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The new 8970M has 1280 stream processors running at 850MHz.

AMD has unveiled the latest addition to its laptop graphics series, in the shape of the AMD Radeon HD 8900M series.

The new range currently consists of only one card – the top of the line HD 8970M. This boasts a whopping 1280 stream processors, which is double that of the next step down in the 8000 series, the 8800M, which has only 640 stream processors.

As with the rest of the 8000 series, the new chip uses AMD’s GCN architecture and features full DirectX 11.1 support.

Due to its power output, the 8970M will only likely find its way into the bulkiest of laptops. One such model that has already been announced is the MSI GX70, a 17in model with a Full HD screen, quad-core AMD A10 APU, Eyefinity support and a keyboard designed by Steel Series.

According to figures supplied by AMD, the new chip will be some 42% faster than the Nvidia GTX 680M in Bioshock Infinite (1,920 x 1,080, 0xAA, 0xAF, ultra detail) and 12% faster in Crysis 3 (1,920 x 1,080, 0xAA, 0xAF). The company didn’t supply comparison figures for Nvidia’s latest 700M range of mobile graphics processors but boldly claims it as being “the world’s fastest notebook GPU”.

AMD 8970M Specs
The 8970M completes AMD’s lineup of 8×00 series mobile graphics cards, which start with the 8500M, which features 384 stream processors, and continues with the 8700M (384 stream processors with faster clock speeds all round) and 8800M (640 stream processors). The full specs of the range are shown below.

Click to enlarge
As with previous mobile AMD graphics solutions, these chips can work together with the integrated GPU on the company’s APUs to boost performance, though the advantage would be minimum on a processor as powerful as the 8970M.

Although AMD hasn’t pinned down exact launch dates for products featuring the new chip, we can expect to start seeing them around Q3.

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Tiny was March’s Mod of the Month winner. It uses a mini-ITX motherboard and a custom-made metal case.

The votes are in, the counting’s done and now it’s time to reveal the winner of Bit-Tech Mod of the Month March 2013.

With everything from desk mods to wooden egg-shaped cases, this month had plenty of variety but picking up the plaudits is forum user Floyd with his project, Tiny.

This mini-ITX scratchbuild got the most votes thanks to its impressively tidy metalwork, clever use of space, great paint job and – true to its name – its tiny size.

Inside, Floyd used a Zotac mini-ITX motherboard equipped with a venerable Core 2 Q6600, and even managed to squeeze a GeForce GTX 260 in for good measure.

You can check out the full project log here. We’ll leave you with some of the latest photos from the project, which has unfortunately come to a bit of a halt due to hardware failure.

Oh the joys of modding…

The next edition of Mod of the Month is right around the corner so watch this space.

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Fierce PC Prodigy GT Review

Manufacturer: Fierce PC
UK Price (as reviewed): £1,134.79 (inc VAT)
US Price as reviewed): N/A

Despite its shortcomings, namely slightly wobbly FiberFlex feet, BitFenix’s Prodigy (check out our review of it here) is proving to be pretty popular choice for those wanting to compact but powerful PC. BitFenix has since released it in a variety of colours too, meaning it’s pretty easy to build and own a distinctive looking PC. The case is also making waves with system builders too and Fierce PC has sent us its Prodigy GT overclocked system to take a look at.

Fierce PC has chosen the white variant of BitFenix’s case – colour is nearly as subjective as the overall shape of the case itself but if you like super-clean looking cases, then a white Prodigy will probably score highly in your books. It’s the first time we’ve seen an alternate colour Prodigy and we have to say we’re pretty impressed with the paint finish.

You have the option of a black or white case and Fierce PC’s website also offers the usual array of options allowing you to tweak your system quite extensively. Our sample retails for £1,135 including a copy of Windows 8 – thankfully you can ‘downgrade’ to Windows 7 and pick and chose pretty much any component, although being a high-end pre-overclocked gaming PC you’ve only got the option of a Core i5-3570K or Core i7-3770K CPU (both overclocked to 4.2GHz). However, you can select from a range of SSDs, power supplies and graphics cards – all the way from an Nvidia GeForce GTX 650 2GB to a GeForce GTX 680 2GB.

