TechPowerUp released GPU-Z 0.6.3, the latest version of the popular PC graphics subsystem information and diagnostic utility. The new release adds support for dozens of new GPUs, including AMD "Trinity" APU-integrated HD 7600D series, upcoming NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660; improves stability in Windows 8, and adds a large number of other stability improvements. GPU-Z 0.6.3 adds support for NVIDIA GPUs including GeForce GT 620, GT 630, GT 640, GTX 660, Tesla M2090, Quadro 1100M, Quadro 5000M, NVS 5400M, G610M, GeForce GT 620M, GT 630M, GT640M LE, and GT 660M; AMD GPUs including Trinity (HD 7600D series), HD 7570, HD 7670, HD 6610M, HD 7550M, HD 7850M, HD 7520G, and HD 7640G.

Keeping in tune with previous versions, GPU-Z 0.6.3 introduces a new killer feature: power-consumption measurement for IGPs (integrated graphics) on Intel "Sandy Bridge" and "Ivy Bridge" Core/Pentium processors. The measurement isolates the power draw of the IGP from the rest of the processor. TechPowerUp GPU-Z 0.6.3 fixes crashes related to OpenCL detection (when using Intel drivers), with improved OpenCL drivers on Intel and AMD graphics drivers. It adds voltage monitoring for Radeon HD 7700 series. Boost clock detection is improved for NVIDIA "Kepler" architecture GPUs.DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z 0.6.3, GPU-Z 0.6.3 ASUS ROG Edition

The complete change-log follows.

PC maker Falcon Northwest intends to change the perception of how big a powerful PC needs to be with their new Tiki "micro-tower". At only 4" wide and 13" tall, Tiki is roughly the size of an original XBOX game console. Inside Tiki packs the fastest NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards, the fastest Intel 3rd Generation Core-i7 "Ivy Bridge" quad-core CPUs, 16 gigabytes of memory, and up to four terabytes of storage. It's even got a liquid cooling system.

"Tiki is a showcase of how far the PC industry has come in just the past year," said Kelt Reeves, president of Falcon Northwest. "CPUs and graphics cards have taken massive leaps in performance and power efficiency. Tiny solid-state storage has become affordable, and the miniaturization of motherboards all mean that your average tower PC is now much bigger than it really needs to be. With Tiki, we solved the heat and noise challenges involved in getting rid of all that excess space."

Although pre-launch drivers of the GeForce GTX 680 let the GPU run in PCI-Express Gen 3.0 mode on Intel's Sandy Bridge-E HEDT (X79) platforms, the release drivers limited the GPU to PCI-Express Gen 2.0 on the platform. The issue carried on with GeForce GTX 670, and other graphics cards with "Kepler" family of GPUs. NVIDIA cited reasons such as the platform not being PCI-Expres Gen 3.0 "certified" although it supports the 8 GT/s mode. The company assured users that it was working on getting its hardware to work on the Sandy Bridge-E HEDT platform in Gen 3.0 mode, and until it's absolutely certain about reliability, it is forcing PCI-Express Gen 2.0 mode.

NVIDIA released a patch that enables PCI-Express Gen 3.0 mode on Intel Sandy Bridge-E HEDT (X79) platforms, which lets graphics cards based on GeForce Kepler GPUs, such as GeForce GTX 680, GTX 670, etc., take advantage of 8 GT/s per lane system interface bandwidth. The mode could come particularly handy for graphics cards that are installed on electrical PCI-Express 3.0 x8 slots, as they could end up with bandwidth comparable to that of PCI-Express 2.0 x16. The patch should be installed along with the latest stable drivers. To enable the patch, run the executable and reboot the system. To undo the patch later, run the same executable with "-revert" argument in Command Prompt. Use only if stability is not absolutely paramount, or if the hardware is not operating in a mission-critical environment.

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce Kepler PCIe 3.0 mode-enabling patch for Sandy Bridge-E systems

ISC'12 - NVIDIA Tesla K10 GPUs offer performance breakthroughs on popular high performance computing (HPC) applications -- ranging from seismic processing to life sciences to video processing -- according to new benchmarks NVIDIA released today.

Based on the new NVIDIA Kepler computing architecture, the Tesla K10 GPU delivers the industry's highest single precision performance (4.58 teraflops) and highest memory bandwidth (320 GB/sec) in a single accelerator. This is 12 times higher single precision flops and 6.4 times higher memory bandwidth than the latest-generation Intel Sandy Bridge CPUs.

