A leak of what appears to be AMD's presentation on the Radeon RX 500 series has brought confirmation on specifications and details of the new line-up - which includes the RX 580, RX 570, the (until now) missing RX 560, and the RX 550. It would seem AMD has now opted for a new, dual-fan reference design, instead of their usual single-fan, blower-style coolers.

The RX 580 has a base clock of 1257 MHz, and a boost clock of 1340 MHz (74 MHz greater than the RX 480's 1266 MHz). It's a Polaris chip alright, packing the same 36 Compute Units (2304 Stream Processors, and up to 8 GB of GDDR5 memory across a 256-bit interface. AMD apparently decided to compare the RX 580 to the R9 380, which allows the company to show some relevant performance improvements (which wouldn't be possible with the RX 480, now would it.)

New processor launches are closely followed by clock-speed and benchmark records, and that applies to even AMD's Ryzen 5 1600X six-core processor. Professional overclocker Der8auer succeeded in overclocking the chip to 5905.64 MHz without having to disable any cores. The feat was possible due to liquid nitrogen (LN2) cooling. The clock was made possibly by running the chip with a base-clock of 129.79 MHz, and a multiplier of 45.5X. The core-voltage is unclear. The processor was paired with an ASUS Crosshair VI Hero motherboard, and G.Skill Trident Z memory.

MSI today introduced the B350 Gaming Plus, a gaming-grade socket AM4 motherboard based on the mid-range AMD B350 chipset. Built in the ATX form-factor, the board is based on the same PCB as the B350 Tomahawk, and draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX and 8-pin EPS power connectors, and conditions it for the AM4 SoC with a 6-phase VRM. The AM4 socket is wired to four DDR4 DIMM slots, supporting up to 64 GB of dual-channel DDR4 memory; and one PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slot, with a metal reinforcement brace. The second x16 slot is electrical x4, and wired to the B350 chipset. Two each of PCIe x1 and legacy PCI make for the rest of the expansion area.

Storage connectivity on the MSI B350 Gaming Plus includes four SATA 6 Gb/s ports, and one 32 Gb/s M.2 slot with NVMe booting support. USB connectivity includes eight USB 3.0 ports (six on the rear panel including a type-C port, and two via headers). Display outputs include one each of DVI, D-Sub, and HDMI. The onboard audio solution combines a Realtek ALC892 8-channel HD audio CODEC with ground layer isolation, and audio-grade capacitors. Gigabit Ethernet is handled by a Realtek RTL8111H controller. We expect the board to be priced around the $120 mark.

It would seem business is not as usual for GLOBALFOUNDRIES, which started as the spin-off from AMD's manufacturing arm way back on March 2, 2009. Blaming the capricious chip market's fluctuations, the company is looking to divest longtime employees in all three of its U.S. semiconductor manufacturing plants, including Essex Junction, which it acquired from IBM in 2015 by... receiving a $1.5 billion payment from the company. And as part of the deal, GLOBALFOUNDRIES agreed to be IBM's exclusive provider of semiconductor chips through 2025.

"We go through these ebbs and flows," Spokesman Jim Keller said Wednesday. "Right now we're at a point where some customers delayed their orders. We're in a period where we don't have as much business." The "voluntary separation" program is part of a larger cost cutting initiative that will look for other efficiency savings as well, though "layoffs are also a possibility". Keller would not say how many of GLOBALFOUNDRIES' 2,800 employees at Essex Junction are eligible for the early retirement program. Most of the workers eligible are in "support roles," such as administrative, sales or finance.

AMD is on a roll with product launches lately, having just pushed out what is probably the most significant update in mainstream CPUs in years: the Ryzen 5 line of desktop processors. You can look over TPU's review of the 1500X and 1600X here and here. AMD is looking towards powering another central part of your desktop processor, though, with the impending launch of the RX 500 line of GPUs.

Confirmed as rebrands of previous-generation Polaris 10, the new RX 500 series will carry the new Polaris 20 XTX and Polaris 20 XL chips, which are expected to feature higher clocks (in the range of 1300-1400 MHz) from AIBs, before your own overclocking. PowerColor has officially confirmed the launch date as April 18th through social media with a tease for their new Red Devil graphics card. Now if only we could see Vega on this new horizon...

