ASUS has announced its take on the RX 550, the graphics card that is meant to bridge the gap between IGPs and the power reserved to discrete GPUs. Not much differs from other AIB offerings, since this is the same GPU paired with either 2 or 4 GB of GDDR5 memory ticking at 7,000 MHz over a 128-bit memory bus, but ASUS dis manage to add an IP5X-certified dust-proof fan. According to ASUS, this fan design extends the lifespan of the graphics card by 25% through increased dust and particle resistance, as well as efficient heat dissipation. The cards will come clocked at 1,100 MHz stock, and 1,183MHz boost clocks, with no auxiliary power connectors.

The ASUS Radeon RX 550 is a dual-slot design measuring 182 (length) x 112 (height) x 43mm (width), which delivers 1x Dual-Link DVI-D, 1x HDMI, and 1x DisplayPort connectors. These cards are produced using ASUS' Auto-Extreme manufacturing technology, which fully automates every step of PCB manufacturing and dispenses with human intervention. ASUS also bundles its GPU Tweak II and Xsplit Gamecaster software suites with the Radeon RX 550. These include the new "Gaming Booster"for automated overclocking, while XSplit Gamecaster lets gamers stream or record gameplay right from the in-game overlay. The ASUS Radeon RX 550 2GB / 4GB are available now from a variety of retailers for $90 / $100, respectively.

Up to now, only users with Intel's latest Kaby Lake architecture processors could enjoy 4K Netflix due to some strict DRM requirements. Now, NVIDIA is taking it upon itself to allow users with one of its GTX 10 series graphics cards (absent the 1050, at least for now) to enjoy some 4K Netflix and chillin'. Though you really do seem to have to go through some hoops to get there, none of these should pose a problem.

The requirements to enable Netflix UHD playback, as per NVIDIA, are so:

• NVIDIA Driver version exclusively provided via Microsoft Windows Insider Program (currently 381.74).
• No other GeForce driver will support this functionality at this time
• If you are not currently registered for WIP, follow this link for instructions to join: insider.windows.com/
• NVIDIA Pascal based GPU, GeForce GTX 1050 or greater with minimum 3GB memory
• HDCP 2.2 capable monitor(s). Please see the additional section below if you are using multiple monitors and/or multiple GPUs.
• Microsoft Edge browser or Netflix app from the Windows Store
• Approximately 25Mbps (or faster) internet connection.

Premium graphics cards these days are a dime a dozen, and KFA2 seems to be a well-regarded AIB for some more exquisite designs based on NVIDIA graphics chips. Together with OverclockersUK, KFA2 is announcing the most premium of premium GTX 1080 Ti, the Hall of Fame "8 Pack Edition", which features a full custom design with KFA2's trademark aesthetics, triple 8-pin power connectors, triple-fan and triple-slot cooler an LCD display, and the highest stock clocks from any GTX 1080 Ti model so far - a base 1645 MHz with 1759 MHz boost and 1425 MHz memory clocks.

According to OverclockersUK, due to low yields of the cherry-picked GPUs that power these graphics cards, only 5 to 10 units are expected to be sold each month. The cards are currently available for pre-order with expected shipping date of May 26th... For the clean sum of £950. A premium pricing for a premium solution, indeed. If that pricing is a little to bold for you, you can opt for an "8 Pack Approved" graphics card, which is essentially the same package on a GPU with a lower 1607 MHz base, 1721 MHz boost, and 1376 MHz memory clocks. This one should retail for a more respectful £859.99.

Via Facebook, AMD has confirmed that Vega is nearly here - at least, as nearly here as a "this quarter" can be. This means Vega will launch in two-months time (Q2 extends through the months of April, May and June, after all.) Through a post on its Facebook page, AMD replied that Vega will be coming "when it's ready... And it will be this quarter."

