AMD on Monday made several major announcements covering different parts of its enterprise product roadmap. These included the 3rd Gen EPYC "Milan-X" processors with 3D Vertical Cache memory; Instinct MI200 CDNA2 compute accelerators, and announcements related to next-generation "Zen 4" based EPYC "Genoa" and "Bergamo" processors that come with core counts as high as 128. The company's stock rallied up to 12%, closing up 10%, which left many in the tech community scratching their heads. It turns out that the AMD-Meta deal has a profound impact on investors.

Meta, the holding company of Facebook covering all its businesses, aspires to be a major cloud solutions provider on par with Microsoft Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud. The deal could see Meta buying large stocks of AMD processors and compute accelerators to drive its next-gen server infrastructure. Sales of enterprise processors doubled year-over-year for AMD, and EPYC processors now account for 20% of the company's revenues.

AMD today announced the debut of its 6 nm CDNA2 (Compute-DNA) architecture in the form of the MI200 family. The new, dual-GPU chiplet accelerator aims to lead AMD into a new era of High Performance Computing (HPC) applications, the high margin territory it needs to compete in for continued, sustainable growth. To that end, AMD has further improved on a matured, compute-oriented architecture born with Graphics Core Next (GCN) - and managed to improve performance while reducing total die size compared to its MI100 family.

AMD held its Accelerated Data Center Keynote address by CEO Dr Lisa Su today. The company made some big announcements for the enterprise space in this first major series of announcements by AMD after Intel's launch of its Alder Lake 12th Gen Core processors that set the tone for what's to come from Intel in the enterprise space (Xeon "Sapphire Rapids"). First up is the EPYC "Milan-X" line of server processors leveraging 3D Infinity Cache memory, a tripling in L3 cache amount, which the company claims significantly improves performance of memory-intensive applications. This should also give you an idea if any upcoming Ryzen desktop processor based on the refreshed chiplet could live up to its claim of "up to 15% gaming performance boost." The next-generation Instinct MI200 series GPU compute accelerators are equally important as they bring the CDNA2 compute architecture to market, establishing competition to NVIDIA's A-series Tensor Core processors, and Intel's upcoming "Ponte Vecchio" Xe-HPC accelerators.

AMD in its Computex 2021 presentation showed off its upcoming "Zen 3" CCD (CPU complex dies) featuring 64 MB of "3D vertical cache" memory on top of the 32 MB L3 cache. The die-on-die stacked contraption, AMD claims, provides an up to 15% gaming performance uplift, as well as significant improvements for enterprise applications that can benefit from the 96 MB of total last-level cache per chiplet. Ahead of the its debut later today in the company's rumored EPYC "Milan-X" enterprise processor reveal, we're learning that AMD could brand 3D Vertical Cache as "3D Infinity Cache."

This came to light when Greymon55, a reliable source with AMD and NVIDIA leaks, used the term "3D IFC," and affirmed it to be "3D Infinity Cache." AMD realized that its GPUs and CPUs have a lot of untapped performance potential with use of large on-die caches that can make up for much of the hardware's memory-management optimization. The RDNA2 family of gaming GPUs feature up to 128 MB of on-die Infinite Cache memory operating at bandwidths as high as 16 Tbps, allowing AMD to stick to narrower 256-bit wide GDDR6 memory interfaces even on its highest-end RX 6900 XT graphics cards. For CCDs, this could mean added cushioning for data transfers between the CPU cores and the centralized memory controllers located in the sIOD (server I/O die) or cIOD (client I/O die in case of Ryzen parts).

Performance reviews of the Intel 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake-S" processors are out, and spell big trouble for AMD Ryzen 5000 series processors at their current prices. Until the company can refresh these processors, it must content with price-cuts. Early signs of these are already out. American retailer Micro Center just put out a sub-$300 price for the Ryzen 7 5800X, at $299. Prices of the Ryzen 9 5900X and Ryzen 5 5600X remain unchanged, at $500 and $280, respectively, but it's only conceivable that these too will change. At current prices, the Core i7-12700K offers 15% higher performance per Dollar than the Ryzen 7 5800X.

