Graphics Cards - Page 10

Okay, so the brand-name MOREFINE definitely sounds like it comes from a group that didn't quite grasp the potential English-language double-meaning as a drug, but that's secondary to the fact that its new MOREFINE G2 External GPU Docking Station is impressively compact. And stylish too, the black-and-brass unit weighs just 700 grams and measures 140 x 100 x 54mm.

With its Thunderbolt 5 (Type-C) port supporting 80 Gbps bidirectional data transfer and up to 100W power delivery, what makes the MOREFINE G2 External GPU Docking Station notable is that it includes a desktop-grade GeForce RTX 5060 Ti GPU with 16GB of memory. The MOREFINE G2 is also versatile, supporting a high-speed Oculink connection in addition to Thunderbolt 5.

In addition to delivering impressive 1080p and 1440p gaming performance, with MOREFINE G2 synthetic benchmark results delivering a 3DMark Time Spy score of 12,893 when paired with an AMD Ryzen AI 5 340 processor, it's also a capable GPU for AI workloads. The RTX 5060 Ti's 16GB of GDDR7 memory and Tensor Cores deliver up to 759 AI TOPS of performance.

Intel launched the Arc B580 desktop graphics card in December 2024 (check out our review here), giving us our first look at the second-generation 'Battlemage' architecture. As a follow-up to the first generation of Arc Graphics cards, the B580 was a big step forward in the right direction. From improved driver stability to broader compatibility with a wide range of games, and Intel's own XeSS technology offering a viable alternative to NVIDIA DLSS regarding Super Resolution and Frame Generation capabilities.

Since the B580's debut, we've been getting a lot of conflicting reports surrounding the company's desktop gaming GPU plans. Recently, the long-rumored 'Big Battlemage' arrived in workstation form for the AI market, with Xe3 and Xe3P gaming architectures shifting focus to the mobile market, that is, laptops and handhelds.

Xe3P, or the Arc-C series for mobile, was reportedly on track to get a desktop gaming GPU release under the codename 'Celestial.' However, based on the latest rumor and news from insider Jaykihn on social media, the 'Celestial' discrete gaming GPU was canceled a long time ago. And with no gaming GPUs reportedly on the cards through Q1 2027, the only hope would be Xe4 in late 2027 with 'Druid.'

ASUS has started rolling out its ROG Equalizer cable. The redesigned 12V-2x6 PCIe power cable was introduced two weeks ago and is now available on the official ASUS store. ASUS positions it as a hardware-level protection layer for high-end graphics cards, particularly RTX 50-series GPUs, using the 12V-2x6 or 12VHPWR connector.

As spotted by @unikoshardware, ASUS has priced the ROG Equalizer at $49.99, close to the pre-launch estimate of around $41. At the time of writing, the cable is already out of stock, which, given the number of reports of PCIe cables melting or overheating, is not particularly surprising.

For those out of the loop, ASUS designed the ROG Equalizer to address overheating and melting issues associated with the notorious 16-pin 12V-2x6 connector. The cable distributes the load equally across all wires in the connector, increasing each wire's load capacity from 9.2A to 17A, and making it significantly more reliable than a standard cable.

Last year, Bolt Graphics announced its Zeus GPU, and while the brand was relatively unknown, its claim of up to 10x faster rendering than the RTX 5090 drew attention. Now it seems the company is pushing full force toward a 2027 release, with the chip successfully taped out at TSMC using a 12nm FFC process node, marking the end of design and start of manufacturing.

For those out of the loop, Zeus is a next-generation compute platform designed to reduce the total cost of compute by up to 17 times across high-performance computing, rendering, and resource-intensive applications. The goal is a product that doesn't cost too much, consume too much power, or take up too much rack space. Zeus also introduces two industry-first features for GPUs: expandable memory that scales VRAM up to 8x, and native 400GbE and 800GbE Ethernet support for direct, large-scale GPU interconnects.

Coming back to the Zeus GPUs, Bolt Graphics plans to offer them in both PCIe card and 2U server configurations, with multiple variants. The single-chip model, codenamed Bolt Zeus 1c26, features a single-slot, full-length PCIe design with up to 20 TFLOPs of FP16 performance, paired with 32GB of LPDDR5X memory and 128MB of on-chip cache. It also delivers up to 77 gigarays of path-tracing performance on a 120W power budget.

