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Nvidia RTX 5070 and 5060 GPUs rumored to be delayed to March and April respectively, and stock could be every bit as dire as the RTX 5090 and 5080

  • Nvidia RTX 5070 and 5060 GPUs are rumored to be delayed by a month
  • This means that in theory the RTX 5070 may not arrive until March, and the RTX 5060 in April
  • Expect these GPUs to “sell out instantly” according to the source of this rumor

Update: Nvidia has now officially announced that the RTX 5070 Ti GPU is out on February 20, but RTX 5070 is delayed to March 6. The RTX 5070 delay is less than some rumors had suggested.

Nvidia’s RTX 5060 and 5070 graphics cards might suffer issues with stock, as the RTX 5080 and 5090 have already experienced – and they could end up delayed as a result of a lack of production capacity.

TweakTown noticed a post on X from regular leaker, Ming-Chi Kuo, who’s normally big on Apple and phone-related rumors, but also has fingers in other hardware pies.

Kuo acknowledges the current dire situation for supply with the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 – GPUs that use the GB202 and GB203 Blackwell chips – and indicates that ongoing struggles with supply will push back the mass production of the RTX 5070 and RTX 5060.

Now, as far as those two still unreleased graphics cards go, we know that Nvidia’s RTX 5070 models are due in February, so this is an assertion of a delay for the vanilla 5070 graphics card to March.

We haven’t officially heard anything about the RTX 5060, on the other hand – not even its existence – but the GPU has been rumored for March previously, and Kuo is now claiming that these models will be pushed back to April. Pass the seasoning at this point, as ever with these kinds of rumors.

Angry PC gamer sitting at a gaming desktop PC and losing

(Image credit: Friends Stock / Shutterstock)

Analysis: Doom and gloom part… erm, I’ve lost count

On the face of it, this really isn’t good news for those – like myself – who are keenly awaiting the arrival of more affordable graphics cards from Nvidia’s next-gen range. The RTX 5080 is effectively out of my price bracket – especially given how asking prices have turned out in reality, thanks to super-lean stock levels – and so it’s the RTX 5070 models I’m really interested in.

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The glimmer of hope, such as it is, comes with the RTX 5070 Ti being rumored to still be on track for February. Review embargoes are purportedly in place, and various spillage suggests a launch on February 20, which is only a week away now. But there’s a distinct lack of any talk of the RTX 5070 vanilla flavor on the rumor mill, which does indeed suggest that it might be on the back burner in some way.

On top of that, we’ve already heard a couple of rumors of a delay to March for the RTX 5070, and we can add this fresh speculation here to the growing pile.

Adding all this up, talk of a delay certainly makes some sense, and if Nvidia is struggling – to the point that “limited supply means these two cards [RTX 5070 and 5060] will sell out instantly even if production stays on schedule” according to Kuo – well, that’s not looking too clever now, is it?

It sounds like a recipe for delays, and more price gouging and stock washouts, particularly considering the RTX 5070, and certainly the RTX 5060, are going to be the targets of a lot more would-be buyers considering they’re at the more affordable end of the Blackwell spectrum. I’m also concerned about what we’re now hearing about the pricing of the RTX 5070 Ti, to boot.

While we must be careful not to get overly gloomy about these inbound launches from Nvidia, it’s getting increasingly difficult to avoid doing so, as all the rumors are slanted towards the negative side of what might be, rather than anything remotely positive.

Although we do have AMD’s RDNA 4 launch to look forward to, of course, in March, and maybe Nvidia could be leaving the door open for Team Red to spark the beginning of what might be quite a GPU comeback here. I guess stranger things have happened, and don’t forget Intel either – Battlemage could have a ship in the mid-range seas, too.

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Meta’s planned subsea cable will exceed circumference of Earth and support AI innovation

Meta has announced its plan for a subsea cable that will span the globe, connecting emerging economies such as India, South Africa and Brazil to the US.

Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp’s parent company announced what is known as Project Waterworth in a blog post.

The social media giant’s vice-president of network engineering, Gaya Nagarajan, and Alex-Handrah Aimé, its global head of network investments, said the 50,000 km cable will be the world’s longest, and use “the highest-capacity technology available”. 

