Benchmarks have leaked on AMD's upcoming Ryzen CPUs, and if accurate, these are the ones that will change the name of the game from "Hype Train" to "Reality Check". Part of a verified Passmark entry, the test system consisted of an AMD Ryzen 8-core, 16-thread ES clocked at 3.4 GHz (which puts it closely on the Ryzen 7 1700X territory, though it isn't known whether Turbo to its rated 3.8 GHz was active or not), seated on an entry-level MSI A320 AM4 motherboard (absent of overclocking functionality) and 16GB of 2400MHz DDR4 memory.

The tests include integer math, floating point performance, prime numbers, encryption, compression, sorting, SSE performance and physics. The AMD Ryzen 7 1700X outperformed every other CPU in 5 out of the 8 tests, including Intel's fastest 8-core chip, the $1099 Broadwell-E i7 6900K. When put side by side against Intel's slightly less expensive $999 8 core extreme edition Haswell-E i7 5960X, Ryzen was faster in 6 out of the 8 tests. The 1700X showed particularly good performance in integer math and encryption, workloads typically associated with server workloads (and where the bulk of the profit is).

Biostar introduced the A6N-5100 mini-ITX motherboard. A slight upgrade over the company's A6N-5000 from two years ago, the new board integrates AMD A4-5100 APU based on the "Kabini" silicon, which has the chops to outperform Intel's Celeron "Braswell" processors. The A4-5100 integrates a quad-core CPU ticking at 1.60 GHz, and AMD Radeon GCN graphics. The board features two DDR3 SO-DIMM slots, supporting up to 16 GB of memory, one PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slot, two USB 3.0 ports, HDMI display output, and storage connectivity that includes two SATA 6 Gb/s ports. The company didn't reveal pricing.

AMD today released the 17.2.1 Beta version of its Radeon Software Crimson ReLive. This release features Multi GPU profiles and support for For Honor (with an up to 4% performance improvement on Radeon RX 480) and Sniper Elite 4 (with a 5% performance improvement being registered here). Look after the break for a list of known, fixed issues.

As always, you can grab the drivers right here at TPU, through our revamped downloads section. Just follow the link below.DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition 17.2.1 Beta

Featuring a total of 11 global patents (pending and granted), iCX from EVGA is efficiency perfected. With 9 additional sensors embedded on the PCB, a newly designed diecast baseplate and backplate, purposefully directed airflow chambers, and full control using EVGA Precision XOC, EVGA's iCX is the very definition of Interactive Cooling.

Why was iCX Technology Created?
With PC gaming growing, it is important to provide "Peace of Mind Gaming" to the user. With EVGA's new iCX technology, users can have a better understanding of their cards operation. This includes temperature monitoring on key components (not just GPU), interaction with other devices and better cooling with asynchronous fan control providing better overclocking capabilities.

With EVGA iCX technology, a new era of PC gaming is coming.

A Reddit user has used some good, old-fashioned thinking and inference (along with a good memory for details and investigative spirit) to try and shed some light on AMD's upcoming Ryzen chips - particularly, on the "X" part of their nomenclature.

As we've previously reported, upcoming AMD Ryzen chips will slot in two versions for each model: for example, there will be a R7 1700X, 8-core, 16-thread processor (with 95 W TDP), and expected to retail for $381.72, and a R7 1700 (sans "X"), also 8-core, 16-thread, with a rated TDP at 65 W, expected to retail at $316.59, almost $70 cheaper than the 1700X. Now, with AMD's promise of all Ryzen processors being multiplier unlocked (and thus user - or even through an automatic BIOS - overclockable), this would mean that acquiring the 1700X chip would somehow feel like bad business - after all, if the only difference between the two models were to be base and boost clocks (thus higher pricing and TDP), that would fall irrelevant to most power users, since the ability to overclock their Ryzen processors to those levels would be there anyway.

AMD confirmed that it will not release Windows 7 drivers for its upcoming Ryzen series processors. It was earlier reported that the company is working on these drivers. The company, however, did state that it tested and validated Ryzen processors on a variety of operating systems, including Windows 7. "To achieve the highest confidence in the performance of our AMD Ryzen desktop processors (formerly code-named "Summit Ridge"), AMD validated them across two different OS generations, Windows 7 and 10," AMD said in a statement. "However, only support and drivers for Windows 10 will be provided in AMD Ryzen desktop processor production parts," the company added.

This doesn't necessarily mean that there won't be Windows 7 drivers for other socket AM4 chips, such as the 7th generation A-series "Bristol Ridge" APUs. AMD-supplied drivers are essential for these chips, as they drive the AMD Radeon integrated graphics, and Windows 7 continues to be a gaming platform. What happens now? Well, you can run Windows 7 on AMD Ryzen-powered desktops just fine, it's just that the OS won't support all of the processor's capabilities, such as some of the newer instruction sets it comes with.

AMD Ryzen processors, which are scheduled to hit the shelves later this month, could be priced competitively, and one can read into their performance looking at their prices (compared to Intel's Core i5 and Core i7 "Kaby Lake" series). US pricing of at least three top-tier 8-core Ryzen models surfaced on ShopBLT. The flagship AMD Ryzen R7-1800X, bearing PIB part number "YD180XBCAEWOF," is priced at USD $490.29. The Ryzen R7-1700X (YD170XBCAEWOF), on the other hand, goes for $381.72. It's interesting to note here that the part numbers end in "WOF," designating "without fan-heatsink."

Lastly, there's the Ryzen R7-1700 (YD1700BBAEBOX), with 65W TDP, which is priced at $316.59. Given that all three parts are priced above the Core i5-7600K, and two of these are significantly pricier than the Core i7-7700K, which goes for $330, one could read into the chips' possible performance numbers. Remember, AMD has been selling 8-core FX "Piledriver" chips consistently cheaper than Intel's quad-core LGA115x Core i7 parts, and that has been significantly changed with Ryzen.

AMD today released the 17.1.2 WHQL version of its Radeon Software Crimson ReLive. The release packs the exact same game support, fixes and known bugs as the previous 17.1.2 Beta, with the only difference being that this version is now WHQL-signed.

As always, you can grab the drivers right here at TPU, through our revamped downloads section. Just follow the link below.DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition 17.1.2 WHQL

A Spanish-based hardware site has just outed what they claim to be AMD's upcoming R7 Ryzen chips' pricing, and if true, these seem to spell a spectacular amount of value (if performance is at the rumored and expected range, naturally).

As it is, the prices cover only three models of AMD's overall Ryzen line-up, namely, the R7 1800X, the R7 1700X and the non-X, R7 1700 (all 8-core, 16-thread parts). According to the source, these chips will feature base clocks in the order of 4 GHz for the 1800X; 3.8 GHz for the 1700X; and 3.7 GHz for the 1700. Overall european pricing (including taxes) is set at €599.99 for the 1800X; €469.99 for the 1700X; and a "measly" €389.95 for the 1700. As always, you can expect US pricing to be even more competitive; perhaps a $349 pricing for the 1700 chip (which also carries a 65W TDP to boot).

From this, and considering all AMD Ryzen processors will be multiplier-unlocked, we can surmise that the 1700 should be quite a steal at this pricing. And this also bodes well for AMD's upcoming 6-core, 12-thread R5 processors - status-quo upsetting at an affordable price-point, anyone?

The two new quad-core processors Intel is fielding against AMD Ryzen, the Core i7-7740K and the Core i5-7640K, which we described in our older article, will be based on a refined (or at least relabeled) silicon, codenamed "Kaby Lake-X." The current i7-7700K and i5-7600K desktop chips are based on the same silicon as the rest of the 7th generation Core processor lineup, codenamed "Kaby Lake-S." It was also reported in the older article that the TDP of these chips will be rated at 100W. Turns out that they're rated even higher, at 112W, according to PC Games Hardware (PCGH). The top-dog AMD Ryzen R7-1800X features 95W TDP.

