Intel's Core i7 helped strengthen the company's foothold over the desktop CPU market beyond what it already had with the Core 2 series. The level of performance the Core i7 has on offer, comes at an expense of high thermal characteristics, with the rated TDP of 130W to begin with. Eurocom feels it could design a laptop, a portable workstation rather, that features Core i7 series processors. It could be one of the first to do so, with the Phantom i7 D900F.

Holding Core i7 processors in their existing series: models 920, 940, 965 XE, the Phantom i7 holds a 17-inch display with a native resolution of 1920 x 1200 or 1680 x 1050. It features up to 8GB of DDR3 memory and up to 1.5TB of storage using three 500GB hard drives. A Blu-ray or DVD writer drive and a 7-in-1 memory card reader handle removable storage. Graphics will be handled by 1GB variants of GeForce 9800M GTX, Quadro FX 3700 or a soon-to-be-released "G280" graphics accelerator. Connectivity is care of Gigabit Ethernet, WiFi, an ExpressCard slot, and optionally Bluetooth. A built-in TV-tuner and a 12-cell battery make for the rest of the package. The Phantom i7 is slated for May.

NVIDIA BIOS Editor (NiBiTor) is a free third-party tool that makes it easy to tweak the BIOS of most NVIDIA graphics cards, by extracting, manipulating with, and creating custom BIOS ROM files. The application is regularly updated, with support for new GPUs and features added. The newest release, version 4.8 that MVKTech released today broadens support base, providing support for NVIDIA's newest 55nm G200b-based graphics cards.

The support-list now includes several NVIDIA mobile GPUs such as the GeForce 9600M GS, 9650M GT, 9700M GT, 9800M GS and 9800M GT. The desktop GeForce 9500 GS and the anticipated GeForce 9800 GTX+ support are also brought about with the release. Other changes include minor fixes and features that limited support for unknown devices.

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA BIOS Editor (NiBiTor) v4.8

EVGA Corporation, the leading-edge 3D processor graphics cards and motherboard manufacturer, announces the fastest single GPU graphics card on the market today, the EVGA GeForce GTX 285 FTW. The powerful 3D processor features the NVIDIA GeForce 285 GPU and 1GB of the fastest 0.8ns DDR 3 memory. Running at an impressive 720MHz core clock, 2,772MHz memory clock and 1620MHz shader clock, the EVGA GeForce GTX 285 FTW outperforms all other competitive products in all the three clock setting resulting in impressive performance advantages. The EVGA GeForce GTX 285 FTW will be immediately available in e-tail and retail at a recommended end user price of $449.99.

NVIDIA has released new BETA GeForce 181.22 driver for GeForce 6, 7, 8, 9, and 200-series desktop GPUs. This particular release is recommended for optimal GPU PhysX experience in EA's hot PC title Mirror's Edge. This driver package automatically installs PhysX System Software version 9.09.0010.

DOWNLOAD: GeForce Release 182.22 BETA

NVIDIA is preparing to release soon a special edition of the GeForce 9600 GT card with lower power consumption. Code named GeForce 9600 GT Green Edition, it will be based on the new 55nm G94-350-B1 core and work with core voltage that is 0.1V lower than the current 55nm G94 cores. This suggests reduced power consumption, and from there the name - Green Edition. Other specs of this new card remain the same as on current 9600 GTs with 650MHz core speed and 900MHz memory clock. The Green GeForce 9600 GT will come with a new device ID 0x0624, and that's the only way to distinguish it from actual GeForce 9600 GT cards that have device ID 0x0622.

It's time for some new information, provided by our colleagues over at OCWorkBench. As reported by them NVIDIA is preparing to launch its new GeForce GTX 285 card on January 15th, while the dual-GPU GeForce GTX 295 is planned to debute on January 8th, during the first day of CES 2009. These two video cards will be NVIDIA's future top performing products. We're already familiar with the specs of GeForce GTX 285. It will be based on a 55nm production node with 183W TDP, and will have reference clock speeds of 648MHz for the core, 1476MHz for the shaders, and 1100MHz (x2) for the memory. On the other side, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 is a dual PCB, dual GPU card, that will beat the mighty ATI Radeon 4870 X2. Some of the facts that we already know include: 2x GPUs with a total of 480 shader processors, 1792MB memory (896MB per GPU), 576MHz core frequency, 1242MHz shader frequency, 999MHz DDR3 memory frequency, and Quad-SLI support. That's all folks, put aside some $ for next week.

NVIDIA is seems to be recycling a broader range of existing GPUs with new branding that merely some mainstream GPUs such as the G92. According to a set of advertisements by a channel vendor, of Acer and Packard Bell PCs, they feature the GeForce G 100, GeForce GT 120 and GeForce GT 130. These graphics cards feature 512 MB, 1 GB and 1.5 GB of memory respectively and fill the entry-level graphics cards lineup.

From the information TechConnect Magazine gathered about these, they are rebranded variants of GeForce 9400, GeForce 9500 GT and GeForce 9600 GSO (aka GeForce 8800 GS). This new naming scheme will be operationalised by the end of this month, towards February, around the same time when another portion of graphics cards based on the G92 GPU get rebranded to the GeForce GTS series.

The guys over at Xfastest have been hard at work testing out the upcoming NVIDIA GeForce GTX295 graphics card based on a dual GT200 GPU setup. For this particular setup they have got two said graphics cards for a quad-SLi arrangement on an Asus Rampage II Extreme, featuring an Intel Core i7 Extreme 965 overclocked to 4.19Ghz. The graphics cards were overclocked to 705Mhz (core), 1480Mhz (shader), 1250Mhz (memory). The test was run on 3DMark Vanatage's Performance setting and gave a GPU score of 35711, leading to a total score of P32573. These scores look promising as the tests have been run on pre-release drivers which will not yet be fully optomized, if you want to try out these drivers, they can be found here, obviously these are pre-release beta drivers, so use them at your own risk.

It seems that the first graphics card using NVIDIA's latest 55nm fabrication process has in fact reached retail earlier than the January 2009 release date we had previously anticipated. A Japanese technology website has photos of an Inno3D GeForce GTX260 Gold featuring a factory overclocked, 216 SP chip, made by the 55nm process. What is interesting is that Inno3D have clearly advertised this fact by displaying 55nm on the product and in the product description. The core clock is set at 620Mhz with a memory clock of 1050Mhz, there is no information as yet on the shader clock. It can also be seen that there are no memory chips on the rear of the PCB, this means that all the memory chips are cooled by the stock cooler and there is no longer a need for backplates, as seen on many 65nm GT200 based cards. The pricing however does seem a little steep, with today's exchange rate, this would set you back around $390 USD, with online stores selling the 65nm equivalent for over $100 less, one would hope that the price will drop before it reaches the rest of the world's shores.

SPARKLE Computer Co., Ltd., the professional VGA card manufacturer and supplier, today proudly introduced the SPARKLE GeForce 9800 GTX+ 1GB Graphics Card, with incredible large 1GB GDDR3 video memory, it takes gaming graphic beyond anything that's ever been possible before on a mainstream consumer computing platform.

NVIDIA has concrete plans to take up chipset manufacturing for ULPC, and nettop platforms based on the Intel Atom processor. With its visual computing expertise and platform core logic technologies, NVIDIA hopes to cash in on the segment in need for better consumer value than what it already enjoys. VR-Zone pictured the reference design nettop PC that uses the Intel Atom processor, aided by NVIDIA's MCP79 chipset.

The chipset is monolithic, and handles the jobs of a memory controller, graphics controller, and a peripheral hub. The chipset sits on a 10-layer PCB motherboard, which gives you an idea on the component density of the MCP79. The platform supports single core and dual core Atom processors. It supports single channel DDR3 memory in speeds up to the PC3-10666 (1333 MHz), with connections to a SO-DIMM module. A GeForce 9 series integrated graphics controller provides display output through DVI-I. There is a gigabit ethernet controller, and 8-channel HD audio. The front portion of the chassis provides a larger portion of the connections, which includes the audio (including optical SPDIF), USB 2.0, and eSATA. NVIDIA will allow OEM vendors to make their own case designs housing the platform.

A longstanding partner of NVIDIA, XFX would soon embrace AMD to release graphics cards based on the ATI Radeon series. Its plans however are somewhat similar to what Gainward seems to be executing: to maintain strong ties with NVIDIA, while dedicating a smaller portion of its product lineup to those incorporating ATI Radeon GPUs.

Expreview spoke with an XFX official, who confirmed that the company would be taking up projects based around ATI Radeon products, while continuing to maintain its partnership with NVIDIA by continuing to have flagship products using the NVIDIA GeForce. XFX would be going as far as making sure that its products based on ATI Radeon GPUs wouldn't release in the Chinese market (a key market for NVIDIA products). The decision by XFX to work on ATI Radeon products came as a surprise to many, since XFX has been a staunch NVIDIA tier-1 partner.

VR-Zone scored the first photo of the upcoming GeForce GTX 295 card that's reported to make first appearance at next year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Unlike previous reports, the card will feature a sandwich design, like most dual GPU cards released by NVIDIA. Two 55nm GT200 CPUs will be incorporated in this card. From the picture we also see two DVI and one Display ports. The source also reports the card is using 8+6 pin connector combo to deliver external power. The pricing is yet to be disclosed, but card makers are speculating that NVIDIA will price it competitively against AMD 4870X2.

NVIDIA fansite nZone, has just posted the links to a new NVIDIA GeForce BETA driver release 180.84. There's no detailed information on this version, it is only said to bring performance improvements with the Grand Theft Auto IV game. The driver is available for both Windows XP 32-bit/64-bit and Windows Vista 32-bit/64-bit. Use at your own risk.

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce Release 180.84 BETA

GIGABYTE, a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards today is pleased to announce support for the soon-to-be-released AMD 45nm processors including socket AM3 and AM2+ on a full range of current platforms including the AMD 790FX, 790GX, 790X, 770, 780G, 740G as well as the NVIDIA nForce 750a SLI and GeForce 8200.

With a simple BIOS upgrade, GIGABYTE delivers an easy upgrade path for users wanting to take advantage of AMD's latest 45nm process technology enhancements including higher core clocks with greater energy efficiency over past generations, integrated DDR2/DDR3 memory controller (DDR3 memory support for AM3 processors and AM3 designed motherboards only), HyperTransport 3.0 and C1E enhanced power savings.

NVIDIA Corporation today reported financial results for the third quarter of fiscal 2009 ended October 26, 2008.

For the third quarter of fiscal 2009, revenue was $897.7 million compared to $1.12 billion for the third quarter of fiscal 2008, a decrease of 20 percent. For the nine months ended October 26, 2008, revenue increased to $2.94 billion compared to $2.90 billion for the nine months ended October 28, 2007, an increase of 2 percent.

The latest NVIDIA beta driver release 180.42, that was reported in the previous article, has just been uploaded on NVIDIA's home page. As promised this version works with GeForce 200-series, 9-series, and 8800-series desktop GPUs and also enables NVIDIA SLI technology on SLI-certified Intel X58-based motherboards with the following GPUs: GeForce GTX 280, GeForce GTX 260, GeForce 9800 GX2, GeForce 9800 GTX+, and GeForce 9800 GTX. This release is compatible with all major Microsoft Windows operating systems, that includes both Windows XP 32/64-bit and Windows Vista 32/64-bit. Hit the link below.

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce Release 180.42 Beta

NVIDIA's engineering team was given a challenge: deliver a desktop GPU which integrates full system I/O and discrete-level performance in one-half the size of previous integrated graphics solutions. The result: a 16-core CUDA-capable graphics architecture that enables mainstream PC users to play the latest top-selling PC games and enjoy silky-smooth, high-definition Blu-ray video playback-all without breaking the bank.

NVIDIA Introduces the GeForce 9400 and 9300 motherboard GPUs for desktop PCs on the Intel platform.

VR-Zone has posted a preview of NVIDIA's 180.10 drivers also known as the "Big Bang II" that will bring multi-monitor SLI support for GeForce owners. The VR article shows what this driver will offer in terms of SLI with multi monitor support and the performance effects of implementing multiple monitors in SLI mode. NVIDIA was supposed to publish the "Big Bang II" driver in September, but that never happened. There's still no release date, but at least now there's a prove that this driver is in development and will hopefully be ready before the end of this year. Check VR-Zone's preview here. If you want to give the early beta driver a try, you can download it here, but be adviced it's for Windows Vista 64-bit only.

Following a news article about the launch of the 730i which we covered here, EVGA has launched its first motherboard based on the Nvidia 730i Chipset with onboard graphics. You can find out more information on EVGA's Product Page, and a video overview is available here.

EVGA is proud to announce the latest product to the EVGA Motherboard family; the EVGA nForce 730i. With support for DirectX 10 and NVIDIA GeForce Boost Technology, the EVGA nForce 730i represents the latest in graphics technology and can provide up to a 70% increase in overall visual performance! All of these innovations are combined to make the EVGA nForce 730i the best single GeForce Graphics platform available.

