AFDS 2012: AMD "Kaveri" APU to offer 1 TFLOPS Compute Performance

Subject: Graphics Cards, Processors | June 12, 2012 - 12:18 PM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: Kaveri, APU, amd, AFDS

During the opening keynote at the AMD Fusion Developer Summit 2012, AMD's Dr. Lisa Su revealed a slide with performance of the upcoming 3rd genreation Kaveri APU.

While Trinity is currently rated at 726 GFLOPS, the Kaveri APU due late in 2012 or early 2013, will have at least 1 TFLOPS of total compute performance.  That is a 37% boost over the previous generation. 

If you want more information, check out our keynote live blog!!

E3 12: Unreal Engine 4 -- What you (and we) missed at GDC.

Subject: Editorial, General Tech, Graphics Cards, Shows and Expos | June 8, 2012 - 06:09 PM | Scott Michaud
Tagged: video, unreal engine 4, E3 12, E3

Epic has released as much of their GDC demo as they are able to in an effort to end E3 2012 with a bang. They have included a second video to walk through the engine for developers to enjoy. We will explain to the masses why it is awesome.

Before we go any further -- the video you have been waiting months to see.

Be prepared for a particle-filled generation.

As was the case with Intel’s sand-to-CPU video -- the demo is pleasing but the supplementary info is the prize.

Epic released a 10 minute developer walkthrough to highlight the most important features of Unreal Engine 4. You can see it below and read on to see what that all means.

Yes, Unrealscript did not make it to Unreal Engine 4.

The first major feature of the engine is real-time dynamic global illumination and glossy specular reflection. Traditional video game graphics only considers the first bounce of light from a source -- if that bounce does not reach the player camera then it does not exist. Global illumination allows objects to be lit not just by light sources but also by light bouncing from neighboring objects.

It has been very popular to calculate how light interacts with objects ahead of time for the last generation as well as a portion of the generation prior to that. With those methods you are able to soften the shadows cast by light and make the scene feel much more naturally lit. The problem arises when anything in the scene moves or changes as obviously happens in a video game.

Unreal Engine 4 has the ability to calculate Global Illumination in real time. Dynamic lights such as muzzle flashes or flames are able to not just illuminate the area around them but also induce that area around it to light each other.

Also, static sources such as moonlight shining in the window against the floor can bounce from the floor and slightly lighten the walls with a bluish tint without being calculated ahead of time. Developers can try lighting effects without waiting for sometimes hours to see the results. This also means that what would have been once a pre-computed lit scene with nothing moving can now be destroyed and still remain properly lit. And now the moon can even move if the designer wants.

Specular material on the gold statue

Diffuse material on the gold statue, notice how the floor lighting from the statue desaturates and changes.

In this scene we see how light can reflect against a statue and influence the objects around it. A specular material has a much smoother and more mirror-like surface than a diffuse material which tends to scatter light in all directions. If you were to shine a laser against a mirror the beam would bounce and you would not see it unless you were in the reflected path whereas if you shine the laser against the wall you would see a dot regardless of how you look at it. This is because the wall, like a projector screen, is like trillions of microscopic mirrors all pointed in different directions which each take a tiny fraction of the light and sends it in a different direction.

In Unreal Engine 4, this effect means that a shiny surface will not only glare if you look at it but also light the objects around it differently than a diffuse surface. You can see that effect against the floor.

Read on after the break to continue with the discussion of Unreal Engine 4 features.

Graphics Card (GPU) Stock Check - June 8th, 2012

Subject: Graphics Cards | June 8, 2012 - 02:46 PM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: stock check, radeon, nvidia, HD 7970, hd 7950, hd 7870, hd 7850, hd 7770, hd 7750, GTX 690, gtx 680, gtx 670, geforce, amd

Due to popular request, I am going to try to keep our readers up to date on the current availability of graphics cards and pricing on the market.  With the recent price drops from AMD, the frequent out-of-stock status of the GTX 680 cards and the release of the GTX 670, I thought this would be a great summary of the current situation.

NVIDIA's GTX 690

We will try to post new updates weekly or maybe more frequently as we see fit.  Newegg is our partner of choice for this today, so let's see what we have.

AMD Radeon HD 7000 Series

Radeon HD 7970 3GB - In Stock
Starting at $459

Radeon HD 7950 3GB - In Stock
Starting at $379

Radeon HD 7870 2GB - In Stock
Starting at $329

Radeon HD 7850 2GB - In Stock
Starting at $249

Radeon HD 7770 1GB - In Stock
Starting at $129

Radeon HD 7750 1GB - In Stock
Starting at $109

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 600 Series

GeForce GTX 690 4GB - No Stock
Starting at $999

GeForce GTX 680 2GB - In Stock
Starting at $499

GeForce GTX 670 2GB - In Stock
Starting at $399

We may have a trend ladies and gentlemen - two weeks in a row we have seen GTX 680 cards in stock at Newegg!!  The first is from Zotac with a $499 price tag and stock, reference clock speeds.  The second is a Galaxy model that is overclocked by almost 100 MHz!

AMD is still doing great on availability with the Radeon HD 7970 and HD 7950 widely available for the price of $459 / $379 with a set of three free games including DiRT Showdown and Dues Ex: Human Revolution and a $10 price drop. 

If you are looking for our latest graphics reviews to judge the performance of the above cards, here you go:

• GeForce GTX 670
• GeForce GTX 690
• GeForce GTX 680
• MSI R7970 Lightning
• Radeon HD 7870 and HD 7850
• Radeon HD 7770 and HD 7750
• Radeon HD 7950
• Radeon HD 7970

Computex: AMD Launching Tahiti 2 Graphics Cards Next Week

Subject: Graphics Cards | June 8, 2012 - 01:23 PM | Tim Verry
Tagged: tahiti, graphics, gpu, computex, binning, amd, 7970 ghz edition

AMD is having a string of successes with its 28nm 7000 series graphics cards. While it was dethroned by NVIDIA’s GTX 680, the AMD Radeon HD 7970 is easier to get a hold of. It certainly seems like the company is having a much easier time in manufacturing its GPUs compared to NVIDIA’s Kepler cards. AMD has been cranking out HD 7970s for a few months now and they have gotten the binning process down such that they are getting a good number of pieces of silicon that have a healthy bit of overhead over that of the 7970’s stock speeds.

And so enters Tahiti 2. Tahiti 2 represents GPU silicon that is binning not only for HD 7970 speeds but is able to push up the default clock speed while running with lower voltage. As a result, the GPUs are able to stay within the same TDP of current 7970 cards but run faster.

But how much faster? Well, SemiAccurate is reporting that AMD is seeing as much as a 20% clock speed improvement over current Radeon HD 7970 graphics cards. This means that cards are able to run at clock speeds up to approximately 1075MHz – quite a bit above the current reference clock speed of 925MHz!

The AMD 7970 3GB card. Expect Tahiti 2 to look exactly the same but run at higher clock speeds.

They are further reporting that, because the TDP has not changed, no cooler, PCB, or memory changes will be needed. This will make it that much easier for add in board partners to get the updated reference-based GPUs out as quickly as possible and with minimal cost increases (we hope). You can likely count on board partners capitalizing on the 1,000MHz+ speeds by branding the new cards “GHz Edition” much like the Radeon 7770 has enjoyed.

With 7970 chips having overhead and binning higher than needed, an updated and lower-power using refresh may also be in order for AMD’s 7950 “Tahiti Pro” graphics cards. Heck, maybe they can refresh the entire lineup with better binned silicon but keep the same clock speeds in order to reduce power consumption on all their cards.

Computex: Sapphire Shows Off Passively Cooled Radeon 7770 GPU

Subject: Graphics Cards | June 7, 2012 - 02:40 AM | Tim Verry
Tagged: video, sapphire, radeon 7770, passive cooling, graphics card, gpu, computex

Not to be left out of the Computex news, graphics card manufacturer Sapphire Technology unveiled a passively cooled AMD Radeon 7770 graphics card running at reference clock speeds. Following the release of the company’s factory overclocked Vapor-X 7770, the new Sapphire HD 7770 Ultimate 1GB card is the first to sport a passive cooler – other vendors are going in the opposite direction by using custom (active) coolers to push up reference clockspeeds for factory overclocked cards.

Source: AnandTech

What makes the sapphire card neat is that the company did not have to underclock the GPU or memory in order to make a passive cooler feasible. With this card, you will get a silent GPU with the same specs and speeds as the reference 7770 we recently reviewed. The card looks to take up about two PCI expansion slots and utilizes a horizontal stack of vertically aligned (if that makes sense?) aluminum fins connected to the GPU via four heatpipes. Because of the cooler, the card is about 25% longer than a reference card, so keep that in mind if you are considering this for a HTPC build using a tiny case.

Beyond the cooler, which is arguably the most important aspect of the card, the Saphhire 7770 Ultimate 1GB is nearly identical to AMD’s reference design. The only major change is that Sapphire had to move the GDDR5 memory chips to the opposite (top, when installed in the case) side of the PCB in order to accommodate the cooler. With that said, the video outputs on the graphics card are a small improvement over the reference design with an additional DVI port (thanks to not needing a full fan grill in the second PCI slot) bringing the total to two DVI ports, one full size HDMI, and one full size DisplayPort. Otherwise, the GPU is stock, running at 1GHz while the 1GB of GDDR5 memory is likely running at 1125 MHz (stock speeds). The Cape Verde-based graphics card contains 640 stream processors, 1.5 billion transistors, 1.28 Teraflops of compute performance, and a Texture fill rate of 40 giga-transfers per second (GT/s). The full specifications of the 7770 GPU core can be found in our review.

