Graphics Cards - Page 229

GDC 2016 - Just as I'm getting ready to leave my Airbnb accommodation and pick up my GDC pass, and then later in the afternoon head to AMD's Capsaicin event - the company will reportedly be teasing its Polaris 10 GPU at the event, running on a SteamVR benchmark.

The company will be unveiling its new Radeon Pro Duo video card during the event, with it based on two Fiji GPUs offering 12TFlops of performance - making it the perfect card for VR and 4K gaming. AMD will be using the next-gen Polaris 10 GPU running on Valve's Aperture Science Robot Repair which will be powered by the HTC Vive Pre headset.

Polaris 10 looks like the same GPU showed off at CES 2016 and the RTG event in Sonoma in December, which will compete against the likes of GeForce GTX 950. The Polaris 10 will be an entry-level/mainstream part based on the 14nm FinFET process with GCN 4.0 enhancements. As for availability, it should launch in mid-2016 right around the time of Computex - so expect plenty of new entry-level/mainstream laptops to be powered by Polaris 10.

GALAX has just announced their latest member of the Hall of Fame lineup, with the new GeForce GTX 980 Ti HOF GOC. The new GTX 980 Ti HOF GOC competes against the likes of EVGA's GTX 980 Ti Kingpin which has 14+3 phase power, and against MSI's GTX 980 Ti Lightning with a 12+3+1 power design.

GALAX has provided 3 x 8-pin PCIe power connectors, which can consume a total of 525W of power - for the serious enthusiasts and overclockers out there. The card features a dual-slot design, with two fans to keep it cool. It features a beautiful white theme, with the card being longer than usual cards - so it can handle the two large 10cm fans that keep the GM200 core and VRMs nice and cool.

The heat sink contains five heat pipes that keep the card cool, which are hidden under a new HOF-branded cooler shroud. The GALAX GeForce GTX 980 Ti HOF GOC has a GPU clock of 1203MHz, with a Boost Clock of 1304MHz, with the 6GB of GDDR5 RAM not overclocked at all.

When the rumors first started flying about NVIDIA's next-gen video cards, I was one of the first to say that the mid-range cards would not be using the super-fast HBM2 VRAM, but they would use GDDR5 (and it was later revealed, GDDR5X was on its way). Well now we're here again, with rumors on NVIDIA's purported GeForce GTX 1080.

The GeForce GTX 1080 will be built from the GP104 GPU that NVIDIA should unveil at its GPU Technology Conference in April, where it should rock 8GB of GDDR5X. The new GDDR5X standard is capable of 14Gbps of bandwidth, compared to just 10Gbps from the current GDDR5 technology. We should expect the GeForce GTX 1080 to be unveiled next month, with a shipping date of somewhere in May/June.

ASUS has just unveiled their new GeForce GTX 980 Ti STRIX Gaming Ice video card, something that is water cooled courtesy of a huge water block from Bitspower.

The new GeForce GTX 980 Ti STRIX Gaming Ice from ASUS features the usual GM200 GPU with 2816 CUDA cores, 176 TMUs and 96 ROPs - the GPU is clocked at 1216MHz with a Boost Clock of 1317MHz. There are two profiles on the card, with the gaming profile clocking the GTX 980 TI STRIX Gaming Ice at 1190MHz with the Boost hitting 1291MHz.

When the ASUS GeForce GTX 980 TI STRIX Gaming Ice is in its gaming mode, it will use slightly less power, but in OC mode it will suck down everything it can from the huge 14-phase PWM design. The power consumed by the card is courtesy of 2 x 8-pin PCIe power connectors, which will let the card consume as much power as it requires in OC mode. We have the usual 6GB of GDDR5 RAM which is clocked at 7.2GHz compared to the stock 7Ghz on most other brands. This provides the card with 345.6GB/sec of memory bandwidth.

We all want to be able to game on our laptops, even if we don't necessarily admit it readily. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to fire up one of our favorite games for a quick spin when we're bored in a hotel room. It's possible, and gaming laptops exist that are both powerful and also not that massive, but they too are still limited in their abilities. And mobile GPU's aren't exactly the most powerful chips even if they can provide a good framerate. You can upgrade them, but an MXM module is far more expensive than a typical GPU. It's a problem that really wasn't being asked, but the solution to that might

AMD is introducing their XConnect technology that allows any laptop with Thunderbolt 3 to be able to have a discrete GPU connected to it. And there's a huge market for thin and light laptops out there because they're far more convenient to lug around. External graphics is actually a sound idea, too. When traveling, the external enclosure can be completely separate and safely ensconced in another piece of luggage completely, setup only when you're at your destination or when you really absolutely must have that extra GPU power, and AMD is the first to bring you this power. Plug-and-play GPU's are finally here, and they don't require a reboot anymore.

And they've done this by partnering with Razer and Thunderbolt in order to do this. Their innovations in allowing for graphics information to be passed via this interface isn't a closed-source method, either. They're staying true to their GPUOpen initiative and pushing their innovations out to be available to everyone. That means that yes, NVIDIA, can make use of their plug and play GPU technology.

AMD has just released its new Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.3 drivers, which include a bunch of new features, optimizations and more. The new drivers from AMD also include support for Hitman, which launches on March 11.

The Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.3 drivers include performance improvements and a Crossfire profile for Hitman, as well as an updated Crossfire profile for The Park. We also have performance improvements for Rise of the Tomb Raider (16% improvement on Fiji-based cards), Gears of War Ultimate Edition (which is up a huge 60% on Fiji hardware, and even 44% on R9 380 series cards).

The 16.3 release also has AMD providing full support for Vulkan's initial release, which supports compatible GPUs to make good use of a low-overhead API in supported games and applications. There are some new features with the 16.3 release, including per-game display scaling, support for two-display Eyefinity configurations, as well as the ability to disable some of the power efficiency optimizations through a 'Power Efficiency Toggle' on Radeon 300 and Fury X series GPUs.

As we inch closer to the Game Developers Conference next week, and NVIDIA's own GPU Technology Conference in the first week of April, we're hearing more on NVIDIA's next-gen Pascal-based video cards.

According to a listing on the Zauba database, there are four different variants that we could see shown off in the very near future. They're priced at $600, $700, $900 and $1100 - where I think the $900 and $1100 cards could be Pascal-based GeForce GTX Titan X successors. I think we'll see a consumer-orientated card with 16GB of HBM2, while there'll be a higher-end Titan X successor with 32GB of HBM2 - remember, that HBM2 provides up to 1024GB/sec of memory bandwidth, up from the 334GB/sec on the 384-bit memory bus on the GTX 980 Ti and Titan X.

NVIDIA co-founder and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang kicks off his opening keynote to GTC on April 5, where we should be introduced to a Pascal video card at the time. I can barely contain my excitement, as by then we'll be introduced to something "spicy" from AMD, and not even two weeks later NVIDIA will come out stomping with Pascal.

AMD will be teasing their next-gen Polaris architecture, the Radeon R9 Fury X2, and latest software improvements for Radeon video cards during the Game Developers Conference next week - but, there's a larger event that I feel AMD will be shining a spotlight on - its Capsaicin party, in San Fransisco on March 14, and we will be there - but now you can join us, through a live webcast!

AMD has announced that there will be a live webcast of the Capsaicin event, where the company will be showcasing the latest innovations from the Radeon Technologies Group. RTG Marketing Director Chris Hook posted on Twitter that they will be showing off some very hot and spicy new innovations during GDC 2016.

Last year, AMD announced their LiquidVR software program during GDC 2015, but this event is called "Capsaicin", which is a marquee developer and press event hosted by RTG's Senior VP and Chief Architect Raja Koduri. We will be there in person, bringing you everything live from the event.

Both sides of the video cards war will be using HBM2 (High Bandwidth Memory) with the new super-fast HBM2 going into mass production later this year, kicking off with 4GB HBM2 dies in Q3 2016, followed up by 8GB HBM2 dies in Q4, reports Golem.de.

With AMD expected to unveil its new Polaris architecture in more detail at GDC next week, and NVIDIA following up with its reveal of Pascal at its own GPU Technology Conference in early April, the GPU scene is heating up. SK Hynix setting off its 4GB HBM2 die mass production in Q3 2016 signifies when the next-gen GPUs will launch, where I think we'll see a launch in June/July and availability in the months proceeding their launch.

The professional-orientated next-gen cards will require the 8GB HBM2 dies to get things kicked off in a higher fashion, as that's when we'll see 32GB of HBM2 on a video card - and by just typing that, there's feelings in my body that I've never felt before. 32GB of HBM2? Freakin' incredible, isn't it? We will be at both GDC and GTC, so expect some quick and plentiful coverage from both events in the coming weeks.

