nVidia's New Graphics Cards
nVidia seems determined to keep sticking it to AMD-owned ATI Technologies in the performance graphics card arena by launching a new series of cards that are twice as fast as its current offerings. Of course, you'll pay for the privilege.
The GTX 200 series, comprising the GTX 280 and 260, will not only run every game - including Crysis - like a bat out of hell, but nVidia claims they will take the pain out of regular computing tasks like encoding and playing HD video and running the tortoise known as Windows Vista. In fact, the new 'Beyond Gaming' message point to nVidia's latest cards being pushed as the ultimate solution for all those 3D and visual-intensive applications. For instance, nVidia says that the cards can reduce the time for converting a sub-2 minute HD video for your iPod from what used to be 5 hours to 35 minutes. It's also hooked up with the worthy Folding@Home project - something PS3 owners have been helping with for some time.
The cards are capable of supporting resolutions up to 2560 x 1600 pixels and there's 3-way SLI support so that you can have three of the beasts running in a single rig - see the photo above.
Compared to earlier GPUs such as GeForce 8800 GTX, the GeForce GTX 280 provides:
1.88× more processing cores
2.5× more threads per chip
Doubled register file size
Double-precision floating-point support
Much faster geometry shading
1 GB frame buffer with 512-bit memory interface
More efficient instruction scheduling and instruction issue
Higher clocked and more efficient frame buffer memory access
Improvements in on-chip communications between various units
Improved Z-cull and compression supporting higher performance at high resolutions, and
10-bit colour support
Rahul Sood, chief technology officer, HP Voodoo Business Unit [makers of the outstanding - and shockingly expensive - Omen PC], commented:
"The advances nVidia continues to make in visual computing are simply incredible, and we are excited to be one of the first companies in the world to offer the technology in the new Exhilaration Edition of the award-winning HP Blackbird 002."
You can find an exhaustive review of the GTX 280 here at the reputable Guru3D. Now the downside - and you knew there was one. The GTX 280 and 260 will run you an equally blistering £330 and £210 - based on US conversions
