Graphics Cards - Page 258

NVIDIA are mere days away from releasing their Kepler-based GEFORCE GTX 680, but there is still secrets that are leaking through the cracks. It seems that NVIDIA could have baked a new anti-aliasing (AA) algorithm into the Kepler family of GPUs.

There are plenty of different forms of AA, including FXAA, which have enabled higher levels of image quality, all while not being as taxing on the GPU as MSAA. This leaves one area to improve, to offer better image quality (IQ) while lowering the performance penalty when its enabled. According to the above screenshot, which is rumored to be sourced from NVIDIA's GeForce Kepler press-deck, the new algorithm is compared to 8x MSAA, where it gives superior image quality.

We all know that 8x MSAA is not easy for a GPU and definitely takes an arrow to the knee in terms of performance degradation for a GPU. But, this new screenshot shows us an anti-aliasing method that does indeed look taxing, but if NVIDIA has rubbed their genie lamp, we could expect some amazing AA, where it won't be too taxing on the GPU itself. The latest NVIDIA rumor showed that when Battlefield 3 was running its AA, it had some stellar performance.

Ah, NVIDIA charts. The memories are flooding back now, it feels like so long since I've seen them, but they're back, and in force. NVIDIA's latest charts are for their 28nm-built, Kepler-based NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 680, caps intended.

If the above charts are true, which most of the time they are not because it's really just a closed-world internal test by NVIDIA themselves, then we're looking at an amazing 40-percent increase over the AMD Radeon HD 7970 in some tests. 15 tests were used, from 7 games/benchmarks. All benchmarks were run with AA, then again without AA.

The one test that got my GPU juices flowing was the Battlefield 3 test with 4xAA, look at those improvements. If only I had the time to play Battlefield 3, I'd probably get 1 or 3 of these new GEFORCE GTX 680's. In the end, it looks as though that crown AMD have graced on their head, is about to get a can of whoop ass thrown at it. Green Team, unite!

More details are arriving for NVIDIA's soon-to-arrive GEFORCE GTX 680, and these new specs are quite interesting. Fudzilla's source are saying that the new GTX 680 will sport two 6-pin PCI-Express power connectors to provide a total TDP of around 190W.

Higher performance per watt is expected from not only users of the card, but NVIDIA, too. Considering the card features 1536 shader units, 2 (or 4GB) of GDDR5 memory clocked at 6GHz, a reported 'very high' GPU clock, we should expect very good things from the GTX 680. Performance is said to be in the area of AMD's Radeon HD 7970, where it wins in some benchmarks, and loses in others. These results are from NVIDIA, so we'll have to wait for some real-world testing.

The GPU itself is said to be around 300mm² in size, too. Price-wise, we should expect a US$549 price, but that is to be expected. NVIDIA is launching a card with more performance than the GTX 580, with much better performance per watt numbers. We should expect some competition in pricing, but that comes down to GPU flavor from other companies such as ASUS, GIGABYTE, MSI, etc as well as heated up competition from the already-released HD 7970.

Yesterday we gave you our first video unboxing of the MSI Z77A-GD65 from the Taipei Test Lab and today we bring you another involving two AMD Radeon 7800 series video cards from Sapphire. Lately we have been very impressed with the cooling solutions Sapphire has used on its video cards and from what we have seen today, this trend looks to continue here. In the video above we cover both the Sapphire Radeon HD 7850 OC Edition as well as the Sapphire Radeon HD 7870 OC Edition video cards.

The 7850 OC Edition features an impressive looking dual fan cooler with a single heatpipe which exhausts hot air out the back of your case. The bundle is rather impressive too including a card to join the Sapphire Select Club, quick installation guide, DVI to VGA connector, molex to PCI Express power connector, mini DisplayPort to DisplayPort adapter, HDMI to DVI connector, CrossFire bridge and a HDMI cable.

Next up in the video above is the 7870 OC Edition which in many ways is quite similar to the 7850 OC Edition, just bigger in all ways - the cooler is pretty much the same except it is bigger just like the retail box. The bundle is exactly the same as the 7850 video card expect it comes with an additional Molex to PCI Express power connector since the video card calls for it with its higher power draw requirements since it is of course a faster video card.

I bet you read that title, and thought "haha, yeah right", well, strap yourself in ladies and gentlemen. NVIDIA's 28nm-based Kepler GK104 GPU is being shown around the Game Developers Conference, as we speak, with Heise.de citing people it spoke to at CeBIT.

