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.

Enthusiast thermal solutions brand CRYORIG releases the new H7 Plus and M9 Plus dual fan heatsinks. Based on the best-selling H7 and M9i/a, CRYORIG is now offering these two models with a direct dual fan upgrade for best in class performance. Adding an additional fan makes the overall heatsink airflow even better optimized to expel heat directly into the rear system fan and out of the PC case. With an included PWM Y-Cable, users can have both front and back fan speed synced together for optimal efficiency.

AMD announced the "Raise the Game" bundle. The company is giving away three AAA games with its Radeon RX Vega 64, RX Vega 56, RX 580, and RX 570 graphics cards (you get all three games when you purchase any of those graphics cards). Assassin's Creed Odyssey is the star attraction here. The latest addition to the Assassin's Creed franchise adds a straight $59.99 value to your graphics card purchase. You also get "Strange Brigade," a $39.99 upcoming co-op adventure shooter set in a Tomb Raider-esque setting. Lastly, there's Star Control: Origins, the upcoming space RTS by Stardock.

This is probably the first time that a GPU vendor is bundling only upcoming games, which at launch-prices add tremendous value to your graphics card, especially some of the cheaper RX 570 ones. Assassin's Creed Origins releases this October, while Strange Brigade lands late-August, and Star Control: Origins this September. The bundle is limited to participating retailers, and applicable to graphics cards sold between August 7, 2018 and ends November 3, 2018 (or until stocks last). You get a master coupon that must be redeemed on AMD website before 31st December, which puts out the UPlay and Steam keys for the games.

Lenovo put up an updated specs sheet of its ThinkCentre M725 small form-factor desktop, with more processor options. Notable additions to these include the upcoming AMD Ryzen 3 2300X and Ryzen 5 2500X quad-core socket AM4 processors. The two chips succeed the 1300X and 1500X, respectively, and are designed to capture sub-$150 price-points, competing with Intel's Core i3 "Coffee Lake" quad-core processor series. It's rumored that the 2300X could even be priced close to the $100-mark, making it competitive with the i3-8100, while the 2500X could be priced competitively with the i3-8300.

AMD is giving these quad-core chips all its innovations it can muster to make them competitive with Intel's chips - the two feature unlocked base-clock multipliers, Precision Boost (Intel's Core i3 chips lack Turbo Boost), and XFR 2.0, which automatically overclock beyond the max boost frequencies. You also get the latest Precision Boost 2.0 algorithm that ensures each of the four cores gets varying degrees of boost clocks. Based on the 12 nm "Pinnacle Ridge" die, the two chips feature a 2+2 CCX configuration. The 2300X has 4 MB of L3 cache enabled per CCX (8 MB total), while the 2500X gives you the full 8 MB per CCX L3 cache, for a total of 16 MB. TDP of both chips are rated at 65W, and AMD could bundle the Wraith Stealth cooler with the two.

TSMC is the most popular semiconductor foundry, has been called the "savior of fabless chipmakers," and is also one of Taiwan's most valuable companies. It's also the principal foundry for chipmakers such as NVIDIA and AMD (GPUs). Its most valuable production, however, is that of Apple's A-series application processors that drive the main breadwinners of the company - iPhones. Imagine the cataclysm unleashed if a virus were to spread in the company that contract-manufactures extremely complex chip designs. According to Reuters, that cataclysm is upon TSMC.

According to DigiTimes, a WannaCry-variant ransomware infected not just workstations at TSMC, but also certain fab machines (which are driven by computers). The infection has caused a shutdown of several of TSMC's fabs, including its high-volume 12-inch ones. These machines apparently run on unpatched Windows 7, probably because they're connected to a private network instead of the Internet. TSMC has tasked all of its human resources to disinfect the affected machines. The company hopes to have its fabs fully operational by Monday (13th August), but not before the downtime affects the supply-chains Apple and other high-value clients. An estimated $179 million is wiped from TSMC's Q3 revenues due to this downtime. Although it could affect shipments of APs to Apple, impact on the inventories of Apple products could be minimal, according to market analysts. It remains to be seen if TSMC's other clients see similarly minimal impact; or if TSMC is prioritizing a trillion-dollar client.

