AMD confirmed that it will not release Windows 7 drivers for its upcoming Ryzen series processors. It was earlier reported that the company is working on these drivers. The company, however, did state that it tested and validated Ryzen processors on a variety of operating systems, including Windows 7. "To achieve the highest confidence in the performance of our AMD Ryzen desktop processors (formerly code-named "Summit Ridge"), AMD validated them across two different OS generations, Windows 7 and 10," AMD said in a statement. "However, only support and drivers for Windows 10 will be provided in AMD Ryzen desktop processor production parts," the company added.

This doesn't necessarily mean that there won't be Windows 7 drivers for other socket AM4 chips, such as the 7th generation A-series "Bristol Ridge" APUs. AMD-supplied drivers are essential for these chips, as they drive the AMD Radeon integrated graphics, and Windows 7 continues to be a gaming platform. What happens now? Well, you can run Windows 7 on AMD Ryzen-powered desktops just fine, it's just that the OS won't support all of the processor's capabilities, such as some of the newer instruction sets it comes with.

Ahead of their launch, production versions of ASRock's high-end socket AM4 motherboards based on AMD X370 chipset were shown off, at the company-sponsored DOTA Pit gaming event in Split, Croatia. Our friends at Tehix.org shared with us some exclusive pictures. These boards were first spied and detailed at this year's CES expo. Besides looking more polished and ready for retail, not much has changed between these boards from the ones we saw at CES, except the distinctive Ryzen logo on the I/O shield cover, replacing the Intel Ethernet logos. On some models, the Ryzen logo even glows red or white.

Unlike Intel, which has had a predictable processor model number scheme over the past decade, those of AMD's new Ryzen processor family have been shrouded in mystery. Come March 2nd, and the company will launch some of 17, that's right, seventeen processor models. These include 5 eight-core SKUs, 4 six-core SKUs, and a whopping 8 quad-core SKUs. The lineup is led by the AMD Ryzen R7 1800X, followed by the R7 1800 Pro, the R7 1700X, the R7 1700 Pro, and the R7 1700. At this point we don't know the clock speeds of these SKUs, or what "Pro" designates. We know from AMD's application of the "Pro" moniker to some of its A-series APUs that it could designate certain business-desktop centric features.

The six-core lineup is led by the Ryzen R5 1600X, followed by the R5 1600 Pro, the R5 1500, and the R5 1500 Pro. The clock speeds of these SKUs range between 3.20-3.60 GHz, all SKUs feature SMT, enabling 12 logical CPUs for the OS to deal with. Lastly, AMD has an exhaustive range of quad-core chips, the ones with SMT are slotted in the Ryzen R5 extension, and the ones without SMT are Ryzen R3. The SMT-enabled quad-core lineup includes the R5 1400X, R5 1400 Pro, R5 1300, and R5 1300 Pro. The entry-level R3 lineup includes the R3 1200X, R3 1200 Pro, R3 1100, and R3 1100 Pro. A number of these SKUs will launch on the 2nd of March, 2017.

Crosshair is the brand that kicked off ASUS' coveted Republic of Gamers (ROG) series. The NVIDIA nForce chipset based ROG Crosshair socket AM2 motherboard was the board to have, in AMD's hayday as the leader in CPU performance. Over the years, the Crosshair brand received lesser love from ASUS, as AMD's chipset releases became infrequent, due to the company's slower CPU product development cycle than Intel. With the new socket AM4 platform and its companion AMD X370 chipset for the high-end segment, ASUS is back with a Crosshair branded motherboard, the ROG Crosshair VI Hero. It's interesting that ASUS chose not to give it the "Formula," "Extreme" or "Apex" extensions, and instead with the "Hero" extension it reserves for the $200-230 ROG branded boards.

