NVIDIA R319 Series Beta Driver 320.00 Available

NVIDIA's driver numbering can be a bit of a mystery at times, but after the R313 Series that encompasses all version 313.x and 314.x releases, NVIDIA is jumping ahead to their R319 Series drivers. Naturally, that means the first beta release of R319 is...320.00. Like I said, it can be a bit confusing at times. The good news is that the drivers as usual are available for all recent desktop and laptop GPUs.

OS support is a bit of a change from some releases. Windows XP and even Vista support look like they're finally starting to disappear, or at least they're not a high priority, so the current beta driver is only available for Windows 7 and 8 on laptops, in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. Desktops on the other hand get the full set of support for everything from XP to Windows 8 in 32-bit and 64-bit form.

The big headliners for this series of drivers is that these are the "game ready" drivers for Dead Island: Riptide, Neverwinter, and Star Trek. NVIDIA is also listing performance improvements for single and SLI configurations for a variety of games, including Dirt: Showdown (up to 18%), Tomb Raider (up to 8%), and StarCraft II (up to 6%), though that's with a GTX 660 so your mileage may vary depending on your specific GPU. Other titles receiving performance tweaks include Sniper Elite V2, Metro 2033, Far Cry 3, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, F1 2012, Assassin's Creed III, Battlefield 3,and BioShock: Infinite.

AMD Radeon HD 7990 Review: 7990 Gets Official

Officially canonized back in 2008 with AMD’s “small die” strategy, dual-GPU cards have since become a staple of AMD’s product lineup. Filling a small-but-important niche for AMD, dual-GPU cards allow AMD to both deliver ultra-enthusiast performance levels their traditional single-GPU products can’t offer, and at the same time compete with NVIDIA’s big die flagship cards without AMD needing to produce a big die GPU of their own. As a result, though these cards aren’t necessarily obligatory, with each generation we’re left eagerly awaiting just what AMD has in store for their capstone product.

Of course with that said, like so many other facets of the 7000 series, the dual-GPU situation has played out rather unusually in the past year. In a typical year we would see AMD release a standard design, and then later on partners like Asus and PowerColor would release their own custom designs in the name of product differentiation and squeezing out just a bit more performance. Instead the 7000 series has played out in reverse: Asus and PowerColor released their designs first. Consequently, up until this point the 7990 has been “officially unofficial”, reflecting the fact that the first 7990s were AMD sanctioned products, but not based on AMD designs.

But at long last the 7990 is becoming fully official. AMD is getting into the game with their own 7990 design, and perhaps more importantly they’re doing so while coming to bear with the kind of engineering resources that only a GPU manufacturer can provide. This isn’t going to be the first 7990 – that honor belongs toPowerColor’s 7990 – but this is unquestionably the most important 7990.  For AMD and their partners going official doesn’t just mean the AMD is taking a greater role in matters, but as we’ll see it means changing the rules of the game entirely.

AMD GPU Specification Comparison
	AMD Radeon HD 7990	AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition	AMD Radeon HD 7970	AMD Radeon HD 6990
Stream Processors	2 x 2048	2048	2048	2 x 1536
Texture Units	2 x 128	128	128	2 x 96
ROPs	2 x 32	32	32	2 x 32
Core Clock	950MHz	1000MHz	925MHz	830MHz
Boost Clock	1000MHz	1050MHz	N/A	N/A
Memory Clock	6GHz GDDR5	6GHz GDDR5	5.5GHz GDDR5	5GHz GDDR5
Memory Bus Width	2 x 384-bit	384-bit	384-bit	2 x 256-bit
VRAM	2 x 3GB	3GB	3GB	2 x 2GB
FP64	1/4	1/4	1/4	1/4
Transistor Count	2 x 4.31B	4.31B	4.31B	2 x 2.64B
PowerTune Limit/TDP	375W	250W+	250W	375W
Manufacturing Process	TSMC 28nm	TSMC 28nm	TSMC 28nm	TSMC 40nm
Architecture	GCN	GCN	GCN	VLIW4
Launch Date	04/23/2013	06/22/2012	01/09/2012	03/11/2011
Launch Price	$999	$499	$549	$699

