KFA2, the European premium NVIDIA brand, announced today the GTX 580 MDT X4 EX OC, the latest in the line of MDT series multi-display performance gaming graphics cards. The KFA2 GeForce GTX 580 MDT X4 is designed to be the flagship product within our MDT range, offering unparalleled performance in the latest DirectX 11 games in full 1080p.

Whilst the KFA2 GeForce 580 MDT X4 supports up to 4 monitors for multi-display, its main feature includes 'Virtual single monitor mode' which shares one desktop across 3 screens, producing surround HD game play (50Mhz compatible monitors needed for this feature). This myriad of features and unrivaled performance is complimented by a KFA2 custom designed LED chassis and high efficiency triple fan cooling solution.

A quick stroll through our previous article about how the GeForce Kepler family of next-generation GPUs is laid out, would tell you that GeForce Kepler 104 (GK104), is going to be NVIDIA's answer to AMD's Tahiti. GK104 will be a high-performance (≠ high-end) GPU by NVIDIA that will have many of the features that were reserved for its previous high-end GPUs (such as a 384-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface), but will not be NVIDIA's most powerful GPU in the series. The throne will be kept empty for GK100, which will comply with NVIDIA's "go all in" design ideology for high-end GPUs.

3DCenter.org compiled a few specifications of the GK104 and GK100. They go like this:
GK104

• 640 to 768 CUDA cores
• 80 to 96 TMUs (depending on what the CUDA core count ends up being)
• 384-bit GDDR5 memory interface, 48 ROPs
• Built on the 28 nm TSMC process
• Products based on this will launch in the first quarter of 2012

Over the week, AMD launched three of the first notebook GPUs in the Radeon HD 7000 series in a bid to stay competitive in the notebook GPU market, even if it means re-branding already launched GPUs like NVIDIA did, with its recent GeForce 600M series launch. The newly [re]launched mGPUs include Radeon HD 7400M, HD 7500M, and HD 7600M. The three are based on current-generation Caicos and Turks GPUs.

The HD 7400M is based on the "Caicos" silicon, featuring 160 stream processors, 8 TMUs, 4 ROPs, and a 64-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface. The HD 7500M and HD 7600M are based on the "Turks" silicon, the HD 7500M features 480 stream processors, 24 TMUs, 8 ROPs, and 64-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface (more economical with lower number of memory chips, while offering the same performance as 128-bit DDR3); while the HD 7600M features all the features of the HD 7500M, including the full 128-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface.

Without so much of a stale press release, NVIDIA has today outed its very first GeForce 600M series mobile graphics cards. Unfortunately, there's not much to get excited about as the cards in question, named GeForce GT 635M, GT 630M and 610M, are based on the 40nm GPUs already used by the GeForce 500M line.

We don't want to point any fingers but the fact is the GeForce GT 635M, GT 630M and 610M strike an undeniable resemblance to the GeForce GT 555M/550M, GT 540M and GT 520M, respectively. No worries, AMD has done something similar with the first few cards in the Radeon HD 7000M series.

The latest beta drivers and the first in the 290 series have been released by NVIDIA today, supporting all graphics cards since the venerable 6-series. Their main new feature are official support for enabling ambient occlusion settings in the control panel separately for specific games and enabling NVIDIA Surround on the new X79 SLI-certified motherboards. Ambient occlusion (AO) is settable for uber-popular games The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. So, what does AO do? We'll let Andrew Burns of NVIDIA explain:

If you're unfamiliar with Ambient Occlusion, it is most easily described as a way to make in-game shadowing more realistic, and therefore better.

What he doesn't say of course, is how it kills your frame rate, especially on lower end hardware. Anyway, there's all the usual goodies in this release: 3D Vision game profiles for games such as MW3, Diablo 3 & LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7 (yes really). There's a HD audio update and nine fixes too, including one for random flickering of the Windows boot logo as it's loading or fading away and a fix for the mouse cursor flickering and shaking in games such as Crysis 2 & Deus Ex when SLI is enabled when using 3DTV Play. The NVIDIA product release page is here and they have a snazzy-looking driver selector here. The release notes follow.

