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GeForce 6800 SLI Performance: MSI's NX6800 January 28, 2005 Brandon Sandman Bell |
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Summary: With PCI Express versions of the GeForce 6800 GT and 6800 Ultra so scarce and expensive, a lot of gamers have instead opted for NVIDIA's lower-priced alternative, the GeForce 6800 PCI-E. Up for today we take a look at the first GeForce 6800 PCI-E card to hit the market, MSI's NX6800. In this article we've gathered single and SLI benchmarks for the GeForce 6600 GT, 6800 GT, and the NX6800. We also threw in a RADEON X800 XL card, and of course, finished it off with a little bit of overclocking. Check out the performance results inside!
 Introduction | Page:: ( 1 / 14 ) |
It has now been over seven months since these PCI Express cards were first announced to the public and, for the most part, they’re still nowhere to be found at retail!
For the most part, GeForce 6800 Ultra has been completely AWOL. We have inquired with multiple NVIDIA board partners on retail availability of these cards and still haven’t received a firm date; even our attempts to get a reference GeForce 6800 Ultra PCI-E board directly from NVIDIA have fallen short up to this point (which is why we had to overclock a GT board to Ultra levels to obtain numbers for this article). In more recent weeks, a few retail boards have popped up online, but as far as we’re concerned, this card is just as guilty of vaporware status as ATI’s RADEON X800 XT Platinum Edition, if not more so.
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In contrast, availability of GeForce 6800 GT PCI-E cards has been a little bit better. Cards can be found at retail from time to time, but supply of the boards is still so limited that most retailers are asking over $500 for the GeForce 6800 GT PCI-E, this is $100 over its MSRP of $400! With both high-end 6800 parts so hard to find, consumers looking for a good performing GeForce 6 card have really only had one readily available solution: the vanilla GeForce 6800.
These cards first popped up quietly a few months ago. If you’re already familiar with the AGP version of the GeForce 6800, the specs are basically the same. The chip sports a 12-pixel pipeline configuration with a 256-bit memory interface and DDR1 memory. NVIDIA clocks these boards at 325MHz, so they’re not fill-rate monsters like the 16 pipeline solutions from ATI and NVIDIA, but they’re still good performers, packing a peak pixel fill rate that is twice that of NVIDIA’s previous high-end product: GeForce FX 5950 Ultra.
One key difference between the GeForce 6800 AGP and GeForce 6800 PCI-E is memory clock frequency: while AGP 6800 cards ship at 350MHz (700MHz effective), the memory used on PCI Express GeForce 6800 cards runs 50MHz slower, at just 300MHz (600MHz effective). This means that PCI Express GeForce 6800 cards are effectively giving up 3.2GB/sec of peak memory bandwidth to their AGP cousins, which can have ramifications at higher resolutions (or when AA/AF is used). Of course, PCI Express GeForce 6800 cards have the added ability to be linked together (via SLI) for added performance.
MSI was one of NVIDIA’s first board partners to release a GeForce 6800 PCI-E card to the market, read on to see how this card performed in our testing.
| Boad specs | Page:: ( 2 / 14 ) |
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The board design of the NX6800 itself is fairly standard for a GeForce 6800 card. Unlike the high-end GeForce 6800 Ultra boards, GeForce 6800 board partners are free to deviate from NVIDIA’s reference board design, but most chose not to stray too far from reference. This allows them to get their boards to market more quickly, which can be important for getting an early edge on your competitors.
Thanks to their slower graphics core and memory (and reduced number of pipelines), PCI Express GeForce 6800 cards don’t require an external power source for operation. In fact, we’ve found that AGP boards based on this chip tend to run fairly cool, a high-end cooling solution isn’t necessary.
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256MB of memory
Not only is MSI’s NX6800 the first PCI-E GeForce 6800 card to hit the market, it’s also the first to ship with 256MB of memory. Typically most manufacturers outfit their GeForce 6800 cards with 128MB in order to save costs; keeping their price as low as possible in comparison to other board manufacturers. This is good for consumers looking to save a few bucks, but we’ve found that next generation titles such as Half-Life 2 really like the larger memory footprint a card with 256MB of memory provides, especially once you crank up the AA and AF. By providing more memory on their GeForce 6800 board, MSI’s NX6800 is better designed for these titles. As far as we know, MSI has no plans for a 128MB GeForce 6800 PCI-E SKU.
The fan MSI uses on their NX6800 is fairly standard, in fact it looks quite similar to the cooling unit NVIDIA features on their reference GeForce 6600 GT cards. Some previous MSI cards we’ve tested were equipped with MSI’s unique T.O.P. Tech cooling solutions, which feature copper heatsinks for added cooling and are often so quiet you can hardly hear them.
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In operation the fan on the NX6800 runs fairly well, fortunately it doesn’t run too loud and does a decent job of keeping the graphics core (and card) cool, and while this is more than enough for the GeForce 6800 we can’t help but wonder what a little copper cooling would do for the card.
