[Pc_Support] nVidia first G80 series due in mid-November ...

[Bryan J. Smith]

This is just the G80 GPU, not necessarily end-user products (which
probably won't hit until 2007, at least not in quantity).  The first,
planned card will typically be the initial "high-end" card, and most
likely called the GeForce 8800.  Although it probably won't be the
fastest in the series, it will be until a die shrink/feature
improvement that allows better -- e.g., the FX5800 and 7800, followed
by lesser GPUs, then finally the FX5900 and 7900 series.

DirectX 10, at the heart of Windows Graphics Foundation (WGF) 2.0 and
the alleged, originally promised Vista Avalon presentation (now due
2007? 2008?), is the highlight feature.  If it's like any past DirectX
"technology," Microsoft basically tells GPU developers where it wants
to go -- function-wise -- and they make the hardware with the API to
support it (quite the opposite of OpenGL).

I'm more interested to see if DirectX 10 really lets them deliver what
they promised for WGF 2.0, which was supposed to be the original
foundation of the Avalon system.  So far, WGF 1.1 -- based on DirectX
9 -- has proven you need at least a NV40/R400 to get what Linux Compiz
and MacOS X QuartzExtreme can do with a NV10/R100 generation.  All
while Vista runs even legacy Explorer rather crappily without a decent
GPU -- much like the same thing that happened with NT 4.0 "Cairo" upon
release.

Story:
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20061002A2007.html