Graphics card major and NVIDIA partner Galaxy has come up with a new graphics card cooler design it calls "fan-card". The cooler may feature in some of the high-end graphics accelerators the company is working on. The cooler's design revolves around mounting three powerful fans onto a graphics card without straining its PCB (preventing gradual bending) caused due to the fans' weight and vibration, while also providing greater control.

The card's main heatsink remains fixed on to its PCB, while this card is installed right under it (or over, depending on which way the motherboard is oriented in a case (BTX-style)). The fan card holds three 80 mm LED-lit fans that push greater volumes of air than dual-slot cooling solutions with three fans the company has designed cards with do. The fan-card has openings behind the card that directs its air-flow onto the graphics card's exposed heatsink. The fan-card draws its power from a 4-pin Molex input, and also has a speed controller knob available to the user from the back of the case.

In related news, Galaxy published a picture of its upcoming single-PCB GeForce GTX 295 dual-GPU accelerator, while confirming a few specifications. The card is 267 mm (10.5 inches) long, and features two G200b GPUs with 240 shader processors each. A total of 1792 MB of GDDR3 memory is available. The board TDP is rated at 289W, and carries the reference NVIDIA clock speeds of 576/1242/2016 MHz (core/shader/memory).

So it is true! NVIDIA does have a single-PCB GeForce GTX 295 accelerator in the works, and partners already seem to have access to it. The card must have had some serious development put into it, given the sheer complexity of the PCB (to cram two G200b GPUs, their display processors, and the PCI-E bridge chip, along with 28 memory chips). The accelerator first surfaced in the form of CAD drawings, in March.

The PCB is pretty straight-forward: populate all the important logic on its business-side, and the memory on either sides. The card maintains its requirement for 8 + 6 pin PCI-E power input. Its VRM is spread across two main areas, to power a GPU system each. Internal SLI connects the two systems, while also providing support for Quad-SLI. Each GPU features 240 shader processors, along with 896 MB of GDDR3 memory across a 448-bit memory interface. Also pictured is the cooler: A fan nucleates the cooler, and blows in two opposite directions. The air is guided by the shroud onto two dense aluminum fin arrays that cool each GPU-system. The back of the card may use a heatspreader to cool the memory, like how the GeForce GTX 280 does it. While we don't expect this design to bring down the retail price of the card, we do believe that the design is mainly to provide partners, and retailers with decent margins that make selling the card a worthwhile venture. With the older design, it might not have been the case.

Wanna see what crazy is? How about 23 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 video cards installed in a single rig. Yep, that's not a typo. Named Atlas Folder, this wholesale pack of G200b GPUs (dubbed: folding server farm) is like an industrial grinder for Folding@Home. Watch the cool YouTube video here and feel free to leave a comment. I bet even NVIDIA engineers dream for such a monstrous distributed computing station.

Traditionally, NVIDIA designs dual-GPU accelerators with two PCBs holding a GPU system each. With the GeForce GTX 295 and its competitive pricing, NVIDIA found itself in a difficult position, as it faces direct competition from ATI with its now competitively priced Radeon HD 4870 X2. On the one hand, escalating manufacturing costs due to extreme competition with the sub-$300 graphics card market, is making it difficult for NVIDIA to keep up with GTX 295 stocks, on the other its repercussions that include bad press and losses due to not being able to keep up with demand, have pushed NVIDIA to rethink a way to make the GeForce GTX 295.

Enter innovation. The company is reportedly redesigning the GeForce GTX 295, this time on a single PCB design, which ATI has been using for its dual-GPU accelerators. Both GPU systems of the GTX 295 will be placed on a single PCB. This is expected to significantly bring down manufacturing costs, allowing the company to keep up with demands and competitive pricing. Expreview sourced the drawings of one of the prototypes, which shows a long single PCB card, with a central fan. You will also observe that there is a back-plate in place. It shows that a number of memory chips will be populated on the back, and both GPU systems on the front. It will be an engineering challenge, to populate five major heat-producing components (two G200b GPUs, two NVIO2 processors, and one BR-03 bridge chip), 28 GDDR3 memory chips, and the VRM area to power it all. The new redesigned card may surface internally in April, and may enter production by May.

With no official press release, a new version of EVGA's GTX 295 has appeared on their website. Dubbed the GTX 295 Red Edition, the card is clocked at the stock speeds of 576 MHz on the core, 1242 MHz on the shaders, and a 1998 MHz memory clock, using a reference cooler, which appears to have simply been painted red. Although the card appears to bring nothing new to the table other than the option of a new colour, EVGA are asking US$549.99 for the card, which is $45 more than the standard black variant. It would appear following the launch of their X58 classified motherboard not long ago, that EVGA could be heading towards a new colour scheme, at least for their premium products.