Regions of rapid economic growth will be connected directly to the US through the cable, which the Meta executives said “will enable greater economic cooperation, facilitate digital inclusion and open opportunities for technological development in these regions”.

Meta said it has already developed over 20 subsea cables. “With Project Waterworth, we continue to advance engineering design to maintain cable resilience, enabling us to build the longest 24 fibre pair cable project in the world and enhance overall speed of deployment,” wrote the Meta executives.

The multibillion-dollar investment, which will see cables laid at depths of 7,000 meters, will take years to complete, but promises increased access to high-speed connectivity, which it said could, for example, support artificial intelligence (AI) innovation across the world.

“AI is revolutionising every aspect of our lives, from how we interact with each other to how we think about infrastructure – and Meta is at the forefront of building these innovative technologies,” the company said. “As AI continues to transform industries and societies around the world, it’s clear that capacity, resilience and global reach are more important than ever to support leading infrastructure.”

The blog post added: “With Project Waterworth, we can help ensure that the benefits of AI and other emerging technologies are available to everyone, regardless of where they live or work.”

While subsea cables promise to enable global connectivity, there are concerns over how these costly and critical infrastructures can be protected from attacks from hostile states.

MPs and peers recently launched an inquiry into the UK’s ability to protect undersea internet cables that link the country with the rest of the world. This followed heightened threats of sabotage.

The Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, which scrutinises government decision-making on national security, aims to assess the UK’s readiness for potential attacks on critical undersea communication cables.

The inquiry followed a statement by defence secretary John Healey, warning that Russian president Vladimir Putin is targeting the UK’s undersea oil, gas, electricity and internet cables after a Russian spy ship entered British waters.

According to the parliamentary committee, 99% of the UK’s data passes through undersea internet cables.

“As the geopolitical environment worsens, foreign states are seeking asymmetric ways to hold us at risk,” said committee chairman Matt Western. “Our internet cable network looks like an increasingly vulnerable soft underbelly. There is no need for panic – we have a good degree of resilience, and awareness of the challenge is growing. But we must be clear-eyed about the risks and consequences: an attack of this nature would hit us hard.”

The global internet, which is critical for international communications and commerce, relies on a network of 500 cables that carry 95% of internet traffic. The cables are often in remote places, making them difficult and expensive to monitor.

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Apple’s M3 Ultra jaw-dropping performance revealed in early benchmark test

Apple’s most powerful chip ever is the M3 Ultra, which is currently exclusive to the 2025 Mac Studio. With up to an 80-core GPU, twice what’s available on the M4 Max, this chipset is a beast for graphics performance. However, how much better is it really than the M4 Max and the previous M2 Ultra?

In a Geekbench 6 result that surfaced on the web and that was spotted by MacRumors, the top-end M3 Ultra with an 80-core GPU had a Metal score of 259,668, up from 222,582 with the M2 Ultra processor with a 76-core GPU. If you do the maths, it gives up to 16% faster graphic performance than the previous iteration.

While the result may vary a little, the 16-inch MacBook Pro with M4 Max and a 40-core GPU has a Metal score of 187,460, which means the graphic performance between the M4 Max Mac Studio and M3 Ultra Mac Studio could be around 38%.

A CPU performance test revealed that the M3 Ultra is up to 10% faster than the M4 chip, so users upgrading to this more expensive Mac should know that the M3 Ultra’s benefits lie in the GPU performance.

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Apple says this chip has been built using the company’s “innovative UltraFusion packaging architecture, which links two M3 Max dies over 10,000 high-speed connections that offer low latency and high bandwidth.”

Officially, Cupertino states the M3 Ultra provides the most performance of any Mac chip while still delivering “exceptional power efficiency” thanks to its silicon. It features up to a 32-core CPU with 24 performance cores and eight efficiency cores, up to 1.5x the performance of the M2 Ultra and 1.8x of the M1 Ultra. Its GPU makes it perform up to 2x faster than the M2 Ultra and 2.6x faster than the M1 Ultra.

Apple says the M3 Ultra provides the most performance of any Mac chip while still delivering exceptional power efficiency thanks to its silicon. It features up to a 32-core CPU with 24 performance cores and eight efficiency cores, up to 1.5x the performance of the M2 Ultra and 1.8x of the M1 Ultra. It also has the largest GPU in any Apple chip, with up to 80 graphics cores, making it up to 2x faster performance than the M2 Ultra and 2.6x than the M1 Ultra.

