E3 2013: AMD tells the press their gaming initiatives

Subject: General Tech, Graphics Cards, Processors, Shows and Expos | June 13, 2013 - 02:26 AM | Scott Michaud
Tagged: E3, E3 13, amd

The Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) is the biggest event of the year for millions of gamers. The majority of coverage ends up gawking over the latest news out of Microsoft, Sony, or Nintendo, and we certainly will provide our insights in those places if we believe they have been insufficiently explained, but E3 is also a big time for PC gamers too.

5 GHz and unlocked to go from there.

AMD, specifically, has a lot to say this year. In the year of the next-gen console reveals, AMD provides the CPU architecture for two of the three devices and have also designed each of the three GPUs. This just leaves a slight win for IBM, who is responsible for the WiiU main processor, for whatever that is worth. Unless the Steam Box comes to light and without ties to AMD, it is about as close to a clean sweep as any hardware manufacturer could get.

But for the PCs among us...

For those who have seen the EA press conference, you have probably seen lots of sports. If you stuck around after the sports, you probably saw Battlefield 4 being played by 64 players on stage. AMD has been pushing, very strongly, for developer relations over the last year. DICE, formerly known for being an NVIDIA-friendly developer, did not exhibit Battlefield 4 "The Way It's Meant to be Played" at the EA conference. According to one of AMD's Twitter accounts:

@overlordkai #BF4 at #E3 is being powered by dual AMD Radeon HD 7970s and AMD FX-8350. ^SL #AMDE3

— AMD Radeon Graphics (@AMDRadeon) June 12, 2013

On the topic of "Gaming Evolved" titles, AMD is partnering with Square Enix to optimize Thief for GCN and A-Series APUs. The Press Release specifically mentioned Eyefinity and Crossfire support along with a DirectX 11 rendering engine; of course, the enhancements with real, interesting effects are the seemingly boring ones they do not mention.

The last major point from their E3 event was the launch of their 5 GHz FX processors. For more information on that part, check out Josh's thoughts from a couple of days ago.

MSI's Lightning strikes thrice; overclocking the GTX 770

Subject: Graphics Cards | June 10, 2013 - 07:28 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: gtx 770, msi N770 Lightning, overclocking

[H]ard|OCP liked the new GTX 770 Lightning from MSI but thought they would like it better overclocked, perhaps even more than a GTX 680 or HD7970.   The triplets below are, from top to bottom, the GTX 680, the GTX 770 and the HD7970, all from the overclocked Lightning family.  By using MSI's Afterburner utility [H] pushed the card to 1241MHz on the core and 7.8GHz effective for the RAM, higher than the factory overclock.  That speed boost put its performance on par with the overclocked GTX680 but it seems that the impressive speeds that the 7970 Lightning is capable of leaves it comfortably in the lead.

"We take the new MSI N770 Lightning and overclock it to its maximum potential. We will compare it with a highly overclocked MSI GeForce GTX 680 Lightning and GIGABYTE Radeon HD 7970. Each GPU is getting its best chance to show us how well it can perform, as all of these GPUs are highly overclocked."

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

Graphics Cards

• GALAXY GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost @ [H]ard|OCP
• NVIDIA GTX 770 2GB @ eTeknix
• NVidia GTX 770 Video Card Review @ Ninjalane
• Nvidia GeForce GTX 770 @ Bjorn3D
• EVGA GTX 770 SC 2GB with ACX Cooler Video Card Review @ HiTech Legion
• Gigabyte GTX 650Ti BOOST 2GB OC Video Card @ HiTech Legion
• MSI N770 Lightning Overclocking @ [H]ard|OCP
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 Reviewed in 2-Way SLI and NVIDIA Surround @ Legit Reviews
• Inno3D iChill GeForce GTX 780 review: almost a Titan @ Hardware.info
• ASUS GTX 670 Direct CU Mini @ Kitguru
• Inno3D iChill GeForce GTX 660 @ Hardware.info
• EVGA GeForce GTX 780 Superclocked ACX Cooling Video Card Review @ Legit Reviews
• Gigabyte GTX 780 WindForce OC 3GB Video Card Review @ Madshrimps
• Gigabyte GeForce GTX 770 OC WindForce 3x 2GB @ eTeknix
• iXBT Labs Review: i3DSpeed, May 2013
• Gigabyte HD 7790 2GB @ Bjorn3D

Computex 2013: The Comedic Return of the Ultra GPUs

Subject: Editorial, General Tech, Graphics Cards, Shows and Expos | June 10, 2013 - 02:49 AM | Scott Michaud
Tagged: Ultra, geforce titan, computex

So long to Computex 2013, we barely knew thee. You poured stories all over our news feed for more than a whole week. What say you, another story for the... metaphorical road... between here... and... Taipei? Okay, so the metaphorical road is bumpy and unpaved, work with me.

It was substantially more difficult to decipher the name of a video card a number of years ago. Back then, products would be classified by their model numbers and often assigned a suffix like: "Ultra", "Pro", or "LE". These suffixes actually meant a lot, performing noticeably better (or maybe worse) than the suffix-less number and possibly even overlapping with other number-classes.

Image Credit: zol.com.cn via Tom's Hardware

Just when they were gone long enough for us to miss them, the suffixes might make some measure of a return. On the show floor, Colorful exhibited the NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan Ultra Edition. This card uses a standard slightly-disabled GK110-based GeForce GTX Titan GPU, with the usual 2688 CUDA cores, and 6GB of GDDR5. While the GK110 chip has potential for 2880 CUDA cores, NVIDIA has not released any product (not even Tesla or Quadro) with more than 2688 CUDA cores enabled. Colorful's Titan Ultra and the reference Titan are electrically identical; this "Ultra" version just adds a water block for a cooling system and defaults to some amount of a factory overclock.

But, this is not the first time we have heard of a Titan Ultra...

Back in April, ExtremeTech found a leak for two official products: the GTX Titan LE and the GTX Titan Ultra. While the LE would be slightly stripped down compared to the full GTX Titan, the GTX Titan Ultra would be NVIDIA's first release of a GK110 part without any CUDA cores disabled.

So if that rumor ends up being true, you could choose between Colorful's GTX Titan Ultra with its partially disabled GK110 based on the full GTX Titan design; or, you could choose the reference GTX Titan Ultra based on a full GK110 GPU unlike the partially disabled GK110 on the full GTX Titan.

If you are feeling nostalgic... that might actually be confusion... as this is why suffixes went away.

AMD wants you to know there is a Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition for $419

Subject: Graphics Cards | June 7, 2013 - 02:33 PM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: amd, radeon, hd 7970 ghz edition, HD 7970, never settle

AMD just passed me a note that I found to be very interesting.  In an obvious response to the release of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 that offers the GK104 GPU (previously only in the GTX 680) for a lower price of $399, AMD wants you to know that at least ONE Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition card is priced lower than the others.

The Sapphire Vapor-XHD 7970 GHz Edition is currently listed on Newegg.com for $419, a cool $30 less than the other HD 7970 GHz Edition cards.  This is not a card-wide price drop to $419 though.  AMD had this to say:

In late May I noted that we would be working with our partners to improve channel supply of the AMD Radeon™ HD 7970 GHz Edition to North American resellers like Newegg.com. Today I’m mailing to let you know that this process has begun to bear fruit, with the Sapphire Vapor-X HD 7970 GHz Edition now listing for the AMD SEP of $419 US. Of course, this GPU is also eligible for the Never Settle Reloaded AND Level Up programs!

Improving supply is an ongoing process, of course, but we’re pleased with the initial results of our efforts and hope you might pass word to your readers if you get a chance.

This "ongoing process" might mean that we'll see other partners' card sell for this lower price but it also might not.  In AMD's defense, our testing proves that in single GPU configurations, the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition does very well compared to the GTX 770, especially at higher resolutions.

