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Tag: Nvidia

  • Nexus 7 Successor With Qualcomm CPU To Launch In July [Report]

    It’s pretty much assumed at this point that Google will be showing off the new Nexus 7 at Google I/O next month. Now we just need to know its specs, and its launch date. Lucky enough, a new report out today tells us just that.

    Sources told Reuters that the Asustek-made Nexus 7 successor will be launching in July. If true, the next Nexus 7 will be launching a year after its predecessor hit the scene. It would also give Google plenty of time to build up excitement for the tablet after a reveal at Google I/O.

    As for specs, Reuters’ sources say the tablet will indeed be ditching Nvidia’s Tegra CPU in favor of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon. The previous rumor said Google chose Snapdragon because Qualcomm gave the company a better deal, but this latest report chalks it up “power reasons.”

    Beyond a change in CPU manufacturer, the report also says that the new tablet will feature a higher resolution and a thinner bezel design, both of which suggest that we may see a larger screen in the Nexus 7 as well.

    Apple lambasted the Nexus 7 last year during its iPad Mini reveal event for having a smaller display, while conveniently failing to mention that Google’s tablet still had a higher resolution. The new Nexus 7 could give Google a chance to create a tablet with a higher resolution while matching the 7.9-inch display of the iPad Mini.

    We’re sure to hear more details on the new Nexus 7, including its assumed use of a new Android operating system, at Google I/O or soon after.

  • Next-Generation Nexus 7 May Drop Nvidia For Qualcomm [Rumor]

    Rumors have been building for a while now that Google will be introducing a new Nexus 7 this year. It will reportedly launch in May and feature a full HD display. Beyond that, we don’t know much else about the rumored hardware, but a recent report provides a few more details.

    Pacific Crest analyst Michael McConnell recently said that the next-generation Nexus 7 will be ditching Nvidia’s Tegra chip in favor of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon S4 Pro. The change in processor appears to be motivated by Qualcomm offering Google a better deal, as well as the S4 Pro featuring better integration with 3G/4G modem technologies.

    So, what does this mean for Nvidia? We’ve already heard rumors that OEMs were not committed to Tegra 4, and that Nvidia’s new mobile chip might be facing a hard time with adoption. At the time, I said the next-generation Nexus 7 may help the Tegra 4 get a leg up on the competition, but that may not be the case anymore. As for its financial impact, McConnell says that Nvidia stands to lose about $200 to $250 million if its booted out of the Nexus line.

    Still, all of this is rumor for now, and we won’t know anything for sure until the next-generation Nexus 7 is officially announced. When will that announcement be? McConnell backs up previous rumors by saying it will be announced at Google I/O in May, and start shipping shortly after.

    [h/t: ZDNet]

  • Check Out Borderlands 2 Running On Nvidia’s Project SHIELD

    One of the stranger announcements at CES this year was Nvidia’s Project SHIELD. In essence, it’s a handheld gaming device powered by the company’s new Tegra 4 mobile processor. Nvidia has stated that it will play all the latest and greatest Android titles, but the company has been primarily pushing its secondary function of streaming PC titles to its 5-inch screen.

    In what Nvidia is dubbing PC Mondays, the company will be showing a PC game running on Project SHIELD every week for the foreseeable future. This week’s game is Borderlands 2 – one of the best PC ports of last year. The title looks absolutely glorious on my 1680×1050 monitor, but how does the game perform on a tiny 5-inch screen? Check out Nvidia’s demo to find out:

    Borderlands 2 seems to perform just fine on Project SHIELD. Nvidia notes that games will stream at 60 FPS with no noticeable degradation in quality. The only caveat is that the game is on a smaller screen which means that some less pronounced details may not be as readily apparent as they are on a larger screen.

    Alongside PC Mondays, Nvidia will also be putting up a new video every Thursday showing an Android game running on Project SHIELD. It will be interesting to see if any developers take advantage of the increased power available to them on Project SHIELD for their Android titles.

  • Nvidia’s Tegra 4 Isn’t Finding Support Among Smartphone Manufacturers [Rumor]

    The major tech at CES 2013 wasn’t the 4K HD TVs or that awesome water display, but rather mobile processors. Nvidia, Qualcomm and Samsung all announced their respective next generation processors that will be powering smartphones and tablets in the near future. One of the companies, however, may be having some trouble in getting companies to support its latest processor.