Tech Day slides leaked to the web by Kitguru provide a confirmation of how AMD is wiring out the additional two dies on the 24-core and 32-core Ryzen Threadripper 2000-series MCMs on the socket TR4 platform. We had speculated that because the quad-channel DDR4 memory and PCIe interfaces are wired to two diagonally-opposite dies on AMD X399 chipset motherboards; in the interest of backwards compatibility, AMD could wire out memory and PCIe from just two out of four dies on the multi-chip module, and have the two additional dies seek memory and PCIe over the InfinityFabric interfaces.

The obvious trade-offs with this design choice is that latencies to the dies with indirect memory/PCIe access are higher, and that reflects heavily in AMD's own performance figures for comparing the 32-core 2990WX with the 16-core 2950X from the same generation. The 2990WX is "only" up to 64 percent faster than 2950X at Cinebench R15 nT, despite having double the number of cores. To its credit, the 2950X has higher clock-speeds (3.50 GHz nominal with 4.40 GHz boost) than the 2990WX (3.00 GHz nominal with 4.00 GHz boost). The presentation also puts out interesting bits of information such as AMD's own performance numbers showing 10-15 percent performance gains between the 2950X and the 1950X; and performance gains of the 2990WX over Intel Core i9-7980XE.

AMD today released version 18.8.1 beta of its Radeon Software Adrenalin drivers that keep your graphics card's performance equal to that of a well/oiled machine (figuratively, of course). The new software version brings driver-level support and improvements for the upcoming (and highly awaited) Monster Hunter: World. for that game, this driver release promises up to 5% and 6% increased performance on AMD's RX Vega graphics card and RX 580, respectively, compared to AMD's 18.6.1 driver release at 1080p.

This driver also adds support for World of Warcraft : Battle for Azeroth, We Happy Few, and Madden NFL 19. Another interesting additions are the extended functions for the Vulkan API, supporting more commands than previous driver versions. As always, you can download these drivers right here on TPU - just follow the link below. Feel free to jump towards after the break for some more details on this driver release.DOWNLOAD:AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 18.8.1 Beta

AMD announced its second-generation Ryzen Threadripper high-end desktop (HEDT) processor series, succeeding its lean and successful first-generation that disrupted much of Intel's Core X HEDT series, forcing Intel to open up new high-core-count (HCC) market segments beyond its traditional $1000 price-point. AMD's 16-core $999 1950X proved competitive with even Intel's 12-core and 14-core SKUs priced well above the $1200-mark; and now AMD looks to beat Intel at its game, with the introduction of new 24-core and 32-core SKUs at prices that are sure to spell trouble for Intel's Core X HCC lineup. The lineup is partially open to pre-orders, with two SKUs launching within August (including the 32-core one), and two others in October.

At the heart of AMD's second-generation Ryzen Threadripper is the new 12 nm "Pinnacle Ridge" die, which made its debut with the 2nd Generation Ryzen AM4 family. This die proved to introduce 3-5 percent IPC improvements in single-threaded tasks, and multi-threaded improvements with an improved Precision Boost II algorithm, which boosted frequencies of each of 8 cores on-die. The Threadripper is still a multi-chip module, with 2 to 4 of these dies, depending on the SKU. There are four of these - the 12-core/24-thread Threadripper 2920X, the 16-core/32-thread Threadripper 2950X; the 24-core/48-thread Threadripper 2970WX, and the flagship 32-core/64-thread Threadripper 2990WX.

AMD France blurted out the Cinebench R15 score of the upcoming Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX 32-core/64-thread HEDT processor. The web-design team of AMD's French website inadvertently posted Cinebench R15 numbers of the 2990WX, along with their own tested numbers of Intel's current flagship, the Core i9-7980XE. Cinebench is AMD's favorite multi-threaded benchmark, and it should come as no surprise that its new 32-core/64-thread 2990WX absolutely smashes the 18-core/36-thread i9-7980XE.

The Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX has an nT (multi-threaded) score of 5,099 points, compared to 3,355 points scored by the i9-7980XE. The comparison saw memory (4x 8 GB DDR4-3200), graphics (NVIDIA GTX 1080), and storage (Samsung 850 Pro) constant between the two machines. The Intel machine featured a GIGABYTE X299 Aorus Gaming 9 motherboard, while the AMD machine used an unnamed socket TR4 motherboard. CPU cooling was not mentioned. AMD was, of course, quick to redact the web-page, but the Internet never forgets.

Intel's client desktop processor lineup is under tremendous pressure owing to competition from AMD, with the company having to roll out entire processor generations over mere 2-3 quarters. You'll recount that Intel was merrily trotting around with its barely-innovative 7th Gen "Kaby Lake" family in early 2017, when AMD stunned the industry with an outperforming product lineup. The 7th generation barely lasted its planned product cycle, before Intel rushed in a pathetic sub-$500 Core X lineup, and the 8th generation "Coffee Lake" with 50-100% core-count increases. Even that is proving insufficient in the wake of 2nd generation AMD Ryzen "Pinnacle Ridge," and Intel is cutting short its product cycle with the 9th generation Core "Whiskey Lake" (or "Coffee Lake" Refresh) series, that further increase core-counts.

"Whiskey Lake" was originally planned for Q1-2019 alongside the 14 nm original Z390 chipset. Intel wasn't expecting AMD to rebound with Ryzen 2000 series (particularly the tangible IPC increases and improved multi-core boosting). And so, it decided to rush through with a new product generation yet again. The Z370 is being re-branded to Z390 (with an improved CPU VRM reference design), and what was originally meant to come out in Q1-2019, could come out by Q4-2018, at the very earliest by October. Intel reportedly planned availability sooner, but realized that distributors have heaps of unsold 8th generation Core inventory, and motherboard vendors aren't fully ready for the chip. Since getting a 9th gen Core chip doesn't warrant a new motherboard, customers would be inclined to pick up 9th generation chip with their existing boards, or any new 300-series board. This would kill the prospects of selling 8th generation Core CPUs.

Chinese PC maker Zhongshan Subor believes that there is space for a class of devices between game consoles and gaming desktops, targeted at Chinese gamers that game a lot online, and won't mind a little productivity on the side. The same class of people are repulsed by the idea of gaming desktops from traditional OEMs, which tend to be overpriced; and don't want to burn their hands building their own PC. For them, there's a new console-desktop; which runs common PC OS, plays PC versions of games, and runs PC apps, while exhibiting some characteristics of a console (perhaps a dashboard, and a highly customized user-interface stack), called simply SUBOR.

A part of what makes SUBOR affordable compared to OEM gaming desktops is because every component is purpose-built, including the SoC at the heart of it. This semi-custom SoC is codenamed "Fenghuang." The chip is a cut above the one that powers the PS4 Pro or Xbox One X. It combines a 4-core/8-thread CPU based on AMD's latest "Zen" architecture, compared to the low-power "Jaguar" derivatives that power the fastest consoles. The CPU runs at up to 3.00 GHz of clocks, and has 4 MB of L3 cache. The GPU is equally impressive: based on "Vega," it packs 24 NGCUs, translating to 1,536 stream processors, and the latest feature-set, including DirectX 12 and Vulkan. The GPU engine ticks at up to 1.30 GHz. 8 GB of GDDR5 memory across a 256-bit wide interface, is hardwired to the SoC (no memory expansion). The SUBOR will be unveiled at China Joy 2018.

To cope better with AMD 2nd generation Ryzen Threadripper processors, which come with up to four active dies on the MCM (multi-chip module), ASUS is giving away free Cooling Kits to owners of its socket TR4 motherboards, such as the ROG Zenith Extreme, ROG Strix X399-E Gaming, and Prime X399-A. The kits include a fan bracket that lets you strap a 40 mm fan onto your CPU VRM heatsink, and a so-called "SoC heatsink," designed to cool the SoC power phase MOSFETs (which now have to cope with the load of four SoC dies). The kit for the Zenith Extreme also includes a 10 mm-thick 40 mm fan, which plugs into one of your 4-pin PWM headers. The kit will neither be included with current or upcoming inventories of unsold X399 motherboards by ASUS. Customers who need it will have to contact their local ASUS office, which will verify the purchase of their ASUS X399 motherboard, and ship their kit for free.

