Oh, man, I cannot wait to punch a boulder in 3D. (Actually, I can wait, but that’s immaterial for the purpose of this post.) In addition to the earlier Street Fighter IVannouncement, Capcom also let it be known that Resident Evil 5 will be released sometime this year. In and of itself, sorta blah. But! → Read More
The eternal quandary for system builders has been much less quandarious (to coin a term) for the last year or so. Intel processor, AMD video card — anything else would be uncivilized. AMD’s 48xx series has been the only choice for a while, but the latest products from AMD and NVIDIA are a little less starkly separated.
For around $250 (the mid-high sweet spot), the 4890 and GTX 275 are … → Read More
I’ve asked for some clarification from ArcSoft, or at the very least some larger screenshots, to settle this business, but haven’t gotten any word back yet. In the meantime, I’m going to call BS on this. Fine detail is a one-way street, and even the best upscaling software can’t make something out of nothing. The best you can do (which is fine with me) is to make the… → Read More
According to Thomas Ricker, things are hotting up at NVIDIA thanks to their ION platform, a netbook and nettop motherboard that will serve 1080p video in a package that fits on the palm of your hand. The first new model should be the Acer Hornet, a Wii-like gaming machine with an odd 3D remote. → Read More
Things are getting out of control in the 3D modeling business. Models for movies and games have gone from thousands to hundreds of thousands of triangles, and the lighting and shading necessary for them is getting so complicated as to require a whole separate video card. Imagine you’re an animator at Pixar — do you think they made WALL-E on netbooks? No, son. They probably used things we… → Read More
NVIDIA is known primarily for their PC graphics cards, but they’ve been in the news recently both for the expansion of their CUDA and PhysX initiatives as well as (allegedly) developing a CPU to challenge Intel and AMD. They’ve been proponents of parallel processing for quite a while, naturally, and have made some investments in companies like MotionDSP and Elemental Technologies, both of which… → Read More
So, Nvidia’s GeForce 9600M GPU may not be causing the screen glitches that have been creeping up on some of the new 17-inch MacBook Pros after all. I know we like to tar and feather Nvidia, but this may just very well be an Apple issue or that’s what Nvidia want us to think.
“Our understanding is that Apple is investigating this, and if they need our help we will certainly support them. → Read More
You just know that Steve Jobs is pretty upset with Nvidia right now. Reports are popping up detailing video problems currently being suffered by the new 17-inch MacBook Pro. It seems that, for some people, whenever the 9600M is turned on the screen displays all sorts of nasty tearing and color deformities. That picture up there shows the extent to the damage. → Read More
MacRumors has some info pointing to a 20- and 24-inch iMacs with NVIDIA graphics. While anyone with a printer could make these exciting marketing materials you see before you, another Swedish reseller had a weird page describing an unusual configuration as well, so there’s some hope that the update will come sooner or later. → Read More
Nvidia, not known for being forthcoming (but perhaps no more than any other tech company), is apparently doing a few sites pretty dirty in relation to its upcoming line of graphics cards. Evidence has been published that shows Nvidia is rebranding some seriously old cards for new sales, which is pretty disingenuous. Unfortunately, sites who have made a stink about it are finding themselves SOL for… → Read More
That firecracker CEO of Nvidia, Jen-Hsun Huang, has revealed that Nvidia will be putting out an “Ion 2″ platform using VIA Nano processors instead of Intel’s Atoms. The pairing isn’t surprising, considering that the Nano processors are supposed to be quite as capable as Atoms, and Nvidia’s relationship with Intel right now isn’t exactly all fun and games. → Read More
We may see Lenovo netbooks packing NVIDIA and VIA chips pretty soon here. Digitimes is reporting that “Lenovo plans to launch 11.6-inch and 12.1-inch netbooks combining Intel’s Atom processor and Nvidia’s Ion platform in the second quarter of this year.” → Read More
These jokers will never get along. They’re in court at the moment, arguing over whether an agreement made in 2004 applies today. Intel says that Nvidia is not licensed to create chipsets for Nehalem-based Intel products. Nvidia says that actually, they are licensed. And now it’s down to the lawyers to doubletalk it out. → Read More
Nvidia has announced that it plans to power $99 mobile internet devices with its Tegra 600 series chips, perhaps as early as this summer. What’s a mobile internet device (MID)? Well, it’s a gadget that fits somewhere in between a smartphone and a netbook. It’s compact and internet-enabled, but it can’t quite fit in your pocket or make phone calls. It’s primarily… → Read More
While Intel is working on taking on the GPU sector (and may just have a deal with Sony to do it), its main rival, Nvidia, is looking to get into the x86 processor business. The video hardware giant is assembling a team from scratch to make a competitor to the Intel and AMD’s CPUs — but doesn’t seem to care that the technology is proprietary and must be licensed from the very companies… → Read More
