AMD released the latest version of Radeon Software Crimson Edition, its software suite which provides drivers and system software for Radeon GPUs and IGPs. Version 16.3 improves performance for "Rise of the Tomb Raider" on Radeon R9 Fury X series GPUs by up to 16 percent (compared to version 16.2), and for "Gears of War Ultimate Edition," by as high as 60 percent on the R9 Fury X series (compared to version 16.2.1), and by up to 44 percent on Radeon R9 380 series (compared to version 16.2.1).

Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.3 also adds official support for the Vulkan API; 2-display Eyefinity, an accessible CrossFire status indicator, a new power-efficiency toggle for Radeon R9 300 series and R9 Fury series GPUs. With version 16.3, AMD is introducing the XConnect Technology, a new standard for external graphics enclosures over not just high-bandwidth interfaces such as Thunderbolt 3, but also the more accessible USB 3.1 interface. AMD is providing the software ecosystem that lets you plug-and-play external GPUs for instant boosts in performance and functionality. AMD is also adding/updating CrossFire profiles for "Hitman (2016)", and "The Park."

DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.3 for Windows 10/8.1/7 64-bit | Windows 10/8.1/7 32-bit

AMD released the latest version of Radeon Software Crimson Edition. Version 16.2.1 is marked "non-WHQL" and hence should be a beta. The driver comes with a CrossFireX profile for "Far Cry Primal," along with a variety of game-specific bug fixes for "Fallout 4," and "Rise of the Tomb Raider." It also fixes an issue of choppy display on systems with both FreeSync and CrossFire being enabled. Grab the drivers from the links below.DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.2.1 for Windows 10/8.1/7 64-bit | Windows 10/8.1/7 32-bit

AMD released a quick follow up to Tuesday's (02/02) Radeon Software Crimson Edition (RSCE) 16.1.1 Beta release; with a Hotfix release. Version 16.1.1 Hotfix includes AMD CrossFire profiles for "Fallout 4," in addition to "Rise of the Tomb Raider," and in particular a flickering issue which was noticed on CrossFire machines running "Fallout 4." The rest of its feature-set is identical to that of the 16.1.1 Beta. Grab the driver for your OS from the link below.DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.1.1 Hotfix

AMD rolled out the latest version of its Radeon Software Crimson Edition drivers. Version 16.1.1 Beta adds optimizations for "Rise of the Tomb Raider." This includes performance/quality optimizations for the game. In addition to this, the company added a long overdue CrossFireX profile for "Fallout 4." A number of GPU- and game-specific bugs were fixed. Grab the drivers from the links below.DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.1.1 Beta for Windows 10/8.1/7 64-bit | Windows 10/8.1/7 32-bit

AMD released the WHQL-signed version of Radeon Software Crimson Edition 15.11.1 as the new 15.12 WHQL. It addresses a variety of game-specific issues, including rendering errors on Star Wars: Battlefront; bugs on Fallout 4; texture-compression issues with Just Cause 3; poor CrossFire performance with Call of Duty: Black Ops 3. It also addresses a critical issue in which the driver would either spool fan-speeds all the way up to 100% on load, or lock them down at 30%, causing certain GPUs to overheat. A variety of bugs specific to the Radeon Settings app were also addressed.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Crimson Edition 15.12 WHQL for Windows 10 64-bit | Windows 10 32-bit | Windows 8.1 64-bit | Windows 8.1 32-bit | Windows 7 64-bit | Windows 7 32-bit

Batman Arkham Knight gamers' woes on the PC platform continue, as a patch that lets the game take advantage of multi-GPU technologies like SLI and CrossFire remains elusive. Responding to a distraught multi-GPU user on Steam Community forums, a developer stated that implementing multi-GPU support presented a too high risk of creating new issues for the gamers, to be "practical." The PC release of Batman Arkham Knight has been riddled with bugs, which caused its publisher to pull the Unreal Engine 3 based game off the shelves to fix those bugs, and a less than successful re-launch that ended up in distribution platform Steam taking refund requests until late-December. The developer, who goes by the username "wb.elder.pliny" stated:

We've been working with our development and graphics driver partners over the last few months to investigate utilizing multi-GPU support within Batman: Arkham Knight. The result was that even the best case estimates for performance improvements turned out to be relatively small given the high risk of creating new issues for all players. As a result we've had to make the difficult decision to stop work on further multi-GPU support. We are disappointed that this was not practical and apologize to those who have been waiting for this feature.

