<![CDATA[ Latest from PC Gamer AU in Radeon ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/au/tag/radeon Tue, 23 Jun 2026 12:01:51 +0000 en <![CDATA[ True to its word, AMD brings FSR 4.1 to Radeon RX 7000-series card owners with its latest Adrenalin drivers ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/true-to-its-word-amd-brings-fsr-4-1-to-radeon-rx-7000-series-card-owners-with-its-latest-adrenalin-drivers/ GazDQQPY5FeT7CAEryZfGT Tue, 23 Jun 2026 12:01:51 +0000

After accidentally dropping its source code on GitHub last year and kicking the door wide open for modders, AMD has done something exactly what it promised to: It's added support for FSR 4.1 to Radeon RX 7000-series graphics cards in its latest Adrenalin drivers.

The 26.2.2 driver set doesn't come with many other goodies (game support for Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced and Doom: The Dark Ages | Revelations), but I don't think many Team Red fans will care all that much, because FSR 4.1 is considerably more noteworthy. Compared to FSR 3, the quality of the AI-powered upscaling and frame generation is clearly superior and almost on par with Nvidia's DLSS 4.5 suite.

Back in May, AMD promised it would bring its best FSR algorithms to RDNA 3 cards in June, and true to its word, that's exactly what it has done. Unless a game has native support for FSR 4.1, you'll need to enable it via an override in Adrenalin (which does require the game to have a native FSR 3.1 implementation).

Something else worth noting is that RDNA 3-based FSR 4.1 is likely to be less performant than the RDNA 4-based one. I say 'likely' as I've not had the chance to test it yet, but simply going on the fact that the matrix operations ability of RX 7000 cards is far lower than that of RX 9000 ones, something has to give.

That means you're either going to get the same kind of performance uplift but not quite the same visual fidelity, or vice versa, when comparing FSR 4.1 on a Radeon RX 9070 XT and RX 7800 XT, for example. Don't misunderstand me: Switching on FSR 4.1 with an RDNA 3 card will still give a performance boost, but the end result won't be quite as impressive as it is on an RDNA 4 one.

A Steam machine sitting in front of a TV.

The Steam Machine will get FSR 4.1 too. Yay? (Image credit: Future)

Still, it'll be nicer on the eyes than FSR 3.1, no matter how different it all is. And if you have an RX 6000-series graphics card, then it's worth noting that AMD said that it'll bring FSR 4.1 to that platform next year. Yes, that's a long ol' wait, but given how yucky prices for PC parts are right now, I should imagine a good number of RDNA 2 users will be clinging on to those cards for a good while longer anyway.

You might wonder what was so specific about the June date for RDNA 3 FSR 4.1, and now that the Steam Machine has been released, we know exactly why: Valve is working with AMD to add the fancy algorithms to its little box of underwhelm, although "coming soon" is the only commitment we've got for a release date.

]]> <![CDATA[ The overclocking headroom in AMD's Radeon 7000-series GPUs 'was certainly not accidental... the core of Radeon has to be all about value to the end user' ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/the-overclocking-headroom-in-amds-radeon-7000-series-gpus-was-certainly-not-accidental-the-core-of-radeon-has-to-be-all-about-value-to-the-end-user/ mwndLRHhabAaSz2MuDK5RG Thu, 04 Jun 2026 05:30:28 +0000

Having only just finished my testing and review of the Radeon RX 9070 GRE before I flew out to Taipei for Computex 2026, I wanted to take the opportunity when I sat down with AMD's David McAfee to talk about one of the most impressive things I've seen in all the Navi 48 GPUs I've played with: the overclocking headroom.

More specifically, the performance headroom you can squeeze out of the GPU when you undervolt it. David McAfee runs AMD's Ryzen and Radeon business, so I was keen to find out how that came about given that for generations of GPU that hasn't been the case.

"It was certainly not accidental," says McAfee. "I think that we understand that, both for CPUs and GPUs, overclockability is a core part of what many of our buyers, our gamers and enthusiasts, are looking for. I think that in years past, you know, the product definition would squeeze every bit of overclocking headroom out of the product and productise it just as a stock SKU, a pre-configured SKU. And that left the community with really no room to have have fun with the product and experiment and see what they could do."

But that is no longer the case and it's incredibly gratifying to note that was on deliberate and is a strategy going forward, too.

"Our strategy with this generation of products and going forward is very different," he says. "I was a part of the Ryzen journey from the very beginning, and stepping into the Radeon space, I think that it is the same sort of story arc that we want to create. Where Ryzen over the years was about giving users more for their money, being very community centric, and delivering the type of experience that they want out of that platform. And I think with Radeon it's the same thing.

"Sure, it's going to take us generations to build the perfect Radeon platform, but I think the core of Radeon has to be all about value to the end user and what they get out of that system.

"It's all about great experiences in a GPU. That ties into things like FSR and game support, and really interesting new technology integrated into high-profile game titles. And I think the last part of it is listening to the community and understanding that you know what users are going to want out of those products and cards is not necessarily something where every bit of performance is delivered out of the box, and it's not always cranked up to 11, there's still a little bit of room to go."

]]> <![CDATA[ AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE review (Acer Nitro) ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/amd-radeon-rx-9070-gre-review-acer-nitro/ eV69U6sbPA9qxxn3tVBwHC Tue, 02 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Thu, 18 Jun 2026 14:24:40 +0000

The AMD RX 9070 GRE is probably the most 2026 graphics card any GPU company could release this year. With the possible exception of Nvidia digging down the back of the sofa again and releasing another RTX 3060. The RX 9070 GRE was previously a China-exclusive card and represents a dumbing down of the Navi 48 GPU with less of that expensive ol' VRAM. But the most damning aspect is the fact AMD has given this weaker card a global release at the same starting price as the beefier RX 9070.

I get the rationale—because of memory and silicon constraints, graphics card prices are all higher than they were when this card originally launched in China—but still, releasing a weaker GPU at the same initial MSRP as another card, which has a more fully functional version of the same chip, is never going to feel good. It's becoming a common phrase for me, but this is just another damning indictment of the state of PC gaming hardware in 2026.

This is a card very much released for right now, giving AMD more options for its Navi 48 silicon (especially for chips that don't make the grade for full RX 9070/XT cards) without needing to offer the full 16 GB monty. And it is priced for right now, too, with Nvidia's RTX 5070 available at $600 and the RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB at $550. AMD is laser-focused on those two GeForce cards, but clearly also doesn't want to completely torpedo the RX 9070 by pricing it fully $100 lower at $499.

It is still an impressive card in its own right, getting mighty close to the RTX 5070 at stock speeds and regularly beating it with a simple, pain-free undervolt. So, while I'm not necessarily loving the optics of it being priced at the same MSRP as the unquestionably better RX 9070, it's the $550 card I would recommend right now, with the $50 delta between them being just enough. But if retailers lose their collective minds and regularly price it at the same level as the cheapest RX 9070 cards—which could absolutely happen, too—the RX 9070 GRE's value-proposition entirely evaporates.

✅ You can find it at or below MSRP: The RX 9070 GRE rapidly loses relevance as soon as it strays above its $549 price tag. With the superior RX 9070 costing $600 right now, there isn't a lot of wiggle room for retailers or manufacturers.

✅ You're happy tweaking: The extra level of performance you can extract from the RX 9070 GRE with some easy undervolting is tangible, and levels up the card.

❌ You can find the RX 9070 for the same price: With 16 GB of faster VRAM and a more powerful version of the Navi 48 GPU, the straight RX 9070 is easily the better card.

❌ You want compute power, too: The RDNA 4 architecture just doesn't have the same general compute performance as equivalent Nvidia GPUs. If you're rendering or hoping for a GenAI card, this is not the way.

Features
3.5
Performance
4
Thermals
4.5
Sound
4.5
Value
3
Software
4
Group 1 Data
ProductFeatures ()Performance ()Thermals ()Sound ()Value ()Software ()
RX 9070 GRE (Acer Nitro)3.544.54.534
We scored the RX 9070 GRE out of five in six distinct categories.

AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE features

Acer Nitro Radeon RX 9070 GRE graphics card

(Image credit: Future)

RX 9070 GRE

RX 9070

RTX 5070

GPU

Navi 48

Navi 48

GB205-300

Shaders

3072

3584

6144

Lithography

TSMC N4P

TSMC N4P

TSMC 4N

Transistors (B)

53.9

53.9

31.1

Die size (mm²)

356.5

356.5

263

Memory size (GB)

12

16

12

Memory type

GDDR6

GDDR6

GDDR7

Memory bus

192

256

192

TDP (W)

220

220

250

MSRP (US$)

$549

$549

$549

Sporting the same Navi 48 GPU as both the RX 9070 and the RX 9070 XT, the GRE is obviously cut from the same silicon. Andy covered the RDNA 4 architecture in more depth in his tech dive, and I added some extra notes in my original RX 9070 XT review, too. The chip at the heart of this GRE, however, has lost another eight compute units (CUs) compared with the next card up, which in turn had lost eight CUs compared with the top-end RX 9070 XT. That means you're getting 3072 shaders, making it over 500 and 1000 shaders behind its other Navi 48 brethren respectively.

That theoretically allows AMD to use GPUs that may not have been able to run either 56 or 64 CUs at full speed to create another graphics card, and still get almost the same amount of cash for it, too. All it has to do is fuse off those errant, potentially dysfunctional CUs (too much to hope that it's a soft-block, potentially circumvented by some ingenious vBIOS hacks) and ship that GPU out as an RX 9070 GRE.

With 12 GB of GDDR6, as opposed to the 16 GB used by the other Navi 48 cards, and slower memory at that, AMD is also able to save on the manufacturing costs of the RX 9070 GRE. Which is vital right now given the skyrocketing pricing of memory, whether server, system, or video memory.

Like the other RDNA 4 GPUs, the RX 9070 GRE benefits from a drastically improved ray tracing engine, which means that these latest AMD cards are able to better deal with the rigours of that fancy lighting feature than any other Radeon GPU of times past. They're far closer to how Nvidia has been building and running its RT Cores, and that means they no longer lag so far behind GeForce cards in terms of ray traced gaming performance.

The other big feature of RDNA 4 is the support for FSR 4, AMD's most up to date, machine-learning powered upscaling engine. When it was first introduced it represented a step change in the Radeon upscaler, making FSR far closer to the image fidelity and stability that Nvidia's similar DLSS feature offers. But it wasn't built into a lot of games at the beginning, though that is starting to change, and will only grow as time moves on. Though it is notable that FSR support is still a secondary concern for many games developers, despite AMD's reports of how straightforward it is to implement.

Right now it is only available for RDNA 4 cards, but AMD is finally committing to opening support to RDNA 3 and later RDNA 2 GPUs.

Nipped and tucked, but RDNA 4 still delivers

Features
3.5
Group 1 Data
ProductFeatures ()
RX 9070 GRE (Acer Nitro)3.5

AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE performance

Acer Nitro Radeon RX 9070 GRE graphics card

(Image credit: Future)

While AMD's pricing of the RX 9070 GRE should point us towards the equivalently priced RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB, for me it's the performance delta between the GRE and the straight RX 9070, and the delta between it and the RTX 5070, which are more interesting.

The Navi 48 GPU at its heart ought to be able to best an RTX 5060 Ti's GB206 GPU, which is getting on for half the size and with fewer than half the transistors inside it. I don't care that we're talking about 12 GB vs 16 GB in terms of memory, the RTX 5060 Ti with its 128-bit memory bus shows what a weak mid-range card it is at this price by comparison.

And so it is, at every level you're looking at around 15 - 20 fps dropped between the parity priced AMD and Nvidia cards. There is no contest.

1 / 3

1080p gaming performance

Avg FPS
1% Low FPS
RX 9070 GRE | 12 GB
90
78
RX 9070 | 16 GB
103
89
RTX 5070 | 12 GB
95
82
RTX 5060 Ti | 16 GB
75
65
RX 9060 XT | 16 GB
73
63
Black Myth Wukong (1080p High) Data
ProductValue
RX 9070 GRE | 12 GB90 Avg FPS, 78 1% Low FPS
RX 9070 | 16 GB103 Avg FPS, 89 1% Low FPS
RTX 5070 | 12 GB95 Avg FPS, 82 1% Low FPS
RTX 5060 Ti | 16 GB75 Avg FPS, 65 1% Low FPS
RX 9060 XT | 16 GB73 Avg FPS, 63 1% Low FPS
The cheaper RX 9070 GRE is getting very close to the 1080p performance of the RX 9070, and it's practically a tie with the pricier Nvidia RTX 5070.

But the pricier RTX 5070 and RX 9070 are interesting in just how close they are in performance terms to the RX 9070 GRE. Against the RTX 5070 the two cards are not far off being on a level, trading blows across parts of our benchmarking suite. On the whole, though you'd have to say the Nvidia card more consistently leads the GRE overall, but there's surprisingly little in it, certainly not enough that you'd actually feel it in most games. It is clear, however, that the 3584 core Navi 48 chip inside the straight RX 9070—with its 16 GB VRAM quotient and 256-bit memory bus—is absolutely the better option.

Upscaled gaming performance

Avg FPS
1% Low FPS
RX 9070 GRE | 12 GB
95
82
RX 9070 | 16 GB
111
96
RTX 5070 | 12 GB
107
81
RTX 5060 Ti | 16 GB
86
72
RX 9060 XT | 16 GB
78
69
Black Myth Wukong (1440p High + Upscaling (quality)) Data
ProductValue
RX 9070 GRE | 12 GB95 Avg FPS, 82 1% Low FPS
RX 9070 | 16 GB111 Avg FPS, 96 1% Low FPS
RTX 5070 | 12 GB107 Avg FPS, 81 1% Low FPS
RTX 5060 Ti | 16 GB86 Avg FPS, 72 1% Low FPS
RX 9060 XT | 16 GB78 Avg FPS, 69 1% Low FPS
There are a couple of instances where, when using upscaling, the RX 9070 GRE takes a healthy lead in terms of frame rates over the RTX 5070.

Though the GRE is still not far off, and if the price gap between either the RX 9070 or RTX 5070 increases then the GRE will become a more tempting option. At MSRP vs. current pricing of the RX 9070 specifically, with the GRE you're getting roughly 86% of the performance, but you are paying around 92% of the price.

At the higher resolutions the GRE notably struggles against the other two cards, though if you're aiming specifically for 4K gaming with anything in the $600 range you are 100% relying on some heavy upscaling. At 1440p though it still shines.

Undervolting performance

Avg FPS
1% Low FPS
RX 9070 GRE | Undervolted | -130mV | 2700 Mem
69
42
RX 9070 GRE | Stock
62
55
RX 9070 | Stock
73
64
RTX 5070 | Stock
68
60
Black Myth Wukong (1440p High) Data
ProductValue
RX 9070 GRE | Undervolted | -130mV | 2700 Mem69 Avg FPS, 42 1% Low FPS
RX 9070 GRE | Stock62 Avg FPS, 55 1% Low FPS
RX 9070 | Stock73 Avg FPS, 64 1% Low FPS
RTX 5070 | Stock68 Avg FPS, 60 1% Low FPS
With a super-easy undervolt, the RX 9070 GRE is able to post performance on par or beyond the RTX 5070, and alongside the straight RX 9070.

The pricing maths start to make more sense when you factor in the level of performance headroom built into this card, however. With a little oh-so-simple undervolt I was able to push the RX 9070 GRE with a few percentage points of the performance of the RX 9070. And with the GPU consistently topping the 3 GHz mark, you're looking at generally a performance lead over the RTX 5070, too.

I still find the performance headroom of Navi 48 GPUs surprising, and while AMD's lower order RX 9000-series cards don't have as consistent a level of overclocking/undervolting performance to them, every Navi 48-powered card I've tested is happy to let you pull back its core voltage in exchange for giving up a whole lot more clock speed and around 10% extra frame rate performance in games.

Undervolt and watch it fly

Performance
4
Group 1 Data
ProductPerformance ()
RX 9070 GRE (Acer Nitro)4

AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE thermals

Acer Nitro Radeon RX 9070 GRE graphics card

(Image credit: Future)

It's probably no surprise that a mid-range graphics card sporting a triple fan cooling array actually trends to the pretty chill, but that's where we're at with at least the Acer Nitro RX 9070 GRE I've been testing. There are no Made by AMD (MBA) cards for this generation, so all RDNA 4 GPUs are clothed in their manufacturer's cooling shrouds, and you're likely to be getting arrays designed for beefier cards slapped onto the RX 9070 GRE.

System performance

Peak temperature (°C)
Average temperature (°C)
RX 9070 GRE | 12 GB
62
59
RX 9070 | 16 GB
57
55
RTX 5070 | 12 GB
79
76
RTX 5060 Ti | 16 GB
67
65
RX 9060 XT | 16 GB
57
48
Thermals Data
ProductValue
RX 9070 GRE | 12 GB62 Peak temperature (°C), 59 Average temperature (°C)
RX 9070 | 16 GB57 Peak temperature (°C), 55 Average temperature (°C)
RTX 5070 | 12 GB79 Peak temperature (°C), 76 Average temperature (°C)
RTX 5060 Ti | 16 GB67 Peak temperature (°C), 65 Average temperature (°C)
RX 9060 XT | 16 GB57 Peak temperature (°C), 48 Average temperature (°C)
The RX 9070 GRE uses the same coolers as the RX 9070/XT cards, with more power-hungry GPUs, the cooling noise and thermal load is impressively light.

From what I can tell, without having the cards cheek-by-jowl, this Acer GRE is using the exact same Frostblade 4.0 cooler as its RX 9070 XT stablemate, and I've tested at a solid ~60°C when under load. That makes it cooler than the similarly triple-fanned Palit RTX 5060 Ti we've tested, and waaaaaay cooler than the Founders Edition RTX 5070.

And that's true whether you indulge in undervolting or not. I actually found it running a teensy bit more frosty when I'd pulled back the power, even though the GPU is generally running at over 300 MHz faster than at stock levels.

Chillers built for better GPUs means cool GPUs

Thermals
4.5
Group 1 Data
ProductThermals ()
RX 9070 GRE (Acer Nitro)4.5

AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE sound

Acer Nitro Radeon RX 9070 GRE graphics card

(Image credit: Future)

I have found only the tiniest smattering of coil whine. That's something I regularly listen out for with AMD GPUs, and in this generation with Nvidia cards, too. But, with the RX 9070 GRE I've been testing, I'm only detecting the very occasional electrical fizz when the frame rate in a settings screen spikes to ludicrous levels—in games I never heard the power componentry sing its siren song.

The actual fan noise is blessedly relaxed, too. The GPU may be running cool, but it's not because Acer has tuned those three fans to run at turbine settings. Even under sustained load, and even with the card sitting in an open test rig right next to me, the fan noise never got to a distracting level at all.

It will sound different in a closed PC case, though there should also be moving air around and/or across the GPU to help shift that hot air, too.

Cool also means quiet

Sound
4.5
Group 1 Data
ProductSound ()
RX 9070 GRE (Acer Nitro)4.5

AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE value

Acer RX 9070 GRE and RTX 5070 FE graphics cards

(Image credit: Future)

This is what's going to make or break the AMD RX 9070 GRE: its true value once released into the wild. That goes beyond just the initial MSRP quoted by AMD, and has everything to do with what the retailers and manufacturers end up charging PC gamers in the real world. This is the issue we had around the other Navi 48-powered graphics cards, where we were given MSRP numbers that melted away scant hours after the cards launched.

It's potentially harder for that to happen in the current environment. With the RX 9070 GRE given a $549 starting price, and the RX 9070 currently available for $600, there isn't a lot of wiggle room for perfidious retailers to spike the price unnecessarily. As soon as you get start to eat into that $50 price delta the smart money will surely switch to the faster 16 GB card.

But, while the GPU market has plateaued in terms of pricing over the past few months—albeit at disappointingly higher levels than the tail end of 2025—that's no guarantee the current status quo will be preserved. There have been a few rumblings recently that the prices of AMD cards are going to get bumped in the near future, putting them back alongside their Nvidia competitors, and if that happens then the GRE's $549-$600 price tag might look ever more tantalising.

I will reiterate that the notion of value is a tough one here, considering that its $549 price tag is the same as the RX 9070, but then I think we've all had to readjust our pricing perceptions in the face of the RAMpocalypse and its fallout. Time will tell how well the RX 9070 GRE is able to hold to its MSRP. History would tell us that it's not going to be easy.

The value prop could evaporate quickly

Group 1

RX 9070 GRE (Acer Nitro)
3
Group 1 Data
ProductValue
RX 9070 GRE (Acer Nitro)3

AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE software

Acer Nitro Radeon RX 9070 GRE graphics card

(Image credit: Future)

Acer has its own Intelligent Space application you can use in conjunction with your Nitro card that will offer up some AI tools you can use with your hardware and potentially suggest performance tweaks, but if I'm honest I really wouldn't bother. AMD's own Adrenalin software is good enough to do all the GPU tweaking you could want.

And hey, if you want some AI shenanigans you can also download a 34 GB AMD AI Bundle along with your drivers. If you want to do some local AI things, you're getting tools such as ComfyUI, Ollama, and LM Studio. They're good ways to get the most out of your local hardware in an AI sense if you want to get away from the token drains of cloud AI.

But let's go back to Adrenalin, because AMD's driver software is way better than the old days, though is not without its quirks. I still get frustrated by the fact the Adrenalin software's shortcuts have a tendency to tread all over existing app's own shortcuts, such as Photoshop and Google Docs, and that the UI isn't the most intuitive to navigate. But it's still functional, and when it comes to tweaking your GPU I've been more than happy to do all of my undervolting with the RX 9070 GRE via Adrenalin alone.

You're also getting a good data overlay in the Adrenalin software, which you can enable via those troubling shortcuts or inside the software itself. That allows you to see exactly what's going on with your CPU and GPU to help you troubleshoot any issues you feel you might be having with your system.

Adrenalin is ace now, and so is FSR4

Software
4
Group 1 Data
ProductSoftware ()
RX 9070 GRE (Acer Nitro)4
]]> <![CDATA[ 007 First Light joins an ever-expanding list of 2026 games without up-to-date AMD FSR or Intel XeSS support ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/007-first-light-joins-an-ever-expanding-list-of-2026-games-without-up-to-date-amd-fsr-or-intel-xess-support/ adSZA7wC6mTcV4NDeqq7XB Wed, 27 May 2026 13:09:20 +0000

If you're the owner of a recent Nvidia GeForce RTX graphics card, you probably won't have given much thought to the fact that all the big game releases this year support the majority of the DLSS AI technology suite. On the other hand, if it's an AMD Radeon or Intel Arc card in your gaming PC, you're probably wondering why today's games seem to be short-changing you, and for 007 First Light, it's another one to add to the list of 'Where's my FSR 4/XeSS?'

Now that IO Interactive's new Bond adventure is out in the wild, I've finally had the chance to dig into what upscaling and frame generation systems it supports. Well, as Nvidia notes in its latest GeForce blog, you get DLSS 4.5 Super Resolution and Multi Frame Generation.

A screenshot of 007 First Light's PC graphics options, showing the choice of upscaling algorithms available
IO Interactive
A screenshot of 007 First Light's PC graphics options, showing the choice of upscaling algorithms available
IO Interactive
A screenshot of 007 First Light's PC graphics options, showing the choice of upscaling algorithms available
IO Interactive

The game's options interface is somewhat clunky, but you can easily switch between DLAA for pixel-perfect anti-aliasing or scale the frame all the way down with Ultra Performance upscaling.

That's not the case with AMD FSR, though. You get Quality, Balanced, and Performance modes only: no native AA or Ultra Perf to be seen. Oh, and no FSR Frame Generation, either. More importantly for RX 9000-series owners, you don't get FSR 4, just version 3.1.5. And Intel's XeSS is notable by its complete absence.

007 First Light isn't the only 2026 game to have such limited options. Forza Horizon 6 does have a decent spread of FSR and XeSS upscaling modes, including Native AA, but it too is only FSR 3.1.5, and there's no sign of AMD or Intel's frame gen algorithms.

Pragmata does have FSR 4.1 but no frame gen, and no XeSS whatsoever. Resident Evil: Requiem is a little better with the full suite of FSR (3 and 4) and DLSS 4 (4.5 via the Nvidia App), but it's another game without XeSS support.

And let's not even begin to mention being able to use path tracing or any kind of AI-based ray tracing denoiser on an AMD or Intel GPU. Sure, the latter doesn't have the high-end hardware nor the software to cover both, but the latest Radeon cards certainly do (though AMD still hasn't released its FSR Redstone denoiser yet).

The more conspiratorial among us may think that this is some kind of deliberate plot by Nvidia, contractually requiring developers to exclude implementing competitors' technologies. Well, you can doff your tinfoil hats, because that's not the case.

"Nvidia does not and will not block, restrict, discourage, or hinder developers from implementing competitor technologies in any way," says Keita Iida, vice president of developer relations. "We provide the support and tools for all game developers to easily integrate DLSS if they choose and even created Nvidia Streamline to make it easier for game developers to add competitive technologies to their games."

A presentation slide from AMD's FSR Redstone Press Deck, as issued December 2025

Wherefore art though, oh AMD FSR Ray Regeneration? (Image credit: AMD)

The decision not to fully support the latest version of FSR or XeSS, incorporating the full set of performance-enhancing features, is one that's entirely down to the developers. IO Interactive and Playground Games chose to skip FSR 4 and AMD's frame gen in 007 First Light and Forza Horizon 6, respectively.

One could argue that Nvidia's sheer dominance of the discrete graphics card market means that it makes sense for a game studio to only target the most common GPU feature set, but if you've already done some of the work to implement FSR or XeSS, then why not the full suite?

Yes, FSR 3.1 frame generation isn't the best out there, with every other system available producing noticeably superior results. But I'd argue that it's better to let gamers choose for themselves as to what they want to use; if they'd prefer to have superior frame rates over perfect graphics, that's fine. Just give them the option.

As things currently stand, only one group of PC gamers has that freedom, and it's the RTX crowd.

]]> <![CDATA[ If this breakdown of the full cost of producing your favourite graphics card is accurate, then prices for certain GPUs are going to make 64 GB DDR5 kits look cheap ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/if-this-breakdown-of-the-full-cost-of-producing-your-favourite-graphics-card-is-accurate-then-prices-for-certain-gpus-are-going-to-make-64-gb-ddr5-kits-look-cheap/ djS8VHw6yHFbbzBWGHxVYj Fri, 22 May 2026 13:04:14 +0000

Every week, I search through all of the major online retailers for the best graphics card deals, hunting down the lowest prices for the latest Arc, GeForce, and Radeon GPUs. Although a handful of models are wildly over their MSRP, many are still within an acceptable margin above it. However, according to a breakdown of the total cost of making a graphics card, certain GPUs are about to get a lot more expensive.

That's according to the figures presented by Igor's Lab, and while the report focuses on the current price and production cost of the Radeon RX 9070 XT for the European market, the same circumstances apply across all cards and sectors.

The primary reason why we've seen significant price hikes for certain graphics cards is, of course, the heavily constricted supply of DRAM modules, better known as the RAMpocalypse. AMD and Intel use GDDR6 across all their graphics cards, while Nvidia uses GDDR7 for almost all RTX 50-series models (the RTX 5050 being the exception).

These are manufactured by the same companies that produce High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) for AI data centers, and since the growth of those has exponentially increased in recent times, demand for memory chips, of any kind, is significantly outstripping the supply. However, that's only one element of the total production cost for a graphics card.

You need to add in the cost of the GPU itself, and since all of them in the latest cards are made by TSMC—which has increased wafer prices—vendors are having to pay AMD, Intel, and Nvidia more for them. Then you've got all the other components and materials used in the entire graphics card, before you come to the cost of putting it all together and then packaging it.

And there's more: Every graphics card is manufactured in Asia, predominantly China and Taiwan. Therefore, they need to be shipped and distributed for sale in other countries, so freight costs, import duties and other taxes and insurance have to be included in the final price tag.

Graphics card vendors also need to cover the cost of research & development, marketing and advertising, warranty claims, credit, currency conversion, and so on. Lastly, and most importantly to them, they need to make a sufficient profit from it all. Inflation naturally causes all these aspects to rise in price over time, but the volatile nature of geopolitics and conflicts throws in a variety of spanners into the works.

The type of graphics card most affected by all of this is the high-end model, due to its increased number of costly materials and components, especially VRAM. Hence, the likes of the RTX 5070 Ti, RTX 5080, and RTX 5090 are currently sporting minimum price tags that are 20%, 29%, and 90% over their respective launch MSRPs.

However, the RX 9070 and 9070 XT are currently only 9% and 17% overpriced (in the US, at least), and Igor believes that this won't remain so, once inventory levels of old stock eventually get replaced.

A Gigabyte RTX 5070 Ti Eagle OC Ice on a desk and installed in a gaming PC.

One GPU plus eight VRAM chips equals a whole lot of money (Image credit: Future)

"The RX 9070 XT is currently less of a typical product in price comparisons and more of an indicator of a delayed price surge. This is precisely why the card still seems relatively attractive in May 2026, even though it's objectively not cheap. The real news, therefore, isn't that graphics cards have become more expensive. The real news is that part of the price increase may not have fully reached store shelves yet."

The global supply of memory chips isn't going to improve any time soon (if anything, it could actually get worse, as the push for new AI servers gets ever more frantic), and there is no sign of any positive changes in import policies or fuel prices on the horizon. Paying $700 for an RX 9070 XT could well become a thing of the past very soon.

]]> <![CDATA[ Best graphics cards in 2026: These are the GPUs worth spending money in right now ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/the-best-graphics-cards/ HJWmqoq9VXCgkv5hx9EdaQ Thu, 23 Apr 2026 13:10:53 +0000 Wed, 03 Jun 2026 10:03:07 +0000

The best graphics card is, arguably, the one you can afford right now. Now, that might seem trite, but the reality is that, while prices are frustratingly high thanks to a whole host of reasons (*cough* AI), there are cards worth looking at in every segment. And though you might be swayed by the VRAM debate, our own testing shows that in the real world gaming with an 8 GB GPU is absolutely fine in most cases. It's also interesting to note that prices have essentially stabilised at their current level. While stock might be tight, there is stock and at prices which have remained consistent for the past month, with some actually dropping.

I've tested and gamed on pretty much every new graphics card that's been released in this generation, from the Intel Battlemage cards that launched late 2024, through the initial Nvidia RTX Blackwell launch at the start of 2025, and on to AMD's RDNA 4 cards later last year. I believe that makes me well placed to talk you through what I think today's best graphics card is, and for me it's the AMD Radeon RX 9070.

For most PC gamers this is the graphics card which offers the highest performance for the money, delivering decent 1440p performance, and much improved ray tracing over previous AMD generations of GPU. It's also rocking 16 GB of VRAM to be able to deliver on high graphics settings at that resolution now and into the future, too. It was priced appallingly at launch, but now it's settling down and delivering performance close to the RX 9070 XT and therefore the RTX 5070 Ti, too. It's also been remarkably resilient so far in the face of spiking GPU prices thanks to the ongoing RAMpocalypse.

The absolute top, from a pure performance standpoint, however, still is the Nvidia RTX 5090. That's the best high-end graphics card with no other contenders getting near its mix of style, features, and raw computational grunt. It's also a card where no-one gets close in terms of price, either, especially with prices the way they are right now. At the budget end, we can no longer recommend Intel's B570, it doesn't have the value argument anymore and the reliability and relative performance of the RTX 5050 makes that now the best budget graphics card.

GPU price tracking

🕹️ RTX 5080: $1,290 @ Best Buy
🕹️ RTX 5070 Ti: $900 @ Newegg
🕹️ RTX 5070: $599 @ Walmart
🕹️ RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB: $550 @ Newegg
🕹️ RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB: $380 @ Amazon
🕹️ RTX 5060: $350 @ Amazon
🕹️ RTX 5050: $290 @ Amazon

🕹️ RX 9070 XT: $700 @ Amazon
🕹️ RX 9070: $600 @ Amazon
🕹️ RX 9060 XT 16 GB: $430 @ Best Buy
🕹️ RX 9060 XT 8 GB: $360 @ Amazon

🕹️ Arc B580: $304 @ Amazon
🕹️ Arc B570: $260 @ Amazon

Lowest price per GPU

Lowest pricing (Price, $)
Week
Lowest pricing Data
Timestamp (Week)Nvidia RTX 5080 (Price, $)Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti (Price, $)AMD RX 9070 XT (Price, $)AMD RX 9070 (Price, $)Nvidia RTX 5070 (Price, $)Nvidia RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB (Price, $)Nvidia RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB (Price, $)AMD RX 9060 XT 16 GB (Price, $)AMD RX 9060 XT 8 GB (Price, $)Nvidia RTX 5060 (Price, $)Nvidia RTX 5050 (Price, $)Intel Arc B580 (Price, $)Intel Arc B570 (Price, $)
11100780700600550430368370280300250260230
21099750700600550430340370270300250260230
31000750700550524430370370280291250250230
41000750695550546430345370280296250250230
51000749670600481430340350270300250250230
6929749670600499379340350270289240250230
7999750650550520430350350270299240250230
8980749650550500430342350270299250250200
9999750650560500430323350270299250250220
10989730600550480430340360270299250250210
11990699600550489400320340250280230250200
12989730600530500400320350275279220250200
131000750600530527420342350280279220250200
141000750600530540420313370280279220250202
151000749600530499430350380288279200240202
161100750620530499430350380288270200240202
171230750660580549430330390310260235250200
181268829700580540450330390310290240250200
191380899720580549450330400310299240260200
2013501000720600620520330440310299240290200
211365950730590620520351440350299260290250
221365950730630620520360400346299260300250
231290950730630630520360440346340260300250
241290950730620625520360440346340260300250
251250950730610630550360440346349260300250
261260950730610604550360440340349290300250
271290950730630640570360440340349290300250
281250900720620630515390440346349290290250
291290990710620636500390449350349290290250
301290990710620630500390440350330290290260
311290990670620599500380440350330290290260
321290990710620599515380430360310290290260
331290980710600599490400430360349290290260
341270980710620599550380440360349290290260
351290900700600599550380430360350290304260
We've been measuring the lowest available price of each current-gen GPU since August 14, 2025.

Quick list

XFX Radeon RX 9070 graphics cardBest overall
1. AMD Radeon RX 9070

Expect to pay: $620 / £519

XFX RX 9060 XT graphics cardBest value
2. AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT

Expect to pay: $440 / £378

PNY RTX 5050 graphics cardBest budget
3. Nvidia RTX 5050

Expect to pay: $290 / £219

Asus Prime Radeon RX 9070 XT graphics cardBest mid-range
4. AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT

Expect to pay: $710 / 620

Nvidia RTX 5090 Founders Edition seen straight on, with a blue backgroundBest high-end
5. Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090

Expect to pay: $3800 / £3000

1. Best overall graphics card: AMD Radeon RX 9070

XFX Swift Radeon RX 9070 OC graphics card on a grey background with a gradient
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XFX Swift Radeon RX 9070 OC graphics card on a grey background with a gradient
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XFX Swift Radeon RX 9070 OC graphics card on a grey background with a gradient
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XFX Swift Radeon RX 9070 OC graphics card on a grey background with a gradient
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XFX Swift Radeon RX 9070 OC graphics card on a grey background with a gradient
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XFX Swift Radeon RX 9070 OC graphics card on a grey background with a gradient
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XFX Swift Radeon RX 9070 OC graphics card on a grey background with a gradient
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1. AMD Radeon RX 9070

The best graphics card of 2026

Shaders: 3584 | Boost clock: 2520 MHz | TFLOPs: 36.12 | Memory: 16 GB GDDR6 | Memory clock: 20 GT/s | Memory bandwidth: 640 GB/s | TGP: 220 W | Pricing: $620 / £519

Not far off the performance of the XT version
Comfortably beats RTX 5070
Especially when overclocked
Healthy VRAM capacity
The $100 price bump is an issue
The XT version will become available again at MSRP
1 / 5

1440p gaming performance

Avg FPS
1% Low FPS
RX 9070
73
64
RTX 5070
68
60
RX 9070 XT
82
73
RTX 5070 Ti
84
74
0255075100
Black Myth Wukong (1440p High) Data
ProductValue
RX 907073 Avg FPS, 64 1% Low FPS
RTX 507068 Avg FPS, 60 1% Low FPS
RX 9070 XT82 Avg FPS, 73 1% Low FPS
RTX 5070 Ti84 Avg FPS, 74 1% Low FPS
Our detailed benchmarking shows just how close the RX 9070 gets to the far more expensive RTX 5070 Ti and RX 9070 XT, why it's our pick as the best current GPU to buy in 2026
Buy if...

✅ You want a good 1440p GPU, and a great 1080p one: With the ray tracing updates baked into RDNA 4, the RX 9070 is now a fantastic all-round graphics card. It can nail 1440p and 1080p resolutions at top settings, and can call on FSR and AMD's frame generation feature to give you a boost if you need it.

✅ You're happy to undervolt/overclock: With some easy tweaks in the AMD drivers you can boost the performance of the GPU to within a couple of percentage points of the RX 9070 and RTX 5070 Ti. And the best part is that it doesn't demand a ton more power or cooling to get there, so shouldn't stress you or your fancy new card.

Don't buy if...

❌ You can find an RX 9070 XT for anything close to the same price: While you can overclock the non-XT card to get within 2% of the performance, prices being equal the XT card is a no-brainer.

The bottom line

🪛 The Radeon RX 9070 is an excellent graphics card if you're looking for high 1440p performance without the almost $1,000 price points of the competing Nvidia cards. With the market as it is, the AMD card is the best GPU for most PC gamers.

The RX 9070 is a rather agonising pick as the best graphics card around right now. There are inevitable caveats around my decision, because quite obviously this second-tier RDNA 4 GPU is not the most powerful GPU you can buy. The AMD Radeon RX 9070, however, is the graphics card I think makes the most sense to the most PC gamers.

And, realistically, it's going to be the one that I would suggest to my PC gaming friends if they come looking for a recommendation. Luckily, I don't actually have friends.

The RX 9070 offers close to the performance of AMD's most powerful RDNA 4 GPU, still packs in 16 GB of GDDR6 video memory, can be easily overclocked without demanding much more cooling or power, and handily outperforms Nvidia's similarly priced, lower-spec RTX 5070.

I was relatively cool on the card in my initial review of the GPU, mainly because our first taste of it was a card that XFX hiked the price of out the gate, which made it more than a reference RX 9070 XT. As things have evened out, there are reliably cheaper RX 9070 cards around and when you look at the graphics card market as a whole, the Radeon stands out as a great pick.

Yet I still haven't come to that conclusion lightly. My first thought was going to be recommending the $350 RX 9060 XT, because it is great value, performs well, and pretty much offers performance parity with the more expensive Nvidia option. But it doesn't feel like a great recommendation for the best graphics card, given that it is a third-tier Radeon that isn't particularly exciting.

The Radeon RX 9070 XT, though, is a fantastic card and were it not for the ludicrous over-pricing of AMD's finest it would absolutely be my top pick. With an MSRP of $599 it would be an easy choice for its impressive performance out of the box, stunning under-volting frame rate bumps, and the excellent filip of the new FSR4 upscaler. But the cheapest you can get it for these days is still over $700, with the RX 9070 generally under $600 with very similar gaming performance, especially with some judicious undervolting.

In the end, the extra raster performance of the Radeon RX 9070 over the RTX 5070—and how close it can get to the more expensive RTX 5070 Ti and RX 9070 XT GPUs—makes it the best graphics card to buy right now for most PC gamers.

XFX Swift Radeon RX 9070 OC graphics card on a grey background with a gradient

Click through to read our full AMD Radeon RX 9070 review.

2. Best value graphics card: AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 16 GB

The XFX AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT on a set of bookshelves
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The XFX Swift AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 16 GB on a bookshelf
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The XFX Swift AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT on white gravel
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The XFX Swift AMD RX 9060 XT 16 GB in a gaming PC, lit up in blue, yellow and pink
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The XFX Swift AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT on a set of bookshelves, with various sci-fi novels behind it
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The XFX Swift RX 9060 XT on a wooden desk
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The XFX Swift RX 9060 XT on a wooden desk
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The XFX Swift RX 9060 XT on a wooden desk
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2. AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 16 GB

The best value graphics card of this generation

Shaders: 2048 | Boost clock: 3130 MHz | TFLOPs: 25.64 | Memory: 16 GB GDDR6 | Memory clock: 20 GT/s | Memory bandwidth: 320 GB/s | TGP: 160 W | Pricing: $440 / £378

Relatively cheap
Gives the RTX 5060 a thorough pasting
Capable of trading blows with the RTX 5060 Ti
Runs cool and power efficient
RTX 5060 Ti slightly faster overall
Limited overclocking potential
All dependent on price
1 / 5

1080p gaming performance

Avg FPS
1% Low FPS
RX 9060 XT 16 GB
73
63
RX 9060 XT 8 GB
71
58
RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB
75
65
RTX 5070 12 GB
95
82
0255075100
Black Myth Wukong (1080p High) Data
ProductValue
RX 9060 XT 16 GB73 Avg FPS, 63 1% Low FPS
RX 9060 XT 8 GB71 Avg FPS, 58 1% Low FPS
RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB75 Avg FPS, 65 1% Low FPS
RTX 5070 12 GB95 Avg FPS, 82 1% Low FPS
Testing the 16 GB version of the AMD RX 9060 XT graphics card against the competition to show why it's our pick as the best value GPU of 2026
Buy if...

✅ You want a lot of VRAM without spending a ton of cash: The 16 GB version of the RX 9060 XT has an MSRP of $349, and even in these price-inflated times it's regularly available right now for well under $450.

✅ You want an affordable upgrade for modern 1080p or 1440p gaming: Smooth 4K gaming is beyond even the fastest budget cards, but at lower resolutions the RX 9060 XT delivers great performance for the cash, particularly compared to previous generations.

✅ You want bang for your buck: The RX 9060 XT might not be the fastest card on the market, but nothing touches it at this price.

Don't buy if...

❌ You can really stretch that budget: For under $400 there is nothing that touches the RX 9060 XT, but if you can push on to ~$450 that brings you into RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB territory. That is an overall faster GPU with more overclocking potential.

❌ You want productivity performance: This is a gaming card, through and through, so if you're looking for productivity chops then Nvidia is the way to go.

The bottom line

🪛 The AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT is not a sexy graphics card, it's not the fastest graphics card, but it's an honest GPU that will deliver good gaming performance at the most popular resolutions with top settings. And all for under $400.

To be able to pick up a genuine 16 GB graphics card, with a seriously performant GPU core at its heart, for around $400 is pretty great. It would be even better if the card in question was actually retailing for its original MSRP, but even at the current slightly over MSRP pricing, the Radeon RX 9060 XT is still our pick for the best value graphics card today.

Okay, the latest AMD RDNA 4 GPU is not quite living up to its launch claims of beating the RTX 5060 Ti, certainly not across our benchmarking suite, but at 1080p the Nvidia card is less than a percentage point ahead on average, and it's by only 3% at 1440p. Effectively, I think we can kinda call that parity.

The GeForce card is more consistently ahead at 4K—even though they both carry 16 GB on the top versions of the card—but neither are capable of actually playable frame rates at that resolution. And even the boon of Multi Frame Generation can't help in reality.

But the parity at 1440p and 1080p itself is impressive for the AMD card, especially when you take into account that we're testing games which have pretty hefty ray tracing workloads in them as part of our benchmarking gauntlet. Historically that's where AMD cards have fallen down against Nvidia, but the new RDNA 4 architecture has changed around how the Radeon cards deal with ray tracing, giving them more dedicated silicon to do the work, and that has made all the difference.

Another area where there has been historic Nvidia dominance is in the feature set, and honestly, the green team still has the edge on that count. The twin pillars of DLSS 4 upscaling and the Multi Frame Generation (MFG) feature do give the GeForce card some real merit. But the quality experience of MFG is very dependent on there being a relatively high, consistent frame rate before the interpolation of up to three extra frames kicks in. That means its effectiveness does diminish lower down the GPU stack.

AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT vs Nvidia RTX 5060

It's worth noting here that it's the 16 GB version of this card that we're recommending here (though if you simply cannot go north of $350, the 8 GB version wouldn't be a bad shout). Both AMD and Nvidia have released twin versions of their cards with 16 and 8 GB VRAM allocations and, given the memory-intensive direction detail-heavy modern games are going, that extra memory headroom will be valuable even if you're gaming at 1440p.

So, our recommendation would be to aim for that 16 GB version if you have the patience to save up a little longer, as it will help in the long run. Then you'll be rocking a real solid, pretty low power GPU, that can stand toe-to-toe with the more expensive Nvidia cards.

The XFX Swift AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 16 GB on a bookshelf

Click through to read our full Radeon RX 9060 XT review.

3. Best budget graphics card: Nvidia RTX 5050

Palit GeForce RTX 5050 graphics card
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Palit GeForce RTX 5050 graphics card
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Palit GeForce RTX 5050 graphics card
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Palit GeForce RTX 5050 graphics card
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Palit GeForce RTX 5050 graphics card
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3. Nvidia GeForce RTX 5050

The best budget graphics card

Shaders: 2560 | Boost clock: 2572 MHz | TFLOPs: 13.2 | Memory: 8 GB GDDR6 | Memory clock: 20 GT/s | Memory bandwidth: 320 GB/s | TGP: 130 W | Pricing: $290 / £219

Reliable performance
Decent 1080p frame rates
DLSS 4 support
Much weaker than RTX 5060, which is only a little more expensive
Slower than the RTX 4060
Buy if...

✅ You are on a restrictive budget: At the moment, the cheapest new graphics card you can buy is either the RTX 5050 or Arc B570, and this Nvidia GPU just about has the edge in terms of overall performance and reliability. If you only have ~$250 to spend this is your best option.

Don't buy if...

❌ You can find an RTX 5060 for a decent price: If you can stretch your budget, the RTX 5060 is a far superior card in terms of its overall gaming frame rates, offering around 28% higher gaming performance at 1080p and 36% more at 1440p, for just 15% more cash.

The bottom line

🪛 The Nvidia RTX 5050 is the best budget graphics card at the moment, but only by a hair's breadth. The Arc B570 has lost its value proposition, and it's harder to accept its driver issues when the prices are similar. But the RTX 5060 is only a little more money and a far more capable GPU. Though, if you cannot stretch your budget that far, the RTX 5050 will still deliver a decent 1080p gaming experience.

Difficult GPU recommendations is kinda the theme for this graphics card tier list, and they don't come much tougher than the budget pick. In a world where GPU pricing has been trending ever higher since the memory crisis bit, and even prior to that with the pandemic and ethereum mining booms, it's hard going trying to find a really cheap graphics card that's still worth the money in 2026.

Up to now, the Intel Arc B570 had been our pick as the best budget GPU, because it was sitting under the $200 mark and genuinely had a value proposition to it. But given that the price of Intel's little-card-that-almost-could has gone up quite considerably, where you can find it, it's a much harder GPU to recommend. It's occasional driver issues (Cyberpunk 2077, for example, is still a bit of a mess) are much less forgiveable when it shares approximate pricing to Nvidia's cheapest RTX Blackwell card.

That means, for me, the RTX 5050 is now the go-to pick for best budget graphics card.

It's not an exciting card, doesn't really replace an equivalent GPU from the previous generation (the RTX 4050 was restricted to laptops), and actually comes in a little behind the performance of the last-gen RTX 4060. So yeah, if you're still rocking that older Ada GPU, there's no upgrade for you here.

But what it is, is reliable and relatively cheap. At around the $260 mark it's a similar price to the Arc B570, but suffers from none of the driver issues I've had with the Intel GPU in testing. And it's also generally quicker at 1080p. In our standard GPU test suite, the RTX 5050 posts, on average, 11% higher frame rates than the Intel chip, and 6% higher at 1440p.

You'll note there's a significant difference in that performance delta as the resolutions get more demanding, and in fact it turns around at 4K where the B570 takes an almost 3% lead. That's down to the fact that the Intel card comes with 10 GB off VRAM against the RTX 5050's 8 GB GDDR6.

But, realistically, you're not buying a $260 GPU to game at 4K, and if you are you will be very disappointed whichever card you buy. So, down at this level, the rabid hate for an 8 GB frame buffer makes less sense.

Looking at an frame rate averaged across our 1080p benchmark suite, you get 57 fps from the RTX 5050, while the B570 sits at 51. That means you're getting near 60 fps performance on average, all at the highest performance settings in some of the most demanding games, and notably without upscaling or frame generation.

I will say, however, that when you do take into account Nvidia and Intel's upscaling performance at the low-end, then the performance does even out. Either way, that does then mean you're averaging over 60 fps at 1440p with those options enabled.

Still, when the GeForce GPU is that bit more reliable, that's where I'd be spending my money right now.

Palit GeForce RTX 5050 graphics card

Click through to see our full GeForce RTX 5050 review.

4. Best mid-range graphics card: AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT

Asus Prime RX 9070 XT graphics card
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Asus Prime RX 9070 XT graphics card
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Asus Prime RX 9070 XT graphics card
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Asus Prime RX 9070 XT graphics card
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Asus Prime RX 9070 XT graphics card
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Asus Prime RX 9070 XT graphics card
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Asus Prime RX 9070 XT graphics card
Future

4. AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT

The best mid-range graphics card

Shaders: 4096 | Boost clock: 2920 MHz | TFLOPs: 48.66 | Memory: 16 GB GDDR6 | Memory clock: 20 GT/s | Memory bandwidth: 640 GB/s | TGP: 304 W | Pricing: $710 / 620

RTX 5070 Ti performance for a lower price
Capable overclocker
Hugely improved RT performance
FSR4's ML algo looks good so far
Stiff pricing on some cards
Nvidia still has a ray tracing edge
MFG is a potent weapon for RTX 50-series
Buy if...

✅ You are happy to tweak: This generation has seen an impressive level of headroom built into its GPUs. For AMD that means undervolting, but it means you can get some serious extra performance out of the chip without putting any extra strain on either the power demands or cooling solution.

✅ You were considering the RTX 5070 Ti: The RX 9070 XT gets so close to the RTX 5070 Ti's performance, especially when undervolted, that you can easily forget there's almost $300 difference in their relative prices right now.

Don't buy if...

❌ The price goes much higher: Thankfully the RX 9070 XT has been remarkably resillient to the price hikes of this generation of graphics cards. Well, of course it is much higher than its original $599 price tag, but considering the RTX 5070 Ti is now almost $1,000 and has seen successive increases, the AMD card is doing okay. For now.

The bottom line

🪛 The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT is the best mid-range graphics card you can buy right now. I was super keen on the RTX 5070 Ti when it was priced more sensibly. But with the almost $300 price difference between them, and the RX 9070 XT able to deliver almost the same levels of performance, the smart money should be going to AMD.

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT is the current best mid-range graphics card you can buy today, though obviously that term is getting stretching mightily by a graphics card that is now regularly retailing for more than $700. But where once it was a straight fight between it and the Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti for the title, the current pricing issues have made that an unfair contest.

Nvidia GPUs, for various reasons, have been more noticeably affected by the price hikes than AMD cards. And here that manifests as an almost $300 price difference between the two once-similarly priced GPUs. Honestly, only a fool would pay that sort of premium for the GeForce card while it remains an almost $1,000 card.

That's because the actual performance delta really isn't that great. You can look at the benchmark numbers up there 👆 and see just how closet there are. Most especially when you take overclocking into account.

Both AMD and Nvidia chips of this generation have an impressive amount of headroom baked into them, accessed in different ways, but both able to deliver a good chunk of extra performance for the eager tweaker. And it's not hard to do either. With the RX 9070 XT it's a case of undervolting the GPU, and thereby giving it some thermal headroom to unlock higher clock speeds and therefore higher frame rates.

And you get all that without increasing the power or thermal demands on the card all that much, either. It really is genuinely and truly worth doing for anyone with an RDNA 4 card in their gaming PC. Free frames, people.

One other thing the RDNA 4 generation of Radeon GPUs brought with it was FSR 4. More than just an iterative improvement of AMD's upscaling tech, FSR 4 represents a fundamental change in how its graphics cards approach the problem, bringing them more in line with how Nvidia does it. That means it's taking a machine learning approach for the first time, and is delivering genuinely impressive levels of image and motion clarity for cards like the RX 9070 XT.

Running games in 4K with FSR 4 Performance mode and I would challenge you to be able to tell the difference between that and a native 4K render in normal gameplay without resorting to pixel-peeping.

The only slight fly in the ointment is the fact the RX 9070 is less than $100 cheaper than the RX 9070 XT and is pretty performant in its own right. It's not quite as quick, but it's impressive enough in its own right to be our overall pick as best GPU right now. But if you are looking for the next step up without spending $1,000 then this is that card.

Asus Prime RX 9070 XT graphics card

Click through to read our full AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT review.

5. Best high-end graphics card: Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090

Nvidia RTX 5090 Founders Edition graphics card on different backgrounds
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Nvidia RTX 5090 Founders Edition graphics card on different backgrounds
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Nvidia RTX 5090 Founders Edition graphics card on different backgrounds
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Nvidia RTX 5090 Founders Edition graphics card on different backgrounds
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Nvidia RTX 5090 Founders Edition graphics card on different backgrounds
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Nvidia RTX 5090 Founders Edition graphics card on different backgrounds
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Nvidia RTX 5090 Founders Edition graphics card on different backgrounds
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Nvidia RTX 5090 Founders Edition graphics card on different backgrounds
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Nvidia RTX 5090 Founders Edition graphics card on different backgrounds
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Nvidia RTX 5090 Founders Edition graphics card on different backgrounds
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Nvidia RTX 5090 Founders Edition graphics card on different backgrounds
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Nvidia RTX 5090 Founders Edition graphics card on different backgrounds
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5. Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090

The best graphics card

Shaders: 21760 | Boost clock: 2,410 MHz | TFLOPs: 104.8 | Memory: 32 GB GDDR7 | Memory clock: 28 GT/s | Memory bandwidth: 1,792 GB/s | TGP: 575 W | Pricing: $3800 / £3000

Stunning AI augmented performance
Decent gen-on-gen frame rates
FE card looks great
Huge potential for the future
Ludicrous current pricing
Lots of coil whine with one PSU
$400 MSRP jump on RTX 4090
Transformer model feels very v1.0
Buy if...

✅ You want the best: If you want to nail triple figure frame rates in the latest 4K games, then you're going to need the might and magic of Multi Frame Gen, and that's only available with the RTX 50-series cards. And yes, I do like alliteration.

✅ You to get in on the ground floor of neural rendering: The RTX Blackwell GPUs are the first chips to come with a full set of shaders that will have direct access to the Tensor Cores of the card. That will enable a new world of AI-powered gaming features... when devs get around to using them in released games.

✅ You're after a hyper-powerful SFF rig: The Founders Edition is deliciously slimline, and while it generates a lot of heat it will fit in some of the smallest small form factor PC chassis around.

Don't buy if...

❌ You need to ask the price: With a $400 price hike over the RTX 4090, the new RTX 5090 is a whole lot of cash at its $1,999 MSRP. The kicker, however, is that you'll be lucky to find one at that price given the third-party cards are looking like $3,700+ right now.

The bottom line

🪛 The RTX 5090 is the most powerful consumer graphics card on the planet right now, and delivers gaming performance far beyond what you could manage on other GPUs, especially if you're playing something which supports Multi Frame Generation.

The RTX Blackwell generation of new GPUs has kicked off with a bang, and means that right now, the best graphics card is undoubtedly the Nvidia RTX 5090. And is likely to remain that way for the next two years at least. Given the fact that AMD isn't going to release a competitor card for the top GeForce GPU in the RDNA 4 generation, you can be confident if you pick one of these up today (or when they come back in stock) you will still be gaming on the best GPU probably until the next Nvidia generation is released.

While that might make for miserable reading for AMD fans, it should be a little more comforting for anyone hellbent on spending $3,700+ on a new graphics card. It will, at least, last the course at the top of benchmarking tree. The fact that current pricing has almost doubled the cost of the RTX 5090, however, should give anyone considering it for gaming serious pause for thought.

You are only getting some 30% extra gen-on-gen performance over the RTX 4090 at 4K, and that is the smallest performance bump over a previous generation's top card since Turing came along. But there's a magic trick up the sleeve of the RTX Blackwell cards, and that is Multi Frame Generation.

Right now, it's limited to the RTX 50-series—else it would likely cannibalise sales to a huge extent down the stack if RTX 40-series GPUs were allowed into the MFG party—and it adds in up to three more frames in between each actually rendered pair. Using a feature called Flip Metering, which utilises an enhanced bit of silicon in the RTX 50-series Display Engine, it offloads all the burden of frame pacing from the CPU, puts it all on the GPU, and allows the RTX 5090 to queue up all these extra AI-generated frames perfectly for the display.

Along with a new AI-based frame generation model, Multi Frame Generation is able to hugely increase the potential performance of the RTX 5090 in any game which supports it, and the results are frankly incredible. There are some small artifacts—though nothing that would stop me using the feature—but the really impressive thing is that it adds practically no extra latency on top of the standard 2x Frame Generation experience.

And that itself has been lowered thanks to that new FG AI model which makes it 40% quicker and 30% less VRAM hungry at the same time. The good news for RTX 40-series patrons is that model at least is coming to standard Frame Gen in the Ada generation, too.

There are also a ton of games at launch with immediate compatibility with MFG, either with it natively implemented in the game, à la Cyberpunk 2077, or via the new DLSS Override feature in the Nvidia App, as in Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

It's also the most powerful consumer GPU when it comes to creator tasks, too, thanks to its hefty 32 GB of GDDR7 and its massive bandwidth, but also because it's so damned good with an AI noodling if GenAI is your thing.

In short, the RTX 5090 is the best graphics card for anyone who wants the absolute finest silicon and feature set of any consumer GPU going. You're just going to have to pay through the nose for it until stock settles down. If it ever does to an extent that MSRP versions of the card become readily available.

Nvidia RTX 5090 Founders Edition graphics card on different backgrounds

Click through to read our full Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 review.

How we test graphics cards

Various graphics cards set atop a white plinth on a pink gradient background

(Image credit: Future)

I have been benchmarking graphics cards since the 2000s, and have used many different games, applications, and methodologies over the intervening years. And, for the most part, testing GPUs is a largely objective process; you test the silicon in different ways, come out with a set of benchmark figures which you then compare against another set of numbers from a different card, or cards, to be able to objectively tell which is empirically the best.

Our current GPU test suite consists of Black Myth Wukong, Cyberpunk 2077, F1 24, Homeworld 3, Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition, The Talos Principle 2, andTotal War: Warhammer III for our gaming tests. These tests are carried out using the same game and system settings across all the graphics cards we test, and are run at 1080p, 1440p, and 4K resolutions.

We measure using both the average frame rate and the 1% Low FPS figure. This gives us a general measure of in-game performance as well as allowing us to see just how consistent that frame rate level is. The 1% Low FPS measure shows the average of the highest 1% of frame times in any given benchmarking run. Translating that into frames per second (1000/x ms) gives us the data to show whether there are regularly large drops in performance or whether it's relatively stable.

We capture this data using the Nvidia Frameview app running over the top of whatever game we are benchmarking, whether the game will give its own data output or not.

We also use the UL suite of benchmark software to get some synthetic testing done against high-end rastererisation performance with 3DMark Time Spy Extreme, and ray tracing performance with 3DMark Port Royal.

Nvidia RTX 5080 Founders Edition graphics card from different angles

(Image credit: Future)

With the new RTX Blackwell cards, we've also been using a selection of games to help us get a bead on the impact of Multi Frame Generation on both frame rate and PC latency, too. As well as retesting different levels of MFG (at either 1440p for lower end cards or 4K for high-end GPUs) with Cyberpunk 2077, we also use the ultra-demanding Alan Wake 2 and Dragon Age: Veilguard for its implementation via the Nvidia App.

Actual gaming performance isn't the whole story with graphics cards, however, as they are used for different uses outside of gaming. While we are PC Gamer, we know that some people want to be able to use their PC for 3D rendering, editing, or generative AI uses, and so we run the Blender benchmark, PugetBench for DaVinci Resolve, and Procyon's image generation benchmark using StableDiffusion.

We also capture a ton of system data, too, using the Nvidia PCAT tool (a riser board which sits between the GPU and PCIe slot) to measure actual graphics card power draw. This means we can track both peak and average power use when gaming, and a given GPU's performance per Watt metrics, too.

For this we use three back-to-back runs of the Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition benchmark, at 1080p and 4K, to give us the power numbers, as well as peak and average temperatures and average GPU clock speed, too.

On top of this we will also test the overclocking capabilities of graphics cards, by pushing them as far as we can using standard overclocking methodologies; ie. the same as you would be able to easily do at home. No LN2 sniffing going on here.

But there are also subjective measures which come into play when actually picking the best graphics card. And that all comes down to a consistent driver experience when using the GPU, how loud the cooling fans can get, whether there is discomforting coil whine or other electrical noise, and just how much damned money manufacturers are charging for these cards.

In short, there's a lot that goes into our testing.

In the PC Gamer office—and sometimes my own satellite office up the hill if I'm testing into the wee hours of the morning—we have a dedicated test rig that we use for testing graphics cards. This is our AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D-based system:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D | Motherboard: Gigabyte X870E Aorus Master | RAM: G.Skill 32 GB DDR5-6000 CAS 30 | Cooler: Corsair H170i Elite Capellix | SSD: 2 TB Crucial T700 | PSU: Seasonic Prime TX 1600W | Case: DimasTech Mini V2

We also have two other systems, kindly provided by MSI and CyberpowerPC, which we use if another member of the team, such as Jacob, Nick, or Andy, need to benchmark a card. These travel around the UK, and both house the same set of components so we can maintain multiple testing PCs which deliver data we can use to accurate reference other cards.

Where are the best graphics card deals?

US prices

🕹️ RTX 5080: $1,290 @ Best Buy
🕹️ RTX 5070 Ti: $990 @ Amazon
🕹️ RTX 5070: $599 @ Walmart
🕹️ RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB: $500 @ Walmart
🕹️ RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB: $380 @ Newegg
🕹️ RTX 5060: $330 @ Amazon
🕹️ RTX 5050: $290 @ Amazon

🕹️ RX 9070 XT: $710 @ Newegg
🕹️ RX 9070: $620 @ Amazon
🕹️ RX 9060 XT 16 GB: $440 @ Newegg
🕹️ RX 9060 XT 8 GB: $350 @ Amazon

🕹️ Arc B580: $290 @ Newegg
🕹️ Arc B570: $260 @ Amazon

UK prices

🕹️ RTX 5080: £1,100 @ Overclockers
🕹️ RTX 5070 Ti: £819 @ Overclockers
🕹️ RTX 5070: £518 @ Overclockers
🕹️ RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB: £470 @ Overclockers
🕹️ RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB: £333 @ Currys
🕹️ RTX 5060: £278 @ Overclockers
🕹️ RTX 5050: £240 @ Overclockers

🕹️ RX 9070 XT: £630 @ Amazon
🕹️ RX 9070: £560 @ Overclockers
🕹️ RX 9060 XT 16 GB: £378 @ Scan
🕹️ RX 9060 XT 8 GB: £275 @ Overclockers

🕹️ Arc B570: £190 @ Currys

GPU hierarchy

Below we have listed multiple generations of graphics card based on a simple 3DMark Time Spy Extreme GPU index score. This is only a rough approximation of relative gaming performance between the different graphics cards, as there is more variance than just with a single synthetic benchmark, but it is still a good snap shot of where the cards stack up against each other.

Rank

Graphics card

3DMark Time Spy Extreme score

1

Nvidia RTX 5090

25206

2

Nvidia RTX 4090

19453

3

Nvidia RTX 5080

16252

4

AMD RX 9070 XT

14315

5

Nvidia RTX 4080 Super

14219

6

Nvidia RTX 4080

14067

7

Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti

13534

8

AMD RX 7900 XTX

12751

9

AMD RX 9070

12647

10

AMD RX 7900 XT

12686

11

Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti Super

11887

12

Nvidia RTX 3090 Ti

11249

13

Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti

10973

14

Nvidia RTX 5070

10670

15

Nvidia RTX 3090

10217

16

AMD RX 6950 XT

10199

17

Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti

9946

18

Nvidia RTX 4070 Super

9890

19

AMD RX 6900 XT

9003

20

AMD RX 7800 XT

8953

21

Nvidia RTX 3080 10GB

8692

22

Nvidia RTX 4070

8573

23

AMD RX 6800 XT

8454

24

AMD RX 9060 XT

7664

25

AMD RX 7700 XT

7653

26

Nvidia RTX 3070 Ti

7281

27

Nvidia RTX 5060 Ti

7261

28

AMD RX 9060 XT 16 GB

7229

29

AMD RX 6800

7095

30

AMD RX 9060 XT 8 GB

6944

31

Intel Arc B580

6849

32

Nvidia RTX 3070

6803

33

Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti

6422

34

Nvidia RTX 5060

6379

35

AMD RX 6750 XT

6341

36

Nvidia RTX 4060 Ti

6296

37

AMD RX 6700 XT

5879

38

Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti

5841

39

Intel Arc B570

5790

40

Nvidia RTX 2080 Super

5360

41

AMD RX 6700

5146

42

AMD RX 7600

4993

43

Nvidia RTX 5050

4949

44

Nvidia RTX 4060

4930

45

AMD RX 6650 XT

4743

46

AMD RX 6600 XT

4310

47

AMD RX 5700 XT

4217

48

Nvidia RTX 3060

3961

49

AMD RX 6600

3719

50

Nvidia RTX 2060

3346

51

Nvidia GTX 1660 Ti

2887

52

Nvidia GTX 1660 Super

2812

53

Nvidia RTX 3050

2743

54

Nvidia GTX 1660

2466

55

AMD RX 6500 XT

2287

56

AMD RX 5500 XT

2267

57

Nvidia GTX 1650 Super

2071

58

Nvidia GTX 1650

1594

Nvidia GPU specs

Nvidia RTX 50-series (RTX Blackwell)

Model

MSRP (US$)

Launch

GPU

Lithography

CUDA cores

Memory size (GB)

Die size (mm²)

Transistors (B)

SM count

TMUs

ROPs

Tensor cores

RT cores

L2 cache (MB)

Boost clock (MHz)

Memory type

Memory bus width (bits)

Memory bandwidth (GB/s)

TDP (W)

RTX 5050

$249

Jul 16, 2025

GB207-300

TSMC 4N

2560

8

121

15.1

20

80

32

80

20

32

2572

GDDR6

128

320

130

RTX 5060

$299

May, 19, 2025

GB206-250

TSMC 4N

3840

8

181

21.9

30

120

48

120

30

32

2497

GDDR7

128

448

145

RTX 5060 Ti

$379 / $429

Apr, 16, 2025

GB205-300

TSMC 4N

4608

8 / 16

181

21.9

36

144

48

144

36

32

2572

GDDR7

128

448

180

RTX 5070

$549

Mar 5, 2025

GB205-300

TSMC 4N

6144

12

263

31.1

48

192

80

192

48

48

2512

GDDR7

192

672

250

RTX 5070 Ti

$749

Feb 20, 2025

GB203-300

TSMC 4N

8960

16

378

45.6

70

280

96

280

70

64

2452

GDDR7

256

896

300

RTX 5080

$999

Feb 20, 2025

GB203-400

TSMC 4N

10752

16

378

45.6

84

336

112

336

84

64

2617

GDDR7

256

960

360

RTX 5090

$1999

Jan 30, 2025

GB202-300

TSMC 4N

21760

32

750

92.2

170

680

176

680

170

96

2407

GDDR7

512

1792

575

Nvidia RTX 40-series (Ada Lovelace)

Model

MSRP (US$)

Launch

GPU

Lithography

CUDA cores

Memory size (GB)

Die size (mm²)

Transistors (B)

SM count

TMUs

ROPs

Tensor cores

RT cores

L2 cache (MB)

Boost clock (MHz)

Memory type

Memory bus width (bits)

Memory bandwidth (GB/s)

TDP (W)

RTX 4060

$299

Jun 29, 2023

AD107-400

TSMC 4N

3072

8

159

18.9

24

96

32

96

24

24

2460

GDDR6

128

272

115

RTX 4060 Ti

$399

May 24, 2023

AD106-350

TSMC 4N

4352

8

188

22.9

34

136

48

136

34

32

2535

GDDR6

128

288

160

RTX 4060 Ti 16GB

$499

Jul 18, 2023

AD106-351

TSMC 4N

4352

16

188

22.9

34

136

48

136

34

32

2535

GDDR6

128

288

165

RTX 4070

$599

Apr 13, 2023

AD104-250

TSMC 4N

5888

12

294.5

35.8

46

184

64

184

46

36

2475

GDDR6X

192

504

200

RTX 4070 Super

$599

Jan 17, 2024

AD104-350

TSMC 4N

7168

12

294.5

35.8

56

224

80

224

56

48

2475

GDDR6X

192

504

220

RTX 4070 Ti

$799

Jan 5, 2023

AD104-400

TSMC 4N

7680

12

294.5

35.8

60

240

80

240

60

48

2610

GDDR6X

192

504

285

RTX 4070 Ti Super

$799

Jan 24, 2024

AD103-275

TSMC 4N

8448

16

379

45.9

66

264

96

264

66

48

2610

GDDR6X

256

672

285

RTX 4080

$1199

Nov 16, 2022

AD103-300

TSMC 4N

9728

16

379

45.9

76

304

112

304

76

64

2505

GDDR6X

256

716.8

320

RTX 4080 Super

$999

Jan 31, 2024

AD103-400

TSMC 4N

10240

16

379

45.9

80

320

112

320

80

64

2550

GDDR6X

256

736

320

RTX 4090

$1599

Oct 12, 2022

AD102-300

TSMC 4N

16384

24

608.5

76.3

128

512

176

512

128

72

2520

GDDR6X

384

1008

450

Nvidia RTX 30-series (Ampere)

Model

MSRP (US$)

Launch

GPU

Lithography

CUDA cores

Memory size (GB)

Die size (mm²)

Transistors (B)

SM count

TMUs

ROPs

Tensor cores

RT cores

L2 cache (MB)

Boost clock (MHz)

Memory type

Memory bus width (bits)

Memory bandwidth (GB/s)

TDP (W)

RTX 3050

$169 / $249

Jan 27, 2022

GA106-150

Samsung 8nm

2560

6 / 8

276

12

20

80

32

80

20

2

1777

GDDR6

128

168 / 224

130

RTX 3060

$329

Feb 25, 2021

GA106-300

Samsung 8nm

3584

8 / 12

276

12

28

112

48

112

28

3

1777

GDDR6

192

240 / 360

170

RTX 3060 Ti

$399

Dec 1, 2020

GA104-200

Samsung 8nm

4864

8

392

17.4

38

152

80

152

38

4

1665

GDDR6/X

256

448 / 608

200

RTX 3070

$499

Oct 29, 2020

GA104-300

Samsung 8nm

5888

8

392

17.4

46

184

96

184

46

4

1725

GDDR6

256

448

220

RTX 3070 Ti

$599

Jun 10, 2021

GA104-400

Samsung 8nm

6144

8

392

17.4

48

192

96

192

48

4

1770

GDDR6X

256

608.3

290

RTX 3080

$699

Sep 17, 2020

GA102-200

Samsung 8nm

8704

10

628

28.3

68

272

96

272

68

5

1710

GDDR6X

320

760.3

320

RTX 3080 12 GB

$799

Jan 11, 2022

GA102-220

Samsung 8nm

8960

12

628

28.3

70

280

96

280

70

5

1710

GDDR6X

384

912.4

350

RTX 3080 Ti

$1199

Jun 3, 2021

GA102-225

Samsung 8nm

10240

12

628

28.3

80

320

112

320

80

6

1665

GDDR6X

384

912.4

350

RTX 3090

$1499

Sep 24, 2020

GA102-300

Samsung 8nm

10496

24

628

28.3

82

328

112

328

82

6

1695

GDDR6X

384

936.2

350

RTX 3090 Ti

$1999

Mar 29, 2022

GA102-350

Samsung 8nm

10752

24

628

28.3

84

336

112

336

84

6

1860

GDDR6X

384

1008

450

Nvidia RTX 20-series (Turing)

Model

MSRP (US$)

Launch

GPU

Lithography

CUDA cores

Memory size (GB)

Die size (mm²)

Transistors (B)

SM count

TMUs

ROPs

Tensor cores

RT cores

L2 cache (MB)

Boost clock (MHz)

Memory type

Memory bus width (bits)

Memory bandwidth (GB/s)

TDP (W)

RTX 2060

$299 / $349

Jan 15, 2019

TU106-200 / TU106-300 / TU104-150

TSMC 12 nm

1920 / 2176

6 / 12

445 / 545

10.8 / 13.6

30 / 34

120 / 136

48 / 64

240 / 272

30 / 34

3

1650 / 1680

GDDR6

192

336

160 / 185

RTX 2060 Super

$399

Jul 9, 2019

TU106-410

TSMC 12 nm

2176

8

445

10.8

34

136

64

272

34

4

1650

GDDR6

256

448

175

RTX 2070

$499

Oct 17, 2019

TU106-400

TSMC 12 nm

2304

8

445

10.8

36

144

64

288

36

4

1620

GDDR6

256

448

175

RTX 2070 Super

$499

Jul 9, 2019

TU104-410

TSMC 12 nm

2560

8

545

13.6

40

160

64

320

40

4

1770

GDDR6

256

448

215

RTX 2080

$699

Sep 20, 2018

TU104-400

TSMC 12 nm

2944

8

545

13.6

46

184

64

368

46

4

1710

GDDR6

256

448

215

RTX 2080 Super

$699

Jul 23, 20190

TU104-450

TSMC 12 nm

3072

8

545

13.6

48

192

64

384

48

4

1815

GDDR6

256

499.2

250

RTX 2080 Ti

$999

Sep 20, 2018

TU102-300

TSMC 12 nm

4352

11

754

18.6

68

272

88

544

68

5.5

1545

GDDR6

352

616

250

Titan RTX

$2499

Dec 18, 2018

TU102-400

TSMC 12 nm

4608

24

754

18.6

72

288

96

576

72

6

1770

GDDR6

384

672

280

AMD GPU specs

AMD Radeon RX 7000-series (RDNA 4)

Model

MSRP (US$)

Launch

GPU

Compute Units (CUs)

Memory Size (GB)

Fab

Transistors (B)

Die Size (mm²)

Shaders

TMUs

ROPs

Ray Accelerators

AI Accelerators

Memory Type

Memory bus

TBP

RX 9060 XT

$269

May 25, 2023

Navi 44

32

8 / 16

TSMC N4P

29.7

199

2048

128

64

32

64

GDDR6

128

150 / 160

RX 9070 GRE

$449

Sep 6, 2023

Navi 48

48

12

TSMC N4P

53.9

356.5

3072

192

96

48

96

GDDR6

192

220

RX 9070

$499

Sep 6, 2023

Navi 48

56

16

TSMC N4P

53.9

356.5

3584

224

128

56

112

GDDR6

256

220

RX 9070 XT

$899

Dec 13, 2022

Navi 48

64

16

TSMC N4P

53.9

356.5

4096

256

128

64

128

GDDR6

256

304

AMD Radeon RX 7000-series (RDNA 3)

Model

MSRP (US$)

Launch

Code Name

Compute Units (CUs)

Fab

Transistors (B)

Die Size (mm²)

Shaders

TMUs

ROPs

Ray Accelerators

AI Accelerators

Memory Size (GB)

Memory Type

Memory Bus

TBP

RX 7600

$269

May 25, 2023

Navi 33

32

6nm

13.3

204

2048

128

64

32

64

8

GDDR6

128

165

RX 7700 XT

$449

Sep 6, 2023

Navi 32

54

5nm

28.1

346

3456

216

96

54

108

12

GDDR6

192

245

RX 7800 XT

$499

Sep 6, 2023

Navi 32

60

5nm

28.1

346

3840

240

96

60

120

16

GDDR6

256

263

RX 7900 XT

$899

Dec 13, 2022

Navi 31

84

5nm

57.7

529

5376

336

192

84

168

20

GDDR6

320

315

RX 7900 XTX

$999

Dec 13, 2022

Navi 31

96

5nm

57.7

529

6144

384

192

96

192

24

GDDR6

384

355

AMD Radeon RX 6000-series (RDNA 2)

Model

Launch

Code Name

Fab

Transistors (B)

Die Size (mm²)

Compute Units (CUs)

Shaders

TMUs

ROPs

Memory Size (GB)

Memory Type

MSRP (US$)

RX 6600

Oct 13, 2021

Navi 23

7nm

11.06

237

28

1792

112

64

8

GDDR6

$329

RX 6600 XT

Aug 11, 2021

Navi 23

7nm

11.06

237

32

2048

128

64

8

GDDR6

$379

RX 6700 XT

Mar 18, 2021

Navi 22

7nm

17.2

335

40

2560

160

64

12

GDDR6

$479

RX 6800

Nov 18, 2020

Navi 21

7nm

26.8

520

60

3840

240

96

16

GDDR6

$579

RX 6800 XT

Nov 18, 2020

Navi 21

7nm

26.8

520

72

4608

288

128

16

GDDR6

$649

RX 6900 XT

Dec 8, 2020

Navi 21

7nm

26.8

520

80

5120

320

128

16

GDDR6

$999

RX 6950 XT

May 10, 2022

Navi 21

7nm

26.8

520

80

5120

320

128

16

GDDR6

$1099

AMD Radeon RX 5000-series (RDNA)

Model

Launch

Code Name

Fab

Transistors (B)

Die Size (mm²)

Compute Units (CUs)

Shaders

TMUs

ROPs

Memory Size (GB)

Memory Type

MSRP (US$)

RX 5500 XT

Dec 12, 2019

Navi 14

7nm

6.4

158

22

1408

88

32

4/8

GDDR6

$169

RX 5600 XT

Jan 21, 2020

Navi 10

7nm

10.3

251

36

2304

144

64

6

GDDR6

$279

RX 5700

Jul 7, 2019

Navi 10

7nm

10.3

251

36

2304

144

64

8

GDDR6

$349

RX 5700 XT

Jul 7, 2019

Navi 10

7nm

10.3

251

40

2560

160

64

8

GDDR6

$399

]]> <![CDATA[ AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 8 GB review (Asus Prime) ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/amd-radeon-rx-9060-xt-8-gb-review-asus-prime/ PUCxF8wgXE7oxgo7rz6RNn Fri, 17 Apr 2026 09:52:42 +0000 Fri, 17 Apr 2026 10:02:58 +0000

On paper, the AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 8 GB makes a whole lot of sense. I was particularly impressed by the RX 9060 XT 16 GB when I tested it last year, and the 8 GB version is usually substantially cheaper. In fact, out of all of AMD and Nvidia's current-generation graphics cards, it's the most affordable of the lot. Dropping the VRAM to 8 GB can't make that much of a difference, can it?

Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but yes it can. Not all the time, of course. Certain games at high settings, though, will hamper the AMD card's performance quite badly—and crucially, in a more significant way than its main competition, the Nvidia RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB.

Does that make the RX 9060 XT 8 GB a total write off? Nope. In fact, if the Nvidia card didn't exist, I'd be tempted to call the AMD GPU's performance pretty good for its paltry MSRP of $299. The RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB doesn't have it all its own way in my benchmarks, either. Sometimes the AMD contender pulls ahead, so it's not a super clear-cut thing.

But there are a couple of caveats to be aware of. One, you won't find one of these for less than $350 right now, and the RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB tends to bottom out around $390-$400. And two, when the RX 9060 XT 8 GB drops off the pace, it's sometimes by a significant amount. Again, these drops are in certain games at certain settings, so it's not a completely consistent thing. But it's enough to give me pause, and I think you should consider your options, too.

It's far from a bad graphics card, and one that'll serve you fine if money's a real concern and you need something that can cope with modern gaming. But the RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB handles VRAM-constrained situations significantly better in many of my tests, and that's the sort of headroom that I think's worth paying for. At least when the price difference between the two is this tight.

Buy if:

✅ You can't stretch to the RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB: While the little Nvidia card is more expensive, it's got less issues operating within its VRAM constraints. Still, cheaper is cheaper, and the AMD card isn't completely outclassed.

✅ You want excellent thermals: It's quite astonishing how cool this card runs under duress, which makes it a good candidate for small form factor builds.

Don't buy if...

❌ You're a high settings + high resolution gamer: The RX 9060 XT 8 GB can struggle with the settings turned up, more so than its competition on average.

❌ You're a Cyberpunk 2077/open world fanatic: Night City gives this GPU trouble with ray tracing enabled, and it has a tendency to drop behind the RTX 5060 Ti in VRAM-heavy games in general.

RX 9060 XT 8 GB - Features

RX 9060 XT 8 GB

GPU

Navi 44

VRAM

8 GB GDDR6

Shader Cores

2048

Boost clock (MHz)

3130

Base clock (MHz)

1700

TMUs

128

ROPs

64

Compute Units

32

RT Cores

32

Matrix Cores

64

L0 Cache

32 KB per WGP (2 per CU)

L1 Cache

4 MB

L2 Cache

32 MB

MSRP

$299

The RX 9060 XT 8 GB uses the same Navi 44 chip as the 16 GB version, based on AMD's RDNA 4 architecture. With that comes a loadout of 2048 Shader Cores, 32 Compute Units, 32 dedicated Ray Accelerators, and 64 Matrix Cores—essentially the equivalent of Nvidia's mixed precision, AI inferencing Tensor Cores.

While both the RX 9060 XT 8 GB and the RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB have the same RAM loadout in terms of size, the Nvidia card uses speedy GDDR7 over a 128-bit bus for a total max memory bandwidth of 448 GB/s, while the AMD equivalent uses slower GDDR6 over the same sized bus. That means a max memory bandwidth of 322.23 GB/s, significantly less than the RTX 5060 Ti.

The RX 9060 XT has 32 KB of L0 cache per workgroup processor (essentially two Compute Units), 4 MB of L2 cache, and 32 MB of L3. This multi-layered system is again in contrast to Nvidia's cache handling, which equates to 128 KB per Shader Module of L1 cache, and 32 MB of L2.

In terms of clock speeds, the stock RX 9060 XT has a base clock of 1700 MHz, a "game clock" of 2530 MHz, and a max boost clock of 3130 MHz.

The game clock figure represents the average sustained speed during a typical gaming workload, although my particular review sample, the Asus Prime Radeon RX 9060 XT OC Edition, lists a higher sustained game clock figure of 2760 MHz—likely due to the fact it has a surprisingly large, tri-fan, 2.5 slot cooler.

An Asus Prime Radeon RX 9060 XT 8 GB graphics card on a wooden desk

(Image credit: Future)

This seems a little overkill for an RX 9060 XT, which has proven itself to be a cool-running graphics chip even with the small, twin-fan cooler equipped to the 16 GB version I tested last year. I found that card to regularly sustain somewhere near its top max boost speeds while keeping temperatures low, and this Asus 8 GB sample is much the same.

Asus doesn't list the exact TGP of this particular variant, but it does suggest a 550 W power supply, 100 W more than the official minimum spec. The default RX 9060 XT 8 GB has a TGP of 150 W, although I've recorded a peak power draw of this card at 175 W under extremely heavy load.

Again, the default RX 9060 XT 16 GB sample I reviewed previously also liked to jump over its 160 W TGP at points, managing an even larger peak of 182 W.

Around the back is a single HDMI 2.1b port, and two 2.1a DisplayPort connections. One last thing to note about this particular Asus card is the addition of a small switch tucked into the backplate, which allows you to switch between Performance and Quiet fan modes. I've left it in performance mode for my testing, as this card runs quiet even when pushed to its maximum.

PC Gamer scoring logo

Score: 3

Not a bad set of specs for a budget GPU, but the slower VRAM does spoil the pot a little.

RX 9060 XT 8 GB - Performance

An Asus Prime Radeon RX 9060 XT 8 GB graphics card on a bookshelf, looking all attractive

(Image credit: Future)

And so, to the meat and potatoes: gaming performance. Initially, I was pleased to see that the cheaper RX 9060 XT 8 GB managed to get within three frames of the RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB in Black Myth Wukong at 1080p on average, which suggested to me that I was likely to have a fight on my hands between the two.

In Cyberpunk 2077, however, the wheels really come off for the AMD card.

1080p gaming benchmarks | RX 9060 XT 8 GB

Avg FPS
1% Low FPS
RX 9060 XT 8 GB Asus Prime
71
58
RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB Palit Dual
74
62
RX 9060 XT 16 GB XFX
73
63
RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB Palit Infinity 3
75
65
020406080
Black Myth Wukong (1080p High) Data
ProductValue
RX 9060 XT 8 GB Asus Prime 71 Avg FPS, 58 1% Low FPS
RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB Palit Dual 74 Avg FPS, 62 1% Low FPS
RX 9060 XT 16 GB XFX 73 Avg FPS, 63 1% Low FPS
RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB Palit Infinity 3 75 Avg FPS, 65 1% Low FPS

A 41 fps average result at Ultra RT settings, compared to the 52 fps average of the Nvidia contender, is seriously off the pace. At this level, while both GPUs fail to meet the 60 fps "gosh that's smooth" minimum, an 11 frames per second difference is very significant.

That being said, I found the RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB to fly through Night City once the settings were dropped to Medium RT in my 8 GB vs 16 GB VRAM testing, so I looked back at my in-game results and… yeesh.

Cyberpunk 2077 - VRAM usage and performance

In-game testing, Medium RT settings

Avg FPS
1% Low FPS
Avg. VRAM
RX 9060 XT 8 GB Asus Prime
72
51
7.68
RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB Palit Infinity 3
91
44
7.32
RX 9060 XT 16 GB XFX
85
67
9.46
RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB Palit Infinity 3
91
63
8.76
0255075100
Cyberpunk 2077 (1080p Medium RT + Quality upscaling) Data
ProductValue
RX 9060 XT 8 GB Asus Prime 72 Avg FPS, 51 1% Low FPS, 7.68 Avg. VRAM
RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB Palit Infinity 3 91 Avg FPS, 44 1% Low FPS, 7.32 Avg. VRAM
RX 9060 XT 16 GB XFX 85 Avg FPS, 67 1% Low FPS, 9.46 Avg. VRAM
RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB Palit Infinity 3 91 Avg FPS, 63 1% Low FPS, 8.76 Avg. VRAM

The RX 9060 XT 8 GB is a full 19 frames off the pace at 1080p in Cyberpunk's open world, even with the settings turned down—although it does manage a significantly higher 1% low result.

At 1440p, however, the AMD card is still 13 frames behind the RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB, and the 1 % lows plummet, too. The RX 9060 XT 8 GB gains some ground back with upscaling and frame generation enabled, though, which is some small comfort.

Going back to my 1080p benchmarks for a second, it's clear that it's not just Cyberpunk 2077 that gives this card some trouble compared to its competition. It's behind the pack in all but two of my tests, although with much less of a margin.

It does manage to beat the RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB by a full nine frames in Total War: Warhammer 3, though, and even manages to surge ahead of the 16 GB version.

1440p gaming benchmarks | RTX 9060 XT 8 GB

Avg FPS
1% Low FPS
RX 9060 XT 8 GB Asus Prime
48
43
RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB Palit Dual
50
43
RX 9060 XT 16 GB XFX
48
44
RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB Palit Infinity 3
51
45
015304560
Black Myth Wukong (1440p High) Data
ProductValue
RX 9060 XT 8 GB Asus Prime 48 Avg FPS, 43 1% Low FPS
RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB Palit Dual 50 Avg FPS, 43 1% Low FPS
RX 9060 XT 16 GB XFX 48 Avg FPS, 44 1% Low FPS
RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB Palit Infinity 3 51 Avg FPS, 45 1% Low FPS

Switching things up to 1440p, the RX 9060 XT 8 GB drops behind once again in all but two of my tests, although the margins are a fair bit closer on average. Cyberpunk 2077 proves to be this card's Achilles' heel, which suggests the ray tracing demands may be a little too much for its 8 GB loadout.

It's also worth noting the difference between the 8 GB GPU and its 16 GB-equipped bigger brother. This difference can be quite pronounced in certain games, particularly in Homeworld 3, where the RX 9060 XT 8 GB posts a 75 fps average frame rate result to the 16 GB version's 97 frames.

Again, I have to remind myself that this 8 GB card is by far the cheapest of all my contenders. But with the $40-$50 more expensive RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB ranging ahead on average, sometimes by significant amounts, I do have to wonder if that saving is really worth it.

Real-world gaming performance | RX 9060 XT 8 GB

Avg FPS
1% Low FPS
RX 9060 XT 8 GB Asus Prime
76
68
RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB Palit Dual
79
68
RX 9060 XT 16 GB XFX
78
69
RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB Palit Infinity 3
86
72
0255075100
Black Myth Wukong (1440p High + Quality upscaling) Data
ProductValue
RX 9060 XT 8 GB Asus Prime 76 Avg FPS, 68 1% Low FPS
RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB Palit Dual 79 Avg FPS, 68 1% Low FPS
RX 9060 XT 16 GB XFX 78 Avg FPS, 69 1% Low FPS
RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB Palit Infinity 3 86 Avg FPS, 72 1% Low FPS

Thankfully, my upscaling and frame generation testing gives the RX 9060 XT 8 GB something to celebrate. This tightens up the difference between the two 8 GB cards on average, and even leads to some eyebrow-raising figures.

Take F1 24, for example. We've observed this game posting astonishing frame rate scores with AMD's FSR tech enabled before (check out the massive 292 fps result in our RX 9070 XT review, for example), and that tracks with the 146 fps average here.

If you really want to see an AMD GPU fly, though, check out the RX 9060 XT 16 GB further down the chart. 190 fps?!? That beats the RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB by a full 54 frames. And the 8 GB card by *checks calculator* 44 fps. What a difference an extra 8 GB of VRAM makes, ey?

And check out those The Talos Principle 2 figures, while we're at it. It also seems to prefer FSR over DLSS, which suggests that F1 24 might not be the only game that likes what AMD brings to the table.

Still, while the upscaling results muddy the waters a little, it's clear that the little RX 9060 XT 8 GB is bested in most of my tests by its more expensive competition. And bringing some more real-world, in-game testing into the mix makes that clearer.

The Last of Us Part 1 - VRAM usage and performance

In-game testing, Ultra settings

Avg FPS
1% Low FPS
Avg. VRAM
RX 9060 XT 8 GB Asus Prime
79
52
6.61
RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB Palit Dual
89
48
6.92
RX 9060XT 16 GB XFX
113
93
11.47
RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB Palit Infinity 3
113
92
9.84
037.575112.5150
The Last of Us Part 1 (1080p Ultra + Quality upscaling) Data
ProductValue
RX 9060 XT 8 GB Asus Prime 79 Avg FPS, 52 1% Low FPS, 6.61 Avg. VRAM
RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB Palit Dual 89 Avg FPS, 48 1% Low FPS, 6.92 Avg. VRAM
RX 9060XT 16 GB XFX 113 Avg FPS, 93 1% Low FPS, 11.47 Avg. VRAM
RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB Palit Infinity 3 113 Avg FPS, 92 1% Low FPS, 9.84 Avg. VRAM

I've picked The Last of Us Part 1 for a reason. Despite many, many patches since its release, it's still known as something of a VRAM hog, and can soon trip up lower-spec cards with the settings turned up. And while the RX 9060 XT 8 GB still manages smooth frame rates in this game at Ultra settings, it really does show the difference between this GPU and my other tested cards.

The AMD card is 20 frames behind the RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB at 1080p on average, and 35 fps behind the RX 9060 XT 16 GB. Switch the resolution to 1440p, and it just about squeaks a 60 fps average while the other GPUs are ranging off into the high 70s and low 90s.

Even frame generation can't quite make up the difference for the RX 9060 XT 8 GB, which again ends up far behind all our other cards.

4K gaming benchmarks | RX 9060 XT 8 GB

Avg FPS
1% Low FPS
RX 9060 XT 8 GB Asus Prime
25
22
RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB Palit Dual
26
21
RX 9060 XT 16 GB XFX
25
22
RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB Palit Infinity 3
28
25
07.51522.530
Black Myth Wukong (4K High) Data
ProductValue
RX 9060 XT 8 GB Asus Prime 25 Avg FPS, 22 1% Low FPS
RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB Palit Dual 26 Avg FPS, 21 1% Low FPS
RX 9060 XT 16 GB XFX 25 Avg FPS, 22 1% Low FPS
RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB Palit Infinity 3 28 Avg FPS, 25 1% Low FPS

If you need some further proof that 16 GB of VRAM can sometimes make a difference, you only have to look at the 4K results. No-one is suggesting that any of these GPUs are built for 4K gaming, nor do they need to be. But the averages are still interesting as an example of how these graphics cards can behave when pushed to their absolute limits.

Both our 8 GB contenders suffer more than their 16 GB equivalents overall, although the RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB still manages to surprise on occasion. The little RX 9060 XT 8 GB does beat it by two frames in The Talos Principle 2, though, and also manages to match its 16 GB variant in two of my tests, albeit at crunchy frame rates. Small wins, and all that.

PC Gamer test platform
Supplied by Cyberpower | MSI

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D | Motherboard: MSI MPG X870E Edge Ti WiFi | RAM: Kingston Fury Beast RGB 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) @ 6,000 MT/s | Cooler: MAG CoreLiquid i360 White | SSD: Spatium M480 Pro 2 TB | PSU: MPG A1000GS PCIe 5 | Case: MAG Pano 100R White

PC Gamer scoring logo

Score 2.5

It's not a total washout for the RX 9060 XT 8 GB, but it's clear that it's off the pace overall compared to the Nvidia competition.

RX 9060 XT 8 GB - Thermals & Power

An Asus Prime Radeon RX 9060 XT 8 GB hooked up to a test PC, with power cable in shot

(Image credit: Future)

It should be no surprise to learn that this particular Asus Prime variant is a very cool running GPU, given that it's got a hilariously-oversized cooler for a budget graphics card. What's interesting, though, is that the extra size (and fan) results in a 6 °C lower temperature than my 16 GB sample, which has a small, dual-fan, dual-slot cooler.

Gaming temperatures | RX 9060 XT 8 GB

Thermals

Peak temperature (°C)
Average temperature (°C)
RX 9060 XT 8 GB Asus Prime
51
48
RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB Palit Dual
68
64
RX 9060 XT 16 GB XFX
57
48
RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB Palit Infinity 3
67
65
020406080
Thermals Data
ProductValue
RX 9060 XT 8 GB Asus Prime 51 Peak temperature (°C), 48 Average temperature (°C)
RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB Palit Dual 68 Peak temperature (°C), 64 Average temperature (°C)
RX 9060 XT 16 GB XFX 57 Peak temperature (°C), 48 Average temperature (°C)
RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB Palit Infinity 3 67 Peak temperature (°C), 65 Average temperature (°C)

With a 51 °C peak result and a 48 °C average, the Asus Prime RX 9060 XT 8 GB OC Edition is one of the most chilled out graphics cards I've ever tested. You're trading these temps for some considerable bulk, though, and it's more common to see dual-fan coolers on most examples.

Both our RTX 9060 XT samples run much cooler than the equivalent Nvidia cards, which likely means that most dual-fan versions should be good candidates for small form factor builds. Just not this Asus variant. You'd have some trouble cramming it in.

Power benchmarks | RX 9060 XT 8 GB

Higher is better

Performance per watt

4K frames per J
1080p frame per J
RX 9060 XT 8 GB Asus Prime
0.22
0.56
RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB Palit Dual
0.23
0.56
RX 9060 XT 16 GB XFX
0.28
0.65
RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB Palit Infinity 3
0.23
0.62
00.20.40.60.8
Performance per watt Data
ProductValue
RX 9060 XT 8 GB Asus Prime 0.22 4K frames per J, 0.56 1080p frame per J
RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB Palit Dual 0.23 4K frames per J, 0.56 1080p frame per J
RX 9060 XT 16 GB XFX 0.28 4K frames per J, 0.65 1080p frame per J
RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB Palit Infinity 3 0.23 4K frames per J, 0.62 1080p frame per J

The RX 9060 XT 8 GB has a 150 W TGP, but just like the 16 GB card (and many others), it will occasionally peak significantly beyond that under heavy load. I recorded a maximum peak of 175 W and an average power use of 164 W under repeated runs of the Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition benchmark, using this Asus Prime example.

Averaging that out by frame rate results in a score of 0.56 frames per joule at 1080p, and 0.23 frames per joule at 4K. That's almost identical to the RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB Palit Dual sample I tested, once the performance gain is factored into its 180 W power limit.

PC Gamer scoring logo

Score: 4

A very cool runner, and the power usage isn't anything hair-raising, either.

RX 9060 XT 8 GB - Sound

A close up shot of the middle fan on the Asus Prime Radeon RX 9060 XT 8 GB

(Image credit: Future)

Given that my review sample has an aforementioned massive cooler, it's remarkable how little it has to push to keep the RX 9060 XT 8 GB chilled. Don't be fooled by those three large fans—they make very little noise, even when this card's pushed to its limits.

That being said, the twin-fan cooler on the Palit Dual RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB is even quieter. Whichever way you look at it, though, this is one hushed-up GPU.

PC Gamer scoring logo

Score: 4

Not quite silent, but it's darn quiet regardless.

RTX 9060 XT 8 GB - Software

A screenshot of AMD's Adrenaline app homepage, on a colorful background

(Image credit: AMD)

I've got a fair bit of experience with AMD Adrenaline, and can confirm that it's pretty good these days at allowing you to get involved with your graphics card. It provides easy access to overclocking tools and driver updates, a handy homepage listing of your most recently played games and the average recorded frame rate, and lots of extra features that can be enabled on a per-game basis, like AMD Fluid Motion Frames.

While the Nvidia App looks quite different, the functionality between the two is pretty comparable, so you won't be missing out on anything vital if you opt for team red over team green.

In terms of software provided by Asus, well, you could always download Asus GPU Tweak III, an overclocking tool that I'm also rather fond of. It's not pretty, but GPU Tweak III is a straightforward way of pushing most modern graphics cards to their absolute limits.

It's arguably a bit redundant given that this GPU can be overclocked directly within AMD Adrenaline, but hey, extras are extras. Although it's not really an extra, as anyone can use it for free without purchasing an Asus card. Anyway, software and driver wise? I've had zero issues with either, and the RX 9060 XT 8 GB certainly isn't left wanting as a result.

PC Gamer scoring logo

Score: 4

AMD Adrenaline works well, and I've had no driver issues to speak of, either.

RX 9060 XT 8 GB - Value

Four budget graphics cards from various manufacturers on a wooden desk, with an RGB-lit gaming keyboard and a gamepad visible above

(Image credit: Future)

You can make the argument that, given its very reasonable price, the RX 9060 XT 8 GB is still a decent budget graphics card for gaming. And that's true. But, as the RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB is capable of leaping ahead when the VRAM constraints become tight, it's tough to argue that the Nvidia card isn't worth the extra cash.

If you could find an RX 9060 XT 8 GB for its $299 MSRP, I'd be much more inclined to give it a higher score. However, we keep a beady eye on graphics card pricing all year long, and the cheapest version we can find at the time of writing is $350. That's still fairly reasonable given the performance (and in today's memory crisis-influenced market), but when the RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB can be found for $40-$50 more, I know which I'd be picking.

The Nvidia card beats the little AMD in most of my benchmarks, and in VRAM-constrained scenarios, it's much better at holding its drink. And while I've got no crystal ball available to look into the future, I'd say it was a safe bet that if an 8 GB VRAM limit can cause significant performance loss now, it's unlikely to get any better as time goes on.

Futureproofing is a dirty word in my business, but it's still prudent to buy a graphics card with a decent degree of headroom now to prevent having to upgrade it sooner than you'd like. And while the RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB has some of the same issues as the 8 GB AMD card (lower overall performance compared to its 16 GB version), the fact that the drop between the two is lesser makes the Nvidia GPU the better buy.

A PNY RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB on top an Asus RX 9060 XT 8 GB

(Image credit: Future)

That being said, if money's super tight and you can't stretch to the Nvidia card (or the RX 9060 XT 16 GB), then the RX 9060 XT 8 GB isn't too bad. It still posts reasonable frame rates in many of my tests, and it's encouraging to see that the addition of upscaling and frame generation can tighten up the performance gap in many scenarios.

Still, I can't help but be slightly underwhelmed by AMD's 8 GB effort overall. Even this Asus Prime Radeon RX 9060 XT 8 GB OC Edition variant is a tad disappointing, especially when you consider it's currently $500. For that price? No way.

A lesser-cooled card for $350? Sure, in a pinch. But whenever I played a game where the frame rate crunched, I think I'd be wondering whether the RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB would have gained me a few frames—or perhaps even a lot more in certain scenarios. And, it must be said, whether I should have put an extra $50 towards a different GPU instead.

PC Gamer scoring logo

Score: 2.5

Sure, it's cheaper than the rest. You do pay for that in overall performance, though.

]]> <![CDATA[ GPU prices absolutely are on their way up but I've found a bunch of decent value options, whatever your budget is ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/gpu-prices-absolutely-are-on-their-way-up-but-ive-found-a-bunch-of-decent-value-options-whatever-your-budget-is/ n58t2KkiZLVhiDuSoRrRmj Thu, 08 Jan 2026 15:30:39 +0000 Fri, 09 Jan 2026 15:47:38 +0000

With the global memory shortage set to run throughout 2026 and probably well in 2027, prices of everything that requires DRAM are only going to rise. However, thanks to a wealth of graphics cards being in stock over the last quarter of 2025, GPUs have yet to significantly spike in price. Some models have risen but no matter what your budget is, there's a decent value option to be found.

Every week, I hunt down the best prices for Nvidia GeForce RTX 50-series, AMD Radeon RX 9000-series, and Intel Arc B-series graphics cards from all the major retailers. Below are the best cards to go for at each budget limit (i.e. $200, $300, and so on).

The full list

Up to $200

This Battlemage-powered card is only a fraction slower than the last-gen A770, the most powerful Alchemist model, but it's worth noting that some games still don't like Intel's GPU architecture. You are getting quite a lot of GPU for the money, but it's a tough one to recommend when the faster B580 is only a little more expensive.

Key specs: 2304 shaders | 2660 MHz boost | 10 GB GDDR6

Arc B570 price check: Newegg $199.99 | B&H $279.99 | Best Buy $335.99View Deal

Intel's Arc B570 isn't the greatest graphics card around but a cent shy of $200, you'd have to step into the second market to find something better. The Battlemage architecture can be a bit funny when dealing with older games, but anything modern (i.e. DirectX 11 or 12-based) should be fine.

Better still, Intel's worked really hard on improving its drivers, and XeSS upscaling and frame generation are both very good. It's a shame more games don't support the technology but as long as Intel keeps on making Arc GPUs, we'll continue to see the catalogue of games with XeSS get bigger and bigger🤞.

Up to $300

The RTX 5060 isn't massively faster than its predecessor, the RTX 4060, but having full support for DLSS 4 is certainly a plus. Stocks are decent, so you should have no problem picking one up at the MSRP, and this offer is nicely under the original $299 price tag.

Key specs: 2048 shaders | 2512 MHz boost | 8 GB GDDR7

RTX 5060 price check: Walmart $299 | Amazon $299.99 | B&H $299.99 | Newegg $299.99View Deal

This is one of the budget sections that the GPU price increases have clearly affected because until recently, the best sub-$300 graphics card was an AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 8 GB. Sadly, the lowest price I've seen for that is $310 at Amazon, while that's only a fraction over budget, I'm being firm with my choices.

Besides, it's not like the GeForce RTX 5060 is awful. It's just that it's not massively better than the RTX 4060, and the RX 9060 XT is faster. Its saving grace is DLSS 4.5, with superb upscaling, up to 6x Multi Frame Generation, plus all the other AI goodies for improving your PC life.

Up to $400

The 16 GB version of the RX 9060 XT isn't quite as fast as the RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB card when ray tracing is involved, but outside of that, it's generally on par. You don't get as good an upscaling and frame generation system as with the Nvidia GPU, though. On the plus side, it is cheaper, and that counts for a lot these days.

Key specs: 2048 shaders | 3320 MHz boost | 16 GB GDDR6

RX 9060 XT 16 GB price check: Best Buy $389.99 | Amazon $399.99 | Walmart $399.99 | B&H $429.99View Deal

Yes it's quite a bit over the MSRP but even at $390, the Radeon RX 9060 XT 16 GB is a really solid graphics card. It's not quite as fast as the RTX 5060 Ti when ray tracing is involved, but it's not like the last generation of Radeon GPUs, which were miles behind Nvidia's chips in that respect.

With 16 GB of VRAM, you know you'll be set for 1080p and 1440p gaming for many years to come, and while you might have to lean on upscaling or frame generation to help out with the performance in the future, FSR 4 is pretty darn good.

Up to $500

While the specs suggest it should only be a little faster than the 4060 Ti, the use of super-speedy GDDR7 gives the RTX 5060 Ti a surprisingly big boost. It's not worth buying if you already have an RTX 40-series card, but it's a decent upgrade if you have an older GPU, and all that VRAM is kinda nice to have.

Key specs: 4608 shaders | 2692 MHz boost | 16 GB GDDR7

RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB price check: Amazon $449.99 | Newegg $449.99 | Walmart $504.99 | B&H $529.99View Deal

It wasn't that long ago when the GeForce RTX 5070 and Radeon RX 9070 would have been in this category, but they're both over $500 now, so that just leaves one option: the 16 GB version of the RTX 5060 Ti.

If you're upgrading from a GPU that's two or three generations old, you'll be very pleased with the performance. And just as with the RTX 5060, you get the full suite of DLSS 4.5 to enjoy, plus lots of VRAM to brag about on social media.

Up to $600

The RX 9070 is one of AMD's better GPUs for many years and is not that much slower than the XT version. It's been so popular that it's taken months for the price to drop to anywhere near AMD's MSRP. It's $30 more expensive than the RTX 5070, but it's a faster card, even when ray tracing is involved. Sadly, prices are starting to creep back up again.

Key specs: 3584 shaders | 2520 MHz boost | 16 GB GDDR6

RX 9070 price check: Amazon $589.99 | Walmart $599.99 | Best Buy $614.99 | B&H $634.99View Deal

What a shame. When the Radeon RX 9070 was down at the $500 bracket, it was a no-brainer about buying it one: it's that good. It still is, of course, but now that's edged towards $600, it doesn't quite feel like the bargain is was.

Even so, there's nothing really to touch it for 1440p gaming and it will readily cope with a spot of 4K as long you switch on a bit of FSR Quality upscaling. This Sapphire card is nice and compact, and runs just as well as any other RX 9070 model.

Up to $700

The RX 9070 XT is AMD's best graphics card in recent years, so naturally, it's hugely popular, resulting in low stocks and high prices. Although this deal, the cheapest around, is $60 over MSRP, it's still better value for money than an RTX 5070 Ti because it's only a fraction slower in most games.

Key specs: 4096 shaders | 2970 MHz boost | 16 GB GDDR6

RX 9070 XT price check: Amazon $629.99 | Walmart $629.99 | Best Buy $659.99 | B&H $669.99View Deal

It should come as no surprise to find the XT version of the RX 9070 taking the $700 category. Nvidia's closest offering, the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, is over that budget, which leaves AMD as the go-to at this kind of money.

And there's no denying that it is a lot of money. Good job that you're getting a lot of GPU. The RX 9070 XT will happily game at 4K: I've been using one for testing quite a lot recently, and I've been super impressed by how quiet and capable it is.

This just leaves my final budget section, and I'll explain why it's the final one below.

Up to $800

At its $749 MSRP, the RTX 5070 Ti is an expensive but superb graphics card, and although this isn't really a deal, at least you're not paying more than you should. If you think of it as being like an RTX 4080 with DLSS 4 support, though, then it looks like a real bargain. That said, the RX 9070 XT is $120 cheaper and not that much slower.

Key specs: 8960 shaders | 2450 MHz boost | 16 GB GDDR7

RTX 5070 Ti price check: Newegg $819.99 | Amazon $829.99 | Walmart $854.99 | B&H $829.99View Deal

Nvidia's superb GeForce RTX 5070 Ti is my final graphics card for one simple reason: The RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 are both wildly overpriced now. You can't get the latter for anything under $3500, and the former isn't worth getting at its normal MSRP of $999, let alone $1,200.

Fortunately, the RTX 5070 Ti really delivers the goods. It's highly overclockable, and if you delve into the world of undervolting (it's not complicated, I promise you), then you'll have pretty much all the performance you could ask for. Yes, path traced Cyberpunk 2077 at 4K will need plenty of upscaling and frame generation to run really well, but DLSS 4.5 is more than up to the job.

]]> <![CDATA[ Well, this year's graphics card launches were a right shitshow, eh? ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/well-this-years-graphics-card-launches-were-a-right-shitshow-eh/ rt7ok8eutwb67BygRSfLv7 Sun, 28 Dec 2025 18:00:00 +0000

It's 1.55 pm, March 5, 2025. I'm pacing the confines of the home office/wooden shack at the bottom of my garden I've been inhabiting fairly solidly for the past two months as I benchmark two whole new generations of GPUs from both Nvidia and AMD, and it's five minutes before the review embargo drops for AMD's Radeon RX 9070 XT graphics card. I'm on the phone with someone I've known at AMD for years. Again. And at least they're apologising for the fact the company has been unable to give me any kind of reliable pricing about the different versions of its GPU I've been testing.

There have been no reference cards for AMD's new RDNA 4 architecture, and so I've got a selection of different options—all with different price tags—in front of me to base my effectively definitive review of what is actually the best AMD GPU in many a long year. And potentially none of them are at the ultra-aggressive $599 price point that should make this impressive card an outright winner.

But, as it stands, I've spent the past 24 hours getting conflicting prices from AMD, retailers, and the graphics card manufacturers whose cards I've been testing. The XFX Mercury RX 9070 XT AMD supplied ostensibly for this review was originally touted as a reference-priced GPU, then XFX tells me it's maybe $800, no wait, actually just over $700, and that all the initial pricing chat is just launch pricing, and it'll be instantly raising prices considerably the day after.

But that also it can't tell retailers what to charge customers, so the scarcity of RDNA 4 GPUs means that final retail prices also might increase again.

It's a frustrating shitshow, which means 12 hours from the embargo lift, I had to change everything and was benchmarking the Asus Prime RX 9070 XT instead for the launch review because I'm reliably informed by Asus that it's definitely going to be a reference-priced card. Or at least is "classed as MSRP for review purposes."

And then eight minutes after the embargo lifts, XFX messages to say, "change of plan, sorry" and that now the premium XFX Mercury RX 9070 XT is going to be a reference-priced card on launch the following day. Though actually, that never comes to pass in any way that's visible online, and the card actually ends up retailing for over $900 for the next few months instead of the $599 I'm promised.

What a shit way to spend a birthday. A birthday where I'm not even technically working.

I'm starting with AMD here only because the RX 9000-series launch was the culmination of a frustrating period of late nights and long days of graphics card benchmarking, but the early-year Nvidia launches of the RTX Blackwell generation were no better.

Sure, we had Founders Editions for most of them, giving Nvidia at least the opportunity to pay a little more than lip service to its suggested retail prices. But as reviewers, we still had to struggle with late and sometimes flaky drivers and ultra-short review times; then as consumers, we had to deal with black screen issues, constant worries about that damned cable, low supply, and absolutely brutal price gouging from both manufacturers and retailers combined.

Render of an Nvidia RTX Blackwell GPU

(Image credit: Nvidia)

Not to mention concerns that much of the vaunted generation-on-generation performance increases were largely down to the introduction of Multi-Frame Generation (MFG) in a few key games and not widespread actual rendering performance increases from the silicon itself.

The relative chip sizes got smaller, arguably less complex within a GPU tier (RTX 5070 vs RTX 4070, I'm looking at you) and meant you were left with the feeling that Nvidia was huffing its own excretions when it came to the notion that graphics cards should be judged purely on performance over silicon.

AMD should have been able to completely run rampant, what with its mix of lower price and practically equivalent performance compared with the competing RTX 5070 Ti—itself arguably the best RTX 50-series GPU. But AMD had a weird start to the year, where the RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 cards were announced to the press prior to the new year but were notably absent from its big CES press conference.

AMD RX 9070 XT and Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti graphics cards from Asus
Future
AMD RX 9070 XT and Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti graphics cards from Asus
Future
AMD RX 9070 XT and Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti graphics cards from Asus
Future

I was quickly ushered behind the scenes out in Vegas after the press conference, where the notably downbeat David McAfee and Frank Azor tried to talk up the RDNA 4 architecture despite the red team presumably having been spooked by Nvidia's announcing its RTX Blackwell cards later that day. And, if you remembner, that was an announcement that presented the $549 RTX 5070 as set to deliver RTX 4090 gaming performance.

As the necessary inclusion of MFG in those performance calculations became clear, however, AMD solidified its position. Though the demand and lack of supply inevitably made the RX 9000-series launch a blood bath. With no way for AMD, and to a slightly lesser extent Nvidia to control prices, and the knowledge that voracious GPU buyers would pay through the nose for cards—as they did during the pandemic years—manufacturers and retailers both sniffed an opportunity to gouge gamers on pricing, and so the bloodletting began.

AMD RDNA 4 GPU render with VRM.

(Image credit: AMD)

It was frankly offensive the way that each was determined to extract their own pound of flesh from the supply/demand iniquity. Though it was obviously understandable, as both had watched scalpers make bank during the previous COVID and mining-related GPU supply crises, and now wanted to make sure they could fill their respective coffers from gamers' desire for new silicon.

We can talk about dodgy drivers, misleading performance promises, and GPU tiering we don't agree with, but the pricing side was arguably the biggest issue around this calamitous generation of graphics cards, and that, at least, wasn't either AMD or Nvidia's fault. Just blame capitalism, I guess.

The RX 9070 XT and the RTX 5070 Ti, nominally $599 and $749 cards respectively, both ended up being priced at $900+ for at least the first few months of their lives, and only towards the end of the year have prices and stock begun to stabilise and settle down to around the original launch prices of the cards.

AMD RX 9070 XT and Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti graphics cards from Asus
Future
AMD RX 9070 XT and Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti graphics cards from Asus
Future

It was the worst collective generational GPU launch I can remember in my 20 years as a PC gaming tech journalist, and I was there for the nightmarish AMD R600 launch and carried a super-heated GTX 480 all the way back from Paris. I, for one, am very glad it's passed. At least as 2025 fades into memory, we can sleep safe in the knowledge that GPU prices have come down. However temporarily.

Welcome to another pricing crisis as the RAMpocalypse surges and suggests GDDR pricing for graphics cards is set to rise alongside rumours that Nvidia has stopped bundling VRAM with its chips to card manufacturers. After all, anything with memory is going to be getting ever more costly for the foreseeable future, thanks to damned 'AI' demand.

So yeah, sleep safe, and don't have nightmares.

]]> <![CDATA[ AMD stealth-launches a new low power version of its Radeon RX 9060 XT graphics card that could be great for a DIY Steam Machine, though it's only shaved 13% off the energy consumption ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/amd-stealth-launches-a-new-low-power-version-of-its-radeon-rx-9060-xt-graphics-card-that-could-be-great-for-a-diy-steam-machine-though-its-only-shaved-13-percent-off-the-energy-consumption/ 6HjCwvsvfbgz6uNGbYKYxj Fri, 19 Dec 2025 13:58:26 +0000 Thu, 09 Apr 2026 11:46:23 +0000

If there's one thing you don't expect to see during the final weeks of a year, right before everywhere shuts shop for the holidays, it's a new graphics card. Normally the preserve of big tech events like CES and Computex, AMD has decided to buck that trend and quietly launch a new Radeon RX 9060 XT graphics card. Its unique selling point? A marginally lower power limit.

