AMD succeeded in delivering on its backwards-compatibility promise for the 3rd generation Ryzen processors on motherboards based on AMD 300-series and 400-series chipsets. This promise was very close to being derailed suggests a community thread on MSI forums. According to MSI representatives active on the forum, the capacity of the SPI flash EEPROM chip that stores the motherboard UEFI firmware is woefully limited to cram in the AGESA ComboAM4 1.0.0.3a microcode on many of its motherboards.

The company had to make several changes to its UEFI BIOS package that's currently being circulated as a "beta," to accommodate support for 3rd generation Ryzen processors along with AGESA ComboAM4 1.0.0.3a. First, it had to kick out support for A-series and Athlon processors based on the 28 nm "Bristol Ridge" silicon. Second, it had to [and this is a big one], kick the RAID module, breaking SATA RAID on many of its motherboards. Third, it had to replace its feature-rich Click BIOS 5 setup program with a barebones "GSE Lite" Click BIOS program, which lacks many of the features of the original program, and comes with a dull, low-resolution UI. This program still includes some essential MSI-exclusive features such as A-XMP (which translates Intel XMP profiles to AMD-compatible settings), Smart Fan, and M-Flash.

TUL Corporation, a leading and innovative manufacturer of AMD graphic cards since 1997, has introduced its newest series, the PowerColor RX 5700 and PowerColor RX 5700 XT, the world's first PCIe 4.0 GPU for the most demanding 1440p gaming with the most advanced gaming technology. Using the newest AMD RDNA architecture, the PowerColor RX 5700 and RX 5700 XT shows impressive performance improvements as well vastly improved performance per watt over the previous generations with the GPU being manufactured with the leading edge 7nm process.

With the new RDNA architecture, PowerColor RX 5700 and RX 5700 XT was engineered to greatly enhance gaming using features like Radeon Image Sharpening, FidelityFX for maximum performance and insane immersive gaming experiences as well the new Radeon Anti-Lag, stutter-free, tear-free gaming with AMD Radeon FreeSync technology, for incredibly responsive gameplay.

Great gaming experiences are created by bending the rules. The new SAPPHIRE Radeon RX 5700 Series GPUs, powered by RDNA architecture, are designed from the ground up for superb 1440p performance and exceptional power efficiency for high-fidelity gaming. The Radeon RX 5700 Series GPUs house AMD's 2nd generation 7nm architecture, 8GB of GDDR6 high-speed memory and PCI Express 4.0 support. These GPUs are impeccably engineered to exponentially reduce lag, increase efficiency and surround you in immersive stutter-free gameplay.

The Radeon RX 5700 XT GPU bends the rules with a revolutionary metal exoskeleton for heat dissipation, fused with the reimagined contour silhouette, and precision machined accents to perform as good as it looks.

The leading global motherboard, graphics card and mini PC manufacturer, ASRock, launches the flagship level product - Radeon RX 5700 series graphics cards featuring AMD's latest Radeon RX 5700 gaming GPU and 8GB 256-bit GDDR6 memory with great gaming experiences are created by bending the rules. Take control and forge your own path with Radeon RX 5700 series and experience powerful accelerated gaming customized for you.

The Radeon RX 5700 series GPUs are powered by new RDNA architecture -- the heart of AMD's advanced 7nm technology process. RDNA features up to 40 completely redesigned "Compute Units" delivering incredible performance and up to 4x IPC improvements, new instructions better suited for visual effects such as volumetric lighting, blur effects, and depth of field, and multi-level cache hierarchy for greatly reduced latency and highly responsive gaming. The RDNA architecture enables DisplayPort 1.4 with Display Stream Compression for extreme refresh rates and resolutions on cutting edge displays for insanely immersive gameplay.

Today, AMD announced the global availability of its new leadership PC gaming platform based on AMD Radeon RX 5700 series graphics cards and 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen Desktop Processors, as well as AMD Ryzen 3000 Series Processors with Radeon Graphics (APUs). Together, these offerings take gaming performance, immersive experiences, and visual fidelity to new heights.

