NVIDIA intros Quadro card for small desktops
updated 10:35 am EST, Wed January 21, 2009
NVIDIA low-profile GPU
NVIDIA on Tuesday announced the upcoming release of the Quadro NVS 420 graphics card, the first low-profile professional graphics card that fits into small form-factor desktops. Meant for use in business applications, the card can support up to four 30-inch external displays with resolutions as high as 2560x1600 but has a maximum 40W power consumption friendly to compact systems, while a variable-speed fansink manages heat and noise levels accordingly.
The card sports 512MB of total virtual memory and has support for four Dual Link DVI and four DisplayPort connections. DirectX 10 and OpenGL effects are supported, with data traveling through a 128-bit bus with bandwidth of 11.2GB per second.
NVIDIA also bundles desktop and app management software with the system that, on Windows systems, lets users create virtual desktops or extend the taskbar on multi-monitor setups. The Quadro NVS 420 will be available in February, priced at nearly $500; the company hasn't said whether the card will be available through specific computer makers or outside of Windows.
Virtual Memory?
01/21, 12:22pm reply
Card supports 512MB of virtual memory? Last time I checked VM is slooooow. Is this a typo?
CIA
Mac Elite
Joined: Dec 1999
whither apple?
01/21, 02:04pm reply
Now if nVidia and Apple (especially Apple) could pull their heads out long enough to make sure there is driver support for ANY nVidia graphics card on the Mac, that would be great. Of course it might help if Apple were to build machines with PCIe slots other than the Mac Pro. I don't know what Apple's problem is... Any nVidia card works just fine on Mac - if you're running Windows.
mytdave
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Aug 2000
Connector
01/21, 06:48pm (1 reply) reply
What the h*** kind of connector is that on the thing, and how much will the charge for an adapter to go to DVI and VGA? That's the question that needs to be answered.
Guest
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Nov 1999
Sure
01/21, 10:43pm reply
The card will ship with a method to run at least one DVI display, which you can add a VGA adaptor to if you are in a 1980's timewarp. While I agree that a new custom interface kinda sucks, there was no other way to put this much functionality into a single slot deceive with old style ports. See Apple's mini-display port as an example.
dimmer
Mac Enthusiast
Joined: Feb 2006