NVIDIA’s GTX Titan is rumor no more, as the American computer hardware company unveiled the superpowerful graphics card this morning. With 2,688 CUDA cores, 6GB of GDDR5 RAM, and 7.1 billion transistors packed into the 10.5-inch frame, Titan’s capable of pushing 4,500 Gigaflops of raw power — NVIDIA’s pitching Titan as the means to “power the world’s first gaming supercomputers.” The company even showed off the Titan in its mightiest form, bootstrapped to two others running together (three-way SLI), which powers graphics showcase Crysis 3 running at its highest settings: a whopping 5760×1080 resolution across three monitors. Of course, a setup like that would cost you quite a pretty penny; just one GTX Titan costs $1,000, not to mention three (nor all the other hardware required to support it).
Should you prefer your gaming PCs to not be of the neon-lit, triple GPU, above-$10,000 variety, NVIDIA was also showing off the Titan in a Falcon Northwest boutique PC. The company’s working with a variety of boutique PC makers to incorporate the Titan (see: Maingear), making NVIDIA’s top of the line a teensy bit more accessible to your average joe.
GTX Titan is the new top of the line for NVIDIA, effectively pushing aside the GTX 690 and setting a new benchmark for performance. Of course, with a $1,000 price tag and freedom — nay, encouragement — to tweak its nitty gritty settings, the Titan isn’t really meant for your average anyone. The PC game-playing early adopters, however? Here’s your next GPU. Hopefully you’ve got a big, empty space in your rig, as you’ll need it. The GTX Titan arrives on February 25th for $999.
NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 690 currently wears the world’s-fastest-graphics crown, unless you count the limited edition Ares II, by cramming two Kepler GPUs onto one mainstream board. When it comes to improving on that, some leaked European retailer listings suggest NVIDIA might not wait on a completely next-gen architecture, but may instead try to deliver similar performance through a less power-hungry single GPU design. The listings, gathered together by TechPowerUp and VideoCardz, point towards a pricey new flagship, the GeForce GTX Titan, that would be a graphics-focused adaptation of the beefy Tesla K20 computing card. It’d pack 2,688 shader units, a 384-bit memory bus and 6GB of RAM, all with one chip — for reference, the GTX 690 needs two GPUs to offer 3,072 shader units and has 4GB of RAM. There’s no confirmed unveiling date, and the primary leak on a Danish site has actually been pulled, but ASUS and EVGA are rumored to be launching their own GTX Titan variants as soon as next week, possibly in the $1,000 to $1,200 ball park. That’s a short wait for what could deliver a serious boost to game performance, not to mention bragging rights.
Having found some of the most recent Free to Play games out on the market today to be undeniably awesome, NVIDIA has decided to stoke the fire with a set of F2P Bundles with their GeForce GPUs. When you purchase a GeForce GTX graphics card (as long as it’s 650 or above) you also get a set of in-game credits for three of the most excellent FPS games in play today. These games are Planetside 2, World of Tanks, and everyone’s favorite mech warrior free-for-all: Hawken!
Each of the games included in this release are and continue to be free for you to download and play with or without a purchase from NVIDIA – what you’re getting here is cash inside each game. Each of the games here is free to download and play, making a profit from in-game purchases that include feature upgrades, personalization of in-game elements, and oddities galore.
But it’s not just the free-to-play fad’s popularity in and of itself that NVIDIA is aiming for, it’s the situation this inflicts. Millions of users play these games with below-recommended hardware, meaning they’re nowhere near the optimal experience these games are able to present. With a GeForce GPU, they’ll get heavy bumps.
With World of Tanks you’ll be getting a big boost in graphics power – not that you’d need to be working with a top-power GeForce card to make this game work, but with an upgrade to a GeForce GTX GPU, you’ll have much more realistic gameplay and, when you get down and dirty with the stats, straight up higher FPS. Planetside 2 is a game you’ll be jumping into with massive boosts in usability as you jump into the GTX range of processors – there’s really no comparing 10FPS and 60+FPS when you’re hunting on alien worlds.
Then there’s Hawken, which benefits directly from NVIDIA’s own PhysX technology. Have a peek at the difference in gameplay with PhysX on and off in the demonstration video below. Also be sure to check our Hawken review to find out more about this beastly game.
The two deals up for grabs here are as follows: purchase a GeForce GTX 650 / 650 Ti and you’ll get $25 for each of the three games, equaling $75 in-game credit total. With a purchase of a GeForce GTX 660 or higher, you’ll get $50 in in-game credit for each of the three games above, that equalling out to be $150 USD. In both cases that credit is at least 75% of the original cost of the card – so if you’d have otherwise been spending that cash in-game, you’re golden!