GIGABYTE today announced its flagship socket TR4 motherboard for AMD Ryzen Threadripper processors, with out-of-the-box compatibility with 2nd generation 32-core Threadrippers. The new Aorus X399 XTREME board is part of a new breed of X399-TR4 motherboards launched/unveiled in the past few months, with reinforced VRM to cope better with the upcoming 250W TDP 24-core and 32-core processors, such as the MSI MEG X399 Creation. A brochure of this board was leaked to the web last month, and now we see it in the flesh. Technically still an ATX board, the Aorus X399 Xtreme is slightly broader, and is recommended to be installed in EATX-capable cases. Power is drawn from a 24-pin ATX, two 8-pin EPS, and an optional 6-pin PCIe power. A 10-phase VRM powers the CPU.

Expansion includes four PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots (x16/NC/x16/NC or x16/NC/x8/x8 or x8/x8/x8/x8), and an x1 slot. Storage connectivity includes three M.2 slots with gen 3.0 x4 wiring, each; and six SATA 6 Gbps ports, from which four come directly from the CPU. The onboard audio is top of the line, with an ESS Sabre DAC working the main stereo out, and a Realtek ALC1220VB handling the other 8 channels. The Sabre is slaved to the ALC1220VB, so the system only sees one audio controller. There are four network interfaces - a 10 GbE driven by an Aquantia-made controller, two 1 GbE pulled by Intel i219-V, and an 802.11ac driven by an Intel 9260 WLAN card, which also handles Bluetooth 5.0. There are 10 USB 3.1 ports at the integrated rear panel (eight running at 5 Gbps, and two at 10 Gbps, one of which is type-C). Four other 5 Gbps ports are wired internally. Of course there's the full-shebang of RGB lighting and control. Available from 8th August, the board will be priced at USD $499.99.

AMD is known for some of the most quirky retail packaging. It sold its first FX-series processor in tin boxes, and its first Ryzen Threadripper HEDT processors came in an unusually shaped box that made unpacking the processor an experience unto itself. With its second generation, AMD is poised to introduce new 24-core and 32-core SKUs, presenting the company with an opportunity to make its retail boxes even more grandiose on store shelves.

The new box features a rounded-rectangular front and rear side. A large acrylic window dominates the front, with polygonal bellows leading up to an inner case that shows off the processor as if its a piece of jewelry. This window opens up like an airtight Tupperware box, with a lock on the top, and a hinge at the bottom. Inside, there's a small orange LED lightshow powered by a couple of 2032 button cells. The reverse side also has an acrylic window looking up to the translucent orange back of the inner case, showing you the LGA of the chip. The product logo is unchanged, but a catchphrase has been added - Unlocked, Unrestrained, Uncompromising.

ASUS today announced that the ROG Strix, Prime and TUF Gaming series motherboards built on the AMD B450 chipset and supporting the latest AMD Ryzen processors are now available. AMD's Ryzen platform offers an incredible desktop compute experience with multithreaded horsepower plus accessible overclocking and gaming prowess. Earlier this year AMD launched the second-generation Ryzen family with the updated X470 chipset designed to further enhance the performance of higher-end gaming and content creation rigs. Now, AMD is launching the B450 chipset for a new generation of affordable motherboards.

The B450 is streamlined for straightforward builds and smaller form factors, and ASUS has a complete collection available now. ROG Strix B450-I and B450-F Gaming elevate the platform with signature features for serious gamers, TUF B450-Plus and B450M-Plus Gaming focus on essentials and durability, and Prime B450-Plus, B450M-A and B450M-K put a more professional face on the platform.

BIOSTAR debuts two mATX motherboards for the 1st and 2nd generation AMD AM4 Ryzen processors with the BIOSTAR B450MHC and BIOSTAR B450MH. Both BIOSTAR B450 motherboards include features found in higher-end motherboards to take full advantage of the 2nd Gen Ryzen processors. The BIOSTAR B450MHC and BIOSTAR B450MH support DDR4-1866/ 2133/ 2400/ 2667/ 2933/ 3200(OC), 1x PCIe 3.0 x16 slot, 2x PCIe 2.0 slots, 4x SATA III connectors, 1 x M.2 (B450MH only), 6x USB 3.1 Gen1 (5Gb/s) ports (4 on rear I/Os and 2 via internal headers) 6x USB 2.0 ports (2 on rear I/Os and 4 via internal headers) and more.

