Selling features ahead of performance
Because NVIDIA hasn't announced the clock speeds of its NV31- and NV34-based graphics products, it's really difficult to pass any kind of judgment on what each card's performance might look like. NVIDIA has released some no doubt carefully massaged benchmarks comparing its new GeForce FX chips with a handful of older GeForce4s and ATI's recently replaced Radeons, but a manufacturer's own benchmarks should always be taken with a healthy dose of salt. The fact that NVIDIA is being so secretive about so many crucial details, from core and memory clock speeds to the internal structure of the shaders, is troubling. At least they're being up front about the number of pixel pipelines and texture units in each chip.

With few details about the internal structure of NVIDIA's new performance and mainstream chips and no hint of clock speeds, analyzing NV31 and NV34 is tough. There's no new technology in either chip, but both extend NVIDIA's support for DirectX 9 features all the way down the line to even the $99 GeForce FX 5200. That even a budget $99 graphics card will feature support for vertex and pixel shader 2.0+ and full 128-bit internal floating point precision is impressive, and those features alone should give marketing managers plenty of options when it comes to dazzling consumers.

But will these new GeForce FX cards sell on their DirectX 9 support alone? That depends.

Against ATI's Radeon 9200s, the GeForce FX 5200 should do well, and rightly so. Consumers looking for a graphics card at that price point will more than likely be swayed by the GeForce FX 5200's generation lead over the Radeon 9200 when it comes to DirectX support. Those consumers also aren't likely to be bothered by the GeForce FX 5200's potentially poor antialiasing performance, since few are likely to enable that feature anyway. I am, however, concerned about the GeForce FX 5200 line's performance in real DirectX 9 titles, especially when using full 128-bit floating point precision. NV34 may have full hardware support for DirectX 9, but supporting DirectX 9 applications and running them with acceptable frame rates are two very different things.

Ideally, the higher clock speeds facilitated by the GeForce FX 5600 Ultra's 0.13-micron core should yield performance comparable with ATI's mid-range Radeon 9600 Pro, but it's hard to say for sure. At least in terms of their support for DirectX 9 features, the Radeon 9600 Pro and GeForce FX 5600 Ultra are on roughly even ground. NVIDIA will have the edge when it comes to supporting longer program lengths in its pixel and vertex shaders. Unfortunately, NV31's shaders seem to be half as powerful as NV30's, which isn't encouraging. Based on what NVIDIA has revealed about the GeForce FX 5600 Ultra, it looks like the card could be significantly slower than the GeForce FX 5800, especially in next-generation titles like the new Doom.

In the end, NVIDIA should be commended for bringing NV30's CineFX engine down to a price point that everyone can afford; it's cinematic computing for the masses. However, the fact that NVIDIA is being so tight-lipped about the clock speeds of its new cards, even though those clock speeds have apparently been finalized, sets off all sorts of alarms in my head. NVIDIA's carefully-picked selection of marketing-tuned benchmarks aren't enough to allay my concerns, and I have more questions about these products than NVIDIA has straight answers. Color me a skeptic, but it doesn't look like NVIDIA's NV31- and NV34-based products will dominate the mainstream marketplace. We'll have to wait and see.