EVGA is now offering a lifetime warranty for its retail graphics cards. All products bought from June 22 on are covered as long as the owner is the original purchaser. In related news, EVGA last week released the e-GeForce 7800 GTX KO Edition, clocked at 490 MHz, significantly higher than the 430 MHz from Nvidia’s reference cards. It is equipped with a new cooling tech called Asymmetric Cooling System³ (ACS³) that spreads over the entire card.
Nvidia has introduced two new workstation GPUs aimed at the ultra-high-end and high-end segments. The Quadro FX 4500 is said to offer a 50% perfomance increase over the previous flagship product (FX 4400). Its SLI technology supports 32x full-scene antialiasing (FSAA) and up to four dual-link high-resolution displays per system. The 512 MB FX 4500 reaches 181 million triangles per second and 11.3 billion texels per second. The other new item, the Quadro FX 3450, sports 256 MB of memory and achieves 150 million triangles and 5.1 billion texels per second.
Gainward has officially announced clock settings to its two PowerPack! Ultra/3500PCX XP VIVO-DVI-DVI cards based on the GeForce 7800 GTX. The Golden Sample reaches 470 MHz with 256 MB of 1.6 ns GDDR3 at 1.3 GHz. The standard model is basically identical, but is clocked at 440 MHz. Nvidia’s reference settings are 430 MHz and 1.2 GHz. The 7800 GTX chip has 24 pixel shader pipelines and eight vertex shaders pipelines and uses 256-bit memory interface. Both Gainward cards include two DVI and one VIVO (with HDTV-Out) connectors.
ASUS has introduced a new noiseless cooling solution for graphics cards called SilentCool. It promises silent operation and 104 F temperature reduction in comparison to other cooling technologies. SilentCool includes a large heatsink design and hidden heat pipe and stacked fins made of copper. The fins can be rotated 90 degrees for optimal heat dissipation. The first card to feature the solution is the Extreme N6600 Silencer (GeForce 6600).
Nvidia released a beta version of ForceWare 77.76. The new set of drivers offers support for SLI on upcoming GeForce 6600 LE cards and a new 16x antialiasing SLI rendering mode. Other features include broader SLI optimizations for more than 100 games and Unified Driver Architecture (UDA) with support for seven different operating systems and more than 250 products in total.
According to Xbit Labs, ATI rolled-out a campaign to boost multi-GPU CrossFire technology. As part of the promotion, the company will offer a USD 100 rebate for customers who purchase a Radeon X800/X850 series product, register it and get an e-coupon, then buy a Radeon CrossFire Edition graphics card by September 29 and mail in the completed e-coupon and the UPC code from the latter. ATI promises to send the USD 100 check within eight weeks of receiving the codes.
Sharp has developed an LCD panel that can simultaneously display different images depending on the viewing angle. The effect is achieved through a number of proprietary technologies such as a parallax barrier superimposed on an ordinary TFT LCD. The company believes that such displays will be useful on ATMs and laptop computers to prevent other people from reading what is on the screen. Volume production will begin this month, but there is no information yet on prices or availability.
Matrox has announced a peculiar graphic card featuring PCI Express x1 interface. The product, according to the company, is the first of its kind. The Millennium G550, aimed at financial and corporate users, is equipped with only 32 MB of DDR memory and two pixel pipelines, but offer support for two digital or analogue displays. It will be available in August for USD 139.
Gigabyte finally launched its new dual GPU card featuring two GeForce 6800 GT chips. The GV-3D1-68GT is said to reach a score of almost 10,000 in 3DMark05. It includes a total of 32 pixel pipelines and 512 MB of GDDR3 memory. Despite its huge heatsink, the card is guaranteed to fit in any normal ATX case. The GV-3D1-68GT is equipped with dual DVI-I, TV-Out and D-Sub output and comes bundled with PowerDVD 6.0, Joint Operations and Xpand Rally.
ATI expanded its multimedia card lineup with the addition of the All-in-Wonder X800 XL. It offers full support for Windows Media Center Edition and includes new “domino-style” dongles for input and output connectivity. The North American edition provides instant viewing of up to 125 channels of cable or antenna broadcasts as well as reception for FM radio. The European model enable analog, DVB-T and FM tuning capabilities while supporting SCART connectivity to televisions. The card is based on the X800 XL chip clocked at 400 MHz and sporting 16 pixel pipelines and 256 MB of GDDR3 memory clocked at 980 MHz. It will be available later this summer priced at USD 399.
