Graphics Cards - Page 69

JEDEC has just published the next-gen GDDR7 graphics memory standard, with the publication of JESD239 Graphics Double Data Rate (GDDR7) SGRAM.

The groundbreaking GDDR7 memory standard offers double the bandwidth of GDDR6 memory, with up to 192GB/sec per device, and will be used as graphics memory offering oodles more bandwidth in graphics, gaming, compute, networking, and AI applications.

According to the latest rumors, NVIDIA is the only one securing itself GDDR7 memory modules for its next-gen GPUs, hearing that AMD has been buying up GDDR6 at faster 20Gbps bandwidth for its new RDNA 4-powered Radeon RX 8000 series GPUs. AMD isn't walking away from GDDR7, as beefed-up Radeon RX series GPUs should feature GDDR7 in teh future, the rumor is that AMD has received "tons of purchases" for GDDR6 at 20Gbps.

NVIDIA's RTX 5090 graphics card could be out a lot sooner than expected, and will certainly be arriving this year, a YouTube leaker reckons.

This is the latest video from Moore's Law is Dead (MLID) in which the leaker asserts that Blackwell is currently being validated by Team Green, and that includes the RTX 5090.

Meaning that in a few months' time, we can expect the Blackwell flagship GPU to be through that validation process - and it will definitely launch this year, MLID tells us.

It's only been available for a month or so, launching with the same price point as the GeForce RTX 4070 but offering a notable bump to performance. Still, the new GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER has already entered the most popular GPU list in the latest Steam Hardware & Software Survey results for February 2024.

Usually, it takes a few months, at least, before a new discrete desktop GPU appears in the Steam hardware survey, so it's safe to say that among PC gamers upgrading or putting together a new rig, the new GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER is a popular choice. Granted, it's near the bottom of the list, but with the Radeon RX 7900 XTX still the only RDNA 3 or non-NVIDIA current-gen GPU to make the list - it's a testament to NVIDIA's dominance in this space.

The GeForce RTX 4070, which saw its price drop to $549 USD following the launch of the SUPER variant, is the most GPU from the current generation - shooting into the number 13 spot after a strong showing last month. The RTX 4070 is joined by the GeForce RTX 4060 and RTX 4060 Ti in the top twenty.

MSI debuted its latest flagship GPU design for the recent NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER launch. The MSI GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER EXPERT is a head-turner for several reasons, but mainly because it's unlike any GPU we've encountered outside of NVIDIA's iconic Founders Edition design.

Sporting a full brushed metal shroud with a stylish metallic grill, it's quite the looker. The push-and-pull fan setup (dubbed MSI Flow Frozr) mimics NVIDIA's founders' design for unique airflow, with a vapor chamber rounding out the cooling in this solid package built with premium materials. Check out our full review for a complete design, thermal, and performance breakdown.

MSI's EXPERT cards join the company's SUPRIM flagship range, albeit as a more minimal and arguably stylish flagship design choice. Today, thanks to a new report from Videocardz, it looks like MSI plans to expand its EXPERT line-up with a new MSI GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER EXPERT coming soon.

With the revelation that Windows 11 was getting an 'Automatic super resolution' feature called Auto SR, powered by AI, the recent DirectSR announcement from Microsoft's DirectX team had many assuming that the company was planning to unveil its version of DLSS, FSR, or XeSS at GDC in the coming weeks.

It turns out that's not the case; DirectSR sounds very exciting as it's a new API designed in partnership with GPU makers like AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA "to enable seamless integration of Super Resolution (SR) into the next generation of games." Integrating upscaling or Super Resolution (SR) technologies within DirectX aims to make it a lot easier for developers to add this support to their games.

"DirectSR is the missing link developers have been waiting for when approaching SR integration, providing a smoother, more efficient experience that scales across hardware," Microsoft's Joshua Tucker writes.

It's time to put your skeptical hat on - and your coat of caution as well, for good measure - as we dive into the latest rumor drop for AMD's next-gen graphics cards.

This is from RedGamingTech (RGT) on YouTube who has new details about RDNA 4 GPUs, namely Navi 48 and 44, which will be aimed at the mid-range market. (AMD isn't doing high-end products this time around, as you're likely aware).

RGT has an update from sources which changes the predicted specs for these GPUs, with both of them now said to run with GDDR6 RAM (rather than GDDR7 as previously stated by the YouTuber).

NVIDIA has announced two new GPUs that will join its Ada Generation Laptop GPU line-up this year - the NVIDIA RTX 500 and RTX 1000, designed for 'highly portable mobile workstations.' The announcement notes that mobile workstations with these new GPUs will be available from partners including Dell, HP, Lenovo, and MSI this spring.

The new RTX 500 and RTX 1000 GPU-powered workstations will ship with a neural processing unit (NPU) as part of the CPU configuration, with the addition of NVIDIA's Tensor Cores for more demanding AI workloads.

On the high-end, the NVIDIA RTX 5000 offers 682 TOPS of AI performance, with the new RTX 500 and RTX 1000 sitting on the entry-level side with 154 TOPS and 193 TOPS, respectively. NVIDIA adds that these workstations and new GPUs will be useful for video conferencing with AI effects, AI upscaling video content, generative AI, and content creation.

Jon Peddie Research's latest report is on the PC GPU market, which has been doing surprisingly well over the last quarter. PC GPU shipments increased by 6% in Q4 2023, with a total of 76.2 million graphics cards shipped.

The new report detailing 76.2 million GPU shipments over Q4 2023 is a huge 24% year-over-year increase, which JPR notes is the "biggest year-to-year increase in two and a half decades". Overall, JPR reports GPUs will have a compound annual growth of 3.6% during 2024-2026, where the outfit estimates that almost 5 billion GPUs will be in the wild by 2026.

Over the next 5 years, JPR estimates the penetration of discrete GPUs inside of PCs will hit 30%.

AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 24.2.1 is available now for Radeon GPU owners, and it's one to definitely check out if you've been running into issues when gaming, as it's chock full of fixes and updates.

Those playing the smash hit co-op, democracy spreading, bug squashing Helldivers 2 on PC will be pleased to know that this new driver update fixes 'intermittent driver timeout' issues on Radeon RX 7000 Series GPUs while also fixing crashing while playing. These are the sort of problems that are way more annoying when playing an online title, so kudos to AMD.

Another big fix covers those playing Counter-Strike 2, where the game would crash when enabling FSR on some Radeon GPUs. AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 24.2.1 also fixes 'excessive stutter' across a range of titles, including Battlefield 2042, Destiny 2, Overwatch 2, Monster Hunter: World, PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS, and STAR WARS Battlefront II.

Intel has released a new driver for Intel Arc graphics with more massive improvements to DirectX 11 titles, up to a 65% average FPS uplift in Assassin's Creed Syndicate and a whopping 155% average FPS uplift in Just Cause 4. However, this time around, these performance enhancement improvements are not for discrete desktop Intel Arc graphics cards like the Intel Arc A750.

The performance improvements found in the new Intel Arc graphics 5333 WHQL driver focus on the new 'Meteor Lake' Intel Core Ultra mobile processors with built-in Intel Arc GPUs - like the Intel Core Ultra 7 155H, Ultra 5 125H, and Ultra 9 185H. As integrated graphics, the improvements range from 7% to 155% when playing DirectX 11 titles covering 1080p with 'Medium' settings enabled. Although DirectX 11 is most associated with older titles, newer games like Palworld still use the API - with the smash hit survival game getting a 14% performance improvement with the latest driver release.

This driver update covers all Arc GPUs and integrated Intel graphics and adds support for the new action RPG hit Last Epoch and Rare's DirectX 12 update for Sea of Thieves.

NVIDIA's RTX 5090 could be with us late this year - or that's the rumor, anyway (though some disagree) - and we've just heard a bit more about how one YouTube leaker feels this graphics card might pan out.

