Unnamed sources close to OCWORKBENCH report that GeForce 9600 GSO will be available starting May 13, 2008 or just three weeks from now. NVIDIA decided to change the name of their GeForce 8800 GS 384MB cards to GeForce 9600 GSO in order to better sell its product. Coming from the fact that 9600 GSO is a rebranded 8800 GS card, it will have a G92 GPU with 96 stream processors and 384MB of GDDR3 graphics memory. The cards will be priced at around USD $129.

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.

Enjoy. The little dashes indicate unavailable data, and the asterisks indicate unconfirmed data (which should still be reasonably accurate).Please follow the source link for a chart of the current speculated clocks and/or specifications.

According to several graphics manufacturers, the first midrange cards from NVIDIA's GeForce 9 series will start finding themselves on market shelves on February 21st. Please take this with a grain of salt, as the old saying goes, because NVIDIA refused to comment on this, citing that they cannot comment on unreleased products. Keep in mind, also, that only a few makers will be pushing out GeForce 9 cards on the 21st. The early birds will price their cards around US$169-189 MSRP, pushing the cards they are replacing (8600GTS) down to US$139-149 MSRP. For those of you who would like an introduction to the 9600 series...

The 9600 GT adopts a 65nm process and is manufactured by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). The GPU sees an increase in processing units, 64, and memory bus width, 256-bit, over previous 8600 GTS cards, 32 and 128-bit. The GPU's performance should see an increase of over 40% compared to the 8600 GTS. The new GPU also introduces Dual-Streaming Decode technology which allows two high-definition image decoding processes to be performed at the same time and provides picture in picture (PIP) functionality.

The launch date of the elusive GeForce 9800 series, which will once again steal the thunder from AMD, remains up in smoke. However, NVIDIA did confirm one fact: they will be showing off their new hardware over at CeBIT this upcoming March. At this point, only Albatron is confirming their booth at CeBIT, but you should expect several more booths to pop up confirming their 9800-laden spot at CeBIT.

NVIDIA has updated its beta ForceWare driver to version 169.13, which supports just about all GeForce 6, 7 and 8 series graphics cards. The only listed changes in this release are increased SLI performance in Crysis when the official patch (which hasn't been released yet) is installed and a fixed Sleep/Hibernate issue with the 8800 GT on Windows Vista. Download locations are as follows:

• Windows XP 32-bit - here
• Windows XP 64-bit - here
• Windows Vista 32-bit - here
• Windows Vista 64-bit - here

Update: NVIDIA seems to have withdrawn the driver information pages, but I've updated the links directly to the download location. Let me know if they stop working and I'll find another site which hosts them.

Experience Crysis for free only while supplies last - first come first served. Read the
terms and conditions to see the details on this exclusively featured bundle! The following four graphics cards ship with a free copy of Crysis:

• 640-P2-N828-A3 e-GeForce 8800GTS KO 640MB
• 640-P2-N829-A3 e-GeForce 8800GTS SSC 640MB
• 768-P2-N831-A3 e-GeForce 8800GTX 768MB
• 768-P2-N835-A3 e-GeForce 8800GTX 768MB Superclocked

If you bought an 8800GTX with 768MB of graphics memory, superclocked or not, after November 15th and did not get a free copy of Crysis, you can get one via mail by checking out this page to see if you qualify.

NVIDIA has updated its beta ForceWare driver to version 169.09, which supports just about all GeForce FX, 6, 7 and 8 series graphics cards including the 8800 GT. The only changes in this release are application and compatibility fixes, and this is the recommended driver for Crysis. Download locations are as follows:

• Windows XP 32-bit - here
• Windows XP 64-bit - here
• Windows Vista 32-bit - here
• Windows Vista 64-bit - here

Just a day after version 169.02 became available, more beta NVIDIA drivers have been released, this time version 169.04. The driver supports all GeForce 6, 7 and 8 desktop cards (as well as FX cards on Windows XP), with a number of compatibility fixes and performance improvements - this is the recommended driver for both Crysis and TimeShift. Download locations are as follows:

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

The 8800GT truly is the star of today, and Newegg is happy to announce that they have plenty in stock. As of the time of writing, you can get two 8800GT's: A $269 XFX model at stock clocks, and a "superclocked" $279 EVGA model.

It looks like NVIDIA could be readying its new triple SLI platform if a slide published by Expreview is to be believed. The new three-way SLI will allow users to use three NVIDIA graphics cards simultaneously to run demanding 3D applications, although there are still very few details about it at present. The technology is being branded as "The new Ultimate Gaming Platform" by NVIDIA, and will work using a new three-way SLI bridge connector, with NVIDIA's nForce 680i and 780i being the first chipsets to support it. If this slide is for real, then the GeForce 8800 Ultra and GTX will be the only cards capable of triple SLI to start with, but presumaby more will follow soon after - if triple SLI is more successful than quad SLI that is (which was largely let down by poor drivers). ATI is also planning to use three graphics cards with its CrossFire technology in the near future, where one card is expected to be dedicated to physics processing.