Today, AMD announced its continued momentum and collaboration with Microsoft Azure, who is offering the 3rd Gen AMD EPYC processor in the latest generation of Dasv5 and Easv5 Azure Virtual Machines (VMs). Azure is also introducing new confidential VMs, DCasv5 and ECasv5, which use the latest advanced security features available in 3rd Gen EPYC processors, including Secure Encrypted Virtualization-Secure Nested Paging (SEV-SNP).

The new Azure confidential VMs, DCasv5 and ECasv5, the first EPYC processor-based confidential VMs at Azure and the first confidential VMs to use SEV-SNP, will enable customers to have the data in their security focused applications encrypted in use, in transit and at rest. The updated Dasv5 VMs, optimized for general purpose workloads, and the Easv5 VMs, optimized for memory-based workloads, deliver better price-performance for most general purpose and memory intensive workloads compared to prior EPYC processor-based Microsoft Azure VMs.

AMD announced the AMD Radeon PRO V620 GPU, built with the latest AMD RDNA 2 architecture which delivers high-performance GPU acceleration for today's demanding cloud workloads including immersive AAA game experiences, intensive 3D workloads and modern office productivity applications at scale in the cloud.

With its innovative GPU-partitioning capabilities, multi-stream hardware accelerated encoders and 32 GB GDDR6 memory, the AMD Radeon PRO V620 offers dedicated GPU resources that scale to multiple graphics users, helping ensure cost-effective graphics acceleration for a range of workloads. Built using the same GPU architecture that powers the latest generation game consoles and PC game experiences, the AMD Radeon PRO V620 GPU is also designed to develop and deliver immersive AAA game experiences.

AMD today put out the first Radeon Software release for the month of November 2021, with the Radeon Software Adrenalin 21.11.1 beta. These drivers add optimization for "Call of Duty: Vanguard," and "Forza Horizon 5." For the latter, the drivers provide a massive 23% performance gain at 4K with "extreme" settings over the previous driver, as tested on a machine with an RX 6800 XT graphics card. A couple of issues have been fixed. Samsung Odyssey G9 C49G95T monitors were showing up display corruption with their resolution set at 5120 x 1440 @ 240 Hz, which has been fixed. Certain visual artifacts in the menu screen of "Call of Duty: Warzone," have been fixed. Grab the drivers from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 21.11.1 beta

BIOSTAR, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards and storage devices, today announced the new BIOSTAR AMD Radeon RX 6600 graphics card. Built on the breakthrough AMD RDNA 2 gaming architecture, the new BIOSTAR AMD Radeon RX 6600 graphics card offers 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, 32 MB of high-performance AMD Infinity Cache and support for high-bandwidth PCI Express 4.0 technology. Optimized for performance, power efficiency and durability, the new BIOSTAR AMD Radeon RX 6600 graphics card enables high-framerate 1080p gaming in the latest AAA titles.

The BIOSTAR AMD Radeon RX 6600 graphics card offers 28 compute units with a Game Clock frequency of 2,044 MHz and a Boost Clock frequency of up to 2,491 MHz, enabling incredible 1080p gaming experiences without breaking a sweat. In addition, support for DisplayPort 1.4 with DSC and HDMI 2.1 VRR enables crisp, vivid video output.

XPG, a fast-growing provider of systems, components, and peripherals for Gamers, Esports Pros, and Tech Enthusiasts, today announces XPG, a fast-growing provider of systems, components, and Peripherals for Gamers, Esports Pros, and Tech Enthusiasts, today announces a new series of solid state drives (SSD), the XPG ATOM series, geared toward creators of different needs and budgets. They include the XPG ATOM 30, 40, and 50.

The ATOM 30 and 40 utilize PCIe Gen3x4 and NVMe 1.3 to deliver sequential read and write speeds of up to 2,500/2,000 and 3,500/3,000 MB per second, respectively, to give creators the performance they need to create without limitations. Their M.2 2280 specifications support the latest Intel and AMD platforms for creating on the latest PCs, including desktop and laptops. For users seeking a further boost, the ATOM 50 takes advantage of PCIe Gen4 x4 and NVMe 1.4 to offer read and write speeds of up to 5, 000/4,500 MB per second.

ADATA Technology, a manufacturer of high-performance DRAM modules, NAND Flash products, mobile accessories, gaming products, electric power trains, and industrial solutions today announces a new series of solid state drives (SSD), the ADATA LEGEND series, geared toward creators of different needs and budgets. They include the ADATA LEGEND 740, 750, and 840.

The LEGEND 740 and 750 utilize PCIe Gen3 x4 and NVMe 1.3 to deliver sequential read and write speeds of up to 2,500/2,000 and 3,500/3,000 MB per second, respectively, to give creators the performance they need to create without limitations. Their M.2 2280 specifications support the latest Intel and AMD platforms for creating on the latest PCs, including desktop and laptops. For users seeking a further boost, the LEGEND 840 takes advantage of PCIe Gen4 x4 and NVMe 1.4 to offer read and write speeds of up to 5,000/4,500 MB per second.

Micron, today announced that its high-performance 16Gb / 16 Gbps GDDR6 memory solution is now available with AMD Radeon RX 6000 Series graphics cards built on the AMD RDNA 2 gaming architecture. Using Micron's advanced 1z process technology, this latest version of GDDR6 enables up to 512 GB/s system performance for demanding applications like gaming and graphics. Today's announcement continues Micron's rich history of innovation and collaboration with industry leaders to deliver breakthrough performance that enables the most advanced gaming solutions.

As graphics and gaming applications become more demanding, so do the requirements for high bandwidth memory and system performance. Modern gamers expect high-resolution, immersive experiences, and GDDR6 delivers with its support of fast frame rates. The result is excellent performance and speed that minimize lag time and provide gamers with lifelike effects.

AMD today put out a rare fourth release of Radeon Software in a month. Version 21.10.4 beta fixes a critical issue with "Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy," where machines with some of the newer graphics cards such as Radeon RX 6800 series, were showing visual corruption. The company also identified driver-timeout issues affecting the game on machines with RX 5500 XT, which it may fix in a future driver release. No other bug-fixes are part of this release, which makes it closer to a "hotfix" in nature. Grab it from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 21.10.4 beta

AMD today announced the appointment of Senior Fellow and Server SoC (system on chip) Architect Kevin Lepak to AMD Corporate Fellow, in recognition of his critical role in the design of next-generation AMD EPYC processors. Lepak achieved an excellent record of overseeing the execution and delivery of leadership data center processors for AMD, including 2nd and 3rd Gen AMD EPYC CPUs and next generation AMD Instinct accelerators. As AMD Corporate Fellow, Lepak expands on his leadership in chip design to play a larger role in evolving AMD's processor and systems vision.

"Kevin's technical contributions made undeniable positive impact on AMD over many years," said Mark Papermaster, chief technology officer and executive vice president of Technology and Engineering at AMD. "He played an instrumental role in solidifying the company's leadership in the data center and continues to work closely with customers to design future generations of high-performance AMD products. With his aptitude for innovation, execution and collaboration, Kevin epitomizes our high-performance culture."

XPS is one of the most coveted brands in the PC industry, lauded for its seamless convergence of elegant design and cutting-edge technology - but there's always more to an XPS device than meets the eye. Nearly 42% larger than its predecessor (27L vs 19L), the new XPS desktop ushers in an expansive suite of next-gen performance technologies and a more robust cooling architecture, making this the most powerful XPS desktop ever made.

With heavy hitter performance cloaked by an understated minimalist design, creators, gamers and virtually anyone who wants to amplify their passions can now own a sophisticated PC with workhorse performance.

Simply NUC, Inc, a leading mini computer integration company, recently announced Cypress Porcoolpine, a new Simply NUC branded Rugged Long-Life Mini PC. As the fanless version of the newly released Cypress family, Cypress Porcoolpine delivers performance and innovation for embedded solutions without the use of a cooling fan.

