NVIDIA rocks the Boat with TNT2

Introduction

It's not too long ago that Tom's Hardware Guide introduced 3Dfx's upcoming Voodoo3 chip to you, and many of you may have thought that this new chip will ensure 3Dfx's role as supplier of the world's fastest 3D accelerators for the future. Nvidia's upcoming RIVA TNT2 looked like a merely overhauled version of the well known RIVA TNT and although it was clear that TNT2 would be faster than TNT, still only few expected that TNT2 would be a particularly interesting product. I heard about TNT2-Ultra some six weeks ago and for the first time I saw NVIDIA's chance to kick 3Dfx from its 3D-performance throne. TNT2 is not just a TNT chip shrunk to 0.25 micron and thus simply clocked higher, TNT2 has overall been improved and the clock speeds it's able to reach are hardly anything short of Voodoo3's clock speeds. NVIDIA explained to me back in January that TNT2 wouldn't even need to be clocked as high as Voodoo3 to beat the performance of 3Dfx's latest chip, they promised me that TNT2 would be faster than Voodoo3 clock for clock. It turns out that NVIDIA kept another promise. The days when 3Dfx was the performance leader in the 3D gaming scene are over now, after no less than 3 very successful years in which 3Dfx earned the highest respect from everyone in the PC area.