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EVGA GeForce GTX 275 Co-opts a GTS 250 for PhysX duties

by Vladislav Savov posted Nov 3rd 2009 at 5:14AM

Ready for some more dual-GPU madness, only this time in the resplendent green of NVIDIA? EVGA has gone and concocted a special Halloween edition of the GTX 275, which has sprouted an entire GTS 250 appendage solely for PhysX gruntwork. Dubbed a new form of Hybrid SLI, EVGA's latest combines -- for the first time, from what we can tell -- two different GPUs and assigns them with specific and mutually exclusive tasks. Whether this concept takes off will depend to a large extent on the effectiveness of PhysX acceleration and whether it can show more efficient scaling than regular old SLI with two boards or more conventional dual-GPU setups like the GTX 295. Color us intrigued, either way.

P.S. - That's what the actual card will look like, we're not making it up.

[Via PC Perspective]

Gallery: EVGA GeForce GTX 275 Co-op PhysX Edition

NVIDIA launches Fermi next-gen GPGPU architecture, CUDA and OpenCL get even faster

by Nilay Patel posted Oct 1st 2009 at 2:09AM

NVIDIA had told us it would be accelerating its CUDA program to try and get an advantage over its competitors as OpenCL brings general-purpose GPU computing to the mainstream, and it looks like that effort's paying off -- the company just announced its new Fermi CUDA architecture, which will also serve as the foundation of its next-gen GeForce and Quadro products. The new features are all pretty technical -- the world's first true cache hierarchy in a GPU, anyone? -- but the big takeaway is that CUDA and OpenCl should run even faster on this new silicon, and that's never a bad thing. Hit up the read links for the nitty-gritty, if that's what gets you going.

Read - NVIDIA Fermi site
Read - Hot Hardware analysis
Read - PC Perspective analysis

ATI Stream goes fisticuffs with NVIDIA's CUDA in epic GPGPU tussle

by Darren Murph posted Aug 10th 2009 at 8:57AM

It's a given that the GPGPU (or General-Purpose Graphics Processing Unit) has a long, long ways to go before it can make a dent in the mainstream market, but given that ATI was talking up Stream nearly three whole years ago, we'd say a battle royale between it and its biggest rival was definitely in order. As such, the benchmarking gurus over at PC Perspective saw fit to pit ATI's Stream and NVIDIA's CUDA technologies against one another in a knock-down-drag-out for the ages, essentially looking to see which system took the most strain away from the CPU during video encoding and which produced more visually appealing results. We won't bother getting into the nitty-gritty (that's what the read link is for), but we will say this: in testing, ATI's contraption managed to relieve the most stress from the CPU, though NVIDIA's alternative seemed to pump out the highest quality materials. In other words, you can't win for losin'.

Maingear's eX-L 18 grabs for "world's most powerful gaming laptop" title

by Darren Murph posted Jul 24th 2009 at 1:08AM

You know, this whole "most powerful laptop" game is pretty hilarious. Back in '05, CompAmerica's (who?) Orca 9098 held the title with a cutting-edge 3.8GHz Pentium 4, and over the years, we've watched outfit after outfit pull the award back and forth, much like those tugging games we used to play as tots. Regardless, it seems as if Maingear's down for the fun, today rolling out the planet's all new "world's most powerful gaming laptop" in the eX-L 18, which arrives with an undisclosed Intel Core 2 Duo Extreme processor, twin NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280M GPUs, up to 8GB of DDR3 memory, up to three 2.5-inch SATA or SSD drives, an optional Blu-ray drive and a screen that's probably larger than your mother's desktop LCD. And by that, we mean 18.4-inches with a 1,920 x 1,080 resolution. If you're down with lugging around this beast, you can get one headed your way provided you've got at least $2,999 you're willing to see off.

Gallery: Maingear's eX-L 18 grabs for "world's most powerful gaming laptop" title

Continue reading Maingear's eX-L 18 grabs for "world's most powerful gaming laptop" title

NVIDIA's GT300 specs outed -- is this the cGPU we've been waiting for?

by Darren Murph posted Apr 26th 2009 at 1:22PM

NVIDIA's been dabbling in the CPU space behind closed doors for years now, but with Intel finally making a serious push into the GPU realm, it's about time the firm got serious with bringing the goods. BSN has it that the company's next-generation GT300 will be fundamentally different than the GT200 -- in fact, it's being hailed as the "first truly new architecture since SIMD (Single-Instruction Multiple Data) units first appeared in graphical processors." Beyond this, the technobabble runs deep, but the long and short of it is this: NVIDIA could be right on the cusp of delivering a single chip that can handle tasks that were typically separated for the CPU and GPU, and we needn't tell you just how much your life could change should it become a reality. Now, if only NVIDIA would come clean and lift away some of this fog surrounding it (and the rumored GTX 380), that'd be just swell.

