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Dragon Ball Z
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This article needs additional citations for verification.Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2007)
"DBZ" redirects here. For the meteorological term, see dBZ (meteorology).
Dragon Ball Z
ドラゴンボールZ(ぜっと)(Doragon Bōru Zetto)
Demographic
Shōnen
Genre
Action, Science fiction
TV anime: Dragon Ball Z
Director
Daisuke Nishio
Studio
Toei Animation
Licensor
Pony Canyon (Japan)FUNimation Entertainment (USA) Globo
Network
Fuji TV, Animax, Tokyo Metropolitan Television
[show]Other networks:
Animax Network Ten, Cartoon Network TV 3, Cartoon Network Telesistema Dominicano Band, Cartoon Network, Globo YTV Indosiar Subtv NT1, TF1 Tele 5, RTL II ANT1 Cartoon Network,Toonami Cartoon Network,Toonami Italia 1 RTM 2, TV 9 XHGC-TV, Cartoon Network Cartoon Network RPN 9, IBC 13, GMA Network SIC, SIC Radical Antena 3, Cartoon Network, Canal Sur, Telemadrid, Cuatro Televisió de Catalunya, TVG ETB Cartoon Network, Toonami Cartoon Network Televen, Cartoon Network The Children's Channel RTL 7, TVN Siedem Magic Kids, Canal 9, Cartoon Network Cartoon Network Spacetoon Cartoon Network, Canal Caracol, CityTv Cartoon Network Megavisión, Etc...TV Repretel LNK
Original run
April 26, 1989 – January 31, 1996[1]
Episodes
Japanese (291)English (276)
Sagas
Saiyan Saga
Freeza Saga
Cell Saga
Majin Buu Saga
Movies
Dead Zone
The World's Strongest
The Tree of Might
Lord Slug
Cooler's Revenge
Return of Cooler
Super Android 13!
Broly: The Legendary Super Saiyan
Bojack Unbound
Broly Second Coming
Bio-Broly
Fusion Reborn
Wrath of the Dragon
TV Specials
Bardock: The Father of Goku
The History of Trunks
Original Video Animation (OVA)
Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans
Dragon Ball Z (ドラゴンボールZ, Doragon Bōru Zetto?, commonly abbreviated as DBZ) is a Japanese anime series produced by Toei Doga (now Toei Animation). Dragon Ball Z is the sequel to the Dragon Ball anime and Japanese comics of the same name, which covers the first 16 volumes of a 42 volume manga series created by Akira Toriyama, while Dragon Ball Z adapts the last 26 volumes of the original manga.
The Dragon Ball Z anime first aired in Japan from April 26, 1989 to January 31, 1996,[1] and was dubbed in several countries around the world, including Latin America and in the United States. The American themes and soundtracks were composed and produced in part by Bruce Faulconer.
Contents[hide]
1 Plot
1.1 American releases
1.2 Creative changes
1.3 Uncut version
1.4 International English version
2 Sagas
3 Filler
4 VHS/DVD releases
4.1 Japanese releases
4.1.1 Dragonbox releases
4.2 English releases
4.2.1 Pioneer DVDs
4.2.2 FUNimation DVDs
4.2.3 FUNimation season box sets
5 Opening and closing songs
5.1 Japanese themes
6 Cast list
7 Japanese staff
8 See also
9 References
10 External links
//
Plot
The series continues the adventures of Son Goku who, along with his companions, defend the Earth and other fictional planets against various supervillains. While the original Dragon Ball anime followed Son Goku through childhood into adulthood, Dragon Ball Z parallels his adult life with the maturation of his first child, Son Gohan. The series also gives focus to the evolution of his rivals, Piccolo and Vegeta, from evil to good. The separation between the series is also significant as the later series takes on a more dramatic and serious tone, with a number of villains either threatening or committing acts of mass murder or outright genocide.
Akira Toriyama's self-parody manga series Neko Majin satires many concepts introduced in Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z.
American releases
The first run of the English Version of the show began airing in September 1996 on the WB, dubbed by voice actors of the Ocean Group and distributed by the FUNimation and Saban companies. Beginning with the Saiyan Saga, severe restrictions were put in place for a syndicated TV program, thus resulting in extensive editing of the series (cutting out the equivalent of 14 of the first 67 episodes-- almost 21%), including the complete removal of references to character death ("sent to another dimension"), blood, and language. To many fans of the series, these edits actually made the series worse as violence was always shown without consequence. Eventually it was canceled in May 1998, due to low ratings. In August 1998 however, the Ocean Group dub was brought to Cartoon Network's new action-animated block, Toonami and it found new life through a wider audience.
In 1999, FUNimation decided to cut their partnership with Saban and, continuing from where they left off, dubbed the show themselves with their own in-house voice actors and a newly commissioned musical score. They also cut some of their previous restrictions, such as the inclusion of blood (to a small degree), though still edited some of the violence, in order to continue making it appealing to viewers of all ages, thus leading to the show receiving a TV-Y7-FV rating for fantasy violence. The FUNimation dub became immensely popular and it also greatly helped expand the anime market in the US.
In September 2002, Dragon Ball Z was Number One on all cable TV (#1 program of the week on all cable television with boys 9-14) and the series ended its first run in April 2003. Currently the show still airs on Cartoon Network's Toonami Saturday night block.
Creative changes
The Ocean Group and FUNimation dubs are noted for featuring dialogue not found in the original script, dubbing that results in minor changes to the original story, the replacement of the entire original musical score written by Shunsuke Kikuchi, and renaming many characters, terminology, and locations (i.e. Son Goku to just Goku). FUNimation selected composer Bruce Faulconer to create this original music score for episodes #54 (68) through the end of the series (episode #291), and this music is commonly referred to as the American Soundtrack for the series, which aired on the Cartoon Network, having aired since 1999 to the present.
