Graphics Cards - Page 231

During the recent NVIDIA Editor's Day, we were introduced to the new GeForce GTX 1080 video card, but after the event (which was under NDA) I sat down with some of the biggest tech YouTuber's to talk about the new GTX 1080.

In the video above, JayzTwoCents used Luke from Linus Tech Tips' video as Luke cut it down to a few minutes of our discussion. This chat between us (which was shot at like 3am) was over an hour long, and so many people asked for the full discussion and here it is. It was a glorious thing to sit with these awesome guys, so check out the discussion between us - the video goes for 31 minutes, so go get a snack and a drink!

JayzTwoCents

The new NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 is already a ridiculously beautiful card, but when it's naked and has its PCB exposed, I can't help but twitch with awe.

The NVIDIA PG413 board has 5+1 power phase, which is more than the 4+1 system on the GTX 980, but less than the GTX 980 Ti with its 6+2 phase power. The PCB on the GTX 1080 is very similar to the GTX 980 rather than the GTX 980 Ti, as both cards share 8 memory module layout per side. There's a single 8-pin PCIe power connector, but NVIDIA has left room for another so that AIB partners can go crazy.

There are two SLI fingers on the GeForce GTX 1080 that will handle the new SLI HB (High-Bandwidth) bridge, too.

AMD seems to be in a spot of trouble right now, with NVIDIA revealing its new GeForce GTX 1080 video card, and then the rumors that AIB partners won't have Polaris-based cards to show off at Computex 2016. Well, it has gotten worse, with the company reportedly dragging its next-gen Vega GPU into October 2016, from early 2017.

Why? Most likely because its Polaris 10 and Polaris 11 offerings aren't enough to beat NVIDIA's new GeForce GTX 1080 - so they'll need to bring in the big guns to combat it, without considering NVIDIA has its HBM2-based GTX 1080 Ti and Titan X successor to reveal in the near future. Vega was promised for early 2017 on the latest roadmap unveiled during their Capsaicin event, where it will be a flagship GCN 4.0-based beast with HBM2 and an unknown amount of stream processors and other technology.

Polaris 10 won't be that special, as the company has said it'll be a 'mainstream part' which will most likely not be able to beat the GeForce GTX 1080 - as I said in my editorial here. The Radeon R9 390X is still a ridiculously good card, and the Fury X won't be replaced with a Polaris-based offering anytime soon. Polaris 10 should be able to match the GTX 1070, but at a price of $299 which is what we've heard from multiple sources in the industry now. The GTX 1070 is priced at $379, so the mid-range fight is going to be a good one for consumers and gamers.

NVIDIA has blown away gamers across the world with its reveal of the GeForce GTX 1080 last week, but now we're hearing about partner cards and we're beginning to get super excited. Remember that we're actually giving away an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 'Founder's Edition' video card, and so much more in our global giveaway!

GIGABYTE has taken to its Xtreme Gaming Facebook page, teasing the above image and "Hey GIGABYTE Fans! We've got something coming! ;) Details coming soon". Quite the tease, considering that NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1080 Founder's Edition is already ridiculously fast. GIGABYTE makes some of the best custom video cards on the market, so we're pretty excited to see what they can do with the GTX 1080 - especially with its newly shrunken 16nm FinFET technology, super-fast GDDR5X and exciting new Pascal architecture from NVIDIA.

Since taking the position of reviewing video cards here at TweakTown, I've yet to get a GIGABYTE model into review. Hopefully this changes with the new generation cards, and we can begin getting in some samples. I was hanging out with Jay of JayzTwoCents on YouTube, and he was telling me how much he loves his GIGABYTE video cards, but I haven't gotten my hands-on any yet. Now is my time! Let's do this, GIGABYTE!

Micron reached out to me over email today, ushering me into the knowledge that their exciting new GDDR5X memory has entered mass production. GDDR5X is the new memory powering the next-gen GeForce GTX 1080 video card that NVIDIA unveiled last week.

GDDR5X represents a huge leap in bandwidth, without having to shift over to the new HBM2 standard. GDDR5X provides 10Gbps of bandwidth, and when coupled with the 256-bit memory bus on the GTX 1080, results in 320GB/sec of memory bandwidth. Jen-Hsun Huang, co-founder and CEO of NVIDIA said at the GeForce GTX 1080 launch event: "This memory is so fast. It is so fast ... G5X, the fastest GDDR memory in the world".

We will see many partner cards based on the GTX 1080 at Computex, which kicks off in two weeks time.

NVIDIA announced its GeForce GTX 1080 in the last 24 hours, with ZOTAC becoming the first AIB partner to release the GTX 1080 into the world.

The new GeForce GTX 1080 rocks the exciting 16nm FinFET-based GP104 GPU, 8GB of GDDR5X @ 10GHz, 2560 CUDA cores, and more. As for detailed specs, this is what you'll get:

We should expect the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1080 to hit shelves on May 27.

NVIDIA has just announced its new Pascal-based GeForce video cards, with the new GeForce GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 being unveiled a few hours ago in Austin, Texas.

We live-tweeted the entire thing, but now that I have some time in my hotel room to decompress, here's a quick rundown of what to expect from the new GTX 1080 and GTX 1070. There are only a few differences between the GTX 1080 and the GTX 1070, but boy is the GTX 1080 a freakin' monster.

NVIDIA has built the new GeForce 1000 series cards on the new 16nm FinFET process, with the new Pascal architecture making its debut in the consumer world alongside GDDR5X. GDDR5X is a huge improvement over GDDR5, arriving with a huge 10GHz clock speed - up from the 7GHz available from GDDR5. But what about tech specs?

We just reported on leaked benchmarks and details of the upcoming GeForce GTX 1080, but now we have some better confirmation of the cooler on the Pascal-based video card.

NVIDIA has recently updated its GeForce website, providing a new background that teased the new GeForce GTX 1080/1070 cooler design. The new 'Polygonal' cooler succeeds the NVTTM design, which we've been posting about for a while now.

The folks at VideoCardz picked it up and have the picture above. It's a sweet looking design, which reminds me of a racecar for some reason - and that is really getting my engine going.

NVIDIA is expected to unveil its next-gen GeForce GTX 1080 video card in the next 48 hours, with the latest rumor being quite exciting indeed - the GTX 1080 will reportedly rock 8GB of GDDR5X, at an insane 10GHz.

As it stands, the GeForce GTX 980 Ti has 6GB of GDDR5 (no X) at 7GHz. The last rumors stated the new card would hit 8GHz, but 10GHz provides around 320GB/sec of memory bandwidth - if the GTX 1080 keeps its 256-bit memory bus. If it's knocked up to 384-bit, well - then we should be very excited.

Not only that, but there are now leaked benchmarks teasing 3DMark 11 performance. The new GeForce GTX 1080 performed well in the 3DMark 11 Performance test at 720p, scoring 27,683 points - comparing this to overclocked GTX 980 Ti cards which score between 23,000 and 25,000 - that's not too bad at all. It's not the insane jump people were expecting, but this is the GTX 1080 and not the bigger GTX 1080 Ti that will find its way to reality in the future.

Monday's NVIDIA drivers prepared you for the Forza Motorsport 6: Apex beta which launches later today, and now AMD's drivers are doing the same.

Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.5.1 features up to 27% better performance in the highly anticipated racing title than what you'd see with 16.4.2 when using the R9 Fury X. If you don't own a Fury X, other cards should see similar increases.

As for known issues, AMD notes game crashes and launch failures caused by its overlay, so try disabling it for now if you've been experiencing this behaviour. Another big one is flickering in Witcher 3 while using Crossfire; with any luck it will be fixed next driver release.

