AMD has today released an update to its Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020, in the so-called edition 20.4.2. The new driver revision brings a heap of features and improvements that fix a lot of issues that users have experienced. AMD now brings support for titles like Gears Tactics and Predator: Hunting Grounds. Some of the fixes are big ones for RX Vega cards like the resolvent of system hang or black screen when running Folding@Home while also running an application using hardware acceleration of video content. Others include a fix for a system crash or hang that may be experienced when using the Edge browser to play Netflix content. For a full list of features and improvements please check out the list below.

DOWNLOAD: Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition 20.4.2

AMD's Bulldozer architecture is a well-known quantity by now, and seemingly straddles a line between loathing and love between tech enthusiasts. Slow and power hungry compared to Intel's options, it harkens back to a time where the roles were reversed, and AMD were looking to compensate for architectural deficiencies (and architectural design decisions that can either be claimed as erroneous or ahead of their time) via increased clockspeeds. However you look at these Bulldozer CPUs, the fact is that they remain some of the best overclockers of all time - at least when it comes to maximum operating frequencies, especially at absolutely scorching vCore values.

To achieve that operating frequency, Der8auer used an Elmor EVC2 controller and diagnostics chip, which, connected to a usually unpopulated pin area in the ASUS 970 PRO GAMING/AURA motherboard, allowed him to read-out everything that was running through the motherboard's VRM circuitry, and perform manual adjustments. Corsair Vengeance 2,666 MHz DDR3 memory was also used in the system. An accident happened along the way, though: when pulling AMD's stock cooler from the motherboard, the CPU remained attached to the cooler, which resulted in some bent pins (screams in horror). Luckily, things were fixed with a screwdriver - let that serve as a warning, alert, and tip, should this happen to you.

AMD is preparing to launch its next-generation of Radeon Instinct GPUs based on the new CDNA architecture designed for enterprise deployments. Thanks to the popular hardware leaker _rogame (@_rogame) we have some information about the configuration of the upcoming Radeon Instinct MI100 "Arcturus" server GPU. Previously, we obtained the BIOS of the Arcturus GPU that showed a configuration of 128 Compute Units (CUs), which resulted in 8,192 of CDNA cores. That configuration had a specific setup of 1334 MHz GPU clock, SoC frequency of 1091 MHz, and memory speed of 1000 MHz. However, there was another GPU test board spotted which featured a bit different specification.

The reported configuration is an Arcturus GPU with 120 CUs, resulting in a CDNA core count of 7,680 cores. These cores are running at frequencies of 878 MHz for the core clock, 750 MHz SoC clock, and a surprising 1200 MHz memory clock. While the SoC and core clocks are lower than the previous report, along with the CU count, the memory clock is up by 200 MHz. It is important to note that this is just a test board/variation of the MI100, and actual frequencies should be different.

While AMD's 7 nm "Renoir" APU silicon is off busy disrupting the mobile processor market, AMD needs a socket AM4 desktop APU to challenge Intel's Core i5 and Core i7 chips that have iGPUs, and it's only natural for "Renoir" to reach the desktop platform at some point. PC enthusiast _rogame unearthed details of a 35-Watt TDP AMD APU codenamed "Artic," with a rather high 3.00 GHz nominal clock speed, which could hint at the possibility of this being a desktop part. The part in question also features an iGPU ticking at 1200 MHz, and DDR4-3200 memory.

AMD has released Renoir on the mobile platform at 15 W and 45 W power-envelopes. It has, in the past, similarly segmented its desktop APUs into 65 W and energy-efficient 35 W TDP parts, with the latter using lower clock speeds and aggressive power-management to hold on to its TDP. This chip could be the latter, a possible "Ryzen 3 4200GE" of sorts. _rogame mentions that the iGPU performance is a notch lower than the 6 CU "Renoir" parts such as the 4600H, while the CPU performance is higher than the 8-core/8-thread 4700U. Here's hoping we find out more soon.

Today, AMD announced the newest additions to the 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen desktop processor family, the AMD Ryzen 3 3100 and AMD Ryzen 3 3300X processors and AMD B550 Chipset for Socket AM4 designed for 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen desktop processors with over 60 designs in development. Taking advantage of the AMD world-class portfolio of technologies, these new Ryzen 3 desktop processors bring the groundbreaking "Zen 2" core architecture to business users, gamers, and creators worldwide, leveraging Simultaneous Multi-Threading (SMT) technology for increased productivity. With double the threads, twice the bandwidth, and a wide selection of motherboards in development the AMD B550 chipset and Ryzen 3 desktop processors deliver the ideal processing solution from top to bottom.

