Graphics Cards - Page 217

MSI will be gracing the world with no less than 5 custom GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics cards over the next few months, and before we jump into those models - I have a big question I need answered: where the hell are the Lightning cards, MSI? I want the GTX 1080 Lightning, and GTX 1080 Ti Lightning cards.

MSI have released previous generation cards with Lightning Edition cards, and they were usually one of the best SKUs of that generation on the market. Many people, including myself, have waited for MSI to unveil the GeForce GTX 1080 Lightning - and now that we're seeing the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti enter the market, my question on where the Lightning Edition cards are is stronger than ever. MSI... where are they? Can we have them soon? The last one we saw was MSI's GeForce GTX 980 Ti Lightning, which was one of the best GTX 980 Ti cards ever.

Now, onto MSI's custom GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics cards: starting with the higher-end Gaming X, which we have the SeaHawk EK, SeaHawk, Armor, and Aero brands coming soon.

EVGA is on a winning streak today with in-house overclocker 'Kingpin' hitting 3GHz+ on the EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition, but now the company has just unleashed more details on three of its upcoming custom GTX 1080 Ti graphics cards.

EVGA will have 3 different models of custom GeForce GTX 1080 Ti cards, with the GTX 1080 Ti SC, GTX 1080 Ti SC2, and GTX 1080 Ti FTW graphics cards.

The GTX 1080 Ti FTW3 Gaming will have its clocks at 1569/1683MHz, with 8+8-pin PCIe power connectors, and a 10+2-phase design - it'll also be the most customized GTX 1080 Ti card from EVGA.

Well... I don't even know what to say. The previous world record on the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti saw the GPU hitting speeds of over 2.5GHz - but now, legendary overclocker Kingpin - who seems to not sleep, or at least overclocks GPUs in his sleep - has hit a mind blowing 3GHz on the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition.

Kingpin used LN2 to keep the GPU cool enough for it to clock past 3GHz, hitting 3024MHz on the dot - the pixel fillrate throughput reaches 229.3 GPixel/s and texture fillrate throughput of 583.7 GTexel/s.

The new 3024MHz GPU clock on the overclocked GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition also marks a new record for the Pascal architecture, which had previously been pushed to 3012MHz on the GTX 1060.

A few days ago we reported that multi-GPU support in Vulkan was exclusive to Windows 10, but Khonos Group has reiterated that this isn't true - and that multi-GPU support under Vulkan will work with Windows 7, Windows 10, and Linux.

Khronos Group explains: "Some of the Khronos GDC slideware mentioned that for Vulkan multi-GPU functionality, Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) must be in Linked Display Adapter (LDA) mode. That was not a very clear statement that has caused some confusion. And so it is worth clarifying that:"

They continued: "Khronos always strives to make its' specifications as cross platform as possible. Of course, what products ship on which OS is up to the implementers of each specification, but Khronos is already aware of vendor plans to ship multi-GPU functionality on platforms other than Windows 10, including Linux".

The latest rumors on AMD's upcoming Radeon RX Vega is that there will be 7 different SKUs on offer, something that was spotted by Phoronix, inside of the new Linux driver released by AMD.

In the first 100 patches released, the first Vega support was based on the GFX9 architecture, which is very different to GFX8 - or the Polaris architecture. The new architecture required around 40,000 new lines of code, something that included: "new video BIOS interface, new hardware intellectual property, support for video decode using UVD (UVD 7.0), support for video encode using VCE (VCE 4.0), support for 3D via RadeonSI, power management, full display support using DC, and support for SR-IOV virtualization".

The new patches include 7 new Vega IDs, which will include Radeon Instinct and Radeon PRO products based on the Vega architecture. As for the IDs, this is what we have:

We've been hearing rumbles of the Radeon RX 500 series for a while, but now we're getting more specific news on what GPU the refresh will use. We're still looking at the Polaris GPU architecture, but they're using a new node process, known as 14LPE and 14LPP.

AMD shifting its new Radeon RX 500 series to the 14LPE/14LPP nodes won't be the same as the larger shift from 28nm to 14nm FinFET, but it will be a nice little bump. Inside of the Radeon RX 580, we're now expecting the higher-clocked Polaris 20 XTX GPU, with 2304 stream processors, 144 TMUs, and 32 ROPs with 8GB of GDDR5 RAM at 8Gbps.

NVIDIA owns the high-end market right now with its new GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, which is already selling out before all of the AIB partners have even started releasing their custom GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics cards, and now we have one of the most unique ones yet.

Colorful has started teasing its new GeForce GTX 1080 Ti iGame graphics card, which features an LCD display on the top which displays GPU clock speeds - and I'm sure more details like GPU/RAM temps, and hopefully more.

