If we’ve learned anything from NVIDIA over the past year, it’s that they mean business. After all, the company has had a full year to research and develop the replacement for G80. We would expect it to be an equally amazing part, capable of wiping the floor with previous offerings from either company. But certainly, a chip that powerful could not be produced on the cheap. To offset the production costs for each card, NVIDIA would have to charge a pretty penny for the card that would raise performance considerably over an already $500 (USD) part. With the RV670 and its rumored entry price of $200 on the horizon, apparently this was not a gamble NVIDIA was willing to make quite yet. So it would seem that today NVIDIA is taking a different stance on the situation, by launching a product that says quite simply to ATI, “two can play at that game”.

The G92 graphics core, just one more subject of mass rumors regarding specs, performance, and launch date, ended up being something completely different than most people thought it would be. The hardware world only relatively recently learned that the G92 would actually be called the D8P, and the chip that was being called a “monster” would actually be a scaled down version of the ever-so-popular G80. The D8P would manifest itself in the form of the GeForce 8800GT, the name of which would suggest the card to be a filler between the 8800GTS and the 8600GTS. The actual chip itself would be manufactured on the 65nm process, which would be a nice step down from the 90nm G80, be produced with higher yields per wafer, allow for higher clock speeds, and ideally produce less heat. It would feature a single slot cooler, which means it would fit far more comfortably in far more computers. And it would cost less than any other 8800 card, at just $250. As for performance, well, nobody really knew for sure until a couple of websites broke their NDAs (and if not their NDAs, then surely someone else’s NDAs. Gee, thanks KK~) and published scores a few of days early. Of course we tested the card too, but our tests are different – our tests are useful :wink:.

Features and Specifications

So if you’re like us, after looking at the specs you might be asking yourself, “How is this any different than the G80 of the 8800GTX just with 16 fewer shaders, different clock frequencies, and a smaller manufacturing process?”. Answer: No idea. Clearly the GeForce 8800GT’s D8P adds in compliance with PCI-Express 2.0, which we hear from industry insiders does very, very little to increase performance on the high-end. Other than that? Presumably nothing. However, the only thing this would have any bearing over is the name of the core. In the past NVIDIA and AMD have called updated versions of a family of GPU’s what would effectively be a G85 or a G87. OK, so “D8P” doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but let’s take a closer look at what has changed from the original G80.