FSP today rolled out the "Ampere Cable," an accessory that converts two 8-pin PCIe inputs from modular PSUs to the 12-pin Molex MicroFit connector standard introduced to the client segment by NVIDIA and its GeForce RTX 3000 "Ampere" Founders Edition graphics cards. The cables are compatible with any modular PSU that has 8-pin 12 V connectors that put out 8-pin PCIe. It should work with all FSP branded modular PSUs, as well as modular PSUs of other brands that use Fortron as their OEM source. FSP is Fortron's DIY channel brand. FSP is setting up web-forms for existing owners of FSP power supplies to claim a free unit.Update Sep 10th: FSP has informed us that they have decided to not sell this cable

Here are the first pictures of the GeForce RTX 3090 "Ampere" Eagle OC and Gaming OC custom-design graphics cards by GIGABYTE. Both cards implement the company's latest generation WindForce 3X cooling solution that's triple-slot, featuring a trio of fans, and varying grades of factory overclocked speeds. The Eagle OC SKU could be positioned slightly above the Gaming OC SKU. Above the two, GIGABYTE could position its coveted AORUS Gaming branded graphics card. It's been established from yesterday's Gainward leaks, that 24 GB is the standard memory size for the RTX 3090, while 10 GB is standard for the RTX 3080.

Here are some of the first pictures of custom-design GeForce RTX 3090 and RTX 3080 "Ampere" graphics cards by Inno3D. The company bets big on the two upcoming high-end GPUs with its new generation iChill cooling solutions. Both the RTX 3090 and RTX 3080 get iChill X4 and iChill X3 SKUs. The iChill X4 cooler features a meaty aluminium fin-stack heatsink with four fans (three where you'd expect them, and a fourth tiny 60 mm fan along the top), and the highest grade of factory-overclock by Inno3D. The iChill X3 has just three fans, and a slightly lower factory overclock grade. At the lower end, the RTX 3090 gets a Gaming X3 SKU, and the RTX 3080 gets a Twin X2 SKU, both with mild factory overclock levels.

Here are some of the clearest pictures of an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 "Ampere" Founders Edition PCB, albeit bare (components not yet placed). The PCB goes in this form to another production line, where a PCB placer machine with reels of components places them along both sides. We can still make out quite a few things. To beign with, there are six high current traces near where the 12-pin Molex MicroFit power connector goes in.

NVIDIA seems to have utilized both sides of the PCB effectively. The card features traces for a mammoth 20-phase VRM. The obverse side has the chokes and DrMOS, the reverse side has the capacitors. Twelve memory pads for the 384-bit wide GDDR6X memory interface surround the GPU pad. There are pads for four display output connectors, which could be a mixture of DisplayPort, HDMI, or even USB-C VirtualLink. The PCB still has its spacers on, which will be cut out after component placement, after which the PCB heads for testing and product assembly. NVIDIA is expected to announce the GeForce RTX 3090 Ampere at an online event later today.

NVIDIA's performance expectations from the upcoming GeForce RTX 3090 "Ampere" flagship graphics card underline a massive RTX performance gain generation-over-generation. Measured at 4K UHD with DLSS enabled on both cards, the RTX 3090 is shown offering a 100% performance gain over the RTX 2080 Ti in "Minecraft RTX," greater than 100% gain in "Control," and close to 80% gain in "Wolfenstein: Young Blood." NVIDIA's GeForce "Ampere" architecture introduces second generation RTX, according to leaked Gainward specs sheets. This could entail not just higher numbers of ray-tracing machinery, but also higher IPC for the RT cores. The specs sheets also refer to third generation tensor cores, which could enhance DLSS performance.

A mega dump of the Gainward GeForce RTX 3090 Phoenix GS and RTX 3080 Phoenix GS reveal not only the common board design of the two cards, but also the final specs of the RTX 3080 and RTX 3090. The RTX 3090 features 5,248 CUDA cores, and 24 GB of 19.5 Gbps GDDR6X memory across a 384-bit memory bus, which belts out 936 GB/s of memory bandwidth. The Gainward Phoenix GS runs the RTX 3090 at 1725 MHz boost frequency. The RTX 3080, on the other hand, features 4,352 CUDA cores, and 10 GB of 19 Gbps GDDR6X memory across a 320-bit memory bus, with 760 GB/s memory bandwidth. Gainward is running the RTX 3080 at 1740 MHz on the Phoenix GS.

