A new benchmark of the AMD Radeon 780M RDNA3-based iGPU has now been spotted in Geekbench, showing it to be on par with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650. The benchmark was done on the announced AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS CPU, which is a part of AMD's 4 nm Ryzen 7040 "Phoenix" lineup. The CPU in question is an 8-core/16-thread SKU with 40 MB of cache. It works at 3.8 GHz base and 5.1 GHz boost clocks and has a TDP of 35 W to 45 W. The same CPU comes with Radeon 780M RDNA3 iGPU with 12 Compute Units (CUs), for a total of 768 Stream Processors, and works at 2700 MHz.

The Geekbench OpenCL benchmark was fired up on a Chinese laptop with 32 GB of RAM and running on the Windows balanced power plan, where it scored a decent 36,757 points. This score puts it somewhere around the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 and AMD Radeon RX 480 discrete graphics cards. This is an impressive result considering that this is a mid-SKU in the announced Ryzen 7040 series. Of course, we still do not know the specified TDP for this laptop, or what memory was used, so results might be slightly different. Since these laptops are yet to appear in retail, AMD is probably still tweaking the drivers, so we expect these numbers could be even higher for the full release.

AMD's ROCm compute programming platform—a competitor to NVIDIA's CUDA, dropped support for the "Polaris" graphics architecture, with the latest version 4.5 update. Users on the official ROCm git raised this as an issue assuming it was a bug, to which an official AMD support handle confirmed that the Radeon RX 480 graphics card of the original poster is no longer supported. Another user tested his "Polaris 20" based RX 570, and it isn't supported, either. It's conceivable that the "Polaris 30" based RX 590, a GPU launched in November 2018, isn't supported either. Cutting out a 3-year old graphics architecture from the compute platform sends the wrong message, especially to CUDA users who AMD wants to win over with ROCm. With contemporary GPUs priced out of reach, IT students are left with used older-generation graphics cards, such as those based on "Polaris." NVIDIA CUDA supports GPUs as far back as "Maxwell" (September 2014).

SAPPHIRE Technology is unveiling brand new products at Computex 2017. The SAPPHIRE NITRO Gear Series will provide SAPPHIRE users with more customization options than ever, with LED fans as well as new backplate & shroud sets. After the enthusiastic reception of the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 580 Limited Edition, SAPPHIRE will offer a Special Edition version with blue shroud and backplate, and high factory overclock as part of its regular offer. For ultrabook owners, SAPPHIRE is bringing new Thunderbolt 3 dongles with 2x DisplayPort or 2x HDMI outputs.

Accessories for NITRO-charged gamers
Demand for personalization in PC gaming hardware is increasing. To meet it, SAPPHIRE is introducing a brand-new NITRO Gear Series of accessories. To begin with, the company will offer extra LED fans (with dual-ball bearing) in 3 backlight colors - white, red and blue. SAPPHIRE users can easily swap their stock fans with the SAPPHIRE Quick Connect system. Packs with one 95 mm fan in selected colors will be available to buy. The fans are compatible with all SAPPHIRE NITRO+ and Pulse RX 580 / 570 models as well as NITRO/NITRO+ RX 480 / 470 models.

User TonybonJoby in our own forums has successfully flashed his XFX RX 480 graphics card with the BIOS from a Sapphire RX 580 Limited Edition (the one that runs at 1411 MHz Boost clocks, yes.) Having obtained the Sapphire's BIOS right here on TPU, he then flashed it onto his graphics card (which possesses a dual-BIOS setup; this is an important point which you should consider, as it gives you an extra safety net should anything go wrong) through ATIFlash. The newly-christened RX 580 thus smiles for the screenshot, with a stock clock of 1411 MHz, higher than most overclocks possible with the RX 480 cards, probably due to increased voltages on the BIOS level. The user then tested the card on The Witcher 3 and Furmark, with no problems having been reported. Just remember to back-up your BIOS with GPU-Z and make sure to peruse our forums for some details on this flashing process before you get the proverbial grease on your elbows.

Essentially, this may allow you to bypass some artificial overclocking limitation with your graphics card, probably by increased voltages on different power states of the card. You should do this at your own risk, and remember, the only guaranteed way of getting an RX 580 is... you guessed it, buying an RX 580. However, this might also give you an extra performance boost, and free performance is always good, right?

Marketing rebranded cards is a much greater effort than selling the achievements and improvements of a fully new product launch. And word on the street is AIB partners that have to deal with rebrands don't really enjoy doing so. Having to sell the old as new is a tough sell, especially so when virtually no extra features seem to have been implemented. AMD itself is marketing their new RX 500 series as worthy improvements to its R9 390 graphics cards, for what it's worth. And as such, AIB's have to come up with original, out-of-the-box ways of peddling what is pretty much their old stuff as if it was new.

