Video Cards & GPUs News - Page 24

GALAX has just launched its new GeForce RTX 4070 20th Anniversary Edition graphics card, with a sleek look due to its hidden power connector. Check it out:

The company is celebrating its 20th anniversary, with GALAX China launching its GeForce RTX 4090 20th Anniversary Edition -- but having to pull it from the Chinese market after US sanctions saw the RTX 4090 banned in multiple countries, including China -- and now it's here with the GeForce RTX 4070 20th Anniversary Edition card.

GALAX uses a beautiful cooler design, with two fans on the front -- and to the left -- and another fan on the back, with an all-white design that makes me feel tingly. It's only a dual-slot design which I love as well, with the RTX 4070 20th Anniversary Edition measuring just 45mm thick, and with its hidden 8-pin PCIe power connector under a magnetic cover, GALAX really makes this an appealing RTX 4070 for gamers.

Last week, we reported on the rumor that NVIDIA was planning to stop producing the entry-level GeForce RTX 3050 8GB graphics cards in favor of a cutdown GeForce RTX 3050 6GB refresh. This refresh is launching soon, too, sometime in January 2024, potentially around the same time as the new GeForce RTX 40 Series SUPER GPUs.

In addition to less VRAM capacity, the GeForce RTX 3050 6GB refresh will supposedly sport fewer CUDA Cores (a 20% reduction), a boost clock of 1700 MHz, and a power rating of 75W - which would mean that it would get all of its power via the PCIe slot.

It's an interesting move, and according to the latest slice of info from Taiwanese outlet Benchlife, The GeForce RTX 3050 6GB could launch with a price point of only $179 - a 28% reduction from the GeForce RTX 3050's launch MSRP of $249.

For those that need a little refresher, AMD's Fluid Motion Frames (or AFMF) is the company's driver-based version of Frame Generation - as seen in NVIDIA's DLSS 3 and AMD's FSR 3. This version of the technology is a potential game-changer because it allows for Radeon RX 7000 and Radeon RX 6000 GPU owners to enable frame generation in all DirectX 11 and 12 titles. That's right, per-game support isn't required.

Still in its pre-release 'AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition Preview Driver for AMD Fluid Motion Frames' form, AMD quietly dropped a new update late last week. Promising improvements to "stutter and pacing" and "general improvements to the stability" of AFMF technology bring the tech one step closer to full release.

Though as to when that will be is anyone's guess. The good news is that the update aligns the Preview Driver with the latest AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 23.12.1 release - so if you're keen to check it out, now's the time.

Acer is the second system builder that we know of to have its own GeForce RTX 4090, after LENOVO and its RTX 4090 LEGION, with the new Acer RTX 4090 Predator being independently tested by our friends at KitGuru.

The company is now shipping its new GeForce RTX 4090 Predator graphics card with an interesting hybrid-style cooler inside of its high-end Predator Orion X Gaming PCs. The first review unit has reached KitGuru, who has pulled apart the RTX 4090 Predator graphics card inside of it. The card doesn't actually have a name, but given that it's inside of a Predator gaming PC, it should be the RTX 4090 Predator, right?

Acer's custom GeForce RTX 4090 Predator graphics card is a triple-slot beast, that is almost -- but not quite as -- big as NVIDIA's in-house GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition. It weighs slightly less as well, at 1.8kg for the RTX 4090 Predator compared to 2.19kg for the RTX 4090 FE. Acer uses a matte black plastic shroud with embedded RGB accent LEDs that can be controlled through Acer's in-house Predator software.

Intel's Arc GPUs just got a new graphics driver which again brings in some impressive performance uplifts.

Driver version 31.0.101.5074 offers a rather tasty boost of up to 34% for Train Sim World 3 (at Full HD resolution, Ultra settings) and Arc graphics card owners are getting 23% more FPS in Battlefield V at those same 1080p settings.

Here's a full roundup of the frame rate uplifts provided by the new Arc graphics driver:

NVIDIA is working on a new workstation GPU that could be made specifically for China, with a tease of its new RTX 5880 Ada workstation GPU that has been spotted in some new NVIDIA RTX Enterprise drivers.

The new NVIDIA RTX 5880 Ada workstation GPU was spotted inside of the most recent production branch of the NVIDIA RTX Enterprise driver, which is a new workstation card that has been tweaked to comply with the US export restrictions, something that allows NVIDIA to get AD102 GPUs into China. It will join the coming AD102-250 GPU-based GeForce RTX 4090 D, which has also been tweaked to get into China.

