Geforce FX previews

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NVIDIA's own internal benchmarks reveal that the 8x AGP-compliant GeForce FX has 3x the raw frame rate power of the NV25 (GeForce4 Ti 4xxxx) and 3x the vertex processing. Sporting 125-million transistors and manufactured on a 0.13u process, it's arguably the most technologically advanced GPU available. It's manufactured using the same flip-chip technology as the R300.

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R300 changed all that and since July of this year ATi have held all the cards (excuse the pun). Meanwhile NVIDIA was struggling with one of the biggest technical challenges they've faced to date, the move from a 0.15micron process to a 0.13micron process using copper interconnects. This endeavour was apparently the only reason behind NV3x's delay to market and although it left them in the unfamiliar position of underdog they felt the time was right to tackle the move head on and get it behind them. The deed now complete they have emerged faster, leaner and ready to ramp up those speeds.

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Today’s introduction of the NV30 core marks the beginning of NVIDIA’s next generation DirectX 9 product. The NV30 is the successor to the NV25 core, the chip running today's GeForce4 Ti cards. For comparison's sake, the R300 and the NV30 can be considered as part of the same generation, although the R300 got its foot out the door much sooner than the NV30. Until now, the Radeon 9700 Pro has had no competitor. The delays of getting the NV30 part to production have set NVIDIA back pretty far. In fact, NVIDIA has basically missed a product cycle. Today, NVIDIA is finally announcing their next generation card, one based on the NV30, the GeForce FX. We will take a look into the GeForce FX here, but please keep in mind that this is a preview of the technology. The cards themselves are not quite ready for retail shelves and we will likely not see retail product until February of 2003.

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At this point, you can bet that NVIDIA's top priority is getting the GeForce FX on the market. Those of you that have been loyal in using NVIDIA's products may continue to patiently wait for the initial GeForce FX performance results, which I'm sure NVIDIA appreciates. On the other hand, NVIDIA realizes that every day that passes without the GeForce FX on the market is another day they can lose potential customers to ATI.

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Other items of note are that the GeForceFX can push 8 pixels per clock cycle. This is similar to the ATI's R300 but, as it is for both cards, the true performance will come from the core and mem frequencies, and in the advanced DX9 features (CineFX for NV30). Also, of note is that NVIDIA stated that GeForceFX is compatable with Linux, Windows, Mac OSX, and XBox. I found it rather interesting that XBox was intentionally added to the list. Perhaps an XBox 2 is in the works?