Gizmodo: Graphics Cards

Microsoft: DirectX 11 To Use GPU For Parallel Processing

Matt Hickey — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 22:00:00 EDT

DirectX 11 is coming, and it looks pretty awesome. Sure, you get advancements in shading and better support for multi-core machines, but what's really got our heads turning is the concept of letting programmers use the GPU in your video card to do some of the heavy lifting, meaning your graphics chip becomes a second, parallel processor. While the idea itself isn't new, this is the first we've heard of DirectX using such technology and we're sure it'll have PC gaming fanboys drooling when it rolls out, whenever that happens to be. [Joystique]

Email Reveals Nvidia and ATI May Have Colluded to Inflate Prices

matt buchanan — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:30:09 EDT

A graphics card can cost you almost as much as a bona fide Batman gadget, especially when you get up to ridiculous amounts of power and performance, but that ludicrous price is actually less ludicrous than it could be, because of the cutthroat competition between ATI and Nvidia, right? Not so fast. An email Nvidia sent by Nvidia senior VP of marketing, Dan Vivoli, to ATI's president and COO, Dave Orton made public by the judge in an ongoing anti-trust suit against the two companies reveals that they both see eye-to-eye on prices. Namely, that they should be higher:

I really think we should work harder together on the marketing front. As you and I have talked about, even though we are competitors, we have the common goal of making our category a well positioned, respected playing field. $5 and $8 stocks are a result of no respect.

'Cause price-fixing definitely gets you more respect. It definitely gets you more money though! [Law.com via Crunchgear]

Nvidia Denies Imminent Epidemic of Graphics Chip Combustion

matt buchanan — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 10:40:00 EDT

Took a little longer than I expected, but Nvidia has come around to denying that basically every GeForce 8400-8700 graphics card powered by the G84 and G86 chipset is a flawed, ticking timebomb, waiting to die from overheating issues. They say that the problem affects "only a very small percentage of the notebook chips that have shipped" and that "the problem depends on a combination of environmental conditions, configuration, and usage model."

While there's no immediate way to tell if Nvidia is in fact lying (which would be a massively boneheaded move), as the Inquirer alleged, we'll know in the coming months. Reports of massive chip failures and an even larger hit to Nvidia's financials than the $150-$200 million it already took would make it super obvious. Hopefully the Inquirer was just being bombastic and British. [Ars Technica]

Top-End Nvidia GeForce GTX 280, 260 Graphics Cards Get Huge Price Cut

matt buchanan — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 10:40:03 EDT

Nvidia's top end GeForce GTX 260 and 280 graphics cards—whose power borders on sorcery—launched for $399 and $650, respectively, less than a month ago. But pressure from ATI has driven Nvidia to already cut the price, hard. The GTX 280 is now only $399, while the GTX 260 is $299, the same price as ATI's HD 4870. Good to see ATI back in the fight. Anyone already buy this and feel hosed though? Competition is a lovely thing. [CNET]

Inquirer: Every Nvidia Graphics Card With G84 or G86 Chipset Is Ready to Die

matt buchanan — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 15:15:00 EDT

Those overheating Nvidia laptop graphics cards that are dying en masse? The Inquirer is reporting that "all the G84 and G86 parts are bad. Period. No exceptions," on mobile and desktop. Those chipsets are in pretty much every GeForce 8-series graphics card below the 8800s (here's a complete list of cards and chipsets). Notably, that means every MacBook Pro since the Santa Rosa update has the bad cards, which fail at a "higher-than-normal" rate.

The root of the problem is the substrate/bumping material, which Nvidia themselves had characterized as "weak." The G84 and G86 chipsets use the same application-specific integrated circuit, which the Inquirer has been told had no changes made to it during its life cycle—besides, Nvidia wouldn't change the assembly process or materials for a single batch, according to engineers. So Nvidia's official claim, that the weak materials were only used for a single batch, doesn't hold so much water. And as the Inquirer points out, their fix, to run the fan more to offseat the heat issue simply covers up the problem while it drains your battery.

If this is all true, Nvidia better have more than $200 million set aside for fixes. [The Inquirer

Nvidia Helping Modders Port PhysX Engine to ATI Radeon

matt buchanan — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 20:30:00 EDT

Remember those modders from NGOHQ who were swolling out ATI's Radeon graphics cards with Nvidia's PhysX physics engine? Surprise, Nvidia loves the idea of their physics engine running on rival ATI's graphics cards, so they're giving Eran Badit and his crew total support, with access to documentation, SDKs, hardware and actual engineers. AMD, on the other hand, isn't being so cooperative.

Right now, Badit is chasing the goal of porting PhysX to the Radeon HD 4800, but ATI's not giving them any hardware yet, much less developer and PR support. Not totally surprising that ATI would stall, since porting their rival's physics engine to their cards is a definite poke at them and the Havok engine they license from Intel.

And making PhysX more universal by having it run on ATI cards makes it more likely to be supported by game developers, which isn't so hot for Havok. Nvidia's definitely got the upper deck here, since in the meantime ATI looks like a bunch of meanies, but helping out Badit threatens their own wares. [TGDaily]

M-Series Is Industry First Quad-Display GPU, Says Matrox

Elaine Chow — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 18:30:00 EDT

Matrox keeps updating its multi-display thingamajigs, this time with the first Quad-Head GPU in the industry, according to the company. The M-Series M9140 LP PCIe x16 can drive up to four 1920 x 1200 screens with 512MB of RAM. Matrox says its for business time, so hedge fund managers and fans of the Conchords will be able to get their graphic information overdose for $599. [Matrox via The Inquirer via Crunch Gear]

ATI Radeon Graphics Cards Running Nvidia PhysX Are Faster, Stronger, Awesomer

matt buchanan — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 19:30:00 EDT

After Nvidia picked up PhysX, it was obvious ATI would probably get left out of Nvidia's efforts to spread the love to graphics cards and x86 CPUs (hence ATI hooking up with Havok). (Physics engines, for the uninitiated, are what make your body bounce around with aplomb after getting stuck with a grenade in Halo 3.) But some modders have fixed that and ported PhysX to ATI's Radeon 3800 cards, instantly improving benchmarks.

