Scan's TekSpek
Our Aim
To provide you with an overview on New And existing technologies, hopefully helping you understand the changes in the technology. Together with the overviews we hope to bring topical issues to light from a series of independent reviewers saving you the time And hassle of fact finding over the web.
We will over time provide you with quality content which you can browse and subscribe to at your leisure.
TekSpek 's
Date Issued: 14/10/2022
The new flagship graphics card from Nvidia is here. The GeForce RTX 4090 boasts a huge leap in performance and power efficiency. With 24GB of G6X Memory and cutting-edge AI accelerated performance, the RTX 4090 delivers ultimate power to every gamer and creator.
Date Issued: 13/10/2021
AMD finally brought some much-needed competition to the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30-series graphics cards when it launched the RDNA 2-based Radeon RX 6000 Series about a year ago, AMD is now debuting the Radeon RX 6600 GPU.
Date Issued: 11/08/2021
AMD is today bolstering its premium range of PC graphics cards by releasing the much-anticipated Radeon RX 6600 XT GPU. Using the same powerful RDNA 2 blueprint as the Radeon RX 6900 XT, RX 6800 XT, RX 6800 and RX 6700 XT, the newest processor is primed for high-framerate gaming at a full-HD (1920x1080) resolution with all the image quality bells and whistles turned on.
Date Issued: 10/06/2021
The latest addition to NVIDIA's growing portfolio is the GeForce RTX 3070 Ti. Intriguing insofar as it realises the full potential of the existing GA104 die, the RTX 3070 Ti is intended to slot in between RTX 3080 and RTX 3070 regular, and offers gamers another option in the sub-$600 bracket.
Date Issued: 03/06/2021
NVIDIA dialled it up to 11 when launching the GeForce 30-series premium graphics cards last September. Built on the all-new Ampere architecture offering a step-change in performance from the previous generation, the chip giant has expanded the family to now include, from top to bottom, the GeForce RTX 3090, RTX 3080, RTX 3070, RTX 3060 Ti and RTX 3060.
Date Issued: 17/03/2021
Hot on the heels of the November launch for brand-new 'Big Navi' PC graphics cards encompassing the Radeon RX 6800, RX 6800 XT and RX 6900 XT, AMD is now extending the same RDNA 2 goodness further down the stack by releasing the Radeon RX 6700 XT today.
Date Issued: 25/02/2021
The NVIDIA Ampere hype train keeps on rolling. Following on from multiple high-end GPU launches in late 2020, the graphics giant has gradually extended the reach of its latest-generation architecture and today's introduction of GeForce RTX 3060 marks another milestone as Ampere becomes available for under £300.
Date Issued: 08/12/2020
It has been an epic end to the year as far as PC gaming is concerned. New graphics hardware has been unleashed en masse, giving enthusiasts plenty to get excited about. GeForce RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 got the party started in September, RTX 3070 arrived in October, Radeon RX 6800 and RX 6800 XT followed in November, and RTX 3060 Ti looked to have completed the circle in December.
Date Issued: 03/12/2020
The deluge of cutting-edge hardware continues. Nvidia, who kicked off proceedings with the hugely impressive GeForce RTX 3080, has slowly but surely massaged the underlying Ampere architecture to suit other areas of the market. RTX 3090 blows your socks off at $1,499, RTX 3070 entices more users at $499, and the latest addition, RTX 3060 Ti, brings the goodness of Ampere to a wider audience starting at just $399.
Date Issued: 18/11/2020
2020 has been a trying year in more ways than one, yet gaming enthusiasts can take solace in the relentless release schedule of cutting-edge hardware in recent months. It all started with Nvidia setting lofty new standards with hard-hitting Ampere GPUs, Microsoft and Sony have since introduced a wave of eagerly anticipated next-generation games consoles, and if all that wasn't enough, AMD is today chiming in with the Radeon RX 6000 Series.
