Nvidia GeForce Chips Explained

[XPerties]

I love the fact that NVidia has pushed the limits on 3D performance (NVidia's drivers aren't bad, either). The company has established its reputation by releasing new products every six months or so. The downside to this? With new chips coming out and older chips still on the market, that means lots and lots of NVidia-based boards out on the shelves.

Here are all the NVidia-based boards listed on Price Watch (as of today). It doesn't even bother to break out the boards that Leo, Kevin, and I have in our home systems. All three of us currently use the "outdated" TNT2 (though Kevin and Leo definitely started to hit the wall on that card when they fired up "Warcraft 3"). Perhaps we don't deserve to call ourselves serious gamers.

$284 -- GeForce4 TI 4600 $200 -- GeForce4 TI 4400 $136 -- GeForce4 TI 4200

$118 -- GeForce4 MX 460 $69 -- GeForce4 MX 440 $61 -- GeForce4 MX 420

$125 -- GeForce3 TI 500 $86 -- GeForce3 TI 200 $302 -- GeForce3 Deluxe

$101 -- GeForce3 $68 -- GeForce2 Ultra 64MB $54 -- GeForce2 TI 64MB

$72 -- GeForce2 TI 32MB $54 -- GeForce2 Pro 64MB $40 -- GeForce2 MX400 64MB

$40 -- GeForce2 MX400 32MB $37 -- GeForce2 MX200 64MB $31 -- GeForce2 MX200 32MB

$54 -- GeForce2 GTS 64MB $43 -- GeForce2 GTS 32MB

TNT2-based boards list from $10 to $70 on Price Watch. I still see them on shelves for up to $50. Same thing for GeForce 256, the first generation of GeForce processors. For that kind of money, you can get the latest generation of GeForce4 boards, at least the low-cost MX versions.

That said, the GeForce4 MX-based boards may not be the best way to go. Don't get me wrong: Every board listed will play games (especially pre-DirectX 8 games). Read Tom's VGA Charts for a comparison of almost every graphics card sold in the last three or four years. Look closely; you'll see that the GeForce3 and GeForce3 Ti 500 generally outperform the newer GeForce4 MX boards, and pretty much trounce them on "Aquanox," a DirectX 8 game.

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-Xperties