Intel’s new modem can deliver gigabit download speeds

Why it matters to you

Intel’s new modem can handle gigabit speeds — fast enough to download an HD movie in mere seconds.

It’s a battle of the wireless modems. Not to be outdone by Qualcomm’s speedy new X16, Intel on February 22 announced the XMM 7650 modem, a new chip that promises to deliver gigabit download speeds for tablets, smartphones, laptops, and other mobile devices.

The device is what’s known as a category 16/13 modem, meaning it can offer download speeds of up to 1Gbps and upload speeds of 225Mbps. It supports network technologies like carrier aggregation, which cuts down on congestion by leveraging multiple LTE frequencies, and 4X4 MIMO configurations, which use multiple antennas to boost download speeds. And it’s compatible with multiple cellular technologies, including LTE, GSM, and CDMA.

More: Apple vs. Qualcomm: Everything you need to know

It’s not quite able to match the peak speeds of Qualcomm’s wireless chip, which can reach peaks of up to 1.2Gbps. But it’s fast enough to download an HD movie in about 8 seconds, or 10GB of music in a minute and a half.

The absence of networks able to take advantage of the modem’s gigabit capabilities makes the launch seem a tad premature. Australia carrier Telstra upgraded its 4G LTE network to gigabit capacity last year, but it’s the world’s first — and only — to do so. At the Consumer Electronics Show in January, AT&T said it expected to achieve widespread 4G LTE speeds of 1Gbps thanks to “optimizations” and “thousands” of new antennas.

Verizon began testing 1Gbps connectivity in select cities earlier this year. Sprint said that it would deliver 1Gbps speeds in 2017. T-Mobile, meanwhile, claims that it’s the only network in the U.S. to have measured 1Gbps on its existing network.

More: Qualcomm faces a potential $900 million fine in South Korea over unfair market practices

AT&T announced the deployment of gigabit technologies last year,

The XMM 7560 modem, which is the first to be manufactured on 14nm process, is expected to supply cellular connectivity to Apple’s upcoming iPhone 7S, 7S Plus, and iPhone 8. Apple sourced Intel modems in iPhone 7 models sold on AT&T and T-Mobile, but was forced to tap Qualcomm’s solution for the Verizon and Sprint models because of the incompatibility of Intel’s last-generation modems with CDMA networks.

Intel’s got an upward climb if it hopes to make a dent. This past year, Qualcomm held a 52-percent share of the mobile processor market and produced 65 percent of all LTE chips.

But Intel does has some leverage. Apple filed suit against Qualcomm last month, claiming $1 billion in damages over patent royalties. And lawsuits filed over the past year by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission allege that Qualcomm has abused its virtual monopoly in the smartphone market to charge its manufacturing partners excessively fees.

Given this background, it’s no surprise that Apple’s looking for an alternative.

NASA just discovered 7 Earth-sized exoplanets, 3 in the habitable zone of a dwarf star

Why it matters to you

The discovery offers a unique opportunity to study Earth-like exoplanets that might harbor life.

Seven Earth-sized planets have been discovered around a star that’s roughy 39 light-years from our solar system, by a team behind NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. Three of these exoplanets are believed to orbit the star’s “Goldilocks zone,” the single largest haul of potentially habitable planets around a single star. The agency made the announcement today in a news conference and published the findings in the journal Nature.

“This discovery could be a significant piece in the puzzle of finding habitable environments, places that are conducive to life,” Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of the agency’s Science Mission Directorate, said in a press release. “Answering the question ‘are we alone’ is a top science priority and finding so many planets like these for the first time in the habitable zone is a remarkable step forward toward that goal.”

The exoplanets were discovered around TRAPPIST-1, an ultra-cool dwarf star 235 trillion miles from Earth. Compared to our Sun, TRAPPIST-1 is small and cold, making the habitable zone much closer to the star. Thus, the planets orbit very close to the star and close to each other.

By using data collected by Spitzer, the team was able to measure the exact size of the seven exoplanets, while making estimates of the mass and density of six of these. The measurements suggest that all of them are likely rocky.

More: Kepler finds 104 exoplanets in the largest single haul of confirmed planets

“The seven wonders of TRAPPIST-1 are the first Earth-size planets that have been found orbiting this kind of star,” said Michael Gillon, lead author of the paper and the principal investigator of the TRAPPIST exoplanet survey. “It is also the best target yet for studying the atmospheres of potentially habitable, Earth-size worlds.”

