Trident XP4 Preview - A Cheap GeForce4?

The XP4 Line

Trident is segmenting the XP4 line according to memory sizes, bus widths and clock speeds; the three members of the XP4 line are the T3, T2 and T1 and their specs are as follows:

The Trident XP4 T3 will run at a 300MHz core clock and come with 128MB of memory. The T3 has a 128-bit DDR memory bus and will be paired with 300 - 350MHz DDR memory (effectively 600 - 700MHz). This will give cards based on the T3 between 9.6GB/s and 11.2GB/s of memory bandwidth. Trident is expecting performance of the T3 to come within 80% of a GeForce4 Ti 4600. Retail graphics cards based on the T3 with 128MB of memory will be priced at $99.

The XP4 T2 is identical to the T3 except it only has 64MB of 250MHz DDR memory (effectively 500MHz) and has a 250MHz core clock. The reduced memory clock gives the T2 only 8GB/s of memory bandwidth. The T2 will retail for $79.

The XP4 T1 is identical to the T2 except it only has a 64-bit memory bus (cutting memory bandwidth in half) and will retail for $69.

Trident will be playing a NVIDIA-like role in the production of the XP4 in that they will only produce chips and will rely on 3rd-party manufacturers to produce cards. What's not too comforting is that Trident wasn't able to disclose any launch partners to us nor have we heard of any of the usual suspects producing boards based on the XP4 yet.

Trident expects 90% of their shipments to be of the T2 and T1 parts.