The GeForce 6 Series is NVIDIA's newest series of graphics processors. All of them support Vertex and Pixel shader version 3.0, as required under the Microsoft DirectX 9.0c specification.

Contents

1 GeForce 6800 Series 1.1 AGP GeForce 6800 Series VPU 2 GeForce 6600 Series 3 GeForce 6200 4 GeForce 6200 TurboCache 5 External links

GeForce 6800 Series

The first model, the 16 pixel pipeline GeForce 6800 Ultra (NV40) was launched on April 14th 2004. It was intended to redress the issues that the GeForce FX series had come under fire for (namely underwhelming performance and below par texture filtering), and did this in stunning fashion, not only matching ATI Technologies's Radeon cards in image quality, but - like ATI's Radeon X800XT PE - being approximately 50-80% faster than the GeForce FX 5950 Ultra and the Radeon 9800XT, the previous leaders. This type of performance increase had not been seen since 3dfx released their Voodoo 2 graphics processor, which had a comparable performance increase over the original Voodoo. The chip was actually clocked lower than the 5950 Ultra had been, but usage of high-speed GDDR-3 memory and double the number of pixel processing units allowed the 6800 Ultra to massively outstrip its predecessor. The GeForce 6800 will continue using the new 130 nanometer process, introduced with the GeForce FX. Its Quadro equivalents are the Quadro FX 4000 (AGP) and the Quadro FX 3400, 4400 and 4400g (both PCI Express).

The initial models all used the AGP bus, but some newer models use a PCI Express bus. These models use a slightly modified version of the NV40 chip, called the NV45, which has AGP-to-PCI-Express logic on the chip substrate. In spite of the additional latency added by the translation logic, it performs largely the same as the AGP version.

The other four variants of the 6800 Ultra are the 6800 Ultra Extreme Edition, which is just an overclocked 6800 Ultra (450/1200), and is also in extreme lack of availability, the 6800 GT (which is clocked lower and only needs a single PSU connector), the 6800 (which only has 12 pixel-processing units) and the 6800 LE, which is an OEM only product. These versions are currently avaliable in AGP and PCI Express form.

A new feature supported by the GeForce 6 series is the Scalable Link Interface (SLI), which allows two GF6's to be connected in tandem, with the driver adjusting the workload to the two chips dynamically. While it has a similar name to the 3dfx Scan-Line Interleave technology, the underlying principles are different. The GeForce 6 cards that support SLI are the PCI Express variants of the 6800 GT/Ultra and 6600 standard/GT.

Specifications are as follows.

GeForce 6800 Ultra - Extreme Edition:

• Core Clock: 450 MHz
• Memory Clock: 1200MHz
• Pixel Pipelines: 16
• Number of ROPs: 16
• Vertex Processors: 6
• Memory: 256 MiB GDDR-3 memory on a 256-bit interface
• MSRP, (RRP): $600 USD
• Cooling solution: 2-slot unless customized by manufacturer
• Power connectors: 2

GeForce 6800 Ultra:

• Core Clock: 400 MHz
• Memory Clock: 1100MHz
• Pixel Pipelines: 16
• Number of ROPs: 16
• Vertex Processors: 6
• Memory: 256 MiB GDDR-3 memory on a 256-bit interface
• MSRP, (RRP): $499 USD
• Cooling solution: 2-slot unless customized by manufacturer
• Power connectors: 2

GeForce 6800 GT:

• Core Clock: 350 MHz
• Memory Clock: 1000MHz
• Pixel Pipelines: 16
• Number of ROPs: 16
• Vertex Processors: 6
• Memory: 256 MiB GDDR-3 memory on a 256-bit interface
• MSRP, (RRP): $399 USD
• Cooling solution: 1-slot unless customized by manufacturer
• Power connectors: 1

GeForce 6800 GTO, (OEM ONLY):

• Core Clock: 350 MHz
• Memory Clock: 900MHz
• Pixel Pipelines: 12
• Number of ROPs: 16
• Vertex Processors: 5
• Memory: 256 MiB GDDR-3 memory on a 256-bit interface
• MSRP, (RRP): $300 USD
• Cooling solution: 1-slot (Stock GT fan)
• Power connectors: 1

GeForce 6800:

Frequently referred to as the 6800 "NU" (Non-Ultra) to distinguish it from the other 6800 models

• Core Clock: 325 MHz
• Memory Clock: 700MHz
• Pixel Pipelines: 12
• Number of ROPs: 16
• Vertex Processors: 5
• Memory: 128 MiB GDDR1 memory on a 256-bit interface
• MSRP, (RRP): $299 USD
• Cooling solution: 1-slot unless customized by manufacturer
• Power connectors: 1

GeForce 6800 LE, (OEM Only):

• Core Clock: 300MHz
• Memory Clock: 700MHz
• Pixel Pipelines: 8
• Vertex Processors: 4
• Memory: 128MiB GDDR1 memory on a 256-bit interface
• MSRP, (RRP): Unknown, (OEM only)
• Power connectors: 1

GeForce 6800 series features:

• 12 pipeline GPU architecture (16 on 6800 GT and Ultra, 8 on 6800 LE).
• Up-to 8x more shading performance compared to the previous generation
• CineFX 3.0 engine - DirectX Shaders model 3.0 for really nice visual effects
• On Chip Video processor.
• GDDR1 and GDDR-3 memory on a 256-bit Memory interface
• UltraShadow II technology - 3x to 4x faster than NV35
• High Precision Dynamic Range (HPDR) technology
• 128-studio precision through the entire pipeline - 32-bit Color precision
• IntelliSample 3.0 Technology - 16x Anisotropic Filtering & Rotating Grid Antialiasing
• Full MPEG encoding and decoding at GPU level
• Advanced Adaptive De-Interlacing
• Video Scaling and Filtering - HQ filtering techniques including HDTV resolutions
• Integrated TV Encoder - TV-output up to 1028x768 resolutions
• OpenGL 1.5 Optimizations and support
• DVC 3.0 (Digital Vibrance Control)
• Dual 400 MHz RAMDACs which support QXGA displays up to 2048x1536 @ 85 Hz
• Dual DVI on Ultra

Many people think that the 6800 GT version is the best value for money. It is functionally the same as the 6800 Ultra but is clocked lower and is less expensive. The 6800 GT also generally ships with a one slot cooling solution while 6800 Ultra cards generally block the adjacent PCI slot, although this is up to the manufacturer.