"Games and applications are becoming more and more demanding, and with this, users are demanding more from their PCs," said Saeid Moshkelani, senior vice president and general manager, client business unit. "AMD is committed to providing solutions that meet and exceed those demands for all levels of computing. With the addition of these new Ryzen 3 desktop processors we are continuing this commitment with our mainstream gaming customers. We've taken performance up a level, doubling the processing threads of our Ryzen 3 processors to propel gaming and multitasking experiences to new heights."

MSI announced its Bravo 15 and Bravo 17 Full HD gaming notebooks manned by an all-AMD crew. The two offer Full HD displays with 120 Hz refresh-rates, made of "IPS-level" panels (very likely AHVA). The Bravo 15 features 15.6-inch panel size, while its sibling is a 17.3-incher.

Under the hood, both notebooks pack an AMD Ryzen 7 4800H (8-core/16-thread) "Renoir" processor, Radeon RX 5500M discrete graphics, AMD SmartShift technology (load balancing between the iGPU and dGPU), and 16 GB of DDR4-3200 memory. The Bravo 15 packs a 512 GB NVMe SSD, while the Bravo 17 gives you a 1 TB 7200 RPM HDD in addition to the same SSD. Two each of USB 3.2 type-C and type-A ports add to their connectivity. The Bravo 15 starts at USD $929, and the Bravo 17 at $1,099.

AMD could spring a major suprise with pricing of its 3rd generation Ryzen 3 "Matisse" quad-core desktop processors we detailed recently. According to pricing put out by Komachi Ensaka, the Ryzen 3 3300X could start at a price of USD $120, and the Ryzen 3 3100 at $104. Even if these are 1,000-unit tray prices, or pre-tax cost prices to retailers, which you mark up by 20 percent, you're still looking at no more than $144 for the 3300X, and no more than $125 for the 3100. This would allow AMD to engage in a price-war against Intel's 10th generation Core i3 line of 4-core/8-thread processors. AMD also appears to be careful not to cannibalize the 3200G and 3400G APUs, which command sub-$150 price points. There's still no word on when AMD plans to launch these chips.

AMD has reportedly updated its Ryzen 3 1200 CPU with Zen+ architecture and is now offering it to consumers. Featuring a configuration of 4 cores with 4 threads, this CPU can operate anywhere from 3.1 GHz (base) to 3.4 GHz in boost frequency. Having originally launched in July of 2017, just under three years ago, AMD decided to refresh this CPU with Zen+ architecture, which brought improvements like a tiny IPC increase, better turbo boost speeds, faster caches and better memory controller for better support of faster DDR4 modules.

The new "Zen+" revision has the same specifications as the older model, however, the only difference is the newer 12 nm manufacturing process and some of the architecture changes of Zen+. The rest of the specifications like clock speeds are the same. The CPU is listed by a German supplier for €54.73 or about $60. This revision carries a different part number, under the code "YD1200BBM4KAFBOX", where the older 14 nm model was "YD1200BBM4KAEBOX".

The week has begun with sporadic leaks about Intel's upcoming 10th generation Core "Comet Lake-S" desktop processor family, be it pictures of various socket LGA1200 motherboards, or leaked performance scores. Thai PC enthusiast TUM_APISAK posted links to Geekbench V4 entries of a handful 10th gen Core processors. These include the Core i7-10700K (8-core/16-thread), and the Core i5-10600K (6-core/12-thread). Comparisons with incumbent AMD offerings are inescapable. The i7-10700K locks horns with the Ryzen 7 3800X, while the i5-10600K takes the battle to the Ryzen 5 3600X.

The Core i7-10700K scores 34133 points in the multi-core test, and 5989 in the single-core one. The i5-10600K, on the other hand, puts out 28523 points in the multi-threaded test, and 6081 points in the single-core test. Both scores appear to be a single-digit percentage ahead of the AMD rivals in the multi-threaded test. The Intel chips appear to offer slightly better less-parallelized performance owing to higher boost frequencies for single-threaded or less parallelized workloads. These include an impressive 5.10 GHz max boost frequency for the i7-10700K, and 4.80 GHz for the i5-10600K. APISAK also posted scores of the iGPU-disabled Core i5-10600KF, which is roughly on par with the i5-10600K since it's basically the same chip with its eyes poked out.

