SUMMARY: Cameron looks into nVidia's new GeForce 6200 TurboCache technology today and just what it is all about. In the article we discuss the architecture behind the TurboCache and its memory allocation procedures along with just how it performs against a regular 6200 and Intel's latest onboard graphics solution. If you're on the market for a cheap graphics cards, the TC might be one worth considering.
The nVidia reference card is actually a lot smaller than that of the 6200 dedicated memory card, simply due to the reduced size of the die and the removal of the memory chips. One thing that was interesting was the fact that nVidia only needs to use a passive cooling solution. When testing, even under extreme 3D applications, the heatsink only became warm; leading us to hope that overclocking would be possible on this card. On the I/O panel there are no differences between the TC and dedicated card. The card by default supports a built in TV output encoder along with a HDTV support chip.
The core we received on the reference card is still in its final beta stage. The size of the die is no bigger than that of an Australia 10c coin, or a US dime. This shows just how small nVidia has been able to make this core by removing the unused components rather than just disabling the additional pixel pipelines and memory channels.
The card we received was the 32MB model – both the 16MB and 32MB versions of the TC use Samsung 2ns F-BGA GDDR memory modules. On the 32MB model there are two chips, one on the front and one of the back of the card and the 16MB model only has a single chip on the front. The 64MB models have four modules, two front and two on back but use the older TSOP-II design to save on money. The 32MB uses a 64-bit bus to connect the modules, while the 16MB only uses a 32-bit bus.
Overclocking
While we attempted to overclock the card, we ran into a huge amount of trouble with our reference drivers.
When Coolbits was installed, Windows would continually lock up, leading us to believe that the drivers are simply not really ready for overclocking the 6200TC but when we get a new card and drivers we will come back to this section and re-visit.
