SAPPHIRE Technology announces the newest addition to the RDNA 2 family with the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT Special Edition. With increased performance and an innovative spin on the award winning Tri-X Cooling Technology, this model is a powerhouse product for the ultra-aficionado 4K gamer. Designed with the classic NITRO+ minimalist aesthetic, additional fresh customizable RGB on the peripherals, and striking ARGB fans, the NITRO+ AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT Special Edition is sure to be a photogenic part to complete the theme of any PC.

Overclocked straight out of the box to hit every frame, the NITRO+ AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT Special Edition leads with 5120 stream processors and boasts a maximized Boost Clock of up to 2365 MHz and a Game Clock of up to 2135 MHz. It comes decked with 80 ray accelerators and 80 compute units to facilitate raytracing. The latest 16 GB of GDDR6 high-speed memory is clocked at 16 Gbps Effective with 128 MB of Infinity Cache, which dramatically reduces latency and power consumption, delivering higher overall gaming performance than traditional architectural designs.

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.

Intel has just launched its Ice Lake-SP lineup of Xeon Scalable processors, featuring the new Sunny Cove CPU core design. Built on the 10 nm node, these processors represent Intel's first 10 nm shipping product designed for enterprise. However, there is another 10 nm product going to be released for enterprise users. Intel is already preparing the Sapphire Rapids generation of Xeon processors and today we get to see more details about it. Thanks to the anonymous tip that VideoCardz received, we have a bit more details like core count, memory configurations, and connectivity options. And Sapphire Rapids is shaping up to be a very competitive platform. Do note that the slide is a bit older, however, it contains useful information.

The lineup will top at 56 cores with 112 threads, where this processor will carry a TDP of 350 Watts, notably higher than its predecessors. Perhaps one of the most interesting notes from the slide is the department of memory. The new platform will make a debut of DDR5 standard and bring higher capacities with higher speeds. Along with the new protocol, the chiplet design of Sapphire Rapids will bring HBM2E memory to CPUs, with up to 64 GBs of it per socket/processor. The PCIe 5.0 standard will also be present with 80 lanes, accompanying four Intel UPI 2.0 links. Intel is also supposed to extend the x86_64 configuration here with AMX/TMUL extensions for better INT8 and BFloat16 processing.

Sapphire today launched its two custom-design AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics cards, the premium RX 6700 XT NITRO+ (which we reviewed here), and the cost-effective RX 6700 XT Pulse. The NITRO+ comes with a high-end looking triple-slot cooling solution with three fans, a compound aluminium fin-stack heatsink, an independent heatsink for the memory area, and a trio of fans. It also comes with all the RGB illumination you want, and also puts out a 3-pin ARGB header. The card comes with Sapphire's highest factory overclock, running the RX 6700 XT at up to 2.65 GHz max boost (compared to 2.57 GHz reference).

The Sapphire RX 6700 XT Pulse appears to be using a slightly cut-down version of the NITRO+ PCB, with a smaller cooler dubbed Dual-X. The card is strictly 2 slots thick, and 26 cm in length. It features a dense aluminium fin-stack heatsink in which the main heatsink handles the GPU, as well as the memory and VRM, and is ventilated by a pair of 100 mm fans with webbed-edge impellers. The Pulse has a mild factory overclocked speed of 2.58 GHz. You still get the handy dual-BIOS feature that's also available in the NITRO+. The RX 6700 XT Pulse is expected to be priced around $529, and the RX 6700 XT NITRO+ goes for $579, both rather steep premiums over the $479 baseline price for the RX 6700 XT.

AMD has pulled what could be another sucker punch on NVIDIA with the announcement of its upcoming Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics card set at the $479 price point. Considering, of course, that there's availability; in case there's not, our very own btarunr defined AMD's claims quite well on the news post covering AMD's announcement. If there is actual availability, however, AMD has showcased eight different designs coming from its more high-profile partners: AsRock, ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, PowerColor, Sapphire, XFX, and Yeston.

All the showcased graphics cards will feature the Navi 22 GPU and 12 GB of GDDR6 memory, but all of them should differ from AMD's reference design in the power delivery: dual 8-pin configurations are the expected changes to the design, so as to allow for higher performance, higher power limit ceilings, and better potential overclocks. Expect all of them - all of them - to be priced higher than AMD's suggested (and we know how that suggestion goes nowadays) MSRP of $479. All of these cards should be available in some quantity come March 18th.

Sapphire on Thursday (Feb 18) formally launched its flagship graphics card, the TOXIC Radeon RX 6900 XT Limited Edition. This liquid-cooled graphics card features an all-in-one, closed-loop cooling solution that pulls heat from the GPU and memory, while a fan-heatsink cools the VRM and provides some additional air-cooling to the card. The liquid cooler uses a large 360 mm x 120 mm radiator. ARGB illumination covers everything from the radiator fans, to the on-card fan, and the cooler shroud.

The TOXIC Radeon RX 6900 XT Limited Edition features Sapphire's highest factory-overclock for the RX 6900 XT, with engine boost clocks stated to be "beyond" 2365 MHz (vs. 2250 MHz reference). The memory is untouched at 16 Gbps (GDDR6-effective). The card pulls power from a combination of two 8-pin and one 6-pin PCIe power connectors. Display outputs include three DisplayPort 1.4a and an HDMI 2.1. Sapphire is officially pricing the TOXIC Radeon RX 6900 XT Limited Edition at USD $1,499, a 50% premium over the reference design, but you can bet that the real-world pricing could be north of $2,000.

Here are some of the first pictures of the Sapphire Radeon RX 6900 XT TOXIC, the company's [hopefully] flagship RX 6900 XT product, until it decides to revive even the "Atomic" brand. This features a hybrid liquid+air cooling solution not unlike the ASUS ROG STRIX RX 6900 XT LC. An all-in-one, closed-loop, liquid cooler pulls heat from the GPU and memory, while a fan-heatsink with a noise-optimized fan handles ancillaries such as the VRM.

The AIO CLC part of the card is characterized by a large 360 mm x 120 mm radiator, with a trio of ARGB illuminated 120 mm fans included. Nylon-sleeved tubing connects it to the card. On the card's side, we see ARGB embellishments along the 100 mm fan, and the cooler shroud. The card draws power from a trio of power connectors, and VideoCardz reports that this could be a combination of two 8-pin and one 6-pin. We can also spot a dual-BIOS switch. The clock speeds of the card are still unknown, we expect it to be higher than the air-cooled NITRO+ cards.

Update 21:26 UTC: The card is now listed at Newegg for $1640, with an availability date of Feb 17th.

Sapphire via Weibo teased a new, impending product launch to occur within the next few days. Details are all but absent - the only thing we have to go on is the company's teaser image, which features a TA branding in prominent gold. It's been speculated that this teaser may refer to a Sapphire return to some of its most well-known sub-brands for their graphics cards products - the TOXIC and ATOMIC series.

The TOXIC branding hasn't graced Sapphire's cards ever since the RX 390X days; it's historically been the company's highest-tier, enthusiast-focused graphics cards on air cooling. the ATOMIC series, on the other hand, is Sapphire's AIO-integrated lineup of graphics cards, which the company has kept dormant since way back in 2013, with the AMD Radeon HD 7990 - a beautiful piece of engineering featuring a pair of AMD's Tahiti XT2 cores - and featured 3 GB of GDDR5 memory mirrored for each of the GPU cores. The TA branding might also represent a new design from Sapphire, rather than a return to old lineups, but we'll have to wait for Sapphire's announcement proper to dispel any lingering doubts.

Applications such as data analytics, autonomous-driving and medical diagnostics are driving extraordinary demands for machine learning and hyperscale compute infrastructure. To meet these demands, Microchip Technology Inc. today announced the world's first PCI Express (PCIe) 5.0 switch solutions—the Switchtec PFX PCIe 5.0 family—doubling the interconnect performance for dense compute, high speed networking and NVM Express (NVMe ) storage. Together with the XpressConnect retimers, Microchip is the industry's only supplier of both PCIe Gen 5 switches and PCIe Gen 5 retimer products, delivering a complete portfolio of PCIe Gen 5 infrastructure solutions with proven interoperability.

"Accelerators, graphic processing units (GPUs), central processing units (CPUs) and high-speed network adapters continue to drive the need for higher performance PCIe infrastructure. Microchip's introduction of the world's first PCIe 5.0 switch doubles the PCIe Gen 4 interconnect link rates to 32 GT/s to support the most demanding next-generation machine learning platforms," said Andrew Dieckmann, associate vice president of marketing and applications engineering for Microchip's data center solutions business unit. "Coupled with our XpressConnect family of PCIe 5.0 and Compute Express Link (CXL ) 1.1/2.0 retimers, Microchip offers the industry's broadest portfolio of PCIe Gen 5 infrastructure solutions with the lowest latency and end-to-end interoperability."

Sapphire released the GPRO X070 compute graphics card. This is very much a graphics card, in that it has display outputs, and is based on the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT, but there's a twist—it's completely fanless. The card has a large triple-slot heatsink cooling the GPU, which is designed to rely on external airflow in rackmount cases, and probably won't work on its own in a tower case. Sapphire says its applications include render farms, or V-GPUs. The card features an AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT that runs at reference clock speeds—1905 MHz max boost, 14 Gbps GDDR6 memory. There's also an "Efficiency Mode" enabled through a secondary BIOS, which runs the GPU at 1750 MHz boost, possibly making the card best suited for crypto-currency mining operations.

SAPPHIRE Technology continues to excel in embedded platform design by announcing a new series of embedded motherboards powered by the latest high-performance AMD Ryzen Embedded V2000 processor family built on 7 nm process technology, Zen 2 cores and high-performance AMD Radeon graphics. The SAPPHIRE V2000 BP-FP6 and FS-FP6 embedded motherboards support multiple independent displays in 4K resolution with a stable balance of low power consumption and exceptional performance for the embedded markets.

Alphacool presents the Eisblock Aurora Acryl GPX-A block for the Radeon MSI RX 6800/6800 XT Gaming X Trio and the Radeon Sapphire RX 6800XT Nitro+ graphics cards. The blocks offer outstanding cooling performance thanks to the full cover design. The new backplate, which is included with the coolers, also contributes to this. This stabilizes the graphics card and ensures an even contact pressure of the cooler. The cold plates are made of solid nickel-plated copper. The coolers cover all relevant components such as voltage converters and the graphics memory.

SAPPHIRE Technology announces the eagerly awaited new NITRO+ AMD Radeon RX 6800 Series Graphics Cards for enthusiast gamers seeking the full effect of smooth 4K graphics with vivid visuals and unrivaled quality cooling solutions. Equipped with high-quality components to drive the most demanding AAA game scenarios, the NITRO+ AMD Radeon RX 6800 Series Graphics cards are the key component to push gaming performance to the maximum thresholds. The aesthetic designs of these cards are crafted to beautifully fit with any PC build.

Hot on the heels of the Radeon RX 6800 XT Pulse picture leak, VideoCardz brings us pics of its pricier sibling, the RX 6800 XT NITRO+. This will be the most premium air-cooled custom-design RX 6800 XT graphics card by Sapphire. Much like the Pulse, the NITRO+ features a meaty triple-slot cooling solution ventilated by three fans. The heatsink of the NITRO+ is larger than that of the Pulse, and looks taller. The PCB is shorter than the card itself, so the extra length go toward air flow-through. There appears to be a design focus on making the cooler shroud airy, with large cutouts wherever possible. At the same time, as its premium offering, Sapphire gave the NITRO+ plenty of RGB LED bling. The card also appears to feature a header so you can sync your lighting to the card. The card draws power from a pair of 8-pin PCIe power inputs, outputs include two DisplayPorts, an HDMI port, and a USB-C port with DisplayPort passthrough.

Here are some of the first pictures of the Sapphire Radeon RX 6800 XT Pulse graphics card. The company teased these cards late last week, and VideoCardz has its press pics. The RX 6800 XT Pulse (and Pulse OC) will be the more cost-effective custom-design RX 6800 XT option from Sapphire, while the NITRO+ would represent its premium custom-design lineup. The RX 6800 XT Pulse features a large triple-slot cooling solution with a trio of fans. The PCB is 80% the overall length of the card, which means half the airflow from the third fan goes through the back. The card appears to be drawing power from two 8-pin PCIe power connectors. We'll know more about these cards when Sapphire launches them.

Following yesterday's teaser of its top Radeon RX 6800 XT NITRO+ graphics card, Sapphire today teased its affordable custom-design offering, the Radeon RX 6800 XT Pulse. The Pulse brand extension represents cost-effective, low-noise custom-designs that are priced close to reference. It's likely that there could be variants of the card, one which sticks to AMD reference clock speeds, and the other with a mild factory overclock. The teaser picture reveals a card that's more than 2 slots thick, and features three evenly sized fans. Sapphire already announced its AMD reference-design cards for the RX 6800 XT and RX 6800, which would mean their Pulse and Pulse OC SKUs are slotted a notch above, followed by the NITRO+ series.

Sapphire today teased its first custom-design Radeon RX 6800 XT graphics card, under its coveted NITRO brand. The RX 6800 XT NITRO+ is shown featuring a large cooling solution with a trio of fans of different sizes, and featuring partially webbed impellers. The fan in the middle is smaller than the fans at its sides. From the looks of it, the cooler is thicker than 2 slots, and could very well be the company's top air-cooled custom RX 6800 XT offering. Apparently AMD's Radeon board partners aren't under any restriction to reveal their custom-design cards, given that ASUS already formally launched its custom-design RX 6800-series products.

Unlike NVIDIA, AMD still relies on its add-in board (AIB) partners to sell reference design (made by AMD) graphics cards, and Sapphire just announced its lineup. The company unveiled its reference-design Radeon RX 6800 XT and RX 6800 cards. The RX 6800 XT is characterized by its triple-slot cooling solution, while the RX 6800 makes do with a slimmer dual-slot one. Both cards are based on the 7 nm "Navi 21" silicon and feature 16 GB of 16 Gbps GDDR6 memory over a 256-bit wide memory interface, cushioned by 128 MB of on-die Infinity Cache.

The RX 6800 XT is configured with 72 out of 80 RDNA2 compute units on the "Navi 21" silicon, working out to 4,608 stream processors, 72 ray accelerators, 288 TMUs, and 128 ROPs. The engine clock of the RX 6800 XT boosts up to 2.25 GHz. The RX 6800, on the other hand, features 60 out of 80 RDNA2 compute units, which make up 3,840 stream processors, 60 ray accelerators, 240 TMUs, the same 128 ROPs, and the same memory subsystem as the RX 6800 XT. Given that these are reference cards, Sapphire could price them at AMD's baseline, with the RX 6800 XT going for $649, and the RX 6800 at $579.

The Alliance for Computing at Extreme Scale (ACES), a partnership between Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories, announced the details of a $105 million contract awarded to Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) to deliver Crossroads, a next-generation supercomputer to be sited at Los Alamos.

"This machine will advance our ability to study the most complex physical systems for science and national security. We look forward to its arrival and deployment," said Jason Pruet, Los Alamos' Program Director for the Advanced Simulating and Computing (ASC) Program.

Sapphire recently launched a cost-effective variant of its Radeon RX 5600 XT Pulse graphics card, the RX 5600 XT Pulse BE. The company extended the Pulse BE treatment to the RX 5700 series, in a bid to make them more cost-effective, and ready for price-cuts. The new RX 5700 XT Pulse BE (model: 11293-09-20G), differs in board design from the RX 5600 XT Pulse BE. It's also significantly different from the original RX 5700 XT Pulse. For starters, it features a more cost-effective cooler shroud design that uses ABS plastic. The underlying heatsink is different from the one on the original Pulse, with one less heat pipe.

Interestingly, the card has the same dimensions as the original Pulse, with 25.4 mm length, 13.5 mm height, and 4.65 cm thickness. Sapphire also trimmed down a handful features. The Pulse BE lacks the Quick Connect fans that easily detach from the cooler, letting you clean the heatsink underneath. It also lacks the dual-BIOS feature which the original has. The card sticks to AMD reference clock speeds, with up to 1815 MHz game clocks, up to 1925 MHz boost, and 14 Gbps (GDDR6-effective) memory. Sapphire is pricing the Radeon RX 5700 XT Pulse BE at AMD SEP of USD $399, although you should be able to find it unofficially-discounted.

Sapphire introduced a price-optimized variant of its Radeon RX 5600 XT Pulse, with the new RX 5600 XT Pulse BE (model: 11296-05-20G). This card is visibly smaller than the original RX 5600 XT Pulse that is largely based on the board design of the RX 5700 series Pulse cards. The newer card is 23.05 cm long and 12.25 cm tall, compared to the original Pulse, that's 25.4 cm long and 13.5 cm tall. The new card is also slightly thinner, at exactly 4 cm (slightly less than 2 slots thick), while the original Pulse is 4.65 cm thick (slightly more than 2 slots thick).

There are a handful areas of cost-cutting by Sapphire. To begin with, while the diameter of the two fans of the Dual-X cooling solution is unchanged at 100 mm, the underlying heatsink is visibly slimmer, and of a different design than that used in the original Pulse card. Secondly, the PCB is shorter in length than the cooler itself, and is of a completely different design than the original Pulse. Thirdly, the card lacks dual-BIOS. Lastly, the fans of the card lack the Quick-Connect feature that lets you pop them out to clean the heatsink underneath. Luckily, the new Pulse BE card sticks to AMD's revised OC specs for the RX 5600 XT out of the box, so you don't have to bother with BIOS updates. It ticks at 1560 MHz game clocks, up to 1620 MHz boost clocks, and 14 Gbps (GDDR6-effective) memory. The company didn't reveal pricing, although we expect this card to be priced very close to the USD $279 baseline for the RX 5600 XT.

