Tech enthusiasts typically adore miniaturization, but companies have always found it tricky to make compact PCs that retain the most important aspects of a traditional desktop. An interesting new approach to this conundrum that caused a blip on our radar is the Wee Beastie Super Mini Fishtank PC on Kickstarter.

In essence, this pleasingly compact (4.75-liter) PC comes with a desktop RTX 4070 GPU installed, but it is supported by choice mobile components such as (up to) a Core Ultra 7 255H, 2x SODIMM RAM sticks, and a 1TB M.2 2230 NVMe SSD. There isn’t a big wall wart PSU outside the case, either; this design has a 400W unit in the chassis.

We aren’t saying that the Wee Beastie Super Mini Fishtank PC is the first PC maker to take this approach of cherry-picking between desktop and mobile parts for a sweet spot compact PC build, but it might get a lot of choices right. Check the specs, and see if it is right for you:

Stand out specs, beyond the processing power and size of this device, are the number of video outs and having the latest Wi-Fi 7 on board. It is also great to have a USB4 port for fast external storage and dock solutions.

Read our extensive review of the RTX 4070 to get some insight into what this desktop graphics card can achieve. However, we must point out that, according to the project FAQ, this graphics card isn’t interchangeable with any other you might grab from a retailer.

It is not a standard desktop graphics card inside

Though it looks like there may be a standard graphics card in the fish tank, in the FAQ, the makers clarify, “The Wee Beastie doesn't have the full sized 4070 graphics card that you would normally buy from the store and install into your full sized PC. It actually has the 4070 GPU processing chip that’s mounted on the circuit board along with all the other components needed to make it work. You would not be able to remove the 4070 from the Wee Beastie and plug and play it in another computer.” We think it uses an RTX 4070 desktop GPU on an MXM card.

Hopefully, the partnered 13700H (14C/20T, up to 5.0 GHz) or Ultra 7 255H (16C/16T and up to 5.1 GHz) won’t dampen the desktop GPU’s vigor.

One of the best things about a pre-built like this is the neatness, integration, and off-the-peg action readiness. According to its makers, the Wee Beastie Super Mini Fishtank PC is also “whisper quiet under load and prevents thermal throttling,” which directly addresses a lot of typical Mini PC concerns. According to the specs, there are “13 high performance fans” in this system, so decent air circulation should be taken for granted, if not its quietness.

Some will also find the Wee Beastie Super Mini Fishtank PC to be quite handsome. Videos and images shared by the device maker show the build is clean and clutter-free. The RGB lighting looks cool, too. Some images even show the fish tank case being used to show off some figurines (inside).

One of the most horrifyingly burned graphics cards that we have seen has been featured in a components salvage video. Software developer and hobbyist graphics card repairer Patryk runs the DIY Repair Hour YouTube channel, where work on this seriously charred Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 was uploaded.

It is worth highlighting that this isn't a GPU from a house fire or other external 'act of God' style catastrophe. The card apparently set on fire in a working PC which suffered from a power connector issue. Patryk was told that the PSU in use was from a mining rig, and this PSU didn't have the luxury of overcurrent protection (OCP), so the combustion of the power connector and ensuing electrical mayhem didn't cut the power delivery. From the video comments, it seems to be that the RTX 4070 owner was alerted of the burning card by "the horrible smell."

Patryk's conclusion is that the burning "certainly started at or near the 12V PCIE connector." So Nvidia's compact, concentrated power connector isn't completely blameless here. However, using a PSU without basic safety features like OCP was an obvious issue, allowing this unfortunate event to go much further than it should have. In fact, we can't even see any remnants of the controversial power connector, as the combustion was so intense.

As this Palit RTX 4070 was so far gone, Patryk and the graphics card owner had no illusions about its repairability. From the start, the mission here was to simply salvage any good components that remained on the PCB.

Fast forwarding to the end of the video, you will learn that the biggest and most expensive component here, the GPU die, is claimed to be "healthy." The TechTuber verified this with a multitude of multimeter measurements. Sadly, we didn't see the GPU put onto a working PCB to confirm it was AOK, though.

Other components salvaged from this charred mess include a selection of memory chips, power stages, video BIOS, some ports, and other things. Patryk didn't verify all these bits were 100% good, but assumed they would be fine as they were further away from the fire zone than the GPU core.

If there's a lesson to be learned here, it is that yes-indeed pay attention to your tricky Nvidia GPU power connector - but don't neglect using an appropriate and high quality PSU.

At CES, AMD unveiled its Ryzen AI 300 flagship lineup codenamed Strix Halo with a beastly configuration of 16 cores, 40 Compute Units, and 128GB of unified memory. New first-party benchmarks assert that the top-end Ryzen AI Max+ 395 - that's a mouthful - is up to 68% faster than Nvidia's RTX 4070 mobile graphics in gaming. The slides also showcase how Strix Halo holds up versus Apple's M4-series chips in productivity and even dare to mention the desktop RTX 4090.

Strix Halo is split into three dies with two CCDs offering eight cores each and a large I/O die housing the iGPU (Integrated GPU) and the NPU. The highest-end Ryzen AI Max+ 395 packs 16 cores and 32 central processor threads based on the Zen 5 architecture, accompanied by the Radeon 8060S iGPU with 40 RDNA 3.5 Compute Units. All the AI Max chips have a base TDP of 55W, and can be configured from 45W to 120W. Surrounding the chip is up to 128GB of unified memory, which can be allocated in varying pools (up to 96GB) to the iGPU alone.

With the specs out of the way, let's talk performance. The Nvidia comparison system is the Asus ROG Flow Z13 with the i9-13900H and the RTX 4070 mobile (65W TGP). Across a suite of 17 games at 1080p high settings, Strix Halo handily bests its Nvidia equivalent, with an up to 68% lead in Borderlands 3, per AMD. Being first-party benchmarks, we shouldn't take them at face value. It is also prudent to mention that the RTX 4070 mobile can be configured up to 115W, but a 65W variant features in this comparison, due to the Asus ROG Flow Z13 design.

In productivity tests, Blender sees the 395+ blaze past the Core Ultra 9 288V (Lunar Lake) by 302% but that isn't an apples-to-apples comparison since the latter is a 17/30W chip. Versus Apple's M4 Pro, AMD touts an 86% lead in V-Ray, dropping to 12% in Cinebench R24. Moving over to AI performance, the XDNA 2 NPU enables the Ryzen AI MAX series to dish out 50 TOPS of AI performance, exceeding the Lunar Lake and Snapdragon X Elite series by two TOPS. AMD also claims its Strix Halo APUs can deliver 2.2x more tokens per second than the RTX 4090 when running the Llama 70B LLM (Large Language Model) at 1/6th the TDP (75W).

We highly suggest you wait for independent testing before jumping the gun, like perhaps pre-ordering a Strix Halo device. These laptops are likely to target enthusiasts as suitable alternatives to dedicated GPU options. With Strix Point laptops still costing over $1,000, pricing will play a key role in determining if Strix Halo can displace dedicated mid-ranged laptop GPUs like the RTX 4070 can be found in.

Welcome to 2025, and if you're looking for a gaming laptop to play the latest games on with high settings and not having to sell an organ to pay for it, then check out this fantastic price on an RTX 4070-powered gaming laptop from HP. With a reasonably-sized 16.1-inch display and 8-core AMD processor, this gaming laptop from HP features a dedicated Nvidia RTX 4070 graphics card to power your games. It might not break any records for performance, but at this low price, it's a great option for a gaming laptop on a budget and rewards a lot of bang for the buck.

Available at Best Buy for just $849, the HP Victus 16 (model: A1SV3UA#ABA) is the perfect option if you're looking to pick up a gaming laptop for an affordable price. You're getting a great deal with this 2024 model with features that include a 16.1-inch IPS display with an FHD (1920 x 1080 pixel) resolution, AMD Ryzen 7-8845HS processor, Nvidia RTX 4070 laptop GPU, 16GB of DDR5 RAM, and a 512GB SSD for your operating system and games library.

We've reviewed the HP Victus 16 - and found the laptop to have excellent battery life, a comfortable keyboard, a bright 300-nit display, and an attractive design. This Laptop is the 16.1-inch model and features many of the same specifications and the same design, albeit with less powerful components.

The negatives to this budget gaming laptop are the smaller-sized 512GB SSD and the lower resolution FHD screen. The computer is user-upgradeable and can support up to 2TB of SSD storage, which can be easily upgraded, but the screen can't be changed. Still, the benefit of the 1920 x 1080 pixel IPS panel is that it won't drain your laptop battery as quickly as an OLED high-res screen, so there's more time for gaming, and of course, you can always connect the laptop to a monitor.

Don't forget to look at our Best Buy coupon codes for January 2025 and see if you can save on today's deal or other products at Best Buy.

The first Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 graphics cards packing slower GDDR6 VRAM have started to trickle through to U.S. e-tailers. Specifically, the Asus Dual GeForce RTX 4070 12GB GDDR6 Evo graphics card is now listed on Newegg at $569.99. However, there’s a problem; it isn't just that it is out of stock. You might as well ignore this release, for now, as for the same price you can purchase the GDDR6X version (black). Moreover, bargain hunters might prefer Asus’s white GDDR6X OC version, as it is currently on offer for $554.99, undercutting its newer but slower stablemate by $15.

We first learned of an RTX 4070 packing slower GDDR6 memory in early August, when Galax mentioned the specification change. It was teasing a new ‘OC 2X’ product that would use this updated configuration. At the time, we mentioned the 5% memory bandwidth disadvantage the new GDDR6 cards were likely to have.

Later in August, Nvidia went official with the RTX 4070 GDDR6. We were pleased to see it officially confirmed that no other spec downgrade would afflict the new SKUs. Nvidia’s official word on why the new SKUs would exist was that it would  "improve supply and availability to meet strong demand."

To recap, the only difference between the GDDR6X and GDDR6 SKUs concerns the type and speed rating of the memory chips soldered to the PCB. The original GDDR6X variant uses 21 Gbps GDDR6X chips, but the GDDR6 models will sport 20 Gbps GDDR6 chips. All else being equal, this reduces memory bandwidth from 504 GB/s to 480 GB/s on the new cards, so a cut of approx 5% (-4.75% if you must).

As we mentioned at the time of the official announcement, no enthusiast will want a slower product at the same price, so Nvidia and its partners should deliver at least a small price cut (5% at least) to make opting for a GDDR6 model sensible. However, in the worst-case scenario, RTX 4070 fanciers might not have GDDR6X options in the coming months, if they are phased out.

Back to the present day, and it doesn’t look worthwhile pre-ordering the Asus Dual GeForce RTX 4070 12GB GDDR6 Evo graphics card from Newegg right now unless you are a reviewer, collector, or other niche user. The Asus Dual GeForce RTX 4070 GDDR6X model is the same price, and the white model of the same card actually undercuts the new GDDR6 version. Whichever you buy you will be eligible for a free copy of Star Wars Outlaws.

Please read our review of the original RTX 4070 here. For some perspective, check out where it sits among the current best graphics cards.

Zotac will not charge extra for custom versions of its GeForce RTX 40-series Super graphics cards that come with enhanced coolers and will sell them at Nvidia's recommended retail prices, the company announced on its website (as noticed by @momomo_us). Meanwhile, the company's factory-overclocked graphics cards will be sold at a premium given their higher performance. 

Zotac will offer Trinity Black Edition and Twin Edge versions of its GeForce RTX 4070 Super, GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super, and GeForce RTX 4080 Super graphics cards at Nvidia-set MSRPs: $599, $799, and $999, respectively. Meanwhile, factory-overclocked Trinity Black Edition OC, Trinity White Edition OC, Twin Edge OC, and AMP-badged graphics boards will be sold at a premium, the company announced. All of these boards — pre-overclocked or not — are contenders to join the ranks of the best graphics cards available today. 

Although AMD and Nvidia offer reference designs for almost all of their graphics cards to speed up time-to-market, add-in-boards (AIBs) manufacturers, such as Zotac, tend to develop custom cards for two reasons: to differentiate themselves from their rivals with better looks and higher performance as well as to cut down costs. 

Given the fact that factory-overclocked versions of Trinity Black Edition and Twin Edge will use the same printed circuit boards and cooling systems as their counterparts that function at Nvidia-recommended frequencies, it does not look like regular versions were designed with the sole purpose of cutting down costs. As a result, regular Trinity Black Edition and Twin Edge models will likely feature decent overclocking potential (courtesy of a refined PCB and an enhanced cooling system), which makes them a good deal, assuming that they will be available at MSRP. 

Meanwhile, those who want to have enhanced performance right out of box and some further overclocking potential will be able to buy Zotac's GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super AMP Holo 16GB GDDR6X or GeForce RTX 4080 Super AMP Extreme Airo 16GB GDDR6X that promise to feature significantly improved clocks and a refined coolers.

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.

Prices for Nvidia's three upcoming GeForce RTX 40 Super GPUs have been leaked by X user @Zed__Wang, who has a decent track record with predicting specifications of Nvidia GPUs, like the RTX 4060 Ti for example. This price leak, if true, reveals that not all three RTX 40 Super graphics cards will sport especially attractive price tags. This is particularly true for the RTX 4080 Super, which is apparently going to launch at $999.

The GeForce RTX 40 Super series revives the Super brand that was only used previously to refresh the Turing GPU series in 2019. Back then, Super basically meant offering new price points and performance levels with a much better bang for buck than the original RTX 20 / GTX 16 lineup. We'd expect to see the same with the RTX 40 series, and leaked hardware specs indicate that at least the performance side of the equation makes sense. The RTX 4070 Super, RTX 4070 Ti Super, and RTX 4080 Super all are rumored to come with more cores. 

As with all rumors, there's just one caveat: take it with a grain of salt. You won't even have to wait that long to get all this from the horse's mouth, as Nvidia's CES 2024 presentation and the presumed reveal of the RTX 40 Super series is tomorrow, January 8, at 8 AM Pacific time.

*Specifications are unconfirmed.

Prices actually haven't changed all that much from the original Nvidia GeForce RTX 40 series cards, with the RTX 4070 Super and 4070 Ti Super staying at $599 and $799 respectively. The GeForce RTX 4080 Super sees a price drop of $200, bringing it down to $999. By contrast, the GeForce RTX 20 Super series actually brought with it a slight increase in MSRPs with the RTX 2060 Super and 2070 Super.

The prices put into perspective how substantial these upgrades are. The RTX 4070 Super has the biggest CUDA core boost with a 21% increase, and since the price hasn't changed, in theory that means its value (performance per dollar) should also go up by around 21%. The RTX 4070 Ti Super only has a 10% increase in CUDA core amount, but it also comes with 4GB more VRAM, which is harder to quantify in terms of value.

The GeForce RTX 4080 Super also seems like a slam dunk despite its paltry 5% increase in CUDA cores, all thanks to that $200 discount. Though, it's worth considering that the original RTX 4080's $1,199 MSRP was already pretty high, and even higher than AMD's flagship Radeon RX 7900 XTX with 24GB of memory at $999. Retail pricing of the RTX 4080 has dropped to roughly $1,100 while the 7900 XTX has dropped to a little over $900. Slotting in the RTX 4080 Super at $999 isn't earth-shattering, at least on paper.

Like with the original GeForce RTX 20 Super series, it seems the stars of the show in the RTX 40 Super lineup are the cheaper two models. The RTX 4070 Super is nearly on par with the RTX 4070 Ti, while the RTX 4070 Ti Super is like a mini-RTX 4080. AMD will definitely have to revisit its $599 RX 7800 XT and maybe even the RX 7900 XT, which retails for around $800 these days.

Maxsun may not be the world's most recognizable graphics cards brand mostly because its products are generally sold in China, but its MegaGamer (MGG) series add-in-boards have gained some international recognition due to their remarkable design. Recently the company introduced its most affordable MGG product to date, the GeForce RTX 4070 MGG OC12G that continues to use a cooling system with five fan and promises great overclocking potential.

The Maxsun GeForce RTX 4070 MGG OC12G s based on the AD104 graphics processor with 5888 CUDA cores clocked at up to 2580 MHz (up from 2475 MHz recommended by Nvidia). The graphics card comes with 12 GB of GDDR6X memory featuring a 21 GT/s data transfer rate. The graphics card is rated for 215W thermal graphics power, which is slightly higher compared to 200W recommended by Nvidia. Meanwhile, the board has a 12VHPWR power connector that can deliver significantly more than 215W of power to the board.

The key selling point of Maxsun's MegaGamer GeForce RTX 4070 graphics card is its three-wide cooling system featuring nine heatpipes, a vapor chamber, and as many as five fans: two 110-mm fans, one 100-mm fan, and two small fan on top of the board. These extra fans are meant to maximize cooling performance and therefore improve overclockability of the graphics board. Whether or not they have a significant impact is another question though, but certainly an overkill cooling system with a vapor chamber will make the MegaGamer GeForce RTX 4070 more expensive than other AIBs based on the same GPU.

When it comes to display outputs, the Maxsun GeForce RTX 4070 MGG OC12G has three DisplayPorts and one HDMI output.

On paper, the Maxsun GeForce RTX 4070 MGG OC12G  looks like an interesting piece of hardware that could be one of the best graphics cards around. Unfortunately, the only way to get it is from JD.com, where Maxsun GeForce RTX 4070 MGG OC12G is priced at ¥5,299 ($661 without sales tax).

HandBrake Team this week released HandBrake 1.7.0 which adds support for hardware-accelerated AV1 transcoding on the latest graphics processors from AMD and Nvidia. As a result, HandBrake 1.7.0 now supports hardware-accelerated AV1 transcoding on all popular modern GPUs, including those from AMD, Nvidia, and Intel. In addition, the new version of HandBrake also quadruples the performance of SVT-AV1 encoding on Apple Silicon-based Macs thanks to CPU optimizations. 