Atmosphere is necessary for life as we know if. As such, the  studying these planets’ atmospheres will be a major focus in the coming years.

“The TRAPPIST-1 system provides one of the best opportunities in the next decade to study the atmospheres around Earth-size planets,” said Nikole Lewis, co-leader of the Hubble study.

NASA released a 360º simulation of what it would be like to stand on one of the potentially habitable planets.

Holographic 3D printer uses lasers to print thousands of times faster than its rivals

Why it matters to you

This experimental laser-powered 3D printer not only looks impossibly futuristic, it promises to be far faster than its rivals, too.

Fed up with the world-weary, jaded expressions of your additive manufacturing friends, who think they’ve seen it all when it comes to 3D printers?

If so, you may be interested in Daqri, an augmented reality startup, which has developed a cutting-edge hologram-powered 3D printer. If you’ve always felt that what was missing from 3D printing was green lasers and tubs of goo, this could be the technology you’ve been waiting for!

“This system uses our software-defined light modulators to 3D print in an entirely different way,” Brian Mullins, CEO of Daqri, told Digital Trends. “The modulator is able to change the speed of individual bundles of light and cause them to interfere into analog light fields. This is essentially an object made out of light in three dimensions. When we form one of these objects inside a monomer resin, the light starts a chain reaction and solidifies into a polymer. The reaction happens all at once and it doesn’t matter how big or small the object is — you get an instant 3D print.”

More: New 6-axis 3D printer can print complex objects with gravity-defying overhangs

Aside from making you look like a time traveler from the future, Daqri’s holographic printing technology has a practical advantage over traditional rival: speed.

“This method prints instantly, so it’s thousands of times faster than any other method on the market and, because of that, we don’t need support materials to hold the object together as we print,” Mullins continued. “We also are able to create structures in polymer that have uniform material properties, so that the materials are much more useful versus those that are printed one layer at a time.”

The printer isn’t quite ready to be unleashed on the public just yet. “We are working with partners now and hope to be able to power 3D printers with our software-defined light-print engine in the next 24 months,” he said.

Will it work as well as its creators claim? Will we all be 3D printing the light fantastic within the next few years? We’ll have to wait and see, but we’re giddily excited about trying out Daqri’s technology for ourselves at the earliest possible opportunity.

Or maybe that’s just the daiquiris talking.

Almost 80 percent of Apple devices are on iOS 10, latest figures reveal

Why it matters to you

More Apple devices running the latest version of iOS means more people have better security, and are accessing Apple’s latest features.

Apple’s latest version of its mobile operating system, iOS 10, has been out since September 2016. In the five months since then, nearly 80 percent of active iOS devices have adopted it.

The Cupertino company frequently updates the number of devices on its latest operating system based on App Store data, and the latest numbers as of February 20 say that 79 percent of active iOS devices run some version of iOS 10. Sixteen percent of devices run iOS 9, while five percent of active devices are using an even earlier version.

More: Apple’s UFO-shaped campus is named ‘Apple Park’, and it opens in April

It’s great news for Apple, as the majority of the company’s customers are staying on its most up-to-date software. The same can’t be said for Google’s Android mobile operating system, where only 1.2 percent of active devices run Android 7.0 Nougat or higher. Nougat was released towards the end of August 2016.

MacRumors reports that iOS 10 adoption is “outpacing” iOS 9 adoption, as last February iOS 9 was on 77 percent of active devices. The adoption rate could get even higher soon, as the company just pushed a public beta for iOS 10.3.

iOS 10.3 introduces a “Find my Airpods” feature, in case users misplace one or both of their Apple Airpods. Developers will also get the ability to respond to App Store reviews by customers, and the update also switches devices to the new Apple File System.

More: Big day for Android 7.0: Nougat finally cracks 1 percent of Android devices

Apple maintains tight control over its operating system and hardware, which allows the company to see high adoption rates of its latest software. Google’s Android version updates, on the other hand, have to be released by a myriad of manufacturers and then by carriers if the device is locked.

Snap off or flip around? Microsoft Surface Book vs. HP Spectre x360 15-inch

Today, the two most common types of Windows 10 2-in-1s are tablets with detachable keyboards like Microsoft’s Surface Pro 4, and more standard notebooks with screens that swivel 360 degrees into tablet mode. Microsoft’s Surface Book is in its own category as a sort of hybrid between the two. It’s a more traditional notebook that morphs into a tablet, but with its own unique twist — the display detaches completely from its keyboard base via Microsoft’s unique “muscle wire” locking mechanism, and becomes a large yet still thin-and-light tablet.