There was no announcement behind the launch whatsoever, as AMD just dropped the new card into its product pages, alongside its other Radeon models (via BenchLife). Simply labelled as the Radeon RX 9060 XT LP, it's literally just a normal 16 GB RX 9060 XT that's had its 160 W power limit reduced to 140 W.

The product page doesn't mention any changes to clock speeds, but these have been lowered, too, as this can be inferred from AMD's listed theoretical performance figures. For example, where the standard RX 9060 XT has an FP32 vector rate of 25.6 TFLOPS, the LP version is stated as being 25 TFOPS.

Going through all the metrics, the RX 9060 XT LP has clock speeds that are between 2 and 3% lower than the standard XT's, so instead of a boost clock of up to 3130 MHz, you're looking at 3050 MHz. Hardly anything to worry about, yes?

The obvious question to ask at this point is why? What reason does AMD have for releasing such a barely different model? One answer might be the competition from Nvidia. Its GeForce RTX 5060 and RTX 5050 cards have power limits of 145 and 130 W, respectively, and as these undercut the RX 9060 XT's 160 W by a reasonable margin, they're more suitable for SFF (small form factor) builds.

The Zotac Gaming RTX 5060 Low Profile on a display stand, with a hand for scale

You can get some seriously small RTX 5060 cards. (Image credit: Future)

Alternatively, it could also be useful if you were planning to make your own Steam Machine. The GPU inside that has a power limit somewhere between 110 and 140 W, and the XT LP just about fits inside that bracket. Given that it's a superior processor to the RDNA 3 chip Valve is using, I know which one I'd prefer to use.

AMD's lowest-powered RDNA 4 graphics card is the RX 9060, sporting a limit of 132 W, but that also has 13% fewer shader units than the XT variant, so it's less of a tempting option than the XT LP. By offering a more energy-friendly RX 9060 XT, without sacrificing much in the way of performance, graphics card vendors may be more tempted to produce Radeon SFF models instead of GeForce ones.

That said, it is a little odd to see that AMD has retained the 16 GB VRAM of the XT in this new LP version. While there's only a 10 W difference in power limits between the 16 GB and 8 GB variants of the RX 9060 XT, AMD could have shaved even more power off the LP model if it just used 8 GB. At 130 W, it would be an easy win over the RTX 5050 and be even better for a DIY Steam Machine.

Another reason why it's an odd choice is, of course, the whole DRAM supply crisis. SFF graphics cards tend to be a little on the pricey side because they're low-volume sellers (it's a niche market, after all), so you'd think that AMD would be looking to help out its add-in board vendors by going down an 8 GB route.

A close-up photo of an Nvidia RTX 4070, with its heatsink removed, showing the AD104 GPU die and the surrounding Micron GDDR6X VRAM chips

Lots of VRAM is expensive and uses more power, so why has AMD stuck with 16 GB with the XT LP? (Image credit: Future)

And then there's the simple fact that there's nothing stopping card vendors from simply making their own 'LP' models by capping the power limit to 140 W, by default. Perhaps AMD has tweaked the voltage-clock curves in its RX 9060 XT LP or maybe even slightly reduced the voltages all round, but I suspect that there's not a whole lot of anything special going on.

None of the usual Radeon card makers have announced any XT LP models just yet, and there's a good chance that if they do, it will only be for certain markets. The days of graphics cards being able to run solely off power via the PCIe slot might be long gone, but any move to reduce the energy consumption and heat output of a GPU, however small it may be, is good news in my books.

]]> <![CDATA[ 'Give us the chip. Give us the RAM. Let us have our fun. Let us go nuts': Sapphire's PC gaming evangelist wants AMD 'to get out of the way' when it comes to designing graphics cards ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/give-us-the-chip-give-us-the-ram-let-us-have-our-fun-let-us-go-nuts-sapphires-pc-gaming-evangelist-wants-amd-to-get-out-of-the-way-when-it-comes-to-designing-graphics-cards/ pcECzSKioHSeTSgP5bC3ia Tue, 16 Dec 2025 17:29:08 +0000

Pick any third-party graphics card manufacturer and visit its website. If you browse through all the models it produces, you'll notice something very quickly: they're all very similar to each other. Some of the reasons behind this are all to do with saving manufacturing costs, but according to one company's PR representative, it turns out that the GPU makers themselves are pretty conservative about what can and can't be done.

This insight was shared by Sapphire's Edward Crisler, its North America PR rep and PC gaming evangelist, on the latest edition of the Hardware Unboxed Podcast. Over the hour-long discussion, Crisler and HUB host Tim Schiesser chatted about all things gaming GPU-wise, from the RDNA 4 launch to the current RAM crisis, and even Nvidia's 12VHPWR meltygate power socket.

While discussing VRAM and who gets to decide how much a card can have, Crisler said with a smile: "I got to be careful of what I'm about to say here. I'm going to get in trouble." And that's when he opened the secret book of graphics card making that many folks have never had the pleasure of reading.

"Sometimes I really wish the chip makers would get out of the way and let us partners just make our cards. Give us the chip. Give us the RAM. Tell us what we have to provide to make it work with the board. And then let us make the cards. Let us have our fun. Let us go nuts. Let there be real differentiation. Sometimes it feels like this market becomes too much the same."

Schiesser then asked Crisler if he was referring to things like overclocking limits and profiles with graphics cards. Sapphire's rep clarified his point: "Right now, quite frankly, if you're going to buy a new video card, I tell people don't look at performance. Performance is irrelevant. So, if you want to buy a 9070 XT, let's face it, from the worst 9070 XT to the best 9070 XT, [the] actual performance difference is a delta of 1.5%, 2%. It really is non-existent. It's margin of error."

A photo of the AMD Radeon logo on a graphics card

(Image credit: Future)

He's not wrong, of course, as even the most overclocked of 'OC edition' graphics cards are barely any faster than stock models. Although Crisler doesn't explicitly say this, what he's essentially suggesting is that these narrow ranges of clock speeds aren't something that Sapphire has settled on, but it's a constraint set by AMD.

That leaves third-party companies to try and stand out from the crowd by focusing on the elements that they can change a lot. "We [Sapphire] look at PCB design. We're always exploring the PCB design. We're always exploring the cooler design. We try to go for quiet operation," said Crisler.

But even these aren't much of a differentiator if the end products don't run any faster or more efficiently than the competition. Crisler said that aspects such as the cooler, VRMs, and customer support are all important, more so than outright performance, but they're hard for reviewers to quantify.

In fairness to AMD, it wants consistency behind any product carrying its name and chips. It wouldn't help the reputation of Radeon if one company's RDNA 4 cards were massively faster than anyone else's but also much hotter, noisier, and less stable. But at the same time, it also means that no matter whether you buy a Sapphire, XFX, or PowerColor Radeon graphics card, they're all so similar that you just might as well buy the cheapest one around.

Sapphire Toxic AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT Extreme Edition

Fancy coolers are how add-in board vendors usually combat the competition. (Image credit: Sapphire)

And given that profit margins on most graphics cards under $600 are pretty small, there's just no room to do anything wildly different. Couple this with the design restrictions from the GPU manufacturers, and you have the perfect recipe for beige-bland tapioca pudding. Sorry, graphics cards.

Anyway, the whole interview is really worth watching, as neither Tim Schiesser nor Edward Crisler shied away from difficult/awkward topics. For example, Sapphire's PR said an emphatic "No!" when asked whether AMD's market share figures are accurate, and the rest of his comments on the matter make for interesting viewing.

As someone who has interviewed countless tech reps over the years, it's refreshing to hear someone just be open and honest in this way. Interviews like this actually help a brand's reputation, and I suspect more than one person will be seriously considering a Sapphire Radeon as their next graphics card upgrade.

]]> <![CDATA[ FSR Redstone tested: AMD's long awaited AI-powered frame gen delivers the goods but it's very late to market ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/fsr-redstone-tested-amds-long-awaited-ai-powered-frame-gen-delivers-the-goods-but-its-very-late-to-market/ ZRGcRRqWa4kNgDeVR6Aakc Wed, 10 Dec 2025 14:01:57 +0000

It's been almost seven months since it was first announced, but at long last, AMD's much-vaunted machine learning-powered update to FSR is finally here. With the AMD Adrenalin 25.12.1 driver releasing today, you too can get on the new FSR bandwagon. So long as you have an RDNA 4 card, that is. Better known as FSR 'Redstone', the work done here essentially brings AMD on par with Nvidia and Intel, in terms of applying AI to upscaling, frame generation, and other rendering technologies.

However, it's worth pointing out now that AMD still doesn't have multi-frame generation, so it's not quite at the same level. It's also a little too early to tell whether the new FSR frame generation is as good as DLSS MFG or XeSS-MFG in terms of image quality, and that's because it only works on a relatively small number of games.

A presentation slide from AMD's FSR Redstone Press Deck, as issued December 2025
AMD
A presentation slide from AMD's FSR Redstone Press Deck, as issued December 2025
AMD
A presentation slide from AMD's FSR Redstone Press Deck, as issued December 2025
AMD

Something else that I need to get out of the way is AMD's bizarre decision to drop any numbering with FSR. For example, FSR 4 was announced in February and brought AI-powered upscaling to games on RDNA 4 graphics cards.

That's now simply called AMD FSR Upscaling. But that's also the same name for FSR 3's upscaler. And FSR 2. But they don't use machine learning, so to help differentiate between them all, AMD's more expansive terminologies are AMD FSR Upscaling (Analytical) and AMD FSR Upscaling (ML).

It's the same thing with FSR 3 Frame Generation: that's now called AMD FSR Frame Generation (Analytical), with the new one in Redstone sporting the same label with ML in parentheses. I'll come back to this later, as it's something that's bugging me a touch (just a touch? -Ed.).

FSR Frame Generation

A presentation slide from AMD's FSR Redstone Press Deck, as issued December 2025
AMD
A presentation slide from AMD's FSR Redstone Press Deck, as issued December 2025
AMD
A presentation slide from AMD's FSR Redstone Press Deck, as issued December 2025
AMD

FSR Redstone introduces three items, though one has already been released (FSR Ray Regeneration), and of the two remaining, FSR Frame Generation and FSR Radiance Cache, the latter isn't available to preview and won't appear in games until next year anyway. So that means the entirety of my FSR Redstone testing consists of the new frame gen system.

Good job it's bang on the money, then. For the same reasons that FSR 4 upscaling is so much better than FSR 3, the use of AI to calculate the colours for the generated frame means that you can pretty much wave goodbye to almost all of the weird artefacts that you get with FSR 3 frame gen.

As I've already mentioned, FSR Frame Generation (the ML one) only works on a few games at the moment—31 to be precise. I've picked out some of them for you to see, first testing them using FSR 3 upscaling and frame gen, then once more, but with Redstone in full action.

A screenshot of AMD's Adrenalin Software, showing the FSR settings that can be enabled for a game.

(Image credit: AMD)

The test PC comprised a Ryzen 9 9900X in an MSI MEG X870 Godlike, with 32 GB of DDR5-6000 CL32, and an Asus Prime Radeon RX 9070 XT. For some of the games, I used their built-in benchmarks, so that you can directly compare the visuals/performance to your own system.

To get a game to use Redstone (i.e. FSR 4 upscaling and the new AI frame gen), you first enable FSR 3 or FSR 3.1 in the game, then exit. Then, in Adrenalin Software, you activate the relevant toggles for the specific game, which forces the drivers to override which FSR gets used.

Until developers are directly implementing Redstone (FSR, if you prefer AMD's name for it all now), this is the only way to do it. Some games already automatically convert the name for FSR 3/3.1 upscaling to FSR 4 (e.g. Cyberpunk 2077), but it will probably be a good while before any consistent naming is used in games.

Black Myth: Wukong

I ran Black Myth: Wukong at 4K, using the Cinematic graphics preset, but without Full Ray Tracing enabled. For both captures, Performance upscaling (i.e. 50%) was used, along with frame generation. I also completely forgot to move the darn cursor out of the way, both times, and only noticed it far too late. Err, sorry about that...

Admittedly, seeing only half the frame isn't the best way to judge it all, but there's enough visible to spot that FSR Redstone is notably better than FSR 3. Most of the quality gains are down to FSR 4—sorry, FSR Upscaling (ML)—which retains almost all native texture details and doesn't blur objects such as falling leaves.

Frame gen is pretty well implemented in this game, so it's very hard to spot where the new version works better, even in the full videos. You notice it more during gameplay, when you're spinning the camera around very quickly: with FSR 3 frame gen, it can blur and 'pull' objects in view, but not with the AI system.

Best of all, there is no performance difference in using Redstone frame gen compared to FSR 3. There is a performance hit to using FSR 4 (for the sake of simplicity, I'm just going to keep calling FSR Upscaling (ML) this instead of its new name), but it's pretty minor, all things considered.

Cyberpunk 2077

It's a similar story with Cyberpunk 2077, tested at 4K again, using the RT Ultra graphics preset. There's a slightly larger performance hit using Redstone than in Black Myth: Wukong, but again, it's not big enough to be worried about, and it's the upscaler that's doing this, not the frame generator.

It's a little hard to see in the above video, but AMD's machine learning systems do a better job of retaining dust, fog, and smoke detail than standard FSR 3. But, just as with Wukong, the older tech has been well implemented in the game, so the fixes were only going to be minor for the most part.

Redstone's frame gen is pretty happy with rapid camera changes and thin objects in the distance, such as power lines, but I did spot the odd shimmering on some surfaces during gameplay. I tried my best to capture them, but they just disappear in video compression.

F1 25

If there's one game that desperately needs some AI loving, it's F1 25. Just watch the first 30 or so seconds of the above video to see what I mean. FSR 3 frame gen absolutely butchers the shadows of the cars, especially the player's.

Not so with Redstone. It generates those almost perfectly, though not always, and you can still see some glitches with cars in the distance. However, some of that is still present without frame gen, so it's probably down to the engine using low-resolution shadows for cars once they're a certain distance away from the camera.

Once again, all of this is achieved with only a very small performance hit compared to FSR 3. Without the use of upscaling, at 4K Ultra High, F1 25 runs at around 40 frames per second, with 1% lows of 29 fps. If you have an RDNA 4 card, jump into Adrenalin Software, hit the toggles, and then fire up the game. Once in, activate FSR 3 upscaling and frame gen, and the software will override it all and use the good stuff.

Grand Theft Auto 5: Enhanced

For a final quick test of FSR Redstone's frame generator, I picked GTA 5: Enhanced out of the list of 31 games. Small correction: I picked Mafia: The Old Country first, but that game's settings menu was just completely blank for me, no matter what I tried.

Testing GTA 5 is fiddly at the best of times, because when you restart the whole game (which you have to, in order to enable Redstone), you never begin at the exact point where you last saved. So please forgive the fact that the above videos don't synchronise whatsoever, and try to just focus on how well FSR 3 handles things compared to the AI stuff.

I think it's fair to say that there isn't a whole heap of difference when it comes to visual quality. Redstone does a slightly better job of keeping power lines solid and stopping foliage from blurring as it rapidly passes by, but it's not exactly a stark contrast.

Tested once more at 4K with the High RT graphics preset, GTA 5 shows the biggest performance drop out of all the games I tested: around 30 fps from the average frame rate, and 25 fps from the 1% lows. The ray tracing in this game can be brutal on a GPU, especially when cranked right up, so I suspect there's just a little bit too much going on for the RDNA 4 card, when it's having to juggle lots of ray and AI upscaling.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7

While Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is one of the few games that will happily switch over to the AI frame gen, I instead focused on something else out of Redstone: FSR Ray Regeneration. This is AMD's answer to Nvidia's DLSS Ray Reconstruction and essentially does a better job of denoising and reconstructing images off reflected surfaces.

Black Ops: 7 is the only game that supports right now, and I have to say that it's an odd choice to showcase the tech. I mean, who's going to take time to check out the accuracy of a reflection in a shiny floor in the middle of a raging battle?

A presentation slide from AMD's FSR Redstone Press Deck, as issued December 2025
AMD
A presentation slide from AMD's FSR Redstone Press Deck, as issued December 2025
AMD
A presentation slide from AMD's FSR Redstone Press Deck, as issued December 2025
AMD

Anyway, the above video is a comparison of 'straight' Redstone (i.e. FSR 4 + AI frame gen) and Redstone with Ray Reconstruction enabled. If you look hard enough, you can certainly see where the AI denoiser is actually improving things. Interestingly, you can also see where the frame gen is borking stuff, too, though not very easily.

For a handful of frames, between 19 and 20 seconds in the video, the straight Redstone run generates some odd-looking steps coming out of the pool. You can only spot by inching through, frame at a time, so you'd never spot it during actual gameplay. It just shows that, as good as Redstone is, like all frame generators, it's not perfect.

FSR Ray Regeneration doesn't seem to generate much of a performance impact in Black Ops 7, or at least not in the game's benchmark. We'll obviously need to see it in use a lot more before we can make any overall judgement about it.

The missing piece: FSR Radiance Cache

A presentation slide from AMD's FSR Redstone Press Deck, as issued December 2025
AMD
A presentation slide from AMD's FSR Redstone Press Deck, as issued December 2025
AMD

The final part of FSR Redstone to discuss is a bit of an odd one. That's because it's not something that PC gamers will ever be able to use themselves directly, as it has to be used by developers within the engine. This is also true of any part of FSR (you can't force it to magically work in a game that doesn't have it implemented), but there is still some degree of user interactivity with those.

AMD's Josh Hort, Senior Director and Head of ISV Enabling, described the process behind FSR Radiance Cache: "We sample the scene, the camera viewport and geometry are used to generate accurate radiance values, which are then fed to a neural network for training. We train the network to understand how radiance behaves in the scene, how light interacts with surfaces, how indirect lighting propagates, and so on.

"During runtime, the FSR radiance caching phase, we use the train network to provide radiance results early, as soon as the second ray intersection. That means we can get high-quality lighting much faster with fewer rays and less brute force computation, which directly translates into performance."

A presentation slide from AMD's FSR Redstone Press Deck, as issued December 2025

(Image credit: AMD)

What's not super clear at this stage is what Hort means by 'we': Is the training stage done entirely by AMD, or does this have to be done by the developer? An updated FSR SDK with a preview of FSR Radiance Cache should be available on GPUopen by the time this article goes live, so I'll hopefully be able to check then.

AMD showed a very short clip of Warhammer 40,000: Darktide running with FSR Radiance Cache, and while it looked very pretty, the total lack of any performance metrics made it useless, because improving the speed of ray tracing is what this aspect of Redstone is all about.

My issues with FSR Redstone

A presentation slide from AMD's FSR Redstone Press Deck, as issued December 2025

(Image credit: AMD)

Let me be clear on one thing here: Whatever you want to call it, FSR Redstone is a success. The AI upscaler is very good; the AI frame generator is perhaps even better. A single use case sample of the AI denoiser isn't enough to judge whether it's something you'd always want to enable, but it seems good, too.

But that doesn't mean AMD is getting off the hook, here. For starters, it's late, very late, to market. Nvidia introduced AI-powered frame generation back in September 2022, and Intel followed suit in December 2024, and both have released updated versions since.

Meanwhile, AMD's RDNA 4 GPUs have been around since March of this year, and while they got FSR 4 very quickly, it shouldn't have taken this long to get FSR Frame Generation out of the door. Why FSR Ray Regeneration got a priority release is puzzling. I suspect that AMD originally planned for FSR 4 to be the full Redstone package, but development woes and delays just pushed it further and further back.

Another gripe I have with FSR Redstone is the whole naming thing. I don't think the full names are expected to be used in games, just FSR Upscaling, etc, and while I appreciate the move to simplify the whole nomenclature, AMD could have simply called Redstone, FSR 5 or even just 4.5, or anything with a number.

AMD slides about its new RDNA 4 graphics card architecture

(Image credit: AMD)

The number is important because when they inevitably get updated, how are gamers and developers supposed to tell the difference between the versions? There will be version codes used by AMD's FSR developers, so why bury them under marketing fluff?

Lastly, I'm not super happy about the fact that to use the main features of the new FSR, it all has to be done via the Adrenalin Software tool. That's already the case with FSR 4, but now you have to do the same with the ML version of frame generation. I admit it's not really a big deal, because if you have an RDNA 4 graphics card, you really want to use Redstone all the time, but for newcomers to PC gaming, the interface is pretty messy.

The engineers behind AMD's GPUs and software are bona fide magicians, and both RDNA 4 and FSR are the real deal. It's just a shame that the company can't or won't get a better handle on its marketing division.

]]> <![CDATA[ AMD graphics card prices could rise by $40 thanks to the RAM supply crisis, but the extra you pay could be even more ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/amd-graphics-card-prices-could-rise-by-usd40-thanks-to-the-ram-supply-crisis-but-the-extra-you-pay-could-be-even-more/ iBAynxyPivFyWmpiDJHEbB Tue, 02 Dec 2025 16:06:48 +0000

Just a few weeks ago, we reported on the claim that AMD was planning to increase the price of all its graphics cards due to the global RAM supply problem. At the time, there was no indication of when the changes were going to be made, nor how large the increases were going to be. However, the first signs of the latter have been dropped on social media, suggesting that the price hikes will be $20 per 8 GB of memory. The real problem, though, is who is going to pay that bill?

In a very brief post on X, harukaze5719 (who has a very good track record on all things GPU) wrote just two lines of information about Radeon price rises: "AMD 8GB VRAM: +$20, AMD 16GB VRAM: +$40." As things currently stand, there are only a handful of 8 GB Radeon cards in mass production: the RDNA 4 RX 9060 XT and the RDNA 3 RX 7600.

These have MSRPs of $299 and $269, respectively, although the last-gen RX 7600 is usually quite a bit cheaper than this. At the moment, so is the RX 9060 XT ($280 at Newegg), but that's because we've just moved out of the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales blitz and moved into Cyber Week.

As for 16 GB cards, that includes the RX 9060 XT, the RX 9070, and the RX 9070 XT. AMD doesn't officially still make any more Radeon RX 7000-series cards, such as the RX 7800 XT or RX 7900 XTX, but there are still plenty of RDNA 3 dies around, so graphics card vendors will still make these models for certain markets, such as China.

Doubling the VRAM quantity obviously means a doubling in the price hike, and it's not like the prices for 16 GB cards haven't wildly swung around over the past few months. It wasn't that long ago when you couldn't get an RX 9070 for under $600, but now you can grab one for $530 at Newegg. Adding $40 onto that price tag probably won't put too many people off buying one.

AMD Radeon RX 9070-series graphics cards on a grey background

(Image credit: Future)

However, this all assumes that the extra $20/$40 gets applied to the end price, i.e. what the consumer pays. That's the best-case scenario. Should the additional payment be levied at the point of purchase by the card vendors, then we'll certainly be paying more than 20 or so bucks more, because everyone else in the chain is likely to add a 'VRAM tax' of their own.

And just because the RAM has gone up in price doesn't mean it's going to be any more available to manufacturers. It's got more expensive because of supply constraints, not production-related issues. This could result in larger vendors swallowing up all available supplies of GDDR6 to ensure they can keep on churning out products.

That will leave smaller companies in lots of trouble, and I wouldn't be surprised if some of them either disappear altogether or just stop producing graphics cards. If that happens, then it'll be the end consumer that suffers because the lack of competition will just give the bigger companies free rein to charge whatever they like.

If it turns out that we only have to pay $20 more for our 8 GB Radeon cards and $40 more for AMD's 16 GB GPUs, then I can't see too many people complaining. But should the worst come to pass, and it's the third-party vendors coughing up this extra free, then our beloved GPUs stand a good chance of returning to the horrible days of the pandemic, where everything pixel-pushing costs an arm and a leg.

]]> <![CDATA[ Five things I always tell people before they buy their first graphics card ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/five-things-i-always-tell-people-before-they-buy-their-first-graphics-card/ FH7zvyjg6LaQ2Q9Cv8CfcV Wed, 19 Nov 2025 12:12:28 +0000 Tue, 23 Jun 2026 15:00:53 +0000

Buying a new graphics card can be a tricky prospect, full of difficult decisions for even the most experienced of PC builders and gamers. But if you're buying your very first GPU, then it can feel like an absolute minefield. Never fear, though, as I'm here to try and take the edge off some of those worries.

And you shouldn't let any such concerns put you off, either, because the best graphics card upgrade will be the single most impactful change you can make to your existing gaming PC. It's not hard either. As an upgrade, it will likely be just a simple case of taking one big lump of graphics card out and sticking another big lump in, though there are some things you can do to make it easier for yourself, which I'll cover down the page.

But once you have a shiny new GPU in your PC, it will feel like a whole new rig the next time you boot a new game. In fact, you'll probably want to go back and play all those games where you struggled to get 60 fps out of your old card, all over again. I'm updating this page today because the Amazon Prime Day sales are here, and we'll be ploughing through all the offers to find you the best Prime Day graphics card deals, so you can be sure you'll have the cheapest version of whatever GPU you're after.

So, without further needless waffle, here are the five things I always tell people before they buy their first graphics card:

  1. It's all about your budget
  2. Buy the graphics card not the brand
  3. Erm… yeah, it's also all about your monitor, too
  4. You can always wait for a new generation, but don't automatically ignore the last-gen cards
  5. It's an easy upgrade

1. Your budget

Bare Nvidia GPUs

(Image credit: Fritzchens Fritz)

It's all about your budget

It probably sounds obvious, but the first and most important consideration is how much you can really afford to spend on your graphics card. There is such a spread of GPU prices that you can spend almost anything, from $250 all the way up to $2,500 on a new graphics card, with a host of different options and a pretty linear spread of gaming performance as the prices ramp up.

So the first thing you need to do is be confident about what's in your GPU war chest before you even think about looking, because you can always spend more on a graphics card. The temptation to spend just another $50, or another $80, or another $100 when you're already in deep can often be too much to bear. So make a budget you can realistically stretch to without putting yourself in penury and stick to it.

Relative pricing is also an important consideration, as buying a $500 graphics card from the previous generation doesn't automatically equate to a higher-performing $500 GPU in the next generation. Case in point is the last couple of Nvidia GeForce graphics card generations: if you bought an RTX 4070 Super for $599 and were hoping for a big performance boost with the equivalent RTX 50-series card... well, you're in for a shocker. The closest in price is the $549 RTX 5070, which isn't a great deal faster at all.

And this is where we come in, as professional tech prodders, offering performance analysis on all the latest graphics cards to give you an idea of how they stack up in relation to each other. But there is another, quicker and dirtier way to see how your current GPU performs in relation to any other you're looking to buy.

3DMark is an industry standard benchmark for graphics cards and, while it doesn't tell the whole performance story, can still be a good general indicator of relative gaming performance. The 3DMark free version, which you can find on Steam, will allow you to run the Time Spy test, and then in the online database search, you can compare your own score to any potential GPU you're looking to buy. Just take the average score for that card in the same Time Spy benchmark database and see how it stacks up against your own rig to give you an idea of where it all stands in the hierarchy of GPUs.

2. Forget tribalism

AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT with an Nvidia RTX 3080 behind it on a wooden bench

(Image credit: Future)

Buy the graphics card not the brand

There is a lot of unnecessary tribalism in the world of PC hardware, with some folk claiming to be AMD 'til they die or bleeding green with Nvidia. But screw that. You should be buying the hardware that makes sense for you and your gaming PC, not because of a sense of misplaced loyalty to some multi-billion dollar company.

Which is to say that you should be buying either AMD or Nvidia where it makes sense to do so. There are fundamental differences between the two current generations of Radeon and GeForce GPUs. Where once that difference was all down to how well they handled rasterized vs. ray traced gaming performance (AMD cards weren't as good at ray tracing until the RX 9000-series launched) the main difference now is in their upscaling features.

Nvidia's Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) feature set is more ubiquitous in terms of gaming support than AMD's latest and greatest version of FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR). While there is almost parity in terms of image fidelity and quality between DLSS 4.5 and FSR 4, you will find more games supporting the Nvidia option, especially at launch.

And, unless you're rocking a super high-end GPU, you are going to have to rely on upscaling in some form to get decent performance at high resolutions in the latest games.

There is another difference, and that is price. Nvidia, and the market as a whole, has priced its high-end cards out of the equation, with the RTX 5070 Ti, RTX 5080, and RTX 5090 all being prohibitively expensive right now. AMD's competitive RX 9070 XT is also higher than its original MSRP, but is far cheaper than the RTX 5070 Ti it can match in performance terms.

In the mid-range market then, AMD is king, but interestingly it swaps back around again lower down the stack. As soon as you go below $400 Nvidia cards are the ones. The RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB is surprisingly capable, and only a little more expensive than the $340 RTX 5060. Then below $300 you have the RTX 5050, a bargain basement GPU for sure, but one that is still capable. Even if that still is a lot of money to spend on what is theoretically a low-end GPU.

3. What's your monitor?

Gaming monitors of various sizes and shapes

(Image credit: Future)

Erm… yeah, it's also all about your monitor, too

How you view your games should have a huge bearing on how much you spend on your graphics card and which one you pick. If you're trying to drive a 4K gaming monitor, you're not going to get very far with an RX 7600, and likewise, if you're sporting a 24-inch 1080p monitor, you shouldn't really be spending $2,500 on an RTX 5090.

Even if you're a wannabe esports pro, looking for mega frame rates in some lightweight competitive games, you're likely to hit other performance bottlenecks that stop you from getting the most from a flagship GPU on a low-resolution screen.

1920 x 1080 is still the most common gaming resolution around, and realistically, any modern graphics card ought to be able to deliver high frame rates at that level. But if you want to nail 60 fps+ at 2560 x 1440, the next step up the resolution ladder, then you're going to need something a bit more powerful, and likely a bit more expensive.

To hit the top frame rates and graphics settings, you will need to start with the Radeon RX 9070. Part of the reason you need the higher-performance GPUs is partly down to them being bigger, more powerful chips, but also because they have more video memory. The higher resolution you play at, the more data your GPU needs to deal with and having more video memory (or VRAM) allows your graphics card to work with that data much quicker.

Once you start looking to play at 4K—or, more precisely, at 3840 x 2160—then you need all the VRAM you can find and as big a GPU as you can afford. Even then, heavy ray tracing effects can bring even the mighty RTX 5090 to its knees in something like Cyberpunk 2077.

Which is where upscaling comes in—known as Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS), FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR), and Xe Super Sampling (XeSS) for Nvidia, AMD, and Intel, respectively. Enabling any of these technologies in a game will force it to render at a lower resolution, boosting performance, before scaling it back up to the monitor's resolution.

Upscaling is so good these days that if properly implemented by a game's developer, you can barely notice that it's in use. The same isn't quite true for frame generation (which DLSS, FSR, and XeSS all have) but it's not too far behind, in terms of quality.

4. Don't just wait

Nvidia CEO on stage with the new RTX 50-series.

(Image credit: Nvidia)

You can always wait for a new generation, but don't automatically ignore the current or last-gen cards

Such is the pace of innovation in PC gaming hardware, when you're looking to buy a new graphics card, there will almost always be the tension of whether you should buy now or wait for the new shiny thing.

But here's the thing: There will always be something new just over the horizon. There are always rumours about the next generation of graphics cards and just how much they're going to make the current gen GPUs look like mere pocket calculator stuff.

So, if you need to buy a new graphics card today—unless a new release, which you realistically might actually buy, is officially confirmed to be less than a couple of months away—then I would say just buy your new graphics card today. And with the lifetimes of GPU generations lengthening, and no new GPUs on the horizon until well into 2027, that rings especially true today.

But what about last-gen GPUs? That's a trickier question, to be honest. In some instances, an older graphics card can still be a relevant gaming component in a modern machine, but I would only ever consider going one generation back; otherwise, you really run the risk of spending too much and getting too little performance back.

The key thing here is price and relative performance. There's no point paying the same amount of money for an older card to get the same performance as a newer one. All things being equal, you should go with the more modern card as that will be supported longer, and could potentially have features that will go on to mature better.

If an older card is sufficiently cheaper, however, then there is an argument to be made. Again, check the relative 3DMark performance of your card versus a prospective purchase, and maybe similarly priced modern GPUs and see how they stack up. If it's all still favourable, then by all means make that last-gen pick.

However, older cards are less likely to be in production, so the only stock left around will be limited, less likely to be on sale, and if it hasn't already been bought before now, it's likely not a particularly desirable model anyway.

It's also worth noting that the recent memory supply issue, which is causing RAM prices to go stratospheric, has impacted the world of graphics cards. Although GDDR6 and GDDR7 aren't exactly the same type of memory that's in high demand for AI servers, they're still all made by the same manufacturers and in the same factories. We've been tracking prices for almost a year now on a weekly basis, and it's notable that we have definitely hit a price plateau, but I'd say it's almost certainly not worth waiting for GPU prices to drop right now.

5. Easy upgrade

Asus GPU slot

(Image credit: der8auer)

It's an easy upgrade

If you want to make the biggest difference to your ageing gaming PC, then dropping a new graphics card in will have the most impact of any upgrade you can make. And it's super easy, too. The graphics card is one of the biggest components, so it's easy to spot, will likely only be held in place by some screws and a retaining clip on the PCIe slot, and then it's out. Reverse that process, and your new card is in place.

That's the super basic rundown, but there are things you can do to help make sure there aren't any lingering problems when you do turn it back on. The first thing is to make sure that your power supply (PSU) is of a high enough wattage to be able to cope with your graphics card. You can check on any prospective GPU's specs page to see the recommended wattage, and it will say on the side of your current PSU what wattage it is.

You will also need to make sure that any new GPU will actually fit inside your PC. They sure are getting big these days... You will be able to see what graphics card your chassis supports on its online specs sheet if you visit the manufacturer's website, but you could also just get a tape measure out, too.

The other thing I would do before removing your old graphics card is to uninstall all the GPU drivers in the system. Would that it were as simple as just uninstalling the AMD Radeon or Nvidia GeForce drivers, but there are always little files that linger on and leave little gremlins in the machine. We've had many an issue swapping around graphics cards in the PC Gamer test rig when going between AMD and Nvidia, so that situation makes the following suggestion more important.

We recommend always using Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) when swapping graphics cards. It's a free download and makes the whole process much simpler. Just run it before you uninstall your old GPU, and then when you come to install your new one, you shouldn't run into any driver conflicts getting it up and running.

Then that's it, shiny new GPU in your gaming rig, and a whole new lease of life.

]]> <![CDATA[ Nvidia and Intel joining forces could be seen as anti-AMD, but it just serves to highlight AMD's advantage with Ryzen and Radeon under one roof ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/nvidia-and-intel-joining-forces-could-be-seen-as-anti-amd-but-it-just-goes-to-highlight-amds-advantage-with-ryzen-and-radeon-under-one-roof/ i4MLK5jY2HUcuH6azJBGy8 Fri, 19 Sep 2025 13:18:41 +0000 Fri, 19 Sep 2025 13:20:00 +0000

You've likely heard the news by now: Intel and Nvidia have agreed to build a new range of products together. These co-developed chips will fuse Intel's x86 architecture with Nvidia's RTX graphics chiplets. The idea being, if you bring together both companies' tech, it's possible to deliver something more flexible, more desirable than either company can deliver on its own.

The benefits for the two companies are clear enough. Nvidia needs processors for GPU-accelerated server racks, and despite its best efforts to buy Arm, that fell through, dashing any hope of becoming a fully-integrated hardware company with it. Intel needs a helping hand in a few ways. The company is struggling with a falling share price and recently struck a deal with the US government to buy a share of the business, and getting an in with one of the richest companies on the planet isn't a bad get. Though supercharging its processors with more capable and powerful graphics chips has a few big benefits, too. To some degree in gaming, sure, but mostly AI.

"I think these are going to be revolutionary products. I know that all of us working on it are super excited about it," Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said in a joint conference with Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan.

"Nothing of its kind has ever been built before."

You might have something to say about that last statement if you work for AMD. The company is able to deliver competitive products across both CPU and GPU in-house. That's been embedded into its DNA since it bought ATI, and only improved on and amplified since with the growing success of its Zen architecture (with admittedly a few ups and downs in between—a story for another time), and delivered many generations of APU. If anyone has shown the capability to consistently deliver a combination of high-performance processors and graphics in a single chip or system-on-chip (SOC), it's AMD.

AMD is dominant in games consoles, through its semi-custom division and partnerships with Microsoft and Sony, for precisely this reason. It's been highly successful here, scoring these console manufacturers as repeat clients for multiple generations, and according to current expectations for at another generation to come. In the PC space, we have products such as the newly-released Ryzen AI Max 300 Series to point to, a processor line-up we've tested multiple times in various forms this year.

AMD Strix Halo

(Image credit: AMD)

You might then consider this move from Intel and Nvidia to be pretty anti-AMD. I'm sure Dr. Lisa Su and other AMD executives have had a few emergency meetings to discuss yesterday's announcement—which saw AMD's share price dip sharply and then largely recover. Though there's definitely a positive way of framing it for the red team:

It just goes to show how much of an advantage AMD has if it plays its cards right.

No matter the promise of integration between Intel and Nvidia, no two competing companies will ever be able to collaborate quite as well as multiple departments within the same company. The sharing of GPU IP, if any such sharing occurs, between Intel and Nvidia would have to be pretty tight to keep either party out of the other's biggest secrets, especially as both companies sort of dabble in similar sectors (Nvidia with Arm partnerships, Intel with Arc GPUs).

AMD's advantage also extends deep into the technological stack. Let's take Intel's Foveros technology, for example. This is a way of lashing chiplets (tiles, in Intel speak) together onto a single interposer to operate as a single chip. We've seen this in action with various mobile architectures, Meteor Lake and Lunar Lake, but also since come into play with desktop chips. It's also the key to these future x86 RTX SOCs.

"Intel has the Foveros multi-technology packaging capability, and it's really enabling here," says Jensen. "And the reason for that is because, as we all know, Nvidia's GPU technology is based on TSMC foundry. And this is one of the extraordinary things that you can do, connecting Nvidia's chiplets with Intel CPUs in a multi-technology packaging capability and multi-process packaging technology."

AMD APU coloured blue

(Image credit: AMD)

AMD has similar chiplet technology. It's used chiplets across both of its Ryzen CPU and Radeon GPU products at various points throughout the past decade, even before Intel got around to it, and to huge success. Though the processor I'd point to here is the Ryzen AI Max+ 395 in the Framework Desktop, or to a slightly lesser degree, the Ryzen AI Max 390, a chip I recently tested in my Asus ROG Flow Z13 review. The more powerful of the two here, the 395, comes with desktop-grade components inside an ostensibly mobile part: that's 16 Zen 5 cores and 40 Radeon 3.5 CUs. All connected via an interconnect specially designed for this chip to deliver high bandwidth, low latency, and low power.

Not only does this sound a lot like what I'd expect a high-performance x86 RTX SOC might one-day deliver (noting here we don't actually know what these are yet, they're a long way off), with the exception of being AMD's x86 and GPU components instead, it also has those smaller details in interconnect, packaging and software from the same company. Now, you can argue whether there's always been a fluid relationship between AMD's many teams in the past, but in the future, especially one that relies more and more on AI, it could play an increasingly important role.

Framework Desktop PC

(Image credit: Future)

This is all about AI, right? The Ryzen AI Max 300-series wasn't really intended for gaming. I mean, it's decent enough for playing any number of modern games, but it's easily defeated in price/performance by a discrete GPU and a lower core-count chip. We've not rated it for gaming in either of the products we've used it in. No, these chips do best when loaded up with a significant amount of memory, allowing them to run AI models with a huge number of parameters, such as the new gpt-oss-120b from OpenAI or Alibaba's 253 billion-parameter model.

AI capabilities are seemingly the endgame for AMD here, as it builds out big bandwidth, big GPU, low-power chips. As much as it looks to be a target for Intel and Nvidia. If the future of AI is an increasing amount of local compute, and local compute powered by a GPU, rather than an NPU, then it's AMD that has the headstart in actually delivering that. Especially on mobile, which is a growing slice of the PC market. AMD also has the benefit of having more time to develop on these products over the next few years, whereas Intel and Nvidia's partnership is only in its nascent stage.

So, none of this spells doom for AMD to me. They say imitation is the highest form of flattery, right?

]]> <![CDATA[ XFX says its 'V3' Radeon RX 9060 XT GPUs with Samsung GDDR6 run much cooler and quieter than previous models with SK Hynix memory ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/xfx-says-its-v3-radeon-rx-9060-xt-gpus-with-samsung-gddr6-run-much-cooler-and-quieter-than-previous-models-with-sk-hynix-memory/ 74hwbhFpb2Ldvg2PSVz7j5 Tue, 09 Sep 2025 16:08:24 +0000

Having the most powerful and fastest hardware is often the goal of many PC builders, so we are often left comparing things on pure benchmarking and performance. So when AMD swapped from using SK Hynix to Samsung GDDR6 memory in its new Radeon RX 9060 XT GPUs, gamers were quick to jump to performance comparisons between them.

What they found was a drop when moving over to the new Samsung memory, and gamers were quick to condemn the change. Like our reviewer of the RX 9060 XT XFX Swift GPU, many have been pleased by the performance from the budget friendly offering. It seems it might have been a bit too quick, as new comparisons spotted by VideoCardz are showing ways the Samsung GDDR6 may actually be more beneficial, if a little less powerful than the SK Hynix offering.

AMD partner XFX posted comparisons to Bilibili, a Chinese social blog site that often delves into PC gaming hardware critique. They tell the same story of less powerful GDDR6, but with a huge boon to cooling and potentially power consumption.

According to these tests the Samsung memory garnered temperatures 10°C lower than its SK Hynix counterpart, allowing for an almost 400 rpm drop in fan speeds. This means the Samsung components are significantly cooler than the previous ones, and as an added bonus they're quieter and less demanding on your fans, too. This is on top of a 20 W lower power draw over the SK Hynix memory.

This drop may not seem like a big deal, especially for those who like to go all in on power for their rigs. But power isn't the whole story when it comes to building a capable gaming machine, you still have to be able to power and run it, and temperatures can be a huge mitigating factor.

Keeping things cool is an integral part of any good rig, and it's not always easy especially in warmer climates. As an Australian I've run into difficulties keeping rigs cool enough to function over hot summers and have often had to forgo power for lower temperatures. Choosing parts that can help you maintain lower temperatures even if it's at the cost of some beef is often a really smart move in building a gaming PC.

SK Hynix and Samsung are some of the biggest players investing billions in developing memory, not only for GPUs but also AI computing. Both have also been hit with reversals against using US tech in their China-based facilities. With a seemingly even playing field, seeing such a huge difference in these results is a little surprising.

These results are almost certainly biased, but this could mean the revised 9060's are a better choice for many looking to upgrade. According to XFX the Samsung GDDR6 units can be identified by a "V3" moniker and are already available in China. It'll be interesting to see what further testing shows when it comes to the difference between these GPU variants.

]]> <![CDATA[ The latest AMD Adrenalin driver lets you turn FSR 4 on in a bunch more games but OptiScaler might still come in handy for older titles ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/the-latest-amd-adrenalin-driver-lets-you-turn-fsr-4-on-in-a-bunch-more-games-but-optiscaler-might-still-come-in-handy-for-older-titles/ fSAwTxQykSSRre7aRc8Lig Tue, 09 Sep 2025 10:19:12 +0000

It's been about six months since AMD FSR 4 launched and one of the only real problems with it has been uptake. There just haven't been many games that officially support the upscaling and frame gen tech, and enabling it has often required the use of a third-party tool. Now, though, AMD has finally added the ability to enable FSR 4 in a bunch of games by flipping a toggle switch in the latest Adrenalin driver.

The Adrenalin 25.9.1 drivers, AMD explains, enable FSR 4 in over 85 games: "By updating your AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition driver, you automatically unlock access to this cutting-edge technology on your AMD Radeon RX 9000-series graphics card. Simply enable FSR 3.1 within the supported game and ensure the FSR 4 toggle is turned on from the AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition application."

These titles are limited to ones that support DirectX 12 and FSR 3.1—more specifically, games that "have integrated a signed FSR 3.1 DLL according to the guidelines in our FSR 3.1 documentation for developers." That doesn't include Vulkan games, unfortunately.

Previously, to get FSR 4 up and running in games that aren't officially supported, AMD RX 9000-series gamers had to use third-party software OptiScaler to force-enable it. This, however, involved manually pasting files into your game installation folders and even changing settings in a batch script.

After launching towards the start of the year, there's been a lot of interest in seeing wider adoption for FSR 4. In addition to frame gen, AMD's latest generation of upscaling, in particular, has been lauded as it seems to finally be a competitive option against Nvidia's DLSS in terms of visual fidelity.

A slide from an AMD presentation showing much improved spire rendering using FSR 4 compared to other upscalers in Space Marine 2

A slide from an AMD presentation showing much improved spire rendering using FSR 4 compared to other upscalers in Space Marine 2. (Image credit: AMD)

Unfortunately uptake has been pretty slow, though—it was only a month ago that Cyberpunk 2077 got FSR 4 support, for instance. Now, it should be easier for more users to make use of it. There are a couple of potential things to note, however.

First, this new driver-level override only works for (some) games that support FSR 3.1. OptiScaler, on the other hand, claimed to allow you to get FSR 4 up and running in games supporting FSR 2 and higher. So for non-3.1 games, you might still have to rely on OptiScaler if you want to try enabling FSR 4.

Second, we should remember that while this is a first-party solution, it's still only a one-party solution, meaning the games this update will benefit haven't had the FSR 4 implementation worked on by its devs (duh, that's the point, I know). Which means they might not look or perform quite as well as they could if FSR 4 were added officially by the game devs.

Oh, and of course there's the fact that only gamers with Radeon RX 9000-series graphics cards will be able to use the tech.

Still, it's a lot better than the minimal number of games that could get FSR 4 officially up and running before. Given Nvidia recently added a DLSS Override global toggle, with this AMD FSR 4 update in the mix, gamers on both green and red sides of the aisle can finally have some current-gen driver-level upscaling to rely on.

]]> <![CDATA[ Fresh rumours claim that AMD is planning a 16 GB version of its RX 9070 GRE graphics card, though there are still no signs of a global release yet ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/fresh-rumours-claim-that-amd-is-planning-a-16-gb-version-of-its-rx-9070-gre-graphics-card-though-there-are-still-no-signs-of-a-global-release-yet/ dUZ8Qy3DqU8hCutKXuW5f8 Wed, 27 Aug 2025 12:58:06 +0000

At the moment, only PC gamers in China get to enjoy AMD's Radeon RX 9070 GRE, basically a three-quarters version of its superb RX 9070 XT, with 48 compute units and 12 GB of VRAM. However, the GPU rumour mill is fizzing a bit with a claim that Team Red is planning on releasing a 16 GB variant. If that's the case, it could be a sign that AMD is also aiming for a global release of the graphics card, possibly to gatecrash Nvidia's RTX 50 Super party.

News of the claim was reported by IT Home (via X-user Ruby_Rapids), though there aren't a great deal of details: "AMD is planning an upgraded version of the Radeon RX 9070 GRE, which may upgrade the video memory capacity to 16GB to meet market demand," it says, according to a machine translation. On the one hand, the claim is worded positively about the upgrade, but on the other hand, the VRAM boost is only a 'may'.

The current version of the Radeon RX 9070 GRE sports 12 GB of GDDR6, whereas the RX 9070 XT on which it's based, gets an additional 4 GB. That's because the full Navi 48 GPU in that card has a 256-bit memory bus, along with 64 compute units (CUs). The GRE version is down 25% in both areas (192 bits, 48 CUs) because the GPUs in these cards are Navi 48s with defects. AMD just disables the iffy sections so that they can still be used.

However, some of these chips will have fully functional L3 cache and memory interfaces, so AMD could indeed be hoarding these in preparation for releasing an upgraded version of the 9070 GRE.

Although the claim suggests that a 16 GB variant is to meet market demands, I suspect that if this all goes ahead, it's because AMD wants something to release when Nvidia launches the inevitable Super versions of its GeForce RTX 5070 and RTX 5070 Ti. Traditionally, these models have sported more shader units and/or higher clock speeds, but the rumour mill also suggests that Nvidia will be using larger 3 GB GDDR7 VRAM modules, too.

The original 7900 GRE was a bit late to the RTX 40 Super party. (Image credit: Future)

In other words, the RTX 5070 Super could boast 18 GB of memory, with the RTX 5070 Ti sporting 24 GB. Unless Nvidia also releases an RTX 5080 Super with 24 GB of RAM, I'm not overly convinced we might see such configurations, and given Team Green's approach of drip-feeding improvements, there's a good chance none of the Supers will come with more VRAM.

Whatever Nvidia does eventually do with its RTX 50 lineup, if AMD boots the Super party doors open with a trio of 16 GB 9070 cards—undercutting Nvidia on price, meeting it head-on in performance—then it'll be good news for PC gamers who've been hoping for more competition in the mid-range sector.

Given how well the original RX 7900 Golden Rabbit Edition was received, especially once it became globally available, a 16 GB RX 9070 GRE will absolutely fly off the shelves (which, of course, will ruin the prices).

The only negative I can see in all of this is what happens when you explain to people completely new to PC gaming what GRE means with respect to XT (and no letters at all), especially since it got changed to mean 'Great Radeon Edition' earlier this year. AMD makes some amazing hardware, but hoo boy, does it not have a clue with naming its stuff.

]]> <![CDATA[ Demand has been 'very strong' and 'outpaced supply' for AMD's RX 9000-series cards according to CEO Dr. Lisa Su, as anyone who's tried to buy one can attest ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/demand-has-been-very-strong-and-outpaced-supply-for-amds-rx-9000-series-cards-according-to-ceo-dr-lisa-su-as-anyone-whos-tried-to-buy-one-can-attest/ HGj3VJicDhJZYQYK3rn4y9 Wed, 06 Aug 2025 11:42:50 +0000

In its latest Q2 financial report, AMD had good news for investors and fans of Radeon graphics cards. Gaming revenue was up 73% compared to this time last year, and no small part of this has been down to the success of the RX 9000-series of graphics cards. So much so, that in an earnings call, AMD's CEO Dr Lisa Su confirmed that demand was "very strong" and "outpaced supply."

Of course, anyone who has tried to find a Radeon RX 9070 XT at MSRP will already know this, because they're all wildly over AMD's suggested price. It perhaps doesn't help that Team Red only has three RDNA 4-powered cards that gamers are interested in: the aforementioned 9070 XT, the slightly slower 9070, and the 16 GB 9060 XT.

Supplies of its last-gen RX 7000-series have all but dried up, with just the RX 7600 being readily available. You can still pick up other RDNA 3 cards, if you don't mind paying more than you really should, but few are now worth buying when the current gen is just so much better.

AMD hasn't said how much of the $1.1 billion gaming revenue is down to Radeon sales, but it has shifted a lot of them, and not just directly to retailers. It wasn't that long ago that finding a good gaming PC with a Radeon graphics card was quite a challenge, but now the best PC bargains come with an RX 9070 XT or 9060 XT (and a Ryzen CPU, naturally).

In other words, OEMs and system builders are snapping up Radeons for their models because they're fast, feature-rich, and arguably better value for money than any Nvidia equivalent.

The PS5's all-AMD chip, with a healthy dose of Sony engineering. (Image credit: Fritzchens Fritz)

Truth be told, though, no matter how many RX 9000 cards AMD has sold, the bulk of the gaming division's income will come from consoles. The PlayStation 5, PlayStation 5 Pro, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S all sport a custom AMD processor.

Sony and Microsoft are both retaining AMD's services for their next generation of consoles, so even though console unit sales are declining (as they're nearing the end of their lifecycles), money will still be coming in from R&D payments.

That's good news for the future of Radeon GPUs, as Sony and AMD worked together to develop FSR 4, the first version of AMD's upscaling and frame generation tech to directly use AI. As this relationship continues, the fruits of the collaboration will roll out to PCs, both for discrete graphics cards and for the APUs that power laptops and handheld gaming devices.

Now, if AMD can just sort out its supply chain and perhaps knock a little off the price tag while it's at it, perhaps more of us can enjoy a Radeon-powered gaming session or two. Because there are plenty of PC gamers who certainly want to, that's for sure.

]]> <![CDATA[ Ryzens and Radeons revitalise AMD's revenues but export restrictions delete data center profits, causing share prices to slip ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/ryzens-and-radeons-revitalise-amds-revenues-but-export-restrictions-delete-data-center-profits-causing-share-prices-to-slip/ QsxgTe8m9cALAchnenmQi3 Wed, 06 Aug 2025 10:10:18 +0000

If you're a fan of AMD and its red-hued CPUs and graphics cards, you'll be pleased to know that the huge demand for Ryzens and Radeons has done wonders for its streams of income. In its latest financial report, AMD says that its total revenue of $7.7 billion is 32% better than this time last year. However, export restrictions on its mega-bucks AI processors have resulted in its data center division making a loss for the first time in six months.

You can skim over the details yourself in the Q2 financial report summary, and at first glance, you might be puzzled as to why AMD's share prices have fallen since the release of the data.

After all, the Client and Gaming Division—covers all Ryzen CPUs, desktop and mobile, Radeon GPUs, and semi-custom chips—has been doing extremely well. Revenue for this sector is up 69% compared to Q2 2024, with a split of $2.6 billion for Client and $1.1 billion for Gaming.

The latter is actually 73% better than last year, thanks to "an increase in semi-custom revenue and strong AMD Radeon GPU demand." And it's not just PC gamers buying Ryzen 7 9800X3D CPUs and Radeon RX 9070 XT graphics cards that's helping to fill the coffers, as AMD says that a "significant uptick" in sales of Dell PCs with Ryzen processors helped in no small way.

Business and commercial PCs have traditionally been Intel's domain, but the whole Crashgate affair with Raptor Lake, the underwhelming response to Arrow Lake, and general concerns over Team Blue's future will have certainly given OEM and system builders the heebie-jeebies. Any hopes that Qualcomm's Snapdragon processors would be the perfect alternative to x86 chips have also faded.

AMD presentation slide from its 2025 Q2 financial report.
AMD
AMD presentation slide from its 2025 Q2 financial report.
AMD
AMD presentation slide from its 2025 Q2 financial report.
AMD

That's booted the door wide open for AMD to stomp in, wave its chiplets about, and grab all the contracts it can.

Its data center division has also enjoyed improved revenues, albeit nothing like as big a jump as with C&G, coming in at 14% better than last year. The total income was $3.2 billion, but the operating income was a loss of $155 million, in part due to US export restrictions on its MI308 data center GPUs. "These restrictions led to approximately $800 million in inventory and related charges," AMD says.

The relatively small revenue increase, the inventory cost, and the fact that Nvidia's data center revenues are in another league entirely are why AMD's shares took a small tumble after the financial announcement.

Not that this seems to be worrying Team Red in the least bit, as it expects revenues to continue improving—predicting a Q3 total of $8.6 billion—and if it can get the nod to start selling AI chips to China again, then the money is really going to start rolling in.

]]> <![CDATA[ It's only taken six months but at long last, AMD's Adrenaline driver has FSR 4 support for Cyberpunk 2077 ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/its-only-taken-six-months-but-at-long-last-amds-adrenaline-driver-has-fsr-4-support-for-cyberpunk-2077/ T6bEmJw7fBrGvf39j7P8Jn Wed, 06 Aug 2025 08:31:11 +0000

Compared to Nvidia's comprehensive list of games that support its AI-powered DLSS upscaling and frame generation technologies, AMD's FSR 4 just manages to hit a few dozen. But with its latest Adrenalin driver, seven more games have been added, and one of them is Cyberpunk 2077.

AMD launched its direct competitor to DLSS back in February, and given that Cyberpunk 2077 has become the poster child game for introducing new GPU tech to the world, you'd be forgiven for thinking that it would have been first in line to support FSR 4. However, it's actually taken six months, with AMD announcing its machine learning upscaler and frame generator for CP2077 via the release notes for the latest Adrenalin drivers.

Cyberpunk 2077 is joined by Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, Mafia: The Old Country, Arena Breakout: Infinite, Game of Thrones: Kingsroad, Wreckfest 2, and Lies of P. Truth be told, that's not an awe-inspiring list of games, but it's better than FSR 4 not being implemented at all.

Part of the problem for developers is that so few GPUs can use FSR 4: just two RX 9070-series and three RX 9060-series cards. FSR 3, on the other hand, is usable by so many graphics chips that I'd still be writing them out by the end of the week if I tried to list them here. It's the same situation that Nvidia faced when it first launched DLSS—the only GPUs that handled it, at the time, were a handful of RTX 20-series models.

Team Green has the advantage that four generations of its RTX GPUs all support DLSS upscaling, so there's a clear impetus for developers to implement it in their current projects, as well as adding it to previously released games.

Slides showing FSR 4 and the machine learning process it now uses

(Image credit: AMD)

There have been various attempts to get RDNA 3 graphics cards to run FSR 4, but while some games show a performance boost, others actually run slower (though they look better, thanks to FSR 4's superior output compared to FSR 3). It's safe to assume that all future Radeon graphics cards will be able to run games with FSR 4, but it'll be a good while yet before we see any further next-gen GPUs from AMD.

Until then, RDNA 4 owners will just have to wait patiently for the list of FSR 4-enabled games to steadily grow. Let's just hope it's not six months for every big title though, yes? You can download the new Adrenalin 25.8.1 drivers here.

]]> <![CDATA[ AMD offers an update on Project Amethyst, a Sony collaboration that's already 'delivered smarter, more efficient solutions like Super Resolution in FSR 4' ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/amds-jack-huynh-offers-an-update-on-project-amethyst-a-sony-collaboration-thats-already-delivered-smarter-more-efficient-solutions-like-super-resolution-in-fsr-4/ M3syjLzPEEKj5KyimmEA4Z Wed, 02 Jul 2025 13:24:34 +0000

Earlier this week, senior vice president of AMD Jack Huynh and PS5 lead system architect Mark Cerny revisited their co-engineering effort with a glittering cross-section of quartz. Alright, they've got my attention. Named after the purple stone the two tech heads are seen posing beside, Project Amethyst began back in 2023 as an AMD-Sony collaboration intended to deliver "smarter, more efficient solutions" that both companies can then reap the rewards of, such as "Super Resolution in FSR 4."

On Tuesday, Huynh wrote that this collaboration is currently working towards "paving the way for machine learning based Frame Generation and Ray Regeneration in FSR Redstone."

To briefly recap, the latest, machine learning-enhanced version of AMD's upscaler FSR 4 was announced back in February, with a glimpse of its Redstone update following in May. What the aforementioned AMD-Sony collaboration means in the near future is that owners of base PS5's may want to upgrade to the Pro when it gets FSR 4 in 2026.

According to an interview with Mark Cerny from Tom's Guide, FSR 4 is intended to be a mostly painless "drop-in replacement for the current PSSR"—'PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution' is Sony's current upscaling tech for its Pro consoles. But this isn't PlayStation Gamer, so what does that mean for PC hardware heads?

Well, for one thing, it means that both tech companies are growing increasingly intertwined; to ignore PlayStation in this equation really is missing the bigger picture as there's arguably more than a little PlayStation in the latest AMD cards. That said, this isn't a case of copied homework but more a 'sharing is caring' approach (which certainly makes a change from the big tech slap fights of recent memory).

Mark Cerny tells Tom's Guide, "[Project Amethyst is not in aid of] proprietary technology. This is really trying to move the industry forward. Obviously we want to use these technologies on our consoles, but these technologies are available to any of AMD's customers freely."

Rising tides lifting at least these two boats? At any rate, if you've got an RDNA 3 AMD card and you want to enjoy all the framerate and resolution improvements offered by FSR 4, you're also going to need to upgrade. Just as base PS5 consoles can't handle the upscale upgrade to FSR 4, older AMD cards can't either. As Cerny also told Tom's Guide, "It's not a cut-down [version] of the algorithm—it's the full-fat version of the co-developed super resolution that we'll be releasing on PS5 Pro."

In short, you'll need to pick up an RDNA 4 GPU if you want to go hands-on with Redstone's machine learnings. But what about the less immediate longer term? As you may or may not know, a big chunk of my early career was spent writing for print publications focussed on all things PlayStation. That doesn't mean I think the next Radeon graphics card will essentially be a mini-PlayStation, though Cerny's fingerprints will undoubtedly be all over the RDNA 4-successor codenamed GFX13.

Cerny shares, "Big chunks of RDNA 5, or whatever AMD ends up calling it, are coming out of [the] engineering I am doing on the project. And again, this is coming out of trying to move things forward. There are no restrictions on the way any of it can be used."

]]> <![CDATA[ One lucky Redditor has managed to snag themselves a mythical AMD Radeon GeForce RTX RX 9070 XT. Yes, you read that right ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/one-lucky-redditor-has-managed-to-snag-themselves-a-mythical-amd-radeon-geforce-rtx-rx-9070-xt-yes-you-read-that-right/ NGSJh4pA5bQqYPK7mmYmqM Mon, 23 Jun 2025 14:39:25 +0000

When PC hardware manufacturers make mistakes, it's usually in the form of a problem. It might be a loose-fitting cable, a fan that spins too slowly, or thermal putty that oozes everywhere. Either way, it's rarely a good thing, and when it happens, you'll want a replacement asap. Not so in the case of one lucky Redditor, who suffered this exact scenario, only to be issued with the ultimate in rare graphics cards: An AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT plastered with Nvidia RTX logos and branding.

It's a tale that many of us have experienced at some point in our PC gaming lives. Well, the first part at least. Reddit user u/Fantastic-Ad8410 bought a new Asus TUF Gaming Radeon RX 9070 XT, only to find that it wouldn't recognise when a second monitor was plugged into it.

Ah yes the AMD Radeon Geforce RTX 9070 XT from r/radeon

So, they did the natural thing, returned to the retailer and picked up a like-for-like replacement. But upon opening the box, it wasn't another Asus TUF Gaming Radeon RX 9070 XT staring at them. No, it was an Asus TUF Gaming Radeon GeForce RTX RX 9070 XT graphics card.

It's clearly just a manufacturing hiccup, where something has gone amiss with the production line that churns out the many thousands of heatsink shrouds that adorn every graphics card. If you look at Asus' listing for its TUF Gaming Radeon RX 9070 XT and compare it to that for its TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, you'll see that it's the same shroud.

The Scooby Doo mystery here is whether it was meant to be an RTX shroud first, before getting the extra Radeon stamp of approval on the back, or the other way around. Mind you, the bigger mystery to me is why the Reddit user is wondering (at the time of reading their post) about whether they should return the card or not.

Sure, a printing error like this is essentially worthless, but I'd keep it forever and maybe even look to see if I could tweak the card's BIOS, so that the model name was permanently an AMD Radeon Nvidia GeForce RTX RX 9070 XT. Then just mess up every benchmarking database with countless runs of my mythical, multi-manufacturer GPU.

I have to say, out of all the production cock-ups that Asus could do to a graphics card, I'd take this one every day of the week. And heck, it's a million times better than opening your graphics card's box and getting to stare at a backpack instead of two thousand dollars' worth of GPU.

]]> <![CDATA[ The RX 9070 XT might not be the truly mid-range graphics card I'm still dreaming of but it turned my latest sci-fi PC build into a frame rate menace ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/gaming-pcs/the-rx-9070-xt-might-not-be-the-truly-mid-range-graphics-card-im-still-dreaming-of-but-it-turned-my-latest-sci-fi-pc-build-into-a-frame-rate-menace/ J2es8LKzGmPxLoNiRGgxF Thu, 29 May 2025 12:13:08 +0000 Thu, 29 May 2025 12:15:03 +0000

Oh, please let it end. Please. I was so excited to start writing these features. The plan was simple enough. Every other month, I pitch a new and exciting PC build with the latest and greatest hardware available, do an in-depth guide, cover the part selection, take some lovely amateur photography, and everyone's happy—at least that was the theory. Then Nvidia "launched" its RTX 50-series, and the whole market went to hell in a handcart. Graphics card? In stock? What's that? It's basically impossible to find anything at its retail price at this point, and you know, available. You have to sit on lottery lists, Discord stock channels, and pre-order promises to even be in with a whiff of a chance of picking up a graphics card at its retail listing.

When AMD's RX 9070 XT launched, I was super pumped. An affordable graphics card that delivered on its promises with a ton of stock straight out of the gate and a retail listing of $600. Yes, AMD, yes. Let's go. Honestly, it sounded incredible, and for a few weeks it was true. So, as I did, I priced up a build, requested in the parts, and then, three weeks later, no stock, price bump, and it's almost twice the cost. Nice.

Because there's so little stock of anything, everyone is buying everything they can—enthusiasts, industry, scalpers, all of em. Including the RX 9070 XT. It doesn't matter if it's the latest and greatest or a two-year-old has-been; if you see a GPU in stock somewhere at a reasonable price, you're probably dreaming.

That was kind of to be expected, of course; the 9070 XT is a good GPU, and if you can get one, it performs incredibly well, butting heads quite easily with Nvidia's RTX 5070 Ti, and its ilk, and it particularly dominates at 1440p. Yet, the cheapest I could find it with an "available soon" tag at time of writing was $860. Only 260 bucks more than its launch price.

Anyway, if you're reading this in the future and the tariff turmoil and pathetically poor stock situations have somehow managed to miraculously resolve themselves, (or you live in the UK or elsewhere with reasonable prices and actual product availability), let's talk details. This is meant to be a "mid-range" GPU build (if you can call $600 mid-range in the modern era), and there's a lot to discuss. As PC goes I've taken some liberties on the parts, to really push the Evolv X2 and its subsequent components to the limits. Best gaming PC you can buy today? Not quite, but it could be with just a few small changes.

The Specs

Component

Model

US Price

UK Price

CPU

Intel Core Ultra 7 265K

$298

£315

GPU

Asus Prime OC Radeon RX 9070 XT 16 GB

$860

£690

Chassis

Phanteks Evolv X2

$170

£129

Motherboard

Asus ROG Maximus Z890 Hero BTF

$620

£650

Memory

Corsair Dominator Titanium DDR5-7200 32 GB

$205

£180

SSD

Samsung 9100 Pro 4 TB PCIe 5.0

$500

£459

CPU Cooler

NZXT Kraken Elite 360 RGB 2024 AIO

$314

£280

Cooling

4x Lian Li Uni Fan TL Wireless 120 mm, 3x Lian Li Uni Fan TL Wireless Reverse 120 mm

$261

£189

Power Supply

Phanteks AMP GH 850

$279

£105

Total: $3,507 / £2,997

It might not look like it, but I have tried to tone down some of the component selection here compared to my last RTX 5090 PC build. And, well, I kinda got a little sidetracked. That's namely because of Phanteks' latest chassis, the Evolv X2.

I've long been a fan of its Evolv line; it's almost always delivered on the quality front, and when I saw it was "BTF" compatible as well, well, I just had to try it out in that configuration. Particularly given how gorgeous the press shots looked. The only problem is that that motherboard is 20% of the total build budget on its own. Yeah…. That said, there are a lot of parts that you can cut back on without necessarily impacting overall performance, and I'm going to go into detail on that in just a moment. Still, it's a fairly big price tag up there, I'll admit, certainly for what the RX 9070 XT is meant to represent.

The core componentry that's driving performance in this rig (not including the case, the power supply, and the cooling) comes to around $2,511. There's some corners you can shave off cost here to bring the overall price down, and of course $1,000 on the tertiary stuff can be brought down too, so it's not all terrible news here.

A gaming PC lit up with neon-style lighting and using an RX 9070 XT graphics card.

(Image credit: Future)

For the processor, I've gone with Intel's Core Ultra 7 265K. Despite having a particularly rocky launch, since its debut, Intel and Microsoft have really ironed out the bugs when it comes to its overall performance. On the whole, it's now an incredibly well-rounded chip and surprisingly efficient, with plenty enough grunt to handle the RX 9070 XT's frame-generating shenanigans.

Intel's done away with multi-threading and instead is opting for a single-thread solution throughout, utilizing eight Performance cores and 12 Efficient cores for the Ultra 7. It taps out at about 5.5 GHz under load and comes with a healthy 36 MB of L2 cache, all built off the back of TSMC's N3B manufacturing process. At $339, it's a relative bargain compared to the Ultra 9 285K's $590 price tag. For $250 extra, all you get are four more cores and a slight bump to clock speed, and that's kind of it. Still, whether it's rendering or gaming, Intel's well-rounded Ultra platform should produce the numbers. I hope.

My first, ridiculously overpriced PC part pick is Asus's Z890 Hero BTF motherboard. $700. Yeah, ouch. The standard Hero comes in at $100 less than that, and to be honest, you can get some really clean boards with solid connectivity at around the $300-400 mark anyway for the Z890 chipset. Sadly, though, if you want BTF with Intel's Ultra line and you want to ditch those front-facing connectors, then it's the only one around right now. It's also extremely over-engineered for this rig, with a 22+1+2+2 power stage design, support for six M.2 slots (3x 5.0 and 3x 4.0), and an absolutely wild amount of rear I/O.

A gaming PC lit up with neon-style lighting and using an RX 9070 XT graphics card.

(Image credit: Future)

In fact, it's got the works: 2.5G and 5G Ethernet, WiFi 7, three Type-C ports (with various Thunderbolt 4 and USB 10 Gbps configs), plus eight USB Type-As and the usual assortment of odds and ends. It's massively overkill for what we've got going on here, but y'know, needs must. Oh, and it's also got AI everything, because it's 2025 and AI, obviously.

For the CPU cooling, I've equally gone for something a little over the top in the form of NZXT's Kraken Elite 360 RGB (the 2024 edition). This is an incredibly interesting product. Somehow, NZXT has managed to circumnavigate Asetek's rather aggressive pump patent using a "custom-designed NZXT Turbine pump," solution that supposedly delivers 10% improved flow rate. Not going to lie, pretty impressed by that. Not the pump delivering more coolant, but the dodging of Asetek's legal team. On top of that, the 2024 edition also comes with a far fatter 2.72-inch IPS LCD display (640x640 @ 60 Hz), and all of the cabling, power, and USB connectivity is handled by a breakout cable running from a controller directly attached to the radiator itself. Lovely stuff.

Downside? Very expensive. $320 expensive. That's even pricier than Tryx's Panorama 360 with its curved OLED display. Still, it does look incredible.

A gaming PC lit up with neon-style lighting and using an RX 9070 XT graphics card.

(Image credit: Future)

On to RAM, and I've decided to go with something a little different, and again more to lean into the aesthetics of the overall system rather than cost-efficiency. That's going to be Corsair's Dominator Titanium memory kit, with 32 GB of the good stuff, at 7200 MT/s C34. That's a real tight real-world latency on that, and pretty much as good as you can get these days. Plus, they look stellar, and I'm a big fan of the overall design. Still, this is one of those areas you can save a bit of cash. Drop down to a comfortable lower-spec 6,400 MT/s kit at the $100-120 mark and you'll be laughing (it doesn't have to be Corsair, don't @ me).

For storage, I've forsaken my twin SSD mantra and opted for a single large drive instead. I have split this into two partitions to try and make my life a little easier, opting for 1TB for the OS and 3TB for the game and backup storage. That's all inside of a 4 TB Samsung 9100 Pro. It's a seriously rapid PCIe 5.0 drive, at least on the sequential front, and, although not exactly super quick on the random 4Ks, it does deliver some solid performance in games nonetheless. It is pricey, though, and again, if you dropped it to something a little cheaper, maybe a 2 TB Crucial T500 for your secondary storage and a 1 TB T700 for your OS, you'd be saving around $200 on the equation, with little reduction in overall performance (albeit a 1 TB loss to total storage space).

But we're here for the GPU, right? AMD's RX 9070 XT delivers some seriously strong ray tracing performance and kicks the RTX 5070 Ti to the curb for a, sort of, lower price (if you can find it). It's built off the back of AMD's Navi 48 XL GPU die, on TSMC's N4C manufacturing process (confusingly a 5 nm solution), and comes complete with 16 GB of GDDR6 VRAM on a 256-bit bus, delivering around 640 GB/s of total bandwidth. TGP isn't terrible, at 304 W, but the Asus Prime OC unit I'm using here does require no less than three 8-pin PCIe power connectors, which honestly makes me long for 12VHPWR again (more on why that is in a moment).

A gaming PC lit up with neon-style lighting and using an RX 9070 XT graphics card.

(Image credit: Future)

Otherwise, it's a killer card, making a serious case for itself being one of the best graphics cards of 2025, delivering easily at 4K, with close to 40-60 fps in even some of the most aggressive titles out there, without FSR assistance. I've also gone ahead and included one of Phanteks' premium vertical PCIe 4.0 GPU brackets with this too. To be clear, you do not need this in your build, and it does add an additional $100 onto the cost above. But! You can angle your graphics card with it (if you've got the cable space), plus it comes with a strip of RGB that perfectly matches the Evolv X2's stylization.

Speaking of the Evolv X2. This thing is stunning to look at. There's something about its monolithic, obelisk-esque shape that just draws the eye. A mixture of curved plastic stylized to look like brushed aluminum, tempered glass, fan recesses, and a clever plinth styling that really sets it apart from the crowd. It supports up to seven 120 mm fans (no love for 140 mm here) operating in a chimney-style cooling solution, drawing cool air up through the PSU shroud and the bottom of the chassis up into the main chamber and then exhausting directly out of the roof and the rear. One thing to bear in mind, however, the X2 absolutely isn't a liquid-cooling chassis. Certainly not in the same way its predecessors were. Perhaps it's a sign of the times and how far custom loops have fallen out of mainstream PC building culture, but it does only support a single 360 mm radiator in the roof, and that's it.

As for the final puzzle pieces here, for cooling I'm running seven of Lian Li's Wireless TL 120 mm fans, in all black (confusing to choose and install, but surprisingly effective and easy to set up), and for the power supply I've nabbed one of Phanteks' AMP GH 850 W units. According to PC Part Picker, at most the build should draw around 712 W from the wall, giving us around 16-17% headroom on that unit, plus the braided cables, 80+ Gold rating, and reasonable price point make it a sure-fire pick for a build like this.

The Build

An RX 9070 XT gaming PC being built, step-by-step.
Future
An RX 9070 XT gaming PC being built, step-by-step.
Future
An RX 9070 XT gaming PC being built, step-by-step.
Future
An RX 9070 XT gaming PC being built, step-by-step.
Future
An RX 9070 XT gaming PC being built, step-by-step.
Future
An RX 9070 XT gaming PC being built, step-by-step.
Future
An RX 9070 XT gaming PC being built, step-by-step.
Future
An RX 9070 XT gaming PC being built, step-by-step.
Future
An RX 9070 XT gaming PC being built, step-by-step.
Future
An RX 9070 XT gaming PC being built, step-by-step.
Future
An RX 9070 XT gaming PC being built, step-by-step.
Future
An RX 9070 XT gaming PC being built, step-by-step.
Future
An RX 9070 XT gaming PC being built, step-by-step.
Future
An RX 9070 XT gaming PC being built, step-by-step.
Future
An RX 9070 XT gaming PC being built, step-by-step.
Future
An RX 9070 XT gaming PC being built, step-by-step.
Future
An RX 9070 XT gaming PC being built, step-by-step.
Future
An RX 9070 XT gaming PC being built, step-by-step.
Future

The Performance

There's a lot going on here from a pure performance perspective. In many ways this machine is unreasonable. It's not something I'd actively recommend folk buy, which probably sounds quite counterintuitive given it's my job to write a compelling argument for this build I've priced together, but from a cost-efficiency perspective, it doesn't quite make sense. We all know that you don't pair an Intel Core i3 with an RTX 4090, for instance; it's just wrong, and in a lot of ways there are picks here that do echo that sentiment, albeit in perhaps a more gentle manner. A $700 motherboard, for instance, paired with a $324 processor and an $860 GPU with a 4 TB PCIe 5.0 SSD is, on the surface, unnecessary, and I'll hold my hands up and admit to that.

This was more about trying out a whole host of concepts in a single build rather than really ensuring the best bang for the buck PC possible. Does the Evolv X2 hold up with BTF? Is the Core Ultra 7 a worthy processor today compared to launch? Can the RX 9070 XT keep up with the latest and greatest Nvidia offerings? And just how good can you make this whole cornucopia of parts look together? Those are the questions I was keen to answer.

Wading through the performance metrics, and we can see that a lot of those questions do ring out true. The Ultra 7 is a dominant chip, with strong single-core performance in Cinebench and decent 7-Zip and Blender scores too. Far greater than when it first launched. That's a real shame, given right now it does feel like it could potentially have the chops to be one of the best CPUs you could buy. Certainly for the price. The RX 9070 XT likewise manages those 1440p titles very well, scoring on average 100 fps across all of our five games on test. Even Cyberpunk, with ray tracing ramped up and FSR disabled, landed 67 fps on the average frame rate. Chuck in FSR and frame generation as well, and scores easily shoot above 100 fps here too at 1440p.

