During the launch of the new AMD Radeon RX 6000, the company unveiled a new technology called AMD Smart Access Memory that allowed Ryzen CPUs 5000 to make use of all the memory of the graphics card directly via PCIe, breaking the limitations of 256 MB limitations that there was until now.
This technology, which we detailed in our editorial about the AMD RDNA 2 architecture, is compatible with the AMD chipsets of the series 500 with PCI Express 4.0 connectivity, however now it seems that it will also reach users of series motherboards 400 as B’s 450 and X 470.
ASRock and MSI beta BIOS for B 450 and X 470 include support for Smart Access Memory
The information comes from the fact that the new BIOS with AGESA 1.1.0.0 v2 beta that some manufacturers have implemented in their motherboards, such as AsRock, in addition to adding support for Ryzen 5000 based on Zen 3 like the Ryzen 9 5950 x, they also allow you to enable this option. Recently the company removed all reference to the Ryzen 5000 from the new supported Bios, but it seems that the support is still there.
On the other hand, MSI is also releasing beta versions with support for Smart Access Memory on motherboards with chipsets B 450 and X 470.
Definitely good news for chipset motherboard users 400 who see how, little by little, they will be able to enjoy the most interesting news of the new AMD CPU and GPU architectures
End of Article. Tell us something in the Comments or come to our Forum!
Antonio Delgado
Computer Engineer by training, editor and hardware analyst at Geeknetic since 2011. I love gutting everything that comes my way, especially the latest hardware that we get here for reviews. In my spare time I fiddle with 3d printers, drones and other gadgets. For anything here you have me.
Premieres of AMD Ryzen processors 5000 and AMD Radeon graphics cards The RX 6000 turned out to be quite successful, finally we have tough competition in both segments, so the situation seems more comfortable than ever. You can find the results of new AMD products in our article database. However, I decided to extend the measurement procedure a bit and perform the first AMD Ryzen 7 5800 X and Radeon RX 6800 XT, consisting in checking the performance of such a set in strictly processor places. The results I obtained made me quite stunned, because I expected an increase in performance, but I saw a series of huge drops …
AMD Ryzen 7 5800 X has a performance degradation when connected to the AMD Radeon RX graphics card 6800 XT, however on NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 and RTX 2080 Everything works fine. Has the overhead come back?
Anticipating the questions – I did all the tests on fresh 64 – Windows bit 10 build 2004 (I also checked the versions 1909 and H2), the latest drivers and updated UEFI of the motherboard (2502). Previously, I obtained identical results on the media from the CPU and GPU platforms, so out of curiosity, I put everything from the beginning to rule out possible driver conflicts. The course of measurements and settings were, of course, the same as during the premiere tests of the processors, and the only difference in the hardware was the insertion of the Radeon RX 6800 XT instead of GeForce RTX 2080 Ti.
Because I got three times same results, I decided to share my conclusions hotly. Other computer games that I use in processor tests also usually show drops, which will be the subject of a separate article. I originally planned to test two overclocked platforms – AMD Ryzen 7 5800 X and Intel Core i7 – 10700 KF – seasoned with fast DDR4 memory in a 4x 8 GB system, which were alternately accompanied by AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT and GeForce RTX 3080. The results on the NVIDIA card brought the expected increases compared to the standard set on which I test the processors, while the Radeon RX 6800 XT caused me a lot of problems, resulting in the following performance drops:
As you can see, AMD Ryzen 7 5800 X has performance drops in four out of five proven productions when paired with the AMD Radeon RX graphics card 6800 XT. Some cases are downright devastating (Watch Dogs 2, Kingdom Come: Deliverance), others are slightly hit (Far Cry: New Dawn, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt), but there are also ups (Shadow of the Tomb Raider). However, I would like to add that tests performed on an overclocked AMD Ryzen 5 processor 5800 X and Radeon RX 6800 XT included SAM (Smart Access Memory), while the default setting was disabled. AMD Ryzen 5 5800 X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX Kits 2080 Ti / GeForce RTX 3080 they work without any anomalies. Let me remind you – everything checked on three systems, two motherboards and DDR4 sets.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is the most interesting case to analyze because I included in the tests CPU and GPU place. In the first scenario, AMD and AMD performs significantly worse in combination with the Radeon RX 6800 XT than the GeForce RTX 3080. However, when we move to the GPU place, it suddenly turns out that Radeon is exactly the same as in the premiere tests and is ahead of the GeForce RTX 3080. As the problem mainly affects DirectX-enabled titles 11, and the only one using DirectX 12 is Shadow of the Tomb Raider, this prompts you to conclude that there is a recurring driver issue. Strictly speaking, the so-called CPU driver overhead that reduces / inhibits AMD & AMD kits performance. This can be seen in the screenshot below from the task manager, showing the load of individual components, which is not a determinant, but illustrates certain trends. I have been showing the problem of AMD driver overhead for a long time (LINK and LINK), some tests still reach 2015 of the year, but BIG NAVI emphasizes it additionally. As GPU performance has increased, the loss to NVIDIA automatically becomes more apparent. More results coming soon.
AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT and RX 6800 was held 18 November and the small print runs quickly spread. After a few minutes, the possibility of placing orders in stores was suspended, and new deliveries are still waiting for them. A week later, the original models of Red’s partners were to hit the stores, but the premiere, as predicted, turned out to be literally “paper”, with no possibility of placing orders. As it turned out, both foreign and Polish stores received virtually no copies. If you expected AMD and its partners to cope better with the availability of new GPUs from Nvidia, you were mistaken – it’s even worse for now! Just look at the number of items on the way to Proshopa’s warehouse. In other stores the situation is not more rosy …
You counted on better availability of Radeon RX graphics cards 6800? It turned out to be even worse than the GeForce RTX 3000. The stores have not yet received virtually any non-reference models and by the end of the year it may be difficult to buy them. We will omit prices …
Test AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT vs GeForce RTX 3080
It is hard to talk about a big surprise, since earlier premieres were very “paper”, let alone talk about the debut in the pandemic period. Even before the release of the Radeons RX 6800, companies such as ASUS were alarming that there would be problems with availability. And so it is, but it turned out to be even bigger than expected. Scan and OcUK, one of the UK’s largest hardware stores, have not received up to 25 November no non-reference RX Radeons 6800 (XT). Overclockers revealed a bit more information, revealing that they should expect very small deliveries before the holiday season (they may not even see a few hundred items in their warehouse by the end of the year). Therefore, users are not able to place not even an order, but a reservation. Maybe it’s better than taking hundreds of orders, only a fraction of which would be realized …
Source: Proshop.de
Source: Proshop.de
AMD Radeon RX Graphics Card Test 6800 vs GeForce RTX 3070
The news from the Danish Proshop store, which openly publishes delivery and order statistics, regularly updating its inventory, is also not positive, to put it mildly. From 18 November only received 125 copies of the speakers (100 pcs RX 6800 and barely 25 RX pieces 6800 XT). Original models, in turn, got a round zero, and on the way there are suddenly 22 cards (13 ASUS RX 6800 TUF OC and Strix OC and 9 pieces of ASUS RX 6800 XT TUF OC and Strix OC). What is the situation in Poland? Some stores have not even placed offers for selected models, and those that have posted, “tempt” only with the lack of availability and significantly inflated prices. The Radeon RX 6800 can come close to the ASUS GeForce RTX 3080 TUF (after increases), and the XT version – even surpass. Abroad, ASUS RX 6800 XT TUF OC is sometimes valued at the same level as ASUS GeForce RTX 3080 ROG Strix OC. Overall, it’s much worse than anticipated, and it’s not just about virtually zero availability, but also about prices that are significantly above suggested. Now the paper premiere of GeForce RTX cards 3000 seems to be against the background of the paper premiere of Radeon RX cards 6800 less “paper” …
AMD Radeon RX 6800 (XT) from 2021 only in author versions
AMD were given a gift with Nvidia’s horrible launch and then proceeded to fumble it and score an own goal in the process.
– Hardware Unboxed (@HardwareUnboxed) November 25, 2020
There was a lot of expectation from folks saying AMD stock would be great once AIB stock launches. Retailer after retailer is now saying they got ZERO inventory for tomorrow embargo drop on custom cards. This is so much worse than expected. @AMD this was 100% botched
AMD’s 400 series motherboards already have the first BIOS versions with support, and the company is working with Intel and NVIDIA to expand support.
AMD released a new Smart Access Memory feature with the new Radeon RX 6000 series graphics cards. The company said SAM requires a Ryze 5000 series processor, a 500 series motherboard, and an RX 6000 series graphics card to run, but the truth is not quite so straightforward.
Smart Access Memory is AMD’s term for Resizable BAR support under the PCI Express standard. Normally, the processor sees 256 MB of video card memory, but with Resizable BAR support, that window can be resized to the desired size, even if it covers the entire video card memory. This is an advantage in some tasks where the processor can send more data directly to the video card’s memory.
Resizable BAR has been included in the optional features of PCI Express since PCIe 2.1, but operating system support has dragged on badly. Support for Linux was once implemented by AMD and for Windows by Microsoft through Windows 10. Support for motherboards also appears to remain variable, although many motherboards support the necessary functionality, at least for iron
. AMD’s claim about feature requirements was true when it was made; That combination of AMD’s iron was the only platform on which the company had validated its operations. NVIDIA announced shortly after AMD’s announcement that it would also support it, at least with Ampere-based graphics cards, with a later update
. AMD has since said that support for the feature will not remain in this respect either. In an interview with PCWorld, Scott Herkelman confirmed that the company’s Radeon team is working with Intel and the Ryzen team should be working with NVIDIA to extend support to as many platforms as possible. Support is also promised for AMD’s older platforms, as Cracky, a member of Rawiiol, which produces live streams, among others, noticed that ZR 3 BIOS, previously released by ASRock for B 450 motherboards, would also activate Ryze
on Smart Access Memory. series processor. MSI has also released the first beta BIOSs with SAM support for its 400 series motherboards, so it is expected that support will be officially introduced for the 400 series motherboards in the new Zen 3: a with supported BIOS versions. However, it is not yet known whether the support will be extended to older processors.
Home/Tech News/Featured Tech News/MSI EEC listing points to return of Aero and Sea Hawk series as well as RTX 3060Ti and RTX 3080 20GB
João Silva 5 hours ago Featured Tech News, Graphics
Although the RTX 3080 20GB was thought to be cancelled, MSI has just listed multiple models of this SKU on the EEC database. Alongside them, there’s also the upcoming RTX 3060Ti models and the return of the Aero and Sea Hawk series of graphics cards.
The 20GB version of the RTX 3080 was supposed to be Nvidia’s direct response to the 16GB memory buffers of the AMD Radeon RX 6800 series and the RX 6900XT graphics cards. However, it was since rumoured that this version was cancelled in favour of a new RTX 3080Ti, which should arrive in early 2021. Despite all of that, the EEC listing shared by @KOMACHI_ENSAKA suggests MSI might still release a 20GB variant of the RTX 3080.
— 遠坂小町@Komachi (@KOMACHI_ENSAKA) November 27, 2020
The listing also mentioned the new RTX 3060Ti models, which include 6GB variants. Until now, the only memory configuration of rumoured to feature in the RTX 3060Ti is an 8GB one. A 6GB variant of the RTX 3060Ti was never mentioned. Nonetheless, the standard and 6GB variants of the RTX 3060Ti should be available in the Gaming, Ventus (3X and 2X), and Twin Fan variants from MSI, each with their respective standard and OC models.
The last thing to take from this listing is the return of the Sea Hawk water-cooled graphics cards and the Aero cards, which featured blower coolers. As per the EEC listing, both series will have RTX 3090, RTX 3080 10GB, and RTX 3080 20GB models.
KitGuru says: Would you like to see a 20GB variant of the RTX 3080? Do you think that there will be a 6GB variant of the RTX 3060Ti?
Become a Patron!
Check Also
MSI announces value-oriented RTX 3070 Twin Fan graphics card
MSI is getting ready to launch a new budget-oriented series of cards called Twin Fan. …
Home/Component/CPU/Some B450 and X470 motherboards support Smart Access Memory and Ryzen 5000 CPUs
João Silva 1 day ago CPU, Featured Tech News, Motherboard
AMD previously announced that 400-series motherboards would gain support for Smart Access Memory and Ryzen 5000 CPUs in January 2021. As it turns out, motherboard makers are eager to get the update out early, with beta versions of the BIOS already publicly available.
Motherboard vendors have started shipping a beta BIOS with AGESA v2 1.1.0.0. This introduces support for both Ryzen 5000 series CPUs and Smart Access Memory. According to Wccftech, ASRock B450 and Gigabyte B450 and X470 motherboards already support these features with this BIOS. Additionally, Asus has already launched a new BIOS featuring the AGESA v2 1.1.8.0. update for the B450 and X570 motherboard, which should also include the Curve Optimizer.
As if that wasn’t enough, Reddit user u/Gah_Duma has managed to get a Ryzen 5 5600X work on an ASRock B350 motherboard by flashing an ASRock B450 Gaming-ITX/AC BIOS, proving once again that even 300 series motherboard can run Ryzen 5000 processors.
When AMD announced Smart Access Memory (SAM), it stated users would need a Ryzen 5000 series processor, an AMD 500 series motherboard, and a Radeon RX 6000 graphics card to enable it. Although since then, AMD has said it would welcome other hardware vendors to add support for this feature.
KitGuru Says: Are many of you planning an upgrade to Ryzen 5000? Are you looking to keep your current motherboard for it, or will you also be upgrading to the 500-series chipset?
Become a Patron!
Check Also
MSI announces value-oriented RTX 3070 Twin Fan graphics card
MSI is getting ready to launch a new budget-oriented series of cards called Twin Fan. …
Many recently introduced PC components are currently only available poorly or not at all. This is noticeable in processors and graphics cards: Both AMD’s “Big Navi” models Radeon RX 6800 XT and Radeon RX 6800 as well as Nvidia’s ampere series GeForce RTX 3000 are currently bad available. Ryzen – 5000 – CPUs are almost impossible to get and the previous models are also more expensive.
AMD has its own reference designs of the Radeon RX 6800 XT and Radeon RX 6800 at the 18. November 2020, followed a week later by partner manufacturers with their own versions. No major German retailer currently has the graphics cards in stock – the current order prices are correspondingly excessive.
According to its own information, the Danish retailer Proshop with a branch in Germany only has 100 RX – 6000 – Cards and 25 XT models received; 18 more are on the way. It doesn’t look much better at other shops.
Relaxation GeForce RTX 3000 At Nvidia, the situation is gradually easing: The GeForce RTX 3090 and GeForce RTX 3070 are occasionally in stock, However, interested parties must add at least 120 euros to Nvidia’s price recommendation. The GeForce RTX 3070 is from 700 Euro available (RRP: 500 Euro). The big sister GeForce RTX 3070 interested parties hardly get any.
Opposite heise online retailers have let it through that meanwhile a steady swing 3000 er-GeForce graphics cards from manufacturers, which are sold out almost immediately.
Ryzen 3000 will be more expensive AMD’s Ryzen models are particularly popular with processors. The Ryzen – 5000 – CPUs presented at the beginning of November are currently, if at all, only available at outrageous prices – for example the six-core Ryzen 5 5600 X for occasionally round 500 Euro.
In the meantime, however, prices for the old generation are also increasing: The popular entry-level recommendation Ryzen 5 3600 was available for months for under 150 euros, now costs but at least 180 Euro. Among other things, high freight costs could contribute to the price increase: Due to high capacity utilization, freight forwarders in Asia charge two to three times the prices, as several manufacturers have informed us Taiwanese business magazine Commercial Times reports that AMD is currently relocating its own wafer capacities at the chip contract manufacturer TSMC to the game consoles Playstation 5 and Xbox Series X as well as S focuses. Knapp 120. 000 Wafers with 7 nanometer structures are expected in the fourth quarter 2020 roll off the tape with the appropriate combination processors. For the start of sales, Sony and Microsoft need particularly high quantities – from 2021 the situation should relax.
However, the delivery situation is also tense for entry-level CPUs with global foundation technology. Athlon models are currently not available. For less than 89 Euro, AMD currently only offers the four-core Ryzen 3 3200 G (from 89 €). Intel processors are meanwhile readily available at low prices, which is why c’t has the core in the optimal budget PC 2021 i3 – 10100 F built in.
Resizable BAR (Base Address Register), the technology behind AMD’s Smart Access Memory (SAM), isn’t exclusive to Ryzen owners anymore. Asus has released an entire wave of new firmwares for various Z490 motherboards that enable the Resizable BAR feature.
The firmware, which sports the 1002 version number, is fresh out of the oven as Asus evidently uploaded it just yesterday. The firmware is currently in the beta stage so there might be some bugs here and there. It also lacks a detailed description of the changes. We can, however, confirm that the 1003 firmware effectively brings support for Resizable BAR, as evidenced by the newly added “Above 4G Decoding” and “Re-Size BAR Support” options in our ROG Maximus XII Apex motherboard’s BIOS.
We’re not surprised that motherboard vendors are already rolling out Resizable BAR on Intel platforms since the technology is part of the PCIe specification after all. Shocking as it may sound, AMD’s engineers are working with both Intel and Nvidia to get the feature working on the latter two’s products. It’s touching to see companies putting their rivalries and pride aside for the benefit of consumers.
