Video Cards & GPUs News - Page 153

Intel is well aware of the GPU shortage right now, sitting on the sidelines and seeing AMD and NVIDIA suffer what they know is an inevitability in 2022: graphics cards being hard, or impossible to find.

We know that AMD is expecting silicon shortages until the second half of 2022 at the least, with more expensive CPUs and GPUs than ever before unfortunately. NVIDIA hasn't said much about their GPU supply moving into 2022, but we should expect it to suck just as bad as it does now.

Intel is now talking about GPU supply, with chief architect and senior vice president of Intel's architecture, graphics and software division Raja Koduri explaining: "We'll be coming in as a third player. I'll always be very cautious, when the demand is so high and when the market is so hard. I can always use more supply. So I'm not going to say I have enough supply in this high-demand market. I think every one of my competitors will say the same thing right now".

A very hot fresh new rumor has me scratching my head, with NVIDIA reportedly preparing a new GeForce RTX 3080 refresh with a tweaked GPU and more VRAM.

NVIDIA is reportedly refreshing the GeForce RTX 3080 with a new model that uses the GA102-220 GPU, and 12GB of GDDR6X memory. The original GeForce RTX 3080 has 10GB of GDDR6X and the upgraded GeForce RTX 3080 Ti has 12GB of GDDR6X, so the new GeForce RTX 3080 with 12GB of GDDR6X is going to find itself in an interesting position.

First off, what will it be called? NVIDIA already has the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, so maybe we'll see this card become the GeForce RTX 3080 SUPER.

NVIDIA has just released its new GeForce Game Ready 496.13 WHQL drivers, which include Game Ready support for a few of the very latest and greatest games.

The new GeForce Game Ready 496.13 WHQL drivers include Game Ready Driver support for Back 4 Blood, which when used with DLSS will super-boost your performance by up to 46% when gaming at 4K. You'll also receive the very latest support for the Crysis Remastered Trilogy, and Buldar's Gate 3, both of which have DLSS.

There's also Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Rise of the Tomb Raider updates for DLSS, providing the latest version of DLSS that will both increase the graphics quality and performance.

We have been through all of this crypto mining gimp debacle with NVIDIA, which resulted in what we have now: Lite Hash Rate (LHR) cards with crypto mining gimps built in.

Well, Intel isn't playing that game -- the company has come out and said that its first Arc series GPUs will not be gimped for crypto mining. Intel's own Roger Chandler said that the company will not be gimping their Arc GPUs out of the box for crypto mining.

Handler explained: "As far as like software lockouts and things of that nature, we're not designing this product or building any features at this point that specifically target miners. As far as actions we're taking to avoid or lock them out, it's a product that will be in the market and people will be able to buy it. It's not a priority for us".

Anyone that regularly reads TweakTown and my GPU content will know that I'm a big fan of DLSS, and while it wasn't perfect with DLSS 1.0, it sure as hell is a great addition to GeForce RTX graphics cards with DLSS 2.0 and its improvements after v2.0 hit.

But now, now we have NVIDIA and its Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) technology powering over 120 games and apps, with 10 more games coming in October 2021 alone. One of the big ones is Back 4 Blood, which has DLSS support and adds up to 46% more performance.

DLSS is also super-powering Baldur's Gate 3 that was just launched, with an astonishing 88% increase in performance at 4K which can see the mid-range GeForce RTX 3060 Ti pushing 4K 60FPS+ in Baldur's Gate 3 thanks to DLSS. On top of that, we have the Crysis Remastered Trilogy which launches on October 15, which will have NVIDIA DLSS and ray-traced reflections, as well as enhanced textures, models, lighting and environments that will ensure the PC versions of the games are the best.

GPU prices are pretty crazy right now and I'm sure you know all about it, but they've hit 6-month highs according to the latest pricing data.

The folks over at 3DCenter have compiled some considerable pricing and availability on AMD Radeon and NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards in Europe, with prices up big time. NVIDIA GeForce GPU pricing is up 70% while AMD Radeon GPU pricing is up over 74% MSRP.

GPU prices have been steadily coming down in Europe and other parts of the world since May 2021, but this is pushing into an upward trend right now and sees GPU pricing at a 6-month high. GPU supply is also looking healthier this month than it was in September, which is nice to see.

PCIe 5.0 is right around the corner with it debuting on Intel's new Alder Lake platform, with the new 600-series motherboards led by the Z690 chipset rocking PCIe 5.0 slots and DDR5 memory support.

We're now hearing about a new PCIe 5.0 power connector that would be quite the leap from what we have now, with a new PCIe Gen5 power connector teased. The new PCIe 5.0 power connector would offer up to a huge 600W of power, up quite significantly from the 150W offered over the current 8-pin PCIe power connector.

The new PCIe 5.0 power connector has 16 lanes (12 power, 4 signal lanes) and is a totally new connector. You can see the 12 power lanes, but the strange new 4 signal lane position underneath the 12 power lanes is new. This new connector has smaller spacing than current connectors, down to 3.0mm from 4.2mm. The new connector is 18.85mm wide, making it much smaller than dual and especially triple 8-pin PCIe power connector setups.

AMD has just pushed out a new Radeon Software Adrenalin 21.10.1 driver, which packs support for Microsoft's just-released Windows 11, as well as some of the biggest games that were just released.

The new Radeon Software Adrenalin drivers pack Windows 11 support, as well as optimizations for Ubisoft's also-just-released Far Cry 6 and EA DICE's big Battlefield 2042 Open Beta. In Far Cry 6 we have up to 10% more performance on the Radeon RX 6700 XT at 1080p Ultra graphics with RT enabled, while at 4K Medium settings the Radeon RX 6800 XT is up to 12% faster, and at 1440p Medium settings the Radeon RX 6600 XT is up to 13% faster -- all with ray tracing enabled.

AMD provides built-in support for the Battlefield 2042 Open Beta, Naraka: Bladepoint, and gives up to 11% more performance in PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds at 4K Ultra settings in DX12 mode on the Radeon RX 6800 XT. Not bad all-around, I'd say... especially if you're wanting to play Far Cry 6 or the Battlefield 2042 Open Beta.

I'm sure we all know someone who is still waiting for a GeForce RTX 30 series graphics card, with a gamer in Poland waiting over a year... and celebrating this in style.

A bakery in Poland called E-Torty posted a story to their Facebook page, explaining that a customer of theirs ordered an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 graphics card in September 2020 and has still not received it. The gamer asked E-Torty to make a 1-year anniversary cake, and then sent it to the retailer... to thank them for the year that they've spent together.

E-Torty said it was one of the funniest orders they've ever had, and once the cake was made and sent to the retailer, the Polish gamer received his GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 3080 graphics cards days later. Waited a year, sent a cake, received it days later... maybe the gamer should've gotten a cake in return?

NVIDIA is in the headlines again with the tweaked GeForce RTX 3090 Ti, with some interesting new parts that are slowly making up what will be the GPU to wrap up the year and kick start 2022 and NVIDIA's fight against AMD and soon, Intel with its Arc Alchemist graphics cards.

The current GeForce RTX 3090 features a 350W TDP while the new GeForce RTX 3090 Ti (or GeForce RTX 3090 SUPER) would have a 400-450W TDP. We'll have the same 24GB of ultra-fast GDDR6X memory but this time NVIDIA will reportedly moving with single-sided memory, versus the double-sided GDDR6X memory on the GeForce RTX 3090.

So, we have a new 450W TDP, new single-sided GDDR6X memory, and then even a new power connector. Yeah, a new power connector -- NVIDIA already shifted the game up a fair amount with their use of a 12-pin PCIe power connector on its GeForce RTX 30 series GPUs. But now with the new GeForce RTX 3090 Ti they're expected to use a new standard for PCIe 5.0 -- possibly a new 16-pin PCIe power connector.