MSI today unveiled the GeForce RTX 3090 AERO, the latest in the crop of RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 graphics cards with rear-venting lateral airflow coolers, such as the ASUS RTX 3090 Turbo OC and the GIGABYTE RTX 3090 Turbo, targeting environments with restricted airflow (such as rendering farms). The MSI RTX 3090 AERO strongly resembles the reference-design of NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 480 "Fermi."

The card's blower guides air-flow laterally through an aluminium fin-channel heatsink that isn't hidden underneath a cooler shroud, but rather extends all the way out to the thickness of the card, with its top-plate having some finnage of its own. Much like the ASUS card, the MSI AERO uses two 8-pin PCIe power connectors that are located its tail-end, rather than at the top. Only half of the card's reverse side is covered by a back-plate, meant to cool the memory chips located there. The other half is bare PCB. This has been done to make it easier for an adjacent card to breathe. The card otherwise sticks to NVIDIA-reference clock-speeds for the RTX 3090. The company didn't reveal pricing.

Back in 2008, when it looked like NVIDIA owned the GPU market, and AMD seemed lagging behind on the performance and efficiency game, the company sprung a surprise. The company's RV770 silicon, the first GPU to implement GDDR5 memory, trounced NVIDIA's big and inefficient GeForce GTX 200 series, and threw AMD back in the game. GDDR5 helped the company double the memory bandwidth, with lower pin- and memory-chip counts, letting the company and its partners build graphics cards with fewer components, and earn great margins, which the company invested in development of its even better HD 5000 series, that pushed NVIDIA with its comical GeForce GTX 480, to hit its lowest ever in market-share. Could AMD be looking at a similar turnaround this summer?

Since the introduction of its Graphics CoreNext architecture in 2012, AMD has been rather laxed in its product development cycle. The company has come out with a new high-end silicon every 18-24 months, and adopted a strategy of cascading re-branding. The introduction of each new high-end silicon would relegate the existing high-end silicon to the performance segment re-branded, and the existing performance-segment silicon to mid-range, re-branded. While the company could lay out its upcoming Radeon R9 series much in the same way, with the introduction of essentially just one new silicon, "Fiji," it could just prove enough for the company. Much like RV770, "Fiji" is about to bring something that could prove to be a very big feature to the consumer graphics market, stacked high-bandwidth memory (HBM).

With its next-generation "Maxwell" GPUs on the horizon, NVIDIA is preparing plans to gradually retire the GeForce 8 series, 9 series, and 200 series from its mainline driver support model. The GPUs make up NVIDIA's DirectX 10 generation, and include some iconic models, such as the 8800 GTX, the 8800 GT, the 9600 GT, and the GTX 260. The upcoming GeForce Release 340 driver will be the last to support these GPU series alongside its newer DirectX 11 generations, such as "Fermi," "Kepler," and "Maxwell." The driver that succeeds it, R343, will drop support for the older DirectX 10 generation.

With the R340 release, the DirectX 10 generation will be market "legacy." The lot will see continued support under R340 till April 2016. Whenever there's a glaring bug or security hole to address for the older GPUs, NVIDIA may ship out an R340 version (340.xx), but the GPUs will not get planned driver updates, unlike the "current" DirectX 11 generation. Support cycles are hence different from production cycle. A GeForce GTX 480, for example, may be "EOL" (end of life) in terms of its production cycle, but is still "current" in terms of its support cycle.

The incredible tropical-paradise visuals we were treated to in trailers of FarCry 3 called for some serious hardware muscle. The studio released minimum, recommended, and high-performance system requirements lists for the upcoming AAA title. The lists are quite accommodating of today's mid-range hardware, but can be quite demanding of PCs more than 2 years old. It was also announced that the game will implement a revised Uplay DRM scheme that needs a one-time activation, and doesn't require you to stay logged-in when playing the single-player campaign.The system requirements lists follow.

