<![CDATA[ Latest from PC Gamer in Graphics-cards ]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards Tue, 06 Oct 2026 16:14:17 +0000 en <![CDATA[ I've been looking for graphics card deals all day and this RX 9070 GRE at MSRP is the only thing saving me from total despair ]]> It's pretty rough out there for graphics card deals. I've seen some awful things trying to track down any Prime Day deals, including an RTX 5060 Ti for near-enough the MSRP of an RTX 5070 Ti. It's nearly double the price of the 8 GB model, which is still $100 over MSRP.

That's all nothing new but still utterly depressing. The memory crisis has done a number on graphics cards, especially Nvidia ones. So, I suppose I should be a little thankful for this XFX Swift AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT GRE over at Best Buy.

It's not a deal, per se, but it's not nothing. It's still holding out at $550, which is exactly the price it launched at not too long ago.

Now, we have admittedly seen it for less in recent weeks. A couple of different GRE models, one from Asus and one from Gigabyte, were down to $500. Though these have shot up since. They're both above the card's usual asking price today, as are all others I've seen.

It's a decent graphics card, though. It comes with 12 GB of GDDR6 VRAM, which should tide over any PC gamer for a while in the latest games. At least until this whole AI build-out nonsense is over and done with and GPUs are back at sensible prices.

We reviewed the Acer Nitro RX 9070 GRE earlier in the year. It scored reasonably well then for its solid performance compared to the RTX 5060 Ti and RTX 5070. It's often beaten by the higher-tier Nvidia card, but not by loads, and that GPU costs silly money now.

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.

It should be roundly beaten by the RX 9070, which has the same MSRP in theory. Though that card now costs $700. So, yeah, maybe not.

Alas, the RX 9070 GRE is still the best we've got. Though it's going up in price right now, which is the exact opposite trend that we were hoping for from this Prime Day. Maybe Black Friday will finally see another reduction for this final bastion of reasonable priced graphics performance?

👉Check out all Newegg's GPU deals👈

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/ive-been-looking-for-graphics-card-deals-all-day-and-this-rx-9070-gre-at-msrp-is-the-only-thing-saving-me-from-total-despair/ tYZQRgWzSoGYTGxH9MGS4m Tue, 06 Oct 2026 16:14:17 +0000 false false false

It's pretty rough out there for graphics card deals. I've seen some awful things trying to track down any Prime Day deals, including an RTX 5060 Ti for near-enough the MSRP of an RTX 5070 Ti. It's nearly double the price of the 8 GB model, which is still $100 over MSRP.

That's all nothing new but still utterly depressing. The memory crisis has done a number on graphics cards, especially Nvidia ones. So, I suppose I should be a little thankful for this XFX Swift AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT GRE over at Best Buy.

It's not a deal, per se, but it's not nothing. It's still holding out at $550, which is exactly the price it launched at not too long ago.

Now, we have admittedly seen it for less in recent weeks. A couple of different GRE models, one from Asus and one from Gigabyte, were down to $500. Though these have shot up since. They're both above the card's usual asking price today, as are all others I've seen.

It's a decent graphics card, though. It comes with 12 GB of GDDR6 VRAM, which should tide over any PC gamer for a while in the latest games. At least until this whole AI build-out nonsense is over and done with and GPUs are back at sensible prices.

We reviewed the Acer Nitro RX 9070 GRE earlier in the year. It scored reasonably well then for its solid performance compared to the RTX 5060 Ti and RTX 5070. It's often beaten by the higher-tier Nvidia card, but not by loads, and that GPU costs silly money now.

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.

It should be roundly beaten by the RX 9070, which has the same MSRP in theory. Though that card now costs $700. So, yeah, maybe not.

Alas, the RX 9070 GRE is still the best we've got. Though it's going up in price right now, which is the exact opposite trend that we were hoping for from this Prime Day. Maybe Black Friday will finally see another reduction for this final bastion of reasonable priced graphics performance?

👉Check out all Newegg's GPU deals👈

]]> <![CDATA[ Looks like you will have to pinky promise you won't export your RTX 5090 if you buy a gaming PC from Micro Center now ]]>
Form for 5090’s
 from r/Microcenter

With price gouging and some buyers exporting graphics cards to China, Micro Center is reportedly making customers swear they won't do the same. And with a signed declaration, it's maybe a bit more airtight than a pinky promise.

This is according to Reddit user Krothic, who recently picked up a Powerspec Ai90 prebuilt PC with an RTX 5090 in it and was hit with the form. The Redditor bought the PC from a Micro Center in Tustin, California, and according to the manager, the new anti-export declaration only came into effect a few days ago.

High-end GPUs have been banned from being exported to China as America is looking to win the AI race, and more beefy cards in the country equals more power. But it's also become harder to actually buy an RTX 5090 GPU on its own, with the likes of Newegg and Amazon's only listings being shops with questionable provenance and names such as 'sdflkjahsdgasdggbsd'. Full PCs, then, might be your only recourse for grabbing a card for export if that is your aim.

Apparently, the user had to hand over their driver's license to verify their identity, too, linking their purchase to their name. Should that GPU be found being shipped elsewhere, Micro Center could technically tie the GPU back to the buyer by checking its serial number. But this doesn't account for someone buying a prebuilt, then deciding to one day sell that on or eventually giving it to someone else.

In fairness, the paper does get the buyer to state, "I am purchasing this product for my own legitimate personal or business use in the United States, or I have accurately identified the actual end user above." But that still feels like a lot of paperwork just to buy a new PC, and that's before we get into how enforceable any of this is.

Nvidia RTX 5090 Founders Edition graphics card on different backgrounds

(Image credit: Future)

If an exported GPU is tied back to someone who purchased one at Micro Center, there are reasons one could claim for how the GPU ended up there, ie, it being stolen.

It seems likely the biggest deterrent to exporting is not the declaration but, in fact, the ID check. If you are looking to export cards en masse, you likely won't want to give your full legal name to an entity that can tie those purchases back to you.

Still, it's getting harder and harder to buy gaming hardware, and not just because of the price. The barriers to entry are being raised, and many brands are opting to have users prove brand loyalty to get the tech instead. Neither option seems that appealing to me.

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/looks-like-you-will-have-to-pinky-promise-you-wont-export-your-rtx-5090-if-you-buy-a-gaming-pc-from-micro-center-now/ zNKgdXquUnGM9CYS9gjXid Fri, 02 Oct 2026 10:31:31 +0000 false false false
Form for 5090’s
 from r/Microcenter

With price gouging and some buyers exporting graphics cards to China, Micro Center is reportedly making customers swear they won't do the same. And with a signed declaration, it's maybe a bit more airtight than a pinky promise.

This is according to Reddit user Krothic, who recently picked up a Powerspec Ai90 prebuilt PC with an RTX 5090 in it and was hit with the form. The Redditor bought the PC from a Micro Center in Tustin, California, and according to the manager, the new anti-export declaration only came into effect a few days ago.

High-end GPUs have been banned from being exported to China as America is looking to win the AI race, and more beefy cards in the country equals more power. But it's also become harder to actually buy an RTX 5090 GPU on its own, with the likes of Newegg and Amazon's only listings being shops with questionable provenance and names such as 'sdflkjahsdgasdggbsd'. Full PCs, then, might be your only recourse for grabbing a card for export if that is your aim.

Apparently, the user had to hand over their driver's license to verify their identity, too, linking their purchase to their name. Should that GPU be found being shipped elsewhere, Micro Center could technically tie the GPU back to the buyer by checking its serial number. But this doesn't account for someone buying a prebuilt, then deciding to one day sell that on or eventually giving it to someone else.

In fairness, the paper does get the buyer to state, "I am purchasing this product for my own legitimate personal or business use in the United States, or I have accurately identified the actual end user above." But that still feels like a lot of paperwork just to buy a new PC, and that's before we get into how enforceable any of this is.

Nvidia RTX 5090 Founders Edition graphics card on different backgrounds

(Image credit: Future)

If an exported GPU is tied back to someone who purchased one at Micro Center, there are reasons one could claim for how the GPU ended up there, ie, it being stolen.

It seems likely the biggest deterrent to exporting is not the declaration but, in fact, the ID check. If you are looking to export cards en masse, you likely won't want to give your full legal name to an entity that can tie those purchases back to you.

Still, it's getting harder and harder to buy gaming hardware, and not just because of the price. The barriers to entry are being raised, and many brands are opting to have users prove brand loyalty to get the tech instead. Neither option seems that appealing to me.

]]> <![CDATA[ Nvidia says my RTX 4070 Super isn't capable of Multi Frame Gen, but I'm surprised by how smooth this unofficial unlock actually feels ]]> Multi Frame Generation (or MFG) smoothes out gameplay by using AI to create as many as five generated, or 'fake' frames for each one actually rendered by the GPU. Nvidia first introduced the original 2x Frame Generation feature with the RTX 40-series graphics cards back in 2022, but the highest rates of frame gen are reserved for the RTX 50-series.

If you have an RTX 5090 (despite it being particularly tricky to find one, let alone for a price anywhere near MSRP), you can enjoy as much as 6x MFG in supported games. This is because the RTX 50-series GPUs contain more powerful Tensor cores, but also a dedicated AI Management Processor (AMP) which works alongside Flip Metering to deliver frames, both rendered and AI-generated, to your display as smoothly as possible. Older cards, like my RTX 4070 Super, lack this snazzy silicon—but us PC gamers won't let something as silly as official limitations stop us.

I've already detailed how you can get 4x Multi Frame Generation working on an RTX 40-series GPU using some simple mods. I'll tell you what I found across all of my testing shortly, but first let me speedrun through how I got this working in the first place. Very simply, I used the ReShade HDR Installer to download unofficial mods that unlock higher rates of Multi Frame Generation for RTX 40-series cards. My RTX 4070 Super officially supports up to 2x MFG, but the unofficial mods mean I can test up to 6x MFG with this same card.

As Nvidia does not officially support more than 2x MFG on RTX 40-series cards, I was fully expecting some quirkiness ahead.

Even on an RTX 50-series card, officially supported Multi Frame Generation can introduce blurry frames and latency issues, so I'm not really expecting my RTX 4070 Super to fare better on those fronts. My testing is more about getting as much as I possibly can out of the hardware I already own, and silencing the voice that says I need to drop silly money on an RTX 50-series card at least for a little while longer.

Now, not all games support even the standard 2x MFG. So, let me tell you I was surprised to discover that story-heavy games like Lost Records: Bloom & Rage and The Thaumaturge both support up to 6x MFG (you can check Nvidia's full list of games that support MFG here). As such, the full roster of games I tested is a little non-traditional. It's worth noting too that I am only testing single-player games as the MFG unlock mods I'm using are not officially supported and can trigger in-game anti-cheat detection systems. Sorry, Arc Raiders, I don't want to get banned.

As for settings, I tested all games at 1440p resolution, and used High graphical settings. I also set the Nvidia DLSS quality mode to 'Balanced', and turned off ray tracing and similar tech where applicable. I set ReShade HDR Installer to tap out at 4x MFG as not all games support all the way up to 6x. My thinking was that more PC gamers might be interested in testing 4x MFG on an RTX 40-series card for that reason. I set no target frame rate beyond that, though, in the hopes that this experiment would give me the fullest picture of the highest highs and lowest lows in terms of frame rate.

Now, without further ado, let's take a look at some lovely bar charts.

1 / 6

1440p gaming performance

This chart shows average and 1% low frame rate results in various tested games at 1440p resolution

Black Myth: Wukong Benchmark Tool

No MFG (Average FPS)
64
2x MFG Max (Average FPS)
99
Unlocked MFG (Up to 4x) (Average FPS)
170
No MFG (1% Low FPS)
47
2x MFG Max (1% Low FPS)
67
Unlocked MFG (Up to 4x) (1% Low FPS)
113
050100150200
Black Myth: Wukong Benchmark Tool Data
ProductValue
No MFG (Average FPS)64
2x MFG Max (Average FPS)99
Unlocked MFG (Up to 4x) (Average FPS)170
No MFG (1% Low FPS)47
2x MFG Max (1% Low FPS)67
Unlocked MFG (Up to 4x) (1% Low FPS)113

I think it's fair to say that not all MFG support is created equal—even before you start tinkering with unofficial mods like me. For instance, though Lost Records: Bloom and Rage isn't an obvious stand out in terms of frames, it did feel consistently smooth to play with MFG active. The only visual difference I could detect is the softening of some shadows on a distant character model—otherwise, this remains a gorgeous game.

Comparatively, while Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 boasted more frames across my tests, it was not the most stable thing to play. I experienced noticeable frame hitching with MFG active. With 4x MFG specifically, I saw a bunch of artifacting while traversing snow-capped Seattle at speed. I didn't encounter the issue while traipsing through the snow at a Masquerade-maintaining jog, instead seeing ghosting when I broke into a supernatural sprint or glided between rooftops.

I've already mentioned the latency issues with Multi Frame Generation, and it's possible this ghosting arises from a similar source.

However, I also ran into artifacting in The Thaumaturge, though not chiefly while pelting around Warsaw. Instead, I saw ghosting in conversation-based cutscenes and during combat (you'd think the AI tech could keep up with a turn-based RPG). It's more subtle than the ghosting I saw in Bloodlines 2, but definitely still there. The effect is most obvious in the clip below as ne'er-do-well Marian enters the cutscene, and every time either Wiktor or his friend from the other side performs a focus-reducing attack in the following turn-based combat.

To be fair to Bloodlines 2, it was more stable than the built-in benchmark tool for Cyberpunk 2077. While CD Projekt Red's game turned in some of the best frame rate results, it was frequently a flickery mess with 4x MFG active on my RTX 4070 Super (to say nothing of how toasty it made my GPU during these tests).

If I was going to venture back to Night City for another playthrough with 4x MFG, I'd want to do some serious software tweaking beforehand. Obviously, Nick found the game ran much more smoothly with MFG active on an RTX 5090.

Nvidia RTX 5090 Founders Edition graphics card on different backgrounds

(Image credit: Future)

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has said in the past that bringing "the latest generation AI technology to the previous generation GPUs" is a good idea but that it would "require a fair amount of engineering." Having tested it out for myself, I do sort of see what he means.

Still, sans the cybernised elephant in the room, I was surprised at how viable playing with this unofficially supported 4x MFG felt on my RTX 4070 Super.

A lot of games require minimal tinkering beyond installing the 'RTX 40 MFG' and 'OptiScaler' mod in the ReShade HDR Installer (though Pragmata additionally requires the 'RE Framework' mod). Once you've done that, all you need to do is select the relevant MFG option from the in-game settings. Pragmata in particular was a doddle to set up and play, though I'd likely need a GPU with more VRAM than my current 12 GB card if I wanted to play with all of its visual flourishes active on top of MFG.

First person protagonist Hugh Williams gives robot Diana a thumbs up.

(Image credit: Capcom)

Granted, several hours of benchmarking is not quite the same as a full playthrough, and a lengthier play session of anything I tested may only serve to reveal further stability issues or visual quirkiness.

That said, my RTX 4070 Super is still turning in a very respectable amount of frames (even without MFG active). My 4x MFG testing just goes to show this RTX 40-series card has plenty of life left in it—and that I can definitely put off a potentially very expensive upgrade for a few more years at least.

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/nvidia-says-my-rtx-4070-super-isnt-capable-of-multi-frame-gen-but-im-surprised-by-how-smooth-this-unofficial-unlock-actually-feels/ ewxZgfh4RUmwsZ8qAMv7mG Thu, 01 Oct 2026 08:59:40 +0000 false false false

Multi Frame Generation (or MFG) smoothes out gameplay by using AI to create as many as five generated, or 'fake' frames for each one actually rendered by the GPU. Nvidia first introduced the original 2x Frame Generation feature with the RTX 40-series graphics cards back in 2022, but the highest rates of frame gen are reserved for the RTX 50-series.

If you have an RTX 5090 (despite it being particularly tricky to find one, let alone for a price anywhere near MSRP), you can enjoy as much as 6x MFG in supported games. This is because the RTX 50-series GPUs contain more powerful Tensor cores, but also a dedicated AI Management Processor (AMP) which works alongside Flip Metering to deliver frames, both rendered and AI-generated, to your display as smoothly as possible. Older cards, like my RTX 4070 Super, lack this snazzy silicon—but us PC gamers won't let something as silly as official limitations stop us.

I've already detailed how you can get 4x Multi Frame Generation working on an RTX 40-series GPU using some simple mods. I'll tell you what I found across all of my testing shortly, but first let me speedrun through how I got this working in the first place. Very simply, I used the ReShade HDR Installer to download unofficial mods that unlock higher rates of Multi Frame Generation for RTX 40-series cards. My RTX 4070 Super officially supports up to 2x MFG, but the unofficial mods mean I can test up to 6x MFG with this same card.

As Nvidia does not officially support more than 2x MFG on RTX 40-series cards, I was fully expecting some quirkiness ahead.

Even on an RTX 50-series card, officially supported Multi Frame Generation can introduce blurry frames and latency issues, so I'm not really expecting my RTX 4070 Super to fare better on those fronts. My testing is more about getting as much as I possibly can out of the hardware I already own, and silencing the voice that says I need to drop silly money on an RTX 50-series card at least for a little while longer.

Now, not all games support even the standard 2x MFG. So, let me tell you I was surprised to discover that story-heavy games like Lost Records: Bloom & Rage and The Thaumaturge both support up to 6x MFG (you can check Nvidia's full list of games that support MFG here). As such, the full roster of games I tested is a little non-traditional. It's worth noting too that I am only testing single-player games as the MFG unlock mods I'm using are not officially supported and can trigger in-game anti-cheat detection systems. Sorry, Arc Raiders, I don't want to get banned.

As for settings, I tested all games at 1440p resolution, and used High graphical settings. I also set the Nvidia DLSS quality mode to 'Balanced', and turned off ray tracing and similar tech where applicable. I set ReShade HDR Installer to tap out at 4x MFG as not all games support all the way up to 6x. My thinking was that more PC gamers might be interested in testing 4x MFG on an RTX 40-series card for that reason. I set no target frame rate beyond that, though, in the hopes that this experiment would give me the fullest picture of the highest highs and lowest lows in terms of frame rate.

Now, without further ado, let's take a look at some lovely bar charts.

1 / 6

1440p gaming performance

This chart shows average and 1% low frame rate results in various tested games at 1440p resolution

Black Myth: Wukong Benchmark Tool

No MFG (Average FPS)
64
2x MFG Max (Average FPS)
99
Unlocked MFG (Up to 4x) (Average FPS)
170
No MFG (1% Low FPS)
47
2x MFG Max (1% Low FPS)
67
Unlocked MFG (Up to 4x) (1% Low FPS)
113
050100150200
Black Myth: Wukong Benchmark Tool Data
ProductValue
No MFG (Average FPS)64
2x MFG Max (Average FPS)99
Unlocked MFG (Up to 4x) (Average FPS)170
No MFG (1% Low FPS)47
2x MFG Max (1% Low FPS)67
Unlocked MFG (Up to 4x) (1% Low FPS)113

I think it's fair to say that not all MFG support is created equal—even before you start tinkering with unofficial mods like me. For instance, though Lost Records: Bloom and Rage isn't an obvious stand out in terms of frames, it did feel consistently smooth to play with MFG active. The only visual difference I could detect is the softening of some shadows on a distant character model—otherwise, this remains a gorgeous game.

Comparatively, while Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 boasted more frames across my tests, it was not the most stable thing to play. I experienced noticeable frame hitching with MFG active. With 4x MFG specifically, I saw a bunch of artifacting while traversing snow-capped Seattle at speed. I didn't encounter the issue while traipsing through the snow at a Masquerade-maintaining jog, instead seeing ghosting when I broke into a supernatural sprint or glided between rooftops.

I've already mentioned the latency issues with Multi Frame Generation, and it's possible this ghosting arises from a similar source.

However, I also ran into artifacting in The Thaumaturge, though not chiefly while pelting around Warsaw. Instead, I saw ghosting in conversation-based cutscenes and during combat (you'd think the AI tech could keep up with a turn-based RPG). It's more subtle than the ghosting I saw in Bloodlines 2, but definitely still there. The effect is most obvious in the clip below as ne'er-do-well Marian enters the cutscene, and every time either Wiktor or his friend from the other side performs a focus-reducing attack in the following turn-based combat.

To be fair to Bloodlines 2, it was more stable than the built-in benchmark tool for Cyberpunk 2077. While CD Projekt Red's game turned in some of the best frame rate results, it was frequently a flickery mess with 4x MFG active on my RTX 4070 Super (to say nothing of how toasty it made my GPU during these tests).

If I was going to venture back to Night City for another playthrough with 4x MFG, I'd want to do some serious software tweaking beforehand. Obviously, Nick found the game ran much more smoothly with MFG active on an RTX 5090.

Nvidia RTX 5090 Founders Edition graphics card on different backgrounds

(Image credit: Future)

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has said in the past that bringing "the latest generation AI technology to the previous generation GPUs" is a good idea but that it would "require a fair amount of engineering." Having tested it out for myself, I do sort of see what he means.

Still, sans the cybernised elephant in the room, I was surprised at how viable playing with this unofficially supported 4x MFG felt on my RTX 4070 Super.

A lot of games require minimal tinkering beyond installing the 'RTX 40 MFG' and 'OptiScaler' mod in the ReShade HDR Installer (though Pragmata additionally requires the 'RE Framework' mod). Once you've done that, all you need to do is select the relevant MFG option from the in-game settings. Pragmata in particular was a doddle to set up and play, though I'd likely need a GPU with more VRAM than my current 12 GB card if I wanted to play with all of its visual flourishes active on top of MFG.

First person protagonist Hugh Williams gives robot Diana a thumbs up.

(Image credit: Capcom)

Granted, several hours of benchmarking is not quite the same as a full playthrough, and a lengthier play session of anything I tested may only serve to reveal further stability issues or visual quirkiness.

That said, my RTX 4070 Super is still turning in a very respectable amount of frames (even without MFG active). My 4x MFG testing just goes to show this RTX 40-series card has plenty of life left in it—and that I can definitely put off a potentially very expensive upgrade for a few more years at least.

]]> <![CDATA[ How to get unlocked Multi Frame Gen working on an RTX 40-series graphics card ]]> Just in case you've been napping under a cool mossy rock since about January 2025, Multi Frame Generation (or MFG) is a frame rate boosting/game smoothing feature that leverages AI to create as many as five frames for every actually rendered frame. Nvidia introduced the original 2x Frame Generation feature with the RTX 40-series graphics cards in 2022. Sadly Nvidia restricted the more recent Multi Frame Generation version of the tech to RTX 50-series cards alone. Mmm, buttery; boo, proprietary.

But before you rush out to search in vain for an RTX 5090 at MSRP, it is possible to get most of the extra smoothness of MFG working on older Nvidia graphics cards—if you don't mind a little bit of software tinkering.

Before I tell you how, there's a few things to note. For one thing, Nvidia restricted higher rates of MFG to the RTX 50-series cards for a reason. At the risk of oversimplifying, the RTX 50-series' silicon is specifically designed to manage the extra frames in ways the older architecture is not. There's a dedicated AI Management Processor (AMP) which works alongside Flip Metering to get frames—rendered and generated—delivered to the display in as smooth a way as possible. The older architectures don't have these features dedicated to frame generation.

As such, CEO Jensen Huang has said in the past that bringing "the latest generation AI technology to the previous generation GPUs" is a good idea but that it would "require a fair amount of engineering."

So it bears repeating the method for unlocking 4x MFG on a RTX 40-series card that I'm about to show you is definitely not officially supported. Besides that, one more thing to note is MFG is not a perfected technology—enabling higher levels of frame generation can introduce smeary frames and latency issues. Our Nick found that latency is an issue even with a frame rate limiter in place, too. Basically, all those extra frames may not actually offer the smoothest experience, depending on the game, even if the frame rate looks high.

But, if you'd still like to give it a go, here's how.

How to enable 4x MFG on RTX 40-series | In short

  1. Download the ReShade HDR Installer.
  2. Check the game you want to test supports MFG.
  3. Select your chosen game from the left side panel in RHI.
  4. Scroll down and click to install 'RTX 40 MFG,' and 'OptiScaler'.
  5. Scroll back up to 'Nvidia Profile Overrides.'
  6. Click on the blue button that says 'Multi Frame Generation'. Click 'OK' on the resulting dialog box.
  7. In the box titled 'Multi Frame Generation', select 'Dynamic', 'Up to 4x,' and 'off' from the drop-down lists. Click 'Close'.
  8. Launch your game. Select the relevant in-game Multi Frame Generation option.

How to enable 4x MFG on RTX 40-series | Breaking it down

A screenshot of a number of the options available in the ReShade HDR Installer.

(Image credit: RankFTW)

First things first, you'll need to download the ReShade HDR Installer (or RHI) from GitHub. This software automates the installation of unofficial mods like the post-processing injector referenced in the name.

When you open up RHI for the first time, it should import all of the games you already have installed. Before you do anything, make sure the game you want to test with your 40-series card actually supports MFG—Nvidia has a handy list of all the games that support DLSS Multi Frame Generation, and more of its snazzy RTX rendering tech right here. I'd recommend picking a single player game to test, as the mods you'll need to install can trigger in-game anti-cheat detection systems.

Once you've chosen the game you want to test, click on its name in the left side panel in RHI. You'll see a lot of game-specific options and mods come up on the main part of the RHI window. To unlock 3x and 4x MFG on a 40-series card, scroll down to the bottom of the list of options in RHI, then click to install 'RTX 40 MFG,' and 'OptiScaler'.

A screenshot of a number of the options available in the ReShade HDR Installer.

(Image credit: RankFTW)

Once those two unofficial mods are installed (this should only take a few seconds), scroll back up to 'Nvidia Profile Overrides.'

A screenshot of a number of the options available in the ReShade HDR Installer.

(Image credit: RankFTW)

Click on the blue button that says 'Multi Frame Generation'. A dialog box will pop up, saying 'Multi Frame Generation (MFG) and Dynamic MFG are only supported on Nvidia 50 Series GPU (Blackwell architecture)'.

A screenshot of a number of the options available in the ReShade HDR Installer.

(Image credit: RankFTW)

Click 'OK' on this dialog to open another box titled 'Multi Frame Generation'. This will feature three drop lists of options.

Under 'FG' I selected 'Dynamic', under 'Frame Count' I chose 'Up to 4x,' and I set 'Target Frame Rate' to 'Off.'

A screenshot of a number of the options available in the ReShade HDR Installer.

(Image credit: RankFTW)

If you're lucky, that's all the tinkering you'll need to do (if you're unlucky, you may need to swap between a few different driver versions within RHI). From there, you can launch your MFG-supporting game of choice, and then tweak the relevant in-game Frame Generation options.

Not all games offer a 4x MFG option specifically, so I sometimes relied on the FrameView app overlay to confirm it was active with my RTX 4070 Super. But otherwise, that's it!

Now go forth and enjoy some buttery smooth frame rates!

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/how-to-get-unlocked-multi-frame-gen-working-on-an-rtx-40-series-graphics-card/ gvzZgiw9PiVhujK9mcEviC Tue, 29 Sep 2026 10:03:43 +0000 false false false

Just in case you've been napping under a cool mossy rock since about January 2025, Multi Frame Generation (or MFG) is a frame rate boosting/game smoothing feature that leverages AI to create as many as five frames for every actually rendered frame. Nvidia introduced the original 2x Frame Generation feature with the RTX 40-series graphics cards in 2022. Sadly Nvidia restricted the more recent Multi Frame Generation version of the tech to RTX 50-series cards alone. Mmm, buttery; boo, proprietary.

But before you rush out to search in vain for an RTX 5090 at MSRP, it is possible to get most of the extra smoothness of MFG working on older Nvidia graphics cards—if you don't mind a little bit of software tinkering.

Before I tell you how, there's a few things to note. For one thing, Nvidia restricted higher rates of MFG to the RTX 50-series cards for a reason. At the risk of oversimplifying, the RTX 50-series' silicon is specifically designed to manage the extra frames in ways the older architecture is not. There's a dedicated AI Management Processor (AMP) which works alongside Flip Metering to get frames—rendered and generated—delivered to the display in as smooth a way as possible. The older architectures don't have these features dedicated to frame generation.

As such, CEO Jensen Huang has said in the past that bringing "the latest generation AI technology to the previous generation GPUs" is a good idea but that it would "require a fair amount of engineering."

So it bears repeating the method for unlocking 4x MFG on a RTX 40-series card that I'm about to show you is definitely not officially supported. Besides that, one more thing to note is MFG is not a perfected technology—enabling higher levels of frame generation can introduce smeary frames and latency issues. Our Nick found that latency is an issue even with a frame rate limiter in place, too. Basically, all those extra frames may not actually offer the smoothest experience, depending on the game, even if the frame rate looks high.

But, if you'd still like to give it a go, here's how.

How to enable 4x MFG on RTX 40-series | In short

  1. Download the ReShade HDR Installer.
  2. Check the game you want to test supports MFG.
  3. Select your chosen game from the left side panel in RHI.
  4. Scroll down and click to install 'RTX 40 MFG,' and 'OptiScaler'.
  5. Scroll back up to 'Nvidia Profile Overrides.'
  6. Click on the blue button that says 'Multi Frame Generation'. Click 'OK' on the resulting dialog box.
  7. In the box titled 'Multi Frame Generation', select 'Dynamic', 'Up to 4x,' and 'off' from the drop-down lists. Click 'Close'.
  8. Launch your game. Select the relevant in-game Multi Frame Generation option.

How to enable 4x MFG on RTX 40-series | Breaking it down

A screenshot of a number of the options available in the ReShade HDR Installer.

(Image credit: RankFTW)

First things first, you'll need to download the ReShade HDR Installer (or RHI) from GitHub. This software automates the installation of unofficial mods like the post-processing injector referenced in the name.

When you open up RHI for the first time, it should import all of the games you already have installed. Before you do anything, make sure the game you want to test with your 40-series card actually supports MFG—Nvidia has a handy list of all the games that support DLSS Multi Frame Generation, and more of its snazzy RTX rendering tech right here. I'd recommend picking a single player game to test, as the mods you'll need to install can trigger in-game anti-cheat detection systems.

Once you've chosen the game you want to test, click on its name in the left side panel in RHI. You'll see a lot of game-specific options and mods come up on the main part of the RHI window. To unlock 3x and 4x MFG on a 40-series card, scroll down to the bottom of the list of options in RHI, then click to install 'RTX 40 MFG,' and 'OptiScaler'.

A screenshot of a number of the options available in the ReShade HDR Installer.

(Image credit: RankFTW)

Once those two unofficial mods are installed (this should only take a few seconds), scroll back up to 'Nvidia Profile Overrides.'

A screenshot of a number of the options available in the ReShade HDR Installer.

(Image credit: RankFTW)

Click on the blue button that says 'Multi Frame Generation'. A dialog box will pop up, saying 'Multi Frame Generation (MFG) and Dynamic MFG are only supported on Nvidia 50 Series GPU (Blackwell architecture)'.

A screenshot of a number of the options available in the ReShade HDR Installer.

(Image credit: RankFTW)

Click 'OK' on this dialog to open another box titled 'Multi Frame Generation'. This will feature three drop lists of options.

Under 'FG' I selected 'Dynamic', under 'Frame Count' I chose 'Up to 4x,' and I set 'Target Frame Rate' to 'Off.'

A screenshot of a number of the options available in the ReShade HDR Installer.

(Image credit: RankFTW)

If you're lucky, that's all the tinkering you'll need to do (if you're unlucky, you may need to swap between a few different driver versions within RHI). From there, you can launch your MFG-supporting game of choice, and then tweak the relevant in-game Frame Generation options.

Not all games offer a 4x MFG option specifically, so I sometimes relied on the FrameView app overlay to confirm it was active with my RTX 4070 Super. But otherwise, that's it!

Now go forth and enjoy some buttery smooth frame rates!

]]> <![CDATA[ AMD starts the ball rolling for GDDR7 in next-gen GPUs with small code adjustment in its Linux drivers ]]> AMD has filed its latest driver patches for Linux and included within those are the first indication of support for GDDR7.

As spotted by Phoronix, the AMDGPU patch specifically adds the identifier "GDDR7" to the driver. It's only a small change—a single line in a pile of code for the company's open source GPU driver—yet it aligns with our expectations of new GPUs. The existing 9000 series uses GDDR6, while Nvidia has already moved on to GDDR7 with the RTX 50-series. Even with the ongoing memory crisis, it seems likely that AMD will also move to GDDR7 with the next generation. These patch notes support that view.

AMD also added further support for an as-yet unreleased architecture, such as Display Core Next 6 back in July.

We're expecting RDNA 5 around the end of 2027 (I still have hope) or pushing into 2028. Current rumours reckon we'll see just a couple of cards in a year's time, with a wider line-up to follow along afterwards. This aligns with the expected launch of next-gen consoles, built on a semi-custom version of that same Radeon architecture.

AMD CEO Lisa Su said in February, in no uncertain terms, that the SoC for the next-gen Xbox was "progressing well to support a launch in 2027."

The memory crisis could still scupper these plans yet, but if we're to believe Acer's CEO, it's not as bad as everyone thinks it is. I'd like to believe him. I'm not sure I do. Either way, we're looking at a long wait for new graphics silicon in our PCs, as rumours suggest Nvidia won't have much to show until 2028, either.

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/amd-starts-the-ball-rolling-for-gddr7-in-next-gen-gpus-with-small-code-adjustment-in-its-linux-drivers/ VA6zVvNSAboMKMFtYpqkz6 Wed, 23 Sep 2026 10:54:50 +0000 Wed, 23 Sep 2026 13:39:25 +0000 false false false

AMD has filed its latest driver patches for Linux and included within those are the first indication of support for GDDR7.

As spotted by Phoronix, the AMDGPU patch specifically adds the identifier "GDDR7" to the driver. It's only a small change—a single line in a pile of code for the company's open source GPU driver—yet it aligns with our expectations of new GPUs. The existing 9000 series uses GDDR6, while Nvidia has already moved on to GDDR7 with the RTX 50-series. Even with the ongoing memory crisis, it seems likely that AMD will also move to GDDR7 with the next generation. These patch notes support that view.

AMD also added further support for an as-yet unreleased architecture, such as Display Core Next 6 back in July.

We're expecting RDNA 5 around the end of 2027 (I still have hope) or pushing into 2028. Current rumours reckon we'll see just a couple of cards in a year's time, with a wider line-up to follow along afterwards. This aligns with the expected launch of next-gen consoles, built on a semi-custom version of that same Radeon architecture.

AMD CEO Lisa Su said in February, in no uncertain terms, that the SoC for the next-gen Xbox was "progressing well to support a launch in 2027."

The memory crisis could still scupper these plans yet, but if we're to believe Acer's CEO, it's not as bad as everyone thinks it is. I'd like to believe him. I'm not sure I do. Either way, we're looking at a long wait for new graphics silicon in our PCs, as rumours suggest Nvidia won't have much to show until 2028, either.

]]> <![CDATA[ Touch grass? Not when AMD has whittled down ray tracing memory usage by 98% for these hardware-sapping bushes and trees ]]> As someone who spent a lot of their childhood talking to trees, I'm of the opinion that videogame forestry doesn't need to look any better than Alan Wake 2's Pacific Northwest woodlands. That hasn't stopped AMD from innovating though; by leveraging 'tetrahedral cages' to help render a vast scene of greenery, researchers at the company say they've managed to cut the potential ray tracing memory usage by 98%.

Typically, a scene of around 25,000 independently animated plants made of hundreds of thousands of triangles could hoover up 80 GB of GPU memory. Not only that, but it would take a Radeon RX 9070 XT GPU 300 ms per frame to check which surfaces within a scene are intersecting with a ray (the data structure that organises this information is called a Bounding Volume Hierarchy). In short, using traditional tech to render such a densely populated scene would be slow and choppy.

Holger Gruen, a Fellow of AMD's Advanced Graphics Program, recently shared on GPUOpen that the team's tetrahedral cage demos only use "1.7 GB of BVH memory and approximately 3.3 ms for all BVH updates per frame" in comparison. Touch grass? Not when we've got trees like these.

Anyway, let me break down how this tech works: a tetrahedral cage essentially wraps around the dense mesh of all that plant matter. Rather than many polygonal leaves bobbing in the simulated breeze, only the simplified cage deforms instead. So, rather than looking straight at the many wibbly-wobbly vertices of a virtual tree, rays are instead traced along the simplified surface structure of the tetrahedral cage around it.

At the risk of really oversimplifying, I think of this tech a bit like those 3D models or laser-engravings you sometimes see inside cubes of crystal—but maybe that's just me.

"The dense geometry of an animated object and its BVH structures remain static and reusable. During runtime, only the cage deforms. Rays are transformed back into a static reference frame before intersecting them with the dense set of triangles," Gruen explains. "This means animation cost only scales with cage complexity, not with triangle count. This comes at the expense of losing animation control over every vertex, but this is fine for many animations."

In other words, for a scene where the focus is less on the luscious fronds of a single plant and more on a field of foliage, devs likely won't miss the ability to finetune individual animations. But for 3D trees with personality, tetrahedral cages won't be as useful.

It's also important to note that the tech is still a research demonstration, rather than a fully fledged feature coming to a game near you soon. That said, the team is already "hard at work" on making "DXR samples and a header-only C++ library that allows building high-quality tetrahedral cages for skinned objects, keyframe-animated objects, and static objects." You can also read more about the team's research in the open access paper 'Ray Tracing Massive Amounts of Animated Geometry'.

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/touch-grass-not-when-amd-has-whittled-down-ray-tracing-memory-usage-by-98-percent-for-these-hardware-sapping-bushes-and-trees/ 6DheJA5qYCrysj377vsQMe Mon, 21 Sep 2026 15:47:01 +0000 Mon, 21 Sep 2026 15:47:08 +0000 false false false

As someone who spent a lot of their childhood talking to trees, I'm of the opinion that videogame forestry doesn't need to look any better than Alan Wake 2's Pacific Northwest woodlands. That hasn't stopped AMD from innovating though; by leveraging 'tetrahedral cages' to help render a vast scene of greenery, researchers at the company say they've managed to cut the potential ray tracing memory usage by 98%.

Typically, a scene of around 25,000 independently animated plants made of hundreds of thousands of triangles could hoover up 80 GB of GPU memory. Not only that, but it would take a Radeon RX 9070 XT GPU 300 ms per frame to check which surfaces within a scene are intersecting with a ray (the data structure that organises this information is called a Bounding Volume Hierarchy). In short, using traditional tech to render such a densely populated scene would be slow and choppy.

Holger Gruen, a Fellow of AMD's Advanced Graphics Program, recently shared on GPUOpen that the team's tetrahedral cage demos only use "1.7 GB of BVH memory and approximately 3.3 ms for all BVH updates per frame" in comparison. Touch grass? Not when we've got trees like these.

Anyway, let me break down how this tech works: a tetrahedral cage essentially wraps around the dense mesh of all that plant matter. Rather than many polygonal leaves bobbing in the simulated breeze, only the simplified cage deforms instead. So, rather than looking straight at the many wibbly-wobbly vertices of a virtual tree, rays are instead traced along the simplified surface structure of the tetrahedral cage around it.

At the risk of really oversimplifying, I think of this tech a bit like those 3D models or laser-engravings you sometimes see inside cubes of crystal—but maybe that's just me.

"The dense geometry of an animated object and its BVH structures remain static and reusable. During runtime, only the cage deforms. Rays are transformed back into a static reference frame before intersecting them with the dense set of triangles," Gruen explains. "This means animation cost only scales with cage complexity, not with triangle count. This comes at the expense of losing animation control over every vertex, but this is fine for many animations."

In other words, for a scene where the focus is less on the luscious fronds of a single plant and more on a field of foliage, devs likely won't miss the ability to finetune individual animations. But for 3D trees with personality, tetrahedral cages won't be as useful.

It's also important to note that the tech is still a research demonstration, rather than a fully fledged feature coming to a game near you soon. That said, the team is already "hard at work" on making "DXR samples and a header-only C++ library that allows building high-quality tetrahedral cages for skinned objects, keyframe-animated objects, and static objects." You can also read more about the team's research in the open access paper 'Ray Tracing Massive Amounts of Animated Geometry'.

]]> <![CDATA[ Control Resonant is one of the best-looking games at low graphics settings I've ever seen ]]> I'll admit it, I'm normally a bit of a graphics settings snob. 25+ years of PC gaming has conditioned me to think that "Low" is an option to be avoided on everything but the most budget of rigs, or the most demanding of games.

But I've just finished my early performance and image quality testing of Control Resonant, and it's remarkable how good the open world looks in motion with everything turned down to the minimum. The clip below was recorded at 1080p, Low graphics preset, with ray tracing turned off:

I appreciate you're likely viewing this on a phone screen, so it's difficult to get a bead on the details. And the video compression does the clip no favours once you fullscreen it. But those Manhattan streets still look pretty good with all the options cranked down.

I think what we're looking at here, more than anything else, is a very strong art style. The details of the buildings remain distinct, the contrast between light and shade as I wind my way around the corners is prominent, and the non-ray traced shimmering puddles still look good.

There's a real sense of scale here, too. While the buildings in the background are shrouded in haze to obscure any uglies, they work with the lighting to create a very evocative, atmospheric effect. Here's an image taken at 1440p Low (again, with ray tracing off), to show how the graphics scale with the resolution at these settings.

(Image credit: Remedy)

And my eye is continually drawn towards the reactivity of the environment. Control Resonant likes to play with its semi-destructible world elements, pulling broken fragments of them into Dylan's wake when he sprints, and throwing them all over the shop mid-combat. There's a lot going on here, but most of it still looks more than acceptable with the options turned down.

Which is good news for those of you with less-than-top-tier rigs, as there's some performance to be found when you drop the settings. Yes, you'll notice some plastic-looking faces in the cutscenes with everything set this low, and the odd shopfront sign suffers from low-res textures. But overall, the effect in motion (while you're actually playing the game) is still remarkably good.

In fact, I struggle to think of a better-looking big-budget game with all the options dropped. Halo: Campaign Evolved, perhaps? It's a close run thing, but I'd still pick Control Resonant out of the two. Perhaps we're entering an era of reasonable low settings becoming the norm, rather than the exception?

Given the price of graphics cards right now, one can only hope.

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/control-resonant-is-one-of-the-best-looking-games-at-low-graphics-settings-ive-ever-seen/ qHumV4CUmYfzcUyCWdsbpV Fri, 18 Sep 2026 16:01:50 +0000 Fri, 18 Sep 2026 16:49:07 +0000 false false false

I'll admit it, I'm normally a bit of a graphics settings snob. 25+ years of PC gaming has conditioned me to think that "Low" is an option to be avoided on everything but the most budget of rigs, or the most demanding of games.

But I've just finished my early performance and image quality testing of Control Resonant, and it's remarkable how good the open world looks in motion with everything turned down to the minimum. The clip below was recorded at 1080p, Low graphics preset, with ray tracing turned off:

I appreciate you're likely viewing this on a phone screen, so it's difficult to get a bead on the details. And the video compression does the clip no favours once you fullscreen it. But those Manhattan streets still look pretty good with all the options cranked down.

I think what we're looking at here, more than anything else, is a very strong art style. The details of the buildings remain distinct, the contrast between light and shade as I wind my way around the corners is prominent, and the non-ray traced shimmering puddles still look good.

There's a real sense of scale here, too. While the buildings in the background are shrouded in haze to obscure any uglies, they work with the lighting to create a very evocative, atmospheric effect. Here's an image taken at 1440p Low (again, with ray tracing off), to show how the graphics scale with the resolution at these settings.

(Image credit: Remedy)

And my eye is continually drawn towards the reactivity of the environment. Control Resonant likes to play with its semi-destructible world elements, pulling broken fragments of them into Dylan's wake when he sprints, and throwing them all over the shop mid-combat. There's a lot going on here, but most of it still looks more than acceptable with the options turned down.

Which is good news for those of you with less-than-top-tier rigs, as there's some performance to be found when you drop the settings. Yes, you'll notice some plastic-looking faces in the cutscenes with everything set this low, and the odd shopfront sign suffers from low-res textures. But overall, the effect in motion (while you're actually playing the game) is still remarkably good.

In fact, I struggle to think of a better-looking big-budget game with all the options dropped. Halo: Campaign Evolved, perhaps? It's a close run thing, but I'd still pick Control Resonant out of the two. Perhaps we're entering an era of reasonable low settings becoming the norm, rather than the exception?

Given the price of graphics cards right now, one can only hope.

]]> <![CDATA[ Don't bother turning Control Resonant up to the maximum for mind-bending graphics, there's both performance and beauty in the lower graphics presets too ]]> I've spent the past couple of days tinkering with Remedy's latest supernatural action-a-thon, Control Resonant. I've been testing it on my home PC, a fairly powerful (but not outrageous) rig, and I've got some good news: when it comes to balancing image quality with performance, I reckon there's very little reason to stress your own machine out with the top whack settings.

My PC is an RTX 5070 Ti-equipped, AMD Ryzen 7 7700X-toting rig with 32 GB of DDR5. It's no slouch, that's for sure—but neither is it a $3,000+ firebreather. And at 1440p, Control Resonant runs smoothly on this machine at nearly every setting, with zero stutters and decent frame rates even with frame generation turned off.

You should still prepare your graphics card for a workout if you use the Ultra presets, as Control Resonant features full path tracing at the very tippy top. I've got some image comparisons below, but for now I'll say this: I'm really not going to bother with maximum settings for the rest of my playthrough.

This game still looks grand with the graphics options pared back, and when it comes to the ray tracing, you can gain a decent amount of performance by dropping things down.

The graphics setting menus for Control Resonant
Remedy
The graphics setting menus for Control Resonant
Remedy
The graphics setting menus for Control Resonant
Remedy

In terms of those graphics options, my goodness do you get a lot of them. The ray tracing can be adjusted independently of the regular graphics presets, which in turn have a full-featured whack of settings to tweak to your hearts content. There's also a choice between DLSS 4.5 and an older, CNN-based model for upscaling duties, or FSR (including FSR 4) for AMD users.

Despite all these potential setting tweaks, it'll be no surprise to learn that ray tracing provides the biggest performance hit, so I grabbed some figures with Ultra graphics settings enabled at the various different RT presets.

Control Resonant - RTX 5070 Ti - 1440p Ray Tracing Performance

Results recorded during gameplay at 1440p resolution, Ultra settings, DLSS set to Quality, Frame Generation off.

Control Resonant - 1440p, Ultra settings, DLSS Quality, FG off

Avg FPS
1% Low FPS
RT Ultra
62
44
RT High
71
50
RT Medium
76
54
RT Low
84
60
RT off
105
73
037.575112.5150
Control Resonant - 1440p, Ultra settings, DLSS Quality, FG off Data
ProductValue
RT Ultra62 Avg FPS, 44 1% Low FPS
RT High71 Avg FPS, 50 1% Low FPS
RT Medium76 Avg FPS, 54 1% Low FPS
RT Low84 Avg FPS, 60 1% Low FPS
RT off105 Avg FPS, 73 1% Low FPS
The impact of ray tracing on the frame rate is clear to see, although it's the RT Ultra path tracing setting that does the most damage. The difference between RT Medium and RT High is a mere five frames on average, though.