Yesterday, we posted a story where a Reddit user claimed that their NZXT Kraken AIO cooler leaked onto and damaged their flagship ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090. The post noted that NZXT confirmed the issue was due to a manufacturing fault; however, disputes over inadequate compensation led to several months of back-and-forth, with the user then stating that after seven months of getting nowhere, they were in the process of suing NZXT.

Today, Ivan Barajas, the Senior Marketing Manager at NZXT, reached out to us with a statement clarifying the issue and confirming the age old saying that there are always two sides to a story. First off, there's no dispute regarding the cause of the damage: the AIO leaked, damaging the customer's motherboard and ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090.

With one of the sticking points in the original story being that NZXT offered the customer $2,855.99 for the GPU, which now costs well over $4,000, NZXT says this isn't true. "The $2,855.99 figure is not what NZXT offered," the statement reads. "That was the original invoiced purchase price, and that number appeared in an early email that was corrected the same day to $4,161.90, reflecting current market value."

NVIDIA was the first to adopt multi-frame generation with its RTX 50 series GPUs, using AI to generate additional frames between traditionally rendered frames. Users can choose from different frame generation ratios, with modes scaling up to around 4x in DLSS 4 and 6x in DLSS 4.5. NVIDIA later doubled down with dynamic frame generation, which automatically adjusts the MFG mode to match your monitor's refresh rate.

So far, AMD has trailed behind, with FSR 4 offering only basic frame generation modes up to 2x modes. That puts the Red Team not just behind NVIDIA, but also Intel, whose XeSS 3 launched this year with impressive 4x modes across Arc B-Series, Arc A-Series, and even some iGPUs.

But that may be about to change. A fresh discovery in the GPUOpen documentation (via Wccftech) suggests AMD is finally laying the groundwork for its own multi-frame generation solution. The latest ADLX 1.5 materials add a new "FidelityFX Frame Generation Upgrade" interface, allowing users to select a desired frame generation ratio for optimal performance and visual quality.

UPDATE: Since posting this original story, NZXT has issued a statement, which you can read here. ORIGINAL STORY: Chalk this one up as a nightmare scenario, an AIO cooler leaking fluid onto and damaging a GeForce RTX 5090. To make matters worse, the RTX 5090 in question is ASUS's flagship ROG Astral model, which currently retails for $4,299.99. According to this user's Reddit post, this is exactly what happened to their ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 when their NZXT Kraken AIO leaked, damaging the card.

As bad as that is, that's only the beginning of the story. According to the user, they purchased the ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 in 2025, and in August 2025, their NZXT Kraken AIO leaked, damaging the GPU. The owner then contacted NZXT, who allegedly confirmed the fault was due to a manufacturing defect, so they replaced the cooler and said they would address the damage to the graphics card and motherboard.

According to the post, there were a few months of back-and-forth, including a note that cleaning the GPU "fixed" it. Instead of sending it back, they offered to settle the case and reimburse the user $2,855.99. Which, in case you forgot, is a lot lower than the $4,299.99 price tag for the ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090.

A Reddit user has bagged a brand-new, sealed RTX 4060 Ti, a card that normally retails for $400, for just $12. That's equivalent to 3% of the GPU's retail price. The user managed this feat after a deep dive into a local bin store's bulk inventory, which turned up a factory-sealed unit. While these liquidation outlets are famous for their "no returns" policies, the user confirmed the card is in perfect working order.

Last month, a similar story surfaced with the RTX 5060 Ti, where a Reddit user scored the GPU for $80. At the time, that seemed unbeatable, but it seems we already have a new winner. The specific model in question is the PNY RTX 4060 Ti Dual Fan edition. While it's the well-known 8GB variant, it's hard to pass up for just $12.

You'd wonder how the user even managed to land a brand-new GPU for the price of a sandwich? The answer is a Goodwill Outlet, also known locally as a bin store. Unlike a typical Goodwill retail store, where items are sorted on racks and shelves, and everything has a specific price tag, Goodwill outlets sell unsold items from retail stores by the pound, offering extreme discounts.