AMD Radeon RX 5700 series graphics cards redefine what is possible in 1440p gaming. Built on the ground-breaking all-new AMD RDNA gaming architecture and 7nm process technology, the new graphics cards deliver superior visual fidelity, lightning-fast performance and advanced features to power the latest AAA and eSports titles. Starting today, AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT and RX 5700 graphics cards are available on AMD.com and from leading etailers and retailers for $399 and $349 USD SEP, respectively, and the 50th Anniversary Edition Radeon RX 5700 XT graphics card is available while supplies last for $449 USD SEP from AMD.com and JD.com.

In a comical turn of events, while NVIDIA restored NVLink SLI support for its RTX 2070 Super graphics card on virtue of being based on the "TU104" silicon, AMD did the opposite with "Navi." The Radeon RX 5700 XT and RX 5700 lack support for AMD CrossFire. If you put two of these cards on, say, a swanky X570 motherboard that splits PCIe gen 4.0 to two x8 slots with bandwidths comparable to PCIe gen 3.0 x16; you won't see an option to enable CrossFire. AMD, responding to our question on CrossFire compatibility clarified that AMD dropped CrossFire support for "Navi" in favor of DirectX 12 and Vulkan "explicit" multi-GPU mode. The older "implicit" multi-GPU mode - CrossFire - used by DirectX 11, DirectX 9, and OpenGL games is not supported. The AMD statement follows.

Radeon RX 5700 Series GPU's support CrossFire in 'Explicit' multi-GPU mode when running a DX12 or Vulkan game that supports multiple GPU's. The older 'implicit' mode used by legacy DX9/11/OpenGL titles is not supported.

AMD in a Facebook post late Friday confirmed that its Radeon RX 5700 series graphics cards will launch at reduced prices compared to what it announced at its E3-2019 product announcement. The Radeon RX 5700 XT will have a reduced MSRP of USD $399, which puts it on par with that of the GeForce RTX 2060 Super. The Radeon RX 5700 will cost $50 less, at $349, which puts its price on par with the original RTX 2060. The commemorative limited-edition RX 5700 XT AMD 50th Anniversary Edition is now reduced to $449. AMD didn't announce any changes to the two cards' launch bundle that include a 3-month Xbox Game Pass for PC.

Commenting on the development, AMD said "We embrace competition, which drives innovation to the benefit of gamers. In that spirit, we are updating the pricing of our Radeon RX 5700 Series graphics cards, launching July 7." The company added "We know that gamers will be thrilled once they have the opportunity to experience the amazing performance, stunning visual fidelity and highly responsive gameplay these new graphics cards provide. Making history on 7/7 as the first company to launch gaming CPUs and GPUs together - the first in 7nm and PCIe 4.0 - is all about pushing the ultimate gaming experience forward for as many gamers as possible."

NVIDIA attempted to torpedo the Radeon RX 5700 "Navi" series graphics card launch with the introduction of its $499 GeForce RTX 2070 Super and $399 RTX 2060 Super. AMD claimed that its upcoming Radeon RX 5700 XT outperformed the original RTX 2070, while its smaller sibling, the RX 5700 outperforms the original RTX 2060. In its E3-2019 reveal, AMD disclosed launch prices of the RX 5700 XT and the RX 5700 to be USD $449 and $379, respectively. The RTX Super launch jeopardizes this, and so, according to VideoCardz, AMD is revising its launch prices.

The Radeon RX 5700 XT now reportedly launches at just $399, while the Radeon RX 5700 is priced at $349. The RX 5700 XT is claimed to beat the original RTX 2070, while the $399 RTX 2060 Super is slower than the RTX 2070. On the other hand, the RX 5700, which was claimed to beat the $349 original RTX 2060, is now price-matched with it, unless NVIDIA comes up with price-cuts. Older reports suggested that with the advent of the RTX Super series, NVIDIA would retire the RTX 2060 and RTX 2070, after the market digests inventories left in the channel. AMD's latest move is sure to disturb that digestion.

Update Jul 6th: This has been confirmed officially by AMD here.

