NVIDIA Extends nForce Platform Into Professional Workstation Market

NVIDIA nForce3 Professional Is Company’s First Platform Solution for 64-bit AMD Opteron™ Processor

NEW YORK CITY, NY -- 4/22/2003 -- NVIDIA Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA), the worldwide leader in visual processing solutions, today announced the introduction of NVIDIA nForce™3 Professional, the Company’s first core-logic solution for professional computing environments. Optimized for the new 64-bit AMD Opteron™ processor announced earlier today, NVIDIA nForce3 Professional platform processors provide a compatible, stable, and reliable computing platform for professional workstation users who wish to exploit the benefits of both 32-bit and 64-bit computing environments, while taking advantage of the NVIDIA Unified Driver Architecture—NVIDIA’s “one driver for all platforms” design philosophy—for simplified IT deployment and product life cycle management.

“Professional users demand compatibility, stability and reliability from their workstation platforms—features that NVIDIA has been providing for years with their Quadro family of professional graphics solutions,” said Dr. Jon Peddie, President of Jon Peddie Research, the leading multimedia market research firm. “The launch today of the NVIDIA nForce3 professional workstation solution is an important milestone in transitioning professional users to more efficient and faster computing platforms and should extend the company’s leadership position in the professional computing market, which we forecast to be over 2 million units in 2003.”

“With an NVIDIA nForce3 Professional and AMD Opteron processor-based workstation PC, users are assured of compatibility with all current 32-bit applications and operating systems, as well as those designed to take advantage of the extra processing power that a true 64-bit platform provides,” said Drew Henry, senior director of platform products at NVIDIA. “Combined with our award-winning NVIDIA Quadro® graphics solutions and our NVIDIA Unified Driver Architecture, professional users and IT managers have a truly innovative solution for their enterprise and professional computing environments.”

Designed for professional computing environments, the NVIDIA nForce3 Professional platform processors incorporate advanced technology solutions, including enterprise-class networking, fault tolerant storage designs, and optimizations for NVIDIA Quadro® workstation graphics solutions—which are currently supported by an industry-leading selection of certified software applications. All NVIDIA nForce3 Professional-based systems and motherboards utilize the NVIDIA Unified Driver Architecture (UDA), a single stable system image for simplified deployment and upgrades in the enterprise environment. The NVIDIA commitment to product longevity—with an impressive six-quarter product stability track record—further ensures IT investment protection. NVIDIA is partnering with ASUSTek Computer Inc, a world leader in motherboard engineering and design, to bring NVIDIA nForce3 Professional-based motherboards to the market.

“Workstations based on AMD Opteron processors will provide the performance and scalability required by customers with even the most demanding applications. NVIDIA’s expertise in platform design and HyperTransport™ technology will help ensure AMD Opteron processors are adopted rapidly in a variety of industries, including design, engineering and animation,” said Rich Heye, vice president and general manager of AMD’s Microprocessor Business Unit. “The features, performance and software support provided by NVIDIA’s new nForce3 Professional platform processors will help provide optimized 32-bit application performance, and spur the migration to the power of 64-bit computing.”

The single-chip design of the NVIDIA nForce3 Professional provides an inherent performance advantage compared to dual-chip implementations of the same functionality. In addition to overall latency reductions, the NVIDIA nForce3 Professional platform significantly boosts device throughput. An extremely fast dedicated HyperTransport link lets the NVIDIA nForce3 Professional platform communicate with the CPU at up to 3.6GB/sec., a speed that ensures ample bandwidth for future integrated support for AGP, PCI, and other bandwidth-hungry devices.

NVIDIA nForce3 Professional-based motherboards are currently sampling to workstation system integrators worldwide.

About NVIDIA
NVIDIA Corporation is a market leader in visual computing technology dedicated to creating products that enhance the interactive experience on consumer and professional computing platforms. Its graphics and communications processors have broad market reach and are incorporated into a wide variety of computing platforms, including consumer digital-media PCs, enterprise PCs, professional workstations, digital content creation systems, notebook PCs, military navigation systems and video game consoles. NVIDIA is headquartered in Santa Clara, California and employs more than 1,500 people worldwide. For more information, visit the Company’s Web site at http://www.nvidia.com.

Certain statements in this press release, including any statements relating to the Company's performance expectations for NVIDIA's family of products and expectations of continued revenue growth, are forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause results to be materially different than expectations. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, manufacturing and other delays relating to new products, difficulties in the fabrication process and dependence of the Company on third-party manufacturers, general industry trends including cyclical trends in the PC and semiconductor industries, the impact of competitive products and pricing alternatives, market acceptance of the Company's new products, and the Company's dependence on third-party developers and publishers. Investors are advised to read the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, particularly those sections entitled "Certain Business Risks," for a fuller discussion of these and other risks and uncertainties.

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