EVGA today announced availability of their X1 Precision software suite for NVIDIA's RTX 20-series graphics cards. The Precision X1 software features a brand new layout, completely new codebase, new features and more, with EVGA saying it's faster, easier to user, and overall better than ever.

The Precision X12 includes a built-in overclock scanner, which automatically discovers your graphics' card hidden overclocking potential algorithmically. It also features an adjustable frequency curve, multi-GPU fan curve controls, and RGB LED control. And interestingly, in its press-release, EVGA themselves said that GTX support was coming soon - whether this refers to still-to-be-launched 20-series graphics cards, or just expanded support for pre-Turing graphics cards, is unclear.

NVIDIA could launch successors to its GeForce GTX 1060 series and GTX 1050 series only by 2019, according to a statement by an ASUS representative, speaking with PC Watch. This could mean that the high-end RTX 2080 Ti, RTX 2080, and RTX 2070, could be the only new SKUs for Holiday 2018 from NVIDIA, alongside cut-rate GeForce GTX 10-series SKUs. This could be a combination of swelling inventories of 10-series GPUs, and insufficient volumes of mid-range RTX 20-series chips, should NVIDIA even decide to extend real-time ray-tracing to mid-range graphics cards.

The way NVIDIA designed the RTX 2070 out of the physically smaller TU106 chip instead of TU104 leads us to believe that NVIDIA could carve out the GTX 1060-series successor based on this chip, since the RTX 2070 maxes it out, and NVIDIA needs to do something with imperfect chips. An even smaller chip (probably half-a-TU104?) could power the GTX 1050-series successor.

Videocardz is reporting that NVIDIA has moved their NDA dates for reviews on their RTX 2080 graphics cards to be published. They cite difficulties for review websites in securing samples, delays in shipment, and even unavailable driver stacks that would allow for reviewers to conduct their jobs with the usual professionalism. Remember that the original NDA timeframe for reviews, as reported by Videocardz, was set at September 17th, which would leave reviewers from today with less than a full week to conduct their testing.

The website reports that "only a handful" of reviewers have gotten their cards already, and that reviews for NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 2080 have now lined up with the NDA set for the RTX 2080 Ti, on September 19th, leaving reviewers with two huge card launches and a single deadline, just before the cards' general availability on September 20th.

NVIDIA CFO Colette Kress, speaking in the company's latest post-results financial analyst call, confirmed that NVIDIA isn't retiring its GeForce GTX 10-series products anytime soon, and that the series could coexist with the latest GeForce RTX series, leading up to Holiday-2018, which ends with the year. "We will be selling probably for the holiday season, both our Turing and our Pascal overall architecture," Kress stated. "We want to be successful for the holiday season, both our Turing and our Pascal overall architecture," she added. NVIDIA is expected to launch not just its RTX 2080 Ti and RTX 2080, but also its RTX 2070 towards the beginning of Q4-2018, and is likely to launch its "sweetspot" segment RTX 2060 by the end of the year.

NVIDIA reportedly has mountains of unsold GeForce GTX 10-series inventory, in the wake of not just a transition to the new generation, but also a slump in GPU-accelerated crypto-currency mining. The company could fine-tune prices of its popular 10-series SKUs such as the GTX 1080 Ti, the GTX 1080, GTX 1070 Ti, and GTX 1060, to sell them at slimmer margins. To consumers this could mean a good opportunity to lap up 4K-capable gaming hardware; but for NVIDIA, it could mean those many fewer takers for its ambitious RTX Technology in its formative year.

We are all still awaiting how NVIDIA's RTX 2000 series of GPUs will fare in independent reviews, but that has not stopped the rumor mill from extrapolating. There have been alleged leaks of the RTX 2080 Ti's performance and now we see HWiNFO add support to an unannounced NVIDIA Turing microarchitecture chip, the TU106. As a reminder, the currently announced members in RTX series are based off TU102 (RTX 2080 Ti), and TU104 (RTX 2080, RTX 2070). It is logical to expect a smaller die for upcoming RTX cards based on NVIDIA's history, and we may well see an RTX 2060 using the TU106 chip.

