Remember the promising Nvidia Project Shield gaming handheld that was thrusted into the limelight a few months ago? Well, Nvidia is now ready to release their product to the public, confirming that the device will sell as the Nvidia Shield. More importantly, the company has already confirmed a price for the Shield, and fears that it wasn’t going to be cheap have certainly come to light.

Without beating around the bush, we can tell you that Nvidia Shield is going to be priced at $350 (£228 conversion, but could be more). A release date has been confirmed for June, while pre-orders will officially commence on May 20 – direct on Nvidia’s website. Considering that the Wii U launched at $299 in the US for the basic model – many consumers may deem $349 as too expensive for a handheld.

Then again, Nvidia touts the ability of PC game streaming via Steam – only if you have the requirement hardware. That is another big if as well, as Nvidia’s website confirms that you’ll need to have a PC with a GeForce GTX 650 GPU or higher, as well as an Intel Core i3-2100 3.1GHz or AMD Athlon II X4 630 2.8GHz or higher.

Even if you won’t be able to stream PC games, Shield comes with plenty of other functionality to keep you busy. There will be a separate library of games to play on the system, some of which include the likes of Sonic the Hedgehog 4 and Real Boxing. Perhaps more importantly though – Shield also comes with full access to the Google Play Store, meaning that you can play games such as GTA Vice City among the endless library of Android games – all running on a Tegra 4 processor.

With that in mind, does it still warrant a $349.99 price tag though? That price point is likely to be around the same area in which the next-gen Xbox and Sony PS4 will cost as well – just to put it into context. Who will buy an NVIDIA Shield when they could perhaps buy a next-gen console for the same price?

More details are available through Nvidia’s website. Let us know if you are ready to buy one on May 20, or if you will wait for a price drop.

We were finally glad to see the NVIDIA Volta was finally unveiled today during the GPU Technology Conference and we have to say that while this NVIDIA next-gen GPU was announced in 2013, you will have to wait until 2016, because that’s when it arrives.

You may wonder what the big deal with this new graphics processor unit is, and the simple answer is the fact that it will be able to solve one of the biggest issues the industry has faced.

That problem is the ability to access memory bandwidth due to the fact there is never enough, but the NVIDIA next-generation GPU will bring with it DRAM or dynamic random access memory. This is achieved by stacking the DRAM on top of each other and then drilling into them allowing them to connect to each other.

The end result we’re told is 1TB/s of memory bandwidth, which makes the Volta ideal if you are a graphics artist, animator, video editor or even a gaming fanatic. The GPU will also have the ability to rip through the contents of a Blu-ray disc in a mere 1/50th of a second.

Expectations are very high for this NVIDIA Volta because of its possibilities and while there will be NVIDIA GPU 2013 releases, none of them will be able to compare to the model coming in three years time. As yet we do not have an official release date or price for the Volta, but it’s not going to be cheap.

As most of you are now well aware, the upcoming next-generation Sony PS4 console will be utilizing graphics chips made by AMD. This is unlike the PS3 which used NVIDIA graphics and now we have some potential answers on the reasons why Sony and NVIDIA didn’t stay in partnership together on the new console.

It has now become apparent that it was NVIDIA themselves that didn’t want to provide chips for the PS4, as a recent interview with Tony Tamasi, NVIDIA’s Senior VP of content and technology has suggested that it is mainly due to financial reasons.

Tamasi has dropped the following quote to GameSpot on why it just wasn’t possible this time around – “We came to the conclusion that we didn’t want to do the business at the price those guys were willing to pay.”

As a result, it now means of course that AMD picked up the contract instead and will be offering x86-64 cores based on the upcoming Jaguar CPU architecture, as well as a Radeon-based GPU on top which could offer a peak performance of 1.84 TFLOPs. NVIDIA has also said in the same interview that working with Sony could have meant losing business in other areas, as they would of had to put other projects on hold to focus solely on Sony’s new console.

