Video Cards & GPUs News - Page 1

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.

NVIDIA pranked the world back in 2017 with its GeForce GTX 1080-shaped "G-Assist" USB flash drive, saying it had technology inside to power deep learning algorithms and bring AI to gaming... well... fast-forward to today, and that's actually the reality on GeForce RTX series graphics cards with ray tracing and AI-powered upscaling through DLSS.

NVIDIA now has multiple versions of DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) powered by AI algorithms, plenty of beautiful ray-traced games supported by GeForce RTX series GPUs, and even NPCs that are powered by large language models for a totally new world of gaming in the near future.

NVIDIA's next-generation flagship GeForce RTX 5090 graphics card is back into the rumor mill, with updated specs through new rumors.

We're now expecting to see 28GB of ultra-fast GDDR7 memory on an (interesting) 448-bit memory bus, with 1.5TB/sec of memory bandwidth on the GeForce RTX 5090. There were previous rumors of a monster 512-bit memory bus for the RTX 5090, with other rumors suggesting a 384-bit memory bus, but new rumors are right in between: a 448-bit memory bus.

This means that NVIDIA's flagship GeForce RTX 5090 graphics card might not be using all of the 16 available GDDR7 memory modules, and only 14 of the memory modules instead. The 28GB of GDDR7 memory on a 448-bit memory bus will be spitting out an impressive 1568GB/sec (1.56TB/sec) which is a huge 50% upgrade in memory bandwidth over the RTX 4090, which should make for some really impressive upgrades in 4K gaming.

MSI announced the new MSI GeForce RTX 4090 24G SUPRIM FUZION Graphics Card in an email confirming that it and other products have won Computex 2024 awards ahead of the show. It's a 4.5-slot beast because it includes an "innovative all-in-one hybrid liquid-cooled" solution with a pump, radiator, and short pipe waterway in a single block.

Ahead of its Computex reveal, German outlet Allround-PC (via Videocardz) has gotten some exclusive pictures of the new MSI GeForce RTX 4090 SUPRIM FUZION GPU and its unique design, which includes a compact cooling block with pump. You can see the copper heat sinks around the block and the pump in these new shots.

Integrating the radiator with the GPU is definitely going to turn a few heads, and we'll be doing our best to go hands-on with it at Computex and potentially review it in the near future, so stay tuned. According to the Computex Best Choice Awards, the design can deliver a "15% increase in performance compared to traditional air cooling technology."

Microsoft has announced that DirectSR is now available via the Agility SDK 1.714.0-preview release for game developers working with DirectX 12. Microsoft partnered with AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA to create this new API, allowing developers to integrate all the various upscaling technologies into their games.

This includes AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR), Intel XeSS, and NVIDIA DLSS Super Resolution. "These cutting-edge solutions elevate the gaming experience by boosting frame rates while maintaining exceptional visual quality," Microsoft's Joshua Tucker writes in the announcement. "Yet as the number of SR variants continues to grow, developers are in search of a common SR API that will seamlessly scale across the hardware ecosystem."

DirectSR breaks upscaling down to a common set of inputs and outputs so that a "single code path" can then plug straight into DLSS, FSR, and XeSS. With DirectSR, more PC game releases will support all three technologies at launch. It's a standalone solution that doesn't require "vendor-specific SDKs" or additional tools.