According to the editorial blog post published on the Samsung blog by SangJoon Hwang, Executive Vice President and Head of the DRAM Product & Technology Team at Samsung Electronics, we have information that High-Bandwidth Memory 4 (HBM4) is coming in 2025. In the recent timeline of HBM development, we saw the first appearance of HBM memory in 2015 with the AMD Radeon R9 Fury X. The second-generation HBM2 appeared with NVIDIA Tesla P100 in 2016, and the third-generation HBM3 saw the light of the day with NVIDIA Hopper GH100 GPU in 2022. Currently, Samsung has developed 9.8 Gbps HBM3E memory, which will start sampling to customers soon.

However, Samsung is more ambitious with development timelines this time, and the company expects to announce HBM4 in 2025, possibly with commercial products in the same calendar year. Interestingly, the HBM4 memory will have some technology optimized for high thermal properties, such as non-conductive film (NCF) assembly and hybrid copper bonding (HCB). The NCF is a polymer layer that enhances the stability of micro bumps and TSVs in the chip, so memory solder bump dies are protected from shock. Hybrid copper bonding is an advanced semiconductor packaging method that creates direct copper-to-copper connections between semiconductor components, enabling high-density, 3D-like packaging. It offers high I/O density, enhanced bandwidth, and improved power efficiency. It uses a copper layer as a conductor and oxide insulator instead of regular micro bumps to increase the connection density needed for HBM-like structures.

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.

At its first reveal of the Radeon Vega graphics card on the sidelines of the 2017 International CES show, AMD was careful to conceal the power-connectors of its graphics card prototype (using tissue paper), even though teaser images of the card were splattered all over the web. From this week's reveal of a Radeon Vega graphics card running on an AMD Ryzen 7-1800X powered machine, the veil is off the power connector layout. Apparently, AMD's reference design Radeon Vega 10 graphics card is air-cooled, and it draws power from a combination of 8-pin and 6-pin PCIe power connectors.

NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1080 (reference) makes do with a single 8-pin connector, although most custom-design GTX 1080 cards feature 6-pin + 8-pin layouts. The GP102-powered TITAN X Pascal reference, too, draws power from 6+8 pin connectors. It's interesting to note here, that the power connectors feature a string of LEDs near their contact points on the PCB. The Radeon R9 Fury X, too has something like this, although the LEDs are used to alert users of faulty power input, or power draw. In the image below, we see that LEDs over only one connector are lit up. Could this indicate that AMD is making sure users are aware that the card isn't drawing power from both connectors all the time?

Aesthetically unparalleled. Uncompromised in performance. Most popularly known for pushing PCs past their limits and holding multiple records at the world's largest overclocking events, Ian "8Pack" Parry is no stranger when it comes to breaking the laws of what many PC enthusiasts would commonly consider to be the impossible.

Meet the 8Pack Rocket. Distinctly crafted, highly refined and equipped with nothing less than the best, 8Pack's latest beast isn't one that's happy being confined to the home. Designed for portability and travel, all-the-while packing the power; the 8Pack Rocket is an overclocked powerhouse for on-the-go performance that's perfect for LAN parties.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is the latest AAA title to support DirectX 12, with its developer Eidos deploying a DirectX 12 renderer weeks after its release, through a patch. Guru3D put the DirectX 12 version of the game through five GPU architectures, AMD "Polaris," GCN 1.1, GCN 1.2, NVIDIA "Pascal," and NVIDIA "Maxwell," through Radeon RX 480, Radeon R9 Fury X, Radeon R9 390X, GeForce GTX 1080, GeForce GTX 1060, and GeForce GTX 980. The AMD GPUs were driven by RSCE 16.9.1 drivers, and NVIDIA by GeForce 372.70.

Looking at the graphs, switching from DirectX 11 to DirectX 12 mode, AMD GPUs not only don't lose frame-rates, but in some cases, even gain frame-rates. NVIDIA GPUs, on the other hand, significantly lose frame-rates. AMD GPUs tend to hold on to their frame-rates at 4K Ultra HD, marginally gain frame-rates at 2560 x 1440, and further gain frame-rates at 1080p. NVIDIA GPUs either barely hold on to their frame-rates, or significantly lose them. AMD has on multiple occasions claimed that its Graphics CoreNext architecture, combined with its purist approach to asynchronous compute make Radeon GPUs a better choice for DirectX 12 and Vulkan. Find more fascinating findings by Guru3D here.More graphs follow.

HP Inc. today launched a new family of gaming products designed specifically for those who demand the ultimate, immersive gaming experience. HP's new high-end gaming products -- the OMEN X Desktop, OMEN 17 Laptop, OMEN X Curved Display and OMEN with SteelSeries accessories -- are engineered to deliver aggressive performance and the flexibility to customize every detail to intensify the thrill of each competition.

"The OMEN X Desktop was built for serious gamers who need fierce performance out-of-the-box in a fully customizable chassis -- something not typically available from traditional PC manufacturers," said Kevin Frost, HP vice president and general manager, Consumer Personal Systems. "HP's engineers combined a unique design that maximizes thermal management with support for industry standard components so that the true enthusiast can always be up to date with the latest hardware to maintain peak performance with a customized rig."

