GIGABYTE, an industry leader in competitive, high performance server motherboards and systems, has refreshed its AMD EPYC 1U and 2U server line-up with a range updated options supporting different storage device combinations, with increased NVMe connectivity to integrate more dense, high bandwidth storage. These five systems are part of GIGABYTE's ready-to-integrate general purpose Rack Server family, equipped with the best power supplies and cooling fans and combining a high level of performance, energy efficiency and overall reliability for web hosting, mass storage, virtualized infrastructures, databases & analytics and other demanding applications.

GIGABYTE's AMD EPYC server systems are based on the 7000 series EPYC processor, offered as a SoC and incorporating a multi-die design with 32 cores per processor, 128 PCIe lanes and 8 channels of DDR4 memory. These features have allowed GIGABYTE to create a range of servers that pack a real punch in flexibility and expansion options. First released in July last year, adoption of GIGABYTE's AMD EPYC servers has been gaining momentum, lowering TCO for datacenters by offering an optional balance of compute, memory, I/O and security.

GIGABYTE's upcoming flagship socket AM4 motherboard, the X470 Aorus Gaming 7, eclipsed two other models by the company based on the AMD X470 chipset, the X470 Aorus Gaming 5 /WiFi, and the X470 Aorus Ultra Gaming, pictured below. The X470 Aorus Gaming 5 has two variants based on the inclusion of a WLAN module. Both boards are based on the same PCB design, but the Gaming 5 is slightly better endowed than the Ultra Gaming. First, the common features. Drawing power from a 24-pin ATX and 8-pin EPS connector, the board features a 11-phase VRM to condition power for the AM4 SoC. A single-phase VRM powers the memory.

Expansion slots include three PCI-Express x16, from which the top two are gen 3.0 and wired to the SoC (x16/NC or x8/x8), while the third slot is gen 2.0 and wired to the X470 chipset. Two gen 2.0 x1 slots make for the rest of the expansion. Storage connectivity includes two M.2 slots, from which the top slot is 32 Gbps, and the bottom one 16 Gbps; and six SATA 6 Gbps ports, from which two come directly from the AM4 SoC. USB connectivity includes eight USB 3.0 ports, and two USB 3.1 ports, from which one is type-C. Gigabit Ethernet powered by Intel i219-V controller, and high-grade onboard audio with Realtek ALC1220 (120 dBA SNR) CODEC, WIMA capacitors, ground-layer isolation, and dual headphones amps, make for the rest of them.

AMD today has officially released specs and the listing of graphics cards that are being rebranded to the OEM-only RX 500X series. For all the rumors and speculation that abounded around a super-charged, maybe even Vega-sprinkled new Polaris architecture from AMD has seen their dreams of interesting times squelched unceremoniously.

What were before expected reports have now been rendered true: these are nothing more than an OEM-specific rebrand of AMD's RX 500 graphics cards. They're just direct rebadges - not a single MHz was increased across the entire portfolio, except for one lonely graphics card: the RX 550X has apparently seen a bump in clockspeeds, from the RX 550's "up to 1183 MHz" to the RX 550X's "up to 1287 MHz). Aside from that, folks, move along: there's nothing to see here.

After Raja Koduri left AMD in a low-profile-turned-high-profile leave of absence, ending up as head for rival Intel's newly formed Core and Visual Computing Group, now it's time for another high-level player to leave the company. AMD's Chris Hook has been in the company for almost two decades, rising from the bottom up towards the enviable position (at times) to lead the entire AMD's Radeon Technologies' Group Marketing Department since October 2017.

In a Facebook post detailing his departure, Hook joked that when he first joined the company, "ATI still had a smoking room, there was only one TV in the office (a small 14" black and white version we crowded into a room to watch 9/11 on), transistor size was still measured in microns, and 320x240 was considered 'high res'." Chris Hook has led (or been in the next closest position) as the public-facing effort of ATI/AMD-RTG and AMD core marketing team for a while now, so him leaving the company at a time where the global GPU marketshare is better than it ever has been in years does give some food for thought. Some publications are speculating on a move from AMD to Intel, similar to Raja Koduri's, citing close relationships between both men and the need for Intel to eventually market some products originating from their Core and Visual Computing Group (maybe with Arctic Sound?)

