BIOSTAR, a leading brand of motherboards, graphics cards, and storage devices, today announces product support for the new AMD's Ryzen Pro 4000 series desktop processors. Built on the AM4 socket, the new Ryzen Pro 4000 processors are built to be the best using the latest cutting-edge technology AMD has to offer. The new AM4 based desktop APU's are based on the 8-core 7 nm "Renoir" chipset, built on the groundbreaking Zen 2 core architecture with innovative 7 nm process technology and optimized for high performance Radeon graphics in an SOC design.

The new AMD Ryzen 4000 G-Series Desktop Processors have shown exceptional leaps in performance with extremely precise power efficiency that is highly effective for consumers, gamers, streamers and content creators. Built for modern business PCs, AMD Ryzen 4000 Series Desktop Processors with PRO technologies offer enterprise-class solutions, advanced technology and multi-layered security features.

Taiwan-based tech publication CoolPC.com.tw published one of the first comprehensive performance reviews of the recently announced AMD Ryzen PRO 4750G, PRO 4650G, and PRO 4350G Socket AM4 desktop processors based on the 7 nm "Renoir" silicon that combines up to 8 "Zen 2" GPU cores with a Radeon Vega iGPU that has up to 8 compute units (512 stream processors). In their testing, the processors were paired with an AMD Wraith Prism (125 W TDP capable) cooler, an ASUS ROG Strix B550-I Gaming motherboard, 2x 8 GB ADATA Spectrix D50 DDR4-3600 memory, and a Seagate FireCuda NVMe SSD.

The benchmark results are a fascinating mix. The top-dog Ryzen 7 4750G was found to be trading blows with the Core i7-10700K, the i7-10700, and AMD's own Ryzen 7 3700X, depending on the benchmark. In CPUMark 99 and Cinebench R20 nT, the PRO 4750G beats the i7-10700 and 3700X while practically matching the i7-10700K. It beats the i7-10700K at 7-Zip (de-compression) and HWBOT x265 video encoding benchmark. The story repeats with the 6-core/12-thread PRO 4650G beating the Core i5-10600K in some tests, and AMD's own Ryzen 5 3600X in quite a few tests. Ditto with the quad-core PRO 4350G pasting the previous generation Ryzen 3 3300G.

Since the AMD Ryzen 4000 Series Desktop Processors with PRO technologies have launched today, MSI 500-series motherboards are well-prepared to fully support for the new processors' coming. Compared to the Ryzen 3000 series CPUs, the AMD Ryzen PRO 4000 Series Processors are built in a monolithic design based on the 7 nm architecture for both Zen 2 CPU and Vega GPU, which improves greatly in latency and bandwidth numbers with better efficiency in performance. Of course, MSI 500-series motherboards including X570 and B550 platform are perfectly compatible for the Ryzen PRO 4000 Series Processors.

AMD Ryzen PRO 4000 Series Processors offer greater CPU and memory performance for overclockers and enthusiasts to push benchmark to another level. MSI has showcased not only the best performance for memory frequency but also the memory stability with Memtest pass.

AMD today announced its 4th Generation Ryzen 4000G and Ryzen PRO 4000G desktop processors for pre-built OEM desktops. The company also expanded its entry-level Athlon 3000G series and debuted the Athlon PRO 3000G series. The Ryzen 4000G and PRO 4000G mark the Socket AM4 desktop debut of the 7 nm "Renoir" silicon, which combines up to 8 CPU cores based on the "Zen 2" microarchitecture, with a Radeon Vega 8 iGPU. These processors benefit from the 65 W TDP and increased power limits of the desktop platform to dial up CPU- and iGPU engine clock speeds significantly over the Ryzen 4000U and 4000H mobile processors based on the same silicon. The new Athlon 3000G-series and Athlon PRO 3000G-series parts are based on a 12 nm die that has "Zen+" CPU cores.

All of the processor models announced today are OEM-only, meaning that you'll only find them on pre-built consumer- and commercial desktops by the likes of HP, Lenovo, Dell, etc. Not even the system-integrator (SI) channel (eg: Maingear, Origin PC, etc.,) gets these chips. OEMs will pair these processors with motherboards based on the AMD B550 chipset, although the chips are compatible with the X570 chipset, too. The Ryzen PRO 4000G processors are targeted at commercial desktops that are part of large business environments, and launches along with the new AMD PRO565 chipset. Since they are OEM-only, the company did not reveal pricing for any of these chips. They did however mention that for the DIY retail channel, they do plan to update their product stack with processors that have integrated graphics at a later time (without going into specifics of the said time).

AMD's top upcoming Socket AM4 desktop APU, the Ryzen 7 PRO 4750G, was put through Geekbench 5, as discovered by TUM_APISAK. The processor produced performance figures in the league of the popular Ryzen 7 3700X desktop processor. Both are 8-core/16-thread processors based on the "Zen 2" microarchitecture, but while the 3700X has additional L3 cache and added power budget for the CPU cores (as the processor completely lacks an iGPU); the PRO 4750G offers a Radeon Vega 8 iGPU with its engine clock above 2.00 GHz. Both chips were compared on Geekbench 5.2.2.

The single-core performance of both the PRO 4750G and 3700X are similar, with the PRO 4750G scoring 1239 points, and the 3700X scoring 1266 points. The 3700X has a slight upper hand with multi-core performance, with 9151 points compared to 8228 points of the PRO 4750G. This is attributable to the 3700X enjoying four times the L3 cache size. The Ryzen 7 PRO 4750G is expected to be the top desktop SKU based on the 7 nm "Renoir" silicon that features eight "Zen 2" CPU cores, and an iGPU based on the "Vega" graphics architecture, featuring 8 NGCUs amounting to 512 stream processors. The processor features AMD PRO feature-set that make it fit for use in commercial desktops in large business environments.

Intel's upcoming Core i7-1165G7 4-core/8-thread processor based on the 10 nm "Tiger Lake-U" silicon packs a mean punch in comparison to the AMD Ryzen 7 4700U processor, despite half the number of CPU cores. A Geekbench comparison between two Lenovo laptops, one powered by an i7-1165G7, and the other by a 4700U, shows a staggering 36.8% performance lead for the Intel chip in single-threaded performance, while also being 0.5% faster in multi-threaded performance. The i7-1165G7 features a 4-core/8-thread CPU with "Willow Cove" cores, while the 4700U lacks SMT, and is an 8-core/8-thread chip with "Zen 2" CPU cores. The game changes with the Ryzen 7 4800U, where the 8-core/16-thread chip ends up 22.3% faster than the Core i7-1165G7 in the multi-threaded test owing to SMT, while Intel's single-threaded performance lead is lowered to 29.3%.

AMD's 7 nm "Renoir" APU silicon, which features eight "Zen 2" CPU cores, has only a quarter of the L3 cache of the 8-core "Zen 2" CCD used in "Matisse," "Rome," and "Castle Peak" processors, with each of its two quad-core compute complexes (CCXs) featuring just 4 MB of it (compared to 16 MB per CCX on the 8-core "Zen 2" CCD). Chinese-language tech publication TecLab pubished a quick review of an alleged Ryzen 7 4700GE socket AM4 processor based on the "Renoir" silicon, and discovered that the chip offers significantly lower memory latencies than "Matisse," posting just 47.6 ns latency when paired with DDR4-4233 dual-channel memory.

In comparison, a Ryzen 9 3900X with these kinds of memory clocks typically posts 60-70 ns latencies, owing to the MCM design of "Matisse," where the CPU cores and memory controllers sit on separate dies, which is one of the key reasons AMD is believed to have doubled the L3 cache amount per CCX compared to previous-generation "Zeppelin" dies. TecLab tested the alleged 4700GE engineering sample on a ROG Crosshair VIII Impact X570 motherboard that has 1 DIMM per channel (the best possible memory topology).

