Rain or shine, a new month means new games. GeForce NOW kicks off April with nearly 20 new games, seven of which are available to play this week. GFN Thursday celebrates the 10-year anniversary of ZeniMax Online Studios' Elder Scrolls Online by bringing the award-winning online role-playing game (RPG) to the cloud this week. Plus, the GeForce NOW Ultimate membership comes to gamers in Japan for the first time, with new GeForce RTX 4080 SuperPODs online today.

The Rising Sun Goes Ultimate
GeForce NOW is rolling out the green carpet to gamers in Japan, expanding next-generation cloud gaming worldwide. The Ultimate membership tier is now available to gamers in the region, delivering up to 4K gaming at up to 120 frames per second, all at ultra-low latency - even on devices without the latest hardware. Gamers in Japan can now access from the cloud triple-A titles by some of the world's largest publishers. Capcom's Street Fighter 6 and Resident Evil Village will be coming to GeForce NOW at a later date for members to stream at the highest performance. GeForce NOW will operate in Japan alongside GeForce NOW Alliance partner and telecommunications company KDDI, which currently offers its customers access to GeForce RTX 3080-powered servers, in addition to its mobile benefits. Plus, new GFNA partners in other regions will be announced this year - stay tuned to GFN Thursdays for details.

It seems like hoarders of GPU-based crypto-mining cards hoping for mining to return, have relented, causing a deluge of cards that need to be somehow sold. Chinese off-brand VGA vendors have netted volumes of such cards, and with a little bit of retrofitting, have repurposed them into usable gaming graphics cards. Mining cards tend to be "headless," in that they lack display connectors and SMDs needed to drive the display I/O. At least two examples of such cards surfaced, which include "RTX 3080 20 GB Blower AI" and "Radeon RX 580 16 GB." Repurposed mining cards are given a new display I/O if they're missing one, a new cooler (since the mining card's older cooler would've been worn out from the rigors of its past life), and made to look "new," with some PCB cleaning. Such cards are frequently popping up on Chinese marketplaces such as AliExpress.

AMD Radeon RX 6000 and RX 700 series based on RDNA 2 and RDNA 3 GPU architectures have been benchmarked by folks over at ComputerBase. However, these weren't regular benchmarks of performance but rather power consumption. According to their latest results, they discovered that enabling Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) can lower the power consumption of AMD Radeon cards in idle. Using a 4K display with a 144 Hz refresh rate, ComputerBase benchmarked Radeon RX 6800/6700 XT and RX 7900 XT, both last-generation and current-generation graphics cards. The performance matrix also includes a comparison to Intel Arc A770, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, RTX 3080, and RTX 4080.

Regarding performance figures, the tests compare desktop idle consumption, dual monitor power consumption, window movement, YouTube with SDR at 60 FPS, and YouTube with HDR at 60 FPS, all done on a 4K 144 Hz monitor setup. You can see the comparison below, with the most significant regression in power consumption being Radeon RX 7900 XTX using 81% less power in single and 71% less power in dual monitor setup.

Just a few days before the official launch scheduled for April 13th, the first official performance figures for the RTX 4070 have found their way online. As expected, NVIDIA is showing the performance with DLSS 3 and Frame Generation, comparing it to three graphics cards in the RTX 30 series, the RTX 3080, the RTX 3070 Ti, and the RTX 3070.

According to NVIDIA, the GeForce RTX 4070 is targeting 1440p performance at above 100 FPS, with ray tracing and DLSS 3 enabled, of course. NVIDIA officially did not reveal any performance numbers without DLSS 3, but earlier rumors puts the RTX 4070 at around the same performance as the RTX 3080. With DLSS 3 and according to NVIDIA, the RTX 4070 is 1.4x, 1.7x, and 1.8x times faster, compared to the aforementioned RTX 30 series graphics cards.