Uncut version
In 2003, FUNimation began to redub the first 53 episodes that were dubbed by the Ocean Group voice cast, restoring them to the original 67. The distribution of the redubs on DVD, under the Ultimate Uncut Special Edition title, began in April 2005.
In the summer of 2005, Cartoon Network aired the uncut version of the first 67 episodes. This version used the original Japanese footage, with the exception of the Japanese opening and closing themes, and has an entirely new score of music. The uncut version also featured many scenes with large amounts of blood, as well as mild language, profanity, sexual humor, and nudity. Generally, while some lines were maintained from the original dub, several mistranslations were also corrected. The uncut dub was given a TV-PG rating in contrast to the original dub's TV-Y7 rating.
International English version
Until 2001, other English speaking countries including the UK, Canada, Australia and Republic of Ireland received FUNimation's English version of DBZ, both the Ocean Group and FUNimation dubs. This changed when Episode 108 aired in the UK (also in The Netherlands); the English Dub switched to a version produced by the Blue Water studios. This version regained the original voice actors from the Ocean Group instead of the FUNimation voice cast. This version began airing in Canada in the autumn of 2001 from Episode 168, and ran through to the end of the series. It used FUNimation's own videotracks and its scripts, albeit with some changes. This version used music recycled from the Mega Man and Monster Rancher cartoons, as well as a few original pieces for the series by Jon Mitchell, Tom Keenlyside and David Iris. This version suffered from low production values and a rushed schedule. Many voices did not stay consistent through the series, and by the end few remained from the original 1996 cast. See below for a complete cast listing.
Sagas
The Dragonball Z anime is broken down into four main sagas.
Saiyan Saga
Freeza Saga
Cell Saga
Majin Buu Saga
Filler
Filler is used to pad out the series for many reasons; in the case of Dragon Ball Z, more often than not, it was because the anime was running alongside the manga, and there was no way for the anime to run ahead of the manga since Toriyama was still writing it.
The company behind the anime, Toei Animation, would occasionally create side stories to either further explain things, or simply to extend the series. Filler does not come only in the form of side stories though; sometimes it is as simple as adding some extra attacks into a fight. For instance, many scenes in the anime appear quite protracted, featuring long shots of the characters faces and stand-offs lasting an entire episode and even spanning multiple episodes for a single fight. As the anime series was forced to expand 12-14 pages of manga image and text into 20-22 minutes of animation footage, these changes were introduced to fill the complete television timeslot or to allow the anime writers to explore some other aspects of the series' universe. The Garlic Junior arc, between the Freeza and Cell Sagas, and the Afterlife Tenkaichi Budokai arc, between the Cell and Buu Sagas, are examples of this.
VHS/DVD releases
Japanese releases
Originally, only the Dragon Ball Z movies, and the Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans footage were available for home viewing in Japan. The movies were released on both VHS, and Laserdisc format. The Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans footage was released both on VHS, as a visual guide to the Nintendo Famicom game with the same name, and on the Playdia, as two interactive FMVs.
Dragonbox releases
In 2003, all of the Dragon Ball Z anime were finally released for home viewing in Japan, on two large DVD boxed sets. Each Dragon Ball Z Dragonbox had a large amount of DVD extras, as well as an action figure and a book.
The video and audio transfers of the show used on these DVDs came off of the Fuji TV master tapes of the show, as this allowed Toei to put out a far superior and completely accurate version of the show on DVD. This allowed all episodes to have their original openings, endings, eyecatches, next episode previews, etc., compared to what was available in the US.
In late 2005 the Dragon Box Z DVDs were re-released in single volumes with six episodes per disc. While the packaging and DVD menus are different from the 2003 release, and so far no plans have been announced for the two TV specials and the Playdia footage released with the 2003 versions, the audio and video quality is the exact same as those discs found in the 2003 Dragonbox release.
At the end of March, 2006, a Dragon Box: The Movies DVD box was released. This release contained all 19 Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z theatrical features, along with a book, and two scouters in the form of walkie-talkies. The video and audio are remastered, however, the video is cropped and contains less picture than the full-screen versions, a common occurrence for films from Toei, based on long-running and popular TV series (See Saint Seiya, Fist of the North Star, and One Piece).
All Dragonbox releases contain Japanese language audio only (with exceptions to foreign-language bonus clips), and no subtitles.
English releases
Pioneer DVDs
During the late 90's/early 00's, The first 53 (Saban/FUNimation version numbers, originally uncut as 67) TV episodes were released on to DVD by Pioneer Entertainment USA (now Geneon Entertainment). These contained only the edited, US-TV broadcast versions, and totaled 17 volumes. At a later date, the first 8 DVDs were released as the 'Saiyan Saga', while the final 9 were released as the 'Namek Saga'. As of August the 31st, 2004, Geneon's license for video distribution of these episodes ended, allowing FUNimation to re-release these episodes.
Along with these episodes, Pioneer Ent. also produced bilingual, uncut DVDs of the first three Dragon Ball Z theatrical features. These DVDs retained the original Ocean cast for the English track, as well as being one of the first uncut and bilingual releases in the U.S. The English versions of these films were also subject to a different treatment, rather than replacing the original music, the original OP and ED themes, as well as background music, were retained. The only noticeable differences besides languages are the inclusion of a few different sound effects which are not present on the original Japanese version.
These films were released as a three-disc boxset by Pioneer, however, much like the 53 TV episodes Pioneer had license to, the first three Z film's home video rights now belong to FUNimation.
FUNimation DVDs
As of 2000, FUNimation has released uncut versions of their Texas-based English dub on to DVD, uncut and with Japanese language track, and English-translation subtitles. Beginning with the 'Captain Ginyu' Saga, which took place directly after the Saban/FUNimation-produced episodes, FUNimation has released bilingual, uncut DVDs for every episode covering (Japanese numbers) 68 till 291, with the Funimation commissioned American Soundtrack of Bruce Faulconer being using on its English version. Boxsets for the Garlic Jr., Androids, Imperfect Cell, Perfect Cell, World Tournament, Majin Buu, Evil Buu, Fusion, and Kid Buu U.S. sagas have also been released. However, in order to maximize profits, the DVDs were released out of continuity (certain amounts of one section of the series were released, and then FUNimation would go back and release others).
