Anand goes West - November 2002 Industry Update

NVIDIA's GeForce4 Ti 4800?

Shifting gears a bit, there's a lot brewing at NVIDIA these days. Unfortunately timing for NV30 doesn't seem to be working out as perfectly as once hoped. Although there may be something to show off later this year, NVIDIA is telling their partners that chips will be available early next year. The whole situation is very much like the GeForce3 launch where we'll see a technology release at the end of the year but with actual product shipping in the 1st quarter of next year.

In order to shift focus away from the delayed NV30, there is an increasing amount of attention being given to NV28 - the AGP 8X version of the current GeForce4 (NV25). NVIDIA has already released the GeForce4 Ti 4200-8X, which is nothing more than an AGP 8X version of the Ti 4200. As you can expect, the performance of the AGP 8X offering is virtually identical to the AGP 4X cards give or take one or two percent.

For a while NVIDIA had been planning releasing a GeForce4 Ti 4600-8X similar to the Ti 4200-8X that I just mentioned. However, just very recently the Ti 4600-8X has been scrapped (or should I say renamed) and now roadmaps show two new GeForce4s to debut before the end of the year.

For starters we have the GeForce 4 Ti 4800, but don't let the name excite you - the card is nothing more than a GeForce4 Ti 4600 with AGP 8X support. Even more disappointing is that there's talk of a GeForce4 Ti 4800-SE that runs at the same clock speed as the current-gen Ti 4400 but with AGP 8X support.

We can't only fault NVIDIA for misleading nomenclature though, the difference between ATI's Radeon 9500 and Radeon 9500 Pro is huge yet the difference in name implies nothing more than clock speed changes.

Luckily not all of NVIDIA's graphics announcements are along the lines of delays or the Ti 4800. NVIDIA was over today showing Matthew and I something very impressive that you'll be able to read about in the coming week(s).