What's interesting is the board power figures put out by Gainward. The RTX 3090 typical board power (at least for the Phoneix GS), is rated at 350 W, while that of the RTX 3080 is rated at 320 W. These explain why we're seeing custom-design RTX 3090 cards with either three 8-pin PCIe power connectors, or in case of the Founders Edition card, the 12-pin connector that's capable of 600 W power delivery. Many of the custom-design RTX 3080 cards we've come across have two 8-pin PCIe inputs. The slides also list out "2nd generation RTX technology," and "3rd gen tensor cores." Gainward's board features a meaty triple-slot, triple-fan cooling solution that has RGB LED illumination. We predict Palit's cards to look very similar to these (with different cooler shroud designs).Update 06:09 UTC: More pics follow, courtesy harukaze5719.

Here's a much clearer picture of the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3090 "Ampere" graphics card by ASUS. A render of this card was revealed back in July, when the RTX 3090 was still speculated to be called the "RTX 3080 Ti." The card features the latest iteration of the ROG Strix design scheme by ASUS, with more shiny metal bits that conceal lighting elements. The cooler features a chunky aluminium fin-stack heatsink that's ventilated by three Axial-Tech fans. The card is 3 slots thick, and about an inch taller than what would constitute "full height." VideoCardz, which is also the source of the image, predicts that ASUS could use same board design for both the RTX 3090 and the RTX 3080. We've seen custom-design RTX 3090 cards featuring as many as three 8-pin PCIe power inputs, while those based on the RTX 3080 have been shown with two. With the RTX 3090 and RTX 3080 being based on the common silicon, the GA102, differing in memory and core configurations, the R&D costs for custom-design board partners is greatly reduced.

Here's the first render of a finished custom-design GeForce RTX 3090 graphics card, courtesy of a leak by HD Tecnologia. The ZOTAC GeForce RTX 3090 Trinity Holo is shown featuring a conventional axial-flow fan-heatsink design. The card is taller than standard by a good inch or so, over 2 slots thick, and appears to feature an acrylic diffuser with RGB LED elements. The RGB embellishments cover both sides of the card.

A recurring theme with "Ampere" cards appears to be thicker-than-standard backplates. On this card, the backplate looks chunky, with RGB elements all over. As for the cooling solution, it features a triple-fan setup ventilating a large heatsink, and possibly a baseplate underneath. We can see the new-generation multi-GPU connector. Variable fan-speeds for individual fans could be a new design trend with this generation. More renders of the RTX 3090 Trinity Holo surfaced, revealing three 8-pin PCIe power connectors. Renders of the RTX 3080 Holo by ZOTAC also surfaced, revealing a smaller product design with just two fans, and two 8-pin PCIe power inputs. A see-through render shows that NVIDIA is planning to use two grades of the same GA102 silicon on both the RTX 3090 and RTX 3080, differing in core-configuration, memory bus, and clock speeds.Update Aug 30th: VideoCardz scored a family shot of possibly all of ZOTAC's upcoming custom RTX 30-series board designs.

Just ahead of the September launch, specifications of NVIDIA's upcoming RTX Ampere lineup have been leaked by industry sources over at VideoCardz. According to the website, three alleged GeForce SKUs are being launched in September - RTX 3090, RTX 3080, and RTX 3070. The new lineup features major improvements: 2nd generation ray-tracing cores and 3rd generation tensor cores made for AI and ML. When it comes to connectivity and I/O, the new cards use the PCIe 4.0 interface and have support for the latest display outputs like HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 1.4a.