NVIDIA's big reveal of its next-gen GeForce video cards is just days away, with the company teasing select members of the press with its 'Order of 10' mystery. What is the 'Order of 10' mystery you ask? Well, it's a teaser and countdown to the GeForce 1000 series reveal.

First off, some tech press received a mystery box that led them to the site orderof10.com, with a hexagon image with each side the equivalent of a piece puzzle. The site could be accessed by entering a code from the triangle that is found inside of the box, which was also sent to tech sites. The box has a '10' logo embedded on the front, with a single triangle with the code found inside.

GamersNexus found another link that led to a reveal countdown that ends on Friday, May 6. This is the day that NVIDIA will reportedly unveil its next-gen cards, but the puzzle is an interesting piece of marketing. The six pages on the site were: Collision, Structure, Circles, Compute, Vision, and Astronomy. Each puzzle leads to the next, solving the entire mystery.

There's a tremendous amount of excitement surrounding the upcoming Polaris P10 and P11 GPUs, as there rightfully should be. This marks a sort of subtle change in direction for AMD for some time. If rumors are true about the size and relative expected raw power of these two chips, then neither represent a true successor to Fiji, but will instead be a faster an far more power efficient Hawaii, which still continues to grow its performance with additional driver releases.

With both AMD and NVIDIA set to unveil their next-gen consumer video cards in the next month, AMD's position on VR is being solidified.

According to AMD's Corporate Vice President, Alliances, Content & VR, Roy Taylor, said that Polaris is being aimed at VR gaming PCs. With the minimum PC specs for VR kicking off with the Radeon R9 290, AMD has a great position in front of itself to nail VR gaming with Polaris.

AMD is trying to offer a great card for VR, and the upcoming Radeon R9 490X (which it should arrive as) will be a hugely popular card. We should expect 30-50% more performance over the R9 390X thanks to the new 14nm FinFET process, the new Polaris architecture and the possible use of GDDR5X.

I'm definitely not getting tired writing all of this video card news, as it's incredibly exciting times for technology enthusiasts - another one of the reports surfacing in the last 24 hours is that AMD's upcoming Radeon R9 M480 mobile video card will be powered by the Polaris 11 GPU.

VideoCardz is reporting that the new Radeon R9 M480 GPU has a Device ID of 67E0, which is Baffin - or Polaris 11. The Radeon R9 M480 will sport 4GB of GDDR5 clocked at 1250MHz, while the GPU will be clocked at 1GHz - but this will change depending on the supplier.

Both the R9 M480 and the R9 M490 will rock Polaris 11 GPUs, but we don't know how many stream processors will be included. The current Bonaire PRO-based Radeon R9 M380 has 768 stream processors, so we should see around the same, if not closer to the 1000 SP mark for the next-gen Radeon R9 M480 when it arrives later this year.

PNY has just taken off the seal on its new GeForce GTX 960 XLR8 OC Gaming and GeForce GTX 950 XLR8 OC Gaming video cards, launching alongside the newly-developed website.

The two new video cards feature dual-fan cooler, so when a game is cranking along, the dual-fan system will keep the GTX 950 or GTX 960 nice and cool. The two new video cards are made using a high-quality 8-layer PCB, so you should have a long-lasting product that will be good for years of gaming.

As for the detailed specs on the GTX 960 2GB/4GB XLR8 OC Gaming, here's what to expect:

The upcoming GeForce GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 will be monster video cards based on the 16nm FinFET process and the new Pascal architecture while the GTX 1080 might rock GDDR5X, the GTX 1070 will reportedly include GDDR5. But what about the mid-range?

Well, according to the latest reports, the GTX 1060 will arrive as the possible GTX 1060 Ti - rocking a huge 6GB of GDDR5. The GTX 960 for comparisons sake, rolled out with 2GB and 4GB versions at the beginning of 2015. The upcoming GTX 1060 (or Ti) will be using the GP104-150-A1 GPU while the GTX 1080 uses the GP104-400-A1 and the GTX 1070 with its GP104-200-A1 GPU.

