AMD at its 2020 Financial Analyst Day event unveiled its upcoming CDNA GPU-based compute accelerator architecture. CDNA will complement the company's graphics-oriented RDNA architecture. While RDNA powers the company's Radeon Pro and Radeon RX client- and enterprise graphics products, CDNA will power compute accelerators such as Radeon Instinct, etc. AMD is having to fork its graphics IP to RDNA and CDNA due to what it described as market-based product differentiation.

Data centers and HPCs using Radeon Instinct accelerators have no use for the GPU's actual graphics rendering capabilities. And so, at a silicon level, AMD is removing the raster graphics hardware, the display and multimedia engines, and other associated components that otherwise take up significant amounts of die area. In their place, AMD is adding fixed-function tensor compute hardware, similar to the tensor cores on certain NVIDIA GPUs.

AMD Financial Analyst Day presents an opportunity for AMD to talk straight with the finance industry about the company's current financial health, and a taste of what's to come. Guidance and product teasers made during this time are usually very accurate due to the nature of the audience. In this live blog, we will post information from the Financial Analyst Day 2020 as it unfolds.20:59 UTC: The event has started as of 1 PM PST. CEO Dr Lisa Su takes stage.

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 20.2.2 got re-released as a WHQL-signed driver by AMD. The company had originally released it as a beta on February 28. The drivers come with optimization for "Zombie Army 4: Dead War," but more importantly, fix a large number of software bugs plaguing Adrenalin 2020 Edition since its December 2019 release. These include several black-screen errors, bugs with Radeon Software, its various game optimization, recording, and streaming features, and more. Version 20.2.2 WHQL otherwise has an identical change-log to the 20.2.2 beta.DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 20.2.2 WHQL

The change-log is identical to 20.2.2 beta.

AMD has been on a roll in both consumer, professional, and exascale computing environments, and it has just snagged itself another hugely important contract. The US Department of Energy (DOE) has just announced the winners for their next-gen, exascale supercomputer that aims to be the world's fastest. Dubbed "El Capitan", the new supercomputer will be powered by AMD's next-gen EPYC Genoa processors (Zen 4 architecture) and Radeon GPUs. This is the first such exascale contract where AMD is the sole purveyor of both CPUs and GPUs, with AMD's other design win with EPYC in the Cray Shasta being paired with NVIDIA graphics cards.

El Capitan will be a $600 million investment to be deployed in late 2022 and operational in 2023. Undoubtedly, next-gen proposals from AMD, Intel and NVIDIA were presented, with AMD winning the shootout in a big way. While initially the DOE projected El Capitan to provide some 1.5 exaflops of computing power, it has now revised their performance goals to a pure 2 exaflop machine. El Capitan willl thus be ten times faster than the current leader of the supercomputing world, Summit.

EK Water Blocks, the Slovenia-based premium computer liquid cooling gear manufacturer, makes another push into the HEDT market by releasing the world's first Socket sTRX4 based monoblock made for made for the ROG Zenith II Extreme motherboard. This is a complete all-in-one (CPU and motherboard) liquid cooling solution for the ASUS motherboard that is based on AMD TRX40 chipset for AMD Ryzen Threadripper processors. This monoblock is compatible with the ASUS ROG Zenith II Extreme motherboard.

Designed and engineered in cooperation with ASUS, this monoblock uses Velocity sTR4 cooling engine to ensure the proper cooling of the large IHS that hides the spread-out chiplets. This water block directly cools AMD sTR4X type CPU, as well as the voltage regulation module (VRM). This kind of efficient VRM cooling on a TRX40 platform opens up even greater overclocking capabilities. Using a monoblock gets rid of the small fans that can be found on these TRX40 motherboards, hidden under the VRM heatsink grill.