According to previous leaks (and our own deep dive on Vega's architecture), Vega should go a long way towards bridging the power/performance gap between AMD and NVIDIA's GeForce series. It will be the first time since Fury that AMD will have a competitive, high-performance graphics design (expectedly, and hopefully, since no-one likes to buy over-priced graphics cards.) The fact that AMD has teased Vega in two different pieces of media that come out in May (Arkane Studios' Prey, which comes out on May 5th, and Alien: Covenant, which also comes out during the month of May.) I've previously posited that AMD wouldn't tease Vega's launch alongside one of the most promising games of the year without giving us the chance to power it through Vega come launch day, but as Prey's release date approaches and there is no more information on Vega (much less an announcement), it's looking increasingly likely that we'll have to wait until we can see that universe in all of its Vega-rendered glory.

VisionTek, a company whose last graphics card announcement we've posted here was on June 2015 with its Fury X and R9 300 line of graphics cards, has announced its vision for the RX 500 series graphics cards. This one seems a throwback to the RX 400 series, though, with Visiontek's "Overclocked Edition" GPUs carrying clockspeeds more in line with the prevous AMD series: 1,366 MHz for the RX 580, and 1264 MHz for the RX 570, respectively.

The VisionTek Radeon RX 580 8 GB comes with a slightly unoriginal take on the AIB partner design, sporting custom dual-fan cooler with a black-nickel aluminum shroud with 2x 8 mm and 2x 6 mm heatpipes for increased cooling capacity. The Radeon 570 4GB makes use of what is basically AMD's RX 480 reference design cooler, with a blower-style fan that ensures the GPU's heated air output exits the back of your case instead of lingering inside your system. VisionTek's Radeon RX 500 Series cards are now available through the company's website, with retailer availability to follow.

It isn't unusual for AMD or NVIDIA to launch OEM-specific graphics chips, and it would seem that AMD is doing just so with its rebranded yet improved RX 500 series. Now, it's time for the RX 540 to surface, which, like the name implies, flies right below the RX 550 in terms of specs, though you wouldn't know it without a closer look.

The chip packs the same 8 CUs as the RX 550 (512 stream processors), but its memory bandwidth (in 2 GB or 4 GB flavors) peaks at 96 GB/s (lower than the RX 550's 112 GB/s.) However, its core clocks see an interesting boost from the RX 550's 1183 MHz boost clocks to a "up to 1219 MHz" value, which should alleviate the performance impact from the stunted memory bandwidth. This is a GPU that's likely to be used by OEMs and system integrators, whether on desktop computers or in laptops, though I do have to wonder regarding this configuration. I'd expect higher clocks on the core to increase power consumption more than the offset allowed by the reduced memory clocks, but then again, I'm not an AMD engineer.

AMD is on a roll with product launches lately, having just pushed out what is probably the most significant update in mainstream CPUs in years: the Ryzen 5 line of desktop processors. You can look over TPU's review of the 1500X and 1600X here and here. AMD is looking towards powering another central part of your desktop processor, though, with the impending launch of the RX 500 line of GPUs.

Confirmed as rebrands of previous-generation Polaris 10, the new RX 500 series will carry the new Polaris 20 XTX and Polaris 20 XL chips, which are expected to feature higher clocks (in the range of 1300-1400 MHz) from AIBs, before your own overclocking. PowerColor has officially confirmed the launch date as April 18th through social media with a tease for their new Red Devil graphics card. Now if only we could see Vega on this new horizon...

(Re)member that dazzling-looking Superposition benchmark from Unigine - the one that was supposed to have arrived late 2016? The one that apparently wasn't good enough for Steam? Well it has been released, and you can now gobble up all of those realistic graphics for yourself and your GPU of choice. Some standout features include the ability to scale rendering resolution all the way up to 8K, so... Go on ahead, click that link below, make your graphics cards scream, and elbow one another for the top result. I will be with you in a little while. Go on after the break for some more features and a little teaser on what the benchmark is all about.Download Link: Unigine Superposition Benchmark 1.0Can I just say I love me some Nicola Tesla on the walls?

