There are three types of NVIDIA-based cards in today's shootout. The fastest type is the GeForce2 Ultra, the second is the GeForce2 GTS Pro, and the third is the GeForce2 GTS. They all carry the same core feature set, though they vary in core clock speed, die process, and memory speed.

The NVIDIA GeForce2 Ultra GPU is built on TSMC's .18 micron GX process, and clocks in at 250MHz. It comes matched to 64MB of 233MHz DDR SDRAM (466MHz SDR equivalent) via a 128-bit memory bus. This provides about 7.4GBps of theoretical peak memory bandwidth. The GeForce2 Ultra GPU can render four pixels per clock with up to two textures per pixel, which yields a whopping 1000Mpixels per second fill rate and a 2000Mtexels per second texel rate.

The NVIDIA GeForce2 GTS Pro is much the same as the GeForce2 Ultra except in speed and process. It actually uses the normal GeForce2 GTS GPU, which means it runs at 200MHz, uses a different .18 micron process, and can process 800Mpixels per second and 1600Mtexels per second. The GeForce2 GTS Pro comes matched to 64MB of 200MHz DDR SDRAM (400MHz SDR equivalent) via a 128-bit memory bus. This provides about 6.4GBps of theoretical peak memory bandwidth.

The NVIDIA GeForce2 GTS is almost the same as the Pro, except for lower memory speeds. It uses the GeForce2 GTS GPU just like the Pro, and runs at a 200MHz core clock on a .18 micron process. It can process 800Mpixels per second and 1600Mtexels per second. The GeForce2 GTS cards come matched to 64MB of 166MHz DDR SDRAM (333MHz SDR equivalent) via a 128-bit memory bus. This provides about 5.3GBps of theoretical peak memory bandwidth.

All the NVIDIA GeForce2 cards have a feature called NVIDIA Shading Rasterizer (NSR), which is essentially a programmable pixel shader. A programmable pixel shader allows developers to perform programmable per pixel shading effects in hardware. The most impressive per-pixel effect we have seen is per-pixel bump mapping, though we have yet to see a game we want to play that makes use of the NSR.

The GeForce2 cards also include a hardware transformation and lighting engine. The Ultra card is capable of rendering a peak of about 31 million polygons per second. The Pro and GTS cards are capable of rendering a peak of about 25 million polygons per second. Hardware T&L can help render highly complex scenes and removes the burden of T&L calculations from the CPU. Many current games gain some benefit from hardware T&L, but few games gain a massive benefit and none we know of require hardware T&L. For a more in-depth look at the technology please refer to our GeForce2 Ultra Guide.