The global supply of semiconductor processors has been at risk lately. Starting from GPUs to CPUs, the demand for both has been much greater than the available supply. Manufacturing companies, such as TSMC, have been expanding capacities, however, they have not yet been able to satisfy the demand. We have seen the results of that demand in a form of the scarcity of the latest generation of graphics cards, covering NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3000 series Ampere, and AMD' Radeon RX 6000 series Big Navi graphics cards. Consumers have had a difficult time sourcing them and they have seen artificial price increase that is much higher than their original MSRP.

However, it doesn't seem like the situation will improve. According to the latest reporting from Bloomberg, the next victim of global chip shortage is... you guessed it, your home internet router. The cited sources have noted that the waiting list to get a batch of ordered routers has doubled the waiting time, from the regular 30 weeks to 60-week waiting time. This represents a waiting list that is more than a year long. With the global COVID-19 pandemic still going strong, there is an increased need for better home router equipment, and delays can only hurt broadband providers that supply routers. Taiwan-based router manufacturer Zyxel Communications, notes that the company has seen massive demand for their equipment. Such a massive demand could lead to insufficient supply, which could increase prices of routers well above their MSRP and bring scarcity of them as well.

MonsterLabo, the maker of fanless PC cases designed for gaming with zero noise, has today tested its upcoming flagship offering in the case lineup. Called The Beast, the case is designed to handle high-end hardware with large TDPs and dissipate all that heat without any moving parts. Using only big heatsinks and heat pipes to transfer the heat to the big heatsink area. In a completely fanless configuration, the case can absorb and dissipate a CPU TDP of 150 Watts and a GPU TPD with 250 Watts. However, when equipped with two 140 mm fans running below 500 RPM, it can accommodate a 250 W CPU, and 320 W GPU. MonsterLabo has tested the fully fanless configuration, which was equipped with AMD Ryzen 7 3800XT processor, paired with NVIDIA's latest GeForce RTX 3080 Ampere graphics card.

There were no fans present in the system to help move the heat away, and the PC was being stress-tested using Microsoft's Flight Simulator. The company has posted a chart of CPU and GPU temperatures over time, where we see that the GPU has managed to hit about 75 degrees Celsius at one point. The CPU has remained a bit cooler, where the CPU package hit just above the 70-degree mark. Overall, the case is more than capable of cooling the hardware it was equipped with. By adding two slow-spinning fans, the temperatures would get even lower, however, that is no longer a fanless system. MonsterLabo's The Beast is expected to get shipped in Q3 of this year when reviewers will get their hands on it and test it for themselves. You can watch the videos in MonsterLabo's blog post here.

ASUS has recently launched their first Ampere Series Phoenix card with the GeForce RTX 3060 Phoenix (PH-RTX3060-12G). The Phoenix features a 2.5 slot design with a single fan and measures just 17.7 x 12.8 x 5.1 cm which makes it the shortest Ampere GPU from ASUS. The card features the NVIDIA standard 1777 MHz boost clock but can be configured with the bundled ASUS software for 1807 MHz. The Phoenix includes three DisplayPort 1.4a connectors and one HDMI 2.1 along with a single 8-pin power connector. The card is now available to purchase from select retailers but official pricing and availability have not been released.

In a recent ASUS investor call from March 17th, a company representative explained the company's financial outlook and what it sees as its successes and failures in Q42020. In it, the company referenced the lack of NVIDIA graphics cards to satisfy demand as one of the major hurdles it has had to face. As the company said, "Our guess is that the gap might have been caused by lower yields upstream. As for when [Nvidia] can increase that yield is something hard for us to predict."

This is likely the clearest indicator we've had since NVIDIA's RTX 30-series launch that there is more than a demand problem for NVIDIA's Ampere graphics cards - there's a yield one as well. NVIDIA could have simply failed to predict demand for its graphics cards in wake of the recent cryptomining craze, and asome theorize a miscalculated allocation of wafers with Samsung on expectations of lower demand post-holiday season. That one doesn't make much sense, as by that time, COVID and its effects on tech market demand were already pretty clear. And while NVIDIA certainly doesn't have all available capacity at Samsung's 8 nm at its disposal, there should certainly be more available capacity for NVIDIA's RTX 30-series than say, for AMD's Navi graphics cards, which have to share the 7 nm wafers with virtually all other AMD products (from CPUs to mobile chips to enterprise solutions). The idea of lower upstream yields than would be ideal for NVIDIA does certainly come as a possible reason - a change in foundry partner comes with certain additional difficulties in adapting the design to that given processes' strengths and issues. As always, we'll just have to wait and see.

