AMD is slowly preparing to launch its next-generation of mid-range graphics cards based on the RDNA 2 architecture. Following the launch of Navi 21 GPU SKUs, next in line comes the slower Navi 22 variant with fewer compute units (CU). Envisioned to compete against NVIDIA's GA104 and GA106 GPU SKUs, the Navi 22 based GPU is targeting 1440p gamers mainly. Today, thanks to Andreas Schilling from the German website HardwareLuxx, we got a few pieces of information regarding AMD's upcoming Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics card. The source is claiming that we are getting this card sometime in the first half of this year, with the possibility to get it in Q1.

The AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics card is designed for 1440p gaming as mentioned, and its VRAM configuration is interesting. It features 12 GB of GDDR6 memory, which is more than enough for the types of workloads this card is meant for. The memory communicates using 192-bit bus. The Navi 22 GPU is configured for 40 CUs in total, with 2560 cores maximum. The Radeon RX 6700 XT features the Navi 22 XT variant with the fully enabled die, while its smaller brother Radeon RX 6700 is featuring Navi 22 XL die that has possibly fewer CUs and smaller TDP. The pricing of the upcoming cards is unknown.

AMD has filed a patent whereby they describe a MLA (Machine Learning Accelerator) chiplet design that can then be paired with a GPU unit (such as RDNA 3) and a cache unit (likely a GPU-excised version of AMD's Infinity Cache design debuted with RDNA 2) to create what AMD is calling an "APD" (Accelerated Processing Device). The design would thus enable AMD to create a chiplet-based machine learning accelerator whose sole function would be to accelerate machine learning - specifically, matrix multiplication. This would enable capabilities not unlike those available through NVIDIA's Tensor cores.

This could give AMD a modular way to add machine-learning capabilities to several of their designs through the inclusion of such a chiplet, and might be AMD's way of achieving hardware acceleration of a DLSS-like feature. This would avoid the shortcomings associated with implementing it in the GPU package itself - an increase in overall die area, with thus increased cost and reduced yields, while at the same time enabling AMD to deploy it in other products other than GPU packages. The patent describes the possibility of different manufacturing technologies being employed in the chiplet-based design - harkening back to the I/O modules in Ryzen CPUs, manufactured via a 12 nm process, and not the 7 nm one used for the core chiplets. The patent also describes acceleration of cache-requests from the GPU die to the cache chiplet, and on-the-fly usage of it as actual cache, or as directly-addressable memory.

Some time ago, Samsung and AMD announced that they will be building a mobile processor that utilizes AMD RDNA architecture for graphics processing. Samsung is readying its Exynos 2100 SoC and today we get to see its performance results in the first leaked benchmark. The new SoC design has been put through a series of GPU-only benchmarks that stress just the AMD RDNA GPU. Firstly there is Manhattan 3 benchmark where the Exynos SoC scored 181.8 FPS. Secondly, the GPU has scored 138.25 FPS in Aztek Normal and 58 FPS in Aztek High. If we compare those results to the Apple A14 Bionic chip, which scored 146.4 FPS in Manhattan 3, 79.8 FPS in Aztek Normal, and 30.5 FPS in Aztek High, the Exynos design is faster anywhere from 25% to 100%. Of course, given that this is only a leak, all information should be taken with a grain of salt.

Today, Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla, Inc., has announced an update to the Tesla Model S automobile. The new car has seen a design revision for the first time since 2012, and it looks like something straight from the future. The interior has seen a complete revamp, and now it looks very futuristic and minimalistic. The specs of the car are also impressive. It can accelerate from 0-60 mph in just under two seconds. The starting price of the car is 80K USD, and it will be available in March. However, the speed and the price is not the main character found inside the car.

Tesla has announced that the updated Model S design has a new infotainment system that has a Tesla Arcade gaming platform with 10 TeraFLOPs of power. According to Mr. Musk, you will be able to play Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk on the Tesla Arcade, a new gaming platform for Tesla vehicles. Right now, it is undefined what is the exact configuration inside the new Tesla Model S car. However, it is speculated that AMD Radeon Navi 23 GPU is powering the platform. When it comes to the CPU choice, speculations are pointing out that Tesla is most likely using an Intel Atom chip paired with the aforementioned AMD Radeon GPU. All we know is that the GPU is clocked at 2.44 GHz, and possibly has 32 CUs. To play Cyberpunk and Witcher 3, you are would need to own one of these new Model S autos and the whole software stack is running locally. We are expecting to hear more about the final specifications once the car arrives in March.