[Thanks, Musouka]

ASUS N81Vg: first laptop with NVIDIA's GeForce GT 120M

by Darren Murph posted Feb 10th 2009 at 4:22PM

Not quite an ultraportable, but not quite a behemoth -- the 14-inch ASUS N81Vg fits nicely between the two laptop extremes, and given that it's the first to house NVIDIA's GeForce GT 120M graphics card, even gamers can feel free to sneak a deathmatch or two in between conference calls. The rig itself can be ordered with one of many Core 2 Duo processors, up to 4GB of DDR2 RAM, upwards of 500GB of hard drive space, an optional Blu-ray burner, 1.3 megapixel webcam and a battery good for three to four hours. The newfangled 120M GPU features NVIDIA CUDA technology, 32 processing cores, DirecX 10 support, 1080p video playback and 110 gigaflops of computing power. Per usual, ASUS is keeping quiet when it comes to pricing and release details, but it ought not be long now, tiger.

NVIDIA now offering laptop drivers directly through website

by Ross Miller posted Dec 19th 2008 at 5:09PM

NVIDIA has announced that it'll now offer laptop GPU drivers directly via its website -- long overdue, if you ask us. These drivers have traditionally been offered through the computer manufacturers since most mobile GPUs are customized to be compatible with the devices' specific hotkeys and suspend / resume functionality -- NVIDIA said it has found a way around with a new modular architecture. First on the menu are beta drivers for GeForce 8M and 9M series as well as Quadro NVS-series laptops that add CUDA and PhysX support, with Windows-certified drivers for all GeForce 7, 8 and 9 series and Quadro NVS series are due out early next year. Now, if only we could download hugs...

[Via Notebook Review]

NVIDIA dishes about OpenCL

by Nilay Patel posted Dec 9th 2008 at 8:03PM

We spent some time on the phone with NVIDIA today in the wake of last night's official release of the OpenCL GPU-processing spec, and we learned some interesting things. NVIDIA thinks OpenCL is going to bring a lot more attention to general-purpose GPU computing, and it's planning on stoking the flames -- not only is it accelerating the CUDA release schedule, it's planning on working with Microsoft on DirectX 11 Compute. Hit the break for some more highlights!

Continue reading NVIDIA dishes about OpenCL

NVIDIA's Quadro FX 5800 with 4GB graphics memory is 'the most powerful graphics card in history'

by Thomas Ricker posted Nov 10th 2008 at 6:44AM

That's some serious boasting by NVIDIA, but this is some serious graphics horsepower. The Quadro FX 5800, already seen in NVIDIA's Quadro Plex D data cruncher, replaces the 5600 at the top of the NVIDIA heap with 240 CUDA-programmable parallel cores and the industry's first card with 4GB of graphics memory. MSRP? Just $3,499 for you big spender -- pennies for the companies who can harness the power for the purposes of oil and gas exploration, 4D modeling, and graphics design.

ASUS G50 / G71 laptops and ARES CG6155 gaming PC now available

by Darren Murph posted Oct 22nd 2008 at 11:19AM

It's been awhile (or a long while, in the case of the ARES CG6155) since we've heard about these machines, but ASUS has at long last decided to start shipping 'em to retailers. The aforesaid gaming desktop still doesn't have a publicly available price tag, but ASUS assures us that it's out there now for those who know where to look. Thankfully, it was a bit (and we stress "bit") more forthcoming with details on the G50 and G71 gaming notebooks, which are also available as we speak for $1,249.99 and take-your-best-guess, respectively.

