Product name: Inno3D GeForce 6800
Description: GeForce 6800 128 MB 12 Pixel Pipes
Info: InnoVision - Inno3D
Price: 299 EUR
InnoVision is a well known name in the graphics card industry. We recently reviewed one of their GeForce FX 5700 graphics cards, today we kick it up a notch as we review a card based on the extremely popular GeForce Series 6.
Now I say InnoVision where I really need to say Inno3D, as that is the sub-section within a company that handles a lot more then just graphics cards. InnoVision is a Hong Kong based manufacturer that produces a number of multimedia products aimed at both the OEM and retail market. These products range from VGA cards (obviously), to mainboards, audio cards and digital video products. As a close partner of NVIDIA, InnoVision is a reputable company with a keen insight on what the end-user demands: quality and unique designs. They offer GeForce based graphics cards from low to high-end. In today's review we'll be testing a high-end product, although it is in the lower range of that high-end line, the 300 USD GeForce 6800 Standard (sometimes referred to as "Non-Ultra").
Although most of you go 'eeuhw' when they hear about a 12-pipeline product I can only say that a product of this caliber, in this price range (300 EUR), is just fantastic since you are looking at the same graphics core as the 6800 Ultra series although it has been down-clocked a little and 4 pixel pipelines have been chopped off. In addition it uses slower clocked memory (and DDR1 instead of DDR3) and a missing Vertex Processor (5 instead of 6). Wow, that line was longer then I expected.
To recap, in essence the standard 6800 has the same core as the 6800 Ultra and GT, but it's missing its turbo ;) That's the biggest difference... oh and hey... 100 USD bucks cheaper then a GT or Radeon X800 Pro, which is its main competition.
When we set aside that fact then I can say from personal experience with many of these cards, it's still performing like a beast and at a nice price. Next to that it produces less heat and has just Molex connector. Exciting times in the graphics industry you ask? Absolutely.
NVIDIA's new lineup of graphics cards within Series 6 is rapidly expanding ever since they figured out they had a special graphics core in their hands. Right now we can see several new products.
Among them are the GeForce 6800 LE and the new mid-end GeForce 6600 series. Basically the LE is the low cost version in the high-end 6800 series yet crippled with only 8 pixel pipelines and a 320/650 MHz frequency for core/memory. The LE is an OEM product and already shipping, not likely to be found in retail.
To get a better overview of the current NVIDIA GeForce 6x00 generation let's place the 6x00 products in a little overview:
| GeForce Model |
Pipes |
Memory bus width |
| 6800 Ultra Extreme Edition |
16 |
256-bit |
| 6800 Ultra |
16 |
256-bit |
| 6800 GT |
16 |
256-bit |
| 6800 |
12 |
256-bit |
| 6800 LE |
8 |
256-bit |
| 6610 XL |
8 |
128-bit |
| 6600 GT |
8 |
128-bit |
| 6600 |
8 |
128-bit |
Considering that NVIDIA launched this product in April 2004 this is getting a tad scary isn't it... so much diversity! So, how does The standard GeForce 6800 stack up against other GeForce cards and those cool red colored Canadian products? Let's fire up this review and we shall see...
I bet you never saw a graphics card so up-close and personal huh?
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