BIOSTAR sneakily expanded its graphics card lineup with GeForce RTX 30-series "Ampere" and GTX 16-series "Turing" custom-design graphics cards. The company didn't have these at launch, and for the past couple of years, remained as an AMD-exclusive board partner. The lineup includes a custom-design GeForce RTX 3080 10 GB graphics card with a triple-slot, triple-fan cooling solution; an RTX 3070 with a dual-fan, 2-slot cooling; and cards based on the GTX 1650, GTX 1660, and GTX 1660 Super. The cards come surprisingly late to the party—2 years late for the RTX 30-series, and almost 4 years late for the GTX 16-series. BIOSTAR probably landed itself a good deal with NVIDIA on supply of these GPUs as the company works to clear inventory and pave the way for its 40-series "Ada" GPUs across a wider price-range.

With less than a week to go until the official launch of the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti, NVIDIA France has gone and spoiled things by revealing the official specs of the upcoming GPU. The French division of NVIDIA appears to have posted the full product page, but it has since then been pulled. That didn't prevent Twitter leaker @momomo_us from snapping a couple of screenshots, including that of the official performance numbers from NVIDIA.

There aren't any real surprises here though, as we already knew the CUDA core count and the memory size, courtesy of the RTX 4070 Ti having been the RTX 4080 12 GB, until NVIDIA changed its mind. It's interesting to see that NVIDIA compares the RTX 4070 Ti to the RTX 3080 12 GB in the three official benchmarks, as it makes the RTX 4070 Ti look a lot better than it is in reality, at least based on the rumoured MSRP of US$800-900. One of the three benchmarks is Cyberpunk 2077 using Raytracingl, where NVIDIA suggests the RTX 4070 Ti is around 3.5 times faster than the RTX 3080, but it's worth reading the fine print. We'll know next week how the RTX 4070 Ti actually performs, as well as where the official pricing and actual retail pricing ends up.

The first batches of NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40-series "Ada" graphics cards were in production since Q2-2022, and have been sitting in warehouses in Taiwan since August, reports Tweaktown. NVIDIA probably decided against launching them sooner, as the crypto-currency crash left it with heaps of unsold high-end RTX 30-series graphics card inventory, forcing it to delay launch of the RTX 40-series, to allow time for the market to digest this inventory. It is now at a point where its retail partners have to clear out high-end SKUs such as the RTX 3080-series and RTX 3090-series at a third the street-price they commanded in the thick of the GPU shortage caused by crypto-mining through 2021; so NVIDIA could start pushing those RTX 40-series cards. The company is widely expected to announce the RTX 40-series later this month. Besides aggressive pricing, NVIDIA has been bundling its high-end RTX 30-series cards with AAA games.

NVIDIA announced the "Be Greater" game bundle, where the company is handing out Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered (2022) with new purchases of GeForce RTX 3090 Ti, RTX 3090, RTX 3080 Ti, and RTX 3080 desktop graphics cards in the retail channel; as well as gaming notebooks and pre-built desktops that pack the desktop- or Laptop GPU variants of the RTX 3080-series and RTX 3090-series. The promotion period is open from today (September 7) till October 12, 2022, or while stocks covered by the promotion last. The bundle appears to be available in a majority of the markets NVIDIA addresses, but will only be available through select board partners (in case of DIY retail channel graphics cards), notebook/desktop manufacturers, and through select retailers.

NVIDIA's upcoming GeForce RTX 4080 "Ada," a successor to the RTX 3080 "Ampere," reportedly comes in two distinct variants based on memory size, memory bus width, and possibly even core-configuration. MEGAsizeGPU reports that they have seen two reference designs for the RTX 4080, one with 12 GB of memory and a 10-layer PCB, and the other with 16 GB of memory and a 12-layer PCB. Increasing numbers of PCB layers enable greater density of wiring around the ASIC. At debut, the flagship product from NVIDIA is expected to be the RTX 4090, with its 24 GB memory size, and 14-layer PCB. Apparently, the 12 GB and 16 GB variants of the RTX 4080 feature vastly different PCB designs.

We've known from past attempts at memory-based variants, such as the GTX 1060 (3 GB vs. 6 GB), or the more recent RTX 3080 (10 GB vs. 12 GB), that NVIDIA turns to other levers to differentiate variants, such as core-configuration (numbers of available CUDA cores), and the same is highly likely with the RTX 4080. The RTX 4080 12 GB, RTX 4080 16 GB, and the RTX 4090, could be NVIDIA's answers to AMD's RDNA3-based successors of the RX 6800, RX 6800 XT, and RX 6950 XT, respectively.