Software and accessories
Like all MSI graphics cards we’ve evaluated lately, MSI equips their NX6800 board with an excellent software bundle. Included in the box are copies of Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, Ubi: Ages Beyond Myst, XIII, a 14-in-1 CD of assorted game demos, MSI’s Media Center Deluxe 2 software, Virtual Drive 7 Professional version, Restore It 3, Photoshop Album SE, 3D Album SE, and 5.1 channel DVD playback software. MSI also includes a DVI adapter and S-Video cable for hooking the card up to a TV.
| Test systems | Page:: ( 3 / 14 ) |
System Setup
AMD Athlon 64 4000+
MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum SLI
1GB OCZ EL DDR400 Platinum Edition Rev 2
ATI RADEON X800 XL
Driver version CAT 5.1
NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT PCI-E
NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT PCI-E
MSI NX6800
Driver version 67.66 (obtained off nZone website)
250GB Maxtor Hard Drive Maxline III SATA Hard Drive w/16MB Cache
Windows XP Professional SP1
DirectX 9.0c
Benchmarks
Lock On: Modern Air Combat (Mig-29 custom demo)
IL-2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles (The Black Death track)
Splinter Cell (FS custom demo)
Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness (Beyond3D custom demo)
Halo: Combat Evolved (stock benchmark)
Far Cry 1.2 (custom demo for mp_jungle, SM2.0b and SM3.0 paths used)
DOOM 3 (gameplay custom demo)
| Tomb Raider 4xAA/8xAF | Page:: ( 4 / 14 ) |
Tomb Raider – Direct3D
| Lock On: Modern Air Combat | Page:: ( 5 / 14 ) |
Lock On: Modern Air Combat – Direct3D
| IL-2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles | Page:: ( 6 / 14 ) |
IL-2 Sturmovik: FB - OpenGL
| Halo 4xAA/8xAF | Page:: ( 7 / 14 ) |
Halo – Direct3D
| Far Cry Volcano 4xAA/8xAF | Page:: ( 8 / 14 ) |
Far Cry – Direct3D
| Far Cry Training 4xAA/8xAF | Page:: ( 9 / 14 ) |
Far Cry – Direct3D
| DOOM 3 Ultra Quality 4xAA/8xAF | Page:: ( 10 / 14 ) |
DOOM 3 – OpenGL
| Half-Life 2 | Page:: ( 11 / 14 ) |
Half-Life 2 – Direct3D
| Overclocking | Page:: ( 12 / 14 ) |
Far Cry – Direct3D
DOOM 3 – OpenGL
| Ballistics Report | Page:: ( 13 / 14 ) |
Pros
GeForce 6800 core: NVIDIA’s GeForce 6800 core gives gamers a taste of the performance offered in today’s latest 16 pipeline graphics cards. You’ve got a 256-bit memory interface, just like the high-end 6800 Ultra and 6800 GT cards. This is important if you find yourself playing most of your games at higher resolutions such as 1280x1024 or 1600x1200, or with AA/AF.
Since it’s only a 12-pipeline card with a slower 325MHz clock frequency, the GeForce 6800 doesn’t have the fill rate of the more expensive GeForce 6800 cards, nor does it have the memory bandwidth, but with its $300 price tag, it’s priced much more attractively.
Basically, if you’re looking for a card that delivers a little more performance than NVIDIA’s GeForce 6600 family, but can’t justify spending the premium required for a PCI-E 6800 GT, the GeForce 6800 is a nice compromise.
256MB memory:In order to keep costs as low as possible, many GeForce 6800 cards ship with only 128MB of memory. While 128MB of memory is plenty for most DX7/DX8 titles, an increasing number of games are taking advantage of the extra memory a 256MB graphics card provides. This can be an important consideration to keep in mind if you plan on holding on to your card for awhile.
Editor’s Note: Newegg lists the memory on the MSI NX6800 operates at 350MHz (700MHz effective), but the memory on both of our boards shipped from the factory running at 300MHz, which is the speed many other board manufacturers are clocking their GeForce 6800 PCI-E cards at.
Software bundle: MSI ships the NX6800 with an extensive selection of games and software applications. Included in the box are copies of Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, Ubi: Ages Beyond Myst, and XIII. Software applications bundled with the card include Media Center Deluxe 2 software, Virtual Drive 7 Professional version, Restore It 3, Photoshop Album SE, 3D Album SE, and DVD playback software.
PCI Express interface: While AGP will likely be here for years to come, PCI Express is the interface of the future and will really begin to gain ground in 2005 now that PCI Express platforms for both AMD and Intel CPUs are available. The other key advantage the GeForce 6800 PCI-E boasts is SLI capability. By dropping in a second graphics card, end users can get a significant performance increase.
Availability: Unlike the PCI Express GeForce 6800 GT and Ultra, GeForce 6800 cards like the MSI NX6800 can be found pretty readily online. Board prices for the MSI card hover just over $300 for the most part.
Cons
Basic design: After testing multiple MSI graphics cards with fire engine red PCBs and copper cooling, it’s a little bit of a surprise to see that the MSI NX6800 relies on standard cooling.
No HDTV: This isn’t really a “con” as much as it is a warning to anyone who may see the front of the NX6800’s box and expect to get HDTV support, which is clearly labeled as a feature on the right side of the NX6800 box. The board doesn’t ship with a component video cable for hooking the card up to an HDTV. This is a feature that is usually reserved for more expensive graphics cards.
| Final Verdict | Page:: ( 14 / 14 ) |