Welcome to nV News, your source for information about NVIDIA, inventor of the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) and GeForce 256 back in 1999. Today's GeForce Family of add-in graphics cards for the PC feature powerful GPUs designed to improve 3D graphics and video performance. Considering an upgrade? Check out our hand-picked deals from PriceGrabber for add-in graphics cards from an Authorized Board Partner.
Notes: Listed prices are based on rebates as indicated by underlined links. The new and limited edition GeForce GTX 560 Ti with 448 CUDA cores from EVGA is receiving acclaim from Newegg customers! Reviews are located here.
Tips:Click here to view a partial list of reference specifications for selected GeForce GPUs. Be advised that additional components, including the power supply unit, may need to be upgraded when upgrading to a more powerful GPU. Strive for a Balanced PC when upgrading to a more powerful GPU or CPU. Need help? Let NVIDIA help you choose a GPU for your PC! Specifications for GeForce GPUs can be found at NVIDIA.
Check out the latest discussion threads in the Windows and Linux forums. With 143,000 threads and 2.4 million posts, the forums contain a wealth of useful information.
TechPowerUp has released a new version of GPU-Z, a video subsystem information and diagnostic utility that provides information about the graphics hardware installed and monitors clock speeds, fan speeds, voltages, VRAM consumption, etc., in real-time.
Version 0.5.8 introduces two new features. The first one is a render test that applies sufficient load (not stress) on the GPU to pull it out of PCI-Express link-state power-management, to ensure the Bus information is accurate. The second new feature is ASIC quality, designed for NVIDIA Fermi (GF10x and GF11x GPUs) and AMD Southern Islands (HD 7800 series and above), aimed at advanced users, hardware manufacturers, and the likes.
NVIDIA's blog nTersect has a story from guest author Helen Yu who writes about the custom graphics of Nalu that is used on her surfboard. Nalu was a mythical mermaid that NVIDIA used in a technology demo to showcase their GeForce 6800 graphics processors back in 2004.
A seven-foot image of Nalu was modified to fit the surfboard. The image was printed onto rice paper, which was then laminated onto the surboard.
A few weeks ago, I ordered a custom "Wave Magnet" fiberglass surfboard from Phil Rose, a Los Angeles-based board shaper and surfer. I realized, after sifting through the standard surfboard graphics options (flowers, hula girls, waves or trees), that Nalu would be a fitting graphic for my board. The glittering, finned goddess's name means "wave" in Hawaiian, after all.
I called NVIDIA's general corporate line to seek permission to use the Nalu image. To my surprise, one of its top execs, Dan Vivoli, called me back right away. He referred me to NVIDIA graphic artist Adelina Nohrnberg (also a fellow surfer), who was able to help me with designs.
AMD has launched the AMD Radeon HD 7970 graphics card for desktop PCs. Featuring the first Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) based on 28nm production technology, the AMD Radeon HD 7970 is the fastest single GPU graphics card and will be available January 9, 2012 from retailers worldwide, with select models starting at $549 US.
Koroush Ghazi, who runs TweakGuides.com, has posted a comprehensive graphics tweak guide for Skyrim over at GeForce.com. Comparative screenshots and performance impact results for the various settings that are covered are included. Here's a snippet on FXAA:
FXAA: Short for Fast Approximate Anti-Aliasing, NVIDIA's FXAA is a method of smoothing jagged edges which is efficient and reasonably effective. The available options are Off, Low, Medium and High. FXAA can be enabled instead of the normal Antialiasing option in Skyrim (covered earlier in the guide), or in conjunction with it.
FXAA lives up to its promise of being efficient, and has minimal performance impact across various resolutions. This makes it suitable for people looking for a cheap but relatively effective form of line smoothing instead of the more intensive Antialiasing option in Skyrim. At the other end of the spectrum, if the blurring from FXAA bothers you but you still want to smooth out foliage, you can enable Transparency Antialiasing as covered in the Graphics Driver Settings section.
