NVIDIA launches GeForce 4

Today in Brussels NVIDIA has launched GeForce 4 to the world. It arrives in two distinct flavours: Ti and MX. New additions to the GPU include the nfiniteFX II engine (sporting dual vertex shaders, advanced pixel shader pipelines, 3D textures, shadow buffers and z-correct bump mapping), Accuview antialiasing technology and upgraded Lightspeed Memory Architecture, along with a new video processing engine to improve DVD playback. All of which makes it a tough little Ti 500-beater. NVIDIA has focused on overcoming bottlenecks and improving performance, and the result is a card capable of outpacing anything else on the market at the high end. GeForce 4 Ti performs at a level far beyond the GeForce 3 Ti 500, and boasts a 128Mb frame buffer, 650MHz DDR memory and the world's fastest core clock speed of 300MHz. GeForce 4 Ti is made up of some 63 million transistors, compared to the GF3's 57m, and can generally do anything the GeForce 3 Ti 500 can do a lot more efficiently. For example, both run like the Teflon proverbial out of a shovel, but the big lad can do anything the Ti 500 can do at the same speed with 2x FSAA enabled. GeForce 4 Ti 4600 will launch at roughly £280 / €455, with ViVo alongside DVI and VGA output, while the Ti 4400 (almost the same card with TV-out instead of ViVo) will cost £210 / €340. GeForce 4 MX comes in three models, but several companies (including VisionTek) have already announced line-ups that do not feature the MX 460. GeForce 4 MX is best described as a cost-effective high-performance GPU, with 64Mb of memory to back it up. Its lack of grunt is only comparative though, and when you consider that its dual 350MHz DACs can drive two displays with resolutions up to 2048x1536 at 75Hz, it's not all bad. nVIEW - NVIDIA's buzzword for its multidisplay technology - powers the dual monitor display options found on the MX 440, and the monitor and TV-out options on the MX 420. So far we know that MX 440 will launch for roughly £125 / €200 and MX 420 roughly £90 / €145. Pricing information is based on data supplied by VisionTek, the first company to announce its GeForce 4 line-up. Hercules, the only company to court all three major consumer graphics card manufacturers; NVIDIA, ATI and STMicroelectronics, has apparently chosen not to introduce a GeForce 4-based product, instead preferring to concentrate on ATI's Radeon. This news comes after months of speculation. NVIDIA won't mind though; it just recently passed 100 million processors shipped. Related Feature - GeForce 3 Titanium review