ASUS is giving finishing touches to the launch of a new Zenbook 14 (UX434IQ) model with a combination of a Ryzen 4000 "Renoir" processor and NVIDIA's entry-level GeForce MX350 discrete graphics. Although never pictured and with no confirmation of whether it gets the swanky ScreenPad (a color touchscreen that works like the notebook's trackpad); the combine surfaced in a Futuremark database submission.

The Zenbook 14 (UX434IQ) combines an AMD Ryzen 7 4700U (8-core/8-thread) processor with NVIDIA GeForce MX350 discrete graphics, and more interestingly, 16 GB of LPDDR4x-4266 memory. The "Pascal" based MX350 graphics features 640 CUDA cores, and a 64-bit GDDR5 memory interface holding 2 GB of memory. It's marketed to offer a 2.5x performance uplift against an Intel Gen 9.5 iGPU, but we're not sure if it makes even a 1.5x uplift over the iGPU of the 4700U (448 "Vega" stream processors, 1600 MHz engine clock, plenty of memory bandwidth at its disposal thanks to LPDDR4x). The notebook also packs a decent Samsung PM981 1 TB NVMe SSD.

AMD is reportedly looking to launch their B550 mainstream motherboards this coming June 16th, with an announcement being pegged for May 21st. WCCFTech, quoting industry sources, says these motherboards will now finally be released to the public, nearly a year after the launch of AMD's Ryzen 3000 series and accompanying X570-based motherboards. This will mark the first time PCIe 4.0 will be available in a mainstream-geared platform and chipset; until now, users looking for more cost-effective builds to support their Ryzen CPUs had to make do without PCIe 4.0 support with a motherboard from previous generations, since the feature was only available on the (more expensive) X570 motherboards.

The B550 chipset should thus become the new choice for users looking to build new systems on a budget; and part of the reason for AMD delaying the launch of this chipset as much as it has could certainly be an effort to increase revenues due to the X570's higher ASP. It's expected that B550 motherboards will be had for higher pricing than AMD's previous mainstream B450 motherboards, though, due to increased costs with improved I/O and the additional requirements for PCIe 4.0 wiring. Considering AMD's X570-based motherboards can be had from the $150 barrier upwards, it's likely (via an educated guess only) that B550 will occupy the $90-$150 range.

AMD on April 15 updated its COVID-19 response strategy to include a sizable donation of enterprise hardware from its inventory towards COVID-19 vaccine research. The company is giving away $15 million worth HPCs cloud computing nodes powered by EPYC enterprise processors and Radeon Instinct scalar compute accelerators to key research institutions at the forefront of vaccine research for COVID-19. AMD says that these systems will be of a turnkey nature, so they could be quickly deployed and put to use. The company invites any institution conducting COVID-19 related research to contact them for access to the node.

Making the announcement, CEO Dr. Lisa Su writes: "AMD is announcing today a COVID-19 HPC fund to provide research institutions with computing resources to accelerate medical research on COVID-19 and other diseases. The fund will include an initial donation of $15 million of high-performance systems powered by AMD EPYC CPUs and AMD Radeon Instinct GPUs to key research institutions. To ease the implementation and speed the useful impact from these donations, we are working with our HPC system provider partners to provide ready-to-install HPC nodes. Research institutions should contact AMD at COVID-19HPC[at]amd[dot]com to submit proposals for access to these nodes."

AMD is readying a new line of Ryzen 3 socket AM4 desktop processors to bolster its competitiveness against the upcoming 10th generation Core i3 processor family, according to OPN details unearthed by @momomo_us. The new line of processors are expected to be based on the "Matisse" MCM, configured with one "Zen 2" chiplet that has a quad-core CPU configuration. Within the chiplet, AMD appears to be achieving 4 cores by disabling one of the two CCXs completely, instead of taking the 2+2 core CCX configuration route. A single CCX with its 16 MB L3 cache, and 2 MB of L2 cache (4x 512 KB) add up to the processor's 18 MB "total cache."

