(updated 5/6/04)
I've tabulated several performance specifications and approximate dates of introduction of a number of graphics cards. They represent the top of the line cards at the time of introduction, but note that the specifications such as transformation and fill rate are peak, never-to-be-exceeded numbers.
| Card | Date | Transformation M Tris/sec | Fill rate Gpixels/s | Mem Bandwidth (GB/s) | Clock rate (MHz) | Pixel Pipelines |
| TNT | Feb-99 | 6 |
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| Voodoo3 | Apr-99 | 6 | ||||
| TNT2 | Sep-99 | 9 | ||||
| GeForce 256 | Feb-00 | 15 | ||||
| Radeon | Jul-00 | 30 | ||||
| NVIDIA GeForce3 (NV20) | Mar-01 | 40 | 0.8 | 7.36 | 200 | 4 |
| Radeon 8500 (R200) | Aug-01 | 63 | 1 | 9 | 275 | 4 |
| NVIDIA Geforce4 (NV25) | Feb-02 | 136 | 1.2 | 10.3 | 300 | 4 |
| Radeon 9700 Pro (R300) | Jul-02 | 325 | 2.6 | 19.8 | 325 | 8 |
| GeForceFX (NV30) | Feb-03 | 350 | 2.0/4.0 | 16 | 500 | 4 |
| Radeon 9800 XT (R360) | Sep-03 | 412 | 3.3 | 23.4 | 412 | 8 |
| GeForce FX 5950 (NV38) | Oct-03 | 356 | 1.9/3.8 | 30.4 | 475 | 4 |
| GeForce 6800 (NV40) | Apr-04 | 600 | 6.4/12.8 | 35.2 | 400 | 16 |
| ATI X800 XT | May-04 | 780 | 8.3 | 35.84 | 520 | 16 |
Note: The NV30 and NV40 series has twice the fill rate when not writing color.
The following graph plots the transformation rate, on a logarithmic scale, and includes a trend line.
Notes: The performance numbers were gathered from Tom's Hardware, Anandtech, ZDNet, X-bit labs, Extreme Tech, Beyond3D, ATI and NVIDIA websites.
Credits: The idea came from John Poulton. He made a similar table for workstation-based graphics processors in the 1990s.
Please send any corrections to me at
