TechPowerUp, in partnership with Asetek, brought you a rare chance to bring home a top-of-the-line ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce RTX 3080 Ti LC liquid-cooled graphics card. This card features the very best of Asetek's liquid-cooling technology, and is able the tame the beastly RTX 3080 Ti, so you can game quieter or overclock higher. The worldwide-open giveaway comes to a close, and we've picked a winner!

The Winner is Igor Precep from Serbia. Your card is shipping this week.

A Huge Congrats to you, Igor! TechPowerUp and Asetek thank you all for playing! We will return with more such interesting giveaways!

Well, that was a short one. Just last week we released GPU-Z 2.42.0, this week we have 2.43.0, which fixes a crash on older Radeon cards, including Radeon HD 5000. After last week's release people fired up these cards in masses, to see the change from AMD to ATI logo. This new activity helped uncovered a few problems, which are fixed with this update. We also fixed a screenshot feature bug that appeared since v2.39.0 on machines with Windows XP. GPU-Z adds the ability to read power limits of NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30-series Laptop GPUs ("Ampere"), which will help you to find out exactly which Ampere Mobile SKU you have, what its power limits are, and whether you could flash its VBIOS to increase the limits. You can find these values in the "NVIDIA BIOS" section of the "Advanced" tab. The ability to report power limits for Ampere Mobile has been added to our VGA BIOS Database, too. The execution unit (EU) count of Intel Xe LP iGPUs on "Rocket Lake" processors has been fixed. Support is added for NVIDIA Quadro RTX 3000 series based on the TU106-B silicon. Grab GPU-Z from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z 2.43.0

Did you know, Team Group just hosted its first independent Online Expo, showcasing the very latest from the growing range of PC components and gaming hardware from the company? Read all about it here, and be sure to check out a recording of their keynote address, if you haven't already. With its new products, Team Group is reaching out to serious gamers, PC enthusiasts, and creators in equal measure. To mark this special occasion, Team Group and TechPowerUp bring you the "Chill the Heat, Feel the Speed, Make it Big" Giveaway.

Open worldwide, up for grabs are three of the finest pieces of Team Group hardware. These include Team Group XTREEM ARGB 2x 8 GB DDR4-3600 CL14 memory kit, a Team Group Cardea C440 1 TB NVMe SSD, and a Team Group Cardea Graphite Z440 1 TB NVMe SSD. Three lucky winners in all. The rules are simple, just hit us with some very basic info to help us get back to you if you've won, and get the Q&A right. Entries close on October 3, 7:00 AM UTC. Good Luck!

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

TechPowerUp today released the latest version, 2.42.0, of TechPowerUp GPU-Z, the popular video subsystem information, diagnostic, and monitoring utility for PC enthusiasts and gamers. The latest release adds support for several new GPUs, including Intel Core "Alder Lake-S" iGPU, "Tiger Lake" server iGPU; GeForce RTX 3060 based on "GA104," RTX 3050 Ti Laptop, T1200 Mobile, GRID K340, M30, and Q12U-1. Support is also added for Radeon Pro W6800X. With this release, we're adding the ability to tell a "lite hashrate" (LHR) GPU from one that isn't. On RTX 30-series graphics cards with LHR silicon, the GPU codename field will include "(LHR)." For example, "GA102 (LHR)." Support is also added for resizable-BAR on Radeon RX 5000 series (when used with the latest drivers).

TechPowerUp GPU-Z v2.42.0 also makes it easy to collect sensor logs from your graphics hardware. Simply start it with the command-line argument "-log" followed by a filename, to log to that file. Several other issues were fixed, including application crashes when taking screenshots, a rare crash in the PCIe render test, a crash on some systems when preparing resizable-BAR support. The Radeon HD 5000 series from 2009 now displays the correct (ATI) logo. EVGA iCX sensors readings are more accurate. Radeon RX 6000 series (RDNA2) GPUs now correctly show DirectX 12_2 feature-level compatibility. Grab GPU-Z from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z 2.42.0

TechPowerUp, Asetek, and ASUS, brought our readers from the European Union a unique opportunity to win a mouthwatering ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3080 Ti LC graphics card. One of the fastest graphics cards you can have right now, the Strix LC uses all-in-one liquid cooling technology by Asetek, the market leader in liquid component cooling technology across the client and enterprise markets. You have mere hours to drop in your hat, and hope for the best. Hurry!

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

TechPowerUp Forums is one of the leading tech communities on the web for gamers, PC enthusiasts, and everyday folk looking for answers to their tech problems. Our vibrant community has over 100,000 members, with more than 4.3 million posts between them. We want to give back to the community, by announcing the new TechPowerUp Forums Rewards. Already several weeks in the running as beta test, TPU Forums Rewards is an easy way to bag Steam Gift Cards, and possibly hardware prizes in the future, by simply participating in our discussion forums (where tech discussions happen).

The more posts you have, the more tickets (chances) you have. At the end of each week, the software randomly picks a winner (where your chances are higher with more tickets in play).

With the need for SLI compatibility out of the way, NVIDIA has been harvesting its larger GPUs to create lower-end SKUs to good effect, since the GeForce 10-series. Its latest such creation is select batches of GeForce RTX 3060 graphics cards sold through its AIC partners, which are based on the larger "GA104" silicon, over the "GA106" that it's natively based on. Nearly half of the 6,144 CUDA cores physically present on the chip are disabled to arrive at the 3,584-core count of the RTX 3060, besides a narrowing of the memory bus down to 192-bit. Since it is based on a different silicon, these RTX 3060 cards come with a different device-ID of "2487." The TechPowerUp GPU Database, which interoperates with the TechPowerUp GPU-Z Validation Database, localizes these oddball RTX 3060 cards to China.

TechPowerUp and Fractal Design bring you a unique chance to bag a Fractal Lumen series all-in-one liquid CPU cooler. Open to our readers from the Continental US and Canada, the Giveaway is as easy as filling up a form. Up for grabs are the Lumen S36 RGB, the Lumen S28 RGB, the Lumen S24 RGB, and the Lumen S24, for a total of four prizes to win. The Lumen series from Fractal Design feature the company's latest in-house innovations for liquid cooling; and come with a unique illuminated design that lights up your build. Entries close in a few hours from now (04:00 Eastern on February 14), so stand a chance to get these while you can!

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

SSUPD and TechPowerUp brought you the Meshlicious Giveaway, and a chance to win one of six of SSUPD's finest pieces of vertical cases. Up for grabs were four Full Mesh Meshlicious White with PCI-Express Gen4 riser cable; and two Meshlicious Black with tempered glass side-panel, and PCI-Express Gen3 riser. The results are in and we have our six winners! Without further ado, here they are:

• Full Mesh Meshlicious White won by:
  • Josaiah from the United States,
  • Ev from the United States,
  • Chen from Canada, and
  • Ann from the United States.
• Meshlicious Black won by:
  • Robert from the United States,
  • Shoshi from Canada

A huge congratulations to the winners! TechPowerUp and SSUPD will return with more such interesting giveaways.

SSUPD are experts with compact, well-ventilated gaming PC cases, made with premium materials. The company partners with TechPowerUp to bring you the SSUPD x TechPowerUp Meshlicious Giveaway, open to residents of Canada and the Continental US. There are six prizes up for grabs, four Full Mesh Meshlicious White with PCI-Express Gen4 riser cable; and two Mesh Meshlicious Black with tempered glass side-panel, and PCI-Express Gen3 riser. The Meshlicious cases are a family of compact, tower-type SFF gaming PC cases designed for high-end hardware, including full-length enthusiast graphics cards, AIO CLC cooling with radiators as big as 280 mm; and a sturdy construction with mesh panels at just the right spots for high airflow. To win, simply fill up a short form to help us get back to you if you've won. Good Luck!

For more information and to participate, visit this page.

TechPowerUp today released the latest version of ThrottleStop by Kevin Glynn, a utility that lets you take greater control over the power management features of your processor, which could prove particularly useful to squeeze the most performance out of notebooks. Version 9.4 introduces a couple of new features and fixes a few issues. To begin with, you can now disable all C-states above C1. We've also added the Ring Down Bin setting. Power throttling explanation has been improved for "Skylake-X" processors. Security of the application's kernel-mode driver has been improved. The MSR and MMIO power limits are now separately reported. The FIVR - Disable and Lock feature has been improved for 11th Gen processors. Grab ThrottleStop from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp ThrottleStop 9.4 by Kevin Glynn

MONTECH, a rising star with PC cases and cooling; partnered with TechPowerUp to bring you the Keep Cool Giveaway earlier this month. As many as nine lucky winners from across the Continental United States stood a chance to win prizes that include Air 100 ARGB Black cases, Air 100 Lite White cases, and Air Cooler 210. The Giveaway is closed, and the results are in! Without further ado, here they are:

MONTECH Air 100 ARGB Black Cases Won by:

• Alex from Oregon
• Steven from Indiana
• Kevin from California

MONTECH Air 100 Lite White Cases Won by:

• Ben from New Mexico
• Eric from California
• Alyssa from New Hampshire

MONTECH Air 210 CPU Coolers Won by:

• James from New York
• Gary from California
• Yosvany from Illinois

A Huge Congratulations to the Winners! TechPowerUp and MONTECH will return with more such interesting giveaways!

Cybenetics certification program's chief engineer, a renowned expert with switching power supplies, and TechPowerUp contributor, Dr Aris Mpitziopoulos, released detailed commentary on the recent statement released by GIGABYTE on the GP-P750/850 GM series PSU design flaw reportage in the press. The earliest of this was broken on TechPowerUp, with our December 2020 review of the GP-P750GM, which led with the headline "With an Explosive Attitude."

Mpitziopoulos dives into the technical details of the design flaw being not just a badly programmed Over-Power Protection (OPP) safety mechanism, but a flawed hardware design overall. Since he reviewed PSUs from this series for TechPowerUp and Hardware Busters, he shares his perspective on how the reviews went, more importantly, the back-and-forth with GIGABYTE when the flaws were discovered.The following is a statement by Aris Mpitziopoulos:

MONTECH and TechPowerUp bring you a chance to win one of nine pieces of hardware to help your rig Keep Cool. Open to contestants from the Continental United States, Nine lucky winners get a chance to win from a prize-pool of three MONTECH Air 100 ARGB Black cases, three MONTECH Air 100 Lite White cases, and three MONTECH Air Cooler 210. The Air 100 series of MONTECH offer premium features and room for a top-performing Micro-ATX gaming PC build. The Air 100 ARGB Black includes four addressable-RGB fans; while the 100 Lite White comes with all-white interiors, and two included fans, and plenty of room to grow from. To participate, simply fill up a short form that helps us get back to you if you've won. Good Luck!

MONTECH and TechPowerUp Keep Cool Giveaway

We have open positions on our team for 1) a motherboard reviewer, and 2) a memory reviewer. TechPowerUp Reviews are renowned for their in-depth focus on technical and performance aspects, and are supported by a large selection of tests. We are looking for someone with experience tweaking hardware in general—and memory in particular—ideally with some overclocking experience. As a motherboard reviewer you should be able to identify the various components of a motherboard PCB, discuss their quality aspects, test relevant onboard devices, provide technical photography, and put the motherboard through a selection of tests that will evolve with your feedback and community interest. Likewise for memory, we'll need you to be able to push the memory module to its limits, to detail its OC tuning potential and stability (we're not expecting you to do LN2). You should also be able to understand DRAM IC choices, memory timings and their effects, and how everything comes together for the big picture.

TechPowerUp today released the latest version of NVCleanstall, our handy, lightweight utility that lets you customize your NVIDIA drivers installation to a much greater degree than the "Custom" install option in the NVIDIA Installer, letting you toggle components and features you didn't even know exist. The latest version 1.10.0 introduces several updates. For starters, it fixes ShadowPlay not working (even though selected), due to a missing reference to NvModuleTracker. We've introduced an additional driver signing mode that's compatible with EasyAntiCheat. NVCleanstall now discards the generated private key once the signature rebuild is complete, for additional security.

We've introduced a feature that lets you create a self-contained EXE installer with the installation options you've selected. The option to disable NVContainer has been introduced, however, this may break GeForce Experience, and removes NVIDIA's Desktop context menu. You can configure MSI (message-signaled-interrupt) CPU selection and priority. NVCleanstall also makes sure MSI only gets activated on NVIDIA GPU devices. An option has been added letting you disable HDCP. The app now warns you that UWP apps can't be installed in Safe Mode, if you request the Control Panel app while running in Safe Mode. The app also warns about installation of GeForce Experience in Safe Mode. Both these limitations are due to Safe Mode, not NVCleanstall. When customizing your install, you can now also provide hooks to run programs before and after installation. Grab NVCleanstall from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp NVCleanstall 1.10.0The change-log follows.

TechPowerUp today released the latest version of TechPowerUp GPU-Z, the tiny-yet-mighty software that gives you information, monitoring, and diagnostics of your PC graphics subsystem. Version 2.39.0 adds support for the Gen12 Xe LP integrated graphics solution found with Intel 11th Gen Core "Rocket Lake" processors. GPU-Z also has the ability to tell the new "Navi 21 XTXH" Radeon RX 6900 XT variant, from the standard RX 6900 XT. Support is also added for NVIDIA RTX 3060 Mobile, RTX 3050 Ti Mobile, RTX 3050 Mobile, RTX A5000, T500, CMP 30HX, CMP 40HX, CMP 90HX; and AMD Radeon Pro W5500M, and Barco MXRT 4700.

Version 2.39.0 also improves in several areas. The integrated screenshot feature is refreshed to better capture the window area. The XML dump is made more usable, with information that includes BIOS UEFI support, WHQL status, Driver Date, DXR, DirectML, OpenGL and Resizable BAR. The video memory utilization sensor is disabled on TCC mode-enabled NVIDIA GPUs. A number of minor issues were also fixed, related to Resizable BAR detection, clock readings on AMD RDNA2 mobile GPUs, a bug with OpenGL detection on certain systems, memory clock readings on certain legacy GPUs, BIOS date readings on legacy GPUs, etc. Grab it from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z 2.39.0The change-log follows.

TechPowerUp today released the latest version of NVCleanstall, our lightweight utility that lets you take greater control of your NVIDIA driver software installation, letting you toggle the installation of a lot more features than what the "Custom" option in the NVIDIA installer allows. These could be important features such as Telemetry. Version 1.9.0 introduces a handful major feature updates. We've improved the driver signature rebuilding so you no longer see the "do you want to trust this publisher" warning. The "Add Hardware Support" setting has been fixed for Quadro drivers. We've also greatly reduced the app's memory footprint, with help from jgottula.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp NVCleanstall 1.9.0

TechPowerUp today released the latest version of TechPowerUp GPU-Z, the popular graphics subsystem information and monitoring utility. With the latest version 2.38.0, we are introducing the ability to detect Resizable BAR support. GPU-Z can now tell whether Resizable BAR is supported, and if so, whether it is enabled. AMD refers to Resizable BAR as AMD Smart Access Memory, but it is a feature developed by the PCI-SIG, which lets your CPU see the entire video memory of your discrete graphics card as a single addressable block, rather than through 256 MB apertures. This feature has been found to improve performance in games that can take advantage of it. Resizable BAR status can now be viewed from the main tab, right next to the multi-GPU status.

The latest TechPowerUp GPU-Z also adds support for new and upcoming GPUs, including AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT, RX 6700, RX 6600 XT, RX 6600, and Ryzen "Lucienne" mobile processor iGPUs. Support is also added for NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile. Other new features include the ability to monitor negative temperatures on NVIDIA GPUs. We fixed video BIOS extraction on AMD RDNA2 GPUs (Radeon RX 6000 series). Grab GPU-Z from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z 2.38.0The change-log follows.

TechPowerUp today released the latest version of ThrottleStop by Kevin Glynn, a handy utility that lets you take greater control over the power-management features of your processor, so you can prevent it from unnecessarily throttling. This is particularly useful with notebooks that have aggressive CPU throttling. With the latest version 9.3, ThrottleStop introduces support for Core i9-10900K and i9-10850K processors, including a new Turbo Group access window.

The Turbo Power Limit controls have been updated with a toggle that lets you disable TPL control, along with the ability to clear TPL Lock options. The ThrottleStop Bench and C-State windows have been updated for 10th Gen Core processors. Other improvements include limit reasons for 10th and 11th Gen Core processors, improved access to Windows internal power plans, access to the PROCHOT offset variable, AVX offset control for Unlocked K-series processors, reporting and logging of Thermal Velocity Boost and Vmax stress. Several other UI changes were made. Grab ThrottleStop 9.3 from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp ThrottleStop 9.3 by Kevin GlynnThe change-log follows.

Everyone and their mother expected NVIDIA to announce - if not a SUPER refresh to their existing graphics cards with increased memory sizes - at least the RTX 3080 Ti. That card surfaced as a planned NVIDIA counter to AMD's preemptive pricing of $999 on its RX 6900 XT graphics card (which to be fair, is in itself as abundant a card as unicorns this side of the galaxy). GamersNexus reported NVIDIA partners' comments on the indefinite postponement of the RTX 3080 Ti and possible SUPER derivatives of the RTX 30-series lineup. It's being said that NVIDIA decided (smartly, I would say) to ensure consistent supply of their existing lineup to sate demand, instead of dispersing its limited chip production across even more product lines.

This would result, I have no doubt, on NVIDIA only having even more SKUs out of stock than they currently do. Considering the market's current state of mind in regards to NVIDIA's lineup, this seems like the most sensible decision possible. TechPowerUp has in the meantime confirmed this information with NVIDIA partners themselves.

The major GPU releases in 2020 are all plagued by the same problem: good product, not enough stock. This has led to a perverse situation on the market: you can't just walk into your favorite store and purchase the product you want. This is a consequence of NVIDIA and AMD going to market with tiny volumes, and extremely optimistic MSRPs which opened up the market to the phenomenon of scalping. Scalpers are individuals, or groups, who buy up whatever little volume is available, often using sophisticated online shopping bots, and resell them at exorbitant premiums on marketplaces like eBay, for profit.

This system only works because there is zero retail stock available anywhere on the planet, and whatever volume comes in, is so low that it evaporates, often before hitting retailer shelves. The only way scalping can be defeated is for manufacturers to flood the market with large volumes of product that the scalpers cannot scale their purchases up to, and possibly for crypto-currency mining to become not worth it on the latest generations of graphics cards. Until these happen, marked-up pricing is an inescapable reality for consumers.

Another year is drawing to a close, all around the world and here on TechPowerUp as well. A special year, to say the least; it's not the worst in recorded human history, but it's been one of the hardest ever, with more limitations imposed in our lives than in any other we can remember. Most of us have adapted to a new, hopefully temporary reality, one where social distancing and face masks have become commonplace. A reality where countless human lives were lost to an invisible, undiscerning enemy; where economic recession has thrown families and friends out of business or even from their homes. Globalization is indisputable, and while it has many positives, nothing could ever be without fault; the increased interconnectedness of our world means that the system becomes all the more fragile even as it becomes stronger. And while the argument for technology being a potentiator for human loneliness and creating isles of silence between us individuals of the human species presents valid points, one can certainly say that it was technology that helped bridge sentimental and physical gaps for all of us.

AMD has launched its RDNA 2 based graphics cards, codenamed Navi 21. These GPUs are set to compete with NVIDIA's Ampere offerings, with the lineup covering the Radeon RX 6800, RX 6800 XT, and RX 6900 XT graphics cards. Until now, we have had reviews of the former two, but not the Radeon RX 6900 XT. That is because the card is coming at a later date, specifically on December 8th, in just a few days. As a reminder, the Radeon RX 6900 XT GPU is a Navi 21 XTX model with 80 Compute Units that give a total of 5120 Stream Processors. The graphics card uses a 256-bit bus that connects the GPU with 128 MB of its Infinity Cache to 16 GB of GDDR6 memory. When it comes to frequencies, it has a base clock of 1825 MHz, with a boost speed of 2250 MHz.

Today, in a GeekBench 5 submission, we get to see the first benchmarks of AMD's top-end Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics card. Running an OpenCL test suite, the card was paired with AMD's Ryzen 9 5950X 16C/32T CPU. The card managed to pass the OpenCL test benchmarks with a score of 169779 points. That makes the card 12% faster than RX 6800 XT GPU, but still slower than the competing NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 GPU, which scores 177724 points. However, we need to wait for a few more benchmarks to appear to jump to any conclusions, including the TechPowerUp review, which is expected to arrive once NDA lifts. Below, you can compare the score to other GPUs in the GeekBench 5 OpenCL database.

TechPowerUp today released the latest version of TechPowerUp GPU-Z, the definitive graphics sub-system information, monitoring, and diagnostic utility for PC gamers, enthusiasts, and overclockers. The new version 2.36.0 adds support for new GPUs, and introduces many new fixes. For starters, it improves support for AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT and RX 6800, and adds support for BIOS extraction from RDNA2-based graphics cards. Support is added for the new NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, GeForce MX 450, Quadro RTX 6000 Mobile; Intel Xe MAX, Xe Pod, Xe SG-18M, and several other new Intel GPUs; and AMD Radeon Pro VII, HD 8550D, and Barco MXRT 5600. Support is also added for the EVGA iCX sensor suite on the company's latest RTX 30-series graphics cards.

Among the other things we improved are temperature reading support for AMD "Zen 3" processors, fixed ROP counts on Radeon RX 6800 series graphics cards, support for the new XFX sub-vendor ID, fixes to reported memory size on certain NVIDIA cards, clock-speed reading on NVIDIA "Ampere" cards with no drivers installed; and a BSOD error with Windows Code Integrity enabled. Grab GPU-Z from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z v2.36.0The change-log follows.