Items tagged with GPUs
It is certainly a tough time to be a gamer in need or want of a PC hardware upgrade. Some of the newest and most desirable parts are in short supply, including the latest generation graphics from AMD (Radeon RX 6000 series) and NVIDIA (GeForce RTX 30 series). This has led to inflated pricing by marketplace sellers, but there are two other reasons why GPU prices are poised to shoot up—tariffs and cryptocurrency mining. Starting with the former, President Trump imposed tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Chinese products in 2018, as outlined by a document at the Federal Register. As a result, thousands of companies asked for and were granted temporary exemptions. This helped...
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Something big is afoot within Intel's graphics division. Sure, we already know Intel is hard at work on its first discrete GPU since Larrabee, which is now a footnote in the history of GPUs. But remember that massive GPU photo Intel shared yesterday? Intel's graphics boss Raja Koduri dropped another tweet in reference to the photo, and in doing so he potentially provided more clues about what exactly we're looking at, and what's to come. Let's start with a quick recap. The first tweet that caught our attention came from the verified "Intel Graphics" account and showed a GPU separated from its heatspreader, with a AA battery in between for as sense of scale. It actually looked like a large workstation...
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Fresh off the official unveiling of Intel's 10th generation 'Comet Lake-S' desktop processors culminating in the 10-core/20-thread Core i9-10900K, Raja Koduri, head of the company's graphics division, reminded the world that Intel is still heavily invested in launching a discrete GPU this year. And he used Twitter to get his message across. There are two interesting tweets of note. The first one [which has since been removed] came from the verified "Intel Graphics" account. It contained a series of pictures, including the one you see above. The two other photos shows engineers staying the course amid the Coronavirus outbreak, donning masks. Among them are Koduri and Jim Keller. "Silicon...
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If you are on the fence about pouncing on a graphics card upgrade, you may want to go ahead pull the trigger. For one, the GPU is the most important component when it comes to playing games, and trying to get by with an old and outdated card can mean having to constantly fiddle with in-game settings. However, there potentially is a more pressing reason to upgrade—higher prices on the horizon. We are not sounding the alarm by any means. However, market research firm TrendForce, a division of DRAMeXchange, is expecting a "sharp upturn" in graphics DRAM prices in the first quarter of 2020 (unlike PC DRAM). Analysts say server DRAM prices will lead the upwards trend in pricing due to supply...
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It is fair to say that AMD is firing on all cylinders these days, and companies are taking notice. Following the recent launch of its third-generation Ryzen processors based on Zen 2 and an unveiling of Navi, AMD has now partnered with Samsung to license its Radeon graphics IP, which will now find its way into mobile devices. That includes smartphones, as Samsung looks for "disruptive changes in technology," and "new opportunities." Partnering with AMD to license its Radeon graphics IP fits those agendas, and in a potentially big way. "Our partnership with AMD will allow us to bring groundbreaking graphics products and solutions to market for tomorrow’s mobile applications," said Inyup...
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NVIDIA is into a lot more these days than than just gaming video cards and GPUs for professionals. The company announced that it has a new DRIVE AGX DevKit that will be launching on October 1. The kit includes software and hardware needed for complete self-driving auto development. NVIDIA says that DRIVE AGX is designed to allow companies to develop and test customized autonomous driving technology with a streamlined production process. The kit includes the DRIVE AGX Xavier car computer, the vehicle harness to connect the platform to the car, international power supply, camera sensor, and other accessories needed. DRIVE AGX is part of NVIDIA's AGX platform meant to power autonomous robots, medical...
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Sit down for this, we have some shocking news. Are you ready for it? An independent testing firm hired by AMD to evaluate the stability of GPU drivers has determined that AMD builds the most stable graphics drivers in the industry. Through a series of tests, AMD's GPU drivers were shown to fail far less than frequently than NVIDIA's drivers. AMD commissioned QA Consultants, a software testing and quality assurance solutions company based in Toronto, Canada, to evaluate the graphics drivers of both companies in a sort of head-to-head match up. Obviously there is cause to raise an eyebrow when a company with vested interests in the results is the one paying for the analysis. That doesn't necessarily...
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Yesterday at IoT World 2015 in San Francisco Samsung debuted ARTIK, a set of new technologies centered on tiny circuit boards crammed with processing and communications components that they designed to juke developers to create and configure new Internet of Things (IoT) devices, such as personal trackers, drones, robots, security systems, and the like. Of course, Samsung also intends to enhance their own product lines with ARTIK, including televisions, home appliances, and smartphones. In a blog post Samsung said of their new platform, "ARTIK provides a platform for developers who simply want to focus on building and testing new ideas for IoT. Rather than spend your time writing low-level...
