Graphics Cards - Page 72

Introspect Technology is a member of JEDEC, the body that covers memory -- including the next-gen GDDR7 memory standard -- with Introspect shipping the world's first GDDR7 memory test system.

The just-launched Introspect M5512 GDDR7 Memory Test System is the world's first commercial solution for testing JEDEC's fresh new JESD239 Graphics Double Data Rate (GDDR7) SGRAM specification. GDDR7 is a category-creating memory solution that enables graphics memory engineers, GPU design engineers, product engineers in both memory and GPU spaces, and system integrators to quickly design new GDDR7 memory devices, debug protocol errors, characterize signal integrity, and perform detailed memory read/write functional stress testing without requiring any other tool.

The new M5512 GDDR7 Memory Test System is the perfect solution for these engineers, AMD and NVIDIA, and AIB partners to get ready to launch GDDR7-powered graphics cards, the first of which will be NVIDIA's next-gen GeForce RTX 50 series GPUs.

NVIDIA's RTX 4060 has a recommended price of $299, though it has sunk a bit below this before - although a fresh low has now been reached with its price tag in the US.

VideoCardz noticed that - at least at the time of writing - there's a Zotac RTX 4060 Twin Edge OC White Edition on sale for $279 at Newegg.

Now, while that pricing may have been seen as part of local offers (in-store pick up) in the past, this is the first time that we're aware of that the vanilla RTX 4060 has sunk to $279 via an online listing you can just click and buy, there and then.

Smuggling video cards into China is understandable, considering the current trade restrictions and the U.S. flat-out banning the sale of the GeForce RTX 4090 to the region. However, smuggling a batch of second-hand seven-year-old GPUs is more of a stretch because you wouldn't think it would be worth trying to smuggle 44 Radeon RX 580 graphics cards through Chinese customs.

According to a new report on MyDrivers (via Tom's Hardware), Shanghai Pudong International Airport customs officers caught a passenger trying to sneak in a batch of old Radeon GPUs into the country. Based on the seizure image all 44 Radeon RX 580 GPUs look to be the same make and model, presumably used for crypto mining.

Naturally, this is a case of someone trying to avoid paying import fees by not declaring that they have a bunch of old graphics cards they will wipe down and sell for a quick profit.

A new NAS motherboard has appeared on AliExpress, powered by an Intel Kaby Lake-G processor and integrated AMD Vega graphics. Yeah, Vega is back, baby.

The new Topton N9 NAS motherboard features an Intel Core i7-8705G "Kaby Lake-G" processor, with 4 cores and 8 cores at up to 4.1GHz. The CPU is designed on the 14nm node process, with a 65W TGP. Topton's new N9 NAS motherboard features an AMD Radeon RX Vega M GL GPU as a separate tile, with 20 Compute Units and 4GB of HBM2 memory.

Topton's new N9 NAS motherboard also features an integrated Intel HD Graphics 630 GPU with 24 Execution Units that uses shared memory. But the bigger deal here is not one or two, but 8 x 2.5GbE ethernet ports (this is a NAS motherboard, remember), so plenty of storage + networking options are required.

Samsung teased its next-gen GDDR7 memory last week at NVIDIA's recent GPU Technology Conference (GTC) event, but now it's officially listed GDDR7 at both 32Gbps and 28Gbps speeds on its website.

Samsung's next-gen GDDR7 memory comes in 16Gb density, allowing for 2GB of GDDR7 memory per module, which is the same capacity as we see on both GDDR6 and GDDR6X memory. Each GDDR7 memory module from Samsung will feature a 32-bit wide memory interface with a refresh rate of 16K/32ms. Samsung says its new GDDR7 memory modules come in 266 FBGA packaging, with two speeds listed: 32Gbps and 28Gbps.

The company will offer its standard 32Gbps GDDR7 memory die and a low-voltage optimized 28Gbps GDDR7 die. We should expect to see next-gen high-end flagship GPUs from NVIDIA like the GeForce RTX 5090 and GeForce RTX 5080 graphics cards debut with 32Gbps GDDR7, while more mid-range and higher-end models (but not flagship) cards like the RTX 5070 and RTX 5060 use 28Gbps GDDR7 memory.

