NVIDIA heading way to redefine visual, gaming experience on PCs

"The transition from the generation of GeForce 7 to GeForce 8 series marked the biggest improvement in performance for graphics processing units in recent years," said Rob Csongor, vice president of worldwide corporate marketing of the Santa Clara, Calif.-based NVIDIA, in a recent interview. "GeForce 8 Series GPUs, especially together with NVIDIA's nForce motherboards, are delivering the best possible entertainment solutions for consumers at every price point."

Growing popularity of GPUs

GeForce 8 series products, along with their predecessors, are semiconductor devices better known as graphics processing units (GPUs). The GPU is situated on the graphics card inserted into a desktop PC or sits on the motherboard of a notebook computer.

In Csongor's words, GPUs have become more powerful and widespread, given higher demand for advanced graphics solutions by gamers and consumers alike. The development of an increasing number of 3D-based graphics applications has further driven the sales of GPUs, he said.

Csongor cited various examples of recent software applications that use 3D display technologies. Google Earth and Microsoft's 3D map service, for example, allow the presentation of a particular location or area in 3D, a technology that helps users find the location with more ease and convenience. Google Picasa, meanwhile, displays photos to be viewed or managed by the user in 3D. Microsoft's newest operating system, Windows Vista Premium, is also a 3D application. All this, Csongor said, demands high-performance GPUs for the best visual experience.

"Today GPUs are found in 30 to 50 percent of average PCs and 100 percent in professional computers," he said.

GeForce 8 Series GPUs

The GeForce 8 series is a step up from the previous versions of GeForce products. Users' response to this new line has been overwhelming, Csongor said.

"During a promotional event for the debut of the flagship GeForce 8800 series at K-Mall and Nova in Taipei last Novermber, thousands of people showed up to experience the new GPU," he said. "We were blown away by this number as we had never expected thousands to show up."

In Csongor's words, the GeForce 8 product family has brought a revolutionary change in GPU design and manufacturing as it uses a processing technique that had never been used before. For decades, GPUs work by performing the tasks of rendering (or drawing) and calculating one at a time. GeForce 8, on the other hand, works from a unified processing structure in which the rendering and calculating are done at the same time, thus drastically raising the performance and efficiency of the chip, Csongor said.

Another plus of GeForce 8 is its ability to support DirectX 10, the newest version of Microsoft's application programming interface (API) that allows developers to write programs, such as the "shader" program," that produce better, sharper and more realistic images. DirectX 10 has been built into the new generation of games coming to market today, and GeForce 8 makes the new visual elements of these games come alive, Csongor said.

Finally, GeForce 8 allows the playback of high-definition DVDs on the PC without taking too much power from the central processing unit. With GeForce 8 GPUs, the user may watch high-definition DVDs, in either HD DVD or Blu-ray format with best visual quality possible, while using less power and less CPU utilization.

All the products under the GeForce 8 series will be on display at NVIDIA's demo suite during COMPUTEX TAIPEI, from June 5 to 8.

Taiwan being 'center of the universe'

In Csongor's words, Taiwan is the "center of universe" for NVIDIA for several reasons. First, NVIDIA gets most of its chips from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., making it one of the largest clients of the world's No. 1 contract chipmaker. Second, NVIDIA has long worked with Taiwanese graphics card and motherboard makers, including Asus, Gigabyte, MSI and more, as well as notebook makers, such as Quanta and Compal, to develop products supporting NVIDIA's graphics devices.

In terms of consumers, Csongor said Taiwan has a mix of passionate gamers and sophisticated consumers who know a lot about the PC and how the PC industry works. "The consumers are knowledgeable. They know about the new applications that hit the market and are eager to try these new applications," he said. "These are people that we would like to educate more about our products."

On whether AMD's recent purchase of NVIDIA's biggest competitor, ATI, has created more pressure for NVIDIA, Csongor's answer was that, in fact, the deal, announced in the second half of last year, has put NVIDIA in a "good strategic position" of being the world's only independent, neutral graphics solutions provider.

"Both Intel's and AMD's CPU businesses work with us equally," he said. "NVIDIA's relationship with AMD will remain the same as its relationship with Intel -- that is, we will work with them on the CPU side and compete with them on the graphics side."

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