Tech News
NVIDIA unveils new flagship mobile GPU
By Stevie Smith
Jun 14, 2007, 12:02 GMT

NVIDIA, the California-based world leader for GPU technology through graphics cards and video cards, has this week whipped the covers of mobile expectation off its latest piece of oomph-friendly hardware to reveal the tantalising form of the new flagship GeForce 8700 GT for notebooks.

The newly unveiled GeForce 8700 GT will now occupy the muscular lead position on the GPU-makers popular "8" series of graphics processing units, which already boasts the capable performance of the GeForce 8400M and GeForce 8600M offerings, and the latest arrival will likely serve NVIDIA well in bolstering its placement in the mobile marketplace.

More pointedly, according to commentators at Tech.co.uk, NVIDIA has generally lagged somewhat behind in the notebook arena, with AMD-owned ATI Technologies leading the way with its popular Mobile Radeon range, but hopes to "steal a march" on its rival with the introduction of the 8700 GT. Tech.co.uk go on to say that Rene Haas, NVIDIA’s GM of notebook graphics has referred to current growth of notebook sales as "the perfect storm" for the company’s plans in the mobile GPU sector.

Initially conceding that NVIDIA had, at one time, struggled in terms of its positioning in notebook graphics, Haas then went on to claim the company was "now strong" thanks to the GeForce 8 range being able to deliver twice the performance of the preceding GoForce 7 range, while working on the same level of power consumption.

Built specifically for demanding applications such as notebook-based gaming, NVIDIA’s GeForce 8700 GT is fully functional with the otherwise taxing DirectX 10 demands associated with Microsoft’s Windows Vista operating system. NVIDIA is also keen to point out that its GeForce 8700 GT will also arrive with support for the GPU-maker’s PureVideo HD technology, which means it will handle both Blu-ray and HD-DVD playback.

Pricing and availability has not yet been confirmed.