NVIDIA today released the latest version of their GeForce graphics drivers. Version 382.53 of their drivers is a special, Game Ready release that provides the optimal gaming experience for DiRT 4 and Nex Machina. In addition, NVIDIA has added/updated SLI profiles for Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition, Little Nightmares, the phenomenon PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, and Transformers Online.

This release also features updated 3D Vision profiles for Tekken 7 (Fair); DiRT 4 (Not Recommended); Nex Machina (Not Recommended) and Quake Champions (Good). As always, you can grab the drivers right here on TPU. Just follow the link below, and feel free to peruse fixed and current issues after the break.DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 382.53 Game Ready Drivers

Today, HP Inc. unleveled the playing field with the launch of an entirely new, cutting-edge and comprehensive portfolio of OMEN by HP gaming products. Re-designed and re-engineered from the ground up, the new lineup gives esports athletes and competitive gamers the edge and confidence needed to perform at the highest global level. Every inch inside and out of the new OMEN PCs, displays and accessories are packed with features designed to target the needs of gamers around the world, instantly changing the game like never before.

The OMEN X Compact Desktop provides a factory-overclocked GPU from NVIDIA and a versatile form-factor, creating the ability to dock and undock quickly for gaming in any room, or attach the desktop to a backpack accessory for an unparalleled, untethered VR experience. The addition of a backpack accessory to the OMEN X Compact Desktop adds a new dimension of flexibility to the platform, and by expanding the OMEN accessory lineup with a new OMEN mechanical keyboard, a mouse with weight customization, a headset with cushioned ear cups to reduce background noise and mousepads designed for precision, HP is bringing attention to every aspect of the gaming experience.

You must've heard the news of increasingly tighter supply on AMD's video cards. This is kind of a "hello darkness my old friend" kind of moment, since we've seen this happening before. However, these days, the problem looks to be exacerbated with the increase in digital currencies - it's not just Bitcoin now. Ethereum and Zcash have come in to fill customer's desire for a lower entry, ASIC-resistant mineable cryptocurrency. And with the currencies' exploding pricing, people are once again looking to enter the mining craze - to ride the crypto wave, so to speak. All higher-performance graphics cards since the R200 series are flying off the shelves and second hand markets, and as we speak, virtually all RX 580 models are out of stock on Newegg. And while AMD graphics cards have historically been leagues better than their NVIDIA counterparts in mining environments, recently some specialized miners have surfaced, tailored for the Pascal architecture (more oriented to Zcash, though.)

Remember that EVGA card to end all cards? Well, EVGA has now officially announced it. Built in collaboration with overclocker K|ngp|n (Vince Lucido), the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti K|ngp|n Edition Graphics Card sports a cooler that builds upon the iCX technology innovations EVGA has been moving towards. In addition, the company has redoubled efforts towards packing the highest-grade electrical components in this graphics card for extreme overclocking methods, even going so far as to include support (via a connector) to external overclocking modules such as EVBot.

Remember that MX150 mobile graphics card we covered recently? NVIDIA has just let the cat out of the bag, with an announcement that seemingly confirms the specs we were expecting. NVIDIA is selling this mobile GPU's space as the expected IGP-upgrade, citing up to 3x superior performance-per-Watt compared to previous-generation Maxwell-based GeForce 940MX laptops. In other words, GeForce MX150 enables thinner laptops that run applications faster while sipping less power.

NVIDIA today released an updated version of their GeForce graphics drivers, version 382.23 WHQL, which brings with it support for the company's GT 1030 entry-level graphics cards. Strangely, the drivers' supported products only register as the GT 1030 itself, which is a little unusual, to say the least.

Follow the link here to grab the drivers directly from NVIDIA. Note that since these drivers ONLY support NVIDIA's new GT 1030, you shouldn't upgrade to these if you have any other NVIDIA card. To download the drivers, you'll have to choose the GT 1030 from the drop-down menu on NVIDIA's site, as well as the proper OS version for your use case.Source: GeForce Forums

INNO3D, a leading manufacturer of awesome high-end hardware components and computer utilities, presents its new family of GEFORCE GT 1030 graphics cards. This family has been built in a half-height form factor, a carefully designed 100% silent heatsink and keeps the power consumption at ultra low levels while providing a performance boost of up to a massive 11x opposed to integrated graphics.

