How long will it be before lesser versions of the GeForce 8 series will be released?

Question

My question is actually 2 questions, but since they're related I dont see the point of making 2 separate posts.

1. I have a GeForce 7900 GT right now and I'm wondering when less expensive versions of the GeForce 8 series will be released. (below $300). Perhaps a 8600 GT or something like that. Is anything scheduled by nvidia or do I just have to wait for it to appear one day?

I didn't follow the progression of the GeForce 7 line very closely, but I have noticed these cool fanless variations of some cards, such as these:

http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles/view.php?cid=3&id=1908&pg=2
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2006/09/14/xfx_geforce_7950_gt_570m/2.html

2. How long was it after the release of the first 7 series card before these fanless cards became available? How long should I expect to wait for similar fanless disgins of 8 series cards to become available? I'm interested in this mainly because they're silent.

Answer 1

Probably at least 1-2 months from now. Nvidia currently has no competition from ATI/AMD on the DX10 front, so they don't have to bring to market anything cheaper for the moment.
Reason is because you have no choice if you want DX10 now, you have to pay the premium to Nvidia.

Once ATI releases their new DX10 cards (hopefully by the end of this month) then the race will be on again, and cheaper cards should start coming out.

Answer 2

For the final countless generations, the 1st digit is used to point which sequence the video card belongs to (e.g. GeForce sequence 8, sequence 9, Radeon 4000, 5000). right here digits describe relative overall performance interior a chain. on an identical time because it is not relatively precise, you may get a coarse thought of relative overall performance between video enjoying cards via dropping the 1st digit and evaluating the 2d & third digits. it truly is why an 8800 (_800) beats the heck out of a 9400 (_400). Benchmark tables are greater precise.