RIVA TNT2
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The RIVA TNT2 was a 3D graphics chip manufactured by NVIDIA starting in early 1999. The chip is codenamed "NV5" because it is the 5th graphics chip design by NVIDIA, succeeding the RIVA TNT (NV4).
[edit] Overview
The TNT2 core is almost identical to its predecessor the RIVA TNT, however updates included AGP 4X support, up to 32MB of VRAM, and a process shrink from 0.35 μm to 0.25 μm. It was the process shrink that enabled improved clock speeds (from 90 MHz to 150+ MHz), which is where the substantial performance improvement came from. The TNT2 offered a higher quality featureset than some of its competitors, pioneered by the RIVA TNT, such as 32-bit color in 3D and support for larger 2048×2048 px textures. RIVA TNT2's competition included the 3dfx Voodoo2, 3dfx Voodoo3, the Matrox G400, and the ATI Rage 128.[1]
The main competitor to the TNT2 was the 3dfx Voodoo3. What the Voodoo3 mainly lacked when compared to the TNT2 was 32bit color. This was the main selling point of the TNT2, while the main selling point of the Voodoo3 was the speed advantage it had over the TNT2. Voodoo3 cards render internally in 32bit, but use special algorithms and techniques to dither the color to 16bit, then use a post filter to change to a 22bit equivalent. This was quite difficult for a consumer to understand, so while in reality the Voodoo3 did not lack much in image quality over the TNT2, the TNT2 image quality looked better on paper. The Voodoo3 and TNT2 also differ in that the Voodoo3 has a single multitexturing pipeline, while the TNT2 has two single texturing pipelines. This means that in some rare old games which only put a single texture on a polygon face at once, the TNT2 can be faster. Single texturing games are few and far between, so at the time this went by mainly unnoticed.
One alarming fact that many hardware review sites noted was that the TNT2 could still be beaten by two 3dfx Voodoo2 running in SLI mode. This did not matter to many consumers though, as Voodoo2 technology was now seen as old, despite there not being much real world performance difference between Voodoo2, Voodoo3, and TNT2.
A low-cost version known as the TNT2 M64 was produced with the memory interface reduced from 128-bit to 64-bit. Sometimes these were labelled "Vanta", continuing the Vanta name started with a value-oriented RIVA TNT-based product. This chipset outperformed the older RIVA TNT while costing less to produce, and proved extremely popular in the OEM market, as most consumers simply assumed all TNT2 cards were the same.
Falcon Northwest, a veteran gaming PC company, and Guillemot, an international video card manufacturer, at one point cooperated to create the Falcon Northwest Special Edition Maxi Gamer Xentor 32. It was a TNT2 Ultra card designed to operate at a record-breaking 195 MHz core and similarly impressive 235 MHz RAM. This was far and away the highest clocked TNT2 model released. The card used special extremely low latency 4.3 ns SDRAM (for the time) to achieve the high RAM clock speed.[2]
The entire TNT2 line would be replaced as NVIDIA's flagship product in 2000 by the GeForce 256, although TNT2 chips were still produced until late 2001, and were integrated by third parties into motherboard solutions.
[edit] Chipset table
| Chipset | Core (MHz) | Memory Speed (MHz) |
Pixels Per Second (Million) |
Memory Bandwidth (GB/s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| VANTA | 100+ | 150 | 200+ | 1.2 |
| M64 | 125+ | 150 | 250+ | 1.2 |
| TNT2 | 125+ | 150 | 250+ | 2.4 |
| PRO | 143 | 166 | 286 | 2.65 |
| ULTRA | 150+ | 183 | 300+ | 2.9 |
- Note: These clock speeds can vary.
[edit] Competing chipsets
[edit] References
- ^ Lal Shimpi, Anand. NVIDIA Riva TNT2, Anandtech, April 27, 1999.
- ^ Freeman, Vince. Falcon Northwest Special Edition Xentor Review, Sharky Extreme, November 12, 1999.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
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