Zotac has recently announced their very own Steam Machine to join Valve’s expanding SteamOS-powered mini-PC lineup.

Featuring a compact Zbox-like form factor, Zotac’s new SN970 Steam Machine packs a wallop thanks to its beefy Sixth Generation Intel processor matched with an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M GPU with 3GB of GDDR5 for higher-end graphical performance.

One of the big features of the SN970 is that it’s a 4K ready Steam Machine that supports full UHD at 60Hz, which is a welcome feature especially in the mini-PC realm.

Gamers can also hook up to four display monitors up to the device thanks to its 4x HDMI 2.0 ports, making the device a potential nexus for entertainment.

“We are honored to be working closely with Valve to bring gamers a system that will redefine PC gaming,” said Tony Wong, CEO of Zotac International.

“The Zotac Steam Machine delivers a fully optimized gaming platform with full emphasis on graphics. We have employed the latest Intel CPU and NVIDIA GPU technology so gamers can keep the graphics sliders on ultra, and enjoy smooth, 4k gaming.”

Like every other Steam Machine, Zotac’s SN970 runs Valve’s proprietary Steam OS right out of the box, which is aimed at simplifying the user experience for optimum accessibility and performance.

Zotac has yet to reveal pricing details for mini-PC, but Valve announced at GDC 2015 that we should start seeing the Steam Machines shipped out this November.

Whether or not the SN970 will be able to take on the current juggernauts of living room gaming–the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One–all depends on the price. If Zotac can maintain an attractive price point then gamers will be much more likely to jump onboard the mini-PC market, considering this particular model supports 4K gaming and has some beefy specs to boot.

Below we have a full list of specs on the Zotac SN970 Steam Machine:

Key Features

• SteamOS preloaded
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M MXM Graphics
• 4x HDMI 2.0, supports 4K UHD @ 60Hz
• 1x HDMI in
• 2D/3D NVIDIA Surround Sound
• Dual Gigabit Ethernet

Specifications

• 6th Gen Intel Processor
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M 3GB GDDR5
• 8GB DDR3 RAM
• 64GB M.2 Solid-State Drive
• 4x USB 3.0, 2x USB 2.0
• 1×2.5″ 1TB HDD
• 802.11ac WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0
• Mic-in, Stereo Out
• SD/SDHC/SDXC Card Reader

The post Zotac Announces 4K Ready Steam Machine appeared first on VR World.

Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) is under fire for incorrectly listing the specs of the GTX 970, and while the manufacturer has announced that it will provide a way for users to return the card to those looking to do so, that does not seem to extend to a majority of Nvidia’s partners around the globe.

Major retailers such as Amazon and NewEgg are offering refunds to any user looking to return the GTX 970, but in countries like India, customers are left to fend for themselves as retailers are refusing to process returns.

The issue with the GTX 970 is that Nvidia implemented a new memory segmentation in the card, which meant that the 4GB available memory was sectioned into a 3.5GB segment and a 512MB segment. The memory controllers in the 3.5GB segment have direct access to the L2 cache, and deliver an advertised bandwidth of 196GB/s, but the last 512MB has to interface with another memory controller to access the cache, leading to a drastic reduction in bandwidth to 28GB/s.

The situation is more pronounced when a user has the two or more GTX 970 cards in SLI, with a noticeable decrease in framerates when gaming at higher resolutions. Indian hardware site HardwareBBQ posted a conversation between a user facing such issues with the GTX 970 in SLI, and his failed attempts to get a refund for the card. The conversation starts off with the user talking to an Nvidia engineer on the GeForce forums, after which he is redirected to talk to the card vendor directly to initiate the refund process (which in this case is Zotac India).

However, the e-mail communique results in the technical manager for Zotac India, Swarn Singh, refusing to provide a refund as the GTX 970 was delivered “as it is written on the box with all specification.” The user was redirected to contact Nvidia, with Singh stating that a refund would be entertained only if the card suffered from any warranty-related issues. A discussion with an Nvidia engineer based out of India by the name of Rajaram also fails to yield any results, with the engineer stating that it is not “possible to suffer lag (microstutters) when the FPS is high” on the GTX 970.

Zotac India’s stubbornness in acknowledging an issue exists with the GTX 970 is alarming, considering that the brand is one of several vendors processing returns on a global level. The situation is exacerbated when taken into account the fact that video cards often carry a markup of 30 to 35% in the country.

