Video Cards & GPUs News - Page 3

NVIDIA provided an engineering sample of the new GeForce RTX 4090 laptop GPU to Jarrod'sTech to compare it to the last gen laptop flagship, the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti laptop GPU. Although NVIDIA hasn't sponsored the video, it did provide both laptops, and the initial testing results are mainly limited to DLSS 3 performance in games. However, some impressive productivity results were also shown.

Source: Jarrod's Tech

The RTX 4090 laptop featured in the video is the impressive Razer Blade 16 for 2023, which includes an Intel Core i9 13950HX CPU and 32GB of DDR5-5600 memory.

With DLSS 3 enabled, running five titles in 1440p - Portal with RTX, Microsoft Flight Simulator, A Plague Tale: Requiem, Warhammer 40,000: Darktide, and Cyberpunk 2077 - the performance increase compared to the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti laptop GPU is more than double. Going up to 2.6X in Portal and Flight Sim.

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 GPU is a beast of a GPU, the most powerful currently available. But all that performance comes in a sizable physical package, with both Founders Edition and AIB models having chunky 3.5 to 4-slot thicknesses. This can limit the number of cases and builds the card can comfortably slot into, not to mention requiring brackets and additional support depending on the orientation.

2-Slot GeForce RTX 4090, Source: Reddit/BottleneckEvader

The existence of GeForce RTX 4090 cards using old-school blower fan designs for cooling is interesting for several reasons. It's a style of cooling that is no longer used because of the noise it can generate, not to mention that it is less efficient and capable of cooling a card when temperatures go high.

The silver lining is, of course, that the blower design means an overall smaller card, and that's one of the key reasons Redditor BottleneckEvader bought this custom USD 2675 variant of NVIDIA's flagship GeForce RTX 40 Series graphics card. It fits inside their Fractal Torrent Nano case because it's a 2-slot RTX 4090.

Depending on the workload, it looks like AMD's flagship RDNA 3 GPU, the Radeon RX 7900 XTX, can easily push beyond 3.0 GHz with clocks going as high as 3.5 GHz in Blender. These figures come from German outlet ComputerBase, using the Sapphire Radeon RX 7900 XTX Nitro+ model instead of AMD's reference design.

Blender results from ComputerBase

The report notes that the card wasn't entirely stable with these settings, but still, it's an impressive showing for AMD's flagship RDNA 3 card mainly because the official specs list a 2.5GHz boost clock frequency - a full 1 GHz lower than what was achieved here.

One of the most significant controversies surrounding the launch of the new NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 was the switch to a new 12VHPWR connector and how in some cases, the cables were melting and burning out.

Image source: Reddit/Humble-Brilliant-654

This sparked a series of investigations from NVIDIA, board partners, and even tech enthusiasts and the media. Ultimately, it was deemed that the new 12VHPWR cable standard can be fragile at the connection point on the GPU side if there are any bends and the cable itself isn't pushed in or firmly secured.

NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 4060 Ti will reportedly launch with a TGP of only 160W, which would be 20% less than the Amper generation's GeForce RTX 306 Ti. Power efficiency has been one of the most impressive things of the new Ada Lovelace generation, so it's cool to see the power draw in the mid-range coming down.

GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Founders Edition

The still-to-be-revealed GeForce RTX 4070 (the non-Ti model) will also feature a lower power rating than its Amper counterpart, with a TGP of only 200W. This news arrived courtesy of an established GPU leaker of pre-release information - @kopite7kimi.

It's only a matter of time before NVIDIA lifts the lid on the next Ada Lovelace desktop GPU, the GeForce RTX 4070, which is rumored to launch later this quarter. But this hasn't stopped the RTX 4070 logo from appearing on marketing materials from GALAX for some cool-looking EX Gamer White and SG White edition graphics cards.

GALAX GeForce RTX 4070 (credit: Videocardz)

Weirdly the official marketing materials showcase both logos on the same box, as captured by Videocardz.com, where we can see RTX 4070 Ti on the side of the box and RTX 4070 on the front.

MSI is releasing some interesting new models for the GeForce RTX 4090 - the GeForce RTX 4090 SUPRIM X CLASSIC 24G and the GeForce RTX 4090 SUPRIM CLASSIC 24G. So then, what makes these cards different from the existing GeForce RTX 4090 SUPRIM models? Well, the 'Classic' here looks to be about using a previous-gen SUPRIM (GeForce RTX 3090 Ti) shroud and cooling.

MSI GeForce RTX 4090 SUPRIM X CLASSIC 24G (below) features the older SUPRIM design

This isn't bad, as you've got an impressive TRI FROZR 2S Thermal Design with TORX Fan 4.0, a copper baseplate, and decent airflow. Plus, dual BIOS support pushes NVIDIA's flagship Ada card to its limits - thanks to the 480W gaming mode in the SUPRIM X version. The non-X SUPRIM CLASSIC features a lower boost clock of 2535 MHz compared to 2640 MHz of the X.

The GeForce RTX 4080, like the RTX 4090, is a powerful GPU capable of delivering triple-digit 4K performance with ray-tracing and in-game detail settings cranked up. Like its beefier sibling, the main issue for many is the cost of entry, with pricing for the GeForce RTX 4080 starting at around USD 1200.

Reports show that the upcoming silicon for the still-to-be-announced GeForce RTX 4070 (the non-Ti version) uses two variants - AD104-250 and AD104-251. The latter is built without a "comparator circuit" and fewer components. And with that, we've now got word that the RTX 4080 is following suit. Cards with the brand-new AD103-301 GPU silicon are starting to ship - with Gainward being the first to do so.

GALAX is prepping to launch two variants of its Hall of Fame (HOF) GPU range covering the most recent addition to the GeForce RTX 40 Series line-up - the RTX 4070 Ti.

GALAX HOF GeForce RTX 4070 Ti

The HOF OC Lab PLUS will include a Performance mode with a boost clock speed of up to 2760 MHz, with the HOF OC Lab (no PLUS) going up to 2715 MHz. What's most interesting about the HOF range and these models is the increase in power draw, which can go up to 366W - a massive increase over the 285W found in stock models. They do so via three PCIe 8-pin power connectors and a single 16-pin power adapter. Most RTX 3070 Ti GPUs on the market only support two PCIe 8-pin connectors.

AMD is currently dealing with the RMA issues surrounding faulty vapor chamber cooling in reference model Radeon RX 7900 XTX cards, so a report of older Radeon RX 6000s GPUs mysteriously failing is a little concerning. And bad timing.

Of course, the following is anecdotal and comes from a single outlet, KrisFix Germany, but the sample size is pretty significant. Several AMD Radeon RX 6000 series graphics cards (RX 6800 and RX 6900) have been sent to the shop for repair - 61 in total. And out of that batch, 48 have dead GPUs with the same shorted SOC rail and shorted memory rail.