Graphics Cards - Page 226

Colorful has just announced it has four custom GeForce GTX 1060 graphics cards on the way, ready to cover gamers in all segments of the mid-range market.

Colorful is aiming its new iGame series of GTX 1060-based cards at gamers who don't want to throw their wallets at the prices of the current GeForce GTX 1070 and GTX 1080, while offering great performance for 1080p 60FPS gameplay. Colorful's new iGame GTX 1060 series is led by the iGameGTX1060 X-TOP-6G, which has base/boost clocks of 1620/1847MHz, respectively. It will also feature 5+2-phase IPP power.

The second card in Colorful's iGame GTX 1060 arsenal is the iGameGTX1060 S-TOP-6G, which will have 1594/1809MHz base/boost clocks, respectively. The iGameGTX1060 S-TOP-6G will feature 4+1-phase IPP power. Under that, we have the iGameGTX1060 U-TOP-6G which will have the same 1594/1809MHz base/boost clocks, respectively - while it will amp up the power to a 5+2-phase design.

There was one thing that I addressed in my review of AMD's Radeon RX 480, is that the company had enough wiggle room with Polaris to release a dual-GPU card, and stay under the 300W TDP. Well, it appears we might see this card before the end of the year.

According to the latest reports, SAPPHIRE's website has teased the Radeon RX 490, which should arrive as a dual Polaris 10-based graphics card. We know from AMD's revised naming system for the Radeon series that that the RX 490 will feature a 256-bit memory bus and will be aimed at 4K and VR gaming.

Polaris 10 is the most powerful GPU in AMD's arsenal before it moves to Vega, so it won't be a faster Polaris GPU with more stream processors - but two P10 GPUs makes perfect sense. SAPPHIRE's website states it has 8GB of GDDR5, but that's the way dual-GPUs work - each GPU has the same framebuffer, with 16GB of GDDR5 in total - but 8GB per GPU.

Exclusive: NVIDIA's upcoming GeForce GTX 1060 is coming very soon, ready to fight AMD's mid-range Radeon RX 480, but with the rumors there'll be two versions - in 3GB and 6GB framebuffers - we're here to clear that up.

We have had an industry insider tell us that NVIDIA has decided against releasing the 3GB variant of the GeForce GTX 1060, and instead it is all steam ahead with the standard 6GB variant. This makes sense, as releasing a mid-range card with 3GB of VRAM that's meant to be a competitor against AMD's Radeon RX 480 which comes in 4GB and 8GB flavors doesn't make much sense.

Our source added that NVIDIA will instead release the GeForce GTX 1050 in December with 3GB of RAM, which makes much more sense. We should see these plans materialize very quickly, as soon as NVIDIA confirms the existence of its GeForce GTX 1050, which shouldn't be too far away now.

ZOTAC is a company that never ceases to impress me, as I've just reviewed their GeForce GTX 1080 AMP! Extreme, which is the fastest GTX 1080 yet. But something more impressive has just appeared; ZOTAC's unannounced GeForce GTX 1060 Mini.

ZOTAC will be utilizing the smaller PCB of the GeForce GTX 1060 to their advantage, with the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1060 Mini set to arrive in 3GB and 6GB variants, with both cards arriving with reference GPU clocks of 1506/1708MHz for base/boost, respectively.

The company will be using their own custom PCB for the GeForce GTX 1060 Mini, with a slick-looking, but not over-the-top cooler on board. We should expect the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1060 Mini to be officially revealed in the coming weeks, and I hope ZOTAC has a sample on its way to me.

AMD has been pushing Polaris for the last 6 months or so, leading up to the launch of the Polaris 10-based Radeon RX 480, but that doesn't mean the company is shying away from its next architecture; Vega.

AMD's next-gen Vega architecture is due in 2017, and during the Radeon RX series launch in Australia, the company showed off the same GPU roadmap we've seen at previous events - but also said something interesting. AMD said that the next-gen Vega architecture is a "high-end architecture for high-end gamers".

Remember that Vega will be using HBM2 technology, so we should expect a rather large leap over the Polaris architecture when it comes to specs, speeds, and technology. Vega will continue its rampage into the 14nm FinFET process, while the architecture to succeed Vega, 'Navi', is due in 2018. We don't know much about Navi just yet, but AMD teases that it will feature 'next-gen memory' - which is something I really need to know about. What is 'next-gen memory' when HBM2 is already incredible with 1TB/sec+ bandwidth?

NVIDIA announced its GeForce GTX 1060 not long ago, but with prices ranging between $249 and $299 - it won't directly compete against AMD's Radeon RX 480 which is priced at $199 to $239 and beyond, depending on whether you want the reference 4GB/8GB model ($199/$239, respectively) or a partner card with a custom PCB and improved cooling.

Well, NVIDIA could hit a lower price point with the 3GB variant of its GeForce GTX 1060, as the company has only unveiled the 6GB version thus far. NVIDIA is reported to hit a $149 price on the partner cards, while the GTX 1060 3GB Founders Edition could be priced at $199.

This means NVIDIA would be competing against the Radeon RX 470, which is priced at $149, and is a cut down variant of the Polaris 10 with 4GB of GDDR5. But what will NVIDIA cull from the 3GB variant of the GeForce GTX 1060 to get the price down? The GTX 1060 6GB features GPU clocks of 1506/1708 for base/boost, respectively - while it has a 192-bit memory bus for its 6GB of GDDR5 RAM.

AMD has released its Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.7.1 drivers, something the company promised it would deliver to fix the power draw issues on the Radeon RX 480.

The new Radeon Software 16.7.1 drivers can be downloaded here, with two solutions offered by AMD to lower the power draw on the Radeon RX 480. Firstly, it will move the power draw to the PCIe power connector from the PCIe slot, or limit the total power consumption of the card. AMD's main focus seems to be moving the power consumption to the 6-pin PCIe power connector.

AMD has also provided a 'compatibility mode' inside of Radeon Settings that will limit the RX 480's power consumption so that both the PCIe slot and PCIe power connector will not draw more power than allowed. Performance is affected slightly, and will be something we'll be looking into next week.

Inno3D has put its hat into the custom GeForce GTX 1060 ring, with the announcement of their new iChill GTX 1060 X3 and GTX 1060 GAMING OC X2 graphics cards.

NVIDIA's own GeForce GTX 1060 Founders Edition was announced in the last 24 hours for $299, while Inno3D's cards will feature factory overclocks, a custom PCB and much better cooling technology. Inno3D's new iChill GTX 1060 X3 has a triple-slot cooler, while the GPU clocks are 1712/1784MHz for base/boost clocks, respectively. The 8GB of GDDR5 on Inno3D's iChill GTX 1060 X3 is ramped up to 8.2GHz, a 200MHz increase over the stock 8GHz frequency.

VideoCardz reports that Inno3D's upcoming iChill GTX 1060 X3 will rock a single 8-pin PCIe power connector, but it'll still include some great overclocking headroom, especially over the reference Radeon RX 480 from AMD.

NVIDIA may have introduced its new GeForce GTX 1060, with AIB partners like GIGABYTE already revealing their GeForce GTX 1060 G1 Gaming card - but we still have AMD in the Red corner with its Radeon RX 480.

AIB partners are now revealing their custom RX 480s, with details on PowerColor's upcoming Radeon RX 480 Red Devil arriving. As you can see, it features a triple-fan cooler which should keep the Polaris 10 chip nice and chilled, with some promised overclocking headroom that will provide performance up and above the reference Radeon RX 480 from AMD.

We should be looking at 'out of the box' GPU clock speeds of around 1350MHz, which means we should be able to overclock PowerColor's Radeon RX 480 Red Devil past 1400MHz without a problem. PowerColor have used a custom PCB, with the cooling system being quite elaborate - running longer than the PCB itself. Underneath, we have the same 2304 stream processors, 8GB of GDDR5 RAM at 8GHz, and a 256-bit memory bus.

NVIDIA announced its GeForce GTX 1060 in the last 24 hours, and now the AIB partners are revealing all of their custom cards - with one of the first being GIGABYTE with its new GeForce GTX 1060 G1 Gaming card.

GIGABYTE's new GP106-based GeForce GTX 1060 G1 Gaming card features the company's Windforce 2x cooling technology with 2 x 90mm alternate-spinning fans with the "unique blade design and 2 composite copper heat pipes with direct touch to the GPU, together keeping the card cool and quiet even when heavily overclocked". GIGABYTE also adds that the 3D Active Fan provides semi-passive cooling, so if you're sitting idle or low loads are on the GPU, you'll enjoy silence.

The new GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1060 G1 Gaming has the company's GPU Gauntlet Sorting technology which promises some serious overclocking. NVIDIA's own GTX 1060 Founders Edition features a 3+1-phase design, while GIGABYTE ramps it up to 6+1-phase, which has the MOSFET's operating at lower temperatures to provide higher stable voltage outputs for increased overclocking headroom.

After weeks of rumors and leaks on NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1060, the company has finally made it official. Riding on the wave of AMD's new Radeon RX 480 which is priced at $199, the new GeForce GTX 1060 features GTX 980 level performance starting from $249.

For $249, NVIDIA has constructed the GeForce GTX 1060 to be a mid-range monster with 1280 CUDA cores and 6GB of GDDR5 RAM at 8GHz. For clock speeds, NVIDIA has said that the boost clock on the GP106 GPU hits 1.7GHz, and can be "easily overclocked to 2GHz for further performance". As for power consumption, thanks to the incredibly efficient Pascal architecture and the new 16nm FinFET process, the GeForce GTX 1060 has a power-sipping 120W TDP.

When it comes to performance, NVIDIA promises GTX 980 like performance, with the GTX 1060 being around 15% faster and over 75% more power efficient "than the closest competitive product", adds NVIDIA. By "the closest competitive product", we're guessing NVIDIA means AMD's new Radeon RX 480, which has a 150W TDP and can't beat the GTX 980 on its own.

GALAX has officially revealed its new GeForce GTX 1080 HOF, which has a strikingly beautiful white PCB - oh, and some great overclock speeds, too.

The new GALAX GeForce GTX 1080 HOF features the same 2560 CUDA cores, 8GB of GDDR5X RAM at 10GHz and the same display output connectivity as the GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition, but has some great overclocks on the GP104 GPU.

GALAX has ramped up the GPU to 1809/1961MHz for Base/Boost clocks, respectively. GALAX says that it has a 180W TDP, even though it has 8+8-pin PCIe power connectors. GALAX provides dual BIOS capabilities, so you can flash back to a previous BIOS if your overclock goes horribly wrong, too.

We've reported in a previous article that the early shipments of AMD's new Radeon RX 480 will include 8GB of RAM - but now there's proof. Riding on the waves of our latest story, which has AMD releasing its next-gen Vega 10-based video card in March 2017, rocking the ridiculously fast HBM2 technology.

WCCFTech is reporting that they have an XFX Radeon RX 480 4GB they secured on Newegg, and it has 8GB of RAM - with a 4GB sticker on the box, which when peeled away, reveals it is an 8GB card. We've already stated a few times that this is happening with the early stock of the Radeon RX 480, so if you buy the 4GB model right now - you have a good chance of getting the 8GB model, but this won't last forever.

Considering the Radeon RX 480 4GB is just $199, it's a steal as you can flash it to the 8GB model and enjoy a $40 savings, double the VRAM, and an extra 1GHz in RAM clock speeds. Winner winner, chicken dinner.

AMD has the mid-range market tied up with its Radeon RX 480, which we reviewed right here - and then again with Radeon RX 480s in CrossFire which destroyed the GeForce GTX 1080 - but what about the high-end, enthusiast market?

Now we have news from our friends over at Fudzilla, who are reporting that we'll see AMD's first HBM2-based product in early 2017, rocking the next-gen Vega architecture. There will not be any HBM2-based GPUs released this year, as HBM2 yields are not high enough to hit consumer video cards. Right now, NVIDIA has all of the HBM2 to itself, using it on its high-end Tesla P100 video card.

What memory standard will the Vega 10 card use? We suspect it'll use GDDR5X, which scales up to 10GHz, and was recently used on the GeForce GTX 1080 from NVIDIA. The Vega architecture should deliver some large improvements over the Polaris architecture, and I'm sure it's going to be a monster that will battle NVIDIA in the high-end arena with its purported Titan X successor which is reportedly going to drop next month.

AMD has released an update regarding the impending release of their new Radeon Software 16.7.1 drivers, which will fix the Radeon RX 480 from drawing excess current from the PCIe bus. If you haven't seen it, we just posted up an article on the Radeon RX 480s in CrossFire beating out the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080.

The company posted on their AMD Gaming Facebook page that they are "confident that the levels of reported power draws by the Radeon RX 480 do not pose a risk of damage to motherboards or other PC components based on expected usage, we are serious about addressing this topic and allaying outstanding concerns. Towards that end, we assembled a worldwide team this past weekend to investigate and develop a driver update to improve the power draw. We're pleased to report that this driver-Radeon Software 16.7.1-is now undergoing final testing and will be released to the public in the next 48 hours".

AMD's upcoming Radeon Sofware 16.7.1 drivers include a tweak that will handle the power distribution on the Radeon RX 480, which will decrease the current drawn from the PCIe bus. Not only that, but AMD has included an option to reduce the total power drawn from the Radeon RX 480, with a "minimum performance impact". This new option will be found in the "compatibility" UI toggle in the Global Settings menu of Radeon Settings.

Microsoft is in quite the position with Windows 10, but it hasn't fully realized what it can do with DX12... yet.

The company has just announced it will be offering game developers a new abstraction layer that will allow developers to have better multi-GPU support in DX12 games. This new layer will also allow game developers to add multi-GPU support into their games with minimal additional code required.

Developers will still have to work much harder to add Explicit Multi Adapter, which is Microsoft's way of allowing multi-GPU setups to work under DX12 from NVIDIA and AMD... combined. That way, you can use something like a GeForce GTX 980 alongside a new Radeon RX 480, with both of the GPUs working together under Explicit Multi Adapter and DX12.

The leaks continue on NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1060, which is reportedly set for an official announcement for July 7. The latest leak is from a 3DMark performance result, which gives us a taste of what to expect from NVIDIA's upcoming GP106-based mid-range video card. NVIDIA will want to hit AMD where it hurts, which is with their new Radeon RX 480.

NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1060 will reportedly feature 1280 CUDA cores, 80 TMUs, and 6GB of GDDR5 RAM at 8GHz on a 192-bit memory bus. As for the nitty gritty, it'll feature the GP106 GPU which is a different ASIC than the GP104 used on the GeForce GTX 1080 and GeForce GTX 1070 - and for clock speeds, we're set to see 1506MHz on the Base clock, while we have 1708MHz on Boost.

Now what about that 3DMark performance? XFastest has leaked out some results of the GTX 1060, with it scoring 3014 in 3DMark FireStrike Ultra (the 4K run of the benchmark) which is higher than the 2712 that the AMD Radeon RX 480 scored in our benchmarks of the card. 1080p performance is just as good, beating out the AMD Radeon RX 480 once again - with 11,225 on the GTX 1060, while the Radeon RX 480 manages 10,600.

There are new reports out that AMD's new Radeon RX 480 4GB cards can be upgraded to 8GB through a BIOS upgrade, meaning that AMD is shipping each and every RX 480 with 8GB of RAM, and then using a BIOS to downgrade/hide the additional 4GB of framebuffer.

Right now it's only confirmed on the early retail cards, so this might change in the coming weeks - so do not buy an RX 480 with 4GB of RAM absolutely, 100% hoping it has 8GB of RAM as this will change. Right now, WCCFTech purchased a retail Radeon RX 480 4GB model and flashed it with the vBIOS for the 8GB model, and 8GB of RAM appeared - a nice, free upgrade, eh?

Considering the 4GB model costs just $199 and the 8GB model costs $239, this is quite the savings - and makes the RX 480 an even better purchase at this price. As it stands, AMD is looking at losing $40 per RX 480 sold if it's using a vBIOS to downgrade the RAM to 4GB in order to meet the demand from consumers.

NVIDIA has been on a roll lately with its new Pascal architecture, with the huge releases of the new GeForce GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 cards, while the rumors of an imminent launch of the mid-range GTX 1060 could be around the corner.

How does it get better? Well, news is now arriving on the next-gen Pascal-based Titan X successor. VR World is reporting that they've had hands-on time with the GP102-based GeForce GTX Titan card, with a few details on NVIDIA's new monster.

NVIDIA's next-gen Titan X successor will feature both 8+8 and 8+6-pin PCIe power connectors, with the PCIe power connectors being found at the front of the card, and not on top. The 8+8-pin power connectors will provide up to 375W TDP, while the 8+6-pin version will provide 300W. Performance-wise, it should be a monster with around 50% more horsepower over the already lightning quick GTX 1080.

If you haven't heard about the power consumption issues on the Radeon RX 480, you might want to read our article on it here. To bring you up to speed quickly, some reputable sites like PC Perspective and Tom's Hardware have discovered that AMD's new Polaris-based Radeon RX 480 is consuming too much power over the PCIe slot, above and beyond the specification of 75W.

Well, AMD has come out defending the Radeon RX 480, saying: "As you know, we continuously tune our GPUs in order to maximise their performance within their given power envelopes and the speed of the memory interface, which in this case is an unprecedented 8Gbps for GDDR5. Recently, we identified select scenarios where the tuning of some RX 480 boards was not optimal. Fortunately, we can adjust the GPU's tuning via software in order to resolve this issue. We are already testing a driver that implements a fix, and we will provide an update to the community on our progress on Tuesday (July 5, 2016)".

We had this update in our original story, but I felt it needed it's own headline and special attention. Remember that it's the 4th of July weekend in the US right now, but there's a fix on the way. I dare say that the custom RX 480s won't have this problem, so by the time you get your hands-on the RX 480, the issues should be fixed.