Starting from version 1.7.0, HandBrake supports the AMD VCN AV1 encoder that is used by AMD's Radeon 7000-series graphics processors (RDNA 3), as well as the Nvidia 8th Gen NVENC encoder built into GeForce 40-series (Ada Lovelace) graphics chips. Both these GPU families are used in some of the best graphics cards. Previously HandBrake 1.6.0 gained support for Intel's Xe AV1 encoder supported by Xe and Arc-branded GPUs. Therefore, HandBrake can take advantage of hardware-accelerated AV1 encoding on all popular contemporary GPUs, except those integrated into Apple Silicon processors. 

HandBrake is one of the world's most popular transcoding programs. Its main advantage is that it supports virtually all widespread codecs on all hardware and software platforms. HandBrake's software-based SVT-AV1 is a very efficient encoder that supports all kinds of CPUs, which means that HandBrake can run on virtually everything. Meanwhile, hardware-accelerated processing is both faster and more power efficient, which brings loads of advantages, particularly on laptops running on battery power. 

Since version 1.7.0 is a major release for HandBrake, it brings loads of important improvements and a full list can be found over at GitHub. While improved support for HDR or added support for Apple VideoToolbox are significant enhancements in the newest version of the software, perhaps the most important tweak is the added support for drag and drop of multiple files at once on Apple macOS and Microsoft Windows-based systems. 

When we first heard rumors about Nvidia's plan to add the GeForce RTX 4080 Super graphics card to its fleet, we considered it unlikely. The company feels pretty comfortable from a competition point of view and has not used the 'Super' brand for quite a while. But evidence mounts that the green company is prepping its GeForce RTX 4080 Super graphics board. 

The PCI ID for Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4080 Super graphics card was listed yesterday in a PCI ID repository. Realix, the developer of the popular diagnostic suite HWiNFO, declared the addition of GeForce RTX 4080 Super as an upcoming change for the next version of the program. Typically, diagnostic software developers receive information about forthcoming hardware well in advance, so we can consider this 'listing' as further proof that the RTX 4080 Super is incoming. This is not rock-solid proof, though, so take it with a grain of salt.

Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4080 Super is allegedly built on Nvidia's AD103 graphics processor, just like the regular version. However, the exact configuration of the GPU remains uncertain. It could operate with all of its 10,240 CUDA cores enabled, maintain the GeForce RTX 4080's 9,728 CUDA cores with increased clock speeds, or possess a different setup. In any case, it promises to be one of the best graphics cards around when it arrives. When it will be released is another question, though it would be logical for Nvidia to release it in time for the holiday season.

Speculating about the specifications of Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4080 Super is challenging at this stage. It is anticipated to be positioned above the standard GeForce RTX 4080 but below the top-tier GeForce RTX 4090. So, a minor performance uplift compared to its predecessor would suffice to sell it at a higher price since the gap between RTX 4080 and RTX 4090 is huge. Nvidia might also choose to release the GeForce RTX 4080 Super exclusively to OEMs, catering to PC manufacturers who prefer having new product versions annually to highlight improvements over previous models. 

In any case, Nvidia appears to be in the preparation phase for the product, which might end up a retail model or exclusively available as an add-in-board from selected PC manufacturers. Semi-official sources, while somewhat reliable, should not be considered conclusive as they are unofficial, and companies' plans, including product launches, are subject to change or cancellation.

Nvidia may be prepping mysterious GeForce RTX 4080 graphics card as a well-known PCI ID repository now lists such a product, which suggests that the device has been listed in a driver, Linux patch, GPU-Z validation, or BIOS. The product may end up as an OEM-only add-in-board available from select PC makers, but at least Nvidia seems to be prepping it, which somewhat corroborates the ongoing rumors that GeForce RTX 4080 Super is incoming. This is still a rumor and as such we must take the news with a pinch of salt.

Nvidia recently added 10de:2703 (NVIDIA_DEV.2703), an entry described as GeForce RTX 4080 Super to its R515 test driver, as noticed by StefanG3D from LaptopVideo2Go. The product is said to be based on Nvidia's AD103 graphics processor, though it is unclear whether the GPU comes with all of its 10,240 CUDA cores enabled, retains GeForce RTX 4080's 9,728 CUDA cores yet adopts higher clocks, or has another configuration. 

Now, while semi-official repositories are reliable sources of information, they are not the ultimate truth, not only because they are not official, but because plans can change and companies may cancel certain products because of their launches. The particular listing of the 10de:2703 device designated as GeForce RTX 4080 Super was added by T4CFantacy, who is a TechPowerUp GPU database with access to early GPU BIOS and GPU-Z validations, as noted by VideoCardz. Therefore, it is likely, but not definite that Nvidia and/or its partners are working on products called GeForce RTX 4080 Super. 

At this point it is hard to make guesses about specifications of Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4080 Super, though we would imagine that this one would sit above the regular GeForce RTX 4080 but below the GeForce RTX 4090, the best graphics card money can buy. If the unit offers a slight performance upgrade versus its predecessor, it will be good enough to further solidify its position on the market of desktop discrete graphics boards. Meanwhile, the company could make its GeForce RTX 4080 Super an OEM-only product aimed at PC makers who tend to want 'new' SKUs every year to show the difference between contemporary and last year's offerings. Anyhow, for now take the information about Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4080 with a grain of salt. 

In addition to the alleged GeForce RTX 4080 Super, the R515 test driver also lists H100 SXM5 96GB AI and HPC GPU for compute. This part will likely use high-density HBM3 or HBM3E memory and let applications access 96 GB of it, up from 80 GB accessible today.

MSI has quietly introduced its new Ventus Essential series of graphics cards that will complement the company's regular Ventus family of boards (as noticed by @momomo_us). The new Ventus Essential cards will offer almost exactly the same specifications as normal Ventus add-in-boards, but will likely have a different bill-of-materials (BOM), which will make MSI's costs slightly lower.

MSI's Ventus Essential lineup currently consists of the GeForce RTX 4070, GeForce RTX 4070 Ti, and GeForce RTX 4090, which rank among the best graphics cards. All boards have the same clocks and cooling systems as standard Ventus cards, but Ventus Essential features two DisplayPort and two HDMI outputs, whereas regular Ventus boards have three DisplayPort and one HDMI output. Essential obviously points to something basic, but this may not be the case.

"It has slight structural improvements over Ventus but mostly the same design/specs," wrote Hassan Mujtaba of WccfTech. Note that MSI does not officially disclose any differences between its Ventus and Ventus Essential graphics boards, so let us try to speculate a little.

The display outputs are an interesting change. Right now, DisplayPort on RTX 40-series cards remains on the DP1.4a spec, which has a maximum data rate of 25.92 Gbps using 8b/10b encoding. HDMI 2.1 meanwhile offers up to 42 Gbps data rates using 16b/18b encoding. That's 62% more bandwidth, which means HDMI 2.1 can output up to 8K 120 Hz using DSC (Display Stream Compression), while DP1.4a tops out at around 8K 72 Hz using DSC. But HDMI typically costs more for licensing than DisplayPort, which makes this particular change a bit odd.

Besides the video ports, modern graphics cards are highly complex devices that use hundreds of components. Custom graphics cards, such as MSI's Ventus series, tend to slightly change the bill-of-materials over their lifetimes because some components may get cheaper and others may disappear from the market. But it looks like MSI wants to concurrently offer Ventus and Ventus Essential parts, possibly with slightly different bundles and slightly different BOMs.

Such an approach allows MSI to be flexible with its costs and offer its GeForce RTX 40-series products at more competitive prices. Of course, it remains to be seen whether these Ventus Essential boards will be significantly cheaper than non-Essential Ventus cardsbut the key point is that with more SKUs the company will be able to pick the right series and produce it if it finds it more suitable.

Asus has finally officially introduced its flagship graphics card: the ROG Matrix GeForce RTX 4090. The board comes with the highest out-of-box AD102 GPU clocks, ultimate tweaking ability, a sophisticated voltage regulating module (VRM), an advanced cooling system, and extreme overclockability. Asus has plenty of reasons to suggest this is the world's best graphics card — and it's got a price to match. The ROG Matrix RTX 4090 carries a recommended price tag of $3,199, which is twice Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4090 MSRP of $1,599.

The Asus ROG Matrix GeForce RTX 4090 is based on the AD102 GPU with 16,384 CUDA cores that come with a 2700 MHz maximum frequency out-of-box (up from 2520 MHz, recommended by Nvidia). These CUDA cores are mated with 24GB of 21 GT/s GDDR6X memory. The graphics card relies on a custom printed circuit board (PCB) with a 24-phase VRM with high-current power stages and one 12VHPWR connector that can deliver up to 600W of very clean power to the GPU. The PCB has numerous sensors, which allow it to monitor the temperature of the GPU, memory chips, VRM, coils, and even PCB itself. 

The graphics card features an all-in-one cooling system with a custom-engineered cold plate that cools the GPU, memory, and VRM, as well as an embedded pump, 700mm of tubing, and a 360mm radiator. To maximize heat transfer from the graphics processor to the cooler, Asus uses liquid metal thermal interface material (TIM) — an industry first for a GPU. The cooling system also has magnetic, daisy-chainable fans with RGB lighting, which allow for minimal cable clutter.

Premium hardware isn't the only strength of the Asus ROG Matrix RTX 4090. The manufacturer also amplified its GPU Tweak III software with more monitoring and overclocking features that take advantage of the card's extra capabilities and sensors. The program allows the user to set a power target, increase GPU voltage, set the GPU boost clock, adjust the voltage/frequency curve, modify the memory clock, and change the fan speed. Meanwhile, the Thermal Map capability provides real-time temperature readouts across the card, while the new mileage feature tracks the card's usage at different power levels.

An interesting feature is that the card supports Power Detector+, which reads the 12VHPWR connector and measures currents across all power wires to detect any anomalies (advising the user to reseat the cable, if necessary).

"The ROG Matrix GeForce RTX 4090 is an overclocker's dream," says a statement by Asus. "In fact, since this card was unveiled at Computex, it has claimed three World Records and five Global First Place records for a total of seven overclocking records in 3DMark11 Performance, 3DMark Fire Strike Extreme, Unigine Superposition 1080p Xtreme, 3DMark Time Spy Extreme, 3DMark Port Royal, GPUPI v3.3 1B, GPUPI v3.3 32B, and Unigine Superposition 8K Optimized."

Indeed, without any modifications, Asus' ROG Matrix GeForce RTX 4090 broke the 4 GHz GPU clock barrier earlier this year, so the company isn't wrong — this board does appear to be an overclocker's dream. But while it's certainly faster than any other RTX 4090 currently on the market, the ROG Matrix GeForce RTX 4090 also costs twice as much as a regular RTX 4090. It'll probably be hard for many to justify spending an extra $1,600 on the extra performance, even if they're into overclocking.

The Asus ROG Matrix RTX 4090 is, obviously, not for everyone. It's a limited-edition product aimed at die-hard overclockers who are looking to squeeze every last drop of performance out of their hardware. It's for people who actually enjoy tweaking their systems to gain a couple of points on a benchmarking test. Naturally, that also makes it perfect for bragging rights.

Asus is set to launch its flagship ROG Matrix GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card next week on September 19, 2023. The graphics board was announced at Computex, but the company only shared that it uses an innovative closed-loop cooling system with a liquid metal thermal interface. Meanwhile, the product has already become a legend as it nearly conquered a 4 GHz GPU frequency, an industry's first.

"The wait is almost over," an Asus tweet reads. "Count down to the official launch of our flagship graphics card – the ROG Matrix GeForce RTX 4090."

The Asus ROG Matrix GeForce RTX 4090 is one of the most mysterious products introduced recently. We know it carries Nvidia's AD102 graphics processor and 24 GB of GDDR6X memory. However, Asus has been tight-lipped about out-of-box clocks of both the GPU and SGRAM, instead focusing on its custom printed circuit board with a sophisticated voltage regulating module and its cooling system with Liquid Metal thermal interface.

Plenty of clean power and a powerful cooling system are indeed required for successful overclocking. So, all makers of graphics cards tend to use custom PCBs with powerful VRMs and an all-in-one 360-mm liquid cooling system. What sets the ROG Matrix RTX 4090 graphics card apart is its use of a special ingredient: liquid metal thermal interface material (TIM), which enhances heat transfer from the hot components to the cooling system. While Asus doesn't disclose the specific type of liquid metal TIM employed, such materials are typically composed of gallium or gallium alloys known for their exceptional heat conductivity.

However, utilizing liquid metal thermal interfaces presents certain risks and challenges. These TIMs are electrically conductive, potentially leading to short circuits if not handled with care and precision. Moreover, they can be corrosive to specific metals like aluminum. Despite these challenges, Asus asserts its experience with using liquid metal TIMs in laptops for several years, indicating confidence in their application for graphics cards.

In any case, we already know that the Asus ROG Matrix GeForce RTX 4090 can hit nearly 4 GHz GPU with liquid nitrogen, so we'll learn next week what it is capable of when equipped with its stock cooling system and Liquid Metal TIM. Asus clearly wanted to build the best graphics card possible, so we will find out soon enough whether it has succeeded.

AMD's Radeon RX 7800 XT may not be radically better than its predecessor in terms of performance, but it is enough to challenge Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4070, which is perhaps why some graphics card manufacturers and retailers are cutting prices of custom GeForce RTX 4070 models by $50 in the U.S.

Currently, Amazon.com, BestBuy, B&H Photo Video, and Newegg have GeForce RTX 4070 graphics cards available for $549 from Asus, Gigabyte, and Zotac. The list includes several models:

• Asus GeForce RTX 4070 Dual at B&H Photo Video.
• Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4070 WindForce OC at Amazon, Best Buy, B&H Photo Video, and Newegg.
• Zotac Gaming GeForce RTX 4070 Twin Edge OC Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse at Amazon, and Newegg.

Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4070 carries an MSRP of $599, but AMD's Radeon RX 7800 XT is priced at $499. Despite being priced lower, AMD's offering sometimes outperforms its more expensive rival in many games that depend on rasterization, with performance that's close to the competitor in some ray tracing-supporting games as well. This certainly increases the value of AMD's product, earning it a spot on our list of the best graphics cards.

We suspect that's why at least three GPU manufacturers are partnering with select retailers to offer certain GeForce RTX 4070 models with a $50 discount. However, it's unknown whether this is a short-term campaign or if other manufacturers and retailers will join it and keep the base price at $549 for the long-term.

Regardless, it doesn't look like Nvidia is quietly reducing the recommended price of its GeForce RTX 4070 graphics cards. The official MSRP remains at $599, just as the RTX 4060 Ti sits at $399 with the 4060 Ti 16GB model at $499. Now that AMD's Navi 32 GPUs have arrived, you can now find all three of those RTX cards for less than their respective MSRPs.

Asus has started to sell some of the best graphics cards under the company's Tianxuan (Heavenly Chosen) portfolio. Marketed under the TX Gaming moniker, the new trio of graphics cards encompasses the GeForce RTX 4070, GeForce RTX 4060 Ti, and GeForce RTX 4060.

The Tianxuan series may be new to some since it's one of Asus' China-exclusive sub-brands. The company has launched many gaming laptops from the Tianxuan series but is extending the product portfolio to graphics cards, specifically the GeForce RTX 40-series parts.

The TX Gaming graphics cards spit images of Asus' Atlas Shark (Megalodon) series. They're using the same cooler but with a different color theme. While the Atlas Shark series cooler stick to a black and grey combination, the TX Gaming series arrives with a white and grey theme with teal accents. There aren't any visible changes to the cooling solution. It's still a thick shroud with three axial, dual-ball bearing cooling fans. The graphics cards also have a reinforced metal backplate that helps with cooling.

Regardless of the model, the TX Gaming graphics card measures 12.48 x 5.35 x 2.13 inches (317 x 136 x 54mm), so we're looking at a triple-slot design. The size of the cooler seems a bit overkill for the lower-tier SKUs, such as the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti (160W) or GeForce RTX 4060 (115W). However, it looks like Asus didn't want to waste resources redesigning the cooler for each SKU. Instead, the company used the same cooler for all three graphics cards.

As their part numbers insinuate, the TX Gaming graphics cards feature a factory overclock. However, Asus didn't share this information on its product pages or online store. We only know that the graphics cards require one 8-pin PCIe power connector for external power. Many will be glad that Asus didn't opt for the pesky 16-pin power connector. At any rate, you'd want a power supply with a minimum capacity of 650W for whichever model you pick up. Asus didn't alter the design of the display outputs. Therefore, the TX Gaming graphics cards provide one HDMI 2.1 port and up to three DisplayPort 1.4a outputs.

Asus sells the TX Gaming GeForce RTX 4070 (TX-RTX4070-O12G-Gaming) for $733.54. Meanwhile, the TX Gaming GeForce RTX 4060 Ti (TX-RTX4060TI-O8G-Gaming) and TX Gaming GeForce RTX 4060 (TX-RTX4060-O8G-Gaming) retail for $526.91 and $386.82, respectively.

Nvidia's prototype quad-slot cooling system for never-released 40-series graphics card has made quite a splash among enthusiasts in the recent months partly because of an unusual PCB mounting and partly because of its size. But the cooler apparently has an interesting wrinkle: it has a third fan inside to boost its performance even further.

 @Harukaze5719 has found more pictures of the ultimate GeForce RTX 40-series cooling system published by Hayaka, the owner of the cooler who once wanted to sell it for $120,000. This time around, Hayaka disassembled the cooling system and discovered that in addition to two large fans, it has a small fan inside that is meant to generate additional airflow. It also turned out that the prototype cooling system has 22 heat pipes to effectively distribute heat dissipated by the AD102 graphics processor as well as its voltage regulating module.

PCB placement, 22 heat pipes, and three fans indicate that the prototype of the monstrous graphics card was meant to deliver maximum possible performance at maximum possible power. To that end, we are dealing with a prototype cooling system that is meant to deliver overkill performance for simply the best graphics card available.

Meanwhile, an interesting thing about the current prototype is that it only has one 12VHPWR auxiliary PCIe power connector that can deliver up to 600W of power, so a cooler this large might be an overkill for the board. Then again, if Nvidia's plan was to develop the world's highest-performing air cooler for an ultimate graphics card, then this monstrous unit was a way to go.

Yet, it would be interesting to literally hear a cooling system with three fans one of which is located inside the cooler. While Nvidia's cooling systems for Founders Edition graphics cards tend to be rather quiet, it is unlikely that this particular device aimed at the graphics cards sometimes referred to as 'The Beast' was ever meant to be quiet.

Colorful has expanded the company's iGame lineup with two new GeForce RTX 40-series graphics cards. The latest additions included the iGame GeForce RTX 4070 Ultra Z OC and iGame GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Mini OC 8GB-V, based on two of the best graphics cards on the market.

The iGame GeForce RTX 4070 Ultra Z OC is an all-white graphics card with pink accents measuring 12.3 x 4.7 x 2 inches (313.5 x 118.8 x 50.5mm). There's some RGB lighting on the side of the triple-fan graphics card, which you can control via Colorful's iGame Center software. The iGame GeForce RTX 4070 Ultra Z OC's most unique feature is the hidden connector at the rear of the PCB and under the backplate. It's not a new concept, as manufacturers like Inno3D have implemented a similar solution on their GeForce RTX 4070 and GeForce RTX 4060 Ti. It's a more user-friendly alternative in contrast to Asus' proprietary proposition.

The iGame GeForce RTX 4070 Ultra Z OC sticks to a conventional 8-pin PCIe power connector rather than the 16-pin (12VHPWR) power connector found on the Ultra W SKUs. Since the GeForce RTx 4070 employs a compact PCB, it has more than enough spacing for Colorful to place the 8-pin power connector on the rear and route the cable through the graphics card's heatsink. The graphics card features a detachable magnetic backplate to access the 8-pin power connector easily. Colorful also bundles a white extension 8-pin power cable with the graphics card for DIYers that want a full-white build.

The iGame GeForce RTX 4070 Ultra Z OC has the same 2,475 MHz boost clock speed as the reference GeForce RTX 4070. Pushing the small overclock button on the rear I/O of the graphics card will push it to 2,505 MHz, less than a 2% overclock. Display options include three DisplayPort 1.4a outputs and one HDMI 2.1 port.

On the other hand, the iGame GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Mini OC 8GB-V is a tiny version of the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti. Mind you, it's the vanilla version and not the 16GB variant that recently went on sale. With dimensions of 7.4 x 5.1 x 1.8 inches (188 x 130.55 x 45.8mm), this is as small as a GeForce RTX 4060 Ti can get. It features a white exterior with a touch of RGB lighting on the side of the graphics card.

The graphics card only has a 104mm cooling fan and draws power from an 8-pin PCIe power connector. Given the limited landscape, there's no room to hide the power connector on the iGame GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Mini OC 8GB-V.

Again, the iGame GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Mini OC 8GB-V adheres to Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4060 Ti specification, meaning it has the same 2,535 MHz boost clock. The overclock button will get the graphics card to 2,580 MHz, a mere 1.7% overclock. Besides the overclock button, the rear I/O houses the three DisplayPort 1.4a outputs and a single HDMI 2.1 port.

The iGame GeForce RTX 4070 Ultra Z OC and iGame GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Mini OC 8GB-V haven't yet arrived in the U.S. market. The former is currently retailing for $710 in China.

Asus' connector-less graphics card concept could soon become a reality. If the initiative takes off, the best graphics cards may not need power cables anymore. Demanding DIYers will surely love the idea since it'll help reduce cable clutter.

One of the most impressive highlights at the Asus booth at Computex 2023 was a prototype GeForce RTX 4070 without external power connectors. The graphics card didn't have the conventional 8-pin PCIe connector or the novelty 16-pin power connector, which has already gone through a quick revision for improved safety. Nonetheless, the graphics card doesn't magically draw power out of thin air, but a proprietary connection, which is one downside to Asus' design.

Instead of PCIe power connectors, Asus implemented a custom connector called the "GC_HPWR" connector that takes after a PCIe x1 connector. The GC_HPWR connector resides beside the PCIe 4.0 x16 connector. The custom slot is essentially a passthrough solution. As opposed to the 16-pin power cable connecting to the graphics card, it plugs into a connector on the back of the motherboard where the power passes through the slot to the graphics card. As a result, the graphics card will not function on a typical motherboard. It requires a proprietary expansion slot on upcoming Asus motherboards with the BTF (Back To Future) design, where the power connectors are behind the motherboard.

Bilibili content creator Eixa Studio, who recently attended Bilibili World 2023 exhibition in Shanghai, China, claims that Asus will start mass production of the connector-less graphics card in the Fall so that retail products may hit the market before the end of the year. While we've already seen the GeForce RTX 4070 Megalodon and TUF Gaming Z790 BTF with a black theme, Eixa Studio saw a new white variant of the same GeForce RTX 40-series graphics card and an upcoming TX Gaming B760-BTF WiFi motherboard for Intel Raptor Lake and Raptor Lake Refresh processors.

Due to the design and extra components required, the connector-less graphics cards and matching BTF motherboards will likely come with a slight premium compared to standard hardware. The million-dollar question is whether the higher price tag can convince consumers to jump on Asus' bandwagon. The cable-free design offers no performance benefits other than making your build look cleaner and avoiding the 16-pin power connector meltdown disaster.

MSI has seemingly started to sell its own GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card with a two-wide blower-type cooling system. Since Nvidia does not produce its own high-end graphics cards with blowers since they may compete against its expensive workstation and server-oriented add-in-boards (AIBs), large makers of graphics cards tend to not offer them. According to a tweet by @harukaze5719, MSI has apparently produced one and it is being offered for sale

MSI's GeForce RTX 4090 Aero S 24G (which is not even listed at MSI.com) is now apparently available from 3DStor.com, an online store specializing on datacenter and workstation hardware. From a specifications point of view, the board follows Nvidia's recommendations when it comes to boost clocks (2520 MHz), so this graphics card is certainly not a factory-overclocked product. In fact, keeping in mind that the device is aimed not only at gamers with compact rigs, but mostly at professionals seeking to install two or more of such cards in one system, it is better to run at stock to avoid overheating. 

The board uses a 16-pin 12VHPWR connector, but for some reason 3DStor.com lists its TGP at 350W, which is 100W lower when compared to regular RTX 4090 AIBs. We must assume that this is a typo and that its TGP is the same as other RTX 4090 graphics cards, which are currently the best graphics cards for gaming. Meanwhile, when the board peaks at 450W, its blower-based cooling system likely gets extremely loud. 

Speaking of blower-style coolers in general, we must note that while not the most silent or efficient, these cooling systems are ideal for cooling high-heat graphics cards in compact PCs, especially when multiple cards are installed. They work well even with limited internal airflow and the only viable alternative in such cases is obviously liquid cooling. 

While 3DStor lists MSI's GeForce RTX 4090 Aero S 24G, it never reveals its price. In fact, it is likely that interested parties need to contact the company and tell the number of boards they want before getting exact quote. Meanwhile, the device can be purchased at Ebay for a whopping price of $3,065, which is comparable to the price of mid-range professional offerings.

According to a recent Reddit post, Nvidia is subtly upgrading its Best GPU the RTX 4090 Founders Edition, with the same modified 16-pin power connector recently found on the RTX 4070. The Redditor, known as u/prackprackprack, uploaded pictures to Reddit showing off the shortened sense pins on his RTX 4090. The changes were confirmed by other Redditors, comparing his images to images of older RTX 4090 FE cards.

The modifications made on the new RTX 4090 FE power connector include changes to the four sense pins that feed data to and from the GPU to the PSU. The pins have been retracted slightly inside the connector. This adjustment was apparently taken from the latest 12V-2x6 power connector specifications to ensure the power connector won't continuously feed power to the GPU if the 16-pin power cable is not inserted all the way. This should keep the graphics card safe from death due to fire or overheating, as we've seen with various RTX 4090 cards since launch.

Brand New 4090 FE Shortened Sense Pins? In response to Igor’s Lab Article “Secret change to the sense pins starting from the GeForce RTX 4070 FE and no one noticed it” from r/nvidia

It's good to see that Nvidia is finally introducing this modified connector to the RTX 4090, which is the most prone to disaster due to its incredibly high power consumption of up to 450W — more on some overclocked models. The modifications made to the RTX 4090 were originally seen in the RTX 4070, which has had them since launch even though Nvidia didn't call out this fact.

For reference, the power connector we're seeing here (for both the 4090 and 4070) appears to be a prototype 12V-2x6 connector that has been built according to PCI-SIG's recommended specifications. The 12V-2x6 connector is still in active development, meaning a finalized version of the connector is not yet available for Nvidia to use. Nonetheless, it seems like the RTX 4090 melting reports were enough for Nvidia to rush a prototype version out to its newer cards, hopefully stopping more GPUs from dying.

The frustrating part of this situation is that we don't know which production versions of the RTX 4090 are receiving this new connector. We also don't know if the prototype connector is making its way to AIB partner models or not. But, if Nvidia follows the same trend as the RTX 4070, the RTX 4090 should be getting this new connector for both Founders Edition and AIB partner models.

We'd also expect all manufacturers of other graphics cards that use a 16-pin connector — including the RTX 4080, RTX 4070 Ti, RTX 4060 Ti, and perhaps even some RTX 4060 models — to eventually shift to the new style connector as well. How long it might take before the older variants clear the market remains to be seen.

According to Andreas Schilling, an editor at Germany's HardwareLuxx, Nvidia add-in-board partners are largely disinterested in preparing and promoting GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB graphics cards. This could mean fewer choices than expected for those interested in this $499 price point targeting GPU.

The German tech magazine editor Tweeted (h/t VideoCardz) that he had discussed the upcoming launch of the RTX 4060 Ti 16GB model with some AIBs. In particular, he raised his concerns by mentioning "how many fewer models there are compared to the standard variant." Reading between the lines, AIBs may only be going through the motions with this launch, and that will ultimately mean fewer models, perhaps even resulting in some market scarcity.

Market scarcity could be a bad thing for consumers, as it usually stymies price competition. However, in this case, the mix of performance, features, memory, and the $499 target price might mean no one will be interested in this product anyway. A major issue for this upcoming GeForce RTX 40 family member is that the $499 price point is getting perilously close to the gravitational pull of the RTX 4070 zone.

The $499 MSRP of the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB is way higher than a typical Nvidia 60-class product. Meanwhile, the RTX 4070 adds a significant performance boost for approximately $100 more, with its 5,888 CUDA cores (i.e. over 35% more CUDA cores). Another big advantage of the RTX 4070 stems from its memory subsystem: using faster GDDR6, and a wider memory bus, for almost double the memory bandwidth.

Our Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti review made the RTX 4070 12GB's superiority very clear, and some extra bandwidth-constrained memory isn't going to help the former very much.

From a leak we reported yesterday, it probably won't be too long until the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB is released. A reliable Twitter tipster shared an image that indicates the 16GB version of the RTX 4060 Ti is going to be on shelves from July 18, and we typically see reviews a day before.

Referencing back to Andreas Schilling's Tweets, the HardwareLuxx editor asserts that the only reason for the existence of the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB SKU is "to quiet those critics who find that 8GB are not enough." So, please stay tuned for our review of one of these questionable graphics cards, and we will be sure to let you know whether this memory-bumped GPU is worthwhile and whether it is worthy of inclusion in the ranks of the best graphics cards.

Renowned overclocker Allen 'Splave' Golibersuch has succeeded in overclocking the Asus ROG Matrix GeForce RTX 4090 to a world record 4,005 MHz. This is the first time (although there will now be a flurry of attempts) for a GPU to hit 4 GHz. It comes on the back of a previous attempt which saw the card fall just short (3,945 MHz) of the magic number.

The new world record was set on an Asus ROG Matrix GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card (which may become the best graphics board money can buy when it is released), which features a cherry-picked GPU that is powered by a sophisticated voltage regulating module (VRM) that delivers up to 600W of very clean power (the maximum one can get from one 12VHPWR connector) to the processor. The GPU was cooled down using liquid nitrogen, which is common for extreme overclocking.

The Nvidia AD102 GPU on the graphics card managed to pass the GPUPi 32B 3.3 test at 4,005 MHz and then the GPUPi 1B 3.3 test a 4,020 MHz. GPUPi is certainly not a graphics program, it uses CUDA cores to calculate the value of Pi number to 32 billion and two 1 billion decimal places. Essentially, the workload does not need to overclock fixed function graphics hardware like texture units or render back ends. Nonetheless, 4 GHz on a GPU is quite an achievement.

Last week Splave managed to boost the AD102 graphics processor on the Asus ROG Matrix RTX 4090 to a record-breaking 3,945 MHz. Rather than modifying the card, he simply substituted the original all-in-one liquid cooling system with a Kingpin Cooling TEK-9 Icon Extreme GPU pot designed for LN2, and incorporated three heaters along with three ElmorLabs HOT300 heater controllers. All further adjustments and overclocking were carried out using BIOS configurations and overclocking software.

Nvidia's AD102 was architected to for high clocks. The GPU developer relaxed transistor density, which possibly points to usage of high-performance libraries, so the graphics processor was destined to be fast. Meanwhile, clocking 76.3 billion transistors at 4 GHz is something that is quite unexpected.

PCI-SIG is yet to formally introduce a revamped version of 12VHPWR connector that can solve the melting connector issue that has plagued GeForce RTX 40-series graphics cards several months ago. Igor's Lab claims that Nvidia's own GeForce RTX 4070 Founders Edition graphics board already uses the refined 12V-2×6 auxiliary power plug.

The main difference between the original 12VHPWR connector and the new 12V-2×6 plug are shorter sense pins, approximately 1.7 mm. This design ensures that the power header is fully inserted into the connector, otherwise the power supply does not activate high power modes, avoiding overheating and melting when a graphics card requires a lot of power.

It looks like for now only Astron produces the new 12V-2×6 power connectors and Nvidia is the only company that uses them, at least according to Igor's Lab. Other suppliers of graphics cards will most likely wait for PCI-SIG to formally specify the new plug before using it for mass market products. It seems that Nvidia is willing to take the risk with its GeForce RTX 4070 Founders Edition product, which is one of the best graphics cards around. 

What remains to be seen is when PCI-SIG finalizes the new 12V-2×6 power connector and when makers of graphics cards start using it instead of the notorious 12VHPWR plug.

Renowned overclocker Allen 'Splave' Golibersuch has managed to overclock Nvidia's AD102 GPU on Asus's upcoming ROG Matrix GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card to nearly 4.0 GHz — 3,945 MHz to be more exact — without modifying the card. With liquid nitrogen cooling, the board could pass the GPUPi 32B 3.3 test and even set the world's record in this benchmark.  

By using liquid nitrogen cooler on the ROG Matrix GeForce RTX 4090 card (which has all chances to lead the best graphics cards list) that has been architected for overclocking, Splave managed to push the AD102 graphics processor to an unprecedented 3,945 MHz. He did not modify the card, just replaced the stock all-on-one liquid cooling system with the Kingpin Cooling TEK-9 Icon Extreme GPU pot for LN2 and attached three heaters and three ElmorLabs HOT300 heater controllers. All the tweaking and overclocking were then performed using BIOS settings and OC software. 

The GPU running at 3,945 MHz calculated Pi to 32,000,000,000 digits in 46.077 seconds, which is a world record, according to Splave. GPUPi is certainly not a graphics workload, so it remains to be seen how high the ROG Matrix GeForce RTX 4090 can push the GPU in actual games, but getting very close to the 4.0 GHz GPU clock milestone is important. To date, 3,825 MHz is AD102's record for 3D workloads. 

This is not the first time Nvidia's AD102 GPU has been overclocked significantly higher than its recommended 2,520 MHz boost clock, without voltmodding the card itself. Perhaps the Asus ROG Matrix GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card is a device that does not need voltmodding? It uses a highly-custom printed circuit board (PCB) with a meticulously designed voltage regulating module (VRM) that can deliver up to 600W of very clean power (the maximum one can get from one 12VHPWR connector) to the GPU and memory, which is vital for a successful overclock. 

Asus itself positions the ROG Matrix GeForce RTX 4090 as a crème-de-la-crème graphics card with the industry's highest GPU boost clock for those who want absolutely the best PC hardware and have pockets that are deep enough to afford it. Apparently, the graphics board can impress even before it hits the market.

PNY has quietly introduced its GeForce RTX 4070 Blower graphics card that, as the name suggests, uses a blower type cooling system. The board is currently available only in China, but it can be shipped to any part of the world and may eventually show up in the U.S. and/or Europe. 

PNY's GeForce RTX 4070 Blower, which was discovered by MEGAsizeGPU at JD.com, sports typical specifications for a GeForce RTX 4070 board: the AD104 graphics processor with 5,888 CUDA cores that operates at 1,920 MHz – 2,475 MHz and is connected to 12GB of GDDR6X memory using a 192-bit interface. The card has four display outputs (three DisplayPorts 1.4, one HDMI 2.0b) and one eight-pin auxiliary PCIe power connector.

The key selling point of the graphics card is not its enhanced performance, but its dimensions — it measures 278.4 mm x 119.4 mm  x 40 mm — that are compact enough to install more than one card into a motherboard thanks to the blower cooler.

Blower type coolers are not always the quietest or the most efficient cooling systems. However, when it comes to cooling down a graphics card that emits 200 ~ 300W of heat in a compact PC, these coolers are often as good as it gets. Blowers exhaust warm air from the case, efficiently operating even when internal air circulation is not ideal. Moreover, in cases where multiple graphics cards are combined in one system, these coolers are the only air solution that can ensure sufficient cooling in such confined spaces with limited air circulation. The only better option would be liquid cooling.

Nvidia doesn't often allow add-in-board partners to use blowers on consumer-oriented products. It's possible that this is because it allows multiple cards to be installed and more easily, and that that kind of horsepower that would rival that of professional graphics cards. Nvidia's RTX-branded professional cards are all equipped with blowers. 

But PNY's GeForce RTX 4070 blower is not cheap. The company officially calls the product 'artificial intelligence turbo graphics card' with a 'silent turbine fan suitable for multi-card environments' and positions it rather for AI developers than for gamers. To that end, the board is priced at ¥6,999 ($966 with taxes, $855 without taxes), which exceeds recommended price of a GeForce RTX 4070 in the U.S. ($599).

Nvidia has published official benchmark results of its upcoming GeForce RTX 4060 graphics card just a week ahead of its launch on June 29. The new $299 Ada Lovelace-based graphics card is shown to be across-the-board faster than its predecessor based on the Ampere architecture, but there is catch: the newcomer shows its most significant advantages with AI frame generation enabled. Without it, it is merely 20% faster, according to Nvidia.

Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4060 graphics card is based on the AD106 GPU with 3072 CUDA cores enabled that has peak FP32 compute throughput of 15 TFLOPS, which is just 15% higher compared to GeForce RTX 3060 with its 13 FP32 TFLOPS. But the AD106 has noticeable advantages over GA106 in the form of massively improved ray tracing performance (+40%) and Tensor compute throughput (+137%). The latter can be used for AI, advanced DLSS 3 upscaling, and AI image generation workloads. We'll see if that's enough to make it one of the best graphics cards.

We can make guesses why Nvidia decided to balance its Ada Lovelace microarchitecture the way it balanced it, but it is obvious that the company will use benefits — DLSS 3 and AI image generation — that is has to outshine predecessors and competitors in games.

That said, it is not particularly surprising that Nvidia demonstrated its GeForce RTX 4060 with DLSS 3 and image generation enabled in as many games as possible, showing rather dramatic performance gains compared to its GeForce RTX 3060. This is indeed a major improvement of the new GeForce RTX 4060 graphics card as it can enable high framerates with all the eye candy enabled in the latest games, something the GeForce RTX 3060 just cannot do.

The company admits that far not all games support AI frame generation and this is where its GeForce RTX 4060 is only 20% faster than its predecessor. A 20% improvement is still not bad, only it is just not something one would expect from a new generation product based on the all-new architecture. 

Nvidia considers lower power consumption of its GeForce RTX 4060 as another advantage of its new board as it will allow to save some money. Yet, this advantage is less obvious than performance gains.

Leading graphics cards manufacturers like Asus, Colorful, Gainward, Galax, Gigabyte, Inno3D, KFA2, MSI, Palit, PNY, and Zotac will be releasing the GeForce RTX 4060 graphics cards starting June 29. Nvidia's recommended price for GeForce RTX 4060 boards is $299, but expect products that will carry different price tags as well.

Razer often bucks the trends set by some of the best gaming laptops. As bigger has often been considered better in this space, Razer has  stuck with the 14-inch display for the Blade 14 to focus on portability. However, this smaller form factor still incorporates a potent AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS “Phoenix” processor and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 GPU.

All this power resides inside a chassis that weighs just a smidge over 4 pounds. Playing up its gaming roots, the 16:10 aspect ratio QHD+ (2560 x 1600) display maxes out at 240 Hz, and there’s RGB lighting for the keyboard and the Razer logo on the lid. Throw in a massive touchpad, plentiful ports, and great battery life and you have what looks to be a winning combination for a highly portable gaming laptop.

However, a laptop can’t be everything to everybody, so some sacrifices had to be made. The Blade 14 has a few cracks in its armor, namely surrounding fan noise and price, but its performance ranks among the best in this gathered field of laptops.

Razer Blade 14 Specs

Design of the Razer Blade 14

The design of the Razer Blade 14 hasn’t changed much over the years. It’d be easy to mistake this year’s model for the one we reviewed back in 2021 regarding its exterior. The compact laptop exudes quality with tight tolerances around the chassis and zero flex.

The display hinge is particularly noteworthy for its strength, with zero “wobble.” With many laptops, the display will wobble back and forth if you move it around or type at a furious pace. With the Blade 14, the hinge is so stiff that it doesn’t move at all once you’ve adjusted the angle to your liking. That sense of quality and solidity extends to tasks as simple as opening the lid. Some laptops are so lightweight or ill-balanced that lifting the lid while the computer is sitting on a desk causes the chassis to lift slightly or requires two hands. With the Blade 14, lifting the lid requires just your thumb, and the chassis remains planted.

The design of the keyboard deck is reminiscent of Apple’s 14-inch MacBook Pro, complete with the tiny, precision perforations for the speakers. On the right side of the Blade 14, you’ll find one USB 3.2 (Type-A), one USB 4 (Type-C) and an HDMI 2.1 port. The left side is home to one USB 3.2 (Type-A), one USB 4 (Type-C), a 3.5 mm headphone jack and a proprietary connector for power.

The Blade 14 measures 12.23 x 8.97 0.70 inches and weighs just 4.05 pounds. That’s ever so slightly larger and heavier than the last Blade 14 we tested in 2021. The other laptops in this field that we've tested witih similar gaming performance (Gigabyte Aorus 15X, Asus ROG Strix G16 and Razer Blade 16) all feature 15.6- or 16-inch displays and are a pound or more heavier than the Blade 14.

Gaming Performance on the Razer Blade 14

The Razer Blade 14 uses an AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS processor, which comes in an 8-core/16-thread configuration. The base clock is 4.0 GHz, while the maximum boost clock is 5.2G Hz. Coming alongside the CPU is an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 GPU (1,410 MHz boost clock, 8GB GDDR6, 100W TDP) and 16GB of DDR5-5600 memory (2 x 8GB).

I played Cyberpunk 2077 on high settings with ray tracing enabled, DLSS Balanced, and DLSS frame generation enabled, averaging 70 frame per second at 1600p. When I dropped the resolution to 1080p with the same graphical settings, performance increased to around 110 fps. I averaged about 130 fps DLSS Quality without ray tracing at 1080p and 90 fps at 1600p. 

The Blade 14 gave us at least 70 fps across the board at 1080p, although stepping up to 1600p resulted in a significant (but expected) drop in performance. We should note that given the wide disparities in resolutions between all four laptops, we’ll note our observations on 1080p performance for all systems. However, 1600p/1440p comments will be limited to the Blade 14 and Gigabyte Aorus 15X.

In our Shadow of the Tomb Raider (Highest Settings) benchmark running at 1080p, the Blade 14 took second place in the rankings at 114 fps behind the Aorus ROG Strix G16 (Core i9-13980HX, RTX 4070, 1200p) at 116 fps. The Blade 16 (Core i9-13950HX, RTX 4070, 2400p) and Gigabyte Aorus 15X (Core i9-13900HX, RTX 4070, 1440p) weren’t far behind at 113 fps and 110 fps, respectively. Bumping the resolution to 1600p saw the Blade 14 fall to 67 fps, putting it on nearly even footing with the Aorus 15X (70 fps) running at 1440p.

Moving on to Grand Theft Auto V (Very High Settings), the ROG Strix G16 secured first place at 1080p with 100 fps, nudging past the ROG Strix G16 and Razer Blade 15 at 95 fps. The Aorus 15X pulled in last with a still respectable 93 fps. Switching to 1600p resolution, the Blade 14 witnessed a 45 percent drop in performance to 55 ps. As with the Shadow benchmark, the Aorus 15X running at 1440p was in the same ballpark at 56 fps.

Switching gears to Far Cry 6 (Ultra Settings), the Blade 14 faltered a little at 1080p compared to its peers. The Blade 14 took top honors this time around at 102 fps and was followed by the ROG Strix G16 at 98 fps. The Blade 14 settled for third place at 85 fps, while the Aorus 15X limped across the finish line at 75 fps. At 1600p resolution, the Blade 14 stepped down to 68 fps, mirroring the Aorus 15X’s 67 fps at 1440p.

Red Dead Redemption 2 (Medium Settings) saw the laptops closely clustered around the 70 fps mark at 1080p resolution. The Blade 14 hit 74 fps and was followed by the Blade 14 at 73 fps, the ROG Strix G16 at 72 fps and the Aorus 15X at 70 fps. When we set the Blade 14’s resolution to 1600p, performance dropped to 45 fps, equaling the Aorus 15X’s performance at 1440p.

As for Borderlands 3 (Badass Settings), this was another instance where the laptops were grouped closely together at 1080p resolution. The Blade 16 hit 102 fps and was followed by the ROG Strix G16 at 100 fps. The Blade 14 and Aorus 15X tied at 98 fps. Increasing the resolution saw the Blade 14 fall to 64 fps, while the Aorus 15X squeezed in a few more frames to 67 fps at 1440p.

We ran the Metro Exodus benchmark (RTX) through 15 loops at 1600p resolution to round out our benchmarks. The benchmark ran at an average 61.44 fps (consistently ranging between 61.27 to 61.55 fps). During the run, the Ryzen 9 7940HS averaged 3.863GHz at 81.4 degrees Celsius (178.52 degrees Fahrenheit). The GeForce RTX 4070 GPU ran at an average of 2.06 GHz and measured 76 C (168.8 F).

Productivity Performance on the Razer Blade 14

The Blade 14 features a Ryzen 9 7940HS processor, 16GB DDR5-5600 memory and 1TB SSD.

In our Geekbench 5 benchmark, the Blade 14 was last for single-core performance. It lost out by a single point to the Aorus 15X (which is effectively in the margin of error). However, the Blade 14 took a severe walloping in the multi-core benchmark, where it mustered a score of 11,121, which was no match for the Raptor Lake competition. The third-place Aorus 15X scored 18,129, while the Blade 16 bested all challengers at 20,497.

The file transfer test also saw the Blade 14 come in last place by a small margin, hitting 1,230.04 MBps while transferring 25GB of files. The Blade 16 once again came in first place at 1,850.71 MBps.

In our Handbrake transcoding test, the Blade 14 slipped into second place, finishing in four minutes and 45 seconds compared to four minutes and eight seconds for the first-place Aorus 15X. The ROG Strix G16 and Blade 16 finished the test in just over five minutes.

Display on the Razer Blade 14

The Blade 14 is no slouch in the display department, as expected, with an as-tested price of $2,699. The 14-inch IPS display has a QHD+ (2560 x 1600) resolution with a maximum refresh rate of 240 Hz. AMD FreeSync Premium is supported via the Radeon 780M GPU integrated into the CPU.

Although the display is a bit on the smaller side for a gaming laptop (15.6 inches is the most popular size, and many are moving to 16 inches), I found the 1600p resolution made the text look super sharp on the display. Coupled with the matte, anti-glare coating, the display was easily readable indoors and outdoors.

Our light meter showed that the Blade 14’s display could get incredibly bright, hitting a maximum of 465 nits. This was second only to its Blade 16 sibling in this grouping, which achieved 511 nits. The superlatives didn’t end there, though; the Blade 14 covered 114.3 percent of the DCI-P3 color space and 161 percent of sRGB. The Blade 16 was the next-closest competitor, but its colorimeter results fell well short of its smaller sibling at 93.7 and 132 percent, respectively.

In real-world testing, the display looked fantastic when playing Cyberpunk 2077. I like to play with all the goodies enabled, and with details cranked to Ultra with ray tracing enabled, the richness of the gaming environment came to life. From the soft, neon glow of the lights and signs in bars to the reflections seen on vehicles passing by in the daytime and at night, Night City can truly shine on this display.

It was a similar experience with Avatar: Way of Water, which I watched on Disney Plus. The expansive aquatic backdrops' vibrant greens and cooling blues were a sight to behold. As someone who was blown away by the original Avatar when seeing it on the big screen when it debuted over a decade ago, seeing Way of Water showed just how far CGI has advanced during that time. Even on the smaller screen of the Blade 14, Pandora looked lush and teeming with life.

Keyboard and Touchpad on the Razer Blade 14

The keyboard feels great under my fingers, with a nice spring-back after pressing a key (Razer says there’s 1 mm of key travel). There’s minimal noise when typing furiously on the keyboard, although the spacebar definitely makes itself audibly known.  

The 14-inch chassis leaves less room for an expansive keyboard, although I had no trouble adjusting to its size. Of course, there’s no room for a number pad off the right side of the keyboard, although folks looking for laptops in this size class likely aren’t expecting one anyway. Razer could have gotten away with including a larger keyboard by repositioning the speakers, which take up a significant amount of space.

The Microsoft Precision touchpad is made of clickable glass, and takes up roughly half of the available palm rest space below the keyboard (it measures 5.9 x 3.4 inches).

Razer's Synapse software is installed to give you complete control over the keyboard. Not only can you reprogram most individual keys, but you also have per-key control over RGB lighting. You can choose your own custom lighting scheme, or choose from several preset options. I personally settled on “Breathing” as my favorite RGB scheme.

I use keyhero.com to test my typing speed with various keyboards. With the Blade 14, I achieved 90 words per minute with 94 percent accuracy. For comparison, I hit 85 wpm with 94 percent accuracy on the Lenovo Legion Pro 5i (Gen 8). 

Audio on the Razer Blade 14 

The Blade 14 features stereo speakers, which are adequate in games and other multimedia content. You can manually tweak the audio settings using the THX Spatial Audio app, but there are also EQ presets for Music, Games, Cinema, and Video. You can also use the app to turn on THX Spatial Audio, which provides a virtual surround sound experience.

I tried THX Spatial Audio in Borderlands 3, Cyberpunk 2077 and Overwatch 2. However, I didn’t notice enough difference between on and off for it to matter much; I just decided to leave it off after my initial tests. The speakers got plenty loud and were powerful enough to mostly drown out the fan noise.

There isn’t a lot of bass from the speakers, and they still sound a bit tinny (which was also one of our complaints with the 2021 version of the Blade 14). Explosions fell flat in Overwatch 2 and bass-heavy tracks like Tupac and Dr. Dre’s “California Love” sounded like they were recorded in a dilapidated bathroom. However, they are serviceable for games, music and movies. But we’d suggest looking at some of the best gaming headsets if you want the best sound experience. 

Upgradeability on the Razer Blade 14

The Blade 14’s internals are accessible after removing eight Torx screws from the bottom panel. With the screws removed, you slide the panel forward to release it from the rear hinge area, and it pops off. 

Once removed, you have direct access to the battery, Wi-Fi/Bluetooth combo card and the SSD. The two SO-DIMM slots (both occupied with 8GB DDR5-5600 modules on our review unit) are “hidden” behind an easily-removed plastic shield. This is a big upgrade over previous Blade 14 models, which had their memory soldered onto the motherboard. 

Battery Life on the Razer Blade 14

When it comes to endurance, the Blade 14 is a strong contender. The laptop lasted eight hours and 34 minutes on a charge during our battery life test consisting of web browsing, light graphics work and video streaming while connected to Wi-Fi with display brightness set at 150 nits. This was just slightly behind the ROG Strix G16, which lasted 15 minutes longer. 

The Aorus 15X and Blade 16 weren’t in contention, as they lasted just 5:20 and 5:06, respectively. 

Heat on the Razer Blade 14

Razer packs in a Ryzen 9 7940HS and RTX 4070 into a very compact chassis. That means the dual-fan cooling system has its work cut out to keep system temperatures in check. When running any game, the fans spin up to maximum RPM, which is very loud to my ears. Wearing noise-canceling headphones was the only way to escape the constant drone of the fans in the background.

We measured 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit) on the touchpad and 42.22 degrees C (108 degrees F) between the G and H keys during the Metro Exodus stress test. The hottest spot on the underside of the chassis was 50.83 degrees C (123.5 degrees F). 

Webcam on the Razer Blade 14 

Like most new laptops that are hitting the market these days, Razer outfitted the Blade 14 with a 1080p webcam. Razer includes a handy, physical privacy shutter to block unwanted eyes from spying on you. And to make it completely obvious that the shutter is enabled, a little painted red circle is visible when the lens is covered.

While the image quality is a step up from the old 720p unit we reviewed in the 2021 Blade 14, it’s not quite a match for the best 1080p webcams we reviewed in recent notebooks. Images still look a tad grainy despite the sensor upgrade, and the colors look a bit “off” to my eyes. For example, my salmon-colored shirt appeared more like a pale pink.

The webcam is fine for Google Meet or Zoom meetings, but we’d suggest trying out one of the best webcams if you want better quality.

Software and Warranty on the Razer Blade 14 

Razer keeps the number of factory-installed apps to a minimum with the Blade 14. Razer Synapse is included for access lighting for the keyboard and logo on the lid as well as customizing macros. Some people find Synapse objectionable, especially when it comes to adding new peripherals to a system, but it worked without issue on our review unit. I use a Razer Atheris wireless mouse when testing laptops, and Synapse greeted the mouse with open arms when I first plugged in its USB dongle.

The only other notable additions are the Realtek Audio Console and THX Spatial Audio for fine-tuning the equalizer and overall sound output.

Given that the Blade 14 comes with Windows 11 Home installed, you’ll also have to contend with the plethora of shortcuts that come with the operating system, including Spotify, ESPN and TikTok (among others).

The Blade 14 comes with a 1-year limited warranty for the laptop and a 2-year warranty for the battery.

Razer Blade 14 Configurations 

The Razer Blade 14 comes in three primary configurations. The base Blade 14 SKU with a Ryzen 9 7940HS processor, 16GB of DDR5-5600 memory and an RTX 4060 costs $2,399. Upgrading to the RTX 4070 takes the price to $2,699 – this is the configuration of our review unit. Finally, the flagship SKU with the RTX 4070 and 32GB of DDR5-5600 costs $2,799.

The Blade 14 is currently available to purchase directly from Razer’s website.

Bottom Line

The Razer Blade 14 represents a nice year-over-year bump compared to its predecessor. The switch from a 165Hz QHD to 240Hz QHD+ panel brings a noticeable increase in refresh rate and extra vertical real estate for productivity apps.

We should also note that while previous Blade 14 laptops didn’t allow you to upgrade the memory, the new model is expandable to 64GB of DDR5-5600 via two SO-DIMM slots. Gaming performance was strong across the board, and it was within a few percentage points of the top performers in nearly every game benchmark. Productivity performance came up a bit short in Geekbench and the file transfer test, but it offered solid numbers in our Handbrake encoding test. We also must commend Razer on the display, which not only received a bump in resolution but offers superior brightness and color performance compared to its predecessor.

However, the Blade 14 has two major points against it, one of which can be mitigated. The fans are obnoxiously loud and distracting while gaming, but you can throw on a pair of headphones to alleviate this. One thing that you can’t change, though, is the price. The Blade 14, as tested, costs $2,699. That’s a lot of money to spend for a gaming laptop, especially one that “only” has 16GB of memory and an RTX 4070. The fact that Razer was able to cram this hardware into a device this small accounts for that price premium, but if you’re willing to sacrifice an extra pound of weight, you can get a lot more bang for your buck. For example, the Gigabyte Aorus 15X largely matches the Blade 14 in performance and costs $2,099.  We saw the same kind of extreme price difference among competitors with the Razer Blade 16.

But if excellent performance in the most compact frame is your ultimate goal and you demand AMD's latest processors, there isn’t much else out there like the Razer Blade 14. You just have to be willing to pay up for the privilege.

PC memory and graphics card maker Inno3D has announced "Stealth Cable Management" is coming to a subset of its Ada Lovelace graphics cards. Starting with upcoming GeForce RTX 4070, GeForce RTX 4060 Ti and GeForce RTX 4060 Twin X2 / OC White Edition graphics cards, users will find the 8-pin power connector is recessed within the center-rear of the card.

Inno3D noted recessed cables and connectors was something of a trend at the recent Computex show, and thinks it will be a more important part of computer component product design going forward. The firm appears to have brainstormed the benefits of recessed cables, and users should benefit from the following key advantages of its "unique approach":

• Improved cable management
• Cleaner look for better aesthetics
• Facilitates gentler bends in the power cables
• Streamlined case airflow
• White cards come with white power cables

Regular readers will be aware that this isn't a unique innovation from Inno3D, as the updated Gigabyte RTX 4090 WindForce v2 design also gained a recessed cable connector, last week, as a refinement compared to the previous model.

In its press release about the Stealth Cable Management enhanced graphics cards, Inno3D implies that this feature will come to the white graphics cards first. It specifically says that "The GeForce RTX 4070, GeForce RTX 4060 Ti and GeForce 4060 GPUs will come bundled with white power cables, which perfectly complement the card's overall white theme." We don't have any mention of, or images of, the black models (black / grey) with this power cable recess design.

Plugging in the power connector on these new models won't be as straight forward as many are used to. Inno3D says that one half of the backplate can be lifted to insert the 8-pin PCIe power connector head. We guess it then screws down and the connector block becomes captive. Of course you will also need a modular PSU to make use of the Inno3D cable provided.

We have been talking about graphics card power connectors and cables probably more than we would have liked to in recent months. Since the launch of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 there has been quite a long list of cabling / connector issues affecting PC enthusiasts and DIYers. Pushing the advancement of cabling from another angle is the growing expectation of PC makers that a machine will look magnificent both inside and out.

We don't know when these new recessed power cable connector graphics cards from Inno3D will hit shelves, and / or if there will be any premium to pay compared to existing designs. Inno3D hints that it will be watching the sales success of this white mid-range Stealth Cable Management series, and may end up applying the same design change to more GPUs, if its toe-in-the-water isn't burned.

Razer today announced a new version of its Razer Blade 14 laptop, and it’s quite an intriguing ultraportable. Whereas the current generation is powered by a Ryzen 6900HX processor (8 cores, 16 threads) and your choice of up to a GeForce RTX 3080 Ti GPU, the new 2023 edition of the Razer Blade 14 brings the latest mobile hardware from AMD and Nvidia.

To be more specific, Razer opted for AMD’s Ryzen 7940HS “Phoenix” processor, which AMD bills as the first x86 processor with a dedicated, onboard AI engine. This processor also features an 8-core/16-thread configuration but with a base clock of 4 GHz and a turbo clock of 5 GHz. Razer also upgraded the discrete graphics across-the-board to Nvidia Ada Lovelace architecture. Base configurations get a GeForce RTX 4060 (8GB, 2370MHz boost, 140-watt), but you can step up to the optional RTX 4070 (8GB, 2175MHz boost, 140-watt) if you need more performance.

All systems have a 1TB SSD (upgradable to 4TB), while 16GB of DDR5-5600 memory is standard. If you opt for the RTX 4070, you can upgrade to 32GB of DDR5-5600. The maximum installable memory on the Razer Blade 14 is 64GB using the two onboard SO-DIMM slots.

All that hardware pushes pixels to a 14-inch, QHD+ (2560 x 1600) 16:10 display with a 240Hz refresh rate and AMD FreeSync Premium support. In addition to its anti-glare finish to cut down on reflections, Razer says that it’s spec’d for 500 nits typical brightness and covers 100 percent of the DCI-P3 color space.

Fueling this mobile powerhouse is a 68.1 WHr lithium-ion polymer battery, which powers the Blade 14 for up to 10 hours. On the connectivity front, you’ll find the requisite HDMI 2.1 port, two USB 3.2 Gen 2 (Type-A) ports, two USB 4 (Type-C) ports (up to 100-watt Power Delivery supported) and a 3.5mm combo jack. For your wireless needs, Razer opted for Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 (Qualcomm WCN6856).

1080p webcams are becoming more commonplace on laptops, and Razer is no exception with the Blade 14. However, the company goes one step further by including a privacy shutter for those concerned about nefarious parties spying on you without permission. For your audio needs, you’ll find dual speakers with THX Spatial Audio support. Other features include a Razer Chroma RGB keyboard and a Windows Precision Trackpad.

The Blade 14 is constructed of anodized aluminum that is resistant to your greasy fingerprints and is available in Matte Black or Mercury White (exclusive to the 32GB/RTX 4070 SKU). The laptop measures 12.23 x 8.97 x 0.70 inches and weighs just 4.05 pounds.

The base Blade 14 SKU with 16GB of RAM and an RTX 4060 costs $2,399. Upgrading to the RTX 4070 takes the price to $2,699. Finally, the flagship SKU with the RTX 4070 and 32GB of RAM costs $2,799. The Blade 14 is up for preorder today and will begin shipping on June 20th.

It appears that Nvidia plans to introduce its cheapest Ada Lovelace-based graphics cards — the GeForce RTX 4060 with 8 GB of GDDR6 memory onboard — on June 29, 2023, according to reputable leaker MEGAsizeGPU that tends to be accurate when it comes to Nvidia's launch plans. However, as this information is from a leak, consider it cautiously and with the required amount of salt.

Based on a document published by the leaker, Nvidia and its add-in-board (AIB) partners will ship GeForce RTX 4060 products to the channel on June 12, so the cards will be in stock shortly. Nvidia wants reviews of graphics cards carrying a $299 MSRP to be published in June 28 and reviews of boards with a non-MSRP price tag to be released on June 29. On the same day, the product, which has all chances to become one of the best graphics cards available this summer, will be on the shelves.

The GeForce RTX 4060 is expected to use the AD106 GPU, which comes with 3072 CUDA cores, and is paired with 8GB of 17 GT/s GDDR6 memory via a 128-bit interface. This new AIB comes with a GPU that features notably fewer active CUDA cores compared to the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti, which has 4352 CUDA cores, indicating a significant disparity in performance between the two. However, the power consumption of the RTX 4060 model is estimated to be up to 115W, which is considerably lower than that of the RTX 4060 Ti model.

The relatively low power consumption will enable makers of graphics cards to experiment designs for both the printed circuit board as well as cooling system. Therefore, expect both compact GeForce RTX 4060 boards with single-slot coolers or with low-profile PCB as well as cards featuring large cooling systems that will promise extended overclocking capability.

It is noteworthy that the document published by @Zed_Wang also notes the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB, which is potentially a very interesting graphics card for gamers, but only indicates that this will be available in July without clarifying the date.

Keep in mind that while the leaker is reputable and tends to have actual documents, plans can change and this is still an unofficial source. That said, take the information with a grain of salt.

Inno3D has thought of a way to hide the power connectors on the brand’s upcoming GeForce RTX 4070 and GeForce RTX 4060 Ti, two of the best graphics cards on the market. Unlike Asus’ concept of ditching the power connectors, Inno3D ingeniously placed them at the back of the graphics card.

Inno3D is preparing to launch the GeForce RTX 4070 AX eSports and the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti iChill X2 White in the Chinese market. Consumers will surely like the idea of having the power cables routed to the back of the graphics card since it would facilitate cable management and improve the overall aesthetics of the build.

The power connectors reside on the back of the PCB, located in an área between the heatsink and backplate. Inno3D rotated the power connector in a 180-degree orientation so it faces the motherboard instead of the side panel of your case. The good news is that the graphics card only requires a single power cable, so consumers don’t have to worry about routing multiple cables.

In Inno3D’s case, the two upcoming graphics cards leverage a standard 8-pin PCIe power connector. However, we can see the utility of the design for models that use the 16-pin power connector. With all the cases of the 16-pin power connector meltdowns, consumers are paying extra attention when connecting and vending the cable. Inno3D’s design offers ample clearance space for bending the cable, and consumers can discard the power adapter, assuming they have an ATX 3.0-compliant power supply. 

Although both graphics cards have hidden power connectors, they differ slightly in implementation. The GeForce RTX 4070 AX eSports comes with a partially-removable backplate. Users can lift one-half of the backplate to reveal the 8-pin PCIe power connector. On the other hand, the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti iChill X2 White isn’t as long as the GeForce RTX 4070 AX eSports, so there was no way for Inno3D to use the same design. Nonetheless, consumers won’t have to remove the entire backplate to access the power connector. Instead, the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti iChill X2 White features a sizeable cutout where you can plug in the same 8-pin PCIe power cable.

According to MyDrivers, the GeForce RTX 4070 AX eSports and the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti iChill X2 White will have bundled white power cables to match the graphics cards’ white theme. Inno3D didn’t share the availability or pricing for the graphics cards yet.

Benchmarks of the Apple M2 Ultra's GPU appear to have leaked online. Today, we spotted various social media posts sharing Geekbench GPU compute scores and GFXBench Aztec Ruins scores. On the surface, these results seem to show that the GPU in the new M2 Ultra is highly formidable, offering GPU compute performance somewhere between a GeForce RTX 4070 Ti and RTX 4080. But we need to step back a bit and explain precisely what it is we're looking at.

We reported upon the new Apple M2 Ultra SoC reveal during the firm's annual WWDC earlier in the week. The chip will arrive in updated Mac Studio and Mac Pro designs, which are scheduled to ship next week. However, someone appears to be testing these new Mac computers/processors before consumers can get hold of them, as a raft of benchmarks has appeared online recently.

Yesterday, we picked through a selection of Apple M2 Ultra benchmarks, focusing on the SoC's CPU core performance. Today, we will look more closely at the potential compute capabilities of the M2 Ultra's GPU, thanks to the Geekbench and GFXbench leaks mentioned in the intro.

M2 Ultra Geekbench 6 Compute Benchmarks

It looks like several pre-release M2 Ultra Apple Mac system users have run Geekbench 6's Metal and OpenCL GPU benchmarks. Apple's Metal API is a proprietary graphics API developed by the firm for fast 'direct to the metal' hardware addressing, like an Apple optimized parallel to Microsoft's DirectX.

While these are very interesting synthetic compute benchmarks, we look forward to some thorough real-world testing of the new Apple Macs with M2 Ultra processors, shortly, particularly in gaming, which has been a pain point for Apple's chips.

Note that GPU compute tends to scale far better with multi-chip approaches than GPU graphics — think about Ethereum mining back in the day, where you could connect eight (or more) GPUs to a single modest CPU via PCIe x1 connections and they would all mine at basically 100% of their maximum performance. Not all compute workloads scale that well, but it's still very different than the scaling traditionally seen with real-time graphics used in games.

The new M2 Ultra chip's GPU, featuring up to 76 integrated graphics cores, looks impressive compared to the previous gen M1 Ultra with its maximum 64 graphics cores. In a direct comparison using Geekbench 6, the new-gen M2 Ultra scores about 220,000 or thereabouts, compared to about 155,000 on average for the M1 Ultra.

By this metric, M2 Ultra is over 40% faster than its predecessor in GPU compute tasks. It only has around 10% more graphics cores, so Apple has done well to achieve this scale of uplift.

Turning to a different comparison, the new Apple M2 Ultra's 220,000 Geekbench 6 Compute scores (Metal) sit between the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti (208,340 OpenCL) and RTX 4080 (245,706 OpenCL). For a direct Geekbench 6 OpenCL comparison, the Apple M2 Ultra Open CL scores of about 155,000 are much closer to PC GPUs like the Nvidia RTX A5000 and AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT.

Again, we need to note that Geekbench 6 OpenCL compute performance does not usually translate well to actual gaming workloads. Synthetic Geekbench 6 performance is very different from real-world graphics.

M2 Ultra GFXBench Benchmarks

Another user has put their M2 Ultra-powered Apple Mac through the GFXBench test suite. In the 4K Aztec Ruins offscreen tests, the new Apple SoC is over 55% faster than its predecessor. This seems to be an even better result than the Geekbench 6 GPU compute comparison. Theoretically, it should also give a better indication of 3D accelerations / gaming performance uplifts, since this is a graphics workload rather than compute.

However, GFXBench is not an ideal desktop GPU comparison tool as it doesn't usually scale well with the highest-end graphics hardware. The Aztec Ruins benchmark is more appropriate to smartphone SoCs than to GPUs like RTX 4070 Ti. Furthermore, we need to focus on the GFXBench "offscreen" tests, which assesses the rendering power of the GPU without worrying about the display resolution in use. Considering the entire benchmark suite weighs in at less than 1GB, it's a safe bet that it's not very representative of modern games that can total more than 100GB.

The screenshot above shows that the Apple M2 Ultra can achieve nearly 315 FPS in the 4K Aztec Ruins high-tier offscreen test (Metal API). Above, we mentioned that this score is over 55% faster than the M1 Ultra. A comparable score on the PC platform would again be something between the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti and RTX 4080 (DX12 API).

Big spoonfuls of salt are required here. Ideally, we need to see performance in games and other graphics and compute applications rather than these synthetic workloads that may not be representative of anything truly useful. We look forward to seeing some thorough real-world testing of the new Apple Macs with M2 Ultra processors, which should be available next week.

PNY had some of the best graphics cards on showcase at Computex 2023. The manufacturer even brought some workstation graphics cards, including the RTX 6000 Ada Generation and the RTX 4000 SFF. However, two particular graphics cards caught our attention.

First off, PNY has partnered with Cooler Master to produce the GeForce RTX 4090 Verto. It has become a trend for graphics card manufacturers to pair up with cooling specialists to create innovative products. For example, Asus taps into Noctua's experience and expertise to make the GeForce RTX 4080 16GB GDDR6X Noctua OC Edition.

If you think you've seen some thick GeForce RTX 4090 graphics cards, think again. For example, the GeForce RTX 4090 Verto is a 4.5-slot graphics card, which is insane because it covers almost all the PCI slots from your typical mATX case. For comparison, Asus' custom GeForce RTX 4080 with Noctua features a 4.3-slot design. The dimensions for the GeForce RTX 4090 Verto are 12.2 x 5.6 x 3.5 inches (310 x 142 x 89mm), so it's comparable to Asus' offering, which measures 12.2 x 5.7 x 3.5 inches (310 x 144.8 x 87.5mm). In PNY's case, Cooler Master designed the cooler, while PNY took care of everything underneath the shroud.

Not much is known about the GeForce RTX 4090 Verto. PNY didn't reveal the clock speeds for the GeForce RTX 4090 Verto. The shroud is a prototype, so that the retail version may look slightly different. The graphics card utilizes a dual-fan cooling solution and appears to feature a pair of Cooler Master's Mobius 120P ARGB 30th Anniversary Edition 120mm fans. The prototype has the cooling fans connected to the PWM fan connectors on the motherboard. It draws power from a standard 16-pin (12VHPWR) power connector and offers an HDMI 2.1 port and three DisplayPort 1.4a outputs.

There aren't many blower-type GeForce RTX 40-series graphics cards on the market. Thus far, we only know about two Ada Lovelace models that sport a blower design. In addition, Leadtek sells the WinFast RTX 4070 AI Blower 12G and the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti 12GB Hyper Brain, a China-exclusive SKU. Unfortunately, pickings are incredibly slim regarding blower graphics cards, and while Leadtek is a globally renowned brand, its products aren't widely available in the U.S. market. Therefore, PNY has an excellent opportunity for success with the GeForce RTX 4070 Blower Edition.

The GeForce RTX 4070 Blower Edition comes in a standard dual-slot format with dimensions of 11 x 4.7 x 1.6 inches (278.4 x 119.4 x 40mm), so it's a good fit inside small form factor (SFF) cases and workstations where you have multiple GeForce RTX 4070 Blower Edition graphics cards. The blower design is perfect for expelling heat outside the case instead of standard graphics card coolers. The GeForce RTX 4070 Blower Edition employs an 82mm fan for active cooling. Again, PNY didn't share the clock speeds for the graphics card.

MSI has a diverse offering of custom GeForce RTX 4070 Ti cards, which are among the best graphics cards currently around. The vendor's portfolio consists of nothing less than four different models, eight if you count the overclocked variants too. However, for Computex 2023, MSI prepared a new model to round out the brand's already comprehensive lineup.

The GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Gaming X Slim 12G is essentially a cut-down version of the  GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Gaming X Trio 12G. It features a slightly revamped shroud but sticks to MSI's Tri Frozr 3 cooling system. MSI told Tom's Hardware Deputy Managing Editor Paul Alcorn that an RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 will come later.

As the model name insinuates, the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Gaming X Slim 12G flaunts a more svelte profile than MSI's other GeForce RTX 4070 Ti graphics cards. That doesn't mean the graphics card is tiny enough to fit inside small form factor (SFF) systems, though. Nonetheless, the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Gaming X Slim 12G comes in a what MSI calls a 2.2-slot design, coming in a smidge over two slots. Still it should help with cable management, especially since you must be careful when bending the 16-pin power cable.

There's a brand new cooler on board, with new fans. The trio Torx 5.0 cooling fans are tilted together at a 22-degree angle to provide high pressure even at slower fan speeds. According to MSI, this unique design improves airflow by up to 23% compared to an average axial cooling fan. However, without a product page to work with, it's uncertain if MSI made any changes under the hood that would affect the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Gaming X Slim 12G's thermal dissipation performance.

Aesthetically, the claw marks on the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Gaming X Slim 12G are in the opposite direction compared to the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Gaming X Trio 12G. There's some RGB, which comes in the shape of the MSI logo on the side of the graphics card. In addition, as with any high-end offering, the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Gaming X Slim has a matching metal backplate to help improve the structural support and cooling performance of the components on the rear of the graphics card.

The graphics card draws power from a single 16-pin power connector. It also provides the same display outputs, which arrive in the shape of three DisplayPort 1.4a outputs and one HDMI 2.1a port.

We don't know whether the graphics card will be available at U.S. retailers, nor how it might be priced. The graphics card slots between the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Gaming X Trio 12G and GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Ventus 3X 12G OC. In a perfect world, the price tag should be within the range of those two models, which retail for $869 and $814, respectively.

Asus is working on a concept design for GeForce RTX 40-series (Ada Lovelace) graphics cards that don’t require any power connectors for external power. Instead, the vendor has designed a proprietary slot that delivers up to 600W of power on a custom Z790 motherboard with back-facing connections. We saw the demo at an Asus briefing this week 

The 16-pin power connector (12VHPWR) made many headlines last year because the power adapter melted on a few GeForce RTX 4090 graphics cards. Unfortunately, the issue is ongoing, as new cases of the 16-pin meltdowns surfaced a week ago. Nvidia attributed the problem to user error because the 16-pin power connector wasn’t correctly installed in some scenarios. 

Asus’ design doesn’t completely remove the user factor from the equation. Still, it does help minimize the possibility of occurrence since the 16-pin power connector isn’t on the graphics card anymore but on the motherboard, where there is more liberty to maneuver the power cable.

The GeForce RTX 4070 Megalodon is the first prototype to feature a connector-less design. However, the branding isn’t final yet so the retail product may have another name. At first glance, the GeForce RTX 4070 Megalodon looks like a regular 2.3-slot graphics card. 

However, upon closer inspection, you’ll notice that there aren’t any PCIe power connectors. In their place, Asus implemented a proprietary connector that resembles a PCIe x1 connector. However, it has the same power delivery as the 16-pin power connector, up to 600W. Asus has baptized the connector as “GC_HPWR” for now, but the company said it’d have an official name at launch.

Asus isn't the first vendor to slap a custom connector on the graphics card to provide power. For example, AMD has produced some Radeon Pro graphics cards for Apple that use the latter’s MPX (Mac Pro eXpansion) form factor. However, Asus’ custom power connector, which doesn’t have an official name yet, isn’t as long as Apple’s implementation.

Asus demonstrated the GeForce RTX 4070 Megalodon alongside a TUF Gaming Z790 BTF, a motherboard with connectors on the back. It's a design based on the DIY-APE standard. The GC_HPWR connector on the motherboard essentially acts as a pass-through for the 16-pin power connector because the power has to come from somewhere.

However, Asus also went the extra mile and added three 8-pin PCIe power connectors to the mix. Therefore, consumers may choose the three-cable solution or the single 16-pin alternative. Even though the motherboard has the special GC_HPWR connector, it doesn't limit its usage. Consumers can use regular graphics cards on Asus' motherboard.

Asus' BTF motherboards were previously restricted to the Chinese market. However, the company said that the TUF Gaming Z790 BTF and the GeForce RTX 4070 Megalodon would hit the global markets. Pricing is unknown, but Asus confirmed that they would carry a slight premium since there's the added cost of moving the connectors to the back of the motherboard. Not to mention that consumers will also have to shell out more money for a case designed for Asus' BTF motherboards.

In the meantime, the GeForce RTX 4070 Megalodon is kept inside Asus' ecosystem. Unfortunately, the brand didn't state whether it'll open the proprietary design to other motherboard vendors. But more importantly, will other manufacturers be willing to jump on the new design since it'll involve additional cost and human resources to redesign existing motherboards and graphics cards to meet the standard? Then there's the existent risk that the design doesn't take off.

A new listing from the National Radio Research Agency in Korea confirms that an Nvidia RTX 4070 graphics card with blower-style cooling might be in the works by GPU manufacturer Leadtek. The intended role of this GPU would be professional use — not gaming — with a focus on AI-intensive workloads. 

We know basically nothing about this new GPU — all we know is the model name from the listing, which reads "RTX 4070 AI BLOWER," as well as the manufacturer (Leadtek). But even with this limited information, it's clear this card is not aimed at gamers, but is designed specifically for the server/workstation market. If it comes out, it will be a very attractive professional SKU with 16GB of memory and (probably) a 200W TGP. 

Blower-style coolers have become exceedingly rare in the consumer space since Nvidia shifted the cooler designs for its Founders Edition cards from vapor chamber blower-style coolers to standard dual-fan coolers, starting with the RTX 20 series. Since then, Nvidia has become incredibly opposed to AIB partners using blower-style coolers in the brand's mainstream GeForce-branded gaming graphics cards. 

We suspect one reason Nvidia changed its position on blower-style coolers is to prevent competition between its consumer GeForce GPUs and its professional Quadro/A-series graphics cards. Nvidia's professional GPUs are built almost entirely with blower-style coolers in order to squeeze as many GPUs as possible into a single workstation/server chassis. The problem is that Nvidia's Quadro and A-series GPUs are much more expensive than their GeForce counterparts, meaning any high-performing GeForce card with blower-style cooling would bring in far less profit than a professional GPU. 

Nvidia banned AIB partners from making RTX 3090 blower-style cards back in 2021. At the time, several partners had blower-style RTX 3090 cards on the market, and many of them were being used by system builders, such as Puget Systems, to build multi-GPU RTX 3090 workstations. Unfortunately Nvidia caught wind of the workaround and decided to ban the practice altogether — though the company didn't ban RTX 3080 or RTX 3070 blower-style cards, just the RTX 3090 versions.

The strange part of this story is that Nvidia never officially banned high-end blower-style coolers after that, from what we can tell. We saw an RTX 4090 blower-style card several months ago, which looked like a pre-production sample that was basically production-ready. But we have not seen any blower-style RTX 40 series GPUs hit the mainstream market so far, so who know what happened to it. 

With the possibility of an RTX 4070 blower-style card coming to the market, it raises the question: why are Nvidia's partners risking their R&D budget on products that will almost certainly be banned by Nvidia? We don't know the answer, but perhaps some of these manufacturers are going forward with prototype designs and hoping that one day Nvidia will greenlight production. This is more likely to be the case for the RTX 4070, since Nvidia technically only banned RTX xx90 blower-style GPUs, not the lower cards. 

Key specification of Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4060 Ti graphics card have seemingly been leaked via a new entry in the Geekbench 5 database (via @BenchLeaks). While we cannot be 100% sure that the card tested in the benchmark featured is the final configuration of the GPU, the probability is quite high at this point. For now, take a healthy pinch of salt with the news.

*Rumored specs, not confirmed by Nvidia

Based on the database entry, Nvidia's alleged GeForce RTX 4060 Ti features 34 streaming multiprocessors, which in case of the Ada Lovelace architecture means 4352 CUDA cores. The maximum GPU clock is said to be 2.54 GHz, though keep in mind that there will be other cards with different processor speeds. Also, the card allegedly carries 8GB of GDDR6 memory with an 18 GT/s data transfer rate, which is in line with previous leaks. 

Speaking of performance in Geekbench 5, the alleged GeForce RTX 4060 Ti graphics card scored 146,170 points, which is higher compared to around 130,000 points scored by GeForce RTX 3060 Ti. The latter is among the best graphics cards currently available, so at least the newcomer is ahead of its predecessor albeit by a small margin. Meanwhile, performance in real games is substantially different from performance in compute applications, such as Geekbench 5 CUDA test.

If unofficial information is to be believed, Nvidia is set to introduce its GeForce RTX 4060 Ti graphics cards later this month. If this is the case, then Nvidia's partners among add-in-board makers already have GeForce RTX 4060 Ti products at hand, and retailers will soon have those AIBs in stock. To that end, it is inevitable that at least some of them will test these devices in popular benchmarks leaking their performance and revealing their specifications. 

While specifications of Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4060 have been most probably finalized, since we are dealing with unofficial information, use it with discretion as some last minute details can still change.

I recently bought an Nvidia RTX 4070 Founders Edition, upgrading from an RTX 3060 Ti Founders Edition  which was great for 1080p gaming, but started to creak at 1440p. I had to turn down the settings to play Cyberpunk 2077, The Ascent and even Forza Horizon 5.

The Nvidia RTX 4070 seemed like the best GPU for me. It is a mid-range card that would work well with my AMD Ryzen 5 5600X CPU and 32GB of DDR4 RAM. Installation was a breeze, drivers updated and I launched Cyberpunk 2077. I went into Settings >> Graphics and expected Frame Generation to be ready, but it was grayed out.

I’m running Windows 10 22H2 and unbeknownst to me, hardware accelerated GPU scheduling was not enabled. In Windows 11 it is enabled by default, perhaps another means to encourage users to upgrade? 

What is Optical Multi Frame Generation?

Optical Multi Frame Generation was introduced in DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) and generates frames using AI to analyze “two sequential in-game images and calculates motion vector data for objects and elements that appear in the frame” The frames are fed into a neural network along with engine and optical flow motion vectors to produce a combined DLSS-generated, with DLSS 3 said to boost frame rates by up to 4x when compared to non DLSS methods.

In our non-scientific test (our GPU Editor Jarred Waltonhas all the in-depth technical data on the RTX 4070) we went from 45fps to 75fps with frame generation, an impressive boost given the mid-range spec of our build.

Update Your Drivers and Games

Before you start the process, ensure that you are running the latest drivers for your Nvidia RTX 40 series card, and that your games are updated. For my test I used Cyberpunk 2077, which recently saw a ray tracing overdrive update and I set this as my target.

How To Enable Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling

Introduced in Windows 10 May 2020 update, hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling enables Windows to offload most of the GPU scheduling tasks to a dedicated GPU-based scheduling processor. In Windows 10 we need to enable this feature, Windows 11 automatically enables hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling.

1. Navigate to the Graphics settings menu. You can get there by searching for Graphics in Windows and clicking on Graphics Settings.

2. Toggle on Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling. 

3. Reboot your PC.

Using DLSS 3.0 Frame Generation

1. In your game, go to the Graphics menu in settings.

2. Click on DLSS Frame Generation.

3. Start your game.

Enjoy your smoother gameplay. 

Nvidia is reportedly readying a yet another GeForce RTX 4060 model, the non-Ti RTX 4060 with 16GB of memory. The new GeForce RTX 4060 variant will reportedly feature a slightly higher power rating than the variant with 8GB of memory, reports VideoCardz.

Earlier this week it transpired (albeit from an unofficial source) that Nvidia was prepping three GeForce RTX 4060 models: the GeForce RTX 4060 8GB, GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB, and GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB. But it now looks like there will be the fourth model too: the GeForce RTX 4060 with 16GB of memory, if the information is accurate. All four potential SKUs are certain candidates to join the ranks of the best graphics cards 

The interesting part is that VideoCardz clams that the GeForce RTX 4060 16GB will feature the AD106-351 graphics processor. Meanwhile the GeForce RTX 4060 8GB is expected to use the AD106-350, so a slightly different variant. Both will likely feature 3072 CUDA cores and a 128-bit memory interface, so the difference between the two is unclear. 

Another interesting peculiarity of the GeForce RTX 4060 16GB noted by VideoCardz is the fact that the 16GB card will be rated for a 165W TGP, as opposed to 160W for the 8GB version.

While it is unclear why the GeForce RTX 4060 16GB has a higher TGP rating and carries a differently market GPU, the very fact that Nvidia is reportedly prepping a GeForce RTX 4060 (non-Ti) model with 16GB of memory is important and pretty much remarkable. 

*Rumored specs, not confirmed by Nvidia

What remains to be seen is how Nvidia positions its GeForce RTX 4060 16GB variant. It is reasonable to expect this model to sit above the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB (which is projected to hit the market this month), but we can only wonder how this SKU will stack against the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB. 

 If the two variants are close in terms of price, then gamers will have to make their choice based on whether their favorite games need 16GB of memory, or a higher-performing GPU with 4352 CUDA cores. Or perhaps go with more expensive GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB or even GeForce RTX 4070 with 12GB.

Today at Lenovo, users can take home the Legion Pro 5 Gen 8 AMD RTX 4070 gaming laptop for one of its best prices yet. This top-of-the-line gaming laptop usually costs around $1,900, but right now is marked down to $1,600. However, it’s unclear how long this discount will be made available as no expiration is specified for the offer.

Under the hood of this edition of the Legion Pro 5 is an AMD Ryzen 7 7745HX processor. This CPU has a base speed of 3.6 GHz and can reach up to 5.10 GHz with max boost enabled. Memory-wise, it comes with 32 GB of DDR5-5200 via two 16 GB modules.

It uses an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 graphics card that outputs to a 16-inch IPS panel. The resolution caps out at 2560 x 1600 and is illuminated with a brightness of 300 nits. The refresh rate can get as high as 165 Hz.

Storage-wise, the Legion Pro 5 Gen 8 AMD RTX 4070 gaming laptop uses a 1TB M.2 2280 PCIe Gen 4 SSD. It has an integrated microphone and camera with a resolution of 1080p FHD. In addition, there are a few ports to take advantage of around the edges, including four USB Type-A ports, two USB Type-C ports, an Ethernet port for hardwired network connections, and an HDMI port for video output.

Visit the Legion Pro 5 Gen 8 AMD RTX 4070 gaming laptop product page at Lenovo for more details and to get a closer look at this offer. But, again, we’re unsure how long the discount will be offered.

Rumors about Nvidia's plans to formally introduce its GeForce RTX 4060-series graphics cards in May have been floating around for a while, but it was unclear when these add-in-boards (AIBs) are set to hit the market. A new leak contends that Nvidia wants its partners to start selling GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB model on May 24, 2023, reports VideoCardz, citing a source with knowledge of the matter. As with all leaks, take this with a grain of salt. 

Nvidia purportedly intends to formally unveil three of its Ada Lovelace-based GeForce RTX 4060-series models — GeForce RTX 4060, GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB, and GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB, which are certainly candidates to join the ranks of the best graphics cards — sometime in mid-May, though it is unclear whether the company will let the press publish reviews of all for SKUs, or will limit the info to just the specifications. 

Meanwhile, only the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB will hit the market on May 24, 2023, based on information from VideoCardz. The website contends that the product will emerge on store shelves just a day before AMD is expected to lift the embargo from Radeon RX 7600 reviews, which will certainly steal some thunder from Team Red's introduction.

Meanwhile, the vanilla GeForce RTX 4060 8GB will be available in the first half of July. In contrast, if the information is correct, the more expensive GeForce RTX 4060 16GB will hit the market in the second half of July, more than two months after the formal announcement.

*Rumored specs, not confirmed by Nvidia

This purported launch schedule will enable Nvidia and its partners to sell GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB at a premium and avoid any kind of competition between the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB and GeForce RTX 4070 12GB. As a result, those gamers who plan to buy an Nvidia performance mainstream graphics card in May – July but are unwilling to invest in a GeForce RTX 4070 will be left with only one choice if they want an Ada Lovelace AIB.

Nvidia still has not disclosed its GeForce RTX 4060 launch plans so far, so take the unofficial information with a grain of salt and remember that all plans tend to change.

It didn't take long for the GeForce RTX 4070 to position itself as one of the best graphics cards for gamers. However, according to new information from kopite7kimi, one of the more credible leakers in the hardware scene, a second variant of the GeForce RTX 4070 may already be in the pipeline.

Chipmakers have been salvaging silicon for ages, and rightfully so nowadays since wafer prices aren't getting any cheaper. Take the GeForce RTX 3070 Ti, initially launched with the GA104 silicon. Nvidia would later recycle defective GA102 silicon and slip them into the GeForce RTX 3070 Ti. However, the die-swap occurred a little over a year after the graphics card's launch. The GeForce RTX 4070 just came out last month, so it seems a bit early for Nvidia to put out a second variant.

Currently, there are two theories. The more obvious says Nvidia is just salvaging dies due to pricey wafers — what else can it do with AD103 chips where one of the memory controllers doesn't work? The other rumor claims that switching to the new die could pave the way for a GeForce RTX 4070 with 16GB of memory.

The GeForce RTX 4070 currently utilizes the AD104 silicon that houses 60 Streaming Multiprocessors (SMs), but only 46 are enabled on the graphics card. The current rumor is that Nvidia may repurpose the AD103 silicon for the GeForce RTX 4070. The AD103 silicon, which powers the GeForce RTX 4080, is bigger than the AD104 die, so it's a more than adequate substitute. The GeForce RTX 4070 only has 5,888 CUDA cores, meaning a GeForce RTX 4070 AD103 would have slightly more than half of the SMs disabled.

Nvidia has received much criticism, including from AMD, for only incorporating 12GB of memory on the GeForce RTX 4070. AMD gloated that its Radeon 16GB graphics cards start from $479 (now), while consumers don't get the same amount of memory on the latest GeForce RTX 40-series graphics card until they hit the GeForce RTX 4080 tier, which starts at $1,199. This could fuel Nvidia to release a GeForce RTX 4070 16GB. Gigabyte had previously listed a GeForce RTX 4070 16GB on its website, lending some credence to the theory.

Gamers would probably like to see a GeForce RTX 4070 16GB with the increasing VRAM requirements from modern triple-A games. However, at least at this point, it's unlikely that one will launch. Releasing a 16GB model this early would only anger early GeForce RTX 4070 adopters — and let's not forget the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti, which also has 12GB. The regular GeForce RTX 4070, at $599, is already hard to swallow, and adding more memory would only push the MSRP even higher. Although that wouldn't be a severe issue with the GeForce RTX 40-series product stack since every SKU so far carries a premium price tag.

According to a reliable source, Nvidia will allegedly announce the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti this month. We've only seen retailer listings for an 8GB model; however, a 16GB variant is reportedly launching too. The GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB, seemingly hitting the retail market in July, will be the cheapest Ada Lovelace SKU with 16GB that gamers can purchase. Nvidia could use clamshell mode on the VRAM and just put memory on both sides of the PCB as well, which would allow for 16GB with only a 128-bit interface.

We'll have to wait to find out more about the RTX 4060 Ti and whether or not a 4070 16GB model is forthcoming. We fully expect to see an 8GB 4060 Ti, and the RTX 3060 also launched with a 12GB model even though the RTX 3060 Ti, RTX 3070, and RTX 3070 Ti were all limited to just 8GB. So it's not out of the question for a lower tier part to be available with more VRAM than higher tier parts.

Nvidia is rumored to announce three GeForce RTX 4060-series graphics cards this month, but only one of them is said to be available in May, whereas others will purportedly hit the market in July, according to renowned hardware leaker @MegaSizeGPU, who has been accurate in the past when it comes to Nvidia's launch plans. The leader says that Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 4060 lineup will include graphics cards with 8GB and 16GB of memory.

Later this month, Nvidia is rumored to introduce three Ada Lovelace-based GeForce RTX 4060-series graphics cards aimed at the mainstream and performance-mainstream market segments. The lineup will purportedly include the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti with 8GB of GDDR6 SGRAM, the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti with 16GB of memory, and the GeForce RTX 4060 with 8GB of GDDR6 memory. However, only the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB is expected to hit the market this month. According to the leaker, the more expensive and cheaper models will be available only in July.

*Rumored specs, not confirmed by Nvidia

At this point, it is unclear whether Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB and 16GB will rely on the AD104 graphics processor in the same configuration with 4352 CUDA cores, but this is certainly a likely scenario. Based on previous leaks, Nvidia wants its RTX 4060 Ti to consume no more than 160W, which will enable GPU makers to build compact yet rather powerful performance-mainstream boards and therefore address both standard and compact desktops.

As for the vanilla GeForce RTX 4060, it will feature AD106 with 3072 CUDA cores and will therefore consume even less power, so expect low-profile and perhaps even single-slot graphics cards based on this GPU.

As of now, it does not look like Nvidia has a firm launch date for its new products. The green company might formally introduce its GeForce RTX 4060 family later this month, and perhaps it will use the company's chief executive Jensen Huang's keynote at Computex 2023 trade show on May 29 to do so. Yet, in this case it means that the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB will be on sale for just a couple of days this month. 

Anyhow, since the information comes from an unofficial (yet credible) source, take it with a grain of salt since even if it represents current plans, intentions tend to change. 

Nvidia this week introduced its new texture compression method that provides four times higher resolution than traditional Block Truncation Coding (BTC, BC) methods while having similar storage requirements. The core concept of the proposed approach is to compress multiple material textures and their mipmap chains collectively and then decompress them using a neural network that is trained for a particular pattern it decompresses. In theory, the method can even impact future GPU architectures. Yet, for now the method has limitations.

New Requirements

Recent advancements in real-time rendering for video games have approached the visual quality of movies due to usage of such techniques as physically-based shading for photorealistic modeling of materials, ray tracing, path tracing, and denoising for accurate global illumination. Meanwhile, texturing techniques have not really advanced at a similar pace mostly because texture compression methods essentially remained the same as in the late 1990s, which is why in some cases many objects look blurry in close proximity. 

The reason for this is because GPUs still rely on block-based texture compression methods. These techniques have very efficient hardware implementations (as fixed-function hardware to support them have evolved for over two decades), random access, data locality, and near-lossless quality. However, they are designed for moderate compression ratios between 4x and 8x and are limited to a maximum of 4 channels. Modern real-time renderers often require more material properties, necessitating multiple textures. 

Nvidia's Method

This is where Nvidia's Random-Access Neural Compression of Material Textures (NTC) comes into play. Nvidia's technology enables two additional levels of detail (16x more texels, so four times higher resolution) while maintaining similar storage requirements as traditional texture compression methods. This means that compressed textures with per-material optimization with resolutions up to 8192 x 8192 (8K) are now feasible. 

To do so, NTC exploits redundancies spatially, across mipmap levels, and across different material channels. This ensures that texture detail is preserved when viewers are in close proximity to an object, something that modern methods cannot enable.  

Nvidia claims that NTC textures are decompressed using matrix-multiplication hardware such as tensor cores operating in a SIMD-cooperative manner, which means that the new technology does not require any special purpose hardware and can be used on virtually all modern Nvidia GPUs. But perhaps the biggest concern is that every texture requires its own optimized neural network to decompress, which puts some additional load on game developers. 

Nvidia says that resulting texture quality at these aggressively low bitrates is said to be comparable to or better than recent image compression standards, such as AVIF and JPEG XL, which are not designed for real-time decompression with random access anyway.

Practical Advantages and Disadvantages

Indeed, images demonstrated by Nvidia clearly show that NTC is better than traditional Block Coding-based technologies. However, Nvidia admits that its method is slower than traditional methods (it took a GPU 1.15 ms to render a 4K image with NTC textures and 0.49 ms to render a 4K image with BC textures), but it provides 16x more texels albeit with stochastic filtering. 

While NTC is more resource-intensive than conventional hardware-accelerated texture filtering, the results show that it delivers high performance and is suitable for real-time rendering. Moreover, in complex scenes using a fully-featured renderer, the cost of NTC can be partially offset by the simultaneous execution of other tasks (e.g., ray tracing) due to the GPU's ability to hide latency. 

Meanwhile, rendering with NTC can be accelerated new hardware architectures, increased number of dedicated matrix-multiplication units that might used, increased cache sizes, and register usage. Actually, some of the optimizations can be made on the programmable level.  

Nvidia also admits that NTC is not a completely lossless method of texture compression and produce visual degradation at low bitrates and has some limitations, such as sensitivity to channel correlation, uniform resolution requirements, and limited benefits at larger camera distances. Furthermore, advantages are proportional to channel count and may not be as significant for lower channel counts. Also, since NTC is optimized for material textures and always decompresses all material channels, it makes it potentially unsuitable for use in different rendering contexts. 

While the advantage of NTC is that it does not use fixed-function texture filtering hardware to produce its superior results, this is also its key disadvantage. Texture filtering cost is computationally expensive, which is why for now anisotropic filtering with NTC is not feasible for real-time rendering. Meanwhile, stochastic filtering can introduce flickering.

But despite limitations, NTC's compression of multiple channels and mipmap levels together produces a result that exceeds industry standards. Nvidia researchers believe that its approach is paving the way for cinematic-quality visuals in real-time rendering and is practical for memory-constrained graphics applications. Yet, it introduces a modest timing overhead compared to simple BTC algorithms, which impacts performance.

Nvidia just launched its fourth Ada Lovelace GPU, the GeForce RTX 4070, which finally brings the latest generation hardware down into the realm of affordability for many gamers. It's still $599, but that's better than the $799 and higher we've of the earlier RTX 40-series GPUs. AMD for its part has no direct current contender, opting instead to encourage price reductions on its existing line of RDNA 2 GPUs like the RX 6950 XT.

The RTX 4070 is now on our list of the best graphics cards, and the RX 6950 XT and other Navi 21 variants have been there on and off over the past couple of years. Today, both rank in the upper portion of our GPU benchmarks hierarchy. But there's more to this than gaming performance, so let's put them both in a cage and see which one can emerge victorious from the Thunderdome.

For this GPU face off, we'll look at how the two cards stack up in terms of performance, price, features and tech, drivers and software, and power and efficiency. Then we'll declare a winner, because this isn't soccer and ties aren't allowed. Those categories are listed in order of decreasing importance, in our view at least, so we'll start with the critical aspects and move on down the list from there.

Performance: RTX 4070 vs RX 6950 XT

Graphics cards and GPUs are used for many tasks, including video editing, AI, streaming, and more. Still, gaming is the major reason most people are looking for a new graphics card. While $599 isn't necessarily an extreme amount of money to spend, it's also more than the latest generation consoles and people buying high-end cards expect top-notch performance. We ran the RTX 4070 and RX 6950 XT through our 15-game test suite, including testing at 1080p, 1440p, and 4K, to see which comes out on top.

These are high-end cards, so focusing on the 1440p performance makes the most sense — they're more than fast enough for 1080p but at the same time not usually potent enough for 4K at maxed out settings. Across our suite of games, the two GPUs trade blows. AMD's RX 6950 XT clearly wins in the rasterization performance bracket, with Total War: Warhammer 3 being the only game to give the RTX 4070 a win at 1440p. There are also outliers like Borderlands 3 where AMD has a massive 35% lead (it's an AMD promoted game, naturally). Overall, the RX 6950 XT comes out 14% ahead of the RTX 4070 in rasterization, and that grows to 17% at 4K (but shrinks to 8% at 1080p).

The reverse takes place when we turn to the ray tracing benchmarks. There, the RTX 4070 leads by 21% on average at 1440p… except neither GPU really provides a great gaming experience at 1440p native with ray tracing. Dropping to 1080p actually increases the leads by a few percent, while at 4K the lead shrinks to 20%.

But while we just said 1440p with ray tracing isn't a great experience, we need to talk about DLSS and FSR2 upscaling. Both generally provide similar gains at a given resolution, at least in fps, but DLSS continues to get more support than FSR2. At present, AMD lists 120 games with FSR2 support (79 are currently available), while Nvidia lists 280 games with DLSS 2 upscaling support. Of those, 46 of the games support both DLSS2 and FSR2.

Nvidia also has another 33 games with DLSS 3 support, and while we don't think Frame Generation is a universally perfect solution and is being heavily used for marketing purposes, it's still potentially useful. We generally find the performance increase in terms of frames delivered to the screen doesn't usually correspond directly with how much faster a game feels, but a 50% boost to fps typically feels 10–20 percent smoother.

Overall, roughly three times as many games support DLSS 2 as FSR 2 — and note that all of the DXR games and six of the nine rasterization games in our test suite support DLSS, while FSR2 is only supported in two of the DXR games and three of the rasterization games. In each of those games Nvidia's RTX 4070 will get about a 30–50 percent boost to performance, using Quality mode upscaling. That means a game will typically run significantly faster than AMD's RX 6950 XT if a game only supports DLSS and not FSR2

The same is true for games that support only FSR2 but not DLSS. But exclusive DLSS support is about seven times more likely than exclusive FSR2 support. Currently 234 games support DLSS and not FSR2, while only 33 support FSR2 but not DLSS — though many of the games on both lists are relatively unknown.

Is it fair to compare upscaled to native performance? That's debatable, but we think upscaling is here to stay, and frankly the performance gains of even Quality mode upscaling easily outweigh the potential loss of visual fidelity.

Outside of gaming performance, the Nvidia RTX 4070 offers substantially better support for AI workloads, plus it's substantially faster at AI projects like Stable Diffusion where both GPUs can at least run the task. In our most recent testing, the RTX 4070 was nearly twice as fast as the RX 6950 XT in Stable Diffusion 512x512 images, and over three times as fast for 768x768 image generation. That doesn't even account for being unable to get AI Text Generation and many other AI projects working on AMD GPUs (at least not without recoding portions of the project).

Winner: Nvidia RTX 4070

While both cards are plenty fast for most games, it's in the games that tend to be more demanding that Nvidia pulls ahead. This will be a controversial pick, as the RX 6950 XT is almost always faster in rasterization games. It's typically about 15% faster on average, but that's often in games hitting well over 60 fps. In the games where it's slower, however (like nearly all the DXR games), the RTX 4070 with DLSS will typically deliver over 60 fps while the 6950 XT (even if FSR2 support is available) will come up short of that mark.

We're surprised by how many gamers still look down on upscaling as a sort of crutch. Personally, I almost always enable Quality mode (whether DLSS2 or FSR2 or even XeSS), just because I like to run at 1440p and 4K and it makes the experience noticeably better. Both the 4070 and 6950 XT are quite fast, as they should be for high-end parts, but if we have to pick a winner, Nvidia gets the edge in overall performance. Again, that's factoring in ray tracing games, DLSS upscaling, and AI workloads. If you have no interest in any of those, AMD's RX 6950 XT comes out ahead, but those are three pretty major topics in the GPU world these days.

Price: RTX 4070 vs RX 6950 XT

It almost feels nice to have a latest generation graphics card priced below $800. Almost. After the 4090, 4080, and 4070 Ti, and without much help from AMD's 7900-series cards, people are still waiting for mainstream and budget upgrades. Depending on your definition of mainstream, $599 might even apply. But either way, right now, there are numerous RTX 4070 cards available for purchase online starting at $599. They're not the fanciest models with extra overclocking, but they'll get the job done.

AMD hasn't officially dropped the price of the RX 6950 XT to $599, at least as far as we're aware — the AMD store lists the reference card at $699 (and it's out of stock). But Newegg, Amazon, and others have regularly had RX 6950 XT cards priced in the $599–$699 range for several months, basically since the RX 7900 XT launched. Will such cards continue to exist, now that the RTX 4070 launch is over? Perhaps until they're all sold, or until a lower tier RX 7800- or 7700-series card comes along with similar performance (and hopefully at a better price).

And that's the problem. One card has an official $599 MSRP and should remain at that price point going forward, the other got a price promotion to hit $599 and those cards seem to have disappeared now. The best we can find is $619 at present. Sure, it's "only" $20 extra, but it's also for roughly equivalent performance across our gaming suite, and again we favor Nvidia's GPU across a larger suite of testing that factors in DLSS and AI.

If you can find an RX 6950 XT for the same price as an RTX 4070, it's worth considering, but that's not a decisive win. And in fact, since you'll also use about 100–150 watts more power while gaming with the RX 6950 XT, depending on how much you play games, the ongoing cost of owning the RX 6950 XT could also be higher.

Winner: Nvidia RTX 4070

This one is a close call, but officially sanctioned pricing beats temporary sale pricing, assuming similar performance. Mostly Nvidia wins by virtue of having a latest generation graphics card actually designed for the $599 price point. AMD will hopefully have something better to compete with the 4070 in the coming months.

Features and Technology: RTX 4070 vs RX 6950 XT

Nvidia has a habit of promoting new technologies with every generation of graphics cards. In some cases, the new technology truly enables things that weren't really possible before — ray tracing and higher performance AI/deep learning are good examples of this. Others end up feeling more like marketing and only see limited use. Does anyone remember VXAO and VXGI, which were part of the Nvidia Pascal marketing?

Our perception over the years is that Nvidia is often the first mover on technologies. It was first with G-Sync, first with ray tracing, first with DLSS upscaling, first with Reflex, and first with noise cancelation, for example. AMD often follows with "open" solutions that aim to do the same things as Nvidia's proprietary tech. Sometimes, those open solutions win out — FreeSync is far more available than G-Sync these days, and G-Sync Compatible basically felt like Nvidia recognizing the open solution was sufficient and perhaps better.

There are exceptions to the above as well, like AMD moving to DisplayPort 2.1 with 54Gbps bandwidth while Nvidia stuck with DisplayPort 1.4a. AMD also tends to offer more VRAM at similar price points— the RX 6950 XT (and other Navi 21 GPUs) come with 16GB, while the RTX 4070 only has 12GB. More VRAM isn't always necessary, but having more memory should never be a bad thing (everything else being equal). Infinity Cache was also an AMD move that Nvidia has now effectively mimicked with its larger L2 cache — and it's one of those things that benefits every game.

Even if every attempt at a new technology doesn't end up being used everywhere, Nvidia has been doing more over the past few generations. Ray tracing hardware and features have increased substantially since the RTX 20-series, and the tensor core hardware powering DLSS and AI applications is proving particularly useful these days. Now it has DLSS 3 and Frame Generation, and the uptake for DLSS 3 has been much faster than previous versions. One of the benefits of DLSS 3 is that it also requires the games to support Nvidia Reflex, so owners of other Nvidia GPUs also benefit.

It's not just gaming technology, either. We don't know if the RTX 40-series support for FP8 calculations on the tensor cores will prove important in the future. The AV1 video encoding/decoding support on the other hand is already taking off. AMD and Intel offer AV1 encoding support as well, on their latest generation GPUs, but the 6950 XT is a previous generation part.

A lot of this is because Nvidia has been the dominant player in the GPU space for a long time. It currently has about 75–80 percent GPU market share, which means it's better able to push proprietary technologies. If you don't have an Nvidia GPU, that might suck, but unfortunately it's something Nvidia can get away with.

Winner: Nvidia RTX 4070

Nvidia has newer and better technologies and features, with the lack of DisplayPort 2.1 support being the only major strike against it. Except that's only available with RX 7000-series cards, which means at best AMD's 6950 XT ties the RTX 4070 in connectivity; everywhere else, it's a couple years behind the state of the art for GPUs. It's not that the RX 6950 XT is bad, but it doesn't offer anything tangible over the RTX 4070 other than 4GB more VRAM. That's something, but it's not enough to overcome the improved RT, DLSS, AI, AV1, and the other architectural upgrades available with Ada Lovelace GPUs.

Drivers and Software: RTX 4070 vs RX 6950 XT

AMD and Nvidia release regular driver updates for their GPUs. The number of driver releases from both companies has been quite high over the past year, easily numbering in the dozens. In the past, some have complained about poor drivers from AMD or Nvidia, but having tested GPUs from both companies, it's hard to see much difference. Just about every major game release in the past year has seen Game Ready drivers from both companies — and even Intel is getting in on the action now.

We previously noted that Nvidia drivers were usually WHQL (Windows Hardware Quality Labs) certified, while AMD tended to only do that on maybe a quarter of its drivers. AMD seems to have changed its processes in order to get WHQL certification now, or at least the past several drivers have all been WHQL certified. Not that it really matters, as Microsoft rarely does much in order to test quality other than checking that basic Windows functionality isn't broken. Bugs do slip through the cracks — like AMD's high idle power draw with the past few drivers, if you want an example.

One area where AMD and Nvidia differ quite a bit is in their driver user interfaces. Nvidia splits its GeForce driver options into two applications. Nvidia Control Panel handles the GPU settings, such as resolution, texture filtering, vertical sync, low latency mode, power management, and more. The control panel also handles display configuration settings, such as color, rotation, and multi-display setups. Nvidia GeForce Experience handles game settings, driver updates, and includes game streaming and recording features. To access the GeForce Experience features, you have to log in with an Nvidia user account and solve a captcha or provide a 2FA code.

AMD takes a more streamlined approach with its Radeon Settings app serving as a one-stop-solution for all your Radeon GPU settings and features. It handles driver updates, graphics and video settings, and supports game performance profiles. There's built-in broadcasting software to stream and record your gameplay, overclocking options, and performance metrics logging.

Winner: Tie

Other categories might be close, but this one we simply don't see any truly defining differences. Both AMD and Nvidia deliver generally equivalent experiences, even if there are some nuances in how they're done. You can generally expect at least one or more new drivers from both companies each month, which is more than enough for our needs.

Power Consumption / Efficiency: RTX 4070 vs RX 6950 XT

Performance, features, technologies, and drivers might be relatively close, and you can certainly argue against our reasoning. However, when it comes to power efficiency and consumption, it's no contest. AMD's RX 6950 XT was the mid-cycle refresh of the top-tier Navi 21 GPU, and to boost performance AMD had to give it more power and higher clocks. The reference design has a 335W TBP (Total Board Power), but many of the third-party cards push much higher. The MSI RX 6950 XT for example would hit 440W! Sapphire's RX 6950 XT wasn't quite so aggressive and 'only' averaged 378W in our gaming test.

That might not sound bad when you think of the RTX 4090 and its 450W rated power consumption, but the RTX 4070 only has a 200W TBP. However, we also collect power measurements across all of our gaming benchmarks now, which means we have even more data. The ASRock RX 6950 XT Formula we used for testing (we don't have a reference 6950) was far closer to the reference TBP. It actually came in under the rated TBP, averaging 305.4W across 60 different gaming tests — even if you just stick with the 4K ultra results, it averaged 326.4W.

The RTX 4070 in contrast averaged just 183.4W of power use, even while providing slightly higher performance on average. In fact, we can convert both GPUs to an overall fps/W metric. The RTX 4070 got 0.460 fps/W across all 60 tests, and 0.208 fps/W in just the 4K ultra tests. The RX 6950 XT in contrast got just 0.265 fps/W across all 60 tests, and 0.123 fps/W at 4K ultra. That means the RTX 4070 was 74% more efficient overall, and 69% more efficient at 4K — and that's not including DLSS, which would only skew things more in favor of Nvidia's GPU, as we discussed in the performance section.

Winner: Nvidia RTX 4070

Nvidia's previous generation RTX 30-series cards weren't known for being particularly power efficient. In fact, in many cases AMD's RX 6000-series cards were able to surpass them. That's a big swing from just two generations prior, where Nvidia held a massive lead. Now, thanks to using a newer architecture and manufacturing process, things swing the other way. RDNA 3 cards look like they're pretty efficient as well, but the highest performance RDNA 2 GPU ends up being far less efficient than a middle-tier Ada Lovelace offering.

Verdict: RTX 4070 vs RX 6950 XT

Hopefully this doesn't come as much of a surprise. Putting a new GPU up against a previous generation card will rarely favor the older designs. New features combined with process improvements for the lithography mean that the only real selling point for older hardware tends to be pricing. And right now, even after hacking $500 off the launch price, the RX 6950 XT still tends to cost more than the new RTX 4070. We'd say the same if you were looking at an RTX 3090 or 3080 as well (unless you could get a 3090 with 24GB of memory for $600).

That's not to say that the RX 6950 XT is a bad card. It's plenty fast for most people, and if you already own the card — or one of the other Navi 21-based cards from the RX 6800/6900-series — you should be okay skipping this generation. But if you're in the market for an upgrade and are eying these two cards that nominally cost the same $600, there are plenty of good reasons to go with Nvidia's new RTX 4070.

Our overall score say 5 to 1 for the RTX 4070 against the RX 6950 XT, but it's really not that lopsided of a victory. Performance is close and favors AMD if you don't include ray tracing and DLSS. Pricing is close as well, about $20 separating the least expensive 6950 XT from the cheapest 4070. But the features and technology along with power efficiency all heavily favor the RTX 4070.

We'll have to see what AMD has to offer with a future RX 7800 or 7700 series card that's designed to compete directly with the RTX 4070. How much VRAM will it have, how will it perform, and how much power will it require? We don't know and it might be another couple of months before we find out. But for now, in the $600 price bracket, in our view the RTX 4070 is the best option available.

Overall Winner: Nvidia RTX 4070

One of the world's largest supplier of graphics cards, Colorful is no stranger to offering exclusive products. This week the company quietly rolled out the world's only GeForce RTX 4070 with a closed-loop cooling system. The graphics board promises to provide the ultimate overclocking experience, but its price may be too high for many to justify it..

Colorful's iGame GeForce RTX 4070 Neptune OC-V relies on Nvidia's AD104-250 graphics processor with 5,888 CUDA cores mated with 12GB of GDDR6X memory using a 192-bit interface, but uses a proprietary printed circuit board with a 14+3-phase power delivery to maximize GPU overclocking potential. The board comes with a one-key overclocking function enabling up to 2640 MHz boost clock, up from 2,475 MHz by default. The board uses a 12+4-pin 12VHPWR auxiliary PCIe 5.0 power connector and is rated for a TDP of up to 230W, which is 30W higher than that of Nvidia's reference design.

The key selling point of the iGame GeForce RTX 4070 Neptune OC-V is of course its closed-loop liquid cooling system that promises to provide superior cooling performance while allowing to make the board itself a bit more compact. While the card is still two slots wide, it's just 253.5 mm long, which is not too lengthy by today's standards. However, you'll have to fit a 277 mm radiator with two fans somewhere in the chassis too. With an enhanced VRM and LCS, overclocking potential of Colorful's GeForce RTX 4080 Neptune promises to be significant, something that will put it in the list of the best graphics cards.

As the only liquid-cooled GeForce RTX 4070, the iGame GeForce RTX 4070 Neptune OC-V is expensive. VideoCardz claims that Colorful will charge $829 for it, but it is unclear whether this will be the price for the U.S. (which does not include taxes) or for China or Europe. Either way, it is considerably more expensive than Nvidia's MSRP for GeForce RTX 4070 and approaches or exceeds recommended price of the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti, which means that the new product will have to deliver performance on par with the higher-end part.

Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4070 is powered by the AD104-250 GPU with 5.888 CUDA cores, offers a compute throughput of up to 29.15 FP32 TFLOPS, and has an MSRP of $599. By contrast, Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4070 Ti is based on the AD104-400 GPU with 7,680 CUDA cores offers up to 40 FP32 TFLOPS, but comes with an MSRP of $799. 

In a bid to compensate for the lack of 1,792 CUDA cores and offer similar compute throughput as its Ti sibling, the vanilla GeForce RTX 4070 will have to work at around 3.40 GHz, which is about 925 MHz higher than the Nvidia-recommended boost clock for the RTX 4070 model. While we are sure that at least some AD104-250 GPUs are great overclockers, we are not sure that all of them can hit 3.40 GHz at 230W and offer performance like the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti with the AD104-400.

Of course, a liquid cooling system may provide better cooling than an air cooler, which increases its value even if it cannot approach performance of GeForce RTX 4070 Ti to justify its high price. Whether or not a longer lifespan alone justifies higher price is something that remains to be seen though.

AMD's RX 7900 XT is gaining traction in the GPU market and has now become the second-best-selling graphics card on Amazon, thanks to a 17% discount below MSRP at the time of this writing. This makes AMD's 7900 XT one of the best bargains in the high-end GPU market, as well as one of the Best GPUs in general, with superior value to Nvidia's RTX 4070 Ti.

The specific model in question is the XFX RX 7900 XT Speedster MERC310, which is being sold for $787. At this price, the 7900 XT undercuts the RTX 4070 Ti by $12, while outperforming it by 9% in rasterized games. It also features 8GB more video memory with a total of 20GB compared to just 12 on the 4070 Ti. This will be important for driving AAA titles at maximum settings and resolutions for years to come.

The card itself is a massive triple-fan, triple slot graphics card, with a length of 13.5 inches. The shroud is painted in a stealthy matte black finish, with silver accents. Clock speeds range from 1775MHz base to a maximum boost frequency of 2535MHz. The card also features two PCIe 8-pin supplementary power connectors, with XFX recommending a 750W PSU at a minimum to run this card.

With this killer deal, it's not surprising that AMD is getting a lot of sales with its RX 7900 XT. Nvidia's high prices for its RTX 40 series graphics cards, paired with the underwhelming memory configuration of the 12GB RTX 4070 series, is not an inspiring combination for gamers. The rather low memory capacity is especially concerning since 12GB is the minimum requirement to drive 4K gaming at ultra settings on new 2023 titles, including Resident Evil 4 and The Last of Us Part 1.

To re-iterate, the 7900 XT's performance is excellent for rasterized games, with a 9% lead over the RTX 4070 Ti at 1440P. This sandwiches the 7900 XT's performance in between the RTX 4070 Ti and the much more expensive GeForce RTX 4080, while being cheaper than both those competitors. The only exception to this rule is in RT performance, where the RTX 4070 unsurprisingly yields an 18% lead due to its superior ray tracing hardware. Nvidia also has an advantage in DLSS support, with far more games supporting the super sampling tech compared to AMD's FSR counterpart.

But if Nvidia's fancy tech isn't your cup of tea, or you just don't mind making some sacrifices for superior value, AMD's RX 7900 XT is a killer deal that's hard to pass up for high-refresh esports, native 1440P, and 4K gaming.

Computerbase reports that Nvidia's new GeForce RTX 4070 has already been discounted below €600 in Germany, just two weeks after the RTX 4070 launch date. The new discount represents a €60 drop over the 4070's German launch price of €659 and is reportedly a result of low consumer demand for Nvidia's new mid-range GPU.

This news supports other claims that Nvidia's RTX 4070 is not selling as well as Nvidia probably expected. Igor's lab made an article (which we covered here) claiming that the supply issues are so bad that Nvidia is halting RTX 4070 production for two weeks to equalize supply and demand. (That's instead of reducing prices, incidentally.)

That's not too surprising, as overall reception for the RTX 4070 has been mixed, with its sky-high "mid-range" price of $600 putting a sour taste in many people's mouths. We can also attest to the poor customer reception on launch day, where effectively none models were going out of stock, save for just two or three variants including the Asus Dual series and Founders Edition model. This is a far cry from previous launches, where stock usually runs dry during launch day for all models, and often all of the cards are sold out within hours.

The model discounted to €599 is a Gainward GeForce RTX 4070 Ghost being sold from German retailer Alternate. But this isn't the only model that is selling below the €659 launch price. Many other baseline models are being sold at €625–€645, including Palit's Dual OC, Gigabyte's Windforce OC, and Inno3D's Twin X2 to name a few.

Unfortunately, we're not seeing the same discounts here in the United States, save for several factory overclocked models dropping from around $620 to $600. Nothing has dropped below the 4070's $600 MSRP yet, but that might change if these issues get more serious. Nvidia is rumored to be busy readying the launch of the RTX 4060 Ti at Computex later next month, and AMD is reportedly prepping the RX 7600 as its next RDNA 3 GPU.

If a price discount is going to happen, it will probably happen around the time those cards launch. Or it may not happen at all, at least not officially. Nvidia typically doesn't cut prices so soon after launch, but it might end up offering its partners other incentives that help to reduce retail prices in order to move product.

You can see how the card fared in our GPU benchmarks hierarchy, where it basically tied the RTX 3080. It has some new features as well, like DLSS 3 support, and it's a very power efficient card. Still, many people seem to be waiting for true mainstream cards priced in the $400 range to arrive and are refusing to be enticed by modest performance improvements and price cuts.

Nvidia's recently-launched GeForce RTX 4070 isn't just one of the best graphics cards; it's also one of Amazon's best-selling graphics cards. The AD104-based graphics card currently sits at the 7th position on the list.

The GeForce RTX 4070 is a great graphics card for 1440p (2560 x 1440) gaming. It's a worthy successor to last generation's GeForce RTX 3070. The only qualm many have with the GeForce RTX 4070 is the price tag. At $599, you can hardly consider the graphics card a mainstream option for gamers. However, some custom GeForce RTX 4070 models received price adjustments just a day after the launch, bringing them back to $599.

Despite all the controversy with the pricing, the GeForce RTX 4070 is in 7th place on Amazon's list. The graphics card is behind popular models, including the GeForce RTX 3060, RTX 3060 Ti, and Radeon RX 6600. Even the more expensive GeForce RTX 4070 Ti is two positions ahead of the GeForce RTX 4070. 

So while the GeForce RTX 4070 is selling ok on Amazon, the graphics card isn't popular at other retailers, like Newegg, where it doesn't appear on the front page of the best-selling list. What came as a big surprise is the Radeon RX 580 2048SP, a rebranded Radeon RX 570 8GB for the Chinese market. Despite being a graphics card from 2018, the Radeon RX 580 2048SP sits tightly behind the GeForce RTX 4070.

Sales are obviously different for every retailer, especially the ones overseas. According to the latest report from German retailer Mindfactory (via TechEpiphany), the GeForce RTX 4070 outsold its current competitors, such as the Radeon RX 7900 XT, twofold. In addition, the GeForce RTX 4070 sales at Mindfactory were three times higher than the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti.

Meanwhile, Micro Center recently saw the need to bundle a $100 Steam gift card with GeForce RTX 40-series purchases, including the GeForce RTX 4070, to help move inventory. Other reports claim that Nvidia hasn't ramped up the production of GeForce RTX 40-series graphics cards, which seems to confirm that the Ada Lovelace business hasn't been booming as Nvidia had hoped. It's hard for consumers to buy your product when even the mainstream SKU carries a premium price tag.

German publication Igor's Lab got word from its sources that Nvidia is reportedly contemplating slashing $50 of the GeForce RTX 4070 for its AIB partners. If the idea comes to fruition, the GeForce RTX 4070's MSRP will drop to $549 instead of the original $599. Although a $549 price tag seems easier to swallow, it's still a considerable amount to fork over. Many consumers would like a $499 price tag for the GeForce RTX 4070. For comparison, the GeForce RTX 2070 and GeForce RTX 3070 launched for $499. Maybe we're just living in the past, and the days of paying less than $500 for an RTX x070-tier graphics card are long gone.