Microsoft is preparing to launch a competitive product to Google's Stadia and Amazon's Project Tempo, which are both game streaming services. To Microsoft's advantage, the company has experience in building gaming systems and using cloud technology to integrate them. While both Google and Amazon are cloud providers and have the infrastructure to implement game streaming services, Microsoft has its Xbox division, which has been in the gaming industry for a long time. Despite already owning the infrastructure, Microsoft wants to use the hardware from its Xbox consoles as a base of the upcoming game streaming service called Project xCloud.

According to sources of Tom Warren, senior editor at Verge, Microsoft will be re-using the Xbox SoCs found in their consoles. According to the source, in the beginning, Microsoft is going to use Xbox One S blades to power its game streaming service. After that, the company will upgrade its servers with more powerful Xbox Series X SoC. As a reminder, the Xbox Series X SoC has 8 Ryzen CPU cores based on "Zen 2" µarch, RDNA 2 GPU capable of delivering 12 TFLOPs, 16 GB of GDDR6 memory and a mighty fast SSD. This will be enough to satisfy game streaming service demands and power all of the AAA titles users will be playing once it is available.

VLSI engineer Fritzchens Fritz, famous for high-detail EM photography of silicon dies and annotations of them, recently published his work on AMD's 7 nm "Renoir" APU silicon. His die-shots were annotated by Nemez aka GPUsAreMagic. The floor-plan of the silicon shows that the CPU component finally dwarfs the iGPU component, thanks to double the CPU cores over the previous-gen "Picasso" silicon, spread over two CCXs (compute complexes). The CCX on "Renoir" is visibly smaller than the one on the "Zen 2" CCDs found in "Matisse" and "Rome" MCMs, as the L3 cache is smaller, at 4 MB compared to 16 MB. Being MCMs with disintegrated memory controllers, it makes more sense for CCDs to have more last-level cache per CCX.

We also see that the iGPU features no more than 8 "Vega" NGCUs, so there's no scope for "Renoir" based desktop APUs to feature >512 stream processors. AMD attempted to compensate for the NGCU deficit by dialing up engine clocks of the iGPU by over 40% compared to those on "Picasso." What caught our eye in the annotation is the PCI-Express physical layer. Apparently the die indeed has 20 PCI-Express lanes besides an additional 4 lanes that can be configured as two SATA 6 Gbps ports thanks to SerDes flexibility.

Last week, reports of Intel's Gen12 Xe integrated graphics solution catching up with AMD's Radeon Vega 8 iGPU found in its latest Ryzen 4000U processors in higher-tier 3DMark tests sparked quite some intrigue. AMD's higher CPU core-count bailed the processor out in overall 3DMark 11 scores. Thanks to Thai PC enthusiast TUM_APISAK, we now have a face-off between the Core i7-1165G7 "Tiger Lake-U" processor (15 W), against AMD Ryzen 7 4800U (15 W), and the mainstream-segment Ryzen 7 4800HS (35 W), in 3DMark "Night Raid."

The "Night Raid" test is designed to evaluate iGPU performance, and takes advantage of DirectX 12. The Core i7-1165G7 falls behind both the Ryzen 7 4800U and the 4800HS in CPU score, owing to its lower CPU core count, despite higher IPC. The i7-1165G7 is a 4-core/8-thread chip featuring "Willow Cove" CPU cores, facing off against 8-core/16-thread "Zen 2" CPU setups on the two Ryzens. Things get interesting with graphics tests, where the Radeon Vega 8 solution aboard the 4800U scores 64.63 FPS in GT1, and 89.41 FPS in GT2; compared to just 27.79 FPS in GT1 and 32.05 FPS in GT2, by the Gen12 Xe iGPU in the i7-1165G7.

Now, take that title with the customary grain of salt, and remember: most mobile configurations aren't directly comparable due to different components, speed of the memory subsystem, and so on. Putting that salt aside, though, one thing remains: Intel beats AMD in the latest purported 3DMark benchmarks - and on the red team's home-field, so to speak: graphics performance. A benchmark posted by renowned leaker and benchmark scavenger rogame on twitter has turned up an Intel Tiger Lake-U (i7-1165G7) scoring 11879 (99.68%) in the Physics and 6912 (112.92%) in the Graphics score compared to AMD's R7 4800U 11917 Physics score and 6121 Graphics score.

