Video Cards & GPUs - Page 429

It looks like we can expect NVIDIA to unleash next-gen GPUs this year, with the GeForce GTX 800 series to be revealed this year. Sweoverclockers is reporting that NVIDIA will launch both the GeForce GTX 880 and GTX 870 sometime in Q4 2014 - so between October and December.

While the GeForce GTX 880 and GTX 870 will be based off of NVIDIA's second generation Maxwell architecture, it will be on the 28nm process - not the 20nm process that we expected. TSMC has started volume production of the 20nm node for everyone, but this should start being spun on new GPUs in 2015 - something that will provide a large jump in performance, thermals, noise and much more for both NVIDIA and AMD.

Another interesting part of this news, is that NVIDIA has reportedly canceled the production of GM100 chips, in favor of the GM200 chips. These new GPUs are still based on the 28nm process, so it will be 2015 before things really ramp up for next-gen GPUs. This means that the new GeForce GTX 800 series are cards 'for now,' and intermediary product before NVIDIA can ramp up 20nm-based products next year.

It is pretty obvious that the new GeForce GTX 880 will be faster than the GeForce GTX 780, but what is interesting, is that it will be both cheaper, and more power efficient - something nobody can complain about.

The news is slowly floating out that the 20nm-based Maxwell-powered GeForce GTX 880 will be faster, cheaper, and more power efficient - but that is only one GPU in a massive lineup of cards. We should expect the new high-end Maxwell-based 20nm GPU late this year, or early 2015. NVIDIA could be forced to reveal 28nm-based Maxwell GPUs, but right now there's no threat to force their hand.

If NVIDIA do release the Maxwell-based GeForce GTX 880 on the cheap, faster than what we have with the GTX 780, or even the GTX 780 Ti, at around 200W power consumption, it would really put the pressure on AMD. This only ends up being great for consumers, though.

Computex 2014 - The Lightning Series from MSI has been one of our favorites for as long as we can remember. When we saw the GTX 780 Ti Lightning at the corner of our eye when walking around the MSI booth, we found ourselves instantly excited with just what was being shown off.

Carrying the massive triple fan Twin Frozr cooler and sporting Lightning features like GPU Reactor, Military Class 4 Components, Enhanced Power Design and Triple Force Architecture we knew that this was a card we must have. To then be told that the card wouldn't hit the market, though, was quite upsetting. Due to NVIDIA not allowing MSI to increase the voltage specification, MSI have decided to not release the model as it wouldn't give users the Lightning experience that they have come to known.

A small amount of the cards have been made which will be used by overclockers. With a modified BIOS they can increase the voltage to levels that continue to be safe while using LN2 cooling. It's really disappointing we'll never get a chance to test this model.

As previously reported, NVIDIA was supposed to release its GeForce Titan Z flagship video card on April 29th, but the company delayed its plans, moving it to May 8th.

However since NVIDIA didn't launch that card on May 8th, speculations were on a rise about why it wasn't launched until a leaked benchmarks from a review site indicated that the video card with dual GK110 GPU is slower than AMD Radeon R9 295X2. It was also assumed that NVIDIA was bumping the card's clock speed to boost its performance.

NVIDIA was all set to unleash its GeForce GTX Titan Z on April 29, but missed the launch. It was then meant to launch on May 8, but missed that launch date, too. Now we're seeing a leaked review of the dual GK110 beast, which seems to be slower than the much cheaper Radeon R9 295X2 from AMD.

The leaked goodness comes from Videocardz, which reports that the Titan Z is a triple-slot card - but air-cooled. This is compared to the liquid cooler on the Radeon R9 295X2, which requires mounting in your case. There's dual 8-pin PCIe power, so we're looking at a total TDP of 375W on NVIDIA's dual GK110 product. But what about performance? The Titan Z doesn't beat the R9 295X2 in everything, but it comes close. When compared to GTX 780s in SLI, the Titan Z loses, with a much bigger gap.

The problem here is, even if it comes close to the R9 295X2, but doesn't beat it - the Titan Z is at least $3000 (without taxes). You can go and buy a SAPPHIRE R9 295X2 on Amazon for $1536 - half the cost of the Titan Z.

