NVIDIA Releases 355.98 Game Ready WHQL Drivers

NVIDIA has recently announced the launch of its latest WHQL driver set – 355.98. This update brings to the table the game ready drivers for Killing Floor 2, an early access sequel to the Tripwire’s previous game, Killing Floor. Of particular interest here is that this gorey co-op shooter is getting an upgrade with NVIDIA’s PhysX Flex – this update officially brings NVIDIA’s unified particle physics solver to consumers and allows acceleration for two way soft body physics effects seldom seen in games up to this point. In the case of Killing Floor 2, this allows for interactions between fluids and bits of gore to interact with the world, setting the stage for future games that adopt this technology. Typically PhysX is focused more on secondary, non-interacting physics animations, but that should bring a greater level of impact to those effects.

From NVIDIA’s Announcement: PhysX Flex Demo in Killing Floor 2

This update also provides support for NVIDIA’s newest addition to the family, the Geforce GTX 980 for notebooks. As covered previously, OEMs now have the option to include a fully enabled GTX 980 in an MXM form factor that can be added into high power gaming notebooks. This GTX 980 is the full desktop card, with enabled overclocking and NVIDIA integrated fan control options. Given that Maxwell was a mobile-first type of design focusing on efficiency, this brings together an attempt to unify mobile and desktop GPU parts.

Lastly, this driver brings updates to GameWorks VR that was announced earlier this year. While the details are thin at this point, we do know that with the GameWorks VR now has notebook support due to the release of the GTX 980 for notebooks. Specific details on the changes are limited to the changelog lines of ‘VR SLI enhancements and bug fixes’, which means that at least SLI implementations of VR are being worked on.

For those interested the updated drivers may be downloaded over at NVIDIA’s driver download page.

Source: NVIDIA (via SH SOTN)

Desktop NVIDIA GTX 980 Coming To Gaming Notebooks

For as long as NVIDIA has been putting GPUs into notebooks, they would always have a separate lineup of GPUs which were designed for the thermally constrained environment of a notebook computer. But today’s announcement puts NVIDIA’s new strategy front and center, that the full desktop-class GTX 980 (with 2048 cores) will be made available in an MXM format for notebooks as well as integrated designs.

Maxwell was the first GPU from NVIDIA which they designated as being designed for the mobile and consumer markets first. Despite this focus on mobile performance and efficiency, NVIDIA has managed to optimize the 28nm process to focus on efficiency first and foremost but still with powerful designs, including the GTX 980 and GM204 and of course now featuring the GTX 980 Ti and Titan X models as well.

There has certainly been a paradigm shift in the GPU market lately. Yes, desktop class cards certainly have a much bigger power budget than anything in a notebook, but due to the 28nm process being the sole contender for four generations, GPU architectures have focused on silicon efficiency rather than relying on node shrinks to rein in the power budget. As a result, the maximum power requirement for the high end GPUs has come down quite significantly – this helps with thermals and noise levels as well. So let’s get to today’s news from NVIDIA. No longer are they satisfied with the performance levels available in notebooks, and they have worked with OEMs on a new initiative to shoehorn desktop class parts into the notebook lineup.

And they are not going forward with low end desktop parts either. The GTX 980M is already roughly 75% of the performance of the desktop GTX 980, so there is little point in starting with a lower end part. NVIDIA is going right for the top with the full desktop-class GTX 980 now available in certain notebooks first. The regular TDP numbers for a desktop version of the GTX 980 come in at 165W – the version going into these new notebooks we are told will come in under that, but there won’t be any official number attached to it.

NVIDIA is leaving a lot of the design up to the OEMs so that they can create the experience they want. One of the keys for this launch though is a focus on overclocking which is something that has generally been lacking in the notebook space outside of a couple of niche products. This may be combined with Intel’s latest K series mobile parts too which also offer overclocking, and the enthusiast market just got a major kick in the backside.

NVIDIA did offer guidance and support for the OEMs as they were building their solutions, and we should have a pretty wide range of products offered. We will have to wait for OEMs to officially launch products to get a full list of what they have added, but NVIDIA is requiring four to eight phase power on the GTX 980 compared to just two to three phase on GTX 980M. The desktop-class part will have up to 50% higher peak current available under load.

When discussing the new initiative, NVIDIA was very quick to point that they are not binning chips to put in the notebook either, although the GPUs are put through extra verification to ensure that they meet higher requirements for performance and efficiency to ensure there will be enough headroom for use in a notebook, as well as some extra for overclocking. They assured us that they have had no issues with yields with the extra scrutiny, so volume should not be an issue. So the chips are pre-selected for the OEMs to use.

While this is in fact a full desktop GM204 GTX 980 with 2048 cores, being that it is in a notebook the voltages and frequencies will be reduced a bit, but final clock speeds will depend on the final designs from the notebook manufacturers. What will not be lacking though is the full memory speed, with up to 7 Gbps of bandwidth available from the GDDR5 memory, and 4 and 8 GB versions will be available.

It’s not just enough to fit a desktop part into a notebook though, especially if you are going after the overclocking enthusiast market. NVIDIA has also worked to include fan control into their tool set which should also let owners tweak the fan profile for various scenarios. This will all be accessible in notebook overclocking tools provided by the OEMs.

Virtual Reality is likely one of the most demanding compute tasks to come along in quite some time, and NVIDIA is announcing that the GTX 980 notebooks will be the first notebooks certified for driving VR. Not only is the resolution for VR higher than most gaming notebooks, but the refresh rate is bumped up as well. NVIDIA is showing a difference of 120 Megapixels per second for 1080p gaming versus 450 Megapixels per second for a VR headset.

Since NVIDIA doesn’t directly sell notebooks, we will have to wait for OEMs to announce pricing and shipping dates, but NVIDIA had six notebook designs to go along with the announcement from Aorus, Clevo, ASUS, and MSI. MSI should be first out of the gate with a new model of both the GT72 and the GT80 which will offer GTX 980 in SLI. ASUS is going to be using the GTX 980 in their new liquid cooled GX700VO that was announced at IFA. Aorus will offer the X7 G-SYNC, and Clevo will have both the P870DM and P775DM.

MSI GT72 G-SYNC

MSI GT80

ASUS GX700VO With Liquid Cooling Dock

AORUS X7 G-SYNC

Clevo P775DM

Clevo P870DM

Clearly this play is a niche within a niche, but the gaming notebook segment is still alive and well (and profitable) and there seems to be an audience who is just willing to pay for the best while still keeping it ‘portable’. Packing a desktop GPU into a notebook which isn’t the size of a small car is a feat that would not have been possible just a generation or two ago – the only other alternative is some Thunderbolt implementation which still hasn’t reached maturity. NVIDIA’s push to making Maxwell as efficient as possible has had a nice side effect for them. It is an interesting play and it will be interesting to see if these new designs can run as cool and quiet as the GTX 980M models already do.

Source: NVIDIA

Corsair Partners with MSI, Enters High-End Video Card Market With The Hydro GFX

Closed loop liquid cooled (CLLC) video cards have become an increasingly important part of the video card industry over the past couple of years. Though liquid cooling isn’t by any means new, it has until very recently been a true niche in the market, typically limited to aftermarket alterations of reference cards. More recently however we have seen the GPU vendors and their board partners embracing first and second party solutions, with companies like EVGA shipping complete liquid cooled solutions, and AMD going so far as to using liquid cooling on their reference cards such as the Radeon R9 Fury X. At the end of the day liquid cooling has allowed customers and system builders alike to put together denser and quieter systems, particularly when it comes to accommodating video cards over 250W.

Not surprisingly then, high-end CLLC-equipped video cards is a bright spot in an otherwise tepid video card market, offering an avenue of growth when other areas of the market are in decline. The potential for growth in turn attracts new competitors to the market, and that is particularly the case today for Corsair.

This evening the venerable PC components and cooling company is announcing that they are entering the high-end video card market. However rather than going into full video card manufacturing ala the traditional board partners, Corsair will be entering just the high-end segment of the market, and will be partnering with MSI to do so. The two companies will be combining their strengths – MSI’s board development expertise and Corsair’s cooler expertise – to develop high-end closed loop liquid cooled video cards to be sold under the Corsair brand.

The first video card developed under this partnership is the simply named Corsair Hydro GFX. The card is a CLLC-equipped GeForce GTX 980 Ti, combining an MSI card design with Corsair’s Hydro series 120mm H55 CLLC. Along with the integrated CLLC Corsair will also be shipping the card with a factory overclock – running the GPU at 1190MHz base clock and 1291MHz boost clock – in order to further boost the performance of the card. Overall Corsair estimates that the Hydro GFX should outperform the reference GTX 980 Ti by 15% by virtue of the CLLC eliminating thermal throttling combined with their factory overclock.

Meanwhile judging from the pictures and the specifications provided to us by Corsair, it looks like this card is a reference or near-reference board supplied by MSI, with the H55 and accompanying video card shroud taking the place of a normal cooler. This is notable since it means the card retains NVIDIA’s standard 250W power limit. Out of the box performance then is going to be limited to what Corsair and MSI can squeeze out of 250W – which is where the 15% number comes from – however with a CLLC attached there is clearly of potential for significant unofficial overclocking through BIOS modifications. I suspect having MSI handle the board will be helpful in that respect.

For Corsair getting into the high-end video card market is an interesting and initially unexpected move, though one that makes sense looking at their product portfolio. The company sells cases, coolers, and PSUs; everything needed to house and power a video card. And with the company increasingly focusing on small footprint cases such as the Bulldog, ensuring that there are suitable high-performance video cards to install in their cases makes all the more sense. Ultimately this move allows Corsair to dip their toes into a profitable segment of the video card market while ensuring that there is a supply of suitable cards for their small footprint cases, and of course that customers can buy it from Corsair along with their case and CPU cooler.

Meanwhile in the long term while the Hydro GFX is so far Corsair’s first and only card, the deal does leave the door open to further products from Corsair. I suspect that if the Hydro GFX is successful we’ll see further cards from Corsair and MSI once the next generation of cards lands later next year.

Finally, as for the Hydro GFX, Corsair will be releasing the card in October through their website. The MSRP will be $739, which is essentially a $90 mark up over a reference GTX 980 Ti in exchange for the factory overclock and integrated CLLC. Meanwhile Corsair is not the first vendor to get into selling CLLC-equipped GeForce cards, so the Hydro GFX will be going up against cards from vendors such as EVGA who are already shipping similar products.

Update: While this announcement originally came from Corsair, who only mentioned that they’d be selling the card as the Hydro GFX, we’re now hearing that MSI will be selling the card as well. In MSI’s lineup it will be known as the Sea Hawk, with the same specification and price.