Graphics Cards - Page 5

One of the small but confusing aspects of the GeForce RTX 50 Series and RTX Blackwell launch was the deliberate removal of GPU hotspot readings. GPU hotspot readings are notably higher than the main temperatures you see when monitoring hardware, as they reflect maximum temperatures recorded by sensors at specific contact points. For the GeForce RTX 50 Series, these sensors are still there, but NVIDIA removed public access to that data. Until now.

Thanks to recent third-party discoveries, access to these GPU hotspot readings has been restored for anyone with a GeForce RTX 50 Series graphics card, and popular tools like HWMonitor have brought this feature back for the Blackwell generation. This has led to a flood of PC gamers and enthusiasts benchmarking and stress testing their GPUs to see the difference in temperatures.

When it comes to MSI Afterburner, one of the most popular GPU overclocking, tweaking, and monitoring tools, it seems these newly discovered GPU hotspot readings won't be coming to the app. And the reason comes down to, well, marketing and MSI's close relationship with NVIDIA.

According to the latest Steam data, the GeForce RTX 3060 12GB is still the most popular discrete gaming GPU among PC gamers. The mainstream GPU from the Ampere generation debuted in 2021, and in subsequent years we've seen its successors arrive in the form of the RTX 4060 and RTX 5060, both of which are among the most popular GPUs in use today.

However, thanks to the current memory and component crisis, part of NVIDIA's solution to get GPUs out into the wild has been to re-release or re-launch the GeForce RTX 3060 as a mainstream option. And with that, we're not only seeing the return of older models but also new designs, such as the Palit GeForce RTX 3060 Infinity 2 OC (via VideoCardz). This is a new variant of the now five-year-old GPU model, and the dual-fan design includes a small factory overclock to 1792 MHz, with 12GB of GDDR6 memory.

The return of the GeForce RTX 3060 comes down to Ampere's use of Samsung Foundry's 8nm process as opposed to the TSMC chips found in the GeForce RTX 40 and 50 Series. This allows NVIDIA to produce more mainstream and entry-level GPUs for PC gamers using the GA106 GPU found in the RTX 3060. The only downside, of course, is that in 2026, performance is definitely a step or two behind the GeForce RTX 5060, even though it has more VRAM capacity.

MSI Afterburner has been the go-to GPU overclocking and monitoring tool for several generations, and right now, when it comes to tinkering with frequencies and voltages on GeForce RTX 50 Series GPUs, it's something we still use regularly at TweakTown. For a tool with as much legacy as MSI Afterburner, you might be surprised to learn that its development is led by a single person who goes by the handle of Unwinder.

In a new post on the Guru3D forums, Unwinder has teased an impressive update coming to the next beta release of MSI Afterburner. And it's the addition of a heatmap to the V/F curve editor, giving users and overclockers a better understanding of how their GPUs behave when Boost Clock speeds are pushed. The heatmap you see here was captured on a GeForce RTX 5090, which showcases different behavior compared to the previous generation's GeForce RTX 4090.

This heatmap provides a visual representation of the voltage/frequency points that are most used. This will give users a far better understanding of how their GPU behaves when overclocked (or not) and enable them to use that data to optimize settings and improve overall performance. Unwinder says that the heatmap also provides clear data on how the GeForce RTX 50 Series differs from previous generations due to changes to DVFS (dynamic voltage frequency scaling).

A ZOTAC GeForce RTX 5090 SOLID reportedly failed catastrophically while its owner was playing through the Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced tutorial, according to a post on the r/pcmasterrace subreddit. While the user's description of the card "blowing up" is a bit of an exaggeration, they claim to have heard a loud pop and crackling noise about five minutes into the game, followed by a cloud of smoke, and the system shut down immediately.

This one is peculiar because of where the damage actually is. The 16-pin 12V-2x6 power connector, the usual suspect in RTX 5090 failures, came through untouched. Instead, the burn marks are concentrated around the PCIe interface, both on the card's gold fingers and around the main PCIe slot on the owner's MSI MAG X870E Tomahawk motherboard.

