GPU

NVIDIA plans to release Ampere-based graphics cards with Ultra branding, of which the RTX 3060 Ultra may be the first. The first leak of the RTX 3060 Ultra confirms that it will have 12 GB of GDDR6 VRAM and that it should arrive later this month.

The RTX 3080 Max-P would only be a few percent faster than the RTX 3060 Ti desktop GPU, since it appears to be limited to 115 W TGP by default. On the other hand, the 80 W RTX 3080 Max-Q would be as fast as the GTX 1080 Ti desktop model, and 74% slower than the RTX 3080 desktop GPU.

It has been reported that AMD will launch the Radeon RX 6700 and RX 6700 XT graphics cards by the end of March. Apparently, both parts will feature 12 GB of GDDR6 memory and utilize Navi 22 GPUs. However, rival Nvidia appears to have a busy few months planned with rumors of numerous new GeForce RTX 30 series cards springing up.

DG2 refers to second-gen discrete graphics solutions from Intel, said to launch in the first half of 2021 (1H2021) at the earliest. It is rumored to have an increased execution unit (EU) count compared to its Xe Max predecessor. According to code allegedly found in a new driver from the OEM, this may indeed be the case.

Asus has revealed that a wide range of its premium graphics cards and motherboards have had their prices increased. For example, the Asus ROG Strix Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 White OC Edition Gaming card now costs over US$2,100, and the ROG Strix LC AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT that was US$899.99 at launch is now priced at US$1,079.99.

NVIDIA may distill-down RTX features to the x050 series with the GA107-based RTX 3050 GPU. A Lenovo PSREF page for the Legion R5 desktop PC confirms RTX 3050, RTX 3050 Ti, and RTX 3060 12 GB offerings are on the anvil in addition to several Turing and also an AMD Radeon RX 5500 option.

Geekbench listings of the upcoming Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo GX551QS and HP Omen 15 laptops featuring RTX 3080 Mobile and RTX 3070 Mobile GPUs, respectively confirm some of the specs of these mobile Ampere parts that we've already known so far. The RTX 3080 Mobile is a complete GA104 GPU with 6,144 CUDA cores. The RTX 3070 Mobile is also a GA104 part but with 5,120 CUDA cores.

New AMD variants viz. XTXH, XLE, and Nashira Point have been discovered on the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF) website. It is not yet clear whether these are Navi 21 or Navi 22 parts. However, the XTXH variant could potentially be a Navi 21 GPU with HBM2(E) memory support.

It has been rumored that Nvidia is working on even more Ampere-based graphics cards to join the growing GeForce RTX 30 series. Although the names for the two new parts are not currently known, it has been suggested that they could be the GeForce RTX 3070 Super and GeForce RTX 3080 Super cards.

AMD could be offering multi-chip module (MCM) designs in GPUs in the near future. A patent filed in 2019 details how an MCM design can help lower costs and improve yields. Since most GPU-bound programs work best with monolithic cores, AMD's patent describes how the MCM design can be made oblivious to the CPU thereby alleviating the need to rewrite code to take advantage of this design.

A Dutch company called SKIKK has started offering gaming laptops with mobile variants of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060, RTX 3070, and RTX 3080. The entry-level device costs €1,699 (US$2,087) and features an RTX 3060 GPU with an Intel Core i7-10875H CPU. Delivery for the SKIKK GeForce 30 Series laptops is expected to start in Q1 2021.

We ran several synthetic GPU benchmarks in our Asus VivoBook Flip 14 TP470 review unit and found that Intel's new Xe Max dGPU offers perceivable gains over the similar Xe Graphics G7 with 96 EUs and the GeForce GTX 1050 while being significantly faster than a GeForce MX350. Xe Max also seems to offer large gains compared to the Radeon RX Vega 8 in Renoir APUs. However, Intel looks to be playing catch-up with the pre-sample MX450 numbers in our database.

Specs of NVIDIA's Ampere successor codenamed Lovelace seem to be already available and all signs point to a monster of a GPU. Going by initial rumors, it seems that the AD102 GPU will have 2x the number of GPCs compared to Turing and a 71% higher CUDA core count compared to Ampere, which seemingly yields nearly 66 TFLOPs of FP32 horsepower.

MSI has started rolling out a new AGESA update for its B550 and X570 motherboards, enabling Resizable BAR support for older Ryzen systems, as well as NVIDIA Ampere GPUs.

The blog CoreTeks claims to have sifted the release notes for AMD's latest firmware patches for some nuggets of potential gold on this company's upcoming high-performance GPUs and APUs. They include at least 1 Rembrandt variant, as well as the successor to the MI100 Instinct. They are thought to be based on the Zen3 and RDNA 3 IPs respectively.

