GPU Cheatsheet - A History of Modern Consumer Graphics Processors

NVIDIA Chipsets

Below you can see our breakdown of the GPU guide for NVIDA video cards:

NVIDIA Craphics Chips Overview
DirectX 9.0C with PS3.0 and VS3.0 Support
GF 6600	NV43	300	550	8	1	3	128/256	128
GF 6600GT	NV43	500	1000	8	1	3	128/256	128
GF 6800LE	NV40	320	700	8	1	5	128	256
GF 6800LE	NV41	320	700	8	1	5	128	256
GF 6800	NV40	325	700	12	1	5	128	256
GF 6800	NV41	325	700	12	1	5	128	256
GF 6800GT	NV40	350	1000	16	1	6	256	256
GF 6800U	NV40	400	1100	16	1	6	256	256
GF 6800UE	NV40	450	1200	16	1	6	256	256
DirectX 9 with PS2.0+ and VS2.0+ Support
GFFX 5200LE	NV34	250	400	4	1	1	64/128	64
GFFX 5200	NV34	250	400	4	1	1	64/128/256	128
GFFX 5200U	NV34	325	650	4	1	1	128	128
GFFX 5500	NV34	270	400	4	1	1	128/256	128
GFFX 5600XT	NV31	235	400	4	1	1	128/256	128
GFFX 5600	NV31	325	500	4	1	1	128/256	128
GFFX 5600U	NV31	350	700	4	1	1	128/256	128
GFFX 5600U FC	NV31	400	800	4	1	1	128	128
GFFX 5700LE	NV36	250	400	4	1	3	128/256	128
GFFX 5700	NV36	425	500	4	1	3	128/256	128
GFFX 5700U	NV36	475	900	4	1	3	128/256	128
GFFX 5700U GDDR3	NV36	475	950	4	1	3	128	128
GFFX 5800	NV30	400	800	4	2	2	128	128
GFFX 5800U	NV30	500	1000	4	2	2	128	128
GFFX 5900XT/SE	NV35	400	700	4	2	3	128	256
GFFX 5900	NV35	400	850	4	2	3	128/256	256
GFFX 5900U	NV35	450	850	4	2	3	256	256
GFFX 5950U	NV38	475	950	4	2	3	256	256
DirectX 8 with PS1.3 and VS1.1 Support
GF3 Ti200	NV20	175	400	4	2	1	64/128	128
GeForce 3	NV20	200	460	4	2	1	64	128
GF3 Ti500	NV20	240	500	4	2	1	64	128
GF4 Ti4200 128	NV25	250	444	4	2	2	128	128
GF4 Ti4200 64	NV25	250	500	4	2	2	64	128
GF4 Ti4200 8X	NV28	250	514	4	2	2	128	128
GF4 Ti4400	NV25	275	550	4	2	2	128	128
GF4 Ti4600	NV25	300	600	4	2	2	128	128
GF4 Ti4800 SE	NV28	275	550	4	2	2	128	128
GF4 Ti4800	NV28	300	650	4	2	2	128	128
DirectX 7
GeForce 256 DDR	NV10	120	300	4	1	0.5	32/64	128
GeForce 256 SDR	NV10	120	166	4	1	0.5	32/64	128
GF2 MX200	NV11	175	166	2	2	0.5	32/64	64
GF2 MX	NV11	175	333	2	2	0.5	32/64	64/128
GF2 MX400	NV11	200	333	2	2	0.5	32/64	128
GF2 GTS	NV15	200	333	4	2	0.5	32/64	128
GF2 Pro	NV15	200	400	4	2	0.5	32/64	128
GF2 Ti	NV15	250	400	4	2	0.5	32/64	128
GF2 Ultra	NV15	250	460	4	2	0.5	64	128
GF4 MX4000	NV19	275	400	2	2	0.5	64/128	64
GF4 MX420	NV17	250	333	2	2	0.5	64	64
GF4 MX440 SE	NV17	250	333	2	2	0.5	64/128	128
GF4 MX440	NV17	275	400	2	2	0.5	32/64	128
GF4 MX440 8X	NV18	275	500	2	2	0.5	64/128	128
GF4 MX460	NV17	300	550	2	2	0.5	64	128
* RAM clock is the effective clock speed, so 250 MHz DDR is listed as 500 MHz.
** Textures/Pipeline is the number of unique texture lookups. ATI has implementations that can lookup 3 textures, but two of the lookups must be from one texture.
*** Vertex pipelines is estimated on certain architectures. NVIDIA says their GFFX cards have a "vertex array", but in practice it performs as shown.

The caveats are very similar on the NVIDIA side of things. In terms of DirectX support, NVIDIA has DX7, DX8.0, DX9, and DX9.0c support. Unlike the X800 cards which support an unofficial DX spec, DX9.0c is a Microsoft standard. On the flip side, the SM2.0a features of the FX line went almost entirely unused, and the 32-bit floating point (as opposed to the 24-bit values ATI uses) appears to be part of the problem with the inferior DX9 performance of the FX series. The benefit of DX8.1 over DX8.0 was that a few more operations were added to the hardware, so tasks that would have required two passes on DX8.0 can be done in one pass on DX8.1.

When DX8 cards were all the rage, DX8.1 support was something of a non-issue, as DX8 games were hard to come by, and most opted for the more widespread 8.0 spec. Now, however, games like Far Cry and the upcoming Half-Life 2 have made DX8.1 support a little more useful. The reason for this is that every subsequent version of DirectX is a superset of the older versions, so every DX9 card must include both DX8 and DX8.1 functionality. GeForce FX cards in the beta of Counter Strike: Source default to DX8.1 rendering paths in order to get the best compromise between quality and speed, while GeForce 3 and 4 Ti cards use the DX8.0 rendering path.

Going back to ATI for a minute, it becomes a little clearer why ATI's SM2.0b isn't an official Microsoft standard. SM3.0 already supersedes it as a standard, and yet certain features of SM2.0b as ATI defines it are not present in SM3.0, for example the new 3Dc normal map compression. Only time will tell if this feature gets used with current hardware, but it will likely be included in a future version of DirectX, so it could come in useful.

In contrast to ATI, where the card generations are pretty distinct entities, the NVIDIA cards show a lot more overlap. The GF3 cards only show a slight performance increase over the GF2 Ultra, and that is only in more recent games. Back in the day, there really wasn't much incentive to leave the GF2 Ultra and "upgrade" to the GF3, especially considering the cost, and many people simply skipped the GF3 generation. Similarly, those that purchased the GF4 Ti line were left with little reason to upgrade to the FX line, as the Ti4200 remains competitive in most games all the way up to the FX5600. The FX line is only really able to keep up with - and sometimes beat - the GF4Ti cards when DX8.1 or DX9 features are used, or when enabling antialiasing and/or anisotropic filtering.

Speaking of antialiasing.... The GF2 line lacked support for multi-sample antialiasing and relied on the more simplistic super-sampling method. We say "simplistic" meaning that it was easier to implement - it is actually much more demanding on memory bandwidth, so it was less useful. The GF3 line brought the first consumer cards with multi-sample antialiasing, and NVIDIA went one step further by creating a sort of rotated-grid method called Quincunx, which offered superior quality to 2xAA while incurring less of a performance hit than 4xAA. However, as the geometrical complexity of games increased - something DX7 promised and yet failed to deliver for several years - none of these cards were able to perform well with antialiasing enabled. The GF4 line refined the antialiasing support slightly - even the GF4MX line got hardware antialiasing support, although here it was more of a checklist feature than something most people would actually enable - but for the most part it remained the same as in the GF3. The GFFX line continued with the same basic antialiasing support, and it was only with the GeForce 6 series that NVIDIA finally improved the quality of their antialiasing by switching to a rotated grid. At present, the differences in implementation and quality of antialiasing on ATI and NVIDIA hardware are almost impossible to spot in practical use. ATI does support 6X multi-sample anti-aliasing, of course, but that generally brings too much of a performance hit to use except on older games.

Anisotropic filtering for NVIDIA was a different story. First introduced with the GF2 line, it was extremely limited and rather slow - the GF2 could only provide 2xAF, called 8-tap filtering by NVIDIA because it uses 8 samples. GeForce3 added support for up to 8xAF (32-tap), along with performance improvements compared to the GF2 when anisotropic filtering was enabled. Also, the GF2 line was really better optimized for 16-bit color performance, while the GF3 and later all manage 32-bit color with a much less noticeable performance hit. This is likely related to the same enhancements that allow for better anisotropic filtering.

As games became more complex, the cost of doing "real" anisotropic filtering became too great, and so there were optimizations and accusations of cheating by many parties. The reality is that NVIDIA used a more correct distance calculation than ATI: d = x^2 + y^2 + z^2, compared to d = ax+by+cz. The latter equation is substantially faster, but the results are less correct. It ends up giving correct results only at certain angles, while other angles use a lower level of AF. Unfortunately for those who desire maximum image quality, NVIDIA solved the discrepancy in AF performance by switching to ATI's distance calculation on the GeForce 6 line. The GeForce 6 line also marks the introductions of 16xAF (64-tap) by NVIDIA, although it is nearly impossible to spot the difference in quality between 8xAF and 16xAF without some form of image manipulation. So, things have now been sorted out as far as "cheating" accusations go. It is probably safe to say that in modern games, the GF4 and earlier chips are not able to handle anisotropic filtering well enough to warrant enabling it.

NVIDIA is also using various versions of the same chip in their high end parts. The 6800 cards at present all use the same NV40 chip. Certain chips have some of the pipelines deactivated and they are then sold in lower end cards. Rumors about the ability to "mod" 6800 vanilla chips into 16 pipeline versions exist, but success rates are not yet known and are likely low, due again to the size of the chips. NVIDIA has plans to release a modified chip, a.k.a. NV41, which will only have 12 pixel pipelines and 5 vertex pipelines, in order to reduce manufacturing costs and improve yields.