Semiconductor manufacturers have been historically bullish when it comes to the introduction of new manufacturing technologies. Intel, AMD (and then Globalfoundries), TSMC, all are companies who thrive in investors' confidence: they want to paint the prettiest picture they can in terms of advancements and research leadership, because that's what attracts investment, and increased share value, and thus, increased funds to actually reach those optimistic goals.

However, we've seen in recent years how mighty Intel itself has fallen prey to unforeseen complications when it comes to advancements of its manufacturing processes, which saw us go from a "tick-tock" cadence of new architecture - new manufacturing process, to the introduction of 14 nm ++ processes. And as Intel, Globalfoundries and TSMC race towards sub 7-nm manufacturing processes with 250 mm wafers and EUV usage, things aren't getting as rosy as the ultraviolet moniker would make us believe.

HP Inc. today introduced HP Pavilion Gaming, a new lineup of notebooks, desktops and displays designed to meet the needs of mainstream gamers. The HP Pavilion Gaming lineup provides the ultimate combination of powerful gaming experiences, value and versatility for everyday use. Gaming is one of the fastest growing PC segments, with more than 1 billion gamers worldwide. Mainstream gamers represent 62 percent of this growing market. While HP's OMEN line is built for performance and enthusiasts gamers, the new HP Pavilion Portfolio is designed to meet the diverse needs of more casual users, who often want a single device to meet all their PC needs.

"By listening to gamers and understanding their needs, HP is building an industry-leading gaming ecosystem that appeals to all segments of the market, "said Kevin Frost, vice president and general manager of consumer personal systems, HP Inc. "With HP Pavilion Gaming, casual gamers get the best of both worlds - powerful game play on a boldly designed device that's versatile enough to meet their everyday PC needs."

HP, Inc. today introduced its next generation Pavilion portfolio, infusing premium features and expressive designs into its convertible, notebook and desktop PCs. The latest Pavilion lineup includes refined materials and finishes, thin bezels, and stepped-up performance options that enhance the customer experience. It will debut this weekend at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, where festival-goers will use the power of Pavilion to create unique experiences at the intersection of art and music.

"Pavilion excels at delivering amazing customer experiences at exceptional value. Our new lineup, featuring the sleekest, thinnest and most powerful Pavilion devices ever designed, raises the bar and inspires new ways to create, connect and share," said Kevin Frost vice president and general manager of consumer personal systems, HP Inc. "Coachella is synonymous with creative expression and amazing experiences, making it the perfect venue to launch our new Pavilion line and enhance the event though technology."

AMD today announced, via a security blog post penned by their own Mark Papermaster, that they're beginning deployment of mitigations and resources for AMD processors affected by the Spectre exploits. In the blog post, AMD reiterates how exploits based on version 1 of Spectre exploits (GPZ 1 - Google Project Zero Flaw 1) have already been covered by AMD's partners. At the same time, AMD reiterates how their processors are invulnerable to Meltdown exploits (GPZ3), and explains how mitigations for GPZ2 (Spectre) will occur.

These mitigations require a combination of processor microcode updates from OEM and motherboard partners, as well as running the current and fully up-to-date version of Windows. For Linux users, AMD-recommended mitigations for GPZ Variant 2 were made available to Linux partners and have been released to distribution earlier this year.

AMD late Monday posted a video of key people associated with the company's successful Ryzen processor family, to walk down memory lane and stare into the future, on its official YouTube channel. Mike Clark, who holds the designation of Sr. Fellow Design Engineering at AMD, stated that he is "already working on Zen 5." Going by AMD's naming convention, the number next to "Zen" denotes major micro-architecture generation since "Zen" and any "+" following the number denotes refinement to a newer silicon fabrication node. "Zen+," for example, is a refinement of "Zen 1" or simply "Zen" to the newer 12 nm process, and allows AMD engineers to make minor improvements without any major design changes.

