AMD is in constant progress with its Radeon graphics card lineup and the company is always working on new models that will better suit the market. Today, we have interesting discovery. On Weibo, a Chinese microblogging website, a user has posted pictures of what appears to be an engineering sample of AMD's Radeon RX 6900 XTX graphics card variant. Having an all-in-one (AIO) water-cooled design with a 120 mm radiator, the card resembles a power-hungry design as we have seen with Radeon R9 Fury X and RX Vega 64 Liquid Edition, which were both graphics cards equipped with AIO water cooling. This engineering sample is no different.

Under the waterblock, there is a Navi 21 XTXH GPU SKU hidden. As we found out, this is a new Navi 21 XTX SKU that just features better binning compared to Navi 21 XTX, and thus it offers better overclocking potential. It is already present in three new models from various AIBs, like the PowerColor RX 6900 XT Liquid Devil Ultimate, ASRock RX 6900 XT OC Formula, and Sapphire RX 6900 XT Toxic Extreme graphics cards. It seems like AMD has prepared itself to launch this specific SKU in a reference design form, however, so far only AIBs have used the Navi 21 XTXH SKU. It is not yet clear if the Radeon RX 6900 XTX is ever going to hit the retail market, or it shall remain as it is - just an engineering sample.

A Linux patch for AMD's GPU drivers reveals that its upcoming "Vega 10" graphics processor bears numeric core-configuration similarities to the "Fiji" silicon which drives the enthusiast-segment Radeon R9 Fury series graphics cards. The patch bears configuration values which tell the software how to utilize the resources on the GPU, by spelling them out. The entry "gfx.config.max_shader_engines = 4," for example, indicates that "Vega 10" features four shader engines, like "Fiji." Another entry "Adev-> gfx.config.max_cu_per_sh = 16" signifies the number of GCN compute units (CUs) per shader engine. Assuming the number of stream processors per CU hasn't changed from 64 in the "Vega" architecture, we're looking at a total stream processor count of 4,096. This could also put the TMU count at 256.

At earlier reveals of the "Vega 10" package, you notice a large, somewhat square GPU die neighboring two smaller rectangular memory stack dies, which together sit on a shiny structure, which is the silicon interposer. The presence of just two memory stack dies sparked speculation that "Vega 10" features a narrower 2048-bit memory interface compared to the 4096-bit of "Fiji," but since the memory itself is newer-generation HBM2, which ticks at higher clocks, AMD could run them at double the memory clock as "Fiji" to arrive at the same 512 GB/s bandwidth. The 4,096 stream processors of "Vega 10" are two generations ahead of the ones on "Fiji," which together with 14 nm process-level improvements, could run at much higher GPU clocks, making AMD get back into the high-end graphics segment.

SK Hynix, the principal supplier of high bandwidth memory (HBM) stacks to AMD since its pioneering Radeon R9 Fury series, released an updated HBM2 specifications document that pins availability of 4 gigabyte (32 Gbit) HBM2 stacks to the first quarter of 2017. This paves the way for mass-production and market availability of AMD's upcoming Radeon "Vega" graphics chip, which feature two such 4 GB HBM2 stacks, making up 8 GB of total memory.

SK Hynix H5VR32ESM4H-H1K memory stack, which will be integrated by AMD onto its Vega10 multi-chip module (MCM), ticks at 1.60 Gbps (per pin), with a cumulative bandwidth of 204.8 GB/s per stack. With two such stacks, Vega10 could feature 409.6 GB/s of memory bandwidth, assuming AMD uses the reference clock speeds for these stacks.

TechPowerUp today released its latest version of TechPowerUp GPU-Z, the lightweight graphics sub-system information and diagnostic utility that no enthusiast can leave home without. Version 1.16.0 comes with an improved GPU Lookup mechanism, which can catch cards that use the same GPU and PCB, but different clocks, like some Sapphire RX 470 and RX 480 cards. Also, it can now properly tell DDR3 from DDR4 memory type on machines with Intel "Skylake" integrated graphics. Memory clock reading on AMD Radeon R9 Fury, R9 Fury X, R9 Nano, and Pro Duo, running Radeon Crimson ReLive drivers, is fixed.DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z 1.16.0 | GPU-Z 1.16.0 ASUS ROG Themed

The change-log follows.

