Point of View the leading European manufacturer of an exclusive range NVIDIA based 3D processor boards, advanced netbooks as well as fancy 7" and 10" Tegra tablet computers and additional enthusiast PC products, announces today that it is first to market with a GeForce GTX 680 3D processor board running at a boost clock of 1176 MHz. The POV/TGT GeForce GTX 680 UltraCharged features POV/TGT's award winning proprietary High-Performance/ Wide-Band-width hardware design, an advanced power management for Auto-Overclocking and triple fan cooling for utmost stability and cooling efficiency.

First independent reviews already published on the net confirm performance and cooling efficiency:

"TGT handpicked only the best chips with low leakage, which should result in top auto-overclocking results. Thermals are also important and GTX 680 Ultra Charged's cooler keeps GPU temperatures below 70

Market research firm Jon Peddie Research reports first-quarter graphics chip shipments declined 3.38 percent year-over-year, and 0.8 percent versus the previous quarter. AMD's shipments increased by 0.3 percent, while Intel slipped 1.3 percent and NVIDIA tumbled 4.5 percent. Full details in the PR below:
Jon Peddie Research (JPR), the industry's research and consulting firm for graphics and multimedia, announced estimated graphics chip shipments and suppliers' market share for Q1'12.

The news was not good. AMD was able to grow shipments over last quarter by 0.3%, in a down quarter. Intel slipped 1.3% and Nvidia declined 4.5% from the last quarter.

Although this did not shape up to be a great quarter for the suppliers, it actually wasn't as bad as it could have been. We found that shipments during the first quarter of 2012 behaved according to past years with regard to seasonality, declining from the previous quarter; however, this quarter's decline (of 0.8%) was less than the ten-year average of 3.1%. If we use graphics as an indicator, the industry seems to be recovering from the floods in Thailand.

We have modified our forecast since the last report, and it is less aggressive on both desktops and notebooks - tablets have changed the nature of the PC market. Nonetheless, the CAGR for PC graphics 2011 to 2016 is 9.8%, and we expect the total shipments of graphics chips in 2016 to be 743 million units.

Our findings include discrete and integrated graphics (CPU and chipset) for Desktops, Notebooks (and Netbooks), and PC-based commercial (i.e., POS) and industrial/scientific and embedded. This report does not include handhelds (i.e., mobile phones), x86 Servers or ARM-based Tablets (i.e. iPad and Android-based Tablets), Smartbooks, or ARM-based Servers.

The quarter in general

• AMD had a gigantic increase in shipments of its desktop APUs of 84% and a modest 2.6% decline in notebook APUs.
• This quarter, Intel celebrated its ninth quarter of shipping its Embedded Processor Graphics CPU-EPG, a multi-function design that combines a graphics processor and an x86 CPU in the same package. These devices include the Core i series, and Atom processors in PCs. Intel's desktop EPG shipments had a very strong double digit growth of 18%, and Notebooks showed a more modest 2.1%. Combined with a decrease in overall IGP chipsets shipments, Intel came in for the quarter with a -1.3% drop from Q4.
• Nvidia shipments dropped 4.5% from last quarter, partially due to the phase out of IGPs. The company will no longer report IGP shipments.
• Year to year this quarter AMD shipments declined 1.2%, Intel shipped 4.67% more parts, Nvidia slipped -26.3% in the overall market as company withdraws from the integrated segments, and VIA saw their shipments increase by 51% over last year and 148% over last quarter.
• A little over 123 million graphics chips shipped, down from 124 million units last quarter, and down from 126 million units shipped this quarter a year ago.
• Discrete GPUs increased 2.7 % from the last quarter but were down 11% from last year for the same quarter.
• Ninety three percent of Intel's non server processors have graphics, and over 79% of AMD's non-server processors have integrated graphics

Graphics chips (GPUs) and chips with graphics (IGPs, APUs, and EPGs) are a leading indicator for the PC market. At least one and often two GPUs are present in every PC shipped. It can take the form of a discrete chip, a GPU integrated in the chipset, or embedded in the CPU. The average has grown from 123% in 2001 to almost 133% GPUs per PC.

Market shares shifted for the big three, and put pressure on the smaller two, and most showed a decrease in market share as indicated in Table 1.

AMD's overall graphics market share increased 0.3% from last quarter due mostly to APU shipments. The company had a 4% increase in shipments of discrete GPUs over last quarter, and an 8% gain in notebook discrete GPUs.

Intel continues to be the overall market share leader, elevated by Core i5 EPG CPUs, Sandy Bridge, and Pineview Atom sales for Netbooks. AMD gained market share quarter-to quarter Intel and Nvidia lost share.

Nvidia has exited the integrated graphics chipset segments and it is shifting its focus to discrete GPUs. The company suffered a desktop discrete market share loss (4.3% quarter-to-quarter), and had a 5% gain in notebook discrete GPUs. Nvidia credits strong connect with new Intel Sandy Bridge notebooks for its gains.

Year to year for the quarter the market decreased. Shipments decreased to 123 million units, down 3.3 million units from this quarter last year.

Koolance has released a new block under SKU code VID-NX690, it is a water block that is compatible with NVIDIA's dual-GPU GeForce GTX 690.

This full cover block measures 25.40 x 12.70 x 1.91 cm, it weights 1.02 kg, and features G 1/4 BSP threading and a nickel-plated solid copper base boasting a high-performance microfin (0.5 mm) design. The VID-NX690 is currently in stock and costs $144.99.

Arctic Cooler releases the Accelero Xtreme III, a new graphics card cooler with a copper base, 84 0.3mm thick aluminium fins, five 6mm heatpipes and three 92mm fans. Full specifications can be found over here.

ARCTIC is proud to release to you its new graphics card cooler - the Accelero Xtreme III. It is compatible with thes world's fastest single GPU along with a wide range of graphics cards. With 92 mm ultra-quiet PWM fans and five heatpipes, the Accelero Xtreme III provides an optimal cooling capacity of up to 300 Watts in total silence.

Silicon Micro has rolled out the ST1080 head mounted display. It is the world

Users of NVIDIA GeForce Kepler-based graphics cards have been reporting intermittent stuttering in games, with v-sync enabled. Technically, the problem seems to be a driver issue that results in visual tearing and image stuttering on some hardware configurations.

Here's NVIDIA on it with a small statement:

We have received reports of an intermittent v-sync stuttering issue from some of our customers. We

EVGA is pulling back some GTX 670 products. Here is exactly what EVGA had to say:

EVGA has isolated this problem to an early batch of GTX 670 Superclock cards (P/N: 02G-P3-2672-KR) that were not properly screened during QA/QC procedure. We have already been working with our partners to retest this particular batch. In the meantime, our R&D has also done numerous tests, burn in and component quality verification to confirm that the EVGA GTX 670 Superclock is a well designed product.

If any of your users are experiencing issues with their EVGA GTX 670 Superclock boards, please ask them to email Jacob Freeman, and he will assist in getting them setup with an RMA cross shipment along with EVGA upgrading them to the GTX 670 FTW version (P/N: 02G-P3-2685-KR) for the inconvenience of this.

"EVGA has not recalled its 670 product line," as Joe Darwin with EVGA put it, but EVGA has identified some bad product in the field which it is bringing back in from etailers. EVGA was not forthcoming with what exactly "this problem" with its products is or how it is identified

Several manufacturers today have released entry level graphics cards from NVIDIA, the GT 610-, GT 620- and GT 630. It's a very silent release.

From the looks of it all cards are actually Fermi based, not Kepler meaning respins and no new architecture at all. The  GT 610, GT 620 en GT 630 are all 40nm products. The GT 610 has a GF119 GPU whereas the GT 620 and GT 630 have a GK108 GPU. These low performance cards are mainly intended for OEM, media-center or business purposes.

 GeForce GT 610 has 48 CUDA cores with only 8 TMUs and 4 ROPs. GeForce GT 620 - According to NVIDIA this card should have 96 CUDA cores and the GeForce GT 630 equipped with 96 CUDA cores as well.

Point of View

Over at the other side of the pond the NVIDIA GK110 Kepler GPU has been 'somewhat' introduced.

We stated in our GTX 670/680 reviews already that the GK104 really was meant to be a mid-range chip. It's just VERY good, so good that NVIDIA delayed the GK110 for the consumer market and gave the professional market priority. We do expect the GK110 at the end of the year for consumers.

The upcoming Tesla K20 card will be equipped with a whopping 2880 Shader / ALU processor encounting monster.

Update: new information shows that there actually might be 16 SMX cores and thus 3072 Shader processors on GK110.

It features a threefold increase in double precision performance over a comparable Fermi core and also incorporates high level dynamic parallelism, and Hyper Q technology.

Hyper Q allows these new Kepler parts to process up to 32 concurrent work queues (versus the single work queue for Fermi), allowing its massively powerful parallel abilities to stay fully engaged, optimizing efficiency.

GK 110 -- "Big Kepler" Here's what we know:

• 7.1 Billion Transistors
• 2880/3072 Shader processors
• 15/16 SMX (shader engines with 192 Shader-ALUs)
• 384-Bit wide GDDR5 memory bus
• 6-Pin & 8-Pin power connectors for Tesla K20-cards
• 3x higher double precision

It's not much to look at, but this is how K10 or K20 will look like:

Sparkle has finally revealed its GeForce GTX 680 iteration, dubbed Sparkle GTX 680 Inferno.

There is no custom cooler and no alterations to the performance. Of any kind. The 28nm GK104 Kepler graphics processing unit sticks to its base speed of 1,006 MHz and the GPU Boost frequency of 1058 MHz.

Likewise, the 2 GB of GDDR5 VRAM have a clock speed of 6,008 MHz and a memory interface of 256 bits. Two dual-link DVI, one HDMI 1.4a and one DisplayPort controller are present.

MSI announced today that its Afterburner V2.2.1 overclocking utility and its Kombustor testing utility is now available for all gamers to download worldwide.

This version supports the control of South Island and Kepler card, if you get the card, you may try to play it.

Changes list includes:

• Added reference design AMD RADEON 7850 series graphics cards support
• Added NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 series graphic cards support
• Added big editions of default and legacy skins
• Updated localizations

Download

Expreview is showing a photo of a geForce GTX 670 from inno3D called the iChill HerculesZ. The card comes with a rather HUGE modular cooler, actually the very same one used recently on the GTX 680.

The modular part is that the cooler allows you to remove the cover and three fans.

The PCB design is custom as well with a 5+2 phase VRM (instead of reference 4+2). Clock frequency wise the GTX 670 iChill HerculeZ clocks in at a 1020 MHz core with a 1098 MHz GPU Boost frequency. Again we see a manufacturer leaving the memory untouched, which is weird. A lot of performance can be found there. Display outputs include two dual-link DVI, and one each of HDMI and DisplayPort, here's a photo:

GIGABYTE's first and only GeForce GTX 670 graphics card is the GV-N670OC-2GD, a non-reference design graphics card that implements the company's popular WindForce 3X cooling solution, coupled with its UltraDurable VGA+ PCB. While the PCB layout appears to be identical to that of NVIDIA reference design GeForce GTX 680, it is backed by GIGABYTE exclusives such as 2 oz copper PCB layers, electrical ripple control, tier 1 GDDR5 memory chips, ferrite core chokes, low RDS (on) MOSFETs, and Japanese solid-state capacitors.

Out of the box, the GV-N670OC-2GD features clock speeds of 980 MHz core, 1058 MHz GPU Boost, and 6.00 GHz effective GDDR5 memory. It loads 2 GB of memory across a 256-bit wide memory interface, with 192 GB/s bandwidth. Display outputs include two dual-link DVI, and one each of HDMI and DisplayPort. The card is capable of 4-way SLI. The cooling solution consists of two aluminum fin stacks, to which heat is transported by three copper heat pipes that make direct contact with the GPU, and ventilated by three 90 mm fans. GIGABYTE is asking US $415 for the GeForce GTX 670 WindForce 3X OC 2 GB.

NVIDIA today reported revenue of $924.9 million for the first quarter of fiscal 2013 ended Apr. 29, 2012. NVIDIA Profits are down 47.9%

"Kepler GPUs are accelerating our business," said Jen-Hsun Huang, president and chief executive officer of NVIDIA. "Our newly launched desktop products are winning some of the best reviews we've ever had. Notebook GPUs had a record quarter. And Tegra is on a growth track again, driven by great mobile device wins and the upcoming Windows on ARM launch.

"Graphics is more important than ever. Look for exciting news next week at the GPU Technology Conference as we reveal new ways that the GPU will enhance mobile and cloud computing," he said.

Outlook
Our outlook for the second quarter of fiscal 2013 is as follows:

• Revenue is expected to be between $990 million and $1.05 billion. 
• GAAP gross margin is expected to be 51.2 percent, plus or minus one percentage point. Non-GAAP gross margin is expected to be 51.5 percent, plus or minus one percentage point.
• GAAP operating expenses are expected to be approximately $418 million. Non-GAAP operating expenses are expected to be approximately $354 million.
  GAAP operating expenses for the second quarter are expected to include a one-time charge related to a corporate donation to Stanford Hospital of $25 million, payable over a 10-year period. We are joining Stanford's initiative, along with other corporations in the high-tech community, including Apple, eBay, HP, Intel, Intuit and Oracle, to build a leading-edge health care institution.
• GAAP and non-GAAP tax rates are expected to be approximately 20 percent, plus or minus one percent, for the second quarter and fiscal year, excluding any discrete tax events that may occur during the quarter, which, if realized, may increase or decrease our GAAP and non-GAAP tax rates. If the U.S. research tax credit is reinstated into tax law, we estimate our annual effective tax rate for the fiscal year 2013 to be approximately 16 percent.

We estimate depreciation and amortization for the second quarter to be approximately $55 million to $57 million. Capital expenditures are expected to be in the range of $35 to $45 million.

Diluted shares for the second quarter are expected to be approximately 628 million.

First Quarter Fiscal 2013 and Recent Highlights:

• NVIDIA launched its new Kepler-architecture GPUs to rave reviews. Products included the GeForce GTX 670, GeForce GTX 680, the dual-GPU GeForce GTX 690, and the notebook range of GeForce 600M GPUs.
• The first Ultrabook with an NVIDIA GPU, the Acer Aspire Timeline M3, launched on March 6.
• NVIDIA's first Tegra 3 phone launched on Feb. 26, the HTC One X, to wide acclaim in the media. Tegra 3 phones are available from 22 carriers in Europe and Asia.

We review the EVGA GeForce GTX 670 SC aka SuperClocked edition graphics card. The product comes pre-overclocked at 967 MHz on the baseclock and 1046 MHz on the boost clock. With that tweak the card positions itself in-between the GeForce GTX 670 and GeForce GTX 680 reference cards. Let's have a peek at what it has to offer.

Check out the full review here.