Last Friday, we reported ASMedia working on new-generation socket AM4 motherboard chipsets that succeed the AMD B450 and A320, which could hopefully offer significantly cheaper alternatives to boards based on the feature-rich AMD X570 chipset. The DigiTimes story we cited was updated to clarify that the chipset only supports PCI-Express gen 3.0, and not the newer PCI-Express gen 4.0. There are two distinct ways of interpreting this information.

One, that motherboards based on B550 and A520 completely lack PCIe gen 4.0, including the main PCI-Express x16 (PEG) slot and the M.2 slot wired to the AM4 SoC; and two, that only the downstream PCIe lanes and the chipset bus are PCIe gen 3.0, while the main PEG slot and M.2 slot from the SoC remain gen 4. We lean toward the latter interpretation being more plausible, that AMD B550 and A520 motherboards will at least feature one PCI-Express 4.0 x16 slot, and one M.2 slot that has PCI-Express 4.0 x4 wiring from the AM4 SoC; while the ASMedia chipset is connected to the SoC over PCI-Express 3.0 x4, and downstream PCIe lanes put out by the chipset are gen 3.0, too. These ASMedia-sourced AMD 500-series chipset motherboards could also implement the latest PCB, CPU VRM, and memory wiring specifications released by AMD that enable CPU and memory overclocking levels unattainable on motherboards based on older chipsets.

If a recent MSRP price-list leak is anything to go by, motherboards based on the AMD X570 chipset will cost a pretty penny, beating even Intel's premium Z390 Express chipset on average motherboard pricing. Those looking for an affordable motherboard for the Ryzen 3000 series processors have the option of choosing existing AMD 400-series chipset based motherboards, and taking advantage of the USB BIOS Flashback feature that's almost universally available on the AMD platform. You lose out on PCI-Express gen 4.0 with the older platforms, which may not be a big compromise when it comes to graphics cards, but would limit your M.2 NVMe SSD performance upgrade path. One possible option would be to wait for affordable variants of AMD's 500-series chipsets, which are sourced from ASMedia.

According to DigiTimes, ASMedia will tape out its next-generation AMD-platform chipset silicon, and is on track to shipping its new chipsets to motherboard manufacturers by Q4-2019. This would pin availability of the first motherboards based on these chipsets to at least Q1 2020. These chipsets not only feature PCI-Express gen 4.0 downstream lanes, but also boards based on these will be built to AMD's PCB requirements for the new platform, enabling a PCI-Express 4.0 x16 slot for discrete graphics, and revised CPU VRM and memory wiring specifications that improve overclocking over the previous generation platform. For now there are two SKUs in the works, the B550, which succeeds the B450, and the A520, succeeding the A320.Image Credit: Hardware.info

ASUS today expanded its ROG Strix LC line of all-in-one liquid CPU coolers with a new top variant that comes with a large 360 mm x 120 mm radiator for better cooling. The ROG Strix LC series had debuted in May with 120 mm and 240 mm variants. ASUS bundles three of the same 120 mm fans it includes with the pricier Ryuo series, which take in 4-pin PWM input, spin between 800 to 2,500 RPM, pushing up to 80.95 CFM of air, with a noise output of up to 29.7 dBA, each. Characteristic to the ROG Strix LC series, the pump-block features spirally-projecting RGB LED diffusers along the sides, and an illuminated ROG logo on top. All lighting is controlled by addressable-RGB (ASUS Aura Sync RGB). The cooler supports nearly all modern CPU socket types, including AM4, LGA115x, and LGA2066. The pump-block supports the Asetek-standard AIO CLC retention module AMD Ryzen Threadripper processors include in their PIB packages.

When we said AMD was readying a presentation on their Ryzen 9 3950X CPUs to awe crowds at E3, we weren't thinking of something of this magnitude. But apparently, it's true: a Geekbench test result has shown AMD's $750, 16 core, 32 thread Ryzen 9 9 3950X beating Intel's 18 core, 36 thread $2,000 i9-9980XE monster. Now, you may be thinking: ok, it beat it because of AMD's announced 4.7 GHz boost, and did so only on single threaded performance, obviously... but you would be wrong.