The prices of graphics cards have been perhaps the most controversial topic among PC enthusiasts lately. High demand and low supply of the latest generation GPUs have lead to the massive price increase over MSRP. Graphics card makers, AMD and NVIDIA, have already announced that this situation is not going to get better until March ends. However, there seems to be another possible issue appearing slowly on the horizon. According to the Chinese website MyDrivers, the prices of graphics cards are expected to increase thanks to the increasing prices of memory used in them, presumably including both the slower GDDR6 and the faster GDDR6X memory.

The source claims that the new memory price increase is going to take place after February 12th, when Chinese New Year ends. As both the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3000 series Ampere generation and AMD Radeon 6000 series generation use GDDR6X and GDDR6 respectively, that means that the increased prices of these memory types could increase the MSRP, which is already above its original intent.

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of premium gaming hardware, today announced new AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics cards powered by AMD RDNA 2 gaming architecture. The AORUS Radeon RX 6900 XT MASTER 16G and Radeon RX 6900 XT GAMING OC 16G graphics cards are engineered to deliver ultra-high frame rate and 4K gaming.

The AORUS MASTER graphics card features MAX-Covered cooling, LCD edge view and RGB Fusion 2.0. It is recommended for enthusiasts who want the ultimate performance, a customizable display and colorful RGB lighting. The GAMING OC graphics card features the WINDFORCE cooling system and RGB Fusion 2.0, making it is the best choice for performance gamers.

AMD (NASDAQ:AMD) today announced revenue for the fourth quarter of 2020 of $3.24 billion, operating income of $570 million, net income of $1.78 billion and diluted earnings per share of $1.45. Fourth quarter net income included an income tax benefit of $1.30 billion associated with a valuation allowance release, which contributed $1.06 to EPS. On a non-GAAP(*) basis, operating income was $663 million, net income was $636 million and diluted earnings per share was $0.52.

For full year 2020, the company reported revenue of $9.76 billion, operating income of $1.37 billion, net income of $2.49 billion and diluted earnings per share of $2.06. Full year results included a fourth quarter income tax benefit of $1.30 billion associated with a valuation allowance release, which contributed $1.07 to annual EPS. On a non-GAAP(*) basis, operating income was $1.66 billion, net income was $1.58 billion and diluted earnings per share was $1.29.

AMD's mysterious Nashira Summit GPU has been spotted in Ashes of the Singularity database. A similarly named Nashira Point GPU has appeared some time ago on the USB-IF website, which was also a mysterious product in AMD's Radeon graphics processors lineup. The Nashira Summit and Nashira Point seem to be a part of the common Nashira GPU family, which is presumably a codename for a lower-end Navi 22 or Navi 23 GPU models. Today, we managed to get a Nashira Summit score in the Ashes of the Singularity database. The GPU has been put through a set of AotS benchmarks and we have the scores. Unfortunately, tests have been run using all-custom settings, so it is impossible to compare it to some other GPU as a reference. The test was probably performed by AMD or some AIB. So far it is impossible to distinct whatever this is a mobile or a desktop product as both mobile and desktop GPUs are tested in the same manner. It remains a question what the mysterious Nashira Summit GPU is, so we have to wait for more information to find out.

The leading global motherboard manufacturer, graphics card, and small form factor PC manufacturer, ASRock, proudly announces the compact Mini PC - Jupiter X300. This product supports AMD Ryzen 4000G Series processors and up to 64 GB fast DDR4-3200 MHz memory. This delivers decent performance for a wide range of home entertainment and business use. Jupiter X300 provides perfect expandability with only 1L of size, a PCIe Gen3 Ultra M.2 (2280) SSD slot, a 2.5-inch SATA 6 Gb/s hard drive bay, and a M.2 Key-E slot for Wi-Fi module.

