Items tagged with videocard
There's really no such thing as a 'one-size-fits-all' solution when it comes to computing, and that's especially true for professionals who need varying degrees of graphics performance. For that reason, NVIDIA is now offering a version of its Quadro M6000 graphics card with 24GB of GDDR5 memory, twice as much memory as much as the original model.What does doubling the memory on NVIDIA's flagship workstation graphics card accomplish? Plain and simple, it makes working with the most demanding rendering and simulation intense workloads easier and faster. According to NVIDIA, customers rendering datasets larger than 12GB can experience up to 5X faster performance compared to the previous Quadro M6000.Check...
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Turn out the lights, the party's over. Graphics card vendors enjoyed a boost in sales thanks in large part to the Bitcoin mining craze (along with other forms of virtual currency, like Litecoin) that everyone seemed to get caught up in, but the thing about these cryptocurriences is that they're exceedingly difficult to mine and profit from as time goes on. Now that virtual coin mining has cooled off a bit, so too has the demand for GPUs. Citing sources from "graphics card players," Digitimes says worldwide videocard shipments are about to fall off a cliff -- more specifically, shipments are expected to decline anywhere from 30 percent to 40 percent this quarter compared to the previous one. The...
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AMD is determined to offer gamers a modern generation graphics card at nearly every price point, and having completed its Radeon R7 stack, the Sunnyvale chip designer just launched the Radeon R9 280, a mid-range part that slips in neatly below the R9 280X. It's built for gaming at resolutions exceeding Full HD 1080p and according to AMD, the R9 280 offers 20 percent better performance compared to Nvidia's GeForce GTX 760 graphics card. The Radeon R9 280 is essentially a tweaked and reborn (not rebadged) Radeon HD 7950 but with faster clocks, higher watt tolerance, and a lower price tag at launch. Like the older card, the newer R9 280 is built around AMD's 28nm Tahiti GPU. It has 1,729 stream...
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It's fair to say that the majority of PC gamers wield Windows-based boxes, but that doesn't mean you can't frag on a Mac. There's some high end gaming hardware available, including EVGA's new GeForce GTX 680 Mac Edition graphics card. The card is exactly what it sounds like -- a GTX 680 intended for Macs. EVGA's card shares the same specifications as NVIDIA's reference design, meaning the base and boost clocks check in at 1006MHz and 1058MHz, respectively. It also has 2GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 6008MHz (effective) on a 256-bit bus, 1536 CUDA cores, and several key technologies, such as NVIDIA GPU Boost and support for up to four concurrent displays. EVGA says the Mac Edition part will work...
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Attention GeForce GPU owners, NVIDIA this weekend quietly rolled out new WHQL-certified graphics drivers (version 310.90) for your videocard, and there are plenty of reasons why you should grab them. The most important reason to install the updated software is due to a security update for the NVIDIA Display Driver service (nvvsvs.exe). NVIDIA graphics card owners who don't update to the latest drivers are susceptible to a potentially harmful security hole that allows a remote attacker with a valid domain account to gain super-user access to any system running older drivers. This is especially concerning for enterprise environments, though home consumers shouldn't take the issue lightly either....
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The marketing team over at Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) just dropped us a line to give us a heads up regarding upcoming price cuts to the Sunnyvale chip designer's Radeon HD 7000 Series graphics cards. New lower MSRPs officially go into effect on Monday, July 16, 2012 and include the following updated prices: Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition: $499 Radeon HD 7970: $429 Radeon HD 7950: $349 Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition: $299 Radeon HD 7850: $249 To sweeten the pot, several of the above cards will come with freebie extras. The Radeon HD 7900 Series, for example, feature a 'Three-for-Free' promotion that includes (while supplies last) three DirectX 11 titles, while the Radeon HD 7800 Series will ship with...
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NVIDIA today has made available new beta drivers for GeForce graphics card owners, version 304.48. Playing with beta code comes with certain risks, of course (like potentially wonky behavior and instability issues), but there are also rewards to be had, like up to 60 percent better performance in Total War: Shogun 2 for GeForce GTX 680 card owners. Wowza! In fact, those who own a GTX 680 videocard are the biggest beneficiaries of increased performance. In addition to the above mentioned bump, NVIDIA says you can also expect up to 18 percent better performance in Batman: Arkham City, up to 15 percent in Dragon Age II, and up to 10 percent in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat. GeForce GTX 560 owners...
