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NVIDIA's GeForce 6800 Ultra Extreme and 6800 GT May 04, 2004 Brandon Sandman Bell |
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Summary: Just when ATI thought it was going to have May 4th all to itself for its RADEON X800 launch, NVIDIA has attempted to crash the party with the debut of GeForce 6800 Ultra Extreme and GeForce 6800 GT. The Extreme board boasts higher than Ultra clock speeds while the 6800 GT delivers all of the features of Ultra and most of the performance at a $399 price tag. Read all about these new boards and how they compare to ATI's two X800 cards as we explore their performance in a wide variety of games and even overclocking. Oh, and don't forget to check out our 6800 Ultra testing with a 350-watt power supply. Guess what, it works!
 Introduction | Page:: ( 1 / 23 ) |
Fresh off the introduction of GeForce 6800 Ultra a few weeks ago, NVIDIA is back again with a pair of new GeForce 6 products, and we’re not talking about the GeForce 6800 either. On the ultra high-end of the market, NVIDIA and its board partners will be producing an overclocked GeForce 6800 Ultra part, a final name has not been officially announced, but the running title is GeForce 6800 Ultra (Extreme). This board ships with a 450MHz NV40 graphics core, 50MHz higher than the default GeForce 6800 Ultra and effectively boosting fill-rate by nearly 10%.
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Curiously enough, the memory clock frequency remains the same at 550MHz (1.1GHz effective) for a peak memory bandwidth figure of 35.2GB/sec.
These figures are certainly impressive, but do fall shy of ATI’s X800 XT Platinum Edition card, which features a 520MHz core clock and 560MHz memory clock (1.12GHz effective). NVIDIA and its board partners have not come up with a final price point on the Extreme 6800 Ultra board yet, but it will hit retail in June.
Sitting between the GeForce 6800 Ultra and the GeForce 6800 is NVIDIA’s GeForce 6800 GT. This is a 16-pipeline part, just like NVIDIA’s GeForce 6800 Ultra series and ships with 256MB of GDDR3 memory clocked at 500MHz (1.0GHz effective). Its 350MHz graphics core is boasts a peak texel fill rate of 5.6 Gigatexels/second.
This board is priced at the same $399 price point as ATI’s X800 PRO, which sports a 12-pixel pipeline architecture operating at 475MHz (for a peak fill rate of 5.7Gigatexels/second) and 256MB of GDDR3 memory operating at 450MHz (900MHz effective).
With these changes in mind, let’s take a look at NVIDIA’s entire GeForce 6800 lineup:
Notes
NVIDIA has also announced the final details on its GeForce 6800 part, 325MHz core/350MHz memory. We’ve heard from one of NVIDIA’s board partners that the GeForce 6800 should offer a nice performance improvement over GeForce FX 5950 Ultra, despite its less powerful memory subsystem. This is due to the improvements NVIDIA has made in its NV40 graphics core, as well as the addition of 12 dedicated pipelines. This could become quite a compelling product assuming board prices hover in the $250-$300 range as ATI hasn’t officially announced an answer to the GeForce 6800 (although it’s assumed they’ll reply with an 8-pipeline X800 SE card).
As far as the GeForce 6800 Ultra Extreme is concerned, there are still lots of questions to be answered. For instance, which board partner(s) have signed on for the Extreme board? Gainward has produced its “Golden Sample” line of overclocked GeForce cards in the past, while eVGA ran its GeForce FX 5900 Ultra boards at 500MHz core/900MHz memory. NVIDIA has told us that one, possibly two board partners will be signed on for these cards, which will be marketed as a line of overclocked GeForce 6800 Ultra cards. These boards will not be marketed as GeForce 6850 Ultra cards or any other variation of the GeForce 6800 Ultra brand.
NVIDIA also plans to offer these Extreme boards through a select number of PC OEMs that tailor to the enthusiast crowd, think Falcon Northwest, VoodooPC, or Alienware.
