Nvidia GeForce 6800 Ultra Previewed

[Gordon Moore]

Although I'm a week or so behind with this...for those who haven't seen:

HardOCP( and others) has reviewed the reference 6800Ultra

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NjA2

Why is the NV40 chip important...well for home theater:






Hardware MPEG encode/decode 8O Yowza!




"A RONSTER!"

[ThomasW]

I'm gonna run right out and buy one, as soon as they move the decimal point over to the left one digit on the price.....




theAudioWorx
Klone-Audio

[Gordon Moore]

I hear ya brother

I'll afford an NV40 when there's an NV80




"A RONSTER!"

[aud19]

Why is the NV40 chip important...well for home theater:

So maybe you guys can actually translate some of that info....? ops:

Why is this card so good for HT? I think I see the bennefits of hardware MPEG encoding but does that mean what I think it does? Will I be able to input an analog HD feed via say component and encode it to MPEG? I was under the impression that only BIG$$$$$ studio equipment could do that? What other HT bennefits does this card have? That article (like most :x ) spoutted on and on about game performance but that was it.... I mean I enjoy the odd game here and there (NHL 2004 by EA anyone :P) But my next PC will be a HTPC centered around HDTV/PVR, DVD playback and family room computing/websurfing with a bit of gaming thrown in for fun.

I am however awaiting... A) Funds to actually build the thing :roll: and B)MRAM or something similar to allow near instantaneous boot and C)Video cards that will play nice with HDTV. Is the 6800 the answer to C at least?

Jason




Need a new display? Questions about new display technologies? Visit RPTVs, plasmas, and other monitors @ HTguide

[JonMarsh]

Video Kitchen Sink

This bad puppy has just about everything built into it that you might want do do with hardware support for video- even for WM9 at HD res, as well as MPEG encode and decode up to 1920 X 1080.

The problem is, full driver support in the card and Windows will take a while...

~Jon

[Chris D]

(sigh) Add just one more piece of equipment to my "wish list" for theater use.

[JonMarsh]

I think it's gonna take nVidia a while to get the software altogether for this bad boy, but when it is done, it SHOULD be pretty special...

I'm using a 5700 Ultra with Forceware/NVDVD 3 right now, and it's pretty nice as HTPC goes. But obviously, it doesn't do MPEG encoding or have WM9 hardware decoding support!

~Jon