Graphics Cards - Page 2

Hydra is a custom GPU overclocking and monitoring tool created by Yuri Bubliy (1usmus), and a notable 2.3B update is expected to drop next week for Early Access subscribers on Patreon. This update is currently making headlines because it's set to introduce advanced VRAM overclocking and power-limit controls for GeForce RTX 50 Series GPUs.

According to the post, owners of GeForce RTX 50 series graphics cards from any vendor will be able to increase and overclock GDDR7 memory speed up to 36 Gbps. For most cards in the lineup, this would equate to a +3000MHz increase, with the developer noting that it achieved this with a custom solution that's not "a security hack, a VBIOS modification, or some kind of 'magic' driver."

To accompany the announcement, the developer showcases images of their ASUS ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 GPU hitting an impressive 2.3 TB/s of memory bandwidth thanks to the new 36 Gbps overclock. They also note that 36 Gbps is an intentional limit "with user safety in mind," meaning that the ceiling could go even higher.

A Redditor on r/eWasteFinds says he pulled a working RTX 2080 Super out of what he called his "local dump." Apparently that find turned into a massive free upgrade over the card he was running before.

According to the post, the user was previously running an MSI HD 6950, a card that's about as far from a modern GPU as you can get. The HD 6950 launched back in 2010 with 2GB of GDDR5 and no support for DirectX 12, ray tracing, or any of the upscaling tech that's become standard in PC gaming. Going from that straight to an RTX 2080 Super is roughly the equivalent of skipping several console generations in one sitting.

The 2080 Super with its 8GB of GDDR6 and Turing-generation ray tracing hardware also supports DLSS upscaling, something that simply didn't exist yet when the HD 6950 was new, so the jump in playable settings and frame rates should be substantial across the board.

ASUS has introduced a new update to its GPU Tweak III overclocking software that allows the application to turn off its host machine if dangerously high current is detected passing through the GPU's 16-pin power connector. The latest version, V.2.1.8.0, introduces this auto shutdown feature for ASUS GPUs that support Power Detector+.

The new update specifically unlocks the ability for GPU Tweak III to shut down the machine if the wires on a 12V-2x6 power connector achieve over 12.5 amps. By default, GPU Tweak III's shutdown functionality is disabled and needs to be turned on in the GPU Tweak III interface for those who want to use it. Uniko's Hardware on X revealed the new options that can be adjusted for the detector, including a pop-up countdown that can appear if the current exceeds 12.5 amps for so many minutes. The user can also adjust the amount of time it takes before shutdown occurs when the power connector runs over the aforementioned amperage limit.

Power Detector+ is a technology developed by ASUS that allows GPU Tweak III to monitor the current of each pin on graphics cards that support it. Currently, Power Detector+ is ASUS' exclusive and is only available on a handful of high-end RTX GPUs, including ROG Astral and Matrix RTX 5090 and 4090 graphics cards.

With NVIDIA's Rubin and Rubin Ultra GPU architectures rolling out now and on the immediate horizon in the AI and Data Center spaces, the company's next-generation 'Feynman' architecture is in development. According to a new report from DigiTimes, NVIDIA's 'Feynman' GPU technology is targeting the second half of 2028 for mass production and release, and it's going to use TSMC's most cutting-edge process to date - A16.

Yes, apparently NVIDIA will skip TSMC's N2 or 2nm process family for its 'Feynman' products and instead move to the more advanced A16 1.6nm process. This represents a significant jump, as Rubin and Rubin Ultra are based on TSMC's N3 process. However, separate to the node shrink, what makes this notable is that 'Feynman' will be the first NVIDIA technology to feature 3D chiplets via TSMC's System on Integrated Chips (SoIC) technology, backside power delivery, and next-generation packaging.

Compared to the 3nm Rubin and Rubin Ultra, this represents a major evolution in design. Of course, much of the timing depends on TSMC expanding capacity, with the DigiTimes report adding that the company is accelerating construction of its AP7 and AP8 facilities to ramp up SoIC production. This includes earlier-than-expected deployment for new equipment, cleanrooms, and various operations.

Just when entry-level GPUs looked like the last affordable corner of PC gaming, that corner is apparently about to get squeezed too. PC Partner Group, the Hong Kong company behind ZOTAC, INNO3D, and Manli, warned in its first-half 2026 financial results that graphics card shortages are set to get "even more" severe in the entry-level segment specifically, with average selling prices expected to climb further in the back half of the year.

According to the company, the culprit is the same one we've been hearing about all year: rising graphics memory costs, driven by AI demand, eating into GDDR6 and GDDR7 supply. PC Partner didn't name specific models, but cards like the RTX 5050, RTX 3050, and the recently launched Radeon RX 9050 are already selling above MSRP in several markets, and this warning suggests that gap is only going to widen.

It's not just graphics memory either. PC Partner says lead times for CPUs, standard DRAM, and other core components have gotten "significantly longer" too, apparently making the entire PC supply chain harder to plan around. Standard DRAM prices have already surged repeatedly this year on the back of data center demand, so the warning aligns with a pattern we've seen play out again and again in 2026.

AMD apparently really didn't want anyone testing the Radeon RX 9050 before it landed on shelves. According to Hardware Unboxed, AMD skipped sending review samples entirely, and reportedly blocked its own board partners from shipping cards out to independent reviewers too.

The channel says it eventually tracked one down through unofficial channels, though it can't name the partner or show the card since the source asked to stay anonymous. Now that the numbers are out, it's easier to see why AMD may have wanted this one kept quiet.

The RX 9050 is the smallest RDNA 4 desktop GPU AMD has released so far, built on a cut-down version of the Navi 44 die that powers the Radeon RX 9060 XT. It ships with 16 Compute Units, 1,024 Stream Processors, and 8GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, half the shader count of the 9060 XT, at a launch price around $279. That much seems good enough, but then we get to the benchmarks.

Although the current GPU crisis has led to price increases and some scarcity, on the plus side we are still getting some impressive new variants. Case in point, the new ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX 5080 SOLID CORE OC 20th Anniversary Edition, created to celebrate the company's anniversary milestone.

This custom GeForce RTX 5080 takes ZOTAC's new SOLID CORE design, which debuted with the GeForce RTX 50 Series, and gives it an anniversary makeover. This includes a titanium colorway, which gives the card a stylish, brushed-metal bronze look, and a magnetic mirror-like backplate that can be attached to the existing metal backplate.

The ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX 5080 SOLID CORE OC 20th Anniversary Edition features a 2.5-slot physical design, so when it comes to flagship or premium GeForce RTX 50 Series cards, it's on the smaller side. That said, the 303.5 x 115.8 x 55.7mm dimensions and metal build still mean that it comes with a DUO ARGB GPU stand, which, as the name suggests, has an LED light bar integrated into the stand.

A new overclocking tool has been developed that improves the crossbar frequency of an RTX 5090, giving the GPU faster interconnect speeds. Spotted by VideoCardz, a new tool called melonVolt has been published on an overclock.net forum thread that gives users direct control over the MSVDD voltage offset found on modern NVIDIA GPUs. Changing this voltage automatically increases or decreases the crossbar frequency, giving users a way to overclock their GPU's interconnect.

Based on user reports from the overclock.net forum, tinkering with the MSVDD voltage can improve the RTX 5090's crossbar frequency by over 100MHz depending on how far the voltage is pushed and how good the silicon quality is on the GPU. At least eight different users with various RTX 5090 models tested melonVolt with varying levels of success. The lowest GPU achieved 90MHz higher clocks from 2670MHz to 2760MHz, while the best GPU achieved 142MHz higher clocks going from 2625MHz to 2767MHz.

There is not a lot of benchmarking information to judge just how effective overclocking an RTX 5090's interconnect can be. But one of the overclock.net members who tried melonVolt did share a 3DMark Steel Nomad benchmark result showing their RTX 5090 outperforming a top 27 Hall of Fame RTX 5090 result while operating at a 120MHz lower GPU clock and memory clock. Unfortunately, 3DMark does not show the crossbar frequency for each individual result, but the top 27 result was achieved well before melonVolt came out.

The NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Workstation Edition graphics card launched last year, and it's basically a souped-up dual-slot GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition built for AI. In addition to an expanded CUDA Core count of 24,064 compared to the RTX 5090's 21,760, the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell also features 96GB of GDDR7 memory, with a similar 512-bit interface as the RTX 5090 offering up a massive 1,792 GB/s of bandwidth.

Even when it launched last year, the AI boom and memory crisis were still a thing, albeit not quite as insane as it is right now. An RTX 5090-class workstation GPU with 96GB of fast GDDR7 memory meant it sold for $8,565 at launch, making it NVIDIA's most expensive desktop-class graphics card for workstations. Cut to 2026, and that's still the case, except that it's now almost double the price.

On NVIDIA's own marketplace and storefront, the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell is now priced at $16,000 USD (via Videocardz), an 87% increase over the launch MSRP and a 20% increase over the $13,250 price point in June. The main reason for the price increase, which we safely assume, is the sharp increase in component costs, specifically for memory. For the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell GPU, which features 32 x 3GB GDDR7 modules, the memory price increases we've seen in recent months are multiplied by 32.

Yesterday we covered a mod for the Steam Machine that unlocked compatibility with an eGPU dock, making it possible to pair Valve's latest console with graphics cards such as the RX 9070 XT. However, the modder who first shared this mod on the internet neglected to provide any in-depth benchmarks of the mod in action. ETA Prime on YouTube has since taken this same mod and put it through a plethora of benchmarks, giving us a good idea of how external GPUs such as the RX 9070 XT truly perform with the Steam Machine's 30W CPU.

The YouTuber benchmarked the RX 9070 XT with the Steam Machine in several games: Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, Cyberpunk 2077, Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider.

In Cyberpunk 2077, the game achieved an average of 70 FPS at high settings 1440p at native resolution. GPU usage in this game was hovering at 70% with CPU usage hovering in the high 70% range. Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart ran at a much higher 130 FPS average at 1440p, very high settings. GPU usage was hovering near 100%, unlike Cyberpunk 2077.

In recent weeks, we've seen the price of GeForce RTX 50 Series graphics cards increase in various markets, with multiple sources confirming that it's all due to GPU bundles going up substantially because of the memory crisis. For gamers in the US, these price increases are now well and truly here, with a new report from Tom's Hardware showcasing just how bleak the current situation is.

The report notes that its findings are based on online retail listings, via Newegg, for GeForce RTX 50 Series GPUs currently in stock. Comparing the median prices for GPUs in August 2026 to June 2026, the most alarming price increase is for the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB.

It seems that the already inflated median price of $569.99 USD for the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB has increased by a massive 39%, with it now sitting at $804.99 USD. The GeForce RTX 5070 has also seen a large 36% median price increase, with its June 2026 price of $659.99 USD increasing to $899.99 USD. These sorts of price increases directly affect the overall value proposition of these GPUs, which is a shame.

Modified GeForce RTX 4080 cards with double the VRAM are turning up on Goofish, China's secondhand marketplace, according to VideoCardz. These are stock RTX 4080 units that started life with 16GB of GDDR6X memory and have been upgraded to 32GB, with sellers asking more than 10,000 yuan, or roughly $1,480 for these cards.

We've seen a similar trend recently with the RTX 2080 Ti cards bumped to 22GB, which sell for around $500 on eBay. Of course, the newest RTX 4080 flavor of this conversion costs almost three times that, but you are getting more GPU for that price premium as well.

The RTX 4080 still runs a 256-bit memory bus and 9,728 CUDA cores, so doubling the VRAM doesn't touch bandwidth or gaming performance. The upgrade only really matters for AI inference, where fitting a larger model into local memory tends to matter more than raw throughput.

