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  • AmberClad - Monday, November 28, 2005 - link

    Sorry if this was already mentioned in the article, but is there a reason that there were no pictures of the actual card? Were there distinguishing marks/logos on the card that would have revealed to Nvidia which company had leaked the card, or was it just due to legal issues?
  • gulizi - Saturday, November 26, 2005 - link

    http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid...">http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...amp;thre...
  • vailr - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link

    quote:

    There are some rebate and coupon offers that can get you a 7800 GT for $300 right now if you look hard enough.


    This 7800GT http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82...">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82... is ($289.00, after $50.00 MIR).
  • NullSubroutine - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link

    thankfully the 12x10 4x 8x are on there. anyone know the availbility date since this was a sneak peak?
  • yacoub - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link

    The only thing you didn't mention in your conclusion are the prices of the ATI cards, which would really help drive the point home that the 7800 GS or GT are the way to go.
  • LoneWolf15 - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link

    That Anandtech has posted that cards in a test (I saw this last week too, but didn't mention it then) include the Radeon X800XL, and then didn't. I'm getting really tired of it. It seems like a simple thing, but a lot of people purchased the X800XL as a performance/value solution, and the comparison is worth it to us. I'd like to see Anandtech tes with it, but if you decide not to, REMOVE IT FROM THE LIST OF CARDS IN YOUR TESTING SO THAT NO-ONE IS LED ON. Don't you guys have ANY PROOFREADERS?

    (pauses, takes several deep breaths) Rant over. Carry on.

    P.S. It appears that in looking closer, your tests include the X1800XL, which is not listed in the test specs. Perhaps the specs have a typo, but if so, it's rather an egregious one...maybe you could correct it?
  • yacoub - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link

    I'll second the notion that the X800XL would be nice to include since that was the hottest bang-for-the-buck card just a couple months ago.
  • DerekWilson - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link

    Would you guys rather see an X800 GTO or an X800 XL in future reviews of this nature?

    Also, it was a typo. It should have read X1800XL. I'm sorry about the confusion.

    As always, we very much appreciate our readers pointing out errors we need to correct. Thanks!
  • Matkun - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link

    There seems to be something wrong with the x1800 parts in the Black and White 2 Benchmarks, since they perform quite a bit below the x850 xt, even though they are faster in every way.

    Is it really proper to include scores that seem to be bugged?
  • DerekWilson - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link

    If a hardware/software combination has a problem isn't it even more important that we report it? This is an accurate measure of the performance of the different parts with equivalent settings. We checked and rechecked our benchmarks this time and there's no doubt that R4xx hardware runs B&W2 better thant R5xx hardware with the latest ATI drivers.

    This is a problem and we hope ATI or Lionhead will take notice and fix the issue.
  • nserra - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link

    the 7800GTX512 is the card to buy because it's much faster than the others. ;)

    I want one but with 256MB memory, and less than 399$. Call it 7800GTX256 i dont care.

    What happen to the Ultra (naming), doesnt sound good?
  • coldpower27 - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link

    Your basically dreaming here, since the MSRP of the 7800 GTX 256 is 499US now, best we could hope for is GTX 256 Rev.2 at MSRP 549US.
  • lexmark - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link

    Could you guy possibly replace doom3 benchmarks with CoD2? The game is growing cobwebs now! :) Quake 4 should account for doom3 since its built with an optimized doom3 engine.
  • KHysiek - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link

    I think it needs a bit faster memory on release version. Something like 1.2GHz would be nice.
  • coldpower27 - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link

    The problem is both a lower product and a higher product, have the exact same memory bandwidth of 32GB/s, so it doens't look like they have much flexibility with the bandwidth. Unless you want to pull an ATI, and have memory bandwidth at different levels, across the entire line like X800 Series.
  • Wesleyrpg - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link

    I'm a bang for your buck sorta guy. Seems like its going to be a great card should it ever get released!

    How about the important stuff, does it overclock well, and how aboout those estra pipelines, are they unlockable?
  • DerekWilson - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link

    Its a tough sell to even claim that the 7800 GS will ship with this pipeline and clock speed configuration, let alone to say that retail units will function similarly to this random early sample we happened to get our hands on.