Furthermore, Nvidia claimed that it would assist users that were unable to claim a return for their GTX 970, but the conversations with retailers and discussions on message boards in India show that the chip manufacturer is not offering a solution to users who purchased the card in the country.

With card vendors like Zotac directing users back to Nvidia and the chip vendor not providing any recourse regarding the issue, Indian users are largely left in the cold when it comes to dealing with returns or refunds for the beleaguered GTX 970.

The post GTX 970 Owners In India Left To Fend For Themselves appeared first on VR World.

Nvidia has announced the latest video card in the GeForce 900 series, the GeForce GTX 960. With the GTX 980 and GTX 970 targeting high-end and mid-tier segments, it is now time for Nvidia to turn its attention to the entry-level segment with the GTX 960.

Based on the Maxwell architecture, the GTX 960 is designed to enable full-HD gaming, with the GTX 980 and GTX 970 targeting beyond full-HD resolutions. The GTX 960 is aimed as the successor to the GTX 660 and GTX 760, but with better performance and lowered power consumption. With pricing starting at $200 for the card, it is clear that Nvidia is looking to deliver great performance at an affordable price with the GTX 960.

Zotac GeForce GTX 960 AMP! Edition

Zotac is offering the GTX 960 in standard and overclocked variants, with the factory overclocked version dubbed the AMP! Edition. The Zotac GTX 960 continues on from the rest of the GeForce 900 series when it comes to low power consumption and high overclocking headroom, but this time the focus is on the budget segment.

Zotac’s GTX 960 AMP! Edition is a non-standard design from the vendor, and includes a custom backplate as well as 90mm fans, which Zotac calls IceStorm. There are other additions that give the card the ability to clock to over 1,500 MHz.

The GTX 960 AMP! Edition comes with a 1,266 MHz core clock and a 1,329 boost clock. Other vendors have also launched factory overclocked variants of the GTX 960, but Zotac’s variant offers the highest clocks.

Boasting a 128-bit wide memory bus and a 2GB GDDR5 memory at 7 Gbps, Zotac’s card can achieve a memory bandwidth of 112GB/s, and has 1024 CUDA cores. The numbers are exactly half of what is offered by the standard variant of the GTX 980, which boasts 2048 CUDA cores, 4GB GDDR5 video memory and a 256-bit wide memory interface.

While the numbers may seem low, Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) is stating that users would be able to deliver a higher bandwidth by undertaking a lossless texture compression technology that significantly reduces memory bandwidth usage. An effective bandwidth figure of 144 GB/s was quoted.

Unlike the GTX 980 and GTX 970, the GTX 960 is not based on the GM204 silicon. Nvidia has instead announced the GM206 GPU, which has a smaller 228mm² die size than the 400mm² size of the GM204. A GPU with smaller die makes sense considering the GTX 960 is aimed at maximizing efficiency.

Here’s where the GTX 960 slots in with the rest of the GeForce 900 series:

In terms of connectivity, the GTX 960 AMP! Edition has three DisplayPort 1.2 connectors that can handle 4K resolutions (4096 x 2160 and 3840 x 2160) at 60Hz. There’s also a dual-link DVI-I that can drive QHD (2560 x 1600) resolutions, but the port that is most interesting is HDMI 2.0, which finally offers 4K resolutions (4096 x 2160) at 60Hz. The display controller can simultaneously support as many as four displays. The controller can even drive a 5K (5120×2880) screen. 

Power consumption has been one of the major areas of focus with Maxwell, and that continues with the GTX 960 as well, which has a max TDP of 120W. The low power utilization means that the card comes with a single 6-pin connector. DirectX 12 compatibility means that the GTX 960 now comes with OpenGL 4.4.

The GTX 960 AMP! Edition comes with a slew of additions from Zotac, including the new 90mm fans called IceStorm. Originally debuted on the overclocked variants of the GTX 980 and GTX 970, the dual 90mm fans work in conjunction with the 6mm copper heatpipes and the aluminum fin stack to maximize airflow. The custom backplate, with its gunmetal structure, gives the card added rigidity.

Zotac is introducing a new idle mode which will see the fans switch off if the temperature falls below 59° C, or when the TDP is under 13W. The option, called Freeze, is designed to minimize noise levels when not under load.

The post Zotac GeForce GTX 960 AMP! Edition Review: Maxwell’s Budget Workhorse Is Here appeared first on VR World.

The mini-PC segment has been on the rise for the past two years, and Zotac is one of the better known brands in the sector. The push by both AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) and Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) to make their respective processors smaller and more power efficient has pushed the sector upwards.

It’s no surprise that Zotac brought a number of new and refreshed Zbox models to the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show. Zotac is trying to cater the needs of both gamers and those who only need their machines for more lightweight use with the lineup it brought to CES.

The most interesting addition to Zotac’s lineup is the gamer-centered Zbox EN860. The EN860 comes with a built-in GTX 860M, three USB 3.0 ports, HDMI, DisplayPort, DVI, two Ethernet ports, and a TOSLINK audio connector for home theater connectivity. Zotac says the system has G-Sync support, and will be able to drive 4K. Zotac has yet to confirm what processor will be machine, though very likely it will be Intel’s new power sipping Broadwell.

Next up is a new edition to Zotac’s C-series of mini-PCs, the Zbox CI 321 Nano. The CI 321 Nano features a GHz Intel Celeron 2961Y dual-core Haswell processor as well as 4GB of RAM and up to 64 GB of storage (with the Plus model). As far as connectivity goes it has 802.11ac WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, Gigabit Ethernet, and HDMI and DisplayPort.

Lastly, Zotac’s Zbox Pico got a slight refresh as it now features an AMD Mullins A4-6400T, R3 Graphics, 2 GB of DDR3 memory, 32GB of storage and mini-DisplayPort.

Pricing is unknown at this time, but it will be interesting how the refreshed Mullins competes with the previous-gen Intel version.

The post Zotac Brings Updated ZBoxes to CES 2015 appeared first on VR World.

Zotac’s suite at the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show had its latest video cards and mini-PCs — all things that the company is well known for.

Compared to Taiwan’s much bigger vendors, Hong Kong’s Zotac has proven to be a disruptive force in the VGA sector with its cards consistently receive high praises from reviewers.

For video cards, Zotac brought two versions of its new GTX 980: the GeForce GTX 980 AMP! Extreme and GTX 980 AMP! Edition.

The standard version of the GTX 980 has core clock of 1126 MHz with a boost clock of 1216 MHz, and includes 2048 CUDA cores, 4 GB GDDR5 video memory, 256-bit wide memory interface and a memory clock of 7010 MHz. This version of the card will be different from Zotac’s previously released Omega edition, so exact pricing and specifications are not yet known at this time.

Review samples are on their way to VR World’s labs, so expect more details soon!

The post Zotac Brings Two Nvidia GPUs to CES 2015 appeared first on VR World.

This past Thursday (September 18^th), Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) hosted its GAME24 event from Hangar 8 at the Santa Monica Airport in Los Angeles. The event was billed as a “celebration of PC gaming”, and it certainly was. However, the main event was no secret to those in the press – the release of the new top end Maxwell GPUs: GTX 980 and GTX 970.

Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang soon took the stage to welcome the attendees and to present Maxwell and the new technologies that come with it.

Maxwell has a variety of improvements over the previous generation of GPU technology. Memory consumption has been drastically reduced, using approximately 25% less memory bandwidth on the games Nvidia tested with when comparing the GTX 980 to GTX 680.

Energy efficiency was also improved, with Nvidia boasting a 2x improvement in efficiency (measured in performance per watt as determined by frames per second).

Two interesting new software features are DSR (Dynamic Super Resolution) and MFAA.

DSR is designed to be used with games that are already running at maximum visual settings and are still getting extremely high framerates. DSR uses the extra GPU horsepower to render the frames at 4K resolution and downscale them to the monitor’s native resolution, resulting in improved visual fidelity.

MFAA is a different type of anti-aliasing designed to provide higher levels of AA at a lower performance cost. Nvidia stated it as “4x MSAA Quality at 2x AA Performance”. That’s not entirely accurate as the number was compared to 4x MSAA on a GTX 680 vs 4x MFAA on a GTX 980. As seen in the slide below, going from 4x MSAA to 4x MFAA on a GTX 980 provides an increase of approximately 27%, going from 41 FPS to 52 FPS. Nevertheless, the improvement is still impressive.

Nvidia also significantly improved input lag time for the purpose of VR displays, making Oculus Rift a much more attractive product.

VXGI (Voxel Global Illumination) is a low-cost (in terms of performance) lighting technology. The results looked very good and ran in real-time. They also demonstrated a debunking of the moon landing conspiracy using VXGI lighting effects to simulate the images of the moon landing.

