Graphics Cards - Page 229

Computex 2016 - With EVGA debuting its stylish RGB-illuminated SLI bridges for NVIDIA's new Pascal-based video cards, MSI has followed suit with its own 2-way HB SLI bridge.

Unlike its 4-way SLI bridges, MSI's new Pascal-based 2-way high-bandwith SLI bridges don't have fans on them, and are designed to accommodate multi-GPU setups by 2-way SLI-ing NVIDIA's new GeForce Series-10 video cards.

At MSI's booth, the 2-way SLI bridge is seen attached to two high-end MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Gaming Z 8G video cards, sporting an LED-lit dragon logo and a brushed chrome-and-silver style. High-bandwidth SLI bridges are encouraged for multi-GPU builds in order to hit optimum 4k 60Hz/120Hz and beyond.

AMD revealed its next-gen Radeon RX 480 during Computex 2016, with one of the demos displaying during the reveal being Oxide Games' Ashes of the Singularity. The demo saw AMD comparing the Radeon RX 480 in CrossFire against NVIDIA's new GeForce GTX 1080.

During the demo, there were a lot of people - myself included, that noticed the image quality between the two were not identical at all. Well, Robert Hallock, AMD's Technical Marketing boss, took to Reddit to provide some answers. He provided the full system specs and drivers used for the demo, which included an Intel Core i7-5930K, 32GB of DDR4, Windows 10, and for the drivers: AMD Driver: 16.30-160525n-230356E, and the NVIDIA Driver: 368.19.

Both GPUs were running the 'crazy' settings at 1080p with 8x MSAA and V-Sync disabled. Hallock went into great detail, explaining: "Ashes uses procedural generation based on a randomized seed at launch. The benchmark does look slightly different every time it is run. But that, many have noted, does not fully explain the quality difference people noticed".

UPDATE: EVGA's Jacob Freeman says that the RGB high-bandwidth SLI bridges are "2-way only" and are expected to release in mid-June. Here's another shot of the lineup.

Computex 2016 - EVGA revealed three new RGB high-bandwidth SLI bridges for NVIDIA's new GeForce GTX 10-series video cards, allowing users to add a bit pizzazz and style to their new EVGA-branded GTX 1080 cards.

EVGA's new 2-way HB SLI bridges sport full RGB illumination that can sync up with the RGB colors on EVGA's new GeForce GTX 1080 FTW and EVGA GTX 1080 Classified video cards, adding quite a bit of stylish flair to any enthusiast build. The new high-bandwidth SLI bridges come in three different sizes for various configurations: 1U (small size with no gap between the cards), 2U (medium-sized with a one-slot gap between the cards), and 3U (longer with a two-slot gap between the cards).

Computex 2016 -- TweakTown has learned that MSI's cylindrical Vortex G65 gaming PC is about to get a refresh that rocks a pair of NVIDIA's mobile Pascal video cards in SLI, suggesting that the 1080m and 1070m reveals are right around the corner.

When MSI debuted the Mac Pro-inspired Vortex G65 earlier this year, its high-end model rocked a powerful GTX 980 SLI configuration. Not 980m, but desktop class 980 MXM format GPUs. But as I perused MSI's booth at Computex today, I noticed something curious. When MSI first announced the system, the info card obviously said something to the effect of "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 900 series." This info card said "NVIDIA latest generation video card (SLI)."

When I asked an MSI representative on the show floor if they were planning an upgrade, he very heavily implied (along with a joke about non-disclosure agreements) that the demo model not hooked up to any monitors contained NVIDIA's mobile GeForce 1080 card in SLI, though it wasn't clear whether these would be the proper mobile variant or an MXM format like the 980 used in their prior model. I asked him if he'd be willing to open up the G65 and he politely declined.

Computex 2016 - While I'm sitting in the Westin hotel for the AMD press conference where we're expecting the price of their next-gen GPU to be revealed, The Wall Street Journal has published an article claiming that the new Polaris-based card will be priced at $199.