The connectivity of ASRock Jupiter X300 Mini PC includes dual USB Type-C ports, six USB Type-A connectors as well as three simultaneous display outputs which include DisplayPort, HDMI, and D-Sub. In this way, ASRock Jupiter X300 Mini PC offers users productivity and flexibility for any scenario. In addition, Jupiter X300 is also available with the model equipped with DASH LAN and TPM function for Enterprise Solutions.

TSMC is one of the world's biggest semiconductor manufacturers, and the company is currently the leading provider of the newest technologies like 5 nm and 3 nm, along with advanced packaging. So far, TSMC's biggest customers have included Apple, NVIDIA, AMD, etc., where the company has mainly produced chips for mobile phones and PCs/Servers. However, Taiwan's Economics Ministry has announced that they have spoken to TSMC and have reached an agreement that the company will be putting away some additional capacity for the automotive industry, specifically for the production of automotive chips. The reason for this push is the increasing shortage of semiconductors for automakers, experienced due to the Trump administration sanctions against key Chinese chip factories.

TSMC has stated that "Other than continuously maximizing utilization of our existing capacity, Dr. Wei also confirmed in our investors' conference that we are working with customers closely and moving some of their mature nodes to more advanced nodes, where we have a better capacity to support them". The company also states that their capacities are fully utilized for now, however, TSMC has ensured ministry that "if production can be increased by optimizing production capacity, it will cooperate with the government to regard automotive chips as a primary application." That means that TSMC will not decrease any existing capacity, but rather just evaluate any increased capacity for automotive chip production.

AMD is about to enter the world of chiplets with its upcoming GPUs, just like it has been doing so with the Zen generation of processors. Having launched a Radeon RX 6000 series lineup based on Navi 21 and Navi 22, the company is seemingly not stopping there. To remain competitive, it needs to be in the constant process of innovation and development, which is reportedly true once again. According to the current rumors, AMD is working on an RDNA 3 GPU design based on chiplets. The chiplet design is supposed to feature two 80 Compute Unit (CU) dies, just like the ones found inside the Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics card.

Having two 80 CU dies would bring the total core number to exactly 10240 cores (two times 5120 cores on Navi 21 die). Combined with the RDNA 3 architecture, which brings better perf-per-watt compared to the last generation uArch, Navi 31 GPU is going to be a compute monster. It isn't exactly clear whatever we are supposed to get this graphics card, however, it may be coming at the end of this year or the beginning of the following year 2022.

AMD late Thursday released the Radeon Software Adrenalin 21.1.1 beta graphics drivers. The drivers add optimization for "Hitman 3," with up to 10% performance uplift measured at 4K with an RX 6800 XT, compared to the previous 20.12.1 drivers. The new 21.1.1 drivers also add support for "Quake II RTX." A large number of issues were fixed. For starters, an issue with Radeon Software that caused recording/streaming overlay indicator to reset itself to its default position has been fixed, sometimes even after task switch, which have been fixed. The performance metrics overlay flickering on displays with HDR enabled has been fixed.

Reflections failing to appear in "GTA V" with reflections MSAA enabled, has been fixed. PUBG session timer continuing in Radeon Software even after exiting the application has been fixed. "DOOM Eternal" crashing with Steam Overlay enabled, has been fixed. Radeon Software recorded content appearing cropped or at an incorrect resolution on Radeon RX Vega series has been fixed. Samsung Odyssey G9 C49G95T noticing display corruption at 5K 240 Hz has been fixed. Anisotropic filtering forced through Radeon Software not taking effect in Direct3D 9 applications on RDNA graphics cards, has been fixed. Sceptre C series or Samsung Odyssey G9 displays experiencing intermittent black screens with Radeon RX 6000 series GPUs has been fixed, as were issues related to Oculus Link on "Polaris" and "Vega" GPUs. Grab the driver from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 21.1.1

Research and development spending by semiconductor companies worldwide is forecast to grow 4% in 2021 to $71.4 billion after rising 5% in 2020 to a record high of $68.4 billion, according to IC Insights' new 2021 edition of The McClean Report—A Complete Analysis and Forecast of the Integrated Circuit Industry. Total R&D spending by semiconductor companies is expected to rise by a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.8% between 2021 and 2025 to $89.3 billion.

