AMD's upcoming RX 5600 XT will bring about a much needed power increase over the current baseline RX 5500 series, slotting smoothly between it and the mainstream, high-performance RX 5700 and RX 5700 XT. New benchmarks spotted by Videocardz place AMD's upcoming graphics card (which could feature a 6 GB VRAM with higher capacities likely to be offered as well) some 35% ahead of the RX 5500, as well as on the overall performance level of AMD's RX Vega 56. That AMD card debuted at $399 and now has performance 8% to 15% higher than NVIDIA's current GTX 1660 SUPER, exactly where AMD would want the RX 5600 XT's performance to land.

Other details come courtesy of another publication, where Igor Wallosseck over at Igor's Lab says that AMD could be looking at harvesting the Navi 10 dies that power the company's RX 5700 XT and RX 5700 by disabling one of four Asynchronous Compute Engines (ACEs). These four ACEs are found two each on one of Navi's Shader Engines (SEs), and disabling one ACE and subordinate hardware from the full Navi 10's 40 RDNA Units, 2,560 Stream Processors (SPs), 160 texture mapping units (TMUs) and 64 render output units (ROPs) would make up for an RX 5600 XT with 30 RDNA CUs, 1,920 SPs, 120 TMUs, 48 ROPs and expected 3 MB of L2 cache. AMD could be looking to position the AMD RX 5600 XT in the $249 price range, since top tier RX 5500 XT tend to go for $200.

Considering your reaction, you certainly remember Crytek's Neon noir raytracing scene that we shared with you back in march. At the time, the fact that raytracing was running at such mesmerizing levels on AMD hardware was arguably the biggest part of the news piece: AMD's Vega 56 graphics card with no dedicated raytracing hardware, was pushing the raytraced scene in a confident manner. Now, Crytek have shared some details on how exactly Neon noir was rendered.

The AMD Radeon Vega 56 pushed the demo at 1080p/30 FPS, with full-resolution rendering of raytraced effects. Crytek further shared that raytracing can be rendered at half resolution compared to the rest of the scene, and that if they did so on AMD's Vega 56, they could push a 1440p resolution at 40+ FPS. The raytraced path wasn't running on any modern, lower-level API, such as DX12 or Vulkan, but rather, on a custom branch of Crytek's CryEngine, version 5.5.

As we draw closer to the release of Rage 2, publisher Bethesda has released the official PC system requirements for the game. The original Rage pushed the boundaries of rendering technology with its Mega Texture technology (which featured some slight streaming issues as available textures were rendered visible according to the scene).

The least of the requirements are set at an Intel Core i5-3570 or an AMD Ryzen 3 1300X CPU, paired with 8 GB of RAM and the long-in-the-tooth GTX 780 3 GB or R9 280 3GB. Recommended configurations will have to pack, at least, an Intel Core i7-4770 or AMD Ryzen 5 1600X CPU with 8 GB of RAM and an Nvidia GTX 1070 8GB or AMD Vega 56 8GB graphics card. The 8 GB of RAM in the recommended settings is a welcome surprise, in that most games have now been requiring 16 GB of system RAM. Unfortunately, Bethesda didn't mention what gameplay experience can be expected from the recommended system configuration. RAGE 2 releases on May 14th.

AMD cut pricing of the Radeon RX Vega 56 in select markets to preempt the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti, and help the market digest inventory. The card can be had for as little as €269 (including VAT) for an MSI RX Vega 56 Air Boost, which is a close-to-reference product. The GTX 1660 Ti reportedly has a starting price of $279.99 (excluding taxes). This development is significant given that the GTX 1660 Ti is rumored to perform on-par with the GTX 1070, which the RX Vega 56 outperforms. The RX Vega series is still very much a part of AMD's product stack, and AMD continues to release new game optimizations for the card. NVIDIA is expected to launch the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti within February. Although based on the "Turing" architecture, it lacks real-time raytracing and AI acceleration features, yet retains the increased IPC of CUDA cores from the new generation.

Computer Upgrade King demoed 2 new extremely powerful and colorful mATX gaming desktops at CES that release in Spring 2019. On display at Patriot's suite, they featured their Continuum Mini which has an intense infinity mirror front panel with large side vents to ensure excellent air flow. Inside, there was an NVidia RTX 2080 TI GPU and an Intel i9-9900K CPU with their own custom cooling system consisting of an RGB CPU water block, anodized brushed aluminum reservoir and pump combo, front mounted 240mm radiator and lotus style ARGB fans.

On display at AMD's suite, they featured their Stratos Mini which has a triple RGB fan front panel with metal blade design to ensure excellent air flow. Inside, there was a Gigabyte Vega 56 GPU, an AMD Threadripper 2950X CPU with their own custom cooling system, a Team Group T-Force Delta RGB SSD, and halo style RGB fans.

While many have watched or at the very least seen our coverage of AMD's live stream at CES 2019, it just can't compare to seeing the latest graphics card from the company up close and personal. Therefore as soon as we had the opportunity, we took a closer look at the AMD Radeon VII and let us just say the reference card is indeed a bit fancy. The shroud itself is made of metal and has a very similar look and feel to the one used on the Radeon RX Vega 64 liquid cooled reference cards. However, instead of using an AIO for this release AMD instead opted for three uniform fans and a massive heatsink. Not only does this make the card more compatible with small form factor systems, it is also less of a hassle to install. Display outputs consist of 3x DisplayPort and 1x HDMI. Sadly AMD did not include a VirtualLink port (USB Type-C) like NVIDIA for VR headsets, which is rather odd considering AMD is also part of the VirtualLink consortium.

Power delivery is handled by two 8-pin PCIe power connectors giving the card access to a theoretical limit of 375-watts which is 75-watts more than its 300-watt TDP. Considering the Radeon VII has the same power level as the Vega 64 it offers 25% more performance at the same power level. Compute unit count falls between the Vega 56 and Vega 64 at precisely 60 CUs. That said, a few missing CUs are of no consequence when you consider how close the Vega 56 performed to the Vega 64 once tweaked. As for clock speeds AMD has stated the Radeon VII will have a 1.8 GHz core clock, while the 16 GB of HBM2 will deliver 1 TB/s of memory bandwidth over the 4096-bit memory interface.

It has been confirmed by Seasonic that their FOCUS PLUS power supplies are experiencing potential conflict with a select number of graphics cards. In regards to NVIDIA, the compatibility issue is currently limited to the ASUS GeForce GTX 970 STRIX. In limited instances, this particular graphics card can encounter a black screen under heavy load. Testing by Seasonic has determined that the issue is caused by higher than normal ripple when the GPU is heavily stressed. They also determined that solving the problem simply required using modified PCIe cables that feature enhanced shielding.

When it comes to AMD GPUs things are a bit more problematic. Both of AMD's Vega 56 and Vega 64 series of graphics cards with serial numbers before January 2018, can experience system shutdowns when paired with a FOCUS PLUS power supply. The issue is caused by higher than normal peak current being emitted by these graphics cards when under heavy load. This results in the power supply's internal protection safety being triggered. Considering Seasonic's popularity the fact these power supplies are encountering problems is likely going to be a hit to their brand image. At least they are stepping up to the plate having admitted to the problem while also investigating the root causes. They are also encouraging anyone that is encountering issues to contact them for assistance.

It would appear AMD's 7nm Vega 20 has been benchmarked in Final Fantasy XV. While the details are scarce, what we do know is the hardware device ID 66AF:C1 can be linked to Vega 20 via the Linux patches back in April. Now considering AMD has not confirmed any 7nm Vega graphics cards for consumers, It is more likely this version is an engineering sample for the new Radeon Instinct or Pro series cards.

AMD today released Radeon Software Adrenalin 18.6.1 beta. The drivers come with performance optimization for "Warhammer: Vermitide 2," with up to 9 percent performance improvements over 18.5.2, seen on Radeon RX Vega 56, at 1440p resolution; and up to 10 percent improvements seen using the RX 580 8 GB. In addition, the update fixes a number of bugs.

Blank screen issues with "Subnautica" have been fixed. System hangs or crashes experienced in "Sea of Thieves" in the "Cannon Cove" area have been fixed. Ground texture corruption in "World of Tanks" on certain multi-GPU systems, has been fixed. Flickering noticed in certain menus of "Middle Earth: Shadow of War" has been fixed. Desktop being out of the visible area at the 8K resolution on Radeon Pro Duo has been fixed. Grab the drivers from the link below.DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 18.6.1

The change-log follows.

After the AMD event, we got a chance to go hands on with the PowerColor Radeon RX Vega 56 Nano, the most compact desktop graphics card based on the "Vega10" silicon. This product is so special that it got an exclusive unveiling by AMD as a "one more thing." The card's PCB itself it slightly under 5 mm longer than that of the original R9 Nano, but the cooler adds another centimeter to its length. We can only imagine what SFF enthusiasts can do with this card under a specially-design full-coverage water-block.

It's also revealed that the card draws power from a combination of a 6-pin + 8-pin PCIe power connectors. The cooling solution consists of a dense aluminium fin-stack heatsink. A single 80 mm spinner ventilates this heatsink, and a plastic shroud covers it all up. Given that this card has specific "RX Vega 56" SKU marking and not an off-beat "RX Vega Nano" branding, we think this card will be as fast as a stock RX Vega 56, out of the box. Display outputs include three DisplayPort 1.4 and a HDMI 2.0. The MSRP for this card is set at USD $449.

Acer is preparing one of the first few premium gaming notebooks to pack a combination of AMD Ryzen 7 2700 8-core processor and Radeon RX Vega 56 graphics. Unlike the Intel+NVIDIA original, this Predator Helios variant makes use of desktop-on-mobile processors, as do most desktop-replacement notebooks and portable workstations. The variant benefits from the low TDP and high energy efficiency of the Ryzen 7 2700, and runs it at its stock speeds. This is no small feat, because the Intel+NVIDIA option of the notebook packs a Core i9-8950HK (6-core/12-thread) "Coffee Lake" processor with 45W rated TDP.

The Radeon RX Vega 56 is the other surprising component choice here, considering that the notebook's 17.3-inch display only has Full HD (1920 x 1080) resolution, which can be hauled by an RX 580, even at higher refresh-rate, and FreeSync thrown in. The Intel+NVIDIA model's GPU option is the GeForce GTX 1070 (which is slower than the RX Vega 56). Other components include 16 GB of dual-channel DDR4 memory, 256 GB NVMe SSD storage, 1 TB of HDD storage, and Killer Doubleshot Pro networking.

TUL has introduced the newest PowerColor Red Dragon RX Vega 56 8GB HBM2. This card complements the already successful Red Devil Vega cards offering a more valuable solution in an environment of rising prices without compromising performance, reliability, or cooling performance.

This card has a shorter PCB, mainly due to cooling efficiency. The Devil series has a much larger Cooling, which works amazingly well, but TUL wanted to have something more affordable yet having an extremely efficient cooling ability, which shortening the PCB helped to balance the lower cooling wattage dissipation compared to Devil card. In their testing, this card is the quietest card they've ever manage for Vega. It is powered by AMD's gaming VEGA architecture offering the blazing performance at the highest resolutions with uncompromised graphic details. PowerColor Red Dragon RX VEGA 56 features a GPU boost clock of 1478Mhz while clocking at 800Mhz on 8Gb 2048Bit of ultra energy efficient HBM2 memory.

Sapphire over the weekend officially launched its cost-effective custom-design Radeon RX Vega 56 graphics card, the Pulse Radeon Vega 56 (model: 11276-02), which began appearing on European e-tailers late-January. The card combines a custom-design short-length PCB that's roughly the length of AMD's reference R9 Fury board; with a beefy custom-design cooling solution that features two large aluminium fin-stacks, ventilated by a pair of 100 mm double ball-bearing fans.

The card offers out of the box clock speeds of 1208 MHz core, 1512 MHz boost, and 800 MHz (1.60 GHz HBM2 effective) memory, against AMD reference clock speeds of 1138 MHz core and 1474 MHz boost. At its given clock, the memory bandwidth on offer is 409.6 GB/s. The "Vega 10" silicon is configured with 3,584 stream processors, 192 TMUs, and 64 ROPs. The card draws power from a pair of 8-pin PCIe power connectors, display outputs include three DisplayPort 1.4 and one HDMI 2.0. Sapphire intended for this SKU to ideally occupy a close-to-reference price-point, a notch below its Nitro+ series, however in the wake of the crypto-currency wave, market-forces will decide its retail price.

