Every week, we bring you news of the latest DLSS and ray tracing integrations in games and apps. This week, Jagged Alliance 3 and Testament: The Order of High Human launch with support for DLSS 2; SlavicPunk: Oldtimer and DESORDRE: A Puzzle Game Adventure are available now with DLSS 2, and Dying Light 2 Stay Human's Good Night, Good Luck update is available with DLSS 3. To cap it all off, Blizzard has announced the details of Diablo IV's Season of the Malignant! Read on to learn more.

Diablo IV: Season of the Malignant Starts July 20th
Get ready to continue your journey through Sanctuary in Diablo IV with Season of the Malignant on July 20th. A new form of Lilith's corruption has spread throughout Sanctuary, creating Malignant Monsters and opportunities for players to create powerful new builds. Partner with Cormond, a former priest of the Cathedral of Light, in a new questline to stop the spread of these Malignant Monsters, collect new items and earn rewards.

A few weeks ago, we reported that NVIDIA is already shipping its GeForce RTX 4070 Founders Edition cards with an improved 12VHPWR connector called 12V-2x6. However, today we learn that NVIDIA is also now shipping GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition with an improved 12V-2x6 connector. Thanks to the Reddit user u/prackprackprack posting in r/NVIDIA, the user reported that his Founders Edition RTX 4090 has shortened sensing pins on the connector. If not adequately plugged in, the sensing pins will not allow the card to draw full power and melt the connector. Besides RTX 4070 FE, the RTX 4090 FE is now updated as well, which makes sense as it is the most power-hungry card in the family. However, this may be a partial 12V-2x6 implementation. Below, you can see images showing shortened sensing pins.

NVIDIA is reported to be taking a hands off approach prior to the launch of its GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB GPU next week—rumored to take place on July 18. Murmurs from last week posited that add-in card (AIC) partners were not all that confident in the variant's prospects, with very little promotional activity lined up. NVIDIA itself is not releasing a Founders Edition GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB model, so it will be relying on board partners to get custom design units sent out to press outlets/reviewers. According to Hardware Unboxed, as posted on Twitter earlier today, no hardware will be distributed to the media: "Now there's no official review program for this model, there will be no FE version and it seems that NVIDIA and their partners really don't want to know about it. Every NVIDIA partner I've spoken to so far has said they won't be providing review samples, and they're not even sure when their model will be available."

Their announcement continued: "So I don't know when you'll be able to view our review, but I will be buying one as soon as I can. I expect coverage will be pretty thin and that's probably the plan, the release strategy here is similar to that of the RTX 3080 12 GB." TPU can confirm that test samples have not been sent out by NVIDIA's board partners, so a retail unit will be purchased (out of pocket) for reviewing purposes. Previous reports have theorized that not many custom models will be available at launch, with the series MSRP of $499 not doing it many favors in terms of buyer interest. MSI has prepared a new white GAMING X design for the 16 GB variant, so it is good to see at least one example of an AIB putting the effort in...but it would be nice to get a press sample.

A few days ago, we reported that NVIDIA and PCI-SIG have been doing some work around the existing controversial 12VHPWR power connector to make some improvements and prevent issues that happened along the way. Called 12V-2x6, the connector features minor revisions, and you can read more about it here. Today, we learn that NVIDIA has already been shipping implementations of the new 12V-2x6 connector in GeForce RTX 4070 graphics cards, confirmed by Igor's Lab. Majority of RTX 4070 cards from AIBs shipped with 8-pin PCI connector; however, it turns out that cards that didn't use the reference 12-pin connection carried a new 12V-2x6 revision.

