Video Cards & GPUs - Page 309

NVIDIA is strengthening its position with gamers, offering up their new GeForce 385.41 drivers which are Game Ready and optimized for what will surely be one of the biggest releases of the year: Destiny 2.

There are also some major improvements to ARK: Survival Evolved, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, F1 2017, Quake Champions, and more. Here's what to expect from NVIDIA's new GeForce 385.41 drivers, which you can download right here - or through GeForce Experience.

Feature Changes

It seems ASUS is working with AMD closely on the new Radeon RX Vega series of graphics cards, with ASUS being the first with a custom RX Vega 64 graphics card, and now again with RX Vega 56.

The new ASUS ROG Strix Vega 56 OC Edition 8GB features Aura Sync RGB technology, a triple-fan cooler and 2.5-slot design.

The card requires dual 8-pin PCIe power connectors, and rocks a DVI connector if you're still running an older LCD.

AMD might have launched Radeon RX Vega 56 at "$399" and the slightly faster Radeon RX Vega 64 at "$499" but those prices quickly changed for a reason that is, well... I don't even freakin' know. Remember our world exclusive piece on AMD having less than 16,000 units of Radeon RX Vega post-launch, and this continues to ring true as time goes on.

Both AMD and NVIDIA blame miners for global GPU shortages, and then gamers (for buying them so quickly with so much enthusiasm), and then there's reports of $100 rebates to partners and retailers that had exhausted them so quickly (from the lack of actual RX Vega cards) that the price shot up $100 overnight. Well, now it's even worse.

Having a quick look on Amazon and Newegg shows us that Radeon RX Vega 64 air-cooled is $719... far from the "$499" - and I keep using inverted commas because AMD launched RX Vega 64 at $499, but then it was $599 - and now it's $700+... I just don't know what to say anymore. But hey... you get Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus and Prey.

I remember AMD starting off their Ryzen Tech Day earlier this month in LA talking about how cryptocurrency miners are eating up all of the global GPU stock of Radeon RX series graphics cards. They were careful in launching their AMD Radeon RX Vega series of cards with miners waiting with bated breath on Vega performance.

Then came the #FakeNews that AMD Radeon RX Vega was pushing 100MH/s mining Ethereum, and anyone who mines Ethereum (like myself) knows that was pure "Hollywood magic", a spectacle. A performance; something that wasn't real, but perceived, as real. This turned out to be so completely unfounded, as I'm looking to my left and seeing the top of the line Radeon RX Vega 64 Liquid Cooled Edition and it is only pushing 33.6MH/s... This is only one-third of what the #FakeNews on RX Vega 64 mining performance.

But now Digital Trends has a story about AMD "Radeon" Studios, which is one of the better moves that AMD has done in the last couple of years - something you can read about here. One of the facts of Radeon Studios is Project 47, another one of the better things AMD has done in the last couple of years. Project 47 is a beast of a PC that has 1 petaflop of performance... perfect for Hollywood level operations.

Oculus cut the price of the Oculus Rift + Touch combo not too long ago now, but now HTC has followed through with a price cut of its own: $200 off the HTC Vive headset, bringing it down to just $599.

HTC said that the new $599 price on Vive isn't about getting rid of its first-gen headsets, but it's a competitive move against Oculus and its cut throat pricing. Oculus Rift + Touch is still $449, but at $150 cheaper is Oculus offering a better deal? Well, considering you get the controllers in the package - with HTC and Valve building the Vive with the Lighthouse controllers in mind - while Oculus sliced their developers in half offering an Xbox 360 controller in the box and then releasing Touch separately.

Now that the HTC Vive is $599. will you be stepping into the world of VR?

ASUS has officially revealed its next-gen ROG Strix Radeon RX Vega series of graphics card, led by the flagship ROG Strix RX Vega 64 O8G, making it one of the first custom Radeon RX Vega 64 cards announced.

ASUS has used a custom design PCB, using their new DirectCU III cooling solution that the company used on their flagship ROG Strix GTX 1080 Ti graphics card. We have a heat pipe with a direct contact base, with the heat pipes passing through two aluminum fin stacks on either end, which are then cooled by 3 x 100mm fans. These fans will not spin until the card hits a certain load.

The new card will use 8+8-pin PCIe power connectors, with ASUS using a 13-phase VRM, and overclocked GPU speeds that are close to the speeds on the Radeon RX Vega 64 Liquid Cooled Edition. ASUS will also have a "non-O8G" version of the card, which will be closer to the reference clocks, seeing GPU boost speeds of somewhere between 1495-1510MHz.

Update: ASUS reached out to me about this article to clarify some of the going-ons of this benchmarking. I will put ASUS' replies under each one of the points they addressed, so you have the entire picture.

AMD is struggling with the launch of Radeon RX Vega, but it won't help that custom RX Vega cards are suffering from WORSE performance than the reference cards... something that is now being tested.

The new ASUS STRIX RX Vega 64 has been sampled out to a few reviewers so far, with the sites testing the new STRIX card. ASUS' latest Radeon graphics card has a 260W TDP, which is massive - even compared to the already large 240W+ on the reference card. This increased TDP allows for higher clock speeds than the reference card, but does it result in more performance? Nope. Actually, less performance.

Update: AMD has provided us with the following statement: "Radeon RX Vega64 demand continues to exceed expectations. AMD is working closely with its partners to address this demand. Our initial launch quantities included standalone Radeon RX Vega64 at SEP of $499, Radeon RX Vega64 Black Packs at SEP of $599, and Radeon RX Vega64 Aqua Packs at SEP of $699. We are working with our partners to restock all SKUs of Radeon RX Vega64 including the standalone cards and Gamer Packs over the next few weeks, and you should expect quantities of Vega to start arriving in the coming days".

Radeon Technologies Group seems to be in a world of tumbles right now, with the SEP on Radeon RX Vega stated to be $399, $499, and $599.

During AMD's recent Ryzen Tech Day in LA, the company underlined the pricing of Radeon RX Vega and the media (including TweakTown) were surprised with the strong pricing of RX Vega. Well, that has all changed after a huge $100 increase in price. Gamers Nexus is reporting that AIB partners confirmed the $499 launch pricing on Radeon RX Vega 64 was a limited time offer, with AMD reportedly offering e-tailers a $100 voucher - now that those vouchers have run out, RX Vega pricing has hit $599.

AMD's new Radeon RX Vega graphics cards run a little on the hot side, which is going to open up a huge market for companies to make, and provide new cooling solutions... just like Alphacool.

Alphacool has announced their new Eiswolf 120 GPX-Pro ATI RX Vega all-in-one cooler, and their new Nexxxos GPX ATI RX Vega waterblocks - yeah, that's not a typo, I did mean to say ATI.

Starting with the Eiswolf GPX-Pro ATI RX Vega, we have an all-in-one liquid cooler that features a copper waterblock and pump assembly, teamed with the copper-based Nexxxos radiator. The normal version rocks a 120mm radiator, but there's the option for a bigger 240mm radiator. The kit includes Alphacool's Eisbaer expandable CPU AIO liquid cooler kit, which features spill-minimizing quick release fittings.

AMD might have just launched their next-gen Radeon RX Vega graphics cards with HBM2 in tow, but it looks like SK Hynix and Samsung might be ruining the high-end/enthusiast graphics card market with increases in VRAM pricing.

DigiTimes is reporting that the market prices for graphics memory from both Samsung and SK Hynix rose by over 30% in August, with the blame being placed on both DRAM manufacturers "repurposing part of their VRAM production capacities for server and smartphone memories instead", reports AnandTech.

We should expect VRAM pricing to continue to increase according to DigiTimes' sources, with PC DRAM chips to continue getting more expensive through to 2018. Both Micron and SK Hynix have announced GDDR6 recently, with NVIDIA set to use the new standard on their Volta-based GeForce graphics cards in early 2018.