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Chip maker Nvidia announced the latest addition to its Fermi class of graphics processing units (GPUs): the GeForce GT 430, which the company said was specifically designed to power today’s digital media PCs and provide high-definition video and audio experiences.
The GT 430 utilizes the company’s latest 40-nm GPU, code-named GF108, and has been designed into a variety of desktop and notebook platforms from Acer, ASUS, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, MSI, Samsung and Sony.
When combined with the company’s 3D Vision technology and a compatible display, the GT430 allows consumers to experience digital content in full stereoscopic 3D. Offering up to 1.5 times the gaming performance of their previous generation of products, Nvidia’s GeForce GT 430 also adds support for DirectX 11 (DX11): The Microsoft-developed technology offers tessellation support and improved multithreading support to assist video game developers develop games that better utilize multicore processors.
Features of the GeForce GT 430 include support for HDMI 1.4a, a TV standard for delivering 3D content and advanced multichannel digital audio; a special video engine to accelerate Blu-ray 3D content, delivering 3D visuals at a full 1080p resolution; high-definition 24-bit multichannel audio of up to 192KHz and lossless DTS-HD Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD audio bit streaming; a dedicated video processing engine for reduced system power and heat; and support for Nvidia’s PhysX technology, a cross-platform physics solution.
Starting today the GeForce GT 430 is available as an add-in card from suppliers including ASL, Asus, Colorful, ECS, EVGA, Gainward, Galaxy, Gigabyte, Innovision 3D, Jetway, KFA2, Leadtek, MSI, Palit, Point of View, PNY, Sparkle, Zotac and others.
Nvidia recently announced the expansion of its line of Quadro professional graphics solutions based on the company’s Fermi architecture, including the midrange Quadro 2000 with 192 Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA) processing cores and the entry-level Quadro 600 with 96 CUDA processor cores. The company said the Quadro 2000 delivers 1.5 times the geometry performance of the previous Quadro GPU midrange solution and utilizes Nvidia’s Scalable Geometry Engine (SGE) technology to deliver higher performance across CAD and DCC applications such as SolidWorks and Autodesk 3ds Max.
In September, the company further expanded its GeForce line with the release of the 400M Series, which offers support for the company’s Optimus technology, enabling extra-long battery life by automatically switching on and off the GPU so that it runs only when needed.
The GeForce 400M Series processors are the first notebook chips designed with Nvidia’s Fermi architecture and built from the ground up for DirectX 11. The GeForce 400 M series includes the GeForce GTX 470M and GTX 460M for enthusiast users and the GeForce GT 445M, GT 435M, GT 425M, GT 420M and GT 415M for performance users.
Mark Relph, senior director for Windows product management at Microsoft, said applications are becoming more visual, and having HTML5, hardware-accelerated graphics and a new JavaScript engine built into Internet Explorer 9 means that the Web applications will follow suit. “Nvidia is pushing the visual computing playing field forward and helping Microsoft create a better Web experience for our customers,” he said.