Eurocom Corporation, the world's leading developer of highly personalized, high-performance notebook PCs and energy efficient All-in-One PCs, is now supporting the groundbreaking Intel Xeon Processor X5690 in its line of Mobile Server and Mobile Workstation notebooks.

The EUROCOM Mobile Server Technology significantly reduces the time and cost of deploying short-term LAN based solutions and of extending usage of existing business applications to users wherever is required. Eurocom has developed a concept called "Server-on-the-Go" where a team of Engineers in the field operating under a RED Team strategy utilize a Eurocom Mobile Server to receive and process feedback while being face-to-face with customers, co-developers, final users and other third parties.

Gigabyte made the WindForce 3X GPU cooler a standard issue for its base-model GeForce GTX 480 graphics accelerator. Featured on factory-overclocked GTX 480 graphics cards by the company, WindForce 3X is a double-slot GPU cooler that makes use of three fans to cool a large aluminum fin array that spans along the entire area of the card. The GV-N480UD-15I Revision 2.0 features this change. The initial version made of use NVIDIA's reference cooling assembly over Gigabyte's own Ultra Durable VGA blue PCB.

Quite some time after releasing the GeForce GTX 470 Super Overclock (SOC) graphics card, Gigabyte managed to design a high-performance PCB that facilitates better overclocks for the GeForce GTX 480, under a new SKU, the GV-N480SO-15I. Its most notable features include the WindForce 3X cooler, Ultra Durable VGA+ construction, and GPU Gauntlet (GPU selected out of a performance binning process). The card sports a blue PCB, and makes use of a strong VRM to support out of the box clock speeds of 820 MHz (core, vs. 700 MHz reference), and 950/3800 effective MHz (memory, vs. 924/3696 MHz).

The cooler makes use of three 90 mm fans to circulate air through a large aluminum fin array to which heat is conveyed by heat pipes and a copper plate. The PCB holds a strong 12+2 phase VRM to give the card enough juice for the clock speeds it comes with, plus keep some room for DIY overclocking. The Ultra Durable VGA+ construction gives the card high-grade components such as low-latency memory chips, 2 oz copper PCB, ferrite-core chokes, and low RDS (on) MOSFETs. The card also features two BIOS chips, which are selectable using a switch. Unlike many graphics card vendors that use a similar feature leaving one BIOS holding a high-performance profile and the other holding a failsafe reference clock profile, Gigabyte loaded both BIOS ROMs with high-performance profiles, one holding an SOC profile (with the above mentioned speeds), and another "LN2" profile perhaps holding even racier clocks and/or voltage settings, but requiring liquid-nitrogen cooling to sustain stability. Gigabyte's latest creation will release soon, priced at around 440 EUR.

Eurocom Corporation, the world's leading developer of highly personalized, high-performance notebook PCs and energy efficient All-in-One PCs, is now supporting the groundbreaking Intel Xeon X5690 Processor in its ine of Mobile Server and Mobile Workstation notebooks. The EUROCOM Mobile Server Technology significantly reduces the time and cost of deploying short-term LAN based solutions and of extending usage of existing business applications to users wherever is required.

Eurocom's Panther line of high performance Mobile Workstations and Mobile Servers will be bolstered by the introduction of the Intel XEON X5690 Processor. Eurocom Mobile Workstations and Mobile Servers are ideal for the professional who frequently travels yet needs access to high performance computing. All Eurocom systems are designed to be fully configured with many optional components to choose from to allow each customer the opportunity to customize a system to fit their needs exactly.

NVIDIA's next enthusiast-grade graphics processor, the GeForce GTX 580, based on the new GF110 silicon, is poised for at least a paper-launch by end of November, or early December, 2010. Sources in the video card industry told DigiTimes that the GTX 580 is expected to be 20% faster than the existing GeForce GTX 480. The new GPU is built on the existing 40 nm process, NVIDIA's 28 nm GPUs based on the Kepler architecture are expected to take shape only towards the end of 2011. Later this week, AMD is launching the Radeon HD 6800 series performance graphics cards, and will market-launch its next high-end GPU, codenamed "Cayman" in November.

