Sapphire China has introduced a slightly cheaper alternative to its high-end Nitro Vapor-X card, based on AMD's Radeon RX 7900 XT GPU. The new Nitro OC L custom design (also translated as "XT 20G Ultra Platinum L") grants a saving of about $70 when stacked against the XT Nitro+ Vapor-X model. Local prices according to JD.com's listings are 6299 RMB (roughly $895) and 6799 RMB (around $966) respectively. The two cards appear to be very similar in appearance at first glance, but Sapphire has chosen to cut back on advanced cooling features and lighting.

The "Nitro OC L" comes with a more traditional copper base, which presumably helps reduce the unit's material cost, but this choice also lessens its cooling prowess - Sapphire's engineering team has lowered the card's clock speed boost down to 2450 MHz (from the Vapor-X's 2560 MHz), so performance is on-par with their RX 7900 XT PULSE model. The Nitro OC L features a single strip of RGB on the top of its shroud - its more expensive sibling sports a secondary lighting region on its underside (emitting in the direction of the motherboard). The Radeon RX 7900 XT Nitro OC L card has not been announced for launches in western markets yet, but we hope to hear more from Sapphire's international team very soon.

Real-time ray tracing (RT), using Microsoft DirectX ray tracing (DXR) and Vulkan Ray Tracing, adds a new level of incredible realism to games through effects like ray-traced reflections, shadows, ambient occlusion, and global illumination. Ray tracing is used in many of the latest games such as The Callisto Protocol, F1 22, Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and Returnal to maximize graphics fidelity and deliver the ultimate visual experience.

AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution 2 (AMD FSR 2) is the cutting-edge temporal upscaling technology designed to produce incredible image quality and boost framerates in supported games. AMD Radeon RX 7900 Series graphics feature advanced AMD RDNA 3 compute units with 2nd generation ray tracing accelerators to help deliver incredible RT performance in games.

According to leaked details, it appears that ASRock is preparing at least three custom versions of the upcoming Radeon RX 7600 graphics card, including Phantom Gaming, Challenger, and Steel Legend series. The list of ASRock custom Radeon RX 7600 graphics cards comes from the ECC listing, and these three are listed among some other yet to be announced graphics cards.

As you can see from the list below, ASRock will have three Radeon RX 7600 versions, all of which are factory-overclocked. The Phantom Gaming version should be a more premium model, while the Challenger and Steel Legend should be closer to MSRP. The Steel Legend is a novelty in ASRock's graphics card lineup, and we expect a similar silver design found on ASRock's Steel Legend motherboards. The list also includes the recently announced Radeon RX 7900 XT Taichi White and a low profile Intel Arc A380 graphics card.

In a blog post, NVIDIA claims that its AV1 video encoder is vastly superior in terms of quality, compared to both AMD and Intel's alternatives. The still shot provided by NVIDIA to show its superior quality over its competitors, was encoded at 4K60p, obviously using the AV1 codec. Nvidia used its own GeForce RTX 4080 card and compared it to an AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT and an Intel Arc A770, with all three cards encoding the video at 12 Mbps using the latest release of OBS Studio.

It just so happens that OBS Studio 29.1 added support for AV1 over the Enhanced Real-Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP) and now allows for live streaming using AV1 to YouTube. This is also the main reason for the NVIDIA blog post, as prior to this release, it wasn't possible to stream using AV1 in OBS Studio. NVIDIA has been known for the quality of its video encoder for quite some time, but we'd like to see some independent testing before we give NVIDIA the win here, especially as the company has only provided a single screenshot as proof of its superiority.

AMD's marketing department this week continued its battle to outwit arch rival NVIDIA in GPU VRAM pricing wars - Sasa Marinkovic, a senior director at Team Red's gaming promotion department, tweeted out a simple and concise statement yesterday: "Our @amdradeon 16 GB gaming experience starts at $499." He included a helpful chart that lines up part of the AMD Radeon GPU range against a couple of hand-picked NVIDIA GeForce RTX cards, with emphasis on comparing pricing and respective allotments of VRAM. The infographic indicates AMD's first official declaration of the (last generation "Big Navi" architecture) RX 6800 GPU bottoming out at $499, an all time low, as well as hefty cut affecting the old range topping RX 6950 XT - now available for $649 (an ASRock version is going for $599 at the moment). The RX 6800 XT sits in-between at $579, but it is curious that the RX 6900 XT did not get a slot on the chart.