As you can see, the difference between ray tracing at Low and off entirely is fairly significant, amounting to an extra 21 frames in the averages. However, Control Resonant is full of stark shadows, reflective puddles in streets, and shiny office block windows.

Personally, I like to enable some ray tracing goodness if my graphics card can handle it, and there's a mere five fps average difference between the Medium and High presets on my machine. The RT Ultra preset, however, provides a significant plummet in average frames—and looking at my image comparisons, I really don't think it's worth it.

A selection of screenshots showing various ray tracing settings in Control Resonant, with the settings labelled in the bottom left
Remedy
A selection of screenshots showing various ray tracing settings in Control Resonant, with the settings labelled in the bottom left
Remedy
A selection of screenshots showing various ray tracing settings in Control Resonant, with the settings labelled in the bottom left
Remedy
A selection of screenshots showing various ray tracing settings in Control Resonant, with the settings labelled in the bottom left
Remedy
A selection of screenshots showing various ray tracing settings in Control Resonant, with the settings labelled in the bottom left
Remedy

Sure, you can spot some differences between Ultra RT and High if you really hunt for them. The lighting on the parking lot ceiling above the central lamp, for example, looks a lot more realistic with the ray tracing maxed out. But switching back between this and the High setting during actual gameplay, you'll really struggle to tell.

In fact, the Medium RT preset looks pretty darn good as well, although the ceiling darkens up considerably. If you switch to Low, shadows lose their definition fairly quickly, as evidenced by the truck in the background and Dylan's legs.

Given that Control Resonant likes to play with light and shade in its environments, I think that RT High is probably the best compromise between image quality and performance. Still, all these screenshots look grand to my eyes.

Control Resonant - Ray Tracing Image Quality

A comparison between RT High settings, and RT Low. Notice the sharper shadow Dylan casts on the left, and the more realistic reflections on the wet road.

AfterBefore
Brand Logo
RT High
RT Low

There are some appreciable differences with High ray tracing enabled. In the brightly lit Manhattan street above, the Low ray tracing reflections in the road become a little blocky, while High gives them a hazy quality that feels more appropriate for the scene.

And again, check out Dylan's shadow. It's crisp and well-defined with ray tracing set to High, and quite fuzzy at Low. As is the lighting on Dylan himself, now I come to notice it. Still, I think both of these presets make the game look great, especially once you stop pixel hunting and start stalking the streets.

Keeping ray tracing set to High for consistencies sake, I thought I'd see if I could gain some extra performance by adjusting the regular graphics presets. It's a similar story, though: Ultra settings provide the most significant performance drop, while High and Medium are so close as to be within margins of error.

Control Resonant - RTX 5070 Ti - 1440p performance

Results recorded during gameplay at 1440p, RT High, DLSS set to Quality, Frame Generation off.

Control Resonant - 1440p, RT High, DLSS Quality, FG off

Avg FPS
1% Low FPS
Ultra
71
50
High
80
57
Medium
81
60
Low
86
62
0255075100
Control Resonant - 1440p, RT High, DLSS Quality, FG off Data
ProductValue
Ultra71 Avg FPS, 50 1% Low FPS
High80 Avg FPS, 57 1% Low FPS
Medium81 Avg FPS, 60 1% Low FPS
Low86 Avg FPS, 62 1% Low FPS
Once the ray tracing has been set, there's not a huge amount of performance to be gained by adjusting the regular graphics settings. High and Medium frame rates are near identical, and there's only a 15 fps difference between Low and Ultra in terms of average fps.

There's a sweet spot here if you're trying to min/max image quality with performance, and it's setting both the regular graphics preset and the ray tracing settings to High, with the upscaler of your choice set to Quality. The game looks downright excellent at these settings, and on this machine results in some very smooth, great-looking gameplay.

Observe, as I button mash my way through some combat in clip below with both set to High. Also notice how the environment is extremely reactive to my ham-fisted attempts to hit something, anything, with my supernaturally enhanced weapons, all without a hint of hitching or stuttering.

This game is very impressive in motion, and given that I haven't even touched the frame generation to get a smooth frame rate with ray tracing turned up, it seems reasonably well optimised as well.

However, I appreciate that not everyone can afford a PC with this sort of grunt, even if it's not the latest and greatest. The good news, though, is that Control Resonant actually looks pretty good with everything set to its lowest. The screenshot below was taken at the Low preset, with ray tracing disabled entirely.

Dylan from Control Resonant, rendered in a street scene at Low settings, no ray tracing

(Image credit: Remedy)

Not exactly ugly, is it? The restaurant signage is a little blurry, but check out how much detail is still kept within the scene even with everything turned down to the very, very bottom.

Remedy says the minimum required GPU is a GTX 1070 (for 1080p/30 fps at Low), and while I don't have one of those on hand to test with, I'd still happily play Control Resonant at the lowest settings if I needed to. It preserves a remarkable amount of detail with everything turned down, with a decent boost in performance.

The clip above was recorded at 1080p Low with DLSS set to Quality, and with ray tracing and frame generation turned off. It's Control Resonant's art style that really makes the difference here.

The world itself is clearly defined and beautifully put together, and while I'd still enable ray tracing in some fashion if you can afford the frame rate hit, it's simply a good-looking game no matter the settings.

The reactivity of the environment (and a fair few spooky-dooky, yet lightweight effects) are really what you're paying the price of entry for, so don't feel too obliged to turn up the pretties for the sake of it. There's performance to be found in them thar hills, and I certainly wouldn't spoil a good time by cranking things up to the max.

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/dont-bother-turning-control-resonant-up-to-the-maximum-for-mind-bending-graphics-theres-both-performance-and-beauty-in-the-lower-graphics-presets-too/ ymXL582r5DQHupMMVhrYrW Fri, 18 Sep 2026 13:01:00 +0000 Sat, 19 Sep 2026 22:50:58 +0000 false false false

I've spent the past couple of days tinkering with Remedy's latest supernatural action-a-thon, Control Resonant. I've been testing it on my home PC, a fairly powerful (but not outrageous) rig, and I've got some good news: when it comes to balancing image quality with performance, I reckon there's very little reason to stress your own machine out with the top whack settings.

My PC is an RTX 5070 Ti-equipped, AMD Ryzen 7 7700X-toting rig with 32 GB of DDR5. It's no slouch, that's for sure—but neither is it a $3,000+ firebreather. And at 1440p, Control Resonant runs smoothly on this machine at nearly every setting, with zero stutters and decent frame rates even with frame generation turned off.

You should still prepare your graphics card for a workout if you use the Ultra presets, as Control Resonant features full path tracing at the very tippy top. I've got some image comparisons below, but for now I'll say this: I'm really not going to bother with maximum settings for the rest of my playthrough.

This game still looks grand with the graphics options pared back, and when it comes to the ray tracing, you can gain a decent amount of performance by dropping things down.

The graphics setting menus for Control Resonant
Remedy
The graphics setting menus for Control Resonant
Remedy
The graphics setting menus for Control Resonant
Remedy

In terms of those graphics options, my goodness do you get a lot of them. The ray tracing can be adjusted independently of the regular graphics presets, which in turn have a full-featured whack of settings to tweak to your hearts content. There's also a choice between DLSS 4.5 and an older, CNN-based model for upscaling duties, or FSR (including FSR 4) for AMD users.

Despite all these potential setting tweaks, it'll be no surprise to learn that ray tracing provides the biggest performance hit, so I grabbed some figures with Ultra graphics settings enabled at the various different RT presets.

Control Resonant - RTX 5070 Ti - 1440p Ray Tracing Performance

Results recorded during gameplay at 1440p resolution, Ultra settings, DLSS set to Quality, Frame Generation off.

Control Resonant - 1440p, Ultra settings, DLSS Quality, FG off

Avg FPS
1% Low FPS
RT Ultra
62
44
RT High
71
50
RT Medium
76
54
RT Low
84
60
RT off
105
73
037.575112.5150
Control Resonant - 1440p, Ultra settings, DLSS Quality, FG off Data
ProductValue
RT Ultra62 Avg FPS, 44 1% Low FPS
RT High71 Avg FPS, 50 1% Low FPS
RT Medium76 Avg FPS, 54 1% Low FPS
RT Low84 Avg FPS, 60 1% Low FPS
RT off105 Avg FPS, 73 1% Low FPS
The impact of ray tracing on the frame rate is clear to see, although it's the RT Ultra path tracing setting that does the most damage. The difference between RT Medium and RT High is a mere five frames on average, though.

As you can see, the difference between ray tracing at Low and off entirely is fairly significant, amounting to an extra 21 frames in the averages. However, Control Resonant is full of stark shadows, reflective puddles in streets, and shiny office block windows.

Personally, I like to enable some ray tracing goodness if my graphics card can handle it, and there's a mere five fps average difference between the Medium and High presets on my machine. The RT Ultra preset, however, provides a significant plummet in average frames—and looking at my image comparisons, I really don't think it's worth it.

A selection of screenshots showing various ray tracing settings in Control Resonant, with the settings labelled in the bottom left
Remedy
A selection of screenshots showing various ray tracing settings in Control Resonant, with the settings labelled in the bottom left
Remedy
A selection of screenshots showing various ray tracing settings in Control Resonant, with the settings labelled in the bottom left
Remedy
A selection of screenshots showing various ray tracing settings in Control Resonant, with the settings labelled in the bottom left
Remedy
A selection of screenshots showing various ray tracing settings in Control Resonant, with the settings labelled in the bottom left
Remedy

Sure, you can spot some differences between Ultra RT and High if you really hunt for them. The lighting on the parking lot ceiling above the central lamp, for example, looks a lot more realistic with the ray tracing maxed out. But switching back between this and the High setting during actual gameplay, you'll really struggle to tell.

In fact, the Medium RT preset looks pretty darn good as well, although the ceiling darkens up considerably. If you switch to Low, shadows lose their definition fairly quickly, as evidenced by the truck in the background and Dylan's legs.

Given that Control Resonant likes to play with light and shade in its environments, I think that RT High is probably the best compromise between image quality and performance. Still, all these screenshots look grand to my eyes.

Control Resonant - Ray Tracing Image Quality

A comparison between RT High settings, and RT Low. Notice the sharper shadow Dylan casts on the left, and the more realistic reflections on the wet road.

AfterBefore
Brand Logo
RT High
RT Low

There are some appreciable differences with High ray tracing enabled. In the brightly lit Manhattan street above, the Low ray tracing reflections in the road become a little blocky, while High gives them a hazy quality that feels more appropriate for the scene.

And again, check out Dylan's shadow. It's crisp and well-defined with ray tracing set to High, and quite fuzzy at Low. As is the lighting on Dylan himself, now I come to notice it. Still, I think both of these presets make the game look great, especially once you stop pixel hunting and start stalking the streets.

Keeping ray tracing set to High for consistencies sake, I thought I'd see if I could gain some extra performance by adjusting the regular graphics presets. It's a similar story, though: Ultra settings provide the most significant performance drop, while High and Medium are so close as to be within margins of error.

Control Resonant - RTX 5070 Ti - 1440p performance

Results recorded during gameplay at 1440p, RT High, DLSS set to Quality, Frame Generation off.

Control Resonant - 1440p, RT High, DLSS Quality, FG off

Avg FPS
1% Low FPS
Ultra
71
50
High
80
57
Medium
81
60
Low
86
62
0255075100
Control Resonant - 1440p, RT High, DLSS Quality, FG off Data
ProductValue
Ultra71 Avg FPS, 50 1% Low FPS
High80 Avg FPS, 57 1% Low FPS
Medium81 Avg FPS, 60 1% Low FPS
Low86 Avg FPS, 62 1% Low FPS
Once the ray tracing has been set, there's not a huge amount of performance to be gained by adjusting the regular graphics settings. High and Medium frame rates are near identical, and there's only a 15 fps difference between Low and Ultra in terms of average fps.

There's a sweet spot here if you're trying to min/max image quality with performance, and it's setting both the regular graphics preset and the ray tracing settings to High, with the upscaler of your choice set to Quality. The game looks downright excellent at these settings, and on this machine results in some very smooth, great-looking gameplay.

Observe, as I button mash my way through some combat in clip below with both set to High. Also notice how the environment is extremely reactive to my ham-fisted attempts to hit something, anything, with my supernaturally enhanced weapons, all without a hint of hitching or stuttering.

This game is very impressive in motion, and given that I haven't even touched the frame generation to get a smooth frame rate with ray tracing turned up, it seems reasonably well optimised as well.

However, I appreciate that not everyone can afford a PC with this sort of grunt, even if it's not the latest and greatest. The good news, though, is that Control Resonant actually looks pretty good with everything set to its lowest. The screenshot below was taken at the Low preset, with ray tracing disabled entirely.

Dylan from Control Resonant, rendered in a street scene at Low settings, no ray tracing

(Image credit: Remedy)

Not exactly ugly, is it? The restaurant signage is a little blurry, but check out how much detail is still kept within the scene even with everything turned down to the very, very bottom.

Remedy says the minimum required GPU is a GTX 1070 (for 1080p/30 fps at Low), and while I don't have one of those on hand to test with, I'd still happily play Control Resonant at the lowest settings if I needed to. It preserves a remarkable amount of detail with everything turned down, with a decent boost in performance.

The clip above was recorded at 1080p Low with DLSS set to Quality, and with ray tracing and frame generation turned off. It's Control Resonant's art style that really makes the difference here.

The world itself is clearly defined and beautifully put together, and while I'd still enable ray tracing in some fashion if you can afford the frame rate hit, it's simply a good-looking game no matter the settings.

The reactivity of the environment (and a fair few spooky-dooky, yet lightweight effects) are really what you're paying the price of entry for, so don't feel too obliged to turn up the pretties for the sake of it. There's performance to be found in them thar hills, and I certainly wouldn't spoil a good time by cranking things up to the max.

]]> <![CDATA[ Suddenly much cheaper and still much faster than an RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB, the RX 9070 GRE is the only sub-MSRP graphics card around today ]]>

RX 9070 GRE | 12 GB: was $579.99 now $499.99
The RX 9070 GRE is the latest entry in AMD's RX 9000-series, and for the money, you're getting a great mid-range graphics card. If it stays at this price, then it will be the sensible choice over the 16 GB RTX 5060 Ti. Let's hope that there's enough supply, as stocks are already looking a bit thin. Sign into a free Newegg account to see the full discount.

Key specs: 3072 shaders | 2880 MHz boost | 12 GB GDDR6

RX 9070 GRE price check: Amazon $549.99 | Best Buy $549.99 | Walmart $569.99View Deal

I highlighted this deal as one of the best value graphics card deals on the block last week and, inconceivably, it's become even cheaper now I've checked through all the GPU deals today. That's thanks to the Newegg discount giving you $70 off the listing price. That means it's even more true today that, for PC gamers looking to get the most frame rate bang for their buck, an AMD GPU is the only silicon worth the money right now. And the Radeon RX 9000-series family is also the only one of the current generation to be able to offer a pretty high-end graphics card for under its MSRP.

I give you, once more, the Radeon RX 9070 GRE, a 12 GB card you can pick up today for just $500 at Newegg. The one minor caveat is that you will need to have a Newegg account to be able to see the full discount—just enter the email address you use to create the free account and you'll see an extra $70 lopped off the original $570 price tag.

The most obvious Nvidia-shaped competition for AMD's most recent RDNA 4 GPU is the RTX 5070 12 GB and the RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB. And the absolute cheapest (and trustworthy) prices I've found for those two GeForce cards are $779 and $780 respectively. The RTX 5070 is generally the more performant card, offering slightly higher frame rates. But that's the key here; the frame rate delta is pretty small, especially when you start to bring in upscaled 1440p performance into the picture.

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.

You can also see in those benchmarks the level of gaming performance you can get out of an RX 9070 GRE compared with the RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB card, too. And this is before we get into one of the very neatest tricks of the latest Radeon architecture: its undervolting performance.

Pare back the amount of voltage given to the GPU and it will run cooler. Perhaps counterintuitively, providing lower voltage directly to the Navi 48 chip actually results in higher performance because the card is running cooler and therefore the dynamic nature of current day clock speeds means that they are able to push further. On a pretty standard RX 9070 GRE I was easily topping 3 GHz as standard, delivering another 10% higher frame rates with an overclocked card that's only marginally warmer and a little more power hungry.

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.

I feel it's also worth noting at this point that both the prices I've noted for the RTX 5070 and RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB are absolute best case prices, with those $779 and $780 figures being very much the outliers when it comes to general pricing for those GPUs. Most listings you'll find for the pair will have them both beyond the $800 mark.

Which is frankly offensive.

👉Check out all Newegg's GPU deals👈

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/much-cheaper-and-much-faster-than-an-rtx-5060-ti-16-gb-the-rx-9070-gre-is-the-only-sub-msrp-graphics-card-around-today/ MG2xi9ot5J2KpJdEpSUkN7 Thu, 17 Sep 2026 14:47:40 +0000 Fri, 18 Sep 2026 10:59:08 +0000 false false false

RX 9070 GRE | 12 GB: was $579.99 now $499.99
The RX 9070 GRE is the latest entry in AMD's RX 9000-series, and for the money, you're getting a great mid-range graphics card. If it stays at this price, then it will be the sensible choice over the 16 GB RTX 5060 Ti. Let's hope that there's enough supply, as stocks are already looking a bit thin. Sign into a free Newegg account to see the full discount.

Key specs: 3072 shaders | 2880 MHz boost | 12 GB GDDR6

RX 9070 GRE price check: Amazon $549.99 | Best Buy $549.99 | Walmart $569.99View Deal

I highlighted this deal as one of the best value graphics card deals on the block last week and, inconceivably, it's become even cheaper now I've checked through all the GPU deals today. That's thanks to the Newegg discount giving you $70 off the listing price. That means it's even more true today that, for PC gamers looking to get the most frame rate bang for their buck, an AMD GPU is the only silicon worth the money right now. And the Radeon RX 9000-series family is also the only one of the current generation to be able to offer a pretty high-end graphics card for under its MSRP.

I give you, once more, the Radeon RX 9070 GRE, a 12 GB card you can pick up today for just $500 at Newegg. The one minor caveat is that you will need to have a Newegg account to be able to see the full discount—just enter the email address you use to create the free account and you'll see an extra $70 lopped off the original $570 price tag.

The most obvious Nvidia-shaped competition for AMD's most recent RDNA 4 GPU is the RTX 5070 12 GB and the RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB. And the absolute cheapest (and trustworthy) prices I've found for those two GeForce cards are $779 and $780 respectively. The RTX 5070 is generally the more performant card, offering slightly higher frame rates. But that's the key here; the frame rate delta is pretty small, especially when you start to bring in upscaled 1440p performance into the picture.

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.

You can also see in those benchmarks the level of gaming performance you can get out of an RX 9070 GRE compared with the RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB card, too. And this is before we get into one of the very neatest tricks of the latest Radeon architecture: its undervolting performance.

Pare back the amount of voltage given to the GPU and it will run cooler. Perhaps counterintuitively, providing lower voltage directly to the Navi 48 chip actually results in higher performance because the card is running cooler and therefore the dynamic nature of current day clock speeds means that they are able to push further. On a pretty standard RX 9070 GRE I was easily topping 3 GHz as standard, delivering another 10% higher frame rates with an overclocked card that's only marginally warmer and a little more power hungry.

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.

I feel it's also worth noting at this point that both the prices I've noted for the RTX 5070 and RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB are absolute best case prices, with those $779 and $780 figures being very much the outliers when it comes to general pricing for those GPUs. Most listings you'll find for the pair will have them both beyond the $800 mark.

Which is frankly offensive.

👉Check out all Newegg's GPU deals👈

]]> <![CDATA[ AMD presents new method of handing indirect lighting off to an image generation model: 'frame-by-frame' solution could be part of AMD's answer to DLSS 5 someday ]]> AMD promised neural rendering is coming to Radeon cards and consoles with FSR Diamond, and we're starting to see signs of that new approach in the works from the red team. The company's technical staff just published a paper on how it's using image generation to replace global illumination in real-time.

The paper outlines a technique for generating more realistic-looking lighting on a frame-by-frame basis. It's titled "Temporally stable generative illumination with a one-step diffusion model". Diffusion models create images by working through a noisy image, often over many steps; however, AMD's researchers are using one that produces an image in one denoising step, using the details and lighting baked into a scene to generate a new one. That's important for being able to run it quickly.

The idea is to produce something that looks like global illumination—indirect light bouncing off objects and illuminating stuff nearby—through image generation, rather than computationally intensive techniques like path tracing.

"In our work, we try to solve global illumination as an image generation problem," says SungYe Kim in a video presentation on the paper. Kim is one of the authors. "Global illumination is what makes a rendered scene look real, and it is also the most expensive part of rendering."

The proposed method takes a frame with direct lighting—light straight from a source to an object with no further bounces—as an initial lighting 'hint' to the diffusion model, Stable Diffusion 2.1 Turbo.

The model itself is trained on a synthetic dataset of 31,000 frames of interior scenes rendered in Blender Cycles, which is Blender's ray tracing production renderer. Each has 1-30 lights and objects that move around. That way, "the model sees a wide range of lighting conditions." The training comprises running through this dataset 50 times on AMD Instinct MI210 GPUs.

AMD's approach for generated global illumination

(Image credit: AMD)

Sparse lighting, radiance, material, and geometry 'signals' are used to "keep generation aligned to geometry and lighting". The frame that is fed into the diffusion model is processed in such a way as to force the model to focus on illumination, rather than any other details. That's going to be a pretty important step should this technique ever make it out into the wild west of videogames; the public reaction to these sorts of AI tools can be pretty gnarly.

The researchers also use what's called a temporal VAE, or TVAE, to improve consistency. This uses motion vectors to align the current frame with previous ones. It stores a history of previous outputs to ensure that the lighting doesn't flicker or go all weird between generations. That can become an issue with these sorts of models: run the same task over and over again and they'll produce slightly different results every time, and a human will readily notice that when it's running in real-time on a frame-by-frame basis.

AMD's approach for generated global illumination

(Image credit: AMD)

The final result is composited with the original frame using only direct lighting, which likely softens any errors a touch. The blog post says the method is "suitable for real-time rendering use cases with frame-by-frame generation."

Compared to other generative models, "our method recovers the soft shadows and the bounce lighting, while RGB↔X hallucinates content that is not present in the scene and DiffusionRenderer distorts the geometry," Kim says in the presentation.

AMD's approach for generated global illumination

(Image credit: AMD)

The model is said to run at 0.29 seconds per frame, which is roughly 3.45 frames per second, at a resolution of 512 x 512. That's on an RTX 3090, too, which is deemed pretty quick compared to those other named techniques yet shows there's a long way to go for gaming. The whole process requires around 8–9 GB of VRAM, too. Remember, this is just that global illumination step, not the entire pipeline for rendering a frame.

So, it's not just Nvidia looking into neural rendering as a new frontier for computer graphics, though we knew that already. Earlier this year, AMD's Jack Huynh announced a new suite of FSR technologies that it called FSR Diamond. This includes "next-gen neural rendering", which this new research falls under; alongside improved ML-based upscaling, ML-based multi-frame generation, ray regeneration, and path tracing.

How AMD sells these sorts of technologies to us gamers once they're ready is going to be something to watch. I'm sure the red team has been looking closely at the firestorm erupting from Nvidia's slapdash announcement of DLSS 5—and subsequent backpedalling and rephrasing in order to make it seem less egregious to gamers and more a tool for developers—and thinking, 'eesh, how do we avoid that while still making use of all this research?'

Rumours are already circulating about an application of neural lighting from AMD, such as from leaker Kepler_L2 on the Anandtech forums (via Overclock3D). Whether that refers in part to this, or something further along in the development process, we can't be sure, but it's clear that neural rendering isn't exclusively being worked on by Nvidia.

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/amd-presents-new-method-of-handing-indirect-lighting-off-to-an-image-generation-model-frame-by-frame-solution-could-be-part-of-amds-answer-to-dlss-5-someday/ W6pnrrYmcpiF4izb5QqE34 Thu, 17 Sep 2026 13:45:27 +0000 Thu, 17 Sep 2026 14:38:06 +0000 false false false

AMD promised neural rendering is coming to Radeon cards and consoles with FSR Diamond, and we're starting to see signs of that new approach in the works from the red team. The company's technical staff just published a paper on how it's using image generation to replace global illumination in real-time.

The paper outlines a technique for generating more realistic-looking lighting on a frame-by-frame basis. It's titled "Temporally stable generative illumination with a one-step diffusion model". Diffusion models create images by working through a noisy image, often over many steps; however, AMD's researchers are using one that produces an image in one denoising step, using the details and lighting baked into a scene to generate a new one. That's important for being able to run it quickly.

The idea is to produce something that looks like global illumination—indirect light bouncing off objects and illuminating stuff nearby—through image generation, rather than computationally intensive techniques like path tracing.

"In our work, we try to solve global illumination as an image generation problem," says SungYe Kim in a video presentation on the paper. Kim is one of the authors. "Global illumination is what makes a rendered scene look real, and it is also the most expensive part of rendering."

The proposed method takes a frame with direct lighting—light straight from a source to an object with no further bounces—as an initial lighting 'hint' to the diffusion model, Stable Diffusion 2.1 Turbo.

The model itself is trained on a synthetic dataset of 31,000 frames of interior scenes rendered in Blender Cycles, which is Blender's ray tracing production renderer. Each has 1-30 lights and objects that move around. That way, "the model sees a wide range of lighting conditions." The training comprises running through this dataset 50 times on AMD Instinct MI210 GPUs.

AMD's approach for generated global illumination

(Image credit: AMD)

Sparse lighting, radiance, material, and geometry 'signals' are used to "keep generation aligned to geometry and lighting". The frame that is fed into the diffusion model is processed in such a way as to force the model to focus on illumination, rather than any other details. That's going to be a pretty important step should this technique ever make it out into the wild west of videogames; the public reaction to these sorts of AI tools can be pretty gnarly.

The researchers also use what's called a temporal VAE, or TVAE, to improve consistency. This uses motion vectors to align the current frame with previous ones. It stores a history of previous outputs to ensure that the lighting doesn't flicker or go all weird between generations. That can become an issue with these sorts of models: run the same task over and over again and they'll produce slightly different results every time, and a human will readily notice that when it's running in real-time on a frame-by-frame basis.

AMD's approach for generated global illumination

(Image credit: AMD)

The final result is composited with the original frame using only direct lighting, which likely softens any errors a touch. The blog post says the method is "suitable for real-time rendering use cases with frame-by-frame generation."

Compared to other generative models, "our method recovers the soft shadows and the bounce lighting, while RGB↔X hallucinates content that is not present in the scene and DiffusionRenderer distorts the geometry," Kim says in the presentation.

AMD's approach for generated global illumination

(Image credit: AMD)

The model is said to run at 0.29 seconds per frame, which is roughly 3.45 frames per second, at a resolution of 512 x 512. That's on an RTX 3090, too, which is deemed pretty quick compared to those other named techniques yet shows there's a long way to go for gaming. The whole process requires around 8–9 GB of VRAM, too. Remember, this is just that global illumination step, not the entire pipeline for rendering a frame.

So, it's not just Nvidia looking into neural rendering as a new frontier for computer graphics, though we knew that already. Earlier this year, AMD's Jack Huynh announced a new suite of FSR technologies that it called FSR Diamond. This includes "next-gen neural rendering", which this new research falls under; alongside improved ML-based upscaling, ML-based multi-frame generation, ray regeneration, and path tracing.

How AMD sells these sorts of technologies to us gamers once they're ready is going to be something to watch. I'm sure the red team has been looking closely at the firestorm erupting from Nvidia's slapdash announcement of DLSS 5—and subsequent backpedalling and rephrasing in order to make it seem less egregious to gamers and more a tool for developers—and thinking, 'eesh, how do we avoid that while still making use of all this research?'

Rumours are already circulating about an application of neural lighting from AMD, such as from leaker Kepler_L2 on the Anandtech forums (via Overclock3D). Whether that refers in part to this, or something further along in the development process, we can't be sure, but it's clear that neural rendering isn't exclusively being worked on by Nvidia.

]]> <![CDATA[ The leakers disagree, but we might just get one AMD-shaped mid-range GPU through all of 2027 ]]> It feels a bit like we're in the long wait before the hardware world returns to normal, doesn't it? Thanks to the global memory shortage, when memory-clad products launch at all they're slapped with dizzying price tags. Given this, hearing that we're only going to see one next-gen GPU next year feels about right. And apparently it won't be a top-end one, either.

That is what we are hearing from prolific and usually very in-the-know hardware leaker Kepler_L2, no less (via VideoCardz). On Anandtech forums they say: "AT2 is the only GPU getting released next year. Everything else from both AMD and Nvidia is 2028."

AT2, if you were wondering, is supposedly the codename for the GPU that is going to be found in Xbox Project Helix, which has been pegged for a 2027 launch for some time. That we'll see at least one new AMD GPU next year, then, isn't news. But what is new is confirmation—assuming Kepler is right—that this GPU is the only new one we'll see next year, especially given it's expected to not be the most powerful of AMD's next-gen line-up.

There's no official word from AMD on this, but rumours have had it for a long while that there'll be an AT0 ('Alpha Triton 0') GPU with 96 compute units (CUs) that will compete with Nvidia's RTX 6080-level GPU. If Kepler's recent statement is true, therefore, it seems AMD will be launching its midrange GPU first, courtesy of console launches.

It would also mean we shouldn't expect any new Nvidia GPUs. Though it's worth noting that at least one hardware leaker—Moore's Law is Dead—disagrees with this and claims we could see an RTX 6090 launch. Kepler disagrees, saying "he's wrong."

Kepler's wording does, however, leave it somewhat ambiguous as to whether Nvidia could release Super versions of current GPUs, given these wouldn't be "new" GPUs but new configurations of the same GPUs. But those have reportedly been cancelled anyway. It's been looking less likely Supers would launch ever since the memory crisis kicked up, given previous rumours had it that RTX 50 Super cards would primarily offer better memory configs.

Nvidia has RTX Spark now, anyway, I suppose. And for my money, given the state of the current PC hardware market, I'm not counting just one new GPU next year as that much of a loss. Roll on 2028, though.

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/the-leakers-disagree-but-we-might-just-get-one-amd-shaped-mid-range-gpu-through-all-of-2027/ 83pB6NeYFMnds7D6yxyCUQ Thu, 17 Sep 2026 10:41:59 +0000 false false false

It feels a bit like we're in the long wait before the hardware world returns to normal, doesn't it? Thanks to the global memory shortage, when memory-clad products launch at all they're slapped with dizzying price tags. Given this, hearing that we're only going to see one next-gen GPU next year feels about right. And apparently it won't be a top-end one, either.

That is what we are hearing from prolific and usually very in-the-know hardware leaker Kepler_L2, no less (via VideoCardz). On Anandtech forums they say: "AT2 is the only GPU getting released next year. Everything else from both AMD and Nvidia is 2028."

AT2, if you were wondering, is supposedly the codename for the GPU that is going to be found in Xbox Project Helix, which has been pegged for a 2027 launch for some time. That we'll see at least one new AMD GPU next year, then, isn't news. But what is new is confirmation—assuming Kepler is right—that this GPU is the only new one we'll see next year, especially given it's expected to not be the most powerful of AMD's next-gen line-up.

There's no official word from AMD on this, but rumours have had it for a long while that there'll be an AT0 ('Alpha Triton 0') GPU with 96 compute units (CUs) that will compete with Nvidia's RTX 6080-level GPU. If Kepler's recent statement is true, therefore, it seems AMD will be launching its midrange GPU first, courtesy of console launches.

It would also mean we shouldn't expect any new Nvidia GPUs. Though it's worth noting that at least one hardware leaker—Moore's Law is Dead—disagrees with this and claims we could see an RTX 6090 launch. Kepler disagrees, saying "he's wrong."

Kepler's wording does, however, leave it somewhat ambiguous as to whether Nvidia could release Super versions of current GPUs, given these wouldn't be "new" GPUs but new configurations of the same GPUs. But those have reportedly been cancelled anyway. It's been looking less likely Supers would launch ever since the memory crisis kicked up, given previous rumours had it that RTX 50 Super cards would primarily offer better memory configs.

Nvidia has RTX Spark now, anyway, I suppose. And for my money, given the state of the current PC hardware market, I'm not counting just one new GPU next year as that much of a loss. Roll on 2028, though.

]]> <![CDATA[ Where have all the RTX 5090s gone? Stock of the high-end GPU is disappearing from US online retailers ]]> Alas, my series 'I'd do anything for an Nvidia RTX 5090 at MSRP, but I won't do that' has been cancelled after one episode, on account of the fact the card has seemingly disappeared from most major US retailers.

What remains are online listings from third-party sellers, often asking for a price even higher above MSRP, as spotted by Tom's Hardware. Previously, it's been cheaper for me to hop on an international flight to PAX West or QuakeCon, and pick up an RTX 5090 at the event for the $1,999/£1,939 MSRP than buy it anywhere else. This will come as no surprise for those who have been keeping track of our graphics card price watch, where we've seen the RTX 5090 go up 83% in price and even breach the $6,000 sound barrier.

What our Dave most recently recommended as the cheapest option, this Gigabyte Windforce RTX 5090 from Newegg was $5,700 just last Thursday. Now it's a frankly offensive $9050 from a third-party reseller. The same card is sold out on Amazon and Best Buy. But the cheapest new RTX 5090 I've been able to find is the Asus TUF, again from a reseller, for $6,800.

Don't even get me started on how things are looking in the UK—though, for those curious, Dave's tireless efforts did find the Zotac RTX 5090 going for £3,940 from Scan. That's still too rich for my cup of tea.

So, where is all the stock going? Well, some deep-pocketed consumers are definitely snapping up at least a few cards. Recent research suggests a trend that 'defies common wisdom', with folks buying more high-end graphics cards despite rising prices, to the tune of 12.5 million shipped last quarter alone.

Nvidia still enjoys a 90% share of the market according to that same report from John Peddie research. But given company CEO Jensen Huang recently shared that 100,000 Nvidia GPUs were used to train OpenAI's latest model, GPT-6 Astra—not to mention there's already plans to bring quadruple that amount of hardware online—I'll give you three guesses why there are so few RTX 5090s available for consumers.

It's likely not RTX 5090 cards being used specifically to train Astra, but it's still possible that other AI firms are buying up the high-ends cards to adorn their server PCs in lieu of datacenter accelerators or RTX Pro 6000 GPUs. RTX 5090 pallet images shared by HKEPC imply as much (via VideoCardz).

Okay, I'll also give you this for free: Nvidia may not be producing fewer 4nm GB20x Blackwell chips on the whole, but may simply be shifting more of that stock towards its professional products—like workstations—instead. That's still going to leave fewer gaming GPUs to go around, and we're back where we started with runaway RTX 5090 prices.

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/where-have-all-the-rtx-5090s-gone-stock-of-the-high-end-gpu-is-disappearing-from-us-online-retailers/ qcjzqs4WG9YNwZu7krJWC4 Wed, 16 Sep 2026 09:48:50 +0000 Wed, 16 Sep 2026 13:33:26 +0000 false false false

Alas, my series 'I'd do anything for an Nvidia RTX 5090 at MSRP, but I won't do that' has been cancelled after one episode, on account of the fact the card has seemingly disappeared from most major US retailers.

What remains are online listings from third-party sellers, often asking for a price even higher above MSRP, as spotted by Tom's Hardware. Previously, it's been cheaper for me to hop on an international flight to PAX West or QuakeCon, and pick up an RTX 5090 at the event for the $1,999/£1,939 MSRP than buy it anywhere else. This will come as no surprise for those who have been keeping track of our graphics card price watch, where we've seen the RTX 5090 go up 83% in price and even breach the $6,000 sound barrier.

What our Dave most recently recommended as the cheapest option, this Gigabyte Windforce RTX 5090 from Newegg was $5,700 just last Thursday. Now it's a frankly offensive $9050 from a third-party reseller. The same card is sold out on Amazon and Best Buy. But the cheapest new RTX 5090 I've been able to find is the Asus TUF, again from a reseller, for $6,800.

Don't even get me started on how things are looking in the UK—though, for those curious, Dave's tireless efforts did find the Zotac RTX 5090 going for £3,940 from Scan. That's still too rich for my cup of tea.

So, where is all the stock going? Well, some deep-pocketed consumers are definitely snapping up at least a few cards. Recent research suggests a trend that 'defies common wisdom', with folks buying more high-end graphics cards despite rising prices, to the tune of 12.5 million shipped last quarter alone.

Nvidia still enjoys a 90% share of the market according to that same report from John Peddie research. But given company CEO Jensen Huang recently shared that 100,000 Nvidia GPUs were used to train OpenAI's latest model, GPT-6 Astra—not to mention there's already plans to bring quadruple that amount of hardware online—I'll give you three guesses why there are so few RTX 5090s available for consumers.

It's likely not RTX 5090 cards being used specifically to train Astra, but it's still possible that other AI firms are buying up the high-ends cards to adorn their server PCs in lieu of datacenter accelerators or RTX Pro 6000 GPUs. RTX 5090 pallet images shared by HKEPC imply as much (via VideoCardz).

Okay, I'll also give you this for free: Nvidia may not be producing fewer 4nm GB20x Blackwell chips on the whole, but may simply be shifting more of that stock towards its professional products—like workstations—instead. That's still going to leave fewer gaming GPUs to go around, and we're back where we started with runaway RTX 5090 prices.

]]> <![CDATA[ Serial numbers on RTX Founders Edition graphics cards, including PC Gamer's very own, are fading and apparently it's causing a problem with RMA requests ]]> As GPUs continue to increase in price, it also, of course, becomes increasingly important to feel that those purchases are secure from leaving you with a very expensive paperweight. This is doubly so for the RTX 5090, which now costs upwards of $5,000. Given this, it's important that RMAs go smoothly, but judging by recent comments online, the design of the Nvidia GPUs themselves could throw a spanner in the works.

According to Redditor Willing-Avocado-4830, they recently struggled with Nvidia's RMA process for their RTX 5090 FE because of a faded serial number. They claim the RMA request was rejected. The Nvidia rep's quoted comments seem to have since been deleted or are just not visible for some reason, but the thing to highlight here is the fading itself.

If it were a lone issue, then it might not be as noteworthy, but others in the comments confirm that the serial number on their FE card has also faded—and not only RTX 5090 ones. And indeed, the serial number on our very own RTX 5080 FE, pictured above, appears to have faded somewhat. The number itself is located on the metal part of the I/O side that slots down between the case and the motherboard.

It's probably worth noting that the amount of fading on our version here at PC Gamer might be different to the home user's. We tend to swap between GPUs quite a lot for testing, which could cause more fading for us. Or, if the fading is caused by consistent heat, then it could be that the normal home use would result in more fading. Your guess is as good as mine on that front.

Serial numbers are traditionally found on stickers on the GPU, but some newer RTX FE cards have them put directly on the bottom jut of the PCIe bracket, and they seem to be prone to fading. Presumably the reason this might cause a problem with the RMA process because Nvidia will need to verify authenticity and ensure it's within warranty. And unless there's another sticker elsewhere with it on (on the PCB, for instance, or on the packaging if you still have it), that serial number can be important.

My RTX 5090 FE RMA was rejected because the physical serial number is no longer readable — has anyone experienced this?
 from r/nvidia

Nvidia's warranty (in its US wording) explains: "This warranty applies only to the original purchases of the Warranted Products from a retailer, mail order operation, or on-line retail store; this warranty will not extend to any person that acquires a Warranted Product on a used basis."

As such, it will be important for Nvidia to verify that the product is, in fact, from an original purchaser.

PC Gamer's RTX 5080 FE with engraved serial number fading.

(Image credit: Future)

Looking at what is publicly available from Nvidia about its RMA process, however, it is not clear whether a serial number is required. It's also worth noting that laws surrounding RMAs can vary from country to country.

Whatever the case, if you have a still-legible serial number on your RTX FE card, it might be worth snapping a pic of it, just in case. Though I suppose it's an open question whether that would satisfy Nvidia's requirements if it's faded off the card by the time they receive it for RMA. If not, then surely there must be a better way for Nvidia to plaster those serial numbers on there.

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/serial-numbers-on-rtx-founders-edition-graphics-cards-including-pc-gamers-very-own-are-fading-and-apparently-its-causing-a-problem-with-rma-requests/ opQDwzcDPRTddfYKiDUoQZ Tue, 15 Sep 2026 15:18:14 +0000 Tue, 15 Sep 2026 15:19:17 +0000 false false false

As GPUs continue to increase in price, it also, of course, becomes increasingly important to feel that those purchases are secure from leaving you with a very expensive paperweight. This is doubly so for the RTX 5090, which now costs upwards of $5,000. Given this, it's important that RMAs go smoothly, but judging by recent comments online, the design of the Nvidia GPUs themselves could throw a spanner in the works.

According to Redditor Willing-Avocado-4830, they recently struggled with Nvidia's RMA process for their RTX 5090 FE because of a faded serial number. They claim the RMA request was rejected. The Nvidia rep's quoted comments seem to have since been deleted or are just not visible for some reason, but the thing to highlight here is the fading itself.

If it were a lone issue, then it might not be as noteworthy, but others in the comments confirm that the serial number on their FE card has also faded—and not only RTX 5090 ones. And indeed, the serial number on our very own RTX 5080 FE, pictured above, appears to have faded somewhat. The number itself is located on the metal part of the I/O side that slots down between the case and the motherboard.

It's probably worth noting that the amount of fading on our version here at PC Gamer might be different to the home user's. We tend to swap between GPUs quite a lot for testing, which could cause more fading for us. Or, if the fading is caused by consistent heat, then it could be that the normal home use would result in more fading. Your guess is as good as mine on that front.

Serial numbers are traditionally found on stickers on the GPU, but some newer RTX FE cards have them put directly on the bottom jut of the PCIe bracket, and they seem to be prone to fading. Presumably the reason this might cause a problem with the RMA process because Nvidia will need to verify authenticity and ensure it's within warranty. And unless there's another sticker elsewhere with it on (on the PCB, for instance, or on the packaging if you still have it), that serial number can be important.

My RTX 5090 FE RMA was rejected because the physical serial number is no longer readable — has anyone experienced this?
 from r/nvidia

Nvidia's warranty (in its US wording) explains: "This warranty applies only to the original purchases of the Warranted Products from a retailer, mail order operation, or on-line retail store; this warranty will not extend to any person that acquires a Warranted Product on a used basis."

As such, it will be important for Nvidia to verify that the product is, in fact, from an original purchaser.

PC Gamer's RTX 5080 FE with engraved serial number fading.

(Image credit: Future)

Looking at what is publicly available from Nvidia about its RMA process, however, it is not clear whether a serial number is required. It's also worth noting that laws surrounding RMAs can vary from country to country.

Whatever the case, if you have a still-legible serial number on your RTX FE card, it might be worth snapping a pic of it, just in case. Though I suppose it's an open question whether that would satisfy Nvidia's requirements if it's faded off the card by the time they receive it for RMA. If not, then surely there must be a better way for Nvidia to plaster those serial numbers on there.

]]> <![CDATA[ 'Defying common wisdom', people have been buying more high-end graphics cards despite rising prices, with 12.5 million shipped last quarter alone ]]> If you've been keeping up with the headlines, then you know gaming hasn't been Nvidia's main priority for some time now. Given that its data centre segment made $89 billion in Q2 of 2026—an eye-watering 93% of the company's total revenue that quarter—it's not super surprising that Nvidia is all-in on AI. What may be surprising though is that, even after this shift in focus, Nvidia is still king when it comes to consumer GPUs.

That's according to the latest report from John Peddie Research; even though Nvidia's market share did decrease by 0.01% last quarter, the company is still holding on to a 90% share of the graphics 'Add-in Board' (AIB) market. AMD has 8%, while Intel enjoys a 2% slice of the pie.

For those a little unclear, an 'add-in board' (AIB) can mean anything you plug into your PC to improve performance, and GPUs definitely fall into that category. When companies refer to AIB GPUs, they're typically distinguishing them from integrated ones like you'll find in laptops, for instance.

The JPR report adds that during the second quarter, the "growth of the global PC-based graphics add-in board market reached 12.5 million units." That's a 10% increase from the quarter before. Not only that, but the likelihood of someone picking up an 'add-in board' in addition to a desktop PC was up to 89%, a 23% quarter-over-quarter increase.

Given that it has been genuinely more affordable for me to hop on an international flight to either QuakeCon or PAX West rather than buying one of Nvidia's RTX 50-series cards absolutely anywhere else, colour me surprised that GPUs remain such a hot-ticket item. I'm not the only one, as Dr. Jon Peddie himself described the trend of high-end GPU sales spiking even as prices rise as straight-up "defying common wisdom."

Nvidia RTX 5090 Founders Edition graphics card on different backgrounds

(Image credit: Future)

The report excerpt doesn't go into detail about which GPUs folks are still buying, so there's also a chance that many PC gamers are choosing to forego the latest upscaling and frame-gen tech in favour of an older card that's more reasonably priced. Then again, perhaps not; when we put it to a poll in August, 56% of you were willing to pay over $600 for a graphics card, while 19% would spend over $1000.

Anyway, it's worth comparing and contrasting the GPU increase to desktop PC CPU shipments, which dipped to 14 million units. Considering this is a 10.5% quarter-over-quarter drop, and a 33% year-to-year decrease, it's still pretty stark.

Dr. Peddie himself posits, "Our theory is consumers rushed to buy AIBs before the prices went any higher, as the war in Iran is driving prices up in all segments."

The 2026 Iran War and the Strait of Hormuz crisis has been ongoing since February, making it difficult to secure various components. Constrained supply means rising prices—like those rumoured to be on the way for motherboards. While I've no doubt this could encourage more impulsive purchase decisions, I'm not sure if we'll see a similar shipment spike for motherboards.

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/defying-common-wisdom-people-have-been-buying-more-high-end-graphics-cards-despite-rising-prices-with-12-5-million-shipped-last-quarter-alone/ ACFoPa8uCmxJgUwwwe2YDe Fri, 11 Sep 2026 14:56:31 +0000 false false false

If you've been keeping up with the headlines, then you know gaming hasn't been Nvidia's main priority for some time now. Given that its data centre segment made $89 billion in Q2 of 2026—an eye-watering 93% of the company's total revenue that quarter—it's not super surprising that Nvidia is all-in on AI. What may be surprising though is that, even after this shift in focus, Nvidia is still king when it comes to consumer GPUs.

