NVIDIA brings out the first real fake GeForce 300

It’s undeniable, this last quarter of 2009 has really highlighted the superiority of the ATI Radeon HD 5800 graphics cards. Very popular, they have truly put the NVIDIA range in the shade. As you might expect NVIDIA have responded and brought out the first GeForce 300!

A bit strange though, no, GeForce 300s at end November? Frankly yes, the new generation of NVIDIA cards, based on Fermi architecture, won’t see the light of day until the first quarter of 2010. Is NVIDIA ahead of planning then? No, that’s not it, the manufacturer is simply using the all-too-familiar tactic of renaming old architectures: the GeForce 310 is built around a GT200 chip from the GeForce 200 series.

Better still, the GeForce 310 is technically identical to the GeForce 210 -- a truly low-end card that was launched in July. Once again, NVIDIA has renamed an old card to make us think it’s a new one. As there’s been nothing truly new available since end 2008, the manufacturer has opted for this below-the-belt behaviour.

Product survey: graphics cards 2009

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