Graphics Cards

This year, the iconic GeForce 3, introduced in February 2001, is celebrating its 25th anniversary. More than just an interactive update, the GeForce 3 introduced programmable pixel and vertex shaders, paving the way for modern PC and console gaming. Some of the PC games that defined the GPU and that generation include id Software's Doom 3, with its groundbreaking per-pixel lighting, and Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, which featured incredible water effects for its time.

And with that, taking a break from preparing for his big NVIDIA GTC 2026 opening keynote, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang sat down with senior members of the GeForce team to discuss the importance of the GeForce 3 and its legacy. Not only that, but the GeForce 3 was instrumental in transforming NVIDIA into a computing company and the global leader in AI.

"Every game looked the same, looked heavily filtered, everything was bilinear and trilinear filtered," Jensen Huang says of the era before the GeForce 3 arrived in 2001. "We felt that games weren't like CAD; games are a medium for artistic expression, and if you look at all these different games, we wanted them all to look different."

NVIDIA has confirmed that the RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell will ship with 160 ROPs, not the 176 ROPs previously reported.

It appears the previous reporting was based on unlocked specification entries in the database, rather than NVIDIA's locked specification sheet for the product. The discrepancy between the previously reported figure and the official figure arose after a Reddit user noticed that his 48GB variant displayed 160 ROPs, despite reports citing that it would ship with 176 ROPs. In a statement provided to TechPowerUp, NVIDIA explained that a bug in GPU-Z is the cause of the discrepancy and that the new workstation card officially ships with 160 ROPs.

As for the other specifications, NVIDIA reveals in its official materials that the new RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell utilizes the latest Blackwell architecture, and sports 14,080 CUDA cores, 48 GB or 72 GB of GDDR7 ECC memory, 1,344 GB/s of bandwidth, a 512-bit memory interface, PCIe 5.0 x 16, and 300W of total power. Furthermore, NVIDIA states that the card comes with a Graphics Processing Cluster of 10, which verifies the 160 ROPs figure, as 1 GPC equals 16 ROPs.

GeForce Game Ready Driver 595.79 WHQL is now available for GeForce gamers, and it brings day-one support for a big PC game release on March 19, 2026. The highly anticipated open-world action-adventure Crimson Desert from Pearly Abyss and legendary game creator Hideo Kojima's latest opus, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach.

Both games are set to debut with full DLSS 4 support with Multi Frame Generation for GeForce RTX 50 Series owners, with access to the new and improved DLSS 4.5 Super Resolution powered by NVIDIA's powerful new Transformer model via the NVIDIA App. And when it comes to the NVIDIA App, it's getting a major 'Beta' update on March 31.

This update will add DLSS Override support for the new DLSS 4.5 Dynamic Multi Frame Generation update, which is designed to intelligently max out your display's refresh rate and includes a new 6X mode. This update also includes an updated DLSS 4.5 Frame Generation for GeForce RTX 40 and RTX 50 Series gamers, improving image quality and performance.

NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 30 Series, built using a custom 8nm process from Samsung, rather than the custom TSMC process for the GeForce RTX 40 and RTX 50 Series, is set to return to production at the Samsung Electronics Pyeongtaek Semiconductor Factory. According to a new report by the Korean publication Hankyung, Samsung is prepping to recommence production of the 8nm GeForce RTX 3060, some two years after the last batch of RTX 3060 chips were manufactured.

The report doesn't set a timeline for production, other than that it'll happen "soon." With the initial media and insider reaction focused on NVIDIA re-introducing the GeForce RTX 3060 as a response to the current memory crisis and chip shortages, the report claims that the RTX 3060's return could be primarily for the Chinese market.

Due to restrictions on high-performance graphics cards sold in China, older GPUs like the GeForce RTX 3060 represent a way out for providing a cost-effective AI and PC gaming solution in the Chinese market. Of course, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang did say "it's a good idea to bring back old GPUs" at CES 2026 as a way to address current shortages, so this move could reflect a broader global strategy for 2026 and beyond.

Jon Peddie Research has posted its latest report on the fourth-quarter 2025 global PC graphics card market. Even though AIB (add-in-board) shipments decreased from the previous quarter due to the current memory crisis, they were up 36% year-over-year for the same period. When it comes to market share for graphics cards "largely supported by gamers," NVIDIA's share rose notably.

According to Q4 2025 data, NVIDIA's market share of total graphics card shipments reached a new high of 94%, up 10 percentage points from Q4 2024. As 2025 saw the release of the new GeForce RTX 50 Series from NVIDIA and the Radeon RX 9000 Series from AMD, this data shows NVIDIA pulling ahead, with AMD's GPU shipment market share dropping to 5% from 7% in the previous quarter and 15% in the same period the year before.

Intel's market share for discrete Arc GPUs remained flat at 1%. However, even though there are GPUs out there, Jon Peddie Research notes that the current high memory prices, driven by the AI boom and US government-imposed tariffs, are "killing the AIB market." In addition, more affordable laptops and notebooks with APUs featuring integrated GPUs alongside CPUs are putting additional pressure on the growing GPU market.

Another rumor has surfaced claiming that NVIDIA is planning to bring back the RTX 3060 in order to help shore up the GeForce line-up, which is facing stock difficulties due to the RAM crisis.

VideoCardz reports that there's a rumor from the Board Channels forum over in China which backs up previous speculation the RTX 3060 GPU could be resurrected in the first quarter of 2026.

This new nugget of gossip from the supply chain claims that RTX 3060s from "various brands" will gradually start to appear from between March 10 to 20. In other words, within the next couple of weeks.

NVIDIA has announced a new hotfix for GeForce Display Drivers after it was discovered that its latest 595.71 WHQL Game Ready driver was implementing voltage caps on GeForce RTX 50-series GPUs.

The timeline of events was as follows. On February 26, NVIDIA released the NVIDIA GeForce Game Ready 595.59 WHQL driver, which was promptly followed by the 595.71 driver. Following that release, reports began surfacing of some RTX 50-series owners experiencing new voltage ceilings, resulting in reduced overall game performance. On March 4, NVIDIA announced a new hotfix that is currently ready to download.

Additionally, NVIDIA acknowledged the Game Ready driver for Resident Evil: Requiem contained many bugs players would have noticed within the game, such as white glowing lights/dots appearing when Subsurface Scattering is enabled. There were also several instances of crashing with Bethesda's Starfield. Those problems have now been all fixed in NVIDIA's latest GeForce driver update, which is currently available to download.

With the availability of 3GB GDDR7 chips or modules, the original plan for the GeForce RTX 50 Series was for NVIDIA to use these to provide a 50% increase in VRAM capacity with the arrival of the GeForce RTX 50 SUPER Series.

Of course, with the way things have gone regarding memory, storage, and the AI industry gobbling up all capacity, the SUPER series refresh has been put on indefinite hold. But it does look like NVIDIA will use 3GB GDDR7 memory with the RTX 50 Series, albeit not on models that could benefit from a capacity increase.

According to known insider and leaker MEGAsizeGPU on social media, NVIDIA is apparently prepping to release a GeForce RTX 5050 9GB graphics card that will use the new 3GB memory chips. Compared to the current GeForce RTX 5050 8GB, this new configuration would use a 96-bit memory interface and 28 Gbps memory speed. This would deliver a 12.5% increase in VRAM capacity and a 5% increase in overall bandwidth, to 336 GB/s.

It looks like NVIDIA has been on a bad run with GeForce Game Ready Driver releases. Earlier this week, we received GeForce Game Ready Driver 595.71 WHQL. This belated update added support for Capcom's Resident Evil Requiem, which was delayed because the initial version (595.59) included a serious bug that affected fan monitoring and even stopped fans from working on some GPUs.

Well, it seems that GeForce Game Ready Driver 595.71 WHQL is also not without issues, as several users are reporting performance drops that appear to be related to GPU core voltage limitations, causing boost clock speeds to drop below 3,000 MHz or 3 GHz even with a manual overclock applied. This is something we were able to replicate on a GeForce RTX 5080, where a previous 3.0+ GHz overclock was now sitting at sub-3 GHz.

This issue is not only being reported on NVIDIA's forums for the driver release but also on YouTube, where creators are showcasing the performance impact of what looks to be a voltage lock affecting all high-powered GeForce RTX 40 and RTX 50 Series GPUs. In Bang4BuckPC Gamer's video below, we see performance in the Heaven Benchmark running on a GeForce RTX 5090 drop from 183 FPS running driver version 591.74 to 144 FPS on GeForce Game Ready Driver 595.71.

Custom GPUs created to celebrate games and iconic franchises are few and far between, which is why it's always a pleasant surprise when one debuts. This week, MSI unveiled a pair of new GeForce RTX 5070 graphics cards, created in collaboration with Blizzard Entertainment to celebrate the launch of the MMO's latest expansion, World of Warcraft: Midnight.

With two designs, an MSI x World of Warcraft: Midnight GeForce RTX 5070 Light Edition and Void Edition, MSI and Blizzard have drawn on the elven lands of Quel'Thalas and the expansion's story for the physical design. In addition, the shell and cooling appear to be based on MSI's fantastic Gaming Trio models, with transparent panels, lighting, and metallic flourishes.

"The Void Edition embodies the rising Voidstorm, featuring bold, sharp lines and shadow-infused visual elements that reflect the relentless power of darkness," MSI writes in the announcement. With its dark fans and blue and violet colors, it's a striking look that would be well placed in any WoW fan's rig.

The limited-edition MSI GeForce RTX 5090 LIGHTNING Z not only features one of the most impressive GPU designs we've seen to date, but with its premium custom PCB and power delivery, the out-of-the-box 800W default OC mode delivers the fastest 4K gaming performance you can find. As detailed in our in-depth review, it's so fast that it feels more like a GeForce RTX 5090 Ti than a custom RTX 5090.

Well, even though the GeForce RTX 5090 is technically unavailable for sale in China, it looks like MSI has also released a China-exclusive version of this impressive GPU called the MSI GeForce RTX 5090D v2 LIGHTNING Z. This news arrives via Bilibili user 'Hardware Patrick Star' (via VideoCardz), confirming that MSI has released a separate batch of these limited-edition GPUs for the Chinese market or has allocated some of the 1,300 total global units to become GeForce RTX 5090D v2 variants.

The GPU we see here is number 909 of 1300. Created for China as a gaming GPU that adheres to US-government-based restrictions, the GeForce RTX 5090D v2 features the same 21,760 CUDA cores as the mainline RTX 5090, but with 24GB of GDDR7 VRAM on a 384-bit memory bus, versus 32GB of GDDR7 on a 512-bit bus.

The Steam Hardware & Software Survey results for February 2026 are in, and according to Valve's latest data, the GeForce RTX 5070 is now the most popular PC gaming GPU, with a 9.42% market share. This is a massive increase over January 2026's figure of 2.87%, which indicates a potential error or miscalculation in the reporting, as when you factor in Steam's tens of millions of users, you're looking at one of the biggest single-month shifts we've seen to date.

The latest data show a significant change in the top ten, with several GPUs below the GeForce RTX 5070 also showing notable upticks in overall market share. In second place there's the GeForce RTX 4060, followed by GeForce RTX 5060, RTX 4060 Ti, and other mainstream and mid-range graphics cards from the Ada Lovelace and RTX Blackwell generations.

If these numbers are inflated, one reason could be the recent Chinese New Year holidays, which saw more Chinese and Asian Steam gamers included in the monthly survey, along with increased data from gaming and internet cafes that remain very popular across the region. This is not to say that the GeForce RTX 5070 isn't popular, as Steam Hardware & Software Survey results have shown the GPU slowly climb into the top ten in recent months.

NVIDIA's GeForce 3 was introduced way back in February 2001 and is widely considered a milestone release not only for PC gaming but also for video game graphics, as it introduced programmable pixel and vertex shaders (in DirectX 8.0) and what would become the standard for anti-aliasing before DLSS arrived on the scene several years later.

And this past weekend, the GPU series celebrated its 25th anniversary, with NVIDIA's GeForce team presenting a little trip down memory lane on social media and Twitch, showcasing some 2001-era GeForce 3 hardware playing some of the games that would define that era of PC gaming, graphics, and GeForce hardware.

If you're wondering why the arrival of programmable shaders was a game-changer, it all comes down to the unprecedented level of hardware control it offered developers and artists. Basically, lighting and rendering effects could now be calculated at a per-pixel level, adding texture and realism to objects in ways that hadn't been seen before.

We got our first look at ASUS's new ProArt GeForce RTX 5090 OC Edition back at CES 2026, with the GPU being the company's most compact GeForce RTX 5090 to date. With a 2.5-slot thickness and large twin 115mm fans, this new custom GPU looks to be using the same multi-PCB design and double flow-through cooling as NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition.

And, since it falls under the ProArt banner, ASUS's non-gaming boutique brand for creator and studio-focused gear (as well as gamers looking for a stylish, minimal look), the physical design features no RGB lighting. Instead, you've got a black GPU with gold accents denoting the modern ProArt aesthetic, as well as USB Type-C display output.

With the product page for this new GPU now live, we've got details on the PC specs, as well as confirmation of the unique double-flow-through design that includes a vapor chamber, liquid metal cooling, and a double-vented backplate that ASUS claims increases airflow and cooling efficiency by 11%.

NVIDIA has seemingly begun rolling out RTX 50-series GPUs with Micron memory modules, amid the ongoing DRAM shortage crisis.

The first Micron GDDR7 chips were discovered on a GALAX GeForce RTX 5060 Black OC V2 by Quasar Zone, which conducted a teardown of the GPU in their review. Notably, NVIDIA typically sourced its memory modules for its GPUs from Samsung and SK Hynix, but given that the supply of memory modules is currently being gobbled up by the demand for more AI-focused hardware, NVIDIA has moved to begin sourcing chips from Micron as well.

The teardown revealed four GDDR7 2GB memory chips located around the substrate. As for NVIDIA now purchasing memory from Micron, reports state that this decision by team green indicates NVIDIA is also struggling to maintain a sufficient supply of memory from Samsung and SK Hynix. But now that Micron is supplying memory to NVIDIA for consumer-level GPUs, we can hope that GPU prices will begin to recover. However, it will likely be some time before we see the impact on market prices.

With FSR 4, which is currently exclusive to the RDNA 4 lineup of Radeon RX 9000 Series GPUs, AMD closed the image quality gap between FSR and DLSS in a major way. And as we've seen with NVIDIA's release of DLSS 4.5 earlier this year, which is yet another game-changer for image quality and detail, it's no secret that we're going to see an FSR 4.1 or 4.5 at some point.

Well, it seems that day is today, as an FSR 4.1 DLL from an unreleased AMD Software Adrenalin Edition 26.3.1 driver release has appeared online. The leak arrives via AMD's Radeon 'Vanguard' driver testing program, and as seen with gamers applying workaround methods (aka OptiScaler) to get it running, FSR 4.1 offers a notable improvement to image quality when compared to FSR 4.0.3 - the current official version.

Using FSR 4's aggressive 'Ultra Performance' profile, thanks to the OptiScaler Discord (via Reddit), we get to see the difference in Hogwarts Legacy. Per the comparison screenshot, FSR 4.1 delivers more detail in foliage and an overall sharper and cleaner image. It bodes well for FSR 4.1, delivering an image quality improvement for Radeon RX 9060 XT and Radeon RX 9070 XT gamers. However, this screenshot and this screenshot were captured from FSR 4.1 running on the RDNA 3-generation Radeon RX 7900 XT.

AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 26.2.2 is available now, and it adds New Game Support for Resident Evil Requiem and Marathon. Capcom's Resident Evil Requiem is out now, and after receiving rave reviews from critics, it could be a potential Game of the Year contender for survival horror fans. Bungie's Marathon, which is out March 6, is currently running a Server Slam test this weekend, so this driver release has arrived at the perfect time.

AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 26.2.2 is now available to download and is recommended for all Radeon gamers, including those with the latest RDNA 4 GPUs, such as the Radeon RX 9070 XT and Radeon RX 9060 XT. Although New Game Support for Resident Evil Requiem and Marathon is the big thing here, the latest driver also fixes a couple of notable issues for RDNA 3 owners.

One of the fixes resolves an issue where Roblox intermittently crashed or timed out, while the other resolves flickering and corruption issues when using AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition features like Instant Replay and Record Desktop. Here's a look at the full Release Notes.

Earlier today, NVIDIA released its latest GeForce Game Ready 595.59 WHQL driver, which added day one support for one of the biggest game releases of the year, Resident Evil Requiem. The driver also added support for Bungie's Marathon, which is currently running its popular Server Slam test, and fixed several Gaming Bugs.

However, as users who had installed the new driver began reporting issues with GPU fan detection, NVIDIA quickly removed the driver. "We have discovered a bug in the Game Ready and Studio 595.59 WHQL drivers and have removed the downloads temporarily while our team investigates," NVIDIA's GeForce team writes in a forum post.

"For users that have already installed this driver, and are experiencing issues with fan control, please roll back to 591.86 WHQL," the post continues, noting that everyone who installed the driver should roll back to the previous stable release. According to reports, the driver release was potentially damaging to hardware, as it caused fan-detection issues that affected thermal performance and cooling.

Valve's monthly Steam Hardware & Software Survey results are something that we regularly report on, as it's great for getting a general sense of what hardware is out there. From CPUs to GPUs, memory, storage, and display resolution, it's also an invaluable tool for game developers to get a sense of what hardware they should build their games for, or at least support.

On the GPU side, Valve has quietly issued a Steam Client update (via the Steam Deck Beta channel) that will improve how it captures and records GPU data. According to the update, "VRAM on some graphics cards" was not being reported correctly, so this has been fixed. How this will affect the results remains to be seen, but it's the next update that will be the most telling.

It's no secret that NVIDIA's GeForce RTX offerings dominate the discrete GPU market, which has been reflected in the Steam Hardware & Software Survey results for years. However, some critics claim that AMD's Radeon cards are underrepresented because integrated GPUs in processors are being recorded instead.

Although NVIDIA recently denied rumors that it would sunset or end production of certain GeForce RTX 50 Series graphics cards, such as the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, in response to the current memory crisis, there is a definite shortage. As highlighted by NVIDIA CFO Colette Kress during the company's most recent earnings call, we can expect these shortages to persist throughout the year.

As part of NVIDIA's latest financial report, which showcased record revenue for the company's Data Center segment, we also learned that the Gaming sector was doing gangbusters - hitting a new revenue record of $16 billion for the year. Driven primarily by the arrival of the GeForce RTX 50 Series, a year of record revenue will be followed by a year of struggling to meet demand.

"We expect supply constraints to be a headwind to gaming in the first quarter of fiscal 2027 and beyond," Colette Kress wrote in her report. And when pressed on the issue of GeForce RTX supply during the earnings call, she confirmed that supply will be "very tight." Which is bad news for PC gamers looking to upgrade or build a new rig.