    Digitimes reports that demand for Nvidia’s Tegra 4 processor has been weak among OEMs. In fact, the only OEM confirmed to use the processor so far is Toshiba. The other major players, like Asus and Acer, are reportedly still undecided on which processors they will be using:

    Asustek Computer and Acer, which have been aggressive about the tablet market, have not yet decided whether to place orders for Tegra 4 as their focuses have already turned from 10-inch and above tablets to the 7-inch entry-level segment.

    Nvidia’s previous mobile processor – the Tegra 3 – is being used in devices like Google’s Nexus 7 and Microsoft’s Surface. It still enjoys relative popularity among OEMs so Nvidia may start focusing more on its previous generation processor while it waits for Tegra 4 demand to increase. To do this, the company is reportedly considering dropping the price of the Tegra 3 so that more OEMs start using it.

    Relying on the Tegra 3 is only a temporary solution, however, as Nvidia needs to kickstart Tegra 4 demand. It may be able to do this by working with Google again on the Nexus 7 refresh that’s rumored to becoming later this year. Having the Tegra 4 in such a high profile device would only help Nvidia’s case.

    Of course, all of this is rumor for now, and Tegra 4 devices won’t even start popping up until later this year. Nvidia still has some time to get people behind its latest mobile processor.

  • CES 2013: Nvidia Booth Tour Takes A Sneak Peak At Smart Cars And PC Gaming

    Like usual, Nvidia had one of the more eventful shows at CES. Its keynote revealed a number of new products, including the Tegra 4 processor and Project SHIELD. The latter is the most interesting as Nvidia is now competing in the dedicated gaming device market.

    Now, all of us can’t be at CES, but Nvidia has deemed it proper to give us all a tour of its massive booth. From the booth, you can see all the new products the company is bringing to PC gaming, including GRID and Nvidia Experience. The former is Nvidia’s take on cloud gaming, while the latter is new software that will help inexperienced PC gamers get the most out of their machine without having to edit video settings.

    The company also showed that it was not afraid to branch out of the PC gaming market. There were multiple smart cars on display that had touchscreen interfaces powered by Nvidia’s Tegra 4 processors. The Tegra 4 is also found in Nvidia’s new gaming handheld – Project SHIELD. It will play all the latest and greatest Android games as well as stream PC games to the handheld using GRID.

    All in all, Nvidia had one of the strongest showings at the annual tech show. All of the products it showed may not be successful in the future, but they’re at least really interesting.

    As an added bonus, here’s a more detailed look at Project SHIELD:

  • CES 2013: Relive The Magic Of Nvidia’s Opening Keynote

    Nvidia officially kicked off CES by hosting its keynote on Sunday evening. The press conference was at 8 p.m. PST, however, and many people may have been already in bed. If you were too busy sleeping instead of catching up on the latest Nvidia news, the keynote is now available to watch at your leisure.

    Over the course of an hour and 45 minutes, Nvidia announced a number of new products. The most surprising was Project SHIELD, a portable gaming machine that runs Android. It can also stream PC games from any Nvidia GTX powered machine.

    The company also announced its latest generation mobile CPU – the Tegra 4. The company hailed it as the fastest mobile processor on the planet, and showed off what it can do for the future of mobile gaming.

    Finally, the company announced its plans to enter the cloud gaming space with GRID. Nvidia has built massive servers that will deliver games over the cloud to gamers around the world. It will also lease these servers out to other companies who want to provide cloud services to consumers.


    Watch live video from nvidiaofficial on TwitchTV

  • CES 2013: Nvidia Enters The Android Gaming Market With Project SHIELD

    Nvidia, makers of fine graphics cards and mobile processors, announced Sunday evening its intentions to enter the increasingly lucrative Android hardware market. Much like its other products, however, its newest device will have more of a focus on gaming than general applications.

    Nvidia’s new portable device is called Project SHIELD. It’s a 5-inch 720p retina display attached to a console-quality controller. The device is powered by Nvidia’s new Tegra 4 mobile processor so it can push the latest and greatest mobile graphics. Project SHIELD offers the extra benefit of being able to stream content from a PC so players can enjoy their Steam library on the go.

    “Project SHIELD was created by Nvidia engineers who love to game and imagined a new way to play,” said Jen-Hsun Huang, co-founder and CEO of Nvidia. “We were inspired by a vision that the rise of mobile and cloud technologies will free us from our boxes, letting us game anywhere, on any screen. We imagined a device that would do for games what the iPod and Kindle have done for music and books, letting us play in a cool new way. We hope other gamers love SHIELD as much as we do.”

