Today, HP Inc. announced its lightest consumer laptop yet, the HP Pavilion Aero 13 Laptop PC. Starting at less than 1 kilogram, the Pavilion Aero 13 delivers a flawless sustainable design with the power to entertain, connect, and be productive. HP also welcomed the HP M24fwa FHD Monitor and HP M27fwa FHD Monitor to the M-Series line of monitors featuring built-in audio; the newest additions are part of the world's first Eyesafe certified monitor series made with recycled ocean bound plastics.

As more people return to a new normal, they need a PC that can move with them while at home and on the go. The PC is used away from home 45% of the time to perform a wide range of tasks, with 25% of time spent streaming videos while 11% of the time is spent being productive, whether it be learning or work-related. With the new Pavilion Aero 13, people can work hard and play hard no matter where they are, on a single, lightweight device.

We recently reported that Samsung would be announcing their next-generation flagship Exynos processor with AMD RDNA2 graphics next month. We heard that the RDNA2 GPU was expected to be ~30% faster than the Mali-G78 GPU present in Galaxy S21 Ultra however according to a new 3DMark Wild Life benchmark it would appear the new processor scores 56% higher. This result would give the upcoming Exynos processor the fastest graphics available in any Android phone even matching/beating out the Apple A14 Bionic found in the iPhone 12. This early performance benchmark paints a very positive picture for the upcoming processor however we still don't know how the score will be affected under sustained load or if this will performance will even be replicated in the final product.

EVGA Corporation, or simply EVGA as it is known in the community, is the maker of various PC components and peripherals. As many of you are aware, EVGA has historically been focused on making products based on silicon coming from NVIDIA and Intel. The company has used NVIDIA products exclusively for its GPU portfolio and used Intel chipsets for its motherboard solutions. In the past, EVGA made motherboards for AMD processors, however, these boards used NVIDIA's chipset so they weren't technically full AMD motherboards. Starting today, that is about to change as we got some very juicy teasers from EVGA. In the nine-second video teaser on YouTube titled "A new Darkness is coming...", EVGA showcased a simple animation showing the AMD Ryzen logo surrounding EVGA's.

And of course, that only means one thing. EVGA will officially be joining the ecosystem of AMD and offering motherboards for their Ryzen processors. While the company is "one of the top NVIDIA authorized partners" in GPUs, on the CPU front it is officially joining Team Red and marking an important milestone for everyone. It is still not clear what kind of motherboard we will be getting, however, we can expect to see EVGA's best engineering applied in the form of a possible X570 Dark motherboard.Below, you can see the video teaser.

At this year's International Supercomputing 2021 digital event, AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) is showcasing momentum for its AMD EPYC processors and AMD Instinct accelerators across the High Performance Computing (HPC) industry. The company also outlined updates to the ROCm open software platform and introduced the AMD Instinct Education and Research (AIER) initiative. The latest Top500 list showcased the continued growth of AMD EPYC processors for HPC systems. AMD EPYC processors power nearly 5x more systems compared to the June 2020 list, and more than double the number of systems compared to November 2020. As well, AMD EPYC processors power half of the 58 new entries on the June 2021 list.

"High performance computing is critical to addressing the world's biggest and most important challenges," said Forrest Norrod, senior vice president and general manager, data center and embedded systems group, AMD. "With our AMD EPYC processor family and Instinct accelerators, AMD continues to be the partner of choice for HPC. We are committed to enabling the performance and capabilities needed to advance scientific discoveries, break the exascale barrier, and continue driving innovation."

Back in May, pictures surfaced of a curious-looking Micro-ATX motherboard featuring a so-called "AMD 4700S" SoC. At the heart of these boards were an SoC not unlike the one that powers the Xbox Series X, except that the integrated GPU is completely disabled, with no onboard display outputs. The board is very likely a means for AMD to harvest Xbox Series X/S SoCs with broken iGPUs. It now turns out that the board is an official AMD product, named "AMD 4700S 8-core Processor Desktop Kit."

