Nvidia

Even the mightiest graphics boards bow to Crysis. And Nvidia's newest dual-graphics board is no exception.

First some background. Crysis is a science fiction computer game developed by Germany-based Crytek and published by Electronic Arts. "Crysis is visually stunning, packed with intelligent, thrilling gameplay, and easily one of the greatest shooters ever made," according to GameSpot (which is owned by CNET Networks). For hardware reviewers, it's the ultimate gaming test of a graphics card.

Though so far the reviews of Nvidia's GeForce 9800 GX2 are positive ("The GeForce 9800 GX2 is an absolute powerhouse, … Read more

With this morning's announcement from Asus and its EN9800GX2 graphics card, we get the first glimpse of what Nvidia's GeForce 7950GX2 should have been. That card, if you'll recall from the summer of 2006, was the first SLI-on-a-single-card design from Nvidia. Effectively, it put two 3D chips on a single two-slot card. What that means is you didn't need a specialized, SLI-compatible motherboard to enjoy superfast game performance, because all of the necessary circuitry was built into the card.

The problem with the GeForce 7950 GX2 was that it was expensive, and it hit the market … Read more

Apple refreshed its MacBook and MacBook Pro product lines last week. I was hoping for more significant improvements, but the changes were minimal.

The updated models come with new Intel processors, larger hard disks, more main memory, and more graphics memory.

The new Penryn processor was expected to improve battery life, but I noticed something when I compared the specs for the old MacBook Pro to those of the new model. The new machine's stated battery life has dropped from six hours to just five. However, Apple now refers to five hours of "wireless productivity," whereas the … Read more

A fresh crop of mid-range graphics cards based on Nvidia's newest chip is threatening to make ATI an also-ran--at least until ATI returns the favor and puts Nvidia in its place.

It's not easy competing in the graphics processing unit (GPU) market. One minute you're the star garnering all the awards for crunching through games like Crysis, Company of Heroes, and Call of Duty 4, the next minute you're toast.

That's what may be happening to ATI in the mid-range graphics market. Cards based on Nvidia's just-released GeForce 9600 GT are streaming onto the … Read more

Nvidia launched its new GeForce 9600 GT 3D graphics chip this morning, aimed at mainstream PC gamers. For $175, the idea is that it will let you play any PC game on the market with reasonable image quality settings without requiring you to pay as much as you would for a standalone game console.

According to our review of the Asus EN9600 GT, which uses the chip, Nvidia has achieved its goal. The only game that gave it some trouble was Crysis, perhaps no surprise. What is surprising is that Nvidia's new chip beats ATI's next two closest … Read more

The graphics processing unit (GPU) is in, the central processing unit (CPU) is out. That was one of the main themes running through the Nvidia fourth-quarter conference call earlier this week. Nvidia is the largest graphics chip supplier.

During the call on Wednesday, Jen-Hsun Huang, President and CEO of Nvidia, repeated one thing often: GPUs are playing more of a central role in PCs, CPUs less so. "The CPU has become fast enough for the vast majority of (PC) users," he said. "PC enthusiasts, gamers, and design professionals have know this for some time." The GPU … Read more

Nvidia is reportedly planning to drop upwards of $40 million on advertising as it tries to make sure everybody knows its name.

Ad Age reported yesterday that Nvidia is searching for an ad agency to launch a major ad campaign targeting regular consumers, not just the hard-core PC gamers who bleed green and black. The company is supposedly thinking about an ad budget between $30 million to $40 million for its first attempt to reach a widespread audience. (Thanks, Valleywag.)

In the report, Nvidia denied it was in the middle of a formal search, but it's not hard to … Read more

Update [2/11/08]: We've heard from Best Buy, and the company tells us this laptop will be available for $1,199 starting Sunday, February 17. That represents an excellent value, and mitigates our disappointment over the original jump from the MSRP of $1,350 to the current $1,699.

Late last year, Gateway told us about its plans to bring a low-cost, high-quality gaming laptop to Best Buy stores as a retail-only exclusive. The system has arrived, and we were initially impressed with its price and performance, but now there seems to be some funny stuff going on … Read more

Nvidia wants a piece of the exploding smartphone market, with its first major applications processor scheduled to arrive in phones next year.

The graphics chip company is showing off the fruits of its $357 million PortalPlayer acquisition with the APX 2500, its first attempt at building a true computing processor for mobile phones, said Mike Rayfield, general manager of Nvidia's mobile business unit. The APX 2500 is designed as a standalone application processor for multimedia phones where talking takes a back seat to watching videos and browsing the Web.

The applications processor in a mobile phone is akin to … Read more