When webpages weren't much more than text and images peppered with hyperlinks, and when animated elements were limited to slideshow-like animations by Compuserve GIF, Macromedia Flash (now Adobe Flash) transformed the web, making it visually engaging. Even PCs with first-generation Pentium processors and 56K internet connections had access to a much superior internet experience thanks to Flash. According to Adobe's own statistics, over 90% of internet-enabled PCs have the Flash Player browser plugin installed. Apparently the "open/free everything" proponents want the world to get rid of the Flash plugin. Why? Because it's not "open", not all platforms can use it, and it poses security hazards.

Brandishing an extremely original name, "Occupy Flash" calls itself to be a "movement to rid the world of Flash Player plugin," because "Its time has passed. It's buggy. It crashes a lot. It requires constant security updates. It doesn't work on most mobile devices. It's a fossil, left over from the era of closed standards and unilateral corporate control of web technology." Occupy Flash argues that with HTML5, Flash is redundant and "free". Not quite; people don't pay for Flash Player plugins, those who create Flash content do, for the Adobe Flash software. It's not like a transition to HTML5 is going to change that equation much. People still won't have to pay to be able to consume public HTML5 content, while those creating it will still need to use proprietary software to create quality content, it's just that they'll end up with more vendors to sell them that.

NVIDIA today announced that system builders worldwide are now shipping the fastest PC gaming platforms ever built, thanks in part to NVIDIA SLI technology and the just-released Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition processors and X79 chipset-based motherboards.

The combination of NVIDIA SLI technology -- which allows for multiple GPUs to run on a single PC -- and new X79-based motherboards allow gamers to customize their PC experience with up to four NVIDIA GeForce GTX GPUs, including the GeForce GTX 580 and GTX 570, the world's fastest DX11 GPUs. Licensed by the world's leading motherboard manufacturers -- including Intel, ASUS, ASRock, EVGA, Foxconn, Gigabyte and MSI, SLI technology is crucial for playing this year's hottest graphics-intensive games, such as the recently released Battlefield 3 and upcoming Batman: Arkham City with detail, resolution and immersion settings cranked up.

Razer, maker of high performance gaming gear, has reported that two of their prototype gaming laptops were stolen on the weekend of 4th November from their Bay Area R&D lab. Looking at the basic specs of the laptop, one can see why they were so attractive to thieves: Intel Core i7 2640M Processor (2.80 GHz), 8GB 1333MHz DDR3 Memory, 17.3" LED Backlit Display (1920 x 1080 pixels) & NVIDIA GeForce GT 555M with NVIDIA Optimus Technology and 2 GB Dedicated GDDR5 Video Memory and of course the styling. The outfit is understandably miffed about this and have announced the theft on their Facebook page:

After showing off the PCB of the new design GTX560Ti days before, Colorful today releases this new graphics card and named iGame GTX560Ti Kudan.

iGame GTX560Ti Kudan requires three slots and assembles three fans, one is 80mm, and the other two are 70mm which with "Shark Bionic" design in order to reduce the noise. Users need to remove the cooler to install the expansion card on the obverse side near the rear plate. Both WHDI card and Television Card are available to be installed independently to satisfy users' requirement.

EVGA has just announced a new dual GPU card based on the GF114 GPU - check out the product launch page here and the product page here. If their performance graph on that launch page is accurate, then the card is around 30% faster than a GTX 580 when running the Unigene Heaven benchmark. The output panel contains three DVI connectors for NVIDIA 3D Surround, along with a mini HDMI port. The cooler has three fans, which should make for a well-cooled and reasonably quiet card. The marketing blurb says:

Introducing the EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 2Win
It may not be called a GTX 585, but it's the next best thing. This card harnesses the power of two EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Ti GPU's for blistering fast DirectX 11 performance, including tessellation performance that destroys the competition. Experience a whole new level of interactive gaming and combine up to three displays off a single card for the ultimate in 3D entertainment, or disable Surround and combine up to four displays for maximum productivity. With these features and more, the EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 2Win gives you double the GPU's and double the win!