Diving right into the thick of things, like the officially unofficial cards before it, AMD’s 7990 is a dual-Tahiti part, placing two of AMD’s flagship GPUs on a single PCB to make a single card. AMD has held nothing back and these are fully enabled GPUs, so each GPU has all 2048 stream processors, 32 ROPs, and their full 384-bit memory buses present. Joining these GPUs is 6GB of GDDR5 RAM, split up between the two GPUs for the 7900-series standard of 3GB of VRAM per GPU.

The big question with any dual-GPU card of course is what kinds of clockspeeds it can run at, and as a turns out the 7990 can clock rather high. The 7990 is a PowerTune Boost part like the 7970GE it’s based on, giving the card a base clockspeed of 950MHz, and a boost clock of 1000MHz. Meanwhile the memory is clocked at 6GHz, the same as the 7970GE. As a result the 7990 is surprisingly close to being a 7970GE Crossfire setup on a single card, clocked just 50MHz below AMD’s single-GPU flagship card. In fact this is better than some of the earlier 7990s such as PowerColor’s, which were clocked lower and simultaneously lacked PT Boost.

But perhaps the most defining aspect of AMD’s 7990, and the thing that sets it apart from unofficial 7990s that came before it is the TDP. AMD’s 7990 has an official TDP of just 375W, which although common for official dual-GPU cards, is quite a bit lower than the TDPs of the unofficial 7990s. As the GPU manufacturer AMD has the ability to do finely grained binning that their partners cannot, so while Asus and PowerColor have essentially been putting together cards that really are two 7970s on a single card – right down to the TDP – official 7990s get the advantage of AMD’s binning process, significantly reducing power consumption. The end result is that while an unofficial 7990 would be a 450W+ part, AMD can deliver the same or better performance while consuming much less power, putting the 7990 within the all-important 375W envelope that OEMs and boutique builders look for.

While we’re on the subject of power, this is the first official AMD dual-GPU part to include AMD’s ZeroCore power technology, which was introduced with the GCN family. ZeroCore as you might recall allows AMD to almost completely shut off slave GPUs when they’re not in use, which in turn allows AMD to further reduce their idle power consumption. The biggest benefits are found in multi-card setups since this allows the fans on those slave cards to be shut down, but even on the 7990 it still provides a benefit by allowing AMD to curtail their idle power consumption. Consequently this pushes the idle TDP of the 7990 down to around 20W, which is greater than a single card, but a clear improvement over 6990 and earlier AMD dual-GPU cards.

Moving on to product stacks and competition, it comes as no great surprise that AMD is placing their newest flagship part directly opposite NVIDIA’s flagship cards. AMD doesn’t produce a GPU equivalent to GTX Titan’s massive GK110 GPU, so the 7990 is AMD’s official answer to both Titan and NVIDIA’s own dual-GPU card, the nearly year-old GTX 690. In the case of the GTX 690 it’s a rather straightforward matchup since both cards are based on the same principles, while against Titan AMD needs to make a case about raw performance versus the inherent simplicity of a single-GPU solution over a dual-GPU solution.

Along those lines, since AMD is placing the 7990 against NVIDIA’s flagships they will also be pricing it directly against NVIDIA’s flagships, setting the MSRP for the 7990 at $999. This steep price tag raised some ire with the GTX 690 and with GTX Titan, and it likely will here once more. But with single 7970GEs still regularly going for $400-$500 and the fact that AMD is throwing in their best Tahiti chips into 7990, there’s little incentive to charge less. A 7970GE CF setup will be both faster and cheaper, but as a pair of those cards take up 6 slots after accounting for cooling needs, AMD can bank on the fact that the 7990 is essentially the same size as a 7970GE, charging a premium for the size advantage.

