NVIDIA Fall Driver Update (rel 180) and Other Treats

Final Words

So we've got some good and some bad. The new driver does bring some long awaited features into play. We have a better interface for getting PhysX working on the hardware we want it working on. Mirror's Edge for the PC will have what looks like it could be the first really interesting implementation of PhysX in a major title. And desktop supercomputing is now a market for some major PC retailers. All this is good news for NVIDIA.

We would like to have seen the performance gains NVIDIA talked about. While we don't doubt that they are in there, it is likely we just didn't look at the right settings or hardware. Across the board performance gains are hard to come by any more, but improving performance in the corner cases and on underperforming hardware is still a good thing to do.

While not an immediate benefit to end users, getting GPU computing hardware into boxes not only from specialty computing firms but from Dell and Lenovo will go a very long way to legitimizing GPUs as a platform for computation in the eyes of industry and academia. Solidifying the idea of GPU computing in these areas will, in turn, bring about more penetration for applications that make use of the technology. This will be beneficial to NVIDIA in particular because of the exposure CUDA will get, but it will also benefit all GPU computing efforts. Our hope is that as people get excited about GPU computing, they will look towards efforts like OpenCL. Well, that or NVIDIA will relinquish control of CUDA to a standards body and help AMD implement it, but that's about as likely as it sounds.

One last bit to mention is that all production of the GTX 260 has shifted from the original version to the 216 model. While the 192 shader version will still be sold, it will trickle out of the market and be replaced by the 216. This move actually helps clear up the horrendous naming NVIDIA went with. As the 216 core part will replace the original GTX 260, there is no need to preserve the integrity of the name: the core 216 becomes the only 260 around. What this shows is that they changed their minds after the 4870 was released and decided that their never should have been a 192 core version to begin with. Which is fine, but it's really tough to un-ring that bell.

But NVIDIA believes that their GeForce GTX 260 core 216 competes well with the similarly priced Radeon HD 4870 1GB part. Well, that's not entirely true. NVIDIA believes they have a better part, but from what we've seen in the past there are definitely reasons to pick up the 4870 1GB instead (as we have recommended in the past). NVIDIA approached us last week with some information on a handful of recently released games saying that their GeForce GTX 260 core 216 was the best option in these new titles. We'll certainly see after we run all the tests, but stay tuned for an update on that area.

No matter how you slice it, this has been quite an interesting week for NVIDIA. Here's to hoping they (and AMD) can start getting us excited about new driver releases again.