The board provides an 8-core/8-thread CPU based on the "Zen 2" microarchitecture, no iGPU, but a PCI-Express x16 slot that's electrically PCI-Express 2.0 x4, a handful USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 ports, two SATA 6 Gbps ports, onboard 1 GbE LAN and 6-channel HD audio. The SoC comes with its own unspecified amount of onboard memory in the form of hardwired DDR4 memory chips surrounding it; there are no additional memory slots. The Xbox Series X SoC features a 256-bit wide memory bus, so it will be interesting to see if AMD has maximized it. AMD didn't reveal pricing or availability information, although they way this is marketed, the board will very likely be available in the retail channel.

Most modern PC platforms include an fTPM (firmware trusted platform module) of some form. Those that don't, have a TPM 2.0 compatible header on the motherboards. Microsoft's requirement of a hardware TPM for Windows 11 has scalpers go after add-on TPMs, which are typically priced around $20, but now marked up to $100, according to price-tracking by Shen Ye, a senior HTC VIVE exec, who has been tracking prices of add-on TPMs on Twitter.

Scalpers possibly anticipate a rush of ill-informed buyers out for add-on TPMs, who haven't spent 5 minutes digging through their UEFI setup programs for the fTPM toggle. Below is a screenshot of a Ryzen 7 2700X-based machine, paired with an AMD B450 chipset motherboard (a platform from 2018), with its fTPM toggle turned on. The PC now meets Windows 11 system requirements. Windows 11 uses hardware TPMs for secure storage of credentials. "Microsoft, can you not impose a TPM requirement during a silicon shortage? Especially considering most desktop motherboards support TPM only as a purchasable accessory," Shen Ye tweeted.

Just a few days ago, we have reviewed AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution technology, which represents an answer to NVIDIA's Deep Learning Super Sampling technology used to upscale images t certain resolutions. As the review predicted, AMD's presence in consoles like PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S must result in the integration of the technology in that field, not only the PC space. And today seems to be the day that Microsoft and AMD join forces to bring AMD's FSR technology to consoles. In the latest Xbox Game Development Kit preview, Microsoft is shipping AMD's FSR tech, giving game developers an easy way to integrate it into the games and thus manipulate resolution to give us the best possible frame rates.

Jason Ronald (Twitter)Excited to continue our close partnership with @AMD and see what game developers can do with FidelityFX Super Resolution, available to preview in our GDK today for @Windows, @Xbox Series X|S and #XboxOne consoles.

At the beginning of June, MSI presented the brand-new X570S Series motherboards during MSI's online product launch event. The unique designs and remarkable features sparked widespread discussions. Here are more in-depth concrete details regarding the MSI MAG X570S Series. In 2019, AMD's X570 platform came out and became the first chipset that supports PCIe 4.0 solution. Even now, MSI X570 Series motherboards are undoubtedly a great lineup with high specifications and aggressive designs. However, MSI can't just stop there. Our mission is to deliver the best computing experience for every gamer and creator. The new X570S Series motherboards achieved exactly that.

MSI is dedicated to product optimization so the new motherboards are made with prominent features. The MAG X570S Series is at the forefront of this launch. Inspired by military design, the MAG X570S TOMAHAWK MAX WIFI and MAG X570S TORPEDO MAX share identical looks. More excitingly, the MAG X570S TORPEDO MAX now comes in the Pacific Blue colorway, which is all the rage for our fans. Apart from the attractive designs, the imperative modification is the fanless chipset heatsink. We removed the fan to reduce dust and noise, while the ranges of the heatsink are expanded. Also, both MAG X570S TOMAHAWK MAX WIFI and MAG X570S TORPEDO MAX have M.2 Shield Frozr. The former has an All aluminium Design while the latter has an Extended Heatsink Design.

The release notes for the latest version of famous system utility HWiNFO have spilled the beans on an update to Intel's XMP. Currently at version 2.0, XMP (eXtreme Memory Profile) is a technology that allows the system-level BIOS to run DDR memory at speeds higher than those allowed by JEDEC, the governing specifications body for all things memory. It extends the performance profiles usually made available via SPD (Serial Presence Detect). An update to Intel's XMP (XMP 3.0) for DDR5 memory is referred to in the release notes for version 7.05 of the software. Not much more to look at here - it remains to be seen what changes are actually a part of XMP 3.0, and if any increased utility will be added to these profiles. Remember, however, that nor Intel nor AMD (via its A-XMP implementation) enable warranty coverage should XMP be enabled in your system.

Other relevant updates for the application include advanced early support for Zen 4 systems (looking at you, AMD), as well as per-core temperature monitoring for Zen-based CPUs. There are other additions to the supported hardware, which you can find in the screenshot below.

Western Digital is reportedly preparing a firmware update for its WD Black SN850 M.2 NVMe SSD that restores the drive's write performance levels on PCs based on the AMD X570 platform. This problem is localized to X570, specifically to when the drive is installed on an M.2 NVMe slot that is wired to the X570 chipset. Drives that are installed on the slot that's directly wired to the Ryzen processor perform as expected (Ryzen 3000 "Matisse" and Ryzen 5000 "Vermeer").

The drive performs as intended on AMD B550, as well as Intel platforms that support PCIe Gen 4, as the only Gen 4-capable M.2 slots are the ones directly wired to the processor. Western Digital localized the problem to certain X570 motherboards that have their PCIe maximum payload size (MPS) value set at 128 bytes. This dictates the maximum transaction layer packet (TLP) that goes through the PCIe controller, and a low MPS value cripples performance. The firmware update by Western Digital possibly works around this limitation. The company is expected to release the firmware update by 12 July, 2021.

Anecdotal reports of fixed idle power consumption for AMD's graphics cards are filling the internet following the release of their latest Radeon drivers, version 21.6.1. Besides introducing support for FSR (which we have already tested with a new special image comparison code from our resident W1zzard with great results), users are reporting reduced power consumption on idle or low-intensity workloads - something that we had already covered in our latest AMD reviews, which showcased higher power consumption compared to NVIDIA.

Users are reporting drops from around 30 W to ~8 W - nothing to scoff at, and getting AMD's offerings in line with NVIDIA's on that particular metric. While this remains anecdotal evidence for now, rest assured that we will be testing these new drivers so as to definitely claim an improvement (or the absence of it).

AMD is ending support for the Radeon HD 7000 series, R200 series, R300 series, and R9 Fury series graphics cards, based on the oldest versions of the Graphics CoreNext architecture. The HD 7000 series debuted in 2011, R9 200 series in 2013, with the R9 300 series essentially being rebadged. The R9 Fury series joined the ranks in 2015. This would make the Radeon 21.5.2 the final drivers from these graphics cards, giving AMD the opportunity to clean-break its drivers from the RX 400 series "Polaris" and forward. A conclusion of driver support would mean that upcoming driver releases, including the 21.6.1 drivers released today, lack support for GPUs older than the RX 400 series. Should AMD encounter glaring security flaws with its drivers, it can, in the future, release special driver updates.

AMD today released the latest version of its Radeon Software Adrenalin drivers. Version 21.6.1 beta introduce support for the upcoming FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) feature, AMD's answer to the NVIDIA DLSS. We also postedour in-depth review of FSR today. The driver release notes don't mention which exact titles support it at launch, so we'll probably have to wait until a formal launch of the feature. In addition, the drivers also introduce support for the Radeon RX 6800M mobile graphics, and optimization for "Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance."

Among the bugs fixed with this release are one which causes FreeSync to lock up during task-switching, an application crash with "Anno 1800" in DirectX 12 mode; AMD Cleanup Utility accidentally mopping up non-graphics AMD drivers (such as chipset, storage, etc.); lower than expected performance with "Destiny 2" on some products; and enabling raytracing in "Ring of Elysium" causing an application crash. Grab the drivers from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 21.6.1 beta
READ: Our review of AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution

The partnership between Samsung and AMD began in 2019 when the two companies announced that they would work together to integrate Radeon graphics IP in Samsung Exynos processors. We can see the results of this partnership with Dr. Lisa Su confirming at Computex that RDNA2 graphics will be integrated into the next flagship Samsung Exynos SoC. The RDNA2 GPU found in the upcoming mobile chip will include support for raytracing and variable-rate shading with a strong possibility that it will power the next Galaxy S series flagship. Samsung was initially expected to announce this new chipset in June however the event was postponed until July where the complete details and performance numbers will be unveiled.

Update Jun 22nd: The upcoming GPU is expected to be 30% faster than the current Mali-G78 GPU present in Galaxy S21 Ultra which should give it a comfortable lead of ~10% against the next generation Mali GPU. The GPU does appear to suffer from quite severe thermal throttling with a 20% performance drop after the second run and 30% on the third run. Samsung seems pleased with the collaboration and has engaged in talks with AMD to extend the contract for future GPU architectures.

AMD's next generation Ryzen Embedded V3000 system-on-chips aren't simply "Cezanne" dies sitting on BGA packages, but rather based on a brand new silicon, according to Patrick Schur, a reliable source with leaks. The die will be built on the more advanced 6 nm silicon fabrication node, whilst still being based on the current "Zen 3" microarchitecture. There are several things that set it apart from the APU silicon of the current-generation, making it more relevant for the applications the Ryzen Embedded processor family is originally built for.

Built in the FP7r2 BGA package, the V3000 silicon features an 8-core/16-thread CPU based on the "Zen 3" microarchitecture. There are also an integrated GPU based on the RDNA2 graphics architecture, with up to 12 CUs, a dual-channel DDR5 memory interface, a 20-lane PCI-Express 4.0 root complex, with up to 8 lanes put out for PEG; two USB4 ports, and two 10 GbE PHYs. AMD could design at least three SKUs based on this silicon, spanning TDP bands of 15-30 W and 35-54 W.

AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT Liquid Cooled (LC) edition is not officially available for the DIY market, as the card is exclusive to OEMs and system integrators, who can use the card in any of their selected systems, given the availability of course. In other words, the card is almost impossible to purchase on its own, unless it is from someone who removed it from a PC. However, it seems like a few retailers in India have been able to get their hands on a few of these cards and offer consumers to buy them individually without the need to purchase a whole system. Of course, you can expect this to come with a premium. Currently, retailers are offering the card at the price tag of around 223,020 rupees, which translates to 3,007 USD. We are not sure if any EU or American retailers will get their hands on just the card to compare prices.

AMD and Google Cloud today announced T2D, the first instance in the new family of Tau Virtual Machines (VMs) powered by 3rd Gen AMD EPYC processors. According to Google Cloud, the T2D instance offers 56% higher absolute performance and more than 40% higher price performance for scale-out workloads. The Tau VM family provides customers with a leading combination of performance, price, and easy integration. The T2D instances, using the leadership performance of 3rd Gen AMD EPYC processors, excels at workloads including web servers, containerized micro-services, data logging-processing, large scale Java applications and more.

"At Google Cloud, our customers' compute needs are evolving," said Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud. "By collaborating with AMD, Google Cloud customers can now leverage amazing performance for scale-out applications, with great price-performance, all without compromising x86 compatibility." "We designed 3rd Gen AMD EPYC processors to meet the growing demand from cloud and enterprise customers for high-performance, cost-effective solutions with optimal TCO," said AMD President and CEO Dr. Lisa Su. "We work closely with Google Cloud and are proud they selected AMD to exclusively power the new Tau VM T2D instance which provides customers with powerful new options to run their most demanding scale-out workloads."

