NVIDIA Quadro FX 370

Quadro FX 370 is next, with NVIDIA billing it as an entry-level professional graphics product at a breakthrough price. The Quadro FX 370 is powered by NVIDIA G84 and comes with 256MiB of DDR2, and at $99, it's even cheaper than the $149 NVS 290.

The likelihood is that the Quadro FX 370 uses G84 in 64-bit configuration as far as the external memory bus goes, and the clock speeds for the GPU are the lowest in the new G8-powered Quadro range, to differentiate it from the Quadro FX 570 which we'll show you soon.

Maximum board power is 33W as a result of the reduced GPU clocks compared to Quadro FX 570, and the output options are solely digital, with one dual-link DVI port (the one nearest the mainboard) and one single-link DVI port (the secondary one). Cooling is active single slot, and looking at the board pictures you'll see the fan blows air across the sink and out towards the backplane.

33W means the board doesn't need anything other than slot power to help it do its job.

The FX 370 replaces the outgoing FX 350, which is based on G72GL, and the 370 should offer increased performance compared to its sibling, and the output options are improved. NVIDIA pitch the Quadro FX 370 at $99 for good reason, since they're looking to capture users that do business with pro-level software, but which use a consumer-level board to do it.

The Quadro FX 370 is designed to get those users using Quadro, rather than GeForce, where NVIDIA are better placed to look after them properly when it comes to drivers and application support. We'll talk a bit more about that later on.

A quick look at online vendors selling Quadro FX 350 in North America shows it selling at around $170, so the $99 Quadro FX 370 should do what NVIDIA intend. Performance won't be amazing, likely matching a GeForce 8400 GS in terms of raw numbers (although we'll update you when we know the shipping configuration of the board), but it's faster than not just the FX 350, but the FX 550 (G73GL-powered) too.

Like the NVS 290, it's announced today with shipping availability in October.