nVidia’s G80 is Crazy Fast
A couple days ago, nVidia revealed the specs to its latest GPU, the G80. The 8800GTX gives you 128 unified shaders running at 1350Mhz and a core clock of 575Mhz. It also includes 768MB of memory of GDDR3 running at 900mhz (1800Mhz effective). These specs are insane. Just to compare this to the Xbox360’s Xenos GPU, the 8800GTX has 80 more unified shaders, its core runs 75Mhz faster, and its memory runs 400Mhz faster (effective). That’s crazy fast. The lower end 8800GTS has only 96 unified shaders and only 640 MB of memory. To run a 8800GTX SLI rig, you will need an 800W power supply. Expect the 8800GTX to cost over $600 initially, with a price drop when ATI releases their newest card in late December or January. The 8800GTS will probably cost over $400. Still, either one of these cards smokes everything else out there. It’ll make your brand new PS3 look like crap! (PS3’s GPU is an overclocked 7900GT with 128bit memory) More about the G80 here and a picture here. If you need an upgrade before November, I recommend going on newegg.com and picking up a 7900GTO, it’s a 7900GTX with slower memory and $150 less.
-Nate