AMD is weaning the market off its older gaming graphics card series that predate the Radeon RX 5000 series. The company is reportedly putting older GPUs based on the "Vega" and "Polaris" graphics architectures on a slower driver update track, which means driver updates to these GPUs will be less frequent. The company's RX 5000, RX 6000, and RX 7000 series, on the other hand, will continue on with the current driver update track that includes one or more driver releases each month, including releases to fix glaring game bugs, or day-zero performance updates.

AMD over the past couple of months began segregating RDNA (RX 5000 series and later) and pre-RDNA (older than RX 5000 series) GPUs through their driver releases. The latest drivers come in an RDNA-only package (denoted by "rdna" in the installer's file name), which is around 600 MB in size; and a larger 1.1 GB package that supports both RDNA and pre-RDNA GPUs. The company now announced that the pre-RDNA GPUs will switch to a slower driver update track as is characteristic with older-generation GPUs that AMD wants to discontinue support for.

AMD Radeon RX 400 series and RX 500 series graphics cards based on the "Polaris" graphics architecture are simply unable to run "Forspoken," as users on Reddit report. The game has certain DirectX 12 feature-level 12_1 API requirements that the architecture does not meet. Interestingly, NVIDIA's "Maxwell" graphics architecture, which predates AMD "Polaris" by almost a year, supports FL 12_1, and is able to play the game. Popular GPUs from the "Maxwell" generation include the GeForce GTX 970 and GTX 960. Making matters much worse, AMD is yet to release an update to its Adrenalin graphics drivers for the RX Vega, RX 5000, and RX 6000 series that come with "Forspoken" optimization. Its latest 23.1.2 beta drivers that come with these optimizations only support the RX 7000 series RDNA3 graphics cards. It's now been over 50 days since the vast majority of AMD discrete GPUs have received a driver update.

A leading global motherboard and graphics card manufacturer, ASRock, announced entering the graphics card market with the Phantom Gaming range - a strong line up of AMD Radeon RX 500 series graphics card in April 2018. Initially, ASRock will roll out graphics card business in various regions based on internal planning. Regions with first priorities are APEC and Latin America. Then ASRock will gradually launch the business in other regions. Thanks for all media friends recently putting attention on our Phantom Gaming graphic card business and giving them massive coverages.

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.

AMD is giving final touches to the new Radeon RX 500X-series graphics cards. Product page placeholders for RX 580X, RX 570X, RX 560X, and RX 550X surfaced on AMD website. The specifications tabs on these pages are blank, so there's no official information on what the "X" denotes. It's curious to see AMD give the extension to even lower-end SKUs such as the RX 560 and RX 550.

The company has, in the past, come up with extensions such as "D" to denote OEM-specific SKUs with different specifications than the retail-channel (AIB) products. Going by the convention of "X" denoting higher performance on certain AMD Ryzen processor SKUs, the RX 500X series could have one of several improvements - a new silicon fabrication process facilitating a clock-speed bump, or faster memory, or even some speed boosting feature similar to Ryzen XFR (extended frequency range). We'll know soon enough.

A leading global motherboard manufacturer, ASRock, is moving into the graphics card market with the Phantom Gaming range - a strong line up of AMD Radeon RX500 series cards, including the Phantom Gaming X Radeon RX580 8G, Radeon RX570 8G, the Phantom Gaming Radeon RX560 4G/2G and Radeon RX550 4G/2G. "ASRock finally expand into the graphics card field," said Mr. LL Shiu, ASRock Chief Executive Officer. "We are happy and proud to team up with AMD, our strong and reliable partner, and of course we look forward to bringing out more interesting and competitive products in future."

Cards offer advanced performance technology
ASRock Phantom Gaming series promises elegant design, flexibility for power users combined with user friendly control, and of course, outstanding performance. ASRock never compromises on product quality and performance, so these new products are packed with amazing features as well as the best components to ensure they meet everyone's expectations.

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.

Hold on to your ETH hats: you will still be able to cash in on the ETH mining craze for a while. However, you should look towards your 3 GB and 4 GB graphics cards with a slight distrust, for reasons that you should know, anyway, since you have surely studied your mining cryptocurrency of choice. Examples are the GTX 1060 3 GB, or one of those shiny new 4 GB RX 480 / RX 580 which are going at ridiculously premium prices right now. And as a side note, don't you love the mechanisms of pricing and demand?