On January the 8th, NVIDIA reclaimed the title of the manufacturer of the world's fastest consumer graphics accelerator, with the launch of the GeForce GTX 295. It was received adequately well by the press, for two factors: its performance, and its competitive pricing. NVIDIA, for the first time in generations of graphics technologies, chose to price its high-end offering competitively, and hasn't used its industry-leading position to warrant a high price. Unfortunately, the company seems to be in no mood to hand over the benefit the consumers, not by stepping up its prices, but by not keeping up to its demand.

NVIDIA, which believes in the concept that selling a GeForce GTX 260 for a price well within US $200, at the expense of profits, relies on sales volumes to do the job of making up for its losses, and/or reduced margins. To an extent, the company's moves to redesign the reference PCB for the GTX 260, and subsequently letting partners have a common design kit to come up with their own PCB designs, seems to have helped the cause. That isn't the case with GTX 295. Its power design and the requirement of two sets of high-grade components seems to have hit the company's plans of letting it sell for its competitive price, which it would rather channelize in subsidizing the GTX 260.

AMD is attempting to revive its competitiveness that took a beating with NVIDIA's introduction of 55 nm G200b-based graphics accelerators. The method AMD seems to be adopting is by giving its existing flagship GPU, the RV770, a series of design improvements that facilitate higher clock-speeds, in turn, better performance on offer.

A lot has been said about RV790 till date, with each commentator coming up with a new version of the story. It has been more or less established that the RV790 will be a improvement over the RV770, though not a revolutionary one. Fresh information gathered by PC Games Hardware places a realistic estimate on up to where RV790 is going to push the performance envelope for AMD.

BFG Technologies, Inc., the leading North American and European supplier of advanced NVIDIA-based 3D graphics cards, power supplies, and the Phobos High-Performance Gaming/Home Theater System, announced today the BFG GeForce GTX 295 H2O graphics card with ThermoIntelligence Water Cooling Solution.

BFG Technologies has taken their award-winning GeForce GTX 295 dual GPU graphics card and combined it with a highly efficient, thermally advanced copper water block co-developed with the experts at Danger Den to offer a totally silent cooling solution for customers who have an existing water cooling system set up. This BFG ThermoIntelligence water block delivers an exceptional 44°C lower GPU operating temperature (than with air cooling), and cools all heat generating points on the card-GPU, RAM, voltage regulators, and I/O chip.

Zotac is among a small group of NVIDIA add-in board partners that is bringing out GeForce GTX 295 variants with factory-fitted water-blocks, making the cards ready for water-cooling. Zotac is likely to name its watercooled card GTX 295 Infinity. CPU3D sourced a couple of pictures of the accelerator. The new accelerator will cater to the enthusiast segment of the market, where the water-block serves as the main USP, making the accelerator come at a premium over reference-design cards.

The GTX 295 Infinity comes with a factory-fitted copper-infused block that remains sandwiched between the business-ends of the two PCBs. It uses the reference design PCBs sans the refernce cooler and its shroud. Zotac is expected to ship this accelerator with factory-overclocked parameters, which aren't known at this point in time. It is expected to be available by mid-March according to the source.

Expanding your water block options is Koolance, out with water blocks for NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 295 and GeForce GTX 285 graphics accelerators. The blocks by Koolance use nickel-plated copper, acrylic, the block for GTX 295 comes with built-in lighting for better aesthetics. Both blocks are monolithic, full-coverage by design.

The GTX 295 block (model: VID-NX295) measures 20cm x 12cm x 3cm and weighs around 1 kg (2.25 lbs). As with other blocks in its class, the block remains sandwiched between the business-ends of the two PCBs holding a GPU system each. The block for the GTX 285 (model: VID-NX285) measures 15.9cm x 14.6cm x 1.6cm and weighs 680g (around 1.5 lbs). Both blocks come with standard fittings, with fittings for SLI systems being optional and compatible. The Koolance VID-NX295 has started selling for US $159.99 a piece, with the VID-NX285 being priced at $99.99 at the Koolance store.

EK WaterBlocks, a well-known name with computer enthusiasts is ready with its offering for the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 dual-GPU graphics accelerator. As with any water-block made for the GeForce 9800 GX2 and GeForce GTX 295, this block consists of two cooling surfaces for each of the two PCBs.

EK WaterBlocks' latest unit (model: EK-FC295 GTX SLI) is a monolithic full-coverage block made of copper and acrylic glass. Each of the cooling surfaces has contact points for the various components of the accelerator. The block is available with a whole range of options with its fittings. It is SLI-capable, meaning that its fittings allow its fluid to be relayed to the next accelerator. The block weighs 1.35 kg (around 3 lbs). It will be available from EK WaterBlocks' store starting tomorrow, priced at 125€ (around US $172.60).

Water cooling specialist Danger Den is ready with its full-coverage water cooling block for the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 graphics accelerator. Consisting of two PCBs holding a GPU system each, the GeForce GTX 295 is a complex piece of machinery, with regards to installing third-party cooling.