On the other hand, "Zen 2" presents AMD with the opportunity to bring about major design changes (think "more than 4 cores per CCX"), or even improvements within the core itself. "Zen 5" is hence the fifth major micro-architecture chance since "Zen," although it would be premature to call it "6th generation Ryzen," as there could be several "+" stopgaps between "Zen +" and "Zen 5." To ensure people don't dismiss Clark's words for a slip of the tongue, AMD even annotated "Yes, he said Zen 5, see Endnote," and in the Endnote that has a lot of CYA statements, confirmed that "Zen 5" is a legit internal code-name for a micro-architecture AMD is working on.The video follows.

News of an upcoming AMD RX 500X series sprung like wildfire yesterday, as users and publications alike tried to quench a thirst for some more GPU solutions from the red camp. However, if recent leaked numbers and information from 3D Mark prove correct, it seems the RX 500X series will likely bring some disappointments to those who were hoping for a refined, Vega-imbued AMD Polaris redesign, or simply push for better clocks and power/performance ratios under a new manufacturing process.

GIGABYTE X470 Aorus Gaming 7 was the first X470 motherboard to be shown off to the world. With its chipset name redacted, the board was even shown off at the 2018 International CES, early January. Now closer to its mid-April launch alongside AMD Ryzen 2000-series "Pinnacle Ridge" processors, we have the first clear picture of the board.

The board features the same design scheme GIGABYTE introduced with its Aorus-branded motherboards based on Intel 300-series chipset. There are subtle changes in the retail board, compared to the prototype shown off at CES, such as more decals over the VRM heatsinks and the rear I/O shroud. As detailed in our CES coverage of this board, it has all the bells and whistles to be the company's next flagship socket AM4 product, and could be priced north of $200 or even $250. There could be a sub-variant that lacks the WLAN module.

Ahead of their mid-April launch, AMD's second-generation Ryzen 7 2700X, 2700 and Ryzen 5 2600X processors allegedly began surfacing in Russian brick-and-mortar stores, with enthusiasts already being able to buy them, and put them through popular benchmarks online. This thread on Russian PC enthusiast community Overclockers.ru shows several users claiming to have retail 2700X and 2600X chips, and are putting them through benchmarks such as Cinebench R15, AIDA64 benchmarks, etc. Increased performance aside, these benchmark screenshots seem to confirm that AMD has reworked its cache and memory sub-system to be faster on 2nd generation Ryzen chips, with users reporting lower CPU cache and DRAM latencies on AIDA64 latency and bandwidth tests.

AMD is giving final touches to the new Radeon RX 500X-series graphics cards. Product page placeholders for RX 580X, RX 570X, RX 560X, and RX 550X surfaced on AMD website. The specifications tabs on these pages are blank, so there's no official information on what the "X" denotes. It's curious to see AMD give the extension to even lower-end SKUs such as the RX 560 and RX 550.

The company has, in the past, come up with extensions such as "D" to denote OEM-specific SKUs with different specifications than the retail-channel (AIB) products. Going by the convention of "X" denoting higher performance on certain AMD Ryzen processor SKUs, the RX 500X series could have one of several improvements - a new silicon fabrication process facilitating a clock-speed bump, or faster memory, or even some speed boosting feature similar to Ryzen XFR (extended frequency range). We'll know soon enough.

