While AMD is giving all signs of being preparing to release their latest entries into the midrange graphics card market in the form of theRX 5500 and RX 5300 series of graphics cards based on Navi, AMD's AIB partners are giving the slow burn on existing inventories of AMD's Polaris graphics chips. MSI, in this case, seems to have bet on a slight redesign of their previously-released RX 580 Armor and Armor MK2.

Changed is the color scheme - MSI went full black on this one. There's also a redesigned PCB, a redesigned I/O bracket (which keeps four display connectors), and a new cooler shroud. The heatsink's surface area also seems to have been increased, which should provide lower operating temperatures (anything beyond that, such as higher overclockability and longer lifespan, are speculations). The redesigned Armor keeps the single 8-pin PCIe power connector. No other details are available at time of writing.

At the XFastest Network event in Japan, ASRock shared some slides detailing its overall graphics card strategy up to February 2019. There are some interesting bits of information that can be gleaned/extrapolated from it. One bit of information that seems to be set in stone is the introduction, come August, of revised versions of some graphics cards (namely, the RX 570 and RX 580 models) under the MK2 marketing - likely revised in their cooling apparatus. That the RX Vega versions of ASRock graphics cards won't be receiving such a revision seems clear as well: there's no reason for the company to withhold information on that. The others, however, are more prone to speculation.

First of, the fact that ASRock still only lists AMD graphics cards likely means the company will remain an exclusively AMD-aligned AIB. Secondly, the absence of any new AMD graphics cards in the ASRock lineup, while noteworthy and prone to speculation, doesn't really say much. AMD certainly wouldn't look lovingly towards ASRock should they out information on a new RX600 series or other AMD products ahead of time. Likewise, ASRock wouldn't want publicity on a new deal with NVIDIA to hit the roads ahead of time. As such, let's just stay with the MK2 graphics cards and ASRock's lineup - and codification for its products, which they kindly shared during the event.