A leading global motherboard and graphics card manufacturer, ASRock, announced entering the graphics card market with the Phantom Gaming range - a strong line up of AMD Radeon RX 500 series graphics card in April 2018. Initially, ASRock will roll out graphics card business in various regions based on internal planning. Regions with first priorities are APEC and Latin America. Then ASRock will gradually launch the business in other regions. Thanks for all media friends recently putting attention on our Phantom Gaming graphic card business and giving them massive coverages.

QNAP Systems, Inc. (QNAP ) today unveiled the TS-963X, a 9-bay NAS with an AMD quad-core 2.0 GHz processor, up to 8 GB RAM (upgradeable to 16 GB), and 10GBASE-T connectivity supporting five connection speeds (10G/5G/2.5G/1G/100M). The compact TS-963X is the size of a 5-bay NAS but accommodates five 3.5-inch HDD bays and four 2.5-inch SSDs bays that deliver high-performance, high-capacity storage potential including automatic file/data tiering based on access frequency (Qtier Technology). The TS-963X is ideal for small businesses and organizations to boost data access efficiency, network transmission speed and to meet demands of mission-critical tasks.

"The TS-963X is designed to enhance the everyday workflows of small businesses and organizations at a budget-friendly price," noted Jason Hsu, Product Manager of QNAP. "The 10GBASE-T/NBASE-T port and four 2.5-inch bays for SSDs can all significantly improve performance, allowing the total cost of ownership to remain reasonable and affordable for most businesses," he added.

It looks like Intel is designing its discrete graphics processor at a breakneck pace, by a team put together by Raja Koduri. Its development is moving so fast, that the company could be ready with a working product to show the world by the 2019 International CES, held in early-January next year. Intel's development of a graphics processor is likely motivated by the company's survival instinct to not fall behind NVIDIA and AMD in making super-scalar architectures to cash in on two simultaneous tech-booms - AI and blockchain computing.

A blessing in disguise for gamers is the restoration of competition. NVIDIA has been ahead of AMD in PC graphics processor performance and efficiency since 2014, with the latter only playing catch-up in the PC gaming space. AMD's architectures have proven efficient in other areas, such as blockchain computing. NVIDIA, on the other hand, has invested heavily on AI, with specialized components on its chips called "tensor cores," which accelerate neural-net building and training.

It's been extensively reported that ASRock's primary motivation behind entering the graphics card market is the crypto-currency wave. The company stitched together a lineup of graphics cards based on AMD Radeon RX 500 series, with its fastest card being the RX 580 Phantom Gaming X. It's now being reported that AMD is preventing ASRock from selling its graphics cards in the EU. The reasons behind the move are unclear, but from what we can tell, ASRock hasn't been given a region-specific permission to sell its graphics cards in the EU. This probably indicates a swelling inventory of AMD Radeon graphics cards from other AIB (add-in board) partners, due to waning interesting in GPU-accelerated crypto-currency mining.

Bluechip computer, a German IT distribution company, has inadvertently spilled the beans on AMD and Intel's plans for the remainder of this year, shedding some more light on a number of products whose existence was still somewhat marred in fog. The information comes straight from a webinar Bluechip presented to its industry partners - a 30-minute presentation which made its way to YouTube.

The information gleaned is a confirmation, of sorts, of AMD's planned launch of their Z490 platform in June; the B450 chipset coming a little bit later, in July (an expected product, in every sense); and AMD's second-gen Threadripper, a known-quantity already, which should accompany a X399 platform refresh.

It looks like AMD's processor product launch cycle is on steroids, and keeping up (or even ahead) of Intel. After launching the first 12 nm processor architecture with "Zen+," the company is giving final touches to what it hopes to be the world's first 7 nanometer processor architecture, with "Zen 2." The company will reportedly begin sampling the chip within 2018, to enable volume production and market launch in 2019. Speaking at an investors conference call following the company's Q1-2018 Results release, AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su confirmed the 7 nm roll-out strategy of her company.

"We have a 7nm GPU based on Vega that we'll sample later this year. We have a 7nm server CPU that we'll sample later this year. And then, obviously, we have a number of products that are planned for 2019 as well. So it's a very, very busy product season for us. But we're pleased with the sort of the execution on the product roadmap," Dr. Su said. Unlike Zen+, Zen 2 is a major update to the company's processor micro-architecture, and presents the company with opportunities to improve several silicon-level specifications, such as the number of cores per CCX, the IPC of each core, the core-count of the die, the cache hierarchy, and the overall energy-efficiency.

(UPDATE: This latest driver version apparently also adds support for 4K Netflix content on computers powered by AMD's graphics cards. This solution is akin to NVIDIA's, and has some specific hoops that users must go through in order to actually get Netflix's 4K content to render properly: the new PlayReady 3.0 DRM technology that's Microsoft's master plan to thwart piracy requires Microsoft Edge as a browser, a connection to the monitor via the HDCP 2.2 protocol, an existing h.265 decoder, and a Netflix Premium subscription.)

AMD today released the latest version of Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition. Version 18.4.1 Beta adds initial support for the April 2018 update of Windows 10 (build 1803), (formerly referred to as "Spring Creators Update"). The drivers also fix issues with a number of games, such as water textures not appearing correctly in "World of Final Fantasy;" an application hang noticed on game loading screens of "Stellaris," display corruption noticed on "Call of Duty: WWII" on some Radeon RX 400 series graphics cards, and flickering noticed in "Sea of Thieves." Grab the drivers from the link below.DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 18.4.1

The change-log follows.

With the latest Radeon Vega Instinct reveal, it's becoming increasingly clear that "Vega 20" is an optical shrink of the "Vega 10" GPU die to the new 7 nm silicon fabrication process, which could significantly lower power-draw, enabling AMD to increase clock-speeds. A prototype graphics card based on "Vega 20," armed with a whopping 32 GB of HBM2 memory, was put through 3DMark 11, on a machine powered by a Ryzen 7 1700 processor, and compared with a Radeon Vega Frontier Edition.

The prototype had lower GPU clock-speeds than the Vega Frontier Edition, at 1.00 GHz, vs. up to 1.60 GHz of the Vega Frontier Edition. Its memory, however, was clocked higher, at 1250 MHz (640 GB/s) vs. 945 MHz (483 GB/s). Despite significantly lower GPU clocks, the supposed "Vega 20" prototype appears to score higher performance clock-for-clock, but loses out on overall performance, in all tests. This could mean "Vega 20" is not just an optical-shrink of "Vega 10," but also benefits from newer architecture features, besides faster memory.

Chris Hook, the head of marketing at AMD Radeon Technologies Group (RTG), who resigned from AMD a few weeks ago, joined Intel. Hook will hold the position of head of discrete graphics marketing, confirming rumors of Intel making heavy investments into the development of a discrete GPU that can double up as a super-scalar processor, enabling the company to compete with NVIDIA and AMD for slices of the AI and blockchain computing gold-rush, with PC gaming as a fallback market. Jim Keller, Raja Koduri, and Chris Hook make up key names from AMD to have joined Intel in recent times. Keller was the lead architect of AMD "Zen," who after a brief stint at Tesla, joined Intel earlier this month.

A few days ago, a Reddit user came onto one of AMD's support pages and found some pretty disturbing information regarding the use of aftermarket cooling solutions. According to the FAQ, users are voiding the warranty on their AMD processors if they don't use the included stock heatsink. Given the seriousness of the situation, the matter was immediately brought to AMD for clarification. In their defense, they have stated that the information in the FAQ is outdated, and the wording doesn't accurately describe the terms of the warranty with modern processors. Therefore, AMD got right on the task and has since updated the FAQ. To not make a short story long, users are free to use aftermarket CPU coolers as long as these heatsinks are capable of properly cooling the processor within AMD's TDP specifications.

EK Water Blocks, the Slovenia-based premium computer liquid cooling gear manufacturer is maintaining its market leadership by releasing one more X470 series monoblocks. This one is tailor-made for the GIGABYTE X470 AORUS GAMING 5 WIFI motherboard. The EK-FB GA X470 Gaming 5 RGB Monoblock has an integrated 4-pin RGB LED strip which makes it compatible with GIGABYTE RGB Fusion, thus offering a full lighting customization experience!

EK-FB GA X470 Gaming 5 RGB Monoblock
This is a complete all-in-one (CPU and motherboard) liquid cooling solution for the X470 AORUS GAMING 5 WIFI socket AM4 motherboard that supports the second generation of AMD Ryzen and 7th Generation A-series/Athlon processors.