AMD recently re-launched the Radeon RX 7900 GRE, a GPU that outperforms the Radeon RX 7800 XT and NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 4070 while being priced the same as the latter. However, a hard lock (which AMD has said was unintended) on memory speeds at launch limited the GPU's overclocking potential.

This meant that an overclocked Radeon RX 7800 XT could be pushed to reach Radeon RX 7900 GRE performance (while drawing more power) with no option for the RX 7900 GRE to do the same. Still, it's an impressive GPU, with a price that brings some more competition to the stacked mid-range graphics card market that now has four viable choices - the Radeon RX 7800 XT ($499), GeForce RTX 4070 ($549), Radeon RX 7900 GRE ($549), and GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER ($599).

There's some good news for those eyeing a Radeon RX 7900 GRE. The memory overclocking limits have been removed courtesy of the latest Radeon drivers, Adrenalin Edition 24.3.1.

Real-time ray-tracing is not only hardware intensive to the point where it needs dedicated hardware to run complex calculations for advanced lighting effects but also heavy on VRAM usage. This has led to situations where 8GB video cards like the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti run into bottlenecks in heavy RT workloads.

According to a recently published patent filed by Microsoft, it is all about using level-of-detail (LOD) to improve ray-tracing performance and quality as needed. Different LOD settings and rendering exist in games, where objects in the distance are rendered with less geometry or detail to boost performance. This also applies to things like texture quality and foliage, which look their best the closer your in-game character is to a particular spot.

Ray-tracing involves a new "residency map for a sub-tree corresponding to a bounding volume hierarchy of objects," where ray-tracing detail is calculated based on an LOD system. Distant ray tracing will be of lower quality, but greater detail will be available up close, freeing up resources like VRAM.

Intel's next-generation Battlemage "Xe2-HPG" GPUs have been spotted, running with 20-core and 24-core GPU variants inside the SiSoft Sandra database. Check them out:

Intel is expected to roll out its next-gen Battlemage GPU later this year, filling out the Xe2-HPG and Xe2-LPG variants: Xe2-HPG will be discrete graphic cards, while Xe2-LPG will be integrated GPUs inside upcoming processors like Intel's next-gen Lunar Lake CPUs.

The new Battlemage Xe2-HPG GPUs were spotted by "miktdt" with the 20-core Xe2-HPG GPU featuring 160 Vector Engines and 2560 ALUs, while the 24-core Xe2-HPG GPU packed 192 Vector Engines and 3072 ALUs. Both of the Xe2-HPG GPUs featured 8MB of L2 cache, which is half of the cache Intel uses on Alchemist Xe-LPG GPUs with 32 cores. Both of the GPUs also packed 12GB of VRAM on what seems to be a 192-bit memory interface.

NVIDIA's set to reduce its production of Lovelace graphics cards from now on in preparation for the launch of Blackwell GPUs later this year.

That's the latest from the rumor mill, specifically Korean tech site Quasarzone as noticed by Wccftech.

Industry experts in South Korea are cited as sources who are saying that NVIDIA has told its manufacturing partners that it'll be dropping shipments in terms of supply for existing RTX 4000 graphics cards.

NVIDIA's RTX 3050 received a new spin on the graphics card not so long ago, a considerably cut-down version with 6GB of VRAM, and apparently it's selling well in China.

Indeed, this GPU - intended as a fresh option in place of the old GTX GPUs which have been chucked on the scrapheap - is under 'huge' demand in China, according to a report highlighted by Wccftech.

So much so, that apparently graphics card manufacturers over in the country are increasing the asking price of the RTX 3050 6GB, or that's the word on the grapevine, specifically from the Chinese Board Channel forums.

NVIDIA announced its next-generation Blackwell GPU architecture and the world's fastest AI GPU, the Blackwell B200 AI GPU, last week at GTC 2024 (GPU Technology Conference). CEO Jensen Huang said it'll be around 10 years before something like DLSS 10 renders every frame using AI.

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang predicted the future of AI in gaming, saying that in under 10 years we will see AI generating every single pixel in every game, all in real-time. Jensen said: "I think with almost, almost everything in technology, the S curve is not longer than a decade once it becomes true, once it becomes practical and better. And, of course, ChatGPT is not only practical; in most cases, it's better. I think it's less than ten years away".