    Up to 8 pipelines could be unlocked on this unit with RivaTuner, but if NVIDIA starts building G70 based silicon with only 16 pipes that capability could go away. And just becuase something can be unlocked doesn't mean it will work.

    Finding out how overclockable this part will be is a big reason we want to see this card make it to market.
  • gibhunter - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link

    Fine, since I've been a reader of AT for about 7 years (this is the first PC enthusiast site I visit every day) I'll give you guys a benefit of the doubt.

    Next time you write an article about an unanounced card, try not to sound so defensive. It makes you look guilty.
  • DerekWilson - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link

    I didn't defend anything :-)

    My opinion on the subject is that the truth doesn't change if someone decides to believe a something else. And if you can't take us at our word in our articles then there's nothing I can say that will change your mind in our comments.

    I would hope that our track record has proven us to be trustworthy and plain spoken with our readers. But that doesn't mean I want people to stop questioning us and keeping us honest.
  • Paratus - Tuesday, November 22, 2005 - link

    Are any of these tested with AF?
  • DerekWilson - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link

    Sorry, most of our tests were run with AF enabled (8x in most cases).

    The only test that did not include AF was the Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory test with out AA (the 4xAA test also included 8xAF).

    Thanks,
    Derek Wilson
  • Jep4444 - Tuesday, November 22, 2005 - link

    I'd like to see some benches of the 6800GT or 6800Ultra(preferably the ultra) included just to see how the G70 architecture compares to the Nv40 in terms of "improvements"
  • ShadowVlican - Tuesday, November 22, 2005 - link

    6800GT is almost exactly like 6800GS.. so it's a waste of time... most (if not all) reviews of the 6800GS would have already taken care of that comparison
  • Jep4444 - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link

    the thing about the 6800GS and GT being similar is that they arent uniformly similar, they traded off a few benches and overall the GS is slower

    what i wanted to see was the fact that they have the same pipeline setup and the 7800GS is clocked similarly so i wanted to see how much the G70 architecture is actually improved
  • nullpointerus - Tuesday, November 22, 2005 - link

    One thing I've been wonderingabout your benchmarking: Some time ago there was a question of whether average framerate should be the sole basis for comparison (IQ issues aside). The argument was that if a card really chokes on certain parts of a scene, having 10% higher average framerate wasn't exactly great. Would it be possible to do a graph of the frames so we could see how much they vary? Or is this not really an issue today?
  • DerekWilson - Tuesday, November 22, 2005 - link

    It does matter to some extent, but it is very difficult to do a good job of representing this data. Graphs of instantaneous framerates over time is next to useless in our opinion. Its too hard to actually tell what's going on and way too difficult to properly compare a number of cards without totally destroying readability.

    I keep voting for boxplots but there's still some debate about whether teaching our readers about statistical analysis is a good idea :-)

    I think something that can show outliers, min, max, lower and upper quartiles, and median in as much space as a single bar in a bar graph gets my vote as a good thing. The huge problem is that our graphing engine doesn't support anything nearly this robust. We have been trying to augment our bar graphs with some line graphs generated using a spreadsheet program to show resolution scaling, but I still haven't found a good easy way to generate nice looking boxplots.

    Anyone tips?
  • Leo V - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link

    Boxplots are an EXTREMELY useful idea, especially the lower-quartile framerate. In fact, the lower quartile may be more useful than the average framerate.

    The lower quartile shows you how smooth the game is in the "slower" half of the time -- which makes or breaks a game's playability and enjoyment.

    Suppose card A averages 60FPS, but the worst half of the time it only averages 20FPS (lower quartile). Carb B averages 50FPS, but is more efficient in relatively complex scenes -- 35FPS lower quartile. Most likely, you want card B, despite its lower "average" framerate. What good is card A when its best 50% of scenes average 100FPS while its worst 50% average 20FPS? A better choice is probably card B, which might average 65FPS in the best 50% and 35FPS in the worst 50%. But average framerates don't show this!

