GeForce 3 Ti500

Ti500 overview

The "T" makes the difference

GeForce 3 Ti200

Six months have passed since the introduction of the GeForce 3 and NVIDIA is doing its best to steal the thunder of ATi’s RADEON 8500 introduction. Realistically seen, ther Ti500 is nothing more than a shrunk GeForce 3 chip whose core and memory run 40MHz faster. A closer look reveals some additional details:

• The PCB. Instead of a 6-layer PCB, the TI500 is built on an 8-layer design
• The chip is manufactured on a special 0.15µ process which, according to NVIDIA, TSMC is offering exclusively to NVIDIA. The new process supposedly allows for faster transistors. In addition, the memory timings are faster than on the GeForce 3. Despite this, the Ti500 is not a new design. The transistor count remains identical to that of the GF3.
• The powersupply on the new card has been redesigned. NVIDIA claims it is now more efficient. Other sources have been quoted as saying that the new design is simply cheaper to produce.
• New 3D features: 3D textures and shadow buffers. Strictly speaking, these features are already supported by the "old" GeForce 3 in the exact same manner. 3D textures in hardware have been supported since the 12.xx family of drivers. Also, the GeForce 3 is just as capable of handling shadow buffers as the new Ti200/500 chips.

The reason for NVIDIA’s reservations concerning 3D textures may stem from the fact that they were broken before the A5 revision of the GF3! A3 chips are completely incapable of processing 3D textures in hardware!! That’s also the reason why we’ve never seen NVIDIA offer any tech demos using 3D textures on the developer sites.... In case you’re wondering – yes, ATI does. Using their demo, the A3 problem can be easily reproduced. (The A5 completes the demo while the A3 aborts the run).

Differences between old and new GeForce 3 cards

The following pictures show how the board layouts differ between the GF3 and the Ti500. The primary difference can be found in the power supply:

Ti 500 Frontside	Ti 500 Backside
GeForce 3 Ti500	GeForce 3 (old)
GeForce 3 Ti500	GeForce 3 (old)

The most obvious change can be seen on the front. The Ti500 carries only one coil, while the GF3 has two. So if you’re shopping around for a GeForce 3 in the future, it would pay to take an extra close look at the board. The devil is in the details, and reports of faked cards aren’t unthinkable...

Copyright: 01.10.2001 -   RIVA Station 2001 - Lars Weinand
No Copy without Permission!

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