Nvidia announces GeForce FX

Nvidia hasn't tried hard to conceal the general 2875258features and 2895705release schedule for its upcoming NV30 graphics chip, but until today few specific details were public. Well, the wraps are now off, and Nvidia is promoting the chip--officially called the GeForce FX--at the ongoing Comdex trade show in Las Vegas.

In brief, the GeForce FX promises to be fast and have plenty of forward-looking features. The chip is clocked at 500MHz, as is the 128-bit DDR2 memory, which has an effective speed of 1GHz. While the chip won't quite match the raw memory bandwidth of ATI's Radeon 9700 Pro, Nvidia's new lossless color compression should help to save a lot of bandwidth. The GeForce FX supports DirectX 9, and it goes beyond the base DX9 specifications.

While Nvidia hasn't announced specific products, a high-end card in the $400 range is expected first. The card should start production sometime in December and hit shelves in February. For more information, check out our preview of the GeForce FX.