G80 specs finally confirmed! NOT old news!

Jabbs · 16 Oct 2006 at 15:01

Flanno said:
I think the 360 version has too many compromises.....bad viewing distance, trees and grass popup. It's like everthing is set to about 1/3 on each of the detail sliders if you were to set the pc the same way.

Spot on no af either on 360, or its very low as it looks far more detailed on the pc and as you say grass and building pop up way earlier, i guess they cut the quality etc to keep a acceptable frame rate on the 360.

I am sure the new cards will eat oblivion alive and from what i see on these forums the flight sim by Microsoft would benefit too

Duff-Man · 16 Oct 2006 at 15:25

Bigpig said:
So when they say x16aa on a single card. Does this mean you can use the x16 on new games or are you going to lag like hell with it turned on. Which just gives them something to boost about without it being worth a darn in high end games

Assuming it uses super-sampling for part of that '16x' AA, it's a fair bet that it will 'run like a dog' on high end games. It just takes so much extra computation...

That said, it's an optional extra feature in case you happen to be playing an older title, so I don't see how it can really be a bad thing. I can't say I've ever used even 8xS AA though personally, other than to test it out.

Firegod · 16 Oct 2006 at 16:01

Also if it's a "high-end" game graphically, then there shouldn't be a need to run anything over 2x-4x aa on it.

I think most games I run 2x-4x aa and 8x af and most things look nice. Also, with people gaming at higher resolutions than 1280x1024, textures should be sharp enough.

Bigpig · 16 Oct 2006 at 16:22

Firegod said:
Also if it's a "high-end" game graphically, then there shouldn't be a need to run anything over 2x-4x aa on it. I think most games I run 2x-4x aa and 8x af and most things look nice. Also, with people gaming at higher resolutions than 1280x1024, textures should be sharp enough.

Good point

Well realy realy lookign forward to these cards. Just about to order a update on my phone then sell it to keep the upgradecost down

stoofa · 16 Oct 2006 at 17:07

I shall avoid the initial roll-out for two reasons.

1. Price - when you look at the prices of cards in the 7800 & 7900 lines right now they are so low.
It makes me cry when I think what I paid for my 7800GTX.

2. I want DirectX 10 support but as Vista won't be out for most people until January (just as ATI release their DX10 solution) this is when I'll be looking.

To anyone who decides to buy on launch day or close to it - good luck to you and my hats off to you.
I'll give it a month or two and save a nice chunk of change

BoomAM · 16 Oct 2006 at 18:50

Ive gotta admit, im due a large paycheck this week, and along with a needed HDD replacement and new PSU, im considering waiting it out a bit and getting a G80 as well.

Flanno · 16 Oct 2006 at 20:03

Well, I have been pumping money into my credit card the last few weeks and come 2nd week Nov. I should have about £1200. Hoping that will get me 2xG80's and an Nforce 680i SLI mobo. That is assuming the mobos are out the same time and the reviews are positive. I would at least hope we would have a few reviews prior to launch, especially as the G80 editors day is on this Wed. so we should be hearing something.

On the other hand, I just got the rig in my sig below put together this weekend (although I have had the 7950GX2 since launch), and if prices of the G80 are uber expensive then maybe a 1950XT Xfire solution would be the way to go. Or just buy nothing at all

Damn..this reminds me when the 7800GTX came out...I just happened to be putting together a rig that week and clicked buy on 2 BFG 7800GTX's on launch day. It gutted me over the next couple months to see the price drop. But what can you do.

So what does everyone think OcUK will charge for the G80 ? And will there be uberoverclocked XFX versions with a £200 premium and added artifacts as a bonus avaiable too ?

ernysmuntz · 16 Oct 2006 at 22:08

stoofa said:
I shall avoid the initial roll-out for two reasons.

1. Price - when you look at the prices of cards in the 7800 & 7900 lines right now they are so low.
It makes me cry when I think what I paid for my 7800GTX.

2. I want DirectX 10 support but as Vista won't be out for most people until January (just as ATI release their DX10 solution) this is when I'll be looking.

To anyone who decides to buy on launch day or close to it - good luck to you and my hats off to you.
I'll give it a month or two and save a nice chunk of change

All true, but R600 won't be out till end of march at the earliest by looks of things.

ernysmuntz · 16 Oct 2006 at 22:11

Flanno said:
So what does everyone think OcUK will charge for the G80 ? And will there be uberoverclocked XFX versions with a £200 premium and added artifacts as a bonus avaiable too ?

I'd guess £450 for a the standard version (not superclocked XXX blah blah edition) from XFX.

