Close Window Print Article

EVGA e-GeForce 6800 GS 256MB PCI-E

Author:	Edward Chang
Date:	2005.11.07
Topic:	Video
Provider:	eVGA
Manufacturer:	eVGA

Introduction:

With more of ATI's X1000 series of video cards becoming available on store shelves this November, one can say Nvidia apparently crashed in on ATI's party by introducing their own arsenal of new video cards. Today, our spotlight is on Nvidia's newest weapon available in stores now: the EVGA e-GeForce 6800 GS. This article will also touch on another new EVGA video card, the EVGA e-GeForce 6800 XT, which accompanies the launch of the 6800 GS. So what exactly are these video cards and how do they compare against current ones? Read on to find out!

The Contenders:

The main focus of today's review is EVGA's e-GeForce 6800 GS (P/N: 256-P2-N386-AX), based on Nvidia's NV42 chipset. The NV42 chipset has 12 pipelines, 5 vertex shaders, and a core/memory clock speed of 425MHz/1000MHz respectively. Thus, this essentially makes the 6800 GS an overclocked GeForce 6800 with a 30% boost in core speed and memory clock 43% higher.

In other news, the 128MB EVGA e-GeForce 6800 XT (P/N: 128-P2-N367-TX) was quietly launched by EVGA in September and has finally arrived on the market. This is the long overdue PCI-E version of the former 6800 LE AGP video card as it shares the exact same specification: 8 pipelines, 4 vertex shaders, and core/memory clock of 325MHz/700MHz.

About EVGA:

Founded in 1999, EVGA has grown exponentially in the channel and became the #1 Nvidia Channel Partner in 2004. EVGA provides to system builders, distributors, and retailers video products that offer the highest quality and customer satisfaction, thereby making the computing experience transparent to the hardware in the box. EVGA only offers visual processing products based on NVIDIA chipsets and in year 2005 expanded its product line to include Nvidia NForce motherboards. Recently, EVGA has delivered the fastest and coolest GeForce 7800 GT CO and GTX KO video cards through their EVTweak initiative that supports the gamers, the tweakers, and the people who want to tweak and customize their video graphics experience. EVGA stands behind their top products with the industry's best Lifetime Warranty and 24/7 Telephone Technical Support. For further information, please visit EVGA online at www.evga.com.

The EVGA e-GeForce 6800 GS:

256-P2-N386

This is EVGA's 256-P2-N386. It appears like nothing more than a Nvidia reference card with an EVGA sticker on the fan because EVGA strictly follows Nvidia's reference design to bring the best quality and compatibility. The N386 has a pretty cool looking faceplate and sports the SLI connector. Although the 6800 GS and 6800 GT are the same size, the design is somewhat different:

Next, we commence "undressing" the card to discover that unlike EVGA's 6800 GT, which uses an aluminum heatsink, their 6800 GS makes use of a better copper heatsink:

From the profile, we see that the BGA memory chips have a white thermal pad over them to enhance heat conduction between the memory and the heatsink:

Let's see what's under the cooling solution:

There is the .11 micron NV42 chipset flanked by eight Samsung 2-nanosecond GDDR3 memory.

The memory is only on the front side.

Hardware Comparison:

With Nvidia suggesting a MSRP of $249, the 6800 GS is their response to ATI's $249 X1600 XT. The 6800 XT, with higher speeds, an extra vertex shader, and wider memory bandwidth than the GeForce 6600 series, finds a nice comfy niche between the GeForce 6600 and 6800.

EVGA 256-P2-N386 Features:

Specification:

Performance 
    NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS 
    425 MHz GPU 
    12 Pixel Pipelines 
    400 MHz RAMDAC 

Memory 
    256 MB, 256 bit GDDR3 
    1000 MHz (effective) 
    32 GB/s Memory Bandwidth 

Interface 
    PCI-E 16X 
    VGA, DVI-I, S-Video 
    SLI Capable 

Resolution & Refresh 
    240 Hz Max Refresh Rate 
    2048 x 1536 x 32bit x 85 Hz Max Analog 
    1600 x 1200 Max Digital 

Requirements 
    Minimum of a 350 Watt power supply.

Key Features:

CineFX 3.0 Engine 
    Powers the next generation of cinematic realism. Full support for Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0 Shader Model 3.0 enables stunning and complex special effects. Next-generation shader architecture delivers faster and smoother gameplay.