The huge 6GB framebuffer will be great to see, as NVIDIA better positions itself in the mid-range market - which is what AMD is looking to stomp down on with its huge Polaris push starting later this month.

Can you believe how exciting the next month is going to be? First, we've heard that NVIDIA will be unveiling its next-gen GeForce video cards in the next week, and on the same day - EA will unveil the next generation Battlefield 5. Yes, it's happening on the same day. We only reported a few hours ago that NVIDIA will have partner cards on retail shelves in June, too.

EA will be unveiling Battlefield 5 at its world premiere event this week on May 6, while NVIDIA is reportedly inviting select press from around the world to unveil its new next-gen Pascal-based GeForce GTX 1080, and GTX 1070 video cards.

When it comes to the next-gen GPUs from NVIDIA, the GTX 1080 should be quite the beast - with it being much more powerful than the GTX 980 (think Titan X speeds), with it being built on the 16nm FinFET process, the new Pascal architecture and GDDR5X. The upcoming GeForce GTX 1070 will be slightly slower - think less CUDA cores, and the use of GDDR5, not GDDR5X.

Special effects for movies are becoming increasingly realistic when done correctly and when in the right hands.

An expose by Ars Technica about the history of VFX companies and how London has been the surprising center of that industry has also revealed some other surprising information. We consumers might think that it would be natural to use GPUs when rendering those graphics we see on screen, but it actually isn't true at all. In fact, it was discovered that GPUs, and primarily NVIDIA for the purposes of driver stability, are used on local workstations for lighting previews and not much else. Render farms, while they have GPUs in them, utilize CPU power because of the RAM available to them.

Some scenes these days require as much as 128GB of RAM per scene in order to be rendered, which isn't possible at all on any consumer or professional GPU. So in most cases, the 24GB Quadro M6000 and AMD's FirePro S9170 with 32GB of VRAM just isn't enough. Pascal and the GP100's 16GB if VRAM, no matter how fast HBM2 happens to be, just isn't large enough to contain the kinds of complex scenes that are being created by these companies. So for the time being, until shared memory is implemented, CPU's will rule the day, with some 24,000 cores being used in some cases. One of Pixar's software engineers, Jeremy Cowles, said that the industry tells NVIDIA, as they question them every year, that they need more memory to actually use them on a large scale.

AMD is positioning itself for a huge battle with NVIDIA this year, in more ways than one. First we have their next-gen Polaris architecture, the new GPU division being spun into Radeon Technologies Group, and an all-in approach when it comes to VR.

The first step for now is the release of Polaris-based video cards, with the expected Radeon 400 series to be unveiled next month and even more so at Computex in the first week of June. We should expect new cards that will beat the Radeon R9 380 and R9 390X, and thanks to the 14nm FinFET process, lower power consumption but much faster cards performance per watt wise.

During an interview with Ars Technica, AMD's main man Roy Taylor said: "I don't think NVIDIA is going to do anything to increase the TAM, because according to everything we've seen around Pascal, it's a high-end part. I don't know what the price is gonna be, but let's say it's as low as £500/$600 and as high as £800/$1000. That price range is not going to expand the TAM for VR. We're going on the record right now to say Polaris will expand the TAM. Full stop".

The AMD Radeon Pro Duo is quite the beast, rocking 2 x Fiji XT GPUs, a total of 8GB of HBM1, and some truly insane horsepower. According to leaked benchmarks, the Radeon Pro Duo is 1.3x faster than the R9 295X2 and 1.5x faster than the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti.

The results are courtesy of Expreview, which ran a slew of benchmarks on the Radeon Pro Duo, comparing it against the Radeon R9 Fury X at 4K. Check out the benchmarks, below.

The Radeon Pro Duo versus the Radeon R9 Fury X.