The MSRP of reference AMD HD 7770 cards is $159 but expect the Sapphire card to come in a bit above that number thanks to the custom cooler. You can find more photos of the passively cooled Sapphire GPU over at AnandTech who managed to snag some good shots of the card at the company’s Computex booth.

In case you missed it, our video review of the HD 7770 card is embedded below in which we show off the (7770 and 7750) card also show off several custom 7770 designs from MSI, XFX, and others. It should bring you up to speed on what the 7770 is and where it stands in terms of performance with other cards from AMD and NVIDIA.

Computex: ASUS Mars III Dual GTX 680 Card Comes With 8GB RAM

Subject: Graphics Cards | June 5, 2012 - 12:59 PM | Tim Verry
Tagged: nvidia, mars 3, gtx 680, computex, asus

ASUS has created a graphics card that places two NVIDIA GTX 680 GPUs and 8GB of RAM on a single PCB cooled by three fans and a heatpipe-aided fin array. With three PCI-E power connectors and a dual slot design, you can bet that it will be expensive, large, and in charge (of your electric bill). (Even so, I still want one even if I have to get a new case :P).

ASUS is showing off a graphics card at Computex that is sure to be of interest to enthusiasts everywhere. The successor to their elusive Mars II (which we reviewed here), the new ASUS Mars III is a dual GPU graphics card utilizing two NVIDIA GTX 680 GPUs and a total of 8GB of GDDR5 memory on a single PCB. The dual slot card is cooled by three fans on an aluminum and heatpipe aided fin array. Around the back of the card are three eight pin PCI-E power connectors for up to 525watts of power! There is also a red button to the left of the connectors that spins the fans up to 100% for maximum overclocking. Towards the front is a single SLI connector (for up to 4-way SLI) along with three DVI ports and a mini-DisplayPort for video output.

In short, this graphics card is a total beast. Although we do not yet know clockspeeds or other specific details, you can expect the cards to be expensive and very fast. According to VR-Zone, the card being shown off at Computex 2012 is an engineering sample and the company is still working to refine the final design – particularly the cooler and PCB. You can find more photos of this massive card here.

Video Perspective: AMD A10-4600M vs Core i7-3720QM on Diablo III

Subject: Graphics Cards, Processors, Mobile | June 1, 2012 - 10:52 AM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: video, trinity, Ivy Bridge, Intel, i7-3720QM, diablo iii, APU, amd, a10-4600m

So, apparently PC gamers are big fans of Diablo III, to the tune of 3.5 million copies sold in the first 24 hours.  That means there are a lot of people out there looking for information about the performance they can expect on various harware configurations with Diablo III.  Since we happened to have the two newest mobile processors and platforms on-hand, and because many people seemed to assume that "just about anything" would be able to play D3, we decided to put it to the test.

In our previous reviews of the AMD Trinity and Intel Ivy Bridge reference systems, the general consensus was that the CPU portion of the chip was better on Intel's side while the GPU portion was still weighted towards the AMD Trinity APU.  Both of these CPUs, the A10-4600M and the Core i7-3720QM, are the highest end mobile solutions from both AMD and Intel. 

The specifications weren't identical, but again, for a mobile platform, this was the best we could do.  With the AMD system only having 4GB of memory compared to the Ivy Bridge system with 8GB, that is one lone "stand out" spec.  The Intel HD 4000 graphics offer a noticeable upgrade from the HD 3000 on the Sandy Bridge platform but AMD's new HD 7660G (based on Cayman) also sees performance increase. 

We ran our tests at 1366x768 with "high" image quality settings and ran through a section of the early part of the game a few times with FRAPs to get our performance results.  We did also run some tests to an external monitor at 1920x1080 with "low" presets and AA disabled - both are reported in the video below.  Enjoy!

AMD June Update: Catalyst monthly drops gone, higher clocked 7700, more free games

Subject: Graphics Cards | May 31, 2012 - 06:07 PM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: dirt showdown, catalyst, amd, 7770, 7750

I just got off the phone with AMD this afternoon as they gave me a quick update on the status of Radeon PC gaming with some interesting news about the low-end HD 7700 cards and the world of Catalyst driver updates going into the future.

First up, there a few changes coming to gamers looking at cards in the Radeon HD 7770 series including higher base clocks, higher overclocking potential and the inclusion of a free copy of DiRT Showdown.  When the Cape Verde GPUs first launched in February the default clock speeds were 1.0 GHz on the HD 7770 and 800 MHz on the HD 7750.  Going ahead, the default clocks will be available to AICs at 1.1 GHz and 900 MHz, a 100 MHz clock speed jump for each.  

Along with these base clock increases you'll find that the Catalyst driver will allow you to push the clock speed up a bit higher as well.

Maybe more interesting than all that is many of the new SKUs will be including a free copy of the new DiRT Showdown, a value of $50 according to Steam today.  For a graphics card with a starting price of $109 or $129, a free copy of basically anything is a pretty sweet addition and should entice some people to make the move and upgrade from integrated graphics. 

After that good news came some more INTERESTING news about changes to AMD's driver organization going forward.  I have never been shy about sharing my disgust for some of the confusion that AMD's driver numbering systems, in-between and dual releases caused not only reviewers but the consumers we represent.  In an attempt to prevent this again AMD is moving away from the fixed cadence of a monthly Catalyst driver release and instead will move to a "dynamic" schedule.

Starting with driver release 12.6, Catalyst drivers will be released in an on-demand format and will be posted when there is a need for it either with significant performance increases or the release of a new game, etc.  You can see above that they are hoping to make sure that each Catalyst release will "deliver substantial benefit" to consumers as opposed to the monthly releases that might only offer minor changes. 

Here is where I think they are making a mistake: they are still going to be versioned as YEAR.MONTH so you'll see 12.8, 12.11, 13.3, etc types of versions.  But what if you release more than one a month?  Are we going to 12.85?  12.8.1?  If you are skipping the monthly cadence then WHY BOTHER with the "year.month" nomenclature?  Just increase the version in arbitrary amounts like we see with NVIDIA's drivers.  It just makes more sense.

Regardless, I am curious to see how much work AMD continues to put into their driver releases.  When I asked AMD is this meant they were scaling back on resources for the Catalyst team, I was assured that was NOT the case and in anything they were increasing staff in this area.  We'll see over time if AMD's new driver schedule (or lack thereof) benefits gamers.

Graphics Card (GPU) Stock Check - May 30th, 2012

Subject: Graphics Cards | May 30, 2012 - 09:21 PM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: stock check, radeon, nvidia, HD 7970, hd 7950, hd 7870, hd 7850, hd 7770, hd 7750, GTX 690, gtx 680, gtx 670, geforce, amd

Due to popular request, I am going to try to keep our readers up to date on the current availability of graphics cards and pricing on the market.  With the recent price drops from AMD, the frequent out-of-stock status of the GTX 680 cards and the release of the GTX 670, I thought this would be a great summary of the current situation.

NVIDIA's highest end offering, the GTX 690

We will try to post new updates weekly or maybe more frequently as we see fit.  Newegg is our partner of choice for this today, so let's see what we have.

AMD Radeon HD 7000 Series

Radeon HD 7970 3GB - In Stock
Starting at $469

Radeon HD 7950 3GB - In Stock
Starting at $389

Radeon HD 7870 2GB - In Stock
Starting at $329

Radeon HD 7850 2GB - In Stock
Starting at $249

Radeon HD 7770 1GB - In Stock
Starting at $129

Radeon HD 7750 1GB - In Stock
Starting at $109

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 600 Series

GeForce GTX 690 4GB - No Stock
Starting at $999

GeForce GTX 680 2GB - In Stock
Starting at $539

GeForce GTX 670 2GB - In Stock
Starting at $399

This week we have some good news!  For two full days (in a row!) NVIDIA has had GTX 680 SKUs in stock at Newegg.com.  The only downside is that two available at the time of this writing (EVGA Superclocked+ and Zotac AMP!) are priced a bit higher thanks to their overclock settings.  The EVGA part has a base clock of 1058 MHz while the Zotac has an impressive 1098 MHz base clock compared to the reference speed of 1006 MHz.  As of this post you can find the EVGA model for $539 and the Zotac option for $549.  We are almost at the point to offering up these cards in our leaderboard...  Gasp!

AMD is still doing great on availability with the Radeon HD 7970 and HD 7950 widely available for the price of $469 / $389 with a set of three free games including DiRT Showdown and Dues Ex: Human Revolution.   

If you are looking for our latest graphics reviews to judge the performance of the above cards, here you go:

• GeForce GTX 670
• GeForce GTX 690
• GeForce GTX 680
• MSI R7970 Lightning
• Radeon HD 7870 and HD 7850
• Radeon HD 7770 and HD 7750
• Radeon HD 7950
• Radeon HD 7970

You can't have a GTX 680 because they were all sent to hardware reviewers!

Subject: Graphics Cards | May 29, 2012 - 06:52 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: GTX 680 GC, gtx 680, geforce, galaxy, factory overclocked

There is only one thing worse than reading a review of an amazing GPU that you would love to buy if you could find it in stock; reading a review of several of these cards in SLI.  That's right, while you can't find a GTX680 in stock, [H]ard|OCP has a pair of overclocked Galaxy GTX 680 GC's which they are running in SLI, powering multiple monitors at a resolution of 5760 x 1200.  Not only that but they are getting good enough frame rates to play the games.  The only bad news is that the overclocked Galaxy card does not perform that much better than the stock card, however in [H]'s opinion the custom design is well worth the $30 premium.

