8800GT Information Thread (Translated from expreview) 56k Warning - Overclock.net

Captain Han · 10-24-07

World’s First Review of 8800GT

GeForce 8800GT Specification Summary:
• NVIDIA® Unified Architecture
• Microsoft® DirectX® 10 Support (not DX10.1)
• NVIDIA® SLI™ Technology Support
• PCI Express 2.0 Support
• GigaThread™ Technology
• NVIDIA® Lumenex™ Engine
-16x Anti-aliasing Technology
-128-bit floating point High Dynamic-Range (HDR) Lighting
• NVIDIA® Quantum Effects™ Technology:
• NVIDIA® ForceWare® Unified Driver Architecture (UDA)
• OpenGL® 2.0 Optimization and Support
• Dual 400MHz RAMDACs
• Dual Dual-link DVI Support
• NVIDIA® PureVideo™ HD Technology

The G92 GPU core utilizes 65nm fabrication technology, which is a step-up from the previous 80nm (half-node) fabrication process. However it still falls behind the 55nm RV670. The G92 core is labeled “G92-270”, and is the heart of the GeForce 8800GT. It contains 112 streaming processor, which is only a few short compared to the 128 of the 8800GTX/Ultra.

The GeForce 8800GT is the first generation of graphic cards that utilizes the G92 GPU. According to NVIDIA, 8800GTS 512MB will replace the market of the current 8800GTS 320MB, and placed under the 8800GTS 640MB. It is however rivaled against the ATI RV670XTX (8800GT 256MB will rival against RV670 Pro).

In addition, GeForce 8800GT will be the first PCI 2.0 certified card on the market.
The first shipment of GeForce 8800GT will use the codename P939 ten layered PCB design, with the shader clock at 600MHz/1500MHz/1800MHz. The shader ratio will be 2.5x, which is higher than all of the current GeForce 8000 series.

GeForce 8800GT 512MB has 256bit vram which is made up of 8 Qimonda (HY818H512321BF-10) 16Mx32Bit GDDR3 ram. It runs at 2000MHz DDR, but clocked at 1800MHz to allow for overclocking headroom. The 256MB version may be clock to 1400MHz.

GeForce 8800GT has a TDP power consumption of 110W, which is lower than both GTS (147W) and GTX(177W) brothers. The first shipment of the card will offer single slot design cooler, and are co-developed by Coolermaster. This card will require 6-pin PCI Express power PEG.

The card comes with Dual DVI and S-video output.

As for HDMI output, the card has a SPDIF output. However the adapters are most likely not included. This card will not support 3 SLI, but of course will support the dual SLI.

Codec hardware acceleration has become one of the major selling point of modern graphic cards. The 8800 has PureVideo HD, but sadly does not offer the codec acceleration of the lower 8000 series cards.

The GeForce 8800GT now offers hardware acceleration utilizing VP2, which provides complete hardware acceleration of H.264 and VC-1 codec (bitstream processing is still done by the CPU).

We chose The Prestige Blu-Ray.Remux.H.264.1080P.LPCM.DD51 and KingKong.HD-DVD.Remux.VC-1.DDplus.DD51 to test H264 and VC-1 acceleration respectively.

As we can see, the 8800GT provides complete H.264 hardware acceleration. This only left the CPU usage of 1.58%. As for VC-1, the VP2 processor is still based on PureVideo, which still improved performance, but not significant.

Stock cooler test

Due to the single slot design, the card is now much thinner. It uses the same cooling technique as the 8800 brothers.

According to tomshardware.tw, 8800GT fan spins at 1000RPM to 32RPM, and has a noise level of 34dB.

The card idles 62C, and up to 86C on load. If you are not happy with the load temperature, you are gonna have to do some moding.

Cooler Upgrade Warning

Some of the compatible HSF are:
Zalman FC-ZV9
Thermalright HR-03 (not Plus), V2
Apack GX815, GX810
Zalman VF900, ZV9 VF1000

^Zalman FC-ZV9 needs some work to get it on there.

The G92 Core does not have the IHS like the 8800 bothers, so the heatsink is in direct contact with the core. Please be careful not to crush or chip the core when mounting.
Friendly reminder: Manufacture does not replace cards with crushed GPU cores.

Power Consumption

Due to better fabrication, 8800GT offers a TDP of 110W, which is lower than GTS 147W and GTX 177W.

Overclocking

Third party overclocking tools are not supported, frequency has to be changed manually with in the registry. nTune was used for overclocking, but does not support overclocking for shaders.

The stock speeds are 600/900 (x2) and ATI tools tested stable at 740/1010

The speed was reduced to 730/1000 to be stable for 3DMark06. Which scored 14013 compared to 12403 at stock speeds.
Shader overclocking will be available on nTune by the end of the month.

Benchmark - Testing Platform

I am skipping the translation for this part, pretty much self explanatory.

Conclusion
When the G80 8800 series was released back in November 18 2006, it easily defeated the rival ATI X1950XTX by more than 50%. In addition, the GTX set new records in 3DMark06.

A year later, the new GPU G92 core did not go directly in to the GeForce 9, but continued the line of 8800 series. This introduced the new fabraication technology, and the inclusion of Video Processor 2 (VP2), which allowed hardware acceleration of H264 and VC-1 codec.

The stream processor was increased to 112 verses the 96 of the GTS, and uses the new 65nm fabrication.

According the NVIDIA, the 8800GT will replace the 8800GTS 320MB. It will have a price tag of around $270USD. Don’t worry about it being very competitive to the 8800GTS 640, because bencharmk showed that the GTS handeled games much better than GT at high resolution with 4x AA enabled.

Our benchmarks also included the 8600GTS (256MB) and HD2900XT (1GB). 8800GT defeats the 8600GTS by 101.77%. Price wise, you pay double for double the performance.

Now compared against HD2900XT, the only benchmark that showed any comparable result is Half Life 2 Episode Two and Company of Heros. With high resolution and 4xAA enabled, the HD2900XT showed better scores. However with AA disabled, 8800GT beats HD2900XT by an average of 28%.

What about DX10.1?
This part is weird and too technical for me to translate. Basically its about:
1. 8800GT does NOT support dx10.1
2. ATI 55nm will support dx10.1
3. technical reasons why G92 doesn’t

Release Date: Oct 29th 2007

The GeForce 8800GT will have a huge impact on the graphic card market for price per performance.

According to our sources, manufactures has already finished packing and the cards are ready for shipment. In addition, there will be a version with refined memory architechture, which will be release later this year.

After our extensive tests, we concluded that 8800GT is one of the most competitive price/performance card on the market today. AIC suggested an MSRP of $269.00USD. It has displayed the future for the G92 architecture, proved high definition video hardware acceleration, and brought the first PCI E 2.0 card to the market. We sincerely recommend this card to everyone.

And what about DX10.1? no need to worry. Unless it’s REALLY GPU dependent, it is pretty much just an illusion.

RV670 will be announce November 6th, according to our sources. We will be closely following that as well. In our next article, we’ll be testing with the new drivers (as 167.36 Beta is already released), and some new games (such as UT3). And maybe before that, we’ll have the benchmarks for Phenom X4.

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I translated this, took 1 hour and 24 minutes. Exclusive OCN translation, just like the preview i did for 8000 mid series cards months ago.

I couldn't find any reliable english info on this card. Now i'll be selling my gts.

source http://topic.expreview.com/2007-10-2...4539d6255.html

ps i know this is repost, but this is a translated the article, which never existed and answers many of the thread questions

pps i'll be following that site from now on, and translate as needed (especiall for that phenom teaser), and pm for any chinese computer related article you want me to translate