NVidia 6800 --- developer comments from Nvidia news release

See Reviews on Andtech and Tom's.

Available initially in 2 versions:-

2-slot Ultra 16-pixel pipes, 400 MHz GPU, 600 MHz Samsung GDDR3 memory
clocked at 550MHz ( overclockers take note)
memory size not specified, although the NV40
supports 128/256/512 Meg.
(Likely to be 256 Meg initially ? ) Price $499


1-slot non-Ultra 12-pipes, 400MHz GPU, memory TBD
Price $299

The video encoding/decoding features ( especially the MPEG2 ENCODER
hardware) are also very interesting. Adobe After Effects will be
supporting the NV40.

Id and Valve are notable by their absence in the trext below
( although John Carmack has already privately commented on the
NV40 ). Valve is likely to be suffering a bad attack of very sour
grapes................

-----------------Nvidia News Release ---------------
Full Support for Microsoft DirectX 9.0 and Shader Model 3.0 Takes Game
Development to New Levels SANTA CLARA, Calif., Apr 14, 2004
/PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ -- NVIDIA Corporation ( NASDAQ:
NVDA), the worldwide leader in visual processing solutions, today
revealed that its new GeForce(TM) 6 Series of graphics processing
units (GPUs) is receiving rave reviews and widespread industry support
from the world's top game creators and publishers.

The GeForce 6 Series delivers a dramatic leap in production quality by
giving game creators the freedom to create film-quality effects at
performance levels never before possible in real time. Featuring full
support for Microsoft(R) DirectX(R) 9.0 and the Shader Model 3.0
specification, the GeForce 6 Series opens up limitless possibilities
for developers looking to create much more immersive and lifelike
interactive 3D worlds and characters -- all rendered in real time.

"By providing a hardware platform designed to enable movie-quality
graphics in a real-time, interactive 3D environment, the NVIDIA
GeForce 6 Series comes at a pivotal time in the games industry when
game creators are looking for new, more efficient ways to advance
their craft," said Mark Daly, vice president of content development at
NVIDIA. "For game creators, the GeForce 6 Series delivers a dramatic
leap in production quality by encouraging the use of the latest
software advancements, such as Shader Model 3.0. The result will be
stunning looking games that can be experienced on consumer PCs,
pixel-for-pixel, just the way the creator intended."

The arrival of the GeForce 6 Series has the industry buzzing:

"The arrival of the new GeForce 6800 will further open the door for
any game developer looking to push the limits of their imaginations."

-- Dusty Welch, Vice President, Global Brand Management, Activision

"The GeForce 6800 delivers screaming performance on demanding games
like Unreal Tournament 2004 from start to finish. NVIDIA's newest
powerhouse technology is a perfect match for any gamer who demands
non-stop action and blazing fast frame rates."

-- David T. Brown, Producer for Unreal Tournament 2004, Atari

"The pace of innovation in graphics technology is a very exciting
prospect for both game developers and gamers and NVIDIA has set yet
another milestone with the GeForce 6800. For Blizzard, the affordable
cost and consistent compatibility and reliability of NVIDIA GPUs make
it easy for us to recommend GeForce cards to our customers."

-- Blizzard Entertainment

"Not only is the GeForce 6800 extremely fast, it allows us to take our
games to the next generation of cinematic realism. The advanced shader
capabilities alone open up a whole new realm of possibilities for us."

-- Steven Lux, Vice President of US Marketing, Codemasters

"With the GeForce 6800, NVIDIA brings long-awaited, true high
dynamic-range imaging to gaming."

-- Dean Sekulic, Programmer, Croteam

"The GeForce 6800 is a flexible platform that allows us to fully
exploit DirectX 9.0 shader technology. We were able to achieve a very
beautiful, polished game with Far Cry, but now we have the ability to
push technologies like high-dynamic range, floating point blending and
dynamic branching to render pixels at double the speed, and that's a
particularly exciting prospect as we begin to focus on the advancement
of the CryEngine for new big games!"

-- Cevat Yerli, CEO and President, Crytek.

"The newest generation of NVIDIA GPUs will more than satisfy a gamer's
hunger for intense, fast-paced action. For cutting-edge games like
Painkiller, where fast, reliable performance is essential, NVIDIA has
delivered the goods."

-- Brian Gladman, Product Manager, DreamCatcher Games

"With the introduction of the GeForce 6800, NVIDIA has once again
raised the bar for what's possible to achieve in PC gaming."

