NVIDIA Offers Two New Heavyweights for Value PC Market
New NVIDIA Vanta LT and Aladdin TNT2 Products Deliver High-Performance Muscle to Low-Cost PCs
PALM DESERT, CA – March 8, 2000, – System Builder Summit – Expanding its product portfolio to address the fast growing small/medium business market, NVIDIA Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA) today officially launched the NVIDIA VantaTM LT 3D processor and Aladdin TNT2 integrated graphics chipset, both designed for value-conscious users. These low-cost, high-performance graphics processors will provide system builders and OEM’s with industry-leading 3D solutions previously unavailable in the sub-$1000 PC market. These new products, combined with NVIDIA’s successful Select Builder Program, give system builders and resellers an unbeatable combination of product and program designed to fit the needs of the ultra-competitive white box market.
NVIDIA has continued to expand its presence in the system builder channel and these new products represent NVIDIA’s commitment to meet the demands of this fast growing market. Unlike existing low-cost solutions that offer inferior 3D graphics capabilities, the Vanta LT and Aladdin TNT2 harness the power of the highly successful RIVA TNT2TM multi-texturing architecture to provide high-performance, high quality graphics for surfing the web, playing games, video playback and utilizing today’s graphics intensive applications.
“The sub-$1000 PC has been hamstrung by inferior graphics for too long,” said Dan Vivoli, NVIDIA senior vice president of marketing”. “The addition of the Aladdin TNT2 and Vanta LT offers system builders an unprecedented combination of high-performance 3D solutions specifically targeted at the fastest growing segment of the PC market – the value segment.”
According to International Data Corporation (IDC – Framingham, MA), the U.S. white box market reached 8.4 million units in 1999, which represented $13.9 billion market of non-branded PCs and PC servers. Activity in the white box market continues to be fueled by the U.S. small business PC market, the primary segment for white box PCs.
NVIDIA Vanta LT
This latest addition to the NVIDIA family is a low-cost, 128-bit TwiN Texel, highly integrated 2D/3D graphics processor, designed specifically for the value-conscious users. Leveraging the RIVA TNT2 core architecture, NVIDIA’s Vanta LT delivers breakthrough 3D and industry leading 2D graphics performance, making it the ideal solution for small/medium business desktops. In addition to its outstanding graphics capabilities, the NVIDIA Vanta LT provides complete support for video, software and hardware DVD playback as well as the latest system technologies at AGP and Windows 2000.
The NVIDIA Vanta LT graphics processor is perfect for small and medium business users who require a high-performance 2D platform and for corporate users who also have data-intensive visualization demands. NVIDIA’s Vanta LT will be WHQL certified for Windows 2000, Windows NT 4.0, Windows NT 3.5, Windows 98 and Windows 95. The drivers for Vanta LT are forward and backward compatible with the Detonator driver family. Reliability, compatibility, performance and quality at a low-cost are the reasons why NVIDIA’s Vanta LT is the product of choice for leading OEMs and system builders. The Vanta LT is currently available in solutions from ASUSTeK, and Guillemot.
Aladdin TNT2
Merging ALi’s proven Slot 1/Socket 370 Northbridge design and NVIDIA’s award-winning RIVA TNT2TM 3D graphics core, the Aladdin TNT2 is the first integrated graphics chipset based on fourth-generation graphics technology. The Aladdin TNT2’s graphics engine is derived from NVIDIA’s award-winning RIVA TNT2 graphics processor and maintains the stunning quality that TNT2 delivers, including 32-bit rendering, 32-bit Z/stencil buffer and up to 32MB of dedicated frame buffer. Additional performance enhancements include a 128-bit TwiN Texel graphics pipeline (two texture-mapped, lit pixels per clock), video in, TV out and TMDS or Digital Flat Panel support up to 1280 x 1024 resolution. A fully compatible WHQL-certified DVD decoder software solution for RIVA TNT2 is also included in this industry-leading package.
NVIDIA Products
The first 3D graphics semiconductor company to deliver a complete top-to-bottom family of 3D graphics solutions, NVIDIA gives developers the advantage of one unified driver and one architecture across all implementations. The proven graphics architecture and massive gate counts translate into stunningly realistic, high-performance results. NVIDIA single-chip processors enable high-frame-rate 3D graphics, benchmark-winning 2D graphics, and VGA and video acceleration for unequaled visual realism and real-time interactivity. Optimized for both Direct3D™ and OpenGL® APIs, the NVIDIA products currently include:
- NVIDIA GeForce 256™ for the PC enthusiast market. The world’s first graphics processing unit, GeForce 256 delivers an order-of-magnitude increase in geometry processing power and enables unmatched access to interactive content.
- NVIDIA Quadro™ for professional workstations, digital content creation, and MCAD markets. The Quadro processor integrates the revolutionary QuadEngine™ architecture for optimized transform and lighting functions.
- NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 for the performance PC market. The RIVA TNT2™ and RIVA TNT2 Pro™ feature NVIDIA’s award-winning, fourth-generation, 128-bit 3D architecture that has garnered more than 400 industry awards.
- NVIDIA Vanta™, and RIVA TNT2 M64™ for the commercial PC markets. Also based on the award-winning RIVA TNT2 architecture, these processors offer low-cost, highly integrated choices for entry-level add-in card and motherboard applications.
- NVIDIA Aladdin TNT2™ for the sub-$1000 PC market. The first truly integrated, core-logic GPU, Aladdin TNT2 redefines the possibilities for the lowest-cost platforms.