It looks like Colorful are requiring 8+8-pin PCIe power connectors on the GTX 1080 Ti iGame, and we can see that it has a huge - and what I'm sure will be a kick ass cooler.

AMD's upcoming Radeon RX Vega is my most anticipated graphics card of 2017, so the few teases we've had of the card in the last 24 hours have been beyond exciting.

The very first look at the Radeon RX Vega graphics card showed us the beautiful white backplate with red accents, and that awesome Vega branding.

Out of all of the custom GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics cards on the way, one of the most exciting for me is the MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Gaming X 11G - something we've just go an exclusive look at. We secured this shot of the card from an industry source.

From the first shot, we can see that MSI hasn't done much to the physical style of the GTX 1080 Ti Gaming X 11G compared to the GTX 1080 Gaming X 8G, except that the 'GeForce GTX' branding is much more apparent here - and we have 8+8-pin PCIe power connectors.

I can see a DVI port on the card as well, so it's a nice touch that MSI is thinking of the gamers with DVI displays out there. This is all we have for now, but what do you think of MSI's upcoming GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Gaming X 11G? Is this the GTX 1080 Ti for you?

Khronos Group has the technology and gaming worlds excited over its Vulkan API, which is a low-level API that provides more performance from your graphics card in games that utilize the API - like DOOM.

But after their GDC 2017 slides were looked over, native multi-GPU support for NVIDIA GeForce SLI and AMD Radeon CrossFire setups now require WDDM to be set to "linked display adapter mode", something that is exclusive to Windows 10. This means that Vulkan and its multi-GPU goodness is locked to Windows 10, eyeing off Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 users with multi-GPUs, with a striking glare.

Game developers have to add multi-GPU, DX12, and/or Vulkan support in manually - so this isn't too much of a surprise, but whatever Khronos, Microsoft, NVIDIA, or AMD can do to make game developers' lives easier for multi-GPU goodness, they should be doing. This kind of feels like a step backwards.

AMD hosted its technology summit in Beijing, China covering its new Ryzen 5 processor launch - with AMD CEO Lisa Su taking the stage to unveil the new price/performance champions in the Ryzen family - but there was a very slight, but very exciting tease of Radeon RX Vega.

As you can see from these images, the Radeon RX Vega reference design sports a super-slick white/red/black style that I'm really loving - but the video was shown to select journalists, so we don't know how real it is. This could be an elaborate fake, and if it is - they did a good job, if it's not - AMD has an awesome looking next-gen graphics card on its hands.

AMD's upcoming Radeon RX Vega has a beautiful Vega logo on the back, with a GPU Tach LED load indicator that will be super useful - the usual RADEON branding on top with red LEDs, and a dip-switch to change the color of the LEDs... awesome.

AMD Radeon graphics card owners will want to jump onto the new Radeon Software Crimson ReLive 17.3.2 beta drivers, with support for the soon-to-be released Mass Effect: Andromeda.

There's also a 12% performance improvement for Radeon RX 480 graphics card owners compared to previous driver releases. You can grab the new AMD Radeon Software Crimson ReLive 17.3.2 beta drivers right here.

Known Issues

It shouldn't be too surprising at this point, but NVIDIA's new GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition graphics cards are sold out already - with NVIDIA seeing unprecedented demand for its $699 graphics card. This is both great news, and bad news.

First: the great side of it - gamers are starving for a super high-end graphics card, and NVIDIA over delivered with the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti. We have similar performance to the Titan X which costs $1200, but NVIDIA crammed it all into the $699 graphics card that became the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti. Demand is far exceeding the supply of GTX 1080 Ti graphics cards, with most e-tailers and retailers either having no stock, or quickly running out. New stock isn't expected until March 25, which is 10 days away.

The bad side of it: NVIDIA can't make enough GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition cards to keep up with demand, so what does this mean for AIB partners and their custom GTX 1080 Ti cards? This will mean we'll be waiting a little longer for the custom GTX 1080 Ti, possibly waiting until the end of April... which is 6 weeks away. That's a very long time in the gaming world, or in any sense - and the GTX 1080 Ti is so good that people want it now, not later.

AMD is expected to launch its new Radeon RX 500 series graphics cards next month, led by the Radeon RX 580 - based on the Polaris 10, alongside the RX 570 - also based on Polaris 10.

The new Radeon RX 580 and RX 570 will rock higher clock speeds than their RX 480 and RX 470 counterparts, but we shouldn't expect anything over the top with the RX 500 apart from some tweaks, this is a rebrand of the RX 400 series. But, the process has matured over the last 12 months, so AMD could squeeze some power efficiency and higher clocks without creating too much heat from the RX 500 series.