Recently, we've seen MSI showcasing a "3rd Gen FinFet 14" production process for its RX 570 Gaming X; now, PowerColor is looking to increase the attractiveness factor on its RX 580 Red Devil and Red Devil Golden Sample graphics cards (of which we've seen a teaser here and there) by showcasing an improved, reinforced VRM design for its upcoming graphics cards, with a "Platinum Power Kit", which includes Dr.Mos and a top-of-the-line Digital Power delivery system. Its VRM, however, keeps the 6-phase design that was already present on the RX 480. Here's hoping that the additions to PwerColor's card, alongside the Red Devil's purported 8+6-pin power delivery, will allow for higher overclocks, perhaps making this card a prime candidate for more efficient, exotic cooling solutions.

AMD is preparing new SKUs based on its "Polaris 10" silicon, which are built on a more refined 14 nm FinFET process, to facilitate higher GPU clock speeds, and improved energy efficiency. These include the Radeon RX 580 and the Radeon RX 570. The reference-design boards of the two were pictured, and aren't strictly "rebadged" RX 480 and RX 470. The two feature higher clocks, and are supported by a redesigned VRM. The RX 570 draws power from a single 6-pin PCIe power connector, while the RX 580 draws it from a single 8-pin connector.

The core-configurations of the RX 580 and RX 570 aren't different from their predecessors - the RX 580 still features 2,304 stream processors, and the RX 570 features 2,048, but clock speeds are increased across the board. The RX 580 ticks at about 1340 MHz (vs. 1266 MHz of the RX 480), with its memory speed unchanged at 8.00 GHz (GDDR5-effective), while the RX 570 is clocked at 1244 MHz (vs. 1206 MHz of the RX 470), with its memory clock slightly increased to 7.00 GHz. The two cards also seem to do away with the DVI port. According to VideoCardz, the two cards could launch on the 18th of April, 2017.

AMD's upcoming RX 500 series of graphics cards is not going to set the world on fire with its feature-set. Essentially rebrands of AMD's mainstream Polaris GPUs used in current-generation RX 400 series, these have recently seen a slight delay on its time to market - now set at April 18th.

While architecture-level adjustments to this new series of cards so as to improve performance seem to be off the table, AMD is apparently looking to take advantage of manufacturing maturing and process improvements. The original Polaris 11 and Polaris 10 chips were manufactured using the Low Power Early (LPE) process, which looks to balance availability, yields, and time-to-market with performance and power. New reports peg the new dies to carry the Polaris 21 and Polaris 20 monikers, and will feature higher clocks on account of the new Low Power Performance (LPP) process.

AMD today released the 17.3.2 Beta version of its Radeon Software Crimson ReLive. This release features official support for the upcoming Mass Effect: Andromeda space opera, and a 12% performance boost in the game for RX 480 graphics cards compared to results obtained under the previous driver release.

This driver release also sees some fixed issues with texture corruption on some surfaces of The Division under DX12. In addition, this driver release features a fix for what could only have been a rare issue with texture flickering while task-switching on For Honor, considering it only affected 4x Multi-GPU system configurations. This release also features long lists of Known Issues, which you can take a look at after the break.

As always, you can grab the drivers right here at TPU, through our revamped downloads section. Just follow the link below.DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition 17.3.2 Beta

We've previously covered how AMD's RX 500 series is to be a rebrand of the company's successful RX 400 series. Previous reports pegged the RX 500 series' launch on April 11th; now, it would seem that there has been a slight, one-week delay on the launch date, with it having been pushed back to April 18th. Apparently, this delay is looking to allow more time to "fine-tune the drivers".

The RX 500 series are purportedly straight rebrands from equivalent RX 400 series GPUs (RX 580 will be a rebrand of the RX 480, and so on down the ladder). The need for driver fine-tuning seems a little baffling considering these straight rebrands, but may have more to do with the reported Polaris 12 chips that are expected for launch than any other metric. Remember, RX 500 chips are expected to carry somewhat higher clock-speeds than their RX 400 originals, with some improved power/performance ratio being derived from improvements in foundry processes. But if the rebranding scheme holds up, don't expect these to bring in any meaningful changes towards these cards' performance. AMD is hoping Polaris tides them over through the mainstream market until it can introduce its Vega-based, high-performance GPUs, which are heralded to mark AMD's return to the high-performance consumer graphics segment in a while. Fingers crossed.Source: Thanks @TheMailMan78

The folks at Heise online have put forward a report on how AMD's RX 500 series of graphics cards will be little less than direct rebrands of the Polaris 10 and Polaris 11 GPUs that AMD introduced with its RX 400 series of graphics cards. Apparently, a straight rebrand is in order, with the RX 580 entering the fray in the place of the RX 480, the RX 570 substituting the RX 470, and so on. Heise reports that the Polaris 10-based RX 500 should see the light of day as soon as April 4th, with Polaris 11-based solutions coming in a little later, on April 11th.