At the end of the presentation, the GTX 980 was launched at an MSRP of $549 and the GTX 970 at an MSRP of $329. (Check out the GTX 980 review here)

After the presentation, there was more food and drinks, as well as a variety of stations set up to try out Nvidia’s tech.

Stations included the following: three display 4K surround, Nvidia Shield gaming stations, G-Sync enabled 4K gaming stations, and most impressively – Oculus Rift testing stations utilizing Nvidia’s new input lag-reducing tech.

The Oculus Rift one was definitely the most impressive of all the demos on display. Even those prone to motion sickness have no problem enjoying games with the headset. The experience was totally immersing and very smooth. The immersion was so complete that people around me took the opportunity to take amusing photos.

Nvidia also did a massive giveaway, giving away a total of approximately 45 products. Considering the crowd appeared to be about 300 people, the opportunities to win were quite good. Even more appealing was the fact that the giveaways consisted solely of GTX 980 and 970 GPUs, 4K monitors from ASUS and Acer, and Nvidia Shield and Shield tablets. Each attendee also received free game codes for Assassin’s Creed: Unity, Far Cry 4, and The Crew. Considering the event was open for free public registration, the event was definitely worth attending.

Prior to the start of the event there was a hands-on preview of Zotac’s new GTX 980 and 970 offerings. Both product releases here and here, so we won’t go into too much detail here, but pictures of some of the new cards are below:

This post originally appeared on Bright Side of News*, VR World’s sister site.

The post Nvidia Game24 Event: The Launch of GTX 980 and GTX 970 appeared first on VR World.

This past Thursday (September 18^th), Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) hosted its GAME24 event from Hangar 8 at the Santa Monica Airport in Los Angeles. The event was billed as a “celebration of PC gaming”, and it certainly was. However, the main event was no secret to those in the press – the release of the new top end Maxwell GPUs: GTX 980 and GTX 970. This announcement was made in conjunction with the NDA expiry of the GTX 980 reviews, including our very own review of the GeForce GTX 980.

Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang soon took the stage to welcome the attendees and to present Maxwell and the new technologies that come with it.

Maxwell has a variety of improvements over the previous generation of GPU technology. Memory consumption has been drastically reduced, using approximately 25% less memory bandwidth on the games Nvidia tested with when comparing the GTX 980 to GTX 680.

Energy efficiency was also improved, with Nvidia boasting a 2x improvement in efficiency (measured in performance per watt as determined by frames per second).

Two interesting new software features are DSR (Dynamic Super Resolution) and MFAA.

DSR is designed to be used with games that are already running at maximum visual settings and are still getting extremely high framerates. DSR uses the extra GPU horsepower to render the frames at 4K resolution and downscale them to the monitor’s native resolution, resulting in improved visual fidelity.

MFAA is a different type of anti-aliasing designed to provide higher levels of AA at a lower performance cost. Nvidia stated it as “4x MSAA Quality at 2x AA Performance”. That’s not entirely accurate as the number was compared to 4x MSAA on a GTX 680 vs 4x MFAA on a GTX 980. As seen in the slide below, going from 4x MSAA to 4x MFAA on a GTX 980 provides an increase of approximately 27%, going from 41 FPS to 52 FPS. Nevertheless, the improvement is still impressive.

Nvidia also significantly improved input lag time for the purpose of VR displays, making Oculus Rift a much more attractive product.

VXGI (Voxel Global Illumination) is a low-cost (in terms of performance) lighting technology. The results looked very good and ran in real-time. They also demonstrated a debunking of the moon landing conspiracy using VXGI lighting effects to simulate the images of the moon landing.

At the end of the presentation, the GTX 980 was launched at an MSRP of $549 and the GTX 970 at an MSRP of $329. (Check out the GTX 980 review here)

After the presentation, there was more food and drinks, as well as a variety of stations set up to try out Nvidia’s tech.

Stations included the following: three display 4K surround, Nvidia Shield gaming stations, G-Sync enabled 4K gaming stations, and most impressively – Oculus Rift testing stations utilizing Nvidia’s new input lag-reducing tech.

The Oculus Rift one was definitely the most impressive of all the demos on display. Even those prone to motion sickness have no problem enjoying games with the headset. The experience was totally immersing and very smooth. The immersion was so complete that people around me took the opportunity to take amusing photos.

Nvidia also did a massive giveaway, giving away a total of approximately 45 products. Considering the crowd appeared to be about 300 people, the opportunities to win were quite good. Even more appealing was the fact that the giveaways consisted solely of GTX 980 and 970 GPUs, 4K monitors from ASUS and Acer, and Nvidia Shield and Shield tablets. Each attendee also received free game codes for Assassin’s Creed: Unity, Far Cry 4, and The Crew. Considering the event was open for free public registration, the event was definitely worth attending.

Prior to the start of the event there was a hands-on preview of Zotac’s new GTX 980 and 970 offerings. Both product releases here and here, so we won’t go into too much detail here, but pictures of some of the new cards are below:

The post Nvidia Game24 Event: The Launch of GTX 980 and GTX 970 appeared first on VR World.

After months of rumors, the GeForce GTX 980 is official, and now hardware vendors are launching their own versions of the card. The rumors indicated that while GTX 970 would come in overclocked variants, the GTX 980 would be available only as a reference card, at least initially. This, thankfully, is not the case, as Zotac has three variants of the card: a standard reference variant, an overcooking edition and an extreme edition that is catered to the enthusiast gamer segment.

All cards feature Zotac’s FireStorm customization utility, although the overclocked editions get more bells and whistles in the form of a custom cooler, more durable design and visible gains in performance.

The standard version of the GTX 980 has core clock of 1126 MHz with a boost clock of 1216 MHz, and includes 2048 CUDA cores, 4 GB GDDR5 video memory, 256-bit wide memory interface and a memory clock of 7010 MHz. For the base variant, Zotac is not including any modifications form the reference design, which is evident when you take a look at the card. The cooler stack is identical to that of the GTX 780 Ti.

In terms of display connectors, Zotac’s cards have one HDMI 2.0, which has a max output of 4K, as well as three DisplayPort 1.2 ports, also able to output at 4K. There is a dual-link DVI that allows you to scale to QHD resolutions.

The omega variant of the card features a new cooler fan stack that Zotac calls IceStorm, as well as an exterior design that is called ExoArmor. The omega version clocks in at 1202 MHz core, and 1304 MHz boost. With a maximum power consumption figure of 200W, the card has two 8-pin power connectors, similar to that of the extreme edition of the card.

Nvidia is touting the GTX 980 as the fastest video card in the world, and early benchmarks indicate that this is the case, with the card easily outpacing the R9 290X. Another win for Nvidia is the power consumption figures, with the reference design card touted to max out at 165W. We will be testing Nvidia’s figures in detail in a review, so stay tuned for more on the series 9xx video cards.

The post Zotac Announces The Beastly GeForce GTX 980 appeared first on VR World.

Now that the Maxwell-based Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) 9xx series is official, hardware vendors are starting to offer their custom variants. Zotac, known for its overclocked video cards, is catering to all segments of gamers by offering three video cards based on the GeForce GTX 970 — a reference design, an enthusiast overclocked model that features higher clocks, and an extreme edition that features three cooling fans.

Zotac GeForce GTX 970

The reference GTX 970, which Zotac is referring to as the Zotac GeForce GTX 970, has dimensions of 204 mm, which should allow it to fit in most mid-tower enclosures with ease. The rumors surrounding the GTX 9xx series and HDMI 2.0 turned out to be spot on, as Zotac’s card features a HDMI 2.0 that can output 4K at 60 Hz in addition to two dual-link DVI that can output a quad-HD resolution of 2560 x 1600, and a DisplayPort 1.2 that can also handle a 4K output.

The stock GTX 970 has a base clock of 1076 MHz, boost clock of 1216 MHz, 1664 CUDA cores and 4 GB GDDR5 video memory on a 256-bit memory interface. The card features two 80 mm fans, and is quite energy efficient, with a maximum power consumption figure quoted at 145W. As such, the card features two 6-pin power connectors.

Every manufacturer is looking to differentiate its offerings from other vendors in this space, and Zotac is doing so by offering something called Power+, which the vendor claims is a more efficient way of power delivery, which is achieved by using high-quality capacitors that are claimed to last times longer than what is the industry standard.

Zotac is also offering quick customization by way of a utility called FireStorm, through which you can monitor real-time statistics, set profiles and overclock the video card with ease. 

In addition to Zotac-exclusive features, the DirectX 12-enabled GTX 970 comes with Nvidia’s suite of technologies that include Nvidia G-Sync, GameStream and GameWorks among others.

Zotac GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Omega Edition

The Omega edition falls in between the standard variant and the extreme overclocked version. While the reference design is a dual-slot card, the omega and extreme editions take up three card slots. With a length of 268 mm, the omega edition should not have any issue fitting into cabinets. Both the omega and extreme editions have the same display connectors, which include one HDMI 2.0 and three DisplayPort 1.2, both with 4K output, as well as a dual-link DVI that can handle resolutions of 2560 x 1600.

Being a factory overclocked model, Zotac’s GTX 970 omega edition comes with base clocks of 1102 MHz and boost clocks of 1241 MHz, with other specs similar to that of the standard GTX 970. The overclocked model is not as power efficient with a maximum power consumption of 171W, but it is still far and beyond better than anything else we’ve seen in this category thus far. For instance, the R9 290 hits 300W with not much effort. To accommodate for the increased power draw, the omega edition comes with two 8-pin power connectors.

While the stock Zotac GTX 970 featured standard 80 mm fans, the omega edition comes with two 90 mm fans that feature grooved fan blades, which Zotac claims assists in better air flow. In addition, the GTX 970 Omega edition comes with a more durable frame surrounding the card, which Zotac is calling ExoArmor. The card also comes with the Power+ and FireStorm utilities, and in addition features a dedicated power controller that communicates with the video card via an internal bus. This bus has a micro-USB out, which when connected to an internal USB header on the motherboard allows you to access a wealth of settings that can be changed in real-time using FireStorm. Brands like Corsair have been doing this since last year with power delivery systems and coolers, so it should be interesting to see how this feature works in real world conditions.

The new cooling fans and the overclocking potential means that the Zotac GTX 970 is a worthy contender for gamers looking to invest in a mid-range card that offers the most bang for the buck.

Zotac GeForce GTX 970 AMP! Extreme Edition

As the name indicates, the extreme edition is designed with enthusiast gamers in mind, and comes with a host of features that are not present in the first two cards. Let’s first delve on the design: the GTX 970 extreme edition is aptly named, as the card looks beastly with the three cooling fins and the gunmetal color scheme. When it comes to dimensions, the GTX 970 extreme edition has a length of 300 mm, which means that you have to check your enclosure (or invest in a new one) to accommodate the card.

The GTX 970 extreme edition is clocked at 1203 MHz base/ 1355 MHz boost, and has 1664 CUDA cores, 4 GB GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit interface, with a memory clock of 7200 MHz. All this with a power consumption of 176W, which is delivered through two 8-pin connectors.

The three cooling fan solution, dubbed IceStorm, features three anti-rotational 90 mm fans that are designed to maximize air flow. Although the card is factory overclocked, the design allows for a lot of overhead when it comes to even further overclocking, which we’re sure enthusiast gamers would take full advantage of.

A unique feature in the GTX 970 is the LED lighting scheme, which is called LIGHT.id. If you’ve got a windowed side panel and are inclined to show off your hardware, the red color scheme is ideal for you. The card also has a green color scheme when in 2D mode. If you want to, you can disable the feature via the FireStorm utility.

The extreme edition also comes with a dedicated OC+ button that allows you to fine-tune your card settings, and all the other features available in the omega and the standard versions.

All three cards come with a five year warranty, with US and Canadian customers getting an addition two year extended warranty. Pricing information will be available closer to launch.

The post Zotac Announces GeForce GTX 970 Series appeared first on VR World.

Form factors for PCs are getting smaller and smaller, but Zotac’s new Zbox PI320 Pico pushes the form factor even further. Pico is generally a term that is associated with a certain size of a PC, like the Zbox PI 320, and the truth is that this is one of the smallest ‘PC’  formfactors you can technically build a PC into, even though this thing is bordering on really being a nano PC. It also has the specs behind it to still technically be considered a PC.

Coming in at 4.54 x 2.6 x 0.75 inches, Zotac’s new Zbox is silent and small enough to fit in one’s pocket. Inside, it has an Atom Z3735F processor clocked at either 1.33 GHz or 1.83 GHz, 2 GB of DDR3L memory and 32 GB of Flash-based internal storage. For connectivity, it includes two USB 2.0 ports, HDMI, Bluetooth 4.0, MicroSD, and both Ethernet as well as 802.11 b.g.n Wi-Fi.

“Zotac is a major innovator when it comes to miniaturizing the traditional PC. We began our push towards smaller and smaller mini-PCs with the Zbox nano form factor and followed up with the Zbox nano XS,” said Tony Wong, CEO, Zotac International, in a statement. “Now with the all-new Zbox PI320 pico, we have created our smallest mini-PC that can fit in your pocket.”

The computer also ships with Windows 8.1 with Bing.

Zotac expects the device to launch next month at a price point of $199.

The post Zotac’s Zbox PI320 Pico Mini-PC Fits in Your Pocket appeared first on VR World.

55nm chip on a GeForce card

This card features Volterra multiphase power regulation (no more Nvidia squealing, yes!), 14 memory chips (instead of standard seven) and 55nm GT200-103-B2 chip. 14 memory chips leaves room for cards with 1.5 GB of GDDR3 memory, and if dual-bank is used, GTX260 can support 3GB memory on the single card.

Does this mean GTX295 will feature 3GB of GDDR3 memory? Only time will tell…

Zotac board comes with standard GTX260-216 clocks, but the board features two 6-pin PEG adapters. Since Quadro FX 4800 works with just one, this board just may be overclockers dream. Second PEG adapter provides additional 75W, so the board can consume 225W instead of maximum 150W on Quadro CX/FX4800.

When this card hits the market, you can expect overclock it to at least 650 MHz for the GPU and 1500 MHz for the shaders (default clock on FX5800). It will be interesting to see how far can enthusiasts push the 55nm GPU, since this board should result in wonders when cooled with water or something even higher…

As it stands right now, the only card with 55nm GPU featuring all 240 shader units is Quadro FX 5800. It is possible that current yields suck so bad… until we see GTX “270” or GTX280 based on P656 PCB, we know that there aren’t many 55nm GPUs available for production with all 240 shaders on it.

The post Zotac leaks pictures of 55nm GTX260 appeared first on VR World.

Two el cheapo parts...

All in all, interesting parts.

The post Zotac releases affordable DisplayPort cards appeared first on VR World.

Nvidia's client may not look as nice as ATI one, but it's the efficiency that counts...

Fast forward to GTX280 launch and the Vijay Pande team debuted the Folding@Home client for Nvidia chips as well. Nvidia and ATI lead a short marketing war who can fold better and things went quiet… apparently, for a reason.
The reason why things went quiet is probably the “inconvenient truth”: ATI showed up with Radeon 4800 series and demolished Nvidia’s dominance in the segment, with GTX260 and 280 going through radical price drops in order to stay competitive. However, ATI’s Radeon 4800 series has one field where the card is losing against 5-10x cheaper cards: Folding@Home.
The 10x argument lies in comparison between current ATI’s flagship, the  Radeon 4870X2 and Nvidia’s GeForce 9600GSO. This $50 card can easily out-fold ATI Radeon 4870X2, which retails for more than 500 USD/450EUR in respective markets.
In the past weeks, I’ve conducted a series of tests with various graphics cards (all that I own or could put my hands on), and the results were quite depressing if you own an ATI card. I’ve asked some of my contacts in AMD why the performance is so bad and the answers were ranging from “we wanted to make best gamer’s card, not a card for Folding” to sad silence. It seems to me that the difference lies in shader type and clock: ATI’s R6xx and RV7xx architecture lies around big fat units and lot of tiny ones (64+256 in case of Radeon 3800, 80+720 in case of Radeon 4800), and the clock is much lower than in case with GeForce cards. At the same time, Nvidia went the other route and came up with large number of “fat” units, while the company didn’t even count the “thin” (MADD) ones.
When we compare the GTX280 and 4870X2, comparisons are just astounding: in a period of a month, EVGA’s GTX280 SSC achieved an average of 6,802 points per day, while ATI Radeon 4870X2 managed puny 3,870 ppd. At the same time, I’ve witnessed higher PPD scores achieved even by two-year old GeForce 8800GTS 640 MB, which was quite a surprise. Around two weeks ago, I started following PPD numbers using FahMon on a large number of systems that mostly bear the same configuration: dua-core processor or more, 2GB system memory or more and the graphics cards. In all cases, with the help of my friends, I’ve managed to check FahMon and KakaoStats for rougly 25 cards and came to a surprising result.
With the recent update to the GPU2 client and new Fah_Core11.exe (ATI uses v1.17, Nvidia v1.15), the community witnessed further fall in number of completed packets per day. If you’re not familiar with Folding@Home packets, every package features certain number of mathematical simulations for tested protein – in case of Nvidia, packet consists out of 25 million, while ATI’s one features 10 million operations. However, due do different type of mathematical operations, Nvidia’s packet usually will result in 480 points, while ATI’s 10 million will return 548 points (or recently introduced ATI packets with 338 points).
Like I previously wrote, the table below is not the result of one packet score and Excel calculation, but rather continuous number crunching over the course of several weeks, with one week used for measurement.