Someone has figured out a way to hook up an RX 9070 XT graphics card to a Steam Machine, despite Valve's latest console not supporting GPU upgrades or graphics card docks officially. Large_Customer_3840 on the Steam Machine subreddit showed off an RX 9070 XT graphics card hooked up to an external GPU dock working perfectly with a Steam Machine.

To make this setup work, the user took out the Steam Machine's integrated M.2 SSD and replaced it with an M.2 to OCuLink ribbon cable adapter to make the Steam Machine compatible with their Aoostar EG01 eGPU docking station. Since the Steam Machine lacks any additional M.2 slot or SATA slots, an external SSD was used in place of the M.2 SSD for storage.

SteamOS reportedly saw the RX 9070 XT without any issues, with signal output going from the GPU to the monitor perfectly without any additional tweaks in the OS. The only caveat the Redditor pointed out was that the Steam Machine would fail to display an image through the RX 9070 XT if the HDMI port on the Steam Machine itself was not connected. To remedy the issue, the Redditor routed an HDMI cable from both the Steam Machine's HDMI port and the RX 9070 XT to their TV.

Based on reports, AMD is planning to keep using its RDNA 3.5 architecture for its integrated graphics as part of its APU line-up until 2029. RDNA 3.5 powers the integrated Radeon RX graphics in its Ryzen AI 300 and 400 Series processors, while also powering gaming handhelds like the ROG Xbox Ally X from ASUS and Legion Go 2 from Lenovo.

That said, RDNA 4m is expected to be included in the company's upcoming 10-core 'Medusa Point' processor that will also leverage its next-generation Zen 6 CPU architecture. According to leaks and early information on RDNA 4m, the new mobile GPU architecture is something of an in-between, as in not the full RDNA 4 we see on the current Radeon RX 9000 Series desktop lineup.

These leaks note that it supports INT8 data types, so it will bring native FSR 4 technology support to the table, which is a big win for mobile AMD graphics and portable PC gaming. As spotted by Phoronix, RDNA 4m, under the name GFX1171 GPU, has been merged into Mesa 26.3, the Linux-based open-source graphics driver stack, ahead of its rumored Q4 2026 launch.

After a year of BSODs, freezes, artifacts, and PCIe errors across four separate RMA cycles, one Redditor has finally broken free from what they called their "RTX 4090 death loop."

Reddit user Prudent_Echidna1254 posted on the Zotac subreddit that after sending their Zotac GAMING GeForce RTX 4090 AMP Extreme AIRO in for a fourth RMA with just one month of warranty remaining, they waited 30 days before reaching out for an update. Zotac's U.S. RMA team came back with some unexpected news. Rather than sending another RTX 4090, the company is giving them an RTX 5090 SOLID, a card that currently sells for somewhere between $4,300 and $4,500.

"Thought ZOTAC would do me dirty and send me a faulty card that would fail on me again after my warranty would expire," the user wrote. "Well I hit the 30 day mark, shot an email to ZOTAC USA RMA for an update and they were able to get me out of the 4090 death loop I've been stuck with and sent me a 5090."

TrashBench on YouTube, known for doing crazy experiments with computer hardware, did his riskiest test yet, benchmarking a GPU cooled by nothing but water touching the GPU die itself. This "direct water cooling" method surprisingly worked and proved to be very effective, producing better temperatures than AIO liquid cooling.

To make this type of cooling solution possible, TrashBench had to create a fully custom cooling solution that wouldn't short-circuit the GPU and wouldn't let water leak onto the PCB. After a few failed tries on a dead RTX 3060, the YouTuber found a working solution featuring a 3D-printed block with adhesive sandwiched between the block and substrate to prevent water from leaking into the main PCB. Nail polish was used to protect the capacitors around the GPU from short-circuiting. After leak testing the makeshift cooling solution on the dead 3060, TrashBench conducted a cooling test on a working GTX 980 to ensure the cooling system can produce cool enough temperatures under a thermal load.

For benchmarking, TrashBench applied his makeshift cooling solution to an RTX 2060 Super hooked up to a Core i5-7600K test rig and tested the cooling solution against AIO cooling and the GPU's stock air-cooling. In Unigine Heaven, stock cooling achieved 70C, AIO cooling achieved 36C, direct water achieved 28C, and direct water with a freezer achieved 13C. Cyberpunk 2077 showed similar results with the RTX 2060 Super running cooler with direct water than on AIO cooling.

A Hong Kong-based eBay seller is now selling GeForce RTX 2080 Ti cards modded with 22GB of VRAM, double the 11GB the card shipped with back in 2018. The listing costs $499 and promises a working "Turbo" blower-style card, though buyers won't get to pick the brand. The seller's description says the card could be a GIGABYTE, MSI, ASUS, Leadtek, or whatever happens to be in stock that day.

Listing photos show a GIGABYTE blower card alongside a box stacked with modded units ready to ship, plus a GPU-Z screenshot confirming 22,528MB of memory on a running card. The seller's feedback score sits at 99.6 percent, and buyers on the listing itself, at least 38 of them, report the cards work as advertised.

VRAM mods like this trace back to modders in China, where cards like the RTX 4090 have been effectively banned from export under US sanctions. Rather than let older or restricted hardware go to waste, some workshops there have been stripping cards down, swapping in higher capacity memory chips, and reselling them with server-friendly blower coolers built for AI racks rather than gaming rigs.

In recent weeks, the memory and component crisis for consumer technology has seemingly gone from bad to worse. For PC gamers looking to upgrade, price increases for a wide range of components are the new norm. When it comes to GeForce RTX and Radeon RX graphics cards, in recent weeks we've heard about another round of price increases taking effect - with 20, 30, and even 40% price hikes on the table. And it's all because of DRAM.

Even with rising memory prices, demand for GPUs for gaming and local at-home AI is still there; however, based on a new notification from Japanese retailer Sofmap, high prices are only part of the issue. DRAM supply (GDDR6 and GDDR7) isn't simply a matter of paying more to get the same thing; there's a shortage.

The retailer states that ahead of the next big price increase happening this month, GeForce RTX graphics cards have been selling "extremely well." And with stock running out, the retailer notes that future restocks for cards like the GeForce RTX 5070, RTX 5070 Ti, and RTX 5080 are "unstable" and that if you "really want one," you better hurry.

NVIDIA's RTX Neural Texture Compression technology, which leverages AI to significantly reduce the VRAM footprint for game assets while maintaining image fidelity, is the sort of tech we need right now. In its most extreme use case, it can reduce texture sizes by up to 90%, which would make 8GB or 12GB of VRAM enough for 4K gaming.

With the current memory crisis driving GPU prices up, it makes sense for game developers to look to technologies like RTX Neural Texture Compression alongside DLSS as ways to improve performance and image quality for millions of gamers. NVIDIA has made the RTX Neural Texture Compression SDK available to game developers for a while now, but the latest RTX Neural Texture Compression (NTC) SDK v0.10.0 BETA release (available on GitHub) adds support for RTX Spark and Windows on Arm.

RTX Spark is NVIDIA's first SoC product for premium laptops and mini PCs, which combines a 20-core NVIDIA Grace ARM processor with an integrated RTX Blackwell GPU with 6,144 CUDA cores. Although RTX Spark laptops are expected to launch with combined memory pools of up to 128GB, RTX Neural Texture Compression is still a worthwhile addition.

A PC enthusiast just built a free tool in his spare time that reportedly protects RTX 5090 owners better than anything the GPU industry has shipped so far. Interestingly, he did it by leaning on AI coding help, which may rub some people the wrong way.

Reddit user Khalid released "12VHPWR Guard," a small Windows application that reads per-pin current draw straight off the I2C bus on ASUS ROG Astral RTX 5080, RTX 5090, and ROG Matrix RTX 5090 cards.

If any single pin pulls more than 9.5A for over 15 seconds, below ASUS's own 9.2A warning threshold, the tool force-closes background apps and shuts the system down. The current threshold and time window are both adjustable, and the app leans on HWiNFO's shared memory as a backup if it can't talk to the sensors directly.