A Radeon HD 3870 system jumped from an overall 3D Mark Vantage score of P3800 to P4262. Though it won't be available for ATI's latest 4800 cards for a bit, you can download the PhysX enabler this weekend at NGOHQ, which should make your Unreal experience on ATI that much sweeter. [NGOHQ via TG Daily via /.]

Mid-Range Graphics Card Showdown: Nvidia 9800 GTX+ Slides Past ATI Radeon HD 4850

matt buchanan — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 16:59:00 EDT

Poised and waiting for ATI's latest graphics card to hit, Nvidia immediately fired off the 9800 GTX+, a nimbler version of its behemoth 9800 GTX, aggressively priced at $229 to put serious pressure on the $199 HD 4850. Benchmarks comparing the two weren't available yesterday, but PC Perspective has 'em up now. In short, while the HD 4850 can mostly keep up with Nvidia's older, regular 9800 GTX, the steroid-injected 9800 GTX+ has enough juice to edge it out in almost every single benchmark. The Radeon HD 4850 has about a month on the shelf to itself before the 9800 GTX+ hits though. Check out PC Perspective for more graphs and numbers than your brain wants to deal with on a Friday. [PC Perspective via Engadget]

Steve Jobs Explains OS X Snow Leopard in Three Easy Steps

Jason Chen — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 15:03:18 EDT

The NY Times has a good interview with Steve Jobs in which Apple's CEO lets fly with very quotable, very understandable quotes about OS X 10.6. We already heard the details, but it was still hard to wrap our head around why Apple would make an operating system without many visible features and just go and change architecture around. He explains that they're doing it because programmers don't know WTF is going on with parallel processing.

The way the processor industry is going is to add more and more cores, but nobody knows how to program those things. I mean, two, yeah; four, not really; eight, forget it.

Jobs claims that Apple's made a "breakthrough" in parallel-programming called Grand Central, which he alluded to in his keynote yesterday. He didn't, however, go into details about how it works and why it's going to revolutionize dividing up tasks into multiple processors in ways that other operating systems haven't yet.

What's also interesting is the ability to bring the GPU (your graphics card) into the processing role to help out your CPU. Apple's calling this newly proposed standard OpenCL (Open Compute Library).

Basically it lets you use graphics processors to do computation. It’s way beyond what Nvidia or anyone else has, and it’s really simple.

It's vaguely similar to the way that Photoshop CS 4 will use your graphics card to help process image manipulation and help out in rendering 3D models as well.

Will there be more features like Time Machine? Not according to Jobs.
3.

“We’ve added over a thousand features to Mac OS X in the last five years,” he said Monday in an interview after his presentation. “We’re going to hit the pause button on new features.”

Seems to us that Snow Leopard won't be heavy on the features, but it will increase processing speeds for people who are heavy on the processing in their daily computing and have more than just a few cores—a place we're all heading to in the next few years. [NYT]

Nvidia GeForce 9M GPUs 40 Percent Faster Than Last Gen, Bring Hybrid SLI to Notebooks

matt buchanan — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 09:00:00 EDT

And now for the real Nvidia meat this week: The GeForce 9M series. Besides promising 40 percent faster performance than its last gen of notebook graphics cards (8M if you're keeping score), the 9M series brings Hybrid SLI to notebooks for the first time—the high performance GPU kicks in when needed, or it drops to the low-power one when things are chill. They go from the budget 9100M G to the top o' the line 9650M GT (which delivers 132 gigaflops), though they all support Blu-ray 2.0 spec (with 1080p output and PureVideo HD processing), PhysX, HDMI 1.3, DisplayPort 1.1 and mo'. You'll be seeing these puppies in "over a hundred notebook models beginning this summer."

NVIDIA Optimizes Notebook PCs
With New Lineup Of GPUs

NVIDIA Addresses Global Demand for Better Visual Experiences on the Notebook PC

COMPUTEX 2008, TAIPEI—JUNE 3, 2008—As the global demand for better visual experiences makes its way into the notebook market, NVIDIA Corporation continues to address that demand with the introduction of a new line-up of notebook GPUs, the NVIDIA® GeForce® 9M Series of graphics processors, and a new graphics innovation, NVIDIA Hybrid SLI® technology. These new technologies enable customers to optimize their notebooks to power today’s visual applications, such as: the latest operating systems, photo editing, mapping software, games, and HD movies. Considered one of the most important processors inside the notebook PC, and perhaps the most important, an NVIDIA GPU enables a completely flexible, scalable, and high-definition entertainment platform.

“Beginning this summer, GeForce 9M GPUs and Hybrid SLI, paired with AMD and Intel CPUs, will enable a new breed of notebooks,” said Jeff Fisher, senior vice president of the GPU business at NVIDIA. “These new notebooks will be optimized to deliver a visual experience and raw computing performance that traditional cookie-cutter notebooks with integrated graphics simply can’t touch.”

With the launch of the GeForce 9M Series of notebook GPUs, NVIDIA has once again engineered the world’s fastest notebook GPUs, designed for running today’s graphically intensive games, 3D applications and HD movies at extreme resolutions. In addition, this new GPU features a multi-core architecture which will not only speed up entertainment applications, but will also speed up today’s lifestyle applications, like video encoding from a PC to a small personal media device, where the speed up in the video conversion is up to 5x faster with the GeForce 9M family GPUs.”

In addition, the new GeForce 9M notebook GPUs enable the world’s first notebooks with Hybrid SLI technology. The new technology enables two NVIDIA GPUs, one low-power and one high-performance, to work cooperatively in the same PC to deliver two features—GeForce Boost and HybridPower™. These features deliver more performance from both GPUs for visual computing when needed, or save power by switching to the low-power GPU when not. Hybrid SLI gives users the quality and performance benefits of a high-performance GPU without sacrificing battery life.

