Positional audio, like Socialism, follows a cycle of glamorization and investment every few years. Back in 2011-12 when AMD maintained a relatively stronger position in the discrete GPU market, and held GPGPU superiority, it gave a lot of money to GenAudio and Tensilica to co-develop the TrueAudio technology, a GPU-accelerated positional audio DSP, which had a whopping four game title implementations, including and limited to "Thief," "Star Citizen," "Lichdom: Battlemage," and "Murdered: Soul Suspect." The TrueAudio Next DSP which debuted with "Polaris," introduced GPU-accelerated "audio ray-casting" technology, which assumes that audio waves interact differently with different surfaces, much like light; and hence positional audio could be made more realistic. There were a grand total of zero takers for TrueAudio Next. Riding on the presumed success of its RTX technology, NVIDIA wants to develop audio ray-tracing further.

A very curious sentence caught our eye in NVIDIA's micro-site for Turing. The description of RT cores reads that they are specialized components that "accelerate the computation of how light and sound travel in 3D environments at up to 10 Giga Rays per second." This is an ominous sign that NVIDIA is developing a full-blown positional audio programming model that's part of RTX, with an implementation through GameWorks. Such a technology, like TrueAudio Next, could improve positional audio realism by treating sound waves like light and tracing their paths from their origin (think speech from an NPC in a game), to the listener as the sound bounces off the various surfaces in the 3D scene. Real-time ray-tracing(-ish) has captured the entirety of imagination at NVIDIA marketing to the extent that it is allegedly willing to replace "GTX" with "RTX" in its GeForce GPU nomenclature. We don't mean to doomsay emerging technology, but 20 years of development in positional audio has shown that it's better left to game developers to create their own technology that sounds somewhat real; and that initiatives from makers of discrete sound cards (a device on the brink of extinction) and GPUs makers bore no fruit.

ASRock, which is the latest company to extend its product portfolio to graphics cards, has announced that they will be offering their AMD Phantom series of graphics cards in the EMEA region (Europe, Middle-East and Africa) starting July 1st. The roll-out should see the Polaris-based graphics cards being introduced first, since product codes for the Vega variants haven't been made known yet. With demand from miners relatively cooled with lower (and lowering still) cryptocurrency values, perhaps ASRock has decided that stock of their Phantom series is enough now to fulfill orders from these additional regions.

AMD monetizes its GPU IP not just with discrete graphics cards and integrated graphics in its PC processors, but also by selling semi-custom SoCs for most modern game consoles, such as the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, with some of the newer 4K UHD-capable models such as the PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One X even leveraging newer graphics architectures by the company, such as "Polaris." 2020 could see the roll out of next-generation gaming consoles, which are more purpose-built for 4K UHD gaming, with visual fidelity matching gaming PCs, and so console manufacturers are looking for a lean and powerful new GPU IP. Sony seems to have made up its mind of sticking with AMD.

AMD will supply a semi-custom SoC to Sony for its next major console, "PlayStation 5." This chip will feature a graphics processor based on the "Navi" architecture, which succeeds "Vega." 2020 could also be the year when the 7 nm silicon fabrication process achieves some maturity and makes up most of the bulk ASIC production nodes. According to Tweaktown, Sony is closely working with AMD for the development of the "Navi" architecture itself, so versions of it are efficient enough to be deployed in console SoCs that are built to a cost. The design goal will be to enable 4K @ 60 Hz gaming, as 4K televisions will have proliferated a lot by 2020.

At its Computex presser, leading up to its 7 nm Radeon Vega series unveil, AMD touched upon the massive proliferation of the Vega graphics architecture, which is found not only in discrete GPUs, but also APUs, and semi-custom SoCs of the latest generation 4K-capable game consoles. One such slide that created quite some flutter reads that "Vega" shipments are over 10 times greater than those of the "previous generation."