Our sample sports 8GB of RAM, a Zotac GeForce GTX 670 2GB and the 4.2GHz Core i5-3570K option. This is cooled by Thermaltake’s Water 2.0 Performer all-in-one liquid cooler. This has a single 120mm-fan radiator, which sports two fans and exhausts air from the case, while a single 120mm fan acts as in intake at the front of the Prodigy case.

To make way for the hefty graphics card in such a small case, Fierce PC has done away with the middle 3.5in hard disk caddie. However it still comes with a 1TB Seagate Barracuda hard disk for bulk storage and a Kingston HyperX 240GB SATA 6Gbps SSD located behind the side panel for the boot drive, to keep things nice and speedy.

Fierce PC has opted for a 650W Fractal Design Integra 80+ Bronze PSU. There’s a DVD Re-writer (upgradeable to blu-ray for £20) but no discrete sound card due to the mini-ITX motherboard only having one PCI-Express slot, which is occupied buy the graphics card. So, using either the motherboard’s onboard sound or a USB sound card will be the way forward.

Finally, the motherboard of choice is Gigabyte’s GA-Z77N-WiFi. It’s a cheaper model than Asus and ASRock’s current Z77 mini-ITX offerings and does have the limitation of no vcore control, meaning overclocking will be fairly limited. Even so, a 4.2GHz overclock is nothing to be sniffed at. The motherboard also sports built-in WiFi, a total of four USB ports (two via on board header and two at the rear) as well as dual Gigabit LAN ports.

Specifications

• CPU Intel Core i5-3570K overclocked to 4.2GHz
• Motherboard Gigabyte GA-Z77N-WiFi
• RAM 8GB 1,600MHz Kingston HyperX
• Graphics card Zotac GeForce GTX 670 2GB
• Case BitFenix Prodigy
• CPU Cooler Thermaltake Water 2.0 Performer
• Storage 1TB Seagate Barracuda, 240GB Kingston HyperX SSD, DVD Rewriter
• Operating system Windows 8 Pro
• Warranty Two years Return To Base

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Nvidia’s profit margins have hit a record high, thanks to growth in its high-end GPU and GPGPU products helping to shore up a slowdown in Tegra business.

Nvidia has bucked the current PC market slowdown, posting boosted profits compared to the same time last year thanks to strong sales of its high-end Kepler-based GPU products.

According to the company’s quarterly filing report, the company made an impressive $954.7 million in the first quarter of its financial year 2014 – and while that’s down a disappointing 13.7 per cent compared to the last quarter of FY13, when the company took in a whopping $1.11 billion, it represents a 3.2 per cent gain on the same period last year. With other PC-related companies complaining of slowing sales and tight margins, that’s not too shabby at all – and comes at the very top of the company’s previous projections.

‘Our results this quarter came in at the upper end of our guidance, driven by strong sales of higher-end GPU products for PC gaming,‘ explained Nvidia’s Rob Csongor, vice president of investor relations, during the company’s conference call late last night. ‘We made good progress on our key strategies as the Kepler GPU architecture, which delivers outstanding performance and energy efficiency drove strong GeForce demand with PC gamers and began to flow through our Quadro and Tesla businesses in new products.‘

Keplar on the rise
Increased uptake of high-priced Kepler boards, especially in the workstation market, have seen the company’s margins rise to a record 54 per cent – 1.4 points up on the last quarter, and 4.2 per cent year-on-year. ‘There are always puts and takes but this improvement reflects our richer mix of higher margin products as well as the underlying value of our GPUs in the marketplace and our focus on cost,‘ claimed Burns. ‘For Q2, we expect margins to remain within the same 54% range as Q1 with a high mix of our higher margin products.‘

Another major win for the company has been uptake of GeForce Grid, the company’s GPU-powered cloud computing platform, and its closely-aligned workstation-centric Grid Visual Computing Appliance (VCA). ‘In the short time since we began taking Grid to market this quarter, we’ve engaged over 100 Grid VGX and Grid VCA trial customers and signed many of the top Adobe, Autodesk and SolidWorks resellers to take Grid VCA to market,‘ claimed Csongor. ‘We believe Grid VCA represent a potential $3 billion market opportunity.‘