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Generally speaking, there are two kinds of overclockers in this world. The first type consists of users who want to squeeze a bit of extra performance out of their parts. Sometimes the increase in frequency is modest, and other times they'll intentionally buy a lower priced (and lower clocked) part and OC the difference. Either way, it's a free performance upgrade if nothing goes wrong. And then there are the insane folks at places like Kingpin Cooling, where LN2 flows freely and reference clockspeeds are, well, laughable. Consider the fact that well known overclocker Illya "TiN" Tsemenko just set a world record by overclocking an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 graphics card to 1,547MHz. He had originally...
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We can't say Sapphire's late to the Radeon HD 7770 party, simply because Sapphire was there from the get-go. However, we can say that Sapphire is perhaps staying longer than most other party goers, choosing now to launch its new 'Sapphire HD 7770 Vapor-X OC Edition' variant with an "exclusive implementation of Vapor chamber cooling technology." First things first. The card boasts 1GB of the latest GDDR5 memory and is factory overclocked with a core clockspeed of 1,100MHz and a memory clockspeed of 1,300MHz (5.2GB/s effective). That's a bit faster than a reference spec'd GHz Edition card, which sports a 1,000MHz engine clock and 1,125MHz memory clockspeed. To keep the card cool, Sapphire employed...
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There are reports in several corners of the Web claiming EVGA is recalling, or partially recalling, its GeForce GTX 670 Superclock graphics card, and while it's true the videocard maker discovered a problem with some early run silicon, EVGA Product Manager Jacob Freeman released a statement clarifying the issue. "Thank you for your patience over this weekend. We have an update on this issue now," Freeman explains. " We have isolated this problem to an early batch of GTX 670 Superclock cards that were not properly screened during QA/QC procedure. We have already been working with our partners to retest this particular batch. In the meantime, our R&D has also done numerous tests, burn in and...
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Finding a GeForce GTX 680 graphics card in stock is still a nearly impossible mission, but while gamers wait for retailers and e-tailers to fill up with stock, NVIDIA's GPU partners keep churning out new models. Today's it's Zotac's turn, which just introduced a pair of new GeForce GTX 680 videocards, including an AMP! Edition SKU and another with twice the amount of onboard memory as reference cards. Let's start with the AMP! Edition. Zotac goosed the base clockspeed from 1006MHz (reference) to 1110MHz (AMP! Edition) and the boost clockspeed from 1058MHz to 1176MHz. The 2GB of GDDR5 memory sitting pretty on a 256-bit bus also received a clockspeed enhancement, increasing from 6008MHz to 6608MHz,...
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Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) doesn't appear terribly concerned with NVIDIA's Kepler architecture at the moment. If you recall, it took some time for AMD to roll out price cuts for its Radeon HD 7000 Series graphics cards after Kepler made its official entrance. But now that there's a dual-Kepler graphics card -- GeForce GTX 690, see our review here -- AMD can no longer claim it has the fastest single videocard on the planet. How do you respond if you're AMD? According to a report in Australia's Atomic MPC, AMD's response is to goose its Radeon HD 7970 graphics card and launch a GHz Edition SKU. As the name implies, the revised card will sport a 1GHz GPU clockspeed, up from the current reference...
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Perhaps looking to separate itself from the pack, TUL Corporation today announced newly designed Radeon HD 7870 and 7850 graphics cards in the PowerColor family. In addition to a few aesthetic enhancements, the new PowerColor cards are apparently "packed" with higher quality components for improved cooling, better stability, and more overclocking headroom. TUL Corporation didn't go into a whole lot of detail, though did mention that the new cards are using solid components. As for specs, the PowerColor HD 7870 GHz Edition features a 1,000MHz GPU clockspeed and 2GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 4,800MHz on a 256-bit bus, while the HD 7850 boasts an 860MHz GPU clockspeed and the same memory specs....
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Don't tell overclockers that running a graphics card beyond its rated specs only results in a nominal performance gain, and while you're at it, don't tell MSI, either. While in some cases overclocking a GPU might not translate into a big fps bump, those who embrace the art are equally interested in squeezing every last ounce of performance from their hardware, and that's something MSI encourages with its new R7870 Hawk graphics card. The R7870 Hawk is an AMD Radeon HD 7870 videocard with a custom cooler and design philosophies borrowed from MSI's Lightening edition cards. It has an unlocked BIOS and Digital PWM controller and enhanced power design that, according to MSI, allows you to increase...
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Kenny Rogers says you have to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away and know when to run. His song, The Gambler, was a metaphor for life, but it could also be the theme song for Club 3D's new PokerSeries graphics cards. What does poker have to do with GPUs, you ask? Well, both are played with 'cards', so to speak (integrated GPUs notwithstanding). Other than that, we're not really sure why Club 3D has chosen to draw a parallel between playing cards and graphics cards, but hey, if you're a poker junkie, this might be the greatest thing ever. Club 3D is kicking off the series with its Radeon HD 7870 jokerCard. It sports reference clockspeeds but is cooled with a custom...