AMD's DLSS competitor FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) is going to be launched in a mere five days, on June 22nd. When AMD announced the technology last month, they used Godfall as a showcase for the improved performance characteristics of the technology, which should aid (particularly) in raytracing.enabled games. Being open source, AMD's FSR also supports NVIDIA's graphics cards, meaning that any game that bakes in support for the technology can be taken advantage of by PC players irrespective of GPU brand.

In the meantime, the launch titles for FSR have become known, and there are seven of them, though they're relatively small hitters (Anno 1800 is one of the supported games at launch). However, support for FSR is expected to launch in the near future for 12 more games, including heavy-hitter Baldur's Gate III, DOTA 2, Far Cry 6, Myst, Resident Evil Village and Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodhunt. Besides these closer-to-the-horizon games, a number of developers have announced they're working on integration FSR on their workflows, including Crystal Dynamics, Focus Home Interactive, Capcom, Ubisoft, Unity, Electronic Arts & Dice... A total of 44 developers in all, Of course NVIDIA's DLSS supports much more games - but remember it has two years in the market going for it, and remember that DLSS 1.0 wasn't all that good. So comparisons with NVIDIA's solution and claims of failure or disappointment on AMD's technology might be slightly too early judgments, especially considering how this tech has also been announced to be supported by Microsoft's Xbox Series X|S consoles.

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, and hardware solutions announced the launch of the newest X570S AORUS series motherboards primed to unleash the potential of the recently released AMD Ryzen 5000 series desktop processors with enhanced DrMOS direct power design and 6 layers and above ultra cool PCB for higher stability. The whole series equip with a brand new passive chipset thermal design and up to four sets of high thermal efficiency armored PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots with M.2 Thermal Guard III, which ensures effective heat dissipation of full operation on chipsets and 7000 MB/s high speed operating on NVMe SSDs without throttling by overheating. The brand new X570S series motherboards kick off the PCIe 4.0 era with extensive feature sets.

The flagship X570S AORUS MASTER motherboard is fitted with a 16-phase direct digital power design for the more solid power management and optimized overclocking performance. With advanced heat dissipation technology of Fins-Array II Stacked Fins Heatsink, Direct Touch Heatpipe II and Smart Fan 6, GIGIABYTE X570S motherboards can maintain cool and high performance under high loading operation. Furthermore, GIGABYTE Active OC Tuner technology integrated in select motherboards to provide a more flexible performance improvement.

A leaked SKU sheet posted to Twitter by VideoCardz confirmed that AMD is indeed positioning the Radeon RX 6900 XT Liquid Cooled (LC) as a SKU separate from the RX 6900 XT. The finalized specs reveal that the card features Game Clocks of 2250 MHz, compared to 2015 MHz of the stock (air-cooled reference) RX 6900 XT; while the memory now operates at 18 Gbps (GDDR6 effective), compared to 16 Gbps on the reference card. This gives the GPU a memory bandwidth of 576 GB/s, compared to 512 GB/s on the reference. To support these, the TBP (total board power) value is increased by 10%, and is now at 330 W, compared to 300 W on the reference RX 6900 XT. The RX 6900 XT LC lugs an all-in-one, closed-loop, liquid cooling solution, while drawing power from the same two 8-pin PCIe power connectors as the original RX 6900 XT.

AMD's Zen 4 based systems are still in development, however, the company is already distributing firmware to give the new core design proper support once it arrives. By doing this, software providers are already able to distribute software with support for Zen 4 architecture. One of those examples is HWiNFO, popular monitoring, and diagnostics tool. In the pre-release of its upcoming version 7.05, which you can already download, the tool lists "Enhanced early support of some Zen4-based systems". This means that the software would likely be capable of monitoring a few components of the Zen 4 system, as the temperature for example. While we are not sure what the "enhanced" really means, only time will tell, as we await the launch of AMD's next-generation systems. You can download the pre-release 7.05 version of HWiNFO here, and you can check out the changelog below.

PowerColor's website has begun showing what is very likely the made-by-AMD (reference design) Radeon RX 6900 XT LC graphics card, as discovered by momomo_us. It bears the PowerColor SKU "AXRX 6900XT 16GBD6-MW2DHC," compared to the air-cooled reference version's SKU of "AXRX 6900XT 16GBD6-M2DHC." The webpage doesn't include any pictures. Some of the oldest leaks of the reference RX 6900 XT LC also pointed to a Sapphire branded card, which means a retail launch through AIB partners cannot be ruled out; as an SI or OEM-only launch would be handled by AMD, without involving AIBs.

The Radeon RX 6900 XT LC features a factory-fitted all-in-one liquid cooling solution, and possibly the new "XTXH" variant of the "Navi 21" silicon, which is able to sustain up to 10% higher engine clocks than the stock RX 6900 XT. AMD has reportedly gone a step further, and also given the LC version 15% faster memory, running at 18.48 Gbps data-rate, and so its performance could be very interesting to see. Some early testing is already out.

An HP Omen 16 gaming notebook powered by AMD Radeon RX 6600M graphics, was compared with those based on the GeForce RTX 3060 Laptop GPU, and the RTX 3050 Ti Laptop GPU. The RX 6600M was found to post significantly better performance/Watt (total graphics power/TGP) than the RTX 3050 Ti Laptop GPU, and go on to perform in the same league as the RTX 3060 Laptop GPU. The RX 6600M trades blows with the RTX 3060 Laptop GPU across a wide variety of games at 1080p, although the NVIDIA chip has an upper hand with 1440p. The RTX 3060 Laptop GPU also owns raytracing performance. The crypto-currency mining hash-rate of the RX 6600M is significantly lower than the RTX 3060 Laptop GPU. These numbers show that for for mainstream gaming notebooks with 1080p 60 Hz displays, the RX 6600M provides a formidable alternative to the RTX 3060 Laptop GPU.More numbers follow.

AMD is innovating its own x86 hybrid processor technology formulated along the Arm big.LITTLE hybrid CPU core topology that inspired Hybrid processors by Intel. Under this, the processor has two kinds of CPU cores with very different performance/Watt bands—one kind focuses on performance and remains dormant under mild processing loads; while the other hand handles most lightweight processing loads that don't require powerful cores. This is easier said than done, as the two kinds of cores feature significantly different CPU core microarchitectures, and instruction sets.

AMD has filed a patent describing a method for processing workloads to be switched between the two CPU core types, on the fly. Unlike homogenous CPU core designs where workload from one core is seamlessly picked up by another over a victim cache like the L3, there is some logic involved in handover between the two core types. According to the patent application, in an AMD hybrid processor, the two CPU core types are interfaced over the processor's main switching fabric, and not a victim cache, much in the same way as the CPU cores and integrated GPU are separated in current-gen AMD APUs.

Today we've got the first genuine piece of information that confirms AMD's MCM approach to CDNA2, the next-gen compute architecture meant for ML/HPC/Exascale computing. This comes courtesy of a Linux kernel update, where AMD engineers annotated the latest Linux kernel patch with some considerations specific for their upcoming Aldebaran, CDNA2-based compute cards. Namely, the engineers clarify the existence of a "Die0" and a "Die1", where power data fetching should be allocated to Die0 of the accelerator card - and that the power limit shouldn't be set on the secondary die.

This confirms that Aldebaran will be made of at least two CDNA2 compute dies, and as (almost) always in computing, one seems to be tasked with general administration of both compute dies. It is unclear as of yet whether the HBM2 memory controller will be allocated to the primary die, or if there will be an external I/O die (much like in Zen) that AMD can leverage for off-chip communication. AMD's approach to CDNA2 will eventually find its way (in an updated form) for AMD's consumer-geared next-generation graphics architecture with RDNA3.