NVIDIA GeForce 6800
Introduction, Specifications & Pictures
In the weeks leading up to the release of the NV40, the base architecture for the new GeForce 6 series of cards, NVIDIA spoke at length about their new architecture's "scalability". At the high end, the flagship GeForce 6800 Ultra Extreme Edition is a 16-Pipeline machine clocked at 450MHz, that can pump out an impressive 7.2GPixels/s. There are four banks of four pixel pipelines that are all enabled and running at a high clock speed on the 6800 Ultra EE. Then comes the GeForce 6800 Ultra and 6800 GT, also with 16-Pipelines each but clocked at a more manageable 400MHz and 350MHz, respectively. Having a single GPU as the base for a whole line of products like these, helps NVIDIA maximize the number of usable dies they can get from a single wafer at the fabrication facility and eliminates the need to design multiple GPUs for the same generation of products concurrently. And because individual banks of pixel pipelines can be disabled, NVIDIA can scale the NV40 down even further and fill the market with a top-to-bottom line of products that all have the same feature-set and vary only in their performance levels. In time, we'll probably even see an NV40 derivative replacing the GeForce FX 5200 at the low-end, or powering a notebook.
Today on HotHardware, we'll be taking a look at the latest edition to the GeForce 6 series to arrive in the lab, the GeForce 6800. The GeForce 6800 is a 12-Pipeline version of the NV40. It has all of the same features as the 6800 Ultra, minus 4 pixel pipelines, and its core and memory are clocked considerably lower at 325MHz / 350MHz (700MHz DDR). But with fewer pixel pipelines and lower clock speeds also comes a lower price. The 6800's MSRP is a palatable $299, which currently makes it less expensive than the GeForce FX 5950 Ultra...
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CINEFX 3.0 SHADING ARCHITECTURE
NVIDIA HIGH-PRECISION DYNAMIC-RANGE (HPDR) TECHNOLOGY
INTELLISAMPLE 3.0 TECHNOLOGY
ADVANCED ENGINEERING
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ULTRASHADOW II TECHNOLOGY
NVIDIA DIGITAL VIBRANCE CONTROL (DVC) 3.0
OPERATING SYSTEMS
API SUPPORT
* The operating system or APIs can impose limits, but the hardware does not limit shader program length. |
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Boards powered by the 12-Pipeline GeForce 6800 looks much like the models equipped with the 16-Pipeline GeForce 6800 GT. Some manufacturers, like Leadtek, MSI and Asus, will surely come up with their own custom cooling solutions, but the stock NVIDIA reference coolers on the 6800 and 6800 GT are identical. They are both single-slot designs, made of aluminum with heat-pipes and heatsinks that extended over the GPU and on-board RAM. The cooler is nearly silent when the system is idle, but when a 3D application is launched, the fans spins up, which generates a bit more noise. It's by no means loud though, and will probably be inaudible over any stock CPU cooler. The 6800's PCB is also similar to the GT's, with the exception of the power array at the end of the card. They both require a single Molex power connector, but the GT is outfitted with an additional strip of MOSFETs, that have a thin heatsink mounted to them. The 6800 also has a few more large capacitors in the power array.
This particular board is equipped with 128MB of DDR1 memory clocked at 350MHz (700MHz DDR), but 256MB models will be avaialble as well.
