Supercharged GeForce 256 Boards

The new GeForce 256 video cards are right around the corner. But before you rush out and plunk down your hard-earned money for one of these speed demons, you'll probably want to read this. Nvidia's reference GeForce specification calls for two different versions of the chipset, much the same way its TNT2 shipped in two distinct variations (125MHz and 150MHz clock rates). The standard GeForce 256 chipset is the same one you've been reading about: quad pixel pipeline, 120MHz clock rate, hardware transform & lighting procedures, and so on. This new variant however, which was officially announced only this week, replaces the memory found on the standard GeForce 256 cards with Double Data Rate, or DDR, RAM. Nvidia calls this spec the GeForce 256 DDR.

What's so special about DDR RAM? Essentially, DDR RAM allows for twice the data-transfer rate per clock cycle of standard SDR (single data rate) RAM found on all the major desktop video cards on the market today. This increased bandwidth eliminates the data bottleneck accompanied by running polygon- and texture-crunching 3D games at resolutions beyond 1024x768. Translation: Mind-blowing frame rates at jaw-dropping resolutions.

Now here's the catch. Actually there are two catches. Don't expect GeForce 256 cards with DDR RAM to become available at your local retailer anytime before November, or even December. And when they do ship, these cards are going to be hot property and thus their availability will be severely limited. Now here's the kicker - DDR RAM doesn't come cheap, and the vendors that'll be supplying DDR boards are paying through the nose for this stuff. How expensive will they be? Well, Creative announced its DDR board, called the 3D Blaster Annihilator Pro, for US$349... and that's without a software bundle of any kind. Guillemot also announced the 3D Prophet DDR this morning for a whopping $389. To Guillemot's credit, however, its video cards have historically shipped with an above-average game bundle and have been clocked faster than Nvidia's reference specification.

Our advice to you, as it's always been regarding upcoming technology, is simply to wait. Don't get caught up in all the prelaunch hype: We'll have full benchmarks and a technological rundown of the GeForce 256 and DDR shortly.