MSI, world's leading brand in gaming hardware, has lifted the curtain for its two brand new laptops at Computex 2018, the GF63 and the PS42. Respectively tailored for gamers and professionals, both models feature the ever-so-popular thin bezel design. The near edge-to-edge aesthetics are not only lighter in weight but also smaller in dimension. Together with the previously-announced GS65, MSI has set a new standard for portability with the "Thin Bezel Gaming" genre.

GF63: Bringing thin and light gaming to the mainstream.
The brand new GF63 debuts in Computex with its 15.6" ultra slim footprint and thin bezel with measuring less than 2 kg in weight. Continuing MSI's gaming DNA and powerful performance, the GF63 carries up to 8th Gen. Intel Core i7 processor and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti graphics, while lasting over 7 hours in battery life. The GF63 provides gamers a new choice of "portable gaming firepower!"

Even as NVIDIA's next-generation computer graphics architecture for mainstream users remains an elusive unicorn, speculation and tendrils of smokehave kept the community in a somewhat tight edge when it comes to the how and when of its features and introduction. NVIDIA may have launched another architecture since its current consumer-level Pascal in Volta, but that one has been reserved to professional, computing-intensive scenarios. Speculation is rife on NVIDIA's next-generation architecture, and the posted program for the Hot Chips Symposium could be the light at the end of the tunnel for a new breath of life into the graphics card market.

Looking at the Hot Chips' Symposium program, the detailed section for the first day of the conference, in August 20th, lists a talk by NVIDIA's Stuart Oberman, titled "NVIDIA's Next Generation Mainstream GPU". This likely means exactly as it reads, and is an introduction to NVIDIA's next-generation computing solution under its gaming GeForce brand - or it could be an announcement, though a Hot Chips Symposium for that seems slightly off the mark. You can check the symposium's schedule on the source link - there are some interesting subjects there, such as Intel's "High Performance Graphics solutions in thin and light mobile form factors" - which could see talks of the Intel-AMD collaboration in Kaby Lake G, and possibly of the work being done on Intel's in-house high-performance graphics technologies (with many of AMD's own RTG veterans, of course).

We've come from rumors through somewhat disappointing listed specs on NVIDIA's latest GPU, and now, there's an actual AIB product hitting store shelves. Gigabyte seems to be the first NVIDIA partner out of the gates with their own version of NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1050 3 GB video card - a card that's a murder of its original specs and has nonetheless generated more than its fair share of buzz among the tech crowds.

Whether or not performance is severely hampered by the 96-bit bus width of the new NVIDIA graphics card remains to be seen (it can't be good for performance though, now can it?) And even as NVIDIA increased core count and clockspeeds to compensate for the severe lack of memory bandwidth already, Gigabyte, naturally, introduced a small OC to their own version of the graphics card, allowing it to boost up to 1582 MHz (1417 MHz base, and 1556 MHz boost in gaming mode, 1442 MHz base, up to 1582 MHz boost in OC Mode. Gigabyte employs its Windforce 2X cooler with 2x 80 mm fans to keep the card cool and allow maximum boost capability. Connectivity-wise, there's 1x DVI-D, 1x HDMI 2.0b and 1x DisplayPort 1.4 port (up to three simultaneous displays are supported).

NVIDIA today released GeForce 397.93 WHQL "Game Ready" drivers. The drivers come with optimization for "The Crew" closed beta and "State of Decay 2." SLI profiles are either added or updated for "DRG Initiative," and "Star Wars: Battlefront II." The drivers also introduce CUDA 9.2 support. In addition, the drivers also address a number of bugs.

You now no longer need to close Steam to enable/disable SLI. A "Wolfenstein II: TNC" bug that causes the game to freeze in the Roosevelt area, is fixed. A critical issue is fixed on machines with both "Pascal" and "Kepler" GPUs installed, in which the driver fails to load. Green flickering noticed in "Far Cry 5" when using HDR on non-native screen-resolution, is fixed. Grab the drivers from the link below.DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 397.93 WHQL

The change-log follows.

NVIDIA has a long history of playing Dr. Frankenstein on their graphics cards. The latest rumors from China suggest that NVIDIA is wheeling the GeForce GTX 1060 into the operating room for the fifth time. Currently, there are already four variants of the GeForce GTX 1060 in the wild: the original model with 6 GB of memory, the refreshed 6 GB model with slightly faster memory (9 Gbps), the cut-down model with 3 GB of memory, and finally, the Chinese-exclusive model with 5 GB of memory. However, NVIDIA's intentions are more ambitious this time. Apparently, their plan is to implement a variant of the existing high-performance GP104 GPU into the GeForce GTX 1060. As a reminder, the more powerful models like the GeForce GTX 1070, 1070 Ti, and 1080 all utilize the GP104 chip. Curiously, we've seen a variant of the GP104 (GP104-140) chip in a lower-end model before, specifically the GTX 1060 3GB.

