Graphics Cards - Page 202

GTC 2018 - Walking through the show floor of the GPU Technology Conference is always fun, with one of the stand out things that was there being Supermicro's SYS-1029GQ-TVRT, it might not sound like much, but it is a beast. Supermicro makes the SYS-1029GQ-TVRT for machine learning, deep learning and AI development.

Supermicro's SYS-1029GQ-TVRT is a dual CPU system that rocks socket P (LGA 3647) and supports Intel Xeon Scalable Processors, with up to 1.5TB of ECC 3DS LRDIMMs with 12 DIMMs in total supporting DDR4-2666MHz. There are 4 x PCIe 3.0 x15 slots, 1 x PCIe 3.0 x8 (LP) slot, and 2 x 10GbE ports.

But the coolest thing would have to be the 4 x NVIDIA Tesla V100 GPUs that are fully liquid cooled, and it's an interesting liquid cooler to boot.

GTC 2018 - NVIDIA has just unveiled its new Quadro GV100 workstation graphics card, which is now powered by the Volta GPU architecture and sees the combination of HBM2 as well.

The new Quadro GV100 is the first Quadro graphics card to feature the Volta GPU architecture, and it's also the first to feature HBM2 technology. NVIDIA's current Tesla V100 is virtually identical to the Quadro GV100, with its Volta GPU architecture and HBM2 memory technology.

NVIDIA's refreshed Quadro GV100 features the same specs as the Tesla V100, with new AI-dedicated Tensor cores that help out with AI models, alongside the faster NVLink bandwidth that scales far higher and faster in multi-GPU rigs.

GTC 2018 - NVIDIA kicked off their annual GPU Technology Conference by unveiling the new Quadro GV100 graphics card, as well as the refreshed Tesla V100 with 32GB of HBM2, but the new DGX-2 was the ultimate unveil.

NVIDIA's new DGX-2 packs a huge 16 x Tesla V100s with 32GB of HBM2 each for a total of 512GB of HBM2. The entire unit consumes 10kW of power, is capable of a huge 2 PFLOPs of compute performance and weighs 350 lbs.

Each of the Tesla V100s with 32GB of HBM2 are connected through NVIDIA's new NVSwitch technology, which packs an insane 14.4TB/sec of bandwidth.

Remember when I exclusively reported that NVIDIA was set to launch a new GeForce GTX graphics card during GTC 2018? Well, if you wanted confirmation of this fact, it is here: NVIDIA has just placed 'out of stock' on the entire range of GTX 10 series graphics cards, as well as the TITAN Xp.

As you can see 'out of stock' dominates the official NVIDIA website, which means they will not be selling any more GTX 10 series cards effective immediately. The reason behind this would only be that NVIDIA themselves are completely sold out of GP10x GPUs and can't fulfil even their own orders for Founders Edition cards, or a next-gen release is imminent.

I also reported another exclusive earlier today that NVIDIA would release their next-gen GeForce GTX product as the GTX 11 series, and not the GTX 20 series that the world has expected. This news, along with the GTX 11 series naming and the GTC 2018 keynote that Jensen Huang kicks off tomorrow morning has every fiber in my nerd body freaking out.

I've only been on the ground in San Jose for less than 24 hours, but I've had some interesting conversations with people in very high places that have confirmed with TweakTown exclusively that NVIDIA's next-gen graphics cards will NOT be launched as the GTX 20 series.

This means no GeForce GTX 2080 like we, and everyone else have been reporting, but instead the GeForce GTX 11 series. My source was quick to make me ponder, but couldn't answer the question in full: they said "it [the new cards] won't necessarily end in '70' and '80' like we're used to". That's all they would say on the matter.

NVIDIA could launch new graphics cards with names like GeForce GTX 1185 and GTX 1175 instead, differentiating them against the GTX 1070 and GTX 1080. I could see this happening, as it would be an interesting move for sure, and I really like the idea of a GTX 1185 for example.

GIGABYTE has released another external graphics card, this time with the new RX 580 Gaming Box that packs AMD's Radeon RX 580 into an external GPU enclosure.

The new RX 580 Gaming Box features a Radeon RX 580 8GB graphics card with its GPU clocks at 1257/1340MHz on base/boost, respectively. GIGABYTE includes a software-based "OC Mode" that will shoot the GPU clock speed up slightly, from 1340MHz to 1355MHz, while the 8GB of GDDR5 sits at its 8Gbps of bandwidth.

You can see that GIGABYTE has used a custom PCB and cooler, with a single large fan that keeps the RX 580 cool inside of the external GPU enclosure.

AMD had a great marketing campaign that was right in the middle of the US elections and politically driven around VR, where AMD said that "VR isn't just for the 1%" as they were launching the Radeon RX 480.

Fast forward to now, and we have the latest Hardware Report released by Oculus for their Rift VR headset, something that helps developers optimize, prioritize, and give a guideline for business and development decisions. The data was created from hardware running Oculus software in the last 28 days, where it shows utter Intel and NVIDIA dominance.

NVIDIA utterly dominates VR gaming with 92.2% of Oculus Rift users gaming in VR with a GeForce GTX graphics card of some sort, with the GTX 1070 leading with 19.4%, the GTX 1080 behind it with 17.3% and the older GTX 970 with 10.5%. AMD is left in NVIDIA's dust with only 7.8% of Oculus Rift users powered by Radeon, with 2% of Rift users using the RX 480, while 1.4% use the RX 580.

It wasn't too long ago that I exclusively reported that NVIDIA would release a new GeForce graphics card at GTC 2018, which is next week by the way, and now we might have a hint at confirmation according to NVIDIA.

The company has just announced its new RTX platform, a new "highly scalable" solution for raytracing technology that will "usher in a new era" of real-time raytracing. The problem is, RTX supports older graphics cards, with NVIDIA stating that RTX will be locked to "Volta and future generation GPU architectures".

Now that we've seen NVIDIA unveil their new RTX solution, Pascal GPU owners aren't going to be happy. This means to run any of the RTX-powered games released in the future you'll need a new graphics card, as there are no consumer graphics cards on the market that are capable of RTX.

GDC 2018 - Microsoft announced their new adventures into DXR at GDC 2018, with DirectX Raytracing being the DX12-based standard for Raytracing with AMD and NVIDIA both throwing their support behind DXR.

NVIDIA will have its own side of things with RTX, a collective of software and hardware algorithms to push raytracing on their Volta GPU architecture, which isn't in consumer form right now. Volta is a professional grade GPU architecture and from my various sources information, it won't be coming to the consumer GeForce side of things ever, so we should see some Volta-esque technology inside of their next-gen Turing GPU architecture.

For those of you that don't know what raytracing will deliver, or what it's even capable of, check out the embedded video above for a tease of what's to come. This demo comes from a collaboration between Quantum Break/Max Payne developer Remedy, along with Microsoft and NVIDIA.

NVIDIA hasn't briefed press on their upcoming RTX technology just yet, but VideoCardz is reporting that the GeForce giant will announce RTX on Monday.

NVIDIA's new RTX technology is a huge deal as it will usher in real-time cinematic rendering for game developers, with NVIDIA also preparing Ray Tracing for GameWorks, something that will allow real-time Area Shadows, Glossy Reflections, and Ambient Occlusion for game development.

The company has teamed up with Microsoft for a new API for RTX, something that will allow major game engines to support it, including Unreal Engine, Unity, and DICE's Frostbite engine. VideoCardz reports that there are already three developers that are working on RTX: EA Games, Remedy, and 4A Games.

ASRock was rumored to be working on new graphics cards, as the Taiwanese manufacturer would enter as a new AIB partner for AMD Radeon according to reports, and now the company is fully teasing their upcoming Phantom Gaming graphics cards. Check out the trailer:

ASRock teases: "Mystery videos published... Look forward to the announcement! #ASRock #PhantomGaming #PG #Phantom #Gaming #FAST #MYSTERIOUS #UNPREDICTABLE".

We can see the card looks like a dual-slot affair with a single 8-pin PCIe connector, so we should expect it to arrive as a custom Radeon RX 580 and not a custom Radeon RX Vega 56/64 as they require 2 x 8-pin PCIe power connectors. We could be surprised, but I doubt it.

NVIDIA will be launching their next generation GPU architecture in Q3 2018, with a new report from DigiTimes and their sources saying that Turing will "not enter the mass production until the third quarter". NVIDIA is currently expected to unveil the new Turing GPU architecture at GTC 2018, but there could be a few months between its detailing and public roll out.

DigiTimes reports that NVIDIA will be "forbidding" AIB partners to "publicly promote cryptocurrency mining activities or actively sell its consumer graphics cards to miners". NVIDIA wants to move the focus away from cryptomining and back to gaming, which has been in a very sore place for the last 6-8 months.

Prices are all over the place, and this needs to stop, hence the realignment of marketing focus to AIB partners by NVIDIA. DigiTimes' sources added that since the profitibility has dropped for both NVIDIA and AMD, they have been "decelerating the developments of their new GPU architectures and prolonging their existing GPU platforms' lifecycle".

It looks like NVIDIA will be controlling the stock levels of its graphics cards in the coming months, with DigiTimes reporting that the company will "practice strict control over inventory levels".

DigiTimes reports: "GPU demand for cryptocurrency mining has shown signs of a slowdown prompting NVIDIA to practice strict control over inventory levels", according to its sources. The story is so fresh that its only available in the 'Before Going to Press' section of the site, which costs $410 yearly to access. As the story develops, I'll update this story.