Among the two SKUs existing are the Ryzen 3 3100 (OPN: 100-000000284) and the Ryzen 3 3300X (OPN: 100-000000159). Both are 4-core/8-thread parts with 18 MB total cache, and 65 W TDP. The 3100 is clocked up to 3.90 GHz, and the 3300X up to 4.30 GHz. It remains to be seen if AMD enables features like PCI-Express gen 4.0, and whether the 3100 has an unlocked multiplier. AMD's move to introduce Ryzen 3 "Matisse" parts appears to be necessitated by Intel's 10th gen Core i3. Intel is configuring its next value-segment chips to be 4-core/8-thread at price-points under $160. AMD has older generation Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 3 series parts at these prices, but is lacking on any current-gen product. One area where the 10th gen Core i3 one-ups Ryzen 3 "Matisse" is integrated graphics. Then again, Intel is likely to have "F" SKUs of Core i3 parts with disabled iGPUs, meant for gaming PCs. That's what AMD appears to be going after, to establish the next low-cost gaming PC king.

The leading global motherboard, graphics card and small form factor PC manufacturer, ASRock, launches the Challenger series - Radeon RX 5500 XT Challenger ITX 8G graphics card. The graphics card is powered by the AMD advanced 7 nm RDNA architecture, features new Compute Units delivering incredible performance and is optimized for better visual effects such as volumetric lighting, blur effects, depth of field, and multi-level cache hierarchy for reduced latency and highly responsive gaming.

The Radeon RX 5500 XT Challenger ITX 8G graphics card takes 1080p gaming to the next level, delivering ultra-responsive, high-fidelity AAA gaming at up to 60 FPS and e-Sports gaming at up to 90 FPS. The Radeon RX 5500 XT Challenger ITX 8G is equipped with up to 8 GB of GDDR6 high-speed memory and PCI Express 4.0 support for maximum game performance, exceptional power efficiency and outstanding value. Based on RDNA architecture, the Radeon RX 5500 XT Challenger ITX 8G graphics card provides base/game/boost GPU clock at 1607/1717/1845 MHz. Furthermore, Radeon Image Sharpening, FidelityFX, Radeon Anti-Lag and Radeon FreeSync technologies bring about maximum performance and enhanced gaming experiences.

AMD's upcoming Ryzen 4000 series "Vermeer" lineup of CPUs based on the new Zen 3 core is slated to launch sometime in late 2020, and we have information about the chipset support of 4th generation of Ryzen CPUs. The laptop manufacturer XMG, known for its crazy Apex 15 laptop with 16 core AMD Ryzen 3950X CPU inside, has posted a Reddit thread about its new laptop. In the thread, XMG has listed specifications of the laptop, and in one point it mentions support for Ryzen 4000 series of CPUs. XMG has written that the B450 motherboards will be supporting the next generation CPUs simply by microcode updates AMD will push to OEMs. XMG uses the B450 chipset in its laptops, so they are presumably going to offer some configurations with Ryzen 4000 CPUs in the future. This information is good news for everybody who has a motherboard with a B450 chipset as they can get a bit more mileage out of it.

With Mainland Chinese tech giant Huawei being effectively cut off from contracting Taiwanese TSMC to manufacture its next-generation HiSilicon 5G mobile SoCs, and NVIDIA switching to Samsung for its next-generation GPUs, TSMC is looking to hold on to large high-volume customers besides Apple and Qualcomm, so as to not let them dictate pricing. AMD is at the receiving end of the newfound affection, with the semiconductor firm reportedly developing a new refinement of its 5 nm node specially for AMD, possibly to make Sunnyvale lock in on TSMC for its future chip architectures. A ChainNews report decoded by @chiakokhua sheds light on this development.

AMD is developing its "Zen 4" CPU microarchitecture for a 5 nm-class silicon fabrication node, although the company doesn't appear to have zeroed in on a node for its RDNA3 graphics architecture and CDNA2 scalar compute architecture. In its recent public reveal of the two, AMD chose not to specify the foundry node for the two, which come out roughly around the same time as "Zen 4." It wouldn't be far fetched to predict that AMD and TSMC were waiting on certainty for the new 5 nm-class node's development. There are no technical details of this new node. AMD's demand for TSMC is expected to be at least 20,000 12-inch wafers per month.

Earlier this year Chinese PC manufacturer Chuwi announced the AeroBox a new high performance mini office PC utilizing the yet to be announced AMD A9-9820 APU. The AeroBox looks suspiciously like a certain games console from afar and now in an exclusive with TechRadar Pro a Chuwi spokesperson confirmed that the Chuwi AeroBox will use the same motherboard as the Xbox One S. The spokesperson also described the AMD A9-9820 APU chip found inside the PC as a "new 7th-generation chip" that runs on Windows 10."

