Graphics Cards - Page 145

Anyone that regularly reads TweakTown and my GPU content will know that I'm a big fan of DLSS, and while it wasn't perfect with DLSS 1.0, it sure as hell is a great addition to GeForce RTX graphics cards with DLSS 2.0 and its improvements after v2.0 hit.

But now, now we have NVIDIA and its Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) technology powering over 120 games and apps, with 10 more games coming in October 2021 alone. One of the big ones is Back 4 Blood, which has DLSS support and adds up to 46% more performance.

DLSS is also super-powering Baldur's Gate 3 that was just launched, with an astonishing 88% increase in performance at 4K which can see the mid-range GeForce RTX 3060 Ti pushing 4K 60FPS+ in Baldur's Gate 3 thanks to DLSS. On top of that, we have the Crysis Remastered Trilogy which launches on October 15, which will have NVIDIA DLSS and ray-traced reflections, as well as enhanced textures, models, lighting and environments that will ensure the PC versions of the games are the best.

GPU prices are pretty crazy right now and I'm sure you know all about it, but they've hit 6-month highs according to the latest pricing data.

The folks over at 3DCenter have compiled some considerable pricing and availability on AMD Radeon and NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards in Europe, with prices up big time. NVIDIA GeForce GPU pricing is up 70% while AMD Radeon GPU pricing is up over 74% MSRP.

GPU prices have been steadily coming down in Europe and other parts of the world since May 2021, but this is pushing into an upward trend right now and sees GPU pricing at a 6-month high. GPU supply is also looking healthier this month than it was in September, which is nice to see.

PCIe 5.0 is right around the corner with it debuting on Intel's new Alder Lake platform, with the new 600-series motherboards led by the Z690 chipset rocking PCIe 5.0 slots and DDR5 memory support.

We're now hearing about a new PCIe 5.0 power connector that would be quite the leap from what we have now, with a new PCIe Gen5 power connector teased. The new PCIe 5.0 power connector would offer up to a huge 600W of power, up quite significantly from the 150W offered over the current 8-pin PCIe power connector.

The new PCIe 5.0 power connector has 16 lanes (12 power, 4 signal lanes) and is a totally new connector. You can see the 12 power lanes, but the strange new 4 signal lane position underneath the 12 power lanes is new. This new connector has smaller spacing than current connectors, down to 3.0mm from 4.2mm. The new connector is 18.85mm wide, making it much smaller than dual and especially triple 8-pin PCIe power connector setups.

AMD has just pushed out a new Radeon Software Adrenalin 21.10.1 driver, which packs support for Microsoft's just-released Windows 11, as well as some of the biggest games that were just released.

The new Radeon Software Adrenalin drivers pack Windows 11 support, as well as optimizations for Ubisoft's also-just-released Far Cry 6 and EA DICE's big Battlefield 2042 Open Beta. In Far Cry 6 we have up to 10% more performance on the Radeon RX 6700 XT at 1080p Ultra graphics with RT enabled, while at 4K Medium settings the Radeon RX 6800 XT is up to 12% faster, and at 1440p Medium settings the Radeon RX 6600 XT is up to 13% faster -- all with ray tracing enabled.

AMD provides built-in support for the Battlefield 2042 Open Beta, Naraka: Bladepoint, and gives up to 11% more performance in PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds at 4K Ultra settings in DX12 mode on the Radeon RX 6800 XT. Not bad all-around, I'd say... especially if you're wanting to play Far Cry 6 or the Battlefield 2042 Open Beta.

I'm sure we all know someone who is still waiting for a GeForce RTX 30 series graphics card, with a gamer in Poland waiting over a year... and celebrating this in style.

A bakery in Poland called E-Torty posted a story to their Facebook page, explaining that a customer of theirs ordered an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 graphics card in September 2020 and has still not received it. The gamer asked E-Torty to make a 1-year anniversary cake, and then sent it to the retailer... to thank them for the year that they've spent together.

E-Torty said it was one of the funniest orders they've ever had, and once the cake was made and sent to the retailer, the Polish gamer received his GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 3080 graphics cards days later. Waited a year, sent a cake, received it days later... maybe the gamer should've gotten a cake in return?

NVIDIA is in the headlines again with the tweaked GeForce RTX 3090 Ti, with some interesting new parts that are slowly making up what will be the GPU to wrap up the year and kick start 2022 and NVIDIA's fight against AMD and soon, Intel with its Arc Alchemist graphics cards.

The current GeForce RTX 3090 features a 350W TDP while the new GeForce RTX 3090 Ti (or GeForce RTX 3090 SUPER) would have a 400-450W TDP. We'll have the same 24GB of ultra-fast GDDR6X memory but this time NVIDIA will reportedly moving with single-sided memory, versus the double-sided GDDR6X memory on the GeForce RTX 3090.

So, we have a new 450W TDP, new single-sided GDDR6X memory, and then even a new power connector. Yeah, a new power connector -- NVIDIA already shifted the game up a fair amount with their use of a 12-pin PCIe power connector on its GeForce RTX 30 series GPUs. But now with the new GeForce RTX 3090 Ti they're expected to use a new standard for PCIe 5.0 -- possibly a new 16-pin PCIe power connector.

Amazon is continuing to kill innocent GPU silicon with its new game New World, with the open beta killing GeForce RTX 3090 graphics cards, and now the full game is here and it hasn't stopped.

Previously, New World was killing EVGA GeForce RTX 3090 FTW3 graphics cards, with EVGA explaining it was due to "bad soldering". But now, new reports from PowerGPU -- a custom PC builder -- tweeted that the company received multiple emails from customers saying their graphics cards died after playing New World.

It seems gamers need to make sure they cap their FPS, or things can get out of control on a really powerful graphics card as you enter the many hundreds of frames per second. A user on Reddit played the full game, with uncapped FPS, on his brand new PC with a GeForce RTX 3080 Ti inside. The post explains: "Just hours before live servers I decide to go back into the game due to anticipation and then my GPU fans go wild/loud and hangs the PC. I reset and the red VGA light appears on my motherboard......... sadge. I have since replaced my graphics card with my old 1070 which is now working fine (and set all settings to low)".

Aaaand it's official: ASUS and Noctua have officially announced the new ASUS GeForce RTX 3070 Noctua Edition graphics card. Check it out:

The new ASUS GeForce RTX 3070 Noctua Edition graphics card is the world's first graphics card to use Noctua cooling fans, and a custom heat sink co-engineered by Noctua. The card looks unique, but utterly beautiful, and will now be one of the quietest graphics cards of its class -- in the RTX 3070 arena.

There's a semi-passive fan control system on the card, where the fans will disable once the GPU temps are under 50C. This means that for everything you're doing with your PC, the GPU is only going to hit 50C when it's doing something: gaming, mining, rendering. It will be silent for all other operation. Even once the fans spin up, they're Noctua fans... so it would be interesting to see how the noise levels are, as they should be close to silent.

Intel's new Arc Alchemist reference graphics card has been teased in much greater detail, with some delicious new renders to tease us at least 6 months ahead of the big launch from Team Blue.

This isn't the first time we've had a look at the reference model Intel graphics card, but now Tom from Moore's Law is Dead is showing off a new render with a dual-fan cooler and some RGB lighting on the fans and side. This is the Intel DG2-512 GPU-baed model with dual PCIe power connectors -- 8+6-pin PCIe power connectors -- with up to 300W of power at the ready.

Intel has previously said that its Arc Alchemist will launch in Q1 2022, but the company wasn't clear on whether that was the desktop or mobile SKUs. I would dare say the mobile products will launch first, and then desktop Intel Arc Alchemist in Q2 2022 -- if all things go well, and there's no issues -- of which I'm sure there will be.

ASUS has officially teased its new graphics cards based around the world of Noctua, with new cards designed in collaboration with Noctua. Check it out:

The new cards aren't exactly official yet, with an ASUS representative sharing some juicy photos of the ASUS x Noctua GeForce RTX 30 series graphics card on the official ASUS ROG Vietnam Facebook page. The ASUS x Noctua GPU is a 3.5-slot chunky boi, with 3 x DisplayPort 1.4 and 2 x HDMI 2.1 display outputs.