VIZIO, America's #1 LCD HDTV Company*, announced today the availability of its highly anticipated line of innovative personal computers designed to work hard and play hard. By combining its entertainment know-how with the unmatched power of the latest Intel Core processors, VIZIO intends to set a new standard for the Windows experience. The premium line, which consists of the VIZIO Thin + Light, Notebook and All-in-One PC, was created to break through the clutter present in the mainstream market and prove that power, design and entertainment can flawlessly co-exist in a PC.

Similar to its entrance into the HDTV category nearly a decade ago, VIZIO took careful inventory of the needs and wants evident in the PC space. The result is a sophisticatedly handsome PC line that meets the productivity and power standards consumers expect, while delivering the entertainment and design differentiators they desire. Calling on its HDTV background, VIZIO developed the PCs with contrast, image quality and viewing angles top of mind, giving PC users an experience only HDTVs could previously deliver. Combined with an NVIDIA Kepler-Class GeForce GPU, the brilliant HD display of the VIZIO PCs makes watching movies, gaming and streaming TV shows more enjoyable than ever. Deep and resonate SRS Premium Sound HD serves as an ideal complement to stunning image quality but can also stand alone, allowing music junkies to immerse themselves in rich, custom-tuned audio.

Point of View, a premier NVIDIA graphics partner and manufacturer of Android tablets, notebooks and other hardware, launches today the GeForce 600-series all-rounder card; the POV GeForce GT 640.

GeForce GT 640 is specifically designed as an energy efficient and cool graphics processor. Developed on a 28nm die-size, the renowned Kepler architecture uses the new SMX steaming multiprocessor technology to not only offer the best performance but also the optimal performance per watt.

AFOX Corporation, a professional and leading manufacturer of Graphics Cards, today announced to release the latest AFOX Geforce GT 640 Graphics Card AF640-2048D3L1 - the newest model designed for mainstream users with excellent 3D display and gaming performance, perfect low profile size to all PC types, full PCI Express 3.0 and DirectX11 support.

Compared to the previous generation, the new AFOX AF640-2048D3L1 based on latest NVIDIA's 28nm Kepler GK107 GPU, has up to 25% better performance than the old GTS 450. The AFOX GT 640 Graphics Card has 384 Cuda Cores, an impressive 900MHz core speed, 2048MB of DDR3 memory running at 1782MHz and 128-bit memory interface. It supports NVIDIA CUDA, PhysX and Blu-Ray 3D technology, which are designed for both high quality gaming and great home theater solutions. Without any additional power requirement, the testing result shows that the new AFOX GT 640 Graphics Card has an unbeatable performance/Watt ratio compared with previous generation products.

ZOTAC International, a global innovator and channel manufacturer of graphics cards, mainboards and mini-PCs, today continues the GeForce 600 series momentum with the new mainstream ZOTAC GeForce GT 640 graphics card for users that desire dedicated graphics and memory.

NVIDIA's Kepler architecture forms the heart of the ZOTAC GeForce GT 640 graphics card with new SMX unified shaders that deliver superior performance and energy efficiency. New NVIDIA Surround technology brings triple independent displays mainstream on the ZOTAC GeForce GT 640 to create a massive workspace for greater productivity and an immersive point of view.

PNY Technologies, Inc. ("PNY") today announced the release of the Verto GeForce GT 640 1024MB DDR3 graphics card. This new entry-level NVIDIA 28nm Kepler card features dedicated graphics performance from this powerful next-generation GeForce architecture.

The GT 640 delivers premium multimedia performance and reliable entry-level gaming, for a faster, more immersive experience. Harnessing PhysX technology, bring your HD videos, photos, web, and games to life; edit your photos and videos; or play the latest DirectX 11 games with GPU-accelerated tessellation. Accelerate your desktop's performance with cutting-edge features, such as CUDA technology to handle the most demanding system tasks -- such as photo editing -- and delivering incredible performance improvements over traditional CPUs. Adding to the incredible performance and power efficiency of the GT 640 is the new -- built from the ground up -- SMX unit, available only on Kepler. The revolutionary Kepler GPU has taken graphics to the next level and allows the GT 640 to simultaneously run up to three monitors with NVIDIA Surround technology -- expanding your viewing perspective and increasing productivity.

Over the past month, users of NVIDIA GeForce Kepler-based graphics cards have been reporting intermittent stuttering in games, with v-sync enabled. A fairly long thread on NVIDIA forums formed the rally point of users noticing the issue, although the issues weren't universally reproduceable. Tom's Hardware sought a statement from NVIDIA on the issue. In its statement, NVIDIA said that it is looking into the issue, extensive testing has to be done, and that gamers noticing the issue should force v-sync to stay disabled via NVIDIA Control Panel.

