Nvidia, AMD announce new graphics chips

Summary: Nvidia says the chips use less power than its previous products, while AMD launches what its calls its most compact graphics chip architecture

By Tom Espiner | March 3, 2009 -- 12:41 GMT (04:41 PST)

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Chip companies Nvidia and AMD both announced new graphics chips at the CeBIT trade fair in Hanover on Tuesday.

Nvidia has unveiled four new devices, the GeForce GTX 280M and 260M for notebooks, and the GeForce GTS 160M and 150M for high-performance notebooks.

The chips are designed to use less power and produce less heat, an Nvidia spokesperson told ZDNet UK. "We saved power consumption by reducing nanometre processes," said the spokesperson. Whereas the previous generation of GeForce chips were produced with 65nm technology, the architecture on the four new chips is now 55nm, reducing heat and power usage, said the spokesperson.

AMD, meanwhile, has announced two 40nm graphics chips, the ATI Mobile Radeon HD 4860 and 4830, which the company says are capable of supporting video at 1080p HD resolution.

"AMD continues to push the envelope of graphics-processor performance, energy efficiency and leading features with the introduction of its 40nm graphics processors," said Mark Liu, senior vice president, Advanced Technology Business, TSMC in a statement. TSMC is fabricating the chips for AMD, and announced on Monday that it was also taking on Intel's 45nm low-power Atom processor.