Table of Doom, and specification musings
Trotting out the table of doom.| Graphics cards | NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512 | NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX 512 | NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT 512 | NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512 | NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT 512 | ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MiB | ATI Radeon HD 3850 512 | ATI Radeon HD 3870 512 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PCIe | PCIe 2.0 | |||||||
| GPU clock | 738MHz | 675MHz | 600MHz | 600MHz | 650MHz | 625MHz | 666MHz | 775MHz |
| Shader clock | 1,836MHz | 1,688MHz | 1,500MHz | 1,500MHz | 1,625MHz | 625MHz | 666MHz | 775MHz |
| Memory clock (effective) | 2,200MHz | 2,200MHz | 1,800MHz | 1,800MHz | 1,800MHz | 2,000MHz | 1,656MHz | 2,250MHz |
| Memory interface, and size, | 256-bit, 512MiB, GDDR3 | 256-bit, 512MiB, GDDR3 | 256-bit, 512MiB, GDDR3 | 256-bit, 512MiB, GDDR3 | 256-bit, 512MiB, GDDR3 | 256-bit, 512MiB, GDDR3 | 256-bit, 512MiB, GDDR3 | 256-bit, 512MiB, GDDR4 |
| Memory bandwidth | 70.4GiB/sec | 70.4GiB/sec | 57.6GiB/sec | 57.6GiB/sec | 57.6GiB/sec | 64GiB/sec | 53GiB/sec | 72.8GiB/sec |
| Manufacturing process | TSMC, 55nm | TSMC, 65nm | TSMC, 65nm/55nm | TSMC, 65nm | TSMC, 65nm | TSMC, 55nm | TSMC, 55nm | TSMC, 55nm |
| Transistor count | 754M | 754M | 754M | 754M | 505M | 965M | 666M | 666M |
| Die size | 230mm²? | 330mm² | 330mm²/230mm²? | 330mm² | 240mm² | 260mm² | 192mm² | 192mm² |
| Double-precision support | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| DirectX Shader Model | DX10, 4.0 | DX10, 4.0 | DX10, 4.0 | DX10, 4.0 | DX10.0, 4.0 | DX10.1, 4.1 | DX10.1, 4.1 | DX10.1, 4.1 |
| Vertex, fragment, geometry shading (shared) | 128 FP32 scalar ALUs, MADD dual-issue + MUL (unified) | 128 FP32 scalar ALUs, MADD dual-issue + MUL (unified) | 112 FP32 scalar ALUs, MADD dual-issue + MUL (unified) | 112 FP32 scalar ALUs, MADD dual-issue + MUL (unified) | 64 FP32 scalar ALUs, MADD dual-issue + MUL (unified) | 800 FP32 scalar ALUs, MADD dual-issue (unified) | 320 FP32 scalar ALUs, MADD dual-issue (unified) | 320 FP32 scalar ALUs, MADD dual-issue (unified) |
| Peak GFLOPS | 470/705* | 432/648* | 336/504* | 336/504* | 208/312* | 1,000 | 426.2 | 496 |
| Data sampling and filtering | 64ppc address and 64ppc bilinear INT8/32ppc FP16 filtering, max 16xAF | 64ppc address and 64ppc bilinear INT8/32ppc FP16 filtering, max 16xAF | 56ppc address and 56ppc bilinear INT8/28ppc FP16 filtering, max 16xAF | 56ppc address and 56ppc bilinear INT8/28ppc FP16 filtering, max 16xAF | 32ppc address and 32ppc bilinear INT8/16ppc FP16 filtering, max 16xAF | 40ppc address and 40ppc bilinear INT8/ 20ppc FP16 filtering, max 16xAF | 16ppc address and 16ppc bilinear INT8/FP16 filtering, max 16xAF | 16ppc address and 16ppc bilinear INT8/FP16 filtering, max 16xAF |
| Peak fillrate Gpixels/s | 11.8 | 10.8 | 9.6 | 9.6 | 10.4 | 10 | 10.656 | 12.4 |
| Peak Gtexel/s (bilinear) | 47.2 | 43.2 | 33.6 | 33.6 | 20.8 | 25 | 10.656 | 12.4 |
| Peak Gtexel/s (FP16, bilinear) | 23.6 | 21.6 | 16.8 | 16.8 | 10.4 | 12.5 | 10.656 | 12.4 |
| ROPs | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 |
| Peak TDP (claimed) | 155 | 155 | 105? | 105 | 95 | 110 | 90 | 105 |
| Power connectors (default clocked) | Two 6-pin | Two 6-pin | 6-pin | 6-pin | 6-pin | 6-pin | 6-pin | 6-pin |
| Multi-GPU | SLI - three-board | SLI - three-board | SLI - two-board | SLI - two-board | SLI - two-board | CrossFire - four-board | CrossFire - four-board | CrossFire - four-board |
| Outputs | 2 x dual-link DVI w/HDCP, native HDMI 5.1 (via S/PDIF) | 2 x dual-link DVI w/HDCP, HDMI 7.1 (native, on GPU) | 2 x dual-link DVI w/HDCP, HDMI 5.1 (native, on GPU) | |||||
| Hardware-assisted video-decoding engine | NVIDIA's PureVideo HD - full H.264 decode and partial VC-1 decode | AMD UVD 2 - full H.264 and VC-1 decode | AMD UVD - full H.264 and VC-1 decode | |||||
| Hybrid Power | Yes | Yes | Yes | No* | No | No | No | No |
| Reference cooler | dual-slot | dual-slot | single-slot | single-slot | single-slot | single-slot | single-slot | dual-slot |
| Retail price (default-clocked model) | £139 | £129 | £??? | £89 | £89 | £110 | £69 | £89 |
ZOTAC introduced a GeForce 8800 GT with Hybrid Power technology
GeForce 9800 GT 512
Take a look at our eight-GPU table that takes in GPUs ranging from £69 through to £139 and you'll the see the best from NVIDIA and ATI.Pay specific attention to the GeForce 9800 GT and GeForce 8800 GT columns: the differences between the two SKUs has been emboldened.
NVIDIA feels eminently comfortable in raising the nomenclature without adding a whole heap to an existing architecture.
Specifically, GeForce 9800 GT will be based on the 55nm manufacturing process that was debuted(for NVIDIA) with the GeForce 9800 GTX+ - a product that is only now coming into retail availability. 55nm production makes the 9-series card cheaper to produce, because TSMC can fit more on to a given-sized wafer. Initial cards, however, remain on GeForce 8800 GT-matching 65nm.
The clockspeeds, sadly, remain exactly the same as the volume-selling 8800 GT, although we expect partners to launch the usual cavalcade of pre-overclocked cards. Stock-clocked performance, then, won't be any different.
Hybrid Power, where, on a compatible chipset that features an IGP, the discrete, wattage-hungry card can be turned off when not in heavy 3D use, saving power and routing video through the IGP instead. Problem is, compatible chipsets are NVIDIA-only affairs.
We know that current 8800 GT stock starts at around the £90 mark, so, presumably, the GeForce 9800 GT will have to be a little cheaper, to take the shine away from the new AMD Radeon HD 4850.
Think of GeForce 9800 GT 512 as just a re-badged GeForce 8800 GT, really - you won't be able to discern the difference.
