PNY Technologies, the supplier and marketer of NVIDIA Quadro by PNY professional graphics boards announced today the immediate availability of next generation NVIDIA Quadro by PNY solutions based on new NVIDIA Quadro FX 4600 and FX 5600 graphics, and NVIDIA GSync genlock/frame lock and HD SDI options. These new ultra high-end professional graphics solutions meet the challenges of the most complex 3D design, DCC, visualization, scientific, and broadcast applications with a new unified architecture, Shader Model 4.0 technology, large frame buffers, and GPU computing for visualization technology. The new NVIDIA Quadro by PNY solutions include:

Following on from the launch of its X1950XT AGP 8X product, the Taiwanese graphics card company Info-Tek released today its GECUBE X1950XT X series for the PCI-Express 16X lane. The GECUBE X1950XT X series PCI-E also uses the ATI Radeon R580+(90nm) chip matched with 512MB of GDDR3 memory. The card is equipped with the company's proprietary Turbo Extreme Silent Fan, which is extremely quiet (18db when running in 3D mode). The GECUBE 1950XT X series is clocked at 628MHz core and supports the latest Shader Model 3.0 architecture. It also has 48 pixel pipelines, support for High Definition Content Protection (HDCP), Blu-ray, HD DVD, 1080i, and HDTV's high definition video output. This product has been certified by Windows Vista Premium WHQL (Windows Hardware Quality Labs), so you'll run the 3D Aero interface easily.

NVIDIA Corporation, the worldwide leader in programmable graphics processor technologies, yesterday unveiled a new line of professional graphics solutions: NVIDIA Quadro FX 4600, Quadro FX 5600, and NVIDIA Quadro Plex VCS Model IV. Armed with the largest increase in GPU power and functionality to date, these solutions are designed to help solve the world's most complex professional graphics challenges.

Tackling the extreme visualization challenges of the automotive styling and design, oil and gas exploration, medical imaging, visual simulation and training, scientific research, and advanced visual effects industries, these new Quadro solutions offer:

• Next-Generation Vertex and Pixel Programmability-Shader Model 4.0 enables a higher level of performance and ultra-realistic effects for OpenGL and DirectX 10 professional applications
• Largest Frame Buffers-Up to 1.5 GB frame buffers deliver throughput needed for interactive visualization and real-time processing of large textures and frames, enabling the superior quality and resolution for full-scene antialiasing (FSAA)
• New Unified Architecture-Industry-first unified architecture capable of dynamically allocating compute, geometry, shading and pixel processing power for optimized GPU performance
• GPU Computing for Visualization-Featuring NVIDIA CUDA technology, developers are, for the first time, able to tap into the high-performance computing power of Quadro to solve complex, visualization problems

While NVIDIA nearly got sued over their lack of Vista-ready drivers for their G80, ATI isn't exactly innocent. The Inquirer did a quick experiment to see if it was possible to configure a Vista workstation with an ATI FireGL graphics card. To their surprise, it wasn't. This is because ATI does not have any FireGL drivers compatible with Windows Vista. And unlike NVIDIA, they do not even have beta drivers out. While most of the gaming community is more likely to use an NVIDIA G80 than an ATI FireGL, this is still a major problem for anyone relying on a FireGL based workstation.

Zotac is one of the latest graphics card maker to enter the video market. It will appear at this year's CEBIT in Germany, at Booth B27 Hall 20. In fact, Zotac is subdivision company formed out of PC Partner, which will produce only NVIDIA GPU-based graphics cards. All our readers interested in the new Zotac brand, can click here and read the first Zotac GeForce 8800GTS 320MB review on the net.

Taipei, Taiwan - March 1, 2007 - TUL Corporation, a leading provider of graphic cards, today announced the PowerColor X1950 SCS3; the best performing noiseless graphic card in the world. While running passively, this model maintains the original specifications with core engine of 575MHz core, 1380MHz effective memory speed, 256MB GDDR3 and 36 pixel processors; it also comes equipped with VIVO, HDCP and Windows Vista ready.

Hong Kong 28th February, 2007 - InnoVISION Multimedia Limited introduce the Wave for passive cooling solutions to their Inno3D mainstream 7 series. It is the best solution for not only system integrators but also professional graphic designers who like to work in a quiet environment.

Club 3D, board partner for both ATI and NVIDIA, has launched a passively cooled Radeon X1950 Pro card with 256MB of onboard memory. The GPU core clock is set at 600 MHz, the memory ticks away at 1400 MHz. The card sports 2 DVI outputs.

As far as I am aware, the card uses Arctic Cooling's new heatsink, which has not been released to end consumers yet, so this is the only way to get your hands on one of them.

Samsung Touts 4 GHz Memory for Graphics Cards

Getting more speed is always nice - and Samsung is about to break the speed barrier yet again, pushing GDDR4 chips to 4 GHz and beyond. At the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC), Samsung presented its new GDDR4 memory chips that operate at about 40% higher speed than GDDR4 was initially estimated to, but use more power.