Although it’s an innovative — and somewhat complex — approach to the notebook-oriented 2-in-1, the Surface Book provides the same basic benefits as more common flip-around 2-in-1s like HP’s new Spectre x360 15. The Surface Book is also an expensive machine, and while its 13.5-inch screen is smaller than the 15.6-inch display on HP’s machine, it’s also quite a bit larger than the 12-inch or so screens on tablets with detachable keyboards.

That makes the comparison between the Surface Book and the Spectre x360 15 an interesting one. The question is: does the Surface Book’s unique design make it better than the much less expensive Spectre x360 15?

Microsoft Surface Book

HP Spectre x360 15

Dimensions
 12.30 x 9.14 x .51 – .90 (in)
14.00 x 9.88 x .70 (in)
Weight
3.34 pounds, Intel HD graphics
3.48 pounds, GTX 940M graphics
3.68 pounds, GTX 965M graphics (Performance Base)
4.42 pounds
Processor
6th Generation Intel Core i5 and i7 dual-core
7th Generation Intel Core i7 dual-core
RAM
8GB or 16GB DDR4
8 or 16GB DDR4
Display
13.5-inch IPS touchscreen
15.6-inch IPS touchscreen
Resolution
3,000 x 2,000, 3:2 aspect ratio
3,840 x 2,160, 16:9 aspect ratio
Storage
256GB, 512GB, 1TB PCIe SSD
256GB, 512GB, 1TB PCIe SSD
Networking
802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.0
802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.2
Ports
2 x USB 3.0, 1 x mini-DisplayPort, Headset, SD Card Reader
1 x USB 3.0, 1 x USB Type-C, 1 x USB Type-c with Thunderbolt 3, 1 x HDMI, Headset, SD Card reader
Webcam
1080P webcam with IR camera and Windows Hello support
1080p webcam with IR camera and Windows Hello support
Operating System
Windows 10
Windows 10
Battery
70 watt-hours
81 watt-hours (Performance Base)
79.2 watt-hours
Price

$1,499+$2,399+ (Performance Base)
$1,280+
Availability
Available now – Amazon, Microsoft

Available late-February – HP

Review
3.5 out of 5 stars
4 out of 5 stars

Content developers now have access to the SteamVR for Linux beta

Why it matters to you

Valve Software’s new developer build of SteamVR means that customers will eventually see support for the HTC Vive on Linux.

Pierre-Loup Griffais of Valve Software recently jumped on Twitter to announce the launch of a developer build of SteamVR for Linux. Available now on GitHub, it is offered in the beta branch only so that developers can begin creating Linux-based content that will be distributed through Steam. Limited hardware support is provided, the release notes indicate, and developers will need pre-release drivers to run the beta.

According to the notes, SteamVR for Linux is based on the Vulkan graphics API, which is an open-source alternative to Microsoft’s DirectX and another older, open-source API called OpenGL. These APIs are what is used for games and other software to interact specifically with a graphics card. Vulkan is the latest of the trio, offering more access to the graphics chip than its OpenGL predecessor.

More: Nolo is a phone-based SteamVR Project that Kickstarter backers love

That said, to use SteamVR for Linux, developers will need the latest Vulkan drivers. If they are working with Nvidia cards, they will also need version 375.27.10 of the Nvidia Developer Beta Driver, which can be downloaded from Nvidia here. It can also be obtained as a Debian packaged version from Nvidia’s online development drivers repository.

Meanwhile, developers creating content on AMD hardware will need a pre-release version of the RADV open-source Radeon Vulkan driver. Valve provides a build in the SteamVR for Linux repository that can be cloned and used after setting an environment variable. Currently, SteamVR for Linux doesn’t support direct mode, so the VR headset must be set to extended mode.

“SteamVR needs to be able to access the HTC Vive’s USB devices,” the release notes state. “On most Linux distributions this is not allowed by default. The latest version (1.0.0.54) of the Steam package will automatically install udev rules that allow this. However, many distributions repackage Steam. If you have installed one of those packages, you may not have the latest Steam udev rules.”

Finally, developers will need Unity 5.6 or later. However, because SteamVR on Linux only supports the Vulkan driver, developers will need to go into the game engine and add “Vulkan (Experimental)” to the Graphics APIs for Linux option. Also, make sure the “Auto Graphics API for Linux” option is unchecked.

