AMD is readying its second generation Ryzen Pro socket AM4 processors targeted at commercial desktops in a corporate environment, with additional management and security features. These chips are based on the company's new 12 nm "Pinnacle Ridge" silicon. Its biggest differentiator from the other Ryzen SKUs is the GuardMI feature, which is a collective of Secure Memory Encryption, a hardened Secure Boot feature, Secure Production Environment (useful for big organizations that oversee the manufacturing of their hardware, and fTPM.

AMD's 2nd gen Ryzen Pro lineup initially includes three models: the 8-core/16-thread Ryzen 7 Pro 2700X, the Ryzen 7 Pro 2700, and the 6-core/12-thread Ryzen 5 Pro 2600. Some of these chips are clocked marginally lower than their non-Pro siblings. The Pro 2700X ticks at 3.60 GHz, with 4.10 GHz (vs. 3.70 to 4.30 GHz of the 2700X); while the Pro 2700 and Pro 2600 are clocked on par with its non-Pro counterparts. The decision behind clocking the Pro 2700X lower could have something to do with TDP, which is now 95W, compared to the 105W of the normal 2700X.

AMD is giving finishing touches to its Athlon Pro 200GE socket AM4 SoC, which it could position against Intel's $50-ish Celeron LGA1151 SKUs. Leaked slides by PCEva reveals that it's a heavily cut-down 14 nm "Raven Ridge" die. For starters, unlike previous-generation Athlon-branded products on platforms such as FM2, the Athlon 200GE won't lack integrated graphics. Only 3 out of 11 Vega NGCUs will be enabled, translating to 192 stream processors, which should be enough for desktop, 2D, and video acceleration, but not serious gaming, even at low resolutions.

The CPU config is 2-core/4-thread, with 512 KB L2 cache per core, and 4 MB shared L3 cache. The CPU is clocked at 3.20 GHz, with no Precision Boost features. You still get GuardMI commercial-grade hardware security features. There is a big catch with one of its uncore components. The PCIe root-complex only supports PCI-Express 3.0 x4 out of your motherboard's topmost x16 slot, not even x8. Ryzen "Raven Ridge" APUs already offer a crippled x8 connectivity through this slot. AMD claims that the Athlon 200GE will be "up to 19 percent faster" than Intel Pentium G4560 at productivity work. When it launches on 6th September with market availability from 18th September, the Athlon Pro 200GE will be priced at USD $55.

AMD is unique in the world of computing as the only company with both high-performance CPU and GPU products. For the past several years we have been executing our multi-generational leadership product and architectural roadmap. Just in the last 18 months, we successfully introduced and ramped our strongest set of products in more than a decade and our business has grown dramatically as we gained market share across the PC, gaming and datacenter markets.

The industry is at a significant inflection point as the pace of Moore's Law slows while the demand for computing and graphics performance continues to grow. This trend is fueling significant shifts throughout the industry and creating new opportunities for companies that can successfully bring together architectural, packaging, system and software innovations with leading-edge process technologies. That is why at AMD we have invested heavily in our architecture and product roadmaps, while also making the strategic decision to bet big on the 7nm process node. While it is still too early to provide more details on the architectural and product advances we have in store with our next wave of products, it is the right time to provide more detail on the flexible foundry sourcing strategy we put in place several years ago.

With its 9th generation Core processors, Intel is re-introducing soldered IHS (integrated heatspreaders), at least in its top two premium models, the Core i9-9900K, and the Core i7-9700K. Intel refers to this feature as STIM (soldered thermal interface material). AMD implements soldered IHS across its Ryzen "Summit Ridge," "Pinnacle Ridge," and Threadripper families. XFastest took apart an i9-9900K to confirm that Intel is indeed using solder. Soldered IHS is generally preferred for better heat-transfer characteristics, compared to fluid TIMs. The use of fluid TIMs prompts some serious enthusiasts to even "de-lid" (run their processors without the IHS).