Jensen continued: "In ten year's time, you're at the other end of that S curve. In five years from now, you're probably right in the middle where everything is changing in real-time, and everybody's going, 'Oh, look at that, this is happening.' And so you just got to decide, are we two years into it, into that ten years? Probably. We're probably already two years into it. And so I would say that within the next five to ten years, somewhere in between, it's largely the case".

Samsung wasn't the only one showing off next-gen GDDR7 memory chips at NVIDIA's GPU Technology Conference (GTC) 2024 event, with SK hynix also having some GDDR7 on the show floor. Check it out:

Our friends over at HardwareLuxx were on the show floor at NVIDIA GTC 2024, spotting SK hynix's new GDDR7 memory modules that offer up to 40Gbps per pin for up to 160GB/sec memory bandwidth per module. We've heard and reported that GDDR7 memory will start its life at 28Gbps on NVIDIA's next-gen GeForce RTX 50 series GPUs, with refreshes along the way packing higher-speed GDDR7 modules.

Samsung has claimed it is working on 37Gbps GDDR7 memory while also showing off next-gen 32Gbps and 28Gbps GDDR7 memory modules at NVIDIA GTC 2024. We should expect NVIDIA to roll out GeForce RTX 50 series graphics cards with 28Gbps GDDR7 memory, but I would lean more towards 32Gbps GDDR7 to give them a huge performance leap over the GDDR6X-based flagship GeForce RTX 4090.

NVIDIA may have new spins on its RTX 4070, 4060 Ti and 4060 graphics cards inbound, but if so, let's make it clear from the outset that these won't be anything interesting.

A tweet has surfaced from regular leaker MEGAsizeGPU claiming some new versions are planned by NVIDIA, but before you begin imagining some kind of 4060 Super (or indeed 4060 Ti Super), these graphics cards will keep the exact same specifications as the existing versions (if they're anything at all - add salt as ever).

So, what's the point of that? Well, they will have a different chip, with the changes being as follows:

With Intel's Arc graphics now covering discrete GPUs like the Arc A750 and recent Arc A580 and integrated graphics in the new Intel Core Ultra series of mobile processors, the diligent team over at Team Blue continues to improve driver support for new games and older titles.

Over the past year, we've seen significant overhauls to DirectX 12 and DirectX 11 performance, with per-game optimizations bringing some game-changing improvements. The latest Intel Game On Graphics Driver release for Arc Graphics is no different, with new game support for Dragon's Dogma 2, Horizon Forbidden West, and Diablo IV's upcoming ray-tracing update; a bunch of older titles are also getting "up to 174% average FPS uplift."

Those massive performance increases are limited to a handful of titles, like Detroit: Become Human (Vulkan) and Granblue Fantasy: Relink (DX11). Still, a 36% performance bump to God of War running on a desktop Arc GPU and a 17% performance bump running on an Intel Core Ultra with built-in Arc are great to see.

AMD has released AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 24.3.1 for Radeon GPU owners, and the latest driver update from Team Red is a big one - not only in terms of new game support but also in the number of 'Fixed Issues.'

First, the Adrenalin Edition 24.3.1 adds day-one support to the two biggest PC game releases of the week (and month), with Capcom's Dragon's Dogma 2 and Sony's Horizon Forbidden West Complete Edition getting some Radeon love. Outpost: Infinity Siege, the third game listed in the release notes, is more of an unknown. It's described as an "FPS, Base Building, Tower Defense" game, launching next week on Steam.

Onto the fixed issues, high-end Radeon RX 7900 Series GPU owners playing the smash-hit Helldivers 2 will be pleased to know that Adrenalin Edition 24.3.1 resolves and improves driver timeout issues and crashes when playing the game. Another win for all Radeon owners is AMD fixing micro stutter issues with AMD Fluid Motion Frames, improving the driver-based Frame Generation solution that's part of HYPR-RX.

NVIDIA only just announced and detailed its new Blackwell GPU architecture and new B200 AI GPU at GTC 2024 this week, but now we're hearing fresh rumors on the next-gen Vera Rubin GPU, which could be released in the first half of 2025.