The NVIDIA GeForce 9M family of GPUs also feature:

+ New graphics engine that delivers up to 40% faster performance than the previous generation of GeForce notebook GPUs and up to 10x faster than generic integrated graphics solutions
+ New PureVideo® HD video processing for improved color and contrast
+ Full support for the latest Blu-ray Profile 2.0 features and Blu-ray Live
+ Extensive multi-display connectivity with support for all the latest display standards including DVI, HDMI 1.3, Display Port 1.1, and VGA
+ Support for the new MXM version 3.0 graphics module specification

“With the recent addition of advanced features to Blu-ray Live and complexity of DirectX 10 games like Crysis, PC users need more graphics processing performance than today’s generic integrated graphics can deliver,” said Rene Haas, general manager of the notebook business at NVIDIA. “The new GeForce 9M series meets this need while also delivering processing muscle beyond gaming and graphics.”

The new GeForce 9M GPUs will power the visual computing experience in over a hundred notebook models beginning this summer. For more information, please visit www.nvidia.com.

[Nvidia]

Photoshop CS 4 Will Use Your Graphics Card to Run at Light Speed, Do Fancy 3D Tricks

matt buchanan — Sat, 24 May 2008 18:30:00 EDT

The next version of Photoshop (CS 4) will be juicing up performance by taking advantage of hardware it hasn't tapped before: graphics cards and physics processors. How much faster is the new 64-bit, GPU-injected Photoshop? At a demo at Nvidia's HQ, TG Daily watched "the presenter playing with a 2 GB, 442 megapixel image like it was a 5 megapixel image on an 8-core Skulltrail system. Changes made through image zoom and through a new rotate canvas tool were applied almost instantly." Update: John Nack from Adobe is calling bogus on some of TGDaily's info, namely the Oct. release date and says the demoed tech is not "promised to go into any particular version of Photoshop." So take it for what you will.

3D effects are spiffier too, with direct 3D model manipulation and rendering, as well as a snappier 3D accelerated panorama. Overall, it sounds like it could be the most important Photoshop update in years when it drops in October. [TGDaily]

Fujitsu's AMILO GraphicBooster External Graphics Card For Easy Laptop Upgrades

Sean Fallon — Fri, 16 May 2008 16:30:00 EDT

Fujitsu is set to launch an external graphics card solution dubbed the "AMILO GraphicBooster" sometime in the "next few weeks." Unfortunately, this information was leaked from a presentation, so there isn't a whole lot in the way of details—but we do know that the GraphicBooster is based on ATI XGP technology, it will allow users to connect up to three external displays to their notebook, DVI-D and HDMI connections are included, and it can reportedly deliver a 4.7X performance improvement over the graphics of a small form factor AMILO notebook.

Furthermore, the leaked graph above claims that an AMILO notebook with the GraphicBooster can get up to 8,000 points in 3DMark06. We have heard promises of external hard drives for laptops before, but so far nothing has been made available to the public. With any luck, there will be some truth in all of this (and the card with work with more than just the Fujitsu AMILO laptop). [Notebook Review]

Your Computer Sucks, Get a New Graphics Card

matt buchanan — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 14:25:00 EDT

Your PC? It sucks, it doesn't have enough cores. Sure, you could get a new multi-core processor like a Phenom or Core 2 Quad, adding like 2 or 3 cores to your rig. Or! You could get a new graphics card instead and get over one hundred extra cores. And more cores = more better, right?

Actually, even though Nvidia's argument seems slightly retarded and self-serving, it has a bit of merit—as you go up in CPU price ranges, the price to performance ratio drops pretty steadily. And if you're running Windows Vista, you actually need a solid graphics card to run it without any hitches, even if you're not gaming. So instead of plowing an extra $100 into a slightly faster processor that'll net you minimal performance gains, you'd get more out of it investing in a better graphics card. [Nvidia via Pop Sci]

NVIDIA 9600 GT Reviewed: Best Low-Cost Gaming Card With Anti-Aliasing

matt buchanan — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 12:40:58 EST

NVIDIA's first GeForce 9 series card officially launched today, the budget 9600 GT, which is based on a shrunken version of the G92 graphics processor in their mid-range 8800 GT and the newer GTS cards.

It's actually extremely similar to the 8800 GT, but smaller and more efficient. It has half the number of stream processors but at a higher frequency, so Tom's Hardware says you're looking at a 38 percent drop in raw processing power vs. the 8800 GT cards. However, in the real gaming world, performance was only about 12 percent lower than the 8800 GT. So while it's not enough of a departure to warrant being branded a 9 series card, it's the "the best card in its price range for performance with antialiasing enabled." [PR Newswire, Tom's Hardware]

ATI Breaks Teraflop Barrier with Radeon HD 3870 X2 GPU

Wilson Rothman — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 10:07:26 EST

Remember that honkin' ATI graphics card we showed you at CES? The one that was 1,000 times as fast as a Cray-1? Well, it's official, making its debut today as the $450 ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2. It's the first GPU to break the teraflop barrier, and is nearly double the performance of the HD 3870 you spent all your money on back in November. Press release with technical details after jump. [Product Page]

AMD Delivers Enthusiast Performance Leadership(1) with the Introduction of the ATI Radeon(TM) HD 3870 X2
— Industry's First Teraflop Consumer Graphics Card Redefines High-Definition Performance for 1080P Gaming and beyond —
SUNNYVALE, Calif. —(Business Wire)— Jan. 28, 2008 AMD (NYSE:AMD) today announced the immediate availability of the ATI Radeon(TM) HD 3870 X2 graphics processor, expanding the visual boundaries of PC entertainment well beyond the 1080P High Definition (HD) threshold. The industry's first graphics processor to break the Teraflop (one trillion floating point operations per second) barrier, the ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 nearly doubles the performance of the award-winning ATI Radeon(TM) HD 3870 introduced in November 2007.(2)

Through an elegant yet aggressive design, the 55 nanometer process-based ATI Radeon 3870 X2 combines two ATI Radeon HD 3870s on a single graphics board, connected through integrated CrossFire(TM) technology. ATI Radeon 3870 X2 is also the first performance-leadership graphics product in the world to support Microsoft's upcoming DirectX(R) 10.1 technology. The ATI Radeon 3870 X2 delivers a new class of price and performance leadership with unbelievable enthusiast value at a suggested retail price of US $449.

