The latest volleys have been fired in a war that could be seen as a positive for consumers. Both Nvida and AMD have released their latest graphics processing unit (GPU) architectures in the same week, and the timings were far from coincidental.
Nvidia launched its GT200 series GPUs on June 16, once again staking claim to the title of the world's fastest graphics card. However, this comes just months after the launch of its previous flagship series, the 9800GTX and its dual-chip 9800GX2 variant. Customers who would have paid Rs 40,000 and above for cards based on these GPUs will no doubt be furious.

Only a few days later, AMD announced the RVnO series, with a midrange card, the Radeon HD 4850. Even though this is not the top-end model, initial benchmarks have shown it defeating Nvidia's previous flagship, the 9800GTX, fairly consistently while
1) generally drawing less power and requiring less cooling. That too for a price of $200 (less than Rs 10,000).



Not to be outdone, Nvidia has dropped the price of the 9800GTX to match AMD, and announced a 9800GTX+ which will use a shrunken die and run at higher clock speeds to compete with the AMD card. The new 9800GTX+ looks like it will perform slightly better for slightly more money.

But the war isn't over yet-enthusiasts still have the high-end Radeon HD 4870 and a rumored dual-GPU 4870X2, to look forward to. Stay tuned to CHIP for the latest reviews as soon as cards with these new GPUs launch in India. After touch screens and voice input, Microsoft's researchers have demonstrated a new input system for portable devices. Users can push, pull, twist, swing or bend the devices to go document pages, minimize a window or playa game. Rather than rubber gadgets with new displays and components, flexible parts of the housing of future devices could use pressure sensors. Microsoft considers it a complement to multi-touch and motion input systems.