That's according to the latest report from John Peddie Research; even though Nvidia's market share did decrease by 0.01% last quarter, the company is still holding on to a 90% share of the graphics 'Add-in Board' (AIB) market. AMD has 8%, while Intel enjoys a 2% slice of the pie.

For those a little unclear, an 'add-in board' (AIB) can mean anything you plug into your PC to improve performance, and GPUs definitely fall into that category. When companies refer to AIB GPUs, they're typically distinguishing them from integrated ones like you'll find in laptops, for instance.

The JPR report adds that during the second quarter, the "growth of the global PC-based graphics add-in board market reached 12.5 million units." That's a 10% increase from the quarter before. Not only that, but the likelihood of someone picking up an 'add-in board' in addition to a desktop PC was up to 89%, a 23% quarter-over-quarter increase.

Given that it has been genuinely more affordable for me to hop on an international flight to either QuakeCon or PAX West rather than buying one of Nvidia's RTX 50-series cards absolutely anywhere else, colour me surprised that GPUs remain such a hot-ticket item. I'm not the only one, as Dr. Jon Peddie himself described the trend of high-end GPU sales spiking even as prices rise as straight-up "defying common wisdom."

Nvidia RTX 5090 Founders Edition graphics card on different backgrounds

(Image credit: Future)

The report excerpt doesn't go into detail about which GPUs folks are still buying, so there's also a chance that many PC gamers are choosing to forego the latest upscaling and frame-gen tech in favour of an older card that's more reasonably priced. Then again, perhaps not; when we put it to a poll in August, 56% of you were willing to pay over $600 for a graphics card, while 19% would spend over $1000.

Anyway, it's worth comparing and contrasting the GPU increase to desktop PC CPU shipments, which dipped to 14 million units. Considering this is a 10.5% quarter-over-quarter drop, and a 33% year-to-year decrease, it's still pretty stark.

Dr. Peddie himself posits, "Our theory is consumers rushed to buy AIBs before the prices went any higher, as the war in Iran is driving prices up in all segments."

The 2026 Iran War and the Strait of Hormuz crisis has been ongoing since February, making it difficult to secure various components. Constrained supply means rising prices—like those rumoured to be on the way for motherboards. While I've no doubt this could encourage more impulsive purchase decisions, I'm not sure if we'll see a similar shipment spike for motherboards.

]]> <![CDATA[ 'Where is Nvidia? Call Nvidia, guys': Meltgate be damned, modders discover RTX 5090 can use 8-pin connectors after all ]]> Ah yes, melty cables. We've been dealing with them ever since the RTX 4090 pushed the 16-pin 12VHPWR connector (now the 12V-2x6 connector) to its limits. Since then, we've heard of numerous cases of melting GPU connectors—check out Uniko's Hardware on X for many examples—and plenty of attempts at dealing with them.

Now, some modders have said 'screw it' to the new 12V-2x6 design, instead modding an RTX 5090 to run on standard 8-pin connectors (via Wccftech). The modders at TecLab fitted three 8-pin connectors to the back of the PCB using "copper plates, cut by hand", and hooked these up to the front via 24 cables (3x sets of 8).

Once everything was also unlocked to operate at higher power levels, the graphics card was put to the test. And while this was just one batch of tests with one card (and don't try this at home, folks) the results were fantastic.

Even before pushing it as far as it eventually goes, the modders were thrilled with the results (machine translated): "It's getting warmer. It's still colder than a 12VHPWR connector. It's colder than the original connector, guys. Where is Nvidia? Call Nvidia, guys. Put the raw footage out there for people to see, otherwise they'll think it's a lie. This looks like a lie."

Don't worry, TecLab, we've got you. You can see the full footage below.

They even manage to get the GPU running over 3,300 MHz in Port Royal benchmark with just two 8-pin cables, showing that a three-cable setup isn't necessary. (For reference, the stock RTX 5090 boost clock is around 2,400 MHz.) And when it's running at a slightly lower clock speed than this the cables stay very cool.

This is especially important because one of the reasons why the 12VHPWR cable was deemed necessary by many is because it apparently helped prevent having too many standard 8-pin cables connected. But having said that, I'm currently looking at an RX 9070 XT with 3x 8-pin cables and it doesn't seem too overboard to my eyes.

Even with one cable, TecLab gets it running at over 3,200 MHz. Though that single cable does hit 91–92 °C, there's still no melting to be seen.

TecLab measuring the temperature of an RTX 5090's modded 8-pin cables.

(Image credit: TecLab)

Saying all this, the modders do push the cables above their recommended spec. Each should have a limit of 150 W, which should mean a maximum power draw of 450 W total. The RTX 5090 has a TDP of 575 W.

But TecLab shows that by unlocking this, the 8-pin cables remain not only stable, but cooler than the 12VHPWR cable, even when they're pushed above spec. They say, "A connector that the industry determines is 150 W but actually it doesn't have a firm specification."

The point here isn't anything to do with the actual overclock they achieved, rather that they managed to push out more power to the GPU than was needed through 8-pin cables—fewer than three of them, in fact—and still have the cables remain cooler than the usual 12VHPWR cable.

Naturally, Nvidia might not want to overrun the official 150 W spec for 8-pin cables. But when there are melty problems with the alternative, and 8-pins seem to be able to step up without issue, at least if this mod is anything to go by, then why not? "Call Nvidia" indeed.

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/where-is-nvidia-call-nvidia-guys-meltgate-be-damned-modders-discover-rtx-5090-can-use-8-pin-connectors-after-all/ TnM5orcStFeEfVMe4NqtUZ Wed, 09 Sep 2026 14:53:41 +0000 Wed, 09 Sep 2026 14:58:36 +0000 false false false

Ah yes, melty cables. We've been dealing with them ever since the RTX 4090 pushed the 16-pin 12VHPWR connector (now the 12V-2x6 connector) to its limits. Since then, we've heard of numerous cases of melting GPU connectors—check out Uniko's Hardware on X for many examples—and plenty of attempts at dealing with them.

Now, some modders have said 'screw it' to the new 12V-2x6 design, instead modding an RTX 5090 to run on standard 8-pin connectors (via Wccftech). The modders at TecLab fitted three 8-pin connectors to the back of the PCB using "copper plates, cut by hand", and hooked these up to the front via 24 cables (3x sets of 8).

Once everything was also unlocked to operate at higher power levels, the graphics card was put to the test. And while this was just one batch of tests with one card (and don't try this at home, folks) the results were fantastic.

Even before pushing it as far as it eventually goes, the modders were thrilled with the results (machine translated): "It's getting warmer. It's still colder than a 12VHPWR connector. It's colder than the original connector, guys. Where is Nvidia? Call Nvidia, guys. Put the raw footage out there for people to see, otherwise they'll think it's a lie. This looks like a lie."

Don't worry, TecLab, we've got you. You can see the full footage below.

They even manage to get the GPU running over 3,300 MHz in Port Royal benchmark with just two 8-pin cables, showing that a three-cable setup isn't necessary. (For reference, the stock RTX 5090 boost clock is around 2,400 MHz.) And when it's running at a slightly lower clock speed than this the cables stay very cool.

This is especially important because one of the reasons why the 12VHPWR cable was deemed necessary by many is because it apparently helped prevent having too many standard 8-pin cables connected. But having said that, I'm currently looking at an RX 9070 XT with 3x 8-pin cables and it doesn't seem too overboard to my eyes.

Even with one cable, TecLab gets it running at over 3,200 MHz. Though that single cable does hit 91–92 °C, there's still no melting to be seen.

TecLab measuring the temperature of an RTX 5090's modded 8-pin cables.

(Image credit: TecLab)

Saying all this, the modders do push the cables above their recommended spec. Each should have a limit of 150 W, which should mean a maximum power draw of 450 W total. The RTX 5090 has a TDP of 575 W.

But TecLab shows that by unlocking this, the 8-pin cables remain not only stable, but cooler than the 12VHPWR cable, even when they're pushed above spec. They say, "A connector that the industry determines is 150 W but actually it doesn't have a firm specification."

The point here isn't anything to do with the actual overclock they achieved, rather that they managed to push out more power to the GPU than was needed through 8-pin cables—fewer than three of them, in fact—and still have the cables remain cooler than the usual 12VHPWR cable.

Naturally, Nvidia might not want to overrun the official 150 W spec for 8-pin cables. But when there are melty problems with the alternative, and 8-pins seem to be able to step up without issue, at least if this mod is anything to go by, then why not? "Call Nvidia" indeed.

]]> <![CDATA[ That's just great: Graphics card prices in China are set to increase again as Nvidia shifts even more of production towards AI GPUs ]]> In news that will surprise very few, manufacturers are reportedly planning to raise their GPU prices in China again later this month. This could have a knock-on effect on global pricing for both Nvidia and AMD cards.

Asus looks set to raise the price of its RTX 5070 cards by between 150 and 300 RMB (roughly between $22 and $45) in mainland China, according to Taiwanese outlet United Daily News. Gigabyte has reportedly already raised the price of its RTX 5060 Ti 16GB GPU by 200 RMB ($30).

AMD has increased prices for a number of cards as well; the RX 9070 XT is up by 200 RMB, the price for both 16G and 8G versions of the RX 9060 XT has increased by up to 250 RMB, and the RX 7650 GRE is up by 400 RMB (about $60). This follows reports in July that AMD would be raising the price of its GPU and VRAM partner bundles by 10%.

Your nemesis and mine, the memory supply crisis, is in part to blame. Nvidia has also been reducing its gaming GPU production for some time now, most recently trimming its shipping forecast by between 15% and 20%.

It would be reasonable to assume the company is shifting production capacity to manufacturing even more AI GPUs. For on thing, Nvidia's data centre segment made $89 billion last quarter alone. Nvidia also just announced it plans to acquire AI development platform Hugging Face for an eye-watering $13 billion.

However, the full production picture may be a bit more nuanced. German outlet 3D Center shared some further insight on X, claiming Nvidia isn't producing fewer 4nm GB20x Blackwell chips, but is in fact simply shifting its stock towards the "professional segment" instead.

At the risk of oversimplifying, these Blackwell chips are going towards enterprise products rather than consumer GeForce graphics cards—presumably because the 'professional segment' offers higher profit margins (Is now a bad time to mention that apparently 100,000 Nvidia GPUs were used to train OpenAI's latest model?). As a result, there will be fewer chips to go around for new GeForce cards, meaning shorter supply and higher prices.

Nvidia has done the risk assessment and has determined this is the most sensible way to weather an incredibly volatile hardware landscape. For you and me, though, yes, it's likely going to remain cheaper to fly internationally to QuakeCon or PAX West to pick up a 50-series card rather than buy a bleeding-edge Nvidia GPU anywhere else.

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/thats-just-great-graphics-card-prices-in-china-are-set-to-increase-again-as-nvidia-shifts-even-more-of-production-towards-ai-gpus/ Kg8RzxRcsTu46AyRTbwytB Wed, 09 Sep 2026 14:33:14 +0000 false false false

In news that will surprise very few, manufacturers are reportedly planning to raise their GPU prices in China again later this month. This could have a knock-on effect on global pricing for both Nvidia and AMD cards.

Asus looks set to raise the price of its RTX 5070 cards by between 150 and 300 RMB (roughly between $22 and $45) in mainland China, according to Taiwanese outlet United Daily News. Gigabyte has reportedly already raised the price of its RTX 5060 Ti 16GB GPU by 200 RMB ($30).

AMD has increased prices for a number of cards as well; the RX 9070 XT is up by 200 RMB, the price for both 16G and 8G versions of the RX 9060 XT has increased by up to 250 RMB, and the RX 7650 GRE is up by 400 RMB (about $60). This follows reports in July that AMD would be raising the price of its GPU and VRAM partner bundles by 10%.

Your nemesis and mine, the memory supply crisis, is in part to blame. Nvidia has also been reducing its gaming GPU production for some time now, most recently trimming its shipping forecast by between 15% and 20%.

It would be reasonable to assume the company is shifting production capacity to manufacturing even more AI GPUs. For on thing, Nvidia's data centre segment made $89 billion last quarter alone. Nvidia also just announced it plans to acquire AI development platform Hugging Face for an eye-watering $13 billion.

However, the full production picture may be a bit more nuanced. German outlet 3D Center shared some further insight on X, claiming Nvidia isn't producing fewer 4nm GB20x Blackwell chips, but is in fact simply shifting its stock towards the "professional segment" instead.

At the risk of oversimplifying, these Blackwell chips are going towards enterprise products rather than consumer GeForce graphics cards—presumably because the 'professional segment' offers higher profit margins (Is now a bad time to mention that apparently 100,000 Nvidia GPUs were used to train OpenAI's latest model?). As a result, there will be fewer chips to go around for new GeForce cards, meaning shorter supply and higher prices.

Nvidia has done the risk assessment and has determined this is the most sensible way to weather an incredibly volatile hardware landscape. For you and me, though, yes, it's likely going to remain cheaper to fly internationally to QuakeCon or PAX West to pick up a 50-series card rather than buy a bleeding-edge Nvidia GPU anywhere else.

]]> <![CDATA[ New RTX 5070 variant could help bolster GPU supply but it surely won't help prices ]]> There are reports today that Nvidia is going to be releasing a new variant of its GeForce RTX 5070 graphics card with a cut-down GB203 GPU instead of the GB205 chip it originally launched with. Could this be good news for consumers? Well, no and maybe.

The idea behind using bigger chips to fill out the inventory of smaller cards basically gives manufacturers something to do with graphics processors that don't have enough functional units to power a bigger card. Here we're talking about the same GPU as that used in the far more powerful RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 5080 graphics cards.

The RTX 5070 doesn't currently use the full GB205 die, but its complement of 6144 CUDA cores isn't far off the maximum of 6400 the full chip can offer, so it already has some failsafe headroom built in. Compare that with the GB203 used by the RTX 5080 and that card is using the full silicon package of its chip. That could maybe be seen as quite a gamble on the yields coming from the TSMC 4N process, but it is mature, and Nvidia already has the RTX 5070 Ti, with its 8960 CUDA cores to mop up any GPUs that don't quite fit the full RTX 5080 bill.

But what's a GPU manufacturer to do if there a a bunch of chips from a wafer that can't fit into even an RTX 5070 Ti's cut-down CUDA core requirement? That's where this proposed new RTX 5070 would come in, taking that bigger core, chopping it down to 6144 cores and giving it a new badge.

So yes, don't expect that because it's using a bigger chip that the corresponding RTX 5070 would be any quicker or more powerful, or have a bigger memory bus. Nvidia has done this sort of thing in the recent past—the RTX 5060 has its own GB205 variant—and hasn't given it any greater performance for the privilege of having higher quality silicon at its heart.

GPU price tracking

I've been tracking the lowest price of each GPU in this generation since August 14, 2025

Lowest pricing (Price, $)
Week
Lowest pricing Data
Timestamp (Week)Nvidia RTX 5070 (Price, $)Nvidia RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB (Price, $)
1550430
2550430
3524430
4546430
5481430
6499379
7520430
8500430
9500430
10480430
11489400
12500400
13527420
14540420
15499430
16499430
17549430
18540450
19549450
20620520
21620520
22620520
23630520
24625520
25630550
26604550
27640570
28630515
29636500
30630500
31599500
32599515
33599490
34599550
35599550
36599550
37599570
38599570
39599570
40599565
41560560
42550570
43755650
44763780
45800773
46759570
The recent price spike for both the RTX 5070 and RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB make it tough recommendation against the relatively new RX 9070 GRE.

And just because it's using cast-off GPUs don't expect it to be any more affordable, either. With the RTX 5070 currently retailing for around $800 you can see why Nvidia would be keen to ensure there's good supply of this fourth-tier card when its retailing for so far beyond its $549 MSRP.

Is there any benefits for us PC gamers? If you wanted to be very, very optimistic (as is my wont) then you could say that at least this is going to deliver more supply of the RTX 5070 into the channel. But pricing is unlikely to trend downwards, so there will just be more cards to spend $800 on.

Given that, I wouldn't be surprised to see a variant of the RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB, another ~$800 graphics card, coming out soon using some more of the sweepings off the original RTX 5070 factory floor. If it's good enough for an RTX 5060, it's good enough to turn into an RTX 5060 Ti, after all.

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/new-rtx-5070-variant-could-help-bolster-gpu-supply-but-it-surely-wont-help-prices/ HVmtry2PZ5zuhGq7pYS6XJ Tue, 08 Sep 2026 14:52:14 +0000 false false false

There are reports today that Nvidia is going to be releasing a new variant of its GeForce RTX 5070 graphics card with a cut-down GB203 GPU instead of the GB205 chip it originally launched with. Could this be good news for consumers? Well, no and maybe.

The idea behind using bigger chips to fill out the inventory of smaller cards basically gives manufacturers something to do with graphics processors that don't have enough functional units to power a bigger card. Here we're talking about the same GPU as that used in the far more powerful RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 5080 graphics cards.

The RTX 5070 doesn't currently use the full GB205 die, but its complement of 6144 CUDA cores isn't far off the maximum of 6400 the full chip can offer, so it already has some failsafe headroom built in. Compare that with the GB203 used by the RTX 5080 and that card is using the full silicon package of its chip. That could maybe be seen as quite a gamble on the yields coming from the TSMC 4N process, but it is mature, and Nvidia already has the RTX 5070 Ti, with its 8960 CUDA cores to mop up any GPUs that don't quite fit the full RTX 5080 bill.

But what's a GPU manufacturer to do if there a a bunch of chips from a wafer that can't fit into even an RTX 5070 Ti's cut-down CUDA core requirement? That's where this proposed new RTX 5070 would come in, taking that bigger core, chopping it down to 6144 cores and giving it a new badge.

So yes, don't expect that because it's using a bigger chip that the corresponding RTX 5070 would be any quicker or more powerful, or have a bigger memory bus. Nvidia has done this sort of thing in the recent past—the RTX 5060 has its own GB205 variant—and hasn't given it any greater performance for the privilege of having higher quality silicon at its heart.

GPU price tracking

I've been tracking the lowest price of each GPU in this generation since August 14, 2025

Lowest pricing (Price, $)
Week
Lowest pricing Data
Timestamp (Week)Nvidia RTX 5070 (Price, $)Nvidia RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB (Price, $)
1550430
2550430
3524430
4546430
5481430
6499379
7520430
8500430
9500430
10480430
11489400
12500400
13527420
14540420
15499430
16499430
17549430
18540450
19549450
20620520
21620520
22620520
23630520
24625520
25630550
26604550
27640570
28630515
29636500
30630500
31599500
32599515
33599490
34599550
35599550
36599550
37599570
38599570
39599570
40599565
41560560
42550570
43755650
44763780
45800773
46759570
The recent price spike for both the RTX 5070 and RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB make it tough recommendation against the relatively new RX 9070 GRE.

And just because it's using cast-off GPUs don't expect it to be any more affordable, either. With the RTX 5070 currently retailing for around $800 you can see why Nvidia would be keen to ensure there's good supply of this fourth-tier card when its retailing for so far beyond its $549 MSRP.

Is there any benefits for us PC gamers? If you wanted to be very, very optimistic (as is my wont) then you could say that at least this is going to deliver more supply of the RTX 5070 into the channel. But pricing is unlikely to trend downwards, so there will just be more cards to spend $800 on.

Given that, I wouldn't be surprised to see a variant of the RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB, another ~$800 graphics card, coming out soon using some more of the sweepings off the original RTX 5070 factory floor. If it's good enough for an RTX 5060, it's good enough to turn into an RTX 5060 Ti, after all.

]]> <![CDATA[ Jensen Huang says 100,000 Nvidia GPUs were used to train OpenAI's latest model, GPT-6 Astra, and there's already plans to bring quadruple that amount of hardware online ]]> OpenAI began rolling out GPT-6 Astra access to a limited number of organisations earlier this week, with wider subscriber access planned to soon follow. According to Jensen Huang via X, the model was trained on "~100K+ Nvidia Grace Blackwell NVLink72" server racks, and there are already plans to get 400,000 GPUs online in anticipation of whatever comes next.

Greg Brockman, the co-founder and president of OpenAI, told Stratechery that this was "the first run that we’ve trained on more than 100,000 GPUs." That's a staggering amount of hardware (and perhaps leaves little doubt as to how we ended up in a memory supply crisis). But the thing that gives me more pause about Astra's announcement is the Nvidia CEO's assertion that "AGI has arrived."

To recap, 'Artificial General Intelligence' is used to broadly describe an AI model that either matches or surpasses human capability on complex cognitive tasks. Even Brockman admits that "People do have their own definition of AGI, it’s almost this blurry thing." Still, in that same interview he later goes on to add, "Maybe it was the previous model, maybe it’s Astra, maybe it’s the next model, but somewhere in there, I think we’re going to cross most people’s AGI threshold."

According to OpenAI, GPT-6 Astra is "state-of-the-art" on a number of AI benchmarks, including "FrontierMath Tier 4, ARC-AGI 3, and TerminalBench-4.0." A slickly produced trailer attempts to present this performance in more accessible terms, showing scenes of conversational, spoken prompts being used to create presentations, eBay listings, and .STL files for 3D printers. All of the actors in the trailer speak with pretty clear-cut American accents, though personally I'd love to see Astra tapdance for its life against a gorgeous Geordie accent.

As I've already said, access to GPT-6 Astra is limited for now, so it's difficult to look into these 'AGI' claims myself. The timing of this claim isn't lost on me, though—for one thing, rumours continue to swirl that OpenAI's initial public offering isn't that far off. For another, the debut of Astra—a model the company describes as its "most aligned"—follows mere weeks after 'an agentic collective' broke out of OpenAI's isolated testing environment and attacked Hugging Face's servers.

Brockman says, "So much of [Astra's] compute goes into safety and alignment, and we have so much security work that’s gone around it. I think that we’ve done a huge amount of work to deliver this model safely."

Still, I'm not sure I'll be giving GPT-6 Astra access to my eBay account—let alone anything else—for the foreseeable future.

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/software/ai/jensen-huang-says-100-000-nvidia-gpus-were-used-to-train-openais-latest-model-gpt-6-astra-and-theres-already-plans-to-bring-quadruple-that-amount-of-hardware-online/ k2irjzsvULbtfce6R7NYLX Mon, 07 Sep 2026 15:20:28 +0000 Mon, 07 Sep 2026 18:02:55 +0000 false false false

OpenAI began rolling out GPT-6 Astra access to a limited number of organisations earlier this week, with wider subscriber access planned to soon follow. According to Jensen Huang via X, the model was trained on "~100K+ Nvidia Grace Blackwell NVLink72" server racks, and there are already plans to get 400,000 GPUs online in anticipation of whatever comes next.

Greg Brockman, the co-founder and president of OpenAI, told Stratechery that this was "the first run that we’ve trained on more than 100,000 GPUs." That's a staggering amount of hardware (and perhaps leaves little doubt as to how we ended up in a memory supply crisis). But the thing that gives me more pause about Astra's announcement is the Nvidia CEO's assertion that "AGI has arrived."

To recap, 'Artificial General Intelligence' is used to broadly describe an AI model that either matches or surpasses human capability on complex cognitive tasks. Even Brockman admits that "People do have their own definition of AGI, it’s almost this blurry thing." Still, in that same interview he later goes on to add, "Maybe it was the previous model, maybe it’s Astra, maybe it’s the next model, but somewhere in there, I think we’re going to cross most people’s AGI threshold."

According to OpenAI, GPT-6 Astra is "state-of-the-art" on a number of AI benchmarks, including "FrontierMath Tier 4, ARC-AGI 3, and TerminalBench-4.0." A slickly produced trailer attempts to present this performance in more accessible terms, showing scenes of conversational, spoken prompts being used to create presentations, eBay listings, and .STL files for 3D printers. All of the actors in the trailer speak with pretty clear-cut American accents, though personally I'd love to see Astra tapdance for its life against a gorgeous Geordie accent.

As I've already said, access to GPT-6 Astra is limited for now, so it's difficult to look into these 'AGI' claims myself. The timing of this claim isn't lost on me, though—for one thing, rumours continue to swirl that OpenAI's initial public offering isn't that far off. For another, the debut of Astra—a model the company describes as its "most aligned"—follows mere weeks after 'an agentic collective' broke out of OpenAI's isolated testing environment and attacked Hugging Face's servers.

Brockman says, "So much of [Astra's] compute goes into safety and alignment, and we have so much security work that’s gone around it. I think that we’ve done a huge amount of work to deliver this model safely."

Still, I'm not sure I'll be giving GPT-6 Astra access to my eBay account—let alone anything else—for the foreseeable future.

]]> <![CDATA[ New DLSS 5 mod offloads Neural Rendering to a second card massively cutting the AI filter's performance hit ]]>

A developer has vibe-coded a new ReShade add-on file that offloads the DLSS Neural Rendering workloads to a second GPU, almost negating the otherwise massive DLSS NR performance hit. Given the original DLSS 5 shots we saw when Jen-Hsun first showed off the feature around GDC and GTC in the Spring were running on two graphics cards, that's not wholly surprising, but this mod certainly does open the the potential for keeping your old GPU around for neural coprocessing in the future.

Like almost all of the current DLSS 5/Neural Rendering implementations we've seen where the user gets to pick the game, the model, and the weight of the effects, the Neural Coprocessor add-on file—mgpu_bridge—is designed for ReShade, an app used to inject different visual effects into PC games. The files exist on Github, can be downloaded and added into a game that's already been modded with DLSS 5 support, and could dramatically improve the performance.

This is, for me, the biggest issue with both the homebrew mods for DLSS Neural Rendering and the only release implementation we've seen from Nvidia and the developers themselves: the hefty performance penalty from turning it on.

Nvidia itself has touted a 50 - 60% frame rate hit as a blanket figure—regardless of game and how much AI filtering it's doing—as what it is expecting to see from enabling DLSS NR. Andy benchmarked NBA 2K27 ahead of launch and found that sometimes the frame rate impact can be even higher than that.

I mean, it's not as bad as when you try and run DLSS NR on AMD GPUs, but I've noted these kinds of performance hits when you run the new feature through ReShade, too. But Marcelo Guibout has coded a ReShade add-on file that allows a second GPU—here an RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB—to take the final finished frame and perform the neural rendering pass on that GPU and output on its own monitor. That means it doesn't have to hand the frame back, which adds its own performance hit and latency.

They initially used a local model—Qwen3.8-27B-Q6_K—running on LM Studio using the same pair of RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB cards they eventually tested the feature on. This created the "initial add-on scaffold" which they then took into Claude to write most of the C++ core, though Anthropic's AI "also produced several confident, well-formatted, wrong diagnoses along the way."

Looking through the Github documentation Guibout makes it clear this is not a production-ready add-on, and is mostly presented for further research and development. They note it has been run on exactly one machine with three games, and encourage everyone to read the source code before running the files. But it's still a really interesting development in the DLSS 5 modding story.

"The reason it is worth doing: neural post-processing saturates whatever device it runs on," writes Guibout. "Run it on the render GPU and lowering your render resolution just frees capacity the neural stage immediately eats, so upscaling stops paying for itself. Move it to a second GPU and the render GPU is genuinely freed."

DLSS NR on AMD

AMD GPUs running DLSS 5 looks great, but runs horribly.

DLSS NR OnDLSS NR Off
Brand Logo
DLSS NR Off
DLSS NR On

This is almost certainly the reason behind Nvidia originally running the feature on two GPUs for the original demos, and the fact that it can get it running on a single GPU is still impressive from a technical perspective, but having a coprocessor handling the load should give you the best of both worlds.

Though there are obvious caveats to this.

The first being that it's expensive enough to buy one graphics card right now. You look at this mod and the fact it's been created and tested on a pair of RTX 5060 Ti cards and think that's kinda mid-range. They are the fifth-tier cards of Nvidia's RTX Blackwell stack. But those are two GPUs that now cost something around $800 apiece, so we're still talking about needing $1,600 worth of graphics silicon to get this working.

The other caveat is that we're running on with two monitors here as a necessity. Guibout notes in the Github readme file that, "The second monitor is a requirement, not a nicety - the neural output is displayed by the card that produced it. Headless works and is meaningfully slower."

The third caveat here is that this ReShade implementation is a final step process. It is handled after the final frame has been rendered and works with none of the depth and motion vector information the official Nvidia implementation runs with. That means the second-GPU is going to have to be more tightly integrated into the actual rendering process. Not quite as tightly bound as with SLI, perhaps, but it will surely still need to get involved before the final post-processing is done.

But I could potentially see this as a way to do something useful with your current-gen card when you next upgrade. And, on a purely mercenary level, it might be a smart thing for Nvidia to actually make as a feature as it would have the effect of locking someone into the GeForce ecosystem even more securely.

An RTX 5080 and RTX 5060 Ti graphics card in the same motherboard on an open test rig.

(Image credit: Future)

Though times have changed and SLI and CrossFire have died, and so motherboards are even less likely today to have multiple PCIe x16 sockets available to stick secondary GPUs into. Especially if you've got multiple NVMe SSDs taking up precious PCIe lanes.

I'm loving the rate of development happening outside of Nvidia now that the feature has fallen into the hands of the community at large. And regardless of how you feel about the technology, I would encourage you, if you have the hardware, to take a look at how even just the ReShade implementation looks, and how you can alter it. It gives a fascinating insight into the technology, into its limitations as well as its unwelcome excesses.

Though it's not always easy. I've spent the morning trying to get this ReShade add-on working with the test rig, because I was interested to see if it could be run asymmetrically, as I don't have a pair of RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB cards. Sadly, with an RTX 5080 and RTX 5060 Ti as the neural coprocessor, I could not get the add-on to arm when in Cyberpunk 2077. So, I've got more work to do to get this thing running.

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/new-dlss-5-mod-offloads-neural-rendering-to-a-second-card-massively-cutting-the-ai-filters-performance-hit/ jMskibnAVmnqQhGzC9wgL4 Mon, 07 Sep 2026 11:56:11 +0000 false false false

A developer has vibe-coded a new ReShade add-on file that offloads the DLSS Neural Rendering workloads to a second GPU, almost negating the otherwise massive DLSS NR performance hit. Given the original DLSS 5 shots we saw when Jen-Hsun first showed off the feature around GDC and GTC in the Spring were running on two graphics cards, that's not wholly surprising, but this mod certainly does open the the potential for keeping your old GPU around for neural coprocessing in the future.

Like almost all of the current DLSS 5/Neural Rendering implementations we've seen where the user gets to pick the game, the model, and the weight of the effects, the Neural Coprocessor add-on file—mgpu_bridge—is designed for ReShade, an app used to inject different visual effects into PC games. The files exist on Github, can be downloaded and added into a game that's already been modded with DLSS 5 support, and could dramatically improve the performance.

This is, for me, the biggest issue with both the homebrew mods for DLSS Neural Rendering and the only release implementation we've seen from Nvidia and the developers themselves: the hefty performance penalty from turning it on.

Nvidia itself has touted a 50 - 60% frame rate hit as a blanket figure—regardless of game and how much AI filtering it's doing—as what it is expecting to see from enabling DLSS NR. Andy benchmarked NBA 2K27 ahead of launch and found that sometimes the frame rate impact can be even higher than that.

I mean, it's not as bad as when you try and run DLSS NR on AMD GPUs, but I've noted these kinds of performance hits when you run the new feature through ReShade, too. But Marcelo Guibout has coded a ReShade add-on file that allows a second GPU—here an RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB—to take the final finished frame and perform the neural rendering pass on that GPU and output on its own monitor. That means it doesn't have to hand the frame back, which adds its own performance hit and latency.

They initially used a local model—Qwen3.8-27B-Q6_K—running on LM Studio using the same pair of RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB cards they eventually tested the feature on. This created the "initial add-on scaffold" which they then took into Claude to write most of the C++ core, though Anthropic's AI "also produced several confident, well-formatted, wrong diagnoses along the way."

Looking through the Github documentation Guibout makes it clear this is not a production-ready add-on, and is mostly presented for further research and development. They note it has been run on exactly one machine with three games, and encourage everyone to read the source code before running the files. But it's still a really interesting development in the DLSS 5 modding story.

"The reason it is worth doing: neural post-processing saturates whatever device it runs on," writes Guibout. "Run it on the render GPU and lowering your render resolution just frees capacity the neural stage immediately eats, so upscaling stops paying for itself. Move it to a second GPU and the render GPU is genuinely freed."

DLSS NR on AMD

AMD GPUs running DLSS 5 looks great, but runs horribly.

DLSS NR OnDLSS NR Off
Brand Logo
DLSS NR Off
DLSS NR On

This is almost certainly the reason behind Nvidia originally running the feature on two GPUs for the original demos, and the fact that it can get it running on a single GPU is still impressive from a technical perspective, but having a coprocessor handling the load should give you the best of both worlds.

Though there are obvious caveats to this.

The first being that it's expensive enough to buy one graphics card right now. You look at this mod and the fact it's been created and tested on a pair of RTX 5060 Ti cards and think that's kinda mid-range. They are the fifth-tier cards of Nvidia's RTX Blackwell stack. But those are two GPUs that now cost something around $800 apiece, so we're still talking about needing $1,600 worth of graphics silicon to get this working.

The other caveat is that we're running on with two monitors here as a necessity. Guibout notes in the Github readme file that, "The second monitor is a requirement, not a nicety - the neural output is displayed by the card that produced it. Headless works and is meaningfully slower."

The third caveat here is that this ReShade implementation is a final step process. It is handled after the final frame has been rendered and works with none of the depth and motion vector information the official Nvidia implementation runs with. That means the second-GPU is going to have to be more tightly integrated into the actual rendering process. Not quite as tightly bound as with SLI, perhaps, but it will surely still need to get involved before the final post-processing is done.

But I could potentially see this as a way to do something useful with your current-gen card when you next upgrade. And, on a purely mercenary level, it might be a smart thing for Nvidia to actually make as a feature as it would have the effect of locking someone into the GeForce ecosystem even more securely.

An RTX 5080 and RTX 5060 Ti graphics card in the same motherboard on an open test rig.

(Image credit: Future)

Though times have changed and SLI and CrossFire have died, and so motherboards are even less likely today to have multiple PCIe x16 sockets available to stick secondary GPUs into. Especially if you've got multiple NVMe SSDs taking up precious PCIe lanes.

I'm loving the rate of development happening outside of Nvidia now that the feature has fallen into the hands of the community at large. And regardless of how you feel about the technology, I would encourage you, if you have the hardware, to take a look at how even just the ReShade implementation looks, and how you can alter it. It gives a fascinating insight into the technology, into its limitations as well as its unwelcome excesses.

Though it's not always easy. I've spent the morning trying to get this ReShade add-on working with the test rig, because I was interested to see if it could be run asymmetrically, as I don't have a pair of RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB cards. Sadly, with an RTX 5080 and RTX 5060 Ti as the neural coprocessor, I could not get the add-on to arm when in Cyberpunk 2077. So, I've got more work to do to get this thing running.

]]> <![CDATA[ Once again, it is genuinely cheaper for me to fly to PAX West and track down Nvidia's 'GeForce Evangelist' rather than buy the RTX 5090 anywhere else ]]> Hello, and welcome to another episode of 'I'd do anything for an Nvidia RTX 5090 at MSRP, but I won't do that.' This time, 'that' is hopping on an international flight from the UK to Seattle, Washington in the US, so I can buy a 50-series card at PAX West.

Nvidia's self-described GeForce Evangelist Jacob Freeman wrote on X, "Hello PAX West! VPA IRL is here! Come find me if your looking for a GeForce RTX 5090, 5080 or 5070 AT MSRP! While they last."

Unlike QuakeCon earlier this year, there didn't appear to be a Nvidia booth or any boxed Founder's Editions purchasable at the event itself. Instead, Freeman explained that he was giving out cards with "a code that you use to purchase from the Nvidia web store." For context, 'VPA' stands for Verified Priority Access, which in the past has been used as a draw system that only granted gamers the chance to buy a full-price GPU.

Now, it's a little late for me to hop on a plane as PAX West ran from September 4 until September 7. But if I'd gotten my act together, hopping on a short-notice flight to the West coast for approximately £1,000 (about $1,352), plus grabbing the most expensive PAX day-pass for $89, then picking up the RTX 5090 for $1,999 MSRP would have totalled $3,440—and that's still significantly cheaper than the $5,500 price tag we've most recently seen at Best Buy as part of our graphics card price watch.

That is a ridiculous state of affairs, but given that Freeman was out of 5090 and 5080 cards by the end of day three, clearly the maths is maths-ing for some. I barely remember the last time Nvidia mentioned gaming at all in an earnings call, but this runaway pricing doesn't appear to be hurting the company.

For a start, Nvidia's AI profits completely overshadow what it makes from gaming. In fact, the company is dining so well on AI's demand for hardware like Vera Rubin, that it recently announced its intention to acquire Hugging Face for $13 billion. Purchasing this development platform will likely further shore up the company's prime position within the AI industry.

It's old news, but Nvidia hasn't been a gaming company primarily for some time now. As such, it can kind of do what it likes with its gaming business (Notwithstanding the memory supply crisis). As such, I suspect we're far from seeing the last of 'VPA IRL' stunts like those at QuakeCon and now PAX West. Meat Loaf, anyone?

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/once-again-it-is-genuinely-cheaper-for-me-to-fly-to-pax-west-and-track-down-nvidias-geforce-evangelist-rather-than-buy-the-rtx-5090-anywhere-else/ 3nS2hRJCxRDU67ay9gEGaC Mon, 07 Sep 2026 11:34:26 +0000 Mon, 07 Sep 2026 18:04:21 +0000 false false false

Hello, and welcome to another episode of 'I'd do anything for an Nvidia RTX 5090 at MSRP, but I won't do that.' This time, 'that' is hopping on an international flight from the UK to Seattle, Washington in the US, so I can buy a 50-series card at PAX West.

Nvidia's self-described GeForce Evangelist Jacob Freeman wrote on X, "Hello PAX West! VPA IRL is here! Come find me if your looking for a GeForce RTX 5090, 5080 or 5070 AT MSRP! While they last."

Unlike QuakeCon earlier this year, there didn't appear to be a Nvidia booth or any boxed Founder's Editions purchasable at the event itself. Instead, Freeman explained that he was giving out cards with "a code that you use to purchase from the Nvidia web store." For context, 'VPA' stands for Verified Priority Access, which in the past has been used as a draw system that only granted gamers the chance to buy a full-price GPU.

Now, it's a little late for me to hop on a plane as PAX West ran from September 4 until September 7. But if I'd gotten my act together, hopping on a short-notice flight to the West coast for approximately £1,000 (about $1,352), plus grabbing the most expensive PAX day-pass for $89, then picking up the RTX 5090 for $1,999 MSRP would have totalled $3,440—and that's still significantly cheaper than the $5,500 price tag we've most recently seen at Best Buy as part of our graphics card price watch.

That is a ridiculous state of affairs, but given that Freeman was out of 5090 and 5080 cards by the end of day three, clearly the maths is maths-ing for some. I barely remember the last time Nvidia mentioned gaming at all in an earnings call, but this runaway pricing doesn't appear to be hurting the company.

For a start, Nvidia's AI profits completely overshadow what it makes from gaming. In fact, the company is dining so well on AI's demand for hardware like Vera Rubin, that it recently announced its intention to acquire Hugging Face for $13 billion. Purchasing this development platform will likely further shore up the company's prime position within the AI industry.

It's old news, but Nvidia hasn't been a gaming company primarily for some time now. As such, it can kind of do what it likes with its gaming business (Notwithstanding the memory supply crisis). As such, I suspect we're far from seeing the last of 'VPA IRL' stunts like those at QuakeCon and now PAX West. Meat Loaf, anyone?

]]> <![CDATA[ Me: You can now run DLSS 5 on AMD GPUs. My RX 9070 XT: Please stop, it hurts us ]]> Another day, another DLSS 5 story that actually kinda doesn't involve Nvidia itself doing anything, because it seems now AMD GPU owners can get in on the act. A new homebrew app has been released on Github that will allow you to run the DLSS Neural Rendering feature on a Radeon GPU. I've tried it and it works, but damn does it hurt the poor Radeon silicon.

From having DLSS 5 .dll files plucked from an early access version of NBA 2K27, we've had modders working hard to create surprisingly polished ways to essentially get the tech working in practically any game, even if it doesn't natively support traditional DLSS itself.

I've been playing around with it a lot this past week, even to the point of jamming it into Football Manager 26 just to see what would happen. And, y'know what, I kinda like the result so I'm keeping it. I wasn't expecting that, and I also wasn't expecting this technology, created by Nvidia, to appear so quickly on AMD GPUs. Historically we've found that where Nvidia goes, so AMD follows, at least in the GPU feature space, but it seems like AMD might not actually have to do much this time. Well, apart from actually make the silicon a little more tensor-friendly.

Because I have spent the afternoon trying to get the new app from user danielblnc on Github to work on my Radeon RX 9070 XT in Cyberpunk 2077. Essentially you download the DLSS-NR-on-AMD file, drop it into the relevant folder (the bin/x64 folder in the Cyberpunk 2077 directory in Steam, for example) and run it. So long as you have the necessary nvngx_dlssnr.dll file that's been doing the rounds installed in the same place it ought to work.

It didn't.

Initially Windows flagged it as containing a virus, but I did some checking around with VirusTotal and seemingly the Defender flag is a machine learning false positive. Probably. But even then I still struggled to have it running happily.

I am not entirely sure what I did wrong, but when I enabled the feature in-game all I got was a black output where the 3D world ought to be, even though the HUD and game kept on running. After some file deletion, redownloading, verifying of integrity (mine and Cyberpunk's), and a rollback of my AMD Adrenalin drivers, I finally got it working. Kinda. I mean it's still kinda crashy, and I can only now launch Cyberpunk 2077 directly from the .exe file rather than from Steam, but it works.

But my poor GPU wished I hadn't. Now, we know that DLSS 5 is a hell of a resource hog on an RTX 50-series GPU that it's designed for, with a touted 50 - 60% performance hit officially noted by Nvidia, so I should have known it would trouble the AMD GPU.

DLSS NR on Nvidia

DLSS 5 was designed for GeForce GPUs, so is a little more capable, but still a massive resource hog.

AfterBefore
Brand Logo
DLSS NR Off
DLSS NR On

Still… running at 4K RT Ultra settings is tough enough, and I was getting just 61 fps on the RX 9070 XT even with FSR 4 set to Balanced. And then flicking the DLSS Neural Rendering toggle to 'on' made that figure drop to just 9 fps.

And I thought the 73% drop Andy found with NBA 2K27 was rough.

DLSS NR on AMD

AMD GPUs running DLSS 5 looks great, but runs horribly.

DLSS NR OnDLSS NR Off
Brand Logo
DLSS NR Off
DLSS NR On

Now it's worth noting that the fact it is running at all on AMD GPUs is impressive on its own, but it's not going to make any Radeon graphics card owners any happier about it when they're getting unplayable frame rates out of their new ill-gotten pretties. An 85% performance drop is not sustainable. Nice for screenshots though, eh?

The issue is that AMD's RDNA 4 doesn't have the level of dedicated silicon for the sort of matrix calculations the feature is running… in the same way that RTX 20-series chips don't.

Cyberpunk 2077 with DLSS 5 running on an AMD GPU.

(Image credit: CDPR)

The Turing architecture does have Tensor Cores, but they're far weaker compared to those in the RTX 40- or RTX 50-series, and the shared resources AMD plucks from the standard RDNA 4 Compute Units for these sorts of calculations aren't as robust either. Hence the weaker performance.

Will they be able to squeeze more performance out of this feature on AMD chips? I don't know, but YouTuber Ancient Gameplays noted the app in a recent video, and states that performance has gone up 12% since the first version of the DLSS-NR-on-AMD software first hit Github, so maybe there's a chance. But, realistically, I think there's a hard hardware limit in there which is going to stop DLSS Neural Rendering from being a realistic part of AMD's armoury in this generation.

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/me-you-can-now-run-dlss-5-on-amd-gpus-my-rx-9070-xt-please-stop-it-hurts-us/ QEdkc258XVwt7e8sAaMYsb Fri, 04 Sep 2026 20:10:48 +0000 false false false

Another day, another DLSS 5 story that actually kinda doesn't involve Nvidia itself doing anything, because it seems now AMD GPU owners can get in on the act. A new homebrew app has been released on Github that will allow you to run the DLSS Neural Rendering feature on a Radeon GPU. I've tried it and it works, but damn does it hurt the poor Radeon silicon.

From having DLSS 5 .dll files plucked from an early access version of NBA 2K27, we've had modders working hard to create surprisingly polished ways to essentially get the tech working in practically any game, even if it doesn't natively support traditional DLSS itself.

I've been playing around with it a lot this past week, even to the point of jamming it into Football Manager 26 just to see what would happen. And, y'know what, I kinda like the result so I'm keeping it. I wasn't expecting that, and I also wasn't expecting this technology, created by Nvidia, to appear so quickly on AMD GPUs. Historically we've found that where Nvidia goes, so AMD follows, at least in the GPU feature space, but it seems like AMD might not actually have to do much this time. Well, apart from actually make the silicon a little more tensor-friendly.

Because I have spent the afternoon trying to get the new app from user danielblnc on Github to work on my Radeon RX 9070 XT in Cyberpunk 2077. Essentially you download the DLSS-NR-on-AMD file, drop it into the relevant folder (the bin/x64 folder in the Cyberpunk 2077 directory in Steam, for example) and run it. So long as you have the necessary nvngx_dlssnr.dll file that's been doing the rounds installed in the same place it ought to work.

It didn't.

Initially Windows flagged it as containing a virus, but I did some checking around with VirusTotal and seemingly the Defender flag is a machine learning false positive. Probably. But even then I still struggled to have it running happily.

I am not entirely sure what I did wrong, but when I enabled the feature in-game all I got was a black output where the 3D world ought to be, even though the HUD and game kept on running. After some file deletion, redownloading, verifying of integrity (mine and Cyberpunk's), and a rollback of my AMD Adrenalin drivers, I finally got it working. Kinda. I mean it's still kinda crashy, and I can only now launch Cyberpunk 2077 directly from the .exe file rather than from Steam, but it works.

But my poor GPU wished I hadn't. Now, we know that DLSS 5 is a hell of a resource hog on an RTX 50-series GPU that it's designed for, with a touted 50 - 60% performance hit officially noted by Nvidia, so I should have known it would trouble the AMD GPU.

DLSS NR on Nvidia

DLSS 5 was designed for GeForce GPUs, so is a little more capable, but still a massive resource hog.

AfterBefore
Brand Logo
DLSS NR Off
DLSS NR On

Still… running at 4K RT Ultra settings is tough enough, and I was getting just 61 fps on the RX 9070 XT even with FSR 4 set to Balanced. And then flicking the DLSS Neural Rendering toggle to 'on' made that figure drop to just 9 fps.

And I thought the 73% drop Andy found with NBA 2K27 was rough.

DLSS NR on AMD

AMD GPUs running DLSS 5 looks great, but runs horribly.

