Graphics Cards - Page 96

NVIDIA's RTX 4060 Ti graphics card launched in an initial incarnation that offered 8GB of VRAM, much to the chagrin of many gamers, and if you were waiting for the 16GB variant, it's almost at hand now.

We already knew that NVIDIA was planning on bringing the 16GB flavor out in July, of course, but we're still not sure exactly when - info that MEGAsizeGPU, a regular hardware leaker on Twitter has provided.

As ever, treat this with a good deal of caution, but the theory is that the RTX 4060 Ti 16GB will emerge on July 18, which is just under a fortnight away.

The race to achieve a boost clock frequency of 4 GHz on a GPU looks to be over, with American overclocker Allen "Splave" Golibersuch hitting this milestone moments ago, recording a GPUPI V3.3 - 32B result of 4005 MHz.

Bang on 4 GHz, and although the HWBOT submission outlines a 45sec 402ms run with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 at 4005 MHz - we assume this is the same flagship liquid-cooled ROG Matrix GeForce RTX 4090 all-in-one from ASUS he used to achieve a 3.94 GHz result just days ago.

The race to 4 GHz has been heating up recently, with overclocker Cens pushing a Colorful GeForce RTX 4090 iGame LAB to an incredible 3.975 GHz reclaiming the OC crown. We posted that achievement earlier today, so Splave hitting 4 GHz looks to have made that world record attempt somewhat short-lived.

Recently we reported on NVIDIA working with PCI-SIG to redesign the 12VHPWR connector for the GeForce RTX 40 Series with the new 12V-2x6 power connector as part of the new ATX 3.1 standard. This revelation came to light via an extensive report at Igor's Lab outlining how adjustments to pin depth help alleviate issues with the connection not being seated or plugged in correctly.

The outlet has now posted an additional report showing that the GeForce RTX 4070 Founders Edition model from NVIDIA features a modified 12VHPWR connector compared to what was seen on the GeForce RTX 4080 Founders Edition.

It notes that the RTX 4070 connector features a 1.7 mm inward offset for the sensor pins, compared to the 0.45 mm offset for the RTX 4080, and this is similar to what is being planned for the new 12V-2x6 connector being developed.

The race to hit and sustain a 4 GHz boost clock frequency on a GPU is heating up, with the Colorful GeForce RTX 4090 iGame LAB reclaiming the OC crown after being overclocked to an incredible 3.975 GHz. This new world record arrives just a couple of days after ASUS posted its result of 3.94 GHz for its new flagship GPU the ROG Matrix GeForce RTX 4090.

Of course, these results result from extreme overclocking with LN2 cooling and see hardware makers partner with veteran and talented OC masters. On the ASUS side, it partnered with overclocker SPLAVE; for Colorful, that's overclocker Cens.

And with Cens managing to get within 25 MHz of the 4 GHz barrier, there's a good chance we might see that barrier being smashed very soon.

Intel Arc A380 represents the company's entry-level discrete gaming GPU, priced below USD 150 at retail outlets. Thanks to its excellent video support, it's the sort of GPU perfect for older systems or hybrid media servers. And with that, ASRock has unveiled its new Intel Arc A380 Low Profile 6GB graphics card with a height of just 69mm and a length of 169mm.

Specs-wise, you've got the ACM-G11 GPU with 1,024 stream processors, clock speeds of 2.0GHz, and 6GB of GDDR6 memory on a 96-bit bus. As an entry-level GPU, it's not meant to play the latest games with detail settings cranked up, but based on reviews, it can certainly hold its own when dialing things down - which is expected for an entry-level product.

One plus of the Intel Arc A380 is that it doesn't require any external power or cable to be connected, with the 75W of motherboard power via the PCIe slot being enough. ASRock's Intel Arc A380 Low Profile 6GB features a robust design, with its twin-fan cooling also offering a 0dB mode - a big plus if you plan to put one in a media PC.

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 is a powerful GPU. Per our review of the Founders Edition model last year, we noted that it trumped both the RTX 3090 and RTX 3090 Ti regarding in-game performance with superior efficiency and cooling. The RTX 4080 is a 4K beast, with the big sticking point from many being its price point of USD 1,199.