The GeForce RTX 3090 comes with 24 GB of GDDR6X memory running on a 384-bit bus at 19.5 Gbps. This gives a memory bandwidth capacity of 936 GB/s. The card features the GA102-300 GPU with 5,248 CUDA cores running at 1695 MHz, and is rated for 350 W TGP (board power). While the Founders Edition cards will use NVIDIA's new 12-pin power connector, non-Founders Edition cards, from board partners like ASUS, MSI and Gigabyte, will be powered by two 8-pin connectors. Next up is specs for the GeForce RTX 3080, a GA102-200 based card that has 4,352 CUDA cores running at 1710 MHz, paired with 10 GB of GDDR6X memory running at 19 Gbps. The memory is connected with a 320-bit bus that achieves 760 GB/s bandwidth. The board is rated at 320 W and the card is designed to be powered by dual 8-pin connectors. And finally, there is the GeForce RTX 3070, which is built around the GA104-300 GPU with a yet unknown number of CUDA cores. We only know that it has the older non-X GDDR6 memory that runs at 16 Gbps speed on a 256-bit bus. The GPUs are supposedly manufactured on TSMC's 7 nm process, possibly the EUV variant.

Microsoft on Thursday rolled out the DirectX 12 feature-level 12_2 specification. This adds a set of new API-level features to DirectX 12 feature-level 12_1. It's important to understand that 12_2 is not DirectX 12 Ultimate, even though Microsoft explains in its developer blog that the four key features that make up DirectX 12 Ultimate logo requirements were important enough to be bundled into a new feature-level. At the same time, Ultimate isn't feature-level 12_1, either. The DirectX 12 Ultimate logo requirement consists of DirectX Raytracing, Mesh Shaders, Sampler Feedback, and Variable Rate Shading. These four, combined with an assortment of new features make up feature-level 12_2.

Among the updates introduced with feature-level 12_2 are DXR 1.1, Shader Model 6.5, Variable Rate Shading tier-2, Resource Binding tier-3, Tiled Resources tier-3, Conservative Rasterization tier-3, Root Signature tier-1.1, WriteBufferImmediateSupportFlags, GPU Virtual Address Bits resource expansion, among several other Direct3D raster rendering features. Feature-level 12_2 requires a WDDM 2.0 driver, and a compatible GPU. Currently, NVIDIA's "Turing" based GeForce RTX 20-series are the only GPUs capable of feature-level 12_2. Microsoft announced that AMD's upcoming RDNA2 architecture supports 12_2, too. NVIDIA's upcoming "Ampere" (RTX 20-series successors) may support it, too.

Korean tech publication QuasarZone posted three high-res pictures of the new Molex Micro-Fit 3.0 12-pin connector that NVIDIA adapted for its GeForce "Ampere" graphics cards, at least the reference-design Founders Edition ones. As we detailed extensively in an older article, the 12-pin connector has significantly smaller pins than the standard PCIe power connectors, and is only slightly longer than an 8-pin PCIe power connector. Placed side by side, you can tell how the PCIe connector is taller, if not wider. Despite its relatively compact dimensions, the 12-pin connector is rumored to be rated for a significantly higher power delivery than the 8-pin connector, with some of the oldest reports even suggesting 600 W. The cables going into the 12-pin connector appear to be of a higher gauge than the ones making up the 8-pin. NVIDIA in a video presentation released on Wednesday explained how it plans its upcoming GeForce graphics cards to address many fundamental engineering problems with modern graphics cards, in the areas of efficiency heat dissipation, board durability, and power delivery.

Alphacool on its Facebook page announced that the company is ready with full-coverage water blocks for NVIDIA's upcoming GeForce RTX 3000 "Ampere" series graphics cards, and is waiting for product launch by NVIDIA, so it could start shipping its blocks. The block is designed for NVIDIA's quirky new polygonal PCB with a triangular tail-end, designed to go with its unique new cooling solution that has fans on both sides of the card. Alphacool mentioned that it's on the look out for custom-design PCBs by NVIDIA's add-in card (AIC) vendors, so it could design full-coverage blocks for them, too.

