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...

VR-Zone has revealed some information about the GeForce 8500GT video cards to be released on April 17. Based on 80nm TSMC process and 128-bit memory interface, the GeForce 8500GT cards will be clocked at 450MHz core with 256MB of DDR2 memory at 400MHz (800MHz DDR). Those cards are expected to outperform any current GeForce 7600GS, scoring around 22xx and 42xx marks at 3DMark06 (1280x1024) and 3DMark05 (1024x768) respectively. The DX10 performance is unknown at this stage. The NVIDIA GeForce 8500GT series will be priced between $79 to $99 USD.

As it turns out AGP is not quite dead like many people (obviously PCI-E users) claim. If you check our news since the 1st of February we reported five times about the neverending AGP-story. Three of the reports were related to new AGP cards from ATI released to the market. Now it's NVIDIA's turn and they hit the undying AGP crowd with the successor of the 7800GS and another, even faster card.
The Germans from 3DCenter.de found out that with the latest NVIDIA Forceware 101.41 Beta driver you not only get problems when trying to run Doom 3 and Battlefield 2142 under Vista but NVIDIA is disclosing the upcoming 7900GS and 7950GT GeForce cards with it.
But the best part of the story is that at least a 7950GT card from XFX is already listed at a pricewatcher for a mere 226 Euros. Of course it's not in stock yet but surely not far from really being around.

OCWorkbench has found some pictures and specs of NVIDIA's mainstream DirectX 10 cards, the 8600GT and the 8600GTS. The GT (pictured below on the left) is the replacement for the 7600GT and will feature the G84-300 GPU running at 540MHz and either 128MB or 256MB of 128-bit GDDR3 RAM at 1400MHz, priced between $150 and $180. The 8600GTS (below on the right) is a step up from the GT and will replace the 7900GS, using the G84-400 GPU running at 675MHz and either 256MB or 512MB of 128-bit GDDR3 RAM at 2000MHz, with a price of between $200 and $250. As reported before on techPowerUp!, these cards should be released (along with the 8500GT) on April 17th.

Sad news for all AGP based motherboard owners (including myself) if it turns out to be true. The VR Zone is reporting that on the basis of their foundings NVIDIA won't develop a new AGP chip. The reason is that the G80 'simply' can't support it (though a bridge chip should implement the required compatibility if you ask me). That leads us all to hope for a R600 solution it seems.

The G78 will be a 65nm version of the G72. Instead of being themed for basic video or games, it is themed around a low-power, Vista-ready solution. This G78 will only be expected to run Aero glass, an occasional DVD, and flash-based games. It will be produced with the G84 series, have a 64 bit memory interface, and will cost $60 or less.

NVIDIA's G84, which will be known as the Geforce 8600 series, should score roughly 4500 points in the powerful benchmarking tool 3Dmark06. The G84 is expected to go into production sometime in March or April, and was designed to beat ATI to the sub-$200 DirectX10 market. The G84 should also have a smaller die than the competition from ATI. G84 will be completely compatible with Windows Vista when it is released, including a WHQL Vista driver.

techPowerUp! has already reported on NVIDIA's 8900GTX, which is essentially an overclocked version of the G80 with 25% more shaders unlocked, but NVIDIA is also planning a dual-GPU card, the 8950GX2, as well as a GTS version and budget GT and GS models. Because there are so many details, here's a list:

• 8950 GX2 - this will have two cores working at 550MHz with 96 shaders on each chip, and two sets of 512MB 256-bit GDDR4 memory at 2000MHz and a predicted price of $600.
• 8900 GTX - this is now being reported to run at 700MHz with 128 shaders and 768MB of 384-bit memory running at 2200MHz, priced around $550
• 8900 GTS - this version will be similar to the GTX, with 128 shaders but a lower GPU speed of 600MHz and 640MB of 320-bit memory running at 2000MHz. The price should be around $500
• 8900 GT - this will have 96 shaders and a 600MHz core, with 512MB of 256-bit GDDR3 memory running at 1800MHz, priced around $400
• 8900 GS - this should have a core clocked at 550MHz with 96 shaders and 256-bit memory at 1600MHz in sizes of either 256MB or 512MB. This should cost about $250

All five of these cards will use an 80nm manufacturing process and could push down the price of the 8800GTX to $450 and the 8800GTS to $400.

NVIDIA is renaming its existing MCP61P GeForce 6100 and nForce 405 chipsets to compete with AMD's upcoming RS690 in the marketing game. Under the new naming scheme, the single-chip MCP61P GeForce 6100 and nForce 405 is reborn as the GeForce 7050( GeForce 7-series) and nForce 630a(nForce 600-series). All GeForce 7050 and nForce 630a based motherboards feature dual-channel DDR2-533/667/800 support, PCIe x1 & PCI slots, high-definition audio, 10x USB 2.0, 4x SATA 3.0Gbps ports with RAID and Gigabit Ethernet. NVIDIA's GeForce 7050 integrated graphics core also features an sDVO connection for enhanced video output capabilities.

The title says it all, really. NVIDIA is planning on overclocking the G80 as far as they can get it, which alone wouldn't give you too much a performance increase. However, NVIDIA also has a figurative ace-in-the-hole, a driver tweak. What exactly this driver tweak does is unknown. Whatever it is, though, will give ATI some serious competition when they release their gigantic R600.

SPARKLE Computer Co., Ltd., today proudly launched the SPARKLE GeForce 7900 GS 256MB/512MB GDDR3 HDMI graphics cards, a High Definition multimedia VGA solution with support for HDMI and HDCP. Based on NVIDIA's award-winning GeForce 7 GPU architecture, SPARKLE GeForce 7900 GS 256MB/512MB GDDR3 HDMI graphics cards are designed for extreme HD gaming and deliver ultra-realistic gaming experiences and unparalleled image quality at resolutions of up to 2560x1600. 20 Pixels rendering pipelines, 450MHz core speed, 256-bit memory interface and unbelievable fast 1320MHz 256MB/512MB GDDR3 memory enable blazing graphics performance with maximum quality.

NGOHQ has released the latest version of their NVIDIA optimized driver, based on NVIDIA ForceWare 97.92. This driver includes NVIDIA's old Control Panel and also has support for all GeForce/Quadro cards - including mobile series (Go) as well. This driver has a special compatibility mode option that provides better stability, and workaround for some known bugs.

Download: NGO NVIDIA Optimized Driver v1.9792

There have been reports about the upcoming NVIDIA mainstream DirectX 10 parts. One big thing was the 256-bit memory interface of the 8600. It seems that this feature will be reserved for the high-end cards. The 8600 series will feature a 128-bit memory interface - no more.

While NVIDIA has had some trouble getting into the entry-level GPU market in the past, the company should have some better luck this time. The G84 series will be the first entry level DX10 GPU, set to replace the 7300 series as a graphics card for people who do not want to spend a fortune on graphics. It has an unknown level of pipelines, but it will be a stripped down version of the G80. The G84 will support Shader Model 4, have unified shaders and be fully compatible with SLI. The G84 should be announced at CeBIT in March.

While many G80 owners were expecting at least a beta driver for Microsoft Windows Vista, NVIDIA will not be releasing anything like it until at least January. The lack of even a beta driver for Microsoft Windows Vista is getting a lot of criticism. When anyone with a G80 tries to install Microsoft Windows Vista, they will be forced to install a "standard VGA". This means that there are no shiny Aero Glass effects, and even 2D graphics might be challenging. NVIDIA is expected to have something ready for CES 2007.

When an NVIDIA GeForce 8800 is plugged into a PCIe x16 slot, it works just fine. However, if it is plugged into an x8 slot or less, the graphics card will not boot. The Problem? Plain and simple incompatibility. Not only are they not listed in the PCI Express Integrators List, but there have been several reports of people sticking their 8800 in a PCI Express x8 slot and being sorely disappointed at the failure to boot. An X-bit labs review also showed that the 8800 series may not even be compatible with some mainboards. Basically, if you are buying an 8800 series, make sure you're not getting a second one before ensuring that you have two PCI Express lanes operating at full speed.

PC Partner is a very large manufacturer of ATI (AMD) cards, and has a huge name in Asia for themselves, as well as their own factories. While PC Partner is known for being a long time maker of only ATI cards, they have decided to begin making NVIDIA cards. PC Partner now offers NVIDIA cards that range from a low profile 7100 to the latest G80s. You can get the latest PC Partner cards with NVIDIA chips here. NVIDIA has not yet convinced Sapphire, the sister site of PC Partner, to make NVIDIA cards.

NVIDIA Corporation, today announced that the Adobe Acrobat 8 product family and Adobe Reader 8 now offer a new page display rendering mode, which uses the graphics processing unit (GPU) to accelerate the drawing and display of pages in PDF format. Building upon the recent performance improvements of Adobe Acrobat 8 and Adobe Reader 8, Adobe has leveraged the power and programmability of the GPU to further turbocharge the display of 2D content in PDF documents.

The first collaborative effort by gaming industry leader XFX and the world's No. 1 ranked gamer, Johnathan "Fatal1ty" Wendel debuted today. The 7600 GT Fatal1ty Professional Series Video Card is touted as quite possibly the fastest 7600 GT card in the world. The 7600 GT marks the first release in the XFX/Fatal1ty partnership announced earlier this year.

While the 8800 series is the only DX10 capable GPU available on the market, it is too expensive for the mainstream consumer. NVIDIA hopes to fix this issue by developing the G84 series. It is a clocked down version of G80 with less pipes, which means the G84 will be smaller then the G80. It should be available for around $200 to $250 USD, and will be available in late March or early April 2007. ATI (AMD) will not have any mainstream DX10 parts available at that time.