Reading Hardware

Today is a glorious day: 7800GTX has arrived. Boasting power in abbundance, and so much in fact, that it challenges the practicality of SLI. Let us use 3D Mark 05 as a reference. I, with a very heavy overclock and gaming hardware more or less meant for the less serious (those that game regularly, but lacking a 4,000$ budget which is what is required for top of the line), score a 4,300 with a very VERY unsafe overclock. Toning it down to something I could consider stable delivers a healthy 3,900 while stock is pretty hefty in itself: 3,600. Now, keep those in the back of your mind.

stock 7800GTX score: 7,800

No, that is not with two in SLI, or even overclocked. That is the production power of a single unit. My hardware is officially deprecated and approaching legacy, and i bought it 3 months ago. I am way behind on the hardware scale, and I could care less. No major gaming titles will be released any time soon on any platform that I care to play on (PC), until roughly 2007, which will be the new Unreal title. That game is reputably able to play well on a single 6800 Ultra. But, as many of you may know, new models will be out, and beating the crap out of what's out now.

I got up at 10, for two reasons this morning. 1, because I had a meeting with a benefactor (I am a ward of the state), who was having me sign papers for a 500 dollar, um, yeah, 500 dollars. :) And, to watch the action over the 7800GTX. It's already more expensive than it was when I got up, and it's already the cool thing to do. Well, for once, I can't feed into it, because there isn't an AGP model, it's too damn expensive, and there's no real reason to care. My computer is fast, and will be for some time.

But it's kinda neat to watch new technology. It's good to see that it's twice the speed of the current low-end high-end product (nVidia organizes it's parts in 3 strains, usually: NU, GT, Ultra, or something along those lines, and if they can pull it off, they squeeze in a cheap LE model). Where, Ultra is the highend, NU, or non ultra, the vanilla card like what I have, is the low-end on the high-end. (remember the 3600 - 7800 comparison?)

I should be ashamed of myself.

I read a review of it, looks fairly nice. A lot of what you're paying for is DirectX circuitry though, and I'm not real into Windows or gaming, so it takes a little of the thrill out of it. I noticed on the Nvidia spec page that OS X is supported, so I'm assuming it will be offered in a Mac version.

Ewige Blumenkraft!

NVidia focuses on Open GL. Thier reputation has shown a trend to do so, and thier cards are still faster as Open GL cards than Direct3D. If any of that is Direct 3D, it's to correct the imbalance, because any game staunchly D3D will dislike an nVidia card. My 6800 can and very easily will play doom 3 at exceedingly high settings, yet, Counter Strike gives my hardware the willies. As soon as a 7800GTX is released for AGP, I will buy one, though, seeing as how right now I am considering a 6800GT or 6800 Ultra, the smart thing to do is wait for something in teh GeForce 7 lineup. Thier biggest rewarding facets are better heat dissapation, lower heat generation, less power consumption, and as detailed above: they kick more ass.

In short, GeForce 7800GTX is the best card on the market, period, and yes, even monitarily, considering some Ultra's still sell for 800$.

I should be ashamed of myself.

That's true, but still a significant amount of circuitry is dedicated to DirectX 9. Nvidia's commitment to OGL and Linux have made them preferable to ATI for me over the years, despite the higher prices that aren't always justified by a significant enough performance advantage. Not to flog a dead horse, but I still don't get the whole DirectX thing. Obviously it has some great capabilities, but why Microsoft felt it necessary to reinvent the wheel with a proprietary COM-based nightmare instead of simply extending a graceful open standard based on C is beyond me.

It's just typical of their idiotic attitude. COM is utter shit, yet they stick it everywhere they can, even when it causes glaring security loopholes. Morons...

Ewige Blumenkraft!

It's the monopolist attitute. Use your own product everywhere and at every step of teh way and get as many people to do it with you. It doesn't matter if it sucks, by the time you're finished you'll be the best because you're the only retard around.

Microsoft still bothers me, but alas, it doesn't bother enough people, especially gamers, so I'm stuck keeping a windows PC around.

I should be ashamed of myself.