Sapphire's Pulse line of graphics cards focuses on providing aspiring gamers with the best bang for their buck. There are currently eight different models ranging from the Radeon RX 550 all the way up to the Radeon RX 580. According to German retailer Alternate.de, the Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX Vega 56 is the latest newborn in the Pulse family even though it isn't officially listed on Sapphire's website at the moment. The card sports a plastic shroud painted in matte black with some red accents. The Pulse Radeon RX Vega 56 occupies three PCIe slots and measures 28.2 cm x 12.5 cm, but that's mainly because of the monstrous heatsink that extends far beyond the graphic card's short PCB. Judging by the design, this model probably utilizes a similar cooling solution, consisting of 4 heatpipes and two 95 mm Dual-X cooling fans, like its RX 580 Pulse sibling. The backplate boasts a simple, yet beautiful design with red lines simulating a human pulse.

Despite the branding difference, the Pulse RX Vega 56 shares the same memory specification as the higher-end Nitro+ RX Vega 56 model. Each has 8GB of onboard HBM2 memory running at 800 MHz across a 2048-bit wide memory interface. However, the Pulse RX Vega 56 comes with a 1512 MHz boost clock, 60 MHz slower than the Nitro+ RX Vega 56. They also differ in PCIe power connectors and display outputs. The Pulse model depends on two 8-pin PCIe power connectors, while the Nitro+ model requires three of them. And lastly, the Pulse model has three Display Port 1.4 ports and a single HDMI 2.0b, while the Nitro+ model has two of each. Alternate.de lists the Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX Vega 56 with a €789 price tag.

MSI rolled out the Radeon RX Vega 56 Air Boost and Air Boost OC graphics cards. The two are based on the same board design as the RX Vega 64 Air Boost series the company launched last week. The quasi-custom design card combines an AMD reference-design PCB with a custom-design lateral-flow cooler by MSI that's similar in design to AMD's cost-effective reference cooler. Adding to its effectiveness is the heavily perforated rear I/O bracket.

The base model sticks to AMD reference clock speeds of 1156 MHz core and 1471 MHz boost; while the OC variant ships with 1181 MHz core and 1520 MHz boost. Both cards leave the HBM2 memory clock untouched at 800 MHz. The cards draw power from a pair of 8-pin PCIe power connectors; display outputs include an HDMI 2.0, and three DisplayPort 1.4 connectors. The base variant sells at USD $399, with the OC variant going for $439.

After aeons of waiting, one of AMD's foremost AIB partners, Sapphire, has come out with a fully custom edition of AMD's RX Vega flagship graphics cards. The new RX Vega 64 Nitro+ and RX Vega56 Nitro+ graphics cards bring Sapphire's engineering to the RX Vega table, offering much better thermal, acoustic, and performance characteristics than AMD's air-based reference models.

The Sapphire RX Vega Nitro+ series of graphics cards feature a triple-fan, 2.5 slot design and a whopping 3x 8-pin power delivery system - and yes, you read that right, this applies to both the Vega 64 and Vega 56 models. The increased thermal headroom provided by the substantial cooling solution, and the beefed-up power delivery system, mean Sapphire are shipping these graphics cards with a hefty 12-14% base-clock increase over AMD's reference models, making these the fastest (in frequency) factory-overclocked RX Vega graphics cards money can buy. The cards also ship with dual-BIOS, a fan header for either a side-panel or front-panel fan whose speed you want to be under the graphics' card control, and a VGA support plate - a smart move by Sapphire, considering the RX Vega 64 Nitro+ comes in at almost 1.6 kg.

Four months of silence after what can only be classified as a premature announcement, ASUS has finally put up the product pages for their custom RX Vega 56 and 64 graphics cards, marketed under the Strix branding. Yield and packaging issues, as well as differing chip characteristics between different AMD packaging partners, have greatly affected TTM on RX Vega's custom designs, which were sorely needed so as to improve on some of the reference cards' shortcomings. Sadly, the product pages are just that - product pages - and lack the holy trinity of graphics cards important information - clock speeds, pricing, and availability.

