Month April 2011

Catalyst 11.4 WHQL available

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AMD released this months WHQL driver set. They obviously come with the performance improvements of the 11.4 Previews, but also fix a couple of rendering issues in games and a couple of video playback related problems as well. They’ve also tweaked display management and the Eyefinity setup for ease of use. After 11.4 the new drivers or rather the Control Center will include an update notification that will check for updates and notify you if there is a new version available.

Release Notes
Download – WinXP 32bit | WinXP 64bit | Vista/Win7 32bit | Vista/Win7 6.as4bit | CAP (Win All)

Non-Ti version of the GTX 560 launches on May 17th.

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The guys over at Expreview say that nVIDIA will launch a non-Ti version of the GTX 560 as counter part to AMD’s HD 6790 card. It’ll boost the same specs as the GTX 460 – meaning it will come with 32 ROPs, 56 TMUs, 336 CUDA Cores enabled, but it will be based on the newer GF114 GPU operating at 800MHz instead of 675MHz on the GTX 460. The new card will be launching on the 17th of May, possibly carrying a 149USD price.

ForceWare 270.61 WHQL available

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nVIDIA released a new WHQL driver suite containing all the performance goodness of the 270.51 beta, the fancy new update system and it adds CUDA 4.0 support.
If you want the latest and greatest, grab them below.

New in Release 270.61

GPU Support

Performance

  • Increases performance for GeForce 400 Series and 500 Series GPUs in several PC games vs. v266.58 WHQL drivers. The following are examples of some of the most significant improvements measured on Windows 7. Results will vary depending on your GPU and system configuration:

GeForce GTX 580:

  • Up to 516% in Dragon Age 2 (SLI 2560×1600 8xAA/16xAF Very High, SSAO on)
  • Up to 326% in Dragon Age 2 (1920×1200 8xAA/16xAF Very High, SSAO on)
  • Up to 11% in Just Cause 2 (1920×1200 8xAA/16xAF, Concrete Jungle)
  • Up to 11% in Just Cause 2 (SLI 2560×1600 8xAA/16xAF, Concrete Jungle)
  • Up to 7% in Civilization V (1920×1200 4xAA/16xAF, Max settings)
  • Up to 6% in Far Cry 2 (SLI 2560×1600 8xAA/16xAF, Max settings)
  • Up to 5% in Civilization V (SLI 1920×1200 8xAA/16xAF, Max settings)
  • Up to 5% in Left 4 Dead 2 (1920×1200 noAA/AF, Outdoor)
  • Up to 5% in Left 4 Dead 2 (SLI 2560×1600 4xAA/16xAF, Outdoor)
  • Up to 4% in H.A.W.X. 2 (SLI 1920×1200 8xAA/16xAF, Max settings)
  • Up to 4% in Mafia 2 (SLI 2560×1600 AA on/16xAF, PhysX = High)

GeForce GTX 560 Ti:

  • Up to 461% in Dragon Age 2 (SLI 1920×1200 8xAA/16xAF, Very High)
  • Up to 241% in Dragon Age 2 (1920×1200 4xAA/16xAF, Very High)
  • Up to 19% in Just Cause 2 (SLI 2560×1600 8xAA/16xAF, Concrete Jungle)
  • Up to 13% in Just Cause 2 (1920×1200 4xAA/16xAF, Concrete Jungle)
  • Up to 6% in Far Cry 2 (SLI 2560×1600 8xAA/16xAF, Max settings)
  • Up to 5% in Call of Duty: Black Ops (1920×1200 noAA/AF, Jungle Map)
  • Up to 5% in H.A.W.X. 2 (SLI 1920×1200 4xAA/16xAF, Max settings)
  • Up to 4% in Call of Duty: Black Ops (SLI 2560×1600 4xAA/16xAF, Jungle Map)
  • Up to 4% in Civilization V (1920×1200 noAA/AF, Max settings)
  • Up to 4% in Left 4 Dead 2 (SLI 1920×1200 4xAA/16xAF, Outdoor)
  • Up to 4% in Metro 2033 (SLI 1920×1200 4xAA/16xAF, PhysX on)

NVIDIA Update

  • This is a new feature in Release 270 and later drivers. NVIDIA Update keeps your PC up-to-date with the latest NVIDIA drivers by notifying you when a new driver is available and directing you to the driver on http://www.nvidia.com. When you install a Release 270 or later GeForce driver from http://www.nvidia.com, you will be presented with the option to install NVIDIA Update.

CUDA

  • Adds support for applications using CUDA 4.0 features such as Unified Virtual Addressing (UVA) and GPUDirect™ v2.0.

Release Notes
Download – WinVista / Win7 32bit | WinVista / Win7 64 bit | WinXP 32bit | WinXP 64bit

GPU-Z 0.5.3 available

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TechPowerUp released a new version of their GPU info and monitoring tool, adding support for couple of desktop, mobile and workstation cards. It also contains some bug and crash fixes. Here is the full changelog:

  • Added support for AMD Radeon HD 6790, FirePro V5800
  • Added support for GeForce GT 555M, GTX 540M, G315M, Quadro FX 600, FX 2800M, Quadro 4000
  • Fixed GeForce GTX 590 release date
  • Added support for voltage controllers VT1556, uP6266, uP6218
  • Added VDDCI measurement on CHL8228 based ATI cards
  • Added capability to show sensors in TechPowerUp OSD Server
  • Fixed several crashes and resource leaks

Download

The Radeon HD 6790 is officially launched

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AMD has launched its new mainstream card. The HD 6790, just like the HD 6850 & HD 6870 is based around the Barts GPU, but a cut down version in this case. It has half the ROPs (16), fewer TMUs (40) and fewer SPs (800) working at 840MHz. It still has the 256-bit memory interface, with 1GB of GDDR5 memory operating at 4200MHz effective.

HD 6790:
16ROP/40TMU/800SP @ 840MHz
256bit – 1GB GDDR5 @ 4200MHz
TDP – 150W
MSRP – 149USD

Reviews: