Another MSI interpretation of AMD's RX 5700 graphics card has been taken out of the bag. This time, on the form of the Mech OC series, which carries a dual-slot, dual-fan configuration not dissimilar to MSI's Ventus graphics cards, but with a darker color palette. The design is appealing, even if fully in plastic save for the backplate, which is full black and has some white strips to add a little more interest to the otherwise blank surface. The MSI Radeon RX 5700 Mech OC graphics card ships with 3x DisplayPort 1.4 and 1x HDMI 2.0 ports, and will join other MSI custom design mainstays in the company's portfolio for AMD-based hardware.

With the introduction of AMD's AIB partners' custom designs for the Navi-based RX 5700 and RX 5700 XT graphics cards, rumors (ie, reports) started to float around of AMD's discontinuation of their reference designs. However, AMD's own Scott Herkelman confirmed via Twitter that the company isn't transitioning its reference designs to an EOL (End of Life) status, and that they will continue to be offered in the traditional venues.

However, Scott did say that AMD is in the stage of transitioning their AIB partners fully to their own custom designs. This means that AMD will likely keep the market cornered on blower-style designs, that can be bought by users planning to stick their own aftermarket cooling solution and just want the cheapest possible card. This way, AIB partners will always sell Radeon cards under their own brand names, instead of something like "ASUS Radeon RX 5700".

Ahead of its launch, TechPowerUp scored an exclusive picture of MSI's premium custom-design Radeon RX 5700 XT graphics card, the RX 5700 XT EVOKE. The EVOKE is a completely new card design and brand-extension making its debut with the RX 5700-series. MSI drew some visual cues from the NVIDIA TITAN RTX, as the card features a solid metal cooler shroud holding a pair of 90 mm fans, with a champagne gold finish and diamond-cut edges. The shroud binds seamlessly with the matching metal back-plate. Underneath it, MSI appears to be using a similar aluminium fin-stack heatsink to its Twin Frozr VII cooling solution, which uses four 6 mm-thick copper heat pipes t, and a single fin-stack that spans the entire length of the card.

It's not just the heatsink, even the two fans are similar 90 mm TorX spinners. The card offers idle fan-stop, a must-have especially for this GPU. Interestingly, underneath this custom cooling solution, our sources tell us that MSI is using AMD's reference-design PCB for the RX 5700-series, which draws power from a combination of 8-pin and 6-pin PCIe power connectors. In terms of monitor connectivity, the card has three DisplayPort outputs and one HDMI port. It remains to be seen what factory-overclocked speeds MSI offers for these cards. The card should hit the shelves on August 15, our review sample is already on its way.

Update: MSI distributed one image each to several websites. In addition to ours, we collected four more so far (IgorsLab, Guru3D, TweakTown, WCCFTech).

Update Aug 15th: Our review of the MSI Radeon RX 5700 XT Evoke is live now.

ASUS is ready with its custom-design Radeon RX 5700-series graphics cards, and is lining them up to launch some time mid-August. The company is giving the RX 5700 XT some premium treatment with a Republic of Gamers (ROG) Strix OC product; while both the RX 5700 and RX 5700 XT will get a TUF Gaming product. The RX 5700 XT ROG Strix features a large custom-design PCB with a meaty VRM that draws power from a pair of 8-pin PCIe power connectors; and ASUS' premium DirectCU III cooling solution that combines an aluminium fin-stack heatsink with three AxialTech fans.

The ROG Strix RX 5700 XT also offers several high-end features, such as dual-BIOS, idle fan-stop, one-touch RGB-off toggle, power-supply fault LEDs, voltage measurement points, and additional 4-pin PWM case-fan headers with which you can sync your case fans to the graphics card's cooling. It also features addressable RGB LED embellishments on the cooler shroud, the back-plate, and top. Display outputs include three DP 1.4 and one HDMI 2.0b. The RX 5700 and RX 5700 XT TUF Gaming X3 are a slightly different beast. This board design uses a slightly lighter aluminium fin-stack heatsink, yet still ventilated by three fans, and a stylish back-plate. We don't expect features such as idle fan-stop. Both cards will feature factory-overclocked speeds.

Update Aug 12th: Our review of the ASUS Radeon RX 5700 XT STRIX OC is live now.

