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PNY Verto 6800 GT Review August 15, 2004 Brandon Sandman Bell |
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Summary: Looking for a high-performing, reliable card that doesn't futz with the quality reference components or bundle itself with software you don't want to pay for? PNY, a tier one NVIDIA manufacturer with Quadro production exclusivity in America, might have just the right offering for you. Brandon takes a look at the card, complete with a 6800 Ultra, X800 Pro and 6800 vanilla for comparison in all benchmarks - including Doom 3!
 Introduction | Page:: ( 1 / 20 ) |
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While we all dream of owning high-end hardware like the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition and Athlon 64 FX, budget constraints often prevent these dreams from becoming a reality. After all, not everyone has the luxury to fork over $500 or $600 for the latest hardware.
Fortunately there are lower priced alternatives that offer most of the performance these flagship products at much lower price points. On the graphics side, NVIDIA’s GeForce 6800 GT is one such example.
Initially, NVIDIA had no such plans for the GeForce 6800 GT. Two GeForce 6800 SKUs were initially announced: the GeForce 6800 and GeForce 6800 Ultra. The announcement of ATI’s X800 PRO changed NVIDIA’s plans however. With its $400 price point, the X800 PRO sat right between the GeForce 6800 (at $300) and the GeForce 6800 Ultra, which was priced at $500. To fill this hole, NVIDIA concocted the GeForce 6800 GT.
As you probably know by now, the GeForce 6800 GT gives up little to the 6800 Ultra from a features perspective. Both cards ship with 16 pipeline NV40 graphics cores with 256MB of GDDR3 memory, and of course both support shader model 3.0. The key differences are clock speeds, price, and power. The GeForce 6800 GT retails for $400 and only requires one Molex connector to operate. GeForce 6800 Ultra cards ship with two power connections and larger dual-slot cooling. This is because the GeForce 6800 Ultra runs at higher clock frequencies than the GeForce 6800 GT, 400MHz on the 6800 Ultra core versus 350MHz on 6800 GT, and 550MHz memory (1.1GHz effective) for the Ultra versus 500MHz (1.0GHz effective) for the GT.
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While the GeForce 6800 GT shipped after ATI’s X800 PRO, it has already gained a huge following among enthusiasts. In fact, a lot of gamers have already hailed it as the “next GeForce4 Ti 4200”! Technically this is a mischaracterization as the Ti 4200 was always a mainstream card with a $200 price point: at best you may be able to find a GeForce 6800 GT online for $380, a price which is hardly mainstream. A more accurate analogy would be the GeForce4 Ti 4400, a card which was also respected back in its day.
PNY was one of the first NVIDIA board partners with a GeForce 6800 GT card to hit retail, a trait which is important when a GPU is first announced, as early adopters tend to gobble up boards quicker than you can sell them. Their Verto GeForce 6800 GT is designed to appeal to the gamer or hardware enthusiast who wants a high performing graphics card with solid reliability. Of course, it also doesn’t hurt that these cards are aggressively priced and can be found online and at stores like Best Buy, Fry’s, Circuit City, and CompUSA. Let’s see what PNY offers with their Verto GeForce 6800 GT card.
| Board analysis | Page:: ( 2 / 20 ) |
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PNY has also been in the graphics business for years now, with products dating back to NVIDIA’s GeForce2 GTS. But that’s not all. Here in America, PNY has the exclusive on all Quadro card production. These cards are used in high-end workstations costing thousands of dollars.
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Based on all this, it goes without saying that PNY is one of NVIDIA’s closest board partners, with Tier One status. This allows them to bring boards to market faster than many other card manufacturers.
Their Verto GeForce 6800 GT is practically a replica of the GeForce 6800 GT reference board we received from NVIDIA. This is because their Verto board actually came off the same manufacturing line as our reference card. In fact, when we installed it in our Pentium 4 3.4GHz testbed right after using the reference 6800 GT, Windows XP didn’t recognize that we’d installed a different graphics card!
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While a lot of enthusiasts scoff at the idea of a reference board, reference designs aren’t always a bad thing. In the past, some card manufacturers have used dodgy components on their graphics boards, resulting in inferior 2D and DVI quality. To resolve this, NVIDIA stepped in to ensure that a minimum level of quality is in place on high-end, $400+ cards. Besides using higher quality components, NVIDIA goes out of their way to design and test their boards under a wide variety of conditions. This means that the Verto GeForce 6800 GT has been battle-tested and designed to meet the needs of more demanding consumers.
PNY doesn’t do anything flashy with their Verto GeForce 6800 GT, instead the goal is to get the hardware in the hands of customers at the lowest price possible. This means that the card ships with no game bundle, which can add to the card’s cost. From a hardware perspective, PNY follows NVIDIA’s reference specifications to the letter -- you’ve got the same 350MHz core/500MHz memory (1.0GHz effective) as the stock 6800 GT -- as well as the same cooling.
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Software and accessories
Besides the driver and GeForce6 demos CDs, the card ships with a copy of NVDVD, a DVI-to-VGA adapter, S-Video cable, and power cable. In a bit of a twist, PNY also includes a free insulated beverage cooler with every card ordered directly from them. This can be used to keep your drink cool at LAN parties.
