NVIDIA Announces GTX780 Ti Graphics Card – Updates SHIELD Handheld Console

NVIDIA GTX780TiSome pretty fun news out of Big Green today.

NVIDIA is taking the wraps off the GTX780 Ti graphics card, which will be available starting November 7th retailing for $699. This is exciting, as early leaked benchmarks are showcasing performance which should rival their GTX TITAN, a card which retails for $1000+. Releasing the Ti variant of the 780 means we’ll see price drops on the OG 780 and the 770, now starting at $499 and $329 respectively.

NVIDIA is also running a game promo starting today. If you purchase a GTX 780 Ti/780/770 between now and November 26th you’ll also get free copies of Batman: Arkham Origins, Splinter Cell: Blacklist and Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, plus you’ll get $100 off a SHIELD purchase if you’ve been eyeing their mobile Android gaming console (normally retailing for $300). People looking to grab a GTX 760 or 660 will get Splinter Cell: Blacklist and Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, plus $50 off a SHIELD purchase.

Speaking of SHIELD, a huge update is rolling out for NVIDIA’s mighty little handheld. Alongside updating the OS to Android 4.3, SHIELD will also receive a new Console Mode. Plugging the unit into a TV, you can pair up a bluetooth controller and kick back on the couch to play your games. Not a bad feature considering you can use SHIELD as an access point to stream games from your PC to your TV.

NVIDIA released this new video showing SHIELD in action.

More info on NVIDIA’s GTX 780 Ti and the new gaming bundles.

Valve announces SteamOS – Linux-based, gaming-focused operating system for our living room

steamos gaming screenshotYup we know XBox, Playstation, and Nintendo. Between those three, you’d think the console market is all locked up. Steam hopes that assumption is wrong, and they’ll be launching a new Linux based operating system built entirely around the Steam gaming service.

SteamOS aims to pair a Linux kernel around a “Big Screen” gaming experience, and it’ll be launched soon as a stand alone piece of software for living room computing hardware. The idea isn’t without merit. Traditional computers running Windows for example need to use some of their hardware power to run the OS. Now that overhead is gone as all the computer will have to do is keep Steam running. With optimization, We could see performance gains in similar hardware simply by removing the traditional OS relationship.

SteamOS also looks to be focused on in home streaming. While hundreds of game titles will be available at launch, it’ll take a while before the entire Steam library will be ported over. Playing local music and video files over your home network is a given, but SteamOS will also allow you to play games on your PC over a local network connection on your TV. We’re also seeing user profiles, keeping adult game libraries separate from kids collections for example, and the recently announced Friends and Family game sharing will come built in.

Steam is a remarkably popular service. Currently 50 million people currently have accounts in over 180 countries. Leveraging just a small percentage of this user base could make SteamOS a serious player in the console market.

No word yet on supported SteamOS hardware, but manufacturers of shiny plastic discs probably aren’t looking forward to this console launch…

More details at SteamOS