AMD's flagship Radeon RX 580 graphics card is expected to have its GPU clocked at 1340MHz under boost, offering up 6.17TFLOPs of compute performance. 8GB of GDDR5 will be used, at 8Gbps on a 256-bit memory bus. AMD is expeccted to launch the RX 580 at just $199, which will really heat up the mainstream graphics card market.

NVIDIA's new GeForce GTX 1080 Ti is the best graphics card on the market - yep, I recommend it over the Titan X which costs $1200 but barely outperforms the GTX 1080 Ti that costs $699 - and now, we have a new 3DMark Time Spy world record.

Legendary overclocker 'Kingpin' used an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition under LN2, hitting a huge 2.5GHz, with the 11GB of GDDR5X memory clocked from 11Gbps to 12.5Gbps. The memory being overclocked to 12.5Gbps is a big deal, as we're looking at over 500GB/sec of memory bandwidth - all without using the next-gen HBM2 standard that AMD will be using on their upcoming Radeon RX Vega graphics cards.

The overclock in question: with Kingpin using an Intel Core i7-6950X processor overclocked to 5.1GHz, EVGA X99 motherboard and one of EVGA's GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition graphics cards.

NVIDIA just launched its Pascal-based GeForce GTX 1080 Ti with a huge performance crown earned at $699, and now we're hearing that TSMC is taking orders for next-gen HPC (high-performance computing) chips for AI applications from both NVIDIA, and Qualcomm.

The new report is coming from DigiTimes, which reports: "TSMC will fabricate NVIDIA's next generation Volta GPU using a 12nm process, said the paper, which added that the Volta GPU will be paired with NVIDIA's Xavier supercomputer chips for self-driving car applications".

NVIDIA is currently having TSMC produce its 256 core Pascal-based GPU and dual-core Denver 2 CPUs for their recent Jetson TX2 supercomputing platform, all on the 16nm process. NVIDIA's next big leap will be to Volta, on the smaller 12nm node - where things will really get interesting.

MSI has just unveiled their range of upcoming GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics cards, with 5 new cards in the line up - being led by the Gaming X series, and flanked by the Armor and SeaHawk EK series of cards.

MSI will be changing the look of its upcoming GeForce GTX 1080 Aero - with a slicker black/green style, while the GTX 1080 Ti Gaming X should arrive just how we expected it with the black/red color scheme and aggressively styled card. To the right we have what looks like a beautiful GTX 1080 SeaHawk EK graphics card that features a waterblock, and MSI's first custom PCB for Big Pascal. To the right, we have the normal GTX 1080 Ti SeaHawk.

We should expect most of these cards coming soon, so prepare for an onslaught of GTX 1080 Ti reviews.

AMD would've been shaken to the core over the beyond impressive GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, but could they be playing defensive with their one-two punch with Ryzen CPUs now out - and the upcoming Radeon RX Vega to be lurking as a monster?

According to the latest benchmarks, Radeon RX Vega has been spotted with 4096 stream processors and 8GB of HBM2 on a 2048-bit memory bus (half that of the 4096-bit memory bus on the Fury X, so we could be looking at 'Little Vega'). The benchmarks teases some impressive performance, with the SiSoft benchmark showing 9414Mpix/s of half-float GP compute performance - versus 7551Mpix/s on the GTX 1080.

The same dominance is there - right through to double-float GP compute performance on this version of RX Vega with 806Mpix/s compared to the GTX 1080 and its 565Mpix/s in comparison.

With each passing GeForce GTX series of graphics cards, there's always a few to look out for in the absolute high-end: with ZOTAC's upcoming GeForce GTX 1080 Ti AMP Extreme Edition graphics card being one of those.

ZOTAC will be delivering its highly custom, triple-fan GTX 1080 Ti AMP Extreme Edition with a triple-slot design, with a massively packed aluminum fin array heat sink that features five copper-based heat pipes. ZOTAC's signature metallic ExoArmor shroud and backplate sport LEDs, so we can expect some lucious looks coming from this card.

ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1080 Ti AMP Extreme Edition Features:

NVIDIA unleashed a virtually perfect high-end/enthusiast graphics card with the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition, but the new GeForce 378.78 WHQL drivers are an important step, too.

NVIDIA says that there are over 500 engineering years of work in the new GeForce 378.78 WHQL drivers, with DX12 performance boosts in many games - with up to 33% more performance on offer for Rise of the Tomb Raider. 368.25 drivers were used as a comparison, with the following performance improvements in these games: