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.

Reviewers should have received their Radeon "Navi" review samples by now, so it's just natural that the number of leaks is increasing. WCCFTech has spotted one such leak in the 3DMark Time Spy database. The card which is just labeled "Generic VGA" achieved a final score of 8575 points, GPU score of 8719 and 7843 CPU points, which is almost identical to WCCFTech's own comparison benchmarks for the GeForce RTX 2070 Founders Edition (8901). The Vega 64 scored 7427, which leads WCCFTech to believe this must be Radeon RX 5700 XT. The result has since been removed from the 3DMark database, which also suggests it's for an unreleased product.

AMD today released the latest version of their Radeon Adrenalin 2019 Drivers. Version 19.3.1 is game-ready for the release of Devil May Cry 5, promising an "up to 4%" performance improvement in that title, with a Vega 64 graphics card. High-profile fixes include fixes for Radeon WattMan on Radeon VII, mouse lag or system slowdown with one of multiple displays shut off, black screen issues with Acer's KG251Q display, and corrupted video on an HDR display. Follow the link below, and check after the break for the more complete listing of this driver release.DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Adrenalin Edition 19.3.1 Beta

AMD today posted the latest version of Radeon Software Adrenalin 2019 Edition. Version 19.2.1 beta ships with optimization for "APEX Legends" and "The Division 2 private beta." It also improves performance of "Assassin's Creed: Odyssey" by up to 5 percent, when tested on a Radeon RX Vega 64 graphics card. The company also fixed a number of issues.

To begin with, a bug affecting "Battlefield V" in which character outlines remain on the screen after revive has been fixed. Radeon Settings not automatically installing when updating Radeon Software on machines with hybrid graphics has been fixed. Also fixed is a Radeon Settings application crash noticed when switching tabs too quickly with long game lists. Some displays experiencing a loss in video when maximizing to fullscreen any software with FreeSync enabled, also has been fixed. A white-screen bug affecting "Anthem" has been fixed. HDMI Underscan settings not restoring after reboot has been fixed. An inverted color bug with ReLive has been fixed.DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 19.2.1 beta

The change-log follows.

AMD pulled off a surprise at its CES 2019 keynote address, with the announcement of the Radeon VII client-segment graphics card targeted at gamers. We went hands-on with the card earlier this week. The company revealed a few more technical details of the card in its press-deck for the card. To begin with, the company talks about the immediate dividends of switching from 14 nm to 7 nm, with a reduction in die-size from 495 mm² on the "Vega 10" silicon to 331 mm² on the new "Vega 20" silicon. The company has reworked the die to feature a 4096-bit wide HBM2 memory interface, the "Vega 20" MCM now features four 32 Gbit HBM2 memory stacks, which make up the card's 16 GB of memory. The memory clock has been dialed up to 1000 MHz from 945 MHz on the RX Vega 64, which when coupled with the doubled bus-width, works out to a phenomenal 1 TB/s memory bandwidth.

We know from AMD's late-2018 announcement of the Radeon Instinct MI60 machine-learning accelerator based on the same silicon that "Vega 20" features a total of 64 NGCUs (next-generation compute units). To carve out the Radeon VII, AMD disabled 4 of these, resulting in an NGCU count of 60, which is halfway between the RX Vega 56 and RX Vega 64, resulting in a stream-processor count of 3,840. The reduced NGCU count could help AMD harvest the TSMC-built 7 nm GPU die better. AMD is attempting to make up the vast 44 percent performance gap between the RX Vega 64 and the GeForce RTX 2080 with a combination of factors.

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.

NVIDIA late Sunday announced the GeForce RTX 2060 graphics card at $349. With performance rivaling the GTX 1070 Ti and RX Vega 56 on paper, and in some cases even the GTX 1080 and RX Vega 64, the RTX 2060 in its top-spec trim with 6 GB of GDDR6 memory, could go on to be NVIDIA's best-selling product from its "Turing" RTX 20-series. At the CES 2019 booth of NVIDIA, we went hands-on with a few of these cards, beginning NVIDIA's de-facto reference-design Founders Edition. This card indeed feels smaller and lighter than the RTX 2070 Founders Edition.