Nevertheless, the ROG Crosshair VI Hero looks to be one of the most elaborately designed socket AM4 motherboards, and will compete with the likes of the Aorus AX370 Gaming 5 and the MSI X370 XPower Gaming Titanium. Built in the ATX form-factor, the Crosshair VI Hero draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX, 8-pin EPS, and 4-pin ATX power connectors, and conditions it for the CPU with a 12-phase VRM. The board features a "monochromatic design," so you can deck it up with your own LED lighting. It does feature RGB LED headers, with support for ASUS Aura Sync platform. The board has its own diagnostic LEDs that guide you through the POST sequence. Besides the ROG stylized chipset and CPU VRM heatsinks, the board features plastic I/O shield covers that run the length of the board.

AMD is reportedly providing platform (chipset) drivers for its upcoming socket AM4 platform, for the ageing Windows 7 operating system. This is noteworthy as rival Intel isn't providing Windows 7 drivers for its 200-series chipset, which drives the Core "Kaby Lake" processors, and the onboard graphics of Core "Kaby Lake" processors. Graphics drivers by AMD could power integrated graphics cores of the 7th generation A-series "Bristol Ridge" APUs, and the three socket AM4 chipsets - A320, B350, and X370.

Noctua today presented three special-edition models of its award-winning quiet CPU coolers. The new SE-AM4 versions of the NH-D15, NH-U12S and NH-L9x65 are dedicated premium-quality solutions for the new AM4 socket of AMD's upcoming Ryzen architecture. Whereas the NH-L9x65 SE-AM4 is tailored for compact systems and the NH-U12S SE-AM4 offers an excellent balance of performance and compatibility, the NH-D15 SE-AM4 provides maximum cooling performance for overclockers and silent enthusiasts.

"AMD's Ryzen architecture promises exciting possibilities for various applications and the NH-D15, NH-U12S and NH-L9x65 are some of our most popular models, so it was a natural choice to create dedicated special editions for the new platform," says Roland Mossig (Noctua CEO). "Each of these coolers has received more than 100 awards and recommendations from international websites and magazines, so we're confident that the SE-AM4 special editions will be a great choice for anything from compact ITX builds to overclocked gaming rigs."

The EVGA Closed Loop CPU Cooler (CLC) 120 and 280 have arrived. These new liquid coolers from EVGA give you incredible performance, low noise, robust software controls and RGB lighting.

Built to perform
The new cooling block offers improved flowrate and heat transfer surface area for incredible cooling efficiency.

Sync with your EVGA GeForce GTX Graphics Card
Link up your EVGA CLC cooler with select EVGA graphics cards, and match the colors directly from software. One button to control both RGB LED's! Color profiles even save to firmware.

Arctic announces support for socket AM4 across its range of CPU coolers. The bulk of our CPU-coolers is already compatible to the AM4-socket and needs no further adaption. Among others, these are the complete Alpine 64-Series, all models of Freezer 13 and the Freezer Xtreme. So, whoever plans to switch to the new AMD socket, has no need to do without his reliable ARCTIC CPU-cooler.

Concerning the models of the Freezer 32-series and Freezer 11, AM4-compatibility will be achieved with the successors Freezer 12 and Freezer 33. Both will be available this spring. For the Liquid Freezers 120 and 240, we will provide an AM4-solution from early april: All already acquired Liquid Freezers can be upgraded with an extension kit.

In response to AMD's soon to be released Ryzen CPU and AM4 platform, PC thermal solution brand CRYORIG will be providing free AM4 upgrade kits soon after the official release of AMD Ryzen CPUs. All users of existing AMD-supported products will be able to apply for the free upgrade kits, and native AM4 mounting kits will start hitting the markets after the official CPU release.

CRYORIG will provide all existing users and new owners of AMD supported products the new AM4 kit totally free of charge. Existing eligible products include: R1 Universal/Ultimate, C1, H5 Universal/Ultimate, H7, H7 Quad Lumi, M9a, C7, A40, A40 Ultimate and A80. Users will only need to provide the following information: proof of purchase of the CRYORIG product (or product registration number), and a proof of purchase of an AMD Ryzen or AM4 CPU or Motherboard. The necessary info just needs to be sent to CRYORIG support email-box "support@cryorig.com" and the kit will be sent directly to the provided address. Local distributors and select channels will also have these kits available.