Here are some of the first pictures of ASRock X470 Fatal1ty Gaming ITX/ac, one of the first few upcoming AMD X470 chipset motherboards built in the mini-ITX form-factor. The board draws power from a 24-pin ATX, and an 8-pin EPS connector, and uses an 8-phase VRM to power the SoC. The AM4 socket is wired to two DDR4 DIMM slots, supporting up to 32 GB of dual-channel memory; a reinforced PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slot, and a 32 Gbps M.2-2280 slot (reverse side), besides two of the board's four SATA 6 Gbps ports, four of its USB 3.0 ports, and the onboard audio. The AMD X470 chipset puts out the remaining two SATA 6 Gbps ports and two USB 3.1 gen 2 ports, including a type-C port. High-grade 8-channel HD audio, gigabit Ethernet, and 802.11 ac WLAN with Bluetooth 4.1, make for the rest of it.

It was only a matter of time before ASICs turned the tide on GPU-accelerated crypto-currency mining. Bitmain announced the Antminer E3, an ASIC miner purpose-built for Ethereum mining. Priced at $800 (or less than the price of an AMD Radeon RX 580 in January), this ASIC draws about 800W of power, and offers a hash-rate of 180 MH/s. To put that into perspective, an RX 580 only has about 30 MH/s, and draws around 200W at typical mining load. Bitmain has begun accepting orders for the Antminer E3, with shipping to commence in July. At its price, no GPU in the market can match the economics of this ASIC, and hence, VGA prices could begin to cool down, and GPU miners could find it hard to hodl on to their overpriced VGAs.

Apparently, ASRock's Taichi line of motherboards featuring an industrial and less flashy aesthetic, is so well received by the market, that the company is readying two SKUs based on AMD's upcoming X470 chipset for socket AM4 processors, the X470 Taichi, and the X470 Taichi Ultimate. The two SKUs are nearly identical, except for the Taichi Ultimate featuring 10 GbE networking, some onboard buttons (power and reset), and a more premium looking 2-tone rear I/O shroud that runs the entire length of the board. The rest of the feature-set is identical between the two. Both boards feature ASRock's new Polychrome RGB lighting system.

Built in the ATX form-factor, the Taichi draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX, one 8-pin EPS, and a 4-pin ATX power connectors. A 15-phase VRM conditions power for the AM4 SoC, while a 2-phase VRM powers the memory. Expansion slots include two reinforced PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots wired to the SoC (x8/x8 when both are populated), one PCI-Express 2.0 x16 (electrical x4) wired to the X470 chipset, and two other gen 2.0 x1 slots. Storage connectivity includes two M.2 slots (from which at least one is electrical gen 3.0 x4 and wired to the SoC), and ten SATA 6 Gbps ports. Networking connectivity includes 802.11ac + BT 4.2 WLAN on both models, the Taichi features one 1 GbE interface, while the Taichi Ultimate features a 10 GbE interface in addition to the 1 GbE. Audio is ASRock's highest grade solution, with a Realtek ALC1220 at the helm of things. The two boards could be priced in the $200-300 range.

ASUS today introduced the VP228QG, an entry-level gaming-grade monitor. This 21.5-inch monitor covers all the essentials for a gaming PC built on a shoestring budget. Its TN-film panel features Full HD (1920 x 1080 pixels) resolution, but bolstered by 75 Hz refresh-rate, 1 ms (GTG) response time, support for AMD FreeSync technology, and TÜV Rheinland-certified flicker-free LED back-lighting.

Other vital specs include 170°/160° viewing-angles, 250 cd/m² maximum brightness, and dynamic mega-contrast ratio. You get ASUS GamePlus (OSD crosshairs, FPS counter, display alignment), and game genre-specific display presets. Inputs include DisplayPort 1.2a, HDMI 1.4a, and D-Sub. ASUS could price this monitor under the $200-mark.

As the launch of AMD's Ryzen 2000 processors gets nearer, images of upcoming X470 motherboards are gradually starting to show up on the internet. Last week, we got a glimpse at the ASUS ROG Crosshair VII, and we start this week with a teaser of MSI's X470 Gaming Pro Carbon AC motherboard. The new motherboard is available with and without onboard WiFi functionality. There's certainly a striking resemblance to the previous X370 Gaming Pro Carbon. While the overall black and silver theme remains practically untouched, the new heatsinks look spectacular. Other cosmetic changes include the addition of RGB lighting to the I/O shroud, the PCH heatsink, and the right edge of the motherboard.