According to PCGH, what sets Kaby Lake-X apart from Kaby Lake-S appears to be Intel disabling the integrated graphics. You now need a graphics card to get going with these chips, and it will get trickier if you want to recover your graphics card from a bad BIOS flash. The chips also reportedly feature a high-performance thermal interface material (TIM) under the integrated heatspreaders (IHS). Compared to the i7-7700K and i5-7600K, these chips feature minor 100 MHz speed-bumps, but Intel could make them better overclockers.Update: Apparently these two chips are built in the new socket 2660 package, and will be launched around Gamescom, some time in August.

A Reddit user brought to the playing field the news that AMD's upcoming ZEN CPU's have surfaced in a "pre-order" form through AMD Shangai's official Taobao channel (though you should nevertheless take these with a measure of salt). Details on which CPU we are actually looking at here are still scarce, unfortunately, but the chip is listed at ¥1999.00 (roughly $295). While the chip's process is listed at the expected 14 nm, the base CPU frequency reads 4.2 GHz.

Looking at the supposed AMD Ryzen launch line-up, though, no model is listed at these clockspeeds. However, we should recall that AMD's Ryzen chip used on CES 2017 (an engineering sample) carried clockspeeds of 3.6 GHz base and 3.9 GHz boost, so it is certainly conceivable that newer, release steppings have bumped the frequencies to 3.9 GHz/4.2 GHz respectively (4.2 GHz base clock seems a little too much from what we've seen from the chip, but then again, we don't have any indication as to whether this is an 8-core, 16-thread or a 4-core, 8-thread part, so that should also be taken into account on our "theorycrafting"). We should now have a more firm launch window for Ryzen chips though: previous rumors have pegged the launch at March 2nd, but a February 28th launch window should now be considered to be correct. Can we just have these on our hands already?

At the International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC), AMD presented a whitepaper in which they demonstrated how its upcoming Zen x86 core fits into a 10 percent smaller die area than Intel's currently shipping second-generation 14nm processor. According to reports, analysts and Intel engineers in the session said the Zen core is clearly competitive, though many as-of-yet unknown variables will determine whether the die advantage translates into lower costs for AMD. That said, one thing is clear: the chip will have to perform in addition to being smaller, if AMD wants to ever capitalize on the potentially higher margins a smaller die could grant them.

One of the ways AMD improved upon its ZEN core in comparison to its previous products has been on switching capacitance for their new chips, with a reported overall 15% improvement. In addition, AMD has apparently moved on to a metal-insulator-metal capacitor design, thus achieving lower operating voltages as well as as more fine-grained per-core voltage and frequency control (on to become part of their SenseMI technology suite). Looking at the image, which pits an AMD ZEN chip to a comparable Intel solution, we see that AMD saves additional die space by making do with only 12 metal layers as well as overall lower L2 and L3 cache footprints.

AMD's upcoming Ryzen chips probably represent the hardware world's most awaited shake-up in recent times (and I do know I've been mentioning this non-stop, but please, do bear with me here). The thought that the underdog could finally present an actual alternative - at least performance-wise - to its Goliath of a rival - and thus introducing renewed competition in a bogged-down hardware segment and the democratization of high-quality processing cores - is simply too good to not gobble down like water given to a desert nomad. I, for one, hope that AMD can deliver, prompting a better competitive - and pricing - environment for all of us.

And it would seem that Intel is looking to staunch an eventual bleeding that AMD's Ryzen chips might instill to their CPU line-up, with its expected 4-core, 8-thread, 6-core 12-thread, and 8-core, 16-thread Ryzen processors, by shaking up its - now ancient - line-up of Core processors. Intel has already introduced some changes to its line with the release of Kaby Lake - with some Celeron processors carrying Hyper Threading, previously locked to their i3 processors, and the first unlocked-multiplier Core i3-7350K processor, but apparently the company feels that isn't enough for Ryzen's expected performance - enter the Core i7-7740K and the Core i5-7640K.

