NVIDIA have made a flurry of announcements to coincide with the CES exhibition. The first of these is the technical specifications for their newest flagship video cards, the GeForce GTX 295 and GTX 285. The next of these announcement is in relation to a new product dubbed NVIDIA 3D Vision for GeForce, which introduces high definition 3D stereo imaging to the home.

Finally, NVIDIA have announced a new range of mobile graphics chips, dubbed the GeForce 100M Series, which have an intended use in mainstream notebooks. We've got details on each of the new products, which round-up NVIDIA's first directions for the year.

Let's start off with the new "kings" of the high-end gaming market - the GeForce GTX 295 and GTX 285. The GTX 295 features two 55nm graphics processing cores at 576Mhz, with the shader clock at 1242MHz. The card contains two banks of 896MB of GDDR3, at 2000MHz, making for a total of 1792MB of texture memory available. The memory architecture is 448-bit, and there is 480 processor cores available for shaders, in addition to 80 texture "filtering units".

All this means that the card is up to 30% faster than the previous generation of GPUs, with the card effectively being two GTX 280 cards strapped together, running SLI through a single PCI-E x16 slot. The card fully supports CUDA technology, in addition to DirectX 10m and "Graphics Plus" capabilities, allowing real-time processing of video and images through the graphics chip.

The GTX 285, the lesser of the two new flagships, features 240 shader cores, a GPU clock at 648MHz, and a single shader clock at 1476 MHz. It has 1GB of GDDR3 memory, which runs at 1242MHz and offers support for DirectX 10, CUDA, GPU accelerated PhysX, and NVIDIA's new 3D Vision technnology, which both new cards support.

The GTX 295 itself.

The GeForce GTX 295 is said to be available from today, and has a suggested retail price of US$499. The GeForce GTX 285 will be available from the 15th of January, and will set enthusiasts back around US$399.

Moving on now to NVIDIA's newest technology, 3D Vision - which is "world first" high definition 3D stereo solution for homes. The packages incorporates a set of specialised, high-tech 3D glasses, and IR emitter (which communicates with the glasses), and specialised software which transforms any PC gaming title that is Games For Windows-LIVE complaint into a 3D gaming experience akin to IMAX movies.

The high tech glasses which are at the core of the system, use an active shutter system and "top-of-the-line optics", delivering double the resolution over "passive" 3D glasses that are known to consumers. The system is designed to work with new 120 Hz LCD technology, which includes ViewSonic and Samsung monitors, Mitsubishi DLP 1080p HDTVs, and DepthQ HD 3D projectors.

The specialised software which ships with the product allows over three hundred games to work with 3D Vision, without the need for "special patches". Games which carry the NVIDIA "The Way It's Meant to be Played" branding are compatible with the system, as will future titles released with the branding. 3D Vision fully supports DirectX 10, SLI, and PhysX technologies, though no mention of any performance impact is made in early documentation for the product.

In addition, 3D Vision will allow the delivery of stereo photography and video content, with the package shipping with an application that allows users to take in-game screenshots, for later viewing in 3D in a desktop environment. The application will also feature the ability to import stereoscopic content from online galleries and other sources.

Finally, NVIDIA's new GeForce 100M Series notebook graphics processing units have been announced, with three new chips a part of the range, these being the GeForce 105M, GeForce 110M, and the GeForce GT 130M, which offer performance increases of between 17-35% over previous cards.

The GeForce G105M, the most modest of the new notebook cards, ships with 8 processor cores and support for CUDA and PhysX technologies, enabling mobile users to play games and experience GPU enhanced processing in applications such as Adobe Photoshop. It's bigger brother, GeForce G110M, which features 16 processor cores, is a direct replacement and equivalent to mobile GPUs such as the GeForce 9400M G.

The most powerful model in the new range for notebooks is the GeForce GT 130M, which features 32 processor cores, and is on par with the GeForce 9600M GT. These cards will begin appearing in notebooks from March this year, with the Lenovo Idea Pad Y650 to feature the GeForce GT 130M, whilst the GeForce G110M will be available in the Lenovo IdeaPad models Y550 and Y450.