NVIDIA has supposedly come a long way with its next generation mid-range graphics circuits and according to Fudzilla it is now working on a circuit called D8M, which has passed a tape out in NVIDIA’s lab. D8M simply means Desktop, 8th generation and Mainstream. The most interesting about D8M is that NVIDIA will use a 65nm manufacturing process, while the circuit also sports the new PCIe 2.0 specification. PCIe 2.0 is already available with Intel’s coming X38 chipset, but according to the latest information it seems that also the Intel P35 chipset supports the new interface specification.
The graphics circuits will also have hardware acceleration of HD DVD and Blu-ray media, while all reference cards will be shipped with an integrated S/PDIF audio handler for sending both video and audio through the digital HDMI output. According to unconfirmed information, D8M-based cards should appear in September.
