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**Praetor** · 02-26-2006, 03:02 PM

Section 08 - A Look at nVidia
Aside from ATi, nvidia is the other corporate behemoth, their claims to fame are:

Driver stability For as long as memories can stretch, we've heard of the horror stories with ATi drivers and while that's mostly been fixed by now, nVidia drivers have been, for the most part, stable all the way through. With constant betas and updates being released left, right and center, nVidia's driver team is constantly looking to improve functionality and performance.
Revolutionary. While ATi has the Radeon9700 to it's credit (and a hell of a credit it is), first to implement 256bit memory, 3Dc/3Dc+ and more recently, the RingBus; nVidia has major landmarks like TnT (Twin 'n Texel, doubling the texture fill rate capabilities), first 256bit GPU, first to implement hardware T&L, FSAA, UltraShadow, first to provide a top-to-bottom DX9 solution, first to implement SM3.0 and support DX9.0c, the first to successfully ressurrect SLI and multiGPU processing.
Product Launches When nVidia says a product is made and ready to go, it really is! Goto a dealer odds are they've got the product to ready to sell (albeit at potentially insane prices)
OpenGL. While ATi may have superior performance in DirectX games, the advantage there is nothing compared to the class leading advantage that nVidia has enjoyed for the longest time (although it seems ATi is dealing with this issue via driver tweaks -- and successfully at that).

Although just like ATi, nVidia is known for a few shady things too:

Driver cheating. A fairly well known issue of nVidia's drivers performing extensive 'optimizations' for a widely used benchmark known as 3dMark03 and their refusal to admit it when they got caught was a bad moment both for the trustworthiness/effectiveness of benchmarks as well as the true measure of nVidia's performance
GeForceFX. Just as this lineup was known for being the first top-to-bottom DirectX9 solution, it was also known for absolutely dismal performance in DirectX9 mode -- so poor that it was better off to treat GeForceFX hardware as DirectX8 hardware. All that and the excessively noisy two slot cooler used with the GeForceFX 5800Ultra.
Power Requirements Although this isnt so much of an issue now with the GeForce7/X1000 lineup but with the GeForceFX/GeForce6/X800 lineup, nVidia's cards required an excessive amount of power without providing a linear relationship with performance. Having high thermals didnt help things either
GeForce4MX. After a steller job with the GeForce3/GeForce4Ti series, nVidia screws up by releasing the GeForce4MX budget lineup of cards which were DirectX7 parts -- a full step backwards.

Now for a quick breakdown of the last three or so generations of nVidia cards

DirectX7 class GeForce cards. nVidia was the first to have a viable (and incredibly successful) DirectX7 platform:
- NV10 - GeForce [SDR, DDR]
- NV11 - GeForce2 [MX, MX200, MX400]
- NV15 - GeForce2 [GTS-V, GTS, Pro, Ultra, Ti]
- NV17 - GeForce4 [MX420, MX440, MX440SE, MX460, MX4000]
DirectX8 class GeForce cards Up until the release of the Radeon9700, these cards were incredibly successful and the later models were still viable as budget options all the way until the GeForce6 line-up
- NV20 - GeForce3 [Plain, Ti200, Ti500]
- NV25 - GeForce4 [Ti4200, Ti4400, Ti4600]
- NV28 - GeForce4 [Ti4800SE, Ti4800]
DirectX9 class GeForce Cards - GeForceFX lineup. To nVidia's credit, they released an entire platform of cards that were out of the box DirectX9 capable (to address the GF4MX debacle) but then again the performance of these cards was less than sellar
- NV30 - GeForceFX 5800 [Plain, Ultra]
- NV31 - GeForceFX 5600 [Plain, SE, XT, Ultra]
- NV34 - GeForceFX 5200 [Plain, Ultra]
- NV34 - GeForceFX 5500
- NV35 - GeForceFX 5900 [Plain, ZT, SE, XT, Ultra]
- NV36 - GeForceFX 5700 [Plain, VE, LE, Ultra]
- NV38 - GeForceFX 5950 [Ultra]
DirectX9.0c class GeForce cards - GeForce6 lineup. To address the DirectX9 issues the GeForceFX lineup had, the GeForce6 lineup offered a generational leap in performance and was the first to support DirectX9.0c, a marketing point that it's competition, the X800 lineup, could not make.
- NV40 - GeForce6800 [Ultra Extreme]
- NV40/NV41/NV42 - GeForce6800 [Plain]
- NV40/NV45 - GeForce6800 [GT, Ultra]
- NV41/NV42 - GeForce6800 [XT, LE]
- NV44 - GeForce6200 [Plain, Turbocache]
- NV44 - GeForce6600 [Plain, GT, XT, LE]
- NV45 - GeForce6800 [GTO]
DirectX9.0c class GeForce cards - GeForce7 lineup. Yet another massive leap in performance, the GeForce7 lineup has had a 6 month marketshare advantage on ATi's competition, the X1000 series
- G70 - GeForce 7800 [GS, GT, GTX]

02-26-2006, 03:02 PM	#15 (permalink)
Praetor Administrator Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Canada Age: 26 Posts: 19,953	Section 08 - A Look at nVidia Aside from ATi, nvidia is the other corporate behemoth, their claims to fame are: Driver stability For as long as memories can stretch, we've heard of the horror stories with ATi drivers and while that's mostly been fixed by now, nVidia drivers have been, for the most part, stable all the way through. With constant betas and updates being released left, right and center, nVidia's driver team is constantly looking to improve functionality and performance. Revolutionary. While ATi has the Radeon9700 to it's credit (and a hell of a credit it is), first to implement 256bit memory, 3Dc/3Dc+ and more recently, the RingBus; nVidia has major landmarks like TnT (Twin 'n Texel, doubling the texture fill rate capabilities), first 256bit GPU, first to implement hardware T&L, FSAA, UltraShadow, first to provide a top-to-bottom DX9 solution, first to implement SM3.0 and support DX9.0c, the first to successfully ressurrect SLI and multiGPU processing. Product Launches When nVidia says a product is made and ready to go, it really is! Goto a dealer odds are they've got the product to ready to sell (albeit at potentially insane prices) OpenGL. While ATi may have superior performance in DirectX games, the advantage there is nothing compared to the class leading advantage that nVidia has enjoyed for the longest time (although it seems ATi is dealing with this issue via driver tweaks -- and successfully at that). Although just like ATi, nVidia is known for a few shady things too: Driver cheating. A fairly well known issue of nVidia's drivers performing extensive 'optimizations' for a widely used benchmark known as 3dMark03 and their refusal to admit it when they got caught was a bad moment both for the trustworthiness/effectiveness of benchmarks as well as the true measure of nVidia's performance GeForceFX. Just as this lineup was known for being the first top-to-bottom DirectX9 solution, it was also known for absolutely dismal performance in DirectX9 mode -- so poor that it was better off to treat GeForceFX hardware as DirectX8 hardware. All that and the excessively noisy two slot cooler used with the GeForceFX 5800Ultra. Power Requirements Although this isnt so much of an issue now with the GeForce7/X1000 lineup but with the GeForceFX/GeForce6/X800 lineup, nVidia's cards required an excessive amount of power without providing a linear relationship with performance. Having high thermals didnt help things either GeForce4MX. After a steller job with the GeForce3/GeForce4Ti series, nVidia screws up by releasing the GeForce4MX budget lineup of cards which were DirectX7 parts -- a full step backwards. Now for a quick breakdown of the last three or so generations of nVidia cards DirectX7 class GeForce cards. nVidia was the first to have a viable (and incredibly successful) DirectX7 platform: NV10 - GeForce [SDR, DDR] NV11 - GeForce2 [MX, MX200, MX400] NV15 - GeForce2 [GTS-V, GTS, Pro, Ultra, Ti] NV17 - GeForce4 [MX420, MX440, MX440SE, MX460, MX4000] DirectX8 class GeForce cards Up until the release of the Radeon9700, these cards were incredibly successful and the later models were still viable as budget options all the way until the GeForce6 line-up NV20 - GeForce3 [Plain, Ti200, Ti500] NV25 - GeForce4 [Ti4200, Ti4400, Ti4600] NV28 - GeForce4 [Ti4800SE, Ti4800] DirectX9 class GeForce Cards - GeForceFX lineup. To nVidia's credit, they released an entire platform of cards that were out of the box DirectX9 capable (to address the GF4MX debacle) but then again the performance of these cards was less than sellar NV30 - GeForceFX 5800 [Plain, Ultra] NV31 - GeForceFX 5600 [Plain, SE, XT, Ultra] NV34 - GeForceFX 5200 [Plain, Ultra] NV34 - GeForceFX 5500 NV35 - GeForceFX 5900 [Plain, ZT, SE, XT, Ultra] NV36 - GeForceFX 5700 [Plain, VE, LE, Ultra] NV38 - GeForceFX 5950 [Ultra] DirectX9.0c class GeForce cards - GeForce6 lineup. To address the DirectX9 issues the GeForceFX lineup had, the GeForce6 lineup offered a generational leap in performance and was the first to support DirectX9.0c, a marketing point that it's competition, the X800 lineup, could not make. NV40 - GeForce6800 [Ultra Extreme] NV40/NV41/NV42 - GeForce6800 [Plain] NV40/NV45 - GeForce6800 [GT, Ultra] NV41/NV42 - GeForce6800 [XT, LE] NV44 - GeForce6200 [Plain, Turbocache] NV44 - GeForce6600 [Plain, GT, XT, LE] NV45 - GeForce6800 [GTO] DirectX9.0c class GeForce cards - GeForce7 lineup. Yet another massive leap in performance, the GeForce7 lineup has had a 6 month marketshare advantage on ATi's competition, the X1000 series G70 - GeForce 7800 [GS, GT, GTX] __________________ ASUS P5K Premium WiFi-AP, Q6600@3.7 / ASUS P5ND, E6400@3.8 4GB OCz Platinum XTC 8500 / 4GB CorsairXMS2 6400 5x500GB Seagate 7200.10 / 2x500 Seagate 7200.10 OCz 8800GTX 768MB @ 630/800 / 2x Galaxy 8800GT SLI