Sapphire today released BIOS updates for its sole Radeon RX 5600 XT product, the Pulse Radeon RX 5600 XT OC Edition. The updated BIOS enhances performance by significantly increasing engine and memory clock speeds and power-limits, resulting in an up to 10 percent performance improvement. This stems from AMD's last-minute specifications update for the RX 5600 XT in a bid to make it competitive against the GeForce RTX 2060. Much like ASRock, Sapphire has automated the BIOS update process by shipping its BIOS ROMs with the flashing tool and batch files.

Since the Pulse RX 5600 XT OC Edition ships with dual-BIOS, one of which is the out-of-the-box performance BIOS, and the other is a 'quiet' BIOS, you're expected to update both, and there are separate Windows batch files to run after manually switching the between the ROMs. Sapphire's BIOS update package includes a PDF file with detailed instructions on how to update each ROM. The batch files spare you of having to manually work the various CLI arguments of the flashing tool. Look for the "New VBIOS Update" tab on the card's product page the Sapphire website.

AMD has allegedly changed the specifications of its Radeon RX 5600 XT graphics card through a BIOS update being pushed to manufacturers, according to an HKEPC report. According to the report, AMD has increased clock-speeds of the RX 5600 XT to 1615 MHz gaming and 1750 MHz boost, versus 1375 MHz gaming and 1560 MHz on AMD's CES press-event slides detailing the card. Confirmation of this comes from the product page of Sapphire's RX 5600 XT Pulse graphics card, which doesn't bear any "OC" marking in either the product name or box art, but yet has an updated specs tab, referencing the new clock speed.

Increased GPU (engine) clocks isn't all, Sapphire also increased memory clock speeds from 12 Gbps to 14 Gbps (a 15% increase in memory bandwidth). Also, the typical board power ("power consumption") value has gone up from 150 W to 160 W, indicating a possible power-limit increase. These last-minute changes could probably significantly change the performance numbers of the RX 5600 XT in a bid to make it more competitive to the GeForce RTX 2060. Earlier today, it was reported that NVIDIA formally cut prices of the RTX 2060 down to $299, which would put it within $20 of the RX 5600 XT with its launch price of $279.

SAPPHIRE Technology launches PULSE version of the AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT graphics card with powerful TriXX boost Software tool that delivers up to a 15% performance improvement in popular games when the resolution is adjusted from 1920 x 1080 to 1728 x 972. Built on the groundbreaking AMD RDNA gaming architecture and 7 nm process technology, the PULSE Radeon RX 5600 XT graphics card comes with 2304 stream processors, a Boost Clock of up to 1620 MHz and a Game Clock of 1560 MHz delivering ultra- responsive high fidelity AAA gaming @ up to 60 FPS in select titles. The SAPPHIRE Radeon RX 5600 XT Series are equipped with 6 GB GDDR6 of high speed memory and PCI Express 4.0 support for maximum game performance, exceptional power efficiency and outstanding value.

Focusing on what gamers' need, the PULSE Radeon RX 5600 XT graphics card comes with a pivotal set of exciting features that deliver a superlative gaming experience powered by the new AMD RDNA gaming architecture. Impressive clock speeds, near silent cooling and a durable design are the trademark of the PULSE series of graphics cards.

AMD today announced the Radeon RX 5500 XT graphics card for the DIY (retail) channel, launched exclusively through its add-in board partners. Based on the 7 nm "Navi 14" silicon, the RX 5500 XT has the same exact core-configuration as the RX 5500 launched in October to OEMs. This means only 22 out of the 24 RDNA compute units are enabled, and the XT doesn't max the silicon out. These work out to 1,408 stream processors. Other vital specs include 88 TMUs, 32 ROPs, and a 128-bit wide GDDR6 memory interface. The RX 5500 XT will still end up faster than the RX 5500 OEM card from last month, since it has a higher engine "game clocks" of 1717 MHz, while the RX 5500 OEM ships with roughly 1670 MHz game clocks. Engine boost clocks for the RX 5500 XT are rated at up to 1845 MHz.

The Radeon RX 5500 XT comes in two variants based on memory size, 4 GB and 8 GB. Both variants use 14 Gbps GDDR6 memory chips across the chip's 128-bit wide memory bus. The 4 GB variant uses four commonly available 8 Gbit chips, while the 8 GB variant typically uses high-density 16 Gbit memory chips. AMD is pricing the Radeon RX 5500 XT at USD $169.99 for the 4 GB variant, and $199.99 for the 8 GB variant. It competes with a spectrum of NVIDIA cards including the GeForce GTX 1650 and GTX 1650 Super.

Read the TechPowerUp Reviews of the Sapphire Radeon RX 5500 XT 4 GB Pulse OC and MSI Radeon RX 5500 XT 8 GB Gaming XThe complete AMD slide deck follows.