The Geekbench scores show AMD's Ryzen 9 3950X delivering 5,868 points in single, and 61,072 points in multicore workloads. Intel's i9-9980XE, on the other hand, scores just 5,391 single core, and 46,876 multicore points (on average and at stock clocks of 3,000 MHz base and 3,400 MHz boost). This is an incredible performance difference (particularly in the multicore score), and was apparently done with an engineering sample for AMD's upcoming chip that didn't even run at its announced 4.3 GHz base and 4.7 GHz boost clocks, but at 3.3 GHz and 4.3 GHz respectively. AMD's 105 W TDP, 16 core chip beats Intel's 185 W TDP, 18 core one... Where has the world come? Take the usual dosage of NaCl, and let's keep things in perspective - even if AMD's Ryzen 9 3950X equals, and doesn't beat, Intel's i9-9980XE, it's still a huge win for the red company. Almost as big a win as that huge stone on Lisa's hand.

AMD Ryzen 3000 "Matisse" processors are multi-chip modules of two kinds of dies - one or two 7 nm 8-core "Zen 2" CPU chiplets, and an I/O controller die that packs the processor's dual-channel DDR4 memory controller, PCI-Express gen 4.0 root-complex, and an integrated southbridge that puts out some SoC I/O, such as two SATA 6 Gbps ports, four USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports, LPCIO (ISA), and SPI (for the UEFI BIOS ROM chip). It was earlier reported that while the Zen 2 CPU core chiplets are built on 7 nm process, the I/O controller is 14 nm. We have confirmation now that the I/O controller die is built on the more advanced 12 nm process, likely GlobalFoundries 12LP. This is the same process on which AMD builds its "Pinnacle Ridge" and "Polaris 30" chips. The 7 nm "Zen 2" CPU chiplets are made at TSMC.

AMD also provided a fascinating technical insight to the making of the "Matisse" MCM, particularly getting three highly complex dies under the IHS of a mainstream-desktop processor package, and perfectly aligning the three for pin-compatibility with older generations of Ryzen AM4 processors that use monolithic dies, such as "Pinnacle Ridge" and "Raven Ridge." AMD innovated new copper-pillar 50µ bumps for the 8-core CPU chiplets, while leaving the I/O controller die with normal 75µ solder bumps. Unlike with its GPUs that need high-density wiring between the GPU die and HBM stacks, AMD could make do without a silicon interposer or TSVs (through-silicon-vias) to connect the three dies on "Matisse." The fiberglass substrate is now "fattened" up to 12 layers, to facilitate the inter-die wiring, as well as making sure every connection reaches the correct pin on the µPGA.

ASUS ROG at AMD's Next horizon's event introduced the world's first Display Stream Compression (DSC) capable monitor. The new, 43" behemoth makes use of industry-standard DSC to enable 144 Hz gaming at 4K resolution via a single data cable, with no need to hack image fidelity down to pieces (potentially) by usage of chroma subsampling. AMD's Navi chips will feature this technology, which is why ASUS ROG took to AMD's event to showcase the new monitor.

FreeSync 2 HDR support is guaranteed, as is a Display HDR 1000 rating for increased contrast and improved visuals for HDR content. There's 10-bit color depth available, and the display covers up to 90% of the DCI-P3 gamut. No pricing or release date have been confirmed.

Phanteks today announces its first AMD waterblock designed specifically for the AMD Radeon VII graphic card. Engineered to deliver high cooling performance, the Glacier Radeon VII is the latest addition to the Glacier Series. Like all our Glacier Series products, the waterblock comes with anodized or chrome plated cover plates, polished acrylic surface, and a high-quality nickel finish copper base. The water block features minimalist design that covers the entire PCB and is compatible with the original Radeon VII backplate to highlight your hardware.