Normally you'd assume the previous-generation of "Vega" to be "Polaris," since we're talking about the architecture, and not an implementation of it (eg: "Vega 10" or "Raven Ridge," etc.). AMD later, at its post event round-table, clarified that it was referring to "Fiji," or the chip that went into building the Radeon R9 Fury X, R9 Nano, etc., and comparing its sales with that of products based on the "Vega 10" silicon. Growth in shipments of "Vega" based graphics cards is triggered by the crypto-mining industry, and for all intents and purposes, AMD considers the "Vega 10" silicon to be a commercial success.

AMD today released Radeon Software Adrenalin 18.5.1 WHQL drivers. These are the first WHQL-certified drivers from the company for Windows 10 April 2018 Update, complying with WDDM 2.4, and support not just AMD Radeon discrete GPUs, but also Ryzen "Raven Ridge" APUs with integrated Radeon Vega graphics. The drivers support Microsoft PlayReady 3.0 DRM on "Polaris" GPUs.

Besides these features, Radeon Software Adrenalin 18.5.1 WHQL comes with optimization for "Ancestors Legacy," with up to 6 percent higher frame-rates at 1080p, measured with an RX Vega 56, and up to 13 percent higher frame rates on an RX 580 (8 GB) at 1080p. The update fixes HBCC not resetting to default value when "Restore Factory Defaults" option is used in Radeon Settings. It also addresses ReLive streaming to Facebook intermittently failing; Netflix users experiencing display corruption on "Polaris" multi-GPU systems, abnormally high game load times in "Destiny 2," and fixes for screen tearing observed on FreeSync displays with performance metrics enabled.DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 18.5.1 WHQL

The change-log follows.

MSI is proud to present a brand new series based on AMD's "Polaris" chipsets, the Radeon graphics-based MECH series. Equipped with the new thermal design, the Radeon RX MECH series doesn't just allow for higher core and memory speeds but also provide increased performance in games. The outstanding shapes of the eye-catching MECH series cooler are intensified by a fiery red glow piercing through the cover, while the MSI dragon RGB LED on the top can be set to any of 16.7 million colors to match your mood or build. A completely custom PCB design featuring enhanced power design with Military Class 4 components enables higher stable performance to push your graphics card to the max. A classy matte black metal backplate shows the MECH 2 cards more structural strength and provides a nice finishing touch.

"AMD Radeon has always been committed to the best interest of gamers: a dedication to open innovation such as our contributions to the DirectX and Vulkan APIs, a commitment to true transparency through industry standards like Radeon FreeSync technology, and a desire to expand the PC gaming ecosystem by enabling developers everywhere. It is these values that result in a thriving PC gaming community, and explain why so many gamers continue to rally behind the AMD Radeon brand," said Scott Herkelman, vice president and general manager, AMD Radeon Technologies Group.

Photographs of Intel's Crimson Canyon NUC have finally surfaced. WinFuture managed to get their hands on one that's powered by an Intel Core i3-8121U dual-core processor based on the Cannon Lake architecture. The NUCs come with 4 GB or 8 GB of memory, a 2.5-inch hard drive, built-in Wi-Fi 802.11ac, and Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity. The Crimson Canyon NUC also features a discrete AMD Radeon graphics card. The "Radeon 500-series" reference in one of the screenshots along with the "2GB of GDDR5" on the packaging takes us to the conclusion that Intel is most likely integrating a Polaris-based graphics card into the Crimson Canyon NUC. It's highly unlikely that we will find the CPU and GPU on the same chip like the one in the Hades Canyon NUC. Instead, the GPU will probably be soldered directly to the motherboard itself. The Intel Core i3-8121U models (NUC8I3CYSM2 and NUC8I3CYSM3) start around 450 euros, which roughly translates to $550. There was no mention when they will be available though.

AMD today has officially released specs and the listing of graphics cards that are being rebranded to the OEM-only RX 500X series. For all the rumors and speculation that abounded around a super-charged, maybe even Vega-sprinkled new Polaris architecture from AMD has seen their dreams of interesting times squelched unceremoniously.

What were before expected reports have now been rendered true: these are nothing more than an OEM-specific rebrand of AMD's RX 500 graphics cards. They're just direct rebadges - not a single MHz was increased across the entire portfolio, except for one lonely graphics card: the RX 550X has apparently seen a bump in clockspeeds, from the RX 550's "up to 1183 MHz" to the RX 550X's "up to 1287 MHz). Aside from that, folks, move along: there's nothing to see here.

Sapphire today rolled out its Pulse Radeon RX 560 LITE series graphics cards, which implement the 896 stream-processor variant of the "Polaris 21" silicon, as opposed to the better endowed 1,024 SP version the RX 560 SKU originally launched with. The card is available in 2 GB and 4 GB variants, and comes slightly factory-overclocked, with its GPU engine clock bumped to 1300 MHz, while the memory is clocked at 7.00 GHz (GDDR5-effective). The card itself features a slightly more beefed-up product design as opposed to the original Pulse RX 560.

While the original Pulse RX 560-series cards feature a simple copper core aluminium fan-heatsink cooler, in which a single chunk of aluminium with radially (well, spirally) projecting fins, ventilated by a single fan keeps the GPU cool; the new Pulse RX 560 LITE series features a slightly larger, rectangular aluminium heatsink, ventilated by two fans; with a separate heatsink over the VRM. The card draws power from a single 6-pin PCIe power connector. Expect the card to be priced around the $100-mark (MSRP, not marked up to kingdom come by retailers).

AMD today announced the brand title of its 2017-yearender driver release, Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition, which is named after the Adrenalin Rose. Scheduled to release some time in mid-December, under version number 17.12 WHQL, the drivers are expected to introduce performance enhancements across the board for GPUs based on the "Polaris" and "Vega" graphics architectures (Radeon RX 400 series, RX 500 series, and RX Vega series), while introducing new features.

AMD today posted a video presentation announcing the new drivers.

AMD today released the Radeon Software Crimson ReLive 17.11.2 beta software. The drivers come with launch-day optimization for "Star Wars: Battlefront II." The drivers also fix a handful issues related to Radeon ReLive game video capture/streaming software, in which chroma artifacts would show up on the screen, and an issue which caused recording to fail when switching between borderless fullscreen and fullscreen modes. The drivers also address WattMan issues, in which undervolted values wouldn't correctly apply on some "Polaris" (RX 400 and RX 500 series) GPUs, and underclocked GPU memory values not reflecting in the user-interface. Grab the drivers from the link below.DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Crimson ReLive 17.11.2

The change-log follows.

AMD today announced the AMD Embedded Radeon E9170 Series graphics processing unit (GPU). The new processor is the first "Polaris" architecture-based AMD Embedded discrete GPU available in multi-chip module (MCM) format with integrated memory for smaller, power-efficient custom designs, as well as PCI Express and MXM formats for standard form factor systems. The E9170 Series GPU is ideal for devices that require premium graphics and expanded display capabilities while meeting exacting power and thermal efficiency demands. AMD is extending its core graphics technology, delivering crystal clear resolution and a stunning and seamless 4K experience across multiple displays to a growing number of markets, including digital casino games, thin clients, medical displays, retail and digital signage, and industrial systems.

The AMD Embedded Radeon E9173 GPU, based on the "Polaris" architecture, leverages an optimized 14nm FinFET manufacturing process to provide up to 3X the performance-per-watt over previous generations of AMD Embedded GPUsi. By offering sub-40W TDP in a small package, AMD enables a broader range of products, adding a new level of scalability to the AMD Radeon Power-Efficient Embedded GPU portfolio. With support for up to five simultaneous 4K displaysii, the E9170 Series GPU virtually eliminates the need for additional processors and duplicate hardware to create an immersive multimedia environment. Additionally, the option to select from MCM, MXM and PCI Express modules increases design flexibility while minimizing complexity.

An update to the Steam survey results is always worth noting, especially with the added, tremendous growth Valve's online store service has seen recently. And it seems that in the Steam gaming world at least, quad-core CPUs, NVIDIA graphics cards, and Windows 10 reign supreme.

Windows 10 64-bit is the most used operating system, with 50.33% of the survey. That the second most used Windows OS is the steady, hallmark Windows 7 shouldn't come as a surprise, though it does have just 32.05% of the market now. OS X has a measly 2.95% of the grand total, while Linux comes in at an even lower 0.72%. While AMD processor submits may have increased in other software, it seems that at least in Steam, those numbers aren't reflected, since AMD's processor market share in the survey has decreased from 21.89% in February to just 19.01% as of June, even though the company's Ryzen line of CPUs has been selling like hotcakes. Quad-core CPUs are the most used at time of the survey, at 52.06%, while the next highest percentage is still the dual-core CPU, with 42.23%.

After releasing the Vega Frontier Edition, AMD's take on a "prosumer" GPU which straddles the line between a professional and gaming graphics card, with somewhat mixed results, AMD is apparently now working on the fully professional version of the Vega silicon. Identified as the Radeon Pro WX 9100 (which is in line with AMD's current professional nomenclature), this professional graphics card will look to fully accelerate professional workloads, with a driver specifically crafted for such.

Recently rearing its head on CompuBench, the GPU features a low 1200 MHz clock speed, which is around 402 MHz lower than the Frontier Edition, and supposedly lower still than the Gaming RX Vega variant of the GPU. The Vega-based WX 9100 joins the Polaris-based WX 7100, WX 5100 and WX 4100 professional graphics cards, thus apparently topping out AMD's professional line-up for the year.

Ah mining. The revival of an old craze. Who doesn't want to make their room's temperature increase to insane levels over the summer in order to cash in on the mining wagon? Who doesn't want to pull their hardware by the ankles and wrists, stretching it in utilization so as to maintain the PoW (proof of Work) cryptographic security in cryptocurrencies? Apparently, a not insignificant number of users and would-be miners does want that. That has, in turn, placed a whole lot of pressure on the graphics card market from both AMD and NVIDIA, with prices climbing and skyrocketing for graphics cards in the $200-$400 price ranges, as you know. It remains to be seen whether the flow of new miners decreases somewhat now, considering the recent market correction (read: dip) in the cryptocurrency market value (down around 42% from the all-time high of 357€ [~$400] of June 12th.)

After ASUS, it would seem like it's Sapphire's time to try and sway miners from their consumer-oriented, gaming graphics cards, through the launch of five different graphics cards models especially geared for mining. These are currently available for pre-order on Overclockers UK, and there are five different products in total, one based of RX 560 silicon, and four different takes on the RX 470 silicon (no, that's not a typo; it really is the 400 series.)

GPU-accelerated crypto-currency mining poses a threat to the consumer graphics industry, yet the revenues it brings to GPU manufacturers are hard to turn away. The more graphics cards are bought up by crypto-currency miners, the fewer there are left for gamers and the actual target-audience of graphics cards. This is particularly bad for AMD, as fewer gamers have Radeon graphics cards as opposed to miners; which means game developers no longer see AMD GPU market-share as an amorphous trigger to allocate developer resources in optimizing their games to AMD architectures.

To combat this, both AMD and NVIDIA are innovating graphics cards designed specifically for crypto-currency mining. These cards are built to a cost, lack display outputs, and have electrical and cooling mechanisms designed for 24/7 operation, even if not living up to the durability standards of real enterprise-segment graphics cards, such as Radeon Pro series or Quadro. NVIDIA's "Pascal" GPU architecture is inherently weaker than AMD's "Polaris" and older Graphics CoreNext architectures at Ethereum mining, owing in part to Pascal's lack of industry-standard asynchronous compute. This didn't deter NVIDIA from innovating a lineup of crypto-mining SKUs based on its existing "Pascal" GPUs. These include the NVIDIA P104 series based on the "GP104" silicon (on which the GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 are based); and P106 series based on the "GP106" silicon (GTX 1060 series is based on this chip). NVIDIA didn't tap into its larger "GP102" or smaller "GP107" chips, yet.

The lid was taken from Microsoft's Project Scorpio console last weekend. Commercially named the Xbox One X, the new Xbox console will join the "Xbox family of devices" with much higher power envelope than any other console currently in the market, at 6 TFLOPs of computing power. At that rate, Microsoft says (and has demonstrated) that its new console will be able to power premium, true 4K experiences. However, some analysts say that the $499 price point will be too high for consumers, which usually look to purchase consoles in the $249, $349 price band.

That said, the question could be put to Microsoft whether or not the company could have decreased their new console's pricing even further, by taking a cut from the hardware selling profits. When asked whether Microsoft was making any profit at all from the Xbox One X's retail pricing, Phil Spencer answered with a pretty frontal "No". So Microsoft really isn't profiting from the sale of any Xbox One X console, which may look somewhat unbelievable considering its steep price point (relatively; we have to keep in mind this console Can actually power 4K experiences.) However, this is nothing new: in fact, most gaming consoles ever released barely made any amount of money on hardware sales at the moment of their introduction to market. Manufacturers such as Microsoft and Sony instead usually choose to subsidize console purchases by bringing their profit margin to zero (and sometimes even below zero, as in, the consoles cost more to manufacture than their selling point) so as to allow a greater number of customers to purchase the hardware. Software, and more recently DLC, is where the money is to be made in consoles.

AMD has recently added two new offerings to their WX series of professional, workstation-oriented graphics cards. The WX 2100 and WX 3100 are entry-level offerings for the professional market, with 512 stream processors running at 1,219 MHz on a 14 nm graphics processor based on the Polaris architecture. The RX 2100 features 2GB of GDDR5 memory on a 64-bit interface; the RX 3100 doubles those figures to 4GB of memory on a 128-bit interface.

On performance, AMD said that the soon to be released WX 2100 and WX 3100 deliver up to 2x the performance of previous entry-level professional AMD graphics, and up to 28% faster performance than competing NVIDIA offerings. The WX 2100 is expected to cost $149, while the WX 3100 is expected to go for $199. AMD said the Radeon Pro WX 2100 and WX 3100 are both expected to launch in June; an exact date wasn't provided. The company also said both cards are covered by 24/7 customer support and a three-year limited warranty that can be extended up to seven years.

Microsoft Sunday dropped its mic with the most powerful game console on paper, the Xbox One X, formerly codenamed "Project Scorpio." The bottom-line of this console is that it enables 4K Ultra HD gaming at 60 Hz. Something like this requires you to spend at least $1,200 on a gaming desktop right now. Unlike a Windows 10 PC that's been put together by various pieces of hardware, the Xbox One X is built on a closed ecosystem that's tightly controlled by Microsoft, with heavily optimized software, and a lot of secret sauce the company won't talk about. The console still puts up some mighty impressive hardware specs on paper.

To begin with, at the heart of the Xbox One X is a semi-custom SoC Microsoft co-developed with AMD, built on TSMC's 16 nm FinFET node (the same one NVIDIA builds its "Pascal" GPUs on). This chip features a GPU with almost quadruple the single-precision floating point compute power as the one which drives the Xbox One. It features 40 Graphics CoreNext (GCN) compute units (2,560 stream processors) based on one of the later versions of GCN (likely "Polaris"). The GPU is clocked at 1172 MHz. The other big component of the SoC is an eight-core CPU based on an unnamed micro-architecture evolved from "Jaguar" rather than "Bulldozer" or even "Zen." The eight cores are arranged in two quad-core units of four cores, each; with 4 MB of L2 cache. The CPU is clocked at 2.30 GHz.

