G80 specs finally confirmed! NOT old news!

Adam Senior · 5 Oct 2006 at 14:23

think the fact that it is a single card has ++++ since with the quads thier is so much raw power but not the software to harness it.. I still am yet to spend my £2500 squirrels on a system. Was wating for the r600 but tbh this mite be the way to go. Also whats this step up program? were to go to find out about it

The Asgard · 5 Oct 2006 at 14:23

Cyber-Mav said:
hope all the company workers go bankrup and end up on the streets for even thinking of such a crap product.

What a nasty thing to say. You are a sad man my friend!

speeduk · 5 Oct 2006 at 14:39

I too was going to get a master x1900 for the xt I have at the moment - but this would be better as I could sell the x1900 and end up with a net loss of just £150-200.

Macro · 5 Oct 2006 at 14:54

LoadsaMoney said:
Thats where your wrong, well your right about DX10, but if you have a low end DX9 card now, then why not grab one of these, as it will be a cracking upgrade, but if you have the high end cards like the GX2's etc...

bit of a change of tune there - you've been berating anyone with a low end DX9 card holding on for G80 and telling them to buy a GX2 instead and just argued with any of us who kept reminding you that DX10 isn't the only reason to buy the new cards (assuming you had the budget).

LoadsaMoney 3rd Oct said:
Just get a high end DX9 card now if you can afford it, it will last well over a year+, no point buying a G80 when nothing is using DX10 yet, and wont be for about a year+, G80 is coming out in November, yet you cant use DX10 till about bloody Feb as you have to get Vista, over 3 months away!!!!, and that does not come out till about then, so why not just get a high end DX9 card now, and happily have it cutting through everthing in its wake for about a year, then when something in DX10 comes along that doesnt look like DX9, then get a DX10 card then, which is about a year away as said, and by then it will not be G80/R600 as they will be over a year old, and have been passed by a load of new, better, faster DX10 cards, and the G80 IS NOT UNIFIED.

Cyber-Mav · 5 Oct 2006 at 14:59

wonder if i can still get 100 quid for my x1900xt come december??? hmmm this g80 looks the biz.

james.miller · 5 Oct 2006 at 15:01

lets see what the price of a 128 shader, 768mb monster will be before making any desicisions Anathor. It could well cost £400+ quite easliy, and it wouldnt be such a recommended upgrade then....and loadsmoney would be right. You wouldnt want that, would you?

I just want to know the prices of these things.

The Asgard · 5 Oct 2006 at 15:07

james.miller said:
lets see what the price of a 128 shader, 768mb monster will be before making any desicisions Anathor. It could well cost £400+ quite easliy, and it wouldnt be such a recommended upgrade then....and loadsmoney would be right. You wouldnt want that, would you?

I just want to know the prices of these things.

Shouldn't be much difference from what we normally pay for hard launch top end cards. £300-£350+vat I would imagine

Cyber-Mav · 5 Oct 2006 at 15:08

they will cos the same amount as the x1900xt and 7900gtx cost when they first came out.

which makes me think, hold off on the purchase till they really drop down in price to the point where i picked up my x1900xt when it went for £172 inc vat and delivery. from ocuk.

james.miller · 5 Oct 2006 at 15:13

which is exactly what id recommend to everybody. There's no logic in buying any card when its first release. If you do you either want to break records, or boast. and possibly both lol.

which makes me think, hold off on the purchase till they really drop down in price to the point where i picked up my x1900xt when it went for £172 inc vat and delivery. from ocuk.

or my personal favourite, wait for the top end cards to drop in price and watch the price of the card it replaced plummet through the floor, ala x1800xt.

Cyber-Mav · 5 Oct 2006 at 15:17

manoz said:
I thought GDD3 RAM was old/current generation? ATi previewed GDDR4 RAM in the x1950xtx to pave the way for R600, thought nvidia would go and implement GDDR4 in their G80 aswell. Is this a loss to nvidia or is there not that much of a significent jump to GDDR4?

look at the benchmarks, ddr4 running 400mhz faster than ddr3 makes roughly 3% difference in speed. hardly worth the poundage/.

LoadsaMoney · 5 Oct 2006 at 15:25

Athanor said:
bit of a change of tune there - you've been berating anyone with a low end DX9 card holding on for G80 and telling them to buy a GX2 instead and just argued with any of us who kept reminding you that DX10 isn't the only reason to buy the new cards (assuming you had the budget).

Yes as he said he had the money and wanted to buy now.

If he was gona hit the buy button then on a GX2 as hes got the money why not, he can miss the G80 out, pretty simple that, which is what i said.

