Latest news with #graphicscard
Yahoo
16-06-2025
- Yahoo
Unreleased Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti 20GB Founders Edition engineering sample sells for $1,999 on eBay
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. A rare engineering sample of the Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti Founders Edition with 20GB of VRAM was recently sold in an auction on eBay. This specific variant never managed to reach retail, thus making it one of the most unusual Ampere-era GPUs to surface online. According to the listing, the auction concluded with the buyer offering $1,999, which is pretty wild for a high-end graphics card that is two-generations old. The seller included photos of the GPU, showing the original packaging box and a bright green sticker on the GPU that reads, 'Not for sale, for development only.' The seller also confirmed that the unit is in excellent condition and fully functional. However, since it is not a retail product, running games or any 3D workloads would require the use of a third-party driver such as Nvidia-patcher, as there are no official drivers available for this card. This could potentially translate to poor or unstable performance, although that remains unconfirmed. Image 1 of 3 Image 2 of 3 Image 3 of 3 The retail version of the RTX 3080 Ti made its official debut in June 2021 with a starting price of $1,199. It featured 12GB of GDDR6X memory and was essentially an RTX 3090 with half the VRAM and a smaller cooling solution. Introduced midway through Nvidia's regular product cycle, it offered higher specifications and performance compared to the RTX 3080. The first rumors of a 20GB RTX 3080 Ti sparked back in December 2020 when a Gigabyte EEC listing revealed several RTX 3080 Ti 20GB models. This was followed by a firmware anonymously uploaded to TechPowerUp, meant specifically for Gigabyte's range of RTX 3080 Ti 20GB GPUs. Eventually, in September 2021, a few months after the official launch of the RTX 3080 Ti, a cryptocurrency miner revealed in a YouTube video that retailers in Russia were selling Gigabyte branded RTX 3080 Ti 20GB GPUs ranging from $2,733 to $2,837. The individual managed to get hold of a rare Gigabyte Aorus GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Xtreme (GV-N308TAORUS X-20GD), which was purchased from HARDVAR, a retail store in Saint Petersburg. At the time of posting the video, the GPU was priced at $3,067. The video also revealed that the only difference between the two GeForce RTX 3080 Ti models was the memory capacity. The 20GB variant offered a 67% increase in GDDR6X memory compared to the standard 12GB version. However, the higher memory model came with a narrower 320-bit memory bus instead of 384-bit. As a result, the 20GB model had lower memory bandwidth of 760 GBps compared to 912 GBps on the 12GB version. It is possible that the RTX 3080 Ti 20GB was planned as a counter to AMD's high-VRAM Radeon offerings at the time. Perhaps it was intended to target users who prioritized memory capacity for gaming, crypto, or creative workloads. Whether Nvidia changed its mind due to production constraints, shifting strategy, or overlapping performance tiers, this unreleased GPU will likely go on to become a "what-if" in Nvidia's Ampere lineup. Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News to get our up-to-date news, analysis, and reviews in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button.
Digital Trends
05-06-2025
- Business
- Digital Trends
3 GPUs you should avoid buying right now
Shopping for one of the best graphics cards is a minefield right now. It's not that the latest generation is bad (that's a different subject entirely), it's that the prices still haven't gone back to normal, despite it being a few months since these GPUs first surfaced. If you have an unlimited budget, then of course, you can buy any GPU — even the mighty powerful RTX 5090. But if you're trying to squeeze out the most performance-per-dollar, there are some GPUs I'd recommend avoiding right now. Recommended Videos AMD RX 9070 XT Adding the excellent RX 9070 XT to this list is something I'm doing with a heavy heart. The GPU received stellar reviews from just about every publication that got to try it, and those who ended up buying it largely seem happy with it, too. I have no complaints about the performance of this graphics card; if anything, it surpassed the expectations that I had for it going into the launch of RDNA 4. Capable of rivaling the RTX 5070 Ti, the RX 9070 XT arrived with a $599 price tag, and at first, it was glorious. Gamers flocked to various retailers, with AMD's Frank Azor sharing a photo of a long line of shoppers waiting outside a Microcenter. The consumer market welcomed the RX 9070 XT with open arms. Perhaps the welcome was overly enthusiastic, though. Demand today for our new @amdradeon cards has been phenomenal. We are working with our AIBs to replenish stock at our partners ASAP in the coming days and weeks. MSRP pricing (excluding region specific tariffs and/or taxes) will continue to be encouraged beyond today so don't… — Frank Azor (@AzorFrank) March 6, 2025 Let me reiterate: The problem with the RX 9070 XT is not its performance. I don't think anyone can find any major fault in it … at its intended $600 price point. But unfortunately, the recommended list price (MSRP) didn't last all too long. Once the initial batch of RX 9070 XTs (and non-XTs) sold out, which didn't take long, the prices started rising. Upon launch, there were many models above MSRP, but not wildly so — and some cards were indeed sold for $599. These days, outside of rare stock drops, good luck finding an RX 9070 XT at MSRP. The cheapest option I was able to find on Amazon costs $848, meaning nearly $250 above the MSRP. At that price point, the RX 9070 XT loses some of its charm; the RTX 5070 Ti costs $900, and with comparable performance but better ray tracing and DLSS 4, many GPU shoppers will choose it over the AMD card. Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 8GB This was always bound to happen. Nvidia's RTX 5060 Ti launched in two flavors: One with 8GB VRAM, and one with 16GB. The 8GB model starts at $379, followed by $429 for the 16GB version. At such a small price gap, it was almost a given that most gamers would favor the version with more VRAM, even though they both share the same 128-bit interface (which affects their bandwidth, and that also means their overall performance). The frame rate gap between the two versions of the RTX 5060 Ti might not be as large as it seems, but still, the 8GB version is a GPU you should avoid right now. Unsurprisingly, the RTX 5060 Ti with just 8GB of VRAM sells at MSRP on Amazon. There are models that sell for more, but in general, you can grab it at $379. But, while it can match the RTX 5060 Ti with 16 gigs of memory at 1080p, it's always better to have more VRAM if possible, and the 5060 Ti 16GB wins most benchmarks at 1440p. If you're set on buying the RTX 5060 Ti, you might as well spend $100 more and get the (currently overpriced) 16GB version. But if you want my advice, I'd say wait it out and hunt for a 16GB model at MSRP — they do pop up occasionally. Intel Arc B580 This is another GPU that I am sad to have to mention on this list. The Arc B580 surprised everyone when it launched. Our reviewer called it the '$249 Nvidia killer,' and who would've expected this kind of results from an Intel Arc GPU? Knowing the rocky start that the Arc Alchemist generation had to go through, many were wary of Battlemage, but Intel surprised us in the best way possible. The GPU offered fantastic performance for the inexpensive $250 price point — something which is rare right now, at a time when most GPUs cost well above $350. Unfortunately (for the buyers, at least), the Arc B580 wasn't able to stay at MSRP for too long. The GPU now sells for $359 to $409 on Amazon, and at that price, you're better off getting the new RTX 5060. If there's one thing these GPUs have in common, it's that they're all selling far above the price point they were made for. Solid in their own right, they fail to impress when they're suddenly placed one or two pricing brackets above the one they belong in. But if sold at MSRP? All three are worthwhile picks. If you're currently buying a GPU, my advice is to keep an eye out for models selling at MSRP, and then be quick, because they continue to sell out fast.
Digital Trends
27-05-2025
- Business
- Digital Trends
I'm excited for the RX 9060 XT, but AMD needs to fix one major problem
AMD has recently announced the RX 9060 XT graphics card during Computex 2025. While no one expects it to beat any of the best graphics cards, it can certainly make some waves, and I couldn't be more excited. Except… There's one cloud in this otherwise clear sky, and it's a big one. The RX 9060 XT is well-positioned to succeed. It might very well be a more popular pick than Nvidia's recent RTX 5060. So why am I still worried about it? Recommended Videos It's a tough time to buy a GPU My colleague, Jon Martindale, recently said that Nvidia's RTX 50-series was the worst GPU launch in recent memory. I'm inclined to agree, but that just makes me think … What about AMD? Going into the RX 9000 series, I made sure to temper my expectations. I knew that AMD would steer clear of the high-end this time around, and honestly, I understood. Without any major hype, I awaited the launch of the RX 9070 XT. And I was blown away. The RX 9070 XT offers the kind of performance you'd expect from a pricier card. Sure, AMD could (or should?) have undercut Nvidia a bit more, but the $599 price tag felt fair for what the GPU was able to offer. It was no RTX 5090 killer, but it was a solid 1440p card through and through. Demand today for our new @amdradeon cards has been phenomenal. We are working with our AIBs to replenish stock at our partners ASAP in the coming days and weeks. MSRP pricing (excluding region specific tariffs and/or taxes) will continue to be encouraged beyond today so don't… — Frank Azor (@AzorFrank) March 6, 2025 As I always tend to root for the underdog, I was thrilled when I saw the warm reception the RX 9070 XT received. The card was flying off the shelves, and AMD made sure that there'd be some MSRP models available, so people were getting a GPU at a reasonable price. AMD's Frank Azor said that, despite the 'phenomenal' demand for the RX 9070 XT and non-XT, the company was working with its add-in board (AIB) partners to ensure that it'd come back soon, and with MSRP pricing being 'encouraged.' Unfortunately, one quick peek through various retailers tells me that the encouragement may not have been enough. The hype was real, but … At first, the RX 9070 XT was simply largely sold out. But when it started coming back on the shelves, it was hardly ever available at MSRP anymore. Even now, when the hype has died down and the GPU is readily available at retailers, the pricing is still — well, to put it bluntly — horrible. The cheapest RX 9070 XT I've been able to spot on Amazon sits at $839, and that's a discount from the previous price of $899. The priciest one costs $1,058. This is for a card that was meant to sell at $599. The RX 9070 — originally $549 — fares slightly better, but it's still overpriced. The prices sit around the $650 to $750 mark, which isn't great. With the pricing the way it is now, AMD's new GPUs sold one important aspect of what made them so great: Value for the money. The cards, while solid, fail to impress when they're selling for $200 to $400 above the price they were meant to sell at. That $1,000 GPU pricing bracket deserves better performance than what the RX 9070 XT can provide, but at $600, AMD is the indisputable king of value in the GPU market. It's just that the $600 MSRP doesn't seem real anymore. The prices aren't normalizing fast enough for it to drop all the way down to $600 anytime soon. The good news (for AMD, not so much for the rest of us) is that Nvidia is sitting in the exact same boat. The RTX 5090, RTX 5080, and RTX 5070 Ti are all super overpriced. The RTX 5060 Ti is too, but to a smaller extent. Meanwhile, the RTX 5060 is selling at MSRP, but after various controversies surrounding the card and the lack of reviews on launch day, that might not change anytime soon. With Nvidia also struggling to maintain the recommended list price at retailers, it's the perfect time for AMD to strike back with the RX 9060 XT — but will it? Will history repeat itself? I hold every hope that the RX 9060 XT will turn out to be nothing short of excellent. The 16GB version delivers something mainstream gamers are slowly growing desperate to have: More VRAM. It ramps up the pricing, but at $350, it's still cheaper than Nvidia's RTX 5060 Ti. The 128-bit memory bus will stifle its bandwidth, but I'm still hopeful about it being a good card. None of that will matter if AMD doesn't address the elephant in the room: The availability at MSRP. The RX 9060 XT will be a mainstream, or midrange, card. Aimed mostly at 1080p gaming, it doesn't have the luxury of appealing to enthusiasts — it's made to appeal to gamers who care about the price-to-performance aspect of it. Boost the price too much, and it'll be out of reach for many PC gamers. Fixing the MSRP issue for the RX 9070 XT is important, but addressing it for the RX 9060 XT might be even more so. With Nvidia struggling with these same problems, it'd be great for AMD to strike while the iron is hot and try to ensure that the RX 9060 XT stays at MSRP for longer than however long it takes for the first batch to sell out. If the RX 9070 XT can beat Nvidia's RTX 5060, and it can stay near MSRP while offering 16GB of RAM, there'll be a clear winner for every upcoming midrange PC build in the next few months — and I really hope that can be the case. I want the RX 9060 XT to succeed, and I know that it can. I'm only worried that the current market won't permit it, and that might put a dampener on the success of what otherwise seems like a great GPU.
