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

Rumors About Upcoming NVIDIA GTX 680M Emerge

Subject: Graphics Cards | May 16, 2012 - 10:40 PM | Tim Verry
Tagged: nvidia, gtx 680m, gpu, mobile, kepler

Videocardz.com managed to get their hands on some rumored details about an upcoming NVIDIA mobile graphics card–the GTX 680M. According to rumors, the mobile chip will be launched at Computex 2012 in Taiwan next month.

There aren’t many details about the mobile chip, but it is set up to be a scaled down version of it’s Kepler based GTX 680 desktop counterpart. The GTX 680M will have approximately half as many CUDA cores at either 744 or 768 cores depending on the source. Either way, the card keeps the same 256-bit memory interface and can support SLI configurations. In addition, the 680M will be able to have up to 4GB of GDDR5 memory. Reportedly, it can use as much as 100 Watts of power.

When paired with an Intel Core i7 3720QM processor, the GPU was able to get a score of 4,905 points in 3DMark 11’s Performance present benchmark. It is supposed to be as much as 37 percent faster than the GTX 670M, which is not surprising considering that chip has only 336 CUDA cores and is clocked at 598 MHz (no word yet on what the GTX 680M will be clocked at).

No matter what the GTX 680M turns out to be, you can bet it will only be found in the highest end gaming notebooks where performance is more important than battery life. Until then, feel free to brush up on your Kepler architecture knowledge by visiting our GTX 680 (desktop) review.

Live: First NVIDIA Kepler GK110 GPU Details

Subject: Graphics Cards | May 16, 2012 - 05:14 PM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: nvidia, kepler, GTC 2012, gk110

We are posting live from the "Inside Kepler" talk at NVIDIA's GPU Technology Conference with details on the new GK110 GPU.  Here is what we know so far:

• 7.1 billion transistors
• 15 SMX (modified) units
• 2880 available CUDA cores
• Greater than 1 TFLOP FP64 (double precision) compute
• 384-bit GDDR5 memory bus

The block diagram for the GK110 GPU

We will update this post with more photos and information as we have it!

Diagram of the updated SMX for GK110

Don't expect to see this GPU until at least  Q4 of this year.

Check out our full Kepler GK110 deep-dive article we just posted!  

ZOTAC announces ZOTAC GeForce GT 630, GT 620 and GT 610 series

Subject: Graphics Cards | May 15, 2012 - 05:26 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: zotac synergy, zotac, nvidia, gt 630, gt 620, GT 610, GK104, geforce, fermi

Zotac has released ten different graphics cards today, three GT 630s, three GT 620s and four GT 610s if you count the PCI version.  Enjoy all the benefits of the new Kepler architecture without the price of the GTX 680 or 690. These cards are a mix of GF108, GF119 and GK107, essentially rebrands of previous GT series cards as opposed to new ones like NVIDIA would prefer you believed.

They range from this 4GB GT 630 Synergy Edition which will give you the ability to handle multiple monitors in a work environment.

To this 1GB PCIe 1x GT 610 model for low power, low profile applications where a 16x slot just won't fit.

HONG KONG – May 15, 2012 – ZOTAC International, a global innovator and channel manufacturer of graphics cards, mainboards and mini-PCs, today expands the successful ZOTAC GeForce 600 series with new value offerings. The ZOTAC GeForce GT 630, GT 620 and GT 610 series deliver a savory taste of Microsoft DirectX 11 technologies for an outstanding visual computing experience.

“ZOTAC is pleased to bring the GeForce 600 series to value shoppers seeking a superior visual experience discrete graphics brings to computing,” said Carsten Berger, marketing director, ZOTAC International. “By installing one of our ZOTAC GeForce GT 630, GT 620 or GT 610 series graphics cards, users can experience faster video and image processing and perfect high-definition video playback with a simple upgrade.”

The ZOTAC GeForce GT 630, GT 620 and GT 610 series are available in a variety configurations with 512MB, 1GB, 2GB and 4GB memory options in PCI Express 2.0 x16, PCI Express x1 or PCI interfaces, and active or passive cooling configurations to cater exclusively to all user computing needs.