When NVIDIA introduced its Ampere family of graphics cards, the GPU lineup's first product was the A100 GPU. While not being a GPU used for gaming, the model is designed with compute-heavy workloads in mind. Even NVIDIA says that "NVIDIA A100 Tensor Core GPU delivers unprecedented acceleration at every scale to power the world's highest-performing elastic data centers for AI, data analytics, and HPC." However, it seems like the GA100 SKU, the base of the A100 GPU, could be used for another task that requires heavy computation and could benefit very much from the sheer core count that the biggest Ampere SKU offers.

According to a known leaker @kopite7kimi (Twitter), NVIDIA could repurpose the GA100 GPU SKU and launch it as a part of the CMP HX crypto mining series of graphics cards. As a reminder, the CMP series is specifically designed for the sole purpose of mining cryptocurrency, and CMP products have no video outputs. According to Kopite, the repurposed GPU SKU could be a "mining monster", which is not too hard to believe given the huge core count the SKU has and the fact that it was made for heavy computation workloads. While we do not the exact specifications of the rumored CMP HX SKU, you can check out the A100 GPU specifications here.

NVIDIA's recently published Q4-2020 + Fiscal Year 2021 results show that the alleged "GPU shortage" has had no bearing on the company's financials, with the company raking in $5 billion in revenue, in the quarter ending on January 31, 2021. In its outlook for the following quarter (Q1 FY 2022), the company expects to make another $5.30 billion (± 2%). To its credit, NVIDIA has been maintaining that the shortage of graphics cards in the retail market are a result of demand vastly outstripping supply; than a problem with the supply in and of itself (such as yields of the new 8 nm "Ampere" GPUs). The numbers show that NVIDIA's output of GPUs is fairly normal, and the problem lies with the retail supply-chain.

Crypto-currency mining and scalping are the two biggest problems affecting the availability of graphics cards in the retail market. Surging prices of crypto-currencies, coupled with the latest generation "Ampere" and RDNA2 graphics architectures having sufficient performance/Watt to mine crypto-currencies at viable scale, mean that crypto-miners are able to pick up inventory of graphics cards at wholesale; with very little making it down to retailers. Scalping is another major factor. Those with sophisticated online shopping tools are able to buy large quantities of graphics cards the moment they're available online, so they could re-sell or auction them at highly marked up prices, for profit. NVIDIA started to address the problem of miners by introducing measures that make their upcoming graphics cards artificially slower at mining, affecting the economics of using GPUs; while the problem of scalping remains at large.

GIGABYTE today introduced the GeForce RTX 3060 VISION graphics card targeted at creators. This is the company's fourth such card based on an "Ampere" series GPU. When paired with NVIDIA's GeForce Studio drivers, the card provides a formidable feature-set and optimization for content creation suites, making this a quasi-ProVis graphics card.

The design of the card is similar to most other RTX 30-series VISION cards—a large white cooler shroud hides an aluminium fin-stack heatsink. This shroud is topped off with a brushed aluminium plate. The cooler is optimized for low-noise, and idle fan-stop, and features fans with graphene-lubricated double ball-bearing fans. Airflow from the third fan flows through the card, and out from a cutout on the back-plate. The card pulls power from a single 8-pin PCIe power connector. You also get a handy factory-overclock of 1837 MHz boost (vs. 1777 MHz reference). Display outputs include two each of HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 1.4a connectors. The card is expected to be priced around $400.

We have recently discovered that NVIDIA's newly announced 30HX and 40HX Crypto Mining Processors are based on the last-generation Turing architecture. This news will come as a pleasant surprise to gamers as the release shouldn't affect the availability of Ampere RTX 30 Series GPUs. The decision to stick with Turing for these new devices is reportedly due to the more favorable power-management of the architecture which is vital for profitable cryptocurrency mining operations. The NVIDIA CMP 40HX will feature a custom TU106 processor while the 30HX will include a custom TU116. This information was discovered in the latest GeForce 461.72 WHQL drivers which added support for the two devices.

NVIDIA's yet-to-be-released GeForce RTX 3060 "Ampere" graphics card has already hit the second-hand graphics card market, as those with early access to RTX 3060 inventory have begun re-selling it. Belarusian tech marketplace Onliner listed these GIGABYTE RTX 3060 Eagle OC custom-design graphics cards for 2,800 BYN (USD $1,080) a piece, from a lot of three cards.

NVIDIA announced that the company plans to tackle the problem of crypto-currency miners soaking up inventory of GeForce "Ampere" graphics cards, beginning by designing the GeForce RTX 3060 to be bad at mining, putting out half the hash-rate it normally should, with the specs at its disposal. The company claims to be using an elaborate mechanism to enforce this hash-rate limiting, so miners can't work around by modifying the drivers. We're also hearing that the company could revise other RTX 30-series "Ampere" products with hashrate limiters, so they become unviable for crypto mining.

NVIDIA made the product page of the GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card active on its website. The card is shown starting at USD $329, and NVIDIA confirmed some basic specs. The RTX 3060 is endowed with 3,584 CUDA cores, and comes with GPU frequency of 1.32 GHz, and maximum GPU Boost frequency of 1.78 GHz. It is confirmed to feature 12 GB of GDDR6 memory across a 192-bit wide memory interface. The card's typical board power is confirmed to be 170 W, with the reference card making do with a single 8-pin PCIe power connector. The RTX 3060 should be available from February 25.

The availability of NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3000 series "Ampere" graphics cards has been a problem ever since it launched. High demand paired with insufficient supply has caused quite some disturbance in the supply chain and has caused the MSRP of the GPUs to increase. Firstly, we were promised that the situation would resolve around May when NVIDIA is expecting to match the supply with the demand. However, according to the recent report, that might not be the case. Alternate, a European retailer operating in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany, has spoken to NVIDIA about the supply of the GeForce RTX 3000 series Ampere graphics cards.

According to the retailer, the situation with the card is such that the availability is scarce. When it comes to the GeForce RTX 3090, there are very few deliveries, but only a few open orders. The RTX 3080 sees very few cards coming with many open orders. The RTX 3070 has few cards incoming, but few open orders. And last but not least, the RTX 3060 Ti has very few cards coming, and a moderately high amount of open orders. If you are aiming to buy a card, your best chances would be with RTX 3090 and RTX 3070, as they do not have such high demand. On the other hand, RTX 3080 and RTX 3060 Ti cards are almost impossible to source as they all have a big waiting list. Alternate says that they work on a "first in first out" principle of delivering cards to consumers, so if you are not on the list you are likely going to wait for even longer.

NVIDIA is slated to launch its performance-segment GeForce RTX 3060 "Ampere" graphics card on February 25, 2021, according to a WCCFTech report. The company launches the card at an MSRP (starting price) of USD $329. 12 GB is the standard memory size for the RTX 3060. The card marks the debut of the new 8 nm "GA106" silicon, NVIDIA's 4th chip based on the GeForce "Ampere" graphics architecture.

While the "GA106" silicon features up to 3,840 CUDA cores across 30 streaming multiprocessors, the RTX 3060 is reportedly being carved out by enabling 28 SM, working out to 3,584 CUDA cores. It features 12 GB of 15 Gbps GDDR6 memory across a 192-bit wide memory interface, which means 360 GB/s memory bandwidth, slightly higher than the 336 GB/s of the RTX 2060. The card has a typical board power rating of 170 W, which means plenty of custom-design graphics card models should come with single 8-pin PCIe power connector configurations. NVIDIA's design goal for the RTX 3060 could be doubling performance over the GTX 1060 "Pascal," and a significant performance uplift over the RTX 2060.

Cincoze, a professional manufacturer of embedded systems, expands the Cincoze GM-1000's machine vision application performance with two new Quadro MXM GPU modules. Building on the GM-1000's powerful processing base, the MXM-RTX3000 and MXM-T1000 provide the additional GPU capacity for rapid adoption of machine vision in smart factories, from simple environmental perception applications such as positioning, measurement, identification, and sorting, to more complex vision-guided automation functions. GPU requirements for each scenario are different, so specifications must match the environment and application. The two new Quadro MXM GPU modules broaden the GM-1000's available selection to cover a wider range of uses.