The integrated Digital-RGB lighting illuminates the whole waterblock evenly and can be synced with other D-RGB products and motherboards. The full cover waterblock directly cools the GPU, RAM and VRM efficiently thanks to the optimized high flow routing design. This ensures optimal performance and cooling to keep the GPU stable even at high clock speeds or massive workloads.

In a bid to bolster competitiveness of the $379 Radeon RX 5700 (non-XT) against its rival from the NVIDIA camp, the GeForce RTX 2060, AMD is leaving the memory configuration completely unchanged from the faster $449 Radeon RX 5700 XT. The RX 5700 will get 8 GB of GDDR6 memory across a 256-bit wide memory bus, with the same 14 Gbps memory speed as the RX 5700 XT. This works out to a memory bandwidth of 448 GB/s. In comparison, the $349 (launch price) RTX 2060 only has 6 GB of memory, across a 192-bit wide memory bus. With a memory speed of 14 Gbps, this setup achieves 336 GB/s.

The other area where AMD is reinforcing the RX 5700 is its raster muscle. The RX 5700 has the same 64 ROPs as the RX 5700 XT. AMD carved this SKU out by disabling two workgroup processors (four RDNA compute units), reducing the stream processor count to 2,304. This also turns down the TMU count from 160 to 144. The GPU engine clock speeds are also reduced, with 1465 MHz base, 1625 MHz "gaming clocks," and 1725 MHz boost clocks; compared to 1605/1755/1905 MHz of the RX 5700 XT. The RX 5700 has a typical board power of 180W compared to the 224W of the RX 5700 XT. Custom design cards may even feature just one 8-pin PCIe power input, while some of the premium factory-overclocked designs could use 8-pin + 6-pin configurations.

Two of the often overlooked components of a new graphics architecture are the I/O and multimedia capabilities. With its Radeon RX 5700-series "Navi 10" graphics processor, AMD gave the two their first major update in over two years, with the new Radeon Display Engine, and Radeon Multimedia Engine. The Display Engine is a hardware component that handles the graphics card's physical display I/O. The Radeon Multimedia Engine is a set of fixed-function hardware that provides CODEC-specific acceleration to offload your CPU.

The Navi Radeon Display Engine features an updated DisplayPort 1.4 HDR implementation that's capable of handling 8K displays at 60 Hz with a single cable. It can also handle 4K UHD at 240 Hz with a single cable. These also include HDR and 10-bit color. It achieves this by implementing DSC 1.2a (Display Stream Compression). The display controller also supports 30 bpp internal color-depth. The HDMI implementation remains HDMI 2.0. The multi-plane overlay protocol (MPO) implementation now supports a low-power mode. This should, in theory, reduce the GPU's power draw when idling or playing back video.

AMD X570 is the company's first in-house design desktop motherboard chipset for the AM4 platform. The company sourced earlier generations of chipset from ASMedia. A chipset in context of the AM4 platform only serves to expand I/O connectivity, since an AM4 processor is a full-fledged SoC, with an integrated southbridge that puts out SATA and USB ports directly from the CPU socket, in addition to LPCIO (ISA), HD audio bus, and SPI to interface with the firmware ROM chip. The X470 "Promontory Low Power" chipset runs really cool, with a maximum TDP of 5 Watts, and the ability to lower power to get its TDP down to 3W. The X570, on the other hand, has a TDP of "at least 15 Watts." A majority of the X570 motherboards we've seen at Computex 2019 had active fan-heatsinks over the chipset. We may now have a possible explanation for this - there are just too many things on the chipset.

According to AMD, the X570 chipset by itself can be made to put out a staggering twelve SATA 6 Gbps ports (not counting the two ports put out by the AM4 SoC). A possible rationale behind this may have been to enable motherboard designers to equip every M.2 slot on the motherboard with SATA wiring in addition to PCIe, without needing switches that reroute SATA connection from one of the physical ports. It's also possible that AMD encouraged motherboard designers to not wire out SATA ports from the AM4 SoC as physical ports to save costs on switches, and dedicate one of them to the M.2 slot wired to the SoC. With the two SATA ports from the SoC out of the equation, and every other M.2 slot getting a direct SATA connection from the chipset, motherboard designers can wire out the remaining SATA ports as physical ports, without spending money on switches, or worrying about customer complaints on one of their drives not working due to automatic switching. This is an extreme solution to a rather simple problem.

AMD in its technical brief revealed that its Zen 2 microarchitecture has hardware mitigation against the Spectre V4 speculative store bypass vulnerability. The current generation "Zen" and "Zen+" microarchitectures have OS-level mitigation. A hardware mitigation typically has less of a performance overhead than a software mitigation deployed at the OS or firmware level. In addition, just like older generations of "Zen," the new "Zen 2" microarchitecture is inherently immune to Meltdown, Foreshadow, Spectre V3a, Lazy FPU, Spoiler, and the recently discovered MDS vulnerability. In comparison, the 9th generation Core "Coffee Lake Refresh" processors still rely on software or microcode-level mitigation for Spectre V4, Spectre V3a, MDS, and RIDL.

You've heard of it, and now you'll see it. AMD's introducing a commemorative edition of their RX 5700 XT graphics card, which brings back the company's XT suffix to video card performance grading (wondering if an XTX video card will eventually make its appearance...) - and a new, black and gold color scheme. The RX 5700 XT 50th Anniversary Edition will feature increased clocks over their counterparts, with an up to 1980 MHz Boost clock, 1830 MHz Game Clock, and 1680 MHz base clock (compared to 1905 MHz, 1755 MHz and 1605 MHz for the non-anniversary edition.

UL Benchmarks via its 3DMark product have announced that they'll be introducing a new, comprehensive test that aims to test PCIe bandwidth across generations. Citing the introduction of PCIe 4.0 to the masses - soon available in the consumer market via AMD's Ryzen 3000 series release - UL wants users to be able to know what a difference this makes towards allowing for more complex games and scenarios that aren't data-constrained by PCIe 3.0.

The 3D Mark PCIe Performance Test will be made available this summer for free for 3DMark Advanced Edition and for 3DMark Professional Edition customers with a valid annual license.

AMD "Navi 10" is a very different GPU from the "Vega 10," or indeed the "Polaris 10." The GPU sees the introduction of the new RDNA graphics architecture, which is the first big graphics architecture change on an AMD GPU in nearly a decade. AMD had in 2011 released its Graphics CoreNext (GCN) architecture, and successive generations of GPUs since then, brought generational improvements to GCN, all the way up to "Vega." At the heart of RDNA is its brand new Compute Unit (CU), which AMD redesigned to increase IPC, or single-thread performance.

Before diving deeper, it's important to confirm two key specifications of the "Navi 10" GPU. The ROP count of the silicon is 64, double that of the "Polaris 10" silicon, and same as "Vega 10." The silicon has sixteen render-backends (RBs), these are quad-pumped, which work out to an ROP count of 64. AMD also confirmed that the chip has 160 TMUs. These TMUs are redesigned to feature 64-bit bi-linear filtering. The Radeon RX 5700 XT maxes out the silicon, while the RX 5700 disables four RDNA CUs, working out to 144 TMUs. The ROP count on the RX 5700 is unchanged at 64.

Here are some of the first clear pictures of the Radeon RX 5700 XT and RX 5700 AMD launched on Monday. The two cards are based on the new 7 nm "Navi 10" silicon that implements AMD's latest RDNA architecture. The reference-design RX 5700 XT sports a brand new premium design with a ridged metal cooler shroud studded with an illuminated Radeon logo on top, a second logo at its front face, and a matching back-plate. Underneath is an aluminium fin-channel heatsink with a vapor-chamber base-plate that pulls heat from the GPU, memory, and VRM. A lateral-flow blower ventilates the heatsink, pushing hot air out of the case. Power is drawn from a combination of 8-pin and 6-pin PCIe power connectors. Outputs include three DisplayPort and one HDMI.

The Radeon RX 5700 looks a little less premium, and its cooler design greatly resembles the "metal" reference cooler of the RX Vega 64. This is possibly because reference RX 5700 will not make it to the market unlike reference RX 5700 XT, and will instead be an AIB partner-driven launch, with all cards being custom-design. AMD also provided images of the RX 5700 XT in a "teardown" shot, which reveals the vapor-chamber based heatsink, the lateral blower, and more importantly, the reference-design PCB with its 7-phase VRM.More pictures follow.

It's been a very busy May-June for AMD as the company pushes out its major client-segment product lines spread across Computex 2019, and E3 2019. At Computex, the company focused on its 3rd generation Ryzen "Zen 2" desktop processors, and led its partners to show us a galaxy of new motherboards based on the AMD X570 chipset. It turns out that the company was saving a handful processor SKUs focused on gamers for E3.

The second important product launch of course is Radeon RX 5700 series, based on AMD's new "Navi 10" silicon on which its new RDNA graphics architecture debuts. With its AIB (add-in board) partners expected to be allowed to make custom-design cards, and based on what little nuggets of information AMD put out, "Navi" promises to stir up a key performance-segment price-band that's currently held by NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 2070 and RTX 2060. The AMD keynote will see the company CEO Dr. Lisa Su and her top execs take centerstage to make some big announcements. With E3 being a purely entertainment / client-segment forum, the AMD keynote promises not bore with tiresome topics such as AI, self-driving cars, etc.2:30 PM PDT: Ahead of its keynote, AMD posted a teaser video of its new RDNA graphics architecture on YouTube.

At the bottom end of AMD's rather tall new Ryzen 3000 desktop processor product-stack are the Ryzen 3 3200G and Ryzen 5 3400G APUs. Unlike the rest of the Ryzen 3000 series, these two are based on the monolithic 12 nm "Picasso" silicon, which is essentially "Raven Ridge" redesigned for 12 nm with the "Zen+" microarchitecture. For the quad-core CPU, this means an improved Precision Boost algorithm that scales better across multiple cores, and faster on-die caches. For the iGPU based on the "Vega" architecture, this is a minor speed-bump.

The 3200G is configured with a 4-core/4-thread CPU and 8 out of 11 NGCUs of the iGPU enabled, yielding 512 stream processors. The maximum CPU clock speeds have been dialed up by 300 MHz over that of the 2200G, to now attain 4.00 GHz boost frequency, while the iGPU engine frequency is increased by 150 MHz, to 1250 MHz. The 3400G maxes out the silicon with a 4-core/8-thread CPU, and all 11 NGCUs enabled on the iGPU (704 stream processors). The CPU spools up to 4.20 GHz, and the iGPU up to 1400 MHz. AMD is including a bigger Wraith Spire cooling solution with the 3400G. Prices remain unchanged over the previous generation, with the 3200G being priced at USD $99, and the 3400G at $149, when the processors likely go on sale this July.

The 9.75 TFLOPs figure in the leaked specifications slide of the Radeon RX 5700 XT "Navi" graphics card from earlier today got many guessing if AMD is essentially putting RX Vega-level performance into a GPU that sips a fraction of its power. It turns out that AMD's claim of the RX 5700 XT being faster than the GeForce RTX 2070 wasn't just specific to the odd super-optimized game title, but a whole selection of games, many of which some with GameWorks varnish, some of which even support NVIDIA RTX.

AMD's [leaked] performance slide for the Radeon RX 5700 XT sees the card beat the RTX 2070 in "Assassin's Creed: Odyssey," "Battlefield V," "CoD: Black Ops 4," "Far Cry: New Dawn," "Metro Exodus," Tom Clancy's "The Division 2," "The Witcher 3," and Tom Clancy's "Ghost Recon: Wildlands." The card is also striking distance behind the RTX 2070 at "Shadow of the Tomb Raider," and Sid Meier's "Civilisation 6." All games in this slide are tested at 1440p resolution, with in-game settings maxed out (although we're waiting to read the Endnotes on whether "max out" in NVIDIA's context means turning on RTX on some of these games). The RX 5070 XT beats the RTX 2070 by as much as 22 percent in "Battlefield V," and 15 percent in "Metro Exodus," and is claimed to be within single-digit percentage ahead of the RTX 2070. There's another picture of the RX 5070 XT reference board in this slide, and unless we're mistaken, we spy two 8-pin PCIe power connectors. We'll learn more about this card in a few hours from now.

When AMD launched its Ryzen 9 3900X 12-core/24-thread processor at its Computex 2019 keynote, our readers commented on the notable absence of a 16-core SKU, given that a "Matisse" multi-chip module with two 8-core "Zen 2" chiplets adds up to that core-count. Some readers noted this could be a case of AMD holding back its top performing part in the absence of competition in the segment from Intel. It turns out, the company was saving this part up for an E3 2019 unveiling.

The Ryzen 9 3950X maxes out "Matisse" MCM with 16 cores, 32 threads via SMT, a staggering 64 MB of L3 cache (72 MB including the 8 MB of total L2 cache), and a stunning 105-Watt TDP figure that's unchanged from the company's TDP for the 3900X. The Ryzen 9 3950X is clocked at 3.50 GHz, with a maximum boost frequency of 4.70 GHz. The company is yet to reveal its price, but given that the $499 price-tag has already been taken by the 3900X, one could expect an even higher price. It remains to be seen if the 3950X will launch alongside the rest of the series on 7/7.

Ahead of its official reveal at AMD's E3 2019 keynote scheduled for 3 PM (Pacific) later today, VideoCardz scored a key slide that spills the beans on AMD's next performance-segment graphics card, the Radeon RX 5700 XT. This card is based on the 7 nm "Navi 10" silicon, and is its "XT" (maxed-out) SKU. Its reference-design board design in the slide reveals a return to a lateral-blower type cooling solution that now has a prettier cooler shroud with silver ridges and Radeon logos on two sides, one of which is illuminated, with a possible RGB LED accent that runs along the top of the card.

The specifications revealed point to 40 compute units. Unless AMD changed the stream processor count per CU with the RDNA architecture from 64, this works out to 2,560 stream processors. When combined with a stellar engine boost frequency of up to 1905 MHz, the GPU has a compute throughput of 9.75 TFLOP/s, which is 37 percent higher than that of the RX 590, but 27 percent lower than the Radeon VII, and roughly similar to the RX Vega 56. The RX 5700 XT is armed with 8 GB of GDDR6 memory, although the slide won't mention memory clock-speeds or bandwidth. AMD may disclose pricing and availability in its keynote address later today.

Sony has finalized the design and specification of its PlayStation 5 entertainment system. Unlike buzzwords Microsoft threw around like "8K capable" for its "Project Scarlett" console, Sony has a slightly different design goal: 4K UHD at 120 Hz, guaranteed. The most notable absentee at E3 2019, Sony is designing the PlayStation 5 to leverage the latest hardware to guarantee 120 frames per second on your 4K display. Much like "Project Scarlett," the SoC at the heart of the PlayStation 5 is a semi-custom chip co-designed by AMD and Sony.

This unnamed SoC reportedly features an 8-core/16-thread CPU based on AMD's latest "Zen 2" microarchitecture, which is a massive leap from the 8 low-power "Jaguar" cores pulling the PS4 Pro. The GPU will implement AMD's new RDNA architecture. The SoC will use GDDR6 memory, shared between the CPU and GPU. Much like "Project Scarlett," the PS5 will include an NVMe SSD as standard equipment, and the operating system will use a portion of it as virtual memory. There will also be dedicated hardware for 3D positional audio. Sony also confirmed full backwards compatibility with PS4 titles.

