NVIDIA’s announcement of the GeForce GTX 1080 and 1070 video cards has a lot of folks excited, and I’ve responded to several questions over the last few days regarding these cards. In an effort to help a wider audience who probably have similar questions, I’ve put together a summary of what we know at this point about these upcoming graphics cards.
NVIDIA ShadowPlay – GPU Accelerated Recording and Streaming
A brief overview of software from NVIDIA to record or live-stream games (or other content), using a GeForce graphics card to handle the video encoding in real time with minimal impact on performance.
Titan X – What is it and who is it for?
NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX Titan X isn’t for everyone – no $1000 video card ever will be – but it has some very specific roles where it excels. Click here to read about what the Titan X is and what it does well at!
Gaming Computers: Its All About Balance
We sell all sorts of computers here at Puget Systems, and one of the more popular requests is for a gaming computer. In fact, we have designed one of our main brands around gaming – the Puget Deluge is an excellent system to consider for a gaming rig. Some gamers come to us already knowing what specs they want, but others are seeking more detailed guidance on what processor, video card, and other components to go with. The exact advice we give depends on the situation: the sorts of games they are interested in, the screen resolution they plan to run, their budget, and other preferences. However, a lot of that advice can be distilled down into the following basic principles.
PCI-Express Performance and the NVIDIA Warning
Puget Systems has been in the business of building computers for 11 years now, and we know what we are doing when it comes to assembling top-notch custom computers. It is a bit insulting, then, when a parts manufacturer puts out a warning which appears – on the surface – to indicate something we do is resulting in anything other than the highest performance possible. Yet here I am, to let you know about just such a notice that nVidia’s latest driver software is giving when using their graphics cards in certain configurations.
Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 – Mercury Playback Engine
Traditionally, over at least the past 15 years, the main role of a video card in a computer has been to accelerate 3D graphics. That is a large part of what has made modern computer games possible, and it has also contributed heavily to CAD / CAM work and digital animation. Video cards have also helped with 2D graphics and video playback, but the main focus has been on 3D speed.
Drooling Over New Technology
I don’t drool often, but I have to say — this is an exciting time to be in the technology field. We work closely with both Intel and nVidia, and they both have new products out that are changing the way I look at high performance computers.