Videocardz has gotten their hands on the launch driver for the RX 500 series of graphics cards, and it would seem that previous rumors have indeed been vindicated: the revised RX 500 series features new code names for the chips that tick at its very heart. The RX 580, according to this report, will feature a Polaris 20 XTX chip (oh ATI X1950 XTX, how I remember you from staring in awe at your price and performance in computer magazines...), while the Radeon RX 570 will be equipped with a Polaris 20 XL part. And while the RX 560 is lacking from the list, the little chip-that-probably-will, the Polaris 12, makes a cameo under the RX 550 series and a "Lexa Pro" GPU code name... Which is just so different from all others, both in form and content, that one must wonder where it is its real name or a simple placeholder.

So, it would appear that rumors and leaks about the RX 500 series being simple rebrands of AMD's RX 400 line were true. Recent leaks point to no more changes and performance increases than those achieved through higher base clock speeds on the graphics cards' GPU and memory. The architecture is the same, and the process seems to have followed the same path - as of yet, no confirmation regarding whether or not these cards do use a newer, leaner LPP process for higher clocks and less power consumption.

For some users, it's been a long time coming. For others, it just meant that Apple had given up entirely on the desktop ecosystem, choosing to focus on its "mainstream luxury" approach towards selling phones with a BOM of $219 for $1000. Most others, though, will probably look at this update as more of a passing shot than an actually thought-out product development.

For now, Apple is going to update the innards of its Mac Pro line with some pretty interesting (if expectable) hardware: the $2,999 model sees a two-core bump from the quad-core Intel Xeon E5 3.7 GHz processor towards a six-core Intel Xeon E5 3.5 GHz. The same path will be followed by the $3,999 model, bumping towards an eight-core Intel Xeon E5 3 GHz processor from the six-core Intel Xeon E5 3.7 GHz processor that just kept on giving since 2013. Both models have also been updated with dual AMD FirePro D500 and D700 GPUs. The $2,999 model also sees an increase in its available memory, from 12GB of DDR3-1866 memory to 16GB.

It looks like AMD is confident enough on its HBC (High-Bandwidth Cache) and HBCC (High-Bandwidth Cache Controller) technology, and other assorted improvements to overall Vega memory management, to consider 4 GB as enough memory for high-performance gaming and applications. On a Beijing tech summit, AMD announced that its RX Vega cards (the highest performers in their next generation product stack, which features rebrands of their RX 400 line series of cards to th new RX 500) will come in at 4 GB and 8 GB HBM 2 (512 GB/s) memory amounts. The HBCC looks to ensure that we don't see a repeat of AMD's Fury X video card, which featured first generation HBM (High-Bandwidth memory), at the time limited to 4 GB stacks. But lacking extensive memory management improvements meant that the Fury X sometimes struggled on memory-heavy workloads.

If the company's Vega architecture deep dive is anything to go by, they may be right: remember that AMD put out a graph showing how the memory allocation is almost twice as big as the actual amount of memory used - and its here, with smarter, improved memory management and allocation, that AMD is looking to make do with only 4 GB of video memory (which is still more than enough for most games, mind you). This could be a turn of the screw moment for all that "more is always better" philosophy.

This is an unusual article to cover at Techpowerup: We don't usually do mobile stuff. Nevertheless, when a household name like AMD strikes out against some household names in the mobile verse such as LG, Mediatek, Vizio, Sigma, and such, we probably should cover it. AMD's financial wellbeing is important to competitiveness and all, right?

AMD has recently sent out around a hundred patches, which amount to over 40 thousand lines of code, so as to allow developers to integrate support for its upcoming Vega GPU architecture under Linux. The new code is essential towards baking support for Vega under Linux, considering the many changes this architecture entails over AMD's current-generation Polaris 10 (soon to be rebranded, if sources are correct, to the new RX 500 series.) Also of note is the existence of seven different device IDs for Vega-based products, though this really can't be extrapolated to the amount of SKUs under the Vega banner. For now, that really is just a number.

