Patriot, a global leader in performance memory, SSDs, gaming peripherals and flash storage solutions, announces the compatibility of its Viper 4, Viper Elite and Signature Line DDR4 with the new AMD Ryzen and AM4 platforms. After extensive compatibility testing on X370 and B350 chipsets, using the AMD Ryzen R5 and R7 processors, and in partnership with key motherboard vendors, Patriot has developed a list of Ryzen compatible DDR4 parts.

"After working closely with our motherboard partners, these compatible kits will deliver maximum performance at factory-tested speeds," said Victor Chiu, DRAM Product Manager for Patriot. Offering compatible dual, quad and single configurations, with capacities ranging from 4GB to 64GB and speeds between 2133MHz and 3400MHz, Patriot Viper Elite, Viper 4 and Signature Line DDR4 Memory will provide both the every-day consumer as well as the PC enthusiast looking to upgrade their system to the new AMD Ryzen platform with reliable, award-winning, memory.

GIGABYTE today rolled out the Aorus ATC 700 tower-type CPU cooler. The company had first exhibited this cooler at the 2017 Computex event. Its design involves a large yet conventional tower-type aluminium fin-stack heatsink, to which heat drawn by three 10 mm-thick copper heat pipes, is conveyed to the fin-stack, which is ventilated by a pair of 120 mm fans in push-pull configuration. The heat pipes make direct contact with the CPU at the base.

The topmost aluminium fin is topped off by an ABS shroud with a glowing Aorus logo, which has an RGB LED element that can be controlled using GIGABYTE RGB Fusion software. Each of the two fans takes in 4-pin PWM power input, features double ball-bearings, spins between 500 to 1,700 RPM, with 14 to 53 CFM of air-flow, and noise output proportionately ranging between 12 to 31 dBA. The cooler supports most modern CPU sockets, including AM4, LGA2066, LGA2011(v3), AM3(+), FM2(+), LGA115x, LGA1366, and LGA775. The company didn't reveal pricing.

ID-Cooling introduced the second edition of its Hunter Duet dual-block CPU + VGA closed-loop cooler. The new Hunter Duet II features improvements to the CPU and VGA pump-blocks that increase coolant pressure, and 50% higher heat dissipation thanks to the larger 360 mm x 120 mm radiator, compared to its predecessor's 240 mm x 120 mm. Like its predecessor, the design of the Hunter Duet II includes two pump blocks - a conventional block over the CPU, and one over the GPU. The GPU component features a cooler shroud with a fan which ventilates aluminium heatsinks over the memory and VRM.

The two blocks are attached in serial, while the heat is dissipated by the radiator, ventilated by three included 120 mm fans. The cooler has a combined thermal capacity of 500W. The Hunter Duet II supports newer CPU socket types, including AM4, LGA2066, LGA2011(v3), LGA115x, AM3(+), and FM2(+). Its VGA component supports most GPUs with mount-hole spacing of 58.4 mm and 53.3 mm. Its blocks feature ceramic bearings. The company didn't reveal pricing or availability information.

EK Water Blocks, the Slovenia-based premium computer liquid cooling gear manufacturer is maintaining its market leadership by releasing a new AM4 socket based monoblock tailor made for GIGABYTE X370 motherboards. The EK-FB GA AX370 Gaming RGB Monoblock has an integrated 4-pin RGB LED strip which makes it compatible with GIGABYTE RGB Fusion, thus offering a full lighting customization experience. This is a complete all-in-one (CPU and motherboard) liquid cooling solution for several GIGABYTE AMD X370 Chipset AM4 socket based motherboards that support the latest generation of AMD Ryzen and 7th Generation A-series/Athlon processors.

Designed and engineered in cooperation with GIGABYTE, this monoblock uses award-winning EK-Supremacy EVO cooling engine to ensure best possible CPU cooling. This water block directly cools AMD AM4 socket type CPU, as well as the power regulation (MOSFET) module. Liquid flows directly over all critical areas, providing the enthusiasts with a great solution for high and stable overclocks. Like with every EK monoblock, EK-FB GA AX370 Gaming RGB features high flow design and this monoblock can be easily used with the system using a weaker water pump as well.

GIGABYTE introduced the AB350N-Gaming WiFi, its first socket AM4 motherboard in the mini-ITX form-factor, with support for the entire Ryzen "Summit Ridge" processor family, the 7th generation "Bristol Ridge" A-series APUs, and the upcoming Ryzen "Raven Ridge" APUs. The board draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX and 8-pin EPS power connectors, and conditions it for the AM4 SoC with a 6-phase VRM. The motherboard is based on AMD B350 chipset.