US export restrictions first saw the NVIDIA RTX 6000 Ada workstation GPU and high-end gaming-focused RTX 4090 banned in China back in November 2023, with NVIDIA working on multiple variants of its workstation and gaming GPUs to comply with the ever-changing landscape of GPUs being banned in China (and other countries around the world).

NVIDIA is reportedly working on a refreshed GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card that has been customized for the Chinese market, with the upcoming GeForce RTX 4090 D... the "D" stands for Dragon because it's the Year of the Dragon in 2024 for the Chinese New Year.

We've heard that NVIDIA will be using a tweaked AD102-250 GPU for the RTX 4090 D, which will feature less CUDA cores than the AD102-300 GPU that powers the RTX 4090. The new RTX 4090 D will also have a lowered 425W TDP down from the RTX 4090 and its 450W TDP, but new information is here about the GPU and power consumption: the RTX 4090 D will NOT support overclocking.

NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 4090 D being locked away from overclocking makes sense, given that it needs to not go over the US government and its constantly updated GPU restrictions in China, so these limitations need to happen. CUDA core counts, GPU clock speeds, TDP, and overclocking support for the RTX 4090 D will be what sets it apart from the RTX 4090.

The mainstream and affordable GeForce RTX 3050 8GB was the final Ampere GPU to hit the scene, with the card making its debut in January 2022 - so it's still relatively fresh in the world of discrete graphics cards. According to information from the Board Channels forum in China, NVIDIA is set to scrap the GeForce RTX 3050 8GB altogether and replace it with a cutdown 6GB model.

Rumors indicate that the new GeForce RTX 3050 will use the GA107 GPU from the mobile version and arrive with 20% fewer CUDA Cores (2048 versus 2560) and a boost clock of 1700MHz.

It's a pretty drastic cut, and the reason might come down to the new 75W power rating (compared to 130W for the existing model) - which would mean that the new desktop GeForce RTX 3050 6GB will get all of its power from the PCI Express slot. It's a strange move to replace the least powerful GPU in the current GeForce RTX lineup with a worse card.

The GeForce RTX 4090 is banned from sale in China thanks to new U.S. Government restrictions imposed to curb the country's advances in AI. And since that news dropped, it's been a roller coaster ride for the world's most powerful gaming GPU - with global prices increasing dramatically and rumors that NVIDIA plans to launch a China-exclusive GeForce RTX 4090D in January 2024. The Year of the Dragon, hence the 'D'.

The RTX 4090D uses the AD102-300 GPU, a cutdown version of the AD102-250 GPU in the existing GeForce RTX 4090 that will adhere to the new restrictions imposed on AI hardware exported to the region. The latest info from well-known NVIDIA leaker MEGAsizeGPU over on X/Twitter claims that the GeForce RTX 4090D will feature the same Boost Clock speed as the existing RTX 4090 (2520 MHz) but a higher Base Clock speed (2280 MHz).

Additional info from other sources claims that the RTX 4090D will also feature the same 24GB of GDDR6X memory, though further details like memory speeds and TDP are still being finalized. It's believed that NVIDIA will lower the CUDA Core count to fall within the restrictions that measure AI performance.

AMD's latest Adrenalin Edition 23.12.1 driver release for Radeon GPUs is a big one in that there's a lot more going on than simply adding day-one support for one of the last big PC game releases for 2023 - Ubisoft's Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. The most immediate changes come with a redesign of the UI for the Home and Gaming tab to better integrate HYPR-RX.

HYPR-RX combines Anti-Lag+, Radeon Boost, and Radeon Super Resolution into a single-click option to make access to these technologies easier. However, due to issues with latency reduction interfering with game code, Anti-Lag+ is no longer a part of the equation, and there's no word on when it'll be coming back. Anyway, back to the UI redesign.

AMD's release notes state that HYPR-RX profiles can be enabled on a per-game basis on the Home Tab - a great addition as it brings AMD's tech to the forefront of the UI. Switching over the Gaming tab, users will be able to learn about each HYPR-RX feature and have direct control over any potential settings. It doesn't stop there, as Adrenalin Edition 23.12.1 introduces the brand-new AMD HYPR-RX Eco mode.