This addition to HWiNFO is to be taken with a grain of salt, however, as they have been wrong before. Even recently, they had added support for what, at the time, was speculated to be NVIDIA Volta microarchitecture which we now know as Turing. This has not stopped others from speculating further, however, as we see 3DCenter.org give their best estimates on how TU106 may fare in terms of die size, shader and TMU count, and more. Given that TSMC's 7 nm node will likely be preoccupied with Apple iPhone production through the end of this year, NVIDIA may well be using the same 12 nm FinFET process that TU102 and TU104 are being manufactured on. This mainstream GPU segment is NVIDIA's bread-and-butter for gross revenue, and so it is possible we may see an announcement with even retail availability towards the end of Q4 2018 to target holiday shoppers.

Caveat emptor, take this with a grain of salt, and the usual warnings when dealing with rumors about hardware performance come to mind here foremost. That said, a Turkish YouTuber, PC Hocasi TV, put up and then quickly took back down a video going through his benchmark results for the new NVIDIA GPU flagship, the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti across a plethora of game titles. The results, which you can see by clicking to read the whole story, are not out of line but some of the game titles involve a beta stage (Battlefield 5) and an online shooter (PUBG) so there is a second grain of salt needed to season this gravy.

As it stands, 3DCenter.org put together a nice summary of the relative performance of the RTX 2080 Ti compared to the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti from last generation. Based on these results, the RTX 20T0 Ti is approximately 37.5% better than the GTX 1080 Ti as far as average FPS goes and ~30% better on minimum FPS. These are in line with expectations from hardware analysts and the timing of these results tying in to when the GPU launches does lead some credence to the numbers. Adding to this leak is yet another, this time based off a 3DMark Time Spy benchmark, which we will see past the break.

NVIDIA debuted its R399 series of GeForce software, which could be its final sequence before GeForce RTX family of graphics cards are released to market, likely accompanied by a new series of GeForce software (likely R400 series?). Version 399.07 WHQL is "Game Ready" for "Battlefield V Open Beta," F1 2018, "Immortal: Unchained," Pro Evolution Soccer 2019, "Strange Brigade," and "Switchblade." The drivers also add SLI profiles for F1 2018 and "Immortal: Unchained."

GeForce 399.07 WHQL addresses a number of bugs, including blurry screen noticed on "Rainbow Six: Siege" with TAA dialed up to 100%; diagonal screen-tearing on notebooks with MSHybrid; incorrect OpenGL rendering context on GeForce GTX 1050 and GTX 1070; missing textures in "Doom" (2016) with the Vulkan renderer; random BSODs on Oculus VR software; stability issues with "LA Noire VR," and stuttering in some exotic configurations on "Call of Duty: Black Ops 4." A key bug with G-Sync stuttering on machines upgrading to Windows 10 1803 has also been fixed. Grab the driver from the link below.DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 399.07 WHQL Software

PNY has taken the lid of their RTX graphics card lineup, revealing a total of 9 (at least, for now) models that will be sold under the new graphics card lineup. For now, PNY's store only offers purchase options for the RTX 2080 Ti and RTX 2080 graphics cards, with the RTX 2070 only featuring product pages, but no pricing information.

PNY's product differentiation stands, as always, with factory overclocking and the cooling solution employed. There are two RTX 2080 Ti graphics cards - the RTX 2080 Ti 11GB Blower, which caters to the audiences that NVIDIA has left behind with their in-house designs (which now all feature a dual-fan cooling system), and the RTX 2080 Ti 11GB XLR8 Gaming Overclocked Edition ($1,299) with a triple-fan, LED-infused design. For now, there's no information on finalized clock speeds, and both cards feature NVIDIA's reference 1525 MHz core clocks on their specs listing.

