On Monday, nVidia announced its new flagship 3D processor, the Riva TNT. The new single-chip solution is the first single-chip 128-bit 3D processor capable of processing two pixels per clock cycle, which enables true single-pass multitexturing.

　　Pulling in over seven million transistors of silicon, the twin-texel processing engine (which makes up the TNT moniker) features a dual-pixel 32-bit color pipeline, a 24-bit Z-buffer, 8-bit stencil buffer, and per-pixel precision. This type of processing equates to a fill rate of 250 million pixels per second and the capacity of up to eight million triangles per second.

　　"In 1997, nVidia delivered the world's first 128-bit 3D processor to bring leadership Direct3D performance to the mainstream PC market. The RIVA family's impact on the multimedia experience has our OEMs observing a dramatic shift in the value of the 3D processor vis-a-vis the CPU," said Jen-Hsun Huang, president and CEO of nVidia. "By introducing the Riva TNT, nVidia is delivering on its charter to raise the standard for 3D performance and quality for mainstream computing."

　　The new processor is optimized for Windows 95/NT, PC '98, Direct3D, and DirectX 6.0 with hardware triangle setup, single-pass multitexturing, and anisotropic filtering, as well as an OpenGL ICD (Installable Client Driver) for both Windows 95 and NT.

　　When the board is released in the third quarter of 1998, it will offer up to 16MB of frame buffer, AGP 2X support, and a 250 MHz RAMDAC capable of resolution of up to 1600x1200x32bpp at 85Hz.