The Founders Edition still doesn't compromise on looks or build quality, and is bound to look slick in your case, provided you manage to find one in retail. The RTX 2060 launch will be dominated by NVIDIA's add-in card partners, who will dish out dozens of custom-design products. Although NVIDIA didn't announce them, there are still rumors of other variants of the RTX 2060 with lesser memory amounts, and GDDR5 memory. You get the full complement of display connectivity, including VirtualLink.

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.

Prices of the two top crypto-currencies with DIY and small-scale miners, Ethereum and Bitcoin, dropped to yearly lows Monday, with Ethereum falling just a touch below USD $140, and Bitcoin at $4,700. This is in stark contrast to January, when Bitcoin scraped $20,000, making it among the most valuable "currencies" in human history. The direct impact of the crypto-currency slide falls on graphics card prices, at least for currencies which are viable to mine with graphics cards.

Across the board, new graphics card prices are at record lows for the year, with AMD's flagship Radeon RX Vega 64 going for as low as $399 brand-new. These cards were priced upwards of $1,500 and barely available this January. The RX 580, which was priced upwards of $700 in January, can be had for under $200. Prices of NVIDIA "Pascal" graphics cards are similarly low, with the GTX 1070 Ti going for under $400. For whatever strange reason, the GTX 1080 Ti is still marked up, selling for prices on par with RTX 20-series SKUs such as the RTX 2080. You can also expect a torrent of used graphics cards on E-bay and tech forums.

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 has released the Radeon Software Adrenalin 18.10.1 beta drivers. These drivers include support for Microsoft's Windows 10 October 2018 Update as well as optimizations for Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. Along with improved support, AMD has addressed a number of issues with this latest release. First of which is a fix for the HDMI audio drivers not upgrading during the Radeon Software installation in some circumstances. Random reboots when upgrading from Radeon Software versions older than RSAE 18.8.1 on CPUs with more than 16 cores has also been resolved. In regards to gaming fixes, Fortnite sees lighting corruption when effects quality is set to High or Epic resolved, while Sea of Thieves sees texture flickering in multi-GPU configurations fixed. You can grab the drivers from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 18.10.1 BetaThe change-log follows.

AMD today released the latest version of Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition. Version 18.9.3 beta comes just in time for "Assassin's Creed: Odyssey," posting up to 5% higher performance at 1440p, when tested with a Radeon RX Vega 64; and up to 3% higher performance at 1080p, tested with an RX 580. The game also comes with optimization for "Forza Horizon 4," although AMD did not put out performance guidance for that game. AMD also addressed a couple of issues, beginning with fixing a stutter observed when exceeding FreeSync refresh-rate range in some high frame-rate scenarios. Also addressed is machines with 16 CPU cores experiencing a random system reboot during driver installation, when upgrading from 18.8.1 drivers. Grab the drivers from the link below.DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 18.9.3 beta

The change-log follows.

AMD today released version 18.9.2 of their Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition Graphics Drivers. This update brings with it improved or added support for F1 2018 (up to 3% faster performance on Vega 64 at 2560x1440); Fortnite (up to 5% faster performance at 1080p under a Vega 64); Shadow of the Tomb Raider (up to 4% faster performance on Vega 64 at 2560x1440); and Star Control: Origins, with up to 14% faster performance with a Vega 64 running at 4K.

Fixed issues include some particle corruption seen in Star Control: Origins. Catch up with known issues after the break. You can download these drivers right here from your favorite website in the galaxy.DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 18.9.2

AMD announced the "Raise the Game" bundle. The company is giving away three AAA games with its Radeon RX Vega 64, RX Vega 56, RX 580, and RX 570 graphics cards (you get all three games when you purchase any of those graphics cards). Assassin's Creed Odyssey is the star attraction here. The latest addition to the Assassin's Creed franchise adds a straight $59.99 value to your graphics card purchase. You also get "Strange Brigade," a $39.99 upcoming co-op adventure shooter set in a Tomb Raider-esque setting. Lastly, there's Star Control: Origins, the upcoming space RTS by Stardock.

This is probably the first time that a GPU vendor is bundling only upcoming games, which at launch-prices add tremendous value to your graphics card, especially some of the cheaper RX 570 ones. Assassin's Creed Origins releases this October, while Strange Brigade lands late-August, and Star Control: Origins this September. The bundle is limited to participating retailers, and applicable to graphics cards sold between August 7, 2018 and ends November 3, 2018 (or until stocks last). You get a master coupon that must be redeemed on AMD website before 31st December, which puts out the UPlay and Steam keys for the games.

