Hasta La Gadget!

We already knew that NVIDIA had to shell out anywhere from $150 to $250 million last year to resolve issues related to its defective GPUs, but it looks like that may have only been the beginning, with The Inquirer now reporting that the company has also been forced to pay an additional $119.1 million over the past four months to fix a faulty die and weak packaging material used in the affected graphics chips. What’s more, NVIDIA apparently won’t say whether it expects to incur any further charges related to the defective chips or not, although it simply describes the whole situation as “small distraction,” and says it hasn’t affected its ability to launch new products.

Filed under: Laptops

Faulty GPUs reportedly cost NVIDIA another $119 million originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Aug 2009 13:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Believe it or not, this is far from the first time we’ve heard of a liquid cooled GPU; in fact, NVIDIA was tossing the idea around way back in 2006, when Quake III and Unreal Tournament were still top titles in the FPS realm. BFG Technologies, which currently holds the greatest name for a graphics card company ever, has today introduced its GeForce GTX 285 H2O+ and GeForce GTX 295 H2OC cards, both of which boast ThermoIntelligence Advanced Cooling Solutions (read: self-contained liquid cooling systems). BFG swears that both cards are completely maintenance free, with the GPUs kept around 30°C cooler under load as compared to standard air cooled models. There’s no mention of pricing just yet, but both should be available any moment at NewEgg. Good luck resisting the sudden urge to upgrade.

Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals

BFG gifts GTX 285 and GTX 295 cards with self-contained liquid cooling originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Aug 2009 06:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Need a quick way to blow 1,800 bones? Looking to single-handedly jump-start this so-called “economy” we keep hearing about? Look no further, friends, as ATI just did you a solid. Just four months after the outfit dished out its 1GB FirePro V7750, the company is now looking to strike it rich once more with the 2GB FirePro V8750. Obviously designed for the workstation crowd, this CAD destroying GPU is equipped with more GDDR5 memory than our own four-year old Quake III server, but as HotHardware points out, the clock speed remains exactly the same as the entirely more affordable V8700. When pushed, this newfangled card did manage to best every other rival on the test bench, but not by a wide margin. What you’re left with is a cutting-edge device that’s priced way out of consideration for most, and frankly, way outside the realm of sensibility. If you just can’t shake the urge to hear more, give that read link a tap for the full review.

Read – ATI FirePro V8750 review
Read – ATI press release

Filed under: Peripherals

ATI’s $1,800 2GB FirePro V8750 GPU introduced and reviewed originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 28 Jul 2009 04:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tired of hearing that your next favorite netbook / nettop is hamstrung with one of those woefully underpowered GMA950 graphics chipsets? Eager to see what all AMD is going to do about it? If The Inquirer is to be believed, an up and coming integrated chipset should elevate the multimedia prowess of low-end machines, as the RS880 would actually be based around the new Radeon HD 4200 core. In theory, at least, this chip would be around 15 percent faster than similar alternatives out there now, giving future netbooks just enough power to churn through 720p video without st, st, stuttering. Needless to say, the suits are refusing to comment on the matter, but we’re definitely holding out hope for this one.

Filed under: Peripherals

AMD’s RS880 integrated graphics chip could make netbooks usable originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Jul 2009 08:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Yesterday at E3 I met with a company called Fusion-io. I was largely unfamiliar with the company, save for that recent bit of news about Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak coming on board as chief scientist. Thats no small bit of news, of course. While the hes been busy with extended polo games, d-list dating, and reality show flirtation, the Woz was more or less in retirement when it came to running tech companies.

At the time, Fusion-io was primarily manufacturing products for the SMB world, devices aimed at reducing the bottleneck on servers. With Woz in the picture, however, the company has taken a turn toward consumers, offering up the ioXtreme. The company was showcasing the product at E3, with help from pro-gamer Jonathan Fatal1ty Wendel.

The device sits in a computers PCI Express slot, in order to [fill] the performance gap between RAM and disk drives. I didnt get a chance to benchmark the thing at the show, but Funsion-io assures me that its blazingly fast, and has definite applications for those doing video editing or 3D rendering.

There are applications for games, too, of course, but at $895, its probably best to wait until the price comes down on the thing. The ioXtreme is set for a July release.