GIGABYTE has a custom-design Radeon RX Vega series after all, with the company announcing the RX Vega 64 WindForce 2X and RX Vega 56 WindForce 2X graphics cards. These cards combine a 100% custom-design PCB by GIGABYTE, with a large WindForce 2X cooling-solution that the company is debuting with these cards. The cooler features a split aluminium fin-stack heatsink to which heat drawn by 8 mm-thick copper heat-pipes is fed; ventilated by a pair of large 100 mm fans, which stay off when the GPU is idling. The heat-pipes make direct contact with the GPU and HBM2 stacks, while a base-plate conveys heat drawn from the VRM MOSFETs.

The back-plate has a copper center-plate and a flat heat-pipe of its own, drawing heat from the PCB via non-electrically-conductive thermal pads. The two fans blow air onto the heatsink, but one fan spins clockwise to do this, while the other spins counter-clockwise. The custom-design PCB features a 13-phase VRM, and draws power from a pair of 8-pin PCIe power connectors. Both cards come with factory-overclocked speeds, with the engine-clock boosting up to 1560 MHz, while the memory clock is left untouched. The card features an unusual display connector loadout, including three each of DisplayPort 1.4 and HDMI 2.0 ports, all located on the rear panel. The company didn't reveal pricing.

After teasing us with a somewhat bold design for their custom RX Vega graphics cards, XFX has officially taken the lid of their finalized design for their RX Vega graphics cards. These have been a long time coming, for sure; and the design is definitely bold enough to be divisive, promising to be a "hate it or love it" affair. XFX has taken their brand-recognition-fueled X and applied that design to the graphics cards' shroud, with a recess in the middle of the graphics cards that separates the two air cooling fans giving the card an X-shaped design. This design quirk has been put to other uses than just aesthetic considerations, though, with the card's 2x 8-pin power connectors being slotted smack in the middle of the graphics card, which might be good (or bad) according to your cases' routing ability, though it should, in theory, allow for somewhat decreased length of the graphics card. The backplate on the XFX custom cards also looks great (black, gray and red are almost impossible to get wrong).

AMD has started a new offer on its RX Vega 56 and RX Vega 64 graphics cards, which brings users two of this year's most interesting FPS titles: Arkane's Prey, and Machine Games' Wolfenstein: The New Colossus. The offer is good from November 24th through December 31st, or until the stock for game codes is gone, so that should give users plenty of time to take advantage of the offer. Keep in mind this is retailer-dependent, with not every sales point partaking in the offer, so be sure to check first whether or not your purchase spot of choice is offering this promotion.

The AMD Unique ID which grants you access to both game codes must be redeemed within two (2) months of the end of the Campaign Period (February 28, 2018) to obtain Application downloads. After this deadline, the AMD Unique ID is void, so users won't be able to redeem their games anymore. The offer is valid for RX Vega 64 Liquid and Air cooled graphics cards, and RX Vega 56. AMD AIB partner cards (such as Gigabyte, Sapphire, XFX, and so on) should be eligible, but you should take some time to confirm this. best Buy, for example, seems to only be applying this dual game code promotion to XFX Vega graphics cards. For now, this promotion seems to only be applied to reference design graphics cards, though this might change according to retailer.

Benchmarking company Futuremark has recently introduced a new benchmark to its VRMark suite, the Cyan Room, which brings the latest in rendering technologies to the VR world. Futuremark expects this test to leverage the latest hardware and software developments in DX12 to better utilize today's GPUs still somewhat untapped power. In something of a plot twist, AMD's Radeon architectures (in the form of Polaris 20-based RX 580 and Vega-based RX Vega 56 and RX Vega 64) trump NVIDIA's equivalent offerings in pure performance numbers.

Testing was performed by pairing a Ryzen 7 1800X CPU with a selection of graphics cards from both AMD and NVIDIA, supported by 16GB of DDR4-2933 system memory, and Windows 10 x64. In a post on Radeon gaming, Scott Wasson said that "The Cyan Room (...) highlights AMD's continued performance leadership on this (VR) front," adding that "the Radeon GPUs we tested have clear leads over their direct competition. What's more, all the Radeon GPUs are meeting the key requirement for today's VR headsets by delivering at least 90 frames per second in this test."