Let's do this: some models of the GeForce 600-series from NVIDIA will introduce a load-based clock speed-boost feature, similar to Intel's Turbo Boost, where the GPU will ramp up clock speeds to the GPU when it senses heavy loads. If there's a stressful scene to render, the GPU overclocks itself, gets through the scene, and goes back down to stock speeds. Wow.

This ensures that the GPU has higher minimum and average frame rates, which is a great thing to see. Another thing to point out, is the GK104 does actually sport 1,536 CUDA cores, which should give it a definite kick up the bum for number-crunching scenarios, such as shading, post-processing, and GPGPU-based work. But, the CUDA cores don't automatically give you super amounts of performance, unfortunately.

EXPreview is teasing that NVIDIA could release their Kepler-based GK104 GPU as soon as March 23. You know, as in, less than three weeks from now. Maximum-Tech "confirmed" GK104 to debut in April, but AIC (add-in card) vendors in China have said that GK104 "won't be postponed to April".

Operation Director of ZOTAC in the Asia-Pacific area said at Weibo:

The CEO of Galaxy, also revealed at Wiebo:

VR-Zone have an interesting piece on the power circuitry within NVIDIA's upcoming Kepler GPU, and it reveals some juicy info. First up, NVIDIA is tapping the supply chain maker Foxconn to manufacture the high-end Kepler-based GPUs, and according to sources, NVIDIA has used the strategy of switching between Flextronics and Foxconn in the past, but are now happy with Foxconn.

The board talked about was manufactured in Q3 of last year, which would lead us to believe that NVIDIA have had Kepler GPUs for a while now. Kepler was meant to see the light of day in 2011, with Maxwell hitting in 2013, but that won't be happening now. It's obvious that yields were low once again for NVIDIA, which is why they would've stopped from pushing Kepler cards into production. In NVIDIA's recent financial analyst call, the can-of-whoop-ass himself Jen-Hsun stated that the 28nm supply will be "constrained through the year (2012)".

The diagram above shows that the board in question (GeForce GTX 670 Ti) requires a single six-pin and eight-pin power cables, which gives us 75W + 150W + 75W = 300W total, even though it should still work with just two six-pin rails. Three phases are dedicated to feed the GPU, and dual phase is for the rest of the board. VR-Zone say they'll continue to post articles covering this in the future, while I wait with anticipation.

Team Green is hard at work on their Kepler GPUs, which are based on a 28nm process, and it seems as though the GK104 part is going to be called the GeForce GTX 670 Ti.

NVIDIA is obviously keen to get this part onto shelves now, to combat the GCN-based AMD Radeon HD 79x0 parts, and this could be way the otherwise mid-range SKU has been changed from what should've been the GTX 660 to the GTX 670 Ti. This move could be so that it indicates this part will perform competitively against the high-end parts already on the market, such as the HD 7000-series.

Sources have told SweClockers that they expect the GK104-based GeForce GTX 670 Ti to outperform the GeForce GTX 580 and Radeon HD 7950. techPowerUp are reporting they're hearing rumblings of a March launch, and if NVIDIA want to beat the HD 7800-series launch, they'll have to wave that Team Green flag, now.

AMD have had their launch of their Radeon 7900-series, and now its time for the next Graphics CoreNext cards to be unveiled, the "Pitcairn" cards. The Pitcairn cards will slot into the Radeon HD 7800-series, where we'll see three SKUs from this series.

First up we'll have the Radeon HD 7870, then a 2GB 7850 and a 1GB 7850. Spec-wise, we have:

Radeon HD 7870

I'm a sucker for GPU-related anything, really. I've reported a few times on rumors or news of NVIDIA's upcoming 28nm spin dubbed "Kepler", with the GK104 part being the mid-range power-house that should have the socks of most people being knocked off, if they can get it right. NVIDIA have been rumored to launch some cards in the March/April time frame and it seems this could be correct.

First off, as always, here's some salt. Let's get into it: SemiAccurate are reporting that GK104 Kepler GPUs are in the wild, and are being testing by AIB's (add-in board partners). Reports have come in to SA, where they're hearing that people 'high up in the priority list' are receiving Kepler cards in disguise last week.

No numbers. No details. Nothing. But, this news is simple, it means that if AIB's are receiving actual hardware, it means NVIDIA are close to release. Usually, it's a 4-6 week window from AIB sampling cards to them hitting shelves. This should mean we'll see GK104 Kepler GPUs on the shelves in late-March, or April.

