Multiple Reddit users report that Zotac has seemingly raised prices across the board for some of its best graphics cards. One Reddit user said on r/pcgaming that prices for various Zotac RTX 5090s jumped by at least $500, while one Redditor claimed on r/buildapcsales that the company increased MSRPs by $200 or more. We checked the pricing history of several Zotac GPUs on PC Part Picker and the Wayback Machine, and compared it with our GPU 2026 price tracker. Although we didn’t see the claimed $200 price jump on all graphics cards from the AIB partner, the company did increase the MSRP on several of its GPU models.

The company hasn’t released an official statement about the reported price increases, but it follows the trend of rising GPU costs driven by the ongoing memory shortage. We’ve started hearing reports of GPU rationing in Germany and Japan at the turn of the year, with stores not receiving deliveries of GPUs with 16GB of VRAM or more. So, it’s just natural for these graphics cards to become expensive, according to the law of supply and demand. More than that, there were even reports that Nvidia has ended its OPP pricing-support scheme, which allowed AIB partners to sell some graphics card models at MSRP, meaning the supply of these affordable options will likely dry up sooner rather than later.

[GPU META POST] Zotac store increased MSRP by $200 or more for all GPUs - $ (example $949 5070 Ti was $749 a week ago for old MSRP-$50 Microcenter sale) from r/buildapcsales

However, the news of price increases was made worse by one Redditor’s report saying that their Zotac GPU order was canceled on the eve of the price increase, with the company blaming it on a system error. Unfortunately, the user hasn’t provided an update on whether they’ve reached out to Zotac or whether the company is taking steps to rectify the situation. The same issue happened to Corsair when it cancelled several $240 48GB DDR5 orders due to a pricing error, resulting in a PR nightmare for the company. Nevertheless, it did offer a 40% off coupon for future RAM orders for affected shoppers.

Comment from r/pcgaming

Another issue like this happened to Corsair at around the same time, when a gamer ordered a $3,499 pre-built PC on New Year’s Day, only to find it was canceled the following day and the computer’s price was hiked to $4,299. Thankfully, a Corsair representative noticed their post and made it right for that particular user by sending them a coupon that allowed them to purchase the same computer at its original sale price. Hopefully, Zotac also looks into this issue and finds a way to resolve it for the gamer and make everyone happy.

'Twas the festive season but Santa didn't know how
to deal with the new RAM apocalypse, now!
Who could've predicted this horrid event
in which memory costs rose 500 percent?

He didn't expect this holiday twist —
It's memory-intensive to create his list!
Even Crucial got killed in this big AI boom.
(This boom smells as funky as Zotac's perfume).

But he still had some systems lying around.
Surely one of them would have to be sound!
He had an XPS, Optiplex — oh, what the hell?
Which one is which? They're all just a Dell.

So instead, he switched to an Apple Silicon Mac
and played Cyberpunk to forget the setback.
Then he jumped to a Windows 10 system he'd moved to Linux
and entered his password: 123456.

❄️❄️❄️

But none of these systems made the list the right way.
They all fell like Steam on Silksong's launch day.
So he figured he'd do these holidays with a twist:
He'd simply put everyone onto his list.

Compiling this data would take quite a while.
Santa had what Torvalds called "random turd files."
He found several old lists made in Microsoft Word
and even more data he had stored on a bird.

To collate the data, he had the elves convene,
using prototypes of the new Steam Machine,
and old rigs he updated with a bit of skill,
and a few lucky builds that he found at Goodwill.

Now that the rigs were doing the heavy lifting,
It was time for Santa to put his mind to gifting.
Like 3D-printed loafers that are beyond description
And some great Tom's Hardware Premium subscriptions!

❄️❄️❄️

Gold RTX 5090's would be all the rage.
There were VPNs for people verifying their age.
Elves made hair clips out of old M1 Pros,
And for Intel, a new permanent CEO.

There were non-binary RAM kits on sale at some shops,
and 5070 Ti's with all of their ROPs.
Nintendo Switch 2s without stapled screens,
and TSMC sneakers that go great with your jeans.

"Hey Santa!" cried one elf, looking over his shoulder.
"Why are all these anime girls in your temp folder?"
Santa explained that his JPGs weren't a crime,
But blamed them on a bug in XPG Prime.

With that unfortunate question answered,
He called Rudolph, and Comet, and Dancer, and Prancer.
"Can you stop by the store and try to obtain
some new Xboxes before the price rises again?"

❄️❄️❄️

Then Mrs. Claus came downstairs in shock.
"Santa, look what I found under stockings and socks!"
He felt his jaw drop like it was full of rocks —
It was a whole bunch of RAM he had never unboxed!

Santa couldn't help it — he let out a snort.
Like RDNA 1 and 2, he could have more support!
But he and his crew were saving the day,
with existing computers, the old-fashioned way.

And Santa and friends were all having a ball.
It was the best holiday lead-up that he could Recall.
He might even have extra time to clean up his house
to smell fresher than Asus's aromatic mouse.

It took all of Santa's brains and all the elves' might,
But they had a list, and had gifts, and were ready for flight.
To ensure they had the fuel to get this year's trip right,
They stopped by a Denny's for some Breakfast Bytes.

No matter what you’re celebrating this year,
Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or Christmas with cheer;
We at Tom’s Hardware wish you the best.
We’ll be at our benches, running our tests.

🎅🎄🎁☃️❄️ 🎅🎄🎁☃️❄️ 🎅🎄🎁☃️❄️

The Tom’s Hardware staff first published a holiday poem in 2014 on Christmas Eve. It was updated a little bit and published again each year at the same time. The poem was given a complete overhaul in 2018 and has been rewritten with new stories and references every year since. For more holiday fun, see the versions from 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024.

A frustrated user has taken to Reddit after Zotac denied their GeForce RTX 5070 Ti RMA for a suspected bearing issue, saying that it found “irreversible” PCB damage that cannot be repaired “due to the limited tools” the company has. According to I_Main_TwistedFate’s Reddit post, the company said the physical damage was found near the PCIe connector during a visual inspection of the card before testing. Zotac then claimed that this type of damage isn’t “caused by normal GPU operation” and instead recommended that the user “File a Damage Claim With the Shipping Carrier.”

“When your card arrived at our facility, our technicians performed a visual inspection prior to electrical testing. During this inspection, they identified a crack in the PCB (printed circuit board) near the PCIe connector. While the gold contacts themselves appear intact, the board material above the connector is visibly fractured,” the service manager told I_Main_TwistedFate.

The Zotac representative later added, “The type of cracking found is consistent with external mechanical stress during handling or transportation. Since this damage cannot be caused by normal GPU operation, we recommend filing a shipping damage claim with the carrier that delivered the package to ZOTAC USA.”

Just a warning if your planning to buy a Zotac card as my RMA has been denied PT2: Now they are offering that they can dispose of my card. from r/pcmasterrace

This probably led to enormous frustration for the user, as they initially sought an RMA for their three-month-old RTX 5070 Ti because it was making unusual noises they suspected could be a fan bearing issue. They even shared photos of the supposed PCB damage, which appeared to be considerably minor. The biggest insult was that Zotac even offered to dispose of the GPU at its facility if I_Main_TwistedFate did not want it returned.

We’re unsure what caused the PCB damage to the GPU, but it seems to have been due to wear-and-tear rather than accidental or deliberate damage. This is similar to the $3,350 repair bill another customer received from Asus for their RTX 5090 after the company discovered a microscopic “surface irregularity” on the expensive card. It could be that these companies are just covering themselves in case these seemingly minor damages lead to a catastrophic failure. However, it’s still infuriating for anyone who spent hundreds or thousands of their hard-earned money on these expensive parts. On the other hand, Nvidia has been extremely generous, replacing a damaged RTX 5090 despite it being caused by the user, and even offering a replacement unit for a $10,000 RTX Pro 6000 that was broken in transit.

Mini desktop PCs are becoming ever more popular among enthusiasts, and the latest entry in the proverbial contest is the Zotac Zbox Magnus EN275060TC, the smallest machine to date. It packs the desktop version of a 5060 Ti with its full complement of 16 GB of VRAM, paired with a 20-core Core Ultra 7 255 HX processor.

The GPU isn't a card per se, but we should remark that it's the full-fat 5060 Ti 16 GB, as opposed to the cut-down mobile version. At only 2.65 liters (or 0.7 gallons), the quizzically named Magnus EN275060TC packs one heck of a one-two punch for its weight class. For reference, a Mac Studio comes in at 3.7 liters. The machine measures just 210 x 203 x 62.2 mm (or 8.27 x 7.99 x 2.45"), making it an easy fit behind a monitor on a VESA mount.

The Core 7 Ultra 255 HX processor has eight performance and 12 efficiency cores, with a 5.2 GHz turbo clock and 30 MB of cache. That's quite the mighty chip, and together with the graphics card, it should make the machine a perfectly fine choice for 4K gaming at decent frame rates, productivity, and AI work. There's no shortage of mid-tower machines that don't come anywhere close to this level of performance on paper.

The machine comes as a barebones build, meaning you'll need to add your own memory and SSDs to it. There's support for RAM up to 6400 MT/s if you use CSODIMMs, or 5400 MT/s if using standard SODIMMs. You can plug in solid-state drives to one of the two M.2 80-mm slots.

There's no shortage of connectivity, thanks to the two Type-C Thunderbolt 4 / USB4 ports on the front, along with five 10 Gbps USB Type-A plugs (one at the front, four behind). The back panel includes enough display outputs for a total of four monitors, in the form of three DisplayPorts and an HDMI connector. For networking duties, the Magnus EN275060TC provides two 2.5 Gb Ethernet connectors along with Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 on the airwaves.

The small size does command a price premium. While Zotac doesn't list a price, we've spotted the Magnus EN275060TC rings at European stores at around 1,600€. If you take away 21% VAT and use today's exchange rate, this would mean it would cost around $1,555 stateside before any import fees.

It appears that the GPU market is finally healing, as we have just spotted two RTX 5080 models selling at Nvidia’s original MSRP. The MSI Shadow 3X OC RTX 5080 and the Zotac Solid Core RTX 5080 are currently available for purchase at $999 over at Newegg.

Both GPUs notably comply with Nvidia’s SFF-ready category of enthusiast GeForce cards, which mandates a maximum height of 151mm, a maximum length of 304mm, and a thickness of up to 2.5 slots. This makes them compatible with certain small-form-factored cases.

• Check out the MSI RTX 5080 deal on Newegg

• Check out the Zotac RTX 5080 deal on Newegg

Earlier this week, we wrote about a similar deal around the PNY GeForce RTX 5080 OC, which is still in stock at Best Buy for the same price of $999.

The RTX 5080 is currently the second most powerful Nvidia Blackwell GPU available for gamers and enthusiasts. Introduced along with the current flagship RTX 5090, both GPUs quickly sold out, and restocks have since struggled to match their original MSRP.

Featuring the GB203 GPU along with 16GB of VRAM, it is well-suited for smooth gameplay at higher resolutions where modern titles demand more memory for shaders and textures.

It features a total of 10,752 CUDA cores, approximately 10% more than the previous-generation RTX 4080 and around 5% more than the RTX 4080 Super. Additionally, the memory has also been bumped thanks to the adoption of GDDR7 VRAM instead of GDDR6X, for faster bandwidth and improved efficiency for high-resolution gaming.

In our review of the RTX 5080 Founders Edition, we found that it offers a modest leap in raw rasterization performance compared to the RTX 4080 or 4080 Super. However, where the RTX 5080 starts to stand apart is in its upgraded ray tracing hardware and support for DLSS 4, which also introduces the new multi-frame generation technology exclusive to the RTX 50 series.

These additions mean that while the card may not outpace its predecessors by a wide margin in traditional workloads, it remains a worthy graphics card for those seeking a reliable option that can handle 4K gaming without straining.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, or CPU Deals pages.

Nvidia's RTX 5090 received glowing reviews at launch because of its explosive performance, with many citing its FPS-crunching numbers as what young people would call "fire."

Unfortunately, to extract that kind of performance, the card pushes a lot of power through a connector notorious for its tendency to melt. We've just seen the latest case of a 5090 reportedly catching on fire, and it did burn, but this time the situation is a bit different than what you might think.

A Taiwanese Gamer.com.tw forum thread, first spotted by UNIKO’s Hardware, tells us the tale of a Zotac RTX 5090 AMP Extreme that allegedly caught fire mid-game during a Battlefield 6 session. The original poster, york4517, says the machine was a store-bought NZXT prebuilt. While playing Battlefield's open beta, the screen suddenly froze, a flash and burning smell appeared, and that's when the user noticed a flame inside the PC. The fire, coming from the GPU, lasted roughly ten seconds and left the 5090 heavily charred. The motherboard and SSD were also damaged, and even the liquid-cooling tubing smoked black.

The photos attached in the forum post show concentrated scorching around the lower edge of the PCB where the card meets the motherboard. Uniko pins the origin of the fire to the MSVDD rail—the memory-subsystem power line—and suspects a MOSFET short or phase failure in that area likely caused the burn, noting that section had no dedicated cooling. The pattern in the photos suggests a rapid, localized power-delivery failure that arced and burned through traces and nearby components, so the card appears to be a total loss.

The RTX 5090 is no stranger to failures, and this just adds to a long list, including an Asus ROG Astral 5090 with a suspected capacitor or VRM-phase blowout that scarred both card and board while leaving the 12V connector intact, and multiple reports of 16-pin / 12VHPWR connectors melting or showing severe heat damage despite seemingly being properly seated. This time, though, we cannot entirely rule out user error, as the card was confirmed to be undervolted first. But that's nothing extraordinary and certainly doesn't set the stage for the GPU to burn up.

In the market for a new GPU or perhaps building a new system ahead of EA's Battlefield 6 release? Whatever the reason, if you want the absolute best GPU in your build, then now could be an opportunity to pick one up at a reduced price -- and boy, do they need it.

The MSRP for RTX 5090 cards, set by Nvidia ahead of the launch of the 50-series flagship, was $1,999, but we soon found that that original pricing was nowhere near the reality of the actual release prices. Cards were closer to $3,000 than $2,000. If you're an Amazon Prime member, you can currently pick up one of these powerful graphics cards for its lowest-ever price on Amazon.

The card in question is the Zotac Gaming RTX 5090 Solid OC, which has a retail price of $2,399.99. This is $400 less than its original launch price of $2,799.99 a few months ago, and checking the Camelizer and PC-Partpicker price checkers, we can confirm that this is the lowest-ever price offered for this card online from the retailers these price checkers cover.

• Check out the deal at Amazon

Zotac's Gaming Solid GeForce RTX 5090 is stacked with 32GB of the latest GDDR7 VRAM running on a superfast 512-bit bus. A whopping 21,760 CUDA cores and a 2422 MHz boost clock speed are what make this beast a ridiculous performer in games. This card has the latest connectivity options, with 1 x HDMI 2.1b port and 3 x DisplayPort 2.1b ports for connecting to displays. If you're looking for the best GPU for gaming and also a popular GPU choice for productivity work, like video editing, or playing around with localized AI//large language model projects, then the 5090 is the way to go.

We've tested and reviewed the RTX 5090 and found it to perform roughly 25% better than the previous generation's RTX 4090. There is no better card if you want the absolute best in your machine, and this current price is the cheapest that you can currently get one for. While the card is becoming common on shelves than it was at launch, this is still a very expensive GPU that requires a powerful power supply and possibly a fire extinguisher.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, or CPU Deals pages.

Zotac has launched two new RTX 50 series graphics cards, one geared towards high-end/hardcore gamers and enthusiasts, and the other aimed at SFF builds.

In a blog post, the GPU maker announced a new RTX 5090 flagship, boasting a triple-fan 360mm AIO liquid cooler, and a budget-friendly, low-profile RTX 5060 graphics card with three 40mm fans.

The new RTX 5090 Arcticstorm AIO is Zotac's new flagship for the RTX 50 series, and one of only a handful of 360mm AIO-cooled RTX 5090s on the market. Its main competitor is the 360mm liquid-cooled Asus ROG Astral LC RTX 5090.

Zotac's version features liquid cooling on all major components, including the GPU and GDDR7, as well as the power delivery system. Connecting these components to the graphics card's 360mm liquid cooler is a full-coverage copper coldplate. This setup differs from cards such as the aforementioned Astral, which favors a combination of air cooling and liquid cooling instead.

The graphics card itself boasts a glass appearance with an infinity mirror and RGB lighting on the side. All three 120mm radiator fans are also RGB illuminated, and all RGB lighting is controlled through Zotac's Spectra 2.0 ARGB software.

Other characteristics of the card include dual BIOS functionality, with one optimized for performance and the other for quiet operation. There’s also a dedicated backplate and "enhanced PCB-level measures to ensure the longevity of the graphics card," featuring reinforced solder joints, static-protected rear I/O, and over-current protection.

Zotac claims the RTX 5090 Arcticstorm AIO has up to 30% better cooling performance and up to 55% quieter operational performance than its outgoing triple-fan air-cooled RTX 5090 Solid.

Low Profile RTX 5060

First announced at Computex, Zotac is finally releasing its low-profile RTX 5060, known as the Zotac Gaming RTX 5060 Low Profile. Just like its Asus and Gigabyte competitors, the new card can work in a slim chassis that cannot fit full-height PCIe cards. However, it does come with a full-height bracket for systems that have full-height PCIe slots.

The card measures just 69mm in height and 182.5mm in length, and is cooled by three 40mm fans. The shroud is covered in matte black finish with Zotac-themed gold stickers covering the top of each fan hub. Compared to its competitors, the Zotac card matches its Gigabyte counterpart in height and width; however, Asus' version is 6.7mm shorter.

The RTX 5090 Arcticstorm AIO and RTX 5060 Low Profile are already available, but Zotac warns availability will be dependent on regional supply and delivery.

Having first seen some movement in the prices of the high-end 50-series GPUs during recent Amazon Prime Day sales and those from various other retailers, I'm surprised to see that Nvidia's flagship graphics card, the GeForce RTX 5090, has dipped lower in price than during the sales. Zotac's Gaming Solid GeForce RTX 5090 at $2,499 is now the most affordable 5090 available if you're looking to add one to your system.

The RTX 5090 sits at the top of our benchmarking charts for gaming and is also a popular choice for productivity work like video editing, or even playing around with localized AI//large language model projects. If you want a graphics card that will chew through almost any gaming workload you can throw at it, with high frame rates and max settings, even at 4K, then this is the card for you.

Zotac's Gaming Solid GeForce RTX 5090 is stacked with 32GB of the latest GDDR7 VRAM running on a superfast 512-bit bus. A whopping 21,760 CUDA cores and a 2407 MHz clock speed are what make this beast a ridiculous performer in games. This card has the latest connectivity options, with 1 x HDMI 2.1b port and 3 x DisplayPort 2.1b ports for connecting to displays

We've tested and reviewed the RTX 5090 and found it to perform roughly 25% better than the previous generation's RTX 4090. There is no better card if you want the absolute best in your machine, and this current price is the cheapest that you can currently get one for. While the card is becoming more common on shelves than it was at launch, we're nowhere near the mythical $2,000 MSRP of an Nvidia Founders Edition card, which sucks, but if you want the best, Nvidia insists you pay for the pleasure.

Check Amazon for more RTX 5090 deals.

Buying a prebuilt gaming PC is a wise choice for anyone who prioritizes convenience over hand-picking every component and going through the entire build process. While the ongoing Prime Day sale is packed with deals on some of the best prebuilt gaming PCs, a standout option from Zotac is on sale over at Newegg. The Zotac Mek prebuilt gaming PC, which usually goes for $3,299, is selling for $2,349 with a savings of $950. Featuring AMD’s Ryzen 7 9700X CPU and an RTX 5080 GPU, the system is capable of offering ample performance for high-end 4K gaming and demanding creative workloads right out of the box.

• Up to $700 off gaming PCs at Amazon

The gaming PC is built inside a vertical tower chassis from Thermaltake, specifically the Tower 600. This non-traditional PC case comes with an octagonal prism shape along with tempered glass panels at the front to showcase the internals. The case is said to support up to a 420mm AIO radiator on the right side and a 360mm AIO radiator on the left side, along with provisions for up to thirteen 120mm or nine 140mm fans. For ease of maintenance, the case also includes multiple dust filters that can attach magnetically.

The system platform includes the Asrock Phantom Gaming X870 Riptide Wi-Fi ATX motherboard with a preinstalled 2TB PCIe Gen 4 SSD and 32GB of dual-channel DDR5 6400 MT/s memory with RGB lighting. The Ryzen 7 9700X CPU is cooled using a 360 mm AIO liquid cooler from Thermaltake, while power is supplied using a 1,000W 80+ Gold certified PSU. The included GPU model is the Zotac Gaming GeForce RTX 5080 Solid, which is currently the most affordable RTX 5080 offered by the GPU manufacturer. Additionally, the PC also comes with preinstalled Windows 11, support for Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4, and the benefit of professionally managed cables.

Here’s a quick look at the individual pricing of each part. Please note that the following parts have been hand-picked and may not be the same as supplied with the prebuilt PC. However, we have chosen the closest and most reliable option that matches the specifications given in the listing.

At its current deal price, this Zotac MEK prebuilt gaming PC offers great value, especially when considering the high-end components packed inside. If you were to purchase the same parts individually it would cost you over $2,700, as validated by current listings on PCPartPicker.com. This means that you still end up saving close to $350, on top of skipping all the hassles of assembling the parts, cable management, and setting up Windows.

We are working hard to find the best computer hardware deals for you this Amazon Prime Day. We cover the hottest deals in real-time at our Best Amazon Prime Day Deals Live page. If you're looking for more savings, check out our Amazon Prime Day deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, or CPU Deals pages.

Zotac's Computex 2025 booth has a beautiful handheld for showcase, pairing a 7-inch AMOLED panel with AMD's powerful Ryzen AI HX 370 APU from the Strix Point family. Breaking from Windows and SteamOS, Zotac has opted for Manjaro Linux as the Operating System. The handheld is currently called Zone 2, but its final name, pricing, and availability are still unconfirmed.

Zotac's original Zone 1 handheld debuted in September last year. It is powered by AMD's last-generation Ryzen 7 8840U, introduced in December 2023. Zotac has clearly been on a slower release schedule compared to the competition. Initially revealed at CES in January, Zotac has once again showcased the expected follow-up to the Zone 1 at Computex. Their representative confirmed that the "Zone 2" designation isn't final, but that's what it will likely be called, with an expected launch window sometime later this year.

The AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 APU powering this handheld features a 12-core (4x Zen 5 + 8x Zen 5c) layout, the Radeon 890M (12 CUs) iGPU, along with a 50 TOPS capable NPU. While other alternatives are sticking to the handheld-focused and conservative Ryzen Z2 Extreme, Zotac is choosing the faster and potentially more expensive option. 24/32GB LPDDR5x memory options complement this with a 1TB PCIe 4.0 (M.2 2280) SSD that is user-upgradeable.

Although Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 5060 is massively slower than higher-end Blackwell models, it has one indisputable advantage over its bigger brethren: low power consumption. This opens doors for makers of graphics cards to build GeForce RTX 5060 add-in-boards in a variety of form-factors to address different systems. And Zotac is one of the companies that does not hesitate to build miniature GeForce RTX 5060 cards.

The company is demonstrating a low-profile GeForce RTX 5060 as well as Mini-ITX GeForce RTX 5060 at Computex. Both boards are based on Nvidia’s GB206 graphics processing unit with 3840 CUDA cores and carry 8 GB of GDDR7 memory with a 128-bit interface, just like full-size boards. However, while the Mini-ITX version has four display connectors, the low-profile AIB has only three display outputs.

As for coolers, the Zotac Gaming Mini-ITX GeForce RTX 5060 comes with a rather sophisticated single-fan cooling system with multiple heat pipes, whereas the low-profile product is equipped with a dual-slot triple-fan cooler, which is something to be expected from a graphics board with a 145W total board power. To enhance the compatibility of both cards with inexpensive systems, Zotac equipped them with an eight-pin auxiliary PCIe power connector, which is perfectly fine for such devices.

As both gamers and makers of PC hardware try to squeeze all the juice from parts like graphics cards, the latter became quite huge in the last 10 years as they tend to come equipped with huge coolers no matter how much power they actually consume. To that end, it became close to impossible to find a gaming graphics card in low-profile and Mini-ITX form-factor. Fortunately, there are companies like Zotac, which tend to address rather niche markets with more or less decent offerings for gaming, providing an upgrade path for compact systems.

Zotac plans to start selling its low-profile and Mini-ITX versions of GeForce RTX 5060 graphics cards this summer, though it remains to be seen whether these boards will be available at price points close to GeForce RTX 5060’s MSRP of $299, or the company charges a premium for exclusivity as small graphics adapters are rare these days.

Zotac is preparing to launch new mini-PC offerings at Computex next week, featuring AMD's beastly Strix Halo APUs and desktop Blackwell GPUs from Nvidia. So far, the company has showcased two designs with Nvidia hardware, featuring the desktop RTX 5060 Ti and the RTX 5070, and one AMD-based design with a Ryzen AI MAX CPU. Details on exact specifications and pricing have not been shared, but we'll hear more from the team at Taipei in just a few days.

Under its ZBOX Mini PC offerings, Zotac's Magnus-E lineup features compact yet powerful mini-PCs targeted at enthusiasts and content creators. The latest Strix Halo addition should extend their appeal to AI/ML developers as well. The upcoming Magnus One is equipped with an 8.48-liter chassis, housing a desktop RTX 5070 Ti 16GB along with a Core Ultra 7 processor from Intel, potentially from the Core Ultra 200S series.

The Magnus EN follows with a compact 2.65-liter design, home to the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB (desktop). This is accompanied by a mobile Core Ultra 7 processor, which can either be the Core Ultra 7 265H or its HX counterpart. With Arrow Lake, the distinction between Intel's H and HX grade processors goes beyond TDP and core counts. Arrow Lake-H features rebadged SoC Tiles from Meteor Lake, which can potentially offset performance gains, as shown in a previous review.

German electronics retailer Alternate has listed three Zotac GeForce RTX 5090 Solid OC graphics cards as B-stock products, despite these units missing Render Output Units (ROPs).

First spotted by Videocardz, the affected GPUs are reportedly missing 8 out of the expected 176 ROPs, which can potentially negatively impact rasterization performance and rendering efficiency in certain workloads. Notably, Alternate is selling these ‘defective’ GPUs at €2,899 ($3,132.12), a price nearly identical to fully functional RTX 5090 units.

ROPs play a crucial role in finalizing rendered frames, making them particularly important for high-resolution gaming and professional workloads. A reduction in ROPs could lead to slightly lower performance, particularly in 4K gaming and compute-heavy applications. Despite this, Alternate has not meaningfully discounted these defective GPUs, making them a questionable purchase for uninformed buyers.

Zotac raised the price of its entire RTX 50-series lineup just three days ago. The price hikes have essentially eliminated MSRP models, making the RTX 5090 even more expensive across the board. This comes despite Nvidia recently implementing price cuts for its RTX 50-series GPUs in Europe, as reported by The Verge, due to currency fluctuations and market conditions. However, Zotac’s decision to increase prices suggests that consumers may not see the full benefit of Nvidia’s adjustments.

While this situation raises concerns about both transparency and pricing, Alternate has included a note in the product listing, disclosing the missing 8 ROPs. However, the lack of a meaningful discount on these defective units remains a point of contention, as they are priced nearly the same as fully functional models. While the missing ROPs may not severely impact performance in all scenarios, enthusiasts and professionals investing in high-end GPUs should be cautious, as it could result in lower frame rates and reduced rendering speeds in certain applications.

Further complicating matters, the Zotac GeForce RTX 5090 Solid is out-of-stock at most retailers in the EU, making it difficult for consumers to find a standard, fully functional unit at MSRP. A search revealed a listing on Caseking, where the GPU is listed at €3,101.82, significantly higher than the defective units being sold by Alternate. This suggests that supply constraints and increased demand could be playing a role in pricing inconsistencies across different retailers.

With GPU demand still high and pricing trends already unfavorable due to Zotac’s recent price hikes, the listing of defective RTX 5090s at premium prices adds another layer of frustration for consumers. Neither Nvidia nor Zotac has provided a statement regarding why these GPUs have made it to market despite their hardware limitations. For now, prospective buyers are advised to check specifications carefully before making a purchase, even with disclosure present on B-stock listings from retailers like Alternate.

Zotac has registered a slew of Nvidia GeForce GPUs with the EEC (Eurasian Economic Commission), including two new entries: the RTX 5060 series and the RTX 5050 (via Harukaze). Of the two, this is the first time we're hearing about an RTX 5050, succeeding the RTX 3050 as the RTX 40 series didn't feature a 50-class counterpart. In any case, we'll proceed with caution because a large number of SKUs listed at the EEC never actually see the light of day.

The newfound RTX 5050 could be Nvidia's first foray into the sub-$250 price bracket in a long time. This segment of the market has been primarily catered to by second-hand RTX 30 or Radeon RX 6000 series GPUs for the past few years. Lately, Intel's new Battlemage-based Arc B580 and Arc B570 have been a popular choice for budget gamers, though with a few caveats. As far as AMD is concerned, RDNA 4 will debut with the RX 9070 family (Navi 48) meaning budget RX 9060 or RX 9050 GPUs could take some time to materialize.

To reiterate, EEC listings never guarantee a GPU's release. OEMs typically register placeholder product names at these regulatory bodies, in case Nvidia launches said product in the future. With that in mind, it appears Zotac has filed several GPUs at the EEC spanning across multiple generations; from Kepler to Blackwell. The list includes the RTX 5060 Ti, RTX 5060, and the RTX 5050.

Now, the RTX 5060 Ti is rumored to carry two variants: one with 8GB and the other with 16GB of VRAM. Hopefully, that's the only differentiating factor between the two, unlike the Pascal GTX 1060 series. Similarly, the same source claims that the RTX 5060 will offer only 8GB of memory and not much is known about the RTX 5050. Reports suggest the RTX 5060 family will debut next month, but alleged RTX 5070 delays might introduce some uncertainties.

Budget gamers will likely have to wait until Computex in late May for potential RTX 5050 and RX 9060/9050 reveals. It is far too early to expect anything from Intel, given that Battlemage launched just two months ago. Celestial will arrive with Panther Lake CPUs in the second half of 2025, with dedicated GPUs potentially coming later.

Zotac has devised a new way to distribute Nvidia's latest GeForce RTX 50-series (Blackwell) GPUs to gamers. The company (via Reddit) is implementing a priority access system to directly sell GeForce RTX 5090 and GeForce RTX 5080 GPUs to its gaming Discord server members. This will combat scalpers and ensure that only end-users get their hands on the limited supply of GPUs.

Many consider Blackwell a paper launch, as gamers and enthusiasts scramble for availability, and scammers and scalpers take advantage of it. Retailers, or at least some, ensure everyone has a fair chance of snagging one of these powerful new GPUs. One Japanese computer store hosted a lottery for prospective buyers, which, unfortunately, ended in chaos and injuries. To avoid situations like this, Zotac has opted for a different approach.

According to Zotac’s rules, you must be a Zotac Gaming Discord server member and “actively engage in challenges, discussions, and community activities.” There’s also a “zero-tolerance policy against re-selling & scalping” and that “all serial numbers are recorded to track and verify purchases.” While the company cannot stop anyone from breaking the re-selling or scalping rule after it has sold a GPU, anyone caught doing so will have their Discord username banned from future Zotac raffles.

The company noted that this is not a raffle for a free RTX 5080 or RTX 5090 GPU; instead, it’s an opportunity for the selected Discord user to buy Nvidia’s latest GPU at MSRP. To ensure fairness, the winners would be chosen using a random number generator, but the giveaway would only be open to users based in the U.S.

At the time of writing, Zotac said five RTX 5080 AMP Extreme Infinity and five RTX 5080 Solid OC GPUs are available. There are currently no RTX 5090s in stock, so those who want to get their hands on one will likely have to wait several weeks or months before they arrive in warehouses.

Many gamers and enthusiasts appreciate Zotac's move, as it ensures that only end-users can purchase these new GPUs. However, other Redditors also commented that Zotac’s Discord server is now being spammed by new users desperate to spend over $1,000 on a new GPU. Fortunately, another Redditor who claims to be a veteran member of the Discord server said its moderators created a private channel just for them, and they will have a separate raffle with higher chances of winning.

This move shows how some brands care about their customer base, ensuring their fans can acquire an RTX 50-series GPU early. Hopefully, Nvidia can improve its supply of Blackwell GPUs so gamers have a better opportunity to upgrade, as some have been holding off until Blackwell.

Zotac's, not first, not second, but third count of accidentally listing GPUs prematurely has shed light on what Nvidia has been preparing behind the scenes for its RTX 50 lineup of GPUs. Zotac had accidentally put up entries for the RTX 5090/D, RTX 5080, and the RTX 5070 family across its website, which were promptly taken down (H/T to Videocardz for spotting the listings). While most of the aforementioned GPUs have already been leaked, Zotac's recently updated filtering options are the first official source to confirm that the RTX 5090 will ship with 32GB of GDDR7 memory.

The catalog of GPUs includes the RTX 5090 in tandem with its China-specific RTX 5090D variant. Down the stack, we have the RTX 5080 and the RTX 5070 family featuring the base RTX 5070 and the RTX 5070 Ti. It isn't like Nvidia to launch the Ti variants at the beginning of a new generation, as these products typically arrive later as a refresh. Still, this is probably the lineup of GPUs that we should expect from Jensen Huang next month at CES.

The leaked screenshots hint that the RTX 5090 will be as massive as its predecessor, taking up 3.5-4 slots of space in your case. In addition, Zotac updated the filtering criteria in its Graphics Card section to include "GDDR7" and "32GB" options. Drawing a few parallels with everything we know about the RTX 5090, it should be clear that Nvidia is packing its flagship with 32GB of GDDR7 memory - up from 24GB on the RTX 4090.

Summing up everything we know thus far, the RTX 5090 is rumored to be based on Nvidia's GB202 chip - at over 744mm-squared - with 170-enabled SMs (out of 192 in total) and 32GB of GDDR7 memory. The slightly nerfed RTX 5090D should also be built using GB202 with fewer Streaming Multiprocessors - at 150 SMs per our calculations. Further down the list, the RTX 5080 using GB203 silicon drops to just 84 SMs - which is less than half that of the RTX 5090 - and 16GB of memory.

Lastly, the RTX 5070 Ti, per Kopite, will offer 70 SMs featuring the GB203 chip. Other than that, not much is known about the RTX 5070 family apart from a few rumors that slate it for retail in February.

The RTX 50 lineup is expected to employ TSMC's 4NP process (5nm-grade) - said to deliver 30% higher density than 4N used on the RTX 40 series. It is fair to assume Nvidia might introduce the FP4 and FP6 data types natively with the Blackwell on desktop, similar to its server counterpart (B100/B200). Still, there are a lot of nitty-gritty details we don't know so let's leave the architectural changes and pricing structure for Jensen next month.

Zotac is the next AIB partner to adopt Nvidia's flagship AD102 die-in products other than the RTX 4090, one of the best graphics cards. CoolPC reports that a highly neutered AD102 powers Zotac's latest RTX 4070 Ti Super Solid die rather than the AD103 die the 4070 Ti Super series typically utilizes.

CoolPC revealed die shots of an RTX 4070 Ti Super Solid OC graphics card against the Zotac RTX 4070 Ti Super AMP Holo and Zotac RTX 4090 Trinity OC. The images reveal that the RTX 4070 Ti Super Solid OC comes with a die codenamed AD102-175-KEF-A1 that is the same proportions as the AD102-300-A1 die in the Zotac Trinity. By contrast, the AD103-275-A1 die in the RTX 4070 Ti Super AMP Holo is a completely different shape and smaller than the AD102-equipped GPUs.

Zotac isn't the first manufacturer to implement AD102 dies in lower-tier RTX 40 series products. MSI was the first to use Nvidia's flagship AD102 die in its RTX 4070 Ti Super Ventus 3X graphics cards. Opting to run AD102 in the RTX 4070 Ti Super allows Nvidia to recycle defective AD102 dies that would otherwise be dumped in the garbage if they failed to pass quality control for the RTX 4090.

Running the massive AD102 die in an RTX 4070 Ti Super allows over 50% of the entire die to be defective, and it will still work within the RTX 4070 Ti's specifications. AD102 has 18,432 CUDA cores and six 64-bit memory controllers (384-bit interface). All required for an RTX 4070 Ti Super SKU to work is just 8,448 CUDA cores to be fully functional and just four of the six 64-bit memory controllers to work.

An AD102 variant of the RTX 4070 Ti Super shouldn't offer any performance advantage over AD103 versions of the GPU; however, there is a chance GPU temperatures might be lower than that of an AD103 counterpart due to AD102's massive size, and the fact that less than half of the GPU is being used. This makes most of the die a giant heat spreader that can soak up heat from active parts of the chip.

Ironically, the RTX 4070 Ti Super Solid is larger than Nvidia's RTX 4090 Founders Edition. The GPU is one of the most oversized RTX 4070 series graphics cards Zotac currently makes, featuring a card thickness that requires at least four PCIe slots to fit inside a chassis. It also has a massive triple-fan cooling system featuring 100mm fans, some of the largest ones in a triple-fan design.

A video went viral recently when workers at an Indonesian factory recorded one of the first alleged boot-ups of a Zotac RTX 5090. Zotac has come out and officially refuted claims that the GPU in the recording was a Zotac-made RTX 5090, stating that the GPU in question is an existing RTX 4070 Ti Super Solid.

Zotac wrote on its website:

"Over the last two days, we have noticed inaccurate speculation circulating regarding a rumored new graphics card product allegedly being manufactured by ZOTAC. We wish to seize this opportunity to provide clarification that the product showcased in the associated video source is, in fact, an existing product currently in production known as the ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER SOLID.

The video that has gone viral online pertains to an internal training recording of a trial production run at our facility in Indonesia, intended to test the performance of newly installed production equipments.

We reserve our right to claim against any unfounded speculation."

Zotac clarifies that the video footage was taken inside one of its Indonesian facilities, as various Chinese social media outlets claimed the rumored RTX 5090 boot-up video was legit. However, Zotac emphatically denies that the GPU in the video is an RTX 5090 or any next-gen GPU of any kind. The workers were testing the RTX 4070 Ti Super Solid.

Understandably, the original leakers would suspect the GPU in the video to be an RTX 5090. The RTX 4070 Ti Super Solid is one of Zotac's largest custom RTX 4070 Ti Super models. It features a triple-slot form factor with an even thicker GPU cooler that requires quad-slot compatibility at a minimum to fit inside a system.

The card's massive thickness is accompanied by a length of 336.5mm and a cooling system comprised of three 100mm fans, which are about the most oversized fans you'll see on triple-fan graphics cards. It makes the RTX 4070 Ti Super Solid larger than even the RTX 4090 Founders Edition.

Many leaks suggest that we could potentially see Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang announce the RTX 50 series during CES 2025, which will occur in early January. Assuming that's some credence to the rumors, the RTX 5090 or RTX 5080 is likely to launch first with the lower-tiered SKUs, like the RTX 5070 or RTX 5070 Ti arriving at a later time.

Nvidia graphics card and mini-PC maker Zotac is now accepting pre-orders for its first gaming handheld, the Zone which will reportedly retail for $799 in selected regions and online retailers. It's equipped with the AMD Ryzen 7 8840U (Hawk Point) APU and Radeon 780M graphics based on the Zen 4 and RDNA 3 architecture. Zotac US tells Tom's Hardware that those pre-orders won't be in the North American market.

Some of the features of the Zotac Gaming Zone are the use of hall effect sensors for its trigger and analog stick over conventional ones to prevent drifting. It also has radial dials on both analog sticks and dual trackpads. It has Windows 11 Home pre-installed, which puts itself directly competing with Asus ROG Ally X and some of the best PC gaming handhelds due to some of its components, including the APU with the same architecture with eight-core, 16-threads clocked up to 5.1 GHz and its on-chip graphic with 12 compute units clocked at 2.7 GHz.

The pricing is no different from that of the Asus ROG Ally X. Both gaming handhelds have similar specs, except Ally X doesn't have the 7-inch 1080p AMOLED screen or dual touchpad. What it does have in its place is a more practical 24GB LPDDR5X-7500 RAM and the 1TB PCIe 4.0 2280 SSD, while Zotac Gaming Zone has two-thirds of its RAM and half the internal storage.

Furthermore, it has a much smaller 48.5 Wh three-cell battery, while the Ally X has an 80 Wh four-cell battery. Both gaming handhelds have the same Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 for wireless connectivity, microSD for external storage, and dual USB Type-C ports. Zotac did add a 1MP 720p camera, which may not be appealing depending on the video quality and the user's priorities.

When one glances at the configuration, one wonders why it has a hardware configuration. ROG Ally X has a larger internal storage, RAM, and battery for that price segment, which makes it more appealing than an AMOLED screen and dual trackpad. But the addition to the Zotac Gaming Zone doesn't end there on paper.

Zotac mentions shaping the Zone for a more comfortable grip, which may explain why it's slightly longer vertically. It didn't skip on a 3.5mm audio jack, has two macro switches, and has a fingerprint scanner on its power button. Integrating a built-in kickstand is a great idea, and having a good grip is just as important for a handheld.

We had hands-on experience with the Zotac Zone earlier during Computex 2024 when Asus launched Ally X, MSI showed off its Claw 8 AI+ with Intel Lunar Lake, and Antec partnered with Ayaneo for its first gaming handheld, the Core HS.

Suffice it to say the gaming handheld market is getting over-saturated while having little difference from each other- apart from design choices and trade-offs. While Asus ROG Ally X will have SteamOS 3 BETA, and likely other gaming handhelds will in time. But it is Windows 11 that allows you to install other game launchers and run Game Pass (Steam Deck can, but through its browser) natively, a plethora of mods, and practically anything else you'd otherwise do with a PC. It is where Windows-based gaming handhelds have an advantage over Steam Deck.

It is also important to note that Windows handhelds should consider having a debloated Windows 11 to give the best possible experience and not follow in the footsteps of PC and notebook OEMs. Now that many PC and peripheral makers are getting onto this bandwagon, Zotac needs the best hardware it can provide for its price.

Hence, one wouldn't ponder for long which of the two is preferable- a gaming handheld with a larger battery, storage, and RAM or another with an AMOLED screen but with half the important bits?

The investigative journalists at Gamers Nexus uncovered a serious and troubling data leak at Zotac, a company already in FTC crosshairs for its warranty practices. Tipped off by a viewer, the team learned that documents related to Return Material Authorization (RMA) requests were publicly available on the web and had even been indexed by Google. These documents contained full names, telephone numbers, email and mailing addresses, and more. 

The viewer discovered this leak when doing his own due diligence to see what information came up when he Googled his name. Surprisingly, he discovered a document he had uploaded to Zotac as part of an RMA return. He promptly notified both Zotac and Gamers Nexus. 

While Zotac immediately removed access to that individual’s attachment, Gamers Nexus quickly discovered how widespread and serious the leak was. It discovered RMA attachments from consumers, including emails and spreadsheets containing those people’s personal information.

Other documents included corporate invoices to businesses like Micro Center, iBuyPower, and others. In at least one case, a document contained what was either an Employer Identification Number or Social Security Number. Gamers Nexus swiftly emailed Zotac of their findings as well as several of the business-to-business customers involved.

While Gamers Nexus did not immediately identify Zotac to the public, they did post a message to X (formerly known as Twitter) on July 5 to timestamp how long it took the company to begin addressing the issue. The good news is that it didn’t take long.

As of this writing, searching for “RMA Zotac” does still list hundreds of PDF and Excel documents submitted to Zotac’s RMA and warranty web page. However, the links now lead to dead links, likely because Zotac corrected the misconfigured file permissions for that directory.

Zotac also temporarily removed the “upload attachment” button from its RMA form. Until the company’s web developers can properly fix the issue, Zotac will be asking customers to email their documentation instead of using the online portal.

Some information can still be gleaned from Google’s cache, though, which is problematic. Since Zotac has not taken measures yet to deindex that directory with Google, the search engine results pages still list bits and pieces of information. We were able to find several customers’ mailing addresses this way.

If you have ever filed an RMA with Zotac, you should Google search your own name along with Zotac’s and perhaps RMA. If you find anything containing your information, click the three dots in the top right of the result to request Google remove the page from its search results.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission sent letters to three computer companies, namely ASRock, Gigabyte, and Zotac, over their warranty policies. According to the agency, these policies violate the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, which prohibits companies from putting conditions on their warranties based on the use of a product or service, such as a repair service. Furthermore, the FTC said, “Warranty language that implies to a customer acting reasonably under the circumstances that warranty coverage requires the consumer to purchase an article or service identified by brand, trade, or corporate name is similarly deceptive and prohibited.”

The primary concern of the FTC with these companies is specific language within their warranty policies. For example, ASRock includes the following in their written warranty: “Manufacturer’s warrant will be null and void if products are modified, damaged, or otherwise tampered with, for example, the outer case is opened or additional option parts/components are installed/removed.”

Similar statements are also found on Gigabyte’s and Zotac’s warranties. The former says, “If the manufacturing sticker inside the product was removed or damaged, it would no longer be covered by the warranty.” While the latter indicates, “Warranty claims will be void if the user: … [t]ampers, defaces, or removes any stickers indicating void warranty if broken.”

These policies basically prevent users from opening their devices, as doing so will void the manufacturer’s warranty. Asus was hit with a similar issue earlier this year, when it quoted a $2,750 fee to replace a chipped GPU power connector. While the company released a statement vowing to improve its warranty communication practices, Gamers Nexus proceeded with an in-depth investigation which forced the company to revamp its warranty and service policies.

Today, the FTC is taking notice of issues like these in the tech world. While giant tech companies like Apple and Microsoft have been in the limelight for several years due to their anti-repair practices, these “smaller” but nonetheless important players in the consumer PC hardware industry should be taken into account, too.

The consumer protection agency gave the three companies 30 days to change and update their policies to comply with the warranty law. While the FTC sent the letters to the companies as a warning, they also included the following: " We do not waive the FTC’s right to take law enforcement action and seek appropriate injunctive and monetary remedies against [the companies involved] based on past or future violations.”

Nvidia board partner Zotac is diversifying its RTX 40 series GPU product stack with three new cards aimed at the Chinese market according to a Videocardz report. All three cards take on names inspired by outer space and consist of either RTX 4070 or RTX 4060 Ti GPUs.

The RTX 4070 Nebulae is a new compact 2.3-slot mid-range graphics card sporting a dual-fan cooler design. The Nebulae is a budget-focused model that apparently slots right underneath the outgoing Twin Edge model. The Nebulae ironically resembles its Twin Edge counterpart in appearance, featuring a rounded GPU shroud and white color theme similar to the Twin Edge White. The only differentiating factors that truly separate the Nebulae from its Twin Edge counterpart are the addition of space-themed graphics on the shroud and backplate, and a complete lack of RGB LED lighting on the card. The card measures 225mm in length making it one of the more compact RTX 40 series graphics cards on the market.

Zotac also revealed an RTX 4060 Ti variant of the Nebulae but with a different, cost-reduced design. The Twin Edge-like shroud with rounded corners is gone, replaced by a more boxy design that resembles a cheaper graphics card design. The card shares the same dual-fan design as the 4070 variant but appears to be slightly thinner possibly coming in at just 2 slots in thickness.

The RTX 4070 Vespera is another 4070 model Zotac showed off, that is an even cheaper alternative to the Nebulae. Funnily enough, the Vespera shares the same shroud design as the 4060 Ti but instead comes in a black finish. This model appears to be the cheapest RTX 4070 design Zotac now offers (in China at least). This model is noticeably bigger than its Nebulae variant coming in at 280mm in length.

The RTX 4060 TI Moon Shadow/White is the last card that Zotac unveiled. Unlike the previous models mentioned above, the Moon Shadow is more performance oriented boasting a triple fan cooler design. The card's appearance resembles the AMP Airo cards, sporting a rounded shroud. Zotac offers two colors, a black Moon Shadow variant and a lighter Moon White version.

As previously mentioned all of these cards are reportedly Chinese exclusive offerings. However, if there's enough demand we might see these GPUs make their way to other markets in the future.

Zotac has released its Zbox Pico PI430AJ Mini PC, a device that was originally revealed back at Computex this summer. Heralded as the world’s first Mini PC featuring the AirJet Solid-State Active Cooling system, the PI430AJ is about the size of a deck of cards and benefits users with an actively cooled PC system that operates silently.

Zotac has historically been no stranger to silent passive mini PCs. However, with the Zbox Pico PI430AJ and its twin AirJet Mini Modules by Frore Systems, you have a more powerful processor, namely the Intel i3-N300. This processor uses eight Alder Lake efficiency cores running at up to 3.8 GHz, plus integrated Intel UHD Graphics with 32 EUs.

Frore first announced the AirJet Minifanless cooling devices in 2022. A single module measures just 27.5 x 41.5 x 2.8 mm, weighs 11 grams, and consumes 1 watt or less. It can dissipate 5.25W, so two should be ample for the 7W Intel i3-N300. Further details and data sheets for the Airjet Mini and AirJet Pro can be grabbed directly from Frore Systems.

There doesn't appear to be a product page available for the Zotac Zbox Pico PI430AJ Mini PC, but we have some key specs from today's news release and what we know from Computex. The aforementioned Intel i3-N300 is accompanied by 8 GB of LPDDR5 memory, and storage attached to an M.2 2280 slot. For its size, there are a respectable array of ports including a USB Type-C port and two USB 3.2 Type-A ports, HDMI and DisplayPort display outputs, and a full-sized Gigabit LAN port. Wireless connectivity can be had via the built-in Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2.

Zotac says that the Zbox Pico PI430AJ Mini PC is now available for purchase in both Windows and barebone versions “in select regions.” We couldn’t find any pricing listed at the time of writing.

Last but not least, for those interested in Arm-based mini PCs, Zotac has also readied AirJet-cooled Zbox Pro systems based around the Nvidia Jetson Nano, Jetson Orin Nano, or Jetson Orin NX SoM.

Zotac this week introduced its long-awaited next-generation VR Go wearable PC that greatly increases the performance of the company's family of systems aimed at virtual reality gamers. While the new machines designed for augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality applications (VR) are inherently more powerful than their predecessors and even use professional-grade Nvidia graphics processors, they do not exactly pack the latest best CPUs for gaming and best GPUs.

Zotac's VR Go 4.0 wearable PCs are based on Intel's 11th Generation Core i7-11800H 'Tiger Lake' notebook processor with eight cores as well as Nvidia's RTX A2000 8GB (GA106, 2,560 CUDA cores, 20 RT cores) or RTX A4500 16GB (GA104, 5,888 CUDA cores, 46 RT cores) Laptop graphics processing units. The Zbox-VR7N2000 and Zbox-VR7N4500 machines come equipped with 16 GB of DDR4 memory (expandable to 32 GB) and a 512 GB M.2 SSD. For those needing extra storage, there is a 2.5-inch bay for an SSD or an HDD, as well as a 3-in-1 CD card reader. 

As far as connectivity is concerned, VR Go 4.0 systems feature Intel's AX1650 Wi-Fi 6 + Bluetooth 5.2 adapter, one GbE port, one USB 3.1 Type-C connector, two display outputs (one DisplayPort, one HDMI), six USB 3.1 and USB 3.0 Type-A ports, and 3.5-mm audio input/output connectors. 

Zotac's VR Go 4.0 wearable machines offer up to 50 minutes of battery life when working with AR/VR workloads on one charge, and their design allows on-the-go battery replacement (batteries are sold separately, charger is bundled) for longer AR/VR sessions.

While Zotac formally positions its VR Go systems for virtual reality gamers, these wearable PCs are particularly popular among developers of AR, VR, mixed reality applications, and games and those who use AR, VR, and MR software professionally. This is perhaps why the company opted to install professional-grade Nvidia RTX graphics processors instead of regular GeForce RTX GPUs. Meanwhile, these PCs hardly offer unbeatable performance with CPUs and GPUs from 2020 – 2021. 

Zotac has not announced the pricing of its new VR Go 4.0 wearable PCs, though you can expect them to sell at a premium.

The new Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 is now available for purchase, starting at $299 and ranging up to $389 for the extreme overclocked plus bling models. Our review covered the performance and what you can expect, but while we weren't blown away by the generational gains, the 4060 still beat its predecessor, and most importantly it's not horribly expensive. It will compete for a place on our list of the best graphics cards and represents a good upgrade prospect for anyone still using an RTX 2060 or lower tier GPU. We've compiled a list of all the announced cards and prices from the major AIB (add-in board) vendors, Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, PNY, Zotac, and more.

Nvidia won't be making an RTX 4060 Founders Edition card, so all of the models are custom designs from Nvidia's partners. Some run with reference clocks, others will boast significant factory overclocks. Considering you can find factory overclocked cards like the Asus RTX 4060 Dual OC used in our review for the base $299 MSRP, the primary draw for higher cost models will be almost entirely for aesthetic reasons — card size, RGB lighting, and unique color schemes, for example.

Here's the rundown of all the GeForce RTX 4060 cards announced so far, how much they cost, and where to buy them.  

Asus

Asus currently has two GeForce RTX 4060 cards to choose from, the base model Dual OC, and the higher end Strix OC. There's also apparently a non-OC Dual model with reference clocks, if you're interested, though given the price will be the same we can't see much reason to opt for the slightly slower card. The Strix OC model comes with a boost clock of 2670 MHz (2700 MHz if you install the Asus GPU Tweak software and select the OC mode), while the Dual OC comes with a default 2505 MHz boost clock (2535 MHz with GPU Tweak).

• $299.99: Asus GeForce RTX 4060 Dual OC (B&H, Best Buy, Newgg)
• $389.99: Asus GeForce RTX 4060 ROG Strix OC (B&H, Best Buy, Newegg)

Gigabyte

Gigabyte has the most RTX 4060 models, with five options to choose from. There may later be non-OC models, but probably not given current market conditions. The base model is the Windforce OC with a 2475 MHz boost clock — which is basically nothing, considering the reference clock is 2460 MHz. Moving up the stack, there's a slightly more expensive Eagle OC (2505 MHz boost), Gaming OC (2550 MHz), Aero OC (2550 MHz as well, but it's a white card, if that's something you're interested in getting), and finally the Aorus Elite (2640 MHz boost).

• $299.99: Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4060 Windforce OC (B&H, Best Buy, Newegg)
• $309.99: Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4060 Eagle OC (B&H, Best Buy, Newegg)
• $319.99: Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4060 Gaming OC (B&H, Best Buy, Newegg)
• $329.99: Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4060 Aero OC (B&H, Best Buy, Newegg)
• $349.99: Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4060 Aorus Elite (B&H, Best Buy, Newegg)

MSI

Unlike its RTX 4060 Ti cards, MSI seems to be going conservative with its RTX 4060 offerings and only has four announced models. As usual, there are two core designs, and then low/high spec variants of each. The base model RTX 4060 Ventus Black has reference clocks of 2460 MHz, and then Ventus OC bumps that to 2490 MHz. The 4060 Gaming also uses a 2460 reference clock, while the Gaming X runs at 2595 MHz. If you install the MSI Center software, you can engage an OC mode that tacks on another 15 MHz to each of the cards.

• $299.99: MSI GeForce RTX 4060 Ventus 2X Black (Newegg)
• $299.99: MSI GeForce RTX 4060 Ventus 2X OC (B&H, Best Buy, Newegg)
• $329.99: MSI GeForce RTX 4060 Gaming (Newegg)
• $329.99: MSI GeForce RTX 4060 Gaming X (B&H)

PNY

PNY has different RTX 4060 models, a base model Verto with reference clocks, two fans, and no RGB lighting, and then a more expensive XLR8 Gaming model with triple fans, RGB lighting, and a 2505 MHz boost clock.

• $299.99: PNY GeForce RTX 4060 Verto Dual (B&H, Best Buy, Newegg)
• $339.99: PNY GeForce RTX 4060 XLR8 Gaming Verto (B&H, Best Buy, Newegg)

Zotac

Wrapping things up for cards that are readily available in the US, Zotac has three RTX 4060 graphics cards. There are two base model $299 MSRP versions, the Solo with a single fan an no extra, and the Spider-Man: Across the Spider Verse-themed Twin Edge 4060 with dual fans and a very slight 2475 MHz overclock. The third card is the same basic design as the Spider-Man model, but the Twin Edge White OC edition has a white shroud and a slightly larger 2490 MHz overclock.

• $299.99: Zotac GeForce RTX 4060 Solo (B&H, Newegg)
• $299.99: Zotac GeForce RTX 4060 Twin Edge OC Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (B&H, Newegg)
• $329.99: Zotac GeForce RTX 4060 Twin Edge OC White (B&H, Newegg)

Zotac has launched a new flagship graphics card dubbed the GeForce RTX 4090 PGF OC. It teased this launch event earlier in the week and chose the date today to coincide with the 16th anniversary of the birth of the Zotac brand. In addition to the official announcement from Zotac to pick through, China's ITHome managed to rustle up a day-one review (both links open Chinese language sites). However, before we go on, it must be asked whether Zotac intentionally designed this card to look like a sneaker.

