In an attempt to catch up with arch-rival ATI Technologies in low-cost graphics segment with native PCI Express products, NVIDIA Corp. Monday announced an update to the company’s inexpensive graphics processors lineup. The new chip from NVIDIA utilizes the firm’s latest architecture and increases competitiveness to the company’s PCI Express family of products.

“With a GeForce 6200-based PC, consumers now have a compelling, cost-effective alternative to integrated graphics that delivers amazing graphics and high-definition video performance and a forward-looking 3D architecture that will future-proof their systems,” said Dan Vivoli, executive vice president of marketing at NVIDIA.

The GeForce 6200 is a derivative of the company’s GeForce 6600 graphics processor code-named NV43 with cut-down specifications. The GeForce 6200 chip features 4 pixel and 3 vertex pipelines compared to 8 pixel and 3 vertex processors of the GeForce 6600-series. The GeForce 6600-series graphics processing units contain about 146 million of transistors. NVIDIA manufactures the GeForce 6600/6200-series graphics processing units at TSMC using 0.11 micron fabrication process. Earlier this year some sources suggested that NVIDIA GeForce 6200 would be powered by a new chip code-named NV44.

By releasing the GeForce 6200-series products NVIDIA Corp. catches up with the rival ATI Technologies, who has been supplying its RADEON X300- and RADEON X600-series products since early June, 2004, targeting entry-level PCI Express x16 graphics cards market. The GeForce 6200 sports some advantages over ATI's X300- and X600-families by supporting technologies like Shader Model 3.0 and UltraShadow II that enhance performance and improve quality of current and future computer games.

NVIDIA recommends its graphics cards partners to clock the GPU to 300MHz and equip graphics cards with 128MB or 256MB 550MHz DDR SDRAM memory. Santa Clara, California-based graphics chip designer suggests that the GeForce 6200 graphics cards would be sold for $129 and $149 for 128MB and 256MB flavours respectively.

NVIDIA said the new low-end graphics cards would be available in November, 2004. The company plans to supply first samples of the GeForce 6200 this or next week for media evaluation, according to NVIDIA’s executives.