The new Mac Studio starts with 96GB of RAM, but thanks to the M3 Ultra chip, this is the first Apple Silicon Mac to feature up to 512GB of RAM. Apple says this spec removes limitations for ”pro workloads that demand large amounts of graphics memory like 3D rendering, visual effects, and AI.”

The M3 Ultra Mac Studio will be available in stores starting March 12.

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Latest WhatsApp beta introduces yet another useless AI feature

We already knew that Meta was planning to infuse more of its AI features into its apps—including WhatsApp. Well, it looks like Meta is finally starting to infuse more AI features into WhatsApp, and it’s starting with a pretty useless one.

Obviously, opinions on AI in WhatsApp have been very mixed since the company announced its plans. Some of our own have even questioned the move, especially since WhatsApp is meant to be end-to-end encrypted. But that doesn’t seem to have stopped Meta one bit, as Zuckerberg continues to push his idea of useful AI features down the collective throats of anyone using Meta’s apps.

According to reports, the latest beta for WhatsApp has officially brought more AI features into the messaging app. If you were expecting something overly useful, though, you might be disappointed, as it seems the “AI-powered” feature will only let you generate images for your chats—and only for group chats at that.

It’s a bit of a weird limitation, to be sure, and will likely be extended to other chats and even profile pictures before it’s all said and done. And while we might not be the biggest fan of Meta baking AI features into WhatsApp, others like ChatGPT have even started using WhatsApp as a way to interact with AI chatbots—and it might even be the best way to interact with ChatGPT.

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I, personally, don’t find much use in image generation for profile icons and group chat icons. So, seeing a feature like this make the jump to WhatsApp isn’t exactly a huge deal. As my colleague Chris pointed out in the piece I linked at the start of this article, the influx of AI into an end-to-end encrypted messaging app certainly comes with some worrying possibilities.

Meta has yet to say whether it plans to extend the use of image generation beyond just group icons or if it will stop there for now, with no plans to bring it to other icons like profile pictures or regular group chat icons. However, it is likely that it will eventually be available for all these options at some point down the line, as it doesn’t make much sense to limit it to only group chats.

Considering Meta is already working to give AI bots prime access to WhatsApp users, it’s probably only a matter of time before we see more useless AI features like this making an appearance in the messaging app. Maybe it’s finally time to jump ship to another encrypted messaging app.

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Does the Nvidia RTX 5090 have a cable melting problem? It’s complicated

  • A small number of reports of RTX 5090 power cables overheating and melting have been confirmed
  • This follows widespread reports of similar issues with the previous RTX 4090
  • However, it’s possible that third-party cables could be to blame this time around

Remember ‘cablegate’? Back in late 2022, users started to report that the power connectors of their Nvidia RTX 4090 graphics cards were overheating and essentially melting into unusable hunks of plastic – and now, according to some buyers, the same issue could be plaguing the newly-released RTX 5090.

Now, I covered the cablegate fiasco when the story was at its peak, and at the time, I was willing to assign at least some portion of the blame to Nvidia, as the PCIe Special Interest Group (PCI-SIG) had previously published a report warning of ‘thermal variance’ risks regarding the 12VHPWR adapter used for the RTX 4090. This time around, though, I’m really not so sure Nvidia is at fault.

For starters, the issues appear far less widespread than with the RTX 4090; while there were literally dozens of reports back in 2022 (which continued well into 2024), we’ve only seen two isolated confirmed cases of cable-melting with regard to the RTX 5090. The first came from a Reddit user, while the second was reported by the Spanish YouTube channel Toro Tocho Reviews. Both reported the same issue: the power cable overheated and melted at both ends, something we didn’t see in the majority of RTX 4090 connector failures.

Secondly, the first of these cases was confirmed to have involved a third-party power cable from PC-modding supplier MODDIY, introducing a new potential point of failure. Nvidia has now moved over to the 12V-2×6 connection standard for more stable power delivery and more secure pin connections, and although MODDIY claims its cables support the new standard, the Reddit user stated that they’d been using this cable for two years with an RTX 4090. Backward compatibility with third-party 12VHPWR cables is likely to continue to be an issue for Nvidia’s GPUs – notably, MODDIY now has a page on its website advising buyers with RTX 5000-series GPUs to purchase new-for-2025 12V-2×6 cables.