The 8-core "Whiskey Lake-S" die could be around 178 mm² in area, with the addition of two more cores, and 4.5 MB more cache (L2 + L3), over its predecessor. You'll recall that the 6-core "Coffee Lake" die measures 150 mm², a 25 mm² gain over the 4-core "Kaby Lake" die. We aren't expecting Intel to change the iGPU or uncore components. Intel is building these dies on the same 14 nm++ silicon fabrication node as "Coffee Lake," with the only architectural difference being silicon-level hardening against certain security vulnerabilities.

MSI, the world-leading motherboard manufacturer, announces that MSI MEG X399 CREATION is on shelf now. MSI MEG X399 CREATION is the ultimate motherboard for creators, with design inspired by the concept of element explosion and packed with exclusive features to unleash the overall performance for incredible 32 cores CPU. This time, MEG X399 CREATION also creates incredibly OC records to highlight its maximum performance, with stunning NO.1 records on 9 benchmarks, as table shown below.

Today, gamers around the world will face off against an ancient, forgotten evil power in the highly anticipated Strange Brigade. AMD and Rebellion have worked closely to ensure smooth, immersive gameplay on Radeon RX Graphics in Strange Brigade.

• FreeSync 2 HDR: Brings low-latency, high-brightness pixels and a wide color gamut to High Dynamic Range (HDR) content for PC displays, enabling Strange Brigade to preserve details in scenes that may otherwise be lost due to limited contrast ratios. Ultimately, it lets bright scenes to appear much brighter and dark scenes to be truly dark - all while keeping details visible.
• Asnychronous Compute: Strange Brigade by default has asynchronous compute enabled improving GPU utilization, input latency, efficiency and performance by tapping into GPU resources that would otherwise be underutilized. For example, running various screen space effects during the shadow map rendering.

Newer generations of NVIDIA GPUs such as "Pascal" and "Maxwell" meet or exceed the hardware requirements of AMD FreeSync, as they feature DisplayPort 1.4 connectors that include the features of DisplayPort 1.2a, required for VESA adaptive sync. In a bid to promote its own G-SYNC technology, NVIDIA doesn't expose this feature to monitors or software that support FreeSync. Redditor "bryf50" may have found a way around this. The trick is deceptively simple, however, you'll need games that support on-the-fly switching of rendering GPUs, and an AMD Radeon graphics card at hand.

When poking around with system settings in "Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth," bryf50 discovered that you can switch the "rendering GPU" on the fly, without having to physically connect your display to that newly selected GPU. You can start the game with your display connected to VGA1 (an AMD Radeon GPU), and switch the renderer in-game to VGA2 (an NVIDIA GPU). FreeSync should continue to work, while you enjoy the performance of that NVIDIA GPU. In theory, this should allow you to pair your high-end GTX 1080 Ti with a $50 RX 550 that supports FreeSync, instead of paying the $200+ G-SYNC tax.

It's been a tumultuous few days for AMD, as the company has seen Jim Anderson, Computing and Graphics Group leader after the departure of Raja Koduri, leave the company, at a time of soaring share value for the company (hitting $25.26 and leaving short positions well, short, by $2.67 billion.) However, there's one particular piece of news that is most relevant for the company: Globalfoundries' announcement to stop all ongoing development on the 7 nm node.

This is particularly important for a variety of reasons. The most important one is this: Globalfoundries' inability to execute on the 7 nm node leaves AMD fully free to procure chips and technology from competing foundries. If you remember, AMD's spin-off of GlobalFoundries left the former with the short end of the stick, having to cater to GlobalFoundries' special pricing, and paying for the privilege of accessing other foundries' inventories. Of course, the Wafer Supply Agreement (WSA) that is in place will have to be amended - again - but the fact is this: AMD wants 7 nm products, and GlobalFoundries can't provide.To the forumites: this piece is marked as an editorial

Not long ago, droves of cybersecurity research-backed short-sellers wrote obituaries of AMD after buying themselves shorting positions against the AMD stock on the backs of "Spectre-rivaling" security vulnerabilities comically named "Ryzenfall," et al. With AMD stock closing at 12-year highs of above $25.26 on Monday, those short-sellers (who now have to cough up interest on their shorting positions), bled $177.5 million in a single day. On Monday's peak stock price, short-sellers were a staggering $370 million down in the gutters. AMD's gains throughout 2018 impoverished short-sellers by over $2.67 billion.