After acquiring the video rights to the first 53 (67) episodes from Pioneer, FUNimation announced that they would release these episodes uncut, with a new 5.1 English language track and uncut footage. The Ultimate Uncut Edition line was born. The release would be 22 volumes, Bilingual, and with extras. The Saiyan Saga was renamed the 'Vegeta' Saga (Parts I and II, covering 12 DVDs), probably to avoid confusion with the Pioneer volumes. This was the same version shown on Cartoon Network. As of DVD volume 9, FUNimation has cancelled these box sets and are planning to re-re-release them in the new DVD sets they are currently working on.
From 2001-2006, DBZ movies 4-13, were dubbed by the FUNimation voice cast and released in the US. These are all bilingual and subtitled, but do not follow the trend set by the Ocean Group dub's first three movies. Music has been changed and altered, including the insertion of songs from rock bands such as Pantera and Deftones. The movies utilize the FUNimation voice cast, though they also include the original Japanese version with subtitling by Steve Simmons.
The OVA Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans remains unreleased in America. An American release is unlikely, as the Famicom game on which the OVA was based never had an American release.
The FUNimation voice cast also re-dubbed movies 1-3, but only movie 1 was released under the Ultimate Uncut line; movies 2 and 3 were not named 'Ultimate Uncut' even though they had they same cover style as movie 1. All of these movies had a 5.1 English track, new subtitles, different DVD extras and were released in a boxset titled 'First Strike' on November 16, 2006. This version contains different music to the original dub or Japanese version and dialogue not as accurate to the original script as the Ocean Group dub was.
FUNimation has officially dropped the 'Ultimate Uncut' line and are working on their season boxsets.
On November 11, 2007, FUNimation released two DBZ movies on Blu-ray High Definition format. These two movies included "Broly: The Legendary Super Saiyan" and "Broly: Second Coming", and both featured full HD 1080p resolution with digitally remastered animation, and an enhanced 5.1 surround mix.
FUNimation season box sets
In November 2006, FUNimation announced they would release a remastered form of Dragon Ball Z on DVD beginning in 2007. It was later announced that "Season One" (the entire Vegeta Saga) would be re-released on February 6, 2007. The first 39 episodes of Season One are spread across six discs, and cost $30 USD (the original intention was for 5 discs, but there was a risk of quality reduction). The series has been re-transferred at 1080p resolution with digital restoration technology removing all grain and scratches from FUNimation's original prints of the series. The quality is a far greater than the original, but one flaw is with the digital restoration. Because of the magnitude of the grain and scratch removal, the lines from face features are commonly removed such as the nose and mouth. It is important to note that like many late 80's-early 90's Toei productions (for example, Saint Seiya, Sailor Moon, Marmalade Boy, Ghost Sweeper Mikami and Slam Dunk), the series was produced on 16 millimeter film which tends to be fairly grainy and soft. The new restoration was supervised by colorist Steve Franko. It was reported from FUNimation's online trailer that the series would be presented in widescreen format (1.78:1, cropped from the original full frame) for the first time. This was highly controversial among fans, as this is not how the TV episodes were intended to be seen and this substantially alters them. Many fans launched a letter-writing campaign against the release. The box set contains a revised English track in Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound (it contains the original Japanese score by Shunsuke Kikuchi, one such "revision" to the English dialog is Chris Sabat re-dubbing all of his lines as Vegeta throughout the Freiza Saga using his current, gruffer voice for the characters instead of the higher pitched nasally voice he used to imitate Brian Drummond, also the replacement of several of Vegeta's lines such as "Holy cosmos, look at that thing!" have been changed to reflect the proper tone of the situation, also several lines of profanity have been added that were absent from any prior English release). For the first time ever, there is a choice between having the English dialogue with Toei's original Japanese music in 5.1 Surround Sound, English dialogue with FUNimation's dub music in 2.0 Stereo or Japanese dialogue with Toei's original Japanese music in 2.0 Stereo. Special features that are only included on Season One include a featurette on the remastering of the original Japanese print and a 24-Page booklet with episode summaries, character descriptions and a timeline of DBZ in the US. All other 291 episodes are to be remastered and released in box set form as well. FUNimation releases a new trailer on the Dragon Ball Z official website with each release to promote the new product.[2]
Comparison images from the new set show that while there is missing footage on the top and bottom (20%), there is at least additional footage on the right and left (5%) that has not appeared in any prior release, having been taken straight from the original Japanese film master recording. In response to negative fan outcry regarding the release's apparent cropping of the source video, a FUNimation representative has released a document from the team remastering the video, which explains the logistics of the new release.[3] This document details how certain areas of the original film are damaged, and admit that though the video is cropped, this release will eliminate the grain that would be present on prior 4:3 releases. They do not address obtaining clean uncropped 4:3 DVD masters available from other overseas sources without grain, most notably European distributors.
Season Two, containing the Namek and Ginyu Sagas (35 episodes), was released on May 22, 2007. Season Three, containing the entire Frieza Saga (33 episodes), was released on September 18, 2007. Season Four will contain the Garlic Jr., Trunks, and Android Sagas (32 episodes), to be released in February 19, 2008.
Also on February 19, 2008 FUNimation will relese two TV specials as a double feature, Bardock: The Father of Goku and The History of Trunks, just like the Season Box sets it will be digitally remastered with the same features.
Australia saw the release of Season One in PAL on July 18, 2007, for $60 AUD. Releases after that are roughly four months apart with Season Two distributed on October 10, 2007 and Season Three in February 2008.[4]
Opening and closing songs
Japanese themes
Openings
"CHA-LA HEAD-CHA-LA" (チャラヘッチャラ, Chara Hecchara?)