Ultimately customers interested in the 7990 will have a bit of time to sit on the matter and decide if they want one. The 7990 is being launched ahead of its actual retail availability, with AMD telling us the cards will hit etailers within two weeks. Meanwhile all of AMD’s usual partners will be participating on this 7990, so expect to see 7990 cards from all of major AMD partners, and sold at all of the major etailers.

Finally, AMD has been having a blast with game bundles over the last few months, and they won’t be stopping with the 7990. In a game bundle that quite frankly I cannot recall being rivaled by anything else done in the last 20 years, AMD will be bundling the 7990 with 8 different games from the current and past Never Settle bundles. All of AMD’s current bundle titles are included: Crysis 3, Bioshock Infinite, Tomb Raider, and Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon. Along with that AMD is also packing in the best games out of their previous bundles: Far Cry 3, Hitman: Absolution, Sleeping Dogs, and Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Simply put, 7990 buyers will be well-stocked for games to play on their new video card.

Meanwhile on housekeeping note, AMD will be changing how vouchers are distributed for the 7990; rather than having etailers distribute the vouchers with qualifying purchases, AMD’s partners will be packing the vouchers into the product box. Though the etailers have been good about including vouchers, they do at times forget them. So for the 7990 AMD and their partners aren’t going to be taking any chances.

April 2013 GPU Pricing Comparison
AMD	Price	NVIDIA
AMD Radeon HD 7990	$1000	GeForce GTX Titan/GTX 690
PowerColor Radeon HD 7990	$900
Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition	$450	GeForce GTX 680
Radeon HD 7970	$390
	$350	GeForce GTX 670
Radeon HD 7950	$300

Latest Nvidia Graphics Card Price List – Updated October 2008

Nvidia Graphics Card Cost Over > RS. 20,000/- INR(Indian Rupee)

• XFX NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 1GB Graphics Card Price – 43,200/-
• XFX NVIDIA GeForce 9800GX2 1GB Graphics Card – 34,800/-
• eVGA NVIDIA GeForce 9800GX2 1024MB Graphics Card – 34,400/-
• XFX NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 896MB Graphics Card – 27,200/-

Nvidia Graphics Card Price Between RS. 10,000 – 20,000 INR(Indian Rupee)

• MSI 8800GT OC Edition 512MB DDR3 – 10,400/-
• EVGA Nvidia Geforce 9800 GTX+ SC 512 MB DDR3 Price – 13,900/-

Nvidia Graphics Card Price or cost less then <>

• XFX NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT 512MB Graphics Card Price – 8,900/-
• EVGA GeForce 9800GT Graphics Card – 9,900/-
• POV 8800GT 512MB DDR3 – 10,250/-
• Palit NVIDIA GeForce 9800GT 512MB DDR3 Graphics Card – 8,300/-
• Zotac NVIDIA GeForce 9600GT 512MB Graphics Card – 7,800/-
• eVGA NVIDIA GeForce 9600GT Graphics Card – 7,500/- Indian Rupee
• Palit NVIDIA GeForce 9600GSO 384MB Graphics Card – 6,500/-
• NVIDIA GeForce 9500GT 512MB Graphics Card – 5,000/-
• Palit GeForce 9500GT 256MB GDDR3 Graphics Card – 4,000/- Indian Rupee
• NVIDIA GeForce 9400GT 512MB DDR2 Graphics Card – 3,000/-

NVIDIA 9500 GT: Mainstream Graphics Update

Even though sub $100 hardware is very high volume, we don't often see a lot of heated debate surrounding them. People don't usually get excited about mainstream and low end hardware. The battle for who can run the newest game with the coolest effects at the highest resolution, while not applicable to most people, tends to generate quite a bit of interest. There is a lot of brand loyalty in this industry, and people like to see the horse they backed come out on top. Others, while not siding with a particular company, jump on the wagon with what ever company has the fastest part at any given time. I, myself, am a fan of the fastest hardware out at any given time. I get excited by how far we've come, and how much closer the top of the line gets us to the next step. Keeping up with top of the line hardware is more like attending a sporting event or taking in a play: the struggle itself is entertainment value.

