| Release date | 2001-2003 2001 |
|---|---|
| Architecture | Kelvin |
| Fabrication process | 150 nm |
| API support | |
| DirectX | 8.0 |
| OpenGL | 1.2 (1.5) |
| History | |
| Predecessor | Celsius |
| Successor | Rankine |
| Support status | |
| Unsupported | |
Kelvin is the codename for a GPU microarchitecture developed by Nvidia, and released in 2001, as the successor to Celsius [1] microarchitecture. It was named with reference to William Thomson (Baron Kelvin) and used with the GeForce 3 and 4 series.
| Model | Launch | Code name | Fab (nm) | Bus interface | Core clock (MHz) | Memory clock (MHz) | Core config1 | Fillrate | Memory | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MOperations/s | MPixels/s | MTexels/s | MVertices/s | Size (MB) | Bandwidth (GB/s) | Bus type | Bus width (bit) | ||||||||
| GeForce3 Ti200 | 1 October 2001 | NV20 | TSMC 150 nm | AGP 4× PCI | 175 | 200 | 4:1:8:4 | 700 | 700 | 1400 | 42.75 | 64 128 | 6.4 | DDR | 128 |
| GeForce3 | 27 February 2001 | 200 | 230 | 800 | 800 | 1600 | 50 | 64 | 7.36 | ||||||
| GeForce3 Ti500 | 1 October 2001 | 240 | 250 | 960 | 960 | 1920 | 60 | 64 128 | 8 | ||||||
| Model | Launch | Code name | Fab (nm) | Bus interface | Core clock (MHz) | Memory clock (MHz) | Core config1 | Fillrate | Memory | Supported API version | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MOperations/s | MPixels/s | MTexels/s | MVertices/s | Size (MB) | Bandwidth (GB/s) | Bus type | Bus width (bit) | Direct3D | OpenGL | ||||||||
| GeForce4 MX IGP + nForce2 | 1 October 2002 | NV1F | TSMC 150 nm | FSB | 250 | 133 200[ citation needed ] | 2:0:4:2 | 500 | 500 | 1000 | 0 | Up to 128 system RAM | 2.128 6.4[ citation needed ] | DDR | 64 128 | 7.0 | 1.2 |
| GeForce4 MX420 | 6 February 2002 | NV17 | AGP 4× PCI | 166 | 64 | 2.656 | SDR DDR | 128 (SDR) 64 (DDR) | |||||||||
| GeForce4 MX440 SE | 2002 | 64 128 | 5.312 | DDR | 128 | ||||||||||||
| GeForce MX4000 | 14 December 2003 | NV18B | AGP 8× PCI | 2.656 | 64 | ||||||||||||
| GeForce PCX4300 | 19 February 2004 | PCIe ×16 | 128 | ||||||||||||||
| GeForce4 MX440 | 6 February 2002 | NV17 | AGP 4× PCI | 275 | 200 | 550 | 550 | 1100 | 64 128 | 6.4 | 128 | ||||||
| GeForce4 MX440 8x | 25 September 2002 | NV18 | AGP 8× PCI | 250 | 8 | ||||||||||||
| GeForce4 MX460 | 6 February 2002 | NV17 | AGP 4× PCI | 300 | 275 | 600 | 600 | 1200 | |||||||||
| GeForce4 Ti4200 | 16 April 2002 | NV25 | AGP 4× | 250 | 222 (128 MB) 250 (64 MB) | 4:2:8:4 | 1000 | 1000 | 2000 | 125 | 7.104 (128 MB) 8 (64 MB) | 8.0a | 1.3 | ||||
| GeForce4 Ti4200 8x | 25 September 2002 | NV28 | AGP 8× | 250 | 128 | 8 | |||||||||||
| GeForce4 Ti4400 | 6 February 2002 | NV25 | AGP 4× | 275 | 275 | 1100 | 1100 | 2200 | 137.5 | 8.8 | |||||||
| GeForce4 Ti4400 8x (Ti4800SE2) | 20 January 2003 | NV28 | AGP 8× | ||||||||||||||
| GeForce4 Ti4600 | 6 February 2002 | NV25 | AGP 4× | 300 | 325 | 1200 | 1200 | 2400 | 150 | 10.4 | |||||||
| GeForce4 Ti4600 8x (Ti48003) | 20 January 2003 | NV28 | AGP 8× | ||||||||||||||
| Model | Launch | Code name | Fab (nm) | Bus interface | Core clock (MHz) | Memory clock (MHz) | Core config1 | Fillrate | Memory | Supported API version | |||||||
| MOperations/s | MPixels/s | MTexels/s | MVertices/s | Size (MB) | Bandwidth (GB/s) | Bus type | Bus width (bit) | Direct3D | OpenGL | ||||||||
| Model | Features | |
|---|---|---|
| nFiniteFX II Engine | Video Processing Engine (VPE) | |
| GeForce4 MX420 | No | Yes |
| GeForce4 MX440 SE | No | Yes |
| GeForce4 MX4000 | No | Yes |
| GeForce4 PCX4300 | No | Yes |
| GeForce4 MX440 | No | Yes |
| GeForce4 MX440 8X | No | Yes |
| GeForce4 MX460 | No | Yes |
| GeForce4 Ti4200 | Yes | No |
| GeForce4 Ti4200 8x | Yes | No |
| GeForce4 Ti4400 | Yes | No |
| GeForce4 Ti4400 8x | Yes | No |
| GeForce4 Ti4600 | Yes | No |