In an interview with Laptop Magazine, NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang talks about the current state of netbooks, his company’s new Ion platform, rumors about Intel’s supposed strong-arming of device manufacturers, and other netbook and MID platforms from AMD, VIA, along with the probability behind netbooks powered by NVIDIA’s own Tegra platform. → Read More
Interesting bit of speculation surrounding the Mac Mini. Tom’s Hardware, one of the oldest, bestest hardware-focused sites out there, says that the upcoming Mac Mini speed bump will feature Nvidia’s new Ion platform. Among other things, that can lead to an even smaller Mac Mini. → Read More
Everyone was expecting a Mini refresh at MacWorld, and although the 17-inch MBP is a sweet setup, the Mini has been one of Apple’s more neglected products and people thought it was time. Well, they were sort of right. The new Minis are going to be coming out a little later this year, and they’ll be sporting the NVIDIA Ion platform, which is a combination of the 9400M video solution with Intel’s… → Read More
Man oh man! You show me a business that isn’t taking a hit in this economy, and I’ll show you (probably) a corporation guilty of price fixing and underhanded dealings. If AMD is feeling the hurt, laying off people left and right, at least they can be comforted by the fact that NVIDIA just announced that quarterly revenues will be down “40 to 50 percent” over the same quarter last year. → Read More
NVIDIA’s ice-cream sandwich-looking dual-GPU answer to AMD’s dual-GPU 4870 X2 doesn’t excel, but doesn’t disappoint, either. Although the GeForce GTX 280 has recently surpassed the 4870 in performance with its new drivers, the architecture of the GTX 295 limits the capabilities and makes it just barely eke ahead of AMD, and even then it’s with a price premium. At $500… → Read More
Last week the Inquirer asserted that NVIDIA had knowingly put faulty moble GPUs into the new MacBook Pros — a serious allegation. The 9600M the Inquirer’s well-informed friends examined had the same high-lead solder that failed in so many other laptops. NVIDIA hit back today, saying that although they had promised a “new materials set,” what they meant was that the solder… → Read More
In what has become pretty much a standard move by graphics card makers, NVIDIA has revealed that its new fastest card will be… two of its old fastest cards glued together. It should be said that this is far from an ineffective approach: the 9800GX2 annihilated everything when it came out last year and the 4870X2 is the king of the hill right now on the price/performance bit. The GTX295 will… → Read More
AMD announced recently that they are releasing the next version of their Catalyst driver, 8.12. It’s currently available for download from their site. The new version of the driver includes speed increases for some of the most popular games, along with improved video transcoding and filters. On the other side of things, Nvidia’s new 180.84 beta drivers have been released in response to… → Read More
This is exactly what I feared might happen when I heard Apple was moving to a full NVIDIA solution, complete with the faulty parts that caused so many other mobile setups to croak. A very thorough article at the Inquirer, based on analysis of a new MacBook Pro teardown by parties who wish to remain anonymous, shows that the solder bumps used in at least their test MBP are in fact the infamous… → Read More
The Achilles heal of Intel Atom powered netbooks/nettops is that the graphic power sucks. Hopefully, that will change with an on-motherboard GeForce GPU 9400M. That graphics chip is the same found in Apple’s latest MacBooks and should help improve the lackluster Intel Atom’s graphic performance. → Read More
The video card business pendulum has had its swing into AMD territory, but bit by bit NVIDIA is making its comeback after an embarrassing early last generation. This time it’s not more frames per second, but favorable alliances which are gaining ground for the graphics giant: EA and 2K Games (creators of Bioshock) have both agreed to use NVIDIA’s PhysX technology to drive their physics… → Read More
Ah, graphics. One of the present-day netbook’s Achilles’ heels. While NVIDIA struck a deal earlier this year with VIA to work on its netbook-friendly “Nano” processors, it appears that the graphics giant is employing a wait-and-see position towards the rest of the netbook market in general. NVIDIA CFO Marv Burkett said at a recent technology conference, "We’re not saying… → Read More
I’ve been trumpeting Radeon superiority in this video card generation for months, but it seems that the seesaw is tipping the other way now and NVIDIA is back on their game. Doubtless the cost-for-performance of the 48xx series early on caused NVIDIA to panic and drop prices, but now that the platforms have matured a little bit, drivers have been updated, and new games are being tested, it… → Read More
I think you have to be a real hardware geek to find this stuff funny, so it’s no surprise that it made me smile. Although it’s not exactly credited, it’s pretty clear that this is a low-key effort by AMD to discredit NVIDIA — the cartoon casts a bediapered dinosaur as NVIDIA’s troubled last generation of video cards and makes fun of their limited and faulty hardware. → Read More
Embedded and generally small systems are becoming a more serious market force every day, not just as mobile phones become more powerful, but media players, netbooks, and miscellaneous stuff like the Pandora. Intel’s Atom seems to be the star of the show right now due to their clout, but VIA has an extremely competitive product, other smaller companies do as well, and now NVIDIA is ready to… → Read More
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