Below, you can see the picture comparison with the connectors from the Founders Edition of GeForce RTX 4070 and RTX 4080. The new connector on the RTX 4070 has shorter sensing pins, which can detect whether the connector is fully plugged in. If not plugged all the way, the card will not draw the required maximum power load. This should, in theory, solve connector burning issues happening in the past; however, we are still left to see. In addition, we are not sure if this is the final implementation of the new connector, as the labeling refferest to it as "H+", whereas the new connector should carry the label "H++" on its module. Igor's Lab article notes, "Since the GeForce RTX 4070 FE, NVIDIA has already been using a modified 12VHPWR connector with significantly recessed pins! While the GeForce RTX 4080 Founders Edition still relies on the header from the CEM 5.0 with only 0.45 mm offset, the GeForce RTX 4070 Founders Edition has been using a modified variant with 1.7 mm inward offset since its launch, similar to the 12V-2x6 connector."

Last week (June 29), NVIDIA launched the GeForce RTX 4060 "Ada" graphics card targeting a majority of PC gamers who still play at 1080p Full HD resolution. Reception to the new card was somewhat lukewarm, only 6% of our polled readers are interested in buying one (poll results). We crunched thousands of benchmark runs in our new 2023H2 test suite and managed to review ten different models of the 4060, six of which are available at the NVIDIA MSRP of $299, and we followed up with four more reviews of premium custom-design cards priced above the MSRP. Our results confirm that GeForce RTX 4060 is designed for maxed out gaming at 1080p; gameplay with ray tracing is possible at 25-50 FPS at 1080p, which can be increased by dialing down graphics settings, or through use of DLSS and DLSS 3 Frame Generation, in supported games. On the other hand, there were concerns with the small performance gains and high pricing, which makes many other options a viable choice.

We've put together a video presentation which compares all the cards tested, and that also serves as a really quick executive summary of the RTX 4060, and whether you should get one.

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of premium gaming hardware, today launches GeForce RTX 4070 Ti series water-cooled graphics cards powered by NVIDIA ADA Lovelace architecture. GIGABYTE launches two AORUS WATERFORCE graphics cards - AORUS GeForce RTX 4070 Ti XTREME WATERFORCE 12G and AORUS GeForce RTX 4070 Ti XTREME WATERFORCE WB 12G. Both graphics cards are equipped with the top-of-the-line GPU cores that have overclocking capabilities and are certified by GIGABYTE GPU Gauntlet sorting technology. AORUS provides the all-around cooling solution for all key components of the graphics card. In addition to cooling the GPU, AORUS also takes care of the VRAM and MOSFET, ensuring stable overclocking performance and enhanced durability.

The AORUS WATERFORCE graphics cards features RGB Fusion, protection metal backplate, aerospace-grade PCB coating for dust and moisture protection, Ultra-Durable top-grade components, and extended warranty for registered members. These features make the AORUS WATERFORCE graphics cards the best choice for enthusiasts who desire both silent operation and high performance.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 was released more than four years ago. With its TU117 graphics processor, it features 896 CUDA cores, 56 texture mapping units, and 32 ROPs. NVIDIA has paired 4 GB GDDR5 memory with the GeForce GTX 1650, which are connected using a 128-bit memory interface. Interestingly, according to the latest Steam Hardware Survey results, this GPU still remains the most popular choice among gamers. While the total addressable market is unknown with the exact number, it is fair to assume that a large group participates every month. The latest numbers for June 2023 indicate that the GeForce GTX 1650 is still the number one GPU, with 5.50% of the users having that GPU. The second closest one was GeForce RTX 3060, with 4.60%.

Other information in the survey remains similar, with CPUs mostly ranging from 2.3 GHz to 2.69 GHz in frequency and with six cores and twelve threads. Storage also recorded a small bump with capacity over 1 TB surging 1.48%, indicating that gamers are buying larger drives as game sizes get bigger.

ASUS Chinese GM—Tony Yu—has shown off a graphics card concept on Bilibili that has a rather unusual feature, a slot for an M.2 NVMe SSD. The card is based on NVIDIA's GeForce RT 4060 Ti GPU and although not all details are clear at this point in time, but ASUS is taking advantage of the unused PCIe lanes on the card, since the AD106 GPU only uses eight PCIe lanes, the PCIe connector on the card has space for a further eight lanes. In theory ASUS could have added a pair of SSDs, since there are a total of eight lanes available, but as this was just a proof of concept, they seemingly stuck with a single SSD.

