NVIDIA nTeresting Newsletter - 11 March 2013

In This Issue:

· Rupert Murdich's News Corp. is getting in to the tablet frenzy with a Tegra 3-based device targeted at the K-12 education crowd. Asus has a sexy Tegra 3-based 10 inch tablet for only $299.

· Sony's PlayStation 4 gets support of NVIDIA PhysX and APEX physics technologies.

· NVIDIA's Quadro workstation offering got faster and more power efficient with a new line-up of Kepler-based solutions.

· HardOCP takes a look at the full body of graphics driver work for 2012 and sings GeForce driver praises.

New Tegra 3 tablets

On Wednesday as part of SXSW in Austin, Tex., Amplify, News Corporation's new education division, announced it will offer the Amplify Tablet, a 10-inch Android tablet for K-12 schoolchildren. Guess what is inside?

"Appropriately named the Amplify Tablet, the device will run on Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean) and come with a 10-inch display. The device, which is running on the NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core CPU, is designed for children in grades kindergarten through 12 and comes bundled with all kinds of Amplify software designed to improve the learning experience."

Amplify is selling its tablet to customers starting now. Tablets purchased before June 30 will be ready for the 2013-2014 school year.

If you are looking for a budget tablet, you might check out the Asus MeMO Pad Smart 10.

"When it comes to getting down to business (or gaming, watching movies, or reading things), the MeMO doesn't seem to have much problem delivering. It handled everything I threw at it with grace, but I would expected nothing less from a Tegra 3 device. Gaming was smooth and fluid, browsing the web went off without a hitch, movie playback was good - basically anything you'd want to do with a tablet is good to go on the MeMO pad where performance is concerned."

PS4 gets PhysX and APEX

Sony's upcoming game console, the PlayStation 4, will have support for NVIDIA's PhysX and APEX technologies.

"NVIDIA on Thursday announced that it plans to support the Sony's upcoming PlayStation 4 (PS4) game console with its PhysX and APEX software development kits (SDKs). Game developers use PhysX and APEX technologies for collision detection and simulation of rigid bodies, fluids, particle systems, and things of that nature for more realistic game play."

PhysX is integrated into the most popular game engines on the planet.

"The introductions will mostly take some of the guesswork out of creating realistic-looking games -- theoretically, adding a larger number of collisions, destructible objects and subtler elements like cloth and hair modeling. Most of us won't see the fruits of the updated SDKs until at least this holiday, but programmers looking for more plausible PS4 game worlds can hit the source links."

PhysX runs on every platform, including consoles, mobile, and all PC's

Kepler in New Quadros

This week NVIDIA unveiled a new stack of Quadro workstation solutions that are built on the Kepler architecture. Kepler means better performance and lower power consumption.

"NVIDIA today announced four new Quadro graphics cards based on its Kepler architecture, reducing the cost of entry for pro users."

The new line-up includes:

NVIDIA Quadro K4000 - the high-end card
NVIDIA Quadro K2000 - the midrange card
NVIDIA Quadro K2000D - A variant of the Quadro K2000, with native support for two dual-link DVI display connectors.
NVIDIA Quadro K600 - the entry-level card, at only $199

That's right, Quadro performance and reliability for only $199!

"When you want workstation performance and reliability out of your computer, you usually have to pony up over a grand for a high-end graphics card. However, NVIDIA has released four new Quadro graphics cards that come in many different flavors, including one option called the K600 that costs only $199."

GeForce Drivers Are Better

When it comes to gaming, your GPU is only as good as your drivers. That is why we are committed to providing day of launch drivers for the hot new upcoming titles. But don't take our word for it. HardOCP does regular check-ups on driver quality.

"If there is one thing that stood out to me about NVIDIA's 2012 driver performances, it is how consistent the performances were. In most of our gameplay tests, NVIDIA's initial driver tended to have all of the possible performance boosts built in to it. This means there was not much room for improvement, but that is okay since it usually had the faster video cards. We saw time and time again in this evaluation that NVIDIA's drivers had a much higher average framerate in almost every game compared to the AMD video cards.

NVIDIA was also extremely good about having its drivers up to date, and available in a reasonable amount of time. When new games were launching this past year, NVIDIA almost always had a driver being released the day before the new games came out. This way NVIDIA ensures that its customers are able to fully utilize the hardware they have spent a lot of their hard earned money on."

When a new game hits we want to play it, so we make sure our drivers are ready. And if you install GeForce Experience your game settings and driver updates are all handle automagically. One of the many advantages GeForce owners enjoy is our commitment to delivering ‘game ready' day of launch drivers delivered through GeForce Experience.