According to HKEPC, the release of the GeForce 8800 GTS 512 MB will be set back from December 3rd to the 11th. You may recall, information which has been circulating indicates GPU/shader core frequencies of 650/1625 MHz and 128 scalar processors. In terms of memory, the bus will be limited to 256 bits but a frequency of 970 MHz will compensate for the 64 bit loss compared to the currently available GeForce 8800 GTS. The price will be between $299 and $349. We will just have to see if Nvidia will grant users sufficient quantities...

	In a presentation of its Spider platform in the famous Akihabara quarter in Tokyo, AMD Japan gave some information concerning its roadmap. We learn that a Phenom 9600 Black Edition (whose multiplying coefficient is unblocked) will be launched this quarter. Performances should be identical to those which we obtained in tests; however, overclocking will theoretically be easier. In practice, we shouldn’t expect miracles given AMD’s current difficulties in producing Phenoms which surpass 2.3 GHz. These problems should be resolved in the first quarter of 2008 because they will offer the Phenom 9700 (2.4 GHz) and 9900 (2.6 GHz) in this period. The first half of next year should be more interesting as their will be the arrival of the Phenom FX and Phenom 8000 (triple core). This will be followed by the Kuma, the dual core version of the Barcelona.

	In our test of the Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650, we said that this processor isn’t currently compatible with nForce 680i motherboards given our futile attempts with eVGA and ASUSTeK models. While at the time it seemed to be still question of a bios which could have resolved this problem, it now appears there is no such luck. In fact, eVGA has officially indicated that its nForce 680i motherboard is limited to support of Intel 45nm dual core CPUs, the Wofldale, while quad core versions, the Yorkfield, will lack support due to hardware limitations. As for ASUSTeK, they updated their compatibility list in order to distinguish dual and quad core compatibility and nForce 6xx motherboards are now marked down as incompatible with quad cores. Also, strangely enough ASUS already mentions two nForce 7xx mobos as incompatible. This chipset has not yet been released and was officially delayed for problems totally unrelated to compatibility ; however, in actuality this is probably the reason. So here is some bad news for nForce 680i motherboard owners. Even if we don’t know if the fault lies with Nvidia or Intel, the result is very disappointing.

	Barely a year after the arrival of the GeForce 8800 GTX, Nvidia promises to make its performances affordable with the GeForce 8800 GT. Is it a bargain? To answer this question we just published the complete test of the GeForce 8800 GT including its video capabilities. > Report: The Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT