AMD has published an exciting development for its Radeon Open Compute Ecosystem (ROCm) users today. Now, ROCm is coming to the Windows operating system, and the company has extended ROCm support for consumer graphics cards instead of only supporting professional-grade GPUs. This development milestone is essential for making AMD's GPU family more competent with NVIDIA and its CUDA-accelerated GPUs. For those unaware, AMD ROCm is a software stack designed for GPU programming. Similarly to NVIDIA's CUDA, ROCm is designed for AMD GPUs and was historically limited to Linux-based OSes and GFX9, CDNA, and professional-grade RDNA GPUs.

However, according to documents obtained by Tom's Hardware (which are behind a login wall), AMD has brought support for ROCm to Radeon RX 6900 XT, Radeon RX 6600, and R9 Fury GPU. What is interesting is not the inclusion of RX 6900 XT and RX 6600 but the support for R9 Fury, an eight-year-old graphics card. Also, what is interesting is that out of these three GPUs, only R9 Fury has full ROCm support, the RX 6900 XT has HIP SDK support, and RX 6600 has only HIP runtime support. And to make matters even more complicated, the consumer-grade R9 Fury GPU has full ROCm support only on Linux and not Windows. The reason for this strange selection of support has yet to be discovered. However, it is a step in the right direction, as AMD has yet to enable more functionality on Windows and more consumer GPUs to compete with NVIDIA.

In the run up to the November 3 reveal of the next-generation RDNA3 architecture, and with the 43% faster RTX 4090 mauling away its appeal to the enthusiast crowd, the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT got another round of price-cuts, and can be had for as low as $669. Prices are down on both sides of the big pond, with European retailers listing it for as low as 699€. Although not technically AMD's flagship graphics card, with the RX 6950 XT (starts at $869); the RX 6900 XT is a formidable 4K gaming graphics card with a high performance-per-Dollar at its new price (roughly 35% higher than the RTX 4090). AMD's latest round of official price-cuts happened around mid-September as the company was bracing for the RTX 4090 "Ada."

In a sign that NVIDIA board partners are getting desperate to clear inventory of their high-end GeForce RTX 30-series "Ampere" graphics cards to make way for the next-generation, EVGA momentarily offered its premium custom-design GeForce RTX 3090 Ti FTW3 graphics card at nearly half its original price. The company listed the RTX 3090 Ti FTW3 at $1,149, a $1,000 "instant discount" from its $2,149 original list price, which is nearly $1,500 down from the card's street price before the crypto-mining crash of Q2-2022.

This could have been a one-off discount, as the other RTX 3090 Ti cards from the company's lineup are priced slightly higher, with the faster FTW3 Ultra priced at $1,199; and the FTW3 Black at $1,399. Prices of high-end graphics cards have been in free-fall for the past couple of months, with the Radeon RX 6900 XT frequently spotted under $1,000; and the RX 6950 XT oscillating around the $1,000-mark. The likes of the RTX 3080 Ti can also be had around this price; while the RTX 3080 is now firmly under $1,000, sometimes spotted near its launch price of $699.

AMD's current-gen flagship graphics card, the Radeon RX 6900 XT, can be had for as low as $949, with US retailer Newegg listing a GIGABYTE RX 6900 XT Gaming OC graphics card at that price. This can be further lowered to $899 by availing Newegg's mail-in rebate. The GIGABYTE RX 6900 XT Gaming OC is the company's value-ended custom-design RX 6900 XT product positioned a notch below the company's AORUS Master card, but is still factory-overclocked, with its cooler posting lower temperatures than the reference-design. Catch our review of this card.

A drop in the pricing of the RX 6900 XT means that AMD's new RX 6950 XT could be right around the corner, with some sources claiming the card to match up to the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti, NVIDIA's fastest graphics card from this generation. The RX 6900 XT is still a mighty fast graphics card, trading blows with the RTX 3080 Ti.Update May 5th: The price is up slightly to $999 ($949 with MIR), our assessment still holds.

Chinese graphics card company Vastarmor has recently launched two new custom Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics cards with the Radeon RX 6900 XT Super Alloy and Radeon RX 6900 XT Alloy. The release of these high-end cards comes after the company expanded its existing lineup with RX 6700 XT, RX 6500 XT, and RX 6400 offerings in recent weeks. These new RX 6900 XT cards appear to share an identical PCB and clock speeds at 1950 MHz base, 2135 MHz game, and 2365 MHz boost. The cards both feature a triple-fan and triple-slot design with the Super Alloy advertised as having a "breathing light effect" and water cooling retrofit support. The two cards are now available to purchase in China with the Super Alloy listed at 9999 RMB (1525 USD) and the Alloy listed at 7999 RMB (1220 USD).

Encoding video is one of the significant tasks that modern hardware performs. Today, we have some data of AMD and NVIDIA solutions for the problem that shows how good GPU hardware encoders are. Thanks to Chips and Cheese tech media, we have information about AMD's Video Core Next (VCN) encoder found in RDNA2 GPUs and NVIDIA's NVENC (short for NVIDIA Encoder). The site managed to benchmark AMD's Radeon RX 6900 XT and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 GPUs. The AMD card features VCN 3.0, while the NVIDIA Turing card features a 6th generation NVENC design. Team red is represented by the latest work, while there exists a 7th generation of NVENC. C&C tested this because it means all that the reviewer possesses.

The metric used for video encoding was Netflix's Video Multimethod Assessment Fusion (VMAF) metric composed by the media giant. In addition to hardware acceleration, the site also tested software acceleration done by libx264, a software library used for encoding video streams into the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC compression format. The libx264 software acceleration was running on AMD Ryzen 9 3950X. Benchmark runs included streaming, recording, and transcoding in Overwatch and Elder Scrolls Online.Below, you can find benchmarks of streaming, recording, transcoding, and transcoding speed.

EK, has partnered up with XFX to bring you a factory water-cooled Radeon RX 6900 XT GPU. The XFX Speedster ZERO Radeon RX 6900XT RGB EKWB is one of the fastest AMD Radeon-based graphics cards on the market. This new Speedster series GPU is equipped with a 14-phase VRM power delivery system, consisting of DrMOS and high polymer capacitors. To make sure these lightning-fast graphics processors manage to hit their maximum clocks, a unique EK water block is pre-installed which also brings a prolonged lifespan due to the superior thermals that the liquid cooling provides. This also makes sure that no precious gaming time is spent on the water block mounting, and there are no questions regarding the warranty.

A powerful 14+2 Phase Power Design allows more stable performance by better distributing power across more power phases in the VRM which results in more overclocking and boosting headroom. Couple that with the incredibly cool components due to the full cover EK water block and you get a recipe for high performance, stability, and a long lifespan.

3DMark Fire Strike Hall of Fame is where overclockers submit their best hardware benchmark trials and try to beat the very best. For years, one record managed to hold, and today it just got defeated. According to an extreme overclocker called "biso biso" from South Korea and a part of the EVGA OC team, the top spot now belongs to the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics card. The previous 3DMark Fire Strike world record was set on April 22nd in 2020, when Vince Lucido, also known as K|NGP|N, set a record with four-way SLI of NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti GPUs. However, that record is old news since January 27th, when biso biso set the history with AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT GPU.

The overclocker scored 62389 points, just 1,183 more from the previous record. He pushed the Navi 21 XTX silicon that powers the Radeon RX 6900 XT card to an impressive 3,147 MHz. Paired with a GPU memory clock of 2370 MHz, the GPU was probably LN2 cooled to achieve these results. The overclocker used EVGA's Z690 DARK KINGPIN motherboard with Intel Core i9-12900K processor as a platform of choice to achieve this record. You can check it out on the 3DMark Fire Strike Hall of Fame website to see yourself.

AMD first announced the Radeon RX 6900 XT LC featuring a pre-binned Navi 21 XTXH GPU in June with the product only available to select system integrators and OEMs. These reference design cards were not expected to be available in the DIY market but listings for the cards appeared on some Indian retailers after the announcement. The card appears to be receiving a limited release with PowerColor's model (16GBD6-MW2DHC) now available to purchase from German retailer Mindfactory for 1749 EUR. The AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT LC features an increased boost clock speed of 2435 MHz from the 2250 MHz on the RX 6900 XT along with a memory speed boost from 16 Gbps to 18 Gbps.

AMD will be making a limited number of Radeon RX 6900 XT liquid cooled reference design graphics cards available to select system integrators. System integrators are a critical part of the gaming ecosystem and offering this this model through their channels helps ensure that as many of these products as possible get into gamers hands.

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

Alphacool today presents the Eiswolf 2 "All-in-One" solution for Geforce RTX 3080/3090 Gigabyte Aorus Master/Xtreme and Radeon RX 6800XT/6900XT Sapphire Nitro+graphics cards. The Eiswolf 2 uses the Alphacool 360 mm NexXxoS ST30 full copper radiator. For the fans, we use the 120 mm Alphacool Aurora Rise. This impressive fan with a max. static pressure of 3.17 mm/H2O, offers a max. air flow of 119.8m³/h. The speed range of the fan, from 0-2500rpm, is adjustable via PWM. The AIO is completed by the Eisblock Aurora water cooler. This not only cools the GPU chip, but actively cools all relevant components such as the memory and VRAM. It also has brilliant aRGB lighting.

All components used (radiator, fan, cooler, DC-LT 2 pump) including fittings and tubing are part of the Alphacool DIY range and are therefore available separately. The combination of all components results in a solution that is as easy to install as an AIO, but offers the performance of a pre-assembled and pre-filled custom loop. Only the pump housing for the DC-LT 2 pump is a custom-made item that is only part of the scope of delivery of the AIO solution and is therefore not available separately.

Sonnet Technologies today announced the availability of product bundles including the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics card — the flagship model in AMD's Radeon RX 6000 series of GPU cards — and select models from Sonnet's DuoModo and eGPU Breakaway Box lines of Thunderbolt expansion systems for the desktop and for rack installation. Offering flexible configuration and straightforward setup while saving space, Sonnet's DuoModo line of professional, modular expansion systems makes it easy to connect a GPU card to the Intel -based Apple Mac mini computer, as well as to Mac and Windows laptops and other computers without expansion card slots, using a single Thunderbolt cable. Sonnet's eGPU Breakaway Box 750 and 750ex are self-contained Thunderbolt to eGPU card systems.

XFX formally launched the Radeon RX 6900 XT Speedster ZERO WB, a graphics card it teased last month. The company's new flagship product, the Speedster ZERO WB is a graphics card with a factory-fitted full-coverage water-block, for those with DIY liquid-cooling setups. It appears to be based on an all new PCB with a more tuned-up 14+2 phase VRM setup than that of the air-cooled RX 6900 XT Speedster MERC 319, which pulls power from a trio of 8-pin PCIe power connectors.

Under the hood is a 7 nm "Navi 21" XTXH silicon, which is able to sustain 10% higher engine clocks than the standard "Navi 21," and XFX claims that it has unlocked overdrive slider limit (the de facto maximum overclock), beyond 3 GHz. Out of the box, the card comes with a maximum boost frequency of 2525 MHz, compared to 2250 MHz AMD-reference. The water block came about from a collaboration with EK Water Blocks, and combines a nickel-plated copper primary material with a slightly frosted acrylic top that's studded with addressable RGB LEDs. XFX didn't reveal pricing.

XFX put out a teaser picture of its upcoming Radeon RX 6900 XT Speedster Zero WB graphics card. Targeted at those with DIY liquid-cooling setups, the card comes with a factory-fitted full-coverage water-block. Sourced from EK Water Blocks, the solution appears to combine nickel-plated copper with an acrylic top that's studded with RGB lighting elements. This is combined with a metal backplate. The card appears to debut a new PCB not found on the air-cooled Speedster Merc 319 series cards. This board comes with three 8-pin PCIe power inputs, and likely a more robust power delivery setup. In all likelihood, the card features the "XTXH" variant of the Navi 21 silicon, designed to sustain 10% higher engine clocks than regular RX 6900 XT cards.

AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT Liquid Cooled (LC) edition is not officially available for the DIY market, as the card is exclusive to OEMs and system integrators, who can use the card in any of their selected systems, given the availability of course. In other words, the card is almost impossible to purchase on its own, unless it is from someone who removed it from a PC. However, it seems like a few retailers in India have been able to get their hands on a few of these cards and offer consumers to buy them individually without the need to purchase a whole system. Of course, you can expect this to come with a premium. Currently, retailers are offering the card at the price tag of around 223,020 rupees, which translates to 3,007 USD. We are not sure if any EU or American retailers will get their hands on just the card to compare prices.