This is a fair point of criticism because no matter how advanced its high-end Ada Lovelace architecture might be - the price increase over the previous generation saw potential buyers simply looking toward the flagship GeForce RTX 4090 as a better option. There's also something to be said about exceeding the USD 1,000 barrier for a gaming GPU, which makes the idea of a USD 999 GeForce RTX 4080 16GB graphics card seem far better.

And that's what's on offer over at Newegg, with the MSI Ventus GeForce RTX 4080 16GB GDDR6X available for USD 999 after taking a further $100 off its discounted USD 1,099 price via a coupon.

NVIDIA's newly launched RTX 4060 GPU is already getting substantial price cuts in Europe, and the latest to be spotted brings the graphics card a full 10% under its MSRP - plus there are similar cuts to the 4060 Ti and AMD RX 7600, too.

This price-cutting action is happening at Spanish online retailer CoolMod, which has the Inno3D RTX 4060 Twin X2 reduced from €340 down to €300 (technically, the MSRP is €335).

As VideoCardz, which spotted this, points out, there are similar reductions on the RTX 4060 Ti, which is 11% below MSRP (at €400 for a Palit model) and an even bigger 13% drop with the RX 7600 (down to €260).

DLSS has a new 'Ultra Quality' mode, and the first game to implement it is the recently released F1 23 - at least, that's what we assumed. This new DLSS Super Resolution setting isn't about boosting performance but improving a game's visual fidelity with NVIDIA's AI-based DLAA anti-aliasing tech.

This means the new DLSS 'Ultra Quality' mode doesn't take a lower-resolution image as the input; it uses AI to improve image quality at your native resolution to deliver better results than techniques like TAA and MSAA. As long as you've got the frame to spare, it makes DLSS a single package that can handle all AA and upscaling tasks. However, the option appearing with the 'Ultra Quality' name in F1 23 was an error.

Early reports for its use in F1 23 (as seen at DSOG) note that the image quality looks superior to native 4K rendering with TAA with nearly identical performance regarding frame rate. A statement from NVIDIA clarified the confusion about what 'Ultra Quality' was doing, noting that "this was an error in naming, this is DLAA and will be updated in a future patch."

When NVIDIA introduced the new ATX 3.0 ready 12VHPWR power connector with the new GeForce RTX 40 Series, we began to see reports of connectors melting on the GPU-side for the 450W power-rated GeForce RTX 4090. This sparked a wave of reporting, investigations, and even new products looking to minimize the odds of this happening.

The consensus, including NVIDIA's, was that the issue resulted from "user error" - specifically, cables (via adaptors) not being plugged in correctly or adequately seated. And so, products like CableMod's 90-degree 12VHPWR Degree Angled Adapter were seen as excellent alternatives to the pack-in adaptors, offering better stability and minimizing stress on the connection that could lead to it becoming loose. According to reports CableMod has sold upwards of 40,000 or more of these adaptors.

But, CableMod's custom 12VHPWR Degree Angled Adapter also melts, with one Reddit user noting it was correctly connected. The issue even caused the adaptor to fuse with the 12-pin connection on the GPU, so it's essentially stuck there, connected to the GeForce RTX 4090.

All-in-one water-cooled GPUs are relatively new, and we've seen several AIO releases in recent years. Mostly, these have been limited to the high-end flagship models, like the GeForce RTX 3090 or, more recently, the GeForce RTX 4090. Today we've got word that GIGABYTe is expanding its AORUS WATERFORCE graphics card line-up to include two new GeForce RTX 4070 Ti models.

The AORUS GeForce RTX 4070 Ti XTREME WATERFORCE 12G and AORUS GeForce RTX 4070 Ti XTREME WATERFORCE WB 12G have launched, with the latter designed for those with an open-loop water-cooled system. GIGABYTE promises "exceptional durability" and "leak resistance" for long-term efficiency and reliability.

Although a couple of steps down from the flagship RTX 4090, the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti is a good candidate for an AIO solution as it offers up GeForce RTX 3090-like 4K performance to make it still extremely powerful for modern PC gaming.

We've caught a mention of a 'Radeon RX 7600 XT' on the German AMD website, but we're really not reading anything much into that at this point.