DLSS NR OnDLSS NR Off
Brand Logo
DLSS NR Off
DLSS NR On

Now it's worth noting that the fact it is running at all on AMD GPUs is impressive on its own, but it's not going to make any Radeon graphics card owners any happier about it when they're getting unplayable frame rates out of their new ill-gotten pretties. An 85% performance drop is not sustainable. Nice for screenshots though, eh?

The issue is that AMD's RDNA 4 doesn't have the level of dedicated silicon for the sort of matrix calculations the feature is running… in the same way that RTX 20-series chips don't.

Cyberpunk 2077 with DLSS 5 running on an AMD GPU.

(Image credit: CDPR)

The Turing architecture does have Tensor Cores, but they're far weaker compared to those in the RTX 40- or RTX 50-series, and the shared resources AMD plucks from the standard RDNA 4 Compute Units for these sorts of calculations aren't as robust either. Hence the weaker performance.

Will they be able to squeeze more performance out of this feature on AMD chips? I don't know, but YouTuber Ancient Gameplays noted the app in a recent video, and states that performance has gone up 12% since the first version of the DLSS-NR-on-AMD software first hit Github, so maybe there's a chance. But, realistically, I think there's a hard hardware limit in there which is going to stop DLSS Neural Rendering from being a realistic part of AMD's armoury in this generation.

]]> <![CDATA[ Think fast: this RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB is $200 under the stupidly inflated price right now, but probably won't be for long ]]>

RTX 5060 Ti | 16 GB: $569.99
While the specs suggest it should only be a little faster than the RTX 4060 Ti, the use of super-speedy GDDR7 gives the RTX 5060 Ti a surprisingly big boost. It's probably not worth paying significantly over the MSRP to bag one, though, especially when the RX 9070 GRE is cheaper and faster. But if you want an RTX 5060 Ti in 16 GB trim, this is the cheapest we've seen in a long time.

Key specs: 4608 shaders | 2602 MHz boost | 16 GB GDDR7

RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB price check: Newegg $779.99 | Best Buy $779.99 | Amazon $759.99View Deal

The graphics card market is a bit broken right now, and the reasons are manifold, though still mostly come down to a basic AI=BAD. I've been tracking the cheapest GPU prices for over a year now, and we are in the process of shifting from a bit of a plateau in terms of pricing to new price rises almost across the board.

One of the most recent, and possibly most egregious price hikes has been with the RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB card. That was a $430 GPU at launch and barely had time to settle into its MSRP before the market went into overdrive. Over the past couple of weeks I've tracked the cheapest RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB going from around $560 up to just shy of $800. Around the price of the RTX 5070 and more expensive than every single AMD GPU in the RX 9000-series.

GPU price tracking

I've been tracking the lowest price of each GPU in this generation since August 14, 2025

Lowest pricing (Price, $)
Week
Lowest pricing Data
Timestamp (Week)Nvidia RTX 5070 (Price, $)Nvidia RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB (Price, $)AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE (Price, $)
1550430N/A
2550430N/A
3524430N/A
4546430N/A
5481430N/A
6499379N/A
7520430N/A
8500430N/A
9500430N/A
10480430N/A
11489400N/A
12500400N/A
13527420N/A
14540420N/A
15499430N/A
16499430N/A
17549430N/A
18540450N/A
19549450N/A
20620520N/A
21620520N/A
22620520N/A
23630520N/A
24625520N/A
25630550N/A
26604550N/A
27640570N/A
28630515N/A
29636500N/A
30630500N/A
31599500N/A
32599515N/A
33599490N/A
34599550N/A
35599550N/A
36599550550
37599570550
38599570550
39599570500
40599565500
41560560500
42550570550
43755650500
44763780500
45800773530
46759570530
The recent price spike for both the RTX 5070 and RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB make it tough recommendation against the relatively new RX 9070 GRE.

Everywhere else it has remained at that price, but right now you can pick up an MSI RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB for $570 at Walmart. I can't find another version of that GPU anywhere that comes close to it. You can see above that the next cheapest RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB card is $760 at Amazon. So, if you've got your heart set on a 16 GB version of Nvidia's fifth-tier RTX Blackwell GPU, then you had better strike while the iron's kinda tepid (it is still well above MSRP, after all) because I doubt we'll see this card around this sort of price again any time soon.

The major caveat to this deal, however, is that this is not the graphics card I would recommend if you had around $500 - $600 to spend on a new GPU. For me, as a regular PC gamer, I would be looking at the AMD RX 9070 GRE. Yes, it's got less memory, but 12 GB is still absolutely fine for PC gaming today, and it's RDNA 4 GPU is far more capable of high, smooth frame rates at higher resolutions than the RTX 5060 Ti. Even with 16 GB of VRAM at its disposal.

RX 9070 GRE | 12 GB: was $589.99 now $529.99
The RX 9070 GRE is the latest entry in AMD's RX 9000-series, and for the money, you're getting a great mid-range graphics card. If it stays at this price, then it will be the sensible choice over the 16 GB RTX 5060 Ti. Let's hope that there's enough supply, as stocks are already looking a bit thin.

Key specs: 3072 shaders | 2920 MHz boost | 12 GB GDDR6

RX 9070 GRE price check: Newegg $549.99 | Best Buy $569.99 | Walmart $549.99View Deal

Sure, you're not getting Multi Frame Generation of the sort of quality Nvidia can offer, but FSR 4 and its Redstone update have hugely improved AMD's Radeon software feature set. And I'd take that superior GPU over Nvidia's slightly better software stack right now.

The RX 9070 GRE is $530 at Amazon today, making it a good chunk cheaper than even this relatively cheap (compared to the other retailers, anyway) RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB card. And that, combined with it's higher performance makes the GRE my preferred choice.

👉Find more graphics card deals at Walmart👈

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/think-fast-this-rtx-5060-ti-16-gb-is-usd200-under-the-stupidly-inflated-price-right-now-but-probably-wont-be-for-long/ 95Vfe9yS9FjGTdfnuKJ5v7 Fri, 04 Sep 2026 12:32:19 +0000 false false false

RTX 5060 Ti | 16 GB: $569.99
While the specs suggest it should only be a little faster than the RTX 4060 Ti, the use of super-speedy GDDR7 gives the RTX 5060 Ti a surprisingly big boost. It's probably not worth paying significantly over the MSRP to bag one, though, especially when the RX 9070 GRE is cheaper and faster. But if you want an RTX 5060 Ti in 16 GB trim, this is the cheapest we've seen in a long time.

Key specs: 4608 shaders | 2602 MHz boost | 16 GB GDDR7

RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB price check: Newegg $779.99 | Best Buy $779.99 | Amazon $759.99View Deal

The graphics card market is a bit broken right now, and the reasons are manifold, though still mostly come down to a basic AI=BAD. I've been tracking the cheapest GPU prices for over a year now, and we are in the process of shifting from a bit of a plateau in terms of pricing to new price rises almost across the board.

One of the most recent, and possibly most egregious price hikes has been with the RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB card. That was a $430 GPU at launch and barely had time to settle into its MSRP before the market went into overdrive. Over the past couple of weeks I've tracked the cheapest RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB going from around $560 up to just shy of $800. Around the price of the RTX 5070 and more expensive than every single AMD GPU in the RX 9000-series.

GPU price tracking

I've been tracking the lowest price of each GPU in this generation since August 14, 2025

Lowest pricing (Price, $)
Week
Lowest pricing Data
Timestamp (Week)Nvidia RTX 5070 (Price, $)Nvidia RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB (Price, $)AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE (Price, $)
1550430N/A
2550430N/A
3524430N/A
4546430N/A
5481430N/A
6499379N/A
7520430N/A
8500430N/A
9500430N/A
10480430N/A
11489400N/A
12500400N/A
13527420N/A
14540420N/A
15499430N/A
16499430N/A
17549430N/A
18540450N/A
19549450N/A
20620520N/A
21620520N/A
22620520N/A
23630520N/A
24625520N/A
25630550N/A
26604550N/A
27640570N/A
28630515N/A
29636500N/A
30630500N/A
31599500N/A
32599515N/A
33599490N/A
34599550N/A
35599550N/A
36599550550
37599570550
38599570550
39599570500
40599565500
41560560500
42550570550
43755650500
44763780500
45800773530
46759570530
The recent price spike for both the RTX 5070 and RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB make it tough recommendation against the relatively new RX 9070 GRE.

Everywhere else it has remained at that price, but right now you can pick up an MSI RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB for $570 at Walmart. I can't find another version of that GPU anywhere that comes close to it. You can see above that the next cheapest RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB card is $760 at Amazon. So, if you've got your heart set on a 16 GB version of Nvidia's fifth-tier RTX Blackwell GPU, then you had better strike while the iron's kinda tepid (it is still well above MSRP, after all) because I doubt we'll see this card around this sort of price again any time soon.

The major caveat to this deal, however, is that this is not the graphics card I would recommend if you had around $500 - $600 to spend on a new GPU. For me, as a regular PC gamer, I would be looking at the AMD RX 9070 GRE. Yes, it's got less memory, but 12 GB is still absolutely fine for PC gaming today, and it's RDNA 4 GPU is far more capable of high, smooth frame rates at higher resolutions than the RTX 5060 Ti. Even with 16 GB of VRAM at its disposal.

RX 9070 GRE | 12 GB: was $589.99 now $529.99
The RX 9070 GRE is the latest entry in AMD's RX 9000-series, and for the money, you're getting a great mid-range graphics card. If it stays at this price, then it will be the sensible choice over the 16 GB RTX 5060 Ti. Let's hope that there's enough supply, as stocks are already looking a bit thin.

Key specs: 3072 shaders | 2920 MHz boost | 12 GB GDDR6

RX 9070 GRE price check: Newegg $549.99 | Best Buy $569.99 | Walmart $549.99View Deal

Sure, you're not getting Multi Frame Generation of the sort of quality Nvidia can offer, but FSR 4 and its Redstone update have hugely improved AMD's Radeon software feature set. And I'd take that superior GPU over Nvidia's slightly better software stack right now.

The RX 9070 GRE is $530 at Amazon today, making it a good chunk cheaper than even this relatively cheap (compared to the other retailers, anyway) RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB card. And that, combined with it's higher performance makes the GRE my preferred choice.

👉Find more graphics card deals at Walmart👈

]]> <![CDATA[ DLSS 5 is called 'DLSS Neural Rendering' in the NBA 2K27 graphics options, and I think I smell a rebrand of Nvidia's controversial graphics tech ]]> If you happen to pick up a copy of NBA 2K27, in your eagerness to try out the first official implementation of Nvidia's DLSS 5 AI image tech, you won't find it labelled as such in the settings menu. Instead, it appears as a simple on/off toggle under the label "DLSS Neural Rendering." And while that might seem like a small change, I think it makes a huge amount of difference in terms of public perception.

Calling it DLSS 5 in the first place was, at best, confusing. Traditional DLSS, as in the upscaling/super sampling technology, is well established at this point. While some still refuse to get on board, many have become accustomed to the idea that it works well at its primary task, running your games at lower resolutions to achieve better frame rates while outputting a high-resolution image.

(Image credit: 2K Games)

So much so, that DLSS updates are usually pretty well received. Slightly better image quality, slightly better performance. Ray Reconstruction niceties. That sort of thing. Given that DLSS is now a near requirement for smooth performance in many games (and I'm not opening that can of worms any further right now, believe me), the gradual, iterative improvements have been pleasing to see.

But DLSS 5 changes things. Quite literally. And while Nvidia has gone to great pains in recent months to point out that it's both developer controlled, and a toggled option that can be safely ignored if you don't like the imagery, shoving the tech underneath the DLSS iterative umbrella felt like a poor move.

Something in the association inferred, even if it was later made clear that it wasn't the case, that AI image alteration tech was just how games were going to be going forward, and you were going to have to get on board if you wanted to keep using DLSS in future.

A basketball player looking astonished in NBA 2K27

(Image credit: 2K Games)

And what happens to DLSS 4.5, the current version of the upscaling tech? Does it simply update to DLSS 4.6, 4.7, etc, until we start getting into more and more decimals to avoid the big 5.0?

I asked this exact question to several Nvidia staff at my Gamescom visit, and received little in the way of a satisfying answer. It was made clear, however, that regular DLSS upscaling will continue to receive consistent updates, separate from DLSS 5.

Now it seems like we might have a clue to the solution of this branding mess. In NBA 2K27, it's been labelled as DLSS Neural Rendering, and it's an on/off switch that can be used independently of the upscaling, or ignored entirely for those who don't want to get on the AI image alteration train.

A close up of a basketball player in NBA 2K27 with DLSS 5 turned on

(Image credit: 2K Games)

Our Dave first noticed this change in the leaked DLL files last week, which refer to it as "Nvidia DLSSNR." But the fact it appears in an official game settings menu under the "Neural Rendering" title feels like a step in the right direction. Nvidia seems painfully aware that it needs to rehabilitate its new tech, and separating the nomenclature would be a good start.

Of course, the naming scheme is only part of the story when it comes to the controversy. There are many who are dead set against the idea of any sort of AI generation tech entering their games, amid a wider AI backlash. Nothing's changed there, I would wager.

Separate from that, whether you like the look of the AI-altered imagery is still a matter of taste. It's developer controlled, as Nvidia has repeatedly pointed out—though if you start modding it into games yourself, like Dave has, you do get your own sliders to play with.

DLSS 5 in Cyberpunk 2077

The effect on the lighting of the character model is impressive and easy to mod in. Just computationally expensive...

AfterBefore
Brand Logo
DLSS 5 off
DLSS 5 on

Still, I've got a feeling we're going to see some relatively subtle implementations to start with—and inevitably, some goppingly ugly, AI beauty filter-like imagery as time goes on. There's no accounting for taste in a general sense, and there's certainly no accounting for taste when it comes to graphics.

It's also, in its current iteration, a massive performance hog. Nvidia claimed a 50-60% performance hit, but my early testing in NBA 2K27 shows it can hamstring an RTX 5080 by up to 73% at certain settings. That's a very powerful (and expensive) graphics card, held back significantly by Nvidia's new toy.

All of which means the DLSS 5/DLSS Neural Rendering controversy is likely far from over. But I can't help but feel that if the tech was unveiled as "DLSS Neural Rendering" in the first place, as just a new optional feature and not presented as the entirety of DLSS 5, a fair amount of the confusion—and perhaps even initial backlash—could have been avoided.

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/dlss-5-is-called-dlss-neural-rendering-in-the-nba-2k27-graphics-options-and-i-think-i-smell-a-rebrand-of-nvidias-controversial-graphics-tech/ QNekoagoB8GBY9wtUZSxt7 Fri, 04 Sep 2026 12:31:09 +0000 Fri, 04 Sep 2026 12:39:51 +0000 false false false

If you happen to pick up a copy of NBA 2K27, in your eagerness to try out the first official implementation of Nvidia's DLSS 5 AI image tech, you won't find it labelled as such in the settings menu. Instead, it appears as a simple on/off toggle under the label "DLSS Neural Rendering." And while that might seem like a small change, I think it makes a huge amount of difference in terms of public perception.

Calling it DLSS 5 in the first place was, at best, confusing. Traditional DLSS, as in the upscaling/super sampling technology, is well established at this point. While some still refuse to get on board, many have become accustomed to the idea that it works well at its primary task, running your games at lower resolutions to achieve better frame rates while outputting a high-resolution image.

(Image credit: 2K Games)

So much so, that DLSS updates are usually pretty well received. Slightly better image quality, slightly better performance. Ray Reconstruction niceties. That sort of thing. Given that DLSS is now a near requirement for smooth performance in many games (and I'm not opening that can of worms any further right now, believe me), the gradual, iterative improvements have been pleasing to see.

But DLSS 5 changes things. Quite literally. And while Nvidia has gone to great pains in recent months to point out that it's both developer controlled, and a toggled option that can be safely ignored if you don't like the imagery, shoving the tech underneath the DLSS iterative umbrella felt like a poor move.

Something in the association inferred, even if it was later made clear that it wasn't the case, that AI image alteration tech was just how games were going to be going forward, and you were going to have to get on board if you wanted to keep using DLSS in future.

A basketball player looking astonished in NBA 2K27

(Image credit: 2K Games)

And what happens to DLSS 4.5, the current version of the upscaling tech? Does it simply update to DLSS 4.6, 4.7, etc, until we start getting into more and more decimals to avoid the big 5.0?

I asked this exact question to several Nvidia staff at my Gamescom visit, and received little in the way of a satisfying answer. It was made clear, however, that regular DLSS upscaling will continue to receive consistent updates, separate from DLSS 5.

Now it seems like we might have a clue to the solution of this branding mess. In NBA 2K27, it's been labelled as DLSS Neural Rendering, and it's an on/off switch that can be used independently of the upscaling, or ignored entirely for those who don't want to get on the AI image alteration train.

A close up of a basketball player in NBA 2K27 with DLSS 5 turned on

(Image credit: 2K Games)

Our Dave first noticed this change in the leaked DLL files last week, which refer to it as "Nvidia DLSSNR." But the fact it appears in an official game settings menu under the "Neural Rendering" title feels like a step in the right direction. Nvidia seems painfully aware that it needs to rehabilitate its new tech, and separating the nomenclature would be a good start.

Of course, the naming scheme is only part of the story when it comes to the controversy. There are many who are dead set against the idea of any sort of AI generation tech entering their games, amid a wider AI backlash. Nothing's changed there, I would wager.

Separate from that, whether you like the look of the AI-altered imagery is still a matter of taste. It's developer controlled, as Nvidia has repeatedly pointed out—though if you start modding it into games yourself, like Dave has, you do get your own sliders to play with.

DLSS 5 in Cyberpunk 2077

The effect on the lighting of the character model is impressive and easy to mod in. Just computationally expensive...

AfterBefore
Brand Logo
DLSS 5 off
DLSS 5 on

Still, I've got a feeling we're going to see some relatively subtle implementations to start with—and inevitably, some goppingly ugly, AI beauty filter-like imagery as time goes on. There's no accounting for taste in a general sense, and there's certainly no accounting for taste when it comes to graphics.

It's also, in its current iteration, a massive performance hog. Nvidia claimed a 50-60% performance hit, but my early testing in NBA 2K27 shows it can hamstring an RTX 5080 by up to 73% at certain settings. That's a very powerful (and expensive) graphics card, held back significantly by Nvidia's new toy.

All of which means the DLSS 5/DLSS Neural Rendering controversy is likely far from over. But I can't help but feel that if the tech was unveiled as "DLSS Neural Rendering" in the first place, as just a new optional feature and not presented as the entirety of DLSS 5, a fair amount of the confusion—and perhaps even initial backlash—could have been avoided.

]]> <![CDATA[ I've found DLSS 5 can slash frame rates by up to 73% on an RTX 5080 gaming PC in NBA 2K27, and I'm wondering what kind of mega-rig would justify the performance hit ]]> DLSS 5 is finally here. Well, its been officially released in one game, anyway, after modders got their hands on it last week and made the actual launch somewhat redundant. Still, I've been testing Nvidia's new AI image-enhancing tech in NBA 2K27, the latest hoop-shooting game in the long-running series, and I have bad news: even on a high-end RTX 5080 rig, it's seriously punishing when it comes to performance.

Which isn't a huge surprise, given that Nvidia itself estimated a 50-60% DLSS 5 performance hit in the briefings last week. Still, my early testing shows it can tank your frame rate considerably harder than that, even on a PC that costs well over $3,000 in 2026.

I threw a pre-release version of NBA 2K27 at one of our benchmarking rigs, an AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, RTX 5080-equipped, 32 GB DDR5 behemoth. And while this particular PC can make mincemeat of the game's relatively lightweight hardware needs overall, turning on DLSS 5 can drop the average frame rate by up to 73% in certain scenarios.

It's capable of looking very pretty in this particular game, that's for sure. But my jaw has dropped several times during my testing, and not always for the reasons Nvidia may have hoped for. To the benchmarks, then.

DLSS 5: 1440p NBA 2K27 benchmarks

A screenshot of a basketball player leaping for the net in NBA 2K27, rendered with DLSS 5

(Image credit: 2K Games)

Given the RTX 5080 is Nvidia's second-fastest consumer graphics card, I had no qualms about turning up the settings to Ultra, including enabling ray tracing. I recorded my results during actual gameplay within NBA 2K27's quick match mode, making sure to play for long enough that cutaway shots to the player's celebrations and the crowd triggered several times.

It's worth mentioning, however, that given the lack of repeatability within this mode, these results are potentially more representative of the DLSS 5 average frame rate hit, rather than game performance overall.

DLSS 5 | RTX 5080 | 1440p gaming benchmarks

Results recorded during gameplay in NBA 2K27 at Ultra settings, ray tracing enabled, using an RTX 5080.

NBA 2K27 (Ultra preset)

Avg FPS
1% Low FPS
Native
230
93
Native + DLSS 5
93
37
Quality upscaling + 2x FG
363
153
Quality upscaling + 2x FG + DLSS 5
168
75
0100200300400
NBA 2K27 (Ultra preset) Data
ProductValue
Native230 Avg FPS, 93 1% Low FPS
Native + DLSS 593 Avg FPS, 37 1% Low FPS
Quality upscaling + 2x FG363 Avg FPS, 153 1% Low FPS
Quality upscaling + 2x FG + DLSS 5168 Avg FPS, 75 1% Low FPS

And my goodness, what a performance hit it is. The difference between the Native 1440p average frame rate and the average rate with DLSS enabled is a whole 137 frames. A 93 fps average still results in very smooth gameplay overall, but the drop to just 37 fps in terms of 1% lows is very troubling.

This is an RTX 5080 running at 1440p, after all. A 4K-capable graphics card that will currently cost you $1,550 thanks to the ongoing memory/component pricing crisis. And that figure is based on the cheapest we can find—I've seen them listed for $2,000+ in the past month or two.

It's often very pretty at these settings, though... so that's something

Of course, Nvidia will tell you that upscaling and frame generation are here to save the day when it comes to smooth performance, and that proves to be the case. Still, watching a 363 fps average result plummet to 168 fps at the push of a DLSS 5 button is pretty jaw dropping.

Nvidia has confirmed that DLSS 5 performance improvements are coming in future, and by the looks of it, it's in desperate need of some. It's often very pretty at these settings, though, as I'll go into below. So... that's something, I guess?

DLSS 5: 4K NBA 2K27 benchmarks

A close up of a player in NBA 2K27 with DLSS 5 AI-enhanced graphics

(Image credit: 2K Games)

There are no awards for guessing that, at 4K, the effect is even more pronounced. At Native resolution with no upscaling or frame gen assistance, the RTX 5080 spits out an admirable 183 fps average (still at Ultra with ray tracing enabled, no less), which duly plummets to 49 fps as soon as DLSS 5 is enabled.

That represents a staggering 73% decrease in average frames, and an instantly crunchy experience. Sure, 49 fps is perfectly playable, but with the knowledge that NBA 2K27 would be capable of so many more frames with the AI-enhanced pretties turned off, I'm not sure I could grin and bear it.

DLSS 5 | RTX 5080 | 4K gaming benchmarks

Results recorded during gameplay in NBA 2K27 at Ultra settings, ray tracing enabled, using an RTX 5080.

NBA 2K27 (Ultra preset)

Avg FPS
1% Low FPS
Native
183
91
Native + DLSS 5
49
31
Quality upscaling + 2x FG
255
118
Quality upscaling + 2x FG + DLSS 5
92
53
075150225300
NBA 2K27 (Ultra preset) Data
ProductValue
Native183 Avg FPS, 91 1% Low FPS
Native + DLSS 549 Avg FPS, 31 1% Low FPS
Quality upscaling + 2x FG255 Avg FPS, 118 1% Low FPS
Quality upscaling + 2x FG + DLSS 592 Avg FPS, 53 1% Low FPS

What I would do, however, is turn upscaling and frame generation on to compensate. And here, the news is slightly better. A 92 fps average is more like it, with regular old DLSS set to Quality, and 2x frame gen enabled. I feel better already.

That was until I realised that, with DLSS 5 turned off, I'd be getting a 255 fps average at the same settings. That's a 163 fps drop with DLSS 5 enabled, for those counting. Which is a lot of frames to come tumbling out the bottom of your very expensive graphics card.

Given all of Nvidia's benchmarks are with a lower resolution DLSS setting and the full 6x Multi Frame Generation bean, on the one hand I expected DLSS 5 to actually need MFGto achieve smooth frame rates at all, or require Ultra Performance-level upscaling. So, the fact that I can achieve very playable frame rates with just 2x frame gen and upscaling set to Quality is still pretty impressive. But on the other, NBA 2K27 runs so well without DLSS 5 enhancement, the thought of slashing my frame rate by such a huge amount for some prettier, AI-assisted graphics stops me in my tracks. Speaking of which...

DLSS5: Image quality comparison

A basketball player in NBA 2K27 rendered with DLSS 5

(Image credit: 2K Games)

There's one thing I will say for DLSS 5: it looks pretty great in this game. I spent a good hour or two zipping around in the photo mode, marvelling at the visages of my ill-fated basketball team.

The photo mode, however, is where you'll see most of the benefits of Nvidia's new toy. In terms of actual gameplay, you'll spend most of your time in NBA 2K27 in a zoomed out perspective, cursing loudly at the fact you can't time a well-placed three-pointer for toffee.

Sure, there are cuts to player celebrations, slow motion replays, and half-time team talks. But it's when things are paused that you'll see most of the DLSS 5 difference—so that's exactly what I've done for the comparisons below.

NBA 2K27

A comparison of two screenshots in NBA 2K27 photo mode, one with DLSS 5 on, and one with DLSS 5 off.

AfterBefore
Brand Logo
DLSS 5 on
DLSS 5 off

My early concern about DLSS 5 was that it seemed to produce overblown, AI beauty filter-like imagery, which I personally find very ugly. However, as I pointed out in my DLSS 5 sneak peak, the implementation in this particular game is often much more tasteful.

The player above looks more realistic with DLSS 5 turned on. The highlights on the nose and forehead are shinier without looking completely blown out, which, combined with the more realistic shadowing on the facial features overall, creates a very pleasant image.

His beard looks a little more lifelike, as does his hair. And I'd pay special attention to his jersey, which has extra wrinkles in the fabric in the DLSS 5-ified image that give it a more 3D-like effect. Because you'll be paying attention to your team's ironing mishaps in your new basketball game, obviously.

NBA 2K27

A comparison of two screenshots in NBA 2K27, one with DLSS 5 turned on, and one with DLSS 5 turned off.

AfterBefore
Brand Logo
DLSS 5 on
DLSS 5 off

Switching over to two players together, I think this particular comparison shows off DLSS 5 at its best. Both of their faces look muted and poorly shaded in the non-DLSS 5 version, but swing the slider over and they suddenly come to life.

As your graphics card screams bloody murder, perhaps. But as much of a cynic as I am regarding the idea of AI "enhancement" of any sort, I can't deny that DLSS 5 in close up is capable of producing some lifelike human beings.

Once game developers have tweaked it for themselves, of course, and those settings sliders have been reined in from some of the horrors we saw in the earlier demo footage.

It's far from flawless, though. While some character models look noticeably more realistic, others get some heavy-handed AI treatment that isn't quite so seamless.

Above: NBA 2K27's photo mode, with DLSS 5 turned off to start, and then on and off again in sequence.

Take the footage above, for instance. While I would say there are some definite shading improvements once DLSS 5 is turned on, there's also a kind of overblown, over-contrasted effect to some of the facial features in this particular example that looks slightly off to my eyes.

NBA 2K27

Two screenshots showing the crowd in NBA 2K27, with DLSS 5 turned on and off.

AfterBefore
Brand Logo
DLSS 5 on
DLSS 5 off

And finally, here's a comparison between the crowds. You're going to need to fullscreen and zoom in on this one, but it's fairly representative of how you'll see the match attendees when you're actually playing the game. Aside from the odd camera cut, they're mostly there for background atmosphere.

And yes, the folks in the cheap seats get a miniature dose of DLSS 5 image enhancement, too. The effect here is very subtle, but it's probably most noticeable on the courtside commentator's face. Which will go past in a flash as you actually play, but hey—check out that ever-so-slightly more chiselled jawline.

So, is DLSS 5 actually worth turning on in this game? Well, I can't help but be impressed by the imagery (for the most part), and this relatively light-touch implementation adds a lot of character to individual members of your team. They're also noticeably sweatier, too, if that's your sort of thing.

A close up of a basketball player in NBA 2K27 with DLSS 5 turned on

(Image credit: 2K Games)

But you're going to want plenty of frame rate headroom before you even think of touching the DLSS Neural Rendering checkbox, and that means running a very powerful rig—or cranking up the DLSS upscaling and frame generation to compensate. NBA 2K27 is a very fast-paced game, and the experience suffers quite badly when things get crunchy. You'll want smooth frames for this one, believe me—and if that means turning off DLSS 5, I say go for it.

Still, I can absolutely see why Nvidia picked this game for DLSS 5's first official outing. NBA 2K27 feels well optimised with the AI frippery turned off, and it's not the sort of thing that would otherwise be bothering most modern rigs.

When it tanks the frame rate this heavily, I can't help but feel that it's a technology designed for the next generation of graphics cards

But if my testing is any indication, DLSS 5 can look really good, but still be a massive drain on performance even in a properly optimised game. And I really question who among us will be prepared to make the frame rate trade off, even in a relatively lightweight game like this.

The real test will be in something properly demanding, and it's there where I think the wheels will come off. Better image and lighting quality is all very well, but for this sort of performance cost? I dread to think what it'll do to the already-addled frame rate of something like Borderlands 4, for example.

DLSS 5 is capable of looking much better than I expected, which is something of a relief. But when it tanks the frame rate this heavily, I can't help but feel that it's a technology designed for the next generation of graphics cards, and not the versions we're running today. Even the $1,500+ ones—and how many of us have the spare cash right now for another one of those?

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/dlss-5-can-slash-performance-by-up-to-73-percent-on-an-rtx-5080-gaming-pc-in-nba-2k27-and-im-left-wondering-what-kind-of-mega-rig-youd-need-to-justify-the-hit/ 4uLiz2GTxp3mtD2HpzFLKB Fri, 04 Sep 2026 04:00:00 +0000 false false false

DLSS 5 is finally here. Well, its been officially released in one game, anyway, after modders got their hands on it last week and made the actual launch somewhat redundant. Still, I've been testing Nvidia's new AI image-enhancing tech in NBA 2K27, the latest hoop-shooting game in the long-running series, and I have bad news: even on a high-end RTX 5080 rig, it's seriously punishing when it comes to performance.

Which isn't a huge surprise, given that Nvidia itself estimated a 50-60% DLSS 5 performance hit in the briefings last week. Still, my early testing shows it can tank your frame rate considerably harder than that, even on a PC that costs well over $3,000 in 2026.

I threw a pre-release version of NBA 2K27 at one of our benchmarking rigs, an AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, RTX 5080-equipped, 32 GB DDR5 behemoth. And while this particular PC can make mincemeat of the game's relatively lightweight hardware needs overall, turning on DLSS 5 can drop the average frame rate by up to 73% in certain scenarios.

It's capable of looking very pretty in this particular game, that's for sure. But my jaw has dropped several times during my testing, and not always for the reasons Nvidia may have hoped for. To the benchmarks, then.

DLSS 5: 1440p NBA 2K27 benchmarks

A screenshot of a basketball player leaping for the net in NBA 2K27, rendered with DLSS 5

(Image credit: 2K Games)

Given the RTX 5080 is Nvidia's second-fastest consumer graphics card, I had no qualms about turning up the settings to Ultra, including enabling ray tracing. I recorded my results during actual gameplay within NBA 2K27's quick match mode, making sure to play for long enough that cutaway shots to the player's celebrations and the crowd triggered several times.

It's worth mentioning, however, that given the lack of repeatability within this mode, these results are potentially more representative of the DLSS 5 average frame rate hit, rather than game performance overall.

DLSS 5 | RTX 5080 | 1440p gaming benchmarks

Results recorded during gameplay in NBA 2K27 at Ultra settings, ray tracing enabled, using an RTX 5080.

NBA 2K27 (Ultra preset)

Avg FPS
1% Low FPS
Native
230
93
Native + DLSS 5
93
37
Quality upscaling + 2x FG
363
153
Quality upscaling + 2x FG + DLSS 5
168
75
0100200300400
NBA 2K27 (Ultra preset) Data
ProductValue
Native230 Avg FPS, 93 1% Low FPS
Native + DLSS 593 Avg FPS, 37 1% Low FPS
Quality upscaling + 2x FG363 Avg FPS, 153 1% Low FPS
Quality upscaling + 2x FG + DLSS 5168 Avg FPS, 75 1% Low FPS

And my goodness, what a performance hit it is. The difference between the Native 1440p average frame rate and the average rate with DLSS enabled is a whole 137 frames. A 93 fps average still results in very smooth gameplay overall, but the drop to just 37 fps in terms of 1% lows is very troubling.

This is an RTX 5080 running at 1440p, after all. A 4K-capable graphics card that will currently cost you $1,550 thanks to the ongoing memory/component pricing crisis. And that figure is based on the cheapest we can find—I've seen them listed for $2,000+ in the past month or two.

It's often very pretty at these settings, though... so that's something

Of course, Nvidia will tell you that upscaling and frame generation are here to save the day when it comes to smooth performance, and that proves to be the case. Still, watching a 363 fps average result plummet to 168 fps at the push of a DLSS 5 button is pretty jaw dropping.

Nvidia has confirmed that DLSS 5 performance improvements are coming in future, and by the looks of it, it's in desperate need of some. It's often very pretty at these settings, though, as I'll go into below. So... that's something, I guess?

DLSS 5: 4K NBA 2K27 benchmarks

A close up of a player in NBA 2K27 with DLSS 5 AI-enhanced graphics

(Image credit: 2K Games)

There are no awards for guessing that, at 4K, the effect is even more pronounced. At Native resolution with no upscaling or frame gen assistance, the RTX 5080 spits out an admirable 183 fps average (still at Ultra with ray tracing enabled, no less), which duly plummets to 49 fps as soon as DLSS 5 is enabled.

That represents a staggering 73% decrease in average frames, and an instantly crunchy experience. Sure, 49 fps is perfectly playable, but with the knowledge that NBA 2K27 would be capable of so many more frames with the AI-enhanced pretties turned off, I'm not sure I could grin and bear it.

DLSS 5 | RTX 5080 | 4K gaming benchmarks

Results recorded during gameplay in NBA 2K27 at Ultra settings, ray tracing enabled, using an RTX 5080.

NBA 2K27 (Ultra preset)

Avg FPS
1% Low FPS
Native
183
91
Native + DLSS 5
49
31
Quality upscaling + 2x FG
255
118
Quality upscaling + 2x FG + DLSS 5
92
53
075150225300
NBA 2K27 (Ultra preset) Data
ProductValue
Native183 Avg FPS, 91 1% Low FPS
Native + DLSS 549 Avg FPS, 31 1% Low FPS
Quality upscaling + 2x FG255 Avg FPS, 118 1% Low FPS
Quality upscaling + 2x FG + DLSS 592 Avg FPS, 53 1% Low FPS

What I would do, however, is turn upscaling and frame generation on to compensate. And here, the news is slightly better. A 92 fps average is more like it, with regular old DLSS set to Quality, and 2x frame gen enabled. I feel better already.

That was until I realised that, with DLSS 5 turned off, I'd be getting a 255 fps average at the same settings. That's a 163 fps drop with DLSS 5 enabled, for those counting. Which is a lot of frames to come tumbling out the bottom of your very expensive graphics card.

Given all of Nvidia's benchmarks are with a lower resolution DLSS setting and the full 6x Multi Frame Generation bean, on the one hand I expected DLSS 5 to actually need MFGto achieve smooth frame rates at all, or require Ultra Performance-level upscaling. So, the fact that I can achieve very playable frame rates with just 2x frame gen and upscaling set to Quality is still pretty impressive. But on the other, NBA 2K27 runs so well without DLSS 5 enhancement, the thought of slashing my frame rate by such a huge amount for some prettier, AI-assisted graphics stops me in my tracks. Speaking of which...

DLSS5: Image quality comparison

A basketball player in NBA 2K27 rendered with DLSS 5

(Image credit: 2K Games)

There's one thing I will say for DLSS 5: it looks pretty great in this game. I spent a good hour or two zipping around in the photo mode, marvelling at the visages of my ill-fated basketball team.

The photo mode, however, is where you'll see most of the benefits of Nvidia's new toy. In terms of actual gameplay, you'll spend most of your time in NBA 2K27 in a zoomed out perspective, cursing loudly at the fact you can't time a well-placed three-pointer for toffee.

Sure, there are cuts to player celebrations, slow motion replays, and half-time team talks. But it's when things are paused that you'll see most of the DLSS 5 difference—so that's exactly what I've done for the comparisons below.

NBA 2K27

A comparison of two screenshots in NBA 2K27 photo mode, one with DLSS 5 on, and one with DLSS 5 off.

AfterBefore
Brand Logo
DLSS 5 on
DLSS 5 off

My early concern about DLSS 5 was that it seemed to produce overblown, AI beauty filter-like imagery, which I personally find very ugly. However, as I pointed out in my DLSS 5 sneak peak, the implementation in this particular game is often much more tasteful.

The player above looks more realistic with DLSS 5 turned on. The highlights on the nose and forehead are shinier without looking completely blown out, which, combined with the more realistic shadowing on the facial features overall, creates a very pleasant image.

His beard looks a little more lifelike, as does his hair. And I'd pay special attention to his jersey, which has extra wrinkles in the fabric in the DLSS 5-ified image that give it a more 3D-like effect. Because you'll be paying attention to your team's ironing mishaps in your new basketball game, obviously.

NBA 2K27

A comparison of two screenshots in NBA 2K27, one with DLSS 5 turned on, and one with DLSS 5 turned off.

AfterBefore
Brand Logo
DLSS 5 on
DLSS 5 off

Switching over to two players together, I think this particular comparison shows off DLSS 5 at its best. Both of their faces look muted and poorly shaded in the non-DLSS 5 version, but swing the slider over and they suddenly come to life.

As your graphics card screams bloody murder, perhaps. But as much of a cynic as I am regarding the idea of AI "enhancement" of any sort, I can't deny that DLSS 5 in close up is capable of producing some lifelike human beings.

Once game developers have tweaked it for themselves, of course, and those settings sliders have been reined in from some of the horrors we saw in the earlier demo footage.

It's far from flawless, though. While some character models look noticeably more realistic, others get some heavy-handed AI treatment that isn't quite so seamless.

Above: NBA 2K27's photo mode, with DLSS 5 turned off to start, and then on and off again in sequence.

Take the footage above, for instance. While I would say there are some definite shading improvements once DLSS 5 is turned on, there's also a kind of overblown, over-contrasted effect to some of the facial features in this particular example that looks slightly off to my eyes.

NBA 2K27

Two screenshots showing the crowd in NBA 2K27, with DLSS 5 turned on and off.

AfterBefore
Brand Logo
DLSS 5 on
DLSS 5 off

And finally, here's a comparison between the crowds. You're going to need to fullscreen and zoom in on this one, but it's fairly representative of how you'll see the match attendees when you're actually playing the game. Aside from the odd camera cut, they're mostly there for background atmosphere.

And yes, the folks in the cheap seats get a miniature dose of DLSS 5 image enhancement, too. The effect here is very subtle, but it's probably most noticeable on the courtside commentator's face. Which will go past in a flash as you actually play, but hey—check out that ever-so-slightly more chiselled jawline.

So, is DLSS 5 actually worth turning on in this game? Well, I can't help but be impressed by the imagery (for the most part), and this relatively light-touch implementation adds a lot of character to individual members of your team. They're also noticeably sweatier, too, if that's your sort of thing.

A close up of a basketball player in NBA 2K27 with DLSS 5 turned on

(Image credit: 2K Games)

But you're going to want plenty of frame rate headroom before you even think of touching the DLSS Neural Rendering checkbox, and that means running a very powerful rig—or cranking up the DLSS upscaling and frame generation to compensate. NBA 2K27 is a very fast-paced game, and the experience suffers quite badly when things get crunchy. You'll want smooth frames for this one, believe me—and if that means turning off DLSS 5, I say go for it.

Still, I can absolutely see why Nvidia picked this game for DLSS 5's first official outing. NBA 2K27 feels well optimised with the AI frippery turned off, and it's not the sort of thing that would otherwise be bothering most modern rigs.

When it tanks the frame rate this heavily, I can't help but feel that it's a technology designed for the next generation of graphics cards

But if my testing is any indication, DLSS 5 can look really good, but still be a massive drain on performance even in a properly optimised game. And I really question who among us will be prepared to make the frame rate trade off, even in a relatively lightweight game like this.

The real test will be in something properly demanding, and it's there where I think the wheels will come off. Better image and lighting quality is all very well, but for this sort of performance cost? I dread to think what it'll do to the already-addled frame rate of something like Borderlands 4, for example.

DLSS 5 is capable of looking much better than I expected, which is something of a relief. But when it tanks the frame rate this heavily, I can't help but feel that it's a technology designed for the next generation of graphics cards, and not the versions we're running today. Even the $1,500+ ones—and how many of us have the spare cash right now for another one of those?

]]> <![CDATA[ DLSS 5 can be jammed into almost any game now, so I've been playing FM26 with neural rendered little computer people because that's just what I do ]]> Ever since the Control mod appeared I've been enjoying jamming the released DLSS 5 .dll files into a bunch of different games, to greater or lesser effect. Some games it works well in, some it doesn't quite take and you end up with visuals that look a lot like the characters have worms writhing around under their skin.

Though, I have to say when I stuck it into the review version of The Blood of Dawnwalker and it failed to hook the DLSS pipeline that look kinda worked for my semi-Vrakhiri. Bit of extra undead chic with the game failing to run the DLSS neural rendering feature with actual motion vectors or scene depth.

With the necessary files being released in the early access version of NBA 2K27, they've now been unleashed across the internet and modders have been busy getting game-agnostic versions ready for people to squeeze into any title they fancy. And while the first iteration was focused on Control and then games running DLSS already, there have been mods released—particularly the RenoDX and specifically the ShortFuse mods—which allow you to experiment with pushing DLSS 5 into practically any game you like.

And it's surprisingly easy to do, though not without its awkwardness, too. Well, such is the way with unreleased features shoehorned into games they're not meant to be in, but also such is the way with PC gaming.

The thing that has stood out to me—and something that Andy first noted in his hands-on look at the official technology at Gamescom—is that DLSS 5 really can produce some outstanding visual effects… if used sparingly. Pick the right model of the three (for me, that's Model C) and drop the intensity of the effect down to around 60 - 70% and you end up with scenes and character models that look better than the originals, but without the over-saturated, overblown very AI look of it dialed up to 11, nor without it looking like it's grinding away or adding its own geometry.

But it's also clear it's one hell of a resource hog. Nvidia has been very clear about this from its recent presentations at Gamescom and a briefing I had at the end of last week; DLSS 5 represents about a 50 - 60% drop in frame rate regardless of the game. Though, sometimes we've seen that performance hit be even greater, especially at 4K.

Running the Control mod on an RTX 5090 I was seeing DLSS Balanced 4K Ultra Ray Tracing running at around 110 fps in standard mode, which then dropped to under 50 fps as soon as DLSS 5 was brought to bear on the game, which is about where Nvidia is pitching the performance hit.

That, in all honesty, is to be expected. When Nvidia first showed off the tech around GDC it was running on a pair of RTX 5090s, so the fact that it can be run at all on single lower-spec GPUs is impressive. But it was also going to be punitive for current generation hardware, which only have tensor cores enough for standard DLSS upscaling.

DLSS 5 in FM26

Okay, it's not photorealism, but I think it looks better.

AfterBefore
Brand Logo
DLSS 5 off
DLSS 5 on

What I wasn't expecting, though, was to be able to stick DLSS 5 into any game, regardless of whether it had DLSS in there in the first place. Which meant that I, with my 33 year Football Manager addiction, had to see what it does to FM26.

And, well, I'm going to be leaving it enabled. It's not that it suddenly makes the game look photorealistic—as Nvidia itself has said, you need a really good input source to get a really good output from DLSS 5—but on its own it adds in a bunch of things that you otherwise have to mod in yourself from a bunch of other places. And because it's just added in last, and FM isn't hugely demanding, I'm still happily locked to 60 fps anyways.

Those little computer people don't need a whole lot of processing.

But it does improve the environmental lighting of the matches. It makes the pitches look better, there's a tiny amount more detail on the tiny people, on the pitch and in the crowd, and it adds in some improved shadows. But it's not just in the 3D engine, because it also works its neural rendering magic on the player profile pics, too. Which is especially helpful for making the regenerated players look less like plastic Action Man figures (or GI Joes, for my American cousins).

DLSS 5 in FM26

You're getting better regen faces without copy/paste mods.

AfterBefore
Brand Logo
DLSS 5 off
DLSS 5 on

Normally you'd have to use a mod to get more realistic player faces, and even then they're still just a bunch of AI generated profile pics which get disseminated among the database so you still get identical twins from different parts of the game world. With DLSS 5 I'm just getting a little extra facial detail and realism for my new potato-faced folk.

They're still not exactly photorealistic, but I'll take it.

How to enable DLSS 5

DLSS 5 in Cyberpunk 2077

The effect on the lighting of the character model is impressive and easy to mod in. Just computationally expensive...

AfterBefore
Brand Logo
DLSS 5 off
DLSS 5 on

To begin with it was all a case of finding a Discord invite to the RenoDX channel, finding the right .dll files and downloading the necessary RenoDX DLSS 5 mod. Then you had to play around with getting it and Reshade installed in the right directories and crossing your fingers.

Now, it's far more straightforward. The cleanest installation method I've found is to use the ReShade HDR Installer (RHI) from Github. This does all the hard work for you—run it as Administrator and you can just pick from a list of installed games on the left hand side of the UI, install ReShade, and then pick one of the DLSS Tools from the Shaders/Addon button at the top, or from sliding over to the specific Neural Rendering section that has just been added. This should install the necessary .dll files in the right places for your game to work.

But, it must be noted, that this is all predicated on an as yet officially unreleased feature being jammed into unsupporting games. So you might find your mileage varies on just how much messing around you might need to do to get it running perfectly. If at all.

RHI software
Future
RHI software
Future

When you boot into the game you can then hit 'Home' to bring up the ReShade in-game menu and slide over to the RenoDX tab to access the DLSS 5 options. Now, these are options and sliders that aren't going to be available in the release versions of DLSS 5. That's something important to note, as officially DLSS 5 is going to be an on/off toggle switch so that you just get the version of DLSS 5 the game devs themselves have tuned.

