TechPowerUp partners with the PC enthusiast and creator memory experts over at Team Group to bring you the 2024 Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) Giveaway, open worldwide. 2024 sees the advent of high frequency DDR5 memory, with both Intel and AMD supporting speeds as high as DDR5-8000 using their latest Core Ultra "Arrow Lake" and Ryzen 9000 "Zen 5" processors. To celebrate this, we are giving away two of Team Group's latest T-Force Xtreem DDR5-8000 memory kits. Up for grabs is a T-Force Xtreem ARGB DDR5-8000 48 GB (2x 24 GB) CL38 memory kit, and a T-Force Xtreem White DDR5-8000 32 GB (2x 16 GB) CL38 kit. But wait, there's more. There is also a T-Force G70 PRO 2 TB M.2 NVMe Gen 4 SSD with heatsink. This giveaway is open world-wide. To win, all you need to do is fill up a tiny form to help us get back to you if you've won. Entries are open till November 28, Hurry!

For more details, and to participate, visit this page.

NVIDIA has officially released its Llama-3.1-Nemotron-70B-Instruct model. Based on META's Llama3.1 70B, the Nemotron model is a large language model customized by NVIDIA in order to improve the helpfulness of LLM-generated responses. NVIDIA uses fine-tuning structured data to steer the model and allow it to generate more helpful responses. With only 70 billion parameters, the model is punching far above its weight class. The company claims that the model is beating the current top models from leading labs like OpenAI's GPT-4o and Anthropic's Claude 3.5 Sonnet, which are the current leaders across AI benchmarks. In evaluations such as Arena Hard, the NVIDIA Llama3.1 Nemotron 70B is scoring 85 points, while GPT-4o and Sonnet 3.5 score 79.3 and 79.2, respectively. Other benchmarks like AlpacaEval and MT-Bench spot NVIDIA also hold the top spot, with 57.6 and 8.98 scores earned. Claude and GPT reach 52.4 / 8.81 and 57.5 / 8.74, just below Nemotron.

This language model underwent training using reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF), specifically employing the REINFORCE algorithm. The process involved a reward model based on a large language model architecture and custom preference prompts designed to guide the model's behavior. The training began with a pre-existing instruction-tuned language model as the starting point. It was trained on Llama-3.1-Nemotron-70B-Reward and HelpSteer2-Preference prompts on a Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct model as the initial policy. Running the model locally requires either four 40 GB or two 80 GB VRAM GPUs and 150 GB of free disk space. We managed to take it for a spin on NVIDIA's website to say hello to TechPowerUp readers. The model also passes the infamous "strawberry" test, where it has to count the number of specific letters in a word, however, it appears that it was part of the fine-tuning data as it fails the next test, shown in the image below.

Back in July, we polled our readers to find out what PC main memory type they are using, with the choices consisting of DDR5, DDR4, and DDR3. Nearly two months into the poll and close to 36,000 responses later, an interesting picture is emerging. DDR4 memory emerged a clear winner, with a simple majority of our readers—58.2% of them—responding that they're using it. The latest DDR5 memory type is a distant second, with close to one-third of the respondents or 32.5% picking it. The old DDR3 memory type attracted an impressive 9.3% of the vote.

There could be many reasons why DDR4 remains the king—the AMD AM4 platform remains current, as AMD continues to release processors for this platform. Intel's LGA1700 platform supports DDR4, and there's a fairly wide selection of DDR4 motherboards for this platform, letting enthusiasts save on memory costs by carrying over their old memory or opting for cheaper memory. DDR5 at 32% isn't too discouraging, considering that the standard has been around just 3 years now, compared to the 9 years of DDR4.

TechPowerUp, in partnership with GIGABYTE, brought our readers in the US, Canada, and the EU, a chance to bring home the GIGABYTE GS34WQC curved gaming monitor. This fine piece of GIGABYTE engineering offers a great balance of features and value for the premium gaming desktop of today and tomorrow! The 34-inch monitor comes with a 1500R curvature, 21:9 aspect-ratio, and WQHD resolution (3440 x 1440 pixels), with plenty of speed for your fast-paced gameplay—120 Hz normal refresh-rate that's overclockable to 135 Hz, and 1 ms MPRT response time. The entries have closed, and GIGABYTE has chosen two winners. Without further ado, here they are!