Videocardz, however, reports that these will be slightly more than a straight rebrand - if you can call a slight bump in clockspeeds as trumping a rebrand. The RX 580 is supposed to ship with base clocks ar 1340 MHz (74 MHz more than the reference RX 480), with the RX 570 carrying a much less significant 38 MHz increase over its RX 470 counterpart. Videocardz also reports on the possibility of AMD introducing a new Polaris 12 GPU with the RX 500 series, which will apparently be an even lower-end part than even Polaris 11.

At GDC's AMD Capsaicin Event, AMD's Raja Koduri reaffirmed Radeon's commitment to Multi-GPU setups by remembering his RX 480 launch event claim on a RX 480 dual setup beating their competition's high-end solutions. Then, Rebellion's Chris Kingsley took stage, who attributed the fact that his team was able to get Sniper Elite 4 to run with 100% scaling on a RX 480 dual GPU setup to Rebellion's previous work with Mantle. Next to it, for perspective, AMD showed a dual-GPU RX 480 system running the same game and settings at virtually double the frame rate - a perfect, 100% scaling. Rebellion's Chris Kingsley also elaborated on the importance of DX 12 and Vulkan on making such a thing even possible in the first place, reiterating the software and coding investment necessary to make that happen.

AMD today released the 17.2.1 WHQL version of its Radeon Software Crimson ReLive. This release features Multi GPU profiles and support for For Honor (with an up to 4% performance improvement on Radeon RX 480) and Sniper Elite 4 (with a 5% performance improvement being registered here). Look after the break for a list of known, fixed issues. Compared to the previous 17.2.1 Beta release of the ReLive driver suite, this one is virtually the same, the only difference being the WHQL signing.

As always, you can grab the drivers right here at TPU, through our revamped downloads section. Just follow the link below.DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition 17.2.1 WHQL

AMD has definitely been on the upswing in recent times, with CEO Lisa Su having seemingly conducted a frail, collapsing company through the muddiest waters in its history. The general sentiment towards the company seems to now be leaning towards the "bullish" side of the equation, which translated into a cool $10.66 per stock at Friday's closing time (having increased, after hours, towards the $10.80 mark. This is great news for a company which has essentially increased their stock value by a factor of four in the last year alone.

Shares of AMD's rival Nvidia, however, have risen 60% in the past three months and nearly 200% in the past year. NVIDIA's share value closed last Friday at a historic $100.41 (having since declined towards $99.55), over a strong bullish sentiment towards the company, which has recently signed a Warrant Termination Agreement with Goldman Sachs for a $63 million value. This basically shows investors that the company has sufficient cash so as not to allow them to see their share value diluted by the sudden entry in circulation of $63 million of shares, should Goldman Sachs exercise their (now terminated) warrant.

With the arrival of the GeForce GTX 1050 Ti and GTX 1050, the sub-$150 graphics card market is beginning to heat up. AMD is finding itself with a price-performance gorge between the Radeon RX 460 and the RX 470. Citing multiple sources, VideoCardz suspects that AMD is up to something - a new Polaris 10 "Ellesmere" based SKU positioned between the RX 460 and RX 470, referred to either as the "RX 465" or the "RX 470 SE."

The new SKU is further cut down from the Polaris 10 stack, in a bid to lower TDP below the 100W mark, to around 90W. The chip features 1,792 stream processors across 28 Graphics CoreNext compute units (CUs), out of the 36 CUs physically present on the chip. The RX 470 features 32 CUs, while the RX 480 maxes out all available CUs. AMD is leaving the memory bus untouched. It features 4 GB of GDDR5 memory across a 256-bit wide memory interface, ticking at 7.00 GHz (GDDR5-effective), churning up 224 GB/s of memory bandwidth - double that of the GTX 1050 series. There's also talk of yet another SKU, with 1,536 stream processors (24/36 CUs enabled), which AMD could position against the GTX 1050 (non-Ti).

Rouchon Industries Inc., dba Swiftech, is reportedly bringing to market a custom water block for AMD's RX 480. According to reddit user CBwardog, who spoke with a company representative, the water block is expected to come in an Acetal + Nickel package, bearing a price-tag of $99.95. No official announcement from Swiftech at this time, though it is expected that the water block will become available for sale to end-users worldwide through the usual channels in a mere three weeks.