3DMark Fire Strike Hall of Fame is where overclockers submit their best hardware benchmark trials and try to beat the very best. For years, one record managed to hold, and today it just got defeated. According to an extreme overclocker called "biso biso" from South Korea and a part of the EVGA OC team, the top spot now belongs to the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics card. The previous 3DMark Fire Strike world record was set on April 22nd in 2020, when Vince Lucido, also known as K|NGP|N, set a record with four-way SLI of NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti GPUs. However, that record is old news since January 27th, when biso biso set the history with AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT GPU.

The overclocker scored 62389 points, just 1,183 more from the previous record. He pushed the Navi 21 XTX silicon that powers the Radeon RX 6900 XT card to an impressive 3,147 MHz. Paired with a GPU memory clock of 2370 MHz, the GPU was probably LN2 cooled to achieve these results. The overclocker used EVGA's Z690 DARK KINGPIN motherboard with Intel Core i9-12900K processor as a platform of choice to achieve this record. You can check it out on the 3DMark Fire Strike Hall of Fame website to see yourself.

Graphics cards may be on their way to becoming unicorns that you can only pay for after finding the proverbial pot of gold from under a rainbow, but that doesn't mean AMD and NVIDIA will slow down their competition any time soon - especially in this market, there's a huge profit to be made. And AMD may just be finally readying their true halo product - a graphics card that aims to beat NVIDIA's RTX 3090 across the board. Twitter user CyberPunkCat shared an alleged AMD slide showcasing a new, overpowered RX 6900 XTX graphics card. AMD's naming scheme for their RX 6900 series may be slightly confusing nowadays: the original RX 6900 XT carries the Navi 21 XTX die, and AMD has recently released a higher-performance version of that Navi 21 chip in the form of the Navi 21 XTXH - which power the liquid-cooled versions of the RX 6900 XT, with higher overall clocks than the original GPU release. However, there hasn't been a change in the RX 6900 XT nomenclature - but this new slide suggests otherwise.

If the leaked slide is real (keep your NaCl ready, as always), it appears that the RX 6900 XTX might pair both the higher-performance Navi 21 XTXH chip with higher memory speeds. While both Navi 21 XT and Navi 21 XTXH both make use of 16 Gbps GDDR6 memory, the slide indicates that the RX 6900 XTX will feature 18 Gbps memory speeds, exploring another avenue for increased performance. This decision would bring an increase in maximum theoretical memory subsystem bandwidth from the 512 Gbps in the RX 6900 XT up to 576 Gbps - a 13% increase, which would not translate into a proportional increase in final performance. However, considering how our own reviews show that AMD's RX 6900 XT with the Navi 21 XTXH silicon is already between one and three percent faster than NVIDIA's RTX 3090, even a slight, 5% performance increase over that cards' performance means that AMD might be able to claim the performance crown for the mainstream market. It's been a while since that happened, hasn't it?

Sapphire seems to be preparing an air-cooled version of its top-of-the-line RX 6900 XT Toxic graphics card, eschewing the hybrid cooling philosophy from its original release in favour of a more traditional full air cooling solution. In fact, Sapphire seems to be re-purposing the triple-fan cooling solution from its Nitro + graphics cards whist changing the color scheme to the yellow of the Toxic series.

That should me more than sufficient to keep the card cool, however, while other improvements present in the Toxic RX 6900 XT (such as the usage of the Navi 21 XTX chip and improvements to the circuit board and power delivery enabling much higher clocks and overclocking) are still present, justifying the top-tier Toxic naming on this graphics card. Sapphire has announced the RX 6900 XT Toxic reaches a Boost Clock of 2425 MHz and a Game Clock of 2235 MHz - lower than the hybrid-cooled version's 2525 MHz and 2375 MHz, respectively. No word on pricing or availability was available at time of writing.

ASUS today updated its flagship AMD Radeon RX 6000 series graphics card lineup with the new ROG Strix LC Radeon RX 6900 XT TOP T16G. This card is visually identical to the ROG Strix LC RX 6900 XT O16G the company launched last December, but with a handful updates. The biggest of these is the new "Navi 21 XTXH" silicon, the highest bin of AMD's top RDNA2 chip, which enables at least 10% higher clock-speeds than the standard RX 6900 XT. ASUS has tuned this up further, with a max boost frequency of a stunning 2525 MHz, compared to 2365 MHz on the original (O16G). The game clocks have been increased to 2375 MHz, compared to 2135 MHz on the O16G. Notice how the game clocks of the new T16G are higher than the max boost clocks of the original O16G? That's the magic of the new XTXH silicon.