The new Radeon RX 480 is built on the 14nm node, with all Polaris-based products ready for VR gaming in a big way, with HTC and Oculus confirming these new cards will be a great deal for VR gamers who don't want to spend an insane amount of money.

There's so much more I want to say, but we're under NDA from AMD for everything else for a little while yet - so you'll have to wait for more information on the Radeon RX 480... for now.

Computex 2016 - We had our entire first day of Computex at the Grand Hyatt with a million and one meetings, where we got some hands-on time with some custom GeForce GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 video cards from EVGA.

EVGA had a bunch of cards on display, including the huge GeForce GTX 1080 Classified, which is sure to have gamers drooling all over their keyboards. We've got photos of them all above, and below, so we have to ask - which one do you like best? We have the EVGA GeForce GTX 1070 SuperClocked, EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 FTW, and the GTX 1080 Classified.

All of them looked great, but I definitely have a soft spot for EVGA's new GP104-based cards... and I simply can't wait to get them into my lab.

Computex 2016 - Following up the GIGABYTE GTX 1080 G1 card from last week is the GIGABYTE GTX 1080 XTREME, as seen at Computex. Whereas the former appears to interested in striking a balance between temperature and performance, the XTREME seems to go all out.

For starters, GIGABYTE's second offering sports extra HDMI connectors, primarily for VR purposes. Then it "guarantees [...] higher overclocking capability." So it's safe to say it's not holding back, at least not much.

Other features include Windforce stack fans with alternate spinning design, 16.8M customizable colour lighting, aerospace-grade PCB coating, and four-year warranty with online registration.

Computex 2016 - ZOTAC was one of the first companies I wanted to visit at Computex this year, purely to check out their new GeForce GTX 1080 range of cards. They were just setting up as we rolled past, but the one card they had in their hands was the new GTX 1080 AMP! Extreme Edition.

ZOTAC's new GeForce GTX 1080 AMP! Extreme Edition is the company's flagship card, with a triple-fan cooling system and a custom heat sink that is just gigantic. We're sure this card is going to have some serious overclocks applied to the GPU and the 8GB of GDDR5X, but we can't confirm it just yet - this is something we should be able to clarify tomorrow.

The card is absolutely huge, but it actually weighs less than the GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme Edition. What I want to know is, how much faster will it be than the GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme Edition, which we'll find out soon.

EVGA has chimed in with its new GeForce GTX 1080 video cards, announcing four new cards powered by NVIDIA's GP104 GPU.

The new cards feature EVGA's ACX 3.0 cooling tech, with SHP 3.0 providing better heat pipes and copper contact area for improved cooling performance, as well as optimized fan curves for quieter gaming. ACX 3.0 coolers feature optimized swept fan blades, double ball bearings and extreme low power motor, which pushes more air flow, with less power.

Select EVGA ACX 3.0 models will feature 10cm fans and RGB LEDs, which provides gamers with total control over the look of their card. The new EVGA cards also include PrecisionX OC software, that "unlocks the power of Pascal", says EVGA.

We have yet to have received a Colorful sample here in our GPU labs from Colorful, but we've been in deep discussions with them for weeks now, and hopefully we can get our hands-on their exciting new GeForce GTX 1080 iGame card, which looks delicious.

Colorful's new GeForce GTX 1080 iGame card features a factory overclock on the GP104 GPU, which is at 1847MHz. Colorful has used their iGame-Modular Structure Design (i-MSD) on their GTX 1080, with their cooling technology being separated from the cooler into "functional modules and appearance modules which has the PCB, cooling fins and rear plate integrated centering on the PCB. The rear-plate also reinforces the PCB which gives the card extra durability and negates deformation from stress and long usage".

