Verclocker Kingpin returns to PNY for next-gen GPU(Button text). Is there a new overclocking cooler from Nvidia/Graphics Cards in the future?
It's been a long time since we have had any exciting personalities in the world of computer graphics, which is still easily one of our favorite and least favorite places to do business.
Now, Enter Ince Lucido, also known as 'Kingpin,' a Deathstar in the world of extreme computer component Overclocking.
Kingpin is best known for his extreme cooling to prep their overclock attempts. The first to use liquid nitrogen cooling systems in overclocking competition, he set numerous records as his chilled GPU hung on clock speeds that were orders of magnitude higher than any other card had managed.
This approach broke several performance records and established new standards for what was possible from commercial GPU devices.
Coming off a strong run with EVGA, Kingpin's transition to PNY significantly diverges his career path and the new technologies that could come from this partnership.
New—Kingpin 2080 Ti with PNY collaboration history. Most of his efforts usually involved improving the overclocking capabilities of GPUs, allowing them to achieve performance never before achieved.
But his individual work often went toward creating faster GPUs, which were combined with some of the best thermal management technology this side of a fire hose—an absolute necessity for handling all the heat produced by overclocked hardware.
The best-known Kingpin/PNY collaborations occurred at the high end with the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti lineup.
The high-quality output from PNY was achieved in part thanks to his technical contributions, which allowed the company to release versions of these cards that were "pimped out overclockable" at box stock.
These versions had better power delivery solutions, improved cooling, and BIOS settings for overclocking.
The gaming and tech communities were out in full force, praising these cards as they met and exceeded the performance uplift expectations over stock.
A second large project at Kingpin involved working on advanced cooling solutions for mainstream consumer products.
Through the introduction of sophisticated cooling technologies, including liquid and vapor chamber systems, PNY was able to develop products that outperformed traditional air-cooled competition in extreme user scenarios while still attracting a wider variety of consumers.
It made for a unique spot in the cutthroat market, catching some of those individual gamers who wanted to overclock their systems but lacked the technical abilities to alter the internal hardware.
Impact on Gaming and Tech Community
Kingpin should again be returning to PNY, and some enthusiast parts from Nvidia will enable new levels of performance and a better end-user experience.
Game developers would welcome GPUs with better overclocking headroom, as they can mean additional flexibility in designing their games.
These improved GPUs would allow developers to really max out their graphical prowess and game physics, too. This could help provide a more engaged, escapist experience as we push realism further without necessarily throttling us into computing corners.
This would increase the gameplay value and bring new heights to programmable behaviors in a video game.
For example, products like GPUs will benefit from enhanced stability and frame rate by reducing particle effects in more detailed scenes. They will also simulate the interaction of complex lights to implement such massively open worlds.
Fans of hardware, ever in search of the bleeding edge of tech, will likely be among those happy to see this from Kingpin. Why would anybody overclock, you ask? The answer is simple: most of those are enthusiasts who can't stop squeezing every bit of juice they can from their systems.
This more excellent headroom given by improved overclocking features could allow them to set new records in terms of clock speeds and may hold the crown for the highest per-core frequency; if this is true, they can exploit peak GPU performance.
Further, bringing more advanced cooling solutions and efficient power management into the fold could potentially democratize or at least defang overclocking to appeal across a broader range of custom setups virulently.
Advanced overclocking capabilities are good, but support like this might be too fancy for the average consumer.
Nonetheless, the fallout from game developers using new weapons will improve gaming. As GPUs become more powerful, games could potentially run better on mid-range machines but with higher settings.
In addition, power efficiency might make gaming less of an electricity vampire, which could play well with the environmentally conscious crowd.
Reactions from the industry and moves by competitors
With Vince "Kingpin" Lucido reportedly working with PNY, the name of this relatively minor AIB is now on tongues across the tech blogosphere, and it seems likely that AMD and Intel are taking a reexamination to ensure they remain competitive in what may be another furious race for clock speeds.
AMD, which is competing with Nvidia in the GPU market (https://www.amd.com/en.html), will undoubtedly offer similar extended overclocking opportunities on its Radeon cards.
In the past, this has worked well for AMD, and they have taken a similar approach to Ryzen CPUs and Radeon Graphics Cards by providing capable tools like Wattman on GPUs that allow users to control performance settings.
If Kingpin rocks the boat, claiming new performance records with PNY (below from a recent tweak), AMD may need to plunge another $1 billion into cooling tech or perhaps invent architectures that can better handle Power Boosting and Thermal Management.
A series of recent announcements from AMD suggest an unprecedented new level of attention is being given to the thermal and power performance metrics on future GPUs. This is a direct response to Kingpin being associated with PNY.
It is designed for gain overclockers and high-end users who want the best stability without compromising longevity or performance.
AMD could fuzz those overclocking lines with improved GPU software that would deliver a more granular ability to control an increasing list of parameters, creating novice and expert safe(r), user-friendly consumer experience.
Conversely, Intel has been determined to make its mark in the discrete graphics market with the Xe GPU line.
Intel could combat Kingpin and PNY's potential overclocking capabilities by using its years of Silicon Engineering, perhaps devising a way to better optimize power delivery or mitigate heat generation at even higher performance thresholds.
We've seen other companies recently use Deep Link to bring a CPU and GPU together for extra performance, like AMD's Smart Access Memory, so Intel's exclusive blend shows that they may be stretching their legs when it comes to helping overclockers.
If this rumor is true, we could be closer than ever to the reveal of Intel GPUs, and perhaps they might even partner with the gaming or professional visualization sectors to show off their robustness under extreme conditions.
These types of partnerships become a testing ground for new technologies and put Intel in the position to be trusted with high-performance computing needs.
Vince "Kingpin" Lucido has been collaborating with PNY for a long time, but this is a watershed development in extreme GPU technology.
Kingpin pushes the boundaries for graphic processing units to do more, and his influence is set to make significant leaps forward, particularly if Nvidia's future products are anything like its plans.
The project could result in Nvidia GPUs reaching performance levels that were previously unthinkable, changing the game for gaming, professional visualization, and computational research.
After all, finally, for Nvidia and PNY (and the AIC partners), Kingpin's involvement should shorten the time it takes them to reach new GPU performance milestones.
The collaboration promises to advance the performance of Nvidia's next-generation GPUS and further establish PNY as a leader in GPU innovation.
With these overclockability advancements starting to make their way into actual products, it's possible Nvidia could close the door on one competitor and woo an unprecedentedly wide swath of users: both hardcore gamers who probably wouldn't run AMD cryptocurrency drivers if you paid them a nominal fee as well professionals within data-intensive fields.
Secondly, the ancillary impacts of such technological strides are bound to reverberate through the broader tech ecosystem.
Ideally, this allows software developers to write more complex and efficient applications and games (think amazing 3D user experience), leading, in turn, to a much richer overall computing environment.
Moreover, the developments might well democratize high-performance computing, meaning that more people can access such power than ever before, thus bringing innovation to many tech sectors.