    With Project SHIELD, it looks like Nvidia is ready to compete with other dedicated Android gaming systems like Ouya, which is powered by Nvidia’s older Tegra 3 processor. Unlike Ouya, however, SHIELD remains portable while also being able to play the latest PC games through a GTX equipped PC. It’s an interesting product for sure, but it remains to be seen if Nvidia is making the right move here. Do PC gamers, the obvious target audience for this device, want to play their PC games on a 5-inch screen when they could play them on their 1920×1080 monitor?

    Either way, we won’t know for sure until later this year. Nvidia says that Project SHIELD is expected to launch in Q2 of 2013. There was no mention of price either, but don’t expect it to be cheap. I’d ballpark it in the $400 range, but Nvidia could surprise with a lower price point if it’s really serious about getting this into the hands of PC gamers.

  • Nvidia’s GeForce Experience Enters Closed Beta

    PC gaming has come a long way since the DOS and command line era where gamers had to input commands to even get a game to run. If you have a capable system these days, most games just work. There is still a feeling, however, among some prospective PC gamers that it’s still too complicated. Nvidia is going to start fixing that today.

    Back in April, Nvidia teased the first details of its GeForce Experience software. The program seeks to automatically optimize any PC game for each user’s unique system. Most PC games already offer an option that automatically picks out the optimum settings based on a user’s system, but said options are woefully inaccurate. GeForce Experience uses a massive supercomputer that tests every possible configuration to give gamers the best possible experience.

    A lot of seasoned PC gamers will probably not get much use out of this software, but it’s not necessarily built for them. PC gaming has exploded over the past few years, and more people than ever are gaming on pre-built PCs and laptops. These people may automatically just assume that a game runs without every actually tweaking settings and .ini files. The GeForce Experience is for them.

    As for the rest of us, you should check it out if only for the automatic driver updates. Nvidia is pretty awesome about staying on top of frequent driver updates, but you may forget to check every once in a while when a new one is made available. With GeForce Experience, PC gamers will never miss a driver update again.

    The GeForce Experience is currently available in a closed beta that’s open to the first 10,000 participants. You can download it here. Get to it before it’s gone.

  • Nvidia Releases New Linux Drivers For Its GTX 600 Series

    Valve announced today that the closed beta for Linux is now beginning for those lucky few who were selected out of the 60,000 applicants. Those players will be able to start playing native versions of games like Team Fortress 2, but the performance may be a little spotty if the drivers aren’t up to date. It’s a good thing Nvidia is here with an update.

    Nvidia released the new GeForce R310 drivers today for Linux operating systems. The GPU manufacturer said that the new Linux drivers “double the performance and dramatically reduce game loading times” for games on Linux.

    The drivers had apparently been in development for almost a year with Nvidia, Valve and other game companies helping to optimize them for the release of Steam on Linux. Valve’s Doug Lombardi even had some nice things to say about it:

    “With this release, Nvidia has managed to increase the overall gaming performance under Linux,” said Doug Lombardi, vice president of marketing at Valve. “Nvidia took an unquestioned leadership position developing R310 drivers with us and other studios to provide an absolutely unequalled solution for Linux gamers.”

    The new R310 drivers support the newest generation of Nvidia GPUs – the GeForce 600 line. Users with Nvidia-equipped Linux systems are still encouraged to download the drivers as it includes support to all GPUs from the 8800 GT and above.

    Linux users can grab the latest drivers here.

  • Science Ensures Our Destruction By Creating Sentient Robot Bees

    Science Ensures Our Destruction By Creating Sentient Robot Bees

    Bees are an important part of the complex ecosystem that is nature. As such, it’s extremely important that we preserve the remaining honey bee populations that are constantly under attack by various threats like parasites. That’s why science is working furiously to preserve bees by uploading their brains into robots.

    io9 reports that researchers at the Universities of Sheffield and Sussex are working on a project that’s just crazy enough to work. They’re going to create a simulation of a honey bee brain that can emulate the bee’s vision and sense of smell. Both are integral to a bee’s ability to find and pollinate flowers.

    So how are the researchers going to emulate the inner workings of a bee’s brain? A $1.6 million grant and a lot of GPUs from Nvidia. The GPUs will be the most important part of the project as they will be able to cost effectively simulate a bee’s brain. The only other solution would be a costly supercomputer.