PowerColor have teased everyone on their Facebook page with a glimpse of their new AMD Radeon HD 7970 GPU. Nothing more than it's "our new HD 7970 design posing for the camera" has been said from PowerColor.

What we can see though, are multiple video outputs, looks like the new HD 7970 from PowerColor sports dual DVI, HDMI, and dual DisplayPort. The card is still a dual-slot card, with two big fans on the front of it and a decently thick heatpipe design behind it.

More information on this bad boy as it comes. I do like the black/blue design of it. Reminds me of getting a bruise. This could could be powerful enough to punch the lights out of other HD 7970s, and give them... bruises? We'll find out soon enough. Hopefully our VGA editor is out of hospital by then, but I'm sure he's enjoying his Razer Blade gaming laptop too much, eh? ;)

Nearly twelve months ago, I wrote a news piece about the launch of AMD's Radeon HD 6990 where I said it "punches all other GPU's in the nuts", and it seemed to be a catchy title, that just spilled out of my mind, into my hands, and onto the screen. A lot of what I type happens this way, I guess it's just my hektik writing skillz, maybe.

Anyway, a leaked roadmap for AMD's Radeon HD 7000 series has found its way onto the tubes, and it unveils the Q2 2012 launch of AMD's dual-GPU HD 7990, which will most likely kick every other GPU in the nuts this time. Exact launch timing, is "TBD", but there are some other tid bits included in the roadmap.

We should expect the HD 7870 "Pitcairn XT" to sport 2GB of RAM, and the HD 7850 "Pitcairn Pro" to also sport 2GB of RAM. Launch timing on these two GPUs are an expected March launch, which isn't too far away. Next up we have the HD 7770 "Cape Verde XT" and HD 7750 "Cape Verde Pro", both sporting 1GB of memory and have launch times of just two weeks from now on the 15th of February.

Pictures of Sapphire's non-reference, single fan Radeon HD 7950 have floated onto the surface of the web and it looks quite interesting indeed. It's reported that the single fan model will most likely stick to AMD's reference clock speeds of 800MHz core, 1250MHz (5GHz GDDR5 effective) speeds.

The PCB is Sapphire's usual sexy blue color, with the cooler quite compact and as previously mentioned, just a single fan design. Display output wise, we have two mini-DisplayPort, one HDMI and one DVI. It has also been reported that the maximum factory overclocking permitted by AMD to AIB (Add-in Board) partners is 900MHz for the core, and stock memory clocks.

Does this card cater to your needs? A single fan, non-reference HD 7950 is quite good for those who want to build HTPC's. Will you get one?

AMD have had quite a good launch with their Graphics Core Next bizzo, the Radeon HD 7970. But Team Green have a juicy new rumor today, that they might release their Kepler-based products early, and not in the earlier-reported March-April timeframe.

It would launch as early as next month with reports coming from ChipHell.com, where they say it will launch in February. The GTX 680 is rumored to sport the same performance as the AMD Radeon HD 7970, with a clock speed of 780MHz, but only 2GB of video memory. NVIDIA seem to be cheap on the video memory these days, which could indicate that the new cards might not do multiple monitors from the single card.

AMD's always thinking a few steps ahead, so throwing 3GB on the cards is great for Eyefinity users, and the 4K monitor support. NVIDIA only using 2GB is a worry, especially for 3-screen setups, or 3D Vision Surround setups that suck up that RAM like a GPU vacuum cleaner. Time will tell, and as usual, enjoy some TweakTown Salt.

My birthday is in March and I'm pretty sure this is why NVIDIA are launching then, but the latest news is that NVIDIA does not want to paper launch the Kepler, so the launch of their first high-end Kepler part will only start once they have enough units for the first wave of customers.

NVIDIA originally had a Q1 2012 launch date in mind, with Quadro Kepler arriving in Q2 and Tesla Kepler arriving in Q3. But the new plans seem to indicate that NVIDIA will be launching the GeForce Kepler when they are able to ensure hard availability and have all of its partners covered.

AMD launched their GCN-based Radeon HD 7970 on December 22, 2011, but did not have any on retail shelves until closer to January 9th, 2012. NVIDIA does not want to repeat this and want to have stock availability in some what good numbers when they launch.

CES 2012 - Earlier on today we visited the Sapphire hotel suite at the MGM Grand here at CES in Las Vegas where we met up with Bill who was kind enough to give us an introduction to some of the new toys they had on display.

