Graphics Cards - Page 124

MSI must have a big stock of GeForce RTX 3080 graphics cards as it is getting rid of a bunch of them with a new branded version, for a game that I'm sure barely anyone plays anymore.

The "new" MSI GeForce RTX 3080 SUPRIM X Assassin's Creed Valhalla Special Edition is nothing really special at all, just a re-painted version of the GeForce RTX 3080 SUPRIM X. Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed: Valhalla is the star here: with some new colors on the shroud and backplate and some logos on the side.

I mean it doesn't look totally bad, but there's just nothing new here apart from a re-painting of MSI's GeForce RTX 3080 SUPRIM X -- down to the identical clock speeds and power settings -- with 1920MHz GPU boost, and up to 370W of power with 3 x 8-pin PCIe power connectors.

AMD's next-gen RDNA 3 GPU architecture will debut later this year, with major testing going on right now: one of those tests involves the confirmation of the next-gen DisplayPort 2.0 standard on Radeon RX 7000 series graphics cards of the future.

In a new tweet discovered by "Kepler," we see that AMD has kicked off putting patches for DisplayPort 2.0 UHBR (Ultra-High-Bit-Rate) certification. DisplayPort 2.0 UHBR comes in UHBR10, UHBR13.5, and UHBR20 standards with varying bandwidth, resolution, and refresh rate support.

Why do we need DP2.0 UHBR20? Well, 16K at 60Hz (with DSC) is pretty damn impressive... the same goes for 10K @ 60Hz, and what will be my favorite: 4K @ 240Hz. All over a single cable.

TCL has been busy leaking out Sony and Microsoft's upgraded current-gen consoles, which we've already heard rumors about, but now we're finding out where the GPU performance might land when compared to the PC.

Polish website PPE attended a press event that TCL held recently, where it talked about its predictions for the upgraded consoles. TCL talked about the "new Xbox Series S/X" and "PS5 Pro" consoles, predicting that we'll see them push out 4K @ 60-120FPS "render" while they'll have 4K to 8K @ 60-120FPS "output".

More interestingly, TCL predicts that the upgraded consoles will have GPU power comparable to AMD's upcoming Navi 33-based Radeon RX 7700 XT graphics card. Out of context, this sounds amazing... but we did hear last month that the Radeon RX 7700 XT would beat the Radeon RX 6900 XT. So, what does this mean?

NVIDIA has just pushed out its latest GeForce Game Ready 512.95 WHQL drivers, which have the usual best day-0 gaming experience for a couple of the latest games. You can grab them right here (786MB download).

Hitman 3 is getting its huge "Year 2" update which packs both NVIDIA DLSS support and ray tracing, as well as Sniper Elite 5 which isn't out yet -- but you've got the best day-0 gaming experience with these new GeForce Game Ready 512.95 WHQL drivers.

NVIDIA didn't have too much to celebrate at Computex 2022, but the company did show off its hectic new ASUS ROG Swift 500Hz gaming monitor: a new 1080p @ 500Hz (yes, 500FPS) with a brand new "E-TN" (Esports TN) panel. We also heard about 10 other games being announced NVIDIA DLSS, including the aforementioned Hitman 3 + Sniper Elite 5 as well as F1 22, and many more super-powered with DLSS tech.

NVIDIA is reportedly gearing up to unveil a new version of its A100 Tensor Core GPUs, check it out:

The new NVIDIA A100 PCIe "Ampere" accelerator has been updated with a liquid-cooled variant, and man it looks so damn good. NVIDIA is making this card, using a beautiful design that sees the tubing connectors on the rear, sitting directly to the left of the single 8-pin PCIe power connector.

A liquid-cooled A100 accelerator isn't exactly new, as you could buy the passively cooled dual-slot version and manually replace the cooler... but that is a lot of work. Professionals aren't going to do that, they're going to want to buy it made like this... and install it into their system. This is a work of art.

