History of the Modem Graphics Processor, Part 3 - TechSpot
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`History of the Modern Graphics Processor, Part 3
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`The Fall of 3Dfx and The Rise of
`Two Giants
`
`With the turn of the century the graphics industry bore witness to further consolidation.
`
`The pro market saw iXMICRO leave graphics entirely, while NEC and Hewlett-Packard both
`produced their last products, the TE5 and VISUALIZE FX10 series respectively. Evans &
`Sutherland also parted ways with the sale of its RealVision line to focus on the planetaria and
`fulldome projection systems.
`
`In the consumer graphics market, ATI announced the acquisition of ArtX Inc. in February 2000,
`for around $400 million in stock. ArtX was developing the GPU codenamed Project Dolphin
`(eventually named "Flipper") for the Nintendo GameCube, which added significantly to ATI's
`bottom line.
`
`Also in February, 3dfx
`announced a 20% workforce
`cut, then promptly moved to
`acquire Gigapixel for $186
`
`Next Xbox to feature AMD
`processor, not compatible with
`360 titles
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`History of the Modem Graphics Processor, Part 3 - TechSpot
`
`million and gained the
`company's tile-based rendering
`IP.
`
`Meanwhile, S3 and Nvidia
`settled their outstanding patent
`suits and signed a seven-year
`cross-license agreement.
`
`ATI GameCube GPU
`
`VIA assumed control of S3
`around April-May which itself
`was just finishing a restructuring process from the acquisition of Number Nine. As part of S3's
`restructuring, the company merged with Diamond Multimedia in a stock swap valued at $165
`million. Diamond's high-end professional graphics division, FireGL, was spun off as SONICblue
`and later sold to ATI in March 2001 for $10 million.
`
`3DLabs acquired Intergraph's Intense3D in April, while the final acts of 3dfx played out towards
`the end of the year, despite 2000 kicking off with the promise of a better future as the long-
`awaited Voodoo 5 5500 neared its debut in July. The latter ended up trading blows with the
`GeForce 256 DDR and won the high-resolution battle.
`
`Where 3dfx was once a
`byword for raw
`performance, its
`strengths around this
`time laid in its full
`screen antialiasing
`image quality.
`
`But where 3dfx was once a byword for raw
`performance, its strengths around this time laid in
`its full screen antialiasing image quality. The
`Voodoo 5 introduced T-buffer technology as an
`alternative to transformation and lighting, by
`basically taking a few rendered frames and
`aggregating them into one image. This produced
`a slightly blurred picture that, when run in frame
`sequence, smoothed out the motion of the
`animation.
`
`3dfx's technology became the forerunner of many
`image quality enhancements seen today, like soft
`shadows and reflections, motion blur, as well as depth of field blurring.
`
`3dfx's swan song, the Voodoo 4 4500, arrived October 19 after several delays — unlike the 4200
`and 4800 that were never released. The card was originally scheduled for spring as a competitor
`to Nvidia's TNT2, but ended up going against the company's iconic GeForce 256 DDR instead, as
`well as the much better performing GeForce 2 GTS and ATI Radeon DDR.
`
`On November 14, 3dfx announced they were belatedly ceasing production and sale of their own-
`branded graphics cards, something that had been rumoured for some time but largely discounted.
`Adding fuel to the fire, news got out that upcoming Pentium 4 motherboards would not support
`the 3.3V AGP signalling required Voodoo 5 series.
`
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`History of the Modem Graphics Processor, Part 3 - TechSpot
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`Email:
`
`Voodoo5 5500 AGP box art
`
`The death knell sounded a month later for 3dfx when Nvidia purchased its IP portfolio for $70
`million plus one million shares of common stock. A few internet wits later noted that the 3dfx
`design team which had moved to Nvidia eventually got both their revenge and lived up to their
`potential, by delivering the underperforming NV30 graphics chip powering the FX 5700 and FX
`5800 cards behind schedule.