The leading global motherboard manufacturer, ASRock, is pleased to officially announce the launch of the new AMD X570 motherboard series, previewed during Computex 2019. The series offers ten motherboard models for every role from affordable performance to gaming to content creation to power users. ASRock's X570 boards get the most from the next generation PCIe 4.0 interface and from the newest, most powerful AM4 processors, including the AMD Ryzen 2000 and 3000 Series. These new boards continue the tradition of trusted ASRock names such as Taichi and Phantom Gaming.

The new design for ASRock's X570 motherboards is a huge step forward. ASRock has combined both aesthetics and functionality to create a board that not only looks fascinating, with its bold angular lines, but performs as good as it looks. The stunning full coverage aluminum heatsink cools and protects the PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSDs as well as the chipset. The neatly designed color LED system is eye-catching but also classy. If you need even more enhanced RGB effects, you can customize your PC with Polychrome SYNC full-color RGB LED lighting, which provides both 3-pin addressable RGB headers and traditional 4-pin RGB LED headers which allow users to connect RGB strips directly to the motherboard and sync their lighting system using the app provided.

Bitspower formally launched its Brizo BR-VGRVIIRD full-coverage water block for the AMD Radeon VII graphics card. The block combines a nickel-plated copper primary material with a clear acrylic top that has brushed metal embellishment with laser-etched Bitspower and Radeon VII logos. The top has a factory-fitted addressable-RGB LED setup that plugs in direct to a 3-pin aRGB header. The block features a large micro-fin lattice that covers all chiplets on the "Vega 20" MCM, the 7 nm GPU die, and the four HBM2 stacks. The block is single-slot capable, measuring 266.2 mm x 136 mm x 15.22 mm (WxDxH). It features standard G1/4" threads for up to four fittings (multi-GPU capable). The company didn't reveal pricing.

AMD reference-design Radeon RX 5700 XT and RX 5700 graphics cards will launch on the 7th of July, and the company's various add-in-board (AIB) partners are ready with their inventories. VideoCardz scored pictures from various such board partners. As for the cards themselves, all of these are based on the AMD reference-design. The RX 5700 reference-design is in mass-production, contrary to older reports. All these packages appear to indicate reference clock speeds. In select markets, all of these packages include the Xbox Game Pass for PC, which gives you a 3-month access to vast library of full game titles from Microsoft.

There still are no picture leaks on custom-design Radeon RX 5700-series graphics cards, which suggests that they will be launched a little later. At Computex we spotted several new graphics card cooling solutions from AMD partners, confirming that custom-design cards are a go. The reference Radeon RX 5700 XT has an MSRP of $449, while the RX 5700 is priced at $379. As for the limited-edition Radeon RX 5700 XT AMD 50th Anniversary Edition, it will be available online through AMD.com in select markets, priced at $499. You pay the extra $50 for an exclusive product design, higher clock speeds, and likely some AMD goodies, such as an AMD|50 t-shirt.

With the launch of AMD's Radeon 5700 Series of gaming graphics cards nearing, there is an increasing amount of leaks regarding the cards' performance. But this time we have something a little different. Reference models of RX 5700 series and their packaging have been revealed by Twitter user momomo_us.

In this Imgur album, the reference design of Radeon RX 5700 cards along with the the retail boxes of various manufacturers like ASUS, AsRock, Yeston, Sapphire, Dataland, PowerColor and XFX, have been pictured. There is also a special box for AMD's 50th anniversary edition, which has golden accents to match the card. The regular, non anniversary edition box is designed with black and red theme to showcase regular AMD styling.

Today AMD quietly released is newest entry to professional lineup of Radeon graphics cards, called WX 3200. The new GPU is a low profile, single slot form factor card with focus on providing acceleration for CAD programs, even in the tiniest of workstations.

The card, despite its size, packs quite the punch. It has 640 Stream Processors which put a total of 1.66 TeraFLOPs of compute performance, which is a reasonable performance for a card that has just under 50 W TDP and is powered entirely by PCIe connector. It has four DisplayPort 1.4 connectors which can provide output for up to four 4K monitors or single 8K monitor. For memory, we are looking at 4 GB of GDDR5 memory with 96 GB/s transfer rate and 128 bit wide bus. It is priced at only 199$, making it one of the most cost effective professional GPUs, with ISV-certification for wide range of applications from Autodesk, Altair, Siemens and more. For more details about certified software and the card itself, please check out AMD's website.

An AMD patent may have just shown the company's hand when it comes to its interpretation of raytracing implementation on graphics cards. The patent, titled "Texture Processor Based Ray Tracing Acceleration Method and System", describes a hybrid, software-hardware approach to raytracing. AMD says this approach improves upon solely hardware-based solutions:

"The hybrid approach (doing fixed function acceleration for a single node of the bounded volume hierarchy (BVH) tree and using a shader unit to schedule the processing) addresses the issues with solely hardware based and/or solely software based solutions. Flexibility is preserved since the shader unit can still control the overall calculation and can bypass the fixed function hardware where needed and still get the performance advantage of the fixed function hardware. In addition, by utilizing the texture processor infrastructure, large buffers for ray storage and BVH caching are eliminated that are typically required in a hardware raytracing solution as the existing vector general purpose register (VGPRs) and texture cache can be used in its place, which substantially saves area and complexity of the hardware solution."

AMD's 3rd generation Ryzen desktop processors were rumored to open to pre-orders today, so you could have your swanky new CPU upgrade in place by 7/7. It turns out, that's not the case. AMD in a statement to TechPowerUp, confirmed that there won't be any pre-orders opened by retailers today (1st July), and there is no information of any such pre-orders date. Customers will likely have to wait until the 7th to pick their PIB form their friendly neighbourhood PC hardware store, or order one online. The statement from AMD in German language translates as follows:

We haven't announced any pre-order plans - global launch is on 7/7.

AMD is launching five new processor SKUs this July, including the 12-core/24-thread Ryzen 9 3900X, the 8-core/16-thread Ryzen 7 3800X and 3700X, and the 6-core/12-thread Ryzen 5 3600X and 3600. Prices over previous-generation products remain flat wherever applicable. The 3700X is being launched at the same $329.99 MSRP as the 2700X, the 3600X at a slightly higher $249.99 compared to the $239.99 the 2600X launched at; and the 3600 aims to be the sub-$200 king at the same $199.99 price as the 2600. The 3800X is being launched as a premium 8-core option at $399.99, and the 3900X can be yours for $499.99. We expect most online retailers to mark these prices up by 5-10 percent as they normally do.

Market availability of the 16-core Ryzen 9 3950X may be far away, given its September 2019 launch, but engineering samples (ESes) of the chip seem to be already in circulation. "uzzi38" on Twitter posted this spy-shot of a 3950X ES making short work of Cinebench R15. CPU-Z recognizes the chip by its codename "Matisse," and puts out the correct CPU core and thread count, but doesn't give a name-string. It also recognizes the MSI MEG X570 GODLIKE motherboard this test is run on.

The purported Ryzen 9 3950X ES, overclocked to 5.42 GHz, scores a gargantuan 5,501 points in the multi-threaded benchmark. To put this number into perspective, at stock frequencies, a Ryzen Threadripper 2950X (same core-count, double the memory bus width), scores 3,645 points. The 3950X benefits from not just its massive overclock that's over 1 GHz higher than the stock TR-2950X, but also higher IPC, and a more consolidated memory interface. This feat goes to show that AMD's upcoming Ryzen chips love to overclock, and deliver a significantly higher single-thread performance over the previous generation.

In more evidence of AMD having finally achieved or exceeded IPC parity with Intel, a mid-range Ryzen 5 3600 processor beats Intel's current mainstream-desktop flagship processor, the Core i9-9900KF, at the PassMark - CPU Mark single-thread benchmark. The official performance chart for PassMark shows the Ryzen 5 3600 leading the pack, with 2,981 points, a score which is 1.77 percent higher than that of the Core i9-9900KF on the same chart. It also beats the Core i9-9900K by 2.86 percent. Interestingly, the chart does not mention whether the Ryzen 5 3600 is running at its stock frequency of 3.60 GHz with 4.20 GHz boost, or whether it's overclocked. The i9-9900KF boosts to 5.00 GHz. For a single-threaded benchmark, it's generally assumed that the maximum boost multiplier is engaged on both chips. The score can't be dismissed due to this uncertainty, either, because AMD achieving a 1-2 percent IPC uplift over "Skylake" (fine, "Coffee Lake,") isn't impossible given the leaps the company made in the past three years.

AMD will differentiate its high-end Ryzen 9 desktop processor PIB (processor-in-a-box) retail package from that of the Ryzen 7 series with a more premium-looking box. Retailer PC Part Picker put up this picture of the Ryzen 9 box up-close, which also surfaced in E3-2019 presentations by AMD. The box is made of a thicker paperboard than the one the Ryzen 7 ships in, and features a 2-piece clamshell design, in which the upper part slides off. A faux carbon fiber texture dominates four faces of the top half, while the orange bottom one features a chrome insert with the "9" brand extension. The chip's PCI-Express gen 4.0 support earns prominent mention on the front face. The box contains the processor, an AMD Wraith Prism RGB cooling solution that's capable of handling thermal loads of up to 140W, aRGB cables for the cooler, a case badge, and some documentation. AMD will use this package for both the Ryzen 9 3900X and the flagship Ryzen 9 3950X.

The Ryzen 9 3900X will launch on 7th July, and will be AMD's top-dog until the 3950X comes along some time in September. The 3900X is a 12-core/24-thread processor clocked at 3.80 GHz with 4.60 GHz boost, designed to compete with the Core i9-9900K, and priced at USD $499. The 3950X is a 16-core/32-thread part that occupies a price-point way above, at USD $749. This chip ticks at 3.50 GHz with 4.70 GHz boost, despite its high core-count. Both chips have their TDP rated at 105W and include a Wraith Prism RGB cooling solution.

Scaling and manufacturing of ever shrinking semiconductor devices is becoming more challenging as smaller nodes are introduced. As we have approached 7 nanometers, economies of scale are becoming more influential than scales of manufacturing. For example, the development of the 7 nm node development cost more than 3 billion USD, while smaller nodes are expected to see that price cross the 5 billion USD mark. So given that we are approaching the limit where we can't squeeze more transistors in two-dimensional space without huge economical impact, we have to utilize another dimension in order to keep performance improvements coming.

AMD has filed a patent for cooling a 3D stacked memory with thermo-electric coolers - TECs, also known as Peltier devices. Being that TECs are made out of P-type and N-type semiconductors, they can easily be integrated into existing silicon manufacturing methods and controlled like a regular device. The process AMD has patented basically describes how to insert the TEC between memory and logic devices, where it draws heat from either logic or memory with each side being able to dissipate the heat. That effect is possible due to nature of TEC, where the direction of heat flow is changed inverting the voltage.

With growing revenues coming from strong sales of Ryzen and Radeon products, AMD is more focused on innovation than ever. It is important for any company to re-invest its capital into R&D, to stay ahead. And that is exactly what AMD is doing by focusing on future technologies, while constantly improving existing solutions.

On June 13th, AMD published a new method for instruction scheduling of shader programs for a GPU. The method operates on fixed number of registers. It works in five stages:

• Compute liveness-based register usage across all basic blocks
• Computer range of numbers of waves for shader program
• Assess the impact of available post-register allocation optimizations
• Compute the scoring data based on number of waves of the plurality of registers
• Compute optimal number of waves

Today, AMD has released their latest Radeon Software Adrenalin 2019 Edition drivers. Beta version 19.6.3 offers support for F1 2019 and comes with a host of addressed issues. A couple of these fixes include one for system hangs when overclocking or underclocking GPU memory in a three display Eyefinity configuration and Radeon ReLive and Radeon Overlay failing to function correctly when starting to record with Radeon Relive. AMD has also fixed the issue where Hyper V enabled systems would fail to boot after driver install. Even with a solid list of fixes, some problems continue to persist while new ones have been found. One of the issues listed with this release is that Radeon Overlay may fail to enable when playing DOTA 2 in fullscreen, meanwhile Facebook streaming and uploading is currently unavailable. There is also an issue with the graphics driver failing to uninstall using the express uninstall option on Ryzen APUs. Sadly there were no performance improvements listed with these drivers.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 19.6.2 betaThe change-log follows.

