New nVidia geforce 8 series

GeForce 8 Series
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NVIDIA GeForce 8 Series

Codename(s)
G80, G84, G86, G92, G98
Created
2006
Entry-level GPU
8300, 8400
Mid-Range GPU
8500, 8600
High-end GPU
8800
Direct3D and Shader version
D3D 10.0, Model 4.0
The Geforce 8 Series is the eighth generation of NVIDIA's GeForce graphics cards. The series also represents the third fundamentally new GPU design developed at NVIDIA as well as the company's first unified shader architecture.[1][2]
Contents[hide]
1 GeForce 8 Series Overview
1.1 3D rendering
1.2 Display capabilities
2 GeForce 8800
2.1 8800 GTX/ Ultra
2.2 8800 GT
2.3 8800 GTS
2.4 Technical Summary
3 GeForce 8500 & 8600
3.1 Technical summary
3.2 Criticism of "Mid Range" DirectX 10 Cards
4 GeForce 8M mobile GPUs
4.1 GeForce 8700M Series
4.2 GeForce 8400M Series
4.3 Technical summary
5 Future developments
6 See also
7 References
8 External links
//

[edit] GeForce 8 Series Overview

[edit] 3D rendering
The GeForce 8 series arrives with NVIDIA's first unified shader Direct3D 10 Shader Model 4.0 / OpenGL 2.1 architecture. The design is a major shift for NVIDIA in GPU functionality and capability, the most obvious change being the move from the separate functional units (pixel shaders, vertex shaders) within previous GPUs to a homogeneous collection of universal floating point processors (called "stream processors") that can perform a more universal set of tasks.

Model Adrianne Curry watching a 3D animation of herself during a GeForce 8 demo.
GeForce 8's unified shader architecture consists of a number of stream processors (SPs). Unlike the vector processing approach taken with older shader units, each SP is scalar and thus can operate only on one component at a time. This makes them less complex to build while still being quite flexible and universal. Scalar shader units also have the advantage of being more efficient in a number of cases as compared to previous generation vector shader units that rely on ideal instruction mixture and ordering to reach peak throughput. The lower maximum throughput of these scalar processors is compensated for by efficiency and by running them at a high clock speed (made possible by their simplicity). GeForce 8 runs the various parts of its core at differing clock speeds (clock domains), similar to the operation of the previous GeForce 7 Series GPUs. For example, the stream processors of GeForce 8800 GTX operate at a 1.35 GHz clock rate while the rest of the chip is operating at 575 MHz.[2]
GeForce 8 performs significantly better texture filtering than its predecessors that used various optimizations and visual tricks to speed up rendering while impairing filtering quality. The GeForce 8 line correctly renders an angle-independent anisotropic filtering algorithm along with full trilinear texture filtering. G80, though not its smaller brethren, is equipped with much more texture filtering arithmetic ability than the GeForce 7 series. This allows high-quality filtering with a much smaller performance hit than previously.[2]
NVIDIA has also introduced new polygon edge anti-aliasing methods, including the ability of the GPU's ROPs to perform both Multisample anti-aliasing (MSAA) and HDR lighting at the same time, correcting various limitations of previous generations. GeForce 8 can perform MSAA with both FP16 and FP32 texture formats. GeForce 8 supports 128-bit HDR rendering, an increase from prior cards' 64-bit support. The chip's new anti-aliasing technology, called coverage sampling AA (CSAA), uses Z, color, and coverage information to determine final pixel color. This technique of color optimization allows 16X CSAA to look crisp and sharp.[3]
The claimed theoretical processing power for the 8 Series cards given in FLOPS may not be correct at all times. For example the GeForce 8800 GTX has 518.4 GigaFLOPs theoretical performance given the fact that there are 128 stream processors at 1.35GHz with each SP being able to run 1 Multiple-Add and 1 Mulitply instruction per clock [(MADD (2 FLOPs) + MUL (1 FLOP))×1350MHz×128 SPs ＝ 518.4 GigaFLOPs][4]. This figure may not be correct because the Multiply operation is not always available[5] giving a possibly more accurate performance figure of (2×1350×128) = 345.6 GigaFLOPs.