AMD today released version 18.8.2 Beta of their Radeon Adrenalin drivers. This driver version brings with it support for Strange Brigade, so if you're planning on partaking in some gaming over that title's waters, you should have this driver suite. Apart from that, there are just some known issues with this driver release: minor corruption on Strange Brigades' Vulkan renderer on Windows 7 systems; application hangs on V-Sync and FreeSync (at the same time) enabled systems (also on Windows 7); and Radeon Overlay's functioning in multiple-GPU configurations under the Vulkan renderer. Grab these drivers from the link below.DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 18.8.2 Beta

With the arrival of its 2nd generation Ryzen Threadripper HEDT processors, AMD cut prices of the socket-compatible first-generation parts. A highlight of this move is the availability of the 12-core/24-thread Threadripper 1920X at $399. This chip trades blows with the Core i9-7900X in multi-threaded tasks, and considering stores are still listing Intel's 6-core/12-thread Core i7-7800X at $390 and the 8-core/16-thread i7-7820X at $469, could make for a better alternative, with more PCIe lanes. The 8-core/16-thread Threadripper 1900X is now down to $299, or less than the SEP price of the Ryzen 7 2700X. The 1900X still gives you 64-lane PCIe and quad-channel memory.

Much of the secret sauce that made Intel processors faster than AMD is going sour, as the cybersecurity community is finding gaping security vulnerabilities by exploiting features such as speculative execution. Intel's microcode updates that mitigate these vulnerabilities impact performance. Intel isn't too happy about public performance numbers put out by its customers, which it fears could blunt the competitive edge of its products. The company has hence updated the license terms governing the microcode update distribution to explicitly forbid its users from publishing comparative "before/after" performance numbers of patched processors.

The updated license for the microcode update has this controversial sentence (pay attention to "v"):

"You will not, and will not allow any third party to (i) use, copy, distribute, sell or offer to sell the Software or associated documentation; (ii) modify, adapt, enhance, disassemble, decompile, reverse engineer, change or create derivative works from the Software except and only to the extent as specifically required by mandatory applicable laws or any applicable third party license terms accompanying the Software; (iii) use or make the Software available for the use or benefit of third parties; or (iv) use the Software on Your products other than those that include the Intel hardware product(s), platform(s), or software identified in the Software; or (v) publish or provide any Software benchmark or comparison test results."

ADATA Technology, a leading manufacturer of high-performance DRAM modules and NAND flash products, today announces that it will be showcasing its latest products and solutions at IFA 2018 in Berlin (Messe Berlin, IFA My Media, Hall 17, stand 120). Among the products to be on show will be ADATA's latest XPG gaming hardware including RGB DDR4 memory modules, PCIe SSDs, and accessories. In addition, its new high-capacity A1-rated microSDXC memory card and rugged external hard disk drive (HDD) will be on hand.

"We look forward to being at IFA 2018 and showcasing our latest portfolio of products, ranging from gaming hardware to storage solutions," said Peter Wu, Managing Director of ADATA's European operations. "As a key consumer electronics event located in the heart of Europe, IFA will give us the opportunity to demonstrate why we continue to be a leader in DRAM and NAND flash products, but also show how we are leveraging our core competencies to expand our presence in the region, especially in terms of gaming and eSports."

GIGABYTE introduced an Aorus-branded, quasi-premium mini-ITX motherboard based on AMD B450 chipset, for socket AM4 processors, the B450-I Aorus Pro WiFi. The board draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX and 8-pin EPS, conditioning it for the SoC with a lean 4+2 phase VRM. The AM4 SoC is wired to two DDR4 DIMM slots, supporting up to 32 GB of dual-channel DDR4 memory; and the board's lone PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slot.

Storage connectivity on the B450-I Aorus Pro WiFi includes an M.2-2280 slot with PCI-Express 3.0 x4 and SATA 6 Gbps wiring; and four SATA 6 Gbps ports. USB connectivity includes six USB 3.0 ports (four on the rear panel, two by headers); and two USB 3.1 gen 2 (both on the rear panel). With just 6-channel jacks, the onboard audio solution may look cheap, but is redeemed by Realtek ALC1220 CODEC. The Intel 9260 adapter is at the helm of wireless networking, with 802.11ac + Bluetooth 5.0, while GbE is handled by Intel i211AT. There's also some RGB LED fun to be had, with two 4-pin ARGB headers, and a small 8-pixel diffuser behind the PCB. GIGABYTE could price this board around $120.

British PC maker Tranquil PC is making its comeback with three new fanless mini PCs based on AMD Ryzen Embedded SoCs. The three are part of the "mini multi display" series, and are its variants, named "Basic," "Advance," and "Advance+." The three feature Tranquil PC's latest octagonal fanless aluminium chassis measuring 180 mm x 157 mm x 54 mm. The body panels of the case double up as heatsink for the sub-25 Watt SoCs. Connectivity is common between the three. On the front-panel, you get two USB 3.0 ports, one of which is type-C; HDA audio jacks, and interestingly an RS232 serial COM port.

The rear panel gives you access to four DisplayPort 1.2 connectors, which can each drive a 4K UHD display; two additional type-A USB 3.0 ports, two 1 GbE interfaces, and hardpoints for the WLAN antennae (802.11ac + Bluetooth 4.1). SoC variant and storage is what differentiates the three. The Basic trim gives you a Ryzen Embedded V1202B (2-core/4-thread, up to 3.20 GHz) chip, 8 GB of DDR4 memory, and 256 GB of SSD storage. The Advance trim gets you the faster 4-core/8-thread Ryzen Embedded V1605B (up to 3.60 GHz); 16 GB of memory, and 256 GB SSD storage. The Advance+ trim steps that up with 32 GB of memory, and 1 TB of SSD storage. The company didn't reveal pricing.

Positional audio, like Socialism, follows a cycle of glamorization and investment every few years. Back in 2011-12 when AMD maintained a relatively stronger position in the discrete GPU market, and held GPGPU superiority, it gave a lot of money to GenAudio and Tensilica to co-develop the TrueAudio technology, a GPU-accelerated positional audio DSP, which had a whopping four game title implementations, including and limited to "Thief," "Star Citizen," "Lichdom: Battlemage," and "Murdered: Soul Suspect." The TrueAudio Next DSP which debuted with "Polaris," introduced GPU-accelerated "audio ray-casting" technology, which assumes that audio waves interact differently with different surfaces, much like light; and hence positional audio could be made more realistic. There were a grand total of zero takers for TrueAudio Next. Riding on the presumed success of its RTX technology, NVIDIA wants to develop audio ray-tracing further.

A very curious sentence caught our eye in NVIDIA's micro-site for Turing. The description of RT cores reads that they are specialized components that "accelerate the computation of how light and sound travel in 3D environments at up to 10 Giga Rays per second." This is an ominous sign that NVIDIA is developing a full-blown positional audio programming model that's part of RTX, with an implementation through GameWorks. Such a technology, like TrueAudio Next, could improve positional audio realism by treating sound waves like light and tracing their paths from their origin (think speech from an NPC in a game), to the listener as the sound bounces off the various surfaces in the 3D scene. Real-time ray-tracing(-ish) has captured the entirety of imagination at NVIDIA marketing to the extent that it is allegedly willing to replace "GTX" with "RTX" in its GeForce GPU nomenclature. We don't mean to doomsay emerging technology, but 20 years of development in positional audio has shown that it's better left to game developers to create their own technology that sounds somewhat real; and that initiatives from makers of discrete sound cards (a device on the brink of extinction) and GPUs makers bore no fruit.

AMD today announced the availability of world's most powerful desktop processor, the 2nd Gen AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX processor with 32 cores and 64 threads. Designed to power the ultimate computing experiences, 2nd Gen AMD Ryzen Threadripper processors are built using 12 nm "Zen+" x86 processor architecture and offer the most threads on any desktop processor with the flagship model delivering up to 53% greater performance than the competition's flagship model. Second Gen AMD Ryzen Threadripper processors support the most I/O, and are compatible with existing AMD X399 chipset motherboards via a simple BIOS update, offering builders a broad choice for designing the ultimate high-end desktop or workstation PC.

"We created Ryzen Threadripper processors because we saw an opportunity to deliver unheard-of levels of multithreaded computing for the demanding needs of creators, gamers, and PC enthusiasts in the HEDT market," said Jim Anderson, senior vice president and general manager, Computing and Graphics Business Group, AMD. "With the 2nd Gen processor family we took that challenge to a whole new level - delivering the biggest, most powerful desktop processor the world has ever seen."

Cooler Master, a global leader in computer hardware and peripherals manufacturing, announces the Wraith Ripper, the official air cooler for the 2nd Gen AMD Ryzen Threadripper desktop processor, as part of an exclusive partnership with AMD. The Wraith Ripper is designed, specifically, to keep the 2nd Gen AMD Ryzen Threadripper cool under the most strenuous conditions and manage up to 250W TDP.

AMD today announced a high-performance addition to the Radeon Pro WX workstation graphics lineup with the AMD Radeon Pro WX 8200 graphics card, delivering the world's best workstation graphics performance for under $1,000 for real-time visualization, virtual reality (VR) and photorealistic rendering. AMD also unveiled major updates to Radeon ProRender and a new alliance with the Vancouver Film School, enabling the next-generation of creators to realize their VFX visions through the power of Radeon Pro graphics.

The new turbocharged AMD Radeon Pro WX 8200 graphics card allows professionals to effortlessly accelerate design and rendering. It is the ideal graphics card for design and manufacturing, media and entertainment, and architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) workloads at all stages of product development.

ASUS today introduced the VP248QGL-P, a cost-effective 24-inch gaming-grade monitor with AMD FreeSync technology support. If you can get past the TN-film panel with 1080p resolution, you'll also find that it features response times as low as 1 ms, and up to 75 Hz refresh-rates. Viewing angles are 170°/160° (H/V). Among its feature-set is ASUS Splendid display management software, blue light filtering, and ASUS GamePlus, which is a collection of game genre-specific display presets. Display inputs include one each of DisplayPort 1.2a, HDMI 1.4a, and D-Sub. Stereo speakers and 3.5 mm-jack make for the rest of it. Expect a sub-$175 price.

Goldman Sachs, citing problems with Intel's 10 nm manufacturing process delivery - which was supposed to be available in the market for years now - has reduced the blue giant's stock rating. Previously at a "neutral" stance - already downgraded in the face of Intel's manufacturing woes - the stock is now at a "Sell" level. Even though Intel is still outperforming the S&P 500's 6.7 percent return with their (current) 8.6 percent this year through Thursday, the outlook isn't good for the company.

"We see Intel's struggles with 10 nm process technology having ramifications in terms of its competitive position - across a broad set of products. While the 10nm push is well-publicized at this point, we believe Intel's manufacturing issues could potentially be deeper-rooted than what most think and could have a sustained impact on market share and/or spending levels as Intel competes with a growing/stronger TSMC eco-system."

Goldman Sachs Analyst Toshiya Hari

ENERMAX has put up a product page for a revised version of its LIQTECH TR4 II 240 liquid cooler, which they've readied in expectation of AMD's second-gen Threadripper CPU lineup. Remember that the new AMD Threadrippers will bring about much increased levels of performance due to their doubled core-counts in relation to first-gen Threadrippers - and of course, a doubling in core counts necessarily translates into increased power consumption, even if AMD did bring about some more power efficiency improvements to the design (besides those already enabled by the usage of the 12 nm fabrication process).