Phanteks, the award-winning thermal cooling and chassis manufacturer today announced that they would distribute free AM4 upgrade kits to their customers. Owners of Phanteks' CPU Coolers that want to be able to use their coolers with the new AM4 socket can now receive a free upgrade kit

Phanteks AM4 upgrade kit will allow for full compatibility with the new AMD AM4 Socket. Starting January 25th, 2017, customers that have Phanteks CPU coolers can contact their service team to receive their free upgrade kit, for which they'll need to provide a copy of the purchase invoice, a copy of the purchase invoice of an AMD motherboard or AMD processor, and e-mail those to Phanteks' customer support team. All future Phanteks cooler products will include the required AMD AM4 mounting bracket.

ECS showed off its B350AM4-M, which appears to be the company's only socket AM4 motherboard, for now. This micro-ATX board is based on AMD's mid-tier B350 chipset. The board draws power from 24-pin ATX and 4-pin CPU power connectors, and conditions it for the CPU with a 6-phase VRM. Expansion slots include one PCI-Express 3.0 x16, a second x16 slot that's electrical x4, and one each of x1 and legacy PCI slots. Storage connectivity includes two M.2 slots, and four SATA 6 Gb/s ports. 6-channel HD audio, and gigabit Ethernet make for the rest of it.

DeepCool also unveiled its glassy New Ark 90 chassis, with factory-fitted CPU liquid cooling. This ATX mid-tower chassis features a 3-sided tempered glass panel covering the left side, and three quarters of the top and front panels. Under the hood, is a horizontally partitioned layout, with the larger top half housing the motherboard tray and three 120 mm fan mounts that exhaust out of the right side panel, and which can hold on to a 360 x 120 mm radiator.

The bottom compartment of the New Ark 90 features the PSU bay and two 3.5-inch drive caddies. The included DeepCool Captain 120EX AIO liquid cooler has a 120 mm x 120 mm radiator that's factory-fitted to one of the 120 mm top exhausts. The pump-block comes with AMD socket AM4 support, besides support for most common CPU socket types. The company plans to release the New Ark 90 to the market some time in May 2017.

At the 2017 International CES, ASRock showed off some of its first socket AM4 motherboards for AMD Ryzen processors and 7th generation A-Series "Bristol Ridge" APUs. Leading the pack is the X370 Taichi. Built in the ATX form-factor, the board draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX and 8-pin EPS power connectors. It uses a 16-phase CPU VRM with high-capacity Super Alloy chokes. The AM4 socket is wired to four DDR4 DIMM slots, and two PCI-Expres 3.0 x16 slot (x8/x8 when both are populated). The third x16 slot is electrical x4 and wired to the chipset. Two other x1 slots make for the rest of its expansion area.

Connectivity on the X370 Taichi include two USB 3.1 ports (one type-A and one type-C), ten USB 3.0 ports, 8-channel PureSound 4 onboard audio solution (of the same grade the company is deploying on its high-end Intel Z270 motherboards), gigabit Ethernet with an Intel-made controller, and 802.11ac WLAN. Storage options include one 32 Gb/s M.2 slot, one 16 Gb/s M.2 slot, and eight SATA 6 Gb/s ports. Next up, is the X370 Professional Gaming. This board is practically identical to the X370 Taichi. The two boards share a common PCB, and differ only with the red+black color scheme on the X370 Professional Gaming, as opposed to white+black on the X370 Taichi.

AMD has seemingly confirmed that there will be more than just the fabled 8-core, 16-thread Ryzen CPUs we've only as of yet seen presented by the company. Come the expected Ryzen launch before the end of Q1 (which means, before the end of March), we should see more Ryzen CPUs than only 8-core solutions, though AMD still hasn't revealed exactly the core-count/configurations of the other CPUs on their product stack. Theoretically, AMD could follow the Intel path of simply disabling SMT (Simultaneous Multi-Threading, AMD's equivalent to Intel's Hyper Threading) and thus crafting another product, though this is pure speculation on my part. Whether or not AMD will include 4-core or 6-core CPUs on their product stack as well is as of now an unconfirmed, educated guess.