This launch follows on the success of the recently released ATI Radeon(TM) HD 3400 and ATI Radeon(TM) HD 3600 series graphics products, completing a comprehensive portfolio of next-generation 55nm GPUs that deliver unparalleled price, performance and energy efficiency from entry-level to performance-leadership class products.

"PC gaming enthusiasts demand the ultimate in performance and scalability for their HD gaming experience and the ATI Radeon 3870 X2 sets the standard by which all should be compared in this segment," said Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager, Graphics Product Group, AMD. "With this launch we reaffirm our commitment to enthusiast performance leadership and send a clear message that the ATI Radeon 3870 X2 is the new gold standard of the PC gaming world."

Ultimate Performance

With the upcoming introduction of Microsoft's DirectX 10.1 specification, gamers can expect more realistic gaming environments while developers have access to an increased amount of tools and resources to enhance overall image quality. Through delivering top-to-bottom DirectX 10.1 support, ATI Radeon HD 3000 series users can enjoy a more complete gaming experience now and in the future.

"We're pleased to see our newest DirectX 10 technology brought to market so soon with the introduction of AMD's latest enthusiast hardware," said Kevin Unangst, senior global director of Games for Windows, Microsoft. "One of the greatest advantages of PC gaming is the rapid pace at which the experiences evolve and improve. ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 delivers on the promise of DirectX 10 gaming with significantly improved visuals and enhanced performance."

ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 will also provide support for ATI CrossFireX(TM), the innovative next-generation AMD multi-GPU technology designed to support up to four GPUs. Software support to enable ATI CrossFireX is planned for late Q1 2008.

Ultimate HD Experiences

With the launch of ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2, AMD continues to support the industry-leading Unified Video Decoder (UVD) and ATI Avivo(TM) HD for exceptional platform efficiency and image quality for H.264 and VC-1 high definition content. Enhanced HDMI functionality is also offered via integrated HDCP and audio for HDMI video.

"Alienware prides itself on staying at the forefront of HD gaming innovation so that our brand stands for the best possible experience for our customers," said Patrick Cooper, director of product group, Alienware. "With the launch of the ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 in our Area-51 ALX CrossFire platform, we can push the boundaries of visual realism one step further and provide enthusiast gamers with the perfect blend of next-generation features, performance and platform efficiency."

Ultimate Efficiency

The ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 is the first enthusiast graphics processors to use TSMC's 55nm process technology. The smooth transition to 55nm has allowed for a 2X increase in performance-per-watt over the previous generation. Through an elegant board design, the ATI Radeon 3870 X2 delivers exceptional acoustics that are roughly equivalent to a single ATI Radeon HD 3870. When combined with ATI PowerPlay(TM) technology, the ATI Radeon 3870 X2 delivers exceptional idle power efficiency with the ability to dynamically raise or lower GPU power depending on the usage scenario.

The ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 launches with broad availability and ecosystem support from AMD's Add-in-Board (AIB) and Systems Integrators (SI) partners. AIB partners building boards based on the ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 include Asus, ASK, Club3D, Diamond Multimedia, HIS, ITC, Jetway, MSI, Sapphire, Triplex, Tul and Visiontek. Systems integrators launching ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 series include ABS, Alienware, Canada Computers, CyberPower, Falcon-Northwest, iBUYPOWER, Maingear, Systemax and Velocity Micro.

About AMD

Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE:AMD) is a leading global provider of innovative processing solutions in the computing, graphics and consumer electronics markets. AMD is dedicated to driving open innovation, choice and industry growth by delivering superior customer-centric solutions that empower consumers and businesses worldwide. For more information, visit http://www.amd.com.

(1) Performance comparisons using ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 versus NVIDIA 8800 Ultra using 3D Mark 2006, Supreme Commander, Call of Juarez, BioShock and Unreal Tournament 3 at 2560X1600 on AMD Phenom 2.6GHz CPU, AMD 790FX chipset, 2GB DDR2-800, Windows VISTA 64bit and ATI Catalyst display driver v. 8.45

(2) Performance comparisons of ATI Radeon HD 3870 versus ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 using 3D Mark 2006, Supreme Commander and Unreal Tournament 3 at 2560X1600 on AMD Phenom 2.6GHz CPU, AMD 790FX chipset, 2GB DDR2-800, Windows VISTA 64bit and ATI Catalyst display driver v. 8.45

NVIDIA's Three-Way SLI Graphics Cards Cost More Than Actual Three-Ways

Jason Chen — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 14:10:36 EST

If tying two video cards together in an SLI configuration doesn't quite get you the frames-per-second you need, NVIDIA's just intrduced three-way SLI, which does exactly what it sounds like. Now you can use their nForce 680i SLI motherboard to tie together tres GeForce 8800 GTX or 8800 Ultras to give a 2.8X boost over just using a single card—so you will be able to play Crysis at something more than the "slideshow" configuration.

You canget your own pre-built three-way SLI on the ALienware Area-51 ALX SLI, but will cost $4999 with an overclocked quad-core inside. Not to bitch about the state of PC gaming too much, but when you need three SLI cards to run something on "high" graphics (the way the developer intended), isn't that prohibitively expensive—especially compared with a PS3 or Xbox where you can just plug and go? [SLI Zone via Electronista]

ASUS Upgrades EN8800GT Cards With 1GB of Memory

Sean Fallon — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 18:00:26 EST

Today Asus rolled out the world's first EN8800GT graphics card with 1GB of Qimonda memory. The card is designed to provide optimum DirectX 10 gaming and multimedia playback performance even at the highest resolutions and quality settings. The unit also utilizes an integrated SmartDoctor feature, allowing users to overclock the Shader Clock for performance gains that they claim can exceed 10%.

ASUS also noted that a new Glaciator fan / heatsink hybrid keeps the GPU running at temperatures that are up to 7ºC cooler. Pricing details have not been made available, but you can expect to see the at card on store shelves by the end of December. [ASUS via Electonista]

Nvidia to Launch GeForce 9 in February?

Sean Fallon — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 16:59:31 EST

According to DigiTimes sources, Nvidia is planning on rolling out GeForce 9 this February. They also noted that the first chip in the family will be the 65nm D9E —complete with support for DirectX 10.1 and Shader Model 4.1. As with all rumors, this should be taken with a grain of salt, so I wouldn't put your holiday plans for the 8800GTs on the backburner just yet. [DigiTimes via RegHardware via Gearfuse]

NVIDIA Launches GeForce 8800M GTX and GTS Notebook GPUs

Matt Buchanan — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 17:40:12 EST

NVIDIA got official today with its GeForce 8800M GTX and GTS notebook GPUs, which you might remember from the fresh-out-the-door Alienware beast from a few hours ago. Mark Rein, Epic Games' VP is "ordering one" exclamation point, if that makes you more blisteringly excited. [Nvidia]

NVIDIA has just announced their new GeForce ...

Mark Wilson — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 10:59:47 EDT

NVIDIA has just announced their new GeForce 8800 GT. It makes all those new Direct X 10 accessible to your midrange budget. Look for the cards for $199-$249 starting...NOW! [nvidia]

ATI Graphics May Be at the Root of iMac Freezing Issues

Sean Fallon — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 23:00:04 EDT

Apple's new iMac has been plagued by random—but reproducible for some—freezing issues, and it appears that the ATI Radeon HD graphics card and its drivers could be to blame. According to users participating in official Apple support discussions (here and here), the iMac continues to run during the freeze, but users are unable to control the programs with mouse clicks or keyboard commands without rebooting. Apple is apparently aware of the issue, but at this point, no official fix has been released. Some users have even reported that the latest round of video driver updates have made the problem worse, although there is no evidence to suggest that the problem is widespread. [Appleinsider and Tech.co.uk]

Nvidia's New 8400 GS Will Hit 65nm and Support PCIe 2.0

Louis Ramirez — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 12:55:16 EDT

Now that ATI has finished rolling out their new graphics cards, the boys in green are attempting to take back the spotlight with the new 8400 GS, Nvidia's first GPU to rely on 65nm architecture. What's all the fuss about? 65nm GPUs will be cooler, faster and cheaper to manufacture. The new card will also support the faster PCIe 2.0 standard. The 8400 GS is expected this fall with more 65nm cards due in Q4. – Louis Ramirez

Nvidia Readies 65nm GPUs for Fall This Year [SlashGear]

Intel Graphics Business Still Champ, But Nvidia Is Showing Rocky's Pluck

Wilson Rothman — Wed, 02 May 2007 10:20:00 EDT

Lest ye forgot, the graphics-card wars are still a-ragin'. CPU maker Intel is still number one overall, with 38.7% marketshare, and they're making crazy gains in the laptop market as well, according to a fresh report. Is it because Intel is better, or just a more convenient choice for OEMs and shoppers? However there is some good news for GeForce fans, as Nvidia has finally beaten Intel. (At least for the quarter. And only in desktops.)

I don't have the dramatic chops to pull off a Spaceballs/Billy Madison/Blackballed physical challenge video depicting an Nvidia GeForce card knocking the crap out of an integrated Intel processor, like my good friend Brian Lam did with New Flame-Job Optimus Prime and anything he could find in his apartment. Instead, I will report the latest neck-and-neck results from John Peddie Research, and let you argue about the justice, or injustice, of the current marketplace, and see how well AMD and VIA are doing as well.

Intel is the one to beat, with 38.7% of the overall market, up from 37.4% last quarter, and a 55% market share of laptop graphics processors, up from 50%.

Nvidia is holding steady with an overall 28.5% market share, but it is losing ground in the mobile space (20%, down from 22.9%) and gaining market share in the declining desktop market.

Of course, when it comes to discrete graphics cards, Nvidia still holds a commanding lead over AMD, whose overall market share has dipped to just 21.9%. Via and Silicon Integrated Systems are way at the bottom, experiencing small market-share declines of their own.

Want to defend your favorite underdog? Or explain why Intel's dominance is good for business? I'd love to hear it. The full press release is below. – Wilson Rothman

Jon Peddie Research Reports First-Quarter PC Graphics Shipments: Nvidia leaps to first place in desktop graphics chips displacing Intel
Overall market down 5.5% quarter-to-quarter; laptops soar 24.6% year-to-year

TIBURON, CA - May 2, 2007-Jon Peddie Research (JPR), the industry's leading research and consulting firm for graphics and multimedia, today announced estimated graphics shipments and supplier market share for the first calendar quarter of 2007. Detailed First-Quarter results are available in the Q1 2007 edition of Jon Peddie's First Look, the firm's quarterly graphics survey. The companion report, Market Watch, provides an in-depth look at the PC graphics market and includes unit shipment and segment market share data, trend analysis, shipment forecasts, and profiles of major suppliers.

Q1'07 was disappointing overall in terms of graphics chip shipments, but some suppliers have reason to celebrate. "The Vista effect hasn't clicked in yet for the AIB suppliers, although Microsoft reports that shipments of Vista are meeting their expectations," Peddie added.

Jon Peddie Research estimates that the overall shipment of graphics chips dropped 5.5% quarter-to-quarter. Overall, shipments of graphics devices increased 5.3% year over year to reach 78.8 million graphics chips shipped in Q1'07.

"Normally Q1 will be flat or drop a little (from Q4); this year it fell with a thud" says Dr. Jon Peddie, President of Jon Peddie Research. "Graphics devices for the mobile market also declined quarter-to-quarter (Q4 to Q1), shipments were down 7.2%. Overall, however, the mobile segment continues to enliven the market, growing 24.6% year-to-year. Nvidia is the big success story in the mobile segment with three quarters of growth in a row."

The mobile graphics segment which has been the star performer delivered 23.9 million units, slipping 7.2% quarter-to-quarter, and grew a healthy 24.6% year-to-year.