For context, this pits a 4-core, 8-thread Intel Willow Cove design paired with Gen12 Xe graphics tech (2.8 GHz base, 4.4 GHz boost) against 8 of AMD's Zen 2 cores and Vega graphics. Also for context, it's expected that Intel's i7-1165G7 runs with a 28 W TDP, compared to AMD's R7 4800U 15 W envelope. Also of note is that 3D Mark isn't exactly the poster-child for CPU parallelization performance, as the benchmark scales up rather poorly as more cores are added. Perhaps more interesting as a comparison, these scores from Intel's Tiger Lake are comparable to the company's current i5-10300H (4C/8T 2.5 GHz base 4.5 GHz boost), which scores 10817 on the Physics side (making the i7-1165G7 9.8% faster with a 200 MHz slower base clock, 100 MHz higher boost & 17 W less TDP (28 W for the Tier Lake and 45 W for the i5-10300H).

Intel's 11th generation Core i7-1165G7 "Tiger Lake-U" processor armed with 4 "Willow Cove" cores and Gen12 Xe graphics fights a pitched battle against AMD Ryzen 7 4800U "Renoir" (8 "Zen 2" cores and Radeon Vega 8 graphics), courtesy of some digging by Thai PC enthusiast TUM_APISAK. The 4800U beats the i7-1165G7 by a wafer-thin margin of 1.9% despite double the CPU core-count and a supposedly advanced iGPU, with 6331 points as against 6211 points of the Intel chip, in 3DMark 11. A breakdown of the score reveals fascinating details of the battle.

The Core i7-1165G7 beats the Ryzen 7 4800U in graphics tests, with a graphics score of 6218 points, against 6104 points of the 4800U, resulting in a 1.9% lead. In graphics tests 1, 2, and 3, the Gen12 Xe iGPU is 7.3-8.9% faster than the Radeon Vega 8, through translating to 2-4 FPS. The Intel iGPU crosses the 30 FPS mark in these three tests. With graphics test 4, the AMD iGPU ends up 8.8% faster. Much of AMD's performance gains come from its massive 55.6% physics score lead thanks to its 8-core/16-thread CPU, which ends up beating the 4-core/8-thread "Willow Cove," with the 4800U scoring 12494 points compared to 8028 points for the i7-1165G7. This CPU muscle also plays a big role in graphics test 4. This battle provides sufficient basis to speculate that "Tiger Lake-U" will have a very uphill task matching "Renoir-U" chips such as the Ryzen 7 4800U, and the upcoming Ryzen 9 4900U (designed to compete with the i7-1185G7).

Last week, we brought you reports of AMD inching closer to launch its 3rd generation Ryzen "Matisse Refresh" processor lineup to ward off the 10th gen Intel Core "Comet Lake" threat, by giving the "Zen 2" chips possible clock speed-bumps to shore up performance. The lineup included the Ryzen 9 3900XT, the Ryzen 7 3800XT, and the Ryzen 5 3600XT. We now have a first-look at their alleged clock speeds courtesy of an anonymous tipster on ChipHell forums, seconded by HXL @9550pro.

The XT SKUs indeed revolve around 200-300 MHz increments in base- and boost clock speeds as many of our readers predicted in the "Matisse Refresh" article's comments section. The 3900XT comes with 4.10 GHz base clock, and 4.80 GHz max boost clocks, compared to 3.80 GHz base and 4.60 GHz boost clocks of the 3900X. Likewise, the 3800XT notches up to 4.20 GHz base clock (highest in the lineup), and 4.70 GHz max boost, compared to 3.90-4.50 GHz of the 3800X. The 3600XT offers the same 4.70 GHz max boost, a step up from the 4.40 GHz of the 3600X, but has its base clock set at 4.00 GHz, compared to 3.80 GHz on the 3600X. It appears like AMD's design focus is to reduce, if not beat, Intel's gaming performance lead. The 10th generation Core "Comet Lake" tops gaming performance by a mid-high single-digit percentages over AMD's offerings, and AMD could bring them down to low single-digit percentages with the XT family.

