Posts with tag NVIDIA
Although NVIDIA's pledged to simplify its lineup for consumers and ATI's been getting better, the current state of the graphics card market is still a pretty wild alphabet soup of model numbers and specs lists, so the crew over at The Tech Report decided to break things down using the only stat that matters: price. While the results aren't exactly shocking (surprise: more dollars equals more FPS), what's interesting is that multi-GPU rigs are really quite cost-effective, delivering performance on par with higher-end cards at significantly lower prices. For example, two Radeon HD 3850s run nearly as fast as a single Radeon HD 3870 X2, even though they cost a fair bit less, and two GeForce 9600 GTs can potentially outgun a GeForce 8800 Ultra. That's always been the promise of SLI and CrossFire, and it looks like it's paying off -- any system-builders out there care to share their experiences?
NVIDIA to simplify product range as it courts consumers
NVIDIA isn't joking around when it says it's after a dominant position in the consumer tech industry, and it's apparently willing to take some aggressive steps to get there -- like totally revamping its product lines. Speaking to Gamesindustry.biz, NVIDIA veep Roy Taylor (the same guy who said Intel was "dead", you remember him), said that his company needed to "simplify the product line for consumers," and that if NVIDIA is going to "widen our appeal, there's no doubt we have to solve that problem." No specific plans were offered, but might we suggest a moratorium on the random-numbers-and-letters product-naming scheme? Just a thought.Intel brings DirectX 10 to integrated graphics, NVIDIA says not so fast
Intel has been boasting of DirectX 10 support for its various integrated graphics options for some time now, but it's only just recently gotten around to actually releasing a Vista driver that brings its GM965 and G35 Express chipsets up to speed. Of course, NVIDIA just couldn't help itself from getting a few (more) digs in at Intel's expense, and it's now kindly provided a few benchmarks to show just how badly Intel's integrated DirectX 10 solution stacks up against the bleeding-edge DirectX 10-ready games it now ostensibly supports. They couldn't find a single game that was able to crank out more than 5 fps, even at a lowly 1280 x 1024 resolution and with the usual graphics intensive settings turned off. Then again, 4.4 fps in Crysis is pretty much par for the course.Read - Crave, "Intel updates graphics with multimedia capabilities"
Read - Hardware Secrets, "Are Intel chipsets really capable of running DirectX 10 games?"
ASUS gets really official with 17-inch G70 gaming laptop
During the hurricane that was CES, ASUS managed to get in a word just long enough to make mention of a forthcoming G70 laptop. Now that the storm has passed, it's dishing out a full list of details to get gamers' mouths watering. The 17-inch behemoth features quite the vivid motif, and crammed within you'll find your choice of an Intel Core 2 Duo / Core 2 Extreme processor, 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi, twin 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 8700M GTs, up to 4GB of DDR2 RAM and room for dual hard drives, too. Furthermore, you can feast your retinas on a WUXGA / WXGA+ panel and tickle your fancy with an optional Blu-ray writer, 2-megapixel camera, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, gigabit Ethernet and 8-cell battery. Sure, this beast weighs nearly 10.6 pounds and packs more LED lighting than an LCD Soundsystem concert, but hey, you've got to flaunt it if you've got it, right?
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
ATI's CrossFireX now offered on Alienware Area-51 gaming PC

NVIDIA's GeForce 9600 GSO series GPUs get official
As of tonight NVIDIA's got one more notch to add to that bed post: the GeForce 9600 GSO, which is a little more on the cheap date end of the spectrum. The first of the card-makers to launch their 9600 GSO is EVGA, with a 650MHz, 384MB / 1900MHz DDR3, PCI Express 2.0 ditty (e-GeForce 9600GSO Superclocked 384MB), as well as an even lower end 550MHz, 384MB / 1600MHz version (e-GeForce 9600GSO 384MB). And yeah, it does DirectX 10 -- not that you should even need to ask.
[Thanks, Carlos]
[Thanks, Carlos]
NVIDIA pushing up GeForce 9900 to outgun Radeon HD 4800?