The new INNO3D GEFORCE GT 1030 graphics card throws in its powerful graphics engine to give the user that extra 'umpffhh' that today's demanding applications need. The completely silent heat sink has been designed to optimize cooling performance allowing NVIDIA's Pascal architecture to come to its full potential and have graphics flourish like never before.

NVIDIA has silently made available a new hotfix driver which improves (you read that right: doesn't fix) stuttering issues on the new Arkane immersive-sim Prey. NVIDIA's previous "Game Ready" drivers, version 382.05, have been reported as being somewhat jerky, and considering NVIDIA has released a hotfix whose notes specifically refer a "stutter issue" with Prey, all NVIDIA users who are playing this game should update their drivers to this new hotfix version, which isn't available through NVIDIA's GeForce Experience app.

You can grab the drivers right here from NVIDIA.

Today at its GTC keynote, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang took the wraps on some of the features on their upcoming V100 accelerator, the Volta-based accelerator for the professional market that will likely pave the way to the company's next-generation 2000 series GeForce graphics cards. If NVIDIA goes on with its product carvings and naming scheme for the next-generation Volta architecture, we can expect to see this processor on the company's next-generation GTX 2080 Ti. Running the nitty-gritty details (like the new Tensor processing approach) on this piece would be impossible, but there are some things we know already from this presentation.

This chip is a beast of a processor: it packs 21 billion transistors (up from 15,3 billion found on the P100); it's built on TSMC's 12 nm FF process (evolving from Pascal's 16 nm FF); and measures a staggering 815 mm² (from the P100's 610 mm².) This is such a considerable leap in die-area that we can only speculate on how yields will be for this monstrous chip, especially considering the novelty of the 12 nm process that it's going to leverage. But now, the most interesting details from a gaming perspective are the 5,120 CUDA cores powering the V100 out of a total possible 5,376 in the whole chip design, which NVIDIA will likely leave for their Titan Xv. These are divided in 84 Volta Streaming Multiprocessor Units with each carrying 64 CUDA cores (84 x 64 = 5,376, from which NVIDIA is cutting 4 Volta Streaming Multiprocessor Units for yields, most likely, which accounts for the announced 5,120.) Even in this cut-down configuration, we're looking at a staggering 42% higher pure CUDA core-count than the P100's. The new V100 will offer up to 15 FP 32 TFLOPS, and will still leverage a 16 GB HBM2 implementation delivering up to 900 GB/s bandwidth (up from the P100's 721 GB/s). No details on clock speed or TDP as of yet, but we already have enough details to enable a lengthy discussion... Wouldn't you agree?

NVIDIA has been posting tremendous financial results, beating analysts' expectations on an almost quarterly basis. This stems from NVIDIA's privileged position in the graphics and computing market, with their GeForce series of consumer graphics cards having reigned almost virtually unchallenged by AMD's offerings. This happens even more distinctively on the high end of the market, where NVIDIA's halo products systematically wow consumers on a pure performance basis, and improve the company's image and market awareness absent of any competition from AMD. At the same time, the company's strong position on the AI, Deep Learning, and general computing markets ensure a strong footing should something go awry in a single market.

All of this seems to have grounded NVIDIA CEO's Jensen Huang confident posture on the company's outlook for 2017. At yesterday's earnings call, Jensen Huang was questioned whether NVIDIA's competitor's "new platform" elicited some thoughts on NVIDIA's competitiveness outlook in the second half of 2017. To this, Jensen Huang replied, in no uncertain terms, that "the competitive position is not going to change." Now naturally, a company CEO wouldn't be saying on his own company's earnings call something along the lines of "AMD's Vega platform is going to totally invert the competitive landscape and we at NVIDIA are scrambling and screaming internally at the disaster." Still, NVIDIA is probably the company that knows more about AMD's second-half 2017 efforts in the graphics space in 2017 other than AMD themselves, so this answer could also include some of Jensen's thoughts regarding that - and Volta. What do you think? Bullish posturing, or deserved confidence?Source: DV Hardware

NVIDIA has released an update to its GeForce Experience application that is sure to be loved by streamers and gamers alike who previously found ShadowPlay support on Vulkan and OpenGL games to be lacking. Version 3.6 of the program adds official support to games that make use of these renderers. Screenshot, video, and broadcast functions that Shadowplay enables are enhanced by the addition of support for these APIs, which means you can now use ShadowPlay with a press of a hotkey to record and stream your Doom and Minecraft gameplay at 4K 60fps.

Other improvements include a unified Broadcast screen and a newly revamped Video and Screenshot upload interface: YouTube and Twitch streamers can now control broadcast options from a unified screen, and log in to all services from there as well. NVIDIA has also worked some improvements to its GeForce Experience Gallery, by adding an upload history screen that displays all prior uploads and locations. You now also have the option of instantly jumping to the file location of a screenshot or video in Windows Explorer through a new button.Source: Tom's Hardware

Up to now, only users with Intel's latest Kaby Lake architecture processors could enjoy 4K Netflix due to some strict DRM requirements. Now, NVIDIA is taking it upon itself to allow users with one of its GTX 10 series graphics cards (absent the 1050, at least for now) to enjoy some 4K Netflix and chillin'. Though you really do seem to have to go through some hoops to get there, none of these should pose a problem.

The requirements to enable Netflix UHD playback, as per NVIDIA, are so:

• NVIDIA Driver version exclusively provided via Microsoft Windows Insider Program (currently 381.74).
  
• No other GeForce driver will support this functionality at this time
  
• If you are not currently registered for WIP, follow this link for instructions to join: https://insider.windows.com/
  
• NVIDIA Pascal based GPU, GeForce GTX 1050 or greater with minimum 3GB memory
  
• HDCP 2.2 capable monitor(s). Please see the additional section below if you are using multiple monitors and/or multiple GPUs.
  
• Microsoft Edge browser or Netflix app from the Windows Store
  
• Approximately 25Mbps (or faster) internet connection.
  

NVIDIA today has released another one on their "Game Ready" driver suite releases. This one brings with it support for the PC-exclusive Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III and Heroes of the Storm 2.0, as well as for Batman: Arkham VR, Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality, and Wilson's Heart.

The driver also comes with a small list of fixed issues, as per the release notes:

• [Sniper Elite 3]: The game crashes.
• [Notebook][eDP panel]: Blue-screen (code 3B) occurs followed by the Recovery screen during software un-bundling process.
• [GeForce GTX 1060]: Blue-screen crash occurs pointing to driver (Nvlddmkm.sys) after the system reboots from sleep mode.
• GPU idling voltage has increased.

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 381.89 Game Ready

This here is probably the most beautiful AIB partner card I've ever seen (and beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so you are naturally free to disagree with me.) The pristine color scheme and subdued backplate design really stand out for me, as does the white PCB. Nitpicking, I hoped the power cables would not be color coded as they are, but I guess that would invite disaster.

According to a report from Chinese website MyDrivers, NVIDIA is looking to spruce things up on its line-up with a much earlier than expected Q3 Volta Launch. Remember that Volta was expected, according to NVIDIA's own road-maps, to launch around early 2018. The report indicates that NVIDIA's Volta products - apparently to be marketed as the GeForce 20-series - will see an early launch due to market demands, and NVIDIA's intention to further increase pricing of its products through a new-generation launch.

These stand, for now, as only rumors (and not the first time they've surfaced at that), but paint a pretty interesting picture, nonetheless. Like Intel with its Coffee Lake series, pushing a product launch to earlier than expected has consequences: production, logistics, infrastructure, product roadmaps, and stock of existing previous-generation products must all be taken into account. And with NVIDIA just recently having introduced its performance-champions GTX 1080 Ti and Titan Xp graphics cards, all of this seems a trigger pull too early - especially when taking into account the competition landscape in high-performance graphics, which is akin to a single green-colored banner poised atop the Himalayas. And NVIDIA must not forget the fact that AMD could be pulling a black swan off its engineering department with Vega, like it did with its Ryzen series of CPUs.

