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.

Whereas not the sexiest leak one can see these days, the packaging picture of ASUS' upcoming X470-F STRIX is nothing to scoff at. This ASUS motherboard is expected to enter ASUS' lineup in the same positioning as the X370-F STRIX motherboard from the previous generation, offering the same borderline functionality and features, with one or two design improvements thrown in for good measure. As a X470 motherboard, the ASUS X470-F STRIX should offer out-of-box support for AMD's upcoming Ryzen 2000 series of processors in the cleanest, more trouble-proof way possible.

Some small redesigns this X470-F STRIX has had over its X370 counterpart is that the southbridge heatsink has been extended to cover the top portion of the first PCIe x16 port - likely to house a second M.2 add-in slot, since that amount of heatsink over motherboard PCB would simply be wasteful. From the packaging, we can see that there are 3x PCIe x16 slots, two of which are reinforced. Some power delivery improvements have reportedly been done as well. The southbridge heatsink itself has seen a redesign, it seems, abandoning the angular look it had before - a step back, if you'll ask me. Expect this ASUS X40-F STRIX motherboard to be available from the Ryzen 2000 series' launch, on April 19th.

Analyst firm Susquehanna has cut AMD and NVIDIA's share price targets on the wake of confirmed reports on Bitmain's upcoming Ethereum ASIC. There's been talks about such a product for months - and some actual silicon steering as well that might support it. Susquehanna, through analyst Christopher Rolland in a note to clients Monday, cited their travels in Asia as a source of information.

This has brought confirmations that "(...) Bitmain has already developed an ASIC [application-specific integrated circuit] for mining Ethereum, and is readying the supply chain for shipments in 2Q18." And it doesn't seem Bitmain is the only company eyeing the doors of yet another extremely lucrative ASIC mining market: "While Bitmain is likely to be the largest ASIC vendor (currently 70-80% of Bitcoin mining ASICs) and the first to market with this product, we have learned of at least three other companies working on Ethereum ASICs, all at various stages of development."

MSI was caught openly slandering AMD Radeon graphics processors in promoting its MSI Gaming Series notebooks featuring NVIDIA GeForce graphics chips. The company is a signatory of the draconian GeForce Partner Program (GPP) by NVIDIA which, in boilerplate regulator-baiting language, tells its add-in card (AIC) partners not to use the same gaming sub-brand (eg: ASUS ROG, MSI Gaming, GIGABYTE Aorus, etc.,) for GPUs from any other brand (i.e. AMD Radeon). When it's in effect, ASUS, for example, can't sell an ROG Strix-branded Radeon graphics card, MSI can't sell an RX Vega 64 Gaming X, and it's probably why GIGABYTE stripped the RX 580 Gaming Box of Aorus branding.

In one of its regional Facebook pages, an official Facebook page customer response handle was seen openly stating "NVIDIA currently are ahead in the GPU experience," (keyword being "experience" and not performance), suggesting that its competition is sub-par. The handle was responding to a question as to why the notebook didn't come with AMD Radeon graphics options. Facebook users were quick to torch the MSI handle with a flame-war, and MSI corporate redacted the post stating "We apologize for making an inappropriate comment. It did not represent MSI's official views."

ASUS introduced the VG258Q, a relatively cost-effective 25-inch gaming-grade monitor. Its Full HD (1920 x 1080 pixels) resolution is nothing to write home about, but the 144 Hz refresh-rate, 1 ms response time (gray to gray), ASUS Extreme Low Motion Blur (TV-type stutter compensation feature), and support for AMD FreeSync technology, and TUV Rheinland-certified flicker-free LED back-lighting, could pique your interest. Other vital specs include a TN-film panel, 400 cd/m² maximum brightness, dynamic mega-contrast ratio, and ASUS GamePlus enhancements, which include presets specific to game genres, OSD crosshair, frame-rate counters, etc. Display inputs include DisplayPort 1.2a (needed for FreeSync), HDMI 1.4, and dual-link DVI-D. The company didn't reveal pricing.

AMD is preparing to launch its first wave of 12 nm Ryzen 2000-series "Pinnacle Ridge" processors in April, with possible availability on the 19th. From all of the materials leaked to the web, it's becoming clear that the Ryzen 7 2700X will be the company's next flagship socket AM4 processor, with a "2800X" not being part of the first wave of "Pinnacle Ridge" chips. Adding further to the theory of the first wave of "Pinnacle Ridge" chips being led by the 2700X, is the leaked cover of the next issue of print magazine CanardPC, which screams "2700X," and includes a roundup of second-generation Ryzen parts from 2200G all the way through the 2700X. The 2700X, besides process and minor architectural refinements, also features higher clocks than the current company flagship in the segment, the Ryzen 7 1800X. It's clocked at 3.70 GHz base, with 4.35 GHz boost, and XFR 2.0 driving the clocks up even further, compared to the 3.60/4.00/4.20 GHz (base/boost/max-XFR) of the 1800X. For this reason alone, the 2700X will be a faster part.

