AMD today released the latest version of Radeon Software. Version 21.11.3 beta comes with optimization for Microsoft Flight Simulator: GOTY Edition, and Farming Simulator 22. Additional extensions of the Vulkan API are added. The drivers also fix driver-timeouts or game crashes noticed with "Battlefield 2042" on graphics cards such as the RX 6900 XT. Stuttering or poor performance with "DayZ" on RX 5700 XT was fixed. Also fixed is elevated disk usage by the Multimedia Athena dumps folder. Grab the driver from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 21.11.3

AMD is allegedly preparing for an August 2021 debut of its Radeon RX 6600 XT graphics card in the retail segment, according to tech YouTuber Coreteks. Released exclusively as custom-design cards, through the company's AIB partners, the card will reportedly come with an MSRP price of USD $399, or roughly $100 less than that of the RX 6700 XT (which is being scalped for north of $800). The lack of a reference-design (MBA) model in the retail channel means that the card will not be sold through the AMD website.

The Radeon RX 6600 XT will reportedly be based on the 7 nm "Navi 23" silicon, although it remains to be seen if it maxes the silicon out. 8 GB will be the standard memory amount, across a 128-bit wide GDDR6 memory interface, cushioned by a 32 MB Infinity Cache. As for performance, Coreteks predicts that the RX 6600 XT will perform ±5% of the RX 5700 XT and the GTX 1080 Ti, which could make it a formidable card for AAA gaming at 1080p, or at 1440p with FSR.

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

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).

Sonnet Technologies today announced the launch of the eGPU Breakaway Puck Radeon RX 5500 XT and eGPU Breakaway Puck Radeon RX 5700, the newest members of the company's popular family of portable all-in-one Thunderbolt 3 external graphics processing (eGPU) systems. Replacing the now discontinued eGFX Breakaway Puck Radeon RX 560 and Radeon RX 570 eGPUs, the new models retain the same form factor but in many cases deliver more than 300% performance improvement over the previous-generation models. The new models now include two USB ports for connecting peripheral devices and a second Thunderbolt port for fully supporting a Thunderbolt/USB-C display, including the 6K Apple Pro Display XDR.

eGPU systems boost a computer's graphics performance by connecting a more powerful graphics processor via a Thunderbolt 3 connection and bypassing the computer's onboard GPU to deliver graphics performance not otherwise possible. Sonnet's eGPU Breakaway Puck Radeon RX 5500 XT and Radeon RX 5700 systems are designed for professionals who need to run graphics-intensive applications on their Intel -based MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, Mac mini, or iMac with Thunderbolt 3 ports, with the focus on high performance, portability, and flexible external display connectivity plus quiet, reliable operation. eGPU Breakaway Pucks accelerate a computer's graphics performance on its built-in display (if equipped) and on up to four externally connected displays.

AMD today released the latest version of Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition. Version 20.11.1 beta comes with optimization for Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War, DiRT 5, Assassin's Creed Valhalla, and Godfall. With Godfall, the drivers offer up 7% higher performance as tested with an RX 5700 XT. The driver changelog does not mention any issues fixed with this release, and only a short list of new issues known to AMD, which it's working on to fix. Grab the drivers from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 20.11.1The change-log follows.

Update, October 7th 2020: AMD has confirmed it has ceased production for the RX 5700, but that RX 5700 XT manufacturing will be ongoing at least until 1Q2021. It's unclear what this means for the company's RDNA2 launch plans; it could be speculated the company will be releasing halo products first, with lower tiers being launched at a later time, in line with NVIDIA's usual launch cadence. This would justify the RX 5700 being kept in fabrication, since with a substantial price cut, it could become a mainstream AMD product).

A report originated from Cowcotland paints AMD as having ceased production on the Navi 10-powered RX 5700 XT and RX 5700. No reference or custom designs are currently being manufactured for either of these GPUs. AMD having ceased production on these cards makes sense, considering the upcoming announcement for the RX 6000 series scheduled for October 28th. This serves as a way for the supply channel to keep draining its supply of RX 5700 cards ahead of the upcoming RDNA 2 solutions. Them being discontinued means that AMD is looking to replace them - at least price-wise - on their product stack.