• Maria Y.
• Wyatt M.

A huge congratulation to Maria and Wyatt! TechPowerUp and GIGABYTE will return with more such interesting giveaways!

The GIGABYTE GS34WQC is a fine piece of display engineering, which offers a great balance of features and value for the premium gaming desktop of today and tomorrow! The 34-inch monitor comes with a 1500R curvature, 21:9 aspect-ratio, and WQHD resolution (3440 x 1440 pixels), with plenty of speed for your fast-paced gameplay—120 Hz normal refresh-rate that's overclockable to 135 Hz, and 1 ms MPRT response time. The display is loaded with many OSD features relevant to gamers. Our readers in the US, the EU, and Canada stand a chance to grab one of these in our Giveaway, but entries close in 36 hours, so hurry!

For more information, and to participate, visit this page.

TechPowerUp has released version 2.60.0 of GPU-Z, a popular graphics sub-system information, monitoring, and diagnostic utility. This latest update brings significant enhancements, including full support for the Arm64 architecture and Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite GPUs. The release also adds support for AMD Zen 5 CPU temperature monitoring and a wide range of new GPUs from NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel. Notable additions include the NVIDIA 4070 Ti Super (AD102), RTX 4070 (AD103), RTX 4060 Ti (AD104), RTX 4060 (AD106), as well as AMD Zen 5 (Strix Point and Granite Ridge), and Intel Raptor Lake U SKUs and Meteor Lake Intel Arc Graphics.

In addition to expanded hardware support, GPU-Z 2.60.0 addresses several important issues. The update fixes NVIDIA driver version reporting for some pre-2015 versions, resolves an installer problem that prevented closing running instances of GPU-Z, and corrects the "0 MHz" memory clock display on certain AMD RDNA GPUs without overclocking support. Other improvements include a small handle leak fix, added support for the Monster Notebook subvendor ID, and compatibility with new VMWare virtual GPU IDs. The installer now requires Windows 7 or newer, with appropriate messaging for unsupported systems. Users can download the latest version of TechPowerUp GPU-Z from the official TechPowerUp website to access these new features and improvements.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z 2.60.0

TechPowerUp partnered with GIGABYTE to our readers in the United States, Canada, and the EU, a chance to bag one of two GIGABYTE GS34WQC 34-inch curved gaming monitors. This slick, no-nonsense monitor can be the jewel on your desk, with its wafer thin bezels, restrained styling, and yet first-rate specs that include a 1500R curvature, ultrawide resolution of 3440 x 1440 pixels, and 120% sRGB color gamut. Among its gaming-grade chops are 120 Hz refresh-rate, which can be cranked up to 135 Hz, 1 ms (MPRT) response time, 4000:1 static contrast ratio, and 300 cd/m² maximum brightness. Open today until August 24, the giveaway needs little from you except the most basic info to help us reach out to you if you've won. You can increase your chances of winning by sharing the giveaway with your friends over social media. Good luck!

For more information and to participate, visit this page.

TechPowerUp and Team Group brought you the 2024 Computex Giveaway, giving our readers from around the world a chance to grab some of Team Group's finest pieces of hardware from across its T-Force and T-Create brands. The T-Force brand caters to bleeding edge gaming PCs and overclocking enthusiasts; while the T-Create brand makes life easy for creative professionals choosing the right memory products to go with their line of work. Up for grabs were some of the top memory and storage products from both brands. Without further ado, here are the winners!

• Daniel from Germany wins a T-Force Xtreem DDR5-7600 32 GB (2x 16 GB) memory kit
• Eugene from the United States, wins a T-Create PD20M Mag 2 TB portable SSD
• Brennan from the United States, wins a T-Create Expert Smart 1 TB SDXC Card + R31 Card Reader
• Marjan from Croatia, wins a Team Group C222 1 TB USB 3.2 flash drive

TechPowerUp and Team Group have partnered to bring you the Computex 2024 Giveaway. We had a deluge of news from Computex for you last week, and it's easy to miss this Giveaway, so we've extended it to tomorrow, June 12, 2024. The Giveaway is open worldwide. Up for grabs, are a Team Group T-Force Xtreem DDR5-7600 32 GB (2x 16 GB) memory kit, a Team Group 1x PD20M Mag 2 TB Portable SSD, a Team Group T-Create Expert Smart 1 TB SDXC Card + R31 Card Reader; and a C222 USB 3.2 Gen 1 256 GB Flash Drive—useful and contemporary memory hardware from Team Group, and it could be yours! Hurry!