ROG Maximus XII Apex – 1002 Firmware (Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Currently, AMD’s Radeon RX 6000 (Big Navi) series are the only graphics cards that support the Resizable BAR technology. Nvidia has already confirmed that Ampere supports the feature but, the chipmaker didn’t provide an estimated timeframe on when it will be enabled. At the current stage, it’s also uncertain if Asus’ Z490 motherboards can now leverage the technology with Big Navi or it’s just preparing future support. With AMD, Nvidia and Intel working together, cross-platform compatibility is definitely a possibility.
On AMD’s front, Smart Access Memory is exclusive to the company’s latest 500-series motherboards, although ASRock has quietly extended it back to previous B450 motherboards too. Nvidia, on the other hand, has said that its equivalent of Smart Access Memory will work on standard PCIe 3.0 interfaces so there shouldn’t be any reason why the feature wouldn’t work on any motherboard with a PCIe 3.0 slot.
Smart Access Memory isn’t a miracle solution, but in the right titles, it can provide a small uplift in performance. Much of Smart Access Memory’s recipe remains a secret so we don’t know exactly what kind of magic AMD has worked into the technology. What’s more interesting will be Nvidia’s implementation and whether it can provide the same level of improvements as Smart Access Memory.
A recurring theme of 2020, pandemic aside, is a tech shortage. Brand new graphics cards like the Nvidia RTX 3080 / 3070 / 3090 and the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT have been nearly impossible to find in stock, thanks to scalpers who use powerful bots to snap up inventory as soon as it becomes available and then resell it to consumers on eBay for twice the price.
However, with the help of a Raspberry Pi and some open-source Python code, you can create your own bot and up your chances of scoring any hard-to-find new product, including consoles like the PS5 or XBox Series X. Think of the Pi as the scrappy T800 fighting against the better-specked T1000 bots that scalpers use.
Coder Eric Marti has written Inventory Hunter, a Python app for Raspberry Pi that goes out and scrapes the web, checking to see if your desired products are back in stock. Here’s shared the code and instructions on Github so you can use it yourself. You install the software using Docker, a container system used to package software into units for deployment.
Marti used his program to buy an RTX 3070 after being unable to get one, due to all the professional scalping tools that snap up inventory as soon as it becomes available.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
“In a nutshell, inventory-hunter is a web-scraper that will notify you as soon as the product you want becomes in stock, giving you a better chance of successfully buying it,” Marti explained on Reddit. “Before developing inventory-hunter, I used online inventory trackers such as NowInStock.net for this purpose. However, I found that these services are not fast enough to compete against scalpers. That is why I developed inventory-hunter.”
Marti chose the Raspberry Pi because of its ” low power requirements and onboard ethernet” and he was able to run “multiple web-scrapers running 24/7 on my Raspberry Pi.”
(Image credit: Eric J Marti)
Installation is a breeze, requiring that the user clones Marti’s Github repository, then build a container using a pre-configured script. After that all that is needed is to create a config file which supplies the URLs to scrape data from, the frequency of scraping and the maximum price to pay.
Running the code will trigger the script to check inventory on your chosen retailers, and once a card is found it will alert you via email. This is a great Raspberry Pi project and hack which solves a problem common to many and throws Pi in the face of scalpers.
The Radeon RX 6800 XT STRIX OC LC is the ASUS flagship Radeon RX 6800 XT “Big Navi” design. LC stands for Liquid Cooled, which already tells you everything this card is about. While other vendors are using air-cooling for their top dog designs, ASUS opted for an AIO watercooling solution this time around. The card comes with a 240 mm radiator attached to the card; it’s pre-filled, maintenance free, and ready to go.
The ASUS Radeon RX 6800 XT STRIX OC Liquid Cooled is based on the 7 nm “Navi 21” RDNA2 silicon, which has an 80% increase in compute units over the previous-generation RX 5700 XT. Each of those compute units has one Ray Accelerator unit, which, as the name suggests, handles certain raytracing workloads. The memory amount is doubled to 16 GB, and AMD is using 16 Gbps GDDR6 memory. At 256 bit, the memory bus width has stayed the same. To make up for that, AMD devised an ingenious solution it calls Infinity Cache, which is a 128 MB on-die level 3 cache that runs at an astounding 2 TB/s, accelerating most workloads that aren’t too data-intensive. Our RX 6800 XT reference-design review goes into more details on the RDNA2 architecture.
