As a leading brand in True Gaming hardware, MSI is proud to officially announce the MSI AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT GAMING X and MECH 2X graphics cards. Equipped with AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT GPUs powered by the breakthrough AMD RDNA 2 gaming architecture, the new graphics are designed to deliver the ultimate in 1080p gaming for a wide range of enthusiast gamers.

Built upon AMD RDNA2 GAMING architecture, AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT series graphics cards are designed to deliver optimal performance and power efficiency. These new graphics cards support the latest technologies, including DirectX Raytracing (DXR), variable rate shading (VRS), and AMD FidelityFX, allowing gamers to experience realistic lighting, shadows, and reflections with rich detail in supported game titles.

AMD today announced the new Radeon RX 6600 XT graphics card, its latest entrant to the RX 6000 series, based on the RDNA2 graphics architecture, with full DirectX 12 Ultimate support, including raytracing. The RX 6600 XT is suitable for AAA gaming at 1080p, or e-sports gaming at 1440p. The card debuts the new 7 nm Navi 23 silicon to the desktop, and maxes it out. It is endowed with 2,048 stream processors across 32 RDNA2 compute units, 128 TMUs, 32 ROPs, and a 128-bit wide memory interface, holding 8 GB of GDDR6 memory running at 16 Gbps (256 GB/s bandwidth). The chip also has 32 MB of Infinity Cache memory. With a board power of 160 W, the card can make do with a single 8-pin PCIe power connector. The game clocks are up to 2359 MHz.

As for performance, AMD claims that the RX 6600 XT offers a 2.2-2.5 times performance gain over the GeForce GTX 1060, providing a viable upgrade. It also offers a 40% performance uplift over the previous-generation RX 5600 XT, and runs consistently faster than the RX 5700, perhaps even trading blows with the RX 5700 XT. In the current generation, AMD claims a 15% performance lead over the GeForce RTX 3060 on average, with both cards having Resizable BAR / Smart Access Memory enabled, at 1080p. Available from August 10, the card starts at USD $379, and is a partner-exclusive, meaning that only custom-design cards will be available, the company will not sell reference design ones.

On the road to its rumored August market availability, AMD could unveil its Radeon RX 6600 XT graphics card on July 30, at the ChinaJoy expo. The RX 6600 XT is a middle-of-the-market product that AMD likely expects to sell in heaps, in markets such as China. It competes with NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3060 series. According to VideoCardz, the RX 6600 XT could see a July 30 unveiling, which usually comes with some teasers as to what buyers can expect from the card; followed by an August 6 unboxing embargo. The card launches on August 11. The RX 6600 (non-XT) is expected to launch later, in September. The RX 6600 XT is based on the 7 nm "Navi 23" silicon, and is rumored to feature 2,048 stream processors across 32 RDNA2 compute units. It also comes with 8 GB of GDDR6 memory across a 128-bit wide memory bus, and 32 MB of on-die Infinity Cache memory. AMD is likely targeting the 1080p AAA and 1440p e-sports crowds with this card.

Valve's Steam Deck announcement took the gaming world by storm last week, as the announcement of a Valve-designed portable gaming console packing an AMD Zen 2 CPU with RDNA2 cores set collective imaginations on fire. However, as is the case for any recent gaming hardware launches, expect the Steam Deck to be hard to come by - demand for a mainstream portable, Switch-like console that promises to enable AAA-gaming on the go is apparently sky-high, despite the fact that some portable devices exploring the same concept have been available for a while now, such as the AYA Neo (which even packs two extra Zen 2 cores) and the Intel-based One XPlayer.

As is the case for any recent hardware launch that garners enough mainstream attention (looking at you, current-gen GPUs and consoles), a lopsided demand-supply ratio is a playground for unscrupulous types looking to make a profit at the expense of other people's impatience. And it sure is happening already - eBay listings for "pre-order confirmed" Steam Deck variants are already being set at €4,324 (roughly $4,989) - though we'd say they're tentatively set at that ludicrous pricing. It seems that the current median asking price sits around the $900 mark for the 512 GB SSD-equipped variant. Tentative or not, this just goes to show that the new normal is for launched products to be actively gauged for scalping practices - more now than ever before.

