4A Games has announced that they're happy with the development on Metro: Exodus as it stands today, and have announced that the game has gone gold (meaning, that it is in a state where it can be produced en-masse and shipped to the achingly awaiting public). Metro: Exodus, the third game accompanying Artyom's struggle to survive in post-apocalyptic Russia, is the first game from the developer to feature an open-world design, and confidence should be going through the roof as it relates to this particular title's quality.

The game has a launch date for February 15th, and will be featuring support for NVIDIA's RTX technology (expectedly, upon launch day). We'll be here to see how that works out in this particular title, of course. In the meantime, 4A Games and publisher Deep Silver have released the full title sequence for the game, which should whet your appetites for the survival game that's coming soon.

Intel's discrete graphics card for PC enthusiasts is real. Intel won't just address the pro-graphics and accelerated-compute markets, but also consumer graphics, challenging the duopoly of NVIDIA GeForce and AMD Radeon. Scheduled for 2020, the new Intel Xᵉ is a family of discrete GPUs targeting client-segment (consumer graphics) as well as enterprise (pro-graphics and compute).

As for performance, we speculate that the first Xᵉ products could span a vast lineup of ASICs starting single-digit TFLOP/s range for the client-segment GPU, looking purely at a nondescript performance-time graph presented by Intel. This graph depicts performance double linearly over time up to Gen9, and increase to Intel's own state 1 TFLOP/s for the Gen11 iGPU core in 2019 (a full four years following Gen9). There are a spectrum of GPUs going from the entry-level client-segment all the way up to mid-range and enthusiast segment (Intel finally used the E-word).

Today, Intel is revealing major details about its upcoming CPU and graphics architectures to select audience. A big scoop VideoCardz landed is the company's next-generation Gen11 integrated graphics core, the first major upgrade to the company's 4-year old Gen9 architecture. According to them, a Gen11 (default GT2 trim we assume) graphics core should offer a compute throughput of 1 TFLOP/s, which is in the league of the Radeon Vega 8, with its 1.12 TFLOP/s throughput. The Vega 8 is part of AMD's Ryzen 3 2200G processor.

Raw compute power only paints half the picture, the iGPU reportedly also supports tile-based rendering. This is a highly publicized method of rendering that made its consumer debut with NVIDIA "Pascal." Also mentioned are redesigned FPU interfaces, support for half-precision FP16, 2x pixel/clock pipelines, display stream compression that lets it support 5K and 8K displays, and adaptive sync. Intel will debut its Gen11 iGPU with its upcoming Core "Ice Lake" processors that debut on the company's 10 nm silicon fabrication process.

Last week was quite busy with news, and one thing that slipped through the cracks then was the announcement of ZOTAC's new NVLink bridging solutions. Marketed under the ZOTAC Gaming brand, these follow in line with other major NVIDIA add-in card (AIC) partners in providing an alternative to the first-party OEM offering, just in case you preferred a different aesthetic. These are available in either a 3-slot (74.5 x 75.5 x 25 mm) or a 4-slot (74.5 x 96 x 25 mm) spacing option, with backlighting support for the ZOTAC Gaming logo in the center that can be configured by their SPECTRA software lighting suite.

These NVLink bridges have not yet been made available for purchase in most regions, with expected retail availability ranging from December 14-20, but those in East Asia can already find them available for comparable prices as with other such options from MSI, ASUS, and GIGABYTE. ZOTAC also put out an unboxing video which gives a better look at the product relative to the renders below, for those interested.

For those doing a fresh install of Microsoft's latest Windows 10 operating system (version 1809 October 2018 Update), you may encounter an issue with NVIDIA graphics drivers. Namely, a message may pop up when you install the graphics driver, telling you "The standard NVIDIA graphics driver is not compatible with this version of Windows". The issue is caused by the operating system automatically installing the GeForce 398.36 DCH graphics driver through Windows Update, immediately after first log-on. DCH drivers are also known as "Universal Windows Driver", "UWD", "DCHU", and "Declarative, Componentized, Hardware Support App", and leverage the Windows UWP platform for driver control panels while promising simpler updates and maintainability.