When the world was hit by the Covid-19 virus health crisis in 2020, wary semiconductor suppliers kept a lid on R&D spending increases, even though total semiconductor industry revenue grew by a surprising 8% in the year despite the economic fallout from the deadly pandemic. Semiconductor R&D expenditures as a percentage of worldwide industry sales slipped to 14.2% in 2020 compared to 14.6% in 2019, when research and development spending declined 1% and total semiconductor revenue fell 12%. Figure 1 plots semiconductor R&D spending levels and the spending-to-sales ratios over the past two decades and IC Insights' forecast through 2025.

AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX, the company's flagship mobile processor announced at the 2021 International CES, has stormed to the top of the PassMark mobile CPU leaderboard. The 8-core/16-thread processor, codenamed "Cezanne," is based on AMD's latest "Zen 3" microarchitecture. It tops the charts with 24,039 points, compared to 16,594 points of the Intel Core i9-10980HK, team blue's current flagship in the 45+ W segment. Both the 5900HX and i9-10980HK are unlocked 8-core parts. The 5900HX also ends up 21% faster than AMD's previous mobile flagship, the Ryzen 9 4900HS, and 25% faster than the 4800H. Intel's upcoming 8-core "Tiger Lake" mobile processor, due for the second half of 2021, has its task cut out.

MSI updated the entry-level of its AMD 500-series chipset motherboard product stack with two interesting additions. The new MAG A520M Bazooka WiFi is essentially based on the same board design as the MAG B550M Bazooka, but uses the cheaper A520 chipset; while the new MAG B550M Vector WiFi is based on the same design as the MAG A520M Vector WiFi that the company debuted its A520 motherboard lineup with.

The A520M Bazooka is a well spaced-out 240 x 240 mm Micro-ATX board with a 7+2 phase CPU VRM solution that uses a large heatsink to cool the Vcore MOSFETs; four DDR4 DIMM slots, expansion slots that include a PCI-Express 3.0 x16, and two Gen 2 x1 slots; and an entry-level combination of audio CODEC and Ethernet PHY (Realtek ALC887 + RTL8111H). The B550M Vector will be the most affordable B550 offering from MSI, thanks to its narrow Micro-ATX footprint, and just two DIMM slots. Unlike the A520M Vector, this board gives you PCI-Express 4.0 x16 and a Gen 4 NVMe slot. The onboard audio+Ethernet combination is the same as the Bazooka. Both boards offer dual-band 802.11ac WLAN + Bluetooth 4.2, put out by an Intel Wireless-AC 3168 WLAN solution. The company didn't reveal pricing.

MSI announced that it will begin rolling out UEFI firmware updates for its Socket AM4 motherboards based on the AMD 400-series and 500-series chipsets, which incorporate AMD's latest AGESA Combo PI V2 1.2.0.0 microcode. These firmware updates will enable resizable BAR support for NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30-series "Ampere" graphics cards, improvements for Ryzen 5000 series "Vermeer" desktop processors, and an assortment of board model-specific improvements or fixes.

The company will begin releasing these firmware updates for its AMD 500-series chipset motherboards, and its AMD 400-series "MAX" models in January 2021. In February, it will follow up with updates for AMD 400-series non-"MAX" models. The "MAX" model name suffix for an MSI AMD 400-series motherboard denotes a board with a 32-megabyte SPI flash ROM chip that allows MSI to cram in its feature-rich ClickBIOS setup program. Keep checking the "support" section of your motherboard's product page on the MSI website for these firmware updates.

Sapphire released the GPRO X070 compute graphics card. This is very much a graphics card, in that it has display outputs, and is based on the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT, but there's a twist—it's completely fanless. The card has a large triple-slot heatsink cooling the GPU, which is designed to rely on external airflow in rackmount cases, and probably won't work on its own in a tower case. Sapphire says its applications include render farms, or V-GPUs. The card features an AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT that runs at reference clock speeds—1905 MHz max boost, 14 Gbps GDDR6 memory. There's also an "Efficiency Mode" enabled through a secondary BIOS, which runs the GPU at 1750 MHz boost, possibly making the card best suited for crypto-currency mining operations.