SIDEBAR: I’m still polishing up the X800 article and need to make pictures, should be done in a few hours.
| The cards | Page:: ( 2 / 23 ) |
GeForce 6800 Ultra (Extreme)
The Extreme 6800 Ultra board looks just like the 6800 Ultra reference card we received a few weeks ago. The board sports the same dual-slot cooler that we found does an effective job of keeping the graphics core and memory cool thanks to its heat pipe cooling and large aluminum heatsink, although the fan itself is a little louder than ATI’s RADEON X800 PRO/XT and RADEON 9800 XT cards.
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We wouldn’t be surprised to see NVIDIA’s board partners implement their own coolers on their second generation 6800 Ultra boards, it’s also possible that they may decide to lower the RPMs on final boards by a level or two, as the board itself runs quite cool in comparison to previous high-end DX9 offerings from both ATI and NVIDIA, even when the Extreme board is overclocked beyond default levels of 450/550.
NVIDIA paired our GeForce 6800 Ultra Extreme board with Samsung GDDR3 modules that were rated for 600MHz, and it certainly showed in our overclocking attempts as we were able to hit a maximum of 1.255GHz effective. The graphics core topped out at 475MHz, an increase of 25MHz over default.
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Taking a closer look at the board we see that the board layout is nearly identical to GeForce 6800 Ultra. The board rev on our GeForce 6800 Ultra Extreme board is A02 versus A01 on our original GeForce 6800 Ultra card (the NV40 reference boards are designated P201 internally by NVIDIA). Power circuitry is the same on both revs, although the second DVI transmitter on the underside of the original A01 GeForce 6800 Ultra reference board is notably absent on the newer A02 Extreme card. NVIDIA’s feature connector has also been removed from the top of the A02 board.
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Finally, you can also see that the PCI bracket is double-stack again, just like on GeForce FX 5900/5950 Ultra. Some enthusiasts actually preferred the single-stack design on the A01 6800 Ultra reference board, as you could use the second slot for additional expansion options like a USB header or the digital audio headers that ship with most motherboards without wasting a third PCI slot. Therefore, it would be nice to see the single-slot PCI bracket work its way back into the mix again on retail GeForce 6800 Ultra and GeForce 6800 Ultra Extreme boards.
Since this is merely a 50MHz clock frequency increase, the power requirements of GeForce FX 6800 Ultra Extreme are similar to GeForce 6800 Ultra. If you recall correctly, NVIDIA recommends a 480-watt power supply for the GeForce 6800 Ultra, but as we mentioned in our GeForce 6800 Ultra Performance Preview, this is largely to ensure that there’s enough power on the 12V rail for both the graphics card and processor. NVIDIA felt 480 watts was a good cutoff point for both generic and high-grade power supply units, but there are a number of high quality power supplies that provide adequate power on the 12V rail that are in the 350-430 watt range.
SIDEBAR: Is it just me, or does spoiling one company’s launch rarely work as planned?
| Power (cont’d) and the 6800 GT | Page:: ( 3 / 23 ) |
To test our 12V rail theory out, I installed the GeForce 6800 Ultra Extreme in my personal system. It’s an Epox KT333-based motherboard with an Athlon XP 2100+, 512MB DDR266 memory, SB Live!, Promise RAID controller card, and 3Com 10/100 NIC. I also have my system outfitted with four hard drives, a DVD-ROM drive, and a CD-R/RW burner (for those of you who were wondering, I’ve been running it with a RADEON 9800 PRO 256MB).
On the power side, the real gem is the Enermax Whisper Quiet EG365P-VE PSU I purchased over a year ago to go with my Cooler Master aluminum case (it’s one of the later model ATC-110 series cases with exhaust/intake fans, before they messed it all up with the Wavemaster line). This PSU is only 350 watts total, but capable of delivering up to 26A on the 12V rail, four amps more than the Antec TruePower I bought at Fry’s a few weeks ago for the 6800 Ultra test bed.
As theorized in our 6800 Ultra preview article, the system ran flawlessly with this setup. 3DMark 03, Call of Duty, and UT 2004 all ran with complete stability on a 350-watt power supply with GeForce 6800 Ultra. Clearly, NVIDIA’s 480-watt PSU recommendation errs on the side of extreme caution, as a high quality sub-$50 350W PSU like the Enermax EG365P-VE can be used with no problems.