We wonder though if Sony had offered more money to NVIDIA, would we have still seen the same quote above from their Senior VP? – We doubt it. Money obviously talks in today’s industry, but time will tell whether AMD can go on to do just a good job as NVIDIA would have, presumably at a fraction of the price.

Considering that NVIDIA provided graphics for the PS3, are you a bit disappointed that they are not on board for the PS4? Are you confident that AMD can deliver the goods consistently once PS4 gets into its stride?

The Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan is the new boy on the block, which is the fastest single GPU card on the market. If we had to give you an idea this is not as fast as a dual GPU, but much faster than a standard single GPU. What helps to make this a beast is the fact that it has 6GB of memory. You would assume that the temperature would be pretty high in such a beast, but these are kept to a minimum.

Below we have a video where you get to see how well several games perform on the GeForce GTX Titan, these titles are Crysis 3 and Far Cry 3, and as you will see the single GPU performs pretty well compared to the Ares II, which came top in a benchmark test.

The old master used to be the AMD Radeon 7970 GHz Edition, but a recent review comparing the specs shows how things have moved on since last year. However, there is a price to pay for having the latest and greatest single GPU, and that’s a massive $999.99 for the Titan when compared to $499.99 for the GHz Edition. You can see a review of both these cards side-by-side HERE.

If you are looking for a graphics card for the same kind of budget, then the Nvidia GeForce GTX 690 is one option. Looking over both these GPUs it’s clear to see that these are different beasts, but knowing which you should choose is going to be tough. You can see by the specs here that a similar performance can be achieved, but it’s the ability for the Titan to be placed into a mid-tower that makes it far more appealing – well to some gamers anyway.

Below we have three videos reviews for your viewing pleasure of each of these graphics cards.

So the dust has settled a little on NVIDIA’s groundbreaking announcement at CES 2013, in which the company unveiled Project Shield – a new Android based portable system that will offer consumers a high quality handheld alternative which is powered by a new Tegra 4 processor and a 72-core NVIDIA GeForce® GPU among other things. Naturally, there are going to be immediate comparisons with Sony’s PS Vita handheld and early skeptics may be fearing that the PS Vita could get blown away with the differences in performance, with consumers obviously wanting to choose a handheld that offers the best experience out of the box.

We first told you about Project Shield in an previous article here. To recap, Project Shield is a portable system that combines an oversized controller with a built-in touchscreen – all in one unit and with the ability to open and close like a case. The display screen is a 5-inch multi-touch display which NVIDIA claims will offer 720p HD quality visuals and low-latency whilst playing online games thanks to ‘ultra fast’ WiFi connectivity – although the main catch is that you’ll need an NVIDIA powered GeForce PC in order to make this possible.

One of the main differences compared with the PS Vita, is that Project Shield is Android based, and will run on Jelly Bean upon release, meaning that you’ll be able to access all of your Android features as you choose, and play any Android game from Google Play that you normally would on your smartphone.

The main highlight though that Project Shield has is the capability to play full PC games on the go, a service that the PS Vita will not be able to compete with. According to the Project Shield website, users will need to have minimum PC requirements such as an NVIDIA Kepler-based GeForce GTX 650 or a GTX 660M or higher graphics card if you’re using a Notebook. You’ll also need an Intel Core i5 processor or better, but if you have them at the ready – you’ll be treated to a breathtaking library of supported games that only PS Vita users can drool about.

We’re talking about the likes of Battlefield 3, Skyrim, Assassin’s Creed 3, Dishonored and more. It looks very impressive at the moment, but gamers will obviously be fearing that such high tech will be priced very high – an advantage that may swing back in the PS Vita’s favor.

It will be interesting to see how Sony responds to their new rival, and it’s clear that something big needs to happen to the PS Vita in 2013 to keep it a topic of interest. Sony may deny that Project Shield isn’t a rival, but we think it definitely is. It wasn’t good at all to be talking about a lack of good quality PS Vita games throughout most of 2012, so we personally would like to see the library boosted in 2013 with games that are really on par with what is coming out on consoles at the moment.