The GM-1000—part of the Cincoze GOLD series—is positioned as a high-performance machine vision system featuring high computing performance, high-speed I/O, and industrial-grade reliability. It is the preferred choice for machine vision system integrators and AOI (Automated Optical Inspection) manufacturers. The GM-1000's unique carrier board can be matched with a selection of Cincoze MXM GPU modules, including the MXM-RTX3000, MXM-T1000, MXM-P2000, and MXM-E9174, providing a precise match for different computing requirements.

The "GA106" will be NVIDIA's third GeForce "Ampere" silicon, following the "GA102" and "GA104." It will power several mid-range GeForce RTX 30-series graphics cards, including the recently announced GeForce RTX 3060. VideoCardz scored the first picture of the "GA106" ASIC. The chip is estimated to have a die-are of 272 mm², while its package (fiberglass substrate) is of the same size as the "GA104," possibly even with some degree of pin-compatibility.

Built on the 8 nm silicon fabrication process, the "GA106" physically features 3,840 "Ampere" CUDA cores, 120 3rd Gen Tensor cores, and 30 2nd Gen RT cores. Its memory bus width is unknown, but on the RTX 3060, it features a 192-bit wide interface, holding 12 GB of memory, using 16 Gbit GDDR6 memory chips. Besides the RTX 3060, NVIDIA is expected to carve out other SKUs, such as the RTX 3050 Ti and RTX 3050, out of this silicon. The "GA106" could also be prominently featured in upcoming RTX 30-series Mobile SKUs.

According to the findings of Igor's Lab and Andreas Schilling from HardwareLuxx, we have information that NVIDIA is no longer listing its GeForce RTX 30 series graphics cards in the Europe shop. NVIDIA website has a special section where the company lists all the available cards, and it represented a way to get the newest 3000 series Ampere graphics cards at MSRP. However, that seems to no longer be the case. NVIDIA has removed all the Ampere Founders Edition graphics cards from the European stores with Poland representing an exception with RTX 3090 listed. The company continues to list these cards at the US store version, however, the links are all redirecting to BestBuy, in the same manner as before. It is not clear why NVIDIA is no longer listing Founders Edition cards in Europe, and we are waiting for more information to report on. Below you can check out the Poland store, UK store, and US store, in order.

Update 13:10 UTC: NVIDIA did not remove these cards manually, but it was a technical error. Cards are now listed again on the storefronts.

The prices of graphics cards have been perhaps the most controversial topic among PC enthusiasts lately. High demand and low supply of the latest generation GPUs have lead to the massive price increase over MSRP. Graphics card makers, AMD and NVIDIA, have already announced that this situation is not going to get better until March ends. However, there seems to be another possible issue appearing slowly on the horizon. According to the Chinese website MyDrivers, the prices of graphics cards are expected to increase thanks to the increasing prices of memory used in them, presumably including both the slower GDDR6 and the faster GDDR6X memory.

The source claims that the new memory price increase is going to take place after February 12th, when Chinese New Year ends. As both the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3000 series Ampere generation and AMD Radeon 6000 series generation use GDDR6X and GDDR6 respectively, that means that the increased prices of these memory types could increase the MSRP, which is already above its original intent.

GALAX is preparing to launch its flagship graphics card based on NVIDIA's Ampere lineup of GPU, specifically the GeForce RTX 3090 variant. The company is currently developing the GeForce RTX 3090 Hall Of Fame (HOF) edition GPU that is supposed to have a regular HOF treatment. That means a white aesthetics (white PCB plus white cooling solution), a massive three fan air-cooler, and of course, a PCB that is designed for extreme overclocking. Today, thanks to the sources over at VideoCardz, we have the first look at the PCB of GALAX's upcoming GeForce RTX 3090 HOF edition graphics card.