Samsung intends to take its partnership with AMD for graphics further, by designing its next-generation Exynos 2200 "Pamir" SoC with a faster GPU based on the AMD RDNA2 graphics architecture. Bound for the second half of 2021, Exynos 2200 will be built on Samsung's swanky new 4 nanometer 4LPP (4 nm Low Power Plus) silicon fabrication node, and integrate an RDNA2-based GPU codenamed "Voyager." Samsung hopes to compete with Qualcomm's Snapdragon 895 SoC and its Adreno 730 GPU. Interestingly, the new Snapdragon is also expected to be built on the same Samsung 4 nm node. It will be interesting to see what device the Exynos 2200 debuts with, given that both the Galaxy S22 and Galaxy Note 21 won't arrive before 2022.

Valve today announced its first big splash into the console market with Steam Deck, a device out to eat the Nintendo Switch's lunch. The announcement comes as yet another feather in AMD's cap for its semi-custom SoC business, benefiting from being the only company with an x86-64 CPU license and having a cutting-edge graphics hardware IP. Built on the 7 nm node at TSMC, the semi-custom chip at the heart of the Steam Deck is designed for extended gameplay on battery, and is a monolithic silicon that combines CPU, GPU, and core-logic.

The yet-unnamed semi-custom chip features a 4-core/8-thread CPU based on the "Zen 2" microarchitecture, with a nominal clock speed of 2.40 GHz, and up to 3.50 GHz boost. The CPU component offers an FP32 throughput of 448 GFLOP/s. The GPU is based on AMD's latest RDNA2 graphics architecture—the same one powering the Xbox Series X, PlayStation 5, and Radeon RX 6900 XT—and is comprised of 8 RDNA2 compute units (512 stream processors). The GPU operates at an engine clock speed of 1.10 GHz to 1.60 GHz, with peak compute power of 1.6 TFLOP/s. The silicon uses a unified memory interface, and a cutting-edge LPDDR5 memory controller.

AMD board partner PowerColor's website briefly showed product categories for graphics cards based on the upcoming Radeon RX 6600 XT and Radeon RX 6600 graphics processors. This would mean that a formal launch of the two is just around the corner. Both SKUs are reportedly based on the 7 nm "Navi 23" silicon. The RX 6600 XT maxes it out, featuring 2,048 stream processors, while the RX 6600 is slightly cut down, in featuring 1,792 of them. The "Navi 23" silcon is based on the same RDNA2 graphics architecture as the rest of the RX 6000 series, which means DirectX 12 Ultimate support, including raytracing. Both feature 8 GB of video memory, whereas the RX 6600 also comes in 4 GB. Both memory options use 16 Gbps GDDR6 memory, over a 128-bit wide memory bus. PowerColor is expected to design a variety of custom-design products based on the two.

AMD announced during CES 2021 that they would launch various new RDNA2 desktop and mobile products in 1H 2021 including dual and single fan Radeon graphics cards. The dual-fan variant turned out to be the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT which was launched in March but we are yet to see anything of the single-fan card until recently. This single-fan card is allegedly the RX 6600 XT and leaked renders of it align with what AMD showed during CES giving further validity to the leak. The render shows a black and silver design with red accents keeping with other RDNA2 cards and a single 8-pin power connector. The AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT is set to feature a Navi 23 GPU paired with 2048 Stream Processors paired with 8 GB of GDDR6 memory.

We recently reported that Samsung would be announcing their next-generation flagship Exynos processor with AMD RDNA2 graphics next month. We heard that the RDNA2 GPU was expected to be ~30% faster than the Mali-G78 GPU present in Galaxy S21 Ultra however according to a new 3DMark Wild Life benchmark it would appear the new processor scores 56% higher. This result would give the upcoming Exynos processor the fastest graphics available in any Android phone even matching/beating out the Apple A14 Bionic found in the iPhone 12. This early performance benchmark paints a very positive picture for the upcoming processor however we still don't know how the score will be affected under sustained load or if this will performance will even be replicated in the final product.