If you plan on pairing the GeForce 6800 Ultra with a Prescott 3.4GHz (or faster) and multiple drives however, it may not be a bad idea to upgrade to a high quality 400-watt PSU. Just avoid the generic brands, and as we mentioned in Alan’s power supply guide, always check the figures on the 12V rail.
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The GeForce 6800 GT card
NVIDIA’s GeForce 6800 GT is based on the single-slot cooling design we mentioned in our GeForce 6800 Ultra Performance Preview.
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This is another heat pipe solution that ships with a slimmer, quieter cooling fan. Like the GeForce 6800 Ultra, the heatsink is long, encompassing nearly the entire board. The heatsink is constructed of aluminum and is responsible for keeping the heat pipe and memory modules cool.
Our GeForce 6800 GT is an A02 board, not needing the DVI transmitters that are silk-screened on both sides of its PCB. Since the reference board sports one VGA and one DVI connector, the board relies on the internal transmitter instead.
The power requirements for the GeForce 6800 GT are considerably tamer than the Ultra board. NVIDIA hasn’t come up with a final wattage figure on the PSU, but since power requirements are similar to the 5900 Ultra, they claim a PSU in the 300-watt range should be sufficient for the 6800 GT (of course, our own testing reveals that it’s not show much about wattage as it is the amount of power available on the 12V rail). Because of this, the GeForce 6800 GT board only requires one Molex connector for providing juice to the board.
SIDEBAR: I’ve definitely learned my lesson after this PSU fiasco. Don’t wait until the last minute to start your benchmarks!
| Test conditions | Page:: ( 4 / 23 ) |
System Setup
AMD Athlon 64 3400+
ASUS K8V Deluxe
512MB OCZ EL PC3200 (DDR400) SDRAM
NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra
NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra Extreme
NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT
Driver version ForceWare 61.11
ATI RADEON X800 XT Platinum Edition
ATI RADEON X800 PRO
Driver version ATI 6.14.10.6444 Beta
30GB IBM Deskstar DTLA 307030 ATA/100 Hard Drive
Windows XP Professional SP1
DirectX 9.0b
Benchmarks
Lock On: Modern Air Combat (Mig-29 custom demo)
Call of Duty (demo0032 custom demo)
Quake III: Arena version 1.32 (fscrusher demo)
Unreal Tournament 2004 (T3 custom demo)
IL-2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles (The Black Death track)
Splinter Cell (FS custom demo)
Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness (Beyond3D custom demo)
Halo: Combat Evolved (stock benchmark)
SIDEBAR: ATI’s front page mentions that they have what we want. Hmm, wonder what that could be?
| 3DMark 03 | Page:: ( 5 / 23 ) |
3DMark 03 – Direct3D
3DMark 03 – Game Test Results
Notes
NVIDIA’s previous driver, Detonator 60.72 doesn’t recognize the GeForce 6800 GT, and was the last driver we’re aware of to receive FutureMark’s approval for GeForce6 series, so we relied on that driver again for our testing.
| ShaderMark 2.0 | Page:: ( 6 / 23 ) |
ShaderMark 2.0
| Call of Duty | Page:: ( 7 / 23 ) |
Call of Duty – OpenGL
| IL-2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles 4xAA | Page:: ( 8 / 23 ) |
IL-2 Sturmovik: FB - OpenGL
| IL-2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles 4xAA/8xAF | Page:: ( 9 / 23 ) |
IL-2 Sturmovik: FB - OpenGL
| Quake III 4xAA 8xAF | Page:: ( 10 / 23 ) |
Quake III - OpenGL
| Splinter Cell | Page:: ( 11 / 23 ) |
Splinter Cell – Direct3D
| Tomb Raider | Page:: ( 12 / 23 ) |
Tomb Raider – Direct3D
SIDEBAR: We enabled depth of field for Tomb Raider testing (V49).
| Tomb Raider 4xAA | Page:: ( 13 / 23 ) |
Tomb Raider – Direct3D
SIDEBAR: We enabled depth of field for Tomb Raider testing (V49).
