Rage3d G80 review

[Cookie Monster]

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The G80 is a giant leap forward, architecturally, over anything that came before it. It is well beyond the leap in performance and features we saw with ATI?s 9700 Pro four years ago. While there are a lot of things about the G80 that caught a lot of people off guard, I?m willing to bet that for most people the fact that it features a fully Unified Shader Architecture is number one on their list of G80 surprises. It wasn?t all that long ago where even NVIDIA was saying that a USA probably wasn?t appropriate ?at this time?. NVIDIA has become well known for their smoke and mirrors act, and comments like that are prime examples of it. Number two on the list of surprising things is probably the fact that it has 681 million transistors on a 90nm process and doesn?t require the energy output equivalent of a small star to power it. When everyone was assuming that the GTX would require an extremely beefy PSU, with some suggestions that anything short of one rated for 1KW wouldn?t do, NVIDIA revealed that it wouldn?t need much more power that what the previous generation cards were using. That alone is a testament to the amazing job NVIDIA has done in engineering the G80.

The level of performance you get with the 8800 GTX is nothing short of astounding. In most cases it?s fully twice as fast as the 7900 GTX and X1950 XTX, and the previous King of the Hill, the 7950 GX2, can?t touch it either. After seeing how fast the thing was I even decided to throw in SLI and Crossfire tests too, just to illustrate the point further and show that, more often than not, the 8800 GTX is faster than 7900 GTX SLI and X1950 Crossfire too. And that?s not even considering the image quality improvements you get with it; looks better, goes faster.

If you had told someone six months ago that this card would be this fast you would have gotten a swift kick in the head for your troubles and, upon reflection, would have agreed you deserved it.

Not only do you get ground-breaking speed and image quality, you also get full support for DirectX 10. There aren?t any DX10 games out yet or, for that matter, DX10 itself, but when you?re dropping this kind of money on a graphics card it?s good that it?s future-proof and gives us something to look forward to.

The 8800 GTS is no slouch either. It?s clearly faster than the 7900 GTX and X1950 XTX, and in most cases beats the 7950 GX2 as well. $449, the same asking price for a 7900 GTX or X1950 XTX, and cheaper than a 7950 GX2, for a card with this level of performance and with all the same features as the GTX, that?s a pretty good deal if you ask me.

I can?t think of anything really negative with the G80 or either SKU that?s worth mentioning. The GTX board is long enough that it would probably not fit in many average computer cases, but this is an enthusiast class board and enthusiasts have enthusiast class enclosures, so the board length shouldn?t be an issue for most of the people this is targeting at. I also encountered some minor driver issues during my tests, but nothing remotely show-stopper serious. Given NVIDIA?s track record with drivers I don?t expect to have to wait too long to see the few things I reported fixed.

With the G80 sitting atop their lineup, and more G8x GPUs quickly coming to fill in the rest, NVIDIA finds themselves in an absolutely undeniable performance and features leadership position. This holiday season the only choice you have to make is between the 8800 GTX and the 8800 GTS, everything else has been made obsolete.

 

[Genx87]

There was a review that overclocked the GTS to ~690Mhz and ram to about 2000 and it matched the stock GTX on performance. I havent tried it yet as I dont require it, but for 450 bucks that is a pretty good deal imo.

 

[Wreckage]

I feel those types of literary turns of wit do not convey the idea properly, however, so bear witness to my words, fine reader, and take them to heart: it is f***ing fast.

:laugh:

 

[jim1976]

Originally posted by: Genx87
There was a review that overclocked the GTS to ~690Mhz and ram to about 2000 and it matched the stock GTX on performance. I havent tried it yet as I dont require it, but for 450 bucks that is a pretty good deal imo.

GTS is a hell of an o/c card AFAIK and a great bang/buck.. I suspect that the vast majority of GTS users can o/c their card to similar performance to stock GTX, if not surpass it later with good cooling.

 

[BFG10K]

Excellent review from Rage3D, as usual. :thumbsup:

 

[TanisHalfElven]

THE WIERD THING is that a 8800gts at 8800gtx clocks is almost equal in performance. makes one think that the power of these cards is not being fully utilized.

 

[Cookie Monster]

Originally posted by: tanishalfelven
THE WIERD THING is that a 8800gts at 8800gtx clocks is almost equal in performance. makes one think that the power of these cards is not being fully utilized.

Agreed. We need to wait til the DX10 games need to come out which will be the real test for the two cards.

 

[enz660hp]

Originally posted by: tanishalfelven
THE WIERD THING is that a 8800gts at 8800gtx clocks is almost equal in performance. makes one think that the power of these cards is not being fully utilized.

uuuuhh...if they are at equal clocks the performance is equal? I dont get it...

 

[40sTheme]

Yes enz ^ that's what he is saying. When you clock a GTS up to a GTX's speeds, it runs almost identically to the GTX. It is because the extra stream proccesors/unified shader architecture/etc in the GTX are not being fully utilized in the DX9 renderer, so the differences in those numbers hardly matters.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Originally posted by: enz660hp

Originally posted by: tanishalfelven
THE WIERD THING is that a 8800gts at 8800gtx clocks is almost equal in performance. makes one think that the power of these cards is not being fully utilized.

uuuuhh...if they are at equal clocks the performance is equal? I dont get it...

The GTS has less processing pipelines (96 to the GTXes' 128, is that right?). This should affect the processing power of the cards.

 

[enz660hp]

I clearly see the gtx ahead at clocks that are almost the same...

 

[Nightmare225]

Originally posted by: darkswordsman17

Originally posted by: enz660hp

Originally posted by: tanishalfelven
THE WIERD THING is that a 8800gts at 8800gtx clocks is almost equal in performance. makes one think that the power of these cards is not being fully utilized.

uuuuhh...if they are at equal clocks the performance is equal? I dont get it...

The GTS has less processing pipelines (96 to the GTXes' 128, is that right?). This should affect the processing power of the cards.

They're not all fully utilized yet, though. This will be fixed as better drivers and more taxing games come out.

 

[sisq0kidd]

Originally posted by: enz660hp
I clearly see the gtx ahead at clocks that are almost the same...

I clearly see the gtx still having a 120 mhz memory clock advantage...

 

[enz660hp]

since when does such a slight difference give almost 20 fps?

 

[anandtechrocks]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
Excellent review from Rage3D, as usual. :thumbsup:

I agree! Very good review, thanks for sharing Cookie Monster.

 

[redbox]

Originally posted by: enz660hp
since when does such a slight difference give almost 20 fps?

Yes, I don't see where a 120mhz overclock on memory would result in 20fps increase. I think it is better explained with the better core of the gtx.

 

[theprodigalrebel]

The AA/AF screenshot-comparison pages...the charts...performance drop in % points for the various AA modes...the detailed information on all in-game settings and version of the game used....THIS is how data should be presented in a GPU review.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

Originally posted by: enz660hp

Originally posted by: tanishalfelven
THE WIERD THING is that a 8800gts at 8800gtx clocks is almost equal in performance. makes one think that the power of these cards is not being fully utilized.

uuuuhh...if they are at equal clocks the performance is equal? I dont get it...

not only does the GTS lose 32 shaders, it loses another 64bits off its memory bus and 128mb off its memory

these cut backs probably dont account for much now, but they will in time

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: otispunkmeyer

Originally posted by: enz660hp

Originally posted by: tanishalfelven
THE WIERD THING is that a 8800gts at 8800gtx clocks is almost equal in performance. makes one think that the power of these cards is not being fully utilized.

uuuuhh...if they are at equal clocks the performance is equal? I dont get it...

not only does the GTS lose 32 shaders, it loses another 64bits off its memory bus and 128mb off its memory

these cut backs probably dont account for much now, but they will in time

But you have to admit, for the current crop of cards, there is no better value than a GTS. It beats the pants off competing cards around the same price-point, and provides (short-term) future proofing. If we talk here and now, then it's a good deal.

 

[Gstanfor]

Originally posted by: enz660hp

Originally posted by: tanishalfelven
THE WIERD THING is that a 8800gts at 8800gtx clocks is almost equal in performance. makes one think that the power of these cards is not being fully utilized.

uuuuhh...if they are at equal clocks the performance is equal? I dont get it...

Remember the "magical" performance increase GF3 received when the 8500 launched?
I have a suspicion history may well repeat itself...

 

[Munky]

Originally posted by: tanishalfelven
THE WIERD THING is that a 8800gts at 8800gtx clocks is almost equal in performance. makes one think that the power of these cards is not being fully utilized.

Read the firingsquad review. In some games a OC'd gts can match or beat a stock gtx, and in others it doesnt even come close.

 

[Munky]

Originally posted by: Gstanfor

Originally posted by: enz660hp

Originally posted by: tanishalfelven
THE WIERD THING is that a 8800gts at 8800gtx clocks is almost equal in performance. makes one think that the power of these cards is not being fully utilized.

uuuuhh...if they are at equal clocks the performance is equal? I dont get it...

Remember the "magical" performance increase GF3 received when the 8500 launched?
I have a suspicion history may well repeat itself...

I just hope it doesnt receive the same "magical" performance increase the fx5800 received shortly after it launched.

 

[Woofmeister]

Look at the peak power requirements in the review. The GTX draws 354 Watts at peak load. Apparently the SLI certification Nvidia is giving PSUs actually means something.

Doesn't leave much doubt that running two 8800GTXs in SLI and a couple of hard drives will require a 1000 Watt PSU.

 

[CP5670]

Very nice review, as I've come to expect from Rage3D. It would have been good to see some scores for Splinter Cell: Double Agent instead of Chaos Theory, but I guess that game has issues with the 8800s.

Look at the peak power requirements in the review. The GTX draws 354 Watts at peak load. Apparently the SLI certification Nvidia is giving PSUs actually means something.

That's 354W for the entire system, not just the card.

 

[n7]

I'd have to say overall i like R3D's GPU reviews better than anyone elses :thumbsup: