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Santa Clara, CA — NVIDIA on Monday, Feb 04, announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire AGEIA Technologies, the industry leader in gaming physics technology. AGEIA’s PhysX software is widely adopted with more than 140 PhysX-based games shipping or in development on Sony Playstation3, Microsoft XBOX 360, Nintendo Wii and Gaming PCs. AGEIA physics software is pervasive with over 10,000 registered and active users of the PhysX SDK.

Like graphics, physics processing is made up of millions of parallel computations. The NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT GPU, with its 112 processors, can process parallel applications up to two orders of magnitude faster than a dual or quad-core CPU. More at NVIDIA.

Dec 25, `07 — Nvidia will launch the mid-range part for its GeForce 9600 GPU series, codenamed D9P or G94, in February 2008, DigiTimes is reporting citing graphics cards makers.

“The G94, the first mid-range GPU to feature a 256bit memory interface, is expected to pose a strong challenge to AMD’s Radeon HD 3850 (RV670PRO) of the same class, the sources commented.

The sources revealed that while Nvidia’s latest entry-level G98 (D8M) GPU, made at the 65nm process, has started shipping since early December, the G94 will make its debut on February 14. The G94 will also be made on a 65nm process at TSMC, the sources added.

The G94, with its official price temporarily set at US$169, features 64 stream processors and supports PureVideo Gen 2, the sources said.” More at DigiTimes.

Taipei, Taiwan — On Dec 17, Micro-Star International (MSI) announced that it has already prepared P7N Diamond and P7N SLI Platinum mainboards to support the 45nm Intel processor at the same time when new nForce chipset launches.

P7N Diamond utilizes nForce780i chipset together with top performance specifications and supports 3-way SLI technology. While, P7N SLI Platinum utilizes nForce750i chipset, making this mainboard cost-effective.

Highly Efficient Circu-Pipe and GreenPower Design
The use of selected high-grade components is the common characteristic of the P7N series mainboards. Although the two mainboards have different market segments, they both come with MSI’s exclusive Circu-Pipe design. Circu-pipe can effectively reduce the high temperature from the chipset and MOSFET.

Selected high-quality solid capacitors and POSCAP!
The all capacitors on these two mainboards are high-quality solid capacitors that are made in Japan. These capacitors with low impedance and high ripple current and other characteristics provide better filtering effect. To further highlight P7N Diamond products, the PWM capacitors on this mainboard are based on POSCAP. POSCAP (Polymerized Organic Semiconductor Capacitor) is a high grade product recently developed by Sanyo.

45nm Processor and 3-way SLI ready!
P7N series mainboards are Intel 45nm processor and 3-way SLI ready. The 45nm Quad Core CPU support brings more benefits to multimedia and multitasking by enhancing the performance and reducing the waiting time for any kind of applications. It provides extremely high definition audio/video stream editing and offers higher performance on 3D gaming and professional graphic rendering.

MSI design quad PCI-E VGA slot on P7N Diamond for more than the new Nvidia 3-way SLI technology, also comes with PCI-E Gen2 to offer wider bandwidth. This will bring higher 3D gaming resolutions with more detail DX10 effects. More at Micro-Star International.

SANTA CLARA, CA— Extreme gaming just got a whole lot better. On Dec 13, NVIDIA extended its SLI technology, which enables the use of multiple graphics processing units (GPUs) on a single computer, allowing up to three GeForce graphics cards to be used in a single machine.

Now hot, new, graphics-intensive titles, such as Call of Duty 4, Company of Heroes Opposing Fronts, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, and Unreal Tournament 3, can be played at the highest resolution possible, with all the graphics settings cranked to the max, and antialiasing applied for the first time.

NVIDIA’s new 3-way SLI delivers up to a 2.8x performance increase over a single GPU system, giving high-end gamers 60 frames per second at resolutions as high as 2560×1600 and with 8x antialiasing. 3-way SLI technology means you no longer have to dial back the image quality settings on the newest PC games. For example, gamers with 3-way SLI can play Crysis at high resolutions such as 1920×1200 with all the advanced DirectX 10 effects such as motion blur, ambient occlusion, and soft shadows turned on.

The heart of a 3-way SLI system is an NVIDIA nForce 680 SLI MCP motherboard and three GeForce 8800 GTX or GeForce 8800 Ultra graphics cards. With 3-way SLI, gamers can harness the power of 384 stream processors, a 110+ gigatexel per second texture fill rate, and over two gigabytes of graphics memory for no-compromise gaming performance.

3-way SLI gives gamers the flexibility to scale their graphics processing power with one, two, or three GeForce GPUs, depending on their desired price and system configuration. 3-way SLI systems are available from leading gaming PC system builders and the components needed to build your own 3-way SLI system are available from leading retailers. More at SLI Zone, nVIDIA.

On Wednesday, Dec 12, Albatron announced the 8800GTS-512X, a new “Enthusiast” GeForce 8 Series VGA card that will give top-of-the-line cards something to take notice of because consumers are going to get a nice surprise when they catch a peek at the price tag.

The board features 65 nm process technology, which was first introduced with the Albatron 8800GT-512X in October 2007. But there’s no comparison: the 8800GTS-512X is, quite simply, big brother.

Specs:
- Fast and Cool: 65nm Process Technology plus 650 MHz Core
- Fast just got faster: PCI 2.0 and 1940 MHz GDDR3 memory
- PureVideo HD
- 8800GTS-512X include two DVI connectors and a 7-pin HDTV-out connector
- Supports Dual-Link HDCP and is SLI ready
- The board is 4.376″ by 9″, is dual-slot in width and has a PCI Express x16 connector (PCIe 2.0)
- “Several hundred’s of dollars less than $700″ (don’t know how much that would be!)

More at Albatron.

Taipei, Taiwan — December 06, ‘07 — ASUS today released the world´s first EN8800GT graphics card model with 1GB graphics memory with Qimonda – the new EN8800GT/HTDP/1G.

This powerful graphics card features the latest generation of NVIDIA GPUs; and with an unparalleled large onboard memory size, is designed to provide feature-rich DirectX 10 gaming and the best multimedia playback at ultra-high resolutions and maximum quality settings. Moreover, with the integrated new SmartDoctor feature, users will have the option to overclock the Shader Clock for more than 10% graphical performance boosts, while the unique Glaciator Fansink design keeps the GPU temperature 7ºC cooler than reference designed boards.

Unprecedented 1GB GDDR3 Onboard Memory from Qimonda for Best Graphical Output
“The ASUS EN8800GT/HTDP/1G is the first EN8800GT model in the world to leverage the Qimonda DRAM that comes equipped with 8pcs of 1GB GDDR3 graphics memory,” said C.P. Wu, General Manager of ASUS Graphics and Multimedia Business.

More at ASUSTeK.

Taipei, Taiwan — Nov 30, ‘07 — DigiTimes is reporting on AMD’s plan to drop the price of its Radeon HD 3850 and 3870 GPUs by around $20, citing sources at graphics card makers.

DigiTimes further writes,”In response to AMD’s plans, Nvidia also notified its partners that it will consider following up with price reductions of its own, causing several makers to delay mass orders to prevent themselves from absorbing the price damage, according to the sources.”

The original official Radeon HD 3850 and 3870 prices were US$179 and US$219. More at DigiTimes.

SANTA CLARA, CA—November 19, 2007—This holiday season a new era of PC games, featuring advanced new graphics effects, will immerse gamers in cinematic realism like never before. Games like Crysis, Unreal Tournament 3, and Call of Duty 4 are sure bets to be at the top of the holiday gift list for the significant gamer in your life.

And to supply the best visual experience when playing these new games, a new generation of notebook PCs equipped with ultra-modern GPUs (graphics processing units), such as the just-released GeForce 8800M notebook GPUs from NVIDIA, will soon be available for order from notebook makers.

Delivering the best performance for both DirectX 10 and DirectX 9, the GeForce 8800M GTX and GeForce 8800M GTS GPUs fill the top enthusiast GPU product positions in the popular NVIDIA GeForce 8M Series product line, continuing the company’s five generations of performance leadership in notebook GPUs. The new GPUs feature NVIDIA’s new, extremely efficient, unified architecture that delivers astounding levels of performance compared to previous generation GPUs.

In addition to serving as the core of a great, notebook gaming platform, the NVIDIA GeForce 8M Series GPUs feature the NVIDIA PureVideo HD engine for superior quality playback of HD DVD, Blu-ray, and HD movie downloads. The GeForce 8M Series also contain NVIDIA’s PowerMizer technology that intelligently balances battery life and performance.

“Alienware’s philosophy when designing the industry’s most powerful 17 and 15-inch notebooks was the commitment to using only the best components designed around the most current technologies,” said Frank Azor, Executive Vice-President for Alienware’s Product Group and Marketing. “Alienware proudly announces that our next generation notebooks, the Area-51 m17x and Area-51 m15x, launching early next year, will feature the raw power and vivid detail of NVIDIA’s GeForce 8800M GTX.”

Notebooks with the new GPUs will soon be available for order from notebook makers worldwide including Alienware, Eurocom, Gateway, and Sager in North America; AIRIS, Chiligreen, Cizmo, Cybersystem, Ergo, Nexoc, Novatech, Plaisio, Rock, and XXODD in Europe; MouseComputer in Japan; and Pioneer Computers in Australia. More at nVIDIA.

In line with earlier rumors and  speculations, Google has finally unveiled its plans, open platform for mobile devices - Android - to dominate the Mobile industry along with (almost every one in mobile industry worldwide except Microsoft, Nokia & Apple obviously) HTC, Intel, T-Mobile, Sprint, Qualcomm, Broadcom, SiRF, Samsung, nVIDIA, eBay, LG, Motorola, NTT DoCoMo, TI and others.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.; BONN, Germany; TAOYUAN, Taiwan; SAN DIEGO, Calif.; SCHAUMBURG, Ill. –November 5, 2007 – A broad alliance of leading technology and wireless companies today joined forces to announce the development of Android, the first truly open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices. Google Inc., T-Mobile, HTC, Qualcomm, Motorola and others have collaborated on the development of Android through the Open Handset Alliance, a multinational alliance of technology and mobile industry leaders.

This alliance shares a common goal of fostering innovation on mobile devices and giving consumers a far better user experience than much of what is available on today’s mobile platforms. By providing developers a new level of openness that enables them to work more collaboratively, Android will accelerate the pace at which new and compelling mobile services are made available to consumers.

Thirty-four companies have formed the Open Handset Alliance, which aims to develop technologies that will significantly lower the cost of developing and distributing mobile devices and services. The Android platform is the first step in this direction — a fully integrated mobile “software stack” that consists of an operating system, middleware, user-friendly interface and applications. Consumers should expect the first phones based on Android to be available in the second half of 2008.

The Android platform will be made available under one of the most progressive, developer-friendly open-source licenses, which gives mobile operators and device manufacturers significant freedom and flexibility to design products. Next week the Alliance will release an early access software development kit to provide developers with the tools necessary to create innovative and compelling applications for the platform.

Android holds the promise of unprecedented benefits for consumers, developers and manufacturers of mobile services and devices. Handset manufacturers and wireless operators will be free to customize Android in order to bring to market innovative new products faster and at a much lower cost.

Developers will have complete access to handset capabilities and tools that will enable them to build more compelling and user-friendly services, bringing the Internet developer model to the mobile space. And consumers worldwide will have access to less expensive mobile devices that feature more compelling services, rich Internet applications and easier-to-use interfaces — ultimately creating a superior mobile experience.

Open Software, Open Device, Open Ecosystem

“This partnership will help unleash the potential of mobile technology for billions of users around the world. A fresh approach to fostering innovation in the mobile industry will help shape a new computing environment that will change the way people access and share information in the future,” said Google Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt. “Today’s announcement is more ambitious than any single ‘Google Phone’ that the press has been speculating about over the past few weeks. Our vision is that the powerful platform we’re unveiling will power thousands of different phone models.”

“As a founding member of the Open Handset Alliance, T-Mobile is committed to innovation and fostering an open platform for wireless services to meet the rapidly evolving and emerging needs of wireless customers,” said René Obermann, Chief Executive Officer, Deutsche Telekom, parent company of T-Mobile. “Google has been an established partner for T-Mobile’s groundbreaking approach to bring the mobile open Internet to the mass market. We see the Android platform as an exciting opportunity to launch robust wireless Internet and Web 2.0 services for T-Mobile customers in the US and Europe in 2008.”

“HTC’s trademark on the mobile industry has been its ability to drive cutting-edge innovation into a wide variety of mobile devices to create the perfect match for individuals,” said Peter Chou, Chief Executive Officer, HTC Corp. “Our participation in the Open Handset Alliance and integration of the Android platform in the second half of 2008 enables us to expand our device portfolio into a new category of connected mobile phones that will change the complexion of the mobile industry and re-create user expectations of the mobile phone experience.”

More at Google.

IRVINE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Gateway, Inc. is encouraging consumers to get in a jolly gift-giving mood early this year with the debut of its holiday line of eMachines® desktop PCs and displays.

eMachines T5234 Desktop Configuration:

-Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium
-AMD Athlon 64×2 4000+ Processor (64-bit processing, 2.1GHz, 2 X 512MB L2 cache, 2000MHz FSB)
-NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE integrated graphics with up to 128MB shared video
-1024MB DDR2 Memory
-320GB SATA II 7200RPM Hard Drive
-DVD+/-R/RW Dual Layer Drive
-15-in-1 Digital Media Reader
-Price starting at $434.99 after a mail-in rebate of $50

eMachines T3626 Desktop Configuration:

-Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium
-AMD Sempron 3800+ processor (2.2GHz, 256KB L2 cache, 1600MHz FSB)
-NVIDIA GeForce 6100 integrated graphics with up to 128MB shared video
-1024MB DDR2 Memory
-160GB 7200RPM Hard Drive
-DVD+/-R/RW Dual Layer Drive
-15-in-1 Digital Media Reader
-Price starting at $349.99 after a mail-in rebate of $50

More at eMachines

Digitimes reports on upcoming launch of nVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT (G92). “Nvidia is bringing forward the launch date of its upcoming GeForce 8800 GT (G92) GPU to October 29 from the original November 12, targeting AMD’s new Radeon HD 2950PRO (RV670) as the major competitor, according to sources at graphics card makers.

With G92 and RV670 having a tight performance/price ratio, Nvidia’s earlier launch should give the company an advantage in the market, noted the sources. In addition to G92, Nvidia will also launch the G98 GPU to replace the GeForce 8600 series, however the launch date has not yet been set, added the sources.”

More at Digitimes…