[edit] Display capabilities
The GeForce 8 series supports 10-bit per channel display output, up from 8-bit on previous NVIDIA cards. This potentially allows higher fidelity color representation and separation on capable displays. The GeForce 8 series, like its recent predecessors, also supports Scalable Link Interface (SLI) for multi-card rendering.
NVIDIA's PureVideo HD video rendering technology is an improved version of the original PureVideo introduced with GeForce 6. It now includes GPU-based hardware acceleration for decoding HD movie formats, post-processing of HD video for enhanced images, and optional High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) support at the card level.[6]
Here is a list of how selected GeForce 8 GPUs compare to NVIDIA's previous single-card flagship GeForce 7900 GTX and ATi's flagship Radeon HD 2900 XT.
GeForce 7900 GTX
GeForce 8500 GT
GeForce 8600 GT
GeForce 8600 GTS
Geforce 8800GT
GeForce 8800 Ultra
Radeon HD 2900 XT
Transistor count
278 million
210 million
289 million
289 million
734 million
681 (~686) million
700 million
Manufacturing process
90 nm
80 nm
80 nm
80 nm
65nm
90 nm
80 nm
Die Area
196 mm²
132 mm²
169 mm²
169 mm²
315mm²
480 mm²
425 mm²
Core clock speed
650 MHz
450 MHz
540 MHz
675 MHz
600 MHz
612 MHz
743 MHz
Shader clock speed
650 (700) MHz
900 MHz
1.18 GHz
1.45 GHz
1.5 GHz
1.5 GHz
1.65 GHz
Number ofShader Processing units
24 + (8)
16
32
32
112
128
320
Number of ROPs
16
4
8
8
16
24
16
Number of TMUs
24
8
16
16
32
16
Peak pixel fill rate(theoretical)
10.4 Gigapixel/s
1.8 Gigapixel/s
4.3 Gigapixel/s
5.4 Gigapixel/s
14.7 Gigapixel/s
11.9 Gigapixel/s
Peak texture fill-rate(theoretical)
15.6 Gigatexel/s
3.6 Gigatexel/s
8.6 Gigatexel/s
10.8 Gigatexel/s
33.6 Gigatexel/s
39.2 Gigatexel/s
11.9 Gigatexel/s
Video-block
PureVideo 1
PureVideo 2
PureVideo 2
PureVideo 2
PureVideo 2
PureVideo 1
UVD
On-board memory interface
256 (4*64-bit)
128 (2*64-bit)
128 (2*64-bit)
128 (2*64-bit)
256 (4*64-bit)
384 (6*64-bit)
512 (8*64-bit)
Memory clock speed
1.6 GHz GDDR3
800 MHz GDDR2
1.4 GHz GDDR3
2.0 GHz GDDR3
1.8 GHz GDDR3
2.16 GHz GDDR3
1.65 GHz GDDR32.0 GHz GDDR4
Peak memory bandwidth
51.2 GB/s
12.8 GB/s
22.4 GB/s
57.6 GB/s
64.0 GB/s
103.68 GB/s
105.6 GB/s (GDDR3)128 GB/s (GDDR4)

[edit] GeForce 8800

EVGA GeForce 8800 GTX

Underside
The 8800 series, codenamed G80, was launched on November 8, 2006 with the release of the GeForce 8800 GTX and GTS. A 320 MB GTS was released on February 12th and the Ultra was released on May 2nd 2007. The cards are larger than their predecessors, with the 8800 GTX measuring 10.6 in (~26.9 cm) in length and the 8800 GTS measuring 9 in (~23 cm). Both cards have two dual-link DVI connectors and a HDTV/S-Video out connector. The 8800 GTX requires 2 PCIe power inputs to keep within the PCIe standard, while the GTS requires just 1.

[edit] 8800 GTX/ Ultra
The GTX is equipped with 768 MB GDDR3 RAM. The 8800 series replaced the GeForce 79x0 series as NVIDIA's top-performing consumer video card. GeForce 8800 GTX and GTS use identical GPU cores, but the GTS model disables parts of the GPU and reduces RAM size and bus width to lower production cost.
As of September 2007, the G80 was the largest commercial GPU ever constructed. It consists of 681 million transistors covering a 480 mm² die surface area built on a 90 nm process. (In fact the G80's total transistor count is ~686 million, but since the chip was made on a 90nm process and due to process limitations and yield feasibility, NVIDIA had to break the main design into two chips: Main shader core at 681 million transistors and NV I/O core of about ~5 million transistors making the entire G80 design standing at ~686 million transistors).
A minor manufacturing defect related to a resistor of improper value caused a recall of the 8800 GTX models just two days before the product launch, though the launch itself was unaffected.[7]
The 8800 Ultra, retailing at a higher price is identical to the GTX architecturally, but features higher clocked shaders, core and memory.

