Video Cards & GPUs - Page 12

NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 2080, the company's first consumer GPU to include dedicated AI hardware, launched in 2018. One of the flagship GPUs for the Turing generation (second to the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti at launch), it's still a powerful GPU in 2024. However, after six years, the mainstream GeForce RTX 4060 performs similarly in a much more efficient package.

Chinese chipmaker Loongson is rumored to be working on a next-gen 9A2000 graphics card for PC will perform similarly to the GeForce RTX 2080, making it roughly eight to ten times faster than the company's other rumored product - the 9A1000 GPU. This news arrives via ITHome (translated); however, there is one big caveat.

Like other Chinese GPUs from Moore Threads, DirectX 12 compatibility is a question mark, so performance might be able to reach the heights of the GeForce RTX 2080 - but in-game performance on a per-title basis will most likely fall very short of that target.

Back in 2020, AMD announced it was splitting its post-GCN architecture into RDNA for gaming, with CDNA for its data center GPUs, with CDNA later being the architecture of its Radeon Instinct AI accelerators... and now, they're merging into UDNA.

In a chat with Tom's Hardware, senior vice president and general manager of the Computing and Graphics Business Group of AMD, Jack Huynh, said: "So, part of a big change at AMD is today we have a CDNA architecture for our Instinct data center GPUs and RDNA for the consumer stuff. It's forked. Going forward, we will call it UDNA. There'll be one unified architecture, both Instinct and client (consumer). We'll unify it so that it will be so much easier for developers versus today, where they have to choose and value is not improving".

AMD simplifying into the UDNA architecture means we'll see a future where developers only need to focus on a single system, no matter if they're building next-gen AI GPU architectures, or next-gen GPU architectures for Radeon in the form of RDNA 5 in the future.

Intel has released new graphics drivers covering its discrete Arc lineup of desktop GPUs and Intel Core Ultra processors with integrated Arc graphics. Intel Graphics Driver 32.0.101.5989 is available now and is notable because it's the first driver we've seen that has added official support and optimizations for Valve's Deadlock.

Deadlock is currently in early testing, and even though Valve has yet to announce the game or provide official details formally, it's already one of the most-played games on Steam, with well over 100,000 peak concurrent players being recorded daily. The new driver offers a notable performance bump for PC gamers with access to the Deadlock playtest with an Intel Arc graphics card like the A750 or A770.

Per the release notes, Arc gamers can expect "Up to 17% average FPS uplift at 1080p" or "Up to 13% average FPS uplift at 1440p" when playing with maxed-out visual settings.

AMD's Fluid Motion Frames is the company's driver-based frame generation technology that works in every game. It is a one-click solution that boosts the perceived performance in thousands of games, and unlike DLSS 3 or FSR 3, it doesn't require per-game integration.

In July, AMD announced Fluid Motion Frames 2 was coming soon, improving the tech to bring it more in line with more advanced solutions like FSR 3. Alongside the announcement, AMD released a technical preview driver for AMD Fluid Motion Frames 2, allowing Radeon gamers to play around with the latest version of AFMF as part of HYPR-RX.

With improved image quality and latency reduction via AI-optimized enhancement, AMD Fluid Motion Frames 2 works on all Radeon RX 6000 and 7000 Series graphics cards and AMD Ryzen Processors with integrated Radeon Graphics. AMD has updated the AFMF 2 technical preview driver this week with optimizations and stability fixes.

A week ago, AMD released its latest driver update for Radeon graphics users, with AMD Software Adrenalin Edition 24.8.1 adding support for support for Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, Concord, FINAL FANTASY XVI, and Star Wars Outlaws. This week, AMD released a non-WHQL update with AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 24.10.37.10, which is available to install.

The non-essential driver update targets a few things: fixing performance issues with Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 - an action-packed new PC release that is getting rave reviews and positive feedback from gamers. If you're a Radeon gamer playing Space Marine 2 or looking to pick it up, this interim driver is a must, as it also fixes issues related to the game crashing on Radeon GPU hardware.

This sentiment also applies to Black Myth: Wukong, as this driver release fixes an issue for Radeon gamers playing the game with Global Illumination set to Medium or higher. This was flagged in Adrenalin Edition 24.8.1, so seeing a quick fix here is excellent.

AMD is giving up the high-end GPU market with RDNA 4, in its own words, where it will switch to a new business model for RDNA 4 that will focus on 'customer scalability' versus competing in the flagship GPU business.

We've been hearing rumors for months and months now, but AMD has officially confirmed the news with Tom's Hardware with Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Computing and Graphics Business Group, Jack Huynh, verifying the rumors of RDNA 4.

AMD wants to avoid customers looking at its flagship GPUs like the Radeon RX 7900 XTX, against NVIDIA's flagship GeForce RTX 4090, which the RTX 4090 destroys the RX 7900 XTX. AMD doesn't want a slower product (even if its flagship) against a better product... so not competing in the high-end with RDNA 4 at all, avoids that association against NVIDIA's upcoming GeForce RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 graphics cards.

I don't know why this exists, but it does: a desktop NVIDIA GeForce GT 730 graphics card, turned into a luxury purse worth $1000, and we're totally not joking. Check it out:

The new GPU Purse features an NVIDIA GeForce GT 730 graphics card from 2018, based on the GK208 GPU with 2GB of VRAM, it's a 1.5-slot card, with no external PCIe power connectors. As for the purse, the GT 730 is inside of a beautiful translucent handbag that would be perfect for those high-end girl gamers.

Between the two sides of the purse, we have the GPU on one side and a small GIGABYTE fan on the other side, meaning you can put things inside of the purse between those two sides of the GT 730. I don't see men using this, but women that want to put their phone, makeup, lipstick, keys, and more into the GPU Purse would look great while doing it.

Jon Peddie Research has just published its quarterly GPU shipment report, noting that 70 million GPUs were shipped in Q2 2024, and that PC CPU shipments increased by a "surprising" 11% year-over-year.

JPR notes that overall, GPUs will have a compound annual growth rate of 4.2% through 2024 to 2026, and reach an installed base of close to 3.3 billion units by the end of 2026. Over the next 5 years, JPR predicts the penetration of discrete graphics cards inside of PCs will stand at 23%. The year-to-year total GPU shipments -- which include all platforms, and all types of GPUs -- increased by 16% reports JPR, with desktop GPUs increasing by 21% and notebooks by 13%.

Dr. Jon Peddie, president of Jon Peddie Research, said: "The jump in shipments in Q2 was a welcomed surprise. The market has been bouncing around for a couple of years now, trying to find a rhythmic buoyancy. With all the turmoil of trade wars, pandemics, political elections, and interest rates, it's doubtful we'll see a so-called normalcy for some time".

The ONEXGPU 2 with Radeon RX 7800M graphics is an external GPU with AMD's latest discrete mobile graphics card that slots in underneath the Radeon RX 7900M. One-Netbook, a creator of mini-PCs and gaming handhelds, has posted benchmark results for the new GPU inside the ONEXGPU 2 paired with an AMD Ryzen 8840U system.

The benchmark run (shown in the video above) is the tried-and-true synthetic Time Spy test, part of the 3D Mark suite. The Radeon RX 7800M's result is an impressive score of 15,806, which is only 1,200 points lower than the Radeon RX 7900M. This makes it slightly faster or on par with the desktop Radeon RX 7700 XT, a GPU comparable to what's inside the upcoming PlayStation 5 Pro.

According to Tom's Hardware, this score is notably higher than what is achievable with the GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop GPU, sitting between that and the higher-end GeForce RTX 4080 Laptop GPU. However, there is one caveat.

NVIDIA's next-generation GeForce RTX 5090 and GeForce RTX 5080 graphics cards continue to get closer and closer, but designs of the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 expected to be finalized this month.

In a new report, Benchlife chimes in on what is going on with NVIDIA's new Blackwell-based GeForce RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 graphics cards, with the RTX 5090 pegged at 550W power and the RTX 5080 at 350W power according to Benchlife, compared to the 600W and 400W power numbers from leaker kopite7kimi.

Benchlife reports: "This news is indeed a bit confusing. According to information from the module manufacturer, there was indeed a 400W NVIDIA cooling module case earlier, but it is currently in the cancellation or suspension stage. As for the 600W cooling module case, it has never stopped from the beginning until now".