If networking is available during the Windows 10 installation, the operating system will automatically look for a graphics driver on Windows Update, which is a good thing, as it simplifies the setup process for the majority of users. At this point, everything will appear to be fine, however, once you attempt to update from that driver to the newest version from NVIDIA's driver download page, the error will appear. This is highly frustrating for some users, who have been reporting the issue on several online forums, including NVIDIA's own, with little attention paid thus far from their developers. We encountered the problem ourselves today, during the setup of our 2019 SSD review benchmarking install and got motivated to investigate this further.

INNO3D, a leading manufacturer of pioneering high-end multimedia components and various innovations is excited to introduce the new iCHILL Frostbite. The brains in R&D have revisited the water cooling solution segment of iCHILL and developed this water block masterpiece. It is designed around NVIDIA's GeForce RTX series 2080 Ti, 2080 and 2070, providing nothing short of excellent cooling for these powerhouse of graphics cards.

INNO3D decided it was the right time to bring back water cooling and add this to the iCHILL arsenal, befitting to the power of the new
RTX series and its need for the best cooling technology. The iCHILL Frostbite is built with top quality components for supreme functionality whilst catering to the aesthetic demands with its magnificent RGB lighting. The iCHILL Frostbite is built with pure copper and is nickel plated which completely seals the heatsink protecting it. Increased cooling performance is enabled with thin thermal pads and close proximity with radiator and component. It also has ultra-thin cooling fins at 0.6 mm thick that stand 0.6 mm between each other resulting in maximum possible cooling performance.

With NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 20-series having already released for desktops, it was only a matter of time until laptops got the RTX treatment as well. Current rumors are suggesting that Nvidia will officially launch their GeForce RTX 20-series mobility GPUs on January 6th at CES with the RTX 2070 and RTX 2070 Max-Q taking center stage. An embargo date of January 26th has also been set, with NVIDIA delaying their final release drivers until then. Meaning final performance results for the new mobile GPUs won't be available until after the embargo date, which should coincide with the general availability of RTX 20-series equipped laptops.

Along with the RTX 2070 and 2070 Max-Q mobility parts, the flagship RTX 2080 Max-Q which isn't expected at the show, is still in the works, with its TU104M 1eab device ID having been leaked earlier. The rest of the GeForce 20-series mobility GPUs are likely to use the GTX moniker if NVIDIA's desktop lineup is anything to go by; however, that is merely speculation at this point.

GIGABYTE looks to expand their NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti lineup with the AORUS Turbo. This new offering features a blower-style cooler with a plastic shroud and no backplate. Considering the AORUS brand is typically enthusiast focused along with the fact GIGABYTE themselves already offer an RTX 2080 Ti with a blower-style cooler makes the AORUS Turbo a bit of a head-scratcher. Comparing the two shows the plastic shroud has been altered, however, outward appearance aside it is likely that the AORUS Turbo uses the same cooler as the GIGABYTE RTX 2080 Ti Turbo, which features a large vapor chamber cooler paired with a high-efficiency aluminium heatsink.

Meanwhile, power delivery is handled by two 8-pin PCIe connectors which are the standard for RTX 2080 Ti graphics cards. Display connectivity consists of three Displayport connectors, one HDMI connector, and a USB-C connector with VritualLink support. Other than that, full specifications and pricing are currently unknown. However, it can be speculated that the AORUS Turbo RTX 2080 Ti will feature stock clocks of 1545 MHz on the core and 14000 MHz on the memory with a price that should be close to MSRP at least in theory.

It looks like NVIDIA bought itself a mountain of unsold GDDR5X memory chips, and is now refreshing its own mountain of unsold GP104 inventory, to make products more presentable to consumers in the wake of its RTX 20-series and real-time ray-tracing lure. First, it was the GP104-based GTX 1060 6 GB with GDDR5X memory, and now it's the significantly faster GeForce GTX 1070, which is receiving the newer memory, along with otherwise unchanged specifications. ZOTAC is among the first NVIDIA add-in card partners ready with one such cards, the GTX 1070 AMP Extreme Core GDDR5X (model: ZT-P10700Q-10P).

Much like the GTX 1060 6 GB GDDR5X, this otherwise factory-overclocked ZOTAC card sticks to a memory clock speed of 8.00 GHz, despite using GDDR5X memory chips that are rated for 10 Gbps. It features 8 GB of it across the chip's full 256-bit memory bus width. The GPU is factory-overclocked by ZOTAC to tick at 1607 MHz, with 1797 MHz GPU Boost, which are below the clock-speeds of the GDDR5 AMP Extreme SKU, that has not just higher 1805 MHz GPU Boost frequency, but also overclocked memory at 8.20 GHz. Out of the box, this card's performance shouldn't be distinguishable from the GDDR5 AMP Core, but the memory alone should serve up a significant overclocking headroom.

Razer, the leading lifestyle brand for gamers, announced today the release of their redesigned 13-inch ultraportable laptop line consisting of three new configurations. The new Razer Blade Stealth is now available with individually calibrated micro edge thin-bezel displays with up to 4K resolution, increased battery life of up to 13 hours, and available NVIDIA GeForce dedicated graphics.

KFA2, the EU-centric co-brand of GALAX launched its GeForce RTX 2070 EX and RTX 2070 EXOC graphics cards in the old continent. Both cards combine a standard-height PCB, mated with a custom-design cooling solution. This cooler features an aluminium fin-stack heatsink that's ventilated by a pair of 100 mm spinners that stay off when the GPU is idling. The fans and a decal on top of the card are RGB LED illuminated. The RTX 2070 EX sticks to NVIDIA-reference clock speeds, with a GPU Boost frequency of 1620 MHz, while the RTX 2070 EXOC dials up the GPU Boost frequency to 1815 MHz. Available from late-December in the EU, the RTX 2070 EX is priced at 519€, and the RTX 2070 EXOC at 569€.

EA-DICE and NVIDIA earned a lot of bad press last month, when performance numbers for "Battlefield V" with DirectX Raytracing (DXR) were finally out. Gamers were disappointed to see that DXR inflicts heavy performance penalties, with 4K UHD gameplay becoming out of bounds even for the $1,200 GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, and acceptable frame-rates only available on 1080p resolution. DICE has since been tirelessly working to rework its real-time raytracing implementation so performance is improved. Tomorrow (4th December), the studio will release a patch to "Battlefield V," a day ahead of its new Tides of War: Overture and new War Story slated for December 5th. This patch could be a game-changer for GeForce RTX users.

NVIDIA has been closely working with EA-DICE on this new patch, which NVIDIA claims improves the game's frame-rates with DXR enabled by "up to 50 percent." The patch enables RTX 2080 Ti users to smoothly play "Battlefield V" with DXR at 1440p resolution, with frame-rates over 60 fps, and DXR Reflections set to "Ultra." RTX 2080 (non-Ti) users should be able to play the game at 1440p with over 60 fps, if the DXR Reflections toggle is set at "Medium." RTX 2070 users can play the game at 1080p, with over 60 fps, and the toggle set to "Medium." NVIDIA states that it is continuing to work with DICE to improve DXR performance even further, which will take the shape of future game patches and driver updates.A video presentation by NVIDIA follows.

NVIDIA today released the latest version of GeForce software suite. Version 417.22 refines optimization for "Battlefield V," with specific game-ready tuning for Battlefield V Tides of War Chapter 1: Overture Update. The drivers also introduce fixes to a number of bugs, including display corruption noticed on some high refresh-rate monitors connected via DisplayPort, and a blank screen noticed on BenQ ZOWIE XL2730 monitors when the refresh-rate is set to 144 Hz. A game crash noticed on "Hellblade" with RTX 2080 Ti is also addressed. Also fixed are incorrect memory clock speed reporting, and incorrect application of RGB color formats in NVIDIA Control Panel.DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 417.22 WHQL

The change-log follows.

ELSA, who've been taking longer and longer to release their own-branded interpretations of NVIDIA's graphics cards, have now decided to partner with INNO3D to deliver their own branded graphics cards under the Turing microarchitecture. Under the "powered by INNO3D" branding, ELSA is announcing RTX 2070 and RTX 2080 graphics cards.

NVIDIA today introduced NVIDIA TITAN RTX , the world's most powerful desktop GPU, providing massive performance for AI research, data science and creative applications. Driven by the new NVIDIA Turing architecture, TITAN RTX - dubbed T-Rex - delivers 130 teraflops of deep learning performance and 11 GigaRays of ray-tracing performance.

"Turing is NVIDIA's biggest advance in a decade - fusing shaders, ray tracing, and deep learning to reinvent the GPU," said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. "The introduction of T-Rex puts Turing within reach of millions of the most demanding PC users - developers, scientists and content creators."

