ATI Technologies and NVIDIA Unveiled DirectX 9.0-Supporting Graphics Processors for Mobile Computers

by Anton Shilov
03/13/2003 | 06:01 PM

Today seems to be a very important day for the whole 3D-graphics industry as both leading suppliers of graphics solutions announced their new graphics processors with DirectX 9.0-support for mobile computers at CeBIT 2003. ATI Technologies and NVIDIA Corporation will both start to supply their cinematic graphics processors this Spring.

Markham, Ontario and Santa Clara, California-based ATI Technologies, who was also the first and currently the only supplier of DirectX 9.0-supporting graphics products, today uncovers its MOBILITY RADEON 9600 that gives users both the longest battery life and the highest performance.

The MOBILITY RADEON 9600 graphics processor is manufactured using TSMC’s 0.13 micron technology and supports a low 1.0V core voltage, with power consumption as low as 0.5W in idle condition. Active power is at the same level as the previous generation, even though performance and features have increased dramatically. As you probably have guessed, the MOBILITY RADEON 9600 implements the RV350 graphics core announced about a week ago.

The list of new features found in the MOBILITY RADEON 9600 encompasses:

• Four rendering pipelines with one texture unit per each;
• 2 vertex shader engines;
• 300/600MHz for core/memory clock-speeds;
• SMARTSHADER 2.0 technology to support DirectX 9.0 features in hardware;
• SMOOTHVISION 2.0 for advanced FSAA and anisotropic filtering;
• Improved power-saving POWERPLAY 4.0 technology that supports multiple power-saving methods, including flexible POWER-ON-DEMAND engine that constantly monitors system activity, dynamically adjusting clocks and voltage based on user scenario. Famous LOW POWER LCD technology that enables lower LCD refresh rate for longer battery life is also present. Among the innovations of the POWERPLAY 4.0 I should note ATI OVERDRIVE - on-chip thermal sensor that enables performance to scale up dependent on notebook thermal environment.
• Hyper M technology that includes GDDR2-M memory controller as well as certain bandwidth-saving technologies, encompassing lossless colour compression and lossless z-compression (8:1 with no FSAA, up to 24:1 with FSAA);
• Integrated dual-channel LVDS, with support for QXGA resolutions (2048x1536);
• 165 MHz integrated TMDS transmitter;
• Integrated TV-Out Encoder;
• Integrated Dual 400MHz RAMDAC;
• Integrated HDTV encoder, supporting component output (YPbPr) for both North American and Japanese D-link connectors;
• Hardware accelerated DVD playback;
• AGP 8x;

There will be four different versions of ATI MOBILITY RADEON 9600 graphics solutions: discrete VPU and variety of MAPs (Mobile AGP Package) with either 32MB (64-bit), 64MB (128-bit) or 128MB (128-bit) of DDR SDRAM memory. ATI will also launch ATI MOBILITY RADEON 9600 PRO product offering higher performance and utilising GDDR2-M memory in later Spring or in Summer this year.

Notebooks powered by the MOBILITY RADEON 9600 family will ship this Spring. Launch partners include Actebis, Alienware, Asus, Clevo, ECS, FIC, Fujitsu-Siemens, Gericom, HP, Medion, Media Markt, Mitac, NEC, Uniwill, and Voodoo PC.

NVIDIA Corporation, who will start to attack the graphics market with its DirectX 9.0-supporting products only in the coming weeks today also announced its GeForce FX Go5600 and Go5200 chips. Unfortunately, NVIDIA has not provided a lot of information about the GPUs, so we are still looking forward to learn more about the babes.

Generally speaking, the GeForce FX Go5600 and Go5200 graphics processors have much in common with desktop GeForce FX 5600 and 5200 GPUs announced last week (see this news-story for more information). Mobile versions should consume less power and support PowerMizer technology to reduce energy consumption. The former GPU operates at 350/350MHz for core and memory, while the latter works at 300/300MHz for GPU and DDR SDRAM. I have no idea about power consumption of the processors due to the lack of any official information, but I believe that the GeForce FX Go5200 will be a pretty hungry animal, as it is produced using 0.15 micron technology, runs at pretty high speeds and consists of 45+ million of transistors. I will even not be surprised if the GeForce FX Go5200 stays on paper, just like the GeForce4 Go4200 that is not utilised in any notebook presently.

Here is the list of the GeForce FX Go5200 features I managed to find:

• DirectX 9.0 and CineFX support;
• 45+ million of transistors;
• Enhanced Video Processing Engine (VPE) 2.0 for quality DVD playback using new 64-phase video scaler;
• nView multi-display technology support, including NVRotate and NVKeystone technologies;
• Integrated dual-channel LVDS, with support for UXGA and wide-UXGA resolutions;
• 165 MHz integrated TMDS transmitter;
• Integrated TV-Out Encoder;
• Integrated Dual 350MHz RAMDACs;
• AGP 8x.

Not much is known about the more advanced GeForce FX Go5600:

• DirectX 9.0 and CineFX support;
• 80+ million of transistors;
• Intellisample FSAA support;
• Enhanced Video Processing Engine (VPE) 2.0 for quality DVD playback using new 64-phase video scaler;
• nView multi-display technology support, including NVRotate and NVKeystone technologies;
• Integrated dual-channel LVDS, with support for UXGA and wide-UXGA resolutions;
• 165 MHz integrated TMDS transmitter;
• Integrated TV-Out Encoder;
• Integrated Dual 400MHz RAMDACs;
• AGP 8x.

NVIDIA GeForce FX Go series will be available in April 2003. Toshiba Computer System's Group and Medion will be the first partners to announce notebook solutions including the GeForce FX Go GPUs. Other companies, such as Quanta, Wistron and FIC will also eventually utilise NVIDIA new chips.