We have received reports of an intermittent v-sync stuttering issue from some of our customers. We've root caused the issue to a driver bug and identified a fix for it. The fix requires extensive testing though, and will not be available until our next major driver release targeted for June (post-R300). For users experiencing this issue, the interim workaround is to disable v-sync via the Nvidia Control Panel or in-game graphics settings menu.

With its competition checked thanks to good performance by its GK104 silicon, NVIDIA was bold enough to release die-shots of its GK110 silicon, which made its market entry as the Tesla K20 GPU-compute accelerator. This opened flood-gates of speculation surrounding minute details of the new chip, from various sources. We found one of these most plausible, by Beyond3D community member "fellix". The source of the image appears to have charted out component layout of the chip by some pattern recognition and educated guesswork.

It identifies the the 7.1 billion transistor GK110 silicon to have 15 streaming multiprocessors (SMX). A little earlier this week, sources close to NVIDIA confirmed the SMX count to TechPowerUp. NVIDIA revealed that the chip will retain the SMX design of GK104, in which each of these holds 192 CUDA cores. Going by that, GK110 has a total of 2880 cores. Blocks of SMX units surround a centrally-located command processor, along with six setup pipelines, and a portion holding the ROPs and memory controllers. There are a total of six GDDR5 PHYs, which could amount to a 384-bit wide memory interface. The chip talks to the rest of the system over PCI-Express 3.0.

NVIDIA today unveiled a new family of Tesla GPUs based on the revolutionary NVIDIA Kepler GPU computing architecture, which makes GPU-accelerated computing easier and more accessible for a broader range of high performance computing (HPC) scientific and technical applications.

The new NVIDIA Tesla K10 and K20 GPUs are computing accelerators built to handle the most complex HPC problems in the world. Designed with an intense focus on high performance and extreme power efficiency, Kepler is three times as efficient as its predecessor, the NVIDIA Fermi architecture, which itself established a new standard for parallel computing when introduced two years ago.

Sparkle, one of the leading manufacturers of graphics cards, revealed today its brand new GTX 680 Inferno, using NVIDIA's 28 nm Kepler GPU architecture and GPU Boost technology, which dynamically adjusts GPU speeds to maximize gaming performance up to 2 times higher than GTX 580. SPARKLE GTX 680 Inferno brings you a most fantastic gaming experience to satisfy all hardcore PC gamers' requirements.

Kepler architecture makes a giant leap in efficient-performance
Featuring 1536 CUDA cores, 1006 MHz GPU clock and 2GB of high-speed GDDR5 memory,

SPARKLE's flagship 28 nm GTX 680 Inferno graphics card greatly improves system power consumption and supports the latest PCI Express Gen 3 standards. The card requires two 6-pin power connectors, as the card has a TDP of only 195W. SPARKLE GTX 680 Inferno is not only faster but also operates at a much lower temperature and consumes lesser power than its rivals.

NVIDIA today reported revenue of $924.9 million for the first quarter of fiscal 2013 ended Apr. 29, 2012.

"Kepler GPUs are accelerating our business," said Jen-Hsun Huang, president and chief executive officer of NVIDIA. "Our newly launched desktop products are winning some of the best reviews we've ever had. Notebook GPUs had a record quarter. And Tegra is on a growth track again, driven by great mobile device wins and the upcoming Windows on ARM launch.

"Graphics is more important than ever. Look for exciting news next week at the GPU Technology Conference as we reveal new ways that the GPU will enhance mobile and cloud computing," he said.

NVIDIA recently released the GTX 670 dual graphics card to drive the 600 series graphics cards further with a juggernaut graphics cards to shatter gaming and synthetic benchmarks everywhere. Now, NVIDIA will visit an area that many enthusiasts enjoy; price to performance. The GTX 670 offers another available flavor of the new Kepler cards, with a lower price point, and remarkable performance to go along with it.

As always, AVADirect sets themselves apart from competitors by providing the largest selection of components and modifications. Amongst these selections, AVADirect offers hundreds of graphics card variants for end-users to decide upon. The GTX 670 is not just a choice, but "the" choice for enthusiasts that want the best performance for their dollar. AVADirect Gaming configurations will feature the graphics card to offer the most competitive pricing for a high-end gaming configuration, even more so in an SLI configuration with the GTX 670s Quad SLI support.

