Hasta La Gadget!

No one’s saying that $300 is “cheap,” but compared to the GTX 670 and GTX 680 before it, the newly announced GeForce GTX 660 Ti is definitely in a more attainable category. The usual suspects have hashed out their reviews today, with the general consensus being one of satisfaction. A gamechanger in the space it’s not, but this Kepler-based GPU managed to go toe-to-toe with similarly priced Radeon GPUs while being relatively power efficient in the process. That said, AnandTech was quick to point out that unlike Kepler reviews in the past, the 660 Ti wasn’t able to simply blow away the competition; it found the card to perform around 10 to 15 percent faster than the 7870 from AMD, while the 7950 was putting out roughly the same amount of performance as the card on today’s test bench. HotHardware mentioned that NVIDIA does indeed have another winner on its hands, noting that it’d be tough to do better right now for three Benjamins. Per usual, there’s plenty of further reading available in the links below for those seriously considering the upgrade.

Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti review roundup: impressive performance for around $300 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Aug 2012 13:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This week the folks at MAINGEAR have let it be known that they’re bringing on the NVIDIA Kepler excellence with the GeForce GTX Ti graphics solution to their line of custom built PCs. You’ll be able to work NVIDIA GeForce architecture for fabulous graphics here with MAINGEAR without dropping tons of cash, both companies aims here being a “sweet spot” for affordability, performance, and power efficiency. In addition to the GeForce GTX 660 Ti coming to the MAINGEAR custom desktop lineup, the whole NVIDIA Kepler family will be joining the party as well – immediately if not soon!

The MAINGEAR custom desktop line will benefit from the Kepler family right out of the gate and there’s a couple of limited edition units coming here in the summer season as well. MAINGEAR is bringing on a limited F131 and Potenza class system, each of them with the 660 Ti for gaming action, and both of them coming on with the next-level beast of a game Borderlands 2 included. Check out more info on these limited edition setups on the GTX 660 Ti MAINGEAR page right this minute. The Potenza Limited Edition model with Borderlands 2 will cost you a cool $1199 while the F131 Limited Edition model with Borderlands 2 will bring you up to $1379 – they’re both ready to rock!

MAINGEAR notes that NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 660 Ti will bring on 1.5x faster performance than the generation that precedes it – the GTX 560 Ti. This same comparison has the new 660 working at 2x better power efficiency as well. With this solution you’ve got TXAA temporal antialiasing for fabulous performance and image quality no matter what game you’re attacking. You’ve also got NVIDIA PhysX as well as Full Direct X11 support for “the best gaming experience possible”.

And we’ll see about that when we have a full look at one of these units next week – meanwhile, you’ll want to have a peek at recent bits of news surrounding the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti in the timeline below [DEVELOPING]. And let us know if you plan to upgrade to this new gear in the near future!

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti graphics hit MAINGEAR custom PCs is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

It’s taken NVIDIA a mighty long time to squeeze its Kepler GPU into something more affordable than the GTX 670, but it’s finally happened — the mid-range GTX 660 Ti is out and available to purchase for $299 on boards from EVGA, Gigabyte, ASUS and the usual suspects. Some buyers may complain that’s $50 more than the 560 Ti, while others will no doubt be reeling off their CVV codes already. For its part, NVIDIA claims the 660 Ti is the “best card per watt ever made” and that it beats even AMD’s higher-priced Radeon HD 7950 at 1920 x 1080. Check out the slide deck below for official stats, as well as for examples of what the card can do with its support for DirectX 11 tessellation, PhysX (particularly on Borderlands 2, which you may well find bundled free) and NVIDIA’s TXAA anti-aliasing.

We’ll wait for independent benchmarks in our review round-up before making any judgment, but in the meantime it’s fair to say that this 150-watt card comes fully featured. For a start, it has just as many 28nm CUDA cores as the GTX 670, the same base and GPU Boost clock speeds, the same 2GB of GDDR5 and indeed the same connectivity. The only sacrifice is memory bandwidth: all that computational performance is limited by a 192-bit memory bus, compared to the 256-bit width of the 670. Judging from those specs, we’d expect it to be almost 670-like in performance, and that’s going to be pretty impressive.

Continue reading NVIDIA announces $299 GeForce GTX 660 Ti, lets Kepler walk among the people

Filed under: Desktops, Gaming

NVIDIA announces $299 GeForce GTX 660 Ti, lets Kepler walk among the people originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Aug 2012 09:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s only been a little over a month since Giada first introduced that itty-bitty, Ivy Bridge-loaded i53 mini PC, but the outfit wants to have something for everyone and is now announcing a lesser-specced i35G series. Although not as powerful as its i53 brethren, the i35G’s got some nice attributes of its own, including — you guessed it — Intel’s Cedar Trail CPU, a hot-off-the-press GeForce GT 610 GPU and 2GB of RAM with the base model (up to 4GB) — not to mention an all-in-one card reader, five USB 2.0 ports plus VGA, HDMI ports. Additionally, the standard unit comes with a 320GB hard drive, though if you’re looking for a quick boost, it’s easily upgradable to some solid-state drive goodness. Giada’s letting go of its petite i35G starting at $274, but you’ll have to call North America home, as it’s only available in Canada and the States.

Continue reading Giada intros i35G mini PC with Intel’s Cedar Trail, NVIDIA GT 610 graphics

Filed under: Desktops, Misc. Gadgets

Giada intros i35G mini PC with Intel’s Cedar Trail, NVIDIA GT 610 graphics originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 14 Aug 2012 16:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When we last left Acer’s Iconia Tab A110, it was going to be yet another 7-inch Android 4.0 tablet. No big deal. The proposition just became a little more intriguing now that online shop Ebuyer has posted what might be formal press shots of the A110 sporting a fresh coat of Jelly Bean, making it one of the first third-party Android 4.1 tablets that we’ve seen. Assuming the gallery isn’t just a clever attempt to whip customers into a frenzy, the posting suggests Acer’s design will follow the Nexus 7 formula all the way through to the stock interface. About the only differences are that empty home screen and incredibly generic wallpaper. Where it goes awry is the timing: without any hint of a release date, we don’t know if a Jelly Bean update would push the A110 beyond its original summer launch target. Any truth to the story, however, can only mean good things for the tablet’s larger A210 sibling.

Filed under: Tablet PCs

Acer Iconia Tab A110 allegedly caught brandishing Jelly Bean in press shots originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 14 Aug 2012 01:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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