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Scientists more accurately gauge the brightness of the universe
You'd think that it would be virtually impossible to determine the collective brightness of the observable universe, but a team of scientists has come surprisingly close. They've completed the most accurate measurement of the universe's light to date using both reams of Fermi Space Telescope gamma ray data and some unusual tricks. They searched for the background light of the universe by studying data from over 700 blazars, or black hole gamma ray bursts pointed directly at Earth. They noticed that the blazars indicate the brightness of the background light between galaxies as they cut through it. And when it takes billions of years for those gamma rays to reach human eyes, you can gauge the light levels for large portions of the universe's past -- 90 percent of its history, researcher Alberto Dominguez told Popular Science.
NVIDIA will end 32-bit OS GeForce support this month
NVIDIA recently warned that the end was nigh for GeForce support on 32-bit operating systems, and it has now put dates to that event. It will halt GeForce GPU driver support at the end of April, meaning users will lose access to new GeForce Experience features and game ready updates. Moreover, NVIDIA will end security updates by January 2019, so continuing to use your 32-bit OS with a GeForce card beyond that date could actually put it at risk.
Astronomers just measured a whole lot more than gravitational waves
A couple of weeks ago, the LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) and Virgo teams announced the detection of another set of gravitational waves -- the fourth since LIGO's first detection in September of 2015. The observations of these ripples in spacetime are extraordinary in and of themselves, no matter how many times we record them. However, while the first three sets of gravitational waves recorded were by the two LIGO observatories, the fourth was also detected by a newly established third -- Virgo -- located in Italy. And having three detectors allows researchers to triangulate the source of those waves with extraordinary precision.
Gamma ray telescope spots ancient, intense black holes
NASA's Fermi gamma ray telescope has been working overtime, it seems. Scientists using the instrument have spotted extreme astronomical phenomenon both at the far edge of the universe and close to home. They've detected the farthest known blazars, or galaxies whose central black holes are so massive (over 1 million times the Sun's mass) that they emit extremely intense light in every spectrum, including gamma rays. The oldest example existed just 1.4 billion years after the Big Bang -- ancient compared to the previous record-setter, which was visible "just" 2.1 billion years after the birth of the universe.
Gamma ray map offers best view yet of our galaxy's energy
Space is full of gamma rays and other intense forms of energy, but you've only ever had a partial picture of it. Ground-based telescopes can only see so much, and even the Fermi space telescope (designed to catch these energies) has missed out on a lot of it... until now, that is. NASA has posted a much more complete gamma ray map using 6 years' worth of refined Fermi data. The result is a far more detailed and comprehensive view of the energy 'bright spots' (between 50 billion to 2 trillion electron volts) in the Milky Way galaxy and beyond. The pretty picture you see above includes the leftovers of supernovae, pulsar wind nebulae and even galaxies whose supermassive black holes make them detectable from millions of light years away.
Everything old is new again: NVIDIA rebrands Fermi-based GT 520 and 510 into 600-series
NVIDIA may have trotted out a brand new beast, ripe with fresh Kepler architecture, but that doesn't mean it put Fermi to bed. Allow us to introduce you to the GT 520 and the GT 510, or as they now prefer to be called, the GeForce GT 620 and GeForce 605, respectively. These OEM GPUs have traded half of their memory and a few clock speed tweaks for OpenGL 4.2 support and a low-end position in the firm's new 600-series. Despite their very Kepler-esque numbering (and NVIDIA's website placing them in the same "product family" as the flagship GTX 680), Tom's Hardware says the firm's Bryan Del Rizzo confirmed the 605 and 620 are Fermi-based graphics cards. Then again, not all cousins share the same surname. File this under "extended family" and call it a day.
NVIDIA rebadges GeForce 500M chips in preparation for Ivy Bridge release in 2012
NVIDIA has released a new range of mobile graphics chips that bring the features of last year's 500M series down to a lower price point. Keen-eyed observers might notice the GT635M is remarkably similar to the GT555M, albeit with slightly faster memory bandwidth. The GT630M is a dead ringer for the GT540M/GT550M and the 48 CUDA core GT610M could be the GT520M if you squint at it in bad light. It's all rather detailed and low-key, but NVIDIA reminded us that it'll launch "something more exciting" around the time Ivy Bridge makes its debut in 2012 -- very possibly those 28nm Kepler chips we've been drooling over for a while? [Thanks, Omar]
NVIDIA's GTX 560 desktop GPU fills an exceedingly narrow pricing niche
With Tegra 2 hogging the spotlight, sometimes it's easy to forget that NVIDIA is still primarily in the business of making GPUs for computers. Yet, here it is with the GeForce GTX 560, another graphics chip ready to be inserted into mid-range gaming rigs. This smaller sibling of the GTX 560 Ti is designed to plug right into a small price gap in the company's lineup -- right around the $200 mark. The 336 CUDA cores inside this second-gen Fermi card, predictably, perform slightly better than the GTX 460 and fall just short of the 560 Ti, but it does eke out a victory over similarly priced competition from AMD. The only thing that kept reviewers from wholeheartedly endorsing the various (and often overclocked) flavors of the 560 was the tiny difference in price between it and its relatives -- tacking on the letters Ti and its 48 additional stream processors costs as little as $15 after a mail-in rebate. Check out the reviews below for all the benchmarks your little nerd heart can handle. And don't miss the video of a GTX 560 plowing through Duke Nukem Forever, Alice: Madness Returns, and Dungeon Siege III at the more coverage link. Read - Tech Report Read - AnandTech Read - Tom's Hardware Read - Guru 3D
NVIDIA's dual-GPU GeForce GTX 590 emerges, can't slay the Radeon HD 6990 titan
1,024 total CUDA cores, 94 ROPs, and 3GB of GDDR5 RAM on board. Yup, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590 is indeed a pair of GTX 580 chips spliced together, however power constraints have meant that each of those chips is running at a tamer pace that their single-card variant. The core clock speed is down to 607MHz, shaders are only doing 1.2GHz, and the memory clocks in at 3.4GHz. Still, there's a ton of grunt under that oversized shroud and reviewers have put it to the test against AMD's incumbent single-card performance leader, the Radeon HD 6990. Just like the GTX 590, it sports a pair of AMD's finest GPUs and costs a wallet-eviscerating $699. Alas, after much benchmarking, testing, and staring at extremely beautiful graphics, the conclusion was that AMD retains its title. But only just. And, as Tech Report points out, the GTX 590 has a remarkably quiet cooler for a heavy duty pixel pusher of its kind. Dive into the reviews below to learn more, or check the new card out on video after the break. Read - AnandTech Read - HardOCP Read - Tech Report Read - PC Perspective Read - Guru 3D Read - X-bit labs Read - Hot Hardware Read - techPowerUp! Read - TechSpot
NVIDIA's next flagship graphics card to be unveiled at 9AM on Thursday, bring your own popcorn
In NVIDIA's own words, this Thursday will bring us the company's "next generation, highest performance graphics card." If that has you thinking GeForce GTX 590, you're not alone. The dual-GPU solution was expected to arrive at the PAX East get-together this month but seemed to shyly dodge the limelight, though now there's no escaping its date with destiny. Just make sure to be up nice and early tomorrow, say around 9AM US Eastern Time, for the inevitable barrage of reviews. An unsatisfyingly brief teaser video, featuring Crysis 2 slyly running in the background, can be found after the break. Update: Whoa, Nelly! Looks like it may end up being the GeForce GTX 590, as evidenced by these leaked images here. [Thanks, Abdulmalik]
NVIDIA sends GeForce GTX 550 Ti into the $150 graphics card wars
It wasn't that long ago that we were commending ATI on the stellar regularity of its product launches while NVIDIA was floundering, yet now the roles are reversed and we're seeing NVIDIA flesh out its second generation of Fermi products with the midrange GeForce GTX 550 Ti presented today. Its biggest attraction is a $150 price tag, but it makes a major concession in order to reach that pricing plateau -- there are only 192 CUDA cores inside it, equal to the previous-gen GTS 450, but less than the celebrated GTX 460. NVIDIA tries to ameliorate that shortage of parallel processing units by running the ones it has at an aggressive 1800MHz allied to a 900MHz graphics clock speed, and it also throws in a gigabyte of RAM running at an effective rate of 4GHz. That too is constrained somewhat, however, by a 192-bit interface, rather than the wider 256-bit affair on its bigger brother GTX 560 Ti. What all these specs boil down is some decent performance, but few recommendations from reviewers -- mostly due to the abundance of compelling alternatives at nearby price points. Hit up the links below for more. Read - AnandTech Read - Tech Report Read - Guru3D Read - PC Perspective Read - techPowerUp! Read - Hexus