According to Wccftech, Frank Azor, a co-founder, vice president and general manager of Alienware, will be joining AMD as Chief Gaming Officer. Starting on the third of July, Frank will be leaving Dell and will officially join AMD, as Wccftech suggests. The announcement from AMD should follow after third of July if that is the case. Frank has worked for Alienware/Dell for almost 25 years in its purpose to bring alien like gaming PCs to the market.He posted on Alienware community website:

"Family, as you saw in Ray's earlier announcement, I'll be leaving Dell as of July 3 to take on a new challenge.
A little over 21 years ago, I met a couple of lunatics who had an idea they called Alienware. When I met them and learned about the company they were trying to build, I thought to myself, "This would be the coolest job ever." I was right, but none of us ever dreamed the brand would come this far - which is a result of all of you, your hard work and passion... ". You can read it fully here.

These speculations about the move to AMD aren't confirmed yet and the situation is likely to change, so take this with a grain of salt.

Today an article was posted on Intel's internal employee-only portal called "Circuit News". The post, titled "AMD competitive profile: Where we go toe-to-toe, why they are resurgent, which chips of ours beat theirs" goes into detail about the recent history of AMD and how the company achieved its tremendous growth in recent years. Further, Intel talks about where they see the biggest challenges with AMD's new products, and what the company's "secret sauce" is to fight against these improvements.The full article follows:

El Chapuzas Informático has posted an early review of the AMD Ryzen 5 3600 which was tested on a Gigabyte Aorus Gaming 7 WiFi motherboard, G.Skill FlareX DDR4 @ 3200 MHz and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti FE graphics card. Looking at the data presented, it becomes clear the performance on offer if real looks to be quite impressive. The site compared AMD's latest offering to the Intel Core i9-9900K and the AMD Ryzen 7 2700X with the Ryzen 5 3600 typically slotting in between the two and in some cases beating both. This is interesting to note as the Ryzen 7 2700X offers similar clock speeds to the Ryzen 5 3600 but the former has a 2C/4T advantage. Even so, the newer AMD CPU tends to outpace the Zen+ based Ryzen 7 2700X in multiple tests. In Cinebench R15, for example, the Ryzen 5 3600 had the lead in single-core performance while multi-core was held by the Ryzen 7 2700X. Cinebench R20 roughly mimics these results as well.

While memory latency was quite high 80.5 ns, it didn't seem to impact performance to any serious degree. In fact, in wPrime 2.10 32M running on a single core showed the Ryzen 5 3600 coming in just behind the Intel Core i9-9900K while being faster than the previous generation Intel Core i7-8700K, i7-8600K, and AMD Ryzen 7 2700X and 1700X. That said, the previous generation Ryzen processors were far slower here were as the Intel chips were still competitive. In the multi-core test, the Ryzen 7 2700X took a slight lead while the Ryzen 7 1700X was a bit slower than the Ryzen 5 3600. One interesting quirk of note was the lack of write speed on the memory with the Ryzen 5 3600 only hitting 25.6 GB/s which is quite a drop from the 47 GB/s seen on the Ryzen 7 1700X and Ryzen 7 2700X. However this could be due to the X470 motherboard being used or maybe an issue with sub timings on the memory, something that will need to be verified in future reviews.

It seems that AMD either had a) unrevealed plans to launch their online store on more countries and markets alongside the introduction of the Navi-powered RX 5700 XT, or b) a change of mind when it comes to permitted availability of their collectors', limited-edition graphics card for the rest of the world. Originally reported to only be launched in the United States and China, an AMD representative (under the handle dprairie_AMD over at Reddit) has seemingly confirmed that the company will be bringing its limited-edition graphics cards to more markets than previously expected - though it still isn't a global release. The statement from Reddit follows.

Reddit user @dprairie_AMDHi all,
Friendly reminder that just because someone writes it doesn't mean it is true.... We will be expanding AMD.com sales to more countries, so we expect the 50th anniversary edition will also be available in: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Sorry we are not offering global availability at this point. We hear you on the desire. The team is focused on expanding into more regions/countries while making sure we can fully support customers.