Graphics Cards - Page 148

A very juicy rumor has just hit, and it makes a hell of a lot of sense -- AMD will refresh its RDNA 2-based Navi 2X GPUs for 6nm node for its next-gen mid-range Radeon RX 7600 and Radeon RX 7500 range graphics cards.

The rumor is coming from @Greymon55 on Twitter, which said that the new Navi 31 and Navi 33 GPUs will be based on the new RDNA 3 architecture -- expect these GPUs inside of the Radeon RX 7800 and Radeon RX 7900 series graphics cards.

Meanwhile, the Navi 24, Navi 23, and Navi 22 should be refreshed on the 6nm node and will be released with new names -- Radeon RX 7000 series parts. Navi 31 should power the new Radeon RX 7900 XT with its MCM/MCD (multi-chip module, or multi-chip design) while Navi 33 is a monolithic GPU design that should power the Radeon RX 7800 series GPUs.

GAINWARD has just unveiled its new GeForce RTX 30 Phantom+ GPU series, with the flagship GAINWARD GeForce RTX 3090 Phantom+ "Golden Sample" graphics card.

The new Phantom+ series are being made in GeForce RTX 3070, GeForce RTX 3080, GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, and GeForce RTX 3090 variants from GAINWARD. The new GAINWARD RTX 3090 Phantom+ Golden Sample still has the same 1845MHz boost clock, 420W TDP, 3 x 8-pin PCIe power connectors, and 2.7-slot cooler as the regular Phantom.

GAINWARD has made the new RTX 3090 Phantom+ GS more black than the original card, but the same design is here. The front LED strip has been moved, with RGB logo lighting up the side of the card which should look great inside of a gaming PC.

Intel made its ARC branding official today, with ARC being the Radeon to AMD and the GeForce to NVIDIA -- a new series of Xe-based GPUs in the new ARC series of discrete graphics cards.

Intel has now publicly confirmed that it's working on AI-based supersampling technology, where in 2022 and beyond we'll see the new ARC series graphics cards taking on DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) and FSR (FidelityFX Super Resolution).

Intel explains: "Upcoming Intel Arc graphics products are based on the Xe-HPG microarchitecture, a convergence of Intel's Xe LP, HP and HPC microarchitectures, that will deliver scalability and compute efficiency with advanced graphics features. Alchemist, the first generation of Intel Arc products, will feature hardware-based ray tracing and artificial intelligence-driven super sampling, and offer full support for DirectX 12 Ultimate".

Intel has officially confirmed the name of its upcoming Xe-based graphics cards: Intel ARC -- which will compete against the AMD Radeon and NVIDIA GeForce starting in 2022.

Intel ARC will launch next year starting with the DG2 series known as Alchemist, while the successor to Alchemist will be Battlemage... and after that we have Celestial and Druid. We should see the new Intel Xe DG3 GPU being Battlemage, currently in the ovens over at Intel.

The company also teased a picture of its first DG2 GPUs, with what should be the Intel DG2-128EU and Intel DG2-512EU. The bigger one will make its way into the flagship GPU on the desktop, while the smaller one will be baked into next-gen laptops in 2022 and beyond.

It looks like XFX is building out its new flagship Radeon RX 6900 XT Speedster ZERO WB, which uses an EK WaterBlocks cooler -- and a brand new PCB design, with more power for some overclocking fun.

We should expect AMD's super-expensive Navi 21 XTXH GPU, something I've heard the company is charging a damn hefty sum for the highly-binned GPU -- with triple 8-pin PCIe power connectors and a new custom PCB design.

But my gosh, look at that design -- I'm a huge fan of XFX using the Radeon RX branding with LEDs at the top of the card. But the new EK water block looks absolutely gorgeous, and I now need one in my life ASAP.

COLORFUL has just introduced two new B560-based Mini-ITX motherboards, and a new compact Mini-ITX graphics card that would go so well together in a small, but powerful Mini-ITX gaming PC.

The new COLORFUL CVN B560I Gaming Series mini-ITX motherboards come in the FROZEN and PRO variants, the FROZEN version coming in white and silver, the PRO version in black and silver. This will come down to the color scheme you're going with, as well as a new COLORFUL iGame RTX 3060 Mini OC graphics card.

I think COLORFUL's new iGame RTX 3060 Mini OC graphics card is more interesting, measuring in at just 182mm in length, and is a smaller dual-slot card that will fit into a tiny gaming PC. COLORFUL has the new B560 motherboards by its side, ready for that exact gaming PC.

AMD is now shipping out its very first Radeon Instinct MI200 accelerators, codenamed Aldebaran -- is an exciting new CDNA 2-based MCM (multi-chip module) graphics card made for datacenters of the future.

The new CDNA 2 architecture succeeds the CDNA architecture, which is an architecture AMD created specifically for data centers, with the new Aldebaran GPU now shipping to its first customers. If that's happening, we should expect AMD to push more and more of these out as we slide towards the end of 2021.

We don't know if the new MCM GPU is made on 7nm, but AMD's last slide on Aldebaran simply mentioned they would be using an "Advanced Node" which could be 7nm+ or 5nm. Aldebaran is AMD's first MCM GPU, but it's for datacenters -- gamers won't get to see an MCM-based Radeon GPU until 2022 with the introduction of the next-gen RDNA 3 architecture.

NVIDIA kinda tried to gimp its GeForce RTX 30 series GPUs by updating them with the introduction GeForce RTX 30 series LHR cards -- or Lite Hash Rate.

The crypto gimped performance has been interesting to say the least, with more on that below -- but NBMiner has now pushed out an update that ungimps performance by up to 70% which is big news... at least for now. The new NBMiner update doesn't instantly unlock the mining performance on the GeForce RTX 30 series LHR cards, but rather provides you with the ability to adjust some vaues that will boost mining performance.

NBMiner's new update will let you adjust values that works out the maximum unlockable hash rate for your specific LHR-series gimped GPU, with up to 68% more performance achieved when mining Ethereum on the ethash algorithm. Not bad at all.

AMD's next-gen RDNA 3 graphics architecture and its Navi 31 and Navi 33 GPUs have been teased again, with Navi 31 and Navi 33 GPUs being added into official ROCm developer tools.

Not all of the next-gen Navi 3X GPUs are in the ROCm dev tools, but the Navi 31 and Navi 33 are making an appearance. First off, AMD's new Navi 31 GPU is reportedly an MCM (multi-chip module) or MCD (multi-chip design) -- which should pack up to an insane 15360 GPU cores. MCM and MCD are fancier words for a dual, or multi-GPU design on a single card. Exciting times.

Even the GPU cores are reportedly not being called GPU cores anymore, they're known as RDNA Workgroup Processors (WGP). Navi 33 is a monolithic GPU, continuing on as we have GPUs of today with single monolithic GPUs.

NVIDIA's workstation-focused RTX A4000 card has been torn apart by "snake-robot" on Reddit, giving us a gander inside of the NVIDIA RTX A4000 workstation card -- something we don't normally see with high-end workstation GPUs.

Inside, the NVIDIA RTX A4000 uses a PG190 board design, which is based on the RTX 3060 Ti PCB with a single 8-pin PCIe power connector. On the RTX A4000 however, the power connector isn't directly connected to the board and rather, uses an extension cable.

As for the GPU, NVIDIA is using its GA104-875 GPU with has all of its 6144 CUDA cores, making it more like the GPU that NVIDIA uses in its GeForce RTX 3070 Ti. Unlike the RTX 3070 Ti, NVIDIA has used GDDR6 non-X memory but with ECC (Error Checking and Correction).

SAPPHIRE has released something quite interesting: a new dual Polaris GPU-based crypto mining graphics card, with the introduction of the new SAPPHIRE Radeon RX 570 Duo.