Early benchmarks put the 6800 series at a disadvantage when compared to similarly priced ATI cards. Newer drivers have improved performance. It is now generally accepted that the GeForce 6800 Ultra is similar in performance to the Radeon X800 XT, and that the GeForce 6800 GT generally performs better than the Radeon X800 Pro.

AGP GeForce 6800 Series VPU

When the 6800 first came out, NVIDIA advertised it with their new on-chip VPU, which was supposed to be able to decode, encode, and play serveral video formats while taking much of the load off the CPU, (mainly for WMV HD). And it also included some other features like advanced de-interlacing. But recently it has been discovered that the AGP 6800 series VPU may be flawed. And apparently, NVIDIA has responded to some saying that it is actually broken, but this has not been confirmed by NVIDIA. The VPU has been proven to work on every 6 series card, the 6200(NV43 and NV44), 6600(NV43) and PCI Express 6800(NV41 core), except the AGP 6800, which was the original NV40 core and the PCI Express 6800GT and Ultra(NV45 core). And since all the new 6 series of cards are based on new cores, including the PCI Express 6800, (NV41) the error was able to be fixed. Also after the 6800 came out, NVIDIA promised a driver to enable the VPU within two weeks. Months have now passed with no official word from NVIDIA. Users are still hoping this problem will be fixed in a future driver release.

The VPU in NV40/45 works fine except it doesn't do hardware accelerated decode of WMV9 HD as hoped for.

GeForce 6600 Series

The mainstream edition of the GeForce 6 is the GeForce 6600 (NV43), which has half the pixel pipelines of the 6800, and a 128-bit memory bus. There are two models - the GeForce 6600 and the 6600GT, with the latter being the faster. Other features are the same as the 6800 series, including support of SLI, but only with the 6600 GT. The 6600/6600 GT performs quite a bit better than the GeForce FX 5950 Ultra, with the 6600 GT scoring around 8000 in 3DMark03, while the GeForce FX 5950 Ultra scored around 6000, and it is also much cheaper.

When it was first realeased, it was only avaliable in PCI Express form, but an AGP version was introduced about a month after the release of its PCI Express counterpart. Also, a cheaper, less powerful model, the GeForce 6610 XL is also to be released soon, though full specifications for it are not yet known.

66** Series specifications:

GeForce 6600:

• Core Clock: 300MHz
• Memory Clock: 550MHz
• Pixel Pipelines: 8
• Number of ROPs: 4
• Vertex Processors: 3
• Memory: 128MiB GDDR1 memory on a 128-bit interface
• MSRP, (RRP): $150 USD

GeForce 6600 GT:

• Core Clock: 500MHz
• Memory Clock: 1000MHz
• Pixel Pipelines: 8
• Number of ROPs: 4
• Vertex Processors: 3
• Memory: 128MiB/256MiB GDDR-3 memory on a 128-bit interface
• MSRP, (RRP): $200 USD

GeForce 6610 XL:

• Core Clock: Unknown
• Memory Clock: Unknown
• Pixel Pipelines: 8
• Number of ROPs: 4
• Vertex Processors: 3
• Memory: Unknown (Probably 128MiB GDDR1 ), will be on a 128-bit interface
• MSRP, (RRP): Unknown (Will probably be an OEM only card).

GeForce 6200

The initial GeForce 6200 uses the same physical core as the 6600 series, but with only four pipelines, and without any memory compression techniques or SLI support. Other features are the same as the 6600s. This model is expected to be phased out in favour of NV44 based cards

GeForce 6200:

• Core Clock: 300MHz
• Memory Clock: 550MHz
• Pixel Pipelines: 4
• Vertex Processors: 3
• Memory: 128MiB/256MiB GDDR1 on a 64-bit/128-bit interface
• MSRP, (RRP): 128MiB: $129 USD, 256MiB: $149 USD

GeForce 6200 TurboCache

The GeForce 6200 TurboCache (NV44) is a natively four-pipeline version of the NV43. NV44 cards will only have a very small (by modern standards) amount of memory, but will make up for this by using memory accessed through the PCI-Express bus.

GeForce 6200 TurboCache:

• Core Clock: 350MHz
• Memory Clock: 700MHz
• Pixel Pipelines: 4
• Vertex Processors: 3
• Memory: 16MiB/32MiB/64MiB GDDR1 on a 32-bit/64-bit interface
• MSRP:

GeForce 6200 w/ TurboCache supporting 128MB, including 16MB of local TurboCache: $79 (32-bit)

GeForce 6200 w/ TurboCache supporting 128MB, including 32MB of local TurboCache: $99 (64-bit)

GeForce 6200 w/ TurboCache supporting 256MB, including 64MB of local TurboCache: $129 (64-bit)

External links

• NVIDIA: GeForce 6 Series Product Overview
• Tom's Hardware Review
• Anandtech
• nvNews Review
• Beyond 3D's Review
• Nvidia GeForce 6 Series and ATi X Series reviews