Get it all with from The Force Within: With support for NVIDIA PhysX and CUDA Technology, the EVGA nForce 730i will provide you a full spectrum of visual nirvana and unsurpassed graphics processing power.

ZOTAC International, a leading manufacturer of NVIDIA based motherboards and graphics cards, today injects the power of NVIDIA's GeForce 9 graphics architecture into the latest platform for Intel socket LGA775-based processors - the ZOTAC GeForce 9300. The new ZOTAC GeForce 9300 platform is a graphics powerhouse with its GeForce 9 series graphics processor, NVIDIA CUDA, Hybrid SLI, PhysX and PureVideo HD technologies. A new NVIDIA GeForce 9300 integrated graphics processor forms the heart of the new ZOTAC GeForce 9300 platform. The NVIDIA GeForce 9300 iGPU features NVIDIA's Unified Architecture with 16 blazing-fast stream processors for high-performance in Microsoft DirectX 10, OpenGL 2.1 and CUDA-based 3D games and software applications.

After releasing yet another unofficial driver today, NVIDIA kind of revealed the new naming scheme for its video cards. Three lines from the latest NVIDIA driver release 178.15 suggest the new naming scheme:

NVIDIA_G92.DEV_0615.1 = "NVIDIA GeForce GTS 150"
NVIDIA_G94.DEV_0626.1 = "NVIDIA GeForce GT 130"
NVIDIA_G96.DEV_0646.1 = "NVIDIA GeForce GT 120"

All GeForce 9800 series powered by the G92 GPU will be renamed to GeForce GTS 15x, while the GeForce 9600 and 9500 (G94 and G96) cards will be known as GeForce GT 130 and GT 120. The new naming system is expected to become formal in two weeks time.

NVIDIA Corporation today announced a strategic partnership with MotionDSP, an emerging leader in digital video software applications and a new NVIDIA CUDA ecosystem partner. MotionDSP relies heavily on the computation power of NVIDIA CUDA technology to accelerate its breakthrough video enhancement software that significantly improves the visual quality of consumer-created videos. As proof that NVIDIA GPUs deliver more than just graphics rendering horsepower, MotionDSP engineers were able to achieve a 500% increase in numerical software performance after porting to CUDA. MotionDSP's revolutionary video enhancement technology-shown with CUDA acceleration for the first time at last month's NVISION 08 conference-allows users to clean up videos from cell phones, still cameras, camcorders, or the Internet. By tapping into the many parallel cores of NVIDIA GeForce GPUs, and utilizing NVIDIA CUDA technology, MotionDSP's software can immediately achieve real-time performance, something not attainable with today's CPUs.

NVIDIA today announced that Adobe will natively support its graphics processing units (GPUs) in their newly announced Adobe Creative Suite 4. Adobe is the latest visual computing company to grab on to the massively parallel processing power of NVIDIA GPUs for more than just rendering pixels to the screen. With NVIDIA GPU acceleration, Adobe Creative Suite 4 enables a faster, more natural way of working with images, while improving quality and productivity. The latest edition in a long line of award-winning software toolsets, Adobe Creative Suite 4 is the first application set of its kind to take advantage of the power of native GPU acceleration.

NVIDIA released today the latest WHQL version of its NVIDIA PhysX System Software. Version 8.09.04 supports both Windows XP and Windows Vista (32-bit and 64-bit).


Release Highlights:

• Supports for NVIDIA PhysX acceleration on all GeForce 8-series, 9-series and 200-series GPUs with a minimum of 256MB dedicated graphics memory.
• Experience GPU PhysX acceleration in several full games and demos today by downloading the GeForce Power Pack.
• Supports AGEIA PhysX processors and software runtimes (no change to PPU driver support).
• Includes the latest PhysX runtimes used in the latest game titles.
• Supports the following NVIDIA PhysX runtime engines: 2.8.1, 2.8.0, 2.7.4, 2.7.3, 2.7.2, 2.7.1, 2.7.0, 2.6.x, 2.5.x, 2.4.x and 2.3.x
• Supports NVIDIA PhysX acceleration on GeForce via CUDA 2.0 for SDK versions 2.7.3, 2.7.2, 2.8.0 and 2.8.1 (requires graphics driver v177.81 or later).
• The PhysX control panel can be found in the Windows Start Menu under NVIDIA Corporation.

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA PhysX System Software Version 8.09.04