Mainly because it very much looks like a simple error (although granted, it's a rather baffling mistake to make).

The AMD site in question is for the existing (recently launched) RX 7600 graphics card, except the title page calls the GPU the RX 7600 XT (and this is still present at the time of writing - presumably it'll be corrected soon enough, though).

NVIDIA's RTX 4060 graphics card has already witnessed price drops, at least in Europe - so will we see them in the US next?

Wccftech spotted the price cuts in Germany and France, where the freshly launched GPU has dropped 6% below its MSRP.

MindFactory, a major German retailer, is now selling the MSI GeForce RTX 4060 Ventus 2X Black OC for €310, and in France, over at Hardware.fr, the same graphics card has been dropped to €309.

If you thought real-time ray-tracing effects in games like shadows or reflections were taxing on GPU hardware, you probably haven't seen path-tracing in action. Path tracing essentially makes all lighting and light-related effects a real-time calculation, like RT on steroids, and the results are incredible but also incredibly taxing on GPU hardware.

Last year we saw the release of Portal with RTX from NVIDIA, which took Valve's iconic first-person puzzle game and turned it into a stunning path-traced showcase. This a glimpse at the future because even on a GeForce RTX 4090, you still need DLSS Super Resolution and Frame Generation to play it with a high frame rate.

The same goes for the recent Cyberpunk 2077 RT Overdrive mode from CD Projekt Red, which takes the game's impressive RT effects to present a Technical Preview of a full path-traced Night City to explore. The results are stunning, but like with Portal, you'll need DLLS 3 to experience it properly without devolving into a stuttering slideshow. But what if you get real-time path tracing to run on a mainstream GPU like the Intel Arc A750?

It has only been a couple of weeks since we saw an LN2-cooled Colorful GeForce RTX 4090 iGame LAB hitting an impressive 3.93 GHz, but the race to hit a stabled 4 GHz clock speed continues with ASUS taking the OC crown. With its new flagship ROG Matrix GeForce RTX 4090 and 'sub-zero liquid nitrogen overclocking,' the GPU has hit an impressive 3.94 GHz (or 3945MHz).

Like Olympic track and field events, sometimes a 0.01 GHz increase is enough to determine the gold from silver. Announced at Computex 2023, the new flagship liquid-cooled ROG Matrix GeForce RTX 4090 all-in-one is ASUS's top-of-the-line RTX 4090 and will ship with the highest GPU boost clock for a custom card to date - though this will be considerably lower than 3.94 GHz.

ASUS sent the GPU to overclocker SPLAVE, who achieved this incredible result with the GPUPI v3.3 benchmark. Although it only represents a 15 MHz increase over the recent Colorful GeForce RTX 4090 iGame LAB result, we're reaching the theoretical endpoint for how far the RTX 4090 GPU can be pushed. So every MHz counts.

A new 16-pin power connector able to deliver up to 600W of power, what should have been an interesting footnote in the transition to a new standard, became one of the defining parts of the flagship GeForce RTX 4090 launch, with reports of melting cables and no one knowing why, the seemingly innocuous collection of numbers and digits '12VHPWR' is now tied to the idea of catastrophic failure.

According to a new in-depth report at Igor's Lab, PCI-SIG is set to replace the 16-pin 12VHPWR power connector with the new 12V-2x6 power connector as part of the new ATX 3.1 standard. We don't have to wait long for the new connector, as MSI's new MAG GL Series power supplies (recently revealed) features support the new '12V-2x6' connector.

Cue the good news, the new 12V-2x6 power connector is backward compatible with the 12VHPWR connector - so it's more of a revision than a complete redesign. With most melted cables chalked up to user error or not being fully seated during installation, one has to wonder if this revision rectifies a specific design flaw.

Last week we reported on an interesting four-slot Founders Edition cooler, which we assumed was a prototype for a potential GeForce RTX 4090 Ti or TITAN-class Ada GPU. With its unique vertical orientation for the I/O ports and truly massive cooling potential, whatever its intended use was - undoubtedly, it would have been for a monster.