I did ask AMD for some more answers in regards to what other partners think about a competitor getting unique treatment with AMD to offer this lower price unit, but I haven't received an answer yet.  I'll update here when we do!

For today though, if you are looking for a Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition that also comes with the AMD Never Settle game bundle (Crysis 3, Bioshock Infinite, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon and Tomb Raider), it's hard to go wrong with that $419 option.

Computex 2013: Gigabyte Preparing Custom GTX Titan With WindForce 450W Cooler... Some Assembly Required

Subject: Graphics Cards | June 7, 2013 - 01:20 PM | Tim Verry
Tagged: windforce 450w, windforce, gtx titan, gk110, gigabyte

Back in April, Gigabyte showed off its new custom WindForce 450W GPU HSF, but did not name which specific high end graphics cards it would be used with. So far, NVIDIA's highest-end single GPU solution, the GTX Titan, has been off limits for GPU manufacturers as far as putting custom air coolers on the cards (NVIDIA has restricted designs to its reference cooler or factory installed water blocks).

It seems that Gigabyte has found a solution to the cooler restriction, however. The company will be selling a GTX TITAN with model number GV-NTITAN-6GDB later this year that will come with NVIDIA's reference cooler pre-installed along with a bundled WindForce 3X 450W cooler and instructions for switching out the coolers.

Gigabyte Is Showing Off the custom GTX Titan at Computex, as discovered by TechPowerUp.

Users that do take Gigabyte up on its offer to switch to the custom WindForce cooler will still be covered under the company's standard warranty policy, which is a good thing. The kit is likely to be more expensive than your standard TITAN though as Gigabyte is having to sell the card with two coolers and increased support costs. On the other hand, users could swap out the coolers and then sell the unused TITAN reference cooler to offset some of the cost of the kit.

Gigabyte is actually showing off the new graphics card with WindForce 3X 450W cooler at Computex this week. The dual slot WindForce cooler is said to keep a GTX 680 2°C and 23.3 dB quieter than the reference cooler when running the Furmark benchmark suite. The major benefit of the WindForce is having three large fans that can spin at lower RPMs to give you the same cooling performance as the reference NVIDIA design at a much lower noise volume rather than pure cooling performance. Should you be looking to push the TITAN to the extreme, a water block would be your best bet, but for many users i think the allure of a quieter air cooled TITAN may be enough for Gigabyte to snag a few adventurous enthusiasts willing to put up with assembling the new card themselves.

More information on the WindForce 3X 450W cooler can be found here.

Computex 2013: ASUS Working On GTX 770 Poseidon With Hybrid Waterblock and Air Cooler HSF

Subject: Graphics Cards | June 4, 2013 - 12:04 AM | Tim Verry
Tagged: poseidon, nvidia, kepler, gtx 770, gk-104, computex 2013, computex, ASUS ROG, asus

NVIDIA took the wraps off of its latest-generation Geforce GTX 770 GPU last week, and manufacturers have begun announcing not only reference designs but custom and factory overclocked versions of this GK-104 "Kepler" GPU refresh. One card in particular that caught my attention was the ASUS GTX 770 Poseidon graphics card, which combines NVIDIA's GK-104 GPU with a hybrid heatsink and fan combo that allows the simultaneous use of water and air cooling!

According to the branding, and a hands-on report by Tech Power Up at Computex in Taipei, Taiwan, the GTX 770 Poseidon graphics card is part of the company's Republic of Gamers (ROG) line and likely sports beefy VRM hardware and factory GPU overclocks. Of course, the GTX 770 GPU uses NVIDIA's Kepler architecture and is essentially the GTX 680 with some seriously overclocked memory and refined GPU Boost technology. That means 1,536 CUDA cores, 128 texture units, and 32 ROPs (raster operation units) within 4 GPCs (Graphics Processing Clusters). This is the full GK-104 chip, desite the x70 name. For more information on the GTX 770 GPU, check out our recent review of the NVIDIA GTX 770 card.

