Video Cards & GPUs News - Page 130

NVIDIA is hosting its annual GPU Technology Conference (GTC 2022) this week, where we should be introduced to their next-gen Hopper GPU architecture.

We should see NVIDIA introduce a next-gen MCM-based (multi-chip module) GPU with the flagship GH100, which should be a monster GPU with up to 140 billion transistors -- yeah, that's 140,000,000,000 transistor -- around 2.6x times the largest GA100 GPU from NVIDIA.

The full GH100 GPU should have 140 billion transistors, 144 Streaming Multiprocessors, and an insane 18,432 CUDA cores. The dual GPU chiplet design would have 2 x 144 SMs (288 SMs) and a mind-boggling 36,864 CUDA cores. It would be absolutely bonkers, and the 1000W+ power figures in rumors of the last few months come into play... and man, I can't wait. Bring it on, NVIDIA.

NVIDIA is just over a week away from unleashing their new flagship GeForce RTX 3090 Ti graphics card, with a new spotting of the custom ASUS ROG Strix LC variant for over $4000 at a Canadian retailer.

The upcoming ASUS ROG Strix LC GeForce RTX 3090 Ti and TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3090 Ti graphics cards have been listed by a Canadian retailer for $5239 CAD ($4148 USD) and $4649 CAD ($3681 USD) respectively. If you consider the same retailer sells the ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3090 White Edition OC for $2998 CAD ($2378 USD) which means the RTX 3090 is over 70% cheaper than the RTX 3090 Ti... why would you buy the RTX 3090 Ti, at all?

We should expect to see ASUS unleash its new family of custom GeForce RTX 3090 Ti graphics cards on March 29, which is when the huge NDA lifts from NVIDIA. NVIDIA will be launching its own flagship GeForce RTX 3090 Ti Founders Edition while AIB partners can release their custom RTX 3090 Ti offerings on the same day.

Uh, so there are some warehouse workers that are in some serious trouble: staffers at Russian company "Wildberries" tried to steal 20 x GeForce RTX 3070 Ti graphics cards... but they were busted.

Like, I know GPUs are hard to buy right now but this is at a different level -- in Russia, well most countries now -- graphics cards are a "luxury good". But in Russia, AMD and NVIDIA both imposed embargoes on product shipments into Russia... so warehouses were hollowed out by either customers buying GPUs before they couldn't, or guys like this... stealing them.

The warehouse workers of Wildberries in Russia stole up to 20 x NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti graphics cards from their warehouse, but they were busted. The warehouse workers stole the cards and stupidly tried to sell them at a local pawnshop... because the pawnshop owner was wondering why you'd have a brand new graphics card, and try to sell it right away. It seems those Russian memes aren't always right. In Russia, graphics cards can't buy pawnshop.

NVIDIA is dropping the price of its GeForce RTX 30 series GPUs across the world, with the current flagship GeForce RTX 3090 dropping to under 2000 EUR in Germany and Austria... for the first time since August 2021.

3DCenter.org has been keeping track of the prices of the GeForce RTX 3090, where the RTX 3090 was a bonkers 3199 EUR back on May 16, 2021 -- floating down to around 2500 EUR in the first few days of 2022 -- and now under 2000 EUR for the first time since August 29, 2021 (when they dropped down to 1999 EUR, but freaking blew up to 2800 EUR on November 21).

It's not just in Europe, but Down Under here in Australia my fellow Aussies at HardwareUnboxed have seen the ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3080 drop by 35% in a single day. The GPU dropped from $2299 AUD ($1685 USD or so) down to $1499 AUD ($1100 USD or so). That's still expensive, but hey... a huge 35% price drop can't be sneezed at.

AMD has officially launched its new Radeon Super Resolution (RSR) technology, teased its next-gen FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.0 (FSR 2.0) and now launched its new Radeon Adrenalin 22.3.1 driver... which packs RSR tech support, right now.

The new Radeon Adrenalin 22.3.1 driver has its star: Radeon Super Resolution (RSR) technology, which is a new "in-driver spatial upscaling feature that is built on the same algorithm as AMD FidelityFX™ Super ResolutionGD-187 technology. It delivers near-native resolution and increased performance across thousands of games that run in exclusive full screen mode on AMD RDNA-based and newer discrete graphics".

AMD has also updated its AMD Link Play feature, which now lets 4 users connect to an AMD Radeon GPU-powered PC from an Android- or Windows-based PC, phone, tablet, or TV... so you can play local multiplayer games together. Very cool.

AMD has just announced that its FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.0 technology will be launching in Q2 2022, using temporal upscaling.

The new FSR 2.0 technology will shift away from spatial technologies that FSR 1.0 uses, and into temporal upscaling -- but while NVIDIA DLSS and Intel XeSS use machine learning algorithms -- there is Tensor Core or XMX acceleration required.

AMD explains: "Like FSR 1.0, FSR 2.0 does not use Machine Learning (ML) in its upscaling algorithm. While ML is one vehicle to solve a number of problems, it is not a requirement to achieve good quality upscaling. Therefore, FSR 2.0 does not require dedicated ML hardware which means more gamers can benefit from it. FSR 2.0 will work across a wide range of products and platforms, and like FSR 1.0, that includes select competitor graphics cards".

It looks like there might be some quick price relief on NVIDIA GeForce RTX graphics cards, with NVIDIA reportedly lowering the cost of its GPUs by up to 12% to AICs, which will then filter down to you: the consumer.

NVIDIA has reportedly informed AICs of a "decrease in its cost basis which it will be passing on to AICs and who will be passing it on to SIs (system integrators) in return", according to Wccftech. We might not see the price drops instantly, as there are still supply issues, cryptocurrency mining is still very popular, and more.

Wccftech continues: "we have received word that NVIDIA has informed AICs that it saw a lowering in its cost of manufacturing by around 8 to 12% which it will pass on to AICs. AICs in return will pass this saving on to SIs where it should eventually end up saving a few dollars in the gamer's pocket".

Apple unleashed its new M1 Ultra SoC last week, powering the new Mac Studio -- which can cost over $10,000 when configured high enough -- but the GPU inside of the new SoC was meant to beat the GeForce RTX 3090.

Inside of Apple's new Mac Studio is the M1 Ultra SoC with up to 21 TFLOPs of compute power, 128GB of unified memory, and a GPU that Apple marketed as offering performance of flagship GPUs like the RTX 3090 in "industry-standard" benchmarks... spoiler alert: it doesn't.

Diving right into some benchmarks, if we look at something like Shadow of the Tomb Raider... at 1080p the Apple M1 Ultra is doing alright, with 108FPS average. 96FPS average at 1440p is impressive, and 60FPS at 4K isn't bad at all for a tiny little SoC. The RTX 3090 rips it apart though... going against everything Apple said in its marketing. But that shouldn't surprise people at this point.

AMD is about to launch its new Radeon Adrenalin GPU drivers, and with it comes a new teaser video that shows off what the new drivers will include: including Radeon Super Resolution (RSR) technology.

AMD Radeon Super Resolution is the latest spatial upscaling technique based on FidelityFX Super Resolution technology, which was meant to drop in Q1 2022 -- which ends March 31, 2022 -- and will drop inside of the new Radeon Adrenalin GPU drivers tomorrow.

RSR will benefit in a huge way in the fact that game developers don't need to integrate anything in order to have the benefits of RSR, versus FSR needing compliance, meaning that Radeon Super Resolution should work in thousands of games. The loss here? RSR has lower image quality than FSR, as RSR upscale the whole frames (including the UI and menus) and should provide more mixed results over FSR.

We all know that GDDR6X memory temperatures can really get crazy, where the 24GB of ultra-fast GDDR6X memory inside of a GeForce RTX 3090 can even hit 110C... well, what about with some mods to the VRAM chips?

But now those insane 110C memory temperatures have been reduced down to nearly half, with YouTuber 'DandyWorks' modding his ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3070 Ti graphics card. He ripped the card apart and replaced the thermal pads with copper pads -- which isn't easy -- and the GDDR6X memory temps dropped from 110C to 64C.

You'll need a few things before you can reduce your GDDR6X memory temperatures inside of your expensive, and probably very hard to get, GeForce RTX 30 series graphics card. You'll need copper shims, non-conductive Kapton tape, and thermal paste with an applicator to get it onto your GDDR6X memory chips. You might also need 400 grit sandpaper, so that you can smooth over those beautiful copper shims.