 just on graphics cards, but that would be one AMAZING machine).

If that's not what you were talking about, then I'm totally going off in the wrong direction. Although if nothing else, I gave some info on the ATI side of things. I don't really have any other guesses besides that, although like I said, I'm more of a console guy, so I may be missing something. Of course, I'm not even sure if you can even confirm/deny what I just said, so it may not even matter. It gave me an excuse to ramble though.

Actually, that's partly why I started a blog (in sig). But as you can see, I quit updating after 3 entries, mostly due to the fact I was away from a PC for a week. I'd like to continue it, but I'm too lazy to catch up on things I missed; plus, I'm going to miss another week soon, so I think I'll just leave it as it is and update it once things settle down.

 

Yeah, I'd definitely wait until at least the end of the year or so before trying to upgrade. By then, ATI should have released the X900, not to mention the Crossfire cards, plus the 7800 series would have been out a little while (and maybe a Ultra). What costs $500 today may be a little more affordable at the end of the year. Besides, there's going to be a bunch of new games coming out later in the year which are pretty demanding. It would probably be better to wait until a little before TES:IV comes out to buy a card for it, instead of buying the 7800 now only to find out that Oblivion runs better on ATI cards and/or is more CPU intensive than GPU.

Another aspect of all this is the arrival of Longhorn. A new API called WGF (basically DirectX) is supposed to be standard with Longhorn, and IIRC, part of WGF relies on unified shaders and other newer tech (I think the later more so than the former, but I want to say both). Maybe Baqui can explain this better, but there's a chance that a card today may be based on a different, older architecture than those being made to run with the new API. While it may have been possible for developers to provide support for older cards today, I don't know how easy it will be if they want to make games that take advantage of this new API. So that may add another concern to anyone who wants to buy a new card and have it last. FWIW, I'm not completely knowledgeable on this situation as I am on others, so I may be wrong on several of these aspects (IE: you may buy a 7800 and still be fine running games 6-12 months after Longhorn is released). Of course, if I were to buy a new card, I'd probably spend no more than $300 anyways, so maybe you can get a mid-range card to hold you over until these new unified shader cards hit the PC market. I feel like I have to be wrong about something this extreme since I don't think there's any way these companies would basically force us to buy new, expensive cards in order to play games at all (not necessarily at high settings).

 

Yeah, I think I know what you mean. Actually, when you think about it some, you can always say, "Well, maybe I should wait another 6-12 months" in the PC market, so in a way, it wouldn't be too bad to just put your foot down and buy a new card. Personally, I think there will be a bigger impact in prices this next period of 6 months than the following 6 months, but the PC market moves so fast. In your case, you might as well just get a new card. I'm looking forward to some of the newer games coming out later in the year (Gothic 3, TES:IV, etc.), not to mention I'm a big cheapskate (I still find $99 for a 1GB memory stick for the PSP way too much), so I wouldn't mind waiting until later to get a card. But since you're a big Battlefield fan and may not play much else in the PC world other than a few games here and there, that can really justify a purchase. I'd probably do the same if say TES:IV came out this week (especially if it was PC only).

FWIW, I don't think you'll have to worry about spending $350. I was just browsing on newegg and a PCI-E 256MB 6800 (GT I think, but doesn't for sure; may just be an overclocked 6800) for about $280, and there was another 6800 (non-GT I think) for $260 after a $30 mail-in rebate. Those cards are pretty close to the Ultras in performance (probably only makes a 5 FPS difference only at maxed out settings), so that should get you a great card at a nice price. You may be able to find a better price if you look some more too, finding a card to suit what you want.

Of course, those cards will be even cheaper in a few more months...

It isn't like there was anything else out there to really guess at. I was going to be really confused if you told me I was way off (or maybe this is an attempt to make me think I'm on track, but instead I'm way off-track ). ATI may not have announced it yet, but it isn't a secret or anything. Over at Beyond3D they have people in the forum that could probably figure out the clockspeed, number of pipes, and the cost of the GPU just based on your statement of it being ~50% faster than the 7800. Maybe I'm over-exaggerating a bit, but some of the members there can make my posts seem like they came off of MTV and oversimplified for the general audience. By reading those posts and the occasional leaks from Nvidia/ATI, I guess it isn't too hard to make it seem like I'm getting info from the inside.

On a semi-related note, that's what makes the PS3's appearance at E3 so amazing. I was much more into that than anything like this, but I had no idea that of what Sony was going to do at E3, and expected much less that what they did. How they were able to keep that under wraps is beyond me, especially since so much was known about the Xbox 360 even before it was officially unveiled.

 

I saw it here:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814145120

I'm really thinking it is just a souped up regular 6800 and not an actual GT one. I'm not exactly sure what makes a GT and what makes a regular one, but the fact that it uses GDDR3 ram and is clocked around 350MHz made me think it was possibly a GT card (according to B3D, those are part of a GT card); the other card used DDR and was clocked around 320MHz. I checked out the Chaintech site some more though, and I still never saw it labeled as a GT, and I read elsewhere that they (GT's) were still priced ~$350, so maybe the # of pipes are what make a GT (very likely). At the moment, I'm not sure how many pipes a GT uses and what a normal 6800 uses, so again, I'm not sure if it is a souped up 6800 or a 6800 GT.