For more information, and to participate, visit this page.

While we're out in full force in Taipei, bringing you the latest from Computex, our friends at Team Group partnered with us for an ongoing Giveaway. Here's a quick reminder that entries to this Giveaway close on June 10. Here's what's up for grabs—a Team Xtreem DDR5-7600 32 GB memory kit, a PD20M Mag 2 TB Portable SSD for creators, a T-Create Expert Smart 1 TB SDXC Card + R31 Card Reader; and a C222 USB 3.2 Gen 1 256 GB flash drive. Entries open worldwide!

For more details, and to participate, visit this page.

TechPowerUp flies to Taipei this weekend to bring you our biggest ever Live coverage of what is shaping up to be the most exhaustive edition of Computex ever, with hundreds of brands and thousands of new products on display. We have scheduled meetings with all brands from the world of hardware and gaming, so that we can get you full coverage, including hands-on with the hardware you're looking forward to. Besides the show floor, there's a lot happening at Computex, with leading hardware companies announcing their latest platforms. The running theme of course is AI for everyone, and AI everywhere. Since Computex is a mainly PC-focussed expo, the dominating device is bound to be the AI PC. This would mean a slew of core hardware and peripherals enhanced with on-device AI acceleration capabilities.

After the break, we've compiled a list of announcements that we expect from major companies like Intel, AMD, NVIDIA

TechPowerUp is getting ready to fly to Computex, and lifestyle memory brand Team Group joined us to bring you an exciting Giveaway while we set things up. The new TechPowerUp x Team Group Computex 2024 Giveaway is open worldwide, wherever legal. To participate, simply fill up a short form to help us get back to you if you've won. We have a boatload of prices across Team Group's gamer-centric T-Force and creator-friendly T-Create brands. There will be four lucky winners. Up for grabs, are a Team Group T-Force Xtreem DDR5-7600 32 GB (2x 16 GB) memory kit, a Team Group 1x PD20M Mag 2 TB Portable SSD, a Team Group T-Create Expert Smart 1 TB SDXC Card + R31 Card Reader; and a C222 USB 3.2 Gen 1 256 GB Flash Drive. Entries for the Giveaway close on June 10, 2024. Good Luck!

For more details and to participate, visit this page.

A majority of TechPowerUp readers that play at the 4K Ultra HD resolution (3840 x 2160) say that they have graphics cards with 16 GB or higher video memory. In March, we ran a front-page poll asking our readers who play at the top 16:9 resolution how much video memory the graphics hardware in their machines had. Options included 6 GB or less, 8 GB, 12 GB, 16 GB, or more than 16 GB. There was also a control option just to gauge what percentage of the respondents do not play at 4K, which got 39.4% of the vote, and a technical majority, although not a part of our analysis. 32,296 responded to the poll.

What's interesting here, is that "More than 16 GB" and 16 GB take the #2 and #3 spots, respectively. So, 35.1% of our survey respondents say they have hardware with 16 GB or greater than 16 GB of video memory. 11% responded that their graphics card has 12 GB of memory; closely followed by 8 GB at 10.1%, and just 4.4% say their graphics cards have 6 GB or less amount of video memory. The biggest takeaway from this poll is the confirmation that 16 GB or more indeed is the video memory size today's gamers think they need to play the latest games at 4K.

A few batches of GeForce RTX 4070 graphics cards are based on the 5 nm "AD103" silicon, a significantly larger chip than the "AD104" that powers the original RTX 4070. A reader has reached out to us with a curiously named MSI RTX 4070 Ventus 3X E 12 GB OC graphics card, saying that TechPowerUp GPU-Z wasn't able to detect it correctly. When we took a closer look at their GPU-Z submission data, we found that the card was based on the larger "AD103" silicon, looking at its device ID. Interestingly, current NVIDIA drivers, such as the 552.22 WHQL used here, are able to seamlessly present the card to the user as an RTX 4070. We dug through older versions of GeForce drivers, and found that the oldest driver to support this card is 551.86, which NVIDIA released in early-March 2024.

The original GeForce RTX 4070 was created by NVIDIA by enabling 46 out of 60 streaming multiprocessors (SM), or a little over 76% of the available shaders. To create an RTX 4070 out of an "AD103," NVIDIA would have to enable 46 out of 80, or just 57% of the available shaders, and just 36 MB out of the 64 MB available on-die L2 cache. The company would also have to narrow the memory bus down to 192-bit from the available 256-bit, to drive the 12 GB of memory. The PCB footprint, pin-map, and package size of both the "AD103" and "AD104" are similar, so board partners are able to seamlessly integrate the chip with their existing AD104-based RTX 4070 board designs. End-users would probably not even notice the change until they fire up diagnostic utilities and find them surprised.

TechPowerUp today released the latest version of the popular GPU-Z graphics sub-system information, monitoring, and diagnostic utility. Version 2.59.0 adds support for new GPUs, but also fixes a few important issues with the application. To begin with, support is added for the NVIDIA RTX 2000 Ada and RTX 1000 Ada Laptop GPUs. An application launch error on Windows 7 and Windows 8 systems reading "unsigned driver cannot load" has been fixed.

The other issues resolved mainly concern the way PCI resizable BAR status is detected. On external GPUs, resizable BAR status was appearing as "enabled." This has been fixed. eGPUs lack resizable BAR support due to the limitations of USB interconnect. On notebooks with NVIDIA Optimus GPUs that support resizable BAR, the status was being reported as "disabled" when the discrete GPU is sleeping, which has been fixed. Lastly, instances where resizable BAR support is reporting as "Yes" instead of "enabled" or "disabled" has been fixed. Grab TechPowerUp GPU-Z from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z 2.59.0

EK, the renowned leader in computer cooling technology, is introducing the EK-Nucleus AIO Replacement Cover - Creator Kit, an optional replacement pump unit top for the EK Nucleus series AIO coolers that allows users to 3D print over the base and build their own unique AIO aesthetic. It replaces the stock top cover of the award-winning Nucleus AIOs available in 240 and 360 mm sizes, both of which come in black and white finishes.

In the Creator Kit box, users get a 3D-printed light guide with magnets, which is used as a platform for their 3D-printed creations. It is meant as a light diffuser, and the user gets to pick where it shines through by building specially designed extrudes of the 3D print. EK prepared a 3D model of the pump unit and a printed base, which can be remodeled and customized.

TechPowerUp today released the latest version of TechPowerUp GPU-Z, the graphics sub-system information, diagnostic, and monitoring utility for enthusiasts, gamers, and engineers. Version 2.58.0 adds initial support for Intel Core Ultra "Meteor Lake" processors. Support is also added for AMD Radeon RX 7600M graphics. In the NVIDIA side of things, support is added for several exotic GPUs such as the RTX 3500 "Ada," RTX 3050 4 GB, and A500. Periodic stuttering in Counter Strike 2 and certain other games, due to GPU-Z accessing the underlying Radeon hardware has been fixed. Video BIOS version reporting is added for Intel "Alder Lake," "Raptor Lake," and "Raptor Lake Refresh" processors. Framework and Aetina notebook sub-vendor IDs have been added with this release. Support for Shader Model 6.7 and 6.8 has been added. DXVA now supports 8K resolution profile reporting. The PCIe resizable BAR reporting will correctly report status for NVIDIA "Turing" GPUs now, previously it was limited to Ampere and newer.

