BFG Technologies, the leading North American and European supplier of advanced NVIDIA-based 3D graphics cards, power supplies and other PC enthusiast products, announced today the BFG GeForce GTX 260 MAXCORE graphics cards in three factory overclocked versions; OC, OC2, and OCX. BFG's GeForce GTX 260 MAXCORE graphics cards boast 216 processing cores-24 more cores than a standard GeForce GTX 260. This extra processing power combined with BFG's rock-solid factory overclocking provides end users with enthusiast-class performance and the protection of a lifetime warranty.

Taiwan-based Micro-Star International (MSI) presented today N280GTX OC HydroGen, the company's fastest clocked, water cooled GeForce 280 GTX card. The card is said to run the world's highest core clock settings at 700MHz, a boost of 17% over the default 280 GTX core speed. That's achieved by the full cover water block of course. Its micro-channel design allows for that speed to be achieved, while maintaining working temps of under 40'C. Another advantage of this water block is its single slot design, allowing for easier multiple video card installation. No price tag or retail availability were announced by the time of this post.

The functionality of CUDA and its implementation of GPU-accelerated PhysX processing has benefited many a GeForce user. Users of ATI accelerators lacking this incentive either use Ageia PhysX card or avoid it altogether. It has been verified by Hardspell that in an environment where Radeon accelerator(s) do graphics processing, a GeForce accelerator can be used standalone to process PhysX. Hardspell used a Radeon HD 3850 along with a GeForce 9600 GT on the same system with the display connected to the Radeon, though no form of multi-GPU graphics connection existed, the GeForce card partnered the Radeon well in processing physics, while the Radeon did graphics. Results of the oZone 3D FluidMark, a benchmark that includes routines to evaluate the machine's capability in processing physics, showed a greater than 350% increase in scores, showing that the GeForce accelerator is doing its job.

POINT OF VIEW, well known for its range of NVIDIA based Graphics cards, is launching today a new GeForce 9 series graphics card, the GeForce 9400 GT.

This graphics card will be available both in a passive and active version. Especially the passive version is perfectly suitable for Media Center use due to its low power consumption, cool temperatures and silent operation.

ZOTAC International, a leading manufacturer of NVIDIA-based graphics cards, today unleashes its latest entry-level GeForce 9 series graphics cards for budget gamers on the second day of NVISION 08 - the ZOTAC GeForce 9400GT DDR2 and GeForce 9400GT DDR2 ZONE Edition. The new ZOTAC GeForce 9400GT DDR2 series enables users to bring their PCs to life with NVIDIA PureVideo HD technology and NVIDIA unified architecture for smoother high-definition video playback and realistic gaming capabilities.

In a move that can be seen as retaliation to the HD 4870 variations that come with high-performance cores and up to 1 GB of GDDR5 memory and preparations to counter an upcoming Radeon HD 4850 X2, NVIDIA has decided to give the GeForce GTX 260 an upgrade with an additional Texture Processing Cluster (TPC) enabled in the GTX 260 G200 core. The original GTX 260 graphics processor (GPU) had 8 TPCs, (24 x 8 = 192 SPs), the updated core will have 9 TPCs, that amounts to an additional 24 shader processors, which should increase the core's shader compute power significantly over merely increasing frequencies. It is unclear at this point as to what the resulting product would be called.

Everything else remains the same with frequencies, memory size, memory bus width. This upgrade could take shape by this September.

The GeForce 9400 series succeeds the 8400 series. It is expected that the 9400 GT offers twice the level of performance as its predecessor, the 8400 GS. TweakTown posted the first pictures of cards made by MSI. The first picture shows the 512 MB variant(model: N9400GT-MD512H), the second shows the passively cooled 256MB variant (model: N9400GT-MD256H). The cards come equipped with DVI, D-Sub connectors and a HDMI port on the card. Don't be mislead by the flashy packaging of this card - showing a knight with a sword (that's not a surfboard) - these cards serve primarily as entry level accelerators for media / HTPC purpose with some very casual gaming thrown in. According to TweakTown, it hits the shelves on August 26.

MSI Computer, a leading manufacturer of computer hardware products and solutions, is pleased to announce the release of the new GX620/GX720 Gaming Notebook. Winner of a Best Choice Award at COMPUTEX 2008, the GX620 's Blu-Ray player, MSI's VIVID Image Enhancement Technology, the NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT 3D graphics card and Dolby 7.1 digital surround sound capabilities guarantee the ultimate gaming or movie watching experience. This powerful notebook is housed in a sleek yet tough alloy case with strong red accents, and features user friendly quick launch touch sensors.

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.

