Tag Archives: gaming

nVidia GeForce 1080 and AMD RX 480 – the Video Cards of June 2016

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This June is a good month to be a gamer. Both nVidia and AMD have announced new graphical processing units that exhibit vast improvements over the previous generation. After being stuck for almost four years on the now-primitive 28 nanometer lithography, the GPU manufacturers have jumped straight to 14 (AMD) and 16 (nVidia), skipping over the intermediate step of 20-22 nanometers.

In combination with switching over to multigate transistors^, this technological leap allows the new video cards to achieve a boost of up to 40% in performance at a much lower price than the previous generation. In terms of price/performance ratio, we’re looking at an improvement between 60% and 80%. That’s massive. We haven’t seen such a leap in GPU technology for many years.

It’s also important to note that nVidia and AMD are not directly competing this time around. nVidia took to the high end with its Pascal microarchitecture while AMD went mainstream with Polaris. AMD’s RX will offer the best value, but if you want maximum quality Virtual Reality gaming, then nVidia is your only option.

The new video cards aren’t widely available yet and a shortage can be expected in the coming months. But make no mistake; these new models will kick some serious pixel! I want to make sure you’re aware of this and for heaven’s sake, don’t buy any of the previous generation video cards. The new arrivals are making them beyond obsolete.

There are a lot of “trap products” out there right now. In a perfect example of bad timing, Asus just unveiled a beastly, liquid-cooled gaming laptop. Unfortunately, it has the obsolete GPUs inside. In six months, a lighter laptop will be more than capable of humiliating this one:

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/asus-gx700-gx701-water-cooled-strix-gl502-thin-and-light,31888.html^

And don’t worry; there will be plenty of new video cards to choose from. MSI, a video card manufacturer, will release no less than five options using the same GeForce 1080 GPU. Talk about consumerism:

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/msi-nvidia-gtx-1080-gpus,31913.html^

Last but not least, I’m very interested what these new GPUs will bring for a certain emerging product category: virtual reality backpacked computers. It was only a matter of time until some company would try to address the issue of people tripping onto the cables they use to connect their high-end Head Mounted Display to the computer. As goofy as it sounds, do not underestimate the temptation of VR gaming. These products will sell.

And, to confirm what I’ve just said, it turns out that it’s more than just one company developing these things. The only catch is that, unsurprisingly, manufacturers are using the recently obsoleted GPUs. I imagine that in about 6 months, when nVidia’s mobile Pascal will have shown up, these backpacks could become quite a product, especially for those interested in VR gaming:

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/vr-backpacks-msi-zotac-chaintek,31974.html^

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Ready or Not, Here Comes Virtual Reality!

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Finally, the first Virtual Reality HMD (Head Mounted Display) – the Oculus Rift – has reached retail availability. The first reviews have started pouring in – here’s a pretty good one from The Verge^. Things are pretty much as I expected, with the majority of reviews being positive and the rest being rather neutral. So far I haven’t read anything seriously bad and although this is very encouraging, it is not a surprise given the fact that all companies involved have been preparing for this launch for plenty of time.

In the meantime, VR as a technology continues to promise growth in the most unexpected of areas. For example there are these guys who propose giving HMDs to roller coaster^ riders. Combining high quality computer graphics with a roller coaster experience is indeed something that I’d love to try one day.

On the other hand, there are companies whose VR content is not exactly top notch. Take for example AltspaceVR. Even though their VR client now supports Samsung’s Gear^, the graphical quality is below what could be achieved even with the limitation of having to run on weaker, mobile graphical processors. AltspaceVR’s “games”^ are not much to look at either. I’m worried about half–baked products ruining the reception of VR. This is one of the most important technological revolutions of the past few decades and I believe a proper, polished launch is very important. Let’s not forget the debacle that was Google Glass.

Luckily, there are plenty of companies that have amazing products lined up. The Oculus launched with some really good titles such as “Eve Valkyrie”, “Elite: Dangerous” and “Lucky’s Tale”. However, I believe the best is yet to come, especially when “No Man’s Sky”^ shows up, which, I believe, is the title that will truly make VR. I hope Oculus can have its controllers ready as soon as possible. And if not, there’s always the Vive^, which will also hit retail availability very soon.

So, ready or not, VR is coming to town. I think that the companies that are at the forefront of this new technological revolution will have a lot to gain from their investment. I’m looking at you, FaceBook, Samsung, Valve, HTC and Microsoft. Plenty of big names are still missing in action, especially Google and Apple. Regarding Apple, they don’t even have decent hardware support for VR^, as recently pointed out by Oculus founder, Palmer Luckey. The coming twelve months will certainly be very, very interesting. Let’s watch and enjoy the show.

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