AMD today released Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.11.4, the latest version of its comprehensive Radeon GPU software suite. Version 16.11.4 comes with optimization for "Sid Meier's Civilization VI," the season's smash-hit turn-based strategy title. The drivers also address a minor visual corruption noticed on "Titanfall 2" rendered by Radeon R9 Fury series GPUs, when inside a titan. The drivers fix a bug with playback issues noticed on H.264 video-playback in web-browsers, when the GPU is also rendering games or other content in the background. Grab the drivers from the links below.DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.11.4 for Windows 10 64-bit | Windows 10 32-bit | Windows 8.1 64-bit | Windows 8.1 32-bit | Windows 7 64-bit | Windows 7 32-bit

AMD made a bold move in launching its first "Polaris" architecture based performance-segment GPU, the Radeon RX 480 at a starting price of US $199. The company claims that it will perform on-par with $500 graphics cards from the previous generation, directly hinting at performance being on par with the Radeon R9 Fury and R9 Nano. Although it's not in the league of the GTX 1070 or the GTX 1080, this level of performance at $199 could certainly disrupt things for NVIDIA, as it presents an attractive option for people still gaming on 1440p and 1080p resolutions (the overwhelming majority). The R9 Fury can handle any game at 1440p.

The Radeon RX 480 is based on the 14 nm "Ellesmere" silicon, fabbed by GlobalFoundries. It's publicly known that GloFlo has a 14 nm fab in Malta (upstate New York), USA. The RX 480 is based on AMD's 4th generation Graphics CoreNext architecture, codenamed "Polaris." It features 2,304 stream processors, spread across 36 compute units (CUs). Its single-precision floating point performance is rated by AMD to be "greater than 5 TFLOP/s." The chip features a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, with memory clocked at 8 Gbps, yielding memory bandwidth of 256 GB/s. There will be two variants of this card, 4 GB and 8 GB. It's the 4 GB variant that starts at $199, the 8 GB variant is expected to be priced at $229. AMD confirmed that the GPU will support DisplayPort 1.4 although it's certified up to DisplayPort 1.3. The typical board power is rated at 150W. The card could be available from 29th June.

PowerColor showed off its external graphics enclosure for AMD Radeon graphics cards that take advantage of AMD XConnect technology, the DevilBox. This is more than a graphics enclosure. It plugs into the host machine over a 40 Gbps Thunderbolt 3 connection, and puts out not just a PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slot for a wide range of graphics cards, but also provides a SATA 6 Gb/s port for a 2.5-inch internal drive bay, two USB 3.1 ports (one each of type-A and type-C), four USB 3.0, and a wired gigabit Ethernet connection. Powering it all is an internal 500W power supply. You can drop in any high-end, air-cooled graphics card, including the Radeon R9 Fury, and the GeForce GTX TITAN X. Topping it all off is RGB internal lighting. Why not.

AMD posted its second Radeon Software Crimson Edition release for this month, version 16.5.2 Beta. The drivers add optimization for "DOOM" (2016), the season's hottest shooter and a revival of the epic FPS franchise. The drivers also add CrossFire profiles for "Battleborn," letting it take advantage of multiple GPUs, and dual-GPU graphics cards, such as the Radeon Pro Duo. The drivers also fix texture corruption issues in "Star Wars: Battlefront," and "League of Legends" in CrossFire mode. Grab the drivers from the links below.DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.5.2 for Windows 10/8.1/7 64-bit | Windows 10/8.1/7 32-bit

AMD made its second release of Radeon Software Crimson Edition for March 2016, with version 16.3.2. The new drivers come with official support for the two popular VR headsets, Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. It also adds support for the recently announced Radeon Pro Duo dual-GPU graphics card. The drivers improve CrossFire performance for "Hitman (2016)" in DirectX 11 mode, and "Everybody's Gone to the Rapture." It also fixes critical bugs related to the Radeon R9 Fury, which saw display corruption on system idle mode; and XCOM 2 stuttering.DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.3.2 for Windows 10 64-bit | Windows 10 32-bit | Windows 8.1 64-bit | Windows 8.1 32-bit | Windows 7 64-bit | Windows 7 32-bit

AMD released the latest version of Radeon Software Crimson Edition, its software suite which provides drivers and system software for Radeon GPUs and IGPs. Version 16.3 improves performance for "Rise of the Tomb Raider" on Radeon R9 Fury X series GPUs by up to 16 percent (compared to version 16.2), and for "Gears of War Ultimate Edition," by as high as 60 percent on the R9 Fury X series (compared to version 16.2.1), and by up to 44 percent on Radeon R9 380 series (compared to version 16.2.1).

Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.3 also adds official support for the Vulkan API; 2-display Eyefinity, an accessible CrossFire status indicator, a new power-efficiency toggle for Radeon R9 300 series and R9 Fury series GPUs. With version 16.3, AMD is introducing the XConnect Technology, a new standard for external graphics enclosures over not just high-bandwidth interfaces such as Thunderbolt 3, but also the more accessible USB 3.1 interface. AMD is providing the software ecosystem that lets you plug-and-play external GPUs for instant boosts in performance and functionality. AMD is also adding/updating CrossFire profiles for "Hitman (2016)", and "The Park."

DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.3 for Windows 10/8.1/7 64-bit | Windows 10/8.1/7 32-bit

AMD gave its premium small-factor gaming graphics card, the Radeon R9 Nano, its first major price cut. The card now starts at US $499, down from its launch price of $649. At $499, the R9 Nano is priced on par with its similar-performing albeit bigger and noisier sibling based on the "Fiji" silicon, the Radeon R9 Fury. The company's flagship single-GPU card, the R9 Fury X, remains at $599, its price was gradually reduced from its launch price of $649.

The three SKUs appear to be positioned to compete with NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 980, and offer cost-effective alternatives to the $629 GTX 980 Ti. Elsewhere in the lineup, the Radeon R9 390X starts at $379, and has its guns trained on the GTX 980 and GTX 970. Its smaller sibling, the Radeon R9 390 starts at $299.

Sapphire launched its second premium Radeon R9 Fury graphics card, the R9 Fury Nitro. The card replaces the R9 Fury Tri-X as the company's best R9 Fury offering. While the R9 Fury Tri-X features a long cooling solution that's of standard height, the Nitro features a cooling solution that's of greater height (12.5 cm).

The cooler features a dense, split aluminium fin-stack heatsink, and three spinners. Under the hood is a custom-design PCB by sapphire, which is slightly longer and taller than AMD's reference "Fiji" PCB, but doesn't cover the entire length of the card. This PCB is said to be 8-layer, compared to the 6-layer PCB on the reference-design "Fiji" board. On offer, is a factory overclock of 1050 MHz core, and an untouched 500 MHz (512 GB/s) HBM memory. Another characteristic feature is its display I/O, which includes a DVI connector, in addition to three DisplayPorts 1.2a and an HDMI.

This week on TechPowerUp News: Intel's next-generation "Kaby Lake" and previous-generation "Broadwell-E" being slated for 2016; AMD Radeon "Star Wars: Battlefront" bundle with Radeon R9 Fury; and Rocksteady's guarded "no" for multi-GPU support on "Batman Arkham Knight" PC.

AMD has a knack of pulling off some of the season's biggest game bundles, with its Never Settle Bundle legacy. The company is preparing to give away one of the season's biggest games, Star Wars Battlefront, with its Radeon R9 Fury graphics cards. Given away by participating retailers, purchases of the three cards will come with a voucher that can be redeemed on AMD website for an Origin key to the game. R9 Fury X and Nano are not included in this promotion.

One of biggest features of DirectX 12 is its asymmetric multi-GPU that lets you mix and match GPUs from across brands, as long as they support a consistent feature-level (Direct3D 12_0, in case of "Ashes of the Singularity"). It's not enough that you have two DirectX 12 GPUs, you need DirectX 12 applications to make use of your contraption. Don't expect your older DirectX 11 games to run faster with a DirectX 12 mixed multi-GPU. Anandtech put Microsoft's claims to the test by building a multi-GPU setup using a Radeon R9 Fury X, and a GeForce GTX 980 Ti. Some interesting conclusions were drawn.

To begin with, yes, alternate-frame rendering, the most common multi-GPU method, works. There were genuine >50% performance uplifts, but nowhere of the kind you could expect from proprietary multi-GPU configurations such as SLI or CrossFire. Second, what card you use as the primary card, impacts performance. Anandtech found a configuration in which the R9 Fury X was primary (i.e. the display plugged to it), and the GTX 980 Ti secondary, to be slightly faster than a configuration in which the GTX 980 Ti was the primary card. Mixing and matching different GPUs from the same vendor (eg: a GTX 980 Ti and a GTX TITAN X) also works. The best part? Anandtech found no stability issues in mix-matching an R9 Fury X and a GTX 980 Ti. It also remains to be seen how long this industry-standard utopia lasts, and whether GPU vendors find it at odds with their commercial interests. Multi-GPU optimization is something both AMD and NVIDIA spend a lot of resources on. It remains to be seen how much of those resources they'll be willing to put on a standardized multi-GPU tech, and away from their own SLI/CrossFire fiefdoms. Read the insightful article from the source link below.

