NVIDIA GeForce 64 MB

The Card

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In order to test the effect of having more on card video memory, it was necessary to choose a card that has such a feature. The first 64 MB GeForce that came into our lab was the Platinum GeForce by a Korean company named SUMA. New to the market in general and brand new to the US market, SUMA seems to be the first manufacturer who was ready to produce retail versions of 64 MB GeForce cards. A few companies out there, mainly Dell, have begun producing 64 MB GeForce cards for OEM use, however SUMA is the first one that we have seen available on the retail market. Stacked with 64 MB of DDR SDRAM in 8 chips, the Platinum GeForce is a powerhouse to say the least. In fact it is such a powerhouse that it even comes to fit an AGP-Pro slot, however the card worked fine in our test bed with a regular AGP slot.

You may be asking yourself why use SDRAM when all other DDR cards use SGRAM. Well, it seems that Infineon, the manufacturer who provides the SGRAM chips used in every DDR GeForce we have seen, does not yet have out a DDR SGRAM chip with eight megabyte density. Thus, in order to fit all 64 megabytes on the card, SUMA (as well as other 64 MB GeForce manufacturers) chose to use Hyundai 6 ns SDRAM chips that are currently produced in 8 MB densities. Outfitted with eight of these bad boys and a chrome heatsink, the SUMA Platinum GeForce was ready to hit the testbed and serve as a model for all 64 MB GeForce cards to come.