Video Cards & GPUs News - Page 160

AMD is now shipping out its very first Radeon Instinct MI200 accelerators, codenamed Aldebaran -- is an exciting new CDNA 2-based MCM (multi-chip module) graphics card made for datacenters of the future.

The new CDNA 2 architecture succeeds the CDNA architecture, which is an architecture AMD created specifically for data centers, with the new Aldebaran GPU now shipping to its first customers. If that's happening, we should expect AMD to push more and more of these out as we slide towards the end of 2021.

We don't know if the new MCM GPU is made on 7nm, but AMD's last slide on Aldebaran simply mentioned they would be using an "Advanced Node" which could be 7nm+ or 5nm. Aldebaran is AMD's first MCM GPU, but it's for datacenters -- gamers won't get to see an MCM-based Radeon GPU until 2022 with the introduction of the next-gen RDNA 3 architecture.

NVIDIA kinda tried to gimp its GeForce RTX 30 series GPUs by updating them with the introduction GeForce RTX 30 series LHR cards -- or Lite Hash Rate.

The crypto gimped performance has been interesting to say the least, with more on that below -- but NBMiner has now pushed out an update that ungimps performance by up to 70% which is big news... at least for now. The new NBMiner update doesn't instantly unlock the mining performance on the GeForce RTX 30 series LHR cards, but rather provides you with the ability to adjust some vaues that will boost mining performance.

NBMiner's new update will let you adjust values that works out the maximum unlockable hash rate for your specific LHR-series gimped GPU, with up to 68% more performance achieved when mining Ethereum on the ethash algorithm. Not bad at all.

AMD's next-gen RDNA 3 graphics architecture and its Navi 31 and Navi 33 GPUs have been teased again, with Navi 31 and Navi 33 GPUs being added into official ROCm developer tools.

Not all of the next-gen Navi 3X GPUs are in the ROCm dev tools, but the Navi 31 and Navi 33 are making an appearance. First off, AMD's new Navi 31 GPU is reportedly an MCM (multi-chip module) or MCD (multi-chip design) -- which should pack up to an insane 15360 GPU cores. MCM and MCD are fancier words for a dual, or multi-GPU design on a single card. Exciting times.

Even the GPU cores are reportedly not being called GPU cores anymore, they're known as RDNA Workgroup Processors (WGP). Navi 33 is a monolithic GPU, continuing on as we have GPUs of today with single monolithic GPUs.

NVIDIA's workstation-focused RTX A4000 card has been torn apart by "snake-robot" on Reddit, giving us a gander inside of the NVIDIA RTX A4000 workstation card -- something we don't normally see with high-end workstation GPUs.

Inside, the NVIDIA RTX A4000 uses a PG190 board design, which is based on the RTX 3060 Ti PCB with a single 8-pin PCIe power connector. On the RTX A4000 however, the power connector isn't directly connected to the board and rather, uses an extension cable.

As for the GPU, NVIDIA is using its GA104-875 GPU with has all of its 6144 CUDA cores, making it more like the GPU that NVIDIA uses in its GeForce RTX 3070 Ti. Unlike the RTX 3070 Ti, NVIDIA has used GDDR6 non-X memory but with ECC (Error Checking and Correction).

SAPPHIRE has released something quite interesting: a new dual Polaris GPU-based crypto mining graphics card, with the introduction of the new SAPPHIRE Radeon RX 570 Duo.

The new SAPPHIRE Radeon RX 570 Duo graphics card packs dual Polaris 10 GPUs, with 8GB of GDDR5 memory each for a total of 16GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit memory bus with 268GB/sec of memory bandwidth each.

Each GPU has its own heat sink, so the GPUs are individually cooled and then the card is cooled with dual fans that should keep it pretty cool when mining 24/7. Since the Radeon RX 570 itself is a cut-down Polaris GPU, the dual Polaris 10 GPUs on the Radeon RX 570 Duo uses just 125W of power and pumps out 60MH/s when mining Ethereum.

I thought it was just me, but when Jensen Huang hosted NVIDIA's all-virtual GTC 2021 keynote, I thought his kitchen looked a little... I don't know, underwhelming for a billionaire. Well, maybe it was because the entire NVIDIA GTC 2021 keynote was digital. Yeah, they "faked" seconds of it with CGI -- from 1:02:41 to 1:02:55 and nobody... absolutely freaking nobody noticed.

This is an Iron Man-like moment for NVIDIA... providing that they can fake an actual CEO with next-gen deep fake-style technology. It's actually absolutely mind-blowing, but as what pop culture would refer to me as a "conspiracy theorist" it isn't so surprising.

Rather, it shows that you literally can't believe what your eyes see -- so while this is a very cool party trick, it is a tease of a haunting future. If the world doesn't go back to normal, and it probably won't -- then all virtual events right up to "appearances" of President Biden could be faked.

NVIDIA has just released its new GeForce Game Ready 471.68 WHQL drivers, with Game Ready support for the new Back 4 Blood Open Beta, and Nakara: Bladepoint.

Nakara: Bladepoint and Back 4 Blood both feature NVIDIA's kick-ass DLSS technology, so you'll get some major performance improvements at high resolutions. Nakara: Bladepoint launches on August 12, and will have DLSS ready to go -- offering up to 60% more performance at 4K.

The new NVIDIA GeForce 471.68 drivers are also Game Ready for the Back 4 Blood Open Beta, which kicks off August 12 on the PC -- and it also features NVIDIA DLSS technology for major performance improvements.

A new brand of graphics card has appeared out of nowhere in China, with Chiphell members teasing Vastarmor's new Radeon RX 6600 XT graphics card.

The same Chiphell forum members did their internet detective work, with Vastarmor having the trademark which was traced back to Pengyu (Shanghai) Digital Technology Co., Ltd. VideoCardz reports that this graphics card was "allegedly manufactured by the XFX factory. It is not, however, an XFX spinoff or a new subbrand".

To me, it looks far more like a custom ASRock Radeon RX 6000 series graphics card, but there are also a few different models with slightly different styles -- I've got some pictures of the second card below. The one above does look pretty good for a plain-looking card.

Oh, PowerColor... I don't think you could do worse than this -- but hey, I guess you can.

PowerColor has been shipping out its Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics cards with the bloody adhesive covers still on... yeah, blocking the covers on the cooling of your GPU is such a great thing. The blue covers you see in the picture above were shown in a post on Reddit, which should embarrass PowerColor -- or someone on the production line that made this card and maybe, just maybe, it's a once-off.

PowerColor staff posted on Reddit in shock, with "PowerColorSteven" replying with "bro what. where did you buy this from". This could've been a simple mistake in the factory, where it was just some oversight on a single PowerColor Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics card... or maybe something worse. I'm sure it's not worse, but who knows.

Valve's new Steam Deck might only be capable of pumping away at 30FPS but the custom RDNA 2 chip inside is 60% faster than the RDNA 2 chip inside of Aya Neo's Vega -- another handheld PC gaming device.

Steam Deck packs an AMD Van Gogh APU based on the Zen 2 architecture, with 4 cores and 8 threads clocked at up to 3.5GHz -- and is the first AMD APU packing integrated RDNA 2 graphics. Valve has said that there are 8 Compute Units (CUs) that have the RDNA 2 chip clocked at up to 1.6GHz.

This is all you need for 1280 x 800 @ 30FPS... and then add in that the RDNA 2 architecture offers FSR (FidelityFX Super Resolution) and you have a pretty exciting product in your hands -- literally. Given that you can play most games through Steam on the Valve Deck, this is going to be quite the seller in 2022.