For some, knowing what's best does have relevance. For many many others, it is more important for to keep track of hardware that, while cheap, is as capable as possible. And that is where we are today.

At the end of July, NVIDIA released their GeForce 9500 GT. This part (well, the GDDR3 version anyway) is almost a drop in replacement for the 8600 GT as far as the specifications go. In fact, the prices are nearly the same as well.

No, it isn't that exciting. But even these very low end add in cards are head and feet above integrated graphics solutions. While we'd love to see everything get more performance, the price of the 8600 GT has dropped significantly over time. We haven't gotten to a point where people who aren't willing or able to spend above $100 on a graphics card can get good experiences on modern games. At least software and hardware complexity tend to parallel each other to the point where the disparity in how new a title can be played on cheap hardware isn't getting any worse.

So with so many similarities, why release this part? There won't be an endless supply of G84 hardware going forward. Thus the G96 comes along with nearly the same specs selling at the same price. The decreased die size of the 65nm G96 (as opposed to the 80nm G84) will also help to increase profits for NVIDIA and board partners on this hardware while they sell at the same price point. There are rumors that NVIDIA will even move the G96 to 55nm later this year further increasing their saving and possibly enabling passive cooling solutions. But we will have to wait for a while yet to find out if that will actually happen.

Before we get into the 9500 GT itself, let's take a look at the state of the industry that brought us to this point.

Faster Graphics For Lower Prices: ATI Radeon HD 4770

First things first: the Radeon HD 4770 is faster than existing 4800 series hardware (namely the 4830). Yes, this is by design.

We hate to start another article complaining about naming (there seems to be some sort of pervasive renaissance of poor naming this year), but let's talk about why exactly we are in this situation with a look back at something from our RV670 coverage:

At least it's ironic.

Yes, the problem is born out of AMD's attempt at sensible, appropriate naming. The problem is that AMD seems to want to associate that "family" number with the physical GPU than with the a performance class. This is despite the fact that they generally use increasing numbers for "families" that are generally faster. Thus, the 40nm RV740 needs a new family name, and they can't really choose 49xx presumably (by us) because people would be more upset if they saw a high number and got lower performance than if they saw a lower number and got higher performance. So Radeon HD 4770 it is.

When we brought up our issues with the naming scheme, AMD was quick to respond that naming is one of the most contentious things that go on in bringing a graphics card to market. People get passionate about the issue. Passion is great, but not if it confuses, misleads, or distracts the end user. And that's what a decision like this does. There is no practical reason that this card shouldn't be named 4840 to reflect where it's performance falls. After all, the recently released 4890 is host to quite a few tweaks to the physical layout of the chip and it isn't called the 4970.

At the same time, that trailing zero is doing nothing on all AMD hardware. There is an extra number in there that could allow AMD to shift some things around in their naming scheme to retain all the information they want to reflect about architecture generation, processes revision, performance class and specific performance within that class. If we are going to have a model number system, in order to have real value to both the informed and casual graphics card user it needs to be built to properly represent the underlying hardware AND be strictly related to performance. With this move, AMD joins NVIDIA in taking too many liberties with naming to the detriment of the end user.

Now that that's taken care of, what we have today is a 40nm GPU (the first) paired with 512MB of RAM on a $110 card. The package delivers performance at a level between the 4830 and the 4850. First indications were that this would be a $99 part and the performance we see with this card at the "magic" price would be terrific. It's still not bad at a 10% higher price. AMD had indicated that there should be some $10 mail in rebates available for those who are interested in the extra bonus hassle and upfront cost to get the cash.