The news is coming from sources close to Moore's Law is Dead, with the leaker saying one of his sources said that AMD is doing everything possible to get its next-gen Instinct MI400X out in the wild, which would arrive in Q1 2025 "at the earliest". NVIDIA doesn't want to stop the AI GPU domination, so don't think Blackwell is where it stops... as Vera Rubin dropping in 2025 would be absolutely insane.

Blackwell is said to be the GPU architecture for both the AI and data center GPUs from NVIDIA and its upcoming next-gen GeForce RTX 50 series graphics cards. Vera Rubin will succeed Blackwell, but will only be for the AI GPU market like Hopper and Volta are. Vera Rubin won't be for gamers, so we could expect NVIDIA to reveal its next-gen Vera Rubin GPU architecture at its GTC 2025 event.

AMD shipped its Radeon RX 5600 XT graphics card with 6GB of memory, but now YouTuber and modder Paulo Gnomes has more than doubled the memory capacity from 6GB to an incredible 16GB.

Not only that, but the modder also increased the stock 192-bit memory bus up to a higher 256-bit memory bus, which, when overclocked, the PowerColor Radeon RX 5600 XT Red Devil graphics card that was modded was up to 29% faster than its stock 192-bit memory bus and stock 6GB of GDDR6.

The modder had to modify the BIOS on the Radeon RX 5600 XT Red Devil graphics card, adjusting the right hexadecimal code to tell the GPU to unlock the additional memory controllers inside of the Navi 10 GPU die.

Intel's Arc Graphics platform, which covers discrete desktop GPUs like the Intel Arc A750 and mobile chips like the new Intel Core Ultra 155H with Intel Arc built-in, is designed for modern gamers and creators - leveraging the latest PC tech. For creators, Intel Arc offers hardware video encoding and decoding covering AVC, HEVC, and AV1.

This is all handled by Arc's Intel Xe Media Engine. In a new blog post (and video), Intel explains precisely what encoding and decoding video is about while presenting benchmarks for its Arc hardware - comparing performance to competing products. The post doubles as an excellent primer for learning about video compression and decompression while showcasing why a GPU-based hardware solution is essential in 2024.

In its head-to-head transcoding comparisons, we see the Intel Arc A750 versus the GeForce RTX 4060 and the Intel Core Ultra 155H versus the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 7840U. And in a lot of workloads, Arc pulls ahead.

Horizon Forbidden West Complete Edition is out this week, bringing the highly anticipated PlayStation exclusive to the PC platform. Horizon Zero Dawn was one of the first major PS4 to PC ports, and this sequel, built to take advantage of the more powerful PS5 hardware, will present a significant visual upgrade to the original. A massive open-world action adventure, the Complete Edition includes the PS5-only Burning Shores expansion.

In addition to supporting unlocked frame rates, ultrawide displays, and advanced graphics settings to take advantage of modern GPUs, it will arrive on day one with NVIDIA DLSS 3, DLAA, and Reflex support. And with that, NVIDIA's latest GeForce Game Ready Driver 551.86 - WHQL with optimizations for Horizon Forbidden West Complete Edition. Download it here.

Usually, NVIDIA provides benchmarks for high-profile releases like this. Instead, it reiterates Sony's performance info, where GeForce RTX 4080 gamers can expect solid 4K 60 FPS performance using the game's 'Very High' quality setting without DLSS. OF course, DLSS will present a notable free performance bump for all GeForce RTX owners.

A new report from TrendForce reveals that "significant capital investments" have been made in the memory sector due to HBM's high ASP and profitability.

According to TrendForce Senior Vice President Avril Wu, by the end of 2024, the DRAM industry is expected to allocate around 14% of its total capacity to making HBM, with an estimated annual supply bit growth of around 260%. Also, HBM's revenue share is expected to increase to around 20.1% by the end of the year, up from the 8.4% that HBM had in 2023.

Wu continued, saying that in terms of production differences between HBM and DDR5, the die size of HBM is around 35-45% larger than DDR5 even on the same process and capacity (comparing 24Gb to 24Gb). Yield rates including TSV packaging (Through-Silicon Via) for HBM is around 20-30% lower than DDR5, with the production cycle taking 1.5 to 2 months longer than DDR5.