After Intel and AMD's differing statements on the same issue, now is the time for Google, ARM, and Microsoft to release statements regarding the recently discovered (and still in the spotlight) security flaws that impact almost all Intel CPUs from the last decade. Google is the company that originally alerted Intel to the existence of the security vulnerabilities, and mentioned some reservations regarding AMD and ARM's immunity as well. Microsoft, as the maker of the world's most recognized and widely-used OS, has also issued a statement. The ARM statement follows, with both Google and Microsoft's statements transcribed after the break.

ARM
This method requires malware running locally and could result in data being accessed from privileged memory. Our Cortex-M processors, which are pervasive in low-power, connected IoT devices, are not impacted.

There is more clarity on when AMD plans to launch its 2nd generation Ryzen "Pinnacle Ridge" processors, along with companion 400-series chipsets. Retailers in Japan, citing upstream suppliers, expect AMD to launch Ryzen # 2000-series (or "Ryzen 2") processors in March 2018, along with two motherboard chipset models, the top-tier AMD X470, and the mid-range AMD B450. An older report pegged this launch at February. The two chipsets are differentiated from their current-generation 300-series counterparts in featuring PCI-Express gen 3.0 general purpose lanes. The "Pinnacle Ridge" processors, on the other hand, are expected to be optical-shrinks of current Ryzen "Summit Ridge" silicon to the new 12 nm silicon fabrication process, which will allow AMD to increase clock speeds with minimal impact on power-draw.

AMD Ryzen 2 "Pinnacle Ridge" processors will be built in the existing socket AM4 package, and are expected to be compatible with existing socket AM4 motherboards, subject to BIOS updates by motherboard manufacturers. AMD plans to nurture the socket AM4 ecosystem till 2020. Future motherboards based on AMD 400-series chipsets could also feature compatibility with existing "Summit Ridge" Ryzen processors. These motherboards will come with out of the box support for Ryzen "Raven Ridge" APUs, something that requires BIOS updates on current 300-series chipset motherboards.

MSI, one of the world leading motherboard developers, is pleased to introduce the new Mini-ITX B350I PRO AC motherboard, ready for AMD SocketAM4 and the latest RYZEN processors. Building a small form factor PC, whether it's for professional, multimedia or gaming use, has never been more interesting on the AM4 platform with this comprehensive, feature packed solution.

A strong 9-phase PWM design (6+2+1), unseen on any AM4 Mini-ITX motherboard, the use of Military Class components and inclusion of DDR4 Boost, ensures a perfectly stable system under any condition with top performance. It also features DisplayPort, a HDMI output and 2x pin headers for RGB strips.The new B350I PRO AC even comes with Mystic Light, allowing anyone to change the system LED colors while applying lighting effects.

There has been recent press coverage regarding a potential security issue related to modern microprocessors and speculative execution. Information security is a priority at AMD, and our security architects follow the technology ecosystem closely for new threats. It is important to understand how the speculative execution vulnerability described in the research relates to AMD products, but please keep in mind the following:

• The research described was performed in a controlled, dedicated lab environment by a highly knowledgeable team with detailed, non-public information about the processors targeted.
• The described threat has not been seen in the public domain.

Intel tried desperately in a press note late Wednesday to brush aside allegations that the recent hardware security-vulnerability are a "bug" or a "flaw," and that the media is exaggerating the issue, notwithstanding the facts that the vulnerability only affects Intel x86 processors and not AMD x86 processors (despite the attempt to make it appear in the press-release as if the vulnerability is widespread among other CPU vendors such as AMD and ARM by simply throwing their brand names into the text); notwithstanding the fact that Intel, Linux kernel lead developers with questionable intentions, and other OS vendors such as Microsoft are keeping their correspondence under embargoes and their Linux kernel update mechanism is less than transparent; notwithstanding the fact that Intel shares are on a slump at the expense of AMD and NVIDIA shares, and CEO Brian Kraznich sold a lot of Intel stock while Intel was secretly firefighting this issue.

The exploits, titled "Meltdown," is rather glaring to be a simple vulnerability, and is described by the people who discovered it, as a bug. Apparently, it lets software running on one virtual machine (VM) access data of another VM, which hits at the very foundations of cloud-computing (integrity and security of virtual machines), and keeps customers wanting cost-effective cloud services at bay. It critically affects the very business models of Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Alibaba, some of the world's largest cloud computing providers; and strikes at the economics of choosing Intel processors over AMD, in cloud-computing data centers, since the software patches that mitigate the vulnerability, if implemented ethically, significantly reduce performance of machines running Intel processors and not machines running AMD processors (that don't require the patch in the first place). You can read Intel's goalpost-shifting masterpiece after the break.

Intel's stock pricing has taken a 6.19% dip at time of writing, in a regress that analysts say has everything to do with the reported VT flaw in Intel's central processing units. The flaw, which Intel has been silently firefighting and which we've covered extensively here on TPU, is a hardware-level vulnerability which has the potential to allow unauthorized memory access between two virtual machines (VMs) running on a physical machine, due to Intel's flawed implementation of its hardware-level virtualization instruction sets. Kernel patches are already being deployed that mitigate the issue; however, these should incur in performance losses for Intel processors, and are being deployed in an apparent "spray and pray" method that also affects performance in AMD-based machines, which are expected to be immune to the Intel flaw.

Intel is secretly firefighting a major hardware security vulnerability affecting its entire x86 processor lineup. The hardware-level vulnerability allows unauthorized memory access between two virtual machines (VMs) running on a physical machine, due to Intel's flawed implementation of its hardware-level virtualization instruction sets. OS kernel-level software patches to mitigate this vulnerability, come at huge performance costs that strike at the very economics of choosing Intel processors in large-scale datacenters and cloud-computing providers, over processors from AMD. Ryzen, Opteron, and EPYC processors are inherently immune to this vulnerability, yet the kernel patches seem to impact performance of both AMD and Intel processors.

Close inspection of kernel patches reveal code that forces machines running all x86 processors, Intel or AMD, to be patched, regardless of the fact that AMD processors are immune. Older commits to the Linux kernel git, which should feature the line "if (c->x86_vendor != X86_VENDOR_AMD)" (condition that the processor should be flagged "X86_BUG_CPU_INSECURE" only if it's not an AMD processor), have been replaced with the line "/* Assume for now that ALL x86 CPUs are insecure */" with no further accepted commits in the past 10 days. This shows that AMD's requests are being turned down by Kernel developers. Their intentions are questionable in the wake of proof that AMD processors are immune, given that patched software inflicts performance penalties on both Intel and AMD processors creating a crony "level playing field," even if the latter doesn't warrant a patch. Ideally, AMD should push to be excluded from this patch, and offer to demonstrate the invulnerability of its processors to Intel's mess.

There are ominous signs that Intel may be secretly fixing a major security vulnerability affecting its processors, which threatens to severely damage its brand equity among datacenter and cloud-computing customers. The vulnerability lets users of a virtual machine (VM) access data of another VM on the same physical machine (a memory leak). Amazon, Google, and Microsoft are among the big three cloud providers affected by this vulnerability, and Intel is reportedly in embargoed communications with engineers from the three, to release a software patch that fixes the bug. Trouble is, the patch inflicts an unavoidable performance penalty ranging between 30-35%, impacting the economics of using Intel processors versus AMD ones.

Signs of Intel secretly fixing the bug surfaced with rapid changes to the Linux kernel without proper public-visibility of the documentation. The bulk of the changes involve "kernel page table isolation," a feature that prevents VMs from reading each other's data, but at performance costs. Developers note that these changes are being introduced "very fast" by Linux kernel update standards, and even being backported to older kernel versions (something that's extremely rare). Since this is a hardware vulnerability, Linux isn't the only vulnerable software platform. Microsoft has been working on a Windows kernel patch for this issue since November 2017. AMD x86 processors (such as Opteron, Ryzen, EPYC, etc.,) are immune to this vulnerability.