On this occasion, NVIDIA is going to tailor the GP104-300, the silicon used in the GTX 1070, to the GTX 1060. This new SKU will carry the GP104-150 label. Despite the radical change, GP104-equipped GTX 1060 graphics cards share the same specifications as the original 6 GB model. Therefore, performance should be right in line as well. Although, we can expect some slight, unnoticeable differences in regards to thermals and power consumption. As usual, the new GTX 1060s will be exclusive to the Chinese market. With the next-generation of NVIDIA graphics cards almost among us, the company has been working diligently to clear their Pascal stock.

NVIDIA today released GeForce 397.64 WHQL drivers. The drivers come game-ready for recently released titles Conan Exiles, Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire, and Destiny 2's new expansion, Warmind. NVIDIA also added support for Microsoft Surface Books while providing updated SLI profiles for Kingdom Come: Deliverance and GRIP. More importantly, this driver release contains specific fixes for Grand Theft Auto V, Starcraft 2, and GeForce GTX 780 Ti owners who run a SLI configuration. The rest of its fixed issues is consistent with the 397.55 hotfix driver release.DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 397.64 WHQL

NVIDIA today released the GeForce 397.55 Hotfix drivers to address various issues that many users have been experiencing. Primarily, the drivers fix the pesky problem where a few GTX 1060 models would throw up a Code 43 error in Device Manager after driver installation putting users' systems into an endless restart loop. The new drivers also contain fixes for occasional Netflix playback stuttering and the display driver being removed when a system has been idling during an extended period of time. Lastly, NVIDIA added support for Microsoft Surface Book notebooks.DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 397.55 Hotfix Driver

NVIDIA released their latest GeForce 397.31 WHQL drivers yesterday. The new 397.31 drivers came game-ready for recently released titles BattleTech and Frostpunk while also provided support for features like NVIDIA RTX and Vulkan 1.1. However, numerous GTX 1060 owners have reported on the official NVIDIA forums that they were unable to complete the installation of the 397.31 drivers. Users were prompted to restart their systems to complete the installation process, but once they have done so, they were presented with the exact screen over and over again putting their systems into an endless restart loop. While NVIDIA is investigating the bug, GTX 1060 owners are encouraged to roll back to a previous version of the drivers as a stop-gap solution. The workaround consists of rebooting the affected system in safe mode and running Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) to completely remove the 397.31 drivers. Users can then proceed to install the previous 391.35 drivers normally.

NVIDIA today releases GeForce 397.31 WHQL drivers. The drivers see NVIDIA discontinue regular support for 32-bit versions of Windows. It also sheds support for GPUs based on NVIDIA "Fermi" GPU architecture (GeForce 400 series and 500 series). The drivers also add first official support for NVIDIA RTX real-time ray-tracing technology. To use it, you'll need a GPU based on NVIDIA's next-generation "Volta" architecture (such as the $3,000 TITAN V), the latest major version of Windows 10, and Microsoft DXR developer package. The drivers also add support for Vulkan 1.1 API. Besides the above three, GeForce 397.31 WHQL is game-ready for "BattleTech" and "FrostPunk." Grab it from the link below.DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 397.31 WHQL

As poet and playwright Edna St. Vincent Millay once wrote: Life must go on, And the dead be forgotten. Effective as of this month, NVIDIA will no longer release Game Ready Driver upgrades for their Fermi-based graphics cards. Unlucky users who are still rocking a GeForce GTX 400 or GTX 500 series graphics card in their systems will cease to receive future performance enhancements, new features, and bug fixes. However, NVIDIA is kind enough to continue providing critical security updates for the aforementioned models through January 2019. It has been a great run, Fermi. We will miss you!

NVIDIA quietly launched the GeForce MX150 mobile GPU in May of last year. The team at Notebookcheck discovered that there are actually two variants of the GeForce MX150 in the wild - the standard 1D10 variant and the much slower 1D12 variant. Normally, this wouldn't raise any alarms. However, neither NVIDIA or the manufacturer distinguish the two variants from each other. Buyers who purchase an ultrabook or notebook with a GeForce MX150 are basically playing the lottery. They have no idea which variant is inside the product until they run an utility like GPU-Z to find out. But just how significant is the performance difference between the two variants? Let's look at Notebookcheck's findings.