Expreview has caught the sighting of an apparently upcoming AMD graphics card based around the RX 590 SKU. The new revision, being named the RX 590 GME, apparently features lower clocks than the base Polaris 30 RX 590 ~around 1,385 MHz boost compared to the vanilla RX590's 1545 MHz. That clockspeed puts the RX 590 GME slightly above the RX 580 in terms of specs, but way below the RX 590, which should lead to a distinct performance variation between the two.

It's unclear as to what GPU die this new Polaris-based graphics card will be using. If I were a betting man, I'd say these are being harvested from 12 nm Polaris 30 dies that haven't been able to sustain the 1545 MHz clockspeeds rated for RX 590 chips - but still being put to use and very likely with a better power/performance ratio than the RX 590. For now, the model is only available for pre-order through a Chinese e-tailer, which could mean this is a China-only release.

ID-Cooling today updated its Zoomflow line of all-in-one liquid CPU cooler series with the new Zoomflow 360X Snow. As with most PC hardware names that use the term "snow," the 360X Snow is a white trim of the Zoomflow 360. White dominates the pump-block's body, the nylon sleeve around the tubing, the radiator (including its fins), and the three included fans. ID-Cooling claims the cooler is capable of handling thermal loads of up to 350 W thanks to its high coolant pressure and large 360 mm x 120 mm radiator.

The three included 120 mm hydraulic-bearing fans each spin at speeds ranging between 700 to 1,500 RPM, pushing up to 62 CFM of air, with noise output ranging between 18 to 26.4 dBA. A single 3-pin ARGB connection from the motherboard lights up the three fans and the RGB ornament on the pump-block. Among the CPU socket types supported are AMD TR4, sTRX4, and AM4; and Intel LGA2066 and LGA115x. The company didn't reveal pricing, although we expect it to be priced around the $130-mark.

AMD today released version 20.2.2 of their Radeon Adrenalin Edition driver suite. The new version brings with it support for the launch of Zombie Army 4: Dead War, so users can experience the latest and greatest performance available for AMD graphics cards on the new release.Perhaps more importantly, the new release also features a number of fixes for Black Screen errors in a number of scenarios and games, of which much has already been written over the internet. There are still a number of instances where black screens can occur listed on AMD's "Known Issues" checklist for this driver release, however, so make sure to check the release notes to see if this driver looks to fix your particular scenario. Of course, you're likely always better off updating to this latest driver version.DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Adrenalin Edition 20.2.2 Drivers

Jon Peddie Research have released their report on the overall market outlook for GPU shipments for Q4'2019, and the news are great for AMD. Due to the launch of more affordable Navi-based 7 nm graphics cards, the company managed to achieve a growth of 22.6% in shipment volume for the last quarter of 2019, compared to Q3 of the same year. This 22.6% volume increase is pretty significant (and is miles ahead of competitors NVIDIA (whose shipments decreased by -1.9%) and Intel (a 0.2% increase), having increased AMD's overall market share by 3%. This means that AMD now commands 19% of the overall GPU market share, surpassing NVIDIA (which counts with 18%) but both being dwarfed by Intel (with a commanding 63% share). It's important to note here that the numbers include integrated- and discrete-GPUs, and AMD's numbers could be assisted by its mobile processor and APU sales, just as iGPUs make up all of Intel's numbers.

Those numbers are skewed, of course, when we look solely at the discrete GPU market share, with NVIDIA commanding a huge, 73% chunk of the market against AMD's paltry (by comparison) 27%. All in all, Jon Peddie Research reports that the overall PC market increased by 1.99% quarter-to-quarter and increased by 3.54% year-to-year, thus resulting a good performance for these "little" chips.

At its 2020 IEEE ISSCC keynote, AMD presented two slides that detail the extent of cost savings yielded by its bold decision to embrace the MCM (multi-chip module) approach to not just its enterprise and HEDT processors, but also its mainstream desktop ones. By confining only those components that tangibly benefit from cutting-edge silicon fabrication processes, namely the CPU cores, while letting other components sit on relatively inexpensive 12 nm, AMD is able to maximize its 7 nm foundry allocation, by making it produce small 8-core CCDs (CPU complex dies), which add up to AMD's target core-counts. With this approach, AMD is able to cram up to 16 cores onto its AM4 desktop socket using two chiplets, and up to 64 cores using eight chiplets on its SP3r3 and sTRX4 sockets.

