SANTA CLARA, CA—December 12, 2005—Video games are the rage this year, and PC games are sure to be popular gifts for the upcoming holidays. According to the creators of hit games such as Age of Empires III, Battlefield 2: Special Forces, Call of Duty 2, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, City of Villains, F.E.A.R., Quake 4, Serious Sam II, and World of Warcraft, the most important equipment for playing today’s new games may not be armor or fancy weapons, but graphics processing units (GPUs) from NVIDIA Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA)—which they recommend due to the increased demands these games place on old PCs.

"Consumers need to know that the most coveted games for the holiday season are popular because they are fun and engrossing, but a big part of that is because they deliver higher picture quality—and that requires more graphics horsepower from your PC," said Ujesh Desai, general manager for desktop GPUs at NVIDIA. "It can be quite disheartening watching your child unwrap a game they have wanted for months, and then having them disappointed when their computer is not powerful enough to play it."

For those PCS that require a hardware upgrade this holiday season, NVIDIA offers a wide line-up of products for many platforms including:

• Desktop PCs: NVIDIA GeForce 6 and GeForce 7 GPUs, from $99 and up, deliver blazing frame rates and cutting-edge features—including support for Microsoft DirectX 9.0 Shader Model 3.0, high dynamic-range (HDR) lighting, and NVIDIA SLI multi-GPU technology. NVIDIA GeForce GPUs deliver the ultimate performance and ultra-realistic effects.
• Notebook PCs: GeForce Go 6 and GeForce Go 7 mobile GPUs deliver high-definition graphics and video to some of the industry’s coolest, most captivating notebooks—from ultra-portable thin and light notebooks to ultra-high-performance enthusiast solutions.
• Motherboards: NVIDIA nForce MCPs for motherboards provide high-speed system performance, NVIDIA SLI support (with two PCI Express links for maximum graphics performance), the NVIDIA ActiveArmor secure networking engine for worry-free online gaming, and NVIDIA nTune technology, a performance application for safe and easy system overclocking.

In order to make sure that an aging computer system won’t be the "Grinch" that puts a damper on the holiday fun, visit www.nzone.com and take advantage of the "Can You Run It?" feature. From the PC that the game will be run on, simply visit the nZone game page, click on the game on your shopping list, and start the automated "Can You Run It?" system analyzer tool. The "Can You Run It?" tool analyzes the PC’s capabilities and compares the results to the minimum hardware requirements as defined by the game developer. Users will be notified of a "Pass" or "Fail" and can review the detailed analysis if hardware upgrades or other updates are necessary. For many games, you can even download a demo to try the game before you buy it.

The "Can You Run It?" feature is available for more than 60 of the hottest titles for the holiday, including

• Age of Empires III
• Battlefield 2: Special Forces
• Call of Duty 2
• The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe
• City of Villains
• F.E.A.R.
• Quake 4
• Serious Sam II
• World of Warcraft

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