The ReShade option puts those sliders in your hands, but with less fine grain control over where it's deployed and how intensely. Which is going to make the whole maintaining artisitic intent thing a tricky argument. There has been resistance to DLSS 5's AI filtering, with some folk suggesting that it tramples on the original artistic intent of the developers. So Nvidia has spent a lot of time since its announcement talking about the level of control devs will have themselves, and that it will only be in their hands with no sliders for us gamers. These mods, however, change that giving users a level of control not officially sanctioned, which means gamers themselves will get to choose how much of the devs artistic intent they want to retain.

Anyways, you ideally want to use the Upscaled or DLSS version of DLSS-NR rather than the 'Present' method (if you're using the ShortFuse mod). Present is the version that runs when the game frames are presented rather than inside the actual graphics pipeline. That means you lack the motion and depth information DLSS 5 relies on to be effective. If it's saying 'Waiting' then something's gone wrong.

I had this with a couple of games—it allows you to test the overall look, but it's terrible in motion—and had to mess around putting files in different places to get the mod hooking in properly. Switching between the two different RenoDX DLSS 5 tools generally helped.

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/dlss-5-can-be-jammed-into-almost-any-game-now-so-ive-been-playing-fm26-with-neural-rendered-little-computer-people-because-thats-just-what-i-do/ 4WsaYcnMmSArsQjHM6cWcJ Thu, 03 Sep 2026 19:52:14 +0000 Thu, 03 Sep 2026 22:06:23 +0000 false false false

Ever since the Control mod appeared I've been enjoying jamming the released DLSS 5 .dll files into a bunch of different games, to greater or lesser effect. Some games it works well in, some it doesn't quite take and you end up with visuals that look a lot like the characters have worms writhing around under their skin.

Though, I have to say when I stuck it into the review version of The Blood of Dawnwalker and it failed to hook the DLSS pipeline that look kinda worked for my semi-Vrakhiri. Bit of extra undead chic with the game failing to run the DLSS neural rendering feature with actual motion vectors or scene depth.

With the necessary files being released in the early access version of NBA 2K27, they've now been unleashed across the internet and modders have been busy getting game-agnostic versions ready for people to squeeze into any title they fancy. And while the first iteration was focused on Control and then games running DLSS already, there have been mods released—particularly the RenoDX and specifically the ShortFuse mods—which allow you to experiment with pushing DLSS 5 into practically any game you like.

And it's surprisingly easy to do, though not without its awkwardness, too. Well, such is the way with unreleased features shoehorned into games they're not meant to be in, but also such is the way with PC gaming.

The thing that has stood out to me—and something that Andy first noted in his hands-on look at the official technology at Gamescom—is that DLSS 5 really can produce some outstanding visual effects… if used sparingly. Pick the right model of the three (for me, that's Model C) and drop the intensity of the effect down to around 60 - 70% and you end up with scenes and character models that look better than the originals, but without the over-saturated, overblown very AI look of it dialed up to 11, nor without it looking like it's grinding away or adding its own geometry.

But it's also clear it's one hell of a resource hog. Nvidia has been very clear about this from its recent presentations at Gamescom and a briefing I had at the end of last week; DLSS 5 represents about a 50 - 60% drop in frame rate regardless of the game. Though, sometimes we've seen that performance hit be even greater, especially at 4K.

Running the Control mod on an RTX 5090 I was seeing DLSS Balanced 4K Ultra Ray Tracing running at around 110 fps in standard mode, which then dropped to under 50 fps as soon as DLSS 5 was brought to bear on the game, which is about where Nvidia is pitching the performance hit.

That, in all honesty, is to be expected. When Nvidia first showed off the tech around GDC it was running on a pair of RTX 5090s, so the fact that it can be run at all on single lower-spec GPUs is impressive. But it was also going to be punitive for current generation hardware, which only have tensor cores enough for standard DLSS upscaling.

DLSS 5 in FM26

Okay, it's not photorealism, but I think it looks better.

AfterBefore
Brand Logo
DLSS 5 off
DLSS 5 on

What I wasn't expecting, though, was to be able to stick DLSS 5 into any game, regardless of whether it had DLSS in there in the first place. Which meant that I, with my 33 year Football Manager addiction, had to see what it does to FM26.

And, well, I'm going to be leaving it enabled. It's not that it suddenly makes the game look photorealistic—as Nvidia itself has said, you need a really good input source to get a really good output from DLSS 5—but on its own it adds in a bunch of things that you otherwise have to mod in yourself from a bunch of other places. And because it's just added in last, and FM isn't hugely demanding, I'm still happily locked to 60 fps anyways.

Those little computer people don't need a whole lot of processing.

But it does improve the environmental lighting of the matches. It makes the pitches look better, there's a tiny amount more detail on the tiny people, on the pitch and in the crowd, and it adds in some improved shadows. But it's not just in the 3D engine, because it also works its neural rendering magic on the player profile pics, too. Which is especially helpful for making the regenerated players look less like plastic Action Man figures (or GI Joes, for my American cousins).

DLSS 5 in FM26

You're getting better regen faces without copy/paste mods.

AfterBefore
Brand Logo
DLSS 5 off
DLSS 5 on

Normally you'd have to use a mod to get more realistic player faces, and even then they're still just a bunch of AI generated profile pics which get disseminated among the database so you still get identical twins from different parts of the game world. With DLSS 5 I'm just getting a little extra facial detail and realism for my new potato-faced folk.

They're still not exactly photorealistic, but I'll take it.

How to enable DLSS 5

DLSS 5 in Cyberpunk 2077

The effect on the lighting of the character model is impressive and easy to mod in. Just computationally expensive...

AfterBefore
Brand Logo
DLSS 5 off
DLSS 5 on

To begin with it was all a case of finding a Discord invite to the RenoDX channel, finding the right .dll files and downloading the necessary RenoDX DLSS 5 mod. Then you had to play around with getting it and Reshade installed in the right directories and crossing your fingers.

Now, it's far more straightforward. The cleanest installation method I've found is to use the ReShade HDR Installer (RHI) from Github. This does all the hard work for you—run it as Administrator and you can just pick from a list of installed games on the left hand side of the UI, install ReShade, and then pick one of the DLSS Tools from the Shaders/Addon button at the top, or from sliding over to the specific Neural Rendering section that has just been added. This should install the necessary .dll files in the right places for your game to work.

But, it must be noted, that this is all predicated on an as yet officially unreleased feature being jammed into unsupporting games. So you might find your mileage varies on just how much messing around you might need to do to get it running perfectly. If at all.

RHI software
Future
RHI software
Future

When you boot into the game you can then hit 'Home' to bring up the ReShade in-game menu and slide over to the RenoDX tab to access the DLSS 5 options. Now, these are options and sliders that aren't going to be available in the release versions of DLSS 5. That's something important to note, as officially DLSS 5 is going to be an on/off toggle switch so that you just get the version of DLSS 5 the game devs themselves have tuned.

The ReShade option puts those sliders in your hands, but with less fine grain control over where it's deployed and how intensely. Which is going to make the whole maintaining artisitic intent thing a tricky argument. There has been resistance to DLSS 5's AI filtering, with some folk suggesting that it tramples on the original artistic intent of the developers. So Nvidia has spent a lot of time since its announcement talking about the level of control devs will have themselves, and that it will only be in their hands with no sliders for us gamers. These mods, however, change that giving users a level of control not officially sanctioned, which means gamers themselves will get to choose how much of the devs artistic intent they want to retain.

Anyways, you ideally want to use the Upscaled or DLSS version of DLSS-NR rather than the 'Present' method (if you're using the ShortFuse mod). Present is the version that runs when the game frames are presented rather than inside the actual graphics pipeline. That means you lack the motion and depth information DLSS 5 relies on to be effective. If it's saying 'Waiting' then something's gone wrong.

I had this with a couple of games—it allows you to test the overall look, but it's terrible in motion—and had to mess around putting files in different places to get the mod hooking in properly. Switching between the two different RenoDX DLSS 5 tools generally helped.

]]> <![CDATA[ DLSS 5 comes with a massive 50-60% performance hit, so I hope you like lower frame rates with your dose of AI image enhancement ]]> I walked into Nvidia's DLSS 5 demo last week with some preconceptions, I'll be honest. I hadn't enjoyed the images it had produced to date, and I was sceptical about the benefits it could bring to our beloved games. Not to mention the troubling notion of AI-altered images entering into our hobby, even if you can turn them off with a simple checkbox.

The good news is, DLSS 5 is capable of looking pretty good once the settings have been tweaked by actual game developers. The very bad news is, Nvidia says turning DLSS 5 on will currently reduce performance by 50-60%. And that's across the board—no matter the game.

Nvidia was keen to point out that, just six months ago, DLSS 5 required two RTX 5090s to run. So, a 5x improvement since then is something to hold within our collective hats. But tanking frame rates is very unlikely to improve DLSS 5's perception within the PC gaming community, that's for certain.

Looking at the basic performance charts Nvidia has provided us so far, the ultra-high frame rate figures are based on 6x Multi Frame Generation. So, while the little RTX 5060 can churn out a 258 fps result in NBA 2K27 at 1080p Ultra settings with ray tracing and DLSS 5 enabled, the game underneath will actually be running at around 43 fps.

At 4K, the same game settings result in a 370 fps average on an RTX 5090, or a 233 fps average on an RTX 5080. That's with Performance-level upscaling, though, and with 6x MFG doing some seriously heavy lifting once more.

Performance comparisons from Nvidia showing DLSS 5 frame rates
Nvidia
Performance comparisons from Nvidia showing DLSS 5 frame rates
Nvidia
Performance comparisons from Nvidia showing DLSS 5 frame rates
Nvidia

If you've spent thousands of bucks on a high-end graphics card, I'd imagine that running games with the upscaling and frame generation settings near their limits to achieve high frame rates is probably not what you had in mind.

All of which makes me wonder if the AI-ification of DLSS 5 is really the biggest barrier to its acceptance. I have my own deep, dark concerns about DLSS 5, AI in general, and its hooks making their way into our hobby. But if the tech is capable of slicing the frame rate in half, all of this might be a moot point.

The Nvidia folk I spoke to were keen to point out that performance improvements are already on the way. But given that so many gamers are stuck with older graphics cards, thanks to the ongoing pricing crisis that seems destined to become much worse before it gets better, I do wonder who the tech is currently for.

(Image credit: Nvidia)

When ray tracing first arrived on the scene, its performance-tanking qualities were at least (partially) offset by the introduction of upscaling. But all these years later, I still debate for myself whether it's worth turning on when I play games on my own, relatively high-end gaming PC. Our rigs might be better equipped on average, but ray tracing is still a performance hog in 2026—and many gamers I speak to still turn it off for smoother frames.

And while DLSS 5 is certainly more... transformative than ray tracing in terms of the images it creates, it's also far more controversial. Even if you're prepared to make the jump into AI-enhanced games (and it's quite the leap, let's be honest), putting those concerns in tandem with massively compromised frame rates is a seriously big ask for even the most curious of gamers.

I expected to be writing about the controversy surrounding Nvidia's new tech in terms of the wider atmosphere of AI discontent. But here I am getting down to brass tacks. In its current form, DLSS 5 seems to hit your graphics card like a freight train—and whatever your opinion on AI in gaming, nobody wants that.

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/dlss-5-comes-with-a-massive-50-60-percent-performance-hit-so-i-hope-you-like-lower-frame-rates-with-your-dose-of-ai-image-enhancement/ UNKHZ4jimuQUfSHpb7PPrY Tue, 01 Sep 2026 13:01:09 +0000 Wed, 02 Sep 2026 00:05:33 +0000 false false false

I walked into Nvidia's DLSS 5 demo last week with some preconceptions, I'll be honest. I hadn't enjoyed the images it had produced to date, and I was sceptical about the benefits it could bring to our beloved games. Not to mention the troubling notion of AI-altered images entering into our hobby, even if you can turn them off with a simple checkbox.

The good news is, DLSS 5 is capable of looking pretty good once the settings have been tweaked by actual game developers. The very bad news is, Nvidia says turning DLSS 5 on will currently reduce performance by 50-60%. And that's across the board—no matter the game.

Nvidia was keen to point out that, just six months ago, DLSS 5 required two RTX 5090s to run. So, a 5x improvement since then is something to hold within our collective hats. But tanking frame rates is very unlikely to improve DLSS 5's perception within the PC gaming community, that's for certain.

Looking at the basic performance charts Nvidia has provided us so far, the ultra-high frame rate figures are based on 6x Multi Frame Generation. So, while the little RTX 5060 can churn out a 258 fps result in NBA 2K27 at 1080p Ultra settings with ray tracing and DLSS 5 enabled, the game underneath will actually be running at around 43 fps.

At 4K, the same game settings result in a 370 fps average on an RTX 5090, or a 233 fps average on an RTX 5080. That's with Performance-level upscaling, though, and with 6x MFG doing some seriously heavy lifting once more.

Performance comparisons from Nvidia showing DLSS 5 frame rates
Nvidia
Performance comparisons from Nvidia showing DLSS 5 frame rates
Nvidia
Performance comparisons from Nvidia showing DLSS 5 frame rates
Nvidia

If you've spent thousands of bucks on a high-end graphics card, I'd imagine that running games with the upscaling and frame generation settings near their limits to achieve high frame rates is probably not what you had in mind.

All of which makes me wonder if the AI-ification of DLSS 5 is really the biggest barrier to its acceptance. I have my own deep, dark concerns about DLSS 5, AI in general, and its hooks making their way into our hobby. But if the tech is capable of slicing the frame rate in half, all of this might be a moot point.

The Nvidia folk I spoke to were keen to point out that performance improvements are already on the way. But given that so many gamers are stuck with older graphics cards, thanks to the ongoing pricing crisis that seems destined to become much worse before it gets better, I do wonder who the tech is currently for.

(Image credit: Nvidia)

When ray tracing first arrived on the scene, its performance-tanking qualities were at least (partially) offset by the introduction of upscaling. But all these years later, I still debate for myself whether it's worth turning on when I play games on my own, relatively high-end gaming PC. Our rigs might be better equipped on average, but ray tracing is still a performance hog in 2026—and many gamers I speak to still turn it off for smoother frames.

And while DLSS 5 is certainly more... transformative than ray tracing in terms of the images it creates, it's also far more controversial. Even if you're prepared to make the jump into AI-enhanced games (and it's quite the leap, let's be honest), putting those concerns in tandem with massively compromised frame rates is a seriously big ask for even the most curious of gamers.

I expected to be writing about the controversy surrounding Nvidia's new tech in terms of the wider atmosphere of AI discontent. But here I am getting down to brass tacks. In its current form, DLSS 5 seems to hit your graphics card like a freight train—and whatever your opinion on AI in gaming, nobody wants that.

]]> <![CDATA[ Nvidia snuck me into a room to show off DLSS 5 in person, and it's somehow beautiful, ugly, impressive, and troubling all at the same time ]]> I think it's fair to say that DLSS 5 is the most controversial Nvidia creation… well, ever. After the huge amounts of backlash it received in reaction to its unveiling earlier this year, Nvidia's AI image enhancing tech has been mostly kept under lock and key.

However, myself and a select group of journalists were ushered into a small room in the Nvidia booth at Gamescom last week, amid some furtive glances and hushed whispering. As the lights went down, it became obvious as to why. Here was the latest version of DLSS 5 running in front of us, the controversial graphics tech in the flesh. And the message Nvidia wanted to get across was deliberate, and strongly put: It's all about developer control.

I was shown a character sitting within the Nvidia Zorah demo, the same shown at SIGGRAPH 2026 earlier this year. As he sat, looking around at his environment in a bored fashion, I leaned forward in my chair. DLSS 5 was obviously altering the image to a significant degree, but seeing the results in person, it was clear this was nowhere near the "yassified Grace" level of AI enhancement shown in the first reveal.

Our digital example, casually inspecting the back of his hand, looked a lot like the original character model—but with more photorealistic lighting, and plenty of finer details that seemed fitting for the scene. It was nowhere near as brash an image as I was expecting, I'll say that much for free.

At the side of the screen was the DLSS 5 developer control menu. Two sliders, marked "structure intensity" and "tone intensity" were set somewhere around the midway mark—and at these settings, the character looked pretty damn good.

A character in Nvidia's Zorah demo being image-adjusted by DLSS 5 to varying degrees
Nvidia
A character in Nvidia's Zorah demo being image-adjusted by DLSS 5 to varying degrees
Nvidia

There are more tools for developers to play with, too. The masking feature allows devs to select individual items in a scene (say, a fruit bowl on a table) and give it the AI-enhanced treatment, while leaving everything else DLSS 5-free. The varying AI models can also be switched in and out (or on and off) on a whim.

According to Nvidia, the fine-tuning abilities of DLSS 5 are designed to be as developer-friendly as possible, allowing them to dip in and out of its features on a model-per-model basis to suit their artistic intent. Seeing the demo running in front of me with my own eyes, I could feel myself coming around to the idea. My arms uncrossed.

Nvidia slides demonstrating the developer masking controls within DLSS 5
Nvidia
Nvidia slides demonstrating the developer masking controls within DLSS 5
Nvidia
Nvidia slides demonstrating the developer masking controls within DLSS 5
Nvidia

And then my hosts began messing with the sliders and the model presets, and an essential truth emerged. While a light dusting of DLSS 5 can cause a substantial visual leap in terms of photorealism, turning it up to 11 can still provoke an unwanted, gut-level reaction.

Turning DLSS 5 up to 11 can still provoke an unwanted, gut-level reaction

There are three image-transforming AI models for devs to choose from (at least in the demo I was shown): A, B, and C. While models A and C looked pretty good to me at various settings, model B made me wince when both sliders were pushed up. The HDR-like shadows became overblown, the skin textures too shiny, the facial features too keenly drawn.

To my eyes, characters with model B turned up can look substantially different from the model underneath, in a way that's reminiscent of the AI beauty filters we've all become far too familiar with. In short, it's still capable of giving me the ick.

A comparison of the appearance of a game character using three different DLSS 5 AI models
Nvidia
Three images of the same game character being adjusted by DLSS 5 model B with varying levels of structural intensity
Nvidia

I'll call it as I see it: DLSS 5 turned up to the guns, particularly using model B, can look downright ugly. But Nvidia's point makes a whole lot of sense. It's the developers, the artists behind the game, that choose how far to push the technology. If it oversteps the mark? Devs can adjust the settings and rein it back in, and you can turn it off entirely (separate from regular DLSS upscaling) if you disagree with their choices.

On that note, some Nvidia staff members I spoke to took issue with the idea that DLSS 5, even in the experimental version shown earlier this year, is capable of transforming the facial geometry of a character model. I argued the contrary, because well, look at the screenshots below.

Nvidia's Jensen Huang showing off DLSS 5 at GTC 2026.
Nvidia
Nvidia's Jensen Huang showing off DLSS 5 at GTC 2026.
Nvidia

Apparently, this is more of a perceived effect created by the lighting than an actual, DLSS 5-induced facelift. This eventually turned into a philosophical debate, where I argued that, even if it simply looks like the model is creating markedly different facial geometry from the original character models, the end result is functionally the same.

Because that's what it looks like, and what it looks like is the whole point. This argument resulted in a stalemate, so I'll let you be the judge for yourselves.

Anyway, the longer the demos continued, the clearer it became that DLSS 5 is capable of creating some stunning imagery when handled with a delicate touch, and some seriously overblown results when pushed to the limit. DLSS 5 can enhance—but it can also alter an image with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

(Image credit: Nvidia)

The example above shows a DLSS 5-enhanced scene of some foliage against a building, with ray tracing turned on and off. It's supposed to demonstrate that the more lighting information you give the models to work with, the better the visual result. The DLSS 5 and ray-traced image combined, though, looks seriously oversaturated to my eyes. Realism has gone out of the window, and the end result is… lurid, to say the least.

What is beautiful to some is garish to others, but all I'll say is that the term "better" is far from my mind. There's no accounting for taste, is there?

(Image credit: Nvidia)

What we're going to be relying on for the most part, though, are the tastes of the game developers themselves. I was taken into a separate room to try out NBA 2K27, the first game you'll be able to play with DLSS 5 enabled. Officially, at least, as it can apparently be modded into any game.

This was a very locked down session, in which the devs refused to be drawn in on the details of exactly what sort of DLSS 5 implementation I was looking at. However, I'd guess that, by Nvidia's standards, everything I saw was achieved by using the lower end of the DLSS 5 spectrum.

If developers tune it wisely, there are real visual benefits to be seen

The sweat running down the players' arms looked… sweatier. More glistening. The facial features looked more realistic, with better lighting in the nooks and crannies of their various mugs, and less of the "uncanny valley" effect I'd seen at higher settings. The crowd in the background transformed from low-poly models into a more passable depiction of basketball match attendees, without straying too far from the look of the original assets.

A shot of a basketball player in NBA 2K27 with DLSS 5 turned on
Nvidia
A shot of a basketball player in NBA 2K27 with DLSS 5 turned off
Nvidia
A basketball player in NBA 2K27 with DLSS 5 turned on
Nvidia
A basketball player in NBA 2K27 with DLSS 5 turned off
Nvidia

To my surprise, I didn't experience the AI image ick. It looked more like the difference between a game running on a console, and one running on PC with a ton of extra graphics options added on top. DLSS 5 doesn't look quite so revolutionary at these settings, perhaps—but the results impressed me more than I expected.

I was careful to look for signs of ghosting, or any morphing AI faces under fast motion. One of my critiques of the previous DLSS 5 footage was the temporal handling, which looked a little blurred and smeared to my eyes. However, there was no hint of that here. I played virtual basketball, I sucked at it, and I enjoyed the look of the game overall.

In all honesty, it felt like playing a next-gen game with cutting-edge graphics technology, and not an ill-advised AI gaming revolution. This, beyond anything else, was perhaps the best demonstration that DLSS 5 can be used to genuinely enhance the look of our games, rather than turning them into an AI-slathered mess. If developers tune it wisely, there are real visual benefits to be seen.

A shot of the crowd in NBA 2K27 with DLSS 5 turned on
Nvidia
A shot of the crowd in NBA 2K27 with DLSS 5 turned off
Nvidia

All of this might be a moot point, though, if performance is a concern. The Nvidia devs I spoke to estimated a 50-60% performance hit with DLSS 5 turned on, which doesn't vary on a game-by-game basis. Essentially, it's still a massive resource hog as things stand, although it no longer requires two RTX 5090s just to run. Goodie.

Further performance improvements are forthcoming, says Nvidia, but my eyebrows jumped so high at this news I'm surprised they didn't shoot off the top of my head. Graphics card prices are outrageous right now, and I can't help wondering who's going to want to slice their frame rate in half in return for some AI-enhanced imagery, good-looking or otherwise.

Performance comparisons from Nvidia showing DLSS 5 frame rates
Nvidia
Performance comparisons from Nvidia showing DLSS 5 frame rates
Nvidia
Performance comparisons from Nvidia showing DLSS 5 frame rates
Nvidia

All of the performance charts I was shown used a combination of 6x Multi Frame Generation and various levels of upscaling to bump up the numbers. And while I'm not as much of a frame generation sceptic as some, I doubt this will come as good news to those curious to try out the tech.

If the performance impact was minimal, I could see some gamers experimenting with DLSS 5 for themselves and potentially changing their minds. With this sort of massive dip, though, I think DLSS 5's GPU-hogging ways are a much bigger issue for adoption than the AI-ified nature of the tech itself.

A chart showing DLSS 5 performance gains made by Nvidia over the past six months

(Image credit: Nvidia)

What's left, then, is the thorny issue of the ethical debate. The elephant in the room, and there's no getting around it, is that generative AI usage in games is a massive hot topic at the moment. In fact, AI usage in general is causing all sorts of debates in all sorts of arenas, from the potential effects on the job market, to ecological concerns, to discussions around the very nature of truth.

We're going to have to decide for ourselves if we want to engage with it

And this, I feel, is the real hurdle Nvidia is trying to jump. While it's clear that DLSS 5 can be beneficial to the image quality of our games in the right hands, whether we, as gamers, want to participate in the AI-ification of everything in this way is much more doubtful. And it's on this level where I feel far more conflicted about the tech.

My criticisms of the AI revolution, in a general sense, are well documented. And while I can absolutely see the potential benefits of DLSS 5, I left the demo booth with mixed feelings. Is this where the games industry is heading? Will I be spending most of my gaming time looking at more AI-enhanced imagery in the future?

A screenshot of foliage within the DLSS 5 Zorah demo

(Image credit: Nvidia)

Will developers make use of the tech wisely, or will major releases eventually go for the full yassified approach, transforming our games into something unrecognisable from what they are today? Will devs jump in with both feet, or will they be more cautious? And crucially, is AI-enhanced imagery really what we want, even if it's capable of looking nice?

In principle, the demos I was shown should have me jumping up and down with excitement at the potential of better gaming graphics. But the AI association, perhaps even infiltration, into a form of media I truly adore is enough to keep me awake at night. In practice, DLSS 5 is certainly capable of creating some good-looking imagery in the right hands.

But it also represents a major leap towards an AI-enhanced gaming future, and one that still makes me, in the depths of my bones, more than a little uncomfortable. Whatever the case, DLSS 5 will be launching on September 3—and we're going to have to decide for ourselves if we want to engage with it.

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/nvidia-snuck-me-into-a-room-to-show-off-dlss-5-in-person-and-its-somehow-beautiful-ugly-impressive-and-troubling-all-at-the-same-time/ 244reNoLY5eTBix6gwk9VG Tue, 01 Sep 2026 13:00:00 +0000 Tue, 01 Sep 2026 21:07:09 +0000 false false false

I think it's fair to say that DLSS 5 is the most controversial Nvidia creation… well, ever. After the huge amounts of backlash it received in reaction to its unveiling earlier this year, Nvidia's AI image enhancing tech has been mostly kept under lock and key.

However, myself and a select group of journalists were ushered into a small room in the Nvidia booth at Gamescom last week, amid some furtive glances and hushed whispering. As the lights went down, it became obvious as to why. Here was the latest version of DLSS 5 running in front of us, the controversial graphics tech in the flesh. And the message Nvidia wanted to get across was deliberate, and strongly put: It's all about developer control.

I was shown a character sitting within the Nvidia Zorah demo, the same shown at SIGGRAPH 2026 earlier this year. As he sat, looking around at his environment in a bored fashion, I leaned forward in my chair. DLSS 5 was obviously altering the image to a significant degree, but seeing the results in person, it was clear this was nowhere near the "yassified Grace" level of AI enhancement shown in the first reveal.

Our digital example, casually inspecting the back of his hand, looked a lot like the original character model—but with more photorealistic lighting, and plenty of finer details that seemed fitting for the scene. It was nowhere near as brash an image as I was expecting, I'll say that much for free.

At the side of the screen was the DLSS 5 developer control menu. Two sliders, marked "structure intensity" and "tone intensity" were set somewhere around the midway mark—and at these settings, the character looked pretty damn good.

A character in Nvidia's Zorah demo being image-adjusted by DLSS 5 to varying degrees
Nvidia
A character in Nvidia's Zorah demo being image-adjusted by DLSS 5 to varying degrees
Nvidia

There are more tools for developers to play with, too. The masking feature allows devs to select individual items in a scene (say, a fruit bowl on a table) and give it the AI-enhanced treatment, while leaving everything else DLSS 5-free. The varying AI models can also be switched in and out (or on and off) on a whim.

According to Nvidia, the fine-tuning abilities of DLSS 5 are designed to be as developer-friendly as possible, allowing them to dip in and out of its features on a model-per-model basis to suit their artistic intent. Seeing the demo running in front of me with my own eyes, I could feel myself coming around to the idea. My arms uncrossed.

Nvidia slides demonstrating the developer masking controls within DLSS 5
Nvidia
Nvidia slides demonstrating the developer masking controls within DLSS 5
Nvidia
Nvidia slides demonstrating the developer masking controls within DLSS 5
Nvidia

And then my hosts began messing with the sliders and the model presets, and an essential truth emerged. While a light dusting of DLSS 5 can cause a substantial visual leap in terms of photorealism, turning it up to 11 can still provoke an unwanted, gut-level reaction.

Turning DLSS 5 up to 11 can still provoke an unwanted, gut-level reaction

There are three image-transforming AI models for devs to choose from (at least in the demo I was shown): A, B, and C. While models A and C looked pretty good to me at various settings, model B made me wince when both sliders were pushed up. The HDR-like shadows became overblown, the skin textures too shiny, the facial features too keenly drawn.

To my eyes, characters with model B turned up can look substantially different from the model underneath, in a way that's reminiscent of the AI beauty filters we've all become far too familiar with. In short, it's still capable of giving me the ick.

A comparison of the appearance of a game character using three different DLSS 5 AI models
Nvidia
Three images of the same game character being adjusted by DLSS 5 model B with varying levels of structural intensity
Nvidia

I'll call it as I see it: DLSS 5 turned up to the guns, particularly using model B, can look downright ugly. But Nvidia's point makes a whole lot of sense. It's the developers, the artists behind the game, that choose how far to push the technology. If it oversteps the mark? Devs can adjust the settings and rein it back in, and you can turn it off entirely (separate from regular DLSS upscaling) if you disagree with their choices.

On that note, some Nvidia staff members I spoke to took issue with the idea that DLSS 5, even in the experimental version shown earlier this year, is capable of transforming the facial geometry of a character model. I argued the contrary, because well, look at the screenshots below.

Nvidia's Jensen Huang showing off DLSS 5 at GTC 2026.
Nvidia
Nvidia's Jensen Huang showing off DLSS 5 at GTC 2026.
Nvidia

Apparently, this is more of a perceived effect created by the lighting than an actual, DLSS 5-induced facelift. This eventually turned into a philosophical debate, where I argued that, even if it simply looks like the model is creating markedly different facial geometry from the original character models, the end result is functionally the same.

Because that's what it looks like, and what it looks like is the whole point. This argument resulted in a stalemate, so I'll let you be the judge for yourselves.

Anyway, the longer the demos continued, the clearer it became that DLSS 5 is capable of creating some stunning imagery when handled with a delicate touch, and some seriously overblown results when pushed to the limit. DLSS 5 can enhance—but it can also alter an image with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

(Image credit: Nvidia)

The example above shows a DLSS 5-enhanced scene of some foliage against a building, with ray tracing turned on and off. It's supposed to demonstrate that the more lighting information you give the models to work with, the better the visual result. The DLSS 5 and ray-traced image combined, though, looks seriously oversaturated to my eyes. Realism has gone out of the window, and the end result is… lurid, to say the least.

What is beautiful to some is garish to others, but all I'll say is that the term "better" is far from my mind. There's no accounting for taste, is there?

(Image credit: Nvidia)

What we're going to be relying on for the most part, though, are the tastes of the game developers themselves. I was taken into a separate room to try out NBA 2K27, the first game you'll be able to play with DLSS 5 enabled. Officially, at least, as it can apparently be modded into any game.

This was a very locked down session, in which the devs refused to be drawn in on the details of exactly what sort of DLSS 5 implementation I was looking at. However, I'd guess that, by Nvidia's standards, everything I saw was achieved by using the lower end of the DLSS 5 spectrum.

If developers tune it wisely, there are real visual benefits to be seen

The sweat running down the players' arms looked… sweatier. More glistening. The facial features looked more realistic, with better lighting in the nooks and crannies of their various mugs, and less of the "uncanny valley" effect I'd seen at higher settings. The crowd in the background transformed from low-poly models into a more passable depiction of basketball match attendees, without straying too far from the look of the original assets.

A shot of a basketball player in NBA 2K27 with DLSS 5 turned on
Nvidia
A shot of a basketball player in NBA 2K27 with DLSS 5 turned off
Nvidia
A basketball player in NBA 2K27 with DLSS 5 turned on
Nvidia
A basketball player in NBA 2K27 with DLSS 5 turned off
Nvidia

To my surprise, I didn't experience the AI image ick. It looked more like the difference between a game running on a console, and one running on PC with a ton of extra graphics options added on top. DLSS 5 doesn't look quite so revolutionary at these settings, perhaps—but the results impressed me more than I expected.

I was careful to look for signs of ghosting, or any morphing AI faces under fast motion. One of my critiques of the previous DLSS 5 footage was the temporal handling, which looked a little blurred and smeared to my eyes. However, there was no hint of that here. I played virtual basketball, I sucked at it, and I enjoyed the look of the game overall.

In all honesty, it felt like playing a next-gen game with cutting-edge graphics technology, and not an ill-advised AI gaming revolution. This, beyond anything else, was perhaps the best demonstration that DLSS 5 can be used to genuinely enhance the look of our games, rather than turning them into an AI-slathered mess. If developers tune it wisely, there are real visual benefits to be seen.

A shot of the crowd in NBA 2K27 with DLSS 5 turned on
Nvidia
A shot of the crowd in NBA 2K27 with DLSS 5 turned off
Nvidia

All of this might be a moot point, though, if performance is a concern. The Nvidia devs I spoke to estimated a 50-60% performance hit with DLSS 5 turned on, which doesn't vary on a game-by-game basis. Essentially, it's still a massive resource hog as things stand, although it no longer requires two RTX 5090s just to run. Goodie.

Further performance improvements are forthcoming, says Nvidia, but my eyebrows jumped so high at this news I'm surprised they didn't shoot off the top of my head. Graphics card prices are outrageous right now, and I can't help wondering who's going to want to slice their frame rate in half in return for some AI-enhanced imagery, good-looking or otherwise.

Performance comparisons from Nvidia showing DLSS 5 frame rates
Nvidia
Performance comparisons from Nvidia showing DLSS 5 frame rates
Nvidia
Performance comparisons from Nvidia showing DLSS 5 frame rates
Nvidia

All of the performance charts I was shown used a combination of 6x Multi Frame Generation and various levels of upscaling to bump up the numbers. And while I'm not as much of a frame generation sceptic as some, I doubt this will come as good news to those curious to try out the tech.

If the performance impact was minimal, I could see some gamers experimenting with DLSS 5 for themselves and potentially changing their minds. With this sort of massive dip, though, I think DLSS 5's GPU-hogging ways are a much bigger issue for adoption than the AI-ified nature of the tech itself.

A chart showing DLSS 5 performance gains made by Nvidia over the past six months

(Image credit: Nvidia)

What's left, then, is the thorny issue of the ethical debate. The elephant in the room, and there's no getting around it, is that generative AI usage in games is a massive hot topic at the moment. In fact, AI usage in general is causing all sorts of debates in all sorts of arenas, from the potential effects on the job market, to ecological concerns, to discussions around the very nature of truth.

We're going to have to decide for ourselves if we want to engage with it

And this, I feel, is the real hurdle Nvidia is trying to jump. While it's clear that DLSS 5 can be beneficial to the image quality of our games in the right hands, whether we, as gamers, want to participate in the AI-ification of everything in this way is much more doubtful. And it's on this level where I feel far more conflicted about the tech.

My criticisms of the AI revolution, in a general sense, are well documented. And while I can absolutely see the potential benefits of DLSS 5, I left the demo booth with mixed feelings. Is this where the games industry is heading? Will I be spending most of my gaming time looking at more AI-enhanced imagery in the future?

A screenshot of foliage within the DLSS 5 Zorah demo

(Image credit: Nvidia)

Will developers make use of the tech wisely, or will major releases eventually go for the full yassified approach, transforming our games into something unrecognisable from what they are today? Will devs jump in with both feet, or will they be more cautious? And crucially, is AI-enhanced imagery really what we want, even if it's capable of looking nice?

In principle, the demos I was shown should have me jumping up and down with excitement at the potential of better gaming graphics. But the AI association, perhaps even infiltration, into a form of media I truly adore is enough to keep me awake at night. In practice, DLSS 5 is certainly capable of creating some good-looking imagery in the right hands.

But it also represents a major leap towards an AI-enhanced gaming future, and one that still makes me, in the depths of my bones, more than a little uncomfortable. Whatever the case, DLSS 5 will be launching on September 3—and we're going to have to decide for ourselves if we want to engage with it.

]]> <![CDATA[ Looks like you can try DLSS 5 out today yourself ]]>

We know that DLSS 5 is due to arrive with us in the autumn time, but that release date feels a lot closer, with specific files being picked out of an early access version of NBA2K27 and dropped into Remedy's Control (via Notebookcheck). The files in question have been found in the 2K ball-tossing title's PC version—which is currently playable for gamers who purchased the Deluxe or Ultra editions—and a modder from the RenoDX team has managed to inject it into Control with sliders.

And, while I'm likely to be pilloried for saying so, I'm kinda impressed with the changes and the level of… ahem… control you have over the visuals with the number of sliders at play in the mod. It's also impressive that this has been knocked together using an early DLL file from a completely different game and dropped into Control.

The mod has been released in the RenoDX Discord channel and offers up seven different styles, which seem to range from conservative to full-on yasification. So far it's just aimed at the character models, but given the suggested performance hit from enabling it, you are going to want to limit its reach.

Looking into the Reddit chats about it, people are suggesting drops on an RTX 5070 Ti that take Control from 71 fps to 35 fps. That's a big hit, though we are talking about a pre-release feature in a game that it's not (yet?) designed for. When ray tracing still gets a lukewarm reception due to its performance impact, yet another resource-hogging feature will likely struggle for traction even outside the AI antipathy in gaming.

And that's without taking into account the current ludicrous pricing situation for every Nvidia GPU from the fifth tier of its RTX 50-series and up.

There are various images of the lead character, Jesse Faden, but I think one of the most interesting is linked in the original X post, where the conservative preset is seemingly being used. The character model doesn't look markedly different, but as the sliders are adjusted, you can see how the filter is layered on without negatively impacting the original design or geometry.

Control using RenoDX DLSS 5 mod

(Image credit: Anonymous)

Then there's another uploaded image where you can slide between the DLSS 5 on and off versions of the character model, where it's far more extreme. But still, I don't think it looks bad. If you'd given me that Faden model from the outset natively, I'd have marvelled at Remedy making such a detailed character, especially given the company's obvious desire for photorealism in its characters. It still obviously retains the geometry, but this is far more of the AI beauty filter fear that large parts of the gaming community are concerned about with this feature's release.

I think the fact this has all been pulled together from one DLL file taken out of an early access game is impressive, and makes me think that the instant DLSS 5 gets released, we're going to see a whole lot of these mods out there giving gamers access to all the controls for a whole bunch of games… whether those game developers like it or not.

And that's going to be a whole other debate.

NBA2K27 DLL file

(Image credit: Future)

One final thing to note is that the DLL file in question is noted as DLSSNR in the description, which suggests that DLSS 5 as the catch-all name for this AI game filter is going to change. Rebranding it as DLSS Neural Rendering feels far more suited to this feature, and might have led to less of a backlash at the start, where calling it DLSS 5 from the outset made it feel like this is just what the next version of DLSS is in its entirety.

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/looks-like-you-can-try-dlss-5-out-today-yourself/ bdmF3WJRkxDfsiLkwkjUGB Fri, 28 Aug 2026 10:54:10 +0000 Fri, 28 Aug 2026 20:57:42 +0000 false false false

We know that DLSS 5 is due to arrive with us in the autumn time, but that release date feels a lot closer, with specific files being picked out of an early access version of NBA2K27 and dropped into Remedy's Control (via Notebookcheck). The files in question have been found in the 2K ball-tossing title's PC version—which is currently playable for gamers who purchased the Deluxe or Ultra editions—and a modder from the RenoDX team has managed to inject it into Control with sliders.

And, while I'm likely to be pilloried for saying so, I'm kinda impressed with the changes and the level of… ahem… control you have over the visuals with the number of sliders at play in the mod. It's also impressive that this has been knocked together using an early DLL file from a completely different game and dropped into Control.

The mod has been released in the RenoDX Discord channel and offers up seven different styles, which seem to range from conservative to full-on yasification. So far it's just aimed at the character models, but given the suggested performance hit from enabling it, you are going to want to limit its reach.

Looking into the Reddit chats about it, people are suggesting drops on an RTX 5070 Ti that take Control from 71 fps to 35 fps. That's a big hit, though we are talking about a pre-release feature in a game that it's not (yet?) designed for. When ray tracing still gets a lukewarm reception due to its performance impact, yet another resource-hogging feature will likely struggle for traction even outside the AI antipathy in gaming.

And that's without taking into account the current ludicrous pricing situation for every Nvidia GPU from the fifth tier of its RTX 50-series and up.

There are various images of the lead character, Jesse Faden, but I think one of the most interesting is linked in the original X post, where the conservative preset is seemingly being used. The character model doesn't look markedly different, but as the sliders are adjusted, you can see how the filter is layered on without negatively impacting the original design or geometry.

Control using RenoDX DLSS 5 mod

(Image credit: Anonymous)

Then there's another uploaded image where you can slide between the DLSS 5 on and off versions of the character model, where it's far more extreme. But still, I don't think it looks bad. If you'd given me that Faden model from the outset natively, I'd have marvelled at Remedy making such a detailed character, especially given the company's obvious desire for photorealism in its characters. It still obviously retains the geometry, but this is far more of the AI beauty filter fear that large parts of the gaming community are concerned about with this feature's release.

I think the fact this has all been pulled together from one DLL file taken out of an early access game is impressive, and makes me think that the instant DLSS 5 gets released, we're going to see a whole lot of these mods out there giving gamers access to all the controls for a whole bunch of games… whether those game developers like it or not.

And that's going to be a whole other debate.

NBA2K27 DLL file

(Image credit: Future)

One final thing to note is that the DLL file in question is noted as DLSSNR in the description, which suggests that DLSS 5 as the catch-all name for this AI game filter is going to change. Rebranding it as DLSS Neural Rendering feels far more suited to this feature, and might have led to less of a backlash at the start, where calling it DLSS 5 from the outset made it feel like this is just what the next version of DLSS is in its entirety.

]]> <![CDATA[ AMD update fixes Apex Legends crashes with RX 9070 XT GPUs ]]> Apex Legends seems to be having trouble working with the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT right now. As relayed by the Apex Legends account ApexCommunityJP on X (machine translated), "We have confirmed an issue causing crashes for players using the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT GPU, and we are currently investigating the cause."

I can confirm on my end that Apex Legends crashes when I try to launch it using a rig with an RX 9070 XT. I get the following game/engine 'fatal error': "The application's device failed due to badly formed commands sent by the application. This is a design-time issue that should be investigated and fixed."

The aforementioned X account does recommend trying to roll back your AMD graphics driver; however, some replies to this claim that doing so doesn't resolve the problem.

One suggestion in the replies that does seem to have worked for me as a temporary workaround is to add the following to the game's Steam launch options: "+staticprop_color_use_bindless 0 +staticprop_depth_use_bindless 0 +r_drawworld_depth_bindless 0". To do so, on the game's Steam page, click the cog, then Properties, then paste those commands into the launch options.

A 'fatal error' bug splash from Apex Legends running on an RX 9070 XT.

A pretty neat side-effect of the crash is that it does this when I try to screenshot the bug splash. (Image credit: Future)

These seem to be options related to bindless rendering, which is where the GPU accesses shaders without mediation from the CPU. It looks like these commands disable that newer tech, which could mean a bit of a performance hit. I can confirm that adding these commands to my game's launch options did allow me to boot up and have a quick game, so it looks like it works.

Of course, it's only a workaround, and we'll have to hope AMD or Respawn come up with a proper fix for something a little cleaner and more permanent. It's unclear at this time what is causing the crashes and what can or will be done about it, so we'll just have to keep our eyes peeled for updates.

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/apex-legends-is-getting-fatal-error-crashes-with-rx-9070-xt-gpus-but-there-is-a-workaround/ mCoY2ntZpcZDtRdzAyPJQ4 Wed, 26 Aug 2026 12:04:39 +0000 Fri, 04 Sep 2026 10:04:14 +0000 false false false

Apex Legends seems to be having trouble working with the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT right now. As relayed by the Apex Legends account ApexCommunityJP on X (machine translated), "We have confirmed an issue causing crashes for players using the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT GPU, and we are currently investigating the cause."

I can confirm on my end that Apex Legends crashes when I try to launch it using a rig with an RX 9070 XT. I get the following game/engine 'fatal error': "The application's device failed due to badly formed commands sent by the application. This is a design-time issue that should be investigated and fixed."

The aforementioned X account does recommend trying to roll back your AMD graphics driver; however, some replies to this claim that doing so doesn't resolve the problem.

One suggestion in the replies that does seem to have worked for me as a temporary workaround is to add the following to the game's Steam launch options: "+staticprop_color_use_bindless 0 +staticprop_depth_use_bindless 0 +r_drawworld_depth_bindless 0". To do so, on the game's Steam page, click the cog, then Properties, then paste those commands into the launch options.

A 'fatal error' bug splash from Apex Legends running on an RX 9070 XT.

A pretty neat side-effect of the crash is that it does this when I try to screenshot the bug splash. (Image credit: Future)

These seem to be options related to bindless rendering, which is where the GPU accesses shaders without mediation from the CPU. It looks like these commands disable that newer tech, which could mean a bit of a performance hit. I can confirm that adding these commands to my game's launch options did allow me to boot up and have a quick game, so it looks like it works.

Of course, it's only a workaround, and we'll have to hope AMD or Respawn come up with a proper fix for something a little cleaner and more permanent. It's unclear at this time what is causing the crashes and what can or will be done about it, so we'll just have to keep our eyes peeled for updates.

]]> <![CDATA[ DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction is a definite improvement but path traced fidelity is still not a 100% solved issue ]]> Nvidia's new DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction feature is laser-focused on trying to fix the second most annoying thing about ray traced or path traced games: visual artifacting. Yes, the lighting effect does deliver the most accurate-looking lighting and shadows in games, but in motion there is a definite visual weirdness added into scenes. And that weirdness generally comes from the denoising pass designed to turn the low-fidelity path traced image, with its limited number of rays, into a fully realised frame.

Leave a game's viewport still and the scene will pretty rapidly come together to make a sharp, convincing image. Shift that around, or have that scene filled with moving objects or characters and you're going to see the sort of visual trails you might only have been used to in the warehouse parties of your early twenties. Just me?

The issue is that it's way too expensive in terms of raw compute to trace every single photon/pixel that would otherwise make up a fully traced scene. Even with the current method of tracking a far smaller representative sample of rays bouncing around the geometry of your game world it's still incredibly demanding of your PC's hardware.

This is, by the way, the most annoying thing about ray traced or path traced games: the amount of graphical horsepower the tech demands over pre-baked lighting techniques. The huge performance hit it involves is punitive for all but the most powerful GPUs, and we are still no closer to solving that right now.

So we still have to use small numbers of tracked rays to create an approximate scene which looks something like this:

(Image credit: Nvidia | CDPR)

But that doesn't look great if you're trying to make a convincing world, though I guess there's something to that aesthetic in a sort of 3D ASCII kind of way. Anyway, to realise this image into a production ready frame you need to use a denoiser to fill in the blanks between the sampled rays, and the hand-tuned denoisers track and group pixels across multiple frames, to give them access to more samples. They then use these neighbouring pixels to interpolate and blend the scene together.