NVIDIA today shared the design philosophy behind the cooling solution of its next-generation GeForce "Ampere" RTX 3080 / 3090 graphics cards, which we'll hopefully learn more about on September 1, when NVIDIA has scheduled a GeForce Special Event. Part of the new video presentation shows the evolution of NVIDIA's cooling solutions over the years. NVIDIA explains the four pillars behind the design, stressing that thermals are at the heart of its innovation, and that the company looks to explore new ways to use air-cooling more effectively to cool graphics cards. To this effect, the cooling solution of the upcoming GeForce Ampere Founders Edition graphics cards features an airflow-optimized design focused on ensuring the most effective way to take in fresh air, transfer heat to it, and exhaust the warm air in the most optimal manner.

The next pillar of NVIDIA's cooling technology innovation is mechanical structure, to minimize the structural components of the cooler without compromising on strength. The new Founder Edition cooler introduces a new low profile leaf spring that leaves more room for a back cover. Next up is reducing the electrical clutter, with the introduction of a new 12-pin power connector that is more compact, consolidates cabling, and yet does not affect the card's power delivery capability. The last pillar is product design, which puts NVIDIA's innovations together in an airy new industrial design. The video presentation includes commentary from NVIDIA's product design engineers who explain the art and science behind the next GeForce. NVIDIA is expected to tell us more about the next generation GeForce Ampere at a Special Event on September 1.

MSI has recently registered 29 new graphics card codes with the Eurasian Economic Commission which are all expected to be upcoming NVIDIA Ampere models. These codes have been registered as "Video Cards" and coincide with NVIDIA's upcoming GeForce Special Event on September 1 where the GeForce RTX 30-series GPUs are expected to be announced including the much-rumored NVIDIA RTX 3090. The codes include 3 main sets with 02-V388, 602-V389, and 602-V390 which coincide with previous generation MSI graphics cards. The V388 likely refers to the RTX 3090, the V389 with the RTX 3080, and the V390 the RTX 3070 if following the same pattern as the GeForce RTX 20-series.

NVIDIA released a mysterious new mobile GPU that has us scratching our heads over the silicon that could be driving it. The new GeForce MX450 is an entry-mainstream mobile GPU that apparently ships with a PCI-Express gen 4.0 bus interface, something only NVIDIA's "Ampere" GPUs feature. The product page for the MX450 doesn't list out any other specs, than its memory type support including new GDDR6 memory (supported only on NVIDIA architectures "Turing" or later). Interestingly, it also lists GDDR5 as one of its memory options. PCI-Express 4.0 is prominently listed as one of its specs.

Upon digging some more among device IDs, we've come across the ID of the GDDR5 variant, with the ASIC code "GP107-670-A1," and the silicon is based on the much older "Pascal" architecture, which lacks PCIe gen 4 support. The GDDR6 variant eludes us. This is the SKU which could be based on a newer architecture, given its support for GDDR6 and PCIe gen 4. NVIDIA's GeForce MX line of entry-mainstream mobile GPUs are built to performance/power targets, and wildly vary with the underlying tech. They've been historically a means for NVIDIA to clear inventory of older generation ASICs to notebook manufacturers, who get put the NVIDIA logo on their products, and advertise discrete graphics. Given this, the use of a newer (even unreleased) generation of GPUs comes as a surprise.

Here's the first picture of an NVIDIA "Ampere" GA102 GPU die. This is the largest client-segment implementation of the "Ampere" architecture by NVIDIA, targeting the gaming (GeForce) and professional-visualization (Quadro) market segments. The "Ampere" architecture itself debuted earlier this year with the A100 Tensor Core scalar processor that's winning hearts and minds in the HPC community faster than ice cream on a dog day afternoon. There's no indication of die-size, but considering how tiny the 10.3 billion-transistor AMD "Navi 10" die is, the GA102 could come with a massive transistor count if its die is as big as that of the TU102. The GPU in the picture is also a qualification sample, and was probably pictured off a prototype graphics card. Powering the GeForce RTX 3090, the GA102-300 is expected to feature a CUDA core count of 5,248. According to VideoCardz, there's a higher trim of this silicon, the GA102-400, which could make it to NVIDIA's next halo product under the TITAN brand.

