graphics cards
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ATI overtakes NVIDIA in discrete GPU shipments
You'd think with ATI having the performance, value and power efficiency lead for so long -- at least since the Radeon HD 4000 series -- NVIDIA would be in all kinds of trouble, but it's only now that AMD's graphics division has finally taken the lead in quarterly shipments. This is according to Mercury Research, whose analysts place the split at 51 to 49 percent in favor of ATI -- still a tightly contested thing, but it compares very favorably to the Red Team's 41% share in the same quarter last year. This data is concerned with discrete GPU shipments only (laptops included), whereas on the integrated front Intel continues to reign supreme with 54 percent of the market shipping its cheap and cheerful IGP units. ATI has made forward strides there as well, however, with 24.5% ranking ahead of NVIDIA's 19.8%. If Apple shifting its iMac and Mac Pro lines away from the Green livery wasn't enough, perhaps these numbers will finally start ringing some alarm bells over at NV HQ. [Thanks, Zubayer]
Rambus victorious in patent fight with NVIDIA, can expect neat wad of cash for its troubles
So what if Rambus doesn't really produce anything tangible these days? We're hearing the "innovation" business is going really well for the company that recently celebrated its 1,000th patent, and now there's a nice big windfall in its near future as well. The US International Trade Commission has handed down a ruling agreeing with a previous judgment that NVIDIA infringed on three Rambus patents in the design of its memory controllers, with the ultimate outcome being a ban on importing such infringing goods into the country. Of course, that's the one thing we're sure won't be happening, but NVIDIA will now have to sign up for a license to Rambus' precious IP portfolio, which might be a tad bit costly given that GeForce, Quadro, nForce, Tesla and Tegra chips are named as being in violation -- aside from Ion, that's pretty much NVIDIA's whole hardware business.[Thanks, Marc]Update: NVIDIA, unsurprisingly, has said it will appeal the ruling. [Thanks, Xero2]
ASUS ARES cries havoc, lets slip the GPUs of war: a review roundup of the world's fastest graphics card
When you name your graphics card after the God of War, you'd better hope it brings some heat, but judging by early reviews, that's just what ASUS has done. The three slot monstrosity above is the ARES, a $1200 limited edition, fully custom board, sporting twin Radeon HD 5870 GPUs, four gigabytes of GDDR5 memory and practically enough raw copper to smelt a sword. We're not joking: the thing weighs nearly five pounds and requires a 750 watt power supply with three power connectors (two 8-pin, one 6-pin) to even run. Of course, you're getting a graphical behemoth for that kind of price, steamrolling every other GPU on the planet -- paired with even a 3.8GHz Core i7-930 CPU in 3DMark Vantage (on Extreme settings), Overclock 3D racked up a fairly ludicrous 15,000 score, and the card ripped past 25,000 with a Core i7-980X and a second ARES in CrossFire. The card was less impressive in actual gameplay, merely spanking the (much cheaper) Radeon 5970 and GeForce GTX 480 by a modest amount, and several reviewers complained it was fairly loud... but as the old adage goes, nobody needs a Ferrari to drive the speed limit, but we'll all drool over them anyhow. Bring on the liquid nitrogen, folks. Read - Legit Reviews Read - Overclock3D Read - Guru3D Read - PC Perspective Read - TechPowerUp Read - Hot Hardware
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 set up in 3-way SLI, tested against Radeon HD 5870 and 5970
Not many mortals will ever have to worry about choosing between a three-way GeForce GTX 480 SLI setup, an equally numerous Radeon HD 5870 array, or a dual-card HD 5970 monstrosity, but we know plenty of people would care about who the winner might be. Preliminary notes here include the fun facts that a 1 Kilowatt PSU provided insufficient power for NVIDIA's hardware, while the mighty Core i7-965 test bench CPU proved to be a bottleneck in some situations. Appropriately upgraded to a six-core Core i7-980X and a 1,200W power supply, the testers proceeded to carry out the sacred act of benchmarking the snot out of these superpowered rigs. We won't spoil the final results of the bar chart warfare here, but rest assured both camps score clear wins in particular games and circumstances. The source link shall reveal all.
NVIDIA pulls 196.75 driver amid reports it's frying graphics cards
One of the discussions that arise anytime we bring up a new graphics card from ATI or NVIDIA is about which company has the better drivers. Well, this should help sway the argument a little bit. It would seem StarCraft II Beta players were among the first to notice low frame rates while using the latest drivers from NVIDIA, and further digging has uncovered that the automated fan-controlling part of said firmware was failing to act as intended. The result? Overheated chips, diminished performance, and in some extreme cases, death (of the GPU, we think the users will be okay). The totality of it is that you should avoid the 196.75 iteration like the plague, and NVIDIA has temporarily yanked the update while investigating the reported issues. Shame that the company hasn't got any warnings up on its site to tell those who've installed the update but haven't yet nuked their graphics card to roll back their drivers, but that's what you've got us for, right? [Thanks, Shockie] Update: Credit where it's due -- NVIDIA has dutifully put up an alert on its site advising users to roll back to the 196.21 driver while it investigates the root cause of the reported fan problems.
NVIDIA GeForce GT 340 highlights introduction of 300-series cards, none are powerful enough to matter
Is there a tribunal where you can bring up marketing teams for crimes against common sense? NVIDIA's epic rebranding exercise knows no bounds, as the company has now snuck out its very first desktop 300-series cards, but instead of the world-altering performance parts we've always associated with the jump into the 300s, we're getting what are essentially GT 2xx cards in new garb. The GT 340 sports the same 96 CUDA cores, 550MHz graphics and 1,340MHz processor clock speeds as the GT 240 -- its spec sheet is literally identical to the 240 variant with 1,700MHz memory clocks. To be fair to the company, these DirectX 10.1 parts are exclusively for OEMs, so (hopefully) nobody there will be confused into thinking a GT 320 is better than a GTX 295, but we'd still prefer a more lucid nomenclature... and Fermi graphics cards, we'd totally like some of those too.
AnandTech goes behind the scenes of ATI's RV870 / Evergreen GPU development
Anyone familiar with the constantly shifting release dates and delays that characterize GPU refresh cycles will have been impressed by ATI's execution of the Evergreen series release. Starting out at the top with its uber-performance parts, the company kept to an aggressive schedule over the winter and can now boast a fully fleshed out family of DirectX 11 graphics processors built under a 40nm process. The fact that NVIDIA has yet to give us even one DX11 product is testament to the enormity of this feat. But as dedicated geeks we want more than just the achievements, we want to know the ins and outs of ATI's resurgence and the decisions that led to its present position of being the market leader in features and mindshare, if not sales. To sate that curiosity, we have our good friend Anand Shimpi with a frankly unmissable retrospective on the development of the RV870 GPU that was to become the Evergreen chips we know today. He delves into the internal planning changes that took place after the delay of the R5xx series, the balancing of marketing and engineering ambitions, and even a bit of info on features that didn't quite make it into the HD 5xxx range. Hit the source link for all that precious knowledge.
NVIDIA's first two Fermi cards to be known as GeForce GTX 470 and GTX 480
Don't get too excited, we don't have specs or release windows yet, but we do have hilariously inflated model names to share with you. NVIDIA's all-new graphics architecture, commonly known as Fermi and recently re-coded as the GF100, has its first two commercial product names -- the GeForce GTX 470 and GTX 480 -- which as you'll have noticed skip right past the 300s and nearly double the model numbers of the company's current gen offerings. Let's just hope the performance lives up to such a blusterous naming scheme.
NVIDIA Fermi / GF100 architectural details revealed
Fermi hardware might still be two months away, but NVIDIA has done the sage thing and released some tantalizing numbers and architectural details to keep the fanboys chirping in the meantime. The GF100 will signal the end of tiresome rebadging and clock speed massaging, and early adopters will find 512 CUDA cores, 48 ROPs, and a 384-bit GDDR5 memory interface sprawled across three billion transistors. Big changes are also afoot in how the card will do its work, with a reorganization toward a more parallel workflow leading to promises of up to eight times better geometry performance than on the GT200. HardOCP reports that anti-aliasing results have improved "notably," while the video we've got stashed after the break for you shows the GF100 beating the GTX 285 handily in a Far Cry 2 benchmark. Still, the PC Perspective crew expressed some apprehension about the massive die size and how it could impact yields given the still young 40nm production process -- a sentiment echoed by other publications who questioned whether NVIDIA would not have been better off trying for a less ambitious, more gaming-oriented board. We should all know that answer soon enough. Read - AnandTech Read - Hot Hardware Read - PC Perspective Read - HardOCP Read - Tom's Hardware
NVIDIA Fermi pushed back to March, ATI prepping midrange refresh for early Q1?