The card had reportedly been running fine for about a year with no hardware changes, and the only recent change was NVIDIA's GeForce 610.74 driver, released July 7, with support for Black Flag Resynced. There's no evidence tying that driver to the failure, and a software issue causing this kind of physical damage would be unusual on its own.

The latest version of the popular tool HWMonitor has brought back support for monitoring hotspot temperatures with NVIDIA RTX 5000 GPUs.

VideoCardz noticed that the release notes from developer CPUID for version 1.65 of HWMonitor detail two new features: preliminary support for the Lisuan 7G100 GPU, as well as: "Hotspot temperature on NVIDIA RTX 50x0 GPUs."

If you recall, NVIDIA put paid to hotspot readings with the launch of Blackwell GPUs, but the sensors still remained - it's just that Team Green removed public access to them, so tools like HWMonitor could no longer pull those readings.

The infamous RTX 5090 power connectors just keep melting, and even a dedicated safety feature couldn't stop this latest one. VideoCardz reports that a user who goes by the name of Riptide just had their PSU native power connectors melted, while being plugged into an RTX 5090 with the TempGuard cable.

Apparently, the user also had their ASRock PG1000-PSF power supply keep running after its native 12V-2x6 connector started melting, despite the PSU's TempGuard cable being installed specifically to catch this kind of failure. The setup paired an MSI GeForce RTX 5090 GAMING TRIO OC with ASRock's TempGuard cable, a product built to monitor connector temperature and shut the PSU down before things get bad.

That's exactly what didn't happen in this case. The protection never triggered, and the user only noticed the burned connector after the fact. Making things worse, this was reportedly the same user's second RTX 5090 connector failure, with the first involving a Founders Edition card and a Corsair SF1000 PSU. That's some serious bad luck.

NVIDIA is reportedly working on a new GPU called the GeForce RTX 5090 SE, according to a report from Russian outlet GameGPU. The card would supposedly slot between the RTX 5080 and RTX 5090, possibly replacing an RTX 5080 Ti that never made it to market.

The leaked specs point to a cut-down GB202 die, with 110 of the 192 streaming multiprocessors enabled. That works out to 14,080 CUDA cores, roughly 31% more than the RTX 5080's 10,752 cores, but still well short of the RTX 5090's 21,760. Rumors also point to a 500W power draw, down from the 5090's 575W, but a big step up from the 5080's 360W. A 1,000W power supply would likely be needed either way.

Now we get to the confusing part. The leak claims 32GB of GDDR7 on a 384-bit bus, the same capacity as the RTX 5090 despite the narrower memory interface. That math doesn't really work with NVIDIA's standard memory configurations. A 384-bit bus paired with 2GB modules gets you 24GB, and 3GB modules would push it to 36GB. Hitting exactly 32GB would apparently require mixing chip densities, something NVIDIA has avoided in the past due to signal integrity and validation headaches, not to mention the GTX 970 controversy that mixed-pool memory caused years ago.

NVIDIA, despite being known as the AI juggernaut it is today, will always have its roots in gaming graphics. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of its first partnership with Sega, NVIDIA's CEO Jensen Huang is set to travel to Japan to attend an event with Japanese gamers. He will also (re)launch the RTX Spark. The event is set to take place at GiGO Akihabara, Tokyo on July the 15th.

NVIDIA has a lot to thank Sega for, so it's great to see Jensen giving some thanks back to the company that gave NVIDIA the lifeline it needed to go on to produce the RIVA 128, the GeForce 256, and so on.

In its earliest days, the company was tapped by Sega to build the graphics chip for its then upcoming Dreamcast console. However, at the time, NVIDIA lacked the technical ability to deliver what Sega needed, but without the money Sega was to pay for the contract, NVIDIA couldn't survive. After admitting that NVIDIA couldn't give Sega the chip it needed, Jensen went to Sega's management and asked for the money as an investment in NVIDIA. Somehow, NVIDIA managed to stay in business. And the rest is history.