| GeForce4 Ti4600 8x | Yes | No |
| Model | Launch | Code name | Fab (nm) | Bus interface | Core clock (MHz) | Memory clock (MHz) | Core config1,2,3 | Fillrate | Memory | Latest supported API version | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MOperations/s | MTexels/s | MPixels/s | MTri/s | Size (MB) | Bandwidth (GB/s) | Bus type | Bus width (bit) | Direct3D | OpenGL | ||||||||||
| XGPU (Xbox) [8] [9] | November 15, 2001 | NV2A | TSMC 150 nm | Integrated | 233 | 200 | 4:2:8:41 | 5,800 | 1,864 | 932 | 116.5 | 64 | 6.4 | DDR | 128 | 8.1 | 1.4 | ||
GeForce is a brand of graphics processing units (GPUs) designed by Nvidia and marketed for the performance market. As of the GeForce 40 series, there have been eighteen iterations of the design. The first GeForce products were discrete GPUs designed for add-on graphics boards, intended for the high-margin PC gaming market, and later diversification of the product line covered all tiers of the PC graphics market, ranging from cost-sensitive GPUs integrated on motherboards, to mainstream add-in retail boards. Most recently, GeForce technology has been introduced into Nvidia's line of embedded application processors, designed for electronic handhelds and mobile handsets.
The GeForce 3 series (NV20) is the third generation of Nvidia's GeForce line of graphics processing units (GPUs). Introduced in February 2001, it advanced the GeForce architecture by adding programmable pixel and vertex shaders, multisample anti-aliasing and improved the overall efficiency of the rendering process.
Quadro was Nvidia's brand for graphics cards intended for use in workstations running professional computer-aided design (CAD), computer-generated imagery (CGI), digital content creation (DCC) applications, scientific calculations and machine learning from 2000 to 2020.
The transistor count is the number of transistors in an electronic device. It is the most common measure of integrated circuit complexity. The rate at which MOS transistor counts have increased generally follows Moore's law, which observes that transistor count doubles approximately every two years. However, being directly proportional to the area of a die, transistor count does not represent how advanced the corresponding manufacturing technology is. A better indication of this is transistor density which is the ratio of a semiconductor's transistor count to its die area.
Tesla is the codename for a GPU microarchitecture developed by Nvidia, and released in 2006, as the successor to Curie microarchitecture. It was named after the pioneering electrical engineer Nikola Tesla. As Nvidia's first microarchitecture to implement unified shaders, it was used with GeForce 8 series, GeForce 9 series, GeForce 100 series, GeForce 200 series, and GeForce 300 series of GPUs, collectively manufactured in 90 nm, 80 nm, 65 nm, 55 nm, and 40 nm. It was also in the GeForce 405 and in the Quadro FX, Quadro x000, Quadro NVS series, and Nvidia Tesla computing modules.
The GeForce 400 series is a series of graphics processing units developed by Nvidia, serving as the introduction of the Fermi microarchitecture. Its release was originally slated in November 2009, however, after delays, it was released on March 26, 2010, with availability following in April 2010.
The GeForce 500 series is a series of graphics processing units developed by Nvidia, as a refresh of the Fermi based GeForce 400 series. It was first released on November 9, 2010 with the GeForce GTX 580.
Graphics Core Next (GCN) is the codename for a series of microarchitectures and an instruction set architecture that were developed by AMD for its GPUs as the successor to its TeraScale microarchitecture. The first product featuring GCN was launched on January 9, 2012.