AMD is planning to immediately update its product stack to counter the Intel 10th gen Core "Comet Lake-S" desktop processor family. Codenamed "Matisse Refresh," the processor will use existing IP, based on the 7 nm "Zen 2" microarchitecture, but could improve in areas such as clock-speeds. As it now stands, the Ryzen 9 3900X appears unfazed by the i9-10900K and i7-10700K at its new $410 price, however, competitiveness of the 3800X and 3700X could buckle under pressure from the i7-10700 series (K, KF, non-K, and F), as well as the Core i5-10600 series. To this effect, we're hearing rumors of a "Ryzen 7 3750X" and "Ryzen 7 3850X" seeing the light of the day soon, with an early-June announcement, and early-July market availability. References to the 3750X date back to October 2019.

Rumors of "Matisse Refresh" gained traction when WCCFTech editor Hassan Mujtaba tweeted a slide from a GIGABYTE AMD B550 motherboard series pre-launch presentation, which references GIGABYTE's own interpretation of AMD's roadmap. It lists out every CPU microarchitecture for the AM4 platform, and right next to "Matisse" is "& Refresh," confirming that "Matisse Refresh" is real. A microarchitecture "refresh" needn't even involve any physical changes to the processor design, core-counts, or architecture, and can sometimes even indicate something as simple as a second major wave of SKUs that replace existing SKUs in the market, leading to their phase-out (eg: Intel "Haswell Refresh" retaining the 4th gen Core model numbering). The slide also adds weight to the theory that desktop "Renoir," like its mobile counterpart, lacks PCIe gen 4.0. The slide also talks about AMD introducing the entry-level A520 desktop chipset in August, which will support PCIe gen 4 when paired with a capable processor.

AMD's 4th generation Ryzen "Renoir" desktop APUs, based on the "Zen 2" microarchitecture, could lack PCI-Express gen 4.0, hints the product page of an upcoming AMD B550 chipset motherboard by BIOSTAR. AMD already declared that the B550 lacks support for "Picasso," which means the "Ryzen with Radeon Vega Graphics" processors referenced in the BIOSTAR product page have to be "Renoir." On the mobile platform, Ryzen 4000H and 4000U series processors do lack PCIe gen 4.0, but it was expected that AMD will enable gen 4.0 for the desktop socket AM4 platform.

The lack of gen 4.0 support has implications for "Renoir." For starters, the APU, like its predecessors, spares only 8 PCIe lanes toward PEG (PCI-Express discrete graphics, or the main x16 slot you typically use for graphics cards). If these lanes are gen 3.0, then even the newer graphics cards, such as AMD's "Navi" RX 5700 XT, or next-gen GeForce "Ampere," would have to make do with a PCI-Express 3.0 x8 interface, despite being gen 4.0 x16-capable. We will test just how much of a bottleneck this poses, when the next-gen graphics cards come out.

Here is the first picture of the AMD Ryzen 7 4700G, the company's upcoming socket AM4 APU based on the 7 nm "Renoir" silicon, courtesy of VideoCardz. The picture reveals a standard-looking socket AM4 chip with commercial name and OPN markings (100-000000146), matching the Igor's Lab OPN code leak from earlier this week. The Ryzen 7 4700G offers an 8-core/16-thread CPU based on the "Zen 2" microarchitecture, and an integrated graphics solution that combines the SIMD machinery of the "Vega" graphics architecture, with the updated display- and media engines of "Navi." The iGPU is configured with 8 CUs (512 stream processors), which on the 4700G has an impressive maximum engine boost clock of 2.10 GHz, according to the Igor's Lab story.

The 8-core/16-thread CPU of the Ryzen 7 4700G has a nominal clock speed of 3.60 GHz, and a maximum boost frequency of 4.45 GHz, with several Precision Boost power-states in both directions of the nominal clock. The CPU features 512 KB of L2 cache per core, and 8 MB of shared L3 cache (4 MB per CCX). The iGPU engine clock goes all the way up to 2.10 GHz, which could help it overcome some of the CU deficit vs. "Picasso," which has 11 CUs (704 stream processors), but clocked only up to 1.40 GHz. Since the Ryzen 5 3400G has an unlocked multiplier, it stands to reason that even the 4700G could. If the platform I/O of "Renoir" in its mobile avatar is anything to go by, then the 4700G could feature a limited PCI-Express x8 lane setup for its PEG port. AMD is rating the TDP of the 4700G at 65 W.

It was only a matter of time before AMD brought its 7 nm "Renoir" APU silicon onto the desktop platform. The first such chip just hit the radar as the Ryzen 7 4700G. This would be the first desktop Ryzen APU graded as Ryzen 7, thanks to its CPU core count. The 4700G features an 8-core/16-thread CPU based on the "Zen 2" microarchitecture. The iGPU is a hybrid between "Vega" and "Navi."

The "Renoir" iGPU features the SIMD components of "Vega," but with the display- and multimedia-engines of "Navi." The iGPU apparently maxes out on 8 NGCUs on "Renoir," amounting to 512 stream processors. Increased iGPU engine clocks attempt to make up the CU deficit compared to the previous-generation "Picasso" (8 vs. 11). The CPU features 512 KB of L2 cache per core, and 8 MB of shared L3 cache (4 MB per CCX). An AoTS run in which the processor is paired with a Radeon RX 5700 XT graphics card surfaced on social media. Bringing "Renoir" to the desktop platform at prices competitive with Intel's 10th generation Core i3 thru Core i7 will be critical for AMD, as it nullifies a key advantage Intel has - integrated graphics, so the processors could make it to the vast majority of non-gaming builds with high CPU performance demand.Update May 10th: A possible UserBenchmark submission of this processor, where it carries the engineering sample number "100-000000149-40_40/30_Y" surfaced. It's shown having clock speeds of 3.00 GHz base and 4.00 GHz boost. We know this is a desktop platform looking at its ASRock B550 Taichi motherboard and Micron-supplied standard DIMM.

The Ryzen 3 3100 is turning out to be a fun little toy for enthusiasts. PC enthusiast TSAIK succeeded in overclocking it to 5923 MHz under extreme cooling. The chip was fed 1.45 Volts, and put under liquid nitrogen cooling, to achieve the feat. An MSI MAG X570 Tomahawk motherboard and a single stick of 8 GB memory underclocked to DDR4-1600 made the rest of the critical hardware. The feat is the second highest OC record for a "Zen 2" powered processor, next only to TSAIK's own speed record with the flagship Ryzen 9 3950X, which was pushed to 6041 MHz. Find the HWBot submission for the Ryzen 3 3100 speed record here.

Today, AMD announced global availability of the world's first x86 7 nm commercial notebook processors, the AMD Ryzen PRO 4000 Series Mobile family, delivering the most cores and threads in an ultrathin business notebook. These new processors are fully optimized for remote work capabilities and designed to take business computing to the next level with multi-threading performance for modern productivity. Robust enterprise designs from HP and Lenovo powered by AMD Ryzen PRO 4000 Series Mobile Processors are expected to be available worldwide starting in the first half of 2020, with anywhere-anytime productivity, multiple layers of security features, seamless manageability and reliable longevity.

"With the launch of AMD Ryzen PRO 4000 Series Mobile Processors, AMD once again defines the new standard for PC experiences - from high-end desktop computing to ultrathin and gaming notebooks, and now the modern business notebook," said Saeid Moshkelani, senior vice president and general manager, client business unit, AMD. "Built on the ground-breaking "Zen 2" architecture and 7 nm process technology, the AMD Ryzen for Business portfolio delivers advanced performance, reliable security features, impressive battery life and advanced manageability to significantly elevate the capabilities of the ultrathin notebook in any work environment."

A DigiTimes premium report, interpreted by Chiakokhua, aka Retired Engineer, chronicling NVIDIA's move to contract TSMC for 7 nm and 5 nm EUV nodes for GPU manufacturing, made a startling revelation about NVIDIA's recent foundry diversification moves. Back in July 2019, a leading Korean publication confirmed NVIDIA's decision to contract Samsung for its next-generation GPU manufacturing. This was a week before AMD announced its first new-generation 7 nm products built for the TSMC N7 node, "Navi" and "Zen 2." The DigiTimes report reveals that NVIDIA underestimated the efficiency gains AMD would yield from TSMC N7.

With NVIDIA's bonhomie with Samsung underway, and Apple transitioning to TSMC N5, AMD moved in to quickly grab 7 nm-class foundry allocation and gained prominence with the Taiwanese foundry. The report also calls out a possible strategic error on NVIDIA's part. Upon realizing the efficiency gains AMD managed, NVIDIA decided to bet on TSMC again (apparently without withdrawing from its partnership with Samsung), only to find that AMD had secured a big chunk of its nodal allocation needed to support its growth in the x86 processor and discrete GPU markets. NVIDIA has hence decided to leapfrog AMD by adapting its next-generation graphics architectures to TSMC's EUV nodes, namely the N7+ and N5. The report also speaks of NVIDIA using its Samsung foundry allocation as a bargaining chip in price negotiations with TSMC, but with limited success as TSMC established its 7 nm-class industry leadership. As it stands now, NVIDIA may manufacture its 7 nm-class and 5 nm-class GPUs on both TSMC and Samsung.

Here are the first detailed die maps of the I/O controller dies of AMD's "Matisse" and "Rome" multi-chip modules that make up the company's 3rd generation Ryzen and 2nd generation EPYC processor families, respectively, by PC enthusiast and VLSI engineer "Nemez" aka @GPUsAreMagic on Twitter, with underlying die-shots by Fitzchens Fitz. The die maps of the "Matisse" cIOD in particular give us fascinating insights to how AMD designed the die to serve both as a cIOD and as an external FCH (AMD X570 and TRX40 chipsets). At the heart of both these chips' design effort is using highly configurable SerDes (serializer/deserializers) that can work as PCIe, SATA, USB 3, or other high-bandwidth serial interfaces, using a network of fabric switches and PHYs. This is how motherboard designers are able to configure the chipsets for the I/O they want for their specific board designs.

The "Matisse" cIOD has two x16 SerDes controllers and an I/O root hub, along with two configurable x16 SerDes PHYs, while the "Rome" sIOD has four times as many SerDes controllers, along with eight times as many PHYs. The "Castle Peak" cIOD (3rd gen Ryzen Threadripper) disables half the SerDes resources on the "Rome" sIOD, along with half as many memory controllers and PHYs, limiting it to 4-channel DDR4. The "Matisse" cIOD features two IFOP (Infinity Fabric over Package) links, wiring out to the two "Zen 2" CCDs (chiplets) on the MCM, while the "Rome" sIOD features eight such IFOP interfaces for up to eight CCDs, along with IFIS (Infinity Fabric Inter-Socket) links for 2P motherboards. Infinity Fabric internally connects all components on both IOD dies. Both dies are built on the 12 nm FinFET (12LP) silicon fabrication node at GlobalFoundries.

AMD has announced its Ryzen 3 "Matisse" quad-core desktop processors, with two SKUs in the pipe, the $99 Ryzen 3 3100 and the $120 Ryzen 3 3300X. Both are 4-core/8-thread parts spaced apart by clock-speeds, or so we thought. According to an alleged AMD presentation slide leaked to the web, the differentiation between the two runs deeper than that. Both chips are based on the "Matisse" multi-chip module, with a single 8-core "Zen 2" chiplet that has four disabled cores. How AMD goes about disabling these cores appears to be the secret sauce behind the "X" on the 3300X.

Inside each "Zen 2" chiplet, the 8 cores are spread between two 4-core CCX (compute complexes). On the 3100, AMD disabled two cores per CCX, and halved the 16 MB L3 cache per CCX. So it ends up with a 2+2 core CCX configuration, 8+8 MB of L3 cache adding up to 16 MB. The 3300X takes the more scenic route. An entire CCX is disabled, all four cores are part of the same CCX. This design lowers inter-core latency among the cores, and more importantly. gives each of the four cores access to 16 MB of shared L3 cache. And then there's the speed-bump. This goes a long way in explaining how the 3300X is shown within striking distance of the Core i7-7700K in leaked Cinebench scores, and could provide a formidable gaming processor in the lower end.

Intel's Core i7-7700K "Kaby Lake" quad-core processor may fall significantly behind its 9th generation successor and today's Ryzen 7 chips, but it remains a formidable piece of silicon for strictly-gaming builds. Can it be bested by a $120 AMD Ryzen 3 3300X? A leaked, alleged Cinebench R15 score suggests that something very fascinating is brewing at AMD. The score points to the i7-7700K having a single-thread score just 0.5 percent higher than the 3300X, which means the multi-threaded score of the 4-core/8-thread AMD chip could end up within striking distance of the i7-7700K.

If this holds up, then AMD has a shot at bringing i7-7700K levels of gaming performance down to $120 (SEP). That would have the potential to seriously disrupt the sub-$200 processor market for gamers, enabling them to build fairly powerful 1440p (or higher) gaming builds. The low price will also let builders allocate more money to the graphics card. Adding to its gaming credentials could be the fact that the "Matisse" MCM features PCI-Express gen 4.0 x16 when paired with an X570 or upcoming B550 chipset motherboard, as detailed in AMD's announcement of the processor. The Ryzen 3 3300 is a 4-core/8-thread processor based on the "Zen 2" microarchitecture, clocked at 3.80 GHz, with 4.30 GHz boost frequency, and featuring 18 MB of total cache. It is expected to be available from May 2020.

Today, AMD announced the newest additions to the 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen desktop processor family, the AMD Ryzen 3 3100 and AMD Ryzen 3 3300X processors and AMD B550 Chipset for Socket AM4 designed for 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen desktop processors with over 60 designs in development. Taking advantage of the AMD world-class portfolio of technologies, these new Ryzen 3 desktop processors bring the groundbreaking "Zen 2" core architecture to business users, gamers, and creators worldwide, leveraging Simultaneous Multi-Threading (SMT) technology for increased productivity. With double the threads, twice the bandwidth, and a wide selection of motherboards in development the AMD B550 chipset and Ryzen 3 desktop processors deliver the ideal processing solution from top to bottom.

"Games and applications are becoming more and more demanding, and with this, users are demanding more from their PCs," said Saeid Moshkelani, senior vice president and general manager, client business unit. "AMD is committed to providing solutions that meet and exceed those demands for all levels of computing. With the addition of these new Ryzen 3 desktop processors we are continuing this commitment with our mainstream gaming customers. We've taken performance up a level, doubling the processing threads of our Ryzen 3 processors to propel gaming and multitasking experiences to new heights."

Sony in a YouTube stream keynote by PlayStation 5 lead system architect Mark Cerny, detailed the upcoming entertainment system's hardware. There are three key areas where the company has invested heavily in driving forward the platform by "balancing revolutionary and evolutionary" technologies. A key design focus with PlayStation 5 is storage. Cerny elaborated on how past generations of the PlayStation guided game developers' art direction as the low bandwidths and latencies of optical discs and HDDs posed crippling latencies arising out of mechanical seeks, resulting in infinitesimally lower data transfer rates than what the media is capable of in best case scenario (seeking a block of data from its outermost sectors). SSD was the #1 most requested hardware feature by game developers during the development of PS5, and Sony responded with something special.

Each PlayStation 5 ships with a PCI-Express 4.0 x4 SSD with a flash controller that has been designed in-house by Sony. The controller features 12 flash channels, and is capable of at least 5.5 GB/s transfer speeds. When you factor in the exponential gains in access time, Sony expects the SSD to provide a 100x boost in effective storage sub-system performance, resulting in practically no load times.