AMD released its latest Catalyst 15.11.1 Beta drivers in the run up to its major Radeon Software Crimson Edition launch. One of the last drivers to bear the name "Catalyst," these drivers come with performance optimization for all of the season's biggest releases - Star Wars Battlefront, Call of Duty: Black Ops III, Fallout 4, and Assassins Creed: Syndicate. These optimizations could include CrossFire profiles on games that support it. Grab them from the links below.DOWNLOAD: AMD Catalyst 15.11.1 Beta 32-bit | AMD Catalyst 15.11.1 Beta 64-bit

AMD released its latest Catalyst software update. Version 15.9 Beta brings you game optimizations for Star Wars Battlefront Beta, and Fable Legends. It also resolves an issue where DirectX 12 (feature level 12_0) support was not being reported by DXDIAG on supported Radeon graphics cards; a Dragon Age: Inquisition related bug in Mantle API mode; and frame-stutter in Assassin's Creed Unity, in CrossFire mode. Some issues related to BenQ's 144 Hz FreeSync monitors were also fixed.DOWNLOAD: AMD Catalyst 15.9 Beta for Windows 10/8.1/7 32-bit | Windows 10/8.1/7 64-bit

AMD issued a statement on its upcoming Project Quantum SFF gaming desktop featuring Intel CPUs. The company clarified that it will offer both Intel and AMD processors, in the interest of consumer choice. AMD pointed out that the star-attraction in Project Quantum is the fact that it features two "Fiji" graphics processors in CrossFire configuration, to serve up graphics power unheard of, for this form-factor. Buyers will have a choice over the CPU, so if they feel that a CPU of a particular brand serves their needs better, they can make that choice.

Project Quantum will be an SFF gaming PC designed for super high resolution gaming. The company collaborated with liquid cooling majors to come up with a custom solution that cools the CPU and the two "Fiji" GPUs, over a common coolant channel, and a single large radiator. The system is split between two thermally-isolated chambers, with just coolant tubing and wiring running between the two. The bottom chamber features the mini-ITX form-factor motherboard, the dual-GPU video card, the SSD, and the power distribution PCB (PSU is external), while the top chamber is dominated by the radiator, and other liquid cooling components, such as the reservoir, pump, and a single large fan.

AMD's upcoming flagship GPU silicon, codenamed "Fiji," which is breaking ground on new technologies, such as HBM, memory-on-package, a specialized substrate layer that connects the GPU with it, called Interposer; features a hefty feature-set. More on the "Fiji" package and its memory implementation, in our older article. Its block diagram (manufacturer-drawn graphic showing the GPU's component hierarchy), reveals a scaling up, of the company's high-end GPU launches over the past few years.

"Fiji" retains the quad Shader Engine layout of "Hawaii," but packs 16 GCN Compute Units (CUs), per Shader Engine (compared to 11 CUs per engine on Hawaii). This works out to a stream processor count of 4,096. Fiji is expected to feature a newer version of the Graphics CoreNext architecture than "Hawaii." The TMU count is proportionately increased, to 256 (compared to 176 on "Hawaii"). AMD doesn't appear to have increased the ROP count, which is still at 64. The most significant change, however, is its 4096-bit HBM memory interface, compared to 512-bit GDDR5 on "Hawaii."

AMD released the latest version of its Catalyst software suite, Catalyst 15.5 Beta. The driver comes with optimizations for "The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt" (up to 10 percent higher frame-rates) and "Project Cars," (up to 17 percent higher frame-rates). The driver also updates CrossFire profile for "The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt," although AMD recommends that you disable anti-aliasing on machines with CrossFire. AMD is aware of the micro-flickering on CrossFire machines, and said that it's working with CD Projekt RED to resolve the issue. For Project Cars, it's recommended that you use an AA method other than DS2M.DOWNLOAD: AMD Catalyst 15.5 Beta for Windows 8.1 64-bit | Windows 8.1 32-bit | Windows 7 64-bit | Windows 7 32-bit

As of today (20/05/2015), it has been over 160 days since AMD released a WHQL-signed Catalyst driver update, in what is a clear sign of decay in the company's after-sales support for the consumer graphics market. Once tuned to a near-monthly release of its Catalyst Software suite, which added optimzations for new games, improved upon support for existing ones; CrossFire multi-GPU support profiles; even if not adding support for new GPUs; AMD slipped into quarterly WHQL release cycle in 2013-14. It now seems to have deviated from even that.

The company's last WHQL-signed Catalyst release was Catalyst 14.12 Omega WHQL, which released on 09/12/2014, 161 days ago. The company has since only released two "Beta" drivers, notably Catalyst 15.4 Beta, with optimization for Grand Theft Auto V, and AMD FreeSync support. In contrast, NVIDIA adopted a faster driver update cycle than its previous monthly GeForce WHQL driver releases, under its "Game Ready" driver program. New WHQL-signed releases predate almost every AAA PC game release. There's still no word on a Catalyst WHQL update, and with launch of new graphics cards slated for the third week of June, it's unlikely that the company will release one interim. By then, it will have been 196 days since a Catalyst WHQL driver release. Such a slow driver update cycle would do little to inspire confidence in buying the next-generation Radeon product, even if it establishes a performance lead over GeForce.

GIGABYTE Technology, a leading creator of high performance server and workstation hardware, is happy to present today the MW70-3S0, its latest dual socket workstation motherboard based on the Intel C612 chipset. It joins the single socket MW50-SV0 to complement GIGABYTE's line of 2011-3 socket based workstation motherboards, and offers workstation builders a high end product featuring the latest technologies and the most reliable components. The MW70-3S0 has been designed with flexibility in mind, through large memory, storage and PCI-Express platforms that will satisfy the most demanding performance requirements of professional workstation users.

MSI, world leading in motherboard design, debuts the world's first USB 3.1 featured AMD GAMING motherboard, the 990FXA GAMING. Delivering blazing fast USB performance, up to 2 times faster than USB 3.0, the new 990FXA GAMING motherboard offers two USB 3.1 ports, which are fully backwards compatible with USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 devices.

Inheriting the outstanding DNA of MSI's award winning GAMING family, the new MSI AM3+ 990FXA GAMING motherboard features Killer LAN for the best online GAMING experience, Audio Boost 2 powered by Creative Sound Blaster Cinema 2 for astonishing sound quality that gives you the upper hand on the battlefield, USB Audio Power and a completely new hardware and software design for enhanced gaming performance. Get ready for high-end AMD GAMING with MSI.

Earlier this day, HP announced its newest line of desktop PCs, one of which comes with a curious-sounding Radeon R9 380 graphics card. HP's product pages for its new desktops aren't active, yet, leaving us to only speculate on what the R9 380 could be. One theory making rounds says that the R9 380 could either be a re-branded R9 285, or be based on its "Tonga" silicon, which physically features 2,048 stream processors based on Graphics CoreNext (GCN) 1.2 architecture, and a 384-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface. Another theory states that the R9 380 could be an OEM-only re-brand of the R9 280 or R9 280X, based on the 3+ year old "Tahiti" silicon.

The former theory sounds more plausible, because re-branding a "Tahiti" based product would be suicidal for AMD. Although based on GCN, "Tahiti" lacks a lot of architecture features introduced with "Hawaii" and "Tonga." AMD practically stopped optimizing games for "Tahiti," and some of its new features, such as FreeSync and XDMA CrossFire, can't be implemented on it. "Tonga," on the other hand, supports both these features, and one can create an SKU with all its 2,048 stream processors, and its full 384-bit GDDR5 memory interface unlocked. If the R9 380 is indeed an OEM-only product, then it's likely that the company's retail-channel products could be branded in the succeeding R9 400 series. GPU makers tend to re-brand and bump their SKUs by a series for OEMs to peddle in their "new" products at short notice.

MSI, world leading in motherboard technology, is proud to announce world's first USB 3.1 featured AMD motherboard, the classy black & white 970A SLI Krait Edition. Delivering blazing fast USB performance, up to 2 times faster than USB 3.0, the new 970A SLI Krait Edition motherboard offers two USB 3.1 ports, which are fully backwards compatible with USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 devices. Copying files from your external hard disk or USB pen drive will be faster than ever. Offering reliable and fast Gigabit LAN together with Nvidia SLI and AMD CrossFire support for enthusiasts looking to pair up multiple graphics cards, the new classy black & white 970A SLI Krait Edition motherboard is a testament of quality. Military Class 4 provides all the stability you need through carefully selected and thoroughly tested components and materials.