AMD has the advantage of having sized up Intel's Core i7-8700K before deciding to lead with the 2700X. The possible 2800X will depend on Intel's short-term response to the 2700X. There were rumors late last year of a possible speed-bumped "Core i7-8720K." AMD's first wave of Ryzen 2000-series "Pinnacle Ridge" will be as brisk as Intel's first "Coffee Lake" desktop processors, with just four SKUs - the Ryzen 7 2700X, the Ryzen 7 2700, the Ryzen 5 2600X, and the Ryzen 5 2600. Besides higher clocks, the chips could feature a minor IPC uplift (vs. first-generation "Summit Ridge") thanks to rumored faster (lower-latency) caches, support for higher memory clocks, updated Precision Boost algorithms, and XFR 2.0.

AMD announced at GDC widened support for Radeon Rays with Unity Lightmapper. Its open-source, high efficiency, high performance GPU-accelerated ray tracing software helps game developers to achieve higher visual quality and stunningly photorealistic 3D images in real-time. Radeon ProRender now supports real-time GPU acceleration of ray tracing techniques mixed with traditional rasterization-based rendering, to combine the value of ray tracing with the interactivity of rasterization.

For gaming, ray tracing is in its early stages. For professional applications, however, real-time ray tracing is a well-established rendering technique. Today, AMD is announcing ProRender support for real-time GPU acceleration of ray tracing techniques mixed with traditional rasterization based rendering. Now built on Vulkan, ProRender is continuing to enable developers to deliver interactive photorealistic graphics. We are actively engaging with professional developers to make real-time visualization a reality.

CTS-Labs, following up on Tuesday's "Masterkey" exploit proof-of-concept video, posted a guide to bypassing Windows Credential Guard on an AMD Ryzen-powered machine. We once again begin in a privileged shell session, of an AMD-powered machine whose Secure Processor that has been compromised using admin privileges, by exploiting it using any of the 13 vulnerabilities chronicled by CTS-Labs. Mimikatz, a tool that is used by hackers to steal network credentials, should normally not work on a machine with Windows Credential Guard enabled. Using a modified version of Mimikatz, the CTS-Labs researchers are able to bypass Windows Credential Guard (which relies on hardware-level security features present on the processor), leveraging the AMD Secure Processor malware microcode they wrote.The proof-of-concept video follows.

On March 12, 2018, AMD received a communication from CTS Labs regarding research into security vulnerabilities involving some AMD products. Less than 24 hours later, the research firm went public with its findings. Security and protecting users' data is of the utmost importance to us at AMD and we have worked rapidly to assess this security research and develop mitigation plans where needed. This is our first public update on this research, and will cover both our technical assessment of the issues as well as planned mitigation actions.

The security issues identified by the third-party researchers are not related to the AMD "Zen" CPU architecture or the Google Project Zero exploits made public Jan. 3, 2018. Instead, these issues are associated with the firmware managing the embedded security control processor in some of our products (AMD Secure Processor) and the chipset used in some socket AM4 and socket TR4 desktop platforms supporting AMD processors.

A screenshot of what seems to be a higher core-count CPU from Intel has been doing the rounds, brought to us by the usual suspects. This supposedly marks the first appearance of Intel's new Coffee Lake-S processors, which should feature increased core-counts - gearing them towards stealing some of AMD's initiative. If you'll remember, the red team regained it in explosive fashion with their first generation Ryzen CPUs - and AMD is looking to double down on with the launch of their updated, 12 nm refresh Ryzen 2000 series just next month.

The new CPUs should be delivered alongside a new platform, Z390 - at the moment, a mirage that's been referenced here and there, but still has no concrete evidence towards its existence. However, it's expected that Z390 as a platform will be what Intel's Z370 was supposed to be from the very beginning - but never could. The idea that's been circulating, and which has some credit (though it should still be taken with a salty disposition), is that due to Intel's need to rush Coffee Lake out the door - so as not to compete against AMD's 8-core Zen-based CPUs with their usual cadre of 4-core, 8-thread processors - led the company to rush out the Z370 release. The idea for Z370 was simply for it to deliver, at all points in the minimum requirements, the correct power delivery hardware and mechanisms for the increased power draw that comes with the added cores. But it was, as such, absent of any real improvements - it can be interpreted, basically, as a re-branded Z270 chipset platform - and there's something to that claim, definitely. Thus Z390 will be the actual, originally planned platform for Intel's Coffee Lake CPUs, with all features - however fair that is for buyers of Intel's Z370.

QNAP Systems, Inc. today launched the cost-effective high-performance 4-bay (TS-473), 6-bay (TS-673), and 8-bay (TS-873) TS-x73 series NAS featuring an AMD RX-421ND quad-core CPU with Turbo Core up to 3.4GHz and two PCIe slots for installing a QNAP QM2 card, wireless network card or a graphics card to extend NAS functionalities. The TS-x73 series provides small and medium businesses with an ideal NAS solution to build a private cloud for applications including high-speed data transfer, backup/recovery, virtualization, media playback and graphics display.

The TS-x73 NAS series presents a budget-friendly solution by allowing users to add more value to their NAS based on their individual needs. Through the two PCIe slots, users can install a QNAP QM2 card to add SSD caching/10GbE connectivity for boosted performance; a wireless card with WirelessAP Station app to turn the NAS into a wireless access point; or even an PCIe bus-powered graphics card to enable 4K transcoding and HDMI output for a greater media multimedia experience," said Jason Hsu, Product Manager of QNAP.