The thing that impressed me the most, however, were the temperatures. I was apprehensive about it going into this. Particularly given the chassis design. Evolv's haven't exactly been known for top-tier airflow, and there's a lot of glass here. Combine that with the fact that those three intakes are drawing air in from a crowded PSU compartment, jam-packed with cables, with an overall limited number (by today's standards) of 120 mm fans, and well, on paper at least, it does seem like a potential disaster waiting to happen. Yet, no single component hit above 80°C. The Core Ultra 7 topped out at 79 degrees, and even under load in-game the RX 9070 XT still slid just under the 60°C mark. Similarly, VRM and SSD temps remained incredibly cool throughout. A true testament to the design of modern cooling solutions.

The Conclusion

A gaming PC lit up with neon-style lighting and using an RX 9070 XT graphics card.

(Image credit: Future)

So then, what can we take away from this build? This effervescent obelisk? Building in it with BTF is surprisingly well thought out. Even with stock parts and standard-length power supply cables, Phanteks has really gone to town on the cable management solutions here, and it really shows. The finished product, particularly with Lian Li wireless fans, looks an absolute treat. The only major downside was working around that limited power supply.

To be completely transparent, we create a similar version of this build for the print mag (ideally identical, but print deadlines are a nightmare at times). At the time of the photoshoot, our Asus Z890 Hero BTF board had yet to arrive, so I used the stock standard Z890 Hero variant we had in-house instead. That was great, except that board requires an additional 8-pin PCIe connector just below the 24-pin to even power on. The problem with that is that the RX 9070 XT also needs three, and the AMP GH 850 only comes with three singular 8-pin cables. There's no dual connectors or anything included in the box or any additional PCIe power ports on the PSU itself.

So, despite the system's power requirements being 16% lower than the PSU's rating, out of the box, you don't have enough connectors. In the end I bypassed this by using a larger 1000W model in the print version instead, but that is an additional cost that shouldn't really be necessary. Arguably, I'm not even sure the GPU really needs all that extra juice either. In my own testing, power draw never went above 589 W, for the entire system.

A gaming PC lit up with neon-style lighting and using an RX 9070 XT graphics card.

(Image credit: Future)

That's even more of an issue when you consider all the tertiary products now that require PCIe power as well. Not only do we have silly motherboards needing it to even boot (because apparently everyone needs to connect 36 fans off a single header these days), but you've also got things like Corsair's iCUE Link hubs and other third-party products drawing from the things too, despite USB-C power delivery clearly being a thing. It's frustrating, especially given how high costs for PC parts are these days. It's like we're being funneled into buying larger PSUs, not because we need to, but because the entire ecosystem requires it. Hyperbole? Maybe a bit, but if it's a sign of things to come, I ain't a fan.

The saving grace for this build? Well, rather weirdly, despite being $100 more, the BTF variant of the Z890 Hero doesn't have that PCIe power mobo connector that the standard Hero does, so in this case, you can save the cash and grab a lower wattage PSU instead.

All said and done, I love it; this tron-looking beauty is outstanding to look at, the Core Ultra 7 is incredibly dominant, and the RX 9070 XT (if you can find one in stock) is an awesome mid-range graphics card if you can get it at close to its retail price. If the price does drop to reasonable levels again, 4K gaming on a mid-range budget is slowly but surely becoming a reality. Until then, well, we'll just have to wait and see.

]]> <![CDATA[ The first leaked GPU specs for AMD's RX 9060 XT appear and it's pretty much an RX 9070 XT chopped in two ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/the-first-leaked-gpu-specs-for-amds-rx-9060-xt-appear-and-its-pretty-much-an-rx-9070-xt-chopped-in-two/ DrRZALcm6zeXY4RhJzpcSN Mon, 14 Apr 2025 14:23:46 +0000 Mon, 14 Apr 2025 15:07:28 +0000

With AMD's launch of its RDNA 4 graphics architecture and the Radeon RX 9070 graphics cards at the end of February, we were hoping to learn more about the mainstream models fairly quickly. Officially nothing has been said yet but the first detailed specs leak has reached the interwebs, with the RX 9060 XT claimed to sport 2,048 shaders, a 3.2 GHz boost clock, and up to 16 GB of VRAM.

That's according to Videocardz which cites no sources for the information, other than "recent information from AMD board partners", but I don't think they're too outlandish. After all, the full Navi 48 GPU in the Radeon RX 9070 XT sports 4,096 shaders so the smaller chip in the 9060 XT is unlikely to have anywhere near as many.

If what is being claimed is correct, then the 9060 XT will essentially be a 9070 XT hacked in two—you're getting half the number of shaders and a memory bus that's half as wide. Or to put it into numbers: 2,048 Stream Processors (with 128 TMUs and 64 ROPs) and a 128-bit memory bus. That's exactly the same as a Radeon RX 7600 XT but the 9060 XT gains ground by virtue of its 3.2 GHz boost clock, 16% higher than the 7600 XT's.

Regardless of what the final specs are like, AMD is going to be pitching the RX 7600 XT against Nvidia's RTX 5060 Ti, which is looking increasingly likely to come in two VRAM configurations: 8 GB and 16 GB. We've already seen claims that the RX 9060 XT will also have the same option but the one thing it doesn't have is super-fast VRAM. As AMD still uses GDDR6 for price reasons, you'll only be getting a total of 320 GB/s or so of memory bandwidth.

While we don't know what RAM speed the RTX 5060 Ti will use, one can hazard a guess at the minimum, given that the slowest GDDR7 used so far in the RTX 50-series has been 28 Gbps (RTX 5070 and RTX 5090). If the 5060 Ti uses that, it'll boast 448 MB/s of bandwidth—a hefty 40% more than the RX 9060 XT.

To counter this, AMD uses a complex but powerful cache system in its RDNA graphics chips, and like the 7600 XT, I expect the RX 9060 XT will have 32 MB of L3 Infinity Cache to make up for the relatively narrow memory bandwidth.

AMD RX 9070 XT and Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti graphics cards from Asus

Round 1: RX 9070 XT vs 5070 Ti. Now for round 2. (Image credit: Future)

Of course, what PC gamers are going to care about is the price, availability, and for some, how much power it'll use. If I pop on my wizard hat and stare into my crystal ball, I can take a wild stab in the dark at all of this. Let's say Nvidia launches the RTX 5060 Ti at $375 for an 8 GB version: AMD will almost certainly pitch the RX 9060 XT at less than this, perhaps by as much as $50, but whatever it does, it'll probably be quite close to the 7600 XT's launch price of $329.

Back then MSRPs made sense, but these days I wouldn't be surprised if very few board partners offered anything at sub-$350 and I should imagine there will be a few 9060 XT models reaching close to $499.

Your next upgrade

Nvidia RTX 5090 Founders Edition graphics card on different backgrounds

(Image credit: Future)

Best CPU for gaming: The top chips from Intel and AMD.
Best gaming motherboard: The right boards.
Best graphics card: Your perfect pixel-pusher awaits.
Best SSD for gaming: Get into the game ahead of the rest.

Hopefully, there will be a decent supply of all these cards, especially the more affordable ones. But even if there is, the demand for GPUs is sky-high at the moment so stocks will probably disappear very rapidly for the first few weeks or even months.

As to the power consumption, I reckon it will be north of 230 W. The 7600 XT is a 190 W graphics card but the 9060 XT is clocked much higher and the GPU housed dedicated matrix units for accelerating the AI-powered FSR 4 upscaling system. The 4,096 shader 9070 XT uses up to 304 W so it's clear that RDNA 4 loves a decent amount of power.

Until AMD officially launches the Radeon RX 9060 XT, all of this is guesswork and rumour. Whether it has the measure of the RTX 5060 Ti won't be certain until we've run both cards through our full benchmark suite, but I suspect the Nvidia card will be the faster of the two, albeit with a higher price tag. Throw in DLSS 4 and it becomes trickier still, as AMD doesn't have anything yet to counter Nvidia's Multi Frame Generation.

But the way things are at the moment, any semi-decent GPU with a price tag that doesn't require the selling of an organ or three on the black market is going to sell well.

]]> <![CDATA[ With a quick BIOS flash and a spot of overclocking, one modder has got his RX 9070 to outperform the normally faster RX 9070 XT ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/with-a-quick-bios-flash-and-a-spot-of-overclocking-one-modder-has-got-his-rx-9070-to-outperform-the-normally-faster-rx-9070-xt/ uK8A9VkzfeG7TxrCCLcsuk Mon, 07 Apr 2025 11:25:30 +0000

Getting more performance out of your graphics card these days is a lot harder than it used to be, as they now overclock themselves and have hard power limits, AMD and Nvidia's latest GPUs are proving to be a big exception to this. Getting around all of that isn't always easy but in the case of one Radeon RX 9070 model, a simple BIOS flash is all you need to turn it into a potential RX 9070 XT beater.

AMD's recently launched Radeon RX 9000-series comprises just two models at the moment: the RX 9070 and the RX 9070 XT. The latter is the 'full die' version, sporting 64 CUs (Compute Units), a boost clock of 2.97 GHz, a power limit of 304 W, and 16 GB of VRAM. The RX 9070 is very similar: just four fewer CUs and the same amount of VRAM, but with a much lower 220 W power limit and a boost clock of 2.52 GHz.

Since there's only a $50 difference in the cards' MSRPs, PC gamers have been snapping up the XT version en masse, leaving them in short supply and forcing their prices sky-high. But one curious modder has discovered that it's possible to flash the Asus Prime RX 9070 OC BIOS with the one from the Prime RX 9070 XT OC (via 3D Center), giving the weaker model the same clock and power limits as its bigger brother.

The BIOS in question can be found in TechPowerUp's BIOS database, along with the software tool required to do the job. Now, I hasten to add that any RX 9070 reading this who might be tempted to try the same thing should note that this BIOS will almost certainly not work on any other model and even if you do happen to have an Asus Prime RX 9070, you need to be very careful about doing the whole procedure.

As to why you should even think about it in the first place, the Asus RX 9070 OC has an outright maximum clock speed of 2.61 GHz, whereas the XT version can go all the way up to 3.03 GHz—that's a 16% increase, substantially more than what you'd normally get with a manufacturer's 'overclocked' model. And to help the card sustain that higher speed, the power limit is also increased to 304 W (38% more).

Asus Prime RX 9070 XT graphics card

The Asus Prime RX 9070 XT has one more power connector than the 9070 but that's not a problem. (Image credit: Future)

The modder reckons that his flashed RX 9070 is faster than a stock 9070 XT, but I'd want to see a lot more tests done to be certain of that because while the latter has a marginally slower boost clock, it does sport 512 more shader units.

Even though the Asus Prime RX 9070 only has two 8-pin power connectors to the XT variant's three, it's enough to handle the 304 W peak power consumption, so at least that's something we don't need to be concerned about. However, the flashed RX 9070 is apparently a little unstable in idle desktop mode due to the higher clock speeds and that is something to think twice about.

This is all very much classic AMD, and down to its rule-of-two release cadence where it generally offers two cards based on the same GPU at launch. The whole exercise reminds me very much of AMD's Vega 56 days. Everyone wanted the full-fat Vega 64 card, but just as with the 9070 XT, it was in high demand, resulting in low stock and high prices. However, the Vega 56 could be flashed with a Vega 64 BIOS, increasing its clock and power limits to the point where you could get a 64 card for 56 money.

It was the same around the very first RDNA cards, too. The RX 5700 XT was the top card, but the RX 5700 used the same chip and could be flashed with the top-spec card's BIOS to unlock its power and frequency limits—again, giving you essentially high-end GPU performance from one tier down.

Your next upgrade

Nvidia RTX 5090 Founders Edition graphics card on different backgrounds

(Image credit: Future)

Best CPU for gaming: The top chips from Intel and AMD.
Best gaming motherboard: The right boards.
Best graphics card: Your perfect pixel-pusher awaits.
Best SSD for gaming: Get into the game ahead of the rest.

Ultimately, though, you have to ask yourself whether it's worth doing for the sake of 16% more performance. That might sound like a lot but a game running at, say, 50 fps would only go up to 58 fps and that's only if the game's performance was 100% limited by the GPU's clock speed. If you don't touch the VRAM clocks, for example, then you're unlikely to see as big an increase.

That all said, we've undervolted AMD's second-string RDNA 4 GPUs ourselves and with only minimal effort—and importantly very little impact on either thermals or power draw—have got an RX 9070 running, on average, 12 to 14% faster at 1440p and 4K. That puts it only around 2% behind the RX 9070 XT without the need to flash or tweak the BIOS and risk bricking your precious GPU hardware.

I used to spend hours experimenting with graphics cards, messing about with voltage mods and the like, but I don't want to deal with the increased heat output (and thus, increased fan noise) any more and while tweaking the voltage curves can counter some of this, it's all a bit too much work in my eyes for not enough gains—especially when I can just change a graphics option or apply upscaling to get an even bigger boost.

Still, I reckon that this news will be lapped up by many an RX 9070 owner and somebody, somewhere, will figure out how to make it all work properly, with no instability issues. After all, all of this is essentially a free, albeit risky, performance boost and in today's GPU market, free is a magical word.

]]> <![CDATA[ The first Radeon was superior to Nvidia's GeForce2 in almost every way but it set the tone for how AMD would fair against the jolly green giant for the next 25 years ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/the-first-radeon-was-superior-to-nvidias-geforce2-in-almost-every-way-but-it-set-the-tone-for-how-amd-would-fair-against-the-jolly-green-giant-for-the-next-25-years/ ujxTNYuTNje87WJZBNUpsR Wed, 02 Apr 2025 14:15:01 +0000 Wed, 02 Apr 2025 14:15:05 +0000

It only seems like yesterday when I got my hands on ATI Technologies' first and much-anticipated Radeon graphics card but time has a funny way of playing tricks on your memory, and it was 25 years ago—to this very week—as I managed to easily pick one up at launch (how times have changed). The Radeon DDR joined my reasonably sized collection of graphics cards; on paper, it was the best of them all.

But what transpired over the following months not only put me off Radeon cards for a good while, until the 9700 appeared in 2002, but it also set the tone as to how ATI and eventually AMD would fare against Nvidia in the graphics card market.

But let's start with why I was so looking forward to the first Radeon. At that time, I had around 12 graphics cards in a number of PCs—most of which were used for testing. I can't remember everything I had but I do recall an Nvidia Riva TNT2 Ultra and a GeForce 256, a Matrox Millenium G200, and a 3dfx Voodoo 3 3000.

The Radeon DDR made them all look rubbish, though. Its GPU had two pixel pipelines, each sporting three texture units, and with a clock speed of 166 MHz, it could churn out over 300 million pixels and almost 1,000 billion texels per second. The GeForce 256 couldn't get anywhere near those figures.

Admittedly, neither could the Radeon itself, as it just didn't have enough memory bandwidth to support those throughputs in actual games but no graphics card did at the time. ATI was determined to make its graphics processor more futureproof than Nvidia's and while both companies offered hardware acceleration for vertex transform and lighting (aka hardware TnL), ATI also added vertex skinning and keyframe interpolation into the pipeline.

A photo of an ATI Radeon DDR 64 MB graphics card

The 64 MB version of the Radeon DDR (Image credit: Future, Anandtech)

Just a few weeks later, Nvidia launched its NV15 processor and within a few days, a GeForce2 GTS arrived on my doorstep. Essentially a pumped-up GeForce 256, the new Nvidia chip sported a much higher clock speed than its predecessor, along with twin texture units in each pixel pipeline. But that was it and the Radeon DDR still looked to be the better product—more features, better tech—even though it offered less peak performance.

Coding legend John Carmack agreed at the time: "The Radeon has the best feature set available, with several advantages over GeForce…On paper, it is better than GeForce in almost every way." When it came to actually using the two cards in games, though, the raw grunt of the GeForce2 GTS put it well ahead of the Radeon DDR, except in high-resolution 32-bit colour gaming.

That's partly because no game was using the extra features sported by the Radeon but it was mostly because the GeForce2's four pixel pipelines with dual texture units (aka TMUs) were better suited for the type of rendering used back then. ATI's triple TMU approach was ideal for any game that did lots of rendering passes to generate the graphics but none were doing this, and it would be years before games did. By then, of course, there would be a newer and faster GPU on the market.

Something else that Nvidia did better than ATI was driver support, specifically stable drivers. I spent more time dealing with crashes, rendering bugs, twitchy behaviour when playing in 16-bit mode, and so on than I ever did with any of my Nvidia cards. The Radeon DDR was also my first introduction to the world of 'coil whine' as that particular card squealed and squeaked constantly. I spent many weeks conducting back-and-forth tests with ATI to try and narrow down the source of the issue but to no avail.

An AMD Radeon 9800 Pro graphics card.

ATI's halcyon days: the Radeon 9800 Pro (Image credit: Future, Anandtech)

Drivers would continue to be ATI's bugbears for years to come, even after AMD acquired them in 2006. By then, the brief glory of the Radeon 9700 Pro and 9800 Pro (and the abject misery of the GeForce FX) was gone, despite the likes of the Radeon X1900 and X1800. Nvidia's graphics cards weren't necessarily any faster or sported any better features, but the drivers were considerably better, and that made the difference in games.

Over the years, AMD would try again with all kinds of 'futureproof' GPU designs, such as the compute-focused design of the Radeon R9 Fury and its on-package High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) chips. Where Team Red always seemed to be looking ahead, Nvidia was focused on the here and now, and it wasn't until 2019 that AMD finally stopped trying to over-engineer its GPU designs and stuck to making them good at gaming, in the form of RDNA and the Radeon RX 5000-series.

But even now, AMD just can't seem to help itself. Take the chiplet approach of the last-gen RX 7900 XTX—it didn't make a jot of difference to AMD's profit margins or its discrete GPU market share, or even make the graphic cards any faster or cheaper. With the recent RX 9070 lineup, though, Team Red has finally produced a graphics card that PC gamers need now. Even its driver team is on the ball and I can't recall when I last said that about AMD.

Your next upgrade

Nvidia RTX 5090 Founders Edition graphics card on different backgrounds

(Image credit: Future)

Best CPU for gaming: The top chips from Intel and AMD.
Best gaming motherboard: The right boards.
Best graphics card: Your perfect pixel-pusher awaits.
Best SSD for gaming: Get into the game ahead of the rest.

Arguably, Nvidia seems to have gone down an old Team Red road of late, what with iffy GeForce drivers and graphics cards that are barely any faster than the previous generation but are replete with features for the future (e.g. neural rendering). But when you effectively control the GPU market, you can afford to have a few hiccups; AMD, on the other hand, has to play it safe.

I just wish it had done so years ago when it was battling toe-to-toe with Nvidia at retailers. The Radeon RX 9070 XT is the best card that it's released for a long time and although its price is all over the place at the moment, the fundamental product is really good (and far better than I expected it to be). Just imagine how different things would be today if AMD had used the same mindset behind the design of the 9070 for everything between the X1800-series and the first RDNA card.

Will Radeon still be a household name in another 25 years? I might not be around to see if it comes to pass but I wouldn't bet against it, as despite all its trials and tribulations, it's still here and still going strong.

]]> <![CDATA[ AMD confirms more affordable RX 9060 graphics cards will arrive in 'the second quarter of this year' ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/amd-confirms-more-affordable-rx-9060-graphics-cards-will-arrive-in-the-second-quarter-of-this-year/ EkQg7XnJjr4YnWT9augJii Fri, 28 Feb 2025 14:45:44 +0000

We may have only just heard all the details about AMD's forthcoming RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 graphics cards, but I'm looking to the future for the next release. Thankfully, the red team has some news on what to expect, and when. The company confirmed multiple "RX 9060 products" will arrive in the second quarter of this year, which could be anytime between April – June.

A later timeframe does appear more likely right now, considering the delayed launch of the RX 9070-series, but we'll have to wait and see.

The RX 9060-series should be made up of more affordable graphics cards than their RX 9070-series compatriots. Considering the RX 7600 XT was priced at $329 at launch, and the RX 7600 at $269, we should expect prices for the newer models to be in this same sort of ballpark.

I'd love to see a 16 GB RX 9060 XT for $329, as proper competition to Intel's 12 GB Arc B580. Then, if AMD intends to sandwich Intel entirely, an affordable addition below the $280 Arc card in the RX 9060. Though this does require RDNA 4 to be a performant architecture once limited for compute units and on a stricter power budget—it should be though, AMD's not struggled massively with that in the past thanks to its know-how designing iGPUs for APUs.

Generally, I'm just pleased to hear something about budget graphics cards, or presumably budget graphics cards.

Nvidia has said nought on cheaper alternatives to its current RTX 50-series line-up, the cheapest of which so far announced is the forthcoming RTX 5070 at $549. Though those released in the series to date have been shooting way above MSRP for the past month, and Nvidia hasn't been known for tremendous value in the budget arena with the RTX 40-series, either.

Intel has, of course, the B580, which is a commendable launch for a card under $300 (in theory, it is also in high demand), but AMD has been holding out on us.

So, if all these GPU launches feel out of reach for you and your bank account, stay tuned for what's coming next from AMD.


Best CPU for gaming: Top chips from Intel and AMD.
Best gaming motherboard: The right boards.
Best graphics card: Your perfect pixel-pusher awaits.
Best SSD for gaming: Get into the game first.

]]> <![CDATA[ AMD sees record revenue of $25.8 billion in 2024 thanks to data center growth—gaming last seen tumbling into a ditch ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/amd-sees-record-revenue-of-usd25-8-billion-in-2024-thanks-to-data-center-growth-gaming-seen-dead-in-a-ditch-somewhere/ JKtG4VLAHcw87q5FKsoqyY Wed, 05 Feb 2025 15:00:31 +0000

You'd be forgiven for thinking that a company called Advanced Micro Devices would make the majority of its profit from said tech, with coveted high-end graphic cards leading the charge. Though gaming hardware continues to do big business, it's been completely overshadowed in recent years by an explosion in demand for data centres handling AI.

In a recent earnings call, AMD revealed that revenue from the data centre side of the business had more than doubled, ultimately "contributing roughly 50% of annual revenue" in 2024 (via Seeking Alpha). Now, you may be asking 'Half of how much, though?' Well, EVP, CFO and Treasurer Jean Hu revealed that AMD saw a "record revenue of $25.8 billion" in 2024, attributing the gain to "94% growth in our data center segment and a 52% growth in our client segment."

To be clear, AMD's segment includes AI accelerators, server chips, server GPUs, FPGAs, and more. You know, server stuff. So, that's $12.5 billion for the data centre last year, up from $6.5 billion the year prior. As for the client segment, that includes Ryzen CPUs, APUs and chipsets, which all accounted for $7 billion in 2024, up from $4.7 billion in 2023.

CEO Lisa Su revealed on the same call, "On a full year basis, annual revenue grew 14% to $25.8 billion as data center revenue nearly doubled and client segment revenue grew 52%, more than offsetting declines in our gaming and embedded segments."

So, gaming isn't looking too hot for AMD—but how bad is it really? AMD's gaming segment includes discrete GPUs and semi-custom chips. The latter are big money for AMD, as it produces the semi-custom silicon used in PlayStation and Xbox consoles. Lisa Su stated, "Revenue declined 59% year-over-year," which sounds bad but still means AMD made $563 million from this part of the business alone in 2024.

The gap between million and billion often makes all the difference for massive corporations, but this decline is a drop in the bucket compared to how much AMD raked in from the data centre segment. That said, AMD will be reeling from a loss of that console business, as the current generation gradually winds down.

"Revenue declined 59% year-over-year to $563 million. Semi-custom [console chip] sales declined as expected as Microsoft and Sony focused on reducing channel inventory," Su noted, continuing "in Gaming Graphics, revenue declined year-over-year, as we accelerated channel sellout in preparation for the launch of our next-gen Radeon 9000 series GPUs."

Those next-gen Radeon 9000-series cards have to face down Nvidia's RTX 50-series, though we already know AMD isn't planning to compete with Nvidia's finest card, the RTX 5090. Instead, it's focusing on the higher volume middle tier—not first place, but definitely not last either.

All of this is consistent with the big gains in data centre demand and the contracting gaming segment we saw last year, fast becoming an industry-wide trend. For instance, competitor Nvidia hoovered up $26 billion in a single quarter last year thanks to their own growing data centre segment, and more recently Microsoft committed to spending $80 billion to better facilitate its AI-dreams.

AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su

(Image credit: AMD)

Then there's 'Stargate,' a massive four year project led by OpenAI and Softbank currently working to build AI infrastructure across the US. Expected to cost close to $500 billion over the course of Trump's presidency, AI continues to be a pie everyone wants a bite out of—especially now the incumbent has done away with the last administration's proposed AI guardrails.

But what's the true cost of this rapidly expanding business and outsized data centre demand? Oh, you know, only our environment. Despite Microsoft's recent attempt to incorporate materials with a low carbon footprint into their construction projects, there's no escaping how power-hungry data centres are and what that could mean for carbon emissions. As a result, Microsoft, Google, and Meta all have their eye on nuclear energy as a source of carbon-free power that can also meet the intensive demands of a future looking increasingly dominated by data centres.


Best CPU for gaming: Top chips from Intel and AMD.
Best gaming motherboard: The right boards.
Best graphics card: Your perfect pixel-pusher awaits.
Best SSD for gaming: Get into the game first.

]]> <![CDATA[ AMD finally gives the Radeon RX 9070 XT a release date and it's (roughly) March ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/amd-finally-gives-the-radeon-rx-9070-xt-a-release-date-and-its-roughly-march/ 9Manc5a7UGZ2Ehm4wxe3sB Tue, 21 Jan 2025 11:37:03 +0000 Thu, 17 Apr 2025 10:04:53 +0000

Not a moment too soon, AMD has finally put a release date on the much anticipated Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT GPUs. They go on sale in March. Yeah, just March, no specific day in March has yet been indentified by AMD.

Still, cue much rejoicing from gamers after a high-value graphics card, right? We'll certainly be celebrating if the boards are as cheap and performant as the rumours suggest.

The news comes from the X account of AMD's consumer CPU and GPU boss, David McAfee, who said, "Radeon 9000 series hardware and software are looking great."

As we reported last week, these news RDNA 4-based GPUs didn't seem imminent following the launch that wasn't a launch at CES. What's more AMD's promise at the show that we'd see the 9070 and 9070 XT some time in Q1 allows for a launch right up to the end of March. So, it all makes sense.

Of course, it does all still beg the question of why not sooner? After all, AMD's previous generation of GPUs, the Radeon RX 7000 cards, were out right at the end of 2022. The company has already missed its usual two-year cadence for new GPU families.

There's no official answer to that question. But a number of factors are likely at play. First, there's a good chance that the GPUs that are about to launch weren't AMD's original plan for this generation.

AMD went for a chiplet design for RDNA 3 and the Radeon RX 7000 family and the expectation for RDNA 4 was a refinement of that approach. As we no know, AMD didn't go with chiplets for RDNA 4 and if that wasn't what was initially intended, then no doubt that put the whole proces behind schedule.

Then there was Nvidia's price bomb dropped at CES. Aside from the $2,000 RTX 5090, Nvidia's new graphics cards were cheaper than many observers expected. OK, at $549, the RTX 5070 still isn't exactly cheap for a mere '70 series model. But it may have been positioned lower than AMD was expecting.

If so, AMD may have needed some time to adjust. Which AMD's Frank Azor admitted to in our backstage chat at CES about the cards' non-appearance at the show. Perhaps that meant just reconsidering the positioning of the 9070 and 9070 XT. But it may also involve complications like rebates for board makers or other channel partners who signed up based on a different, higher pricing structure.

Nvidia RTX 5070 graphics card

At $549, the Nvidia RTX 5070 still isn't exactly cheap, but it might be cheaper than AMD was expecting. (Image credit: Nvidia)

Or maybe March was the plan all along, though we do rather doubt that. AMD very much gave the impression at CES that it had pulled a full RDNA 4 reveal at the last moment.

Still, none of this will matter if the new cards are as good as the rumours. Ah, yes, those rumours. Allegedly, the 9070 XT's performance is about on par with an Nvidia RTX 4080, maybe a little faster for raster, maybe a little slower for ray tracing, but in that ball park.

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Nvidia RTX 4070 and RTX 3080 Founders Edition graphics cards

(Image credit: Future)

Best CPU for gaming: The top chips from Intel and AMD.
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Now, when you consider that the performance uplift of the new RTX 5080 looks modest, perhaps 15% or so going on Nvidia's own data and excluding 4x Frame Gen (and you really should exclude 4x Frame Gen from these kinds of broad performance comparisons), then it's apparent that AMD's new cards could be quite competitive.

If they also come in at the rumoured price levels, some of which have the 9070 XT at $480, then factor in AMD's much-improved ML-based FSR 4 upscaling, well, you have quite the proposition.

All of which will make the wait for March quite a long haul. There's quite a lot riding on this and expectations are now so high the risk of disappointment is obvious enough. But here's hoping RDNA 4 is every bit as good and every bit as cheap as all those rumours.

]]> <![CDATA[ Early Radeon RX 9070 benchmarks are positive, though don't bank too much on them ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/early-radeon-rx-9070-benchmarks-are-positive-though-dont-bank-too-much-on-them/ 3679Fx4Y5fCjyxA26tW75Z Wed, 08 Jan 2025 17:30:25 +0000 Thu, 17 Apr 2025 10:04:56 +0000

The AMD Radeon 9X 9070 was benchmarked at this year's CES in just one game but all signs are currently quite positive, getting almost 100 fps average in 4K extreme settings in the latest Call of Duty game.

Though they were mentioned, AMD's upcoming Radeon RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 RDNA 4 GPUs didn't make the splash they were expected to at this year's CES presentation, mostly because we weren't given all that much information on them.

We know they are coming but we don't know when, we don't know what price they are launching at, and, until now, we didn't have an inkling on performance.

On the show floor, IGN managed to get hands-on, playing Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. With upscaling and frame generation turned off, the twitch shooter got an average of 99 fps, which is quite impressive. The reporter did have some sort of visual glitch while testing but this isn't uncommon, especially in unreleased tech.

The same report claims that this performance is comparable to the Nvidia Geforce RTX 4080 Super, which achieved 129 fps in their testing at quality settings, with DLSS turned on.

These early figures are definitely positive, especially if the price is right for AMD's new GPUs. However, there are few important things to note. First, Call of Duty as a series has historically performed well on AMD's GPUs, and is likely the reason this game was chosen to show off the cards this year. It doesn't take away from otherwise pretty good benchmark results but AMD and Intel can both struggle with a wide variety of games as Nvidia is the top dog in the market, and therefore often the most thought about from a consumer perspective.

We also can't account, fully, for what the rest of the rig is doing, and what kinds of environments this tech exists in at a show like this. As well as all of this, this is seemingly just a single benchmark, and anomalies do exist in testing.

However, the new tech in these GPUs is interesting. AMD's RDNA 4 architecture is built on a 4 nm process and offers better media encoding for productivity than RDNA 3/3.5, better AI performance and improved ray tracing. Being machine-learning powered, this is an attempt to bring it closer to the performance increases of Nvidia's AI-based DLSS.

Nvidia has just announced the whole new line of RTX 50 series cards which are expected to be the most powerful mainstream GPUs in the market, though AMD could offer a better alternative for budget and mid-range gamers, especially with the mighty RTX 5090 costing a headache-inducing $2000.

Catch up with CES 2025: We're on the ground in sunny Las Vegas covering all the latest announcements from some of the biggest names in tech, including Nvidia, AMD, Intel, Asus, Razer, MSI and more.

]]> <![CDATA[ AMD might have told us little about its RDNA 4 graphics cards but at least we know the Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT have 16 GB of VRAM ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/amd-might-have-told-us-little-about-its-rdna-4-graphics-cards-but-at-least-we-know-the-radeon-rx-9070-and-9070-xt-have-16-gb-of-vram/ W4WJNxVkhdfu9Mahkf5dmZ Tue, 07 Jan 2025 16:42:28 +0000 Thu, 17 Apr 2025 10:04:53 +0000

Well, when it comes to next-gen GPUs, AMD's CES 2025 presentation let us know that the Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT exist... and that's about it. Unfortunately, we didn't hear any mention of specs or pricing—no CU counts and no info about VRAM or bus widths.

However, Asus was the first to announce graphics cards featuring these RDNA 4 GPUs in the form of TUF OC and Prime OC variants, and what could have easily slipped under the radar is that these will have "a supersized 16GB serving of VRAM". In other words, the first confirmation of 16 GB of VRAM for the RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT has come from Asus, not AMD.

We've suspected we'd be dealing with 16 GB of VRAM since at least mid-2024 with some RDNA 4 GPU specs and performance rumours. But as we said at the time, we couldn't trust those figures for certain, and AMD recently told us that "the performance data out there for RDNA 4 is completely inaccurate".

Nevertheless, the "16 GB of VRAM" part of previous rumours seems to have been correct. We don't know whether that'll be GDDR6 or GDDR7—though our money's on GDDR6—but the 16 GB pretty much says it'll be a 256-bit memory bus.

16 GB of VRAM will put the 9070/9070 XT in line with the Radeon RX 7800 XT, which makes sense given the 9070, if it weren't for AMD's naming scheme change-up, would be an RX 7800 XT. It also puts it in line with the newly announced RTX 5070 Ti and 5080, which will both have 16 GB of (GDDR7) VRAM.

It also puts the RX 9070 and 9070 XT ahead of the RTX 4070 Ti, which is the graphics card that has a level of performance it looks like AMD is pitting the new RDNA 4 cards against.

Of course, all of that's just comparing raw VRAM capacity, which says very little outside the context of memory bandwidth and general architecture. On that front, we're still just as starved for info as we were before, albeit with promises of improved ray tracing, AI compute, and so on.

We do know that these 9000-series graphics cards will be the only ones to support FSR 4, which promises "a dramatic improvement in terms of performance and quality". And if previous rumours are anything to go by (and remember, AMD seems to imply they're not) then we could be looking at 45% faster ray tracing performance than the 7900 XTX, too—this would be more in line with the RTX 4080 Super.

Whatever the case, AMD is explicitly focusing on mainstream price to performance, "aiming for a card that delivers outstanding performance where most gamers are buying their cards today." I'd say a 16 GB RTX 4070 Ti competitor would fit nicely into that category, provided the price is right. Let's hope AMD doesn't keep us waiting too long to share more.

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]]> <![CDATA[ With its Prime and TUF Radeon RX 9070 graphics cards, Asus is ditching thermal paste for a thermal pad that melts when hot ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/with-its-prime-and-tuf-radeon-rx-9070-graphics-cards-asus-is-ditching-thermal-paste-for-a-thermal-pad-that-melts-when-hot/ FsLgizGfPMzPidrfM7aDef Tue, 07 Jan 2025 14:27:07 +0000 Thu, 17 Apr 2025 10:04:54 +0000

AMD hasn't given us much information about the upcoming Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT this CES 2025, but that hasn't stopped Asus from giving us a peek at its own versions of the new graphics cards. The company has just announced its TUF Gaming OC and Prime OC versions of the next-gen AMD cards and probably the biggest change is how they approach cooling.

Instead of thermal paste on top of the GPU die, the TUF Gaming Radeon RX 9070 (XT and non-XT) OC and Prime Radeon RX 9070 (XT and non-XT) OC graphics cards will all feature a "phase-change thermal pad" that Asus says is "designed to give you reliable performance over the long term".

Asus explains: "The electrically non-conductive pad is a solid at room temperature but liquefies as it heats up. As it melts, it fills the microscopic gaps between the GPU and thermal module, providing superior thermal conductivity and enhanced heat dissipation, ensuring optimal performance, even for sustained, heavy GPU workloads.

"Additionally, the phase-change thermal pads offer exceptional longevity. They outlast traditional pastes by a significant margin, even for graphics cards that see heavy workloads on a regular basis. We can’t say that you’ll never want to repaste one of these graphics cards, but we are confident that it’ll be a long time before you even consider it."

The main reason to opt for a phase-change thermal pad instead of standard thermal paste, as Asus suggests, is because it can offer more longevity. This is because phase-change paste returns to a solid state at room temp, and this should prevent "pump out" in the long-term, which is when thermal paste squeezes away from the die centre over time, leading to increasing temperatures.

Our Nick uses a phase-change pad on his RTX 4080 Super for just that reason. You can see a picture of this below. The material being used to keep the thermals in check is Honeywell PTM7950, which has been shown to perform incredibly well.

RTX 4080 Super GPU die with thermal pad on top

(Image credit: Future)

The use of such thermal pads isn't completely new. XFX has used them for its Magnetic Air GPU models, for instance, such as on its Quicksilver AMD Radeon RX 7900GRE Magnetic Air.

It's new for Asus's TUF and Prime line-ups, though. And I do like how fitting it will be to have resilient thermal pads in the "TUF" cards. These cards, Asus reminds us, are armoured "in a metal exoskeleton for structural rigidity", have dual-ball fan bearings that "keep the fans spinning up to twice as long as conventional designs", and have "military-grade components for rock-solid power delivery and a long lifespan."

The Asus RX 9070 graphics cards themselves will feature 16 GB of VRAM and dual BIOS functionality to choose between a quieter or more performant mode. The Prime models "pack a triple-fan cooling solution into a compact 2.5-slot design".

I can't help but find it a little funny that 2.5-slot designs are now deemed "compact". But that's the world we live in now, I suppose: one of giant, powerful graphics cards. And given more power tends to mean more heat, I suppose this should make us extra grateful that manufacturers are looking to increase longevity by trying out new ways of keeping things cool.

Let's not get carried away with the "powerful" train of thought, though. Although we don't know for sure, it looks like these RDNA 4 GPUs might rival the RTX 4070 Ti—which is great, but nothing like the power that Nvidia's claiming of its latest high-end 50-series graphics cards. We'll have to wait and see.

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]]> <![CDATA[ AMD announces new driver-based AI for 'AMD-related questions', local file summaries, and image generation for its new line of graphics cards ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/software/ai/amd-announces-new-driver-based-ai-for-amd-related-questions-local-file-summaries-and-image-generation-for-its-new-line-of-graphics-cards/ 4yDRoiVwvXUgCquLf5V7Vm Mon, 06 Jan 2025 19:48:10 +0000 Mon, 06 Jan 2025 20:59:56 +0000

Announced today, AMD's Adrenalin software is getting an AI bump for compatible cards Radeon RX 9070 XT and Radeon RX 9070, which will be launching in the coming months.

Over the last few years, we have seen countless companies cash in on the popularity of AI with their own chatbots, image-generation tools, and more. Creatively named AMD Adrenalin AI, this is only possible in the upcoming line of AI-capable graphics cards from AMD, implying a level of on-device AI use, though we don't know to what extent that is the case.

We also don't yet know how this AI is being done and through which AI model. It could be in-house, which would explain part of its relatively small use case, or adapted from a larger model, which could make sense as there's a full-on image generation tool there.

