Graphics Cards - Page 21

NVIDIA is preparing for the big move away from its Blackwell GPU architecture to its next-generation Rubin GPU architecture, with new patches published that will see NVIDIA moving from Boot0 to Boot42 in new Linux driver updates.

The folks over at Phoronix spotted that NVIDIA has been submitting new open-source "Nova" driver patches that show the company is currently transitioning to Boot42, ditching Boot0 for Rubin. NVIDIA engineer John Hubbard discussed the move in the patch notes, explaining that future-gen GPUs will move away from the long-standing "NV_PMC_BOOT_O" register, to the new "NV_PMC_BOOT_42" to simplify detecting the logic for Nova.

The release notes also mention that there have been 33 lines of code removed, making it cleaner and a more forward-compatible structure. This is a rather interesting development, with the new Nova code being written in Rust, there is now progress towards the next-gen Rubin GPU architecture by the NVIDIA Linux team.

NVIDIA's Blackwell flagship is well out of reach for most people in terms of its colossal asking price, and the closest thing the majority of PC gamers might come to owning the mighty RTX 5090 graphics card is a drink coaster.

How so? Well, this is limited to another niche set of tech enthusiasts, admittedly, but VideoCardz spotted a 3D printer design for a coffee (or tea, or other preferred beverage) coaster.

It's a replica of the main printed circuit board inside NVIDIA's RTX 5090, with all the components in the correct places - and it does look rather nifty.

The China-based Board Channels forum has been a go-to source for unofficial, behind-the-scenes information on stock levels, shortages, and other graphics card-related topics in recent years. The latest post and report (via Videocardz) cites multiple NVIDIA GeForce RTX AIB partners as its sources and relates to the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti.

Released earlier this year, the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti came in two flavors: 16GB and 8GB. At the time, this drew its fair share of controversy as review units were, for the most part, limited to 16GB models. As 8GB of VRAM is now considered insufficient for maxed-out 1440p gaming, our review of a GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 8GB GPU showed this in some titles.

The Board Channels report notes that the 16GB model and variant have been "selling more strongly" (translated), while the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 8GB model's sales are described as "poor." Although this report is region-specific, we do know there are fewer RTX 5060 Ti 8GB cards available, and many are being sold as part of pre-built systems.

Intel's latest Arc Graphics or Game On Driver release is a big one for game support, as it covers six new PC game releases. Intel's Arc Graphics driver version 32.0.101.8247 Non-WHQL is now available for download. It adds support for ARC Raiders, Europa Universalis V, Football Manager 26, Jurassic World Evolution 3, The Outer Worlds 2, and Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines 2.

These titles are now available on PC, or out in a matter of days, and if you plan on playing any of them on a discrete Intel Arc graphics card or an Intel Core Ultra CPU with integrated graphics, be sure to grab this new driver here. It's a Beta or Non-WHQL release; however, as it also fixes some Arc issues, it feels like an essential update.

For the first Alchemist A-Series and the latest Battlemage B-Series of Intel Arc graphics devices, this new driver fixes some crashing issues in games like World of Warcraft and Satisfactory; however, Known Issues for games like Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 remain unresolved. Here are the full Release Notes for Intel Arc Graphics driver version 32.0.101.8247 Non-WHQL.

In an effort to curb the exponential demands of data centers to power artificial intelligence models, NVIDIA has backed a company that has a solution, and that solution is going off planet.

In a new blog post shared to the NVIDIA website, Team Green explains how it has backed the company Starcloud to create a new AI-equipped satellite that will be launched in low-Earth orbit, and be powered exclusively by the Sun.

Starcloud is a company dedicated to bringing state-of-the-art data centers to outer space, in a bid to solve the growing demand for data centers on Earth, which come with significant downsides such as energy consumption, cooling requirements, and the impact they have on Earth's environment.

NVIDIA has been releasing tech demos for its GeForce graphics cards for well over two decades now. The era of 2000 - 2010 is widely considered the golden era for these tech demos, as they demonstrated cutting-edge rendering technologies for lighting, animation, reflections, and the creation of complex 3D worlds. Stuff that brought in-game visuals and fidelity to where we are today.

NVIDIA's latest tech demo and RTX Technology Showcase, called Bonsai Diorama, is in keeping with the spirit of the company's GeForce demos, focusing on cutting-edge rendering and RTX technologies enabled within Unreal Engine 5.6.1. The scene depicts a large bonsai tree on a waterfall-adorned rock floating in the sky, offering an impressive view of the current cutting-edge state and future of real-time graphics.

The scene includes new technology like RTX Mega Geometry for creating complex environments with seemingly infinite geometry, full path-traced nanite meshes with RTX Dynamic Illumination, and DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation for enhanced ray-traced image quality and performance.

A custom Radeon RX-themed Call of Duty graphics card makes much more sense than a GeForce RTX one because this franchise runs notably and consistently faster on AMD hardware. In fact, it's not even close, with Radeon RX GPUs delivering significant double-digit performance gains in Call of Duty compared to their GeForce RTX counterparts.

And with that, thanks to a new collaboration between ASUS, AMD, and the Call of Duty team, we've got the new ASUS TUF Gaming Radeon RX 9070 XT Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 Special Edition graphics card. In addition to having one of the longest names for a custom GPU we've seen, it features an impressive Black Ops 7 design that covers everything from lighting to the black and orange color scheme and iconography.

This GPU first made its appearance at the recent Call of Duty NEXT press event in Las Vegas, but this is our first proper look at the design. That said, getting your hands on one will probably be pretty hard as this custom GPU is limited to "1000 units (that) will be shipped to select retailers around the world."

Reddit user 'RunRepulsive9867' found quite the find when they recently purchased a second-hand $500 gaming PC on Facebook Marketplace. With the listing stating that the PC included NVIDIA's Turing-era flagship GeForce RTX 2080 Ti GPU from 2018, they were worried that it might have been a scam, as the card itself had the 'GTX' label and not 'RTX.'

NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 20 Series, led by the flagship GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, saw a shift from GeForce GTX to GeForce RTX due to it being the first generation of desktop gaming graphics cards from the company to include dedicated Ray Tracing cores and AI hardware in the form of Tensor Cores. Both paved the way for the modern era of cinematic RT-heavy PC gaming with AI-powered upscaling courtesy of technology like NVIDIA DLSS.

In fact, the RTX 2080 Ti is still a viable gaming GPU in 2025, thanks to its ability to use NVIDIA's DLSS 4 Super Resolution to boost performance, alongside featuring 11GB of fast GDDR6 memory. As for this $500 PC? Well, it turns out that the GPU inside is a rare prototype GeForce GTX 2080 Ti 12GB GPU in the style of NVIDIA's Founders Edition design for the RTX 20 Series.

We got our first look at ZOTAC's new ZBOX MAGNUS EN75060TC back at Computex 2025, a new compact mini PC that packs a powerful desktop-class GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB GPU inside its 2.65-liter chassis. Marketed as a console-sized solution for gamers, alongside being a capable AI PC, it's considerably smaller than a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X|S.

To fit all of this GPU power inside a mini PC that could comfortably be placed underneath a TV or on a desk next to a display, it also features a mobile processor in the form of the Arrow Lake-powered Intel Core Ultra 7 255HX, which features 8 Performance-cores and 12 Efficient-cores with a maximum frequency of 5.2 GHz. A powerful CPU in its own right that also includes integrated Arc graphics.

What makes ZOTAC's new ZBOX MAGNUS so impressive and viable as a compact gaming PC or Steam-box-like machine is the fact that it includes the full 16GB variant of the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti and not the 8GB model, unlocking fast 1440p resolution gaming with crisp visuals thanks to DLSS 4.

PowerColor's range of custom Radeon GPUs represents some of the most highly sought-after models among PC gamers thanks to their stylish designs, lighting, and overall thermal performance. And its latest, the new PowerColor Hellhound Reva AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT 16GB GDDR6 graphics card, is no different. However, it's a GPU that follows the recent trend of GPU makers creating characters and designing products around them.

Here, 'Reva' is a 22-year-old female from the distant future who has travelled to current-day Earth that has cat-like ears and 'Shatterclaw' made from the "strongest metal particles" that can break through both physical and "energy" shields. She also possesses 'Chrono Sight' that lets her predict the next 30 seconds of the future. And to top it off, she looks to be part-robot that somehow only weighs 49 kilograms.

Granted, it's all a little silly and fun, and there's definitely a market for attractive anime-inspired females adorning PC gaming gear. The Hellhound Reva Radeon RX 9070 XT appears to be a special edition model, as it features Reva on the metal backplate and comes packed with Reva goodies.

Although its internal custom GPUs are designed and built for its Legion PC gaming systems, LENOVO is expanding its offerings by introducing its first RDNA 4-powered custom graphics cards with the LENOVO Legion Radeon RX 9070 XT. This new GPU is included as an option for the 2025 Blade 7000P Mobile on Desktop (MoDT) gaming PC, which pairs desktop graphics with an AMD Ryzen 9 9955HX3D or Ryzen 9 8945HX mobile processor.

The GPU sports a similar design to the company's custom GeForce RTX 50 Series cards, resembling a stylish triple-slot brushed metal brick with RGB lighting on the side. Spec-wise, LENOVO's variant appears to be based on AMD's reference design, featuring a Boost Clock speed of 2970 MHz and 16GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit interface.

This isn't the first time LENOVO has offered Radeon products as part of its PC line-up; however, it's the first time the company is offering AMD's flagship offering, as the Radeon RX 9070 XT is currently the most powerful Radeon gaming option on the market.

For PC gaming and hardware enthusiasts, it's relatively common knowledge that NVIDIA's flagship GeForce RTX 5090 graphics card is restricted for sale in China. This means that NVIDIA's partners are unable to export this particular RTX Blackwell GPU to the region, which is why the GeForce RTX 5090D and RTX 5090D V2 GPUs were created. These China-only cut-down models comply with the US government-based export restrictions and controls on GPUs that can be sold in China.

And this is why a recent Reddit post showcasing a picture that claims to be from China has gone viral. The image shows pellets full of brand-new GeForce RTX 5090 graphics cards, the full-fat restricted versions, with what appears to be hundreds of cards. And to top it off, they're all MSI models, with the company's Ventus 3X and Gaming Trio variants clearly visible.

Since these GPU restrictions, which also cover AI and data center NVIDIA cards, went into place, there have been reports of companies and third parties circumventing the export restrictions. Allegedly, they are doing this by funneling GPUs into China via Singapore, and there are investigations underway. It's a sensitive topic, and with this new picture depicting hundreds of MSI-branded GeForce RTX 5090 GPUs making their way to China, the company has released a statement that says, no, it's not secretly selling RTX 5090s in the region.

Intel has announced its new Crescent Island GPU for data centers, featuring the next-gen Xe3P architecture, and up to 160GB of LPDDR5X memory for AI workloads.

The new Intel Crescent Island GPU is based on the new Xe3P architecture, which is the same GPU architecture that is going into Intel's next-gen Panther Lake laptop processors in 2026. Xe3P is another upgrade on top of the Xe3 GPU architecture, first inside of Crescent Island, and then on the consumer side with the new Arc C-series GPUs with Nova Lake next year.

Intel explains: "The new data center GPU code-named Crescent Island is being designed to be power and cost-optimized for air-cooled enterprise servers and to incorporate large amounts of memory capacity and bandwidth, optimized for inference workflows".

Intel's Panther Lake or Intel Core Ultra (Series 3) processors for laptops and handhelds are on the way, powered by the company's most advanced chip technology to date - Intel 18A. Intel notes that with improved performance and efficiency, Panther Lake will be able to deliver Lunar Lake levels of power efficiency with Arrow Lake-like performance.

Looking at the GPU side, which will be powered by Arc Graphics and the latest generation of Xe3 graphics, Panther Lake's top-end chip with 12 Xe Cores will reportedly deliver a 50% or 1.5X improvement over Lunar Lake with better support for ray-tracing, with Intel XeSS delivering its version of Multi Frame Generation optimized for portable devices.

With a reported 40% increase in performance-per-watt compared to Arrow Lake, and more Xe Cores to play with (Arrow Lake handhelds like the MSI Claw 8 AI+ feature a processor with 8 Xe Cores), the prospect of a high-end PC gaming handheld powered by Panther Lake and AI rendering could present a real alternative to AMD-powered handhelds like the ROG Xbox Ally X and Legion Go 2.

Using upscaling or 'Super Resolution' technologies like NVIDIA's DLSS, AMD's FSR, or Intel's XeSS is always a trade-off. You're essentially sacrificing visual quality and fidelity for improved performance, with the best examples actually delivering native-like or even better-than-native results thanks to advanced AI models.

NVIDIA's DLSS (especially the new DLSS 4) and AMD's FSR 4 are the two best examples of AI-powered upscaling for PC gaming; however, the latter is limited and exclusive to the new Radeon RX 9000 Series of GPUs due to its AI hardware requirement. This means RDNA 2 and RDNA 3 owners with a Radeon RX 6800 XT or Radeon RX 7800 XT are limited to using the inferior FSR 3.1, which delivers improved performance at the cost of image fidelity that's a step or two behind DLSS and FSR 4.

The good news is that, thanks to an unintended leak of FSR 4 code and files, an unofficial INT8 version of FSR 4 is circulating. It works on all Radeon GPUs, including RDNA 2 and RDNA 4 cards - but requires a bit of manual work. And with that, German outlet Computer Base has conducted an in-depth look at the performance and image quality of FSR 3 and FSR 4 running on three generations of Radeon hardware.

