News: Gigabyte dual 6800GT VGA is out

[Cooper]

Gigabyte began shippment of this card on 11 Jule. Almost 10k in 3DMark`05 and over 20k in 3DMark`03.

http://www.hardwarezone.com/img/data/nnews/2005/1974/Image/3D168GT.jpg

The price - around $700.
Hmm...I wonder who will buy this, when 7800GTX is out for less cash, better performance and SLI compatability. Gigabyte - too late. :D

Source (http://www.hardwarezone.com/news/view.php?id=1974&cid=)

[Kunaak]

another example of having tons of time to get something on the market, but waiting too damn long before doing it...

had they had this out 3 months ago, it would have definatly been news.
now, its just kinda "eh, thats nice.... wheres my credit card, I want a GTX"

[[XC] leviathan18]

^^ kunaak LOOL the best sentence im going to quote that out xD

[Tlord]

Wonder if SLI could be enabled without the bridge, like with the 6600 non GT....

[Cooper]

Tlord, SLI is already enabled on this beast - interface is on the card. It should be faster than usual MIO bridge, but I don`t think that four-cores are capable of doing SLI - non of the drivers would support this and non of the mobos with 2xPCI-E 8x could do it too. There is too much to do to make four-cores VGA system. And there should be strong processor support for this - AMD64@3.5GHz couldn`t supply two 7800GTX with enough data on time.

[DriveEuro]

another example of having tons of time to get something on the market, but waiting too damn long before doing it...
Exactly.

Too little, too late. The 6800 in SLI is still behind a single 7800GTX. I could see this being a more feasible option if the 6800SLI was better than a single 7800GTX.

[Cybercat]

Not to mention how incredibly hot it would run, how much power it would whore, and the amount of weight the card would put on the slot.

[krille]

Maybe, this time around it will be out in time (with dual G70 cores). And SLI capable (quad core configuration)?

[Ugly n Grey]

Maybe, this time around it will be out in time (with dual G70 cores). And SLI capable (quad core configuration)?

Yikes!!!!!!!!!!! (hiding my wallet but waiting for benchies)

[Hicks]

So can you SLI 2 of these? 4x GT cores, lol.

[krille]

So can you SLI 2 of these? 4x GT cores, lol.
In theory, yes. It's a matter of driver support though (as with everything). Today, SLI might only support two cores in SLI, but tomorrow?

[DilTech]

Anybody remember NVidia mentioning something about SLi 2.0???

[krille]

Anybody remember NVidia mentioning something about SLi 2.0???Yes.
...
we learned that even if Crossfire defeats SLI, Nvidia has some secret horses for a new race. It is working on something that we know as SLI 2.
...
We learned that Nvidia is working on a motherboard that will have more PCIe lanes and might actually get close to two times 16 PCIe lanes, the ultimate for PCIe graphic cards in SLI mode.
...Inq: Nvidia starts working on SLI 2 (http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=23593)

Crush51 maybe? (http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=68027)

"By Fuad Abazovic not in Old Taipei" lol

[krille]

Seems like dual GT beats GTX, by a fair margin too: 1678 in 05. And look at the size of that thing!
http://www.hkepc.com/hwdb/3d1-68gt-4.htm

Wonder how dual Ultra will perform? Although, by then a 32-pipe 800Mhz 90nm G71 might be out! :D

[AMD-me]

Man thats a sexy card, now if they could make it 500-600 bux then it would be a viable product

[Flexkill]

In theory, yes. It's a matter of driver support though (as with everything). Today, SLI might only support two cores in SLI, but tomorrow?
YA, but could any single CPU actually not bottleneck a system like that??? :shrug: I don't even know if dual core would be enough :confused:

[krille]

YA, but could any single CPU actually not bottleneck a system like that??? :shrug: I don't even know if dual core would be enough :confused:It's all about the code, mate. If there's close to no physics or AI in a game, but extremely intense graphics well, yes ofc it could.

However, physics and AI keep getting better (more CPU intensive), but if games were multi-threaded in a good way the CPU bottleneck might very well not be such a big problem anymore. One has to realize too, that quad cores will be coming out and more. They actually exist today already, as you probably know, just get a Dual Opteron 275 rig...which is actually affordable as compared to Quad Core Opteron system (with as much as 8 actual cores).

