GPU

A Counterpoints Research study has determined that TSMC has 28% of the market share in matured nodes (40nm and below), making it the world leader in the global semiconductor manufacturing market. UMC, SMIC and Samsung take second, third and fourth place with market shares of 13%, 11% and 10%, respectively.

Nvidia looks impressively strong in the PC video card usage chart in Steam’s latest monthly Hardware & Software survey. There are new entries for both the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti and RTX 3090, while the RTX 3080 enjoys a third month of popularity. In terms of overall percentage share, Nvidia has no real rival in the GPU space yet.

A 14C/20T Intel 12th gen Alder Lake-P processor has been spotted on Geekbench showing a boost up to 4.7 GHz. This particular entry pertains to the OpenCL benchmark of the 96-EU Xe GT2 iGPU, and the score is in line with expectations, though there definitely seems to be further scope for improvement.

The RTX 3060 is said to launch soon based on an Ampere chip variant called the GA106-300. A GPU leaks site claims to confirm its existence with a new live image showing this silicon, alongside the latest news on its supposed specs. They are said to include 12GB of RAM and fewer CUDA cores than it conceivably could.

A Gigabyte G5 KC gaming laptop with an Intel Core i7-10870H and Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Laptop GPU has been spotted on Geekbench turning out a terrific OpenCL score that would place it roughly between the RTX 2070 and RTX 2070 Super desktop cards in the benchmark chart. Unfortunately, the TGP of the RTX 3060 is not mentioned.

More details about the Radeon RX 6700 XT have appeared online, with the latest leak seemingly confirming several aspects about AMD's upcoming RDNA 2 cards. Not only does the leak provide images of the Radeon RX 6700 branding, but it provides details about the card's VRAM capacity, its marketed gaming resolution and its expected release dates.

Reputed benchmarks of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti have surfaced, showcasing the upcoming card against the RTX 3080 and RTX 3090. It is unclear why NVIDIA would choose to release the RTX 3080 Ti on these benchmarks, though.

According to an unverified rumour from a South Korean tech forum, AMD could shift some of its GPU/APU production to Samsung. AMD wants to ramp up production, but TSMC is unable to keep up due to prior commitments.

Intel's Raja Koduri showed off a die shot of the 2-tile Ponte Vecchio Xe HPC GPU, which is said to feature seven advanced silicon technologies including the 16 compute units that are fabbed on Intel's own 7 nm process. The other key technologies in Xe HPC include Xe Link I/O, HBM2 VRAM, Rambo Cache, EMIB, 10 nm Enhanced SuperFin, and Foveros 3D packaging technology.

The laptop versions of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 are yet to land, but the first gaming benchmarks are already online. The two videos compare the GeForce RTX 3060 against the GeForce RTX 2060 in nine games, including in CDPR's latest title, Cyberpunk 2077.

Tesla's upcoming Model S 2021 cars will integrate AMD's Navi 23 GPUs to power their onboard infotainment systems. The leaked block diagram reveals that the Navi 23 will get access to 8 GB of GDDR6 14 Gbps RAM and will be able to deliver 10 TFLOPS of FP32 compute performance, which is close to what a PS5 console is capable of.

Intel has unveiled the Iris Xe desktop graphics card, better known by its codename of DG1. The Iris Xe Graphics has a 30 W TDP, 4 GB of VRAM and will only be available via OEMs. The Iris Xe DG1 will probably compete against NVIDIA's budget cards, such as the Pascal-based GeForce GT 1010.
Updated: VRAM details and Colorful statement added.

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 and AMD Radeon RX 6000 series has already received price hikes following its release, and not just from scalpers reselling the likes of the RTX 3070 for well above MSRP. Now, a report claims that scarcity of GDDR6 and GDDR6X VRAM will push the price of AMD and NVIDIA GPUs up even further.

The DCS feature was discovered in a recent Linux patch and it looks like it is designed specifically for laptop GPUs, even though it is supported on the high-end RX 6800 series, as well as the upcoming RX 6700 mid-range models. DCS reduces power consumption by turning the core off when thermal and power limits are exceeded.

Lenovo's US webstore has begun what it calls a "You Pay What We Pay" event, which apparently entails the same kinds of discounts only normally available to the OEM's staff members. They include up to US$800 off an Intel 10th-gen Legion 7i laptop, as well as deals on gaming mice and headsets.

Intel's Xe DG1 dGPU will only work with select CPU and chipset combinations and will require a BIOS update in order to be recognized. Intel said that Coffee Lake-S and Comet Lake-S CPUs are supported on specific midrange and budget 300 and 400-series chipsets. This rules out any possibility of the GPU being compatible with AMD systems.

