The Game Awards served up some tasty reveal trailers this day just past, and the internet is ablaze with discussion surrounding the first looks at several games from some big hitters. We've got a comprehensive list of all the Game Awards 2024 reveal trailers for your perusal, but I think it's fair to say that none have caused more excitement than our first (cinematic) look at The Witcher 4.
Eagle-eyed hardware enthusiasts, however (and we are most certainly they), will have noticed that the trailer starts off with a line of explainer text, confirming that the trailer was "pre-rendered in Unreal Engine 5 on an unannounced Nvidia GeForce RTX GPU".
Well then. That'd be one of those mysterious 50-series graphics cards I reckon, although which one is unclear. The hardware community at large (including ourselves, natch) is expecting the next-generation Nvidia cards to be revealed at CES 2025 in Las Vegas this coming January, and the hype is tangible as the expected date looms ever closer.
Currently we're assuming the top-end RTX 5090 leak has spoken in hushed tones of an immensely powerful, 21,760-core, 600 W TGP monster—worthy of both ultra-demanding games at 4K and the silver sword, I reckon.
All that being said, pre-rendering a trailer on a new GPU... doesn't really mean much. Technically, you could pre-render a spectacular looking trailer on a very slow card, as you've got all the time in the world to let it crunch out individual frames at whatever speed it can manage, before stitching them all together in a 60 fps blaze for the eventual video. Hence the whole "pre" bit of "pre-rendering".
Still, this is the first trailer to my knowledge to mention an "unannounced GeForce GPU", so it's got everyone talking. Personally, I'll reserve my excitement for some real-time footage of something running on a 50-series, or a gameplay reveal trailer for The Witcher 4. Which I have to say, looks rather good even in cinematic form, doesn't it?
A quick check of my Steam reveals I spent 182 happy hours in RX 7800 XT. You got this, buddy.
