NVIDIA has had problems over the last few years with some of its GPUs being defective. This was a widespread issue in 2008 and 2009 with GPUs failing in notebooks from HP, Dell, and Apple. Throughout the entire class action against NVIDIA, the company has maintained its innocence in the issue with the machines.

NVIDIA has finally agreed to a settlement with the company makers and consumers who purchased notebooks with defective MCPs and GPUs. The settlement terms are different depending on the machines. Owners of Dell and Apple notebooks that are affected will get a replacement GPU.

Rambus an NVIDIA have been fighting a patent war for a while now. Rambus alleges that just about everything that NVIDIA builds infringes on patents it owns.

Rambus took the case to the ITC and sought an injunction barring the import of the infringing products, which is just about everything but Ion from NVIDIA. Today the ITC ruled in Rambus’ favor and granted the injunction.

NVIDIA and ATI are always battling each other to be first with products. It’s common for one of the companies to launch something and then the other to come out with something similar shortly after. Such is the case when ATI launched its multi screen tech. NVIDIA announced its own called 3D Vision Surround.

NVIDIA announced today on its official blog that the driver to enable 3D Vision surround has been delayed. The driver was originally expected in April and NVIDIA has now announced that it will not have the driver ready until the end of June.

They say if life gives you lemons, then make lemonade. I say if NVIDIA gives you a video card that produces the heat of a small campfire, make smores. NVIDIA has posted to its official blog that the GTX 480 is designed to operate at high temperatures.

Apparently, lots of geeks out there using the video card were concerned that the GPU might have a short life span because of all the heat it produces. Big green says this isn’t the case and that the GPU will be fine.

NVIDIA and ATI are always fighting to be the first with new products to market and to have the fastest graphics cards around. ATI had a leg up on NVIDIA in the performance department in the high-end range for a while and NVIDIA is set to launch some new cards to try to take the crown back.

DigiTimes reports that NVIDIA has pushed the launch of its new Fermi architecture DirectX 11 platform until March of 2009. ATI will beat NVIDIA to market with similar 40nm parts with the launch of ATI products expected in January or February.

It has been a while since we have seen a new high-end video card come out of NVIDIA. It’s competitor ATI recently launched its new HD 5970 and claimed the title of fastest video card. It seems NVIDIA is ready to fire back in the video card wars with new cards of its own.

The new GTX 300 family will include the GTX 380 and GTX 360 video cards. The new cards are both going to offer more performance than NVIDIA’s current GTX 295 offering. The GTX 380 will have better performance than the HD 5970 in some benchmarks with the GTX 360 trailing right behind the ATI offering.

Word is that NVIDIA has won a contract with Nintendo for an upcoming handheld game console. Some are describing it as the “successor of the DS/DSi”. Speculation is that the new device would be available around 2010. If true, would this be the current Tegra? Or the next-generation Tegra?

The DSi isn’t that old, so I’m wondering if we are really talking about the next Wii here. Even if it is for a handheld, this would certainly give a nVidia a foot in the door for the next Wii. It’s just rumor for now, but interesting.

Since January when the Ion platform from NVIDIA first launched, not many netbooks or nettops have taken advantage of the HD capable platform that crams a 9400M GPU into the netbook chassis. A few machines have trickled onto the market using Ion but not as many as NVIDIA had hoped.

NVIDIA has confirmed that Samsung will be launching an Ion-powered netbook model soon. The GPU maker won’t confirm details like model, specs, or pricing other to say its Ion platform is being used.

The Mobinnova élan netbook, a NVIDIA Tegra-powered machine, weighs just two pounds, but can deliver 720p video on its 8.9-inch screen. We aren’t sure what OS it’s running, but we do know that it has an “innovative 3D graphical user interface,” supports hardware-accelerated Flash video, has both WiFi and 3G, and can play video for five to ten hours on a single charge.

NVIDIA claims that its Tegra platform can play an audio file continuously for 600 hours (thats 25 days!) assuming that the display is turned off. Take a deep breath. We don’t know what the pricing looks like after all. Mobinnova’s Tegra announcements also include the T8 tablet, which repackages the élan in a 10.1-inch tablet form factor with GPS and HDMI out.

The global computer market is down thanks to the poor economy around the world. When the computer market goes down the market for other tech that goes along with the computers drops as well. That means companies providing software and hardware needed for PCs are having a tough time.

NVIDIA is traditionally a very profitable company, but with the global recession, the GPU maker is struggling to get back to profitability. The firm has announced the financial numbers for Q1 fiscal 2010. The GPU maker reports revenue for the quarter was $664.2 million compared to $1.2 billion for the same quarter a year ago.

Apparently nVidia’s next-generation GT300 will be different than the GT200. How different? Very, very different. They are calling it the “first truly new architecture since SIMD (Single-Instruction Multiple Data) units first appeared in graphical processors.”

Here’s the gist of a whole bunch of techno-jargon: NVIDIA could be close, very close, to a single chip that can handle tasks that have been separately handled by the CPU and GPU. And that is seriously big. Life changing stuff. Now all we can do is wait for nVidia to actually give us some details.

When it comes to video cards for gamers there are two brands to chose from — ATI and NVIDIA. The two companies routinely fight for the title of most power video card and make a slew of parts for gamers shopping in the mid-range where prices aren’t too high.

NVIDIA has announced a new mid-range video card called the GTX 275 that will sell in the $229 to $249 price range. You can count on the factory-overclocked versions of the card form XFX, BFG, and EVGA to sell for more than that though.

NVIDIA’s GeForce 3D Vision package is loaded up with powered 3D glasses (charged via USB) and an IR emitter to keep everything synced between the display and your glasses. The good news is that you’ll have something to use these with since Left 4 Dead, WoW: WotLK and several other games are already compatible. More are expected to follow soon.

CES had a demo and so far we haven’t heard about any headaches or other strange side-effects so it’s all good and completely stereocopic 3D. The price? $399 for the display and $199 for this set when it’s available in the next few days. But I have one question for you. Just how close do you really want to get to those zombies?

NVIDIA is the biggest name in discrete video card sales. It has among its wares some of the best performing video cards available. The graphics giant purchased Ageia and gained from the buy PhysX technology that it has been enabling on its GPUs and peddling to game developers.

Over the last few weeks, some of the biggest game publishers in the world have licensed NVIDIA’s PhysX technology including EA. EA showed footage of its new title Mirror’s Edge with PhysX enabled and it looked like a different game.

I am a big fan of netbook computers. I have tested several and found them to be great for reducing my load when traveling to places like CES. The catch is that netbooks offer little graphics power meaning that you get a less than ideal HD video and gaming experience on most netbook computers.

NVIDIA announced a new platform this week called Ion that promises to provide Intel Atom powered netbooks and net tops with the graphics muscle they need for better HD video viewing and even PC gaming.