AMD To Showcase Latest Innovations at “Capsaicin” Press Event & Webcast

Capsaicin, whether you call it the essence of flavor or the distillation of pain (ed: it’s the latter), at its core capsaicin is what drives everything we call spicy. Using this as their inspiration AMD’s Radeon Technologies Group will be holding a press event for GDC, and they are naming said event after this terrifically terrifying substance.

The press event, which we will be present for, will also be getting a live webcast that will be available on AMD’s investor relations page next week on Monday March 14^th, at 4:00 PM PT. After concluding the event a replay will be available to watch a few hours later, along with YouTube access as well.

At the event RTG plans on showcasing their own hardware, software, and gaming partners. As Capsaicin is the reason for that fire that inspires dishes worldwide, RTG will explore what they call the “inner essence” of the GPU and how it powers innovations that we will see in gaming and VR. Along these lines RTG plans to show the latest advancements drive both the enthusiast and developer communities as we approach a growing virtual reality market.

Meanwhile, that AMD is broadcasting a webcast should be considered significant. Due to Security and Exchange Commission rules, AMD is required to reveal certain types of information to investors at the same time as the press. In previous instances where AMD has announced a webcast via their investor relations site, there have been new product announcements. So it is reasonable to expect the same here.

For more information, please see the Capsaicin webcast announcement page. 

NVIDIA Releases 364.47 WHQL Game Ready Driver

Not even a week has passed and we have another driver update from NVIDIA. Despite the quick turnaround this is not a rushed released. Indeed, we have some heavy hitters found in a good number of fixes, a relatively large number of game ready updates, and even official Vulkan support.

This driver update introduces the 364 driver branch and NVIDIA has issued several bug fixes this time around. Among them including a crash in Assassin’s Creed Syndicate when ShadowPlay is enabled, a system hang during installation, crashing in Adobe Illustrator CC 2015, and a problem with the Twitch broadcast game title not matching Twitch’s game library. With all these fixes though, it is important to note that some users are reporting this driver update crashing their systems. Due to this issue a clean install is recommended even more so than it usually is.

Update: 03/08: NVIDIA has posted a new beta driver, 364.51, that is reported to resolve the earlier driver’s installation issues.

Meanwhile for game-specific updates, this driver brings performance and compatibility updates to Tom Clancy’s The Division, Hitman, Need for Speed, Ashes of the Singularity, and Rise of the Tomb Raider. Alongside the list game ready updates NVIDIA has provided SLI profiles for Hitman, The Technomancer, and Zui Shong Bing Qi (Ultimate Weapon).

Lastly, but possibly the biggest news of this update is that with the switch to a new driver branch, Vulkan support has moved out of beta and is now in NVIDIA’s mainstream drivers. We looked at Vulkan just last month as implemented in The Talos Principle, and though it’s merely proof of concept at this point, it represents significant progress in Vulkan development. However while we’re talking about API support, this latest driver branch still doesn’t have DirectX 12 support for NVIDIA’s Fermi architectre, though as we’ve seen it working in developer drivers it should still be on its way.

Anyone interested can download the updated drivers through GeForce Experience or on the NVIDIA driver download page.

ASUS Unveils 75W GeForce GTX 950 Graphics Card; Powered Entirely By PCIe Slot

ASUS has quietly introduced its new video card based on the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950 GPU with a 75W power limit. By virtue of a lower power limit, this newer design does not require a 6pin PCIe auxiliary power connection and can be used to upgrade even basic PCs. Surprisingly, despite the lowered TDP, the ASUS GTX950-2G card features typical clock-rates and other specificaitons one would expect from a GeForce GTX 950.

The sub-75W video card market is an important one, as many desktop PCs supplied by well-known brands lack even basic upgrade capabilities. To cut-down their costs and improve cable management inside their systems, PC makers sometimes reduce the number of power connectors to a minimum they need to build their systems. As a consequence, it gets impossible to add a new hard drive to such computers, or install a higher-performance graphics card due to lack of necessary additional power connectors inside the box.

When NVIDIA designed its Maxwell architecture years ago, the company put a lot of effort into improving relative energy efficiency of its then forthcoming GPUs and into cutting their absolute power consumption as well. As a result, the first Maxwell-based GPU, GM107, consumed only up to 60W even in its most powerful desktop configurations (i.e., GeForce GTX 750 Ti) and was widely used inside notebooks. The majority of GeForce GTX 750 Ti video cards did not require any additional power connectors and could be used to upgrade any PC because any PCIe x16 slot can provide up to 75W of power.

The more advanced GM206 GPU, based on the second-generation Maxwell architecture, has a TDP of up to 120W, which means that video cards based around it have required additional power. As a result, the GeForce GTX 950 and the GeForce GTX 960 video cards are not as OEM PC-friendly because they require one 6-pin PCIe auxiliary power connector. Nonetheless, ASUS has been able develop a GeForce GTX 950 video card that can be installed into almost any PC with sufficient space inside because its power consumption is just 75W.

The ASUS GTX950-2G comes with 2 GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 6.6 Gbps, a dual-slot dual-fan cooling system with an aluminum heatsink, one DVI connector, one HDMI 2.0 port and one DisplayPort output. ASUS did not lower frequency of the GPU and did not alter its configuration, though as we’ve seen with past attempts to produce lower power SKUs, it’s likely that this card has a reduced hard power limit to stay under 75W and may be more likely to power-throttle as a result. The GPU features 768 stream processors, 48 texture units, 32 ROPs as well as a 128-bit GDDR5 memory interface. It can work at 1051 MHz base clock and at up to 1128 MHz in boost mode (when OC mode is enabled).

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this video card is that thanks to the underlying GM206 GPU, it’s the first sub-75W card to gain full hardware-accelerated decoding and encoding of H.265 (HEVC) video, and it fully supports HDCP 2.2 content protection over HDMI 2.0. This will likely make the ASUS GTX950-2G a popular choice for HTPCs as a result. Conversely, due to low-power nature of the graphics adapter, the ASUS GTX950-2G may not be the best overclocker. For those, who would like to push a GeForce GTX 950 to the limits, ASUS offers its ECHELON-GTX95-O2G and the GTX950-2GD5 video cards that have power and cooling headroom as well as components with enhanced durability (the ECHELON model).

The ASUS GTX950-2G graphics card is listed at ASUSTeK’s web-site, but is not yet available for sale anywhere. The price of the product will remain a mystery for now, but I do not expect it to be significantly higher than NVIDIA’s MSRP for the GeForce GTX 950 — $159. Meanwhile the card also qualifies for ASUS’s ongoing World of Warships promo program, and as a result comes with a code for the game’s Diana Cruiser along with 15 days premium credit for a new account.

UPDATE: ASUS has also added the Mini-GTX 950 2G into its linep. The card comes in mini-ITX form-factor, consumes up to 75W and does not require external PCIe power.

Gallery: ASUS Unveils GeForce GTX 950 Graphics Card That Does Not Require PCIe Power

Source: ASUS via PC Perspective.