-- Anand Gupta, Director of Business Development, Eidos Interactive

"With its combination of new features and performance, NVIDIA's new
GeForce 6800 is impressive and exciting. For the high-quality
cinematic look and feel we're trying to achieve for our latest game,
the Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle-earth, this technology
couldn't have come along at a better time."

-- Mark Skaags, Vice President and Executive Producer, Electronic Arts

"The Grafan game engine's use of high dynamic-range lighting, multiple
real-time shadows, and multipass rendering techniques requires a
high-performance graphics card. We're currently working with the
GeForce 6800 Ultra GPU and using pixel shader 3.0; all we can say is
'wow.'"

-- Herb Marselas, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Emogence,
LLC

"The sheer performance power of the GeForce 6800 will allow gamers to
make the detailed 3D environments of Soldner work for them, as they
seamlessly move through complex and highly detailed maps to achieve
their missions."

-- Greg Bauman, Senior Marketing Manager, Encore Software

"The GeForce 6800 is a great leap forward in PC graphics, bringing
next-generation DirectX 9.0 rendering performance to new heights while
continuing forward with the high-definition floating-point rendering,
driver performance, and stability NVIDIA is famous for. As the first
GPU supporting the new pixel shader 3.0 programming model, the GeForce
6800 enables games to use entirely new rendering approaches and obtain
higher performance per-pixel lighting, shadowing, and special effects
than was ever possible before."

-- Tim Sweeney, Founder and President, Epic Games

"With 16 pixel pipelines and comprehensive support of Shader Model
3.0, the GeForce 6800 offers a wide spectrum of new features at the
highest level of performance. We're looking forward to combining two
new capabilities -- vertex texture sampling and stream frequency
dividing -- to pack our mesh data, thus minimizing our video memory
usage. Furthermore, OpenEXR support in texture filtering and pixel
blending will finally allow us to efficiently implement high
dynamic-range rendering, while also allowing our artists to fully
express themselves in this extended domain."

-- Janos Boudet, Senior Engine Programmer, Eugensystems

"We are really impressed by NVIDIA's GeForce 6800. Being at the
forefront of technology, NVIDIA is an ideal partner."

-- Brian Jobling, Chief Executive Officer, Eutechnyx

"The GeForce 6800 is actually where dreams become reality. We've been
waiting for a hardware platform to arrive that supports pixel and
vertex 3.0 shaders so we can take the Torque Shader Engine to its
fullest potential and showcase technology that we've only imagined
before."

-- Jay Moore, Evangelist, Garage Games

"With this new generation we're really getting things down and not
only are we faster and better, but we're now perfecting and mastering
the technology."

-- Randy Pitchford, President and CEO, Gearbox

"The vertex stream instancing enabled by the GeForce 6800 is a killer
feature that allows our SpeedTree technology to drive forests of
unprecedented depth and density. Coupled with raw performance, we
fully expect our customers' games to boast far richer and more
immersive environments."

-- Chris King, President, IDV, Inc.

"The GeForce 6800 is proof of NVIDIA's commitment to providing
developers with the tools and hardware we need to hone our craft.
Intensity is a hallmark of the Call of Duty franchise, and having a
hardware platform that allows us to take the immersion to the next
level, with cinematic quality visuals at amazing frame rates, is
extremely exciting."

-- Vince Zampella, Chief Creative Officer, Infinity Ward

"These new GeForce 6800s are scary fast; it runs Thief: Deadly Shadows
at 1600x1200 with AA and all the detail settings cranked all the way
up faster than anything we have tested on. I can't wait to get these
in our development boxes as we are starting work on our next rendering
technology. Having FP16 buffers fully supported as a texture format is
awesome and 3.0 shader support gives us the ideal platform to develop
on today for our next titles. Actually I can't wait to get one in my
computer!"

-- Tim Little, Director of Technology, Ion Storm, LP

"What most excites me about the GeForce 6 Series is the Vertex Stream
Frequency Divider and Pixel Shader 3.0 support. The combination will
give us the ability to create richer game environments and complex
special effects. At last we will be able to do realistic gas and fluid
simulations in real time!"

-- Tim Ramsay, Senior Graphics Programmer, LucasArts

"NVIDIA's GeForce 6 Series changes the playing field and sets new
standards for image clarity and quality through floating point
capabilities in shading, filtering, texturing, and blending."

-- Kevin Stephens, Director of Technology, Monolith

"It's clear that NVIDIA has done it again with the GeForce 6800. Not
only is it wicked fast for Joint Operations: Typhoon Rising, but it
provides us with a forward-looking platform for creating
next-generation games today. The ability to create and deploy pixel
and vertex 3.0 shaders will allow us to reach new levels of realism
that weren't possible before."

-- Mark Davis, Chief Scientist, Novalogic

"We have been absolutely blown away by NVIDIA's GeForce 6800 and its
amazing set of features. Thanks NVIDIA for putting so much power in
our hands!"

-- Laurent Paret, Vice President of Business Development and
Co-Founder, NP Cube

"I think that NVIDIA's GeForce 6800 is a brilliant card. Because it
implements Microsoft DirectX 9.0 features at full speed and quality,
it is going to dramatically increase overall performance of today's
DirectX 9.0 games, including Painkiller."

-- Klaudiusz Zych, Technology Programmer, People Can Fly

"I can't wait to get my hands on some GeForce 6800 hardware with its
full support for floating point textures and pixel and vertex shader
branching!"

-- Greg Hjelstrom, Lead 3D Engineer, Petroglyph

"We've been flabbergasted by GeForce 6800's sheer power delivered by
16 pixel pipelines at incredible speed. Its unsurpassed fill rate and
shader performance is of tremendous value to all game developers."

-- Kurt Pelzer, Senior Software Engineer, Piranha Bytes

"Just by running the samples from the NVIDIA Developer SDK 7.0 on a
GeForce 6800 Ultra, it's easy to see the immense power and graphical
possibilities of this next-generation-today graphics card."

-- Bob Troughton, PC Rendering Lead, Pitbull Syndicate

"NVIDIA has stepped it up a few more gears with the GeForce 6 Series.
Vertex and pixel shader 3.0, with dynamic branching is exactly what
developers have been longing for since the inception of shaders on the
PC."

-- Mark Robinson, Senior PC Programmer, Rockstar San Diego

"We've made a serious commitment to NVIDIA, and they to us, as the
graphics platform of choice for EverQuest II. Our 3D artists and
technologists rely on the feature set and programmability of NVIDIA
GPUs to keep our online world running smoothly and looking
spectacular. The introduction of the GeForce 6800 presents a
particularly exciting proposition for us, as it unlocks a ton of new
features that our artists have been asking for. With this new
technology, the beautiful worlds of EverQuest II will be a level
beyond every other massively multiplayer game available."

-- John Smedley, President, Sony Online Entertainment

"Due to the fact that the NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra runs our latest
tech flawlessly right out of the box, we are absolutely delighted with
both the level of performance and the rock-solid drivers, ensuring
developers, publishers, and most importantly customers, benefit to the
max without any hassle whatsoever."

-- Martyn Brown, Creative Director, Team17 Software Limited

"With the GeForce 6800, NVIDIA is raising the bar by delivering tons
of stunning and highly useful features. Totally orthogonal support for
64-bit floating point color across the entire pipeline -- including
texture filtering and frame buffer blending -- makes GeForce 6800 the
perfect graphics hardware for high dynamic-range rendering which is at
the basis of our next-generation game engine!"

-- Jakub Klarowicz, Senior Engine Programmer, Techland

"NVIDIA's GeForce 6800 is the most powerful graphics hardware I've
ever seen. Its performance and capabilities will help us reach new
levels of image quality."

-- Julien Merceron, Chief Technology Officer, Ubisoft

"We have a very clear goal for the Xubl game engine -- render 80,000
polygons per frame without a hitch in performance. With NVIDIA's
GeForce 6800, not only are we able to do just that, but we're also
able to push out unique and stylized effects on a high-performance
hardware platform that supports advanced rendering techniques like
normal mapping, high dynamic-range lighting and complex 3.0 shaders."

-- Bostjan Troha, CEO, Zootfly

"The feature set of the GeForce 6800 is truly astounding. Just when I
thought graphics hardware couldn't possibly evolve at a faster pace,
NVIDIA once again exceeds my wildest expectations by delivering a GPU
with a design that is remarkably ahead of its time."

-- Eric Lengyel, Author, Mathematics of 3D Programming and The OpenGL
Extensions Guide

------------------------------------------------------

John Lewis

And in 6 months time there'll be about 6800 models to choose from. :-\

--
But why is the Rum gone?