It’s time to play with ZOTAC and the GeForce GT 630, GT 620 and GT 610 series.

General details

• ZOTAC Expands successful GeForce 600 series
• ZOTAC GeForce GT 630 series
  • 96 processor cores
  • 1GB, 2GB and 4GB memory configurations
  • 128-bit memory interface
• ZOTAC GeForce GT 620 series
  • 96 processor cores
  • 1GB & 2GB memory configurations
  • 64-bit memory interface
• ZOTAC GeForce GT 610 series
  • 48 processor cores
  • 512MB, 1GB & 2GB memory configurations
  • 64-bit memory interface
• NVIDIA 3D Vision capable
• NVIDIA Adaptive Vertical Sync
• DirectX 11 technology & Shader Model 5.0
• OpenGL 4.2 compatible
• Hardware-accelerated Full HD video playback
• Blu-ray 3D ready
• Loss-less audio bitstream capable

NVIDIA GPU Technology Conference Keynote Live Stream

Subject: General Tech, Graphics Cards, Shows and Expos | May 15, 2012 - 10:14 AM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: nvidia, GTC 2012, live

Are you interested in GPUs?  Maybe GPU computing or even some cloud-based GeForce announcements?  Chances are then you'll want to tune in to the NVIDIA GPU Technology Conference keynote today at 10:30am PT / 1:30pm ET.  

NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang is expected to be on stage with three new announcements, one of which will likely be the the GK110 GPU we have all been waiting to hear about.  Another has been teased as "a new major cloud gaming technology" while the third...well I really have no idea. It should be exciting though so tune in and watch along with us!

You can catch it all at http://www.gputechconf.com/!

The GTX 670 and the Case of the Missing (and Returning) 4-Way SLI Support

Subject: Graphics Cards | May 11, 2012 - 04:57 PM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: sli, nvidia, kepler, gtx 670, GK104, geforce

In our launch review of the GeForce GTX 670 2GB graphics card this week, we had initially mentioned that these $399 graphics cards would support SLI, 3-Way SLI and even 4-Way SLI configurations thanks to the pair of SLI connections on the PCB.  We received an update from NVIDIA later on that day that in fact it would NOT support 4-Way SLI.

The message from NVIDIA was pretty clear cut:

"As I’m sure you can imagine, we have to QA every feature that we claim support for and this takes a tremendous amount of time/resources. For the GTX 680 and GTX 690, we do support Quad SLI and take the time to QA it, as it makes sense for the extreme OC’ers and ultra-enthusiasts who are shooting to break world records."

My reply:

But with the similarities between the GTX 680 and the GTX 670, is there really any QA addition required to enable quad for 670? Seems like a cop-out to me man...

I saw it mostly as a reason to differentiate the GTX 670 and the GTX 680 with a feature since the performance between the cards was very similar; maybe too similar for NVIDIA's tastes with the $100 price difference.  

Well this afternoon we received some good news from our contact at NVIDIA:

"Change in plans.....we will be offering 4-Way SLI support for GTX 670 in a future driver."

So while the 301.34 driver will not support 4-Way configurations with the GTX 670, 4-Way SLI will in fact be enabled after all in a future version.  We'll be sure to keep you in the loop when that happens and the super-extreme enthusiasts can rejoice.  

This does go to show that the fundamental differences between AMD's license-free and seemingly more "open" CrossFire technology and NVIDIA's for-fee SLI technology.  With enough feedback and prodding in the right direction, NVIDIA can and does do the right thing, just look at the success we had convincing them to support SLI on AMD CPU platforms last year.  

Feet to the fire everyone!

GeForce GTX 670 vs GTX 570 Performance Update

Subject: Graphics Cards | May 10, 2012 - 02:13 PM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: nvidia, kepler, gtx 670, gtx 570, GK104, geforce

In the comments to our full review of the GeForce GTX 670 2GB graphics card a user asked for a comparison of the new GTX 670 against the Fermi-based GTX 570.  I had some numbers for that already made up but ran out of time and space for it in our review that went up this morning.  I thought that there might be others interested in this so I decided to put a news post with the results.

