Graphics Cards - Page 3

We recently covered a rumor that NVIDIA might be bringing back the RTX 3060 12GB, and it looks like more changes are afoot in the graphics card business. The ongoing memory shortages have impacted every aspect of the PC hardware industry, and the GPU business is no exception. Now, it looks like ASUS is pivoting away from its RTX 5070 Ti graphics cards toward its bigger brother, the RTX 5080.

According to industry sources quoted by Channel Gate, ASUS is planning to reallocate its GPU supply, prioritizing the RTX 5080 over the RTX 5070 Ti, thereby limiting the supply of the latter. The move is apparently a consequence of the current market conditions, with the global DRAM shortage in full swing. While NVIDIA remains firm that the supply of all RTX 50-series GPUs is stable, it seems ASUS has its own plans.

The current timeline for implementing this strategy is Q2 2026, but that is, of course, subject to change. The report claims that ASUS will focus on selling only a few mainstream RTX 5070 Ti models, but that the focus will eventually shift to the RTX 5080. The mainstream models in question might refer to low-end or mid-range variants such as the Dual and PRIME, while the high-end ROG Strix models are likely to be limited in production.

The Steam Hardware & Software Survey results for April 2026 are in, and based on recent news, it looks like the GeForce RTX 3060 might remain one of, if not the most popular PC gaming GPUs, for the foreseeable future. According to the latest rumor, the GeForce RTX 3060 12GB graphics card is set to make a return this summer with 'new' retail models from ASUS, MSI, COLORFUL, and others.

Naturally, this is the direct result of the current data center boom taking up GPU and GDDR7 memory capacity, and with the GeForce RTX 3060 sharing a similar market share with the GeForce RTX 4060, the number two GPU in Valve's latest Steam Hardware Survey, this comeback could cement the RTX 3060's dominance in the PC gaming space for a while.

That said, NVIDIA's latest GeForce RTX 50 Series continues to grow in popularity, with both the GeForce RTX 5070 and the GeForce RTX 5060 accounted for in the Top 10. Elsewhere, AMD's latest Radeon RX 9000 Series is no longer 'missing in action,' so to speak, with the Radeon RX 9070 making the list.

We recently covered rumors that the RTX 3060 12GB was set to return to market shelves in June. Now, we have a bit more evidence to back up that rumor: Chinese Board Channels have confirmed that the 5-year-old NVIDIA GPU is indeed returning this summer. The timeline differs from what was previously leaked, but it seems the Ampere GPU will be on store shelves by July at the latest.

Per a new post from Chinese Board Channels, the RTX 3060 12GB supply will resume in June. This means that NVIDIA will start supplying the 3060 GPU to board partners in June, allowing them to enter mass production. The add-in board partners are then expected to deliver the finished RTX 3060 12GB cards around July.

Among the partners expected to receive allocations for this re-launch are ASUS, MSI, Colorful, and GALAX (recently incorporated into Palit). All these board partners already have existing designs for the RTX 3060, so it may be easier for them to just re-launch those designs instead of making new ones from the ground up. After all, cost-cutting seems to be the entire point of this re-launch.

Microsoft has released a preview of Shader Model 6.10 in the new AgilitySDK 1.720-preview build. The update brings several changes, including tweaks to shared shader memory management and ray tracing, but the headline addition is a new Matrix feature.

According to the developer blog, Shader Model 6.10 introduces a streamlined matrix algebra API through the linalg::Matrix class, exposing a full set of matrix operations across GPUs from AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA. Modern GPUs already include dedicated hardware for AI workloads, such as NVIDIA's Tensor cores, Intel's XMX units, and similar accelerators on AMD hardware. However, DirectX support for these capabilities has been limited until now.

With this update, developers can access those matrix units through a unified API, rather than relying on vendor-specific implementations. This allows neural rendering operations to be executed across multiple GPUs with a single programming effort, rather than as a proprietary feature that developers must implement separately for each graphics card family. Microsoft is essentially trying to make matrix math a standard part of the DirectX API, making neural rendering a core DirectX feature rather than something bolted on by individual GPU makers.

Yesterday, we got the shocking news that GALAX was exiting the gaming GPU business, with Palit taking over the brand and existing products. The implication, at least on paper, was that this meant that we'd no longer be getting new GALAX GPUs - and that the company was no more. Turns out that what actually has happened is that GALAX, which has been a part of the Palit Group for several years, is now fully under the Palit umbrella.

This isn't to say that GALAX employees in various regions haven't been let go, as Palit's official statement calls it an internal transition. "The recent internal transitions are part of a pre-planned global initiative to integrate brand management for enhanced operational efficiency and cross-departmental synergy," Palit says.

Adding, "GALAX is not ceasing operations. We remain fully committed to the development, production, and support of our high-performance hardware. Our product roadmap continues as planned, and our commitment to delivering cutting-edge technology to gamers and creators remains our top priority."

Corsair has announced and launched a new 12V-2x6 GPU power cable called ThermalProtect that it says features "innovative technology that monitors the temperature of a GPU's power cable in real time to help prevent damage to the GPU." This Over Temperature Protection (OTP) is included in the seemingly normal cable comb that sits 30mm from the connection point.

The cable comb actively measures and monitors cable temperatures and, when an issue is detected, shuts down the GPU's power to prevent potential damage to the card or cable. This is the latest in what feels like a string of new power supply and cable technologies being introduced in response to several cases of cables melting due to incorrect power loads and overheating on modern GPUs in the GeForce RTX 50 Series.

Corsair notes that the ThermalProtect 12V-2x6 GPU power cable, available in Black or White for $24.99 USD, is compatible with any power supply with a native 12V-2x6 connector. Adding that this "broad compatibility with modern systems" helps give PC gamers peace of mind with a simple plug-and-play solution.

GALAX has been a notable GeForce brand for several years, with the company's Hall Of Fame models renowned for pushing performance to the limit and breaking world records in the process. It's a series that we've gone hands-on in the past, and for a little trip down memory lane, be sure to revisit our review of the impressive, for the time, GALAX GeForce GTX 1080 Ti HOF Edition graphics card.

Today, we got some relatively shocking news via Wccftech: the GALAX brand and company are no more, and the entire global team has been dismissed. And with that, in a statement provided to the outlet, Palit has "assumed full control and operations of the GALAX brand." Palit is now "solely responsible for all activities and commitments related to the brand," covering existing retail stock still out there, as well as warranties and RMA services.

"Following the closure of the previous organizational structure and the dismissal of its team, all management and operations will now be handled exclusively through Palit's official channels," the statement reads. As for the reason for the closure, an additional notification sent to Palit's customers confirms it's due to "supply constraints of various raw materials caused by the AI era."

NVIDIA has released GeForce Game Ready Driver 596.36 for GeForce RTX gamers, and in terms of new game support, this one is all about Conan Exiles Enhanced. This Unreal Engine 5 update to the long-running survival, crafting, action-RPG includes 9 years of expansions and additional content, with enhanced visuals.

The game is set to launch on May 5, with support for DLSS Multi Frame Generation, DLSS Super Resolution, and NVIDIA Reflex. Rebuilt on Unreal Engine 5, the game takes advantage of Lumen Global Illumination for improved lighting and Nanite Geometry to dramatically increase environmental detail and fidelity. Best of all, it's also a free upgrade for existing players.

In addition to Conan Exiles Enhanced support, the big thing with GeForce Game Ready Driver 596.36 is support for the new GeForce RTX 5070 Laptop GPU with 12GB of VRAM, which is now available. Plus, a few gaming and general bug fixes. Here's a look at the full Release Notes.

Following NVIDIA's announcement of the GeForce RTX 5070 12GB laptop GPU, Framework is adding it as a new Graphics Module for the Laptop 16. However, launching a 12GB VRAM option in the middle of a DRAM crisis is going to sting Framework fans, as this version is apparently much more expensive than its lower-VRAM counterpart.

The Framework Laptop 16 RTX 5070 12GB Graphics Module is now available for pre-order at $1,199. This puts it at a 72% premium, or a whopping $500 extra, for just 4GB of additional VRAM over the existing RTX 5070 8GB model. The two chips are otherwise identical. Both feature 4,608 CUDA cores, boost clocks of up to 2.4 GHz, 384 GB/s of memory bandwidth, and a maximum TGP of 100W. NVIDIA has simply swapped the 2GB memory modules for 3GB chips and made no other changes. So, unless you are running VRAM-intensive tasks, you are unlikely to notice much difference between the two.

On top of that, Framework has also warned that the $699 RTX 5070 8GB module may not stay at its current price for long. In an X reply, the company said the price hikes it is seeing come directly from silicon suppliers, and once its current GDDR7 inventory depletes, the 8GB configuration is highly likely to increase in price as well.

NVIDIA is expanding its Blackwell laptop lineup with the GeForce RTX 5070 12GB Laptop GPU. Confirmed by a quiet driver update blog post, this GPU aims to address longstanding user feedback about the VRAM limitations of NVIDIA's mid-range mobile silicon.

Rather than a direct replacement, the 12GB model will serve as a higher-tier alternative to the existing 8GB model. In other words, laptops with the larger memory capacity model will carry a price premium.

This is not a new GPU core with a wider memory bus. At its core is the same GB206 chip, featuring 4,608 CUDA cores and a 128-bit interface made up of four 32-bit channels. For the 12GB version, NVIDIA is using higher-density GDDR7 modules, with each channel populated by a 3GB chip, for a total of 12GB. By comparison, the original 8GB version uses 2GB modules per channel, for a total of 8GB across the same bus.

Intel's latest driver release, 32.0.101.8517, for Arc Pro GPUs increases the integrated GPU's memory allocation to enable broader LLM inference support. The new driver allows users to allocate up to 93% of their system RAM to the integrated GPU. While the driver currently supports only a select number of SKUs, Intel is paving the way for larger LLM inference workloads without hitting memory capacity bottlenecks.

Traditional memory partitioning usually limits a GPU to 50% of system RAM. AMD's Variable Graphics Memory (VGM) allows high-end configurations, such as the Strix Halo, to allocate 96GB from a 128GB pool to the iGPU. Intel has been more aggressive in this regard. Last year, Intel raised the limit to 87% with its new "Shared GPU Memory Override" for Core Ultra Series 2 processors.

The latest driver release pushes that boundary further to 93% for local AI inference. This only supports integrated Arc Pro GPUs, such as the Arc Pro B390 and Arc Pro B370. While this allocation update is the headline feature for integrated GPUs only, the driver also supports discrete Arc Pro A and B-series cards.

Okay, so the brand-name MOREFINE definitely sounds like it comes from a group that didn't quite grasp the potential English-language double-meaning as a drug, but that's secondary to the fact that its new MOREFINE G2 External GPU Docking Station is impressively compact. And stylish too, the black-and-brass unit weighs just 700 grams and measures 140 x 100 x 54mm.

With its Thunderbolt 5 (Type-C) port supporting 80 Gbps bidirectional data transfer and up to 100W power delivery, what makes the MOREFINE G2 External GPU Docking Station notable is that it includes a desktop-grade GeForce RTX 5060 Ti GPU with 16GB of memory. The MOREFINE G2 is also versatile, supporting a high-speed Oculink connection in addition to Thunderbolt 5.

In addition to delivering impressive 1080p and 1440p gaming performance, with MOREFINE G2 synthetic benchmark results delivering a 3DMark Time Spy score of 12,893 when paired with an AMD Ryzen AI 5 340 processor, it's also a capable GPU for AI workloads. The RTX 5060 Ti's 16GB of GDDR7 memory and Tensor Cores deliver up to 759 AI TOPS of performance.

Intel launched the Arc B580 desktop graphics card in December 2024 (check out our review here), giving us our first look at the second-generation 'Battlemage' architecture. As a follow-up to the first generation of Arc Graphics cards, the B580 was a big step forward in the right direction. From improved driver stability to broader compatibility with a wide range of games, and Intel's own XeSS technology offering a viable alternative to NVIDIA DLSS regarding Super Resolution and Frame Generation capabilities.

Since the B580's debut, we've been getting a lot of conflicting reports surrounding the company's desktop gaming GPU plans. Recently, the long-rumored 'Big Battlemage' arrived in workstation form for the AI market, with Xe3 and Xe3P gaming architectures shifting focus to the mobile market, that is, laptops and handhelds.

Xe3P, or the Arc-C series for mobile, was reportedly on track to get a desktop gaming GPU release under the codename 'Celestial.' However, based on the latest rumor and news from insider Jaykihn on social media, the 'Celestial' discrete gaming GPU was canceled a long time ago. And with no gaming GPUs reportedly on the cards through Q1 2027, the only hope would be Xe4 in late 2027 with 'Druid.'

ASUS has started rolling out its ROG Equalizer cable. The redesigned 12V-2x6 PCIe power cable was introduced two weeks ago and is now available on the official ASUS store. ASUS positions it as a hardware-level protection layer for high-end graphics cards, particularly RTX 50-series GPUs, using the 12V-2x6 or 12VHPWR connector.

As spotted by @unikoshardware, ASUS has priced the ROG Equalizer at $49.99, close to the pre-launch estimate of around $41. At the time of writing, the cable is already out of stock, which, given the number of reports of PCIe cables melting or overheating, is not particularly surprising.

For those out of the loop, ASUS designed the ROG Equalizer to address overheating and melting issues associated with the notorious 16-pin 12V-2x6 connector. The cable distributes the load equally across all wires in the connector, increasing each wire's load capacity from 9.2A to 17A, and making it significantly more reliable than a standard cable.

Last year, Bolt Graphics announced its Zeus GPU, and while the brand was relatively unknown, its claim of up to 10x faster rendering than the RTX 5090 drew attention. Now it seems the company is pushing full force toward a 2027 release, with the chip successfully taped out at TSMC using a 12nm FFC process node, marking the end of design and start of manufacturing.

For those out of the loop, Zeus is a next-generation compute platform designed to reduce the total cost of compute by up to 17 times across high-performance computing, rendering, and resource-intensive applications. The goal is a product that doesn't cost too much, consume too much power, or take up too much rack space. Zeus also introduces two industry-first features for GPUs: expandable memory that scales VRAM up to 8x, and native 400GbE and 800GbE Ethernet support for direct, large-scale GPU interconnects.

Coming back to the Zeus GPUs, Bolt Graphics plans to offer them in both PCIe card and 2U server configurations, with multiple variants. The single-chip model, codenamed Bolt Zeus 1c26, features a single-slot, full-length PCIe design with up to 20 TFLOPs of FP16 performance, paired with 32GB of LPDDR5X memory and 128MB of on-chip cache. It also delivers up to 77 gigarays of path-tracing performance on a 120W power budget.

Yesterday, we posted a story where a Reddit user claimed that their NZXT Kraken AIO cooler leaked onto and damaged their flagship ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090. The post noted that NZXT confirmed the issue was due to a manufacturing fault; however, disputes over inadequate compensation led to several months of back-and-forth, with the user then stating that after seven months of getting nowhere, they were in the process of suing NZXT.

Today, Ivan Barajas, the Senior Marketing Manager at NZXT, reached out to us with a statement clarifying the issue and confirming the age old saying that there are always two sides to a story. First off, there's no dispute regarding the cause of the damage: the AIO leaked, damaging the customer's motherboard and ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090.

With one of the sticking points in the original story being that NZXT offered the customer $2,855.99 for the GPU, which now costs well over $4,000, NZXT says this isn't true. "The $2,855.99 figure is not what NZXT offered," the statement reads. "That was the original invoiced purchase price, and that number appeared in an early email that was corrected the same day to $4,161.90, reflecting current market value."

NVIDIA was the first to adopt multi-frame generation with its RTX 50 series GPUs, using AI to generate additional frames between traditionally rendered frames. Users can choose from different frame generation ratios, with modes scaling up to around 4x in DLSS 4 and 6x in DLSS 4.5. NVIDIA later doubled down with dynamic frame generation, which automatically adjusts the MFG mode to match your monitor's refresh rate.

So far, AMD has trailed behind, with FSR 4 offering only basic frame generation modes up to 2x modes. That puts the Red Team not just behind NVIDIA, but also Intel, whose XeSS 3 launched this year with impressive 4x modes across Arc B-Series, Arc A-Series, and even some iGPUs.

But that may be about to change. A fresh discovery in the GPUOpen documentation (via Wccftech) suggests AMD is finally laying the groundwork for its own multi-frame generation solution. The latest ADLX 1.5 materials add a new "FidelityFX Frame Generation Upgrade" interface, allowing users to select a desired frame generation ratio for optimal performance and visual quality.

UPDATE: Since posting this original story, NZXT has issued a statement, which you can read here. ORIGINAL STORY: Chalk this one up as a nightmare scenario, an AIO cooler leaking fluid onto and damaging a GeForce RTX 5090. To make matters worse, the RTX 5090 in question is ASUS's flagship ROG Astral model, which currently retails for $4,299.99. According to this user's Reddit post, this is exactly what happened to their ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 when their NZXT Kraken AIO leaked, damaging the card.

As bad as that is, that's only the beginning of the story. According to the user, they purchased the ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 in 2025, and in August 2025, their NZXT Kraken AIO leaked, damaging the GPU. The owner then contacted NZXT, who allegedly confirmed the fault was due to a manufacturing defect, so they replaced the cooler and said they would address the damage to the graphics card and motherboard.

According to the post, there were a few months of back-and-forth, including a note that cleaning the GPU "fixed" it. Instead of sending it back, they offered to settle the case and reimburse the user $2,855.99. Which, in case you forgot, is a lot lower than the $4,299.99 price tag for the ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090.

A Reddit user has bagged a brand-new, sealed RTX 4060 Ti, a card that normally retails for $400, for just $12. That's equivalent to 3% of the GPU's retail price. The user managed this feat after a deep dive into a local bin store's bulk inventory, which turned up a factory-sealed unit. While these liquidation outlets are famous for their "no returns" policies, the user confirmed the card is in perfect working order.

Last month, a similar story surfaced with the RTX 5060 Ti, where a Reddit user scored the GPU for $80. At the time, that seemed unbeatable, but it seems we already have a new winner. The specific model in question is the PNY RTX 4060 Ti Dual Fan edition. While it's the well-known 8GB variant, it's hard to pass up for just $12.

You'd wonder how the user even managed to land a brand-new GPU for the price of a sandwich? The answer is a Goodwill Outlet, also known locally as a bin store. Unlike a typical Goodwill retail store, where items are sorted on racks and shelves, and everything has a specific price tag, Goodwill outlets sell unsold items from retail stores by the pound, offering extreme discounts.

Crimson Desert, which has been well-received by gamers and critics alike and has sold over 5 million copies, is one of the biggest game releases of the year. However, when it made its PC debut, it arrived without support for Intel's Arc Graphics, and an issue that proved to be a developer problem over an Intel one. The good news is that Arc Graphics support in the game arrived in a recent update, and Intel's latest Game On Graphics Driver optimizes performance.

Intel Graphics Driver 32.0.101.8724, now available for all Arc Graphics users across A- and B-Series desktop products and Core Ultra users with integrated Arc Graphics, fixes the flickering issue users have noticed. So if you're playing the game on an Intel Arc B580 desktop GPU or a Core Ultra Series 3 processor, this driver update is for you.

Intel Graphics Driver 32.0.101.8724 is a Non-WHQL release, so it's optional. Still, it's notable because it also adds support for Capcom's Pragmata, another game proving to be a surprise 2026 hit among gamers and media. In addition to game-specific updates, Intel Graphics Driver 32.0.101.8724 is also the launch driver for Intel's new entry-level "Wildcat Lake" Core Series 3 processors.