NVIDIA just let us know about its new GeForce Titanium series of Graphics Processing Units (GPUs). Or I should say, they let the world know about the new GPUs. Dr. Tom has had his mitts on a few of them long enough to post a lengthy overview of the units right here on THG, complete with benchmarks. For those who haven't read the article yet, here's the official word that NVIDIA is pitching. The new GeForce Titanium series consists of three new products. The GeForce3 Ti 500 provides 3.8 billion anti-aliased samples per second, the GeForce3 Ti 200 is a DirectX 8 GPU targeted at the "performance mainstream" market that delivers 2.8 billion anti-aliased samples per second, and the GeForce2 Ti is targeted at mainstream computer users and puts out 1 billion pixels/sec. rendering and 6.4GB/sec. of bandwidth. All of the GeForce Titanium GPUs use the Detonator XP Unified Driver Architecture (UDA), which you probably know can be downloaded for free from NVIDIA's website . The GeForce3 Ti 500 and GeForce3 Ti 200 GPUs include support for shadow buffer technology and 3D textures. NVIDIA says the GeForce3 Ti series is the technology foundation for the Xbox game console. The GeForce2 Ti includes a transform and lighting architecture delivering up to 31 million triangles/sec., a high-definition video processor (HDVP), and the NVIDIA Shading Rasterizer (NSR). Add-in-cards featuring the GeForce3 Ti 500, 200 and GeForce2 Ti will be by October 12th, and two companies have already announced cards that should be available by then, if not sooner.

VisionTek says it will have its Xtasy cards, powered by Titanium GPUs from NVIDIA, on the streets at Best Buy, CompUSA, Electronics Boutique, Fry's, and Gamestop early this month. The company's Xtasy 6964 is based on the GeForce3 Ti 500, the Xtasy 6564 on the GeForce3 Ti 200, and Xtasy 5864 on GeForce2 Ti. All three cards include a lifetime warranty and support. PNY is also early into the mix with three new Titanium cards in its VERTO graphics card product line: the VERTO GeForce3 Ti500, VERTO GeForce3 Ti 200, and VERTO GeForce2 Ti. As an introductory offer, PNY is giving away a free pair of 3-D Smart Glasses, by i-O Display Systems (a $49.99 value) in the Verto GeForce3 Ti 500 box until the end of December, 2001. With the VERTO GeForce3 Ti200, the company is providing GIANTS Citizen Kabuto by Interplay (a $29.99 value) in the box in the same time frame. With the VERTO GeForce2 Ti, you get a copy of Interplay's Incoming Forces: Deliverance. No pricing info yet from either PNY or VisionTek.