AMD's latest play against NVIDIA in the video memory size stake is nothing really new - earlier this month it encouraged potential customers to select one of its pricey current generation RX 7900 XT or XTX GPUs. The main reason being that the hefty Radeon cards pack more onboard VRAM than equivalent GeForce RTX models - namely the 4070 Ti and 4080 - therefore future-proofed for increasingly memory hungry games. The latest batch of marketing did not account for board partner variants of the (RDNA3-based) RX 7900 XT GPU selling for as low as $762 this week.

Prices of the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT RDNA3 graphics card continue on a downward trend, with the cheapest street price now touching $762. This is $137 below the AMD MSRP for the RX 7900 XT of $899, or a 15.23% reduction. At this price, the RX 7900 XT is priced already below several custom-design GeForce RTX 4070 Ti models. At stock frequency, the RX 7900 XT beats the RTX 4070 Ti by around 6% in conventional raster 3D graphics that makes up the majority of the gaming graphics workload, while its ray tracing performance is closer to that of the previous-generation RTX 3080 Ti or RTX 3090. The specific model in question is the XFX Speedster MERC 310 Radeon RX 7900 XT, with the $762 price surfacing on Amazon for $771.09 with a $10 checkbox coupon that's visible to buyers in the U.S.

In a blog post, AMD has pulled the VRAM card against NVIDIA, telling potential graphics card buyers that they should consider AMD over NVIDIA, because current and future games will require more VRAM, especially at higher resolution. There's no secret that there has been something of a consensus from at least some of the PC gaming crowd that NVIDIA is being too stingy when it comes to VRAM on its graphics cards and AMD is clearly trying to cash in on that sentiment with its latest blog post. AMD is showing the VRAM usage in games such as Resident Evil 4—with and without ray tracing at that—The Last of US Part I and Hogwarts Legacy, all games that use over 11 GB of VRAM or more.

AMD does have a point here, but as the company has as yet to launch anything below the Radeon RX 7900 XT in the 7000-series, AMD is mostly comparing its 6000-series of cards with NVIDIA's 3000-series of cards, most of which are getting hard to purchase and potentially less interesting for those looking to upgrade their system. That said, AMD also compares its two 7000-series cards to the NVIDIA RTX 4070 Ti and the RTX 4080, claiming up to a 27 percent lead over NVIDIA in performance. Based on TPU's own tests of some of these games, albeit most likely using different test scenarios, the figures provided by AMD don't seem to reflect real world performance. It's also surprising to see AMD claims its RX 7900 XTX beats NVIDIA's RTX 4080 in ray tracing performance in Resident Evil 4 by 23 percent, where our own tests shows NVIDIA in front by a small margin. Make what you want of this, but one thing is fairly certain and that is that future games will require more VRAM, but most likely the need for a powerful GPU isn't going to go away.

More performance for RTX 4070Ti and RX 7900XTX GPUs! Alphacool expands its range of active water cooling solutions for NVIDIA RTX 4070Ti and AMD RX 7900XTX graphics cards with the new and innovative Eisblock Aurora cooler.

Thanks to the particularly filigree fin structure, the cooling surface has been enlarged and a very good water flow is made possible. The nozzle plate with revised inflow also distributes the water perfectly onto the cooling fins. This effectively dissipates the enormous heat generated by the new graphics card generation with the cooler. The full-surface chrome plating of the copper base not only provides lasting protection against acids, scratches, and damage, but also achieves a beautiful homogeneity and a special shine.

