GPU

GF104 seems to be generally regarded as the better Fermi for gaming since Nvidia has integrated some improvements into the oddly shaped graphics processor of its Geforce GTX 460 cards. For one, the chip itself is aimed at the performance segment, thus not being as large and as power hungry as the original GF100 from the start. It also has a much lower ALU-TEX ratio which is not desireable for high performance computing (HPC) or workstation cards where GF100 was targeted. 56 out of 64 texture mapping units (TMUs) are enabled in currently shipping products. On the downside, it has less shader units in general, having to make do with 336 instead of GF100s 480 - 448 - 356 in descending order for Geforce GTX 480, 470 and 465. They are organized differently too - instead of grouping 32 ALUs together, GF104 gangs 48 of them up into one Shader Multiprocessor (SM) along with various other units as eight TMUs, four Polymorph-Engines (PME), 16 Load/Store Units (L/S) and four units doing the more esotheric transcendental functions (SFU). But that is not all.
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When Nvidia presented its new Fermi architecture back in September 2009, Jen-Hsun Huang and his employees were particularly proud of one thing: Geometry. Rightfully they told all who would listen, that compared to the improvements in pixel and shading throughput, the triangle side of things seemed almost completely ignored by the IHVs since the introduction of the first DirectX 9 cards. That's not because in AMDs and Nvidias engineering teams the pixel fanboys outnumbered the triangle fanboys, but because it's actually a very hard thing to parallelize geometry. ...

Ever since the first DirectX 10 GPU, the G80, Nvidia has chosen to shroud the actual chip in its highest end products under a metal hood called heatspreader. So, no pictures of the bare naked die can be taken without the severe risk of mortally wounding the chip or its surroundings and thus possibly breaking a graphics card worth a couple of hundred Euros or US Dollars.

Also, the heatspreader prevents curious journalists and users to effectively determine the real die-size, a number Nvidia is often reluctant to give because compared to, say, the number of transistors in a given chip, the die size directly influences production costs and thus could be deemed a relevant number for analysts comparing it to those of the competition. ...

When AMD launched the HD5000 series, also known by their collective codename Evergreen, they were proudly directing attention to the improved anisotropic filtering, more specifically two things:
Texture attribute interpolation was moved from the TMUs into the shader core and the angle dependency had almost vanished. The approriate screenshot from a little application known as AF-Tester was shown and repeated through most of the reviews in the internet world. Even though AMDs offerings of late exhibit a more pronounced tendency towards shimmering in fine grainded texture detail, some reviews and reputable magazines declared them ruling kings of image quality - something the fanboys from the red camp really liked and re-trumpeted around the forae of the internet.
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Today, Nvidia launched it's hitherto smallest member of the GF10x architecture and also the Fermi family dubbed Geforce GTS 450.

It is based upon a 15x15 mm ASIC called GF106, which boasts 4 Shader Multiprocessors (SM) in one GPC and features the same characteristics as the successful Geforce GTX 460 chip GF104. 48 ALUs - called Cuda-Cores by Nvidia - and eight texture units reside in each SM resulting in 192 ALUs and 32 TMUs across the chip. Also, GF106 has a GDDR5-interface comprised of 3 64 bit channels, each hardwired to an octo-ROP, albeit only two of those are active in currently announced GTS 450 products. ...

AMD has just released their Catalyst 10.8 WHQL drivers for Radeon graphics cards onto their hosting site at Akamai. To grab them a little ahead of time, just follow these links and don't forget to include this as a referrer URL ...

As of july 27th, AMD has bestowed upon the world a new set of catalyst drivers bearing the seal of Microsofts WHQLabs. Version 10.7 it is and they bring some serious improvements for you radeon users. The additional love from Terry M. and his gang results in Hydravision enhancements, improved pull-down detection, Crossfire X support for rotated displays (must be a large crowd, using their cards like that…) and GPU accelerated playback for supported format in the famous VLC player 1.1.1 and higher. ...