The BIOSTAR B450MHC and BIOSTAR B450MH are built with higher-end features to keep up with gamer demands. The B450 chipset gives gamers the option to overclock the CPU to take full advantage of the full graphic settings (not usually found in mid-range motherboards). The chipset has an efficient idle power to draw less than 2W, saving power and reducing heat when not in use. The B450 also has enhanced VRM and memory routing specifications, a featured originally introduced with the X470 design.

The leading global motherboard manufacturer, ASRock, proudly introduce the new motherboard lineup for AMD's B450 chipset, the new products improves in almost every way on its already powerful predecessor, the B350. ASRock is bringing all those improvements - and more - to users with this powerful new AMD B450 motherboard range.

ASRock's B450 motherboards are able to provide 4Kx2K (4096x2160) @ 60Hz video output via onboard DisplayPort. This means high-end monitor support will never be a problem. These boards are perfect for high resolution movie playback with movie theater quality. With 4K video, you get more vibrant, vivid detail on even the largest screens, putting you right into the action - it's almost better than being there.

GIGABYTE, a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards, today announced the release of the new B450 AORUS Motherboard series. These new models support the full spectrum of AMD Ryzen processors and boast innovative technologies including AMD StoreMI as a way to accelerate traditional HDDs to speed levels only found in SSDs. Excellence in computer experience is achieved through the use premium details such as the integrated I/O shield, next-gen Wi-Fi and USB Type-C connectivity. A new armor design highlights the contours of the AORUS falcon while providing an advanced cooling solution for one of the most critical areas of the motherboard.

With this launch, GIGABYTE is also introducing a new naming scheme for the AORUS models. It better represents model hierarchy using terminology more familiar to gamers with B450 AORUS PRO and B450 AORUS ELITE as the top options based on the B450 chipset from AMD. True optimization for all 2nd Gen Ryzen CPUs requires a robust power design and to meet all power requirements with the utmost quality, the motherboards utilize solid pins inside the power connectors.

MSI, the leading motherboard manufacturer, is proud to announce that MSI B450 motherboards are on shelf now. To satisfy all kinds of gamers and users, MSI has prepared motherboards in Performance GAMING, Arsenal GAMING and PRO Series. With more MSI exclusive features and hardware improvements, MSI B450 motherboards allow users to maximize performance and gain better gaming experiences.

According to MSI OC Lab, we are proud to achieve CPU frequency up to 5.7 GHz with three of MSI B450 motherboards. With highly optimized design and premium layout and MSI exclusive feature, Core Boost, the B450 GAMING PLUS, B450 TOMAHAWK, and B450M MORTAR all push AMD Ryzen 2600X CPU frequency rate over 5.7 GHZ by using LN2, with 5781 MHz, 5752 MHz, and 5771 MHz respectively. This is an incredible result to show that MSI B450 motherboards are perfect with higher performance.

AMD today announced the B450 motherboard chipset for socket AM4 processors and APUs. Positioned as the mid-range option from AMD's 400-series chipset family, the B450 will power motherboards priced anywhere between $70 to $160, and packs certain high-end features that could let you save money over choosing pricier X470-powered boards. To begin with, the B450, like the X470, has a lower TDP and power-draw, so it runs cooler, and can make do with lighter heatsinks. It comes with slightly improved reference CPU VRM and memory wiring specifications that AMD introduced with the X470. The B450, like the X470, also supports XFR 2 "Enhanced" and Precision Boost Overdrive (that lets you tinker with boost frequencies without arbitrarily setting a high clock speed).