Gashman · 5 Oct 2006 at 15:49

128 unified shaders, i bet...didn't nvidia already say G80 was not unified shader? i believe it when i see it, R600 sounds much more official to me

Edit: the specs for G80 have changed more than anything i have ever seen, its been this, then that, then another thing, R600 has been constant, im by no means ATI fanboy (using two nvidia cards) but i can't take any G80 specs seriously

Macro · 5 Oct 2006 at 15:50

james.miller said:
lets see what the price of a 128 shader, 768mb monster will be before making any desicisions Anathor. It could well cost £400+ quite easliy, and it wouldnt be such a recommended upgrade then....and loadsmoney would be right. You wouldnt want that, would you?

I just want to know the prices of these things.

At the time in the previous threads (and there's been several of them) price wasn't a factor, at least one of the people asking had £500 to spend. We assume brand new flagship, top of the range cards are going to be ~£400, they have been for quite a few generations - didn't stop people buying them before and won't now. The discussion was technology, and Loadsamoneys constant assertion that the new cards were pointless and offered nothing over current cards other than DX10(which he said was pointless). There's always a financial argument for not buying the top of the range / newest of any technology (graphics cards, CPU etc), when it comes out. Indeed from a budget point of view the best bet is usualy to wait for the new cards to come out and then buy the previous top of the line.

Having said that, sometimes you've saved your pennies, put up with a low/mid range AGP/PCI-e DX9 card for a while and it's time to have a splurge and get the new super fandango model

Personaly, I'm waiting to see... The choice of £300 for a top end DX9 card now, or ~£400 for this makes it a tempting proposition, especially matched to a 24" w/s.

fornowagain · 5 Oct 2006 at 16:15

I'd bet it'll be near the £500 mark. The x1900xtx was £470 IIRC on release day.

Macro · 5 Oct 2006 at 16:18

Bugger.... no beer for me this weekend then.... *starts saving again*

LoadsaMoney · 5 Oct 2006 at 16:28

The new cards don't offer anything, just faster DX9, but if you have a GX2 etc... already as i said, which cuts through DX9 anyway, then the G80 is pointless, as your just going to cut through the same exact games, DX10 is new yes, but G80 is November, DX10 is Feb, thats about 3-4 months away, so why get it for DX10, 3-4 months is a long time in graphics cards, cards are coming out all the time, so you can bet when Vista shows up and you can finally use DX10, Nvidia will be saying right now lets get the G80+ DX10 card out, so already your DX10 card is the slowest even before its got to use DX10, and i bet theres a lot of ****** off ppl out there who bought the G80, only to find out its the slowest at DX10 before they could use it, they'll be thinking, damn i wish i waited for this one, aint even used Dx10 yet and my cards old, and the slowest at it. :mad:

As i said though if you have a low end DX9 card then go for it, as it will be a cracking upgrade, as DX9 is all the G80 and the R600 will be good for for a long time yet.

Its PS3 all over again.

The Asgard · 5 Oct 2006 at 16:40

Maybe the way to look at this card is "Uber Fast DX9" that will do DX10. If its 2X the performance of a 7950GX2, say?? then this alone would be justification for buying this now. People are not going to stop writing DX9 games and those games will get more and more demanding has time goes on. Just look at COH with everything on.

Just a thought

HangTime · 5 Oct 2006 at 16:49

oweneades said:
768mb or ram on a 384 bit memory interface?!

Why not 1gb on a 512bit memory interface.

Just seems odd numbers.

By that logic they might as well make it 4gig on 2mbit memory interface

All a question of cost I'd imagine. There is no need for cards with 1gig RAM, and a 384bit memory interface should offer a big increase in bandwidth - I expect 512bit would be too expensive.

Firegod · 5 Oct 2006 at 17:07

Cyber-Mav said:
they will cos the same amount as the x1900xt and 7900gtx cost when they first came out.

which makes me think, hold off on the purchase till they really drop down in price to the point where i picked up my x1900xt when it went for £172 inc vat and delivery. from ocuk.

Although a sound point, you can't wait too long though. Otherwise by the time you purchase the card for a decent amount, no doubt, another will be just around the corner being faster again. Basically you have to find the right time. Probably not straight away at launch but perhaps a few weeks down the line.

VeNT · 5 Oct 2006 at 17:11

hmmm, building new PC soon (tm), was gonna have a x1800XT but maybe I'll be able to get a x1900 cheap because of the new G80 cards? or maybe a 7xxx range cheaper.
interesting times