15th September, 2022, is when AMD will debut its Ryzen 7000 "Zen 4" desktop processors. The launch strategy of these chips looks similar to that of the Ryzen 5000 series. The company is preparing a lean launch lineup with just four SKUs—the Ryzen 9 7950X, the Ryzen 9 7900X, Ryzen 7 7800X, and the Ryzen 5 7600X. These SKUs succeed the 5950X, 5900X, 5800X, and 5600X, which made up the previous launch lineup. AMD in its recent interview with us, made it clear that 16-core/32-thread is the maximum core-count for the 7000 series, which would make the 7950X such a chip. The core-counts of the other SKUs are not known. All these models are built in the Socket AM5 package, featuring PCI-Express Gen 5 and DDR5 interfaces. But wait, there's more.

Although AMD led us to believe that it's going all-in with DDR5, we're hearing a spectacular rumor that suggests otherwise. Apparently, the company is designing Socket AM4 processors with "Zen 4" chiplets, possibly paired with the existing cIOD that supports PCI-Express Gen 4 and DDR4 interfaces. The rumor surfaced among sources lower down the supply-chain (resellers). It seems like AMD isn't convinced it could target the lower-end of the market with AM5 just yet, and isn't 100% confident that affordable DDR5 memory will come through in time. The "Zen 4" + AM4 processors would compete with Intel 600-series chipset motherboards that have DDR4 and PCIe Gen 4 connectivity. Trouble is, you can upgrade your Intel LGA1700 motherboard to one that has DDR5+PCIe Gen5 while keeping your processor; but you can't do so with an AM4 Zen 4 processor (you're stuck on AM4). AMD still gets to sell some processors, and those with AM4 platforms can rejoice.

Renesas Electronics Corporation, a premier supplier of advanced semiconductor solutions, today introduced the first clock buffers and multiplexers that meet stringent PCIe Gen6 specifications. Renesas, the industry's undisputed leader in timing solutions, is offering 11 new clock buffers and 4 new multiplexers. The new devices, which also support and provide extra margin for PCIe Gen5 implementations, complement Renesas' low-jitter 9SQ440, 9FGV1002 and 9FGV1006 clock generators to offer customers a complete PCIe Gen6 timing solution for data center/cloud computing, networking and high-speed industrial applications. The PCIe Gen6 standard supports extremely high data rates of 64 GT/s while requiring very low clock jitter performance of less than 100fs RMS. Renesas' new RC190xx clock buffers and RC192xx multiplexers have PCIe Gen6 additive jitter specs of only 4fs RMS, making them virtually noiseless, and thereby future-proofing customer designs for the next generation of industry standards.

"PCIe Gen6 timing will be at the heart of new equipment in data centers, high-speed networking and other applications," said Zaher Baidas, Vice President of the Timing Products Division at Renesas. "As we have done for preceding generations, Renesas is providing customers with the first timing solution to enable these new, higher-performance systems. Our customers know that we have the technical expertise and market knowledge to ensure that their products will be able to meet future requirements as well." "By delivering the first discrete timing solution for PCIe Gen6, Renesas is enabling customers to develop the next-generation of high-performance systems," said Rich Wawrzyniak, Principal Analyst for Semico Research. "It will be interesting to see the innovative implementations that result from this new capability, especially when considering how solutions for the emerging Chiplet market are starting to evolve, with the need for increasing speed and bandwidth as an underlying constant."

After the data center-oriented Hopper architecture launch, NVIDIA is slowly preparing to transition the consumer section to new, gaming-focused designs codenamed Ada Lovelace. For starters, the source claims that NVIDIA is using the upcoming GeForce RTX 3090 Ti GPU as a test run for the next-generation Ada Lovelace AD102 GPU. Thanks to the authorities over at Igor's Lab, we have some additional information about the upcoming lineup. We have a sneak peek of a few features regarding the top-end GeForce RTX 4080 and RTX 4090 GPU SKUs. According to Igor's claims, NVIDIA is testing the PCIe Gen5 power connector and wants to see how it fares with the biggest GA102 SKU - GeForce RTX 3090 Ti.

Additionally, we find that the AD102 GPU is supposed to be pin-compatible with GA102. This means that the number of pins located on GA102 is the same as what we are going to see on AD102. There are 12 places for memory modules on the AD102 reference design board, resulting in up to 24 GB of GDDR6X memory. As much as 24 voltage converters surround the GPU, NVIDIA will likely implement uP9512 SKU. It can drive eight phases, resulting in three voltage converters per phase, ensuring proper power delivery. The total board power (TBP) is likely rated at up to 600 Watts, meaning that the GPU, memory, and power delivery combined output 600 Watts of heat. Igor notes that board partners will bundle 12+4 (12VHPWR) to four 8-pin (PCIe old) converters to enable PSU compatibility.

Intel is reforming the ATX specification in a big way with ATX 3.0, and power supplies shipping with new 16-pin power connectors for the next generation PCI-Express Gen 5 graphics cards. The 16-pin 12VHPWR (12-Volt High Power). The need for a new connector standard is arising from the growing power demand from graphics cards, as contemporary high-end GPUs crossing the 375 W barrier (two 8-pin PCIe inputs), and some of today's high-end cards even shipping with typical board power values of 450 W at stock frequencies. Custom-design cards based on these GPUs create cable-spaghetti in your case, as they come with three or more 8-pin connectors. To solve these problems and more, Intel innovated the 12VHPWR.

The 12VHPWR connector has 12 electrical pins and 4 side-band pins, for a total of 16 pins. The side-band pins enable low-fi communication between the power-supply and the graphics card, and two of these pins, labeled "SENSE0" and "SENSE1," let the graphics card know what kind of connector is plugged in, so it can accordingly adjust its power-management. There are four variants of the 16-pin connector based on the electrical capability offered by the PSU. These include 600 W, 450 W, 300 W, and 150 W. The arrangement of the two SENSE pins is how the graphics card tells the four apart.