It would seem that AMD has been making internal, top-secret demonstrations of its upcoming RX Vega GPUs. The company was in Beijing, China yesterday, sowing some thoughts and knowledge on its upcoming Ryzen 5 line of processors. Yet AMD apparently also found the time to tease its upcoming high-performance GPU (which apparently, and unlike it's competitors GPUs, also carries a soul.)

From what can be gleaned from the pictures, this physical manifestation of Vega does away with AMD's Fury X small size (achieved through water cooling). Instead, the coolers seems to be a monolithic piece which totally encloses the card, in an attractive, white and red color scheme with AMD's Vega branding etched on for good measure. We can also glean from the pics that AMD's RX Vega doesn't drop the tachometer feature that allows you to look at the operating LED's to glean the amount of workload on the GPU, with switches that are likely to allow for "OFF/ON" positions for the LED's and for "RED/BLUE" coloring.

We've previously covered how AMD's RX 500 series is to be a rebrand of the company's successful RX 400 series. Previous reports pegged the RX 500 series' launch on April 11th; now, it would seem that there has been a slight, one-week delay on the launch date, with it having been pushed back to April 18th. Apparently, this delay is looking to allow more time to "fine-tune the drivers".

The RX 500 series are purportedly straight rebrands from equivalent RX 400 series GPUs (RX 580 will be a rebrand of the RX 480, and so on down the ladder). The need for driver fine-tuning seems a little baffling considering these straight rebrands, but may have more to do with the reported Polaris 12 chips that are expected for launch than any other metric. Remember, RX 500 chips are expected to carry somewhat higher clock-speeds than their RX 400 originals, with some improved power/performance ratio being derived from improvements in foundry processes. But if the rebranding scheme holds up, don't expect these to bring in any meaningful changes towards these cards' performance. AMD is hoping Polaris tides them over through the mainstream market until it can introduce its Vega-based, high-performance GPUs, which are heralded to mark AMD's return to the high-performance consumer graphics segment in a while. Fingers crossed.Source: Thanks @TheMailMan78

With the release of Nvidia's newest flagship gaming GPU, the GTX 1080 Ti, Phanteks is excited to introduce the Glacier Series G1080 Ti. The full cover waterblock from Phanteks are designed to work seamlessly with Nvidia's new GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition and Titan X cards, which allows serious overclocking and extreme performance.

Made from premium materials according to the finest standards of craftsmanship from Phanteks, the G1080Ti water block delivers extreme cooling and improve stability under high overclocks for the enthusiasts. VITON sealing from the Automotive and Aerospace Industries ensure the best reliability and longevity. The Glacier Series features RGB lighting to let you synchronize lighting patterns and effects from our RGB motherboard and Phanteks RGB products. Phanteks Glacier G1080 Ti will be available in April, 2017 with two color options: Mirrored Chrome and Satin Black, with pricing set at €149,90 / £129.99.

The Vega based line of AMD GPUs are definitely a big unknown at this point, so any sightings or benchmarks of it are highly sought after by the rumormill. Well, here is another one to add to your pile of rumor-material folks: AMD has posted a card benchmark to Compubench that bests even the GTX 1080.

Why hold the hype?

There are two obvious issues. One, this is a compute only benchmark, and has little relevance to the average gamer. Two, in the same benchmark, a 980TI also beats the 1080. Stranger yet, the 1080 is also beaten by its little brother, the 1070. Take this one with a grain of salt, for the obvious reasons. It won't stop the the hypetrain from using this info to its own end, but maybe you can avoid being smashed by it by using some critical thinking.

AMD has released the latest version of its Radeon driver package, Radeon Software Crimson ReLive 17.3.1. The changelog indicates an improvement of up to 6% Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands, as well as a new CrossFire profile for the same game. Also included is a big list of fixed issues, which we have included below for your examination.

