Post by Nostra1 on Sept 21, 2006 15:17:56 GMT 1
Well the NVidia 7 Series (7300, 7600, 7800, 7900) based on the G70 graphics processor unit proved to be a successful product to the PC community (especially with games like Oblivion now out smashing down on older graphics processors). However NVidia will be releasing their G80 Graphics Processor Unit soon that takes advantage of DirectX 10 (vs DirectX 9 for the 7 series). Will this mean a new series of cards to come out (8300, 8600, 8800, 8900)? Some images of DirectX 10 look amazing (will try to look for links).
Here is a link to one of the articles that talks about the GPU.
www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/display/20060220100915.html
www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=21827
The processor will have 48 pixel shaders!!? That is incredible since if I recall the 7800 GTX only has 24 pixel pipelines. The 7600 series only uses 12 pixel pipes and older cards like the FX series had less than 10. This probably means that there will be an equally impressive increase in the number of vertex shaders and raster operators. The big worry is the power this thing will consume to operate the system. If I recall the ATI X1900XTX used like a whopping 120W of power. It will be interesting to see what sort of designs were implemented to increase efficiency or else this thing is going to become a space heater for your home.
I will check to see if there are any other articles on the G80 chip and if so, I will post it here.
EDIT:
Here is another link giving specs for the chip
www.techpowerup.com/?17392
Pretty insane specs, 700million transistors, DDR4 memory (vs DDR3 for the 7 series), 1.5 Ghz core clock (the 7600GT was only 560MHz), Twice the pixel shader and 12 x the vertex shader performance over the G71 chip.
It also seems to use Unified Shader tech (which is basically a sharing of the Pixel and Vertex shader resources).
With all the niceties of this chip it is similar to the ATI graphics processor being used in the XBox 360 (which also sports 48 Pixel shaders and uses Unified Shader tech). It seems this ATI GPU in the XBox 360 and the new G80 NVidia GPU will make up the graphics architecture for the next generation of PC vid boards.
Here is a link to one of the articles that talks about the GPU.
www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/display/20060220100915.html
www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=21827
The processor will have 48 pixel shaders!!? That is incredible since if I recall the 7800 GTX only has 24 pixel pipelines. The 7600 series only uses 12 pixel pipes and older cards like the FX series had less than 10. This probably means that there will be an equally impressive increase in the number of vertex shaders and raster operators. The big worry is the power this thing will consume to operate the system. If I recall the ATI X1900XTX used like a whopping 120W of power. It will be interesting to see what sort of designs were implemented to increase efficiency or else this thing is going to become a space heater for your home.
I will check to see if there are any other articles on the G80 chip and if so, I will post it here.
EDIT:
Here is another link giving specs for the chip
www.techpowerup.com/?17392
Pretty insane specs, 700million transistors, DDR4 memory (vs DDR3 for the 7 series), 1.5 Ghz core clock (the 7600GT was only 560MHz), Twice the pixel shader and 12 x the vertex shader performance over the G71 chip.
It also seems to use Unified Shader tech (which is basically a sharing of the Pixel and Vertex shader resources).
With all the niceties of this chip it is similar to the ATI graphics processor being used in the XBox 360 (which also sports 48 Pixel shaders and uses Unified Shader tech). It seems this ATI GPU in the XBox 360 and the new G80 NVidia GPU will make up the graphics architecture for the next generation of PC vid boards.