14 DAY TRIAL // Chip manufacturer Nvidia faced extensive delays this year, including the very popular GeForce 9800 GX2 graphics card, that has been postponed several times. Other products slated for release, such as the new GeForce 9800GTX graphics cards and the nForce 780a chipset have been pushed forward for the next week.
In order to compensate for the products that should have already hit the retailers' shelves, the company rushed the introduction of two new products, namely the nForce 730a chipset and the GeForce 9800 GX2 SLI. More than that, some system vendors have also announced the nForce 750a chipset, the first product from Nvidia since 2006 especially tailored for the AMD-based platforms.
The nForce 730a is the company newest entry-level chipset, but it comes with full support for the graphics manufacturer's Hybrid SLI technology (despite the fact that Hybrid SLI has not been introduced yet, and it is queued for release in the near future). The nForce 750a chipset shares the same basic feature, but it includes the integrated Nvidia PureVideo HD technology.
Nvidia also introduced the GeForce 9800GX2 Quad SLI configuration, which allows users to connect the dual-GPU graphics card via SLI in order to enhance the graphics performance. Despite its introduction, the company still has some serious issue with the supportive driver, which prevents the two graphics cards from scaling properly.
The company's Hybrid SLI technology is still on the launch agenda, yet recent information unveiled that Nvidia informed its manufacturing partners that samples of the new technology will arrive later, during the second half of April with retail availability slated sometime in May.
At the moment, the Hybrid SLI technology is only available for the GeForce 8500 GT and 8400 GS graphics cores, that are especially tailored for the entry-level market segment. However, in order to enjoy it, users need motherboards built with Nvidia's nForce 720a and the nForce 730a chipsets.