Over the weekend, Bethesda shipped the much awaited update to "DOOM" which can now take advantage of the Vulkan API. A performance investigation by ComputerBase.de comparing the game's Vulkan renderer to its default OpenGL renderer reveals that Vulkan benefits AMD GPUs far more than it does to NVIDIA ones. At 2560 x 1440, an AMD Radeon R9 Fury X with Vulkan is 25 percent faster than a GeForce GTX 1070 with Vulkan. The R9 Fury X is 15 percent slower than the GTX 1070 with OpenGL renderer on both GPUs. Vulkan increases the R9 Fury X frame-rates over OpenGL by a staggering 52 percent! Similar performance trends were noted with 1080p. Find the review in the link below.

AMD released an official video-card BIOS update for the Radeon R9 Fury X and Radeon R9 Nano graphics cards, which improve UEFI BIOS support. End users on our forums are also reporting improved overclocking stability. UEFI support at the video-BIOS level is required for the card to run without CSM at the system-BIOS end, in turn enabling useful OS features such as Secure Boot. Several of AMD's add-in board (AIB) partners already ship their cards with UEFI-ready BIOS. AMD is distributing the BIOS as ROM images, and it takes thorough knowledge of how to flash your graphics card's BIOS, to make use of these ROM images.DOWNLOAD: AMD Video BIOS Update for Radeon R9 Nano | Radeon R9 Fury X | From AMD Website

AMD released its latest version of the Radeon Software Crimson Edition drivers. Version 16.4.1 comes with optimization for "Quantum Break," with up to 35 percent higher performance seen a machine running the Radeon R9 Fury X, compared to the previous 16.3.2 drivers. It also provides software support for the two hottest VR headsets - Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. The drivers also address a bug seen on "Hitman" (2016), which cases the game to flicker when shadow quality is bumped up to "high," in DirectX 11 mode. Most importantly, the drivers fix a frame-rate capping issues noticed on some DirectX 12 applications.DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.4.1 for Windows 10/8.1/7 64-bit | Windows 10/8.1/7 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.

AMD issued a response to a recent report which states that liquid cooling components maker Asetek issued a cease-and-desist to the company, to stop sales of the Radeon R9 Fury X graphics card, which implements a closed-loop liquid-cooling solution made by Cooler Master. In its response, AMD argues that the jury in the Asetek vs. CMI (Cooler Master) case did not mention the cooling solution of the Radeon R9 Fury X specifically, as infringing Asetek-held patents. The statement reads:

"We are aware that Asetek has sued Cooler Master. While we defer to Cooler Master regarding the details of the litigation, we understand that the jury in that case did not find that the Cooler Master heat sink currently used with the Radeon Fury X infringed any of Asetek's patents."

While AMD is right in pointing out that the original judgement does not name the R9 Fury X, or its cooling solution as an infringing product; there's no word on whether AMD will stop sales of the card. From the looks of it, AMD has no plans to stop sales of its flagship graphics product, and appears to have convincing legal arguments up its sleeves to continue selling the card, in the near future.

AMD has reportedly been issued a "cease-and-desist" notice by liquid cooling components major Asetek over sale of its flagship Radeon R9 Fury X graphics card. A similar C&D notice was sent to GIGABYTE, to stop sales of its GeForce GTX 980 Water Force graphics card. The two cards ship with a factory-fitted, closed-loop liquid cooling solution by Cooler Master, a company with which Asetek is locked in a patent infringement lawsuit, over its pump-block and movable fittings designs.

The Radeon R9 Fury X and GIGABYTE GTX 980 Water Force feature a derivative of Cooler Master's Seidon 120M closed-loop cooler, a product red-flagged by U.S. courts over patent infringement. Asetek has already succeeded in getting Cooler Master to withdraw similar aftermarket cooling solutions from the U.S. market, such as the Seidon, Nepton, and Glacier. The courts have ordered Cooler Master to pay 14.5 percent royalties from revenues on each infringing product sold in the market, to Asetek.

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.

AMD's upcoming mini-ITX friendly graphics card, the Radeon R9 Nano, which boasts of a typical board power of just 175W, is not a heavily stripped-down R9 Fury X, as was expected. The card will feature the full complement of GCN compute units physically present on the "Fiji" silicon, and in terms of specifications, is better loaded than even the R9 Fury. Specifications sheet of the R9 Nano leaked to the web, revealing that the card will feature all 4,096 stream processors physically present on the chip, along with 256 TMUs, and 64 ROPs. It will feature 4 GB of memory across the chip's 4096-bit HBM interface.

In terms of clock speeds, the R9 Nano isn't too far behind the R9 Fury X on paper - its core is clocked up to 1000 MHz, with its memory ticking at 500 MHz (512 GB/s). So how does it get down to 175W typical board power, from the 275W of the R9 Fury X? It's theorized that AMD could be using an aggressive power/temperature based clock-speed throttle. The resulting performance is 5-10% higher than the Radeon R9 290X, while never breaching a power target. Korean tech blog DGLee posted pictures of an R9 Nano taken apart. Its PCB is smaller than even that of the R9 Fury X, and makes do with a slimmer 4+2 phase VRM, than the 6+2 phase VRM found on the R9 Fury X.