Right in the last corner of 2017, as our collective minds were getting ready to move onto a new year at full warp speed, we covered this bit of news regarding AMD's Adrenalin Driver incompatibility with some older game titles under DX9 ("C&C3 Tiberium Wars," "C&C3 Kane's Wrath," "C&C Red Alert 3," "C&C Red Alert 3 Uprising," "C&C4 Tiberian Twilight," "Battle for Middle Earth 1-2," and "The Witcher Enhanced Edition.") At the time, AMD stated that they were "unlikely to devote any valuable engineering resources to this issue." User backlash ensued, and with the new year comes a new AMD: one that has found the valuable engineering resources needed towards working on a fix for said issues.

Apparently, the problem stemmed from a driver-level incompatibility with SAGE engine games, and AMD's Terry Makedon took to Twitter to make things better for fans of those games, saying that "We will for sure fix this bug with SAGE engine games in an upcoming hotfix." All in all, a good guy move by AMD. For sure, the initial statement might not echo the full sentiment of the entire company on the issue, though it's a fact that it was an AMD employee that started the whole debate. That said, the user backlash certainly goes to show that PC gamers want their systems to always have backwards compatibility with older games - one of the more important differentiating factors between PCs and games consoles.

ASUS today introduced the ProArt PA27AC monitor that meets displayHDR 400 standards. This 27-inch monitor features an IPS display panel with WQHD (2560 x 1440 pixels) native resolution, and covers 100% of the sRGB color-space with its 8bpc color depth. The monitor meets VESA's displayHDR 400 standard, with a peak luminescence of 400 nits, 8bpc image quality, and standard dynamic mega contrast dimming. The PA27AC also offers support for AMD FreeSync technology. Other vital specs include 60 Hz refresh-rate, and 5 ms (GTG) response time. The monitor takes input from DisplayPort 1.2a (needed for FreeSync), HDMI 2.0, and HDMI 1.4. The DisplayPort interface is USB type-C, and supports Thunderbolt 3 daisy-chaining (one port in, one out). The company didn't reveal pricing.

Intel revealed specifications of its upcoming "Kaby Lake + AMD Vega" multi-chip module, the Core i7-8809G, on its website. A number of these specs were already sniffed out by Futuremark SystemInfo, but the website sheds light on a key feature - dual integrated graphics. The specs sheet confirms that the chip combines a 4-core/8-thread "Kaby Lake" CPU die with an AMD Radeon RX Vega M GH graphics die. The CPU is clocked at 3.10 GHz, and SystemInfo (from the older story) confirmed that its Turbo Boost frequency is up to 3.90 GHz. The L3 cache amount is maxed out a 8 MB. The reference memory clock is set at dual-channel DDR4-2400. What's more, the CPU component features an unlocked base-clock multiplier.

Things get interesting with the way Intel describes its integrated graphics solution. It mentions both the star-attraction, the AMD Radeon RX Vega M GH, and the Intel HD Graphics 630 located on the "Kaby Lake" CPU die. This indicates that Intel could deploy a mixed multi-GPU solution that's transparent to software, balancing graphics loads between the HD 630 and RX Vega M GH, depending on the load and thermal conditions. Speaking of which, Intel has rated the TDP of the MCM at 100W, with a rider stating "target package TDP," since there's no scientifically-correct way of measuring TDP on a multi-chip module. Intel could build performance-segment NUCs with this chip, in addition to selling them to mini-PC manufacturers.

AMD ended 2017 with its year-end mega driver release, the Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition (17.12), which introduced a large number of new features. The drivers, incidentally, also inadvertently caused bugs with some 10-year old games running on the older DirectX 9 API. When AMD Radeon users took to Reddit, and other tech forums to report these issues, AMD responded on its official support forums that it is "unlikely to devote any valuable engineering resources to this issue."

Among the games affected, old as they may seem, are AAA blockbusters, including "C&C3 Tiberium Wars," "C&C3 Kane's Wrath," "C&C Red Alert 3," "C&C Red Alert 3 Upising," "C&C4 Tiberian Twilight," "Battle for Middle Earth 1-2," and "The Witcher Enhanced Edition." AMD blames its inability to fix these issues to outdated API models. The company's full statement reads "This title is from 2007, so we are unlikely to devote any valuable engineering resources to this issue, which is most likely caused by outdated API modules."

