Video Cards & GPUs - Page 331

CES 2017 - We had a few meetings, discussions, drinks and amazing chats with AMD and both their Ryzen and Radeon teams at CES 2017 - but LinusTechTips actually had some hands-on time with their next-gen Vega graphics card. Check out the video below.

We don't get any new information from the video, but it's great to see it in person for once. AMD's prototype has a USB 3.0 connector on it so that hardware and software developers can take a bunch of data directly from the card.

During AMD's recent Tech Summit 2016 in Sonoma, CA - I was the first in the world to put my hand behind the card to see the heat being pushed out... and it's a lot. Like, a damn lot. But, as I've said previously - this is a pre-production, super beyond early version of the card.

There have been rumors of the technical specifications of Vega 10 before, but VideoCardz are reporting again about the old slide from September and "what we know today".

This is great, as it can show how much the rumors nearly 6 months ago were pretty solid - so let's go over it again. Vega 10 will rock its 14nm GPU goodness, with 64 compute units (which are now called NCU). Vega 10 will consume up to 225W of power, and will be released in the first half of this year.

We should see two variants, one with 8GB of HBM2, and another higher-end card with 16GB of HBM2 - both offering 512GB/sec of memory bandwidth.

CES 2017 - ZOTAC's new GeForce GTX 1080 Mini is mighty impressive for its size, but ZOTAC's upcoming external graphics dock was another thing that surprised me at CES.

The new external graphics dock supports one graphics card at up to 13 inches in length, so you'll have no issues with nearly any card you can throw inside - and it supports up to 3-slot width cards, so even the chunky ones are fine, too.

We have 3 x USB 3.0 connections, 1 x quick charge 3.0 port, 1 x Thunderbolt 3 (Type-C connector), LED lighting, and a 400W built-in PSU. We should see it released before Computex in June, and as for pricing, hopefully under $200.

CES 2017 - ZOTAC has their new GeForce GTX 1080 Mini on display at CES 2017, showing off the super-small, but very powerful graphics card in all its glory.

ZOTAC has used a custom PCB for the GTX 1080 Mini, their awesome cooling technology as always, and a single 8-pin PCIe power connector.

The backplate has small holes that will let some of the heat out and away from the PCB, and the heat sink itself runs off the end of the card - and still, it's small.

CES 2017 - AMD's unannounced Radeon RX 500 series graphics cards have made a surprise appearance here at CES, with Lenovo unveiling their new Y520 laptop that can be optioned with NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1050, GTX 1050 Ti... or the Radeon RX 560M with up to 4GB of RAM.

It was most likely a mistake on Lenovo's part - because none of these graphics cards have been unveiled yet, but we should expect the Radeon RX 500 series part in question - with the Radeon RX 560M in question, possibly being a rebranded RX 460M as VideoCardz calls it.

AMD could use a new Polaris 12 GPU as well, but I'm taking away from this is that it's a lower-end SKU that won't be a Vega part. This means the RX 500 series should include a larger stack of cards, leaving the Vega cards to be branded as just that - Radeon Vega, like the Radeon R9 Fury line of cards from 2015.

If there's one thing that AMD has nailed throughout 2015 and 2016, it was pushing its FreeSync technology into 121 monitors on the market - nearly 5x that of its competitor in G-Sync from NVIDIA. But now AMD has stepped up the monitor refresh technology game with the announcement of FreeSync 2.

FreeSync has been great, offering up to 144Hz refresh smoothed out with FreeSync on 2560x1440 monitors - and even 100Hz on the latest 3440x1440 monitors on the market.

There are now 121 monitors with FreeSync technology inside, and AMD has 20 partners working on Radeon FreeSync monitors, while only 8 monitor partners work with NVIDIA.

AMD has released its teaser for their upcoming Vega GPU architecture, something that I saw a few weeks ago during their Tech Summit 2016 event - check it out below.

The new 'After the Uprising" video does an extremely good job of continuing the efforts that AMD put into the Radeon Rebellion marketing triumph from last year, but I take a personal spin on it - I consider the drums stream processor cores, and there's a lot of them in the video.

AMD has also launched a new website for all things Vega, which you can find right here at ve.ga - yeah, another nice touch. There's a countdown on the website right now for 3 days and a few hours from now - which is at the start of CES 2017, so expect some big announcements during that time - and keep clicking back here at TT HQ, my article will be waiting for you.

ZOTAC has been keeping some secrets for an unveiling days before CES 2017, with the new GeForce GTX 1080 Mini graphics card - perfect for those blistering fast SFF gaming PCs you want to build.

It has a fully-enabled GP104 GPU with 8GB of GDDR5X at its full 10Gbps bandwidth, with 1620/1759MHz base and boost clocks, respectively. We have 3 x DP 1.4 connectors, 1 x HDMI 2.0b, and 1 x DVI output.

ZOTAC has made totally-new custom PCB with compatible GDDR5X RAM, but we don't know if ZOTAC went with NVIDIA's 5+1-phase VRM, or altered the VRM design. The GeForce GTX 1080 Mini rocks a single 8-pin PCIe power connector, and two SLI-HB bridges. It will consume up to 180W of power, with ZOTAC using a shortened PCB and custom cooler that rocks 2 x fans to keep everything nice and cool.

I wasn't going to write this article, but then I thought it would make for some good discussion at the very least. AMD and NVIDIA have a very big year ahead of them, and in my opinion it'll be the biggest year ever for the GPU giants, but AMD has a distinct advantage overall.

2015 was a massive year for both companies with AMD kicking off the very end of 2014 with the unveiling of its Polaris architecture, and then NVIDIA hit multiple home runs in May with the announcement of its Pascal-based GeForce GTX 10 series. It wasn't long after that when AMD launched its Radeon RX 400 series with three cards: the Radeon RX 460, RX 470, and RX 480.

All three cards did quite well, with the RX 470 representing some excellent value for money for 1080p 60FPS gamers - and even some 1440p gamers. The Radeon RX 480 was the fastest Polaris-based graphics card in the line up, but it couldn't begin to touch NVIDIA's latest GeForce GTX 1070 and GTX 1080. All of this before the unveiling of the new Titan X, which blows away even the GTX 1080 when stressed in 4K gaming and triple-4K display scenarios.

AMD appears to be ringing in the New Year bell a little early this year, with a tease on the official Twitter account for Radeon, with a simple tweet of "New Year. New architecture", teasing its next-gen Vega GPU architecture.

AMD recently held their Tech Summit 2016 event in Sonoma, California - with our first look at a Vega 10-based graphics card with 8GB of HBM2, capable of driving DOOM at 4K 60FPS+ on its highest graphics settings.

It was only a week ago that a Vega 10 GPU of some sort received RRA certification, but so did a 'Polaris 12' graphics chip, too. Performance wise, we should expect Titan X level performance from a Vega 10 graphics card with 8GB of HBM2, and most likely ready to compete against NVIDIA's unannounced and unconfirmed - but teased GeForce GTX 1080 Ti.