EVGA GeForce GTX 460 2Win has 'double the win,' becomes NVIDIA's first dual-Fermi graphics card
Why, it was only yesterday that we were eyeballing a dual-GF104 board from Galaxy, presuming it an artifact of a 2010 project that went nowhere, but there's at least one NVIDIA partner that's going to deliver exactly such a creation, and soon at that! EVGA has just set loose the details of a new GTX 460 2Win graphics card, which ticks along at 700MHz, has 672 cumulative CUDA cores served by 2GB of GDDR5, and reportedly collects more 3D Marks than NVIDIA's finest card out at the moment, the GTX 580. The company also gleefully reports that pricing of the 2Win model will be lower than the 580's. It's interesting that NVIDIA is opting for a pair of the older-gen GF104 Fermi chips here, but then again, those have been big winners with critics and price-sensitive gamers alike, with many touting the use of two GTX 460s in SLI as a more sensible solution than the elite single-card options. Well, now you have both, in a manner of speaking. Skip past the break to see EVGA's latest in the flesh. [Thanks, Ben]
Visualized: NVIDIA's dual-Fermi card that never was
PAX East 2011, which kicks off tomorrow, is widely expected to finally deliver a dual-GPU solution from NVIDIA's Fermi family of graphics chips, a PCI Express-saturating single-card workhorse to be known as the GTX 590. While we wait for its arrival, however, here's a sentimental look back upon 2010 and another little prototype that NVIDIA had kicking around its labs back then. Emerging over in a Chinese forum, this dual-GPU board features two GF104 chips (the same that made the GTX 460 such a winner) and a snow white PCB paintjob that makes it look utterly irresistible. We're loving the four DVI outputs and, just like you, have no idea why this card never came out, but that shouldn't obstruct the enjoyment of looking at the darn thing. More pics after the break.
NVIDIA debuts new slew of Quadro mobile GPUs, each sporting Optimus for battery life too
It seems only yesterday we were imagining ourselves building virtual worlds on the fly with NVIDIA's latest Fermi-based Quadro, and here comes an even faster chip to make that vision all the more enticing. NVIDIA's Quadro 5010M shares the same 100W thermal profile as its predecessor, but adds more bang for the watt, with 384 CUDA cores (up from 320) and a full 4GB of GDDR5 memory dedicated to rendering what dreams might come. You'll also NVIDIA's Optimus tech to automatically turn off as much of that battery-draining silicon as possible when not in use, though we imagine that most mobile workstations will still find themselves chained to a plug. No word on per-unit pricing as of yet, but the 5010M proves too rich for your blood, perhaps the 4000M, 3000M, 2000M and 1000M detailed in the press release below will prove useful for your graphical niche.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti: second-generation Fermi for the $250 mainstream
Ah, NVIDIA, how far you've come. This time last year we were all wondering if your first Fermi GPUs would operate successfully without a nuclear reactor in our backyards, yet today you're introducing a successor to one of the best value-for-money GPUs the PC gaming world has seen in ages. Yes, the GTX 560 Ti has mighty big shoes to fill, but it's off to a good start with 384 CUDA cores running at 1645MHz, 1GB of GDDR5 RAM running at an effective rate of 4GHz, and an 822MHz graphics clock -- each one a clear and pronounced upgrade over its GTX 460 predecessor. You'll have to check out the reviews below for a detailed breakdown of what those numbers will mean on a game-by-game basis, but there's another way in which this new card is proving its impact already. ATI AMD has (conveniently) chosen to cut the prices of its Radeon HD 6870 and HD 6950 cards today, while also outing an HD 6950 with just 1GB of onboard memory to serve as a direct competitor to NVIDIA's latest. Competition, ladies and gentlemen, it's an awesome thing. Read - HardOCP Read - Tech Report Read - PC Perspective Read - techPowerUp! Read - AnandTech Read - Bit-tech Read - TechSpot Read - TweakTown Read - Hot Hardware
NVIDIA makes GeForce GT 500M family official, introduces GTX 485M as its fastest mobile GPU
Yes, NVIDIA's naming scheme really is all over the place, but here's what you need to know: as of today, the fastest mobile GPU coming from Jen-Hsun Huang's team will be the GeForce GTX 485. That chip will be equipped with a 256-bit memory interface and GDDR5 RAM and succeed the GTX 480M as the king of the (relatively) mobile castle. Moving up in numbers, but not performance, the new GT 520M, 525M, 540M, 550M, and 555M represent very mild refreshes of their 400M series counterparts. We were initially unimpressed by NVIDIA's decision to keep things stagnant but for some more aggressive clock speeds at the same TDP envelopes, but a recent review of the earlier-launched GT 540M showed appreciable gains from its predecessor, so maybe these graphics gurus actually know what they're doing. We've gathered some imagery of early units sporting NVIDIA's new graphics hardware -- notably paired with Intel's Sandy Bridge CPUs -- in the galleries below, but we'll surely have more for you as we explore the halls of CES. After all, NVIDIA has an awesome 200 design wins combining its tech with Intel's latest, there should be plenty of previously unseen hardware for us to find. In the mean time, skip past the break to see a couple of benchmark runs showing off NVIDIA's new graphics processors. %Gallery-112252%%Gallery-112060%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 debuts: the 580 goes on a power diet to fit into $349 price bracket
