There is no doubt that NVIDIA hasn’t had such a tough week in quite a long time. The Santa-Clara based graphics manufacturer has seen its stocks go down significantly after having announced that some of its previous-generation laptop GPUs had been reported faulty. But all this will most probably not affect NVIDIA that much, as the graphics manufacturer still has a number of aces up its sleeve.

We all know that its GeForce graphics cards still lack one feature that is currently present in both AMD's and S3's counterparts. Support for Microsoft's API, DirectX 10.1 is what you should expect for the company's upcoming graphics cards, and if you are wondering how long you will have to wait for that, Q4 2008 might make your day more pleasant. According to some ongoing rumors, NVIDIA is expected to release a new lineup of GeForce cards, even before this year ends, although there are currently no details concerning the technical specifications of these products.

The release may come to counter AMD's current RV770-based graphics lineup, which, unlike NVIDIA’s GeForce cards, is built on a 55nm manufacturing technology. Although there are no direct hints, the new lineup will probably mark NVIDIA’s step into the 55nm fabrication process. These cards will not be the first to be built on this manufacturing process, as the GeForce 9800GTX+ card is expected to arrive very soon.

For the time being, according some recent rumors, NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 280 and GTX 260 have already been spotted with lower price tags. Online retailer Newegg has already displayed a number of GeForce cards with prices much lower than expected. Users can acquire ASUS' and MSI' GTX 280 cards for as low as $469 and $459, respectively and this is after a $30 and $40 mail-in rebate.

The prices of GTX 260 cards haven't been dropped that significantly, but users can acquire a MSI GeForce GTX 260 card for as low as $259.99, if they turn to the company's website and register for a mail-in rebate.