The Danger Den block (model: GPU-6850) is monolithic and is installed in a way that makes it sandwiched between the two PCBs. Contact-points on either sides of the block convey heat from the GPUs, memory chips, VRM, NVIO2 processors and the BR-03 chip. The block is available from Danger Den with a variety of options with regard to the fittings. SLI fittings that relay fluid between accelerators in an SLI system are optional. The block weighs 4 lbs (1.81 kg). It is priced at US $189.95.

NVIDIA made its latest version of the PhysX system software available today, version 9.09.0121. The update aims to fix several issues with the older 9.09.0010, relating to its installation, runtime environment, game-specific and graphics accelerator-specific. To begin with, this version of the software resolves issues noted during installation on some non-English versions of Windows. It resolves issues relating to the PhysX SDK runtime with multi-GPU configurations. It fixes an issue with the game Mirror's Edge where occasional crashes were seen. Performance increments are in store for users of GeForce GTX 285 and GeForce GTX 295 accelerators.

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA PhysX System Software 9.09.0121 WHQL

January 8 saw NVIDIA reclaim the performance crown from arch-rival AMD/ATI with the introduction of its dual-GPU GeForce GTX 295 graphics accelerator. The company used two of its 55nm G200 graphics cores is building this accelerator. Maintaining a dual-slot construction with its reference design, the card provides a fair bit of overclocking on its stock cooler. EVGA and Zotac, two of NVIDIA's largest add-in card partners, are reportedly planning water-cooled versions of this accelerator.

It is not clear at this point if the accelerators come in the form of merely cards with factory-fitted water-blocks, or if they come equipped with dedicated water-cooling loops. The two manufacturers will take advantage of the superior cooling system to provide high, non-reference clock-speeds to the cards' GPUs and memory. The new SKUs are likely to surface at the upcoming CeBIT event held in Hannover, Germany.

Overclocking video cards has become a child's play these days, thanks to helpful software utilities that feature simple sliders to adjust clock speeds, test and apply overclocked parameters. Those serious about overclocking take to high-end cooling, and volt-modding. EVGA picked on a gray-area, where users should be given a level of control over the GPU's voltage. The company is known for taking initiatives in making performance control accessible to most users by providing easy to use utilities such as the EVGA Precision.

Now, the company is coming up with a nifty utility called the EVGA Voltage Tuner. Exclusive for registered users of EVGA GeForce GTX 200 series graphics cards, the utility allows a decent level of control over the GPU's voltage settings, within a range permissible by the GPU's BIOS. While this utility isn't an all out substitute to volt-modding, it allows for all the voltage tuning the default state of the graphics card's electrical components allow. A simple slider allows for adjusting the GPU core voltage with a resolution of milli-Volts. The results of using this utility are impressive, with a small voltage adjustment sending the maximum core overclock up by 100 MHz, a significant amount when it comes to GPUs. The first version of this utility is said to support GeForce GTX 260 (65nm), GeForce GTX 280 and GeForce GTX 295. Suceeding versions may expand the compatibility list to include some important graphics cards, namely GeForce GTX 285 and GTX 260 (55nm). The second and third screenshots below show a before&after scene of adjusting voltages using this utility.

Trying to offer the best service for the customer, EVGA is now offering an optional backplate (model number: 401-EV-1234-01) for its GeForce GTX 295 dual-GPU cards. Although not yet priced, this backplate is said to help EVGA GeForce GTX 295 owners to lower their overall card temperature by a few degrees.

NVIDIA made its latest GeForce driver suite official, version 181.22 WHQL. The driver comes nearly a week after its introduction as a beta. It reportedly brings in PhysX optimizations specific to Mirror's Edge. Attempting not to be merely a vehicle for PhysX system software version 9.09.0010, the driver promises certain fixes specific to Windows XP that include an SLI profile for STALKER: Clear Sky and Windows Vista-specific fixes that include an SLI profile for STALKER: Clear Sky benchmark, along with some stability issues being addressed for Fallout 3 and the GeForce GTX 295 accelerator, where only one of the two GPUs on the card was being recognized as CUDA/PhysX-supportive in some cases. Head over to NVIDIA's driver page for the downloads.