As I said, that's fine for a static image, but those pixels don't stay representative for long and in motion they break down, adding in artifacting to a scene and smearing detail away from textures. This is where the original Ray Reconstruction feature came in, replacing the hand-tuned denoisers with an AI-based denoiser working alongside Nvidia's upscaling models, to generate more accurate pixels in between those sampled rays.

And now we're finally getting an updated version of Ray Reconstruction which uses the sharper second-gen Transformer model initially brought into DLSS 4.5 Super Resolution back in January.

Nvidia Ray Reconstruction
Nvidia
Nvidia Ray Reconstruction
Nvidia

And it's about time, because for ray or path traced games, even if you were using the improved transformer model of DLSS 4.5 Super Resolution, Ray Reconstruction was still using the old model, leaving you those tell-tale artifacts.

Nvidia is touting four main improvements with DLSS 4.5 RR:

  • Efficient Denoiser: The new model delivers 35% more compute capability, and processes 20% more parameters, while maintaining similar performance to the previous model.
  • Enhanced Super Resolution: Building upon the advances from DLSS 4.5 Super Resolution, the model has deeper spatial awareness across every scene, and more intelligently uses game engine pixel sampling and motion data. The result is improved lighting accuracy, better temporal stability and clearer motion in ray-traced and path-traced content.
  • Expanded Training Dataset: Trained on a larger dataset, the new model is even better at image reconstruction. This intelligence gives the model even better awareness to pick the most accurate engine data to reconstruct scenes closer to ground truth.
  • Finer Developer Control: The new model provides developers with finer control for temporal accumulation, providing precise tuning of model response for even better image quality.

The new version of the feature is releasing today, and jamming the second-gen transformer model into supported games is done via the Nvidia App rather than from inside your games' settings screens. You just need to select a title from within the Nvidia App itself, navigate to the 'DLSS Override - Model Presets' entry and select 'Preset F' from the 'Ray Reconstruction' dropdown menu. Apply it and you should be set.

DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction supporting games

Alan Wake 2

EVERSPACE 2

NTE (Neverness to Everness)

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora

F1 25

Portal with RTX

Backrooms: Escape Together

FBC: Firebreak

PRAGMATA

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 (Coming August 20th)

Half-Life 2 RTX

Resident Evil Requiem

Crimson Desert

Hogwarts Legacy

Samson

Cyberpunk 2077

I Am Jesus Christ

Star Wars Outlaws

Death Relives

Incursion Red River

Subliminal

Directive 8020

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

Sword of Justice

DOOM: The Dark Ages

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2

The First Descendant

Enlisted

NARAKA: BLADEPOINT

War Thunder

While complete image fidelity across all ray or path traced games is by no means a 100% solved problem, it's clear that DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction is able to deliver a more stable image when it's in use. And it's not just about giving you a more stable image with less 'boiling' textures and trails, either, it's adding back in more detail to a scene that would have otherwise been lost.

You can see that especially in the below video for Resident Evil Requiem's opening scene. The textures on the white car at the beginning are still shimmering behind the rain effects using the older model, but are almost entirely stable with DLSS 4.5 RR enabled. But it's the extra detail on the ground that highlights what the new second-gen transformer model is capable of here.

DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction on left, DLSS Ray Reconstruction on the right

Of course we're going to highlight what it looks like in Nvidia's poster child for all things DLSS: Cyberpunk 2077. In the two videos below you can see where that extra temporal stability really makes a difference. In this first video, inside a store, you can see the striping on the ground as the viewport shifts, which is completely absent from the improved DLSS 4.5 RR version.

You might have to watch it loop through a couple of times to see what I mean, but if you focus on the older version on the right you will see, when the view moves to the floor, that there is an after image of essentially the edge of the screen imprinted on the floor. This fades quickly, but is noticeable.

DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction on left, DLSS Ray Reconstruction on the right

Outside, looking up at the ceiling of this underpass you can see where the textures resolve far, far quicker than before. The different areas of the ceiling using the previous version of RR almost seem like they can't make up their mind what they should look like, while DLSS 4.5 RR comes in with far more certainty.

DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction on left, DLSS Ray Reconstruction on the right

My final example comes from Alan Wake 2 and its own heavy use of path tracing and the denoising steps that are vital to the game's fidelity. To be honest, the strange artifcating of Alan Wake 2 almost gets a pass from me, because the dreamlike trails around people kinda add to the weirdness of the game. But it's not meant to look like that.

You can see from the dancing man in the Elderwood Palace Lodge bar that those trails are almost entirely gone from the latest version of Ray Reconstruction. But, notably, they are not completely resolved. There is still some level of artifacting around his feet as he shuffles around the wooden floor.

Though it is worth noting here you can also see the enhanced level of detail the second-gen transformer is adding back in. If you look to the wooden floor in the room behind the dancing dude you will see the planks are more clearly represented.

DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction on left, DLSS Ray Reconstruction on the right

So yes, there is still some work to be done before we can say that path tracing visuals have been perfected, but this is still a worthy upgrade. And honestly, we probably need a mixture of both improved AI modelling and more powerful hardware to be able to add more traced light bounces into a frame. But in these tech-starved times of ours, hoping for more horsepower when the datacentres want to jealously hoard all the compute for themselves is a fool's game.

But DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction is a definite improvement over Nvidia's previous versions. Sure, a lot of the improvements are only really telling when you're specifically looking for them, but equally some of that smearing and the 'boiling' textures are absolutely things I can do without.

Ray Reconstruction also remains RTX agnostic in that it will function across all generations of GeForce RTX GPUs, and isn't really any more draining upon your PC's resources than the previous version. Though, as a whole, it remains true the transformer-based DLSS features weigh more heavily upon your system's performance on older generations of RTX hardware than the RTX 50-series.

But I would say that's less of an issue for Ray Reconstruction than Super Resolution. One is for helping resolve high-end path tracing where a massive performance hit is expected, and the other is specifically designed to get you more performance. You're only really going to want to be doing heavy path traced gaming on high-end cards of the Ada and RTX Blackwell generations, whereas Turing and Ampere GPUs could do with all the help they can get.

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/dlss-4-5-ray-reconstruction-is-a-definite-improvement-but-path-traced-fidelity-is-still-not-a-100-percent-solved-issue/ oPKWLPLiAYvWTuLfsT5jY5 Tue, 25 Aug 2026 15:30:00 +0000 false false false

Nvidia's new DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction feature is laser-focused on trying to fix the second most annoying thing about ray traced or path traced games: visual artifacting. Yes, the lighting effect does deliver the most accurate-looking lighting and shadows in games, but in motion there is a definite visual weirdness added into scenes. And that weirdness generally comes from the denoising pass designed to turn the low-fidelity path traced image, with its limited number of rays, into a fully realised frame.

Leave a game's viewport still and the scene will pretty rapidly come together to make a sharp, convincing image. Shift that around, or have that scene filled with moving objects or characters and you're going to see the sort of visual trails you might only have been used to in the warehouse parties of your early twenties. Just me?

The issue is that it's way too expensive in terms of raw compute to trace every single photon/pixel that would otherwise make up a fully traced scene. Even with the current method of tracking a far smaller representative sample of rays bouncing around the geometry of your game world it's still incredibly demanding of your PC's hardware.

This is, by the way, the most annoying thing about ray traced or path traced games: the amount of graphical horsepower the tech demands over pre-baked lighting techniques. The huge performance hit it involves is punitive for all but the most powerful GPUs, and we are still no closer to solving that right now.

So we still have to use small numbers of tracked rays to create an approximate scene which looks something like this:

(Image credit: Nvidia | CDPR)

But that doesn't look great if you're trying to make a convincing world, though I guess there's something to that aesthetic in a sort of 3D ASCII kind of way. Anyway, to realise this image into a production ready frame you need to use a denoiser to fill in the blanks between the sampled rays, and the hand-tuned denoisers track and group pixels across multiple frames, to give them access to more samples. They then use these neighbouring pixels to interpolate and blend the scene together.

As I said, that's fine for a static image, but those pixels don't stay representative for long and in motion they break down, adding in artifacting to a scene and smearing detail away from textures. This is where the original Ray Reconstruction feature came in, replacing the hand-tuned denoisers with an AI-based denoiser working alongside Nvidia's upscaling models, to generate more accurate pixels in between those sampled rays.

And now we're finally getting an updated version of Ray Reconstruction which uses the sharper second-gen Transformer model initially brought into DLSS 4.5 Super Resolution back in January.

Nvidia Ray Reconstruction
Nvidia
Nvidia Ray Reconstruction
Nvidia

And it's about time, because for ray or path traced games, even if you were using the improved transformer model of DLSS 4.5 Super Resolution, Ray Reconstruction was still using the old model, leaving you those tell-tale artifacts.

Nvidia is touting four main improvements with DLSS 4.5 RR:

  • Efficient Denoiser: The new model delivers 35% more compute capability, and processes 20% more parameters, while maintaining similar performance to the previous model.
  • Enhanced Super Resolution: Building upon the advances from DLSS 4.5 Super Resolution, the model has deeper spatial awareness across every scene, and more intelligently uses game engine pixel sampling and motion data. The result is improved lighting accuracy, better temporal stability and clearer motion in ray-traced and path-traced content.
  • Expanded Training Dataset: Trained on a larger dataset, the new model is even better at image reconstruction. This intelligence gives the model even better awareness to pick the most accurate engine data to reconstruct scenes closer to ground truth.
  • Finer Developer Control: The new model provides developers with finer control for temporal accumulation, providing precise tuning of model response for even better image quality.

The new version of the feature is releasing today, and jamming the second-gen transformer model into supported games is done via the Nvidia App rather than from inside your games' settings screens. You just need to select a title from within the Nvidia App itself, navigate to the 'DLSS Override - Model Presets' entry and select 'Preset F' from the 'Ray Reconstruction' dropdown menu. Apply it and you should be set.

DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction supporting games

Alan Wake 2

EVERSPACE 2

NTE (Neverness to Everness)

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora

F1 25

Portal with RTX

Backrooms: Escape Together

FBC: Firebreak

PRAGMATA

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 (Coming August 20th)

Half-Life 2 RTX

Resident Evil Requiem

Crimson Desert

Hogwarts Legacy

Samson

Cyberpunk 2077

I Am Jesus Christ

Star Wars Outlaws

Death Relives

Incursion Red River

Subliminal

Directive 8020

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

Sword of Justice

DOOM: The Dark Ages

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2

The First Descendant

Enlisted

NARAKA: BLADEPOINT

War Thunder

While complete image fidelity across all ray or path traced games is by no means a 100% solved problem, it's clear that DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction is able to deliver a more stable image when it's in use. And it's not just about giving you a more stable image with less 'boiling' textures and trails, either, it's adding back in more detail to a scene that would have otherwise been lost.

You can see that especially in the below video for Resident Evil Requiem's opening scene. The textures on the white car at the beginning are still shimmering behind the rain effects using the older model, but are almost entirely stable with DLSS 4.5 RR enabled. But it's the extra detail on the ground that highlights what the new second-gen transformer model is capable of here.

DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction on left, DLSS Ray Reconstruction on the right

Of course we're going to highlight what it looks like in Nvidia's poster child for all things DLSS: Cyberpunk 2077. In the two videos below you can see where that extra temporal stability really makes a difference. In this first video, inside a store, you can see the striping on the ground as the viewport shifts, which is completely absent from the improved DLSS 4.5 RR version.

You might have to watch it loop through a couple of times to see what I mean, but if you focus on the older version on the right you will see, when the view moves to the floor, that there is an after image of essentially the edge of the screen imprinted on the floor. This fades quickly, but is noticeable.

DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction on left, DLSS Ray Reconstruction on the right

Outside, looking up at the ceiling of this underpass you can see where the textures resolve far, far quicker than before. The different areas of the ceiling using the previous version of RR almost seem like they can't make up their mind what they should look like, while DLSS 4.5 RR comes in with far more certainty.

DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction on left, DLSS Ray Reconstruction on the right

My final example comes from Alan Wake 2 and its own heavy use of path tracing and the denoising steps that are vital to the game's fidelity. To be honest, the strange artifcating of Alan Wake 2 almost gets a pass from me, because the dreamlike trails around people kinda add to the weirdness of the game. But it's not meant to look like that.

You can see from the dancing man in the Elderwood Palace Lodge bar that those trails are almost entirely gone from the latest version of Ray Reconstruction. But, notably, they are not completely resolved. There is still some level of artifacting around his feet as he shuffles around the wooden floor.

Though it is worth noting here you can also see the enhanced level of detail the second-gen transformer is adding back in. If you look to the wooden floor in the room behind the dancing dude you will see the planks are more clearly represented.

DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction on left, DLSS Ray Reconstruction on the right

So yes, there is still some work to be done before we can say that path tracing visuals have been perfected, but this is still a worthy upgrade. And honestly, we probably need a mixture of both improved AI modelling and more powerful hardware to be able to add more traced light bounces into a frame. But in these tech-starved times of ours, hoping for more horsepower when the datacentres want to jealously hoard all the compute for themselves is a fool's game.

But DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction is a definite improvement over Nvidia's previous versions. Sure, a lot of the improvements are only really telling when you're specifically looking for them, but equally some of that smearing and the 'boiling' textures are absolutely things I can do without.

Ray Reconstruction also remains RTX agnostic in that it will function across all generations of GeForce RTX GPUs, and isn't really any more draining upon your PC's resources than the previous version. Though, as a whole, it remains true the transformer-based DLSS features weigh more heavily upon your system's performance on older generations of RTX hardware than the RTX 50-series.

But I would say that's less of an issue for Ray Reconstruction than Super Resolution. One is for helping resolve high-end path tracing where a massive performance hit is expected, and the other is specifically designed to get you more performance. You're only really going to want to be doing heavy path traced gaming on high-end cards of the Ada and RTX Blackwell generations, whereas Turing and Ampere GPUs could do with all the help they can get.

]]> <![CDATA[ There's a looming GPU supply crisis, which means prices are likely to get a whole lot worse. And it's not just because of memory ]]> A couple weeks back I noted that I'd been tracking GPU prices on an almost weekly basis for a year now, and that things have never been worse. Well, PC Partner—one of the biggest manufacturers of graphics cards you've probably never heard of—suggests it's going to get even worse. And probably quickly.

PC Partner makes a ton of graphics cards for its consumer facing brands Zotac, Inno3D, and Manli. I've visited one of its main factories in Dongguan, China, and it's production lines are big. So when Singaporean outlet, The Straits Times, notes the company as saying that the supply of graphics cards is going to get real tight in the coming months it's worth listening.

And the worst part about it is that apparently it's going to be the entry level cards that will be the most adversely affected. With severe shortages comes increased prices, and while Nvidia cards with VRAM capacities of 8 GB haven't had the spiking price tags of their more heavily memory'd cousins, it looks like it won't be long before they do.

Benchlife, reporting on the PC Partner announcement, has itself confirmed that supply of Nvidia's RTX Blackwell GPUs in the third quarter of this year is below the second quarter, and that supply at the end of the year will be even lower than that. It also notes that this isn't purely down to the constrained supply of GPUs and memory owing to the demands of the data centre elites, but that other parts of the graphics card manufacturing process—such as PCBs and power componentry—are also suffering from long lead times compared with last year.

Given that Nvidia RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB and RTX 5070 graphics cards are both now batting around the $800 mark, it's mighty concerning that the more affordable end of the GPU spectrum look set to get slammed with higher prices, too. The doom disciple in me fears for a world where an RTX 5050 costs $500.

Though it can only cost $500 if someone is willing to pay that and surely, surely no-one would. Would they?

But it's not just going to be Nvidia cards though. It has been GeForce GPUs which have been affected more by the most recent price spike (though RX 9000 series cards have also had their fair share of price increases immediately after launch), but PC Partner is also the contract manufacturer of Sapphire GPUs, one of AMD's biggest graphics card makers, so I don't doubt it was talking to those cards, too. Especially if part of the supply constraints are around other components all GPUs need to live.

And if AMD cards get priced out of the reach of us mere PC gaming mortals, then there will be no alternatives for us.

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/theres-a-looming-gpu-supply-crisis-which-means-prices-are-likely-to-get-a-whole-lot-worse-and-its-not-just-because-of-memory/ RiEePbvUQxiY7cruCkEkYa Mon, 24 Aug 2026 12:17:42 +0000 Mon, 24 Aug 2026 12:19:28 +0000 false false false

A couple weeks back I noted that I'd been tracking GPU prices on an almost weekly basis for a year now, and that things have never been worse. Well, PC Partner—one of the biggest manufacturers of graphics cards you've probably never heard of—suggests it's going to get even worse. And probably quickly.

PC Partner makes a ton of graphics cards for its consumer facing brands Zotac, Inno3D, and Manli. I've visited one of its main factories in Dongguan, China, and it's production lines are big. So when Singaporean outlet, The Straits Times, notes the company as saying that the supply of graphics cards is going to get real tight in the coming months it's worth listening.

And the worst part about it is that apparently it's going to be the entry level cards that will be the most adversely affected. With severe shortages comes increased prices, and while Nvidia cards with VRAM capacities of 8 GB haven't had the spiking price tags of their more heavily memory'd cousins, it looks like it won't be long before they do.

Benchlife, reporting on the PC Partner announcement, has itself confirmed that supply of Nvidia's RTX Blackwell GPUs in the third quarter of this year is below the second quarter, and that supply at the end of the year will be even lower than that. It also notes that this isn't purely down to the constrained supply of GPUs and memory owing to the demands of the data centre elites, but that other parts of the graphics card manufacturing process—such as PCBs and power componentry—are also suffering from long lead times compared with last year.

Given that Nvidia RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB and RTX 5070 graphics cards are both now batting around the $800 mark, it's mighty concerning that the more affordable end of the GPU spectrum look set to get slammed with higher prices, too. The doom disciple in me fears for a world where an RTX 5050 costs $500.

Though it can only cost $500 if someone is willing to pay that and surely, surely no-one would. Would they?

But it's not just going to be Nvidia cards though. It has been GeForce GPUs which have been affected more by the most recent price spike (though RX 9000 series cards have also had their fair share of price increases immediately after launch), but PC Partner is also the contract manufacturer of Sapphire GPUs, one of AMD's biggest graphics card makers, so I don't doubt it was talking to those cards, too. Especially if part of the supply constraints are around other components all GPUs need to live.

And if AMD cards get priced out of the reach of us mere PC gaming mortals, then there will be no alternatives for us.

]]> <![CDATA[ Don't tell Nvidia: 56% of you are willing to pay over $600 for your next graphics card... and 19% would spend over $1000 😮 ]]> We've been tracking graphics card prices for the past twelve months and after yet another pricing surge last week, there's been a wave of depression sweeping the PC Gamer offices. It's Nvidia GPUs that have been hit the hardest, with the ludicrous situation where the cheapest RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB we can find is more expensive than the cheapest RTX 5070.

What's even more ludicrous—and surely entirely unsustainable—is that both those cards are both close to $800. These are the fourth and fifth tiers of Nvidia's RTX 50-series lineup and that pricing is utterly punitive for PC gamers.

So, that had me wondering what this might mean for the next generation of cards, and how much you dear people, our PC Gamer readers would accept paying for your next graphics card. So we've been asking: How much would you be willing to spend on a new GPU? And honestly, the answers have surprised me; you're willing to spend way more than I could!

How much would you be willing to spend on a new graphics card?

Given the recent price hikes, here's what the PC Gamer audience be okay spending on a new card

Votes (%)

$600 - $800
22
$400 - $500
18
$800 - $1000
15
$300 - $400
10
$1500+
10
$1000 - $1500
9
Up to $200
8
$200 - $300
7
Votes (%) Data
ProductValue
$600 - $80022
$400 - $50018
$800 - $100015
$300 - $40010
$1500+10
$1000 - $15009
Up to $2008
$200 - $3007

The recent pricing surge is all down to the AI-backed memory crisis, and these 16 and 12 GB cards respectively are seeing their pricing rocket as a result of the healthy dollop of GDDR7 memory attached to the GPUs. But it's not just production constraints pushing up the price of cards going into retail, it's also going to partly be down to AI enthusiasts looking for Nvidia GPUs with high VRAM capacities to run their local AI systems.

And yes, once more PC gamers are suffering at the hands of folk using both the technology and our graphics cards for things other than gaming and massively spiking the prices as a result.

MSI RTX 5070 Ti Gaming Trio OC Plus graphics card under a red light

(Image credit: Future)

But I'm surprised that a hefty 56% of readers who responded to our poll would be willing to spend $600 or more on their next graphics card, though I think the number that got me thinking most was just how many of you would actually drop $1000 or more on a new GPU. 19% is a not statistically insignificant percentage, and that is going to make Jen-Hsun's face light up as he considers pricing the new RTX 6070 Ti at $1,000, despite looking at dropping the VRAM capacity to 4 GB of GDDR5 because of the ongoing memory crisis. DLSS 5 will take up the slack, right?

Statistically speaking, it's also interesting to see the parity between the 10% of readers looking at the $300 - $400 segment and the other 10% waaaaay down the other end of the spectrum happy to spend $1500 or more.

But the $600 - $800 segment is the most popular among our readers, with 22% of the vote, and $400 - $500 just behind that with 18%. That's probably where I'd find myself, to be honest.

Given the state of the market, maybe you guys are just being realists in terms of what new GPUs will cost. But it's still kinda surprising to see so few people around the budget end of the market; that's something I've always seen as a strength of PC gaming, but it's also been an underserved colour in the GPU spectrum of recent times.

Let us know where you fit in the spectrum in the comments below!

This week we want to know how you feel about monitors...

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/dont-tell-nvidia-56-percent-of-you-are-willing-to-pay-over-usd600-for-your-next-graphics-card-and-19-percent-would-spend-over-usd1000/ Phkd8WvDQLcNd3Vo45frQd Fri, 21 Aug 2026 13:31:44 +0000 false false false

We've been tracking graphics card prices for the past twelve months and after yet another pricing surge last week, there's been a wave of depression sweeping the PC Gamer offices. It's Nvidia GPUs that have been hit the hardest, with the ludicrous situation where the cheapest RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB we can find is more expensive than the cheapest RTX 5070.

What's even more ludicrous—and surely entirely unsustainable—is that both those cards are both close to $800. These are the fourth and fifth tiers of Nvidia's RTX 50-series lineup and that pricing is utterly punitive for PC gamers.

So, that had me wondering what this might mean for the next generation of cards, and how much you dear people, our PC Gamer readers would accept paying for your next graphics card. So we've been asking: How much would you be willing to spend on a new GPU? And honestly, the answers have surprised me; you're willing to spend way more than I could!

How much would you be willing to spend on a new graphics card?

Given the recent price hikes, here's what the PC Gamer audience be okay spending on a new card

Votes (%)

$600 - $800
22
$400 - $500
18
$800 - $1000
15
$300 - $400
10
$1500+
10
$1000 - $1500
9
Up to $200
8
$200 - $300
7
Votes (%) Data
ProductValue
$600 - $80022
$400 - $50018
$800 - $100015
$300 - $40010
$1500+10
$1000 - $15009
Up to $2008
$200 - $3007

The recent pricing surge is all down to the AI-backed memory crisis, and these 16 and 12 GB cards respectively are seeing their pricing rocket as a result of the healthy dollop of GDDR7 memory attached to the GPUs. But it's not just production constraints pushing up the price of cards going into retail, it's also going to partly be down to AI enthusiasts looking for Nvidia GPUs with high VRAM capacities to run their local AI systems.

And yes, once more PC gamers are suffering at the hands of folk using both the technology and our graphics cards for things other than gaming and massively spiking the prices as a result.

MSI RTX 5070 Ti Gaming Trio OC Plus graphics card under a red light

(Image credit: Future)

But I'm surprised that a hefty 56% of readers who responded to our poll would be willing to spend $600 or more on their next graphics card, though I think the number that got me thinking most was just how many of you would actually drop $1000 or more on a new GPU. 19% is a not statistically insignificant percentage, and that is going to make Jen-Hsun's face light up as he considers pricing the new RTX 6070 Ti at $1,000, despite looking at dropping the VRAM capacity to 4 GB of GDDR5 because of the ongoing memory crisis. DLSS 5 will take up the slack, right?

Statistically speaking, it's also interesting to see the parity between the 10% of readers looking at the $300 - $400 segment and the other 10% waaaaay down the other end of the spectrum happy to spend $1500 or more.

But the $600 - $800 segment is the most popular among our readers, with 22% of the vote, and $400 - $500 just behind that with 18%. That's probably where I'd find myself, to be honest.

Given the state of the market, maybe you guys are just being realists in terms of what new GPUs will cost. But it's still kinda surprising to see so few people around the budget end of the market; that's something I've always seen as a strength of PC gaming, but it's also been an underserved colour in the GPU spectrum of recent times.

Let us know where you fit in the spectrum in the comments below!

This week we want to know how you feel about monitors...

]]> <![CDATA[ The RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB currently costs more than the RTX 5070 and RX 9070 XT, and I know which one I'd pick ]]> Prices for graphics cards are still on the rise. Just last week, we noted prices were at the worst we've seen them in the past 12 months, but after further checks this morning, they're looking worse again still.

Among the worst offenders, the RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB. With memory being the main driving factor of price hikes in the past 12 months, it's perhaps no surprise that this memory-laden card is rising faster than most. Yet prices are beyond the pale.

In my search for a brand new card from a reputable retailer, this was the cheapest I could find: an MSI Shadow RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB for $780. Not only is that more expensive than the best value RTX 5070 I could find at $763, but it's far in excess of AMD's RX 9070 XT. That's just $720. It's also in excess of the RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB, which I've found at $430. A $350 premium for the 16 GB model.

There's little reason to purchase an RTX 5060 Ti for gaming at that price. It wasn't even a card I liked much at MSRP. I like lots of VRAM as much as the next guy, and it makes a difference to the overall performance, but there's a limit to how much I'd be willing to spend to get it.

Lowest price per GPU

We've been measuring the lowest available price of each current-gen GPU since August 14, 2025.

Lowest pricing (Price, $)
Week
Lowest pricing Data
Timestamp (Week)AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE (Price, $)AMD RX 9060 XT 16 GB (Price, $)AMD RX 9060 XT 8 GB (Price, $)AMD RX 9070 (Price, $)AMD RX 9070 XT (Price, $)Intel Arc B570 (Price, $)Intel Arc B580 (Price, $)Nvidia RTX 5050 (Price, $)Nvidia RTX 5060 (Price, $)Nvidia RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB (Price, $)Nvidia RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB (Price, $)Nvidia RTX 5070 (Price, $)Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti (Price, $)Nvidia RTX 5080 (Price, $)
1N/A3702806007002302602503004303685507801100
2N/A3702706007002302602503004303405507501099
3N/A3702805507002302502502914303705247501000
4N/A3702805506952302502502964303455467501000
5N/A3502706006702302502503004303404817491000
6N/A350270600670230250240289379340499749929
7N/A350270550650230250240299430350520750999
8N/A350270550650200250250299430342500749980
9N/A350270560650220250250299430323500750999
10N/A360270550600210250250299430340480730989
11N/A340250550600200250230280400320489699990
12N/A350275530600200250220279400320500730989
13N/A3502805306002002502202794203425277501000
14N/A3702805306002022502202794203135407501000
15N/A3802885306002022402002794303504997491000
16N/A3802885306202022402002704303504997501100
17N/A3903105806602002502352604303305497501230
18N/A3903105807002002502402904503305408291268
19N/A4003105807202002602402994503305498991380
20N/A44031060072020029024029952033062010001350
21N/A4403505907302502902602995203516209501365
22N/A4003466307302503002602995203606209501365
23N/A4403466307302503002603405203606309501290
24N/A4403466207302503002603405203606259501290
25N/A4403466107302503002603495503606309501250
26N/A4403406107302503002903495503606049501260
27N/A4403406307302503002903495703606409501290
28N/A4403466207202502902903495153906309001250
29N/A4493506207102502902903495003906369901290
30N/A4403506207102602902903305003906309901290
31N/A4403506206702602902903305003805999901290
32N/A4303606207102602902903105153805999901290
33N/A4303606007102602902903494904005999801290
34N/A4403606207102602902903495503805999801270
35N/A4303606007002603042903505503805999001290
365504403606007002603002903405503705999801250
375504403506007002503042903405703705999801250
385504403506007002503042903405703705999801250
395004003606007002502982903405703305999201250
405004303606007002602912903405653305999551250
415004303606007002502902903395603305609001250
425504503606356902602902903505703805509501250
4350047037065072026031029935965042075510301290

Anyways, I wouldn't recommend one buy the RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB, either. I'd personally pick the RX 9070 XT. Or the RX 9070 GRE, which is the only graphics card currently under its MSRP. It's $500 at Newegg with a discount code.

Generally, Radeon cards haven't seen meteoric price rises like their GeForce counterparts. That's not to say that prices haven't increased over the past year—they absolutely have—but they've seen a more measured swing. Perhaps that's because anyone looking for a more powerful GPU with lots of VRAM for local AI is likely to choose Nvidia over AMD, or the newer GDDR7 chips used in RTX 50-series cards have higher spot prices. Either way, we haven't seen runaway prices for AMD's cards as of yet.

Here are all the USD prices I've recorded from my latest search, with the MSRP and percentage increase (or in one case, decrease) noted:

Current graphics card prices (August 18) vs MSRP

Graphics card


MSRP

Best price (August 18)

Difference (%)


Arc B570 10 GB

$220.00

$259.99

+18.18%


5050 8 GB

$249.00

$299.00

+20.08%


Arc B580 12 GB

$249.00

$309.99

+24.49%


RTX 5060 8 GB

$299.00

$359.00

+20.07%


RX 9060 XT 8 GB

$299.00

$399.99

+33.78%


RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB

$379.00

$429.99

+13.45%


RX 9060 XT 16 GB

$349.00

$469.99

+34.67%


RX 9070 GRE 12 GB

$549.00

$499.99

-8.93%


RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB

$429.00

$779.99

+81.82%


RX 9070 16 GB

$549.00

$649.99

+18.40%


RX 9070 XT 16 GB

$599.00

$719.99

+20.20%


RTX 5070 12 GB

$549.00

$763.30

+39.03%


RTX 5070 Ti 16 GB

$749.00

$1,087.99

+45.26%


RTX 5080 16 GB

$999.00

$1,478.99

+48.05%


RTX 5090 32 GB

$1,999.00

$4,298.00

+115.01%


]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/the-rtx-5060-ti-16-gb-currently-costs-more-than-the-rtx-5070-and-rx-9070-xt-and-i-know-which-one-id-pick/ 9PfHyXzFAQbat8f5q7DfAj Tue, 18 Aug 2026 11:37:20 +0000 Tue, 18 Aug 2026 11:57:13 +0000 false false false

Prices for graphics cards are still on the rise. Just last week, we noted prices were at the worst we've seen them in the past 12 months, but after further checks this morning, they're looking worse again still.

Among the worst offenders, the RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB. With memory being the main driving factor of price hikes in the past 12 months, it's perhaps no surprise that this memory-laden card is rising faster than most. Yet prices are beyond the pale.

In my search for a brand new card from a reputable retailer, this was the cheapest I could find: an MSI Shadow RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB for $780. Not only is that more expensive than the best value RTX 5070 I could find at $763, but it's far in excess of AMD's RX 9070 XT. That's just $720. It's also in excess of the RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB, which I've found at $430. A $350 premium for the 16 GB model.

There's little reason to purchase an RTX 5060 Ti for gaming at that price. It wasn't even a card I liked much at MSRP. I like lots of VRAM as much as the next guy, and it makes a difference to the overall performance, but there's a limit to how much I'd be willing to spend to get it.

Lowest price per GPU

We've been measuring the lowest available price of each current-gen GPU since August 14, 2025.

Lowest pricing (Price, $)
Week
Lowest pricing Data
Timestamp (Week)AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE (Price, $)AMD RX 9060 XT 16 GB (Price, $)AMD RX 9060 XT 8 GB (Price, $)AMD RX 9070 (Price, $)AMD RX 9070 XT (Price, $)Intel Arc B570 (Price, $)Intel Arc B580 (Price, $)Nvidia RTX 5050 (Price, $)Nvidia RTX 5060 (Price, $)Nvidia RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB (Price, $)Nvidia RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB (Price, $)Nvidia RTX 5070 (Price, $)Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti (Price, $)Nvidia RTX 5080 (Price, $)
1N/A3702806007002302602503004303685507801100
2N/A3702706007002302602503004303405507501099
3N/A3702805507002302502502914303705247501000
4N/A3702805506952302502502964303455467501000
5N/A3502706006702302502503004303404817491000
6N/A350270600670230250240289379340499749929
7N/A350270550650230250240299430350520750999
8N/A350270550650200250250299430342500749980
9N/A350270560650220250250299430323500750999
10N/A360270550600210250250299430340480730989
11N/A340250550600200250230280400320489699990
12N/A350275530600200250220279400320500730989
13N/A3502805306002002502202794203425277501000
14N/A3702805306002022502202794203135407501000
15N/A3802885306002022402002794303504997491000
16N/A3802885306202022402002704303504997501100
17N/A3903105806602002502352604303305497501230
18N/A3903105807002002502402904503305408291268
19N/A4003105807202002602402994503305498991380
20N/A44031060072020029024029952033062010001350
21N/A4403505907302502902602995203516209501365
22N/A4003466307302503002602995203606209501365
23N/A4403466307302503002603405203606309501290
24N/A4403466207302503002603405203606259501290
25N/A4403466107302503002603495503606309501250
26N/A4403406107302503002903495503606049501260
27N/A4403406307302503002903495703606409501290
28N/A4403466207202502902903495153906309001250
29N/A4493506207102502902903495003906369901290
30N/A4403506207102602902903305003906309901290
31N/A4403506206702602902903305003805999901290
32N/A4303606207102602902903105153805999901290
33N/A4303606007102602902903494904005999801290
34N/A4403606207102602902903495503805999801270
35N/A4303606007002603042903505503805999001290
365504403606007002603002903405503705999801250
375504403506007002503042903405703705999801250
385504403506007002503042903405703705999801250
395004003606007002502982903405703305999201250
405004303606007002602912903405653305999551250
415004303606007002502902903395603305609001250
425504503606356902602902903505703805509501250
4350047037065072026031029935965042075510301290

Anyways, I wouldn't recommend one buy the RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB, either. I'd personally pick the RX 9070 XT. Or the RX 9070 GRE, which is the only graphics card currently under its MSRP. It's $500 at Newegg with a discount code.

Generally, Radeon cards haven't seen meteoric price rises like their GeForce counterparts. That's not to say that prices haven't increased over the past year—they absolutely have—but they've seen a more measured swing. Perhaps that's because anyone looking for a more powerful GPU with lots of VRAM for local AI is likely to choose Nvidia over AMD, or the newer GDDR7 chips used in RTX 50-series cards have higher spot prices. Either way, we haven't seen runaway prices for AMD's cards as of yet.

Here are all the USD prices I've recorded from my latest search, with the MSRP and percentage increase (or in one case, decrease) noted:

Current graphics card prices (August 18) vs MSRP

Graphics card


MSRP

Best price (August 18)

Difference (%)


Arc B570 10 GB

$220.00

$259.99

+18.18%


5050 8 GB

$249.00

$299.00

+20.08%


Arc B580 12 GB

$249.00

$309.99

+24.49%


RTX 5060 8 GB

$299.00

$359.00

+20.07%


RX 9060 XT 8 GB

$299.00

$399.99

+33.78%


RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB

$379.00

$429.99

+13.45%


RX 9060 XT 16 GB

$349.00

$469.99

+34.67%


RX 9070 GRE 12 GB

$549.00

$499.99

-8.93%


RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB

$429.00

$779.99

+81.82%


RX 9070 16 GB

$549.00

$649.99

+18.40%


RX 9070 XT 16 GB

$599.00

$719.99

+20.20%


RTX 5070 12 GB

$549.00

$763.30

+39.03%


RTX 5070 Ti 16 GB

$749.00

$1,087.99

+45.26%


RTX 5080 16 GB

$999.00

$1,478.99

+48.05%


RTX 5090 32 GB

$1,999.00

$4,298.00

+115.01%


]]> <![CDATA[ We've been tracking graphics card prices for exactly one year and it's never been worse than this ]]> We first started tracking the prices of individual graphics cards on August 14, 2025, and since then we've checked on an almost weekly cadence (we've got to have holidays, y'know). And it's not been a pretty year.

In the interests of full disclosure, the methodology behind this data capture has been to have one editor spend an inordinate amount of their work day tracking down the cheapest available version of each of the current generation of GPUs from Nvidia, AMD, and yes, even Intel. They must be new in-box, so no refurbs or open box sales, and they must be from reputable sellers—no vendors on Amazon called sdfgwegggggwawfdasfsreqwwqeccccawef, in other words.

This data captures the very cheapest prices these GPUs were available for throughout the year, but what it doesn't capture is the average price, which has often been much higher. Sometimes there might be a good deal on a particular graphics card, while the rest of the market is significantly more expensive. But our idea was to capture what a reader could spend in a particular week to bag the GPU chipset they wanted. And we're carrying that on, with our weekly updates page always housing links to the cheapest cards we can find.

Back in August of last year, things weren't particularly pretty at all. There was a mix of low stock and high demand, which meant that graphics cards from all the various manufacturers were well over their respective MSRPs… and had been since launch. Every GPU launched in 2025 had one thing in common: There was little initial supply and the promised launch prices generally evaporated in a puff of corporate greed.

And that was all before the RAMpocalypse took hold.

Changes in minimum GPU chipset price over 12 months

GPU

August 14, 2025

August 14, 2026

Change ($)

Change (%)

Intel Arc B570

$230

$260

+$30

+13.0%

Nvidia RTX 5050

$250

$299

+$49

+19.6%

Intel Arc B580

$260

$310

+$50

+19.2%

AMD RX 9060 XT 8 GB

$280

$370

+$90

+32.1%

Nvidia RTX 5060

$300

$359

+$59

+19.7%

Nvidia RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB

$368

$420

+$52

+14.1%

AMD RX 9060 XT 16 GB

$370

$470

+$100

+27.0%

Nvidia RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB

$430

$650

+$220

+51.2%

Nvidia RTX 5070

$550

$755

+$205

+37.3%

AMD RX 9070

$600

$650

+$50

+8.3%

AMD RX 9070 XT

$700

$720

+$20

+2.9%

Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti

$780

$1030

+$250

+32.1%

Nvidia RTX 5080

$1100

$1290

+$190

+17.3%

Nvidia RTX 5090

$2400

$4400

+$2000

+83.3%

I am getting a lump in my throat as I write this—pretty much every GPU was available at or under its MSRP.

There was a beautifully innocent, AI ignorant moment in October, however, when—and I am getting a lump in my throat as I write this—pretty much every GPU except the RTX 5090 was available at or under its MSRP. We've never had it so good…

But then almost as soon as the Black Friday sales wrapped up at the end of November things went—and I hope you'll forgive the technical industry jargon here—utterly tits up.

The memory crisis started to bite into the GPU market, and graphics card prices started to rise back up again, starting with the RTX 5080, which then dragged up almost every GPU up the price ladder into the new year.

Lowest price per GPU

We've been measuring the lowest available price of each current-gen GPU since August 14, 2025.

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, $)AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE (Price, $)
11100780700600550430368370280300250260230N/A
21099750700600550430340370270300250260230N/A
31000750700550524430370370280291250250230N/A
41000750695550546430345370280296250250230N/A
51000749670600481430340350270300250250230N/A
6929749670600499379340350270289240250230N/A
7999750650550520430350350270299240250230N/A
8980749650550500430342350270299250250200N/A
9999750650560500430323350270299250250220N/A
10989730600550480430340360270299250250210N/A
11990699600550489400320340250280230250200N/A
12989730600530500400320350275279220250200N/A
131000750600530527420342350280279220250200N/A
141000750600530540420313370280279220250202N/A
151000749600530499430350380288279200240202N/A
161100750620530499430350380288270200240202N/A
171230750660580549430330390310260235250200N/A
181268829700580540450330390310290240250200N/A
191380899720580549450330400310299240260200N/A
2013501000720600620520330440310299240290200N/A
211365950730590620520351440350299260290250N/A
221365950730630620520360400346299260300250N/A
231290950730630630520360440346340260300250N/A
241290950730620625520360440346340260300250N/A
251250950730610630550360440346349260300250N/A
261260950730610604550360440340349290300250N/A
271290950730630640570360440340349290300250N/A
281250900720620630515390440346349290290250N/A
291290990710620636500390449350349290290250N/A
301290990710620630500390440350330290290260N/A
311290990670620599500380440350330290290260N/A
321290990710620599515380430360310290290260N/A
331290980710600599490400430360349290290260N/A
341270980710620599550380440360349290290260N/A
351290900700600599550380430360350290304260N/A
361250980700600599550370440360340290300260550
371250980700600599570370440350340290304250550
381250980700600599570370440350340290304250550
391250920700600599570330400360340290298250500
401250955700600599565330430360340290291260500
411250900700600560560330430360339290290250500
421250950690635550570380450360350290290260550
4312901030720650755650420470370359299310260500

Thankfully we haven't experienced the same sort of exponential price growth that has blighted either the system memory or storage markets with graphics cards. Yes, the RTX 5090 has risen in price by 83% to $4,400, but everything else hit a plateau relatively quickly and we've been living in that new normal more or less happily for most of this year.

Okay, I say 'relatively happily' but the pricing for both the RTX 5080 and RTX 5070 Ti did hit levels that meant they could be more or less ignored by the general PC gaming populace who would never be able to countenance spending that much on a single component. And we did actually stop tracking the RTX 5090 when it hit $3,000 for that same reason: there was just no point recommending it.

And that relative stasis point for GPU pricing—there was individual fluctuation of GPUs, but little of significance—continued until, well, yesterday. I came back from a week away with the family to find Nvidia's mid-range graphics card market determined to wipe itself out. The RTX 5070 had been knocking around its $549 MSRP for a while, but all of a sudden that is over.

Tracking 12 and 16 GB graphics card pricing over 12 months

Boom, prices rocket up to $700, now $755, and largely $800 across the board. For a fourth-tier GPU that was barely an improvement over the RTX 4070 Super of the previous generation once you take out DLSS-related RTX Blackwell luxuries. The RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB card has followed it, like a rat up the ludicrous pricing drainpipe, dragging an increase of 51% up there with it.

So, we're now at a point where I'm recommending that PC Gamer readers do not buy any Nvidia RTX 50-series GPU with more than 8 GB of VRAM, simply because they've priced themselves out of any form of relevance for gamers. Thankfully, the AMD RDNA 4 cards are still priced almost sensibly, though there are hints that will soon change. But for now the 12 and 16 GB Navi 48-based cards—the RX 9070 GRE, RX 9070, and RX 9070 XT—are all priced under the level of the RTX 5070.

But we're still at a point where the top five Nvidia GeForce GPUs are priced at $650 or above and that makes me want to sick up a bit. Y'know, arching my back like a cat at the thought of an RTX 5060 Ti costing that much. Ack. Acccckhh.

Nvidia RTX 5080 Founders Edition graphics card from different angles

(Image credit: Future)

And where do we go from here? I'll be continuing to track the pricing of graphics cards most weeks (43 out of 52 ain't bad) so we'll see when the Radeon price bump comes into effect in retail, and then we have to figure out if this generation of graphics cards is then best just left to the datacentres and AI sickos.

What happens to the next generation of GPUs? There's been the expectation of a Super refresh for the RTX Blackwell range, which can only really offer a bump in VRAM given the silicon limitations of each GPU, and then how do you price that? Here's an RTX 5080 Super, that'll be $1,499, thanks. RTX 5070 Ti Super, ma'am? Of course it has a stupid name, but we're still going to charge you $1,200.

Thank you sir, may I have another.

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/weve-been-tracking-graphics-card-prices-for-exactly-one-year-and-its-never-been-worse-than-this/ bps332umEScucB2kxutE76 Fri, 14 Aug 2026 16:27:24 +0000 Fri, 14 Aug 2026 16:27:29 +0000 false false false

We first started tracking the prices of individual graphics cards on August 14, 2025, and since then we've checked on an almost weekly cadence (we've got to have holidays, y'know). And it's not been a pretty year.

In the interests of full disclosure, the methodology behind this data capture has been to have one editor spend an inordinate amount of their work day tracking down the cheapest available version of each of the current generation of GPUs from Nvidia, AMD, and yes, even Intel. They must be new in-box, so no refurbs or open box sales, and they must be from reputable sellers—no vendors on Amazon called sdfgwegggggwawfdasfsreqwwqeccccawef, in other words.

This data captures the very cheapest prices these GPUs were available for throughout the year, but what it doesn't capture is the average price, which has often been much higher. Sometimes there might be a good deal on a particular graphics card, while the rest of the market is significantly more expensive. But our idea was to capture what a reader could spend in a particular week to bag the GPU chipset they wanted. And we're carrying that on, with our weekly updates page always housing links to the cheapest cards we can find.

Back in August of last year, things weren't particularly pretty at all. There was a mix of low stock and high demand, which meant that graphics cards from all the various manufacturers were well over their respective MSRPs… and had been since launch. Every GPU launched in 2025 had one thing in common: There was little initial supply and the promised launch prices generally evaporated in a puff of corporate greed.

And that was all before the RAMpocalypse took hold.

Changes in minimum GPU chipset price over 12 months

GPU

August 14, 2025

August 14, 2026

Change ($)

Change (%)

Intel Arc B570

$230

$260

+$30

+13.0%

Nvidia RTX 5050

$250

$299

+$49

+19.6%

Intel Arc B580

$260

$310

+$50

+19.2%

AMD RX 9060 XT 8 GB

$280

$370

+$90

+32.1%

Nvidia RTX 5060

$300

$359

+$59

+19.7%

Nvidia RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB

$368

$420

+$52

+14.1%

AMD RX 9060 XT 16 GB

$370

$470

+$100

+27.0%

Nvidia RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB

$430

$650

+$220

+51.2%

Nvidia RTX 5070

$550

$755

+$205

+37.3%

AMD RX 9070

$600

$650

+$50

+8.3%

AMD RX 9070 XT

$700

$720

+$20

+2.9%

Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti

$780

$1030

+$250

+32.1%

Nvidia RTX 5080

$1100

$1290

+$190

+17.3%

Nvidia RTX 5090

$2400

$4400

+$2000

+83.3%

I am getting a lump in my throat as I write this—pretty much every GPU was available at or under its MSRP.

There was a beautifully innocent, AI ignorant moment in October, however, when—and I am getting a lump in my throat as I write this—pretty much every GPU except the RTX 5090 was available at or under its MSRP. We've never had it so good…

But then almost as soon as the Black Friday sales wrapped up at the end of November things went—and I hope you'll forgive the technical industry jargon here—utterly tits up.

The memory crisis started to bite into the GPU market, and graphics card prices started to rise back up again, starting with the RTX 5080, which then dragged up almost every GPU up the price ladder into the new year.