Read - ASUS ARES CG6155
Read - ASUS G50 and G71

Nvidia's Quadro CX GPU optimized for people who don't suck at Photoshop

by Thomas Ricker posted Oct 17th 2008 at 4:34AM

Check it Donnie, Nvidia just launched its Quadro CX accelerator card for Adobe's Creative Suite 4. The optimized GPU fits into your PC's PCIe slot to smooth image navigation and manipulation in Photoshop while accelerating effects in Adobe's After Effects and Premier Pro. Nvidia claims that the new GPU helps encode H.264 video at "lightning-fast speeds" when using Nvidia's Cuda-enabled CS4 plug-in while giving professionals accurate video previews with uncompressed 30-bit color or 10-/12-bit SDI (for professional video equipment) before final output. The Quadro CX features a 1.5GB (GDDR3) frame buffer and 76.8GBps memory bandwidth with dual-DisplayPort connectors (up to 2560 x 1600 pixels) and a single dual-link DVI with support for panels up to 3,840 x 2,400 @24Hz. Look, we know this sounds all stupid-hard advanced to those of you using Photoshop to hotten-up your Facebook pic, but the pros are going to love it. $1,999 and available today -- video demonstration just beyond the read link.

[Via InformationWeek]

Elcomsoft uses NVIDIA GPUs to crack WPA2

by Nilay Patel posted Oct 13th 2008 at 10:58AM

Elcomsoft has been using NVIDIA's CUDA GPU computing architecture to accelerate its Distributed Password Recovery tool for a while now, but it looks like the latest version of the cracking utility takes it to the next level -- it can break a WPA2 password using two GeForce GTX 280-based boards 100 times faster than with just a CPU. It's still a brute-force crack, but only a few packets need be sniffed, and the GPU accelerates the algorithm used to generate keys significantly -- even laptop-grade 8800M and 9800M GPUs speed things up 10 to 15 times. We wouldn't worry too much about wardrivers with trunk-mounted bladeservers going nuts, however -- the base version of the software costs $599, and things ramp up to $5,000 pretty quickly.

[Via HotHardware]

51-card NVIDIA folding rig can crank out 265,200 points / day

by Nilay Patel posted Aug 13th 2008 at 11:33AM

Sure, it's all well and good to play around with the Folding@Home client on toys like the PS3, but if you're really serious about out-nerding the rest of the pack, you need big-boy hardware, like this 51-card NVIDIA-based rig built by nitteo of the overclock.net forums. That's 51 8800-series GPUs on 13 MSI P6N Diamond mobos, enough for an estimated 265,200 folding points per day when they all go online -- and we're guessing that number will go up when that new CUDA-based folding client released yesterday is installed. Now let's just hope all those cards can stand the heat, hmm? More pics at the read link -- and remember, we're always down for more help on the Engadget Folding@Home team!

[Via x64bit.net]

NVIDIA releases new Quadro Plex D CUDA desktop rigs

by Nilay Patel posted Aug 12th 2008 at 11:32AM

NVIDIA's really pushing the GPU-as-CPU angle at SIGGRAPH this year -- we've already seen the PhysX and CUDA-powered GeForce Power Pack for consumers, and the company is also updating the Quadro Plex series of visual co-processors for workstation customers. The new Quadro Plex 2200 D2, designed for large datasets and models, crunches data through two Quadro FX 5800 GPUs (totalling 480 CUDA cores) and 8GB of RAM, while the Quadro Plex 2100 D2 is optimized for large multidisplay rigs with four Quadro FX 4700 GPUs and support for up to eight monitors. Sounds fun -- and we're guessing the people who can justify the $10,500 starting price for these rigs think so too.

NVIDIA enables PhysX and CUDA support for GeForce 8 and higher GPUs with free downloads

by Nilay Patel posted Aug 12th 2008 at 10:43AM

It's not a direct response to AMD unveiling the HD Radeon 4850 X2 and 4870 X2 yesterday, but NVIDIA also came to play at SIGGRAPH, and it's got lots of new GPU-as-CPU toys for us this morning -- and what's more, they're free. Like we'd been hearing, GeForce 8, 9, and 200-series cards are all getting PhysX support as of today via a free GeForce Power Pack that contains a free full copy of Warmonger, three PhysX-enabled Unreal Tournament 3 maps, demos of Metal Knight Zero and the Nurien UT3-based social networking service, and a couple tech demos. The Power Pack also includes some new CUDA apps to play with, including a new Folding@Home client (ahem) and a trial version of the Badaboom video transcoder. That's a lot of new toys, so get downloading and let us know what you think!

Read - PhysX GeForce Power Pack apps
Read - CUDA GeForce Power Pack apps