The incredible tropical-paradise visuals we were treated to in trailers of FarCry 3 called for some serious hardware muscle. The studio released minimum, recommended, and high-performance system requirements lists for the upcoming AAA title. The lists are quite accommodating of today's mid-range hardware, but can be quite demanding of PCs more than 2 years old. It was also announced that the game will implement a revised Uplay DRM scheme that needs a one-time activation, and doesn't require you to stay logged-in when playing the single-player campaign.The system requirements lists follow.

German website Computerbase.de is reporting, that there are several users out there, who have received GeForce 8800GTs, which do not have the usual 112 Shaders and 256 bit memory interface you would expect from this model. Their cards seem to have only 96 shaders and an 128 bit interface. While the 128 bit interface is clearly advertised, the 96 shaders are not. This would make the card even slower than a 9600 GSO. The problem is, that these cards are still being sold as 8800GTs and you won't know that you have gotten a slower one, until you check it after installation. The card in question is from Point Of View with the model number R-VGA150868.UPDATE: Looks like one affected user has heard back from Point Of View, he will get his card replaced. All shops selling this card should clearly advertise it as 128-bit variant. The number of shaders on the R-VGA150868 product is intended to be 112, not 96. That's why Point of View offered to replace the card.

Update no. 2: Both Point Of View and NVIDIA have commented on the issue. Point Of View states that they are only the first to offer this card at such specs and other manufacturers will follow. Meaning, that all 8800 GTs will suffer this change. NVIDIA on the other hand is not aware of any such change and has underlined, that Point Of View is acting alone on this one.

CoolIT Systems announced its new NVIDIA VGA MTEC Coldplate. This newest addition to CoolIT's line of MTEC coolers is perfect for PC Enthusiasts who already have a custom liquid cooling system along with NVIDIA's 8800 GTX/Ultra series graphics cards. The MTEC Coldplate is available now from CoolIT Systems.com for $109.99.

PC Enthusiasts can take their cooling setup to the next level by replacing their traditional water blocks with the MTEC Coldplate

said Geoff Lyon, CEO of CoolIT Systems.

The NVIDIA 8800 series is an extreme graphics card that requires extreme cooling performance to reach its full potential. That's what the NVIDIA VGA MTEC Coldplate delivers.

XFX, one of the main NVIDIA GeForce graphics card manufacturers, has decided to try and outsell rivals by cutting prices on its 8800 GT, 8800 GS and 9600 GT cards. All three standard versions of the cards will now be $30 cheaper thanks to mail-in rebates being offered by online retailers such as Newegg and TigerDirect. This means that the 512MB 8800 GT will now sell for $189 including a copy of Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts, the 384MB 8800 GS will now cost $119.99 and the 9600 GT has a new price tag of $149. The overclocked versions of the 8800 GS and 9600 GT are also seeing price drops of $30 and $20 respectively, which means they will now be sold for $139.99 and $179.

After the success of the new GeForce 8800 GT, it looks like NVIDIA could have another card based on the same G92 core planned for later this year. Dubbed the new 8800 GTS (yes, I know it's confusing - hopefully that will change) the new G92 card will feature 128 shader units instead of the 112 on the 8800 GT, which would suggest they could well exist on current 8800 GT cards and have been disabled for marketing or yield purposes. As it features a 256-bit memory interface it will go back to the more common 512MB and 1024MB memory blocks, and given how impressively the 8800 GT performs it's expected it may be able to surpass NVIDIA's 8800 GTX and possibly even the Ultra - NVIDIA's two best cards. The card is expected to launch just after AMD's Radeon HD 3800, and could well spoil the show for AMD if it performs as well as the speculation suggests.

"Jungfernheide" is the world's smallest lifestyle computer which can be set up with the 8800 Series of NVIDIA. As always at TOMARNI, it is available in over 200 colors.

"Jungfernheide" was designed to offer the discerning user a reliable computer system which ideally fits into any living environment. Due to the special build of the body, for the first time a Nvidia GeForce 8800 graphics card can be used even though the system measures only 280 x 250 x 353 mm. To ensure "Jungfernheide" blends into any living environment, design as well as noise emission was optimized. The introductory offer is priced at € 899, sales tax included.

NVIDIA Announces 112 SP 8800 GTS Works w/ Original 8800 GTS In SLI

NVIDIA told their AICs not to market the new Geforce 8800 GTS 640MB as a card that has 112 SPs on board (upgraded from previous 96 SPs) but Partners can label it as a special edition, or OC edition. Also the new 112 SP 8800 GTS will still work with the original 96 SP variants in SLI configurations. Further NVIDIA stressed that they will not offer an upgraded 112 SP 8800 GTS in 320MB configurations.