The AM4 SoC is wired to two DDR4 DIMM slots, supporting up to 32 GB of dual-channel memory, the lone PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slot, a 32 Gb/s M.2 slot on the reverse side of the PCB, two out of four of the board's SATA 6 Gb/s ports, and two out of six of the board's USB 3.0 ports. Other USB connectivity includes two USB 3.0 ports from the B350 chipset, and two 10 Gb/s USB 3.1 ports (both type-A). Networking includes a WLAN card with 802.11ac WiFi, and Bluetooth 4.2, and gigabit Ethernet. 8-channel HD audio driven by a 120 dBA SNR CODEC makes for the rest of it. The company didn't reveal pricing.

Gaming PC builder Falcon Northwest teased a picture of its upcoming Tiki compact high-performance desktop built on the AMD Radeon theme. The silver-bodied beast shows off a Radeon Pro Vega Frontier Edition graphics card through an acrylic cutout on its side, and will be one of the first pre-built desktops you can buy with the $1,000-ish air-cooled Radeon Pro Vega Frontier Edition. Not much else is known about this variant of the Tiki. Looking at its prominent AMD branding, it's entirely possible that the side-panel hides a mini-ITX socket AM4 motherboard with a Ryzen 7 series chip; or maybe not, and it sticks with a Core i7 "Kaby Lake" with a 200-series chipset mini-ITX motherboard.

MSI introduced the B350M Pro-VD and A320M Pro-VD socket AM4 motherboards. Built in the slim micro-ATX form-factor, the two boards are nearly identical, and differ only with the chipset (AMD B350 and A320). The boards draw power from a combination of 24-pin ATX and 8-pin EPS power connectors; conditioning it for the AM4 SoC with a 6-phase VRM. The APU socket is wired to two DDR4 DIMM slots, supporting up to 32 GB of dual-channel DDR4 memory; a PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slot, and both of the boards' PCIe x1 slots. Two of the four SATA 6 Gbps ports on the boards come from the AM4 SoC. Display outputs include DVI and D-Sub. Gigabit Ethernet and 6-channel HD audio make for the rest of them. The only feature the B350M Pro-VD offers over its A320-based twin is support for CPU overclocking. The two could feature sub-$80 price-points.

In response to the soon to be launched new Intel LGA 2066 socket, PC thermal solution brand CRYORIG announces that all existing LGA2011v3 supported models will support the new LGA 2066 socket.

The supported models include: all A series liquid coolers, the R1 Ultimate/Universal, R5, C1, H5 Ultimate/Universal and the H7 Quad Lumi. Models that support only AMD or AM4 will not support the Intel LGA 2066 socket. The mounting mechanism of LGA2011v3 and LGA2066 are identical, thus no additional kits will be required to support the new socket.

Raijintek today introduced the Juno X top-flow CPU cooler. A throwback to the heatsink-designs of the early-2000s, the Juno X features an aluminium fin-stack that has been bunched up in the middle to make the base, with the ends of the fins projecting radially; and two 6 mm-thick nickel-plated copper heat pipes fast-tracking heat transfer from the base to the peripheries of the fins. The cooler comes in four variants based on the color of its fan's LED illumination, red, green, and blue, and no-illumination.

The factory-fitted 92 mm fan takes in 4-pin PWM power input, and spins between 1,200-2,500 RPM, pushing up to 52 CFM of air, with a noise output of 26 dBA. Measuring 110 mm x 110 mm x 50 mm (LxWxH), the cooler weighs about 130 g, and can handle thermal loads of up to 70W TDP. The cooler supports most modern CPU sockets, including AM4, AM3(+), FM2(+), LGA115x, and LGA775.

AMD today posted an updated compatibility list of DDR4 memory kits for Ryzen processors. While just about any DDR4 memory kit will run on socket AM4 motherboards, a limited few have been tested by AMD to run reliably at speeds such as DDR4-3200, DDR4-2933, DDR4-2667, and DDR4-2400. AMD's new compatibility list contains a wider selection of DDR4 memory modules that have been tested by AMD to work reliably on Ryzen processors.

To make the most of these modules, however, AMD asks you to look out for and install motherboard BIOS updates which contain the AGESA 1.0.0.6 micro-code update. This should be prominently displayed in the change-logs of BIOS updates from motherboard manufacturers, and the latest batches of motherboards should come with AGESA 1.0.0.6 pre-installed.The revised DDR4 compatibility list can be accessed here.

