Next-gen GPUs are coming later this year — but which?

What’s going on with next-gen graphics cards? I’ve been asking myself that question for months now. Reports about Nvidia’s RTX 50-series and AMD’s RDNA 4 first pointed to a 2024 release, but most sources now agree that we won’t see any new GPUs until 2025. Except EK Water Blocks, a company that now claims that we’ll see an announcement “later this year.”

EK Water Blocks makes liquid cooling solutions, and it’s partnered with both Nvidia and AMD, which makes it harder to determine which GPU manufacturer it’s talking about here. According to the latest leaks, both GPU makers aren’t launching their new products this year, although one source (admittedly uncertain) claimed that we’d have an announcement this month. This is now the second leak in as many days that implies good news in 2024.

Back to EK Water Blocks. The company didn’t just make a statement at random — it was responding to various controversies related to its recent staffing issues and possibly needing to scale back its operations, which was reported on in-depth by Overclock3D. We’ll let you be the judge as to what’s going on there; let’s dig into the GPU-related statement instead.

“On the contrary, EK is not only continuing its operations, but is also excited to accelerate the launch of our game-changing Nexe product line. We are developing new products and preparing to introduce unparalleled cooling solutions for the new GPU series announced for release later this year,” it said

Does that mean Nvidia or AMD? Perhaps more importantly, does it mean we’ll get new graphics cards in 2024, or will the year end up as disappointing as it appears that it will be? Unfortunately, I’d take the statement from EK Water Blocks with some skepticism.

On the one hand, it’s true that this is a leak from an actual company that works with AMD and Nvidia, which is a lot more than can be said about most of the leaks we’ve gotten so far. On the other hand, it goes against what most other leakers have been saying. But, there’s a way that both sources could be right.

If EK Water Blocks is correct, the GPUs might be announced later this year, such as in December, and hit the market shortly after CES 2025. That timeline actually tracks with most leaks, which implies that both companies want to talk about their new GPUs during next year’s CES. We’ll have to wait and see how things pan out over the next couple of months.