Eurocom is the world's first notebook developer to support 24GB of memory in a notebook computer. Eurocom line of Panther Mobile Workstations and Mobile Servers is designed for maximum performance and the most demanding users. CAD/CAM designers, engineers, architects and designers who must frequently travel, yet need access to powerful computing, are the core target for Mobile workstations. With unrivaled power, unsurpassed features and unmatched style, the Mobile Workstation is the ultimate evolution of the Desktop Replacement notebook.

Eurocom Panther series is the world's first workstation-class professional super-notebook powered by the fastest desktop 6-core Intel processors and NVIDIA SLI with two GeForce GTX 480M or NVIDIA Quadro FX 5000M. Whether you're a designer developing the latest automobile, a 3D artist working on the next blockbuster film, or a financial trader on Wall Street, EUROCOM Panther series delivers unmatched power and performance for all professional workstation applications, and is ideal for the CAD (computer-aided design), CAE (computer-aided engineering), DCC (digital content creation), visualization, and corporate markets.

NVIDIA today released GeForce 260.89 driver suite. The software provides WHQL-signed drivers for all GeForce 6-series onwards, and ION platform GPUs. It also provides 3D Vision software, GPU-integrated audio device driver (version 1.1.9.0), and PhysX system software (version 9.10.0514). As with almost every new release, GeForce 260.89 WHQL packs a host of performance enhancements, official support for new GPUs (it's GeForce GT 430, this time), and a host of bug-fixes. What's different this time around is that the performance enhancements are specific to two GPUs, GeForce GTX 480 and GeForce GTX 460. SLI profiles are added for new game titles.

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 260.89 WHQL for Windows 7/Vista 64-bit, Windows 7/Vista 32-bit, Windows XP 32-bit, Windows XP 64-bit

A detailed list of changes follows.

AMD is undertaking its product development cycle at a breakneck pace, NVIDIA trailed it in the DirectX 11 and performance leadership race by months. This November, AMD will release the "Cayman" GPU, its newest high end GPU, the expectations are that it will outperform the NVIDIA GF100, that is a serious cause for concern, for the green team. It's back to its old tactics of talking about GPUs that haven't even taken shape, to try and water down AMD's launch. Enter, the GF110, NVIDIA's new high-end GPU under design, on which is based the GeForce GTX 580.

The new GPU is speculated to have 512 CUDA cores, 128 TMUs, and a 512-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface holding 2 GB of memory, with a TDP of close to that of the GeForce GTX 480. In the immediate future, there are prospects of a more realistic-sounding GF100b, which is basically GF100 with all its 512 CUDA cores enabled, while retaining its 384-bit GDDR5 memory interface, 64 TMUs, and slightly higher TDP than that of the GTX 480.

Point of View seems to have struck gold with its association with the TGT overclocking team, with the introduction of what they claim to be the "fastest Fermi around". The Point of View TGT GeForce GTX 480 Beast is essentially a top-tier, hand-tested NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 graphics card with a custom-designed full-coverage water block, and a bleeding-edge profile packed into its BIOS. The card is clocked at 810 MHz (core), 1620 MHz (CUDA cores), and 950 MHz (3800 MHz GDDR5 effective) memory. The water-block is carved out of a single piece of nickel-plated copper, with acetal top, and is originally manufactured by Innovatek. As with every other GeForce GTX 480 card, this one is DirectX 11 compliant, and packs 480 CUDA cores, and 1536 MB of GDDR5 memory over a 384-bit wide memory interface. The TGT GTX 480 Beast is priced at €671. A review can be found at the source.

