Graphics Cards - Page 213

CES 2017 - AMD hasn't talked about its upcoming Radeon RX 500 series graphics cards just yet, but that doesn't mean its partners aren't putting the new GPUs in their products yet - like Samsung, during CES.

Samsung was teasing its Odyssey series of notebooks at CES, with options of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 and AMD Radeon RX 570. There is an option for the RX 570 with 4GB or 8GB and follows up with Lenovo's recent Y520 featuring the Radeon RX 500 series mobility graphics.

It looks the Radeon RX 500 series is a rebranding of the Radeon RX 400 series cards, with someone visiting AMD's booth at CES and writing on Reddit: "The card IS an OEM version of the 470. I asked an AMD rep at their booth about it. The 500 series is an OEM rebadge of the 400 series, like how the 8000 series was to the 7000 series".

Some expected it during CES, some expected it before - but AMD stole the GPU show at CES with its big Vega unveiling event - but the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti was nowhere to be seen.

The current rumor has NVIDIA revealing the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti on March 10, at PAX East. I've had my own sources say something similar, with "it's coming very soon". The source of the PAX East rumor is an NVIDIA AIB partner employee, and with a release of the GTX 1080 Ti at PAX East, it could be a big deal with an event for gamers, about gaming.

You should be able to buy GTX 1080 Ti graphics cards from all major AIB partners at launch, so don't worry about it being a limited launch with only Founders Edition cards. NVIDIA knows the GTX 1080 Ti is going to be a popular card no matter the cost, and gamers will be throwing down their hard earned cash instantly.

CES 2017 - We had a few meetings, discussions, drinks and amazing chats with AMD and both their Ryzen and Radeon teams at CES 2017 - but LinusTechTips actually had some hands-on time with their next-gen Vega graphics card. Check out the video below.

We don't get any new information from the video, but it's great to see it in person for once. AMD's prototype has a USB 3.0 connector on it so that hardware and software developers can take a bunch of data directly from the card.

During AMD's recent Tech Summit 2016 in Sonoma, CA - I was the first in the world to put my hand behind the card to see the heat being pushed out... and it's a lot. Like, a damn lot. But, as I've said previously - this is a pre-production, super beyond early version of the card.

There have been rumors of the technical specifications of Vega 10 before, but VideoCardz are reporting again about the old slide from September and "what we know today".

This is great, as it can show how much the rumors nearly 6 months ago were pretty solid - so let's go over it again. Vega 10 will rock its 14nm GPU goodness, with 64 compute units (which are now called NCU). Vega 10 will consume up to 225W of power, and will be released in the first half of this year.

We should see two variants, one with 8GB of HBM2, and another higher-end card with 16GB of HBM2 - both offering 512GB/sec of memory bandwidth.

CES 2017 - ZOTAC's new GeForce GTX 1080 Mini is mighty impressive for its size, but ZOTAC's upcoming external graphics dock was another thing that surprised me at CES.

The new external graphics dock supports one graphics card at up to 13 inches in length, so you'll have no issues with nearly any card you can throw inside - and it supports up to 3-slot width cards, so even the chunky ones are fine, too.

We have 3 x USB 3.0 connections, 1 x quick charge 3.0 port, 1 x Thunderbolt 3 (Type-C connector), LED lighting, and a 400W built-in PSU. We should see it released before Computex in June, and as for pricing, hopefully under $200.

CES 2017 - ZOTAC has their new GeForce GTX 1080 Mini on display at CES 2017, showing off the super-small, but very powerful graphics card in all its glory.

ZOTAC has used a custom PCB for the GTX 1080 Mini, their awesome cooling technology as always, and a single 8-pin PCIe power connector.

The backplate has small holes that will let some of the heat out and away from the PCB, and the heat sink itself runs off the end of the card - and still, it's small.

CES 2017 - AMD's unannounced Radeon RX 500 series graphics cards have made a surprise appearance here at CES, with Lenovo unveiling their new Y520 laptop that can be optioned with NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1050, GTX 1050 Ti... or the Radeon RX 560M with up to 4GB of RAM.

It was most likely a mistake on Lenovo's part - because none of these graphics cards have been unveiled yet, but we should expect the Radeon RX 500 series part in question - with the Radeon RX 560M in question, possibly being a rebranded RX 460M as VideoCardz calls it.

AMD could use a new Polaris 12 GPU as well, but I'm taking away from this is that it's a lower-end SKU that won't be a Vega part. This means the RX 500 series should include a larger stack of cards, leaving the Vega cards to be branded as just that - Radeon Vega, like the Radeon R9 Fury line of cards from 2015.

If there's one thing that AMD has nailed throughout 2015 and 2016, it was pushing its FreeSync technology into 121 monitors on the market - nearly 5x that of its competitor in G-Sync from NVIDIA. But now AMD has stepped up the monitor refresh technology game with the announcement of FreeSync 2.

FreeSync has been great, offering up to 144Hz refresh smoothed out with FreeSync on 2560x1440 monitors - and even 100Hz on the latest 3440x1440 monitors on the market.

There are now 121 monitors with FreeSync technology inside, and AMD has 20 partners working on Radeon FreeSync monitors, while only 8 monitor partners work with NVIDIA.

AMD has released its teaser for their upcoming Vega GPU architecture, something that I saw a few weeks ago during their Tech Summit 2016 event - check it out below.

The new 'After the Uprising" video does an extremely good job of continuing the efforts that AMD put into the Radeon Rebellion marketing triumph from last year, but I take a personal spin on it - I consider the drums stream processor cores, and there's a lot of them in the video.

AMD has also launched a new website for all things Vega, which you can find right here at ve.ga - yeah, another nice touch. There's a countdown on the website right now for 3 days and a few hours from now - which is at the start of CES 2017, so expect some big announcements during that time - and keep clicking back here at TT HQ, my article will be waiting for you.

ZOTAC has been keeping some secrets for an unveiling days before CES 2017, with the new GeForce GTX 1080 Mini graphics card - perfect for those blistering fast SFF gaming PCs you want to build.

It has a fully-enabled GP104 GPU with 8GB of GDDR5X at its full 10Gbps bandwidth, with 1620/1759MHz base and boost clocks, respectively. We have 3 x DP 1.4 connectors, 1 x HDMI 2.0b, and 1 x DVI output.

ZOTAC has made totally-new custom PCB with compatible GDDR5X RAM, but we don't know if ZOTAC went with NVIDIA's 5+1-phase VRM, or altered the VRM design. The GeForce GTX 1080 Mini rocks a single 8-pin PCIe power connector, and two SLI-HB bridges. It will consume up to 180W of power, with ZOTAC using a shortened PCB and custom cooler that rocks 2 x fans to keep everything nice and cool.

I wasn't going to write this article, but then I thought it would make for some good discussion at the very least. AMD and NVIDIA have a very big year ahead of them, and in my opinion it'll be the biggest year ever for the GPU giants, but AMD has a distinct advantage overall.

2015 was a massive year for both companies with AMD kicking off the very end of 2014 with the unveiling of its Polaris architecture, and then NVIDIA hit multiple home runs in May with the announcement of its Pascal-based GeForce GTX 10 series. It wasn't long after that when AMD launched its Radeon RX 400 series with three cards: the Radeon RX 460, RX 470, and RX 480.

All three cards did quite well, with the RX 470 representing some excellent value for money for 1080p 60FPS gamers - and even some 1440p gamers. The Radeon RX 480 was the fastest Polaris-based graphics card in the line up, but it couldn't begin to touch NVIDIA's latest GeForce GTX 1070 and GTX 1080. All of this before the unveiling of the new Titan X, which blows away even the GTX 1080 when stressed in 4K gaming and triple-4K display scenarios.

AMD appears to be ringing in the New Year bell a little early this year, with a tease on the official Twitter account for Radeon, with a simple tweet of "New Year. New architecture", teasing its next-gen Vega GPU architecture.

AMD recently held their Tech Summit 2016 event in Sonoma, California - with our first look at a Vega 10-based graphics card with 8GB of HBM2, capable of driving DOOM at 4K 60FPS+ on its highest graphics settings.

It was only a week ago that a Vega 10 GPU of some sort received RRA certification, but so did a 'Polaris 12' graphics chip, too. Performance wise, we should expect Titan X level performance from a Vega 10 graphics card with 8GB of HBM2, and most likely ready to compete against NVIDIA's unannounced and unconfirmed - but teased GeForce GTX 1080 Ti.

ZOTAC has had a strong GeForce GTX 10 series line up in 2016, but they're about to release something SFF gaming PC lovers have wanted for a while: their new GeForce GTX 1070 Mini graphics card.

ZOTAC's upcoming GTX 1070 Mini sports a shorter PCB, and a dual-fan cooler - with ZOTAC's new GTX 1070 Mini featuring a small 17cm custom PCB and their new Ice Storm cooler and Freeze Tech that features 2 x 8mm copper heat pipes that are connected directly to the GPU, with a heat sink that is cooled down by dual 80mm fans.

NVIDIA's reference clocks of 1518/1708MHz for base/boost, respectively are applied - all through a single 8-pin PCIe power connector. There's 8GB of GDDR5 RAM on-board, clocked at 8GHz, while display connectivity is served through 3 x DP, 1 x HDMI 2.0 and 1 x DVI.

AMD is preparing for a massive GPU push in 2017 with their Vega GPU architecture, with our good friends at Fudzilla reporting that there will be "top to bottom designs based on Vega architecture arriving soon".

AMD will utilize HBM2 technology to power its high-end cards that will compete against the likes of NVIDIA's current flagship GeForce GTX 1080 (and possibly even Titan X), as well as the waiting-in-the-wings GeForce GTX 1080 Ti. But the news that AMD will use GDDR5X and GDDR5 on its Vega graphics cards is interesting, something I've been saying for a while now. We've already seen Vega 10 with 8GB of HBM2 running DOOM at 4K 60FPS+ on Ultra/Nightmare settings, which is awesome.

HBM2 is too expensive to use on all Vega graphics cards, and the yields aren't perfect yet - so the use of GDDR5X with its 10Gbps bandwidth makes sense, while GDDR5 is an obvious choice for the lower- and mid-range cards based on the Vega architecture.

We all know that AMD's next-gen Vega 10 GPU is getting closer and closer to becoming a reality, but now both Vega 10 and the upcoming Polaris 12 chip have received RRA certification.

First off: what's this RRA certification? South Korea's National Radio Research Agency is a regulatory body that approves any silicon-based electronic product before it can be pushed out into the consumer market. AMD's upcoming Vega 10 and Polaris 12 GPUs have received RRA certification, which means they're getting much closer to being physical products and not just pre-production boards like we were teased with during the AMD Tech Summit 2016 running DOOM at 4K 60FPS+ on Ultra settings on Vega 10.

So now the game becomes a question of what graphics cards we'll see from Vega 10 and Polaris 12. First off, let's tackle Polaris 12 - which should arrive as a highly tuned Radeon RX 460 which we've been teased about over the last couple of months. AMD stated there would not be a faster GPU under the Polaris family, so don't expect a Radeon RX 490 which blows the hinges off the doors of performance.

AMD has released their new Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition 16.12.2 drivers, taking care of some of those bugs and problems that some Radeon graphics card owners have been complaining about since the ReLive Edition drivers launched.

First off, we have fixes for the flashing and corruption issues found in Battlefield 1 when using Radeon RX 400 series graphics cards in CrossFire, various recording issues, and issues relating to the overlay/toolbar when Frame Rate Target Control is enabled, on the Radeon ReLive Edition drivers. The new driver also takes care of the performance-related issues with Borderless Fullscreen application mode when using FreeSync-enabled monitors.

The new drivers can be downloaded here, with a full list of highlights below:

NVIDIA is wanting to get more people into the PC gaming space, with a tease of something it is calling the PC Gaming Revival Kit - and it includes a graphics card, SSD, PSU, and even a game.

Inside, you'll get an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB graphics card, a 240GB SSD from Corsair, and a 450W semi-modular PSU - as well as a free copy of Gears of War 4. The only thing is, if you purchased all of these products and Gears of War 4 separately, it would be cheaper - NVIDIA is just making it much more convenient to buy the gear in one place, at one time, in a single box.

The upgrade box will cost 399 EUR, which converts to around $415.

GALAX has hit a milestone with its GeForce GTX 1060 HOF GOC used to reach a record breaking 3GHz GPU clock, beating the GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 performance in pixel fill rate - but the company had a surprise for the world at its event.

GALAX teased a single slot GeForce GTX 1070 graphics card, with a slick metallic shroud that has an exposed area on the left of the card that teases its pure copper heat sink. GALAX has equipped the single slot GTX 1070 with a blower-style cooler that pushes the air out of the exhaust vent on the back, with the PCB smaller than the Founders Edition card, and it uses an extended shroud cover.

We can expect dual SLI connectors, 1 x 8-pin PCIe power connector - and display connectivity that consists of 1 x DisplayPort, 1 x HDMI, and 1 x DVI. GALAX is expecting to launch the card in early 2017 with a retail price of around $379.

A few hours ago I wrote about AMD's great success throughout 2016, but it has been both Team Red and Team Green that have exploded this year - with NVIDIA hitting a record high $100.21 per share (at the time of writing).

NVIDIA started the year with its shares at $32.37, but reached $45 or so at the time of the GeForce GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 unveiling in May. But it was on November 10 that NVIDIA stock skyrocketed from $67.77 per share, to $87.97 per share on November 11. Why? NVIDIA released their analyst-beating Q3 2016 results, riding the success of their GTX 10 series graphics cards, dominance in machine learning, AI, deep learning, and more.

And now, NVIDIA stock has reached a record $100.21 per share, with Evercore ISI's CJ Muse expecting NVIDIA shares to reach $120 soon, with machine learning "making more and more use of NVIDIA GPUs". NVIDIA has been pushing into the deep learning market for a couple of years now, unleashing their HBM2-powered Tesla P100 graphics card, powered by the Pascal architecture, during GTC 2016 earlier this year.

When NVIDIA launched the GeForce GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 graphics cards in Texas earlier this year, the company teased that its GP104 GPU could hit 2.1GHz, and that has been true - most samples can run between 1.9GHz and 2.1GHz - but 3GHz? Yes, please.

The GALAX GeForce GTX 1060 HOF GOC was used to hit 3010MHz (3.01GHz) on its Pascal-based GP106 core, with the same card reaching 2.8GHz under LN2 last month, but the 3GHz milestone is a big one. Inside, the GALAX GTX 1060 HOF GOC features 1280 CUDA cores, 6GB of GDDR5 RAM, and a 1620MHz clock that gets boosted to 1847MHz. The 8GB of GDDR5 is clocked at 8GHz, providing 192GB/sec of memory bandwidth.

GALAX provides a TDP of 120W, but includes improved PWM and VRMs that require more power to the card for improved stability and overclocking. But where does it help? At the 3GHz barrier, GPUPI (10M) calculations were just 21.685 seconds, and the overclocked GTX 1060 was able to hit higher texture and pixel fill rates than a GTX 1070, and even beating the pixel fill rate performance of a GTX 1080.