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nVidia GeForce Go 6800 Performance Preview |
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Written by Mavke
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Wednesday, 10 November 2004 |
FiringSquad has posted a
preview on the nVidia GeForce Go 6800. Last April, nVidia brought the world's first
Shader Model 3.0 DirectX 9 graphics accelerator to the desktop PC with the
launch of the GeForce 6800 family. Comprising of the high-end GeForce 6800
Ultra/6800 GT and more mainstream GeForce 6800 and 6800 LE, the GeForce 6800
series has earned critical acclaim from both the media and end users alike due
to its excellent performance and best-in-class feature set.
 nVidia GeForce Go 6800 Performance Preview
Now, roughly six months later, nVidia is essentially transporting this same award-winning GPU from the desktop PC to the notebook, giving gamers on the go more power than ever before. Sounds like a pretty solid plan for success doesn't it?
The GeForce Go 6800 is based on the exact same architecture that made the GeForce 6800 so successful. You've got the same Shader Model 3.0 capabilities that are found in GeForce 6800, with 64-bit texture filtering and blending, UltraShadow II, nVidia's video processor, and a 256-bit memory interface that supports the latest memory types.
The days of mobile graphics trailing desktop graphics by a generation or more are definitely over, now the two segments are separated by only a couple of quarters, and if ATI and nVidia's mobile teams have their way, that gap will see an even greater reduction in 2005.
In terms of performance, GeForce Go 6800 is roughly 15-20% behind the desktop GeForce 6800 in most conditions, although there were extreme cases with 4xAA and 4xAF in Far Cry where that margin was greater. This may not sound like much at first, but when you consider that ATI's current high-end mobile offering, Mobility Radeon 9800, was a little slower than Radeon 9800 PRO in our testing back in September, we have no doubts that GeForce Go 6800 is faster. Make no mistake about it, nVidia's GeForce Go 6800 is currently the king in mobile graphics performance.
ATI isn't going away quietly though. The Canadian company is currently preparing a PCI Express-based successor to Mobility Radeon 9800 that's also based on X800 technology but with a 12 pixel pipeline architecture codenamed M28. Our testing with a prototype M28-equipped laptop suggests that GeForce Go 6800 may not hold the performance crown for very long. This is due in part to the M28's faster clock speeds. The million-dollar question is, when will M28 ship? We've been told that the product will be launched later this month, with the first laptops shipping just in time for Christmas, but GeForce Go 6800 is shipping today in systems from Alienware, Falcon Northwest, Sager, Eurocom, ProStar, Voodoo PC, and others.
Of course, nVidia may decide to respond by introducing a 350MHz, or even 400MHz GeForce Go 6800 variant dubbed the GeForce Go 6800 GT or Ultra. nVidia has told us that they believe they could potentially scale as high as 450MHz with respins of their existing Go 6800 core. If this occurs, the two companies could be going back and forth with one another for the next few months.
Right now though, the current mobile performance champion is clear: nVidianVidia's GeForce Go 6800. If you're in the market for a new high-end laptop, be on the lookout for systems based on this GPU.
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