"AMD and MSI strive to deliver innovation and great products that provide cutting edge features and capabilities for all users," said Darren Grasby, AMD Corporate VP, Global Channel Sales. "We are very excited to partner with MSI on the launch of the new USB 3.1 powered 970A SLI Krait Edition Motherboard - a highly optimized, feature-rich platform that unleashes the full potential of AMD processors in a powerful solution that also delivers great value and customer experience." The 970A SLI Krait Edition motherboard perfectly caters to those AMD fans who are looking for something different in terms of design and latest specification, but desire nothing but the best in terms of features and power.

GIGABYTE introduced its latest socket AM3+ motherboard, and its first in a long while, the 990XA-UD3 R5. Built in the standard ATX form-factor, the board draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX and 8-pin EPS connectors, and conditions it using a 10-phase CPU VRM. The board, however, does not support FX-9000 series chips. Based on AMD 990X chipset, featuring AMD SB950 southbridge, expansion slots of the board include two PCI-Express 2.0 x16 (x8/x8 when both are populated), supporting NVIDIA SLI and AMD CrossFireX, a third PCIe 2.0 x16 slot (electrical x4, wired to the southbridge), and two each of PCIe 2.0 x1 and legacy PCI slots.

Storage connectivity on the 990XA-UD3 R5 include six SATA 6 Gb/s ports. The board's onboard audio solution features a Realtek ALC1150 CODEC, offering 115 dBA SNR, audio-grade electrolytic capacitors on the audio circuit, a TI-made headphones amplifier with support for headphones impedance as high as 600Ω, and PCB ground-layer isolation. Also on offer are a gigabit Ethernet connection, driven by a Realtek-made controller, four USB 3.0 ports (two on the rear panel, two by headers), and PS/2 mouse/keyboard combo port. The board is driven by AMI UEFI BIOS, and supports Windows 8 SecureBoot and FastBoot. Expect this board to be priced around US $130.

TechPowerUp released the latest version of GPU-Z, the popular video hardware information and diagnostic utility. Version 0.8.2 brings with it a vast number of changes, support for new hardware, and bug-fixes. To begin with, the user-interface of GPU-Z received a major update, with the addition of a "Lookup" button that takes you to our GPU Database page corresponding to your GPU. The app can now tell you if your drivers are WHQL-signed. GPU manufacturer logos are updated.

Among the new hardware supported includes NVIDIA GeForce TITAN-X, GTX 980M, GTX 970M, GGTX 965M, GTX 845M, GTX 760 Ti OEM, GTX 660 (960 shaders), GT 705, GT 720, GT 745M, NVS 310, and Grid; AMD Radeon R9 255, FirePro W7100, HD 8370D, AMD R9 M280X, and R9 M295X; and Intel "Broadwell" integrated graphics. Specifications are revised for GeForce GTX 970.

A large number of bugs were fixed, and overall usability improved, including notably GPU-Z now supports Windows 10. We implemented a new working way of extracting BIOS from NVIDIA GPUs on systems with WIndows 8 and higher, to avoid a system hang. A large number of bugs were fixed, and overall usability of the app improved, as detailed in the change-log.DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z 0.8.2 | GPU-Z 0.8.2 ASUS ROG-themed

The Change-log follows.

MSI, world leading in motherboard technology, is proud to announce its X99S SLI Krait Edition motherboard. Introducing a newly designed fully black and white motherboard perfect for anyone looking for something different. The new MSI X99S SLI Krait Edition isn't just a good looking black & white motherboard, it also presents an arsenal of features and improvements. Offering reliable and fast Intel Gigabit LAN together with Nvidia SLI and AMD CrossFire support for enthusiasts looking to pair up multiple graphics cards.

Reward your ears with Audio Boost and all of its audio enhancing features. On-board Turbo M.2 with speeds up to 32 Gb/s makes sure users can enjoy blazing fast system boot up and loading of applications and games. A SATA Express port is also available. Guard-Pro and Military Class 4 provide all the stability you need through carefully selected and thoroughly tested components and materials.

Shortly after the launch of its Catalyst 14.9 WHQL driver, AMD released a follow-up Catalyst 14.9.1 Beta driver, to address some immediate issues found with the driver. It addresses an intermittent black-screen or BSOD issue caused after driver installation of Catalyst 14.9 WHQL, Catalyst Control Center crash, random crash when enabling or disabling 4-way CrossFireX, and Battlefield 4 instability on systems with 4-way CrossFireX. It also fixes a system crash issue found with Sniper Elite III, on systems with 4-way CrossFireX.DOWNLOAD: AMD Catalyst 14.9.1 beta for Windows 8.1/7/Vista 64-bit | Windows 8.1/7/Vista 32-bit

AMD announced its most important GPU for the season, the Radeon R9 285. The chip is designed to compete with the GeForce GTX 760 from NVIDIA at not just performance, but also energy-efficiency, and low component costs, so AMD can price it better. Based on a brand new 28 nm silicon by the company, codenamed "Tonga," the R9 285 features 1,792 Graphics CoreNext 1.2 stream processors, 112 TMUs, 32 ROPs, and a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, holding 2 GB of memory.

AMD partners are free to come up with 4 GB variants. The card supports DirectX 12, OpenGL 4.4, and Mantle. It features new AMD innovations, such as XDMA CrossFire, TrueAudio DSP, and 4-display Eyefinity by plugging into every connector on the card (two dual-link DVI, one DisplayPort 1.2, and one HDMI 1.4a). The card draws power from a pair of 6-pin PCIe power connectors. Available now, the Radeon R9 285, from various AMD partners starts at US $249.

AMD has today made available an updated Release Candidate of its Catalust 14.7 graphics driver for Windows 7 and 8.1 (32 and 64-bit). This new build, RC3, features all the goodies from the previous non-WHQL driver (14.7 RC) and adds performance improvements for Xaviant's Lichdom: Battlemage, tweaks enabling 'smoother gameplay' on Ubisoft's Watch Dogs, a CrossFire profile for Carbine Studios' WildStar, and 'display interface enhancements to improve 4k monitor performance and reduce flickering'.

The Catalyst 14.7 RC3 has support for the Radeon HD 5000, HD 6000, HD 7000, HD 8000, R5 200, R7 200 and R9 200 Series graphics cards and can be downloaded from this page.

ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) today announced Crossblade Ranger, the first AMD FM2+ motherboard to carry the revered ROG brand and packed with exclusive ROG technologies and game-boosting features for an AMD-based gaming powerhouse that's beyond compare.

Crossblade Ranger's core benefits deliver the best gaming networking, with Intel Gigabit Ethernet, GameFirst III and LANGuard, the best gaming audio from SupremeFX 2014, the best gaming interface with KeyBot and the best gaming performance with exclusive Auto Tuning technology to unleash the true power of AMD accelerated-processing units (APUs).

AMD has today rolled out a Release Candidate (RC) build of its Catalyst 14.6 graphics driver. This version features support for the Radeon HD 5000, HD 6000, HD 7000, HD 8000, R5 200, R7 200 and R9 200 Series cards (and the Mobility Radeon HD 5000/6000/6000M/7000M/8000M mobile GPUs) and brings performance improvements for Plants vs. Zombies and 3DMark Sky Diver, CrossFire profiles for the Battlefield Hardline Beta and Grid Auto Sport, and more.

The Catalyst 14.6 RC is available for Windows 7 and 8.1.

SAPPHIRE technology, the leading manufacturer and global supplier of AMD-based graphics products, has just added another new model to its highly acclaimed Vapor-X family of graphics cards in the successful R9 series. The SAPPHIRE R9 290X Vapor-X OC features several of the company's industry-leading technologies and a factory overclock to deliver best in class performance with very low noise.

Based on the award-winning Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture from AMD with 2816 Stream Processors, the SAPPHIRE R9 290X Vapor-X is an Overclocked edition which boasts 4 GB of the latest GDDR5 memory running at 1410 MHz (5.64 GB/s effective) and high speed engine clocks of 1080 MHz. Together these clocks deliver industry leading performance - but to achieve this performance with stability and reliability demands high quality components throughout the design (especially in the power control circuitry) together with a sophisticated cooling solution.