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.

When EVGA brought the $299 GeForce RTX 2060 KO graphics card to CES, we knew they couldn't pull it off without NVIDIA's blessings. With AMD claiming that its upcoming $279 Radeon RX 5600 XT outclasses the entire GeForce GTX 1660-series, including the GTX 1660 Super and range-topping GTX 1660 Ti, NVIDIA had to do something, and that something is a formal price-cut on its GeForce RTX 2060 down to USD $299.

When it launched a year ago in January 2019, the GeForce RTX 2060 commanded a $349 price-point, which was largely unfazed by AMD's introduction of the Radeon RX 5700 at the same price. The RX 5700 is faster than the RTX 2060, but NVIDIA probably counted on ray-tracing to sell the card. The new RX 5600 XT changes the landscape dramatically, if AMD's performance claims hold true. The entire GTX 16-series is outclassed at a sub-$300 price matching that of the top GTX 1660 Ti part, and there's no ray-tracing hardware to bail them out, either. NVIDIA could cut prices, but those would pancake the already cluttered product-stack. The only other option (which NVIDIA took), was to cut prices of the RTX 2060. It remains to be seen what AMD's next move is. With the RX 5700-series, it pulled off a last-minute price-cut ahead of launch.

AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) today announced several promotions and a new hire to strengthen its senior leadership team to further enable the company's continued growth.

AMD announced four senior vice president promotions:

• Nazar Zaidi to senior vice president of Cores, Server SoC and Systems IP Engineering with continued responsibility for leading the development of leadership CPU cores, server SoCs and system IP.
• Andrej Zdravkovic to senior vice president of Software Development, leading the teams responsible for all aspects of AMD software strategy and development across AMD graphics, client and data center products.
• Spencer Pan to senior vice president of Greater China Sales and president of AMD Greater China, with responsibility for leading all sales and go-to-market activities for AMD in Greater China and expansion of strategic partner and customer relationships in the region.
• Jane Roney to senior vice president of Business Operations, responsible for aligning and scaling critical business processes across the company to support growth and help ensure consistent execution.

CES might be over, but our coverage from the event continues. TechPowerUp prides itself on visiting a lot of brands, big and small, and bringing to you our first-hand account of everything new. EK Waterblocks, or simply EKWB henceforth, had a large room in the Mandalay Bay with a big open window spanning the room, which made for challenging photography, but a well-laid out open plan made it easy for us to go over the various product segments they had to display. This post will go briefly over them, but keep in mind that nearly all products showcased do not have set retail availability info just yet.

The very first thing that caught our eyes was their new line of AIO cooling solutions, now simply called EK-AIO. These are the successors to the EK-MLC Phoenix, and the EK-Predator from before, both of which did not really change the status quo of the pre-filled AIO CPU cooling market. EK hopes that the new series, of which again they are working to finalizing the design before committing to a release window and pricing information, will change this. As with most of their new products, the EK-AIO coolers integrate RGB support with 9 dRGB LEDs in the pump/block and more on the EK-Vardar RGB fans that are used on the radiator itself. The EK-AIO series is planned to come in 120/240/360 mm radiator size options, with 1/2/3 fans respectively. Read past the break for more from the Slovenian watercooling brand.

The RACING B450GT3 motherboard is built for gamers that require high-performance on a micro-ATX form factor. Fitted with the B450 chipset that supports AMD's Ryzen 3000 Series processors. The RACING B450GT3 motherboard is packed with loads of functions and features that are found in most high-end gaming AM4 motherboards and is designed with BIOSTAR's signature premium black Racing themed PCB style.

The RACING B450GT3 supports 4-DIMM DDR4-1866/2133/2400/2666/2933/3200 (OC) with up to 64G maximum capacity, 1x USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C port (10 Gb/s), 1x USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A port (10 Gb/s), 1x M.2 (32 Gb/s) and 6x SATA3 connectors. Gamers will also appreciate the Hi-Fi 7.1ch HD Audio for truly immersive sound quality that is enabled with the Realtek ALC1150 7.1-Channel Audio, Dual BIOS for auto-recovery, and Iron Slot Protection for a much more stable and durable port composition.

AMD today released the latest version of Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition. Version 20.1.2 beta is released to the main driver update channel, and adds support for the new Vulkan 1.2 graphics API. This is in comparison to the GeForce 441.99 drivers with Vulkan 1.2, which were released as a "developer beta." In addition, the drivers add optimization for "Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot." Among the two fixed issues with this releases are Unreal Engine 4 titles such as "KovaaK 2.0: The Meta," "Tetris Effect" and "Snooker 19" failing to launch with Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020; and a bug where single-display systems running Radeon RX 5700 series graphics cards experience intermittent reboots when the system is left idle on the desktop.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 20.1.2 BetaThe change-log follows.

ZOTAC isn't just a graphics card major, but over the years developed a thriving lineup of compact desktops, mini PCs, and compact gaming desktops. The big buzzword this CES is "creator," and the company unveiled its new Inspire Studio line of compact desktops targeting creators, which are physically similar to the ZBOX Magnus. These are 5.85-liter (volume) boxes that take up minimal space on your desk, but pack serious hardware: a 9th gen Core i7 processor, GeForce RTX 2060 Super graphics, M.2 NVMe storage, and modern networking that include 802.11ax WLAN and 2.5 GbE wired Ethernet.

Next up is the ZBOX Edge. ZOTAC has been pushing the limits of compact desktops, and the ZBOX Edge MI643 is their latest creation. With an ultra-thin design that involves a 2.85 cm tall body and the ability to tuck it away behind your monitor, the MI643 packs a Core i5-10210U quad-core "Comet Lake" processor, DDR4 SO-DIMM memory, M.2 NVMe SSD storage, 802.11ac WLAN, dual 1 GbE networking, and Bluetooth 5.0. A more economical variant of this is the CI341, with 3.21 cm height, Celeron N4100 SoC, M.2 SATA storage, and SO-DIMM memory slots.

Today, The Khronos Group, an open consortium of industry-leading companies creating advanced interoperability standards, announces the release of the Vulkan 1.2 specification for GPU acceleration. This release integrates 23 proven extensions into the core Vulkan API, bringing significant developer-requested access to new hardware functionality, improved application performance, and enhanced API usability. Multiple GPU vendors have certified conformant implementations, and significant open source tooling is expected during January 2020.

Vulkan continues to evolve by listening to developer needs, shipping new functionality as extensions, and then consolidating extensions that receive positive developer feedback into a unified core API specification. Carefully selected API features are made optional to enable market-focused implementations. Many Vulkan 1.2 features were requested by developers to meet critical needs in their engines and applications, including: timeline semaphores for easily managed synchronization; a formal memory model to precisely define the semantics of synchronization and memory operations in different threads; descriptor indexing to enable reuse of descriptor layouts by multiple shaders; deeper support for shaders written in HLSL, and more.

GIGABYTE, the world's leading premium gaming hardware manufacturer, today announced the launch of the Radeon RX 5600 XT GAMING OC 6G and Radeon RX 5600 XT WINDFORCE OC 6G. The latest Radeon RX 5600 XT series graphics processing built with 7 nm processor technology with RDNA architecture is designed for the best 1080 pixel gaming experience, and supports the PCI Express 4.0 interface. It delivers extreme 1080 pixel performance so users can enjoy higher game fidelity, better gaming performance with higher frame rates, and ultra-fast response times, for a better gaming experience than ever before.

GIGABYTE Radeon RX 5600 XT GAMING OC 6G is cooled by the WINDFORCE 3X cooling system that comes with triple 90 mm unique blade fans and alternate spinning fans. The thermal cooling solution includes 5 copper heat-pipes that directly touch the GPU so the heat from the GPU will be dissipated rapidly via conductivity effect. With these thermal dissipation methods, GIGABYTE tends to each component's temperatures for VRAM and MOSFETs at the same time, keeping components at low temperatures during the stable working state and extends the lifespan. The black metal back plate not only strengthens the overall structure but also prevents the PCB from bending or losing parts and gives the external design a more textured look. Moreover, GAMING OC has LOGO lighting on the card side so gamers can synchronize 16.7 million customizable color options and numerous lighting effects with other AORUS devices by clicking on RGB Fusion 2.0. It also allows users to adjust the diversified gaming atmosphere to what they have in mind.

As the world's most popular GAMING graphics card brand, MSI is proud to introduce its full line up of graphics cards based on new AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT graphics card with considerable performance. Furnished with the new AMD RDNA gaming architecture - Efficiently energetic, RDNA architecture was designed to deliver incredible performance, scalability and power efficiency. Built on the 7 nm FinFET process and delivering higher performance-per-watt compared to the previous architecture. The Radeon RX 5600 XT Series will be available as GAMING and MECH.

These AMD RDNA architecture-powered GAMING cards feature the new MSI exclusive Innovative Power Allocation Technology. This technology ensures that the card will draw its power from the power supply rather than the PCIe slot on the motherboard, resulting in a cleaner power signal and preventing any issues with the motherboard.

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.

The leading global motherboard, graphics card and mini PC manufacturer, ASRock, announces the brand-new Radeon RX 5600 XT Phantom Gaming and Challenger series graphics cards, including the triple-fan Radeon RX 5600 XT Phantom Gaming D3 6G OC, the dual-fan Radeon RX 5600 XT Phantom Gaming D2 6G OC, and the dual-fan Radeon RX 5600 XT Challenger D 6G OC graphics cards.

They use AMD 7 nm Radeon RX 5600 XT GPUs, with 6 GB 192-bit GDDR6 video memory, plus support for the PCI Express 4.0 bus standard, as well as the latest thermal design and excellent default GPU/VRAM clock settings, making ASRock's Phantom Gaming & Challenger series product lines more complete, and providing gamers an excellent 1080p gaming experience.

The "Zen 2" based Ryzen 4000-series mobile processors and Threadripper 3990X HEDT chip dominated headlines throughout AMD's CES 2020 event, but an important product announcement slipped past us: the mobile Athlon 3000 Gold and 3000 Silver families of entry-level mobile SoCs. These are 15-Watt SoCs targeting low-cost ultraportables, convertibles, and straight up Windows x64 tablets, competing against Intel's Pentium Gold 5000U "Whiskey Lake" and Pentium Silver "Gemini Lake Refresh" series. The family currently only consists of two SKUs, the Athlon Gold 3150U and Athlon Silver 3050U.

The two chips are based on the "Dali" silicon, and feature "Zen" CPU cores. The Athlon Gold 3150U features a 2-core/4-thread "Zen" CPU clocked at 2.40 GHz with 3.30 GHz boost. The Athlon Silver 3050U, on the other hand, is configured with a 2-core/2-thread CPU clocked at 2.30 GHz with 3.20 GHz boost. The CPUs on both models is configured with 4 MB of L3 cache, which takes their "total cache" (L2 + L3) figure up to 5 MB. The iGPU on the 3150U is a Radeon Vega 3 with 192 stream processors, clocked at 1.00 GHz. The one on the 3050U, is AMD's smallest, with just 2 compute units, working up to 128 stream processors, but the engine clock is set at 1.10 GHz.

EVGA's cost-effective GeForce RTX 2060 KO graphics card debuted at CES, at an attractive price of USD $299, a pricing that very likely had the blessings of NVIDIA. This card may very well be the first of many RTX 2060 custom-design cards by NVIDIA partners to compete with AMD's new Radeon RX 5600 XT being launched at $279. AMD claims performance leads over the price-matched GTX 1660 Ti, which held NVIDIA's fort under the $300 price-band, until now.

Over the weekend, EVGA formally launched the RTX 2060 KO, and already offered pre-order discounts on both its own web-store, and popular U.S. retailer Newegg, with the base RTX 2060 KO going for $279, and the factory-overclocked RTX 2060 KO Ultra priced at $299, with a $20 "instant rebate." This would put the RTX 2060 KO price-matched with the RX 5600 XT, and it would be interesting to see if AMD can respond with lower prices (which would then pancake both NVIDIA's and AMD's product-stack south of $250). EVGA is expected to ship the first orders of the RTX 2060 KO from this week.

The Tomahawk line of motherboards by MSI gained popularity in recent times on the back of high cost/performance and an aspirational feature-set for its price, but has seen competition from the likes of ASUS TUF Gaming. When MSI launched its AMD X570 chipset motherboards, a Tomahawk product was MIA. The company finally got around to one, with the MAG X570 Tomahawk Wi-Fi. In its product-stack, MSI appears to be positioning this product above the MPG X570 Gaming Plus, but a notch below the MPG X570 Gaming Edge Wi-Fi and the popular X570 Gaming Pro Carbon. The Tomahawk is equipped with a visibly bigger chipset fan-heatsink than the Gaming Plus, and a more powerful CPU VRM solution, with a 14-phase setup. You also get chunky VRM heatsinks, a metal I/O area shroud, and an integrated I/O shield.

The MAG Tomahawk X570 upstages competition with networking: 2.5 GbE wired Ethernet and 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6). The 2.5 GbE interface is pulled by a Realtek 8125B-CG controller, while the WLAN is Intel AX200-family. Other noteworthy specs include two M.2 PCI-Express gen 4.0 slots with heatsinks on both; and a premium ALC1220-based onboard audio solution (which is a segment-first for the Arsenal Gaming series). The MAG Tomahawk X570 Wi-Fi will begin selling within Q1-2020, priced around $180.

At a Q&A session with the tech press in Las Vegas, AMD CEO Dr Lisa Su raised hopes of a high-end graphics card based on its "Navi" family of GPUs. Responding to a specific question by Gordon Ung from PC World on whether there will be a high-end competitor in the discrete graphics space, Dr Su stated that one should expect a "high-end Navi." Dr Su states: "I know those on Reddit want a high end Navi! You should expect that we will have a high-end Navi, and that it is important to have it. The discrete graphics market, especially at the high end, is very important to us. So you should expect that we will have a high-end Navi, although I don't usually comment on unannounced products."

For months now, it's been speculated that AMD has been working on a larger GPU die than "Navi 10." In 2020, AMD is expected to release the "Navi 20" familly of GPUs built on 7 nm+ (EUV) node, based on the RDNA2 graphics architecture. The key design goals of RDNA2 are expected to be support for at least tier-1 variable-rate shading (VRS), and possibly hardware-accelerated ray-tracing. It's possible that "high-end Navi" belongs to this family of GPUs.

PowerColor at CES 2020 took the opportunity provided by AMD's announcement of the RX 5600 XT graphics cards to showcase their offerings on that SKU. Based on a graphics card that AMD announced would be targeting the $279 price point, PowerColor will be launching two SKUs based on the Navi silicon: RX 5600 XT Red Devil and Red Dragon.

The RX 5700 XT Liquid Devil is based on PowerColor's RX 5700 XT started shipping back in November 25th.

In 2002, Dell was dipping its toe into multimedia home entertainment and Alienware launched the industry's first gaming laptop, the Area-51m, a landmark in portable gaming. It was an amazing moment for die-hard gamers to play popular titles like Grand Theft Auto: Vice City anywhere they wanted. Power plus mobility, gamers could have it all.

Nearly two decades later, Dell and Alienware will continue showcasing their relentless commitment to gaming innovations at CES. Kicking things off with the new redesigned Dell G5 15 SE (Special Edition), the latest product in Dell's G Series portfolio for new and price-conscious gamers. You'll also learn about a new software to help monitor in-game performance without having to leave your gameplay and about our recently announced Alienware 25" Gaming Monitor, but first, the Dell G5 15 SE.

AMD will update its 3rd generation Ryzen Threadripper product stack sooner than expected. The flagship 64-core/128-thread Ryzen Threadripper 3990X will be available to purchase on February 7, 2020, priced at USD $3,990. The company debuted the "Zen 2" based 3rd gen Threadripper family last November with the 24-core Threadripper 3960X and the 32-core Threadripper 3970X, while teasing the 64-core flagship, the 3990X. AMD detailed this halo-flagship product some more at its 2020 CES event. Designed for the TRX40 platform in the sTRX4 package, the 3990X is differentiated from 64-core EPYC "Rome" products with its narrower monolithic quad-channel memory interface (compared to 8-channel for EPYCs).

The Ryzen Threadripper 3990X ships with clock-speeds of 2.90 GHz with 4.30 GHz boost, a gargantuan 288 MB of total cache (L2 + L3), and the same I/O as the 3970X: 4-channel memory interface with support for up to 2 TB of memory; a PCI-Express 4.0 x8 pipe to the TRX40 chipset, and up to three gen 4.0 x16 links to the processor package. AMD also showed a performance sneak-peak, comparing a machine with a single 3990X squaring off against a machine with 2P Intel Xeon Platinum 8280 processors that add up to 56 cores and 112 threads. In the side-by-side V-Ray render test, the 3990X emerged 30% faster than the Intel setup, but here's the kicker: the 3990X "only" costs $3,990, versus $20,000 for the 2P Xeon 8280 (processors alone). The HEDT chip also supports ECC memory.

At this year's CES, ASUS announced the latest addition to their TUG gaming lineup of laptops - two 15-inch TUF Gaming A15 and TUF Gaming F15, and two 17-inch TUF Gaming A17 and TUF Gaming F17. Being advertised as durable, high-performance gaming laptops, the TUF lineup is here to bring "unprecedented experience for the price" meaning that the pricing of these models will be more than adequate for what they offer. Inside these new machines are the latest mobile processors from both Intel and AMD. The "A" series, as it is called, is an AMD based solution that features Ryzen 4000 series of mobile processors, which can be configured to go up to 8 cores and 16 threads, while the so-called "F" series is based on Intel's 10th generation of Core processors, which can be configured to go up to 6 cores and 12 threads.

AMD CEO Dr Lisa Su at the company's 2020 International CES address announced the company's e-sports flagship graphics card, the Radeon RX 5600 XT. This card is designed to dominate the sub-$300 market-segment that's been led by NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1660-series. Based on 7 nm "Navi" silicon, the RX 5600 XT has surprisingly powerful specs: 2,304 stream processors across 36 RDNA compute units, which is the same as the RX 5700, but with some cost-cutting in the way of memory: 6 GB of GDDR6 across a 192-bit wide memory interface, and 12 Gbps memory speed. The GPU has a gaming engine clock of roughly 1500 MHz. Other key specs include 144 TMUs and 48 ROPs.

Designed with a 150 W typical board power target, the card draws power from a single 8-pin PCIe power connector. The RX 5600 XT is designed to provide 1080p e-sports gaming at high refresh-rates, or 1440p gaming at reasonable graphics settings. In its presentation, AMD showed the RX 5600 XT beating the GTX 1660 Ti that leads NVIDIA's GTX 16-series. With a price of USD $279 SEP, which is on-par with that of the GTX 1660 Ti, AMD looks to bring some serious competition to the $200-300 market-segment. Available January 21, 2020.

We're live from the International CES 2020 and AMD's keynote address by CEO Dr Lisa Su. AMD is expected to announce new products such as its next-generation APU, a new e-sports graphics card, and teasers for its upcoming products. This is a live-blog article that will be continually updated through the event.

21:58 UTC: The show begins in a packed house with long queues leading up

Jan 6th: Dr Su takes centerstage.

Phil Spencer, head of the Xbox division at Microsoft, posted a picture of the semi-custom SoC at the heart of the company's upcoming "Project Scarlett" Xbox Series X game console as his Twitter avatar. The picture reveals a chip that looks visibly similar to that of "Project Scorpio" (Xbox One X). The picture was also taken from an angle that reveals the pinkish/auburn tinge of 7 nm AMD chips made at TSMC. You'll find the same tinge on chips such as "Navi 10" when viewed from an angle. The die unabashedly bears the "Project Scarlett" and "8K" markings.

Next-generation game consoles are marketing 4K 60 Hz and 8K gaming capability. They likely use a combination of dynamic resolution-scale and variable rate shading to achieve this. The "Project Scarlett" SoC is a semi-custom chip co-designed by Microsoft and AMD, and uses CPU cores based on the company's "Zen 2" microarchitecture, combined with a powerful GPU based on RDNA2, which features hardware-accelerated ray-tracing and variable-rate shading. Hardware enthusiasts on Twitter are abuzz with estimating the die-size of the SoC, with calculations pinning it around the 350 mm² mark ±10 mm², or roughly similar to that of "Project Scorpio," but one must factor in the switch to 7 nm from 16 nm significantly increasing transistor-density.

While many users were likely expecting AMD to launch their lower-tier alternatives B550 and A520 chipset solutions for their Ryzen 2 CPUs shortly after their release to the market last year, users who want to pair a more inexpensive motherboard have had to wait in the rain until now. At the time, industry sources pointed towards fabrication of ASMedia's B550 and A520 chipsets for the AM4 platform to begin shipping to motherboard manufacturers in Q4 2019.

Now, new reports say that production of these chipsets (simpler in features, and thus, in price, whilst also not requiring active cooling) will only begin in Q1 2020, which means likely retail availability (at least in significant volumes) in Q2 at the earliest. It seems that users will, for the time being, have to make do with the usually top-of-the-line chipset option for the AMD platform - which is, coincidentally, the one with bigger margins for AMD.

AMD veterans yesterday must've sneakily left their respective offices yesterday for a well-deserved rest and a glass of champagne - and if they didn't, they deserved it. The company yesterday broke their previous all-time stock pricing record achieved way back in June 2000, at $47.50 per share, when it traded at $49.10 per share yesterday.

It's been a long time coming for AMD, and irrespective of any brand loyalty, it certainly pays, as a consumer and as an enthusiast, to see a company that nearly went bankrupt in 2016 - who had to sell and then lease back their own headquarters for a quick cash infusion, spin-off its manufacturing division in a change of strategy that couldn't have been easy on morale - achieve such a colossal feat. Even more impressive this is should you even be considering the blue behemoth the company actually has to contend with - a $260.35B Intel who, by both happenstance and poor CPU execution vision, is being fired upon on all markets by comparative David AMD, today valued at $51.07B. Here's hoping all AMD employees got their well-deserved party and standing ovation from each other. None of them - not even Lisa Su - achieved this alone.