AMD today released the latest version of its AMD Software Adrenalin drivers. Version 23.4.1 WHQL comes with optimization for "Meet Your Maker," as well as the additional optimization the company released for "The Last of Us: Part 1" in its recent off-trunk drivers. The company also fixed a handful of issues. Blurry video playback for online video in some web-browsers, with RX 7900 XT, has been fixed. Invisible mouse pointers in Citrix Workspace has been fixed. Performance Metrics Overlay intermittently disappearing when playing fullscreen videos on Steam has been fixed. Grab the driver from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Software Adrenalin 23.4.1 WHQL

The new Core cooler is now compatible with RX 7900 XT(X) GPUs! Alphacool offers with the new coolers not only the usual high quality, but also remarkable performance as well as functional design for AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT(X) graphics cards in custom design. The highlight of the copper cooler is the ensemble of connector terminal and cooler, which is milled from a single piece of copper. The excellent workmanship paired with the hard and resistant chrome plating of the entire copper cooler meet the highest quality standards. A key design element of the new Core series are the brass G1/4" threads, which are left in chrome and integrated on both sides. These stand out visually from the terminal.

The aluminium backplate, which is adapted to the design, forms a unit together with the terminal and convinces with clear and homogeneous optics on the back of the cooler. The individually controllable lighting consists of digitally addressable RGB LEDs and enables the even and dazzlingly colored illumination of the entire cooler.

Days following its TechPowerUp review where we noted its rather high $860 street price compared to several other custom-design RX 7900 XT graphics cards in the market, the Radeon RX 7900 XT Pulse by Sapphire, has seen a price correction. The card is now listed at $820 on American online retailer Newegg, with a -$20 coupon bringing it down to $800. At this price, the RX 7900 XT Pulse matches other cost-effective custom designs, such as the ASRock RX 7900 XT Phantom Gaming, and XFX RX 7900 XT Speedster Merc 310. Most premium custom-design RX 7900 XT cards have settled around the $850-mark. These include the ASRock RX 7900 XT Taichi, MSI RX 7900 XT Gaming Trio Classic, and the PowerColor RX 7900 XT Hellhound OC.

There are still a few cards that are either at the launch MSRP of $900 or beyond. These include the ASUS TUF Gaming RX 7900 XT OC, Sapphire RX 7900 XT NITRO+, and the PowerColor RX 7900 XT Red Devil OC. The ideal price for the RX 7900 XT is exactly where the market is driving it to (at or under $800), as it is under pressure from the RTX 4070 Ti. Some of the priciest RX 7900 XT cards comically overlap with the prices of the cheapest RX 7900 XTX.

Prices of the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT RDNA3 graphics card are on a downward slope, with the card now starting at $800 on US computer hardware retailer Newegg. The ASRock RX 7900 XT Phantom Gaming, a custom-design graphics card, has been holding at $799.99 for roughly a week now, while the next cheapest card, an XFX co-branded AMD reference graphics card, is going for $839.99 on the site. These prices put the RX 7900 XT in a direct clash with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti. The RX 7900 XT was launched with an AMD MSRP of $899.99, with a performance level that compelled NVIDIA to re-position the RTX 4070 Ti (originally announced as the $900 RTX 4080 12 GB), to $800. In our testing, the RX 7900 XT is about 5% faster than the RTX 4070 Ti in conventional raster 3D graphics, but with a ray tracing performance that's comparable to the previous-generation RTX 3080 Ti.

AMD updated its game bundle campaign for Radeon graphics cards to include "The Last of Us Part 1." The new bundle went live as the previous one for "The Callisto Protocol" and "Dead Island 2" ended on February 4. The new bundle includes the latest RX 7000 series graphics cards in its list of eligible products. Starting February 5, new purchases of AMD Radeon graphics cards or prebuilt gaming desktops with them, in select markets and through participating retailers, will be eligible to a free copy of "The Last of Us Part 1." Eligible graphics cards include Radeon RX 7900 XTX, RX 7900 XT, RX 6950 XT, RX 6900 XT, RX 6800 XT, RX 6800, RX 6750 XT, RX 6700 XT, RX 6700, RX 6650 XT, RX 6600 XT, RX 6600, RX 6500 XT, and RX 6400, so the full stack of desktop AMD Radeon RX 6000 series and RX 7000 series products, are eligible.

Eiswolf 2 AiO - now also for custom designs of RTX 4080/4090 and RX 7900XT/XTX GPUs! Alphacool presents additional innovative solutions for cooling Nvidia's Geforce RTX 4080 and 4090 and AMD's RX 7900XT/XTX graphics cards.

The enormous waste heat of the new graphics card generation is excellently dissipated with these coolers. The very good water flow and the large cooling surface are due to the particularly filigree fin structure. The jet plate with revised inflow engine also distributes the water perfectly on the cooling fins. The complete chrome plating of the cooler not only provides resistant protection against acids, scratches and damage, but also achieves a beautiful homogeneity and remarkable shine. The Aurora design of the cooler is kept visually calm and simple. This is evident not only in the cooler's design, but also in the wonderfully even lighting achieved via digitally addressable RGB LEDs.

EK, the premium water-cooling gear manufacturer, is launching the EK-Quantum Vector² water block for the ASUS TUF models of the new AMD Radeon RX 7900 GPUs. This water block has been engineered to fit both versions of these GPUs, the XTX and the XT. The EK-Quantum Vector² TUF RX 7900 XTX D-RGB is a fully EK-Matrix7 compatible liquid cooling solution engineered exclusively for ASUS TUF Radeon RX 7900 XT and XTX GPUs. It encompasses a Vector² series water block and a black-anodized aluminum backplate in the same package. Like the rest of the Vector² series water blocks, its looks are dominated by minimalistic straight lines and the backplate coming around the side of the GPU to cover the PCB in its entirety.

What differs from all other Vector² water blocks is that the cooling engine for this water block has been rotated by 90°, making the fins perpendicular to the die. For optimal delta, the coolant flows over the Graphics Core Die first and Memory Cache Die after. Consequently, all MCDs get the same coolant temperature thanks to the high-precision 3D-machined acrylic jet insert.

AMD today released the Adrenalin 23.1.2 drivers exclusively for the Radeon RX 7900 series, making it the third straight driver of the kind. There has been no new driver for older GPUs, including the RX 6000 series, including the 7-month old RX 6950 XT, since December 8, 2022 (48 days now), which means the overwhelming majority of AMD Radeon users don't yet have optimization for games such as Forspoken and Valhiem. The latest 23.1.2 drivers only work with the RX 7900 XT and RX 7900 XTX. These introduce day-zero optimization for "Forspoken," and a handful background improvements for the Vulkan API. AMD fixed the "Delayed Write Failed" error noticed on Windows 11 22H2; less than expected performance with "SpaceEngine," and flickering issues noticed with "Emergency 4."

DOWNLOAD: AMD Software Adrenalin 23.1.2 for RX 7900 Series

Even more performance for RTX 4080 Suprim/Strix and RX 7900XT (X) GPUs! Alphacool presents new and innovative solutions for active water cooling of NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 4080 as well as AMD Radeon RX 7900XT (X) graphics cards with the Eisblock Aurora coolers.

In order to dissipate the enormous waste heat of the new graphics card generations in the best possible way, numerous optimizations were implemented on the water cooler compared to the previous models of these coolers. The fin structure has been modified and allows an optimal water flow while increasing the cooling surface. The modified jet plate with improved inflow engine ensures the best possible distribution of water on the cooling fins. The fully chrome-plated copper base is resistant to acids, scratches and damage. In addition, the chrome plating provides homogeneity and shine that cannot be achieved by nickel plating.

MSI was conspicuous in its lack of a Radeon RX 7900 series RDNA3 graphics card when AMD launched these cards on December 13, 2022. The company later came out with a clarification that while it was skipping reference-design made-by-AMD (MBA) graphics cards under its marquee, it would release custom-design RX 7900 series cards in the first half of 2023 with some of the first cards being unveiled at CES. Well, here they are.

