NVIDIA Technologies

3D VISION Surround Technology

NVIDIA® 3D Vision™ Surround technology expands your gaming real estate across three monitors in Full HD 3D for a completely immersive gaming experience. Now you can broaden your peripheral view of in-game 3D action, letting you see enemies sooner, get a complete survey of strategy games, and race your car even faster on your GeForce GTX 400 and 200 series GPUs.

CUDA Architecture
NVIDIA CUDA™ is a revolutionary parallel computing architecture. As an enabling hardware and software technology, CUDA makes it possible to use the many computing cores in a graphics processor to perform general-purpose mathematical calculations, achieving dramatic speedups in computing performance.

Hybrid SLI
Hybrid SLI technology, based on NVIDIA's industry-leading SLI technology, delivers multi-GPU benefits when an NVIDIA motherboard GPU is combined with an NVIDIA discrete GPU.

NVIDIA GPUDirect™
NVIDIA GPUDirect™ technology enables faster communication between the GPU and other devices on the PCIe bus by removing unnecessary overhead on the CPU. GPUDirect v1.0 allows 3rd party device drivers (e.g. for InfiniBand adaptors) to communicate directly with the CUDA driver, eliminating the overhead of copying data around on the CPU. GPUDirect v2.0 enables peer-to-peer (P2P) communication between GPUs in the same system, avoiding additional CPU overhead. 

Optimus
NVIDIA® Optimus™ Technology intelligently optimizes your notebook PC, providing the outstanding graphics performance you need, when you need it, all the while extending battery life for longer enjoyment.

PhysX
NVIDIA® PhysX™ is a powerful physics engine enabling real-time physics in leading edge PC and console games. PhysX software is widely adopted by over 150 games, is used by more than 10,000 developers of all types and is supported on Sony Playstation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii and PC.

PowerMizer
An advanced hardware and software technology specifically designed to extend the battery life of notebook PCs. PowerMizer allows users to adjust their system performance and battery consumption to their specific needs with easy-to-use power management tools.

PureVideo
NVIDIA PureVideo™ technology is a combination of the GeForce 6, 7 and 8 Series GPUs’ high-definition video processor and NVIDIA video decode software that delivers unprecedented picture clarity, smooth video, accurate color, and precise image scaling for all video content on any display.

3 Way SLIs  

SLI
A revolutionary approach to scalability—combining multiple graphics cards in a PC to scale performance—NVIDIA® SLI™ technology takes advantage of the increased bandwidth of the PCI Express™ bus architecture, and features intelligent hardware and software solutions that allow multiple NVIDIA GPUs to efficiently work together to deliver earth-shattering performance.

You can visit nvidia.com for more.

Dual VGA

For NVIDIA users, the dual VGA jack position likely to be reversed, but, usually NVIDIA puts Primary VGA port on the bottom side & Secondary PCI VGA with DVI output is placed on the upper PCI

Or the user can use an application with 2 monitors to display. Such as editing sound tracks that require a large screen so that the sound track can be seen. The example is with Cooledit software to display the one program with two screens simultaneously. To display an application with 2 screens, drag / strecth windows on the application to the left and right side of the screen, like dragging windows screen on monitors.

Or you want to watch a DVD of a movie with 2 monitors. Is the same as showing an application with 2 monitors. In the test program on the DVD, to display the second screen with Power DVD, then the Aspect Ratio must be turned off so the image can be displayed by the program to the left and right. 

2 Monitor 1 application - Power DVD, Aspect Ratio off

The drawbacks of use more than 2 monitors with one computer 

            Use of computers to monitor more than 2 doesn't look as good compared with only 1 or 2 monitors. Display images only good when used as a text display (2D). For applications such as browsers, spreadsheets will not be problematic for a computer with 3 and 4 display monitors. But the 3D image display will remain in place for 2 monitors only. While the DVD images, visual effects such as OpenGL requires a process on the GPU will only be shown at 1 to 2 monitors. Image processing OpenGL and Direct 3D has a limit to 1 and 2 monitors. 

            The preparation sequence of the monitor to 3 and 4 will be different than the use of two monitors. Because the sequence between the two monitors can be set from the driver. And settings can be transferred to move from where you want from the driver.             While more than 2 monitor settings can only be moved as the location of the monitor in the driver. Suppose you are using 4 pieces of the monitor, the setting where the monitor is set of images within each VGA driver setup. But drivers can not adjust the monitor in what priority. Setting 4 monitors will have a 1-3-2-4 sequence. Sequences 1 and 3 is the first display on the VGA and the monitor 2 and 4 connected to a second VGA .

Picture of VGA Slots Difference

Picture above shows a VGA slot on a motherboard, not all motherboards have an AGP slot and PCI Express. usually only have AGP or PCI Express only, they are all depending on the motherboard specifications.

Up here you may be able to make sure your motherboard supports what slot, now you figure out how to pick a VGA according to your requirements, you will probably more confused in choosing when they need to buy a VGA, whether to buy from the Red Camp (ATI) or Green Camp(NVIDIA).

Technology in VGA

Expansion
This is often and more accurately referred to as the VGA card.PC components this one has its own processor too. Called a GPU (Graphics Processing Units) by nVIDIA, and VPU (Visual Processing Units) by ATI.
It was equipped with a video memory is completely separate from RAM on the motherboard.In most video card products, using a type of RAM is one step ahead of the RAM the motherboard.
Integrated
Integrated on the motherboard, often called the integrated graphics controller. Average have a lower 3D performance, compared to expansion card.This applies, if to compare their performance, with the era and the same class.
The main cause is mostly using the relatively cheaper chipset, to reduce costs.Most integrated graphics controller also uses Sharring system memory, unlike the expansion card that has a dedicated memory.
VGA Glossary
So many that must be considered in the purchase of a VGA card.Because it of its complexity, the components of this one includes three components terumit have in your PC.
Here we include the latest range of specification data from the two manufacturers of graphics controller, ATI and nVIDIA.Start of the series ATI RV370 to R520 that can be found on its X1800 series.As for nVIDIA ranging from main-stream series GeForce 6200 product line up to high end GeForce 7800.Everything is a data specification standard reference board from the chipset maker.While the VGA manufacturers themselves, often make repairs and change the clock settings.With the aim of giving an additional performance on its VGA products.
So many terms in the specification of a video card.What does it mean and which ones need attention?
Architecture GPU / VPU
Is the code of the GPU / VPU that is used on video cards are concerned.VPU (Visual Processing Unit) a term often used by ATI, nVIDIA while calling it a GPU (Graphics Processing Unit).Usually the sequence of numbers behind it based on the chronological time of the development or improvement in technology and performance.In some cases, there could occur due to generation leaps one thing and another.
Manufacturing Process
Just like the CPU, GPU / VPU made in the production process continues to shrink, as the development of technology.Among others, to suppress the production cost, increase the number of transistors (transistor count) in a limited space without adding significant heat energy during operation.In accordance with the development of process technology has been mastered.
DirectX Support
DirectX is a command programming API (Application Program Interface) used by Microsoft.It will be (slightly) easier for game developers work.Well as minimize the problems of comparative tibilitas hardware to the operating system is concerned.
By relying on collection of orders is available on the DirectX standard, then almost certainly as long as compatible with Windows, the hardware in question will not have problems.Seiiring air-added version of DirectX, it also comes with a new special instructions.Which only the latest hardware-hardware as well.It's good to make sure the VGA card that is used to support the latest version of DirectX (DirectX 9.0c version for a while)
Bus Interface
Since its arrival in 2004 PCIe x16 ago, the presence of AGP was already threatened.Initially the data bandwidth of PCIe x16 with 4GB / s which, when compared to 2.1 GB / s on AGP 8x be the main reason.
Since the development of (re) use of dual VGA, reinforce the direction of development of the next video card.As you can see, most new products have been rare or even without including the version with AGP interface slot.
If the motherboard you are using does not have availability for PCIe x16 slot, then the option to upgrade the video card would be a bit limited.Two of the largest manufacturers of both ATI and Nvidia have a tendency to no longer produce the latest video card chipset with AGP slot.Especially if you are interested to make use of dual VGA.Both the ATI CrossFire and nVIDIA SLI, they can only be realized on a particular motherboard that already use the PCIe x16 slot.