Considering the present date, it's no longer a mystery that Fermi won't be seeing the glaring lights of store shelves this year, but now DigiTimes reports that the delay might be even longer than feared. Sources from within board manufacturers have been informed by NVIDIA that the launch of the 40nm GPU will be pushed back to March 2010. Though NVIDIA's flagship DirectX 11 card has yet to get out of the starting blocks, ATI -- already the proud papa of a litter of DX 11 parts -- is said to be preparing a renewed onslaught on the mainstream market with two new releases slated for late January or early February. The HD 5670 (Redwood) and HD 5450 (Cedar) will slot in alongside the unannounced HD 5570 and HD 5350 to flesh out the lower and middle portions of ATI's Evergreen refresh. So that's one whole family of DirectX 11 parts from ATI, and one long wait from NVIDIA.
Adobe's Flash Player 10.1 beta GPU acceleration tested, documented
We know you don't actually care about 99 percent of the contents of the latest Flash Player update. What you really want to know is whether those new 1080p YouTube streams will run smoothly on your machine thanks to the newly implemented graphics card video acceleration. AnandTech has come to our collective aid on that one, with an extensive testing roundup of some of the more popular desktop and mobile GPU solutions. NVIDIA's ION scored top marks, with "almost perfect" Hulu streaming (see table above), though Anand and crew encountered some issues with ATI's chips and Intel's integrated GMA 4500 MHD, which they attribute to the new Flash Player's beta status. On the OS front, although Linux and Mac OS are not yet on the official hardware acceleration beneficiary list, the wily testers found marked improvements in performance under OS X. It seems, then, that Adobe has made good on its partnership with NVIDIA, and made ION netbooks all the more scrumptious in the process, while throwing a bone to the Mac crowd, but leaving the majority of users exercising the virtue of patience until the finalized non-beta Player starts making the rounds in a couple of months. Hit the read link for further edification.
Sony finally admits NVIDIA chips are borking its laptops, offers free repair
Last summer, while Dell and HP were busy pinpointing and replacing faulty NVIDIA chips in their notebooks, Sony was adamant that its superior products were unaffected by the dreaded faulty GPU packaging. Well, after extensive support forum chatter about its laptops blanking out, distorting images and showing random characters, the Japanese company has finally relented and admitted that "a small percentage" of its VAIO range is indeed afflicted by the issue. That small percentage comes from the FZ, AR, C, LM and LT model lines, and Sony is offering to repair yours for free within four years of the purchase date, irrespective of warranty status. Kudos go to Sony for (eventually) addressing the problem, but if you're NVIDIA, don't you have to stop calling this a "small distraction" when it keeps tarnishing your reputation a full year after it emerged? [Thanks, Jonas]
Faulty GPUs reportedly cost NVIDIA another $119 million
We already knew that NVIDIA had to shell out anywhere from $150 to $250 million last year to resolve issues related to its defective GPUs, but it looks like that may have only been the beginning, with The Inquirer now reporting that the company has also been forced to pay an additional $119.1 million over the past four months to fix a faulty die and weak packaging material used in the affected graphics chips. What's more, NVIDIA apparently won't say whether it expects to incur any further charges related to the defective chips or not, although it simply describes the whole situation as "small distraction," and says it hasn't affected its ability to launch new products.