A single GPU card can cost thousands, but one YouTuber built his own for a fraction of the price, using 8,192 RISC-V microcontrollers.

bitluni, real name Matthias Balwierz, constructed a DIY GPU using CH570 RISC-V microcontrollers sourced from AliExpress. The cluster delivers a QVGA resolution of 320x200, with each MCU responsible for a single pixel. Despite the project nearly driving him "mad," bitluni pushed through, refining the PCB design and scaling the build to 8,192 chips.

The project began as an experiment in parallel computing but evolved into much more, and, at some cost, bitluni noted that prior GPU builds had already strained his sanity. This iteration, while visually modest, demonstrates the potential of microcontroller clusters for tasks beyond basic graphics.

GeForce Game Ready Driver 610.74 is now available for GeForce RTX owners, and it's all about two of the biggest PC game releases in July. First up, there's DOOM: The Dark Ages Revelations from id Software, a full-game-sized campaign expansion for the base game featuring new environments, demons to slap, and a new Chain Spear weapon that hearkens back to the fast-paced aerial mobility of DOOM: Eternal.

Like the base game, DOOM: The Dark Ages Revelations features a full Path Tracing mode and support for DLSS 4.5, including the new Ray Reconstruction for enhanced ray-traced lighting effects, DLSS Multi Frame Generation, and DLSS Dynamic Frame Generation modes to enhance performance and smoothness. With 'Max Settings' and DLSS 4.5, the flagship GeForce RTX 5090 can hit up to 310 FPS in 4K.

Dropping the resolution down to 1440p, the GeForce RTX 5080 hits 280 FPS with Path Tracing, Max Settings, and DLSS.

The RTX 50 Super series has been in limbo for a while now, with the memory crisis and shifting priorities making a launch look increasingly unlikely. However, a new entry in Seasonic's PSU tool has brought the topic back, with the RTX 5080 Super now appearing alongside the RTX 5070 Super and RTX 5070 Ti Super that were added last September. All three rumoured Super models have now shown up in the tool.

According to the listing, the RTX 5080 Super carries a 415W TDP, which lines up with earlier rumors that placed the card somewhere above 400W. That is a 15% increase over the standard RTX 5080's 360W, and it pushes the recommended PSU from 750W to 800W in a system paired with something like a Ryzen 7 9800X3D. The higher power draw is expected to come from upgraded memory rather than additional CUDA cores, which remain at 10,752, the same count as the non-Super model.

The memory upgrade is the headline change. The RTX 5080 Super is expected to move from 16GB to 24GB of GDDR7, a 50% increase in capacity, using newer 3GB modules instead of the 2GB chips on the current card. Memory speed also gets a bump from 30 Gbps to 32 Gbps, which pushes total bandwidth from 960 GB/s to just over 1 TB/s. The bus width stays at 256-bit.

There's a key difference between GeForce RTX graphics cards created for desktop PCs and those created for laptops. Naturally, the latter are built for efficiency and fitting inside a compact chassis without overheating. This means they draw far less power, which is why there's a big difference between, say, a GeForce RTX 5080 GPU for desktop PCs and a GeForce RTX 5080 Laptop GPU.

It seems that over in China, some modders (or brands) have been selling GeForce RTX Laptop GPUs in desktop form, with a reviewer in the region recently getting their hands on a GeForce RTX 4080M graphics card over on BiliBili (via Tom's Hardware). Naturally, this isn't an official GeForce RTX graphics card, so it doesn't come with a warranty or even official drivers - hence the Frankenstein reference in the header. Or, Frankenstein's Monster for the literary purists out there.

With the reviewer picking it up for around $300 USD, which puts its price in the same range as the Radeon RX 9070 GRE and GeForce RTX 5060 Ti in China. Performance-wise, it's a little disappointing as the results show it trailing the Radeon RX 9070 GRE in most games, at both 1080p and 4K. Here's a closer look at the results.

We get it, graphics cards are expensive, and they are even more expensive right now due to the ongoing RAM crisis. However, a consumer desktop graphics card that costs over $7,000 is almost unfathomable. That is exactly what the ASUS ROG Astral RTX 5090 Edition 20 is: it has shown up at French retailer LDLC for €6,499.95, which works out to more than $7,400. Somehow, it's still not the most expensive RTX 5090 you can buy.