GIGABYTE finally got around to launching a Radeon R9 Fury graphics card (model: GV-R9FURYWF3OC-4GD). The company's air-cooled R9 Fury is cooled by a triple-fan WindForce 3X cooling solution, similar to the one featured on the company's GeForce GTX 980 Ti offerings. The card appears to be based on a full-length custom-design PCB by GIGABYTE, and doesn't reuse AMD's short reference-design board. This board has standard height, and the cooler features a thicker heatsink, making it a triple-slot solution. A back-plate is included.

GIGABYTE's Radeon R9 Fury WindForce comes with a slight factory-overclock of 1010 MHz core (compared to 1000 MHz reference), while the memory clock stays unchanged, at 500 MHz. The card draws power from a pair of 8-pin PCIe power connectors. Display outputs include one each of dual-link DVI, HDMI 1.4a, and three DisplayPort 1.2a connectors. There's no word on the pricing or availability, but expect GIGABYTE to charge a tiny premium over the SKU's recommended price of $550.

In addition to the first liquid-cooled Radeon R9 Fury, XFX is ready with an air-cooled card designed to sell at the price AMD intended for this SKU. XFX' air-cooled Radeon R9 Fury graphics card features a triple-slot, triple-fan cooling solution that's very similar (probably identical) in design to the Tri-X cooler used by Sapphire. Underneath it, is an AMD reference-design "Fiji" PCB, seating the 3,584 SP R9 Fury ASIC. The card could offer 0 dBA (silent) idle, and stick to AMD reference clock speeds of 1000 MHz core, and 500 MHz memory. It could sell at AMD's baseline price for the R9 Fury, at $550.

Wish you had a Radeon R9 Fury with the liquid cooling solution of its more expensive sibling, the R9 Fury X? XFX has you covered, with the first liquid-cooled R9 Fury. This card is essentially an R9 Fury X reference board with the 3,584 stream processor-packing R9 Fury ASIC, and a few cosmetic changes on its panels by XFX. The card could come with a factory-overclock that matches the 1050 MHz core of the R9 Fury X, and owing to its AIO liquid cooling solution, could be priced somewhere between the $550 R9 Fury and the $650 R9 Fury X.

We are bang in the middle of an inflection point where the latest generation of CPUs, GPUs, motherboards, memory, displays, and software (Windows 10) just launched. To help our readers wanting to save big on their first gaming PC builds [and because the news is slow these days], TechPowerUp brings to you its Builder's Digest series of guides, on which components we would choose, to build a gaming or media PC from the ground up, at a given price-point.

In this episode, we're trying to build the best gaming PC possible, under $1,700. Our definition of "best" includes not just performance, but also energy-efficiency and noise. $1,700 is a great budget to get building your first serious gaming PC from scratch. Your only semblance of a PC right now is probably a notebook you take to school, and so you need to buy everything that makes up a desktop. Here's how TechPowerUp will spend that money.

TUL Corporation, a leading and innovative manufacturer of AMD graphic cards since 1997, has proudly announced a new graphics card that has the capability of the highest gaming power in the most advanced GPU ever created for PC gaming. The PowerColor R9 Fury 4GB HBM is the world's first graphics card with AMD-pioneered High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) integrated on-chip delivering 60% more memory bandwidth over GDDR5 powering performance and bleeding-edge technology.

HBM is a new type of memory chip with low power consumption, ultra-wide communication lanes, and a revolutionary new stacked configuration. HBM's vertical stacking and fast information transfer open the door for truly exciting performance in innovative form factors, not to mention that GPU applications are just the start - look for HBM's superior power efficiency and space savings to spark industry-wide innovation. PowerColor R9 Fury 4GB HBM easily handles the most graphically intense games today due to its advanced and innovative GPU to ever create for the beloved PC gaming community. This power comes from AMD-pioneered High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) integrated on-chip that delivers more than 3 times the bandwidth per watt over GDDR5 along with a 4096-bit memory interface for incredible new advances in power and efficiency which makes the most innovative total solution GPU available today.