Lowest price per GPU

We've been measuring the lowest available price of each current-gen GPU since August 14, 2025.

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, $)AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE (Price, $)
11100780700600550430368370280300250260230N/A
21099750700600550430340370270300250260230N/A
31000750700550524430370370280291250250230N/A
41000750695550546430345370280296250250230N/A
51000749670600481430340350270300250250230N/A
6929749670600499379340350270289240250230N/A
7999750650550520430350350270299240250230N/A
8980749650550500430342350270299250250200N/A
9999750650560500430323350270299250250220N/A
10989730600550480430340360270299250250210N/A
11990699600550489400320340250280230250200N/A
12989730600530500400320350275279220250200N/A
131000750600530527420342350280279220250200N/A
141000750600530540420313370280279220250202N/A
151000749600530499430350380288279200240202N/A
161100750620530499430350380288270200240202N/A
171230750660580549430330390310260235250200N/A
181268829700580540450330390310290240250200N/A
191380899720580549450330400310299240260200N/A
2013501000720600620520330440310299240290200N/A
211365950730590620520351440350299260290250N/A
221365950730630620520360400346299260300250N/A
231290950730630630520360440346340260300250N/A
241290950730620625520360440346340260300250N/A
251250950730610630550360440346349260300250N/A
261260950730610604550360440340349290300250N/A
271290950730630640570360440340349290300250N/A
281250900720620630515390440346349290290250N/A
291290990710620636500390449350349290290250N/A
301290990710620630500390440350330290290260N/A
311290990670620599500380440350330290290260N/A
321290990710620599515380430360310290290260N/A
331290980710600599490400430360349290290260N/A
341270980710620599550380440360349290290260N/A
351290900700600599550380430360350290304260N/A
361250980700600599550370440360340290300260550
371250980700600599570370440350340290304250550
381250980700600599570370440350340290304250550
391250920700600599570330400360340290298250500
401250955700600599565330430360340290291260500
411250900700600560560330430360339290290250500
421250950690635550570380450360350290290260550
4312901030720650755650420470370359299310260500

Thankfully we haven't experienced the same sort of exponential price growth that has blighted either the system memory or storage markets with graphics cards. Yes, the RTX 5090 has risen in price by 83% to $4,400, but everything else hit a plateau relatively quickly and we've been living in that new normal more or less happily for most of this year.

Okay, I say 'relatively happily' but the pricing for both the RTX 5080 and RTX 5070 Ti did hit levels that meant they could be more or less ignored by the general PC gaming populace who would never be able to countenance spending that much on a single component. And we did actually stop tracking the RTX 5090 when it hit $3,000 for that same reason: there was just no point recommending it.

And that relative stasis point for GPU pricing—there was individual fluctuation of GPUs, but little of significance—continued until, well, yesterday. I came back from a week away with the family to find Nvidia's mid-range graphics card market determined to wipe itself out. The RTX 5070 had been knocking around its $549 MSRP for a while, but all of a sudden that is over.

Tracking 12 and 16 GB graphics card pricing over 12 months

Boom, prices rocket up to $700, now $755, and largely $800 across the board. For a fourth-tier GPU that was barely an improvement over the RTX 4070 Super of the previous generation once you take out DLSS-related RTX Blackwell luxuries. The RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB card has followed it, like a rat up the ludicrous pricing drainpipe, dragging an increase of 51% up there with it.

So, we're now at a point where I'm recommending that PC Gamer readers do not buy any Nvidia RTX 50-series GPU with more than 8 GB of VRAM, simply because they've priced themselves out of any form of relevance for gamers. Thankfully, the AMD RDNA 4 cards are still priced almost sensibly, though there are hints that will soon change. But for now the 12 and 16 GB Navi 48-based cards—the RX 9070 GRE, RX 9070, and RX 9070 XT—are all priced under the level of the RTX 5070.

But we're still at a point where the top five Nvidia GeForce GPUs are priced at $650 or above and that makes me want to sick up a bit. Y'know, arching my back like a cat at the thought of an RTX 5060 Ti costing that much. Ack. Acccckhh.

Nvidia RTX 5080 Founders Edition graphics card from different angles

(Image credit: Future)

And where do we go from here? I'll be continuing to track the pricing of graphics cards most weeks (43 out of 52 ain't bad) so we'll see when the Radeon price bump comes into effect in retail, and then we have to figure out if this generation of graphics cards is then best just left to the datacentres and AI sickos.

What happens to the next generation of GPUs? There's been the expectation of a Super refresh for the RTX Blackwell range, which can only really offer a bump in VRAM given the silicon limitations of each GPU, and then how do you price that? Here's an RTX 5080 Super, that'll be $1,499, thanks. RTX 5070 Ti Super, ma'am? Of course it has a stupid name, but we're still going to charge you $1,200.

Thank you sir, may I have another.

]]> <![CDATA[ The GPU price hike is here and you should avoid any Nvidia card with more than 8 GB VRAM, if you value your bank balance ]]> The big Nvidia price hike has begun and I think we can quite categorically state that if money means anything to you, you should ignore every GeForce GPU with more than 8 GB of VRAM right now. That's not a comment on the need gamers might have for high levels of memory in their graphics cards, it's all about the price.

We've previously reported that Nvidia graphics cards were expected to jump in price by up to 30% after Taiwanese outlet, Electronic Daily News reported the rising costs of GPU bundles of chips and memory. That was at the end of July and it seems like already retailers are putting the prices of their current stocks of cards up.

The most egregious is the cost of the Nvidia RTX 5070 today. I updated our page, which has been tracking the lowest available price of every current-gen GPU chipset, just yesterday and noted that the mid-range GeForce graphics card has hopped up from an almost-MSRP of $550 last week to a ludicrous $700. But that $700 card is now out of stock and the cheapest RTX 5070 I've found today is $755, with most sitting around the $800 mark.

That's actually far higher than the original 30% prediction. Going from $550 to $755 is fully a 37% increase.

That's around $800 for a graphics card I gave a 61% score to because it was a smaller, weaker GPU than the RTX 4070 Super card it was meant to be replacing. At least the odd positioning of the RTX 5070 being cheaper than the RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB card has been reversed, though that card itself is still a ludicrous $650.

As a PC gamer I honestly feel a bit like a lobster in a pot as the temperature is slowly rising in the water around me—powerless and in peril. These are not-great fourth- and fifth-tier GPUs going for what was absolutely top-end GeForce pricing not so long ago.

GPU price tracking

The minimum GPU chipset price tracked on an almost weekly cadence since August 14, 2025

Lowest pricing (Price, $)
Week
Lowest pricing Data
Timestamp (Week)Nvidia RTX 5070 (Price, $)Nvidia RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB (Price, $)AMD RX 9070 (Price, $)
1550430600
2550430600
3524430550
4546430550
5481430600
6499379600
7520430550
8500430550
9500430560
10480430550
11489400550
12500400530
13527420530
14540420530
15499430530
16499430530
17549430580
18540450580
19549450580
20620520600
21620520590
22620520630
23630520630
24625520620
25630550610
26604550610
27640570630
28630515620
29636500620
30630500620
31599500620
32599515620
33599490600
34599550620
35599550600
36599550600
37599570600
38599570600
39599570600
40599565600
41560560600
42550570635
43755650650

The reasons for this pricing rise are manifold, but largely it boils down to AI is ruining all our fun. For one thing, datacentres are hoovering up as much memory as providers can manufacture, and that inevitably means there is an impact on other forms of memory supply, such as VRAM. But you're also getting the AI curious, or the AI enthusiasts looking at GPUs with a bunch of VRAM to start experimenting with local models. But whatever the reasons, the prices of these gaming GPUs have become unsustainable.

So please, please don't pay them.

Not when there are excellent alternatives out there for much less. I know we're expecting AMD cards to follow suit with their own price increases, but at least for now they are far better value, and the RDNA 4 architecture is genuinely good.

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.

The Radeon RX 9070 GRE, another 12 GB GPU, is available for $500 at Newegg today and will deliver gaming performance practically on par with the RTX 5070. Sometimes a bit lower, but still very, very competitive. Especially when FSR4 is brought to bear on supporting games. And the Radeon RX 9070 (our favorite GPU right now) is $650, the same price as the RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB, has the same VRAM quotient, and absolutely slams it in our benchmarks.

These are dark times in the PC gaming hardware market, and for me the top five tiers of Nvidia graphics cards have now entirely priced themselves out of all proportion. I simply couldn't recommend any PC gamer who needs to keep track of what's in their bank account consider buying any one of them.

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/the-gpu-price-hike-is-here-and-you-should-avoid-any-nvidia-card-with-more-than-8-gb-vram-if-you-value-your-bank-balance/ ycKkZqtm9eN8rCHs797JLT Fri, 14 Aug 2026 12:16:09 +0000 Fri, 14 Aug 2026 12:16:13 +0000 false false false

The big Nvidia price hike has begun and I think we can quite categorically state that if money means anything to you, you should ignore every GeForce GPU with more than 8 GB of VRAM right now. That's not a comment on the need gamers might have for high levels of memory in their graphics cards, it's all about the price.

We've previously reported that Nvidia graphics cards were expected to jump in price by up to 30% after Taiwanese outlet, Electronic Daily News reported the rising costs of GPU bundles of chips and memory. That was at the end of July and it seems like already retailers are putting the prices of their current stocks of cards up.

The most egregious is the cost of the Nvidia RTX 5070 today. I updated our page, which has been tracking the lowest available price of every current-gen GPU chipset, just yesterday and noted that the mid-range GeForce graphics card has hopped up from an almost-MSRP of $550 last week to a ludicrous $700. But that $700 card is now out of stock and the cheapest RTX 5070 I've found today is $755, with most sitting around the $800 mark.

That's actually far higher than the original 30% prediction. Going from $550 to $755 is fully a 37% increase.

That's around $800 for a graphics card I gave a 61% score to because it was a smaller, weaker GPU than the RTX 4070 Super card it was meant to be replacing. At least the odd positioning of the RTX 5070 being cheaper than the RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB card has been reversed, though that card itself is still a ludicrous $650.

As a PC gamer I honestly feel a bit like a lobster in a pot as the temperature is slowly rising in the water around me—powerless and in peril. These are not-great fourth- and fifth-tier GPUs going for what was absolutely top-end GeForce pricing not so long ago.

GPU price tracking

The minimum GPU chipset price tracked on an almost weekly cadence since August 14, 2025

Lowest pricing (Price, $)
Week
Lowest pricing Data
Timestamp (Week)Nvidia RTX 5070 (Price, $)Nvidia RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB (Price, $)AMD RX 9070 (Price, $)
1550430600
2550430600
3524430550
4546430550
5481430600
6499379600
7520430550
8500430550
9500430560
10480430550
11489400550
12500400530
13527420530
14540420530
15499430530
16499430530
17549430580
18540450580
19549450580
20620520600
21620520590
22620520630
23630520630
24625520620
25630550610
26604550610
27640570630
28630515620
29636500620
30630500620
31599500620
32599515620
33599490600
34599550620
35599550600
36599550600
37599570600
38599570600
39599570600
40599565600
41560560600
42550570635
43755650650

The reasons for this pricing rise are manifold, but largely it boils down to AI is ruining all our fun. For one thing, datacentres are hoovering up as much memory as providers can manufacture, and that inevitably means there is an impact on other forms of memory supply, such as VRAM. But you're also getting the AI curious, or the AI enthusiasts looking at GPUs with a bunch of VRAM to start experimenting with local models. But whatever the reasons, the prices of these gaming GPUs have become unsustainable.

So please, please don't pay them.

Not when there are excellent alternatives out there for much less. I know we're expecting AMD cards to follow suit with their own price increases, but at least for now they are far better value, and the RDNA 4 architecture is genuinely good.

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.

The Radeon RX 9070 GRE, another 12 GB GPU, is available for $500 at Newegg today and will deliver gaming performance practically on par with the RTX 5070. Sometimes a bit lower, but still very, very competitive. Especially when FSR4 is brought to bear on supporting games. And the Radeon RX 9070 (our favorite GPU right now) is $650, the same price as the RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB, has the same VRAM quotient, and absolutely slams it in our benchmarks.

These are dark times in the PC gaming hardware market, and for me the top five tiers of Nvidia graphics cards have now entirely priced themselves out of all proportion. I simply couldn't recommend any PC gamer who needs to keep track of what's in their bank account consider buying any one of them.

]]> <![CDATA[ It is genuinely cheaper for me to fly to QuakeCon and buy a RTX 5090 at the Nvidia booth than pick up the GPU absolutely anywhere else ]]> Take it from me, a gamer rocking the last-gen Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Super and still loving life: your rig doesn't need the most bleeding edge graphics card. That's especially true when the 50-series cards can easily set you back many more smackers than Nvidia's MSRP. The RTX 5090 is especially bad for this right now, with the cheapest deal I can find anywhere online still being $4,500/£3,499.

The company appears all too aware of the runaway pricing of these GPUs. Case in point, Nvidia set up 'Verified Priority Access IRL' at its QuakeCon booth this year, offering attendees the chance to buy either the GeForce RTX 5090, RTX 5080, or RTX 5070 Founders Edition for MSRP "while supplies last".

Sadly, to get a decent deal on an RTX 5090 these days, flying out to Quakecon may actually not be the most outrageous idea. As I'm based in the UK, the cheapest round trip flight to Dallas, Texas I can find would cost me about $1,428. Add to that the RTX 5090's $1,999 MSRP, and the $16.50 price of admission to Quakecon, plus some no doubt hellish jet lag, and I will have only had to spend a little over $3,443 (or roughly £2,556) total on Nvidia's most powerful graphics card. That's ridiculous.

But let's say I actually carried out this still very expensive, hare-brained scheme. After a nearly 19-hour flight—with a self-transfer—I could rock up to Nvidia's booth only to find it sold out of RTX 5090s. The booth only has a limited amount of GPUs available for sale each day, after all.

That said, the booth is also offering a limited supply of "cool freebies," such as a pack of GeForce Trading Cards "showcasing 14 of GeForce’s greatest gaming moments." If I went to the Nvidia booth after a 19-hour flight, only to find these trading cards were left, I dread to think of the jet lag-induced rage monster I would become—rumours suggesting that Nvidia graphics card prices will increase by as much as 30% already have me howling.

Nvidia RTX 5090 Founders Edition graphics card on different backgrounds

(Image credit: Future)

Anyway, this late capitalist hell pit only gets better, because there's still another way to save on that MSRP. For one thing, Nvidia will be awarding a GeForce RTX 5070 Founders Edition GPU to the player that comes out top in its Quake III Arena RTX Remix and DOOM: The Dark Ages — Revelations challenges. Winners of the QuakeCon Mod Contest will also receive an RTX 50-Series GPU.

Uh, so yes, the tip here is either 'get good' or make a really cool rig if you'd rather not spend silly money on a 50-series graphics card. Or happen to live close by QuakeCon and chance a detour. If it's all the same to you, though, I won't be taking any of my own advice on how to get a more sensibly priced GPU.

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/it-is-genuinely-cheaper-for-me-to-fly-to-quakecon-and-buy-a-rtx-5090-at-the-nvidia-booth-than-pick-up-the-gpu-absolutely-anywhere-else/ SKXQr3MYfHigMkwEDowZAG Thu, 06 Aug 2026 15:33:16 +0000 false false false

Take it from me, a gamer rocking the last-gen Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Super and still loving life: your rig doesn't need the most bleeding edge graphics card. That's especially true when the 50-series cards can easily set you back many more smackers than Nvidia's MSRP. The RTX 5090 is especially bad for this right now, with the cheapest deal I can find anywhere online still being $4,500/£3,499.

The company appears all too aware of the runaway pricing of these GPUs. Case in point, Nvidia set up 'Verified Priority Access IRL' at its QuakeCon booth this year, offering attendees the chance to buy either the GeForce RTX 5090, RTX 5080, or RTX 5070 Founders Edition for MSRP "while supplies last".

Sadly, to get a decent deal on an RTX 5090 these days, flying out to Quakecon may actually not be the most outrageous idea. As I'm based in the UK, the cheapest round trip flight to Dallas, Texas I can find would cost me about $1,428. Add to that the RTX 5090's $1,999 MSRP, and the $16.50 price of admission to Quakecon, plus some no doubt hellish jet lag, and I will have only had to spend a little over $3,443 (or roughly £2,556) total on Nvidia's most powerful graphics card. That's ridiculous.

But let's say I actually carried out this still very expensive, hare-brained scheme. After a nearly 19-hour flight—with a self-transfer—I could rock up to Nvidia's booth only to find it sold out of RTX 5090s. The booth only has a limited amount of GPUs available for sale each day, after all.

That said, the booth is also offering a limited supply of "cool freebies," such as a pack of GeForce Trading Cards "showcasing 14 of GeForce’s greatest gaming moments." If I went to the Nvidia booth after a 19-hour flight, only to find these trading cards were left, I dread to think of the jet lag-induced rage monster I would become—rumours suggesting that Nvidia graphics card prices will increase by as much as 30% already have me howling.

Nvidia RTX 5090 Founders Edition graphics card on different backgrounds

(Image credit: Future)

Anyway, this late capitalist hell pit only gets better, because there's still another way to save on that MSRP. For one thing, Nvidia will be awarding a GeForce RTX 5070 Founders Edition GPU to the player that comes out top in its Quake III Arena RTX Remix and DOOM: The Dark Ages — Revelations challenges. Winners of the QuakeCon Mod Contest will also receive an RTX 50-Series GPU.

Uh, so yes, the tip here is either 'get good' or make a really cool rig if you'd rather not spend silly money on a 50-series graphics card. Or happen to live close by QuakeCon and chance a detour. If it's all the same to you, though, I won't be taking any of my own advice on how to get a more sensibly priced GPU.

]]> <![CDATA[ EA has fixed a niche Battlefield 6 issue where some Nvidia GPUs were crashing while changing attachments or 'playing on maps with large bodies of water' ]]> For some time now, Battlefield 6 players on Nvidia cards were running into a peculiar crash when changing attachments on the SOR-300SC carbine, using custom server search, or "playing on maps with large bodies of water". If you have run into such a problem, you will be happy to know that it should now be fixed.

As announced over on X, Battlefield 6 game update 1.4.1.5 is a "smaller quality-of-life update focused on improving reliability, presentation, and moment-to-moment gameplay"

The specific Nvidia crashes were such a problem that the Battlefield Comms X account put out a separate tweet declaring the fix. If you were unlucky enough to have been hit by the crashes, the fix is in the update that launched on Tuesday, August 4.

Unfortunately, this crash came at a terrible time, because the game just launched Tsuru Reef, which is both the biggest map in the game and a return to naval warfare for the series. A Top Gun crossover, there is a lot of water on the map, which you can imagine would be a problem when paired with crashes that are more common on maps with big bodies of water.

Interestingly, reports popped up with these specific crashes just after the previous Nvidia driver update went live, and Battlefield Comms recommended that users roll back to Nvidia driver version 596.49. The Battlefield X account said that RTX 50-series owners were particularly affected by the problem. This means that if you previously rolled back Nvidia drivers, you should now make sure your card is up-to-date.

As well as fixing this Nvidia crash problem, Battlefield Studios has reportedly improved deployment, aiming, water transition and vehicle behaviour, plus several "UI, loadout, and customisation issues" have now been fixed.

The latest update also has a focus on map and Portal polish, addressing visual, collection, interaction, and audio issues across multiple maps plus through Portal, the community creation function.

Here's hoping the next Nvidia driver doesn't pose another problem for the game.

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/ea-has-fixed-a-niche-battlefield-6-issue-where-some-nvidia-gpus-were-crashing-while-changing-attachments-or-playing-on-maps-with-large-bodies-of-water/ PP5CcSwqkgHGsE78ij5dQ5 Wed, 05 Aug 2026 14:28:42 +0000 false false false

For some time now, Battlefield 6 players on Nvidia cards were running into a peculiar crash when changing attachments on the SOR-300SC carbine, using custom server search, or "playing on maps with large bodies of water". If you have run into such a problem, you will be happy to know that it should now be fixed.

As announced over on X, Battlefield 6 game update 1.4.1.5 is a "smaller quality-of-life update focused on improving reliability, presentation, and moment-to-moment gameplay"

The specific Nvidia crashes were such a problem that the Battlefield Comms X account put out a separate tweet declaring the fix. If you were unlucky enough to have been hit by the crashes, the fix is in the update that launched on Tuesday, August 4.

Unfortunately, this crash came at a terrible time, because the game just launched Tsuru Reef, which is both the biggest map in the game and a return to naval warfare for the series. A Top Gun crossover, there is a lot of water on the map, which you can imagine would be a problem when paired with crashes that are more common on maps with big bodies of water.

Interestingly, reports popped up with these specific crashes just after the previous Nvidia driver update went live, and Battlefield Comms recommended that users roll back to Nvidia driver version 596.49. The Battlefield X account said that RTX 50-series owners were particularly affected by the problem. This means that if you previously rolled back Nvidia drivers, you should now make sure your card is up-to-date.

As well as fixing this Nvidia crash problem, Battlefield Studios has reportedly improved deployment, aiming, water transition and vehicle behaviour, plus several "UI, loadout, and customisation issues" have now been fixed.

The latest update also has a focus on map and Portal polish, addressing visual, collection, interaction, and audio issues across multiple maps plus through Portal, the community creation function.

Here's hoping the next Nvidia driver doesn't pose another problem for the game.

]]> <![CDATA[ I tried the 'stress test your GPU hopes you never run' and it made my main gaming rig look like a chump ]]> It might sound like a cruel joke in a time where memory is costing hundreds of dollars more than it used to, and GPUs are getting price hikes, but there's a new bit of software called Nukemark that is designed to bring even the best graphics cards to their absolute limits.

Nukemark is based in Unreal Engine 5.7 with Nanite, MegaLights, and its Lumen hardware ray tracing going as hard as they can with up to 8K virtual textures. The RTX 5090 reportedly only gets 15-20 average fps at native resolution, and developer Ezbench seems proud of that.

Even the trailer on the Steam page calls it the "stress test your GPU hopes you never run". Not one to back down to trailer marketing, I've decided to boot it up on my humble rig and put it through its paces.

My rig is equipped with an RTX 4070 Super, matched with an AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D, and 32 GB of DDR5. It's no slouch in the gaming department, and I rarely have problems running new games on it. I can often play games natively without upscaling or frame generation and get a solid experience. At 1440p, both of Nukemark's tests looked like a slideshow. You can see my results below.

Nukemark results with an RTX 4070 Super

1080p

1440p

1080p (DLSS)

1440p (DLSS)

Pandora average fps (Test 1)

23

13

22

6

Emberhold average fps (Test 2)

19

12

18

5

Weirdly, the DLSS option seemed to make the tests perform worse, and I'm not too sure why. It could be some sort of bottleneck in my specific rig, or merely a software issue. Nukemark is an early access piece of software, which is expected to take 12-18 months to launch fully, so some hitches are perhaps to be expected.

I couldn't test the game at 4K as my max resolution at home is 1440p, but none of the tests ended with a result I would call 'playable'. In the best-case scenario (1080p on Pandora), an average of 23 fps looked so choppy that, if it were a game, I'd be asking for a refund already.

Ezbench's Nukemark, showing a scene from the Emberhold benchmarking test

(Image credit: Ezbench)

I suspect that when Nukemark says the RTX 5090 "sustains only approximately 15–20 FPS at native resolution", that native resolution is 4K. The two tests are full of the kinds of braggadocious visuals you would expect from stress-testing software. Emberhold, in particular, is drenched in lighting from magic, lava, and good 'ol ambience. It is littered with reflectable surfaces and fire. And, importantly, you are unlikely to get a 'playable' fps out of anything but the cream of the crop hardware right now.

So what's the point in Nukemark? Well, Ezbench Solutions says it's for system builders, overclockers, and gamers, but my gut says it's more for ego and for the curious. Nukemark rightly claims "Every scene is built to overload today's fastest GPUs" and it is "intentionally engineered to exceed the performance budgets of modern games."

So, in a sense, I suspect it will make for a better benchmark in the future. When some lucky gamer with far too much disposable income gets themselves an RTX 6090 and the 8 GB of memory they can afford from the leftover budget, they could be throwing it at Nukemark just to prove how powerful the next generation of cards is. My humble RTX 4070 Super and I, though, are just fine running the current crop of modern games at around 60 fps.

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/i-tried-the-stress-test-your-gpu-hopes-you-never-run-and-it-made-my-main-gaming-rig-look-like-a-chump/ 3PECiCr4RrkcgRw5kHFXBH Tue, 04 Aug 2026 09:28:54 +0000 false false false

It might sound like a cruel joke in a time where memory is costing hundreds of dollars more than it used to, and GPUs are getting price hikes, but there's a new bit of software called Nukemark that is designed to bring even the best graphics cards to their absolute limits.

Nukemark is based in Unreal Engine 5.7 with Nanite, MegaLights, and its Lumen hardware ray tracing going as hard as they can with up to 8K virtual textures. The RTX 5090 reportedly only gets 15-20 average fps at native resolution, and developer Ezbench seems proud of that.

Even the trailer on the Steam page calls it the "stress test your GPU hopes you never run". Not one to back down to trailer marketing, I've decided to boot it up on my humble rig and put it through its paces.

My rig is equipped with an RTX 4070 Super, matched with an AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D, and 32 GB of DDR5. It's no slouch in the gaming department, and I rarely have problems running new games on it. I can often play games natively without upscaling or frame generation and get a solid experience. At 1440p, both of Nukemark's tests looked like a slideshow. You can see my results below.

Nukemark results with an RTX 4070 Super

1080p

1440p

1080p (DLSS)

1440p (DLSS)

Pandora average fps (Test 1)

23

13

22

6

Emberhold average fps (Test 2)

19

12

18

5

Weirdly, the DLSS option seemed to make the tests perform worse, and I'm not too sure why. It could be some sort of bottleneck in my specific rig, or merely a software issue. Nukemark is an early access piece of software, which is expected to take 12-18 months to launch fully, so some hitches are perhaps to be expected.

I couldn't test the game at 4K as my max resolution at home is 1440p, but none of the tests ended with a result I would call 'playable'. In the best-case scenario (1080p on Pandora), an average of 23 fps looked so choppy that, if it were a game, I'd be asking for a refund already.

Ezbench's Nukemark, showing a scene from the Emberhold benchmarking test

(Image credit: Ezbench)

I suspect that when Nukemark says the RTX 5090 "sustains only approximately 15–20 FPS at native resolution", that native resolution is 4K. The two tests are full of the kinds of braggadocious visuals you would expect from stress-testing software. Emberhold, in particular, is drenched in lighting from magic, lava, and good 'ol ambience. It is littered with reflectable surfaces and fire. And, importantly, you are unlikely to get a 'playable' fps out of anything but the cream of the crop hardware right now.

So what's the point in Nukemark? Well, Ezbench Solutions says it's for system builders, overclockers, and gamers, but my gut says it's more for ego and for the curious. Nukemark rightly claims "Every scene is built to overload today's fastest GPUs" and it is "intentionally engineered to exceed the performance budgets of modern games."

So, in a sense, I suspect it will make for a better benchmark in the future. When some lucky gamer with far too much disposable income gets themselves an RTX 6090 and the 8 GB of memory they can afford from the leftover budget, they could be throwing it at Nukemark just to prove how powerful the next generation of cards is. My humble RTX 4070 Super and I, though, are just fine running the current crop of modern games at around 60 fps.

]]> <![CDATA[ First AMD RX 9050 8 GB review suggests RTX 3060-like performance but with some strange spec discrepancies ]]> I'm likely not the first to tell you that the memory crisis has really done a number on PC gaming, but nothing quite exemplifies this like AMD releasing a graphics card with 4-8 GB of VRAM in 2026. That card is called the RX 9050; it starts at $279, and it is limited to certain regions. One early review suggests performance isn't great, but its specs are looking a little funky.

That review is from Japanese hardware outlet Hermitage Akihabara, which managed to get its hands on an 8 GB-toting ASRock model. Testing the card in 3DMark, Hermitage argues it "falls short of the 30fps generally considered the benchmark for comfortable single-player gameplay. Furthermore, its performance is only about 75% of that of its competitor, the GeForce RTX 5050, and just over 60% compared to the higher-end Radeon RX 9060 XT" (machine translated).

The RX 9050 doesn't lag behind the RTX 5050 in absolutely all tests, though. The RX 9050 matches the RTX 5050 in 4K testing on Rainbow Six Siege X, and it performed better in Doom Eternal at 1080p and 1440p, though this was with the help of FSR, which is not an apples-to-apples comparison. Still, the RTX 5050 wipes the floor with the RX 9050 in pretty much every other test conducted by Hermitage.

At 1080p, Hermitage saw 192.4 average fps in Apex Legends, and 147 average fps on the 9050. In Cyberpunk, on Ultra, Hermitage saw an average of 142 fps on the AMD card and 240 fps on the Nvidia card. In fairness to AMD, though, this is with both cards using the frame generation and upscaling models of their respective cards, so not a 1-1 comparison.

With the RTX 5050, and its 8 GB of GDDR6 VRAM, launching at $250, that means that the RX 9050, according to these tests, is substantially slower than the Nvidia card. Of course, that's assuming you can get one at MSRP, but we can't assume you will find AMD cards at MSRP either.

The RX 9050's score of 4531 in 3D Mark's Port Royal and 1873 in Speed Way places the RX 9050 close to the RTX 3070, as noted by hardware analyst Harukaze5719. They also note a specs page with 32 ROPs on the card, which is half of the advertised 64 on AMD's own specs page. Fewer ROPs, or Render Output Units, in a card means worse performance, and that would be reflected in tests.

We saw a similar problem with eight missing ROPs in some RTX 50-series cards around their launch, which Nvidia claims only affected 0.5% of cards. If this s a defect in the tested card, one might expect better real-life performance.

Palit GeForce RTX 5050 graphics card

(Image credit: Future)

That's assuming those ROPs are actually missing and it's not a defect in the software reporting itself, or some other problem in between. That's all to say that while early figures for AMD's latest budget card aren't looking very good, we'll have to wait for some more real-world testing from other outlets to see if it actually is so thoroughly outpaced by the RTX 5050.

Either way, early signs aren't looking great for the budget card market. That's especially true when you consider the AMD price increase rumours that dropped just today.

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/first-amd-rx-9050-8-gb-review-suggests-rtx-3060-like-performance-but-with-some-strange-spec-discrepancies/ LKDWEfeevx3bepjYtFQTFF Fri, 31 Jul 2026 15:01:47 +0000 false false false

I'm likely not the first to tell you that the memory crisis has really done a number on PC gaming, but nothing quite exemplifies this like AMD releasing a graphics card with 4-8 GB of VRAM in 2026. That card is called the RX 9050; it starts at $279, and it is limited to certain regions. One early review suggests performance isn't great, but its specs are looking a little funky.

That review is from Japanese hardware outlet Hermitage Akihabara, which managed to get its hands on an 8 GB-toting ASRock model. Testing the card in 3DMark, Hermitage argues it "falls short of the 30fps generally considered the benchmark for comfortable single-player gameplay. Furthermore, its performance is only about 75% of that of its competitor, the GeForce RTX 5050, and just over 60% compared to the higher-end Radeon RX 9060 XT" (machine translated).

The RX 9050 doesn't lag behind the RTX 5050 in absolutely all tests, though. The RX 9050 matches the RTX 5050 in 4K testing on Rainbow Six Siege X, and it performed better in Doom Eternal at 1080p and 1440p, though this was with the help of FSR, which is not an apples-to-apples comparison. Still, the RTX 5050 wipes the floor with the RX 9050 in pretty much every other test conducted by Hermitage.

At 1080p, Hermitage saw 192.4 average fps in Apex Legends, and 147 average fps on the 9050. In Cyberpunk, on Ultra, Hermitage saw an average of 142 fps on the AMD card and 240 fps on the Nvidia card. In fairness to AMD, though, this is with both cards using the frame generation and upscaling models of their respective cards, so not a 1-1 comparison.

With the RTX 5050, and its 8 GB of GDDR6 VRAM, launching at $250, that means that the RX 9050, according to these tests, is substantially slower than the Nvidia card. Of course, that's assuming you can get one at MSRP, but we can't assume you will find AMD cards at MSRP either.

The RX 9050's score of 4531 in 3D Mark's Port Royal and 1873 in Speed Way places the RX 9050 close to the RTX 3070, as noted by hardware analyst Harukaze5719. They also note a specs page with 32 ROPs on the card, which is half of the advertised 64 on AMD's own specs page. Fewer ROPs, or Render Output Units, in a card means worse performance, and that would be reflected in tests.

We saw a similar problem with eight missing ROPs in some RTX 50-series cards around their launch, which Nvidia claims only affected 0.5% of cards. If this s a defect in the tested card, one might expect better real-life performance.

Palit GeForce RTX 5050 graphics card

(Image credit: Future)

That's assuming those ROPs are actually missing and it's not a defect in the software reporting itself, or some other problem in between. That's all to say that while early figures for AMD's latest budget card aren't looking very good, we'll have to wait for some more real-world testing from other outlets to see if it actually is so thoroughly outpaced by the RTX 5050.

Either way, early signs aren't looking great for the budget card market. That's especially true when you consider the AMD price increase rumours that dropped just today.

]]> <![CDATA[ AMD is reportedly raising graphics card prices—it was just waiting for Nvidia to do it first ]]> Earlier this month, we noted that AMD was reportedly bumping the price of its GPU and VRAM bundles for its partners. Now it seems like that bump will be at least 10%.

That is according to industry analyst Harukaze5719, who has shared a report stating as such, claiming "information confirmed by AMD's internal supply chain". The report claims AMD finalised plans to increase the supply price of GPU and VRAM bundles but did not yet commit to it due to a "weak recovery phase in the consumer graphics card market, high price sensitivity at the end-user level, existing inventory still needing to be digested, and the fact that NV (Nvidia) series graphics card prices have not yet increased." (machine translated).

As you might be able to guess from that wording, Nvidia just yesterday reportedly implemented its own price bump, going as high as an extra 30%. Apparently AMD will implement a price increase of "at least 10%, and all brands will officially implement the price increase uniformly starting next month. At that time, the price positioning is expected to be similar to that of NV series graphics cards."

One thing worth noting here is that a price increase to partners does not necessarily mean that the same price increase will be passed to the consumer. However, if other partners follow suit, there's little reason for companies to eat the cost themselves. Especially given AIB partners' margins are apparently quite slim.

And though the price increase will not affect the base cost of cards that partners already have access to, a price increase might make them less likely to get rid of their inventory at their current price point. As noted in our Nvidia story, some Nvidia partners are in a "state of panic, reluctant to sell."

If you're wondering why AMD and Nvidia are in a state where they feel they have to raise prices, you can blame AI for that one. AI and the vast amount of data it needs for training are sucking up all of the memory, and taking components like SSDs and GPUs with it. And this is a shame, as graphics cards have been relatively stable in pricing for the past few months, according to our tracker of the best graphics cards deals.

Unfortunately, the worst news here is that the memory crisis is unlikely to end soon. Just yesterday, Samsung claimed in its earnings call that "the supply constraints are expected to become even more severe in 2027 than 2026, reinforcing our view that the supply shortage will persist through 2028. Beyond 2029, it is hard to say because of more limited visibility."

So, it's currently a bad time to build a PC, and it seems likely it will become even worse, and we don't know when things will get better. That's the unfortunate reality of the memory crisis.

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/amd-is-reportedly-raising-graphics-card-prices-it-was-just-waiting-for-nvidia-to-do-it-first/ BvMTtZtj3z7xcBPVwaqhkS Fri, 31 Jul 2026 10:30:51 +0000 false false false

Earlier this month, we noted that AMD was reportedly bumping the price of its GPU and VRAM bundles for its partners. Now it seems like that bump will be at least 10%.

That is according to industry analyst Harukaze5719, who has shared a report stating as such, claiming "information confirmed by AMD's internal supply chain". The report claims AMD finalised plans to increase the supply price of GPU and VRAM bundles but did not yet commit to it due to a "weak recovery phase in the consumer graphics card market, high price sensitivity at the end-user level, existing inventory still needing to be digested, and the fact that NV (Nvidia) series graphics card prices have not yet increased." (machine translated).

As you might be able to guess from that wording, Nvidia just yesterday reportedly implemented its own price bump, going as high as an extra 30%. Apparently AMD will implement a price increase of "at least 10%, and all brands will officially implement the price increase uniformly starting next month. At that time, the price positioning is expected to be similar to that of NV series graphics cards."

One thing worth noting here is that a price increase to partners does not necessarily mean that the same price increase will be passed to the consumer. However, if other partners follow suit, there's little reason for companies to eat the cost themselves. Especially given AIB partners' margins are apparently quite slim.

And though the price increase will not affect the base cost of cards that partners already have access to, a price increase might make them less likely to get rid of their inventory at their current price point. As noted in our Nvidia story, some Nvidia partners are in a "state of panic, reluctant to sell."

If you're wondering why AMD and Nvidia are in a state where they feel they have to raise prices, you can blame AI for that one. AI and the vast amount of data it needs for training are sucking up all of the memory, and taking components like SSDs and GPUs with it. And this is a shame, as graphics cards have been relatively stable in pricing for the past few months, according to our tracker of the best graphics cards deals.

Unfortunately, the worst news here is that the memory crisis is unlikely to end soon. Just yesterday, Samsung claimed in its earnings call that "the supply constraints are expected to become even more severe in 2027 than 2026, reinforcing our view that the supply shortage will persist through 2028. Beyond 2029, it is hard to say because of more limited visibility."

So, it's currently a bad time to build a PC, and it seems likely it will become even worse, and we don't know when things will get better. That's the unfortunate reality of the memory crisis.

]]> <![CDATA[ The memory crisis keeps getting worse: Nvidia graphics card prices now rumoured to increase by as much as 30% ]]> Despite the memory crisis continuing to rage, Nvidia graphics card prices have been relatively stable over the last 20 or so weeks, until Nvidia appeared to have raised the price of GPU kits for AIB partners last week. Now, it seems like that price increase is up to 30%.

This is according to the Taiwanese outlet, Economic Daily News, which claims Nvidia is raising the prices of its GPU bundles (the GPU and memory) by between 20–30%. This is set to affect both GDDR6 and GDDR7. The report claims that graphics card distributors in China are in a "state of panic, reluctant to sell".

Industry analyst Harukaze5719 places the price of the Chinese market exclusive RTX 5090 D at $3,843 and the RTX 5080 at $1,845, the latter just short of the MSRP of the RTX 5090 at launch. The RTX 5090 was already suggested to have received a price increase back in May, so, if proven true, this would be the third Nvidia price increase this year.

Naturally, Nvidia raising the prices of the components doesn't mean partners have to follow suit, but it's very unlikely they will eat that extra cost. If a graphics card partner can match that price increase and still sell the cards, it will.

A major problem with the graphics card market right now is the cost of VRAM to go inside the card. With the memory crisis ongoing, prices have only gone up, and chips are becoming harder to purchase. That's likely some of the rationale behind AMD launching a 4 GB RX 9050 this week. And why the likes of memory manufacturers SK hynix and Samsung have just reported record profits.

There were rumours late last year that Nvidia might stop bundling VRAM with GPUs, but that only really solves the problem for Nvidia. Partners would still have to source their own memory, which could be a problem for more budget-oriented cards and less well-known partners.

Graphics cards are already in a pretty ugly place. We round up the best graphics cards deals every week, and the best RTX 5090 deal currently sits at $4,200 over at Walmart, with the best price for a RTX 5080 being $1,250 at Amazon.

With the memory crisis not expected to end until at least 2029, it seems like it will only get harder and more expensive to build that gaming PC you've been pining after.

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/the-memory-crisis-keeps-getting-worse-nvidia-graphics-card-prices-now-rumoured-to-increase-by-as-much-as-30-percent/ pPprwebpZFNzNqQDritCHj Thu, 30 Jul 2026 13:44:00 +0000 false false false

Despite the memory crisis continuing to rage, Nvidia graphics card prices have been relatively stable over the last 20 or so weeks, until Nvidia appeared to have raised the price of GPU kits for AIB partners last week. Now, it seems like that price increase is up to 30%.

This is according to the Taiwanese outlet, Economic Daily News, which claims Nvidia is raising the prices of its GPU bundles (the GPU and memory) by between 20–30%. This is set to affect both GDDR6 and GDDR7. The report claims that graphics card distributors in China are in a "state of panic, reluctant to sell".

Industry analyst Harukaze5719 places the price of the Chinese market exclusive RTX 5090 D at $3,843 and the RTX 5080 at $1,845, the latter just short of the MSRP of the RTX 5090 at launch. The RTX 5090 was already suggested to have received a price increase back in May, so, if proven true, this would be the third Nvidia price increase this year.

Naturally, Nvidia raising the prices of the components doesn't mean partners have to follow suit, but it's very unlikely they will eat that extra cost. If a graphics card partner can match that price increase and still sell the cards, it will.

A major problem with the graphics card market right now is the cost of VRAM to go inside the card. With the memory crisis ongoing, prices have only gone up, and chips are becoming harder to purchase. That's likely some of the rationale behind AMD launching a 4 GB RX 9050 this week. And why the likes of memory manufacturers SK hynix and Samsung have just reported record profits.

There were rumours late last year that Nvidia might stop bundling VRAM with GPUs, but that only really solves the problem for Nvidia. Partners would still have to source their own memory, which could be a problem for more budget-oriented cards and less well-known partners.

Graphics cards are already in a pretty ugly place. We round up the best graphics cards deals every week, and the best RTX 5090 deal currently sits at $4,200 over at Walmart, with the best price for a RTX 5080 being $1,250 at Amazon.

With the memory crisis not expected to end until at least 2029, it seems like it will only get harder and more expensive to build that gaming PC you've been pining after.

]]> <![CDATA[ AMD launches the RX 9050, and it's even more entry-level than expected - update: it's $279 and limited to certain regions ]]> AMD has launched a new graphics card, the RX 9050. This is an entry-level graphics card with a slim provision of cores and VRAM, more of a match for the 890M than the RX 9060. It's even more entry-level than initial rumours suggested, and while you'd hope for a great price to match, we're not getting our hopes up yet.

Take a look at the specifications below, right from AMD's website, and you'll get an idea of the card. It's using the same Navi 44 GPU as the more capable entry-level and mid-range graphics cards, but it's been trimmed down to within an inch of its life. At 1,024 cores, it is actually a match for the 890M GPU found in Strix Point mobile chips, though it does have the big benefit of a desktop power budget, even if only 92 watts; RDNA 4 architecture, and 32 MB of Infinity Cache.

RX 9050 specs

RX 9050

RX 9060

GPU

Navi 44

Navi 44

Architecture

RDNA 4

RDNA 4

Compute Units (CUs)

16

28

Cores

1024

1792

Boost clock

2600

2990

Game clock

1920

2400

ROPs

64

64

Ray Accelerators

16

28

AI Accelerators

32

56

FP32 TFLOPs

10.6

21.4

Transistors

29.7

29.7

Memory capacity (GB)

8/4*

8

Memory speed (Gbps)

18

18

Memory type

GDDR6

GDDR6

Memory interface

128-bit

128-bit

Memory bandwidth (GB/s)

288

288

Infinity Cache (MB)

32

32

Typical Board Power (W)

92

132

Minimum PSU (W)

450

450

*not confirmed

Compared to previous rumours, which my colleague Jacob Fox called "quite strange" when we published a story about them in May, it's a lot less capable than expected. Look to the TFLOPs for a more holistic view of what's going on, and the RX 9050 is actually rated to half the performance of the RX 9060. Bear in mind, TFLOPs does not directly correlate to game performance, but it's a general idea of what to expect.

It's tough to judge a graphics card without knowing the price. ASRock is the only partner to announce availability for the RX 9050, launching its own RX 9050 Challenger 8 GB card. There's no clear price for the card yet and it's set to launch only in LATAM and Asia Pacific.

The card may end up being more OEM-only elsewhere. The RX 9060 is OEM-only. Only Best Buy has the card for sale so far, inside a CyberPower gaming PC for $890. This includes an RX 9050 4 GB among its shoestring specification.

Yeah, 4 GB.

What's that about? The AMD website only lists an 8 GB model, though that listing is only talking about a "Max Memory Size" of 8 GB, while earlier rumours had suggested a 4 GB model would be part of the range. ASRock also only talks about an 8 GB model.

AMD RX 9000-series specs

(Image credit: AMD)

So is this CyberPower listing incorrect? I'd love to think so, but it may well be the case that there's an even slimmer 4 GB model for OEMs. If that's the case, it's no surprise then that AMD isn't shouting about it to the world. That's a pitiful amount of memory for 2026—AMD actually rallied against 4 GB cards back in 2022.

"Competitive products at a similar entry level price-point are offering up to a maximum of 4GB of VRAM, which is evidently not enough for today's games," AMD said in a blog post. "Go Beyond 4GB of Video Memory to Crank Up your settings. Play on Radeon RX Series GPUs with 6GB or 8GB of VRAM and enjoy gaming at Max settings."

Let's just hope this 4 GB thing is a typo and any plans to release such a card have been brushed aside.

With the RDNA 4 architecture under the hood, the RX 9060 will at least have some benefits over older cards. The full FSR Redstone feature set is supported by RDNA 4, including Frame Generation and Ray Regeneration. Though we tend to find frame generation works best when the card is able to deliver a good amount of frames to begin with, which this card may struggle to do in the latest games. At least FSR 4 is natively supported, including FP8. This card might need it.

Update

AMD has sent over the following information regarding the new card, including the price and availability for the card.

The driver also includes support for the new AMD Radeon™ RX 9050 graphics card, which expands the Radeon™ RX 9000 Series portfolio with an affordable option that brings the latest AMD RDNA™ 4 gaming technologies to mainstream gamers in the APJ and Latin American markets at a SEP of $279 USD.

The Radeon RX 9050 is designed for responsive gameplay at 1080p in popular esports and modern AAA titles. This highly efficient, drop-in upgrade features a 92W TBP and fully supports the latest AMD FSR Technologies, next-gen raytracing, and high-quality AV1 video streaming.

Radeon RX 9050 key specs:

Architecture: AMD RDNA 4

Compute Units: 16

VRAM: 8GB GDDR6

Game Clock / Boost Clock: 1.92 GHz / Up to 2.60 GHz

TBP: 92W

To learn more about the Radeon RX 9050 GPU, and the Radeon RX 9000 Series graphics cards, click here.

I've not tested the card but I'd take a guess as to say that's a steep price tag for the expected performance. Especially compared to the Arc B570/B580 and GeForce RTX 5050. The RTX 5050 comes with 33% fewer cores than the RTX 5060, whereas the RX 9050 has 42% fewer cores to the RX 9060. It's half that of an RX 9060 XT—it's not half price, though.

This info also suggests it's not ASRock that's limiting this card to Asia Pacific and Latin America. AMD is doing the same.

