GeForceFX: NVIDIA goes Hollywood?

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The Hardware

  • Produced on a 0.13µ process
  • Flip-chip design
  • 256 bit GPU
  • 125 million transistors
  • Eight Pixel Shaders
  • x Vertex Shaders
  • Clock speeds of at least 500 MHz
  • DDR-II memory starting at 500 MHz (1 GHz DDR)
  • 128 bit memory bus
  • Optimized memory interface with lossless Z-compression and color data compression
  • AGP 8X
  • FX Flow - proprietary copper heat pipe cooling solution

NVIDIA GeForceFX reference card - Top-left view.

3D Features

  • Full DirectX 9 support
  • Adaptive anisotropic filtering
  • Intellisample antialiasing
  • 32/64/128 bit color Format (variable)
  • Digital Vibrance Control 3.0
  • Pixel Shader 2.0+:
Swipe to scroll horizontally
Header Cell - Column 0 DirectX 8 DirectX 8.1 DirectX 9 GeForceFX
Pixel Shader 1.1 1.4 2.0 2.0+
Max. Texture Instruction 4 6 16 16
Max. Color Instructions 4 8 32 1024
Max. Temp Storage 8 8 64 1024
Data Type Integer Integer Floating P. Floating P.
(Max.) Data Precision 32 bit 48 bit 128 (96) bit 64 or 128 bit
Instruction Predicates - - 12 64
Unlimited Dependet Textures - - - Yes
Swizzling - - - Yes
Advanced Instructions - - - Yes
Conditional Write Masks - - - Yes
Dynamic Flow Control - - - Yes

This table shows the differences between the GeForce4 Ti4600 (PS 1.1), the Radeon 8500/9000 (PS 1.4), the Radeon 9500/9700 (PS 2.0), and the GeForceFX (PS 2.0+).

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  • Vertex Shader 2.0+:
Swipe to scroll horizontally
Header Cell - Column 0 DirectX 8 DirectX 9 GeForceFX
Vertex Shader 1.1 2 2.0+
Max. Instructions 128 1024 65536
Max. Static Instructions 128 256 256
Max. Constants 96 256 256
Temporary Registers 12 12 16
Max Loops 0 4 256
Conditional Write Masks - - Yes
Call & Return - - Yes
Static Flow Control - Yes Yes
Dynamic Flow Control - - Yes

The above table shows the differences between the GeForce4 Ti4600 and Radeon 8500/9000 (VS 1.1), the Radeon 9500/9700 (VS 2.0), and the GeForceFX (PS 2.0+).