Well, there's a leaked review that put the 5700XT ahead of the 2070 in some games, and even slower than a 2060 in others, so it's hard to tell.

We'll find out soon, tho.

So, Navi is between 55 - 85% more power efficient in gaming than the Polaris and Vega 14 nm cards, and more or less matches the Turing cards. That's about the same position AMD was back in 2016, with Polaris compared to their 28 nm GCN cards and Nvidia's Maxwell ones.

The silver lining is, unless the RDNA architecture offered no IPC gains whatsoever, AMD's difference to Nvidia on 7nm should diminish compared to where it was with 14 - 16 nm (Pascal was a whopping 60 - 65% more power efficient than Polaris at launch) because the newer node doesn't seem to decrease power consumption as much as the previous shrink did. That is, assuming Nvidia's first 7nm cards are mostly a shrink of their Turing architecture, which seems probable, given Nvidia, like Intel, doesn't seem to release new architectures with node shrinks.

On the other hand - impressed with the Zen 2 chips. It's the first time in many years AMD competes and even surpasses Intel, matching core to core, clock to clock. However, Intel still seems to have a distinct gaming advantage. I would say the reason being developers favor Intel tools and instructions more than it is the fault of single-core performance at this point.

It's a shame that there are no 3800X reviews yet. The 3700X seems a bit constricted by its low TDP, so the extra 40W of its sibling could make it the best choice.

Nah, power efficiency rules the day.

I'm sure within the next decade, at most, computer parts will start to be a strong target of power consumption regulations, specially GPUs and servers. So better start to appreciate it right now!

The 2070 and 2080 get phased out, but we are keeping the 2060 and 2060 S.

Yeah. Those Navi chips are confirmed... Polaris is staying around for the immediate future and being phased out.

From a pure gaming performance perspective... The 5700XT is about 75% faster than the RX 580 at 1440P which seems the resolution it's best suited for.

In things like Integer, Geometry, Floating Point Texture Fillrate.. We are looking at a doubling or more over Polaris which is impressive.

The 5700XT does use about 15% more power at idle than the RX 580 though... And about 20% more at load and thus does use more power than Turing...

But at the end of the day the 5700XT isn't able to decisively beat a Geforce RTX 2070 though, so it's certainly targeting the mid-range.

YCBCr colour space isn't optimal for interactive content such as games. You want full RGB and that especially applies in the case of HDR content as well .. 

HDMI is a hardware feature built into the GPU's display engine so it can't be backported unless a vendor overengineered their initial implementation but this is generally a bad idea since specs can change and it can also lead to interoperability issues as well ... 

The reason why some of AMD's mobile chips have better video engines than their desktop counterparts is down to the fact that they had an extra ~6 months to bake in more features ... 

Doesn't need to beat Intel ? In an x86 market, it is a "winner-takes-all" competition. If Intel has just even a 5% performance advantage then they win by default! I don't think you realize the reality of just how cut throat competition can get ... 

If anything, today's reviews on Navi made a strong case for why AMD should wait on their Zen 2 APUs to integrate Navi since their RX 5700 XT is like for like to the Radeon VII in 1080p gaming. This sort of efficiency is very valuable in the portable space since lower resolutions are often encountered which makes Navi significantly more efficient even in comparison to the 7nm Vega. Integrating previous graphics architectures isn't ideal from a scalability standpoint because there's still an architectural sore spot regarding lower resolution graphics performance. Using less power and die area to achieve comparable performance at lower resolutions is optimal for the portable space ...

As for Intel's nodes being "on track", it definitely doesn't look like it from the outside perspective and we also have no idea if Intel are ever going to use smaller nodes for desktop CPUs ... 

Don't get me wrong, the 3700X is great and it's amazing how it manages to do what it does at just 65W. But, in some of the reviews I've read, these chips seem to be a bit limited, specially when it comes to overclocking, because of its low power limit.

That's why I think that the 3800X, with a bigger limit, could be the best choice, specially for those that want to get as much of those chips as they can.