The ability to summarize local documents means it can effectively go into PDFs, take out the necessary information, and give that to you. It could also be a good tool for clearing out storage as that's one of the bigger places for bloat as devices age.

However, we don't yet know if it can sum up multiple files at a time, or entire documents, so we will need to wait for this information before we figure out how useful it could be as a cleanup tool.

Finally, you can ask it specific AMD-related questions, like what AMD's frame generation technology is, what RDNA is, etc. This is effectively a chatbot designed to only answer specific, fairly niche questions on your rig.

Once again, we don't know the perimeters of this or what happens if you dare to stray outside of questions about AMD but, like any AI implementation, we'll have to get hands-on to see how this all works.

Interestingly, AMD's RDNA 4 architecture has specific improvements for AI and its upcoming range of AI chips for mobile use in the likes of the ASUS ROG Flow Z13 is built with Copilot+, Microsoft's AI suite in mind. This means we don't really know to what level users are actually expected to use AMD Adrenalin AI.

The next wave of graphics cards, as well as AMD's AI, is set to launch in Q1, 2025, so we should know a lot more about it in the coming months.

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]]> <![CDATA[ AMD just gave us our first look at the Radeon RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 RDNA 4 GPUs and I am officially whelmed ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/amd-just-gave-us-our-first-look-at-the-radeon-rx-9070-xt-and-rx-9070-rdna-4-gpus-and-i-am-officially-whelmed/ QtA2vYNrTGywHmDznAToeR Mon, 06 Jan 2025 19:46:10 +0000 Thu, 17 Apr 2025 10:04:52 +0000

CES 2025 is officially underway, and the first of our big GPU hitters has broken ranks. Sort of. AMD's RDNA 4 graphics cards have long been anticipated, and now we've been given a preview of what to expect from the next-generation AMD GPUs. In a pre-briefing at least, as AMD didn't actually show us anything regarding the new GPUs at the keynote itself.

Built on a 4nm process, the RDNA 4 architecture features second-generation Gen AI accelerators, third-gen Raytracing accelerators, and a second-generation AMD Radiance Display engine, with optimised compute units, "supercharged" AI compute, and improved ray tracing per CU.

A presentation slide from AMD listing the details of the AMD RDNA 4 architecture

(Image credit: AMD)

AMD is also promising better media encoding and decoding image quality and plans to introduce FSR 4 alongside the new architecture.

Unlike previous iterations, FSR 4 will be machine learning-powered, which hopefully will bring it closer to parity with Nvidia's AI-based DLSS. AMD says the FSR 4 upgrade feature will only be available on AMD Radeon RX 9070-series cards for supported games with AMD FSR 3.1 already integrated.

So, it looks like that improved AI compute will be necessary to power the latest version of AMD's upscaling tech, as AMD has also promised a "significant boost in AI" for the new cards.

The announcement was very light on details, so we're still not sure exactly how many compute units will be on offer for each GPU, how much VRAM will be provided, or what bus width the new cards will be using... really, not much technical detail at all beyond the existence of RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 models.

An AMD slide showing the Radeon rebranding for the RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 in relation to the previous series.

(Image credit: AMD)

So, a bit less than I was personally expecting, at the very least. Still, there's info to be gleaned here, including that the new cards will be available in Q1 of this year. With the next-generation Nvidia RTX 50-series cards expected to be announced later this evening, many will be hoping for AMD to provide some robust competition in the mid-range market for the new cards.

As for the high-end, however, that game was over before it really started. AMD's Jack Huyhn has already stated that the next-gen Radeon cards won't be targeting the top-end of the market, so really it looks like a potential RTX 5070 would be the card to beat for the RX 9070 XT moving forward.

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The CES logo on display at the show.

(Image credit: Future)

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And will it? Who knows. With details still thin on the ground, it's difficult to judge what the potential performance might be at this stage—and that's always a guessing game until we test the cards for ourselves.

Regardless, it looks like it'll be a little while longer before we get some cold hard data on exactly what sort of specs to expect from these cards, although hopefully, it won't be too long before we slam them into our benchmarking rigs for a thorough test session. In the meantime, this is what we've got. It's not a lot, but at least RDNA 4 is well on its way, ey?

]]> <![CDATA[ What a difference a year makes: Nvidia's RTX 40-series share of the Steam Hardware Survey is 80% larger than this time last year but its last-gen RTX chips still rule the roost ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/what-a-difference-a-year-makes-nvidias-rtx-40-series-share-of-the-steam-hardware-survey-is-80-percent-larger-than-this-time-last-year-but-its-last-gen-rtx-chips-still-rule-the-roost/ hWzotm5FQomMVDQqmnr5nW Mon, 04 Nov 2024 12:42:00 +0000 Thu, 17 Apr 2025 10:04:48 +0000

Another month, another set of results from Valve's PC hardware survey. It's comforting to know that some things never change but if you're Nvidia, then it will be even more comforting to note that one thing has changed—in the space of 12 months, its RTX 40-series of desktop graphics cards and laptop GPUs have an 80% bigger share of all the surveyed machines.

In the October 2023 survey, Ada Lovelace graphics processors accounted for 10% of all the sampled machines, whereas in the latest figures reported, it's climbed to 17%. While the number itself might not seem all that impressive, it's a sizeable increase.

For something to increase in this survey, another thing needs to go down and in the case of Nvidia's GPUs, the GTX 10-series (aka Pascal) saw the biggest drop, going from 16% to 11%.

However, Turing and Ampere (RTX 20- and RTX 30-series, respectively) remain barely unchanged, and the latter still dominates the survey, with over 30% of all the sampled GPUs—the RTX 3060 is the best of them all, accounting for 7% of the survey.

That said, the RTX 4060 (desktop and laptop) is very close behind, taking 5% of the survey's share of GPUs apiece.

AMD has faired even better, with RDNA 3 chips rising by almost 400% in the survey results, compared to this time last year. But don't get too excited, as the RX 7000 series still only accounts for 1% of the total survey, and Intel's Arc chips actually account for 3%, just to rub salt into the wound.

RDNA 2 GPUs have gone from being 2% of the total to around 6% (with the Radeon RX 6600 being the most popular) but AMD's total share of the survey pales in comparison to Nvidia's, reflecting the overall GPU market. At least its CPUs are making progress, accounting for just under 37% of all the sampled PCs.

As always, though, one should view the Steam survey results with a degree of caution. Valve doesn't state the number of sampled machines and it doesn't provide any details on the sampling method. I've always assumed the latter to be done on the basis that Valve's servers just ping a random selection of accounts to receive the call to participate in the survey, but who knows what it actually does?

Your next upgrade

Nvidia RTX 4070 and RTX 3080 Founders Edition graphics cards

(Image credit: Future)

Best CPU for gaming: The top chips from Intel and AMD.
Best gaming motherboard: The right boards.
Best graphics card: Your perfect pixel-pusher awaits.
Best SSD for gaming: Get into the game ahead of the rest.

Without any information about the sample size, it's impossible to say just how well the survey compares to research on global market share, but I keep track of all the monthly statistics just to see if any significant patterns can be discerned.

The main one is that RTX 30-series graphics cards and laptop GPUs are still just as popular as they have been since January 2023, if not more so.

I suspect part of this is because the current RTX 40-series models aren't exactly what you'd call cheap and if PC gamers had bought their Ampere GPUs during the pandemic when prices were excessively high, they're probably not going to feel like spending that kind of money again—or at least, not until there's a noticeable increase in gaming performance.

It'll be interesting to see when Ampere finally gives up its survey crown and more importantly, what GPU takes over the top slot: Will it be Ada Lovelace in a few more years? Answers on a postcard, please.

]]> <![CDATA[ AMD Fluid Motion Frames 2 is out now and hands Radeon gamers a new AI-optimised frame generation option in most games ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/amd-fluid-motion-frames-2-is-out-now-and-hands-radeon-gamers-a-new-ai-optimised-frame-generation-option-in-most-games/ gxizKqVojiC2KiGbAeoEGA Wed, 02 Oct 2024 10:53:39 +0000 Thu, 17 Apr 2025 10:04:53 +0000

With upcoming Nvidia GeForce RTX 50-series and AMD Radeon RX 8000-series graphics cards looming on the horizon, it's easy to forget about the graphics software that will work alongside them, such as frame generation. Well, if we needed a reminder, AMD's latest Adrenalin driver release should help.

AMD's just announced Adrenalin 24.9.1, which claims to feature changes that can help "boost gaming performance by 2.5x". This is primarily thanks to the introduction second generation of AMD's Fluid Motion Frames, AFMF 2, which has now been officially released with this latest driver.

AFMF 2 was previously in beta, and the first generation of the tech has been with us since January. Last month we saw an AMD blog fail hint at an upcoming AFMF 2 release, which has now come to pass.

AFMF is a driver-level frame gen technology that you can toggle on or off in the Adrenalin software, giving you some of the benefit of FSR or DLSS but without any game-specific optimisations. This means no per-game implementations required, but also no per-game performance and quality enhancing optimisations.

The second generation of FMF, AMD says, "adds new optimizations and tunable settings for a better frame generation experience, including AI-optimized enhancements for improved quality, lower latency, and better performance on integrated graphics". AFMF now also works alongside Radeon Chill, borderless full screen mode with 7000-series GPUs, and Vulkan and OpenGL games.

AMD's charts  show "on average 2.5x higher frame rates in selected games" using AFMF 2. However, this shouldn't be overstated because the results are from games run using HYPR-RX and FSR 2, not just AFMF 2. 

This, of course, will be a standard use case, because AFMF is for those looking to generate frames when FSR 3 isn't available, in which case it's likely you'll be using other optimisations such as FSR 2 (which doesn't have frame gen) and HYPR-RX (which optimises game settings for you).

Your next upgrade

Nvidia RTX 4070 and RTX 3080 Founders Edition graphics cards

(Image credit: Future)

Best CPU for gaming: The top chips from Intel and AMD.
Best gaming motherboard: The right boards.
Best graphics card: Your perfect pixel-pusher awaits.
Best SSD for gaming: Get into the game ahead of the rest.

But, standard use case or not, we can't attribute anywhere close to the majority of these "2.5x gains" to AFMF 2. In our Nick's testing—admittedly of an earlier build of the tech—he found AFMF 2 to offer a slight frame rate improvement over first-gen AFMF, among other non-frame rate benefits such as to latency and fast-motion handling.

So, in other words, don't expect AFMF 2 to be a complete game-changer. But it'll be nice to have, for sure, for those games that don't offer FSR 3 support—who's gunna complain about free frames? And given most handheld gaming PCs pack an AMD Radeon GPU, there should be quite a market for it.

Radeon 7000-series owners can enable it by enabling the HYPR-RX profile in Adrenalin, and 6000-series owners can enable it in Graphics Options in Adrenalin.

While AFMF 2 is the main change of note with the latest AMD driver, there are additions, too, such as Geometric Downscaling. AMD explains, "When videos are being played in a window that is smaller than the native resolution, Geometric Downscaling helps reduce visual artifacts and aliasing, allowing for smoother video quality."

You can download AMD Adrenalin 24.9.1 here.

]]> <![CDATA[ The really simple solution to AMD's collapsing gaming GPU market share is lower prices from launch ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/the-really-simple-solution-to-amds-collapsing-gaming-gpu-market-share-is-lower-prices-from-launch/ uLjtETGiNyJaxxUWrHFgTZ Tue, 01 Oct 2024 14:47:33 +0000

AMD says it wants more PC gaming graphics market share. As well it might, what with the latest data showing it owns just 12% of the PC graphics card market to Nvidia's monumental 88%.

There's a simple solution to that. Price. Now, this may seem like a retina-popping glimpse of the painfully obvious. But it needs saying, because all the evidence is that AMD doesn't get it.

These days, it feels like you know exactly how an AMD GPU launch is going to play out. A new GPU or family of GPUs is launched at prices that simply aren't appealing enough in terms of the performance and features comparison with Nvidia. Duly, they fail to get any traction.

Cue the usual stories about AMD's latest generation of GPUs making zero impact on the Steam hardware survey. Eventually, AMD drops prices to levels that would have made the cards really pretty interesting at launch. But by then, everyone has lost interest, Nvidia has acquired even more mindshare and the attention has shifted to next-gen GPUs.

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT is a perfect case in point. At launch, it was $900. For starters, that was weirdly proximate to AMD's $1,000 RX 7900 XTX flagship. But more importantly, it was just far too much money in a context where Nvidia is perceived to have such a substantial features advantage. Offering slightly better old-school raster performance and a bit more memory for a little less money than Nvidia is not going to cut it.

But imagine if the RX 7900 XT had launched at its current street price of about $680. Now you're talking. It's hard to say for sure that it would have been a smash hit. But it would have got my own scanners pinging, that's for sure. I'd have been sorely tempted by RTX 4080-plus raster performance and a heap more VRAM for a little over RTX 4070 money. 

Of course, there's always the question of profitability. Could AMD have done the RX 7900 XT at $680 and still made money? From the outside, that's hard to say. But what we can be sure about is that the way it's going about it isn't working. After all, AMD's GPU division is now flirting with single-digit market share.

AMD's GPU division is now flirting with single-digit market share.

So, here's a game plan for AMD. Take it on the chin with RDNA 4, its next-gen GPU architecture. Launch that new Radeon RX 8800 XT with RX 7900 XT levels of raster performance, plus a bit of a ray tracing upgrade, for $400 and absolutely blow everything else away at that price point.

Maybe AMD wouldn't make any money doing that. But so long as it's not a case of massive losses, it would reignite interest in AMD graphics. Meanwhile, move heaven and earth to get RDNA 5 working properly with what I'm expecting to be a true chiplet architecture, and cash in on the new-found appetite for Radeon graphics with a top-to-bottom family of GPUs around two years from now. Price them low, too. Not as low as RDNA 4, but still low enough to have them hammer Nvidia for raster at a given price point and be in touch for ray tracing.

Then build from there with subsequent generations. That isn't going to get AMD to 50% market share in two generations. But I bet it would move the needle, which categorically isn't happening now. AMD has barely managed a dent over the last decade.

There are caveats to all this. Should AMD launch an RX 8800 XT GPU that cheap with RX 7900 XT of performance, I suspect keeping real-world pricing at $400 won't be easy. But that's a good problem to have and AMD can work with board makers to ensure that regular batches of cards are sold at MSRP to those willing to queue a bit, even if the typical pricing is higher.

Your next upgrade

Nvidia RTX 4070 and RTX 3080 Founders Edition graphics cards

(Image credit: Future)

Best CPU for gaming: The top chips from Intel and AMD.
Best gaming motherboard: The right boards.
Best graphics card: Your perfect pixel-pusher awaits.
Best SSD for gaming: Get into the game ahead of the rest.

Likewise, it will require a fair old up front investment. The returns won't kick in for several years. But that's true however AMD goes about any attempt to win back substantial market share from an utterly dominant Nvidia. And this would be a positive plan, not the usual madness of repeating past failures and hoping things will turn out differently.

Moreover, AMD will definitely need to be very aggressive to offset the huge mindshare Nvidia now possesses. Nvidia's perceived advantage with its DLSS upscaling technologies and ray-tracing performance is so overwhelming, AMD has to do much more than just offer a slight raster performance edge for a tiny bit less money. Something more radical is clearly required.

Will AMD do it? For sure, it's an implausible scenario. But it's not an impossible one. Heck, maybe if AMD fans spread the word about a bit more the company might take notice. That kind of thing—companies responding to clear customer sentiment—has happened before. Maybe, just maybe, it will happen again.

]]> <![CDATA[ AMD's new RDNA 4 gaming-GPU-for-the-masses said to be delayed but will probably still be available before the Nvidia competition ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/amds-new-rdna-4-gaming-gpu-for-the-masses-said-to-be-delayed-but-will-probably-still-be-available-before-the-nvidia-competition/ RjA2q3EtGeJomvhWU9co5M Tue, 01 Oct 2024 10:59:13 +0000 Thu, 17 Apr 2025 10:04:55 +0000

A few weeks ago, we reported it looked like AMD's upcoming RDNA 4 graphics cards could arrive at CES and therefore beat Nvidia's next-gen mainstream GPUs to market, the idea being that RDNA 4 isn't going to compete at the high end and Nvidia traditionally only releases top-end variants of any new GPU family at first.

Well, we have an update, and at first glance it's not the best news. YouTube Channel Moore's Law is Dead (MLID) reports that AMD is delaying RDNA 4. But not because there's any problem with the new graphics architecture itself.

Instead, the reported issue is that AMD and its selling partners still have a glut of existing RDNA 3-based graphics cards to shift. And most of those need to sell first, because the new RDNA 4 cards will make the old stuff look hopelessly overpriced for the performance they give you.

Now, MLID is an outlet of distinctly debatable repute. However, among the misses the channel has certainly had some notable hits over the years and this one rings true.

AMD is now on record with the basic notion that RDNA 4 is not going after the high end. It absolutely makes sense that the purported Radeon RX 8800 XT will make the likes of, say, the existing RX 7900 XT or RX 7800 XT look like a bad deal. We're expecting it to offer something like RX 7900 XT performance, but for about $500.

MLID's sources say that the Navi 31 GPU, which forms the basis of the likes of the RX 7900 GRE, RX 7900 XT and RX 7900 XTX graphics chipsets, is proving particularly hard to shift, with one "major retailer" claiming to be suffering a "huge" oversupply problem.

It's certainly true that there's no problem buying the likes of a RX 7900 XT right now. Current pricing on Newegg is around $680 for a RX 6900 XT, miles below its original $900 MSRP. There are also numerous different RX 7900 XTs available from several board makers.

All that implies, though does not prove, the notion plentiful if not problematic supply may be accurate. You certainly wouldn't want to be trying to sell a RX 7900 XT for nearly $700 if the new RX 8800 XT matches it for $500.

Anyway, the next question is what sort of delay we're looking at. MLID's sources all point towards a launch in the first quarter of 2025. And you know what, that actually scans with our previous story concerning a CES launch in January.

Your next upgrade

Nvidia RTX 4070 and RTX 3080 Founders Edition graphics cards

(Image credit: Future)

Best CPU for gaming: The top chips from Intel and AMD.
Best gaming motherboard: The right boards.
Best graphics card: Your perfect pixel-pusher awaits.
Best SSD for gaming: Get into the game ahead of the rest.

So the "delay" angle of the MLID drop is probably in contrast to the traditional GPU launch cycle, which has seen new GPU families roll out around October to December for the last few cycles.

Right now, there's very little reason to think that AMD is about to unveil RDNA 4. You could say that same of Nvidia's upcoming Blackwell generation of GPUs, likely to be branded RTX 50 series.

So to sum up, this all basically scans. AMD's RDNA probably won't launch until early in the new year. It definitely won't be competing at the high end. And unless Nvidia does something very unusual, it should have a bit of breathing space before Nvidia wheels out the likes of an RTX 5070 with which we're expecting the top RDNA 4 cards to compete.

]]> <![CDATA[ AMD's RDNA 4 gaming-GPUs-for-the-people expected to launch at CES in January ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/amds-rdna-4-gaming-gpus-for-the-people-expected-to-launch-at-ces-in-january/ qbeMmm8ZZN94jkvSS73o2L Wed, 11 Sep 2024 16:23:45 +0000 Thu, 17 Apr 2025 10:04:55 +0000

AMD will roll out its new budget-friendly RDNA GPUs, designed to win back major market share from Nvidia, at the CES show in January. So says Benchlife (via Igor's Lab) and if correct it will very likely mean AMD's next mainstream GPUs beat Nvidia's competing chips to market by as much as six months.

The Taiwanese website claims that graphics card makers, otherwise known as AIBs or add-in board manufacturers, have begun boot testing their RDNA 4 cards using AMD's upcoming Navi 48 and Navi 44 GPUs in preparation for that CES launch.

As Andy reported a couple of days ago, AMD recently confirmed rumours that RDNA 4 will not target the high end. Instead, AMD wants the new GPUs to be affordable for millions of gamers, not just "people who can afford Porsches and Ferraris".

AMD's senior vice president and general manager of the Computing and Graphics Business group Jack Huyhn also explained that the aim is to increase AMD's GPU market share from around 19% today to more like 40% or even 50%.

Given that enthusiast-class graphics cards only make up a small proportion of the market, it's certainly true that any attempt to gain that much market share would ultimately come down to selling a lot more mainstream gaming graphics cards. The only question is how to get there.

AMD's most obvious route, and the one it appears to be taking, is to double down on the mainstream market and make the best possible GPU at a price more gamers can afford—while allowing Nvidia to dominate a high-end market that might be lucrative in narrow terms, but doesn't amount to very many gamers.

Huyhn essentially says AMD needs to be able to show game developers that lots of gamers use AMD GPUs in order to encourage them to put the effort into optimising for AMD GPUs.

This all absolutely makes sense. What's more, if AMD does indeed roll out RDNA 4 in January at the CES, odds are the GPUs will go on sale months before the more affordable members of the Nvidia RTX 50 series, which may not appear until June of July.

So, AMD's plan looks well crafted. And yet that doesn't mean it will work. For proof, observe the difficulty AMD has had making inroads into the CPU market against Intel.

AMD's CPU products arguably returned to competitiveness with the launch of the first Ryzen CPUs back in March 2017. According to Mercury Research, when those first Zen 1 chips hit the market, AMD had roughly 12% market share for desktop PC processors. Today, the latest figures show AMD at 23% for the second quarter of this year.

Nvidia RTX 4090 Founders Edition

The RTX 4090 is undeniably a fabulous pixel pumper. But hardly anyone can afford it. (Image credit: Future)

That's significant progress, for sure. But it also amounts to just 11% more market share after seven years of good product and hard graft. In other words, just producing good chips doesn't mean AMD suddenly slices off huge chunks of market share.

If anything, you might expect that market "stickiness" to be even stronger for graphics. Nvidia is utterly dominant when it comes to GPU mindshare. Moreover, where CPUs have mostly been a pure performance play with consumers only really having to compare a few benchmarks, graphics products are far more complicated.

Do you care about plain old raster rendering performance? How much value do you put on ray tracing? And what about upscaling and frame generation. Without question, Nvidia has been leading on features. It was first to put hardware ray-tracing acceleration into its GPUs and remains much more performant in that class of rendering. It has also driven all the innovation in upscaling and frame generation.

Point being, even if AMD rolls out RDNA 4 in Janurary and even if the new GPUs offer a really strong performance and value proposition, it still won't be easy for AMD to steal market share from Nvidia. More likely, it will take several generations of highly competitive GPUs to chip away at both Nvidia's market share and mind share.

Your next upgrade

Nvidia RTX 4070 and RTX 3080 Founders Edition graphics cards

(Image credit: Future)

Best CPU for gaming: The top chips from Intel and AMD.
Best gaming motherboard: The right boards.
Best graphics card: Your perfect pixel-pusher awaits.
Best SSD for gaming: Get into the game ahead of the rest.

It's also worth pointing out that AMD's new stance of targeting the mainstream may be as much about pragmatism as strategy. It's though the new Navi 48 and 44 GPUs are monolithic signalling an at least temporary backtrack on the chiplet approach that debuted in RDNA 4 GPUs like the Radeon RX 7900 XTX and RX 7800 XT.

In other words, the real reason why AMD isn't launching a high-end RDNA 4 GPU might be because it was relying on a new and more advanced chiplet approach for the high end for this generation and hasn't been able to make it work.

Indeed, AMD's Jack Huyhn implied that AMD's return to high-end graphics would hinge on chiplet technology. From the outside, it's impossible to say for sure what has dictated AMD's new strategy. But what does seem undeniable is that AMD's path to 50% market share will almost certainly be gradual, even if it makes some really great graphics cards.

]]> <![CDATA[ 'I don’t want AMD to be the company that only people who can afford Porsches and Ferraris can buy': AMD's Jack Huyhn says being 'King of the Hill' isn't the priority for its next-gen GPUs ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/i-dont-want-amd-to-be-the-company-that-only-people-who-can-afford-porsches-and-ferraris-can-buy-amds-jack-huynh-says-being-king-of-the-hill-isnt-the-priority-for-its-next-gen-gpus/ ybXUS9RpeTB2xz6ERHuusP Mon, 09 Sep 2024 10:54:17 +0000 Mon, 09 Sep 2024 10:57:52 +0000

When it comes to the top-end of the GPU market, AMD has struggled in recent years against Nvidia's offerings. The RX 7900 XT and RX 7900 XTX are far from bad graphics cards, but put up against the RTX 4080 Super and RTX 4090, it can be a tough sell to recommend the AMD cards against the green team opposition unless the price is right.

In an interview with Tom's Hardware, AMD's senior vice president and general manager of the Computing and Graphics Business group Jack Huyhn seems to think that going for the high-end of the market with the next-generation of AMD GPUs shouldn't be a top priority:

"I’m looking at scale, and AMD is in a different place right now. We have this debate quite a bit at AMD, right? So the question I ask is, the PlayStation 5, do you think that’s hurting us? It’s $499. So, I ask, is it fun to go King of the Hill? Again, I'm looking for scale. Because when we get scale, then I bring developers with us.

"So, my number one priority right now is to build scale, to get us to 40 to 50 percent of the market faster. Do I want to go after 10% of the TAM [Total Addressable Market] or 80%? I’m an 80% kind of guy because I don’t want AMD to be the company that only people who can afford Porsches and Ferraris can buy. We want to build gaming systems for millions of users."

That would tie in with long-standing rumours that AMD's RDNA 4 GPUs were focussing on the mid-range sector, without a halo product to compete with the RTX 4090 (or whatever the RTX 5090 might end up being). 

When asked if AMD was going after the flagship market at all, however, Huyhn did leave the door open for potential ultra-high-end cards in future:

"One day, we may. But my priority right now is to build scale for AMD. Because without scale right now, I can't get the developers. If I tell developers, ‘I’m just going for 10 percent of the market share,’ they just say, ‘Jack, I wish you well, but we have to go with Nvidia.’ So, I have to show them a plan that says, 'Hey, we can get to 40% market share with this strategy.'

"Then they say, 'I’m with you now, Jack. Now I’ll optimize on AMD.' Once we get that, then we can go after the top."

It's an interesting point. Given that AMD's GPU market share was estimated to be around 19% in the last quarter of 2023, ensuring that developers still think it's worth their while to optimise for AMD cards may be a priority. Although it could also be read as an expectation management strategy for upcoming cards that might not be as performant as AMD would like.

Still, if the new AMD cards can deliver excellent mid-range performance for significantly less cash than Nvidia's offerings, that'd likely tempt more gamers into the fold.

Your next upgrade

Nvidia RTX 4070 and RTX 3080 Founders Edition graphics cards

(Image credit: Future)

Best CPU for gaming: The top chips from Intel and AMD.
Best gaming motherboard: The right boards.
Best graphics card: Your perfect pixel-pusher awaits.
Best SSD for gaming: Get into the game ahead of the rest.

That being said, what you get with a modern Nvidia card is the ability to take advantage of DLSS 3—and in the mid to budget range cards, great upscaling with significant performance gains is likely to matter to gamers looking for the most bang for their buck.

While AMD's FSR 3.1 is capable of keeping up in the performance stakes, in our testing we found it still has a long way to go when it comes to preserving image quality compared to Nvidia's solution.

More than that, however, if Nvidia has no real competition at the top-end of the market for a new generation, there's no real incentive to lower pricing to be competitive. If the new AMD cards really are missing a high-end competitor, that means Nvidia is really the only place to go for the best performance if you've got the cash to splash.

Good news for mid-range buyers, I guess. For those looking for top-end performance, however, it looks like Nvidia might be the only game in town for the new generation of cards.

]]> <![CDATA[ Black Myth: Wukong—Here are the best settings to use with Arc, GeForce, and Radeon graphics cards ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/black-myth-wukonghere-are-the-best-settings-to-use-with-arc-geforce-and-radeon-graphics-cards/ Fe2LNcqazdjoE6pBhUD96k Mon, 19 Aug 2024 14:29:17 +0000 Thu, 17 Apr 2025 10:04:53 +0000

Black Myth: Wukong is perhaps the first game to really showcase the capabilities of Epic's Unreal Engine 5, utilising Nanite virtual geometry, Lumen ray-traced global illumination, and virtual shadow maps for its sumptuous environments, detailed character models, shadows, reflections, water caustics, and more.

The PC hardware requirements are pretty light but they're really only the minimums for running the game, as I'm sure many people noticed when they first ran the official benchmark tool, released by developer GameScience last week. The full game is more dependent on the performance of the graphics card, rather than the CPUthough as long as your CPU has six cores, 12 threads, or more, and it's no more than six years old, it will cope fine.

I've been testing a preview release of the full game, which has a slightly earlier version of the game's engine than that used by benchmark tool, to see how well it runs on different gaming PC configurations. Although I used a Ryzen 9 9950X processor for the performance results, I also tested Black Myth: Wukong with a Core i5 9600K, a Ryzen 5 5600X, and a Core i7 14700KF.

There is a difference between them, of course, but it's pretty small and mostly limited to how good the 1% lows are. That and the length shader compilation phase when the game first starts—with the 9600K, it took over 10 minutes to run through it all, whereas the 9950X took less than a minute.

Before we look at what are the best settings to use for various graphics cards, it's worth noting that some aspects below may well change in the coming weeks, as during my tests I noticed quite a difference between how the newly released benchmark tool runs compared to the game itself, and to its built-in benchmark. The latter is essentially the same as the released tool but the earlier code is a little buggier and slower.

To determine the best settings, I aimed for a consistent 60 fps—not just as an average, but also ensuring that the 1% low frame rate is as close to this target as possible. In some cases, that's not been possible but the settings below should still give you a smooth gaming experience.

All of the GPUs I've tested, bar one, are generally fine with using the high quality preset or better. However, three specific settings are very demanding on the GPU—shadows, visual effects, and global illumination—and these all need to be lowered for the majority of graphics cards. Fortunately, turning up the other settings barely makes any dint in the performance.

That means the best settings to use are a combination of the preset, along with tweaks to shadows, the visual effects, and the global illumination.

Best settings for Intel Arc GPUs

For testing Alchemist-powered graphics cards, I used an Arc A770, which is currently Intel's best GPU. If you have a lower-tier model, then you'll need to lower the quality settings further.

Despite the game supporting Intel's XeSS upscaler, you're better off using AMD's FSR system. They work just as well as each other, but the latter allows you to enable frame generation to boost the overall performance.

I find that at 1080p, the settings that gave the best balance between overall performance and visual fidelity are the high quality preset, modified with shadows and visual effects set to medium and global illumination set to low, along with FSR at 75% and frame generation enabled.

A screenshot from Black Myth: Wukong showcasing the use of optimised graphics settings
GameScience
A screenshot from Black Myth: Wukong showcasing the use of optimised graphics settings
GameScience

As with so many new games that get launched, Intel's GPUs never quite work to their full potential and we'll have to wait until Intel updates its drivers for the game to fix some of the stutter and low performance issues I encountered.

Stutters were present in all the hardware configurations I tested (and it's mostly due to the use of Lumen, along with hitches during asset streaming—aka traversal stutter—rather than a shader compilation thing) but they were worst when using the A770.

Best settings for AMD Radeon GPUs

As there is an enormous range of Radeon graphics cards on the market, it's impossible to have one setting that works for all of them. I tested a Radeon RX 5700 XT, RX 6750 XT, and an RX 7800 XT.

The first two struggle to hit a consistent 60 fps with the high preset with FSR 66% at 1440p, but dropping the shadows and visual effects to medium for both cards and global illumination to low for the RX 5700 XT and medium for the RX 6750 XT improves matters considerably. The RDNA 2 card still can't quite run over 60 fps but applying frame generation solves that issue entirely.

AMD's RX 7800 XT is better suited to the very high preset at 1440p, FSR 66%, although once again, a smooth 60 fps eluded me until I lowered those three demanding settings to high. Firing up frame generation improves matters no end, though the algorithm isn't perfect at handling hair and foliage.

A screenshot from Black Myth: Wukong showcasing the impact of optimising graphics settings
GameScience
A screenshot from Black Myth: Wukong showcasing the impact of optimising graphics settings
GameScience

In some of the patch notes for the preview release of the game I tested, the developers noted that the implementation of FSR isn't perfect yet, so there's a chance the glitches may be resolved in time and perhaps even more performance is on the cards.

Best settings for Nvidia GeForce GPUs

Given the promotions Nvidia has been running for Black Myth: Wukong, it should come as no surprise that the game runs best on GeForce RTX cards—not only can one use higher quality settings than with AMD and Intel GPUs, but there are fewer glitches too, especially when using its proprietary Frame Generation feature.

That said, you'll still need to optimise the setting to get the most out of your Nvidia GPU and once again, it's the shadows, visual effects, and global illumination options that require lowering to keep the performance at an acceptable level. Unless you happen to be using an RTX 4080 or better, of course.

I tested an RTX 3060 Ti and RTX 4070 at 1440p, with the very high preset and DLSS set to 75%. Both cards struggle to reach a consistent 60 fps but for the RTX 3060 Ti, dropping the three most demanding settings to medium and DLSS to 50%, pushed the 1% lows from 29 fps up to 55 fps. Not perfect but pretty close, and the overall experience is pretty smooth.

A screenshot from Black Myth:Wukong highlight the impact of using optimised graphics settings
GameScience
A screenshot from Black Myth:Wukong highlight the impact of using optimised graphics settings
GameScience

For 4K testing, I've used an RTX 4070 Ti and an RTX 4080 Super. The latter easily copes with the cinematic preset and very high ray tracing (the maximum settings all round), averaging 75 fps, though only with DLSS set to 50% and frame generation enabled. I did find that lowering shadows, visual effects, and global illumination helped lift the 1% lows from 57 to 63 fps.

The RTX 4070 Ti requires shadows and visual effects dropped to very high and global illumination to high, and medium quality ray tracing, to always run above 60 fps.

It's clear that if you want to run Black Myth: Wukong at 4K, with every setting on its maximum value, you're going to need an RTX 4090 to get any chance of reaching 90 fps on average, even with 50% upscaling and frame generation.

Best upscaling value to use with any GPU

Rather than using set configurations, such as Quality or Balanced, for the upscaler, Black Myth: Wukong just uses a slightly confusing percentage slider.

For DLSS and FSR the corresponding presets you might see elsewhere translate to: Quality 67%, Balanced 58%, Performance 50%, Ultra Performance 33%

For XeSS that works out as: Ultra Quality 77%, Quality 67%, Balanced 59%, Performance 50%.

A screenshot from Black Myth: Wukong showing the use of Nvidia DLSS upscaling
GameScience
A screenshot from Black Myth: Wukong showing the use of Nvidia DLSS upscaling
GameScience
A screenshot from Black Myth: Wukong showing the use of Nvidia DLSS upscaling
GameScience
A screenshot from Black Myth: Wukong showing the use of Nvidia DLSS upscaling
GameScience
A screenshot from Black Myth: Wukong showing the use of Nvidia DLSS upscaling
GameScience

If you have a budget or older gaming PC and normally game at 1080p, then stick to the medium or high quality preset and set the render scale to around 66%. It's best to avoid going lower, at this resolution, as it makes everything a little too blurry.

With high-end gaming PCs, or just those usually capable of 1440p, especially those that support DLSS, you can just about get away with using a 50% render scale but that value is best suited to 4K resolutions.

What ray tracing settings to use

Black Myth: Wukong uses Unreal Engine 5's Lumen ray tracing system for global illumination and lighting. However, it also offers three ray tracing settings (low, medium, and very high—all of which involve a highly accurate but very demanding path tracing algorithm) but relatively few GPUs will be able to cope with it, even with upscaling and frame generation enabled.

For example, with a Radeon RX 7800 XT using the very high preset at 1440p, and with FSR set to 66% with frame gen, enabling very high ray tracing halves the average frame rate and drops the 1% low figure down into the 30 fps zone. It induces a lot of stutters and the reduction in performance simply isn't worth the admittedly noticeable improvement in lighting and reflections.

A screenshot from Black Myth: Wukong showcasing the game's photo mode with maximum graphics settings
GameScience
A screenshot from Black Myth: Wukong showcasing the use of the game's photo mode, with maximum graphics settings
GameScience
A screenshot from Black Myth: Wukong showcasing the use of the game's photo mode, with maximum graphics settings
GameScience
A screenshot from Black Myth: Wukong showcasing the use of the game's photo mode, with maximum graphics settings
GameScience
A screenshot from Black Myth: Wukong showcasing the use of maximum graphics settings, including ray tracing, upscaling, and frame generation
GameScience

Realistically, if you want to enjoy Black Myth: Wukong at its visual perfection, with ray tracing maxed out, then you need a high-end RTX 30-series graphics card or an RTX 4070 or better. Even then, you'll still have to drop the render scale to lower than 60% (50% if you're gaming in 4K) and enable frame generation.

The low RT option isn't really worth employing, although it does improve water reflections, removing the annoying halo effect that smears around the player's character when standing in front of any water surface.

RT medium is a good balance between an overall clear improvement to lighting and shadows, while RT very high is glorious to behold—travelling through wooded areas, with sparkling light beams and perfectly dabbled shadows, is well worth the performance cost if you're sporting a high-end Ada card.

Frame generation and motion blur

Black Myth: Wukong doesn't require an ultra-low input latency to be enjoyable, particularly when played with a controller rather than a keyboard and mouse. That makes it an ideal use case for frame generation but there's one fly in the ointment, and that's motion blur.

This is a rendering effect that's designed to give the impression of rapid movement and Black Myth: Wukong has two variations: strong and weak. In the case of the former, it's somewhat overdone and no matter which vendor's implementation of frame generation you use, the combination of the two algorithms produces very noticeable artefacts.

A screenshot from Black Myth:Wukong highlight the visual impact of using motion blur with frame generation
GameScience
A screenshot from Black Myth:Wukong highlight the visual impact of using motion blur with frame generation
GameScience
A screenshot from Black Myth:Wukong highlight the visual impact of using motion blur with frame generation
GameScience

The obvious solution is to disable it but in the preview version of the game I tested, applying motion blur actually helped mask some of the minor stutters you get when frantically swinging the camera about. This may well be fixed in the final release and if you play with a controller, you don't notice it at all, so if you're going to use frame generation, then I strongly recommend you disable motion blur.

One thing you won't need to worry about with using frame generation is the extra VRAM it uses, as Black Myth: Wukong sensibly keeps everything under control. None of the cards I tested came anywhere near to exceeding their VRAM limit and that's because the game seems to streaming assets as needed, rather than loading them all in at once.

That does lead to some stuttering in places, though, but it's better than the game's performance tanking completely.