There's also customizable RGB lighting that can be tweaked through Colorful's iGame-Zone software, with the fans on the card composed by a three-piece grooved design, with interesting zigzag diversion lines on the edge for improved airflow and cooling efficiency with up to 30% increased air volume

We're so sorry for our total flood on the GeForce GTX 1080 cards, but how exciting is it! MSI has joined in on the fun, announcing a few different cards to drool over.

MSI has the new GeForce GTX 1080 GAMING X 8G, which has the new Twin Frozr VI cooler, designed to allow for higher GPU and memory clock speeds for improved performance. MSI has used their usual, and slick-looking red/black theme with a dragon RBG LED on the side that can be tweaked to nearly unlimited colors thanks to its 16.8 million colors.

The GTX 1080 GAMING X 8G has a new custom 10-phase PCB design, with an 8+6-pin power connector that allows for higher overclocking performance.

The landslide of GeForce GTX 1080 announcements continue, with ZOTAC showing off their new cards, Inno3D and now Palit. Palit has unveiled their new GTX 1080 GameRock card, telling us that they want to 'rock'n'roll your game'.

What does Palit bring to the GeForce GTX 1080 table? We have 0dB tech fan, a honeycomb bracket, optimized air flow, TurboFan Blade and two 10cm fans. We have 8+2-phase PWM, dual BIOS, and RGB lighting on the Palit GeForce GTX 1080 GameRock card.

Not only that, but the company has unveiled their GeForce GTX 1080 Super JetStream, which excites me as the GTX 980 Ti Super JetStream was one of the most impressive cards from the GTX 900 series last year.

ZOTAC has just unveiled their new AMP! and AMP! Extreme variants of the GeForce GTX 1080, with both cards including some nice cooling technology improvements over the already impressive GTX 900 series cards.

The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1080 AMP! cards feature Spectre, a new lighting system that allows gamers to customize the colors and feel of their gaming experience with mood lighting, which is all done through ZOTAC's FireStorm software.

Not only that, but the AMP! Extreme cards will push out some serious performance, with the triple-fan IceStorm cooling technology mixed with the EKO Fan system, promising up to 30% increased airflow compared to the traditional fans.

The leaks continue on the GeForce GTX 1080 partner cards, with news of the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1080 AMP! Extreme and ASUS GeForce GTX 1080 ROG STRIX cards both being somewhat detailed earlier today. Now it's time for GAINWARD.

The GAINWARD GeForce GTX 1080 Phoenix has been teased, with a completely redesigned cooler which has dropped from three fans to two. The fans are bigger, which has made the card wider, but that should allow the card to keep nice and cool, with the fans spinning at lower RPM. The shroud has three colors: black, red and gold, and it sure does look great. We're looking forward to getting our hands-on one soon!

It looks like it's leakathon for the AIB partner GeForce GTX 1080 cards, with HotHardware reporting that EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Superclocked ACX 3.0 is on its way, and it looks absolutely amazing.

The EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Superclocked ACX 3.0 features the latest ACX 3.0 cooling technology from the company, with dual ball bearing fans, a massive heat sink array, a full length backplate, and some vented accents. All in all, it's shaping up to be the best looking EVGA card yet (at least in my opinion). But what about performance? HotHardware reports that the new GeForce GTX 1080 Superclocked ACX 3.0 was "practically silent - even under load".

The site adds that "temperatures were a non-issue", and while the card was under low the GPU temperature "hovered in the high 70C-80C range". I'm now more excited than ever to get my hands-on this bad boy!

It looks like ZOTAC is preparing to blow us all away once again with their take on NVIDIA's exciting new GeForce GTX 1080 video card. VideoCardz is reporting on the latest leak, teasing the new GTX 1080 AMP! Extreme from ZOTAC.

The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1080 video cards will feature IceStorm fans with Carbon ExoArmor, PowerBoost, FREEZE and Spectra technologies. Spectra is new, with it arriving as a lighting system that allows users to change the LED illumination elements on the card, which are the strips along the top, and bottom of the card. The FREEZE tech allows the fans to turn off when the card sits in idle.