NVIDIA is ready with its new flagship halo consumer graphics card, the TITAN RTX. Several video bloggers such as LinusTechTips have apparently already been sampled with this card, and are probably under NDA not to reveal specifications. Given that "Turing" is the only NVIDIA architecture capable of RTX, NVIDIA could be building the TITAN RTX on the largest "TU102" silicon. The GeForce RTX 2080 Ti does not max out this silicon, leaving NVIDIA room to do so with the TITAN RTX.

A maxed out "TU102" should feature 4,608 CUDA cores, 288 TMUs, 96 ROPs, in addition to 576 tensor cores and 72 RT cores. NVIDIA could also max out the 384-bit wide GDDR6 memory bus, and equip the TITAN RTX with 12 GB of video memory. Using 14 Gbps GDDR6 memory chips, NVIDIA can achieve 672 GB/s of memory bandwidth. The TITAN RTX card itself looks similar to the RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition graphics card, but with an illuminated "TITAN" logo on top. The card still draws power from a pair of 8-pin PCIe power connectors, and it's likely that NVIDIA is using the same PCB, perhaps with additional capacitors. Pricing and availability is anyone's guess. Given that the RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition was launched at $1,200, we agree with some of our community members' speculation that $1,800-2,000 doesn't seem implausible.

Update Dec 3: The Titan RTX has launched now for $2,499.

MSI today introduced the GeForce RTX 2070 Ventus graphics card, part of its new Ventus sub-brand that succeeds its Armor series in the high-end segment. With a length of 22.6 cm and 12.8 cm height, the RTX 2070 Ventus is more compact than other custom-design RTX 2070 cards from the company. Its USP is that it draws power from a single 8-pin PCIe power connector, much like the Founders Edition card.

A dense aluminium fin-stack heatsink, with heat-pipe direct-touch base, cools the GPU, which is ventilated by two 100 mm TorX 2 fans. The heatsink features four 6 mm-thick nickel-plated copper heat pipes. The card sticks to NVIDIA reference clock speeds of 1620 MHz boost and 14 GHz (GDDR6-effective) memory. MSI is expected to price this card halfway between its cheapest RTX 2070 Aero and RTX 2070 Armor.

ZOTAC began rolling out its first refreshed GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB graphics cards that feature the more advanced GDDR5X memory, dubbed GTX 1060 6 GB G5X Destroyer. Since NVIDIA is carving out this RX 590-rivaling SKU from the larger GP104 silicon, ZOTAC appears to be using the same PCB as its GTX 1080 Mini, with 2/8 memory traces blanked out. The GP104 silicon is configured with the same 1,280 CUDA cores, 80 TMUs, 48 ROPs, and 192-bit wide memory interface as the GP106-based original, but with 6 GB of GDDR5X memory, albeit clocked at the same 8 GHz.

The card sticks to NVIDIA reference clock speeds of 1506 MHz core, 1708 MHz GPU Boost, and 8.00 GHz memory clock, although the 10 Gbps-rated GDDR5X memory chips could come with vast overclocking headroom. The card draws power from a single 8-pin PCIe power connector. Display outputs include three DisplayPorts, and one each HDMI and DVI-D. Although the card physically features SLI-HB fingers, ZOTAC clarifies that SLI is not supported for this SKU.

Colorful Technology Company Limited, professional manufacturer of graphics cards, motherboards and high-performance storage solutions proudly introduces the latest graphics in its prestigious iGame series of gaming equipment. The COLORFUL iGame GeForce RTX 2070 Ultra OC combines excellent cooling with excellent design to bring out the best of the new GeForce RTX graphics card from NVIDIA. Featuring the new Turing architecture to deliver real-time ray tracing, NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX series graphics card bring realism to life and COLORFUL's iGame GeForce RTX 2070 Ultra OC is your top choice.

The new graphics card joins the iGame family of high-performance graphics cards design for gamers that demand uncompromising performance to bring gamers the best gaming experience thanks to feedback from gamers themselves.

MSI today introduced the Oculux NXG251R, an ultra-fast 24.5-inch gaming-grade monitor. If you can live with its Full HD (1920 x 1080 pixels) resolution and TN-film type panel, on offer is 240 Hz maximum refresh-rate, response times as low as 1 ms (GTG), and support for NVIDIA G-Sync technology. There are also RGB LED ornaments behind the monitor, which can be controlled via MSI Mystic Light software, which can work as an ambient light, or however you want them to. The monitor features thin top and side bezels, with a faux brushed-metal bottom bezel. Other vital display specs include 170°/160° H/V viewing angles, and 1000:1 static contrast ratio with DCR. Inputs include DisplayPort 1.2 (needed for G-Sync), and HDMI 1.4. A 3-port USB 3.1 hub makes for the rest of it. The company didn't reveal pricing.

