Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Backup/Recovery

Nvidia did not show at the world's biggest computer fair, CeBIT. We can only assume because the company is currently the graphical Chipzilla, and doesn't need to. When 3Dfx were asked why Nvidia wasn't there executives said: "They're scared of us" which definitely is not the case. In fact, Nvidia is stronger then ever and ready to go on the attack again. In Q3 1999, Nvidia had 46 per cent share following by S3 with 16 per cent, Ati with 15 per cent, 3Dfx with 11 per cent, Matrox with 10 per cent, and many others with one per cent or less. The fact Nvidia never sleeps and is waiting for competition to do something serious, is now proven. After its excellent GeForce 256 chips, Nvidia is already preparing something new. As the NV10 was the code name for the GeForce 256, now, following that tradition the new chips will be code-named NV11 and NV15. NV11 should be NV15’s derivate as the company said it will use 0,18 m technology, have a 160MHz core, a 183 MHz memory clock, T&L setup & rendering, 128 bit rendering engine with up to 64 Mb 128-bit SD RAM with support for 64-bit DDR too. This will be used in mid-range systems. There will be 32 Mb and 64 Mb versions of cards based on the design. The chip supports two independent display pipelines with up to 2048x1536 @ 60 Hz for primary and 1600x1200 @ 100 for secondary display. The graphics core will render two pixels per clock and two texture/pixel. It will be 100 per cent software compatible with GeForce 256, and will use AGP 4X. The chip will have approximately 30 per cent lower power dissipation than NV15, fully supporting HDTV and Digital interface for TV encoder. The other new thing is that as well as Transform and Lightning, cards will do some Clipping too. A new feature is ACPI power management, supporting four possible interfaces: LCD, CRT, TV or a panel with an external transmitter. Cards will also be used in mobile computers. The performance is likely to be 1.5 times better than the GeForce 256 with up to 50 per cent improvement on multitextured apps (ie. Quake 3) and up to 50 per cent improvement on T&L performance. All new Nvidia cards will use unified drivers. Creative, and many other companies are already working on new cards which should hit the market in early spring. ® Abazoviæ Fuad is the editor of Bosnian magazine Info

Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Backup/Recovery