Video Cards News - Page 1

A fresh new rumor on AMD's next-gen RDNA 2 aka Big Navi GPU is here, with a new post on Chiphell suggesting AMD will have two different Navi 21-based cards.

The new report suggests AMD will have Big Navi GPUs with both 12GB and 16GB of GDDR6, but AMD could possibly use the full fat Navi 21 GPU with the huge 80 Compute Units which means we'd be seeing 5120 stream processors.

We only just recently heard that AMD's big bad Big Navi "NVIDIA Killer" flagship card had 16GB of VRAM.

Maybe we'll see a beefier, more TITAN-like Radeon (similar to the Radeon VII) with the 16GB of RAM and full 5120 stream processors, while the lower SKU with 12GB of RAM will take battle with NVIDIA's upcoming Ampere-based GeForce RTX 3080.

NVIDIA announced the "Ultimate Countdown" towards its next-gen Ampere GeForce graphics cards, but then there were the hints using numbers and more specifically: 21.

After posting the #UltimateCountdown tweet, NVIDIA added: "21 Days. 21 Years" which signifies August 31 (21 days after the countdown was announced on August 10) and it has been 21 years since the first GeForce, the first-ever GPU, the GeForce 256.

So much around the number 21 that if you take '256' and times it by '21' you get 5376, which is the purported number of CUDA cores on NVIDIA's upcoming GA102 GPU.

My friend Usman Pirzada over at Wccftech tweeted "256 * 21 = 5376" but then the second I saw that, it clicked -- so I tweeted: "5376 = 5 + 3 + 7 + 6 = 21". NVIDIA could be f***ing with us, but it seems they're pointing towards 21 for some reason.

NVIDIA found itself in a spot of trouble earlier this year, when reports surfaced that NVIDIA wanted to "leap frog" AMD in order to "prevent them" from getting bigger.

What happened? NVIDIA reportedly "underestimated the effect of AMD embracing TSMC, and made some errors in its own plans for migrating to advanced nodes. Moving to Samsung and wavering in its TSMC strategy, only to be go back to TSMC later, NVIDIA was unable to secure enough 7nm capacity, resulting in AMD grabbing the limelight, eroding NVIDIA's brand value, and increase its own market share for GPUs".

Well, that might be the case this year -- where AMD's next-gen RDNA 2-based 'Big Navi' graphics card possibly toppling the best Ampere-based GeForce RTX 30 series graphics card (more on that here). At least, for this year -- but don't underestimate NVIDIA and its unrelenting thirst for being the best.

Oh boy, a super juicy rumor is sizzling like chili on my tongue -- NVIDIA could software lock the GeForce RTX 3080 and its VRAM at launch, but why?

Because NVIDIA want to see how good the flagship RDNA 2-based graphics card is, that's why. NVIDIA could hold back and gimp the GeForce RTX 3080 with its purported 12GB of VRAM on a 384-bit bus, down to just 10GB on a 320-bit bus.

Once AMD details its flagship RDNA 2 graphics card, then NVIDIA would -- at least according to Moore's Law is Dead's sources -- un-gimp its card and unleash the proper 12GB of VRAM on its original 384-bit memory bus. Tom does note that there is a "slim chance" of this happening, but still the very suggestion this could happen is actually interesting.

We have had some incredibly juicy rumors to deal with in the last few days, and one of those is about the RDNA 4-based Navi 41 GPU from AMD.

Komachi has tweeted out some delicious tidbits on the purported the Navi 41 GPU, simply saying "there is Navi 41". We don't know anything about Navi 41, but if we connect some of those dots from what Navi 10 was, what Navi 21 will be very soon in RDNA 2 aka Big Navi aka Navi 2X -- and then after that the super-exciting RDNA 3 architecture.

AMD's next-gen RDNA 2 architecture will power the new Navi 21-powered Radeon RX 6000 series graphics cards, but after that will be RDNA 3 with the Navi 31 GPU. Komachi reports: "NV3X GCD/MCD means probably Graphics Complex Die/Memory Complex Die of Navi 3X (Navi 31)".

The rumor mill is churning for NVIDIA's next-gen Ampere-based GeForce RTX 30 series graphics cards, with fresh info stating the flagship card will feature a huge 24GB of VRAM.

NVIDIA is rumored to be launching 3 different variants based on the PG132 reference board, which should fill out the 3 higher-end GeForce RTX 30 series graphics cards. This is most likely going to be something like the GeForce RTX 3080, GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, and GeForce RTX 3090.

These PG132 boards with 24GB of VRAM isn't new, with rumors from June 2020 stating that the flagship GeForce RTX 3090 would feature the GA102 GPU, 350W TGP, and 24GB of super-fast GDDR6X memory.

The last few months have been some of the most insane months of the GPU industry, between NVIDIA's upcoming Ampere launch and AMD's next stomp with RDNA 2 and Big Navi -- there's no time for a break.

But then a source reached out to me a few days ago and told me something very interesting, something that I think could be a real game changer for NVIDIA's big launch of Ampere-based GeForce RTX 30 series graphics cards: custom models will be launching alongside the Founders Edition models... or at the very least, very shortly after the FE cards ship.

I had a source tell me that custom AIB models will be on offer starting in September, so with current rumors of an Ampere GeForce RTX 30 series announcement on September 9 and then a purported launch on September 17 -- custom cards being made available "in September" would be huge.

I'm currently on-board the Ampere Hype Train right now, with NVIDIA officially kicking off the marketing campaign for its next-gen GeForce graphics cards.

As a long time GeForce fan (my online handle has been 'anthony256' right after I got my hands-on the GeForce 256 back in 1999) it makes the hairs on my arms stand up to even write about this. NVIDIA followed up its #UltimateCountdown tease with "21 Days. 21 Years".

Now, 21 days from now is August 31, 2020 -- why is that important?

August 31, 1999 was the day NVIDIA revealed the GeForce 256... the first-ever GPU, and the first-ever GeForce graphics card.

NVIDIA has officially kicked off the marketing hype train for its next-gen Ampere-based GeForce RTX 30 series graphics cards with a simple teaser on Twitter.

All the tweet says is #UltimateCountdown which has got me personally thinking that NVIDIA could change the nomenclature like I've wanted for the new GeForce RTX graphics cards -- I wanted the GeForce RTX 3090 ULTRA, for the return of ULTRA -- but maybe we're looking at the GeForce RTX 3090 ULTIMATE?

ULTIMATE is an important branding for NVIDIA right now, and I'm sure even more so going forward -- they have their G-SYNC ULTIMATE monitors and TVs, so it makes sense to have the "Ultimate Countdown" being a countdown to something Ultimate-related, right?

The last we heard on the launch of NVIDIA's next-gen GeForce RTX 3000 series was that they were launching on September 17, but now an announcement date is floating around: September 9.

According to GamersNexus, NVIDIA will be revealing its next-gen Ampere-based GeForce RTX 3000 series cards on September 9. If this is the case, I'd expect tech media -- including myself, to start hearing official news from NVIDIA, NDAs will be signed, and samples will begin to arrive in the next couple of weeks.

If NVIDIA did announce the new GeForce RTX 3000 series cards on September 9, and then launched on September 17 -- that makes sense. It also means NVIDIA will begin the hype train for its new cards very, very soon.