Gainward Bliss 8800 Ultra

Introduction, packaging, package and specification

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Introduction

Let's first of all take a top-of-the-line GPU...say the 8800 Ultra from nVidia. Next add some spice in the form of one of nVidia's top AIB's - Gainward. What we have is a recipe for something nice, or so I hope.

We take Gainward's "Bliss" 8800 Ultra for a spin, rack up some 3DMark scores and have a play with some pretty tight games. How does it fair? Read on...

Packaging

In their recent style Gainward have used their usual female CGI character on the box. The packaging is pretty attractive although I would not be sure how much it would stand out on shelves next to the likes of BFG and XFX.

gainward 8800 ultra gainward 8800 ultra box

The inside of the box protects the card very well as is usual with Gainwards excellent packaging system.

gainward 8800 ultra inside box

No worries about damage during transit here then.

Package

The package that comes with the 8800 Ultra is Gainwards standard well thought-out package including:

* Install Manual
* CyberLink PowerDVD
* CyberLink DVD Solution
* Driver Disk
* 2 x Dual molex to PCI-e 6 PIN power connectors
* 2 x DVI to VGA converter
* 1 x S-Video to Composite/Component cable

gainward 8800 ultra package

That's a pretty decent looking lot of hardware to go with this top-end card. However, on the games front I feel it's pretty severely lacking, especially after the excellent bundle that Sapphire and ATI managed to put together on the HD2900XT.

Specification

From Gainwards site:

Product Name: BP8800ULTRA-768-DD
Barcode: 471846200-8576
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 Ultra
GPU Clockspeed: 612 MHz
Memory: 768MB 0,8ns DDR3
Memory Clockspeed: 2160 MHz
Pixels per clock (peak) :
Bandwidth:
Ramdac: 400 MHz
Bus: PCI-Express
Cooling: Fan (Two-slot)
Video-Features: Component, S-Video & Composite Out
Connectivity: Dvi + Dvi + Video-Out


And some more detailed specs:

NVIDIA® Unified Architecture

* Unified shader architecture
* GigaThread™ technology
* Full support for Microsoft® DirectX® 10
o Geometry shaders
o Geometry instancing
o Streamed output
o Shader Model 4.0
* Full 128-bit floating point precision through the entire rendering pipeline

NVIDIA Lumenex™ Engine

* 16x full screen anti-aliasing
* Transparent multisampling and transparent supersampling
* 16x angle independent anisotropic filtering
* 128-bit floating point high dynamic-range (HDR) lighting with anti-aliasing
o 32-bit per component floating point texture filtering and blending
* Advanced lossless compression algorithms for color, texture, and z-data
* Support for normal map compression
* Z-cull
* Early-Z

NVIDIA Quantum Effects™ Technology

* Advanced shader processors architected for physics computation
* Simulate and render physics effects on the graphics processor

NVIDIA SLI™ Technology1

* Patented hardware and software technology allows two GeForce-based graphics cards to run in parallel to scale performance and enhance image quality on today's top titles.

NVIDIA PureVideo™ HD Technology2

* Dedicated on-chip video processor
* High-definition H.264, VC-1, MPEG2 and WMV9 decode acceleration
* Advanced spatial-temporal de-interlacing
* HDCP capable3
* Spatial-Temporal De-Interlacing
* Noise Reduction
* Edge Enhancement
* Bad Edit Correction
* Inverse telecine (2:2 and 3:2 pull-down correction)
* High-quality scaling
* Video color correction
* Microsoft® Video Mixing Renderer (VMR) support

Advanced Display Functionality

* Two dual-link DVI outputs for digital flat panel display resolutions up to 2560x1600
* Dual integrated 400MHz RAMDACs for analog display resolutions up to and including 2048x1536 at 85Hz
* Integrated HDTV encoder provides analog TV-output (Component/Composite/S-Video) up to 1080i resolution
* NVIDIA nView® multi-display technology capability
* 10-bit display processing

Built for Microsoft® Windows Vista™

* Full DirectX 10 support
* Dedicated graphics processor powers the new Windows Vista Aero 3D user interface
* VMR-based video architecture

High Speed Interfaces

* Designed for PCI Express® x16
* Designed for high-speed GDDR3 memory

Operating Systems

* Windows Vista /Windows Vista 64
* Windows XP/Windows XP 64
* Linux

API Support

* Complete DirectX support, including Microsoft DirectX 10 Shader Model 4.0
* Full OpenGL® support, including OpenGL 2.0

1 - NVIDIA SLI certified versions of GeForce PCI Express GPUs only.
2 - Feature requires supported video software. Features may vary by product.
3 - Requires other compatible components that are also HDCP capable.

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Most Recent Comments

19-07-2007, 13:47:44

Kempez

sweetness cheers kemp :)
(i'd also like to know if the 8 series can do HDR + AA i tried farcry in vista but i couldn't get it to work the mouse wasn't detecting properly so i gave up without trying and haven't tried on xp yet lol)



Ye course they can, that's why I test em at 4 x AA + HDR

19-07-2007, 20:23:14

PP Mguire
Ok, well actualy shadows on the greenery actualy bogs the card down alot more making it more stressful of a bench. Also, if you test them at 4x+HDR then why not in this review?? Just a thought.

19-07-2007, 21:06:48

Kempez
I did test them at 4 x + HDR in this review

I am aware that shadows on the greenary affect performance, but I had to do a standard test for all the cards for comparison purposes so I chose no shadows.

19-07-2007, 21:15:59

PP Mguire
According to this
http://www.overclock3d.net/gfx/articles/2007/07/08184537656l.jpg

AA is turned off. Thats why i asked.

19-07-2007, 21:18:23

Kempez

I enforced 4 x AA onto the game (via drivers) on all cards, leaving HDR on as an option in-game.



:)

19-07-2007, 22:18:09

PP Mguire
Ahaha, totaly missed that. What an idiot of me lol sorry.

19-07-2007, 22:29:29

Kempez
lol Sok mate, twas an easy mistake

Oblivion won't let you enforce AA and HDR in-game so I use the drivers to do it

19-07-2007, 22:31:58

PP Mguire
Thats what i do, but thats because i have a 7950 card. I thought the G80 and X1900 cards where supposed to allow AA and HDR at the same time? Or is it just Oblivion being a pain?

19-07-2007, 22:43:17

Kempez

Thats what i do, but thats because i have a 7950 card. I thought the G80 and X1900 cards where supposed to allow AA and HDR at the same time? Or is it just Oblivion being a pain?



afaik the 7000 series can't do HDR + AA in Oblivion at all

And for the ATI cards you have to apply it in the drivers too

19-07-2007, 22:49:33

PP Mguire
Ah mk. Thanks alot.
x

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