Ultimately, this move to add SteamVR support to Linux is just one step closer to Valve’s infiltration into the living room. The company set out to overthrow the console market with its Steam Machine initiative, which consists of console-like gaming PCs. These PCs are typically powered by Valve’s open-source SteamOS operating system, which is based on Linux.

The move to add Linux support is also Valve’s attempt to provide an open-VR solution across multiple markets, including MacOS. Valve’s Joe Ludwig promised during the Steam Dev Days event in October that SteamVR would come to Linux in a matter of months, and Valve has lived up to that promise. Next up should be MacOS, which may be officially revealed during Game Developers Conference at the end of February.

With Instagram’s latest update, everyone can share multiple photos in a post

Why it matters to you

Now everyone can upload multiple photos to a single Instagram post and the new feature will surely change the way some people use the app.

Several weeks ago, Instagram introduced a new feature to the beta version of its Android app that enabled uploading multiple photos in a single post. The change brought the photography-focused social network much closer to the way Facebook handles albums. Now, the company announced it is rolling out the feature for all users on iOS and Android over the coming weeks.

Sharing several photos at once is as simple as tapping “select multiple” on the upload screen. Users can choose up to 10, re-order the set by long-pressing on individual photos and dragging and by using batch-apply filters. Albums are noted on profile pages with a stack icon and can be viewed carousel-style in the feed.

More: WhatsApp launches Status, an end-to-end encrypted Snapchat Stories clone

Instagram

Depending on who you ask, this is either a welcome change for Instagram, which formerly restricted multi-photo posting to brands, or something fundamentally at odds with one of the defining characteristics of the network. For many, Instagram has always been about choosing a single image that perfectly encapsulates a moment or event, and using filters to make that image as powerful or provocative as possible. It was like Twitter’s 140-character limit, only for photography.

Yet, with this update, Instagram treads perilously close to parent company Facebook in execution, threatening to open up the floodgates to an inescapable torrent of self-indulgent vacation albums.

That said, Instagram does have a precedent of adopting features popularized by competing apps, like live-streaming video and Stories. The company is marketing the addition of multi-photo posts as another example of its emphasis on user friendliness, saying “it’s never been easier to share your experiences with your friends.”

That is a far cry from Snapchat, which has been criticized for having a comparatively more confusing interface that is hostile to newcomers. However, Snapchat’s efforts to go public have forced the startup to educate its investors on the app through helpful annotated diagrams and video guides.

Need to cut some expenses? Here’s how to cancel Spotify Premium

Spotify Premium is an indispensable service for people who stream a lot of music, but some might find the price of ad-free listening — $10 a month — more than they’re willing to pay after the company’s initial free trial. Thankfully for those who would prefer to save some green or spend their subscription fee in some other way, canceling a subscription is easy.

More: Spotify vs. Apple Music: Which service is the streaming king?

Keep in mind that you won’t be able to download music for offline use if you opt for Spotify’s free tier. You also won’t be able to stream audio at the higher bit rate (320 kbps) or play any song on demand when using your mobile device. Nonetheless, if you’d like to prevent your subscription from automatically renewing at the end of the current period, read on.

Cancelling your subscription on your desktop

First, log into your account and go to http://www.spotify.com/account/overview.

On the left side of the screen, you should see a button labeled Subscription. Click this.

Now, you should see a page informing you how much time you have left until your subscription is renewed.

Below this will be a green link asking if you would like to cancel your subscription. Click the link.

‘For Honor’s’ performance will cut down many PCs, but you can fight back

Ubisoft’s latest multiplayer title, For Honor, immediately impressed us with sensational visuals and unique styling at E3 2016. The brutal fighting game is like a complex, carefully timed game of rock-paper-scissors, and we’ve enjoyed playing every time we get our hands on it.

We sat down with the open beta build the weekend before the official launch to find out whether it held up in terms of graphical fidelity, and just as importantly, how well it runs. Here’s how you can ensure smooth gameplay on your own PC.

The setup

Before we get into actual results and performance comparisons, let’s take a look at For Honor’s graphical settings. First up, there are four preset configurations — low, medium, high, and ultra — which control all of the other settings. You can customize from there, and the usual suspects make an appearance, including anisotropic texture filtering, FXAA, SMAA, and TNA anti-aliasing options, and HBAO+ or MHBAO ambient occlusion.