]]> <![CDATA[ AMD introduces a beta preview of Fluid Motion Frames 2, with 'AI-optimized enhancements for improved quality, lower latency, and better performance' ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/amd-introduces-a-beta-preview-of-fluid-motion-frames-2-with-ai-optimized-enhancements-for-improved-quality-lower-latency-and-better-performance/ QT7aQFQT8NfGsJXRdWkJjR Mon, 29 Jul 2024 15:35:58 +0000

In January of this year, AMD updated its Adrenalin software for RX 7000 and RX 6000 series GPUs to include a driver-based frame generation system called AMD Fluid Motion Frames (AFMF), which didn't require any support from a game to use it. Now, six months on, AMD's coding wizards are back at it again, this time launching a preview version of AFMF 2.

So, what's new? Well, it's mostly about fine-tuning what was already there but reading through the dev blog on AFMF 2 suggests that quite a lot has been tweaked and twiddled with.

First up are some 'AI-optimized enhancements' in the form of a smoother fallback system, which temporarily disables AFMF 2 in high-motion scenes to preserve image quality and an updated frame generation algorithm. It's worth noting that, unlike Nvidia, AMD's frame gen tech doesn't use AI directly to do, just that AMD have used it to tweak the system.

Next up, the whole system is now far more adjustable. Up to now, AFMF has simply been an on-off toggle in the Adrenalin software, but now you can choose a resolution-appropriate fallback system (High for 1440p or greater, Standard for 1080p), and you can lower how much shader power is required to run the algorithm, by switching between Quality or Performance—the latter being aimed at chips with integrated Radeon GPUs, such as those in most handheld gaming PCs.

AMD has also reduced the amount of latency the use of Fluid Motion Frames adds to a game, claiming a 28% reduction in Cyberpunk 2077 and a 12% reduction in Counter-Strike 2. Lastly, AFMF 2 now works in games running in borderless windowed mode, as well as exclusive fullscreen, and it also supports OpenGL and Vulkan-powered games.

Actually, no. Lastly lastly, is the fact that if you enable Radeon Chill (an FPS limiter) after switching on AFMF 2, the former will prevent the FPS from going above your monitor's maximum refresh rate, helping to prevent screen-tearing.

That's an awful lot of changes but the important thing to ask here is, do they work? Is AFMF 2 better than AFMF 1? As AMD has only just released the preview drivers, I've not had long to test it out but gave Homeworld 3 a few runs, comparing the older system to the new one, with a Ryzen 9 7900 and Radeon RX 6750 XT.

AMD promotional images for AMD Fluid Motion Frames 2, including settings options in the Adrenalin software package
AMD
AMD promotional images for AMD Fluid Motion Frames 2, including settings options in the Adrenalin software package
AMD
AMD promotional images for AMD Fluid Motion Frames 2, including settings options in the Adrenalin software package
AMD
AMD promotional images for AMD Fluid Motion Frames 2, including settings options in the Adrenalin software package
AMD

Homeworld 3 is a good game to test this with, as it has no internal support for frame generation and it's pretty CPU-limited in most scenarios. Without AFMF enabled, my test averaged 35 fps—that jumped to 66 fps with AFMF and 74 fps with AFMF 2. It was very smooth with AFMF 2 and I honestly couldn't spot any graphical oddities creeping in.

It's worth noting that if a game has its own FPS counter, it won't show the gains properly, as the game won't know about the interpolated frames. Just use the Adrenalin software to track any changes in performance.

I then ran through a few rounds of Counter-Strike 2 to see if the improved system does handle fast motion better. To my tired old eyes, it's certainly better—there's definitely less tearing going on—but I'm very slow at CS2 and my test rig only uses a 60 Hz 4K monitor, so it's not an in-depth check of the improvements.

If you have a Radeon RX 7000 or RX 6000 series graphics card, or an APU with an integrated Radeon 700M GPU, then it's well worth downloading the preview drivers and giving AFMF 2 a whirl. You might be surprised by how good it actually is.

]]> <![CDATA[ XFX's new Magnetic Air graphics cards let you hot-swap fans, solving the apparent plague of fan hub axle separation. What do you mean you've never heard of it? ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/xfxs-new-magnetic-air-graphics-cards-let-you-hot-swap-fans-solving-the-plague-of-fan-hub-axle-separation/ RnqMXMfzASbw2tZoycu7d Wed, 19 Jun 2024 10:15:10 +0000 Wed, 19 Jun 2024 14:20:38 +0000

Have you ever wanted to throw a cooling fan at a graphics card and watch it magically snap into place? Do you dream of solving the curse of fan hub axle separation that has "plagued traditional GPUs"? Fancy the idea of being able to attach 3 kg worth of fans to a graphics card? If the answer is yes to any of these questions, then you'll be pleased to know that XFX's new Magnetic Air range of Radeon graphics cards lets you do all of these.

We had suspected that something like this was coming our way, from the teaser video that XFX had posted last week. But now the full details have been released and we can confirm our guess was correct: hot-swappable cooling fans. Specifically, these are magnetically attached to the hub and use a series of circular traces in the hub and metal pins in the fab, to transmit power and PWM data.

According to XFX, not only do these fans have "improved longevity" and "stable performance for the entire life of the fan", but they also make "fan hub axle separation a thing of the past"—something that has apparently "plagued traditional GPUs." I'm clearly well out of the loop here as it's not something that I've ever experienced in a graphics card.

Come to think of it, I've not once had to replace a cooling fan for a GPU because it's failed. I've cleaned and lubed some in the past, to reduce how much noise they make, and I changed entire systems for better thermal performance, but never a renegade fan or three.

Cheap, nasty fans do just fall off the axle once they've worn away over time but has this really been a plague? If it was then something would have been done about it by now, so there's a fair degree of hyperbole to that statement. That's not to say XFX's system is without merit, as it could well be a much better setup than what one normally gets on a graphics card. Without independent testing, though, you'll just have to take XFX's word on the benefits.

The new Magnetic Air fans have been applied to three RDNA 3-powered Radeon graphics cards—RX 7900 XTX, 7900 GRE, and 7800 XT—with some of these coming in a white colour option. Fancy fans aside, the stand-out feature for me is the use of Honeywell PTM7950, as the thermal interface material (TIM) between the GPU die and heatsink.

PTM7950 is a material that's solid at room temperature but turns all goopy at higher temperatures. Typically known as a phase change material, it's better than standard thermal paste for GPUs because it won't creep out from underneath the heatsink when squashed down.

(Image credit: XFX)

Graphics chips that use lots of power often suffer from high hotspots which only get worse over time, because the thermal paste doesn't stay in a uniform distribution. The use of this phase change material pretty much solves that issue entirely.

Normally, PTM7950 is fiddly to apply, as the material is very fragile, so it's great to see a graphics card vendor pre-apply it for you. Hopefully, more vendors will offer this, especially on top-end models.

Your next upgrade

Nvidia RTX 4070 and RTX 3080 Founders Edition graphics cards

(Image credit: Future)

Best CPU for gaming: The top chips from Intel and AMD.
Best gaming motherboard: The right boards.
Best graphics card: Your perfect pixel-pusher awaits.
Best SSD for gaming: Get into the game ahead of the rest.

Two of the Magnetic Air models sport a minor bump to their clocks, compared to AMD's reference designs. For example, the Qicksilver AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE Magnetic Air comes with Game and Boost clocks of 2,052 and 2,395 MHz respectively—9% and 7% higher than standard.

That's not a huge difference and you're unlikely to notice it in games, even testing one back-to-back with a standard Radeon.

One might expect prices for the Magnetic Air graphics cards to be painfully high but XFX has kept them relatively sensible. The Mercury RX 7900 XTX Magnetic Air is $979.99 at Newegg and the RX 7800 XT version is $529.99 at Newegg. Yes, you can get cheaper versions of both Radeon GPUs, and they'll run just as fast, but they won't have PTM7950 or fans that you can flip out whenever you fancy.

]]> <![CDATA[ AMD Linux devs jamming nearly 24,000 lines of RDNA 4 supporting code into its mainstream driver suggests next-gen launch may be close at hand ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/amd-linux-devs-jamming-nearly-24000-lines-of-rdna-4-supporting-code-into-its-mainstream-driver-suggests-next-gen-launch-may-be-close-at-hand/ hb3MYigRPFbzGPxPeN9Q3A Mon, 13 May 2024 15:42:18 +0000 Thu, 17 Apr 2025 10:04:55 +0000

AMD's software engineers have been very busy of late, updating its Linux GPU kernel driver, shader compiler, and other code sources to provide support for its next generation of graphics architecture. Now it's done the same for its RadeonSI OpenGL driver, adding almost 24,000 lines of code for GFX12, aka RDNA 4, to the Mesa open-source graphics library.

The big code merge was spotted by Phoronix and there's only one reason why engineers would be so busy updating their code base for an architecture that isn't currently on the market—it will be very soon.

RDNA 3, the current GPU chip design, is internally codenamed as GFX11 by AMD, so anything referring to GFX12 is clearly about its successor. I'm not talking about RDNA 3.5, which is listed as GFX11.5 and will only bring minor changes when it appears in AMD's Strix Point and Strix Halo laptop APUs. All of the recent code merges are for RDNA 4, although the files themselves don't tell us much about what we can expect from the forthcoming architecture.

Radeon RX 7000-series GPUs were first introduced in November 2022, with the RX 7900 XTX and XT being the first consumer-level graphics cards to use chiplets. Despite having lots of performance, AMD has struggled to sell as many RDNA 3 cards as it has RDNA 2 ones, as the latter has generally offered better bang-for-buck.

Thanks to dwindling stocks of certain RX 6000 models and various price cuts for the likes of the RX 7900 XT and 7800 XT, things are a little rosier but overall, AMD hasn't managed to capture a significantly better share of the discrete GPU market. So what things can we expect, or hope, to see with RDNA 4—or another way of asking this is, what needs to be improved in AMD's next GPU architecture for sales to improve?

As there's nothing wrong with the fundamental rendering performance of AMD's design (aka rasterization), it comes down to areas where RDNA 3 trails behind Nvidia's Ada Lovelace-powered RTX 40-series. So that's ray tracing, leveraging machine learning for better performance, and power efficiency. And that's where the rumours have pegged AMD's new GPU architecture as being different from the current generation; in a different way of approaching ray tracing for RDNA 4. 

RDNA 3 GPUs have dedicated hardware for accelerating ray-triangle intersections, but nothing for doing BVH traversals—that's all done via the same units that handle all of the usual shaders. It's a similar situation for doing calculations for deep learning neural networks. Where Intel and Nvidia have large dedicated matrix units, AMD uses a combination of 'AI accelerators' and shader units to achieve the same thing.

And while the likes of the Radeon RX 7900 XTX have the same average power consumption as an equivalent card from Nvidia, the peak power demand is typically a lot higher, as is the idle consumption. Multiple chiplets and the complex Infinity Link system are great for wafer yields but the first implementation of them needs fine-tuning to make it all more power efficient.

Your next upgrade

Nvidia RTX 4070 and RTX 3080 Founders Edition graphics cards

(Image credit: Future)

Best CPU for gaming: The top chips from Intel and AMD.
Best gaming motherboard: The right boards.
Best graphics card: Your perfect pixel-pusher awaits.
Best SSD for gaming: Get into the game ahead of the rest.

However, it's looking increasingly likely that we won't see a very high-end RDNA 4 graphics card, or certainly not at launch. There's been much talk of AMD skipping the halo sector for its next GPU release and focusing more on the mid-range and mainstream markets, which points to sticking with a monolithic design or one with just a few chiplets.

Whatever changes AMD has in store for us with RDNA 4, at least it's got everything all set from a driver perspective, because if it's all there for the relatively small Linux market, it's also certainly got everything in hand for the dominant DirectX market. 

And best of all, it looks like we don't have much longer to wait to find out how good it is.

]]> <![CDATA[ AMD's gaming graphics business looks like it's in terminal decline ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/amds-gaming-graphics-business-looks-like-its-in-terminal-decline/ Hd2GXTinSPMUnNnqbiUL3 Fri, 10 May 2024 15:20:38 +0000 Fri, 10 May 2024 15:20:42 +0000

I hate to say I told you so. But back in October I pondered whether AMD might give up on gaming graphics chips for PCs. Now, AMD has released it's latest financial results and things only look more ugly.

For the first quarter of 2024, AMD said that its gaming revenues were down a massive 48% compared to the same period in 2023. While some of that fall reflects an inevitable cyclical downturn in revenues from games consoles—put simply, the consoles have been out for a while and sales are beginning to flag—AMD also conceded that "lower AMD Radeon GPU sales" were also to blame.

What's more, even AMD says things will get worse before they have any chance of getting better. "Demand has been quite weak," AMD's CFO Jean Hu said, "we actually think the second half will be lower than first half. That's basically how we're looking at this year for the gaming business."

In fact, the only good news AMD could come with regarding gaming products was that they were quite low margin, so selling fewer of them would mean AMD's overall average margins would improve on account of the shrinking gaming business. "Gaming's gross margin is lower than our company average. So overall, it will help the mix on the gross margin side," Hu said. Ouch.

Meanwhile, games consoles aren't looking all that healthy, either. Microsoft says Xbox sales are down by 31% for its most recent reported quarter and the company's future expectations for console sales are pretty pessimistic, too.

Games, of course, are becoming super expensive to develop at the same time as sales of hardware are shrinking. All told, there's a bit of a broader gaming industry crunch ongoing.

Rumour has it the next Xbox may be intentionally more niche, akin to Microsoft's Steam Deck, something for the keenest Xbox fans rather than an attempt at a mass market platform. That's hardly good news for AMD revenues given that Xbox has been based on pure AMD hardware for multiple generations.

Maybe Sony will do something spectacular with the upcoming PS5 Pro or PS6 to revitalise the console market. But it's hard to come to any other conclusion than a fairly pessimistic one regarding AMD's medium term prospects in gaming graphics, be that on the PC or console.

With all that in mind, rumours that AMD has ditched all plans for high-end members of its upcoming next-gen RDNA 4 GPU range make sense. Why bother with all the investment when nobody is going to buy the GPUs anyway, especially now that cryptocurrency miners can't be relied on to mop up a whole load of cards?

And if you question the idea that nobody will buy AMD GPUs, well you only have to look at Valve's Steam hardware survey data. For sure, it's not the perfect data set. But it shows Nvidia cards being used by over 75% of gamers and AMD on about 15%.

AMD RX 6900 XT graphics card alongside RX 6800 XT

AMD's RX 6000 GPUs were great but had depressingly little market impact. (Image credit: Future)

Of course, that includes loads of older GPUs. In fact, you have to go to position eight in the list of most popular GPUs on Steam to find one from AMD or Nvidia's current generation of graphics cards (it's an Nvidia GPU, obviously).

Oh, and in terms of the most popular individually identified AMD GPU (as opposed to a generic AMD Radeon entry), you have to go all the way down to 31st place. The really horrifying fact is that, of the top 100 GPUs, the only AMD current-gen product that makes the list is the Radeon RX 7900 XTX.

The RX 7800 XT, 7700 XT, 7600 XT and 7600 simply do not appear. So, yeah, you can argue the toss over how accurate the Steam survey really is. But it's very hard to imagine that the Radeon RX 7000 Series is anything but a retail disaster when it's making pretty much zero impact on surveyed gamers on the biggest and most important PC gaming platform.

The thing is, AMD's previous Radeon RX 6000-series was actually very strong competition for Nvidia's Ampere generation of RTX 3000 GPUs in technical terms. But it had pretty much zero impact itself in terms of improving AMD's PC gaming graphics market share. 

The Radeon 7000 family has been quite a bit less compelling versus Nvidia's RTX 4000-series GPUs. And so it's hardly surprising to find already poor sales falling further.

All of which begs the questions of what AMD can do to turn things around, and will it, or even should it bother to try? The biggest disappointment with the RX 7000 line was its failure to materially improve ray-tracing performance.

For sure, AMD's FSR upscaling technology also isn't as good as Nvidia's DLSS, either. But FSR can and is being updated. So, you could buy an AMD GPU with some expectations of improvement in that area, and it's really not that far off in real terms, either.

AMD GPU

(Image credit: AMD)

It's hard to see why AMD will keep investing in what AMD itself dismisses as a low-margin business.

Not so for an AMD GPU's ray tracing prowess. The hardware is what it is and driver optimisations aren't going to close the huge hardware gap to Nvidia in that area.

Some will argue that ray tracing is overhyped, isn't in that many games, and doesn't actually make a huge difference to visual quality when it is. There's some truth to those sentiments. But, equally, there's no denying that ray tracing is becoming ever more widely adopted and that it's impact in terms of graphical quality is likewise increasing.

In the end, it's pretty tough to choose AMD when Nvidia's feature set is just so much better, even if it may not make all that much difference in all the games. When you're spending many hundreds and hundreds of dollars, you want to think you have the best chance of enjoying whatever eye-candy it is that's released next month or even next year. With the best will in the world, it's hard to see AMD as the best choice for that.

It's notable in this context that Nvidia's efforts with its AI GPUs do seem to be relevant for its gaming chips, too. Nvidia invests megabucks in developing AI Tensor cores for its AI chips, as used by all the latest large language AI models. Then those Tensor cores get dropped in gaming chips and help make Nvidia's DLSS upscaling clearly better than AMD's non-AI FSR.

Your next upgrade

Nvidia RTX 4070 and RTX 3080 Founders Edition graphics cards

(Image credit: Future)

Best CPU for gaming: The top chips from Intel and AMD.
Best gaming motherboard: The right boards.
Best graphics card: Your perfect pixel-pusher awaits.
Best SSD for gaming: Get into the game ahead of the rest.

Of course, AMD is trying to get into the the AI training and inferencing game itself with the Instinct MI300 chip. And that, perhaps, is the main if modest cause for hope. If AMD can gain some traction in that huge market, it will not only be making lots of money, it will be in a position to do a similar thing to Nvidia and push some of that technology across into its gaming GPUs.

So, maybe then it can invest properly in technologies like ray tracing and deliver an AI-based upscaling solution that's really competitive with Nvidia's. Of course, going by current estimates from both AMD and Nvidia, the latter will generate at least 20 times more revenue from AI GPU sales this year. So if booming AI revenues and technology are going to help turn around AMD's fortunes in gaming graphics, it'll take years before we see any evidence of that.

Ultimately, then, I'll stick to what I said last time around. RDNA 4 and the Radeon RX 8000-series, as it will presumably be known, will be limited in scope and something of a stop gap. It'll be RNDA 5 in late 2025, or more likely 2026, that could be the last roll of the dice for AMD and its Radeon gaming graphics. If that's a flop, it's hard to see why AMD will keep investing in what AMD itself dismisses as a low-margin business. And so it could be adios for discrete Radeon GPUs on the PC.

]]> <![CDATA[ AMD's CTO has written about 55 years of AMD innovation. And the most common topic is obviously 'AI' despite not really saying much about 'AI' for the previous 54 years ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/amds-cto-has-written-about-55-years-of-amd-innovation-and-the-most-common-topic-is-obviously-ai-despite-not-really-saying-much-about-ai-for-the-previous-54-years/ L7w5uZtJFs4JRvfCEUv3Sc Fri, 03 May 2024 11:20:40 +0000

AMD is 55 years old. Only a little bit older than myself and, also like myself, few people expected it to last much beyond 45 years. Just a decade ago—with a meagre datacentre business, and a ropey CPU architecture that was the subject of a $12.1 million class action lawsuit because it kinda wasn't what it said it was—AMD was on a knife edge. 

But with strong, smart leadership, and a solid track record of delivering time and again on its promises, AMD has turned it around. It is now one of the darlings of the tech industry, looking down on the Intel behemoth which once trampled it underfoot.

And so, to celebrate this milestone AMD chief technical officer and master of papers, Mark Papermaster, has penned a blog post titled: "Celebrating 55 years of AMD innovation."

So, what would be his take on five whole decades of silicon engineering? Five decades of swinging violently between brilliance and mediocrity, and back again? Five decades of doggedly holding Intel off from completely monopolising the CPU market and the industry as a whole? What should we be really celebrating in all this, Mark?

Oh, you just want to focus on the last five years and that's all been about AI, has it? That's what we're celebrating? Something that AMD is only now basing its entire world-view around because it's the current big topic in the industry and worth a chonk bag of cash? Think back a year or so and AMD wasn't making any real noises about AI being its guiding star, and yet here we are and AI is the one word/phrase/initialism that Papermaster uses more than any other in his entire 1,000+ word "celebration". 

AI, explained

OpenAI logo displayed on a phone screen and ChatGPT website displayed on a laptop screen are seen in this illustration photo taken in Krakow, Poland on December 5, 2022.

(Image credit: Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

What is artificial general intelligence?: We dive into the lingo of AI and what the terms actually mean.

I get it, though. Artificial intelligence is going to be the biggest thing to happen in computing over the next few years, and probably beyond, and it's understandable AMD wants to show off what a strong position it has in the market, even when its Nvidia rival is seen as the only ticket in town. 

But maybe that's something to focus on in a blog talking about the next 55 years of AMD innovation. Because the company is arguably in the strongest position it's ever been in and there's no concern about its longevity these days.

Just look at the level of R&D from 2019 to 2023. Papermaster explains that its investment in that field "has nearly quadrupled, from $1.5B in 2019, to $5.9B in 2023, and we plan to continue to invest in developing groundbreaking technologies that show early promise." Though it is worth noting that's around the level of yearly R&D spending that Intel is still stumping up each quarter.

But they've still got fabs, and these days, do real men still have fabs, Jerry?

]]> <![CDATA[ AMD's start to 2024: Big gains in client and data center, big falls in gaming ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/amds-start-to-2024-big-gains-in-client-and-data-center-big-falls-in-gaming/ ZLmSYN5zxX8wNTbjXEBbpi Wed, 01 May 2024 10:28:56 +0000 Wed, 01 May 2024 10:29:01 +0000

Reporting on the financial statements from multi-billion dollar companies isn't our usual fare but when the company in question has a huge impact on the world of PC gaming, it's worth paying attention to how well things are going. AMD's revenue and operating income for the first quarter of 2024 have been announced and it's great news for its big processor sectors but not so great for its gaming division.

In terms of financials, AMD organises everything into four primary sectors: data center, client, gaming, and embedded. Every Ryzen processor made earns money for the client sector, whereas sales of Radeon GPUs and custom chips for consoles and handheld PCs are recorded in gaming.

Throughout the second half of 2022 and the first half of 2023, the client division was losing money quite badly, but for the last six months, things have steadily improved. Compared to this time last year, client revenue has improved by 85% and the operating income has gone from a loss of $172 million to a profit of $86 million. It's a similar story with data center, which has enjoyed gains of 81% and 268% in revenue and operating income, compared to the first quarter of 2023.

In an earnings call, CEO Dr Lisa Su explained why it was doing so well: "The substantial year-over-year growth was driven by the strong ramp of AMD Instinct MI300X GPU shipments and a double-digit percentage increase in server CPU sales."

What isn't doing so well is AMD's gaming division. Revenue is down 33% compared to the previous quarter and 48% compared to 2023; operating income is down by a similar proportion. The bulk of that sector's money comes from the contract with Sony to design and manufacture the processor for the PlayStation 5. Microsoft has the same kind of deal for its Xbox Series X/S machines, and among all of those are Radeon GPUs.

The PS5 was launched back in November 2020, so the console is past the peak of its sales and while the much-discussed PS5 Pro will probably give AMD a little bit of a boost when that comes out, then gaming will probably continue to see a decline in its fortunes as time goes on. Things will only significantly improve when the next generation of consoles appears. AMD doesn't have a big enough share of the discrete graphics card market for its Radeon chips to pull in lots of money.

Not that I think AMD will really care all that much, as long as the gaming division continues to makes a profit. It's far more interested in boosting revenue and operating income in its data center division, thanks to the seemingly endless pots of money being thrown at AI superchips by the likes of Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, et al.

And lest we all forget, 2024 is the year of the AI PC and with AMD jamming neural processing units (NPU) into every Ryzen it can, there's a good chance that the client sector will do a lot better this year. Given that it's had a rough time of things, and still doesn't make all that much money, AMD will be hoping that all the major OEM and system builders buy a bucket load of AI-capable Ryzen chips for their forthcoming models.

"We believe the market is on track to return to annual growth in 2024," said Dr Su, "driven by the start of an enterprise refresh cycle and AI PC adoption. We see AI as the biggest inflection point in PC since the Internet with the ability to deliver unprecedented productivity and usability gains."

You might not care one jot about AI but AMD clearly does. In just about every question concerning GPUs in the earnings call, gaming was barely discussed—AI and data center are where all the money is.

]]> <![CDATA[ Dragon's Dogma 2 performance analysis: It'll take everything your PC has and still want more ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/dragons-dogma-2-performance-analysis/ jzoPXW8iGBPDsNk7BmkqEW Wed, 20 Mar 2024 15:00:41 +0000 Thu, 28 Mar 2024 21:01:57 +0000

Dragon's Dogma 2 is the long-awaited sequel to Capcom's 2012 original release, that eventually appeared on the PC in 2016. Both games are classic open-world RPGs: Quests and monsters abound, strewn across a sprawling landscape, all begging to be explored and conquered.

The game uses Capcom's Reach for the Moon (RE) Engine, used to great success in the Resident Evil 4 remake, Resident Evil Village, Monster Hunter Rise, and many others. Although the first two are very linear, almost corridor-like in terms of world structure, MH Rise uses a large, seamless map, just as in Dragon's Dogma 2.

That means there are no loading screens, other than the primary one to jump into the game, and all of the assets (models, textures, shaders) are streamed across from your SSD into the graphics card's VRAM when needed. Such games are generally the most demanding of gaming PCs and that's no different here. So, without further ado, let's find out just how tough it is.

Performance overview

The performance of Dragon's Dogma 2 can be summarised with one utterance: CPU. It doesn't really matter whether you're measuring performance in the city or the open world, the processor and platform you have will play a huge role in determining whether or not your graphics card has a chance to shine in this game.

If you have a mid-range or budget-level gaming PC, you're unlikely to see performance figures in excess of 60 fps in the open world areas. In the main city, though, you'll be looking to hit half that figure, even at 1080p with low quality settings.

Only with a modern CPU and graphics card will you stand any chance of having a smooth gaming experience. Capcom's recommended hardware requirements should really be viewed as the absolute minimum, and ideally you're going to need a 12th Gen Intel Core or Ryzen 5000-series or better CPU. You can get away with just having six cores, as long as the chip supports multithreading. At least it's not especially demanding on the system RAM.

Hopefully, most of the frame rate issues I saw will be solved with future game patches and driver updates. But there's clearly a lot of work to be done in optimising everything further.

But even if you have a gaming PC sporting the very best CPU and graphics card, you're still going to experience fluctuating frame rates and disappointing minimum values. To see exactly what I mean by this, just read on for the full details.

Systems used in testing

Capcom's system requirements for Dragon's Dogma 2 are a minimum of a Core i5 10600 or Ryzen 5 3600 CPU, a GeForce GTX 1070 or Radeon RX 5500 XT graphics card, and 16GB of RAM. The recommended specs rise to a Core i7 10700 or Ryzen 5 3600X, an RTX 2080 or RX 6700, but the RAM stays at 16GB.

Compared to most big releases on PC these days, those requirements seem fairly light, especially on the AMD side of things. A Ryzen 5 3600 is a six core, 12 thread CPU that's nearly four years old and while the Radeon RX 6700 is only a year younger, it's not a hugely powerful nor expensive graphics card.

While I didn't have those exact components to hand, I do have access to a variety of parts that are generally similar, either being a little older, newer, or more capable. So I've run many benchmarks, across multiple setups, to give you an idea as to exactly how well the game runs. The systems in question are:

  • AMD Ryzen 7 8700G, 32GB DDR5-6400
  • AMD Ryzen 5 5600X, 16GB DDR4-3200
  • AMD Ryzen 9 7900, 32GB DDR5-6400
  • Intel Core i7 9700K, 32GB DDR4-3200
  • Intel Core i7 14700KF, 32GB DDR5-6400

As for graphics cards, the Ryzen 7 8700G system just uses its integrated graphics (Radeon 780M), and I have used a range of models for the others: AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT and RX 6600, Intel Arc A770, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 and RTX 4070 Ti. 

After 16 hours of benchmarking and dealing the game's many quirks, I've collated more than enough data to give you an idea as to what aspect of a gaming PC Dragon's Dogma 2 is demanding the most of. I recorded the performance in two areas: around the main city of Vernworth and a little way outside the city in the open world, with lots of trees, grass, and rivers in view.

For all of the main test runs, the graphics settings were set to the maximum values, with the exception of rendering mode which was kept at Interlaced. We'll have a companion piece covering the best settings to use in Dragon's Dogma 2 for the launch of the game to help you get the most out of your own rig.

1080p Performance

The first thing that becomes immediately clear is that in Vernworth, or pretty much any location where there are a lot of buildings and NPCs, is that the overall performance drops considerably, especially with regard to the 1% low fps value. This figure marks the fps that 99% of all the others are equal to or above.

Vernworth is very CPU-limited, although the graphics card is still very important. For example, note how the Radeon RX 7800 XT doesn't get to stretch its legs on the Ryzen 5 5600X system but does pretty well on the newer AM5 Ryzen 9 7900 platform. I say well but the 60 fps for the 1% lows is rather poor.

I managed a few brief runs on a Ryzen 7 7700X gaming PC, with a GeForce RTX 4070, and that performed roughly halfway between the 7900 and 5600X systems, using the same GPU. Unfortunately, a few bugs with the 1440p results means that I can't include it in this analysis.

The Core i7 14700KF platform performed the best, thanks to the wealth of threads available and the power of the RTX 4070 Ti, but what none of the results show is just how wildly inconsistent the performance is in Dragon's Dogma 2. All of the displayed frame rates are averages from around five runs, sometimes more when bugs messed things up.

Even at 1080p, with maximum graphics settings, the VRAM load was too much for the 8GB Radeon RX 6600. The menu does warn you that you've gone over the limit so it's worth paying attention to it. That said, it warned me repeatedly for all of the other cards and they didn't have too many issues.

Benchmarking this game was an exercise in frustration, though: NPCs in the city area phase in and out, as if they're being teleported off-world to the USS Enterprise, and in the open world, you're regularly attacked by monsters. The day-night cycle isn't super quick, but the transition from day to night is quite abrupt. All of which kept interfering with the test runs.

1440p Performance

Increasing the resolution of any game should push the performance bar more toward the GPU and in the case of open world testing, that was very much the case. However, the city test results show only a relatively small decline in frame rates, highlighting just how CPU-limited that zone is.

As you exit the city, there's a clear mark where the game's engine stops processing all of the NPC/world cycle, as the 1% low fps suddenly jumps up. This happens even if you're not looking at the city, which suggests that more dev work needs to be done on dropping workloads when they're just not required.

Interestingly, despite the VRAM requirement being more than what the RX 6600 sported, it didn't induce as much stuttering as you'd think. The 1% low fps figures show that it was very slow for the most part, but it was actually relatively smooth, as long as you didn't whip the camera about. If you can call 30 fps smooth.

4K Performance

At 4K, the graphics card becomes super important, and almost all of them struggle to reach anywhere near 60 fps in the open world. Only the RTX 4070 Ti managed to cross that barrier but by the smallest of margins. Now, recall that all of these results were taken using maximum graphics settings, and not Capcom's presets, of which there's only two. Upscaling wasn't used either, but we'll come to that in a moment.

This level of performance might be acceptable if the graphical fidelity is exceptional but in Dragon's Dogma 2, it's merely okay. It's not bad, as sometimes it's lovely, especially when you get treated to a glorious vista, replete with dense forests and perilous mountains in the distance. But in the city, it's merely average in my opinion, and the graphics don't really justify the frame rates I saw.

It's not clear as to what the root cause of the problem is, but it's easy enough to see just where the main issue lies.

PIX shows just how bad things get in the city. (Image credit: Microsoft)

I used Microsoft's DirectX analytical tool, PIX, to examine what was going with the CPU's workload and saw two things immediately. Firstly, there's an awful lot of threads going on with the game's engine and while you may think that's a great use of modern CPUs, making sure that all those threads don't stall each other isn't a trivial task.

Secondly, it was taking a very long time just to process the command lists from the DirectX API. On the 14700KF system, it took 25 milliseconds on average, in the city area. In comparison, something like Cyberpunk 2077 has API processing times roughly half as long.

While I can't tell precisely what the command list contains (PIX just wouldn't attach properly to the game), it's almost certainly to do with managing all of the assets. Yes, NPCs pop in and out of existence in front of your eyes, and the changes in LOD are very abrupt, but the game is clearly doing too much work in the background for each frame.

And it certainly wasn't anything to do with the quality settings used during testing. At 1080p, with everything on its lowest value or off, the Ryzen 5 5600X + Radeon RX 6600 system achieved 39 fps on average, with the 1% low value being 20 fps, in the Vernworth city. Oh, and it looked horrible with those settings.

Upscaling Performance

You might think upscaling would help, but you only get a relatively small improvement in the city, as the overall performance on a system with a decent graphics card is always going to be CPU-limited. Even out in the open world, where the CPU load is much lower, there's still not a massive gain to be had.

The anti-aliasing in Dragon's Dogma 2 isn't particularly good, and even on maximum settings (TAA+FXAA) trees and grass exhibit lots of aliasing, with edges constantly shimmering against each other. FSR 3 and DLSS both do a great job of getting rid of the aliasing, but add a noticeable amount of fuzziness to the overall image.

You can claw some of the image quality back by using the maximum amount of sharpening, but you still get a bit of PlayStation 2-era of blurriness, even at 4K. You see this for yourself with some captures using the game's photo mode below, where maximum graphics settings were used, apart from the rendering mode was interlaced and the highest sharpening for upscaling was employed.

Screenshots of Dragon's Dogma 2, showing an open world view, with a buildings and mountains in the distance
Capcom
Screenshots of Dragon's Dogma 2, showing an open world view, with a buildings and mountains in the distance
Capcom
Screenshots of Dragon's Dogma 2, showing an open world view, with a buildings and mountains in the distance
Capcom

That said, I prefer using Quality or Balanced upscaling to the game's native anti-aliasing solution. There's little in the way of any performance gain, but it certainly makes the open world easier on the eye and the lack of sharpness isn't a massive issue for me. But if you were hoping to use FSR or DLSS to significantly boost your frame rate, you'll have to use Performance or Ultra Performance mode, and the drop in image quality is pretty large.

The game would certainly benefit from supporting frame generation and it's a little odd that Capcom didn't implement it, even though the dll file for DLSS Frame Gen is present in the installation folder. Radeon owners could try Fluid Motion Frames, though I found it nade no difference at all.

Dragon's Dogma 2 also offers ray tracing as a graphics option, but other than mildly improving the ambient lighting, the hit to the performance isn't really worth it. For example, with the RTX 4070 Ti, the average fps drop was around 20% without any upscaling, which is pretty good and it's a smaller drop in the city area, but you'll probably not want to bother with it.

]]> <![CDATA[ AMD's Chief Technical Officer: 'We're enabling our gaming devices to upscale using AI' ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/amds-chief-technical-officer-were-enabling-our-gaming-devices-to-upscale-using-ai/ iTB45v5bggNYZ2Rv9hzosW Mon, 04 Mar 2024 13:30:38 +0000 Mon, 04 Mar 2024 13:30:42 +0000

It's the tiniest of teases and opens up a whole trunk full of questions, but in a recent online interview, Mark Papermaster was asked what the year has in store for AMD. The CTO's response was all focused on AI, naturally, but he also mentioned a curious little tidbit: its gaming devices are to get AI-based upscaling and 2024 is likely to be the year we'll see it.

The discussion with YouTube channel No Priors (via Videocardz) is mostly about AMD's position and thoughts on machine learning, cloud computing, and other big-money sectors. It's a good chat between the hosts and Papermaster, although a little dry if you're not interested in those specific topics.

However, the CTO's closing remarks on AMD's plans for 2024 are certainly of interest to gamers, all thanks to the brief comment on how the chip giant is bringing AI upscaling to its gaming devices.

"Well, this for us is a huge year because we have spent so many years developing our hardware and software capabilities for AI," Papermaster begins. "We've just completed AI enabling our entire portfolio: Cloud, edge, PCs, embedded devices, our gaming devices. We're enabling our gaming devices to upscale using AI and 2024 is really a huge deployment year for us."

At the moment, AI upscaling is the preserve of Intel and Nvidia. Both companies use a two-stage upscaling process, where the first step is to run an image scaler via shaders to change the rendered frame's resolution up to the monitor's level. The second step involves the application of a neural network, to tidy up the image, removing any glitches created by the upscaling process.

The mathematical operations involved to do this can be run on shaders but in the case of DLSS and the Intel Arc-only version of XeSS, it's handled by dedicated matrix units in the GPU to get the best performance and visual results. The graphics chips used in AMD's Radeon models do all calculations via the Compute Units (CU), hence why FSR doesn't involve an AI step to tidy up the images.

A quality comparison between DLSS, FSR, and XeSS upscaling (Image credit: PS Studios)

However, one interpretation of Papermaster's comment is that the next graphics architecture, RDNA 4, could have a discrete matrix unit in each CU and if so, that could be used to handle the AI upscaling. An alternate view is that AMD has developed a relatively lightweight neural network that's handled by the CUs and can be used as an additional step in the FSR pipeline to improve visual quality.

As things currently stand, FSR and DLSS perform roughly the same, but the latter has the edge when it comes to graphical fidelity. Depending on the game, it can be notably better, but it's very much a subjective thing during gameplay.

If AI upscaling gets implemented into FSR in such a way that any GPU can do it (as long as it supports the relevant matrix instructions), then one could expect the quality to certainly improve, but the performance will likely take a dip.

Your next machine

Gaming PC group shot

(Image credit: Future)

Best gaming PC: The top pre-built machines.
Best gaming laptop: Great devices for mobile gaming.

It's the way that Papermaster says 'gaming devices' that makes me suspect AMD's AI upscaling is most likely to be done this way. Because if it was just going to be for RDNA 4, then you'd expect him to mention this or, at the very least, talk about GPUs specifically. 

However, the phrase 'gaming devices' covers everything that supports FSR, which includes current Radeon cards, as well as the APUs in handheld PCs and consoles. If it turns out that it will require dedicated matrix units, as DLSS does, then it will only be supported on AMD's next GPU architecture and won't be anything to shout about for the Xbox Series X or PlayStation 5.

RDNA 4, no matter what its AI abilities are like, will be competing against Intel's Battlemage and Nvidia's Blackwell at some point in 2024, and these companies already have AI-powered upscaling.

AMD is joining the party in a fashionably late manner, but it could steal the limelight if it can offer better upscaling that all GPUs can use. Papermaster is certainly right about one thing: 2024 is going to be huge for AI and GPUs.

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