"We've got two customized GALAXY GeForce GTX 680 GC video cards which boast a substantial boosted clock speed. We'll test these cards in SLI and compare these to stock GTX 680 SLI and Radeon HD 7970 CFX performance. If you want the best SLI performance, you will want to check this out."

Here are some more Graphics Card articles from around the web:

Graphics Cards

• Palit GeForce GTX 680 Jetstream 2 GB Graphics Card and GeForce GTX 680 SLI @ X-bit Labs
• Gainward GEFORCE GTX 680 2GB Phantom @ Tweaktown
• MSI GTX680 Twin Frozr 3 OC @ OC3D
• Asus Geforce GTX670 Direct CU II TOP @ Kitguru
• ASUS GeForce GTX 680 DirectCU II TOP @ [H]ard|OCP
• nVidia GTX670 @ OC3D
• ARCTIC Accelero Twin Turbo II VGA Cooler @ Funky Kit
• EK Water Blocks EK-FC7950 Full Cover GPU Water Block @ Tweaktown
• AMD Radeon Catalyst: Windows 7 vs. Ubuntu 12.04 LTS @ Phoronix
• Sapphire Radeon HD 7770 GHz Edition Vapor-X Review @ Hi Tech Legion
• The May 2012 Open-Source Radeon Graphics Showdown @ Phoronix
• VTX3D HD 7970 X-Edition 3 GB @ techPowerUp
• XFX R7750 Black Edition DD @ LanOC Reviews
• Sapphire HD7770 Vapor X Overclock Edition @ Kitguru
• HIS Radeon HD 7770 iCooler 1GB GHz Edition Review @ NikKTech
• PowerColor HD 7850 PCS+ Review @ Neoseeker
• MSI Radeon HD 7850 2GB Power Edition Overclocked @ Tweaktown
• HIS Radeon HD 7870 IceQ 2GB Video Cards in CrossFire Overclocked @ Tweaktown
• MSI R7850 Power Edition 2 GB @ techPowerUp
• HIS Radeon HD 7850 iCooler 2GB Review @ NikKTech
• Sapphire AMD Radeon HD 7950 OC Graphics Card and CPU scaling @ NitroWare
• PowerColor HD 7850 PCS+ 2 GB @ techPowerUp

NVIDIA claims GTX 680 sales outpace GTX 580

Subject: Graphics Cards | May 29, 2012 - 04:56 PM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: nvidia, kepler, gtx 680, GTX 580, GK104, fermi

During the annual investors meeting with NVIDIA top-brass and the powers that hold the money on Wall Street, an interesting slide was presented in a somewhat veiled answer to the questions we (among many others) have had to the availability and yields of their latest Kepler GPUs.

At first glance, the graph would seem to validate claims that the stock and shipping rate of the new GeForce GTX 680 is simply unable to keep up with higher than expected and higher than normal demand.  The line on the bottom represents the GTX 580 (both lines are mislabeled as GT rather than GTX) launch, the top the GTX 680 with the lower axis represented as weeks after launch.  The vertical axis is labeled as "Units Sold Out Globally" but there are no numbers attached to it, making things incredibly vague.  

When I asked for clarification all I was really given was that "it means sales of boards from AICs to distributors, system builders, e-tailers and retailers."  This indicates that we are talking about boards either on Newegg.com, at Fry's or being sold through system builders like Maingear and Puget Systems. 

NVIDIA's GTX 690 - one of the Kepler based cards MIA

The term "sold out" gave me a bit of pause - but when questioned "is it fair to translate 'units sold out globally' to 'units sold globally'?" I received an affirmative. 

If we take NVIDIA's information as it is presented, then we see that after six weeks of product availability, the GTX 680 has sold and shipped at a rate 60% higher than that of the GeForce GTX 580 which launched in November of 2010.  If that is true then we can agree with NVIDIA that demand is much higher for the GTX 680 than any other flagship GPU launch in recent memory and the continued stock and availability problems for Kepler are buyer created and strictly an NVIDIA yield issue.  

NVIDIA has told me many times that they would obviously love to have more GTX 680s to sell to consumers as having them out of stock is only costing themselves money.  How long it will take NVIDIA to balance out capacity with demand has yet to be seen though, so you can continue to check out our sort-of-weekly updates on GPU stock.

G-Cube Big Red Wireless Gesture Mouse

Subject: Graphics Cards | May 28, 2012 - 06:08 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: input, wireless mouse, gestures, G-Cube, V-Track 310

The G-Cube V-Track 310 will get you noticed, not just because of the brilliant red colour of the body but also because the mouse can handle gesture input.  Some of its features seem more at home on a gaming mouse, with five DPI settings from 800 to 2000 as well as a modifiable report rate make this more than just a mobile mouse.  That is not to imply G-Cube skimped on the wireless connectivity, the transmitter is good up to 30' so even in a large room this would function perfectly with an HTPC.  Benchmark Reviews had mixed results from the gestures, some functions worked, some didn't and some just seemed useless but overall they rated it highly for someone who wants more options from a wireless mouse.