In the slides below, AMD compares the cost of its current 7 nm + 12 nm MCM approach to a hypothetical monolithic die it would have had to build on 7 nm (including the I/O components). The slides suggest that the cost of a single-chiplet "Matisse" MCM (eg: Ryzen 7 3700X) is about 40% less than that of the double-chiplet "Matisse" (eg: Ryzen 9 3950X). Had AMD opted to build a monolithic 7 nm die that had 8 cores and all the I/O components of the I/O die, such a die would cost roughly 50% more than the current 1x CCD + IOD solution. On the other hand, a monolithic 7 nm die with 16 cores and I/O components would cost 125% more. AMD hence enjoys a massive headroom for cost-cutting. Prices of the flagship 3950X can be close to halved (from its current $749 MSRP), and AMD can turn up the heat on Intel's upcoming Core i9-10900K by significantly lowering price of its 12-core 3900X from its current $499 MSRP. The company will also enjoy more price-cutting headroom for its 6-core Ryzen 5 SKUs than it did with previous-generation Ryzen 5 parts based on monolithic dies.

AMD today announced the expansion of the AMD Ryzen Embedded ecosystem with two new AMD Ryzen Embedded R1000 low-power processors that provide customers with a new TDP range of 6 up to 10 W. AMD also announced new customers offering Mini PCs based on the AMD Ryzen Embedded processors from Sapphire, SECO, Simply NUC and others.

"AMD is ushering in a new age of high-performance computing for the embedded industry," said Rajneesh Gaur, corporate vice president and general manager, Embedded Solutions, AMD. "We are doing this with cutting-edge technology to display immersive graphics in 4K resolution with AMD Ryzen Embedded processors, and we are now offering access to high performance in power-efficient solutions with these new low-power Ryzen Embedded R1000 processors."

If you overlook the fact that it uses a TN-film panel, the new AGON AG273QZ has some otherwise impressive specs relevant to gamers. This 27-inch monitor offers WQHD (2560 x 1440 pixels) resolution, with staggering 0.5 ms response time, 240 Hz refresh-rate, support for AMD FreeSync Premium Pro, and DispplayHDR 400 certification. The panel is mounted onto a stylish tripod stand, and comes with RGB LED embellishments behind. Other key panel specs include 170°/160° viewing-angles (H/V), 1000:1 static contrast ratio with dynamic mega-contrast, and a WLED backlight that uses a non-PWM method of dimming (flicker-free). Inputs include HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.4, from which you need at least DP1.2 HBR2 to support 1440p @ 240 Hz. The company didn't reveal pricing.

SAPPHIRE Technology builds on the reputation and strength of its embedded systems business division by announcing a new series of embedded motherboards with a compact footprint that deliver improved levels of performance, features and stability to customers. Powered by the latest AMD Ryzen Embedded Processor which feature the AMD Radeon "Vega" graphics combined with the high-performance "Zen" CPU, the BP-FP5 and NP-FP5 embedded platforms provide a stable balance of low power consumption and optimized performance for the embedded markets.

According to Paul Smith, Director of SAPPHIRE's Embedded Business Division, "the versatile and effective design of these boards with low power compute and high-resolution multimedia display capability make them perfect for a wide variety of industry applications in the Embedded space such as industrial PC, interactive digital signage, thin clients and POS terminals".

Lenovo announced today the latest additions to the ThinkPad portfolio: the new T series, X series and L series are built leveraging the core tenets of design, innovation and quality. Focused on providing a broad customer choice and a smarter workforce experience, the updated ThinkPad portfolio delivers modern IT solutions with emerging technology features to meet the needs and desires of end users. Innovations across the range include Modern Standby, Wake on Voice, WiFi 6, Dolby Audio Speaker System and Dolby Vision, plus customers can optimize select models with either 10th Gen Intel Core vPro processors or the next generation AMD Ryzen 4000 PRO Mobile processors. Lenovo will be the first PC vendor to offer the AMD Ryzen PRO 4000 Mobile processors.