ZenTimings by Ivan Rusanov is a tiny (< 500 KB download) app that lets you monitor your machine's memory timings in a really neat user-interface. The app works with all generations of AMD Ryzen processors, as well as Athlon processors based on the "Zen" microarchitectures. Besides timings, you also get basic info about the main clock domains that affect memory, such as memory clock (DDR), MCLK, UCLK, FCLK; relevant voltage readouts. This simple app is completely free, and open-source, if you'd like to inspect the code. The latest version v1.2.2 adds PHYWRD, PHYWRL, PHYRDL and PowerDown reading, DRAM and VTT readings, and the latest AMD "Dali" APUs. If you like the app, consider contributing to Rusanov on his website, in the source link below.

DOWNLOAD: ZenTimings by Ivan Rusanov v1.2.2The change-log follows.

AMD is always in development mode and just when they launch a new product, the company is always gearing up for the next-generation of devices. Just a few months ago, back in November, AMD has launched its Zen 3 core, and today we get to hear about the next steps that the company is taking to stay competitive and grow its product portfolio. In the AnandTech interview with Dr. Lisa Su, and The Street interview with Rick Bergman, the EVP of AMD's Computing and Graphics Business Group, we have gathered information about AMD's plans for Zen 4 core development and RDNA 3 performance target.

Starting with Zen 4, AMD plans to migrate to the AM5 platform, bringing the new DDR5 and USB 4.0 protocols. The current aim of Zen 4 is to be extremely competitive among competing products and to bring many IPC improvements. Just like Zen 3 used many small advances in cache structures, branch prediction, and pipelines, Zen 4 is aiming to achieve a similar thing with its debut. The state of x86 architecture offers little room for improvement, however, when the advancement is done in many places it adds up quite well, as we could see with 19% IPC improvement of Zen 3 over the previous generation Zen 2 core. As the new core will use TSMC's advanced 5 nm process, there is a possibility to have even more cores found inside CCX/CCD complexes. We are expecting to see Zen 4 sometime close to the end of 2021.

If anyone was looking to buy a new GPU in the past few months, the person is likely familiar with the situation we are in. It is now a fact that the latest generation of GPUs from AMD and NVIDIA are extremely hard to find, and when you come across one it is listed at some mind-blowing price. However, the makers of those GPUs, AMD and NVIDIA, are claiming that we are near the end of this situation and the things are going to be better shortly. And companies such as these two must reach out to consumers and try to satisfy their needs, even in the difficult situation that is going on now with the GPUs.

In the interview with The Verge, AMD has confirmed that it will be selling more Radeon RX 6800, Radeon RX 6800 XT, and Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics cards using its website, throughout Q1 of this year. The company claims that it will try to supply as many customers as possible, without any exact figures. When it comes to NVIDIA, the company has commented that the situation will likely resolve sometime at the end of Q1, meaning that in March things should return to normal. The company has also added that in the meantime consumers shouldn't expect to buy any of the GeForce RTX 3000 series graphics cards at their original MSRP. NVIDIA also continues emphasizing that the reason for such high prices is the high demand they are seeing, exceeding production capacity by far.

MSI announced that it is bringing the PCI-SIG resizable base-address register (resizable BAR) support to a variety of older PC platforms, and not just the latest Intel 400-series and AMD 500-series. Among these are Intel 300-series, AMD 400-series, and AMD TRX40. This should come as a boon to those with 8th Gen and 9th Gen Core "Coffeee Lake" processors, such as the i9-9900K and i5-8400. Support is also being added to AMD X470 and AMD B450 chipset motherboards, however, this requires a compatible processor, and the latest beta UEFI firmware that supports them. Lastly, resizable-BAR support is making its way to the AMD TRX40 chipset (Socket sTRX4) Threadripper platform.

Resizable BAR is a feature that allows a processor to see the entire video memory of a discrete GPU as a single addressable block, rather than through 256 MB apertures. This has the potential to tangibly improve performance with certain games. Currently, AMD's Radeon RX 6000 series "Big Navi" GPUs; and NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 30-series "Ampere" GPUs support it. MSI is releasing UEFI firmware updates that add resizable-BAR support. Keep checking the "support" section of your motherboard's product page on the MSI website.

