Albatron 8800GTX/GTS VGA card leads charge in DirectX10 Revolution

(Auszug aus der Pressemitteilung)

November 8, 2006 – Albatron Technology recently announced its latest performance cards, the 8800GTX and 8800GTS, featuring support for the much anticipated DirectX10 standard that promises a faster, more exciting gaming experience for the market. With Windows® Vista just around the corner, distributors and retailers are already lining up with big orders anticipating a rush for these performance gaming cards which feature NVIDIA®’s new DirectX10 GPUs.

DirectX10
DirectX10 is the latest version of the DirectX standard developed by Microsoft® Corporation and is used to give multimedia (graphics, communications, sound etc.) developers, namely the gaming industry, a more convenient and efficient interface (API) in developing application programs. In effect, developers get a very powerful environment to develop programs leading to more exciting games for consumers.

The new DirectX10 standard is used by and geared for the upcoming Windows® Vista operating system which makes this release very timely as Microsoft readies its huge consumer Windows Vista release in early ’07. To take advantage of the latest games using DirectX10 you will need to run on a system with Windows Vista and a DirectX10 graphics subsystem. This new version supplants the Direct9.0c version and features a very robust feature set with significant improvements, especially in rendering complex 3D effects in real time. With DirectX10 comes the new Shader Model 4.0 which also includes significant changes to the graphics processing, reducing idle time and increasing task sharing between shader models and generally making it much more efficient and faster.

8800 GTX versus 8800 GTS
The basic difference between the two cards is the GPUs. The 8800GTX has the NVIDIA GeForce 8800GTX GPU and the 8800GTS has the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS GPU. In short, the 8800GTX GPU has more horsepower than the 8800GTS as shown in the table below:

The 8800GTX will also bear a longer footprint than the 8800GTS at 280mm vs. 241.9mm. And, of course, the 8800GTX is expected to run several hundred dollars (USD) more than the 8800GTS.

Other Features
Both of these cards are PCI-Express and are SLI compliant, include NVIDIA’s PureVideo technology, and support HDR (High Dynamic Range lighting). These cards also support High Definition H2.64, MPEG-2, WMV hardware acceleration and High-Quality Scaling (clear, crisp, clean images at any window size). Finally, these cards will support dual-link DVI ports supporting two displays with resolutions up to 2560×1600.

Packaging
Aside from the driver CD and install guide, both of these cards will also come with an HDTV cable (S-video and composite out), S-Video 4-pin Cable, AV cable and DVI adapter.

DirectX10 Revolution
The DirectX10 revolution is on and not a moment too soon. With the imminent arrival of the Windows Vista operating system just around the corner, consumers are expecting a new genre of faster and more exciting games taking advantage of the new Vista/DirectX10 technologies. The 8800GTX and 8800GTS are Albatron’s two high powered VGA cards that are lined up and ready for the DirectX10 charge.