Improvised Top 20 Folding@Home GPUs:

1. Nvidia GeForce GTX280 1GB (EVGA SSC)
2. Nvidia GeForce GTX260-216 898MB (EVGA SSC)
3. Nvidia GeForce GTX260 898MB (EVGA Superclocked)
4. Nvidia GeForce 9800GTX+ 512MB (ASUS TOP)
5. Nvidia Quadro FX 4600 SDI 768MB (PNY)
6. Nvidia GeForce 9800GTX 512MB (ASUS TOP)
7. Nvidia GeForce 8800GTX 768MB (Zotac AMP! Edition)
8. Nvidia GeForce 8800Ultra 768MB (XFX XXX Edition)
9. Nvidia GeForce 8800GTS 512MB (Gainward)
10. Nvidia GeForce 8800GT 512MB (Gainward)
11. Nvidia GeForce 9600GSO 768MB (EVGA)
12. Nvidia GeForce 8800GTS 640MB (LeadTek)
13. ATI Radeon 4870X2 2GB (PowerColor)
14. ATI Radeon 4870 512MB (PALIT)
15. Nvidia GeForce 9600GT 256MB (Zotac)
16. ATI Radeon 4850 512MB (PALIT)
17. ATI Radeon 3870 512MB (Sapphire Atomic)
18. ATI FireGL V8600 1GB (ATI)
19. Nvidia GeForce 8600GTS 256MB (XFX XXX Edition)
20. ATI Radeon 3850 256MB (Sapphire)

This is not a complete table by no means, since I am missing several new GPUs. But in this one, as you can see for yourself – results are quite dramatic for the red team. Two year old GeForce GPUs demolished otherwise-brilliant Radeon series, and it is incredible that even GeForce 9600 will outfold Radeon 4850. This is a rude wake-up call for guys at Markham, because this is just unbelievable.
Personally, I am running a combination of AMD Spider platform (9850BE + 790GX + ATI Radeon 4870X2) and hybrid Intel’s V8-Skulltrail platform with Quadro FX 4600 SDI.
Of course, everything can be changed with a simple driver update. I don’t understand what happened with AMD/ATI, company that lead the field of GPGPU computing for so long – why should AMD work on optimizing Folding@Home client… I am aware that AMD poached Mike Houston from Stanford to work on Brooke+ and now OpenCL APIs, but surely the performance didn’t went downhill from the influence of just one person. Or just maybe…
Overall, I hope that Catalyst 8.11 or 8.12 will bring more performance for ATI cards, since I do not believe that it would be so hard to optimize drivers for GPGPU/GPU Computing usage. For now, in Folding@Home, ATI is complete washout.

For the end of this article, if you find that your GPU cycles could be used for something good, I invite you to read the following article and join F@H family, regardless of what client (CPU or GPU) or team you choose in the end. Intel, AMD, ATI, Nvidia, Windows, Linux or Mac OS – it does not matter, just join – If you want, of course.

The post Nvidia’s $50 card destroys ATI’s $500 one or “Why ATI sucks in Folding?” appeared first on VR World.

GeForce with PCIe slot, not the GeForce that goes in the PCIe slot

What makes this motherboard special is “Zotac-special”: beside HDMI audio/video connector, this motherboard also features DVI audio output, so technically, you can drive two TV screens via HDMI from the same motherboard. This company was first to offer DVI Audio on NVIDIA graphics cards and it’s nice to see that trend spreading across various nV partners.
But perhaps the most important part is the fact that nForce brand is slowly cease to exist. NVIDIA stated that all future products will include graphics processors and Hybrid SLI modes. With the focus on GeForce brand, it is no wonder that nForce is slowly, but certainly – going the way of dodo birds.
Future of NVIDIA is most probably integration of Tegra processors with the GeForce parts on their AMD/Intel chipsets, able to boot OS without using AMD/Intel CPUs at all. Who knows, the day when GeForce graphics card will boot operating system may not seem so far away.

The post nForce is dead: Zotac releases its GeForce 9300 motherboard appeared first on VR World.