Featuring a massive VRM configuration consisting out of 26 phases, the GPU is swimming in VRM phases and it is the highest number of VRM phases we have seen on any GeForce RTX 3090 GPU. It is not exactly clear from the pictures how much of the total 26 VRMs is going to Vcore (GPU), and how much to Vmem (memory). To power the card, there are three 8-pin power connectors. It is important to note that these specifications are not finalized, as this is only a prototype. Nonetheless, the card is made with LN2 extreme overclocking in mind and is going to probably be more expensive. There are event probes for voltage measuring directly from the card, to avoid having to do it in software. NVLINK fingers are present as well, meaning that dual-card setups are still an option with this GPU. The real product is expected to arrive sometime in February according to the source, however, we don't know the exact date or pricing.

NVIDIA has recently introduced its 3000 series of Ampere graphics cards designed for mobile/laptop devices. And usually, these GPUs in the past few years have been divided into two configurations: Max-P and Max-Q. The Max-P variant was a maximum performance configuration meant for more power usage and higher temperatures, representing a standard GPU configuration. The Max-Q design was, according to NVIDIA, "a system-wide approach to deliver high performance in thin and light gaming laptops. Every aspect of the laptop, chip, software, PCB design, power delivery, and thermals, are optimized for power and performance." Meaning that the Max-Q variants are more TGP limited compared to the Max-P configuration.


Update 23rd of January 11:35 UTC: NVIDIA spokesperson told Tom's Hardware that: "No, Max-Q branding is not going away. When we originally introduced Max-Q back in 2017, the brand was initially used in GPU naming since Max-Q referred to the GPU TGP only. Today, 3rd Generation Max-Q is broader, and is a holistic set of platform technologies and design approach to building powerful and thin laptops. In addition, to be more transparent about a laptop's exact capabilities, RTX 30 Series laptops now show more information than ever, listing exact TGP, clocks and features supported. You will find this in the control panel which now reports maximum power (TGP+Boost), and support for key features including Dynamic Boost 2, WhisperMode 2, Advanced Optimus, and others, all of which fall under the Max-Q umbrella. We strongly encourage OEMs to list clocks and other technologies a laptop supports, including Advanced Optimus, Dynamic Boost 2, and more. Ultimately, like all laptop features and specs, it is up to the OEM to market what their particular laptop configuration supports.)"

We are just a few weeks away from the launch of NVIDIA's latest GeForce RTX 3060 graphics cards based on the new Ampere architecture, and there is already some news regarding the lineup position and its possible distortion. According to multiple sources over at Overclocking.com, NVIDIA is set to re-introduce its previous generation GeForce RTX 2060 and RTX 2060 SUPER graphics cards to the market. Once again. The source claims that NVIDIA is already pushing the stock over to its board partners and system integrators to use the last-generation product. So far, it is not clear why the company is doing this and we can only speculate on it.

The source also claims that the pricing structure of the old cards will be 300 EUR for RTX 2060 and 400 EUR for RTX 2060 SUPER in Europe. The latter pricing models directly competes with the supposed 399 EUR price tag of the upcoming GeForce RTX 3060 Ti model, which is based on the newer Ampere uArch instead of the last-gen Turing cards. The possibility for such a move is a possible scarce of GA106/GA104 silicon needed for the new cards, and the company could be aiming to try and satisfy the market with left-over stock from the previous generation cards.

It seems that Mini-ITX lovers will finally be able to get their due Ampere injection to their HPC or small form factor systems. MSI, Palit and Gainward have announced Mini-ITX versions of NVIDIA's RTX 3060 graphics card, enabling higher performance (especially in RTX workloads) than last generation's mainstream RTX 2060 graphics cards. MSI's Aero ITX will be available in base and OC variants, and there's currently no confirmation on how many power connectors are built into those cards (though a standard 8-pin would suffice).

If anyone was looking to buy a new GPU in the past few months, the person is likely familiar with the situation we are in. It is now a fact that the latest generation of GPUs from AMD and NVIDIA are extremely hard to find, and when you come across one it is listed at some mind-blowing price. However, the makers of those GPUs, AMD and NVIDIA, are claiming that we are near the end of this situation and the things are going to be better shortly. And companies such as these two must reach out to consumers and try to satisfy their needs, even in the difficult situation that is going on now with the GPUs.