Starting with the GeForce MX150's specifications, the standard 1D10 variant has a 1469 MHz core clock, 1532 MHz boost clock, and 1502 MHz memory clock. Notebookcheck first saw this variant in the MSI PL62 and Asus Zenbook UX430UN. They later discovered the underclocked 1D12 variant in the Lenovo IdeaPad 320S, ZenBook 13 UX331UN, Xiaomi Mi Notebook Air 13.3, HP Envy 13, and ZenBook UX331UA notebooks. The 1D12 variant has a 937 MHz core clock, 1038 MHz boost clock, and 1253 MHZ memory clock. Right off the bat, that's a 36 percent reduction in the core clock alone. According to the 3DMark and 3DMark 11 tests, consumers can expect anywhere from a 20 to 25 percent performance hit with the less powerful variant. The charts don't lie. Of the 13 notebooks tested by Notebookcheck, the five models equipped with the 1D12 variant of the GeForce MX150 are at the bottom of the list. Nvidia's move to sneak the 1D12 variant into thin and light notebooks was probably to meet the 10W TDP envelope as opposed to the original variant's 25W. Luckily, the 1D12 variant has only appeared in 13-inch notebooks.

A report from HardOCP's Kyle Bennet aims to shake NVIDIA's foundations, with allegations of anti-competitive business practices under its new GeForce Partner Program (GPP). In his report, which started with an AMD approach that pushed him to look a little closer into GPP, Bennet says that he has found evidence that NVIDIA's new program aims to push partners towards shunning products from other hardware manufacturers - mainly AMD, with a shoot across the bow for Intel.

After following the breadcrumb trail and speaking with NVIDIA AIBs and OEM partners ("The ones that did speak to us have done so anonymously, in fear of losing their jobs, or having retribution placed upon them or their companies by NVIDIA," Bennett says), the picture is painted of an industry behemoth that aims to abuse its currently dominant market position. NVIDIA controls around 70% of the discrete GPU market share, and its industrious size is apparently being put to use to outmuscle its competitors' offerings by, essentially, putting partners between the proverbial rock and a hard place. According to Bennet, industry players unanimously brought about three consequences from Nvidia's GPP, saying that "They think that it has terms that are likely illegal; GPP is likely going to tremendously hurt consumers' choices; It will disrupt business with the companies that they are currently doing business with, namely AMD and Intel."

EK the Slovenia-based premium PC liquid cooling gear manufacturer is expanding its RGB portfolio by releasing the EK-FC GeForce GTX FE RGB water block that is compatible with multiple reference design Founders Edition NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060, 1070, 1080, 1080 Ti, Titan X Pascal and Titan Xp based graphics cards. As known from before, the FE labeled GPU blocks come as a replacement to the old GeForce GTX 10×0 / TITAN X Series of water blocks.

EK-FC GeForce GTX FE RGB
This water block directly cools the GPU, RAM as well as VRM (voltage regulation module) as water flows directly over these critical areas, thus allowing the graphics card and it's VRM to remain stable under high overclocks. EK-FC GeForce GTX FE RGB water block features a central inlet split-flow cooling engine design for best possible cooling performance, which also works flawlessly with reversed water flow without adversely affecting the cooling performance. Moreover, such design offers great hydraulic performance allowing this product to be used in liquid cooling systems using weaker water pumps.

NVIDIA today released the latest version of their Game Ready driver suite, which aims to bring users' systems up to scratch towards playing the latest games with as much performance and stability as possible. The new 391.01 version of NVIDIA's driver suite brings GameReady improvements that pave the way towards Final Fantasy XV - Windows Edition's release. This driver release packs a bigger punch than just Final Fantasy XV, though; it's also a Game Ready driver release for the upcoming Warhammer: Vermintide 2, and for the upcoming World of Tanks' graphics engine upgrade, which will bring tons of graphics features, updates and improvements to the base World of Tanks experience.

On a second, still important note, this driver release also packs performance improvements for the majority of NVIDIA's series 10 graphics cards in Player Unknown's Battlegrounds. These performance improvements range between the 3% and 7%. For a list of fixed and outstanding issues, as well as trailers for the most relevant additions to this driver release, look after the break. As always, you can download these drivers right here on TPU. Just follow the link below.DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 391.01 Game Ready Drivers

NVIDIA is reportedly working on a TITAN V-esque surprise for March 2018. According to Reuters, which summarized the company's Q4-2017 results and outlook, the company is working on a new consumer-graphics GPU for launch next month, codenamed "Turing." This could be the codename of an ASIC or an SKU and not the architecture (which could be "Volta"). The Reuters report describes "Turing" as a "new GPU gaming chip." This unequivocally points to a consumer graphics (GeForce) product, and not a professional (Quadro), or HPC (Tesla) product.