*** NEW CONTEST ***

With a new hardware launch, HEXUS comes with a new contest. Except this time it's two hardware launches, so there are two very, very good contests:

Win one of two AMD Ryzen 7 3700X upgrade bundles
https://hexus.net/tech/features/cpu/132377-win-one-two-amd-ryzen-7-3700x-upgrade-bundles/
To celebrate the launch of Ryzen 3rd Gen, we've teamed up with our friends at AMD, Asus and Corsair to give you the chance to win one of two incredible Ryzen 7 3700X upgrade bundles!
Each lucky winner will bag an eight-core, 16-thread Ryzen 7 3700X CPU, an Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Formula X570 WiFi motherboard and a super-fast Corsair Force Series PCIe Gen.4 MP600 1TB NVMe M.2 SSD! And just because we can, we're also throwing in a Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB 16GB DDR4 memory kit, a Corsair Hydro Series H100i RGB Platinum 240mm liquid CPU cooler and a Corsair RM Series RM750 power supply!

The best part is that this amazing contest is GLOBAL.

Win a PC Specialist 3rd Gen Ryzen Gaming PC
https://hexus.net/tech/features/systems/132395-win-pc-specialist-3rd-gen-ryzen-gaming-pc/
Fancy getting your hands on a shiny new base unit brimming with the latest in AMD Ryzen and Radeon hardware? Then you've come to the right place!
In partnership with the kind folk at PC Specialist, we're giving our fabulous readers in the UK and Europe the chance to win a 3rd Gen Ryzen Gaming PC outfitted with an AMD Ryzen 5 3600 processor, Radeon RX 5700 graphics card, ASUS X570-Plus motherboard, 16GB of Corsair Vengeance DDR4 memory and a 256GB M.2 SSD!

Sadly, this contest is only open for the UK and EUROPE.

Okay. I am just going to quote both of these as it's a bit of a contradiction and say nothing else as it isn't required. (Graphics Core Next is modular.)

***************************************

AMD hasn't definitively beaten Intel in 15 years in the CPU space until just now. They survived.
Stars did well until AMD didn't keep up the cadence as they shifted their focus towards Bulldozer... Which was actually a performance-per-clock regression in many scenarios over Stars... Especially Thuban with it's NB clock pushed to 3ghz. - Their marketshare tanked as a result, deservedly so.

In-fact for the majority of AMD's history, they were behind Intel, even during the K7 years AMD was often behind Intel. - It wasn't until K8 that AMD started to take a lead, however short lived that was.

As for Navi or the Radeon RX 5700XT... Anyone who buys those GPU's for 1080P gaming is a moron or is chasing greater than 60fps, they aren't the ideal resolutions that showcases Vega 7's insane memory bandwidth... In saying that, Navi does blow out transistor counts somewhat.

Of course Intel are going to use smaller nodes for Desktop CPU's. Wow. 10nm isn't where the buck stops.

I am actually impressed with AMD's chips... Keep in mind that relative costs as well, the AMD chips tend to come a bracket cheaper than the Intel competitor and offer more threads.

I would personally settle for nothing less than the full 16-core chip, but that's just me... Even then I am not sure if dual-channel DDR could keep it fed, but I won't know until I see benchies.
But the 8-core 3700X is nothing to sneeze at either... Especially for $329 USD.

Monday news:

SALES & DEALS

Win a trip to actual space by playing a lot of Warframe
https://www.pcgamer.com/win-a-trip-to-actual-space-by-playing-a-lot-of-warframe/
Of all of the ways to find yourself on a spaceship, playing a lot of Warframe might be the cheapest. At Tennocon 2019, developer Digital Extremes announced a contest to win $250,000 towards a trip to space.
Contestants can earn extra chances to win by playing Warframe every day. The contest runs until December 31, 2019, so you have plenty of time to grind your heart out to become a true spaceninja. The contest is a pretty clever way to encourage players to jump into Warframe, but I'm curious to hear more details about the prize itself.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance and Surviving Mars are your early unlocks for August's Humble Monthly
https://www.pcgamer.com/kingdom-come-deliverance-and-surviving-mars-are-your-early-unlocks-for-augusts-humble-monthly/
You can now download and play Warhorse Studio's medieval RPG, Kingdom Come: Deliverance as well as sci-fi strategy, Surviving Mars, as the early unlocks for August's Humble Monthly if you're a subscriber.