The new LIQTECH TR4 II features support for AMD's TR4 socket, and according to ENERMAX, can dissipate up to 500 W of waste heat due to the usage of multiple technologies, such as their patented Shunt-Channel-Technology (SCT) which boosts thermal conductivity, alongside an EF1 pump with high flow rate up to 450L/h. Innovative batwing blades improves overall airflow for increased thermal dissipation at the radiator level, and revised pumps work to allow fluid circulation to flow unimpeded. Additionally, ENERMAX have added addressable RGB functionality to the water block, so users can personalize their cooling champion. The LIQTECH TR4 II coolers will be available in this month of August - right around the time of AMD's Threadripper II.

MSI today announced the MEG X399 Creation, its flagship socket TR4 motherboard, with out of the box support for 2nd generation AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2000 processors. The company showed off this board at the 2018 Computex, held this June. Although built in the ATX form-factor, this board is recommended only for EATX-capable cases. The highlight of this board is its gargantuan 19-phase CPU VRM that's optimized for overclocking event the 32-core Threadripper 2990WX. The board draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX, two 8-pin EPS, and an optional 4-pin Molex. Heat drawn from the CPU VRM MOSFETS is dissipated not just by a large heatsink that spans almost the entire width of the board, but also a secondary heatsink cooling the SoC phases, via a heat-pipe. The huge chipset heatsink cools not just the X399 chipset, but also three M.2-NVMe slots (two M.2-22110 and one M.2-2280). You get 4 more M.2-2280 slots over the new M.2-Xpander Aero, which is a PCI-Express 3.0 x16 riser card that converts the slot to four M.2-2280 slots with x4 wiring, ventilating them with a 100 mm fan. It ends up looking like a graphics card in doing so.

Expansion includes eight DDR4 DIMM slots supporting up to 2048 GB of DDR4 ECC memory; four PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots (full-time x16/x8/x16/x4), and an x1. Storage connectivity includes 7 M.2-NVMe slots (3 onboard, 4 via the included M.2-Xpander Aero accessory); and eight SATA 6 Gbps ports. Connectivity includes MSI's highest-grade onboard audio solution combining an ALC1220 with a headphones amplifier, and audio-grade capacitors; and two 1 GbE interfaces driven by Intel i219-V controllers (10 GbE is a notable absentee); and 802.11ac + BT 5.0 WLAN. You get 10 USB 3.1 ports on the rear panel (including a type-C port), and four USB 3.1 ports via front-panel headers). RGB LED diffusers dot the rear I/O shroud, the chipset heatsink, and the reverse side of the PCB. The board is expected to be priced around $500.

AMD is giving final touches to the new Radeon Pro WX 8200 professional graphics card. Launched over a year following the Radeon Pro WX 9100, the WX 8200 has a leaner feature-set, while continuing to be based on AMD's current IP. The card still uses the 14 nm "Vega 10" MCM, but with a core-config akin to that of the RX Vega 56. You get 56 NGCUs working out to 3,584 stream processors, 224 TMUs, 64 ROPs, and a 4096-bit wide HBM2 memory interface, handling 16 GB of memory on this card. The air-cooled card also has a leaner connectivity load-out, with just four mini-DisplayPort 1.4 connectors (the WX 9100 comes with six). Its 8-pin + 6-pin connectors are positioned at the rear-end to be SSI workstation-friendly. The card surfaced on CompuBench database, in which its performance numbers are only slightly behind those of the WX 9100, but significantly better than the "Polaris 20" based WX 7100. AMD is expected to launch this card at SIGGRAPH 2018.

EK Water Blocks, the premium computer liquid cooling gear manufacturer, is releasing a new AM4 socket based monoblock tailor-made for the ASRock X470 Taichi and ASRock X470 Taichi Ultimate motherboards. The EK-FB ASRock X470 Taichi RGB Monoblock has an integrated 4-pin RGB LED strip and it offers unparalleled aesthetics alongside with superior performance and VRM section cooling! The RGB LED in the monoblock is compatible with ASRock Polychrome RGB, thus offering a full lighting customization experience.

The EK-FB ASRock X470 Taichi RGB is a complete all-in-one (CPU and motherboard) liquid cooling solution for the ASRock X470 Taichi and ASRock X470 Taichi Ultimate motherboards that support the second generation of AMD Ryzen and 7th Generation A-series/Athlon processors.