DOWNLOAD NVIDIA Forceware 181.22 WHQL for Windows XP 32-bit | Windows Vista 32-bit | Windows XP 64-bit | Windows Vista 64-bit

AMD started its marketing offensive against NVIDIA's new dual-GPU GeForce GTX 295, and single-GPU GeForce GTX 285 accelerators, in an attempt to put the Radeon HD 4800 X2 series accelerators ahead of its competition in terms of performance on a "broad scale", and used the cards' availability in non-reference designs as a USP against NVIDIA's offerings using a uniform company-specified design. All this, in an internal presentation leaked to Donanim Haber. As for those wondering why, ATI and NVIDIA have a history of picking on each others' flagship products by means of such presentations, with which they intend to influence OEMs and channel vendors, though it always happens so, that these presentations reach public domains. Viral marketing or something plausible? Find out for yourself:

You know we always try to share with you all these crazy world records and overclocking attempts that happen in a global scale, and today we have one more to show. Overclockers Vince "k|ngp|n" Lucido and Peter Tan "Shamino" have united to break the 40k barrier in 3DMark Vantage, an astonishing accomplishment. Except these two man, behind this record hides an Intel X58 platform. The motherboard used was a standard EVGA X58 SLI running BIOS SZ1C combined with an LN2 cooled Core i7 965 at 5110MHz (even running on higher core speeds as you'll see down below). Memory used was a Kingston 3GB HyperX DDR3 2000MHz CL9 kit clocked at 1080MHz with timings of CL8-7-7-21. Finally, the GPUs of choice were two volt-modded EVGA GTX 295+ working in Quad-SLI, cooled by LN2 again. The new official 3DMark Vantage world record was set for the Performance segment with a properly calculated score of P40398 marks. To find more about the whole overclocking process and the hardware used, please click here.

Inno3D are excited to launch 2 unrivaled graphics cards, the Inno3D GeForce GTX 295 and Inno3D GeForce GTX 285 that are built with the 2nd Generation NVIDIA Unified Architecture and ready for all the advance features of Graphics Plus.

Take your DirectX 10 gaming beyond HD, with the power of Inno3D GeForce GTX 285. Place yourself in the center of the action and experience true gaming cinema in extreme HD (2560x1600) resolutions - all enabled by GeForce 200 series second generation unified architecture, NVIDIA SLI technology, and incredible out-of-the-box performance for the latest games including Far Cry 2, Mirror's Edge, and Call of Duty: World at War. With over 50% more performance than prior generation GPUs, Inno3D GeForce GTX 285 tear through complex DirectX 10 environments and cinematic effects at blazing frame rates in beyond HD resolutions.

NVIDIA today launched two new graphics solutions for the enthusiast gamer, the GeForce GTX 295 and the GeForce GTX 285. The GeForce GTX 295 is the world's fastest dual GPU solution. Featuring the power of two NVIDIA GeForce GTX 200 GPUs on a single card, the GeForce GTX 295 delivers unrivaled graphics performance in the hottest games including Far Cry 2, Mirror's Edge, and Call of Duty 5: World at War.

The GeForce GTX 285 is the world's most powerful single GPU, delivering 30% faster performance than competing single GPU solutions, and tearing through complex DirectX 10 environments at blazing frame rates in extreme HD resolutions.

Micro Star International (MSI) is the next bug computer company that launches own branded GeForce GTX 295 video card. The N295GTX-M2D1792 is standard in all ways, it follows NVIDIA's dual-GPU reference design, cooling and clock speeds. The two GPUs are set to 576MHz, the shaders work at 1242MHz and the 1792MB of GDDR3 memory is clocked at 1998MHz. The card hasn't reached the stores just yet, but that's about to change very soon.

Manli Technology, a leading manufacturer of Graphics cards and Motherboards in Hong Kong today launched their next generation graphics cards, the Manli GeForce GTX 295 and GeForce GTX 285. The Manli GeForce GTX 295 is equipped with a whopping 480 stream processors. It also comes with 1792 MB GDDR3 memory and a 896-bit memory interface at a GPU clock speed of 576 MHz while the Manli GTX 285 is equipped with 240 stream processors, comes with 1 GB GDDR3 memory and a 512-bit memory interface at a GPU clock speed of 648 MHz. Furthermore, to deliver the Graphics Plus idea, both graphics cards offer world-class graphics performance plus GPU-accelerated NVIDIA CUDA, PhysX gaming effects, and stereoscopic 3D support, along with PureVideoHD for video and image processing.

ASUS, world-leading producer of top quality graphic solutions, has today introduced the world's fastest dual and single GPU graphics cards incorporating the latest generation of NVIDIA GPUs-the GeForce GTX 295 and GeForce GTX 285 chipsets; with the ASUS ENGTX295, ENGTX285 ULTIMATE, and ENGTX285 TOP graphics cards. With an outstanding 3DMark Vantage Extreme Preset score of 9126, the ENGTX295 leads the pack as the world's fastest graphics card; while the ASUS ENGTX285 ULTIMATE and ENGTX285 TOP deliver 10% and 5% improvements respectively in gaming experiences when compared to reference designed boards. Furthermore, in order to show that ASUS cares for all gamers, both the ASUS ENGTX295 and ENGTX285 Series graphics cards will come bundled with a special coupon to obtain up to $25 or 10% off on a total of 5 games or CUDA applications at the NZONE webpage.

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.