GPU

Alongside the launch of its midrange RX 6700 XT, and shortly after the arrival of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060, which brought resizable BAR support to a range of chipsets and CPUs, AMD announced that Smart Access Memory would be making its way to Ryzen 3000 processors.

AMD's Radeon RX 6700 XT is official, and will be the cheapest way to experience the RDNA 2 architecture on a PC, at least for the time being. AMD insists that the Radeon RX 6700 XT is a foil for the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti and the RTX 3070, although its VRAM specifications are more of a match for the RTX 3060.

Nvidia has unsurprisingly completely dominated the Steam Hardware & Software Survey for February in terms of PC video card usage. Once again, 18 out of the top 20 places are taken up by Nvidia GPUs, with the GeForce GTX 1650, RTX 2060, and RTX 3080 showing the greatest positive movement for their respective series.

AMD is on the cusp of unveiling the Radeon RX 6700 XT, its answer to NVIDIA's RTX 3060 or RTX 3060 Ti. Ahead of tomorrow's launch, Videocardz has revealed two ASUS custom cards, underlining that AMD plans to bring two versions of the RX 6700 XT to market.

There may be an ongoing graphics card shortage, but Colorful has found enough stock to produce iCafe editions of the RTX 3060 and RTX 3060 Ti. The two iCafe models look almost identical, even though they have different GPUs. Ultimately, these iCafe cards could still end up with crypto miners as some internet cafes have been repurposed for mining cryptocurrencies during the pandemic.

A new leak suggests that the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT could hit shelves sometime in the third week of March 2021. It will allegedly retail at US$479 or US$499. Lastly, there are two variants of the graphics card in the works.

AIBs including Gigabyte and ASUS have removed a number of GeForce RTX 3090 models with a blower-style fan from their websites. A Videocardz report hints that this could be in order to make way for cryptocurrency mining cards with blower fans. Whatever the reason may be, this is good news for gamers, on account of the inefficiency of blower fan tech.

Intel's upcoming DG2 Xe-HPG GPU for mainstream gamers and content creators may be available in a total of six SKUs, according to leaks doing the rounds. DG2 Xe-HPG variants start from 96 EUs and 4 GB GDDR6 VRAM and will top-out at 512 EUs with 16 GB GDDR6 VRAM to take on NVIDIA GA104 and AMD RX 6800 offerings.

A new video has demonstrated the effects of prolonged crypto mining on the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti. Seemingly, stressing the Turing card for so long in this way causes noticeable in-game performance drops, including to average FPS, 1% lows and GPU clock speeds.

NVIDIA has just announced updates for the RTX 3060 that bring Resizable BAR to the new GPU, as promised earlier. It is compatible with a range of relevant chipsets, processors, motherboards and cards - the new Aorus GeForce RTX 3060 Elite 12G included. This card reprises the brand's RGB three-ring design, and is also touted as designed for durability and performance.

A Videocardz report indicates that NVIDIA's upcoming CMP (cryptocurrency mining processors) will be variants on last-gen Turing parts. The CMP 40HX will be based on TU106, while the CMP 30HX will use the same TU116 GPU found in the GeForce GTX 1660 Super. However, CMP 50HX and CMP 90HX look like they could be built on Ampere.

AMD has confirmed that the Radeon RX 6700 series will arrive in just a week, contrary to previous reports. The March 3-bound cards will have a dual fan design and will be based on Navi 22 GPUs, AMD has also confirmed.

The MSI PCB includes a 8+6-pin power connector instead of an 8-pin one, which should provide more stability for the overclocked core. Despite the increased boost speeds, the TGP matches the reference 170 W. The number of inductors appears to be modified as well, and the PCB supports 8 VRAM slots, of which only 6 are populated. Unfortunately, we will not be seeing 16 GB versions, due to the limitations imposed by the 192-bit memory bus.

A new leak suggests that Nvidia could launch a 6GB variant of the GeForce RTX 3060 graphics cards soon. The Palit-branded graphics card showed up on the South Korean National Radio Research Agency website alongside other SKUs. However, Nvidia is yet to officially acknowledge the existence of such a GeForce RTX 3060 variant.

The GeForce RTX 3060 has arrived on the Ashes of the Singularity database, where it has outscored the RTX 2060 and the RTX 2070. The RTX 3060 appears to offer comparable performance to the RTX 2070 SUPER, despite having a US$170 lower MSRP.

Currently, it looks like only the upcoming RTX 3060 will be affected by NVIDIA's recent move to limit hash rates via drivers and firmware. NVIDIA recently launched dedicated CMP cards for miners seemingly to put more GeForce cards in the hands of gamers, but that move may not be really end user-friendly in the long run once the present cryptocurrency boom goes bust.

The most powerful Radeon RX 6900 XT has arrived, which Sapphire has paired with a 360 mm AIO. The Sapphire Radeon RX 6900 XT TOXIC should retail for £1,299 in the UK and US$1,499 in the US, but the RDNA 2 card is currently listed for up to £400 more at some retailers.

A new report has shed some light on how much some custom Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 models could cost upon launch. At US$484.99 MSI's Ventus X2 is the most affordable of the lot. On the flip side, the MSI Gaming X Trio will cost an eye-watering US$514.9. We should know for sure on its February 25 launch date.

Supposed specifications for the Radeon RX 6700 series have leaked, ahead of next month's anticipated release. Apparently, AMD plans to release two RX 6700 XT models, while the RX 6700 will arrive in April with just 6 GB of GDDR6 VRAM.

Koei Tecmo’s Souls-like finally received some PC love with the addition of DLSS 2.0 support. While cards like the GeForce RTX 3080 were already capable of hitting 4K/60, DLSS 2.0 opens up that possibility to a wider range of RTX cards.

While NVIDIA has announced plans to scupper the crypto mining capabilities of the RTX 3060, multiple sources are claiming that the company will extend this to the rest of its RTX 30 series product stack. Apparently, NVIDIA may do so be releasing new RTX 30 series SKUs and discontinuing current ones.

Latest rumors claim that AMD is preparing a March 18 launch for the RX 6700 XT mid-range gaming cards, even though Team Red is among the companies that have been hit the hardest by the global semiconductor shortages. This will most likely be another rushed paper launch to counter Nvidia's RTX 3060 release.

It turns out that ZOTAC has been selling both its RTX 3060 cards before NVIDIA's release embargo on February 25. Now, the ZOTAC GeForce RTX 3060 Twin Edge OC Edition has popped up in a video about mining Ethereum. However, it seems that the RTX 3060 can tell that it is mining cryptocurrencies even without software drivers being installed, which points to NVIDIA having baked something within the BIOS, not just its drivers.

AMD and NVIDIA may have new 8 GB cards on the way, albeit versions of ones that they have already released. For one reason or another, an NVIDIA board partner has registered an RTX 3060 with 8 GB of VRAM with the RRA in South Korea, while a retailer claims that people can pre-order desktop PCs with an 8 GB version of the RX 6800.

Nvidia has announced in an official blog post that the upcoming GeForce RTX 3060 graphics cards will feature drivers that limit the GPU’s performance if the board is used for crypto mining. At the same time, Team Green has also revealed the CMP HX processors that are specifically designed for digging up digital coins.

The passively-cooled Asus TUF RTX 3080 GPU was tested in Furmark along with a Ryzen 5 5600X and the results were a bit sketchy. While the CPU was running at 40 degrees Celsius during the Furmark test, the GPU peaked at 87 degrees Celsius and it did not even level out. Total power draw appears to hover around 410 W, most likely in idle.

The new HBM-PIM chips will deliver over twice the system performance of the current HBM2 solutions and reduce energy consumption by more than 70%. Samsung designed this new memory architecture in order to accelerate large-scale processing in data centers, high performance computing systems and AI-enabled mobile applications.

News about the RTX 3070 Ti has been quiet in recent weeks, with FinalWire adding support for the card to AIDA64 Extreme in December. Now, a retailer briefly listed an RTX 3070 Ti with 16 GB of GDDR6 VRAM on its website as part of a pre-built PC.

New findings support the idea that the PlayStation 5 does not support AMD Infinity Cache. The first SWIR die shot of the PlayStation 5 points to Sony having cut other RDNA 2 features too, including some FFUs and FMAs or FMADDs.

There have been reports of computer part retailers in Europe hiking prices of GeForce RTX 3060 AIB boards before the graphics card is even launched. Nvidia’s MSRPs for the GeForce RTX 3060 are US$329/€329/£299 but retailer prices have gone beyond double in some cases. Gamers have been blaming the hikes on cryptocurrency miners.