AMD today released the Radeon Software Crimson ReLive 17.4.2 drivers, its second release this month. The drivers are important if you've updated Windows 10 to the latest "Creators Update" (version 1703), since it supports the new WDDM 2.2 driver model. In addition, the drivers fix bugs related to SteamVR asynchronous reprojection, poor multi-GPU scaling for "Battlefield 1" in DirectX 11 mode, flickering noticed on ReLive running on Windows 7, and a bug with Radeon Settings that removes application profiles upon logout. Grab the drivers from the link below.DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Crimson ReLive 17.4.2

AMD Ryzen 5 series desktop processors are officially available from today. The lineup is designed to compete with Intel's Core i5 quad-core "Kaby Lake" processor family, and consists of 6-core and 4-core parts carved out of the 14 nm "Summit Ridge" silicon. The lineup begins with the $169 Ryzen 5 1400 and $189 Ryzen 5 1500X quad-core parts, featuring SMT that enable 8 logical CPUs, 8 MB of L3 cache, unlocked multipliers, and XFR on the 1500X. The 1400 is clocked at 3.20 GHz with 3.40 GHz boost, while the 1500X ticks at 3.50 GHz with 3.70 GHz boost, and XFR enabling higher automatic overclocks.

While the Ryzen 5 1400 and 1500X compete with Core i3 and Core i5 "Kaby Lake" models under $200; the $219 Ryzen 5 1600 and $249 1600X six-core parts target the Core i5-7600K, with their 6 cores, 12 threads, 16 MB of L3 caches, and unlocked multipliers. The 1600 is clocked at 3.20 GHz with 3.60 GHz boost, while the 1600X ticks at 3.60 GHz core and 4.00 GHz boost. All four chips are available immediately.

BIOSTAR is thrilled to present the latest addition to its AM4 product line-up with the debut of the 2nd-generation of the highly-acclaimed BIOSTAR PRO Series motherboards. The new BIOSTAR A320 PRO series features new and improved features that focus on reliability, stability whilst providing top-of-the-line performance. The 2nd-generation PRO Series motherboards featuring A320 chipset supports AMD RYZEN CPU and upcoming APUs for the AM4 socket. The board will support up to DDR4-2667 memory up to 32GB in capacity.

MSI today introduced the A320 Grenade, an entry-level yet gaming-grade socket AM4 motherboard based on AMD's basic A320 chipset. Built in the narrow micro-ATX form-factor, the board draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX and 8-pin EPS power connectors. A simple 5-phase VRM conditions power for the AM4 SoC. The socket is wired to a pair of DDR4 DIMM slots, and a PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slot. Two PCI-Express 2.0 x1 slots make for the rest of the expansion area.

Storage connectivity includes four SATA 6 Gbps ports, from which two are wired to the SoC, and one 32 Gbps M.2 slot. USB connectivity includes four USB 3.0 ports (four on the rear panel, two via headers). Gigabit Ethernet (driven by Realtek RTL8111H controller) and 6-channel HD audio (Realtek ALC887 CODEC), make for the rest of it. We expect it to be priced around the $75 mark.

AMD today announced it has acquired intellectual property (IP) and key engineering talent from Nitero, a pioneer in millimeter wave solutions capable of enabling future generations of wireless Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) headsets. The acquisition provides AMD with a broader portfolio of IP capable of enabling VR headset and solution providers with key technology required to create more immersive computing experiences.

"Unwieldly headset cables remain a significant barrier to drive widespread adoption of VR," said Mark Papermaster, AMD chief technology officer and senior vice president. "Our newly acquired wireless VR technology is focused on solving this challenge, and is another example of AMD making long-term technology investments to develop high-performance computing and graphics technologies that can create more immersive computing experiences."

Videocardz has gotten their hands on the launch driver for the RX 500 series of graphics cards, and it would seem that previous rumors have indeed been vindicated: the revised RX 500 series features new code names for the chips that tick at its very heart. The RX 580, according to this report, will feature a Polaris 20 XTX chip (oh ATI X1950 XTX, how I remember you from staring in awe at your price and performance in computer magazines...), while the Radeon RX 570 will be equipped with a Polaris 20 XL part. And while the RX 560 is lacking from the list, the little chip-that-probably-will, the Polaris 12, makes a cameo under the RX 550 series and a "Lexa Pro" GPU code name... Which is just so different from all others, both in form and content, that one must wonder where it is its real name or a simple placeholder.