Leadtek Research Inc., the global leading brand for extreme visual graphics technology development, is pleased to announce the launch of new high-end graphics card, WinFast PX9800 GT 512MB. Based on the NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT graphics processing units and unified architecture design, the new graphics card can provide customers the best-in-classic gaming performance.

Walton Chaintech, the world's renowned graphics card and memory module manufacturer, announces today the GeForce 9 series GSE9500GT DDR3 512MB graphics card, the officially appointed gaming graphics card for the famous game C.S. On-Line in Taiwan. CHAINTECH GSE9500GT is the mainstream graphics card not only geared by the latest NVIDIA GeForce series core G96 technology but with an easier price tag, providing consumers a two-times more exciting visual experience than its prior version.

Reports by TG Daily suggest that NVIDIA could release a WHQL-certified stable release PhysX driver that supports all capable GPUs GeForce 8 series thru 9-series and GTX 200 series. The driver would expand driver-level support to all PhysX-based game titles including the likes of Ghost Recon 2: Advanced Warfighter, Warmonger and Cell Factor: Revolution.

It is expected that downloads of free games such as Warmonger and Cell Factor could spike in August since the user-base of PhysX substantially increase then. The driver is expected to be out on the 5th of August.

NVIDIA has released two lines of high performance graphics processors (GPU) for the notebook PC market, the GeForce 9800M series and the 9700M series. These are sub-classified into GT and GTS for the 9700M and GT, GTS and GTX for the 9800M. These new GPUs provide a wide range of options for manufacturers to choose from and design high-performance gaming and multimedia notebooks.

These 9800M GTX GPU is based on the same G92 core, and will outperform its previous generation 8800M GTX that also happens to be based on the same core. The rest are based on the G94 and the newer G96 cores. These GPUs are CUDA compliant and will be able to accelerate game physics using the PhysX API. They support NVIDIA Hybrid Power technology. Simply put, on notebooks with integrated graphics processors (IGP) along with these GPUs, the system will be able to switch over to the IGP when not gaming, and switch over to the GPU when heavy graphics tasks are running (such as gaming, 3D rendering, HD Video acceleration, etc.). Speaking of video, these GPUs support Powervideo HD technology, includes VP2 acceleration. There's no information on these GPUs' fabrication technology yet. Specifications provided below.

If you happened to have bought a GeForce GTX 280 card when it released for US $649, you'd probably be extremely disgruntled, with people paying as low as $499 for the same thing now, and just weeks after release. Such changes in the tech-industry even cause major legal trouble for card vendors when such customers sue them in this regard. Ironically, the role of NVIDIA is limited to dictating prices, the partners have to bear the brunt of such awkward situations. XFX is the first partner to have announced a cash-back scheme for people who purchased their GTX 200 series products at their old (high) prices.

Chinese website XFastest released some pre-release synthetic benchmark evaluations of the upcoming NVIDIA G96 graphics processor (GPU) on which is based, the GeForce 9500 series, slated for a July 28 release. XFastest also released detailed pictures of the components that go into making these cards.

The GeForce 9500 secured a score of 5894 in 3DMark'06 and 12331 in 3DMark'05 in default settings. It secured 658 o3DMarks at 1280x1024 resolution in the Ozone3D FurMark 1.40.

Following the NGOHQ episode with devising software that lets users accelerate GPU-based NVIDIA PhysX API on Radeon accelerators, and with NVIDIA coming in support of such an effort, a general opinion was made that NVIDIA sought an industry-wide domination of CUDA as the de-facto general purporse graphics processing (GPGPU) architecture, with putting their investment of acquiring Ageia Technologies to good use by pushing the PhysX API. Although it comes as a good news for AMD that their graphics cards that are already optimized for Havoc physics could now support PhysX acceleration, it's not in the best interests of the company that they allow the growth of CUDA and components based on it to this extent, since AMD has its own FireStream line of products and a GPGPU architecture in the making.

TG Daily spoke with Richard Huddy, Manager of Worldwide Developer Relations, and Godfrey Cheng, Director of Product Marketing, two key individuals with AMD. When it comes to the most interesting question of PhysX implementation on Radeon, Mr. Cheng says that AMD has no problems encouraging the use of feature-enhancing 'middleware', and that they have no arguments in NVIDIA going ahead with propogating their PhysX middleware as long as they don't put Radeon accelerators into a unfair disadvantage.

A suspicious new model of the flagship GeForce GTX 280 made by Leadtek going by the name 'GeForce GTX 280 Extreme' is put on pre-order on the popular British computer component online store Overclockers UK (OCUK). It can be found here. There are some hints that point toward this being based on a 55nm core:

• Extremely high parameters such as 738 MHz core, 1666 MHz shader domain and 2520 MHz memory albeit GDDR3, traditionally Leadtek doesn't offer such high manufacturer overclock for even its premium variants.
• Such insanely high parameters cannot be reached by a manufacturer on reference cooling, for example, even the EVGA e-GeForce GTX 280 HC (liquid-cooled) comes with 670 MHz core, 1458MHz shader domain and 2430 MHz memory.
• Although traditionally OCUK isn't very discount-friendly, and that this is a premium GTX 280 variant, that still doesn't warrant a whopping £387.74 (US $771.29) price-tag.