GIGABYTE showed off four socket AM4 motherboards, designed for the upcoming AMD Ryzen processors and 7th gen. A-series APUs, at its 2017 CES booth. The lineup begins with the AB350M-D3H, an entry-level micro-ATX board based on the mid-tier B350 chipset; the mid-range AB350-Gaming 3, the mid-high segment AX370-Gaming K5, and the AX370-Gaming 5. The AB350-D3H covers the basics, with a 7-phase VRM, one PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slot wired to the AM4 socket, a second x16 slot that's electrical x4 and wired to the B350 chipset, one legacy PCI slot; one 32 Gb/s M.2 slot and six SATA 6 Gb/s ports (from which two are directly wired to the AM4 socket); and connectivity that includes 6-channel HD audio, gigabit Ethernet, two USB 3.1 (10 Gb/s) ports, DVI, HDMI 2.0, and DisplayPort.

Moving up the ladder, the AB350-Gaming 3 is a gaming-grade board in the ATX form-factor, featuring a red+black color scheme. The board draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX and 8-pin EPS power connectors; conditioning it for the CPU with a 7-phase VRM. The APU is wired to four DDR4 DIMM slots, and one PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slot. Other expansion slots include two x16 slots that are electrical x4, and two x1 slots. Storage connectivity includes one 32 Gb/s M.2 and six SATA 6 Gb/s ports (from which two are low-latency ports). Display outputs include DVI, DisplayPort, and HDMI. USB connectivity includes two USB 3.1 (10 Gb/s) ports, and six USB 3.0 ports. GIGABYTE deployed its gaming-grade AMPUp! onboard audio solution with a 115 dBA SNR CODEC, ground-layer isolation, audio-grade capacitors, a headphones amp, and gold-plated audio jacks. Network is care of an Intel-made gigabit Ethernet controller.

be quiet!, the market leader in PC power supplies in Germany for ten consecutive years, is committed to its high level of customer support. Today the company announces the availability of free AM4 upgrade kits to their customers. Owners of current be quiet! CPU coolers switching to AMD's new socket will not have to retire their reliable and proven coolers. Thanks to an elaborate product design, installing the coolers on the new platform will be straightforward and very similar to previous sockets.

All be quiet! CPU coolers that can currently be mounted to the AMD retention module already support socket AM4 CPUs, including the Pure Rock, Pure Rock Slim and Shadow Rock LP coolers.

German PC enthusiast "Crashtest" clinched a sweet combo of an AMD A12-9800 "Bristol Ridge" socket AM4 APU with an ASUS A320M-C entry-level micro-ATX motherboard, for 200€. Pairing it with 8 GB of dual-channel DDR4-2133 memory, the platform was put through the AIDA64 test-suite. In the memory front, the platform performs on-par with older platforms at comparable DDR3 bandwidth. The K15.6 integrated memory controller isn't producing the kind of memory bandwidth as the Core i7-6700K with dual-channel DDR4-2133 memory from AIDA64's internal reference bench table.

In the CPU-related tests, the APU has about the same performance as its predecessors, such as the A10-7850K. The chip features two "Excavator" x86-64 CPU modules, making up four cores, and is clocked at 4.20 GHz. There are performance upticks seen in tests such as Hash and VP8, where the chip likely benefits from new instruction sets.More results follow.

The picture of a bare PCB of an upcoming GIGABYTE AX370-Gaming series socket AM4 motherboard is doing rounds on the web. The picture reveals the bare PCB of the motherboard with all its traces and printed markings, but at a stage before surface-mount components can be soldered onto it. One can still make out quite a bit about the board. AMD X370 is the company's upcoming high-end desktop chipset, which will be launched alongside the company's Ryzen 8-core processor, some time in February, 2017.