After announcing compatible waterblocks for NVIDIA's upcoming RTX 2080 and RTX 2080 Ti graphics cards, Alphacool has announced incoming availability of RTX 2070-specific solutions as well. The Eisblock GPX-N has been thoroughly designed for the silicon chip powering NVIDIA's RTX 2070, and will be available in both Acetal and Pleci finishes. The Acetal version will be available from €114,79, while the Plexi version will run you €149,79. Both these waterblocks join the previously-announced solutions in their September 20th availability, with pre-orders being online from distributors including Aquatuning.

The GeForce RTX 2080 Ti is indeed based on an ASIC codenamed "TU102." NVIDIA was referring to this 775 mm² chip when talking about the 18.5 billion-transistor count in its keynote. The company also provided a breakdown of its various "cores," and a block-diagram. The GPU is still laid out like its predecessors, but each of the 72 streaming multiprocessors (SMs) packs RT cores and Tensor cores in addition to CUDA cores.

The TU102 features six GPCs (graphics processing clusters), which each pack 12 SMs. Each SM packs 64 CUDA cores, 8 Tensor cores, and 1 RT core. Each GPC packs six geometry units. The GPU also packs 288 TMUs and 96 ROPs. The TU102 supports a 384-bit wide GDDR6 memory bus, supporting 14 Gbps memory. There are also two NVLink channels, which NVIDIA plans to later launch as its next-generation multi-GPU technology.

NVIDIA today announced new GeForce experience features to be integrated and expanded in wake of its RTX platform push. The new features include increased number of Ansel-supporting titles (including already released Prey and Vampyr, as well as the upcoming Metro Exodus and Shadow of the Tomb Raider), as well as RTX-exclusive features that are being implemented into the company's gaming system companion.

There are also some features being implemented that gamers will be able to take advantage of without explicit Ansel SDK integration done by the games developer - which NVIDIA says will bring Ansel support (in any shape or form) to over 200 titles (150 more than the over 50 titles already supported via SDK). And capitalizing on Battlefield V's relevance to the gaming crowd, NVIDIA also announced support for Ansel and its Highlights feature for the upcoming title.

NVIDIA today released their first official performance numbers for their new generation of GeForce products - particularly, the RTX 2080. The RTX 20 series of graphics cards, according to the company, offers some 50% performance improvements (on average) on architectural improvements alone, in a per-core basis. This number is then built upon with the added RTX performance of the new RT cores, which allows the RTX 2080 to increase its performance advantage over the last generation 1080 by up to 2x more - while using the new DLSS technology. PUBG, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and Final Fantasy XV are seeing around 75 percent or more improved performance when using this tech.

NVIDIA is also touting the newfound ability to run games at 4K resolutions at over 60 FPS performance, making the RTX 2080 the card to get if that's your preferred resolution (especially if paired with one of those dazzling OLED TVs...) Of course, IQ settings aren't revealed in the slides, so there's an important piece of the puzzle still missing. But considering performance claims of NVIDIA, and comparing the achievable performance on last generation hardware, it's fair to say that these FPS scores refer to the high or highest IQ settings for each game.

In the aftermath of NVIDIA's RTX 20-series announcement, we returned to NVIDIA's Palladium venue to see if there were any new "faces" to spy. And sure enough, there were. Lo and behold, a non-rendered RTX 2080 Ti, which was left to reporters' guises and cameras, where we can look at the dual fan solution and NVIDIA's industrial design - which still looks great, perhaps even better, in this latest iteration.

It has to be said that the new generation of graphics cards sports internal changes as well as on the shroud: there's a revised vapor-chamber solution to keep the increased power consumption in check - and keeping that low noise profile. You'll also note the added USB Type-C connector to the back of the card, aiding in the new data transfer protocol (VirtuaLink) for VR headsets.