Although we've already seen some companies both tease and announce PCIe 5.0 consumer SSDs, it seems like we shouldn't expect mainstream PCIe 5.0 SSDs until 2024, at least if Silicon Motion's earnings call is anything to go by. Wallace Kou, Silicon Motion's CEO was quoted as saying ""It is likely that PCIe Gen4 will last a few years since Intel, AMD both continue to bring new upgrade variant of CPU with PCIe Gen4 to the market," continuing "Similarly, we are preparing for the launch of our third-generation PCIe Gen4 controller next year before transitioning to PCIe Gen5 in the following year."

This obviously has something to do not only with development time, but also with recuperating the costs of developing the previous generation of PCIe 4.0 SSD controllers before introducing new products that would have limited market share due to at least initially high prices. Silicon Motion is said to be working on multiple PCIe 5.0 SSD controllers with the enthusiast grade SM2508 expected towards the end of this year and it's set to compete with Phison's PS5026-E26 and InnoGrit's IG5666 controllers, plus unannounced inhouse controllers from the likes of Samsung and WD. Silicon Motion's mainstream PCIe 5.0 controller is said to be the SM2507, which is also said to be more suitable for mobile applications, most likely due to lower power consumption. However, the first PCIe 5.0 controller from Silicon Motion should be the SM8366 enterprise grade controller that was announced last year and which should be shipping in the second half of this year. For most users, PCIe 5.0 SSDs are unlikely to make a huge difference, unless we see some major improvements when it comes to random read and write performance, as this is currently the real bottleneck with SSDs.

To meet the demand for high-speed storage driven by big data, TEAMGROUP is utilizing its years of experience in computer storage solutions to launch the newest PCIe Gen5 SSD this year. In light of the generational advancements of PCIe 5.0, the company is actively committed to developing products using cutting-edge technologies. With its expertise in R&D and dedication to product excellence, the company is excited to enter the next era of SSD storage solutions and to deliver spectacular new products to the world.

TEAMGROUP is releasing its first PCIe Gen5 SSD under its gaming sub-brand T-FORCE as part of the CARDEA series. It is capable of maximum sequential read speeds of over 13,000 MB/s and write speeds exceeding 12,000 MB/s, and together with a maximum storage capacity of 4 TB, it will be the highest performance PCIe Gen5 flagship SSD on the market when launched. The T-FORCE PCIe Gen5 SSD will support the latest NVMe 2.0 and will be enhanced using proprietary technology to improve durability and product lifespan. The new hardware and support will enable its Gen5 SSDs to fully meet the needs of the gaming computing market, video streaming, augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and other next-gen digital domains. TEAMGROUP plans to mass-produce T-FORCE CARDEA series' PCIe Gen5 SSD in 2022 Q3, and will also launch a variety of efficient cooling solutions for the PCIe Gen5 SSD. Together with its global motherboard manufacturing partners, TEAMGROUP will continue to refine specifications and technologies of the latest generation of SSDs to meet market demands and provide consumers around the world with a stable and rapid storage experience.

Introducing the EVGA Z690 CLASSIFIED - The latest addition to EVGA's most-respected line of motherboards. This motherboard fully supports the latest 12th Gen Intel Core Series Processors and takes full advantage of PCIe Gen5 and PCIe Gen4 M.2 NVMe SSDs. The EVGA Z690 CLASSIFIED provides unbeatable power, performance and stability via a 19-phase VRM and 10-layer PCB. Moreover, this board supports up to 128 GB of DDR5 memory, 2x 2.5 Gbps NIC + Wi-Fi 6E / BT 5.2, 7.1 HD audio, and multiple USB options. The EVGA Z690 CLASSIFIED is designed for nothing less than the ultimate gaming experience.

Phison is on a mission to be the first to market with PCIe Gen 5 SSD controllers, having announced the E26-series controllers this CES. The company is ready with a branded drive under the MSI Spatium brand, the MSI Spatium E26. Built in the PCIe add-in-card (AIC) form-factor, the drive features a PCI-Express 5.0 x4 interface (128 Gbps per direction), and very likely sticks to the reference design that Phison demoed in its own booth.

This PCB is used in its client configuration, with just the controller, DRAM, and NAND flash chips; while the PCB allows an enterprise configuration with banks of capacitors offering explicit power-loss protection (the NAND flash chips offer implicit PLP). A simple copper-film heatspreader is used. Neither MSI nor Phison put out actual performance numbers, but mentioned sequential reads being "10 GB/s or beyond" (the interface is physically capable of 16 GB/s).Update Jan 17th: MSI clarified that this is not yet a shipping product, but a representation of what such a device could be. Thus, this should be considered a concept or at best proof of concept. Both MSI and Phison are actively working together on exploring what such a retail product could be.

Phison Electronics Corp., a global leader in NAND flash controller integrated circuits and storage solutions, will showcase its lineup of next-generation gaming solutions for customers, partners, media and other interested parties during CES 2022, January 5-8 exclusively by private virtual demos. The new-class of solutions include the company's first PCIe Gen5 controller for high-end desktop gaming, a future high-performance Gen4 solution, and demonstration of the next-generation game workload coming soon to PCs.

Phison, the leader in gaming-optimized SSDs pushes the boundaries of performance. The company's solutions power seamless experiences for modern console, desktop/notebook and mobile gaming, which are delivered to consumers through an extensive and diverse group of partners.Update Jan 4th: Added presentation slides, product images and closeups of the PCB designs.