    After all the money and research, the researchers will be hopefully left with a sentient bee robot, or beebot. In essence, science will have created a primitive robot that is able to perform basic tasks – like identifying flowers and collecting pollen – without the need for instructions. It would be a huge step forward in robotics and artificial intelligence.

    Of course, science tends to forget the larger questions when conducting such research. What will happen when the bee becomes angry and attacks people? Unlike a honey bee, a robot bee wouldn’t die when it stings a person. It could keep on stinging until we were all dead, or it would just make humanity reenact its favorite Nicholas Cage scene:

    [Image Source]

  • Unreal Engine 3 Demoed on a Windows 8 Tablet

    Unreal Engine 3 Demoed on a Windows 8 Tablet

    If you’ve been following the news leading up to the IFA conference this week in Berlin, you might think the trade show was meant as a venue for Sony and Samsung product announcements.

    As much as Windows 8 has been bashed as a desktop operating system, it’s widely acknowledged that the platform is an excellent interface for tablet devices. And though Windows 8 desktop gaming might end up being a catastrophe, the mobile and tablet gaming experiences are beginning to look very nice. Even Windows 8 Phone gaming might be a blast, as just last week it was announced that the Unity engine will be supported on that platform.

    Today Nvidia and Epic Games debuted a demonstration of Epic’s Unreal Engine 3 running on a Windows RT tablet. Windows RT is a version of Windows 8 that will run on ARM devices, such as tablets.

    The demonstration seen below shows a short Unreal Engine 3 demo that is running on an Asus Vivo Tab RT, which has a Tegra 3 quad-core processor. The Nvidia labs handler states that the demo is running 30 to 40 frames per second. He also states that the full PC implementation of Unreal Engine 3 is running, meaning that developers should be able to import their games relatively easily.

    “The Unreal Engine 3-powered ‘Epic Citadel’ demonstration for Windows RT tablets implements our full DirectX 9 pipeline, with shaders and materials, all running beautifully on Tegra 3,” said Mark Rein, vice president of Epic Games. “By porting the full engine as opposed to a modified mobile version, Nvidia and Epic have made it easy for UE3 developers around the world to bring their best content to Windows RT, Windows 8, and Nvidia’s Tegra 3 processor. Windows RT code is available to licensees from Epic now and we’re excited to see the great games they develop with it.”

    It might not be long before gamers see tablet hardware good enough to run the slick-looking Unreal Engine 4, but, for now, the Unreal Engine 3 will certainly be setting a standard for tablet gaming.

  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 Ti Comes With Free Borderlands 2

    Are you in the market for a new video card? Are you also looking forward to the release of Borderlands 2? Then does Nvidia have a deal for you.

    The graphics card manufacturer announced today that their mid-range 600 series GPU, the 660 Ti, is now available. The card comes with a MSRP of $299 and it’s by far the most affordable of all the Nvidia GeForce 600 series. The best part is that it doesn’t give up much in terms of performance compared to its peers like the 670 and 680. Here’s a comparison:

    Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 Ti

    Here’s another comparison of performance across the line for all of Nvidia’s cards. You can see the 660 Ti is even a little bit more powerful than the 580.

    Nvidia GeForce 660 Ti

    To make the deal even sweeter, Nvidia has teamed up with Gearbox to offer a free copy of Borderlands 2 for all those who purchase the GTX 660 Ti from select retailers. They claim that players will be able to max out all settings in Borderlands 2.

    You can snag a GeForce GTX 660 Ti and a free copy of Borderlands 2 from most major online retailers. Newegg, Amazon and TigerDirect are all offering the promotion.

    Gearbox has made it clear that Borderlands 2 is going to much better than its predecessor on the PC. They’re putting in all the features that hardcore PC gamers crave and a free copy with a video card upgrade makes it even better.

    The GTX 660 Ti is available today from all major retailers. They don’t seem to be selling out either so it should be good to wait a few weeks on a purchase. I think we’re past the days of the 680 being perpetually sold out for months.

  • Ouya Ends Kickstarter Campaign With Over $8.5 Million

    The Ouya, an Android powered game console, has been on the minds of gamers everywhere for the past month since it raised over $1 million in a day for its Kickstarter campaign. Everybody in the industry had something to say about the Ouya from claiming it was going to fail to saying it was going to save gaming. Either way, it’s the second most funded project that Kickstarter has ever hosted.

    Funding ended last night for Ouya and the project has raised a little over $8.5 million. The only other project to earn more pledges was the Pebble, a watch for iPhone and Android. It brought in a little over $10.2 million.