These performance graphs pit a reference clocked GTX 570 1.25GB card against the new reference GTX 670 2GB card.  

 Without a doubt the new GTX 670 is a faster GPU than the GTX 570:

• 3DMark11: +45%
• Battlefield 3: +34%
• DiRT 3: +28%
• Skyrim: +32%
• Metro 2033: +31%
• Dues Ex: +29%
• Batman: AC: +39%
• Power Consumption: -14%

With an average performance delta of 30% or more, the GTX 670 makes a solid upgrade for GTX 570 users but maybe more interesting, it does this while using 14% less power as well.  

Graphics Card (GPU) Stock Check - May 10th, 2012

Subject: Graphics Cards | May 10, 2012 - 01:38 PM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: 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 today's new release of the GTX 670, I thought this would be a great summary of the current situation.

NVIDIA's latest offering, the GeForce GTX 670

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 $479

Radeon HD 7950 3GB - In Stock
Starting at $399

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

It is launch day for the GTX 670 and those seem to be pretty widely available for the time being.  As great a card as it is though, I am hesitant to think it will remain in stock through the end of the day based on past experiences with the GTX 600 cards.  Still, the GTX 680 is MIA and the few times I have seen it in stock it only lasts a couple of hours.  

AMD is still doing fine on availability with the Radeon HD 7970 and HD 7950 widely available for the price of $479 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 GTX 670 has finally arrived

Subject: Graphics Cards | May 10, 2012 - 01:30 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: nvidia, kepler, gtx 670, GK104, geforce

The GTX 670 is a scaled down GTX 680 in every aspect including price.  1344 CUDA Cores is 192 less than the GTX 680, baseclock is reduced 91MHz to 915MHz, 16 less texture units for a total of 112; the memory remains the same at 6GHz.  Most important to consumers is the reduction in price, down $100 to an MSRP of $400, targeting it directly against the HD7950 at its new price.  [H]ard|OCP's testing does not favour AMD as the GTX 670 shows an obvious performance advantage over the HD7950 as well as the still available GTX 580 and does it at a price point which matches AMD's new prices. 

Ryan's full review can be read here, where he tests out Galaxy's GTX 670.

"NVIDIA's next generation Kepler GPU continues with the launch of the GeForce GTX 670. This GPU is positioned to provide great performance at a price level $100 less than the GeForce GTX 680. Could this be the best performing $399 video card, besting even the Radeon HD 7950? We tell you all you need to know if $400 is your price range."