Upon closer examination, the MSI X470 Gaming Pro Carbon AC has two 8-pin EPS connectors, as opposed to the single 8-pin EPS connector found on its predecessor. According to Canard PC Hardware magazine's review, the power consumption of the new Ryzen 2000 processors is only slightly higher than the previous generation. Our guess is that the second EPS connector on the MSI X470 Gaming Pro Carbon AC is there for the extreme overclockers who plan to overclock the heck out of their chips. Big MSI aficionados might recall that the X370 Gaming Pro Carbon's VRM consists of a 8+2 phase design. Well, the X470 variant now comes with an upgraded 8+4 phase VRM. However, the new motherboard has one less PCIe 1x slot than its predecessor, but makes up for it by having two more SATA III ports for storage. And last but not least, the M.2 Shield on the X470 is longer than the one on the X370, and therefore, it should provide better cooling for your M.2 SSDs.

AMD "Vega 20" is rumored to be an optical shrink of the current "Vega 10" GPU die to a newer process, either 12 nm, or 10 nm, or perhaps even 7 nm. Six new device IDs that point to "Vega 20" based products, surfaced on AMD's GPU drivers source code, with its latest commit made as recently as on 28th March. AMD "Vega 10" is a multi-chip module of a 14 nm GPU die, and two "10 nm-class" HBM2 memory stacks, sitting on a silicon interposer that facilitates high-density wiring between the three. In an effort to increase clock speeds, efficiency, or both, AMD could optically shrink the GPU die to a smaller silicon fabrication process, and carve out a new product line based on the resulting chip.

ASUS' top of the line X470 motherboard for the upcoming AMD Ryzen 200 series of CPUs has seen some sexy leaked images of it on the web. The new motherboard features, among other things, full drop-in support for AMD'snew 2000 series CPUs - without the need for any BIOS fiddling. The software features are expected to be on par with its X370 counterpart, with some added magic dust thrown in for the sake of keeping things fresh.

Hardware-wise, though, there are some slight changes as well. The most relevant of these is the addition of a second M.2 slot, for users who want to take their builds based on this form-factor to another level - smaller drives than the usual 2.5" is always welcome - and they usually look much better as well. One of the M.2 slots features a pre-installed heatsink for better heat dissipation. Other features include 6 SATA III ports (a decline from the X370 version's 8 due to the inclusion of the extra M.2 slot) and two less USB slots (from a total of 14 in the X370 to 12 on the X470) in exchange for a PS/2 port... Arguably the strangest "improvement" to the design. The heatsink design has been slightly reworked as well, in an effort to keep things fresh, but the power delivery mechanism seems to be the same. Don't ruin what works, right?

The Japanese cooling expert Scythe extends its product portfolio by a new Top-Flow CPU Cooler model. The new Choten CPU Cooler is able to effectively cool the CPU as well as the surrounding components thanks to the Top-Flow design by pushing the air towards the motherboard. This air circulation has a positive effect on system stability and life span of the components. Great performance along with unrestricted compatibility to high-end memory modules have been among the key factors when designing the Choten. This has been achieved by applying the asymmetric heatsink design combined with high precision manufacturing and high quality materials. The Choten CPU Cooler is bundled with the Scythe Kaze Flex 120 PWM fan and assures an easy fit into the majority of PC chassis thanks to a total height of only 120 millimeters.

Scythe Choten utilizes a total of four high-quality 6 mm copper heatpipes which are connecting the solid copper-baseplate with the fin-stack. The copper parts, such as the baseplate and heatpipes are covered by a layer of nickel, which prevents corrosion and improves the quality further. Aligning the aluminium heatsink parallel to the baseplate has the advantage that the airflow of the attached fan is guided toward the mainboard. In result, all the components surrounding the CPU socket are able to benefit from this air circulation. Outstanding memory module compatibility is achieved thanks to the asymmetric heatsink design as well as the big clearance between the heatsink and the motherboard.