If you’re the fidgety type that’s also in the market for a new GPU, AMD’s ready to tempt you into springing for a Radeon HD 7000 series card with the promise of free gaming swag. The imaginatively named “Never Settle: Reloaded” bundle reuses several titles from last year’s promotion — Farcry 3, Sleeping Dogs and Hitman: Absolution — and adds a few more it hopes will grab your attention: BioShock Infinite, Crysis 3, DmC Devil May Cry and Tomb Raider. AMD’s 7770 GHz Edition GPU no longer qualifies, but purchase a 7800 or 7900 series card and you’ll be given at least a couple of games to enjoy on your new hardware. Exactly what software you’ll receive varies on how much dough you’re waving around and what region you’re shopping in, so head to the source link for a full rundown of the options. A single 7990 or a two-pack of 7900 series cards will get you the most games, but if you don’t quite have the bread, ask Lara for a loan — she might be willing to share some of her perilous adventure fund and help you out.
The world obviously needs its supercomputers, but with a growing energy crisis, efficiency is becoming a big priority. The problem is that supercomputers require a lot of power, but that’s an issue Eurotech and NVIDIA are trying to solve in the new Eurora computer. Not only is this beast powerful, but NVIDIA has announced that it’s also breaking efficiency records for supercomputers.
In a NVIDIA Blog post, the company explains that Eurora managed to reach “3,150 megaflops per watt of sustained performance,” which just so happens to beat the efficiency of the highest-ranked supercomputer on the Green500 list by 26%. That isn’t bad at all, and it’s thanks to Eurotech’s Aurora hot water cooling system.
By using hot water cooling, the Eurora doesn’t need to be cooled by air conditioning, obviously saving on energy costs. NVIDIA describes the benefit of using hot water by pointing out that it can be “re-purposed to heat buildings or drive absorption chillers, and then returned back to the supercomputer at a cooler temperature.” The Eurora is equipped with 64 compute nodes, which are each made up of two Intel Xeon E5-series CPUs and two NVIDIA Tesla K20 GPU accelerators. Since the water cooling system allows Eurotech to save space in the Eurora, NVIDIA says it’s able to fit 256 CPUs and GPUs into a single rack.
While the water cooling system helped the Eurora meet its efficiency goals, it didn’t do all the work along. The Telsa K20 GPUs are also quite efficient too, with NVIDIA pointing out that they’re four times more efficient than x86 CPUs. The Eurora made its way to the Cineca supercomputer facility in Bologna, Italy this week, with NVIDIA and Eurotech predicting that it will save 2.5 million kilowatt hours and eliminate 1,500 tons of CO2 emissions over the course of its 5-year life. That, ladies and gentlemen, is one efficient machine.
In case you hadn’t heard the news, the open Crysis 3 multiplayer beta kicked off today. Those playing on PC will be pleased to know that NVIDIA is just as excited as you are, releasing its new GeForce 313.95 beta driver that’s said to increase multi-GPU performance by as much as 35% in Crysis 3. Naturally, the boost you get from this beta driver will vary depending on your setup, but those with a serious gaming rig should expect at least some improvement when trying to run the Crysis 3 beta.
This also happens to be NVIDIA’s first driver release of the new year, and with the company claiming improvements in 17 different games, you could argue we’re starting the year off with a bang. While the main focus will definitely be on the improvements made for the Crysis 3 beta, others like Assassin’s Creed III, Black Ops II, and Far Cry 3 are also benefiting from single-GPU and SLI performance boosts. So, if you’re not planning on participating in the Crysis 3 beta and are playing some of 2012′s biggest games instead, you’ll still want to grab this driver.
Of course, part of the problem is that Crysis 3 isn’t even out yet, so it’s hard to know what to expect from the beta. NVIDIA has compiled a list of recommended settings for a handful of its GeForce GTX 600 series cards. Again, keep in mind that you may need to change a few things depending on your hardware setup, but NVIDIA says that these recommended settings should serve as a good jumping off point. Sorry to say, but if you’re using a GTX 650, it looks like a lot of your settings will have to go down to low. Check out the full chart below.
This chart is just the tip of the iceberg though, with NVIDIA posting a series of performance bar charts to show how a number of its GPUs performed before and after installing the driver. NVIDIA has Windows XP, Windows 7, and Windows 8 packages available for desktop setups, while those on laptops will have access to Windows 7 and 8 package donwloads. If you’re interested in downloading the driver, you can grab it now from the official GeForce site.
This week the teams behind the NVIDIA GeForce Experience have unleashed the Open Beta version of the software, available for download by not just the select few (40,000 users, to be fair), but the greater public – you can grab it now! This Open Beta allows you access to the one and only GeForce Experience, a system where the teams of professionals and undeniably powerfully-minded graphics know-it-alls of NVIDIA’s GeForce ranks have for you sets of optimizations for the games you play all the time. In short: your PC games are about to get a whole lot more awesome.
This release has a limited number of games for which you’ll be able to get next-level optimization on your own GeForce-toting gaming PC. This release pumps up the availability of optimization beyond what the closed beta offered, with both Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad CPU support now ready for action. NVIDIA also added 2560 x 1440 display resolution support this time around – that having not been part of the closed beta release either.
With the GeForce Experience Open Beta you’ll see improved game detection logic as well as a collection of 41 games ready to look and work as magnificent as they’ve ever been on your machine. Having added FarCry 3, Mechwarrior Online, and the battle action heavy Hawken for this release, GeForce Experience is now able to work with 41 total titles. The rest are as follows:
Assassin’s Creed 3, Batman: Arkham City, Battlefield 3, Borderlands 2, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Counter-Strike:GO, CrossFire: Rival Factions, Crysis 2, Deus Ex Human Revolution, Diablo III, Dirt 3, DOTA 2, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, F1 2012, Fable III, Fallout New Vegas, Far Cry 3, FIFA 12, FIFA 13, Football Manager 2013, Hitman Absolution, League of Legends, Left 4 Dead 2, Mass Effect 3, Max Payne 3, Mechwarrior Online, Medal of Honor: Warfighter, Planetside 2, Portal 2, Shogun 2: Total War, Star Wars The Old Republic, StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, Team Fortress 2, The Secret World, The Sims 3, The Sims Medieval, The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, World Of Tanks, and World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria.
The actual app and usage therein is beyond simple. Once you’ve got it downloaded and open, you hit the scan button to see if there are any games on your machine that are part of the current list the GeForce Experience works with. The machine we’ve used here is an Alienware M17x R4 (see our full review here), and on it we’ve got none other than Batman: Arkham City (see our full review here) which the GeForce Experience software recognizes easily.
From there it’s just a button click or two more before we’ve got full NVIDIA-approved optimization of our settings, based entirely on the hardware/software combination we’ve got and ready for the best-case-scenario outcome when we kick out the gaming jams.
And that’s it! The simplicity of this app is part of the experience, the GeForce Experience being one that’s meant to be beyond simple. This environment makes certain everyone takes the time to optimize their machines with as easy a process as possible so that NVIDIA’s GeForce graphics can do their work as well as possible – and everything looks and handles hot!
This release includes upgrades in performance for client startup, game scan, billboard display, and nothing less than straight up communication with NVIDIA as well. If you’re all about getting some fantastic support for your games straight from NIVIDA, it’s time you headed over to the GeForce Experience Beta download page and had at it. This release works with Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Vista, and is just 9.16 MB in file size – make it yours!
Bonus! Have a peek at the two videos below direct from NVIDIA – the first was filmed at the CES 2013 event we attended (see the timeline below for more info) with the bossman talking about the release iteration of GeForce Experience. The other video shows the app again in simple terms with fancy graphics flying everywhere – hot stuff!
AVADirect, a company that specializes in custom-built computers, laptops, and server systems, has announced a world’s first. Their new 2U four-way server system is the first of its kind to house four NVIDIA Tesla graphics cards. The company says that “never has the industry seen or utilized such a solution,” until now.
AVADirect also partnered up with ASUS and used the company’s ESC4000 G2 Black 2U server platform to bring some respectable hardware to these new server units. On the inside, you can store up to 512GB of DDR3 RAM, with room for eight PCI-E 3.0 16x expansion cards (including those four Tesla units).
You’ll also find eight SATA ports with multiple RAID configurations, eight hot-swappable hard drive bays, and a 1+1 Redundant 1,620W 80PLUS Platinum power supply. That’s certainly a lot of firepower that must be treated carefully. AVADirect says that these new units are meant for render farms, imagine generators, rack-mounted graphics workstations, and multi-display workstations.
Of course, AVADirect will let you customize the new server system to fit your needs, and their website offers a ton of different configurations. However, the company’s recommended build costs just shy of $5,250, so if you’re serious about getting some major computing power in your hands, you better be saving up right this instant.
