It's well over a year since the GTX 680 came out, but given how that card was a strong contender it may feel too early for an upgrade. NVIDIA knows the score, which is why it's made a particular point of pitching this year's card at owners of the GTX 580 instead. Upgraders from that GPU are pledged a 70 percent lift in performance, which is about double the gain a GTX 680 owner would see. On the other hand, something more people might notice -- if NVIDIA's slides prove to be accurate -- is a 5dBA drop in noise pollution, as well a new approach to fan control that attracts less attention by varying revs less wildly in response to load. This is surprising given that most of the extra performance in this card stems from more transistors and greater power consumption, but that's what we're told. Feel free to hold out for our round-up of independent reviews or read past the break for further details.

Gallery: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 slide deck

Filed under: Desktops, Gaming, NVIDIA

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With Computex just around the corner, MSI has taken the wraps off what can truly be described as a next-gen gaming laptop. According to CNET, the 17.3-inch GT70 Dragon Edition 2 will pack a yet-to-be-announced Haswell chip alongside an equally mysterious NVIDIA GTX780M that is claimed to deliver a 3DMark Vantage score of 36,000 -- in other words, roughly equivalent to the benchmark stat you'd get from a desktop rig containing an Ivy Bridge Core-i5 and a full-size GTX670, if the boast happens to be true. A SteelSeries-branded keyboard is in attendance, alongside multiple SSDs in Raid 0 config and three video outputs, all contained within a package as thin as 21.8mm-thick and as light as 2.9kg (6.4 pounds) (Correction: this size and weight applies to the Stealth variant, which has a GTX765M GPU instead of the GTX780M.) Lesser variations will bring the weight down to 2kg (4.4 pounds) by reducing screen size to 14 inches and switching to a less frenetic GTX760M. Expect pricing and availability details once the big Taiwanese expo gets underway.

Filed under: Gaming, Laptops, Intel

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Source: CNET

You probably won't have noticed the following problem, unless you happen to be the IT manager in an architecture firm or other specialist environment, but it's been an issue nonetheless. For all our ability to virtualize compute and graphical workloads, it hasn't so far been possible to share a single GPU across multiple users. For example, if you'd wanted 32 people on virtual machines to access 3D plumbing and electrical drawings via AutoCAD, you'd have needed to dedicate eight expensive quad-GPU K1 graphics cards in your GRID server stack. Now, though, NVIDIA has managed to make virtualization work right the way through to each GPU for users of Citrix XenDesktop 7, such that you'd only need one K1 to serve that workforce, assuming their tasks were sufficiently lightweight. Does this mean NVIDIA's K1 sales will suddenly drop by seven eighths? We couldn't tell ya -- but probably not.

Filed under: Networking, Software, NVIDIA

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NVIDIA's Tegra 4i appeared in February boasting, amongst other things, its built-in Cat. 3 LTE modem capable of speeds as high as 100Mbps. What NVIDIA didn't make obvious at the time was that the i500 modem, the fruit of its Icera acquisition, had the processing grunt to enable a software modem update to boost its speed to Cat. 4 LTE (150Mbps.) We had a quick visit with NVIDIA and saw a "perfect world demo" (pic above) of the device being bombarded at 150Mbps as well as placing an actual call on AT&T's network and streaming video. Of course LTE-Advanced doesn't exist in the real world yet, nor does a real handset sporting this chip, though seeing another player battling incumbent Qualcomm in this space before these networks have even been lit up certainly warms our hearts. Check the PR text for all the nitty gritty details after the break.

Brad Molen contributed to this report.

Filed under: Cellphones

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You might say the week is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workweek, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Weekly Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past seven days -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.

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NVIDIA newsletter subscribers have been able to pre-order the Shield handheld console for several days now, but the rest of us were due to wait until after the weekend. Considering that $349 price tag, we're not entirely sure we want to commit without having a chance to take the final hardware for a spin, but the option now exists nonetheless. Beginning today (instead of the previously announced date of May 20th), early adopters can hand over their cash at Gamestop, Newegg and Canada Computer, along with NVIDIA's own pre-order site, which we've linked for your convenience just below.

Filed under: Gaming, NVIDIA

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Via: TechCrunch

Source: NVIDIA, Newegg

You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.

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NVIDIA's Project Shield now has an official name (NVIDIA Shield), a release window ("by the end of June") and a price tag ($350). That's a full $100 more than the PlayStation Vita -- arguably the most competent competition for Shield's hardcore skewing demographic -- and even a smidgen over the cost of various full-on game consoles. Despite the high barrier to entry, NVIDIA tells us Shield will follow the same annualized model that its mobile phone counterparts do: a new internal upgrade each year to keep up with the times. And we already know what that future looks like. Given all that baggage, we can't help but approach our last hands-on before launch with an eye toward whether or not this is a worthy purchase. Is NVIDIA's Shield worth getting in on early?

Gallery: NVIDIA Shield (Hands-on final)

Filed under: Gaming, Handhelds, Mobile, NVIDIA

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NVIDIA's "project not a product" just became a product: Project Shield is now NVIDIA Shield, and it's arriving this June for $350. The specs haven't changed -- it's still rockin' a Tegra 4 processor with 2GB of RAM, a 5-inch "retinal" IPS display (1280x720), and 16GB of storage (expandable to 64GB via microSD). The concept remains nigh identical with what NVIDIA head Jen-Hsun Huang introduced back at CES: a console-quality controller with an HD screen mounted to it for on-the-go and streaming PC gaming.

Beyond the price point and release window, the Shield is also getting a few new game announcements in Double Fine's Broken Age and Costume Quest, not to mention a new iteration of Chip's Challenge named "Chuck's Challenge." The AR.Drone folks are also adding in support for the Shield, enabling controller-based inputs over the motion-based usual. NVIDIA's also promising monthly OTA updates for the system, including the latest version of Android (the system ships with Jelly Bean 4.2.1). The company also warns that not all Android apps will work out of the box -- specifically, any that don't support landscape mode (the Netflix login screen, for example, has an issue here). Kinks aside, should you wish to be the very first to get a Shield, it's available for pre-order starting right now on NVIDIA's website (if you're on the mailing list, that is), or on May 20th everywhere else. Or you could sign up for the mailing list, of course.

Filed under: Gaming, Handhelds, Mobile, NVIDIA

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NVIDIA's balance sheet may not look as appealing as it did just a quarter ago, but the company nonetheless managed to beat the consensus expectations and its stock is now climbing in after-hours trading. Profit for NVIDIA's fiscal Q1 2014 rang in at $77.9 million, which is a 55 percent decrease from the previous quarter, but still 29 percent higher than what it netted in Q1 of last year. It's a similar story for revenue: the company reported sales of $954.7 million, down 13 percent from the previous quarter, but up slightly from Q1 2013. Even beyond beating Wall Street's expectations, NVIDIA is giving investors two other reasons to smile: the success of Kepler has led to record margins of 54.3 percent, and the company will return over $1 billion during the year by way of stock repurchases and dividend payments. As for where it's headed? NVIDIA is looking to return to growth as the year progresses, thanks to a little something called the Tegra 4.

Filed under: Gaming, Wireless, NVIDIA

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Source: NVIDIA

The OUYA game console is shifting its launch from June 4th to June 25th, the company revealed in a press release this morning. Speaking with our friends at Joystiq, CEO Julie Uhrman explained the decision to push the console's retail launch back as a measure of keeping up with retail demand. "We've had incredibly positive reactions from our retail partners," Uhrman said. The date shift, "will allow us to create more units and, basically, have more units on store shelves."

The company also revealed that it's altering the existing controller's button holes to ensure that retail buyers don't run into the same sticking issue that Kickstarter backers have been dealing with. And despite those two pieces of news sounding an awful lot like they're connected (the delay and the controller alteration), Uhrman claims they're not. "We made that change very early so all the units are being produced with those larger button holes," she said. At this point, it's not clear if OUYA will hook up early backers with a new controller upon request (or perhaps just new faceplates), but we've asked for more information.

Filed under: Gaming, HD

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