ATI Radeon Xpress 1250

What a year it has been for AMD and ATI. We have watched both companies go through pain and agony since their merger, as they experienced what can only be described as a perfect storm: we witnessed the return of Intel to CPU dominance and NVIDIA basically owned the DirectX 10 market for seven months before AMD/ATI could respond. Unfortunately, we are still waiting on the CPU response to the Core 2 series and the DirectX 10 GPU response was pretty much too little and too late. While we expect AMD will rebound shortly in the CPU and GPU markets, they have been very quiet on the chipset front since the merger.We have the upcoming RD790 that looks like it will be the chipset to beat when Phenom launches late this year, but for the most part AMD is content with the current 690G/690V chipset until their replacements launch sometime next year. We will be looking in-depth at several 690G boards in Part Three of our uATX roundup series shortly, but for today we will take a look at the abandoned and somewhat ignored cousin of the 690G, the RS600.The RS600/RD600 were ATI's planned answer last year to the G965/P965 duo from Intel, but unfortunately neither chipset launched on schedule and the AMD buyout of ATI further complicated the marketing plans for these chipsets. Eventually, the RD600 was picked up by DFI and had some modest success as a fairly quick and extremely flexible chipset that was burdened somewhat by a memory controller that was just a little slower than the Intel P965/975X. Also, the lack of Tier-1 acceptance and any serious follow-up support from AMD more or less doomed ATI's last performance chipset for the Intel platform.While ATI basically owned the Intel white box market for the last few years, the majority of that business has gone to SiS with Intel now also providing its fair share of chipsets into this large and lucrative market. This market is where the RS600 was originally designed to compete, along with a promise to stay a couple of steps ahead of Intel in both features and video performance. ATI succeeded to some extent, but that pesky merger and resulting product decisions meant this chipset has been fighting an uphill battle all the way to its launch this past spring. Once again, there were no Tier-1 suppliers lined up and questions about support and follow-on products dogged the RS600 when it was released by abit in the uniquely designed Fatality F-I90HD.

Our opinions about the basic performance of this chipset/motherboard were extremely positive at launch; however, it was as if somebody upstairs was out for ATI/AMD blood, as the boards started failing. We experienced it within a couple of weeks, as did others, and any positives that could have been made for marketing this chipset to other manufacturers probably fell on deaf ears. As it turns out, according to our sources at the time within abit, the initial production runs of the board had some quality issues and it was not a chipset problem. In fact, our second board has not failed after several hundred hours of daily usage and currently resides in one of our DVR machines.Unfortunately, the initial BIOS support and commitment to solving issues by abit has waned over the past sixty days, and we feel the board deserves continued support. It was with great interest to us when ASRock called and wanted us to take a look at their new 4Core1333-FullHD based on the RS600. This board promises full 1080p playback capabilities and the latest support for Intel's recently introduced 1333MHz FSB processors, although this support means auto-overclocking the FSB to 333.Now that we have two RS600 boards it would be quite easy to do a comparison of AMD's current Intel based IGP solution against the latest Intel offering, the G33. We have not been kind towards Intel's IGP solutions, as we feel like the continued minimum functionality in their graphics solutions (not to mention driver concerns) creates issues with developers wanting to move forward but always ensuring their products run on the lowest common denominator platform. That platform has historically been Intel-based as they are the world's largest graphics provider, although we wonder at times if they understand the importance of this fact.This is not to say any of the AMD and NVIDIA IGP solutions are that much better; they are in many ways, but without earnest competition from Intel these solutions do just enough to stay ahead of Intel. However, at least these solutions provide a much higher degree of compatibility and performance with most games, video playback, and applications. While running the latest games such as Bioshock or Supreme Commander will require a resolution of 800x600 with medium-low quality settings, at least a user has the chance to play the game until they can afford a better performing video solution.Of course, it is not all about gaming with these platforms, but even in video playback and general application performance we see better solutions from Intel's competitors. Hopefully, this will change with the upcoming G35 chipset from Intel, but we are not holding our breath.Let's take a quick look at the specifications of the AMD RS600 chipset and its performance against a similarly priced G33 solution today.