NVIDIA confirmed a couple days ago that their GeForce 8800 series (in particular, the GTS 320MB version) suffers from a texture slowdown "of complex nature". Thankfully, NVIDIA is wasting no time in fixing the problem. We already have a timeframe for when we can expect an end to this "highly annoying" bug. NVIDIA expects to have a working fix to this problem by late August at the earliest, and mid September at the latest. The Inquirer has found that the easiest way to avoid the problem is to not press the Alt-Tab key combination while switching between game window and program window.

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.

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

New NVIDIA ForceWare BETA driver version 158.42 designed to work only with GeForce 8800 GTS/GTX/Ultra GPUs is now available for download. Please read the release notes for more information on product support, feature limitations, and known compatibility issues.

NVIDIA ForceWare Release 158.42 for Windows Vista 32-bit (30.3MB)
NVIDIA ForceWare Release 158.42 for Windows Vista 64-bit (42.9MB)

Inno3D has introduced today new members to its i-Chill series of video cards. The Inno3D i-Chill series is built with top-notch quality, which includes faster core speeds; a gold plated DVI & TV out connector that allows better signal quality; top quality OS-CON capacitors; aluminum ramsinks to stabilize memory; a full game bundle and 3 years warranty. Four new models will be available from today: GF 8600GTS DDR3 (710/2100MHz), GF 8600GT DDR3 (620/1800MHz), GF 8500GT DDR3 (650/1600MHz) and GF 8500GT DDR2 (600/1000MHz). Each card will be assembled with the Xstriker3 active cooling, which is specially designed for the i-Chill extreme gaming series. The Xstricker3 features copper base, two high efficiency heatpipes and single low noise cooling fan. For more information please click here.

NDAs about the GeForce 8800 Ultra will expire on the 2nd of May. The final speeds of the card will end up at 612 MHz for the core and 2160 MHz for the memory. The original plan was to have the chip running at 650 MHz, but it looks like NVIDIA didn't push the limits as far as expected.

The shaders of this card will run at 1.5 GHz, which will make them faster than the R600 shader units. The card should end up with a $900 price tag.

So we all know that there are signs of a GeForce 8800 Ultra everywhere and PCINLIFE now has a picture of it. The picture you see below has appeared at PCGH with no direct link to the source. The card is much longer than a GeForce 8800GTX and features a massive heatsink.A membership at PCINLIFE is required to view the picture in their forums.

After impressive benchmark results for the Radeon HD 2900 XT, the Radeon HD X2900 XTX (AMD's flagship DirectX 10 card) has failed to impress in the same way. When compared to NVIDIA's 8800 GTX, the 2900 XTX is lagging behind in frames per second when it comes to games such as Company of Heroes, F.E.A.R., Half Life 2: Episode 1 and Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. You can see the results for yourself (as well as pictures of the card) by clicking the images below - all tests were run on an ASUS P5N32-E SLI motherboard with a Core 2 Extreme QX6800 processor and 800MHz Corsair XMS2 RAM. The HD 2900 XTX is based on the same GPU as the HD 2900 XT, but uses GDDR4 memory running at 1010MHz instead of GDDR3 memory running at 800MHz. There aren't any comparisons between the cards when they are overclocked, nor is there any data on DirectX 10 performance, but at present it looks like NVIDIA could be a step ahead of AMD. The card used by DailyTech was a sample released to board members in the second week of April, and the benchmarks were made with the drivers AMD plans to provide when the new cards hit retail.

The title speaks for itself. DailyTech has managed to run through some benchmarks with the ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT 512MB graphics card. The tests were conducted on an Intel D975XBX2 BadAxe2, Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 and 2x1GB DDR2-800 MHz. The operating system on the test system was Windows XP, with a fresh install before benchmarking each card. Testing of the AMD ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT was performed using the 8.361 Catalyst RC4 drivers, while the GeForce 8800 GTS used ForceWare 158.19 drivers. All game tests were run with the maximum detail settings at resolutions of 1280x1024.The ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT is expected to be widely available in mid-May, with a suggested retail price of $499.

NVIDIA's latest Windows XP ForceWare release notes on page 26(now fixed), appeared to reveal yet another new video card, the GeForce 8800GS. NVIDIA responded immediately to the rumours of this 8800GS model:

The initial release notes for the NVIDIA ForceWare 158 Driver had a typo that referenced a product that does not, and will not exist. NVIDIA has no plans to release a GeForce 8800 GS. We have corrected the mistake and will be replacing the document on our website.

NVIDIA Corporation, the worldwide leader in programmable graphics processor technologies, today announced the extension of the award-winning NVIDIA GeForce 8 Series line-up to include three new graphics processing units (GPUs), bringing high-resolution gaming, stunning Microsoft Windows Vista graphics, and stellar HD DVD and Blu-ray video playback to virtually everyone regardless of budget. The new GPUs that complete the world's first top-to-bottom family of DirectX 10 GPUs include:
NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GTS: $199-229
NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT: $149-159
NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT: $89-129

From the latest Forceware 158.16, NVIDIA has at least four new G80 chips we haven't seen before. The first one is G80-400, then there is a G80-200 chip and finally G80-600 is listed. Last but not least the mystical Geforce 8800 Ultra makes an appearance.