Towards Xmas, Aegia's PhysX PPU (Physics Processing Unit) will be out too, and their Novodex engine already supports it (iirc Novodex will be used in Unreal engine). This will help the CPU by accelerating upto x400 as much physics as the CPU could've alone, and this is on the PPU (off-chip of the CPU). It will help performance a lot.

When G71 and R520 is out (a single of these should be much more powerful than a single dual 6800GT), I still think we will SLI and XFire those. With all the future consoles being multi-core, I think that will force game developers to adopt multi-threaded programming even more. However early on we might not be able to expect too much of the code to actually be multi-threaded, we'll probably see one big thread and a few small threads from time to time, since it's very hard to multi-thread what must be sequential and doesn't invite to much TLP (thread level parallellism).

Note: This card does not support H-264 decoding. Thus getting a 7800GTX would still be a much better option.

[Flexkill]

It's all about the code, mate. If there's close to no physics or AI in a game, but extremely intense graphics well, yes ofc it could.

However, physics and AI keep getting better (more CPU intensive), but if games were multi-threaded in a good way the CPU bottleneck might very well not be such a big problem anymore. One has to realize too, that quad cores will be coming out and more. They actually exist today already, as you probably know, just get a Dual Opteron 275 rig...which is actually affordable as compared to Quad Core Opteron system (with as much as 8 actual cores).

Towards Xmas, Aegia's PhysX PPU (Physics Processing Unit) will be out too, and their Novodex engine already supports it (iirc Novodex will be used in Unreal engine). This will help the CPU by accelerating upto x400 as much physics as the CPU could've alone, and this is on the PPU (off-chip of the CPU). It will help performance a lot.

When G71 and R520 is out (a single of these should be much more powerful than a single dual 6800GT), I still think we will SLI and XFire those. With all the future consoles being multi-core, I think that will force game developers to adopt multi-threaded programming even more. However early on we might not be able to expect too much of the code to actually be multi-threaded, we'll probably see one big thread and a few small threads from time to time, since it's very hard to multi-thread what must be sequential and doesn't invite to much TLP (thread level parallellism).

Note: This card does not support H-264 decoding. Thus getting a 7800GTX would still be a much better option.
wow, i think i just learned something :fact: , nice post :toast:

[DriveEuro]

Seems like dual GT beats GTX, by a fair margin too: 1678 in 05. And look at the size of that thing!
http://www.hkepc.com/hwdb/3d1-68gt-4.htm

Wonder how dual Ultra will perform? Although, by then a 32-pipe 800Mhz 90nm G71 might be out! :D
Yes, but those are synthetic tests. Don't necessarily represent real world performance.

Look at the gaming benchmarks... 7800GTX is ahead in a few. And those that the 6800s in SLI are ahead in, they are only ahead buy a small margin.

[krille]

Yes, but those are synthetic tests. Don't necessarily represent real world performance.That's very true and should not be ignored. However, read on.

Look at the gaming benchmarks... 7800GTX is ahead in a few.A few? The 7800GTX is ahead in one: Half-Life 2 1280 x 1024 4xAA, and by less than one FPS. To be exact 0.94FPS, that is 1.55% and on a side note that's so little it's within normal error margin afaik. Moreover it's at an extremely CPU limited resolution, even 3D1-1000 with 2x6600GT GPUs is just 2.17fps or 3.58% away from the 7800GTX (compare this to 52.49% behind the 3D1-68GT in 05 1600 x 1200).

At Doom 3 1280 x 1024 4xAA 3D1-GT68 wins by 6 fps (compared to 2 fps at 1024 x 768). 3D1-GT68 seems to scale better in Doom 3. However, we shouldn't rule out the factor of driver optimization and efficiency at this still very CPU limited resolution (even the 3D1-1000 is keeping up well).

I'd say only 3DM05 1600x1200 really tells us anything about the performance of the actual hardware (since that benchmark at that resolution isn't close to as CPU bottlenecked as the rest) and here the 3D1-68GT wins by a whopping 24.7% over the 7800GTX (1428 points)! Still, future drivers may change this in any direction.

3D1-68GT is ahead in all three Doom 3 benchmarks there, as well as 1024 x 768 Half-Life 2 and all synthetic (three 03, three 05 and Aquamark). That is, it wins 11 of 12 benchmarks vs the 7800GTX. You do the maths.

And those that the 6800s in SLI are ahead in, they are only ahead buy a small margin.We aren't discussing 6800s in SLI here, just the 3D1-68GT. 6800SLI vs 7800GTX is another debate.

Peace out! :toast: