Rambus And NVIDIA Bury The Hatchet, Sign 5 Year Agreement

While Rambus has settled in one form or another with most of the major players in the computing industry, one of the remaining holdouts has been NVIDIA. NVIDIA has already lost to Rambus in court over some infringement cases, while cases over other products and patents have been ongoing. As a chipset, SoC, and GPU provider, NVIDIA has a particularly wide exposure to memory-related suits as virtually all of their products contain a memory controller of some kind, giving them ample reason to continue fighting Rambus.

But that fight has finally come to an end. Yesterday Rambus and NVIDIA signed a 5 year licensing agreement, under which NVIDIA gets rights to Rambus's patented technologies, and at the same time both companies drop all outstanding suits aimed at each other. As with other Rambus licensing agreements the specific terms of the deal are private, so how much NVIDIA is paying per the agreement and whether there is a per-product royalty rate attached is unknown.

It's interesting to note though that this comes so soon after two major Rambus losses. In November Rambus lost a major antitrust case against Hynix and Micron, meanwhile in January of this year the United States Patent and Trademark Office ruled that 3 of Rambus's major patents (the Barth patents) were invalid. The Barth patents have been Rambus's biggest weapons, and they were the patents that defeated NVIDIA in the infringement suit that NVIDIA previously lost. Given the timing of this latest settlement, it stands to reason that a weakened Rambus was willing to settle with NVIDIA on far more favorable terms - to the point where it would be cheaper than continuing the suit - but as the terms of the deal are not public we'll never know for sure.

In any case, with NVIDIA finally settling there are now only a few smaller holdouts remaining. The Wall Street Journal names the remaining parties as LSI Corp (storage controllers, including SandForce), MediaTek (SoCs), and STMicro (everything from SoCs to ICs).

Source: The Wall Street Journal

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NVIDIA Tegra 3: Games Plus SplashTop Streaming of Skyrim

Tegra 3 tablets are a big thing for NVIDIA right now, and we’ve seen quite a few new tablets using the SoC. At NVIDIA’s booth, they had a bunch of ASUS Eee Prime Transformer tablets set up with a variety of games and other software. Grand Theft Auto IV was running on one unit, but more impressive was the multiplayer ShadowGun running on two more tablets. Both of those games (personally, at least) pale in comparison to another tablet with Skyrim “running” on Tegra 3. It wasn’t actually running on the tablet natively, but NVIDIA worked with SplashTop to get and optimized remote desktop connection to a PC running Skyrim—in all its glory. Of course it’s really the desktop doing the work, but the game was running smoothly with the WiFi remote desktop stream.

The other thing NVIDIA had on display were some Tegra 3 tablets running Windows 8. These were behind glass and you couldn't interact with them, but Microsoft did some live demos of Windows 8 on an Eee Prime Transformer at their keynote Monday. It appears Tegra 3 is well on its way to being ready for Windows 8 (and vice versa).

Gallery: NVIDIA Tegra 3: Games Plus SplashTop Streaming of Skyrim

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Puget Systems Deluge Updated with NVIDIA Surround Results

Once NVIDIA dropped the 290 series beta driver, we were able to test the Puget Systems Deluge's pair of GeForce GTX 580s in triple-monitor surround. There's good news and bad news: the good news is that Surround definitely works on the X79 platform now (and configuration was surprisingly painless). The bad news is that X79 and Sandy Bridge-E offer no performance benefit, at least in our testing, over good old fashioned Sandy Bridge and P67/Z68. You can check out our results here.

In related news, we've done some additional testing of the new beta driver in a couple other recent releases. Given the poor DX11 performance in Batman: Arkham City, we were curious if the driver would improve the situation at all. The answer is no: performance remained unchanged on Jarred's test system, across all settings. Skyrim performance likewise doesn't appear to have improved. The net result is that we're still waiting on the promised patches for both titles, which should hopefully show up this week.

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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti with 448 Cores Launch Recap: MSI, Gigabyte, Zotac, and EVGA (UPDATE: And ASUS, Too)

Every time a new GPU launches, it finds its way into half a dozen or more cards from different manufacturers. These manufacturers do their best to differentiate these cards from one another, usually by means of different fans, form factors, outputs, prices, or even a built-in overclock. It can sometimes be difficult to keep these differences straight - price comparisons are usually pretty easy to make on sites like Amazon or Newegg, but information about dimensions and clock speed can be more difficult to come by. So, I'd like to try something a little different.