GOG's weekly sale, named The Baguette Days, focuses on games made in France with up to 90% discounts: https://www.gog.com/promo/20190709_french_week

At Fanatical,

• ARK: Survival Evolved is the new Star Deal, 69% off for the next 48 hours: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/ark-survival-evolved
• The new Men of War Assault Bundle contains 6 games plus 6 DLCs split in two tiers of 3 items or 12 items. It will be available for the next 14 days: https://www.fanatical.com/en/bundle/men-of-war-assault-bundle
• The Lucius Complete Bundle with 4 games and 2 DLCs is 84% off for the next 14 days: https://www.fanatical.com/en/bundle/lucius-complete-bundle

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 2019 Edition 19.7.1 driver adds official support for Image Sharpening & Anti-Lag
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/amd-radeon-software-adrenalin-2019-edition-19-7-1-driver-adds-official-support-for-image-sharpening-anti-lag/
AMD has released a brand new driver for its graphics cards. According to the release notes, the AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 2019 Edition 19.7.1 driver adds official support for both Image Sharpening and Anti-Lag.
Going into more details, Image Sharpening can be enabled for DirectX 9, DirectX 11 and Vulkan games on AMD Radeon RX 5700 series graphics and provides contrast-adaptive sharpening combined with optional GPU upscaling that helps draw out detail and provide crisp-looking visuals.
On the other hand, Anti-Lag is compatible with AMD Radeon GCN-based discrete graphics and newer, can be enabled for DirectX 9 and DirectX 11 games and improves input-to-display response time with up to 31% reduction in lag.
It’s also worth noting that this new driver adds an Automatic Low Latency Mode, allowing supported graphics products to communicate with your connected TV and enter low-latency (gaming) mode automatically, as well as Settings Snapshot which is a new feature that allows you to create, save and load your custom settings and configurations for Radeon Settings.
>> Available from here.

MODS/EMULATORS

Star Wars KOTOR gets a 3GB ESRGAN AI-enhanced HD Texture Pack, overhauling all of its characters
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/star-wars-kotor-gets-a-3gb-esrgan-ai-enhanced-hd-texture-pack-overhauling-all-of-its-characters/
Now here is something that passed under my radar. Modder ‘Red11BY’ has released an ESRGAN AI-enhanced HD Texture Pack for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. This texture pack overhauls every NPC and armor textures in the game by using the well known AI techniques that surfaced recently.
Going into more details, this AI-enhanced HD Texture Pack for Star Wars KOTOR is 3GB in size and adds HD textures for every NPC, as well as for every male and female armor in the game. By using ESRGAN, the modder has upscaled the original textures to 2048×2048 resolution.
All you have to do in order to install this pack is download it from here and then drop the .tga files into the “Override” folder (if it does not exist create one) in swkotor folder.

Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 2 gets a 4.6GB ESRGAN AI-enhanced HD Texture Pack
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/star-wars-knights-of-the-old-republic-2-gets-a-4-6gb-esrgan-ai-enhanced-hd-texture-pack/
This AI-enhanced texture pack is created by Red11BY; the same man behind the pack for the first Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.
According to the modder, this pack features HD textures for every NPC(Human,Alien,Droid) as well as for every male and female armor in the game.
Similarly to the previous pack, Red11BY used ESRGAN to upscale the textures to 2048×2048 resolution. As such, the newly introduced textures look sharper and retain all the art style of the original versions.
>> Get it from Nexus Mods.

Bloodborne combat mod released for Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/bloodborne-combat-mod-released-for-sekiro-shadows-die-twice/
Bloodborne and Sekiro fans, here is something for you today. Modder ‘thefifthmatt’ released a brand new mod that changes your combat capabilities to be more like Bloodborne. This basically means that gamers will have to approach each enemy and boss with a different strategic mindset as you’ll have to rely more on your dash abilities (instead of deflecting every attack).
Going into more details, and as its description reads, this mod allows players to use dash to prevent damage, and block/deflect does no longer prevent damage. According to the modder, this makes some bosses easier and others harder as you’ll to approach the game now like Bloodborne.
>> This mod is also available from Nexus Mods.

