Nvidia's new chip is a version of its existing mainstream GeForce 6200 PCI Express chip - but with the added bonus of TurboCache. TurboCache is the company's answer to ATI's HyperMemory technology, allowing the GPU to use the host PC's main memory as graphics RAM. The benefits of this are many.
"Like ATI's HyperMemory, TurboCash essentially brings to PCI Express an option provided by the AGP specification. Touted as one of AGP's key strengths over the original PCI bus, the ability to use system RAM was rarely used at the time."
Nvidia claims that users will see something like a 60 per cent rise in performance as a result of using TurboCache. However, there are other benefits of the technology, including the financial savings that makers of entry-level PCs can make by omitting dedicated VRAM from their designs.
"GeForce 6200 GPUs with TurboCash are shipping now and graphics cards are anticipated to be available from leading add-in card manufacturers and in systems from leading PC OEMs in January 2005."