AMD today announced the Radeon RX 500 series graphics cards. The lineup is based on a "refined" variants of the "Polaris" family of GPUs that power the RX 400 series. These include manufacturing-level refinements on the 14 nm FinFET process, which enable higher clock speeds; lower idle and multi-monitor power draw, and a host of software features. The lineup consists of four SKUs, beginning with the Radeon RX 550 at a sub-$79 price point, followed by the Radeon RX 560, which succeeds the RX 460 at $99; the RX 570, which starts at $169, and the RX 580, which is priced at $199 for the 4 GB variant, and $229 for the 8 GB variant.

The RX 580 and RX 570 are based on the 14 nm "Lexa" Polaris20 silicon. This chip is nearly identical to the "Ellesmere" Polaris10, except for the manufacturing-level improvements that enable higher clock speeds. The RX 580 features 2,304 stream processors across 36 compute units, 144 TMUs, 32 ROPs, and 8 GB or 4 GB of GDDR5 memory across a 256-bit wide memory interface. The core is clocked at 1257 MHz, with 1340 MHz boost, and 8.00 GHz (GDDR5-effective) memory. The RX 570, on the other hand, features 2,048 stream processors across 32 compute units, 128 TMUs, 32 ROPs, and clock speeds of 1168 MHz core, 1244 MHz boost, and slightly faster 7.00 GHz (GDDR5-effective) memory. Although available in 4 GB and 8 GB variants, 8 GB appears to be the most common memory amount for the RX 580, and 4 GB for the RX 570.

To strangely low pomp and fanfare, MSI has further increased its line-up of offerings for the RX 460 family of graphics cards, with the launch of the Radeon RX 460 4GT LP (4GB), as well as a 2GT (2GB) version. Based on AMD's Olaris 11 "Baffin" graphics chip, these graphics cards feature a 75 W TDP, thus eschewing any auxiliary PCIe power connectors. That TDP being tamed by a dual-fan cooling solution and the usage of MIL-STD-810G certified components mean that this is a card where MSI feels comfortable about its lifespan.

Connectivity-wise, the boards offer 1x DL-DVI-D, as well as 1x HDMI 2.0 with HDCP 2.2 support, which makes any of these a relevant choice for an HTPC. MSI has not revealed a MSRP for any of these cards, but considering the segment at which they fit in like a jigsaw puzzle, one can surely expect their pricing to not be that far off from those recommended by AMD ($109 for the 2 GB version, and $139 for the 4 GB one).

Overclocking.guide's der8auer has recently posted a story regarding the recently discovered ability to "liberate" AMD's RX 460's shaders - from the Polaris 11 architecture's stock 896 shaders / 56 TMUs to a grand total of 1024 stream processors and 64 TMUs. We did some quick testing and found the mod to be working as promised.

The process is straightforward enough. First, make sure to grab TechPowerUp's own GPU-Z, and save a copy of your original BIOS by clicking the arrow next to the "BIOS Version" field, so you have a fallback in case things go wrong. Then, follow the source link towards overclocking.guide's RX 460 tested BIOSes (currently only for the ASUS STRIX O4G and the Sapphire Nitro 4G), and download the appropriate one. Then run "flash unlocked bios.bat" to flash the BIOS, and in about 15 seconds, the process should be complete, granting you about 10% of extra performance. In our own testing, using the power testing setup we use in graphics cards reviews, we saw a 4 W increase in peak power consumption.

At its WX call, AMD focused on shifts in creativity from traditional design flows such as Solidworks, Adobe and Autodesk towards game engines as solutions for design visualization (Unreal Engine, Unity, CryEngine, or Autodesk's own Stingray platform), which signal changes in the creator ecosystem. Thanks to globalization, the Internet, and the available wealth of knowledge one can access through it, the line between amateurs and professionals is becoming more and more blurred. Now, those who would once be called amateurs are also using professional tools, and AMD plans to be at the forefront of technologies empowering creators to deliver their vision.

Radeon PRO serves to give creators more flexible and powerful solutions, leveraging open-source resources and centering the ecosystem back on creators and the tools they choose to use, with focused support on VR. As such, AMD is giving them the tools they need, by introducing three new products featuring the Polaris architecture, including 3 year standard + 7 year free extended warranty (including components such as the PCB itself, the PCI-Express slot, and the heatsinks), with AMD taking that extra 7 years as company commitment towards the quality of their products. Those three products are the WX4100, the WX5100, and the WX7100, and have planned, staggered availability throughout November.

AMD's upcoming 14 nm Polaris 11 "Baffin" ASIC, which powers the Radeon RX 460, was pictured up close, and it's tiny! Pictured as part of a Sapphire Radeon RX 460 Dual-X disassembly by PCOnline.com.cn, the Polaris 11 chip features a tiny package substrate owing to its low pin-count, wiring out a 128-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface; a PCI-Express 3.0 x8 host interface (it fits into x16 slots but has wiring for just x8); and electrical pins to cope with its <75W TDP requirements. The card relies on the PCI-Express slot for all its power draw. Sapphire's Dual-X cooling solution looks beefy from the outside owing to its cooler shroud and pair of fans, but underneath is a fairly simple monoblock aluminium heatsink.