AMD has announced via its Twitter feed that the Vega die shrink from current 14 nm down to 7 nm has actually coalesced into a hardware product that can be tested and vetted at their labs. Via a teaser image, the company said that "7nm @RadeonInstinct product for machine learning is running in our labs."

Of course, working silicon is only half the battle - considerations such as yields, leakage, and others are all demons that must be worked out for actual production silicon, which may thus be some months off. Only AMD and TSMC themselves themselves know how the actual production run went - and the performance and power efficiency that can be expected from this design (remember that AMD's CEO Lisa SU herself said they'd partner with both TSMC and Globalfoundries for the 7 nm push, though it seems TSMC may be pulling ahead in that field). Considering AMD's timeline for the die-shrunk Vega to 7 nm - with predicted product launch for 2H 2018 - the fact that there is working silicon being sampled right now is definitely good news.

AMD (NASDAQ:AMD) today announced revenue for the first quarter of 2018 of $1.65 billion, operating income of $120 million, net income of $81 million, and diluted earnings per share of $0.08. On a non-GAAP basis, operating income was $152 million, net income was $121 million, and diluted earnings per share was $0.11.

"The first quarter was an outstanding start to 2018 with 40 percent year-over-year revenue growth," said Dr. Lisa Su, AMD president and CEO. "PC, gaming and datacenter adoption of our new, high-performance products continues to accelerate. We are excited about our long-term roadmaps and focused on delivering sustained revenue growth and profitability."

BIOSTAR presents an essential computing and home entertainment micro-ATX motherboard - the BIOSTAR A320MH. Based on the AMD A320 chipset, the BIOSTAR A320MH runs the latest 2nd generation AMD Ryzen CPUs and is easy to setup on Windows 7 and Windows 10. The BIOSTAR A320MH features exclusive 6+ experience with Speed+: USB 3.1 Gen 1, Smart Speed LAN, Audio+: HD Audio with 7.1-channel, Video+: HDMI4K2K, DirectX 12, Durable+: Moistureproof PCB, Low RdsOn P-Pak MOS, Protection+: ESD Protection, USB Polyswitch, OC, OV, OT Protection, DIY+: HeaderZone. The micro-ATX form factor design allows users to have enough space and flexibility for office, home entertainment and graphic design needs. It also includes free download of Smart Speed LAN software (Windows 7 only).

AMD A320 Chipset: Essential Computing for Office/Home with Media Playback
The BIOSTAR A320MH features the AMD A320 chipset for use with AM4 processors in a micro-ATX form factor. It offers essential features and performance to meet needs for daily computing with its dual DIMM slots supporting up to 32GB of 2667MHz DDR4 memory, one PCI-E 3.0 x16 slot and two PCI-E 1.0 x16 slots. As for connectivity, the BIOSTAR A320MH packs a Realtek RTL8111G controller for up to 100MB/s Ethernet connectivity along with two USB 3.1 Gen1 ports, one USB 3.1 Gen1 header, four USB 2.0 Ports and two USB 2.0 headers for lots of expansion possibilities.

Jim Keller, the VLSI guru who led the team behind AMD's spectacular comeback in the x86 processor market with "Zen," has reportedly quit his job at Tesla to join AMD's bête noire, Intel. Following his work on "Zen," Keller had joined Tesla to work on self-driving car hardware. Keller joins Raja Koduri at Intel, the other big former-AMD name, who led Radeon Technologies Group (RTG).

PC Perspective comments that big names like Keller and Koduri joining Intel could provide clues as to Intel's current state and the direction it's heading in. The company appears to be in a state of shake-up from a decade of complacency and lethargy in its core business. Koduri could be putting together a team of people familiar to him for a new clean-slate project. The last time Intel had a clean slate was ten years ago, with "Nehalem."

AMD on its YouTube channel shared a video where their Technical Marketing Manager, Robert Hallock, explains some of the new, fine-tuned technologies behind the new Ryzen 2000 series processors. We've already found in our very own reviews that AMD has done a great job with extracting maximum performance from their chips, almost invalidating the need for fine-tuning overclock - at least, when it comes to the processors' frequency (remember that AMD's Zen always improves the most when it comes to tweaking the system RAM speeds and timings).

XFR2 and Precision Boost 2 are the sort of technologies that almost make the point of an unlocked processor moot for the average user, but here's to AMD for keeping that option open - there's always LN2. And even if there isn't, there's something to be gained from going from a small, anemic, airflow-restricted case to an actual monstrosity packed with water cooling systems. AMD has made sure of that. You can check the AMD video after the break.

In his latest Youtube video, famous overclocker der8auer has delidded his AMD Ryzen 5 2600 processor for the sole purpose of evaluating whether the benefits justify the risk. Since the IHS in the new Pinnacle Ridge processors is soldered directly to the die with Indium, delidding the processors is a tricky but not impossible task. Everything melts when it gets warm enough, and indium starts melting around 156.60 °C. Therefore, der8auer had to use a modified version of his popular Delid Die Mate 2 tool by replacing the acrylic pieces with aluminum while also removing the rubber washer. After baking his Ryzen 5 2600 chip in the oven between 170 °C to 180 °C, Der8auer removed the IHS easily with his delidding tool. For his testing, he replaced the indium solder with Thermal Grizzly liquid metal thermal compound. As expected, the results weren't very impressive. With the Ryzen 5 2600 overclocked to 4.1 GHz with 1.35V, the difference was a mere 4 °C under load. So, there you have it. Don't delid your Pinnacle Ridge processor. It's not worth the effort.

EK Water Blocks, the premium liquid cooling manufacturer, is proving its market leadership once again by releasing its first X470 series monoblock that is tailor-made for the ASUS ROG STRIX X470-F GAMING motherboard. The EK-FB ASUS Strix X470 RGB Monoblock has an integrated 4-pin RGB LED strip which makes it compatible with ASUS Aura Sync, thus offering a full lighting customization experience. This is a complete all-in-one (CPU and motherboard) liquid cooling solution for the new AMD X470 Chipset AM4 socket based ASUS ROG STRIX X470-F GAMING motherboard that supports the second generation of AMD Ryzen and 7th Generation A-series/Athlon processors.

Designed and engineered in cooperation with ASUS , this monoblock uses award-winning EK-Supremacy EVO cooling engine to ensure best possible CPU cooling. This water block directly cools AMD AM4 socket type CPU, as well as the power regulation (MOSFET) module. Liquid flows directly over all critical areas, providing the enthusiasts with a great solution for high and stable overclocks. Like with most EK monoblocks, the EK-FB ASUS Strix X470 features high flow design and it can be easily used with the system using a weaker water pump or lower pump speed settings as well.

Photographs of Intel's Crimson Canyon NUC have finally surfaced. WinFuture managed to get their hands on one that's powered by an Intel Core i3-8121U dual-core processor based on the Cannon Lake architecture. The NUCs come with 4 GB or 8 GB of memory, a 2.5-inch hard drive, built-in Wi-Fi 802.11ac, and Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity. The Crimson Canyon NUC also features a discrete AMD Radeon graphics card. The "Radeon 500-series" reference in one of the screenshots along with the "2GB of GDDR5" on the packaging takes us to the conclusion that Intel is most likely integrating a Polaris-based graphics card into the Crimson Canyon NUC. It's highly unlikely that we will find the CPU and GPU on the same chip like the one in the Hades Canyon NUC. Instead, the GPU will probably be soldered directly to the motherboard itself. The Intel Core i3-8121U models (NUC8I3CYSM2 and NUC8I3CYSM3) start around 450 euros, which roughly translates to $550. There was no mention when they will be available though.

With the April 19 introduction of four new second-generation Ryzen "Pinnacle Ridge" desktop processor SKUs, namely the 2700X, 2700, 2600X, and 2600; AMD is retiring six first-generation "Summit Ridge" SKUs from its lineup, according to a Guru3D report. Six SKUs have been marked EOL (end of life), meaning retailers can no longer order them from AMD. They can sell their remaining inventory, and AMD will honor full product warranties and aftersales support, to end users.