NVIDIA has taken matters into its hands and has intervened on how OEMs advertise its RTX 30 series laptop GPUs. OEMs will now be required to disclose their RTX 30 series laptops' TGPs and clock speeds, but NVIDIA has removed TGP values from its official release drivers.
Updated: A GeForce Hotfix Driver has re-enabled Maximum Graphics Power information for RTX 30 series laptops.

NVIDIA has formally announced that the GeForce RTX 3060 will arrive on February 25, following confirmation from various sources. The GA106 card is slated to launch for US$329 too, despite its apparent limited availability and amid concerns about price increases.

Another AMD board partner has registered Radeon RX 6700 XT SKUs with the EEC in Russia. Powercolor has registered multiple SKUs with the regulatory body, all of which have 12 GB of VRAM. However, there are also a few references to the Radeon RX 6700, which AMD appears to have designed with 6 GB of GDDR6 VRAM.

The U.S. government is ready to conduct a 100-day review that will identify potential chokepoints in the supply chain for semiconductor products, as well as for other essential goods like minerals, medical supplies and high-capacity batteries for electric vehicles. Other shortage solutions include increased semiconductor manufacturing funds and grants.

NVIDIA recently launched a DLSS plugin on the Unreal Marketplace, potentially kicking off widespread adoption of its AI-based upscaling technology. Developers should now be able to effortlessly incorporate DLSS in games that run on the Unreal engine.

Modders discovered that the MSI Leopard G76 vBIOS can be flashed on the Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 15, allowing the RTX 3080 TGP to be raised from 115 W to 150 W. This trick can provide up to 18% increased performance, but it can also lead to serious stability issues like increased cooler noise, thermal throttling and battery problems caused by overwhelmed power supply.

The GeForce GTX 1050 Ti is being given a new lease of life, almost half a decade after its initial release. According to a new report, NVIDIA has already started resupplying the card to plug the gap currently left by the RTX 30 series.

When it comes to NVIDIA's Ampere laptop GPUs, variation in TGPs is just one conundrum. Apparently, NVIDIA is keeping mum on Dynamic Boost 2.0 clocks due to which OEMs, apart from determining TGP and Max-Q features, are also deciding on which boost clocks to advertise further complicating matters for both reviewers and end users alike.

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 is already available to purchase through official channels and at more than double its MSRP. NVIDIA's first GA106 card will be available globally, albeit probably in extremely limited quantities, from the end of February.

According to a major European retailer, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 series will become even harder to purchase between now and April. Prices of NVIDIA's latest graphics cards will continue to increase too, even those bought from retailers.

AMD seems to be internally looking at a 2.5x performance increase for RDNA 3 compared to RDNA 2, flagship-to-flagship. RDNA 3 Navi 31 with 160 CUs is expected to be a multi-chip module while Navi 33 will continue to be monolithic. With Intel Xe also pegged to offer good ray tracing performance, NVIDIA Lovelace will have both Intel and AMD in its sights.

A new report from Wccftech speculates that the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 will be launched in February 26. Some of its key features include a GA-106-200 GPU, 12GB of GDDR6 VRAM, and 3,584 CUDA cores. Prices are expected to start at US$329.

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti is now speculated to come with 12GB of GDDR6X VRAM and 10,240 CUDA cores. Its 320-bit memory interface will allow for 730Gb/s of memory bandwidth, identical to that of the GeForce RTX 3080.

A financial blogger on Chinese social media has posted various images of Nvidia GeForce RTX 30 series laptops being used for cryptocurrency mining. The rigs on show involve dozens of gaming notebooks stacked up just for hunting down some increasingly valuable Ethereum. Some of the laptops visible are RTX 3060 machines that cost around US$1,000.

The EEC files reveal the existence of several RX 6600 XT models from ASRock, all of them coming with 12 GB of GDDR6 VRAM, This suggests that these versions may still be based on the Navi 22 SKU with 192-bit bus, but probably have low clocks that only require a single-fan cooler.

More details about the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT have surfaced, courtesy of KOMACHI ENSAKA. This time, Gigabyte has registered multiple RX 6700 XT SKUs with the EEC, seemingly confirming the company's intent to sell AORUS, Eagle, Gaming and OC versions of the card. The listing suggests that Gigabyte plans to sell a reference model too, all of which will have 12 GB of VRAM.

AMD has promised to release more Navi 21-based reference cards throughout Q1 2021, according to a Senior Director of the company. It remains to be seen how many reference cards will hit the market though, but AMD feels that stock difficulties will stay until at least the second half of 2021. Hence, any reference cards sold this quarter will probably be resold almost instantly at a hefty premium.