Video Cards & GPUs News - Page 1

NVIDIA has been dominant for years, but in a new report from analyst firm Jon Peddie Research (JPR) we're seeing the AIB GPU market is absolutely dominated by NVIDIA with 88% market share, AMD with just 12%, leaving Intel with exactly 0% market share.

JPR's report states that in Q1 2024, 8.7 million units were shipped, down from 9.5 million units in Q4 2023. The market share for desktop discrete GPU suppliers "shifted" in the quarter, with NVIDIA's market share growing since last quarter by 8%, while AMD's share decreased by 7%.

Intel entered the AIB market in Q3 2022, close to two years ago now, with its Arc A770 and Arc A750 graphics cards, but they "remained flat" says JPR as the company "has yet to gain significant traction in the add-in board market". Meanwhile, NVIDIA holds a dominant 88% of the market.

Not many gamers of today remember how much the industry was changed by 3dfx in the 90s, but now we've got a modder who has developed a PCB that features the VSA-100 chip, the chip that powered the Voodoo4 graphics card back in the day.

The 3dfx Voodoo4 graphics card was released 24 years ago, designed for power efficiency in a market that was quickly adapting to the mega-success of 3dfx at the time (NVIDIA and ATi, which was later acquired by AMD). Modder "sdz" talked about this modding experience on the Vogons forums, going through the steps and issues that he came across during the custom modification of the Voodoo4 GPU.

The modder created a working Voodoo4 GPU for laptops through a nifty MXM connector, designing the custom MXM carrier and using an FPGA to setup the required hardware and software connections, which is paramount in using older hardware like this. The new Voodoo4 GPU inside of a laptop was made to work with Windows XP, which was an operating system released closer to when 3dfx was still around.

This year's Computex might have been light on next-gen GPU announcements from NVIDIA and AMD, but that doesn't mean GPU makers aren't prepping for the GeForce RTX 50 Series. Odds are we're going to see the RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 later this year, and at Computex 2024, Palit had a range of new 'prototype' GPU designs it was ready to showcase - albeit with current-gen hardware inside.

First up is the GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER MASTER, which features a full-metal die-cast shell made from aluminum where you can't see the screws. If you're familiar with Palit's RGB-bling GameRock series of GPUs, this is the complete opposite - a minimal, brushed metal look with a fully enclosed GPU and some minor angles on the end to give it character.

As a prototype, Palit notes that the design still has work left before it's finalized and ready for production - namely, fine-tuning the cooling to ensure it can handle a GeForce RTX GPU with up to 450W of power running at around 60 degrees. Palit wouldn't tell us if that means we'll see this design with the GeForce RTX 50 Series, but it's safe to assume that finalizing the design will happen once the team gets their hands on actual hardware and boards for the next generation of GeForce cards.

Intel has officially unveiled its next-gen Xe2 GPU which will drop into Lunar Lake CPUs later this year, while next-gen Arc "Battlemage" discrete GPUs will arrive after.

During the Intel Tech Tour 2024 event, Intel fellow and ex-NVIDIA staffer Tom Peterson talked all things next-gen Xe2 GPU architecture. Intel is making things easier to understand with its next-gen GPU architecture, where instead of using LP, LPG, HP, and HPG naming schemes (which can be confusing for people), Intel is calling its next-gen GPU lineup Xe2. Internally, the company will still use codenames, but they won't be used on the client side moving forward.

Intel has designed its next-gen Xe2 GPU from the ground up, with higher utilization, improved work distribution, and less software overhead. There are multiple (major) problems that were inside of Xe "Alchemist" GPUs, which are now fixed in Xe2. Intel has promised some major IP performance efficiency for Xe2, with performance gains of up to 12.5x in particular use cases.

Micron has announced that it is now sampling its next-generation GDDR7 graphics memory, with the industry's highest bit density.

Micron is using its new 1β (1-beta) DRAM technology and innovative architecture to build its new GDDR7 delivering 32Gbps of speed in a power-optimized design. We're looking at over a blistering 1.5TB/sec of memory bandwidth, an incredible 60% leap in bandwidth over current-gen GDDR6 memory, and four independent channels to optimize workloads.

This culminates in Micron's next-gen GDDR7 memory providing faster response times, smoother gameplay, and reduced processing times. On top of that, GDDR7 has a 50% power efficiency gain over GDDR6, enabling improved thermals and longer battery life inside of portable devices (laptops, etc) while the new sleep mode reduces standby power by up to an incredible 70%.

NVIDIA's next-gen Blackwell gaming GPUs are keenly anticipated, of course, and while Computex 2024 didn't give us any of the details on RTX 5000 that we wanted, a leaker has stepped into the breach with some fresh nuggets of rumors.

This comes from well-known leaker Kopite7kimi on X (formerly Twitter) who fired off a couple of posts, one of which called NVIDIA's Computex keynote boring, while imparting something more interesting - the mentioned purported details on GB202 and GB203 - in a further tweet (can we still call them tweets?).

Kopite7kimi tells us that we will only see GB202 and GB203, the GPUs for the RTX 5090 and 5080 respectively, this year - and all the other Blackwell graphics cards are coming next year. (At least that's what we expect the leaker means by outside the short term).

At Computex 2024, AMD's big Radeon announcement wasn't RDNA 4 or the next-gen desktop Radeon RX 8800 XT for PC gaming but a new dual-slot GPU for workstations and generative AI workflows. The AMD Radeon PRO W7900 Dual Slot (with blower fan) is a sleek and powerful unit with 48GB GDDR6 and up to 864 GB/s of bandwidth.

This is a smaller version of the triple-slot Radeon PRO W7900, making it a better fit for workstations with limited space and unlocking the full potential of RDNA 3 and the Navi 31 GPU. Other specs include 192 RDNA 3 AI Accelerators, 123 TFLOPS of FP16 peak half-precision performance, and a 295W Total Board Power rating. As a two-slot GPU, the length is 280mm, the same as the previous triple-slot edition.

Performance-wise, AMD is touting up to 52% better performance per dollar (this thing has an MSRP of $3,499 USD) than the NVIDIA RTX 6000 ADA GPU - partly because NVIDIA's AI monster costs around $6,800, almost double.

NVIDIA ACE technology first debuted at Computex last year with a demo showcasing an AI-powered digital human or NPC that you could interact with. The first demo took place in a futuristic bar. With your microphone, you could walk up to the AI NPC and interact with them using natural language. It is like talking to a character in an RPG, but without a dialogue wheel, you decide, choose, and ask what you want.

The demonstration was running on NVIDIA's powerful GPU hardware in the cloud at the time - the sort of data center rig created to run complex and sophisticated AI models. We've seen the technology evolve and improve in the past year. Still, this year's Computex 2024 NVIDIA ACE 'Covert Protocol' game tech demo (developed in collaboration with Inworld AI) will run locally on a GeForce RTX AI PC.

NVIDIA ACE technologies like Audio2Face and NVIDIA Riva automatic speech recognition can now run locally on devices with GeForce RTX hardware.

With AI capabilities coming to a range of new portable Copilot+ Windows 11 devices in the coming months, using hardware like the latest Arm-based Snapdragon X Elite processor - Microsoft has made it clear that to run its Copilot+ features locally, you'll need a processor with an NPU capable of 40 TOPS of AI performance, or Trillions of Operations Per Second.

Basically, a Windows PC with 40 TOPS of performance is AI ready. With AI features in Adobe, Blender, and other content creation tools, and even in PC games with tech like DLSS, a GeForce RTX graphics card offers a lot more AI power than 40 TOPS.

GeForce RTX owners have been using RTX AI-capable apps for a while now, which offer impressive tools and features. As part of its Computex 2024 presentation, NVIDIA has outlined the AI performance you can expect (in TOPS) for its entire GeForce RTX line-up across desktop and laptop GPUs. The current flagship GeForce RTX 4090 offers a whopping 'Up to 1321 TOPS' of AI performance - the equivalent of 33 Copilot+ AI PCs.

Want to put a new GeForce RTX 4080 in a new small form factor PC case? The SFF-ready label is here to make it much easier. NVIDIA has announced a new Small Form Factor (SFF) guideline for its GeForce graphics cards, enabling a much easier time with case selection for end consumers.

The new SFF-Ready GeForce card guideline was announced at Computex 2024 and will be the stamp of approval consumers will be looking for when purchasing a GeForce graphics card. More specifically, the SFF stamp of approval will be on the packaging alongside other GeForce features, and will be a guarantee that specific graphics cards are compatible with a small form factor PC case.

Having the SFF-ready stamp will make picking a new GPU and a case much easier as all consumers will have to do is look for NVIDIA's seal of approval. NVIDIA explained it has already partnered with a bunch of AIBs for the SFF-ready stamp, with companies such as ASUS, CoolerMaster, Fractal, Galaxy, GIGABYTE, INNO3D, MSI, NZXT, Palit, ZOTAC and many more on board.