So is there really a problem?

In other words, at least one of these cable-melting cases appears to have been caused by user error: the 12VHPWR cable that melted, despite being physically compatible with the RTX 5090, was presumably unable to handle the power delivery taking place. Nvidia’s latest flagship GPU is a hungry girl, after all, with an obscene 575W TDP.

PC modders are gonna mod, of course, but given the known issues with the previous-gen card’s power connector, I’d personally be very reluctant to use anything but the cables supplied in the box at this point. A Reddit megathread on the topic has been created to compile additional cases, and there’s a fair amount of debate in the comments as to whether Nvidia is to blame or if users should be taking more care to avoid third-party cables – even if they claim to be compatible.

Naturally, I reached out to my contact at Nvidia to ask for a quote, but Team Green declined to comment – not even a ‘we’re investigating’, instead pointing me to MODDIY’s page warning about using older 12VHPWR cables. It seems Nvidia feels more confident this time around, further reinforcing the idea that the cases we’ve seen so far were caused not by the GPUs themselves but rather third-party hardware.

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It is still possible that we’re only at the beginning of a tidal wave of similar reports – given the extremely limited availability of the RTX 5090 at launch, we might be yet to see the full extent of the issue as only a small number of users have managed to get their hands on the GPU.

Still, we shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Two cases (with a few more unconfirmed) aren’t exactly the cavalcade of issues we saw after the RTX 4090 launch, so there’s every chance these problems won’t be so widespread. If you were lucky enough to snag one of Nvidia’s new flagship GPUs, my only advice is this: stick with the supplied cables for now! If you’ve got thoughts on this, please feel free to tell me what a genius/idiot I am in our shiny new comments section below. Frankly, I’d love to chat with someone who actually managed to buy one of these cards…

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Nvidia announces RTX 5070 Ti GPU is out on February 20, but RTX 5070 is delayed to March 5 – and I’m far from surprised

  • Nvidia has revealed that the RTX 5070 Ti goes on sale on February 20
  • It’ll be followed by the RTX 5070 on March 5, despite Nvidia originally saying this GPU would arrive in February as well as the Ti
  • The RTX 5070 Ti launch date, and delay to early March for the RTX 5070, were predicted by the rumor mill

Nvidia has confirmed the launch dates of its RTX 5070 graphics cards, with the RTX 5070 Ti arriving as planned in February, but with the vanilla RTX 5070 having been pushed out a bit to March, as rumors had already insisted was the case.

Nvidia updated its official web page for the RTX 5070 models with the exact dates, which are February 20 for the RTX 5070 Ti, and March 5 for the RTX 5070.

Team Green also posted on X to reveal the information about the RTX 5070 Ti, and how the graphics card is coming from third-party board makers and PC builders – remember, this variant won’t have a Founders Edition from Nvidia itself.

The RTX 5070, on the other hand, will have a Founders Edition, but you’ll be waiting a couple more weeks to attempt to order that, or to try and grab a third-party graphics card.

Try being the operative word here, as it remains to be seen what kind of stock levels that the RTX 5070 models will launch with.

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Analysis: The rumors were right

It doesn’t bode particularly well that back when all the new Blackwell graphics cards were revealed at CES 2025, Nvidia said that both of these RTX 5070 variants were due to arrive in February at some point (without giving any specific dates). Pretty soon after, there were early rumors suggesting the RTX 5070 non-Ti version would be delayed to early March, and that’s exactly what has happened.

Why the (slight) delay, then? Could this be about running interference with AMD’s RX 9070 launch somehow, which is also in March? I doubt that, and a more likely turn of events is to be found in considering the most recent development with chatter from the grapevine. Namely, the tale spun earlier today about stock of the RTX 5070 possibly being seriously thin on the ground – potentially a similar situation to the one we’ve seen with the RTX 5090 and 5080.

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Now, that’s just a rumor, and I’m not saying it’s right, but it certainly makes some sense when you put everything together in the cold light of day. Given Nvidia’s stock woes have been pretty disastrous so far, if the RTX 5070 were to arrive in healthy quantities, it’d be a surprise. It’s certainly a believable theory that the vanilla 5070 needed to be pushed back a bit to ensure something like a half-decent amount of these graphics cards end up on shelves.

The other problem with the RTX 5070 is that given its more affordable price tag, this GPU is going to be in far greater demand than any of the Blackwell graphics cards we’ve seen so far – making a tighter supply a potentially much worse scenario.

Furthermore, bear in mind that the same rumor peddler who was right about the RTX 5070 delay, also suggested the RTX 5060 has been pushed back as well (from March to April).

Naturally, stay skeptical on that particular RTX 5060 nugget, but the other widely spread rumor, the one about the RTX 5070 Ti launching on February 20, has also turned out to be correct. In short, the rumor mill appears to have nailed what’s happening with incoming Blackwell GPUs pretty well thus far, so at this point, I’m definitely not betting against it.

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AMD confirms big reveal for RX 9070 GPUs on February 28, on-sale date is early March – so it looks like a head-to-head clash with Nvidia’s RTX 5070

  • AMD has confirmed its full RDNA 4 launch event for February 28
  • These initial RX 9070 models will go on sale in early March
  • That sets up the RX 9070 for a showdown against Nvidia’s RTX 5070 which hits shelves on March 5

AMD has revealed that its RDNA 4 graphics cards will get a full launch event – as opposed to the fleeting announcements made at CES 2025 – in two weeks, ahead of the March release for these GPUs.

David McAfee, who is AMD’s VP and GM of Ryzen and Radeon, let us know the date and time to mark in our calendars is February 28 at 8am EST (5am PST, 1pm UK time) via a post on X.

The AMD exec also said that the long-awaited RX 9070 models will hit shelves in early March.

When the RX 9070 XT and plain RX 9070 were announced back at CES 2025 last month, the broad expectation was that they’d arrive earlier in the first quarter, rather than later.

That hope had cold water poured over it when AMD confirmed these RDNA 4 graphics cards were delayed to March, and McAfee took to X in order to explain why. Namely to ensure that AMD’s Adrenalin graphics drivers are fully tuned and ready to go to ensure the best performance for RX 9070 GPUs out of the gate, and also to bring in more support for FSR 4 in PC games (achieving the same end, effectively).

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Analysis: One final worry…

Crucially, McAfee also mentioned that another reason for putting off the release of RDNA 4 GPUs to March was to build up stock levels of the graphics cards at retail.

Now, I’m reading the release date being set at “early March” to mean the first week of next month, and that makes sense if we turn our attention to Nvidia’s plans. We just heard from AMD’s main GPU rival that its GeForce RTX 5070 is going to be on sale come March 5.

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So, it looks to me very much like there’s going to be a head-to-head clash of the mid-range GPUs, more-or-less, just after March rolls around, with AMD aiming to take Nvidia on directly here.

Team Red may well be buoyed by the general shakiness of stock levels for Nvidia’s Blackwell GPUs so far, and (believable enough) rumors that the RTX 5070 may not be that much different from the RTX 5080 and 5090 in this respect. After all, Nvidia did announce that the RTX 5070 models would both launch in February – the Ti version, and vanilla spin – and has then pushed back the non-Ti graphics card to March. That broken promise doesn’t feel like a good sign, stock-wise, to me.

In contrast, AMD seems more confident about relatively robust levels of supply for RDNA 4, and indeed we know that these GPUs have been at retailers since January. That’s thanks to leaked photos from those shops, and moreover, Team Red’s own confirmation that board-making partners had “started building initial inventory at retailers” back in January.

On top of that, there are some compellingly positive rumors about the potential performance levels we’ll see from RX 9070 models to boot, and sources elsewhere indicate AMD really is taking its time over this next-gen GPU launch to get it right.

The only worry that remains is pricing, and whether AMD’s apparent confidence with this mid-range showdown against Nvidia’s RTX 5070 models might mean the company pushes a bit higher with asking prices for the RX 9070 variants.

If you scan through the replies to McAfee’s post on X, that’s the consistent thread of worry throughout from the respondents who have less positive thoughts on RDNA 4. In short, the fear is that Nvidia’s stumbling Blackwell launch might mean AMD decides to charge more for RX 9070 GPUs – although having set up its stall as these being mid-range graphics cards, there’s surely a limit to how far Team Red might be able to push here, if this was a temptation?

Time will tell, and I remain hopeful that AMD won’t drive to any excesses here – this is a great opportunity to take the fight to Nvidia, after all. At the same time, I’m not anticipating a surprise with lower pricing either, as given how the market stands right now, that doesn’t make a lot of sense. Still, whatever happens, we need to see exactly how RX 9070 performance pans out before we can really get a perspective on pricing, anyway.

Via VideoCardz

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South Korea plots to become home to world’s largest AI datacentre

A newly created public-private partnership looks set to oversee the creation of the world’s largest artificial intelligence (AI) datacentre in South Korea.  

Work on the datacentre, which has a projected total cost of $35bn, is set to begin later this year and is expected to create a 3GW (gigawatt) datacentre by the time of its scheduled completion in 2028.

Overseeing the project will be investment company Stock Farm Road, which has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with South Korean governor Kim Young-rok of the Jeollanam-do Province that will pave the way for the site’s development.

“The facility will feature advanced cooling infrastructure, regional and international fibre bandwidth, and the ability to handle significant and sudden variations in energy load,” according to a statement. “It will serve as a foundation for next-generation AI enablement, fostering innovation and economic growth in the region and beyond.”

The statement further claims the project will lead to the creation of 10,000 jobs in a variety of disciplines spanning energy supply and storage, renewable energy production, equipment supply, and research and development.

“This is more than just a technological milestone; it’s a strategic leap forward for Korea’s global technological leadership,” said Stock Farm Road co-founder Amin Badr-El-Din.

“We are incredibly proud to partner with Stock Farm Road and the Jeollanam-do government to build this crucial infrastructure, creating an unprecedented opportunity to build the foundation for next-generation AI.”

Stock Farm Road has a background of using data analytics and AI tools to manage energy resources, and operates its own proprietary energy-to-intelligence platform, known as e2i².

The company said its expertise in this area will come into play during the datacentre’s construction, while other parts of its business will provide access to capital to fund the build.

Meanwhile, the Jeollanam-do government side of the partnership will provide support by enabling the developers to secure the permits and approvals needed to allow construction of the datacentre to start.

Stock Farm Road co-founder Brian Koo said the project could have a transformational impact on the region.

“Having witnessed first-hand the immense technological capabilities of large Asian enterprises, I recognise the potential of this project to elevate Korea and the region to a new level of technological advancement and economic prosperity,” said Koo. “This datacentre is not merely an infrastructure project, but the launchpad for a new digital industrial revolution.”

Looking ahead, Stock Farm Road said in its statement that the South Korean project marks the delivery of the first phase of its broader global strategy, whereby the company will seek to establish similar AI infrastructure partnerships across Asia, Europe and the US over the next 18 months.

The decision to site the datacentre in the Jeollanam-do province of South Korea is notable, and in keeping with the direction of travel the country’s government has been going in for some time, with regard to supporting the spread of datacentre developments outside of the central Seoul area.

“The general policy direction is for the decentralisation of datacentres away from the greater Seoul area to regional areas for the establishment of purpose-led districts,” said John Pritchard, Korea datacentre advisory team lead at real estate consultancy Cushman & Wakefield, in a late 2024 research note.

“However, this provides challenges for users, whereby latency and proximity to [the] end user are key considerations, and as such datacentres operating in the metropolitan area will become crucial enabling tools for digital groups.”

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AMD’s RX 9070 GPUs could go on sale March 6, the day after Nvidia’s RTX 5070 – and I wouldn’t fret about those 900W power supply rumors

  • AMD RX 9070 GPUs are rumored to hit shelves on March 6
  • Another rumor suggests 9070 XT could need a 900W power supply
  • That’s for a top-end overclocked version of the 9070 XT, though, and there are numerous caveats to consider here

AMD’s Radeon RX 9070 graphics cards will get a full launch event on February 28, which has been confirmed by Team Red, and now chatter on the rumor mill is indicating these GPUs will be available to buy on March 6.

That purported on-sale date comes courtesy of VideoCardz’s sources, an assertion also backed up by Chinese tech site Benchlife. Even though these two rumors align, we should still take this with a great deal of caution.

That said, AMD has told us that its RX 9070 models will go on sale in early March, which I take to mean the first week, and March 6 fits that picture. Still, we’ll need confirmation officially, and presumably that’ll come at the mentioned press event for RDNA 4 GPUs in late February.

At the same time, more speculation is floating around regarding the power consumption of the RX 9070 XT, suggesting that one third-party variant has a big ask in terms of your PC’s power supply.

Tom’s Hardware noticed a post on X from Tomasz Gawroński showing a purportedly leaked image of the PowerColor RX 9070 XT Red Devil, with the packaging apparently indicating that you’ll need a 900W PSU to have this graphics card in your gaming PC.

This has raised plenty of eyebrows, as it’s 100W more than the current recommendation for the RX 7900 XTX flagship, though even the poster admitted that they weren’t sure if the image is faked.

Interestingly, Frank Azor, who is head of consumer and gaming marketing at AMD, actually replied to Gawroński, observing that there will be other RX 9070 XT models that’ll “require lower minimum power supply wattages as will there be plenty with 8 pin power connectors for worry-free upgrading.”

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Note that Azor didn’t confirm that the image was real, though the AMD executive didn’t call it a fake, either (but of course, he doesn’t work for PowerColor).

AMD RX 9070 GPU models

(Image credit: AMD / TechPowerup)

Analysis: Ready for the AMD vs Nvidia mid-range GPU shootout?

The launch date of March 6 for the RX 9070 models, if it turns out to be correct, is certainly an interesting choice – mainly because Nvidia only just announced March 5 is when the RTX 5070 arrives on shelves. So, as we theorized earlier this week, this is looking very much like a mid-range head-to-head between the RX 9070 and RTX 5070 in the first week of March.

As for the PSU requirement, I wouldn’t panic about the potential scenario of RX 9070 models somehow requiring vast reservoirs of power. Some of the beefiest models may, but we must remember, the Red Devil board mentioned in the leak is a top-end graphics card, and as Azor observed, other models will require less wattage. Indeed, the rumor is that the reference 9070 XT from AMD will ask for a 750W PSU, with the RX 9070 vanilla needing 650W, far more modest requirements (add seasoning with that still).

It’s also worth noting that 900W is an odd specification here, given that there aren’t any PSUs delivering that exact figure, as far as I’m aware. There are 850W models and then we jump to 1000W, so why PowerColor is (theoretically) placing the requirement just above 850W, in a non-existent PSU bracket (as it were), I’m not sure. This could perhaps be another suggestion that the image is faked.

That said, I don’t doubt that a heavily overclocked RX 9070 XT model will drink a lot more juice than a standard board. It clearly will, and so it wouldn’t be a surprise if the top dogs of the RDNA 4 graphics card world are considerably more demanding on the PC’s power supply. These GPUs will also cost a lot more than the entry-level 9070 XT products, too, and how competitive AMD’s graphics cards will be in pricing terms is the other key question we’re dying to have answered.

We’ll have those answers soon enough, thankfully. Roll on the end of February.

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EY: Industrial companies worldwide stunted in emerging technology use

Many companies from a range of industries worldwide are stuck at a trial stage of emerging technologies usage, according to the sixth annual EY Reimagining industry futures study.

The firm surveyed 1,635 enterprises in November 2024, including 9% in the UK, 6% in Germany and 20% in the US. Respondents were drawn from a range of industries, including financial services (13%), cars and transport (13%), energy, mining and utilities (13%), and manufacturing (12%).

The study has a strong 5G and internet of things (IoT) orientation, as it has done in previous years. The lead authors come from the firm’s telecoms, media and technology (TMT) practices, Rob Atkinson, area managing partner for UK and Ireland TMT; and Adrian Baschnonga, global TMT lead analyst.

The press statement that goes with the report says nearly half (47%) of the respondents are investing in generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), compared with 43% last year.

Some 43% are investing in IoT, and 33% are investing in 5G technology, suggesting an upward trend from 39% and 27% respectively in 2024.

However, the report finds that businesses struggle to convert technology trials into live deployments. Only 1% of organisations have active deployments of GenAI. And while IoT investment seems to be rising year-on-year, the proportion of businesses with active IoT deployments is in decline, slipping to 16% this year compared with 19% in 2024.

Active deployments of edge computing are also flat year-on-year, at 22%.

CEOs get more into technology selection

The report finds decision-making inside enterprises is spreading out across the C-suite, with 49% of CEOs now involved in emerging technology strategy, including in choice of suppliers. Organisations where the CEO is a key decision-maker are further along, the report found.

Over half (51%) of businesses with CEOs involved in new technology decisions are investing in GenAI, compared with 44% of organisations where the CEO is less involved.

“As well as posing a challenge to unlocking long-term value, a failure to progress beyond the trial phase means businesses risk missing out on the combined impact of different technologies deployed together, an area where four in five (79%) organisations are looking to achieve more,” said Atkinson. “There could also be a danger that too many emerging technologies initiatives will be conducted in isolation, limiting the resulting business benefits.”

The report discovered that respondents are limitedly aware of what IT suppliers have on offer.

Some 73% said they need a better understanding of the changing supplier landscape. EY comments that this reflects “an environment where collaborative ecosystems featuring alliances between different technology providers are becoming the norm”.

More than half (56%) the respondents believe they lack awareness of their technology suppliers’ partners. Less than a third of organisations have high awareness of new mobile technology capabilities such as network application programming interfaces (32%) and network slicing (26%).

“Organisations view ecosystem collaboration as a route to access new skills and capabilities but lack understanding of changing supplier ecosystems,” said Baschnonga. “With many companies under pressure to consolidate vendors, suppliers should prioritise their ecosystem and alliance strategies by concentrating on key partners and adapting their operating models and go-to-market approaches accordingly.”

The report found the ability to scale and integrate different technologies is important to one in four (25%) of those surveyed.

“The intention to focus spending on a smaller number of key suppliers makes it even more important that ICT providers present them as effective ecosystem orchestrators, able to provide end-to-end solutions with the assistance of partners and intermediaries,” said Atkinson. “As part of this, suppliers should take care to underline capabilities that extend beyond their core products.

“While enterprises remain committed to embracing leading-edge technologies like GenAI, IoT and 5G, they are facing challenges in translating their investments into real business value,” he said. “Now is the time for IoT suppliers to reposition themselves as holistic partners to their business customers and help them realise the full benefits of their spending on digital transformation.”

In the report itself, the authors say: “This year’s findings show that organisations across all sectors remain committed to investing in emerging technologies to transform their operations – but that issues around scalability and legacy integration are top of mind. Meanwhile, ICT vendors need to pay close attention to enterprises’ increasing focus on security and growing demand for ecosystem orchestration.”

Businesses dimly aware of datacentre environmental impact

They also pick out sustainability as an increasingly relevant theme for enterprise IT, especially with regard to datacentres. “Sustainability factors increasingly weigh on decisions about emerging technology investments, with organisations more sensitive than before to the potentially ambivalent role of new technologies in the decarbonisation agenda.

Datacentres, the report’s authors comment, are an area of low environmental, social, and governance awareness for businesses. Half the organisations surveyed are unaware of their datacentres’ emissions profiles.

Respondents are looking at a range of GenAI use cases, with no standout preferences, the report found. Some 50% of businesses see cyber security and data protection as a leading GenAI impediment, while 46% said a need to improve data governance to combat risks concerning data accuracy and ethics would be critical to future implementations.

Data governance scores highest among manufacturers (46%) as a GenAI concern, while capturing productivity gains ranks top among EY’s respondents in the consumer (48%) and energy (47%) sectors.

Across all sectors, the most favoured GenAI use cases are software development, customer service and employee training or collaboration. However, financial services, healthcare and manufacturing respondents rated predictive or real-time operations and supply chain management as top-five GenAI use cases.

Upskilling and more collaboration

The report says the two most important changes that organisations can make are employee upskilling and deeper collaboration across business functions.

On a country level, education and employee upskilling is highly ranked by German respondents (36%), while deeper collaboration between business functions leads as an action among Chinese businesses (31%).

Elsewhere, Indian (20%) and Japanese (18%) businesses are most likely to prioritise collaboration with suppliers.

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