NVIDIA's been on a hyper-competitive tear lately, and while the latest rumor isn't quite on par with Roy Taylor saying that the Intel CPU is "dead," it reinforces the company's new win-at-all-costs attitude. Seems ATI's upcoming RV770-based Radeon HD 4800 might threaten NVIDIA's dominance of the high-end graphics market, and that's just not acceptable -- so the company is planning on pushing up the release of the GeForce 9900 to July. That's one billion transistors and GDDR3 memory, if you haven't been memorizing rumored graphic card specs -- we're guessing that blue screen of death will render mighty fast on that rig.NVIDIA VP joins the smack-talk fun, says the Intel CPU is "dead"
Alright, we're loving this new hyper-aggressive, sorta-nasty version of NVIDIA. Not only has CEO Jen Hsun-Huang promised to "open a can of whoop-ass" on Intel, the company has been touting its new sub-$45 integrated platform as far superior to Celeron-based systems, and now we've got VP of Content Relations Roy Taylor sending out emails saying that "a war has started" and pronouncing the Intel CPU "dead." Roy says Intel is "panicking" because CPUs have "run out of steam," and that they "no longer make anything run faster." According to Roy -- whose nickname is "Big Pipe," no joke -- the only thing that needs to get faster is the GPU, and NVIDIA's going to make it happen. That's some brash talk, all around -- let's hope NVIDIA's ready when Intel brings Nehalem out to play. Check out the whole email at the read link.[Via TGDaily]
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT upgrade kit available for older Mac Pro desktops
Owners of first-generation Mac Pros, rejoice. Unless you already laid down the cash for one of those upgrade kits meant only for early 2008 machines, that is. For the rest of you, Apple has delivered a new NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT upgrade kit built specifically for your machine. As expected, the card itself looks the same -- twin dual-link DVI ports, 512MB of dedicated GDDR3 RAM, etc. -- but the Apple store now carries two distinct products to distinguish between the card compatible with early 2008 rigs and the Mac Pros before it. If you've managed to hold off buying a new machine this long, you can order yourself an all new graphics card right now for $279.[Via MacRumors]
NVIDIA continues to hate on Intel, promises sub-$45 integrated chipset
Following up yesterday's trash talk with a little action, NVIDIA has disclosed plans to create a sub-$45 processing platform which the GPU-maker is calling, "The World's Most Affordable Vista Premium PC." The architecture will combine VIA's Isaiah processor with an integrated NVIDIA graphics chipset, which the company claims outperforms Intel's Celeron-based, 945 IGP/ICH4 setup handily. Apparently, the combo is capable of 36 GFLOPS versus Intel's 6.4GFLOPS -- which we shouldn't have to tell you is a ton of GFLOPS. We're excited about the prospect of better performance in an integrated chipset (we've all suffered at the hands of the GMA950), but we don't want to see this end in a back-alley knife fight. Keep your cool, guys.
CE-Oh no he didn't! Part LV: NVIDIA boss says "We're going to open a can of whoop-ass" on Intel
Looks like Intel's plans to enter the graphics space in a big way with its Nehalem and Larrabee lines strike NVIDIA CEO Jen Hsun-Huang as being rather foolish -- in a conference call with analysts today, Huang said Intel's integrated graphics offerings were "a joke," and that even a tenfold increase in performance would put them behind NVIDIA's current products. Huang didn't stop there, saying that NVIDIA was "going to open a can of whoop-ass," and that while Intel's graphics chips were fine for running Office, they would never cut it for gamers and other demanding users. Huang kept going, responding to questions about all those driver-related Vista crashes by saying that NVIDIA had to support new games weekly while Intel's chips aren't ever put to the test. Actually, that's toning it down a bit -- what Huang actually said was "You already have the right machine to run Excel. You bought it four years ago... How much faster can you render the blue screen of death?" Yeah, them's fightin' words -- you going to sit there and take it, Intel?[Thanks, Mike A.]
NVIDIA's GeForce 9800 GTX officially launched, officially fast
If you checked into those NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX benchmarks and felt they met with your high standards, now you can actually get one (or a bunch) into your rig. According to reports, the brain-laser of a graphics card can now be had (in various iterations) for the low, low price of $329.99 (at least from Newegg). And before you ask -- Crysis: Yes. Doom: Yes. Overlords: Welcome. Will blend: Yes. Russia: Benchmarks you.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX already popping up in stores?

[Thanks, Ryan]
NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX triple-SLI rig benched
Looks like the first NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX cards have made their way out in the world -- officially announced or not -- and TweakTown's got the benches. Performance gains seem marginal in triple-SLI over dual, but hey, those drivers probably aren't finished and these cards aren't official, so we recommend withholding judgment until it's all legit.
NVIDIA's 9800 GX2-based Quad SLI solution gets mixed reviews
NVIDIA's high-end GeForce 9800 GX2 graphics card has been pretty well received on its own, but it looks to be decidedly more of a mixed bag when it comes to a Quad SLI configuration, at least according to a pair of early reviews. Least impressed with the setup was PC Perspective, which described the system's performance as "uninspiring" and "frustrating more often than it was fun to play on." The site did see some potential in the system, however, saying that it's very possible that NVIDIA will be able to address many of the problems in upcoming driver releases. Slightly more positive about the config were the folks at HotHardware, who were pleased with the performance, and seem to have been more satisfied with the setup's ability to scale with various applications than PC Perspective was. On the downside, they did admit that the system didn't scale well for everything, and there is of course the little matter of price (about $1,200), which will likely be pretty hard for even the most die-hard performance junkie to justify.
Read - PC Perspective
Read - HotHardware
Read - PC Perspective
Read - HotHardware
