AMD ended July with the fifth release of Radeon Software Adrenalin 2019 Edition for the month, version 19.7.5 beta. The drivers address an application crash noticed with "Wolfenstein: Youngblood" on Radeon RX 5700 series graphics cards, which is the only item on the change-log. AMD identified a number of new "known issues," but the 50 percent increased idle fan-speeds on RX 5700 series isn't one of them.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 19.7.5 beta

Here's the first picture of a possible custom-design Radeon RX 5700-series graphics card by XFX. The company could leverage this common board design to develop both Radeon RX 5700 XT and RX 5700 products. The design involves a large custom-design cooling solution that uses an aluminium fin-stack heatsink that's ventilated by a pair of large 100 mm fans. It's likely that the card will offer idle fan-stop looking at the size of the heatsink and the idle power-draw of the "Navi 10" silicon. The card could also feature some RGB LED embellishments. At this point it's not known if XFX has designed its own custom-design PCB for the "Navi 10," or whether it's using a reference- or close-to-reference PCB design. AMD's add-in board partners are expected to launch custom-design RX 5700-series products in August.

AMD (NASDAQ:AMD) today announced revenue for the second quarter of 2019 of $1.53 billion, operating income of $59 million, net income of $35 million and diluted earnings per share of $0.03. On a non-GAAP basis, operating income was $111 million, net income was $92 million and diluted earnings per share was $0.08.

"I am pleased with our financial performance and execution in the quarter as we ramped production of three leadership 7nm product families," said Dr. Lisa Su, AMD president and CEO. "We have reached a significant inflection point for the company as our new Ryzen, Radeon and EPYC processors form the most competitive product portfolio in our history and are well positioned to drive significant growth in the second half of the year."

AMD's recent Radeon Software Adrenalin 19.7.3 beta drivers appear to break the fan settings of reference-design Radeon RX 5700 XT and RX 5700 cards. All earlier drivers for these cards offered good idle fan-speeds, despite the lack of fan-stop, with the fan of Radeon RX 5700 XT idling around 14% or 740 RPM. Once the new 19.7.3 drivers are installed, the fan-speed never drops below 23% or 1,170 RPM. This phenomenon can be observed even on the reference RX 5700, which now idles at 22% fan-speed, or 1,130 RPM, up from 13% or 685 RPM. This increases fan speed RPMs by 66% for the RX 5700 XT and +57% for the RX 5700. To demonstrate this bug, we first installed reference RX 5700 XT and RX 5700 cards with 19.7.2 drivers, and logged their idle fan-speeds using GPU-Z. Next we switched to 19.7.3 and recorded the same data for a completely idle card, sitting at the desktop.

The raised idle fan-speeds keep the GPU cooler when idling. With 19.7.2, the GPU hotspot was observed to be around 42 °C. Booting from 19.7.3, we see hotspot temperature settle down to around 38 °C for the RX 5700 XT, and to 37 °C for the RX 5700. Such a small difference at such low temperatures really shouldn't have any effect on longevity or anything else. On the other hand, higher fan-speeds also mean that the idle fan-noise levels are noticeably higher, and no longer match the idle fan-speeds measured in launch-day reviews by TechPowerUp and other tech publications.Update (30/07): We can confirm that the 19.7.4 drivers released late Monday do not fix this issue.

AMD today posted the latest version of Radeon Software Adrenalin 2019 Edition. Version 19.7.3 beta comes in the nick of time with optimization for "Wolfenstein: Youngblood," with up to 13 percent higher frame-rates on offer compared to 19.7.2. The release also adds Radeon GPU Profiler and Microsoft PIX for Radeon RX 5700 series. AMD also expanded its Vulkan API support by adding six new extensions, two of which are AMD-exclusive, and four standard. These include VK_EXT_display_surface_counter, VK_AMD_pipeline_compiler_control, VK_AMD_shader_core_properties2, VK_EXT_subgroup_size_control, VK_KHR_imageless_framebuffer, and VK_KHR_variable_pointers.