I'd like to gather all of the information on these cards that I can from press releases, manufacturer product pages, and retailer sites, put it all in one place in an easy-to-parse format, and then distill it to help all of you make better buying decisions. This shouldn't be confused with one of our in-depth hardware reviews, nor am I necessarily trying to recommend one card over another - while one person may want a larger cooler or a higher stock clock, another person may need the shortest card they can find for a cramped case. If you find this helpful (or if it's missing something important that would make it more helpful to you), please give me feedback and let me know what you'd like to see!

The GPU I'm looking at today is the newly-released (and recently reviewed) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti with 448 Cores, a low-end enthusiast card that trades blows with AMD's Radeon HD 6950 in most of our benchmarks (though it consistently beats the 6950 in the "longest, silliest name" benchmark). At present, there are five of these cards available on Newegg: one each from MSI, Gigabyte, and Zotac, and two from EVGA. The table below lays out the important numbers for you.

 GigabyteMSI (OC)ZotacEVGA (FTW)EVGA (Classified)ASUSCore Clock732 MHz750 MHz765 MHz797 MHz797 MHz732 MHzMemory Clock (Effective)950 MHz (3800 MHz)975 MHz (3900 MHz)950 MHz (3800 MHz)975 MHz (3900 MHz)975 MHz (3900 MHz)950 MHz (3800 MHz)Shader Clock1464 MHz1760 MHz1530 MHz1594 MHz1594 MHz1464 MHzDimensions (in mm)280 x 136.6 x 43243 x 115 x 42228.6 x 111.3 x 33.5228.6 x 111.15 x ??266.7 x 111.15 x ??281.9 x 124.46 x 58.42OutputsDVI-I, DVI-D, DisplayPort, HDMI2x DVI-I, Mini HDMI2x DVI-I, DisplayPort, HDMI2x DVI-I, DisplayPort, HDMI2x DVI-I, Mini HDMI2x DVI-I, DisplayPort, HDMIPower connectors2x 6-pin2x 6-pin2x 6-pin2x 6-pin6-pin, 8-pin2x 6-pinIncluded cablesDVI to VGA, Molex to 6-pin adapterDVI to VGA, Molex to 6-pin adapter, Mini HDMI to HDMI dongleDVI to VGA, 2x Molex to 6-pin adapterDVI to VGA, 2x Molex to 6-pin adapterDVI to VGA, Mini HDMI to HDMI, Molex to 6-pin adapter, 8-pin adapterDVI to VGA, Molex to 6-pin adapter, Extended SLI cableWarranty3-year3-year2-year3-year3-year3-yearPrice (Newegg)$314.99$309.99$309.99$289.99$299.99$329.99

Common to all of these cards is 1280MB of GDDR5 memory on a 320-bit bus, dual-slot coolers, and manuals with driver CDs (though I imagine most of you reading this will toss out the manual and get new drivers directly from NVIDIA, as well you should). Now that we have all of the data, let's analyze it.

Gigabyte (Product page)

Gigabyte's card, the second most expensive of this bunch, is the only one to pack three fans, and as a result the card is just a couple of millimeters short of being the longest in our group (ASUS' massive cooler edges it out; more on that in a bit). This cooler, called the "Windforce 3X" in Gigabyte's press release, uses a vapor chamber to circulate heat. The three fans are said to be "ultra quiet" but no specific noise levels are given.

Despite this impressive cooling solution, Gigabyte adheres to NVIDIA's reference clock speeds for both the core and memory. I imagine that cooler could get enterprising overclockers some nice results, but Gigabyte won't be meeting you halfway.

The last item of note is that the Gigabyte card is the only one with a DVI-D port - the others all use two DVI-I ports. Along with its full-size HDMI and DisplayPort options, you should be able to plug just about any display into this thing. 

