Did you pre-order a new iPad this week?

If you ordered on the day of the event, you’ll be rewarded for persevering through server issues with a shipment notification in your email today. According to reports from Engadget and AppleInsider, Apple is starting to ship iPads using FedEx and UPS. Some of the shipments are originating from China and all early orders are scheduled for a March 16 delivery date.

If you follow the shipment like a hawk, don’t be surprised if it arrives at a local sorting facility early next week and just sits there until Friday. It’s well-known that Apple asks shipping companies to delay delivery until the actual product launch date.

According to a CNET report, Radio Shack has become the first third-party retailer to accept pre-orders for Apple’s new iPad.

To pre-order through Radio Shack, you have to purchase a US$50 gift card and go into a physical store to place your order.

Radio Shack is an authorized Apple reseller, and the chain currently sells the both the WiFi and WiFi+3G iPad 2 through its stores. As CNET points out, the Shack is also one of the few iPad resellers that accepts trade-ins of older iPads when purchasing a new model. We’ve reached out to Radio Shack to verify this report, but have not yet heard back.

During yesterday’s Apple event, senior VP of worldwide marketing Phil Schiller took the stage to tout the power of the new A5X processor that inhabits the innards of the latest iPad.

Schiller stood in front of a chart showing the relative graphics performance of the NVIDIA Tegra 3, the Apple A5 (2x the performance of the Tegra 3), and the new A5X (4x the performance). Not surprisingly, NVIDIA is now taking exception to Apple’s claims about the performance of the A5X.

NVIDIA spokesman Ken Brown was quoted on ZDNet as saying that “We don’t have the benchmark information. We have to understand what the application was that was used. Was it one or a variety of applications? What drivers were used? There are so many issues to get into with benchmark.”

On the same day Apple announced its new iPad, Chinese company Proview released an open letter claiming it owns the trademark for the iPad in China, says a Macworld report.

In the letter, Proview reportedly warned suppliers and vendors that they will face legal action if they don’t stop the sale, storing and shipment of Apple’s latest iPad.

Proview isn’t the only entity laying claim to the iPad name. A group of eight Chinese banks say they own the trademark after they seized Proview’s assets in March 2009. Instead of negotiating with Proview, the banks assert Apple should have purchased the trademark from them.