The most important one is the new card ID // 0194, which is called NVIDIA Geforce 8800 Ultra. This new driver should really boost the performance of all G8X parts.

Here are the new cards.
// 0190 - NVIDIA G80-400
// 0191 - NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX
// 0192 - NVIDIA G80-200
// 0193 - NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS
// 0194 - NVIDIA GeForce 8800 Ultra
// 0197 - NVIDIA G80-600

Graphics Card Tidbits Part V - Update

Today in a week we will be enlightened on what NVIDIA was working on during the last few months. Will there be a GeForce 8800 Ultra or a 8850 GTX or a dual GPU card very likely named 8850 GX2? The names put aside, NVIDIA will give AMD/ATI again a run for their money, though things could change very likely another week later. It's all over town already that Tunisia will be the birthplace for AMD's first product troika (K10 CPUs, RD790 Chipset and R6x0 GPU family) on April 23rd. The invited crowd, most of them being journalists, will among other things, get shown Techdemo which Fuad got a screenshot from. He's got a second file as well, probably out of an official Powerpoint presentation, that finally solves the naming scheme riddle of the R600 high end cards. AMD's upcoming high end boards will be called X2900-Series.

NVIDIA has updated the display drivers for users with GeForce 8800 series cards running on Windows XP. Some minor issues have been fixed issues including the media player hanging when playing MPEG2 HD video clips using overlay in 1080i and then switching to full screen mode, system crashes after four or more suspend/resume cycles and screen corruption when running Company of Heroes in SLI mode. You can download these drivers here.

There's a lot to be told about the latest graphics card news. At first Sanjin Radoš from Fudzilla wrote a small preview about the Sapphire X1950 Pro Dual. This card, as the name already implies, is powered by two Radeon X1950 Pro chips attached to each other using a special bridge chip. Every GPU (clocked at 580 MHz) has 512MB of GDDR3 memory clocked at 1400 Mhz at its disposal, using the right motherboard (ATI or Intel chipset) you will be able to get a 2GB CrossFire setup that probably outperforms even NVIDIA's 8800GTX card. In the article are some 3DMark06 scores that might get your wallet fear you again - the cards price will be around 500 Euros. The previewed sample was made by Sapphire and this will be earlier on the market than ASUS' design.The next card in the row is another X1950 Pro card, this time a single chip one. It's from Jetway and it comes with GDDR4 memory clocked at 2200 MHz. Though price is still unknown but the more expensive GDDR4 memory will definitely improve the overall performance of the card.

The card is not even near any stores and there are plenty of companies showcasing the proper water cooler for it. Yes, I am talking about the R600 that you won't even see at the CeBIT. But the good news is if you decided to buy a G80 based card recently - there is even more cooling gear out for that one. Thanks go out to the ComputerBase which came up with the pictures.Thermaltake G80 and R600
Massive Arctic Cooling R600/G80 Prototype
ASUS AquaTank
Zalman G80 GTX/GTS Solutions

Update: PC Games Hardware have some more details of the AC Prototype.

Fudzilla reports that ASUS will have a wide variety of products to show at CeBIT.

First off, there will be notebooks:The VX2 notebook from the Lamborghini line will be available for viewing. The W5Fe will make an appearance, as as the world's first SideShow notebook.

Also from the notebook department, there is the ultra-portable U1F, weighing in at less than 1kg:Next, two monitors will be presented:The LS201 20 inch LCD monitor that provides slim elegance. The display has a jewel-class glass for both aesthetical and protective reasons, so it won't be scratched ever again. It has a contrast ratio of 2000:1. The other one is more interesting, of course because it supports HDCP function with DVI input. It is a 22 inch wide-screen with a 16:10 screen ratio, and it has a fast 2ms Response Time.

For overclocking gadgets and a watercooled GeForce 8800, click below.

Before the end of 2006, many Thermalright supporters and users got to feel the wrath of the awesome cooling power of our VGA cooler, the HR-03. It received nothing but accolades and praises from hardware sites to world-wide end-users. Then near the end of 2006 Nvidia released their 8800 series and we started receiving inquiries about HR-03 compatibility with it. We tested the new 8800GTX in our own lab and found that performance does indeed rise up to expectation but so does the heat that it produces. Unfortunately, HR-03 did not have what it takes to work with the 8800 series, so we hastily went back to the drawing board, did a research on 8800's structures, heat dissipation pattern and amount, and evolved HR-03 into something greater! In time for the celebration of the new year 2007, we proudly announce Thermalright's HR-03 Plus!