A few weeks ago Valve developers announced a new technology called Motion Smoothing that would enable low-end GPUs to support VR games without problems. The system "looks at the last two delivered frames, estimates motion and animation, and extrapolates a new frame. Synthesizing new frames keeps the current application at full framerate, advances motion forward, and avoids judder".

Motion Smoothing has been available in Beta for some time, but the test phase has come to an end and it seems the technology is ready to enter the final, stable stage. You'll still need an HTC VIVE or HTC VIVE Pro headset -Oculus Rift and Windows Mixed Reality headset have their own display drivers with other tricks to sustain frame rates-, and the lack of AMD GPU support is somewhat disappointing, but hopefully Valve will fix this in future iterations of this technology.

According to Jon Peddie Research, overall desktop GPU shipments have fallen by 16% YoY - a not unexpected turn of events considering the state of the crypto mining boom then and now (where it's virtually absent). The YoY change means that production volumes planned during the mining boom are now above and beyond the channel's capability to move them through user demand, hence the diminishing prices in graphics cards (aided by the dump of mining-bought graphics cards in the second-hand markets).

Overall, GPU shipments still increased by 10.64% compared to last quarter in the overall market, fueled mostly by Intel - AMD shipments increased 6.5% Nvidia increased 4.3% and Intel increased 13.1% compared to their own previous shipment quotas. Still, AMD's market share from last quarter decreased -0.6%, Intel's increased 1.5%, and Nvidia's market share decreased -0.97%. JPR also cites the US's additional tax on China imported goods, as well as descending stock market values as reasons for consumers (both singular and business) to be holding off on purchases.

MSI rolled out one of the many upcoming silently-launched GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB graphics cards to feature the more advanced GDDR5X memory. NVIDIA is designing this SKU to compete with AMD's recently launched Radeon RX 590. Its specifications are very similar to those of the original GTX 1060 6 GB, but GDDR5X lends additional overclocking headroom. NVIDIA is carving this SKU out of the larger GP104 silicon, instead of GP106. You still only get 1,280 CUDA cores, 80 TMUs, 48 ROPs, and a 192-bit wide memory interface.

The MSI Armor OC ships with 1544 MHz GPU clocks, with 1759 MHz GPU Boost frequencies, compared to 1506/1709 MHz reference clock speeds. This factory-overclock is identical to the one the company's original GP106-based Armor OCV1 card ships with. The memory, surprisingly remains at 8.00 GHz, even though we suspect 10 Gbps-rated GDDR5X memory chips are being used in this card. The card draws power from a combination of 6-pin and 8-pin PCIe power connectors. The company's GTX 1060 6 GB Armor OCV1 graphics card only features a single 8-pin. Apparently you get SLI support. The company didn't reveal pricing.

Today Basemark releases version 1.1 of its multi-platform graphics hardware evaluation tool Basemark GPU. Basemark GPU has been made available for free to download and use for personal users. Additionally, Basemark has provided professional versions for Benchmark Development Program members, corporate and commercial users.

Basemark GPU 1.1 Benchmark offers unparalleled, objective comparisons between Vulkan, OpenGL, OpenGL ES and now DirectX 12 for graphics performance analysis across both mobile and desktop platforms. Our desktop Linux version of Basemark GPU 1.1 will be available in the next few days utilizing the easily installable universal Flatpak delivery format.

Basemark GPU is available for download now.

NVIDIA today released the latest version of its GeForce software suite. Version 417.01 WHQL drivers come game-ready optimization for "Darksiders III." The drivers also add SLI profiles for "Artifact." The drivers also address a number of bugs, including refresh-rates above 30 Hz not being applicable on certain 4K Ultra HD monitors (provided hardware requirements such as DisplayPort HBR2 or HDMI 2.0 or greater are met). The drivers also fix Frame Rate Limiter 2 not functioning in some cases. Also addressed is an "Event ID 14" error message when CSM is disabled in the UEFI setup program, G-Sync not disengaging after exiting a game, and incomplete Ansel images appearing when resolution is set 30X or higher.DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 417.01 WHQL

The change-log follows.