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It was a mixed set of announcements from AMD last night, with some positive news for the chip manufacturer, but some long-term projections that sent investors skittering. This was Lisa Su's first quarterly announcement after taking over the CEO position barely a week ago, and she opened with good news -- not only did AMD turn a small profit on the quarter -- $17M net income ($63M operating income) on revenue of $1.43B -- it's secured two new semi-custom deals expected to provide roughly $1B in revenue over the next three years. That works out to around $84M per quarter -- not an enormous amount, no, but a nice feather in AMD's overall business cap. AMD expects to ship this hardware for revenue...
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Normally, the question of whether a game runs better on the PC or a console is a no-brainer -- at least, for PC users. Watch Dogs, however, with its problematic PC play, challenges that concept. And since the gap between consoles and PCs is typically smallest at the beginning of the console generation, we decided to take the Xbox One out for a head-to-head comparison against the PC with this long-awaited title. What we've found may surprise you. Based on our results, and depending on just how much horsepower your PC has, the Xbox One (and possibly the PS4 option, though we didn't compare against it) might be the better option. Here, we'll step through the game's pre-rendered...
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The transistor is one of the most profound innovations in all of human existence. First discovered in 1947, it has scaled like no advance in human history; we can pack billions of transistors into complicated processors smaller than your thumbnail. After decades of innovation, however, the transistor has faltered. Clock speeds stalled in 2005 and the 20nm process node is set to be more expensive than the 28nm node was for the first time ever. Now, researchers at NASA believe they may have discovered a way to kickstart transistors again -- by using technology from the earliest days of computing: The vacuum tube. No, really. Stop laughing. Once upon a time, vacuum tubes were the fundamental...
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Over the past few weeks, I've spent a significant amount of time with Watch Dogs. The game is infamous for not running very well on PCs -- and after some legwork, I've figured out a hefty chunk of the reason why: Ubisoft royally screwed up its suggested VRAM (graphics card frame buffer) settings. Watch Dogs sucks down far more memory than any other modern PC game I'm aware of; this game's VRAM demands are far, far outside the norm for a modern 1080p title. In the past, I've compared VRAM usage in games like Guild Wars, Battlefield 4, and Total War: Shogun 2. In these games, the average VRAM use with all detail levels maxed out was about 1.5GB -- BF4 will break 2GB if you use the supersampling...
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Toshiba Introduces The World’s First Laptops With Three NVIDIA GPUs GeForce 9400M GPU + Two GeForce 9800 GTS GPUs = No Compromises SANTA CLARA, CA—NOVEMBER 6, 2008—When Toshiba set out to reset the bar for high performance gaming laptops and revamp its flagship gaming line, the company turned to NVIDIA for its expertise in visual computing. The combined efforts of both companies resulted in Toshiba's most powerful gaming laptop to date featuring the new highly integrated GeForce® 9400M graphics processing unit (GPU) along with a pair of NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GTS enthusiast-class GPUs. The Toshiba Qosmio X305-Q708 and X305-Q706, the first pair of laptops to incorporate three powerful NVIDIA...
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NEW NVIDIA MOTHERBOARD GPUS PACK BIG PUNCH IN A SMALL PACKAGE With 5x More Performance in One-half the Size, New GeForce 9-Series mGPUs Tap Parallel Processors for More Than Just Graphics SANTA CLARA, CA—OCTOBER 20, 2008— NVIDIA’s engineering team was given a challenge: deliver a desktop GPU which integrates full system I/O and discrete-level performance in half the size of previous integrated graphics solutions. The result: a 16-core CUDA™-capable graphics architecture that enables mainstream PC users to play the latest top-selling PC games and enjoy silky-smooth, high-definition Blu-ray video playback—all without breaking the bank. NVIDIA® Introduces the GeForce®...
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With all of the recent hoopla surrounding Intel and NVIDIA as of late, today's announcement may come as a bit of a surprise to many of you. To say that there has been some tension between Intel and NVIDIA lately would certainly be putting it mildly. But the fact of the matter is, for now at least, the two companies share a somewhat symbiotic relationship. The products we'll be showing you here are proof of this fact.What we have on tap for you today is a new NVIDIA chipset with an mGPU (or IGP) designed for the Intel Socket 775 platform, the GeForce 9300. We should note, however, that NVIDIA is also announcing the GeForce 9400 today as well, the same chipset that powers Apple's new MacBook...