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

Graphics Cards

• GeForce GTX 670 @ The Tech Report
• ZOTAC GeForce GTX 670 AMP! Edition 2 GB @ techPowerUp
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 DirectX 11 Video Card Review @Hi Tech Legion
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 Review Feat. EVGA: Bringing GK104 Down To $400 @ AnandTech
• Gigabyte GTX670 OC Video Card Review @ Ninjalane
• EVGA GeForce GTX 670 SuperClocked Video Card Review @ Hardware Secrets
• Palit JetStream GEFORCE GTX 670 2GB @ Tweaktown
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 Video Card Tests @ Benchmark Reviews
• Palit GeForce GTX 670 JetStream 2 GB @ techPowerU
• EVGA GTX 670 Superclocked @ Overclockers.com
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 2GB Video Card @ Bjorn3D
• GIGABYTE GTX 670 OC @ Bjorn3D
• Gainward GeForce GTX 670 Phantom @ Techspot
• Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 Windforce 3X OC 2GB DirectX 11 Video Card Review @Hi Tech Legion
• NVIDIA GTX 670 Review @ OCC
• NVIDIA & EVGA GeForce GTX 670 2GB Video Card Review @ Legit Reviews
• GEFORCE GTX 670 @ Hardware Heaven
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 Launch Review @ Neoseeker
• ASUS GeForce GTX 670 Direct CU II 2 GB @ techPowerUp
• Gainward GeForce GTX 670 Phantom @ Legion Hardware
• Nvidia GTX 670 @ lanOC Reviews
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 2 GB @ techPowerUp
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 Review @ Hardware Canucks
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 @ Guru of 3D
• GeForce GTX 670 2 and 3-way SLI @ Guru of 3D
• Palit GeForce GTX 670 JetStream @ Guru of 3D
• ASUS GeForce GTX 670 DirectCU II TOP @ Guru of 3D
• Nvidia GeForce GTX 670 review plus SLI and 3-way SLI @ Hardware.Info
• NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 670 2GB Video Card Overclocked @ Tweaktown
• MSI GTX 680 Twin Frozr Graphics Card Review @ HardwareHeaven
• ZOTAC GeForce GTX 680 AMP! Edition 2 GB @ techPowerUp
• Palit GeForce GTX 680 4GB Jetstream @ Guru of 3D
• NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 670 2GB @ Tweaktown
• MSI Radeon HD 7870 HAWK 2GB @ Tweaktown
• MSI R7950 Twin Frozr III @ Kitguru
• Ivy Bridge PCI-Express Scaling with HD 7970 and GTX 680 @ techPowerUp
• HIS Radeon HD 7770 iCooler 1 GB @ techPowerUp
• XFX HD 7870 and 7850 Double Dissipation Review @ OCC
• MSI R7970 Lightning / R7870 Hawk review @ Hardware.Info
• HIS Radeon HD 7870 IceQ X Turbo X 2GB Graphics Card @ eTeknix

Diablo III Beta Benchmarks

Subject: General Tech, Graphics Cards | May 7, 2012 - 03:26 PM | Scott Michaud
Tagged: pc gaming, diablo iii

Tom’s Hardware took a look at the recent beta of Diablo III and published benchmarks of its performance across multiple profiles. They have found that, for minimum quality settings, a GeForce GT 440 or Radeon 6670 will be very smooth at lower resolutions and even handle 1080p. Maximum quality settings do not lower framerate by all that much even with antialiasing enabled.

Blizzard works on their own personal time zone centered on their offices. It seems quite nebulous to most but apparently 12 years somehow signifies the end of a release cycle. The last couple of years have seen a flurry of releases for the company with two of their three major franchises seeing update twelve year after their last installment.

The latter of those two franchises is Diablo and Diablo III is set to launch in just over a week. If you wonder how your machine will handle the game, and you missed the open beta a little over a week ago, Tom’s Hardware did not miss it and has put it up against several of their test systems.

Not quite a demonic presence on your hardware…

Oddly enough, raising your specifications from minimum to high with antialiasing will only drop your framerate by approximately 20-21% at 1920x1080 resolutions. It is possible that when the full game is released that the highest quality settings could have features enabled which increases that difference slightly.

The other possibility is that the game quality settings are quite CPU-bound. Unfortunately Tom’s Hardware did not test various CPUs between low and highest to see how they scale.

If that is not the case, however, the addition of quality settings seems more about allowing the user to personalize their experience rather than supporting lesser hardware. This could be one of the rare occasions where a mild overclock has a functional use.

For those wishing to see how the game will work on mobile parts, you will likely need to wait just a little longer. The benchmark focuses on desktop components. If your PC has a minimum of a GT440 or a Radeon 6670 then you should not be concerned in the slightest about Diablo III even if you output to a 1080p TV or monitor.

Also, if you are running AMD cards -- be sure to check out our recent article about what to do with  the 12.4 drivers. Diablo III likes some cards on it, but not others. How about your's?

Diablo III is scheduled to be released May 15th.

Ready for Diablo III? Not with Catalyst 12.4 you're not.

Subject: General Tech, Graphics Cards | May 6, 2012 - 12:58 PM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: radeon, diablo iii, catalyst 12.4, catalyst, amd

A recent forum entry from a Diablo III official agent informed gamers that if you were planning on playing Diablo III on the May 15th launch date, you had better not be using the Catalyst 12.4 drivers that were just released on April 25th.