The partnership between Samsung and AMD began in 2019 when the two companies announced that they would work together to integrate Radeon graphics IP in Samsung Exynos processors. We can see the results of this partnership with Dr. Lisa Su confirming at Computex that RDNA2 graphics will be integrated into the next flagship Samsung Exynos SoC. The RDNA2 GPU found in the upcoming mobile chip will include support for raytracing and variable-rate shading with a strong possibility that it will power the next Galaxy S series flagship. Samsung was initially expected to announce this new chipset in June however the event was postponed until July where the complete details and performance numbers will be unveiled.

Update Jun 22nd: The upcoming GPU is expected to be 30% faster than the current Mali-G78 GPU present in Galaxy S21 Ultra which should give it a comfortable lead of ~10% against the next generation Mali GPU. The GPU does appear to suffer from quite severe thermal throttling with a 20% performance drop after the second run and 30% on the third run. Samsung seems pleased with the collaboration and has engaged in talks with AMD to extend the contract for future GPU architectures.

AMD's next generation Ryzen Embedded V3000 system-on-chips aren't simply "Cezanne" dies sitting on BGA packages, but rather based on a brand new silicon, according to Patrick Schur, a reliable source with leaks. The die will be built on the more advanced 6 nm silicon fabrication node, whilst still being based on the current "Zen 3" microarchitecture. There are several things that set it apart from the APU silicon of the current-generation, making it more relevant for the applications the Ryzen Embedded processor family is originally built for.

Built in the FP7r2 BGA package, the V3000 silicon features an 8-core/16-thread CPU based on the "Zen 3" microarchitecture. There are also an integrated GPU based on the RDNA2 graphics architecture, with up to 12 CUs, a dual-channel DDR5 memory interface, a 20-lane PCI-Express 4.0 root complex, with up to 8 lanes put out for PEG; two USB4 ports, and two 10 GbE PHYs. AMD could design at least three SKUs based on this silicon, spanning TDP bands of 15-30 W and 35-54 W.

The latest Tesla Model S comes with an infotainment system with serious gaming capabilities. EV manufacturers have turned their attention to making the infotainment systems of their vehicles a lot more capable, as they look to give car owners something to do whilst their vehicle fast-charges—a concept pioneered by the Honda e.

The new Model S infotainment system is a proper x86 PC powered by AMD Ryzen and custom AMD Radeon graphics. The GPU in particular, is based on the new "Navi 23" silicon powered by RDNA2 technology, and Elon Musk claims that the console offers performance rivaling a PlayStation 5 (which also uses an RDNA2-based graphics processor). The gaming-capable infotainment system is part of the $130,000 Plaid variant on the Model S. Its main touchscreen pivots into landscape mode. Meanwhile, images of a Tesla-branded game controller not unlike the one a PS5 comes with, surfaced on Reddit. It's unconfirmed if one of these comes included with the car, but it would make sense for a console-like controller to be the input device for games on this infotainment system, as a tablet-like touch interface would be sub-optimal with the fixed location of the screen.The recording of the Model S Plaid launch event follows.

AMD's third smallest silicon based on the RDNA2 graphics architecture, the Navi 23, has more transistors than its largest GPU based on RDNA, the Navi 10. This according to a leak detailing key physical specs of the silicon. The Navi 23 silicon will feature in the desktop Radeon RX 6600 series, mobile Radeon RX 6600M series, and the Radeon Pro W6600. The Navi 23 silicon has a transistor count of 11.06 billion, compared to 10.3 billion on the Navi 10 silicon that powers the Radeon RX 5700 XT, and has a die size of approximately 237 mm², compared to 251 mm² of the older chip.