Translated, this means that your life isn't worth living without one of these babies in your rig. Apparently.

NVIDIA released its latest set of WHQL-signed GeForce drivers, GeForce 285.58 WHQL for Windows XP, and GeForce 285.62 WHQL for Windows 7 and Vista. The new drivers bundle PhysX system software v9.11.06.21, and feature the following [very] important changes:

• NVIDIA recommended driver for Battlefield, as it contains several performance and compatibility enhancements for the final release of the game.
• NVIDIA recommended and enhanced driver for Batman: Arkham City and RAGE
• Fixes reports of occasional driver timeouts while browsing the web

At the outset this is the driver to have before you unpack your copy of Battlefield 3, Batman: Arkham City, and RAGE, three of the biggest titles of this fall.

DOWNLOAD: GeForce WHQL 285.62 and WHQL 285.58

TSMC today announced that its 28nm process is in volume production and production wafers have been shipped to customers. TSMC leads the foundry segment to achieve volume production at 28nm node.

TSMC's 28nm process offering includes 28nm High Performance (28HP), 28nm High Performance Low Power (28HPL), 28nm Low Power (28LP), and 28nm High Performance Mobile Computing (28HPM). Among these technology offerings, 28HP, 28HPL and 28LP are all in volume production and 28HPM will be ready for production by the end of this year. The production-version design collateral of 28HPM has been distributed to most mobile computing customers for their product-design use.

EVGA was missing on the LGA2011 motherboard wall at this year's Computex event in June. EVGA is one of the top brands overclockers and enthusiasts look forward to, for motherboards. As a late consolation, EVGA gave out a teaser picture of one of its upcoming X79 motherboards a little later in June. At GeForce LAN 6, however, EVGA made full use of the spotlight to unveil its X79 Classified (E799), a top-tier socket LGA2011 motherboard clearly designed for overclockers.

The X79 Classified uses a traditional LGA2011 motherboard layout, but with wide open spaces to make insulating it (against condensation) easier. The CPU power delivery seems to be in the hands of some very high-grade VRM design, it draws power from two 8-pin EPS connectors apart from the 24-pin ATX (that's right-angled). There are just four DDR3 DIMM slots, one per memory channel. A 4-phase memory VRM is deployed. Over the chipset area, a large contiguous heatsink covers most hot components in the central-right region. We don't expect there to be a bridge chip.

Graphics major NVIDIA has begun sampling the first GPUs of its next-generation Kepler family. Kepler succeeds the present generation Fermi family of GPUs, that make up the GeForce 400 and 500 series. Members of the GeForce Kepler family will follow the codename nomenclature of GK1xx, like GeForce Fermi followed GF1xx. The first GPU being sampled is codenamed GK107. The codename suggests that this isn't the top-end part, it's more like a lower-mainstream or value segment offering.

It is reported that GK107 has a 128-bit GDDR5 memory bus, which also supports inexpensive DDR3 memory. It is built in small quantities on TSMC's 28 nanometer fab process (as the foundry isn't ready for 28 nm bulk manufacturing. NVIDIA will follow a "bottom-to-top" strategy, when dealing with a new fab process technology. It will first design the smallest, simplest GPUs in the lineup, and then gradually move on to larger ones. The first GK107-based SKUs will succeed the GeForce GT 500M series. NVIDIA will carve out four SKUs, internally, NVIDIA will refer to those as N13P-LP, N13P-GS, N13P-GT and N13E-GE, with N13E-GE being the "enthusiast" part. Its market SKU will likely succeed the GeForce GT 560M.

ZOTAC International, a leading innovator and channel manufacturer, today expands the value GeForce GT 520 lineup with new PCI and PCI Express x1 form factors for users with pre-built systems that have limited expansion capabilities. The new ZOTAC GeForce GT 520 PCI and PCI Express x1 graphics cards breathe new life into older systems by delivering a performance punch and new video capabilities.