UltraShadow II Technology 
    Enhances the performance of bleeding-edge games, like id Software’s Doom III, that feature complex scenes with multiple light sources and objects. 2nd-generation technology delivers more than 4x the shadow processing power over the previous generation.

Intellisample 3.0 Technology 
    The industry’s fastest antialiasing delivers ultra-realistic visuals, with no jagged edges, at lightning-fast speeds. Visual quality is taken to new heights through a new rotated grid sampling pattern.

*HDR (High Dynamic Range) 
    High dynamic-range (HDR) lighting effects bring environments to life for a truly immersive experience. *While Nvidia's website only shows this feature support under the 7800 series, this is a standard feature of Shader Model 2.0 and higher, so hence is supported by the GeForce 6 series video cards as well.

6800 GS with HDR enabled in Lost Coast demo

6800 GS with HDR disabled in Lost Coast demo

The lighting and environmental effects with HDR on looks lovely. Unfortunately, the EVGA GeForce 6800 GS takes a -33% performance hit.

Other Features:

Adaptable Programmable Video Processor 
    PureVideo’s programmable technology adapts to new video encoding formats as they are developed to provide a future-proof video solution.

64-Bit Texture Filtering and Blending 
    Based on the OpenEXR technology from Industrial Light & Magic, NVIDIA’s 64-bit texture implementation sets new standards for image clarity and quality through floating point capabilities in shading, filtering, texturing, and blending.

Unified Driver Architecture (UDA) 
    Part of the NVIDIA Forceware unified software environment (USE). The NVIDIA UDA guarantees forward and backward compatibility with software drivers. Simplifies upgrading to a new NVIDIA product because all NVIDIA products work with the same driver software.

nView Multi-Display Technology 
    The nView hardware and software technology combination delivers maximum flexibility for multi-display options, and provides unprecedented end-user control of the desktop experience. NVIDIA GPUs are enabled to support multi-displays, but graphics cards vary. Please verify multi-display support in the graphics card before purchasing.

Digital Vibrance Control 3.0 Technology 
    Allows the user to adjust color controls digitally to compensate for the lighting conditions of their workspace, in order to achieve accurate, bright colors in all conditions.

PCI Express Certified 
    Designed to run perfectly with the next-generation PCI Express bus architecture. This new bus doubles the bandwidth of AGP 8X delivering over 4GB/s in both upstream and downstream data transfers.

NVIDIA® SLI^TM Technology 
    Dramatically scales performance by allowing two graphics cards to be run in parallel. Only available on select PCI-Express models.

NVIDIA PureVideo Technology 
    The combination of the GeForce 6 Series GPUs’ high-definition video processor and NVIDIA video decode software delivers unprecedented HD video, stunning picture clarity, smooth video, accurate color, and precise image scaling for all video content to turn your PC into a high-end home theater.

High-Speed GDDR3 Memory Interface 
    Support for the world’s fastest GDDR3 memory delivers fluid frame rates for even the most advanced games and applications.

256-Bit Memory Interface with Advanced Memory Control 
    Delivers more memory bandwidth and efficiency to power the latest games and applications at blazing speeds.

128-Bit Studio-Precision Computation 
    128-bit studio-precision computation through the entire pipeline prevents image defects due to low precision and ensures the best image quality for even the most demanding applications.

Full-Speed 32-Bit Color Precision 
    Delivers increased image quality with no performance compromise.

Integrated TV Encoder 
    Provides best-of-class TV-out functionality for resolutions up to 1024x768.

Dual 400MHz RAMDACs 
    Blazing-fast RAMDACs support dual QXGA displays with ultra-high, ergonomic refresh rates–up to 2048x1536@85Hz.

Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0 Optimizations and Support 
    Ensures the best performance and application compatibility for all DirectX 9 applications.

OpenGL® 2.0 Optimizations and Support 
    Ensures the best performance and application compatibility for all OpenGL applications.