ASUS requires dual 8-pin PCIe power connectors, but we don't know if the GPU is overclocked or not. I mean, I'd be disappointed to find out that a custom graphics card with a custom cooling solution from a high-end company like Noctua (and given it's an ASUS ROG card) doesn't have any factory OC.

Emtek has done some simple tweaks to a couple of its graphics cards, and unveiled the new Diablo 2 Remastered themed cards.

The new Diablo 2 Resurrected themed graphics cards are offered in the GeForce RTX 3060 and GeForce RTX 3070 Ti models, with the RTX 3060 using a dual-fan cooler while the RTX 3070 Ti model uses a triple-fan cooler. Both cards have Diablo 2 Resurrected artwork on the back.

We don't know the GPU clock speeds of the Emtek RTX 3070 Ti Storm Dark Diablo 2 Resurrected Edition, but it will feature the same 8GB of GDDR6X memory on all GeForce RTX 3070 Ti cards. Emtek will have a factory overclock on the RTX 3060 STORM X DUAL OC Diablo 2 Resurrected Edition graphics card, with the GPU overclocked to 1837MHz and a 180W TDP.

GPU prices are already out of control and the situation won't be getting any better, not even for the next 12-18 months, and now a copper foil shortage is making things worse.

Copper foil is used to make PCBs (printed circuit board) for motherboards and graphics cards, with the cost of copper rising from $7845 per ton towards the end of 2020, to $9262 now. The rise of cost for copper as well as rising energy costs in China is making for the perfect storm of rising costs of production, and an unsure world of product pricing moving forward.

PCB costs won't just affect graphics cards and motherboards, but anything that has a PCB -- it's just that graphics cards and motherboards have many more connectors and thus, more copper is required. This won't drive the price up on products by much, but high-end components rising 10% in cost would matter when you're talking $500-$1000+ or higher. Manufacturers can eat the cost of course, but motherboards and graphics cards are only costing more and more, especially with the impending launch of Intel's 12th Gen "Alder Lake" platform.

SAPPHIRE's new PULSE Radeon RX 6600 graphics card isn't too far away now, with the non-XT version of the card reportedly launching October 13 for 590 EUR -- or a shave under $700.

I've already taken a look at the SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 6600 XT, but the PULSE Radeon RX 6600 (non-XT) model has made an early debut at a Portuguese retailer. The new SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 6600 is a bit smaller than the RX 6600 XT variant, but it still retains the same 8GB of GDDR6 memory.

AMD cuts down the Navi 23 GPU inside of the RDNA 2-powered Radeon RX 6600, with 28 Compute Units (1792 Stream Processors), a custom PCB, and a single 8-pin PCIe power connector. We'll have our review of all of the custom Radeon RX 6600 graphics cards as soon as the cards are in my hands, and the NDA is up.

NVIDIA is welcoming developers of all kinds to come and use their powerful supercomputers and test out the latest builds of their DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling).

The company is wanting developers to test out the new DLSS builds and then provide feedback about their experiences on the developer forum of their website. The company explains: "NVIDIA is enabling developers to explore and evaluate experimental AI models for Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS). Developers can download experimental Dynamic-link libraries (DLLs), test how the latest DLSS research enhances their games, and provide feedback for future improvements".

"Powered by dedicated AI processors on NVIDIA RTX GPUs called Tensor Cores, NVIDIA DLSS technology has already been adopted and implemented in over 100 games and applications. These include gaming franchises such as Cyberpunk, Call of Duty, DOOM, Fortnite, LEGO, Minecraft, Rainbow Six, and Red Dead Redemption, with support coming soon for Battlefield 2042".

Right up until now, I've been referring to the Intel Arc series GPUs as the Intel ARC -- will be not be capitalized and I totally agree with Usman Pirzada at Wccftech when he said he's disappointed Arc isn't capitalized. I agree with how NVIDIA is capitalized, and personally, I think that is more powerful.

I hate to say it, but the capitalization in some branding works wonders. AMD wouldn't be as powerful as AMD, but Apple would look kinda weird as APPLE. Intel is fine, but INTEL would be weird... but ARC looks natural, while Arc feels weaker. Arc just doesn't feel or look as good as ARC.

Disappointment of Arc not being capitalized aside, the new Intel Arc GPUs will reportedly be named Arc a170, Arc a150, and Arc a130. Wccftech has put some guesswork into the naming schemes, where we could see Intel Arc a300, a500, and a700 as well as the Arc a130, a150, and a170 that will be joined by the Arc A800, a600, and a200.

Intel will have multiple of its ARC Alchemist series graphics cards next year, with Tom from Moore's Law is Dead giving us some more rumors to nibble on.

MLID is reporting that there will be at least 3 different Intel ARC Alchemist GPUs launching next year: one with 512 EUs, another with 384 EUs, and another with 128 EUs -- EUs being Execution Units. Each of the cards should have varying levels of GDDR6 memory.

The high-end Intel ARC Alchemist with 512 EUs will reportedly have 16GB of GDDR6 memory at 16Gbps, although we could see this ramped up to 18Gbps but this hasn't been confirmed yet. Board power-wise we're looking at this card requiring 8+6-pin PCIe power connectors and a 225W TDP.

The very latest rumors of NVIDIA's refreshed GeForce RTX 30 SUPER series are here thanks to kopite7kimi, check them out below:

The new GeForce RTX 30 SUPER series graphics cards will be debuted in the coming months, before we ramp up into the release of NVIDIA's next-gen Ada Lovelace GPU architecture and the new GeForce RTX 40 series GPUs that we've been hearing more and more about.

NVIDIA's new desktop-focused GeForce RTX 30 SUPER series sounds exciting, with a few cards in the lineup: the GeForce RTX 3090 SUPER with 24GB GDDR6X memory, GeForce RTX 3080 SUPER with 12GB of GDDR6X, GeForce RTX 3070 SUPER with 8GB of GDDR6X and finally, the GeForce RTX 3060 SUPER with 12GB of GDDR6 (non-X) memory.

AMD has just launched its RDNA 2-powered Radeon RX 6600 XT graphics card and now we're ramping up into the Radeon RX 6600 non-XT launch.

AMD's new Radeon RX 6600 has already been teased but we're expecting AMD to require all AIB partners to list their samples by last week, on September 15 -- these samples can start shipping on September 29, but they're not allowed to arrive before October 4.

The NDA for the Radeon RX 6600 is reportedly October 13... and the GPU itself will feature 1792 Stream Processors and 28 Compute Units on the kick-ass RDNA 2 graphics architecture, with 8GB of GDDR6 memory joining the mid-range 1080p gaming GPU party.

HP seems to be getting ready to launch its new ENVY 34 All-In-One PC with NVIDIA's unannounced GeForce RTX 3080 SUPER graphics card.

We should expect to see HP launch its new 34-inch AIO system to also rock AMD's unreleased codenamed Rembrandt CPUs in the new Ryzen 6000 series. Both the GeForce RTX 3080 SUPER and AMD Ryzen 6000 series chips should launch at CES 2022 in January.

HP's new system will go on sale next month, so maybe we'll see the first wave of ENVY 34 AIO systems come out with different GPU offerings and then an updated model would launch in early 2022 with the new GeForce RTX 3080 SUPER graphics card. The model launching next month will cost $1999, rocking what should be a beautiful 34-inch 5K Ultra-Wide 21:9 display and an Intel 11th Gen Core i9 processor.

NVIDIA has just released its new GeForce 472.12 WHQL drivers which offer official Windows 11 support, with Microsoft's new OS just weeks away with a release on October 5.

The new drivers give GeForce RTX games support for DirectX 12 Ultimate, as well as enhancing SDR games with Microsoft's built-in Auto HDR, as well as DirectStorage which is all ready to crank your games to the next level on Windows 11.

There's also some tweaks and improvements that are included in the new GeForce 472.12 WHQL drivers, including improvements to Microsoft Teams and NVIDIA Broadcast thanks to the new features in Windows 11. NVIDIA has also taken the time to add 28 games supporting DLSS, which has super-speeded along thanks to DLSS powering Unreal Engine 4 and Unity including DLSS plugins.