Discussing the slowing PC market and growth of tablets, Nvidia’s co-founder, chief executive and president Jen-Hsun Huang was bullish on his company’s future in the discrete GPU market. ‘ People who build high-end gaming PCs, and people who are enthusiasts, and who enjoy having the most performance on the desktop, or people who are building these PCs for their own video editing hobbies, or the maker people who are designing 3D objects and then printing it at home, they print their own jewellery, they print their own, I don’t know what, telephones: they need to be designing 3D somehow, and those PCs tend to have GPUs inside,‘ explained Huang. ‘And that’s a movement that’s really growing fast. So, I would say that desktop PC market that we target, that we serve, is quite a vibrant market.‘

An admission from Huang of just how high the margins on his company’s enterprise-grade products are – the Grid family and the Tesla GPGPU accelerator boards – provides a glimpse as to the headline-grabbing 54 per cent profit margin: ‘Grid and Tesla are much higher than 54 per cent,‘ Huang explained, ‘[while] Tegra is lower than 54 per cent. Whenever our gaming business improves, it helps gross margins. Whenever GTX improves, it helps gross margins. When Tesla grows, it helps gross margins. Notebooks obviously drag the gross margins down, because they tend to be a more competitive business. Low-end desktop PC business tends to drag gross margins, but that’s not a very large business [for Nvidia] anyhow.‘

‘You know, the PC market declined 10 per cent quarter-over-quarter, but we declined only 6 per cent quarter-over-quarter,’‘ added Csongor. ‘That difference comes from growth in the non-commodity PC space. Non-commodity PC space will tend to be Tesla and Quadro and GTX, and those growths are always good for us and that helps gross margins. That’s also where we are putting most of our energy. Most of our energy related to GPGPU, related to extending our GPU beyond the PC into our datacentres and servers all the work that has led to the announcement of Cisco, and IBM, and Dell and HP launching their GPU servers, all of that kind of growth is good and I think we are just gearing up for Grid becoming a larger and larger component of our business – and that’s good for our margins.‘

Tough time for Tegra
But what of Tegra, the company’s ARM-powered system-on-chip product? Back in November, the company claimed that a large proportion of its growth was coming from non-PC products, meaning Tegra and its related chipsets. Well, things appear to be slowing down a little on that front – the company has reported a 50.5 per cent dip in revenue sequentially, and 22.2 per cent year-on-year – likely as a result of increased competition from the like of Qualcomm’s popular Snapdragon family and as the market waits for the first Tegra 4 products to hit shop shelves – due, Csongor claimed, during the next financial quarter.

‘Sales volume of Tegra 3 processors declined as customers began to ramp down production of Tegra 3 base mark phones and tablets,‘ admitted Karen Burns, the company’s interim chief financial officer and vice president, during the call. ‘We expect this to continue in to the next quarter as customers start to announce Tegra 4 design with further new designs and phone ramp starting in the second half of the year.‘

Beyond a commitment to launch Tegra 4 into the market – or at least have some of its customers announce devices powered by the chip, and its Tegra 4i LTE-modem integrated variant – by the end of the next quarter, Nvidia was silent on impending product launches, except to say that it expects an uptick in sales when Intel launches its Haswell processor family at Computex in June.

For those who like full figures: the company’s Generally Accepted Accounting Practices (GAAP) revenue for the quarter was $954.7 million on a gross margin of 54.3 per cent. With operating expenses for the quarter totalling $435.8 million, that makes for a total net profit for the quarter of $77.9 million – or $0.13 per share. Investors appear to have taken the news cautiously: despite hitting the top end of its projections, Nvidia’s stock price is steady having climbed just 1.01 per cent in after-hours trading.

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Zeus Edition by Ronnie Hara

Project log: Here

Few cases have stood the test of time better than Cooler Master’s Cosmos S. Its racy lines, sweeping curves and good size have meant that it’s popular among a whole range of enthusiasts. It’s modding and water-cooling friendly and while we’ve probably seen hundreds of Cosmos-based case mod projects since its release in 2008, we never get tired of them.

