GeForce 6800 May Deliver Lower Performance

[jerry]

Software Developer Says NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Specifications May Alter

NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Graphics Processors May Deliver Lower Performance

A software developer who is behind the famous RivaTuner utility for graphics cards? tweaking said specifications of graphics cards powered by NVIDIA GeForce 6800 graphics processing units may be slightly changed by makers of actual add-in cards which results in lower geometry performance and also affect actual speed delivered by the product.

Leadtek. The table plainly states that the GeForce 6800 delivers lower geometry performance ? 406 million vertexes against 600 and 525 million of more powerful chips ? compared to the GeForce 6800 Ultra and GeForce 6800 GT models. The difference in geometry performance submitted by Leadtek is higher than the difference in clock-speeds between various models.

X-Bit Labs

Guru3D

Just a heads up if someone is consideri:whistle:n-ultra 6800. :whistle:

[DigitalN.]

LMAO of course its gonna deliver lower perfomance! it doesnt even have 16 pipes!

[enigma-penguin Veteran]

Rather interesting, good that they can turn of faulty components, but bad if they arent actually faulty...

Guess we'll have to wait for the official Nvidia response on this one, more than likely its was a way to use defective chips as working ones, it would certainly affect the yeilds they are getting...

(why waste good waffer hey)

If you can do it and have the things running go for your life, just as long as the results or similar cards are consistant. I mean pixel pipelines are one thing, but buggy vertex shaders could pose a problem (with bugged up or disabled pipelines) and people could end up with a vertex shader bottleneck if too many are disabled and they are running a really intensive program (future programs of course, as most out there right now wouldnt cause a vertex shader bottleneck on the nv40). But i guess that depends on whether the number of disabled parts brings it into line with the expected specs for that model, if it drops below then id be a little worried.

The geo procs could probably wont cause much more mischief, but we shall see....

edit, ill add this cos original post hasnt got it :

Clarification from X-bit Labs

Reference GeForce 6800 graphics card provided by NVIDIA Corp. and used by X-bit labs? laboratory in Tallinn, Estonia, scored identical fps in Xbitmark vertex shader test against NVIDIA?s reference GeForce 6800 Ultra graphics card working at the same clock-speeds, indicating equal per MHz geometry performance of the 6800 model against the ?Ultra? model.

Such results are unlikely to represent certain changes in vertex processors array and indicate lower number of such units within the chip. In case the majority GeForce 6800 come with 6 geometry engines, X-bit labs can reaffirm that the GeForce 6800 benchmark results available in our articles are correct and reflect speed of the majority actual graphics cards available on the market. Performance figures delivered by our articles should not be extrapolated on the GeForce 6800 flavours with 5 or less vertex pipelines.

It is unclear whether additional vertex processors can be enabled by reflashing a more advanced BIOS. Some pre-production BIOS versions caused inadequate results and behaviour on some GeForce 6800-based graphics cards.

Edited August 30, 2004 by EnIgMa-PenGuIn

[Gary_Player]

Interesting...I wonder what nvidia's comment will be...and what the manufacturers are going to say too :s

I always knew Alexey Nikolaychuk was a sharp guy ( I've been using RivaTunner for a good long while) and once again, my hats off to him.

[+Mystic MVC]

wow, this will be interesting to see what Nvidia has to say about this. probably will take them a bit to think up a good answer :D

[kennyout]

i still think this is like the earlly 9500 pros and the 9700 pros....

and the 9800 non-pros and LEs....

so im not worried too much...

[theyarecomingforyou]

nVidia don't really have to say anything about it... but I would have thought if they could they would enable them so as to be more competitive with ATi.

[jerry]

edit, ill add this cos original post hasnt got it :

I didnt use that part as it was getting too lengthy, thought people would see the long story and comment before reading it. Glad somebody reads this stuff (Y)