    Despite claims that the Ouya was a fake or that it was going to fail, gamers obviously feel very different about it. On top of the insane amount of money raised, the console was backed by 63,416 people all wanting the console for very different reasons. There are those who obviously just want a new console, but many developers put in money to get access to dev kits.

    So now that the Ouya is funded, where do we go from here? The console will start going into full production now with a tentative release date of March 2013. During that time, developers will start creating games for the device. It’s a decently capable machine that’s powered by Nvidia’s Tegra3 processor.

    The processor is going to be its biggest weakness, however, when attempting to appeal to a hardcore audience. The makers of the console envision it as a place where the casual and hardcore can get along and just enjoy games. The only problem is that a lot of hardcore gamers demand the very best in visual fidelity and the Ouya just can’t deliver.

    What it will deliver is an inexpensive game console that will have all the benefits of modern game consoles, including media streaming, without the big budget games. The open nature of the console ensures that anybody can make games for it and sell their games directly to the players. Even the major players like Namco and Square Enix have pledged support for the console, albeit with ports of decade old titles.

    The most exciting thing about the Ouya is that it might do for the console what Steam did for PC gaming. It has the potential to open the living room to indies. There are plenty of indie developers who grew up on console gaming and they would love to return to those days. The Ouya is the embodiment of nostalgia and it’s going to use that to play on gamers’ emotions. As long as developers realize this, it’s going to at least succeed in some sense. If developers try to emulate modern hardcore experiences on the Ouya, it will fail in more than one respect.

    If you missed the Kickstarter campaign, you can still grab an Ouya for yourself. The company has opened up pre-orders on its Web site which includes a console with multiple controllers. For just the console and one controller, it will cost $109.99 with the console and four controllers running for $199.99. International orders will have to tack on an extra $10 onto the U.S. price.

    No matter how well the Ouya performs, it’s going to be interesting to watch its development over the next year. With the Wii U coming out later this year and the rumored Xbox 720 and PS4 coming out sometime in either 2013 or 2014, the Ouya has some competition ahead. The price and developer friendly SDK might just be enough to compete.

  • Nvidia And Android Forums Get Hit In Latest Hack Attack

    Nvidia And Android Forums Get Hit In Latest Hack Attack

    You think the hacking world would be finished with their parade of password thefts after stealing over 450,000 of them from Yahoo. Unfortunately, things just never work out in our favor as more passwords have been stolen in the latest hack attack.

    Naked Security is reporting that two popular tech forums – Nvidia Developer Zone and Android Forums – were both attacked by some dastardly Internet villains that want your password, usernames or both. If you have an account on either of these sites, it’s strongly recommended that you change your password now.

    Did you change it yet? Good.

    Nvidia immediately brought the hack to the attention of its users by closing down the Web site entirely. They are investigating how the hackers got into their system and will bring the forums back online when they can “ensure that secure operations can be restored.” They also recommend that you change your password for any other site that used the same one from Nvidia’s site.

    Another popular tech forum, Android Forums from Phandroid, was hacked this week. The staff believe that the attack was less about stealing passwords and more about taking email addresses. Regardless, you should change your password immediately. The same rule from before applies here as well. If you use the same password anywhere else, be sure to change it.

    The new attacks can’t compare to the hacking that went on over at Yahoo Voices yesterday. More than 450,000 email addresses and passwords were posted online as a warning to Yahoo. The warning stated that Yahoo underestimates their reach across the Internet and that a hack on their servers can have disastrous consequences for the rest of us.

    Password theft and hacks are becoming all too common these days. It’s unfortunate, but there are ways to protect yourself. First and foremost, stop using the same password for every Web site you register. Of special importance, keep the password for Facebook, Twitter, email, banking and any other site you deem important different from each other. This will ensure that hackers won’t be able to access your email or Facebook account in the event of either being hacked.

    Many Web sites also offer multiple forms of authorization when it comes to accessing your credentials. Use these to their full potential by making anybody attempting to access your profile from a different computer have to answer a series of personal questions that only you would know.

  • Nvidia Set To Launch GeForce GTX 660Ti In August

    Nvidia has been on fire lately. They have successfully launched the latest line of graphics cards in their 600 series and have continuously reduced the price of these cards through incremental downgrades that don’t seem to affect the performance whatsoever. Case in point: the 670 and 680 have negligible differences in power yet there’s a $100 price difference. The latest card looks to continue that trend.

    Nvidia’s latest card to hit based on the GK104 architecture will be the GeForce GTX 660Ti. WCCFTech says that it will be last card released to be based on the current architecture as Nvidia will probably start work on the 700 series. For now, we can bask in the glory of the full line of 600 series video cards from the beast that is the 690 to the mid-tier 660Ti that is still more powerful than the GTX 580.

    What are you going to get in the GTX 660Ti? It would be that it’s similar to the 670 in that it contains 1334 cores, but it’s memory would be limited to only 1.5GB. It will also be clocked a bit lower resulting in an eight to 10 percent drop in performance from the 670. That’s a small price to pay for its $100 price difference as the card will launch at a very affordable $299.

    WCCFTech says that Nvidia has already dropped the price of the GTX 570 to reduce stock so now’s your chance to grab a great 500 series for a cheap price as well. If you want to upgrade to the 600 series, like me, you’ll be able to get your hands on the 660Ti in August. With the amount of quality PC games hitting the market this year like Assassin’s Creed III and Darksiders II, it would be smart to upgrade to at least the 500 series if you’ve been holding out for the past few years.

  • MacBook Pro To Be Powered By Nvidia Kepler Graphics

    The new MacBook Pro is pretty much a beast. One of the major driving forces behind that power is the video card. Nvidia will be providing the graphics in the new MacBook Pro with its new line of Kepler video cards – specifically the GT 650M.

    While I’m sure the Mac gamers out there are super excited to hear this news, regular Mac users should be getting excited as well. The 600 series is Nvidia’s latest innovation in GPU construction that runs on its Kepler architecture.

    Nvidia announced on their blog that the GT 650M would be coming to both the next-generation MacBook Pro as well as the newly redesigned 15-inch MacBook Pro model. This sets up MacBook Pro users with the latest and very best in graphics processing technology.

    Apple mentioned that the new retina display will be great for all the gaming experiences that Mac fans can enjoy. The most high profile release is obviously Diablo III which Mac gamers will want the new MacBook Pro for. Not only will the GT 650M allow them to play it on max settings, it will help them take true advantage of the new retina display. It will be the best looking version of Diablo III on the Mac platform.

    For those who care about such things, the GT 650M contains a number of enhancements over its predecessors that make notebook gaming even better. The 600M series features Optimus which optimizes notebooks to only use the graphics power when it needs to thus conserving power.

    As a PC gamer, trust me when I say that Apple made the right choice with the 650M. It’s the most cost-efficient mobile gaming GPU on the market today. While the next-generation MacBook Pro will start at $2,199, you can at least know the GPU is top of the line. Sure, it’s no GTX 680M, but it gets the job done regardless.

  • Nvidia Reveals The GeForce GTX 690

    Did you know that Nvidia holds a gaming festival in China? Even if you did, you probably ignored its existence until the company started to post cryptic images on their Facebook page. The company was teasing some big announcements to come out of a keynote from Nvidia CEO Jen Hsun-Huang. Long story short: It was an embarrassment of a keynote with nothing really of note and the few games they did show off were old trailers being paraded around as new.

    While Nvidia was testing my patience and making me want to defect to AMD for their awful keynote, one announcement at the end did kind of make up for it. The company used the event as an excuse to announce the next video card in the Kepler line: the GTX 690. The card is the true successor to the GTX 590 by including two Kepler GPUs on a single card in a solid aluminum case.

    The card itself is really nice looking with a few unnecessary bells and whistles that undoubtedly drive up the price. The GPU in terms of hardware features some new tech including vapor chamber coolers with a fan that promises to remain silent even at 3,000 RPM. The unnecessary part comes by having an illuminated side with LEDs that spell out GeForce GTX 690. The card also makes a loud ping noise when it’s properly installed.

    Nvidia Reveals The GeForce GTX 690

    All in all, the GTX 690 looks to be a powerful card in the same vein as the GTX 590. The only issue is that supply will probably be limited and only available to those who can afford its massive price tag. Oh, about that price: the card will retail for $999. So have fun saving up your loose change to afford this beast. I think I’ll wait for the oft-rumored GTX 670 Ti.

    The other actual news from the show was the announcement of the GeForce Experience. Hsun-Huang explained it as a way to make finding the perfect settings easier for PC gamers who don’t know their SSAO from their MSAA. They have compiled a list of every game and every possible hardware configuration over the past five years to make the GeForce Experience possible. With this new tool, gamers can connect to the service and Nvidia will match their machine’s configuration with the game they’re wanting to play. From there, it will assign the most optimal settings to the game. It’s great news for the average PC gamer who just bought a laptop or a pre-built to play some PC games. I think the enthusiast PC gamers will stick with manually editing the config files to get the most out of our games.