A leaked SKU sheet posted to Twitter by VideoCardz confirmed that AMD is indeed positioning the Radeon RX 6900 XT Liquid Cooled (LC) as a SKU separate from the RX 6900 XT. The finalized specs reveal that the card features Game Clocks of 2250 MHz, compared to 2015 MHz of the stock (air-cooled reference) RX 6900 XT; while the memory now operates at 18 Gbps (GDDR6 effective), compared to 16 Gbps on the reference card. This gives the GPU a memory bandwidth of 576 GB/s, compared to 512 GB/s on the reference. To support these, the TBP (total board power) value is increased by 10%, and is now at 330 W, compared to 300 W on the reference RX 6900 XT. The RX 6900 XT LC lugs an all-in-one, closed-loop, liquid cooling solution, while drawing power from the same two 8-pin PCIe power connectors as the original RX 6900 XT.

PowerColor's website has begun showing what is very likely the made-by-AMD (reference design) Radeon RX 6900 XT LC graphics card, as discovered by momomo_us. It bears the PowerColor SKU "AXRX 6900XT 16GBD6-MW2DHC," compared to the air-cooled reference version's SKU of "AXRX 6900XT 16GBD6-M2DHC." The webpage doesn't include any pictures. Some of the oldest leaks of the reference RX 6900 XT LC also pointed to a Sapphire branded card, which means a retail launch through AIB partners cannot be ruled out; as an SI or OEM-only launch would be handled by AMD, without involving AIBs.

The Radeon RX 6900 XT LC features a factory-fitted all-in-one liquid cooling solution, and possibly the new "XTXH" variant of the "Navi 21" silicon, which is able to sustain up to 10% higher engine clocks than the stock RX 6900 XT. AMD has reportedly gone a step further, and also given the LC version 15% faster memory, running at 18.48 Gbps data-rate, and so its performance could be very interesting to see. Some early testing is already out.

PC enthusiasts on the Bili Bili community posted the first performance benchmarks of the Made-by-AMD liquid-cooled Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics card, which has been doing rounds on the rumor mill as an "XTX" part. This card features engine clock speeds in the league of the recent RX 6900 XT "XTXH silicon" factory-overclocked cards, but its more striking specification is the use of 18.48 Gbps-rated GDDR6 memory (15.5% increased memory bandwidth), and liquid cooling. The engine clocks are set at 2250 MHz game, with 2435 MHz boost.

Tested across 3DMark Time Spy, Time Spy Extreme, Fire Stike Extreme, and Port Royal, the card is tested to be anywhere between 5-8 percent faster than an air-cooled reference RX 6900 XT card. This would put it slightly behind the custom RX 6900 XT ("XTXH silicon") cards, though a significant upgrade from the air-cooled card. Coreteks in a recent report stated that the liquid-cooled reference RX 6900 XT is being targeted exclusively at the SI (system integrator) market, and so far, the card has only been spotted in China.

EK, is launching the new EK-Quantum Vector Master water blocks made for the AORUS Master version of the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT and 6900 XT graphics cards. These 2nd-generation EK-Quantum Vector water blocks implement an Open Split-Flow cooling engine design, which proved to be a superior solution for GPU water blocks. It is characterized by low hydraulic flow restriction, meaning it can be used with weaker water pumps or pumps running on low-speed settings and still achieve top performance. The jet plate and the fin structure geometry have been optimized to provide even flow distribution with minimal losses and optimal performance when used in any given coolant flow orientation, unlike some currently available products on the market.

The base of the block is CNC-machined out of nickel-plated electrolytic copper, while its top is CNC-machined either out of glass-like cast acrylic or durable black POM acetal. The watertight sealing is ensured by high-quality EPDM O-rings, while brass standoffs are already pre-installed and allow for a safe and easy installation procedure.

EK, the leading computer cooling solutions provider, is launching the new EK-Quantum Vector Nitro+ water block made for the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ version of the AMD Radeon RX 6800XT and RX 6900 XT graphics cards. This 2nd-generation EK-Quantum Vector water block implements an Open Split-Flow cooling engine design, which proved to be a superior solution for GPU water blocks. It is characterized by low hydraulic flow restriction, meaning it can be used with weaker water pumps or pumps running on low-speed settings and still achieve top performance. The jet plate and the fin structure geometry have been optimized to provide even flow distribution with minimal losses and optimal performance when used in any given coolant flow orientation, unlike some currently available products on the market.

The base of the block is CNC-machined out of nickel-plated electrolytic copper, while its top is CNC-machined either out of glass-like cast Acrylic or durable black POM acetal. The watertight sealing is ensured by high-quality EPDM O-rings, while brass standoffs are already pre-installed and allow for a safe and easy installation procedure.