Update: ASUS has just launched the new ROG graphics cards at a Computex press conference. According to the ASUS press release:

"ROG Poseidon graphics card with hybrid DirectCU H2O cooling
The new ROG Poseidon graphics card features an NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 700 Series GPU and a hybrid DirectCU H2O thermal design that supports both air and liquid cooling. Developed by ASUS, its CoolTech fan combines blower and axial fans in one design, forcing air in multiple directions over the heatsink to maximize heat dissipation. Liquid cooling reduces operating temperatures by up to 31 degrees Celsius for cooler running with even greater overclocking potential. ROG Poseidon also features a red pulsing ROG logo for a distinctive dash of style."

(end update)

Back on the Poseidon specifcally, the card is a short GTX 770 with a distinctive cooler that uses a full cover water block that covers the entire card and includes the GPU, memory, and VRM areas. ASUS further added a more-traditional air cooler to the area above the GPU itself to help dissapate heat. The air cooler is a circular aluminum fin array with a fan that sits in the middle. The air entire hybrid cooler is then covered by a ROG-themed shroud with a configurable LED-backlit Republic of Gamers logo on the side that can be controlled via software.

The water cooling portion acts as any other full cover water block, allowing cool water to move heat away from the metal contact (the bottom of the block) touching the various components. The inlet and outlets poke out from the side of the card, which is a bit odd but the shroud prevents them coming out at 90-degrees like typical blocks. If your case width is tight, you may need to get creative to fit a 90-degree barb extender (I apologize if that's not the technical term) on to the existing tubing connectors (heh). The cooler can be operated with the air cooler's fan running with or without being connected to a water loop. When water cooling is used, the fan can be turned off to reduce noise or left on to allow for higher overclocks and/or lower temperatures.

Unfortunately, that is all of the information that is currently available  as ASUS has not yet officially launched on the custom GTX 770 graphics card. Pricing, availability, and clockspeed details are still unknown.

For more information, stay tuned to the press.asus.com/events livestream page as it might be announced at a Computex press conference this week since the company is showing off the hardware at the show!

Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 10.1: Intel inside an Android?

Subject: General Tech, Graphics Cards, Processors, Mobile | June 3, 2013 - 03:00 AM | Scott Michaud
Tagged: Intel, atom, Clover Trail+, SoC, Samsung, Galaxy Tab 3 10.1

While Reuters is being a bit cagey with their source, if true: Intel may have nabbed just about the highest profile Android tablet design win possible. The, still currently unannounced, Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 is expected to embed Intel's Clover Trail+ System on a Chip (SoC). Samsung would not be the largest contract available in the tablet market, their previous tablets ship millions of units each; they are a good OEM vendor to have.

Source: BGR India

Samsung is also known for releasing multiple versions of the same device for various regions and partners. The Galaxy Tab 10.1 and Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 did not have a variety of models with differing CPUs like, for instance, the Galaxy S4 phone did; the original "10.1" contained an NVIDIA Tegra 2 and the later "2 10.1" embed a TI OMAP 4430 SoC. It is entirely possible that Intel won every Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 tablet ever, but it is also entirely possible that they did not.

Boy Genius Report India (BGR India, video above) also claims more specific hardware based on a pair of listings at GLBenchmark. The product is registered under the name Santos10: GT-P5200 being the 3G version, and GT-P5210 being the Wi-Fi version.

These specifications are:

• Intel Atom Z2560 800-933 MHz dual-core SoC (4 threads, 1600 MHz Turbo)
• PowerVR SGX 544MP GPU (OpenGL ES 2.0)
• 1280x800 display
• Android 4.2.2

I am not entirely sure what Intel has to offer with Clover Trail+ besides, I would guess, reliable fabrication. Raw graphics performance is still about half of Apple's A6X GPU although, if the leaked resolution is true, it has substantially less pixels to push without being attached to an external display.

Maybe Intel made it too cheap to refuse?