I'll bet the BFG one will cost £499, and when ocuk realise they're selling like hot cakes will up the price to £520, as they did for a certain card a while back....(but then all the retailers did, so fair dooosy)

LoadsaMoney · 16 Oct 2006 at 22:19

Yeah and if its launched on a Monday, and everyone splashes out £500, i bet come Thursday its in the 'This Week Only', i remember when that happened to the x1900's, man everyone was going ape, splashing out all that money then about 3 days later it was reduced in the 'This Week Only', ive never seen so many :mad:

smileys

Flanno · 16 Oct 2006 at 22:33

I think the fear is with these hard launches that people will think it will turn into another 7800GTX 512 fiasco with zero supply after a few days. So they buy while they can, at almost any price.

I hope OcUK treat us fairly and keep the price reasonable. Then again they are in the business to make money and as there is not as much competition in the UK as there is in the US, we can expect to pray a hefty premium...again.

FeFiDoh · 16 Oct 2006 at 22:39

this cracks me up, all those people rushing out to spend almost £500 on one PC component and within 6months yet another one will be out people 'must' have

Flanno · 16 Oct 2006 at 22:44

I agree..and the people that say that the card will do them 2 years, usually end up buying another one 6 months later too. Although there are a fair few people on these boards who have got very good value out of their cards for some time now. At least I am honest with myself and admit I can't help it. I just want the best graphics card every 6 months or so and that's all there is to it. When I think about it, buying 2xG80's and an Sli mobo on launch day will probably be a very expensive mistake. So I will just get 1xG80

I have already presold my 7950GX2 in anticipation.

HEADRAT · 16 Oct 2006 at 22:55

I just want a fast single card solution, the GX2 doesn't interest me a it's basically 2 cards stuck together, never really been a fan of SLI and the crappy drivers.

HEADRAT

Voltage · 17 Oct 2006 at 07:45

me too, just want great performance from one card.

The $6m Dan · 17 Oct 2006 at 09:23

LoadsaMoney said:
Yeah and if its launched on a Monday, and everyone splashes out £500, i bet come Thursday its in the 'This Week Only', i remember when that happened to the x1900's, man everyone was going ape, splashing out all that money then about 3 days later it was reduced in the 'This Week Only', ive never seen so many smileys

Not me, I was of those that got them during the This Week only special offer for £330 if memory serves me.

AWBbox · 17 Oct 2006 at 22:42

Please correct me if i'm wrong, but if the G80 needs 2, 6 pin PCI-E power connectors, does that mean that the only PSU that you could run them in SLi with would be the Tagan Turbojet 1100/900W? :confused:

...purely theoretically of course

Flanno · 17 Oct 2006 at 22:55

The G80 needs 2 pci-e connectors not 4.
You would need 4 for sli.

AWBbox · 18 Oct 2006 at 08:20

Flanno said:
The G80 needs 2 pci-e connectors not 4.
You would need 4 for sli.

ops, edited. Anyway, the Tagan Turbojet 1100/900W are the only models I can see that have 4 pci-e connectors for this purpose. I'd say they had a bit of a monopoly here

Flanno · 18 Oct 2006 at 08:54

The seasonic M12 700w I have comes with 4 pci-e connectors also. Qualified for quad sli too. So does the Enermax Galaxy (I think).

Also if you only have 2 pci-e connectors and feel your psu is not strong enough for sli you can buy a thermaltake or fotron dedicated psu that fits in your 5.25" bay and comes with 2 pci-e connectors specifically for powering sli right. You could use one of these to power a single G80.

The new 8800GTX is rumoured to require a 450w psu on a fully loaded typically gaming rig, and up to 800w in SLI. According to JohnnyGuru.com who is pretty much the webs expert on PSU's he reckons that's nonsense and there is no way sli could double your requirements.

What will be a problem for G80 SLI is rails. These gpu's suck a lot of amps from the 12v rail and in some psu's (Silverstone, Antec etc..) this causes OCP (over current protection) to activate in accordance with Intels ATX12V standard on no rail over 240va. Effectively even though your brand spanking new Enermax might have 4 rails, 18amps per rail may not cut it on a GPU like the 8800GTX which will suck power off one rail only. Or if you have a PSU where your don't know what rail is for what peripheral (12v1 for cpu, 12v2 for gpu) you could be in trouble too. This may not be an issue with the Seasonic M12 700w though. Even though it is listed as having 4 x 12v rails, this is a labelling error. Seasonic got permission from Intel to break the 240VA limit and made one big massive rail. Something like 72A. Very nice. We should see more PSU makers doing this as Intel have now unofficially relaxed this part of the ATX standard.