Date Issued: 28/10/2020
NVIDIA is keeping the pedal firmly to the enthusiast PC graphics metal by releasing the GeForce RTX 30-series GPUs to general acclaim. Powered by the all-new Ampere architecture, RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 landed a few weeks back and set the benchmarks alight with never-before-seen performance.
Date Issued: 24/09/2020
Gaming hardware is getting seriously interesting, wouldn't you say? NVIDIA has fired the first shots in the next-generation battle in the form of a new-and-improved Ampere architecture that raises the bar for PC gaming to hitherto undreamt heights.
Date Issued: 17/09/2020
NVIDIA introduced the GeForce RTX 3070, RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 graphics cards this month. The high-performance trio is based on the new Ampere architecture which is a successor to Turing powering the GeForce RTX 20-series available today.
Date Issued: 13/05/2020
With next-generation games consoles scheduled to make their debut later this year, industry stalwart Microsoft has ratified a new standard of development APIs marketed as DirectX 12 Ultimate.
Date Issued: 21/01/2020
With AMD's fortunes transformed, the chip giant continues to march forward with new releases that are shaking up both the CPU and GPU landscapes. In the graphics space, the Radeon assault has been led by the introduction of a new RDNA architecture that powers not only current PC graphics cards, but also next-generation consoles from the likes of Microsoft and Sony.
Date Issued: 12/12/2019
Following on from the launch of Radeon RX 5700 XT and RX 5700 back in July, AMD is today extending the reach of its 7nm Navi GPUs with a mainstream offering dubbed the Radeon RX 5500 XT.
Date Issued: 29/10/2019
NVIDIA has bombarded the PC gamer with a succession of add-in graphics cards based on its latest Turing architecture. Spanning from GTX 1650 (£140+) all the way up to Titan RTX (£2,500), today sees the gaming giant add a 12th Turing card.
Date Issued: 02/09/2019
Productised as the Radeon RX 5700 XT and Radeon RX 5700, the new duo target the mid-to-high-end segment and are primed for high-quality gaming at a lush 1440p resolution.
Date Issued: 02/07/2019
NVIDIA's supremacy in the high-end graphics space is best demonstrated by the firm's ability to keep rival AMD at arm's length. Whenever Team Red decides to introduce a new GPU, Team Green tends to thwart any such effort with a superior release of its own.
Date Issued: 25/04/2019
NVIDIA is on the mainstream war path in early 2019. Having already extended the reach of its Turing architecture with the launch of the GeForce RTX 2060, GTX 1660 Ti and GTX 1660, the graphics giant is now taking the next step with the arrival of the sub-£150 GeForce GTX 1650.
Date Issued: 14/03/2019
The savvy shoppers out there seeking a competitive mainstream GPU may have viewed last month's GTX 1660 Ti as a good reason to wait for whatever comes next. You see, it was no secret that GTX 1660 Ti introduced the full implementation of Nvidia's latest 12nm Turing die, the TU116, and that typically means that pared-down derivatives are imminent.
Date Issued: 22/02/2019
Nvidia has whet the appetite of enthusiasts with GeForce RTX graphics cards armed with forward-looking technologies that promise to revolutionise in-game visuals for years to come.
Date Issued: 07/02/2019
NVIDIA has commanded the high-end graphics space for quite some time, and AMD has had to play second fiddle with a fifth-generation GCN architecture, codenamed Vega, that has struggled to meet expectations.
Date Issued: 07/01/2019
The RTX 2060 graphics card brings forward-looking features to a wider audience, which can only mean good things for game developers hoping to leverage new technologies for today's latest triple-A titles
Date Issued: 16/11/2018
AMD has had a strong position in the premium mainstream graphics card market with the Radeon RX 480 (2016) and RX 580 (2017) GPUs. The duo uses what is known as the Polaris architecture to good effect, enabling high-quality PC gameplay at the popular FHD (1,920x1,080) and QHD (2,560x1,440) resolutions.
Date Issued: 16/10/2018
NVIDIA has come to the premium PC graphics card party of 2018 heavily armed with its new architecture known as Turing. It is this silicon blueprint that powers the all-new GeForce RTX 2080 Ti and RTX 2080 that have been available for about a month now.