Divining just what that "non-personal system information" might be
As Eliah noted the other day, Blizzard is running another hardware survey -- your WoW client will be sending them information about what kinds of hardware are in your computer. They've done this before, and as you may have realized, this type of information helps them determine system requirements for future games. A few people have already speculated that they're testing the waters for another WoW expansion, but I doubt any expansion is that far along in the process yet: my guess is that this latest round of hardware testing is actually being done for final calibration on Starcraft II, due out this fall. Blizzard doesn't share this hardware information with us, but Valve, another company that has a really wide install base with its Steam service, does release regular information about the kinds of computers its games are running on.There is, of course, another question here: do we really want Blizzard jumping in and taking this information from us? There aren't any obvious reasons to protect this information (most computers will give it up to any Internet-connected application without issue), but you never know: do you really want Blizzard checking out what's on your hard drive or what accessories you've hooked up to your computer? We'd presume that they don't dive into software information (like checking your computer's HD for signs of competing MMO installs), but certainly they could. The list of what they check includes: "CPU, RAM, operating system, video, audio, HD/CD/DVD, and network connection," but we don't know if that's everything or not (the Terms of Use, under "XVIII Acknowledgements" says something similar). And as Blizzard's alert says, while we do get a momentary notification that this information is being sent, users who have merged their Battle.net accounts will no longer even see that flash of a message, even though their info is still being sent. The ToS says Blizzard doesn't have to notify us of the survey, but they have in the past anyway.
Current crop of graphics cards compared, ranked by price
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?
New Nvidia beta drivers, and a fix for WoW in SLI mode
I have to admit, sometimes I dread it when new video card drivers come out. It always seems like something about them goes wrong, and one of my favorite games refuses to work well with them, and I end up having to roll back to some old drivers just to play what I want to play again. That said, sometimes they also work well, and your graphics run smoother, and life is good. As Alex said to me earlier, Azeroth is a whole lot prettier when it's at 90 fps instead of 10 fps. But seriously, to the point. Here's a heads up to all our Nvidia card users who like living on the edge as far as upgrading goes. Nvidia has just released new beta drivers for their graphics cards. We repeat: these are beta drivers, so only install if you know what you're doing. Here's the links: Windows XP Windows XP x64, Server 2003 x64 Windows Vista 32-bit Windows Vista 64-bit WoW gets a mention in the release notes as well. If you've been having performance problems in WoW lately and you have a Geforce 6800/6600 GT, it looks like there might be a fix for you. [Via worldofwar.net]
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.]
Foxconn offering sub-$100 DirectX 10 cards
For those looking for hot, sweaty DirectX 10 action on a shoestring budget, Foxconn has announced a pair of NVIDIA GeForce 8400GS-based graphics cards that should do the trick. The cards will hit stores in a 128MB or 256MB configuration -- both sporting 450MHz / 800MHz core / memory clock speeds -- on an unspecified date for less than $100. That should be the perfect compliment to a basic Vista setup, or a cheap gaming option if you spent all your money on that fancy case.[Via ExtremeTech]
Nvidia launches cheap(er) DirectX 10 cards
Unless you live the sort of life where you receive money for nothin' and your chicks for free, you'll undoubtedly consider a fancy DirectX 10 card as a straight plunge into financial dire straits. "Not so," says Nvidia, pointing to the launch of the 320MB GeForce 8800 GTS, a mildly nerfed but more reasonably priced entry into their DirectX 10 graphics card lineup. It's up to you to decide just how reasonable the $300 asking price is, but it's certainly a far cry from the Crysis-killing, $600 GTX models. Besides sporting considerably less RAM when compared to the 768MB found in the GTX, the 320MB 8800's G80 core runs 75MHz slower at 500Mhz. Still, the card's performance should be more than adequate to handle the likes of Crysis and the tight budget of those working in less lucrative industries (microwave oven installers, for instance). [Via Engadget]
NVIDIA, AMD in hot water for potential price fixing
Hoo boy, this could be a nasty one. You know how NVIDIA and AMD got slapped with those federal subpoenas a week ago? At the time, no one was sure what the DoJ was getting at, but apparently it wasn't just to look at the pretty graphics these firms churn out. Turns out NVIDIA, AMD and ATI have been accused of some antitrust shenanigans, with the DoJ alleging the firms "have engaged in a contract combination, trust or conspiracy, the effect of which was to raise the prices at which they sold graphics processing units and cards to artificially inflated levels." We're not so sure that the main argument -- that graphics card prices are almost always the same, reaching around $500 in the high end -- will hold a lot of water, given the specs pumping nature of the graphics card biz, but allegations of secret meetings between graphics card execs to discuss pricing could be a bit more damning. The DoJ is requesting documents as far back as 1990, so this could get messy. Intel has managed to steer clear of this whole cartel fiasco, thanks to its lack of a discrete graphics biz, but we're sure they're totally jealous right now -- perhaps they'll buy NVIDIA just to join in on the fun.[Thanks, Mack S.]