[edit] 8800 GT
The 8800 GT, codenamed G92, was released on October 29, 2007. The card is the first to transition to 65nm process, and supports PCI-Express 2.0.[8] It has a single-slot cooler as opposed to the double slot cooler on the 8800 GTS and GTX. The 8800 GT, unlike other 8800 cards, is equipped with the PureVideo 2 engine for GPU assisted decoding of the H.264 and VC-1 codecs. Current performance benchmarks show it to outperform all but the Nvidia GeForce 8800GTX 768MB graphics card - which is just slightly above in performance. [9] Presently, cards utilizing the chip are retailing from USD $269 (reference models) to USD $299 (for overclocked models) MSRP(512MB) in the US, and £165 for reference models and up to £190 for overclocked versions in the UK.

[edit] 8800 GTS
The GTS comes in 640 MB and 320 MB versions with GDDR3 RAM.[10] The 8800 GTX has 8 clusters of 16 stream processors, for a total of 128 stream processors. 8800 GTS, in comparison, features a G80 processor with 2 of the 8 clusters disabled, leaving 96 stream processors.
A 320 MB version was released in February to tap into a more mainstream market. Aside from the decreased amount of video memory, all other aspects of the 8800 GTS remained unchanged. Despite this, the 320 MB version performs near identically to the 640 MB version in games at resolutions up to 1680 x 1050- the standard set by monitors up to 22 in wide. The unit retailed at US$299.[11]

[edit] Technical Summary
Model
Release Date
Codename
Fabrication process (nm)
Core clock max (MHz)
Fillrate max (billion texel/s)
Shaders
Memory
Power Consumption (Watts)
Transistor Count (Millions)
Shader Processing Power (Gigaflops)
Stream Processors
Clock (MHz)
Bandwidth max (GB/s)
Bus type
Bus width (bit)
Megabytes
Clock (MHz)
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80-100)[12][13][14]
8th November 2006
G80
90
500
24.00
96
1200
64.00
GDDR3
320
320
1600
108
681 (~690)
345.60
640
GeForce 8800 GT[15]
29th October 2007
G92
65
600
33.60
112
1500
44.8
GDDR3
256
256
1400
~110W [16]
754
504.00
57.6
512
1800
GeForce 8800 GTS rev 2 [17]
3th December 2007
G92
65
600
N/A
128
1500
N/A
GDDR3
256
512
1800
N/A
754
N/A
GeForce 8800 GTX[12][13][14]
8th November 2006
G80
90
575
36.80
128
1350
86.40
GDDR3
384
768
1800
145
681 (~690)
518.40
GeForce 8800 Ultra
2nd May 2007
G80
90
612
39.17
128
1500
103.68
GDDR3
384
768
2160
175
681 (~690)
576.00

[edit] GeForce 8500 & 8600
On April 17th, 2007, NVIDIA released 3 new members of the GeForce 8 product family: the GeForce 8500 GT; 8600 GT; and 8600 GTS. These products are based upon the G84 and G86 cores which are much smaller than the G80 core used for GeForce 8800, for mid-end users that want low cost DirectX 10-capable graphics cards.
With regards to performance, the 8600 GT performs slightly worse than 7900 GT and the 8600 GTS is similar to an ATi Radeon X1950 Pro.[18] The GeForce 8 series midrange cards seem to take a larger hit on performance than same price competitors when AA is enabled.[19] Some graphics card manufacturers, such as BFG Technologies, Micro-Star International and XFX, are releasing factory overclocked versions of the 8600 series. Gigabyte Technology has released an 8500 GT "Turbo Force" models which has a core clock of 600MHz GPU and 700MHz GDDR3 memory (1400MHz effective).
8500 GT cards may use GDDR3 or "DDR2" memory. Cards which claim to use "DDR2" actually use standard DDR2 SDRAM chips designed for use as main system memory, and should not be confused with GDDR2.
The 8500/8600 family introduces the PureVideo2 engine. PureVideo2 improves upon PureVideo by adding more decoding-assistance for VC-1 and H264. With the 8500/8600, NVIDIA claims PCs with slow CPUs can play HD-DVD and Blu-ray without skipping frames. The functionality of PureVideo2 is similar to ATI's Universal Video Decoder minus bitstream processing/entropy hardware support. As of the latest beta drivers, PureVideo 2 support is available in both Windows XP and Windows Vista.