It's unclear if ASUS relies on bifurcation or if the company has added some kind of bridge chip, but bifurcation makes more sense, as a bridge chip would add a lot more cost. The neat thing with the NVMe drive being on the GPU, is that it also connects to the heatsink of the graphics card, which means the cooling should be rather good. However, for this to work properly, the SSD would have to be mounted back to front compared to how it would be mounted on a motherboard. Based on the test results, the SSD runs at a cool 42 degrees C, even when the GPU is being stress tested. It's likely that this product will not make it to markets outside of China, if it's ever launched into retail.

Each week, we're bringing you news of the latest DLSS and ray tracing integrations in games and apps. Last week, Forever Skies and Trepang2 launched with DLSS 2, and our Unreal Engine 5.2 DLSS 3 plugin was released, making it even easier for gamers to multiply frame rates.

This week, the highly rated Stranded: Alien Dawn is adding support for DLSS 2, and the new GeForce RTX 4060 goes on sale, giving 1080p gamers high frame rates and detail levels, and up to 100 FPS in the most demanding games courtesy of DLSS 3.

ASUS today announced GeForce RTX 4060 graphics cards for the ROG Strix, ASUS Dual and ProArt families, a lineup that stands poised to launch new gamers, or those who need an upgrade, directly into high-fidelity 1080p gaming - thanks to the latest NVIDIA Ada Lovelace GPU architecture and technologies like DLSS 3 and frame generation. The Dual and ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4060 card will be available on June 29, and the Dual White and ProArt GeForce RTX 4060 will be available shortly thereafter.

Game on with the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4060
Gamers looking for the perfect blend of power, features and ROG styling should keep their eyes on the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4060. Sharing the same powerful cooling solution and cyberpunk aesthetic as the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4060 Ti, this new card runs cool even during the most demanding games. Requiring only a single 8-pin power connector, the 3.1-slot design is 311.4 mm long, granting it wide compatibility with existing or brand-new builds.

As a leading brand in True Gaming hardware, MSI unveils the latest line-up of graphics cards featuring the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 GPU, with the GAMING and VENTUS 2X BLACK series, which are available starting on June 29th, 2023.

The latest MSI GeForce RTX 4060 series graphics cards are designed to deliver incredible performance for mainstream gamers and creators at 1080p resolution at high frame rates with ray tracing and DLSS 3. The GeForce RTX 4060 GPU product delivers all the advancements of the NVIDIA Ada Lovelace architecture—including DLSS 3 neural rendering, third-generation ray tracing technologies at high frame rates, and an eighth generation NVIDIA Encoder (NVENC) with AV1 encoding

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of premium gaming hardware, today launched the GeForce RTX 4060 series graphics cards powered by NVIDIA Ada Lovelace architecture, including DLSS 3 neural rendering and third-generation ray tracing technologies at high frame rates. The cards will be available on June 29. GIGABYTE's GeForce RTX 4060 Series includes five models with the WINDFORCE thermal solution, the AORUS GeForce RTX 4060 ELITE 8G, the GeForce RTX 4060 AERO OC 8G, the GeForce RTX 4060 GAMING OC 8G, the GeForce RTX 4060 EAGLE OC 8G and the GeForce RTX 4060 WINDFORCE OC 8G graphics cards. All the models provide gamers with diverse choices to enjoy the AAA gaming experience. All graphics cards from GIGABYTE are perfectly tuned with powerful performance, low temperature, and quietness at once, bringing gamers an ultimate gaming experience.

AORUS GeForce RTX 4060 ELITE 8G
AORUS GeForce RTX 4060 ELITE 8G graphics card stands out for the powerful cooling capabilities and outstanding performance, it's the top-tier gaming graphics card pursued by gamers and fans. The AORUS graphics card features the famous RGB Halo which takes advantage of the persistence of human vision to create exclusive lighting effects via rotating fans. The exquisite and colorful illumination RGB, favored by AORUS fans and DIY enthusiasts, allows gamers to customize its colors through the GIGABYTE CONTROL CENTER software with ease.

