Video Cards & GPUs News - Page 65

NVIDIA's RTX 3070 has finally sunk below its MSRP in the US and Europe, and those waiting for a more affordable Lovelace GPU - with the RTX 4060 Ti supposedly now on the horizon - might just be tempted to instead pull the trigger on this older mid-range Ampere graphics card.

Would that be a wise decision? We'll come back to that, but first, let's look at the recent price drops NVIDIA's RTX 3070 has witnessed.

As German tech site 3DCenter reports (via VideoCardz), over in Germany at retailer Caseking, there's a Zotac RTX 3070 for €449, which is €50 under the recommended price of €499.

Popular streaming tool OBS Studio just got a new release with version 29.1, bringing AV1 streaming to YouTube over Enhanced RTMP. As per NVIDIA's latest post, this is perfect for the GeForce RTX 40 Series line-up that features real-time AV1 hardware encoding as standard across desktop and laptop variants.

NVIDIA notes that not only does AV1 offer better image quality using the same bitrate as H.264 encoding on previous generation GeForce RTX GPUs, but the new GeForce RTX 40 Series is also 40% more efficient, meaning that you can stream at 4K using roughly half the bitrate to get the same result as using H.264.

NVENC, short for NVIDIA Encoder, puts all hardware encoding onto the GPU versus the CPU. With AV1 designed and becoming the standard for streaming, NVIDIA's latest graphics cards are ideal for content creators on platforms like YouTube and Twitch.

The GeForce RTX 4070 is the latest addition to the 40 Series line-up, representing the first affordable option ahead of the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti and RTX 4060 debuts in the coming months.

Per our reviews for the Founders Edition and MSI Ventus 3X models, we were impressed by the small and lightweight two-slot design - at least compared to beefier GPUs like the GeForce RTX 4080 and RTX 4090.

This makes the launch of the new Colorful iGame GeForce RTX 4070 Neptune OC-V, an all-in-one water-cooled RTX 4070 with a 240mm radiator, a little odd. The GeForce RTX 4070 in all four versions we tested was an exceptionally efficient GPU that rarely hit its 200W TGP, with fan speeds below 40%. And with that, temperatures were still the lowest for the GeForce RTX 40 Series.

Xbox's first-party title Redfall is available now on Xbox Series X|S and PC, and as per our report earlier today, the overall reception has been pretty negative. With performance on PC and Xbox being highlighted by several reviewers as a significant issue, GeForce RTX 40 Series owners might be in the clear thanks to DLSS 3.

NVIDIA has just released GeForce Game Ready Driver 531.79, which adds support for Redfall, including DLSS Super Resolution, DLSS Frame Generation, and NVIDIA Reflex. According to NVIDIA's benchmarks, with the help of DLSS 3, Redfall performance across the entire GeForce RTX line-up hits over 100 frames-per-second in 4K. And with the aid of Reflex, latency is kept low.

The flagship GeForce RTX 4090 sees performance of up to 188 fps at 4K, an increase of over 71% compared to playing the game with DLSS disabled. The GeForce RTX 4080 managed up to 148 fps with DLSS 3, followed by the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti with up to 119 fps and the GeForce RTX 4070 with up to 104 fps.

The RTX 4090 Founders Edition graphics card has been spotted being sold by NVIDIA in Europe at almost 10% below the company's recommended pricing now.

VideoCardz reports that this is the case in Germany, and that the price of the RTX 4090 has been dropping below the MSRP of €1949 since February 2023.

To be precise, February witnessed a drop in price of 4.6% in Germany, and then in March, we saw the Founders Edition fall further to 6.7% under the MSRP.

Released in February of 1998, the Voodoo2 from 3dfx was an iconic moment for PC gaming - a discrete graphics card capable of delivering impressive 3D performance at a time when that was still a relatively new thing.

Of course, by 2023 standards, the Voodoo2 is positively archaic and a relic you'd have on display or as part of a dedicated retro gaming rig running something like Windows 95. In case you need a refresher, the maximum supported resolution for the card is 800x600, and the 8MB or 12MB of memory was primarily used to render rudimentary textures.

Still, this 3D printable 3dfx Voodoo2 Armor from creator Jeff Chen is a fantastic option for those remaining Voodoo2 owners as it adds a dose of modern GPU style to the retro graphics card doubling as a bit of protection.

The latest Steam Hardware and Software Survey results for April 2023 are here, and as per the latest figures, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 is currently the most popular GPU for Steam users. This card from NVIDIA dates back to 2019, released as a budget gaming option built on a 12 nm process featuring a modest 4GB of VRAM.

According to the latest data, the second most popular GPU is the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060, a GPU that launched with 6GB of VRAM. The top ten is basically a who's who of mainstream NVIDIA GPUs, including the GeForce RTX 3060 in desktop and laptop variants, the GeForce RTX 2060, and even the more powerful NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 and RTX 3060 Ti.

With all of the talk about VRAM capacity of late, it's interesting to note that pretty much all of the most popular GPUs, according to Valve's data, feature 8GB of VRAM or less - though, of course, these are mostly GPUs where you're running games at a lower resolution with lower visual settings.

As is the case with upcoming GPU launches from NVIDIA, we've had a lot of information and details for the upcoming GeForce RTX 4060 Ti appear from multiple sources. The latest (via Videocardz.com) reaffirms a late May launch and release for the mid-range GeForce RTX 40 Series graphics card, with an embargoed NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Series document outlining the current plans and communication being sent out to its partners.

The document notes that cards will ship to partners on May 5 with the "Product Announcement" and "On-Shelf" listed as "End of May" with a specific date still being finalized. Interestingly the same document simply puts "TBD" under the column for the baseline GeForce RTX 4060, which would put the launch of that affordable mainstream option as no sooner than June 2023.

Another interesting takeaway from the document is that the board for the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti is listed as the PG190, the same as the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti. This means that partners can utilize the same coolers, potentially leading to a budget-conscious price point for the first time this generation.

NVIDIA's theoretically incoming RTX 4060 Ti has been spotted again, and this time, we have a photo of the GPU shared on Twitter.

Take a look at the chip in the pic above - clearly marked as the AD-106-350-A1 die, as previously rumored to power the RTX 4060 Ti - which comes from a regular leaker on Twitter, MEGAsizeGPU.

We've just had a sighting of the RTX 4060 Ti in MSI gaming PCs at a Dutch online retailer, too, as you may have caught yesterday.

NVIDIA's RTX 4060 Ti has been spotted in some MSI gaming systems, adding fuel to the fire that this GPU is imminent - and also again showing that, as previously rumored, it'll have 8GB of VRAM.

The MSI MAG Infinite S3 PCs are shown at a Dutch online retailer - presumably by mistake, of course, though the product listings are still available as we write this - and show the RTX 4060 Ti as the graphics card inside the rig. (The PCs are marked as not in stock, of course).

VideoCardz, which spotted this, observes that the Infinite S3 range is a middling offering and typically focuses on xx60 or xx70 Series GPUs from NVIDIA (indeed, new S3 models are just out with the RTX 4070 on board).