Interestingly, it appears that the RX 5600 XT is still being manufactured - it's likely AMD reduced manufacturing of Navi 10 so as to feed only this GPU, which should, as such, remain in the market for a little while until AMD launches an RDNA 2 equivalent - if those are the company's plans. TSMC capacity is freed for additional wafers for other AMD product requirements - which, with both Zen 3, next-gen consoles, and RDNA 2 all launching between the same time frame - should tend towards infinity.

AMD has today released the latest update to its Radeon graphics drivers in the form of Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition 20.8.1, which brings a list of improvements and bug fixes. Starting off, the new driver brings support for Horizon Zero Dawn PC port, which is coming out this Friday. Next, the driver brings some improvements to the performance of the Radeon 5700XT graphics card, which scored 9% higher FPS in the game Grounded, when using Epic preset. Another important supporting feature is for game Hyper Scape, which this new driver enables. For a full list of improvements and bug fixes, please check out the list below:DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 20.8.1

Sapphire recently launched a cost-effective variant of its Radeon RX 5600 XT Pulse graphics card, the RX 5600 XT Pulse BE. The company extended the Pulse BE treatment to the RX 5700 series, in a bid to make them more cost-effective, and ready for price-cuts. The new RX 5700 XT Pulse BE (model: 11293-09-20G), differs in board design from the RX 5600 XT Pulse BE. It's also significantly different from the original RX 5700 XT Pulse. For starters, it features a more cost-effective cooler shroud design that uses ABS plastic. The underlying heatsink is different from the one on the original Pulse, with one less heat pipe.

Interestingly, the card has the same dimensions as the original Pulse, with 25.4 mm length, 13.5 mm height, and 4.65 cm thickness. Sapphire also trimmed down a handful features. The Pulse BE lacks the Quick Connect fans that easily detach from the cooler, letting you clean the heatsink underneath. It also lacks the dual-BIOS feature which the original has. The card sticks to AMD reference clock speeds, with up to 1815 MHz game clocks, up to 1925 MHz boost, and 14 Gbps (GDDR6-effective) memory. Sapphire is pricing the Radeon RX 5700 XT Pulse BE at AMD SEP of USD $399, although you should be able to find it unofficially-discounted.

BIOSTAR today announced its Extreme Gaming line of custom-design AMD Radeon RX 5000 series graphics cards. These are the company's first custom-design AMD Radeon products, as the company in the past only sold reference-design RX Vega-series products. The lineup currently includes two products, the VA57T6XM82, based on the Radeon RX 5700 XT, and the VA55T6XF81, based on the RX 5500 XT (4 GB). Both cards appear to use AMD reference-design PCBs paired with custom-design cooling solutions. The RX 5700 XT card uses a large triple-fan aluminium fin-stack cooling solution that's slightly thicker than 2 slots. The RX 5500 XT card uses a more compact twin-fan, double-slot cooling solution. The BIOSTAR Extreme Gaming RX 5700 XT sticks to AMD reference clock speeds of 1755 MHz boost, while the RX 5500 XT does 1717 MHz MHz. The company didn't reveal pricing.

The European Hardware Association (EHA), comprised of the nine largest independent technology news and review websites on the continent, has announced its hardware winners for 2020. And AMD has completely blindsided its competition in all possible metrics, whether you're talking about the GPU or CPU side of the equation. AMD's CPU division has completely razed Intel's offerings when it comes to awards, with no Intel CPU even being credited with a single prize. AMD's Ryzen 3000 series won the most-desired award in the form of the "Product of the Year" award. The Ryzen 3000 chiplet design in itself won the EHA "Best Technology" Award; and more specifically, AMD's Ryzen 9 3950X took home the "Best CPU" prize; the Ryzen 5 3600 won "Best Gaming Product"; and the Ryzen 3 3300X won "Best Overclocking Product".

But AMD didn't stop in the CPU category, besting even rival NVIDIA in the GPU side of the equation. AMD's Navi 10 GPU, used in the Radeon RX 5700 series, has won the "Best GPU" category, while the "Best AMD-based graphics card" award goes to the Sapphire RX 5700 XT Nitro+ (the ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2080 Ti OC won "Best NVIDIA Graphics Card" category). Another AMD-inside design won the "Best Gaming Notebook" Award - ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14, which packs AMD's mobile Renoir CPUs inside.