"Wireless mice are also becoming the de facto standard along with macro software that further enhances productivity, while at the same time, decreasing repetitive clicking. In the continuing spirit of bringing you the latest and sometimes the greatest, Benchmark Reviews will analyze the new G-Cube V-Track 310 2.4Hz Wireless Mouse. The G-Cube V-Track 310 boasts sixteen macro "Gestures" for the right button, with a multitude of actions per gesture, two options for vertical and horizontal scrolling, four DPI settings, three report rates, and it's wireless. It also comes in four colors, Red, Blue, Green, and Black. "

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Tech Talk

• Corsair Vengeance K60 Keyboard and M60 Mouse @ [H]ard|OCP
• Razer Orochi Black Chrome Elite Bluetooth Gaming Mouse @ Pro-Clockers
• Zowie AM Gaming Mouse @ techPowerUp
• CM Storm Sentinel Advance II Mouse review (w/ Speed VX Padz) @ Kitguru
• SteelSeries Simraceway SRW-S1 Steering Wheel Review @ NikKTech
• Topre Realforce 105UB @ XSReviews
• CM Storm Trigger Mechanical Keyboard Review @ eTeknix
• CM Storm QuickFire Pro Gaming Keyboard Review @ Hardware Secrets
• Cooler Master Quick Fire Pro Keyboard @ Modders-Inc
• Roccat Isku Gaming Keyboard @ Pro-Clockers

Graphics Card (GPU) Stock Check - May 23rd, 2012

Subject: Graphics Cards | May 23, 2012 - 05:43 PM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: stock check, radeon, nvidia, HD 7970, hd 7950, hd 7870, hd 7850, hd 7770, hd 7750, GTX 690, gtx 680, gtx 670, geforce, amd

Due to popular request, I am going to try to keep our readers up to date on the current availability of graphics cards and pricing on the market.  With the recent price drops from AMD, the frequent out-of-stock status of the GTX 680 cards and the release of the GTX 670, I thought this would be a great summary of the current situation.

NVIDIA's highest end offering, the GTX 690

We will try to post new updates weekly or maybe more frequently as we see fit.  Newegg is our partner of choice for this today, so let's see what we have.

AMD Radeon HD 7000 Series

Radeon HD 7970 3GB - In Stock
Starting at $469

Radeon HD 7950 3GB - In Stock
Starting at $389

Radeon HD 7870 2GB - In Stock
Starting at $329

Radeon HD 7850 2GB - In Stock
Starting at $249

Radeon HD 7770 1GB - In Stock
Starting at $129

Radeon HD 7750 1GB - In Stock
Starting at $109

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 600 Series

GeForce GTX 690 4GB - No Stock
Starting at $999

GeForce GTX 680 2GB - No Stock
Starting at $499

GeForce GTX 670 2GB - In Stock
Starting at $399

In short, nearly two weeks later, nothing has changed.  For NVIDIA neither the GeForce GTX 690 can be found nor can the GTX 680 - a card that launched more than two full months ago.  To say we are disappointed in the capability for NVIDIA to keep up their end of the bargain would be an understatement and explains why we STILL have not used the GTX 680 card in our Hardware Leaderboard!!  The GTX 670 remains in stock though with four models available at Newegg including an overclocked MSI model for hte $399 MSRP.  Considering this might be our new favorite GPU, that is good news at least. 

AMD is still doing great on availability with the Radeon HD 7970 and HD 7950 widely available for the price of $469 / $389 with a set of three free games including DiRT Showdown and Dues Ex: Human Revolution.   

If you are looking for our latest graphics reviews to judge the performance of the above cards, here you go:

• GeForce GTX 670
• GeForce GTX 690
• GeForce GTX 680
• MSI R7970 Lightning
• Radeon HD 7870 and HD 7850
• Radeon HD 7770 and HD 7750
• Radeon HD 7950
• Radeon HD 7970

The discrete graphics card is in no danger

Subject: Graphics Cards | May 23, 2012 - 03:57 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: jon peddie, sales, gpu

Jon Peddie's newest report on the state of the graphics card market has arrived and while the news is not good it is nowhere near as bad as it could have been.  The graphics card market had a very large hurdle to deal with over these last few quarters which is why the total market declining 0.8% from last quarter and a 3.38% decline from Q1 2011 is not terrible news.  The impact came from the flooding in Thailand, which has been causing lowered sales for most of the PC market this year.   With hard drives being in such short supply the number of systems that could be built by vendors dropped dramatically, those systems which were built were noticeably more expensive than before the flood as the price of hard drives doubled in some cases.  With less systems being built and sold there was less demand for GPUs from the vendors, thankfully the industry has recovered from the shortage and we are seeing prices and supplies returning to their normal levels.

