The recently announced NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2050, MX570, and MX550 Ampere graphics cards have recently been benchmarked in 3DMark TimeSpy. The RTX 2050 and MX570 both feature the Ampere GA107 GPU with 2048 CUDA cores paired with 4 GB and 2 GB of 64-bit GDDR6 memory respectively. The MX550 uses the TU117 Turing GPU with 1024 CUDA cores running at 1320 MHz paired with 2 GB of 64-bit GDDR6 12 Gbps memory. The RTX 2050 and MX570 performed similarly in the 3DMark TimeSpy benchmark achieving a graphics score of 3369 while the MX550 scores 2510 points. These new laptop graphics cards will be officially launching in Spring 2022.

AMD's next generation Radeon "Navi 3x" line of GPUs could see a 50% increase in shaders and a doubling Infinity Cache memory size, according to some educated-guesswork and intelligence by Greymon55, a reliable source with GPU leaks. The Navi 31, Navi 32, and Navi 33 chips are expected to debut the new RDNA3 graphics architecture, and succeed the 6 nm optical-shrinks of existing Navi 2x chips that AMD is rumored to be working on.

The top Navi 31 part allegedly features 60 workgroup processors (WGPs), or 120 compute units. Assuming an RDNA3 CU still holds 64 stream processors, you're looking at 7,680 stream processors, a 50% increase over Navi 21. The Navi 32 silicon features 40 WGPs, and exactly the same number of shaders as the current Navi 21, at 5,120. The smallest of the three, the Navi 33, packs 16 WGPs, or 2,048 shaders. There is a generational doubling in cache memory, with 256 MB on the Navi 31, 192 MB on the Navi 32, and 64 MB on the Navi 33. Interestingly, the memory sizes and bus widths are unchanged, but AMD could leverage faster GDDR6 memory types. 2022 will see the likes of Samsung ship GDDR6 chips with data-rates as high as 24 Gbps.

NVIDIA has just announced three new mobile GPUs, although the question is how new any of them really are, as the model names suggest they're anything but. First up is the GeForce RTX 2050, which should be based on the Turing architecture. The other two GPUs are the GeForce MX550 and MX570, both presumably based on the Ampere architecture, although NVIDIA hasn't confirmed the specifics.

The GeForce RTX 2050 features 2048 CUDA cores, which is more than the mobile RTX 2060, but it has lower clock speeds and a vastly lower power draw at 30-45 Watts depending on the notebook design choices and cooling. It's also limited to 4 GB of 64-bit GDDR6 memory, which puts this in GeForce MX territory when it comes to memory bandwidth, as NVIDIA quotes an up to memory bandwidth of a mere 112 GB/s.

The desktop RTX 3050 is now rumored to arrive in two variants with the GA106-140 featuring 4 GB of GDDR6 video memory and 2304 CUDA cores while the GA106-150 would include 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and 2560 CUDA cores according to Twitter leaker @kopite7kimi. These two new models will both feature a 128-bit memory bus however further details such as the memory speed or TDP have not yet been leaked. We don't have any information on the MSRP or availability for these two cards at launch but as with all other recent launches we wouldn't expect anything radical. The most likely announcement date for these cards is currently January 4th alongside various other new products from NVIDIA at CES 2022, with availability from January 27th.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, today unveiled an extensive lineup of cutting-edge automotive memory solutions designed for next-generation autonomous electric vehicles. The new lineup includes a 256-gigabyte (GB) PCIe Gen3 NVMe ball grid array (BGA) SSD, 2 GB GDDR6 DRAM and 2 GB DDR4 DRAM for high-performance infotainment systems, as well as 2 GB GDDR6 DRAM and 128 GB Universal Flash Storage (UFS) for autonomous driving systems.

"With the recent proliferation of electric vehicles and the rapid advancement of infotainment and autonomous driving systems, the semiconductor automotive platform is facing a paradigm shift. What used to be a seven to eight-year replacement cycle is now being compressed into a three to four-year cycle, and at the same time, performance and capacity requirements are advancing to levels commonly found in servers," said Jinman Han, executive vice president and head of Memory Global Sales & Marketing at Samsung Electronics. "Samsung's reinforced lineup of memory solutions will act as a major catalyst in further accelerating the shift toward the 'Server on Wheels' era."