You must've heard the news of increasingly tighter supply on AMD's video cards. This is kind of a "hello darkness my old friend" kind of moment, since we've seen this happening before. However, these days, the problem looks to be exacerbated with the increase in digital currencies - it's not just Bitcoin now. Ethereum and Zcash have come in to fill customer's desire for a lower entry, ASIC-resistant mineable cryptocurrency. And with the currencies' exploding pricing, people are once again looking to enter the mining craze - to ride the crypto wave, so to speak. All higher-performance graphics cards since the R200 series are flying off the shelves and second hand markets, and as we speak, virtually all RX 580 models are out of stock on Newegg. And while AMD graphics cards have historically been leagues better than their NVIDIA counterparts in mining environments, recently some specialized miners have surfaced, tailored for the Pascal architecture (more oriented to Zcash, though.)

Sapphire showed off a Radeon RX 550 graphics card with an off-spec DVI-I connector. This is significant, as it has analog (D-Sub) wiring, and an included DVI to D-Sub dongle lets you plug in ye olde analog displays. AMD stripped analog display support off its Radeon "Polaris" family, limiting them to modern digital standards such as DVI-D, HDMI 2.0, and DisplayPort 1.4. Sapphire got around this by deploying a custom DAC chip on the card, so you can have DVI-D (D-Sub via dongle), without needing an active adapter that's half the price of the card itself.

BIOSTAR introduced its first custom-design Radeon RX 580 graphics card, the RX 580 8 GB Dual Cooling (model: VA5805RV82). The company had announced its foray into AMD Radeon graphics cards with a reference-design RX 580, in April. The new RX 580 Dual Cooling combines an AMD-reference design PCB with a custom-design cooling solution. This cooler features an aluminium heatsink with a copper core over the GPU; ventilated by a pair of 80 mm fans, which stay off when the GPU is idling.

The card sticks to AMD reference clock speeds of 1257 MHz core, 1340 MHz boost, and 8.00 GHz (GDDR5-effective) memory. It features 8 GB of memory over a 256-bit wide memory interface. Based on the 14 nm "Lexa" (Polaris 20) silicon, the Radeon RX 580 features 2,304 stream processors, 144 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. The card draws power from a single 8-pin PCIe power connector. Display outputs include three DisplayPort 1.4, one HDMI 2.0, and a dual-link DVI. The company didn't reveal pricing.

Today AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) announced the world's first dual-GPU graphics card designed for professionals: the Polaris-architecture-based Radeon Pro Duo. Built on the capabilities of the Radeon Pro WX 7100, the Radeon Pro Duo professional graphics card is designed to excel at media and entertainment, broadcast, and design and manufacturing workflows, delivering outstanding performance and superior flexibility that today's creative professionals demand.

The Radeon Pro Duo is equipped with 32GB of ultra-fast GDDR5 memory to handle larger data sets, more intricate 3D models, higher resolution videos, and complex assemblies with ease. Operating at a max power of 250W, the Radeon Pro Duo harnesses a total of 72 compute units (4608 stream processors) for a combined performance of up to 11.45 TFLOPS of single-precision compute performance on one board, and twice the geometry throughput of the Radeon Pro WX 7100. The Radeon Pro Duo enables professionals to work up to four 4K monitors at 60Hz, drive the latest 8K single monitor display at 30Hz using a single cable, or drive an 8K display at 60Hz using a dual cable solution.

SAPPHIRE Technology has bolstered the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Gaming Series lineup with the new SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 580 Limited Edition graphics card. With a cherry-picked Polaris GPU made in an enhanced FinFET 14 nm process, extra LED fans for swap and unique shroud, it's the best performing and the best-looking SAPPHIRE NITRO+ card to date. Along with the limited-quantity, ultra-overclocked model, SAPPHIRE also introduces new SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 580 and RX 570 cards.

Thanks to continuous streamlining of FinFET 14 nm production process, the latest Polaris GPUs that power SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 580 and RX 570 cards are even more energy-efficient. This allowed SAPPHIRE to crank up the clocks and reach up to 10% better performance compared to previous series. To add even more headroom for overclocking, SAPPHIRE is cherry-picking Polaris chips for the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 580 Limited Edition.

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.