Date Issued: 21/09/2018
It is no secret that NVIDIA is overhauling its high-end graphics solutions with the launch of the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti and GeForce RTX 2080. Priced at £1,099 and £749, respectively, in Founders Edition guise, the hard-hitting duo are powered by a revolutionary Turing architecture that promises to change the way we think about PC gaming performance in the years ahead.
Date Issued: 17/09/2018
NVIDIA, the leader in computer graphics, releases new microarchitectures every few years that further the capabilities of graphics cards with respect to performance and features.
Date Issued: 02/11/2017
NVIDIA has been steadily expanding its GeForce 10-series family through a succession of launches over the last 15 months. The premium segment begins with the GeForce GTX 1070 - a powerful graphics card whose qualities enable it to play many of the latest games at a 1440p resolution (2,560x1,440) with eye candy turned on.
Date Issued: 14/08/2017
2017 is turning into a historic year for AMD. The chip giant has revitalised its CPU portfolio with competitive Ryzen processors, but that is just one part of the puzzle: stage two entails launching a GPU that can compete with NVIDIA's dominant GeForce.
Date Issued: 04/07/2017
AMD introduced the RX 500-series family of add-in graphics cards in April and May 2017. These cards are priced between £75 and £s;200 and therefore cover a large part of the mainstream graphics market. In this TekSpek we will take a closer look at the RX 560 GPU that retails from just £s;95.
Date Issued: 19/04/2017
It has been a busy start to 2017 for chip giant AMD. Having shaken-up the CPU landscape with the launch of its Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 5 processors, the company is now turning its attention to graphics by refreshing its range of Radeon GPUs.
Date Issued: 10/03/2017
NVIDIA's dominance in high-end graphics has been so complete that the GPU giant has been able to casually choose how it lays claim to the title of world's fastest graphics card.
Date Issued: 26/10/2016
2016 has been a busy year for graphics card launches and there appears to be no let-up as we approach the holiday season. Following on from the introduction of its GeForce GTX 1080, GTX 1070 and GTX 1060 products, GPU giant Nvidia is now furthering the appeal of its latest-generation Pascal architecture by launching a pair of entry-level solutions dubbed the GeForce GTX 1050 and GeForce GTX 1050 Ti.
Date Issued: 24/08/2016
The market for graphics cards priced at £250 has been hotting up since both AMD and Nvidia released GPUs based on their latest architectures. AMD has been more eager to pinpoint the sub-£200 market with two GPUs - the Radeon RX 480 and Radeon RX 470. Specifically, if you can find one, the Sapphire RX 480 Nitro 4GB is arguably the best card south of this all-important figure.
Date Issued: 16/08/2016
NVIDIA refreshed its range of graphics cards recently with the introduction of a number of new models for performance desktop PCs. Four new GeForces have been released in quick succession. The Titan X, GTX 1080, GTX 1070 and GTX 1060, all based on the new, efficient Pascal architecture, have set new levels of performance in each segment.
Date Issued: 08/08/2016
2016 is proving to be a bumper year for new graphics card launches. Both AMD and Nvidia have refreshed their portfolios with a range of cards based on cutting-edge architectures, and there's plenty of differentiation between the two, as while Nvidia has focussed primarily on the high-end, AMD has plied the mainstream end of the market with the Radeon RX 480, Radeon RX 470 and, as of today, the Radeon RX 460.
Date Issued: 04/08/2016
2016 has been chock-full of new graphics cards based on cutting-edge architectures that have given PC gamers plenty to be excited about. Both AMD and Nvidia have whet our appetites with cards such as the RX 480, GTX 1060, GTX 1070, GTX 1080 and Titan X, yet with manufacturer suggested retail prices starting at $199 and soaring to well beyond $1,000, there arguably hasn't been a GPU with genuine mainstream attraction.
