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Written by Nebojsa Todorovic
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Tuesday, 19 December 2006 |
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Page 1 of 5 It is fair to say that „History of IT industry“ is getting new pages. Pen is in hands of NVIDIA, and new chapter is entitled G80. It is new graphics processor which brings along radical changes. Given we were discussing everything in previous article, we will remind of only the most important matters. Before everything else, there is transfer to “Unified shader architecture”, due to which you are no longer able to calculate chip power by number of pixel/vertex shader. Namely, this time all shaders are „out into one basket“ i.e. they can all work together. These shaders are named Stream Processors (SP). Total number of Stream Processors with G80 chip is 128, and these completely functional chips have honor of being in 8800GTX models.
G80 having 1/4 less SPs is named 8800GTS. Ratio of Stream Processors engaged as Pixel, i.e. Vertex or Geometry Shaders is not constant during operation. Therefore, logic unit engaged in balance of this ratio is necessary. NVIDIA names this logic unit Gigathread Engine. Number of ROP/TMU is 32/24, which is also significant improvement comparing to previous (G70) generation. This was short briefing in case you have missed last number with 8800GTX starring. Curtain lifts up, all lights are pointed to little brother - 8800GTS, so let us begin.
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