Among the fixed issues are "League of Legends" failing to launch with RX 5700-series on Windows 7; RX 5700 series experiencing application crashes with DirectX 9 applications after an Express Upgrade, Windows Mixed Reality not launching with Radeon Image Sharpening enabled on RX 5700-series; out-of-sync audio with ReLive VR; incorrect Radeon Wattman power gauge values for Radeon VII; AMD Log Utility not correctly installing; performance drops with Radeon Anti-Lag; minor stutter noticed in the first few minutes of "Fotnite" gameplay on RX 5700-series; Radeon Overlay flickering over Vulkan apps with Image Sharpening enabled; and some corruption noticed when running Adobe Premier Pro 2019 benchmarks. Grab the driver from the link below.DOWNLOADS: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 19.7.3

The change-log follows.

EK Water Blocks, the leading premium computer liquid cooling gear manufacturer, is releasing a Special Edition of the EK-Vector Radeon RX 5700 +XT water block that is compatible with reference design AMD Radeon RX 5700 and 5700 XT graphics cards. This efficient and elegant-looking cooling made to look like the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT factory cooler will allow your high-end Navi series graphics card to reach higher boost clocks, thus providing more overclocking headroom and more performance during gaming or other GPU intense tasks.

With the fabrication process of 7 nm, the chips become very small. The size of the new Navi GPU cores in RX 5700 and 5700 XT is only 251 mm while the 14 nm Vega GPUs were 495 mm in size. Almost double. The Navi GPU is more efficient, but still, the thermal density is increased. Which is why these small chips benefit a lot from a more efficient way of cooling via our water blocks.

Igor Wallossek of Igor'sLAB Germany postulated a method by which an AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT "Navi" graphics card can be made to run at clock-speeds of over 2.20 GHz (engine clock), thanks to custom SoftPowerPlay Tables (SPPTs) deployed by modifications to the Windows Registry. The AMD Radeon driver is designed such that it reads PowerPlay tables from the video-BIOS of an RX 5700-series graphics card the first time it's detected, and writes it onto the Windows Registry for quick-reference. This is called a SoftPowerPlay Table or SPPT. It's the modification of SPPTs that allows you to manipulate the power limits of RX 5700-series graphics cards, and achieve higher engine clocks than the 2150 MHz engine-clock limit of the RX 5700 XT, which is set at just 1850 MHz for the RX 5700.

Wallossek's mod involves preparing your Windows Registry with a driver cleaner such as DDU, downloading and applying Registry files for various new power-limit targets you want. The table below details the various power-limit and clock headroom on offer from each kind of registry file. There's also a registry file that cleans up your Windows Registry of any SPPTs, if you decide to roll-back your mod. You can inspect a registry file by opening it in a plaintext viewer such as Notepad. Find links to the SPPT mods, and the Registry Cleanup in the source link below. You can also watch a video presentation by Wallossek in German language here. You make any changes to your machine at your own risk, be sure to have proper custom cooling for your graphics card.

AMD has reportedly discontinued production of its flagship Radeon VII graphics card. According to a Cowcotland report, AMD no longer finds it viable to produce and sell the Radeon VII at prices competitive to NVIDIA's RTX 2080, especially when its latest Radeon RX 5700 XT performs within 5-12 percent of the Radeon VII at less than half its price. AMD probably expects custom-design RX 5700 XT cards to narrow the gap even more. The RX 5700 XT has a much lesser BOM (bill of materials) cost compared to the Radeon VII, due to the simplicity of its ASIC, a conventional GDDR6 memory setup, and far lighter electrical requirements.

In stark contrast to the RX 5700 XT, the Radeon VII is based on a complex MCM (multi-chip module) that has not just a 7 nm GPU die, but also four 32 Gbit HBM2 stacks, and a silicon interposer. It also has much steeper VRM requirements. Making matters worse is the now-obsolete "Vega" architecture it's based on, which loses big time against "Navi" at performance/Watt. The future of AMD's high-end VGA lineup is uncertain. Looking at the way "Navi" comes close to performance/Watt parity with NVIDIA on the RX 5700, AMD may be tempted to design a larger GPU die based on "Navi," with a conventional GDDR6-based memory sub-system, to take another swing at NVIDIA's high-end.

With the launch of AMD's Radeon RX 5700 and 5700 XT "Navi" graphics cards, we got a nice improvement to the mid-range GPU segment. However, the launch was only followed by board partners releasing reference designs with the major change being either a sticker of different cooler accent, with no sign of custom board designs.

In a blog post on Edge UP, ASUS said that "Our initial Navi offerings will use AMD's reference cooler design and clock speeds, but we'll be tweaking, tuning, and powering up these new Radeons with coolers of our own design soon. Stay tuned for more details in September." This means that custom cards for Radeon RX 5700 and 5700 XT are arriving later than what we previously thought. It was believed that custom designs from AIBs would arrive some time in August, but the Edge UP post now contradicts that claim. In order to find out more, we would have to wait until August at least. Additionally, it may be possible that a "paper launch" will happen in August, while the general availability is targeted for September.

It turns out that the EK-Vector isn't the only water-block family to feature models compatible with AMD Radeon RX 5700-series graphics cards. The Slovenian water-cooling major has plans for a truly unique block design for "Navi," building on AMD's "bend the rules" design language used on its reference RX 5700 XT graphics card. The unnamed single-slot, full-coverage water block covers the entire length of the AMD-reference PCB for the RX 5700-series, and appears to feature an metal or POM acetal top that's been molded along the lines of the reference air cooler. A metallic "Radeon" logo dominates the front-face of the block. The company didn't reveal details such as whether the block has RGB LED embellishments. It didn't mention a launch date, either.

In our reviews of the Radeon RX 5700 XT and RX 5700, we observed that while AMD made leaps with performance/Watt, the cards felt let down by the archaic lateral-blower cooling solution that hit up to 43 dBA at load, and with temperatures of the RX 5700 XT GPU reaching up to 92°C - unacceptable for a GPU that only draws 220 W. The reference cooler of the RX 5700 also exhibited some very strange fan-speed behavior at high temperatures. Much of our praise for the RX 5700-series was conditional to the hope that add-in-board (AIB) partners will innovate good cooling solutions that are quiet and keep the GPU cool. We have these custom-design graphics cards based on the two GPUs to look forward to, but according to a Reddit post by Scott Herkelman, who leads the Radeon brand at AMD, we might have to wait a little longer.

Herkelman stated that custom-design graphics cards based on the Radeon RX 5700 XT and RX 5700 will start hitting the shelves only by mid-August. He added that he is working with his team to get many of these custom-design cards in the hands of reviewers before that, so consumers have review data ahead of availability. He also acknowledged that the reference cooling solution is the biggest drawback of the reference design, and that he "liked the idea" of providing reference-design cards with dual-fan or triple-fan axial flow reference cooling solutions similar what NVIDIA provides with its Founders Edition cards.

GIGABYTE, the world's leading premium gaming hardware manufacturer, today announced the launch of Radeon RX 5700 XT 8G and Radeon RX 5700 8G, the latest Radeon RX 5700 series graphics cards built upon the 7 nm processor technology with new RDNA architecture and the world's first GPU to support PCI Express 4.0. With RDNA gaming architecture, GIGABYTE Radeon RX 5700 XT 8G and Radeon RX 5700 8G are equipped with 2560 and 2304 stream processors respectively and both come with 8 GB GDDR6 memory to deliver superior visual fidelity, lightning-fast performance and advanced features to power the latest AAA and eSports titles. The style of the Radeon RX 5700 XT 8G graphics card is different than before. It comes with a metal exoskeleton for heat dissipation and is fused with the reimagined contour silhouette, as well as precision-machined accents. Great gaming experiences are created by bending the rules.

The RDNA gaming architecture of Radeon RX 5700 Series is designed to power the future of PC, console, mobile and cloud-based gaming for years to come. It features a new compute unit design optimized for improved efficiency and a multi-level cache hierarchy designed to provide reduced latency, higher bandwidth and lower power. Delivering up to 1.25X higher performance-per-clock and up to 1.5X higher performance-per-watt compared to the previous-generation Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture, RDNA provides the computational horsepower to enable thrilling, immersive gaming by enhancing explosions, physics, lighting effects for fluid, high-framerate gaming experiences.

TUL Corporation, a leading and innovative manufacturer of AMD graphic cards since 1997, has introduced its newest series, the PowerColor RX 5700 and PowerColor RX 5700 XT, the world's first PCIe 4.0 GPU for the most demanding 1440p gaming with the most advanced gaming technology. Using the newest AMD RDNA architecture, the PowerColor RX 5700 and RX 5700 XT shows impressive performance improvements as well vastly improved performance per watt over the previous generations with the GPU being manufactured with the leading edge 7nm process.