Lyrics: Yukinojo Mori, Music: Chiho Kiyooka, Arrangement: Kenji Yamamoto, Vocals: Hironobu Kageyama
Episodes 1~199
Movies 1-9
"WE GOTTA POWER" (ウィ・ガッタ・パワー, Ui Gatta Pawa?)
Lyrics: Yukinojo Mori, Music: Keiju Ishikawa, Arrangement: Keiju Ishikawa, Vocals: Hironobu Kageyama
Episodes 200~291
Movies 10-12
Closings
"Come Out, Incredible Zenkai Power!" (でてこいとびきりZENKAIパワー!, Detekoi Tobikiri ZENKAI Pawā!?)
Lyrics: Naruhisa Arakawa, Music: Takeshi Ike, Arrangement: Kenji Yamamoto, Vocals: MANNA
Episodes 1~194
"We Were Angels" (僕達は天使だった, Boku-tachi wa Tenshi Datta?)
Lyrics: Yukinojo Mori, Music: Takeshi Ike, Arrangement: Osamu Totsuka, Vocals: Hironobu Kageyama
Episodes 195~291
Cast list
Character Name
Voice Actor (Japanese)
V.A. (U.S. Ocean Group English)
V.A. (U.S. FUNimation English)
V.A. (Int'l English) Ep 108/123+ Only
Son Goku
Masako Nozawa
Ian James Corlett(1-26)Peter Kelamis(27-53)
Sean Schemmel
Peter KelamisKirby Morrow
Son Gohan
Masako Nozawa
Saffron Henderson
Stephanie Nadolny (child)Kyle Hebert (teen)
Saffron HendersonJillian MichaelsBrad Swaile
Son Goten
Masako Nozawa
N/A
Kara Edwards
Jillian Michaels
Piccolo
Toshio Furukawa
Scott McNeil
Christopher Sabat
Scott McNeil
Vegeta
Ryō Horikawa
Brian Drummond
Christopher Sabat
Brian Drummond
Bulma
Hiromi Tsuru
Lalainia Lindbjerg
Tiffany Vollmer
Maggie Blue O'Hara
Trunks
Takeshi Kusao
N/A
Laura Bailey
Cathy Weseluck
Future Trunks
Takeshi Kusao
N/A
Eric Vale
Alistair Abell
Kuririn
Mayumi Tanaka
Terry Klassen
Sonny Strait
Terry Klassen
Yajirobe
Mayumi Tanaka
Brian Drummond
Mike McFarland
Brian Drummond
Yamucha
Toru Furuya
Ted Cole
Christopher Sabat
Ted Cole
Tenshinhan
Hirotaka Suzuoki
Matt Smith
John Burgmeier
Matt Smith
Chaozu
Hiroko Emori
Cathy Weseluck
Monika Antonelli
Cathy Weseluck
Chichi
Mayumi Sho (1-66)Naoko Watanabe (88-291)
Laara Sadiq
Cynthia Cranz
Laara Sadiq
Muten Roshi
Kōhei Miyauchi (2-260)Hiroshi Masuoka (288-291)
Ian James Corlett(1-26)Don Brown(27-53)
Mike McFarland
Terry Klassen
Oolong
Naoki Tatsuta
Doug Parker
Mark Britten (54-180, original dub)Bradford Jackson (onwards)
Doug Parker
Pu'ar
Naoko Watanabe
Cathy Weseluck
Monika Antonelli
Cathy Weseluck
Mr. Satan
Daisuke Gōri
N/A
Chris Rager
Don Brown
Videl
Yuko Minaguchi
N/A
Kara Edwards
Moneca Stori
Uranai Baba
Junpei Takiguchi (9-34)Mayumi Tanaka (207-271)
Ellen Kennedy
Linda Young
Brian Drummond
Dende
Tomiko Suzuki (49-288)Hiro Yūki (290-291)
Paulina Gillis
Ceyil Dellgadillo (child, original dub)Laura Bailey (child, uncut dub)Justin Cook (adult)
Andrew Francis
Gyumao
Daisuke Gōri
Dave Ward
Mark Britten(54-180, original dub)Kyle Hebert (onwards)
Dave Ward
Mr. Popo
Toku Nishio
French Tickner
Chris Cason (54-92, original dub)Christopher Sabat (onwards)
French Tickner
Karin
Ichirō Nagai (26-192)Naoki Tatsuta (238-285)
Doug Parker
Mark Britten (54-180, original dub)Christopher Sabat (onwards)
Ted Cole
Kami
Takeshi Aono
Michael Dobson
Christopher Sabat
Dale Wilson
North Kaio
Jōji Yanami
Don Brown
Sean Schemmel
Don Brown
Nappa
Shōzō Iizuka
Michael Dobson
Christopher Sabat (88, original dub)Phil Parsons (onwards)
Raditz
Shigeru Chiba
Jason Gray-Stanford
Justin Cook
No. 17
Shigeru Nakahara
N/A
Chuck Huber
N/A
No. 18
Miki Itō
N/A
Meredith McCoy
Enuka Okuma
Freeza
Ryūsei Nakao
Pauline Newstone
Linda Young
Pauline Newstone
Cell
Norio Wakamoto
N/A
Dameon Clarke
Dale Wilson
Majin Buu
Kōzō Shioya
N/A
Josh Martin (Fat Buu, Super Buu, and Kid Buu)Justin Cook (Abosorbed Super Buu)
Scott McNeilBrian Dobson
Shenlong
Kenji UtsumiMasaharu Satō (193)
Don Brown
Christopher Sabat
Don Brown
Narrator
Jōji Yanami
Doc Harris
Dale Kelly (54-180, original dub)Kyle Hebert (onwards)
Doc Harris
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Dbz)
Jump to: navigation, search
This article or section seems to contain embedded lists that may require cleanup.To meet Wikipedia's style guidelines, please help improve this article by: removing items which are not notable, encyclopedic, or helpful from the list(s); incorporating appropriate items into the main body of the article; and discussing this issue on the talk page.