It's a jam-packed July with 14 newly supported titles in the GeForce NOW library, including Remnant II from Gunfire Games and Gearbox Publishing. Need a new adventure? Check out the nine additions streaming from the cloud this week. Plus, the Steam Summer Sale kicks off this week, and many supported titles in the GeForce NOW library are available for cheap. Keep an eye out for promotional updates right in the GeForce NOW app.

The GeForce NOW library is always expanding. July brings support for 14 more titles streaming from the cloud, including Remnant II, Jagged Alliance 3, Xenonauts 2 and more. Upgrade to a GeForce NOW Ultimate membership to play these and more than 1,600 other titles at RTX 4080 quality, with support for 4K 120 frames per second gameplay and ultrawide resolutions. Priority and Ultimate members can also play supported titles with RTX ON for real-time cinematic lighting.

As the leading brand in the enthusiast graphics market, Gainward proudly presents the new GeForce RTX 4060 Ghost and Pegasus Series video cards, powered by NVIDIA's next-gen Ada Lovelace GPU architecture.

The GeForce RTX 4060 family is designed to deliver incredible performance for mainstream gamers and creators at 1080p resolution at 100 frames per second with Ray Tracing and DLSS 3. The GeForce RTX 4060 product family delivers all the advancements of the NVIDIA Ada Lovelace architecture - including DLSS 3 neural rendering, third-generation ray tracing technologies at high frame rates, and an eighth generation NVIDIA Encoder (NVENC) with AV1 encoding.

Yeston introduced its first Game Ace RTX 40-series custom graphics card yesterday, with a product launch occurring soon after—only for the Chinese market it seems, so prospective Western buyers will have to carry out a few extra steps to acquire one. The GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Game Ace is yet another example of the company producing a white PCB-toting graphics card, albeit in the lower mid-range tier. Yeston has released white boards in the past—most notably for its high-end Sakura Sugar series RTX 4080 and RX 7900 XT models.

The Weibo announcement outlines that the RTX 4060 Ti Game Ace will costs around $432 - 460 (3099 - 3299 RMB), and it offers a simple 2-color lighting system: "the combination of pure white and light blue is fresh and soft, and with the blue LED, it will bring you a little coolness in this hot summer." Yeston's press release was lacking in terms of technical details, but the photos show a very basic looking card that lacks a dual-BIOS switch.

In May we announced the GeForce RTX 4060 Family, and launched the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti. On June 29th, the GeForce RTX 4060 will go on sale, with prices starting at $299. For gamers playing on previous-gen GPUs, the NVIDIA Ada Lovelace architecture at the heart of the GeForce RTX 4060 delivers a massive upgrade, multiplying your performance, and supercharging creative apps. And thanks to the Ada architecture's industry-leading efficiency, you'll use measurably less power, your graphics card will run cooler, and fans will run at quieter speeds or even idle.

Based on the May 2023 Steam Hardware Survey, 9 of the top 10 most used GPUs on Steam are 60 Class or lower, and 77% of Steam gamers play at 1080p or lower resolutions. For these gamers, the new GeForce RTX 4060 is a great upgrade, enabling them to play new, more demanding games at 1080p at excellent levels of fidelity. For gamers coming from a GeForce RTX 2060, performance is multiplied by an average of 2.3X across a suite of 18 games, and for GeForce GTX 1060 users, in addition to higher frame rates, they also get ray tracing and DLSS acceleration for the first time.

Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition is a remaster of one of the most beloved real-time strategy franchises featuring improved visuals, enhanced gameplay, cross-platform multiplayer and more. Command mighty civilizations from across Europe and the Americas or jump to the battlefields of Asia.

Members can experience two new game modes: Historical Battles and The Art of War Challenge Missions. Two new nations also join this edition - Sweden and the Inca - each with advantages for conquering the New World. Build an empire today and stream across devices in glorious 4K resolution with an Ultimate membership.