NVIDIA has reportedly resumed production of its GA102-based RTX 3080 12 GB graphics cards, according to a Tweet from GPU leaker Zed__Wang. The reason cited has to do with oversupply of the company's GA102 chips, which powers the company's high-end lineup from the RTX 3080 through the RTX 3090 Ti (in all, there are six RTX 30-series cards powered by this chip, alongside the CMP 90HX mining-specific card, datacenter and AI inferencing accelerators A10, A10G, and A40, as well as the company's RTX A4500, A5000, A5500, and A6000 series for a total of 14 SKUs).

Oversupply, in this case, has more to do with contracting demand - not only is NVIDIA's next-gen RTX 40-series right around the corner, but the already-announced death of Ethereum's Proof of Work mining has flooded the market with second-hand RTX 30-series cards. This, alongside the already long-winded shelf-life of the RTX 30-series - which hit the market back in September 2020 - has led to contracting demand for NVIDIA's GPUs. Rampant inflation and general macroeconomic indicators also do little to instill confidence in the purchase of non-essential products.

In a sign that NVIDIA board partners are getting desperate to clear inventory of their high-end GeForce RTX 30-series "Ampere" graphics cards to make way for the next-generation, EVGA momentarily offered its premium custom-design GeForce RTX 3090 Ti FTW3 graphics card at nearly half its original price. The company listed the RTX 3090 Ti FTW3 at $1,149, a $1,000 "instant discount" from its $2,149 original list price, which is nearly $1,500 down from the card's street price before the crypto-mining crash of Q2-2022.

This could have been a one-off discount, as the other RTX 3090 Ti cards from the company's lineup are priced slightly higher, with the faster FTW3 Ultra priced at $1,199; and the FTW3 Black at $1,399. Prices of high-end graphics cards have been in free-fall for the past couple of months, with the Radeon RX 6900 XT frequently spotted under $1,000; and the RX 6950 XT oscillating around the $1,000-mark. The likes of the RTX 3080 Ti can also be had around this price; while the RTX 3080 is now firmly under $1,000, sometimes spotted near its launch price of $699.

NVIDIA on Tuesday unveiled the "Face Your Demons" game bundle with new purchases of qualifying GeForce RTX graphics cards. The bundle gives you "Ghostwire Tokyo" and "DOOM Eternal," including the latter's two DLCs, "The Ancient Gods, Part One" and "The Ancient Gods, Part Two." Qualifying graphics cards include the RTX 3080 10 GB, RTX 3080 12 GB, RTX 3080 Ti, RTX 3090, and RTX 3090 Ti. The bundle is available in select regions, through participating retailers. NVIDIA add-in-card (AIC) partners will hand out vouchers with each purchase, which can be redeemed for the two games. Both Ghostwire Tokyo and DOOM Eternal support real-time ray tracing, and NVIDIA DLSS performance enhancement.

TechPowerUp today released the latest version of TechPowerUp GPU-Z. Version 2.47.0 adds support for new GPUs and improves on several fronts. To begin with, it adds support for NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1630, RTX 3050 Laptop, MX570, A1000, A2000, A3000, and other pro-vis GPUs; on the AMD front, it can detect RX 6700 or "Radeon 6700" cards. Support is also added for Intel Core "Alder Lake-H," "Alder Lake-U," and "Alder Lake-HX" processors and their iGPUs.

TechPowerUp GPU-Z 2.47.0 comes with many improvements to the detection of Intel Arc "Alchemist" GPUs. The fake GPU detection was expanded to cover knockoffs based on NVIDIA G98, GT200, and GK104. A workaround was added to fix broken clock-speed detection for AMD GPUs with some recent driver versions this year. Non-LHR reporting of the RTX 3080 12 GB has been fixed. You now have the ability to no longer resume logging on GPU-Z restart, by unchecking a checkbox. Grab GPU-Z from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z 2.47.0The change-log follows.