The problem here stems from ETH's own design for its current PoW (Proof of Work) implementation (which is what allows you to mine the currency at all.) In a bid to make ETH mining unwieldy for the specialized silicon that brought Bitcoin difficulty through the roof, ETH implements a large size data set for your GPU to work with as you mine, which is stored in your GPU's memory (through the DAG, which stands for Directed Acyclic Graph). This is one of the essential differences between Bitcoin mining and Ethereum mining, in that Ethereum mining was designed to be memory-intensive, so as to prevent usage of ASICs and other specialized hardware. As a side-note, this also helps (at least theoretically) in ETH's decentralization, which Bitcoin sees more at risk because of the inherent centralization that results from the higher hardware costs associated with its mining.

AMD released the Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition 17.6.1 beta drivers. The drivers come with optimization for "DiRT 4," including an AMD CrossFire profile, and up to 30 percent improvement in frame-rates with 8x MSAA cranked up. The drivers also improve performance of "Prey" (2017) by up to 4 percent, as tested on a machine with a Radeon RX 580 8 GB graphics card.

The drivers also fixed a number of issues, including virtual super-resolution (VSR) not correctly enabling on certain Radeon RX 400 and RX 500-series GPUs; HDR not correctly enabling on certain WQHD or higher-resolution displays; flickering noticed on some WQHD or higher-resolution displays connected via HDMI; fast mouse movements causing a frame-rate drop in "Prey" (2017); "Mass Effect: Andromeda" noticing a stutter with multi-GPU systems; and a system hang noticed on Radeon R9 390 series GPUs with the memory overclocked using a third-party application. Grab the driver from the link below.DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Crimson ReLive 17.6.1

The change-log follows.

VisionTek, a company whose last graphics card announcement we've posted here was on June 2015 with its Fury X and R9 300 line of graphics cards, has announced its vision for the RX 500 series graphics cards. This one seems a throwback to the RX 400 series, though, with Visiontek's "Overclocked Edition" GPUs carrying clockspeeds more in line with the prevous AMD series: 1,366 MHz for the RX 580, and 1264 MHz for the RX 570, respectively.

The VisionTek Radeon RX 580 8 GB comes with a slightly unoriginal take on the AIB partner design, sporting custom dual-fan cooler with a black-nickel aluminum shroud with 2x 8 mm and 2x 6 mm heatpipes for increased cooling capacity. The Radeon 570 4GB makes use of what is basically AMD's RX 480 reference design cooler, with a blower-style fan that ensures the GPU's heated air output exits the back of your case instead of lingering inside your system. VisionTek's Radeon RX 500 Series cards are now available through the company's website, with retailer availability to follow.

HIS has added two RX 500 series cards to its portfolio, one of which has one of the highest factory-overclocked boost clocks we've seen yet. The RX 580 XTR IceQX2 Roaring Turbo carries a 1430 MHz boost clock in Turbo Mode, as well as a 1411 MHz (at the level of Sapphire's Nitro+ Limited Edition RX 580) in OC Mode. The memory clock is set to a standard 8 Gbps (which is something I really don't understand, with the amount of headroom these usually have.) The board has one each of a 6+8pin power connectors so as to power this power-hungry card (relative to its performance, at least.)

ASUS is excited to launch the RX 500 Series, an all-new line-up of gaming graphics cards powered by the latest AMD Radeon RX 580 and RX 570 GPUs. These new graphics cards are capable of delivering HD+ resolution gaming with ultra-settings, bringing new levels of performance to the market at an affordable cost. The ROG Strix RX 580 and Strix RX 570 are engineered with advanced cooling and reliability features to deliver superb gaming performance, plus Aura Sync illumination for the best in PC personalization.

The new models include the high-performance ROG Strix RX 580 series with higher clock speeds, MaxContact cooling, and FanConnect II technologies along with Aura Sync illumination for building a personalized high-performance gaming PC. The ASUS Dual RX 580 Series provides "sweet spot" graphics performance that is ideal for both VR and eSports gaming. Both RX 580 series cards feature 0dB wing-blade fans that spin down completely when the cards are idling or under lighter loads for blissful silence when you're surfing the web, watching movies, and even playing less-demanding games. You also get dual HDMI 2.0 ports, which is perfect for connecting a VR headset and monitor simultaneously.