MSI (OC) (Product page) 

MSI's card, tied with Zotac's offering for second-most expensive, also comes with a fancy cooler, but is 40 mm shorter in length than the Gigabyte card. It's not the shortest card of the bunch, but it's not far off. MSI claims that the cooler, their well-reviewed Twin Frozr III (loving these names, by the way), is both 20 degrees Celsius cooler than the reference design, though "reference" in this case likely means NVIDIA's GTX 570 reference cooler since NVIDIA doesn't have a reference design for the GTX 560 Ti w/448 cores. MSI's specs list the card as being only 30dB loud at full speed - this is very impressive on paper (we recorded 43dB at idle and 47.1dB at load for the Zotac card's single-fan cooler), though keep in mind that this information comes from marketing materials and not hard data.

Unlike the Gigabyte card, this version runs at a very slight overclock - about 8% on the core and 2.6% on the memory. MSI has a product page for an non-overclocked edition that uses NVIDIA's stock clocks, but the OC version is the one that's up on Amazon, Newegg, and other e-tailers as of this writing. 

With respect to outputs, this card is one of the most limited here - just two DVI-I ports and a Mini HDMI port (a Mini HDMI to HDMI dongle is included), which has been NVIDIA's common reference configuration for the GTX 500 series. It shouldn't be a problem for most, but if you use DisplayPort you'll want to invest in an adapter.

Correction: We had previously published that the MSI version of this card used an 880MHz core clock and 1002MHz (4008MHz effective) memory clock; the data and our analysis have been corrected. 

Zotac (Product page)

 

If you read our GTX 560 Ti With 448 Cores review, this card will be familiar to you - this is the only one of the lot that we've actually had in our hands, and we came away fairly impressed by its performance, its array of outputs, and its cooler. Thanks to this single-fan cooler, it's tied with the EVGA FTW card for the shortest card in the group, but it only sports a modest 4% core overclock. It's also the only card of the lot  with a 2-year warranty instead of a 3-year warranty.

It ties with the MSI card for second-most expensive at $309.99, but it does appear to be the only card in the list that includes a game (Battlefield 3). Note that information on things like this can be hard to come by - the only place where the inclusion of Battlefield 3 is apparent is in our review and in the product photos on Newegg, two resources unavailable for the rest of these cards (for most of the others, Newegg has only pictures of the card and the box). If you don't already have Battlefield 3 and you want it, this card's value becomes much more competitive.

EVGA (FTW) (Product Page)

If price is your primary concern, this may be the card for you - of these five, the FTW-series card is the only one selling at NVIDIA's MSRP of $289. Its single-fan cooler ties it with the Zotac for smallest card here. The difference is that the EVGA card appears to use a partially shrouded cooler that only exhausts air out the front and rear, as opposed to the Zotac's open and perforated cooler.

This card's core and memory clocks are just a bit higher than Zotac's, and the same as MSI's: an 8% overclock on the core and a 2.6% overclock on the memory. It's not much, but it's probably worth a few FPS. Output selection is also good - two DVI-I ports, full-size HDMI and a DisplayPort make this a solid-looking card, and if you don't need Battlefield 3 or a fancy cooler you may as well save yourself the $20 (or $25, compared to the Gigabyte).

EVGA (Classified) (Product Page)

The EVGA Classified card's 8-pin power plug makes it a bit of an oddball - but we suspect EVGA is using a GTX 580 PCB here instead of a GTX 570 PCB as they did on the FTW. The core and memory speeds are the same as in the FTW-series card, so as with the other Classified cards this is really geared towards end-user overclocking rather than a factory overclock.

At any rate, the Classified-series card includes a large two-fan cooler that makes it the second longest in our lineup, though it's less wide than the Gigabyte cooler by a fair amount. For the $10 price difference (this is the second cheapest card here), overclockers may prefer this to the FTW model for its cooling power and PCB, and to the Gigabyte and MSI cards for its slightly lower price, though overclocking speeds are of course never guaranteed.

Compared to the FTW model, DisplayPort users should note that this card regresses a bit in terms of available output - two DVI-I ports and a Mini HDMI port are all that's available, though like the MSI card EVGA is kind enough to include a Mini HDMI to HDMI adapter.