Of course for part of that reason we need to give credit to the modding community for coming up with fresh idea after fresh idea with acrylic, metal plating, epic paint jobs and water cooling all thrown into the mix. The latest Cosmos S project to catch our eye is Zeus Edition by Japan-based modder Ronnie Hara. Ronnie has been kind enough to talk to bit-tech about his latest project, and if you like water cooling, you’re in for a treat. It’s over to Ronnie…

My name is Ronnie Hara, and I’m 35 years old. I am Brazilian and I have lived in Japan for about 18 years. My first contact with case modding happened four years ago, when I tried to improve the look of my older brother’s computer, with only minor changes in the interior. I replaced some fans and organized the cables.

click to enlarge

Over time, I began to like case modding. Today I can say that case modding is my favourite hobby and a reason for many sleepless nights. I’m crazy about case modding! In all my projects, I carefully choose all the components I will use.

It all starts with a small idea and from there I try to find the best components for assembling what I consider perfect project. I always try to create harmony between colours, hardware and organization. I have the habit of visiting many stores in order to get pieces that I would use in my works. I always look for miscellaneous items, so I can innovate and add something new or different in each assembly.

For many hours I analyse the project, always looking to do my best and get a satisfactory result. Throughout these four years, I created some machines and in May 2011 I won the Rig of the Month at Guru3D site. Today I want to show my latest work finished just a while ago. In my project I used components from another case that I built.

Those who have seen my work should know that the color scheme used in the project below is not new. I think that first project was an inspiration for the next one and I will describe my work below.

My idea for this project was to do something that could really bring the image of a powerful machine like a supreme god. I chose Zeus, which for many is the god of gods, and in Greek mythology the god of sky and thunder. No one better than Zeus could represent the project I had in mind and that I would work on for the coming months.

From the name, I started looking for a cabinet that had a different style, where I could really innovate and create something that is hard to find anywhere. Then one day while visiting some used hardware stores here in Japan, I found a case from Cooler Master, model Cosmos S.

Besides liking many cases from Cooler Master (in particular the Cosmos series), using a case like this in my new project represented something special to me, since I won the aforementioned competition with the “brother” of the Cosmos S, the Cosmos Pure. I did not hesitate to buy this cabinet.

From there, I spent some weeks choosing which pattern of colours I would adopt since I was already pleased with the hardware and performance. Besides enjoying assembling computers, I’m a games lover too. Well, here are some details that I think are relevant to my Zeus project. I leave the configuration specs below along with list of materials I used.

Components:

• Case: Cooler Master Cosmos S
• MotherboardO: Asus p67 sabertooh
• CPU: Core i7 2600K Sandy Bridge 4.6Ghz
• RAM: Corsair Vengeance 1866MHz 8G
• GPU: 2 x Palit GTx 580
• HDD: WD Black 1 Tera
• SSD: OCZ Agility 2 x 3 60GB
• PSU: OCZ 1000W

Cooling:

• EK CPU Block
• EK GPU Block
• EK Backplate for 2x Palit GTX 580
• EK Radiator 360mm, 240 mm
• Reservoir EK 100, 250 X2 Advanced
• EK Fittings Extender
• Bitspower Flowmeter
• Bitspower Matte Black Multi-Link Adapter
• Bitspower Crystal Link Tube
• Alphacool VPP655 Bitspower Pump With Mod
• MNPCTECH Overkill “Ring” 120mm Fan Grill
• 7 x Corsair Fan SP 120
  Coolant Primochill Gold

With the materials chosen, it was time to start working on the project. As I mentioned before, part of the materials used in this project are for customizing cars. As for the colour, I chose a golden colour from a spray paint used to paint car rims. The sticker colours were chosen to be the closest match to the spray paint. The fans were also chosen from Corsair’s SP line because there was the possibility to customize their edges, which is something different than what we normally see.

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April 2013 Bit-tech Modding Update

It’s only April but we’ve already seen some fantastic projects completed this year, and over the next few pages we’ll be showcasing a few of the finest, with prizes up for grabs for the pick of the bunch.

Before that, elsewhere on bit-tech, our Raspberry Pi case competition is drawing to a close, so if you’d still like to enter you better be quick about it.

We’ve also got even more projects in our modding databases. The Case Mod Index – our database of case mods, now has well over 100 projects, all filtered by case manufacturer and model so you can see what others have done with a particular case and whether they’ve water-cooled it too. Our Scratchbuild Index now has dozens of projects, all filtered by materials used, motherboard size and case type. They’re great ways of finding some inspiration for your new projects.