PNY Technologies, Inc. ("PNY") today introduced the XLR8 GeForce GTX 670 2048MB GDDR5 graphics card. The GTX 670 delivers state-of-the-art features and technologies found only in the newest NVIDIA Kepler architecture to redefine smooth, seamless, lifelike gaming.

The PNY XLR8 GeForce GTX 670 was designed to produce faster, more power-efficient performance and is 30% faster than the previous generation graphics card. PNY will offer consumers a value-added bundle: the GTX 670 graphics card coupled with a PNY High Speed Thin HDMI Cable. The HDMI cable connects the GTX 670 directly to an HDTV or monitor for maximum high definition 1080p gaming.

Cyberpower Inc., a global manufacturer of custom gaming systems, today announced the integration of NVIDIA's powerful new GeForce GTX 670 single GPU video card into its line of desktop gaming PCs.

The GeForce GTX 670 graphics card taps the new GeForce Kepler architecture to deliver faster, smoother, richer gaming performance. The GeForce GTX 670 is clocked at 915 MHz and can be "GPU boosted" to a blazing 980 MHz and features 2GB of GDDR5 memory. The GTX 670 is multi-display friendly featuring 2 DVI ports, a HDMI port and displayport. CyberpowerPC customers can explore richer gaming environments, brought to life by the latest NVIDIA advancements such as Surround multi-monitor gaming from a single card, supercharged life-like details through PhysX technology, 3D Vision plus the extreme power of 3-way SLI technology.

Relations between NVIDIA and its principal foundry partner, TSMC, have been unpredictable in recent times, with reports of NVIDIA expressing displeasure with it over 28 nm manufacturing capacity, which is denting its competitiveness; and later crediting collaboration with it, for the energy-efficiency of its latest Kepler family of GPUs. With NVIDIA threatening to find other foundry partners for bulk manufacturing, and reports of Samsung already preparing qualification samples for it, TSMC is responding by issuing NVIDIA a priority over other clients (such as Qualcomm, AMD) for manufacturing of 28 nm chips.

While being unsatisfied with TSMC's output, and its new policy of charging for wafers rather than working chips yielded, NVIDIA refuted rumors of it seeking other foundry partners such as Samsung and Global Foundries. When put on high-priority, TSMC will facilitate speedy launch of new NVIDIA GeForce SKUs towards the end of Q2, 2012. Supply prioritization isn't new, TSMC has, in the past, prioritized Qualcomm when it threatened to shift allocations to other foundries. It remains to be seen how AMD responds to the situation, as such a prioritization would come at the expense of its volumes, and could threaten its competitiveness.

Cyberpower Inc. www.cyberpowerpc.com, a global manufacturer of custom gaming machines, today announced the integration of NVIDIA's flagship GeForce GTX 690 graphics card into its line of enthusiast desktop gaming PCs.

Powered by two Kepler GPUs, the GeForce GTX 690 is a record setter in 3D performance, incredibly power efficient, and possesses an awesome visual aesthetic with its metallic design to express the raw, uncompromising power of a dual-GPU Kepler based graphics card.

The GTX 690 has 3,072 NVIDIA CUDA cores running at a blazing 915 MHz, with 2 GB GDD5 RAM for each individual GPU. The GTX 690 delivers the performance of dual GTX 680s in SLI but with reduced power consumption and a little more serenity.

Announced last week, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 enthusiast graphics card started selling, at an MSRP of US $999 (prices vary greatly by region). A variety of add-in card (AIC) partners will launch their GTX 690 graphics cards today. The GeForce GTX 690 is a dual-GPU graphics card that packs two 28 nm GeForce Kepler 104 GPUs, arranged in an internal SLI configuration. Both these chips have all their components unlocked, including 1536 CUDA cores, and 2 GB of GDDR5 memory across a 256-bit wide memory interface. The card hence ends up with a total of 3072 CUDA cores, and 4 GB of memory. The card should be available on leading retail stores. Despite its high price, it could sell out fast.

MAINGEAR, an award-winning PC system builder offering custom desktops, notebooks, workstations and media centers, is one of the first to offer the new NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 graphics solution to their newly revamped desktop product line up. The monstrous power of NVIDIA's latest new graphics is offered in quad SLI mode and is pushing performance to a new level of realism with consistent frame rates, smooth game play, and advanced technologies.