These apart, the company hasn't made any changes to the visual design. A liquid+air hybrid cooling solution dominates the product. The AIO liquid closed-loop cooling solution pulls heat from the GPU and surrounding memory chips, while a base-plate and a chunky back-plate pull heat from the other components, which is ventilated by a lateral blower. The AIO is cooled by a 240 mm x 120 mm radiator. The card continues to pull power from a combination of three 8-pin PCIe power connectors. The company didn't reveal pricing, but it's very likely to be close to 2 grand.

AMD is in constant progress with its Radeon graphics card lineup and the company is always working on new models that will better suit the market. Today, we have interesting discovery. On Weibo, a Chinese microblogging website, a user has posted pictures of what appears to be an engineering sample of AMD's Radeon RX 6900 XTX graphics card variant. Having an all-in-one (AIO) water-cooled design with a 120 mm radiator, the card resembles a power-hungry design as we have seen with Radeon R9 Fury X and RX Vega 64 Liquid Edition, which were both graphics cards equipped with AIO water cooling. This engineering sample is no different.

Under the waterblock, there is a Navi 21 XTXH GPU SKU hidden. As we found out, this is a new Navi 21 XTX SKU that just features better binning compared to Navi 21 XTX, and thus it offers better overclocking potential. It is already present in three new models from various AIBs, like the PowerColor RX 6900 XT Liquid Devil Ultimate, ASRock RX 6900 XT OC Formula, and Sapphire RX 6900 XT Toxic Extreme graphics cards. It seems like AMD has prepared itself to launch this specific SKU in a reference design form, however, so far only AIBs have used the Navi 21 XTXH SKU. It is not yet clear if the Radeon RX 6900 XTX is ever going to hit the retail market, or it shall remain as it is - just an engineering sample.

AMD has recently launched its Radeon "Big Navi" 6000 series of graphics cards, making entry to the high-end market and positioning itself well against the competition. The "Big Navi" graphics cards are based on Navi 21 XL (Radeon RX 6800), Navi 21 XT (Radeon RX 6800 XT), and Navi 21 XTX (Radeon RX 6900 XT) GPU revision, each of which features a different number of Shaders/TMUs/ROPs. The highest-end Navi 21 XTX is the highest performance revision featuring 80 Compute Units with 5120 cores. However, it seems like AMD is preparing another similar silicon called Navi 21 XTXH. Currently, it is unknown what the additional "H" means. It could indicate an upgraded version with more CUs, or perhaps a bit cut down configuration. It is unclear where such a GPU would fit in the lineup or is it just an engineering sample that is never making it to the market. It could represent a potential response from AMD to NVIDIA's upcoming GeForce RTX 3080 Ti graphics card, however, that is just speculation. Other options suggest that such a GPU would be a part of mainstream notebook lineup, just like Renoir comes in the "H" variant. We have to wait and see what AMD does to find out more.

ASUS has today surprised everyone and decided to launch the first custom design of AMD's Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics card. Previously, the word was that AMD was debating with AIBs whatever to open the GPU to custom designs or keep it AMD PCB exclusive. However, thanks to today's launch, we now know that AMD will allow its partners to design their PCBs and push the Big Navi silicon to its maximum. So when it comes to pushing to maximum, enter the world of ASUS TUF Gaming Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics cards, designed to fit in the line of ASUSes TUF principals.

Featuring a triple fan, triple-slot (2.9 slots more precisely )body, the graphics card is built around Navi 21 XTX GPU. This means that only the best needs to be brought to the card as it is a premium product. That is why the company says that "The TUF GAMING Radeon RX 6900 XT is a tenacious beast with a tough metal exterior, super-efficient cooling, and components that offer enhanced endurance." The built-in cooler offers 0dB cooler technology, meaning that fans will not spin unless the GPU reaches 55 degrees C temperature. The card is powered by two eight-pin connectors, so it seems that power supply requirements are not changed compared to the reference card. While the exact specifications are not known, you can expect the card to boost over the standard 2250 MHz frequency, as it is factory overclocked. Pricing is also not yet confirmed but a slight premium is expected as well.

AMD has launched its RDNA 2 based graphics cards, codenamed Navi 21. These GPUs are set to compete with NVIDIA's Ampere offerings, with the lineup covering the Radeon RX 6800, RX 6800 XT, and RX 6900 XT graphics cards. Until now, we have had reviews of the former two, but not the Radeon RX 6900 XT. That is because the card is coming at a later date, specifically on December 8th, in just a few days. As a reminder, the Radeon RX 6900 XT GPU is a Navi 21 XTX model with 80 Compute Units that give a total of 5120 Stream Processors. The graphics card uses a 256-bit bus that connects the GPU with 128 MB of its Infinity Cache to 16 GB of GDDR6 memory. When it comes to frequencies, it has a base clock of 1825 MHz, with a boost speed of 2250 MHz.