This article needs additional citations for verification.Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2007)
"DBZ" redirects here. For the meteorological term, see dBZ (meteorology).
Dragon Ball Z
ドラゴンボールZ(ぜっと)(Doragon Bōru Zetto)
Demographic
Shōnen
Genre
Action, Science fiction
TV anime: Dragon Ball Z
Director
Daisuke Nishio
Studio
Toei Animation
Licensor
Pony Canyon (Japan)FUNimation Entertainment (USA) Globo
Network
Fuji TV, Animax, Tokyo Metropolitan Television
[show]Other networks:
Animax Network Ten, Cartoon Network TV 3, Cartoon Network Telesistema Dominicano Band, Cartoon Network, Globo YTV Indosiar Subtv NT1, TF1 Tele 5, RTL II ANT1 Cartoon Network,Toonami Cartoon Network,Toonami Italia 1 RTM 2, TV 9 XHGC-TV, Cartoon Network Cartoon Network RPN 9, IBC 13, GMA Network SIC, SIC Radical Antena 3, Cartoon Network, Canal Sur, Telemadrid, Cuatro Televisió de Catalunya, TVG ETB Cartoon Network, Toonami Cartoon Network Televen, Cartoon Network The Children's Channel RTL 7, TVN Siedem Magic Kids, Canal 9, Cartoon Network Cartoon Network Spacetoon Cartoon Network, Canal Caracol, CityTv Cartoon Network Megavisión, Etc...TV Repretel LNK
Original run
April 26, 1989 – January 31, 1996[1]
Episodes
Japanese (291)English (276)
Sagas
Saiyan Saga
Freeza Saga
Cell Saga
Majin Buu Saga
Movies
Dead Zone
The World's Strongest
The Tree of Might
Lord Slug
Cooler's Revenge
Return of Cooler
Super Android 13!
Broly: The Legendary Super Saiyan
Bojack Unbound
Broly Second Coming
Bio-Broly
Fusion Reborn
Wrath of the Dragon
TV Specials
Bardock: The Father of Goku
The History of Trunks
Original Video Animation (OVA)
Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans
Dragon Ball Z (ドラゴンボールZ, Doragon Bōru Zetto?, commonly abbreviated as DBZ) is a Japanese anime series produced by Toei Doga (now Toei Animation). Dragon Ball Z is the sequel to the Dragon Ball anime and Japanese comics of the same name, which covers the first 16 volumes of a 42 volume manga series created by Akira Toriyama, while Dragon Ball Z adapts the last 26 volumes of the original manga.
The Dragon Ball Z anime first aired in Japan from April 26, 1989 to January 31, 1996,[1] and was dubbed in several countries around the world, including Latin America and in the United States. The American themes and soundtracks were composed and produced in part by Bruce Faulconer.
Contents[hide]
1 Plot
1.1 American releases
1.2 Creative changes
1.3 Uncut version
1.4 International English version
2 Sagas
3 Filler
4 VHS/DVD releases
4.1 Japanese releases
4.1.1 Dragonbox releases
4.2 English releases
4.2.1 Pioneer DVDs
4.2.2 FUNimation DVDs
4.2.3 FUNimation season box sets
5 Opening and closing songs
5.1 Japanese themes
6 Cast list
7 Japanese staff
8 See also
9 References
10 External links
//
Plot
The series continues the adventures of Son Goku who, along with his companions, defend the Earth and other fictional planets against various supervillains. While the original Dragon Ball anime followed Son Goku through childhood into adulthood, Dragon Ball Z parallels his adult life with the maturation of his first child, Son Gohan. The series also gives focus to the evolution of his rivals, Piccolo and Vegeta, from evil to good. The separation between the series is also significant as the later series takes on a more dramatic and serious tone, with a number of villains either threatening or committing acts of mass murder or outright genocide.
Akira Toriyama's self-parody manga series Neko Majin satires many concepts introduced in Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z.
American releases
The first run of the English Version of the show began airing in September 1996 on the WB, dubbed by voice actors of the Ocean Group and distributed by the FUNimation and Saban companies. Beginning with the Saiyan Saga, severe restrictions were put in place for a syndicated TV program, thus resulting in extensive editing of the series (cutting out the equivalent of 14 of the first 67 episodes-- almost 21%), including the complete removal of references to character death ("sent to another dimension"), blood, and language. To many fans of the series, these edits actually made the series worse as violence was always shown without consequence. Eventually it was canceled in May 1998, due to low ratings. In August 1998 however, the Ocean Group dub was brought to Cartoon Network's new action-animated block, Toonami and it found new life through a wider audience.
In 1999, FUNimation decided to cut their partnership with Saban and, continuing from where they left off, dubbed the show themselves with their own in-house voice actors and a newly commissioned musical score. They also cut some of their previous restrictions, such as the inclusion of blood (to a small degree), though still edited some of the violence, in order to continue making it appealing to viewers of all ages, thus leading to the show receiving a TV-Y7-FV rating for fantasy violence. The FUNimation dub became immensely popular and it also greatly helped expand the anime market in the US.
In September 2002, Dragon Ball Z was Number One on all cable TV (#1 program of the week on all cable television with boys 9-14) and the series ended its first run in April 2003. Currently the show still airs on Cartoon Network's Toonami Saturday night block.
Creative changes
The Ocean Group and FUNimation dubs are noted for featuring dialogue not found in the original script, dubbing that results in minor changes to the original story, the replacement of the entire original musical score written by Shunsuke Kikuchi, and renaming many characters, terminology, and locations (i.e. Son Goku to just Goku). FUNimation selected composer Bruce Faulconer to create this original music score for episodes #54 (68) through the end of the series (episode #291), and this music is commonly referred to as the American Soundtrack for the series, which aired on the Cartoon Network, having aired since 1999 to the present.