Colorful Technology Company Limited, professional manufacturer of graphics cards and motherboards, announces the most powerful GeForce graphics card ever created just got better with the latest member of the iGame family of graphics cards from COLORFUL. Introducing the COLORFUL iGame GTX 1080 Ti Vulcan X OC featuring the most advanced cooling on a graphics card for the best overclocking experience.

Equipped with the latest GPU from NVIDIA, the COLORFUL iGame GTX1080Ti Vulcan X OC features 3584 CUDA Cores and 11GB of GDDR5X memory. The GPU is faster than a TITAN X and ensures incredible gaming performance in 4K or VR-supported titles making it the ultimate Geforce. Out of the box the card sports up to 2Ghz clock speed with a 1.6Ghz base frequency, the 3584 CUDA Cores deliver excellent performance complemented by the 11GB of GDDR5X wired to a 352-bit bus giving an incredible amount of memory bandwidth designed to deliver uncompromising performance in any title at Ultra HD 4K resolution or a smooth VR experience.

GALAX is marketing the KATANA as the world's first single-slot GTX 1070 single-slot graphics card with a maximum thickness at just 16 mm, which is an engineering feat in itself. The card leverages a "legendary turbo radiator" (it's funny how the renders show a white warning sign next to the cooling fan with a "CAUTION Hot Surface" warning, though that's probably needed there to avoid any lawsuits from burns resulting from touching the card while gaming.)

The card features a RazorX cooling technique, with copper fins and a vapor chamber that "maintain cooling performance even in thermally challenging scenario(s)". The GALAX GTX 1070 KATANA uses a single 8-pin connector, and video output is taken care of by 1x DisplayPort 1.4, 1x HDMI 2.0b, and a single DL-DVI-D connector. Clocks on the card are reported at 1518 MHz base, and 1708 MHz boost clocks. I wince at the noise and heat this baby must put out, and wonder how much it's going to be thermally throttled, but I guess those are necessary drawbacks for what is otherwise an interesting single-slot design.

NVIDIA today released GeForce 381.65 WHQL "Game Ready" drivers. The drivers come with optimization for "Quake Champions" closed beta. This isn't, however, the biggest change with these drivers. These are the first WHQL-signed drivers from NVIDIA to support WDDM 2.2, and with it, the upcoming Windows 10 Creators Update, due for April 11th. The drivers also add DTS X and Dolby Atmos support for 5.1.2 speaker configuration through the GPU's in-built audio controller (which outputs from the HDMI and DP connectors). Also added is support for Dolby Vision. Games "Snake Pass" and "Kona" get support for NVIDIA Ansel. There's also the curious case of the driver's release-notes mentioning "Added support for the NVIDIA TITAN Xp." Could this indicate a new TITAN SKU being on the horizon?DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 385.65 WHQL

Gigabyte has just revealed the specs for their custom, AORUS-branded GTX 1080 Ti graphics card. This keeps the tradition of the AORUS line of products, where the AORUS GTX 1080 Ti features Gigabyte's Windforce (triple-slot, 3x 100 mm fans) cooler with RGB lighting (16.8 million colors). Aiding its triple-fan cooling prowess is a direct copper contact through a 6-heatpipe design, as well as a built-in backplate. Gigabyte is marketing this card as "Built for Extreme Overclocking", through its usage of 12+2 Power Phases. These help deliver substantial clock speed, in the form of two modes: an OC Mode, with boost clocks of 1708 MHz and base clocks at 1594 MHz; and a Gaming Mode, with 1683 MHz boost and 1569 MHz base.

The 1080 Ti AORUS only has a single VR-link HDMI port on its front corner (while the GTX 1080 had two). On the rear IO however, you'll find 2x HDMI ports (ideal for VR-link), 3x DisplayPort, and 1x DVI. The card is expected to hit shelves mid-April. And on another note and slight update, its more powerful sibling, the AORUS GTX 1080 Ti Xtreme Edition, has had its clock revealed as well: its OC Mode shows boost speeds of 1746 MHz and 1632 MHz base; and its Gaming Mode lowers those to 1721 MHz boost, and 1607 MHz base clocks.Source: Gigabyte

MSI's top of the line take on the GTX 1080 Ti - The GAMING X - has just been detailed by the company, building upon the previously-released teasers. The GAMING X features MSI's two-and-a-half slot TWIN FROZR VI dual-fan cooling solution with Torx 2.0 fans, which have the ability to completely turn off in low-load scenarios through their Zero Frozr feature. The card comes with a custom PCB, equipped with dual 8-pin power connectors and 8+2 phase design.

