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Technology Stocks : 3DFX -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Scott Garee who wrote (13593)	7/2/1999 6:12:00 AM
From: Synapsid	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 16960

According to this Australian price list computermarket.com.au Creative's new product is called "Graphic Blaster TNT2 Value" and uses the "M64" version of the TNT2. This is a TNT2 with a 64-bit instead of a 128-bit memory interface, allowing the use of cheaper, less wide (less data pins per chip) DRAM parts (and in practice less of them), just like S3's Savage4. Although presumably better than Vanta, it goes without saying that cutting the local memory bandwidth in half will have a drastic effect on performance, especially at high resolutions. Creative could have chosen to equip the card with 32MB because of the low price of 64Mbit memory parts (4Mx16), but they might be trying to differentiate from higher-end TNT2's and could still use 64 Mbit (2Mx32 SDRAM) parts if they are available. An important observation is that a 128-bit memory interface (as used on the Voodoo3 and proper TNT2) does NOT allow the use of 64 Mbit memory parts. As a consequence, the framebuffer cost (especially on the 32MB TNT2's) is relatively high.