`
`The Nvidia vs. ATI Era Begins
`Prior to the Voodoo 5's arrival, ATI had announced the Radeon DDR as "the most powerful
`graphics processor ever designed for desktop PCs." Previews of the card had already gone public
`on April 25, and only twenty-four hours later Nvidia countered with the announcement of the
`GeForce 2 GTS (GigaTexel Shader). The latter included Nvidia's version of ATI's Pixel Tapestry
`Architecture, named Nvidia Shading Rasterizer, allowing for effects such as specular shading,
`volumetric explosion, refraction, waves, vertex blending, shadow volumes, bump mapping and
`elevation mapping to be applied on a per-pixel basis via hardware.
`
`The feature was believed to have made it to the previous NV10 (GeForce 256) chip but it
`remained disabled due to a hardware fault. The GTS also followed ATI's Charisma Engine in
`allowing for all transform, clipping and lighting calculations to be supported by the GPU. That
`said, ATI went a step further with vertex skinning for a more fluid movement of polygons, and
`keyframe interpolation, where developers designed a starting and finishing mesh for an animation
`and the Charisma core calculated the intervening meshes.
`
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`ATI Radeon DDR
`
`The ATI Radeon DDR eventually launched for retail in August 2000. Backed by a superior T&L
`implementation and support for several of the upcoming DirectX 8 features, the Radeon DDR
`alongside the GeForce 2 GTS ushered in the use of DVI outputs by integrating support for the
`interface into the chip itself. The DVI output was more often found on OEM cards, however, as
`the retail variety usually sported VIVO plugs.
`
`One downside to the Radeon DDR is that boards shipped with their core and memory
`downclocked from the promised 200MHz and 183MHz, respectively. In addition, drivers were
`once again less than optimal at launch. There were issues with 16-bit color and compatibility
`problems with VIA chipsets, but this did not stop the card from dominating the competition at
`resolutions higher than 1024x768x32. A price of $399 for the 64MB version stacked up well
`versus $349-399 for the 64MB GeForce 2 GTS, which it beat by a margin of 10-20% in
`benchmarks, and helped ATI maintain its number one position in graphics market share over
`Nvidia.
`
`Nvidia wasn't doing all that bad for themselves either. The company reported net income of $98.5
`million for the fiscal year on record revenue of $735.3 million, driven in large part by its market
`segmentation strategy, releasing a watered-down MX version of the card in June and a higher
`clocked Ultra model in August. The latter dethroned the Radeon in terms of performance but it
`also cost $499. A Pro model arrived in December.
`
`Besides releasing a GeForce 2 card at every price point, from the budget MX to the professional
`Quadro 2 range, Nvidia also released its first mobile chip in the form of the GeForce2 Go.
`
`As 3dfx was undergoing its death throes in
`November, Imagination Tech (ex-VideoLogic) and
`ST Micro attempted to address the high volume
`budget market with the PowerVR series 3 KYRO.
`Typically ranging in price from $80 to $110
`depending on the memory framebuffer, the card
`represented good value for the money in gaming
`at resolutions of 1024x768 or lower. It would have
`become more popular, had the GeForce2 MX
`
`By the time 2001
`dawned, the PC
`graphics market
`consisted of a discrete
`card duopoly, with both
`
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`arrived later, or not so aggressively priced at
`_$110.
`
`of them in addition to
`Intel supplying the vast
`majority of integrated
`graphics chipsets.
`
`The KYRO II arrived in April 2001 with a bump in
`clock speeds compared to the original and
`manufactured on a smaller 180nm process by ST
`Micro. But once again the card faced stiff
`competition from the GeForce 2 MX. Nvidia rebadged the card as the MX200 and lopped 40% off
`its price, while adding a higher clocked MX400 card at the same price as the Kyro II.
`
`When PowerVR failed to secure game development impetus for tile based rendering, and ST
`Micro closed down its graphics business in early 2002, Imagination Technologies moved from
`desktop graphics to mobile and leveraged that expertise into system on chip graphics. They
`licenced the Series 5/5XT/6 for use with ARM-based processors in the ultra portable and
`smartphone markets.