The listing lines up with earlier reports from a couple of weeks ago, pointing to a DACH region price of €5,799, or around $6,650. So it looks like the final European pricing landed even higher than the first numbers suggested. ASUS reportedly plans to ship the card in late July or early August.

This is part of ASUS's ROG 20th Anniversary lineup, and the Edition 20 branding shows up across several products, not just this GPU. We've also seen a ROG Crosshair X870E Edition 20 motherboard bundle, an ROG Swift OLED monitor, and an ROG Thor power supply, all carrying the same anniversary treatment and priced well above their standard counterparts.

It appears that the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB is back on Newegg, and this time it's real US stock, not just chatter out of China or Europe. Newegg is now listing the MSI GeForce RTX 3060 Ventus 2X 12G OC for $329.99, sold and shipped directly by Newegg with free shipping and a 30-day return window. The listing shows the card was first added on July 2, 2026.

It's worth noting this is an MSI "Ventus" board, not a GIGABYTE or ASUS model like the ones spotted in Europe earlier. The underlying specs look identical to the 2021 original, with 3584 CUDA cores, a 192-bit bus, 12GB of GDDR6 VRAM, and an 1807 MHz boost clock.

We've been following this story on TweakTown for a while now. Back in March, we covered early rumors of a comeback, though at the time, we figured it would probably be the 8GB variant, not the 12GB one everyone actually wanted. By April, leaks suggested NVIDIA was holding off on a rumored RTX 5050 9GB in favor of reviving the 3060 instead.

Someone has figured out a way to get FSR 4.1.1 working on AMD's Vega architecture, despite FSR 4 only being supported on RDNA 3 and RDNA 4 GPUs at the time of writing. YouTube channel yoyosan published a video showing FSR 4.1.1 working on an AMD Instinct MI50 GPU from 2018 with better performance than FSR 4.0.2c.

The YouTuber stated that a few things had to come together for them to get FSR 4.1.1 running at all on the Vega GPU. The version of FSR they used was the Proton version of FSR 4.1.1, which was leaked several days ago. Furthermore, an experimental version of OptiScaler was also required that was not available to the public and was only accessible from the OptiScaler developer's Discord server. The main hurdle the YouTuber had to overcome was a new detection mechanism built into FSR 4.1.1 that disables the latest model if an unsupported GPU is detected. Outgoing iterations of OptiScaler can't turn this off, but the newer experimental one the YouTuber downloaded from the OptiScaler developer's Discord server can with a small tweak to the tool's configuration file.

In games that worked, FSR 4.1.1 was stable on the YouTuber's Vega-based Instinct MI50 graphics card while offering superior performance to FSR 4.0.2c. In Cyberpunk 2077, the GPU achieved 69 FPS with FSR 4.1.1 set to balanced mode and 64 FPS with FSR 4.2.0c at the same settings. Alters with FSR 4.1.1 set to balanced mode achieved 90 FPS and 83 FPS with FSR 4.0.2c. Control and Pragmata were two other games the YouTuber tested but failed to work.

A new RTX 5090 horror story is making the rounds, though this one has nothing to do with the usual 12V-2x6 connector drama. A Reddit user going by RareSiren292 posted photos on r/pcmasterrace showing a PCIe riser cable with its insulation partially melted into goop. The card in question is an ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 5090, mounted vertically using a riser to stand the card upright inside the case.

The damage was apparently discovered during a routine cleaning session, not due to any dramatic failure. The user says the riser cable had to be peeled off the back of the card, with the melted plastic sitting exactly where the cable made direct contact with the GPU backplate.

Importantly, only the insulation looks affected. Users in the thread pointed out that the damaged section did not line up with the main 12V power pins, and it seems the card itself avoided any electrical damage.

The new Intel Arc G3 Extreme processor is built for PC gaming handhelds, delivering impressive performance with AI-powered XeSS technologies and support for the latest games. Per our recent hands-on with the impressive MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ gaming handheld, we hailed it as the "best gaming SoC on the market right now." And with that, official driver support has arrived in the form of the latest Intel Graphics Driver 32.0.101.8860 (WHQL Certified).

The latest Intel Game On Driver adds support for the Arc G3 Extreme processor and the more affordable Arc G3 Processor, which has yet to appear in a gaming handheld, to our knowledge. The Arc G3 Extreme processor, based on Intel's cutting-edge Panther Lake architecture, features integrated Intel Arc B390 graphics, currently the most impressive iGPU for PC gaming.

In addition to adding support for these new handheld chips, the latest Intel Game On Driver for its Arc Graphics line-up also fixes several game-related issues for titles like Apex Legends, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, and Battlefield 6. Here are the full Release Notes.

An NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090D, in GALAX HOF OC LAB form, has become the first GPU in the RTX Blackwell lineup to break the 4 GHz barrier with a GPU core frequency of 4002 MHz achieved by Team OGS. As expected, this wasn't an out-of-the-box overclock, as it required an Elmor external clock board (ECB) and LN2 cooling to hit 4 GHz.

The world record has been verified and is already live on HWBOT, beating the previous record set by overclocker Splave at 3880 MHz on a GeForce RTX 5090. The GALAX HOF OC LAB variant of the GeForce RTX 5090D is a card built for overclocking, as it's rare for a GPU to ship with dual 16-pin power connectors and an impressive 36-phase power delivery design.

When paired with the Elmor ECB, the stock 27 MHz was increased by 6.3% to 28.7 MHz, which then flows on to all GPU frequencies. The Elmor ECB board can also increase GDDR7 speeds, but this record is all about the GPU core frequency. The 4 GHz record was validated using the GPUPI v3.3 - 32B synthetic benchmark, which means the completion time of 35 seconds and 377 milliseconds is the new record to beat.

With DRAM a critical component of graphics cards, gaming GPUs have been under fire for their prices due to the current memory crisis. According to a new post on the Board Channels forum (via VideoCardz), AMD has begun informing its partners that a 10% price increase for Radeon GPU bundles is coming in July.

Board Channels is a well-known forum and source for leaks and rumors about GPU pricing and availability, as it regularly features first-hand information from several add-in-board (AIB) partners close to AMD and NVIDIA. As we're talking about AMD, the companies affected would be Sapphire, XFX, ASUS, ASRock, and others. The post states that AMD is increasing its supply price for bundles due to "tight global supply" of memory chips and rising GDDR6 prices.

As AMD bundles GPUs with memory, for example, Radeon RX 9070 XT orders get the GPU and 16GB of GDDR6 memory, the supply price for these is increasing by 10%. However, there is a positive side to this rumor: the price increase applies only to new orders, so it will take time to filter down to the consumer market.

NVIDIA's rumored RTX 5050 9GB might not happen at all. According to leaker MEGAsizeGPU, the card is "canceled, or permanently delayed," and board partners say they haven't gotten any fresh info on it either. The same source claims NVIDIA reissued the GeForce RTX 3060 12GB for that exact segment, which makes a new 5050 variant pretty redundant for now.

This isn't the first time MEGAsizeGPU has called this one correctly. Back in April, the leaker said NVIDIA was pausing the RTX 5050's bump from 8GB to 9GB because the RTX 3060 12GB was coming back in June. That part already checked out, the RTX 3060 12GB has started showing up at retail, spotted in China around $325 to $347, and in parts of Europe for more than its original $329 launch price.

The rumored 9GB 5050 always looked like an awkward card anyway. It would have swapped GDDR6 for GDDR7 but cut the memory bus from 128-bit to 96-bit, so bandwidth barely moved (336GB/s versus 320GB/s) for just 1GB of extra VRAM. Bringing back a 5-year-old Ampere chip on Samsung's 8nm node looks like the easier move for NVIDIA, especially with GDDR7 supply and TSMC's 4nm capacity tied up by RTX 40 and 50 series production during the ongoing memory crunch.