When you break it down by company, only AMD saw growth from last quarter, though at a 0.3% increase it was not so much growth as simply holding their ground.  NVIDIA has stopped reporting on their IGP sales which, believe it or not, still sell in Asia and so saw a drop of 4.5% from last quarter.  Some of that decline will be due to the change in reporting but the lack of Kepler stock has certainly hurt their sales as well.  Intel saw a decline of 1.3% from the previous quarter again likely due to the influence of the hard drive shortage reducing the number of systems which were sold. 

When you look at only discrete cards, the sales increased 2.7 % from the last quarter but were down 11% from this time last year, thanks to the GPU now present on both AMD and Intel processors.  With Llano and Trinity as well as SandyBridge and Ivy Bridge we saw the arrival of onboard graphics which provided enough horsepower that many casual users no longer need a discrete GPU.  Previous generations of IGPs and onboard graphics cores struggled to play HD video without stuttering and they were essentially useless if they were called upon to power even casual games.  The new generations of processors can not only handle HD video but are quite capable of light gaming duties.  They also made possible tablets and extremely small laptops, aka Sleekbooks and Ultrabooks, which provided good enough performance for many users and these small form factors have little space for discrete GPUs.  As both AMD and Intel's processors have a graphics core they count towards the total graphics card market share which is good news for them but not for NVIDIA who count on add in card sales exclusively.  On the plus side, when you examine add in card sales for laptops alone, NVIDIA actually saw a gain of 5%.

 Check out more of the results at Jon Peddie Research.

NVIDIA Likely Not Recalling All 600 Series Kepler GPUs

Subject: Graphics Cards | May 21, 2012 - 06:10 PM | Tim Verry
Tagged: recall, nvidia, kepler, graphics cards, gpu

Editor's Note: We are getting a lot of flak for posting this story today, telling us that we are "giving the site credibility", referring to the Pnosker site that first started the recall rumor, simply by posting about it on our site.  Even though our post by Tim states to "take the leak with a grain of salt" and that "these GPUS go through rigorous testing and certification", some people think we were in the wrong to post about this. 

So let me be perfectly clear - the recall referenced in the story below is almost assuredly complete and utter BULLSHIT. 

According to Pnosker, NVIDIA is allegedly looking into recalling all Kepler based, 600-series graphics cards. Such a recall would affect users that have purchased GTX 670, GTX 680, and GTX 690 GPUs. The website has stated that their source has indicated that the graphics cards will possibly be recalled because the chips suffer from performance degradation after prolonged periods of heavy usage.

While their source has reportedly been correct in the past, the author cautions readers to take the leak with a grain of salt. Other websites that have picked up on this have mentioned that these GPUs go through rigorous testing and certification processes before getting to the market, so this rumor does not have much ground to stand on. Another reason to take this report with a shaker-full of salt is that if there was such a defect in the Kepler GPU, it would be more likely to completely fail rather than continue working with degraded performance.

This rumor is likely just that: a rumor. Why such a rumor was started is unknown but your Kepler graphics card purchases are probably safe from performance degradation, though they may not get as high of a boost clock as other users’ cards.

UPDATE @ 7:30pm ET: To quote from NVIDIA PR - "There is no truth to this rumor."

AMD will not chase Intel making "needlessly powerful" CPUs

Subject: Editorial, General Tech, Graphics Cards, Processors | May 19, 2012 - 04:52 PM | Scott Michaud
Tagged: ultrabook, trinity, cloud computing, cloud, amd

Bloomberg Businessweek reports AMD CEO Rory Read claims that his company will produce chips which are suited for consumer needs and not to crunch larger and larger bundles of information. They also like eating Intel’s bacon -- the question: is it from a pig or a turkey?

Read believes there is “enough processing power on every laptop on the planet today”.

I disagree.

The argument revolves around the shift to the cloud, as usual. It is very alluring to shift focus from the instrument to the data itself. More enticing: discussing how the instruments change to suit that need; this is especially true if you develop instruments and yearn to shift anyway.

Don’t question the bacon…

AMD has been trusting that their processors will be good enough and their products will differentiate in other ways such as with graphics capabilities which they claim will be more important for cloud services. AMD hopes that their newer laptops will steal some bacon from Intel and their ultrabook initiative.

The main problem with the cloud is that it is mostly something that people feel that they want rather than actually do. They believe they want their content controlled by a company for them until it becomes inaccessible temporarily or permanently. They believe they want their information accessible in online services but then freak out about the privacy implications of it.

The public appeal of the cloud is that it lets you feel as though you can focus on the content rather than the medium. The problem is that you do not have fewer distractions from your content -- just different ones -- and they rear their head once or twice in isolation of each other. You experience a privacy concern here and an incompatibility or licensing issue there. For some problems and for some people it makes more sense to control your own data. It will continue to be important to serve that market.

And if crunching ends up being necessary for the future it looks like Intel will be a little lonely at the top.

