Video Cards

Source: TechPowerUp!

NVIDIA today released the latest version of their GeForce Game Drivers. Marketed as Game Ready, this latest release aims to provide the optimal gaming experience for Apex Legends, Devil May Cry 5, and Tom Clancy’s The Division 2.

There’s added support for three new G-SYNC compatible monitors (BenQ XL2540-B/ZOWIE XL LCD, Acer XF250Q and Acer ED273 A). Notable fixes include the DXGI_ERROR_DEVICE_HUNG error message that occurred in APEX Legends, fixes pixelated corruption issues in Hitman 2 and renders PhysX fog correctly in Batman: Arkham Origins.

You can download the new GeForce 419.35 WHQL Game Ready drivers through GeForce Experience or via GeForce.com.

By Hilbert Hagedoorn @ Guru3D

Last Friday we’ve published the first round of GeForce 1660 Ti graphics cards. In that article, we’ve already hinted towards a non-Ti model as well. The chatter on that is now getting more substantial, we’ve also mentioned a possible GeForce GTX 1650 as well, here again, a possible launch date has surfaced.

Sources from Digitimes now state that NVIDIA is would be launching the GeForce GTX 1660 on March 15 and a GeForce GTX 1650 on around April 30th, which will bear minimum price tags of US$229 and US$179, respectively.

This will follow the firm’s release of two medium- and low-end versions in the first quarter of 2019, including RTX 2060 in mid-January at a minimum unit price of US$349 and GTX 1660 Ti in late February with a floor price of US$279. The four new graphics cards, ranging from US$179-349, are expected to bring heavy pricing pressure on AMD’s mid-tier and low-end offerings such as VEGA 64/65 and RX590/580/570. With the launch of the four products bearing high price-performance ratios, NVIDIA is apparently seeking to refocus its graphics card business on the medium- and low-end market in the first half of 2019 to prevent its profits from falling further and drive AMD’s share in the market down to under 25% or even 20%, industry sources commented. The drastic shrinkage in demand for crypto mining graphic cards seen since the second quarter of 2018 prompted Nvidia to fast reduce its inventory in the following months, minimizing the impact on profitability.

Source: TechPowerUp!

AMD has released their latest Radeon Software Adrenaline 2019 Edition drivers. This latest beta, version 19.2.3, brings with it support for AMD Ryzen mobile processors with Vega graphics which see up to a 10% performance boost on average versus the 17.40 launch drivers. Titles included in the performance testing were; Destiny 2, Shadow of War, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Civilization 6, and the Witcher 3. Furthermore, various eSports title have seen performance gains of up to 17%, again when compared to the older 17.40 launch drivers. The games AMD used for testing were; Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Fortnite, Player Unknown’s Battleground, and World of Warcraft. The only other performance gains specifically mentioned in this driver release is a 3% boost in Dirt Rally 2 on the Radeon RX Vega 64.

AMD has fixed a few issues with this release as well including player character outlines being stuck on screen after being revived in Battlefield V being the most significant fix. Otherwise, all other fixes or changes are related to AMD software or features such as ReLive wireless VR, FreeSync, and fan tuning. That said, a few prominent issues remain some of which have been around for some time like mouse lag on multi-monitor systems when one display is turned off. Other problems include Radeon WattMan not applying settings changes on the AMD Radeon VII. Meanwhile, the performance metrics overlay may fluctuate giving inaccurate readings on the previously mentioned Radeon VII.

The new Radeon Software Adrenalin 2019 Edition 19.2.3 beta drivers are available online at the AMD driver download page.

Powered by 12th-Gen Turing Architecture, GTX 1660 Ti up to 3x Faster Than GTX 960, 1.5x Than GTX 1060; Available Today

NVIDIA today introduced the GeForce® GTX® 1660 Ti, a new gaming GPU that delivers a big step up in performance and power efficiency for today’s most popular games. It is available now worldwide starting at $279.

Based on the 12th generation Turing™ GPU architecture, the GTX 1660 Ti takes advantage of all of Turing’s shader innovations to deliver 2x the TOPS of the previous-generation Pascal™ architecture. It supports concurrent floating point and integer operations, a unified cache architecture with 3x the L1 cache, and turbocharged performance using adaptive shading technology.

1.4x More Power Efficient Than Pascal

The Turing architecture delivers 1.5x instructions per clock and 1.4x the power efficiency of Pascal, which previously set the standard for power-efficient GPUs. As a result, with a power envelope of only 120 watts, the GTX 1660 Ti delivers the best performance per watt of any GPU in its class.

120 Frames per Second in Competitive Games

The GeForce GTX 1660 Ti outperforms prior-generation GPUs and excels in modern games with complex shaders. It is up to 1.5x faster(1) than the GeForce GTX 1060 6GB and allows gamers to experience 120 frames per second at 1080p in popular online games such as Fortnite, PUBG and Apex Legends.

The GeForce GTX 1660 Ti features 1,536 CUDA® cores, 6GB of the new GDDR6 memory running at 12Gbps and a boost clock of almost 1.8 GHz, which can be easily overclocked for further performance.

With more than two-thirds of current gamers still playing on GPUs that only have the performance — or lower — of a GTX 960-class GPU that came out in 2014, the GTX 1660 Ti delivers up to 3x performance, making it an excellent and cost-effective upgrade for those who want to enjoy dramatically faster frame rates in their favorite titles.