Date Issued: 03/08/2016
The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 has been the enthusiast GPU of choice since its introduction back in May of this year. The then-flagship addition to the 16nm Pascal line-up offers outstanding single-GPU performance, but you didn't need a crystal ball to know that Nvidia was keeping something bigger and better under wraps.
Date Issued: 07/07/2016
NVIDIA is gearing up to launch the third-rung GeForce GTX 1060 with both reference Founders Edition form and with partner boards arriving at the same time, July 17.
Date Issued: 29/06/2016
It's been a good start to the year for PC enthusiasts. Intel has unleashed the deca-core Core i7-6950X and Nvidia has served up a suitable partner in the form of the high-end GeForce GTX 1080. Handy, if you happen to have thousands of pounds to pour into your next PC, but for everyone else a more mainstream solution is needed to sate our appetites.
Date Issued: 09/05/2016
The wait is finally over as Nvidia has unveiled the eagerly anticipated GeForce GTX 1080 graphics card.
Date Issued: 01/12/2015
Overall improvements in computing performance have naturally paved the way for advancements in specific areas. One such segment is called machine learning, born from pattern recognition and advances in artificial intelligence.
Date Issued: 14/09/2015
Has there ever been a better time to be a gamer? Today's latest graphics hardware is more powerful than ever before, and emerging technologies such as DirectX 12 and virtual reality headsets are now firmly on the horizon. In this TekSpek, we'll discuss what virtual reality is, how it works, who the main contenders are, and why the technology could change the face of gaming forever.
Date Issued: 10/09/2015
AMD's newly-formed Radeon Technologies Group has reason to be optimistic going into the lucrative 2015 holiday season. Recent high-end launches, including the R9 Fury X, R9 Fury and R9 390X, have revitalised the firm's enthusiast portfolio, and though AMD hasn't quite been able to wrestle the single-GPU performance crown out of the hands of rival Nvidia, there are murmurings of a forthcoming DirectX 12 coup.
Date Issued: 10/09/2015
If you happen to be a keen gamer, you've probably heard the hype: DirectX 12 has arrived as part of Windows 10, and the latest generation of Microsoft's application programming interface (API) is in some circles being heralded as the second coming for PC gaming. So what is DX12, and why might it matter to you?
Date Issued: 20/08/2015
Nvidia has blazed a trail through the high-end graphics landscape with the hard-hitting GeForce GTX 900-series range of graphics cards. Starting from the GTX 960 ($199) and extending right through to the range-topping GTX 980 Ti ($649), the latest generation of NVIDIA GPUs have been well received by users and critics alike.
Date Issued: 24/06/2015
Since the launch of Nvidia's GTX Titan X and GTX 980 Ti graphics cards consumers have been waiting avidly for AMD's high-end response. After some wait AMD has introduced its new flagship Radeon R9 Fury X that is aimed at taking the fight to Nvidia's aforementioned GM200-based flagship graphics cards.
Date Issued: 24/06/2015
AMD's new graphics card products for 2015 are arriving in two different forms - a new R7 and R9 300-series family and a trio of graphics cards with an unconventional naming strategy called R9 Fury, Fury X and Nano that make use of a new graphics processing chip, codename Fiji.
Date Issued: 01/06/2015
On paper, GeForce GTX 980 Ti is the graphics card that many gamers will have been waiting for, and benchmarks from leading publications suggest that end users won't be disappointed. Indeed, in some cases, GTX 980 Ti has been found to be as quick (if not quicker) than GTX Titan X.
Date Issued: 18/03/2015
Finished in black and dressed to impress, the new card retains the familiar aesthetic that has adorned most high-end Nvidia cards in recent years. Build quality and design are excellent, but of course it's the debut of the underlying GM200 die that makes Titan X sing out to the hearts and minds of enthusiasts.
Date Issued: 22/01/2015
Following on from the launch of the high-end GeForce GTX 980 and GTX 970 graphics cards Nvidia is coming to market with its latest Maxwell-powered offering, the GeForce GTX 960
Date Issued: 14/01/2015
Nvidia launched the GeForce GTX 980M and GeForce GTX 970M mobile GPUs, based on the latest Maxwell graphics architecture, in October 2014. More recently, in January 2015, the GeForce GTX 965M was released to laptop makers. These new mobile GPUs provide class-leading gaming performance for a wide variety of premium laptops.