AMD has gone on to publicly call attention to what it considers to be erroneous information put forward by Susquehanna analyst Christopher Roland. The analyst's report, which prompted the reclassification of AMD and NVIDIA's share targets - and investment ratings. Looking to stem what could translate to lower confidence from investors in its share outlook for the future, AMD has now gone on to clarify that mining revenue actually accounts for single-digit amounts entering the company's coffers, and not the 20% previously mentioned by the analyst.

AMD was dealt a worse hand than NVIDIA on Cristopher Rolland's analysis, since the perceived AMD exposition to a negative downturn on the GPU cryptocurrency mining market (kickstarted by the expected entrance in the market of Ethereum-specific ASICs) was double that of NVIDIA (20% on the former versus 10% on the latter). As such, the company has tried to remind customers, investors, and would-be investors that they appreciate the time and attention that investors continue to pay to Blockchain and cryptocurrency, but "(...) we [AMD] would also like to keep it in perspective with the multiple other growth opportunities ahead for AMD." You can read the AMD statement in full after the break, under the title "The View from Our Corner of the Street".

When we first reported news of ASRock entering the graphics market with a focus on AMD Radeon GPUs, the story included a theory that crypto-currency mining was the primary driver behind the company's move. ASRock in its press-deck announcing its new Phantom Gaming series graphics cards late Wednesday, inadvertently confirmed that theory. While the cards are branded Phantom "Gaming," the press-deck slide detailing the lineup is prominently headlined "Mining" besides "Radeon 500 Series VGA." Our GPU Database curator also mentions that the cards' designs bear striking similarities to coolers from Chaintech, the OEM that supplies to Chinese VGA brands such as Colorful. Strangely enough, ASRock still went with "gaming" branding, and gave the cards proper display connectors, so it's hedging its bets on both gamers and miners.

G.Skill is giving final touches to a Sniper X memory kit that could be the company's go-to product for AMD Ryzen 2000-series "Pinnacle Ridge" processors, in the same way as the company's Flare X DDR4-3200 memory kits gained popularity among AMD Ryzen-based gaming PC builders. Flare X will still very much be compatible with "Pinnacle Ridge," but the Sniper X kit G.Skill has in store for the new processor, pushes up the memory speeds, taking advantage of increased memory clock limits of the new chips.

The new "Pinnacle Ridge" friendly G.Skill Sniper X kit will bear the model number F4-3400C16D-16GSXW. As you might tell from its model number, it is a DDR4-3400 MHz memory kit, which comes in 16 GB (2x 8 GB) capacity, and has a CAS latency of 16T. It ticks at 3400 MHz with 16-16-16-36 timings, and a DRAM voltage of 1.35V. The rest of the Sniper X series, announced in January, will come in speeds of up to 3600 MHz. AMD Ryzen 2000-series "Pinnacle Ridge" processors are expected to feature higher maximum memory clock speeds.

A leading global motherboard manufacturer, ASRock, is moving into the graphics card market with the Phantom Gaming range - a strong line up of AMD Radeon RX500 series cards, including the Phantom Gaming X Radeon RX580 8G, Radeon RX570 8G, the Phantom Gaming Radeon RX560 4G/2G and Radeon RX550 4G/2G. "ASRock finally expand into the graphics card field," said Mr. LL Shiu, ASRock Chief Executive Officer. "We are happy and proud to team up with AMD, our strong and reliable partner, and of course we look forward to bringing out more interesting and competitive products in future."

Cards offer advanced performance technology
ASRock Phantom Gaming series promises elegant design, flexibility for power users combined with user friendly control, and of course, outstanding performance. ASRock never compromises on product quality and performance, so these new products are packed with amazing features as well as the best components to ensure they meet everyone's expectations.