NVIDIA Launches GeForce 6 Series - Biggest Performance and Feature Leap in Company History

-- Industry-leading 3D performance -- new superscalar 16-pipe architecture delivers more than twice that of current industry leading NVIDIA GPUs

-- New features, including Microsoft DirectX(R) 9.0 Shader Model 3.0 feature set -- for ultra-realistic cinematic effects

-- Unprecedented on-chip video processing engine -- enabling high- definition video and DVD playback

"This is the biggest generation-to-generation performance leap that we have ever seen with a new GPU," said Jen-Hsun Huang, president and CEO of NVIDIA. "In addition to the raw performance increase, we had two fundamental strategies with the 6800 models. First was to take programmability to the next level with the industry's only GPU with Shader Model 3.0. Second was to extend the reach of GPUs to the consumer electronics market with a powerful and fully programmable video processor capable of multiple video formats and 'prosumer' level image processing."

"As DOOM 3 development winds to a close, my work has turned to development of the next generation rendering technology. The NV40 is my platform of choice due to its support of very long fragment programs, generalized floating point blending and filtering, and the extremely high performance," said John Carmack, president and technical director of id Software

Revolutionary New GeForce 6800 Architecture

The innovative 3D graphics architecture of the GeForce 6800 GPUs introduces many key new technologies that will drive the image quality and performance in 3D gaming, including:

-- Blazingly Fast Graphics Performance: With a revolutionary new 16 pipeline superscalar architecture and the world's fastest GDDR3 memory, GeForce 6800 GPUs offer a staggering amount of graphics horsepower. Gaming performance is super charged with eight times the floating-point shader power, four times the shadow processing power and double the vertex processing power over last generation's award winning GeForce FX architecture.

-- Revolutionary New Feature-Set: Built with full Microsoft(R) DirectX(R) 9.0 Shader Model 3.0 support, the GeForce 6 Series was built to deliver ultra- realistic next-generation DirectX 9 titles. The GeForce 6800 GPUs give developer's unlimited programmability, 32-bit shader precision, displacement mapping, geometry instancing and other features unique to the GeForce 6 Series. In addition, this new GPU delivers full floating point support throughout the entire pipeline, GeForce 6800 GPUs vastly improve the quality of images in motion with floating point filtering. The new rotated-grid antialiasing feature removes jagged edges for incredible image quality and a new 16x anisotropic filtering mode adds clarity to textures.

"The NVIDIA GeForce 6 Series is a great leap forward in PC graphics, bringing next-generation Microsoft DirectX 9 rendering performance to new heights while continuing forward with the high-definition floating-point rendering, driver performance, and stability NVIDIA is famous for," stated Tim Sweeney, Founder EPIC Games. "As the first GPU supporting the new Pixel Shader 3.0 programming model, the GeForce 6 Series enables games to use entirely new rendering approaches and obtain higher performance per-pixel lighting, shadowing, and special effects than previously possible."

"We appreciate NVIDIA"s continued support of Microsoft DirectX," said Chris Donahue, Lead Technical Evangelist of the Windows Graphics and Gaming Team at Microsoft. "We are eager to experience the hardware implementation NVIDIA(R) GeForce(TM) 6 Series promises to bring to the market."

   --   World's first on-chip video processor:  GeForce 6800 GPUs have a
        programmable video processing engine that delivers stunning
        high-definition video playback. Featuring support for MPEG encode
        and decode, as well as support for Windows Media Video 9 (WMV9), the
        GeForce 6800 delivers an amazing video experience when used with the
        Microsoft(R) Windows(R) Media Center Edition operating system. The
        GeForce 6800 also enables high-quality video playback on any window
        size, and has an integrated TV-encoder for direct-to-TV playback.

"Adobe is very excited about the programmable video features in these new NVIDIA GPUs. Many Adobe customers have already been enjoying the power of NVIDIA GPUs to create sophisticated 3D animations for the past year. Our future products will take even more advantage of the new capabilities being unveiled in these GPUs," said David Trescot, senior director, Digital Video Products at Adobe.

GeForce 6800 GPUs benefit from the renowned compatibility and reliability of the NVIDIA(R) ForceWare(TM) software featuring the NVIDIA Unified Driver Architecture (UDA). In addition NVIDIA ForceWare delivers industry-leading software features such as custom game profiles, HDTV output, overclocking, multi-display support, and much more.

Availability

The first GPUs based on the NVIDIA GeForce 6 Series, the GeForce 6800 Ultra and GeForce 6800 models, are manufactured using IBM's high-volume 0.13-micron process technology and are currently shipping to leading add-in-card partners, OEMs, system builders, and game developers.

Retail graphics boards based on the GeForce 6800 models are slated for release in the next 45 days.

About NVIDIA

NVIDIA Corporation is a market leader in visual computing technology dedicated to creating products that enhance the interactive experience on consumer and professional computing platforms. Its graphics and communications processors have broad market reach and are incorporated into a wide variety of computing platforms, including consumer digital-media PCs, enterprise PCs, professional workstations, digital content creation systems, notebook PCs, military navigation systems and video game consoles. NVIDIA is headquartered in Santa Clara, California and employs more than 1,800 people worldwide. For more information, visit the Company's Web site at http://www.nvidia.com/ .

Certain statements in this press release, including any statements relating to the Company's performance expectations for NVIDIA's family of products and expectations of continued revenue growth, are forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause results to be materially different than expectations. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, manufacturing and other delays relating to new products, difficulties in the fabrication process and dependence of the Company on third-party manufacturers, general industry trends including cyclical trends in the PC and semiconductor industries, the impact of competitive products and pricing alternatives, market acceptance of the Company's new products, and the Company's dependence on third-party developers and publishers. Investors are advised to read the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, particularly those sections entitled "Certain Business Risks," for a fuller discussion of these and other risks and uncertainties.

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FAME Contact: dperez@nvidia.com

CONTACT: Brian Burke of NVIDIA Corporation, +1-512-401-4385, or
bburke@nvidia.com

Web site: http://www.nvidia.com/