At CES 2013 we saw the unveiling of the NVIDIA Tegra 4, a mobile processor the company suggested was the World’s Fastest, it containing 72 GPU cores, five CPU cores (one of them an A15 “companion”), and the ability to work with 4G LTE. The Tegra 4 will be working with the NVIDIA Icera i500, that being a 28nm HP, Category 3 LTE (4 in the pipeline) Soft Modem. These two pieces of architecture together will be NVIDIA’s hero technology for mobile devices throughout 2013.
NVIDIA Tegra 4
The NVIDIA Tegra 4 System-on-Chip with five ARM Cortex A15 cores – four of them with 1.9GHz max clock speed, a fifth synthesized to work at lower power. The technology working around this fifth Companion core is similar to the Tegra 3, and for the lay person, it may as well be presented as the same due to how similar it really is. The fifth core is not visible to the operating system you’re using (be it Android, Windows, or something else), acting as more of a “Shadow Core” or a “Ninja” as we’ve been apt to call it, just as it was with Tegra 3.
Above you’re going to see a rundown of what Tegra 4 is, how it compares to Tegra 3, and what the future holds for mobile processing. The talk you’re seeing above is with NVIDIA Technical Marketing Director Nick Stam who presented us more of a detailed look at the Tegra 4 and what it means for mobile devices in 2013 (and beyond.)
For those of you that want to get rather technical with it all, you’ll be interested in knowing that the die size here in this new model is 80mm^2, ever so slightly larger than Tegra 3, but a whole lot denser as well. The cores you’re seeing here work on 28nm HPL, that being 28nm low power with high-k plus metal gates. What that basically means here is that you’re going to get one extremely optimized experience, made for high performance and low power consumption – as every great processor should.
The Tegra 4 processor will be working with “Always-On” HDR camera technology as well. You’ll find a rather interesting set of details in our initial reveal post, and we’ll be seeing this technology in-person sooner than later. It’s then that we’ll be seeing what it really means to be able to instantly take a shot with multiple exposures at once!
NVIDIA Icera i500 Soft Modem with 4G LTE
The NVIDIA Icera i500 Soft Modem is what the company describes as 40% smaller than a conventional die – this referring to other modems they’ve worked with from companies other than themselves, of course. The Icera i500 will work with Soft Modem technology, starting with UE Category 3 LTE (100 Mbps downlink on 20 MHz FDD-LTE) and moving forward to UE Category 4 LTE in the very near future. VoLTE is supported with other voice mode technologies, and the modem will be paired with a new never before seen transceiver built on 65nm LP CMOS.
The NVIDIA Icera i500 Soft Modem is built on TSMC’s 28nm high performance High-K Metal Gate process, and the company is able to power gate each of its cores individually. Depending on the needs of each device’s software package, each of the NVIDIA Icera i500′s 8 cores can be used or not used, gating based on changing load conditions.
Following Tegra 4
Those of you getting pumped up about Tegra 4 and NVIDIA’s full 2013 experience, you’ll have a fabulous time hitting up our massive Tegra Hub. There you’ll find not just your everyday NVIDIA Tegra mobile processor news, but featured hands-on articles, must-read up-to-the-minute updates, and reviews of Tegra-toting devices of all kinds.
Right this minute you’ll find several stories on the first device to have been revealed working with the Tegra 4 processor: NIVIDA’s own Project SHIELD. You’ll find plenty of awesome Project SHIELD action in the immediate future and up with its final name some time in Q2 of this year. Also have a peek in the timeline below to see the first important detail articles to have come down the line here in the first week since Tegra 4 was first revealed – Project SHIELD included!
There’s nothing we can concretely do or say about the Exynos 5 Octa until it’s in a device and in our hands. It’s all just educated guesswork in the meantime, but that happens to be something AnandTech is rather good at. That site has reached the conclusion, based on “numerous sources,” that the Octa probably uses a PowerVR 544MP3 GPU clocked at 533MHz. If true, this implies that the ARM Mali T-604 used in Exynos Dual devices like the Sammy Chromebook somehow couldn’t meet Octa’s needs, and that the higher-specced T-658 perhaps wasn’t ready. It also suggests that Octa’s graphical and GPU compute performance might lie somewhere between that of the third-gen iPad (A5X) and the fourth-gen (A6X). Frankly, a newer GPU would have been more exciting, especially given the appearance of PowerVR Series6 at CES, but big.LITTLE should still give us plenty to talk about when the new eight-core chip finally arrives.
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