NVIDIA's next-gen GeForce RTX 40 series GPUs will be released this year, with the mosnter new flagship GeForce RTX 4090 / RTX 4090 Ti shaping up to be quite the gigantic beast.

In recent leaks, we've seen the gargantuan cooling system that the purported GeForce RTX 4090 Ti Founders Edition would use: what looks like a 4-slot cooler. But in his latest video, Tom @ Moore's Law is Dead said that he's been talking with AIBs who said:

"AIBs are preparing 4.5-slot coolers right now for some undisclosed NVIDIA product. Already case-makers are adjusting their designs to support these monsters".

AMD's next-gen RDNA 3 graphics architecture will be led by the new Navi 31 GPU, which has changed specifications according to the very, very latest leaks.

Navi 31 is now reportedly packing a wider 384-bit memory bus, up from the 256-bit memory bus from previous rumors... while also packing 24GB of GDDR6. Navi 31 has been mentioned with a 256-bit memory bus + 32GB GDDR6 before, so this new SKU is interesting.

The newer Navi 31 rumored GPU specs would see the 384-bit memory bus not just increasing overall memory bandwidth over a 256-bit memory bus, but AMD would require fewer memory modules at the same time. This means that AMD and its AIB partners can make their Navi 31-based offerings cheaper, and require less cooling (which also helps with costs).

ASUS has revealed some interesting information in their recent earnings report, with ASUS Co-CEO Sy Hsu explaining GPU demand for crypto miners is dying, while prices could stabilize soon, but maybe not.

ASUS's Co-CEO, Sy Hsu explained: "Because the demand for cryptocurrency mining on GPU shipments has been slowly coming down, the demand for graphics cards across the market is normalizing. Because the demand from cryptocurrency is disappearing, it's made us wonder if the pricing for GPUs will also normalize. In reality, the demand for gaming is still strong, so we still don't think we can necessarily meet all of the demand".

We've seen GPU prices skyrocketing over the last year or so, where prices were hitting 150-300% of their regular MSRP... but now, now they're floating back down to reality. This isn't just for one company, but rather both -- AMD and NVIDIA graphics cards are seeing most retailers and e-tailers pricing Radeon and GeForce GPUs at 5-10% above MSRP on average.

AMD's next-gen RDNA 3 architecture will debut later this year, with the introduction of the flagship Navi 31 GPU that we're now hearing is codenamed "Plum Bonito".

The new codename Plum Bonito GPU is the Navi 31 ASIC board according to leaker "Kepler", who recently said that the Navi 31-based purported Radeon RX 7950 XT graphics card will arrive on the next-gen PCIe 5.0 interface. We can also see that a Navi 31 board is reportedly called "Gemini" which could be a dual-GPU version of Navi 31 (workstation-class GPU possibly).

But if you look close, the next-next-gen Navi 41 GPU was teased in very early form as "gfx1200". AMD's current-gen Radeon RX 6000 series graphics cards are based on the RDNA 2 GPU architecture, while next-gen Radeon RX 7000 series graphics cards will be powered by the RDNA 3 GPU architecture. After that, we have the Radeon RX 8000 series powered by RDNA 4... of which we're now being teased.

We have been hearing plenty about NVIDIA's next-gen Ada Lovelace GPU-powered GeForce RTX 4090, but now it's time for the GeForce RTX 4090 Ti -- and more specifically -- NVIDIA's upcoming GeForce RTX 4090 Ti Founders Edition graphics card.

In some of the latest rounds of rumors, we've been hearing whispers that NVIDIA would unleash the GeForce RTX 40 series GPUs sooner rather than later -- a possibly mid-July release -- meaning we're just months away. NVIDIA looks to be providing some rather impressive cooling array to the RTX 40 series Founders Edition GPUs so that they can handle the 450W to 600W of power we're also hearing about.

NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 4090 Ti (this name could change) Founders Edition graphics card has three different parts: first up we have the silver-themed metal skeleton that goes around the heat sink for that beautiful finish. You can see the nice little "RTX 4090 Ti" logo there, too.

Intel's upcoming Arctic Sound-M data center GPU has been spotted in the flesh by ServeThe Home, packing the new DG2 GPU -- the same GPU that will eventually find its way into the Intel Arc A-series GPUs, hopefully, maybe, later this year.

Intel will have two models of its Arctic Sound-M GPUs with 150W and 75W power, with the Arctic Sound-M in 150W form packing a single GPU, the Arctic Sound-M in dual-GPU form using 75W. The dual-GPU model has 75W TDP and is a smaller half-height, low-profile form factor design.

The new GPU photos that STH snapped are from the Intel Vision conference for developers, investors, and media. Intel had multiple SKUs of its Arctic Sound GPUs on the floor, including models that didn't have an EPS power connector, with STH also noting that many components were missing on some of the cards.

COLORFUL has just announced its new GeForce RTX 3060/3070Ti BattleAx NARAKA Bladepoint Edition, now available in RTX 3060 + RTX 3070 Ti form.

The new GeForce RTX 3060/3070Ti BattleAx NARAKA Bladepoint Edition graphics cards join competitor ZOTAC and their GeForce RTX 3080 Ti X-Gaming Naraka Bladepoint Edition graphics card. COLORFUL's new GeForce RTX 3060/3070Ti BattleAx NARAKA Bladepoint Edition has a plain-ish design, with Naraka aethestics through some stickers.

Inside, we have the GeForce RTX 3070 Ti with a faster set of 12GB GDDR6X memory at 19Gbps, while the RTX 3060 version of the card uses 8GB of GDDR6 at 15Gbps.

ASUS has just announced its new GeForce RTX 3080 Noctua Edition graphics card, the second in the ASUS x Noctua family of GPUs.

The new ASUS GeForce RTX 3080 Noctua Edition moves to a dual-fan cooling design, away from the 3 x 92mm fans on the original ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3080. In their place are 2 x Noctua NF-A12x25 120mm fans that are much quieter, and a heat sink that keeps the GPU, GDDR6X memory, and VRMs much cooler.

Kent Chien (Corporate Vice President and General Manager of the ASUS Multimedia Business Unit) explains: "The synthesis of our custom-engineered unified heat sink and Noctua's famously whisper-quiet fan technology forges a creation that is more than the sum of its parts. This inspiring partnership with a world-class leader in DIY PC cooling establishes a noise level breakthrough for the powerhouse GeForce RTX 3080 Noctua Edition graphics card - and a visual style that you won't find anywhere else".

The rumor mill for next-gen GPUs runs harder than ever before in silicon history, with fresh rumors on NVIDIA's upcoming flagship GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card.

The new GeForce RTX 4090 with an Ada Lovelace-based AD102-300 GPU rocking 16128 CUDA cores, 24GB of GDDR6X memory at 24Gbps, and a 450W TDP will reportedly pack twice the performance of the GeForce RTX 3090 graphics card.

This is according to leaker "kopite7kimi" on Twitter, who said: "OK, let's do a new summary. RTX 4090, AD102-300, 16128FP32, 21Gbps 24G GDDR6X, 450W, ~2x3090. I am disappointed with RDNA3. That's all". This lower 450W power news flies in the face of previous 600W power claims... as the RTX 4090 (450W) is now rumored to be twice as fast as the RTX 3090 (350W). That's a huge achievement for only 100W increase in TDP.

Intel is still preparing its Arc GPU family for the desktop, but now we have some unannounced Arc GPUs for the desktop that have appeared in the new beta GPU drivers.

Inside of the new v30.0.101.1723 drivers we have 5 new desktop Arc GPU SKUs: the A770, A750, A580, A380 and A310. The higher-end A780 isn't anywhere to be seen, nor is the A350 series GPU.

The list also includes the Intel Arc Pro A40/A50 and A30M GPUs for laptops, as they'll be destined for workstation and professional solutions in the future. All of this doesn't really matter, as Intel will be launching its new Arc GPUs as an exclusive to China at first... which I truly don't understand... I don't understand this entire launch from Intel to be honest.

NVIDIA's next-gen GeForce RTX 40 series GPUs could be here sooner rather than later, with leaker "kopite7kimi" teasing a "Q3 early" release... meaning July/August (which would be early Q3) with September being the end of Q3.

I was personally in Cologne, Germany during Gamescom 2018 when NVIDIA announced its Turing GPU architecture and new GeForce RTX 30 series GPUs, back in September 2018. This would be earlier than regular scheduled releases from NVIDIA, but we are in a Bizarro GPU world... and next-gen GPUs would be welcomed right now.

NVIDIA would be out of the gate ahead of AMD and its upcoming RDNA 3 architecture and new MCD-based Navi 31 GPU. MCD being a multi-chip die, with a chiplet-based GPU design compared to NVIDIA's monolithic GPU design expected with Ada Lovelace and the new flagship AD102 GPU that should power the GeForce RTX 4090 Ti and GeForce RTX 4090 graphics cards.

AMD will be unleashing its next-gen Instinct MI300 product family in the future, the first CDNA 3-based product that will utilize 3D stacking technology.

3D stacking technology will allow AMD to use CPU and GPU dies in different configurations for customers of AMD, and now we have some new leaks making things a little clearer. From a leaked slide from a purported internal presentation on AMD's upcoming Instinct MI300, AMD says the Instinct MI300 is a "first generation Instinct APU".

AdoredTV details the slides (you should be able to tell their AdoredTV's slides, I don't know if it's obvious enough or not) that one of the CPU configurations -- leaker Tom @ Moore's Law is Dead said that recently, more on that below -- with Zen 4-based CPU cores, and CDNA 3-based GPU cores.

Update: More disappointment, as Koch Media PR reached out to clarify that "Intel XeSS support won't actually be available until some time in the Summer". An Intel representative also alerted my eyes to this story, so there's also Intel weight behind it, too.

Intel doesn't have their Arc Alchemist GPU on the market, with multiple delays and drama going on behind the scenes... but don't worry: Intel XeSS upscaling technology will launch in a week, on May 20.

The new Intel XeSS upscaling technology will officially launch alongside action RPG "Dolmen" that most people won't play, and will support all three super-sampling technologies: AMD FSR (1.0), NVIDIA DLSS, and Intel XeSS. There will be a day one update for Dolmen that provides it with Intel XeSS support, making it the first game in history to support Intel XeSS.

The price of GPUs have been dropping massively in the last few weeks, which has been an awesome thing for gamers (a much-needed relief in the Bizarro world of GPU pricing). But it's forced AMD to do something kinda foolish...

AMD has pre-announced its new "Raise the Game" bundle, which it even labels as "Upcoming Radeon Raise the Game Bundle" as it's not here yet. AMD wants you to "stay tuned" as the new Raise the Game Bundle activsion is "coming soon". Alrighty... so which free games do Radeon gamers get?

Well, we don't know yet... because AMD hasn't said so. The company has listed the eligible AMD products (which I've got a list of below). So why is the game bundle, rushed, now? GPU prices have been dropping for a while, forcing AMD's hand here: all Radeon purchases between May 10 and August 13 get the free games, but they don't know what games they'll get yet.

NVIDIA has released its latest GeForce Game Ready 522.17 WHQL drivers, which offer the best day-one gaming experience for Evil Dead: The Game.

Evil Dead: The Game packs NVIDIA DLSS technology, so you'll definitely want to enable that (and grab these new drivers). NVIDIA also offers support for Dolmen and Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong. The new drivers also address an issue with Adobe Premiere Pro and the "intermittent DirectX related crashes". There's still some known issues:

You can download the NVIDIA GeForce Game Ready 512.77 WHQL drivers right here (786MB download).