NVIDIA has had trouble conquering this segment since ATI was always getting the best of them and securing an immense piece of the market. But in just one year NVIDIA has managed to take ATI's throne by taking over 60% of the notebook graphics market in Q1 2007 in comparison to a 24% in Q1 2006. Responsible for this is nothing more than NVIDIA's 7 Go series with which they have managed to beat AMD. Now with both companies releasing their newest DX10 compatible cards we have to wait and see which company will come on top.

NVIDIA has released its final WHQL versions of the latest Forceware graphics drivers. The 162.18 Forceware is for use with Windows XP and supports all GeForce FX,6,7 and 8 series cards. The 162.22 Forceware is for Windows Vista and supports all GeForce 6,7 and 8 series cards.

Windows XP | Windows Vista

So far what we know for sure is that NVIDIA's latest GPU namely the G92 will be released until the end of the year. Today our friends at XbitLabs posted what is rumored to be G92's specifications. So the rumored soon to be 9800GTX will be manufactured with a 65nm process and will carry a punch powerful enough to overcome NVIDIA's current flagship the Geforce 8800 Ultra by 100%. Yes thats twice the power of an 8800 Ultra. Again these are just rumors although NVIDIA has been known to leak valid information about their upcoming products.

We are very happy to announce our first public beta of NVIDIA PerfHUD 5. PerfHUD 5 is a major step forward from PerfHUD 4, featuring numerous new features and improvements:

* DirectX 10 Support, GeForce 8800 GTX Support
* Microsoft Windows Vista Support (DirectX 9 and 10)
* Interactive usage model
* Shader edit-and-continue
* Render state edit-and-continue
* Revamped customizable user interface
* Numerous other improvements…

According to VR-Zone, NVIDIA is to release its latest GPU, namely the G92, in November. It doesn't really come as a surprise due to the fact that NVIDIA's timetable placed their next GPU near to the end of this year.

NVIDIA will also launch its next generation of PCI Express 2.0 SLI chipsets for both Intel and AMD. The C73 and C72 chipsets for Intel support 45nm Yorkfield and Wolfdale processors. For AMD, there will be the MCP72, supporting AM2+ Phenom processors. The main differences between the C73 and C72 are FSB and memory speed ( 1600MHz FSB and memory for the C73, and 1333MHz FSB and memory for the C72 ). Each chipset will come in 2 flavors, the "XE" which supports 3x16 SLI is priced at $150, and the "P" version, which supports 2x8 SLI, is priced at about $100. The MCP72 series is likely to be the only chipset to support Hybrid SLI.

Consider the following scenario:

• You have a Windows Vista-based computer that uses a high-performance video card.
• This video card uses multiple graphics processing units (GPUs).

In this scenario, the computer's graphics performance seems to indicate that only a single GPU is being used. This problem occurs because the operating system does not forward driver-render requests to the secondary GPU. Microsoft issued today this hotfix (KB936710) which is strongly recomended for systems that are experiencing this specific problem. The patch applies to all Windows Vista 32/64-bit versions.


Hotfix KB936710 Microsoft SLI and CrossFire Windows Vista 32/64-bit

These days, Colorful launched a HD (high definition) multimedia graphic card--GF8600GT 256M DDR3 HD, which supports the already famous HDCP and HDMI. It is based on 80nm process, with 6 layers of PCB.

GF8600GT 256M DDR3 HD is a middle-end graphic card of the GeForce8 series. Its core clock is up to 540MHz. It has 4 GDDR3 memory, at the standard of 256MB/128bit. Memory default clock is up to 1400MHz. It features SLI technology. The unified processor is capable of being dynamically allocated to vertex, pixel, geometry, or physics operations for the utmost efficiency in GPU resource allocation, which is as much as twice performance improvement than the old generation graphics card in games.

Roy Taylor, VP of content relations for NVIDIA, says that some gaming companies think that gaming is an expensive comodity, especially when it comes to DirectX 10 because pc makers choose to promote expensive pc's instead of affordable ones. Taylor's responce came as an answer to a gamer publishers note that "all DX10 PC's are $3000 and too expensive"

Users with all kinds of setups have been reporting problems, affecting some GeForce 8800 cards, and particularly the GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB. According to users from NVIDIA, eVGA, NVNews, Rage3F and Guru of 3D forums, the problem causes random slowdowns, often halving frame rates until the user alt-tabs out of the game and back in again. The problem doesn't appear to be tied to any particular hardware configuration, Windows version, or display setting. NVIDIA Technical Marketing Director Nick Stam confirmed today that NVIDIA is aware of this issue, and new drivers will be released some time in July to fix the problem.

UK system integrator Evesham has announced a new range of Zieo notebooks. Their NX600-HD is powered by the NVIDIA GeForce Go 8700M GT. The card comes with 512MB of GDDR3 memory, but Evesham doesn't mention any clock speeds.

The NX600-HD has a 17in display with a native resolution of 1,920x1,200, a choice of a Core 2 Duo T7500 or T7700 processor, 2GB of 667MHz DDR2 memory and 100 to 250GB of storage.

Other features include a DVI port, four USB 2.0 ports, FireWire, S/PDIF, TV-out, Gigabit Ethernet, modem, Wi-Fi, a memory card reader and an Express Card slot.

The NX600-HD weighs 3.95kg, so it's not something you'd want to carry around with you. It measures 397x284x44mm (WxDxH) and it has about 2h battery life according to Evesham.

To counter AMD's CrossFire-ready 570X chipset, NVIDIA is going to introduce a new product, the nForce 570 LT SLI. The new silicon, which will be placed right under the 570 SLI will feature support for AM2 CPUs and will boast 19 PCI-Express lanes that enable x16 + x8 SLI configurations and will also work with dual x8 setups. The nForce 570 LT SLI will come with 4x SATA, 2x PATA ports and one Gigabit Ethernet card. The new chipset will lack EPP (Enhanced Performance Profiles) support. Boards powered by the nForce 570 LT SLI will be released later this quarter.

Nvidia has released the new Official 162.22 and 163.11 Beta Forceware drivers for Windows Vista.
The 162.11 drivers are for the GeForce 6,7,8 series and some of the improvements include better DX10 SLI support and increased total graphics memory.
The 163.11 Forceware are only for the GeForce 8 series and are almost specifically pointed for improved DX10 performance in World in Conflict.

Download

NVIDIA released a new set of BETA drivers for the 32-bit version of Windows XP, covering all the video cards from GeForce FX to GeForce 8 Series. The drivers bring improved compatibility for Lost Planet, as well as lots of game and application compatibility fixes.

NVIDIA ForceWare Release 162.18 BETA Windows XP 32-bit (37.74MB)

It seems that NVIDIA is upset that the folks over at NGOHQ.com are distributing their ForceWare drivers with modified install scripts. NVIDIA is threatening legal action towards the site and its owners if they do not comply with their demands.

Of particular note is AMD/ATI's stance on modifying install scripts for their Catalyst package:

"Feel free to distribute and endorse Catalyst software. Just please let your users know that if they use modified drivers we aren't able to support them properly. Keep up the good work in the community." -AMD/ATI

NVIDIA is planning a new technology called Hybrid SLI which can boost the graphics performance for systems that have NVIDIA's IGP (integrated graphics processor) and discrete GPUs, while it can also increase the battery life of notebook PCs. Hybrid SLI will turn off discrete GPUs and only run the IGP when the user is operating normal 2D applications. On the other hand when the user is running 3D applications, the technology will automatically turn on the discrete GPU and boost performance without the need to reboot the system and manually switch between the two graphics processors. NVIDIA expects to use the new technology on both desktop and notebook PCs. The technology is predicted to appear by the end of the year, according to Jen Hsun Huang - chief executive of NVIDIA Corp.

NVIDIA today announced Tesla, a new class of processors based on a revolutionary new graphics processing unit (GPU). Under the Tesla brand, NVIDIA will offer a family of GPU computing products that will place the power previously available only from supercomputers in the hands of every scientist and engineer. The Tesla family of GPU computing solutions span PCs to large scale server clusters.

Taipei, Taiwan, June 20th, 2007-- Leadtek Research Inc., known globally for extreme visual graphics technology development, today launched a brand new entry-level graphics card, the WinFast PX8400 GS TDH. This new card, featuring vivid image quality and a friendly price, again hits a bull eye for extreme value and advanced performance boosted by H.264 hardware decoding.

NVIDIA Corporation today announced the GeForce 8700M GT graphics processing unit (GPU) for notebook PCs, a new high-end GPU designed for the most demanding notebook users. The GeForce 8700M GT GPU, the newest and fastest GPU in the GeForce 8M series of notebook graphics processors, raises the bar for DirectX 10 graphics and video performance. In addition to accelerating existing DirectX 9 and DirectX 10 content, GeForce 8700M GT also features NVIDIA PureVideo HD video processing engine and NVIDIA PowerMizer technology that intelligently balances the user's need for longer battery life and performance. The GeForce 8700M GT GPU will be available in notebooks from leading partners in North America, Europe, and Asia, including Toshiba, Sager, Prostar, Eurocom, Biohazard, Connoiseur, Cybersystem, Hypersonic, MALIBAL, Multirama, rock, Evesham, Falcon Northwest, Plaisio, XS2, Nexoc, Hyrican, Vigor Gaming, Voodoo PC, and many others.

According to the Inquirer, which isn't the most reliable source, Intel got an SLI license in return for the CSI and dual socket licenses. This rumor is based on some ad of which the vendor said it was not some mistake. Then again if you look at the pictures they speak of "PCI-X x16", seems our questionable source has a questionable source as well.
However, if this is actually true and applies to older chipsets as well this could mean current systems can get quite a boost and NV can actually sell quite some older cards to people looking for a cheap upgrade.
Time will tell if the Inq is right or not.

NVIDIA has released an updated version of the WHQL certified ForceWare driver for Windows Vista, taking the version number to 158.24. This driver works with all GeForce series 6, 7 and 8 cards running on Vista, although DirectX 10 support is obviously only available on the series 8 cards. Please note, if you are wanting to use DirectX 10 with SLI you will need to download the 158.43 beta driver, as no WHQL driver supports this feature yet. The 158.24 driver fixes numerous game and application compatibility problems, offers increased performance in 3D applications and adds support for Vertical Sync in DirectX applications. You can download the 32-bit driver here and the 64-bit driver here.

NVIDIA has released new WHQL certified ForceWare drivers for Windows XP, with separate drivers for GeForce 8-series cards and all other GeForce cards. The 8-series driver has been updated to version 158.22, with the main improvements listed by NVIDIA being increased performance in 3D applications and numerous game and compatibility fixes. Meanwhile, the new 94.24 driver for Windows XP and 2000 users running non-8-series GeForce cards can also be found on NVIDIA's website, although you will need to follow the link below because NVIDIA's site still directs users to the old version when you chose your card on the driver download page. The release notes are not yet available, but it is looks like a complete version of the driver with one of the only changes listed being added support for the GeForce 7200 GS.

ForceWare 158.22 driver for GeForce series-8 cards - download
ForceWare 94.24 driver for most other GeForce cards - download

Nvidia got a license from Intel to produce 1600MHz FSB products. This is quite logical, since Intel themselves never really made the gaming community happy. With Nvidia making the chipsets Intel makes sure this market stays satisfied. Secondly, just like Intel used ATI chipsets on their boards some time ago Intel will now use Nvidia chipsets in their products.
More surprisingly Nvidia also got a license to use CSI and produce Xeon chipsets. This is quite a major thing since the Xeon chipset market never has been really big. The current platform has some downsides like the memory subsystem and no official SLI/Crossfire support. If the memory issues get fixed by NV (ie dropping FB-DIMMs) is just wishful thinking at the time being, SLI support sounds very obvious though.

NVIDIA Corporation, today announced a new family of mobile GeForce 8 graphics processors targeted at the newly evolved notebook PC market. The new GeForce 8600M and GeForce 8400M versions are available now from the top PC makers such as HP, Toshiba, Acer, Samsung, and ASUS. NVIDIA today also launched the professional NVIDIA Quadro GPU graphics for notebook computers. The new line of mobile video cards, which includes NVIDIA Quadro FX 1600M, Quadro FX 570M and Quadro FX 360M, is designed to solve complex professional visual computing challenges in a mobile form factor. The Quadro FX 1600M, available with up to 512MB GDDR3 memory, and the Quadro FX 570M, offering up to 256MB GDDR3 memory, feature a 128-bit memory interface, support for OpenGL 2.1, DirectX 10, and adaptive power management tools. The Quadro FX 360M, designed for thin and light, entry-level mobile workstations, offers similar features as its bigger brothers, with up to 256MB GDDR3 memory and a 64-bit memory interface. NVIDIA Quadro FX mobile solutions are also available starting today, through leading OEMs such as HP, Fujitsu Japan, and FSC as well as leading mobile workstation system integrators. For more information about the entire GeForce 8 Go and Quadro series of video cards, please click here.

Today NVIDIA Corporation introduced the NVIDIA GeForce 7200 GS graphics processing unit, a new, faster, entry-level GPU. GeForce 7200 GS is designed to offer a low-cost upgrade from integrated graphics solutions and is built for Microsoft Windows Vista operating system. The NVIDIA GeForce 7200 GS performs up to 50% faster than the latest integrated graphics solutions in common 3D benchmark tests. The GeForce 7200 GS GPUs provide full support for Microsoft DirectX 9.0, Shader Model 3.0, high dynamic-range (HDR) lighting support for advanced 3D realism, and NVIDIA PureVideo technology. Graphics cards equipped with the NVIDIA GeForce 7200 GS GPU are available today from e-tailers and retailers worldwide at aggressive prices under $50 and are being offered in PCs from leading OEMs and system builders.

Apparently NVIDIA has pulled out new ForceWare BETA driver version 160.03 right after the major official drivers update last Thursday. The new 160.03 will work with Microsoft's Windows XP, 2000 and XP Media Center and supports the GeForce 6, 7 and 8 series. The driver's release date is 27/04/07. Download the new ForceWare 160.03 from here and remember that this is a BETA version. Use at your own risk.