With the new RDNA architecture, PowerColor RX 5700 and RX 5700 XT was engineered to greatly enhance gaming using features like Radeon Image Sharpening, FidelityFX for maximum performance and insane immersive gaming experiences as well the new Radeon Anti-Lag, stutter-free, tear-free gaming with AMD Radeon FreeSync technology, for incredibly responsive gameplay.

Great gaming experiences are created by bending the rules. The new SAPPHIRE Radeon RX 5700 Series GPUs, powered by RDNA architecture, are designed from the ground up for superb 1440p performance and exceptional power efficiency for high-fidelity gaming. The Radeon RX 5700 Series GPUs house AMD's 2nd generation 7nm architecture, 8GB of GDDR6 high-speed memory and PCI Express 4.0 support. These GPUs are impeccably engineered to exponentially reduce lag, increase efficiency and surround you in immersive stutter-free gameplay.

The Radeon RX 5700 XT GPU bends the rules with a revolutionary metal exoskeleton for heat dissipation, fused with the reimagined contour silhouette, and precision machined accents to perform as good as it looks.

The leading global motherboard, graphics card and mini PC manufacturer, ASRock, launches the flagship level product - Radeon RX 5700 series graphics cards featuring AMD's latest Radeon RX 5700 gaming GPU and 8GB 256-bit GDDR6 memory with great gaming experiences are created by bending the rules. Take control and forge your own path with Radeon RX 5700 series and experience powerful accelerated gaming customized for you.

The Radeon RX 5700 series GPUs are powered by new RDNA architecture -- the heart of AMD's advanced 7nm technology process. RDNA features up to 40 completely redesigned "Compute Units" delivering incredible performance and up to 4x IPC improvements, new instructions better suited for visual effects such as volumetric lighting, blur effects, and depth of field, and multi-level cache hierarchy for greatly reduced latency and highly responsive gaming. The RDNA architecture enables DisplayPort 1.4 with Display Stream Compression for extreme refresh rates and resolutions on cutting edge displays for insanely immersive gameplay.

In a comical turn of events, while NVIDIA restored NVLink SLI support for its RTX 2070 Super graphics card on virtue of being based on the "TU104" silicon, AMD did the opposite with "Navi." The Radeon RX 5700 XT and RX 5700 lack support for AMD CrossFire. If you put two of these cards on, say, a swanky X570 motherboard that splits PCIe gen 4.0 to two x8 slots with bandwidths comparable to PCIe gen 3.0 x16; you won't see an option to enable CrossFire. AMD, responding to our question on CrossFire compatibility clarified that AMD dropped CrossFire support for "Navi" in favor of DirectX 12 and Vulkan "explicit" multi-GPU mode. The older "implicit" multi-GPU mode - CrossFire - used by DirectX 11, DirectX 9, and OpenGL games is not supported. The AMD statement follows.

Radeon RX 5700 Series GPU's support CrossFire in 'Explicit' multi-GPU mode when running a DX12 or Vulkan game that supports multiple GPU's. The older 'implicit' mode used by legacy DX9/11/OpenGL titles is not supported.

AMD in a Facebook post late Friday confirmed that its Radeon RX 5700 series graphics cards will launch at reduced prices compared to what it announced at its E3-2019 product announcement. The Radeon RX 5700 XT will have a reduced MSRP of USD $399, which puts it on par with that of the GeForce RTX 2060 Super. The Radeon RX 5700 will cost $50 less, at $349, which puts its price on par with the original RTX 2060. The commemorative limited-edition RX 5700 XT AMD 50th Anniversary Edition is now reduced to $449. AMD didn't announce any changes to the two cards' launch bundle that include a 3-month Xbox Game Pass for PC.

Commenting on the development, AMD said "We embrace competition, which drives innovation to the benefit of gamers. In that spirit, we are updating the pricing of our Radeon RX 5700 Series graphics cards, launching July 7." The company added "We know that gamers will be thrilled once they have the opportunity to experience the amazing performance, stunning visual fidelity and highly responsive gameplay these new graphics cards provide. Making history on 7/7 as the first company to launch gaming CPUs and GPUs together - the first in 7nm and PCIe 4.0 - is all about pushing the ultimate gaming experience forward for as many gamers as possible."

