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Come promesso, il colosso di Santa Clara presenta ufficialmente la nuova generazione di chip video della serie NV4x presentandone il capostipite: NV40, o GeForce 6800Ultra.
Si tratta di un chip dall'architettura 16x1 con frequenze di 400Mhz per il core e di 1100 Mhz DDR per le memorie (GDDR3).
Questo progetto, compatibile con le versioni 3.0 dei Pixel e Vertex Shader, ha delle prestazioni molto interessanti, un miglioramento qualitativo nella resa del FSAA e un adattamento del filtro Anisotropico alla soluzione di Ati.
La potenza elaborativa di questo chip è davvero impressionante, e solo le risoluzioni maggiori, unite all'applicazione dei filtri grafici, possono mettere in mostra la sua reale potenza.
Questo giorno è molto importante per nVidia, celebrato anche con una rivisitazione del sito web, reso a nostro parere ancora più gradevole dal punto di vista grafico.

Per avere un rapido excursus sulla nuova famiglia di chip video, vi rimandiamo alla loro pagina web, a questo indirizzo.

Ritornando alle prestazioni, vi anticipiamo che i primi test di alcuni colleghi hanno mostrato un guadagno del 100% nell'elaborazione dei Vertex Shader 2.0 e del 300% in quella dei PIxel Shader 2.0.

SANTA CLARA, CA—APRIL 14, 2004—NVIDIA Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA), the worldwide leader in visual processing solutions, introduced today the NVIDIA® GeForce™ 6800 models of graphics processing units (GPUs) for high-performance desktop computers. The NVIDIA GeForce 6 Series, which includes the flagship GeForce 6800 Ultra and GeForce 6800, is designed to deliver:
Industry-leading 3D performance- new superscalar 16-pipe architecture delivers more than twice that of current industry leading NVIDIA GPUs
New features, including Microsoft DirectX® 9.0 Shader Model 3.0 feature set - for ultra-realistic cinematic effects
Unprecedented on-chip video processing engine - enabling high-definition video and DVD playback

“This is the biggest generation-to-generation performance leap that we have ever seen with a new GPU,” said Jen-Hsun Huang, president and CEO of NVIDIA. “In addition to the raw performance increase, we had two fundamental strategies with the 6800 models. First was to take programmability to the next level with the industry’s only GPU with Shader Model 3.0. Second was to extend the reach of GPUs to the consumer electronics market with a powerful and fully programmable video processor capable of multiple video formats and ‘prosumer’ level image processing.”

“As DOOM 3 development winds to a close, my work has turned to development of the next generation rendering technology. The NV40 is my platform of choice due to its support of very long fragment programs, generalized floating point blending and filtering, and the extremely high performance,” said John Carmack, president and technical director of id Software

Revolutionary New GeForce 6800 Architecture
The innovative 3D graphics architecture of the GeForce 6800 GPUs introduces many key new technologies that will drive the image quality and performance in 3D gaming, including:
Blazingly Fast Graphics Performance: With a revolutionary new 16 pipeline superscalar architecture and the worldÂ’s fastest GDDR3 memory, GeForce 6800 GPUs offer a staggering amount of graphics horsepower. Gaming performance is super charged with eight times the floating-point shader power, four times the shadow processing power and double the vertex processing power over last generationÂ’s award winning GeForce FX architecture.
Revolutionary New Feature Set: Built with full Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0 Shader Model 3.0 support, the GeForce 6 Series was built to deliver ultra-realistic next-generation DirectX 9 titles. The GeForce 6800 GPUs give developer’s unlimited programmability, 32-bit shader precision, displacement mapping, geometry instancing and other features unique to the GeForce 6 Series. In addition, this new GPU delivers full floating point support throughout the entire pipeline, GeForce 6800 GPUs vastly improve the quality of images in motion with floating point filtering. The new rotated-grid antialiasing feature removes jagged edges for incredible image quality and a new 16x anisotropic filtering mode adds clarity to textures.

“The NVIDIA GeForce 6 Series is a great leap forward in PC graphics, bringing next-generation Microsoft DirectX 9 rendering performance to new heights while continuing forward with the high-definition floating-point rendering, driver performance, and stability NVIDIA is famous for,” stated Tim Sweeney, Founder EPIC Games. “As the first GPU supporting the new Pixel Shader 3.0 programming model, the GeForce 6 Series enables games to use entirely new rendering approaches and obtain higher performance per-pixel lighting, shadowing, and special effects than previously possible.”

"We appreciate NVIDIA”s continued support of Microsoft DirectX,” said Chris Donahue, Lead Technical Evangelist of the Windows Graphics and Gaming Team at Microsoft. “We are eager to experience the hardware implementation NVIDIA GeForce 6 Series promises to bring to the market.”

World’s first on-chip video processor: GeForce 6800 GPUs have a programmable video processing engine that delivers stunning high-definition video playback. Featuring support for MPEG encode and decode, as well as support for Windows Media Video 9 (WMV9), the GeForce 6800 delivers an amazing video experience when used with the Microsoft® Windows® Media Center Edition operating system. The GeForce 6800 also enables high-quality video playback on any window size, and has an integrated TV-encoder for direct-to-TV playback.

“Adobe is very excited about the programmable video features in these new NVIDIA GPUs. Many Adobe customers have already been enjoying the power of NVIDIA GPUs to create sophisticated 3D animations for the past year. Our future products will take even more advantage of the new capabilities being unveiled in these GPUs,” said David Trescot, senior director, Digital Video Products at Adobe.

GeForce 6800 GPUs benefit from the renowned compatibility and reliability of the NVIDIA® ForceWare™ software featuring the NVIDIA Unified Driver Architecture (UDA). In addition NVIDIA ForceWare delivers industry-leading software features such as custom game profiles, HDTV output, overclocking, multi-display support, and much more.

Availability
The first GPUs based on the NVIDIA GeForce 6 Series, the GeForce 6800 Ultra and GeForce 6800 models, are manufactured using IBMÂ’s high-volume 0.13-micron process technology and are currently shipping to leading add-in-card partners, OEMs, system builders, and game developers.

Retail graphics boards based on the GeForce 6800 models are slated for release in the next 45 days.