As someone who does not mine crypto-currency, loves fast computers, and gaming on them, I find the current crypto-currency mining craze using graphics cards nothing short of a plague. It's like war broke out, and your government took away all the things you love from the market. All difficult times teach valuable lessons, and in this case, it is "Save up and build future-proof."

When NVIDIA launched its "Pascal" GPU architecture way back in Summer 2016, and AMD followed up, as a user of 2x GeForce GTX 970 SLI, I did not feel the need to upgrade anything, and planned to skip the Pascal/Polaris/Vega generation, and only upgrade when "Volta" or "Navi" offered something interesting. My pair of GTX 970 cards are backed by a Core i7-4770K processor, and 16 GB of dual-channel DDR3-1866 memory, both of which were considered high-end when I bought them, around 2014-15.

Throughout 2016, my GTX 970 pair ate AAA titles for breakfast. With NVIDIA investing on advancing SLI with the new SLI-HB, and DirectX 12 promising a mixed multi-GPU utopia, I had calculated a rather rosy future for my cards (at least to the point where NVIDIA would keep adding SLI profiles for newer games for my cards to chew through). What I didn't see coming was the inflection point between the decline of multi-GPU and crypto-plague eating away availability of high-end graphics cards at sane prices. That is where we are today.

ASUS today announced XG Station Pro, an external graphics card enclosure with a stylish aluminum chassis and advanced cooling that provides PC and Mac laptop users with high-end graphics performance, suitable for demanding professional applications, such as video rendering, 3D design and scientific modeling. With support for the latest NVIDIA and AMD graphics cards and featuring fast and convenient Thunderbolt 3 connectivity, XG Station Pro enables a workstation-class experience when connected to a laptop and an external monitor without sacrificing mobility.

Premium, all-aluminum design
Designed in collaboration with In Win - the well-known maker of premium computer chassis - XG Station Pro has a highly functional and stylish design with an elegant, grey aluminum chassis that perfectly complements premium laptops. XG Station Pro fits a full-length, 2.5-slot graphics card, yet has a compact size that takes up minimal space on a desk or workspace. An external, 330W power supply drives even the most demanding graphics cards, reduces heat within the chassis, and enables XG Station Pro to have a smaller overall size.

The Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities have been making many headlines lately. So far, security researchers have identified three variants. Variant 1 (CVE-2017-5753) and Variant 2 (CVE-2017-5715) are Spectre, while Variant 3 (CVE-2017-5754) is Meltdown. According to their security bulletin, NVIDIA has no reason to believe that their display driver is affected by Variant 3. In order to strengthen security against Variant 1 and 2, the company released their GeForce 390.65 driver earlier today, so NVIDIA graphics card owners can sleep better at night.

Experience tells us that some software patches come with performance hits, whether we like it or not. We were more than eager to find out if this was the case with NVIDIA's latest GeForce 390.65 driver. Therefore, we took to the task of benchmarking this revision against the previous GeForce 388.71 driver in 21 different games at the 1080p, 1440p, and 4K resolutions. We even threw in an Ethereum mining test for good measure. Our test system is powered by an Intel Core i7-8700K processor overclocked to 4.8 GHz, paired with G.Skill Trident-Z 3866 MHz 16 GB memory on an ASUS Maximus X Hero motherboard. We're running the latest BIOS, which includes fixes for Spectre, and Windows 10 64-bit with Fall Creators Update, fully updated, which includes the KB4056891 Meltdown Fix.

NVIDIA today released GeForce 390.65 WHQL drivers. These drivers come game-ready for "Fortnite," including support for ShadowPlay Highlights in the "Battle Royale" mode of the game. The drivers also introduce NVIDIA Freestyle technology, which lets you apply custom post-processing effects for your game, or choose from several included post-FX filters. More importantly, the drivers introduce security updates against "Spectre" variant 2 (CVE-2017-5753) vulnerability. The drivers also provide pop-up notifications when an external GPU is connected or disconnected. Grab the drivers from the link below.DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 390.65 WHQL

Your underpowered PC can now pack the punch of high-performance GeForce GTX GPUs with GeForce NOW. Starting today, the game-streaming service, which launched a successful beta last summer, is available as a free beta compatible with most Windows-based desktops and laptops. GeForce NOW can connect gamers to their library of games from many of the top digital stores - and starting today that includes Uplay PC, Ubisoft's PC games portal.