While AMD still has about 9 days to respond to this issue, for a support rep from Blizzard to flat-out say that "12.4 isn't going to be supported for use in Diablo III" is indicative of a larger problem - can AMD's somewhat smaller driver team hope to keep up with NVIDIA's as we get set for another way of pretty major PC game releases? 

Quite a few users are taking up for AMD in the thread including Mortac that says:

I find this to be a very confusing answer. What are we to expect for the future? You say that Diablo III won't support 12.4, but what exactly do you mean by that? Are we to expect support for future drivers down the road, say a few weeks after release, or are you telling us that we'll never be able to update our drivers again for as long as we intend to play Diablo III? If the latter, then you guys really need to think that through again. People update their drivers for several reasons, and you cannot possibly expect everyone to swap drivers every time they play other games that might require the latest version.

How this issue will be resolved before May 15th will be of importance to quite a few PC gamers so let's hope both AMD and Blizzard can get their acts together.

Besides Blizzard's long awaited Diablo entry, PC gamers can look forward to Guild Wars 2, DiRT Showdown, Max Payne 3, a new Ghost Recon title, BF3: Close Quarters, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Far Cry 3, Borderlands 2, Bioshock Infinite and many more in the coming months.  

UPDATE 2:22pm: An AMD representative has informed us that that bug referred to by the Blizzard forum support person in fact ONLY affects Radeon HD 2000, 3000 and 4000 users.  The 12.4 Catalyst software will work fine with 5000, 6000 and the new 7000 series of graphics cards apparently.  

@ryanshrout This post from Blizzard is an unfortunate misunderstanding we are working to correct. 12.4 works fine for 5k/6k/7k users.

— Robert Hallock (@Thracks) May 6, 2012

Also, as Robert Hallock commented in our thread below:

More Leaks Emerge on NVIDIA’s Kepler Based GTX 670 GPU

Subject: Graphics Cards | May 5, 2012 - 06:28 PM | Tim Verry
Tagged: nvidia, msi, kepler, gtx 670, asian colorful

Earlier this week we reported on a rumored MSI GTX 670 graphics card with a “DispalyPort” that was coming out soon. A new photo of the MSI card is below along with the box (though the typo is covered up by the card). Swelclockers has now gotten their hands on even more photos of the alleged GPU–this time from manufacturer Asia Colorful. The two rumored cards are said to be based on the NVIDIA reference design, and supporting the rumors, both cards do look very similar in design.

The alleged MSI GTX 670 GPU

The cards that appear to be Kepler based GTX 670s have a black PCB that extends about 3/4ths of the length of the heatsink and fan cooler. Except for a bit of overlap, the heatsink covers the PCB and the fan is located in the part of the card that hangs past the edge of the PCB. It also looks like they have moved the PCI-E power connectors to the outside edge of the card–a different rumored GTX 670 had the PCI-E power on the back edge of the card.

The underside of the Asia Colorful GTX 670 graphics card.

As far as specifications, the cards support PCI-E 3.0, two DVI outputs, an HDMI and what looks like a DisplayPort output. Beyond that, the card is said to be based on a scaled down version of NVIDIA’s Kepler architecture based GTX 680 GPU. For the GTX 670, NVIDIA has allegedly disabled 192 CUDA cores for a total of 1344. They have also reduced the base GPU core clockspeed from 1,006MHz on the GTX 680 to 900MHz. Although the card still uses the same 256-bit memory interface, the GTX 670 has a reduced memory (GDDR5) clockspeed of 5GHz versus 6GHz on the GTX 680. Because of the scaled back nature of the card, it has a lower TDP of approximately 150W.

Because they have been spotted in retailer’s hands, the GTX 670 is likely very close to release. Rumors are now suggesting that the card will be sold for somewhere between $349 and $379 USD.

Also on the Kepler front, is this cool looking single slot Kepler-class GPU that may or may not be a custom designed GTX 670. What Kepler rumors have you heard, and are you looking forward to the cheaper GTX 600 series cards?

PC Perspective Live Review Recap: GeForce GTX 690

Subject: Graphics Cards | May 3, 2012 - 08:04 PM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: nvidia, geforce, GTX 690, kepler, GK104

A PC Perspective Live Review Recap is a recorded version of a previously live streamed event from http://pcper.com/live.  If you couldn't make the original air time, or simply want to re-watch, the on-demand version is provided below!

On the launch day of the new GeForce GTX 690 graphics card, NVIDIA's Tom Petersen once again returned to the PC Perspective offices to talk about this impressive new $999 gaming solution.  Based on a pair of GK104 GPUs, we already posted our full review of the GeForce GTX 690 today but this information and discussion with Tom is worth seeing again.  

I want to thank Tom for stopping by and speaking with us and I want to thank the thousands of viewers that tuned in to the live stream to make the event a success!  

Why would you want to buy a GTX690?

Subject: Graphics Cards | May 3, 2012 - 01:07 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: nvidia, kepler, GTX 690, GK104, geforce

The GTX690 is certainly the fastest single PCB card on the planet and this generation of NVIDIA's dual GPU card shows great improvements from previous dual GPU cards, but at $1000 MSRP it is essentially the same price as a pair of GTX680s.  [H]ard|OCP's testing shows that the GTX690 performs at 95-98% of a pair of SLI'd GTX680s so there really is no noticeable performance difference.  This begs the question as to why one might prefer the GTX690 to a pair of GTX680s; to which there are several answers.  The most obvious is the size difference, with a GTX690 taking up one PCIe 16x slot and taking 2 slots on the back of the PC, where an SLI setup requires two PCIe 16x slots and takes up 4 slots on the back.  Not only will the GTX690 leave you more room in your case it will provide better airflow as you will not have two cards sandwiched against each other as will be the case with many motherboards you would also have a much easier time setting up quad SLI.  As well there is the power consumption to consider, in Ryan's testing the GTX690 needed 30W less than the SLI rig and over 100W less than a pair of HD7970s.  That also resulted in the GTX690 operating at a slightly cooler temperature as well as being quieter, which is almost as important as the performance.  The GTX690 is a beast and if you can afford it ... and find it for sale ... it makes more sense that buying a pair of GTX680s.

"Is the GeForce GTX 690 the best dual-GPU video card ever built? We'll compare performance to GeForce GTX 680 SLI and Radeon HD 7970 CFX to see where the new beast from NVIDIA stands. We overclock the dual GPUs and push these as far as we can. Surely this is the best performance ever experienced from a single video card."

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

Graphics Cards

• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690: The Dual-GPU Beast Arrived! @ Bjorn3D
• NVIDIA GTX 690 Review @ OCC
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 4GB Video Card Review @ Legit Reviews
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 Launch Review @ Neoseeker
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 Review: Ultra Expensive, Ultra Rare, Ultra Fast @ AnandTech
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 Benchmark Performance @ Benchmark Reviews
• VIDIA GeForce GTX 690 Video Card Features @ Benchmark Reviews
• "All Inclusive": Nvidia GeForce GTX 690 2x2 GB @ X-bit Labs
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 4 GB @ techPowerU
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 Dual-GPU Graphics Card Launch Review @ HardwareHeaven
• NVIDIA Geforce GTX 690 DirectX 11 Video Card Review @Hi Tech Legion
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 @ Guru of 3D
• PowerColor PCS+ HD7970 vs Gainward GTX 680 Phantom Review @ HardwareHeaven
• Gainward GeForce GTX 680 Phantom @ Techspot
• 1 GHz with Passive Cooling: Arctic Accelero S1 PLUS and Turbo Module @ X-bit Labs
• Sapphire HD 7870 Review @ OCC
• MSI Radeon HD 7870 HAWK @ Guru of 3D
• HIS Radeon HD 7870 @ FunkyKit
• MSI Radeon HD 7870 HAWK 2 GB @ techPowerUp
• How Does Intel’s HD 4000 Compare on the IQ Scale? @ Kitguru
• DirectX 11.1 Specifications Released @ NGOHQ