X-bit labs

NVIDIA’s Add-in-Card Partners Gear Up for 512MB Graphics Cards Launch.

Category: Video

by Anton Shilov

[ 03/24/2005 | 09:04 PM ]

BFG Technologies, a leading supplier of graphics cards in the USA, said Thursday it would release graphics cards with 512MB memory and increased clock-speeds in about a month time. The claim follows similar plans of numerous other makers of graphics cards who rely on graphics processing units from NVIDIA Corp.

“For the PC gamer and enthusiast who wants bragging rights to one of the most robust graphics cards on the planet, this is the card to own,” said Scott Herkelman, executive vice president marketing for BFG Technologies, Inc. 

The BFG GeForce 6800 Ultra OC 512MB PCI Express graphics card will feature higher graphics processing unit speed compared to reference design, 425MHz versus 400MHz, and will have advantage over 256MB graphics cards in ultra high resolutions with antialiasing and anisotropic filtering enabled. The new product will be able to work in multi-GPU SLI mode delivering industry-leading performance.

Gainward and XFX graphics cards makers also plan to supply graphics cards with 512MB of GDDR3 memory.

ATI Technologies recently showcased RADEON X850 XT graphics cards with 512MB of memory, but the company still did not announce whether it intends to offer commercial products with enlarged local buffer.

According to an ATI’s slide, popular current generation 3D games, such as Doom III, FarCry and Half-Life 2, can get up to 24%, 38% and 52% performance increase because of 512MB frame-buffer over 256MB graphics cards respectively in selected demo sequences run at the highest settings possible today – 1600x1200 with 6x full-scene antialiasing and 16x anisotropic filtering. In a number of cases shown performance of visual processing unit (VPU) still mattered more than memory and the demos could not achieve comfortable frame-rate. Still, very few cases are likely to actually benefit from additional memory.

Pricing of graphics cards with 512MB of memory is unclear.