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.

In her 2021 International CES keynote address, AMD revealed a slide with two upcoming reference board designs. The slide which points to what AMD has in store for 2021 illustrates two unannounced graphics cards, and a notebook. The first of these cards is a dual-fan sibling of the RX 6000 series that's been doing rounds for quite some time now, which is very likely the RX 6700 XT. The one next to it is interesting—a card with just one fan, which is likely the RDNA2 successor to the RX 5500 XT. The gaming notebook next to them brandishes both the Ryzen and Radeon logos, which means the company will not only launch the Ryzen 5000 mobile series based on "Zen 3," but also mobile variants of its Radeon RX 6000 RDNA2 series. The best part, all these launch within the first half of 2021.

Following today's launch of the latest graphics card and processor generation from NVIDIA and AMD, XMG not only updates the gaming laptops from the NEO and PRO product lines to significantly more powerful components, but also fundamentally redesigns both series. While the maximum performance-focused XMG NEO 15 and NEO 17 feature AMD's Ryzen 9 5900H and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Max-P in each of their top configurations, the XMG PRO 15 and PRO 17 aim to perfectly combine performance and mobility. The new PRO series now measure less than 20 mm in height and thus offers significantly improved portability than the previous generation. For this reason, XMG utilises a combination of graphics cards up to the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Max-Q and Intel's Core i7-10870H.

In the latest E21 version, the XMG NEO 15 and NEO 17 offer more performance than ever and feature a double upgrade. On the graphics card side, the laptops designed for the highest mobile gaming performance possible, make the leap to NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3000 series in the form of the RTX 3080, 3070 and 3060 - with 16, 8 and 6 GB of GDDR6; each in the full Max-P configuration with TGP of 135 (RTX 3080), 125 (RTX 3070) and 115 watts (RTX 3060), plus a dynamic boost of an additional 15 watts. But XMG does not only introduce the NEO laptops as mobile high-performance 3D powerhouses.

Today, AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) announced the full portfolio of AMD Ryzen 5000 Series Mobile Processors, bringing the highly-efficient and extremely powerful "Zen 3" core architecture to the laptop market. New AMD Ryzen 5000 Series Mobile Processors provide unprecedented levels of performance and incredible battery life for gamers, creators, and professionals. New laptops powered by Ryzen 5000 Series Mobile processors will be available from major PC manufacturers including ASUS, HP and Lenovo, starting in Q1 2021. Expanding its leadership client computing product portfolio featuring the "Zen 3" core, AMD also announced the AMD Ryzen PRO 5000 Series Mobile Processors, delivering enterprise-grade security and seamless manageability to commercial users. Throughout the course of 2021, AMD expects a broad portfolio of more than 150 consumer and commercial notebooks based on the Ryzen 5000 Series Mobile Processors.

"As the PC becomes an even more essential part of how we work, play and connect, users demand more performance, security and connectivity," said Saeid Moshkelani, senior vice president and general manager, Client business unit, AMD. "The new AMD Ryzen 5000 Series Desktop and Mobile Processors bring the best innovation AMD has to offer to consumers and professionals as we continue our commitment to delivering best-in-class experiences with instant responsiveness, incredible battery life and fantastic designs. With our PC partners, we are delivering top-quality performance and no-compromise solutions alongside our record-breaking growth in the notebook and desktop space in the previous year."

Samsung today at its Exynos 2100 launch event announced that its labor with AMD to integrate the company's RDNA graphics architecture onto Exynos chips has born fruit. It's unclear today on which set of technology this integration is bound to - whether RDNA, RDNA 2, or a combination of both - and actual products will only hit shelves by the end of 2021 and beginning of 2022.

Samsung has announced that the design-in for AMD's RDNA platform into the company's flagship Exynos products for the 2021-2022 timeframe have been successful, and that the first iteration of the design will see the light of day on the upcoming Exynos 2100. The collaboration has reportedly resulted in very good performance values obtained from their IP merger in May 2020. It seems we have a few months to look towards to before we see a Galaxy phone with an RDNA-powered engraving, though.

AMD CEO Dr Lisa Su is delivering an official keynote address for the 2021 International CES expo, and we are live blogging it.15:58 UTC: Dr Lisa Su, as always takes centerstage on the 2021 International CES keynote for her address.

16:00 UTC: Here we go: