Are you currently an owner of one (or a few) of NVIDIA’s GeForce GPUs (graphics cards)? If so – you’re definitely going to want to check this out. Today, NVIDIA is launching GeForce.com.
GeForce.com is a new website from NVIDIA designed to be a one-stop shop for GeForce users to get everything they do from and for their GPU. As a GeForce user, you can use GeForce.com to do a few things to make your experience with your GPU better:
- Download Drivers: Get the latest and greatest drivers for GeForce GPU.
- Optimize your GeForce GPU: You can use GeForce.com to configure the Optimal Playable Settings (OPS) for a specific game for your GPU. So far, 10 GeForce GPUs are supported, 17 games, and 3 screen resolutions. This is just the beta for V1. You can expect NVIDIA to expand on this going forward. GeForce.com can detect your GPU and will display information regarding your GPU such as whether it supports DirectX 11 or not or whether it supports NVIDIA’S 3D Vision.
- Latest GeForce Hardware: Get the latest on the newest GeForce GPUs.
- What’s New: All the latest news for all-things GeForce related including games, GeForce product reviews, etc.
- Games and Apps: Check out all the games that take advantage of the PC as a platform in combination with a GeForce GPU. You can browse by technology – such as DirectX 11. Demos and benchmarks are available here too. You can get an overview of technologies like DirectX 11, SLI or 3D Vision here too.
- Community: Forums to discuss GeForce, Gaming, DirectX 11, and NVIDIA awesomeness.
You’ll notice the “beta” tag under the GeForce logo at the top left. The site is currently in a beta phase. NVIDIA is encouraging folks to send in feedback to make GeForce.com fantastic for GeForce users. GeForce.com is available for folks in the U.S. currently.
If you’ve got the Internet Explorer 9 Beta installed, go ahead and pin GeForce.com to your taskbar! It makes it easier to frequently visit the site!
NVIDIA is also announcing today the GeForce GTX 580 DirectX 11 GPU. As you can guess by the product name, the GTX 580 is the first in the new GTX 500 Series of products.
With the GTX 580, NVIDIA looked at addressing some of the biggest feedback they received from the GTX 480 which was previously their top-of-the-line DirectX 11 GPU. They re-engineered the GPU down to transistor level for higher performance per watt. So the GTX 580 is really no bigger than the GTX 480 but leaner and meaner. The GPU also has a special custom designed “vapor chamber”. This vapor chamber allows the GPU to be more efficient with air flow – bringing in the cooler air and dispensing with the hot through the heatsink “fins”. Because of this – it’s quieter that the GTX 480. Quick re-cap of the GTX 580: 35% higher performance over GTX 480 and basically the same size and uses the same amount of power but quieter.
Just like current GeForce GPUs, the GTX 580 monitors heat and has several mechanisms to protect the GPU from over-heating. However, NVIDIA is introducing another level of hardware monitoring with the GTX 580 specifically to manage and monitor power especially under stressful application loads. There is a specific limit and if the GPU goes over that limit, this protection kicks in throttling the GPU back so it doesn’t destroy itself or your PC. NVIDIA says that this new level of power protection will be included in all future GPUs going forward.
The GeForce GTX 580 is available today starting at $499!