The ubiquitous DDoS-mitigation and CDN provider, Cloudflare, announced that its latest Gen X servers implement AMD EPYC processors ditching Intel Xeons with its older Gen 9 servers. Cloudflare uses multi-functional servers (just like Google), in which each server is capable of handling any kind of the company's workloads (DDoS mitigation, content delivery, DNS, web-security, etc.). The company minimizes server hardware configurations so they're easier to maintain and lower TCO. The hardware specs of its servers are periodically updated and classified by "generations."

Cloudflare's Gen X server is configured with a single-socket 2nd gen AMD EPYC 7642 processor (48-core/96-thread, 256 MB L3 cache), and 256 GB of octa-channel DDR4-2933 memory, along with NVMe flash-based primary storage. "We selected the AMD EPYC 7642 processor in a single-socket configuration for Gen X. This CPU has 48-cores (96 threads), a base clock speed of 2.4 GHz, and an L3 cache of 256 MB. While the rated power (225 W) may seem high, it is lower than the combined TDP in our Gen 9 servers and we preferred the performance of this CPU over lower power variants. Despite AMD offering a higher core count option with 64-cores, the performance gains for our software stack and usage weren't compelling enough," Cloudflare writes in its blog post announcing Gen X. The new servers will go online in the coming weeks.Many Thanks to biffzinker for the tip.

Microsoft has confirmed the official specs for the Xbox Series X games console, due Holiday 2020 (think November). The new specs announcement confirms the powerhouse of a console this will be, with its peak 12 TFLOPs compute being 8 times that of the original Xbox One, and twice that of the Xbox One X, which already quite capable of powering true 4K experiences. This 12 TFLOPs figure is a mighty impressive one - just consider that AMD's current highest-performance graphics card, Radeon VII, features a peak 13.4 TFLOPs of computing power - and that's a graphics card that was launched just a year ago.

The confirmation also mentions support for Hardware-Accelerated raytracing, something that all but confirms the feature being built into AMD's RDNA 2 microarchitecture (of which we are expecting news anytime now). this, alongside Variable Rate Shading (VRS) support, brings AMD to feature parity with NVIDIA's Turing, and should allow developers to optimize their performance and graphical targets without any discernible quality loss.

The Core i7-10700F is an upcoming 8-core/16-thread processor that's expected to be significantly affordable compared to the i7-10700K. Unlike the i7-10700K targeted at overclockers, the i7-10700F is multiplier locked, has lower nominal clock speeds of 2.90 GHz, and lacks integrated graphics (hence the "F" extension). PC enthusiasts on Korean tech community QuasarZone posted a screenshot of an alleged i7-10700F test run on Cinebench R20. The chip is shown scoring 4781 points in the multi-threaded test, and 492 points single-threaded. These scores roughly compare with AMD's Ryzen 7 3700X processor. No other details such as motherboard or memory configuration were put out.

AMD has scored yet another design win for usage of its high-performance EPYC processors in the Cray Shasta supercomputer. The Cray Shasta will be deployed in the US Navy's Department of Defense Supercomputing Resource Center (DSRC) as part of the High Performance Computing Modernization Program. The peak theoretical computing capability of 12.8 PetaFLOPS, or 12.8 quadrillion floating point operations per second supercomputer will be built with 290,304 AMD EPYC (Rome) processor cores and 112 NVIDIA Volta V100 General-Purpose Graphics Processing Units (GPGPUs). The system will also feature 590 total terabytes (TB) of memory and 14 petabytes (PB) of usable storage, including 1 PB of NVMe-based solid state storage. Cray's Slingshot network will make sure all those components talk to each other at a rate of 200 Gigabits per second.