Redditors noticed NVIDIA published its GeForce RTX product page ahead of product launch. The page reveals MSRP prices for the first three Founders Edition products in the series, the RTX 2080, the RTX 2080 Ti, and the RTX 2070. The RTX 2080 is priced at USD $799.99, followed by the RTX 2080 Ti at $1,299 and the RTX 2070 at $599. All three new graphics cards will begin shipping on the 20th of September, 2018.

When NVIDIA teased its August 20 event with the #BeForTheGame video earlier this week, we didn't pay as close attention to the chat the gamers were having in it, as some redditors. A screengrab confirms two things: One, that NVIDIA will launch its next-generation graphics card on August 20; and two, that the card will be named GeForce GTX 2080. This settles the debate on whether NVIDIA uses the GeForce 11-series progression or GeForce 20-series. The 10-series (eg: GTX 1080, 1070, etc.) felt like a natural continuation of 900-series (GTX 980, 970); while 20-series (eg: 2080, 2070), similarly feels like a natural succession of 10-series.

Update: Some users are also paying attention to another screengrab with a username RoyTeX, hinting at the possibility of NVIDIA disposing of the "GTX" moniker for "RTX," as it did with its recent Quadro RTX series. If true, the nomenclature could look something like GeForce RTX 2080, RTX 2070, etc. Apparently NVIDIA is going big with its real-time ray-tracing tech.

NVIDIA late Monday rushed out the GeForce 398.98 Hotfix drivers to address glaring bugs with "LA Noire VR." Apparently the game notices crashes and stuttering with the latest GeForce 398.86 Beta drivers. The drivers also fix a stuttering issue noticed on some configurations trying to run "Call of Duty Black Ops 4 Beta." Hotfix releases lack WHQL certification, and are released to correct one or two major bugs that require NVIDIA's immediate attention. Unless you're playing the two games mentioned, you'd rather skip the driver update as the change-log lists no other updates.DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 398.98 Hotfix

NVIDIA today released a small, yet seemingly important enough update to their GeForce driver suite. Shipping under the 398.86 beta version, the new graphics driver specifically addresses an issue whereas Windowed G-Sync mode might stutter after upgrading to Windows 10 April 2018 Update. There's no other declared features in the release notes, so if you've been experiencing this issue, just make the jump. You can grab the drivers below.DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 398.86 Beta

Maxsun may not be much of a household name in territories outside China, as the western market penetration isn't the most relevant within NVIDIA's partners. That said, the company does enjoy the status of NVIDIA AIB, so they're privy to details on next-gen products - especially when they are, allegedly, so close to a reveal and launch.

Maxsun showcased their take on NVIDIA's next generation (you can find the ending of that very word in the photo of the presentation slide) products with a 3D render of what could very well be their finalized next-gen graphics card's looks - and part of their premium, iCraft segment. The ubiquitous RGB is there, as always, pandering to the majority of users' lighting requirements. The graphics card presents a dual-slot, triple-fan solution, and there doesn't seem to be a DVI connector, nor an SLI termination, for that matter. The card also seems to have a single 8-pin power connector, and the GeForce branding is clear. Sadly, the render doesn't specify the model it pertains to - it would be great to finally have some closure on the 1100, 2000 series' debates.

There's just no quieting the rumor mill. It's like we're walking through a field that's made entirely of small pieces of stone that we inadvertently kick - and under every stone, another tidbit, another speculation, another pointer - a veritable breadcrumb trail that's getting more and more convoluted. Even as we were getting sort of decided in regards to NVIDIA's next-generation hardware and its nomenclature and model number - 1100 series - we now have two distinct sources and reports popping one right after the other that point to a 2000 series - and that also suggests Ampere might be in the cards for the next-gen product after all.