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AMD just recently launched a new set of drivers that will be of particular interest to staunch Windows XP users. With the release of Catalyst 12.4, AMD's highfalutin Radeon HD 7900, 7800, and 7700 Series graphics cards will play nice with Microsoft's legacy OS, helping you stave off the inevitable upgrade to Windows 7 or 8 (go ahead and skip Vista, folks). Improved XP support isn't the only thing Catalyst 12.4 brings to the table. The new drivers also introduce texture filtering quality improvements, Level of Detail (LOD) image quality enhancements when enabling Super Sample Anti-Aliasing and Adaptive-Aliasing, and "significant performance enhancements" with Morphological Anti-Aliasing (MLAA)....
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Remember when LeBron James talked about winning not one championship, not two, three, four, five, six, or even seven? Apparently the number he was looking for was zero, which is half a dozen less than the number of displays TUL Corporation's new PowerColor HD7870 Eyefinity 6 graphics card supports simultaneously. That's right, this spunky card can drive not one, not two, not three, four, or five, but SIX monitors all by itself via six mini DisplayPorts, which "allows gamers to enhance productivity to get more things done at once, also delivering the most vivid HD gaming experience with wider view." And let's now forget bragging rights, if you care about that sort of thing. Provided you have the...
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Hold the boat and put away the torches and pitchforks -- despite what you may have heard or read online over the weekend, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) isn't kicking support for pre-HD Radeon 5000 Series GPUs to the curb. To address the concerns of freaked out Radeon HD 2000, 3000, and 4000 Series graphics card owners, AMD sent us an statement clarifying how it plans to support these GPUs in the future. Short and to the point, AMD is moving to a quarterly Catalyst release schedule for GPUs prior to the Radeon HD 5000 Series. The new schedule will kick off with the upcoming 8.97 based driver in May 2012. For newer videocards, AMD will continue to roll out monthly Catalyst driver updates. Sapphire...
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If you're losing sleep at night because you feel as though your choices in computer hardware are offensive to Mother Nature, you might be a candidate for TUL Corporation's PowerColor Go! Green HD7750 graphics card. Armed with a totally silent cooling solution with no moving parts (passive), the Go! Green card won't pollute your living quarters with unnecessary noise or consume as much power a fan-based (active) reference cooler. Will using the Go! Green HD7750 save the planet and reverse global warming, assuming it exists (Hey look, an opened can of worms!)? No, it won't. But it will run silent, use slightly less juice, and perform just as well as any other Radeon HD 7750 graphics card with the...
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Hightech Information System (HIS from here on out) added a new AMD Radeon HD graphics card to its lineup today, the '7870 Fan 2GB'. The oddly named card sports a fairly aggressive design that makes up for the card's quirky moniker. More than just eye candy, HIS claims the custom cooler keeps the graphics card running 13C cooler than the reference cooler it replaces, and in an attempt to maim two birds with a single rock, it also runs quiet at less than 28dB. While the cooling is different, HIS didn't stray from reference clockspeeds. The GPU races along at 1,000MHz and the 2GB of GDDR5 memory runs at 4,800MHz on a 256-bit wide bus. That's a bit disappointing if you've come to expect factory overclocks...
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TUL Corporation just recently announced a line of PowerColor graphics cards apparently designed for "enthusiasts only." It's the Vortex II series, which is the nomenclature TUL uses to describe PowerColor cards that feature a deluxe "Platinum Power Kit" design for improved power efficiency, stability, and overclocking ability, along with Vortex II cooling technology. TUL's Vortex II coolers consists of dual adjustable fans with perforated blades intended to optimize airflow and to do a better job at dissipating excessive heat. There are two new cards as part of the Vortex II series, starting with the Powercolor PCS+ HD7870 Vortex II. This one boasts a core clockspeed of 1120MHz and 2GB of GDDR5...
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As you wade through the available Kepler cards trying to decide which one to get, EVGA hopes to sway your decision with its new GeForce GTX 680 SC Signature and Singature+ w/ Backplate edition graphics cards. These sleek and sexy looking cards boast higher base and boost clockspeeds, overclocked memory, and 5 Phase PWM board designs with 8-pin + 6-pin power connectors that EVGA claims are optimized for further overclocking. EVGA GeForce GTX 680 SC Signature EVGA goosed the base GPU clock to 1084MHz and boost clock to 1150MHz on these cards, up from 1006MHz (base) and 1058MHz (boost) on NVIDIA's reference blueprint, and cranked the the 2GB of GDDR5 memory to 6208MHz (effective), up from 6008MHz...
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