"The laptop market continues to be the darling of the industry," says Peddie. "This quarter was the first decline we've seen in some time."

The desktop graphics segment saw shipments decline by 4.8% quarter to quarter to 54.8 million units, and it declined 1.4% year-to-year, but Nvidia took first place in market share.

JPR estimates that 23.9 million mobile graphics devices shipped in Q1'07, 18.74 million of which were integrated chipsets (IGPs) for notebooks. Mobile IGPs claimed a commanding share of 78.2% in the mobile graphics market, up 2.5% in market share from the prior quarter and 6.3% from the same period a year ago.

Intel led the mobile graphics market with a 55% share (up from 50%), AMD lost 0.2% to a 23.2% share, and Nvidia slipped to 20% (from 22.9%) market share gain for the quarter. SiS and VIA saw declines in market share.

In the discrete mobile segment, AMD saw shipments decline on a quarterly basis while Nvidia saw shipments increase sequentially. Nvidia grew its discrete mobile segment share from 59.1% in Q4'06 to 60.3% in Q1'07. AMD's segment share fell from 40.9% in Q4'06 to 39.7% in Q1'07.

"Timing is everything in the mobile market," says Peddie, "Nvidia is getting the benefit from having had its mobile parts lined up and ready to ship with Intel's recent laptop rollout."

In the overall PC graphics market, Intel saw a 1.3% gain in shipments in Q1'07, and was still the largest supplier of PC graphics devices worldwide. Nvidia was flat but remained the second largest supplier in Q1'07 and AMD's market share decreased. The following table lists the ranking and relative market share of the major graphics suppliers to the PC industry, based on unit shipments in Q4'06 and Q1'07,.

Rank Graphics Supplier Q1'07 Market Share Q4'06 Market Share
1 Intel 38.7% 37.4%
2 Nvidia 28.5% 28.5%
3 AMD 21.9% 23.0%
4 VIA Technologies 6.4% 6.7%
5 Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS) 4.3% 4.5%
6 Others <1% <1%

About Jon Peddie Research

Dr. Jon Peddie has been active in the graphics and multimedia fields for more than 30 years. Jon Peddie Research is a technically oriented multimedia and graphics research and consulting firm. Based in Tiburon, California, JPR provides consulting, research, and other specialized services to technology companies, including graphics development, multimedia for professional applications and consumer electronics, high-end computing, and Internet-access product development. Jon Peddie's Market Watch and First Look are quarterly reports focused on the market activity of PC graphics controllers for mobile and desktop computing.

http://www.jonpeddie.com

NVIDIA Ships 128-Core Graphics Cards for High-End Film Editors, Graphics Pros: Apple 'Excited'

Charlie White — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 08:21:20 EST

NVIDIA just cranked up its highest-end Quadro graphics cards a notch or two, rolling out three products, the NVIDIA Quadro FX 4600, Quadro FX 5600 (pictured above), and NVIDIA Quadro Plex VCS Model IV that the company says represents the biggest leap in performance for its graphics cards yet. One giant leap indeed, because these parallel processing monsters have the rough equivalent of 128 1.35GHz processors cranking away at graphics in a whole new way.

These cards have more circuitry than ever, with three quarters of a billion transistors on board, and NVIDIA says not only can they display larger graphics faster than ever but use a concept called GP-GPU, allowing general-purpose programs to run on the GPU instead of the CPU.

Sharing some of the same technology with NVIDIA's GeForce 8 series of consumer cards released last November, these cards are aimed at high-end film effects artists and oil and gas explorers, and maybe a few absolutely fanatic gamers. More info, pics and pricing, plus a tantalizing hint from NVIDIA about Apple's interest in this technology, after the jump.

These cards have a brand-new GPU architecture on board, representing a brand new approach to graphics, where NVIDIA goes away from the pipeline model and into parallel processing.

Jeff Brown, General Manager, Professional Solutions Group at NVIDIA told us these new cards were four years in the making, and that NVIDIA spent half a billion dollars putting together this technology. He also gave us what might be a hint at what Apple has to show at NAB in April with its rumored workstations that are geared toward professional video editors and effects artists.

Said Brown, "Image processing is the fundamental algorithm set that video editing guys use, and traditionally that has been very CPU-centric, and now we're starting to see more and more image processing moving to the GPU. So folks like Adobe, Apple, Avid are excited about this concept. It gives them much, much higher levels of performance."

Expect to see those video editing giants, Adobe, Apple, and Avid, taking advantage of these graphics cards, perhaps showing systems involving the technology at the National Association of Broadcasters convention in mid-April. We'll be there to see what happens.

Meanwhile, these graphics cards aren't cheap, where the Quadro FX 4600 will retail for $1995, and the Quadro FX 5600 will run $2999. NVIDIA didn't say what its highest-end Quadro Plex VCS model IV will cost. – Charlie White

Press Release:

NEW NVIDIA QUADRO® ARCHITECTURE DELIVERS GREATEST GENERATIONAL LEAP IN COMPANY HISTORY
New Quadro Solutions Launch with Advanced Features Including: Unified Architecture, Shader Model 4.0, and GPU Computing for Visualization

SANTA CLARA, CA—MARCH 5, 2007—NVIDIA Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA), the worldwide leader in programmable graphics processor technologies, today unveiled a new line of professional graphics solutions: NVIDIA Quadro FX 4600, Quadro FX 5600, and NVIDIA Quadro Plex VCS Model IV. Armed with the largest increase in GPU power and functionality to date, these solutions are designed to help solve the world's most complex professional graphics challenges.

