NVIDIA Reports Q3 2012 Results

Subject: Editorial | November 16, 2011 - 09:08 PM | Josh Walrath
Tagged: tesla, tegra, Results, Q3 2012, nvidia, income, fermi

Late last week NVIDIA reported their Q3 2012 (they have an unconventional reporting calendar), and the results were overwhelmingly positive for the once struggling company.  Throughout 2010 NVIDIA struggled with the poor results of their 400 series of graphics cards as compared to the relative smooth sailing that AMD had going into the DirectX 11 marketplace.  NVIDIA was also struggling to get the original Tegra to be accepted by the marketplace, which never occurred with that particular generation of products.

NVIDIA reported gross revenues of $1.07 billion for the previous quarter, with a net income (GAAP) of $178.3 million.  Margins improved to a respectable 52.5%, which is generally considered high for a fabless semiconductor company.  When we compare these results to AMD which had reported earnings a few weeks ago, we see that while NVIDIA had less revenue (AMD reported $1.7 billion) the company had nearly double the overall profit (AMD reported around $97 million).  AMD has a strong CPU business, which is something that NVIDIA is working on.  AMD reported margins in the 45% range, but they also have a larger workforce and larger capital expenditures at this time.

Read the rest of the article here.

Podcast #178 - EVGA GTX 560 Ti 2Win, a Puget Systems silent HTPC, Tegra 3 and more!

Subject: Editorial | November 10, 2011 - 04:39 PM | Ken Addison
Tagged: tegra 3, tegra, ram, Puget, podcast, nvidia, maingear, Intel, gtx560 ti, evga, corsair, amd

PC Perspective Podcast #178 - 11/10/2011

Join us this week as we talk about the EVGA GTX 560 Ti 2Win, a Puget Systems silent HTPC, Tegra 3 and more!

You can subscribe to us through iTunes and you can still access it directly through the RSS page HERE.

The URL for the podcast is: http://pcper.com/podcast - Share with your friends!

• iTunes - Subscribe to the podcast directly through the iTunes Store
• RSS - Subscribe through your regular RSS reader
• MP3 - Direct download link to the MP3 file

Hosts: Josh Walrath, Jeremy Hellstrom, and Allyn Malvantano

This Podcast is brought to you by MSI Computer, and their all new Sandy Bridge Motherboards!

Program length: 1:09:50

Program Schedule:

1. 0:00:29 Introduction
2. 1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
3. http://pcper.com/podcast
4. http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
5. 0:02:55 EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 2Win
6. 0:13:25 SilverStone Strider Gold
7. 0:17:00 This Podcast is brought to you by MSI Computer, and their all new Sandy Bridge Motherboards!
   
8. 0:18:00 Puget System Serenity Core i5 HTPC Review
9. 0:28:05 Samsung Infuse 4G Delivery
10. 0:31:20 Tegra 3 and Asus Transformer Prime
11. 0:42:30 Maingear Epic 180 Cooler
12. 0:49:20 64 GB Corsair DDR3 
13. 0:51:30 Asus 3 Board 900 Series Review
14. 1:00:00 Ryan pretends to make a difference.
15. 1:02:40 Hardware / Software Pick of the Week
    1. Jeremy: Quick defroster
    2. Josh: Nice musics!  http://www.amazon.com/Greatest-Video-Music-Amazon-Bonus/dp/B005WV6ZI8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1320891616&sr=8-1
    3. Allyn: mp3tag
16. 1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
17. http://pcper.com/podcast   
18. http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
19. Closing

Podcast #177 - Lenovo Portable Monitor, GTX580M vs HD6990M, Hard Drive prices spiking and more!

Subject: Editorial | November 3, 2011 - 05:44 PM | Ken Addison
Tagged: x79, podcast, nvidia, Intel, hd6990m, gtx580m, earnings, amd, 6990m, 580m

PC Perspective Podcast #177 - 11/03/2011

Join us this week as we talk about a Lenovo Portable Monitor, GTX580M vs HD6990M, Hard Drive prices spiking and more!

You can subscribe to us through iTunes and you can still access it directly through the RSS page HERE.

The URL for the podcast is: http://pcper.com/podcast - Share with your friends!