    After its lackluster CES keynote, Nvidia fans should have probably expected disappointment. While the announcement of the GTX 690 was cool, it’s impossible to obtain for those of us without six-figure incomes. The GeForce Experience is somewhat disappointing as well for the hardcore PC gamer market who wanted to see something exciting from Nvdia. Oh well, there’s always E3 in June so hopefully we’ll hear something from there soon.

  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 670Ti Specs Leaked

    Nvidia made quite a splash last month with the launch of its new GTX 600 series line with the GTX 680. It was an impressive card that added many new features to PC gaming including automatic voltage control for a better gaming experience. The 680 was just one card out of many though and we’re still waiting for details on the other cards in the series. Good news then that some details were leaked today.

    WCCFTech got the skinny on the specs for the GTX 670Ti, the next card in the 600 series to hit. It will be launching in May and is meant to replace the GTX 580/570. It’s also pegged as being the main competitor to ATI’s Radeon HD 7950.

    Here’s the leaked specs in full. Check them out and tell us what you think:

    Based on the Nvidia GK104 (3.54 billion transistors on 294mm ² 28mn chip area)
    DirectX 11.1, Kepler architecture
    4 Raster Engines (GPC)
    7 shader clusters (SMX)
    1344 (1D) shader units
    112 texture units (TMUs)
    32 raster operation units (ROPs)
    256-bit DDR memory interface
    2 GB of GDDR5 memory configuration
    Chip clock: 900 MHz or something more
    Memory clock: unknown, assumed ~ 2500 MHz
    PCI Express 3.0 (backwards compatible with PCI Express 1.x and 2.0)
    Estimated TDP ~ 160 watts
    Performance target by nVidia: GeForce GTX 580 – Radeon HD 7950
    Launch Date : May
    Price: £320 ($500)

    The regular GTX 670 is also set to launch sometime soon. It’s price is rumored to be anywhere between £320 and £240 ($500 and $380). The lower price means that the regular 670 would have lower clocks or a 192-bit DDR memory interface compared to the 670Ti’s 256-bit.

    Either way, these are going to be the more affordable options to the current GTX 680. You’re still better off waiting, however, as they are probably going to sell out as soon as they are released, just like the 680.

    Nvidia still has two cards up their sleeves if you’re still adamant about waiting for an upgrade. WCCFTech says that Nvidia should be launching the mid-range GTX 660 and the Dual GK104 GTX 690 sometime in Q2 of this year.

  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 Launches Today

    Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 Launches Today

    We’ve been hearing rumor after rumor and even a leaked review, but today is finally the day – the GeForce GTX 680 has officially launched.

    The leaked review from earlier this week confirmed the March 22 launch date. It also confirmed that the card was an absolute beast that easily bests the competition. Now we get the official word straight from Nvidia.

    Nvidia says that power efficiency and GPU boost are the two key factors that will push the GTX 680 into the hearts and minds of PC gamers everywhere. With power efficiency, the Kepler GPU is able to push out twice the performance per watt. This is especially seen in Battlefield 3 where the 680’s power efficiency is twice than the performance of the 580.

    Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 Launches Today

    The new GPU Boost technology is far more interesting. Nvidia explains that GPUs operate under a certain wattage called the thermal design point as this helps the card to stay cool. As it turns out, most cards never even approach the TDP so there is more power that can be applied to video cards than what is being given to it. GPU Boost forces the card to take full advantage of the power available to it by applying itself only to the current app, in this case a game, that is running.

    We’ve already been using FXAA for a while now, but the GTX 680 uses a new version of FXAA that should be even better. Nvidia boasts that FXAA 3 is able to reduce jaggies better than 4x MSAA at little to no memory cost.

    Nvidia is also introducing a new version of AA in the form of TXAA. It will be directly integrated into the game engine and offers results similar to 8x MSAA at half the memory cost.

    Nvidia Surround can now run off of a single GTX 680. Previously, if players wanted to extend their display across multiple monitors, they had to run in dual or triple SLI. The GTX 680 can play graphic intensive games like Crysis 3 on three 1080p monitors on ultra settings at 30 FPS.