ASUS (Product Page)

 

If you thought the Gigabyte card's cooler was big, check out this battleship - the DirectCU II (another great name) is the only card in this lineup with a three-slot cooler, which means the ASUS card is both slightly longer than the Gigabyte card and significantly wider than anything else here. An extended SLI cable is included to accommodate this extra width if you'd like to use more than one of these. ASUS doesn't talk about this dual-fan cooler's noise levels - it does say that the cooler offers "20% cooler performance" and "600% airflow," but it's not exactly clear what the baseline is supposed to be.

Otherwise, this card offers the same output ports as most of the other cards (2xDVI-I, DisplayPort, and HDMI) and runs at stock clock speeds. It's the most expensive card here (at $329.99, taking us to $40 above MSRP), likely because of this large cooler. 

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NVIDIA Posts 290.36 GeForce Beta Drivers

NVIDIA today released beta version 290.36 of its GeForce driver package for desktops running Windows XP, Vista, and 7 and laptops running Windows Vista and 7. Like previous releases, the desktop drivers support all GeForce 6-series cards and newer, while the laptop drivers support Geforce 8-series and newer cards as well as most DirectX 10/11-capable Quadro NVS and FX-series cards.

The new drivers' primary feature is the addition of the Ambient Occlusion lighting feature for Skyrim and Modern Warfare 3 in the NVIDIA Control Panel. The drivers also add NVIDIA Surround multi-monitor support for SLI-certified motherboards using Intel's X79 chipset, and is additionally "recommended for gamers diving into Batman: Arkham City," though the release notes don't say exactly why.

Other additions and fixes include: support for 3D Vision over a DisplayPort 1.1 connection (available for BenQ XL2420T and XL2420TX monitors), updated 3D Vision profiles for a number of games including Modern Warfare 3 and Diablo 3, PhysX System Software and HD Audio driver version updates, and a smattering of bug fixes.

You can read the full release notes below, and download the beta drivers from NVIDIA's web site. Based on past releases, expect to see a final, WHQL-certified version of these drivers at some point in December or January.

Source: NVIDIA

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NVIDIA Releases Beta Drivers Specified for Battlefield 3

NVIDIA has released beta drivers which have been coded with Battlefield 3 in mind. The drivers are named as GeForce R285.38 and are available immediately from NVIDIA's site. Supported products range from as old as the GeForce 6 series to the latest GeForce 500 series. 

The release comes at a good time since the open beta of Battlefield 3 will be available on Thursday 29th (27th if you pre-ordered through Origin). NVIDIA claims up to a 38% performance increase in Battlefield 3, as well as overall stability improvements. The beta drivers add better support for SLI configurations in a few other games too, such as Diablo III and Saints Row: The Third. 

Source: NVIDIA

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Optimus Top to Bottom: NVIDIA Releases the GeForce GTX 570M and 580M

Asus U36 with nvidia optimus @ www.engadget.com

Gateway laptops with nvidia optimus and AMD Fusion configurations @ www.engadget.com

Blingtastic Toshiba Qosmio X770 with nvidia optimus @ www.engadget.com

Now that acpi_call, byo-switcheroo and bumblebee are making life a bit easier for hybrid-graphics linux users, we can afford to have a look at what other laptops are popping up out there. Here is the blingtastic Toshiba Qosmio X770 model:

Toshiba outs blingtastic Qosmio X770 for the US market, new P, C, and L series laptops

By Dana Wollman posted Jun 14th 2011 3:00AM

See that refined beast? You're looking at the Toshiba Qosmio X770 -- that European gaming behemoth we ogled from afar last month -- and in a matter of weeks, it'll continue its world tour to land on US shores. To recap, the company shrunk the screen from 18.4 inches to a more manageable 17.3, gave it a paint job that ever-so-subtly fades from red to gunmetal gray, and added a matching red backlit keyboard. This beefy guy comes in $1,199 and $1,899 configurations, with the higher-end model packing a 3D display, quad-core Core i7 CPU, and a 1.25TB hybrid hard drive, and the lower end offering a dual-core Core i5 CPU and a 750GB HDD. Either way, though, you'll get NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560M graphics, 1.5GB of video memory, and MaxxAudio3 sound enhancement software. Meanwhile, Toshiba streamlined its consumer laptops for those non-gamers in the back-to-school crowd, axing the A and M lines, and leaving just the P series, for "premium." It'll include 14-, 15.6-, and 17.3-inch models, all decked out in a textured, two-tone Fuxion X2 finish and featuring USB sleep-and-charge ports, HDMI-out, Harman Kardon speakers, and that same MaxxAudio 3 utility. Depending on the configuration, you can also score NVIDIA GeForce GT540M graphics, Intel Wireless Display, a 4G radio, a Blu-ray drive, and a 3D screen (only on the 15-incher). On the inside, you've got your choice of Intel Core i3, i5, and i7 CPUs or a spankin' new A6-3400M accelerated processing unit from AMD. Look for the 14-inch P745 with a starting price of $699, and 15-inch P755 and the 17-inch P775 for $629 and up. And, rounding out its portfolio, Toshiba refreshed its budget Satellite L700 series with Core 2011 processors and new AMD A4 and A6 APUs, while the entry-level Satellite C800 gets AMD Fusion C-50 and E-350 APU options. None of these laptops go on sale until later this month, so for now you can content yourself with those up-close-and-personal hands-on shots below.

Toshiba Qosmio X770

Toshiba Satellite P700 Series

Show full PR text

Fujitsu LifeBook T901 with nvidia optimus @ akihabaranews.com

For those into tablet PCs, here is a new model with nvidia optimus from Fujitsu:

Fujitsu’s LifeBook T901 tablet PC available now

If you loved the Fujitsu LifeBook T900 convertible tablet PC, then you’ll love the newest tablet PC available from Fujitsu, the LifeBook T901, which is now available to the US market.

This follow-up to the T900 features a 13.3-inch 1280 x 768 resolution LCD that supports NVIDIA Optimus graphics, Windows 7 Professional 32-bit, has five-finger gesture support for $100 extra, and other upgrades include a 2nd gen Intel Core processor with options up to the i7-2620M (2.70 GHz, 4 MB L3 cache) with Turbo Boost up to 3.4 GHz, HDMI, an integrated fingerprint sensor, the onboard drive is now SATA II, formerly SATA, with storage up to 500GB 7200 rpm HDD or 256GB SSD and a modular bay allows a Blu-Ray writer option or you can use it for a second battery or hard drive.

The T900 comes with Intel HD 3000 integrated graphics as the base option, but an upgrade to NVIDIA NVS 4200M GPU (1 GB Video RAM) with Optimus technology is also available, although the added graphics adds a wait until June for this tablet PC.

Sound like a great deal? Get it now starting at $1,899.

Powerful Asus U41JF with nvidia optimus in a thin and light design @ www.asus.com

Here are the specs for the Asus U41JF model, another powerful hybrid-graphics laptop from ASUS:

U41JF

Intel® Core™ i5 Processor

ASUS U41 Series brings power in a thin and light design

 

• Powered by a Super Hybrid Engine-boosted standard voltage Intel® Core™ i3 or i5 processor
• Super Hybrid Engine extends battery life to 10 hours for all-day, on-the-go computing
• Elegant design that comes in under an inch thick for maximum portability.

 Add To Compare List Print

Week in Tech: Intel, AMD and Nvidia fight for supremacy at Computex

It's Computex week, when the great and good of the tech industry heads to Taipei to show off their stuff. And if there's one trend this year, it's been battling over tablets.

First up was ARM, whose processor designs power many of the tablets on sale today. The firm has big plans: it wants to take its 10% share of the mobile market to 50% by 2015.

Intel wasn't going to take that lying down. It's invented a new kind of computer, which it calls a Slightly Thinner Laptop. Sorry, we mean Ultrabook,

As Kate Solomon reports, "Although no official Ultrabook products have been unveiled, Intel's executive vice president, Sean Maloney, reckons they 'will make up 40 per cent of the market by the end of 2012'."

It's all thanks to the Ivy Bridge chipset, which is thinner, faster and more energy efficient. We should see the first Ultrabooks in time for Christmas, with Ivy Bridge turning up in computers in early 2012. Intel also has a new version of the Atom, the Oak Trail, which has been specifically engineered for tablets, delivering the performance for demanding apps while taking up less space and consuming less power.