Users are reporting some strange issues when they try to install NVIDIA's latest WHQL drivers, version 364.47. When installing over a previous driver version you might experience a crash while trying to install them, resulting in a black screen. You won't be able to boot properly into Windows afterward, either.

Quickly after they were released several users took to the feedback thread to share their disdain for the new driver. Once installed, you'll have to boot into safe mode in order to uninstall the drivers. Once completely removed, however, they should reinstall without issue.

The new driver is supposed to bring performance improvements to Ashes of the Singularity, The Division, Hitman, Need for Speed and Rise of the Tomb Raider. It also adds support for the only Vulkan game available right now, The Talos Principle.

NVIDIA is reportedly preparing a big gaming notebook push for Computex 2016, which kicks off in June in Taipei. According to SweClockers, NVIDIA will be launching their new Pascal-based mobile GPU at the show, with a big focus on portable Pascal-powered gaming notebooks.

Computex 2016 starts on May 31, and runs through to June 4. We should expect NVIDIA to show something off during the show, with a bigger event to showcase Pascal sometime either slightly before Computex, or in the weeks after. NVIDIA focusing on the gaming notebook market makes sense, as they've made a huge dent in the market recently - as they noted a huge 34.2% increase in mobile GPU shipments in the last quarter.

NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 950 was already a pretty damn efficient video card, but with a more efficient GTX 950 rumored to be in the works, ASUS seems to be the first AIB partner with a super-efficient GTX 950.

ASUS has introduced a new GTX 950, which features the same GM206 core with 786 CUDA cores, 64 TMUs and 32 ROPs. This is an NVIDIA reference design card with 2GB of GDDR5 @ 6.6GHz on a 128-bit memory bus, but the GPU and Boost clocks have been changed. The reference GTX 950 from NVIDIA has a GPU clock of 1024MHz versus the 1051MHz on the ASUS GTX 950, while the Boost clock is the same 1188MHz on both variants.

The difference between NVIDIA's reference board and the new ASUS GTX 950 is that the former requires a 6-pin PCIe power connector and has a TDP of 90W while the new ASUS GTX 950 requires no PCIe power connector, and has a TDP of just 75W (the maximum power provided by the PCIe 3.0 x16 port). ASUS does splash in some overclocking profiles, with "OC Mode" and "Gaming Mode" on the new GTX 950 video card. Gaming Mode has a default GPU clock of 1026MHz and 1190MHz Boost while the OC Mode pushes it up to 1051MHz.

AMD's new Radeon Technologies Group will be hosting an AMA on Reddit, where the company will talk about its Fury X2, plans for VR, DirectX 12 and so much more.

In the AMD subreddit, it was teased: "The first reddit AMD Q&A/AMA is happening soon. Right here. The Q&A is open to all topics dealing with anything under the Radeon Technologies Group (the Radeon division of AMD). Some big secrets could be unveiled this Thursday, so bring your best questions! Likely topics of discussion will most likely include Vulkan, FreeSync, GPUOpen, Polaris, Fury X2, VR, DirectX 12, and anything else you're curious about. Don't ask about Zen. It's still a super secret".

The AMA will take place right here, today (March 3) at 10AM-5PM central time.

AMD is being very forward about teasing what Roy Taylor calls 'the world's best VR solution' - this time partnering with the Associated Press, and sending them a bunch of dual-GPU powered VR gaming machines. It was only a few days ago when we got our first real look at the R9 Fury X2 inside of the Falcon Northwest Tiki gaming PC.

Roy Taylor took to his personal Facebook and Twitter accounts, saying: "Thanks Wallace Santos for his partnership in shipping the world's best #VR solution to the #AssociatedPress". We still don't know what's inside, but I'm sure it's AMD's dual-GPU based on the Fiji architecture - currently known (or at least, it should be called) the Radeon R9 Fury X2. It's also gone by codename Gemini, which also sounds super-awesome.

AMD is set to "spice things up" at the Game Developers Conference on March 14, where we might see either the dual-GPU in action or Polaris.

Just in time for the launch of Far Cry Primal and Gears of War: Ultimate Edition on the PC, which launched just earlier today, NVIDIA has a Game Ready Driver ready and available to help optimize the experience.

Driver 362.00 is was released earlier this morning as well and provides some nice stability and performance enhancements that make Gears of War: Ultimate Edition especially. Gears, unfortunately, is only playable on NVIDIA hardware at the moment due to some strange occurrences and performance issues happening on AMD hardware.

Optimizations have been made for Far cry Primal, Gears of War: Ultimate Edition and for the newest Dying Light update. That update adds a few new graphics options that you can toy with.

One of the more impressive things we saw at CES earlier this year was the external GPU docking solution for the new Razer Blade Stealth, which has the ability of taking an external GPU. The technology used is impressive, with it being powered by Thunderbolt 3.

Well, external graphics are all the rage right now with Alienware's Graphics Amplifier, and MSI's Gaming Dock resulting in great external GPU power solutions, for your not-so-great gaming laptop. Jason Evangelho from Forbes is reporting that AMD's Robert Hallock teased on Facebook that an external video card solution could be on the way, with Hallock reiterating that ultra-thin notebooks are becoming more and more popular, especially when compared to the huge gaming notebooks on the market with seriously powerful mobile GPU solutions.

Hallock said: "I also bet there's a bunch of gamers out there who, as they get into their 30s and 40s, wouldn't mind condensing their entire computing life down into one device that does it all. I ALSO bet that some people wouldn't mind giving up an mITX LAN rig if their notebook had the potential to serve that role with gusto". External GPU solutions aren't a possible future, they are the future for laptops. Hallock added: "External GPUs are the answer. External GPUs with standardized connectors, cables, drivers, plug'n'play, OS support, etc. More info very soon".

Discrete GPU shipments increased in Q4 2015, but were down 9% from 2014 - so how were notebook discrete GPU shipments? Well, NVIDIA saw an increase of notebook discrete GPU shipments - an increase of 34.2% - a considerable number.

Why the increase? Thanks to the industry's fastest mobility GPU - the GeForce GTX 980. NVIDIA's notebook-based GeForce GTX 980 was launched in September 2015 and has been powering the fastest gaming notebooks since. The GTX 980 is capable of 1080p 60FPS without a problem, and even 1440p and 4K gaming. The Maxwell-powered GPU is the same technology found on the desktop GTX 980, but NVIDIA did considerable work to shrink the PCB and VRMs down to fit it into a notebook - and obviously, it has been met with great success.

We haven't seen a new GPU release in over 6 months, but GPU shipments are quite healthy. According to the latest data from Jon Peddie Research, overall GPU shipments increased 2.4% in Q4 2015 compared to the previous quarter. Why the increase? Well, new games were released in the last three months of 2015, but with next-gen GPUs only months away, consumers are holding back their wallets.

AMD noticed a 5.16% increase quarter-to-quarter while competitor NVIDIA had an 8.41% increase, leaving Intel with a smaller 0.73% increase. The attach rate of GPUs for Q4 2015 was 139%, which was up 0.59% from the previous quarter while discrete GPUs were in 31.28% of all PCs - a number that's up 1.34%. The entire PC market increased 2.01% quarter-to-quarter, but decreased 10.27% year-to-year.

We've been waiting for AMD to show off its Radeon R9 Fury X2 in the flesh, and now we seem to have seen the first real photo of AMD's dual-GPU based on the Fiji architecture, powered by HBM.

AMD's Roy Taylor posted a picture of the Tiki PC, built by Falcon Northwest, to his Facebook page. Taylor teased "another peak at the world's best developer box for VR and DX12". We can see the R9 Fury X2 (if that's what AMD names it, Gemini has also been teased) is a much longer card than the R9 Fury X, with the cooler built-in like the R9 Nano.

It looks like the R9 Fury X2 is just a super-long R9 Nano - but with twice the horsepower. We should expect the R9 Fury X2 to have a 300W TDP, but with Fiji's thermal throttling, we shouldn't expect the card to be running too hot - hence why we're seeing AMD not use a watercooler like they did on the R9 Fury X.

I've already reported that NVIDIA would unveil its new Pascal-based Titan X successor at its GPU Technology Conference in early April, but we should expect a "surprise" Pascal demo at GTC according to the new rumors.

NVIDIA co-founder and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang will be kicking off his usual opening keynote on April 5 at 9AM PST, where we should be greeted by the next-gen GeForce GTX Titan X, based on the Pascal architecture. Now, NVIDIA is set to hit the 16nm process with Pascal, as well as using HBM2 - so we might see the Titan X successor unveiled, but not launched at GTC. When will NVIDIA launch the Pascal-based Titan X successor? According to the rumors, sometime around June - just like it did with the GTX 980 Ti last year.