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We wrote earlier about HP's announcement about NVIDIA GPU failures in 38 of its slimline desktop PCs. While that's bad enough, The Inquirer says it has memos from allegedly from an internal knowledge base at Apple which states that all of NVIDIA's parts based on its G92 architecture sent to Apple have had to undergo the same change in bump material required to fix the issues in the heat-related failures we've been talking about since earlier this year.It should be noted that taking the source into account, a big fat "rumor," or perhaps "unsubstantiated" should be placed right here.However, they're not always off the mark. And, after all, if HP is seeing issues, why not another PC...
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We're not sure what's more frightening about this, the fact that the Russians figured out how to do it or that WiFi networks are effectively now completely insecure. ElcomSoft claims they can "recover" WPA and WPA2 encypted passwords using any NVIDIA-based graphics subsystem in a workstation, desktop or even a notebook, to crack WPA encyption over 100 times fastest than with a standard CPU. This might not mean much to the average home user because, let's face it, serious thugs aren't bothering to hack into your home network to leech your bandwidth or steal a single user's personal information. However, for the corporate sector, this "press release" is a huge wake-up...
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Over the past few months, we have seen previews of some GPU-accelerated Adobe effects at events being held by both NVIDIA and AMD / ATI. Today, however, NVIDIA launched a website showcasing many more of the GPU-accelerated aspects of Adobe's upcoming Creative Suite 4, due out some time in October.According to NVIDIA, "Adobe is the latest in a trend of visual computing companies grabbing on to the massively parallel processing power of NVIDIA GPUs for more than just rendering pixels to the screen. Adobe Creative Suite 4 is the most important addition to this trend because of its market position as the leading artistic tool suite.With NVIDIA GPU acceleration, Adobe Creative Suite 4 enables a faster,...
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NVIDIA has been hit with a securities fraud class action lawsuit over the defective GPUs which it admitted to in July. The complaint was filed by New York-based law firm Shalov Stone Bonner & Rocco. It alleges that NVIDIA knew about the flawed GPUs as early as November 8th, 2007 though no public announcement was made until July 2, 2008. After the announcement, NVIDIA stock dropped 30%. Since then manufacturers have issued BIOS updates to "fix" the issue, but all these have done is increase use of the fan to prevent the GPUs from overheating. The class action lawsuit is detailed on Shalov Stone Bonner & Rocco's website. Paragraph 23 of the complaint (.PDF) says: According to multiple public...
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NVIDIA GeForce 9-Series GPUs Now as Low as $59News Facts:• NVIDIA continues to offer consumers more choice with the addition today of the GeForce 9400 GT. The GeForce 9400 GT delivers unsurpassed value by enabling end users to enjoy gaming, HD video, enhanced visual effects, and smoother Vista performance for retail prices as low as $59.• In addition, the GeForce 9400 GT further extends CUDA™ general-purpose parallel computing to mainstream PC computing markets.• NVIDIA offers the industry’s deepest product line with outstanding GPUs in the enthusiast, performance, and mainstream segments, including:GeForce GTX 280GeForce 9800 GX2GeForce GTX 260GeForce 9800 GTX+GeForce...
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We just received some breaking news out of SIGGRAPH 2008 that we thought many of you would be very interested in. If you recall, one of the capabilities Intel is touting in regard to their upcoming Larrabee architecture is the ability to perform real-time ray tracing. In the graphics space, ray tracing is a technique used to generate an image by tracing the rays or paths of light as they bounce through and around the objects in a scene. When done right, ray tracing can produce photorealistic imagery because shadows are cast correctly, water and other materials show proper reflections with correct coloring, and lighting in general just looks more realistic. The problem with ray tracing is...
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NVIDIA TAPS PROCESSING POWER OF GEFORCE GPUS FOR MORE THAN GRAPHICS New Consumer Application Pack Uses NVIDIA CUDA Technology to Improve Performance Beyond Graphics on NVIDIA GeForce GPUs SANTA CLARA, CA—August 12, 2008—Consumers want blazing fast performance—whether blasting their way through the latest game or being socially responsible and sharing their PC’s processing power to help find cures for diseases. Today, NVIDIA Corporation, the worldwide leader in visual computing technologies, just made this easier by releasing a set of non-graphics applications that utilize the power of its GeForce graphics cards. Included in the GeForce Power Pack are Stanford University’s Folding@home distributed-computing,...
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