In another Community Update from Robert Hallock, some more developments on the platform have been announced, after the last one's commitment to upcoming updates. AMD has done good on their promise for an optimized power profile for Windows systems that better leverages Ryzen's design and features.AMD's SenseMI technology allows the processor to fine-tune voltages and frequency on-the-fly, with a much higher granularity and lower latency than any software-based solution - such as Windows 10's power plans. These transitions between frequencies and voltages are governed by "P-States", which are frequency/voltage combinations requested by the operating system.

It so happens that Windows 10's Balanced power plan delays changes towards faster P-states - which bring increased frequency and voltage and hence, power consumption - so as to save more power. However, this means that there is an increased delay (latency) between the moment more processing power is required of the Ryzen processor and the moment the processor is allowed to change P-states to deliver it. Add to this the fact that Ryzen takes a significant performance hit with core-parking enabled, and Windows 10's balanced power plan attempts to park all logical processors beyond the first 10% whenever possible means that most of Ryzen's cores will have to be unparked before they can process any kind of workload - and this in itself incurs in an increased latency and, therefore, performance penalty.

As we inch ever closer to what is seemingly one of tech's least well-kept secrets (the launch of the RX 500 series), trickles of information keep appearing in various forms. Now, a Beta version of AIDA64 (version 5.90.4208 Beta for those of you keeping tabs) has added official support for AMD's upcoming RX 570 and RX 580 graphics cards.

These new cards are reported to be higher-clocked versions of the proven RX 480 and RX 470 graphics cards. There is some talk regarding how AMD is now employing a new, higher-efficiency LPP (Low Power Performance) process, which would allow this increase in clocks to fit around the same power envelope of their lower-clocked precursors, the RX 480 and RX 470. It may not mean much to either argument, but the fact that these chips are apparently still code-named Polaris 10 on AIDA64 could mean that no relevant changes in the production process have occurred.

The cards are expected to launch either on April 11th or April 18th, depending on whether previous rumors about a delay do materialize as truth. You can check the full release notes on this version of AIDA64 after the break.

MSI now has three "X370 Gaming Pro" motherboards. The first one is the X370 Gaming Pro Carbon, which the company launched its socket AM4 lineup with, then the X370 Gaming Pro Carbon AC, released earlier this month, which is its variant with 802.11ac WLAN; and now we have the X370 Gaming Pro (without the "Carbon" moniker). This board is based on a different PCB, and has a lighter feature-set than the X370 Gaming Pro Carbon series. The board features the same 10-phase CPU VRM as the Pro Carbon boards. The expansion slot layout is identical, too, with two PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots (x8/x8 with both populated) wired to the CPU, a third x16 (electrical x4) slot wired to the X370 chipset, and three other x1 slots.

The differences kick in with the storage options. You get six SATA 6 Gb/s ports, but just one 32 Gb/s M.2 slot with MSI M.2 Shield (the Pro Carbon boards have two M.2 slots). Another major difference is the lighting. The chipset heatsink, audio ground-layer isolation strip, and various other areas on the board have red LED illumination, in place of RGB LED on the Pro Carbon boards. You can still control the brightness and illumination of these red LEDs using the Mystic Light Sync software. Another area of cost-cutting is the gigabit Ethernet. This board features a Realtek RTL8111H controller, while the Pro Carbon boards feature Intel I211AT controllers. The rest of the board's feature set is the same as the Pro Carbon, including two USB 3.1 ports (with one typc-C port), VR Boost USB ports. The MSI X370 Gaming Pro goes on sale on the 11th of April, at a price we expect to be around USD $150.

So, it would appear that rumors and leaks about the RX 500 series being simple rebrands of AMD's RX 400 line were true. Recent leaks point to no more changes and performance increases than those achieved through higher base clock speeds on the graphics cards' GPU and memory. The architecture is the same, and the process seems to have followed the same path - as of yet, no confirmation regarding whether or not these cards do use a newer, leaner LPP process for higher clocks and less power consumption.

For some users, it's been a long time coming. For others, it just meant that Apple had given up entirely on the desktop ecosystem, choosing to focus on its "mainstream luxury" approach towards selling phones with a BOM of $219 for $1000. Most others, though, will probably look at this update as more of a passing shot than an actually thought-out product development.

