Hardware G80: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX

- that sums up my facial reactions to reading that hehe (beat that smalley )

 

True Tim, but when I buy Crysis (for example), my issue isn't my monitor, but how high can i turn my graphics settings And a faster videocard helps a lot on that right?

 

Of course it does - if you can afford the GTX, buy it because it's simply awesome. You should be able to run 16xAA in most games too.

If you can't afford a GTX, the GTS should satisfy most of your needs on that screen.

 

Best review I have ever read for a piece of hardware, and I've read literally thousands.

 

Now that is interesting. Overall power consumption was very low. This was a bench setup I assume? Even so, if you did a poll with those system specs and then 8800GTX and asked people "will a 330W seasonic PSU power all this" I imagine you'd have got close to all "no's". Just another example of people waaaay overestimating power needs, what with all the talk of 700W and 800W PSU's for G80.

 

I agree with Spec, seems as though we (as consumers) are getting fed FUD.

 

I reckon an SLI setup you could get away with a 500W? Deppending on how many hdd's and fans obviously, but it is certain interesting. Are there any power Specs for the QX6700?

 

Lol no chance

 

Nice Review Tim, I have the xfx 8800 gtx on my desk, however the rest of my new parts are yet to arrive.
Any suggestions on a suitable fitting case to wack it all in
as it is rather large.

http://img283.imageshack.us/img283/5202/p1010644bw3.jpg

 

AWESOME piece of hardware information. Congratulations guys...as rupbert said, one of the best articles I've read on new tech.

By the way...when are we going to see some GTS numbers? I'm pretty sure that in my 20' wide screen (1680x1050) I'd notice 0 difference between the GTX and GTS...but my wallet would certainly notice it

I've been on that boat for months...
http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=123643&page=3&pp=20

In January, I decided to power my rig with a 460w TACENS Valeo as it had the better power/price/noise ratio I could find (btw, recommended PSU brand if you find one), and had to suffer enough "that's not enough", "DX10 parts will kill your system", "spend 200€ on a 700W PSU", "you are not future-proofed" comments for two lifetimes. If that's the worst power consumption is going to get for a while, I feel perfectly safe with my little PSU

 

Great review Tim, thanks for pushing the late nights to bring us the review.

One question though is you did not touch on the "CUDA" technology, which will allow the graphics chip to simulate physics processing and aid in general-purpose computing?

Many people here are perfoming some kind of distributed computing when not gaming, and it would be handy for them.

My current screen is only 19" but I have to get me one of these for Crysis and whack everything up and I cannot wait.

 

FINE, 800w

 

It's a bench setup with 1xHDD, 1 DVD drive, and the "system components". 450W is the minimum recommended for a single GeForce 8800, 750W (G80 SLI Certified) for SLI.

 

I think the Stacker 830 should fit it just fine - nice card you have there.

 

Based on some quick math, that'll mean that nVidia expect 300W for an extra card. I'm concerned however that the "SLI Certification" scheme for power supplies is merely a way for PSU manufacturers to charge premiums.

 

Bloody hell thats a hike in the old Wattage there, from 450 for an entire system to 750 just for another card? crazy, not complaining though, glad i know lol

and Tim, the stacker 830 can swallow anything cant it? (make sure it doesn't try and eat bindi!)

 

well, it may have a bit of that in it, but it's a sure fire way of making sure your system will work with two of these cards installed. The first problem with high end system instability is typically power related, so I think it's a good thing that NVIDIA (and ATI for that matter) are certifying power supplies.

 

Come at it from the other end...

Assuming that 300W / card is about right that leaves 150 watts for everything else. Now consider that some of the shuttles and uATX systems run on 150W PSUs with one hard drive, one optical drive and everything else, it seems at least plausible. 300 Watts for a GPU (600 in SLI) does seem like a lot, but the numbers add up. I'll bet the 750 watt recommendation has some headroom built into it on the basis that someone running dual 8800s in SLI probably has more than 1 HDD and 1 optical drive.

What would be the problem with that?

 

TDP for GeForce 8800 GTX is 185W - that's why there are two power connectors on the card. It's possible to force 185W through a single power connector, but in doing so the card would not be adhering to PCI-Express specifications. You can draw 75W across the PCI-Express bus and 75W per 6-pin supplementary connector.

As you correctly state, the higher wattages are because of headroom for more memory, quad-core CPUs, more hard drives and also add-in cards like a sound card or dedicated RAID card.

 

this is because the ROPs are capable of taking 4 samples of whatever (textures? pixels? i dunno, but its 4 samples) where as previous cards could only take 2

so if you wanted 4xAA on previous cards your pixels had to go round the ROP twice, if you want 2xAA they go through once. now with G80 you can take 4 samples so now you can get 4xAA by going through once

2xAA therefore is essentially free (next to no drop) and 4xAA can be had for the price of last gens 2xAA