HWiNFO v. 5.7 has brought with it a smattering of improvements and additions, as is usually the case. These are worthier of a news piece than most, however, since we're looking at quite a number of interesting developments. For one, preliminary support has been added for Intel's Whiskey Lake, an upcoming mobile design that succeed's Intel's Kaby Lake products, and should bring the fight to AMD's Ryzen Mobile offerings. Furthermore, and still on the Intel camp, support for the upcoming 10 nm Ice Lake has also been added. Íf you'll remember, Ice Lake is expected to be Intel's first foray into the 10 nm+ process in the mobile camp (given away by the U/Y product codes), after numerous delays that made the company stick with its 14 nm process through three iterations and in-process improvements. These are not the only Intel developments, however; the team behind HWiNFO has also added a new feature that reveals your Intel CPU's Turbo Boost multipliers, which the company has since removed form their ARK pages and processor specifications - an issue that generated rivers of ink.

Stepping away from the blue giant's camp, there's added support for AMD's next revision of their Ryzen processors (Pinnacle Ridge, on a 12 nm process). There's also mention of upcoming support for AMD's 400-series chipsets, which should improve platform features of the AM4 socket. This addition comes after we've seen its first appearance in the PCI-SIG Integrators List.

AMD's second-generation Ryzen processors, which debut some time in Q1-2018, will be accompanied by the company's new 400-series motherboard chipset, even though they are expected to work with existing socket AM4 motherboards based on 300-series chipsets (with BIOS updates). The 400-series Promontory chipset surfaced on the PCIe Integrators List of PCI-SIG, the standards governing body of the PCI bus (which also oversees PCIe specifications development).

The listing seems to confirm that 400-series chipset will feature PCI-Express gen 3.0 general purpose lanes. These are downstream PCIe lanes put out by the chipset, to run the various external onboard controllers on the motherboard, and usually wired to the x1 and x4 PCIe slots. The current 300-series chipset only features up to 8 PCIe gen 2.0 general purpose lanes, and that was seen as a drawback. AMD Ryzen socket AM4 processors put out additional gen 3.0 lanes besides the 16 lanes allocated to PEG (one x16 or two x8, physically x16 slots); and 4 lanes serving as chipset bus. These additional gen 3.0 lanes typically drive a 32 Gb/s M.2 slot. With 400-series chipset bringing gen 3.0 general purpose lanes, one can expect newer socket AM4 motherboards with more than one 32 Gb/s M.2 slot (one from the SoC, another from the chipset).

Arctic Cooling has introduced a new tower cooler solution for your CPU of choice. Silently shared on their website, the Freezer 33 eSports One exudes the conventional "gaming" aesthetic of black and red, with a black, 49-fin-stack array, and your choice of a 120 mm black, yellow, green, or white Bionix fan. Arctic says the eSports one is good for CPUs with TDPs up to 200 W, placing this heat dissipation capability on a new thermal coating technology that creates microturbulences, increasing the amount of heatsink area that's engaged in the cooling efficiency of the eSports One. There's also direct heatpipe technology with an offset design, and Arctic says that the heatpipes being centered on the die, instead of covering the entire surface are, delivers maximum cooling performance.

AMD released the AMDVLK drivers for Linux. These are the first open-source AMD Radeon graphics drivers featuring 100% support for Vulkan 1.0 graphics API. The drivers include Vulkan 1.0 compliance with support for 30 Vulkan extensions, Radeon GPU Profiler support, in-built debug and profiling tools, mid-command buffer preemption, and SR-IOV virtualization support. AMDVLK implements AMD's Platform Abstraction Library (PAL), an abstraction layer that translates much of AMD's common driver code and features across platforms. The drivers support all AMD Radeon GPUs based on the Graphics CoreNext architecture, going all the way back to the Radeon HD 7000-series. The drivers are released through AMD's GPUOpen GitHub repository.