The official specifications of two the two upcoming mainstream graphics cards by AMD, the Radeon RX 470, and the Radeon RX 460, were leaked to the web as slides from the company's official press presentation ahead of their early-August product launches. The RX 470 is based on the same "Ellesmere" Polaris10 silicon as the RX 480. It features 2,048 stream processors across 32 GCN compute units; 128 TMUs, 32 ROPs, and 4 GB of memory across a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface.

The RX 470 features clock speeds of 926 MHz core, 1206 MHz boost, and 6.6 Gbps memory, working out to 211 GB/s memory bandwidth. The RX 460, on the other hand, is based on the "Baffin" Polaris11 silicon, featuring 896 stream processors, 48 TMUs, 16 ROPs, and 4 GB of memory across a 128-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface. Its core is clocked at 1090 MHz, with 1200 MHz boost, and 7 Gbps memory, working out to 112 GB/s memory bandwidth. The RX 470 draws power from a single 6-pin PCIe power connector as its TDP is rated at 120W; the RX 460 relies entirely on the PCIe slot for its power, as its TDP is rated at <75W. The RX 470 will be available from 4th August, 2016; with the RX 460 following on 8th August.

Here's the first picture of Sapphire Radeon RX 460 NITRO OC, a premium RX 460 offering by Sapphire. The card combines a custom-design PCB with a larger than reference cooling solution that employs heat pipes, an aluminium fin-stack, and a pair of 90 mm spinners, to keep the GPU cool. The RX 460, based on the 14 nm "Baffin" Polaris11 silicon, features 896 stream processors spread across 14 compute units; and 4 GB of GDDR5 memory across a 128-bit wide memory interface. The NITRO OC, as its name suggests, features factory-overclocked speeds. The RX 460 is expected to be available from 8th August, 2016.

AMD confirmed specifications of its second and third "Polaris" architecture graphics cards in a leaked presentation, the Radeon RX 470, and the Radeon RX 460. The RX 470 will be AMD's attempt at a graphics card that plays everything at 1080p resolution, under $150. The Radeon RX 460, on the other hand, is based on the new 14 nm Polaris11 "Baffin" silicon, and could be ideal for MOBA games with light GPU requirements.

The Radeon RX 470 is carved out from the Polaris10 "Ellesmere" silicon that the RX 480 is based on, it features 2,048 stream processors across 32 GCN compute units, 128 TMUs, 32 ROPs, and a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, holding 4 GB of memory. The card draws power from a single 6-pin PCIe power connector. The Radeon RX 460, on the other hand, features 896 stream processors across 14 compute units, 2 GB of GDDR5 memory across a 128-bit wide memory interface, and relies on the PCI-Express slot entirely for power. The reference RX 460 board looks quite similar to the Radeon R9 Nano, but features a simpler spiral heatsink under the fan. Despite rumors to the contrary, it looks like Vega is on-course for a 2017 launch after all.

In its post-E3 press-deck, AMD confirmed the specifications of its Polaris10 "Ellesmere" and Polaris11 "Baffin" GPUs. The two chips will drive at least three desktop discrete SKUs between them, the Radeon RX 480, the RX 470, and the RX 460. Of these, the RX 480 and RX 470 appear to be based on the "Ellesmere" silicon. This chip features 2,304 stream processors spread across 36 compute units (CUs), and a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface. The "Baffin" silicon, on the other hand, features 1,024 stream processors spread across 16 CUs, and a 128-bit GDDR5 memory interface, likely ticking at 128 GB/s.

Industry sources revealed to TechPowerUp some pretty interesting specifications of AMD's two upcoming GPUs based on the 4th generation Graphics CoreNext "Polaris" architecture. The company is preparing a performance-segment GPU and a mainstream one. It turns out, that the performance-segment chip, which the press has been referring to as "Ellesmere," could feature 32 compute units (CUs), and not the previously thought 40.

Assuming that each CU continues to consist of 64 stream processors (SP), you're looking at an SP count of 2,048. What's more, this chip is said to offer a single-precision floating point performance of 5.5 TFLOP/s, as claimed by AMD. To put this into perspective, the company had claimed 5.2 TFLOP/s for the "Hawaii"/"Grenada" based FirePro W9100, which launched earlier this February, and that SKU featured all 2,816 SP present on the chip. So this chip is definitely faster than most "Hawaii" based SKUs.

The first AMD Radeon graphics cards based on the company's "Polaris" architecture are slated for a late-May launch, according to Thai tech-site Zolkorn. The company is reportedly planning an elaborate launch event in Macau, China, days ahead of the 2016 Computex trade-show in Taipei. AMD has reportedly already sent invites to media outlets, although to a very limited number (in comparison to, say, NVIDIA's GTX 1080 event in Austin, US). The event could see a paper-launch of the first Radeon R9 400 series graphics cards based on the 14 nm "Ellesmere" and "Baffin" chips, with AIB-branded cards being exhibited at Computex, and market-availability following shortly after.

AMD posted a new webpage for its upcoming "Polaris" GPU architecture, outlining its various innovations - 4th gen. Graphics CoreNext, 4K H.265 60 Hz game-streaming, next-generation display engine with support for DisplayPort 1.3 and HDMI 2.0, XConnect Technology, and the foundation of GPUOpen. In this page, the company inadvertently leaked pictures of its upcoming Polaris 10 "Ellesmere" and Polaris 11 "Baffin" ASICs.

The mast image of the page has a faded 3-quarter shot of a "small" GPU with a die that's almost 30% of the package area. This hints at Polaris 11 "Baffin." This chip is rumored to feature a 128-bit GDDR5/GDDR5X memory interface, and so its pin-count, and conversely, package-size is less. Then in its "4th gen GCN" heading image, AMD showed a picture of a bigger GPU. At first glance, you could assume that it's either "Tonga XT" or "Tahiti" looking at its support brace, but VideoCardz observed that the on-package electrical components in this image are arranged nothing like on the "Tonga" or "Tahiti." This could very well be Polaris 10 "Ellesmere."

AMD finalized the GPU architecture roadmap running between 2016 and 2018. The company first detailed this at its Capsaicin Event in mid-March 2016. It sees the company's upcoming "Polaris" architecture, while making major architectural leaps over the current-generation, such as a 2.5-times performance/Watt uplift and driving the company's first 14 nanometer GPUs; being limited in its high-end graphics space presence. Polaris is rumored to drive graphics for Sony's upcoming 4K Ultra HD PlayStation, and as discrete GPUs, it will feature in only two chips - Polaris 10 "Ellesmere" and Polaris 11 "Baffin."

"Polaris" introduces several new features, such as HVEC (h.265) decode and encode hardware-acceleration, new display output standards such as DisplayPort 1.3 and HDMI 2.0; however, since neither Polaris 10 nor Polaris 11 are really "big" enthusiast chips that succeed the current "Fiji" silicon, will likely make do with current GDDR5/GDDR5X memory standards. That's not to say that Polaris 10 won't disrupt current performance-thru-enthusiast lineups, or even have the chops to take on NVIDIA's GP104. First-generation HBM limits the total memory amount to 4 GB over a 4096-bit path. Enthusiasts will have to wait until early-2017 for the introduction of the big-chip that succeeds "Fiji," which will not only leverage HBM2 to serve up vast amounts of super-fast memory; but also feature a slight architectural uplift. 2018 will see the introduction of its successor, codenamed "Navi," which features an even faster memory interface.

Computex 2016 could see some major consumer graphics action, with AMD reportedly planning to launch two mid-thru-performance segment products on the sidelines of the event - the Radeon R7 470, based on the 14 nm "Baffin" (Polaris 11) silicon, and the Radeon R9 480, based on the 14 nm "Ellesmere" (Polaris 10) silicon. The R7 470 could succeed the R7 370 series in not just performance, but also offer a leap in energy efficiency, with a TDP of less than 50W. The R9 480, on the other hand, could feature a TDP of just 110-135W (R9 380 is rated at 190W).

The R9 480, based on the "Ellesmere" (Polaris 10) is shaping up to be a particularly interesting silicon. It's rumored to feature 2,304 stream processors based on the 4th generation Graphics CoreNext architecture, with 2,560 stream processors being physically present on the chip; and a 256-bit wide GDDR5 (GDDR5X-ready) memory controller. 8 GB could be the standard memory amount. AMD could keep the clock speeds relatively low, with 800-1050 MHz GPU clocks. Imagine R9 390-like performance at half its power-draw.

AMD's upcoming GPUs based on the "Polaris" and "Vega" architectures appear to be taking advantage of performance/Watt gains to keep stream processor counts low, and chips small, according to a VideoCardz analysis of curious-looking CompuBench entries. Assuming that a Graphics CoreNext (GCN) compute unit (CU) of the "Polaris" architecture, like the three versions of GCN before it, consists of 64 stream processors, AMD's Polaris 11 silicon, codenamed "Baffin," could feature over 1,024 stream processors, across 16 CUs; Polaris 10, codenamed "Ellesmere," could feature over 2,304 stream processors spread across over 36 CUs; and Vega 10 featuring 4,096 stream processors, spread across 64 CUs.

The "Baffin" silicon succeeds current generation "Curacao" silicon, driving mid-range graphics cards. It is expected to feature a 128-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, holding 4 GB of memory. The "Ellesmere" silicon succeeds current-generation "Tonga" silicon, driving performance-segment SKUs. It could feature up to 8 GB of GDDR5(X) memory. These two chips could see the light of the day by mid-2016. The third chip out of AMD's stable, Vega 10, could succeed "Fiji," overcoming its biggest marketing shortcoming - 4 GB memory. Taking advantage of HBM2 interface, it could feature 16 GB of memory. It could launch some time in early-2017. AMD is claiming a massive 2.5X performance-per-Watt increase for "Polaris" over the current GCN 1.2 architecture, which drives the "Tonga" and "Fiji" chips, and so these stream processor counts could look deceptively insufficient.