ASUS is using a triple-slot casing for the card, which houses the waterblock, a pump, and a slow-running fan that provides cooling for the minor components on the card. The VRM design has been upgraded to a 17-phase configuration, and you get a dual BIOS, too. As expected, idle fan stop is present as well. Out of the box, the ASUS RX 6800 XT STRIX OC LC ticks at a rated boost clock of 2360 MHz, which is quite an increase over the 2250 MHz reference.
ASUS hasn’t given us pricing yet for the RX 6800 XT STRIX OC Liquid Cooled, but it is currently listed at Caseking in Germany for €987, which includes the 16% German VAT. A few hours ago, the price was €1086, guess these are changing quite a lot. €987 including VAT is €850 without VAT, which converts to roughly US$1000 and is what I used for the charts in this review.
Update Nov 26: ASUS has provided us with pricing, it’s $899, which matches the Newegg price listing that went up after our review, too. I’ve updated the pricing throughout this review and remade the relevant charts.
Proshop will continue its approach to the GeForce RTX 30 series to disclose order and delivery information for graphics cards whose demand far exceeds supply.
Fall’s video card releases have been all sorts of farce, at least in terms of availability. Following NVIDIA’s GeForce releases, AMD was given a good chance of hitting a tight spot, but the availability of new Radeons has since proved to be at least as weak. A month after the release of GeForce RTX 3080, the Danish company Proshop, which also operates in Finland, published a list in which it openly reported ordering and delivery statistics for GeForce graphics cards. The company has now released a similar list of new Radeon graphics cards.
AMD released the Radeon RX 6800 and RX 6800 XT reference graphics cards for sale a week ago and today it was time to release the AIB models. According to Proshop’s statistics, it has so far only received PowerColor graphics cards: 100 RX 6800 and 25 RX 6800 XT. The AIB manufacturers’ own models have not been shipped to the store yet, but Asus has already sent a handful of cards: 8x RX 6800 TUF OC, 5x RX 6800 Strix OC, 6x RX 6800 XT TUF OC and 3x RX 6800 XT Strix LC OC. Gigabyte and MSI have not yet even disclosed their own prices, which is why the company has not yet listed them for sale at all.
AMD’s Radeon RX 6800 XT and RX 6800 officially launched one week ago, joining the best graphics cards and GPU benchmarks hierarchy lists. Today marks the arrival of third-party add-in board (AIB) partner cards. Sort of. Much like Nvidia’s RTX 3090, RTX 3080, and RTX 3070, as well as AMD’s Ryzen 5000 series CPUs, all of the RX 6800 series cards are sold out. But we received Sapphire’s Radeon RX 6800 XT Nitro+ just yesterday, and we’re working on running it through our test suite for a full review. Until then, here’s the quick unboxing and look at what Sapphire has to offer.
Image 1 of 11
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Image 2 of 11
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Image 3 of 11
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Image 4 of 11
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Image 5 of 11
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Image 6 of 11
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Image 7 of 11
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Image 8 of 11
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Image 9 of 11
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Image 10 of 11
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Image 11 of 11
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The card itself is quite large, basically matching the longest cards we normally see. It measures 310 x 134.3 x 55.3 mm (12.2 x 5.3 x 2.17 inches), so you’ll need plenty of clearance in your case. It’s a 2.7-slot design as well, blocking the two adjacent expansion slots on your motherboard.
What’s interesting is that the card actually isn’t all that heavy, relatively speaking. It checks in at 1237g, which is less than AMD’s reference card, as well as the RTX 3080 Founders Edition.
Sapphire changes up plenty of other aspects of the card design as well. It has three DisplayPort and one HDMI 2.1 outputs, with no USB-C connector. Most people will be happier with this configuration, we think, though it’s always good to have other options. The rear IO panel also has plenty of ventilation ports, though with the fins on the heatsink running parallel to the IO bracket, we’re not sure how much heat will actually exhaust out the back of the card.
Sapphire says the new design ends up running quieter while delivering better cooling compared to its previous designs. That’s probably thanks once again to the new fan design with an integrated rim, though there are notches in the Sapphire fan. The benefit of the improved cooling is that Sapphire can increase the boost clock on the RX 6800 XT to 2360 MHz, with a 350W TBP (Total Board Power). Interestingly, MSI Afterburner and Asus GPU Tweak II both report the boost clock as 2409 MHz on our sample, but then neither utility has been updated for the RX 6800 series.
