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NVIDIA launches some new motherboards with integrated graphics

by: John -
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NVIDIA today announced GeForce 9400 and GeForce 9300 motherboard GPUs for Intel CPUs. The new motherboards feature a GPU with 16-cores of processing, support for PureVideo, dual-link DVI, HDMI, 7.1 audio, Hybrid SLI, and more all in a very small footprint. All the major motherboard manufactures are releasing boards baed on the GeForce 9-Series and should offer some good performance at a good price for the mainstream folks. Combine with a high end NVIDIA card and you'll get even greater performance with Hybrid SLI.  Taking a look at these boards, I can see these being some great HTPC motherboards especially with PureVIdeo helping offload video processing from CPU to GPU. I might have to pick up one of these to upgrade one of my various HTPCs.
SANTA CLARA, CA—OCTOBER 20, 2008—NVIDIA’s engineering team was given a challenge: deliver a desktop GPU which integrates full system I/O and discrete-level performance in half the size of previous integrated graphics solutions. The result: a 16-core CUDA™-capable graphics architecture that enables mainstream PC users to play the latest top-selling PC games and enjoy silky-smooth, high-definition Blu-ray video playback—all without breaking the bank.

NVIDIA® Introduces the GeForce® 9400 and 9300 motherboard GPUs for desktop PCs on the Intel platform.

“These new mGPUs give NVIDIA a big advantage over other integrated graphics chips,” said Dr. Jon Peddie of Jon Peddie Research. “By doing so much parallel processing on a single chip, they can accelerate the new visual computing applications people are getting, and at a reasonable price. The GeForce 9400 and 9300 mGPUs set a new standard for what users should expect from today’s more mainstream desktop systems.”

“We’ve combined the power of three different chips into one highly compact and efficient GPU,” said Drew Henry, general manager of MCP business unit at NVIDIA. “In doing so, we’ve redefined the level of performance people can expect from a motherboard solution to enrich visual computing experiences for mainstream systems. You can now have the performance of a discrete GPU in a small form factor PC.”

GPUs have long been essential platforms for rendering real-time images to computer screens, but software developers and system manufacturers have only recently begun using their parallel processing power to deliver a new level of performance for a variety of visual computing applications, including Adobe Creative Suite 4 and BadaBoom. Badaboom is a video transcoding application to speed up application performance and free up the PC for doing other tasks in parallel.

The new NVIDIA GeForce 9-Series motherboard GPUs feature:
• 16-cores for processing DirectX 10 games and CUDA-accelerated applications
• High-quality video playback with NVIDIA PureVideo® HD technology, which offloads 100% of all video processing from the CPU to the GPU
• Support for advanced audio and video connectivity, including uncompressed LPCM 7.1 audio, dual-link DVI, and HDMI
• Support for NVIDIA Hybrid SLI Technology, which boosts performance up to 70% above the motherboard GPU
• Single-chip design with much smaller footprint than competing chipsets makes it ideal for small form factor and ultra-slim media center PCs

Motherboards featuring GeForce 9-Series motherboard GPUs are shipping this month from industry-leading motherboard partners including: ASUS, ECS, EVGA, Foxconn, Galaxy, Gigabyte, J&W, MSI, Onda, Zotac, and XFX.