UK modding and watercooling etailer Specialtech is offering a Xigmatek Aeigir CPU cooler every month and we’ll be shipping the prize worldwide so everyone can enter. To be in with a chance of winning, just submit your project below.

The winner for January (yes, this latest update has taken us a while) is Paul Giles – aka Wejjy – who recently submitted the first Bit Fenix Prodigy to our Case Mod Index.

How to submit Case Mods

If you’re submitting a case mod (modified case), it must be complete with noticeable modifications (these can include spray paint/powder-coat or installed water-cooling hardware.) To submit your case mod you’ll need to include the following information:

How to submit case mods

• Your forum user name
• Case (make and model)
• URL to your project log (which must be in bit-tech’s project log forum)
• Project name
• Is your PC water-cooled?

How to submit Scratchbuilds

• Forum user name
• Motherboard size – ATX, micro-ATX, mini ITX, other
• Case type – tower/cube/desk/HTPC/other
• Primary material – acrylic/metal/wood/composite/other or mixed
• URL to your project log (which must be in bit-tech’s project log forum)
• Is your PC water-cooled? Y/N

Email your submissions to modding@bit-tech.net with ‘Submit My Project’ in the subject line.

Case Mod Index Stats for April:

Number of projects: 111
Top three case manufacturers: Cooler Master (24), Lian Li (21), SilverStone (13)
Top three popular cases: Silver Stone TJ-07 (7), Cooler Master ATCS 840 (5), Corsair Graphite 600T (4)

Moving on to this month’s eye-candy and we’ve got some great stuff to show you. First up is one of the first BitFenix Prodigy case mods to be added to the Case Mod Index. The aptly-named Mirror by Lithuania modder ArtX38 features a custom windowed side panel that’s reflective until it’s lit from within.

He’s managed to fit a huge Phobya Balancer 250 Black Nickel reservoir inside that we can just see glowing with some familiar Mayhems Aurora coolant. ArtX38 opted for a Koolance 240mm 30-FPI Copper radiator and Laing DDC pump and had managed to water-cool his EVGA GeForce GTX 670 2GB and the chipset on his Gigabyte GA-Z77N-WIFI mini-ITX motherboard.

To see more head over to the project log here

Head over the page to see more eye-candy.

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Introduction

While a 750W power supply is overkill for the average home computer, it’s a reasonable capacity to opt for if you’re touting more enthusiast level hardware. A rig with a fast Ivy Bridge CPU and a pair of Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 2GBs or AMD Radeon HD 7970 3GBs would be well suited to a 750W model, for example. Thus, while we wouldn’t recommend a 750W PSU for every new build, if you have an eye on adding a second powerful GPU to your set-up in the future, it’s useful to have this type of capacity.

Choosing the right wattage for your PSU isn’t the end of the story, however, as there are other factors to consider. Primarily, your power supply needs to be able to supply voltage to your hardware as stably as possible to avoid damaging it, and you want it to run as efficiently as possible too to save you money in the long run. Other things to consider are its noise output and the number and type of connections it has.

With these things in mind, we bring you our latest PSU round-up, featuring eight power supplies, each from a different manufacturer, that are rated at or around the 750W mark. There’s about an £80 difference between the cheapest and most expensive models, so plenty of price points are covered, and as it’s been a while since our last round-up, we’re using a new testing methodology too.

Click to enlarge

How We Test

A PSU’s ability to supply stable voltages across its rails, even under heavy load, is its most important asset. It sounds simple, but cheaper and poorly made PSUs often miss the mark, especially under heavier loads. Unstable voltages can cause your hardware to exhibit instabilities or even to become damaged, so the closer they are to what they should be, the better.

Intel’s desktop PSU design guidelines specify the physical and electrical characteristics that ATX PSUs are required (in theory, at least) to adhere to. It states there can be a maximum of 5 percent variation above or below the nominal voltage on the +12V, +5V and +3.3V rails. These are the rails we test, as they’re the most relevant to modern systems. The +12V rail is tested using Stratron 3229 load generators, while the lower voltage ones are tested with on a Stratron 3227.

Beginning at 200W of load, we test each PSU in 100W increments recording the output voltages on each rail at every step, thus measuring a PSU’s capability to provide stable voltages across various workloads. For the all important +12V rail, we take two measurements. 12V1 is the PSU’s +12V connection with the lowest reading for each test setting, while 12V2 refers to the connection with the highest. As voltage output falls under heavier loads, 12V1 is the more crucial of the two.

We also use a Zes Zimmer LMG95 power meter to determine how much AC power a PSU draws from the grid to output the appropriate DC power level. From this we calculate efficiency at each step, as well as an overall average efficiency. Efficiency is important not just because wasted energy is bad for your wallet and the environment, but because it’s dissipated as heat which can reduce the lifespan and effectiveness of your components. Intel specifies that PSUs must be at least 70 percent efficient under full load, but 80 percent is recommended. We also use our power meter to test leakage levels by leaving the PSU on under no load.

The power supplied to each PSU in testing is 230V AC, the same as UK household mains electricity. It should also be noted that at each load interval, we draw 50W of power across each of the +3.3V and +5V rails, using the +12V rail to draw the remainder. This is different to the 80 Plus initiative’s test protocols, whereby rails are loaded proportionally based on their individual rated DC output current. However, we’re not testing whether each PSU deserves its 80 Plus rating, and our procedure still reflects the marginal role played by the lower voltage rails in today’s systems.

For each load scenario, we also carry out a ripple test on the +12V line with an EasySync DS1M12 oscilloscope. Ripple refers to the tiny fluctuations in the output voltage of a power supply: an unavoidable result of converting AC to DC. A PSU’s ability to suppress ripple is important, as high levels can damage your hardware, specifically the electrolytic capacitors found on motherboards and graphics cards, and reduce your overclocking potential. The maximum ripple permitted by Intel’s specifications on the +12V rail is 120mV (peak-to-peak), but PSUs should be able to manage at least half this value to be considered excellent.

Click to enlarge
Finally, we also measure the noise output of each PSU under three different loads (100W, 300W and 500W) with a Brüel Kjær 2238 decibel meter. This is done by isolating the power supply in a sound-proof box (where noise levels are 17 dB(A)). Measurements are taken from a distance of 10cm after five minutes of operation for the low power tests, and after twenty minutes for the 500W one.

How We Score

The voltage stability tests take pride of place in the scoring box and accounts for 40 percent of each PSU’s overall score. The score is worked out as a percentage of the voltage measurements that are within the limits of Intel’s specifications. We only recommend that you buy a PSU with 100 percent stability.

The Design score factors in the average efficiency across each of the load scenarios (as well as leakage level under no load), the highest amount of ripple exhibited by the PSU and the amount of noise produced at the highest load level. As well as this, it also incorporates the number, type and quality of cables supplied with the unit. Finally, the Value score is simply a combination of the Stability and Design scores and the total rated output (in watts) divided by the price.

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PSB uses similar incompressibility and convergence to modern smoothed particle hydrodynamic (SPH) solvers.

Nvidia has unveiled its latest graphics animation enhancement in the shape of Position Based Fluids (PBF), a new realistic fluid simulation tool.

PBF builds on the long standing fluid calculation method know as Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) and simplifies it to the point it can be used for real-time animation.

The challenge with existing implementations of the method is that to get sufficient realism requires enforcing incompressibility, and to do this requires having to either calculate at a high frequency (many moments in time) or high particle count, both of which are highly computationally intensive.

“SPH is sensitive to density fluctuations from neighborhood [sic] deficiencies, and enforcing incompressibility is costly due to the unstructured nature of the model…SPH algorithms
often become unstable if particles do not have enough neighbors for accurate density estimate”

“The typical solution is to try to avoid these situations by taking sufficiently small time steps, or by using sufficiently many particles, at the cost of increased computation”

The new Nvidia method, developed by Miles Macklin and Matthias Müller-Fischer, seeks to reduce the computational cost by “formulating and solving a set of positional constraints that enforce constant density”. This method “allows similar incompressibility and convergence to modern smoothed particle hydro-dynamic (SPH) solvers, but inherits the stability of the geometric, position based dynamics method, allowing large time steps suitable for real-time applications. ” In other words, it allows for a similar effect but using fewer particles and fewer time slices.

The PhysX paper on Position Based Fluids has been accepted for presentation at SIGGRAPH (Special Interest Group on GRAPHics and Interactive Techniques) 2013.

Furthermore, Miles Macklin has confirmed that since the SIGGRAPH presentation publication he has continued refined the rendering quality and has added “features like spray and foam”.

Video of the original SIGGRAPH submission and the refined version can be seen below.

PBF follows closely on from Nvidia publishing two other real-world animation enhancements, in the shape of Faceworks and Waveworks. Aimed at reducing the computational cost of accurately depicting facial animations and ocean waves, the two methods can, along with PSB, run in real-time on a single GTX 680.

How long it will be before we see games implementing any of Faceworks, PBF or Waveworks is not yet known but we certainly can’t wait until they do.

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AMD Radeon HD 7990 6GB Review

Manufacturer: AMD
UK Price (as reviewed): MSRP £860 (inc. VAT)
US Price (as reviewed): MSRP $999 (ex. Tax)

When AMD hinted that it would be focussing on adding new SKUs to its product line-up in 2013 rather than replacing its current South Islands GPU architecture, we strongly suspected the arrival of the long awaited dual-GPU HD 7990 was on the cards. In fact, a number of AMD’s partners couldn’t wait this long; in the past we’ve already looked at Club 3D’s triple slot 7990 and the Asus Ares 2, both of which featured a pair of AMD’s top-end Tahiti XT GPUs in CrossFire on a single PCB. While those humongous, exotic-cooler equipped cards might have been AMD’s illegitimate children (to the Night’s Watch with them!), today sees the legitimisation of the 7990 SKU with an official AMD PCB, cooler design and set clock speeds.

The pair of GPUs at the heart of the 7990 are identical to that of the Tahiti XT GPU we first encountered way back in December 2011, although AMD has re-named the chips Malta for the multi-GPU SKU. This means they’re still built on the 28nm production process and South Islands architecture, with each offering the maximum of 2,048 stream processors. These are sub-divided between 32 compute units (AMD refers to them as GCNs), which are then further divided between four SIMD (single instruction, multiple data) engines of 16 stream processors each. Using the same GPU as the HD 7970 also means that each GPU boasts 32 ROPs and has access to a quartet of 64-bit memory controllers for a combined 2 x 384-bit memory interface with which to communicate with the 6GB of on-board (3GB per GPU) of GDDR5.

Put the two Malta GPUs together and you’re left with an 8.6 billion transistor 4,096 stream processor, pixel stomping beast, but AMD has made a couple of compromises to keep the heat (and power consumption) down. Whereas most HD 7970s now on sale will be the 1,050MHz core frequency GHz editions, the HD 7990’s GPUs run at 1GHz. The 7990’s 1.5GHz (6GHz effective) memory frequency matches that of the 7970 GHz Edition though, and means the card packs 2 x 288GB/sec of memory bandwidth (as with all multi-GPU cards, each GPU only has access to its own memory pool).

While the specs aren’t too unsurprising, AMD’s ability to cram both GPUs, with a 1GHz core frequency, into a dual-slot card is seriously impressive. What’s more, it requires just a pair of 8-pin PCI-E power connectors to run. In comparison, the Club 3D 7990 we looked at in December ran at a core frequency of 925MHz, required three 8-pin power connectors and used an enormous triple-slot cooler. Asus’ Ares 2 didn’t compromise on frequency, running its pair of Tahiti XTs at 1,050MHz but also needed a trio of 8-pin power connectors, not to mention a dual-waterblock water cooler to keep temperatures under control.

The official HD 7990 is a much more subtle beast (if you can call a 12in/305mm card subtle) and finished in AMD’s red and black livery looks suitably smart. The card is dominated by a trio of 80mm down-draft fans that blow air down through an enormous 8-heatpipe equipped heatsink that covers almost the entire area of the PCB. Beneath the heatsink is a further ridged aluminium plate that covers power circuitry and memory modules, with a back-plate cooling the memory modules on the cards under-side. It’s all encased in a plastic shroud that’s perforated on all sides to allow hot air to be exhausted on all sides. This will mean a significant amount of the card’s 375W TDP of heat will be deposited into your case, so needless to say decent ventilation is key. The fact that AMD has crammed a pair of its biggest GPUs onto a single PCB, dual-slot card remains a highly impressive feat though, and the engineers behind it should feel suitably pleased with themselves.