Image 1 of 3
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Image 2 of 3
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Image 3 of 3
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Compared to the reference 6800 XT, you can easily see how much larger the Sapphire card is. The reference card measures 268 x 107 x 50 mm, so Sapphire’s model is about 4cm longer and 2.5cm taller, and just a bit thicker. The reference card also weighs 1505g, so the Nitro+ is 268g lighter. That means less stress on your PCIe slot, though we’ve seen GPUs in the 1.5kg range for several years at least (e.g., Zotac’s Amp! Extreme line).
But you’re probably most interested in how the card performs. Unfortunately, that’s several days worth of testing, which means we won’t have a full review until next week. Until then, we can offer this glimpse of performance courtesy of 3DMark.
Image 1 of 3
(Image credit: 3DMark / UL)
Image 2 of 3
(Image credit: 3DMark / UL)
Image 3 of 3
(Image credit: 3DMark / UL)
That’s a bit faster than the reference 6800 XT, as you’d expect considering the difference in TDP and boost clocks. For example, in Port Royal, the reference card scored 9106 in graphics, while the Nitro+ got 9329. But the GPU clocks are more interesting than the score.
The minimum GPU clock during the test sequence on the Sapphire card was 2287 MHz, with a peak clock of 2415 MHz. The reference card ran at 2210-2349 MHz. In general, at ‘factory stock’ settings, you’ll get an extra 100 MHz or so of performance. We’ll be looking to see if we can push the card a bit further in our full review.
Of course, the big story remains the continuing GPU shortages. Many were hoping AMD would do better than Nvidia, but it sounds like stock of the AIB partner cards is even worse than we saw with Ampere. As we noted in our RX 6800 XT review, that’s not really surprising. Given a choice between producing more Ryzen 5000 CPU cores (80mm square per compute die) and more Navi 21 GPU cores (519mm square), AMD makes far more money off the CPUs and can produce more of them. Unless TSMC can start producing more wafers for all of its partners, the shortages could continue for many more months.
Gigabyte will launch the new BRIX mini PCs with AMD processors 4000 U, M.2 SSDs, WiFi 6 and 2.5G Gigabit Ethernet.
Although the launch of the Zen 2 architecture in laptops has been a success in terms of performance and consumption, it has not been in terms of stock, because today it is still difficult to find numerous models that promised be released with these processors in question. It is now when Gigabyte has encouraged to incorporate these processors to its low consumption PCs , the so-called BRIX. From this family we have been able to see numerous models, the vast majority with Intel processors such as the latest BRIX PRO.
Now, the Gigabyte AMD BRIX will integrate low-power AMD processors (models with the tag “U”), being able to have up to a Ryzen 7 4800 U how well it performed in our own tests. In this way, you can choose between a Ryzen 3 4300 U, Ryzen 5 4600 U, Ryzen 7 4700 U or Ryzen 7 4800 U. All AMD BRIX will have the same specifications, with two SO-DIMM DDR4 slots, M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 , HDMI 2.0a, DisplayPort, 2 USB-C, WiFi 6 via Intel AX 201 and Ethernet 2.5G using a Realtek 8125.
MODEL
CORES / WIRE
TDP (
BOOST / BASE (GHz)
RADEON ™ GRAPHICS
GPU CORES
L2 / L3 CACHE (MB)
AMD Ryzen ™ 7 4800 U
8C / 16 T
15 W
Up to 4.2 / 1.8 GHz
Radeon ™ Graphics
8
12
AMD Ryzen ™ 7 4700OR
8C / 8T
15 W
Up to 4.1 / 2.0 GHz
Radeon ™ Graph ics
7
12
AMD Ryzen ™ 5 4500 U
6C / 6T
15 W
Up to 4.0 / 2.3 GHz
Radeon ™ Graphics
6
11
AMD Ryzen ™ 3 4300OR
4C / 4T
16 W
Up to 3.7 / 2.7 GHz
Radeon ™ Graphics
5
6
Other connections will be 2 USB-C 3.1, 5 USB-A 3.0 and 3.5 mm jack. There will be two versions, the Gigabyte AMD BRIX and the BRIX S . The difference is that in the “S” there will also be space for a storage unit of 2.5 “and 9 mm high, as well as RS port 232. They all come with a power adapter of none other than 135 W , when these processors maintain a profile of 25 W .
Their dimensions are so only 119. 5x 119. 5x 34. 7 – 34. 8 mm. Currently no prices , but Anandtech predicts an upcoming launch in the coming weeks.