And we say 'was' because what you're looking at is essentially just the cooler, no PCB, no GPU, and no actual hardware to make it a functional graphics card. Still, that hasn't stopped this mysterious Founders Edition oddity from appearing on Taobao's Goofish platform, where someone under the name "Hayaka" is asking for a cool USD 120,000 (or RMB 888,000) for this admittedly rare piece of GeForce hardware.

NVIDIA's flagship GPU for the Ada Lovelace-powered GeForce RTX 40 Series is the GeForce RTX 4090, an already massive GPU that sits in a class all its own with a price point to match its impressive performance. There are enough leaks and info out there to suggest that NVIDIA has considered releasing a more powerful GeForce RTX 4090 Ti with beefier specs, but it looks like these plans have been put on hold.

In a move that's very much against the overall grain of the GPU market as a whole, Lovelace graphics cards are set for modest price increases in one region.

That would be China, or at least this is what we're told from the Board Channels forums over in the country, a source of many leaks and rumors - but one that should be treated with more than the usual dose of skepticism.

The theory is that everything from the newly launched RTX 4060 to the flagship RTX 4090 graphics cards will be subject to price hikes of 2% to 4% starting this month, and indeed, the RTX 4060 has already had an increase.

The latest Steam Hardware Survey results for June 2023 are here, so let's look at the latest snapshot of GPUs out there powering everyone's PC gaming action. Per the headline, the most popular GPU looks to be the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650, with a 5.5% share. The USD 150 entry-level card from 2019 was designed for 1080p performance but has since been superseded with entries like the GeForce RTX 3050.

NVIDIA once again dominates the list, with 76.05% of all Steam users rocking an NVIDIA GPU, followed by 15.04% from AMD and 8.66% from Intel. That said, the only GPUs released last year that appear on the list are from NVIDIA.

The GeForce GTX 1650 is the first of many entry-level, mainstream, and mid-range GeForce graphics cards from the last couple of generations that make up the top ten GPUs, according to the latest Steam Hardware Survey results. Plus, old faithful - the GeForce GTX 1060 - is sitting at number three. Not far behind the GTX 1650 sits the GeForce RTX 3060 with a 4.6% share, though it's interesting to see the GeForce RTX 3070 in the top ten too.

A stealthy GPU release from MSI, with a brand-new GeForce RTX 4090 GPU from the popular brand, is not getting anything in the way of an official announcement or reveal. However, it's not hard to see why, as the new MSI GeForce RTX 4090 AERO S looks to be exclusive to the Chinese market and features a traditional blower-fan cooling design.

It's not something we expected to see, but there looks to be some interest in GeForce RTX 4090 GPUs using this cooler design to keep the overall thickness down to a more manageable two-slot size. We reported on the new AFOX RTX 4090, another GPU with a blower-fan design, a week ago.

Without recognizable branding on the MSI GeForce RTX 4090 AERO S, odds are this GPU is positioned as a workstation RTX GPU for the Chinese market. Although less capable than high-end Ada-powered workstation GPUs, it could present a more affordable alternative for intensive workloads. Especially when crowded workstation PCs are designed for GPUs not to be at most two slots thick.

ASUS has showcased an interesting concept GeForce RTX 4060 Ti, adding a PCIe Gen 4 M.2 SSD slot onto the back of the GPU to use unused PCIe lanes. NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 4060 Ti uses x8 lanes, so the full PCIe x16 slot has extra room for a Gen4 M.2 SSD to utilize a PCIe x4 interface. Although strange, the M.2 SSD-equipped GeForce RTX 4060 Ti that features storage on the same PCB begins to make sense.

Tony Yu, ASUS's General Manager,gave a close look at the concept showcasing that the placement of a Samsung 980 PRO 2TB SSD on the back of the GPU means that the heatsink and cooling for the efficient GeForce RTX 4060 Ti eliminate any concerns around the SSD overheating. We saw temperatures remain low during a benchmark, so the excessive cooling on the GPU helps keep the SSD storage cooler than the traditional install-it-on-the-motherboard route.

Due to the small size of M.2 drives, the cutout on the concept GeForce RTX 4060 Ti blends in with the backplate of what looks to be a customized version of the ASUS Dual GeForce RTX 4060 Ti - and it looks very cool.