One question

[marius7]

These days I got an 6200 from Gigabyte PCI-E, modded her to 8x1 and got some 550/670 from 300/500 at stock. With an Intel Pentium D 820 (2,8 GHz @ 3,2 GHz) I've got ~16k in 2001, 8k in 2003 and 3,5k in 2005. I saw that the world record was somthing close to 4k in 2005.

Well, all seems to go with 7800 GTX. But.... I have one question. What makes this generation different from Geforce 6 series ? ONLY PIPES. Because, if I made an little calculation I get this :
6200 ........ 8 pipes ........550/670...........3,5k............67$ (my price)
7800..........24 pipes........700/1500.........11,3k..........600$

So what I'm saying is that the score depends most about the number of pipes(I know this is normal, but I'm talking about generations of cards, most precise between 6 and 7). If u consider that with 8 pipes u get 1/3 score of 7800 but with the memory @ 1/2 of 7800 I'm asking u what is so new in 7800 except the number of pipes. And if I had the memory @1,5 GHz and gpu @700 I bet I can get at least 5k in 2005, so maybe close to 1/2.
Of course u can make SLI and get 16-17k but with the new drives u can sli even 6600 (so even 6200) and I think I'll get closer to 5k, so the 1/3 score will be there. So the performance is 1/3 but the price is 1/9. Not to talk about the cooling sistem, mine was on air. So even that would cost u a lot.

Maybe Nvidia has something hidden but for me 11,3 k @ 700/1500 seems low with 24 pipes.
I know many would tell me that this is not about the price here, it's about the biggest score, but was just stange why 24 pipes clocked in haven and the memory in hell can't get more. That is my point. It's not about the price (but for some is) it's about the low score u get for 7800 compared to the last family with much lower frequency at least at the memory.

[marius7]

Hmm, seems no one is interested in this

[zakelwe]

There are several factors which influence the score in 05.

Firstly, you mention there are 24 pipes, but actually there are only 16 output pipes, so the maximum fillrate actually should be calculated on 16 not 24.

Secondly 3dmark05 tends to be limited in getting vertex's from the cpu in GT1 and GT2 so only GT3 actually is dependent on the pure fillrate of the card.

Your card is bandwidth limited to some extent but in 05 the 7800 is not really, that is why if you pump up your memory you will get a bigger effect.

However, even taking into account all these factors you are right, you will always be charged more for the fastest and best than the mid range units. This is why a Ferrari/Porsche costs 10 x as much as a Toyota Corolla and yet does less than 3 times the speed .

Regards
Andy

[Kanavit]

the 7800 gtx is Superscalar GPU Architecture
,and also has 128-bit studio-precision all the way down the pipe , unlike the geforce 6800 series. also, it has 2x improved shader units called NVIDIA CineFX 4.0.

[marius7]

There are several factors which influence the score in 05.

Firstly, you mention there are 24 pipes, but actually there are only 16 output pipes, so the maximum fillrate actually should be calculated on 16 not 24.

Secondly 3dmark05 tends to be limited in getting vertex's from the cpu in GT1 and GT2 so only GT3 actually is dependent on the pure fillrate of the card.

Your card is bandwidth limited to some extent but in 05 the 7800 is not really, that is why if you pump up your memory you will get a bigger effect.

However, even taking into account all these factors you are right, you will always be charged more for the fastest and best than the mid range units. This is why a Ferrari/Porsche costs 10 x as much as a Toyota Corolla and yet does less than 3 times the speed .

Regards
Andy

So u are telling me that some 3dmark 2006 will make the difference if they will correct this anomalies. Hope u are right cause I too want to see better scores then the last generation.

[marius7]

the 7800 gtx is Superscalar GPU Architecture
,and also has 128-bit studio-precision all the way down the pipe , unlike the geforce 6800 series. also, it has 2x improved shader units called NVIDIA CineFX 4.0.

Remember that even 5800 was so and was an bad card. Or an better example was the first P4's. Even P4 was an SUPER-MEGA-GIGA-SCALAR CPU and was trashed by Athlon and P III on the same frequency. I hope Nvidia is not doing what Intel did, less work but faster pipes. It will be an step back.

[zakelwe]

So u are telling me that some 3dmark 2006 will make the difference if they will correct this anomalies. Hope u are right cause I too want to see better scores then the last generation.

I was just telling you how you cannot just take number of pipes to be any sort of indication of "how powerful" a graphics chip is nowadays. Shader power is more important than number of pipes with todays reliance on shaders.

Regards

Andy

[Kanavit]

Remember that even 5800 was so and was an bad card. Or an better example was the first P4's. Even P4 was an SUPER-MEGA-GIGA-SCALAR CPU and was trashed by Athlon and P III on the same frequency. I hope Nvidia is not doing what Intel did, less work but faster pipes. It will be an step back.
no, the 7800 gtx has more pipes than the 6800 gt, and lower clock speed than the 6800 ultra, but it out performs it. only uses one slot cooler too i might add.