It isn't unusual for AMD or NVIDIA to launch OEM-specific graphics chips, and it would seem that AMD is doing just so with its rebranded yet improved RX 500 series. Now, it's time for the RX 540 to surface, which, like the name implies, flies right below the RX 550 in terms of specs, though you wouldn't know it without a closer look.

The chip packs the same 8 CUs as the RX 550 (512 stream processors), but its memory bandwidth (in 2 GB or 4 GB flavors) peaks at 96 GB/s (lower than the RX 550's 112 GB/s.) However, its core clocks see an interesting boost from the RX 550's 1183 MHz boost clocks to a "up to 1219 MHz" value, which should alleviate the performance impact from the stunted memory bandwidth. This is a GPU that's likely to be used by OEMs and system integrators, whether on desktop computers or in laptops, though I do have to wonder regarding this configuration. I'd expect higher clocks on the core to increase power consumption more than the offset allowed by the reduced memory clocks, but then again, I'm not an AMD engineer.

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 released the latest version of Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition. The new Radeon Software Crimson ReLive 17.4.3 WHQL drivers add official support for the newly launched Radeon RX 500 series GPUs, such as the RX 580, RX 570, RX 560, and RX 550; besides support for Windows 10 Creators Update (v17.4.2 already added WDDM 2.2 support). Grab the drivers from the links below.DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Crimson ReLive 17.4.3 WHQL

The floodgates have opened on AMD's recently-launched RX 500 series, which features a more polished, revised, 3rd-gen 14 nm FinFet process. Graphics cards based on the new GPUs will, as such, feature higher clocks than their RX 400 series counterparts, even if the number of graphics processing resources remains relatively unchanged. PowerColor (with its Red Devil and Red Dragon RX 580 and RX 570 graphics cards), ASUS, Sapphire, Gigabyte, and MSI have all announced their take on the new GPUs, with distinct enterprise identity, cooling solutions and audio profiles - as well as VRM and power delivery subsystems - competing for your money.

TechPowerUp today released the latest version of TechPowerUp GPU-Z, the ubiquitous graphics subsystem information and diagnostics utility. Version 1.20.0 comes with a few critical updates that make come in handy to users of upcoming graphics cards. To begin with, a bug was fixed that caused video BIOS extracted from AMD Radeon RX 500 series graphics cards to be corrupted. GPU-Z now correctly extracts the BIOS. Grab it from the link below.DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z 1.20.0

A leak of what appears to be AMD's presentation on the Radeon RX 500 series has brought confirmation on specifications and details of the new line-up - which includes the RX 580, RX 570, the (until now) missing RX 560, and the RX 550. It would seem AMD has now opted for a new, dual-fan reference design, instead of their usual single-fan, blower-style coolers.

The RX 580 has a base clock of 1257 MHz, and a boost clock of 1340 MHz (74 MHz greater than the RX 480's 1266 MHz). It's a Polaris chip alright, packing the same 36 Compute Units (2304 Stream Processors, and up to 8 GB of GDDR5 memory across a 256-bit interface. AMD apparently decided to compare the RX 580 to the R9 380, which allows the company to show some relevant performance improvements (which wouldn't be possible with the RX 480, now would it.)

AMD is on a roll with product launches lately, having just pushed out what is probably the most significant update in mainstream CPUs in years: the Ryzen 5 line of desktop processors. You can look over TPU's review of the 1500X and 1600X here and here. AMD is looking towards powering another central part of your desktop processor, though, with the impending launch of the RX 500 line of GPUs.

Confirmed as rebrands of previous-generation Polaris 10, the new RX 500 series will carry the new Polaris 20 XTX and Polaris 20 XL chips, which are expected to feature higher clocks (in the range of 1300-1400 MHz) from AIBs, before your own overclocking. PowerColor has officially confirmed the launch date as April 18th through social media with a tease for their new Red Devil graphics card. Now if only we could see Vega on this new horizon...