The A9-9820 is a eight core chip with a max frequency of 2.35 GHz and will be paired with a Radeon R7 350 GPU running at up to 985 MHz. The A9-9820 is expected to be based on the Jaguar microarchitecture like the APU found in the Xbox One S and use DDR3 memory. The AeroBox features four DDR3 slots and room for an 2.5" drive, in its base configuration the AeroBox will come with 8 GB of DDR3 memory and a 250 GB M.2 SATA SSD. Chuwi is yet to announce a price for the AeroBox and has confirmed it won't be available outside of Japan at launch.

Huawei's subsidiary, HiSilicon, which designs the processors used in Huawei's smartphones and telecommunications equipment, has reportedly moved its silicon orders from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) to Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), according to DigiTimes. Why Huawei decided to do is move all of the 14 nm orders from Taiwanese foundry to China's largest silicon manufacturing fab, is to give itself peace of mind if the plan of the US Government goes through to stop TSMC from supplying Huawei. At least for the mid-tier chips built using 14 nm node, Huawei would gain some peace as a Chinese fab is a safer choice given the current political situation.

When it comes to the high-end SoCs built on 7 nm, and 5 nm in the future, it is is still uncertain how will Huawei behave in this situation, meaning that if US cuts off TSMC's supply to Huawei, they will be forced to use SMIC's 7 nm-class N+1 node instead of anything from TSMC. Another option would be Samsung, but it is a question will Huawei put itself in risk to be dependant on another foreign company. The lack of 14 nm orders from Huawei will not be reflecting much on TSMC, because whenever someone decides to cut orders, another company takes up the manufacturing capactiy. For example, when Huawei cut its 5 nm orders, Apple absorbed by ordering more capacity. When Huawei also cut 7 nm orders, AMD and other big customers decided to order more, making the situation feel like there is a real fight for TSMC's capacity.

TYAN, an industry-leading server platform design manufacturer and MiTAC Computing Technology Corporation subsidiary, today announced support for high frequency AMD EPYC 7F32, AMD EPYC 7F52 and AMD EPYC 7F72 processor-based server motherboards and server systems to the market. TYAN's HPC and storage server platforms continue to offer exceptional performance to datacenter customers.

"Leveraging AMD's innovation in 7 nm process technology, PCIe 4.0 I/O, and an embedded security architecture, TYAN's 2nd Gen AMD EPYC processor-based platforms are designed to address the most demanding challenges facing the datacenter", said Danny Hsu, Vice President of MiTAC Computing Technology Corporation's TYAN Business Unit. "Adding the new AMD EPYC 7002 Series processors with TYAN server platforms enable us to provide new capabilities to our customers and partners."

ADATA, a leading manufacturer of high-performance DRAM modules, NAND Flash products, gaming products, and mobile accessories,today announces the launch of the XPG SPECTRIX D50 DDR4 RGB memory module. Reaching performance of up to 4800 MHz, sporting a maximum capacity of 32 GB, and featuring an elegant geometric design, the XPG SPECTRIX D50 offers immense performance and minimalist styling gamers, overclockers, and PC enthusiasts will appreciate.

Made with only the highest quality chips and PCBs, the XPG D50 provides ultimate stability, reliability, and speeds of up to 4800 MHz. What's more, it supports the latest Intel and AMD platforms. To ensure all that amazing performance inside is protected from impact, the XPG D50 sports a robust heatsink with a wall thickness of nearly 2 mm for excellent durability. The D50 support Intel XMP 2.0 for hassle-free and stable overclocking without the need to go into BIOS.

Two unannounced AMD Ryzen chips the Ryzen 7 3700C and Ryzen 3 3250C have recently appeared on Geekbench in a device codenamed "Google Zork". These two CPUs bare resounding similarities with the Ryzen 7 3700U and Ryzen 3 3250U APUs, sharing the same core configurations and clocks. The main difference between these chips is the 15 W TDP of the C versions.

These chips are likely adapted versions of the Ryzen 7 3700C and Ryzen 3 3250C intended for use in a upcoming Google Chromebook, not the "C" which could possibly stand for Chromebook. The codename "Google Zork" first appeared last year in reference to a reference board with the AMD Picasso chipset, it's not confirmed but NotebookCheck suggests that "Google Zork" may a 2-in-1 Google Pixelbook.