Tackling the extreme visualization challenges of the automotive styling and design, oil and gas exploration, medical imaging, visual simulation and training, scientific research, and advanced visual effects industries, these new Quadro solutions offer:

Next-Generation Vertex and Pixel Programmability—Shader Model 4.0 enables a higher level of performance and ultra-realistic effects for OpenGL and DirectX 10 professional applications

Largest Frame Buffers—Up to 1.5 GB frame buffers deliver throughput needed for interactive visualization and real-time processing of large textures and frames, enabling the superior quality and resolution for full-scene antialiasing (FSAA)

New Unified Architecture—Industry-first unified architecture capable of dynamically allocating compute, geometry, shading and pixel processing power for optimized GPU performance

GPU Computing for Visualization—Featuring NVIDIA CUDA technology, developers are, for the first time, able to tap into Quadro's high-performance computing power to solve complex, visualization problems

"Today's cutting-edge gaming and film experiences are built around tremendous 3D imagery. Designing this content requires high quality real-time feedback regardless of complexity," said Bill Roberts, director of product management at Softimage Co. "NVIDIA's support of shader Model 4.0 combined with the real-time shader architecture of SOFTIMAGE|XSI allows game developers to quickly create advanced visual effects for the Microsoft Vista OS by providing the most accurate visual feedback. Also the massively scalable visual compute power provided by CUDA is what fuels modern software architectures like SOFTIMAGE|XSI and Face Robot, built on our unique Gigapolygon core, which are inherently designed to take advantage of parallel computing power."

Additional features in the new Quadro solutions include faster 3D texturing and massive 8Kx8K texture processing for better performance when zooming and panning of high-resolution images; NVIDIA® SLI™ technology for improved graphics performance; dual dual-link display connectivity; and NVIDIA® PureVideo™ technology for outstanding picture clarity, smooth video playback, and accurate color and precise image scaling for SD and HD content. NVIDIA GSync and HD SDI options are also offered.

"We bundle NVIDIA Quadro solutions with our kernel technology to accelerate simulations in the electromagnetic and energy markets," says Ryan Schneider, CTO for Acceleware Corp. "The CUDA SDK exposes an exciting new compute model that will help Acceleware to continue to make our products faster each year. This will also help our customers, including major cell phone and medical device designers, get their products to market faster, better and stronger."

NVIDIA Quadro solutions are widely available through leading OEMs such as HP, Dell, IBM, and Sun; leading workstation system integrators; and NVIDIA channel partners PNY Technologies (US and EMEA), Leadtek (APAC) and Elsa (Japan). For more information about the full lineup of NVIDIA professional solutions, please visit www.nvidia.com/quadro. The Quadro FX 4600 has a MSRP of $1995 and the Quadro FX 5600 has an MSRP of $2999.

NVIDIA Corporation
NVIDIA Corporation is the worldwide leader in programmable graphics processor technologies. The Company creates innovative, industry-changing products for computing, consumer electronics, and mobile devices. NVIDIA is headquartered in Santa Clara, CA and has offices throughout Asia, Europe, and the Americas. For more information, visit www.nvidia.com.

ATI's Radeon X2800XT Brings Heavy Horsepower to Apple's Next Gen Mac Pros

Louis Ramirez — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 10:20:03 EST

So if the guys at AppleInsider are on the money, ATI's abnormally long X2800XT could be the graphics card to power Apple's rumored next gen Mac Pros. The red giant will feature 1GB of GDDR4 memory clocked at 2GHz while the card's core will come in at 800MHz. Basically that means it has the potential to eat Nvidia's overclocked 8800GTX for lunch. The card will also bring CrossFire technology to the Mac, so you'll be able to string two of these suckers together for maximum voltage. It's about time we get some heavy duty card options for the Mac. Better start saving now, though, as I'm sure this config won't come cheap. – Louis Ramirez

ATI Radeon X2800XT with CrossFire [via AppleInsider via CrunchGear]

Intel Leaping into Graphics Card Biz?

Louis Ramirez — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 16:22:20 EST

Rumor has it that Intel is quietly building up a new army. An army that'll soon tackle both AMD/ATI and Nvidia. Job openings at Intel's Visual Computing Group have led people to speculate that the chip-maker is jumping into the video card market. The job descriptions state that the VC Group will be in charge of "developing discrete graphic products based on a many-core architecture." Multi-core graphics cards? Bring them on! – Louis Ramirez

Visual Computing Group [via Daily Tech]

ATI X1950 XTX: New King Of the 3D Hill?

gizcontrib — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 12:27:19 EDT

We covered this some time ago, but the ATI Radeon X1950 XTX is now official. ATI's new flagship PCI Express graphics card will cost you $449, which is pretty cheap. It's based around a 648MHz graphics chip and 1GB of fast GDDR4 memory running at 2GHz. There's also a new heatsink design to cool the graphics chip without sounding like a runaway lawnmower. HardOCP have already tested the card and found it to be pretty speedy and pretty quiet, delivering good prefomance for the price. The new card will be available on September 14th.– Richard Baguley

UPDATE: Actually , it only has 512MB of GDDR4 RAM: I was getting my Ghz and GBs mixed up...

ATI Radeon X1950 [ATI]

ATI Radeon X1950 XTX / CrossFire Evaluation [HardOCP]

MSI NX7600GT Diamond Plus: HDMI Ported Graphics Card, NVIDIA Chips

Charlie White — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 11:59:31 EDT

PC graphics cards are beginning to sprout HDMI ports, and here's the latest one to get into the act, the MSI NX7600GT Diamond Plus. Not only can this one rock the audio and video from card to LCD, but it packs 256MB of memory for 3D goodness. Nice versatility,—now you can feed audio and video from PC to TV using just one cable, and use that monitor to watch video, even if your content is hobbled with that dreaded HDCP copy protection scheme. Of course, that LCD better be hooked up for HDMI audio and video, though, for this to work.

This is just the beginning for the HDMI ports on graphics cards. First card out of the gate with an HDMI port was the Sapphire Radeon X1600Pro, introduced about five weeks ago. Just before that, NVIDIA told us we'd soon see an HDMI-ported card using its chips, and here's the first one, using an NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT GPU. There are many more on the way, no doubt. – Charlie White

MSI NX7600GT Diamond Plus the first HDMI VGA card [New Launches]

ATI Radeon X1950 XTX To Feature Quieter Cooling System

Gizloco — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 09:38:52 EDT

It seems that people aren't too keen on the idea of their graphics card sounding like a jet engine while it's cooling. As a result, ATI is set to redesign the upcoming Radeon X1950 XTX's cooling system, acceding to the demands of its patrons. Right now, all information points to a redesigned cooling system that resembles the one currently in HIS Radeon X1900 graphics cards, the ICQ3, which supposedly cooled an ATI X1900 (pictured here) 10 degrees Celsius cooler than ATI's own cooling mechanism.