Over the weekend, we got some of the first pictures of a production-grade NVIDIA 12-pin graphics card power connector that debuts with the company's GeForce "Ampere" Founders Edition graphics cards. HardwareLuxx.de received a set of modular cables by Seasonic that can be plugged into the company's modular PSUs, directly putting out a 12-pin connector. The publication's editor Andreas Schilling posted this striking picture that is sure to change our perspective about the 12-pin connector - it is tiny!

Called the Molex Micro-Fit 3.0 12-pin connector, the NVIDIA 12-pin connector looks visibly smaller than a single 8-pin PCIe power connector, and only slightly broader. It yet uses high gauge wires and pins, so it can push up to 600 W of power - more power than two 8-pin connectors. The space-saving connector shouldn't just be easier to plug in, but also cable-manage, since you're only having to wrestle with one cable, even for a high-end graphics card. Not only is the connector NVIDIA-exclusive, but there are also indications that only the Founders Edition (reference design) GeForce "Ampere" cards feature it, while custom-design cards based on the GPUs make do with a bunch of 8-pin PCIe power connectors.

That Ampere's launch is edging closer is sort of a lapalissian truth; as time advances, a new consumer gaming graphics card from NVIDIA becomes ever more likely. However, we are now witnessing what amount to be the final steps in NVIDIA's preparation for launch of their next-generation RTX 3000 series. NVIDIA has submitted with the Korean National Radio Research Agency (RAA) their PG133A board design for certification, which is being pegged as the one that's been in numerous leaks already, with that fancy PCB and cooling solution.

Such certification is one of the last steps before a product comes to market, and timing seems to be inline with the #ultimatecountdown teaser that NVIDIA has been spearheading, the results of which should be clear by August 31st. It remains to be seen if the Founders' Edition will feature the leaked cooler across all products, of if NVIDIA will be staggering its design (maybe re-purposing that of last year's RTX 2000 series) for lower-tier SKUs in order to shave costs.

NVIDIA today announced that it will be hosting another GTC keynote for the coming month of October. To be held between October 5th and October 9th, the now announced keynote will bring updates to NVIDIA's products and technologies, as well as provide an opportunity for numerous computer science companies and individuals to take center stage on discussing new and upcoming technologies. More than 500 sessions will form the backbone of GTC, with seven separate programming streams running across North America, Europe, Israel, India, Taiwan, Japan and Korea - each with access to live demos, specialized content, local startups and sponsors.

This GTC keynote follows the May 2020 keynote where the world was presented to NVIDIA's Ampere-based GA100 accelerator. A gaming and consumer-oriented event is also taking place on September 1st, with expectations being set high for NVIDIA's next-generation of consumer graphics products. Although if recent rumors of a $2,000 RTX 3090 graphics card are anything to go by, not only expectations will be soaring by then.

NVIDIA's second fastest "Ampere" graphics card to launch this year, the GeForce RTX 3080, surfaced on the Userbenchmark database. Hardware Leaks (aka @_rogame) fished out several juicy details about the card that will be positioned right below the flagship RTX 3090 (RTX 2080 Ti successor) that's been in the news lately. The RTX 3080 succeeds the RTX 2080. On the Userbenchmark database, the purported RTX 3080 is shown bearing a device ID "10DE 2206." Among its readable specs leaked are a GPU frequency of up to 2.10 GHz, possibly frequency capped just like "Turing," and 10 GB of GDDR6X memory across a 320-bit wide memory interface, and a memory clock speed of 19 Gbps (GDDR6X effective), which works out to 760 GB/s of memory bandwidth.

