Nvidia has confirmed that it will no longer offer support for 32-bit systems following Release 390. The decision was made public in an announcement post published to the company’s official website earlier today, but in recent weeks there have been some signs that this was coming.
The reveal of Nvidia’s Titan V graphics card sent shockwaves through the PC industry thanks to its impressive specs. The company confirmed at that time that it would only support the 64-bit versions of Windows 10 and Windows 7, with Windows 8.1 not receiving official support, according to a report from Hexus.
The Titan V does offer support for Linux users on 32-bit systems via an official Nvidia driver. This will not be the case going forward, as the companywide decision to discontinue support for 32-bit hardware apparently includes both Linux and FreeBSD.
“Later driver release versions will not operate, nor install, on 32-bit operating systems,” read Nvidia’s statement on the decision. “Driver enhancements, driver optimizations, and operating system features in driver versions after Release 390 will not be incorporated back into Release 390 or earlier versions.”
The company doesn’t plan to leave users with 32-bit systems out in the cold entirely. Critical driver security patches are set to continue until January 2019.
This makes for something of a sea change for Nvidia, as the company has previously followed Microsoft’s lead in terms of the operating systems that its GPUs would support. Microsoft plans to continue to support the 32-bit versions of Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 until 2020 and 2023, respectively, and is set to support the 32-bit version of Windows 10 indefinitely.
On the other hand, it’s perhaps unsurprising to see Nvidia choose to discontinue support at this time. People will continue to utilize 32-bit architecture until they have a reason not to, so a major GPU manufacturer ending compatibility might hurry a complete transition toward 64-bit hardware.
In effect, this isn’t too much of a departure from a situation like Apple’s decision to render certain older pieces of hardware obsolete. It’s a matter of available resources, and cutting down on the amount of different variations of hardware that need to be supported can save time and effort.
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.