NVIDIA has released their long rumored Quadro FX 5800 graphics card for consumers. This monstrosity was previously seen in NVIDIA’S Quadro Plex D data cruncher. It replaces the 5600 at the top of the NVIDIA food chain. The FX 5800 contains 240 CUDA-programmable cores and sets a new standard with 4GB of graphics memory. The only drawback? The suggested retail price is $3,499. Good graphics do not come cheap.

It seems that everyone loves the Nvidia GeForce 8800GT and it is touted as the the best performing midrange graphics card on the market. HotHardware loves the Radeon HD 3870 and states the the HD 3850 is "quite strong" when compared against mid-range cards like the Radeon 2600 XT and GeoForce 8600 GTS. Then Custom PC says that the 3850 "blows both of these cards away." Lots of good stuff here. Happy shopping.

The A1Pro selling for only $25.48 is a hybrid keyboard of sorts which incorporates a writing pad. Unfortunately, it sits in the very spot the rest of us find our 10-key pad, which is not such a good idea.

Regardless, the idea of have a writing tablet or perhaps a small graphics tablet designed right into a keyboard is a great idea! I would buy that product.

Would you belive (a la Maxwell Smart) that Wacom is celebrating its 25th anniversary? And it is offering up three special pen tablets in 6- x 8-, 6- x 11-, and 9- x 12-inch sizes. Prices will be $369, $409 and $489 from respectively.

Take a Dell Latitude, slap on some military-grade protective materials, waterproof it, and design it for temperature extremes from -4F to 140F, and what do you have? The Augmentix XTG630, one tough notebook. The specs aren’t too shabby, either:

• 14.1 inch LCD
• Core 2 Duo processor
• Up to 4GB RAM
• Removable 80GB HDD plus 32GB SSD
• Intel GMA X3100 integrated graphics
• Bluetooth 2.0
• 802.11 a/g/n (draft)
• EVDO or HSDPA
• All the ports any rugged type would need

It can function in 4-inches of rain an hour and 95% humidity, and take a fall from up to 3 feet. Makes me feel like a weak, frail being, because I certainly couldn’t handle some of that abuse.