NVIDIA attempted to torpedo the Radeon RX 5700 "Navi" series graphics card launch with the introduction of its $499 GeForce RTX 2070 Super and $399 RTX 2060 Super. AMD claimed that its upcoming Radeon RX 5700 XT outperformed the original RTX 2070, while its smaller sibling, the RX 5700 outperforms the original RTX 2060. In its E3-2019 reveal, AMD disclosed launch prices of the RX 5700 XT and the RX 5700 to be USD $449 and $379, respectively. The RTX Super launch jeopardizes this, and so, according to VideoCardz, AMD is revising its launch prices.

The Radeon RX 5700 XT now reportedly launches at just $399, while the Radeon RX 5700 is priced at $349. The RX 5700 XT is claimed to beat the original RTX 2070, while the $399 RTX 2060 Super is slower than the RTX 2070. On the other hand, the RX 5700, which was claimed to beat the $349 original RTX 2060, is now price-matched with it, unless NVIDIA comes up with price-cuts. Older reports suggested that with the advent of the RTX Super series, NVIDIA would retire the RTX 2060 and RTX 2070, after the market digests inventories left in the channel. AMD's latest move is sure to disturb that digestion.

Update Jul 6th: This has been confirmed officially by AMD here.

AMD reference-design Radeon RX 5700 XT and RX 5700 graphics cards will launch on the 7th of July, and the company's various add-in-board (AIB) partners are ready with their inventories. VideoCardz scored pictures from various such board partners. As for the cards themselves, all of these are based on the AMD reference-design. The RX 5700 reference-design is in mass-production, contrary to older reports. All these packages appear to indicate reference clock speeds. In select markets, all of these packages include the Xbox Game Pass for PC, which gives you a 3-month access to vast library of full game titles from Microsoft.

There still are no picture leaks on custom-design Radeon RX 5700-series graphics cards, which suggests that they will be launched a little later. At Computex we spotted several new graphics card cooling solutions from AMD partners, confirming that custom-design cards are a go. The reference Radeon RX 5700 XT has an MSRP of $449, while the RX 5700 is priced at $379. As for the limited-edition Radeon RX 5700 XT AMD 50th Anniversary Edition, it will be available online through AMD.com in select markets, priced at $499. You pay the extra $50 for an exclusive product design, higher clock speeds, and likely some AMD goodies, such as an AMD|50 t-shirt.

With the launch of AMD's Radeon 5700 Series of gaming graphics cards nearing, there is an increasing amount of leaks regarding the cards' performance. But this time we have something a little different. Reference models of RX 5700 series and their packaging have been revealed by Twitter user momomo_us.

In this Imgur album, the reference design of Radeon RX 5700 cards along with the the retail boxes of various manufacturers like ASUS, AsRock, Yeston, Sapphire, Dataland, PowerColor and XFX, have been pictured. There is also a special box for AMD's 50th anniversary edition, which has golden accents to match the card. The regular, non anniversary edition box is designed with black and red theme to showcase regular AMD styling.

NVIDIA is giving its GeForce RTX 20-series product family a mid-cycle refresh with the RTX 20 Super-series, which sees performance uplifts across price-points, in the wake of AMD's Radeon RX 5000 "Navi" series. The company is expected to formally announce the series tomorrow (2nd July, 2019), but VideoCardz has learned the dates more relevant to you: market availability. According to them, while all three Super SKUs will be announced on July 2nd, namely the RTX 2060 Super, the RTX 2070 Super, and the RTX 2080 Super; market availability will vary.

The GeForce RTX 2060 Super and the GeForce RTX 2070 Super will be available to purchase on the 9th of July, 2019. The high-end GeForce RTX 2080 Super will be available from the 23rd of July. The RTX 2060 Super will launch at USD $399, which is on-par with the Radeon RX 5700, and $50 higher than the original RTX 2060. The RTX 2070 Super will displace the original RTX 2070 at USD $499, which could push its lower. The RTX 2080 Super will launch at USD $699, displacing the original RTX 2080. VideoCardz speculates that the original RTX 2070 and RTX 2080 (non-Ti) will attain EOL status after tomorrow's announcement. The remaining RTX 2070 and RTX 2080 units in the market will be sold at discounted prices.