| Lock On: Modern Air Combat | Page:: ( 14 / 23 ) |
Lock On: Modern Air Combat – Direct3D
| Lock On: Modern Air Combat 4xAA | Page:: ( 15 / 23 ) |
Lock On: Modern Air Combat – Direct3D
| UT 2004 4xAA | Page:: ( 16 / 23 ) |
Unreal Tournament 2004
| UT 2004 4xAA/8xAF | Page:: ( 17 / 23 ) |
Unreal Tournament 2004
| Halo | Page:: ( 18 / 23 ) |
Halo
| Far Cry | Page:: ( 19 / 23 ) |
Far Cry – Direct3D
| Far Cry 4xAA | Page:: ( 20 / 23 ) |
Far Cry – Direct3D
| Far Cry 4xAA/8xAF | Page:: ( 21 / 23 ) |
Far Cry – Direct3D
| Overclocking | Page:: ( 22 / 23 ) |
Far Cry
Tomb Raider
SIDEBAR: We used Coolbits to overclock all boards.
| Conclusion | Page:: ( 23 / 23 ) |
It certainly looks like the GeForce 6800 Ultra Extreme is NVIDIA’s direct response to the RADEON X800 XT Platinum Edition. How successful is the Extreme board at dethroning ATI’s latest flagship board? To us, the results are at best, mixed.
Where NVIDIA’s GeForce 6800 Ultra architecture already takes the performance crown over ATI X800 XT Platinum Edition, the advantage only increases with the 6800 Ultra Extreme board. And when NVIDIA falls behind the RADEON X800 XT Platinum Edition, the end result doesn’t change any: the NVIDIA board still loses to the ATI high-end card, only the margins are a little narrower. Is this really worth the time and expense of developing an entirely new limited-edition SKU?
The answer probably depends on which company you prefer. If you’ve favored NVIDIA’s cards in the past, this faster SKU is probably a welcome addition to you, although you’re likely curious to see which board partner(s) are involved, their final board design, and most importantly, the price of a 6800 Ultra Extreme card. Obviously there aren’t many of you who would be willing to pay say, $600 for a board that only ships with a 50MHz core clock frequency increase. If the price premium is held to a minimum however, the Extreme board could be preferable to the 6800 Ultra in the eyes of hardcore enthusiasts, especially if it’s a superior overclocker.
If you’re like the majority who are in the middle, you’re probably pretty skeptical of the 50MHz core increase as well. But at the same time, you’re probably curious to see how board prices pan out. Like the NVIDIA enthusiast, if the price is right and the overclocking is there, the potential could make an 6800 Ultra Extreme upgrade worth it, but don’t forget our performance results with titles such as Far Cry and Tomb Raider.
Quite frankly, it’s too soon to really come to any final conclusions on the GeForce 6800 Ultra Extreme in our opinion. We’d like to see how final boards pan out, and just as important, final drivers from both ATI and NVIDIA. Performance can only go up from here from both companies, which is certainly a good thing. But the question is, by how much? On paper it certainly looks like ATI has more performance potential thanks to its higher clock speeds.
We have a feeling though that NVIDIA’s GeForce 6800 GT is going to be NVIDIA’s real breakthrough product on the high end. It sports all the features of NVIDIA’s top-of-the-line GeForce 6800 Ultra, including high-speed GDDR3 memory and 16 pixel pipes, but without the excessive price and higher power requirements found on the Ultra.
Its biggest competition will be the RADEON X800 PRO, and it does fall short of the PRO in performance in some areas, but comes ahead in others. And with both cards boasting similar figures for traditional performance metrics such as fill rate and memory bandwidth, it could be a very tight race between both boards a month or two from now, even once newer drivers are available.
ATI’s real advantage comes in availability however. Whereas GeForce 6800 GT won’t hit retail until the middle of next month, and the 6800 Ultra Extreme is also over a month out, ATI’s RADEON X800 PRO and Platinum Edition boards will already be available on the market. We have a strong feeling that this advantage could sell a lot of $400+ graphics cards for ATI, especially now that they’ve got new board partners onboard like ABIT and ASUS. NVIDIA needs to get its 6800 lineup to market as soon as possible to counter this.
SIDEBAR: What do you think of the new GeForce 6800 boards? Drop your thoughts in the news comments!