The new GTX 1080 AMP! series cards feature a custom backplate, with the PCB being modified completely, allowing for 2 x 8-pin PCIe power connectors. We don't know how much ZOTAC has done under the hood when it comes to clock speeds, but we're excited beyond words to see what ZOTAC can do. The company impressed us greatly with the GTX 980 Ti AMP! Extreme Edition, so I have large expectations of what the GTX 1080 cards will be.

Right now, we only know that the Tesla P100, GeForce GTX 1080 and GeForce GTX 1070 exist, but we know NVIDIA will have a full top to bottom family of Pascal-based video cards in the future. Well, the developers of AIDA64 have just helped us out, revealing the PCI device IDs of the "whole list of Pascal SKUs".

There's quite a few cards listed, and to be honest, many more than I thought. Just in the GP100 range, we have 19 cards - these cards will manifest their way into the Quadro, Tesla and GRID products. In the GP102 range, which is where we should expect the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, Titan X successor and other high-end SKUs we have 11 cards. Moving down to the GP104, which is the GPU used on the GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 cards, there's 15 different SKUs.

The mid-range market will be filled with Pascal cards, with the GP106 powering 9 different SKUs while the GP107 should tackle 7 SKUs, leaving the GP108 for a single SKU. We should expect NVIDIA to ramp up towards the bigger announcements, where I'll think we'll see concentrated marketing efforts for the GTX 1060 (and I'm expecting GTX 1060 Ti) as well as the GTX 1080 Ti and the Pascal-based Titan X successor.

AMD's Radeon Crimson Edition 16.5.3 driver is out, and with it comes optimizations for top games, new Crossfire profiles, and bug fixes for various games and system issues.

If you're getting in on the Total War: Warhammer or Overwatch action (both newly released), AMD has you covered with this driver set, which is optimized and includes Crossfire profiles for both. As well, a longtime favourite in DOTA 2 gets some love with improved support for the Vulkan API (Valve has also enabled it on their end with a patch for the game).

As for fixes, that stuttering while playing Fallout 4 in Crossfire should be gone as should flickering in the Division while using Crossfire. Various niche system issues are no more, either.

NVIDIA's new GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition is one of the best video cards ever made, but it'll be even better when it's overclocked to its yet unknown limits. In blows Colorful with news that their new GTX 1080 Founders Edition water block is coming soon, with the company teaming up with Chinese water block manufacturer Bykski.

Their new water block is the first to market with full coverage, and is designed exclusively for the GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition. The company has teased its new series of iGame-powered GeForce GTX 1080 cards, that will be announced after May 27. The new Colorful GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition will be available soon for $699, while the new Bykski water block will be priced at $100.

We've been wondering what cost the custom GeForce GTX 1080 cards will be, with NVIDIA stating the lowest will cost $599, while their GTX 1080 Founders Edition card costing $699. Well, according to a recent Colorful press release, Colorful's "custom-designed GTX 1080 video cards" will "retail below the [price of] the GTX 1080 Founders Edition".

With the cost of the GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition from NVIDIA set at $699, this means we should see a varying cost between $599-$699 for the overclocked GeForce GTX 1080 cards. That might sound like news, but think about the cost. The GTX 1080 costs $599, but the Founders Edition which is capable of over 2GHz on its new 16nm-based GP104 GPU, so what will custom cards be clocked up to if something with a single fan and 1x 8-pin PCIe power is already the best card on the market?

The custom GeForce GTX 1080 cards should, in theory, be faster than the GTX 1080 Founders Edition. But, it looks like they'll be priced cheaper than the Founders Edition, which is - well, great? NVIDIA loses out because most gamers and enthusiasts will buy a custom GeForce GTX 1080, while system builders and more professional customers will find comfort in the new NVIDIA reference design GTX 1080 in the form of the Founders Edition.