"Ubisoft is excited that gamers playing acclaimed franchises such as Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege on Uplay PC can now enjoy outstanding play experiences on PCs and Macs thanks to NVIDIA's futuristic GeForce NOW service, without needing a high-end PC," said Chris Early, vice president of Partnerships and Revenue at Ubisoft. "NVIDIA is powering a high-quality experience that now streams a selection of Ubisoft's top franchises."

ELSA 's appearances in TechPowerUp's front pages have been few and far between, with the last iteration of a graphics card from this manufacturer having made its way into our news feed around February 5th, 2015, with its GTX 960 SAC graphics card. That doesn't mean they ELSA isn't worthy of our attention, though, so here goes: the announcement of a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics card.

The ELSA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11 GB ST graphics card features a stock blower design that's reminiscent of those offered in AMD's base models, with a subdued black and silver color scheme. It's a pretty graphics card, though it will likely be let down by its cooling and acoustic performance. Specs are vanilla when it comes to NVIDIA's reference GTX 1080 Ti clocks: there's a base clock of 1,480 MHz (actually 1 MHz lower than NVIDIA's reference) and 1,582 MHz Boost, with 11 GB of 11 GHz GDDR5X memory. The ELSA GTX 1080 Ti 11GB ST graphics card draws power from the PCIe bus, and from 1x 6-pin and 1x 8-pin connectors. Display outputs on this dual-slot graphics card come in at 3x DisplayPort, 1x Dual link DVI-D, and 1x HDMI 2.0b. The card's dimensions stand at 266 mm (L) x 111 mm (H) x 39 mm (D).

NVIDIA recently updated the end-user license agreement (EULA) for their GeForce Software. There's one particular statement in the limitations section that caught our eye. And it reads: No Datacenter Deployment. The SOFTWARE is not licensed for datacenter deployment, except that blockchain processing in a datacenter is permitted. It seems that NVIDIA isn't too happy with data centers that utilize GeForce and TITAN graphics cards instead of the more expensive Quadro or Tesla cards. With this prohibition in place, data centers are forced to either invest in NVIDIA's pricier offerings or completely switch over to AMD. Data centers that are using GeForce products for cryptocoin mining are unaffected by this change in the EULA.

NVIDIA announced that it is ending driver support for 32-bit operating systems after its R390-series drivers. Following its GeForce 390.xx release, NVIDIA will not support 32-bit versions of Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows 8/8.1, Linux, or FreeBSD for any of its GPU architectures. NVIDIA will, however, offer support for critical driver security fixes for 32-bit operating systems until January 2019. This means the company will release hotfixes addressing specific critical security vulnerabilities in the drivers, as and when they're found, but such hotfixes won't include new features or optimizations that are part of the main driver trunk for 64-bit operating systems.

NVIDIA today released the latest version of their GeForce software suite. Version 388.71 is a game-ready one, which brings the best performance profile for the phenomenon that is Player Unknown's BattleGrounds. For professionals, there's added support for CUDA 9.1, and Warframe SLI profiles have been updated. There are also many 3D Vision profiles that have been updated for this release, so make sure to check them out after the break, alongside other bug fixes and known issues.

As always, users can download these drivers right here on TechPowerUp. Just follow the link below.DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 388.71 WHQL

EVGA is feeling both generous and nostalgic, and has announced a contest that's as welcome as it is original. Looking back on its roots as an innovative designer of cooling systems for graphics cards, allowing gamers everywhere to play their favorite games with the best temperatures and least noise possible, EVGA are looking for users that still keep their GeForce 4 ACS and ACS2-powered graphics cards. ACS and ACS 2 are effectively the precursors to EVGA's latest cooling innovations, even if these types of cooling designs are now the norm rather than the exception.

If you have a GeForce4 MX 440 or a GeForce4 4600 Ti, both launched way back in 2002, EVGA is asking that you submit your information to them, and the company will gladly pay you 1,000 EVGA bucks - its digital currency that is equivalent to $ in a 1:1 ratio, and would allow you to buy a great 1080 Ti from the EVGA store. Not such a bad deal for an old GeForce 4 graphics card, eh? Like Sonic would say, you "gotta go fast", though: the contest is available for a maximum of 3 ACS owners and 3 ACS2 owners.