The Verge
22-05-2025
- The Verge
Nvidia's RTX 5060 review debacle should be a wake-up call for gamers and reviewers
Nvidia has gone too far. This week, the company reportedly attempted to delay, derail, and manipulate reviews of its $299 GeForce RTX 5060 graphics card, which would normally be its bestselling GPU of the generation. Nvidia has repeatedly and publicly said the budget 60-series cards are its most popular, and this year it reportedly tried to ensure that by withholding access and pressuring reviewers to paint the new 5060 in the best light possible. Nvidia might have wanted to prevent a repeat of 2022, when it launched this card's predecessor. Those reviews were harsh. The 4060 was called a 'slap in the face to gamers' and a 'wet fart of a GPU.' I had guessed the 5060 was headed for the same fate after seeing how reviewers handled the 5080, which similarly showcased how little Nvidia's hardware has improved year over year and relied on software to make up the gaps. But Nvidia had other plans. Here are the tactics that Nvidia reportedly just used to throw us off the 5060's true scent, as individually described by GamersNexus, VideoCardz, Hardware Unboxed, Digital Foundry, and more: Nvidia decided to launch its RTX 5060 on May 19th, when most reviewers would be at Computex in Taipei, Taiwan, rather than at their test beds at home. Even if reviewers already had a GPU in hand before then, Nvidia cut off most reviewers' ability to test the RTX 5060 before May 19th by refusing to provide drivers until the card went on sale. (Gaming GPUs don't really work without them.) And yet Nvidia allowed specific, cherry-picked reviewers to have early drivers anyhow if they agreed to a borderline unethical deal: they could only test five specific games, at 1080p resolution, with fixed graphics settings, against two weaker GPUs (the 3060 and 2060 Super) where the new card would be sure to win. In some cases, Nvidia threatened to withhold future access unless reviewers published apples-to-oranges benchmark charts showing how the RTX 5060's 'fake frames' MFG tech can produce more frames than earlier GPUs without it. Some reviewers apparently took Nvidia up on that proposition, leading to early reviews where charts looked positively stacked in the 5060's favor: But the reality, according to reviews that have since hit the web, is that the RTX 5060 often fails to beat a four-year-old RTX 3060 Ti, frequently fails to beat a four-year-old 3070, and can sometimes get upstaged by Intel's cheaper $250 B580. And yet, the 5060's lackluster improvements are overshadowed by a juicier story: inexplicably, Nvidia decided to threaten GamersNexus' future access over its GPU coverage. Yes, the same GamersNexus that's developed a staunch reputation for defending consumers from predatory behavior, and just last month published a report on 'GPU shrinkflation' that accused Nvidia of misleading marketing. Bad move! In a 22-minute video, GN claims Nvidia threatened to cut off access to Nvidia's cooling and latency experts unless GN agreed to do the thing you see in the charts above — compare cards with fake frames to cards without. GN claims it has the recorded phone conversations to prove it, which are likely legal because Nvidia was recording them too. 'Just to be clear, Nvidia, I am prepared to release them,' GN editor-in-chief Steve Burke threatened. Recording every conversation isn't how companies and reviewers normally operate. There's been a serious breakdown in trust if we find ourselves here! Nvidia is within its rights to withhold access, of course. Nvidia doesn't have to send out graphics cards or grant interviews. It'll only do it if it's good for business. But the unspoken covenant of product reviews is that the press, as a whole, gets a chance to warn the public if a movie, video game, or GPU is not worth their money. It works both ways: the media also gets the chance to warn that a product is so good you might want to line up in advance. That unspoken rule is what Nvidia is trampling here. Nvidia is trampling an unspoken rule On Wednesday, May 14th, I asked Nvidia in a group press briefing: 'Are there not going to be reviews of the RTX 5060 before our readers are able to buy it?' Nvidia didn't deny it. 'Units will be available from May 19th,' was Nvidia GeForce PR boss Ben Berraondo's response, seemingly implying that a lack of early supplies of the GPU, not an underhanded campaign to influence early reviews, would be to blame for the gap. Earlier in the same briefing, Hardwareluxx 's Andreas Schilling wrote a similar question and got a similar answer: 'Could you share your thought on why Nvidia is going to release the driver for RTX 5060 with availability and not giving us the chance to do our reviews prior to this?' Berraondo answered, 'We are focused on delivering a great day-one experience for GeForce RTX 5060 gamers with our Game Ready Driver that will be available to everyone on May 19.' But as GamersNexus and other publications soon revealed, not 'everyone' had to wait until the 19th to start testing. Nvidia didn't respond to repeated requests for comment about the GamersNexus allegations. It wasn't Nvidia's only misleading statement about the card. During that same Wednesday briefing, rather than sharing Nvidia's benchmark charts, GeForce product management director Justin Walker claimed the new GPU would 'let you play your games maxed out at over 100 frames per second,' including demanding titles as Black Myth Wukong at 130fps, Cyberpunk 2077 at 148fps, and Half-Life 2 RTX at 130fps. I laughed when I read the fine print and saw what Nvidia meant by 'maxed out.' It meant a paltry 720p render resolution, DLSS-upscaled to 1080p, with up to three of every four frames imagined by AI — and even then, only when you paired Nvidia's budget $299 GPU with a decidedly not budget $599 AMD CPU, one of the best money can buy. One of Nvidia's other pieces of news from that same briefing was that DLSS 4 with Multi-Frame Generation is available in over 125 games and apps. 'DLSS 4 is the fastest adopted gaming technology in our history,' Walker proclaimed. Does that mean GPU reviewers can no longer ding these graphics cards for marketing features only a handful of game developers bother to use? I thought to myself. But no: as of today, Nvidia's website lists just 29 games with full native support for DLSS Multi Frame-Generation. The only way Nvidia can get to 125 is by counting games where players have to force it through Nvidia's drivers, which doesn't give any indication of adoption by game developers. So now, I'm wondering: where else might Nvidia be trying to pull the wool over our eyes? I can't quite understand why Nvidia would risk fracturing trust the way it did this week. I mean, yes, Nvidia now has fuck-you money from AI, and gaming can feel like an afterthought. Nvidia's networking business is now bigger than gaming, which now represents less than 10 percent of Nvidia's total revenue. The company makes more pure profit from AI in a single quarter than total gaming sales in a year. It's no wonder the GPUs are in short supply at MSRP when their makers are richly rewarded for putting silicon capacity toward AI chips instead. But that feels like a good argument for Nvidia to stop caring whether its gaming GPUs sell, not why it might feel the need to meddle with reviews. If the desktop RTX 5060 doesn't hit sales goals, the company will be more than OK. Nvidia would be less OK if everyone started questioning its integrity. What might help explain this push, though, is Nvidia's seeming need to make its founder's new vision for gaming into a reality. At CES 2025, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang kicked off a huge debate about 'fake frames' among PC gamers when he suggested they were the future of graphics — effectively, that the idea your game should draw each and every scene 60, 120, or more times per second will seem antiquated. That AI not only can, but should fill in the gaps. It's not so far-fetched an idea: as my colleague Tom Warren noted in January, 'so much of modern gaming is already 'fake,' and it has been for years.' That might be why Nvidia has been so pushy about reviewers adding such comparisons to their reviews. (Nvidia has even bugged us to include MFG results in our AMD reviews, a request we've largely ignored.) But in the end, Huang's claim that the $549 RTX 5070 would deliver $1,599 RTX 4090 performance didn't ring true. The thing about Nvidia's MFG is it needs enough real frames to begin with, or it doesn't feel smooth, and if it already feels smooth, you may not need the extra frames. It's not a silver bullet that can make a 1440p card feel like a 4K card and, according to Dave James with PC Gamer, it isn't enough to make Nvidia's new 1080p card feel like a 1440p one, either. In one of the first real reviews of the RTX 5060, with video examples, James explains: You're not going to be able to use MFG to be able to up the resolution on your low-end RTX 5060 to match your 1440p monitor, even with DLSS running. And you're not going to be able to use MFG to enable you to run at the highest in-game settings, even sometimes at 1080p. The extra latency and low input frame rates either make it a latency spiking nightmare or the AI generated frames end up creating a ton of unpleasant artifacts as you run around whatever gameworld you're in. Meanwhile, HardwareUnboxed published a review that shows the new 5060 may not be that much faster than the old 4060, even at 1080p. They found it 20 percent faster on average across 18 games, and as low as 8 percent faster in Star Wars Outlaws, 9 percent faster in Stalker 2, and 10 percent faster in Black Ops 6. At 1440p, the $250 Intel Arc B580 offered better 1 percent lows and is the superior deal if you can find it at that price. We may never know how many PC gamers bought an RTX 5060 without seeing any such comparisons, because Nvidia kept proper reviews from arriving on time. But in many cases, it won't be too late to return those GPUs. Maybe Nvidia's bad behavior is enough to push us to buy AMD's new card or wait for Intel's next card instead, challenging Nvidia's 90-percent control of the market and, perhaps, bringing some much-needed competition.
Forbes
21-05-2025
- Forbes
AMD Announces Radeon RX 9060 XT And Ryzen Threadripper 9000 CPUs
AMD's Radeon RX 9060 XT AMD has made significant announcements at the Computex trade show in Taiwan this today, revealing concrete details of its highly-anticipated budget-conscious Radeon RX 9060 XT graphics card for gamers, and also a new generation of Ryzen Threadripper processors. Starting with the Radeon RX 9600 XT, AMD has revealed the specifications of the new graphics card, which is set to sit beneath the existing RX 9070 and its launch price of $549 and the RX 9070 XT at $599. Early suggestions are that the card is likely to be priced between $300 and $500 depending on the chosen memory capacity. The capacity itself is either 8GB or 16GB of video memory, in a similar move to Nvidia with its RTX 5060. The latter, though, has not been met with favorable reviews. In fact, PC Gamer said it best in its review of the RTX 5060 and in its own words, things don't look great, with inconsistent performance and Nvidia's would be silver bullet, Multi Frame Generation, at the heart of its problems. By contrast, AMD has enjoyed sales up to 10 times higher with its RX 9070 XT and according to some retailers, even outselling equivalent Nvidia RTX 50-series models and it's hoped the RX 9060 XT 8GB and 16GB will offer yet more compelling reasons to shun Nvidia and steal market share. AMD has revealed specifications of its Radeon RX 9060 XT graphics card, which will have 8GB and 16GB ... More memory options Comparing the RX 9060 and 9070 series cards above and below we can see that the RX 9070 XT has double the AMD RDNA 4 compute units, RT accelerators and AI accelerators and offers nearly double the AI TOPS too. If you're worried about power consumption, then the maximum board power is just 182W, but can be as low as 150W and combined with a standard 8-pin connector, older and less capable power supplies should handle it fine. AMD's Radeon RX 9070 XT and 9070 both have 16GB of memory, support PCIe 5 and have board powers of ... More 300W or less Sadly there's no word on pricing, performance or availability, but the company will be making further announcements this week and in the near future so watch this space. AMD's Ryzen Threadripper 9000 The second announcement is that of new Zen-5 based Ryzen Threadripper CPUs. There are Pro models, aimed squarely at workstations and professional users, but AMD is classing the standard Threadripper 9000 models as high-end desktop. Whether that is accurate or not depends on the price of both processors, as the previous generation certainly didn't appeal to desktop users as much as the first few generations as they had a far higher platform cost. AMD has announced three new Threadripper 9000 CPUs Three new models will be available, with no core count increases compared to the previous non-Pro models. The maximum core count is 64 for the 9980X, 32 for the 9970X and 24 for the 9960X. However, all four CPUs offer peak boost frequencies up to 5.4GHz and use the same Zen 5 architecture as the company's current Ryzen 9000 CPUs such as the Ryzen 9 9950X, which has 16 cores. Pricing and availability are yet to be announced.
