2. NVIDIA GTX 200  The Product: NVIDIA is the world leader in visual computing technologies and the inventor of the GPU, a high- performance processor which generates breathtaking, interactive graphics on workstations, personal computers, game consoles, and mobile devices. (NVIDIA. (2008) Retrieved 11/15/2008 from http://www.nvidia.com/page/companyinfo.html ) http://www.nvidia.com/page/companyinfo.html The GTX 200 series is their latest range of high performance gaming graphics cards the GTX280 being the fastest single GPU card to date and their flagship model.

3. GTX Price Fall This is a graph of the EVGA GTX280 falling in price over 18 days! That's a price drop of over $100 in a total of 21 days from launch! (Theo Valich. (2008, July 14) Nvidia GeForce GTX 200 Prices Crashing. Tom’s Hardware. Received 11/15/2008 from http://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia- geforce-gtx-amd,5887.html )Theo Valichhttp://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia- geforce-gtx-amd,5887.html At the point circled in red ATI launched their rival 4870 graphics card this meant that NVIDIA had to cut price’s so they could not concentrate on their environmental effects as much.

4. GTX Price Fall  In the battle against ATI for the market share Nvidia cut their prices. Here is a comparison demonstrating this from launch date until today. The more they cut from their profit margin, it becomes harder for them to cover their costs and there is only so far they can go before they will be making a loss, many retailers suspect that they are very close to this at the moment.

5. Power consumption  The GTX280 consumes 235w of power per hour, this quite a lot for a single piece of hardware, NVIDIA release this, it was effecting sales as buyers were having to purchase bigger power supplies, when this wasn't necessary for its rival company's graphics card, in a bid to reduce the cards power consumption NVIDIA are going to release a 55nm version which should see a decrease in heat and power consumption.  ( Fuad Abazovic. (2008, Friday 14 November ) Nvidia already producing 55nm GT200. Fudzilla. Received 11/27/2008 from http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10473&Itemid=1) Fuad Abazovic http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10473&Itemid=1

6. NVIDIA’s Environmental policy  NVIDIA operate the ISO 14001 standard, this means that NVIDIA are aiming purely to be as environmentally friendly in their management of their production, products and the standard can even stretch as far as the entire business. This standard results in NVIDIA considering the environmental factors of almost any part of it’s business and to evaluate the effects before continuing. This is very important as a company as big as Nvidia with it’s huge number of data centres, offices and research labs they can have a huge effect on the environment.  Nvidia paid a company $62,000 to remove one fluorescent tube and its ballast from each of the overhead fixtures. Even with only two tubes, the candlepower to the work areas remained more than sufficient. Their projected energy savings in the first year alone: $83,000. Payback period: 9 months. Estimated annual emissions reductions: 329 metric tons of CO2 equivalent.  (Karen Janowski. Sustainability Lessons Learned: nVidia. EcoStrategy Group Recieved 11/18/2008 from http://www.sustainablelifemedia.com/content/feature/strategy/sustainability_lessons_learned_nvidia)EcoStrategy Group http://www.sustainablelifemedia.com/content/feature/strategy/sustainability_lessons_learned_nvidia

7. NVIDIA ISO 14001  ISO 14001 is specific to each company that takes part there are general rules that the standard has but the values of these are dependant on the company.  In 2006 when NVIDIA received its initial ISO14001 certification, current goals of the environmental management system (EMS) include: a 10% reduction in water usage in the United States within the next two years and a 60%-80% landfill diversion rate for waste.  (Karen Janowski. Sustainability Lessons Learned: nVidia. EcoStrategy Group Recieved 11/18/2008EcoStrategy Group  from http://www.sustainablelifemedia.com/content/feature/strategy/sustainability_lessons_learned_nvidia)http://www.sustainablelifemedia.com/content/feature/strategy/sustainability_lessons_learned_nvidia

8. NVIDIA Environmentally conscious?  You have to ask yourself, if NVIDA are doing so much for the world with the ISO14001 and the CUDA programming which has helped to massively speed up the simulation tests of research centres around the world along with “Stanford University's folding @ home” program also being optimised so they can simulate DNA for medical research.

9. NVIDIA Environmentally conscious?  Then why have they released their most powerful graphics card to date, this would not be too much of a problem if it was power efficient, but it produces large amounts of heat and is often working under load at temperatures of over 90 o Celsius. This is not the most efficient use of the components by a long way and as a result it means that large amounts of electricity is wasted.

10. Conclusion  How do environmental factors effect the price of the product? The price of this product is effected by environmental factors, like all products the more a company tries to be environmentally friendly the more the costs of the product increase, this is no different with the GTX200 series, NVIDIA are currently cutting back on the use of lead solder and plan to be not using it at all by 2010, by doing this and having to research and test viable alternatives this drives the cost of their product up. (Cyril Kowaliski (2008, October 16) Chip failures: Nvidia responds at last. The Tech Report.Cyril Kowaliski Retrieved 11/28/2008 from http://techreport.com/discussions.x/15720 )http://techreport.com/discussions.x/15720