Graphics Cards - Page 221

If you haven't heard, ASUS and MSI are involved in a heated battle with the companies reportedly sending out tweaked GeForce GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 cards to the press, with higher clocks than what are advertised on the box.

Well, EVGA has come out swinging with a new 'What You See Is What You Get' campaign and website, with the website stating: "EVGA was one of the first video card companies to offer overclocked video cards, and since day one EVGA always delivered the exact same products to reviewers as well as customers. EVGA does not "fake" reviews or send out products with "tweaked" clockspeeds to reviewers. With EVGA Superclocked, FTW and Classified video cards, what you see is what you get".

Our EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 FTW ACX 3.0 card is here, and will be reviewed later this week - so I'm excited to see what the clock speeds are out of the box. It's great to see EVGA coming out and doing this, as it puts a huge flag in the ground for authenticity and transparency for the company - which is something great to see.

Computex 2016 - Finally, our last video on Computex 2016 now that I'm not so busy and running around doing 15 trillion things at once - is of NVIDIA's huge 'booth' at the Grand Hyatt during Computex.

The company was showcasing its next-gen, Pascal-based GeForce GTX 1070 and GeForce GTX 1080 video cards, as well as it's huge push into VR. Not only that, but NVIDIA detailed Ansel with some truly beautiful pictures hanging on walls taken in-game, as well as huge VR Experience rooms where we got to play a bunch of games.

The energy in the room was intense, with gamers and everyone else enjoying themselves. What was your favorite part of the 10-minute video?

GIGABYTE has had some of the most impressive showings of GeForce GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 cards, especially with the super-fast GeForce GTX 1080 Xtreme Gaming card, which has a manual OC of up to 2.3GHz on the GP104. Yeah, insane.

Well, now we have the GTX 1070 Windforce OC video card, as well as the GTX 1070 G1 Gaming card - both of which are on their way to my lab. The GTX 1070 Windforce OC features a single 8-pin PCIe power connector, with a dual-fan cooler with two 90mm fans that will keep the card nice and cool under those heavy gaming sessions.

GIGABYTE's GeForce GTX 1070 Windforce OC has a maximum Boost clock of 1582MHz in its OC mode, while the Gaming mode has the Boost hitting 1556MHz. There's the usual 8GB of GDDR5 clocked at 8GHz on the 256-bit memory bus, and the same 3 x DP1.4 ports, 1 x HDMI 2.0b and 1 x DVI.

An interesting tidbit has hit the internet, with Hardware.fr's Damien Triolet claiming that ASUS and MSI are sending GTX 1080s to the press with modified BIOSes. The modified BIOS is enabling more power on the review samples, which are provided boosted performance - and thus, better reviews.

The report claims that the optimized BIOSes are common in the industry, with manufacturers encouraging GPU reviewers to enable special overclocking presets before reviewing the cards, reports VideoCardz. Now, I've been reviewing GPUs for nearly two years with TweakTown, and I've never been approached once by a company asking to do this - so I don't know where that part of the claim is coming from.

Hardware.fr's Damien Triolet adds that he asks manufacturers to provide retail BIOSes for his testing, with manufacturers not being too happy about having to provide the software. The two cards on the table in the middle of this debacle are the new MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Gaming X 8G (with our review on that card here) and the ASUS GTX 1070 Strix. We tested the MSI card and our sample was being overclocked past a certain speed, but I underclocked it to its advertised Boost clocks for my testing. I presumed it was the EVGA Precision X software playing around with the clocks, but maybe MSI has sent an overclocked card - so I thought I'd do some digging on my own.

We've had a few of the custom GeForce GTX 1080 cards come through our labs so far, with our first review being the MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Gaming X 8G, and it being a totally silent GTX 1080 experience. Well, GIGABYTE is now teasing their upcoming GTX 1080 Xtreme Gaming video card, which will be one of the fastest GTX 1080s released yet. GIGABYTE's new beast is teasing a huge GPU overclock, right up to 2.3GHz on the GPU... which is simply amazing.

GIGABYTE has used a totally custom PCB with Titan X style chokes and capacitors, with a dust/moisture/corrosion resistant PCB coating. The company has also used a 12+2 phase VRM that makes great use of GIGABYTE's Ultra Durable class components so that the card doesn't buckle under the pressure of the extreme overclocking. But we're not even at the best part yet.

GIGABYTE's new GeForce GTX 1080 Xtreme Gaming has an AIO liquid cooler, which allows the GP104-powered GPU and its 2560 CUDA cores to be cranked all the way up to 1936MHz on Boost, out of the box. The 8GB of GDDR5X is cranked up from 10GHz to 10.4GHz, providing 333.4GB/sec of memory bandwidth over the GTX 1080 Founders Edition memory bandwidth of 320GB/sec.

In the midst of NVIDIA experiencing stock shortages of the GeForce GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 in our exclusive story, news has just broken that AMD's upcoming Radeon RX 480 can hit 1.5GHz, and higher. The Radeon RX 480 is expected to fight directly against the HBM1-based Radeon R9 Nano, and the GTX 980 which just had a $25 price drop.

If we think about AMD hitting the $199 price point with the RX 480, and it being able to be toe-and-toe with the R9 Nano and GTX 980, we're looking at one of the best price/performance video cards ever released. Additionally, with some huge OC headroom included, it could be an even better card - especially if gamers can hit 1.5GHz+. The new Radeon RX 480 will supposedly reach 1.4GHz on its GPU easily, with 1.5GHz not far away and only a little additional tweaking required.

The RX 480 "Beast Mode" cards will include 6+8-pin PCIe power connectors for additional juice and overclocking headroom, and will be able to hit 1.5GHz right out of the box. We should expect the likes of SAPPHIRE, ASUS, MSI and the rest of the AIB partners to really hit these speeds. Considering the Radeon RX 480 only consumes 100W of power under gaming loads, and only hits 60C, we should be in for quite the surprise from AMD in a few weeks time.

NVIDIA is going on the offensive with its Maxwell-powered video cards, cutting the price of the GeForce GTX 970, GTX 980 and GTX 980 Ti. Now that the GeForce 10 series is here, it only makes sense for NVIDIA to clear out the inventory of 900 series cards, and that's a big benefit to gamers, too. NVIDIA has dropped the price of the GTX 980 Ti by $125, the GTX 980 by $75 an the GTX 970 by $25 - all priced in USD.

I wrote an exclusive story yesterday that GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 stock will not improve until late-July or even early-August, and now that NVIDIA has dropped the price on the enthusiast level GTX 900 series cards, it begins to make even more sense. The GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 cards are also way above the $699 price of NVIDIA's own GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition, with the EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 FTW ACX 3.0 listed on Amazon for a wallet-busting $1999.

With these price drops, AMD aren't in trouble with their unreleased Radeon RX 480 just yet - as they're pricing that at a very lucrative $199... but it does put the pressure on slightly. AMD need to ensure their stock levels of the RX 480 are far higher than the GTX 1070 and GTX 1080, but these new nodes aren't easy. AMD is using the 14nm FinFET process for its new Polaris-based Radeon RX series, while NVIDIA is tapping some of that 16nm FinFET for its Pascal-based GeForce 10 series. These recent price drops on the GTX 900 series however, are going to really spur some sales up, and hopefully keep consumers and gamers happy until the stock levels of the GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 improve late next month.

Exclusive: It was only yesterday that we reported on NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 cards selling above the $699 price of the Founders Edition, where we asked if there were supply issues on the GP104.

Now we've had an industry source tell us that there won't be a huge flood of GeForce GTX 1080 cards, from all partners, until late July or even early August. This makes sense, but it also means that the price gouging that is happening now, will continue - and could even get worse. The EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 FTW ACX 3.0 is selling for $1999 on Amazon right now, which is absolutely nuts.

But where to from here? If NVIDIA is going to have stock shortages on the GP104-powered GeForce GTX 1070 and GTX 1080, then that means that AMD could come in and really fling things around with the release of the Radeon RX 480. The reason being, is that the RX 480 is going to cost just $199 - but then there's a huge issue here. For AMD to be successful for that month of NVIDIA's low stock, they need to have plenty of RX 480s to go around, and not have shortages of their own. This is only going to result in a price war between NVIDIA and AMD, and it could lead to NVIDIA releasing the GeForce GTX 1060 earlier than anticipated, to fight off the RX 480.

Over the past few days, many of my friends (inside, and outside of the industry) have been asking me "where are all the GeForce GTX 1080s?" and I haven't taken much notice, until now. One of my friends has been eyeing off the awesome MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Gaming X 8G, simply because he couldn't find one in retail, or online anywhere in Australia.

Well, the Australian market for enthusiast level hardware at launch is always... bad, very bad. We get a handful (less than 10) on a good launch, and I experienced this first hand for 10 years working IT retail selling these exact cards. So I decided to check Amazon, and lo and behold - the price gouging is HUGE. The big surprise is is the custom card from EVGA in the form of the EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 FTW GAMING ACX 3.0 card, which is freakin' $1999 right now... this is absolute insanity.

Remember that NVIDIA unveiled the GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition for $699, but there is a huge premium on the cards right now - and this could be one of two reasons. The first, is that NVIDIA hasn't got enough supply of their 16nm FinFET-based GP104, and that's why the GTX 1080 is so expensive because retailers are wanting as much money as they can, while they can, as the stock levels are low. Second, it could be retailers doing their usual and price gouging - but this price gouging is on another level right now - especially at $1999 for a single GTX 1080 from EVGA.

It wasn't long ago when we found out that AMD's new Radeon RX 480 would run at 60C under load, drawing just 100W. Well, now we have the PCB shots of both the Radeon RX 480 and RX 470, and they're a sight to behold.

The Radeon RX 480 and RX 470 are shorter cards with a single PCIe power connector, and 4 x display outputs consisting of 3 x DP 1.3/1.4 HDR ports and a single HDMI 2.0 port. We're expecting 2304 stream processors on the RX 480, and both a 4GB version that will cost $199, and the 8GB version set at $229. All three of the Radeon RX series cards are based on the new Polaris architecture, baked onto the 14nm FinFET process from GlobalFoundries.

E3 2016 - With more details now available on AMD's range of Radeon RX series cards, we've stumbled across some Steam VR benchmark results on the Radeon RX 480, which scores just 6.3 in the Steam VR benchmark.

How does 6.3 on the Steam VR benchmark stack up? Well, considering the Radeon R9 390 scores around the same, AMD are positioning themselves incredibly well for VR. The Radeon R9 380 in comparison scores only 3.6, so AMD are comparing the RX 480 against it, and it really shines. The RX 480 should deliver R9 390 level performance, with it being compared to the HBM1-based R9 Nano in a recent story of ours, with the RX 480 set to consume 100W of power and run at 60C under load.

We've just reported on the AMD Radeon RX 480 consuming just 100W of power, and running at 60C under gaming load, with the Polaris 10-based card keeping up with, and beating the HBM1-based Radeon R9 Nano. Not too bad for $199, right? Well, now we have more details on not just the Polaris 10 GPU, but the Polaris 11 GPU which will be powering the lower-end cards.

Starting with the Polaris 10, we have 2304 stream processors all clocked at 1266MHz, with the Polaris 10 powering both the RX 480 and RX 470 cards. The RX 480 is going to be a beast of a card, offering R9 Nano/GTX 980 levels of performance with 4GB/8GB variants ($199/$229 for the reference models). It'll be great for 1080p and 1440p gaming, as well as VR gaming - with FreeSync support, and DisplayPort 1.3/1.4 (and HDR, too).

The Polaris 11 GPU will power the lower-end, eSports-aimed RX 460 card, which will feature 1024 stream processors, with no GPU clock speed numbers confirmed just yet. We know that there will be 2GB and 4GB models of the RX 460 offered, with a 128-bit memory bus and memory bandwidth of somewhere around 112GB/sec. The RX 460 features a pretty damn good 2.8x performance per watt improvement over the previous GCN cards like the Radeon R7 360. The Radeon RX 460 will also have a TDP of only 75W, so you don't need to use a PCIe power connector - which is going to be awesome for gamers who don't have a huge budget in terms of money, and power consumption/bills.

We've already seen leaked benchmarks on AMD's Radeon RX 480 where it beat the GeForce GTX 980, but now we have some more information to share - GPU clock speeds, temperature under load, and even the power consumption of AMD's new Polaris-based video card. AMD just unveiled the new RX 470 and RX 460 cards during E3, with pricing to follow on those cards shortly.

The Radeon RX 480 will arrive in both 4GB and 8GB variants, with the RX 480 4GB version costing $199 - and we can exclusively reveal the 8GB version will cost $229 according to our industry insiders. The partner cards will cost more obviously, but they'll have better coolers and higher clock speeds. Both of the RX 480 offerings will feature a base clock speed of 1080MHz, while it will boost up to around 1266MHz out of the box.

Under typical gaming loads, the RX 480 reportedly consumes around 100W of power, hitting 60C on an open-air test bench. The reference design incldues a single 6-pin PCIe power connector, and together with the PCIe 3.0 x16 port consumes up to 150W of power. Custom cards will include an additional PCIe power connector, while the "beast mode" AIB cards will feature a single 6-pin or single 8-pin depending on the card. But how is the performance?

E3 2016 - While we are still officially under NDA about the next-gen Polaris cards from AMD, the company revealed the line up at E3 2016 just now. AMD has made the Radeon RX 470 and RX 460 official, two new mid-range cards that will join the VR-focused RX 480 that's priced at just $199.

Starting with the Radeon RX 470 which is delivering "refined, power-efficient HD gaming" while the RX 460 is a "cool and efficient solution for the ultimate eSports gaming experience". The new Radeon RX series of video cards provide three fundamental "entitlements" for PC gamers and game developers.

Raja Koduri, the Senior VP and Chief Architect of Radeon Technologies Group said: "Gamers and consumers today are being left behind. Today only the top 16 percent of PC gamers are purchasing GPUs that deliver premium VR and Gaming experiences. Hundreds of millions of gamers have been relegated to using outdated technology. Notebook gamers are often forced to compromise. And tens of millions more can only read about incredible PC VR experiences that they can't enjoy for themselves. That all changes with the Radeon™ RX Series, placing compelling and advanced high-end gaming and VR technologies within reach of everyone."

E3 2016 - AMD will be hosting the PC Gaming Show at E3 2016 once again, and it'll also be working directly with PC Gamer on the show, which starts in 9 hours from now.

During the show, we're expecting to hear more about the Polaris architecture and various video cards - but now that the Radeon RX 480 has been revealed, is it time to hear about the Radeon RX 470? It packs the same Polaris 10 GPU as the RX 480, so let's hope that AMD kicks off E3 2016 with a bang. The live streams will be on YouTube, Facebook and Twitch, so we'll embed one of them once it goes live.

Just recently, we had a leaked 3DMark Fire Strike results on the Radeon RX 480, where it was beating the GeForce GTX 980 - which is double the price. We've also seen the SAPPHIRE Radeon RX 480 Nitro, and the MSI Radeon RX 480 Lightning, which MSI has updated us on and said it was a total fake. Boo.

AMD can't take all of the limelight right now, even with the great-looking MSI Radeon RX 480 Lightning shaping up well, and the first look at SAPPHIRE's new Radeon RX 480 Nitro - Team Green is once again in the headlines with its purported GeForce GTX 1060 video card.

VideoCardz is reporting that the GeForce GTX 1060 will rock either 4GB/6GB or 8GB of RAM, and it'll arrive with a 192-bit memory bus, knocked down from the 256-bit memory bus on both the GeForce GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 cards. There have been different SKUs noticed, with the GP106-powered card rocking a 192-bit memory bus, with the PG410 board using 4GB of RAM, while the other SKU sees it with 6GB of RAM.

We could also expect a GeForce GTX 1060 Ti which would be kinda cool, but we don't know when that'll be dropping at all. Whatever happens, AMD is ready for The Uprising.

AMD is preparing it's new 'The Uprising' marketing campaign for its Polaris launch, led by the Radeon RX 480 priced at $199, but how does it perform in benchmarks other than Ashes of the Singularity? Well, according to one leaked benchmark, the RX 480 beats the GTX 980 from NVIDIA in 3DMark Fire Strike.

We can see the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 with its 3038 score, versus the RX 480 and its higher 3194. It might not be much, but considering the RX 480 4GB (which is the card benchmarked here) is going to be priced at $199, and while NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 980 still sells on Amazon right now (at least at the time of writing) for $450+, AMD is onto a massive winner here. I don't want to throw my personal or professional weight behind it until I do my own independent testing, but I'm beginning to get excited about what AMD has on its hands - and that $199 price point, wow.

In the last 24 hours, we've seen the purported MSI Radeon RX 480 Lightning and SAPPHIRE Radeon RX 480 Nitro cards, both rocking 4GB of framebuffer. Personally, I love the look of the Lightning cooler over the cheese grater look SAPPHIRE has opted for - but these are leaks, we could expect some changes and different models before release.

AMD is on different footing since spinning off its GPU division into Radeon Technologies Group, with our own Jason Evangelho breaking a story through Forbes about RTG's new goals - kicking off its impressive 'The Uprising' marketing campaign.

Jason spoke with RTG boss Raja Koduri and Chris Hook (who is still looking for the Hydrofoil) about their new focus on the mid-range market, and what it means for gamers. Jason reported:

The first note is something worth actually noting - as this is something I totally agree with Chris Hook on. People want the $700 video card, but they don't have the money to pay for it - well, that's where the Radeon RX 480 4GB model priced at $199 steps in. The second note is "VR that just works" - this is how VR needs to be, easy. Ridiculously easy. Not having to upgrade PSUs, motherboards and operating systems goes a long way into keeping consumers happy.

Update: MSI has reached out to us, saying that this is "fake without any doubt". The full statement from MSI: "This stuff is way too retro for any new product...I can guarantee you this is fake without any doubt, There is no need to be too serious about it :)".

Just 24 hours after the leaks on the purported SAPPHIRE Radeon RX 480 Nitro 8GB appear, we have the world's first look at the MSI Radeon RX 480 Lightning, powered by AMD's next-gen Polaris architecture, and rocking a triple-fan cooler.

The leaks are coming from Chiphell, with two photos of the card and some 3DMark benchmarks. The first shot of the card shows off that beautiful Lightning cooler, with a triple-fan system keeping the Polaris 10 GPU nice and cool, with a gorgeous black/white design. I'm definitely loving the look of MSI's offering versus the RX 480 Nitro from SAPPHIRE.

The first pictures of a custom AMD Radeon RX 480 have arrived, with the SAPPHIRE Radeon RX 480 Nitro 8GB making an appearance, rocking a new silver cooled shroud with a dual-slot, dual-fan design.

SAPPHIRE's upcoming Radeon RX 480 Nitro 8GB features an LED-illuminated SAPPHIRE logo, with VideoCardz's source stating that the colors will change depending on the fan speed, GPU temperatures, or a custom profile that the user can set.

The Radeon RX 480 reference design from SAPPHIRE has been revealed, with it being quite a short card, with the cooler extending past the end of the PCB, ensuring that the RX 480 will run nice and cool under option, and only requiring a single 6-pin PCIe power connector.