Vendor lists for RX 500 series cards keep popping up, and this time, it's Sapphire and MSI's time. And it would seem that Sapphire has just seen the entirety of its RX 500 series lineup leaked (sans the still absent in battle RX 560.) Apparently, Sapphire will launch a new PULSE line of graphics cards, in addition to its already known NITRO series. This new PULSE line of graphics cards will likely carry previous-gen Polaris 10 chips, judging from the difference in pricing between the top of the line RX 580 PULSE (20G) model and its NITRO (40G) counterpart: a 40€ premium can't really justify a differentiation in overclocking alone. A similar situation is seen in regards to the RX 570 cards, with a NITRO-branded, 8 GB RX 570 (40G) being priced higher than a 4 GB, PULSE-branded RX 570. Looking at the model numbers, it would seem differentiation between the Polaris 10 chips and the Polaris 20 XTX and XL is done by the last characters in the product number, with the "40G" products carrying a hefty premium over the "20G" parts.

If the PULSE series are based on the Polaris 10 chips, and the NITRO are based on the newer, freshly confirmed Polaris 20 XTX, the expected difference in clock speeds (with overclocked variants of the RX 500 reaching 1500 MHz) and the newer, as-of-yet-unconfirmed LPP fabrication process would go a long way towards justifying such a premium. This could speak for an approach on clock-speeds towards differentiating the multiple RX 580 price-points, akin to the 7970's GHz Edition - likely, top-of-the line Polaris 20 XTX and XL chips will board higher-tier graphics cards, marketed at exceedingly high clock-speeds.

Videocardz has gotten their hands on the launch driver for the RX 500 series of graphics cards, and it would seem that previous rumors have indeed been vindicated: the revised RX 500 series features new code names for the chips that tick at its very heart. The RX 580, according to this report, will feature a Polaris 20 XTX chip (oh ATI X1950 XTX, how I remember you from staring in awe at your price and performance in computer magazines...), while the Radeon RX 570 will be equipped with a Polaris 20 XL part. And while the RX 560 is lacking from the list, the little chip-that-probably-will, the Polaris 12, makes a cameo under the RX 550 series and a "Lexa Pro" GPU code name... Which is just so different from all others, both in form and content, that one must wonder where it is its real name or a simple placeholder.

As we inch ever closer to what is seemingly one of tech's least well-kept secrets (the launch of the RX 500 series), trickles of information keep appearing in various forms. Now, a Beta version of AIDA64 (version 5.90.4208 Beta for those of you keeping tabs) has added official support for AMD's upcoming RX 570 and RX 580 graphics cards.

These new cards are reported to be higher-clocked versions of the proven RX 480 and RX 470 graphics cards. There is some talk regarding how AMD is now employing a new, higher-efficiency LPP (Low Power Performance) process, which would allow this increase in clocks to fit around the same power envelope of their lower-clocked precursors, the RX 480 and RX 470. It may not mean much to either argument, but the fact that these chips are apparently still code-named Polaris 10 on AIDA64 could mean that no relevant changes in the production process have occurred.

The cards are expected to launch either on April 11th or April 18th, depending on whether previous rumors about a delay do materialize as truth. You can check the full release notes on this version of AIDA64 after the break.

So, it would appear that rumors and leaks about the RX 500 series being simple rebrands of AMD's RX 400 line were true. Recent leaks point to no more changes and performance increases than those achieved through higher base clock speeds on the graphics cards' GPU and memory. The architecture is the same, and the process seems to have followed the same path - as of yet, no confirmation regarding whether or not these cards do use a newer, leaner LPP process for higher clocks and less power consumption.

PowerColor has pulled some images out of its teaser hat, bringing us some classy, though ultimately uninformative pics of an upcoming Red Devil card. The details that can be gleaned point to a dual-fan design and some semblance of LED illumination (which should always be expected in any recent product launch).

Though we can't know for sure what graphics card this Red Devil tease refers to, logic would dictate that it's the best-performing, upcoming card that we know off. Pulling a publicity stunt for the second-fastest card to arrive (RX 570) just wouldn't make sense, and the timing puts this teaser much closer to (what is expected to be) the rebranded RX 500 line than to the much-awaited RX Vega line of graphics cards. The latter will probably drop in around the same time as Arkane's Prey, which launches on the fifth of May.