GeForce

GeForce is a cast of cartoon processing units (GPUs) advised by Nvidia. As of 2009, there accept been eleven iterations of the design. The aboriginal GeForce articles were detached GPUs advised for use on add-on cartoon boards, advised for the high-margin PC gaming market. Later about-face of the product-line covered all tiers of the PC cartoon market, from cost-sensitive, 1 motherboard-integrated GPUs to mainstream, add-in, retail boards. Most recently, GeForce technology has been alien into Nvidia's band of anchored appliance processors, advised for cyberbanking handhelds and adaptable handsets.

With account to detached GPUs, begin in add-in graphics-boards, Nvidia's GeForce and AMD's Radeon GPUs are the alone actual competitors in the high-end bazaar Along with its abutting competitor, the AMD Radeon, the GeForce architectonics is affective against GPGPU (General Purpose-Graphics Processor Unit). GPGPU is accepted to aggrandize GPU functionality above the acceptable rasterization of 3D graphics, to about-face it into a high-performance accretion accessory able to assassinate approximate programming cipher in the aforementioned way a CPU does, but with altered strengths (highly alongside beheading of aboveboard calculations) and weaknesses (worse achievement for circuitous controlling code).

Name origin

The "GeForce" name originated from a challenge captivated by Nvidia in aboriginal 1999. Alleged "Name That Chip", the aggregation alleged out to the accessible to name the almsman to the RIVA TNT2 band of cartoon boards. There were over 12,000 entries accustomed and 7 winners accustomed a RIVA TNT2 Ultra cartoon agenda as a reward.23

mGPUs

Beginning with the nForce 4, nVidia has included onboard cartoon solutions in their motherboard chipsets. These onboard cartoon solutions are alleged mGPUs (motherboard GPUs).4 As technology progressed, Nvidia developed a break-through adaptable GPU alleged the NVidia ION cartoon processor. The ION GPU can bear 1080p video after lag or video tearing. ION video evidence

Mobile GPUs

Since the GeForce2, Nvidia has produced a amount of cartoon chipsets for anthology computers beneath the GeForce Go branding. Most of the appearance present in the desktop counterparts are present in the adaptable ones. However these GPUs do not accomplish as able-bodied as their desktop counterpart. Nvidia after rebranded their adaptable chipset for the GeForce 8 based GPUs the GeForce 8M series. In 1st Quarter 2009 the GeForce 200M alternation were released. However these cards are in fact based on the G92 amount aswell begin in 8 and 9 alternation GPUs, as against to a accurate GT200 core, mainly for ability burning reasons.

Nomenclature

With the absolution of the GeForce 100 alternation of cards, nVidia cards started application a suffix to baptize their category. The GTX, GTS, GT and G suffixes were announced.5 The aboriginal chiffre in the name of a agenda represents its generation, while the additional and third digits represent the achievement of the agenda about to others in the family.

The aggregation followed a allotment arrangement agnate to that apparent beneath for the GeForce FX alternation until the GeForce 9 series.

cf. Nvidia's Achievement Graph here.

This arrangement is alone applicative to the GeForce FX alternation to the GeForce 9 series. GeForce4, GTX200, and added cards chase a agnate pattern.

1: Suffixes announce its achievement layer, and those listed are in adjustment from weakest to a lot of powerful. Suffixes from bottom categories can still be acclimated on college achievement cards, example: 8800 GT.

2: Price ambit alone applies to the a lot of contempo bearing and is a generalization based on appraisement patterns.

3: Shader bulk compares the amount of shaders pipelines or units in that accurate archetypal ambit to the accomplished archetypal accessible in the generation.

Generations

GeForce 256

Launched on August 31, 1999, the GeForce 256 (NV10) was the aboriginal PC cartoon dent with accouterments transform, lighting, and concealment although 3D amateur utilizing this affection did not arise until later. Antecedent GeForce 256 boards alien with SDR SDRAM memory, and afterwards boards alien with faster DDR SDRAM memory.

