Graphics Cards

We get it, graphics cards are expensive, and they are even more expensive right now due to the ongoing RAM crisis. However, a consumer desktop graphics card that costs over $7,000 is almost unfathomable. That is exactly what the ASUS ROG Astral RTX 5090 Edition 20 is: it has shown up at French retailer LDLC for €6,499.95, which works out to more than $7,400. Somehow, it's still not the most expensive RTX 5090 you can buy.

The listing lines up with earlier reports from a couple of weeks ago, pointing to a DACH region price of €5,799, or around $6,650. So it looks like the final European pricing landed even higher than the first numbers suggested. ASUS reportedly plans to ship the card in late July or early August.

This is part of ASUS's ROG 20th Anniversary lineup, and the Edition 20 branding shows up across several products, not just this GPU. We've also seen a ROG Crosshair X870E Edition 20 motherboard bundle, an ROG Swift OLED monitor, and an ROG Thor power supply, all carrying the same anniversary treatment and priced well above their standard counterparts.

It appears that the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB is back on Newegg, and this time it's real US stock, not just chatter out of China or Europe. Newegg is now listing the MSI GeForce RTX 3060 Ventus 2X 12G OC for $329.99, sold and shipped directly by Newegg with free shipping and a 30-day return window. The listing shows the card was first added on July 2, 2026.

It's worth noting this is an MSI "Ventus" board, not a GIGABYTE or ASUS model like the ones spotted in Europe earlier. The underlying specs look identical to the 2021 original, with 3584 CUDA cores, a 192-bit bus, 12GB of GDDR6 VRAM, and an 1807 MHz boost clock.

We've been following this story on TweakTown for a while now. Back in March, we covered early rumors of a comeback, though at the time, we figured it would probably be the 8GB variant, not the 12GB one everyone actually wanted. By April, leaks suggested NVIDIA was holding off on a rumored RTX 5050 9GB in favor of reviving the 3060 instead.

Someone has figured out a way to get FSR 4.1.1 working on AMD's Vega architecture, despite FSR 4 only being supported on RDNA 3 and RDNA 4 GPUs at the time of writing. YouTube channel yoyosan published a video showing FSR 4.1.1 working on an AMD Instinct MI50 GPU from 2018 with better performance than FSR 4.0.2c.

The YouTuber stated that a few things had to come together for them to get FSR 4.1.1 running at all on the Vega GPU. The version of FSR they used was the Proton version of FSR 4.1.1, which was leaked several days ago. Furthermore, an experimental version of OptiScaler was also required that was not available to the public and was only accessible from the OptiScaler developer's Discord server. The main hurdle the YouTuber had to overcome was a new detection mechanism built into FSR 4.1.1 that disables the latest model if an unsupported GPU is detected. Outgoing iterations of OptiScaler can't turn this off, but the newer experimental one the YouTuber downloaded from the OptiScaler developer's Discord server can with a small tweak to the tool's configuration file.

In games that worked, FSR 4.1.1 was stable on the YouTuber's Vega-based Instinct MI50 graphics card while offering superior performance to FSR 4.0.2c. In Cyberpunk 2077, the GPU achieved 69 FPS with FSR 4.1.1 set to balanced mode and 64 FPS with FSR 4.2.0c at the same settings. Alters with FSR 4.1.1 set to balanced mode achieved 90 FPS and 83 FPS with FSR 4.0.2c. Control and Pragmata were two other games the YouTuber tested but failed to work.

A new RTX 5090 horror story is making the rounds, though this one has nothing to do with the usual 12V-2x6 connector drama. A Reddit user going by RareSiren292 posted photos on r/pcmasterrace showing a PCIe riser cable with its insulation partially melted into goop. The card in question is an ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 5090, mounted vertically using a riser to stand the card upright inside the case.

The damage was apparently discovered during a routine cleaning session, not due to any dramatic failure. The user says the riser cable had to be peeled off the back of the card, with the melted plastic sitting exactly where the cable made direct contact with the GPU backplate.

Importantly, only the insulation looks affected. Users in the thread pointed out that the damaged section did not line up with the main 12V power pins, and it seems the card itself avoided any electrical damage.

The new Intel Arc G3 Extreme processor is built for PC gaming handhelds, delivering impressive performance with AI-powered XeSS technologies and support for the latest games. Per our recent hands-on with the impressive MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ gaming handheld, we hailed it as the "best gaming SoC on the market right now." And with that, official driver support has arrived in the form of the latest Intel Graphics Driver 32.0.101.8860 (WHQL Certified).

The latest Intel Game On Driver adds support for the Arc G3 Extreme processor and the more affordable Arc G3 Processor, which has yet to appear in a gaming handheld, to our knowledge. The Arc G3 Extreme processor, based on Intel's cutting-edge Panther Lake architecture, features integrated Intel Arc B390 graphics, currently the most impressive iGPU for PC gaming.

In addition to adding support for these new handheld chips, the latest Intel Game On Driver for its Arc Graphics line-up also fixes several game-related issues for titles like Apex Legends, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, and Battlefield 6. Here are the full Release Notes.

An NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090D, in GALAX HOF OC LAB form, has become the first GPU in the RTX Blackwell lineup to break the 4 GHz barrier with a GPU core frequency of 4002 MHz achieved by Team OGS. As expected, this wasn't an out-of-the-box overclock, as it required an Elmor external clock board (ECB) and LN2 cooling to hit 4 GHz.

The world record has been verified and is already live on HWBOT, beating the previous record set by overclocker Splave at 3880 MHz on a GeForce RTX 5090. The GALAX HOF OC LAB variant of the GeForce RTX 5090D is a card built for overclocking, as it's rare for a GPU to ship with dual 16-pin power connectors and an impressive 36-phase power delivery design.

When paired with the Elmor ECB, the stock 27 MHz was increased by 6.3% to 28.7 MHz, which then flows on to all GPU frequencies. The Elmor ECB board can also increase GDDR7 speeds, but this record is all about the GPU core frequency. The 4 GHz record was validated using the GPUPI v3.3 - 32B synthetic benchmark, which means the completion time of 35 seconds and 377 milliseconds is the new record to beat.

With DRAM a critical component of graphics cards, gaming GPUs have been under fire for their prices due to the current memory crisis. According to a new post on the Board Channels forum (via VideoCardz), AMD has begun informing its partners that a 10% price increase for Radeon GPU bundles is coming in July.

Board Channels is a well-known forum and source for leaks and rumors about GPU pricing and availability, as it regularly features first-hand information from several add-in-board (AIB) partners close to AMD and NVIDIA. As we're talking about AMD, the companies affected would be Sapphire, XFX, ASUS, ASRock, and others. The post states that AMD is increasing its supply price for bundles due to "tight global supply" of memory chips and rising GDDR6 prices.

As AMD bundles GPUs with memory, for example, Radeon RX 9070 XT orders get the GPU and 16GB of GDDR6 memory, the supply price for these is increasing by 10%. However, there is a positive side to this rumor: the price increase applies only to new orders, so it will take time to filter down to the consumer market.

NVIDIA's rumored RTX 5050 9GB might not happen at all. According to leaker MEGAsizeGPU, the card is "canceled, or permanently delayed," and board partners say they haven't gotten any fresh info on it either. The same source claims NVIDIA reissued the GeForce RTX 3060 12GB for that exact segment, which makes a new 5050 variant pretty redundant for now.

This isn't the first time MEGAsizeGPU has called this one correctly. Back in April, the leaker said NVIDIA was pausing the RTX 5050's bump from 8GB to 9GB because the RTX 3060 12GB was coming back in June. That part already checked out, the RTX 3060 12GB has started showing up at retail, spotted in China around $325 to $347, and in parts of Europe for more than its original $329 launch price.

The rumored 9GB 5050 always looked like an awkward card anyway. It would have swapped GDDR6 for GDDR7 but cut the memory bus from 128-bit to 96-bit, so bandwidth barely moved (336GB/s versus 320GB/s) for just 1GB of extra VRAM. Bringing back a 5-year-old Ampere chip on Samsung's 8nm node looks like the easier move for NVIDIA, especially with GDDR7 supply and TSMC's 4nm capacity tied up by RTX 40 and 50 series production during the ongoing memory crunch.

It wasn't too long ago that we began to hear rumblings that NVIDIA was planning to re-release the Ampere-era GeForce RTX 3060 as a response to the current component and memory crisis. The idea is that it would be a more cost-effective mainstream solution due to its use of 12GB of GDDR6 memory compared to the more advanced GDDR7 memory found on the GeForce RTX 50 Series lineup, including the GeForce RTX 5060.

According to a new report from the German outlet hardwareLUXX, the GeForce RTX 3060's return with GDDR6 memory has arrived, with a brand-new ASUS Dual GeForce RTX 3060 OC V2 popping up in various retail outlets. The report notes that the lowest price of 333.64 EUR (about $380 USD) is notably higher than the RTX 3060's historic price of 245 EUR.

Although the big selling point compared to 8GB cards like the GeForce RTX 5050, RTX 5060, and RTX 5060 Ti 8GB is the increased VRAM capacity, the value proposition compared to the more affordable GeForce RTX 5060 is questionable based on the improved DLSS 4.5 support that includes Dynamic Frame Generation not being available. Even when it comes to raw 1080p and even 1440p gaming performance in titles that aren't VRAM capacity constrained, the GeForce RTX 5060 is still decidedly faster.

Just over a week ago, AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 26.6.2 Driver was released for Radeon GPUs, and it was something of a surprise drop as it introduced FSR 4.1 Upscaling support to RDNA 3 graphics cards earlier than expected. For many Radeon RX 7000 Series owners, including those with the previous-gen Radeon RX 7900 XTX flagship, it was akin to getting a free double-digit performance upgrade.

However, not long after the driver was released, users began reporting errors when trying to get the new Adrenalin software to fire up on Windows 10. AMD, to its credit, responded in a timely fashion, advising users to roll back as it worked on a solution. And it arrived a few days later as the AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 26.6.3 Hotfix Preview Driver, a non-WHQL release to resolve the problem and get RDNA 3 gamers on board with the FSR 4.1 hype train.

Cut to this week, and we've now got the AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 26.6.4 Driver, an official WHQL release for Radeon RX 7000 Series owners that resolved the Windows 10 issue alongside fixing crashes in "some games" when enabling FSR 4.1 Upscaling.

AMD is actively working on a trimmed-down version of FSR 4 for RDNA 3/3.5 iGPUs, but there is no confirmation of when it will be arriving. In the meantime, a YouTuber has discovered a method of injecting FSR 4 at the driver level that works with RDNA 3/3.5 iGPUs. Channel AncientGameplays published a video showing how to do this using a third-party tool known as RadeonTuner.

RadeonTuner is designed to serve as a lightweight alternative to AMD's Adrenalin software. The application is functionally very similar to Adrenalin, with support for GPU overclocking and fan tuning. The application also allows users to change driver-related graphics settings and display settings. The main feature AncientGameplays was most interested in is the app's built-in overrides for FSR upscaling, frame generation and ray regeneration.

In testing with Spider-Man 2, the YouTuber discovered that RadeonTuner uses the same FSR override method as AMD's Adrenalin software to inject newer iterations of FSR into games. With the FSR override disabled, Spider-Man 2 showed upscaling support for FSR 3.1.5, but turning on the override changed the FSR version in-game to FSR 4.1.1. Spider-Man 2 also showed an asterisk next to the FSR 4.1.1 name, confirming the FSR version was being injected from the GPU driver. The YouTuber also tested several games using this FSR override method using a Strix Halo APU with an RDNA 3.5 iGPU and found it worked almost flawlessly (some issues with shadows and reflections reportedly occur at aggressive upscaling settings).

Power-related issues have been a running theme with NVIDIA's RTX 4090 and RTX 5090 cards. Despite newer 16-pin standards that were meant to be safer, repair shops and media outlets have become familiar with these cards ending up on their benches. The latest case out of Vietnam shows some of the worst power-related damage we have seen yet, severe enough to completely destroy a GPU and its VRAM.

The report comes from Vietnamese GPU repair outlet quyle.gpufix, which received two RTX 5090 cards for repair. The first had already been tampered with before arrival, arriving with no power, no GPU detection, and a missing A1 VRAM package. That card was repaired and returned the same day. The second was a different story entirely.

The second RTX 5090 had its 16-pin connector blown out completely, leaving no physical trace. The burn damage was severe enough to expose the copper layers of the PCB, and the destruction extended to both the GPU die and the VRAM, rendering them dead. Out of two cards, only one made it out.

AMD has issued a hotfix driver for Windows 10 users to fix a problem preventing Radeon gamers from running Adrenalin driver 26.6.2 - AMD's first driver with FSR 4.1 enablement for RDNA 3 GPUs, on Windows 10. AMD announced the new hotfix driver on X, version 26.6.3, and further elaborated that the hotfix will only be needed for a week, as the team gets ready to push the Windows 10 installation fix to an upcoming WHQL update next week.

Adrenalin driver 26.6.2 was one of the most important driver updates AMD has released this year, featuring FSR 4.1 upscaling support for previous-generation RX 7000 series GPUs and RDNA 3.x integrated graphics chips. After the driver's release, gamers quickly discovered that the update was broken on Windows 10, forcing Windows 10 users to switch back to an older revision. The issue specifically relates to a conflict with the driver and AMD's control panel software, which spits out an error message telling the user that the control panel version is incompatible with the driver. The issue is widespread, affecting a broad range of hardware, including Ryzen 9000 series CPUs and RX 9000 series GPUs. Windows 11 users are apparently not affected for unknown reasons.

AMD could have waited a week to get this fix out to everyone, but demand for AMD to extend FSR 4 support to older RDNA 3 and RDNA 2 GPUs has been significant over the past year on social media and comments on various AMD YouTube videos. Likely incentivizing AMD to push out a hotfix driver to fill in the gap. It's worth mentioning that hotfix drivers do not represent the most stable releases, so if you value driver stability, you might want to skip this update. But, for those who want FSR 4.1 support right now and are running an RX 7000 GPU and Windows 10, AMD's latest hotfix driver is the best option.

The infamous 12V-2x6 power connector has claimed another victim. This time it is the media outlet, Club386, whose GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition and their be quiet! Dark Power 13 PSU were both destroyed after a properly seated, single-cable 16-pin connection melted at both ends. The cable was not a third-party product, and the connector was fully seated. The team has been testing GPUs for decades, so it is unlikely to be user error, but none of that mattered.

NVIDIA has since replaced the GPU, but the damage was done, and the point stands regardless. The melting connector problem goes all the way back to the RTX 4090 launch in late 2022, when the original 12VHPWR standard started showing up in repair shops at an alarming rate. The root cause was uneven power distribution across the connector's pins.

Thermal camera testing by overclocker "der8auer" revealed one wire hitting 150°C on an RTX 5090 while other pins carried almost no load at all. When one pin absorbs the bulk of a 575W card's power draw, something burns.

After teasing the design earlier this year at CES, and then showcasing a more final version at Computex, GIGABYTE's new AORUS GeForce RTX 5090 INFINITY graphics card has debuted with a unique physical design alongside rare double flow-through cooling. And with that, it looks like GIGABYTE is expanding its INFINITY lineup with a stylish white-colored AORUS GeForce RTX 5080 INFINITY WOOD graphics card, and two additional RTX 5080 and RTX 5070 Ti models.

AORUS GeForce RTX 5080 INFINITY WOOD is certainly a looker, as it takes the darker INFINITY design and gives it a bright white makeover with added wood panels. Based on the specs found on the official product page for the card, it shares the same physical quad-slot dimensions as the GeForce RTX 5090 model and the same premium WINDFORCE Hyperburst cooling system.

As a premium GPU, the AORUS GeForce RTX 5080 INFINITY WOOD also arrives as an OC model with an out-of-the-box Boost Clock of 2,805 MHz, a sizeable increase over the 2,617 MHz reference spec and NVIDIA's Founders Edition model, which sports a similar double-flow-through cooling design.

Earlier today, AMD released AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 26.6.2 for Radeon GPUs, which added FSR 4.1 Upscaling support to the RDNA 3-powered Radeon RX 7000 Series graphics cards. This earlier-than-expected release of FSR 4.1 for RDNA 3 is definitely welcome, as it will help breathe new life into previous-gen GPUs like the mid-range Radeon RX 7800 XT and flagship Radeon RX 7900 XTX.

To make FSR 4.1 compatible with RDNA 3, AMD had to develop a new version of the technology that uses the INT8 format, since the RDNA 4 version was built specifically for the new architectures' advanced AI hardware and the FP8 format. The good news is that FSR 4.1 for RDNA 3 delivers no quality loss compared to running on RDNA 4 GPUs. However, as per the Adrenalin Edition 26.6.2 release notes and word from AMD, this new version is limited to RDNA 3 desktop GPUs. At least, officially.

Turns out the new FSR 4.1 DLL leaked a little early, via Valve and the Proton Experimental channel for SteamOS/Linux, of all places. And, like the previous version, when paired with the OptiScaler tool to force it, it can run on systems and configurations that aren't desktop RDNA 3 GPUs. In fact, according to this thread over on Reddit, some users are getting it to run just fine on RDNA 3.5 GPUs.

AMD has officially pushed FSR 4.1 support out the door ahead of schedule to previous-generation RX 7000 series GPU owners through a new driver update. Adrenalin version 26.6.2 has been released with FSR 4.1 support for RDNA 3 GPUs, along with game support for Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced, Doom: The Dark Ages | Revelations, and two bug fixes.

Adrenalin 26.6.2 marks the halfway point in AMD's endeavor to get FSR 4.1 working on older RX 7000 and RX 6000 series GPUs (RDNA 2 support is coming in 2027). Last month, AMD made the announcement to officially support FSR 4.1 on the aforementioned hardware, but confirmed a deadline of July for RX 7000 support, making AMD's latest Adrenalin driver arrival at least eight days early. AMD gamers won't have to worry about quality compromises compared to FSR 4.1 on RDNA 3 GPUs; AMD confirmed that FSR 4.1 on RDNA 3 will feature the same image quality as on RDNA 4 GPUs. The only caveat with AMD's current FSR 4.1 adaptation for RDNA 3 is that only the upscaling portion was ported over, leaving FSR 4.1 frame generation as an RDNA 4 exclusive feature.

Pressure to push FSR 4 to older hardware began almost a year ago when AMD accidentally leaked its own FSR4 source code featuring two versions of the upscaler: the out-of-the-box version with FP8 support and a second build using INT8 instructions. The second version with FP8 support was what grabbed everyone's attention, as it enabled FSR 4 functionality on non-RDNA 4 hardware. Afterward, modders were able to grab the INT8 version (before AMD took down the source code), and implement it in apps such as Optiscaler, enabling users to upgrade supported games from FSR 3 to FSR 4 with the INT8 build.

AMD has been in the news lately with its RDNA 4 lineup, but the focus is already shifting to what comes next. A new leak from Moore's Law is Dead (MLID), sourced from an unnamed major OEM partner, points to a mid-2027 launch window for RDNA 5-based Radeon desktop GPUs, with that source adding they would "be shocked" if the cards didn't arrive in 2027.

Importantly, this lines up with reports from Computex 2026, where OEM partners were already expecting an RDNA 5 release in the mid-to-late 2027 timeframe, adding credibility to the claim.

The timing also makes a lot of sense given the broader AMD roadmap. Both the next-gen Xbox "Project Helix" and the PlayStation 6 are reportedly powered by RDNA 5 semi-custom APUs, and both consoles are targeting a 2027 launch window as well. If the silicon is ready for console production, desktop Radeon cards are a natural follow-on.

A user on a Taiwanese hardware forum reported that their ASUS ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 left visible discoloration on the PCH heatsink of an ASUS ProArt X870E-Creator WiFi motherboard after about 6 months of use. The system was installed entirely in ASUS hardware, including an ASUS ProArt PA602 case, making the incident particularly awkward for the company.

The discoloration appeared in the area of the motherboard directly below the graphics card. The user said the mark could be partially removed with a wet cloth and some pressure, but the heatsink could not be restored to its original condition. The graphics card itself showed no visible issues and continued working normally. The risk becomes even greater in systems where airflow around the card is not optimized.

The RTX 5090 is known to push extreme power figures, with typical load consumption around 700W and peak figures reportedly approaching 1,000W in certain scenarios. While motherboard heatsinks are usually coated with heat-resistant paint, heat radiating downward onto nearby components can still become a genuine concern at those power levels.

An enthusiastic RTX 5090 owner attempted to install a second 12V-2x6 power connector on their flagship Blackwell graphics card in a desperate attempt to reduce the chance of the connector melting. Unfortunately, the owner ended up bricking the graphics card as a result of the mod and was forced to send the card to a repair shop to get the GPU fixed. YouTube channel northwestrepair covered the story and showed how the 5090 owner was able to install a second power connector on their card. Luckily for the owner, the card was saved after the technician transplanted the GPU and memory to a new PCB.

The RTX 5090 owner had an air-cooled AORUS variant with a second 12V-2x6 slot on the PCB, making it possible to solder on a second power connector to the card. At first glance, the existence of this slot makes it seem as if the card can support two connectors, but unfortunately, northwestrepair revealed that the card is not wired from the factory to support two connectors simultaneously. Specifically, the card reportedly lacks any shunt resistors wired up to the second power connector slot, making it impossible for the PCB to monitor and regulate power coming from the second connector. As a result, when the owner went to power the card with the secondary plug connected, the card overheated and burned a hole through the PCB.

The unfortunate RTX 5090 owner was likely inspired by existing RTX 5090 graphics cards with dual 16-pin connectors and modders who have successfully installed a second power connector on RTX 5090s. Earlier this year, reports surfaced that a modder had successfully added a second 12V-2x6 power connector to a GIGABYTE AORUS Xtreme Waterforce RTX 5090, which coincidentally has the same PCB layout as the AORUS RTX 5090 repaired in this story. MSI's RTX 5090 Lighting Z and Galax's RTX 5090 HOF are also cards that come equipped with two 16-pin power connectors from the factory.