Acknowledgements

I would like to express my appreciation to NVIDIA and their Public Relations Manager Derek Perez for giving me the opportunity to review their GeForce 256 graphics accelerator. Also, thanks goes out to NVIDIA's Nick Triantos, who heads up the OpenGL and Direct 3D Software Group, for putting up with my seemingly endless list of questions.

Update: December 30, 1999

Be sure to check out our review of the Creative Labs Annihilator Pro which is based on NVIDIA's GeForce 256 using high-speed DDR memory!

Purpose Of The Review

The purpose of this review is two-fold. First and foremost, this review determines the performance of the GeForce 256 using an extensive series of benchmarks. The benchmark suite contains OpenGL/Direct 3D games, synthetic benchmarks, and benchmarks developed by NVIDIA which are aimed towards illustrating the advanced capabilities of the GeForce 256.

This review also contains performance comparisons of the GeForce 256 to NVIDIA's legacy chips - the TNT and TNT2. There are many TNT owners who bypassed upgrading to the TNT2 in anticipation of NVIDIA's GeForce. I've conducted extensive benchmark testing to ensure that after reading this review, you'll have no doubts as to the performance of the GeForce 256 and what it can offer you as a gamer or CAD user.

About The Review

I've attempted to keep this review non-technical and provide a basic understanding of what the GeForce 256 brings to the table. Benchmarks are used to show the benefits over the GeForce 256 over prior generations of NVIDIA products.

The Goods section is pretty long, but it explains what the GeForce 256 is about. With all the information NVIDIA provided, I could have easily written twenty or more pages. Instead, I consolidated the information to provide you with a fundamental understanding of the GeForce 256's Graphics Processing Unit (GPU).