NVIDIA was supposed to officially launch its dual GK110 based GTX Titan Z video card on 8th May, but it turned out to be a no-show. The graphic chip maker neither made any official launch announcement, nor any retails stores are selling the video card.

It is now rumoured that NVIDIA may have delayed the launch of the card 'indefinitely'.

The GeForce Titan Z will have two GK110 GPU core, followed by 12GB GDDR5 memory, 5760 Cuda Cores with base clock of 705MHz and a price tag of a jaw dropping $3,000 without taxes. Originally, the card was supposed to be launched on 29th April, 2014, but it was then delayed to 8th of May. It was rumoured that the card will be the highest-performing video card with 8TFLOPS of computing power that may justify the price.

OverclockersUK has a great new exclusive from SAPPHIRE, with its new SAPPHIRE R9 290X Vapor-X 8GB GPU. This is something we posted about a while ago, but now the GPU with a bunch of VRAM is on sale, but it's quite expensive at £600 inc. VAT (or £500/$848 ex. VAT).

The SAPPHIRE R9 290X Vapor-X 8GB has 2816 SPs, 1060MHz Core Clock, 5.6GHz on the memory, two dual-link DVI ports, an HDMI port, and a DisplayPort output. There are two 8-pin power connections for power, with SAPPHIRE recommending you own a 600W PSU to get it working. SAPPHIRE's amazingly efficient Vapor-X cooling steals the show here, teaming up with the 8GB of RAM for a high-five of GPU goodness.

SAPPHIRE has made its entire stock of Vapor-X 8GB GPUs for OverclockersUK, which means that there needs to be some serious interest outside of the country for the company to make more GPUs. I'm sure there will be though, as I'm one of them. Give me four of them please, SAPPHIRE.

The last time we heard about the GeForce GTX 880, we heard it would have 4GB of RAM - well, how does 8GB of RAM sound on NVIDIA's next generation flagship GPU? Beautiful, just as I thought.

Well, an engineering sample (ES) card has been intercepted on its way from NVIDIA's development center in India, on its way to China. The shipping manifest was found by Chinese press, with "GM204" and "8 GB GDDR5" plastered all over it. We know that GM204 is the successor to the GK104, which should pack 3200 CUDA cores, a 256-bit memory bus and a massive 8GB of RAM.

If NVIDIA is about to launch the GTX 880 with 8GB of RAM over a 256-bit bus, it must be using some very high density memory chips. Better yet, the price should be under $800. I would've liked to have seen a 512-bit bus with 8GB of RAM, but I would just be greedy there, wouldn't I?

According to a report, NVIDIA has launched its plans to launch its flagship GPU GeForce GTX Titan-Z GPU that was expected to go on sale today. It was pointed out that the chipmaker is making last minute design changes for the GPU cooler.

There's also another report which indicates that it cannot be put against AMD Radeon R9 295X2. It was pointed out that the reported clock speeds would not make the NVIDIA's flagship compete with Radeon R9 295X2.

According to few retail websites that leaked the information, the flagship card with 2x GK110 GPUs has the base clock of 695MHz with Boost Clock of up to 730MHz with 7000MHz memory clock, 2x 6GB memory, 2x 384-bit memory bus which will take power via 8+8 PCIe pin and priced for a jaw dropping $3,000.

SAPPHIRE has just announced it has released the new SAPPHIRE R9 290X Vapor-X OC GPU, which is an overclocked version of the already-fast Radeon R9 290X. We have GPU clocks at 1080MHz, while the 4GB of GDDR5 coasts along at 1410MHz.

But the star of the show here is definitely SAPPHIRE's impressive Vapor-X cooling system, which sports vapor chamber technology, which is mounted between the GPU itself, and the base of the heat sink and cooler - this way, it draws as much heat as possible away from the GPU, and onto the cooler. SAPPHIRE has used a new Vapor-X cooler, which leverages its amazing Tri-X structure.

The Tri-X structure features five heat pipes, and three very efficient fans. This should keep the new SAPPHIRE R9 290X Vapor-X OC GPU cool, even when overclocked past its already overclocked speeds. There's also the Digital Power control on the new Vapor-X OC card, as well as a new Aero10 VRM section which pumps 10-phase power with high-power Direct-FET technology into the GPU, memory and circuitry.