Scan's TekSpek

NVIDIA is on something of a roll at the moment; it has arguably the best single- and dual-GPU graphics cards on the market in the form of the GeForce GTX 680 and GeForce GTX 690.

NVIDIA launched the GeForce GTX 680 graphics card on March 22, 2012. Based on a new architecture called Kepler, GTX 680, priced at around £400, became the fastest graphics card in its class

NVIDIA is today releasing the GeForce GTX 680 graphics card. It has been designed to be the fastest single-GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) card in the world, and this TekSpek explains the technology behind NVIDIA's flagship consumer GeForce product.

AMD announce the Radeon HD 7870 and HD 7850 graphics cards

Anyone with a passing interest in PC graphics hardware knows that AMD released the high-end Radeon HD 7970 and HD 7950 GPUs recently, priced at around £450 and £350, respectively. Based on a new Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture and providing solid performance with excellent power-draw characteristics, the asking price alone makes them aspirational products.

CPU and graphics processor company AMD released the world's fastest single-GPU graphics card just before Christmas 2011. Known as the Radeon HD 7970 3GB and approximately 20 per cent quicker than NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 580, the new card is based on a brand-new architecture that's called Graphics Core Next (GCN).

AMD has today announced the world's fastest single-GPU graphics card. Known as the Radeon HD 7970 and due to be made available through the company's roster of board partners from January 9, 2012 onwards.

Despite an influx of high-profile game launches in recent months, the PC hardware scene has remained surprisingly quiet - at least as far as graphics are concerned.

Personal computers (PCs) have historically been built with a central processing unit - better known as a CPU, which is considered the brains of the computer - installed on to a motherboard. A separate chip or add-in card has been used to provide the video/gaming processing and signal from the PC to a monitor.

Buying a new graphics card is more complicated than it may seem on first glance. To fully understand the potential purchase, you need to be aware of the underlying architecture, be cognisant of the speeds and feeds, and appreciate just how much value you're receiving for a given outlay.

NVIDIA and AMD know only too well that the path to performance domination in the consumer PC graphics market can only be trod if two high-end GPUs are placed onto one board and set to communicate with one another via established multi-GPU technology.

Between the GeForce GTX 560 Ti, GTX 570 and GTX 580, NVIDIA's 500-series product range has the £200+ gaming market pretty well sewn up. But that's a small fraction of the overall landscape, and while the last-generation GTS 450 and GTX 460 continue to offer good value to the sub £150 crowd, NVIDIA's now looking to bring second-generation Fermi to the masses with the new GeForce GTX 550 Ti.

AMD and NVIDIA totally dominate the market for discrete graphics cards - ones you plug into a motherboard for increased performance when playing games. The two companies are locked in a perennial battle for technology leadership at price points ranging from £40 through to £550. The previous two years has seen AMD eke out a small technology lead over its rival

When it comes to GPUs, NVIDIA has been hitting all the right notes of late. In recent months, the high-end GeForce GTX 580 and GTX 570 have been well received, and the excellent last-generation GTX 460 continues to prove popular in the mid-range. But there's clearly a gap between the GTX 570 and GTX 460, and NVIDIA is plugging that hole with the launch of the mid-to-high-end GeForce GTX 560 Ti.

Having recently introduced a new GPU architecture in the form of the GeForce GTX 580, NVIDIA has now expanded the 500-series range to include a high-end card that falls within the £300 price bracket.

AMD introduced two new graphics cards for the enthusiast segment on December 15, 2010. Known as Radeon HD 6970 and Radeon HD 6950, this TekSpek examines the new architecture, dubbed Cayman, and then compares it with NVIDIA's Fermi core, which powers the recently released GeForce GTX 580 and GeForce GTX 570 cards.

NVIDIA releases the GeForce GTX 580 graphics card on November 9, 2010. The purpose of the release is two-fold: to launch the fastest GPU on the planet and to pre-empt arch-rival AMD's release of the competing Radeon HD 6970 graphics card.

AMD released the Radeon HD 6850 and Radeon HD 6870 graphics cards on October 22, 2010. Armed with new features and debuting at £150-£200, this TekSpek examines what the two graphics cards mean to you, the consumer.