Alienware, the gaming division of Dell Technologies, has today announced a lineup refresh, meaning that all of the existing products will get upgraded to versions with the latest hardware. And to start off, the company has equipped their thin and powerful Alienware m15 R4 and m17 R4 laptops with the latest hardware we saw announced just yesterday. The laptops are equipped with 12-phase voltage regulation modules to power the newest NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3000 series of mobile GPUs. To pair with a strong GPU, Alienware decided to use 10th generation Intel Comet Lake-H designs. These new laptops can be equipped with up to 4 TB of PCIe 3.0 NVMe SSD storage and up to 32 GB of 2933 MHz RAM. For display, options range from FHD LCD to a 4K OLED panel and 360 Hz refresh rate for the m17 R4 model.

At her 2021 International CES keynote address, AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su announced the Ryzen 5000 series mobile processor family, which the company thinks has what it takes to beat Intel's 11th Gen Core "Tiger Lake" processor, possibly even its upcoming 8-core version. The Ryzen 5000 mobile processor is based on the new 7 nm "Cezanne" monolithic SoC die. This chip features an 8-core CPU based on the latest "Zen 3" microarchitecture, and its biggest change is the advent of the 8-core CCX, which means all eight cores on "Cezanne" share a common L3 cache.

AMD slides from the CES keynote confirm that the company has not only doubled the L3 cache amount compared to "Renoir," but also quadrupled the maximum addressable L3 cache per core. On "Renoir," the eight cores are split between two CCXs, each with 4 MB of L3 cache. "Cezanne" features a single 8-core CCX with 16 MB of it. The dedicated L2 cache amount remains at 512 KB per core. The "total cache" (L2+L3) adds up to 20 MB. For the 45-Watt Ryzen 5000 HX-series enthusiast mobile processors, the increased caches, coupled with improved IPC and higher clock speeds should be AMD's play against Intel's top H-segment mobile chips. AMD claims that the second-fastest Ryzen 9 5900HX beating Intel's fastest Core i9-10980HK by 13% in raw single-thread performance, 19% in game physics performance, and 35% in overall PassMark performance. The 5980HX should only end up faster.

Super Micro Computer, Inc. (SMCI), a global leader in enterprise computing, storage, networking solutions, and green computing technology, extended its industry-proven workstation family with a new generation server-grade high-end workstation that offers maximum configurability and reliability in a robust single-socket platform. The new workstation is just the latest in Supermicro's overall support of AMD processors, including the 2nd Gen AMD EPYC based servers for multiple applications.

The highly versatile, configurable platform harnesses the power of the AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO Processor with up to 64 cores and 128 PCI-E 4.0 lanes, doubling the data throughput of the previous generation. The new workstation (AS -5014A-TT) dramatically boosts productivity for demanding professional workloads found in media content creation, scientific research, visualization, deep learning (DL) and artificial intelligence (AI), virtual or augmented reality (VR/AR), and 3-D modeling with real-time simulation.

AMD today announced that the Ryzen Threadripper PRO workstation processors will be directly available for purchase from March 2021. Until now, the processors were exclusively available as options for the Lenovo ThinkStation P620 workstation. The processors are being released alongside a small selection of compatible motherboards by ASUS and GIGABYTE. The Threadripper PRO processors are built in the sWRX8 package, and compatible with the AMD WRX80 chipset. From what we can tell, these processors are not compatible with sTRX4 motherboards.

What sets the Ryzen Threadripper PRO apart from the regular Ryzen Threadripper 3000 series is that it's a fully unlocked "Rome" multi-chip module re-configured for the workstation, with up to 64 CPU cores, 8-channel DDR4 memory, and 128 PCI-Express Gen 4 lanes. In comparison, the Ryzen Threadripper 3000 chips only feature 4-channel memory, and fewer 72 PCIe Gen 4 lanes from the SoC. The PIB (processor in box) retail package of the Ryzen Threadripper PRO looks rather plain compared to the PC enthusiast-focused Threadripper 3000, with a simple paperboard box that packs the processor, an Asetek AIO CLC adapter, and a spring-loaded screwdriver that's tuned for the sWRX80 socket.