Navy DSRC supercomputers support climate, weather, and ocean modeling by NMOC, which assists U.S. Navy meteorologists and oceanographers in predicting environmental conditions that may affect the Navy fleet. Among other scientific endeavors, the new supercomputer will be used to enhance weather forecasting models; ultimately, this improves the accuracy of hurricane intensity and track forecasts. The system is expected to be online by early fiscal year 2021.

AMD has just recently launched its 3rd generation of Ryzen ThreadRipper CPUs, and it is already achieving some impressive stuff. In the world of PC gaming, there used to be a question whenever a new GPU arrives - "But can it run Crysis?". This question became meme over the years as GPU outgrew requirements for the Crysis game, and any GPU nowadays is capable of running the game. However, have you ever wondered if your CPU can run Crysis, alone without a GPU? Me neither, but Linus from LinusTechTips taught of that.

The CPU, of course, can not run any game, as it lacks the hardware for graphics output, but being that AMD's ThreadRipper 3990X, a 64 core/128 thread monster has raw compute power capable of running Crysis, it can process the game. Running in software mode, Linus got the CPU to process the game and run it without any help from a GPU. This alone is a massive achievement for AMD ThreadRipper, as it shows that CPUs reached a point where their raw computing power is on pair with some older GPU and that we can achieve a lot of interesting things. You can watch the video down below.

AMD today announced the AMD Radeon Pro W5500 workstation graphics card, delivering the performance and advanced features demanded by today's Design & Manufacturing and Architecture, Engineering & Construction (AEC) professionals. AMD also announced the AMD Radeon Pro W5500M GPU, designed and optimized to power next-generation, high-performance professional mobile workstations. Today's design and engineering workforce pushes the boundaries of professional design applications. These increasingly mobile professionals often use multiple graphics-intensive applications simultaneously and require no-compromise performance to visualize, review and interact with their designs in real time.

AMD Radeon Pro W5500 graphics harness the high-performance, power-efficient AMD RDNA architecture, 7 nm process technology, high-speed GDDR6 memory, high-bandwidth PCI Express 4.0 support and advanced software features. Expanding the AMD family of high-performance professional graphics products, they offer outstanding performance in real-world applications, rock-solid stability and superb energy efficiency. In addition, the AMD Radeon Pro W5500 graphics card delivers incredible multitasking performance even in demanding situations, such as allowing professionals to continue developing their designs while rendering a visualization in the background.

G.SKILL International Enterprise Co., Ltd., the world's leading manufacturer of extreme performance memory and gaming peripherals, is thrilled to announce an all-new high capacity, low-latency memory kit, Trident Z Neo DDR4-3600 CL16-20-20 256 GB (32GBx8) 1.35 V, for the latest AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X processor. Built with the latest high-density 16Gb components, this new DDR4 memory specification offers a perfect choice for those pursuing ultimate memory performance or attempting to build a powerful workstation for heavy content creation workloads.

With the ultra-high kit capacity of 256 GB, G.SKILL is now pushing the performance boundary of 32 GB modules to a high level of DDR4-3600 on the high core-count AMD Threadripper platform. Optimized to unlock the full potential of the newest AMD 64-core processor, the Trident Z Neo DDR4-3600 CL16 256 GB (32 GB x8) has been validated with the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X processor and the ASUS ROG ZENITH II EXTREME ALPHA motherboard, as shown in the screenshot below.

AMD's upcoming large post-Navi graphics chip, codenamed "Arcturus," will debut as "Radeon Instinct MI100", which is an AI-ML accelerator under the Radeon Instinct brand, which AMD calls "Server Accelerators." TechPowerUp accessed its BIOS, which is now up on our VGA BIOS database. The card goes with the device ID "0x1002 0x738C," which confirms "AMD" and "Arcturus,". The BIOS also confirms that memory size is at a massive 32 GB HBM2, clocked at 1000 MHz real (possibly 1 TB/s bandwidth, if memory bus width is 4096-bit).