For now, Apple is going to update the innards of its Mac Pro line with some pretty interesting (if expectable) hardware: the $2,999 model sees a two-core bump from the quad-core Intel Xeon E5 3.7 GHz processor towards a six-core Intel Xeon E5 3.5 GHz. The same path will be followed by the $3,999 model, bumping towards an eight-core Intel Xeon E5 3 GHz processor from the six-core Intel Xeon E5 3.7 GHz processor that just kept on giving since 2013. Both models have also been updated with dual AMD FirePro D500 and D700 GPUs. The $2,999 model also sees an increase in its available memory, from 12GB of DDR3-1866 memory to 16GB.

Following its launch of the Ryzen 5 series performance-segment six-core and quad-core processors later this month, AMD could launch entry-level quad-core chips based on the 14 nm "Summit Ridge" silicon in the second half of 2017. This lineup will be called the Ryzen 3 series, and will occupy several sub-$150 price points.

The Ryzen 3 series parts will compete with Intel's Core i3 dual-core "Kaby Lake" processors, and will offer four cores, even if lacking SMT (that's 4 cores, 4 threads), and up to 8 MB of L3 cache, making for a compelling deal against Core i3 "Kaby Lake" dual-core parts that have 2 cores and 4 threads enabled through HyperThreading, and just 3-4 MB of L3 cache. What's more, the Ryzen 3 series chips will come with unlocked base-clock multipliers. One of the prominent Ryzen 3 series SKUs revealed by leaky taps among the motherboard industry is the Ryzen 3 1200.

AMD today released its Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition 17.4.1 drivers. These drivers add support for Oculus Asynchronous Spacewarp (ASW) on Radeon R9 Fury series, Radeon R9 390 series and Radeon R9 290 series graphics cards; and support for SteamVR Asynchronous Reprojection on Radeon RX 480 and Radeon RX 470 (requires Windows 10). The drivers also enable DisplayPort 1.4 HBR3 mode on GPUs based on the "Polaris" architecture, letting you run 8K @ 60 Hz over a dual-cable connection, and 8K @ 30 Hz over a single cable. The drivers also fix display fickering noticed on AMD FreeSync setups running 3D applications in borderless-fullscreen mode, and bad multi-GPU scaling in "Ghost Recon: Wildlands." Grab the drivers from the link below.DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Crimson ReLive 17.4.1

Outertech has released Cacheman 10.10, a Windows performance enhancement software that uses one-click optimization in order to improve responsiveness, privacy, and the security of a PC. The new Cacheman version introduces support for the recently released AMD Ryzen 7 1700, 1700X, 1800X and Ryzen 5 1400, 1500X, 1600, 1600X processors. A free test version is available from the Outertech website.

The AMD Ryzen 7 processors consist of 16 CPU cores - 8 physical and 8 virtual (emulated) cores. The physical processor cores are placed on the CPU die in two groups of 4 cores each, the so called CCX (CPU Complex). The two groups are interconnected with a 256-bit wide bi-directional crossbar. The speed of the crossbar is linked to the speed of the system memory. Within a CCX group, CPU cores can communicate very quickly with each other. Communication between cores that sit on separate CCX groups is significantly slower (by the factor of 2 and more).DOWNLOAD: Outertech Cacheman 10.10

It looks like AMD Radeon RX 500 series SKUs, such as the RX 580, RX 570, and RX 550, will launch later this month after all, with various ASUS and Sapphire branded SKUs getting listed on popular online stores. While predictably, these SKUs are overpriced on account of pre-launch orders, these are widely expected to be re-brands of the RX 480, RX 470, and RX 460, with slightly higher reference clock speeds, and improved power delivery.

ASUS is readying at least six SKUs based on this series, including two RX 580 8 GB STRIX models, two RX 570 4 GB STRIX models, and two RX 550 SKUs with 4 GB and 2 GB memory amounts. Sapphire, on the other hand, has a gargantuan 12 SKUs based on the three chips, including 8 GB and 4 GB variants of both the RX 580 and RX 570, both 4 GB and 2 GB variants of the RX 550, and two new brand extensions - Pulse and Mini, besides its iconic NITRO+ series.The list of SKUs follows.