"Upgrading your graphics card is the easiest way to boost your system performance and gain new capabilities. The new ZOTAC GeForce GT 520 PCI and PCI Express x1 graphics cards shows that you can experience good graphics without upgrading the rest of your system," said Carsten Berger, marketing director, ZOTAC International.

NVIDIA today released a new BETA version of its GeForce driver suite. What makes the new GeForce 285.38 BETA important is its timing, and what it brings to the table. Recently, EA/DICE released an open-beta of the highly anticipated AAA title, Battlefield 3, and gamers are already sharpening their skills ahead of its market release.

The new GeForce BETA drivers are said to increase performance of Battlefield 3 beta by up to 38%, add SLI profiles for the game, and add several stability fixes and image-quality improvements for the game. In essence, Battlefield 3 beta is at the center of GeForce 285.38 BETA. Apart from Battlefield 3, the drivers add SLI profiles for Dead Island, Diablo III, Dragon Age 2, Need for Speed: The Run, and Saints Row: The Third; and fix a stability issue with Crysis 2 (DirectX 9).

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 285.38 BETA

The EVGA GTX 580 Classified 3072MB, previously announced on TechPowerUp, is now available to buy according to this forum post by an EVGA product manager - in limited quantities, of course. According to Gaming Blend, this card can amazingly reach a doubled 1.6GHz core clock when overclocked using waterblocks - GTX 590 eat your heart out! This card also has custom designed VRMs to take all the extra power that the card will use, which means that they won't squeal when the card is overclocked hard and also when running intensive applications such as Folding@Home.
UPDATE: Turns out that 1.6GHz overclock was actually achieved using LN2, not water. To confirm it, click the EVGA promo link after the jump and see the extreme cooling section video, or just skip directly to the YouTube video here.

LG announced its first 3D-capable notebook, the XNote A530. Two of its biggest selling points are the 15-inch LED backlit display that's capable of 1920 x 1080 pixels resolution, and stereoscopic 3D webcam, that uses two individual cameras to build a stereo 3D video stream, backed by LG's software. The XNote A530 is powered by "Sandy Bridge" 2nd Generation Intel Core i7 processor and NVIDIA GeForce GT 555M graphics. A Korean press release also mentions that the notebook will back 3D PT software, that allows users to make stereo 3D presentations that can be displayed using 3D-capable displays and projectors. The company did not announce pricing and availability details.

FinalWire, the company behind AIDA64, and the people behind its predecessor Everest, announced the latest version of the popular system diagnostic and benchmarking suite, AIDA64 1.85. Apart from the usual load of security and stability fixes, AIDA64 1.85 packs a number of new features, including advanced multi-device Logitech LCD support; improved support for socket FM1 motherboards; temperature, fan and voltage measurement corrections; preliminary support for next-generation AMD Trinity accelerated processing units (APUs); support for NVIDIA GeForce 510 and GTX 580M; and support for detecting a GPU's compliance with OpenGL 4.2 API.DOWNLOAD: AIDA64 1.85 Installer | ZIP Package

After a period of sales lead by AMD in the category of notebook discrete graphics, NVIDIA's sales grew in Q2 2011 by 8.9pp, taking it to 50.6%, making it the leader in the category by a slim margin. Analysts predict that this figure will only go up in the third quarter of 2011, as ASUS, MSI, and Clevo are scheduled to launch more GeForce 500M series based notebooks in the quarter. These include ASUS 17-inch G74SX and 15-inch G53SX, both which use GeForce GTX 560M; MSI's GT780 and GT683 based on GTX 570M, and Clevo's 17-inch X7200 that packs GTX 580M.

NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) today reported revenue of $1.02 billion for the second quarter of fiscal 2012 ended July 31, 2011, up 5.7 percent from the prior quarter, and up 25.3 percent from $811.2 million in the same period a year earlier. On a GAAP basis, the company recorded net income of $151.6 million, or $0.25 per diluted share, for the second quarter of fiscal 2012. This includes a two-cent dilutive impact from the Icera acquisition. It compares with net income of $135.2 million, or $0.22 per diluted share, in the prior quarter. In the same period a year earlier, the company had a net loss of $141.0 million, or $0.25 per diluted share.