Data formatting of some OpenCL size values has been improved in the Advanced tab with this release. The GPU-Z installer is now digitally signed. The ROP count of Radeon RX 7900 GRE and NVIDIA A40 now correctly display. AMD "Zen 4" mobile processor memory type displaying as DDR5 when LPDDR5 memory installed, has been fixed. A rare bluescreen on some AMD GPUs has been fixed. Grab GPU-Z from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z v2.58.0

Yesterday, NVIDIA released the latest version of its Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) 3.7.0. The newest version promises to improve image quality. Among the most notable additions is the now default "E" quality preset. This builds upon the previous DLSS versions but introduces noticeably sharper images, generally improved fine detail stability, reduced ghosting, and better temporal stability in general compared to DLSS 3.5. It has been tested with Cyberpunk 2077 in the YouTube video with the comparison between DLSS 3.5.10, DLSS 3.6.0, and the newest DLSS 3.7.0. Additionally, some Reddit users reported seeing a noticeable difference on Horizon Forbidden West at 1440p.

Generally, the DLSS 3.7.0 version can be a drop-in replacement to the older DLSS versions. Using DLSS Tweaks, or even manually, users can patch in the latest DLSS 3.7.0 DLL and force games that weren't shipped initially or updated to support the latest DLSS 3.7.0 DLL file. We have the latest DLL download up on our Downloads section on TechPowerUp, so users can install DLSSTweaks and grab the desired file version on our website.

Grab the latest DLSS 3.7.0 DLL file here.

TechPowerUp and Arctic brought six of our readers a unique opportunity to win a set of CPU cooler, case fans, and thermal pastes from Arctic, with three of you getting to pick an Arctic Liquid Freezer III AIO of your choice, three P-series PST case fans, and a tube of MX-6 TIM; and three others getting to pick their choice of Freezer 36 series air coolers, case fans, and the TIM. Entries closed on March 31, and the winners are in!

The following three win their pick of Liquid Freezer III series AIO CLC, plus three P-series PST case fans of their choice (besides the fans included with the AIO); plus a tube of MX-6:

• H. H. from Poland
• Saud A. from the United Arab Emirates
• HorribleGamr from the United States

The following three win their pick of Freezer 36 series air CPU coolers, plus three P-series PST case fans of their choice (besides the ones included with the cooler); plus an MX-6:

• Str1000ac from Croatia
• Thomas G. from the United States
• Ralph Rommualdo Z. from The Philippines

A huge congratulations to you six! TechPowerUp and Arctic will return with more such interesting Giveaways!

TechPowerUp has four open positions in our team that we'd like to fill with talented and motivated PC gamers and enthusiasts like you! We are looking for a motherboard reviewer, a pre-built gaming PC reviewer, a gaming handheld reviewer and a laptop reviewer—that's four separate positions, for four individuals. Applicants will be required to regularly publish detailed hardware reviews in their respective roles, at a frequency that's most suitable for the type of hardware being reviewed. The position is open to individuals from the US, Canada, the UK, the EU, Japan, or Taiwan.

Besides product evaluation skills, we expect our reviewers to possess good literary skills. We're not exactly looking for over-the-top creative writing, but content that's engaging and insightful to our readers, who come to us for our detailed yet straightforward writing style. The four are remote working positions, which will require you to perform hardware testing and photography in-house. Ideally you'll already have some equipment, but we can definitely help with that, also with streamlining your testing workflow, and creating the testing setup. Our team is also always here for you to discuss testing methodologies, presentation of results, etc. This is a paid, and part-time position, our role will be to keep you busy with samples of the hardware assigned to you. There are no static quotas per month, but depending on the hardware category we expect a certain minimum number of reviews we can publish, to maintain a regular cadence that keeps up with the latest developments.

In case you missed it, the TechPowerUp x Arctic Giveaway has been live since March 22. As many as six lucky winners stand to get combos of Arctic CPU coolers, case fans, and thermal compounds. Three of these get to pick a Liquid Freezer III AIO of their choice (any size- and color variant); and a trio of P-Series PWM PST case fans of their choice (any size), besides the fans included with the AIO; and an MX-6 thermal compound. Three other lucky winners, get to do the same, but with their choice of Freezer 34 series air coolers. How cool is that for a Giveaway? You need to hurry, though, as entries close in 3 days (on March 31). There's no rocket science to the Giveaway, it's open worldwide (wherever legal), you give us some basic info to help us get back to you if you've won, and you increase your chances of winning by sharing the Giveaway on your socials. Hurry!

