NV18 & NV28:NVIDIA Chips with AGP-8x Flavor - a waste?

[Mr.Guvernment 0]

Is this a waste or what.....

 

Nvidia making ther ti4200 and g4mmx 8x AGP.

 

I really see no point in this. ATI 9700pro card, and even AIW 9700 PRO got 8x agp, but so few motherboards have 8x suport yet, as it really is not something that is needed.

 

yeah, it will be the next best thing, but i think it is still early to be selling these items, (although there will be many who buy them)

 

Is this simply an attempt by Nividia to get back part of the marklet it lost to ATI since the 9700 cards have come out with 8x agp? I have already seen the ti4600 removed from dell's site, what's next!

 

Wy didn't they just wait till their new chipset comes out and put 8x in there.

 

FROM TOMS HARDWARE. http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/02q4/0210041/index.html

Simply put, the graphics card market is divided into two large segments. One is the retail segment, which provides its customers, the do-it-yourselfers, with a single card packaged in a colorful box along with some nice extras like games. The other is the much more lucrative OEM market for off-the-shelf PCs. This second segment is definitely the more interesting one for card and chipmakers alike. After all, when a company like Dell or Gateway decides to use a certain card in one of their product lines, it means an order of several thousand cards right there. This is exactly the market NVIDIA is targeting with its refreshed GeForce4 chips NV18 and NV28. AGP 8x is the new buzzword in the OEM market and therefore the next "must-have" feature as well. After all, 8x is twice as much as 4x - right? Alright, frown if you will, but this kind of argument may well win over some first-time buyers looking through their home-order brochures.

 

 

The MX440-8x now uses the newer and faster BGA memory. Although NVIDIA's reference board only used a passive heatsink to cool the chip itself, the cardmakers will surely not pass up a chance to visually "tune" their cards by including an impressive looking fan.

 

It is hardly surprising, then, that only the two best-selling cards in NVIDIA's line-up, the budget GeForce4 MX440 and the slightly pricier Ti4200, are being treated to the newer and faster bus interface. The new versions of these chips will be called MX440-8x (NV18) and Ti4200-8x (NV28). Rumors about these revisions have been making their way through the net for a while now - ever since ATi's introduction of the Radeon 9000 PRO, to be exact. Suddenly, those companies that chose ATi's chips were able to cash in on the advertising hype around AGP 8x, leaving NVIDIA's partners stuck at "only" AGP 4x. Like it or not, in the world of OEM sales this is a clinching argument.

 

Now NVIDIA is trying to close the gap - and just in time for the holiday season, too. A bit early? Not really, considering the contracts with OEMs are inked a long time before the actual systems using the card will be sold.

 

 

The new Ti4200-8x reference board shows now outward change from its predecessor. Only the name on the chip itself gives the version away.

 

Beyond the switch to AGP 8x, NVIDIA has also cranked up the clockspeeds of the MX440 -8x. Instead of running at 270MHz (GPU) and 400MHz DDR (memory), the new cards are set to 275/500MHz. The Ti4200-8x remains unchanged at 250/500MHz for the 64MB version. Interestingly, the memory of the reference cards supplied by NVIDIA for testing ran slightly faster, namely at 512MHz (NV18) and 514MHz (NV28). Officially, both cards are being advertised as using a memory clockspeed of 500MHz, though.

 

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[adamvjackson 0]

IMO, it's just marketing... it could seemingly make those cards more desirable.

[Immortal 0]

Its just a hyped up thing, soon itl all be PCI-X and 3GIO....then no more AGP or PCI or ISA crap! LOL

[Brian Frank 0]

ISA's already bit the dust---at least the slots have. I still like to have my legacy PS/2 ports.

PCI-X and 3GIO are a little off, so I'm not terribly concerned with them at this point. Server boards will/do have them (PCI-X is on some server-class boards right now), but it could be awhile before they trickle down into mainstream motherboards. I'm not totally crazy about PCI-X as it's a faily long slot---and could be a problem on standard ATX boards or ones even smaller (ITX, if they decide that PCI-X would be a good implementation).

 

Of course it's marketing. There's nothing that AGP 8x is gonna do except give you more of a future with the product that most of us will replace long before it's actually being taxed.

[SHS 0]

Brian ISA's have not bit the dust as long USB 1.0, 1.1 and Floppy and PS/2 are still aorund oh did I forget about bios hehehe.

[clutch 1]

Quote:

Brian ISA's have not bit the dust as long USB 1.0, 1.1 and Floppy and PS/2 are still aorund oh did I forget about bios hehehe.

Why would you say that?

[tweaked 0]

he's saying that even tho a system doees not have an isa slot you still have isa devices.

 

floppy and ps2 are inherently isa devices, no slot but the hardware is internally isa.

 

didnt know that about usb 1.0 and 1.1 tho.

 

learn something new everday.

[Immortal 0]

Its true, if you go into device manager and system you can see ISA something around there!

[Champion_R 0]

My hardware monitor is ISA and I suspect most others are ISA too.

 

Also I agree that remaking the MX440 and Ti4200 AGP 8X is just a marketing ploy. You would be suprised how many people fall for it. Also the MX440 8X version is clocked slightly higher.

[DosFreak 2]

USB is a serial Bus....ummm...as per the Acronym.