PNY Technologies, one of the world’s most known suppliers of professional graphics cards, announced an upgrade program, under which it will trade-in 3Dlabs graphics cards for Nvidia Quadro-based boards. The firm called 3Dlabs products “discontinued” and said end-users would appreciate the campaign.

“We wanted to make it easy for 3DLabs customers to protect their existing investment in workstations and software by offering a chance to join the large community of design, creative, and scientific professionals who have made NVIDIA Quadro graphics technology the preferred solution for any application requiring professional graphics performance, image quality, and stability,” said Carl Flygare, Quadro product marketing manager for PNY Technologies.

The program is available till the 1^st of July, 2006. Customers have to call a special toll-free telephone number and tell serial numbers of their 3Dlabs graphics cards to PNY in order to receive a special voucher code to get a new Quadro board at a lower price. Customers will be asked to return their 3DLabs graphic boards to PNY to receive the Nvidia Quadro FX upgrade at a special promotional value.

Owners of 3Dlabs Realizm 800 will get Quadro FX 4400 for $549, those, who have Realizm 500 will be able to purchase Quadro FX 3400 for $449, customers with Realizm 100 or 200 will get Quadro FX 4000 for $449, while those, who have Wildcat VP 560 – 990 or Widcat 4 7210 or 7110 will be able to obtain Quadro FX 3000 for $349.

3Dlabs announced that it would refocus its graphics chip development efforts to graphics processors for handheld applications in late February, 2006. Nevertheless, customers may still obtain the company’s professional graphics cards through electronic stores.