The GeForce 8 Series is a computer graphics processing unit the eighth generation of NVIDIA's GeForce line. The third major GPU architecture developed at NVIDIA, the Geforce 8 represents the company's first unified shader architecture.[1][2]
| NVIDIA GeForce 8 Series | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Codename(s) | G80, G84, G86, G92, G98 |
| Release date | 2006 |
| Entry-level GPU | 8100 (IGP), 8200 (IGP), 8300 (both integrated and discrete variants), 8400 |
| Mid-Range GPU | 8500, 8600 |
| High-end GPU | 8800 |
| Direct3D and Shader version | D3D 10.0, Model 4.0 |
Contents
[hide]- 1 GeForce 8 Series overview
- 2 GeForce 8300 and 8400 Series
- 3 GeForce 8500 and 8600 Series
- 4 GeForce 8800 Series
- 5 GeForce 8M Series
- 6 Caveat
- 7 See also
- 8 References
- 9 External links
GeForce 8 Series overview
3D rendering
The GeForce 8 series arrived with NVIDIA's first unified shader Direct3D 10 Shader Model 4.0 / OpenGL 2.1 architecture. The design is a major shift for NVIDIA in GPU functionality and capability, the most obvious change being the move from the separate functional units (pixel shaders, vertex shaders) within previous GPUs to a homogeneous collection of universal floating point processors (called "stream processors") that can perform a more universal set of tasks.
Model Adrianne Curry watching a 3D animation of herself during a GeForce 8 demo.GPU NVIDIA G80.GeForce 8's unified shader architecture consists of a number of stream processors (SPs). Unlike the vector processing approach taken with older shader units, each SP is scalar and thus can operate only on one component at a time. This makes them less complex to build while still being quite flexible and universal. Scalar shader units also have the advantage of being more efficient in a number of cases as compared to previous generation vector shader units that rely on ideal instruction mixture and ordering to reach peak throughput. The lower maximum throughput of these scalar processors is compensated for by efficiency and by running them at a high clock speed (made possible by their simplicity). GeForce 8 runs the various parts of its core at differing clock speeds (clock domains), similar to the operation of the previous GeForce 7 Series GPUs. For example, the stream processors of GeForce 8800 GTX operate at a 1.35 GHz clock rate while the rest of the chip is operating at 575 MHz.[2]
GeForce 8 performs significantly better texture filtering than its predecessors that used various optimizations and visual tricks to speed up rendering while impairing filtering quality. The GeForce 8 line correctly renders an angle-independent anisotropic filtering algorithm along with full trilinear texture filtering. G80, though not its smaller brethren, is equipped with much more texture filtering arithmetic ability than the GeForce 7 series. This allows high-quality filtering with a much smaller performance hit than previously.[2]
NVIDIA has also introduced new polygon edge anti-aliasing methods, including the ability of the GPU's ROPs to perform both Multisample anti-aliasing (MSAA) and HDR lighting at the same time, correcting various limitations of previous generations. GeForce 8 can perform MSAA with both FP16 and FP32 texture formats. GeForce 8 supports 128-bit HDR rendering, an increase from prior cards' 64-bit support. The chip's new anti-aliasing technology, called coverage sampling AA (CSAA), uses Z, color, and coverage information to determine final pixel color. This technique of color optimization allows 16X CSAA to look crisp and sharp.[3]
The claimed theoretical processing power for the 8 Series cards given in FLOPS may not be correct at all times. For example the GeForce 8800 GTX has 518.43 GigaFLOPs theoretical performance given the fact that there are 128 stream processors at 1.35 GHz with each SP being able to run 1 Multiply-Add and 1 Multiply instruction per clock [(MADD (2 FLOPs) + MUL (1 FLOP))×1350MHz×128 SPs ＝ 518.4 GigaFLOPs][4]. This figure may not be correct because the Multiply operation is not always available[5] giving a possibly more accurate performance figure of (2×1350×128) = 345.6 GigaFLOPs.
Max Resolution
Dual Dual-link DVI Support: Able to drive the industry's largest and highest resolution flat-panel displays up to 2560x1600. Available on select GeForce 8800 and 8600 GPUs.
One Dual-link DVI Support: Able to drive the industry's largest and highest resolution flat-panel displays up to 2560x1600. Available on select GeForce 8500 GPUs and Geforce 8400 GS cards based on the G98.
One Single-link DVI Support: Able to drive the industry's largest and highest resolution flat-panel displays up to 1920x1200. Available on select GeForce 8400 GPUs.[6] Geforce 8400 GS cards based on the G86 only support single-link DVI.
Display capabilities
The GeForce 8 series supports 10-bit per channel display output, up from 8-bit on previous NVIDIA cards. This potentially allows higher fidelity color representation and separation on capable displays. The GeForce 8 series, like its recent predecessors, also supports Scalable Link Interface (SLI) for multi-card rendering.
NVIDIA's PureVideo HD video rendering technology is an improved version of the original PureVideo introduced with GeForce 6. It now includes GPU-based hardware acceleration for decoding HD movie formats, post-processing of HD video for enhanced images, and optional High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) support at the card level.[7]
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