Article. Tell us something in the Comments or come to our Forum!
In July this year, the game Far Cry 6 was officially presented at the Ubisoft Forward industry event. After a series of trailers and several gameplays, the exact release date was also announced, which was set on 18 February 2021 of the year. In addition to the PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions, the game will appear simultaneously on the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5, where in both cases the manufacturer will offer the game in 4K resolution at 60 frames per second. As we expected, Far Cry 6 is made in collaboration with AMD. So it is opposite to Watch_Dogs: Legion, which in turn was created with optimizations for NVIDIA. What techniques can we expect on PC? Ubisoft and AMD confirm the presence of Ray Tracing, Variable Rate Shading, FidelityFX CAS and FidelityFX Stochastic Screen Space Reflections.
AMD has confirmed that the upcoming Far Cry 6 will be equipped with Ray techniques Tracing, Variable Rate Shading and FidelityFX CAS.
Older Ubisoft developer working on the upcoming game Far Cry 6, Oleksandr Polishchuk, has confirmed that the upcoming sixth installment of popular shooters will see several technologies prepared in cooperation with AMD. DirectX Ray Tracing is in the foreground, although the studio has still not confirmed what specific effects will be implemented. Far Cry 6 will also use the Variable Rate Shading (VRS) technique, which is a new technology that further optimizes the use of the GPU by prioritizing environmental objects and the way they are displayed. This should provide a more stable frame rate without sacrificing the quality of the displayed image. It’s worth noting that both DirectX Ray Tracing and VRS are part of DirectX 12 Ultimate. The game will therefore use a lot of resources from Microsoft’s extensive API.
Ubisoft’s upcoming game will also benefit from FidelityFX CAS (FidelityFX Contrast Adaptive Sharpening), which gives you a cleaner and more detailed picture without affecting performance. In the above video footage, Ubisoft’s creator also confirms the use of asynchronous computing, which is a strong point of AMD Radeon graphics cards. Async Compute enables AMD chips to process graphics and computation simultaneously, maximizing hardware utilization and providing gamers with greater performance. In addition, Far Cry 6 will use the AMD FidelityFX Stochastic Screen Space Reflections (SSSR) technique to prepare more realistic reflections on surfaces. The game should debut around 26 May and then we’ll see how Ubisoft and AMD will work together on the upcoming Far Cry 6.
Electronic Arts talks about the next- versions gen of his acclaimed FIFA 21, bringing with it bad news regarding the PC user. Mouse and keyboard players will forgo the graphical improvements offered on PS5 and Xbox Series X: it is the executive producer who explains the reasons for this decision.
by Pasquale Fusco published 25 November 2020 , at 16: 56 in the Videogames channel Fifa Electronic Arts
With the debut of the new next-gen consoles there are many games, more or less recent , who are welcoming the restoration process. This is how titles like Rainbow Six Siege, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and will be revived with a renewed graphics sector, taking advantage of the powerful hardware of PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X . However, many of these games are also available on PC , where the above upgrade will not always be a discounted option.
FIFA 21 and the ‘lower’ PC version: no next-gen upgrade
In an interview with the Eurogamer editorial team, EA Sports was asked about the PC version of the latest football simulator. FIFA 21 will not be updated on PC, unlike the console counterparts that will welcome the infamous update for the new generation.
The explanation of Electronic Arts is quite simple. In the US developer plans, the technical requirements of FIFA 21 on PC must remain ‘accessible’ : the introduction of features such as the deformation of the ball, the players’ muscles and the new angles of the camera would force EA Sports to raise the threshold of the required specifications.
Executive producer Aaron McHardy provides further explanations . His team examined possible improvements to the PC version of FIFA 21, as well as the hardware used by users: “When we looked at it all, in order to run the next-gen version, our minimum specs they had reached a point that would have left many people dry-mouthed, unable to play FIFA 21 “, explained McHardy.
However, the lack of choice of implement the technical improvements of the next.gen version, making them available for that range of users who can boast a high-end system.
Meanwhile, let’s remember what are the minimum requirements of FIFA 21 on PC . In addition to requiring 8GB of RAM, an Intel Core i3 processor – 6100 at 3.7GHz or an AMD Athlon X4 880 K at 4GHz, flanked by an NVIDIA GTX video card 660 (2GB) or an AMD Radeon HD 7850 (2GB ).
We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience. By clicking “Accept”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
