Riva TNT2
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The Riva TNT2 was a 3D graphics chip manufactured by NVIDIA starting in early 1999.
The core is almost identical to its predecessor the Riva TNT, however updates included AGP 4X support, up to 32MB of VRAM, and a die shrink from a 0.35 micrometre to a 0.25 micrometre manufacturing process. It was the process shrink that enabled improved clock speeds, which is where the substantial performance improvement came from.
The TNT2 now offered comparable performance to the 3dfx Voodoo3, which meant consumers could focus on the additional features of the TNT family, such as Truecolor in 3D. But most importantly, Nvidia's part was a single die solution with integrated 2D functionality. This meant it could be manufactured far more cheaply than any of 3dfx's products.
Although competition in the GPU market was still fierce at this time, the TNT2 chipset marks nVidia's transition to market leader. The failure of 3dfx and many other competitors to release new products in late 1999, most especially to compete with the subsequent GeForce 256 chipset, resulted in a dramatic shakeout in the graphics industry.
Chipset table
| Chipset | Memory Speed (MHz) | Pixels Per Second (Million) | Memory Bandwidth (GB/s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| TNT2 | 150 | 230 | 2.4 |
| M64 | 150 | 230 | 1.2 |
| PRO | 166 | 284 | 2.65 |
| ULTRA | 183 | 300 | 2.9 |
Competing chipsets
- 3dfx Voodoo3
- Matrox G400
- ATI Technologies Rage 128
- S3 Graphics Savage4
External links
- TNT2 - The Mainstream 128-bit TwiN Texel 3D Processor (http://www.nvidia.com/page/tnt2.html)Template:Nvidia