AMD's 8-core Ryzen 4000 "Renoir" mobile processors could see an affordable implementation with Acer's latest Swift 3 notebook model (Acer Swift 3 SF314-42). At an MSRP of $629, the upcoming Acer Swift 3 could be a typical implementation of the Ryzen 7 4700U processor - a notebook with just the processor (no discrete graphics), yielding a battery run-time of up to 11.5 hours along with quick charging (4 hours in 30 minutes of recharging).

The Acer Swift 3 SF314-42 is a 14-inch conventional form-factor notebook with a 1.57 cm thickness when closed, and 1.20 kg weight. Its display offers Full HD (1080p) resolution. Memory and storage details are still under the wraps, but it's likely that the notebook is equipped with 8 GB of hardwired DDR4 memory, and a single DDR4 SODIMM slot for further expansion. Acer is also working on the Aspire 5 A515-44, a 15.6-inch Full HD notebook powered by a Ryzen 5 4500U (6-core) processor, priced at $519.

AMD's 4th generation Ryzen desktop processors are expected to launch around September 2020, sources in the motherboard industry tell DigiTimes. Codenamed "Vermeer," successor to "Matisse," these processors will be socket AM4 multi-chip modules of up to two CPU complex dies based on the "Zen 3" microarchitecture, combined with an I/O controller die. The "Zen 3" chiplets are expected to be fabricated on a newer 7 nm-class process by TSMC, either N7P or N7+. The biggest design change with "Zen 3" is the doing away of CCX arrangement of CPU cores, with each chiplet holding a common block of cores sharing a last-level cache. This, along with clock speed headroom gains from the new node are expected to yield generational price-performance increases.

The "Zen 2" based 8-core "Renoir" die is also expected to make its socket AM4 debut within 2020, succeeding the "Picasso" based quad-core Ryzen 3000-series APUs. This is a particularly important product for AMD, as it is expected to compete with Intel's 10th generation Core i5 6-core/12-thread processors in terms of pricing, while offering more cores (8-core/16-thread) and a faster iGPU. The 4th gen Ryzen socket AM4 processor lineup will launch alongside AMD's 600-series motherboard chipset, with forwards- and backwards-compatibility (i.e., "Vermeer" and "Renoir" working with older chipsets, and older AM4 processors working on 600-series chipset motherboards). AMD was originally expected to unveil these processors at the 2020 Computex trade-show in June, but Computex itself is rescheduled to late-September.

Back in January, AMD released its Radeon RX 5600 XT graphics card with a last-minute specifications update that made it competitive with NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 2060 graphics card. It did so by increasing GPU clock speeds, and more importantly, increasing memory clock speeds to 14 Gbps up from 12 Gbps in the original spec. Various AMD add-in board (AIB) partners released one-click BIOS updates on January 22nd (find them for ASRock, Sapphire, MSI, PowerColor, and Gigabyte). An easy updater from ASUS was missing in action at the time. The company finally got around to releasing easy, Windows-based programs that update the video BIOS of its ROG Strix Radeon RX 5600 XT O6G and TUF Gaming RX 5600 XT EVO OC graphics cards. The BIOS updates run the video memory at 14 Gbps since the cards physically do feature 14 Gbps-rated memory chips. The specifications update has had a profound impact on the price-performance positioning of the RX 5600 XT, from being able to outperform the GTX 1660 Ti to trading blows with the RTX 2060. Grab the BIOS update from the links below.

DOWNLOAD: ASUS RX 5600 XT Easy BIOS Updates for ROG Strix RX 5600 XT O6G | TUF Gaming RX 5600 XT EVO OC

Intel's x86 processor architecture has been the dominant CPU instruction set for many decades, since IBM decided to put the Intel 8086 microprocessor into its first Personal Computer. Later, in 2006, Apple decided to replace their PowerPC based processors in Macintosh computers with Intel chips, too. This was the time when x86 became the only option for the masses to use and develop all their software on. While mobile phones and embedded devices are mostly Arm today, it is clear that x86 is still the dominant ISA (Instruction Set Architecture) for desktop computers today, with both Intel and AMD producing processors for it. Those processors are going inside millions of PCs that are used every day. Today I would like to share my thoughts on the demise of the x86 platform and how it might vanish in favor of the RISC-based Arm architecture.

Both AMD and Intel as producer, and millions of companies as consumer, have invested heavily in the x86 architecture, so why would x86 ever go extinct if "it just works"? The answer is that it doesn't just work.