The GeForce 700 series is a series of graphics processing units developed by Nvidia. While mainly a refresh of the Kepler microarchitecture, some cards use Fermi (GF) and later cards use Maxwell (GM). GeForce 700 series cards were first released in 2013, starting with the release of the GeForce GTX Titan on February 19, 2013, followed by the GeForce GTX 780 on May 23, 2013. The first mobile GeForce 700 series chips were released in April 2013.
The GeForce 900 series is a family of graphics processing units developed by Nvidia, succeeding the GeForce 700 series and serving as the high-end introduction to the Maxwell microarchitecture, named after James Clerk Maxwell. They are produced with TSMC's 28 nm process.
The AMD Jaguar Family 16h is a low-power microarchitecture designed by AMD. It is used in APUs succeeding the Bobcat Family microarchitecture in 2013 and being succeeded by AMD's Puma architecture in 2014. It is two-way superscalar and capable of out-of-order execution. It is used in AMD's Semi-Custom Business Unit as a design for custom processors and is used by AMD in four product families: Kabini aimed at notebooks and mini PCs, Temash aimed at tablets, Kyoto aimed at micro-servers, and the G-Series aimed at embedded applications. Both the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One use SoCs based on the Jaguar microarchitecture, with more powerful GPUs than AMD sells in its own commercially available Jaguar APUs.
Nvidia Tesla is the former name for a line of products developed by Nvidia targeted at stream processing or general-purpose graphics processing units (GPGPU), named after pioneering electrical engineer Nikola Tesla. Its products began using GPUs from the G80 series, and have continued to accompany the release of new chips. They are programmable using the CUDA or OpenCL APIs.
The GeForce 20 series is a family of graphics processing units developed by Nvidia. Serving as the successor to the GeForce 10 series, the line started shipping on September 20, 2018, and after several editions, on July 2, 2019, the GeForce RTX Super line of cards was announced.
Turing is the codename for a graphics processing unit (GPU) microarchitecture developed by Nvidia. It is named after the prominent mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing. The architecture was first introduced in August 2018 at SIGGRAPH 2018 in the workstation-oriented Quadro RTX cards, and one week later at Gamescom in consumer GeForce 20 series graphics cards. Building on the preliminary work of Volta, its HPC-exclusive predecessor, the Turing architecture introduces the first consumer products capable of real-time ray tracing, a longstanding goal of the computer graphics industry. Key elements include dedicated artificial intelligence processors and dedicated ray tracing processors. Turing leverages DXR, OptiX, and Vulkan for access to ray tracing. In February 2019, Nvidia released the GeForce 16 series GPUs, which utilizes the new Turing design but lacks the RT and Tensor cores.
The GeForce 30 series is a suite of graphics processing units (GPUs) designed and marketed by Nvidia, succeeding the GeForce 20 series. The GeForce 30 series is based on the Ampere architecture, which features Nvidia's second-generation ray tracing (RT) cores and third-generation Tensor Cores. Through Nvidia RTX, hardware-enabled real-time ray tracing is possible on GeForce 30 series cards.
Curie is the codename for a GPU microarchitecture developed by Nvidia, and released in 2004, as the successor to Rankine microarchitecture. It was named with reference to the Polish physicist Marie Salomea Skłodowska–Curie and used with the GeForce 6 and 7 series. Curie was followed by Tesla.
Rankine is the codename for a GPU microarchitecture developed by Nvidia, and released in 2003, as the successor to Kelvin microarchitecture. It was named with reference to Macquorn Rankine and used with the GeForce FX series.
Celsius is the codename for a GPU microarchitecture developed by Nvidia, and released in 1999, as the successor to Fahrenheit microarchitecture. It was named with reference to Celsius and used with the GeForce 256 and GeForce 2 series.
Ada Lovelace, also referred to simply as Lovelace, is a graphics processing unit (GPU) microarchitecture developed by Nvidia as the successor to the Ampere architecture, officially announced on September 20, 2022. It is named after the English mathematician Ada Lovelace, one of the first computer programmers. Nvidia announced the architecture along with the GeForce RTX 40 series consumer GPUs and the RTX 6000 Ada Generation workstation graphics card. The Lovelace architecture is fabricated on TSMC's custom 4N process which offers increased efficiency over the previous Samsung 8 nm and TSMC N7 processes used by Nvidia for its previous-generation Ampere architecture.