As far as manufacturers, I'm pretty green here. I imagine Chaintech is fine. I think my current card is from them, and has run fine for the 2-3 years I've had it ; however, I think the card before that was from them as well, and it crapped out in like a year for some strange reason (can't remember what). I wasn't quite as knowledgeable on this stuff when all this went on, so I don't have all the specifics. I can try to ask my dad to see if he knows any more about it, but that's basically my experiences with Chaintech. You'll basically have to rely on others when it comes to the board makers. Wish I could provide as much info here as I could in the other areas.

FWIW, the other card I was looking at was from eVGA.

edit: Oh, and I guess another possibility is that the card is refurbished, but I didn't see that mentioned anywhere either.

 

Yeah, it is faster. It is supposed to be phasing out AGP eventually. Here's a wiki article for more info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI-E

Hopefully, your MB does support it, but I'm not sure how many actually support it unless they're pretty new. I know mine doesn't (but again, pretty old setup). If not, hopefully you can still find a nice card for a nice price for AGP.

 

Going off the specs, it looks like each "lane" for AGP is about 266 MB/s, while each one for PCI-E is 250 MB/s. However, AGP only goes up to 8X, while PCI-E is up to 16X, and I read something about it being able to do 32X as well. So a card using PCI-E (at 16X) would have a transfer rate of ~4 GB/s, while a card with AGP (at 8X) would have about half that at ~2 GB/s. Not sure how much that affects real world performance though. Of course, AFAIK, you can only get a dual (or more) graphics card setup with PCI-E, so there seems to be some great things about it over AGP.

You'll probably have to get a MB with PCI-E some time since I'm sure Nvidia and ATI would like to stick to just one version of their cards. By the sounds of things, I imagine the next refresh of cards from ATI and Nvidia may not even bother with an AGP version (not even sure if they will this time around).

Back to the 7800, it looks like Gamespot has some "new" videos up of games shown at the 7800 unveiling. There are clips from UT2K7, Huxley, Hellgate:London, and TimeShift:
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/unrealtournament2007/media.html
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/huxley/media.html
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/hellgatelondon/media.html
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/timeshift/media.html

I say "new" because I could have sworn I've seen the UT2K7 clip and the Huxley gameplay footage clip before, although the other ones were new to me. And it is at this time that I would like to apologize to the developers of Huxley (Webzen). When I first heard/saw this game, I laughed it off. It looked so bad; however, as you can tell, it looks WAY better in motion than the original screenshots I first saw. It has gone from one of the worst next-gen games I've seen to one of the best, which is pretty impressive for a MMO game. Plus, the concept sounds pretty cool as well. So props go to the devs over at Webzen...or maybe I should just be giving props to Epic for Unreal Engine 3.0.

Also, on the whole 7800=RSX issue, Attack of the Show had someone from Nvidia who sort of addressed this issue. When asked about the relationship, he said that both were from the same parent architecture, but the RSX is fine-tuned for PS3 and has some more features. He also mentioned that it is still in development, although I think everyone knows that except maybe the idiots at Teamxbox. Too bad that everything he said doesn't really mean anything. By built for the PS3, it could mean that it has been modified to use the FlexIO interface of Cell, not to mention built to communicate well with Cell (actually, how well Cell and RSX work together will probably be the main point of the system instead of how each works alone). There are already a few features we know of that will be in the RSX, such as 128-bit HDR, which weren't in the 7800, so that isn't very specific. I guess I was just hoping that he'd say that it was based on some 7800 tech but had a lot of custom work done that would make it much more powerful and feature-rich than the 7800. Eh...guess I should be happy that I'll be getting a $600 (or actually more given the clockspeed) beast of a graphics card for ~$300, plus it comes bundled with its own Cell chip, Blu-ray player, etc. I guess I just don't like seeing the transistors in the RSX being wasted on things that are more for the PC world, such as the movie playback.

 

Actually, I used to be a member there (well, I guess I still am) and I posted there a little bit about a year ago (I think Deadmeat was posting there at the time, so I got to make fun of him like everyone else). Then the board started having some problems, not to mention there were some posters who started getting on my nerves, so I just stopped going there. They've had some changes since, but I never really bothered going back, although I do check it occasionally. I do miss reading posts some of the members posts though, such as cpiasminc (loved reading his posts), The One, xbdestroya, Sundevil (think he goes by another name now), Domination, and a few others, although some of them do post elsewhere. I tend to just stick to the Beyond3D forums, where there are like 5-6 actual game developers (including one from the PS3 game Heavenly Sword), plus like another 5-10 people that could pass as one. Then I also check out the Gaming-Age forums, where there are a few as well (one from Bethesda, and one from Tiburon). Both of those sites are pretty good since I get a lot more discussions on things not necessarily PS3 related. It is kind of funny because there are like at least 3-4 people who have posted a post in each of those forums, so if you just read one of those forums, you can usually get a good idea on the technical aspects of the consoles.

Thanks for the reminder on that site though. I might check it out again soon, if I have the time.