Ahead of its Q1-2018 launch after a CES reveal, Intel's Core i7-8709G multi-chip module (MCM) was picked up by Thai PC enthusiast and tech vlogger "TUM APISAK," revealing some of its first specifications as read by Futuremark SystemInfo, a hardware-detection component common to various Futuremark benchmark suites. The "Kaby Lake-G" MCM combines a quad-core "Kaby Lake" CPU die with an AMD Radeon "Vega M" graphics die that has a dedicated HBM2 memory stack on-package.

Futuremark SystemInfo puts out quite a few specs of the i7-8709G, beginning with its 4-core/8-thread CPU based on the "Kaby Lake" micro-architecture, which is clocked at 3.10 GHz with 3.90 GHz Turbo Boost; Radeon RX Vega M (694C:C0) graphics core with 4 GB of HBM2 memory across a 1024-bit memory bus; with its GPU engine running at 1.19 GHz, and memory at 800 MHz (204.8 GB/s memory bandwidth); although the core-config of the iGPU remains a mystery. We recommend you maximize the video below for legible details.

WaterCool announced retail availability of HeatKiller IV water-blocks for AMD Ryzen Threadripper processors. Designed for AMD sockets TR4 and SP3r2, with micro-fin lattices at just the right places to effectively cool the active dies of the Threadripper MCM, the block comes in four variants - Pure Copper, Copper-Nickel, Acryl-Nickel Black, and Acryl-Nickel Red. The Pure Copper variant combines an exposed copper main block with a copper top; the Nickel-Copper variant is nearly identical to this, except the block and top are nickel-plated; the Acryl-Nickel Black combines a nickel-plated copper main block with an acrylic top that's been framed by black anodized aluminium, while the Acryl-Nickel Red is its twin with a red colored frame.

The Pure Copper and Copper-Nickel variants boast of a staggering 1 kg weight (that's a lot for a water-block). The acrylic variants are a little over half the weight. Besides being see-through, the Acrylic variants are studded with RGB LED strips that have a standard 4-pin RGB header. All variants measure 118 mm x 78 mm x 18 mm, and feature standardized G 1/4-inch ports (fittings not included). There's a healthy 25 mm gap between the two ports so you can dabble with some of the fancier fittings in the market. The Pure Copper variant is priced at 89.95€, while the Nickel-Copper, Acryl-Nickel Black, and Acryl-Nickel Red are priced at 99.95€ (prices include taxes).

AMD today released an update to their Radeon Software Adrenalin Drivers and software suite. Under the Beta label, the new version brings many resolved issues to the table, whilst listing some unresolved - but recognized as existent - issues behind it still. Some problems with AMD XConnect for hot-swapping external GPUs should be fixed, some areas of Star Wars: Battlefront II that were displaying graphics corruption should no longer do so, and your Netflix playback should finally let you chill without any kind of AMD-caused stuttering, among other quality of life improvements.

Look for the full patch notes after the break, and keep in mind you can download the latest AMD drivers right here on TPU. Just follow the link below.DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 17.12.2 Beta

MSI rolled out the Radeon RX Vega 56 Air Boost and Air Boost OC graphics cards. The two are based on the same board design as the RX Vega 64 Air Boost series the company launched last week. The quasi-custom design card combines an AMD reference-design PCB with a custom-design lateral-flow cooler by MSI that's similar in design to AMD's cost-effective reference cooler. Adding to its effectiveness is the heavily perforated rear I/O bracket.

The base model sticks to AMD reference clock speeds of 1156 MHz core and 1471 MHz boost; while the OC variant ships with 1181 MHz core and 1520 MHz boost. Both cards leave the HBM2 memory clock untouched at 800 MHz. The cards draw power from a pair of 8-pin PCIe power connectors; display outputs include an HDMI 2.0, and three DisplayPort 1.4 connectors. The base variant sells at USD $399, with the OC variant going for $439.