NiceHash, one of the largest mining software providers in the world, has today announced that the company had updated its QuickHash miner with the capability to unlock 90% of the performance for NVIDIA's Lite Hash Rate (LHR) version 3. Currently, there are only two cards available with LHRv3 on the market, and those are NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB version and RTX 3050, which are limited in the software to have poor hash rate when mining. This is done to get these cards away from the hands of miners and into the hands of consumers. However, engineers working at NiceHash have presented QuickMiner v0.5.4.2 Release Candidate, which unlocks 90% of that LHRv3 capability.

Previously, the company has already presented its work and enabled 100% unlock for LHRv2 cards and has now almost the entire stack covered. It is a matter of time before LHRv3 unlock goes up to 100%. NiceHash advises using NVIDIA driver version 512.15 or higher to get the latest unlock. Some stability issues have been fixed in the release, so users will experience no BSODs upon running the mining software.

Only a week ago the first pictures of the ASUS x Noctua GeForce RTX 3080 card turned up on the web and now the card has been officially announced as the ASUS GeForce RTX 3080 Noctua OC Edition 10 GB GDDR6X. The card will have an OC and a Gaming mode with different boost clocks, where the Gaming mode allows the GPU to boost to 1785 MHz and the OC mode takes this further to 1815 MHz. The memory remains at stock clocks and uses 19 Gbps GDDR6X memory. ASUS claims it's the quietest card in its class, but doesn't mention any actual noise levels, although the card comes with a 0dB fan stop mode. It should be noted that the card takes up 4.1 slots and as such, it might not fit in all builds. No official pricing was provided.

Lenovo announced today its latest generation of stylish and savage gaming laptops: the Lenovo Legion 7i and 7 (16", 7) portable powerhouses, and the thin and light Lenovo Legion Slim 7 and 7i (16", 7) laptops. Sitting at the apex of gaming performance, the new Lenovo Legion 7i and 7 are now the world's most powerful 16-inch gaming laptops. And joining the 16-inch QHD gaming category are Lenovo Legion's thinnest and lightest gaming laptops yet - the new Lenovo Legion Slim 7i and 7 - now available in a taller 16:10 display for when productivity meets play. The new Lenovo Legion 7 series laptops exceed expectations with a number of innovation firsts that adapt to and balance the multi-dimensional needs of modern gamers and professional players. These new devices not only have the world's largest battery capacity on a 16-inch gaming laptop, they also reign as the world's first 16-inch gaming laptops with FHD webcams for better streaming, and as the first 16-inch WQXGA (2560×1600) gaming laptops. The Windows 11 laptops' minimalist design, long battery life, and whisper-quiet artificial intelligence (A.I.) tuned thermals are purpose-built for those who want performance and mobility.

"Lenovo Legion has always occupied a place at the pinnacle of gaming performance, complementing gamers' personal and professional lives to adapt to wherever they go, whether it's a tournament stadium, classroom, or boardroom," said Ouyang Jun, Lenovo's vice president and general manager of the Consumer Business Segment, Intelligent Devices Group. "More stylish and savage than ever before, Lenovo's new Legion 7 series laptops are leveling up to push the limits of smarter, high-performance gaming."

ASUS looks set to release a second graphics card featuring a Noctua cooling solution nearly a year after the two companies announced the ASUS x Noctua GeForce RTX 3070. This new card features the GA102-based 10 GB version of the RTX 3080 instead of the newer 12 GB version launched in January. The quad-slot cooling solution present on the card is very similar to the existing configuration with dual 120 mm Noctua fans and a slightly modified backplate. The card features dual 8-pin power connectors in addition to non-standard display outputs with 3x DisplayPort 1.4 and 2x HDMI 2.1. The ASUS x Noctua GeForce RTX 3080 is expected to launch soon and retail for 1150 EUR which is 250 EUR more then the existing ASUS x Noctua GeForce RTX 3070.

ORIGIN PC, a leader in custom high-performance systems, today announced the availability of its latest thin and light laptops. With ORIGIN PC's newly upgraded flagship systems, the EVO17-S and NT-17, as well as the addition of two brand new laptops to its lineup of world-class systems - the EVO14-S and NT-14 - gamers can play with power and portability. The EVO17-S is a performance powerhouse, equipped with an Intel Core i9-12900H 14-core processor, an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti GPU, and support for up to 64 GB of DDR5 DRAM, while a 240 Hz QHD screen displays all your games in stunning detail. With this combination of hardware pushing laptop gaming to entirely new heights, ORIGIN PC reaffirms its dedication to exceptional mobile performance.