Date Issued: 18/09/2014
With the launch of the new GeForce GTX 980 and GTX 970 graphics cards Nvidia is rolling out the latest Maxwell architecture to its high-end desktop graphics cards. Prior to this release Maxwell had been limited to the entry-level GTX 750 Ti and a handful of mobile GeForce GPUs.
Date Issued: 02/09/2014
You may know that the high-end Radeon R9 290X and R9 290 GPUs use the latest Hawaii GCN 1.2 architecture, imbued with better geometry throughput, tidier design and a general clean-up of the memory controller and back-end when compared to other mainstream Radeon models powered by the first-generation Tahiti architecture.
Date Issued: 02/09/2014
AMD's Radeon Rx 2xx series of graphics cards is primarily constructed from rebranded HD 7000 products, and only the R9 295X2, R9 290X and R9 290 are based on a new GPU family known as Hawaii. There are a couple of new Rx 2xx models that have no direct predecessors in the HD 7000 series and are based on slight modifications to existing GPU designs. The GPUs we are referring to are the R7 260, based on Bonaire design, and the R9 270, based on AMD's Curacao architecture.
Date Issued: 18/06/2014
During March 2014, Nvidia revitalised its mobile GeForce product stack by introducing seven new 800M-series GPUs. Intended for ultra-thin notebooks all the way through to desktop-replacement machines, these new GPUs replace older 700M-class parts that shipped throughout 2013.
Date Issued: 28/05/2014
Not contempt for its fastest consumer graphics card to be the GeForce GTX Titan Black, Nvidia has today gone ahead and unleashed the GeForce GTX Titan Z. Forged from a pair of GTX Titan Black GPUs this single-card solution is Nvidia's most advanced graphics card to date.
Date Issued: 09/04/2014
Generational improvements in GPU performance can often be highly impressive, just consider the transition from Nvidia's GeForce GTX 580 to GTX 680, or AMD's Radeon HD 6970 to HD 7970. However, the largest jumps in GPU performance occur when AMD or Nvidia release dual-GPU monstrosities.
Date Issued: 18/02/2014
After much speculation Nvidia's Maxwell architecture has finally arrived with the launch of two mainstream GPUs - the GeForce GTX 750 and GTX 750 Ti. Designed to drive a solid 1080p (1,920 x 1,080) gaming experience the new Maxwell-based GTX 750 and GTX 750 Ti cost a middling $119 and $149, respectively. Let's take a dive into the building blocks of the new GTX 750 Ti and see what makes it tick.
Date Issued: 13/02/2014
Launches of new AMD graphics cards have come thick and fast since the company unveiled its new R7 and R9-series nomenclature in October 2013. In the hugely competitive $90-$200 price range AMD already has six offerings. The addition of AMD's newest product, the R7 265, takes that number to seven, the bulk of which are based on rebranded HD 7000-series products.
Date Issued: 07/11/2013
The GeForce GTX 780 Ti is the fastest card ever built by Nvidia. Looking ahead, it's highly unlikely that Nvidia will release a faster reference GPU based on the present Kepler architecture.
Date Issued: 24/10/2013
AMD launched a number of new graphics cards a couple of weeks back. But examining the details showed that the R9 280X, R9 270X, and R7 260X - the three headline GPUs - were largely rebrands of older technology. Countering a lack of genuine GPU advancement, AMD's attractive pricing makes the new cards reasonably compelling propositions.
Date Issued: 08/10/2013
Announced on September 26, AMD has come back swinging with gusto. Six Radeon GPUs have been unveiled, providing much-needed impetus to partners, and AMD has seen fit to change the naming convention along the way. Quite a mouthful, the Radeon R9 290X, R9 290, R9 280X, R9 270X, R7 260X, and R7 250 cards are busy being packed into containers destined for your favourite retailers.