[edit] Technical summary
Model
Release Date
Codename
Fabrication process (nm)
Core clock max (MHz)
Fillrate max (billion texel/s)
Shaders
Memory
Power Consumption (Watts)
Transistor Count (Millions)
Shader Processing Power (Gigaflops)
Stream Processors
Clock (MHz)
Bandwidth (GB/s)
Bus type
Bus width (bits)
Size (MB)
Clock (MHz)
GeForce 8300 GS (OEM)[20]
July 2007
G86
80
450
1.80
8
900
6.40
GDDR2
64
128/256
800
?
210
21.60
GeForce 8400 GS[20]
15th June 2007
G86
80
450
3.60
16
900
6.40
GDDR2
64
256/128
800
38
210
43.20
GeForce 8500 GT[21][20]
17th April 2007
G86
80
450
3.60
16
900
12.80
GDDR2
128
256/512
800
40
210
43.20
GeForce 8600 GT[20]
17th April 2007
G84
80
540
8.64
32
1190
22.40
GDDR3
128
256/512/1024
1400
43
289
114.24
GeForce 8600 GTS[20]
17th April 2007
G84
80
675
10.80
32
1450
32.00
GDDR3
128
256/512/1024
2000
71
289
139.20

[edit] Criticism of "Mid Range" DirectX 10 Cards
Although marketed as midrange cards, the 8600 series has been criticised by a few publications, such as PC Format and Custom PC for being underpowered successors to the GeForce 7 series, in a similar way to ATI's competing HD 2600. Performance has generally been shown as unimpressive at resolutions more than 1280 x 1024 due to a low number of Render Output units, even though the equivalent predecessors could perform faster at the same, and higher resolutions. It has been debated as to whether the current wave of mid range cards from both Nvidia and ATI will be able to run Direct X 10 games when older titles see performance hits. Given that current patched Direct X 10 games such as Company of Heroes tax even high end cards, it seems that the first generation of mid range Direct X 10 cards are already obsolete.[22] [23] [24]

[edit] GeForce 8M mobile GPUs
On May 10, 2007, NVIDIA announced the availability for their first notebook GPUs through select OEMs. So far the lineup consists of the 8400M, 8600M and 8700M series chips.[25]

[edit] GeForce 8700M Series
Announced chip is the GeForce 8700M GT version currently featured in the Toshiba X205 model in the United States while it is also available in the Toshiba x200 series in the European Union and Australia. It's also available in Clevo M570RU/M571RU and D900C/D901C laptops. Base platform for this chipset is MXM III module.
Dell has implemented the 8700M GT in the XPS M1730 notebook. This is Dell's gaming notebook system. It offers the M8700 GT in SLI setup only.

[edit] GeForce 8400M Series
Announced chips are the GeForce 8400M G, the GeForce 8400M GS and the GeForce 8400M GT.

[edit] Technical summary
Model
Release Date
Codename
Fabrication process (nm)
Core clock max (MHz)
Fillrate max (billion texel/s)
Shaders
Memory
Power Consumption (Watts)
Transistor Count (Millions)
Shader Processing Power (Gigaflops)
Stream Processors
Clock (MHz)
Bandwidth max (GB/s)
Bus type
Bus width (bit)
Size (Megabytes)
Clock (MHz)
GeForce 8400M G
9th May 2007
G86M
80
400
3.2
8
800
9.6
GDDR3
64
128/256
1200
-
-
19.2
GeForce 8400M GS
9th May 2007
G86M
80
400
3.2
16
800
9.6
GDDR3
64
128/256
1200
-
-
38.4
GeForce 8400M GT
9th May 2007
G86M
80
450
3.6
16
900
19.2
GDDR3
128
256/512
1200
-
-
43.2
GeForce 8600M GS
9th May 2007
G84M
80
600
4.8
16
1200
22.4
GDDR3
128
256/512
1400
-
-
57.6
GeForce 8600M GT
9th May 2007
G84M
80
475
7.6
32
950
12.8/22.4
GDDR2/GDDR3
128
128/256/512
800/1400
22
-
91.2
GeForce 8700M GT
12th June 2007
G84M
80
625
10
32
1250
25.6
GDDR3
128
128/256/512
1600
29
289
120.0
GeForce 8800M GTX
19th November 2007
G92M
65
-
-
112
-
-
GDDR3
256
256/512
-
35
-
-
Note that the GeForce 8700M GT is simply a higher clocked version of the GeForce 8600M GT, except that it also comes with "dual-ranked" memory architecture.

[edit] Future developments

This section contains information about scheduled or expected future computer chips.It may contain preliminary or speculative information, and may not reflect the final specification of the product.

The series will be succeeded by the GeForce series yet-to-be-named. The top-end product of the new GeForce series, according to Michael Hara (VP of Investor Relations), will be capable of 1 TFLOPs per chip, based on a 65 nm fabrication process.