Samsung has started sampling high-speed 24 Gbps-rated GDDR6 memory chips. Just to be clear, these are standard GDDR6 chips built to JEDEC-specifications, and not GDDR6X, a derivative standard co-developed by NVIDIA and Micron leveraging PAM4 signaling. The 24 Gbps chips by Samsung can be used by both NVIDIA and AMD, if their GPU designs can handle the data-rates. The specific part number for the chip is "K4ZAF325BC-SC24." This chip has a density of 16 Gb (2 GB), which means 8 of these make up 16 GB across a 256-bit wide memory bus, and 12 of these make 24 GB across a 384-bit bus.

At 24 Gbps, these chips offer 50% more bandwidth than 16 Gbps, and 71% more than 14 Gbps. A hypothetical 6 nm refresh of the "Navi 21" paired with these chips, would hence have 768 GB/s of memory bandwidth on top of its Infinity Cache bandwidth, compared to 512 GB/s on the current Radeon RX 6800 XT. Since the chip is sampling, it's likely that both AMD and NVIDIA have their hands on it. There's no word on when the chip hits mass-production, but this could definitely happen within 2022.

Colorful today unveiled a compact, SFF-friendly graphics card based on the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti "Ampere," the iGame RTX 3060 Ti Mini OC LHR-V. This card has essentially the same board design as the RTX 3060 Mini OC from August 2021, but with the faster RTX 3060 Ti. Its USP is its 18.4 cm length, and standard 13 cm height. A dense aluminium fin-stack heatsink, with a single 90 mm fan, to keep cool.

The cooler shroud uses matte-white with a second brushed aluminium tone, and thin red accents. A denim-like fabric stub sticks of the top with the Colorful branding. The card pulls power from a single 8-pin PCIe power connector. Display outputs include three DisplayPort 1.4, and one HDMI 2.1. The card also features dual-BIOS, with a push-type BIOS switch at the rear I/O. The default BIOS runs the RTX 3060 Ti at 1665 MHz boost, while the OC BIOS runs it at 1680 MHz. The memory is left untouched at 14 Gbps (448 GB/s). Based on the 8 nm GA104 silicon, the RTX 3060 Ti is endowed with 4,864 CUDA cores, 38 RT cores, 152 Tensor cores, 152 TMUs, and 80 ROPs. It features a 256-bit wide GDDR6 memory interface, with 8 GB of memory. As the model name of this card suggests, Colorful is using the LHR (lite hash-rate) version of the RTX 3060 Ti.

The NVIDIA MX550 has allegedly surfaced as part of a new Lenovo laptop in a Geekbench listing paired with an Intel Core i7-1260P 12 core, 16 thread processor. The card is described as a "Graphics Device" in the Geekbench listing however according to ITHome this is actually the upcoming MX550 entry-level mobile graphics card. The card is supposedly based on the Ampere GA107 GPU with 16 Compute Units and 128 CUDA cores paired with 2 GB of GDDR6 memory. The MX550 is the successor to the MX450 launched in August 2020 and should offer a roughly 15% performance increase according to the Geekbench OpenCL score. We have limited information on the availability of the card or the remainder of the MX500 series except that NVIDIA may officially announce them sometime early next year.

GALAX today joined other NVIDIA board partners in launching its custom-design GeForce RTX 2060 12 GB graphics card. NVIDIA re-launched the RTX 2060, based on the "Turing" graphics architecture, with double the memory amount and a few more CUDA cores—2,176 vs. 1,920 on the original. This is NVIDIA's response to the Radeon RX 6600. The custom-design board by GALAX, which will also be sold under the KFA2 brand in certain markets, features an aluminium fin-stack heatsink with direct-touch heat-pipes, and a pair of 90 mm fans that stay off when the card is idling. It pulls power from a single 8-pin PCIe power connector. The card is factory-overclocked with 1695 MHz GPU Boost, compared to 1650 MHz NVIDIA reference, but a software-based 1-click OC mode can bump up the boost clock to 1710 MHz. The memory ticks at 14 Gbps (GDDR6-effective). The company didn't reveal pricing.