Today, in a GeekBench 5 submission, we get to see the first benchmarks of AMD's top-end Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics card. Running an OpenCL test suite, the card was paired with AMD's Ryzen 9 5950X 16C/32T CPU. The card managed to pass the OpenCL test benchmarks with a score of 169779 points. That makes the card 12% faster than RX 6800 XT GPU, but still slower than the competing NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 GPU, which scores 177724 points. However, we need to wait for a few more benchmarks to appear to jump to any conclusions, including the TechPowerUp review, which is expected to arrive once NDA lifts. Below, you can compare the score to other GPUs in the GeekBench 5 OpenCL database.

AMD's "Big Navi" GPU is nearing the launch on October 28th, just a few days from now. This means that benchmarks of the card are already appearing across the internet, and we get to see how the card performs. Being divided into two different versions, Big Navi comes in Navi 21 XT and Navi 21 XTX silicon. While the former is available to AMD's AIBs, the latter is rumored to be exclusive to AMD and its reference design, meaning that at least in the beginning, you can only get Navi 21 XTX GPU if you purchase one from AMD directly.

Today, thanks to the Twitter account of CapFrameX, a frame time capturing tool, we have benchmark results of the Big Navi GPU in Firestrike Ultra. According to the people behind this account, the card scores about 11500 points in the benchmark. Compared to NVIDIA's offerings like GeForce RTX 3080, which scores about 10600, the AMD card is 8.5% faster. It is not known whatever this is Navi 21 XT or Navi 21 XTX silicon, however, we can assume that it is the former, and AMD is keeping the XTX revision to themselves for now. This result could be a leak from some of the AIBs, so it could not be the final Big Navi performance. All of this information should be taken with a grain of salt.

AMD's Radeon RX 6000 series graphics cards, based on the RDNA2 graphics architecture, will see the introduction of the company's first DirectX 12 Ultimate graphics cards (featuring features such as real-time raytracing). A VideoCardz report sheds light on the specifications. The 7 nm "Navi 21" and "Navi 22" chips will power the top-end of the lineup. The flagship part is the Radeon RX 6900 XT, followed by the RX 6800 XT and RX 6800; which are all based on the "Navi 21." These are followed by the RX 6700 XT and RX 6700, which are based on the "Navi 22" silicon.

The "Navi 21" silicon physically features 80 RDNA2 compute units, working out to 5,120 stream processors. The RX 6900 XT maxes the chip out, enabling all 80 CUs, and is internally referred to as the "Navi 21 XTX." Besides these, the RX 6900 XT features 16 GB of GDDR6 memory across a 256-bit wide memory interface, and engine clocks boosting beyond 2.30 GHz. The next SKU in AMD's product stack is the RX 6800 XT (Navi 21 XT), featuring 72 out of 80 CUs, working out to 4,608 stream processors, the same 16 GB 256-bit GDDR6 memory configuration as the flagship, while its engine clocks go up to 2.25 GHz.

AMD's RDNA2-based cards are just around the corner, with the company's full debut of the secrecy-shrouded cards being set for October 28th. Rumors of high clocks on AMD's new architecture - which were nothing more than unsubstantiated rumors up to now - have seemingly been confirmed, with Patrick Schur posting on Twitter some specifications for upcoming RNDA2-based Navi 21 XT. Navi 21 XT falls under the big Navi chip, but likely isn't the top performer from AMD - the company is allegedly working on a Navi 21 XTX solution, which ought to be exclusive to their reference designs, with higher clocks and possibly more CUs.

The specs outed by Patrick are promising, to say the least; that AMD's Big Navi can reach clocks in excess of 2.4 GHz with a 250 W+ TGP (quoted at around 255 W) is certainly good news. The 2.4 GHz (game clock) speeds are being associated with AIB cards; AMD's own reference designs should be running at a more conservative 2.3 GHz. A memory pool of 16 GB GDDR6 has also been confirmed. AMD's assault on the NVIDIA 30-series lineup should embody three models carved from the Navi 21 chip - the higher performance, AMD-exclusive XTX, XT, and the lower performance Navi 21 XL. All of these are expected to ship with the same 256 bit bus and 16 GB GDDR6 memory, whilst taking advantage of AMD's (rumored, for now) Infinity Cache to make up for the lower memory speeds and bus. Hold on to your hats; the hype train is going full speed ahead, luckily stopping in a smooth manner come October 28th.