    If you bought the GTX 680 today or are getting one this week, Nvidia has new drivers available for you. They will enable the GPU to take advantage of the aforementioned GPU boost technology. The new update allows users to run FXAA on every game through the Nvidia control panel. It also enables adaptive V-sync through the Nvidia control panel. This allows the video card to dynamically switch V-sync on and off depending on the situation to give you the best performance possible.

    You can grab the 301.10 drivers here.

    I can’t wait till I’m able to get a hold of this new graphics card. It’s absolutely beautiful and I’m sure I’m going to get plenty of use from it. Unfortunately, it appears that the cards from EVGA, Gigabyte and ASUS are sold out on Newegg. If you really want the GTX 680, you can try your luck with a Zotac or Galaxy brand card.

    Are you picking up the GTX 680? Or are you just happy that the GTX 500 line is finally going down in price? Let us know in the comments.

  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 Review Leaked

    Nvidia has been really tight lipped on its next generation of PC video cards. The same video cards that are meant to combat AMD’s head start with the HD7970. If an early leaked review from Tom’s Hardware is any indication, the card is well worth the wait. The best part – the wait is only two days.

    WCCF Tech got a hold of an early review from Tom’s Hardware for the GTX 680. The review has since been removed as Nvidia is forcing everybody to remain pretty quiet on their new video card until it launches on March 22. Good thing there are people who grab these things before they’re removed. The review gives us a good look at the performance of the new video card.

    The GeForce GTX 680 uses the Kepler architecture that is comprised of a GK104 Core that contains 1536 Cuda Cores, 2 GB GDDR5 Memory buffer, a core clock at 1006 MHz and memory that’s clocked to 1.5 GHz. If you don’t understand what any of that means, just know this: the 680 is a beast that completely dominates the AMD HD7970 and the review proves that.

    According to the review, the GTX 680 has up to 50 percent better performance than AMD’s HD7970 when playing games at 1920×1080 resolution. That performance can fluctuate depending on the machine and the resolution. The leaked review doesn’t make any mention of the other components, but we can assume based on similar reviews that the system was rockin’ an Intel i7 and at least 8 GB of RAM.

    The funny thing is that the GTX 680 is only ever bested by the GTX 590. That makes sense, however, as the 590 is two GTX 500s working together to create a powerful card. I’m sure Nvidia will release a dual GPU card in the 600 line as well that will smoke the competition. For now though, the 680 appears to be an affordable powerhouse that should appease any gamer’s need for PC gaming.

    To see additional benchmarks at a 2560×1600 resolution, check out the leaked review.

    With the launch only two days away, the hype for the new Nvidia cards is at its peak. I’ll be saving all my pocket change over the next month to afford its $549 asking price. Are you going to be picking one of these bad boys up soon? Let us know in the comments.

    [Lead image: WCCF Tech]

  • New iPad’s A5X Chip Benchmarked

    New iPad’s A5X Chip Benchmarked

    The new iPad is out and it is gorgeous. That Retina display screen is going to make apps look stunning on the device. All of that screen real estate can’t take all of the credit though. The new iPad’s A5X chip makes it all possible with a dual-core processor and quad-core GPU on board.

    At the new iPad announcement, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that the new A5X chip would outperform Nvidia’s Tegra 3 chip for Android tablets. The Tegra 3 is a quad-core processor and is capable of some pretty awesome 3D effects. It’s time to pit the two against each other to see if Cook was telling the truth.

    The fine people at Laptop Mag ran the GLBenchmark 2.1 on both the new iPad and a Transformer Prime tablet using the Tegra 3 processor. On the standard test, the new iPad processed 6,718 frames at a rate of 60 FPS. The Nvidia Tegra 3, on the same test, only processed 5,939 frames at 53 FPS. It’s not a huge difference, but the new iPad is definitely the victor.

    The next test saw the two processors duke it out with Geekbench, a tool that measures raw processing power. Here’s where the Tegra 3 really excels with an overall score of 1,571. The A5X on the new iPad only scored 692.

    When testing the power of processors, one can not leave out gaming. The test saw the Transformer Prime and the new iPad both running two different 3D games that push the graphical capabilities of the devices. Long story short: games on the new iPad look stunning due to its screen, but games have more detail on the Transformer Prime. This is due to the games being optimized for the Tegra 3. You should be seeing similar performance out of the A5X once games are built with it in mind.

    Here’s a video with side-by-side comparisons of the games running on both devices:

    Do you think that the A5X chip is a game changer in mobile computing? Or is it just a small upgrade? Let us know in the comments.

    [Lead image: MacLife]