If this is true, we could be looking at NVIDIA being able to control GPU prices as it keeps "strict control over inventory levels", so that they don't sell out to miners. Gamers are losing out as GPU prices have skyrocketed, with the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti costing well over $1000 while the GTX 1070 Ti ranges from $600-$950.

It looks like NVIDIA isn't finished with the P102 GPU, with CryptoMining-Blog.com reporting on a tip that the NVIDIA P102-100 GPU are going to be "interesting for miners" as they are similar to the P104-100 with a custom configuration on memory and increased performance for those all important hashes.

Inno3D will be manufacturing the new P102-100 mining accelerators, which will feature no video output connectors as this is a mining-specific card. The new Inno3D P102-100 will be a mighty powerful mining card, capable of 47MH/s mining Ethereum (a GTX 1080 Ti will reach around 38-40MH/s while the TITAN Xp will push 42MH/s when overclocked).

Inno3D P102-100 specifications:

EK Water Blocks has just announced their new full-cover water block for AMD's Radeon RX Vega 56/64 graphics cards, with the new EK-FC Radeon Vega water block featuring a central inlet split-flow cooling engine that promises some of the best cooling for Vega yet.

The company has CNC machined the base of the block from nickel-plated electrolytic copper, while the top of the cooler is machined out of high-quality acrylic material. EK has sealed it with high-end rubber O-rings, with screw-in brass standoffs pre-installed which leads to an easier installation onto your Radeon RX Vega graphics card.

EK recommends that people purchase the retention backplate that ramps the looks of the card to another level, but it doubles as passive cooling to the VRM circuit board. The new EK-FC Radeon Vega water block will work with both the Nickel and Black versions of the current EK-FC Radeon Vega backplates.

AMD is improving eSports gaming performance and making things smoother with their new initiative that they've called Project ReSX (Radeon eSports Experience).

The company has been working behind the scenes with the game developers of big eSports games like PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, Overwatch, and Dota 2 to offer not just more performance, but smoother performance and more responsive gaming.

The company has compared their older RSAE 17.12.1 drivers against the new RSAE 18.3.1 drivers that include the Project ReSX improvements, where the performance of Battlegrounds increases by 11%, and between 3-6% for Overwatch and Dota 2, respectively.

EVGA has just changed its RMA procedure, where the old "Guest RMA" option to return a graphics card is over and done with, and now the company requires that you register products before you send them back.

The older Guest RMA option was good because it meant that if someone purchased an EVGA graphics card second hand, they could still RMA the card even if the original owner had registered their card. EVGA will now require that GeForce GTX owners register their card and provide the company with their name, address, phone number, and email address to create an EVGA account to register their card.

Once this is done, the graphics card you've just purchased is registered to you alone.

NVIDIA will kick off its GPU Technology Conference event later this month, with NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang giving his annual GTC keynote address on March 27 at 9AM PST.

There will be over 8000 people across the GPU and AI industries, as well as virtually everything in between with the likes of Amazon, BMW, Ford, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, Pixar, Toyota, Walt Disney, and so many more. GTC is where we should expect to receive a detailing on NVIDIA's new Turing GPU architecture, and my sources have said we'll see a new GeForce graphics card as well. I still don't think we will, but if my sources are correct this GTC will be the biggest one yet.

Speaking of the biggest one yet, with over 8000 people attending (myself included) there will be some new details revealed on just how the advancements in AI are getting, especially thanks to NVIDIA's various technologies powering this change.

With tens of millions of gamers using Steam daily, it's always interesting to see just how many gamers use NVIDIA or AMD graphics cards, and the same for whether they use AMD or Intel processors.

According to Steam's new February 2018 hardware survey, NVIDIA and Intel utterly dominate gamers' PCs. A huge 85.3% of Steam gamers use an NVIDIA GeForce graphics card while just 8.9% of gamers use an AMD Radeon. AMD has nearly the same percentage of the CPU market with just 9.1% of gamers using AMD processors while a huge 90.88% use Intel CPUs.

The most popular graphics card used on Steam is NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1060, which is followed by three more GeForce cards: the GTX 750 Ti, GTX 960, and GTX 1050 Ti.

I've been getting ahead of NVIDIA's next-gen graphics card reveal with some exclusive stories and pondering, but with sources revealing to me exclusively that NVIDIA would launch the GeForce GTX 20 series at GTC in May, these thoughts are ramping up.

NVIDIA's current flagship GeForce GTX 1080 Ti is still over $1200 on Amazon, and with news that graphics card prices will not get better this year (right through to Q3 2018), what could NVIDIA price their next-gen GTX 20 series at? $1499. Yeah, freaking $1499.

Think about it.