Hasta La Gadget!

Uh oh, just as we thought NVIDIA had moved beyond its penchant for rebadging hardware, here comes the vanguard of its 500M mobile GPU series — which happens to be specced nearly identically to what’s already on offer in the 400M family. The GT 540M chip maintains the same 96 CUDA cores and 128-bit memory interface as the GT 435M, but earns its new livery by cranking up graphics and processor clock speeds to 672MHz and 1344MHz, respectively, while also taking the onboard memory to a max speed of 900MHz. Power requirements have been kept unchanged, mind you, and NVIDIA itself admits it’s exploiting the maturation of the production process to just throw out some speedier parts. China gets the GT 540M immediately, courtesy of Acer, while the rest of the world should be able to buy in at some point next month. Jump past the break for the full press release.

Update: We’ve managed to track down the particular Acer model that’ll mark the GT 540M’s debut, it’s called the Aspire 4741G. The option we saw came equipped with a 2.66GHz Intel Core i5-480M processor, 4GB of RAM, a 640GB HDD, a Blu-ray disc drive, and a 14-inch screen up top. There’s not much, aside from the new top cover design, to really distinguish this from the rest of Acer’s Aspire line, with the keyboard in particular being the very same one that we’ve witnessed on Timeline series machines for over a year now — comfortable, well spaced, but exhibiting quite a bit of flex around the Enter key. See more of it in the gallery below.

Continue reading NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M refreshes mobile graphics midrange (update: hands-on pics)

NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M refreshes mobile graphics midrange (update: hands-on pics) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 05 Dec 2010 22:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mama always said that one was never enough, and just five months after revealing its first NIC / GPU combo card to us at Computex, Bigfoot Networks has taken the wraps off of its second. This go ’round, the outfit is partnering with VisionTek to produce the VisionTek Killer HD 5770, a single PCIe card that combines an AMD Radeon HD 5770 GPU (with 1GB of GDDR5 memory) and a Killer E2100 networking card. All told, buyers are presented with two DVI ports, a single HDMI output and a gigabit Ethernet jack. The card is compatible with Windows 7, Vista and XP, and put simply, it’s designed to both improve your frame rates (that’s AMD’s role) and lower your latency / jitter (hello, Bigfoot!). The NIC portion actually has a 400MHz onboard processor that helps minimize the impact of slight changes in your connection, and Bigfoot’s management software will be thrown in for good measure. The board is expected to hit North American retail shops within a fortnight or so, with the $199.99 asking price representing a ~$10 savings compared to buying an HD 5770 GPU and Killer 2100 separately. Oh, and you get a pretty sick dragon, too.

Continue reading VisionTek Killer HD 5770 combo NIC / GPU hikes frame rates, lowers ping times for $200

VisionTek Killer HD 5770 combo NIC / GPU hikes frame rates, lowers ping times for $200 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Dec 2010 08:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You saw the key specs slip out a little ahead of time, now it’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for: the GeForce GTX 580 has been thoroughly benchmarked to see if its claim to being “the world’s fastest DirectX 11 GPU” stands up to scrutiny. In short, yes it does. The unanimous conclusion reached among the reviewers was that the 580 cranks up the performance markedly relative to the GTX 480 — with some citing gains between 10 and 20 percent and others finding up to 30 percent improvements — while power draw, heat emissions, and noise were lowered across the board. ATI’s AMD’s Radeon HD 5870 wasn’t completely crushed by the newcomer, but it was consistently behind NVIDIA’s latest pixel pusher. Priced at $499, the GTX 580 is actually praised for offering good value, though its TDP of 244W might still require you to upgrade a few parts inside your rig to accommodate it, while current online prices are closer to $550. Anyhow, the pretty comparative bar charts await at the links below.

Read – HardOCP
Read – Tech Report
Read – Legit Reviews
Read – Bit-tech
Read – PC Perspective
Read – Hot Hardware

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 reviewed: ‘what the GTX 480 should have been’ originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Nov 2010 09:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Originally teased at Computex, NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 460M has just recently started to slip out into a limited amount of laptops, and naturally, Dell’s Alienware line is amongst the first to get it. The almighty M15x can now be configured down in the source link with a 460M that boasts 1.5GB of GDDR5 memory, and best of all, it’s only a $119.84 upgrade over the stock 1GB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5850. Mama always said frames per second were worth paying for, now didn’t she?

[Thanks, Zhi Hao]

Dell’s Alienware M15x now available with GeForce GTX 460M, a $120 upgrade originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 08 Nov 2010 16:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AMD’s Radeon HD 6870 and HD 6850 graphics cards are here, but they might not be what you expect — though alphanumerics suggest they’d succeed the lauded Radeon HD 5870 and 5850, these new “Bart” chips are actually a pair of solid plays for the PC gaming mainstream. $180 buys you a Radeon HD 6850 with 960 stream processors, a 775MHz core clock and 1GB of GDDR5 memory at a 1GHz effective rate, and $240 nets the HD 6870 with 1120 stream processors and 900MHz / 1,050 MHz clocks respectively. On paper that puts them a good bit behind the finest, but a collection of reviews show they can keep up with the pack, as the 6870 consistently manages to surpass the framerates possible with NVIDIA’s $200 GeForce GTX 460, and even the cheaper 6850 can do the same in certain games. Some reports indicate they run a good bit hotter than their predecessors, however, so despite the bevy of ports they’re probably not right for your next HTPC. Hit up the reviews below for some promising benchmarks, and if you aren’t turned away by AMD’s lipsticking of the pig, you’ll find ten varieties already for sale at our source link. PR after the break.

Update: NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 460 768MB now sells for $170, so there’s definitely still some mid-range muscle in the green camp.

Read – AnandTech
Read (1), (2) – Guru3D
Read – HardOCP
Read (1), (2) – Bit-tech
Read – PC Perspective
Read – Legit Reviews
Read – Techgage
Read (1), (2) – TweakTown
Read – Hexus
Read (1), (2) – TechPowerUp
Read – HotHardware
Read – TechSpot

Continue reading ATI Radeon HD 6870 and HD 6850 reviewed, deemed worthy of the midrange

ATI Radeon HD 6870 and HD 6850 reviewed, deemed worthy of the midrange originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Oct 2010 23:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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