4 GHz GDDR4 memory chips are only "available" in 512 MB capacities and were manufactured using 80 nm process technology. They were designed for a power supply voltage of 1.4 V - 2.1 V, reports PC Watch web-site. The data rate of 4 Gb/s (4 gigabit per second, or 4 GHz) was achieved with devices operating at 2.0 V, which is higher than Samsung's current-generation GDDR4 chips that can function at up to 1.9 V officially.

GDDR4 memory at 4.0 GHz delivers bandwidth of 16 GB/s and if such chips were used in today's graphics cards that have 256-bit memory bus, this would result in peak data bandwidth of 128 GB/s, two times more than the ATI Radeon X1950 XTX (the only graphics card on the market that uses GDDR4) can offer. For tomorrow's graphics boards that will have 512-bit memory access Samsung's new chips would give peak memory bandwidth of 256 GB/s, which is nearly three times more than 86.4 GB/s that the currently highest-performance graphics card - NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX - has.

Are we beginning to enter the era when GPU memory will be clocked many times higher than our CPUs?

AMD/ATI has released its latest version of the Catalyst drivers, which are used by the Radeon 9500 series and higher. There are 32-bit and 64-bit releases for both Windows XP and Windows Vista, and it is recommended that you upgrade to the latest version to solve any potential problems you may experience. You can download the drivers here. Please note that all versions of Windows require you to download a different driver.

POINT OF VIEW, well known for its range of NVIDIA based graphics cards, is launching today a special version of the GeForce 8800GTX graphics card. The Point of View GeForce 8800GTX - EXO EDITION is factory-overclocked version of GeForce 8800GTX with 768MB DDR3 memory running at 1900MHz and a core clock of 600MHz. This card is available from today, please click here to view the complete card specifications.

In celebration of the year of the pig, PowerColor is making a graphics card with a beautiful heatsink shaped like a pig. The midrange X1650Pro certainly isn't underpowered. Underneath the shiny pig heatsink is a RV535 clocked at 600MHz, paired with 256MB of GDDR3 clocked at 700MHz (DDR 1400MHz).

Building on the success of its midrange families of graphics accelerators, leading graphics supplier Sapphire Technology has just added several new members to the X1650 series.

The new X1650 series is an enhancement of the successful X1600 series and has been designed to deliver high efficiency, high performance in Shader Model 3.0 and enhanced image quality. The architecture also supports ATI AvivoTM technology delivering vibrant high fidelity images and video playback to the latest High Definition (HD) video standards. The AGP version delivers new affordable levels of display quality and performance over this industry standard graphics interface.

GeCube Releases X1950XT AGP Graphics Card with X-Turbo Cooling

GeCube has launched a 256MB GDDR3 version of the ATI Radeon X1950XT graphics card for AGP 8X interface. According to GeCube the AGP 8X interface version of the card has the equal performance as the PCI-Express interface version. Based on ATI Radeon R580+(90nm) GPU and cooled by GECUBE's exclusive X-Turbo Thermo Electric Chip (TEC) cooling the card works at 648MHz, or can be slightly overclocked to 675MHz core speeds, while maintaing 70~80'C operating temps and 28dB noise levels. The X1950XT supports DirectX 9, Shader Model 3.0 and has 48 pixel pipelines. It also supports High Definition Content Protection (HDCP), Blu-ray, HD DVD, 1080i, and high-definition video output. For more detailed product information, please click here.

Titan introduced today new Elena TEC VGA cooler, which combines the latest TEC and Heatpipe technology to provide powerful cooling performance especially for high-end GPUs and overcloking. By monitoring the VGA temperature, Elena's TEC control system is able to automatically switch ON/OFF power to maintain the temperature in a certain range that is, if the GPU is too hot, the TEC will start cooling; on the other hand, if the GPU is cool enough, the TEC will stop cooling. Thus, there is no condensation problem like old TEC solutions. In addition to the TEC cooling, the Elena TEC VGA Cooler is equipped with two silent 80x80x10mm fans(1800RPM-2500RPM/21dB-25dB) and four copper heatpipes that help speed up heat dissipation. The Elena TEC VGA Cooler has a universal mounting mechanism that supports all ATI video cards from X1300 to X1950 series, and all NVIDIA cards from GeForce 6800 to GeForce 7950GT except the 7800GS model.

Brea, California and Munich, Germany - February 12, 2007 - EVGA, a market leader and premier provider of high-performance graphics solutions and mother boards today an-nounced the release of two new NVIDIA e-GeForce 8800 GTS series graphics cards with 320MB of fast GDDR3.

EVGA is the first in the market to introduce the e-GeForce 8800 GTS Superclocked (P/N: 320-P2-N815-AR in the US and P/N: 320-P2-E815-AR in Europe). It has been carefully tuned and thoroughly tested to "Superclocked" at a blazing Core Clock speed of 576MHz and an amazing 1.7GHz Memory Clock. It has a recommended retail price of 349€ in Europe.

As you probably know, Intel is working on their own graphics card. Most people scoff at this idea, considering that Intel was rumored to buy NVIDIA so that they could have graphics cards. However, in a few years (late 2008/2009), Intel is planning on becoming a serious threat to the market dominance owned by NVIDIA and ATI. Intel is claiming that by late 2008 they will have at least sampled a card with multiple cores (up to sixteen) on one die. They also claim they will be able to do this on a 32nm architecture. This 16 core, 32nm GPU is estimated to run sixteen times faster than the 8800GTX.

I can gladly say DNA-Drivers is back alive. This is supported by the release of DNA's ATi 5.0.7.1 Driver. This can be found here. I have information directly from the creator (KillerSneak) that NVIDIA drivers will be released in a matter of a few weeks. He also stated Vista drivers may take a bit longer due to the fact of Microsofts new "security" measures that requires all drivers to be signed. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out for Vista and modded drivers.

ASUS launched today the EN8800GTX AquaTank graphics card equipped with innovative all-in-one watercooling, which improves the cooling with up to 12°C compared to a generic GF8800GTX cards. The EN8800GTX AquaTank/HTDP/768M video cards come factory overclocked to 630Mhz core and 2.06GHz (1030MHz DDR3) memory clocks. Click here to learn more about the card itself.

With AMD/ATI's flagship for the start of the DirectX10 era, the R600, expected during March, the two mainstream cards in the series are expected to launch sometime during April. It will probably be about a month after the R600 is released, with mass availability sometime in May. The R630 is the mid-range model, whilst the R610 will be the entry level card. These cards will be going head to head with NVIDIA's G86 and G84 to win the DirectX 10 low and mid end battles, hopefully bringing DX10 under $100 and making it available to more people.

Palit Microsystems, today excitingly announced the most high-end AGP graphics card: X1950GT Super 512MB AGP, designed exclusively for AGP platform PC enthusiasts and hard core gamers. Palit X1950GT AGP has 512MB of GDDR3 super size memory with 256-bit memory interface, 36 pixel shader processors and RV570 GPU clocked at 500MHz. The card is also Windows Vista Premium compatible, as you may guess. Other features like ATI Avivo technology and Dual-link DVI connectivity are also presented.

The Swiss cooling solution manufacturer Arctic Cooling announced today that the award winning high performance graphic card cooler- Accelero X2, now fully supports ATI's latest X1950Pro(including all X1950 series) PCIe / AGP graphic cards. In addition Accelero X2 now offers a new specially designed voltage regulator heat spreader module. Arctic Cooling Voltage Regulator Heat Spreader Module is specially designed for X1950Pro Series, and provides an extra large surface area for easy heat dissipation. Together with Accelero X2 cooler, they form the best combination to achieve the ultimate cooling performance. Accelero X2 with Voltage Regulator heat spreader module is available now with MSRP price of USD $33 or Euro €28.

BFG Technologies, Inc., the leading North American and European NVIDIA supplier of advanced 3D graphics cards, motherboards, power supplies and other PC enthusiast products, announced today the BFG NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX OC 768MB Water Cooled Edition PCI Express graphics card. "Because of the huge cooling advantage offered by our custom water block designed by Danger Den, we are able to push this card to speeds faster than anything else on the market today." said Dean Brady, Sr. Director of Marketing for BFG Technologies. "To offer these speeds, every BFG Overclocked Water Cooled Edition graphics card is hand built and tested to ensure maximum performance and reliability."

A new introduction by Sapphire Technology now reduces the cost of entry to its highly successful X1950 Series. The SAPPHIRE X1950GT is scheduled to ship from retailers and system integrators worldwide from January 29th 2007. Featuring ATI RADEON X1950GT core(500MHz), 256MB GDDR3 (1200MHz), 36 pixel shader units and CrossFire support, the SAPPHIRE X1950GT is fully compatible with the Windows Vista 3D environment, DirectX 9.0 - Shader Model 3.0 and OpenGL graphics. The SAPPHIRE X1950GT series of video cards natively support HDCP and feature the ATI Avivo technology. Two Dual-link DVI outputs are also provided, as well as TV out.

Matrox Graphics Inc., announced today the Extio F1220, the latest addition to the Extio series of Remote Graphics Units(RGUs). The Extio F1220 enables the extension of one or two displays with resolutions up to 1920 x 1200 per monitor, audio, two IEEE 1394 FireWire ports, and up to six USB devices(4 at the front, 2 at the back), including keyboard and mouse, by up to 820 feet(250 meters). By separating the computer from the monitors and user-interface, the Extio series of products helps address issues such as security, heat, noise, system maintenance and support, and system access in digital signage environments. The Extio F1220 RGU has no moving parts. It is connected to a Matrox PCI or PCI-Express Extio adapter card in a computer, workstation or server slot via a standard multi-mode fiber-optic cable with Dual-LC connectors. Matrox Extio F1220 will be available in the second quarter of 2007. For more information on Matrox Extio F1220, please click here.