Introduction

Windows Vistas RTM build was created 2 days ago and with it DirectX 10 became available to the world. DirectX 10 was designed from scratch, unlike the previous 8 iterations that were all expansions on the original DirectX which was released in 1995.

Like the previous versions of DirectX many graphics cards have basically been expansions on previous designs, however in order to fully realise the potential/features of DirectX 10 Nvidia have designed the G80, hereafter known as the 8800 series from the ground up.

As well as designing a GPU which is capable of excelling in DirectX 10 situations Nvidia had to accommodate existing technology and ensure that not only did their card have the ability to play catch-up with ATI in areas such as the ability to do HDR and AA the ideal scenario would be a product which also outperformed existing competitor solutions in titles from the past few years.

Could all this be done successfully? and would there be any downsides to the approach? read on to find out.