When NVIDIA shifted to the new 16-pin 12VHPWR power connector for the GeForce RTX 40 Series of desktop graphics cards, news of cables melting and GPUs being damaged began appearing online at a steady clip. The revamped 12V-2x6 design, introduced with the GeForce RTX 40 SUPER Series refresh and the new GeForce RTX 50 Series, saw a reduction in cases of 'GPU power cables melting'; however, instances still seem to appear as clockwork.

With only a handful of AMD's new RDNA 4-powered Radeon RX 9000 Series graphics cards adopting the new power connector, which delivers up to 600W over a single cable, it looks like we've got our second case of a Radeon GPU's power cable melting due to the new cable standard. The GPU in question is the impressive and sleek SAPPHIRE Radeon RX 9070 XT NITRO+, a premium model that adopts the new 16-pin power connector via an innovative hidden-cable design.

According to the report by Redditor 'e92justin,' the GPU was connected via a 3 x 8-pin power adapter connected to a 1000W Corsair power supply. Based on all of the investigations into the issue over the years, a faulty connection or improperly inserted cable could be the culprit. However, it's yet another case of the 12VHPWR and 12V-2x6 design power connector for modern GPUs failing, overheating, and effectively melting.

With a peak player count of almost 750,000 on Steam, odds are that if you're a fan of competitive shooters and jumping into the latest PC games, you've spent some time this past weekend playing Battlefield 6. And if you've been doing so on an AMD Radeon RX GPU, then you probably want to install the latest AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition Preview Driver.

AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 25.10.1 Battlefield 6 Preview Driver is the latest Radeon driver for PC gamers, explicitly built for Battlefield 6. In fact, that's the only thing listed in the release notes: new game support for Battlefield 6 running on DirectX 12. That's it, no bug fixes, no new issues, nothing else really. If you're not playing Battlefield 6 and have a Radeon GPU, you can skip this and wait for the next signed WHQL-certified driver release.

As one of the biggest releases of the year, outside of the seemingly poorly received campaign, Battlefield 6's massive multiplayer battles and large-scale destruction are proving to be a hit in ways that previous releases in the franchise (Battlefield 2042 and Battlefield 5) stumbled at launch.

GALAX has just unveiled its new single-slot GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB graphics card, which sports a blower-style cooler and is perfect for a SFF gaming rig. Check it out:

The new GALAX GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB MAX graphics card features a tight single-slot design, measuring just 20mm wide, with a single blower-style fan that pushes the hot air through a vapor chamber heatsink, using high-quality Honeywell Phase-Change TIM to make sure it can handle the 180W TDP of the RTX 5060 Ti GPU.

Inside, the new GALAX RTX 5060 Ti single-slot GPU features an 8-layer PCB with a 8+2 phase design, powered by a single 8-pin power connector, and uses the standard display configuration on the back with 3 x HDMI 2.1 ports and a single DisplayPort 2.1 connector.

Intel has discussed a little more about its Xe GPU architecture and its upcoming roadmap, with some confusing name changes on the way unfortunately.

During its Intel Tech Tour event, Intel unveiled a slide titled "GPU IP & Product Family Roadmap" which laid out its coming releases. There is a slide that includes all of the Xe GPU architectures: Alchemist discrete GPUs, Meteor Lake, Arrow Lake, and Lunar Lake CPUs, as well as its next-gen Panther Lake CPUs which will feature Xe3 GPU chiplets.

The naming scheme seems to be changing with Xe3, which isn't good to see as a few years ago when Intel announced its GPU roadmap, it was clear: Xe was Alchemist, Xe2 was Battlemage, Xe3 was Celestial, and Xe-Next was Druid. These names referred to discrete GPUs (Xe-HPG variants) that Intel was working on at the time, but now the company doesn't like to talk about discrete GPUs... it puts all of its focus on pushing SoCs (regular CPUs with integrated GPUs).

How much would you fork out for an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090? Probably a fair bit, and many gamers would leap at the chance to get one of these GPUs for not much more than a grand - a feat some lucky PC enthusiast managed recently.

Tom's Hardware reports that there have been two tales just shared on Reddit whereby people have managed to get an absolute bargain of an RTX 5090 at Walmart in the US - both of these being the PNY OC model.

First off, NestyHowk grabbed the PNY RTX 5090 for $1,399.99, an eye-opening saving of $600 on the normal price for the Blackwell flagship GPU.