NVIDIA today released the GeForce 497.09 Game Ready drivers. These introduce launch-day optimization for "Icarus," including support for NVIDIA DLSS, and RTX ray-traced global illumination (RTX-GI). The drivers also add optimization for "Chorus," including DLSS support; and "Halo Infinite." Six new displays receive NVIDIA G-SYNC support. Among the fixes released with these drivers are TDR or system crashes with "DOOM Eternal" and RDR2, a display corruption with ye olde "DOOM 3 BFG Edition," extreme gamma/contrast issues with YouTube on hardware-accelerated web-browsers; NVIDIA Image Scaling resolutions not correctly appearing in-game after a driver update; and incompatibilities between Adaptive Sync and G-SYNC.

A curious addition with these drivers is support for the GeForce RTX 2060 12 GB graphics card. We've been hearing reports of NVIDIA resurrecting the RTX 2060 "Turing" with 12 GB of GDDR6 memory to target the 1080p gaming crowd; and these drivers confirm it. The 12 GB SKU could be achieved by pairing the "TU106" GPU with 12 GB of memory across its 192-bit wide memory interface.

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 497.09 WHQL

Sapphire, along with various other AIB partners from AMD, has been making graphics cards exclusively for cryptocurrency mining. With the arrival of AMD's RDNA2 generation, this has continued as well. However, the company has been doing it more quietly to avoid backslash from its customers already furious about the poor availability of graphics cards in general. Fortunately, El Chapuzas Informatico managed to get ahold of two datasheets from Sapphire that highlight features and use cases of its GPRO X080 and GPRO X060 mining graphics cards, primarily targeting Ethereum coin mining.

According to the source, the company has readied two models based on RDNA2 chipsets. That is GPRO X080 SKU based on Navi 22 with 2304 Streaming Processors, running at 2132 MHz frequency. Paired with Navi 22 GPU, 10 GB of GDDR6 memory runs at 16 Gbps speed on a 160-bit bus. This model has no display outputs, and the only connector is a PCIe 4.0 x16 slot that connects the GPU to the motherboard. Running at the default 165 Watt TGP, the card produces a 38.0 MH/s hash rate, while the optimized form of 41.6 MH/s reduces TGP to just 93 Watts.

GALAX has added another graphics solution to its lineup in the form of the RTX 3060 Metaltop Mini (FG) Graphics Card. The (FG) bit stands as an interesting warning to cryptocurrency miners; besides the card being shipped with NVIDIA's Lite Hash Rate (LHR) modifications, it actually stands for "For Gamers". That's definitely one way of stopping scalpers and miners from buying up stock... Or is it, really?

The Metaltop Mini would feel right at home in HTPC settings, considering its Mini-ITX form-factor - and is the first GALAX graphics card that features a single fan on cooling duty for an Ampere chip. The Metaltop measures 16.8 cm (length), 11.5 cm (width), and 4 cm (height). Support for 0dB technology still made onto the card despite the single-fan cooling solution - the fan will automatically turn itself off when passive cooling is enough. The card features the same 12 GB GDDR6 memory over a 192-bit bus as other RTX 3060 cards, and there's no factory overclocking or an OC button on the Metaltop - it runs at the stock 1,777 MHz Boost as NVIDIA's reference. I/O is taken care of by the customary 3x DisplayPort, 1x HDMI connectors. A single 8-pin power delivery connector is present. No word on pricing, though availability is scheduled for "soon" via the manufacturer's website.

AMD is preparing to wrap up its Radeon RX 6000 series desktop discrete graphics card family with two new SKUs, the RX 6500 XT and the RX 6400. The two debut the company's smallest piece of silicon based on the RDNA2 graphics architecture, codenamed "Navi 24," to the desktop space. The RX 6500 XT maxes out this silicon, enabling all 16 compute units physically present, working out to 1,024 stream processors. The RX 6400 is significantly cut down, featuring 12 out of 16 CUs, which means 768 stream processors.

