Nvidia today announced the extension of the NVIDIA GeForce 8 Series line-up to include three new graphics processing units, bringing high-resolution gaming, Windows Vista graphics, and HD DVD and Blu-ray video playback to everyone regardless of budget. The new DirectX 10 GPUs include:

NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GTS ­ $199-229
NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT ­ $149-159
NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT ­ $89-129

These three GPUs join the previously announced NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX and GeForce 8800 GTS, rounding out the product family.

All three new cards feature PureVideo HD technology, the second-generation video-processing engine that promises the highest-quality playback of HD DVD and Blu-ray movies on everyday PCs. The new programmable video processing engine takes on all of the high definition H.264 HD video decoding, freeing the CPU to perform other tasks and significantly reducing power consumption, heat, and noise.

The GeForce 8600 GTS and GeForce 8600 GT?based graphic cards promise exceptional performance at price points PC gamers love. The GeForce 8600 GPUs are ideal graphics solutions for the latest NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI-based motherboards, which are designed for gamers.

Built for Windows Vista, GeForce 8500 GT cards are designed for both casual gamers and for non-gamers, delivering a solution for HD video playback along with high gaming performance for around $100.

GeForce 8 Series GPUs are the only DirectX 10 GPUs currently available and are the reference GPUs for DirectX 10 API development and certification. GeForce 8 Series GPUs include all required hardware functionality defined in the Microsoft Direct3D 10 specification, with support for the DirectX 10 unified shader instruction set and Shader Model 4 capabilities. In addition, every GeForce 8 Series GPU features the NVIDIA PureVideo HD video processor, the NVIDIA Lumenex engine and the NVIDIA Quantum Effects technology for simulation and rendering of visual effects in games.

Graphics cards based on GeForce 8600 GTS GPUs are available now from Nvidoa's partners. Graphics cards based on GeForce 8600 GT and GeForce 8500 GT will be available on or before May 1, 2007.

General specifications:

GPU: GeForce 8600GTS
Engine Clock: 675 MHz
Memory type: DDR3
Memory Size: 256MB
Memory Clock: 2GHz/128bit
Interface: PCI-E x16
Dual RAMDACs: 400MHz
DVI: Dual
HDTV: Yes
HDCP: Yes
SLI: Yes

GPU: GeForce 8600GT
Engine Clock: 540 MHz
Memory type: DDR3
Memory Size: 256MB
Memory Clock: 1.4GHz/128bit
Interface: PCI-E x16
Dual RAMDACs: 400MHz
DVI: Dual
HDTV: Yes
HDCP: No
SLI: Yes

GPU: GeForce 8500GT
Engine Clock: 450 MHz
Memory type: DDR2
Memory Size: 256MB
Memory Clock: 800MHz/128bit
Interface: PCI-E x16
Dual RAMDACs: 400MHz
DVI: Yes
HDTV: Yes
HDCP: No
SLI: No

Overclocked versions

Foxconn announced an overclocked version of the 8600GTS running at 700/2200 MHz and the 8600GT at 560/1560 MHz. The 8600GTS ? 256 is available to buy next week retailing at around £130 inc VAT. 8600GT and 8500 range will be available soon as well as the overclocked 8600GTS and 8600GT.

XFX also offers the 8600 GTS version overclocked at 730 /2260 MHz.