The Leadtek website neither has a product entry for this nor is it part of any of their press-releases leading us to believe it's an upcoming product. With such parameters, it only puzzles us if it indeed is the GT200b making for 'UFO sightings' in the markets.

NVIDIA Plans to Nuke R700?

Let's face it, the ATI RV770 and its derivatives have become a rage. Everybody loves this chip and wants a card based on this, be it the card that made NVIDIA slash their prices, the HD4850 or the HD4870 which rivals the GeForce GTX 260 at a decent price. In surveys conducted by several websites, be it TweakTown or Hexus.net, majority community members chose ATI as a brand over NVIDIA, rougly indicating that the HD4000 series has done an excellent repair job with ATI and its brand value.

Nothing (exciting) is going NVIDIA's way these days, their notebook graphics division has taken a beating over the recent faulty parts issue. The NVDA stock is a little volatile at the stock market these days, after the company announced it predicts weaker earnings this quarter financial year. Here's something to ponder: If NVIDIA predicts weaker earnings, how come talks are they have something to counter the R700, which AMD already made statements about, saying it will "overwhelm the GeForce GTX 280"?

Amidst this whole 'nGOHQ' saga, and us getting astonished at the way things turned out, here's what we missed:

NVIDIA is in talks with AMD over a possible technology-transfer agreement over PhysX, say industry sources in Hong Kong. In a not-so-recent article by HKEPC, it is said:

NVIDIA is preparing an addition to its GeForce 9 series, the GeForce 9500, slated for a July 29, 2008 launch. This product is positioned at an entry-mid range level, consists of two variants, the GeForce 9500 GDDR3, and a DDR2 model. Early tests prove this graphics processor (GPU) to be close to three times faster than the previous-generation 8500 GT. Unlike the reference 8500, this GPU supports 2-way SLI.

The nomenclature isn't certain yet. While the GDDR3 variant could be named 9500 GT, it remains to be seen what the DDR2 variant would be named. Provided, are images (in order) of the DDR2 and GDDR3 variants, followed by the specifications sheet.With inputs from Hardspell, Images courtesy Tom's Hardware

In a dramatic turnaround of events, NGOHQ.com, the creators of a special system software that allowed users of the ATI Radeon graphics accelerators to use proprietary features of NVIDIA graphics accelerators such as GPU-accelerated version of the NVIDIA PhysX game physics API, claim that in fact NVIDIA wanted to help them with this effort. On June, the 26th we had covered reports of the said outfit improvising a driver after proving that NVIDIA's proprietary GPGPU architecture, CUDA was flexible enough to work on a ATI RV670 graphics processor.

The Swiss cooling solutions provider ARCTIC COOLING today announced the launch of the dual-fan Accelero TWIN TURBO, adding another multicompatible high performance merchandise into their reputable VGA cooler product line. Specifications are provided below:

BFG Technologies, Inc., the leading North American and European supplier of advanced NVIDIA-based 3D graphics cards, power supplies and other PC enthusiast products, announced today the BFG GeForce GTX 260 OC2 and the BFG GeForce GTX 260 OCX factory overclocked graphics cards.

Backed with 24/7/365 free technical support and a lifetime warranty, the BFG GeForce GTX 260 OC2 and OCX versions are factory overclocked graphics cards that go through extensive testing to find the right mix of speeds for the core, memory, and shader clocks that will produce the best performance and uncompromisable stability at each level.

NVIDIA Releases Beta PhysX Driver For Public

NVIDIA releases the beta driver 177.39 for PhysX support on some GeForce GPU's. They have also said that a new stable driver, the WHQL 177.44 sans PhysX support would be released later today.

Depending on your Windows setup, you can download the driver from these locations: (please note, it is a beta driver, refer to the "Products Supported" tab for a list of supported products)

32-bit Windows Vista | 64-bit Windows Vista
32-bit Windows XP | 64-bit Windows XP

NVIDIA has released a new WHQL-certified driver for GeForce 6, 7, 8, and 9 series GPUs (GeForce FX is also supported only in Windows XP driver version). Version 175.19 brings improved 3D performance and load times for the above mentioned video cards in some DirectX 9 and OpenGL applications. It also patches several game and application compatibility issues. Please read the release notes for more information.

DOWNLOAD: Windows XP 32-bit/64-bit | Windows Vista 32-bit/64-bit