Built on the same 7 nm silicon fabrication node as the other RDNA2 chips, Navi 23 physically features 32 compute units, working out to 2,048 stream processors. Other specs include 128 TMUs, and possibly 32 ROPs. The RDNA2 compute unit features Ray Accelerators, so the chip has 32 of them. The memory sub-system is interesting. The memory bus width is 128-bit, addressing GDDR6 memory, but this interface is cushioned by 32 MB of on-die Infinity Cache memory. This cache could be contributing significantly to the chip's overall transistor count. The chip features PCI-Express 4.0 host interface, although there's no clarity on whether this is PCI-Express 4.0 x8 or x16.Many Thanks to DeathtoGnomes for the tip

AMD at its Computex event shed some light on its IP partnership with Samsung. We already knew this was going to be a closer collaboration than most IP licensing deals, as AMD themselves announced this would be a semi-custom solution designed between both companies. AMD CEO Lisa Su described the technology to be embedded in the upcoming Samsung Exynos SoC as being based on RDNA2 - but this likely is just a marketing and clarity perspective on AMD's technology being implemented, since between the design of RDNA2 and the announcement of the Samsung partnership a lot of water has necessarily run under AMD's graphics IP bridge.

Lisa Su did however confirm that two key RDNA2 technologies will find their way into Samsung's Exynos: Variable Rate Shading (VRS) and Raytracing. This isn't he first time VRS has made an appearance on a mobile SoC - it's already been implemented by Qualcomm in the Adreno 660 GPU (part of the Snapdragon 888 SoC design). However, Raytracing does seem to be a first for the SoC market, and Samsung might just edge out competition in its time to market with this technology. more details will certainly be shared as we get closer to the fabled AMD-partnered Exynos release.

We have recently seen an influx of rumors about an upcoming "SteamPal" portable gaming computer under development by Valve. The first indication that this new device is real was a recently uncovered "SteamPal" device name referenced under the unreleased "Neptune" controller in the latest Steam Client Beta. This SteamPal device name reportedly refers to an upcoming portable gaming computer with a similar controller design to the Nintendo Switch albeit unremovable featuring a standard set of gamepad buttons and triggers, dual joysticks, at least one thumb-sized touchpad, and a 7"-8" touchscreen display. The SteamPal is still in the prototype stage so final hardware configurations are not confirmed and are subject to change.

There is good reason to believe these rumors are true after a recent cryptic comment from Gabe Newell about bringing Valve games to consoles with him stating that we will have a "better idea by the end of this year" which is in line with rumors stating that Valve is targeting a Q4 2021 announcement for the SteamPal. The device will reportedly feature a quad-core Van Gogh APU from AMD with 8 RDNA2 compute units which would allow gamers to run their entire Steam library on the portable device. Valve is reportedly targeting a 399 USD price for the device however as with all these rumors take it with a healthy dose of skepticism.

The 7 nm "Navi 24" silicon will very likely be the smallest discrete GPU based on the RDNA2 graphics architecture. The chip surfaced in technical documentation under the codename "Beige Goby." AMD uses such internal codenames to track sources of leaks. No specs of the "Navi 24" are known yet, but it could be significantly smaller than the "Navi 23" that powers the Radeon RX 6600 series and possibly the RX 6500 series, reportedly packing up to 2,048 stream processors. The "Navi 24" chip could also help AMD compete against NVIDIA and an emerging Intel in entry-level discrete GPUs for notebooks.

AMD is preparing to round-out its RX 6000 series lineup with the upcoming RX 6600 XT and RX 6600, introducing true midrange GPUs to their latest generation RDNA2 architecture. According to recent leaks, both graphics cards should feature AMD's Navi 23 chip, another full chip design, instead of making do with a cut-down Navi 22 (even though that chip still only powers one graphics card in the AMD lineup, the RX 6700 XT).

According to the leak, the RX 6600 XT should feature 2048 stream processors and 8 GB of GDDR6 memory over a 128-bit memory bus. The RX 6600, on the other hand, is said to feature a cut-down Navi 23, with only 1796 stream processors enabled out of the original silicon design, whilst offering the same 8 GB GDDR6 over a 128-bit memory bus. There are even some benchmark scores to go with these leaks: supposedly, the RX 6600 XT scores 9,439 points in 3DMark Time Spy (Graphics), while the RX 6600 card scores 7,805 points. Those scores place these cards in the same ballpark as the RDNA-based RX 5700 XT and RX 5700. It's expected that these cards feature a further cut-down 32 MB of Infinity cache - half that of the RX 6700 XT's 64 MB. With die-size being an estimated 236 mm², AMD is essentially introducing the same performance with 15 mm² less area, whilst shaving some 45 W from that cards' TDP (225 W for the RX 5700 XT, and an estimated 180 W for the RX 6600 XT).

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.

Even as the desktop Radeon RX 6700 (non-XT) is nowhere in sight, AMD is planning to scale its RDNA2 graphics architecture further down, with the RX 6600 XT and RX 6600. Regulatory filings by board partner ASRock with the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC), for the unreleased RX 6600 XT and RX 6600, hit the web, courtesy Komachi Ensaka. The filings list out internal SKU numbers. An interesting thing to note here is that both the RX 6600 XT and RX 6600 could have 8 GB of memory as standard. Given that the RX 6700 series is already pulling up to 12 GB over a 192-bit wide memory bus, it's likely that the RX 6600 series could use a narrower 128-bit bus for its 8 GB, use the fastest 16 Gbps memory chips (at least on the XT variant), and attempt to shore up memory bandwidth using Infinity Cache. A market launch typically follows EEC filings by 3 months, so the RX 6600 series could see a late-Summer launch.

TechPowerUp today released the latest version of TechPowerUp GPU-Z, the tiny-yet-mighty software that gives you information, monitoring, and diagnostics of your PC graphics subsystem. Version 2.39.0 adds support for the Gen12 Xe LP integrated graphics solution found with Intel 11th Gen Core "Rocket Lake" processors. GPU-Z also has the ability to tell the new "Navi 21 XTXH" Radeon RX 6900 XT variant, from the standard RX 6900 XT. Support is also added for NVIDIA RTX 3060 Mobile, RTX 3050 Ti Mobile, RTX 3050 Mobile, RTX A5000, T500, CMP 30HX, CMP 40HX, CMP 90HX; and AMD Radeon Pro W5500M, and Barco MXRT 4700.

Version 2.39.0 also improves in several areas. The integrated screenshot feature is refreshed to better capture the window area. The XML dump is made more usable, with information that includes BIOS UEFI support, WHQL status, Driver Date, DXR, DirectML, OpenGL and Resizable BAR. The video memory utilization sensor is disabled on TCC mode-enabled NVIDIA GPUs. A number of minor issues were also fixed, related to Resizable BAR detection, clock readings on AMD RDNA2 mobile GPUs, a bug with OpenGL detection on certain systems, memory clock readings on certain legacy GPUs, BIOS date readings on legacy GPUs, etc. Grab it from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z 2.39.0The change-log follows.

A fresh rumor straight from the rumor mill paints AMD's next APU iterations as being updated to the latest and greatest architectures the company has to offer. The rumor comes from ExecutableFix via Twitter, a leaker who has a relatively proven track record on being right regarding upcoming hardware releases. This rumor can lay some credence to others, painting AMD's Ryzen 7000 series as being the first AMD APU-only release since they began their journey with the Zen architecture - it makes sense for the company to integrate their latest architectures in the mobile-geared Rembrandt first, working out some possible interaction quirks that might arise between the two architectures when deployed in the same package.