Date Issued: 25/06/2013
Nvidia rolls out yet another 7-series GPU today, making hay while arch-rival AMD wrestles with what to do next. This new card is the GeForce GTX 760 and it takes many design cues from the presently-available GTX 670 and GTX 660 Ti GPUs
Date Issued: 30/05/2013
Nvidia has tempted the moneyed enthusiast by launching two ultra-high-end cards this year. We first saw the Titan in February, followed by the GTX 780 just last week.
Date Issued: 23/05/2013
Though we were impressed with just how much performance Nvidia squeezed out of a small die known as GK104, the proper enthusiast wanted the chip company to bring a genuine high-end part to the gaming market. Suitably emboldened with the success of Kepler cards and their ability to hamstring arch-rival AMD's Radeon pricing, Nvidia decided to think big, really big, and teased a Tesla K20X workstation GPU into the card that, just recently, became the GeForce GTX Titan.
Date Issued: 27/03/2013
Software developers maximise profits by producing popular computer games for consoles and the PC. It is relatively straightforward to optimise games for consoles because the specification is fixed; the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 have been around for more than six years and developers understand how to tease the most out of the underlying hardware.
Date Issued: 26/03/2013
The recent introduction of mainstream graphics processors has brought PC gaming into sharper focus. £100-£150 cutting-edge GPUs provide reasonable 1080p performance in today's latest games, while in-game visual quality is, quite rightly, far superior than that achievable on the years-old PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles.
Date Issued: 19/02/2013
Nvidia is on a never-ending mission to produce the world's fastest single-GPU graphics card. It already has the GeForce GTX 680 in its arsenal, but it now wants to pull out ahead of the competition with something new and unexpected.
Date Issued: 09/10/2012
NVIDIA is today releasing the GeForce GTX 650 Ti graphics card. It is designed to offer a solid gaming experience at a full-HD, 1,920x1,080 resolution that is common on most LCD monitors.
Date Issued: 13/09/2012
NVIDIA has given its consumer graphics card range a complete makeover in 2012 with the launch of the GeForce GTX 680, GeForce GTX 670 and GeForce GTX 660 Ti.
Date Issued: 16/08/2012
The GeForce GTX 660 Ti should definitely be on your shortlist if you're in the market for a cool, quiet, power-efficient card that can handle the games of today and tomorrow.
Date Issued: 10/05/2012
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.
Date Issued: 03/05/2012
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
Date Issued: 26/03/2012
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.
Date Issued: 05/03/2012
AMD announce the Radeon HD 7870 and HD 7850 graphics cards
Date Issued: 16/02/2012
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.
Date Issued: 01/02/2012
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).
Date Issued: 28/12/2011
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.
Date Issued: 05/12/2011
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.
Date Issued: 14/07/2011
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.
Date Issued: 18/04/2011
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.
Date Issued: 28/03/2011
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.
Date Issued: 15/03/2011
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.
Date Issued: 15/03/2011
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
Date Issued: 27/01/2011
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.
Date Issued: 15/12/2010
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.
Date Issued: 15/12/2010
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.
Date Issued: 09/11/2010
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.
Date Issued: 26/10/2010
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.
Date Issued: 19/07/2010
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.
Date Issued: 04/06/2010
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.
Date Issued: 26/03/2010
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.
Date Issued: 03/03/2010
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.
Date Issued: 20/07/2009
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.
Date Issued: 23/02/2009
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.
Date Issued: 05/12/2008
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.
Date Issued: 22/10/2008
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.
Date Issued: 21/10/2008
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.
Date Issued: 20/10/2008
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.
Date Issued: 20/10/2008
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.
Date Issued: 20/10/2008
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.
Date Issued: 20/10/2008
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.
Date Issued: 20/10/2008
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.
Date Issued: 20/10/2008
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.
Date Issued: 25/06/2008
This TekSpek explains DirectX 10, which graphics cards support it, how they work and what the consumer’s choices are.