The MSI Radeon RX 7900 XTX and RX 7900 XT Gaming Trio Classic gets the latter part of its name from the fact that MSI used the older Tri Frozr 2.0 cooling solution from the previous-generation of graphics cards (RX 6000 series and RTX 30-series), rather than the latest Tri Frozr 3.0 it unveiled with the RTX 40-series. This cooler also gets the slightly older TorX 4.0 fan compared to newer TorX 5.0 fans with the RTX 40-series. This cooler has dealt with 350 W-ish TDP cooling requirements of GPUs such as the RX 6950 XT or the RTX 3090, so we reckon they could suit the RX 7900 series. There's still a brand new custom-design PCB underneath it, which pulls power from a trio of 8-pin PCIe power connectors, and so we could expect a fairly good power-limit for these cards.

AMD's latest GPUs have been reported to be experiencing overheating issues, with many users claiming that the vapor chamber cooler works better in a vertical rather than a horizontal position. Regardless of orientation, vapor chamber coolers should equal roughly the same heat dissipation performance and move the heat away from the source; however, testing showed that some reference AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX GPUs feature defect coolers. According to the testing conducted by Roman "der8auer" Hartung, AMD's Radeon RX 7900 XTX RDNA3 GPUs are experiencing problems with overheating caused by a faulty vapor chamber design.

What der8auer found is that these coolers could have a defect in the manufacturing process, where the liquid inside the vapor chamber faces problems in circulation after condensation. It could relate to manufacturing issues of the cooler itself, with an inadequate amount of fluid or insufficient pressure inside the chamber. For more in-depth testing and performance benchmarks, see the video below. It is important to note that we didn't see other reports that replicate this behavior, so always take these reports with a dash of salt.

TechPowerUp today released the latest version of TechPowerUp GPU-Z, the popular PC graphics information, monitoring, and diagnostics utility. Version 2.52.0 adds support for AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX, RX 7900 XT, RX 6300 OEM; NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti, and a few rare "Ampere" based GPUs in circulation these days, including the RTX 3080 Ti 20 GB, RTX 3070 Ti based on GA102 silicon, RTX 3050 based on GA107, and the PCIe AIC version of the A800 80 GB accelerator. Detection is improved for the Xe LP-based iGPU of Intel Core "Raptor Lake" processors. NVIDIA GPUs with ECC memory now have ECC status reported in the Advanced panel. On GPUs where the boost frequency can't be read, the base frequency will be used to calculate fillrates. Clock speed detection for Intel Arc "Alchemist" GPUs has been improved. Vendor detection has been added for several new graphics card brands such as Corsair (gaming notebooks), Maxsun, and Wingtech.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z v2.52.0

AMD released the Adrenalin 22.12.2 WHQL drivers exclusively for the recently launched Radeon RX 7900 XTX and RX 7900 XT graphics cards. These drivers do not support any other product series (which is why TechPowerUp isn't hosting them in our Downloads section). Compared to the previous 22.11.2 WHQL drivers from mid-December (which lack RX 7900 series support), the 22.12.2 WHQL doesn't pack any game-specific optimizations, but corrects a handful of issues.

To begin with, AMD has improved the power-consumption of the RX 7900 series cards during hardware-accelerated video playback. Display corruption observed for Virtual Super Resolution (VSR) with multi-display configurations, has been fixed. A system crash observed when changing display modes in machines with 4 display, has been fixed. An application crash or driver timeout observed with Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales after enabling ray tracing, has been fixed. Grab the driver from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Software Adrenalin 22.12.2 WHQL (for RX 7900 series only)

The first EK-Quantum Vector² RX 7900 XTX water block for an AIB partner Radeon RX 7000 Series GPU has just been released. EK, the premium water cooling gear manufacturer, is introducing its water block for the new PowerColor Red Devil AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX. The Red Devil conquers by relentlessly pushing its power to the limit making the EK-Quantum Vector² water block an ideal match for achieving the best performance and minimum noise. Still, it's recommended you refer to the EK Cooling Configurator for a precise compatibility match.