Let us first look at the key features of the Zotac RTX 4090 PGF OC. You may have heard of the Zotac PGF series before, as these are the firm's 'Prime Gamer Force' products which represent the pinnacle of its wares. In its press release, Zotac says that the "unique design language" represented by the new PGF was designed in collaboration with Morale Group. Having said that, it is apparent that this Zotac RTX 4090 PGF OC shares a lot of the same curves seen in the company's Amp Extreme AIRO model but with more of a sneaker feel overall. It certainly isn't in any way representative of "minimalism," as asserted by Zotac's marketers.

The Zotac PGF design isn't without appeal, the largely white curved cooling shroud, matching backplate, and four RGB LED lighting zones could work well in the right build. On the topic of construction, Zotac says this PGF card features "a newly upgraded high-efficiency ice core VC cooling system." Cooling is vital for consistent RTX 4090 performance, so it is reassuring to hear about this cooler with its triple 110mm fans (with double ball bearing design), large contact plate, "ice-vein heat pipes," high-density nickel plated fins, and high convection design. Later on we will look closely at the ITHome review for any evidence of this cooler's quality.

With a flagship card like this, you should expect a dual-BIOS, and Zotac delivers with a default BIOS GPU clock setting of 2,580 MHz, and 2,625 MHz in extreme speed mode. The default clocks are only a smidgeon better than reference, and you can check our Nvidia RTX 4090 Founders Edition graphics card review, for some perspective.

As an ultimate flagship, users should expect to be able to overclock these cards quite well, and Zotac has prepared for it. In addition to the advanced cooler which we outlined above, we have yet to mention the size of this product. At 381 × 154 × 74 mm, it is the biggest RTX 4090 we know of, 77mm longer than the Founders Edition, and 23mm longer than the chunky Asus RTX 4090 ROG Strix OC. Another info nugget that will be of interest to overclockers is that the PGF features a 24+4-phase power design, which the sole review says should not be troubled by OC efforts pushing power above 500 W.

We know how a GeForce RTX 4090 performs in games and applications without diving into the ITHome review of this new flagship Zotac graphics card with its quite standard custom design clocks. The GeForce RTX 4090 is one of the best graphics cards available in 2023. However, we looked through the data to see some information about how well the custom cooler held up in terms of temperature and noise. These are things that could set the Zotac RTX 4090 PGF OC apart.

ITHome is impressed by the temperatures measured using the Zotac PGF card under load. It says that the card's core temperature stabilized at around 67.8°C (pulling 450 W) and that the VRAM stabilized at 76.6°C. Moreover, synthetic testing showed the card performed highly consistently under sustained load. These are decent numbers, but sadly we didn't see any evidence of ITHome testing noise levels for this card. The most recent Zotac card in the Tom's Hardware labs, the Zotac RTX 4070 Ti — Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Edition (which we looked at just four days ago), offered middling noise performance for its class. Moreover, the ITHome reviewer seemed pretty pleased with the PGF, so we wouldn't expect any nasty, noisy surprises with this new flagship.

Zotac certainly looks like it is asking for a premium for the new RTX 4090 PGF OC card. In China, it is listed at 16,999 yuan, which is equivalent to approximately $2,385 today.

Earlier this year, Nvidia released the RTX 4070 Ti — a renamed and slightly price-reduced take on the "unlaunched" RTX 4080 12GB. Performance was good though hardly revolutionary, features and specs a bit more questionable, and the price was $200 higher than the previous generation RTX 3070 Ti. It's on our list of the best graphics cards, but that's more about the lack of better value alternatives than anything else.

Zotac has teamed up with the new Spider-Man™: Across the Spider-Verse movie in a campaign to try and attract additional interest. That's understandable, considering sales of dedicated graphics cards are currently at their lowest point in decades. Too bad there's no Spider-Man™: Across the Spider-Verse game to go along with the movie, as the last couple of Spider-Man™ games have been quite good.

To be clear, the full name of the card we're reviewing is Zotac Gaming GeForce RTX 4070 Ti: Amp Airo — part of the Spider-Man™: Across the Spider-Verse inspired graphics card bundles line. Wherever we refer to the Zotac RTX 4070 Ti going forward, that's the card we're talking about.

[Side note: Yes, we're supposed to put the TM symbol next to every mention of Spider-Man™, because Sony. Also, Sony would love for you to go watch the movie, eye-rolls not included.]

We already know what to expect from Nvidia's Ada Lovelace architecture. There's also now RTX 4070 Ti Founders Edition, though there are reference-clocked cards. Zotac's Amp Airo model comes with a 2,670 MHz boost clock, 60 MHz higher than the base model, which shouldn't make much of a difference in performance.

There's a very good chance that everything you really need to know about this card is contained in its name. Are you massively hyped for the Spider-Man™: Across the Spider-Verse movie? Have you already seen it five times in the theater? Are you hyped enough to drop over $800 on a themed graphics card? If so, Zotac has your back.

There's not much to separate the reference RTX 4070 Ti and the Zotac RTX 4070 Ti Amp Airo. You get a minor bump in boost clock, theoretically increasing performance by 2.3%. That's basically within margin of error for most benchmarks, plus Nvidia's GPUs routinely exceed their stated boost clock. We'll see just how much higher (if at all) Zotac's card clocks later in the review.

Just as important is a look at the wider GPU market that the RTX 4070 Ti competes within. The next step up from Nvidia is the RTX 4080, priced a significant 50% higher. That's a big jump, at which point you could probably talk yourself into going whole hog and buying an RTX 4090.

Incidentally, there's no Zotac RTX 4090 or 4080 Spider-Man™: Across the Spider-Verse models — only the RTX 4070 Ti, RTX 4070, and RTX 4060 Ti are getting themed cards. You can also get the RTX 4070 Amp Airo or RTX 4070 Twin Edge with the movie branding, or the RTX 4060 Ti Twin Edge, with the 4070 Ti variant we're looking at being the fastest option.

Zotac RTX 4070 Ti Amp Airo — Spider-Man™: Across the Spider-Verse Edition

Let's talk about the hardware and accessories you get with the Zotac RTX 4070 Ti Amp Airo — Spider-Man™: Across the Spider-Verse Edition card. Of course there's the card itself, which we'll get to momentarily. Besides that, you get movie-themed items including a magnetic backplate, stickers, a tote bag, and a Ztorm figurine (dressed as one of Spider-Man™, Gwen, or Spider-Man™ 2099). Oh, and a box with movie-themed packaging as well.

Some people will love this stuff, maybe. Others will just wonder what the fuss is all about. To each their own. Of course, there's also the 16-pin adapter, which Zotac has as a triple-8-pin variant. That's interesting, as many other RTX 4070 Ti cards only have dual 8-pin connections for the adapter, and Zotac's card isn't really overclocked that much. Requiring an extra 8-pin connector doesn't help anything as far as we can tell.

There's also a support stand for the card, something we've seen with a lot of the RTX 40-series GPUs. It's not quite as nice as some of the stands we've seen, but it's also a lot more compact, which might be good for some cases. I still think Asus's magnetic support stand is one of the better solutions, since the magnet should keep it in place (though I'd exercise caution when moving any case that uses a support stand).

Zotac's card has a slightly rounded front (with the fans), with a thickness of 54mm. The Spider-Man™: Across the Spider-Verse magnetic backplate adds another 2mm to the back of the card. With the backplate, that makes the card's total dimensions 310x123x56 mm — not the largest of cards, but definitely not something that would fit in a cramped case. It's basically a triple-slot card. It also weighs 1,224g with the backplate (but without the 16-pin adapter cable), or 1,142g without the backplate.

The Zotac RTX 4070 Ti does have a decent amount of RGB lighting, with a large "holographic" strip across the top that lights up. The default lighting scheme isn't great, though: It will show blue-green stripes for a minute or two, flash red a couple of times, and then go dark for a few seconds. Or maybe our sample is just a bit glitchy? You can of course change the lighting with Zotac's Firestorm software.

But the real missed opportunity is that there's no lighting whatsoever for the movie-themed backplate. There really needed to be a glowing LED behind Spider-Man™ in his various incarnations. Otherwise, in a typical PC with a window, most people will never even notice the extra bling. Maybe with a fully themed PC build, that wouldn't matter, but a plastic backplate doesn't really jive with people who go all out on case mods and decorations.

About the best thing I can say about the backplate is that, should you decide somewhere down the road that you no longer care about Spider-Man™: Across the Spider-Verse, you can easily remove it and have just a regular old graphics card. Or give it to someone else to stick on their refrigerator, car, or some other metallic surface.

The Zotac RTX 4070 Ti Amp Airo uses a typical triple-fan configuration. The fans are modestly sized at around 88mm in diameter, and they all spin in the same counter-clockwise direction. Also present are the standard triple DisplayPort 1.4a and single HDMI 2.1 connectors we've found on most Nvidia GPUs over the past three years.

There's plenty of heatsink fins, with five heatpipes running through them, to provide sufficient cooling. Again, this is a 285W graphics card, so compared to the 320W to 450W models that have been floating around for the past couple of years, it doesn't need an extreme cooling setup.

It's also noteworthy that the Zotac card doesn't typically even hit 285W. Across our 15-game test suite, the highest power draw we measured during our tests was just under 280W, and quite a few games used less than 250W — including Spider-Man™: Miles Morales, which only needed 225W at 4K on average.

Zotac RTX 4070 Ti Test Setup

Our graphics card test system was updated earlier this year to use Intel's fastest Core i9-13900K, with all the bells and whistles. We tested the Zotac RTX 4070 Ti card using Nvidia's latest 535.98 drivers that came out on May 30. Other GPUs were tested with previous drivers, though most cards have been retested in the past month (this time without Windows 11's Virtualization Based Security enabled).

Our initial review of the RTX 4070 Ti looked at performance across all resolutions and settings that we normally test (1080p medium, 1080p ultra, 1440p ultra, and 4K ultra). It also had professional and AI benchmarks, and performance results with upscaling including DLSS 3. For third-party cards like the Zotac RTX 4070 Ti, we'll limit our testing to 1080p/1440p/4K ultra, without looking at the other workloads — everything should be relatively similar margins as the gaming results.

Our test PC includes an MSI Z790 DDR5 motherboard, G.Skill DDR5 memory, and a Sabrent 4TB SSD — which we promptly filled to about half its total capacity. be quiet! also supplied us with its new 1600W Dark Power Pro 13 80 Plus Titanium rated power supply. That would have been overkill, back before cards like the RTX 4090 were a thing.

We're limiting our test results to the latest generation GPUs, plus a few previous generation AMD GPUs. If you want to see how the RTX 4070 Ti stacks up against other GPUs, check out our GPU benchmarks hierarchy.

We have Nvidia PCAT v2 (Power Capture and Analysis Tool) hardware as well, which means we can grab real power use, GPU clocks, and more during all of our gaming benchmarks. We'll have most of the details for power testing in a few pages.

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We have 1080p, 1440p, and 4K benchmarks, and given the $879 MSRP price, the Zotac RTX 4070 Ti better make a good showing in 4K results. It's still more of a 1440p card in our view, or 4K with DLSS, but we're only testing native resolution gaming performance.

Here's the overview, first with the 15-game full suite, and then with separate rasterization-only and DXR-only (i.e. ray tracing) charts. We'll discuss the individual results further down the page.

There's one point to mention first: Nvidia doesn't make reference Founders Edition RTX 4070 Ti cards, so our baseline sample is a third-party card. It's an Asus RTX 4070 Ti TUF Gaming OC, which has a boost clock of 2730 MHz in default mode, or the same 2760 MHz as the Zotac card if you install Asus' GPU Tweak software and enable that. As such, it's little surprise that the two RTX 4070 Ti cards in the chart are generally tied.

The other item we need to note is that games and drivers are in a perpetual state of flux. We retested all of the GPUs in the above charts within the past two months, but the Zotac card was tested in the past week, using the latest 535.28 drivers. Cyberpunk 2077 also received its path tracing update, and some of the other games (Total War: Warhammer III and Forza Horizon 5) have also seen patches. Those patches didn't appear to cause any significant changes in performance, but a few percent here or there wouldn't be shocking.

Outside of the above, the standings are what we've seen before. In rasterization games, AMD's equivalently priced GPUs do better than their counterparts; in ray tracing games, the reverse is true and Nvidia GPUs do better. Lump them all together and we get an overall result, but of course the game selection is up for debate.

Also note that we're not showing DLSS or FSR2 upscaled performance. Our test suite has more games with DLSS support (12) than FSR2 (5), and that tends to hold for the wider market. Factor that in and Nvidia GPUs gain some ground, plus DLSS still looks better than FSR2. How much you want to weight such things is ultimately up to the individual, as some people refuse to view upscaling as anything but a crutch. I take a different view, and if a game has upscaling support, I'm usually happy to get the boost in performance for a minimal tradeoff in image quality, especially at 4K.

With our current test suite, you can see the overall trends in the games. The Zotac RTX 4070 Ti holds a decent lead of 15–25 percent over the RX 7900 XT in the ray tracing games — with Spider-Man™: Miles Morales being nearly a tie (Nvidia leads by 5%) and Minecraft being a massive 60% lead, thanks to its use of "path tracing."

The rasterization games meanwhile aren't a clean sweep for either GPU, with the Zotac card holding a slim 2–4 percent lead in Forza and Warhammer 3, but then trailing by 2% to as much as 20% (Borderlands) in the other games.

Comparing the Zotac and Asus RTX 4070 Ti cards, at least at 4K nearly everything is within margin of error. Cyberpunk and Minecraft are a bit outside that range with a 6% lead on the Asus card, but every other game is less than a 2% difference.

We're not showing a bunch of other GPUs, since this is primarily a look at the Zotac RTX 4070 Ti, but you can see the overall standings in our GPU benchmarks hierarchy. While it doesn't have as much VRAM or memory bandwidth, the RTX 4070 Ti in general ends up looking a lot like the RTX 3090 across our test suite. That's the benefit of the much larger L2 cache, as otherwise the 3090 has substantially more memory bandwidth.

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Even though the Zotac RTX 4070 Ti does okay at 4K — and it does much better in games that support DLSS upscaling — 1440p is really the sweet spot for this sort of card. It goes from averaging 51 fps overall (all the DXR games come up well short of 60 fps) to averaging 93 fps (with only Cyberpunk 2077 not managing 60 fps or more).

The Zotac versus Asus 4070 Ti matchup doesn't change, as the two are effectively tied (Cyberpunk is the only game that shows more than a 2% difference). The same goes for the Zotac versus RX 7900 XT, where it still has an overall lead of 4%. It's also 20% faster in our ray tracing suite, and 5% slower in the rasterization suite.

Looking at the individual games, you could argue that there are too many DXR games relative to the market at large, but do note that the performance gap in most rasterization games is less significant.

Borderlands 3 gives AMD a 25% lead, and Far Cry 6 and Watch Dogs Legion are about 15% faster. However, all three games are running at well over 100 fps on either GPU. Nvidia gets a couple rasterization wins as well, in Forza and Warhammer 3 again, while six other games show less than a 5% difference.

Contrast that with AMD losing by 9% or more in each of our DXR tests, with bigger losses in the most demanding titles (Cyberpunk and Minecraft). A 10–15 percent difference might be noticeable, maybe, when your fps is in the triple digits. When you're only getting 40–60 fps, however, 15–20 percent gains are far more useful.

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Wrapping up the testing with our 1080p ultra results, this is mostly to show that there are lots of games where having a 240Hz or even 480Hz display isn't actually that important. Unless you play esports games, naturally.

Overall performance on the Zotac RTX 4070 Ti averaged 128 fps, with the rasterization suite netting 156 fps while the ray tracing games only averaged 95 fps. What's more, if you actually are playing esports games like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, basically all of the GPUs in the above chart will easily break 300 fps (provided your CPU is fast enough). Light esports fare doesn't require an $800 GPU, in other words.

Against AMD's RX 7900 XT, the Zotac does slightly better this time with an 8% lead. We're probably bumping into CPU bottlenecks in at least a few of the games, particularly the rasterization games. The two cards are tied overall in rasterization performance at 1080p, but Nvidia still holds a 21% lead in the DXR suite.

As noted above, high refresh rate monitors can only do so much with a lot of games. For the Zotac RTX 4070 Ti, the highest fps we got on any of the games in our test suite was 218 fps. That was in Horizon Zero Dawn, which is also not coincidentally the oldest game in our current test suite. Far Cry 6 and Borderlands 3 are also pushing close to 200 fps, but other games can end up CPU limited at under 100 fps.

Like Flight Simulator, which is one of the best theoretical use cases for Nvidia's DLSS 3 Frame Generation. Even there, however, where the framerate can double, it doesn't actually feel that much faster. That's because Frame Generation is more appropriately viewed as a frame smoothing technique.

We've said it before, but the best-case scenario for Frame Generation is someone looking over your shoulder, or on a high framerate (120fps) Twitch livestream. There, the viewers will simply see smoother visuals, without actually feeling how responsive the game is. It's not that Frame Generation is bad, but it's definitely being wielded as a marketing weapon while the real-world experience isn't nearly as clear-cut as fps charts might suggest.

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Our power, clocks, and temperature testing now utilizes the same test suite as our gaming benchmarks, as the PCAT v2 hardware and FrameView software lets us collect this data alongside frametimes. We're also using our updated Core i9-13900K platform, so we're less likely to have CPU or platform limitations playing a role.

We have 4K, 1440p, and 1080p charts for power, GPU clocks, and temperatures below. Then we do a test using Metro Exodus Enhanced at whatever "demanding for the GPU being tested" means, and after letting the game run for 15 minutes or more, we check noise levels. We'll present additional tables and information about efficiency (FPS/W) and value (FPS/$) at the bottom of the page.

Power use is a strong point for Nvidia's Ada Lovelace architecture. The RTX 4090 might have a high 450W maximum TGP (Total Graphics Power) rating, but there are plenty of games where it will use under 400W. That's still a lot, but not actually that bad when you consider the performance level.

As for the Zotac RTX 4070 Ti, it ties the Asus RTX 4070 Ti and averages 262W at 4K. At 1440p, it uses slightly more power with 251W compared to 246W, while at 1080p it ties the RTX 4080 with 233W — another indication of how much CPU bottlenecks can play a role at lower resolutions. If we had a hypothetical infinitely fast CPU and the rest of the system, maybe the RTX 4070 Ti would land close to its rated 285W TGP in all of our tests, but reality tells a different story.

AMD's RX 7900 XT by way of comparison also lands below its rated 315 TBP (Total Board Power, which is nearly the same thing as TGP), but not by quite as big of a gap. It used 308W at 4K, 307W at 1440p, and 300W at 1080p. The RX 7900 XTX likewise was much closer to its rated 355W.

Clock speeds in themselves aren't that important, but within the same architecture, higher clocks equate to higher performance. Most of Nvidia's latest generation RTX 40-series GPUs have official boost clocks of 2.5–2.6 GHz, and it's obvious that these are very conservative figures.

Zotac's RTX 4070 Ti averaged 2817 MHz at 4K, 2833 MHz at 1440p, and 2843 MHz at 1080p — over 150 MHz higher than its rated 2670 MHz in many cases. The Asus 4070 Ti meanwhile clocked just a smidge higher, suggesting perhaps slightly superior cooling. That leads into the next charts.

Graphics card manufacturers can opt for higher temperatures and lower fan speeds, or vice versa, but usually they aim for a balanced fan speed curve. Zotac's RTX 4070 Ti Amp Airo, here in Spider-Man™: Across the Spider-Verse garb, ends up doing slightly worse than most of the other GPUs.

We should note that all of this testing was done with the plastic backplate attached, which may actually make temperatures slightly worse. We don't think it obstructs airflow, but the metal backplate logically wouldn't dissipate heat as easily with a plastic cover attached. But we need to look at noise levels as well, which brings us to the final chart.

Finally, we check noise levels using an SPL (sound pressure level) meter placed 10cm from the card, with the mic aimed right at the center fan. This helps minimize the impact of other noise sources like the fans on the CPU cooler. The noise floor of our test environment and equipment is less than 32 dB(A).

After running Metro Exodus for over 15 minutes, the Zotac RTX 4070 Ti settled in at a fan speed of 42% and a noise level of 42.5 dB(A). That's pretty good as far as GPUs go, at least among cards that draw close to 285W of power. There are larger and quieter cards, and smaller and noisier cards as well. Zotac doesn't do exceptionally well in the noise department, but it's not particularly loud either.

We also tested with a static fan speed of 75%, which caused the Zotac RTX 4070 Ti to generate 56.0 dB(A) of noise. That's relatively loud, but again a pretty typical result. Most of the time, the card shouldn't be getting anywhere near 75% fan speed.

GPU Value and Efficiency

This final gallery of images shows the full performance test suite, along with the above power, clocks, and temperature information. Latency is also provided, at least in a few of the games. (Spider-Man™: Miles Morales didn't always provide a result for the Nvidia GPUs, and only two games sometimes gave latency values on AMD GPUs.)

We've also calculated efficiency in FPS/W for the various games, plus value in FPS/$ using the best current online prices we could find (usually at Newegg or Amazon, though B&H and Best Buy were also checked). For reference, the Zotac RTX 4070 Ti — Spider-Man™: Across the Spider-Verse card has a price of $879.99. We've summarized those results in the above table (based on 1440p performance and power), sorted by overall value.

All of the Nvidia RTX 40-series GPUs have better efficiency than any of the AMD GPUs, with the RTX 4080 topping the charts for 1440p gaming. (Note that the fps in the table gives weighting to the 1% low FPS, where the gallery images only use average fps.) The Zotac card gets 0.359 FPS/W, slightly below the 0.367 FPS/W of the Asus 4070 Ti.

The value proposition meanwhile generally favors AMD's previous generation RX 6000-series parts. Again, sticking with 1440p, the Zotac RTX 4070 Ti isn't a great value at 0.102 FPS/$, while the Asus card gets 0.115 FPS/$ thanks to its online price of $820. It's also somewhat fun to note that the much-disparaged RTX 4060 Ti actually gets the best value (of the cards tested for this review) with 0.137 FPS/$. Obviously, there are other factors that could be included rather than this pure mathematical ranking.

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The Zotac RTX 4070 Ti — Spider-Man™: Across the Spider-Verse edition ends up being exactly what you'd expect. The card delivers similar performance to other RTX 4070 Ti models, and you pay a moderately higher price to get the movie-themed extras. If you're not interested in spending nearly $900 on such a card, there are Zotac RTX 4070, 4070 Twin Edge, and RTX 4060 Ti variants with similar bundles.

It should hopefully go without saying, but the magnetic plastic backplate with Spider-Man™: Across the Spider-Verse does absolutely nothing for performance. It might actually make the card run slightly hotter, as the metal backplate won't dissipate heat as well. You can always remove it and have the Amp Airo version, but then why pay for this spruced up package in the first place? And by the way, the backplate kindly notes that the movie is "Exclusively in cinemas" — what happens a few months down the line when it's available on streaming services? Maybe Zotac will send out updated backplates... (Don't count on that!)

We're now five months on from the launch of the Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti. The extras that Zotac includes effectively push this card back into the unlaunched RTX 4080 12GB territory — a price that was deemed so much out of whack that Nvidia actually walked back that release. The 4070 Ti performs good overall, but not really any better than AMD's competing RX 7900 XT. Which represents the better card will depend largely on the games you play and whether you think ray tracing and DLSS are worthwhile additions.

This generation continues to feel like a disappointment for a lot of the models. It's not that performance is worse than the prior generation, and at least the cards are in stock online, but the era of big performance gains and improved values appears to be coming to a close.

We could also point at the 12GB of GDDR6X memory and ask, "Shouldn't Nvidia be able to put 24GB on a $800+ card these days?" After all, spot prices for 8GB of GDDR6 are down to just $27. But that would eat into the professional GPU profits as well as sales of cards for AI workloads.

In so many way, the RTX 40-series feels like a rehash of the RTX 20-series. Prices went up, a lot. Performance has improved, but you have to factor in special features like DLSS 3 Frame Generation, aka frame smoothing. Maybe the RTX 50-series will repeat the 30-series and offer far more attractive MSRPs, and maybe we won't have a massive spike in cryptocurrency prices and mining that makes the MSRPs meaningless. I wouldn't bet on that, however (the pricing, not the mining), and it's likely a lot of people won't really feel enticed to fork over $800 for this level of GPU. 

Depending on your current GPU, the RTX 4070 Ti may still be the best upgrade right now. It delivers performance roughly on par with the previous generation RTX 3090 Ti, though without the additional memory. And it's not like you can find 3090 or 3090 Ti cards for good prices either, as GPU prices for secondhand cards on eBay are equal or higher than the 4070 Ti, plus power draw can be substantially higher as well.

We'll end with where we started. If you absolutely love the new Spider-Man™: Across the Spider-Verse movie, and you're already looking to upgrade to a new high-end graphics card, Zotac is ready to take your money. If you're not particularly concerned with the movie or $800 graphics cards, you can safely give this a pass.

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Zotac announced the Zbox PI430AJ Mini PC a week ago, but we had a chance to check out the system's solid-state active cooling in action at Computex 2023. The Zbox PI430AJ we saw had an Intel i3-N300 processor, 8GB of LPDDR5 memory, 1x M.2 NVME PCIe x4 SSD slot, as well as WiFi 6, Gigabit LAN, and Bluetooth 5.2. It's the first mini PC to feature Frore System's "AirJet Mini" solid-state active cooling, which means that it has two AirJet Minis in its diminutive case, which are capable of removing 10W of heat. 

The company told my colleague Matt Safford that using AirJet Minis in the Zbox PI430AJ is what allowed Zotac to step up to a Core i3 processor. The top won't actually be translucent, it was just translucent to demonstrate the AirJet Mini cooling system in action. A small fan was also placed above the unit to show the moving air: 

Zotac also showed off its new Spider-Man: Across the Spider Verse-themed GeForce RTX 4070 and 4070 Ti graphics cards, which were also announced a week ago. The special edition cards are based on Zotac's Twin Edge OC and Amp Airo cards (RTX 4070 Twin Edge, RTX 4070 Amp Airo, RTX 4070 Ti Amp Airo).

The GPUs are sold in bundles that include a themed magnetic backplate, custom fan emblems, a tote bag, and decorative decals. The Amp Airo editions also come with a random (one of three) collectible figurine. 

• Zotac GeForce RTX 4070 Twin Edge OC Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
• Zotac GeForce RTX 4070 Amp Airo Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
• Zotac GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Amp Airo Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

If you're not sure what to do with your figurine, Zotac also showcased the new themed GPUs in a casemod by PugLife PC — featuring the new themed RTX 4070 Twin Edge OC card and all three figurines. The mod also sports an Intel Core i7 processor, an Asus B760-Plus WiFi ATX motherboard, 32GB of DDR5-5600 memory, a 1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD, and an 850W ATX3.0 PSU. 

The time has arrived — the 4060 Ti is now available for purchase. The reviews for the Nvidia RTX 4060 Ti cards are in, and you might be searching for a new card. Here we've compiled a list of the upcoming GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB graphics cards in preparation for next week's launch, which will vie for a spot on our list of the best graphics cards. Best Buy remains Nvidia's exclusive partner for Founders Edition cards, and they'll be sold at the official $399 MSRP. In addition, below we have included several of the chipmaker's partners, including Asus, MSI, Gigabyte, Zotac, PNY, and Colorful. Some vendors' models have been listed early, while others will be listed in the coming days. Below we have the links to the models that are available at etail now, and we'll constantly update this article and add more links as the cards are listed over the coming days (we have the custom Gigabyte already listed, for instance). 

The list consists of GeForce 4060 Ti graphics cards featuring 8GB of memory since the 8GB model is the first to arrive on the market on May 24. However, 16GB models from AIB partners will be nearly identical to the ones shown here, with double the VRAM and a higher price tag. The exception is the Founders Edition model, which Nvidia will offer exclusively for the 8GB variant.

The GeForce RTX 4060 series was announced earlier, featuring the RTX 4060, RTX 4060 Ti 8GB, and RTX 4060 Ti 16GB. The RTX 4060 Ti 8GB highlighted in this article will launch on May 24 with a starting price of $399. Here's the rundown of all the models announced so far, how much they cost, and where to buy them.  

Nvidia

The GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Founders Edition will be the only 4060-series Founders Edition card. It will have 8GB of VRAM and looks to be nearly identical in design to the RTX 4070, except with a different color shroud. Under the hood, it will have a different PCB, GPU, and other components, but the aesthetics look good, and we expect it to set a reasonably high bar for different RTX 4060 Ti cards to clear.

Best Buy remains Nvidia's exclusive partner for Founders Edition cards, and they'll be sold at the official $399 MSRP. 

• $399.00 - Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Founders Edition

Asus

Asus has revealed four custom GeForce RTX 4060 Ti graphics card and their respective overclocked variants. As usual, the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4060 Ti model sits at the top of the product stack with the fastest clock speeds. In addition, the more compact  Dual GeForce RTX 4060 Ti comes in both black and white flavors.

• Asus ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB GDDR6 OC Edition
• Asus ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB GDDR6
• $459.99 - Asus TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB GDDR6 OC Edition
• Asus TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB GDDR6
• $399.99 - Asus Dual GeForce RTX 4060 Ti OC Edition 8GB GDDR6
• Asus Dual GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB GDDR6
• Asus Dual GeForce RTX 4060 Ti White OC Edition 8GB GDDR6
• Asus Dual GeForce RTX 4060 Ti White 8GB GDDR6

MSI

MSI "wins" right now with a whopping eight different SKUs for the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB. Of course, that's four variants and then overclocked versions of each of those (the "Gaming X" cards are also overclocked, even though they don't include "OC" in their model names). We expect the Ventus cards to be the base models, though the triple-fan 3X may carry a slight price premium over the dual-fan 2X model. The Gaming models will have larger coolers and additional premium features.

• MSI GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Gaming 8G 
• MSI GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Gaming Trio 8G 
• $439.99 - MSI GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Gaming X 8G 
• $459.99 - MSI GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Gaming X Trio 8G 
• MSI GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Ventus 2X Black 8G 
• $399.99 - MSI GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Ventus 2X Black OC 8G 
• MSI GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Ventus 3X 8G 
• $419.99 - MSI GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Ventus 3X OC 8G

Gigabyte

Gigabyte has announced five different RTX 4060 Ti 8GB models so far, ranging from the compact Aero OC and the base model Eagle cards topping out with the Aorus Elite and Gaming OC models. There may also be non-OC variants of the Aero and Gaming cards, though those aren't currently listed. We expect the Eagle to sell for Nvidia's $399 MSRP, while the other four cards will likely carry a moderate price increase.

• $469.99 - Gigabyte Aorus GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Elite 8G
• $429.99 - Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Gaming OC 8G
• $449.99 - Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Aero OC 8G
• $419.99 - Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Eagle OC 8G
• $399.99 - Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Eagle 8G

Zotac

Zotac has announced three dual-fan RTX 4060 Ti 8GB graphics cards, including black and white versions. These cards have an aerodynamic (read: curved) aesthetic, a 2.2-slot wide cooler, and Zotac’s IceStorm 2.0 advanced cooling solution.

Zotac has also unveiled a Spider-Man: Across the Spider Verse-themed Twin Edge 4060 Ti 8GB model that comes with a bundle of themed goodies, including a tote bag and decorative decals to commemorate the movie that releases in theaters on June 2. In addition, the card has been modified with Spider-Man decals on the fans and a custom (magnetic) backplate featuring the same theme.

• Zotac Gaming GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Twin Edge 8GB 
• Zotac Gaming GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Twin Edge OC White Edition 8GB 
• Zotac Gaming GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Twin Edge OC 8GB - Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Bundle

PNY

PNY also has three different 4060 Ti models. Two are base model configurations, meaning they should be priced at $399. The overclocked Verto card will likely have a modest price premium.

• PNY GeForce RTX 4060 Ti XLR8 Gaming Verto OC Edition 8GB 
• PNY GeForce RTX 4060 Ti XLR8 Gaming Verto Edition 8GB 
• $399.99 - PNY GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Verto Dual Fan Edition 8GB

Colorful

Colorful announced five different models, two of which come with a factory overclock. We don't usually see Colorful cards in the US as much as other brands, though the company sells many cards in Asia.

• Colorful iGame GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Advanced OC-V 8GB 
• Colorful iGame GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Ultra W-V 8GB 
• Colorful iGame GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Ultra W Duo OC-V 8GB 
• Colorful GeForce RTX 4060 Ti NB EX-V 8GB 
• Colorful GeForce RTX 4060 Ti NB EX Duo-V 8GB

Zotac today announced the Computex debut for its next-generation Mini-PC products marketed in the ZBox family. Powered by Intel's Alder Lake-N, the ZBox PI430AJ Mini-PC (hat tip to FanlessTech) is about what you'd expect from a computing box in this form-factor: it's a small unit with a 7 W Intel i3-N300 (packing 8 Alder-Lake efficiency cores), integrated UHD graphics, up to 16 GB of LPDDR5 memory, and a single NVMe SSD.

But its inclusion of Frore System's AirJet technology is where it separates itself from all others; this is a Mini-PC that promises the performance of an active-cooled Mini-PC while dispensing with large and noisy cooling fans.

Frore System's AirJet aims to reduce the cooling footprint requirements. Fans are simple, reliable, and effective at cooling electronics; decades of incremental improvements on that tech have shown us that the low-hanging fruit for cooling improvement through design have been mostly exhausted (Noctua is one of the few companies considered to be continuously pushing the envelope on its fan designs, and even then, it's a slow, iterative process). But Frore System's AirJet is a new philosophy for system and chip cooling - one co-developed with Intel, for whom cooling space efficiency is paramount due to its High Performance Computing (HPC) products.

AirJet works by pushing ultrasonic waves of air through the fin-like structures across each AirJet "chip", guiding the cool airflow through the AirJet's surface area and moving it away from the silicon components themselves. According to Frore Systems, this approach brings numerous benefits compared to basic fan cooling: AirJet is capable of dissipating the same amount of heat as fan-based coolers, while maintaining low power consumption (it's still active cooling, as it needs to generate the ultrasonic waves, but it's more power efficient than fans) as well as silent operation.

It remains to be seen exactly how efficient Frore System's AirJet can be. Its application on Mini-PCs makes sense: they're products where space is at a premium, even more so than typical desktop systems. This'll be the first consumer-available application of the tech; if it's all that Frore Systems wants it to be, then we may be well on our way towards smaller, more efficient systems that can dedicate most of their volume area to processing chips, instead of the inefficient volume occupied by system fans.

A Vietnamese retailer has listed a slew of GeForce RTX 4070 graphics cards from various brands. The surplus of trademarks and models can obviously point to plenty of hardware at launch, which is allegedly several days away. However, pricing for these add-in-boards — which start at ~$800 — seems rather high.  

Bpstore.vn listed GeForce RTX 4070 graphics cards from Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, and Zotac, according to screenshots from I_Leak_VN. Prices of these AIBs start at 17.9 million Vietnamese dong ($637 without VAT) for Zotac's Gaming GeForce RTX 4070 Trinity OC (which is a premium product) and climb all the way to 25.9 million dong ($916) for a pre-overclocked Asus GeForce ROG Strix RTX 4070 OC Edition. 

These prices are not exactly close to the $599 recommended by Nvidia. Yet, one thing to keep in mind about the preliminary listing is that retailers tend to monetize on the demand for yet-to-be-announced hardware and price AIBs well above recommended prices.  

We already know that these boards feature pretty comprehensive cooling systems with three fans (and possibly more). They are aimed at enthusiasts, which is unsurprising given the price points we are discussing.  

Speaking of prices, we should, of course, wait to see what kind of performance these cards deliver before we make conclusions about whether or not the GeForce RTX 4070 will join the ranks of the best graphics cards available. 

Nvidia is expected to launch the GeForce RTX 4070 graphics card in mid-April. However, much of its technical details have been public knowledge for a while, despite not being officially disclosed by the company. The standard edition of Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4070 shares the AD104 graphics processor with the RTX 4070 Ti but offers only 5888 CUDA cores running at 1920 MHz to 2475 MHz, down from 7680 CUDA cores on the 'Ti' version. Like its 'Titanium' counterpart, the GeForce RTX 4070 boasts a 12GB GDDR6X memory subsystem and a 192-bit interface. 

Even though the GeForce RTX 4070 utilizes a scaled-down AD104 GPU, it is predicted to deliver around 29 FP32 TFLOPS of computational power, a figure that rivals the performance of the GeForce RTX 3080. Nevertheless, the RTX 3080 features a 320-bit memory bus and an impressive peak bandwidth of 760 GB/s, which is significantly higher than the 504 GB/s bandwidth offered by the AD104's 21 GT/s GDDR6X memory. Even the GeForce RTX 3070 Ti has a superior memory bandwidth (608 GB/s) compared to the upcoming card. On the other hand, the new graphics card is expected to have a sizable L2 cache, which will likely offset the limitations of its slower memory subsystem.

The official launch of Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4070 graphics card is allegedly a few days away, so we are not surprised by the surplus of images of yet-to-be-announced add-in-boards featuring the cut-down AD104 'Ada Lovelace' GPU shown by momomo_us, alexwifi42 and Italian vendor Drako.it  (and found by our colleagues at VideoCardz). 

On the specifications side of matters, images of GeForce RTX 4070 graphics cards by Gigabyte, Palit, MSI, and Zotac show us nothing new, as we already know from the leaks (which should be taken with a grain of salt, yet at this point they are more than likely to be accurate) that these AIBs carry a cut-down AD104 graphics processor with 5,888 CUDA cores and paired with 12GB of GDDR6X memory.

Gigabyte is prepping four GeForce RTX 4070 graphics card designs, with only the WindForce and Eagle models shipping with standard 8-pin auxiliary PCIe power connectors, while the Gaming and Aero models will have 12VHPWR 16-pin connectors. All four designs will have three fans, based on the leaked images. 

One of the things that strikes the eye with the pictures of the upcoming GeForce RTX 4070 graphics cards from Gigabyte, Palit, MSI, and Zotac is that most of them are triple-wide with a massive cooling system, just as my colleague Mark reported yesterday about the hoard of MSI's GeForce RTX 4070 AIBs.

While it is not particularly surprising that many of GeForce RTX 4070-based graphics cards will be huge, considering the overclocking potential of the GPU that powers them, it is reasonable to expect more compact AIBs too. This is perhaps where MSI's GeForce RTX 4070 Ventus 2X comes into play. The board features a dual-fan two-wide cooling system and will likely fit into most of PCs used by gamers. Of course, different GeForce RTX boards feature different power connections, some keep using well-proven eight-pin plugs, while others employ the all-new 12VHPWR.

Apparently, budget-friendly options from Zotac and Palit will also have dual-fan designs and 12GB of GDDR6X memory, yet take the information with a grain of salt as this comes from unofficial sources.

Great news for gamers as some of the most powerful graphics cards start to come down in price. Last-generation AMD halo cards like the 6900 XT and 6950 XT have commanded high prices around the $1000 mark, and now, thanks to the new 7000-series and Nvidia 40-series cards coming onto the market, the prices of last-gen cards are dropping to more affordable prices. If you take a look at our GPU Hierarchy and best GPUs for gaming, you can see how cards compare and performance data.

The XFX Speedster Merc 319 AMD RX 6950XT Black Gaming GPU is now $699 thanks to promo code SSCNA826 at Newegg, making it the cheapest this particular card has been. 

Also, the ASRock OC Formula Radeon RX 6950 XT is back in stock at $699 after briefly selling out after its previous price drop. 

Spotted today we have the cheapest available Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti - the Zotac GeForce RTX 4070 Ti for $799 from B&H Photo. We reviewed the RTX 4070 Ti, and you can see our results and thoughts on this card compared to its competition. 

See below for more great Real Deals.

TL;DR — Today’s Best Deals

• XFX Speedster Merc 319 AMD RX 6950XT Black Gaming: now $699 at Newegg with promo code (was $889)
• ASRock OC Formula Radeon RX 6950 XT: now $699 at Newegg (was $1099)
• Zotac GeForce RTX 4070 Ti: now $799 at B&H Photo
• Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 2TB SSD: now $179 at B&H Photo with coupon applied (was $199)
• SteelSeries Apex 7 (Brown Switch): now $103 at Best Buy (was $159)

Today’s best deals in detail

Looking for more deals?

Amazon and one of its customers based in Canada locked horns over a refund for a $690 graphics card earlier this year. The customer, François Legault of Calgary, claimed the purchased Zotac GeForce RTX 3060 Ti contained a fake graphics card filled with a putty-like substance. Amazon wouldn’t entertain his request for a refund, as it insisted the “correct” item should be packed up and sent back to its warehouse, before the customer could receive any reimbursement.

Earlier this week CBC News posted a report on the efforts by the Legault family to try and get some justice from Amazon, and the absurd situation they have found themselves in. The graphics card order was part of a much larger components order which François bought his son to recognize the work he put in before his high school graduation.

Among the extensive selection of parts bought from Amazon, back in June this year, was the Zotac GeForce Twin Edge RTX 3060 Ti graphics card at $690, as well as some other tasty choices like the NZXT H510 case, a 16GB kit of Corsair Vengeance DDR4 3600 memory, a Samsung 98 Series 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD, and an MSI MAG B550 Tomahawk motherboard.

With the system almost complete but lacking the all-important graphics card, François, who purchased all the components for his son Matthew, contacted Amazon and sent the fake part back to secure a refund. However, an administrator at the retailer said that they threw away the fake graphics card “to protect employees.” (Did someone think it was plastic explosive?) It was added that the refund would only be processed when the “correct” item is returned. This decision by Amazon was claimed to be “final,” in an email to the Legault family.

After months of deadlock, and the Legaults dismayed by Amazon’s seemingly unfair and unfriendly return policy, CBC’s consumer-affairs focussed Go Public program has managed to secure a refund and apology for the family. In discussions with the online retail giant, the CBC reporter had some questions about company policy and behavior, but Amazon wouldn’t shine any light on topics like how often this kind of refund issue occurs. The video report ends by advising customers to shop local and, indeed, the Legaults eventually bought a replacement graphics card from a nearby retailer.

Echoes of the Newegg RTX 4090 Saga

The above story, where a seemingly unyielding customer service department refuses to issue a refund for goods discovered to be very much not as described, reminds us of our coverage of the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4090 box full of metal weights saga from October. In the Newegg case, it only took about a week from the complaint hitting major media outlets, via social media, before the retailer relented.

There are some important lessons here: Where possible, it is wise to open and check big-ticket items at the retailer, or with perhaps the delivery operative witnessing it. If that isn’t possible you could make a video from the receipt of the package to opening it. All these little pieces of evidence can help your case, further down the line, if you are unlucky enough to suffer from a bogus product package delivery. Although it is likely that these kinds of occurrences are very rare.

Nvidia has reportedly decided to phase out some of the last remnants of the Turing graphics card era, according to rumors shared on China's Bobantang tech forums. This means it has decided to "completely discontinue" the GeForce RTX 2060, the 2060 Super, as well as the GTX 1660 and 1660 Super. Removing these popular options will leave quite a void in Nvidia's budget to midrange offerings, a high volume segment.

This comes as we're seeing a few final gasps of life in the way of Turing-based graphics card deals. Amazon has the RTX 2060 for $179 right now, an all-time low. You can also find the Zotac GTX 1660 for $179 and the Zotac GTX 1660 Super for $199... but why would you buy those slower cards for the same or higher prices?

Earlier this month we reported about whispers from supply chain sources, stating that the GeForce RTX 2060 and RTX 2060 Super were about to be discontinued. Now that appears to have happened, if the latest rumors are to be believed.

All the above mentioned Nvidia Turing graphics cards remain available at US-based online retailers, but that could change quickly once the situation filters through to retailers looking to replenish stocks.

On the topic of stocks and inventories, the source also indicates that there remains a "small amount of inventory," of the GTX 1660/Super TU116 GPUs. However, Nvidia hasn't wielded the knife on the GTX1650 and 1630 TU117 GPUs, notes the forum poster. These continue to be supplied to graphics card makers.

If you check out our GPU hierarchy feature, you will see that all Nvidia has left to address a significant and popular consumer segment, in the wake of the alleged Turing cull, is the Ampere generation GeForce RTX 3050. Sadly for the RTX 3050, it lived in the value and performance shadow of the RTX 2060 cards and, even with this removed, it is roundly beaten by AMD's Radeon RX 6600 / XT cards.

Recently we wrote about how AMD's graphics cards offer the best value across the full gamut of performance segments, except for the very top halo graphics cards. Some Cyber Monday price probing reveals that the best RTX 3050 is still priced on a par with the RX 6650 XT (both in the $250–$270 range), but is completely crushed by the RX 6600 which can be found for $209.

There are signs of Nvidia shuffling around some GeForce RTX 30-series SKUs with the new RTX 3060 8GB and the new RTX 3060 Ti with GDDR6X. However, with the phasing out of so many midrange Turning cards, Nvidia needs to widen the appeal of the RTX 3050. Perhaps it can make a desktop RTX 3050 Ti and reduce the price of the current RTX 3050 to better suit its performance level.

Nvidia may be priming the supply chain ahead of some new Ampere choices for the rather neglected entry-level to midrange market segment. This appears to be logical, but please add salt to the Bobantang sourced news about it happening right now. We look forward to some compelling new options from Nvidia, in this supposedly vacated space, to fight back against AMD and the new competition from Intel.

Update Nov. 28, 2022, 11:09 a.m. ET: We previously reported that most of these deals were done, but we're currently seeing all of the cards back at their sale prices.

Original Article: Despite the fact that some of Nvidia's high-end 40-series GPUs, the RTX 4090 and RTX 4080, have launched, there have been precious few deals on Nvidia's existing RTX 30-series graphics cards, which the company still sells.

But on Amazon today, Zotac has some of its Ampere-based cards on sale for some of the lowest prices we've seen to date. They range from a GeForce RTX 3050 up to several models of the RTX 3070 Ti. There are also a few GTX 1660's in there for good measure.

Some of these cards are at legitimately good prices, at least for Nvidia cards. Others are on sale but still above MSRP. Let's sort through it.

RTX 3070 Ti and RTX 3070 Deals

Recently, the best price we've seen on an RTX 3070 Ti from any manufacturer is around $599. Zotac has two on offer at Amazon: a GeForce RTX 3070 Ti AMP Holo for $599, and, RTX 3070 Ti Trinity OC for $569.99

The RTX 3070 has been around $509, from our current data, but Amazon has a Zotac RTX 3070 Twin Edge OC for $450.49.

These are cheaper than usual, though they still don't hold a candle to competitors from AMD, like the RX 6700 XT and RX 6750 XT, which cost much less and offer similar performance.

RTX 3060 and RTX 3050 Deals

Moving into the mid-range and low-end, Zotac has one each of the RTX 3060 and RTX 3050 cards. The deals are less exciting here, with some cards still above MSRP.

The RTX 3060 is a Twin Edge OC, with a similar design as the RTX 3070 above. It has 12GB of GDDR6 memory, which is more than the 3070's on offer (RTX 3060s with 8GB of VRAM exist, but that's not what's on sale here). Our latest data puts the RTX 3060 around $315, but this 12GB card, at $349.99, is still above MSRP.

The RTX 3050, also a Twin Edge OC, is $269.99, falling in line with what we tend to expect from that card these days. Again, these are okay prices for Nvidia GPUs, but AMD's competing RX 6650 XT and RX 6600 cost quite a bit less.

GeForce GTX 1660 and GTX 1660 Super Deals

Don't need ray tracing? Nvidia's last-gen cards without it are also among Zotac's deals. We're seeing competing GTX 1660 cards around $220 as of this writing, so the $199.99 for the 1660 Super here does save you a little. AMD's RX 6600 give both some serious competition, naturally, though we do understand there are people that insist on buying Nvidia GPUs.

PCs and components maker Zotac has refreshed its ZBOX C Series mini PCs with Intel Alder Lake P processors. The highly compact mini PCs are fanless and silent, and now come in three 28W Intel 12th Gen Core processor options: the new ZBOX CI627 nano with Intel Core i3-1220P (10C/12T), the ZBOX CI647 nano with Core i5-1240P (12C/16T) and the ZBOX CI667 nano with Core i7-1260P (12C/16T).

Zotac pitches the compact ZBOX C series as PCs that are "ideal home theater PC, digital signage, home office, office workspace, and more." In space-limited environments, where quiet operation is preferred, they are particularly suitable with silent fanless operation, VESA mountable chassis, flexible video output, and a compact USB-C power supply.

As FanlessTech notes, besides the processor inside, all the new Zotac ZBOX C series PCs are identical in most respects and aren't significantly changed from the previous generation. They all come in a tiny 1.8-liter chassis measuring 204 x 129 x 68mm (8.03 x 5.08 x 2.68 inches).

Inside the Zotac ZBOX C series PCs, sold as barebone kits, users can equip up to 64GB DDR4-3200 RAM (2x SO-DIMM slots), plus dual storage (one each of an M.2 2230/2242 PCIe x4 SSD and 2.5-inch SATA 6.0 Gbps drive).

All other expansion options are catered for with external ports as follows: HDMI 2.0b (up to 3840x2160@60Hz), DisplayPort 1.4 (up to 4096X2160@60Hz), DisplayPort 1.4 via Thunderbolt 4 (up to 4096X2160@60Hz), 1 x USB 3.1 (Front), 3 x USB 3.1 (Rear), 1 x USB 2.0 (Rear), Dual LAN (2.5Gbps / Gigabit), 1 x Thunderbolt 4, 3-in-1 card reader (SD/SDHC/SDXC). Wi-Fi 5 and Bluetooth 5 are also supported. You will use the rear USB-C port to connect the USB-C PD Power Supply, delivering DC 20V/65W.

If you want a reminder of the differences between the Intel Alder Lake-P processor options here, please review our article from when these processors launched back in February.

At the time of writing, Zotac hasn't shared the pricing of the fanless ZBOX C Series PCs with Alder Lake-P chips. The previous generation (with Tiger Lake CPUs) was sold starting from about $499 for the Core i3-1115G4 model. As well as memory and storage, you will have to source an OS, with Zotac stating that both Windows 10 and 11 are supported.

Nvidia launched its flagship GeForce RTX 4090 last month, which is currently the best graphics card on the market and shot straight to the top of the GPU benchmark hierarchy due to its raw horsepower. However, with a price tag of $1,599, the RTX 4090 is out of reach for most mainstream buyers. The RTX 4080 hits a slightly cheaper price point at $1,199, which is $500 higher than the RTX 3080’s launch price in late 2020. 

Despite the $1,199 price tag (at a minimum), RTX 4080 inventory levels are already dwindling online. We’ve rounded up cards currently available around the web, including Nvidia’s Founders Edition (Best Buy exclusive) and an army of models from AIB partners.

Newegg currently lists 19 RTX 4080 cards on their website, but only two are in stock at the time of writing: the $1,239 Gigabyte Eagle OC GeForce RTX 4080 16GB and the $1,269 Gigabyte Gaming OC GeForce RTX 4080 16GB. Best Buy has nearly a dozen RTX 4080 cards on its website, but all are listed as “sold out” or “coming soon.”

B&H Photo Video has four cards listed, ranging from $1,199 offerings from PNY and Zotac to the $1,399 Zotac GeForce RTX 4080 16GB AMP Extreme AIRO. Unfortunately, all of them are currently out of stock. Of course, scalpers are already hawking the card on eBay with heavy markups. There are presently 23 listings on the online marketplace, with prices ranging from $1,700 to over $2,000.

If you strike out online in your attempt to grab a GeForce RTX 4080, you might have a better chance of purchasing a card at a local brick-and-mortar Best Buy or Micro Center location. Or, if you don’t mind waiting a few weeks, AMD’s Radeon RX 7900 XT and RX 7900 XTX will land in December, for $899 and $999, respectively. AMD is aiming the RX 7900 XTX squarely at the RTX 4080 with respect to performance, but we’ll have to wait until we can benchmark the cards ourselves to see how accurate that prediction is in practice.

Be sure to check out our review of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Founders Edition, which is second only to the RTX 4090 in gaming performance. Based on our testing, the RTX 4080 delivers roughly 78% of the performance of the RTX 4090 and is just over 50% faster than the preceding RTX 3080.

When the information about the melting and overheating issues with the 12VHPWR power adapters supplied with Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4090 graphics cards emerged, the company remained surprisingly silent and only said that it had begun conducting an investigation. In the last few days, the company became more open about the issue and revealed that it sources the adapters from two makers. 

Gabriele Gorla, Director of Engineering at Nvidia, told Igor's Lab that Nvidia buys its 4-to-1 12VHPWR (four eight pins to one 12-pin) power adapters from two companies: Astron and NTK. While both adapters are designed up to the specifications defined by the PCI-SIG standards body, they are still quite a bit different 'inside' as they use slightly different contacts. Astron apparently uses double-slot spring contacts, whereas NTK sticks to a long single-slot spring contact that has lower resistance and it is easier to detach.  

According to Igor's Lab, Zotac and Gigabyte have said the adapter from NTK is less prone to failure even after multiple mating cycles. Astron argues, according to Nvidia, that its adapter performs in accordance with specifications (i.e., its resistance is below 1.5 mOhm). Meanwhile, as Igor's Lab points out, Astron's 12VHPWR adapter has its thick 14AWG wires rigidly soldered to 2mm^2 soldered pads, which is a point of failure, especially for contacts on the edges of the adapter. 

While Igor's Lab details how to distinguish between adapters from Astron and NTK, it is impossible to tell which of them will ship in a particular box with a GeForce RTX 4090 inside. Meanwhile, the report says that Nvidia will keep using 3-to-1 12VHPWR adapters from Astron and NTK supplied with GeForce RTX 4080, but will only use 2-to-1 12VHPWR adapters from NTK with GeForce RTX 4070 Ti boards. 

To sum up, there could be multiple possible reasons why the 12VHPWR adapters from Nvidia can melt and overheat. According to Igor's Lab's sources, Nvidia-branded adapters made by NTK are considerably less prone to failure. However, no company has gone on the record with this information, so take it with a shovelful of salt.

A small maker of graphics cards is selling its so-called "GeForce RTX 3070 TiM" graphics card that barely offers the performance of a desktop GeForce RTX 3060 Ti. The board is indeed based on Nvidia's GeForce RTX 3070 Ti graphics processor for laptops configured accordingly and has nothing to do with GeForce RTX 3070 Ti for desktops. Unfortunately, while the manufacturer discloses the product's specs, it still carries quite a misleading model number so you won't see it on any lists of the best graphics cards.

The 51Risc GeForce RTX 3070 TiM graphics card with 8GB of GDDR6 memory sold at Aliexpress (and noticed by VideoCardz) disguises itself as a GeForce RTX 3070 Ti since few people will ever see the M moniker after the Ti. Meanwhile, this board carries Nvidia's GA104 (GN20-E) silicon used for laptop-bound GeForce RTX 3070 Ti which is considerably slower than its desktop-bound brother.

Nvidia's desktop GeForce RTX 3070 Ti uses the company's full-blown GA104-400 GPU with 6,144 CUDA cores and a 1,770 MHz boost clock paired with 8GB of 19 GTps GDDR6X memory. By contrast, the laptop version of the GeForce RTX 3070 Ti features a GPU with 5,888 CUDA cores and an up to 1,485 MHz boost clock mated with 8GB of 14 GTps GDDR6 memory. Meanwhile, the 51Risc GeForce RTX 3070 TiM features a GPU with 5888 CUDA cores operating at up to 1410MHz and accompanied by 8GB of 17.5 GTps GDDR6 memory.

Given the clocks of the GeForce RTX 3070 TiM, it should offer performance similar to that of the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti in most cases and will never reach the framerates provided by the GeForce RTX 3070. Yet, due to its 17.5 GTps memory, it can beat both in applications that require high memory bandwidth.

Meanwhile, the RTX 3070 TiM is also relatively reasonably priced: it costs $337 with free shipping from China to the U.S., which is significantly lower than the cheapest GeForce RTX 3070 ($530) but is more or less in line with the price of the most affordable GeForce RTX 3060 Ti ($389) board at Amazon.

The 51Risc GeForce RTX 3070 TiM looks like all inexpensive gaming graphics cards these days: it is a reasonably compact dual-wide product with a dual-fan cooling system, one eight-pin auxiliary PCIe power connector, and four display outputs. The only sticker on its backplate says this is an 'RTX3070TI 8G DDR6' device. The board rocks a220W TDP, which aligns with the desktop GeForce RTX 3070. Meanwhile, the GeForce RTX 3070 TiM requires drivers for laptop GPUs, which 51Risc does not conceal but does not state explicitly.

Nowadays, at least in well-developed countries, forged processors and graphics cards are not as common as they used to be some 20 years ago. But the proliferation of global trade opened doors for forged hardware from Asian stores to the U.S. and Europe. 51Risc, by any means, does not produce fake hardware as it adequately discloses specifications and even mentions with what silicon they are dealing. But the rather bogus naming looks quite misinforming and may mislead a consumer unaware of various GPU peculiarities.

Micro Center is the first retailer to showcase prices of Nvidia's upcoming RTX 4080 graphics cards. Prices start at Nvidia's advertised MSRP of $1199, however, most cards easily surpass this, with AIB flagship cards peaking at $1,549.99, which is just $50 less than the RTX 4090's MSRP. Availability of the RTX 4080 Ada Lovelace GPU in both aftermarket and founders edition models will start on November 16th.

Micro Center has 13 RTX 4080 listings in all, from five companies: Asus, PNY, Zotac, Gigabyte and MSI. Gigabyte has the most amount of listings at four, with the Eagle model starting at $1,199.99 and $1,239.99 for the OC version, then jumping up to $1,269.99 for the Gaming variant. The most expensive Gigabyte model sits at $1,349.99 featuring the top-tier Aorus Master version. Unfortunately Gigabyte's Aorus Xtreme model has yet to appear, but expect we expect that version will release soon.

Asus has three Micro Center listings, featuring two RTX 4080 TUF variants and the flagship RTX 4080 ROG Strix. The first RTX 4080 TUF variant (the non-OC version) starts at $1,199.99, but the second one starts at a substantially higher $1,499.99 featuring a factory overclock. We aren't sure why the prices are so substantial, but if you're in the market for one of these cards, the very minute 100 MHz clock speed improvement is not worth the extra $300 - especially when you can overclock any of these GPUs yourself.

To nobody's surprise, Asus' ROG Strix RTX 4080 with its incredibly massive triple fan cooler design is the most expensive 4080 GPU in Micro Center's arsenal, sitting at $1,549.99

Like Asus, MSI has three 4080 listings on Micro Center's website, featuring the MSI RTX 4080 Ventus, Gaming X Trio and Gaming X Trio OC variants. The Ventus is the cheapest model, sitting at $1,279.99. Sitting in the middle is the reference clocked Gaming X Trio at $1,324.99, while the overclocked version sits at $1,399.99.

Zotac has two listings on Micro Center's website, including the Trinity and AMP extreme. The Trinity is priced at $1,199.99, and the AMP Extreme sits at $1,399.99. Strangely Zotac's factory overclocked Trinity OC is not present, but we expect that card to make an appearance sometime soon.

Rounding out the last of the five brands is PNY, with only one RTX 4080 listing on Micro Center's website for now. The model listed is the RTX 4080 XLR 8 Gaming Verto Epic-X RGB, sitting at $1,199.99.

Coming Really Close to an RTX 4090

The RTX 4080 is going to be a very expensive graphics card, with prices starting well above the quadruple digits and maxing out at just under Nvidia's MSRP for the RTX 4090.

For future RTX 4080 buyers, consider just how far you are from the RTX 4090. If your budget can stretch to $1,500 for a RTX 4080, you may want to consider an RTX 4090 if you can find it near MSRP, which will be noticeably faster card for just $50 more on some models.

The fastest consumer graphics card ever made, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 makes it possible to play games at 4K resolution with relatively high frame rates. Sitting atop our GPU benchmark hierarchy with an average of 114 fps at 4K Ultra settings, the card provides a really strong boost over the prior-gen RTX 3090, but you'll pay a pretty penny for that performance. The RTX 4090's MSRP is $1,599 but you'll be hard pressed to find it at that price.

Though most graphics cards these days are now available at or below MSRP, the RTX 4090 is either out-of-stock or hiked up to well over $2,000 at most retailers. Below, we're tracking the lowest prices and availability of RTX 4090 cards, including the Nvidia Founders Edition as well as AIB partner models, at the major U.S. sellers.

At the moment, Amazon is the only major retailer that has a lot of different RTX 4090 cards in stock, but you'll pay around $2,200 and up to get one. Newegg, B&H and Best Buy are all out of stock while Walmart has two models that are also heavily marked up. eBay has no shortage of scalpers, who are selling the cards for prices that are around $2,100 and up.

If you're not in a rush, you should keep an eye on and set up stock alerts from Newegg, Best Buy and B&H, because all of these purport to be selling these cards for less than $2,000, with some models as low as $1,599. If you live near a Micro Center, you might find one available for to buy in person.

Another possibility: choose a different GPU from our list of the best graphics cards. You can great 2K performance and solid 4K frame rates from the Radeon 6950 XT, for example, and that costs just $799.

For more details on features and performance, check our review of the GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition, where we were thoroughly impressed by the RTX 4090's performance. Our testing showed gains of 50% or more in gaming performance compared to Nvidia's previous generation RTX 30 series flagships, and similar improvements in professional applications.

Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card may not support NVLink, but traces can be found on Gigabyte's Aorus Master GeForce RTX 4090 board. 

Legendary overclocker Roman 'der8auer' Hartung this week disassembled Gigabyte's Aorus Master GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card (one of the best graphics cards around) and found that its printed circuit board (PCB) had a place for NVLink contacts. There was no actual copper on the grid, but the fact that the company left such traces was intriguing.  

Indeed, Nvidia officially said that its AD102 graphics processor did not support NVLink interconnect as it decided to use transistor budget and die space for other purposes. Thus, NVLink is gone from Ada Lovelace client GPUs — and other GeForce RTX 4090 boards we've seen so far did not have any traces of NVLink. In fact, our colleagues from VideoCardz even checked pictures of RTX 4090 PCBs from Asus, Colorful, MSI, Palit, and Zotac (published by TechPowerUp) and found no traces of NVLink.

There are a few possible reasons for why Gigabyte left NVLink pads on its GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card. 

The AD102 graphics processor and the GA102 graphics processor are pin-to-pin compatible, so it's possible Gigabyte just re-used printed circuit board of its GeForce RTX 3090 Ti for its GeForce RTX 4090 to save on development costs (we cannot confirm this as we have not seen PCB design of Gigabyte's Aorus Master GeForce RTX 3090 Ti). The company might have a boatload of unused GeForce RTX 3090 Ti PCBs and throwing them away would be expensive, so re-using them makes sense. 

Or perhaps Nvidia notified Gigabyte about the lack of NVLink in the AD102 GPU too late and Gigabyte decided not to reiterate its PCB design to ensure rapid time-to-market. 

A few people might miss NVLink on GeForce RTX 4090, but it was actually surprising that the technology ever made it to client GPUs (in some Turing GPUs) at all. 

Nvidia's NVLink interconnect was originally designed to be a high-bandwidth (300 GB/s P2P over six lanes on Volta, 900 GB/s P2P over 18 lanes on Hopper) low-latency link between CPU and GPUs in systems used for high-performance computing (HPC) and data analytics. The technology was incorporated into IBM's Power 8 processors — but since modern CPUs from AMD and Intel do not support the interconnect, Nvidia can only use it as a multi-GPU interconnection. 

NVLink wasn't really meant for client devices, but Nvidia incorporated such links into client GPUs to enable multi-GPU support mainly for professional applications (including graphics and HPC workloads) as well as for a few extreme gamers with very deep pockets.  

With its AD102 GPU Nvidia decided that incorporating NVLink into a client GPU makes less sense than maximizing its performance by increasing its transistor budgets for computing. While a dual-GPU graphics subsystem consisting of two AD102-based RTX 6000 48GB professional graphics cards would have offered advantages to HPC and some graphics professionals (think 96GB of graphics memory), Nvidia still didn't think it made enough sense to add NVLinks to AD102.

Its no secret that Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4090 will require some serious power supply hardware. It's following in the footsteps of the RTX 3090 Ti, and we expect it will soon sit atop the GPU benchmarks hierarchy while also being the fastest of the best graphics cards. Still, Nvidia's AIB (add-in board) partner's have wildly varying PSU recommendations for their various RTX 4090 models.

Some AIBs follow Nvidia's standard PSU recommendation of just 850W, but quite a few list 1000W as the recommended PSU capacity, and a few even go up to a staggering 1200W. We've referenced all of Nvidia's partner cards below, mostly sticking with each AIB partner's flagship card, to see just how far the companies are ready to push the RTX 4090 and Nvidia Ada Lovelace.

Starting with Asus, for its ROG Strix model, the company recommends a 1000W PSU. Asus does note that it assumes users will be overclocking both the CPU and GPU, which of course would increase potential power use. The recommendation ends up 150W higher than Nvidia's reference Founders Edition. The same 1000W PSU recommendation can be found on Gigabyte's Aorus Master and Zotac's AMP Extreme/Trinity RTX 4090 graphics cards.

For MSI, PNY, Galax, and Inno3D's flagship 4090 GPUs, all these models step down to Nvidia's reference PSU recommendation of 850W. That's probably more reasonable, though we'd caution against trying to use a cheaper 850W model — 80 Plus Gold or higher should be the minimum for this level of GPU.

But, the star of the show — or perhaps the supernova in this case — is Palit, with its RTX 4090 GameRock graphics card recommending a whopping 1200W PSU. That's by far the most demanding spec we've ever see from any graphics card company so far, though quad-SLI GTX 980 Ti back in the day could use more power. That's obviously with four GPUs instead of just one, however.

Palit neglected to share its reasoning behind the monstrous 1200W PSU recommendation, but it could be due to a number of reasons. It's possible that with a test setup that includes a power hungry CPU like a Core i9-12900K, heavily overclocked, it might feel 1200W is warranted. Or maybe it's based on what you might see from extreme cards like a Galax Hall of Fame (HOF). Except Palit also lists a TBP (Total Board Power) of just 450W on its cards.

Gainward and Colorful neglected to share any power supply recommendations or graphics card power requirements for now. Note that Palit is the parent company of Gainward (and Galax, KFA2, and a few others).

How Much Wattage Do You Really Need?

This wide variety of power ranges can be confusing for consumers. Using the wrong PSU could create problems, and in a worst-case scenario, it might even result in a non-working system. It's why PSU companies like to push things like 1550W power supplies. But how much power do you really need?

Most of the RTX 4090 model's referenced above are flagship GPUs designed to push the RTX 4090 GPU core as hard as possible, while staying within Nvidia's strict power and thermal guidelines. These cards are designed to push the 4090 beyond its reference or "default" specifications. Usually this is done with overbuilt power delivery, very large coolers, and higher power limits. As a result, power requirements have to go up, and on a GPU that pulls 450W as a baseline, that could mean we'll see RTX 4090 cards routinely pulling 500W or more.

Thankfully, almost all of Nvidia's AIB partners have "normal" RTX 4090 SKUs available that stick to Nvidia's reference power requirements and only recommend an 850W PSU. But its worth noting that PSU wattage isn't the entire story.

Recommended wattages should be taken with a grain of salt, since they won't apply to everyone's personal rig. Some might have a Core i9-12900K overclocked to 5.5GHz that consumes over 300W of power at its peak; others might be running a Ryzen 7 5800X3D that consumes less than 100W of power while gaming. Meanwhile, a Core i9-10980XE with a full blown RAID 10 setup and 10 hard drives could consume gobs of power. All of these combinations result in different levels of PSU power, regardless of what the AIB partner suggests.

We might also be seeing an effort to reduce support calls by recommending significantly more PSU than what most people would actually need. A 450W card with a high-end CPU plus the rest of the system could easily breach 750W under load, which is likely where Nvidia gets its 850W recommendation. But not all 850W PSUs are created equal, so suggesting a 1000W or 1200W PSU gives a bit of breathing room.

And if you thought that wasn't enough, there's also the brand new ATX 3.0 power supply specification. These new power supplies are designed specifically with next-generation GPUs in mind, like the RTX 40-series. They should handle these super powerful GPUs and come with new technology standards to handle things like super large transient spikes. They should also be equipped with the new 12VHWPR connector that can provide up to 600W over a single cable — and incidentally also get rid of the nightmarish 4-tentacle octopus adapters that ship with the 4090 cards. (Seriously, just try making your cable management look nice with that adapter!)

In short, if you plan on shopping for a new RTX 4090 card next week, you'll also want to have a good power supply. Anyone with the funds for a GPU that costs $1,600 or more shouldn't have too much trouble picking up a $200–$300 power supply to go with it. Any of the best PSUs rated at 850W or higher ought to suffice, unless you're running an HEDT platform (may it rest in peace).

Just like their U.S. colleagues across the pond, European retailers are preparing for Nvidia's flagship GeForce RTX 4090 launch on October 12. In fact, it looks like some European stores will carry more custom GeForce RTX 4090 variants than some of their American counterparts as boards from companies like Asus, Gigabyte, Inno3D, , MSI, Palit, PNY, and Zotac are already listed by retailers in Finland, Germany, and the U.K. 

Custom top-of-the-range Ada Lovelace architecture-based graphics boards are not cheap in Europe, to put it mildly. While Nvidia's own GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition graphics card carries an MSRP of €1949 in most European countries, boards from partners start at €1999 ($1575) in Finland and €2029 ($1953) in Germany, at least in respective Proshop stores (thanks to VideoCardz for the tip).

When comparing European prices to U.S. prices, one should note that prices in Europe generally include a sale tax / VAT of respective countries (19% in Germany, 24% in Finland), whereas U.S. retailers list prices without taxes. As a result, while at first glance European prices look substantially higher than U.S. prices, they are not that higher. For convenience of our U.S. readers, we subtract the sales tax / VAT and then convert European prices to USD.

The cheapest GeForce RTX 4090 graphics cards in Finland are Gigabyte's Windforce GeForce RTX 4090 and Asustek's TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4090 — they cost €1999 ($1575). Meanwhile, the lowest-priced G102-based boards in Germany are MSI's Gaming Trio GeForce RTX 4090 (€2029, $1665) and MSI's factory-overclocked Gaming X Trio GeForce RTX 4090 (€2169, $1779). The most expensive one is the Asus ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4090 OC — it costs €2479 ($2034) in Germany and €2549 ($2007) in Finland.

Among the most interesting custom GeForce RTX 4090 graphics cards listed in Europe, but not in the U.S. are certainly Inno3D's GeForce RTX 4090 iChill X3 with a GPU boost clock of 2580 MHz and a massive triple-fan cooling system that is priced at €2199 ($1732) in Finland. Inno3D also has its GeForce RTX 4090 iChill Frostbite/GeForce RTX 4090 iChill Black with pre-installed waterblock for custom-built liquid cooling systems €2249/€2299 ($1845/$1887) in Germany and €2299/€2399 ($1810/$1890) in Finland.  

Meanwhile, Caseking.de also lists Zotac's factory-overclocked Gaming GeForce RTX 4090 AMP! Extreme Airo with a 2580 MHz GPU boost clock and a huge triple-fan cooler. This board will be available for €2279 ($1870), but the retailer does not say when it is set to ship. 

Speaking of Caseking Group, we should note that its U.K. subsidiary Overclockers.co.uk already lists 22 GeForce RTX 4090 models from different vendors and even has two GeForce RTX 4080 cards from KFA2 as well as PNY incoming. Unfortunately, the company does not reveal prices of the upcoming boards. 

In general, looks like big European retailers are more or less ready for Nvidia's new product launch on October 12 and those who want to have the best graphics card will be able to get one in less than two weeks.

As part of preparations to start sales of Nvidia's flagship GeForce RTX 4090 graphics cards on October 12, U.S. retailers list custom GeForce RTX 4090 24GB graphics boards from Nvidia's partners. While some RTX 4090 products cost Nvidia-recommended $1,599, others sell for significantly greater prices.

Newegg, one of the largest retailers in the U.S., currently lists 10 GeForce RTX 4090 graphics cards from various Nvidia add-in-board (AIB) partners, including Asus, Gigabyte, and MSI, as noticed by @momomo_us. We still expect products from Colorful, Inno3D, Palit, PNY, and Zotac to arrive. Yet, the cards from the Big Three vendors demonstrate that custom boards may offer higher out-of-box performance but at a price significantly higher than that recommended by the green GPU developer. So if you want crème-de-la-crème of the best graphics cards available, prepare your wallet.

The cheapest GeForce RTX 4090 boards from Nvidia's partners sometimes use the company's reference design and feature GPU clock rates recommended by Nvidia. For example, the Asus TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4090, Gigabyte Windforce GeForce RTX 4090, and MSI Gaming GeForce RTX 4090 cost $1,599 and come with rather extensive cooling systems with three fans.

The most expensive GeForce RTX 4090 AIB is the Asus ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4090, which features factory overclocking and a massive triple-fan cooling system that probably enables decent overclocking potential. Unfortunately, this one will cost $1,999.99. To give owners a better understanding of where the extra money went, Asus ships the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4090 in a box so big that it could fit an arm and a leg. In addition, Asus has its factory overclocked TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4090 for $1,799.99.

Another exciting card that Newegg lists are the MSI Suprim GeForce RTX 4090, which is equipped with a hybrid cooling system and comes with an elevated GPU clock. The product costs $1,749.99.

More Nvidia's AIB partners will be ready to ship their GeForce RTX 4090 products by October 12, so stay tuned.

Spanish retailer Coolmod (via El Chapuzas Informatico) has released new retail listings of Nvidia's new GeForce RTX 4090 AIB partner cards to the public, including prices. Please take the listings with a grain of salt, as they could be placeholders. But unfortunately, it would appear that Spaniards will have to deal with a 21% VAT (Value Added Tax) added onto most consumer goods, spiking the GeForce RTX 4090's $1,599 MSRP close to $2,000 and some models and over $2,000 on others.

Coolmod showcased five models, featuring a selection of Zotac and Galax RTX 4090 graphics cards. Zotac takes three of the five listings with three new models, including the RTX 4090 Trinity valued at $1,930, the Trinity OC variant valued at $1,968, and the enthusiast-made RTX 4090 AMP Extreme Airo, valued at $2,017.

The remaining two cards come from Galax, featuring the KFA2 RTX 4090 ST valued at $1,919 - the cheapest RTX 4090 of the bunch, and the factory overclocked KFA2 RTX 4090 SG with a $2,067 price tag.

These incredibly high prices are a product of Spain's Valued Added Tax (VAT) of 21% for non-food and non-medical related consumer goods. This causes the RTX 4090's MSRP of $1,599, to jump to $1,934. In the case of Coolmod's listings, prices are 25% higher than MSRP due to other concerns.

Spain isn't the only nation dealing with these issues; we are also seeing this situation repeat itself in Germany, where the current VAT rate is 19%. Increasing German RTX 40-series prices by 22%.

For consumers in these highly taxed environments, Nvidia's MSRP of $1,599 takes on a whole new meaning and becomes a severe problem. Not only did Nvidia increase the RTX 4090 and RTX 4080's MSRP by several hundred dollars - depending on the model. Furthermore, Nvidia's price hikes get exponentially worse when taxes are added to the product, like VAT. For instance, instead of an RTX 3090 at USD 999.99 costing "just" $210 more in Spain, the price for the RTX 4090 goes up an additional $126 to $336 over MSRP.

With today's announcement of the GeForce RTX 40-series (Ada Lovelace) graphics cards, all of Nvidia's AIB partners have been busy revealing their SKUs of Nvidia's new RTX 40-series GPUs powered by the new Ada Lovelace microarchitecture.

We have now seen announcements from Asus, MSI, Gigabyte, Colorful, Inno3D, Palit, Zotac, and PNY concerning the new custom RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 models. Some brands listed their entire lineups already, and some were holding back some cards, waiting until a later date for a full announcement. But some AIB partners have not yet revealed their lineups so we will update the roundup later.

It's worth noting that EVGA will sadly not be attending Nvidia's RTX 40-series launch with brand-new cards. After a shocking announcement by the company several days ago, EVGA is no longer a partner with Nvidia and, thus, will not be making any RTX 40 series GPUs or future Nvidia GPUs.

GeForce RTX 40-Series GPU Specifications

Nvidia unveiled three new RTX 40-series GPUs today at GTC, including the RTX 4090, RTX 4080 16GB, and the RTX 4080 12GB. The RTX 4090 is Nvidia's flagship, featuring 16,384 CUDA cores paired with a monstrous 2,520 MHz boost clock. The 24GB of GDDR6X operates on a 384-bit wide bus. The RTX 4090's power rating peaks at 450W.

The RTX 4080 has been announced with two flavors, each running different memory configurations and CUDA core configurations simultaneously. 

The RTX 4080 16GB is the fastest of the two, featuring 9,728 CUDA cores operating at a boost clock of 2,510 MHz. The memory configuration for this variant features 16GB of GDDR6X memory paired to a 256-bit memory bus—the power envelope for the 16GB model peaks at 320W.

The RTX 4080 12GB will be noticeably slower than the 16GB model, featuring a substantial cut to its core specifications, from top to bottom. The CUDA core count has dropped substantially to 7,680 cores, reducing memory capacity to 12GB and an interface reduction to a 192-bit wide bus. 

But, the RTX 4080 12GB has the fastest clock speeds of the bunch, with a 2,610 MHz boost frequency, and features the lowest power consumption rating as well, coming in at 285W.

For buyers of the RTX 4080 models, you should be aware of the configuration differences between the 12GB and 16GB variants, as each one will differ substantially in performance.

Founders Edition

Starting with the Founders Edition models, Nvidia barely changed the card's overall design language, with the RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 Founders Edition variants featuring the same dual axial flow-through design as the RTX 30-series cards. As a result, if you didn't see the RTX 40 series badging on the cards, you would be hard-pressed to tell if these were new RTX 40-series cards or older RTX 30-series GPUs.

What has changed are some minute aesthetical differences to differentiate the new 40 series variants. Each model, including the RTX 4090 and RTX 4080, now features different color tones for the card's outer metal rails and shroud. In addition, the RTX 4090 features a dim golden accent, while the RTX 4080 16GB and 12GB retain the same glossy silvery finish as the RTX 30-series variants.

Another noteworthy but subtle change is in the Founders Edition RTX badging, which changed to a different font and is far more rounded than the RTX 30-series' boxy and aggressive styling.

Arguably the most noteworthy change to the card's aesthetics is the brand new fans that come on both RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 models. The fans have been extended slightly and protruded into the outer railings of the card. In addition, the fan blade design has been drastically re-designed, featuring flatter blades for both fans. The top fan, meanwhile, features a non-linear blade design, with slightly more rounded edges at the tips and base but straighter angles in the middle.

Nvidia says the newer fans increase fan size and fin volume by 10%, improving the cards' thermal characteristics. Nvidia, in particular, says memory temperatures improved. So we can expect similar core temperatures with the RTX 40-series GPUs but much cooler memory temperatures, which is always good.

Internally, Nvidia says it has upgraded the Founders Edition's power delivery system to 23 phases but didn't say much more than that. We suspect Ada Lovelace has higher transient spikes than Ampere, despite overall power consumption results staying the same compared to the RTX 30-series GPUs, which would explain the power delivery upgrade.

Another upgrade includes the new 16-pin power connector, supported by the new ATX 3.0 standard for power supplies. Each Founders Edition variant will get a single 16-pin power connection. But, for owners of current power supplies lacking the 16-pin, a triple 8-pin power adapter will be included, plus an optional fourth connector for more overclocking headroom.

PNY

PNY has announced three new RTX 40 series graphics cards, including the XLR8 Gaming RTX 4090, XLR8 Gaming RTX 4080 16GB, and XLR8 Gaming RTX 4080 12GB.

All three cards sport a new triple-fan cooling solution featuring a black glossy finish, with a mixture of matte accents placed around the edges of the shroud. Towards the middle fan, four RGB accents protrude outward angularly, shaping an X's form to finish the look.

Each model will feature a different heatsink design, with the RTX 4090 getting the best of the bunch, featuring a heatsink with eight heat pipes and a base vapor chamber combined. The RTX 4080 16GB will receive a similar heatsink with eight heat pipes but will also lack vapor chamber cooling. Finally, the RTX 4080 12GB will get a slightly downgraded seven-heat-pipe heatsink with no vapor chamber due to its lower power rating.

Each model will come with DisplayPort 1.4a and HDMI 2.1 connectors.

The RTX 4090 variant will be available starting the first half of October, while both 4080 models will be available beginning in the first half of November. Retailers featuring the cards will include PNY themselves, Amazon, BestBuy, and additional retail partners.

Zotac

Zotac has announced nine new RTX 40 series variants, with three models each, including the RTX 4090, RTX 4080 16GB, and RTX 4080 12GB. In addition, these models include the AMP Extreme AIRO, Trinity, and Trinity OC variants.

The Extreme Airo is Zotac's new flagship model - starting with the 40 series, designed primarily for enthusiasts. As a result, expect this card to be a great overclocker, with excellent thermals and beefy power delivery, to boost power limits as high as they can.

The Trinity has made its return as Zotac's premiere mid-range SKU. This model will be a cheaper variant of the AIRO, with slightly cut-back features. The OC variants will be the factory overclocked models.

The Trinity and the AIRO feature a new aerodynamic-inspired design language, featuring rounded designs across the entire card. In addition, the cards are color themed in grey and silver, with large "Zotac Gaming" logos on the sides, featuring RGB illumination. 

With the 40 series, Zotac is introducing the most powerful cooling system it has ever built, known as IceStorm 3.0. In the case of the Extreme AIRO, this architecture provides twice the height and blade width of Zotac's previous designs for enabling optimal airflow. 

In the case of all models, each one comes equipped with an aluminum fin stack spanning the entire length of the card, paired with a vapor chamber and nine composite copper heat pipes. Power delivery will come in the form of a 24+4 VRM setup.

These new cards are reportedly quieter, with a new counter-rotating center fan to reduce air turbulence. All models will feature anti-vibration pads to minimize noise as well.

Colorful

Colorful has announced nine new 40-series graphics cards for the RTX 4090 and both RTX 4080 models. The models will span from flagship Vulcan air-cooled models to Neptune liquid-cooled variants and budget-focused models.

Starting with the flagship Vulcan models, these models will come on the RTX 4090, RTX 4080 16GB, and RTX 4080 12GB, featuring a triple-fan cooler design with a stealthy black finish. The card's color profile is almost entirely black, save for metallic silver accents surrounding the edges of the shroud.

These cards come with a new and improved fan design, known as the Hurricane Scythe Blade, that promises to improve airflow at lower noise levels compared to Colorful's previous Storm Chaser fan design.

A unique feature of the Vulcan cards is a new LCD pre-installed directly on the graphics card. But, it is also magnetized and detachable, allowing for use outside of the computer chassis. In addition, the screen features a resolution of 800 x 216.

The Neptune series features new liquid-cooled RTX 40 series cards, featuring models for the RTX 4090 and both RTX4080 variants.

These cards will come in a white and silver color scheme and cooled by a beefy 360mm radiator paired with three 120mm fans. Cooling the card is a full-copper water block that covers both the card's GPU core and the memory modules. Thanks to the liquid-cooled nature of the Neptune series, these 40 series cards will be exceptionally thin at just 2 PCIe slots in thickness.

Finally, Colorful has an entry-level NB EX model for all three Nvidia RTX 40 series models. This card does not see any upgrades over the previous variants and retains the same black color scheme with red triangle accents. 

Asus

Asus has announced new ROG Strix and TUF Gaming models with the launch of Nvidia's RTX 40 series GPUs. Asus will have six models in total, with three ROG Strix models and three TUF Gaming variants - to cover the RTX 4090, RTX 4080 16GB, and RTX 4080 12GB.

Asus has completely redesigned the ROG Strix cooler for the RTX 40-series GPUs with a brand new design language that looks nothing like the previous models. If anything, it resembles graphics cards from the 2000s with flashy graphics.

The new ROG Strix cooler now comes in a more traditionally shaped design, with a perfectly rectangular shroud coated with a generic matte grey/black finish. But, to counter this, the front features a ROG logo that takes the form of a wholly graphic design.

The graphics on the front is by the center and right fans and takes on the logo of Asus' ROG gaming brand. The logo is on a pure black background with a red theme the logo itself, which transparently turns into blue as you pan from right to left. To the top left, we have some alien-looking text in plain white to complement the colorful graphics to the right. 

To the rear of the card, we have fully RGB illuminated borders encompassing the entire outer edge of the bottom of the card, along with an RGB "Republic of Gamers" logo on the side. Finally, the top houses the backplate featuring the exact alien-looking text on the front.

Regarding ventilation, Asus took things to 11 with the new ROG Strix cooler. The aluminum heatsink is perfectly visible across almost all sides of the card, including the rear backplate, to a large degree. The heatsink is particularly unobstructed on the side, where nothing is covering the heatsink at all.

It is excellent for airflow purposes and ensures the cooling solution will not have any problems pushing heat out of the card. Asus says the RTX 4090 version of the ROG Strix has a design to tame 500W thermal load, which should theoretically be plenty for a RTX 4090. 

Asus has also upgraded the Strix cooling solution with newer, thicker fan blades featuring seven blades in total ring barriers that provide 23.8% more airflow and 19.3% more pressure than its predecessor. In addition, power delivery includes a 12+4 phase design comprising 70A power stages for the 4090 variant.

The RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 versions will be a 3.5-slot design and 357mm long, consisting of a die-cast metal frame, shroud, and backplate. The structure of the card has also been upgraded with ultra-tight tolerances to prevent PCB sagging or warping. The 4080 model will feature the same structural integrity but a slightly smaller form factor at 3.15 slots thick and 336mm long.

The TUF variant for the RTX 40-series has received a slight redesign, with subtle differences in the design language between its 30 series predecessors. For instance, the angular cut-outs at the front and the protruding TUF Gaming logo are now gone. 

In essence, the TUF Gaming version designed for the RTX 40-series has had its edges more rounded and overall appears to be a more mature design.

The TUF gaming cooler design now shares the same excellent ventilation characteristics as the ROG Strix 40-series cards, with wide gaping holes on the sides and the backplate for air to traverse unimpeded.

The TUF and ROG Strix cards also feature upgraded heat pipe designs from the 30 series predecessors, which cover more surface area, and are more efficient.

The RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 16GB TUF Gaming models measure 348mm long and 3.65 slots in thickness, while the RTX 4080 12GB measures 305mm long with a thickness of 3.25 slots.

Gigabyte

So far, Gigabyte has announced new AORUS models of the RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 16GB and 12GB, including new details on the 4090 variant in particular.

The Aorus cooler on the RTX 4090 comes with a redesigned aesthetics. It now features three separated fans installed in a traditional layout, compared to the previous design, which consisted of two outer fans and one inward fan with overlapping blades.

The shroud's aesthetical design has also changed, featuring a mirror-like finish on the right of the card, with an RGB illuminated AORUS mirror-like logo to the top right. In addition, gigabyte has incorporated LEDs into every fan blade on the card, giving each fan a halo lighting effect when running. The fans also include a new "Bionic shark fan" design, with the shark's dermal denticles surrounding the body of each blade. Gigabyte says this gives the fans increased static pressure with a reduction in noise levels.

Gigabyte has also upgraded the heatsink with bigger fins over the 3090 variant, which gives the 4090 Aorus a 30% increase in surface area. In addition, the heatsink directly cools a vapor chamber cooling solution featuring composite heat pipes.

As with other brands, Gigabyte has also introduced vast gaps into the Aorus 4090, including the sides and the backplate area, so that air can travel freely without obstruction. 

So far, this applies specifically to the RTX 4090 Aorus version. Still, Gigabyte has announced that Aorus versions of the 4080 16GB and 12GB are coming soon, so expect most of the 4090 version's attributes to carry onwards into these lower-end models.

Palit

Palit is introducing a dozen now RTX 40 series GPUs into the market, including three RTX 3090 GameRock variants, three 4080 16GB GameRock models, four RTX 4080 12GB GameRock versions, and two RTX 4080 12GB GamingPro models. 

The new Gamerock models will feature a new cooler design featuring Y Formula Fins that improve the cooler's airflow efficiency. In addition, it arrives with composite heat pipes and a "wide" vapor chamber.

Aesthetically, not much has changed with the GameRock; the card still features the same crystalline finish as the previous model, with full RGB illumination underneath all those crystals to give it its elegant look.

Palit is also introducing a lower-end GamingPro model to the RTX 4080 12GB, which shares many of the same cooling technologies as the GameRock. But it feature's an entirely different aesthetic finish, incorporating an aggressive and angular matte black theme accompanied by many accents, including silver, green, and blue colors.

MSI

MSI is introducing new Suprim, Suprim Liquid, Gaming Trio, and Ventus models of the RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 models.

The new Suprim cards come with MSI's Tri Frozr 3S cooling system, Torx Fan 5 fans, ten heat pipes, and an upgraded "Airflow Control" fin stack featuring "wave-curve 3.0" edges connected to a vapor chamber cooler design for the RTX 4090 and 4080 16GB. In addition, the 12GB 4080 will receive a nick-plated copper baseplate instead.

The exterior is very similar to the 30 series variants, with subtle changes to the metallic accents positioned on the outsides of the card as opposed to inward. Besides this, there aren't any other differences to note. The 4090 will be 3.75 slots wide; the 4080 16GB will be 3.75 slots wide, and the 4080 12GB 3.5 slots wide.

But what is new for the Suprim series is a new lineup aimed at liquid cooling. This lineup carries the Suprim Liquid moniker, featuring AIO liquid-cooled versions of the RTX 4090. This version has a 240mm radiator and a pair of MSI Silent Gale P12 120m fans. At the same time, a single TORX 5.0 fan resides on the card itself and cools the less critical components of the GPU's PCB. 

Aesthetically, the Suprim Liquid features a metallic finish from top to bottom, accompanied by an angled RGB strip to the bottom of the card - close to the fan.

The Gaming Trio lineup features upgrades too, and now features the new Tri Frozr 3 cooling system, paired with TORX 5.0 fans. Plus, a new dual bios feature for switching between Silent mode or "gaming mode" for more performance.

Like the Suprim, aesthetic changes are minimal with the new 40 series Gaming Trio models, with just some modifications made, including extensions made on the angular RGB accents and alterations to the shroud's angular design. The 4090 will be 3.75 slots thick, 4080 16GB 3.25 slots wide, and 4080 12GB 3 slots thick.

The Ventus models don't have any significant upgrades to speak of besides the fact they are now running TORX 4.0 fans. The Ventus aesthetic remains the same as previous designs, with a "no frills" black and silver finish. The 4080 16GB will be three slots thick, and the 4080 12GB 2.5 slots wide.

Inno3D

Inno3D has announced several new RTX 40 cards, including air-cooled and liquid-cooled models, belonging to the iChill Frostbite, iChill Black, iChill X3, and X3/OC lineups.

The iChill X3 model will come with the RTX 4090, featuring a triple-fan cooler design and a black finish, accompanied by triangular RGB lighting textures on the top and bottom of the card.

For cooling, the card uses 98mm scythe blades to maximize airflow and feeds air into a large vapor chamber cooler with nine total heat pipes.

The 4090 X3/OC is Inno3D's entry-level design, featuring a metallic and matte grey finish on the shroud. The card is 336mm long and 145mm high and takes up over three slots in thickness. Like the iChill X3, the X3/OC features scythe 98mm blades and a heatsink powered by nine heat pipes, and a vapor chamber cooler.

The iChill Frostbite is the company's new flagship water block variant of the RTX 4090, featuring a nickel-plated copper cooling design and a see-through shroud.

The iChill Black appears to be the company's more mid-range liquid cooling solution featuring RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 16GB versions. Most notably, the card's plumbing connects at the rear instead of the side, which should improve cable management.

The card features an all-black finish, with a mirror-like accent to the bottom left, featuring Inno3D's iChill branding and a snowflake logo.

A Chinese social media user has shared images of what looks like a production line full of Zotac GeForce RTX 4090 Amp Extreme 'Airo' graphics cards, and another image displays a stack of branded packaging sleeves. These are further clues that Nvidia will announce RTX 4090 on September 20 at GTC, and the GPU looks poised to claim the top spot on our GPU benchmarks hierarchy.

Baidu user Koko 218 commented only upon the designs being “ugly.” We'll be more diplomatic and say they do look quite unique. Swooping curves suggest a more aerodynamic design, which would make sense if we were looking at a car rather than potentially one of the best graphics cards. We'll have to wait and see how the design actually performs before coming to any hard conclusions, naturally.

If these images are genuine, what we are seeing here are Zotac Gaming GeForce RTX 4090 graphics cards from the long running Amp Extreme family. Thankfully, the packaging photo is clear enough to pick out some further details such as:

• This triple fan card features an IceStorm 3.0 cooler
• Dual-BIOS support for configuration flexibility
• Spectra 2.0 RGB lighting is present
• Freeze fan stop technology kicks in when the GPU is idling
• Zotac’s Firestorm UI for tuning and overclocking

Sadly, an area on the carton which might have outlined the graphics card specifications is too small to be able to pick out any details. You can check our Nvidia RTX 40-Series and Ada GPUs hub for further speculation on what the actual specs might be.

Turning to the matter of appearance, the purported Zotac GeForce RTX 4090 Amp Extreme has a rounded façade, almost like a wind-tunnel inspired design. It is pleasingly minimal from this angle. However, it's definitely a bulky beast, as we can just make out the triple slot bracket and it looks like the card may be even a bit wider, extending into 4-slot territory.

The triple-slot card has some significant cutouts where the last fan pushes air directly through an array of aluminum fins laced with heatpipes. The PCB appears to be about as long as a twin fan graphics card. The back of the GPU and its ICs are also left exposed by a cut-out in the backplate. Power inputs are on the obscured side of the card, so we can’t see how many of the rumored high-density 16-pin power connector ports are fitted. Overall, the backplate looks somewhat overdesigned, which probably resulted in the negative social media comments.

Nvidia is widely expected to launch the first Ada Lovelace architecture graphics cards, forming this RTX 40 series, at the GeForce Beyond event, which kicks-off a week from tomorrow (Sept. 20). The RTX 4090 will likely be the pioneering SKU, hence leaks like this, and our earlier report of Gigabyte RTX 4090 models appearing on the EEC database.

Nvidia's next GPU series and architecture could end up being the biggest jump in generational performance that we've ever seen from Team Green. Based on rumored specifications, raw compute could improve by anywhere from 50 to 100% at the top of the stack. A lot of that will depend on GPU clock speeds, which so far we don't have hard numbers on. We should find out plenty more by next week.