Galaxy's brand for the European market, KFA2, released the GeForce GTX 480 "Anarchy" graphics card. Based on Galaxy's own PCB design, the card makes use of Arctic's expertise, with an Accelero Xtreme Pro triple-fan GPU cooler. To top it up, it also uses overclocked speeds out of the box, that's 760 MHz (core), 1520 MHz CUDA core, and 900 (3800 effective) MHz memory. Like every other GTX 480, it packs 480 CUDA cores, and 1536 MB of memory over a 384-bit GDDR5 memory interface. Display connectivity include two DVI and a mini-HDMI. The company did not give out a price yet.

Point of View and the TGT Tuning team, which develops pre-overclocked graphics cards, are developing a new high-end variant based on the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 GPU, the GeForce GTX 480 Ultra Charged TFC (triple fan cooling). The company has "Charged" and "Ultra Charged" GeForce GTX 480 already out, but the two use NVIDIA reference cooling assembly. The TFC variant makes used of a triple-fan cooler made by Arctic Cooling (likely the Accelero Xtreme Pro), which comes with individual heatsinks over the memory chips and VRM area, alongside the main heatsink that makes use of a dense aluminum fin array to which heat is conveyed from a copper base by a number of heatpipes. This card features out of the box overclocked speeds of 763/1526/950(3800) MHz (core/shader/memory(memory effective)) compared to reference speeds of 700/1401/924(3696) MHz. Pricing and availability are not known.

Here is MSI's latest creation, the N480GTX Lightning. This GeForce GTX 480 based monstrosity is geared for extreme overclocking, and caters to the highest-end consumer segments, but at a surprisingly modest price (relatively) of $550. It features a factory-overclocked GTX 480 GPU clocked at 750/1500/1000(4000) MHz, with standard memory amount of 1.5 GB across a 384-bit wide memory interface, 480 CUDA cores, and 4-way SLI support. Where the fun kicks in is its design. The card uses a beastly-looking dual-fan double-slot air cooler that makes use of dense aluminum fin arrays, and distributed heat zones.

Under the hood, is a powerful power circuit that makes use of a 17-phase VRM, with four super ML Proadlizer capacitors for power conditioning, and high-C flatbed capacitors overall. There are noiseless solid-state chokes and high-grade direct FETs Power is drawn in from two 8-pin and one 6-pin power connectors. Apart from consolidated voltage measure points, DIP switches provide a certain amount of control over some settings. Overclocker-friendly feature include dual BIOS. Display outputs include dual DVI, HDMI, and DisplayPort. MSI did not reveal exactly when this card will make it to the market, or whether it's a Limited Edition product.More pictures follow.

ORIGIN PC is proud to unveil The Big O, their latest creation designed for dominance and destined to make high performance computing enthusiasts and gamers to drool uncontrollably. The Big O fuses the capabilities of the fastest computing hardware on the market, ORIGIN's expert overclocking, and a built in Xbox 360 to create the ultimate gaming weapon.

The Big O is featured in CPU Magazine's annual Dream Machine review roundup, an epic competition between system builders. "If you want the ultimate PC, the Big O is it" said CPU Magazine. "By integrating an Xbox 360, the Big O offers everything and the kitchen sink."

Arctic Cooling silently introduced the Accelero Xtreme Plus VGA cooler. Built as an extension of the same essential design of the Accelero Xtreme, the Accelero Xtreme Plus supports the latest NVIDIA GF100-based graphics cards, such as GeForce GTX 480, GTX 470, GTX 465. The main heatsink is designed to handle thermal loads of up to 250W. The cooler is also compatible with the mounting plates of older some Accelero models that give it compatibility with other popular GPUs, importantly support for Radeon HD 5000 and GeForce 9/GTS 200 series with the VR001 mounting kit.