Among the retired SKUs are the previous-generation flagship Ryzen 7 1800X, 1700X, and 1700 (non-X); Ryzen 5 1600X, 1400, and the Ryzen 3 1200. As revealed in its product stack slide, the 2700X currently replaces both the 1800X and 1700X as the "8-core high performance" SKU, followed by the 2700 as the "8-core high efficiency" SKU, which replaces the 1700. The 2600X and 2600 succeed the 1600X and 1600, respectively. The Ryzen 5 1400 finds itself replaced by the GPU-equipped Ryzen 5 2400G "Raven Ridge" APU, and the entry-level Ryzen 3 1200 by the sub-$100 Ryzen 3 2200G. The table below reveals the updates prices of first-generation SKUs still in the product stack.

MSI has partnered with AMD to bring their new 'Combat Crate' bundles to the gaming market. These Combat Crates are comprised of a Ryzen 5 1600 or Ryzen 7 1700 processor, a MSI B350 Tomahawk motherboard, and, last but not least, a MSI RX 580 Armor graphic card. With the Ryzen 2000 Series processors already out and B450 motherboards probably on the way, the primary goal of this partnership is probably for both companies to clear their last-gen stock. The description on the packaging reads:

The AMD Combat Crate comes stocked with essential hardware you need to push your game to the next level and lay waste to the competition. With a lightning-fast Ryzen processor, powerful RX graphics backed by revolutionary Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition and a feature-ready MSI motherboard - the AMD Combat Crate is the ultimate arsenal for gamers.

AMD has disclosed, via a pretty standard addition to their website, the existence of some ill-guarded secrets. The secrets in point are low-power variants of the company's 2000-series APUs, which come and join AMD's lineup with lowered TDPs to increased energy efficiency. The Ryzen 3 2200GE and Ryzen 5 2400GE slot right alongside their previously released counterparts, but have enjoyed some clock tuning (and likely some silicon binning as well) to bring their TDPs down from the 2200 and 2400's 65 W to only 35 W - an impressive feat considering there's no difference, at the execution unit level, on these silicon pieces.

Many of you might have noticed that the Ryzen 7 2800X wasn't part of the initial Ryzen 2000 Series launch yesterday. Jim Anderson, Senior Vice President at AMD, has hinted that AMD might release the Ryzen 7 2800X processor at a later date. The main reason for the move is that the current Ryzen 7 2700X and 2700 models already cover the performance and price points. Therefore, AMD doesn't see the need to release a more powerful model at this time. And they're not wrong. Our review of the Ryzen 7 2700X revealed that AMD's current flagship processor has surpassed Intel's Core i7-8700K in multi-threaded workloads while also closing the gap in single-threaded workloads. While Intel still has the advantage when it comes to gaming performance, the difference in performance is slim and gets even smaller as you climb the resolution ladder. Basically, the ball is in Intel's court right now. Whether the Ryzen 7 2800X see the light of the day is going to depend on Intel's response to the Ryzen 7 2700X.

Global supercomputer leader Cray Inc. today announced it has added AMD EPYC processors to its Cray CS500 product line. To meet the growing needs of high-performance computing (HPC), the combination of AMD EPYC 7000 processors with the Cray CS500 cluster systems offers Cray customers a flexible, high-density system tuned for their demanding environments. The powerful platform lets organizations tackle a broad range of HPC workloads without the need to rebuild and recompile their x86 applications.

"Cray's decision to offer the AMD EPYC processors in the Cray CS500 product line expands its market opportunities by offering buyers an important new choice," said Steve Conway, senior vice president of research at Hyperion Research. "The AMD EPYC processors are expressly designed to provide highly scalable, energy- and cost-efficient performance in large and midrange clusters."

EK is proud to announce the launching of pre-built fully liquid cooled Gaming PCs under the name of EK Fluid Gaming Systems. All systems are based on an MSI motherboard and NV graphics cards, G.Skill memory and ... all are Ryzen 2000 based.

Also, with the current GPUs crisis going on, we are allocating GPUs to purebred gaming PCs to be used for gaming. If you are not impressed by our to default offer of PCs, you can fully configure your gaming rig. Each of the offered configurations is a base for your dream PC to come true. You can pick each core component for your perfect gaming PC which will suit your needs. That's right! You can pick a motherboard, graphics card, RAM, power supply, SSD, HDD or both. A large variety of components is available, including the newly released 2nd generation of AMD Ryzen processors. If you like pimping your ultimate gaming PC even more, you can pick an awesome CableMod Pro series sleeved cable kit as well.