You’ll need a consistent 30 FPS, or else the game may boot you.

There are several more esoteric settings as well, including dynamic shadows, texture quality, geometric detail, texture detail, and motion blur. Of those, only dynamic shadows had a very noticeable effect on performance on our test system, an MSI GS63VR with a 6GB GTX 1060 and an Intel Core i7-6700HQ, but your mileage may vary if you’re equipped with older hardware.

Finally, there are some resolution options, specifically render scale and supersampling, that are discussed in their own sections below, due to their massive implications on both performance and image clarity.

Before we get started

There’s one massive limitation you should be aware of heading into For Honor on PC. The game demands a consistent 30 frame per second performance average. If you drop below that number too often during multiplayer gameplay, the server may kick you out of multiplayer matches. That means, whatever balance of performance and smooth gameplay you prefer, you’ll need to keep the settings low enough to hold that 30 FPS average.

More: Here’s how to make GTA V look beautiful, and play well, on your PC

The in-game benchmark is the perfect way to ensure that not only are you keeping your average frame rate up, but your minimum isn’t dropping too low, either. That said, our test system managed to average 67 FPS at 1080p Extreme, so the bar isn’t a high one to reach for mid-range hardware.

The easy path

For Honor features a small handful of graphics presets: Low, Medium, High, and Extreme. The game defaulted to Extreme with our GTX 1060 at 1080p. The performance difference between extreme and high is almost entirely governed by one setting, which we’ll discuss further below.

The performance gap between high and medium is very narrow. We didn’t see much of a difference in performance or visual fidelity, with the main differences coming from reducing the number of texture filtering passes, as well as a reduction in features like dynamic shadows and environmental quality. Only keen-eyed observers are likely to notice the difference between the settings, particularly in the heat of battle.

Drop the settings to low, and you may find you don’t like the look of things. Tall grass and short foliage are replaced by flat, textured ground. Character models become particularly blocky, and the textures take on a fuzzy, low-resolution look to save on video memory. The performance jump there is respectable, but you might be better off lowering your render scale, discussed below, and leaving the settings on high.

A more dynamic option

If you’re almost able to play at extreme, there’s only one setting to reach for. Dynamic Reflections are just what they sound like. Any time you would see a player, or weather effect, mirrored in any sort of reflective surface, from metal to water, that’s a dynamic reflection. This one setting is also responsible for the largest Overwatch, thanks to its complexity and constant application.

In fact, the 31 percent jump in frame rate we experienced after turning off dynamic reflections accounts for almost the entire performance bonus when moving from the extreme preset to the high preset. That could well mean the difference between smooth performance, and getting booted from games.

Dynamic Reflections On

Dynamic Reflections Off

There’s more good news too — turning off dynamic reflections doesn’t affect visual fidelity all that much. For Honor is a fast-paced game that constantly spins and turns, which means you probably weren’t likely to notice the detail of that foot soldier’s reflection in the puddle before you cut him down.

Render scale cuts through performance issues, at a price

If the settings above don’t bring your performance in line, and you don’t want to suffer the blocky character models and awkward grass in the lowest setting, you have the render scale option. Lowering the render scale will leave your screen, and UI elements, at native resolution, but render in-game footage at a smaller percentage of the number. This is an increasingly common option that targets low-end systems.

Just don’t expect the game to look nice. Lowering the render scale is the same as dropping your screen resolution in terms of both fidelity and performance gains. You’ll see a sharp increase in performance, thanks to the reduced pixel count on-screen, but quality suffers drastically. Still, trading resolution for image quality might be a valuable proposition for lower-end systems.

Conversely, super sampling doubles the rendered resolution and scales it down to your screen resolution for beautifully smooth edges and well-blended textures. The result is undeniably impressive, but brought even the GTX 1060 to its knees, dropping from 67 FPS at 1080p on Extreme, to an unplayable 20. It’s the only setting still turned off in the extreme preset, and for good reason. You might use this setting to take high-resolution screenshots, or because you’re mad at your GPU.

A beautiful game, at a cost

At the end of the day, For Honor’s demanding graphics are going to be a struggle for anyone whose system isn’t already well-equipped for modern gaming. On current generation GPUs, you shouldn’t have much trouble keeping over 30 FPS at 1080p, even with the settings up, although those with the RX 460 or GTX 1050 may find they need to do some tweaking to pull it off.

For Honor is one of the most attractive multiplayer games in recent memory.

If your system can handle it, For Honor is one of the most attractive multiplayer games in recent memory, despite its reliance on the vintage, but still relevant, Anvil physics engine. On the other hand, elements like reflective water and high-detail grass will go unnoticed when you’re dodging a flail.

For most well-equipped gaming systems, the sweet spot will be extreme, with dynamic reflections off. Older systems, meanwhile, may find it necessary to reduce quality all the way to medium, or drop the render scale, in an effort to find substantial performance gains.

Nvidia’s GeForce website is counting down to the GTX 1080 Ti’s big reveal

Why it matters to you

The GeForce GTX 1080 TI card is all but officially confirmed as next great graphics chip.

Despite Nvidia keeping a tight lip about what it plans to reveal during the Game Developers Conference later in February, the company’s big surprise was spoiled by its own GeForce website. Right now, the site includes a new splash page sporting a countdown timer targeting its upcoming GeForce GTX Gaming Celebration event during GDC 2017. That event is sold out, but the company will likely stream whatever it plans to debut on the hardware front at 7 p.m. (PT) on Tuesday.

That said, previous reports assumed that the event would be Nvidia’s launchpad for the highly-anticipated GeForce GTX 1080 Ti card. However, thanks to the GeForce website, the card’s reveal is no longer a surprise. Embedded within the splash page’s source are two references to the currently unannounced card:

gdc-2017/GTX1080Ti_Countdown__Hero_1920x1080_h264_2mbps.mp4
gdc-2017/GTX1080Ti_Countdown_WebM_2kbps_variable_vp8.webm

As the file names show, Nvidia’s current countdown timer is unquestionably tied to the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti card reveal. Obviously, we have no official hardware specs or pricing, but the card will likely cost around $900 given that it will reside between the vanilla GTX 1080 ($600) and the GTX Titan X ($1,200) card. Here are the rumored details:

GTX 1080
GTX 1080 Ti
Titan X
GPU:
GP104-400
GP102
GP102
Process node:
16nm FinFet
16nm FinFet
16nm FinFet
CUDA cores
2,560
3,328
3,584
Base speed:
1,607MHz
1,503MHz
1,417MHz
Boost speed:
1,733MHz
1,623MHz
1,531MHz
Performance:
8.87 TFLOPS
10.8 TFLOPS
11 TFLOPS
Memory:
8GB GDDR5X
10GB GDDR5X
12GB GDDR5X
Memory speed:
10,000MHz
10,000MHz
10,000MHz
Memory bus:
256-bit
320-bit?
384-bit
Memory bandwidth:
320GB/s
480GB/s
480GB/s
TDP:
180 watts
250 watts
250 watts
Price:
$600
$900?
$1,200

Recently, the GTX 1080 Ti card was unofficially confirmed by 343 Industries and Microsoft by way of the retail packaging for Halo Wars 2. The game’s “Ultra” requirements include Nvidia’s unannounced card or AMD’s R9 Fury X GPU. Other requirements include a 64-bit copy of Windows 10, an Intel Core i7-6700K processor, or AMD’s FX-9590 CPU.

Nvidia’s upcoming GTX 1080 Ti arrives just before AMD floods the high-end graphics market with its Vega-based graphics cards. Team Red is expected to reveal its new lineup during the upcoming Capsaicin and Cream event during GDC 2017. According to AMD, this event will provide a glimpse into the Summer of Radeon by highlighting “the hottest new graphics and VR technologies propelling the game industry forward.”

More: Nvidia will probably flash its GTX 1080 Ti graphics card at GDC 2017 next week

As for when Nvidia will actually launch the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics card, it is expected to hit store shelves between March 20 and March 23. After that, a version for notebooks will likely be next on Nvidia’s roadmap if it’s not already mentioned during the GTX 1080 Ti reveal. After that, Nvidia is expected to move on to the GTX 20-Series based on a refresh of the Pascal graphics chip design.

Here are the rumored GTX 20 Series cards slated for 2017:

GTX 2080 Ti
GTX 2080
GTX 2070
GPU:
GP102
GP104
GP104
Memory (GDDR5X):
12GB
8GB
8GB
Memory Speed:
10Gbps
10Gbps
10Gbps
Memory Interface:
384-bit
256-bit
256-bit
Memory Bandwidth:
480GB/s
320GB/s
320GB/s