The dual slot ATI Radeon X1950 XTX is slated for release next month and will feature shiny GDDR 4 memory. No price yet, though an arm and a leg may be involved. – Nicholas Deleon

Radeon X1950 XTX gets new cooler [The Inquirer]

Tul PowerColor X1600 Graphics Card, Now With HDMI

Gizloco — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 08:48:51 EDT

No, perhaps Tul isn't the first company to offer a graphics card with onboard HDMI (I seem to remember an earlier Sapphire card), but the more cards with HDMI support the merrier. Unfortunately, the PowerColor X1600 will also support HDCP copy protection. It's not unfortunate that it supports the copy protection, but unfortunate that Hollywood's old men in suits got their way.

A 500MHz core sits at the heart of the GPU while 256MB of GDDR 3 RAM eagerly await all those high resolution textures you throw at it. ATI's Avivo technology helps render HD content in all its full glory.

The CrossFire-compatible PowerColor X1600 is set to ship sometime next week, though Tul doesn't want to reveal its price just yet. Usually, that means it's very, very affordable. – Nicholas Deleon

Product Page [Tul via The Register]

Alienware Shipping PCs With nVidia 7950 GX2

Gizloco — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 18:28:00 EDT

Do you hear that? It's the sound of graphics card queens everywhere jumping for joy with news that Alienware is set to ship two systems in the next few days featuring nVidia's latest graphics card beast, the 7950 GX2. Both the Area-51 7500 and the Aurora 7500 (pictured here) come with the nVidia card standard in addition to other components that you might expect to find in a boutique seller, like dual core AMD processors.

As for the card itself, as we mentioned earlier, it's fast and packs 1GB of onboard memory. In fact, the PureVideo technology that the card utilizes makes playing back high definition content a cinch. (Skypecast listeners might recognize the PureVideo name from last week, as the next incarnation of PureVideo—PureVideo HD—will provide the kind of horsepower necessary to play Blu-ray and HD DVD discs.)

The Alienware systems start shipping on July 3. The Area-51 7500 starts at $1,679 and the Aurora 7500 starts at $2,309. – Nicholas Deleon

Alienware Home Page [Alienware via Tech Digest]

Direct X 10 Officially Vista-Only

Gizloco — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 11:10:05 EDT

Some sad news for fans of PC gaming with word that Direct X 10 will only work for the next release of Microsoft's wonderful operating system, Vista. It had previously been rumored in the darkest corners of this vast Interweb that graphics card manufacturers wanted to put off Direct X 10 in order to give gamers the best possible graphics. Now we know it's true.

Apparently, the main reason why you won't be able to use Direct X 10 is because Windows XP's driver model doesn't mesh with the presence of more independent objects. Of course, no final Direct X-compatable hardware has been released yet, so there's no telling if this new API will really do anything special, like make world peace. – Nicholas Deleon

Direct X 10 will be Vista only [The Inquirer]

NVIDIA GeForce 7950 GX2 Reviewed (Verdict: Speedy Value)

Charlie White — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 13:08:57 EDT

The first reviews of that GeForce 7950 GX2 graphics card we told you about last week are just coming in, and the guys at FiringSquad took a close look at this 1GB graphics card from NVIDIA that just shipped today. They liked the HDCP (HD copy protection, must also have an HDCP-compliant monitor) support, the shorter board design that lets it fit into computer cases easier, enhanced cooling, and then there's the fact that this is two graphics cards in one, giving you great performance for the money.

However, the reviewers wished this GeForce 7950 GX2 were capable of quad SLI performance, something they got when they strapped together two GeForce 7900 GTX SLI cards. But they did like the price, where they expect it to sell in a range between $599 and $649, making it a lot more cost-effective than buying two GeForce 7900s. Overall, in this extensive first-look preview which includes lots of "real-world" gaming benchmarks, they gave the card a thumbs up for its performance and value. – Charlie White

GeForce 7950 GX2 Hands-On Preview [FiringSquad]

NVIDIA GeForce 7950GX2 Details Leaked

Charlie White — Thu, 25 May 2006 13:50:21 EDT

NVIDIA is at it again, where its upcoming GeForce 7950GX2 Quad SLI graphics card is going to seriously leapfrog its predecessor. Delectable details have leaked out, complete with preliminary benchmarks that show just how far that card will leap ahead, showing its performance at 20% to 80% faster than the card that preceded it, the GeForce 7900 GTX.

More good news includes a gigabyte of GDDR3 memory, a 500MHz core clock and 600MHz memory clock, dual dual-link DVI+HDTV-out and HDCP support. Wow. NVIDIA might just be correct when it pitches the card as the "fastest single graphics card in the world." Available June 6 for between $599 and $649. – Charlie White

GeForce 7950GX2 Details, Preliminary Benchmarks [Daily Tech]

NVIDIA to Launch Two Geforce Graphics Cards

Charlie White — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 12:32:01 EST

NVIDIA is stepping up to the next level in the graphics card wars, set to announce its latest weapons, the Geforce 7900GTX (pictured above) and its slightly less-capable sibling, the Geforce 7900GT. The GTX core runs at 650MHz while its memory zips along at 1600MHz. By comparison, the lesser GT has a 450MHz core speed and its memory runs at a respectable 1320MHz. They both have 256-bit memory but the GT holds 256MB while the GTX is packing 512MB.

The GTX has truly impressive specs, with a total bandwidth of an astonishing 51.2GB per second. The only downside is its 120-watt power consumption, and if you hook it up in an SLI system with two or four cards, you're drawing just about as many amps as your oven does on Thanksgiving Day. The Geforce 7900 GTX will run between $499 - $649, while the Geforce 7900 GT will be $299.

Nvidia Geforce 7900 GTX/GT pictured [The Inquirer]