Roll on Kal-El

So things look to be breaking down into Intel and ARM bellowing "We will be the mobile king!" at one another. And, of course, Nvidia is part of it. We knew about its ARM-based quad-core Tegra 3, codenamed Kal-El, already, but Nvidia's Computex demos have been knocking people's socks off. Expect to see Tegra 3s in tablets later this year.

Not to be outdone, AMD's been showing off its mobile tech too. AMD general manager Rick Bergman showed off a brand new Trinity APU, which is its term for a chip that combines CPU and GPU on the same silicon. Dual- and quad-core versions should turn up on tablets in early 2012.

Did someone mention tablets? Computex has more tablets than a branch of Boots The Chemist. Among the more interesting models were Acer's Iconia M500 running MeeGo, which currently looks like the world's loneliest tablet operating system since co-parent Intel washed its hands of the whole thing. There's also the world's first seven-inch Honeycomb tablet, the Viewsonic ViewPad 7X.

Last, but not least, there's the Padfone, Asus's bizarre and yet strangely attractive attempt to bring tablets and smartphones together.

Like the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz, the Padfone doesn't have a brain: that's provided by the smartphone that lives in a secret compartment inside it. We are not making this up.

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Windows 8 Running on ARM, NVIDIA Kal-El Notebook Demoed

Microsoft just showed Windows 8 running on three different ARM platforms: a single-core 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon, a dual-core TI OMAP 4430 and a quad-core NVIDIA Kal-El notebook.

The same interface we showed you earlier exists on these systems, and the same applications can run across both systems (assuming the apps have been ported to ARM).

 You get a standard Windows 8 desktop as well as the new tiled start screen. USB devices will work and MS even did a demo of copying files off of a USB thumb drive.   NVIDIA had a Kal-El based notebook and tablet on display. Microsoft showed task manager displaying all four threads during H.264 decode acceleration.

 {gallery 1121} ]]>

Windows 8 Running on ARM, NVIDIA Kal-El Notebook Demoed

Microsoft just showed Windows 8 running on three different ARM platforms: a single-core 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon, a dual-core TI OMAP 4430 and a quad-core NVIDIA Kal-El notebook.

The same interface we showed you earlier exists on these systems, and the same applications can run across both systems (assuming the apps have been ported to ARM).

 You get a standard Windows 8 desktop as well as the new tiled start screen. USB devices will work and MS even did a demo of copying files off of a USB thumb drive.   NVIDIA had a Kal-El based notebook and tablet on display. Microsoft showed task manager displaying all four threads during H.264 decode acceleration.

 {gallery 1121} ]]>

Computex 2011: NVIDIA Announces Wired 3D Vision Glasses

Technically Computex 2011 doesn’t start for another day, but already companies are announcing new hardware right ahead of the event in order to try to beat the rush. NVIDIA is one of those companies; at Computex they’re announcing their new wired 3D Vision glasses.

As a bit of background, since the introduction of 3D Vision in 2009 the hardware has remained relatively unchanged. NVIDIA launched with their wireless 3D Vision glasses kit at $199; more recently they dropped the price down to $149, but other than a slightly tweaked revision of the glasses offering double the battery life, the glasses themselves haven’t changed. Meanwhile, though wireless glasses are generally going to be the best way to use an active shutter 3D system, it does have a couple of downfalls: there’s only so much cost cutting that can be done, the need to have batteries and USB connectors on-board dictates design to some degree, and $150 objects that are not tied down tend to grow legs and walk away.

As the market for 3D Vision expands, driven by declining prices for the necessary 120Hz LCD monitors, NVIDIA has finally had to deal with these problems, both to keep costs in-line with cheaper monitors and to build a set of glasses suitable for some new markets. The result is that we’ve come full-circle: 3D shutter glasses are now wired once again.

Being announced today and shipping in late June are the NVIDIA 3D Vision wired glasses, which NVIDIA intends to fill the above niche. As the name implies, it’s a set of 3D vision glasses that are wired – in this case using USB 2.0 – instead of the wireless glasses + hub solution that NVIDIA’s wireless kit uses. By ditching the batteries and the IR gear, and by integrating the functions of the 3D Vision hub into the USB connector itself, NVIDIA has been able to cut production costs. Priced at $99, these are intended to be the new low-end glasses to go with the aforementioned cheaper 120Hz monitors, while the wireless glasses will continue to be offered at $149. Besides the fact that the wireless glasses are wireless, it looks like the other features differentiating the two will be the 3D Vision control functionality the wireless hub offers - convergence controls and turning 3D Vision on & off - as there's no analog on the wired glasses.

The wired glasses will also be serving as NVIDIA’s first official foray into LAN/cyber-café business. As wireless glasses can’t be easily secured and can be easily stolen, NVIDIA designed and will be pitching the wired glasses as a practical alternative to café owners that want to offer 3D Vision without their investments walking out the door. The wired glasses feature a Kensington lock slot in the USB connector/hub, which means the glasses can be locked down like the rest of a café’s hardware. We wouldn’t venture to guess just how many cafes are actually interested in offering 3D Vision right now, but clearly NVIDIA believes it’s a worthwhile market to chance.

The existing wireless glasses

Finally, in spite of the wired nature of the glasses, they may end up being more comfortable than the existing wireless glasses. NVIDIA isn’t heavily promoting it, but the wired glasses do have a different fit thanks to the fact that there’s no longer a need to embed batteries, IR receivers, or a controller into the glasses themselves. Of the few different editors here at AnandTech that have used the wireless 3D Vision glasses, the most common complaint is the fit; as the glasses are one size fits all, we’ve found that the glasses pinch our (apparently) big heads. Although only NVIDIA really has any data to back up how many users shy away from 3D Vision due to the fit of the glasses, we suspect we’re not the only ones that the existing glasses poorly fit – the merits of the technology mean little if the glasses themselves can’t be worn comfortably for any length of time. Once we receive our sample glasses we’ll be taking a look at the fit to see if these are any better than the wireless glasses.

Wrapping things up, the wired glasses will cost $99 and be shipping in late June from NVIDIA and other retailers. NVIDIA hasn’t talked about any long-term plans for the wired glasses, but we wouldn’t rule out the possibility that they’re going to replace the wireless glasses in monitor bundles that already include glasses. A few manufacturers are building the IR transmitter directly into the monitor’s bezel these days, but for the rest this would be another way to bring down the price of a complete 3D Vision kit.

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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560M: High-End Mobile Graphics with Optimus

Our collective wishes have been granted by the fine folks at NVIDIA: you can now buy a notebook with high-end graphics that supports Optimus and thus is capable of offering excellent battery life. NVIDIA is refreshing their GeForce GTX 460M with the 560M. This will be a faster GPU, naturally, using the updated GF116 instead of the 460M's older GF106.

The impending ASUS G74Sx will be powered by the GeForce GTX 560M.

Notebooks using the new chip should be available in the near future, though keep in mind that not all notebooks will support all features. Read on for more details.

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Linux Dell XPS L501X - switching nvidia off

One of the hybrid-graphics-linux team members has found a way to switch off the nvidia graphics card from the Dell XPS L501X laptop model. Here are the details of the process:

https://lists.launchpad.net/hybrid-graphics-linux/msg00450.html

For more information, join the hybrid-graphics-linux team and reply to the email in the mailing list:

https://lists.launchpad.net/hybrid-graphics-linux/

Switch on/off Nvidia card on Dell Vostro 3700/3500

This URL provides the details to switch on/off the Nvidia card on a Dell Vostro 3700 or 3500 laptop:

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=882737#p882737

When the nvidia card is switched on, it uses the nouveau drivers, and some stability issues have been found.

Good news for linux hybrid graphics on nvidia -- nouveau drivers leap forward @ www.phoronix.com

This is good news for those on hybrid graphics laptops that got them to work with nouveau drivers but are unable to install and use the binary closed-source nvidia drivers. As you can read here:

[Phoronix] On Low-End GPUs, Nouveau Speeds Past The NVIDIA Driver

the results of the phoronix benchmarking show that nouveau, steadily improving since it was merged into the Linux kernel, promises to deliver great performance on different nvidia GPUs.