This AMD Radeon Edition Vector² water block effortlessly solves the issue of excessive heat generation during high load on the GPU. This liquid cooling solution cools the graphics compute die, voltage regulation module, voltage controllers, VRAM, and MCDs on the Red Devil Radeon RX 7900 XTX graphics card. The new Radeon RX 7900 XTX GPUs have GCD manufactured in a cutting-edge 5 nm process, allowing a 54% improvement in performance per watt. While the GPU is efficient, it still uses more power than the previous generation. Its 300 mm² GCD contains 165% more transistors per mm² than the previous generation. This means these GPUs feature 58 billion transistors for 61 TFLOPs of performance—all the more reason to have them water-cooled.

MSI was conspicuous with its lack of Radeon RX 7900 series graphics cards at launch, with neither product announcements, nor even placeholder product pages on its website as of this writing. Rumors started to fly on social media that the company is skipping the RX 7900 series, and that all is not well between MSI and AMD Radeon group. MSI last week laid many of these rumors to rest, with its MSI Gaming Twitter handle quote-tweeting an AMD Radeon handle with the message "Available Soon."

Andreas Schilling of HardwareLuxx.de added more clarity on the issue with some first-hand info: although MSI skipped the December 12/13 launch dates, the company is preparing to release some custom-design RX 7900 series cards, and will present them in Q1-2023. The company is however skipping the launch of reference-design MBA (made by AMD) cards under its own brand—something most other AMD add-in board (AIB) partners did release on December 12. Although AMD directly sells reference-design cards, it also sells them through its AIB partners, by allowing them to use their own brand identity, custom packaging, inclusions, and product warranty specific to the brand.

SAPPHIRE Technology also launches the SAPPHIRE PULSE AMD Radeon RX 7900 Series Graphics Cards for great gaming performance at excellent value. The PULSE AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX Graphics Card headlines with 96 Compute units and 6144 stream processors running with a Boost Clock of up to 2525 MHz and a Game Clock of up to 2330 MHz. The PULSE AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT features 84 Compute Units with 5376 stream processors, a Boost Clock of up to 2450 MHz and a Game Clock of up to 2075 MHz. Visualize the latest 24 GB and 20 GB respectively of GDDR6 high-speed memory clocked at 20 Gbps Effective with 96 MB and 80 MB respectively of Infinity Cache. The graphics card supports up to 4 output ports including 2x HDMI 2.1 and 2x DisplayPort 2.1 ports with DSC outputs to align with the latest monitors on the market.

The SAPPHIRE PULSE AMD Radeon RX 7900 Series Graphics Cards run on SAPPHIRE's distinguished Tri-X Cooling Technology which work in tandem with the Intelligent Fan Control and Precision Fan Control features to keep temperatures low and fan noise low. Stability and reliability are key pillars of the PULSE AMD Radeon RX 7900 Series Graphics Cards. The High TG Copper PCB design enables stable and reliable performance resulting in a low temperature and low noise PCB component. The crucial Fuse Protection feature is built into the circuit of the external PCIe power connector to keep the components safe. As part of SAPPHIRE's motto of long-lasting components, Dual-Ball Bearing Fans are fitted to increase the lifespan of the Graphics Cards.

SAPPHIRE Technology announces the heavily anticipated NITRO+ AMD Radeon RX 7900 Vapor-X Series Graphics Cards, with breakthrough performance and incredible clock speeds for both gamers and creators 4K and beyond. The cards are crafted with SAPPHIRE's signature cutting-edge cooling features, quality of life components and engineered to push high framerates with the optimal balance of heat and noise.

At the core of the NITRO+ Graphics Cards series are the technologies of the SAPPHIRE PANTHEON Suite of permanent features. SAPPHIRE PANTHEON guarantees supreme cooling technology and other distinct features exclusive to NITRO+ graphics cards. Each NITRO+ iconic feature stands as strong and permanent as the pillars of the PANTHEON. Every NITRO+ Graphics Card guarantees the presence of the stable, reliable and innovative SAPPHIRE PANTHEON suite of features.