Is it better to have record setting performance, or incredible sleek looks when introducing a product? MAINGEAR and NVIDIA want to know: is it too much to ask for both? MAINGEAR is proud to add the new NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 to their newly updated lineup of desktops. This latest game changer powered by two Kepler GPUs has 4 GB of GDDR5 memory and 3072 CUDA cores, allowing gamers to crank up the gaming realism with NVIDIA Surround, NVIDIA 3D Vision Surround and PhysX rendering incredibility detailed environments and characters in full 1080 HD or even 2560 x 1600 with a single graphics card. With a screaming 75% increase in performance compared to the GeForce GTX 680, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 has an innovative vapor chamber thermal design that has a TDP of 300W which runs quieter than the previous generation, and the GeForce GTX 690 tears through the latest PC games and looks great while doing it.

TechPowerUp today announced GPU-Z 0.6.1, and with it, a new graphics card giveaway in partnership with PowerColor, in which you could win some of the fastest and coolest Radeon HD 7000 series graphics cards in the industry. Version 0.6.1 of GPU-Z adds support for some new GPUs on the horizon, such as NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690, GeForce GTX 670, GeForce GT 640 (desktop), GeForce GT 630, GeForce 605, GeForce GTX 675M (mobile), and GeForce GTX 670M; AMD Radeon HD 7970M (mobile), and Radeon HD 7450 (desktop); Intel HD 4000 and HD 2500 "Ivy Bridge". GPU-Z 0.6.1 improves NVIDIA GPU Boost clock speed detection. A host of other stability and reliability changes were made (refer to the change-log below).

With GPU-Z 0.6.1, TechPowerUp is teaming up with PowerColor to present to you this year's first GPU-Z Giveaway, in which you could win some great graphics hardware. Up for grabs are PowerColor HD 7970 PCS+ Vortex II, PowerColor HD 7870 PCS+ Vortex II, and the yet-unannounced PowerColor HD 7770 PCS+ Vortex II. To participate in the Giveaway, simply run GPU-Z 0.6.1 (main version), click on the "PowerColor Giveaway" tab, and follow the instructions. Entries are open till June 01, 2012; multiple entries may lead to elimination. Good Luck!DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z 0.6.1 | TechPowerUp GPU-Z 0.6.1 ASUS ROG Edition

The complete change-log follows.

A little earlier this month, NVIDIA spent quite some money on premium courier to send us a package that wasn't exactly light. On opening it, we found a fun-size steel crowbar with an NVIDIA logo inscribed on it, and a message that read "for use in case of zombies or..." which was pretty cryptic. We thanked NVIDIA for the back-scratching tool, and got back to work. While Gabe Newell made the crowbar a pop-culture symbol, there is only one socially-acceptable use of this otherwise boring tool: opening wooden crates, which were used to ship stuff overseas, before modern containers came to be. One such crate made its way to our doorstep, not floating over the sea, but gliding its way over the Autobahn aboard another expensive "same day" courier.

The top of the crate sure was catchy, which cautioned us of "weapons grade gaming power". Its side had a geekspeak print. "0b1010110010" is binary for "690" (0b is a binary prefix). The other two lines make no sense. Upon opening the crate, and a sheet of foam, there it is, something we'll be toying with for the better part of this week.

NVIDIA today announced the GeForce GTX 690, the world's fastest consumer graphics card -- with a bold industrial design to match. Powered by dual Kepler architecture-based GeForce GPUs, the GTX 690 is meticulously designed -- inside and out -- to deliver the most refined, elegant and smooth PC gaming experience possible.

The surprise announcement was made by NVIDIA CEO and co-founder Jen-Hsun Huang during his keynote address at the NVIDIA Game Festival in Shanghai, which is being attended by more than 6,000 gamers from across China.

Despite the fact that NVIDIA is frantically seeking out other semiconductor foundries for high-volume manufacturing its 28 nm chip designs, and despite some looming irritants, NVIDIA appears to value its relationship with TSMC highly. NVIDIA's senior vice president for Advanced Technology Group Joe Greco, in a recent company blog post, credited close collaboration with TSMC for the stellar energy-efficiency (performance/Watt) figures NVIDIA's Kepler architecture has been able to achieve.

"The advancement that TSMC offered was a new optimized process technology. Kepler is manufactured using TSMC's 28nm high performance (HP) process, the foundry's most advanced 28nm process which uses their first-generation high-K metal gate (HKMG) technology and second generation SiGe (Silicon Germanium) straining," read the blog post. "Using TSMC's 28nm HP process enabled us to reduce active power by about 15 percent and leakage by about 50 percent compared to 40nm, resulting in an overall improvement in power efficiency of about 35 percent (see charts)."