Both Samsung (KHA884901X) and Hynix memory (H5VR64ESA8H) is supported, which is an important capability for AMD's supply chain. From the ID string "MI100 D34303 A1 XL 200W 32GB 1000m" we can derive that the TDP limit is set to a surprisingly low 200 W, especially considering this is a 128 CU / 8,192 shader count design. Vega 64 and Radeon Instinct MI60 for comparison have around 300 W power budget with 4,096 shaders, 5700 XT has 225 W with 2560 shaders, so either AMD achieved some monumental efficiency improvements with Arcturus or the whole design is intentionally running constrained, so that AMD doesn't reveal their hand to these partners, doing early testing of the card.

A video posted by Notebook Italia may have spilled the beans on a whole new tier for AMD's mobile APUs. The video, which has since been taken down, showed Lenovo's upcoming Yoga Slim 14, which was listed in its specs list with an AMD Ryzen 9 4900U. Of course, the need for such an SKU is debatable: it's relatively unlikely AMD would bring more than 8 cores and 16 logical threads to the mobile landscape and its higher concern with autonomy rather than pure performance. Especially when one considers the particular Lenovo model involved: the Yoga lineup isn't so much associated with ultimate performance. However, there are desktop-replacement scenarios where users might definitely want to see a more than 8-core CPU powering their machine.

That said, this could simply be a higher clocked 8-core (the Ryzen 7 4800U does feature a base 1.8 GHz/up to 4.2 GHz boost clocks, so there's room for improvement). The Yoga Slim 14 where the Ryzen 9 4900U was listed does only weigh 1.1 Kg and has a quoted 11 hour battery life on the 4K screen option (versus 14 hours on the FHD version). We'll just have to wait and see, with our thinking hats on. A typo is possible, but hard to make in both the physical specs list on the pictures, and on the official Lenovo website. The fact that the original video has since been edited with the specs list obscured definitely means something's afoot. This could also be another AMD bullet for the mobile market, where it has achieved its biggest share growth in recent times.

Since its switch to the x86 machine architecture from PowerPC in the mid-2000s, Apple has been consistent with Intel as its sole supplier of CPUs for its Macbooks, iMac desktops, and Mac Pro workstations. The company's relationship with rival AMD has been limited to sourcing discrete GPUs. If pieces of code from a MacOS beta is anything to go buy, Apple could bite the AMD bullet very soon. References to several AMD processors were found in MacOS 10.15.4 Beta 1. These include the company's "Picasso," "Renoir," and "Van Gogh" APUs.

It's very likely that with increasing CPU IPC and energy-efficiency, Apple is finally seeing the value in single-chip solutions from AMD that have a good enough combination of CPU and iGPUs. The 7 nm "Renoir" silicon in particular could change the mobile and desktop computing segments, thanks to its 8-core "Zen 2" CPU, and a "Vega" based iGPU that's highly capable in non-gaming and light-gaming tasks. AMD's proprietary SmartShift feature could also be leveraged, which dynamically switches between the iGPU and an AMD discrete GPU.

The leading global motherboard, graphics card and mini PC manufacturer, ASRock, announces X570 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB3 receives the Thunderbolt Host certification from Intel. It is the first Thunderbolt Certified AMD motherboard.

X570 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB3 is the high-end Mini-ITX model in the ASRock X570 series motherboard which supports AMD Ryzen 2000 and 3000 series processors with AM4 socket. It is equipped with 10 power phase design (Dr.MOS) which provides completely smooth power delivery to the CPU to offer unmatched overclocking capabilities, and enhanced performance with the lowest temperature for advanced gamers. The key feature of this motherboard, Thunderbolt 3 technology, enables lightning-fast data bandwidth up to 40 Gbps, and can also provide both data and video transmission. Meanwhile, X570 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB3 can connect up to six Thunderbolt 3 devices such as graphics card, hard disk or monitor simultaneously by means of Daisy Chain technology.