Here are some of the first pictures of the Sapphire Radeon RX 6800 XT Pulse graphics card. The company teased these cards late last week, and VideoCardz has its press pics. The RX 6800 XT Pulse (and Pulse OC) will be the more cost-effective custom-design RX 6800 XT option from Sapphire, while the NITRO+ would represent its premium custom-design lineup. The RX 6800 XT Pulse features a large triple-slot cooling solution with a trio of fans. The PCB is 80% the overall length of the card, which means half the airflow from the third fan goes through the back. The card appears to be drawing power from two 8-pin PCIe power connectors. We'll know more about these cards when Sapphire launches them.

Following yesterday's teaser of its top Radeon RX 6800 XT NITRO+ graphics card, Sapphire today teased its affordable custom-design offering, the Radeon RX 6800 XT Pulse. The Pulse brand extension represents cost-effective, low-noise custom-designs that are priced close to reference. It's likely that there could be variants of the card, one which sticks to AMD reference clock speeds, and the other with a mild factory overclock. The teaser picture reveals a card that's more than 2 slots thick, and features three evenly sized fans. Sapphire already announced its AMD reference-design cards for the RX 6800 XT and RX 6800, which would mean their Pulse and Pulse OC SKUs are slotted a notch above, followed by the NITRO+ series.

Sapphire today teased its first custom-design Radeon RX 6800 XT graphics card, under its coveted NITRO brand. The RX 6800 XT NITRO+ is shown featuring a large cooling solution with a trio of fans of different sizes, and featuring partially webbed impellers. The fan in the middle is smaller than the fans at its sides. From the looks of it, the cooler is thicker than 2 slots, and could very well be the company's top air-cooled custom RX 6800 XT offering. Apparently AMD's Radeon board partners aren't under any restriction to reveal their custom-design cards, given that ASUS already formally launched its custom-design RX 6800-series products.

Unlike NVIDIA, AMD still relies on its add-in board (AIB) partners to sell reference design (made by AMD) graphics cards, and Sapphire just announced its lineup. The company unveiled its reference-design Radeon RX 6800 XT and RX 6800 cards. The RX 6800 XT is characterized by its triple-slot cooling solution, while the RX 6800 makes do with a slimmer dual-slot one. Both cards are based on the 7 nm "Navi 21" silicon and feature 16 GB of 16 Gbps GDDR6 memory over a 256-bit wide memory interface, cushioned by 128 MB of on-die Infinity Cache.

The RX 6800 XT is configured with 72 out of 80 RDNA2 compute units on the "Navi 21" silicon, working out to 4,608 stream processors, 72 ray accelerators, 288 TMUs, and 128 ROPs. The engine clock of the RX 6800 XT boosts up to 2.25 GHz. The RX 6800, on the other hand, features 60 out of 80 RDNA2 compute units, which make up 3,840 stream processors, 60 ray accelerators, 240 TMUs, the same 128 ROPs, and the same memory subsystem as the RX 6800 XT. Given that these are reference cards, Sapphire could price them at AMD's baseline, with the RX 6800 XT going for $649, and the RX 6800 at $579.

The Alliance for Computing at Extreme Scale (ACES), a partnership between Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories, announced the details of a $105 million contract awarded to Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) to deliver Crossroads, a next-generation supercomputer to be sited at Los Alamos.

"This machine will advance our ability to study the most complex physical systems for science and national security. We look forward to its arrival and deployment," said Jason Pruet, Los Alamos' Program Director for the Advanced Simulating and Computing (ASC) Program.

Sapphire recently launched a cost-effective variant of its Radeon RX 5600 XT Pulse graphics card, the RX 5600 XT Pulse BE. The company extended the Pulse BE treatment to the RX 5700 series, in a bid to make them more cost-effective, and ready for price-cuts. The new RX 5700 XT Pulse BE (model: 11293-09-20G), differs in board design from the RX 5600 XT Pulse BE. It's also significantly different from the original RX 5700 XT Pulse. For starters, it features a more cost-effective cooler shroud design that uses ABS plastic. The underlying heatsink is different from the one on the original Pulse, with one less heat pipe.

Interestingly, the card has the same dimensions as the original Pulse, with 25.4 mm length, 13.5 mm height, and 4.65 cm thickness. Sapphire also trimmed down a handful features. The Pulse BE lacks the Quick Connect fans that easily detach from the cooler, letting you clean the heatsink underneath. It also lacks the dual-BIOS feature which the original has. The card sticks to AMD reference clock speeds, with up to 1815 MHz game clocks, up to 1925 MHz boost, and 14 Gbps (GDDR6-effective) memory. Sapphire is pricing the Radeon RX 5700 XT Pulse BE at AMD SEP of USD $399, although you should be able to find it unofficially-discounted.

Sapphire introduced a price-optimized variant of its Radeon RX 5600 XT Pulse, with the new RX 5600 XT Pulse BE (model: 11296-05-20G). This card is visibly smaller than the original RX 5600 XT Pulse that is largely based on the board design of the RX 5700 series Pulse cards. The newer card is 23.05 cm long and 12.25 cm tall, compared to the original Pulse, that's 25.4 cm long and 13.5 cm tall. The new card is also slightly thinner, at exactly 4 cm (slightly less than 2 slots thick), while the original Pulse is 4.65 cm thick (slightly more than 2 slots thick).

There are a handful areas of cost-cutting by Sapphire. To begin with, while the diameter of the two fans of the Dual-X cooling solution is unchanged at 100 mm, the underlying heatsink is visibly slimmer, and of a different design than that used in the original Pulse card. Secondly, the PCB is shorter in length than the cooler itself, and is of a completely different design than the original Pulse. Thirdly, the card lacks dual-BIOS. Lastly, the fans of the card lack the Quick-Connect feature that lets you pop them out to clean the heatsink underneath. Luckily, the new Pulse BE card sticks to AMD's revised OC specs for the RX 5600 XT out of the box, so you don't have to bother with BIOS updates. It ticks at 1560 MHz game clocks, up to 1620 MHz boost clocks, and 14 Gbps (GDDR6-effective) memory. The company didn't reveal pricing, although we expect this card to be priced very close to the USD $279 baseline for the RX 5600 XT.

Sapphire today released BIOS updates for its sole Radeon RX 5600 XT product, the Pulse Radeon RX 5600 XT OC Edition. The updated BIOS enhances performance by significantly increasing engine and memory clock speeds and power-limits, resulting in an up to 10 percent performance improvement. This stems from AMD's last-minute specifications update for the RX 5600 XT in a bid to make it competitive against the GeForce RTX 2060. Much like ASRock, Sapphire has automated the BIOS update process by shipping its BIOS ROMs with the flashing tool and batch files.

Since the Pulse RX 5600 XT OC Edition ships with dual-BIOS, one of which is the out-of-the-box performance BIOS, and the other is a 'quiet' BIOS, you're expected to update both, and there are separate Windows batch files to run after manually switching the between the ROMs. Sapphire's BIOS update package includes a PDF file with detailed instructions on how to update each ROM. The batch files spare you of having to manually work the various CLI arguments of the flashing tool. Look for the "New VBIOS Update" tab on the card's product page the Sapphire website.

AMD has allegedly changed the specifications of its Radeon RX 5600 XT graphics card through a BIOS update being pushed to manufacturers, according to an HKEPC report. According to the report, AMD has increased clock-speeds of the RX 5600 XT to 1615 MHz gaming and 1750 MHz boost, versus 1375 MHz gaming and 1560 MHz on AMD's CES press-event slides detailing the card. Confirmation of this comes from the product page of Sapphire's RX 5600 XT Pulse graphics card, which doesn't bear any "OC" marking in either the product name or box art, but yet has an updated specs tab, referencing the new clock speed.

Increased GPU (engine) clocks isn't all, Sapphire also increased memory clock speeds from 12 Gbps to 14 Gbps (a 15% increase in memory bandwidth). Also, the typical board power ("power consumption") value has gone up from 150 W to 160 W, indicating a possible power-limit increase. These last-minute changes could probably significantly change the performance numbers of the RX 5600 XT in a bid to make it more competitive to the GeForce RTX 2060. Earlier today, it was reported that NVIDIA formally cut prices of the RTX 2060 down to $299, which would put it within $20 of the RX 5600 XT with its launch price of $279.

SAPPHIRE Technology launches PULSE version of the AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT graphics card with powerful TriXX boost Software tool that delivers up to a 15% performance improvement in popular games when the resolution is adjusted from 1920 x 1080 to 1728 x 972. Built on the groundbreaking AMD RDNA gaming architecture and 7 nm process technology, the PULSE Radeon RX 5600 XT graphics card comes with 2304 stream processors, a Boost Clock of up to 1620 MHz and a Game Clock of 1560 MHz delivering ultra- responsive high fidelity AAA gaming @ up to 60 FPS in select titles. The SAPPHIRE Radeon RX 5600 XT Series are equipped with 6 GB GDDR6 of high speed memory and PCI Express 4.0 support for maximum game performance, exceptional power efficiency and outstanding value.

Focusing on what gamers' need, the PULSE Radeon RX 5600 XT graphics card comes with a pivotal set of exciting features that deliver a superlative gaming experience powered by the new AMD RDNA gaming architecture. Impressive clock speeds, near silent cooling and a durable design are the trademark of the PULSE series of graphics cards.

AMD today announced the Radeon RX 5500 XT graphics card for the DIY (retail) channel, launched exclusively through its add-in board partners. Based on the 7 nm "Navi 14" silicon, the RX 5500 XT has the same exact core-configuration as the RX 5500 launched in October to OEMs. This means only 22 out of the 24 RDNA compute units are enabled, and the XT doesn't max the silicon out. These work out to 1,408 stream processors. Other vital specs include 88 TMUs, 32 ROPs, and a 128-bit wide GDDR6 memory interface. The RX 5500 XT will still end up faster than the RX 5500 OEM card from last month, since it has a higher engine "game clocks" of 1717 MHz, while the RX 5500 OEM ships with roughly 1670 MHz game clocks. Engine boost clocks for the RX 5500 XT are rated at up to 1845 MHz.

The Radeon RX 5500 XT comes in two variants based on memory size, 4 GB and 8 GB. Both variants use 14 Gbps GDDR6 memory chips across the chip's 128-bit wide memory bus. The 4 GB variant uses four commonly available 8 Gbit chips, while the 8 GB variant typically uses high-density 16 Gbit memory chips. AMD is pricing the Radeon RX 5500 XT at USD $169.99 for the 4 GB variant, and $199.99 for the 8 GB variant. It competes with a spectrum of NVIDIA cards including the GeForce GTX 1650 and GTX 1650 Super.

Read the TechPowerUp Reviews of the Sapphire Radeon RX 5500 XT 4 GB Pulse OC and MSI Radeon RX 5500 XT 8 GB Gaming XThe complete AMD slide deck follows.

Sapphire's upcoming take on AMD's RX 5500 XT graphics card has been spotted up for preorder on Amazon (availability set for December 12th), and it's a special one. Besides the usual Nitro+ edition, Sapphire will also be launching a fully customized RX 5500 XT Nitro+ Special Edition. Besides addressable ARGB fans, the card features what can be called a very interesting, reduced PCB design, with the shroud and backplate artificially adding length to the graphics cards so as to increase space for the dual fan cooling solution.

Store pages of AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT surfaced on Chinese retailer JD.com, confirming that AMD will launch the "XT" variant of the SKU very soon (by 12th December, according to these listings). While the product pages don't list out specifications, they confirm a wide launch through AMD add-in-board (AIB) partners covering non-reference designs, and include 8 GB variants. The 8 GB variant starts at roughly RMB ¥1,499 including taxes, which converts to roughly USD $212. You reserve your card by paying ¥100 ($14) upfront. Among the listings are two cards from Sapphire, one from Yeston, and one from XFX. The product pages confirm three dates: pre-orders starting today (5th December) in which you pay the ¥100 deposit and drop your hat in, order confirmation and shipping on 12th December upon payment of the balance, and earliest delivery by 15th December, depending on where you live in China.

In September, Sapphire unveiled its most powerful graphics card to date - the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ RX 5700 XT - which delivers amazing 4K and 1440p performance, but also features very advanced RGB customization options. We even created a set of SAPPHIRE ARGB Fans specifically for this card (sold separately), so you could illuminate your system even more. Since then, many of you have asked if we could include the ARGB Fans with the card itself. oday we are ready and excited to announce the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ RX 5700 XT SPECIAL EDITION! Not only does it include the SAPPHIRE ARGB Fans out of the box, but we've increased the card's performance even more.

Here are some of the first pictures of a new "Special Edition" or SE variant of Sapphire's premium Radeon RX 5700 XT NITRO+ graphics card. The card introduces a higher factory-overclock than the original NITRO+, including a memory overclock, and a cosmetic change. To begin with, the NITRO+ SE ships with 14.4 Gbps overclocked GDDR6 memory, whereas the original NITRO+ sticks to the reference 14 Gbps.

Sapphire also dialed up the maximum engine boost frequency to 2035 MHz (vs. 2010 MHz on the original NITRO+). Sapphire also gave the card a cosmetic update. The three fans now come with transparent impellers that are illuminated with their own four RGB LEDs, each. The Special Edition will be a limited SKU, available in select markets from November 15, priced above the original NITRO+, at 520€ (including VAT).

Alphacool today unveiled the Eisblock Aurora Plexi GPX-A line of full-coverage water blocks for a range of custom-design AMD Radeon RX 5700 series graphics cards. The lineup includes a model for the Sapphire RX 5700 XT Nitro+, one for the PowerColor Red Devil and Red Dragon models of RX 5700 and RX 5700 XT, and one for the MSI RX 5700 XT Gaming X. The common element between the three is a combination of nickel-plated copper primary material, mated with a clear acrylic top. The three weigh roughly 1.2 kg, and feature mount hole spacing aligning with PCBs from the three brands. Available now, the blocks cost 109.94€ a piece.

The Sapphire-specific model is compatible only with the RX 5700 XT Nitro+, and measures 260 mm x 141 mm x 23 mm (LxHxW). The PowerColor-specific model, which supports the common PCB PowerColor uses across its Red Devil and Red Dragon models based on the RX 5700 and RX 5700 XT, measures 238 mm x 143 mm x 23 mm. The MSI-specific model is the longest among the three, measuring 293 mm x 139.3 mm x 22.5 mm, supporting the RX 5700 XT Gaming X. All three support standard G 1/4" fittings.

Ahead of its September 16 launch, pricing of the Sapphire Radeon RX 5700 XT NITRO+ (model: 100416NT+8GSR) was revealed thanks to an early product listing by leading American retailer Newegg. The card is priced at USD $439.99, which makes it on-par with certain other premium custom RX 5700 XT offerings, such as the PowerColor RX 5700 XT Red Devil and the MSI RX 5700 XT Gaming X. The Newegg listing also mentions the card's boost frequency as 2010 MHz, which is the same as the PowerColor Red Devil, but a touch short of the 2100 MHz of the MSI Gaming X. Our reviews of the Red Devil and the Gaming X show that these frequencies are mostly moot, and both cards end up performing the same.

Sapphire is ready with its premium Radeon RX 5700 XT graphics card, the NITRO+ OC. This card was teased to the web earlier this month, and now we have proper press pics. The RX 5700 XT NITRO+ OC is longer, taller, and thicker than the RX 5700 XT Pulse OC. It appears to feature a different PCB from the Pulse OC, which will feature a stronger VRM setup that pulls power from a pair of 8-pin PCIe power connectors, to support an increased power-limit, and higher boost frequencies.

The cooler is longer than the PCB, and features an elaborate compound aluminium fin-stack heatsink that's ventilated by three fans, two of which are larger 100 mm, and the central one smaller, around 80 mm. The back-plate only covers the length of the PCB, beyond which it has large openings so the extended portion of the heatsink can vent directly through. Display connectivity appears to include two each of DisplayPort 1.4 and HDMI 2.0 connectors. Key specs such as clock-speeds are still under the wraps, but the NITRO+ OC is expected to compete with the fastest RX 5700 XT cards out there. It is already up for pre-order on Amazon France for 470€ including taxes.

Sapphire China has let out a partial teaser of their upcoming RX 5700 XT NITRO graphics card, which is nearing release and has apparently been finalized. The design shows a slightly longer graphics card than we're used to from Sapphire in recent generation (based on 8-pin port placement and component ratio in the provided image).

The card will seemingly sport a silver-based finish (and what looks like black details in the fan area), and features an RGB "SAPPHIRE" detail on the side, as well as what looks like an RGB strip alongside the PCB. From the image, it seems Sapphire will be using a triple fan cooling solution on this one. Being set in the NITRO series, it's currently unknown if this will be a NITRO or NITRO+ product.

Here are some of the first pictures of one of Sapphire's custom-design Radeon RX 5700 XT graphics cards, the RX 5700 XT Pulse. The Pulse brand has traditionally been associated with Sapphire's cost-effective custom-design products, while the company reserves the Nitro brand with its premium offerings. With the RX 5700-series, Sapphire is rumored to bring back some of its more iconic brands, such as Toxic, and perhaps even Atomic. The RX 5700 Pulse combines a custom-design cooling solution by Sapphire, with AMD's reference-design PCB for the RX 5700 XT, and likely reference clock-speeds. Sapphire has utilized the dual-BIOS preparation of the reference PCB by adding a second SPI flash chip and a 2-way BIOS selector switch.

The cooling solution of the RX 5700 XT Pulse features an aluminium fin-stack heatsink that uses nickel-plated copper heat-pipes that make direct contact with the GPU at the base; we expect Sapphire to reserve exotic tech such as vapor-chambers for its premium Nitro products. The heatsink is ventilated by a pair of large (90-100 mm) fans. Since the card uses reference-design PCB (and the fan-interface that comes with it), we're not entirely sure if it offers idle fan-stop. Overclockers.uk has this card already listed at £428.99 including taxes, which is about £30 pricier than reference-design cards sold by it.Update Aug 12th: Our review of the Sapphire RX 5700 XT Pulse is posted now.

Great gaming experiences are created by bending the rules. The new SAPPHIRE Radeon RX 5700 Series GPUs, powered by RDNA architecture, are designed from the ground up for superb 1440p performance and exceptional power efficiency for high-fidelity gaming. The Radeon RX 5700 Series GPUs house AMD's 2nd generation 7nm architecture, 8GB of GDDR6 high-speed memory and PCI Express 4.0 support. These GPUs are impeccably engineered to exponentially reduce lag, increase efficiency and surround you in immersive stutter-free gameplay.

The Radeon RX 5700 XT GPU bends the rules with a revolutionary metal exoskeleton for heat dissipation, fused with the reimagined contour silhouette, and precision machined accents to perform as good as it looks.

A Sapphire product manager and PR director, speaking to the Chinese press spilled the beans on AMD's upcoming Radeon Navi graphics card lineup. It looks like with Navi, AMD is targeting the meat of the serious gamer market, at two specific price points, USD $399 with a "Pro" (cut-down) product, and $499 with an "XT" (fully-fledged) product. AMD has two NVIDIA products in its crosshairs, the GeForce RTX 2070, and the RTX 2060. In the interview, the Sapphire rep mentioned "stronger than 2070", when talking about performance numbers, which we assume is for the Navi XT variant - definitely promising. The $399 Navi "Pro" is probably being designed with a performance target somewhere between the RTX 2060 and RTX 2070, so you typically pay $50 more than you would for an RTX 2060, for noticeably higher performance.

Sapphire also confirmed that AMD's Navi does not have specialized ray-tracing hardware on the silicon, but such technology will debut with "next year's new architecture". They also suggested that AMD is unlikely to scale up Navi for the enthusiast segment, and that the Vega-based Radeon VII will continue to be the company's flagship product. On the topic of Radeon VII custom designs, Sapphire commented that "there is no plans for that". On the other hand, Sapphire is actively working on custom designs for the Navi architecture, and mentioned that "work on a "Toxic" version of Navi is complete, and it is watercooled". Many people have speculated that AMD will unveil Navi at its Computex keynote address on May 27. Sapphire confirmed that date, and also added that the launch will be on 7th of July, 2019.

Yes, we know that AMD's graphics division anniversary really isn't on its 50th year - ATI's acquisition, the true spirit behind AMD's graphics prowess, occurred back in 2006. However, that doesn't mean AMD's graphics aren't deserving of special commemorative editions. Sapphire have taken it upon themselves to celebrate the occasion with a gold-colored RX 590 graphics card.

The leak came over from one of my own homecountry's webshops, with a full product page that has since been taken down. There is no difference between this card and the usual blue RX 590 Nitro+ - the devil is in the color, so to say. Reference clocks remain the same at 1560 MHz core, and the cooling solution is the same. In Portuguese prices, the pricing difference seems to amount to some extra €25 for the limited edition graphics card. Whether the pricing difference is enough to warrant the additional investment should go according to your own mileage.

Sapphire is among the first AMD add-in-board (AIB) partners to launch a Radeon VII graphics card. The card sticks to AMD reference board design, which the company unveiled at its CES 2019 keynote. Interestingly, its GPU engine boost frequency is set at 1750 MHz, which is less than the 1800 MHz boost frequency figure that was mentioned by the company earlier. Could it be that AMD is reserving 1800 MHz for cards directly sold on AMD.com? The memory frequency is unchanged at 1000 MHz, which works out to an HBM2 memory bandwidth of 1 TB/s. Sapphire's box for this card lists out key specifications upfront, and also features the Vega II logo. It's likely that the card will be sold at the baseline price of $699, given that there are no other variants of this card, not even custom-design.

Sapphire has reportedly developed an odd-ball Radeon RX 570 graphics card, equipped with 16 GB of GDDR5 memory, double the memory amount the SKU is possibly capable of. The card is based on the company's NITRO+ board design common to RX 570 thru RX 590 SKUs, and uses sixteen 8 Gbit GDDR5 memory chips that are piggybacked (i.e. chips on both sides of the PCB). When Chinese tech publication MyDrivers reached out to Sapphire for an explanation behind such a bizarre contraption, the Hong Kong-based AIB partner's response was fascinating.

Sapphire in its response said that they wanted to bolster the card's crypto-currency mining power, and giving the "Polaris 20" GPU additional memory would improve its performance compared to ASIC miners using the Cuckoo Cycle algorithm. This can load up the video memory anywhere between 5.5 GB to 11 GB, and giving the RX 570 16 GB of it was Sapphire's logical next step. Of course Cuckoo Cycle is being defeated time and again by currency curators. This card will be a stopgap for miners until ASIC mining machines with expanded memory come out, or the proof-of-work systems are significantly changed.