Cypress Porcoolpine is the first rugged Mini PC featuring V2000 Embedded AMD processors and is guaranteed to be sold in the same form, fit, and function for seven years from launch. Simply NUC is currently taking orders on Cypress Porcoolpine with units now shipping.
"Whether its industrial computing, digital signage, or gathering edge data analytics, we saw an opportunity to create a fanless mini PC using the latest AMD Ryzen Embedded V2000 processors," said Charles Abdouch, Simply NUC CTO, "With the addition of Cypress Porcoolpine, we can now offer customers a long life mini PC to meet any of their embedded application needs."

JEDEC Solid State Technology Association, the global leader in standards development for the microelectronics industry, today announced publication of the JESD79-5A DDR5 SDRAM standard. This update to the JEDEC DDR5 SDRAM standard includes features designed to enhance reliability and performance in a wide range of applications involving client systems and high-performance servers. JESD79-5A is now available for download from the JEDEC website.

Added features designed to meet industry demand for improved system reliability include bounded fault error-correction support, Soft Post-Package Repair (sPPR) undo and lock, Memory Built-In Self-Test Post Package Repair (MBIST and mPPR), Adaptive RFM, and an MR4 extension. JESD79-5A expands the timing definition and transfer speed of DDR5 up to 6400 MT/s for DRAM core timings and 5600 MT/s for IO AC timings to enable the industry to build an ecosystem up to 5600 MT/s. The nomenclature for core timing parameters and their respective definitions has been revamped to closely align with the upcoming JEDEC JESD400-5 DDR5 Serial Presence Detect (SPD) Contents V1.0 standard. The document can be accessed here.

AMD today announced revenue for the third quarter of 2021 of $4.3 billion, operating income of $948 million, net income of $923 million and diluted earnings per share of $0.75. On a non-GAAP basis, operating income was $1.1 billion, net income was $893 million and diluted earnings per share were $0.73. "AMD had another record quarter as revenue grew 54% and operating income doubled year-over-year," said AMD president and CEO Dr. Lisa Su. "3rd Gen EPYC processor shipments ramped significantly in the quarter as our data center sales more than doubled year-over-year. Our business significantly accelerated in 2021, growing faster than the market based on our leadership products and consistent execution."

AMD will host its Accelerated Data Center Premiere on November 8, 2021 at 11 a.m. ET, showcasing the company's upcoming innovations with AMD EPYC processors and AMD Instinct accelerators. The virtual event is slated to feature presentations from AMD President and CEO Dr. Lisa Su, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Data Center and Embedded Solutions Business Group Forrest Norrod, and Senior Vice President and General Manager, Server Business Unit Dan McNamara. The event will be accessible to the public at this page starting at 11 a.m. ET. A replay will be available and can be accessed after the conclusion of the livestream event.

Editor's Note: We expect AMD to announce several SKUs in its MI200-series "Aldebaran" compute accelerator family, along with a new line of EPYC "Milan-X" enterprise processors that leverage the new "Zen 3+" chiplet that comes with 64 MB 3D Vertical Cache memory on top of the 32 MB L3 cache.

AMD will debut TSMC's ambitious System-on-Integrated-Chips (SoIC) technology with its upcoming HPC chips, according to a DigiTimes report. A step toward rivaling Intel's Foveros 3-D chip stacking technology, SoIC will enable AMD to stack logic, memory, and I/O as separate chips within a single package. The article references a next-generation "HPC" chip, although it didn't delve into what this could be. Logically, AMD would want to integrate its EPYC and MI accelerator lines into a single package that can be used in HPCs. Such a product would combine its Zen-series x86-64 serial processing, with CDNA-series scalar processing, expertise in memory, leveraging large on-die victim-caches, and high-bandwidth memory (HBM); along with next-gen I/O.

The gaming scene changed dramatically last year with the implementation of HDMI 2.1, a new enhancement in connectivity supporting a range of higher video resolutions and refresh rates including 4K @ 120 Hz, a new level for console gamers. A few months ago, console enthusiasts welcomed the first model in the all-new range of Philips Momentum Designed for Xbox monitors, the 559M1RYV (55"/139.7 cm).