CS6 OpenCL support -- not quite hardware acceleration for all

Subject: General Tech, Graphics Cards | May 19, 2012 - 03:27 AM | Scott Michaud
Tagged: Adobe, CS6, gpgpu

Last month, SemiAccurate reported that Adobe Creative Suite 6 would be programmed around OpenCL which would allow any GPU to accelerate your work. Adobe now claims that OpenCL would only accelerate the HD6750M and the HD6770M running on OSX Lion with 1GB of vRAM on a MacBook Pro at least for the time being at least for Adobe Premiere Pro.

Does it aggravate you when something takes a while or stutters when you know a part of your PC is just idle?

Adobe has been increasingly moving to take advantage of the graphics processor available in your computer to benefit the professional behind the keyboard, mouse, or tablet. CS 5.5 pushed several of their applications on to the CUDA platform. End-users claim that Adobe sold them out for NVIDIA but that just seems unlikely and unlike either company. My prediction is and always was more that NVIDIA parachuted in some engineers to Adobe and their help was limited to CUDA.

Creative Suite 6 further suggests that I was correct as Adobe has gone back and re-authored much of those features in OpenCL.

Isn't it somewhat ironic that insanity is a symptom of mercury poisoning?

AMD as a hatter!

CS6 will not execute on just any old GPU now despite the wider availability of OpenCL relative to the somewhat NVIDIA proprietary CUDA. While the CUDA whitelist currently extends to 22 Windows NVIDIA GPUs and 3 Mac OSX NVIDIA GPUs current OpenCL support is limited to a pair of AMD-based OSX Lion mobile GPUs: the 6750M and the 6770M.

It would not surprise me if other GPUs would accelerate CS6 if manually added to a whitelist. Adobe probably is very conservative with what components they add to the whitelist in an effort to reduce support costs. That does not mean that you will see benefits even if you trick Adobe into accepting hardware acceleration though.

It appears as if Adobe is working towards using the most open and broad standards -- they just are doing it at their own pace this time. This release was obviously paced for Apple support.

Get right to the gaming, AMD vs NVIDIA showdown

Subject: Graphics Cards | May 18, 2012 - 03:52 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: gtx 680, gtx670, hd7970, amd, nvidia

Ryan pitted the GTX670 and GTX570 against each other to show that in terms of gaming performance the GTX670 is a viable upgrade. [H]ard|OCP did something similar, testing the GTX670 and 680 against the HD7970 in a gaming performance showdown.  For those who are only interested in gaming performance they've assembled a great breakdown of four popular games at a variety of resolutions and both at stock clocks and the best OC they could manage.  The results are clear, for gamers it is NVIDIA with the clear win, with the GTX670 being a better value than the HD7970 and the GTX680 being a better performer.

"Wondering how the GeForce GTX 680 and GeForce GTX 670 compare to the Radeon HD 7970 and Radeon HD 7950 at stock frequencies as well as overclocked? You ask for it and we have done just that. Hold onto your hard earned cash and take note of just how the new GeForce GTX 670 compares with the rest of the competition."

Here are some more Graphics Card articles from around the web:

Graphics Cards

• AMD vs Nvidia 2012 - The Best Video Card for $200 @ hardCOREware
• Inno3D iChiLL GTX 670 HerculeZ 3000 Graphics Card Review @ HardwareHeave
• KFA2 Geforce GTX680 EX OC @ Kitguru
• Sapphire HD 7770 GHz Edition Vapor-X Graphics Card Review @ HardwareHeaven
• Inno3D iChill GEFORCE GTX 670 2GB OC @ Tweaktown
• MSI GTX 680 Twin Frozr III OC 2 GB @ techPowerUp
• EVGA GeForce GTX 670 2GB Superclocked Review @ Hardware Canucks
• Gigabyte GTX680 Windforce @ OC3D
• EVGA GeForce GTX 670 SC @ Guru of 3D
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 SLI @ techPowerUp
• Zotac GeForce GTX680 2GB Review @ HardwareLOOK
• NVIDIA GTX 680: Windows 7 vs. Ubuntu 12.04 @ Phoronix
• Desktop Graphics Card Comparison Guide @ TechARP
• Diamond Radeon HD 7870 2GB Double Black Diamond Review @ circuitREMIX
• HIS HD7870 IceQ Turbo and IceQ X Turbo X @ Kitguru
• ARCTIC Accelero Xtreme 7970 @ Hardwareoverclock
• Radeon HD 79xx Graphics Cards from Gigabyte, Sapphire and XFX. CrossFireX Configuration @ X-bit Labs
• Sapphire HD 7770 GHz Edition Vapor-X Review @ Neoseeker
• Sapphire HD 7770 Vapor-X OC Edition Review @ OC
• Sapphire HD 7770 Vapor-X @ LanOC Reviews
• HIS Radeon HD 7950 IceQ Turbo @ Legion Hardware