Specifications

The list

CineFX 3.0 Shading Architecture
Vertex Shaders
Support for Microsoft DirectX 9.0 Vertex Shader 3.0
Displacement mapping
Vertex frequency stream divider
Infinite length vertex programs
Pixel Shaders
Support for DirectX 9.0 Pixel Shader 3.0
Full pixel branching support
Support for Multiple Render Targets (MRTs)
Infinite length pixel programs
Next generation texture engine
Up to 16 textures per rendering pass
Support for 16-bit floating point format and 32-bit floating point format
Support for non-power of two textures
Support for sRGB texture format for gamma textures
DirectX and S3TC texture compression
Full 128-bit studio-quality floating point

NVIDIA high-precision dynamic range (HPDR) technology
Full floating point support throughout entire pipeline
Floating point filtering improves the quality of images in motion
Floating point texture drives new levels of clarity and image detail
Floating point frame buffer blending gives detail to special effects like motion blur and Explosions
New rotated-grid anti-aliasing removes jagged edges for incredible edge quality

Intellisample 3.0 technology
Advanced 16x anisotropic filtering
Blistering fast anti-aliasing and compression performance
Support for advanced lossless compression algorithms for color, texture, and z-data at
even higher resolutions and frame rates
Fast z-clear
High-resolution compression technology (HCT) increases performance at higher
resolutions through advances in compression technology

UltraShadow II technology
Designed to enhance the performance of shadow-intensive games, like id Software’s
DOOM III

Advanced Engineering
Over 220 million transistors
Designed for PCI Express x16
Supports PCI Express high-speed interconnect (HSI) technology for bidrectional interconnect protocol conversion
Full support of AGP 8X including fast writes and sideband addressing
Support for the industry’s fastest GDDR3 memory
256-bit advanced memory interface
0.13-micron process technology
Advanced thermal management and thermal monitoring
40mm x 40mm, BGA flip-chip package

Advanced Video and Display Functionality
Dedicated on-chip video processor
MPEG video encode and decode
WMV9 decode acceleration
Advanced adaptive de-interlacing
High-quality video scaling and filtering
Integrated NTSC/PAL TV encoder supporting resolutions up to 1024x768 without the need for panning with built-in Macrovision copy protection
DVD and HDTV-ready MPEG-2 decoding up to 1920x1080i resolutions
Dual integrated 400MHz RAMDACs for display resolutions up to and including 2048x1536 at 85Hz.
Dual DVI ports for interfacing to external TMDS transmitters and external TV encoders
Microsoft Video Mixing Renderer (VMR) supports multiple video windows with full video quality and features in each window
VIP 1.1 interface support for video-in function
Full NVIDIA nView multi-display technology compatibility

Notes

GeForce 6800 Ultra is the world’s first DX9.0c graphics card. Note, we said DX9.0c and not DX9.1, which was the designation incorrectly used to denote the addition of 3.0 pixel and vertex shaders into DX9. Another highlight in GeForce 6800 Ultra that will probably grab your attention is the chip’s transistor count: over 220 million! We were given a figure of 222 million at NVIDIA’s Editor’s Day. Basically, this is one big chip.

GeForce FX 6800 is also NVIDIA’s first native PCI Express graphics solution. Follow-up GeForce 6 series parts will also support PCI Express natively. NVIDIA has also integrated a video processor on the graphics core, circumventing the need for an external chip.

Lets take a closer look at a few of the more important features found in GeForce 6800 Ultra, starting with the new 3.0 pixel and vertex shaders.