The EVO17-S, EVO15-S, NT-17, and NT-15 systems feature massive hardware upgrades to meet the growing demands of users. For those looking for an expanded display, Thunderbolt 4 and HDMI ports can connect up to two additional monitors. Weighing in at only 2.4 pounds, the new EVO14-S and NT-14 serve to provide users the incredible power of an ORIGIN PC system with the maximum portability benefits of a laptop. These 14" display systems can be further upgraded by adding an external GPU, connecting up to a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 or NVIDIA RTX A6000 for top-tier desktop graphics performance.

Lambda, the Deep Learning Company, today in collaboration with Razer, released the new Lambda Tensorbook, the world's most powerful laptop designed for deep learning, available with Linux and Lambda's deep learning software. The sleek laptop, coupled with the Lambda GPU Cloud, gives engineers all the software tools and compute performance they need to create, train, and test deep learning models locally. Since its launch in 2012, Lambda has quickly become the de-facto deep learning infrastructure provider for the world's leading research and engineering teams. Thousands of businesses and organizations use Lambda including: all of the top five tech companies, 97 percent of the top research universities in the U.S. including MIT and Caltech, and the Department of Defense. These teams use Lambda's GPU clusters, servers, workstations, and cloud instances to train neural networks for cancer detection, autonomous aircraft, drug discovery, self-driving cars, and much more.

"Most ML engineers don't have a dedicated GPU laptop, which forces them to use shared resources on a remote machine, slowing down their development cycle." said Stephen Balaban, co-founder and CEO of Lambda. "When you're stuck SSHing into a remote server, you don't have any of your local data or code and even have a hard time demoing your model to colleagues. The Razer x Lambda Tensorbook solves this. It's pre-installed with PyTorch and TensorFlow and lets you quickly train and demo your models: all from a local GUI interface. No more SSH!"

With the HEATKILLER V eBC - active backplate for RTX 3080/3090 EVGA FTW3 graphics cards, the German-based manufacturer of high-quality liquid cooling presents its interpretation of an active backplate. The backplate's solid copper design is a unique selling point. The large surface area guarantees an excellent performance especially for the hot spot temperatures in the areas of the graphics card processor, VRAM and the voltage converters. The cooling channels were arranged to provide active cooling for all relevant components.

The connection terminal has been modified to connect the graphics card cooler directly to the backplate. Not only does this look cleaner, but it also allows a parallel inflow, which increases the flow rate while reducing the flow resistance. To achieve the best possible cooling performance, the flow ratio between the active backplate and the graphics card cooler was optimized during development by performing countless tests. The assembly is done in two simple steps. The active backplate and the graphics card cooler are mounted first and then both are connected by the new connection terminal.

EK, the leading computer cooling solutions provider, is introducing a whole series of Vector² liquid cooling products for EVGA's XC3 graphic cards. We made sure that powerful EVGA GeForce RTX 3080, 3080 Ti, and 3090 XC3 cards get their Vector² water block with passive backplate, new synergistic active backplate, and other aesthetic pieces to customize your water-cooled 30-series EVGA GPU to your own desires. The EK-Quantum Vector² EVGA XC3 RTX 3080/90 D-RGB is a complete liquid cooling solution that includes a new Vector² water block, black-anodized aluminum backplate, and mounting mechanism. Minimalistic straight lines dominate the new look of the next-gen water blocks.

The 3rd-generation Vector cooling engine combines the jet plate with a 3D machined Plexi insert to improve flow distribution and thermal performance. This new cooling engine is still based on an Open Split-Flow cooling engine design, which proved to be a superior solution for GPU water blocks. It is characterized by low hydraulic flow restriction, meaning it can be used with weaker water pumps or pumps running on low-speed settings and still achieve top performance. We went to great lengths to achieve a symmetrical flow domain by utilizing an internal bridge to secondary components. This was done to ensure the cooling of secondary components without sacrificing flow distribution over the GPU core.

EK, the leading computer cooling solutions provider, is introducing a whole series of Vector² liquid cooling products for MSI Trio and Suprim RTX graphics cards. RTX 3080, 3080 Ti, and 3090 Trio and Suprim cards get their Vector² water block with passive backplate, new synergistic active backplate, and other aesthetic pieces to customize your water-cooled 30-series MSI GPU to your own desires.

The EK-Quantum Vector² Trio RTX 3080/3090 D-RGB is a complete liquid cooling solution including a new Vector² water block, black-anodized aluminium backplate, and mounting mechanism. The new look of the next-gen water blocks is dominated by minimalistic straight lines. The 3rd-generation Vector cooling engine combines the jet plate with a 3D machined Plexi insert to improve flow distribution and thermal performance. This new cooling engine is still based on an Open Split-Flow cooling engine design, which proved to be a superior solution for GPU water blocks. It is characterized by low hydraulic flow restriction, meaning it can be used with weaker water pumps or pumps running on low-speed settings, and still achieve top performance. Great care was taken to achieve a symmetrical flow domain by utilizing an internal bridge to secondary components. This was done to ensure the cooling of secondary components without sacrificing flow distribution over the GPU core.

Alphacool today announces the first active backplate for GeForce RTX 3080/3090 graphics cards from Alphacool. The Eisblock Aurora GPX-N Acrylic Active Backplate is the perfect upgrade for Alphacool's Eisblock Aurora Acrylic/Acetal GPX-N GPU custom water coolers as well as Alphacool's Eiswolf 2 GPU All-in-One solutions. With the help of the backplate, the graphics memory on the back of GeForce RTX 3090 graphics cards can now also be actively water-cooled. With the help of 7 W/mk thermal pads, the active backplate has direct contact with the graphics memory to be cooled and can cool it more efficiently. This results in a significant increase in cooling performance.

Like all products from Alphacool's Eisblock Aurora GPX acrylic product line, the active backplate also features brilliant illumination. Six addressable digital RGB LEDs are embedded directly within the cooler. The effect is an illumination that encompasses the entire cooling block and creates unique lighting effects. The digital aRGB LED lighting is connected via a JST 3-pin connector and can be controlled with a digital RGB controller or a digital RGB-capable mainboard.

When NVIDIA announced the appearance of the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti mobile graphics card, we were left with a desire to see just what the GA103 silicon powering the GPU looks like. And thanks to the Chinese YouTuber Geekerwan, we have the first pictures of the GPU. Pictured below is GA103S/GA103M SKU with GN20-E8-A1 labeling. It features 58 SMs that make up for 7424 CUDA cores in total. The number of Tensor cores for this SKU is set to 232, while there are 58 RT cores. NVIDIA has decided to pair this GPU with a 256-bit memory bus and 16 GB GDDR6 memory.

As it turns out, the full GA103 silicon has a total of 7680 CUDA cores and a 320-bit memory bus, so this mobile version is a slightly cut-down variant. It sits perfectly between GA104 and GA102 SKUs, providing a significant improvement to the core count of GA104 silicon. Power consumption of the GA103 SKU for GeForce RTX 3080 Ti mobile is set to a variable 80-150 Watt range, which can be adjusted according to the system's cooling capacity. An interesting thing to point out is a die size of 496 mm², which is a quarter more significant compared to GA104, for a quarter higher number of CUDA cores.

The most popular cryptocurrency by market-cap, Bitcoin, has dropped in value to below the USD $40,000-mark, to $38,429 as of this writing. This amounts to a whopping 43% drop in value from its November 2021 peak of roughly $67,600. Ethereum has also seen an 8% fall over the past 24 hours, as has the value of several other cryptocurrencies. While we won't get into the nuts and bolts of Bitcoin volatility or hand out any financial advice, this could have an impact on graphics card availability owing to a multitude of reasons.

As of this writing, we see the GeForce RTX 3080 commanding a scalper price of roughly $1,500 (brand new), for the LHR variant (lower crypto-mining performance), while non-LHR cards that are used, start around $1,900. If the fall in cryptocurrencies continues, we could see increased availability of used graphics cards from crypto miners, as gamers would be willing to buy a used RTX 30-series or RX 6000 series graphics card that's still within its warranty period (of 2 years).