Both ASUS and MSI are apparently working on bringing Smart Access Memory (or Resizable BAR) to a wider range of hardware configurations than Big Navi and Ryzen 5000. We're now seeing SAM on B450 boards and on systems with Ryzen 3000 and NVIDIA GPUs.

NVIDIA has unveiled its plans for CES 2021. The company will make an announcement on January 12 at 09:00 PST. Rumour has it that NVIDIA plans to bulk out its RTX 30 series with new desktop cards like the RTX 3060, along with its first foray into Ampere-based laptop graphics cards.

The GS76 Stealth could be one of the first gaming laptops to feature the Tiger Lake-H processors coupled with the mobile RTX 3000 GPUs. Apart from the redesigned chassis, the GS76 could also get a 360 Hz screen (still in validation process) and Thunderbolt 4 connectivity. MSI is also introducing a new E16 Flip convertible to the Summit lineup. This one comes with carbon fiber chassis and integrates Tiger Lake-U plus Nvidia GTX GPUs.

An Acer Swift SF314-43 laptop has been discovered on Geekbench being tested for its graphics prowess with the help of an AMD Ryzen 5 5500U, which is from the upcoming Zen 2-based Lucienne family. It seems the Radeon iGPU component is capable of hitting a maximum clock of 1.80 GHz, which will be handy for some casual gaming on the Ryzen 5000 laptop.

FinalWire has added support for the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti in the latest stable update of AIDA64 Extreme. However, the utility also now supports the GeForce RTX 3050, GeForce RTX 3060, GeForce RTX 3070 Ti and GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, all of which NVIDIA is yet to announce.

Despite the production problems and shortages, Nvidia is planning for new RTX 3000 releases in early 2021. Previously believed to launch in January, the RTX 3080 20 GB version that is essentially an RTX 3090 with 4 less GB of VRAM should land in mid to late February, according to new reports. Nvidia is instead pushing the lower-mid-range RTX 3060 cards with 12 GB for an early January release.

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 30 series, the AMD Radeon RX 6800 series, and the AMD Ryzen 5000 range have all fallen victim to scalping activities, with an analysis report detailing just how much profit scalpers are making from these new GPUs and CPUs. Sales of just the GeForce RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 have raked in over US$8 million profit for scalpers and eBay.

Gigabyte has just held a launch event for its AORUS brand of products where the prices for its AMD Radeon RX 6800 Series-based boards were revealed. Unfortunately for gamers, there seems to be a high premium between Gigabyte’s prices and the MSRPs offered up by AMD, with the AORUS Radeon RX 6800 XT Master board costing a hefty US$899.

Studio Wildcard recently announced a sequel to ARK: Survival Evolved, Ark 2, set to release on PC and next-generation consoles, at The Game Awards. While the dinosaur-hunting survival game was a surprising candidate for the sequel treatment, Vin Diesel's starring role in the trailer was even more unexpected.

It is possible to believe in real-time ray tracing while also at the same time acknowledging that the RTX 3000-series GPUs have, basically, no place in that future.

Much was made of NVIDIA's apparent decision to block Hardware Unboxed from having access to GPU review samples. The company has already done an about-turn on the matter though, possibly because of the outcry from reviewers and fans.

Asus has revealed its ROG Strix LC Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics card with the appropriate tagline “a liquid-cooled leviathan”. The impressive-looking part takes the RX 6900 XT from AMD and throws in abundant customizable RGB lighting, a 240 mm external radiator, and enough cables for a PC builder to shake a stick at.

Due to its limited TGP, the RTX 3070 laptop GPU appears to lag behind the desktop-grade RTX 3060 Ti and RTX 3070 models. However, the upcoming Ampere-based mobile GPU shows strong performance gains over the Turing models, as it is almost 100% faster than the RTX 2070 Max-Q and RTX 2080 Max-Q. It also almost matches the RTX 2080 Ti desktop-grade GPU.

The GeForce RTX 3050 and GeForce RTX 3060 will be based on different GPUs, according to updated PCI IDs. Apparently, the RTX 3050 could be the only card to utilise the GA107 GPU, while NVIDIA will use its GA106 GPU for the GeForce RTX 3060.

NVIDIA has 8 GB and 16 GB editions of the GeForce RTX 3070 mobile in development, PCI IDs have confirmed. Expectedly, there will be Max-P and Max-Q versions of the GA104-M based GeForce RTX 3070, as there will be for the GeForce RTX 3060. The latter will be based on the GA106M GPU.

Another hint of the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti has been seen online. This time, the card has been added to the PCI ID repository, seemingly confirming that NVIDIA has based it on the company's GA102 GPU. The RTX 3080 Ti is thought to have up to 10,496 CUDA cores, 20 GB of GDDR6X VRAM and a 320 W TDP.

This card features a shorter but taller PCB that should be within the 180 mm length limit for small form-factor builds like the Intel NUC 9 kits. It features only an 8-pin power connector, yet it can still be overclocked above the reference clocks on the Founders' Edition model.

We had a brief time exploring the vast expanse of Cyberpunk 2077's Night City in full visual glory on a Zotac Gaming GeForce RTX 3070 GPU at 1440p and 4K resolutions. The game is perfectly playable without fancy ray tracing effects. However, without DLSS, expect frames in the single digits at 4K with RT on the RTX 3070.

AMD is reportedly discontinuing production of reference Radeon RX 6000 cards, which means that many gamers will never be able to own a Made by AMD Big Navi card. The current quantity of reference cards in circulation are a one-off release and further RX 6000 cards will only be made by AMD's AiB partners.

New RTX 30 series cards will be pouring onto the market soon, according to Manli. The board partner has registered the RTX 3050, RTX 3060, RTX 3070 Ti and RTX 3080 Ti with the EEC, just a month or so away from another expected NVIDIA hardware announcement. These four cards would take the RTX 30 product stack up to eight, but an RTX 3050 Ti and RTX 3080 20 GB could be on the way too.

The AMD Radeon RX 6700M series will have larger dies than the RX 5700 XT, according to a new report. Expected to be built on Navi 22 GPUs, the RX 6700M series will do battle with the mobile forms of the RTX 3070, RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 from early next year. RX 6700M cards may offer up to 40 Compute Units and 12 GB of VRAM.

The new AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics card has been popping up in various reviews, and in one particularly grueling test the Navi 21 part showed off its exemplary average power consumption in gaming. The RX 6900 XT consumed more than 50 W less than the rival Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 FE and 25-30 W less than the RTX 3080 FE.

NVIDIA has announced that four new game titles coming this month will bring support for DLSS enabling all GeForce RTX GPUs to play them at 4K at 60 fps and above. Also, Minecraft with RTX is now coming out of beta and will include full path tracing and DLSS compatibility along with a built-in ray tracing benchmark. NVIDIA also claimed that the GeForce RTX platform is the best for playing Cyberpunk 2077.

Global shortage of GDDR6 is a dominant factor in the supply shortages being faced by AMD Radeon RX 5000, RX 6000, NVIDIA RTX 3070, and RTX 3060 Ti GPUs with the situation likely to improve only around February 2021. The RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 cards with GDDR6X memory are somewhat less-impacted, but limited production from Samsung Foundry means that their availability is questionable at least till end of Q3 2020.

A future PS5 Pro console with a dual-CPU, dual-GPU implementation and with more RAM and storage could be in the works, if recent patent findings are to be considered. The patent envisages several dual CPU/GPU designs with the aim of distributing independent workloads to each cluster. Reports are also coming in that Sony may launch a PS5 Lite some time in H2 2021 to overcome availability issues of the current PS5 console.

An interesting Slug text-rendering test comparison has demonstrated how well the PlayStation 5 can deal with heavy processing workloads. The PS5 managed to produce a complex Royal font pixel fillrate of 4.5 gigapixels/s (GeForce RTX 2080: 3.1 gigapixels/s) and took just 0.33 ms to render all the pixels on a 4K screen with a “typical font”.

The first details of the GeForce RTX 3080 mobile have appeared online. Not only do they offer an insight into what to expect from high-end gaming laptops next year, but they also raise the question about the continued existence of merely a 10 GB edition of the desktop variant of the RTX 3080.

AMD could be offering several Navi 23 and Navi 24 mobile GPUs with a sub-100 W TGP target to power gaming laptops next year. Navi 23 may be offered in three TGP variants topping at 90 W while Navi 24 will come in two SKUs — one with a cTGP up to 50 W and another, a low-power variant at 25 W TGP.

It is quite ironic how AMD's Smart Access Memory (aka Resizable BAR) could help Intel and Nvidia regain some lost market shares. AMD offered to help its competitors with the Resizable BAR feature, yet Team Red may have hit a stone wall with the SAM support for Ryzen 3000 and older Zen-based CPUs. On the other hand, Intel-based motherboards supporting 6-year-old CPUs from the Haswell era have no problem benefiting from the Resizable BAR feature, and Nvidia is soon adding support for it, as well.

NVIDIA was thought to have killed off the 20 GB version of the RTX 3080, but MSI suggests that may not be the case. To date, the board partner has registered the RTX 3080 20 GB under its Suprim, Sea Hawk, Gaming Trio, Aero and Ventus series.

The AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT is almost here, and it has shown that it can pretty much match NVIDIA's best efforts in Ashes of the Singularity. The RX 6900 XT gets within 3 FPS of the GeForce RTX 3090, despite being a third cheaper than NVIDIA's premier card.

The five new NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti-based video cards by Asus cover all areas of desktop gaming, from the "hold nothing back" design of the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3060 Ti all the way down to the Dual GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Mini, a card that has been customized to be used in SFF enthusiast systems.