For more information, and to participate, visit this page.

Without making much noise, AMD lifted the memory overclocking limits of the Radeon RX 7900 GRE graphics card with its latest Adrenalin 24.3.1 WHQL drivers, TechPowerUp found. The changelog is a bit vague and states "The maximum memory tuning limit may be incorrectly reported on AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE graphics products."—we tested it. The RX 7900 GRE has been around since mid-2023, but gained prominence as the company gave it a global launch in February 2024, to help AMD better compete with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Super. Before this, the RX 7900 GRE had started out its lifecycle as a special edition product confined to China, and its designers had ensured that it came with just the right performance positioning that didn't end up disrupting other products in the AMD stack. One of these limitations had to do with the memory overclocking potential, which was probably put in place to ensure that the RX 7900 GRE has a near-identical total board power as the RX 7800 XT.

Shortly after the global launch of the RX 7900 GRE, and responding to drama online, AMD declared the limited memory overclocking range a bug and promised a fix. The overclocking limits are defined in the graphics card VBIOS, so increasing those limits would mean shipping BIOS updates for over a dozen SKUs from all the major vendors, and requiring users to upgrade it by themselves. Such a solution isn't very practical, so AMD implemented a clock limit override in their new drivers, which reprograms the power limits on the GPU during boot-up. Nicely done, good job AMD!

Arctic, in partnership with TechPowerUp brings you the season's biggest Giveaway, to celebrate Arctic's 23rd anniversary. Open worldwide (wherever legal), six lucky winners stand to win prizes worth over $1000 in various combos of CPU coolers, case fans, and thermal compounds from Arctic! Three winners get to pick their favorite model of Arctic's new Liquid Freezer III AIO CPU cooler (among the various radiator size variants), plus three matching case fans of their choice; plus a tube of MX-6 thermal compound. Three other winners get to pick their choices of Freezer 36 series air CPU coolers, plus three matching case fans, and a tube of MX-6. The Giveaway is open worldwide, from today, March 22, until March 29. To enter, simply give us basic information to help us get back to you if you've won. Increase your chances of winning by sharing the Giveaway in your social media. Good luck!

For more details, and to participate, visit this page.

TechPowerUp's resident GPU reviewer extraordinaire—W1zzard—has grappled with a handful of custom design AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE 16 GB models. Team Red and its board partners are pushing a proper/widespread Western release of the formerly China market-exclusive "Golden Rabbit Edition" GPU. TPU's initial review selection of three Sapphire cards and a lone ASRock Steel Legend OC variant garnered two Editor's Choice Awards, and two Highly Recommended badges. Sapphire's Radeon RX 7900 GRE Nitro+ was also honored with a "...But Expensive" tag, due to its MSRP of $600—the premium tier design was one of last year's launch day models in China. Western reviewers have latched onto a notable GRE overclocking limitation—all of TPU's review samples were found to have "overclocking artificially limited by AMD." Steve Walton of Hardware Unboxed has investigated whether the GRE's inherent heavily limited power specification was less of an issue on Sapphire's Nitro+ variant—check out his "re-re-review" video below.

The higher board power design—305 W OC TGP limit and 351 W total board power—is expected to exhibit "up to 10% higher performance than Radeon RX 7800 XT" according to VideoCardz, but falls short. TPU's W1zzard found the GRE Nitro+ card's maximum configurable clock of 2803 MHz: "Overclocking worked quite well on our card, we gained over 8% in real-life performance, which is well above what we usually see, but less than other GRE cards tested today. Sapphire's factory OC eats into OC potential, and maximizes performance out of the box instead. Unfortunately AMD restricted overclocking on their card quite a lot, probably to protect sales of the RX 7900 XT. While NVIDIA doesn't have any artificial limitations for overclockers, AMD keeps limiting the slider lengths for many models, this is not a gamer-friendly approach. For the GRE, both GPU and memory overclocking could definitely go higher based on the results that we've seen in our reviews today." An AMD representative has contacted Hardware Unboxed, in reaction to yesterday's Update review—the GRE's overclocking limitation is a "bug," and a fix is in the works. This situation is a bit odd, given that the Golden Rabbit Edition is not a brand-new product.