Graphics-chip manufacturer NVIDIA released its GeForce GTX 400-series video cards in March of this year, based on what it called the 'Fermi' architecture. Named the GTX 470 and GTX 480, these cards supported all of the latest technologies and remain the most-powerful GPUs available. However, they were very expensive, used a lot of power and generated a significant amount of heat.

One of the most interesting technologies in 2010 promises to be 3D TV. Pushed by the likes of Samsung, Sony and Panasonic on their high-end sets, 3D TV will gain traction once broadcasters - such as Sky and the BBC - and movie studios increase 3D content.

NVIDIA and its retail partners will be launching a slew of new graphics cards on March 26. Based on the brand-new GF100 architecture, this TekSpek evaluates the technology behind NVIDIA most ambitious GPU design.

All personal computers (PCs) use some form of graphics to output the display on to a monitor or screen. Looking back over the last 15 years, there has seen significant development in what are termed 3D accelerators - dedicated graphics boards designed to render life-like images in real-time - and the market has been dominated by two companies: NVIDIA and ATI.

Stating basics, every personal computer that's currently sold requires some form of CPU, motherboard, memory, storage, and graphics that output to a display. These components are common to both desktop and laptop computers.

NVIDIA competes with ATI Technologies - now a wholly-owned subsidiary of microprocessor manufacturer AMD - in the discrete and integrated GPU market. Intel, too, has a significant presence which is currently limited to producing integrated graphics. NVIDIA and ATI design the chips that power graphics cards which are primarily used for playing games. These chips are then built on to a PCB, other necessary components such as memory and cooling are added, and then sold via a number of partners.

ATI Technologies, now part of AMD, is one of the big three players with respect to manufacturing GPUs (graphics processing units). GPUs can either be integrated (on to a chipset) or discrete, which usually entails more higher performance and more power. GPUs are required to provide video output (2D) and, potentially, gaming (3D) performance for both desktop and mobile (notebook) environments.

CUDA technology is the world’s only C language environment that enables programmers and developers to write software to solve complex computational problems in a fraction of the time by tapping into the many-core parallel processing power of GPUs.

Explaining how a modern GPU works in completeness would take a book. Or two. Per class of chip. Per vendor. They're extraordinarily complex pieces of engineering and production, and the end result contains more transistors than multiple modern x86 processors.

NVIDIA’s GeForce 8-series graphics products, powered by G8x GPUs, sees it usher in the first truly radical architecture change since the Riva TNT, and that includes the jump to fully programmable shading in the GeForce FX. G8x GPUs implement a fully-threaded, fully-unified, fully-scalar shading architecture that’s targetted at Direct3D10, the 3D component of DirectX 10.

A motherboard’s main job is to act as a conduit between the various hardware elements that make up a PC. It needs to be able to link the desired CPU(s), system memory, graphics card, hard drive(s), and add-in cards and enable them to work in harmony.

This TekSpek explains why you’d want to overclock your graphics board, the risks in doing so and how you can go about doing it.

If you’re the least bit interested in graphics cards, we’re sure that you’ve heard the terms SLI and CrossFire bandied about recently. Touted as a means of achieving maximum 3D performance by, effectively, using two or more graphics cards in tandem, multi-GPU technology is here to stay. With that in mind, let’s take a closer look SLI and CrossFire; the two competing multi-GPU solutions from NVIDIA and ATI Technologies, respectively.

This TekSpek will assume you know the affects of applying a level of anti-aliasing (AA) on your 3D accelerator, be it via the driver control panel or via a control in your game. We assume you know the effect it has on image quality, so you can think about a before and after scenario. So this TekSpek isn’t about explaining what it does as such, although it will, it’s about explaining the how and why.

Explaining how a modern GPU works in completeness would take a book. Or two. Per class of chip. Per vendor. They’re extraordinarily complex pieces of engineering and production, and the end result contains more transistors than multiple modern x86 processors.

This TekSpek explains DirectX 10, which graphics cards support it, how they work and what the consumer’s choices are.