AMD is expected to launch its super-compact performance-segment graphics card, the Radeon R9 Nano this Thursday, 27th August, 2015. Reviews and market availability could follow a week later. It will be marketed as a halo product, and hence will likely only be available in its reference design. AMD claims that the card will be faster than the Radeon R9 290X, while offering 90% higher performance-per-Watt than it. More importantly, that it will offer 50% higher performance-per-Watt than the Radeon R9 Fury X. "Elmy" from OCN snapped these pics of an R9 Nano installed on a compact gaming desktop, and boy is it tiny!

AMD's ultra-compact graphics card based on its "Fiji" silicon, the Radeon R9 Nano (or R9 Fury-Nano), is nearing its late-August/early-September launch. At its most recent "Hot Chips" presentation, AMD put out more interesting numbers related to the card. To begin with, it lives up to the promise of being faster than the R9 290X, at nearly half its power draw. The R9 Nano has 90% higher performance/Watt over the R9 290X. More importantly, it has about 50% higher performance/Watt over the company's current flagship single-GPU product, the Radeon R9 Fury X. With these performance figures, the R9 Nano will be targeted at compact gaming-PC builds that are capable of 1440p gaming.

AMD published a paper with the IEEE for a new high-density computing device concept, which it calls the Exascale Heterogenous Processor or (EHP). It may be a similar acronym to APU (accelerated processing unit), but is both similar and different to it in many ways, which make it suitable for high-density supercomputing nodes. The EHP is a chip that has quite a bit in common with the recently launched "Fiji" GPU, that drives the company's flagship Radeon R9 Fury X graphics card.

The EHP is a combination of a main die, housing a large number of CPU cores, a large GPGPU unit, and an interposer, which connects the main die to 32 GB of HBM2 memory that's on-package, and is used as both main-memory and memory for the integrated GPGPU unit, without memory partitioning, using hUMA (heterogeneous unified memory access). The CPU component consists of 32 cores likely based on the "Zen" micro-architecture, using eight "Zen" quad-core subunits. There's no word on the CU (compute unit) count of the GPGPU core. The EHP in itself will be highly scalable. AMD hopes to get a working sample of this chip out by 2016-17.

PowerColor and TechPowerUp GPU-Z Radeon R9 Fury X Contest drew to a close last weekend, and two winners have been picked. These two get a scorching fast PowerColor Radeon R9 Fury X graphics card, each. Without further ado, the winners:

• Diego from Italy
• Eric from Canada

A huge Congrats to you two! TechPowerUp will return with more such exciting contests and giveaways.

Did you know, TechPowerUp and PowerColor are giving away PowerColor Radeon R9 Fury X graphics cards to two lucky winners of our GPU-Z 0.8.4 PowerColor Fury X Contest? It's not too late to try your luck, if you haven't already! Simply download the latest version of TechPowerUp GPU-Z, and fill up a short questionnaire. Two lucky winners stand a chance to win a PowerColor Radeon R9 Fury X graphics card, each! The contest closes on 25th July 2015, so hurry!

United Microelectronics Corporation, a leading global semiconductor foundry, today announced that it has entered volume production for the Through-Silicon-Via (TSV) technology used on the AMD Radeon R9 Fury X, the flagship GPU in the recently announced Radeon R 300 Series of graphics cards. The AMD Radeon R9 Fury X GPU utilizes UMC's TSV process technology and die-stacking to fuse HBM DRAM with AMD's GPU on a silicon interposer, enabling the GPU to deliver unmatched memory bandwidth of 4096-bit and quadruple the performance-per-watt over the current GDDR5 industry standard.

"AMD has a successful history of delivering cutting-edge GPU products to market," said S.C. Chien, vice president of Corporate Marketing and co-chair of the TSV committee at UMC. "This volume production milestone is the culmination of UMC's close TSV collaboration with AMD, and we are happy to bring the performance benefits of this technology to help power their new generation of GPU products. We look forward to continuing this fruitful partnership with AMD for years to come."

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).

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.

AMD seems to have reacted swiftly to feedback from reviewers and owners of initial batches if its Radeon R9 Fury X, over a noisy pump-block; and revised its design. The revised pump-block lacks the "high pitched whine" that users were reporting, according to owners. At this point there are no solid visual cues on how to identify a card with the new block, however a user with the revised card (or at least one that lacks the whine), pointed out a 2-color chrome Cooler Master (OEM) badge on the pump-block, compared to the multi-color sticker on pump-blocks from the initial batches. You can open up the front-plate covering the card without breaking any warranties.

It will be a while before you see custom-design variants of the Radeon R9 Fury X, which is a halo product to AMD, much like the GTX TITAN series for NVIDIA. In the mean time, you can customize its front-plate (the rubbery-textured front cover of the cooler shroud). AMD put out 3D models of the front-plate along with a few simple instructions on how to remove and replace it. With basic 3D printing know-how, and equipment, you can 3D-print your own front-plate design. Find the 3D model files and instructions here.