Overclocking prodigy k|ngp|n has managed what some thought impossible: he pushed a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti over the 3 GHz barrier. And this was done using a modded Founder's Edition card, no less, so chances are some AIB cards will be able to achieve even better overclocks.

The massive overclock on the core was accompanied by a massive memory overclocking as well, which pushed the graphics card to over 500 GB/s of bandwidth. At the time, it isn't known whether the overclock was stable enough for benchmarking - but if it were, this would surely be the fastest consumer-grade GPU on the planet. The overclock was confirmed using TechPowerUp's own GPU-Z.Source: OC3D.net

Remember that NVIDIA driver update that I mentioned yesterday? NVIDIA has just released into the wild. Version 378.78 of its GeForce driver suite provides the optimal gaming experience for Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands and includes DirectX 12 optimizations which provide additional performance increases for a variety of titles. This release also adds official support for the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, and updates the SLI profiles for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Titanfall 2, and Tom Clancy's The Division. ANSEL support for Ghost Recon Wildlands is also baked into this update, which joins the likes of Dishonored 2, Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, Watch Dogs 2, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and The Witness, with Mass Effect: Andromeda support coming in at the game's launch.

Update: According to NVIDIA, average performance gains across all titles stands at around 16%. NVIDIA boasts of a 33% (no, that isn't a typo) on Tomb Raider; 16% on Hitman; Gears of War 4 sees a boost of 10%; Ashes of the Singularity makes do with 9%; and Tom Clancy’s The Division will get a 4% increase.

As always, you can get your driver fix right here on TPU. Just follow the download link below.DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 378.78 Drivers

COLORFUL Technology Company Limited, professional manufacturer of graphics cards and motherboards, announces the most powerful GeForce graphics card ever created with the latest GPU from NVIDIA, the COLORFUL GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition. Featuring 3584 CUDA Cores and 11GB of GDDR5X memory, the COLORFUL GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition is faster than a TITAN X and ensures incredible gaming performance in 4K or VR-supported titles. This is the Ultimate Geforce, made for the ultimate gamers.

NVIDIA today released a hotfix version of its GeForce driver suite. Numbered the 378.77, these fix some issues with the previous driver release, numbered 378.66. Solved issues include driver installation errors for laptops with GeForce GTX 1050 and 1050 Ti GPUs, crashes in Minecraft and some other Java-based titles, and resolving 'Debug Mode' as default option on Pascal based GPUs.

This driver release contains all previous improvements, including an optimized experience for Sniper Elite 4, For Honor and Halo Wars 2, whilst also introducing support for NVIDIA's Video SDK 8.0, which provides support for high-bit-depth (10/12-bit) hardware accelerated video decoding of VP9 and HEVC. You can, as always, grab these hot-from-the-coding-gods drivers from the link below, right here on TPU.DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 378.77 Hotfix Drivers

Not to be outdone by AMD, and making sure to keep the landscape populated with enough green, NVIDIA has announced its presence in the upcoming GDC 2017. Could this be the choice battleground for an announcement regarding the (now) almost mythical GTX 1080Ti?

Let's see what the company has to say: "You're invited to attend the GeForce GTX gaming celebration! Come join us for an evening of awesome PC gaming, hardware, tournaments and of course free food, drinks and a few other amazing surprises. Doors will open at 6:30 PM and the event will start promptly at 7 PM. The celebration will take place in downtown San Francisco, CA."

Let's just say that the company has history of announcing its top-of-the-line Ti models on GDC (much like it did with 2015's GTX 980 Ti), and that NVIDIA closes their announcement with a very tentative (if generic) "You won't want to miss this". And with rumors of AMD being prepared to show off its Vega architecture on the same day, as well as the expected release of its highly anticipated Ryzen CPUs, February 28th is looking out to be one of the best days of the year for enthusiasts.Source: Eventbrite