Final Fantasy X HD is a game that has the potential to do that – but where is it Square-Enix? Black Ops: Declassified obviously hasn’t delivered to the extent that PS Vita owners would have liked, so everyone really is still waiting for that one killer game that will make consumers go out and buy a Vita if they didn’t have one. A GTA game in 2013 would also be a great addition.

What are your initial impressions of Project Shield? Do you think Sony will struggle to compete against it with their Vita or do you think the Vita will be fine as long as we see a lot more quality games released?

We have already seen NVIDIA announce one new product with their Project Shield handheld system at CES 2013, but much talk from the ongoing event is taking place regarding NVIDIA’s other unveiling, the ground-breaking and impressing looking Grid Cloud Gaming system. The company has been showing off Grid to excited attendees all week and we have some fantastic demos for you to take a look at now, showing you just how capable the service is when streaming gaming content to mobile devices such as the HTC One X and the popular Nexus 7 tablet.

Cloud gaming is definitely one of the big talking points at the moment in the gaming industry, especially since Sony has their partnership with Gaikai ready to go as soon as the Sony PS4 is ready to launch. Away from that though, the cloud competition is slowly mounting and NVIDIA has appeared out of nowhere with their Grid service, and the early impressions based on live-hands on previews at CES 2013 is that it is very good indeed.

NVIDIA is claiming that Grid will be able to offer high resolution gaming with low-latency on a range of electronic devices, without the need of any cables, expensive setups or hardware boxes. Everything will be pumped out of NVIDIA’s Grid services, which apparently can handle an unprecedented amount of data with 240 GPUs whilst processing 200 teraflops as well. That is some serious power we’re talking about and to give you an initial idea of how it works, we have some useful videos for you to take a look at below.

Watch how a user is able to play Need for Speed straight through an HTC One X which is connected to NVIDIA’s Grid service at the event. There is no extra hardware needed, just an connection which is hooked up to Grid with an additional wireless controller for the gameplay. Even better, we also show you what Grid can do when directly hooked up to a television – Street Fighter IV looks very impressive, with no signs of lag or reduced graphics.

Grid will even be able to handle the most demanding first person shooters straight through the cloud as well, with a brief glimpse of Battlefield 3 in action. We’ve seen the likes of OnLive emerge as one of the first companies to offer cloud gaming, but there’s no doubt that NVIDIA’s Grid service has the potential to be the best cloud product for the foreseeable future.

Unfortunately, there’s no sign of when Grid will be available, as information on NVIDIA’s website suggests that availability as well as pricing, will be announced ‘later on this year’. As far as debut unveilings go though, we say NVIDIA has done a pretty good job in impressing a lot of excited gamers.

Take a look at the clips below and let us know if you are interested in trying out Grid when it becomes available. Skyrim is already one of the supported games – imagine playing that while away from home on your tablet with a wireless controller, with minimal setup required. The future is looking good folks.

Within the last few hours NVIDIA has revealed Project Shield at their CES 2013 press conference, which the presentation started with a short video clip that showcased an Android powered handheld gaming device. If you look quickly you could mistake this device for an Xbox 360 controller with a screen attached to it, but it is much more than that and a bold attempt for NVIDIA to offer something very different based on Android.

NVIDIA’s Project Shield didn’t come with a price but they did touch on the main specs, which included a Tegra 4 processor that can display a 4K video through HDMI. The device includes a 5-inch multitouch 720p display that features 294ppi, and you’ll also find a number of ports, which can be seen in the screenshot below and clearly shows a micro-SD card slot, HDMI, USB, and a headphone port.

Rather than explain all the details here, we’ve managed to track down a 9-minute video that shows the official unveiling at CES 2013. You’ll see the initial NVIDIA Project Shield unveiling along with a few jokes about the projects naming. After the first video clip you get to see more short videos, which explain more detail about the features and this includes the 5 to 10 hours of gameplay, technical details about the innovative sound system that rivals Beats Audio, and exactly what powers this new gaming handheld.

What are your thoughts about the design of NVIDIA Project Shield? Could you see yourself gaming on this handheld? Take a look at the video below for insight into the specs and then share a comment.

A detailed article over at ComputerWorld suggests that both LG and Samsung may unveil new Android smartphones next week at CES, what’s unique about these is that they may utilize one of Intel’s latest Atom chips, rather than an ARM-based microprocessor. CW says that ARM currently makes up for 95% of the processors in smartphones, so this is a very bold move. One analyst claims that Intel and Google have spent time together to optimize Android for Atom chips, there are also rumors that Intel-owned McAfee could perhaps be somehow integrated into the operating system to further-enhance security.

We recently suggested that Intel could perhaps be showing off an Android smartphone at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, which further solidifies rumors of Atom chips being brought to smartphones in 2012 – it will be interesting to see how such chips compare to top-end offerings from Qualcomm and Nvidia. Maybe Intel could undercut its rivals to tempt smartphone manufacturers to move away from established mobile processor suppliers, either that or perhaps Intel feel confident that Atom chips will outperform chips such as the Tegra 3.

It makes sense for Intel to dabble in different markets as these days a lot of people use their smartphones and tablets for tasks which we once had to use desktop computers and laptops for, it looks certain that Windows 8 will run on ARM-based hardware when it arrives, therefore AMD may not be Intel’s biggest rivals in years to come – what do you think?

We can’t wait to see how Intel’s new Atom chips compare to Qualcomm and Nvidia offerings at CES 2012, however we do remain a little skeptical at present. Hopefully we will come across some useful benchmarks next week, when we do we will keep you posted.

The Exynos 5250 SoC features two ARM Cortex A15 processors, both clocked at 2GHz, on a 32nm process. It is said to support display resolutions of up to 2560 x 1600, which matches Tegra 3. In terms of grunt you can expect four times the graphics capabilities of the ARM Cortex A9 chips and twice the number of instructions per second.

Other tech specs include 12.8GB/s memory bandwidth, an embedded Displayport (EDP) interface and PSR (panel self-refresh) technology support. Here’s what Samsung’s VP of system LSI marketing had to say about the the company’s latest SoC:

“The ARM Cortex-A15 brings unparalleled performance to our Exynos processor family and the exploding mobile marketplace” and added “The advanced low-power, high-performance processor technology of the new Exynos 5250 continues to deliver an unprecedented level of performance for users to enjoy a completely new mobile experience.”

You can’t really compare the Exynos 5250 side-by-side with the Tegra 3, however it will be interesting to see benchmark comparisons, whilst the Tegra 3 chips feature 4 x ARM Cortex-A9 cores of up to 1.4GHz, the Exynos 5250 features 2 x ARM Cortex A15 2GHz cores and these A15 Cores are said to seriously outperform A9 cores.

It isn’t all about top-end performance either, as power consumption is paramount to many device manufacturers these days. Samsung has pledged “advanced low-power”, but how will this compare to Tegra 3′s great efficiency thanks to its low clock speed companion core? We have lots of questions, but no answers YET, hopefully we will see benchmark comparisons etc pretty soon.

Do you think these Exynos chips will trump the Tegra 3 chips?

The shiny new processor will certainly find its way into many new portable devices in the coming months, and Asus started off earlier today with the announcement of the new Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime. TechRadar are reporting that the processor was formerly known as Kal-El, and is five times more powerful than its predecessor the Tegra 2.

Matt Wuebbling, Nvidia’s Senior Product Manager said “Our next-generation Tegra processor is widely known as the world’s first quad-core mobile chip”. The Tegra 3 is based on the ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore microarchitecture, which consists of four cores that can run at speeds up to 1.3GHz. It also has a stealth fifth core, which can be used for the more basic tasks when the device doesn’t need to power the other four.

Nvidia’s new Tegra 3 improves over the Tegra 2 in all features such as better audio, graphics, bandwidth, memory, processing, and video support. It also has a new 12-core GPU that delivers up to three times more graphics performance, and will also support 2560 x 1600 resolution as well as 3D stereo.

The company also says there are more than 15 Tegra 3 capable games being developed, with over 40 promised on the Android Tegra Zone app by the end of the year.