There's also news on whether there's a 4 GB version. Hassan Mujtaba from WCCFTech says on X that they spoke to AMD and confirmed the 4 GB version is real and OEM-only. There are no plans to sell it outside of OEM systems.

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/amd-launches-the-rx-9050-and-its-even-more-entry-level-than-expected/ F8THiSMBmHVmTbzCdWqzeH Wed, 29 Jul 2026 11:07:53 +0000 Wed, 29 Jul 2026 15:28:09 +0000 false false false

AMD has launched a new graphics card, the RX 9050. This is an entry-level graphics card with a slim provision of cores and VRAM, more of a match for the 890M than the RX 9060. It's even more entry-level than initial rumours suggested, and while you'd hope for a great price to match, we're not getting our hopes up yet.

Take a look at the specifications below, right from AMD's website, and you'll get an idea of the card. It's using the same Navi 44 GPU as the more capable entry-level and mid-range graphics cards, but it's been trimmed down to within an inch of its life. At 1,024 cores, it is actually a match for the 890M GPU found in Strix Point mobile chips, though it does have the big benefit of a desktop power budget, even if only 92 watts; RDNA 4 architecture, and 32 MB of Infinity Cache.

RX 9050 specs

RX 9050

RX 9060

GPU

Navi 44

Navi 44

Architecture

RDNA 4

RDNA 4

Compute Units (CUs)

16

28

Cores

1024

1792

Boost clock

2600

2990

Game clock

1920

2400

ROPs

64

64

Ray Accelerators

16

28

AI Accelerators

32

56

FP32 TFLOPs

10.6

21.4

Transistors

29.7

29.7

Memory capacity (GB)

8/4*

8

Memory speed (Gbps)

18

18

Memory type

GDDR6

GDDR6

Memory interface

128-bit

128-bit

Memory bandwidth (GB/s)

288

288

Infinity Cache (MB)

32

32

Typical Board Power (W)

92

132

Minimum PSU (W)

450

450

*not confirmed

Compared to previous rumours, which my colleague Jacob Fox called "quite strange" when we published a story about them in May, it's a lot less capable than expected. Look to the TFLOPs for a more holistic view of what's going on, and the RX 9050 is actually rated to half the performance of the RX 9060. Bear in mind, TFLOPs does not directly correlate to game performance, but it's a general idea of what to expect.

It's tough to judge a graphics card without knowing the price. ASRock is the only partner to announce availability for the RX 9050, launching its own RX 9050 Challenger 8 GB card. There's no clear price for the card yet and it's set to launch only in LATAM and Asia Pacific.

The card may end up being more OEM-only elsewhere. The RX 9060 is OEM-only. Only Best Buy has the card for sale so far, inside a CyberPower gaming PC for $890. This includes an RX 9050 4 GB among its shoestring specification.

Yeah, 4 GB.

What's that about? The AMD website only lists an 8 GB model, though that listing is only talking about a "Max Memory Size" of 8 GB, while earlier rumours had suggested a 4 GB model would be part of the range. ASRock also only talks about an 8 GB model.

AMD RX 9000-series specs

(Image credit: AMD)

So is this CyberPower listing incorrect? I'd love to think so, but it may well be the case that there's an even slimmer 4 GB model for OEMs. If that's the case, it's no surprise then that AMD isn't shouting about it to the world. That's a pitiful amount of memory for 2026—AMD actually rallied against 4 GB cards back in 2022.

"Competitive products at a similar entry level price-point are offering up to a maximum of 4GB of VRAM, which is evidently not enough for today's games," AMD said in a blog post. "Go Beyond 4GB of Video Memory to Crank Up your settings. Play on Radeon RX Series GPUs with 6GB or 8GB of VRAM and enjoy gaming at Max settings."

Let's just hope this 4 GB thing is a typo and any plans to release such a card have been brushed aside.

With the RDNA 4 architecture under the hood, the RX 9060 will at least have some benefits over older cards. The full FSR Redstone feature set is supported by RDNA 4, including Frame Generation and Ray Regeneration. Though we tend to find frame generation works best when the card is able to deliver a good amount of frames to begin with, which this card may struggle to do in the latest games. At least FSR 4 is natively supported, including FP8. This card might need it.

Update

AMD has sent over the following information regarding the new card, including the price and availability for the card.

The driver also includes support for the new AMD Radeon™ RX 9050 graphics card, which expands the Radeon™ RX 9000 Series portfolio with an affordable option that brings the latest AMD RDNA™ 4 gaming technologies to mainstream gamers in the APJ and Latin American markets at a SEP of $279 USD.

The Radeon RX 9050 is designed for responsive gameplay at 1080p in popular esports and modern AAA titles. This highly efficient, drop-in upgrade features a 92W TBP and fully supports the latest AMD FSR Technologies, next-gen raytracing, and high-quality AV1 video streaming.

Radeon RX 9050 key specs:

Architecture: AMD RDNA 4

Compute Units: 16

VRAM: 8GB GDDR6

Game Clock / Boost Clock: 1.92 GHz / Up to 2.60 GHz

TBP: 92W

To learn more about the Radeon RX 9050 GPU, and the Radeon RX 9000 Series graphics cards, click here.

I've not tested the card but I'd take a guess as to say that's a steep price tag for the expected performance. Especially compared to the Arc B570/B580 and GeForce RTX 5050. The RTX 5050 comes with 33% fewer cores than the RTX 5060, whereas the RX 9050 has 42% fewer cores to the RX 9060. It's half that of an RX 9060 XT—it's not half price, though.

This info also suggests it's not ASRock that's limiting this card to Asia Pacific and Latin America. AMD is doing the same.

There's also news on whether there's a 4 GB version. Hassan Mujtaba from WCCFTech says on X that they spoke to AMD and confirmed the 4 GB version is real and OEM-only. There are no plans to sell it outside of OEM systems.

]]> <![CDATA[ After months of surprising stability in graphics card prices, apparently Nvidia is now raising the cost of its GPU kits for AIB partners ]]> It seems we can't catch a break lately when it comes to PC gaming hardware. All thanks to the global memory shortage, of course. Now, according to information Benchlife claims to have received, Nvidia is raising prices for its GDDR6 as well as GDDR7 GPU kits.

That means the RTX 5050 and some RTX 40-series cards (using GDDR6) might not be safe from the hikes, in addition to the rest of the RTX 50-series (using GDDR7). Though there's no mention over whether any pricing changes would hit all regions.

Benchlife says prices were already raised for the RTX 5090 (and its China variant) in May, which fits with what we heard at the time. This recent adjustment is for other GeForce products.

Assuming the information is correct, it will mean AIB partners—the companies you buy non-Founders cards from—will now have to pay Nvidia more for the respective kits which come with both GPU and memory.

It's not the wildest speculation to say that such price increases will be due to rising memory costs. No one—not even Nvidia, and certainly not its AIB partners—is immune from it. Memory is just in such astronomically high demand thanks to the AI boom.

In fact, on this point a source reportedly told VideoCardz that high 3 GB GDDR7 pricing has made Nvidia put its 50-series Super cards on hold. Originally we were expecting those late this year, or perhaps early next year, but apparently the high cost for the memory has put a big pin in that.

As you can see from the below chart outlining the GPU prices we've been tracking, prices have actually been pretty stable for the past few months. But it sounds like there's a chance this could change before long.

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, $)AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE (Price, $)
11100780700600550430368370280300250260230N/A
21099750700600550430340370270300250260230N/A
31000750700550524430370370280291250250230N/A
41000750695550546430345370280296250250230N/A
51000749670600481430340350270300250250230N/A
6929749670600499379340350270289240250230N/A
7999750650550520430350350270299240250230N/A
8980749650550500430342350270299250250200N/A
9999750650560500430323350270299250250220N/A
10989730600550480430340360270299250250210N/A
11990699600550489400320340250280230250200N/A
12989730600530500400320350275279220250200N/A
131000750600530527420342350280279220250200N/A
141000750600530540420313370280279220250202N/A
151000749600530499430350380288279200240202N/A
161100750620530499430350380288270200240202N/A
171230750660580549430330390310260235250200N/A
181268829700580540450330390310290240250200N/A
191380899720580549450330400310299240260200N/A
2013501000720600620520330440310299240290200N/A
211365950730590620520351440350299260290250N/A
221365950730630620520360400346299260300250N/A
231290950730630630520360440346340260300250N/A
241290950730620625520360440346340260300250N/A
251250950730610630550360440346349260300250N/A
261260950730610604550360440340349290300250N/A
271290950730630640570360440340349290300250N/A
281250900720620630515390440346349290290250N/A
291290990710620636500390449350349290290250N/A
301290990710620630500390440350330290290260N/A
311290990670620599500380440350330290290260N/A
321290990710620599515380430360310290290260N/A
331290980710600599490400430360349290290260N/A
341270980710620599550380440360349290290260N/A
351290900700600599550380430360350290304260N/A
361250980700600599550370440360340290300260550
371250980700600599570370440350340290304250550
381250980700600599570370440350340290304250550
391250920700600599570330400360340290298250500
401250955700600599565330430360340290291260500
411250900700600560560330430360339290290250500
We've been measuring the lowest available price of each current-gen GPU since August 14, 2025.

As with much in this interrelated industry, it's difficult to say when things like price increases for AIBs will start to show in the consumer market. These AIBs might have some back-stock to get through and they might be able to eat some of the price increase themselves to keep stocks low.

Although it's worth noting that might not be possible, given warnings we've already heard AIBs give about slim margins—such is the reason EVGA gave for it leaving the GPU market, and that was way before the memory crisis.

It's often not smart to have too much back-stock, anyway, as the market tends towards being very 'lean' with 'just-in-time' manufacturing and sales. If you sit on too much stock it could end up going to waste and then you've lost money. Having a lean inventory of stock is how even big memory makers operate, according to a supply chain expert I interviewed back in May.

A PNY RTX 5070 Ti OC graphics card on a desk with a desk mat and pink light.

(Image credit: Future)

For companies more towards the end of the supply chain like AIB partners, this means they'll likely have to raise prices for their customers (us) before long too. We've just seen Framework, for instance, say that it's going to have to do just this because one of its suppliers has raised its prices for memory "far beyond anything we had predicted".

Nvidia will probably have a better time of it, of course, with much bigger contracts and more ability to weather the storm. But if the GPU kit price increase info is correct, it seems that storm might be taking a toll.

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/after-months-of-surprising-stability-in-graphics-card-prices-apparently-nvidia-is-now-raising-the-cost-of-its-gpu-kits-for-aib-partners/ CuRdndznUbwurr5VZ8DRwT Thu, 23 Jul 2026 14:34:33 +0000 false false false

It seems we can't catch a break lately when it comes to PC gaming hardware. All thanks to the global memory shortage, of course. Now, according to information Benchlife claims to have received, Nvidia is raising prices for its GDDR6 as well as GDDR7 GPU kits.

That means the RTX 5050 and some RTX 40-series cards (using GDDR6) might not be safe from the hikes, in addition to the rest of the RTX 50-series (using GDDR7). Though there's no mention over whether any pricing changes would hit all regions.

Benchlife says prices were already raised for the RTX 5090 (and its China variant) in May, which fits with what we heard at the time. This recent adjustment is for other GeForce products.

Assuming the information is correct, it will mean AIB partners—the companies you buy non-Founders cards from—will now have to pay Nvidia more for the respective kits which come with both GPU and memory.

It's not the wildest speculation to say that such price increases will be due to rising memory costs. No one—not even Nvidia, and certainly not its AIB partners—is immune from it. Memory is just in such astronomically high demand thanks to the AI boom.

In fact, on this point a source reportedly told VideoCardz that high 3 GB GDDR7 pricing has made Nvidia put its 50-series Super cards on hold. Originally we were expecting those late this year, or perhaps early next year, but apparently the high cost for the memory has put a big pin in that.

As you can see from the below chart outlining the GPU prices we've been tracking, prices have actually been pretty stable for the past few months. But it sounds like there's a chance this could change before long.

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, $)AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE (Price, $)
11100780700600550430368370280300250260230N/A
21099750700600550430340370270300250260230N/A
31000750700550524430370370280291250250230N/A
41000750695550546430345370280296250250230N/A
51000749670600481430340350270300250250230N/A
6929749670600499379340350270289240250230N/A
7999750650550520430350350270299240250230N/A
8980749650550500430342350270299250250200N/A
9999750650560500430323350270299250250220N/A
10989730600550480430340360270299250250210N/A
11990699600550489400320340250280230250200N/A
12989730600530500400320350275279220250200N/A
131000750600530527420342350280279220250200N/A
141000750600530540420313370280279220250202N/A
151000749600530499430350380288279200240202N/A
161100750620530499430350380288270200240202N/A
171230750660580549430330390310260235250200N/A
181268829700580540450330390310290240250200N/A
191380899720580549450330400310299240260200N/A
2013501000720600620520330440310299240290200N/A
211365950730590620520351440350299260290250N/A
221365950730630620520360400346299260300250N/A
231290950730630630520360440346340260300250N/A
241290950730620625520360440346340260300250N/A
251250950730610630550360440346349260300250N/A
261260950730610604550360440340349290300250N/A
271290950730630640570360440340349290300250N/A
281250900720620630515390440346349290290250N/A
291290990710620636500390449350349290290250N/A
301290990710620630500390440350330290290260N/A
311290990670620599500380440350330290290260N/A
321290990710620599515380430360310290290260N/A
331290980710600599490400430360349290290260N/A
341270980710620599550380440360349290290260N/A
351290900700600599550380430360350290304260N/A
361250980700600599550370440360340290300260550
371250980700600599570370440350340290304250550
381250980700600599570370440350340290304250550
391250920700600599570330400360340290298250500
401250955700600599565330430360340290291260500
411250900700600560560330430360339290290250500
We've been measuring the lowest available price of each current-gen GPU since August 14, 2025.

As with much in this interrelated industry, it's difficult to say when things like price increases for AIBs will start to show in the consumer market. These AIBs might have some back-stock to get through and they might be able to eat some of the price increase themselves to keep stocks low.

Although it's worth noting that might not be possible, given warnings we've already heard AIBs give about slim margins—such is the reason EVGA gave for it leaving the GPU market, and that was way before the memory crisis.

It's often not smart to have too much back-stock, anyway, as the market tends towards being very 'lean' with 'just-in-time' manufacturing and sales. If you sit on too much stock it could end up going to waste and then you've lost money. Having a lean inventory of stock is how even big memory makers operate, according to a supply chain expert I interviewed back in May.

A PNY RTX 5070 Ti OC graphics card on a desk with a desk mat and pink light.

(Image credit: Future)

For companies more towards the end of the supply chain like AIB partners, this means they'll likely have to raise prices for their customers (us) before long too. We've just seen Framework, for instance, say that it's going to have to do just this because one of its suppliers has raised its prices for memory "far beyond anything we had predicted".

Nvidia will probably have a better time of it, of course, with much bigger contracts and more ability to weather the storm. But if the GPU kit price increase info is correct, it seems that storm might be taking a toll.

]]> <![CDATA[ Redditor uses 'ticking time bomb' vial of gallium to stop their GPU sagging ]]>
Behold, Anti-sag temperature indicator and ticking time bomb
 from r/pcmasterrace

For a nervy PC Gamer such as myself, cracking open your gaming rig for even a spot of light dust busting can feel like you're flirting with danger. Well, one Redditor has decided to laugh in the face of danger by using a tube of gallium to stop their GPU from sagging.

Philip_777 shared their unusual anti-sagging intervention, describing it as both a "temperature indicator and ticking time bomb." For those a little unclear on why this is such a bad idea, allow me to share some of my recent education on the subject.

Gallium has a super low melting point, meaning that it will revert to liquid form if you attempt to hold it in the palm of your hand. Apparently, gallium can also 'eat' other metals, like aluminium. In other words, a gallium leak inside of your PC would be a very bad, no good time.

Philip_777 has taken some precautions by confining the gallium in what I'm hoping is a sturdy plastic vial. They write in a follow up comment, "It shouldn't become brittle or anything. I think it was HDPE [High-density polyethylene]. Still one of those moments where you know it's safe, but there's still a chance for it to go south somehow."

Obviously, if you want to avoid GPU sag there are other options besides risking an embrittling gallium leak inside of your PC. Should simply installing your GPU in a vertical position not be an option, GPU brackets of all shapes and sizes are not hard to find.

Besides a funny Reddit post, Philip_777 explains why they elected to dance with death instead, writing, "It was the only thing I found that had almost the perfect height. And since then I haven't bought one of those fancy anti-sag brackets."

To be fair to the Redditor, some GPU support brackets like this one with a screen from Zalman are needlessly extra (and pricey as a result). But I also just found this adjustable GPU support device for a fiver on Amazon. Alternatively, you could 3D print one of your faves to hold up your graphics card (like Goku about to drop a Spirit Bomb). I suppose there's no accounting for taste (says the girl who would absolutely love to have Miku Hatsune holding up her rig's GPU).

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/redditor-uses-ticking-time-bomb-vial-of-gallium-to-stop-their-gpu-sagging/ mxrqpsmMgZMZU4fNkkgSRn Tue, 21 Jul 2026 13:38:52 +0000 Sun, 04 Oct 2026 13:36:16 +0000 false false false
Behold, Anti-sag temperature indicator and ticking time bomb
 from r/pcmasterrace

For a nervy PC Gamer such as myself, cracking open your gaming rig for even a spot of light dust busting can feel like you're flirting with danger. Well, one Redditor has decided to laugh in the face of danger by using a tube of gallium to stop their GPU from sagging.

Philip_777 shared their unusual anti-sagging intervention, describing it as both a "temperature indicator and ticking time bomb." For those a little unclear on why this is such a bad idea, allow me to share some of my recent education on the subject.

Gallium has a super low melting point, meaning that it will revert to liquid form if you attempt to hold it in the palm of your hand. Apparently, gallium can also 'eat' other metals, like aluminium. In other words, a gallium leak inside of your PC would be a very bad, no good time.

Philip_777 has taken some precautions by confining the gallium in what I'm hoping is a sturdy plastic vial. They write in a follow up comment, "It shouldn't become brittle or anything. I think it was HDPE [High-density polyethylene]. Still one of those moments where you know it's safe, but there's still a chance for it to go south somehow."

Obviously, if you want to avoid GPU sag there are other options besides risking an embrittling gallium leak inside of your PC. Should simply installing your GPU in a vertical position not be an option, GPU brackets of all shapes and sizes are not hard to find.

Besides a funny Reddit post, Philip_777 explains why they elected to dance with death instead, writing, "It was the only thing I found that had almost the perfect height. And since then I haven't bought one of those fancy anti-sag brackets."

To be fair to the Redditor, some GPU support brackets like this one with a screen from Zalman are needlessly extra (and pricey as a result). But I also just found this adjustable GPU support device for a fiver on Amazon. Alternatively, you could 3D print one of your faves to hold up your graphics card (like Goku about to drop a Spirit Bomb). I suppose there's no accounting for taste (says the girl who would absolutely love to have Miku Hatsune holding up her rig's GPU).

]]> <![CDATA[ If you're looking for ideas on how to mod your RTX 4060, maybe remove its fans and slap a ridiculously big heatsink on it like this person did ]]> There are many things that I would do to my graphics card—undervolt it, treasure it, sing it lullabies—but I probably wouldn't slap a gigantic heatsink on it just to eliminate the fan. Don't get me wrong, passive cooling is nice, but I'm glad I don't have to DIY it myself, creating the monstrosity I've just seen over on Chinese video platform Bilibili (check the top comment).

The mod, re-posted by FanlessTech and reported by Videocardz, is slapped on top of an RTX 4060 GPU, and according to Google's machine translation you can message the Bilibili user for the schematic if you so wish.

Judging by a photo of the parts sitting on some scales, the heatsink weighs 2.56 kg (5.64 lbs), which makes sense considering it absolutely dwarfs the RTX 4060 PCB it's fitted to.

You're not looking at your usual GPU heatsink here, as these are some ginormous riveted fins that are very spread apart. The DIYer has the Frankenstein card socketed into a dinky little motherboard next to some RAM and another fanless cooler for the CPU. It makes quite the peculiar scene.

If there were ever a relatively recent GPU to give the fanless treatment, it would be the RTX 4060. It has just a 115 W TDP. The RTX 5060, for context, has a TDP of 145 W, and the RTX 5090 (just for funsies) has a TDP of 575 W.

You'll want a low TDP for a fanless design because, as good as they can be, they won't be as good as active cooling at keeping temps low. They also won't save you much power, as it only takes a handful of watts to power some GPU fans. They will, however, be quieter, and that's the reason you'd go for it.

I'm just not sure that's worth the whopping space trade-off, here. Still, a cool project.

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/if-youre-looking-for-ideas-on-how-to-mod-your-rtx-4060-maybe-remove-its-fans-and-slap-a-ridiculously-big-heatsink-on-it-like-this-person-did/ QZ2bGtqHBLu4FgWHoeRTnW Mon, 20 Jul 2026 16:54:17 +0000 false false false

There are many things that I would do to my graphics card—undervolt it, treasure it, sing it lullabies—but I probably wouldn't slap a gigantic heatsink on it just to eliminate the fan. Don't get me wrong, passive cooling is nice, but I'm glad I don't have to DIY it myself, creating the monstrosity I've just seen over on Chinese video platform Bilibili (check the top comment).

The mod, re-posted by FanlessTech and reported by Videocardz, is slapped on top of an RTX 4060 GPU, and according to Google's machine translation you can message the Bilibili user for the schematic if you so wish.

Judging by a photo of the parts sitting on some scales, the heatsink weighs 2.56 kg (5.64 lbs), which makes sense considering it absolutely dwarfs the RTX 4060 PCB it's fitted to.

You're not looking at your usual GPU heatsink here, as these are some ginormous riveted fins that are very spread apart. The DIYer has the Frankenstein card socketed into a dinky little motherboard next to some RAM and another fanless cooler for the CPU. It makes quite the peculiar scene.

If there were ever a relatively recent GPU to give the fanless treatment, it would be the RTX 4060. It has just a 115 W TDP. The RTX 5060, for context, has a TDP of 145 W, and the RTX 5090 (just for funsies) has a TDP of 575 W.

You'll want a low TDP for a fanless design because, as good as they can be, they won't be as good as active cooling at keeping temps low. They also won't save you much power, as it only takes a handful of watts to power some GPU fans. They will, however, be quieter, and that's the reason you'd go for it.

I'm just not sure that's worth the whopping space trade-off, here. Still, a cool project.

]]> <![CDATA[ This is the cheapest Nvidia's RTX 5070 has been all year... and [whisper] there's actually a deal on the RTX 5070 Ti, too ]]>

RTX 5070 | 12 GB: was $629 now $560
Although the RTX 5070 is a good deal faster than its predecessor, the RTX 4070, it's less of an upgrade compared to the RTX 4070 Super. DLSS 4.5 just about tips the balance in favor of the newer model, and it's now about the cheapest it's been all year right now.

Key specs: 6144 shaders | 2542 MHz boost | 12 GB GDDR7

RTX 5070 price check: Amazon $629.99 | Newegg $599.99 | Best Buy $629.99View Deal

It's fair to say that I gave the RTX 5070 a bit of a slapping when I first reviewed it. That is mostly because of the bruising it faced at the hands of the AMD RX 9000-series cards that were released around it. They traded hard on price, undercutting and outperforming the mid-range RTX Blackwell card.

But I know there are still folk out there who would absolutely rather put their money down on an Nvidia GPU than take what they see as a risk on AMD Radeon silicon. And in the mid-range, ~$500 market (yes, I am aware of just how much it sucks that we're referring to $500 as 'mid-range'), the RTX 5070 is your best bet for a GeForce graphics card, especially now that Walmart is selling a PNY RTX 5070 for $560.

That's the cheapest we've seen this GPU selling for since the turn of the year. Remember those pre-2026 times when graphics cards actually dropped below MSRP? I know, it all seems like a long time ago now, doesn't it? At $560, you're only $10 above the original MSRP for this card and, interestingly, that also makes it the same price as the cheapest RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB I've found today, too.

It's actually rather crowded in this $500-$600 segment, with no fewer than four cards vying for your cash. You have the RX 9070 GRE at the bottom and the RX 9070 at the top, with the RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB and RTX 5070 sitting in between them. On the whole, the RTX 5070 outperforms the cheaper RX 9070 GRE, but comes in behind the straight RX 9070.

And I don't know what business the RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB has being priced in the same bracket apart from its VRAM credentials.

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.

So, yeah, the RTX 5070 is actually a good deal right now, especially if you either don't want to spend the extra on the RX 9070 or you have an unreasoned antipathy towards Radeon GPUs.

But if you do want more performance and are willing to spend the monies, there's another Nvidia GPU that's had a big price cut this week... although not enough to get it anywhere near its original MSRP. The RTX 5070 Ti again hasn't been cheaper than this all year, with this MSI version going for $900 at Newegg right now.

RTX 5070 Ti | 16 GB: was $989.99 now $899.99
At its $749 MSRP, the RTX 5070 Ti is an expensive but superb graphics card. Alas, while it's still very good, prices have risen to ridiculous levels, and overall stock levels aren't great either. This 'offer' is the best one of them all, but it's still very overpriced.

Key specs: 8960 shaders | 2572 MHz boost | 16 GB GDDR7

RTX 5070 Ti price check: Amazon $969 | Walmart $954.99 | Best Buy $989.99View Deal

Honestly, that's still a ridiculous amount of money for a third-tier Nvidia GPU, and the Radeon RX 9070 XT would have my vote given it can effectively perform the same but for $700 at Amazon today. But the RTX 5070 Ti is still one of my favorite cards from the RTX Blackwell era, thanks to its performance, overclocking headroom, and the effectiveness of multi Frame Generation when it's got a good GPU backing it up.

So, if you were interested in getting yourself an RTX 5070 Ti, but baulked at spending over a grand for one, this is probably going to be your best chance for a while

👉Check out Walmart's GPU deals👈

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/this-is-the-cheapest-nvidias-rtx-5070-has-been-all-year-and-whisper-theres-actually-deal-on-the-rtx-5070-ti-too/ yHz8DRWuqUevtR8VJkrdje Thu, 16 Jul 2026 15:39:58 +0000 Thu, 16 Jul 2026 16:07:32 +0000 false false false

RTX 5070 | 12 GB: was $629 now $560
Although the RTX 5070 is a good deal faster than its predecessor, the RTX 4070, it's less of an upgrade compared to the RTX 4070 Super. DLSS 4.5 just about tips the balance in favor of the newer model, and it's now about the cheapest it's been all year right now.

Key specs: 6144 shaders | 2542 MHz boost | 12 GB GDDR7

RTX 5070 price check: Amazon $629.99 | Newegg $599.99 | Best Buy $629.99View Deal

It's fair to say that I gave the RTX 5070 a bit of a slapping when I first reviewed it. That is mostly because of the bruising it faced at the hands of the AMD RX 9000-series cards that were released around it. They traded hard on price, undercutting and outperforming the mid-range RTX Blackwell card.

But I know there are still folk out there who would absolutely rather put their money down on an Nvidia GPU than take what they see as a risk on AMD Radeon silicon. And in the mid-range, ~$500 market (yes, I am aware of just how much it sucks that we're referring to $500 as 'mid-range'), the RTX 5070 is your best bet for a GeForce graphics card, especially now that Walmart is selling a PNY RTX 5070 for $560.

That's the cheapest we've seen this GPU selling for since the turn of the year. Remember those pre-2026 times when graphics cards actually dropped below MSRP? I know, it all seems like a long time ago now, doesn't it? At $560, you're only $10 above the original MSRP for this card and, interestingly, that also makes it the same price as the cheapest RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB I've found today, too.

It's actually rather crowded in this $500-$600 segment, with no fewer than four cards vying for your cash. You have the RX 9070 GRE at the bottom and the RX 9070 at the top, with the RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB and RTX 5070 sitting in between them. On the whole, the RTX 5070 outperforms the cheaper RX 9070 GRE, but comes in behind the straight RX 9070.

And I don't know what business the RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB has being priced in the same bracket apart from its VRAM credentials.

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.

So, yeah, the RTX 5070 is actually a good deal right now, especially if you either don't want to spend the extra on the RX 9070 or you have an unreasoned antipathy towards Radeon GPUs.

But if you do want more performance and are willing to spend the monies, there's another Nvidia GPU that's had a big price cut this week... although not enough to get it anywhere near its original MSRP. The RTX 5070 Ti again hasn't been cheaper than this all year, with this MSI version going for $900 at Newegg right now.

RTX 5070 Ti | 16 GB: was $989.99 now $899.99
At its $749 MSRP, the RTX 5070 Ti is an expensive but superb graphics card. Alas, while it's still very good, prices have risen to ridiculous levels, and overall stock levels aren't great either. This 'offer' is the best one of them all, but it's still very overpriced.

Key specs: 8960 shaders | 2572 MHz boost | 16 GB GDDR7

RTX 5070 Ti price check: Amazon $969 | Walmart $954.99 | Best Buy $989.99View Deal

Honestly, that's still a ridiculous amount of money for a third-tier Nvidia GPU, and the Radeon RX 9070 XT would have my vote given it can effectively perform the same but for $700 at Amazon today. But the RTX 5070 Ti is still one of my favorite cards from the RTX Blackwell era, thanks to its performance, overclocking headroom, and the effectiveness of multi Frame Generation when it's got a good GPU backing it up.

So, if you were interested in getting yourself an RTX 5070 Ti, but baulked at spending over a grand for one, this is probably going to be your best chance for a while

👉Check out Walmart's GPU deals👈

]]> <![CDATA[ HWMonitor now shows you thermal hotspot data for RTX 50-series graphics cards, so I thought I'd give one of ours a quick test ]]> Hot off the news that repair shops have gained access to leaked internal Nvidia tools to gather RTX 50-series hotspot data, CPUID's HWMonitor has added its own hotspot thermal tracking info in the latest update.

Version 1.65 adds two hotspot sensor data rows within the graphics card column for RTX 50-series cards, right underneath the traditional GPU and memory average temperature data. This should make it easier for users to diagnose whether their card is suffering from dried out thermal paste and pads, or a mis-contacted cooler.

The hotspot temperature will naturally be higher than the regular GPU temp reading under load, so don't panic if you see some elevated figures. Personally, I'd only become concerned if the hot spot temps were alarmingly high, combined with the GPU cooler fans spinning like a small tornado and the gaming performance dropping like a stone.

All that being said, I gritted my teeth and decided to check out the Asus TUF Gaming RTX 5070 Ti OC Edition's hotspot temps while running Crimson Desert at 4K with path tracing enabled, just to give myself a worst-case scenario. Oh, and there's a heatwave on in the UK at the moment, and my house has no air conditioning. Perfect test conditions!

As you can see from the results below, while the GPU sat comfortably at around 62-63 °C on average, HWMonitor recorded a brief hotspot spike into the mid-80s, although settled down to a 75-80 °C temp afterwards.

(Image credit: CPUID)

I'm fairly comfortable with that, as I've benched this card many times and its performance is right in line with other RTX 5070 Ti data we have to hand. It's quiet as a mouse, too. Should the hotspot temps ever soar off into the stratosphere, though, I'll be having the cooler off in a heartbeat to check out the conditions underneath.

The devs behind CapFrameX, a very useful free performance monitoring utility, have also announced that RTX 50-series hotspot temps will be coming to its tracking features soon. So hey, more ways to keep an eye on your machine. And let's face it, we all like a bit of PC hardware watching, don't we?

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/hwmonitor-now-shows-you-thermal-hotspot-data-for-rtx-50-series-graphics-cards-so-i-thought-id-give-one-of-ours-a-quick-test/ hGZrMK3Kz2sS9EvJ7dWseK Wed, 15 Jul 2026 11:34:10 +0000 Wed, 15 Jul 2026 11:38:26 +0000 false false false

Hot off the news that repair shops have gained access to leaked internal Nvidia tools to gather RTX 50-series hotspot data, CPUID's HWMonitor has added its own hotspot thermal tracking info in the latest update.

Version 1.65 adds two hotspot sensor data rows within the graphics card column for RTX 50-series cards, right underneath the traditional GPU and memory average temperature data. This should make it easier for users to diagnose whether their card is suffering from dried out thermal paste and pads, or a mis-contacted cooler.

The hotspot temperature will naturally be higher than the regular GPU temp reading under load, so don't panic if you see some elevated figures. Personally, I'd only become concerned if the hot spot temps were alarmingly high, combined with the GPU cooler fans spinning like a small tornado and the gaming performance dropping like a stone.

All that being said, I gritted my teeth and decided to check out the Asus TUF Gaming RTX 5070 Ti OC Edition's hotspot temps while running Crimson Desert at 4K with path tracing enabled, just to give myself a worst-case scenario. Oh, and there's a heatwave on in the UK at the moment, and my house has no air conditioning. Perfect test conditions!

As you can see from the results below, while the GPU sat comfortably at around 62-63 °C on average, HWMonitor recorded a brief hotspot spike into the mid-80s, although settled down to a 75-80 °C temp afterwards.

(Image credit: CPUID)

I'm fairly comfortable with that, as I've benched this card many times and its performance is right in line with other RTX 5070 Ti data we have to hand. It's quiet as a mouse, too. Should the hotspot temps ever soar off into the stratosphere, though, I'll be having the cooler off in a heartbeat to check out the conditions underneath.

The devs behind CapFrameX, a very useful free performance monitoring utility, have also announced that RTX 50-series hotspot temps will be coming to its tracking features soon. So hey, more ways to keep an eye on your machine. And let's face it, we all like a bit of PC hardware watching, don't we?

]]> <![CDATA[ Too hot to handle: A leaked internal Nvidia tool re-enables blocked GPU hotspot sensor data for RTX 50-series graphics cards ]]> Nvidia's RTX 50-series cards have a tendency to run cool and quiet. On average, at least. The current generation of Nvidia GPUs were previously claimed to have had their hotspot sensor removed, which lead to limited temp readings in real-time monitoring tools like GPU-Z, as only the regular GPU and memory temperature data is available.

However, Brazilian modding and repair channel Paulo Gomes claims to have gained access to hotspot measurements on RTX 50-series GPUs via MODS, or Nvidia Modular Diagnostic Software, an internal Nvidia tool that appears to have leaked to some repair channels and Discord servers (via Techpowerup).

By the seems of it, RTX 50-series GPUs do in fact have a hotspot temperature reporting sensor, but it's disabled at a driver level on boot. The Nvidia MODS tool bypasses the driver restriction, allowing users to see the exact hotspot temperature, making it easier to diagnose a misaligned cooler or improper application of thermal paste.

Which is what Paulo Gomes has been doing in order to diagnose RTX 50-series cards with abnormal gaming performance and high fan noise, due to thermal throttling.

In the given example, a Gigabyte RTX 5070 Ti was reporting an average temperature of around 68 °C , but had an actual hotspot maximum temp of 107 °C due to poor cooler contact. After replacing the thermal paste and ensuring the cooler was correctly fitted, the hotspot temperatures dropped to 100 °C, resulting in much better performance.

Given the sheer number of AIB coolers strapped to Nvidia's latest efforts, it's no surprise that some become victims to poor implementation of thermal interface material. That being said, it's not the first Gigabyte thermal paste-related issue we've been made aware of.

As to why hotspot data is blocked in the first place for RTX 50-series cards? No idea. Many Nvidia RTX 50-series GPUs have passed through our hands since release, and we've not had issues with poor performance (relative to expectations) or thermal problems with any of them.

Still, the MODS tool is said to be out there, floating within the murky world of Discord. Be careful with what you download though, yes? There's nothing worse than getting an unintentional dose of malware to compound your PC issues, let me tell you.

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/too-hot-to-handle-a-leaked-internal-nvidia-tool-re-enables-blocked-gpu-hotspot-sensor-data-for-rtx-50-series-graphics-cards/ tXvpdwbyEwV3rPQ8daRUrG Mon, 13 Jul 2026 15:56:37 +0000 false false false

Nvidia's RTX 50-series cards have a tendency to run cool and quiet. On average, at least. The current generation of Nvidia GPUs were previously claimed to have had their hotspot sensor removed, which lead to limited temp readings in real-time monitoring tools like GPU-Z, as only the regular GPU and memory temperature data is available.

However, Brazilian modding and repair channel Paulo Gomes claims to have gained access to hotspot measurements on RTX 50-series GPUs via MODS, or Nvidia Modular Diagnostic Software, an internal Nvidia tool that appears to have leaked to some repair channels and Discord servers (via Techpowerup).

By the seems of it, RTX 50-series GPUs do in fact have a hotspot temperature reporting sensor, but it's disabled at a driver level on boot. The Nvidia MODS tool bypasses the driver restriction, allowing users to see the exact hotspot temperature, making it easier to diagnose a misaligned cooler or improper application of thermal paste.

Which is what Paulo Gomes has been doing in order to diagnose RTX 50-series cards with abnormal gaming performance and high fan noise, due to thermal throttling.

In the given example, a Gigabyte RTX 5070 Ti was reporting an average temperature of around 68 °C , but had an actual hotspot maximum temp of 107 °C due to poor cooler contact. After replacing the thermal paste and ensuring the cooler was correctly fitted, the hotspot temperatures dropped to 100 °C, resulting in much better performance.

Given the sheer number of AIB coolers strapped to Nvidia's latest efforts, it's no surprise that some become victims to poor implementation of thermal interface material. That being said, it's not the first Gigabyte thermal paste-related issue we've been made aware of.

As to why hotspot data is blocked in the first place for RTX 50-series cards? No idea. Many Nvidia RTX 50-series GPUs have passed through our hands since release, and we've not had issues with poor performance (relative to expectations) or thermal problems with any of them.

Still, the MODS tool is said to be out there, floating within the murky world of Discord. Be careful with what you download though, yes? There's nothing worse than getting an unintentional dose of malware to compound your PC issues, let me tell you.

]]> <![CDATA[ More evidence that Multi Frame Gen is on the way to AMD RDNA4 GPUs, potentially as high as 8x ]]> If you're rockin' a current-gen AMD graphics card, there are yet more hints that multi frame gen (MFG), ie, frame gen that promises more than 2x frame rate, could soon be with us. 'Soon' is relative, of course, especially in the case of AMD, but detective work by a user on the Chinese forum Chiphell has revealed the presence of FSR MFG ratios up to 8x hidden in recent drivers (via Wccftech).

The user discovered the setting in the RadeonTuner tool, which hooks into the official AMD driver and provides a different app on top. This app, crucially, can present things in the driver that the regular AMD Adrenalin app might not yet give you access to. Things such as the FSR ratio drop-down.

To be clear, we already knew that MFG was probably being worked on by AMD, because earlier this year there was mention of "frame generation ratios" in documentation for the ADLX API. This implied that game developers were now being allowed to tinker with frame generation ratios, which implies the existence of ratios above 2x. In other words: multi frame gen.

Now, we have more confirmation of this, and not only that, but (A) it's seemingly in the actual drivers rather than just SDK documentation, and (B) the ratio maxes out at 8x. For reference, Nvidia's Multi Frame Gen maxes out at 6x.

As someone who uses an AMD RX 9070 XT as my daily driver, I am keenly aware of just how long it's taken AMD to implement promised technologies that Nvidia has already long been able to deliver. Technologies, that is, like multi frame gen, not to mention the latest upscaling and frame gen technologies in general, in more than a smattering of games.

The RadeonTuner tool also seems to show FSR Ray Regeneration and Neural Radiance Caching overrides, which will presumably allow us to override a game's settings to force FSR ray reconstruction and neural caching for better ray tracing.

Asus Prime RX 9070 XT graphics card

(Image credit: Future)

I can't help but wonder, though, whether AMD users would rather more adoption of the latest FSR technologies we already have, such as regular 'Redstone' ML-powered frame gen and upscaling. There have been improvements on this front of late, though, with the technologies being allowed via driver-level overrides even for previous-gen AMD GPUs.

I also can't help but wonder how 8x frame gen will work in practice. I know for my part, I struggle to deal with the latency of even 3x or 4x frame gen on Nvidia cards. But I'm particularly sensitive to latency, so maybe 8x frame gen will have its place.

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/more-evidence-that-multi-frame-gen-is-on-the-way-to-amd-rdna4-gpus-potentially-as-high-as-8x/ HXUU9qNU2hXkEwM5GpKroG Mon, 13 Jul 2026 14:56:28 +0000 Mon, 13 Jul 2026 14:59:11 +0000 false false false

If you're rockin' a current-gen AMD graphics card, there are yet more hints that multi frame gen (MFG), ie, frame gen that promises more than 2x frame rate, could soon be with us. 'Soon' is relative, of course, especially in the case of AMD, but detective work by a user on the Chinese forum Chiphell has revealed the presence of FSR MFG ratios up to 8x hidden in recent drivers (via Wccftech).

The user discovered the setting in the RadeonTuner tool, which hooks into the official AMD driver and provides a different app on top. This app, crucially, can present things in the driver that the regular AMD Adrenalin app might not yet give you access to. Things such as the FSR ratio drop-down.

To be clear, we already knew that MFG was probably being worked on by AMD, because earlier this year there was mention of "frame generation ratios" in documentation for the ADLX API. This implied that game developers were now being allowed to tinker with frame generation ratios, which implies the existence of ratios above 2x. In other words: multi frame gen.

Now, we have more confirmation of this, and not only that, but (A) it's seemingly in the actual drivers rather than just SDK documentation, and (B) the ratio maxes out at 8x. For reference, Nvidia's Multi Frame Gen maxes out at 6x.

As someone who uses an AMD RX 9070 XT as my daily driver, I am keenly aware of just how long it's taken AMD to implement promised technologies that Nvidia has already long been able to deliver. Technologies, that is, like multi frame gen, not to mention the latest upscaling and frame gen technologies in general, in more than a smattering of games.

The RadeonTuner tool also seems to show FSR Ray Regeneration and Neural Radiance Caching overrides, which will presumably allow us to override a game's settings to force FSR ray reconstruction and neural caching for better ray tracing.

Asus Prime RX 9070 XT graphics card

(Image credit: Future)

I can't help but wonder, though, whether AMD users would rather more adoption of the latest FSR technologies we already have, such as regular 'Redstone' ML-powered frame gen and upscaling. There have been improvements on this front of late, though, with the technologies being allowed via driver-level overrides even for previous-gen AMD GPUs.

I also can't help but wonder how 8x frame gen will work in practice. I know for my part, I struggle to deal with the latency of even 3x or 4x frame gen on Nvidia cards. But I'm particularly sensitive to latency, so maybe 8x frame gen will have its place.

]]> <![CDATA[ Legendary dad fixes their kid's dead RTX 3070 by ripping the capacitor out of an old radio and slapping it on the side, saving over $100 in the process ]]>
Stara škola električara - najbolja
 from r/SerbiaGaming

It's never nice to have to replace your old hardware, but with the memory crisis in full swing, it has become more and more painful to watch old hardware break down. That's why it's particularly nice to see people save their old hardware with a little ingenuity, and one Redditor's dad used a whole heaping of it recently.

As spotted by Tom's Hardware, user External_Length_8877 took to the SerbiaGaming subreddit recently to share that their dad ripped a capacitor from an old radio to replace the broken one in their RTX 3070, saving 12,000 dinars (around $115) in the process.

In the process, the dad also swapped out the thermal paste for one used on high-voltage lines, and the original poster claims, "Now it runs better than before the repair."

The only downside so far is that the capacitor from the radio is bulkier than the original capacitor, so it now hangs outside of the GPU. That means you can see it noticeably on the side, and it also means it may struggle in a super tight case, but one can expect some hits to performance if your parts are super cramped anyway.

The Redditor claims the GPU hits "No more than 80 °C during Spider-Man on ultra graphics settings without frame generation. Maximum load—up to 99% on GPU and CPU. And temperatures—no more than 80 °C on GPU and 75 °C on CPU."

Those aren't exactly low figures, but the Redditor claims they were going above 100 °C during stress and 80 °C+ without stress prior to the swap. It seems like the paste is the real winner here. But the important thing is that the GPU works now.

And, I personally like the DIY angle of jamming in your own capacitor, even if it makes the card look less clean. There are likely very few people in the world who can claim the GPU running Spider-Man has been operated on by their dad.

Nvidia RTX 3070 Founders Edition

(Image credit: Future)

Still, External_Length_8877 claims it's only a "temporary solution" while they look for a capacitor with the same size and dimensions as the original they lost.

Though at-home repairs can also be a bit risky, the one silver lining of the memory crisis is that more people are learning to fix their own gear and caring more about repairability. If taking apart a radio and learning about GPUs will save you up to hundreds of dollars, it's a great skill to hone. And there's absolutely charm in your GPU looking just a little DIY.

]]> https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/legendary-dad-fixes-their-kids-dead-rtx-3070-by-ripping-the-capacitor-out-of-an-old-radio-and-slapping-it-on-the-side-saving-over-usd100-in-the-process/ pKsnPNRwxEyc7F4Ps9emqk Fri, 10 Jul 2026 14:09:33 +0000 false false false
Stara škola električara - najbolja
 from r/SerbiaGaming

It's never nice to have to replace your old hardware, but with the memory crisis in full swing, it has become more and more painful to watch old hardware break down. That's why it's particularly nice to see people save their old hardware with a little ingenuity, and one Redditor's dad used a whole heaping of it recently.

As spotted by Tom's Hardware, user External_Length_8877 took to the SerbiaGaming subreddit recently to share that their dad ripped a capacitor from an old radio to replace the broken one in their RTX 3070, saving 12,000 dinars (around $115) in the process.

In the process, the dad also swapped out the thermal paste for one used on high-voltage lines, and the original poster claims, "Now it runs better than before the repair."

The only downside so far is that the capacitor from the radio is bulkier than the original capacitor, so it now hangs outside of the GPU. That means you can see it noticeably on the side, and it also means it may struggle in a super tight case, but one can expect some hits to performance if your parts are super cramped anyway.

The Redditor claims the GPU hits "No more than 80 °C during Spider-Man on ultra graphics settings without frame generation. Maximum load—up to 99% on GPU and CPU. And temperatures—no more than 80 °C on GPU and 75 °C on CPU."

Those aren't exactly low figures, but the Redditor claims they were going above 100 °C during stress and 80 °C+ without stress prior to the swap. It seems like the paste is the real winner here. But the important thing is that the GPU works now.

And, I personally like the DIY angle of jamming in your own capacitor, even if it makes the card look less clean. There are likely very few people in the world who can claim the GPU running Spider-Man has been operated on by their dad.

Nvidia RTX 3070 Founders Edition

(Image credit: Future)

Still, External_Length_8877 claims it's only a "temporary solution" while they look for a capacitor with the same size and dimensions as the original they lost.

Though at-home repairs can also be a bit risky, the one silver lining of the memory crisis is that more people are learning to fix their own gear and caring more about repairability. If taking apart a radio and learning about GPUs will save you up to hundreds of dollars, it's a great skill to hone. And there's absolutely charm in your GPU looking just a little DIY.

]]>