The main heatsink consists of a copper-made GPU contact base from which five heat pipes convey heat to two blocks of aluminum fins that are cooled by three 92 mm fans. A patented cooler shroud design works to dampen noise generated by the three fans. The three fans spin at speeds between 800 and 2,000 rpm. The heatsink measures 290 L x 104 W x 56 H mm, weighing 622 g. Included in the package apart from the main heatsink are heatsinks for the memory chips and VRM. The Arctic Accelero Xtreme Plus is priced at US$ 65.95 or 54,95 €.

Swiftech released a pair of hybrid cooling solutions for the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480, GTX 470 and GTX 465 graphics cards, that are aimed to provide better cooling compared to full-coverage water blocks. The principle revolves around treating the GPU as a separate thermal zone from the rest of the card, so that water-cooling can focus on cooling the GPU, while heat from the GPU isn't transferred to the rest of the relatively cooler heat producing parts (such as memory chips, VRM FETs, etc.). Swiftech's offer includes MCW-GTX480 and MCW-GTX470 (which should be compatible with GTX 465 reference design, too). These consist of the MCW80 GPU water block that's designed to handle the thermal loads of GF100, and a full-coverage aluminum heatsink that covers all critical heat-producing areas on the PCB, including the memory chips and the VRM. The heatsink is further designed such that the user can mount an 80 mm fan onto it, for even higher cooling performance. The sets are priced lower than most full-coverage water-blocks, the MCW80-GTX480 is priced at $99.95, while the MCW80-GTX470 goes for $98.95.

MSI is readying the high-end HydroGen variant of its GeForce GTX 480 graphics card that is built for water-cooling. It comes with a factory-fitted full-coverage copper water block that cools the GF100 GPU, the 12 memory chips, and the VRM, which make for the bulk of the card's heat producing parts. Internally, the block uses a micro-fin channel over the GPU area to increase surface area of heat dissipation. The block is ready for the G 1/4" threads.

Besides the water block, the card sticks to reference speeds with 700 MHz core, 1401 MHz CUDA cores, and 3696 MHz memory. Like every other GTX 480 card, it packs 480 CUDA cores, and addresses 1,536 MB of memory across a 384-bit wide GDDR5 interface. UK-based store Scan.co.uk listed the graphics card for £445.89 (incl. VAT), which amounts to US $694.

SPARKLE Computer Co., Ltd., the professional VGA card manufacturer and supplier, today proudly announced the Calibre X480 graphics card, equipped with the Accelero Xtreme Cooling Solution from Arctic Cooling, providing the world's fastest DX11 performance to gamers unbeatable cooling effects.

The Calibre X480 Graphics Card brings a host of the next generation of gaming architecture GF100--including tessellation, Direct Compute and all other DirectX 11 hardware features. GF100 architecture is specifically designed to support next generation gaming effects such as ray tracing, order-independent transparency, and fluid simulations. By using GF100 architecture, the Calibre X480 Graphics Card gets a tremendous boost in DX11 game performance and image quality, and brings film-like game characters and objects to users. GF100 architecture also enhances PhysX simulations with tremendous speed upgrade. In addition, GPU computing now can be put in practice in latest DX11 games for improve DX11 gaming efficiency.

NVIDIA seems to have overcome initial hiccups with the GF100 graphics processor, and could release a new graphics card that makes use of all 512 CUDA cores, and 64 TMUs on the GPU. The GeForce GTX 480 was initially released as a top SKU based on the GF100, with 480 out of the 512 CUDA cores enabled. What NVIDIA calls the new SKU is subject to some speculation. While GPU-Z screenshots show that the 512 core model has the same device ID (hence the same name, GeForce GTX 480), leading us to believe that this is a specifications update for the same SKU à la GeForce GTX 260 (216 SP), it seems possible that the release-grade models could carry a different device ID and name.

Expreview carried out a couple of tests on the 512 core "GTX 480" graphics card, and compared it to the 480 core model that's out in the market. NVIDIA GeForce 258.96 drivers were used. The 512 core card got a GPU Score of 10,072 points compared to 9,521 points of the 480 core card, in 3DMark Vantage Extreme preset. The additional TMUs showed an evident impact on the texture fillrate, 41.55 GTexel/s for the 512 core card against 38.82 GTexel/s for the 480 core card.

After treating the enthusiast community to the Republic of Gamers (ROG) ARES Dual HD 5870 graphics accelerator, ASUS isn't wasting any time is designing its successor, referred to (for now) as "MARS II". This graphics accelerator uses two NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 (GF100) GPUs on one board, that's right, the first dual-GPU accelerator based on GF100, which is dreaded for its thermal and electrical characteristics so much, that NVIDIA is content with having the second-fastest graphics card in the market (GTX 480), with no immediate plans of working on a dual-GPU accelerator.

ASUS' ambitious attempt is in the design stage deep inside its R&D, where the design is in an evaluation state. The R&D gave us some exclusive pictures of the MARS II PCB to treat you with. To begin with, the card's basic design is consistent with almost every other dual-GPU NVIDIA card in recent past. There are two independent GPU systems, each with its own VRM and memory, which are interconnected by an internal SLI, and connected to the system bus by an nForce 200 bridge chip. On this card, two GF100 GPUs with the same configuration as GeForce GTX 480 (GF100-375-A3) are used, each having 480 CUDA cores, and connecting to 1536 MB of GDDR5 memory across a 384-bit wide memory interface.

Sources in the hardware industry leaked some interesting pictures of a new, supposedly reference-design NVIDIA GF100 GPU graphics card PCB, watermarked by board partner Little Tiger. The pictures reveal a PCB that's similar to that of the GeForce GTX 480, but with a stronger VRM that makes use of better high-C surface-mount capacitors (completely doing away with cylindrical capacitors), and draws power from two 8-pin PCI-Express power inputs. The design can deliver up to 375W of power (that's not the board power we're talking about).

This also opens up speculation about what NVIDIA would do with this design. The most talked about theory as of now points to a new high-end SKU by NVIDIA based on the GF100, that enables all streaming multiprocessors (SMs) physically present on the GF100, taking the CUDA core count up to 512, and ROP count to 64. The most likely marketing name for this SKU is GeForce GTX 485. Apart from higher CUDA core and ROP count than that of the GTX 480, slightly higher clock-speeds for the GPU are also on the cards. The memory subsystem remains untouched, at 1536 MB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 924 MHz (effective 3.7 GHz), over a 384-bit wide memory interface. NVIDIA could release this SKU this fall.

EVGA expanded its GeForce GTX 480 lineup with a new SuperClocked+ variant. Introduced with the GeForce 200 series, SuperClocked+ (SC+) is originally a factory overclock level that's between SC and SSC, but in case of the GTX 480, the SC+ has the same clock speeds as SC, with a few added features that might help increase the overclocking headroom. EVGA's GTX 480 lineup doesn't have an SSC variant yet, but there is an even higher FTW variant that comes with HydroCopper water block to sustain those high clock speeds, and provide some overclocking headroom.

The SC+ is air-cooled, and uses most of the NVIDIA reference board design. It has higher out of the box clock speeds, at 726 MHz GPU, 1451 MHz shader, and 950 MHz (3800 MHz effective) memory. It features 1536 MB of GDDR5 memory across a 384-bit wide memory interface, and 480 CUDA cores. The added features include an EVGA-made backplate that runs through the entire length of the reverse-side of the PCB, which dissipates some heat from the components behind, and a "high-flow bracket", an expansion bracket with more ventilation than the reference design bracket. With these two changes, EVGA claims the SC+ will run up to 7 °C cooler than the normal SC. Its bundle includes an HDMI cable (instead of a mini-standard dongle) which plugs into the mini-HDMI on one end, and a standard-sized HDMI device on the other; and a free copy of Cryostasis. The EVGA GTX 480 SC+ is priced $50 higher than the reference design base model, at $549.99.