Want to know what the famous act of cutting down a graphics card to match a given price point looks like? Well, here it is, the $349 GTX 580 (aka GeForce GTX 570): it has 480 CUDA cores running at 1464MHz, a 732MHz graphics clock, and 1.25GB of GDDR5 memory hurtling along at an effective rate of 3.8GHz. Each of those specs represents a moderate downgrade from NVIDIA's original 500 series GPU, while the physical construction -- including that vapor chamber cooler -- is almost wholly identical to the 580. Aside from the paintjob, the only difference is that the GTX 570 can live on a pair of 6-pin auxiliary power connectors. The best comparison for the 570, however, turns out to be NVIDIA's former flagship, the GTX 480, as reviewers found the new card's performance to be nearly identical to the old tessellation monster. Verdicts invariably agreed that the 570 is quieter, cooler, and more power-efficient, making it pretty much a no-brainer of a purchase in its price bracket. Of course, every recommendation comes colored with the warning that AMD should finally be unveiling its upper-tier wares next week -- we'd wait the extra few days before parting with our cash. Read - HardOCP Read - Tech Report Read - Hot Hardware Read - AnandTech Read - Bit-tech Read - Hexus Read - Legit Reviews Read - PC Perspective
NVIDIA brings the Fermi-packing Quadro 4000 to the Mac Pro
For most Mac users, upgradeable anything is starting to sound like a distant memory, but Mac Pro users bought that big ol' box for a reason: expandability. Now NVIDIA is here to make it worth their while, releasing the mid-range Quadro 4000 graphics card with that latest / greatest Fermi architecture. With 256 CUDA cores and 2GB of GDDR5 memory, the card should slice through just about anything a pro app (Photoshop, Maya, Snood) can send it, and probably wouldn't mind popping out a FPS session now and then just to stretch the legs. Of course, when we say "mid-range" we aren't talking cheap: NVIDIA's MSRP is $1,199, a good bit more than the card's $700-ish PC-compatible counterpart. It should be available this month.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 reviewed: 'what the GTX 480 should have been'
You saw the key specs slip out a little ahead of time, now it's the moment we've all been waiting for: the GeForce GTX 580 has been thoroughly benchmarked to see if its claim to being "the world's fastest DirectX 11 GPU" stands up to scrutiny. In short, yes it does. The unanimous conclusion reached among the reviewers was that the 580 cranks up the performance markedly relative to the GTX 480 -- with some citing gains between 10 and 20 percent and others finding up to 30 percent improvements -- while power draw, heat emissions, and noise were lowered across the board. ATI's AMD's Radeon HD 5870 wasn't completely crushed by the newcomer, but it was consistently behind NVIDIA's latest pixel pusher. Priced at $499, the GTX 580 is actually praised for offering good value, though its TDP of 244W might still require you to upgrade a few parts inside your rig to accommodate it, while current online prices are closer to $550. Anyhow, the pretty comparative bar charts await at the links below. Read - HardOCP Read - Tech Report Read - Legit Reviews Read - Bit-tech Read - PC Perspective Read - Hot Hardware
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 detailed: 512 CUDA cores, 1.5GB of GDDR5 on 'world's fastest DX 11 GPU' (update: video!)
It might not be November 9 all around the world yet, but NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 580 has already had its spec sheet dished out to the world, courtesy of CyberPower's seemingly early announcement. The new chip will offer a 772MHz clock speed, 512 processing cores, and a 192.4GBps memory bandwidth, courtesy of 1.5GB of GDDR5 clocked at an effective rate of 4GHz. CyberPower is strapping this beast into its finest rigs, and for additional overkill it'll let you SLI up to three of them within one hot and steamy case. Now let's just wait patiently for midnight to roll around and see what the reviewers thought of NVIDIA's next big thing. Update: CRN has a $499 price for us and a recital of NVIDIA's internal estimate that the GTX 580 bests the GTX 480 by between 20 and 35 percent. It seems, however, that the embargo for this hot new slice of silicon is set for early tomorrow morning, so check back then for the expert review roundup. Update 2: Lusting to see one on video? How about two side by side? Skip past the break for the eye candy [Thanks, Rolly Carlos!].