AMD has a lot riding on RDNA2, its first graphics architecture that meets the DirectX 12 Ultimate logo requirements, introducing real-time ray-tracing to the lineup. RDNA2 is confirmed to be part of the SoC that powers next-gen consoles PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. The company is simultaneously readying its own Radeon RX discrete graphics cards based on the Navi 2# silicon, based on RDNA2, with a leading part unofficially called the "Big Navi" given its alleged lofty specs increase over the "Navi 10." Turns out, that this GPU, and not next-gen consoles, will debut RDNA2.

AMD is planning a big gamer-specific event in late-Q3/early-Q4, likely September, where it plans to announce its 4th generation Ryzen desktop processors based on the "Zen 3" microarchitecture, and Radeon RX graphics cards based on RDNA2, including the "Big Navi." Speaking at the Bank of America Securities Global Technology Conference, AMD CFO Devinder Kumar confirmed that "Big Navi" will be a halo product and not merely a lofty performance increase over the RX 5700 XT to make AMD competitive against GeForce "Ampere." He states "there's a lot of excitement for Navi 2, or what our fans have dubbed as the Big Navi," adding "Big Navi is a halo product." He goes on to state that "enthusiasts love to buy the best, and we are certainly working on giving them the best." AMD's product stack so far is application-specific, rather than competition-specific. The RX 5700 XT was designed for 1440p gaming, and ended up competitive to the RTX 2070. "Big Navi" could hence have a lofty design goal: 4K gaming with ray-tracing.

ASUS today rolled out the TUG Gaming X3 Radeon RX 5700-series EVO graphics cards. These include the SKUs "TUF 3-RX5700-O8G-EVO-GAMING" for the RX 5700, and "TUF 3-RX5700XT-O8G-EVO-GAMING" for the RX 5700 XT. The two cards feature certain design tweaks over the original TUF Gaming RX 5700-series graphics cards that were criticized by tech reviewers for bad cooling performance. The updated TUF Gaming EVO cards feature an entirely different aluminium fin-stack heatsink from the one in the original TUF Gaming cards, which offers better contact with the various hot components on the PCB.

ASUS also updated the ventilation of the cooler, with three Axial-Tech fans replacing the conventional fans on the original. These fans feature impellers that are webbed at the edges, so air is guided axially (through the heatsink), and some of it isn't bled laterally. The fan in the center is slightly smaller than the ones on its sides. Clock speeds are unchanged between the two revisions, with up to 1720 MHz game clocks and up to 1750 MHz boost clocks for the RX 5700 model, and up to 1795 game clocks and up to 1905 MHz boost clocks for the RX 5700 XT model. Both cards feature a software-based "OC mode" that dials up clock-speeds by roughly 70 MHz. ASUS will replace the original TUF Gaming with the new EVO cards at current prices.

Confirmation of four new Radeon RX 5000-series SKUs came to light as AIB partner AFOX pushed them to regulators at the Eurasian Economic Commission. EEC filings have been a reliable early-sign of upcoming PC hardware. All thee new SKUs are positioned above the Radeon RX 5700 XT launched last year. These include the Radeon RX 5800 XT, the RX 5900 XT, the RX 5950, and the RX 5950 XT. Going by AMD's convention of two SKUs per resolution serving up to differentiated experiences, the RX 5800 XT could be a step up from the RX 5700 XT in offering 1440p high frame-rate AAA performance. This could possibly put it in direct competition with the GeForce RTX 2070 Super. AMD took a similar 2-pronged approach to 1080p, with the RX 5500 XT serving up 1080p at up to 60 fps, while the RX 5600 XT topping it up with a 40-50 percent performance uplift.

The Radeon RX 5950-series is completely new. This could very well be a new large "Navi" silicon, since dual-GPU is dead. Just as AMD carved out the RX 5700 XT, the RX 5700, and the RX 5600 XT, it could carve out the three new SKUs from this silicon. AMD CEO Dr Lisa Su already confirmed that her company is working to upscale the RX 5000-series "Navi" family. The RX 5900-series could be competition for the likes of the RTX 2080 or even RTX 2080 Super. The RX 5950-series could target premium 4K gaming (RTX 2080 Ti). It remains to be seen if the three new SKUs are based on the existing RDNA architecture or the new RDNA2 architecture designed for 7 nm EUV, featuring variable-rate shading.