As we are getting close to September 1st, the day NVIDIA launches its upcoming GeForce RTX graphics cards based on Ampere architecture, we are getting even more leaks. Today, an alleged PCB of the NVIDIA's upcoming GeForce RTX 3090 has been pictured and posted on social media. The PCB appears to be a 3rd party design coming from one of NVIDIA's add-in board (AIB) partners - Colorful. The picture is blurred out on the most of the PCB and has Intel CPU covering the GPU die area to hide the information. There are 11 GDDR6X memory modules covering the surrounding of the GPU and being very near it. Another notable difference is the NVLink finger change, as there seems to be the new design present. Check out the screenshot of the Reddit thread and PCB pictures below:More pictures follow:

In signs of NVIDIA's upcoming GeForce Ampere graphics cards getting a brisk market launch across several SKUs, a Tweaktown report predicts that custom-design graphics cards based on the chips will launch alongside Founders Edition (de facto reference-design) cards. NVIDIA's add-in card partners are believed to be ready with their next-generation original designs that will debut with the new chips, with renders of the ASUS ROG Strix 3000-series cards having leaked in early June. Tweaktown predicts series reveal by September 9, followed by SKU announcements on September 17. AIC partners tell them that custom-design products can be expected within the month. The first major teaser could come out by August 31.

NVIDIA on Monday tweeted its very first web teaser of the new series, under the hashtag #UltimateCountdown. We predict DirectX 12 Ultimate to be central to NVIDIA's marketing, especially a play on the word "ultimate," (eg: the "ultimate ray-tracing performance"). It wouldn't surprise us if "Ultimate" is somehow integrated into the product branding itself (à la "RTX").

NVIDIA today shared the first real teaser in what seems to be the start of the Ampere marketing push. A post via Twitter shared an image showing an explosion of cosmic proportions, with a "#theultimatecountdown" tag alongside the "21 days. 21 years" tagline. This is a likely throwback to August 31st 1999, when NVIDIA launched its first GeForce branded graphics card - the GeForce 256 - setting it on its journey to become today's most successful dedicated graphics card maker.

Following the teasers' logic, we should expect some very interesting announcements from NVIDIA come August 31st, 2020 - and with Ampere around the corner, it's highly unlikely we'll be hearing about anything other than that.

NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 20-series "Turing" graphics card series did not increase video memory sizes in comparison to GeForce GTX 10-series "Pascal," although the memory itself is faster on account of GDDR6. This could change with the GeForce RTX 30-series "Ampere," as the company looks to increase memory sizes across the board in a bid to shore up ray-tracing performance. WCCFTech has learned that in addition to a variety of strange new memory bus widths, such as 320-bit, NVIDIA could introduce certain higher variants of its RTX 30-series cards with video memory sizes as high as 20 GB and 24 GB.

Memory sizes of 20 GB or 24 GB aren't new for NVIDIA's professional-segment Quadro products, but it's certainly new for GeForce, with only the company's TITAN-series products breaking the 20 GB-mark at prices due north of $2,000. Much of NVIDIA's high-end appears to be resting on segmentation of the PG132 common board design, coupled with the GA102 silicon, from which the company could carve out several SKUs spaced far apart in the company's product stack. NVIDIA's next-generation GeForce "Ampere" family is expected to debut in September 2020, with product launches in the higher-end running through late-Q3 and Q4 of 2020.

September is emerging as a busy month for PC hardware announcements - if not actual product launches or availability. A report by Chinese tech publication MyDrivers suggests that the upcoming GeForce RTX 3000 series "Ampere" graphics cards could have a staggered market availability. Although the technology and product family is expected to be announced in September 17, 2020, the month could see the release of only the top-dog (read: low volume) parts, namely the flagship RTX 3080 Ti and RTX 3080 (or the SKUs that succeed the RTX 2080 Ti and RTX 2080).

The GeForce RTX 3070, or the SKU that succeeds the RTX 2070 Super, could launch a month later, in October 2020, according to the MyDrivers report. The higher-volume performance-segment part, the RTX 3060, or the SKU that succeeds the RTX 2060, could launch only by November, just in time for the Holiday shopping season. The report goes on to state that NVIDIA has discontinued production of the popular RTX 2070 Super, following its decision to stop RTX 2080 Ti and RTX 2080 Super production, allowing the retail channel to digest existing inventories of these parts.