To preempt NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3080 Ti launch, AMD had worked with its partners to release a refreshed Radeon RX 6900 XT based on a swanky new ASIC internally dubbed "XTXH." This is essentially the highest bin of the "Navi 21" silicon that allows 10% higher clock speeds over the standard RX 6900 XT. Our testing of one such card, the ASRock RX 6900 XT OC Formula, showed that the XTXH is able to trade blows with the RTX 3090, making it competitive with the RTX 3080 Ti. Interestingly, there seemed to lack a reference design "made by AMD" card based on this silicon. Turns out, AMD had other plans. This card was earlier believed to be the "Radeon RX 6900 XTX," when it was first leaked in April, but turns out, that AMD is allowing partners to simply call this the RX 6900 XT.

The reference design card uses a liquid-cooled design. The card itself is two slots thick, and about the size of the reference Radeon RX 6800, but two coolant tubes emerge from its top, which head to a 120 mm x 120 mm radiator. This is a purely liquid-cooled card, with no secondary air-based cooling, like the ASUS ROG Strix LC RX 6900 XT. The only sources of noise are the AIO pump-block, and the single included 120 mm fan. Besides 10% higher GPU clocks, the reference design card has an ace in the hole that custom-design XTXH cards lack—faster memory.

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of premium gaming hardware, today announced the GIGABYTE WATERFORCE graphics card - AORUS Radeon RX 6900 XT XTREME WATERFORCE WB 16G. AORUS WATERFORCE graphics card combines the latest premium Radeon RX 6900 XT GPU and AORUS patent-pending "Leak detection" technology. This is the best choice for high-end water-cooling systems.

AORUS Radeon RX 6900 XT XTREME WATERFORCE WB 16G is designed with the patent-pending "Leak detection" technology. The built-in leak detection circuit covers the entire fitting and water block and can promptly alert users by flashing light at the first sign of leak, so users can deal with the leakage early and prevent any further damage to the system.

A PowerColor Radeon RX 6900 XT (Liquid Devil or Red Devil) graphics card was overclocked to a staggering 3321 MHz by professional overclocker OGS, which went on to bag the 3DMark FireStrike world record, with a score of 37618 points on the HWBot leaderboard. It's important to note here, that the benchmark run was done with tessellation disabled—something that UL Benchmarks doesn't consider valid for its own leaderboard, but HWBot allows such benchmark runs, and so here we are. The FireStrike leaderboard has been dominated by the RX 6900 XT, as the card beats even the GeForce RTX 3090 in this test.

A regulatory filing by Palit with the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) for several of its upcoming custom-design graphics cards, points to the possibility that NVIDIA is preparing to announcing three GeForce RTX 30-series Ti desktop graphics card SKUs in one go. These include the much talked about GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, the RTX 3070 Ti, and the RTX 3050 Ti.

From these, the RTX 3080 Ti is positioned between the RTX 3080 and RTX 3090, possibly helping NVIDIA better compete against the Radeon RX 6900 XT. The RTX 3070 Ti improves the company's competitiveness against the RX 6800. The new RTX 3050 Ti could carve out a performance class for itself, and as yet AMD lacks any desktop SKUs below the RX 6700 XT from the current generation, at least in the retail channel. The three cards could be launched in Q2-2021.

ASUS today updated its flagship AMD Radeon RX 6000 series graphics card lineup with the new ROG Strix LC Radeon RX 6900 XT TOP T16G. This card is visually identical to the ROG Strix LC RX 6900 XT O16G the company launched last December, but with a handful updates. The biggest of these is the new "Navi 21 XTXH" silicon, the highest bin of AMD's top RDNA2 chip, which enables at least 10% higher clock-speeds than the standard RX 6900 XT. ASUS has tuned this up further, with a max boost frequency of a stunning 2525 MHz, compared to 2365 MHz on the original (O16G). The game clocks have been increased to 2375 MHz, compared to 2135 MHz on the O16G. Notice how the game clocks of the new T16G are higher than the max boost clocks of the original O16G? That's the magic of the new XTXH silicon.

These apart, the company hasn't made any changes to the visual design. A liquid+air hybrid cooling solution dominates the product. The AIO liquid closed-loop cooling solution pulls heat from the GPU and surrounding memory chips, while a base-plate and a chunky back-plate pull heat from the other components, which is ventilated by a lateral blower. The AIO is cooled by a 240 mm x 120 mm radiator. The card continues to pull power from a combination of three 8-pin PCIe power connectors. The company didn't reveal pricing, but it's very likely to be close to 2 grand.