GIGABYTE is readying a new brand-extension for its graphics cards lineup, called EAGLE. It will join the company's existing brand extensions, namely Aorus Gaming and WindForce series. Regulatory filings by GIGABYTE with the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) sees the company launching as many as 30 individual SKUs, spanning nearly every current-generation GPU. On the AMD front, we have cards based on the RX 5700 XT, RX 5700, RX 5500 XT, and the yet-unannounced RX 5600 XT, with its 6 GB of memory.

The NVIDIA lineup includes all its GTX 16-series and RTX 20-series SKUs, with the exception of the RTX 2080 Ti. The inclusion of RTX 2070 and RTX 2080, SKUs believed to have been passively retired with the advent of the RTX 2070 Super and RTX 2080 Super, is interesting. It shows that NVIDIA hasn't given up on the two. The RTX 2070's second-coming in particular, was reportedly triggered by supply shortages in the RX 5700 series, giving NVIDIA room to sell something around the $400-450 mark, bang in the middle of the RTX 2060 Super and RTX 2070 Super.

EK Water Blocks, the leading premium computer liquid cooling gear manufacturer, is releasing EK-Quantum Vector Strix RX 5700 +XT D-RGB water blocks that are compatible with ROG Strix version of AMD Radeon RX 5700 and RX 5700 XT graphics cards. The new Quantum water blocks feature addressable D-RGB 5V LEDs for even more visual customizations.

EK-Quantum Vector Strix RX 5700 +XT D-RGB
With this full cover water block, cooling is directed at the GPU, 8 GB of GDDR6 memory, and VRM (voltage regulation module) as liquid is channeled directly over these critical areas. These newly developed Vector water blocks feature a redesigned cooling engine that has a larger footprint compared to the previous generation of EK Full Cover water blocks. This results in a larger surface area for heat transfer which increases the thermal performance of these water blocks.

HIS today announced two new graphics cards to their lineup, and these are colorful ones (no pun intended). The Pink and Blue Army graphics cards the company is announcing today are based on AMD's RX 5700 XT graphics card, powered by Navi, and will be available in both colors in both OC and non-OC versions (these non-OC versions still carry higher clocks than AMD's reference ones, though).

A bug with the Radeon RX 5700-series "Navi" OpenCL compute API ICD (installable client driver) is causing the GPUs to crunch incorrect results for distributed compute project SETI@Home. Since there are "many" Navi GPUs crunching the project cross-validating each others' incorrect results, the large volume of incorrect results are able to beat the platform's algorithm and passing statistical validation, "polluting" the SETI@Home database. Some volunteers at the SETI@Home forums, where the the issue is being discussed, advocate banning or limiting results from contributors using these GPUs, until AMD comes out with a fix for its OpenCL driver. SETI@Home is a distributed computing project run by SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), tapping into volunteers' compute power to make sense of radio waves from space.

TUL Corporation, a leading manufacturer of AMD graphic cards since 1997, brings out a Navi first with a water cooled RX 5700 XT, the Liquid Devil. A long term AMD partner, PowerColor was one of the original adopters of factory overclocked graphics cards and was the first AMD partner to manufacture a graphics cards with premium performance water blocks. PowerColor once again partner with the liquid cooling industry leader EK to customize a uniquely designed water block for its custom RX 5700 XT for unmatched thermals and performance.

Featuring a nickel plated copper base, the Liquid Devil provides the better heat transfer capabilities of copper with the corrosion protection of the nickel, with the added bonus of making for a clean and sleek aesthetic. In order to maximize the potential of the PowerColor Liquid Devil, only the best 5700 XT GPUs which have been binned specifically for lower temperature and higher clock speeds have been selected for use, making sure that all Liquid Devil cards are the able to hit the highest performance points.

In September, Sapphire unveiled its most powerful graphics card to date - the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ RX 5700 XT - which delivers amazing 4K and 1440p performance, but also features very advanced RGB customization options. We even created a set of SAPPHIRE ARGB Fans specifically for this card (sold separately), so you could illuminate your system even more. Since then, many of you have asked if we could include the ARGB Fans with the card itself. oday we are ready and excited to announce the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ RX 5700 XT SPECIAL EDITION! Not only does it include the SAPPHIRE ARGB Fans out of the box, but we've increased the card's performance even more.