To begin with, the AX370-Gaming K3 is built in the ATX form-factor. Its AM4 socket supports both Ryzen "Summit Ridge" CPUs and 7th generation A-series "Bristol Ridge" APUs. The board draws power from 24-pin ATX and 8-pin EPS power connectors, and conditions it for the CPU with a 7-phase VRM. The AM4 socket is wired to four DDR4 DIMM slots. Expansion slots include one PCI-Express 3.0 x16, a second gen 3.0 x16 slot that's electrical x4, and three other gen 3.0 x1 slots. Storage connectivity appears to include at least eight SATA 6 Gb/s ports, and one 32 Gb/s M.2 slot. 8-channel HD audio, gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.1 (including type-C) ports, appear to make for the rest of the connectivity. GIGABYTE's signature Dual-UEFI is featured.Many Thanks to TheLostSwede and Tomas H. for the tips!

At their Austin, Texas "New Horizon" Event, AMD introduced us to live "ZEN" chips working full-tilt, showing us what AMD's passion and ingenuity managed to achieve. The "New Horizon" event was a celebration to what AMD sees as another one of those special, breakthrough moments for a company: after starting work on "ZEN" 4 years ago in 2012 as a complete new design. The focus: building a great machine, whilst increasing IPC by 40% over their previous architecture, at the same power constraints; and to create a smart machine, which could sense and adapt to environment and applications so it improves over time. The company's verdicts: "ZEN" met or exceeded their goals, with the desktop PC market being home to the very first "ZEN" product.

According to AMD's CEO Dr. Lisa Su, AMD's event was named "New Horizon" as a reference to AMD's vision in the computing space: that they're on a journey to bring a new generation of processor technology, and customers towards a new horizon of computing. Their intention? To directly connect with fans who love PC gaming, whilst doing what AMD does best - pushing the envelope on performance, power, frame-rates and technology. AMD also flaunted their renewed faith in gaming, with it being on the company's DNA and passion, whilst revisiting the old memory lane, reminiscing on the Athlon Thunderbird, the world's first chip to break the 1 GHz barrier; the launch of their first 64-bit processor; and breaking the 1 TFLOP barrier in computing power with their HD 4850 and 4870 gaming GPUs.

AMD has apparently chosen RYZEN (pronounced "risen") as the marketing name for the first consumer enthusiast processors based on the "ZEN" micro-architecture. Slated for market availability in Q1-2017, the first RYZEN part will feature 8 cores, 16 threads, 20 MB of total cache (8x 512 KB L2 + 2x 8 MB L3), and a clock speed of over 3.40 GHz. The chips will be built in the socket AM4 package, and will be launched alongside a new wave of motherboards with AMD X370 chipset.

Given the relatively modest clock speeds by AMD's standards, it's safe to say that AMD has made big IPC gains, and is now tapping into those gains. Intel, on the other hand, is clocking its upcoming Core i7-7700K at 4.00-4.40 GHz. AMD is also introducing enthusiast-segment features with RYZEN, including XFR (eXtended frequency range), Smart Prefetch, a tightly tuned power-management system built from the ground up, called AMD Pure Power, and its related feature, AMD Precision Boost.More slides follow.

AMD's December 13th "New Horizon" event is supposedly (and expectedly) a pivotal moment for the company - a celebration of sorts for the impending launch of their ZEN-based microprocessors. The event, which will be presented mainly by Gametrailers TV-based journalist Geoff Keighley, is now turning up to be a Summit Ridge celebration of sorts as well.

According to recent reports, a small number of motherboard manufacturers should also be in attendance at the event, showing-off their AM4-compatible motherboards based on the top-of-the-line X370 chipset. The X370 is the most advanced version of the Zen-compatible chipsets and is expected to provide extensive overclocking features and up to two third-generation PCIe x16 lanes for multi-GPU systems. Below the X370, the B350 and A320 take over the role of the mid-range and entry-level chipsets respectively. The new chipsets are expected to bring native M.2 NVMe & SATA Express connectivity, PCIe gen 3, DDR4 memory compatibility and USB 3.1 Gen2 to the company's high-end desktop platform for the very first time.

Here are some of the first pictures of an AMD socket AM4 APU being de-lidded. De-lidding is the process of removing the IHS (integrated heatspreader), the metal plate covering the CPU die. Some PC enthusiasts remove the IHS to improve heat-transfer between the CPU and extreme cooling solutions, such as LN2/dry-ice evaporators. Overclocker Nam Dae Won, with access to a couple of socket AM4 chips (most likely 7th generation A-series "Bristol Ridge" APUs), de-lidded the chips, revealing a large rectangular die. AMD is using high-quality TIM between the die and the IHS, which could either be solder or liquid metal. There's also a clear picture of the underside pin-grid of the AM4 chip, which has a central cutout that lacks any SMT components. Socket AM4 has 1,331 pins.

AMD's first desktop processors based on the "ZEN" micro-architecture will be priced above the fastest socket AM4 part currently in production, the A12-9800 APU. While AMD hasn't started selling the A-series socket AM4 APUs in the retail channel, the top-end A12-9800, which is faster than the A10-7870K from its previous-generation, is expected to be priced at least the same ($160) or higher. This would mean that even the cheapest ZEN part, under the ZEN SR3 series, likely quad-core; could be priced above $160.

Two key slides from a presentation AMD intended for Chinese distribution channels, was leaked to the web by ChipHell tech forum members, revealing that ZEN parts will be priced in a segment "above" RMB ¥1,500 (USD $218), assuming that that's a price inclusive of all taxes. The company also put out some performance numbers for the A8-9600 "Bristol Ridge" socket AM4 APU, keeping the "Godavari" A8-7650K as baseline, compared to the Intel Core i3-6100 "Skylake" processor. The A8-9600 was shown to be faster in most tests.

As we inch ever closer to AMD's Zen launch, more and more information seems to be slipping through the cracks. This time, MAXSUN, an AMD China partner (poised to provide customers with AM4 platform motherboards) is the source of the proverbial leak, with information that, if true, is sure to stir the pot of bubbling Zen excitement even more.

According to MAXSUN, Zen's initial release date is pegged for January 17th, which, if true, would probably mean a product announcement around CES 2017 (scheduled from the 5th of January through the 8th) - at the same time as Intel is expected to fully unveil their Kaby Lake parts. The company also reports a second release window at March 2017, which lends further credence to AMD's expected staggered launch of Zen-based processors, first for the High-Performance-Desktop (HEDT) market, and trickling down from there. MAXSUN also confirms the pricing scheme we reported yesterday, with regards to the companies' SR7 processors (the top-of-the-line parts in the Zen line-up, and whose naming scheme I think isn't the final one) - the company states these are expected to be priced at around 1500-2000 Yuan SKU ($250-$300).

Ahead of their launch later this year, to cater to the 7th generation AMD A-series "Bristol Ridge" APUs, with support for next-generation "ZEN" processors due in 2017, two GIGABYTE socket AM4 motherboards smiled for the camera. The two appear to be based on either AMD's entry-level A320 or mid-range B350 chipsets. Since the AM4 chips are true-blue SoCs with complete integration of chipsets, including what you'd normally call a southbridge or FCH; the "chipsets" in the AM4 platform are merely chips that add to the PCIe lane budget of the platform, and provide additional SATA and USB connectivity.

The first of the two GIGABYTE AM4 boards is built in the narrow micro-ATX form-factor; featuring a single PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slot, two DDR4 DIMM slots, four SATA 6 Gb/s ports, and basic connectivity that includes 6-channel HD audio, one gigabit Ethernet connection, and 4-6 USB 3.0 ports. The second board is better endowed, and is likely a variation of the socket AM4 board that was earlier pictured this September. It features two PCI-Express 3.0 x16 ports (the second one could be electrical x4); and comes with two additional SATA 6 Gb/s and USB 3.0 ports compared to the other board.