G92: A New Beginning
The G92 is the first Nvidia GPU to sport a 65nm fabrication process and is also the first to support the PCI-e 2.0 specification that will give a bandwidth of 8 GB/s (bi-directional) with an X38 motherboard. It promises enhanced graphics using MultiSampling and SuperSampling with integrated PureVideo 2 and claims to supports a resolution of 2560x1600. On the HD-Video front, it has onboard HDMI capability and can decode H.264 HD-Videos, but it doesn't seem to be able to decode VC-1 just yet.
Apart from all the flimflam in the media brochures, here's what's new.
Well, for starters, with the new 65-nm fab for the G92, the die's surface shrinks by around 33% as compared to a G84, but the surface area increases two-fold. It uses 754 million transistors (a lot more than the G80's 681 million). A big chunk of these additional transistors power PureVideo 2. It features 112 stream processors (as opposed to the G80's 128) but the texturing units see a jump from 48 to 56 (thus helping with Multisampling and SuperSampling).
The ultra high resolution 2560x1600 support will be more of use to designers than gamers; atleast for now. Maybe an 8800GT in SLI setup would be appropriate for gaming in that resolution.
8800GT Specifications
The Core clock in the 8800GT is tagged to run at 600 (MHz) with the Shaders running at 1500 MHz. With the G92, Nvidia returns to the power of binary with its 256-bit memory interface (as opposed to the 320-bit memory of the G80). The card has 512 MB of DDR3 memory running at 900 MHz.
The 8800GT card itself looks like a shaved down version of the 8800GTS (or GTX for that matter). It's slim and has a single slot design. The card requires external power and sports 2 DVI-D ports and a S-Video port at the back. The pictures below will tell you a better story.
Performance Analysis
Now that is some card.
That's what my teammates (and my editor too) said after they saw those performance graphs of the 8800GT. I felt the same nostalgia when I tested the 7600GT (when it was just out) as it gave a similar fps boost at that time.
The card is, as the clich goes, silent but deadly.
The performance in last generation DX9 games like F.E.A.R and Half Life (which scale really well), and also in games like Serious Sam II, where raw power is what matters the 8800GT is better than it's nearest competitors.
The DX10's performance was even better. Although the pricing and performance of the 8800GTS (320 MB) is good, it doesn't really live up to its name here. Too bad for those who've recently bought the GTS.
OpenGL's performance is not much of a concern at this point as there aren't many games that support it and even lesser are to be expected, if any. For now, DX10 is the way to go and I'm sure the scenario won't change in the near future as well.
We played the much awaited Crysis (on medium to high detail) and really enjoyed the 30-40fps that the card churned out.
The new MultiSampling and Supersampling techniques didn't make their presence felt, at least in the current games.
The 8800GT can take anything you throw at it, and handle it well, I must say.
Overclocking
By default, the 8800GT is clocked at 600/1800 MHz (Core/Memory). We were able to push it up to 775/1940 MHz (Core/Memory) after a bit of tinkering around. Overall, we pushed the core up by around 29% while the memory jumped a measly 7%.
The 3DMark 2005 score jumped up by a pedestrian 2% only, but what we have is an engineering sample from Nvidia so can expect atleast an 8-10% boost in the commercial samples.
Conclusion
A few years back, Nvidia's Geforce Ti 4200 created a furor; something that really created the mainstream segment in graphics cards. They followed it up again with the 6600GT and the 7600GT, both being remarkable cards from their respective series. The 8600GT was no different, but the 8800GT has raised the bar even higher. The price to performance ratio of the 8800GT is one of the best and being able to get it for around Rs. 15,000 makes it a sweet deal.
Highly recommended for those building a robust midrange gaming rig.