Aqua Computer unveiled its full-coverage water block for the Radeon R9 Fury X graphics card. The block should also be compatible with the Sapphire R9 Fury Tri-X, which uses the AMD reference PCB. The block features exposed copper as its primary material, with an acrylic top. Its coolant channel directly flows over not just the GPU, but also the VRM area. The block itself is single-slot capable. It has threads for common G 1/4 fittings, and is capable of multi-GPU fittings. Available now, the block is priced at 99.99€ (including 19% VAT).

AMD announced the second graphics card based on its swanky new "Fiji" silicon, the Radeon R9 Fury. Positioned between the R9 390X and the R9 Fury X, this card offers higher pixel-crunching muscle than the R9 390X, while giving you cutting-edge 4 GB HBM memory. It can play any game at 2560 x 1440, and at Ultra HD (3840 x 2160), with reasonable eye-candy. The R9 Fury is designed solely for AMD's AIB partners to come up with their own air-cooled products.

AMD carved the R9 Fury out of the Fiji silicon, by enabling 56 of the 64 GCN compute units physically present, yielding 3,584 stream processors. Other specifications include 224 TMUs, 64 ROPs, and 4 GB of memory across a 4096-bit wide HBM interface. The core is clocked at 1000 MHz, and the memory at 500 MHz (512 GB/s). Custom-design boards will offer factory-overclocked speeds. AMD is pricing the R9 Fury at US $549.

Here are some of the first pictures of ASUS Radeon R9 Fury STRIX, detailed in no less than AMD's own [leaked] press-deck for the R9 Fury. It appears that only two AIB partners are going to launch the R9 Fury for whatever reason. These are the Sapphire, with its R9 Fury Tri-X card, and ASUS, with its R9 Fury STRIX. ASUS' card features the same new-generation triple-fan DirectCU III cooling solution that made its debut with the GTX 980 Ti STRIX, and is featured on the R9 390X STRIX. This cooler is mated to what appears to be the first custom-design PCB for AMD's "Fiji" silicon (Sapphire's card uses the reference AMD PCB carried over from the R9 Fury X). This card is firmly in the 30 cm-ish territory. Its display output configuration includes a DVI connector, apart from three DisplayPorts, and an HDMI connector. The cooler offers 0 dBA idle. AMD claims that the R9 Fury will offer higher performance than the GeForce GTX 980, and is hence expected to be priced in that range.

EK Water Blocks, Ljubljana based premium computer liquid cooling gear manufacturer, is excited to launch the true single-slot liquid cooling solution for AMD Radeon reference design R9 FURY X graphics card. EK-FC R9 Fury X directly cools the GPU, HBM as well as VRM (voltage regulation module) as water flows directly over these critical areas, thus allowing the graphics card and it's VRM to remain stable under high overclocks.

EK-FC R9 Fury X water block features EK unique central inlet split-flow cooling engine design for best possible cooling performance. Such system also works flawlessly with the reversed water flow without adversely affecting the cooling performance. Moreover, such design offers great hydraulic performance, allowing this product to be used in liquid cooling systems using weaker water pumps. Unlike the original AIO cooling solution that comes with AMD Radeon R9 FURY X and takes up two slots, EK-FC R9 Fury X water block will transform the FURY X into a single-slot graphics card.

Here are some of the first pictures of Sapphire's custom-design Radeon R9 Fury graphics card. The card features a triple-slot (or 2.2-slot) Tri-X cooling solution. Its PCB appears to be AMD reference-design (identical in design to the R9 Fury X), but cooled by a long triple-fan dual-stack heatsink, with over one-third of it being overhung. Quite a few GTX 970, GTX 670, and GTX 760 cards are known to have similar overhangs of coolers that are longer than the PCB.

The pics also come with leaked specs-sheets, which confirm its core configuration of 56 out of 64 compute units being enabled, yielding 3,584 stream processors; while leaving the 4 GB 4096-bit HBM memory untouched. The core clock speed is lower, at 1000 MHz, while the memory clock is left untouched at 500 MHz, compared to the R9 Fury X. Sapphire is also selling a factory-overclocked card with 1040 MHz core. The Radeon R9 Fury is expected to launch in mid-July (next week).