• iTunes - Subscribe to the podcast directly through the iTunes Store
• RSS - Subscribe through your regular RSS reader
• MP3 - Direct download link to the MP3 file

Hosts: Ryan Shrout, Josh Walrath, Jeremy Hellstrom, and Allyn Malvantano

This Podcast is brought to you by MSI Computer, and their all new Sandy Bridge Motherboards!

Program length: 1:06:02

Program Schedule:

1. 0:00:28 Introduction
2. 1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
3. http://pcper.com/podcast
4. http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
5. 0:01:17 Lenovo ThinkVision LT1421 Portable Monitor Review: A Second Display for Road Warriors
6. 0:03:42 Mobile GPU Comparison: GeForce GTX 580M and Radeon HD 6990M
7. 0:16:50 iPhone 3GS / 4 / 4S Battery Life Testing - Putting the Conjecture to Rest
8. 0:23:40 This Podcast is brought to you by MSI Computer, and their all new Sandy Bridge Motherboards!
   
9. 0:24:30 AMD Reports Q3 2011 Results
10. 0:31:35 Hard Drive Prices Spike on Thailand Flooding
11. 0:39:40 Gigabyte brings Bluetooth 4.0 and WiFi to their X79 boards
12. 0:44:04 Video Perspective: AMD A8-3850 vs Core i3-2105 on Battlefield 3
13. 0:47:10 Intel Releases Updated SSD Toolbox
14. 0:51:15 NVIDIA Upgrading GTX 560 to 448 CUDA Cores?
15. 0:55:15 Hardware / Software Pick of the Week
    1. Ryan: Not Steam Uninstaller
    2. Jeremy: Maxwell Technologies HSN-1000 Nuclear Event Detector < wait what?!?! :)  or http://ca.movember.com/mospace/1422966/ Movember
    3. Josh: Gettin cheeeap:  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227706
    4. Allyn: Electricsheep pre-rendered screen saver 
16. 1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
17. http://pcper.com/podcast   
18. http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
19. Closing

NVIDIA Upgrading GTX 560 to 448 CUDA Cores?

Subject: Graphics Cards | October 27, 2011 - 07:41 PM | Matt Baynum
Tagged: nvidia, GTX 560, geforce

A rumor that I read over at Guru3D seems to think that the GeForce GTX 560 Ti, a card that has been very successful in the ~$230 graphics market, might be getting an upgrade just in time for the pending holiday buying season.  According to the report, the new version would move from the current 384 CUDA core count to 448 cores, essentially adding another full SM (symmetric multiprocessor) to the GPU.

A collection of current GTX 560 Ti cards...

Guru3D notes though that the "new" GTX 560 Ti would be based on the GF110 GPU (same as the GTX 580 and GTX 570) simply because the GTX 560 Ti uses all the available processing cores of the GF114 design.  The GPU on this new card would be a GTX 580 with two SMs disabled, rather than the single SM disabled on the GTX 570.

Here are the reports other details:

It features 14 active SMs, which include 448 SP / CUDA Cores and 56 TMUs; 320-bit memory and 40 ROPs - a very similar configuration to the old GTX 470. Along with increased performance, power consumption is expected to rise over the 384 SP GTX 560 Ti. A benefit to using GF110 means the revised 560 Ti will feature 2 x SLI connectors, enabling 3-way SLI.

While I believe this part could definitely exist, I wouldn't think NVIDIA would simply remove the current GTX 560 Ti and replace it; instead I would imagine the company would go for the "GTX 565" route, or something similar to it.  Maybe a GTX 560 Ultra.  Either way, a new card that would fit in to the price slot somewhere between the GTX 560 Ti ($230) and the GTX 570 ($340) would be a welcome addition, especially with games like Battlefield 3 and Skyrim set to take advantage of that horsepower. 

A milquetoast reception to the next generation of GPUs

Subject: General Tech | October 26, 2011 - 11:56 AM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: gpu, amd, nvidia, southern islands, kepler, TSMC, 28nm

While most enthusiasts are living up to the name as far as the build up to the coming GPU refreshes from both AMD and NVIDIA is concerned, the manufacturers are quite the opposite.  There are several probable reasons for this attitude, not least of which are the number of HD 6570s and GTS 450s that are still in their stock.  Remember those cards from back in the spring of this year, which were the high end of a huge range of GPUs from both companies spanning $20 to either side of $100?  Think that with the current generation of Llano and SandyBridge that any knowledgeable person is going to purchase one, let alone when you consider how close the release of next generation of APUs is?  The two major players in the discrete GPU market not only updated the top end of their cards quickly over the past several quarters there was a widening of the market which saw current generation cards available from ~$75 to ~$750 with some segments separated by as little as $10.  That translates to huge inventories at the manufacturer level which they then have to convince resellers and retailers to purchase for stock to sell to the consumer and many of those cards are still sitting there collecting dust.  No wonder these same companies are leery of purchasing more stock before finding a way to recover some profit from the stock they have now.

To make things even worse there exist doubts about the 28nm process from TSMC, which DigiTimes discusses here.  While AMD is still claiming delivery of HD7000 family cards before the coming year, the troubles that NVIDIA seems to be having with the same process concerns those who need to be able to buy large volumes of chips in order to turn a profit selling graphics cards.  Even worse is the realization that the first cards NVIDIA will be releasing are simply a die shrink, without architectural changes.  When two companies go to the same source for the same thing and one reports getting apple cider and the other apple vinegar, you really have to start to wonder what is really going on. 

"While Nvidia and AMD are poised to use Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's (TSMC's) 28nm technology to produce the GPUs Kepler and Southern Islands respectively, most Taiwan-based graphics card makers hold a conservative attitude about the new GPUs with some makers cautiously watching the market status before making any further decisions, according to industry sources.

Compared to the makers' eagerness for the previous-generation GPUs, graphics card makers are rather conservative about the upcoming 28nm chips due to concerns such as TSMC's weak 40nm process yield rate issues may re-occur in its 28nm process and weakening demand for graphics cards and lower-than-expected gross margins."

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Tech Talk

• Did Nvidia have to spin their 28nm GPU shrinks? @ SemiAccurate
• PARC, Thinfilm unveil first printed, flexible CMOS computer circuit @ ExtremeTech
• AIDA64 v2.00 is released !
• Linus Torvalds discusses ARM issues at Linuxcon Europe @ The Inquirer
• KDE 4: Leader of the Semantic Pack @ Linux
• IBM names Ginni Rometty prez and CEO @ The Register
• Samsung Announces PM830 Prices in NYC Gala Event With Batman @ SSD Review

Almost Time! Battlefield 3 Release, Is Your Hardware Ready?

Subject: Graphics Cards | October 24, 2011 - 03:06 PM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: radeon, nvidia, geforce, bf3, amd

I know that you might have Battlefield 3 overload by now, but I wanted to make sure you all remembered to take a look at our BF3 Performance Guide from a couple weeks back to make sure your PC is ready for what might be the most anticipated and talked about PC titles in years. 

Here is a summary of the content we have written based on the game - make sure you know ALL of it so you can get your system prepared for the pending battle!!

• Battlefield 3 (BF3) System Build Guide - What you need to succeed
  • Come see our easy suggestions for building a system for BF3 (or upgrading) based on your target resolution and quality settings.
• Battlefield 3 Beta Performance Testing and Image Quality Evaluation - Day 1
  • We test quite a few graphics cards to see where your setup currently stands with Battlefield 3.
• More Battlefield 3 Beta Performance Results: GTX 460, Radeon HD 5850 and 9800 GT!
  • We added some lower end cards to the performance article as well including the very popular 9800 GT.
• PCPer Live! Battlefield 3 Beta Party and Discussion @ 10:30pm EST
  • You missed it, but it was fun and we are going to be doing more next weekend!
• Battlefield 3 Beta: Caspian Border Performance and Screenshots
  • Come see the performance results from our 64-player testing on the Caspian Border map!
• Battlefield 3 (BF3) Beta Performance: Quality Preset and SLI Scaling
  • Here you can see how performance scales from Ultra to High, Medium and Low presets as well as how much performance gain you can expect from SLI scaling.

Keep checking back at PC Perspective as we are planning on doing some more fun live streaming of our BF3 matches and be sure to sign up for the official PCPer "Fragging Frogs" platoon in Battlelog!