AMD is planning a massive integrated graphics performance uplift for its next-generation Ryzen 7000U mobile processors. Codenamed "Phoenix," this SoC will feature a CPU based on the "Zen 4" microarchitecture with a higher CPU core count than the Intel alternative of the time; and an iGPU based on the RDNA3 graphics architecture. AMD is planning to endow this with the right combination of a CU count and engine clocks, to result in performance that roughly matches the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Laptop GPU, a popular performance-segment discrete GPU for notebooks, according to greymon55. Other highlights of "Phoenix" include a DDR5 + LPDDR5 memory interface, and PCI-Express Gen 5. The SoC is expected to be built on the TSMC N5 (5 nm) process, and debut in 2023.

AMD has confirmed its revamped APU strategy will be delivered throughout three different APU line-ups come 2023. While Raphael will take care of AMD's hopes in the desktop space, the company is readying a new, "Dragon Range" lineup of "pinnacle gaming"-oriented APUs, leveraging the company's upcoming Zen 4 architecture, DDR5, and PCIe 5. Dragon Range APUs will feature the "highest core, thread, and cache ever for a mobile gaming CPU" - although AMD stopped just short of confirming exactly what "highest" translates to. To aid in its extreme gaming aspirations, TDP for Dragon Range is set at 55 W - they thus "largely exist in the space where gaming laptops are plugged in the majority of the time," according to AMD director of technical marketing Robert Hallock.

Another APU family, Phoenix, will be aimed at thin and lights with a penchant for gaming. Phoenix too will leverage AMD's Zen 4 core, DDR5 memory subsystem, and PCIe 5 interfaces. Being aimed at thin and lights, Phoenix APUs are set for a 35 W - 45 W operating range. Interestingly, AMD didn't share any other details - more crucially, the graphics architecture that's to be employed in these high-performance APUs.

As we await the update of AMD's highly anticipated 6000 series Rembrandt APUs based on Zen 3 cores and RDNA2 graphics, we are in for a surprise with information about the next generation, more than a year away, of Ryzen 7000 series mobile processors based on Zen 4 architecture. Codenamed Raphael-H, it co-exists with the upcoming lineup of Phoenix APUs, which come after the 6000 series Rembrandt APU lineup. This mobile variant of the forthcoming desktop Raphael processors features as many as 16 cores based on Zen 4 architecture. What is so special about the Raphael-H is that it represents a mobile adaptation of desktop processors, and we are not sure how it will be different from the Phoenix APUs. However, we assume that Phoenix is going to feature a more powerful graphics solution.

The confusing thing is the timeline of these processors. First comes the Rembrandt APUs (6000 series) and then both the Raphael-H and Phoenix mobile processors. AMD could disable iGPU on mobile Raphael-H designs. However, that is just a guess. We have to wait to find out more in the upcoming months.

As the leading brand in enthusiastic graphics market, Gainward proudly presents two new Phoenix series for GeForce RTX 30 Series - Gainward GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Phoenix and Gainward GeForce RTX 3070 Ti Phoenix. These new Phoenix GeForce RTX 30 Series Series are powered by NVIDIA Ampere architecture with 2nd gen Ray Tracing cores, 3rd gen Tensor cores and new streaming multiprocessors, bringing stunning visuals, amazingly fast frame rates, and AI acceleration to games and creative applications. It brings you up to 1.9X performance-per-watts over the previous generation.

Gainward GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Phoenix and Gainward GeForce RTX 3070 Ti Phoenix come with new Phoenix cooler design. Fabricating ARGB lighting capability, by using the latest Expertool utility, it provides customized lighting effect to suit gamers own style while gaming.

ASUS has recently launched their first Ampere Series Phoenix card with the GeForce RTX 3060 Phoenix (PH-RTX3060-12G). The Phoenix features a 2.5 slot design with a single fan and measures just 17.7 x 12.8 x 5.1 cm which makes it the shortest Ampere GPU from ASUS. The card features the NVIDIA standard 1777 MHz boost clock but can be configured with the bundled ASUS software for 1807 MHz. The Phoenix includes three DisplayPort 1.4a connectors and one HDMI 2.1 along with a single 8-pin power connector. The card is now available to purchase from select retailers but official pricing and availability have not been released.

Yuri "1usmus" Bubliy released the latest major version of Clock Tuner for Ryzen (CTR), the definitely utility designed for overclocking and memory tuning of AMD Ryzen processors. The app simplifies the myriad of performance-related settings on the AMD platform, and gives professional overclockers the fine-grained control they want. The latest version 2.00 available for download on TechPowerUp today, adds support for Ryzen 5000 series "Vermeer" desktop processors based on the "Zen 3" microarchitecture, and Ryzen 4000G series "Renoir" desktop APUs. This should particularly come as a boon for memory overclockers looking to pair a Ryzen 7 Pro 4750G with a 1-DPC motherboard such as the MSI B550 Unify-X, to chase down AMD memory OC and latency records.

Next up, we see additional diagnostic and tuning modes. The app adds an in-built monitoring utility, so you don't need to run Ryzen Master on the side. The new "Phoenix" feature restores the app's working state following an application crash, reboot, or BSOD. The new Hybrid OC feature lets you combine the accuracy of manual OC, with the efficiency of PBO (Precision Boost Overdrive), so your processor isn't locked at a high clock speed, only to get power/thermal throttled when you need it to run at its manual OC clocks. The app improves the Initial Frequency Smart Offset feature. Profile management has been improved. A host of stability issues and bugs with the application have been fixed.

DOWNLOAD: Clock Tuner for Ryzen (CTR) 2.0 by Yuri Bubliy

NUVIA, a leading-edge silicon design company, today announced the close of its Series B funding round, raising $240M. The funding round was led by Mithril Capital in partnership with Sehat Sutardja and Weili Dai (founders of Marvell Technology Group), funds and accounts managed by BlackRock, Fidelity Management & Research Company LLC., and Temasek, with additional participation from Atlantic Bridge, Redline Capital, Capricorn Investment Group, Dell Technologies Capital, Mayfield, Nepenthe LLC and WRVI Capital. The closure of NUVIA's Series B round builds on a $53M Series A round, raised in November 2019. NUVIA was founded in February 2019 by John Bruno, Manu Gulati and Gerard Williams, with the vision to create the world's leading server processor.

As the leading brand in enthusiastic graphics market, Gainward proudly presents the new Phoenix series for NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series - Gainward GeForce RTX 3090 Phoenix "Golden Sample" and Gainward GeForce RTX 3080 Phoenix "Golden Sample". These new Phoenix GeForce RTX 30 Series are powered by the NVIDIA Ampere architecture with 2nd gen Ray Tracing cores, 3rd gen Tensor cores and new streaming multiprocessors, bringing stunning visuals, amazingly fast frame rates, and AI acceleration to games and creative applications. It brings you up to 1.9X performance-per-watts over the previous generation.

Gainward GeForce RTX 3090 Phoenix series and Gainward GeForce RTX 3080 Phoenix series come with new Phoenix cooler design. Fabricating ARGB lighting capability, by using the latest Expertool utility, it provides customized lighting effect to suit gamers own style while gaming. With whole new thermal design - low acoustic level even under heavy-loading gaming environment, "Zero RPM" feature as well as highly protective double-side die casting design, that gives users a truly trust to the product.

Last year, in November of 2019, a startup company called NUVIA Inc. broke out of the stealth mode and decided to reveal itself to the public. Focused on "re-imagining silicon", the company is led by some of the brightest minds in the semiconductor industry. Some people like Gerard Williams III, the CEO of the company, previously served as a chief CPU architect at Apple and has spent over 10 years at Arm before that. Others like Manu Gulati and John Bruno serve as senior vice presidents of silicon and system engineering respectively. Together, their people are forming a company full of well-known industry names. Of course, there are more and you should check out this page.

NUVIA Inc. promises to deliver only the best performance and "re-imagine silicon" as they say. Today, we got some bold claims from the company regarding the performance of their upcoming Phoenix SoC. Using Geekbench 5, the company has provided some simulated results of how the Phoenix SoC will perform. Being that it runs on Arm ISA, the SoC can run at very low power and achieve good performance. NUVIA has run some simulations and it expects its Phoenix SoC to be 40-50% faster in single-threaded performance than Zen 2/Sunny Cove at just a third of the power, 33% of the percent of power to be precise. In the graph below, NUVIA has placed its SoC only in 5 W range, however, the company said that they have left the upper curve to be disclosed at later date, meaning that the SoC will likely compete in high-performance markets and at higher power targets. While these claims are to be taken with a grain of salt, it is now a waiting game to see how NUVIA realizes its plans.

The Polaris architecture was debuted by AMD in the RX 400 series almost 4 years ago, since then AMD has released two new generations of graphics processors, Vega and Navi. It seems that the Polaris architecture will be living on a bit longer with the release of the ASUS Phoenix Radeon 550 2GB GPU, based on the Polaris 12 GPU.

This product may seem familiar and that's because ASUS released the Phoenix Radeon RX 550 back in 2017, the new Phoenix Radeon 550 uses a different memory configuration of 2 GB GDDR5 / 64-bit / 6 Gbps which is a significant step down from the 2/4 GB GDDR5 / 128-bit / 7 Gbps of the Phoenix Radeon RX 550 especially considering that card was released 3 years ago. This new card seems to have been available to OEM's for some time and is only now making it's way to retail at a hopefully cheap price.

CES might be over, but our coverage from the event continues. TechPowerUp prides itself on visiting a lot of brands, big and small, and bringing to you our first-hand account of everything new. EK Waterblocks, or simply EKWB henceforth, had a large room in the Mandalay Bay with a big open window spanning the room, which made for challenging photography, but a well-laid out open plan made it easy for us to go over the various product segments they had to display. This post will go briefly over them, but keep in mind that nearly all products showcased do not have set retail availability info just yet.

The very first thing that caught our eyes was their new line of AIO cooling solutions, now simply called EK-AIO. These are the successors to the EK-MLC Phoenix, and the EK-Predator from before, both of which did not really change the status quo of the pre-filled AIO CPU cooling market. EK hopes that the new series, of which again they are working to finalizing the design before committing to a release window and pricing information, will change this. As with most of their new products, the EK-AIO coolers integrate RGB support with 9 dRGB LEDs in the pump/block and more on the EK-Vardar RGB fans that are used on the radiator itself. The EK-AIO series is planned to come in 120/240/360 mm radiator size options, with 1/2/3 fans respectively. Read past the break for more from the Slovenian watercooling brand.

ASUS today announced GeForce GTX 1650 graphics cards, adding new products into the ROG Strix, Dual, and Phoenix lineups. Based on the GeForce GTX 1650 GPU, these new graphics cards leverage the impressive performance of the Turing architecture to provide a strong foundation for AAA 1080p gaming, or a plug-and-play upgrade for aging systems.

EK Waterblocks had been the subject of more than one article over the recent months here at TechPowerUp, wherein we broke news about top management (at the time) having parted ways with the company and this in turn led to speculation about how this would affect the indubitable leader in market share when it comes to DIY watercooling today. Perhaps they felt as much, and had an entire suite full of products to show off at Computex this year. The products showcased here, and in another separate news post upcoming, are a mixture of updates to existing product lines as well as expansion of said lineups to offer customers more options from the company than before.

We began our look with the new Velocity CPU block. Those who kept up with the subject would remember EK recently admitted they could have, and should have, done better with their offering for AMD's sTR4 socket (Threadripper platform) and had recently shown off a new cold plate design to improve on thermal performance. The new Velocity sTR4 takes advantage of this new cold plate and is available in three different top offerings of acetal with a frosted plexi lining to diffuse lighting by the side, a polished plexi top, and a full nickel-plated brass metal top- all of which use the same nickel-plated copper cold plate. Indeed, the Velocity tagline is now used for their entire range of new CPU blocks that share a similar ID for the smaller CPU sockets as well, with a cold plate that looks similar to that of the older Supremacy EVO but we will definitely take a closer look in upcoming reviews. EK did tell us that the new Velocity CPU blocks are one-piece blocks not meant to be taken apart and customized for different socket types. There are a lot of smaller aesthetic changes here including beveled edges, corner cutouts and arrows to indicate the recommended plumbing layout. One other interesting thing to point out here is that EK also designed a cold plate variation to be used with delidded Intel mainstream CPUs via a small circular section jutting outwards as seen in the images below. All of the new Velocity CPU blocks also come with a new mounting plate that supposedly improves on both looks and material strength. Oh, all of these also have RGB lighting incorporated even with the metal top version- the revised EK badge on these blocks is backlit after all.

Here are some of the first pictures of GIGABYTE's upcoming B150N Phoenix mini-ITX motherboard for socket LGA1151 processors. Positioned between its mainline 100-series N products, such as the H170N-WiFi and its more premium Z170-based ones; this distinctively branded board features an orange+black color scheme (probably signifying the legend of the Phoenix?). Its PCB is a slight variation on that of the H170N-WiFi, although the two aren't identical.

The B150N Phoenix takes input from a combination of 24-pin ATX and 8-pin EPS power connectors, with a simple 5-phase VRM conditioning it for the CPU. The CPU socket is wired to two DDR4 DIMM slots, and a PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slot. An mPCIe 3.0 x1 slot wired to the PCH, drives the board's included WLAN+Bluetooth card. Modern connectivity includes USB 3.1 (one each of type-A and type-C ports), six other USB 3.0 ports (four on the rear panel, two by header), gigabit Ethernet, and 8-channel HD audio. Display outputs include HDMI and DVI. Four SATA 6 Gb/s ports and a 32 Gb/s M.2 slot (reverse side of the PCB) make up for the storage connectivity. The company didn't disclose pricing.

As the leading brand in enthusiastic graphics market, Gainward proudly presents the brand-new GeForce GTX graphics - base on the next generation MAXWELL architecture, GeForce GTX 980 Ti Phoenix "Golden Sample". Gainward GeForce GTX 980 Ti Phoenix "Golden Sample" is the most advanced graphics cards, is accelerated by the groundbreaking NVIDIA Maxwell architecture to deliver an unbeatable 4K and virtual reality experience. With 2816 NVIDIA CUDA cores running at 1.152GHz base clock (1.241GHz boost clock) and 6 GB 384 bits memory with 3500MHz memory clock speed, it has the horsepower to drive whatever comes next. It offers Gainward GeForce GTX 980 Ti Phoenix "Golden Sample" up to 11%+ more performance than reference board.

A brand new cooler design for Gainward GeForce GTX 980 Ti Phoenix "Golden Sample" is to offer hard core gamers an excellent thermal solution for high end graphics. Its triple fans and very low thermal resistance for GPU and PWM components provides that Gainward GeForce GTX 980 Ti Phoenix "Golden Sample" can run very stable under heavy loading environment and still have room for extra over-clocking. With "Zero RPM fan design", all three fans can be stop until the GPU temperature raises to 60°C or above. It doesn't introduce any noise while light loading operation.

G.SKILL International Co., Ltd., the leading high performance memory and SSD designer and manufacturer, is excited to announce the Phoenix Blade Series PCIe SSD, the next generation of high-speed, high-capacity storage device. The Phoenix Blade PCIe SSD is the perfect storage solution for extreme gaming, professional graphic design, industrial design, and HD video & audio content creation.

By introducing extreme read and write performance, the potential of today's multi-core processors can be unleashed, resulting in higher productivity and performance, whether you are in extreme gaming or professional design.

Giada Technology, a world famous manufacturer of compact desktop PCs, has announced the launch of a compact "Do-it-yourself" barebones-system: The D310. The D310 family is based on the 3rd generation of Intel Core processors. The D310 compact systems are simple Barebones Systems using the Intel Celeron Processor 1037U. The assembly only requires 2 screws; 1 screw to open the chassis and one to fix the hard drive, allowing maximum efficiency in building your dream machine. In addition, support for the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) which provides extensive security with high levels of data encryption, allows the use of D310-based systems in various applications in IT departments of large enterprises. The D310 system is also ideal for industrial control applications, smart traffic control systems, security and surveillance systems, commercial terminals and other similar applications which require small size, wide choice of interfaces, simplicity and reliability of use.

Phoenix Technologies Ltd., the global leader in UEFI firmware, products and tools, will preview major advances for BIOS technology and future developments at this year's Computex.

Phoenix next-generation BIOS featured on Intel's 2013 Ultrabook FFRD
As Intel's elected partner in developing the UEFI BIOS for next-generation devices, Phoenix is demonstrating its forward-thinking leadership in support of Ultrabook designs with a feature set that optimizes responsiveness, mobility, connectivity and power efficiency focused on delivering an extraordinary user experience. At Computex 2013, Phoenix will demonstrate Intel's next-generation Ultrabook FFRD featuring Phoenix SecureCore Technology 3.1 in certified compliance with Intel Rapid Start Technology, Smart Response Technology, Smart Connect Technology, Anti-Theft Technology and Identity Protection Technology.

Phoenix Technologies Ltd., the global leader in UEFI firmware technology, products and tools, announced today the release of its flagship UEFI BIOS product, Phoenix SecureCore Technology 3.0. The third generation of Phoenix SecureCore Technology UEFI BIOS features cross-device, cross-codebase compatibility with native EDK II and EDK 1117 support for both x86 and ARM based systems, saving customization and maintenance efforts while reducing time to market for PC and mobile device builders.

"We have redefined Phoenix SecureCore Technology to maximize BIOS reusability and portability," said Steve Chan, Phoenix's Chief Technical Officer. "Phoenix SecureCore Technology 3.0 inherits its popular clean code tree with fully modularized design from previous generations; in addition, we re-architected the core for a universal build system which will help firmware developers in transitioning to EDK II, the next generation foundation for the latest UEFI and PI specifications."

Phoenix Technologies Ltd., the global leader in UEFI firmware technology, products and tools, is announcing UEFI BIOS support for server systems based upon the ARMv8 64-bit architecture. ARM Techcon is being held at the Santa Clara Convention Center, Santa Clara, California, from October 29-November 1, 2012.

The Phoenix SecureCore UEFI provides a superior, proven solution for server systems, delivering an enhanced build environment that is independent from operating systems, flexible in compiler and assembler tools and capable of supporting modules and module packages. The benefits of SecureCore firmware include critical boot-level security, protecting the OS and entire system; rich networking and manageability; source code modularization and reusability; and significant build performance improvement. Phoenix began developing BIOS for server appliances and computing platforms in 1980, focusing on the need for reliability, performance, power management and security.

Gigabyte's entire fleet of AMD 9-series chipset socket AM3+ motherboards, launched in 2011 with AMD FX "Bulldozer" processors shipped with Phoenix AwardBIOS, even as other motherboard makers such as ASUS, MSI, Biostar, and Sapphire moved on to AMI Aptio UEFI BIOS. Gigabyte's AwardBIOS implementation did feature the company's biggest excuse for delayed implementation of UEFI across its entire product line, HybridEFI: a BIOS tweak that lets you boot from volumes bigger than 2 TB.

In the wake of second generation FX "Vishera" processors and Windows 8 with its UEFI-enhancements, Gigabyte finally decided to make amends to its socket AM3+ motherboard lineup, by introducing revisions of existing motherboard models, featuring AMI Aptio UEFI BIOS, and its dual-UEFI redundant BIOS technology that protects against failed BIOS updates. Gigabyte's UEFI-equipped AM3+ motherboards will follow revision number scheme from 3.xx, jumping from its canonical revision number scheme of 1.xx. For example, pictured below is the newly launched 970A-D3 Rev 3.0, which jumped from Rev 1.4. The revisions are largely identical to their predecessors, except of course implementation of the AMI Aptio UEFI BIOS and dual-UEFI feature. When buying, look for the revision number in the main barcode sticker on the box, and on the bottom-left corner of the motherboard itself.

HP today announced availability and pricing details for its new lineup of consumer and business PCs that are designed to work with Windows 8.

The new HP products, ranging from stylish notebooks and desktops to a tablet, leverage premium materials and a purposeful design philosophy to deliver a distinct HP look and feel.

Unique form factors, including a hybrid PC with a detachable screen, a business tablet with functionality-boosting HP Smart Jackets and an ultrathin all-in-one (AiO) desktop, enable users to take advantage of Windows 8 along with HP innovations such as HP TouchSmart technology. They also offer HP Connected Photo powered by Snapfish by HP and HP Connected Music powered by Meridian for convenient access to photos and music.

Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS) today announces it is teaming up with Thermaltake, G.skill and various media partners to announce its first ever worldwide Modmen PC modding competition. Starting on October 11, 2012, ECS is searching for the Modmen of the year. The Grand Prize winner will become a Taiwan millionaire (approx. US $33,333). To register for the contest head to www.ecs.com.tw. All submissions must be sent before February 28, 2013. To be eligible for this contest all contestants need to have an ECS motherboard purchased after 9/20/2012 or have an ECS Golden Board.

There are two stages of competition. The first stage takes place online. The top 10 case modders will be determined by a combination of online votes and ECS' own modding judges. The modder with the most votes will win US $1,000. The top 5 PC modders that qualify for the second stage of the competition, besides winning cash and prizes, will be flown to Taiwan and given accommodation to compete at Computex for a chance to win the Grand Prize - approx. US$33,333. During the competition the top five contestants will showcase their mods at ECS' booth and a panel of accredited judges and the audience will determine the grand prize winner.

The UEFI Forum has ratified an update to the UEFI 2.3.1 Specification that adds important firmware considerations and addresses numerous engineering change requests. The updated Specification will be referred to as "UEFI 2.3.1C".

• UEFI 2.3.1C adds: An OS Indications Variable - OS/FW feature & capability communication - when implemented, allows end-users to make an OS menu request to enter BIOS setup after next reboot.
• UEFI 2.3.1C adds: A mechanism which, when implemented, facilitates Open Source Operating System installations and OS- agnostic end-user configurations of retaining the factory default keys while in Setup Mode (see Specification for full technical detail of Setup Mode).
• UEFI 2.3.1C removes: Runtime driver requirement on Network UNDI drivers - this allows UNDI drivers to be delivered in EFI Byte Code (EBC) Virtual Machine format supporting systems based on different processor architectures.

Phoenix Technologies Ltd., the global leader in UEFI firmware technology, products and tools, today announced it has signed an agreement with Intel Corporation to be its collaborative partner for BIOS. The two companies will jointly develop the new reference UEFI firmware for the Intel code base.

Phoenix will provide on-site engineers who will work collaboratively with Intel across various global locations to create the reference UEFI core code firmware that will greatly improve and standardize the code base support for all future Intel client platforms. These improvements will be included in areas such as tools, re-visioning schemes and other firmware structures that will support bringing customer products to market quickly and efficiently. This jointly created reference standard for UEFI BIOS on Intel platforms will optimize an OEM's ability to meet market demands such as long battery life, instant-on and always connected for ultra-thin client products, as well as reliability, scalability and performance.