Microsoft at its E3 2019 keynote dropped a huge teaser of its next-generation gaming console development, codenamed "Project Scarlett." The console is expected to pack some serious hardware that powers gaming at 8K resolution (that's four times 4K, sixteen times Full HD). That's not all, it will also feature real-time ray-tracing. Microsoft's performance target for the console is to be 4 times higher than that of the Xbox One X. The company is also giving the console its first major storage sub-system performance update in years.

At its heart is a new 7 nm semi-custom SoC by AMD and a high degree of customization by Microsoft. This chip features CPU cores based on the "Zen 2" microarchitecture, which provide a massive leap in CPU performance over the current Scorpio Engine SoC that uses low-power "Jaguar Enhanced" cores. At the helm of graphics is a new iGPU based on the RDNA architecture that powers AMD's upcoming Radeon RX 5000 "Navi" graphics cards. It's interesting here to note that Microsoft talks about real-time ray-tracing while we're yet to see evidence of any specialized ray-tracing hardware on "Navi." In its teaser, however, Microsoft stressed on the ray-tracing feature being "hardware-accelerated."

AMD is on the verge of launching its 3rd generation Ryzen "Matisse" processors that are widely expected to take the performance crown from Intel. At its Computex 2019 reveal, AMD CEO Dr Lisa Su claimed that these processors beat the competition in all areas, including gaming. Motherboard manufacturers threw their weight behind AMD by pulling out their most premium brands for the AMD "Valhalla" desktop platform that consists of these processors, mated with an AMD X570 chipset motherboard. Ahead of its E3 2019 keynote Monday afternoon, Intel has come out with a challenge. Chipzilla dares AMD to beat it in "real-world gaming."

At its "gaming performance for the real world" address in Los Angeles Jon Carvill, VP of marketing, challenged AMD to beat it in real world gaming with its upcoming processors. "So you're going to hear a lot about gaming CPUs this week," he began. "They may or may not come from certain three letter acronyms. That said, here's what I want to challenge you. I want to challenge you to challenge them. If they want this crown come beat us in in real world gaming, real world gaming should be the defining criteria that we use to assess the world's best gaming CPU. I challenge you to challenge anyone that wants to compete for this crown to come meet us in real world gaming. That's the measure that we're going to stand by."

AMD over the weekend released the latest version of Radeon Software Adrenalin 2019 Edition. Version 19.6.1 Beta adds support for Microsoft Xbox Game Pass for PC. The groundbreaking new service from Microsoft benefits gamers who play on both PC and Xbox, by providing Windows PCs with a Library and common access to games across platforms. The drivers also address AMD Link not working correctly on some of the installations of Radeon Software. Grab the driver from the link below.DOWNLOAD: Radeon Software Adrenalin 19.6.1 Beta

The change-log follows.

MSI's CEO Charles Chiang, quoted by Tom's Hardware at COMPUTEX 2019, laid out what we were already seeing with motherboard designs from all vendors of AMD's X570-based motherboards: pricing is likely increasing across the board, and AMD's market positioning won't be of the alternative, lower-value brand.

As quoted, Chiang said that ""Lots of people ask me, what do you think about today's AMD? I say today's AMD is completely different company compared to two, three, five years ago. They have nice technology and they are there to put the higher spec with the reasonable pricing. But right now they say, "Hey Charles, let's push to marketing to the higher [end]. So let's sell higher-pricing motherboards, higher-spec motherboards, and let's see what will happen in the market. So I don't think that AMD is the company that wants to sell low cost here, low cost there." Which does make sense: AMD isn't in the position of the underdog anymore -at least technology and product-portfolio wise when it comes to consumer CPUs. With better products, comes a desire for higher margins, and a change in direction for a company that was basically forced to almost cut itself out of the market in terms of profits with its previous, non-competitive CPU designs.