AMD & NVIDIA Post GDC 2017 Event Details, Both Holding Events February 28th

Though it feels like we’re barely past CES, things are already quickly ramping up in the PC hardware industry once again. Kicking off in a bit under two weeks is the 2017 Game Developers Conference, taking place as always in San Francisco. While…

EVGA’s New iCX Range: NVIDIA GPUs with More Control for Cooling

EVGA has introduced a new iCX cooling and tuning technology for its GPUs that promises higher efficiency and better control compared to predecessors. The video cards feature multiple onboard thermal sensors and microcontrollers (MCUs) designed that enable users to precisely tune settings of their cards and monitor their state for potentially better performance, stability, and endurance.

Modern high-end graphics adapters have three heat sources: the GPU silicon itself, the memory chips, and the VRM circuitry. To overclock a video card successfully, one needs to ensure that none of these components overheats under the higher voltage. While modern GPU silicon has built-in temperature sensors, memory chips do not (GDDR5X chips have integrated temperature sensors, rare GDDR5 ICs do too) and VRM temperature cannot be monitored without using special tools as well. Motherboard manufacturers usually add onboard sensors for monitoring, and here EVGA is doing the same. Squeezing all the overclocking headroom from a graphics card may be complicated since it is not easy to determine which component is overheating due to the high load, and a typical response is to increase cooling to the whole card (which means increasing the speed of all the fans creating excessive noise). EVGA’s new cooler design is meant to offer more control over what needs to be cooled.

EVGA’s iCX technology uses nine thermal sensors on the graphics card to monitor GPU, VRM and memory temperatures and then its Precision XOC software can make decisions regarding cooling the components that actually require it. In a bid to cool-down VRM, the application increases the speed of the fan on the right-hand-side of the card, whereas when the GPU and memory need some extra cooling, the board speeds up the left fan. Fan speeds are regulated independently with their own temperature/power curves and therefore do not produce excessive noise unless needed. Alternatively, users can manually regulate GPU and memory frequencies as well as fan speeds using the Precision XOC software, and the fans will react accordingly. The app allows to set power and temperature targets and even create profiles for different occasions.

In addition to the new PCB design and the Precision XOC software, the iCX package includes a new cooling system with redesigned heatsinks (which EVGA calls “purposefully-directed airflow chambers”). The latter now have small holes in their fins to make it easier for the air to pass through them. The heatsink fins are L-shaped to increase surface contact, and some fins are half open to maximize airflow. Finally, the cooler has a special thermal LED display system that reflects a combination value of the temperature of the GPU, memory and VRM, and can act as a visual aid to warn users of overheating (if the software does not do it for some reason).

EVGA will use its iCX cooling initially on variants of NVIDIA cards that feature its proprietary PCBs (e.g., FTW2, SC2, etc.), just like it uses the ACX-series coolers today. The initial family (see the tables for details) of add-in-boards with iCX includes three GTX 1080 parts, three GTX 1070 parts, and four GTX 1060 6GB/3GB cards.

As usual, some of EVGA’s AIBs come factory overclocked and may have an increased TDP when compared to NVIDIA’s reference designs. Due to different frequencies and TDPs, all the cards have different PCB designs and different VRMs, but the key components of the iCX (sensors, MCUs, two fans, safety fuse, etc.) are present on all iCX cards.

EVGA currently sells two graphics cards with its iCX cooling and tuning technology: the EVGA GeForce GTX
1080 SC2 GAMING iCX ($649.99) and the EVGA GeForce GTX 1070 SC2 GAMING iCX ($449.99). Those interested in other members of the new lineup may sign up for notification about their availability. Given that EVGA has already announced all the cards, they should hit the market in the coming weeks, but we are not sure whether all the remaining SKUs are going to arrive at the same time.

As for pricing, the addition EVGA’s iCX cooling will come at a small premium. The cheapest EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 with iCX will be priced at $639.99 ($40 above NVIDIA’s MSRP), whereas the lowest-cost EVGA GeForce GTX 1070 with iCX will be sold for $439.99 ($60 above MSRP). Prices for EVGA’s GeForce GTX 1060 boards with iCX were given at this time.

Related Reading:

• Zotac and EVGA Reveal Custom GeForce GTX 1080 Designs
• EVGA Rolls Out SC17: High-End Gaming Laptop Designed for Overclocking
• EVGA Begins Selling “VR Edition” GeForce GTX Video Cards for VR Gaming Rigs

NVIDIA Releases 378.66 WHQL Driver: Game Ready, More Ansel, With 10 and 12-bit video

Not wanting to be left out of the Valentine’s day fray, NVIDIA has swung by to drop off their driver updates in preparation for this week’s releases and next week’s release of Halo Wars 2. Cyber photographers can itch their shutter finger with new game support for Ansel, and we’ve been given more high bit depth video support.

As the 378.66 driver update continues with release branch 378 we see the list of fixes start with an issue keeping surround from being enabled on an XGPU. When G-Sync and V-Sync are both enabled, there was a long delay while switching between windowed and full-screen modes. Players of Second Life will no longer experience a blue tinted world after disabling advanced lighting, and The Division no longer shows shadow flicker after enabling PCSS. On Kepler GPU’s in Battlefield 1 NVIDIA has fixed in game flickering when using TAA and menu text no longer jitters for the Battlefield Day 28 Patch when SLI is enabled. Users playing on SLI GTX 1080’s with surround on HDMI 2.0 should have less system crashes while launching games now, and Heroes of the Storm should be done crashing on startup as well. Also, GeForce 860M Notebooks are no longer causing Direct X games to crash. Finishing up the fixes, we have a Minecraft Java SE Binary crash that was pointing to nvinitx.dll, and a fix for the GTX 980 Ti struggling to detect multiple TV models.

Alongside this release, NVIDIA has added Video SDK 8.0. This finally exposes high-bit-depth (10/12-bit) decoding for VP9 and HEVC to projects using NVIDIA’s specialized NVDEC video decoder. Video SDK 8.0 also adds support for OpenGL input surfaces for encoders, weighted prediction, and H.264 ME-only mode enhancements. NVIDIA is also providing Game Ready support for Sniper Elite 4, For Honor and Halo Wars 2. For Honor and Paragon both now have Ansel support and additionally, NVIDIA recommends those interested in playing For Honor do so with a GTX 1060 at 1080p, a GTX 1070 at 1440p, and 1070 SLI for 4K for an excellent high quality experience.

Anyone interested can download the updated drivers through GeForce Experience or on the NVIDIA driver download page. More information on this update and further issues can be found in the 378.66 release notes.