In another change from the rest of the 7-series, AMD has chosen to fit the HD 7990 with five display outputs rather than the usual four. However, it’s dropped HDMI in favour of Dual Link-DVI and a quartet of mini-DisplayPort connectors.

While its specs and existence aren’t too surprising, the HD 7990’s price may catch some off guard. When we looked at Club 3D’s model last year it was selling for around £700, whilst a pair of HD 7970 GHz Editions will currently set you back around £660. In comparison, AMD has set an asking price of £860 for the HD 7990 6GB, seeing it topple even Nvidia’s GTX Titan as the current most expensive GPU on the market. This price does include AMD’s opulent Never Settle 8-game bundle, but a £200 premium for placing two GPUs onto a single PCB goes well beyond Nvidia’s pricing of the GTX 690 last year. Can the HD 7990 justify its price tag, and earn the big gold belt of Fastest Card In The World™? Let’s hit the benchmarks and find out.

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Nvidia’s GeForce GTX Titan could be joined by two more models, a down-rated GTX Titan LE and a faster GTX Titan II.

Nvidia is rumoured to be expanding its GeForce GTX Titan family, tripling the stock-keeping units (SKUs) on offer by bracketing the existing model with a down-rated GeForce GTX Titan LE and an up-rated GeForce GTX Titan II.

According to details obtained by 3DCenter.org, Nvidia is pleased enough with the success of the high-priced Titan – or has enough of the GK110 graphics processing units (GPUs) cluttering up its warehouse, if you’re more cynical – that it plans to increase the line-up. First to launch will be a cut-down model dubbed the GeForce GTX Titan LE, to be followed by a GeForce GTX Titan II or GeForce GTX Titan Ultra.

First, the cut-down version. Using marginal chips that just didn’t make the grade for inclusion in the GeForce GTX Titan, the LE version will featuring 2,496 CUDA cores across 208 texture mapping units (TMUs) compared with the Titan’s 2,688 cores across 240 TMUs. The GK110 is further knobbled with the reduction to 40 raster operation pipelines and a 320-bit memory interface. Memory is also reduced, down to 5GB of GDDR5 from 6GB in the full-fat Titan. More pleasing is a claimed reduction in power consumption: where the GeForce GTX Titan has a peak power draw of 206W, the GeForce GTX Titan LE should sit closer to 180-190W.

For those who would prefer to go upmarket, the GeForce GTX Titan II unlocks more of the GK110′s capabilities rather than reducing it. Using specially binned parts, the board – which may launch as the GeForce GTX Titan Ultra – is claimed to include 256 TMUs and 2,880 CUDA cores along with the same 48 ROPs and 384-bit memory interface of the first Titan. Its clock speed gets an additional boost, too: the 837MHz of the original Titan is claimed to be upgraded to 950MHz in its successor – a move which ups the power draw to an estimated 220-230W.

It’s worth mentioning at this point that 3DCenter.org’s write-up of the rumours, received from an unnamed source, involves a certain amount of guesswork: “probably” and “estimated” are two of the key words to take away from its English translation. The news of 2,880 CUDA cores available on the GeForce GTX Titan II, in particular, seems high: that’s the total number of cores available on the GK110 GPU, meaning the chips would have to be absolutely perfect with zero defects – something the company has not yet managed to achieve even for its high-priced GK110-based Tesla K20X accelerator boards, which have 2,688 active CUDA cores.

The GeForce GTX Titan LE, on the other hand, seems a much more likely prospect: designed for those who can’t quite justify the top-end Titan, the Titan LE’s CUDA core count of 2,496 matches Nvidia’s GK110-based K20 accelerator board – making the Titan LE a consumer-oriented K20 in the same way as the Titan is based on the faster K20X.

Nvidia, naturally, has refused to comment on the rumours, but with 3DCenter.org’s source pointing to a summer 2013 launch for the GeForce GTX Titan LE and a late-2013/early-2014 launch for the GeForce GTX Titan II, fans of the green camp’s work shouldn’t have long to wait to find out if the rumours are true.

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