NVIDIA today released GeForce 398.82 WHQL drivers. These drivers are game-ready for the week's hottest game releases: "World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth," and "Monster Hunter: World." The drivers also add or update SLI profiles for "Call of Duty: Black Ops 4" and "World of Warcraft." The drivers fix color corruption seen on "World of Warcraft: Legion" on machines with G-Sync HDR and Windows HDR mode enabled. The drivers also bring back graphics settings in "Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus," and missing G-Sync Control Panel on machines with G-Sync Surround. Grab the drivers from the link below.DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 398.82 WHQL

The change-log follows.

NVIDIA, via its UK storefront, has launched new graphics card bundles - bundles that come with a free Kingston SSD. The offer doesn't stretch through the entirety of the lineup, and is restricted to the GeForce GTX 1050 Ti and 1060 - likely the top volume offerings NVIDIA has right now. The offered SSDs are all part of Kingston's A400 value lineup, and the offered capacities range from 120 GB (in the majority of the models) through to 240 GB.

The small capacity SSDs being bundled with these mid range graphics cards also makes sense due to the market these are usually aimed at: casual, price/performance, budget customers, who may not have the funds to spare on an SSD upgrade. So while NVIDIA helps move some more graphics card units (maybe for an eventual, hypothetical, upcoming next-gen 1100 series release?), it only offers SSDs to the market that is more likely to require them for their systems.

The folks over at Computerbase.de have took it into their hands to study exactly how much of an impact >(if any) would activating HDR on a 4K panel affect performance cross different hardware configurations. Supposedly, HDR shouldn't impose any performance penalty on GPUs that were designed to already consider that output on a hardware level; however, as we know, expectations can sometimes be wrong.

NVIDIA today released the GeForce 398.46 Hotfix drivers. These kind of driver releases are expeditiously rolled out to address glaring bugs with drivers, usually affecting gameplay of major titles. The 398.46 Hotfix drivers primarily address the issue of random black textures in "Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus" from publisher Bethesda Softworks. This game uses the Vulkan API and takes advantage of mega-textures. As a reminder, the driver is only available for 64-bit versions of Windows 10. Grab the driver from the link below.DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 398.46 Hotfix Driver

NVIDIA today released GeForce 398.36 WHQL software. These drivers come game-ready for Ubisoft's upcoming "The Crew 2" game. The drivers also bring new and updated SLI profiles for titles such as Dark Souls Remastered, Hand of Fate 2, Need for Speed Payback, and Super Mega Baseball 2. A 3D Vision Profile for Output Zero - Good is included as well. The fixed issues include Pascal graphics cards crashing spontaneously in Gear of War 4, G-SYNC remaining active after a game, game crashes when launched in Surround mode, and many other fixes.DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 398.36 WHQL

An "attack on journalism" exclaims German tech publication Heise.de, on NVIDIA's latest non-disclosure agreement (NDA), a document tech journalists and reviewers have to sign in order to receive graphics card samples and information from NVIDIA. The language of this NDA, released verbatim to the web by Heise, provides a glimpse of what terms reviewers agree to, in order to write launch-day reviews of new products. NDAs are sort of like the EULA you agree to before installing software. There are NDAs for even little things like new thermal pastes, and reviewers end up signing dozens of them each year. Over time, it becomes second nature for reviewers to not publish before a date prescribed by the manufacturer, NDA or not.

The spirit of an NDA is: "we are giving you information/a sample in good faith, don't post your review before date/time/timezone." Such an NDA casts no aspersions on the credibility of the review since it doesn't dictate how the review should be, or what it should say. It doesn't say "don't post your review before we approve what you wrote." NVIDIA samples usually ship with a PDF titled "reviewer's guide," which only politely suggests to reviewers something along the lines of "here's our cool new graphics card that's capable of playing this game at that resolution with these settings, just don't test it on something like Linux with Nouveau drivers, because that either won't work or won't show what our card is truly capable of." Heise's close inspection of the latest NDA by NVIDIA suggests to them that NVIDIA is mandating positive reviews now. We disagree.