The Navi 24 silicon features a 64-bit wide GDDR6 memory interface, which is paired with 4 GB of discrete memory on both SKUs. This memory operates at 14 Gbps data-rate, which works out to 112 GB/s memory bandwidth. Interestingly, the Infinity Cache makes a comeback, in the form of a tiny 16 MB on-die cache that cushions the memory sub-system. The RX 6500 XT could have just enough muscle for e-sports gaming at 1080p, while the RX 6400 seems more like a card you'd buy just because your processor lacks integrated graphics (eg: if you're using a Ryzen 5000X processor and just need a graphics solution that meets the latest display I/O and media-acceleration standards). At this point we don't know if the Navi 24 is DirectX 12 Ultimate compliant, i.e., featuring Ray Accelerators on its compute units. Both cards are expected to launch in Q1, 2022.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a world leader in advanced semiconductor technology, today announced that five of its memory products achieved global recognition for successfully reducing its carbon emission, while 20 additional memory products received carbon footprint certification. Samsung's automotive LED packages also had their carbon footprint verification, a first in the industry for automotive LED packages, further expanding Samsung's portfolio of eco-conscious "green chips".

"It is exciting to see our environmentally sustainable efforts receiving global acknowledgements," said Seong-dai Jang, Senior Vice President and Head of DS Corporate Sustainability Management Office at Samsung Electronics. "We will continue our path towards a sustainable future with 'greener' chips enabled by Samsung's cutting-edge technology."

During Samsung's Tech Day 2021, the company presented some interesting insights about the future of system memory technologies and how it plans to execute its production. Starting with the latest DDR5 standard, the company intends to follow JEDEC documents and offer some overclocking modules that surpass the specification advised by JEDEC. While the DDR5 standard specifies memory modules with 6,400 MT/s, Samsung will develop modules capable of overclocking up to 8,400 MT/s. These are not yet confirmed as they are still in the development phase. However, we can expect to see them in the later life of DDR5 memory.

The company also talked about the DDR6 standard, which is supposedly twice as fast as DDR5. The new DDR6 standard is still in early development, and all we know so far is that the number of memory channels per module is seeing a twofold increase over DDR5 to four channels. The number of memory banks also increases to 64. In addition to DDR6 for desktop and server use cases, the company is also working on Low Power DDR6 (LPDDR6) for mobile applications. While the company's LPDDR5 memory goes into volume production using the 1a-nm process at the beginning of 2022, the LPDDR6 is still in early development. The base speed for DDR6 modules will allegedly arrive at 12,800 MT/s, while overclocking modules will join the party at up to 17,000 MT/s. Mobile-oriented LPDDR6 version is also supposed to come with up to 17,000 MT/s speeds.

The on-again, off-again relationship between NVIDIA and its Turing-based RTX 2060 graphics seems to be heading towards a new tipping point. As previously reported, NVIDIA is expected to be preparing another release cycle for its RTX 2060 graphics card - this time, paired with an as puzzling as it is gargantuan (for its shader performance) 12 GB of GDDR6 memory. Gigabyte has given us yet another tip at the card's expected launch by the end of this year or early 2022 by registering four different card models with the EEC (Eurasian Economic Commission). Gigabyte's four registered cards carry the model numbers GV-N2060OC-12GD, GV-N2060D6-12GD, GV-N2060WF2OC-12GD, and GV-N2060WF2-12GD. Do however remember that not all registered graphics cards actually make it to market.

NVIDIA's revival of the RTX 2060 towards the current market conditions speaks in volumes. While NVIDIA is producing as many 8 nm cards as it can with foundry partner Samsung, the current state of the graphics card pricing market leaves no doubts as to how successfully NVIDIA has been able to cope with both the logistics and materials constraints currently experienced by the semiconductor market. The 12 nm manufacturing process certainly has more available capacity than Samsung's 8 nm; at the same time, the RTX 2060's mining capabilities have been overtaken by graphics cards from the Ampere family, meaning that miners most likely will not look at these as viable options for mining, thus improving availability for consumers as well. If the card does keep close to its expected $300 price-point upon release, of course.

BIOSTAR, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards and storage devices, today announced the new BIOSTAR AMD Radeon RX 6600 graphics card. Built on the breakthrough AMD RDNA 2 gaming architecture, the new BIOSTAR AMD Radeon RX 6600 graphics card offers 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, 32 MB of high-performance AMD Infinity Cache and support for high-bandwidth PCI Express 4.0 technology. Optimized for performance, power efficiency and durability, the new BIOSTAR AMD Radeon RX 6600 graphics card enables high-framerate 1080p gaming in the latest AAA titles.

The BIOSTAR AMD Radeon RX 6600 graphics card offers 28 compute units with a Game Clock frequency of 2,044 MHz and a Boost Clock frequency of up to 2,491 MHz, enabling incredible 1080p gaming experiences without breaking a sweat. In addition, support for DisplayPort 1.4 with DSC and HDMI 2.1 VRR enables crisp, vivid video output.

Micron, today announced that its high-performance 16Gb / 16 Gbps GDDR6 memory solution is now available with AMD Radeon RX 6000 Series graphics cards built on the AMD RDNA 2 gaming architecture. Using Micron's advanced 1z process technology, this latest version of GDDR6 enables up to 512 GB/s system performance for demanding applications like gaming and graphics. Today's announcement continues Micron's rich history of innovation and collaboration with industry leaders to deliver breakthrough performance that enables the most advanced gaming solutions.

As graphics and gaming applications become more demanding, so do the requirements for high bandwidth memory and system performance. Modern gamers expect high-resolution, immersive experiences, and GDDR6 delivers with its support of fast frame rates. The result is excellent performance and speed that minimize lag time and provide gamers with lifelike effects.

ASRock, the leading global motherboard, graphics card and mini PC manufacturer, today launched new Challenger series products based on AMD Radeon RX 6600 GPUs. Built on the 7 nm manufacturing process, the new ASRock graphics cards offer support for the DirectX 12 Ultimate API, hardware-accelerated ray tracing, HDMI 2.1, PCI Express 4.0, and the Microsoft Windows 11 operating system. With a wealth of exclusive features, the new graphics cards are designed to provide visually stunning, high-refresh rate 1080p gaming experiences to the midrange market.

The new graphics cards are built on the breakthrough AMD RDNA 2 gaming architecture, designed to deliver the optimal balance of performance and power efficiency. Offering 32 MB of high-performance AMD Infinity Cache, 8 GB of GDDR6 memory, AMD Smart Access Memory and other advanced features, the new graphics cards are designed to bring next-generation desktop gaming experiences to the midrange market. They also support the AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution open-source spatial upscaling solution, which is designed to increase framerates while delivering high-resolution gaming experiences.

TUL Corporation, a leading and innovative manufacturer of AMD graphic cards since 1997, today announced the launch of the PowerColor Radeon RX 6600 HELLHOUND and FIGHTER graphics cards. The latest AMD Radeon RX 6600 series graphics cards are designed to deliver butter smooth high-fidelity, high-refresh rate 1080p gaming experiences.

AMD Radeon RX 6600 graphics cards are based on the breakthrough AMD RDNA 2 gaming architecture, designed to deliver optimal balance of performance and power efficiency. Offering 32 MB of high-performance AMD Infinity Cache, 8 GB of GDDR6 memory, AMD Smart Access Memory 1 and other advanced features, the new graphics cards are designed to bring next-generation desktop gaming experiences to the midrange market. They also support the AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution open-source spatial upscaling solution, which is designed to increase framerates while delivering high-resolution gaming experiences.

As a leading brand in True Gaming hardware, MSI is proud to announce the MSI Radeon RX 6600 MECH 2X graphics card, designed to deliver incredible 1080p gaming experiences for a wide range of enthusiast gamers. The new graphics cards are built on the breakthrough AMD RDNA 2 gaming architecture, designed to deliver the optimal balance of performance and power efficiency. Offering 32 MB of high-performance AMD Infinity Cache, 8 GB of GDDR6 memory, AMD Smart Access Memory 1 and other advanced features, the new graphics cards are designed to bring next-generation desktop gaming experiences to the midrange market. They also support the AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution open-source spatial upscaling solution, which is designed to increase framerates while delivering high-resolution gaming experiences.

AMD is expected to announce their Radeon RX 6600 graphics card on October 13th according to leaked documents. The graphics card will feature a cut-down Navi 23 GPU with 28 Compute Units and 1,792 stream processors compared to 32 and 2,048 on the RX 6600 XT. The card has also been revealed to feature 8 GB of GDDR6 memory running at 14 Gbps on a 128-bit memory bus. The first images of cards from board partners including XFX, ASRock, and PowerColor have been published by VideoCardz covering 5 different RX 6600 models.

The XFX Speedster SWFT 210 features a unique shorter PCB design with a relocated 8-pin power connector in addition to a redesigned backplate which differs from the RX 6600 XT model. PowerColor appears to be releasing Hellhound and Fighter models with identical designs as their RX 6600 XT counterparts featuring 2-slot cooling and single 8-pin power connectors. ASRock is preparing two Challenger series models both sharing the same PCB with the single-fan Challenger ITX and dual-fan Challenger D. These new cards will reportedly match the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 according to a leaked internal benchmark.

Got €600 to spare? Great, as that means that you can afford an AMD Radeon 6600 graphics card when they launch sometime next month. Courtesy of both a Dutch and a Portuguese computer shop, we now have an idea of what the cards will cost ahead of the retail launch which is said to be on the 13th of October.

The Portuguese shop also kindly posted pictures of the Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 6600, which comes as expected with 8 GB of GDDR6 memory, which it lists for €589.90. The Dutch shop was less forthcoming with their MSI Radeon RX 6600 MECH 2X 8 GB, but to be honest, it might not matter what these cards look like at these kinds of price points. The MSI card is listed at €600,41, so make sure you bring some coins as well.

Following the peak period of production in 3Q21, the supply of DRAM will likely begin to outpace demand in 4Q21, according to TrendForce's latest investigations (the surplus of DRAM supply is henceforth referred to as "sufficiency ratio", expressed as a percentage). In addition, while DRAM suppliers are generally carrying a healthy level of inventory, most of their clients in the end-product markets are carrying a higher level of DRAM inventory than what is considered healthy, meaning these clients will be less willing to procure additional DRAM going forward. TrendForce therefore forecasts a downward trajectory for DRAM ASP in 4Q21. More specifically, DRAM products that are currently in oversupply may experience price drops of more than 5% QoQ, and the overall DRAM ASP will likely decline by about 3-8% QoQ in 4Q21.

Although WFH and distance learning applications previously generated high demand for notebook computers, increasingly widespread vaccinations in Europe and North America have now weakened this demand, particularly for Chromebooks. As a result, global production of notebooks is expected to decline in 4Q21, in turn propelling the sufficiency ratio of PC DRAM to 1.38%, which indicates that PC DRAM will no longer be in short supply in 4Q21. However, PC DRAM accounts for a relatively low share of DRAM manufacturers' DRAM supply bits, since these suppliers have allocated more production capacities to server DRAM, which is in relatively high demand. Hence, there will unlikely be a severe surplus of PC DRAM in 4Q21. It should also be pointed out that, on average, the current spot prices of PC DRAM modules are far lower than their contract prices for 3Q21. TrendForce therefore expects an imminent 5-10% QoQ decline in PC DRAM contract prices for 4Q21, with potential for declines that are even greater than 10% for certain transactions, as PC OEMs anticipate further price drops in PC DRAM prices in the future.

The AMD Radeon RX 6600 is expected to launch in October after documents received by VideoCardz reveal that reviews for the card are set to be published on October 13th. The documents reveal that board partners who will be releasing cards for review will need to have informed AMD by September 15th and can begin shipping them to reviewers on September 29th. The AMD Radeon RX 6600 will use the Navi 23 GPU with 4 Compute Units disabled for a total of 28. This will give the card 1792 Stream Processors which will be paired with 8 GB of GDDR6 memory. The documents also show that AMD is not planning to release an RX 6600 reference card so no pricing information was included. We expect that the card will be shortly available after the listed review embargo is lifted on October 13th at 9 AM EST.