On a non-GAAP basis -- which excludes stock-based compensation, amortization of acquisition-related intangible assets, other acquisition related costs, and the tax impact associated with these items -- net income was $193.5 million, or $0.32 per diluted share. That compares with net income of $165.7 million, or $0.27 per diluted share, in the prior quarter, and net income of $47.6 million, $0.08 per share, in the same period a year earlier.

NVIDIA today released this month's first major GeForce software update, version 280.26. The suite provides the latest WHQL-signed drivers for all NVIDIA GeForce GPUs since 6-series, and ION platform. It includes updated PhysX system software (v9.10.0514), and NVIDIA HDMI audio drivers (v1.2.23.3). The new drivers include support for SLI on AMD 990FX, 990X, and 970 desktop chipsets (on certified motherboards only). Apart from that, the 3D Vision component has undergone a massive overhaul.

The 3D Vision Controller driver is now included with all GPU driver installations. The 3D Vision player now supports windowed mode. Support is added for new 3D Vision compatible monitors, such as ViewSonic V3D245, and 3D Vision compatble projectors such as Acer X1111, BenQ W710ST, and NEC NP-V300W.

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 280.26 WHQL for Windows 7/Vista 64-bit | Windows 7/Vista 32-bit | Windows XP 32-bit | Windows XP 64-bit

ViewSonic Corp., a leading global provider of computing, consumer electronics and communications solutions, today continues its leadership in display innovation with the new V3D245 - a 24-inch 3D, full HD (1080p) LED monitor that includes a built-in NVIDIA 3D Vision wireless emitter and NVIDIA 3D Vision glasses.

Combining world-leading LED technology with extraordinary power-saving performance, this 24-inch (23.6-inch vis.) monitor offers a stunning 120Hz frame refresh rate and ultra-fast 2ms video response time, and HDMI 1.4 input making it ideal for delivering a truly immersive 2D and 3D entertainment and gaming experience. Paired with a 1920x1080 full HD resolution, 20,000,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio and 300 nits high brightness, users can expect great color accuracy and picture detail for unsurpassed 3D image quality.

MSI has rolled out the X460 and X460DX, the newest additions to its X-Slim Series of notebook computers. The 14-inch X460, for example, is less than 1" thick and tips the scales as just 1.98 kg-currently the lightest Intel Core i7 quad core processor packing laptop out there. Also worthy of note, a second internal hard drive is optional with the X460 and X460DX to greatly enlarge storage capacity and if you go with the optional SSD hard drive, you'll kick up system performance. This pair of laptops packs plenty of punch.

Eric Kuo, associate vice president for global sales, MSI Notebook, notes that the X460 also comes with new generation Intel Wireless Display to transmit 1080p HD programs to large screen full HDTVs, so you can enjoy high resolution pictures and 5.1 channel wrap around sound without the hassle of wires.

NVIDIA today released its latest version of the GeForce software suite, version 275.50 BETA. With this release, NVIDIA enables SLI support on AMD socket AM3+ platform. The driver enables SLI multi-GPU technology certified AMD 990FX, AMD 990X, and AMD 970 motherboards. Keep in mind, not every AMD 9-series chipset-based motherboard will run SLI, only certified ones, just like not every Intel 5-series and 6-series chipset based motherboard features SLI. Look for the SLI logo when buying the motherboard.

Besides this major change, GeForce 275.50 improves 3D Vision performance on Duke Nukem Forever. It adds new 3D Vision profiles for Duke Nukem Forever Demo, Mars benchmark, Rise of the Immortals, and Rusty Hearts. 3D Vision profile for Alice: Madness Returns is improved. This is a BETA release, use of which is not covered by product warranties. SLI support on AMD, and all features in this release will be carried forward by future WHQL-signed driver releases.

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 275.50 BETA