NVIDIA GeForce 256 Part 1: To buy or not to buy

Direct3D Performance Explained

The drivers are the downfall to the GeForce 256's Direct3D performance.  In some cases the performance difference between the GeForce 256 and the TNT2 Ultra was absolutely nothing and in other cases the GeForce 256 was actually slower than the TNT2 Ultra.   These issues are entirely driver related and will be resolved within the upcoming weeks.  For this reason we omitted the Celeron scores which proved nothing other than the fact that the TNT2 Ultra was 0.5 fps faster than the GeForce 256 due to the lack of good GeForce 256 drivers.  NVIDIA has had their OpenGL ICD for a while now which makes the OpenGL part of the GeForce's drivers not as bad of a situation as the state of their Direct3D performance.  Once again, there is no reason to get worried about these issues as they are completely driver related.

Looking at the Athlon 700 and Pentium III 600B scores we truly see the potential of the GeForce 256.   Expendable is a very CPU dependent benchmark which unfortunately means that the reader must do a little more work in order to extract meaning from the numbers.  A difference of 2 fps in the Expendable timedemo is a considerable performance advantage and shouldn't be dismissed as a "mere" 2 fps increase.   This 2 fps increase could result in a much larger performance increase overall during actual gameplay. 

The memory bandwidth issue from the OpenGL testing is present in the Direct3D benchmarks as well, where the Matrox G400MAX with its 200MHz SGRAM outpaces the GeForce 256 in 32-bit color at higher resolutions.

Conclusion

First, the obvious. As of now, there is no denying that the GeForce 256 is the fastest 3D accelerator on the market. So if you have the money and are looking for the fastest thing out now, the choice is clear. But not all of us are able to go down that path and there are limits as to how many times we can upgrade in a year without having to give up meals, so what is the next best option?

If you currently have a TNT2 or a TNT2 Ultra, then by all means stick with your card. The improvement the GeForce 256 offers over the TNT2 is not large enough to justify ditching a card you bought a few months ago for around $150 - $200 and spending an additional $220+. As a matter of fact, if you have any current generation graphics card (i.e. Voodoo3, G400, etc…) an upgrade to a GeForce now would not be worth the money for you. While the performance improvement is definitely noticeable at higher resolutions, you can still survive with your current setup and shouldn't be too concerned with upgrading just yet.

If you have an older generation graphics card, such as a TNT, a Voodoo2 or a Banshee and are looking to upgrade to something that will last you as long as possible, then the GeForce becomes an option once again. Prices for the GeForce are already falling for pre-orders, with the estimated $300 mark out of the question and the more realistic price point being around $220 - $250, or about the price of the TNT2 Ultra upon its release. The GeForce does pack more bang for the buck than the TNT2, especially at higher resolutions. If you want a card that will last you, the GeForce will do so better than any of its competitors.

If you're buying a new system today, once again, the GeForce 256 will give you the most performance in the long run and will stick with you for the longest without driving you to upgrade. This is partially because of the hardware T&L but also because of the raw fill rate of the GeForce 256 offers over the currently available competition.

The final scenario is, as always, if you can wait, then waiting won't hurt you. The S3 Savage 2000 is on the way, and next year we'll finally see what 3dfx has in store for the market. Also, prices do drop over time which is never a bad thing for the consumer.

Even if you don't currently have an AGP 4X compliant motherboard, the performance of the GeForce 256 on an AGP 2X BX based system is very respectable in comparison to everything else that is available today. Although NVIDIA is claiming that in order to get the full polygon throughput of the chip, AGP 4X with Fast Writes is required, we have yet to see an application that truly takes advantage of AGP 4X and the polygon throughput the GeForce is capable of.  

What can we expect from the future of the GeForce? The transition to 0.18-micron will bring to the GeForce what the TNT2 brought to the TNT. A higher clock speed and a cooler running chip will most likely be features of NVIDIA's next product, which is due out for release in 6 months. A few optimizations of the rendering pipelines and more memory (possibly DDR SDRAM/SGRAM) will probably make it into this forthcoming product and then the cycle will continue again. A 0.18-micron GeForce in 6 months will bring a clock speed anywhere from 150MHz - 200MHz and by that time, DDR SDRAM/SGRAM will hopefully become a more viable option for use on a graphics card. Sound familiar? It should, it is exactly what happened with the 0.35-micron TNT and the 0.25-micron TNT2 that was released 6 months later. Don't be too surprised to see history repeat itself here.

There are still a few points that aren't clear with the GeForce's specs.  The "High-Quality HDTV Processor" as stated in the specifications is still very vague and we're waiting for a response from NVIDIA to get the true story behind it.  The vagueness of the term could mean a number of things, possibly masking a potentially very useful or just another form of the PR hype we all know and love. 

So, should you buy the GeForce 256? Well, if you fit one of the four above generalizations then you've got a pretty straightforward path. Next week we'll be taking a closer look at how the GeForce will perform in the future, with more optimizations as well as investigate the true performance benefits of Fast Writes, AGP 4X and the hardware T&L. This party is just getting started as the next round of graphics wars begin to heat up.