In the interview with The Verge, AMD has confirmed that it will be selling more Radeon RX 6800, Radeon RX 6800 XT, and Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics cards using its website, throughout Q1 of this year. The company claims that it will try to supply as many customers as possible, without any exact figures. When it comes to NVIDIA, the company has commented that the situation will likely resolve sometime at the end of Q1, meaning that in March things should return to normal. The company has also added that in the meantime consumers shouldn't expect to buy any of the GeForce RTX 3000 series graphics cards at their original MSRP. NVIDIA also continues emphasizing that the reason for such high prices is the high demand they are seeing, exceeding production capacity by far.

MSI announced that it is bringing the PCI-SIG resizable base-address register (resizable BAR) support to a variety of older PC platforms, and not just the latest Intel 400-series and AMD 500-series. Among these are Intel 300-series, AMD 400-series, and AMD TRX40. This should come as a boon to those with 8th Gen and 9th Gen Core "Coffeee Lake" processors, such as the i9-9900K and i5-8400. Support is also being added to AMD X470 and AMD B450 chipset motherboards, however, this requires a compatible processor, and the latest beta UEFI firmware that supports them. Lastly, resizable-BAR support is making its way to the AMD TRX40 chipset (Socket sTRX4) Threadripper platform.

Resizable BAR is a feature that allows a processor to see the entire video memory of a discrete GPU as a single addressable block, rather than through 256 MB apertures. This has the potential to tangibly improve performance with certain games. Currently, AMD's Radeon RX 6000 series "Big Navi" GPUs; and NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 30-series "Ampere" GPUs support it. MSI is releasing UEFI firmware updates that add resizable-BAR support. Keep checking the "support" section of your motherboard's product page on the MSI website.

Razer, the leading global lifestyle brand for gamers, today announced the all-new Razer Blade 15 and Razer Blade Pro 17 gaming laptops powered by NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series Laptop GPUs. To take advantage of the powerful new GPUs, the laptops are now available with new display options at higher refresh rates and higher resolutions. The new Blade 15 and Blade Pro 17 gaming laptops form the most powerful and diverse lineup of gaming laptops from Razer ever - and with new configurations starting at only $1,699, now anyone can experience a Razer Blade.

"The new Razer Blade line is the best place for gamers to play the next generation of games," said Brad Wildes, Senior Vice President & General Manager of Razer Systems business unit. "Our new line features the latest graphics technology, giving gamers the most immersive experience available. With the fastest displays on the market and one of our smallest chassis ever, gamers can enjoy ultra-smooth gameplay anywhere and everywhere. Simply put: The Razer Blades are the ultimate way to play."

Alienware, the gaming division of Dell Technologies, has today announced a lineup refresh, meaning that all of the existing products will get upgraded to versions with the latest hardware. And to start off, the company has equipped their thin and powerful Alienware m15 R4 and m17 R4 laptops with the latest hardware we saw announced just yesterday. The laptops are equipped with 12-phase voltage regulation modules to power the newest NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3000 series of mobile GPUs. To pair with a strong GPU, Alienware decided to use 10th generation Intel Comet Lake-H designs. These new laptops can be equipped with up to 4 TB of PCIe 3.0 NVMe SSD storage and up to 32 GB of 2933 MHz RAM. For display, options range from FHD LCD to a 4K OLED panel and 360 Hz refresh rate for the m17 R4 model.

NVIDIA on Tuesday announced a roll-out of its implementation of the PCI-SIG resizable base-address register (BAR) feature to select GeForce products. The feature enables your CPU to see the entire video memory of your graphics card as one addressable block, rather than through 256 MB apertures. This should improve certain kinds of 3D rendering workloads, and game engines that are optimized to use it should see a tangible performance boost. AMD earlier introduced the exact same feature under its marketing name "Smart Access Memory," with its Radeon RX 6000 series.

NVIDIA announced that resizable-BAR support will be made available to GeForce RTX 30-series "Ampere" desktop graphics cards, notebooks that have RTX 30-series "Ampere" mobile GPUs, and future products. The support requires not just a compatible graphics card, but also a motherboard that supports the feature. Most leading motherboard- and OEM desktop manufacturers began rolling out resizable-BAR support through UEFI firmware updates. Using the feature requires you to run your machine in native UEFI mode (with CSM disabled).