The ridiculous number would not really be a problem for end users if OEMs actually respected Nvidia's guidelines and provided clear info with the official specs. Unfortunately, very few OEMs are currently doing this, and we are seeing wild spec variations that allow lower-priced SKUs to outperform higher-priced variants.

AMD's support for USB4 and Thunderbolt is scheduled to arrive in early 2022, and, until then, laptop OEMs are trying out alternatives. One solution would be to implement a new type of connector, like Asus has done on its new ROG Flow X13 laptops. Lenovo, on the other hand, is exploring something more simple in the form of a cable that connects external video cards to the M.2 slot inside the laptop.

The new RTX 3080 cards proved to be quite the crypto mining monsters, but these high-end solutions are still in very short supply. A better and more efficient alternative could be presented by Nvidia's mobile RTX 3000 dGPUs, as suggested by the latest leaks from China. If this is indeed true, miners could eventually impact the availability of all upcoming Nvidia-based laptops.

ITHome reports that a Korean web community shared benchmark results for an under-developed AMD RDNA2-powered Exynos chip. The next-gen flagship appears to nearly double the A14's performance in the Aztec Ruins benchmark, while also exceeding it in Manhattan.

According to new rumours, AMD will be upping its GPU game massively with its next-generation cards. Apparently, Navi 31 will be the first chiplet-based GPU and one that delivers up to 160 CUs, or 10,240 stream processors. The RDNA 3 GPU may offer around 37 TFLOPs of FP32 performance, too.

Intel may launch the 12th gen Alder Lake-S family as early as September this year alongside 600-series chipset-based motherboards, just six months after Rocket Lake-S becomes available. Alder Lake-S will feature a similar Xe LP iGPU as Tiger Lake and Rocket Lake-S but now, we may also get to see a GT0.5 variant.

Fifty gaming laptops featuring Nvidia GeForce RTX 30 series GPUs from major vendors such as Asus, MSI, and Gigabyte have been listed on the Scan website. Many feature Ryzen 5000 APUs and there are a couple of Tiger Lake H-35 options too. Prices go from £998.99 (US$1,367) for an Asus TUF Dash RTX 3060 laptop up to £4,298.99 (US$5,882) for an MSI GS66 Stealth RTX 3080 laptop.

YouTube VIK-on demonstrated a way to replace the Micron 8 GB GDDR6 modules on a Palit GeForce RTX 2070 card with Samsung 16 GB ones thereby confirming that NVIDIA did have plans to launch a 16 GB RTX 2070 back then. The experiment resulted in the PC booting up, but the GPU crashed under load and posted low 3DMark Time Spy Graphics scores.

The GeForce RTX 3090 is the most power-hungry single-GPU card to date. This, however, didn't deter EK from releasing a Quantum Vector water block that promises lower temps and (possibly) higher overclocks.

AMD was supposed to unveil the RX 6700 XT at CES, but the company is still not sure how to market this GPU. Word on the street is that the current test samples can easily beat the RTX 3060 12 GB models from Nvidia, and it even bests the RTX 3060 Ti in select games. However, we might not get to see these cards launched sooner than May.

Back in mid-2020, laptop OEMs explained that the inclusion of dGPUs more powerful than the RTX 2060 would not really make sense on Ryzen 4000H systems, as their performance would be limited by the 8x PCIe 3.0 lanes. However, the Ryzen 5000H systems still use only 8x PCIe 3.0 lanes, yet they come with up to an RTX 3080 dGPU option. Something is not adding up.

NVIDIA and OEMs will no longer specify whether a given Ampere Mobile GPU is a Max-Q or a Max-P variant. Ampere Mobile will be offered in a range of TGPs, and it will be the OEMs' discretion to decide which third generation Max-Q specs and TGG value should be used. This can confuse end users as a higher Watt RTX 3060 Mobile can potentially outperform a lower Watt RTX 3080 Mobile for a given workload.

NVIDIA may have got stuck into the Ampere architecture over the last few months, but it is reputedly going to have another crack at releasing Turing cards. In fact, the company and board partners will re-release the GeForce RTX 2060 and GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER for €300 and €400, respectively. If that is the case, then it would make the GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER more expensive option than the GeForce RTX 3060.

A last-minute configuration change for the GA106 GPU seemed to have confused NVIDIA's add-in board (AiB) partners with respect to the RTX 3060's specifications, particularly the core clocks. We are also getting to know that the RTX 3060 may not arrive in a Founders Edition, and the render shown during NVIDIA's CES presentation was just a mockup.

China's progress with the home-grown CPUs and GPUs is relentless. The new Big Island general purpose GPUs produced by Tianshu Zhixin are able to take advantage of TSMC's 7 nm tech and provide a competitive price/performance ratio. Internal benchmarks reveal that the Big Island GPUs are not yet on par with Nvidia's A100 or AMD's Instinct MI100, but the progress is remarkable.

NVIDIA's board partners have begun announcing GeForce RTX 30 series graphics card for the Mini-ITX form factor. Currently, Gainward, MSI and Palit have announced single fan versions of the GeForce RTX 3060, which has 12 GB of VRAM. All cards offer memory clock speeds of 15 Gbps and NVIDIA's GA106-300 GPU.

Sapphire has introduced a passively-cooled version of the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT, which it has called the GPRO X070. The company intends professional users to purchase the card, but it does feature four display outputs. There is also an Efficiency Mode BIOS for running the RX 5700 XT at reduced clock speeds.

Rocket Lake-S will use the Tiger Lake Xe graphics core, but it will be named as UHD Graphics 730 (24 EUs) and UHD Graphics 750 (32 EUs), according to leaked driver listings. A UHD Graphics P750 for the enterprise is also seen. Rocket Lake-S will only offer up to 32 EUs in order to accommodate the larger CPU cores.

Gigabyte has added a sort-of-new product to its graphics card range in the form of the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Gaming OC PRO 8G (rev 2.0). Desktop PC builders will likely be intrigued by the revisions that have been made to this RTX 3060 Ti variant, but it appears the biggest difference to the original model is a height reduction.

Tipster @TheGolox recently claimed that Samsung is working on Exynos chips for desktop. If true, this would mean that we might soon see another entrant in the ARM on PC space, alongside the Snapdragon 8cx and Apple M1.

AV1 is a video codec rated to enhance file compression compared to its current alternatives. Google has become its a major proponent, to the extent that it is now reportedly insisting that manufacturers need to have it enabled in devices with compatible SoCs if they want to use the Android 10 for TV interface.

NVIDIA appears to have silently announced a GeForce GT 1010 GPU earlier this week. The GT 1010 is a Pascal card featuring the 14 nm GP108 GPU similar to the GT 1030. The GT 1010 has only 256 CUDA cores enabled, supports 2 GB GDDR5 VRAM, and has a TDP of 30 W. Availability information is not known yet.

NVIDIA has all but confirmed that the 2021 HP Omen 15 gaming laptop will be powered by RTX 3000-series graphics. According to a clearly premature sales listing on bestbuy.com, they will comprise the RTX 3070 Max-Q hinted at in previous tips. Its latest leak puts its starting price at US$1600.

Initially supposed to hit the market in mid-2020, the DisplayPort 2.0 monitors got delayed by the global pandemic and are now expected to become available in the second half of 2021. DP 2.0 is clearly superior to HDMI 2.0, as it offers an 80 Gbps bandwidth that can support 4K resolutions @240 Hz with uncompressed HDR color depth or 16K @60Hz with DSC.

Although they have different colors and frequencies (minor factory overclocks, of course), the two new ZOTAC video cards that use the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 as foundation stay within the 170 W TDP value of the reference design. Thankfully, since these are (almost) low-end parts, finding them should not be a problem.

EVGA and ZOTAC have followed ASUS in increasing the price of their NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 series custom cards. The changes range from 4% to 23%, which correlate to price increases of between US$70 and US$350. Overall, prices hikes average 10% across over 30 cards.

According to AMD and NVIDIA, there will not be an uptick in GPU availability for a few months yet. Stock levels of the GeForce RTX 30 series will remain 'lean' until at least May, according to NVIDIA, while AMD believes that things will improve once the impact of COVID lessens.

XMG has announced that the 2021 iterations of its PRO and NEO 15/17 laptops will have new, slim cases in addition to new specs. The NEO 15 and 17 also boasts fresh Ryzen 9 5900HX or 7 5800H AMD platforms, while the PROs stick with a Core i7 processor so as to be among the first on the market to combine RTX 3000 graphics with Thunderbolt 3.

NVIDIA has introduced a new member to the RTX 30 family, the RTX 3060 12 GB. The RTX 3060 is intended at those who are looking to upgrade from a GTX 1060-class card and features 3,584 CUDA cores, 12 GB of GDDR6 192-bit memory, and will be the first RTX 30 card to support resizable BAR. The RTX 3060 12 GB will be available in late February starting from US$329.

The latest iteration of the 15.6-inch Acer Predator Helios 300 could easily be mistaken for the last. However, the OEM asserts that it is rated for even smoother gameplay thanks to its new GPU and display option. Can these new specs help it blow the cobwebs of 2020 away?

Chinese electric automaker NIO announced that its latest electric vehicle ET7 will use NVIDIA Drive Orin SoC for AI-assisted driving. The ET7 will use Orin in a cluster of four to form the Adam supercomputer, which is capable of processing 8 GB of data from the vehicle's 33 sensors each second. The ET7 is certified to meet ISO 26262 ASIL-D safety standards and will ship in 2022.