Test Setup:

Test System

AMD Athlon 64 3200+ "Winchester" Socket 939

EVGA NForce4 SLI NF41 Socket 939 Motherboard

Geil 2x512 MB PC4400 Dual-Channel DDR RAM

Western Digital 120GB SE 7200 RPM UDMA 100 with 8MB Cache

Windows XP Professional SP2

Video Cards

EVGA e-GeForce 6800 GS N386 256MB GDDR3 PCI-E (425MHz/1000MHz)

EVGA e-GeForce 6800 GT N376 256MB GDDR3 PCI-E (350MHz/1000MHz)

EVGA e-GeForce 6800 N383 256MB DDR PCI-E (325MHz/600MHz)

EVGA e-GeForce 7800 GT N518 256MB GDDR3 PCI-E (445MHz/1070MHz)

Rosewill Radeon X800 XL 256MB GDDR3 PCI-E (400MHz/980MHz)

Drivers

ATi Radeon Catalyst 5.10 for ATI Radeon video cards

DirectX 9.0c

Nvidia ForceWare81.87 for Nvidia GeForce video cards

Nvidia NForce4 AMD Driver version 6.70 for NForce motherboard

Benchmarks

3DMark03, 3DMark05, and AquaMark3 were run at default benchmark settings. In all other games, the video cards were first benchmarked at a standard 1280x1024x32-bit using the highest graphics quality settings in game. Where noted, the second of scores shows the performance with 4x Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering 16x enabled.

FutureMark 3DMark03

FutureMark 3DMark05

AquaMark3

Doom 3 Timedemo Demo1

CS Source Stress Test

Battlefield 2 Custom Daqing Oilfield Flyby

Overclocking and Unlocking:

With the nice copper heatsink for the core and thermal pads for the memory, we wondered how much this card can overclock. To our delight, EVGA's 6800 GS overclocks like a charm!

Using the latest RivaTuner utility, we overclocked this video card to 500 MHz core and 1150 MHz memory. That is a 75 MHz (17.6%) increase in core speed and 150 MHz (15%) increase in memory speed. At 500 MHz, this core is running even faster than a 7800 GTX. We did not run the card overclocked for long at these speeds, but it ran all of our benchmarks fine.

Now the bad news is that we were unable to unlock additional pipelines or vertex shaders using the latest RivaTuner; all existing pipelines and vertex shaders were enabled:

Benchmarks:

These scores should be pretty self-explanatory. A couple things to note are how the performance gap widens with increased graphics quality, and, in Battlefield 2, we might have hit a system limit in the first benchmark test since the 6800 GS, 6800 GS OC'ed, and 6800 GT all scored about the same. Also, surprisingly, the 6800 GS even scores slightly better than the 6800 GT on several occasions.

Although we did not include the ATI X1600 XT or ATI X800 GTO in these benchmarks, it is safe to assume that the EVGA e-GeForce 6800 GS can soundly beat both the Radeon X800 GTO and Radeon X1600 XT in performance. Why? Firstly, the Radeon X800 GTO has four fewer pixel pipelines than the Radeon X800 XL we benchmarked here and find the 6800 GS can match it already. Secondly, we have seen in other benchmarks that the Radeon X800 scores higher than the Radeon X1600 XT in virtually all benchmarks. Hence, based on the scores we see here, we can expect the 6800 GS to easily beat the ATI Radeon X800 GTO and upcoming X1600 XT counterparts.

Conclusion:

To say the least, we are delighted with the results of EVGA's e-GeForce 6800 GS video card. Kudos to Nvidia for having a new video card widely available on today's product launch date. In summary:

Pros:

    - EVGA backs their 256-P2-N386-AX 6800 GS card with Lifetime Warranty and 24/7 Technical Support.

    - EVGA's card follows Nvidia's reference design to guarantee best quality and compatibility.

    - EVGA uses a copper heatsink and extra thermal tape for cooling the core and memory.

    - This video card is SLI compatible.

    - Priced competitively with an EVGA's MSRP of $229. (Online e-tailer price starting in the low $200's)

    - Supports HDR (High Dynamic Range) and Shader Model 3.0 for the latest games.

    - Awesome overclock results: 500 MHz / 1150 MHz.

    - Performs better than the higher priced EVGA e-GeForce 6800 GT on several occasions.

    - Beats both ATI's upcoming Radeon X1600 XT and current Radeon X800 GTO

Cons:

    - Needs additional power via a PCI-E power connector. (The Rosewill Radeon X800 XL does not need this)

    - No HDTV support.

    - No more pixel pipelines and vertex shaders to unlock.

Well, because the Pros outweigh the Cons and this card seems like the best choice of the bunch, we feel the EVGA e-GeForce 6800 GS deserves our TechwareLabs seal of approval:

Thank you EVGA for sending us the video cards to review!