NVIDIA is launching its lower end GeForce RTX 4060 graphics card series next week, but has kept schtum about the smaller Ada Lovelace AD107 GPU's performance level. This more budget-friendly offering (MSRP $299) is rumored to have 3,072 CUDA cores, 24 RT cores, 96 Tensor cores, 96 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. It will likely sport 8 GB of GDDR6 memory across a 128-bit wide memory bus. Benchleaks has discovered the first set of test results via a database leak, and posted these details on social media earlier today. Two Geekbench 6 runs were conducted on a test system comprised of an Intel Core i5-13600K CPU, ASUS Z790 ROG APEX motherboard, DDR5-6000 memory and the aforementioned GeForce card.

The GPU Compute test utilizing the Vulkan API resulted in a score of 99419, and another using OpenCL achieved 105630. We are looking at a single sample here, so expect variations when other units get tested in Geekbench prior to the June 29 launch. The RTX 4060 is about 12% faster (in Vulkan) than its direct predecessor—RTX 3060. The gap widens with its Open CL performance, where it offers an almost 20% jump over the older card. The RTX 3060 Ti presents around 3-5% faster performance over the RTX 4060. We hope to see actual in-game benchmarking carried out soon.

Galaxus, a German e-commerce store had a custom NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 graphics card available for purchase yesterday—VideoCardz picked up on this embargo busting listing yesterday evening, but the product page has been removed overnight. Fortunately a screenshot of the Palit Dual's premature retail appearance was kept for preservation purposes. The official launch of NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 (non-Ti) GPUs is scheduled for June 29, and European MSRP is set at €329 ($359). Galaxus had the custom Palit card priced at €339, so a €10 upcharge could be warranted if the included cooling solution is more robust than NVIDIA's reference design, or the extra expense covers the cost of more RGB lighting zones.

Palit revealed its RTX 4060 Dual and StormX series last month, with both variants being factory overclocked (OC). The (now redacted) Galaxus product page seemed to show a not yet announced Dual (non-OC) model, and a product code "NE64060019P1-1070D." Palit's press release from late May mentions that users can customize the Dual's cooler to some degree: "In light of the positive feedback from GamingPro Maker project, now the support is also enabled on the Palit GeForce RTX 40 Dual Series. Users can download the 3D files of the Dual cover and backplate from Palit website to paint or create add-on elements on it, and simply attach the 3D-printed cover to the shroud." It that unique selling point interesting enough to get prospective budget graphics card buyers to consider Palit's latest offering?

We have updated our popular NVCleanstall software that lets you customize the NVIDIA GeForce Driver package by removing components you don't need or want. Unlike the NVIDIA custom installation, you can unselect packages like Stereo 3D Glasses, USB-C, Notebook Optimizations, or Telemetry from the NVIDIA drivers, allowing for a truly custom installation. In the latest release of NVCleanstall 1.16.0, the software has been patched with a few interesting additions. Firstly, the software can now disable NVIDIA's Ansel in-game screen capture from the driver package. Next, the software also added a new install action, "Copy Folder," which copies the NVCleanstall output directory to a folder of your choice.

Besides new features, some fixes have been implemented as well. The "auto-accept unsigned driver warning" only worked on Windows 11 and has been fixed now to work on Windows 10, too. A rare crash has been fixed on systems with English (United States) culture settings, but with the decimal separator switched to a value other than "."—"," for example. Due to a change in NVIDIA's drivers the NVENC patch integration stopped working recently, which is fixed with this release as well. The upgrade is recommended for all users.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp NVCleanstall 1.16.0

MSI has updated its GeForce RTX portfolio with the latest RTX 4060 lineup of graphics cards. Based on the AD107 GPU, the RTX 4060 series of SKUs is expected to become available for order on June 29, 6 AM Pacific time. MSI didn't show off its GeForce RTX 4060 designs until now, when they updated their website with four SKUs featuring a common theme: minimal RGB illumination across the GPU. There are two GeForce RTX GAMING SKUs, GAMING X and the regular GAMING model. With the regular non-X model featuring an "Extreme Performance" boost of 2475 MHz, the normal boost is set to 2460 MHz. The GAMING X SKU has a bit faster clock speed, as the factory overclock pushed Extreme Performance to 2610 MHz and boosts to 2595 MHz.