Crimson Desert, which has been well-received by gamers and critics alike and has sold over 5 million copies, is one of the biggest game releases of the year. However, when it made its PC debut, it arrived without support for Intel's Arc Graphics, and an issue that proved to be a developer problem over an Intel one. The good news is that Arc Graphics support in the game arrived in a recent update, and Intel's latest Game On Graphics Driver optimizes performance.

Intel Graphics Driver 32.0.101.8724, now available for all Arc Graphics users across A- and B-Series desktop products and Core Ultra users with integrated Arc Graphics, fixes the flickering issue users have noticed. So if you're playing the game on an Intel Arc B580 desktop GPU or a Core Ultra Series 3 processor, this driver update is for you.

Intel Graphics Driver 32.0.101.8724 is a Non-WHQL release, so it's optional. Still, it's notable because it also adds support for Capcom's Pragmata, another game proving to be a surprise 2026 hit among gamers and media. In addition to game-specific updates, Intel Graphics Driver 32.0.101.8724 is also the launch driver for Intel's new entry-level "Wildcat Lake" Core Series 3 processors.

The gaming hardware scene seems to be peddling backward. NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3060 12GB is now rumored to return as early as June, and rather than pushing ahead with a new entry-level RTX 5050 9GB variant, the green team is apparently prioritizing a two-generation-old GPU architecture.

The rumor comes from well-known hardware leaker MEGAsizeGPU on X, who claims NVIDIA is pausing the transition from its 8GB RTX 5050 to a 9GB model specifically due to the reintroduction of the 12 GB RTX 3060. That lines up with previous chatter around the RTX 3060's return and reports that Samsung has resumed production of NVIDIA's 8nm GeForce RTX 3060 at its Pyeongtaek factory.

It does feel a bit bananas that NVIDIA is reaching back two generations instead of just refreshing the RTX 4060, but there is a logic to it. The RTX 40 and 50 series use TSMC's 4nm process, meaning that producing more RTX 40 series GPUs would reduce capacity reserved for the newer RTX 50 series. The RTX 30 series, on the other hand, runs on Samsung's 8nm node and uses GDDR6 memory instead of GDDR7, which may simply be easier to source now.

NVIDIA has released GeForce Game Ready Driver 596.21, with the big new addition being day one support for a few games, including Capcom's Pragmata, a new sci-fi action-adventure out today. Built with the studio's RE Engine, like the recent launch of Resident Evil Requiem, Pragmata arrives with support for the full DLSS suite of technologies, including Super Resolution, Multi Frame Generation, and Ray Reconstruction.

And like Resident Evil, Pragmata on PC supports a stunning real-time path-tracing mode for realistic cinematic lighting that elevates in-game visuals and immersion to a new level. And based on early reviews from games critics, it sounds like Capcom is also two for two with its big 2026 releases. Alongside driver support, NVIDIA has announced the new Pragmata GeForce RTX 50 Series Bundle, which offers GeForce RTX 50 Series GPUs and laptop owners a copy of the game on Steam.

GeForce Game Ready Driver 596.21 also adds game support for the Early Access debut of the indie survival, co-op, and PvE game set in the 'Age of Piracy' called Windrose.

When NVIDIA launched the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti last year, before the current memory crisis, it offered two models: one with 16GB of VRAM and one with 8 GB. With the retail and marketing focus on the 16GB model, post-launch reports indicated that the 8GB variant was not selling well. Cut to 2026, and the very real DRAM crisis affecting GPU pricing and availability, and NVIDIA has reportedly shifted its focus to the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 8GB model that consumers have mostly skipped in favor of the 16GB variant.

This means there are now more GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 8GB GPUs available than 16GB models, and, according to a new report via Gazlog citing inside sources, NVIDIA has paused supplying GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 8GB GPUs to its partners. The report notes that this halt in supply will last around two weeks. The reason? Apparently, there's an oversupply.

So yeah, this indicates that GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 8GB graphics cards are still not selling well, and with more stock sitting on shelves, prices are expected to drop. However, with NVIDIA halting supply to normalize stock levels, the belief is that the company is effectively pressing pause on the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 8GB graphics card to avoid price drops and discounts.

MSI appears to have leaked a new configuration of NVIDIA's RTX 5070 laptop GPU, and it's not the first time we've caught a glimpse of this rumored variant that beefs up the VRAM considerably.

VideoCardz noticed the leak in a press release from MSI which introduces new Raider and Crosshair gaming laptops.

In the spec of the MSI Crosshair 16 Max HX (E2WGXK), under the graphics category there's a mention of the RTX 5070 with 12GB (as opposed to the 8GB loadout that the notebook GPU currently runs with).

According to a new report from Warranty Week, NVIDIA's warranty claim expenses for discrete GPUs increased by a whopping 1000% in 2025 compared to 2024. This refers to the money NVIDIA has spent on warranties, with the report noting that NVIDIA paid $81 million in claims in 2024, rising to $894 million in 2025.

Naturally, this increase is also reflected in the warranty claim rate for NVIDIA's GPUs, which rose from 0.17% in the first quarter of 2025 up to 0.90% in the fourth quarter. Warranty Week obtained all of this data from NVIDIA's public records, so we don't have specific information on which GeForce RTX models are affected or whether this includes RTX Ada and Blackwell data center and workstation graphics card products. However, with $894 million spent on warranty claims, it probably includes all of the above.

For consumers and PC gamers, a rise in warranty claims makes sense when you factor in the power issues surrounding the GeForce RTX 40 and RTX 50 Series graphics cards that adopted the new 16-pin 12VHPWR and 12V-2x6 power connectors, which led to several well-publicized cases of cables melting and GPUs getting damaged. Another factor would be the overall price increases associated with several GeForce RTX 50 Series and RTX Blackwell workstation GPUs.

Last month, we reported on a rumor that NVIDIA is planning to launch a new GeForce RTX 5050 with 9GB of VRAM, increasing the overall VRAM capacity by 1GB. Now, that's not a lot, and the main reason for the change is the recent availability of 3GB GDDR7 modules. For a GeForce RTX 5050 9GB GPU, this would reportedly also feature a 96-bit memory bus rather than 128-bit, delivering a 5% increase in memory bandwidth and a 12.5% increase in VRAM capacity.

This month, we've got a fresh batch of 9GB GPU rumors courtesy of the China-based Board Channels forum, which regularly posts new information on unreleased GPUs and inventory updates from NVIDIA's GeForce RTX partners. The translated post notes that in addition to releasing a GeForce RTX 5050 9GB GPU, NVIDIA might also upgrade its other 8GB GPUs with this new 9GB configuration featuring 3GB modules.

So, that would mean that we could see GeForce RTX 5060 9GB and a GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 9GB GPUs as early as the end of May or the beginning of June. As noted by VideoCardz, which broke this story, while the extra 1GB of memory might come in handy in some titles, if NVIDIA were to shift to the smaller 96-bit memory interface, the overall bandwidth on these new GeForce RTX 5060 and RTX 5060 Ti variants would drop, potentially affecting performance.

Capcom's Pragmata is out this week, and based on early reviews from various media outlets, it's another excellent game from the company that recently released the acclaimed Resident Evil Requiem. Pragmata is a sci-fi action-adventure set in the near future, with a realistic visual style that presents a futuristic vision of our moon and Earth, centered on the discovery of a new material called Lunafilament.

In the game, you take control of investigator Hugh and a mysterious young android called Diana as you explore a lunar installation and face off against a rogue AI. Like Resident Evil Requiem, Capcom's Pragmata runs on the studio's proprietary RE Engine. For the game's PC version, that means support for a visually stunning path-tracing mode in addition to ray tracing.

And for GeForce RTX gamers, especially those with GeForce RTX 50 Series graphics cards, there's full support for DLSS, including Super Resolution, Ray Reconstruction, Frame Generation, and Multi Frame Generation. Plus, the brand-new Dynamic Frame Generation. And with that, NVIDIA has announced the new Pragmata GeForce RTX 50 Series Bundle, which is offering a Steam copy of the game with qualifying GeForce RTX 50 Series purchases.

Thermal Grizzly's new DeltaMate GPU Block is specifically built for the premium ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5080 GPU from ASUS. It features a "massive copper cooler" with a dual-cold-plate design, one for the GPU die and one for the VRM/VRAM. The VRM/VRAM-Coldplate alone weighs over 900 grams and is built with custom CNC machining to enhance heat transfer and thermal performance.

Interestingly, Thermal Grizzly notes that the DeltaMate GPU Block for the Astral RTX 5080 proved more challenging and complex to build than its previous RTX 5090 model, even though the RTX 5080 draws significantly less power. The reason is that the GeForce RTX 5080 has higher power density than the RTX 5090, making it harder to cool. Basically, it's a smaller, more densely packed GPU.

This helps explain why the price of the DeltaMate GPU Block for the Astral RTX 5080 is currently listed at $643.38 USD, given that it was difficult for Thermal Grizzly to source parts in Europe without paying inflated prices. And when you add in the specialized cold plates, anodized aluminum housing, brass terminals, reinforced glass window, and intricate design, that is why it costs roughly a third of the ASUS flagship GeForce RTX 5080 GPU it's designed to cool. The good news on that front is that it's highly effective.

Here's an interesting piece of hardware you may not have known existed: a Dual PCIe adapter card that adds two PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSD slots to the same PCIe slot you use for your GPU. This is for those systems and rigs where a more affordable GPU might not be utilizing all x16 lanes.

What makes this stand out as an oddity is that the riser card will only work on motherboards that support PCIe bifurcation, which splits the x16 PCIe slot into three lanes: x8, x4, and x4. As posted on Reddit by 'thepromiseman,' they paired what appears to be the RIITOP Dual NVMe PCIe Adapter (available on Amazon for $29.99 USD) with a low-profile GIGABYTE graphics card in a Mini-ITX system.

And with that, the combined height of the GPU and adapter equals the standard height of a non-low-profile GPU. The benefit here is that the user was able to add two standard NVMe SSD slots to their compact system that would have been impossible otherwise. The user also notes that, since their motherboard supports PCIe bifurcation, everything worked without any tinkering or troubleshooting.

Although the current memory crisis and supply issues have led to GPU shortages and price increases in many regions, ASUS's new GeForce RTX 5080 looks set to be the company's most affordable RTX 5080 so far. At a glance, the new ASUS PRIME GeForce RTX 5080 EVO and ASUS PRIME GeForce RTX 5080 EVO OC Edition look identical to previous PRIME RTX 5080 models, except for one notable change.

Based on the product pages, it looks like ASUS has shifted from the original ASUS PRIME GeForce RTX 5080's vapor-chamber cooling to a more traditional approach, while maintaining the same specs and overall physical design. These new EVO variants feature the same SFF-Ready 2.5 slot design with three axial-tech fans and a vented backplate for improved airflow.

Although the vapor chamber is gone, the ASUS PRIME GeForce RTX 5080 EVO OC Edition still maintains the out-of-the-box OC Mode Boost Clock speed of 2685 MHz, a notable but relatively small increase from the reference design's 2617 MHz. This means the overall performance should be virtually identical to that of the non-EVO edition, but the overall operating temperature might be higher.

With power delivery for modern GPUs still a concern with the new 12V-2x6 PCIe power connector, we've seen a wide range of protection measures and cable designs appear in recent years. However, ASUS's new ROG Equalizer might be the most notable, as it's essentially a 12V-2x6 PCIe power cable designed to address load-balancing and thermal performance issues for GPUs drawing up to 600W, like the GeForce RTX 5090.

For example, each wire or pin on the ATX 3.1- and PCIe 5.1-compliant ROG Equalizer cable now supports up to 17 A, compared to 9.2 A on standard 12V-2x6 PCIe power cables. And with improved load balancing and a patented design, the ROG Equalizer cable can withstand some of the most extreme power scenarios.

"Under an extreme test scenario, we removed the middle 4 wires from the +12V cable to simulate potential current imbalance conditions that may occur with a standard 12V-2x6 PCIe cable," ASUS claims. "Even under these conditions, the ROG Equalizer maintained a temperature of approximately 73.4°C. In contrast, a standard 12V-2x6 PCIe cable reached around 146°C - far exceeding safe operating limits."