NVIDIA nTeresting Newsletter - June 8, 2012

In this Issue

· This week we had two major tradeshows, E3 and Computex. Highlights include:

o GeForce GRID

o 5 new Tegra Games

o World's first Windows RT consumer device

o World's fastest notebook GPU

o Ultrabooks with GeForce GPUs

Two big trade shows happened this week, one in Los Angeles, California and one in Taipei, Taiwan.

E3

Cloud Gaming

E3 was held in LA this week and was gaming focused. With the lack of new consoles announced NVIDIA made news with GeForce GRID. We partnered with Samsung and Giakai for a demo of the mech game Hawken.

"We were brought over to the Samsung Smart TV (2012 Samsung LED 7000 Series) that was connected to the internet with an Ethernet cable and loaded with Gaikai's online gaming app that is needed for access to the NVIDIA GeForce GRID cloud gaming platform. A few seconds later we were playing Meteor Entertainment's new mech warrior game Hawken from a data center about 10 miles away in the heart of LA. Keep in mind we were doing this with just a TV and the remote control as the hardware running the game was miles away."

Launched two weeks ago at the GPU Technology conference, GeForce GRID allows game providers like Gaikai to stream the latest, most sophisticated games to any connected devices like smartphones, tablets, TVs and more. With GeForce GRID, powerful GPUs can reside in a data center many miles away, but fast streaming technology reduces server latency to as little as 10 milliseconds, so gamers can still enjoy lightning-fast play wherever they are.

New Tegra Games

NVIDIA also debuted five brand-new optimized mobile games for TegraZone, including Puddle THD, Demons' Score THD, Bounty Arms, Heroes Call, and Dead Trigger, the latest from Madfinger Games, developers of the popular Shadowgun THD title. These new titles take advantage of Tegra 3's unique 4-PLUS-1 quad core architecture to deliver stunning graphics and buttery-smooth game play.

Computex

First with Windows RT

Computex was held in Taipei and mobile computing was the key focus there. NVIDIA and Asus took the opportunity to show off the world's first Windows RT consumer device, the Asus Tablet 600 powered by Tegra 3. It shows that Microsoft has made leaps and bounds in developing the Windows RT edition.

"But today, NVIDIA showed off the Tablet 600′s key strengths and its ability to run Windows 8 RT, the ARM version of Windows 8, with great aplomb."

The fact that Microsoft, Asus, and NVIDIA can now showcase the world's first Windows RT consumer device shows just how close we are to seeing Tegra-powered Windows devices on store shelves.

"Questions still remain around Windows RT, and indeed we were expecting to see a greater showing from manufacturers this week at Computex. However, if our brief experience with the Asus Tablet 600 (and NVIDIA's word) is anything to go by, it looks likely to provide a smooth, efficient mobile experience without much in the way of compromise - and one very different to both iOS and Android."

It was good enough to grab a Best of Show Award.

"The first Windows 8 tablet powered by NVIDIA's quad-core Tegra 3 CPU, the ASUS Tablet 600 promises more than 10 hours of endurance by itself and 18 hours when attached to its keyboard dock. But with the combination of Tegra 3 and Microsoft's ARM-enabled Windows 8 RT OS, long endurance is just the beginning. In a brief demonstration, this elegantly designed hybrid zoomed through Windows 8's Metro UI, flipping through photos and apps like a Vegas dealer shuffling cards. Plus, the 10.1-inch, 600-nit display is one of the brightest and most colorful we've seen."

Others were not so ready:

"Playback of a 1080p video demo was less successful -- it stuttered to a halt after 20 seconds even though it was playing from local storage. I also had to repeat some touch gestures to get a response, but that could be because I'm new to the Metro interface. A Qualcomm representative noted it was a reference unit and said there was still some optimization work to do between the hardware and software."

Check out the videos on The Verge, Laptop Magazine or NetBook News.

World's Fastest Notebook GPU

We also announced the GeForce GTX 680M GPU, our new flagship notebook GPU. GeForce GTX 680M is the fastest, most advanced gaming notebook GPU ever built. It offers better 3D with NVIDIA 3D Vision 2 technology; better performance and killer battery life when paired with NVIDIA Optimus technology.

"Kepler is coming to laptops with NVIDIA's new GeForce GTX 680M, bringing unparalleled gaming performance to notebooks."

How fast is it?

"The only games that don't see a >40% increase are Civilization V (which has proven to be CPU limited in the past) and Street Fighter IV (which is running at >120FPS on both GPUs already). There are a few titles where we even see nearly a doubling of performance. We don't have raw numbers, but NVIDIA is also claiming around a 15-20% average performance advantage over AMD's Radeon 7970M-hopefully we'll be able to do our own head-to-head in the near future.

Overall, using NVIDIA's own numbers it looks like GTX 680M ought to be around 50% faster than GTX 580M. If that doesn't seem like much, consider that the difference between GTX 480M and GTX 580M was only around 20% (according to NVIDIA and using 3DMark11). A 50% increase in mobile graphics performance within the same power envelope is a huge step; if Kepler manages to reduce power use at all then it will be an even bigger jump. Put another way, a single GTX 680M in the above games using NVIDIA's own results ends up offering 86% of the performance of GTX 580M SLI, and it will definitely use a lot less power and have fewer headaches than mobile SLI."

But it is not just about speed with the GeForce GTX 680M, you also get a complete arsenal of gaming technology.

"Kelper offers better performance and lower power consumption. The mobile GTX680M features all the functions available in the desktop Kepler GPUs including TXAA (a temporal anti-aliasing algorithm), adaptive vsync and DirectX 11. The GTX 680M also supports the Optimus technology which turns on the integrated Intel HD4000 graphics chip for a low graphics load and goes back to the Kepler when games or graphics apps are launched."

Get yours soon.

"Thanks to Optimus technology, the GeForce GTX 680M is optimized for power efficiency. Some of the first notebooks with the GeForce GTX 680M are Alienware M17x, M18x and MSI GT70."

GeForce Ultrabooks

But Kepler is not just for gaming notebooks. With the launch of Intel's dual core Ivy Bridge CPUs comes an influx of new Ultrabooks powered by GeForce GPUs. GeForce GPUs put the ‘Ultra' in ultrabook, giving you ultra-performance with no compromises.

"At Computex 2012, several more Ultrabooks sporting discrete GPUs have shown up, including an apparently updated version of the M3. Interestingly-or perhaps not?-we have yet to see any Ultrabooks sporting AMD discrete GPUs; if you happen to know of any, drop me a note! Here's the short list of known specs for the upcoming "gaming Ultrabooks"

We have a wide variety of GPUs which will be viable for the ultrabook platform. Ultrabooks have already been announced with GeForce GT 650M, GeForce GT 640M, GeForce GT 630M and GeForce GT 620M GPUs.

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