`
`By the time 2001 dawned, the PC graphics market consisted of a discrete card duopoly, with both
`of them in addition to Intel supplying the vast majority of integrated graphics chipsets.
`
`Meanwhile, Matrox and S3/VIA clung to the margins of traditional markets.
`
`Building on the strides made with the GeForce 2 series, Nvidia unveiled the GeForce 3 on
`February 27, 2001 priced between $339 and $449. The card became the new king of the hill, but
`it really only came into its own at the (then) extreme resolution of 1600x1200, preferably with full
`screen antialiasing applied.
`
`Nvidia's stock GeForce 3 card
`
`Initial drivers were buggy, especially in some OpenGL titles. What the new GeForce did bring to
`the table was DirectX 8, multisampling AA, quincunx AA (basically 2xMSAA + post process blur),
`8x anisotrophic filtering as well as the unrivalled ability to handle 8xAF + trilinear filtering, and a
`programmable vertex shader which allowed for closer control of polygon mesh motion and a more
`fluid animation sequence.
`
`There was also LMA (Lightspeed Memory Architecture) support -- basically Nvidia's version of
`HyperZ -- for culling pixels that would end up hidden behind others on screen (Z occlusion
`culling) as well as compressing and decompressing data to optimize use of bandwidth (Z
`compression).
`
`Lastly, Nvidia implemented load-balancing algorithms as part of what they called the Crossbar
`Memory Controller, which consisted of four independent memory sub-controllers as opposed to
`the industry standard single controller, allowing incoming memory requests to be routed more
`effectively.
`
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`Nvidias product line later added the
`NV2A, a derivative of the GeForce 3
`with GeForce4 attributes that was used
`in Microsoft's Xbox game console.
`
`At this point, Nvidia controlled 31% of
`the graphics market to Intel's 26% and
`ATI's 17%.
`
`Nvidia NV2A inside Microsoft's Xbox
`
`As Nvidia complemented the GF3 line-
`up with underclocked Ti 200 and
`overclocked Ti 500 models, ATI hurried
`to ramp up deliveries of the Radeon
`8500 The card was built around the
`R200 GPU using TSMC's 150nm
`process (the same used by GeForce
`3's NV20). The chip had been
`announced in August and was eagerly awaited since John Carmack of id software talked it up
`saying it would run the new Doom 3 "twice as well" as the GeForce 3.
`
`ATI's official R8500 announcement was no less enthusiastic. But reality kicked in once the card
`launched in October and was found to perform at the level of the underclocked GF3 Ti 200 in
`games. Unfinished drivers and a lack of workable Smoothvision antialiasing weighted heavily
`against the R8500 in its initial round of reviews. By the time the holiday season arrived, a second
`round of reviews showed that the drivers had matured to a degree and raised the R8500's
`performance in-between the Ti 200 and the standard GF3.
`
`Spec comparison snapshot
`
`GeForce3 Ti 200
`
`GeForce3
`
`GeForce3 Ti 500
`
`Radeon 64MB DDR
`
`Radeon 8500
`
`175
`
`200
`
`240
`
`183
`
`275
`
`4
`
`4
`
`4
`
`2
`
`4
`
`700
`
`800
`
`960
`
`366
`
`1100
`
`2
`
`2
`
`2
`
`3
`
`2
`
`1400
`
`1600
`
`1920
`
`1100
`
`2200
`
`400
`
`460
`
`500
`
`366
`
`550
`
`128
`
`128
`
`128
`
`128
`
`128
`
`6.4
`
`7.4
`
`8.0
`
`5.9
`
`8.8
`
`Very competitive pricing and a better all around feature set (2D image quality, video playback,
`performance under antialiasing) made the card a worthy competitor to the GF3 and Ti 500
`nonetheless.
`
`ATI's sales for the year dropped to $1.04 billion as the company recorded a net loss of $54.2
`million. The company began granting licenses to board partners to build and market graphics
`boards, while refocusing their resources on design and chip making.
`
`ATI also debuted the Set-Top-
`Wonder Xilleon, a development
`platform based on the Xilleon
`220 SoC which provided a full
`processor, graphics, I/O, video
`and audio for set-top boxes
`integrated into digital TV
`designs.
`
`To complement Xilleon, ATI
`acquired NxtWave
`
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`ATI Xilleon board
`
`Communications for $20 million
`in June 2002. The company
`specialized in digital signal
`processing and applications for
`set-top boxes and terrestrial
`
`digital solutions.
`
`Keeping up with their product launch cycle, Nvidia released the GeForce 4 in February 2002.
`Three MX parts, three mobile parts based on the MX models, and two performance Titanium
`models (Ti 4400 and Ti 4600) made up the initial line up -- built on TSMC's 150nm process. The
`GeForce 4 was effectively ready for release two months earlier but the launch was delayed to
`avoid eating into GeForce 3 sales over the holiday season.
`
`The MX series cards were intended for the budget segment but they were still largely uninspiring
`as they were based on the old GeForce 2 architecture. MPEG2 decode added but the cards
`reverted to DirectX 7.0/7.1 support as the earlier GF2 MX line. Pricing at $99-179 reflected the
`reduced feature set.
`
`The Titanium models on the other hand were excellent performers and in some instances
`managed a 50+% increase in performance over the GeForce3 Ti 500. The Ti 4600 became the
`performance champ overnight, easily disposing of the Radeon 8500, while the Ti 4200 at $199
`represented the best value for money card.
`
`But then came the Radeon 9700 Pro and promptly consigned every other card to also-ran status.
`
`r
`
`0
`
`ATI Radeon 9700 Pro (FIC A97P)
`
`Developed by a team that had originally formed the core of ArtX, the ATI R300 GPU delivered
`spectacularly and arrived very promptly. It was the first to bring DirectX 9.0 support, and by
`extension, the first architecture to support shader model 2.0, vertex shader 2.0, and pixel shader
`
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`2.0. Other notable achievements: it was the second GPU series to support AGP 8x -- SiS's Xabre
`80/200/400 line was first -- and implementing the first flip-chip GPU package.
`
`ATI complemented the line-up in
`October by adding a non-Pro 9700 at
`$299 for those unable to part with
`$399 for the top model. Meanwhile,
`the cut down 9500 Pro ($199) and
`9500 ($179) reached down through
`mainstream market segments, and
`the FireGL Z1/X1 filled in the $550-
`950 bracket for professional
`graphics. The All-In-Wonder 9700
`Pro ($449) was also added in
`December.
`
`About flip-chip GPU packages: Previous
`generations of graphics chips and other ICs
`used wire-bonding mounting. With this
`method, the chip sits on the board with the
`logic blocks sitting under the metal layers
`whose pads would be connected by thin
`wires arranged around the edges of the
`chip down to solder balls or pins on the
`underside. Flip—chip does away with the
`wire component through contact points
`(usually soldered in a ball grid array)
`directly on the "top" of the chip, which is
`then inverted, or "flipped" so that the solder
`points directly contact the substrate or
`circuit board. The chip then undergoes
`localised heating (reflow) to melt the solder
`that then forms the connection with the
`underlying contact points of the board.
`
`ATI's sales are likely to have taken a
`hit when it was found that many
`cards could be modded to their more
`expensive counterparts. Examples of
`this included the ability to turn a
`9500 card into a 9700 using its
`reference board (with the full
`complement of memory traces), or a
`9800 Pro to its XT counterpart. For the latter, a driver patch was made available to check if it
`would accept the mod, which consisted of soldering in a resistor or using a pencil to tweak the
`GPU and memory voltage control chip. Hard mods also included upgrading various 9800 models
`into a FireGL X2, while a patched/Omega driver had the ability to turn a $250 9800 SE 256MB
`into a $499 9800 Pro 256MB.
`
`In addition to discrete graphics, ATI also introduced desktop integrated graphics and chipsets.
`These included the A3/ IGP 320 meant to be paired with AMD CPUs, RS200/IGP 330 & 340 for
`Intel chips, as well as the mobile series U1/IGP 320M for AMD platforms and RS200M for
`Pentium 4-M. All of them were complemented with ATI southbridges, specifically the IXP200/250.
`
`SiS unveiled the Xabre line between the launch of the GeForce4 and the R300. The cards were
`consistently slower than Nvidia and ATI's offerings at the same price points, and were
`handicapped by the lack of vertex shader pipelines. This translated into a heavy reliance upon
`drivers and game developers to get the most out of software emulation, thus keeping SiS in the
`margins of desktop discrete 3D graphics.
`
`The Xabre line also implemented "Turbo Texturing", where framerates were increased by
`drastically reducing texture quality, and lacked anisotrophic filtering . All this did little to endear
`reviewers to the cards.
`
`The Xabre line was the last under the SiS banner, as the company spun off its graphics division
`(renamed XGI) and merged with Trident Graphics a couple of months later in June.
`
`The first of Nvidia's FX series arrived on January 27, 2003 with the infamous "Dustbuster" FX
`5800 and the slightly faster (read: less slow) FX 5800 Ultra. When compared to the reigning
`champ, the ATI Radeon 9700 Pro (and non-Pro), the FX was much louder, it delivered inferior
`anisotrophic filtering (AF) quality and antialiasing (AA) performance, and was overall much
`slower. ATI was so far ahead that a second-tier Radeon 9700 card launched five months earlier
`comfortably outperformed the Ultra, and it was $100 cheaper ($299 vs $399).
`
`The 3dfx design team which had moved to Nvidia got
`both their revenge and lived up to their potential, by
`delivering the underperforming NV30 graphics chip
`
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`behind schedule.
`
`The NV30 chip was supposed to debut in August, around the same time as the Radeon 9700, but
`ramping problems and high defect rates on TSMC's Low-K 130nm process held Nvidia back.
`Some circles also argued that the company was strapped for engineering resources, with more
`than a few tied up with the NV2A Xbox console chip, the SoundStorm APU, as well as the
`motherboard chipsets.
`
`Looking to move things forward Nvidia undertook a project to have several FX series chips
`fabricated on IBM's more conventional Fluorosilicate glass (FSG) low-K 130nm process.
`
`ATI refreshed its line of cards in March, starting with the 9800 Pro, featuring a R350 GPU that
`was basically an R300 with some enhancements to the Hyper-Z caching and compression
`instruction.
`
`The RV350 and RV280 followed in April. The first of these, found inside the Radeon 9600, was
`built using the same TSMC 130nm low-K process that Nvidia had adopted, Meanwhile, the
`RV280 powering the Radeon 9200 was little more than a rebadged RV250 of the Radeon 9000
`with AGP 8x support.
`
`The same month saw ATI and
`Nintendo sign a technology agreement
`that would eventually lead to the
`Hollywood GPU for the Nintendo Wii
`console. ATI added a second console
`coup in August, when Microsoft
`awarded the Xbox 360 GPU contract to
`them.
`
`A scant three and a half months after
`the inglorious debut of the FX 5800,
`Nvidia took another shot with the NV35
`(FX 5900 and FX 5900 Ultra). The new
`Detonator FX driver greatly improved
`AA and AF, almost matching ATI's
`solution in terms of quality. However
`the 5900 achieved what the 5800 could
`not. It knocked ATI's Radeon 9800 Pro
`from its spot as the fastest card around,
`although at $499 apiece, few would
`actually take advantage of this.
`
`Xbox 360 GPU (ATI C1 t Xenos)
`
`As expected, ATI regained bragging rights in September with the release of the 9800 XT. Superior
`driver support — mainly with some DX9 games — also made the XT a better overall card than
`Nvidia's counterpart, ensuring that ATI ended the year with the performance crown. The 9700 Pro
`remained the standout mainstream board, while the FX 5700 Ultra at $199 won the sub-$200
`price segment.
`
`ATI bounced back with a $35.2 million profit in 2003 after posting a $47.5 million loss in 2002. A
`good chunk of this came from higher selling prices for the dominant 9800 and 9600 cards.
`Meanwhile, Nvidia retained 75% of the DirectX 9 value segment market, thanks to the popularity
`of the FX 5200.
`
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`Source DirectX 9.0 Effects Trailer, shown during ATI's presentation of the Radeon 9800 XT
`and 9600 XT
`
`The newly formed XGI launched the Xabre successor in a staggered release between September
`and November. Renamed Volari, the card line-up ranged from the $49 V3 to the dual GPU Duo
`V8 Ultra. The V3 was virtually a rebrand of Trident's Blade XP4 and a DX 8.1 part, while the rest
`of the series (V5 and V8) was developed from the previous SiS Xabre and featured DX9.0
`support.
`
`For the most part, all of the models underdelivered, with the exception of the entry-level V3 which
`offered performance equal to the GeForce FX 5200 Ultra and and Radeon 9200. The Duo V8
`Ultra was priced —20% higher than the Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB, yet delivered performance on
`par or lower than the 9600XT.
`
`XGI's Volari line lingered on with the 8300 in late
`2005, which was more or less on par with the
`Radeon X300SE/GeForce 6200 at $49, as well as
`the Z9/Z11 and XP10. The company was
`reabsorbed back into SiS in October2010.
`
`Another company making a comeback into
`desktop graphics was S3. After the graphics
`division was sold to VIA for $208 million plus the
`company's $60 million debt, the restructured
`
`Another company
`making a comeback
`into desktop graphics
`was S3. Unfortunately,
`the buying public now
`generally saw desktop
`graphics as a two horse venture concentrated primarily on chipset projects.
`race — and S3 wasn't
`one of the two.
`
`DeltaChrome desktop cards were announced in
`January, but in time-honoured S3 fashion, the
`first S4 and S8 models didn't start appearing in
`the retail channel until December. The new cards
`featured most of the new must-haves of 2003;
`DirectX 9 support, 16x AF, HD 1080p support, and portrait-mode display support.
`
`Unfortunately, the buying public now generally saw desktop graphics as a two horse race — and
`S3 wasn't one of the two. While S3 was looking to keep competitive, ATI and Nvidia were driving
`each other to achieve ever-increasing levels of performance and image quality.
`
`The DeltaChrome was succeeded by the GammaChrome in 2005.
`
`Nvidia and ATI continued in 2005 their staggered launches. The former launched its first GDDR3
`card in March as the FX 5700 Ultra, followed by the GeForce 6 series with the high-end 6800
`range. The initial line up comprised the 6800 ($299), GT ($399), the Ultra ($499), and an
`overclocked variant known as the Ultra Extreme ($549) to counter ATI's X800 XT Platinum
`Edition. The latter was sold by a select band of add-in board partners.
`
`The 6800 Ultra 512MB was added on March 14 2005 and sold for the unbelievable price of $899
`-- BFG added an overclocked version for $999. The midrange was well catered for with the 6600
`series in September.
`
`Nvidia's feature set for the 6000 series included DirectX 9.0c support, shader model 3.0 (although
`the cards were never able to fully exploit this), Nvidia's PureVideo decode and playback engine,
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`and SLI support -- the multi-GPU performance multiplier IP that was acquired from 3dfx.
`
`Reintroducing an old feature: SLI
`
`Where the 3dfx implementation resulted in each processing unit being responsible for alternate
`line scans, Nvidia handled things in a few different ways. The company implemented split frame
`rendering (SFR), in which each GPU rendered the top or bottom half of the frame, alternate frame
`rendering (AFR) so GPUs rendered frames in turn, and in some cases the driver just disabled SLI
`depending on whether the game supported the feature. This last feature was a hit-or-miss early in
`driver development.
`
`While the technology was announced in June, it required a motherboard with an nForce4 chipset
`to enable multi-GPU setups, and these didn't start reaching the retail channel in numbers until
`late November. Adding fuel to the fire, initial driver releases where sporadic (at best) until into the
`following year.
`
`Reviews at the time generally mirrored current
`performance, showing that two lower tier cards
`(like the 6600 GT SLI which could be had for
`$398) generally equalled one enthusiast card at
`lower resolutions and image quality. At highest
`resolutions and with antialiasing applied, however,
`single card setups still gained the upper hand.
`SLI and ATI's CrossFire performance was as
`erratic then as it sometimes is now, running the
`full gamut from perfect scaling to not working at
`all.
`
`Nvidia's board partners immediately saw
`marketing opportunities with the re-invented tech,
`with Gigabyte offering a dual 6600 GT SLI card
`(the 3D1), followed by a dual 6600 (3D1-XL), and
`
`While Nvidia's SLI was
`announced in June
`2004, the required
`nForce4 motherboards
`didn't hit the retail
`channel in numbers
`until November, and
`initial driver releases
`where sporadic until
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`the 6800 GT (3D1-68GT). These cards not only
`required an nF4 chipset but also a Gigabyte
`branded motherboard as well.
`
`into the following year.
`
`Of the high-end single GPU cards, the 6800 Ultra and X800 XT/XT PE were fairly evenly
`matched, both in price and performance. But they weren't without their issues. The latter arrived
`in May and suffered supply constraints throughout its entire production life, while Nvidia's flagship
`6800 Ultra was extremely late arriving in August and suffered supply constraints too depending on
`distribution area, since the card was only made available by a percentage of board partners.
`
`The 6800 GT generally bested the X800 Pro at $399, while the 6600 GT cleaned up in the $199
`bracket.
`
`Intense competition with Nvidia that year didn't have an adverse effect on ATI's bottom line, as
`profit peaked at $204.8 million for the year from nearly $2 billion in revenue.
`
`One quirk associated with the well-received 6600 GT was that it initially launched as a PCI
`Express card, at a time when PCI-E was an Intel-only feature for motherboards designed for
`Pentium 4 processors. These chips generally lagged in gaming performance behind AMD's
`offerings, which of course used the AGP data bus.
`
`Nvidia's 7000 series started rolling off the assembly lines well before the 6000 series had
`completed its model line-up. The 7800 GTX arrived a full five months before the reduced bill of
`materials (BoM) 6800 GS saw the light of day. The first iteration of the 7800 series was based
`around the G70 GPU on TSMC's 110nm process, but quickly gave way to the G71-based 7900
`series, made on TSMC's 90nm process.
`
`While the naming convention changed from "NV" to "G", the latter were architecturally related to
`the NV40 series of the GeForce 6000. And while only fractionally larger than the NV40-45 at
`334mm2, the G70 packed in an extra eighty million transistors (for a total of 302 million), adding a
`third more vertex pipelines and 50% more pixel pipelines. In most cases, the G70 was
`superseded within nine months, and in the case of the GS and GTX 512MB, the figure was 3 and
`4 months respectively.
`
`At the entry level, the 7100 GS continued the use of TurboCache (the ability for the board to use
`some system memory), which was introduced with the previous generation GeForce 6200 TC.
`
`Nvidia GeForce 7800 GTX
`
`At the other end of the spectrum, the 7800 GTX 256MB hit retail on June 22 with an MSRP of
`$599, though its actual street price was higher in many instances. ATI wrested the single-GPU
`crown back with the X1800 XT, but Nvidia countered with a 512MB version of the 7800 GTX
`thirty-five days later and promptly regained the title.
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`Two months later, ATI launched the X1900 XTX, which traded blows with Nvidia's flagship. This
`particular graphics horsepower race resulted in both cards being priced at $650. One spinoff of
`the cards moving to a 512MB frame buffer was that gaming at 2560x1600 with 32-bit color and a
`high level of image quality enabled was