In a major leap forward for gaming, NVIDIA today introduced the first high-end products based on its Maxwell chip architecture — the new GeForce GTX 980 and 970 GPUs — delivering unmatched performance, major new graphics capabilities and twice the energy efficiency of the previous generation.
Maxwell is the company’s 10th-generation GPU architecture, following Kepler. The engine of next-generation gaming, it solves some of the most complex lighting and graphics challenges in visual computing.
Its new Voxel Global Illumination (VXGI) technology enables gaming GPUs for the first time to deliver real-time dynamic global illumination. Scenes are significantly more lifelike as light interacts realistically in the game environment — resulting in deeper levels of immersion for gamers.
And a range of new technologies — including multi-frame sampled antialiasing (MFAA), dynamic super resolution (DSR), VR Direct and extremely energy-efficient design — enable Maxwell-based GTX 980 and 970 GPUs to render frames with the highest fidelity at higher clock speeds and lower power consumption than any other GPU in their class.
“Maxwell has been years in the making, inspired by our gamers, and created by the best minds in 3D graphics,” said Jen-Hsun Huang, NVIDIA’s co-founder and chief executive officer. “Its extraordinary performance, efficiency and technologies will empower developers to do their finest work and delight gamers worldwide.”