Nvidia's Quadro 4 XGL sparks graphics bonanza

NVIDIA LETS SLIP the latest additions to its Quadro line of Workstation graphics cards today. HotHardware got some gen ahead of time on the new AGP 8X enabled Quadro 4 XGL, which they've posted over here.

Meanwhile, a commercial site, Amazon International, has benchmarked the card and posted its results over here. We've pasted the specs below, for those that like such things:

• Powered by NVIDIA® Quadro4™ 980 XGL
• 128-MB DDR SDRAM
• Lightspeed Memory Architecture™ II
• Dual nfiniteFX™ Vertex Shader - programmable second generation effect processor
• Resolution up to 2048 x 1536 at 75 Hz per display
• Flexible multi-screen solution with full 3D support
• Dual monitor connectors (DVI-I and DVI-I)
• Advanced desktop management with nView II™ technology
• OpenGL stereo connector for shutter glasses
• Unified Driver Architecture optimized for OpenGL and DirectX applications
• Includes MAXtreme, POWERDraft

Sticking with Nvidiousness, Hardware Accelerated had a chat with David Kirk, the Chief Scientist of NVIDIA. "I think that DDR2 is going to be really exciting for the graphics community, since it brings the potential of more memory bandwidth per signal pin. This is a good trend, regardless of how many bits wide the datapath is!" says Kirk, amongst other stuff, over here.

Keeping up ATI's end, Computerbase.de took a look at the more affordable products based on the RV250-Chip. How does the Radeon 9000, Radeon 9000 128MB und Radeon 9000 Pro from PowerMagic stand up against competitors from their rough price range? Here's the piece and here's the Googled translation.

For those desperately seeking something to stretch their graphics cards with, accelenation has a look at the technology behind Doom III, and the game's possible impact on the direction of future graphics hardware, they say, over here

Elsewere, Penstarsys takes a look at the Gigabyte Radeon 8500 and the PNY Ti4400, to show the difference that $100 can make, over here.

The Hexers have a gander around Intel'a D845GEBV2 mobo which is based on the Intel 845GE chipset over here.

Liquid Ninjas have a fiddle with a Gaming Notebook. Is the Prostar 5694 any good for LAN Parties and portable gaming in general, they ask, over here.

PC Gaming Xtreme has a review up of a full tower case, the Panther, from koolcases.com, over here.

3DVelocity took a look at Belki's USB 2.0 Upgrade Kit over here.

HotHardware.Com check out Plextor's latest CD-RW, the PlexWriter 48/24/48A E-IDE (ATAPI) drive, over here.

Hartware.net has tested the upcoming SLK-700 CPU cooler from Thermalright, here. And here's an English version.

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