First up we got a quick look at Sapphire's X79 motherboard along with their Radeon HD 7970 video card where Bill mentioned they are seeing good performance since both products are able to support PCI-E 3.0.

Next up we got a look at Sapphire's first AMD based Mini-PC called the Edge-HD3 and it is based on the AMD APU E450 processor which is clocked at 1.6GHz and Radeon HD6320 graphics. It comes with 4GB of DDR3 memory, a 320GB HDD, USB 3.0 and more. Bill mentioned they are currently at pre-production level and they should be shipping around the middle of February and go on sale for around $300 USD.

Although the AMD Radeon HD 7970 has been enjoying its time kicking the arse of virtually every other GPU in the world, the second GPU in AMD's 28nm-powered, GCN-busting lineup has been delayed.

AMD's Radeon HD 7950 won't reach us this month and has been delayed until February. A paper launch of the Radeon HD 7970 late last year is not the usual move for AMD, and they want to avoid similar problems with the HD 7950 when it launches, so a delay could actually be a good thing.

The Radeon HD 7950 is based on the same Tahiti core as the higher-end HD 7970 brother, except that 4 of its GCN (Graphics Core Next) compute units have been disabled. Because of this, it takes on the moniker "Tahiti Pro" versus the 7970's "Tahiti XT". The 7950 will sport 1792 streaming processors, 3GB of GDDR5 and a 384-bit interface. It should also feature the same amount of video outputs, allowing 6-screen support.

The first picture of a non-reference design AMD Radeon HD 7970, which comes from Gigabyte. The GV-R797OC-3GD is a factory-overclocked card, which makes use of Gigabyte's Ultra Durable VGA+ PCB and custom-design triple-fan WindForce cooler.

The Ultra Durable VGA+ PCB uses a 2oz copper layer for better electrical stability and heat distribution, ferrite-core chokes, low RDS (on) MOSFETs, hand-picked high-performance GDDR5 memory chips, and more. The cooler sports a combination of heatsinks and aluminum fin arrays to feed heat from the GPU, memory, and VRM to its copper heat-pipes and ventilated by three fans.

Gigabyte make use of a non-reference design, using non-reference cooling assembly, but most likely a reference design PCB, except, it's red. No details on clock speeds or pricing yet.

First off, Happy New Year! I hope you're all enjoying your festivities, while here in South Australia it has been a blistering 41C (over 104F) for the past 2 days straight and it is currently 43C right now. Joy! Onto the news! Our GPU editor sent this to me, and at first I thought it was tease, because he loves to do that to me. But, it was not, it was news that had floated onto the great world wide web.

Sapphire's leaked document, which reveals their non-reference AMD Radeon HD 7970's that they are currently baking in Sapphire ovens. Sapphire have an amazing six cards that will be non-reference, all ranging in features, speeds and more. One of them is the "Atomic RX" which goes from the original 1000MHz Core speed to a whopping 1335MHz. It sports the usual 3GB of RAM up from the 5500MHz stock speed, to 5735MHz. Output-wise, we have 2 x MiniDisplayPort, 1 x HDMI 1.4a and 1 x Single Link DVI.

There is also an "Atomic WC" which seems to be identical, but a water-cooled version. The other models include "Toxic 3G" which has a GPU clock of 1125MHz and 5600MHz RAM, "FLEX 6G" which as you guessed, has 6GB of RAM and 6 x MiniDisplayPort outputs with GPU clocks of just 925MHz and 5500MHz RAM, "VaporX 3G" which should have Sapphire's awesome VaporX cooler, with GPU clocks of 1010MHz and 5500MHz RAM. The final two are the Dual-Fan 3G with 925MHz Core and 5500MHz RAM and finally, the stock "Da Original" with 925MHz GPU clocks and 5500MHz RAM.

We've all seen the reviews on the spectacular AMD Radeon HD 7970, but what about its slightly younger brother? Well, we have some leaked specifications on the Radeon HD 7950 now, so let's see.

While the HD 7970 is based on the "Tahiti XT", the HD 7950 is based on the "Tahiti Pro". According to a slide posted by Donanim Haber, the Radeon HD 7950 sports 4 compute units disabled when compared to the HD 7970, which brings the number of stream processors down from 2048 to 1792.

These will be joined by 112 texture units, but the 384-bit memory interface and 3GB of GDDR5 memory remain unchanged. AMD also retain the same display output configuration with one dual-link DVI, one HDMI 1.4a, and two miniDisplayPort 1.2 outputs.