AMD has released another driver suite for their Radeon graphics cards, in the form of the 17.11.1 Beta drivers. These bring support, and the best experience, for Call of Duty: WWII, with up to 5% faster performance on Radeon RX Vega64 (8 GB) graphics than with Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition 17.10.3 at 2560x1440.

Additionally, this driver brings AMD XConnect technology improvements for Vega 56. XConnect is AMD's technology that allows seamless plug and play ability for eGPU enclosures, and with this update, AMD is increasing the number of eGPU solutions that support AMD's RX Vega 56 graphics cards in this configuration. There's also an extensive list of fixes (including a particularly nasty bug where system devices such as printers could be removed during Radeon Software uninstallation) and known issues, which you can catch after the break. As always, you can download your drivers right here, on the best website of the known universe. Just follow the link below.DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Crimson ReLive 17.11.1 Beta

XFX is known for its audacious graphics card designs. The company even adds uniqueness to the design of its retail boxes, with the signature X-shaped cartons. It looks like the company is finally getting its design mojo back, with a boldly-styled custom-design Radeon RX Vega series graphics card, which it teased in three pictures released to social media. The design of this card involves a tall aluminium fin-stack cooler, which consists of two dense fin-stacks, to which heat drawn from the GPU is fed by a series of copper heat pipes, along their ends.

These fin-stacks are ventilated by large (100-120 mm) fans. The gap between these fans cuts out to the shape of an "X" with the PCIe power connectors being located bang in the middle. From the looks of it, XFX's custom-design PCB for the RX Vega is just 3/5 the length of the card, taking advantage of AMD's compact multi-chip module approach for the "Vega 10" silicon, about the length of the reference R9 Fury PCB. Carbon fiber finish, and a glowing XFX logo on top finishes off the design. XFX and other AMD add-in board (AIB) partners could launch custom-design RX Vega series graphics cards before Holiday 2017. XFX could use this board design for both RX Vega 64 and RX Vega 56.

Ahead of its October 26 launch, someone with access to an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti sample put it through "Ashes of the Singularity" (AotS) benchmark, with its scores even getting posted on its online database. Paired with an Intel Core i9-7900X based high-end machine, and running the benchmark's DirectX 11 API version, the card scored 6,200 points in the "Extreme" (1440p) preset.

This score spaces it significantly apart from the GTX 1070, which typically scores around 5,400 points in this test, and the GTX 1080, which puts out around 7,000 points. The GTX 1070 Ti manages to keep frame-rates of AotS consistently above 60 frames per second. Much like the Radeon RX Vega 56 it's designed to compete with, the GTX 1070 Ti will find its comfort-zone with the 1440p resolution, even though it will be capable of playable (≥30 fps) frame-rates at 4K Ultra HD.

NVIDIA's upcoming GeForce GTX 1070 Ti performance-segment graphics card, which could be launched toward the end of this month, with market-availability following in early-November; could feature 9 Gbps GDDR5 memory, and not the previously-thought 8 Gbps GDDR5. This "almost-GTX 1080" answer of NVIDIA to AMD's RX Vega 56 features 2,432 CUDA cores, 152 TMUs, 64 ROPs, and a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, holding 8 GB of memory. It will be available at a price-point competitive with AMD's RX Vega series, and could come in custom-designs by NVIDIA's add-in card partners.

The GTX 1070 Ti will be NVIDIA's second SKU to max-out the GDDR5 clock band. The company had, in late-2016, refreshed the mid-range GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB to feature 9 Gbps memory in an effort to compensate for its narrower 192-bit wide memory interface, improving its competitiveness against the Radeon RX 480 8 GB. The company had also, at the time, refreshed the GTX 1080 with faster 11 Gbps GDDR5X memory, which means the GTX 1080 cards with the SKU's original 10 Gbps GDDR5X memory clock could be phased out of the market. NVIDIA will ride into the crucial Holiday 2017 season with its existing GeForce "Pascal" family, bolstered by the new GTX 1070 Ti.