Here's the first picture of the Radeon RX 5700 XT Liquid Devil by PowerColor. This premium graphics card is meant for people with DIY liquid-cooling setups, and comes with a factory-fitted full-coverage water-block. Sourced from EK Water Blocks, the cooling solution features a nickel-plated copper primary material, with an acrylic top and PowerColor-exclusive embellishments, which include a factory-fitted RGB LED setup. The card is 2-slot thick at the rear I/O. Under the block is a PCB similar in design to the air-cooled RX 5700 XT Red Devil graphics card. Its clock speeds and price are still under the wraps. We expect a price that's north of $500 given the cost of the block alone.

Here are some of the first pictures of a new "Special Edition" or SE variant of Sapphire's premium Radeon RX 5700 XT NITRO+ graphics card. The card introduces a higher factory-overclock than the original NITRO+, including a memory overclock, and a cosmetic change. To begin with, the NITRO+ SE ships with 14.4 Gbps overclocked GDDR6 memory, whereas the original NITRO+ sticks to the reference 14 Gbps.

Sapphire also dialed up the maximum engine boost frequency to 2035 MHz (vs. 2010 MHz on the original NITRO+). Sapphire also gave the card a cosmetic update. The three fans now come with transparent impellers that are illuminated with their own four RGB LEDs, each. The Special Edition will be a limited SKU, available in select markets from November 15, priced above the original NITRO+, at 520€ (including VAT).

Here is the first render of GIGABYTE's premium Radeon RX 5700 Series custom-design graphics card that uses the company's coveted AORUS Gaming branding. This is the company's second custom-design card, after the RX 5700 and RX 5700 XT Gaming OC series, based on a 2-slot thick WindForce 3X cooling solution. The AORUS-branded card uses a thicker triple-slot cooler that has more heatsink surface area for heat-dissipation, a triple-fan setup, more RGB LED embellishments and possibly a more exhaustive set of display outputs. These cards could also ship with the company's highest factory-overclock tuning for the RX 5700 series. GIGABYTE did not reveal pricing or availability information.

NVIDIA's add-in card partners are ordering fresh stocks of GeForce RTX 2070 graphics chips even as the performance-segment of the GPU market has changed with AMD's introduction of its Radeon RX 5700 series "Navi," according to a Gamers Nexus report citing sources among NVIDIA partners. NVIDIA partners are expecting a slump in AMD's RX 5700 series graphics card inventories, particularly that of the RX 5700 XT, to create a price-point at which to sell the RTX 2070. NVIDIA partners expect RX 5700 XT inventories to run slim as supply of the 7 nm "Navi 10" chips from foundry-partner TSMC may not satiate the SKU's reportedly high demand.

NVIDIA's current product stack has the original RTX 2060 at $349, the RTX 2060 Super at $399, and the RTX 2070 Super at $499. The RTX 2070, which is outperformed by the $399 Radeon RX 5700 XT, was practically phased out from NVIDIA's product-stack as it was succeeded by the RTX 2070 Super at its $499 price-point. With the RTX 2070 making a comeback, it would be interesting to see what its price-point will be. There is a gap between the $399 RTX 2060 Super, and the $499 RTX 2070 Super, although the performance gap between the RTX 2060 Super and the RTX 2070 is a paltry 4 percent, which is easily closed by moderately overclocking the RTX 2060 Super. As of this writing, both pricing and availability of the RX 5700 XT appear normal.

An XFX spokesperson, commenting on a Reddit post linking to our comprehensive review of the XFX Radeon RX 5700 XT THICC III Ultra graphics card from Thursday, stated that they have revised the coolers of its sibling, the THICC II (which we also reviewed). Besides the number of fans (3 vs. 2), what sets the THICC III and the original THICC II apart is a slightly longer aluminium fin-stack heatsink on the THICC III, and more importantly, a copper secondary base-plate instead of aluminium alloy one, on the THICC III. This secondary base plate pulls heat from the eight GDDR6 memory chips. What's more, with the THICC III, XFX also removed a metal foil between the secondary base-plate and the main heatsink.

In our testing, we found this simple design change dropped memory temperatures by 8°C compared to the original THICC II. Higher air-flow from the triple-fan setup may have also contributed, although we believe the base-plate changes, specifically removal of the metal foil, contributed the most. The XFX spokesperson announced that the company is implementing the same base-plate design on the THICC II, and that revised cards are "already on the shelves." The spokesperson also announced that anyone with an older revision of the card can seek a free replacement to the newer revision by contacting XFX. We are awaiting information from them on how to tell the older revision apart from the newer one without having to disassemble the card, and will update this article.