You can download the drivers straight from TPU using the link below:

DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition 17.3.1

The folks at Heise online have put forward a report on how AMD's RX 500 series of graphics cards will be little less than direct rebrands of the Polaris 10 and Polaris 11 GPUs that AMD introduced with its RX 400 series of graphics cards. Apparently, a straight rebrand is in order, with the RX 580 entering the fray in the place of the RX 480, the RX 570 substituting the RX 470, and so on. Heise reports that the Polaris 10-based RX 500 should see the light of day as soon as April 4th, with Polaris 11-based solutions coming in a little later, on April 11th.

Videocardz, however, reports that these will be slightly more than a straight rebrand - if you can call a slight bump in clockspeeds as trumping a rebrand. The RX 580 is supposed to ship with base clocks ar 1340 MHz (74 MHz more than the reference RX 480), with the RX 570 carrying a much less significant 38 MHz increase over its RX 470 counterpart. Videocardz also reports on the possibility of AMD introducing a new Polaris 12 GPU with the RX 500 series, which will apparently be an even lower-end part than even Polaris 11.

AMD in a press release today, stated that in its 2017 "Capsaicin Live" event held on the sidelines of the Game Developers Conference, it will reveal "exciting new details surrounding Vega," its next-generation GPU architecture, on which the company is expected to launch its next high-end graphics card. The company is hosting the much talked about "Capsaicin and Cream" launch event on the 28th February, 2017. It is expected to launch its next-generation Ryzen performance desktop processors, and talk some more about its "Vega" GPU architecture. Besides Ryzen and Vega, AMD will showcase some of Summer 2017's most anticipated AAA game launches that take advantage of VR.

Colorful Technology Company Limited, professional manufacturer of graphics cards and motherboards, is proud to announce that gamers and eSports enthusiasts can now enjoy full customization and personalization with the latest Colorful iGameGTX1070 X-TOP-8G Advanced Limited graphics card. This card features the latest technologies from both NVIDIA's 10-series GPU as well as Colorful's own technology to enhance performance as well as bring out your personal style in your gaming rig.

Featuring the new Silver Shark cooler designed by Colorful, the iGameGTX1070 X-TOP-8G Advanced Limited delivers 3 key benefits in a single package: aggressive performance, aggressive cooling and aggressive styling. Thanks to the cooling performance of the Silver Shark cooler, this new card delivers faster performance so you can game to peak levels without any hitch while enjoying cool and quiet performance.

Inventory clearing is as much a part of business as breathing is part of life; as such, various retailers have apparently started to offer deep, deep discounts on AMD's past technology in the form of their Radeon Pro Duo - the once and still king of the hill in the red camp, where performance and technology is concerned.

But as the "out with the old, in with the new" adage still stands, retailers are now clearing inventory of their Radeon Pro Duo graphics cards, sometimes offering almost 50% off from the original launch price of $1499. Newegg, for example, has the card for $799 on both their North American and Asia Pacific online stores.

According to WCCFTech, AMD's next-generation Vega architecture of graphics cards will see its launch on consumer graphics solutions by May 2017. The website claims AMD will have Vega GPUs available in several SKUs, based on at least two different chips: Vega 10, the high-end part with apparently stupendous performance, and a lower-performance part, Vega 11, which is expected to succeed Polaris 10 in AMD's product-stack, offering slightly higher performance at vastly better performance/Watt. WCCFTech also point out that AMD may also show a dual-chip Vega 10×2 based card at the event, though they say it may only be available at a later date.

After disappointing scores of potential buyers by skipping a GTX 1080 Ti announcement at CES - which could have been a last-moment decision on the company's part when AMD failed to make any relevant VEGA announcement - it looks like NVIDIA has chosen the grand stage of PAX East, which begins at March 10th, as the place to carry the previously-confirmed addition to their Pascal line of GPUs.

This information (which should be taken with a maybe unhealthy grain of salt) came to light by way of an MSI (NVIDIA's AIB partner) representative, which also mentioned that the 1080 Ti would be available from board partners (including, naturally, MSI itself) at time of launch.