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GPU Shortage Expected to Last Through Holidays

Paul Lilly — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 11:05:31 -0500

Not everyone considers themselves an early adopter of new technology, and one of the advantages in timing your next upgrade to coincide with new releases is that current parts tend to plummet in price. But if you're looking to score a deal on a GT200 series GPU once Nvidia launches its next-gen parts, you may find the opposite to be true.

According to sources in the retail channel, a shortage of 55nm-made graphics cards is expected to last through the holidays and into the first quarter of 2010. This will affect both AMD and Nvidia, as the two companies divert their attention toward DirectX 11-based 40nm GPUs, DigiTimes reports.

The sources went on to specifically point out Nvidia's GT200 series GPU, saying the graphics chip maker does not plan to increase supply following the launch of Windows 7.

Image Credit: pcgameshardware.com

AMD Ahead of the Curve in GPU Shipments for Second Quarter of 2009

Andy Salisbury — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 17:58:06 -0500

According to Jon Peddie Research, a firm that specializes in tracking the graphics market, AMD is on the up and up when it comes to graphics card shipments, beating out both Intel and Nvidia.

According to their latest report, many graphics vendors stopped ordering new cards and made sure that their inventories were depleted for the first quarter of this year. But, during that same first quarter, improvement was shown for the sales of Intel, Nvidia and most notably, AMD, who had a growth of 41.5 percent.

It’s expected that Q3 of this year is gearing up to be a very healthy one, thanks to Apple’s Snow Leopard, Windows 7, as well as AMD and Nvidia’s 40nm designs, which should bring better performance and aggressive prices.

Image Credit: TG Daily

BFG GeForce GTX 295

Will Smith — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 10:00:00 -0500

With speed to burn, this dual-GPU videocard delivers SLI in a single PCI-E slot

Just in case you missed our review of the new GTX 295 reference board last month, we’ll revisit the high points. To make a GeForce GTX 295, Nvidia sandwiched a fairly large heatsink between a pair of boards—that’s one kick-ass sandwich!

The GTX 295’s GPUs are basically modified GTX 280 GPUs. They’ve got the same shader core configuration as the GTX 280, but Nvidia shrunk the chip’s die from 65nm to 55nm, and lowered the core clock speed to 576MHz (the same as the GTX 260). These two adjustments help keep power requirements and heat generation under control, while the full complement of 240 shader cores keeps the frame rate up in shader-limited benchmarks, such as Crysis and Far Cry 2.

The GTX 295’s memory configuration is also similar to the GTX 260’s. Each GPU is paired with 896MB of GDDR3 clocked at 999MHz, connected to the GPU by a 448-bit bus. Where ATI increases memory bandwidth on the 4870 family of cards by using quad-pumped GDDR5 memory, Nvidia is still using double-pumped RAM with a wider bus. The upshot is that the 4870 X2 has a tiny memory-bandwidth edge. In reality, it’s probably not something you’d ever notice.

The performance story hasn’t changed much from our last review, despite new driver revisions from both ATI and Nvidia. Even in shader-limited tests that typically favor ATI’s massive array of 800 shader processors (Crysis and 3DMark Vantage), the GTX 295 managed to outpace ATI’s fastest. Indeed, the BFG card laid down the smack in every single benchmark we test, a rare feat.

This card fits into a single PCI Express slot, but it will cover the adjoining slot, as well. It requires both 6-pin and 8-pin PCI-E power connectors and a decent 680W power supply to run. BFG equipped its board with a pair of dual-link DVI connectors and a single HDMI output.

It’s fast, it’s beautiful. ‘Nuff said.

Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 X2

Will Smith — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 14:00:00 -0500

As a general rule, our belief is that pairing two slow-performing cards using SLI or CrossFire is a bad idea—you’re usually better off running a single faster card. However, the Radeon 4850 X2 delivers astounding performance compared to the single-GPU boards in its price range, spanking the Radeon 4870 and the GeForce GTX 280, with none of the pitfalls that have plagued dual-GPU boards in the past.

At the heart of the board is a pair of ATI’s RV770 GPUs running at 625MHz, just like the single-GPU in the 4850 boards. Each GPU features a full complement of 800 stream processors, which are connected to identical 1GB GDDR3 frame buffers running at 993MHz on a 256-bit bus. Although X2 boards are labeled as featuring 2GB of memory, because the contents of each GPU’s frame buffer must be mirrored, applications can utilize only 1GB of video memory.

Like its 4870-powered predecessor, the 4850 X2 sports ATI’s advanced video decode acceleration, allowing you to view fully accelerated picture-in-picture Blu-ray discs. It’s fully compatible with multiple-monitor displays, and we love that this board features four DVI ports for multi-mon madness.

In our performance testing, the 4850 X2 unseated the fastest single-GPU videocards, the GeForce GTX 280 and Radeon HD 4870, in almost every benchmark. The exception to the rule was Crysis at high visual-quality settings and high resolution. When running at 1920x1200 with 4x antialiasing and the visual-quality settings cranked to Very High, we hit the 4850 X2’s memory bandwidth wall. Despite running at a higher clock speed than the 4870-family boards, the GDDR3 on the 4850 transfers half as much data per clock cycle.

With a street price that’s less than $300, the 4850 X2 is a great deal for owners of lower-resolution 22-inch monitors. However, if you use a 24-inch or 30-inch panel, it’s probably worth ponying up for a card with a peppier memory pipeline.