AMD is readying a new stepping of its 14 nm "Summit Ridge" eight-core CPU silicon, which powers its socket AM4 Ryzen processors, according to Canard PC. The new B2 stepping reportedly addresses a lot of hardware-level errata which cannot be fixed merely by AGESA updates. According to Canard PC, the changes seem to be focused on the uncore components of "Summit Ridge." Typically, uncore refers to the integrated northbridge, which includes components such as the memory controllers, PCI-Express root complex, etc.

If the B2 stepping is mostly focused on uncore-level errata, it could mean improved PCI-Express device support, and perhaps even memory support improvements beyond even what AGESA 1.0.0.6 brings to the table. Canard PC reports that it hasn't come across any CPU core-specific errata being addressed with the B2 stepping. The glaring FMA3-related bug has been patched through BIOS updates, and most newer batches of socket AM4 motherboards come with the patch pre-installed.

AMD Ryzen Threadripper is a really big processor, and here's what its underside looks like. A multi-chip module (MCM) of two eight-core "Summit Ridge" dies, it is also AMD's first client-segment processor to feature a land-grid array (LGA) socket interface, since the decade-old Athlon64 FX 72; with the pins being located on the motherboard, and contact-points on the CPU package. Until now, AMD has limited large LGA sockets to its enterprise processors. The processor is based on the 4,094-pin socket SP3r2, which is increasingly being referred to by motherboard and cooler manufacturers as "TR4."

Given that it is an MCM of two dies, you can see a clear dividing line between two groups of the contact points that make up the total pin count of 4,094 pins. There are also two distinct ancillary cutouts which holds critical electrical components for the dies above. Something like this is lacking on the socket AM4 Ryzen "Summit Ridge" processors, where the cutout is blank, and the ancillaries are located around the CPU die, on the other side of the fiberglass substrate. AMD Ryzen Threadripper could be available from 27 July.

XIGMATEK today launched the Whiz upper-mainstream CPU air cooler, which it debuted at the 2017 Computex. The cooler features a conventional tower-type heatsink design, and can handle thermal loads of up to 150W. Four 6 mm-thick copper heat pipes make direct contact with the CPU at the aluminum base, conveying heat to the fin-stack, which is ventilated by an included XIGMATEK SE II Red fan, with support for a second fan in push-pull configuration.

The included fan takes in 4-pin PWM input, spins between 800 to 2,000 RPM, pushing up to 78 CFM of air, with a noise output as low as 19.4 dBA. The fin-stack is capped off by a stylized top-plate. The XIGMATEK Whiz measures135 mm x 85 mm x 158 mm (LxWxH). It supports most modern CPU sockets, including AM4, AM3(+), FM2(+), LGA2011v3, LGA115x, LGA1366, and LGA775.

Be Quiet!, the market leader in PC power supplies in Germany for eleven consecutive years*, adds a new top flow CPU cooler to its current portfolio of cooling products. Shadow Rock TF 2, the follow-up to be quiet!'s successful Shadow Rock TopFlow, adds several optimizations that significantly improve upon its predecessor's cooling potential. With its low-profile design and supported TDP of 160W, Shadow Rock TF 2 is ideal for powerful compact PC systems requiring extensive cooling.

Five 6 mm high-performance copper heat pipes are designed with aluminum caps at the ends, enhancing Shadow Rock TF 2's clean modern look. Overall cooling performance is improved significantly by a complete redesign of the cooling fins - direct connections between fins and base plate support faster heat dissipation. As a result, Shadow Rock TF 2 cools down the CPU significantly better than its predecessor at a similar TDP rating of 160W. Additional cooling support comes from a 135mm silence-optimized be quiet! fan using a durable rifle bearing, airflow-optimized fan blades and a design producing sound pressure levels up to 24.4dB(A) at the maximum of 1,400 revolutions per minute.

ID-Cooling announced market availability of the Auraflow 240 all-in-one, closed-loop liquid CPU cooler. Based largely on the company's Frostflow platform, the Auraflow 240 is characterized by RGB multi-color LED lighting on its pump-block and included 120 mm fans, which supports software-based lighting management standards such as ASUS/ASRock Aura Sync, MSI Mystic Light, GIGABYTE RGB Fusion, and BIOSTAR Vivid LED DJ.

Designed to cope with thermal loads of up to 200W, the Auraflow 240 features a copper-base pump-block plumbed to a 240 mm x 120 mm radiator with aluminium fins; ventilated by a pair of 120 mm hydraulic-bearing fans, which take in 4-pin PWM input, spin between 700-1,800 RPM, pushing up to 74.5 CFM of air, each, with a noise output ranging between 18-35.2 dBA. The cooler supports all modern CPU socket types, including AM4, AM3(+), FM2(+), LGA2066, LGA2011(v3), LGA115x, LGA1366, and LGA775. Available now, the cooler is priced at USD $119.99.

Deepcool today formally launched the GAMMAXX GT tower-type air CPU cooler it unveiled at Computex 2017. Featuring a conventional tower-type design, the cooler features four 6 mm-thick copper heat pipes, which make direct contact with the CPU at the base, conveying heat to an aluminium fin-stack, which is ventilated by an included 120 mm fan. The topmost aluminium fin is capped off with a stylish brushed aluminium plate with a multi-diode RGB LED diffuser. The included fan features multi-diode RGB LEDs, too. From a 65,536-color palette, you can select up to two colors each for the heatsink and fan, which the diffuser then provides a groovy blend/transition effect for.

Measuring 135 mm x 84.8 mm x 156 mm (WxDxH), the GAMMAXX GT weighs 870 g. The included fan takes in 4-pin PWM power input, and spins between 500 to 1,500 RPM, pushing up to 70.08 CFM of air, with its noise output ranging between 17.8 to 29.5 dBA. It features a fluid dynamic bearing. Both the fan and the heatsink top-plate take in standard 4-pin RGB headers, and support popular standards such as ASUS Aura Sync. The cooler can handle thermal loads of up to 150W on the Intel platform, and up to 140W on the AMD platform. It supports most modern CPU socket types, including AM4, AM3(+), FM2(+), LGA2011(v3), LGA1366, and LGA115x. The company didn't reveal pricing.Our Computex 2017 images of this cooler follow.

EK Water Blocks, the Slovenia-based premium computer liquid cooling gear manufacturer is proving its market leadership once again by releasing a new AM4 socket based monoblock tailor made for the MSI X370 XPOWER Gaming Titanium motherboard. The EK-FB MSI X370 XPower RGB Monoblock has an integrated 4-pin RGB LED strip which makes it compatible with MSI Mystic Light Sync, thus offering a full lighting customization experience.

This is a complete all-in-one (CPU and motherboard) liquid cooling solution for the new AMD X370 Chipset AM4 socket based MSI X370 XPOWER Gaming Titanium high-end motherboard that supports the latest generation of AMD Ryzen and 7th Generation A-series/Athlon processors.

ECS took to Computex to showcase seven different motherboards from both AMD and Intel. First up we have the Z270 Lightsaber, which is great at deflecting laser blaster shots. It's an LGA 1151 socket motherboard, features 8-channel audio courtesy of a Realtek ALC 1150 audio chip, a Killer E2500 Gigabit controller, 1x M.2 slot with support for SATA, NVMe, and Intel Optane. There are 3x PCIe x16 slots, which work at x8 x8 x4 when all slots are populated, as is usual with Z270 motherboards.

In this issue of the Ryzen BIOS update digest, we have the latest updates. Our BIOS update digest lets you keep track of crucial BIOS updates that improve stability of your AMD Ryzen machine. As per usual, only updated BIOSes from the last digest are listed. Changes are listed after each BIOS, sans beta BIOSes which do not always include change logs. You can find it all below.

We have now moved to a "rolling-release" model for our digest to better track releases as they happen. Today we have some releases and betas from a broad range of manufacturers.

Special shout out to @nemesis.ie for tipping our local news editor off to some stealthy ASRock betas. Please note that although I have included those betas, they have a german zip self-extractor, so some language-fu may be required to extract them.

In addition to its socket TR3/SP3 Threadripper-ready CPU cooler prototypes, Noctua showed off this prototype of a super compact socket AM4 CPU cooler, the NH-L9. Ideal for SFF builds, the cooler sits just 37 mm tall, and features a dense aluminium fin-stack which propagates along the plane of the motherboard, to which heat drawn from the base is fed by nickel-plated copper heat pipes. The heatsink is ventilated by an included NF-A9x14 PWM 92 mm fan.