UPDATE 8/16/2004: It has come to our attention that PNY has partnered with CompUSA to provide a free copy of DOOM 3 with the purchase of a Verto GeForce 6800 GT. This allows you to save $55 if you planned on picking up a copy of DOOM 3.
| System setup | Page:: ( 3 / 20 ) |
Intel Pentium 4 3.4GHz “Prescott”
ABIT IC7-G MAX II Advance
512MB Corsair XMS3200 DDR SDRAM
ATI RADEON X800 PRO
CATALYST 4.7
CATALYST 4.9 beta (for DOOM 3 testing only)
Leadtek WinFast A400 (GeForce 6800)
NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra reference card
PNY Verto GeForce 6800 GT
ForceWare 61.77
DirectX 9.0c
Windows XP with Service Pack 1
250GB Maxtor Hard Drive Maxline III SATA Hard Drive w/16MB Cache
Benchmarks
Lock On: Modern Air Combat (Mig-29 custom demo)
Call of Duty (demo0032 custom demo)
Unreal Tournament 2004 (T3 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 demos for mp_jungle and research, SM2.0b and SM3.0 paths used)
DOOM 3
| Call of Duty 4xAA/8xAF | Page:: ( 4 / 20 ) |
Call of Duty – OpenGL
| IL-2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles 4xAA/8xAF | Page:: ( 5 / 20 ) |
IL-2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles – OpenGL
| Lock On: Modern Air Comat 4xAA | Page:: ( 6 / 20 ) |
Lock On: Modern Air Combat – Direct3D
| Halo | Page:: ( 7 / 20 ) |
Halo – Direct3D
| Tomb Raider | Page:: ( 8 / 20 ) |
Tomb Raider – Direct3D
| Tomb Raider 4xAA | Page:: ( 9 / 20 ) |
Tomb Raider – Direct3D
| Unreal Tournament 2004 4xAA/8xAF | Page:: ( 10 / 20 ) |
Unreal Tournament 2004 – Direct3D
| Splinter Cell 8xAF | Page:: ( 11 / 20 ) |
Splinter Cell – Direct3D
| Far Cry Research 4xAA | Page:: ( 12 / 20 ) |
Far Cry – Direct3D
| Far Cry mp_jungle 4xAA | Page:: ( 13 / 20 ) |
Far Cry – Direct3D
| Far Cry Research 4xAA/8xAF | Page:: ( 14 / 20 ) |
Far Cry – Direct3D
| Far Cry mp_jungle 4x/8xAF | Page:: ( 15 / 20 ) |
Far Cry – Direct3D
| DOOM 3 High quality 8xAF | Page:: ( 16 / 20 ) |
DOOM 3 - OpenGL
| DOOM 3 High quality 4x/8xAF | Page:: ( 17 / 20 ) |
DOOM 3 - OpenGL
| Overclocking Results | Page:: ( 18 / 20 ) |
DOOM 3 - OpenGL
Far Cry – Direct3D
| Ballistics Report | Page:: ( 19 / 20 ) |
Pros
Performance: It goes without saying that the Verto GeForce 6800 GT is an awesome performer. Just take a look at the benchmarks. In flight simulation titles like IL-2 Sturmovik, the difference between the 6800 Ultra and 6800 GT is nearly negligible. You will however notice the $100 dent in your pocket that separates the GT and the Ultra. And if you do come across a situation where you find your 6800 GT running a little sluggish, that’s what overclocking is for. But more on that later.
Value: With its 16 pixel pipelines, the GeForce 6800 GT gives up nothing to the architecturally to the GeForce 6800 Ultra, which costs $100 more. Its 350MHz core and 500MHz memory is within spitting distance of the 6800 Ultra as well. As a result, the GeForce 6800 GT was able to keep up with the Ultra in our benchmarks. Its nearest competitor, the X800 PRO, only features 12 pixel pipelines running at 450MHz, with 900MHz (effective) memory. This gives the GeForce 6800 GT an advantage in fill rate and memory bandwidth, allowing it to perform well at high resolutions with anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering.
Thanks to its minimized software bundle, PNY’s Verto GeForce 6800 GT is also one of the last expensive GeForce 6800 GT cards out right now. Some listings on Price Watch are already below $400! This should make it a tempting solution for those of you who are looking to get the most bang from your buck.
Overclocking: While we normally don’t praise a card for overclocking (after all, your mileage may vary), the GeForce 6800 GT has proven to be a solid card for overclocking. And while NVIDIA suggests that the 6800 Ultra’s dual-slot cooler and Molex connectors are needed for higher overclocking, our experience with the PNY Verto GeForce 6800 GT suggests otherwise, as we were able to hit clock speeds of 430MHz core/1.16GHz memory, these clock speeds are higher than a stock GeForce 6800 Ultra, and awfully close to the speeds we hit with an overclocked Leadtek WinFast
A400 Ultra TDH.
Availability: PNY was one of the first NVIDIA board partners to hit retail. In fact, the Verto 6800 GT has been out for a little over a month now. PNY also has extensive distribution channels, so finding a board online or at retail should be easier than other manufacturers. If you have a Fry’s or Best Buy in your area, chances are they carry cards from PNY.
Cons
Reference design: Depending on your perspective, this can be thought of as a positive or a negative. If you just don’t trust board manufacturers to use quality components on their products, obviously the fact that the Verto 6800 GT is based on, and physically produced by NVIDIA directly must be considered a positive.
On the other hand, if you were looking for a GeForce 6800 GT card that stood out from the rest with custom copper cooling, dual DVIs, or perhaps video input, the fact that the Verto GeForce 6800 GT is just another reference design must be a disappointment.
| Final Verdict | Page:: ( 20 / 20 ) |