Philips Momentum Designed for Xbox console gaming monitors are built to provide the ultimate experience for next-gen console gamers by including the new HDMI 2.1 input, which enables next-gen console gaming with 4K resolution and a fast 120 Hz refresh rate for an ultra-clear and ultra-smooth gaming performance. Now, the Philips monitors portfolio has expanded to include the new 329M1RV (31.5"/80 cm) and 279M1RV (27"/68.5 cm) displays.

AMD is preparing an update to its compute accelerator lineup with the new MI250X. Based on the CDNA2 architecture, and built on existing 7 nm node, the MI250X will be accompanied by a more affordable variant, the MI250. According to leaks put out by ExecutableFix, the MI250X packs a whopping 110 compute units (7,040 stream processors), running at 1.70 GHz. The package features 128 GB of HBM2E memory, and a package TDP of 500 W. As for speculative performance numbers, it is expected to offer double-precision (FP64) throughput of 47.9 TFLOP/s, ditto full-precision (FP32), and 383 TFLOP/s half-precision (FP16 and BFLOAT16). AMD's MI200 "Aldebaran" family of compute accelerators are expected to square off against Intel's "Ponte Vecchio" Xe-HPC, and NVIDIA Hopper H100 accelerators in 2022.

The first trace of AMD's upcoming Ryzen 6000 mobile series has recently appeared with a processor of OPN code 100-000000518-41_N surfacing in the UserBenchmark database with the socket listed as FP7 which is the rumored platform for AMD's 6 nm Rembrandt family. The engineering sample features 8-cores and 16-threads with a base clock of 3.9 GHz and a boost of 4.1 GHz along with an integrated RDNA2 iGPU.

This marks the move from Vega to Navi 2 for the integrated GPU which should result in significant graphics performance and efficiency improvements. The processor was paired with a single 16 GB DDR5 memory module from Corsair running at 4800 MHz CL40, the computer is also listed as Corsair Xenomorph which is interesting as we are not aware of any plans for Corsair to release laptops. AMD is expected to announce Rembrandt at CES 2022 and the processors have allegedly already entered production.

Microsoft and AMD on Thursday released software updates that fix the two performance issues affecting AMD Ryzen processors with Windows 11. The two issues were abnormally high L3 cache latency, and a broken "Preferred Cores" system. The companies had assessed that the issues impact performance of Ryzen processors on Windows 11 by as much as 15%.

The two issues are fixed in separate methods. The L3 cache latency bug is improved through a Windows Update patch, which has been released now as an Update Preview (an Update Preview is not a "beta," but a software update released ahead of its designated "patch Tuesday"). The Update Preview is chronicled under KB5006746, and Windows 11 systems updated with this, get their OS build version set as "build 22000.282." The next update restores the Preferred Cores mechanism that leverages UEFI-CPPC2. This update comes in the form of an AMD Chipset Software update. You'll need to download and install both of the following:

DOWNLOAD: Windows 11 October 21, 2021 Update Preview KB5006746 | AMD Chipset Driver Software 3.10.08.506

Here it is: Microsoft and AMD have collaborated in a special, limited-edition Halo-themed graphics card. Putting the Halo in a halo product, the new release features a collaborative design between AMD and Microsoft, and deepens the link between both companies. The design takes its cues specifically from Halo's most recognizable character, The Master Chief - Spartan John-117. The custom card features a triple-fan cooling solution, customized with the military green and faceplate gold from the iconic Halo character. The backplate too screams the connections to Halo, with a 117 embossing and a LED-illuminated blue AI logo.

Microsoft also used the limited edition RX 6900 XT graphics card announcement to indicate that it is working closely with AMD to bring ray tracing to Halo infinite, saying that "Ray tracing is one our top development priorities post-launch and look forward to sharing more soon." Smartly, and perhaps learning from what happened with the retail release of the Halo infinite custom Xbox Series X console (which fell to scalpers in a matter of minutes), the new, limited edition graphics card won't be available for sale; instead, " AMD, Halo, and other partners will be offering players multiple opportunities over the coming weeks to get their hands on one." Look after the break for the teaser video of the product.