The new SAPPHIRE Radeon RX 570 Duo graphics card packs dual Polaris 10 GPUs, with 8GB of GDDR5 memory each for a total of 16GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit memory bus with 268GB/sec of memory bandwidth each.

Each GPU has its own heat sink, so the GPUs are individually cooled and then the card is cooled with dual fans that should keep it pretty cool when mining 24/7. Since the Radeon RX 570 itself is a cut-down Polaris GPU, the dual Polaris 10 GPUs on the Radeon RX 570 Duo uses just 125W of power and pumps out 60MH/s when mining Ethereum.

I thought it was just me, but when Jensen Huang hosted NVIDIA's all-virtual GTC 2021 keynote, I thought his kitchen looked a little... I don't know, underwhelming for a billionaire. Well, maybe it was because the entire NVIDIA GTC 2021 keynote was digital. Yeah, they "faked" seconds of it with CGI -- from 1:02:41 to 1:02:55 and nobody... absolutely freaking nobody noticed.

This is an Iron Man-like moment for NVIDIA... providing that they can fake an actual CEO with next-gen deep fake-style technology. It's actually absolutely mind-blowing, but as what pop culture would refer to me as a "conspiracy theorist" it isn't so surprising.

Rather, it shows that you literally can't believe what your eyes see -- so while this is a very cool party trick, it is a tease of a haunting future. If the world doesn't go back to normal, and it probably won't -- then all virtual events right up to "appearances" of President Biden could be faked.

NVIDIA has just released its new GeForce Game Ready 471.68 WHQL drivers, with Game Ready support for the new Back 4 Blood Open Beta, and Nakara: Bladepoint.

Nakara: Bladepoint and Back 4 Blood both feature NVIDIA's kick-ass DLSS technology, so you'll get some major performance improvements at high resolutions. Nakara: Bladepoint launches on August 12, and will have DLSS ready to go -- offering up to 60% more performance at 4K.

The new NVIDIA GeForce 471.68 drivers are also Game Ready for the Back 4 Blood Open Beta, which kicks off August 12 on the PC -- and it also features NVIDIA DLSS technology for major performance improvements.

A new brand of graphics card has appeared out of nowhere in China, with Chiphell members teasing Vastarmor's new Radeon RX 6600 XT graphics card.

The same Chiphell forum members did their internet detective work, with Vastarmor having the trademark which was traced back to Pengyu (Shanghai) Digital Technology Co., Ltd. VideoCardz reports that this graphics card was "allegedly manufactured by the XFX factory. It is not, however, an XFX spinoff or a new subbrand".

To me, it looks far more like a custom ASRock Radeon RX 6000 series graphics card, but there are also a few different models with slightly different styles -- I've got some pictures of the second card below. The one above does look pretty good for a plain-looking card.

Oh, PowerColor... I don't think you could do worse than this -- but hey, I guess you can.

PowerColor has been shipping out its Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics cards with the bloody adhesive covers still on... yeah, blocking the covers on the cooling of your GPU is such a great thing. The blue covers you see in the picture above were shown in a post on Reddit, which should embarrass PowerColor -- or someone on the production line that made this card and maybe, just maybe, it's a once-off.

PowerColor staff posted on Reddit in shock, with "PowerColorSteven" replying with "bro what. where did you buy this from". This could've been a simple mistake in the factory, where it was just some oversight on a single PowerColor Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics card... or maybe something worse. I'm sure it's not worse, but who knows.

Valve's new Steam Deck might only be capable of pumping away at 30FPS but the custom RDNA 2 chip inside is 60% faster than the RDNA 2 chip inside of Aya Neo's Vega -- another handheld PC gaming device.

Steam Deck packs an AMD Van Gogh APU based on the Zen 2 architecture, with 4 cores and 8 threads clocked at up to 3.5GHz -- and is the first AMD APU packing integrated RDNA 2 graphics. Valve has said that there are 8 Compute Units (CUs) that have the RDNA 2 chip clocked at up to 1.6GHz.

This is all you need for 1280 x 800 @ 30FPS... and then add in that the RDNA 2 architecture offers FSR (FidelityFX Super Resolution) and you have a pretty exciting product in your hands -- literally. Given that you can play most games through Steam on the Valve Deck, this is going to be quite the seller in 2022.

AMD has already announced its new mid-range Radeon RX 6600 XT graphics card, which will cost "$379" and launches on August 11 -- but MSI's new Radeon RX 6600 XT GAMING X is now on Newegg for $1100. Nice one.

MSI's new Radeon RX 6600 XT GAMING X costing $1100 is absolutely insane, but it isn't insane in this New World of insane graphics card prices. It shouldn't be like this, but hey -- nothing we can do right now. The overpriced Radeon RX 6600 XT GAMING X card from MSI is being sold by a third-party seller in China -- ahead of the August 11 NDA.

But the thing is... how is Newegg allowing an unreleased graphics card to not only be listed but for sale on their website is beyond me. This card in particular is MSI's flagship Radeon RX 6600 XT in its GAMING X form, but $1100... yeah, I don't know about that. It's a 1080p graphics card, and $1100 is a tough pill to swallow.

I'm old enough to remember the hype of 3Dfx (capitalized D made the difference as they changed to 3dfx years later) and the original Voodoo 1. Man... it was an absolute game-changer. Super smooth frame rates, bi-linear filtering, 4MB of RAM and the ability of SLI... dual VGA cards at once?! It was a gamers' wet dream, literally.

Well, 3dfx eventually died down and NVIDIA acquired its assets in December 2020 -- most of it was IP rights. This is where NVIDIA took SLI from, 3dfx created the technology and NVIDIA acquired 3dfx and its SLI technology in the process, tweaked it, and then pretty much gave up on it with the lastest-gen GPUs.

But now... a San Francisco-based company called Jansen Products has acquired 3dfx assets and is trademarking that iconic name. Jansen Products... doesn't that smell fishy... NVIDIA owns 3dfx for the most part, with NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang... and now Jansen Products is teasing a return of 3dfx.

I just finished writing the world exclusive review of COLORFUL's beautiful iGame GeForce RTX 3060 Bilibili E-sports Edition OC graphics card, but now the company has unleashed its new iGame GeForce RTX 3070 LHR Bilibili E-sports Edition OC graphics card. Check it out:

It looks virtually identical to the GeForce RTX 3060 variant with one very, very big difference: COLORFUL is rocking out with the 12-pin PCIe power connector that has been exclusive to NVIDIA's in-house GeForce RTX 30 series Founders Edition graphics cards.

The new COLORFUL RTX 3070 LHR iGame Bilbili E-Sports Edition is a semi-custom design with a PCB that is probably a re-used NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 PG142 SKU10 reference design. The same 12-pin PCIe power connector is here, with some factory overclocking with the physical OC button on the back of the card driving GPU boost up to 1695MHz (1.8% increase).

We are still over a year away from AMD making its next-gen RDNA 3 graphics architecture real, but man we have been getting some real juicy leaks and rumors... and today, brings more delicious rumors.

We're now being treated with some block diagrams that visualizes AMD's next-gen RDNA 3 graphics architecture, with the Navi 31, Navi 32, and Navi 33 block diagrams teased. The new block diagrams are courtesy of leaker Olrak.

AMD's next-gen Navi 31 and Navi 32 will reportedly be MCD (multi-chip designs) while Navi 33 will continue on being a monolithic GPU design. Navi 31 is expected to be a beast, with up to 15360 Stream Processors, GPU clocks of up to 2.5GHz, and 256-512MB of Infinity Cache (up from 128MB on the Radeon RX 6800, RX 6800 XT and RX 6900 XT).