Uncut version
In 2003, FUNimation began to redub the first 53 episodes that were dubbed by the Ocean Group voice cast, restoring them to the original 67. The distribution of the redubs on DVD, under the Ultimate Uncut Special Edition title, began in April 2005.
In the summer of 2005, Cartoon Network aired the uncut version of the first 67 episodes. This version used the original Japanese footage, with the exception of the Japanese opening and closing themes, and has an entirely new score of music. The uncut version also featured many scenes with large amounts of blood, as well as mild language, profanity, sexual humor, and nudity. Generally, while some lines were maintained from the original dub, several mistranslations were also corrected. The uncut dub was given a TV-PG rating in contrast to the original dub's TV-Y7 rating.
International English version
Until 2001, other English speaking countries including the UK, Canada, Australia and Republic of Ireland received FUNimation's English version of DBZ, both the Ocean Group and FUNimation dubs. This changed when Episode 108 aired in the UK (also in The Netherlands); the English Dub switched to a version produced by the Blue Water studios. This version regained the original voice actors from the Ocean Group instead of the FUNimation voice cast. This version began airing in Canada in the autumn of 2001 from Episode 168, and ran through to the end of the series. It used FUNimation's own videotracks and its scripts, albeit with some changes. This version used music recycled from the Mega Man and Monster Rancher cartoons, as well as a few original pieces for the series by Jon Mitchell, Tom Keenlyside and David Iris. This version suffered from low production values and a rushed schedule. Many voices did not stay consistent through the series, and by the end few remained from the original 1996 cast. See below for a complete cast listing.
Sagas
The Dragonball Z anime is broken down into four main sagas.
Saiyan Saga
Freeza Saga
Cell Saga
Majin Buu Saga
Filler
Filler is used to pad out the series for many reasons; in the case of Dragon Ball Z, more often than not, it was because the anime was running alongside the manga, and there was no way for the anime to run ahead of the manga since Toriyama was still writing it.
The company behind the anime, Toei Animation, would occasionally create side stories to either further explain things, or simply to extend the series. Filler does not come only in the form of side stories though; sometimes it is as simple as adding some extra attacks into a fight. For instance, many scenes in the anime appear quite protracted, featuring long shots of the characters faces and stand-offs lasting an entire episode and even spanning multiple episodes for a single fight. As the anime series was forced to expand 12-14 pages of manga image and text into 20-22 minutes of animation footage, these changes were introduced to fill the complete television timeslot or to allow the anime writers to explore some other aspects of the series' universe. The Garlic Junior arc, between the Freeza and Cell Sagas, and the Afterlife Tenkaichi Budokai arc, between the Cell and Buu Sagas, are examples of this.
VHS/DVD releases
Japanese releases
Originally, only the Dragon Ball Z movies, and the Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans footage were available for home viewing in Japan. The movies were released on both VHS, and Laserdisc format. The Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans footage was released both on VHS, as a visual guide to the Nintendo Famicom game with the same name, and on the Playdia, as two interactive FMVs.
Dragonbox releases
In 2003, all of the Dragon Ball Z anime were finally released for home viewing in Japan, on two large DVD boxed sets. Each Dragon Ball Z Dragonbox had a large amount of DVD extras, as well as an action figure and a book.
The video and audio transfers of the show used on these DVDs came off of the Fuji TV master tapes of the show, as this allowed Toei to put out a far superior and completely accurate version of the show on DVD. This allowed all episodes to have their original openings, endings, eyecatches, next episode previews, etc., compared to what was available in the US.
In late 2005 the Dragon Box Z DVDs were re-released in single volumes with six episodes per disc. While the packaging and DVD menus are different from the 2003 release, and so far no plans have been announced for the two TV specials and the Playdia footage released with the 2003 versions, the audio and video quality is the exact same as those discs found in the 2003 Dragonbox release.
At the end of March, 2006, a Dragon Box: The Movies DVD box was released. This release contained all 19 Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z theatrical features, along with a book, and two scouters in the form of walkie-talkies. The video and audio are remastered, however, the video is cropped and contains less picture than the full-screen versions, a common occurrence for films from Toei, based on long-running and popular TV series (See Saint Seiya, Fist of the North Star, and One Piece).
All Dragonbox releases contain Japanese language audio only (with exceptions to foreign-language bonus clips), and no subtitles.
English releases
Pioneer DVDs
During the late 90's/early 00's, The first 53 (Saban/FUNimation version numbers, originally uncut as 67) TV episodes were released on to DVD by Pioneer Entertainment USA (now Geneon Entertainment). These contained only the edited, US-TV broadcast versions, and totaled 17 volumes. At a later date, the first 8 DVDs were released as the 'Saiyan Saga', while the final 9 were released as the 'Namek Saga'. As of August the 31st, 2004, Geneon's license for video distribution of these episodes ended, allowing FUNimation to re-release these episodes.
Along with these episodes, Pioneer Ent. also produced bilingual, uncut DVDs of the first three Dragon Ball Z theatrical features. These DVDs retained the original Ocean cast for the English track, as well as being one of the first uncut and bilingual releases in the U.S. The English versions of these films were also subject to a different treatment, rather than replacing the original music, the original OP and ED themes, as well as background music, were retained. The only noticeable differences besides languages are the inclusion of a few different sound effects which are not present on the original Japanese version.
These films were released as a three-disc boxset by Pioneer, however, much like the 53 TV episodes Pioneer had license to, the first three Z film's home video rights now belong to FUNimation.
FUNimation DVDs
As of 2000, FUNimation has released uncut versions of their Texas-based English dub on to DVD, uncut and with Japanese language track, and English-translation subtitles. Beginning with the 'Captain Ginyu' Saga, which took place directly after the Saban/FUNimation-produced episodes, FUNimation has released bilingual, uncut DVDs for every episode covering (Japanese numbers) 68 till 291, with the Funimation commissioned American Soundtrack of Bruce Faulconer being using on its English version. Boxsets for the Garlic Jr., Androids, Imperfect Cell, Perfect Cell, World Tournament, Majin Buu, Evil Buu, Fusion, and Kid Buu U.S. sagas have also been released. However, in order to maximize profits, the DVDs were released out of continuity (certain amounts of one section of the series were released, and then FUNimation would go back and release others).
After acquiring the video rights to the first 53 (67) episodes from Pioneer, FUNimation announced that they would release these episodes uncut, with a new 5.1 English language track and uncut footage. The Ultimate Uncut Edition line was born. The release would be 22 volumes, Bilingual, and with extras. The Saiyan Saga was renamed the 'Vegeta' Saga (Parts I and II, covering 12 DVDs), probably to avoid confusion with the Pioneer volumes. This was the same version shown on Cartoon Network. As of DVD volume 9, FUNimation has cancelled these box sets and are planning to re-re-release them in the new DVD sets they are currently working on.
From 2001-2006, DBZ movies 4-13, were dubbed by the FUNimation voice cast and released in the US. These are all bilingual and subtitled, but do not follow the trend set by the Ocean Group dub's first three movies. Music has been changed and altered, including the insertion of songs from rock bands such as Pantera and Deftones. The movies utilize the FUNimation voice cast, though they also include the original Japanese version with subtitling by Steve Simmons.
The OVA Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans remains unreleased in America. An American release is unlikely, as the Famicom game on which the OVA was based never had an American release.
The FUNimation voice cast also re-dubbed movies 1-3, but only movie 1 was released under the Ultimate Uncut line; movies 2 and 3 were not named 'Ultimate Uncut' even though they had they same cover style as movie 1. All of these movies had a 5.1 English track, new subtitles, different DVD extras and were released in a boxset titled 'First Strike' on November 16, 2006. This version contains different music to the original dub or Japanese version and dialogue not as accurate to the original script as the Ocean Group dub was.
FUNimation has officially dropped the 'Ultimate Uncut' line and are working on their season boxsets.
On November 11, 2007, FUNimation released two DBZ movies on Blu-ray High Definition format. These two movies included "Broly: The Legendary Super Saiyan" and "Broly: Second Coming", and both featured full HD 1080p resolution with digitally remastered animation, and an enhanced 5.1 surround mix.
FUNimation season box sets
In November 2006, FUNimation announced they would release a remastered form of Dragon Ball Z on DVD beginning in 2007. It was later announced that "Season One" (the entire Vegeta Saga) would be re-released on February 6, 2007. The first 39 episodes of Season One are spread across six discs, and cost $30 USD (the original intention was for 5 discs, but there was a risk of quality reduction). The series has been re-transferred at 1080p resolution with digital restoration technology removing all grain and scratches from FUNimation's original prints of the series. The quality is a far greater than the original, but one flaw is with the digital restoration. Because of the magnitude of the grain and scratch removal, the lines from face features are commonly removed such as the nose and mouth. It is important to note that like many late 80's-early 90's Toei productions (for example, Saint Seiya, Sailor Moon, Marmalade Boy, Ghost Sweeper Mikami and Slam Dunk), the series was produced on 16 millimeter film which tends to be fairly grainy and soft. The new restoration was supervised by colorist Steve Franko. It was reported from FUNimation's online trailer that the series would be presented in widescreen format (1.78:1, cropped from the original full frame) for the first time. This was highly controversial among fans, as this is not how the TV episodes were intended to be seen and this substantially alters them. Many fans launched a letter-writing campaign against the release. The box set contains a revised English track in Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound (it contains the original Japanese score by Shunsuke Kikuchi, one such "revision" to the English dialog is Chris Sabat re-dubbing all of his lines as Vegeta throughout the Freiza Saga using his current, gruffer voice for the characters instead of the higher pitched nasally voice he used to imitate Brian Drummond, also the replacement of several of Vegeta's lines such as "Holy cosmos, look at that thing!" have been changed to reflect the proper tone of the situation, also several lines of profanity have been added that were absent from any prior English release). For the first time ever, there is a choice between having the English dialogue with Toei's original Japanese music in 5.1 Surround Sound, English dialogue with FUNimation's dub music in 2.0 Stereo or Japanese dialogue with Toei's original Japanese music in 2.0 Stereo. Special features that are only included on Season One include a featurette on the remastering of the original Japanese print and a 24-Page booklet with episode summaries, character descriptions and a timeline of DBZ in the US. All other 291 episodes are to be remastered and released in box set form as well. FUNimation releases a new trailer on the Dragon Ball Z official website with each release to promote the new product.[2]
Comparison images from the new set show that while there is missing footage on the top and bottom (20%), there is at least additional footage on the right and left (5%) that has not appeared in any prior release, having been taken straight from the original Japanese film master recording. In response to negative fan outcry regarding the release's apparent cropping of the source video, a FUNimation representative has released a document from the team remastering the video, which explains the logistics of the new release.[3] This document details how certain areas of the original film are damaged, and admit that though the video is cropped, this release will eliminate the grain that would be present on prior 4:3 releases. They do not address obtaining clean uncropped 4:3 DVD masters available from other overseas sources without grain, most notably European distributors.
Season Two, containing the Namek and Ginyu Sagas (35 episodes), was released on May 22, 2007. Season Three, containing the entire Frieza Saga (33 episodes), was released on September 18, 2007. Season Four will contain the Garlic Jr., Trunks, and Android Sagas (32 episodes), to be released in February 19, 2008.
Also on February 19, 2008 FUNimation will relese two TV specials as a double feature, Bardock: The Father of Goku and The History of Trunks, just like the Season Box sets it will be digitally remastered with the same features.
Australia saw the release of Season One in PAL on July 18, 2007, for $60 AUD. Releases after that are roughly four months apart with Season Two distributed on October 10, 2007 and Season Three in February 2008.[4]
Opening and closing songs
Japanese themes
Openings
"CHA-LA HEAD-CHA-LA" (チャラヘッチャラ, Chara Hecchara?)
Lyrics: Yukinojo Mori, Music: Chiho Kiyooka, Arrangement: Kenji Yamamoto, Vocals: Hironobu Kageyama
Episodes 1~199
Movies 1-9
"WE GOTTA POWER" (ウィ・ガッタ・パワー, Ui Gatta Pawa?)
Lyrics: Yukinojo Mori, Music: Keiju Ishikawa, Arrangement: Keiju Ishikawa, Vocals: Hironobu Kageyama
Episodes 200~291
Movies 10-12
Closings
"Come Out, Incredible Zenkai Power!" (でてこいとびきりZENKAIパワー!, Detekoi Tobikiri ZENKAI Pawā!?)
Lyrics: Naruhisa Arakawa, Music: Takeshi Ike, Arrangement: Kenji Yamamoto, Vocals: MANNA
Episodes 1~194
"We Were Angels" (僕達は天使だった, Boku-tachi wa Tenshi Datta?)
Lyrics: Yukinojo Mori, Music: Takeshi Ike, Arrangement: Osamu Totsuka, Vocals: Hironobu Kageyama
Episodes 195~291
Cast list
Character Name
Voice Actor (Japanese)
V.A. (U.S. Ocean Group English)
V.A. (U.S. FUNimation English)
V.A. (Int'l English) Ep 108/123+ Only
Son Goku
Masako Nozawa
Ian James Corlett(1-26)Peter Kelamis(27-53)
Sean Schemmel
Peter KelamisKirby Morrow
Son Gohan
Masako Nozawa
Saffron Henderson
Stephanie Nadolny (child)Kyle Hebert (teen)
Saffron HendersonJillian MichaelsBrad Swaile
Son Goten
Masako Nozawa
N/A
Kara Edwards
Jillian Michaels
Piccolo
Toshio Furukawa
Scott McNeil
Christopher Sabat
Scott McNeil
Vegeta
Ryō Horikawa
Brian Drummond
Christopher Sabat
Brian Drummond
Bulma
Hiromi Tsuru
Lalainia Lindbjerg
Tiffany Vollmer
Maggie Blue O'Hara
Trunks
Takeshi Kusao
N/A
Laura Bailey
Cathy Weseluck
Future Trunks
Takeshi Kusao
N/A
Eric Vale
Alistair Abell
Kuririn
Mayumi Tanaka
Terry Klassen
Sonny Strait
Terry Klassen
Yajirobe
Mayumi Tanaka
Brian Drummond
Mike McFarland
Brian Drummond
Yamucha
Toru Furuya
Ted Cole
Christopher Sabat
Ted Cole
Tenshinhan
Hirotaka Suzuoki
Matt Smith
John Burgmeier
Matt Smith
Chaozu
Hiroko Emori
Cathy Weseluck
Monika Antonelli
Cathy Weseluck
Chichi
Mayumi Sho (1-66)Naoko Watanabe (88-291)
Laara Sadiq
Cynthia Cranz
Laara Sadiq
Muten Roshi
Kōhei Miyauchi (2-260)Hiroshi Masuoka (288-291)
Ian James Corlett(1-26)Don Brown(27-53)
Mike McFarland
Terry Klassen
Oolong
Naoki Tatsuta
Doug Parker
Mark Britten (54-180, original dub)Bradford Jackson (onwards)
Doug Parker
Pu'ar
Naoko Watanabe
Cathy Weseluck
Monika Antonelli
Cathy Weseluck
Mr. Satan
Daisuke Gōri
N/A
Chris Rager
Don Brown
Videl
Yuko Minaguchi
N/A
Kara Edwards
Moneca Stori
Uranai Baba
Junpei Takiguchi (9-34)Mayumi Tanaka (207-271)
Ellen Kennedy
Linda Young
Brian Drummond
Dende
Tomiko Suzuki (49-288)Hiro Yūki (290-291)
Paulina Gillis
Ceyil Dellgadillo (child, original dub)Laura Bailey (child, uncut dub)Justin Cook (adult)
Andrew Francis
Gyumao
Daisuke Gōri
Dave Ward
Mark Britten(54-180, original dub)Kyle Hebert (onwards)
Dave Ward
Mr. Popo
Toku Nishio
French Tickner
Chris Cason (54-92, original dub)Christopher Sabat (onwards)
French Tickner
Karin
Ichirō Nagai (26-192)Naoki Tatsuta (238-285)
Doug Parker
Mark Britten (54-180, original dub)Christopher Sabat (onwards)
Ted Cole
Kami
Takeshi Aono
Michael Dobson
Christopher Sabat
Dale Wilson
North Kaio
Jōji Yanami
Don Brown
Sean Schemmel
Don Brown
Nappa
Shōzō Iizuka
Michael Dobson
Christopher Sabat (88, original dub)Phil Parsons (onwards)
Raditz
Shigeru Chiba
Jason Gray-Stanford
Justin Cook
No. 17
Shigeru Nakahara
N/A
Chuck Huber
N/A
No. 18
Miki Itō
N/A
Meredith McCoy
Enuka Okuma
Freeza
Ryūsei Nakao
Pauline Newstone
Linda Young
Pauline Newstone
Cell
Norio Wakamoto
N/A
Dameon Clarke
Dale Wilson
Majin Buu
Kōzō Shioya
N/A
Josh Martin (Fat Buu, Super Buu, and Kid Buu)Justin Cook (Abosorbed Super Buu)
Scott McNeilBrian Dobson
Shenlong
Kenji UtsumiMasaharu Satō (193)
Don Brown
Christopher Sabat
Don Brown
Narrator
Jōji Yanami
Doc Harris
Dale Kelly (54-180, original dub)Kyle Hebert (onwards)
Doc Harris
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.
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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.
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