In a new 'Broken Silicon' episode (246), Moore's Law is Dead (MLID) touches on the topic of the RTX 5090, and retreads some of the rumors aired in the past about the Blackwell flagship, while adding some fresh theories into the mix.

MLID replies to a question about whether the RTX 5090 (built on the GB102 chip) will be cut down for CUDA cores to a greater extent than the RTX 4090 (AD102), or about the same, or whether it'll be closer to the full loadout of cores than the current Lovelace flagship GPU.

AMD has officially dropped the price of the Radeon RX 7700 XT GPU, with the "new pricing" enabling partners to sell models for as low as $419 USD, a $30 price drop from the original MSRP of $449. Many have been hoping to see this happen as the Radeon RX 7700 XT was overshadowed by the Radeon RX 7800 XT when the two GPUs launched in 2023 - with only $50 separating the two.

Having reviewed a few Radeon RX 7700 XT models last year, praising the 1080p and 1440p gaming performance, a recurring con was that pricing was too close to the Radeon RX 7800 XT. The new $419 price makes the GPU better value for money, with the GPU generally outperforming the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti in more workloads and tests.

The new price comes into effect today, Monday, February 26 - so expect $419 or thereabouts to become the new norm for the Radeon RX 7700 XT in the coming days.

AMD's Radeon RX 7900 GRE (Golden Rabbit Edition) initially launched in China, a cutdown version of its flagship RDNA 3 GPU hardware that - at the time - was an odd release that predated the arrival of the Radeon RX 7800 XT; its performance most closely resembles AMD's $499 offering. After rumors and leaks, it looks like AMD is making the Radeon RX 7900 GRE available worldwide starting February 27 at a competitive price of $549 USD.

Priced the same as the GeForce RTX 4070 and sitting between the Radeon RX 7800 XT and GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER, it's a GPU build for 1440p and 4K gaming. $500 - $600 is now a heavily stacked enthusiast price bracket thanks to the addition of NVIDIA's new SUPER variant and RTX 4070 price drop earlier this year, so this release makes a lot of sense with the competition.

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE features 16GB of GDDR6 memory, and 80 compute units with RT and AI accelerators, with AMD claiming that when it comes to 1440p gaming, it's 14% faster, on average, than the GeForce RTX 4070 - making it better value for money.

AMD is just about to unleash a new GPU in the US, rumor has it, namely the RX 7900 GRE which was initially for the Chinese market only (but has since come to Europe).

This isn't the first time we've heard chatter about the RX 7900 GRE ('Golden Rabbit Edition') being launched in the US - VideoCardz has floated this idea before - but now Moore's Law is Dead (MLID) on YouTube is claiming the release of this graphics card is imminent.

MLID has sources who reckon the RX 7900 GRE will be on shelves in the US as soon as February 27, the start of next week. It's pretty much being rushed out of the door by AMD, and it'll be priced at $549.

Alongside the launch of the new NVIDIA App, be sure to check out our full coverage below if you haven't already; NVIDIA has also just released the latest GeForce Game Ready 551.61 WHQL driver that you can download through the GeForce Experience app, the new NVIDIA App, or directly from GeForce.com.

In terms of game support, the new Game Ready Driver adds day-one support for Nightingale, an impressive-looking fantasy survival adventure game. Nightingale has some pretty intense hardware requirements, so thankfully, there's DLSS 3 Frame Generation support for those with GeForce RTX 40 Series GPUs.

The big NVIDIA story for GeForce RTX owners this week has been the launch of the new NVIDIA App, available now in beta, with the GeForce Game Ready 551.61 WHQL driver supporting the new app that combines GeForce Experience and the old-school NVIDIA Control Panel in a slick, fast, and impressive new package.

Modders are at it again, this time taking apart NVIDIA's older-gen GeForce RTX 2080 graphics card that launched with 8GB of VRAM and modding it up to 16GB.

The client that requested the mod on their GeForce RTX 2080 graphics card provided the additional memory required, which made the mod on the RTX 2080 less work for the team. NVIDIA originally launched the GeForce RTX 2080 back in 2018 based on the Turing GPU architecture and featuring the TU104-400 GPU. The GPU featured 2944 CUDA cores, and 8GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit memory interface.

The modders removed the old 8GB of memory from the RTX 2080, soldering on 16GB of GDDR6 memory in its place, while also adjusting the jumpers (as you can see in the pictures below) so that the GPU is tricked into recognizing the new memory installed on the card.

SK hynix has just posted record-breaking HBM sales over the last few months, driven by the insatiable demand of AI GPUs from the likes of AMD, but more particularly, NVIDIA.

It was known last year that both Samsung and SK hynix had sold out of their HBM memory supplies for 2024, but now SK hynix has confirmed it's sold out of every piece of HBM silicon it can muster, for the rest of the year, and that 2025 is going to be a gigantic year.

SK hynix vice president Kim Ki-tae explained: "With the diversification and advancement of generative AI services, demand for HBM, an AI memory solution, has also exploded. HBM, with its high-performance and high-capacity characteristics, is a monumental product that shakes the conventional wisdom that memory semiconductors are only a part of the overall system. In particular, SK Hynix HBM's competitiveness is outstanding".

NVIDIA has overhauled how GeForce RTX gamers and content creators access all of its apps, settings, drivers, and features with the arrival of the new NVIDIA App, which is currently in beta. It combines all of the features from the GeForce Experience app and NVIDIA Control Panel into a sleek, minimal, and fast app that offers some cool new toys and things to play with.

Two of these are brand-new AI Freestyle Features added to the NVIDIA Freestyle suite of post-processing filters. Compatible with over 1,200 games, the new NVIDIA App introduces AI-powered RTX HDR to convert any SDR game to HDR in real-time and RTX Dynamic Vibrance. And yes, this is the same technology recently uncovered in NVIDIA drivers and released by fans as an RTX Video HDR mod for games.

The latter is all about 'dynamic visual clarity' that makes colors and details pop without 'crushing colors' to help enhance and preserve immersion. RTX HDR and RTX Dynamic Vibrance, like NVIDIA DLSS, require a GeForce RTX 20 Series GPU to run because they use a GPU's AI-based Tensor Core hardware.

The new NVIDIA App is now available in beta. It modernizes the look and feel of the NVIDIA Control Panel and GeForce Experience apps while combining their features and giving NVIDIA GPU owners and gamers access to all of the company's apps and RTX technologies in a single package.

For those who have been switching between the NVIDIA Control Panel and GeForce Experience apps in recent years to do all of their display and graphics configuration and driver updating, you'll be pleased to know that NVIDIA has been working on the new NVIDIA App for some time - with the goal being unification.

In addition to a clean, modern, and minimal look, the new client is reportedly 50% more responsive than the previous GeForce Experience app for gamers while taking up 17% less disk space. And you no longer need to log in to use its features!

AMD launched a new GPU in January 2023, the Radeon RX 7600 XT, which took its mainstream RDNA 3 offering and doubled the VRAM capacity to 16GB. Per our review, adding a slight boost to clock speeds is enough to make a difference in most games, but the overall performance sits very close to the Radeon RX 7600 8GB model.

What does this have to do with the Radeon RX 6750 GRE GPU (another Golden Rabbit Edition release), an RDNA 2 GPU released exclusively in China before the Radeon RX 7600 XT? AMD has yet to release the Radeon RX 7600 XT 16GB in China because the Radeon RX 6750 GRE (available in 10GB and 12GB variants) is proving very popular in the region.

And for a good reason: the card is priced similarly to the GeForce RTX 4060 while outperforming NVIDIA's mainstream GPU and the more expensive GeForce RTX 4060 Ti, so much so that AMD is cracking down on retailers discounting the Radeon RX 6750 GRE by imposing fines to ensure that its profit margins remain intact.