At the end of September, held its NVIDIA GPU Technology Conference and unveiled the first details of its architecture Fermi. The revelations were so heavily focused on GPGPU and the chameleon had remained discreet about the graphics performance of its new solution. Since we can not really say that NVIDIA has been more voluble on the subject. A few days ago, while the ESC shut its doors, the Californian firm has invited dozens of journalists, handpicked for further discussion of new "graphic" architectural Fermi. The first graphics card that should see the day is now known as GF100, and GF stands for "GeForce Fermi" and the number 100 represents the position of the card in the range.

As might be doubtful in view of the number of transistors (3 billion to recall), the GF100 is not a simple changes in the GT200, but a new architecture, which also differs significantly from what was done until now. NVIDIA now adheres to a conception "geometric" in 3D, which should offer them more accurate and more realistic. The chameleon has also sought to minimize the loss of performance when the active functions that could be regarded as annexes few years ago but are now an integral part of the gaming experience course, PhysX, and 3D Vision is at the heart of this approach, and should take advantage of these two technologies over a large area (up to 3 screens when multiple cards are installed in SLI) without performance being a problem. A method of antialiasing at 32x is also being introduced.

Basically, the GF100 is relying heavily on innovation to attract. Its pure characteristics are not very attractive, at least when compared to the Radeon HD 5870 ATI launched six months ago! One can expect that it is positioned slightly to the graphics card from AMD, while eating more, more heating, and more expensive. Buyers of the first hour will probably fans and hardcore gamers. After a few months, once the production is better controlled, and with more mature drivers, NVIDIA might have a broader benefit, but will he not already too late? We will answer this question in a few months...

Name: geforce-gf100.jpg Views: 27 Size: 36.9 KB