Leadtek Research Inc., known globally for extreme visual graphics technology development, today takes pride in the launch of a brand new entry-level graphics card, WinFast PX8400 GS TDH Silent. This new card, with passive heatsink design and exclusive Dual-Link DVI-I output among GeForce 8400 GS series in the market, brings users a total value entertainment solution for vivid image quality with noise free in performance of home theater, supporting up to 2560x1600 resolutions at 32-bit. As such it could be called the "Airbus A380" in GeForce 8400 GS graphics cards without doubt.

Leadtek Research Inc., known globally for extreme visual graphics technology development, is proud to announce the launch of its new mid-range graphics card, WinFast PX8600 GT TDH 512MB. With Leadtek's original and exclusive fansink within a single heatpipe, this sensational new card offers the best of cooling system capabilities - a whopping 15'C cooler in GPU temperature and ultra quiet noise level. And it all adds up to outstanding performance and the 'coolest' price for gaming enthusiasts.

Christmas is coming up fast once more and rumor has it, that NVIDIA plans to release their new graphic cards in November, just in time for the holiday rush. The NVIDIA G92, possibly called GeForce 9800 GTX will have 1 billion transistors and could cost somewhere around 549 - 649 USD, while the GTS should only set you back 399 to 449 USD. Take a look at the spec's after the break.

SPARKLE Computer Co., Ltd., a professional VGA card manufacturer and supplier, today announced SPARKLE GeForce 8500 GT PCI and GeForce 7300 GT PCI Graphic Cards. SPARKLE GeForce 8500 GT PCI and GeForce 7300 GT PCI Graphic Cards bring affordable upgrade solutions to special PCI platform and industrial applications with lower prices.

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

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.

Named after the famous Stealth fighter bomber because of its angular shapes and black livery, Swiftech's Stealth is a VGA water-block designed exclusively for nVidia's high-end GeForce 8 series graphics cards. At the time of publication, the Stealth is compatible with the 8800 GTS, GTX and Ultra models.

The ultimate GeForce cooling performance:

Using the same core cooling technology as the Apogee GT and GTX CPU water-blocks which are recognized as the best performing water-blocks on the market, the Stealth unique design approach focuses cooling where it is most needed: at the GPU level; with its extended wings covering the memory modules and NVIO chip, the massive aluminum housing also maintains the lowest possible temperature of these surface mount components; this allows in effect for the most advanced overclocking techniques which are necessary to take core and memory frequencies well beyond factory specifications.

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)

A member of the OCWorkbench forum has posted a picture of a GeForce 8300GT. The card is rather small and comes with active cooling. The cooler itself looks very old fashion. Odds are that it will retail with a larger, passive heatsink instead. No further details were given, but here is the picture:UPDATE: Seems like this is actually a Diablotek 7100 card, as they use the same PCB. So this is not a 8300GT. Thanks to Crucible1001 for finding the real card.

NVIDIA's mainstream chips should be launched on April 17th, we were already reporting about G86 and G84 here. Now one of The Inquirers says NVIDIA got problems with the latest chip revision and therefore needs to respin it to get rid of the bugs. That will most likely mean that the their launch together with the 8800 Ultra in mid April will be postponed. But I am quite sure NVIDIA will still be first with it's direct R600 rival, AMD/ATI is again later then they admit.

Even before the 8950GX2 card hits the stores, blocks are already starting to appear. The Inquirer managed to snap a few shots of Alphacool's block, ready to cool the beast:The block covers everything: GPU, RAM, NVIO1 chip, PWM...

The block looks very thin, which brings up concerns over its restriction/performance. Alphacool has produced some highly restrictive blocks in the past.

At CeBIT, Sparkle showed several unique self-designed cards, apart from the well known Calibre P880+ GeForce 8800 GTX cooled by TEC active cooler system from MACS Technology. VR-Zone has pictures of a very interesting graphics card, the self-designed Sparkle GeForce 8800 GTS without any additional power connectors? VR-Zone informs us that Sparkle will have their own self-designed G84 and G86 cards with better cooling solutions which will increase overclockability of the cards by 10-15%. There is also another interesting technology created by Sparkle where a small PCB is inserted into the graphics card with POST LEDs and a reset button. It allows voltages adjustment and temperature management through software. This concept will be available for upcoming Sparkle DX10 cards.

The men behind Fudzilla.com got hold of the release date of NVIDIA's next generation chip called G100. Their sources don't have much to offer but say the rival of AMD/ATI's forthcoming R700 will be due someday in the first quarter of 2008. That is a very tight schedule if you ask me...