GIGABYTE GeForce 560 Ti Super Overclocked

With the recent launches of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti and the HD 6950 1GB cards the so-called “Sweet Spot” of the high-end video card market has changed again.  The video card market has always been defined by the highest end cards such as the GeForce GTX 580 and HD 6970 and a mainstream of around $200 and below. But there is a middle ground for those wanting high performance and pricing in the middle of these two levels, that both AMD and NVIDIA call the “Sweet Spot” above $200 and below $300.

NVIDIA and AMD fight this space very hard as noticed by the simultaneous launch of competing video cards at this price point. AMD had planned on launching their HD 6950 1GB card sometime in February but launched it early to compete against NVIDIA’s card in this price point. The GeForce GTX 560 Ti lies in between the HD 6950 1GB and the HD 6870 in performance and pricing. Several NVIDIA partners have also released overclocked versions of the GTX 560

GIGABYTE was one of the first manufacturers to announce that they had taken the extraordinary step of releasing a “Super Overclocked” version of the GeForce GTX 560 Ti card. By SOC they mean 1GHz for the core clock, the first NVIDIA based video card to be released at that clock speed. Today’s review is of the highly anticipated GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 560 Ti SuperOverclock series card from GIGABYTE. It is the second video card on the market with a 1GHz clock speed.

AMD Radeon HD 6790 Benchmarks Leaked

AMD Radeon HD 6790

AMD’s yet unreleased Radeon HD 6790 graphics card and now the last piece of the puzzle has made its appearance as some early benchmarks of the card just made their way to the Web together with its price.However, a user of the XtremeSystems forum managed to save a couple of the images detailing the results of the card right before the review was removed, so now we know how the HD 6790 performs against the rest of the AMD and Nvidia midrange solutions.
Judging by these results it becomes apparent that, at least in Crysis, the card easily surpasses Nvidia’s GTX 550 Ti and winds up somewhere in between the 768MB version of the GTX 460 and the 1GB version of the same video card.
As far as power consumption is concerned, the HD 6790 seems to be on par with the 1GB GTX 460 in Metro 2033 although it uses 12W more than its Nvidia counterpart while idle in the Windows desktop.
When compared with AMD’s solution, the power consumption is right between that of the HD 6850 and HD 6870 in load even when the card is overclocked.  This seems to suggest that the Radeon HD 6790 isn’t as power hungry as everyone initially thought, although it definitely isn’t the most energy efficient solution in AMD’s arsenal.
As previous reports have detailed, the HD 6790 is based on a cut down version of the Barts core, dubbed Barts LE, and packs 800 stream processors, 40 texturing units, 32 ROP units and a 256-bit memory bus that connects to 1GB of GDDR5 memory.
The Radeon HD 6790 will be officially launched by AMD on April 5, and according to the same review its price is set at $149 USD, just as the Nvidia GTX 550 Ti.

ASUS GeForce GTX 590 3GB Video Card Review

We all knew that NVIDIA had been working on putting two Fermi GPUs on a single graphics card for some time and, to be honest, it has to be tough to put that much GPU on a single card. NVIDIA found a way to take over 2200 components and get them assembled together on a single PCB to create their new flagship GPU called the GeForce GTX 590. The GTX 590 combines the power of two GF110 GPUs, the same GPUs used on the GeForce GTX 580, on a single graphics card. With a total of two GF110 GPUs packing 1024 CUDA cores and 3GB of GDDR5 memory you know this card isn't going to be cheap. The suggested retail price of the GeForce GTX 590 is $699.99, but for that you will get the ultimate GeForce GTX gaming experience and the ability to run Quad-SLI on just two cards.

NVIDIA's marketing department sent over a nice looking 5.56mm military ammo crate to celebrate the launch of the GeForce GTX 590.  We also got a custom made dog tag that said '1st Division GTX590 Squadron' on it along with a marketing kit on a dog tag USB drive.  It looks like we are going to war sans the bullets and the video card!

ASUS ENGTX550 Ti DC TOP/DI/1GD5

Overview
Top-selected and Extreme overclocked
Factory overclocked to performs at an incredible 975MHz, 75MHz faster than stock performance, resulting in higher frame rates in games.

DirectCU
Precision mounted DirectCU copper heatpipes in direct contact with the GPU for rapid heat dissipation – creating 20%* cooler and quiet performamce in idle.

ASUS Smart Doctor
Your intelligent hardware protection and powerful overclocking tool

Super Alloy PowerSuper
Alloy Power technology uses special alloy formula in critical power delivery components for a 15% performance boost, 35°C cooler operation and 2.5 times longer lifespan.

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AMD Radeon™ HD 6950 Graphics

AMD Radeon™ HD 6950 GPU Feature Summary

• Up to 800MHz Engine Clock
• 2GB GDDR5 Memory
• 1250MHz Memory Clock (5.0 Gbps GDDR5)
• 160 GB/s memory bandwidth (maximum)
• 2.25 TFLOPs Single Precision compute power
• 562.5 GFLOPs Double Precision compute power
• Double slot form factor
• TeraScale 3 Unified Processing Architecture
  • 1408 Stream Processors
  • 88 Texture Units
  • 128 Z/Stencil ROP Units
  • 32 Color ROP Units
• High Speed 256-bit GDDR5 memory interface
• PCI Express 2.1 x16 bus interface
• “Eye-Definition” graphics
  • New and advanced architecture
    • Full DirectX® 11 support
    • Scalable geometry processing technology
    • Shader Model 5.0
    • DirectCompute 11
    • Dual advanced programmable hardware tessellation units
    • Accelerated multi-threading
    • HDR texture compression
    • Order-independent transparency
  • OpenGL 4.1 support
  • Image quality enhancement technology
    • Up to 24x multi-sample and super-sample anti-aliasing modes
    • Adaptive anti-aliasing
    • Enhanced Quality Anti-Aliasing (EQAA)
    • Morphological Anti-Aliasing (MLAA)
    • 16x angle independent anisotropic texture filtering
    • 128-bit floating point HDR rendering
       

AMD Radeon™ HD 6990 Graphics

• Harnessing the incredible power of dual second-generation DirectX® 11-capable GPUs, the AMD Radeon HD™ 6990 is quite simply the fastest graphics card in the world.⁶
• Featuring 4GB of high-speed GDDR5 memory, the AMD Radeon™ HD 6990 is the definitive solution for ultra-high resolution gaming across up to six simultaneous displays.¹
• Break barriers. Crush records. Flip the Unlocking Switch and take your AMD Radeon™ HD 6990 beyond the bleeding edge.⁸
• Higher clocks. Faster gaming. Devastatingly intelligent power management. That’s AMD PowerTune technology on the AMD Radeon™ HD 6990.⁷

MSI GX680 Gaming Laptop Unleash superior power and mobility

MSI GX680 Gaming Laptop

MSI is rolling out its new generation GX680 notebook computer featuring the Intel® second generation Core™ i7 quad core processor, the high-end nVidia GeForce GT 555M discrete graphics card, 4 DDR3 memory slots, accelerated dual hard disk architecture, and ultimate smart wrap around sound experience courtesy of Dynaudio, THX TruStudio Pro.

Taipei—Clumsy desktop PCs are out and notebooks are in. MSI has unveiled the new generation GX680 NB featuring Intel's second generation Core™ i7 quad core processor, the DirectX 11-supporting nVidia GeForce GT 555M discrete graphics card, four DDR3 memory slots, and accelerated dual hard disk architecture, packing the punch of a desktop PC into a highly portable laptop.

Eric Kuo, associate vice president for global sales, MSI Notebook, notes that the GX680 notebook computer boasts superior performance and the best wrap around sound available. MSI worked closely with Dynaudio to determine ideal speaker locations to obtain obstruction-free sound transmission. What's more, new generation GX680 features cinema-grade THX TruStudio Pro smart wrap around sound, so regardless of the kind of music you play, it's faithfully reproduced.

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Lightning Strikes Twice!! MSI Launches N580GTX Lightning and R6970 Lightning

MSI N580GTX

These cards are specifically designed to handle the extreme overclocking which eager gamers and media outlets around the world have been waiting for. Industry-leading Power4 architecture and Twin Frozr III dual-fan cooling with innovative Propeller Blade technology brings together a solid power supply with advanced cooling technology. This results in huge boosts to overclocking potential and stability, enabling the air-cooled N580GTX Lightning to break the 1GHz core clock barrier with ease. The Lightning series of graphic cards is designed to offer the ultimate in overclocking capabilities and is the superior choice for overclocking enthusiasts seeking to set new world records!