Introduction

NVIDIA fall lineup: Titanium!

In the real world titanium is a lightweight metal whose density lies between that of aluminum and stainless steel. It is ductile (i.e. it can be made into wire) melts at 1660 degrees Celsius, and boils at 3287 degrees Celsius. Titanium is also strong, it resists rusting as well as platinum and is unaffected by many highly corrosive acids. In addition, it has a higher strength-to-weight ratio than steel. Because it is strong yet light, titanium is used in a wide variety of applications: propeller blades for ships, military fighter aircraft and jet engines; titanium is even used as a component in the exhaust system of Chevrolet's limited production Corvette Z06.

Like the real world metal, NVIDIA Titanium series of GPUs offers incredible levels of performance, but unlike its real-life counterpart (which is expensive to produce) its price won't break your bank account in the process.

Whether you're a casual gamer that upgrades every few years or the hardcore hardware enthusiast that must always have the latest and greatest, NVIDIA has a Titanium product that should appeal to you.

Late last summer NVIDIA introduced its GeForce 2 Ultra to the enthusiast market at the jaw-dropping price of $500. Only recently have GeForce2 Ultra's fallen below the $200 mark on Pricewatch, but most still cost well north of that figure. Today, NVIDIA officially unveiled its latest second generation GeForce product, the GeForce2 Titanium. This card brings GeForce2 Ultra performance to the mainstream consumer.

Likewise, earlier this year NVIDIA unveiled the world's first DirectX 8 graphics card, the GeForce3 GPU. With its programmable pixel and vertex shaders, game developers can create more lifelike characters and animation, and its Quincunx anti-aliasing algorithm attempts to bring 4-sample anti-aliasing visual quality at a performance hit similar to 2-sample anti-aliasing. The GeForce3 Ti 200 brings all of these features to the consumer on a $200 budget, while the Ti 500 ups the performance ante at a reasonable price.

This provides a brief overview of the new Titanium family, read on to see how it compares to NVIDIA's previous GeForce offerings!