The leaker further affirms that the Rembrandt APUs will feature up to 12 RDNA2 CUs, which would amount to 768 stream processors on-chip - a marked increase from the current-generation 8 CUs based on the Vega architecture on their Ryzen 4000 mobile series. The leaker also discloses that AMD's Warhol seems to be MIA in recent AMD documentation and planning when it comes to the deployment of Zen3+, and that Rembrandt should be the one to carry that particular architecture refinement through to the 6 nm process. It would seem that AMD's Vega would "finally" see its demise, bringing about some much-needed performance improvements to counter Intel's investments in GPU performance with Xe.

Overclocker extraordinnaire Roman "der8auer" Hartung has achieved a new world record for GPU clockspeed with the help of exotic cooling and PowerColor's RX 6900 XT Liquid Devil Ultimate. The PowerColor Red Devil Ultimate features the latest and greatest bin of any RX 6900 XT chip, featuring AMD's Navi 21 XTXH silicon (device ID 0x73AF), with improved clockspeed potential and lower leakage than the usual XT cadre of chips. Using LN2 cooling which dropped the operating temperatures of the card down to a finger-killing -87 °C, the overclocker managed to reach a 3,225 MHz clock - as reported by our very own GPU-Z, which continues to be the diagnostics tool of choice for graphics cards. Look after the break for the full video leading up to this overclocking feat.

AMD today released the Radeon Software Adrenalin 21.4.1 drivers, which introduce major updates to the soft-product that completes your AMD Radeon graphics cards. The drivers come with updates to the Radeon Software interface, and the AMD Link remote-gameplay utility. Radeon Software now comes with an improved installer with installation presets that let you choose between a Full (typical) installation, with all software features installed; a Minimal installation with an interface that only has basic settings related to the display and GPU; and "driver-only" that only installs the display driver, and no additional software.

There are several new features introduced within Radeon Software. Vivid Gaming Display Color Enhancement is a new monitor color profile that enables a more "vivid" color palette that lets you liven up "color deficient" scenes. The interface lets you take control of protanopia, deuteranopia, and tritanopia components of the color. The search bar that lets you dig through the hundreds of features, has been improved. There are many other minor UI improvements, such as stats in the Games tab, a toggle for the in-built web-browser, and global controls for the hotkeys.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 21.4.1

Hot on the heels of NVIDIA's recent Cryptocurrency Mining Processors (CMP) launch and slightly debacled driver-level neutering of popular mining algorithms with their latest GeForce RTX 3060, AMD product manager Nish Neelalojanan confirmed to PC Gamer that AMD's stance is a fundamentally different one: that they won't be the ones to decide what their customers can or can't do with their hardware. His words, precisely, were this: "We will not be blocking any workload, not just mining for that matter."

Nish then went on to speak on how AMD - and its current RDNA2 product stack - have been specifically geared and optimized for gaming workloads. There are some architectural choices present in RDNA2 that automatically reduce its utility and performance when it comes to mining, such as its infinity Cache - an architectural choice that aims to increase gaming performance by improving cache hits, at the expense of overall memory bandwidth (the most important metric for actual mining operations).

TechPowerUp today released the latest version of TechPowerUp GPU-Z, the popular graphics subsystem information and monitoring utility. With the latest version 2.38.0, we are introducing the ability to detect Resizable BAR support. GPU-Z can now tell whether Resizable BAR is supported, and if so, whether it is enabled. AMD refers to Resizable BAR as AMD Smart Access Memory, but it is a feature developed by the PCI-SIG, which lets your CPU see the entire video memory of your discrete graphics card as a single addressable block, rather than through 256 MB apertures. This feature has been found to improve performance in games that can take advantage of it. Resizable BAR status can now be viewed from the main tab, right next to the multi-GPU status.

The latest TechPowerUp GPU-Z also adds support for new and upcoming GPUs, including AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT, RX 6700, RX 6600 XT, RX 6600, and Ryzen "Lucienne" mobile processor iGPUs. Support is also added for NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile. Other new features include the ability to monitor negative temperatures on NVIDIA GPUs. We fixed video BIOS extraction on AMD RDNA2 GPUs (Radeon RX 6000 series). Grab GPU-Z from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z 2.38.0The change-log follows.