Here are some of the first pictures of the Whiz RGB tower-type CPU cooler by Xigmatek. The cooler features a conventional tower-type design four 6 mm-thick copper heat pipes, which make direct contact with the CPU at the base, convey heat through a large aluminium fin-stack, with hexagon-shaped fins; which are then ventilated by the included Xigmatech SC120 RGB fan.

The cooler features RGB multi-color LED lighting on both the SC120 RGB 120 mm fan, and an LED-lit logo topping of the fin-stack. The included fan spins between 800 to 1,800 RPM, pushing up to 62 CFM of air, with a noise output as low as 19.4 dBA. The fan takes in 4-pin PWM input. The cooler supports most modern CPU socket types, including AM4, AM3(+), FM2(+), LGA2011(v3), LGA115x, and LGA1366.

ZOTAC, at its Computex 2017 booth, showed off the ZBOX MA551 compact desktop with an AMD socket AM4 motherboard inside. Currently, this desktop is being displayed with a 7th generation A-series "Bristol Ridge" APU, but the board is ready for upcoming Ryzen "Raven Ridge" APUs up to 65W TDP, which combine a "Zen" CCX (quad-core complex) with a "Vega" based integrated GPU.

We took a peek under its hood, which reveals a custom-design motherboard, with an air cooling solution over the APU. The board also features a 2.5-inch drive bay with SATA back-plane, a 32 Gb/s M.2-2280 slot, an M.2-2240, an additional mPCIe slot (probably for the WLAN card). Two DDR4 SO-DIMM slots hold on to up to 32 GB of dual-channel memory. Other connectivity includes six USB 3.0 ports (including a type-C), an SD/micro-SD card reader, gigabit Ethernet, 802.11ac + Bluetooth 4.2 WLAN, and display outputs that include HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.2 outputs.

ID-COOLING a cooling solution provider focusing on thermal dissipation and fan technology research and production for over 10 years, announced AURAFLOW 240 AIO water cooler, featuring RGB lighting on both the pump and fans at the same time synchronizing with motherboard RGB control.

The pump is designed with a simple C character with an improved light diffuser which can provide smooth and even lighting effect. Copper base contacts CPU to help the heat transfer. Micro fin submerged design increases the heat dissipation surface. The dimension of the whole water block is Ф65×36mm. Solid connectors are used on both ends of the premium sleeved tubing, more reliable & performance efficient. Inside the tubing is self-contained highly efficient and eco-friendly liquid coolant.

Swiftech today released the Apogee Drive 2 CPU water-block with integrated pump, which now comes with support for AMD socket AM4. A successor to the second-generation Apogee HD pump-block, the Apogee Drive 2 features increased surface area for heat dissipation to the coolant, and features a higher flow MCP35X integrated-pump, with hydraulic bearings. The G1/4 inlet and exhausts can turn within a 90° angle. The Swiftech logo ornament on top of the block features an RGB lighting element (simple 3-color). Besides AM4, the Apogee Drive 2 supports LGA2011(v3), LGA115x, LGA1366, and LGA775, besides other AMD sockets, such as AM3(+) and FM2(+). Available now, it is priced at US $138.95.

ASUS today introduced its RGB LED-rich implementation of AMD's mid-tier B350 chipset, with the ROG STRIX B350-F Gaming motherboard. This socket AM4 motherboard built in the ATX form-factor, this is one of the rare few B350 chipset based boards to feature two PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots wired to the AM4 SoC, and x8/x8 lane switching, something B350-based boards generally lack. Don't expect SLI support, though. You can still install CrossFireX with not just these two slots, but also the third x16 (electrical x4) slot wired to the chipset. Three x1 slots make for the rest of the expansion. The board draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX and 8-pin EPS power connectors, conditioning it for the SoC using an 8-phase VRM.

Storage connectivity on the ROG STRIX B350-F Gaming includes one 32 Gb/s M.2 slot with NVMe booting support, and six SATA 6 Gb/s ports. USB connectivity includes two 10 Gb/s USB 3.1 ports (both type-A, rear panel), and six 5 Gb/s USB 3.0 ports (four on the rear panel, two by headers). Networking is care of an Intel I211-AT gigabit Ethernet controller. The ROG SupremeFX onboard audio solution is powered by a Realtek ALC1220 CODEC (up to 120 dBA SNR), mated with two headphones amplifiers, audio-grade capacitors, and ground-layer isolation. Besides the RGB LED-lit ornament on the chipset heatsink, the board features two RGB LED headers, controlled by the ASUS Aura Sync RGB software. The company didn't reveal pricing, although we expect it to be around the $140 mark.