We know AMD has been doing a great job keeping the lid on their Navi architecture with information being scarce at the moment. Aside from knowing that Navi is being fabricated on the 7 nm process, it is possible that the microarchitecture will quite possibly support next-generation memory like GDDR6 or HBM3. In a Navi discussion on the Beyond3D forums, a user found an entry in a Linux driver dated back to July that apparently mentions AMD's upcoming architecture - not by its real name, of course. The code is to add support for importing new asic definitions from a text file as opposed to adding support in code. Tom St Denis, a software engineer at AMD, listed the output that would be generated by using this functionality. However, the entry that caught our attention reads: new_chip.gfx10.mmSUPER_SECRET.enable [0: 0]. If our memory serves us right, the codename for Vega was GFX9. So by logic, Navi should carry the GFX10 codename. Obviously, the SUPER_SECRET part further backs up our theory or maybe AMD's just trolling us. The red team has been hiring personnel for their GFX10 projects, so we can assume they're working diligently to release Navi some time next year.

Japanese cooling expert Scythe presents the significantly improved "Mark II" version of its Kotetsu CPU Cooler. While keeping the basic design of the predecessor, Kotetsu Mark II comes with both visual and technical improvements. One of the key advances is the offset, where the heatsink is not centered but moved to the side and the rear. This allows the CPU Cooler to increase the distance to the first PCI-Express slot, offering unchallenged compatibility to VGA card with outsized cooling solutions and avoid clearance issues with memory modules with large heatsinks at the same time. Kotetsu Mark II is able to deliver a significant performance boost compared to the first version, thanks to an optimization of the manufacturing process. Visual improvements include the new aluminum-look top-cover and nickel-plated heatpipes and base-plate. The Kotetsu Mark II is bundled with a high-quality PWM-fan from Scythe's Kaze Flex 120 PWM series. In spite of the significant improvements of performance and visuals, Kotetsu Mark II price is remaining to assure the best possible price-performance ratio.

After aeons of waiting, one of AMD's foremost AIB partners, Sapphire, has come out with a fully custom edition of AMD's RX Vega flagship graphics cards. The new RX Vega 64 Nitro+ and RX Vega56 Nitro+ graphics cards bring Sapphire's engineering to the RX Vega table, offering much better thermal, acoustic, and performance characteristics than AMD's air-based reference models.

The Sapphire RX Vega Nitro+ series of graphics cards feature a triple-fan, 2.5 slot design and a whopping 3x 8-pin power delivery system - and yes, you read that right, this applies to both the Vega 64 and Vega 56 models. The increased thermal headroom provided by the substantial cooling solution, and the beefed-up power delivery system, mean Sapphire are shipping these graphics cards with a hefty 12-14% base-clock increase over AMD's reference models, making these the fastest (in frequency) factory-overclocked RX Vega graphics cards money can buy. The cards also ship with dual-BIOS, a fan header for either a side-panel or front-panel fan whose speed you want to be under the graphics' card control, and a VGA support plate - a smart move by Sapphire, considering the RX Vega 64 Nitro+ comes in at almost 1.6 kg.

A mysterious AMD APU showed up on SiSoft SANDRA online database, featuring a massive integrated graphics. The chip reports itself to SANDRA as "AMD Fenghuang Raven," and is likely a semi-custom chip being tested by an AMD engineer in the course of its development. SANDRA reports the integrated graphics component as "AMD 15FF Graphics," featuring 1,792 stream processors across 28 compute units, 555 MHz engine clock, and 2 GB of video memory with 182.15 GB/s memory bandwidth. The result doesn't put out too many details about the CPU component, except its 2.40 GHz clock speed. The iGPU scored 98 points on SANDRA graphics tests with Direct3D 11 API, and 39.99 GB/s observed score.

MSI today rolled out its first quasi-custom design Radeon RX Vega 64 graphics card, the MSI RX Vega 64 Air Boost. This card combines an AMD reference-design (or at least close-to-reference) PCB, with a custom-design lateral-flow cooling solution by MSI. The lateral blower features a large base plate with a copper core; the base plate draws heat from the VRM, the copper core from the "Vega 10" MCM. The card ships with slightly overclocked speeds of 1272 MHz core, and 1575 MHz boost. Drawing power from two 8-pin PCIe power connectors, the card puts out three DisplayPort 1.4 connectors, and an HDMI 2.0 port. The company didn't reveal pricing.