    Posting min and max framerates (box whiskers) is useless, since they will be meaningless (and probably random) freak outliers. Min SUSTAINED framerate is good, and it happens to be closely related to the lower quartile number.
  • Donegrim - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link

    I reckon if you started to introduce boxplots alongside your standard graphs, readers would catch on pretty fast. People who want the extra information will take the time to work out what it means, and people who don't care can just look at the standard graphs. Or just stick a massive arrow pointing to the mean and leave the rest of the diagram a little more faded.
  • nullpointerus - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link

    Maybe you could make the boxplots appear instead of the regular graphs on mouse over like you do with some of your IQ comparisons?
  • DerekWilson - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link

    that would be awesome ... the big problem is making the boxplot though.
  • bersl2 - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link

    quote:

    I keep voting for boxplots but there's still some debate about whether teaching our readers about statistical analysis is a good idea :-)


    "A good idea"? Do you mean "a waste of time"? Something else?

    I suppose "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing" could potentially apply in this case.
  • KristopherKubicki - Tuesday, November 22, 2005 - link

    quote:

    Graphs of instantaneous framerates over time is next to useless in our opinion.


    Well.. not entirely. Boxplots are definitely very good though.

    Kristopher
  • shabby - Tuesday, November 22, 2005 - link

    Min/avg/max fps would be ideal imo.
  • neogodless - Tuesday, November 22, 2005 - link

    My only complaint about graphs like these, against cards like these, is that it makes a part like the 7800GS seem downright midrange and mainstream... and I guess for those enthusiast about games with their budget shifted towards the video card, that is probably realistic. But I guess I'd like to see graphs that better reflect at least what is actually out there being used by gamers today ... i.e. if most of us have 6600GTs, then it would be a good comparison point!
  • ksherman - Tuesday, November 22, 2005 - link

    Im one of those 6600GT owners! but it seems that the 7800 GT might still be a better value IMO... but what about unlocking pipelines and overclocking?!?!?!?!
  • huges84 - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link

    I have to agree. Especially since this part is more of a value card instead of a high end card, a 6600GT would be much appreciated in these benchmarks.
  • coldpower27 - Tuesday, November 22, 2005 - link

    If my guess is correct on the MSRP, likely 299US to replace the current MSRP 299US 6800 GT. This product does look good. If the price is right on this product, it could be quite the competitor.
  • gibhunter - Tuesday, November 22, 2005 - link

    So basically, Anand Tech is reduced now to NVidia's marketing arm of gauging public interest in a new card. Nice "leaked" card from "unknown" sources...my ass. Let's not kid ourselves, we're not that stupid.
  • bob661 - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link

    quote:

    Let's not kid ourselves, we're not that stupid
    How about you speaking for yourself? I, for one, like to see articles such as these. And I have a friend that would be pretty interested in this card seeing the light of day.
  • Cybercat - Tuesday, November 22, 2005 - link

    grow up gib. Why don't you take this for what it is without inserting your own farfetched assumptions.
  • JarredWalton - Tuesday, November 22, 2005 - link

    Despite what you might think, I can guarantee that this article is not at all sanctioned by NVIDIA. (I'd go so far as to say they're probably really unhappy that the info got leaked to us.) I wouldn't say the same for whoever provided the card, though - some company like ASUS, Leadtek, etc. (no, I don't know where it came from) might have slipped us the card to see the reaction. Very little information comes directly from NVIDIA, ATI, etc. without an NDA. We get most of the "secret" stuff through numerous other channels.

    We're hardware enthusiasts, and many people have been wondering about lower priced G70 parts. Whether or not this card actually sees the light of day soon (if at all) is most likely going to depend on chip yields for the G70. If a decent number of cores are failing tests on two quads, it makes more sense.

    The 7200 and 7600 (or whatever they end up being named) are due out in the next few months. Depending on price/performance, there may or may not be a niche for this product. If it's too fast for the price, it would hurt sales of 7600. We'll see what happens.
  • ariafrost - Tuesday, November 22, 2005 - link

    Good job on getting this info so quickly, and especially on obtaining the card. AT caught 'em napping.
  • vijay333 - Tuesday, November 22, 2005 - link

    product line's getting even more cluttered, but good info nonetheless. surprised AT would be able to post this info without running into legal difficulties, even if a NDA wasn't actually signed...since the card is now 'hot property', I'd be happy to take it off your hands ;)

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