The folks over at Computerbase.de have took it into their hands to study exactly how much of an impact >(if any) would activating HDR on a 4K panel affect performance cross different hardware configurations. Supposedly, HDR shouldn't impose any performance penalty on GPUs that were designed to already consider that output on a hardware level; however, as we know, expectations can sometimes be wrong.

MSI was caught openly slandering AMD Radeon graphics processors in promoting its MSI Gaming Series notebooks featuring NVIDIA GeForce graphics chips. The company is a signatory of the draconian GeForce Partner Program (GPP) by NVIDIA which, in boilerplate regulator-baiting language, tells its add-in card (AIC) partners not to use the same gaming sub-brand (eg: ASUS ROG, MSI Gaming, GIGABYTE Aorus, etc.,) for GPUs from any other brand (i.e. AMD Radeon). When it's in effect, ASUS, for example, can't sell an ROG Strix-branded Radeon graphics card, MSI can't sell an RX Vega 64 Gaming X, and it's probably why GIGABYTE stripped the RX 580 Gaming Box of Aorus branding.

In one of its regional Facebook pages, an official Facebook page customer response handle was seen openly stating "NVIDIA currently are ahead in the GPU experience," (keyword being "experience" and not performance), suggesting that its competition is sub-par. The handle was responding to a question as to why the notebook didn't come with AMD Radeon graphics options. Facebook users were quick to torch the MSI handle with a flame-war, and MSI corporate redacted the post stating "We apologize for making an inappropriate comment. It did not represent MSI's official views."

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.

MSI today rolled out its first quasi-custom design Radeon RX Vega 64 graphics card, the MSI RX Vega 64 Air Boost. This card combines an AMD reference-design (or at least close-to-reference) PCB, with a custom-design lateral-flow cooling solution by MSI. The lateral blower features a large base plate with a copper core; the base plate draws heat from the VRM, the copper core from the "Vega 10" MCM. The card ships with slightly overclocked speeds of 1272 MHz core, and 1575 MHz boost. Drawing power from two 8-pin PCIe power connectors, the card puts out three DisplayPort 1.4 connectors, and an HDMI 2.0 port. The company didn't reveal pricing.

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.

The EK Fluid Gaming lineup is finally supporting AMD Radeon RX Vega based graphics cards! EK Water Blocks, the Slovenia-based premium computer liquid cooling gear manufacturer is releasing a new kit, the A240R and the EK-AC Radeon Vega aluminum based full cover water block! The EK-AC Radeon Vega full cover water block brings a pure and minimalistic design for liquid cooling enthusiasts and the same can be said for the EK Fluid Gaming A240R kit. The kit is equipped with an EK-Supremacy AX CPU water block, an evolution of the renowned high-end EKWB water block that brings excellent performance and an attractive appearance! It's a universal water block that suits all modern CPU sockets on the market, both Intel and AMD.

The included EK-AluStream SE radiator offer high-class cooling performance for its thickness of 28mm. Dense aluminum fins combined with a slim profile provide a huge cooling surface, while the radiator remains highly compatible with most cases on the market. AluStream SE radiators are optimized for maximum heat dissipation across the entire operational range of the included high-static pressure EK-Vardar fans which deliver exceptional performance at both low and high RPM operation.

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."

It seems our wait for custom editions of AMD's RX Vega graphics cards is coming to an end. "Better late than never" is what they always say; however, AMD and its AIB partners have to know that this kind of wait can sap customer enthusiasm for a product. It's not enough that customers waited around two years for Vega to come to fruition; we've also had to wait some additional months (not weeks), for an actual custom-design graphics card. Vega's exotic design with HBM2 memory means that these graphics cards' availability would fall prey not only to Vega GPU yields, but also to HBM2 memory availability.

Additionally, Vega has been vulnerable to packaging of HBM2 and the GPU as well, with various factories providing different levels of quality in the finished product. This introduced some unexpected variance in the finished products - making the creation of cooling designs that could cope with all the design discrepancies more difficult.