Digital Visual Interface (DVI) is a video display interface developed by the Digital Display Working Group (DDWG). The digital interface is used to connect a video source, such as a video display controller, to a display device, such as a computer monitor. It was developed with the intention of creating an industry standard for the transfer of uncompressed digital video content.
A graphics card is a computer expansion card that generates a feed of graphics output to a display device such as a monitor. Graphics cards are sometimes called discrete or dedicated graphics cards to emphasize their distinction to an integrated graphics processor on the motherboard or the central processing unit (CPU). A graphics processing unit (GPU) that performs the necessary computations is the main component in a graphics card, but the acronym "GPU" is sometimes also used to erroneously refer to the graphics card as a whole.
GeForce is a brand of graphics processing units (GPUs) designed by Nvidia and marketed for the performance market. As of the GeForce 40 series, there have been eighteen iterations of the design. The first GeForce products were discrete GPUs designed for add-on graphics boards, intended for the high-margin PC gaming market, and later diversification of the product line covered all tiers of the PC graphics market, ranging from cost-sensitive GPUs integrated on motherboards, to mainstream add-in retail boards. Most recently, GeForce technology has been introduced into Nvidia's line of embedded application processors, designed for electronic handhelds and mobile handsets.
A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit initially designed for digital image processing and to accelerate computer graphics, being present either as a discrete video card or embedded on motherboards, mobile phones, personal computers, workstations, and game consoles. After their initial design, GPUs were found to be useful for non-graphic calculations involving embarrassingly parallel problems due to their parallel structure. Other non-graphical uses include the training of neural networks and cryptocurrency mining.
Alienware Corporation is an American computer hardware subsidiary brand of Dell. Their product range is dedicated to gaming computers and accessories and can be identified by their alien-themed designs. Alienware was founded in 1996 by Nelson Gonzalez and Alex Aguila. The development of the company is also associated with Frank Azor, Arthur Lewis, Joe Balerdi, and Michael S. Dell (CEO). The company's corporate headquarters is located in The Hammocks, Miami, Florida.
Scalable Link Interface (SLI) is the brand name for a now discontinued multi-GPU technology developed by Nvidia for linking two or more video cards together to produce a single output. SLI is a parallel processing algorithm for computer graphics, meant to increase the available processing power.
DisplayPort (DP) is a proprietary digital display interface developed by a consortium of PC and chip manufacturers and standardized by the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA). It is primarily used to connect a video source to a display device such as a computer monitor. It can also carry audio, USB, and other forms of data.
Screen tearing is a visual artifact in video display where a display device shows information from multiple frames in a single screen draw.
Unified Video Decoder is the name given to AMD's dedicated video decoding ASIC. There are multiple versions implementing a multitude of video codecs, such as H.264 and VC-1.
PureVideo is Nvidia's hardware SIP core that performs video decoding. PureVideo is integrated into some of the Nvidia GPUs, and it supports hardware decoding of multiple video codec standards: MPEG-2, VC-1, H.264, HEVC, and AV1. PureVideo occupies a considerable amount of a GPU's die area and should not be confused with Nvidia NVENC. In addition to video decoding on chip, PureVideo offers features such as edge enhancement, noise reduction, deinterlacing, dynamic contrast enhancement and color enhancement.
Micro stuttering is a quality defect that manifests as irregular delays between frames rendered by a graphics processing unit (GPU). It causes the instantaneous frame rate of the longest delay to be significantly lower than the frame rate reported by benchmarking applications such as 3DMark, which usually calculate the average frame rate over a longer time interval.
Nvidia 3D Vision is a discontinued stereoscopic gaming kit from Nvidia which consists of LC shutter glasses and driver software which enables stereoscopic vision for any Direct3D game, with various degrees of compatibility. There have been many examples of shutter glasses. Electrically controlled mechanical shutter glasses date back to the middle of the 20th century. LCD shutter glasses appeared in the 1980s, one example of which is Sega's SegaScope. This was available for Sega's game console, the Master System. The NVIDIA 3D Vision gaming kit introduced in 2008 made this technology available for mainstream consumers and PC gamers.
The GeForce 500 series is a series of graphics processing units developed by Nvidia, as a refresh of the Fermi based GeForce 400 series. It was first released on November 9, 2010 with the GeForce GTX 580.
The GeForce 600 series is a series of graphics processing units developed by Nvidia, first released in 2012. It served as the introduction of the Kepler architecture. It is succeeded by the GeForce 700 series.
The GeForce 700 series is a series of graphics processing units developed by Nvidia. While mainly a refresh of the Kepler microarchitecture, some cards use Fermi (GF) and later cards use Maxwell (GM). GeForce 700 series cards were first released in 2013, starting with the release of the GeForce GTX Titan on February 19, 2013, followed by the GeForce GTX 780 on May 23, 2013. The first mobile GeForce 700 series chips were released in April 2013.
The GeForce 900 series is a family of graphics processing units developed by Nvidia, succeeding the GeForce 700 series and serving as the high-end introduction to the Maxwell microarchitecture, named after James Clerk Maxwell. They were produced with TSMC's 28 nm process.
AMD PowerTune is a series of dynamic frequency scaling technologies built into some AMD GPUs and APUs that allow the clock speed of the processor to be dynamically changed by software. This allows the processor to meet the instantaneous performance needs of the operation being performed, while minimizing power draw, heat generation and noise avoidance. AMD PowerTune aims to solve thermal design power and performance constraints.
FreeSync is an adaptive synchronization technology that allows LCD and OLED displays to support a variable refresh rate aimed at avoiding tearing and reducing stuttering caused by misalignment between the screen's refresh rate and the content's frame rate.
GPUOpen is a middleware software suite originally developed by AMD's Radeon Technologies Group that offers advanced visual effects for computer games. It was released in 2016. GPUOpen serves as an alternative to, and a direct competitor of Nvidia GameWorks. GPUOpen is similar to GameWorks in that it encompasses several different graphics technologies as its main components that were previously independent and separate from one another. However, GPUOpen is partially open source software, unlike GameWorks which is proprietary and closed.
Variable refresh rate (VRR) refers to a dynamic display that can continuously and seamlessly change its refresh rate without user input. A display supporting a variable refresh rate usually supports a specific range of refresh rates. This is called the VRR range. The refresh rate can continuously vary seamlessly anywhere within this range.
