PlayStation 3 GPU Less Powerful than GeForce 7800

[VictoryOverWar]

PlayStation 3 GPU Less Powerful than GeForce 7800
By: César A. Berardini - "Cesar"
Aug. 31st, 2005 8:34 am
When Sony unveiled its next-generation PlayStation last May, one of the slides displayed in the presentation showed that the PlayStation 3 GPU had the power of two GeForce 6800 Ultras working in SLI mode (nVIDIA's Scalable Link Interface multi-GPU technology). At that time, nVIDIA (the developer of the PlayStation 3 RSX GPU) has not yet unveiled its latest graphics architecture, formerly code-named G70.

But now that the GeForce 7800 GTX and its little brother, the recently announced GeForce 7800 GT graphics processing unit, have been announced, and an interesting tidbit comes from none other than the Official PlayStation Magazine.

The Inquirer reports that an nVIDIA spokesperson was quoted in the magazine saying that the RSX GPU is basically a slightly less powerful GeForce 7800.

That means that almost a year before launch, there’s a PC graphics chip that is more powerful than the RSX GPU found in the PlayStation 3. And make no mistake, this is not a crazy, speculative conclusion ; this comes straight from the company that makes both parts: the RSX and GeForce 7800 graphics processing units.

That’s not good news for consoles, being that the typical 4-to-5 year lifecycle a console must survive allows computers to catch up quickly with the technology found on next-generation consoles.


Usually, game consoles ship with hardware that is not available on personal computer at the time of launch, and a few months later, PC hardware manufacturers create hardware parts that surpass console technologies.

But launching with a technology that is already available on PC is not good at all for a “next-generation” console. By the time the PlayStation 3 launches, there will be already a new GPU from nVIDIA that will be more powerful that their current flagship GPU, the GeForce 7800 GTX.


So, what about the Xbox 360? In the case of the graphics processing unit designed for the Xbox 360, ATI has included technology on the Xenos GPU that won’t be available for PC graphics chip in the next twelve months, including the unified shader architecture and the embedded DRAM daughter die.
A so called R600, which might debut towards the launch of Windows Vista, in the fourth quarter of 2006, might incorporate the special technologies ATI put into the Xbox 360 GPU.


With a three-core processor and its state-of-the-art GPU, the Xbox 360 hardware won’t be matched by PC until late 2006, when quad-core processors from AMD and Intel arrive and Windows Graphics Foundation 2.0-compliant GPUs, featuring unified shader architecture, arrive.

The next-generation begins with the Xbox 360. Don’t you forget!

got this off team xbox site

[Lt_JWS]

well said! The 7800s are still some really powerful gpus, esp. @ high resolutions with AA and AF enabled, but they will have nothing on the 360

[citizen X]

That’s right, and the 360’s GPU still has that 10mb imbedded ram for frame buffering and that alone Is very new. + the GPU was design to run off of 3 power PC CPUs so I don’t expect any GPU company to get that far any time soon.

[Grindstone]

Nice find. I think we had, for the most part, come to that conclusion on our own (with regards to the GPU in the PS3), but it is good to see that our assumptions were not unfounded.

Side note: that's a hilarious avatar V.O.W.

[Lt_JWS]

Im pretty sure the Gamecube has some EDRAM, for frame/texture buffering
Link:scroll ~ 1/2 way down
Gamecube Specs

[daniel.isaac.h]

Sux for Sony lmao! Good find!

[Rubiks14]

very nice find there. i wouldn't really want to be sony right now well all the better for microsoft lol

[bxgladiator]

Me being a fan of sony this kinda hurts that sony would let sumthing like that happen. Looks like xbox just might beat sony

[VictoryOverWar]

PlayStation 3 GPU More Powerful than GeForce 7800!
By: César A. Berardini - "Cesar"
Aug. 31st, 2005 4:16 pm
NVIDIA contacted us today after we published the "PlayStation 3 GPU Less Powerful than GeForce 7800" story based on a report found at The Inquirer. Derek Perez, NVIDIA's Director of Public Relations, was kind enough to provide us the actual paragraph from the September issue of PSM. Here is the information from the blurb in question:

There's no doubting that NVIDIA's new 7800GTX is the ultimate in PC graphics technology. The card's G70 GPU, which is more than twice as powerful as two of NVIDIA's previous top-of-the-line 6800 boards, shares a lot of similar workings with the PS3's RSX chip - only it isn't as fast. Oh, and it retails for $599.

The article actually says the GeForce 7800 GTX is not as fast as the RSX graphics processing unit that NVIDIA developed for the PlayStation 3.

We apologize for any confusion and we'd like to thank NVIDIA for providing the exact info.

[Cybergig1]

lol funny how people jumped on wrong information thanks for posting up the retraction VOW. I was about to say all the reports before had stalked about it being more powerful than a 7800 which still seems to be the case. Honestly though heck if it were just as good I'd be happy. My 6600GT has insane graphics (graphics that completely shatter my xbox and other consoles with games like HL2 and especially Battlefield 2), consoles having just that much would do it for me, but knowing it'll have even a little more is just bread and butter

either way I just want my new systems lol :\ I'm ready for next gen gaming XD

[SimplyFresh]

So...??? Xbox 360 ATI GPU is more powerful than PS3's NVIDIA GPU??

[taylor410]

from what i remember no... but its more then just the megahertz they run at. Technology is getting rather complicated for the simple consumer to accurately compare.