Availability and Pricing

GeForce GTX 1660 Ti custom boards are available starting today from the world’s leading add-in card providers, including ASUS, Colorful, EVGA, Gainward, Galaxy, Gigabyte, Innovision 3D, MSI, Palit, PNY and Zotac. Pricing starts at $279 and will vary based on partner designs, features and region.

With NVIDIA’s release of its new NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti series mid-range graphic card, a large number of reviews are now available for you to find out all there is to know about this latest NVIDIA product. We’ve searched the web and posted the links to those reviews below.

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• ETEKNIX
• HOT HARDWARE
• TECHPOWERUP! (MSI VENTUS)
• GURU3D (ASUS – ROG)
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• GURU3D – (MSI GAMING X)
• TECHPOWERUP! – (EVGA)
• GURU3D – (MSI VENTUS XS)
• TECHPOWERUP! - (MSI GAMING X)
• GURU3D – (PALIT)
• KITGURU
• OC3D.NET
• PC PERSPECTIVE
• TOM’S HARDWARE
• VORTEZ
• TWEAKTOWN
• TECHRADAR

Source: TechPowerUp!

NVIDIA today released GeForce 419.17 WHQL Game Ready drivers. These drivers introduce support for the new GeForce GTX 1660 Ti graphics card launched moments earlier. These are also the first “Game Ready” drivers that come with optimization for “Anthem” and “Far Cry: New Dawn.” The drivers also add NVIDIA SLI support for “Far Cry: New Dawn” and “Apex Legends.” NVIDIA also fixed a short list of bugs. Improper decal rendering in “Doom” (2016) and “Doom Eternal” are fixed. “Battlefield V” artifacting when texture filtering is set to “high” in NVIDIA Control Panel. Dynamic Super Resolution not being available for monitors with 4K2K timings has been fixed. NVIDIA also fixed a critical security vulnerability affecting access to GPU performance counters.

You can download the new GeForce 419.17 WHQL Game Ready drivers through GeForce Experience or via GeForce.com.

Source: TechPowerUp!

AMD has made available the latest version of their Radeon software drivers, Adrenalin Edition 19.2.2, for supported graphics solutions. This brings with it support for the recently released Radeon VII graphics card, in addition to equally new and upcoming game titles including Metro Exodus, Far Cry New Dawn, the Civ VI: Gathering Storm expansion, and Crackdown 3. More pleasing to many users no doubt will be the large list of fixed issues, including a timely Alt + Tab shortcut on a DisplayPort monitor and plenty of bug fixes related to Radeon Wattman as it pertains to the Radeon VII.

The new Radeon Software Adrenalin 2019 Edition 19.2.2 beta drivers are available online at the AMD driver download page.

Source: TechPowerUp!

NVIDIA has released the latest version of GeForce desktop software. Version 418.91 WHQL adds day-one optimization for “Metro Exodus,” including the game’s RTX support. It also adds support for DLSS in both “Battlefield V” and “Metro Exodus.” This last part is crucial because DLSS requires a lot of pre-processed “ground truth” data from NVIDIA to work, which are shipped in driver updates like these. The drivers also fix a wide range of issues related to G-SYNC, “Apex Legends,” display corruption on “Hitman 2,” and “ARK Survival.”

You can download the new GeForce 418.91 WHQL drivers through GeForce Experience or via GeForce.com.

AMD today released its new AMD Radeon™ VII, the world’s first 7nm gaming graphics card. It was designed to deliver exceptional performance and amazing experiences for the latest AAA, esports and Virtual Reality (VR) titles, demanding 3D rendering and video editing applications, and next-generation compute workloads.

Built on the enhanced second-generation AMD ‘Vega’ architecture, AMD Radeon VII provides 2X the memory, 2.1X the memory bandwidth, up to 29 percent higher gaming performance on average, and up to 36 percent higher performance on average in content creation applications compared to the current top-of-the-line AMD Radeon™ RX Vega 64 graphics card1,2,3,4. For gamers, AMD Radeon VII enables maximum settings for extreme framerates at the highest resolutions. It also provides seamless, high-refresh HDR5 gaming at 1080p, ultrawide 1440p and 4K, and enables next-generation photo and visual creation applications on razor sharp, vibrant 8K monitors.

“AMD Radeon VII is the highest-performance gaming graphics card we ever created,” said Scott Herkelman, corporate vice president and general manager, Radeon Technologies Group at AMD. “It is designed for gamers, creators and enthusiasts who demand ultra-high quality visuals, uncompromising performance and immersive gaming experiences.”

Find out more about the new Radeon VII on the AMD website.

AMD  today launched its all new Radeon VII,  the world’s first 7nm gaming graphics card. The Radeon VII will compete against NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 at 699 USD price point. The Radeon VII graphics card is built upon 7nm process technology, delivering higher gaming performance than the AMD Radeon™ RX Vega 64 graphics card. Equipped with 60 compute units/3840 stream processors running at up to 1.8GHz and 16GB of ultra-fast HBM2 memory (second-generation High-Bandwidth Memory), the Radeon VII graphics card enables high-performance gaming and ultra-high quality visuals. Ground-breaking 1 TB/s memory bandwidth and a 4,096-bit memory interface paves the way for ultra-high resolution textures, hyper-realistic settings and life-like characters. That being said, a number of reviews are now available, so we have listed the links to those reviews below. Enjoy!

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