The B450 is recommended by AMD for both Ryzen 5 series and Ryzen 7 series, provided you don't need multi-GPU, as motherboards based on B450 aren't allowed to have PEG lane bifurcation. You still get multiplier-unlocked CPU overclocking support (something the competing Intel B360 platform lacks), as well as memory overclocking. The B450 packs out of the box support for AMD StoreMI, a storage virtualization feature that stripes a portion of your memory, your fast SSD, and slower HDD, into a single volume, and juggles hot data in and out of the faster media in the background. You can have any brand of drives to use StoreMI. B350 motherboards support StoreMI through BIOS updates.

A storepage for AMD's upcoming 32-core, 64-thread monster of a CPU Threadripper 2990X popped up at Canadian hardware etailer CanadaComputers. The processor, listed for $2399 CAD, converts to some $1850 US dollars and doesn't stray too far from its earlier cameo over at German Cybersport.de.

The chip over at Canada Computers is being sold in a "in-store back order" template, so this pricing is likely close to the final mark - it does make sense that AMD would edge out its profits a little more on this behemoth of a CPU. Packaging seems to be a regurgitated, first-gen Threadripper box - it's unlikely AMD would simply keep the product packaging from first gen, especially since AMD themselves are branding these "Threadripper II". We still don't have confirmation on actual TDP - Cyberport listed some 180 W, CanadaComputers lists 250 W.

User 1usmus is the programmer of Ryzen DRAM Calculator, a must-have tool for any PC enthusiast with AMD Ryzen-powered machines. The tool simplifies the process of finding the right memory clock, timing, and voltage combination by adjusting other settings to match the setting you key in. For example, if you're looking for a memory clock of DDR4-3200 and CAS latency of 14T, the tool will put out "safe" and "stable" combinations of other timings and voltages. You can also make the app read Intel XMP and other fast SPD profiles from your modules, and translate them to Ryzen-friendly settings that run stable. In short, this is the app that clears that last bit of hesitation you had to embrace Ryzen. Get it from the link below.DOWNLOAD: Ryzen DRAM Calculator by 1usmus v1.3.1

The change-log follows.

AMD in its Q2-2018 investors conference call dropped more hints at when it plans to launch its 3rd generation Ryzen processors, based on its "Zen2" architecture. CEO Lisa Su stated in the Q&A session that rollout of 7 nm Ryzen processors will only follow that of 7 nm EPYC (unlike 1st generation Ryzen preceding 1st generation EPYC). What this effectively means is that the fabled 16-core die with 8 cores per CCX won't make it to the desktop platform any time soon (at least not in the next three quarters, certainly not within 2018).

AMD CEO touched upon the development of the company's 7 nm "Rome" silicon, which will be at the heart of the company's 2nd generation EPYC processor family. 2nd generation EPYC, as you'd recall from our older article, is based on 7 nm "Zen2" architecture, and not 12 nm "Zen+." 3rd generation Ryzen is expected to be based on "Zen2." As of now, the company is said to have completed tape-out of "Rome," and is sending samples out to its industry partners for further testing and validation. The first EPYC products based on this will begin rolling out in 2019. The 7 nm process is also being used for a new "Vega" based GPU, which has taped out, and will see its first enterprise-segment product launch within 2018.

AMD (NASDAQ:AMD) today announced revenue for the second quarter of 2018 of $1.76 billion, operating income of $153 million, net income of $116 million and diluted earnings per share of $0.11. On a non-GAAP basis, operating income was $186 million, net income was $156 million and diluted earnings per share was $0.14.

"We had an outstanding second quarter with strong revenue growth, margin expansion and our highest quarterly net income in seven years," said Dr. Lisa Su, AMD president and CEO. "Most importantly, we believe our long-term technology bets position us very well for the future. We are confident that with the continued execution of our product roadmaps, we are on an excellent trajectory to drive market share gains and profitable growth."

A post via Chiphell makes some substantial claims on AMD's upcoming Zen 2 microarchitecture, built on the 7 nm process. AMD has definitely won the core-count war once again (albeit with a much more decisive blow to Intel's dominance than with Bulldozer), but the IPC battle has been an uphill one against Intel's slow, but sure, improvement in that area over the years. AMD did say, at the time they introduced the Zen architecture, that they had a solid understanding on Zen's choke points and its improveable bits and pieces - and took it to heart to deliver just that.