Even though the NDA still isn't up on AMD's second volley of Ryzen-based CPUs, some lucky buyers are already running some of the upcoming Ryzen 5 processors after some sellers jumped the gun. Now, a YouTube video by user "Santiago Santiago." is making the rounds in which he compares gaming performance between the Ryzen 5 1400 (4-core, 8-thread part @ 3.2 GHz base, 3.4 GHz boost), Intel's i5 7400 (4-cores @ 3.0 GHz base, 3.5 GHz boost), and the Pentium G4560, a Kaby Lake dual-core CPU with Hyper Threading @ 3.5 GHz base clocks. The user even snapped a picture proving he has his hands on this chip.

Yesterday, we covered how Ryzen's performance has seen a needed lift-up through an upcoming update to Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation. Performance improvements of up to 30% do wonders in bringing up the 8-core, 16-thread Ryzen 7 1800X's performance up to speed with its svelter gaming enemy, the 4-core, 8-thread i/ 7700K. And through a community update, AMD has now shed some light on the ongoing crusade for adapting an entire ecosystem to its Ryzen line of processors architecture features. Case in point: BIOS updates and game patches,

AMD is preparing new SKUs based on its "Polaris 10" silicon, which are built on a more refined 14 nm FinFET process, to facilitate higher GPU clock speeds, and improved energy efficiency. These include the Radeon RX 580 and the Radeon RX 570. The reference-design boards of the two were pictured, and aren't strictly "rebadged" RX 480 and RX 470. The two feature higher clocks, and are supported by a redesigned VRM. The RX 570 draws power from a single 6-pin PCIe power connector, while the RX 580 draws it from a single 8-pin connector.

The core-configurations of the RX 580 and RX 570 aren't different from their predecessors - the RX 580 still features 2,304 stream processors, and the RX 570 features 2,048, but clock speeds are increased across the board. The RX 580 ticks at about 1340 MHz (vs. 1266 MHz of the RX 480), with its memory speed unchanged at 8.00 GHz (GDDR5-effective), while the RX 570 is clocked at 1244 MHz (vs. 1206 MHz of the RX 470), with its memory clock slightly increased to 7.00 GHz. The two cards also seem to do away with the DVI port. According to VideoCardz, the two cards could launch on the 18th of April, 2017.

It looks like AMD is confident enough on its HBC (High-Bandwidth Cache) and HBCC (High-Bandwidth Cache Controller) technology, and other assorted improvements to overall Vega memory management, to consider 4 GB as enough memory for high-performance gaming and applications. On a Beijing tech summit, AMD announced that its RX Vega cards (the highest performers in their next generation product stack, which features rebrands of their RX 400 line series of cards to th new RX 500) will come in at 4 GB and 8 GB HBM 2 (512 GB/s) memory amounts. The HBCC looks to ensure that we don't see a repeat of AMD's Fury X video card, which featured first generation HBM (High-Bandwidth memory), at the time limited to 4 GB stacks. But lacking extensive memory management improvements meant that the Fury X sometimes struggled on memory-heavy workloads.

If the company's Vega architecture deep dive is anything to go by, they may be right: remember that AMD put out a graph showing how the memory allocation is almost twice as big as the actual amount of memory used - and its here, with smarter, improved memory management and allocation, that AMD is looking to make do with only 4 GB of video memory (which is still more than enough for most games, mind you). This could be a turn of the screw moment for all that "more is always better" philosophy.

Some outlets are reporting that Stardock's Ashes of the Singularity is about to receive the much-referred-to patch that allows for improved performance on AMD's Ryzen line of processors. If you remember, rivers of ink flowed regarding AMD's Ryzen performance in gaming, with its monstrous, high-performance 8-core, 16-threaded design sometimes delivering performance below expectations. At the time, AMD clarified how Ryzen is a distinctive CPU architecture, similar yet fundamentally different from Intel's x86 implementation, promising upcoming patches from game developers that would allow Ryzen's architecture to truly deliver.

After Creative Assembly and Oxide Games vouched to improve Ryzen support, Oxide seems to be the first developer with a patch available (from version 25624 to 26118) that improves performance by up to 30%. Reportedly, it took the developers around 400 work-hours to improve the game code in respect to its execution on AMD hardware.