Video Cards & GPUs - Page 433

We know that the Radeon R9 295X2 is coming, very very soon, but VideoCardz.com has an exclusive piece detailing AMD's upcoming dual Hawaii-based GPU. It's quite the beast, so prepare your hearts, wallets and electric bills.

The Radeon R9 295X2 is the first dual-GPU card from AMD based on its impressive Hawaii architecture, where AMD has baked in two fully loaded Hawaii cores, instead of cutting them down for the usual thermal and power consumption issues. We have a total of 8GB of RAM spread across its impressive 512-bit memory bus.

The full specs you can see above, comparing it against the Radeon R9 290X, the just-announced GeForce GTX TITAN Z, and the slightly older but still very relevant GeForce GTX 780 Ti. The new R9 295X2 features two 8-pin PCIe power connectors, with a total TDP of 500W. This is quite high considering the R9 290X has a TDP of 250W, as does the GTX 780 Ti. But, we have two full Hawaii cores here, versus the usual cut down of cores that we see in most dual-GPU cards.

GTC 2014 - At the GPU Technology Conference, NVIDIA unveiled a few new technologies that could see us in a world of 8-way GPUs in consumer PCs within the next couple of years.

Right now, the limitations in place in the form of chipsets, PCIe bandwidth and power consumption simply don't allow this to happen. Starting with NVLink, which promises some impressive tech - such as 5-12x the bandwidth of PCIe, it could happen.

Then we have 3D Memory, another technology which could enable 8-way GPUs. We have incredibly fast memory bandwidth, much faster than what is available today, and it will only get better, and especially as it has 400% better energy efficiency.

GTC 2014 - Jen Hsun Huang, the co-founder and CEO of NVIDIA, has just unveiled the new GeForce GTX TITAN Z GPU. What does the Z variant of an already incredible GPU do?

Well, how does 12GB of VRAM sound? GeForce GTX TITAN Z features two GK110 cores, 12GB of VRAM, 5,760 CUDA cores (2,880 cores per GPU), 8 TeraFLOPS of performance and a price tag of $2999. The TITAN Z's two GPUs run at the same clock speed, thanks to NVIDIA deploying dynamic power balancing.

This means that both GPUs will never see a performance bottleneck. We should see a card that is both cool and quiet, instead of hot and loud. NVIDIA is using low-profile components with a ducted baseplate that channels turbulence and improves acoustic quality.

GTC 2014 - NVIDIA has just unveiled its next generation GPU at its GPU Technology Conference in San Jose, California - Pascal. Don't let the name fool you, there's some incredible technology that has made Pascal possible.

Pascal has three key technologies that have made it possible, NVLink, 3D Memory and a new Module size - one-third the size of a PCIe card. NVLink provides some incredible bandwidth - where it will provide up to 5-12x the bandwidth of PCIe 3.0, which NVIDIA expects to see 1TB/sec memory bandwidth by 2016 thanks to the next technology, 3D Memory.

3D Memory is something that has been coming for quite sometime, but it will provide 2-4x memory bandwidth, and its extremely small. This helps NVIDIA's next-gen Pascal GPU to be just one-third the size of standard GPU - such as the just-released GeForce GTX TITAN Black GPU.

Today GIGABYTE announced the launch of two new AMD Graphics Core Next (GCN) based video cards. The new GIGABYTE GV-R928WF3OC-3GD and GV-R7265WF2OC-2GD are based on AMD's Radeon R9 280 and R7 265 video cards and feature several upgrades that take them above and beyond AMD's reference designs.

The GV-R928WF3OC-3GD features 1792 GCN stream processor and 3GB of high-speed GDDR5 memory that runs on a 384-bit memory interface. Cooling is handled by a WINDFORCE 3X cooling system that ensures gamers get every ounce of performance out of this factory overclocked GPU. The GV-R7265WF2OC-2GD boast 1024 GCN stream processor, 2GB of GDDR5 memory and 256-bit memory interface. Cooling is again handled by GIGABYTE's WINDFORCE cooler, but features only 2 fans instead of the three seen on the R9 280 OC.

"The GV-R928WF3OC-3GD masters the balance of overclocking ability and video card stability to provide gamers with a reliable gaming environment. It is equipped with exclusive WINDFORCE 3X plus patented "Triangle Cool" technology," said GIGABYTE. "The powerful airflow and heat dissipation capability keeps the video card cool and quiet, and of course leads to the best performance. Even more, both GV-R928WF3OC-3GD and GV-R7265WF2OC-2GD are well overclocked. These two models are packed with groundbreaking features like DirectX 11.2, AMD PowerTune and CrossFire technology. Gamers should never settle for anything less."

NVIDIA GeForce's new WHQL drivers tweaked to provide the best possible gaming experience for upcoming FPS game by Respawn Entertainment: Titanfall. The company emphasized in its press released that the newer WHQL drivers are 'an essential upgrade for pilots entering the fray.'

The newer GeForce drivers also provides enhanced GPU offset options for GeForce GTX 750 Ti and GTX 750 'Maxwell' video cards. Previously these card's GPU offset was limited to +130MHz, but the newer drivers allow more ability to overclock these cards.

The following are other upgrades and added profiles:

All the way back in November last year, we reported on AMD building a dual Hawaii XT GPU - the same core used on its flagship Radeon R9 290X... but this new video card would feature two of those Hawaii XT cores.

The dual Radeon R9 290X became a little more real this week, with a tease of the ARES III GPU by ASUS. ASUS' ARES line of GPUs is its dual-GPU video cards, some of the most respected and most-wanted GPUs on the market. Talking specs, the dual Radeon R9 290X card would feature three 8-pin PCI-E power connectors, with a massive 500W TDP.

We should see 8GB of RAM total, 4GB per GPU. Personally, I think the 4GB limitation is going to be the letdown on a dual Radeon R9 290X card, as SAPPHIRE has teased a beautiful Radeon R9 290X VAPOR-X which features 8GB of RAM, on a single GPU.

Club 3D has just announced the launch of two new flagship video cards to its PokerSeries GPUs. The cards are based on AMD's "Hawaii" architecture reference design Radeon R9 290 and R9 290X GPUs. The all new royalAce Radeon R9 290 features 2560 stream processors and 4GB of GDDR5 RAM making it one of the fastest GPUs on the market today.

The royalAce Radeon R9 290X is the king of the castle with 2816 stream processors, 4GB of GDDR5 RAM, and a tripple fan cooler that ensures gamers achieve the highest-level of performance possible. The royalAce R9 290 features a core clock speed of 1040MHz while the royalAce R9 290X is 10MHz faster at 1050MHz. Both cards are said to be much faster than the reference design and can easily compete with the best custom Hawaii designs on the market today.

While rumors of DirectX 12 have been circling for over a year now, no one knew exactly when it would debut into the public's eye, but today the new Graphics API has been all but confirmed buy a new Twitter account and webpage that has popped up onto the internet. While no official word from Microsoft has been released, the Twitter account did say that "Rumors of our demise have been greatly exaggerated... #DirectX12 is coming to #GDC." Which means that AMD's Mantle will have a very giant competitor to deal with at GDC 2014.

The website appears to be legit as well since it is hosted on Microsoft's MSDN blog site and includes heavy hitting graphics companies like AMD, Intel, NVIDIA, and Qualcomm. The latter suggest that DirectX 12 has been developed for mobile devices too and there is a big chance that we could see it arrive on the next Windows Phone 8.1 update that is slated for April. If the website is correct then DirectX 12 will make its debut at 10AM on March 20th at the 2014 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

Today Sapphire unveiled two new GPUs that fill the gap between its R9 270 and R9 290 models of discrete GPUS. The new R9 280 is based on AMD's GCN architecture and features the company's Dual-X cooler. The Dual-X cooling solution featured twin aerofoil fans and graduated heat pipes to ensure cooling of the GPU is efficient and quiet as possible.

The R9 280 also features 3GB of GDDR5 clocked to 1250MHz and a GCN core that features 1792 stream processors. The core is clocked to 850MHz and can reach a clock speed of 940MHz when boost is enabled. Support for DirectX 2 and AMD's mantle is also on board with the card being able to push 4K video to displays using HDMI 1.4a or DisplayPort v1.2. Sapphire also released a new version of its successful R9 280x that features the company's exclusive Vapor-X cooling Solution. The new R9 280x features an enhanced GCN core, with 2048 stream processors, and a 1GHz core clock.