Page 2 - Specs
So let's the festivities begin. The products as tested today really aren't far off from the current GTS line of products or for that matter the GTX, there are however some significant features altered in this G92 chip that empowers the graphics card worth mentioning. But basically it's more of the same, with some small improvements, same performance level that we already know, yet positioned better pricing wise and thus making it more acceptable to purchase for even more consumers.
First a peek at the new product line-up:
- GeForce 8800 Ultra - $699
- GeForce 8800 GTX $499-$599
- GeForce 8800 GTS 320/640 MB $349-$399 GeForce 8800 GTS $299
- GeForce 8800 GT $199 - $249
- GeForce 8600 GTS $149
- GeForce 8600 GT $109
- GeForce 8500 GT $69-$89
- GeForce 7300 GT 512MB $59-$69
- GeForce 8400 GS $49-$59
- GeForce 8300 GS OEM only
- GeForce 7300 GS $39-$49
- GeForce 7200 GS <$39
As you can see, that's quite a hefty product line. So many SKU's (Stock Keeping Unit), versions and then next to that the overclocked editions; it quite honestly must drive the board-partners and consumers crazy.
The reality is though that I expect some product to go EOL really soon. Among them the GTS and Ultra. And I do expect new products for mid-range real soon as well.
But let's leave that as it is and focus on the 8800 GTS 512MB.
The new 512 MB GTS cards are surely interesting for the eyes. We know we've seen the PCB before, yet the cooler is definitely new. It's based on the GTS design, yet the fan is angled slightly different, pushing more air over and closer to the GPU. Quite interesting. We'll check out temperatures on the next page though.
The silicon powering that 8800 GTS 512MB is based on NVIDIA's newer 0.65nm silicon. Much like the 8800 GT you'd probably ask. So is this a respin product? And again I would answer "Yes and no, but not exactly". See, this GPU architecture is 95% the same as the good old G80 (GTS/GTX/Ultra) core yet with three exceptions
The first being the fabrication process. It was moved from 90nm towards 65 nm, meaning a smaller die-size, likely resulting in lower core voltages, more energy efficiency and perhaps better clock speeds.
The second being the fact that the 8800 GTS has an increased amount of shader processors over the GTS series (while being a cheaper product). For example a 8800 GTX has 128 of these processors, the old GTS has 96, the new 8800 GT has 112 activated Shader processors yet the 8800 GTS 512MB version has 128 shader processor.
The more the merrier of course.
Interesting, because if you take a peek at the clock speeds you'd might even think it can beat a GTX. Well, at the end of the pipeline there this thing called ROPs and that's where the old GTS (16 ROPs), this one has 20 and thus is a little castrated compared to the GTX (24 ROPs). There's a new optimization of ROPs' compression algorithm being applied on the GT though, which makes it a bit more efficient.
Next to that, this product is utilizing enough memory, yet the GTX is addressing the memory bus faster (384-bit) opposed to the 8800 GTS with 256-bit.
The performance differential is small though, as our benchmarks will show. But the interesting thing is, that when you look at the GPU specifics and compare them to the GTX, this GTS should be faster. Yet the ROP limitation and lower specced memory addressing prohibits that ... but very little in reality.
Despite several rumors, the card will be released in a 512MB version only (for now).
The memory clocks for the reference products (baseline) will be 1600 MHz, the core frequency 650 MHz and for the freaks, the shader domain is clocked at 1625 MHz. Now how does that relate to the GTX, you ask? Well, have a good look at the chart below:
 |
 |
 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|
 |
As you can see, the GTS 512Mb is specced much higher than the GTX. Yet it'll lack an additional 256MB and faster 384-bit memory bus. And these last two factors will slow it down a little.
