A Look at the GeForce 8800 GTS
PCI Express x16 graphics cardsChipset GeForce 8800GTS 640, 320 MB, 384 bit
The launch of any high end graphics card certainly attracts lots of attention from users particularly gamers, reviewers not to mention IHVs and ISVs like game developers and publishers. There is only one thing that's bigger - the launch of a graphics card based on a new API. The GeForce 8800 certainly fills that spot. Users, reviewers and quite likely, competitors were caught off guard when NVIDIA launch their latest generation of card, the GeForce 8800 series, codenamed G80.
The biggest surprise is off course unified shaders support, one of the major 'attraction' or technological advances, if you prefer, with Microsoft's newest incarnation of DirectX, DirectX 10. For years, NVIDIA have argued against using unified shaders in their design, claiming that there is no immediate need for such a move. Yet, here and now, the GeForce 8800 series made up of three offerings - the GeForce 8800GTS, GeForce 8800GTS 640 MB and GeForce 8800GTS 320 MB based on the same design all utilizes a unified shader architecture instead of the traditional vertex / pixel shader units arrangement.
The GeForce 8800 series is certainly poised to further NVIDIA's lead over competitor ATI, now the graphics division of AMD. Determined not to make the same mistake as they did with the transition from DirectX 8 to DirectX 9, NVIDIA chose to employ the tried and true 90nm fabrication process for the GeForce 8800, instead of the more risky 60nm process. Sticking to a tried and true process means NVIDIA will be able to launch their products much sooner than ATI. Other lessons learned from the last transition are also taken to heart. NVIDIA chose to follow DirectX 10 specification as close as possible, working closely with Microsoft to tweak and tune G80 design so there will be no 'growing pains' and performance issues later on.
Much like ATI's Radeon 9700 Pro, the GeForce 8800 series is ahead of its time - meaning though its already available in the market for some time, software support was practically non existent. Part to blame is Microsoft and their decision to not just employ a new driver model for the next version of Windows, Windows Vista, but also exclusively bundle DirectX 10 only with Vista. That means users with previous versions of Windows will not be able to fully tap the hardware capabilities of any DirectX 10 compliant graphics card such as the GeForce 8800. Even now, with Vista available, there's practically no DirectX 10 game titles available on the market, at least until the end of the year.
Vista should have become an important priority, one that NVIDIA seem to overlook. Due to time and resource constraints, NVIDIA chose to focus driver development to assuring GeForce 8800 compatibility and performance with the currently available version of Windows, Windows XP. They also chose to focus on SLI and providing SLI profiles for current and soon to be release game titles. So, Vista driver development took a back seat, a decision that will cause much grief for early Vista users.
It turned out the new Longhorn Device Driver Model (LDDM) caught many manufacturers off guard, but the problem seem far worse with NVIDIA hardware, and not just with the GeForce 8800. Volatile performance, compatibility issues and even Blue Screens of Deaths greeted users of NVIDIA's GeForce 7 and 8 series upgrading their Windows XP installations to Vista. Though recent driver development shows promise - performance beginning to be where it should be, no more crashes and the like - there's still relatively few PC vendor who will bundle Vista with their NVIDIA hardware equipped systems.
DirectX 10 and Vista
Undoubtedly, the most hyped reason to buy the GeForce 8800 is its support for DirectX 10 and Windows Vista. As many early bird users have found, life with a GeForce 8800 series of card in Windows Vista can be 'a major pain'. Thankfully, the newer drivers seems to improve the situation quite a bit.As for DirectX 10 itself, since there's actually no DirectX 10 title on the market, we think it's a moot point to buy a card based on what 'it can do'. It's more justifiable to buy a card for what 'it can do' for current titles. Thankfully, users should be able to see DirectX 10 patches for some DirectX 9 titles to show up in the coming months. These will have to do until we see a game that's really built to take advantage of what DirectX 10 can offer, and that's is still a long ways off.
You may be asking why do we say that. It's important to understand that Vista does not only bring DirectX 10 to the table, but also a new driver model. So, a game or application may still use DirectX 9 shaders, be it SM 2.0 or SM 3.0, however developers may be able to use DirectX 10 to 'alleviate' many technical hurdles and problems that is present in DirectX 9. Many developers and publishers have promised to update their previous titles with DirectX 10 support. It's very likely these applications are not 'built from scratch' for DirectX 10. In that line of thinking, these applications are less likely to push DirectX 10 features and capabilities of a card like the GeForce 8800 series. So, we prefer to wait for a 'real' DirectX 10 game title or benchmarks and use what games are available today for this article.
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