GeForce 2 Alternation

Launched in April 2000, the aboriginal GeForce2 (NV15) was addition high-performance cartoon chip. Nvidia confused to a accompanying arrangement processor per activity (4x2) design, acceleration arrangement fillrate per alarm compared to GeForce 256. Later, Nvidia appear the GeForce2 MX (NV11), which offered achievement agnate to the GeForce 256 but at a atom of the cost. The MX was a acute amount in the low/mid-range bazaar segments and was accepted with OEM PC manufacturers and users alike. The GeForce 2 Ultra was the high-end archetypal in this series.

GeForce 3 Alternation

Launched in February 2001, the GeForce3 (NV20) alien programmable pixel shaders to the GeForce family. It had acceptable all-embracing achievement and shader support, authoritative it accepted with enthusiasts although it never hit the midrange amount point. A acquired of the GeForce3, NV2A, was developed for the Microsoft Xbox bold console.

GeForce 4 Alternation

Launched in February 2002, the high-end GeForce4 Ti (NV25) was mostly a clarification to the GeForce3. The bigger advancements included enhancements to anti-aliasing capabilities, an bigger anamnesis controller, a additional acme shader, and a accomplishment action admeasurement abridgement to access alarm speeds. Addition "family member," the account GeForce4 MX, was based on the GeForce2, with a few additions from the new GeForce4 Ti line. It targeted the amount articulation of the bazaar and lacked pixel shaders. A lot of of these models acclimated the AGP4x interface, but a few began the alteration to AGP8x.

GeForce FX Alternation

Launched in 2003, the GeForce FX (NV30) was a huge change in architectonics compared to its predecessors. The GPU was advised not alone to abutment the new Shader Archetypal 2 blueprint but aswell to accomplish able-bodied on earlier titles. However, antecedent models suffered from anemic amphibian point shader achievement and boundless calefaction which appropriate two-slot cooling solutions. Articles in this alternation backpack the 5000 archetypal number, as it is the fifth bearing of the GeForce, admitting Nvidia marketed the cards as GeForce FX instead of GeForce 5 to appearance off "the aurora of accurate rendering".

GeForce 6 Alternation

Launched in April 2004, the GeForce 6 (NV40) added Shader Archetypal 3.0 abutment to the GeForce family, while acclimation the anemic amphibian point shader achievement of its predecessor. It aswell implemented top activating ambit imaging and alien SLI (Scalable Link Interface) and PureVideo adequacy (integrated DVD Video decoder, eliminates the charge for software video decoders).

GeForce 7 Alternation

The 7th bearing GeForce (G70/NV47) was launched in June 2005 and was the endure video agenda advised for AGP bus. The architectonics was a aesthetic adaptation of GeForce 6, with the above improvements getting a widened activity and an access in alarm speed. The GeForce 7 aswell offers new accuracy supersampling and accuracy multisampling anti-aliasing modes (TSAA and TMAA). These new anti-aliasing modes were afterwards enabled for the GeForce 6 alternation as well. The GeForce 7950GT featured the accomplished achievement GPU with an AGP interface in the nVidia line. This era began the alteration to the PCI-Express interface.

A 128-bit, 8 ROP adaptation of the 7950 GT, alleged the RSX 'Reality Synthesizer', is acclimated as the capital GPU in the Sony PlayStation 3.

GeForce 8 Alternation

Appear on November 8, 2006, the 8th bearing GeForce (G80 originally) was the aboriginal anytime GPU to absolutely abutment Direct3D 10. Built on a cast new architecture, bogus in 80 nm, it has a absolutely unified shader architecture. Originally just the 8800GTX, the GTS was appear months into the artefact line's life, and it took about 6 months for mid-range and OEM/mainstream cards to be dent into the 8-series. The Die-shrink down to 65 nm and a afterlight to the G80 design, codenamed G92, were implemented into the 8 alternation with the 8800GS, the 8800GT, and 8800GTS-512. Aboriginal appear on October 29, 2007, about one accomplished year afterwards the antecedent G80 release.

GeForce 9 Alternation / GeForce 100 Series

The aboriginal artefact was appear on February 21, 2008.6 Not even four months earlier than the antecedent G92 release, all 9-series designs, both currently-out and speculated, are artlessly revisions to absolute backward 8-series products. The 9800GX2 uses two G92 GPUs, as acclimated in afterwards 8800 cards, in a bifold PCB agreement while still alone acute a alone PCI-Express 16x slot. The 9800GX2 utilizes two abstracted 256-bit anamnesis busses, one for anniversary GPU and its agnate 512MB of memory, which equates to an all-embracing of 1GB of anamnesis on the agenda (although the SLI agreement of the chips necessitates apery the anatomy absorber amid the two chips, appropriately finer halving the anamnesis achievement of a 256-bit/512MB configuration). The afterwards 9800GTX appearance a alone G92 GPU, 256-bit abstracts bus, and 512MB of GDDR3 memory.7 Prior to the release, no accurate advice was accepted except admiral claiming the next bearing articles accepting abutting to 1 TFLOPS achievement while the GPU cores still getting bogus in the 65 nm process, and letters about Nvidia downplaying the acceptation of Direct3D 10.1.8 On March 2009, several sources appear that nVidia had agilely launched a new alternation of its flagship GeForce products, appointed GeForce 100 Series, which consists of rebadged 9 Alternation parts.91011 The alone official antecedent of advice on GeForce 100 Alternation at this time is "nVidia GeForce Family" web page and agnate artefact pages.12 According to this web page, GeForce 100 articles are not accessible for alone purchase.

GeForce 200 Alternation / GeForce 300 Series

Based on the GT200 cartoon processor consisting of 1.4 billion transistors, the 200 alternation was launched on 16 June 2008.13 The next bearing of the GeForce alternation takes the card-naming arrangement in a new direction, by replacing the alternation amount (such as 8800 for 8-series cards) with the GTX or GTS suffix (which acclimated to go at the end of agenda names, cogent their 'rank' a part of added agnate models), and again abacus model-numbers such as 260 and 280 afterwards that. The alternation appearance the new GT200 amount on a 65nm die.14 The aboriginal articles were the GeForce GTX 260 and the added big-ticket GeForce GTX 280.15 The GeForce 310 was appear on November 27, 2009, which is a rebrand of GeForce 210.1617 According to Nvidia, the allotment for the 300 alternation will be allocated for DirectX 10.1 accordant GPU rebrand in the future.

GeForce 400 Alternation / GeForce 500 Series

Nvidia announced18 and released19 the GeForce GTX 470 and GTX 480, the aboriginal cards based on the new Fermi architectonics codenamed GF100, and the aboriginal to advance 1GB or added of newer GDDR5 memory. They were appear on April 7, 2010. Afterwards that year, Nvidia alien the GeForce GTX 465 as a cutdown, cheaper adaptation of the GF100 dent to ambition at boilerplate users. The GTX 465 was bound replaced by the GTX 460, based on the GF104 architecture, which featured lower ability burning and bigger performance. Soon after, Nvidia appear boilerplate versions of Fermi architecture, aswell accepted as GF106 and GF108, for consumers as able-bodied as OEMs. NVIDIA aswell appear a flagship GPU based on a revised GF100 architectonics (GF110), alleged the GTX 580, that featured college performance/power ability than the GTX 480. Nvidia aswell afresh appear two updates to the GTX470 and GTX460, the GTX570 and GTX560 Ti, both of which aswell affection bigger achievement than their predecessor. They accept now phased out the GTX480 and GTX470, while befitting the GTX460 in assembly as a lower account top end card. Again came the GTX590, a aggregate of 2 GTX 580 on one alone card. The GTX 590 is Nvidia's a lot of able cartoon agenda to date.

GeForce 600 Series

In September 2010, Nvidia appear that the almsman to Fermi would be the Kepler architecture, based on a 28 nm artifact process. On March 22, 2012, the single-core ambit flagship GTX 680 was released, with cogent ability improvements.20