Video Cards & GPUs News - Page 333

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".