Last but not least, we have the VENTUS 2X BLACK and VENTUS 2X BLACK OC. These cards are lower-end SKUS compared to the GAMING duo and feature a smaller design compared to them as well. Measuring at 199 mm, these cards are almost ITX-sized, which is impressive considering that two fans are cooling the GPU heatsink. You can check out the design of both cards below and see that only the MSI logo is lighting up, with a visible lack of other RGB componentry.

Xbox Game Pass support is coming to GeForce NOW. Members will soon be able to play supported PC games from the Xbox Game Pass catalog through NVIDIA's cloud gaming servers. Learn more about how support for Game Pass and Microsoft Store will roll out in the coming months. Plus, Age of Empires IV: Anniversary Edition is the first from the world's most popular real-time strategy franchise to arrive on GeForce NOW.

Announced over the weekend, Game Pass members will soon be able to play supported PC games from the Game Pass catalog with GeForce NOW. We're working closely with Microsoft to enable members to play select PC titles from Microsoft Store, just as they can today on GeForce NOW with their Steam, Epic Games Store, Ubisoft Connect and GOG.com accounts. Members who are subscribed to PC Game Pass or Xbox Game Pass Ultimate will be able to stream these select PC titles from the Game Pass library - without downloads or additional purchases for instant gaming from the cloud.

ASUS today announced ProArt Station PD500TE, an all-new tower PC meticulously designed to deliver seamless professional content creation. Powered by an up to 13th Generation Intel Core i9-13900 CPU and NVIDIA RTX A4000 graphics, plus support for NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 graphics cards, PD500TE delivers robust and stable performance for processor-intensive tasks like video editing and 3D modelling. This latest addition to the popular ProArt Station lineup also has a new thermal design for efficient, quieter cooling.

To maximize its creator-friendly credentials, PD500TE has undergone an extensive Independent Software Vendor (ISV) certification process to assure compatibility with leading creative tools. It also features customizable ASUS Lumiwiz LED indicators, a power-button shield to prevent accidental shutdowns, and even rendering-progress email notifications.

Each week, we're bringing you news of the latest DLSS and ray tracing integrations in games and apps. Last week, Diablo IV launched with DLSS 3, Tower of Fantasy added DLSS 3 in a new game update, and it was announced that Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart will launch with DLSS 3, ray tracing, Reflex and DLAA on July 26th.

This week, F1 23 races off the line with support for DLSS 2, Reflex and ray tracing, and both Daydream: Forgotten Sorrow and Layers of Fear are launching with DLSS 2. Additionally, we've got a first look at Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, enhanced with the Technology Preview of the Ray Tracing: Overdrive Mode, along with new trailers for upcoming DLSS-enhanced games.

Zephyr has produced an NVIDIA GeForce custom graphics card that sports a very unique pink printed circuit board—bright and pastel colors have featured on cooling solutions in the past, but this new-ish product presents the first example of a PCB with a tinge of blush. Renowned hardware tipster harukaze5719 broke from his normal delivery of very cold and macho tech on social media, and shared his discovery of Zephyr's GeForce RTX 3060 Ti compact ITX card.

International buyers will be disappointed to learn that the pink Ampere card is a China market exclusive, with the company only offering a limited number of products on JD.com. VideoCardz notes that the card's specifications are not at all special, despite its interesting compact form factor and brightly toned cooling solution design. It is a non-overclocked model based on the older RTX 3060 Ti GDDR6 GPU variant with a standard 1750 MHz boost clock, 8 GB VRAM configuration, and a single 8-pin power connector.