Halo: Combat Evolved SPV3.2 mod released, features improved graphics, gameplay and new missions
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/halo-combat-evolved-spv3-2-mod-released-features-improved-graphics-gameplay-and-new-missions/
Back in 2017, we informed you about Halo Custom Edition SPV3.1; a total overhaul mod for the first Halo game on the PC. And today, we are happy to report that, after two whole years, its development team has released a brand new version of it.
Halo: Combat Evolved SPV3.2 comes with improved graphics as it adds support for per-object Motion Blur, animation interpolations in order to smooth out the 30fps animations when playing at higher framerates, Volumetric Lighting and support for MXAO.
As we’ve already reported, SPV3 is not just a graphics overhaul mod as it comes with new weapons, enemies, vehicles, areas to explore and levels, as well as easter eggs and skulls which add new twists onto the gameplay.
Furthermore, and as the team noted, Halo Combat Evolved SPV3.2 brings numerous updates to all 11 prior missions to SPV3, plus 6 new missions to the game.
>> Get it from Reddit.

Dying Light, Crysis 3, Battlefield 4 & Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture with Ray Tracing Global Illumination
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/dying-light-crysis-3-battlefield-4-everybodys-gone-to-the-rapture-with-ray-tracing-global-illumination/
These past few weeks we’ve been showcasing numerous games that were visually improved by Pascal Gilcher’s ray traced Global Illumination method/solution for ReShade. And today, since it’s a slow news day, we are bringing you four games that have been showcased with this alpha Reshade version. These games are Dying Light, Crysis 3, Battlefield 4 and Everybody’s Gone to Rapture.

GAMING NEWS

Gears 5 PC Technical Test begins on July 17th, official PC requirements revealed
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/gears-5-pc-technical-test-begins-on-july-17th-official-pc-requirements-revealed/
The Coalition has announced that the PC technical test for Gears 5 will begin on July 17th. The team revealed that there will be two Technical Test periods, and also revealed the game’s official PC requirements that you can find below.

New gameplay trailer for One Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows showcases some of its characters
https://www.dsogaming.com/videotrailer-news/new-gameplay-trailer-for-one-punch-man-a-hero-nobody-knows-showcases-some-of-its-characters/
Bandai Namco has released a new gameplay trailer for One Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows, in which it showcases some of the characters that will be featured in this upcoming 3v3 fighting game that is based on the popular anime/manga.

Warframe: Empyrean expansion lets you siege and steal enemy ships
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/warframe-empyrean-expansion-lets-you-siege-and-steal-enemy-ships/
Empyrean is the latest upcoming expansion of the Warframe universe. Soon you will have the opportunity to actually become a space ninja and ninjas, as we know, play for free.

Black Mesa – Complete Xen and Gonarch’s Lair chapters coming to beta branch on August 1st
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/black-mesa-complete-xen-and-gonarchs-lair-chapters-coming-to-beta-branch-on-august-1st/
The Black Mesa team has announced that all of the Xen and Gonarch’s Lair chapters will be coming to the beta branch of Black Mesa on August 1st. Not only that, but the team promises to release the remaining levels for this amazing remake of the classic Half-Life game in the coming weeks, something that will please a lot of PC gamers.

ONE PIECE Pirate Warriors 4 is officially coming to the PC in 2020
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/one-piece-pirate-warriors-4-is-officially-coming-to-the-pc-in-2020/
Bandai Namco has officially announced that ONE PIECE Pirate Warriors 4 will be coming to the PC in 2020. In order to celebrate this announcement, the publisher has released the game’s teaser trailer that you can find below.

Earth Defense Force 5 is officially coming to the PC in July 2019, PC requirements revealed
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/earth-defense-force-5-is-officially-coming-to-the-pc-in-july-2019-pc-requirements-revealed/
D3 Publisher has officially announced that Earth Defense Force 5 is officially coming to the PC later this month. The publisher has launched the game’s Steam store page, revealing also its official PC requirements.