Ahead of their launch, production versions of ASRock's high-end socket AM4 motherboards based on AMD X370 chipset were shown off, at the company-sponsored DOTA Pit gaming event in Split, Croatia. Our friends at Tehix.org shared with us some exclusive pictures. These boards were first spied and detailed at this year's CES expo. Besides looking more polished and ready for retail, not much has changed between these boards from the ones we saw at CES, except the distinctive Ryzen logo on the I/O shield cover, replacing the Intel Ethernet logos. On some models, the Ryzen logo even glows red or white.

Unlike Intel, which has had a predictable processor model number scheme over the past decade, those of AMD's new Ryzen processor family have been shrouded in mystery. Come March 2nd, and the company will launch some of 17, that's right, seventeen processor models. These include 5 eight-core SKUs, 4 six-core SKUs, and a whopping 8 quad-core SKUs. The lineup is led by the AMD Ryzen R7 1800X, followed by the R7 1800 Pro, the R7 1700X, the R7 1700 Pro, and the R7 1700. At this point we don't know the clock speeds of these SKUs, or what "Pro" designates. We know from AMD's application of the "Pro" moniker to some of its A-series APUs that it could designate certain business-desktop centric features.

The six-core lineup is led by the Ryzen R5 1600X, followed by the R5 1600 Pro, the R5 1500, and the R5 1500 Pro. The clock speeds of these SKUs range between 3.20-3.60 GHz, all SKUs feature SMT, enabling 12 logical CPUs for the OS to deal with. Lastly, AMD has an exhaustive range of quad-core chips, the ones with SMT are slotted in the Ryzen R5 extension, and the ones without SMT are Ryzen R3. The SMT-enabled quad-core lineup includes the R5 1400X, R5 1400 Pro, R5 1300, and R5 1300 Pro. The entry-level R3 lineup includes the R3 1200X, R3 1200 Pro, R3 1100, and R3 1100 Pro. A number of these SKUs will launch on the 2nd of March, 2017.

Ashes of the Singularity seems to be the benchmark tool of choice for upcoming AMD products, for some reason; and it was once again used to benchmark an upcoming AMD Ryzen processor. The benchmark results were quickly deleted after they were posted, but the hardware enthusiast should never be underestimated, and timely screenshot skills always help keep alive these little slips of the trade.

Unlike some previous benchmark leaks of Ryzen processors, which carried the prefix ES (Engineering Sample), this one carried the ZD Prefix, and the last characters on its string name are the most interesting to us: F4 stands for the silicon revision, while the 40_36 stands for the processor's Turbo and stock speeds respectively (4.0 GHz and 3.6 GHz). This is the 8-core, 16-thread SMT-enabled monster of a processor that AMD will be bringing to the table in its uphill battle against Intel, with the Ryzen chip having achieved CPU Framerate scores of 81.4 (normal batch, 73.4 (medium batch) and 60.2 (heavy batch), paired with a Pascal-based NVIDIA Titan X (which would likely point towards the test having been done by an independent, off-AMD labs part).

NVIDIA and AMD have, over the past five years, innovated giving away AAA game releases with their graphics cards, through game codes that can be redeemed on DRM platforms such as Steam. The two have their own internal pricing with game publishers, which makes giving away $60 (retail value) games with $400 graphics cards tolerable to their bean counters. To consumers, these games made for great tradable commodities, a sort of "discount coupons," even. Say you don't want to play the included games, already have them, or bought two graphics cards and have one game to spare; you had the ability to give away, trade, or even sell those game codes. NVIDIA is about to change that.

With its latest game bundle that lets you choose from "For Honor" and Tom Clancy's "Ghost Recon: Wildlands," on purchase of new GeForce GTX 1070 or GTX 1080 graphics cards, NVIDIA changed the game redemption method. You first need NVIDIA's GeForce Experience app installed and logged in. The app then one-time redeems the game of your choice on verifying that you have the graphics card participating in the offer (i.e. a GTX 1070 or GTX 1080). The app doesn't appear to be checking serial-numbers of the cards, but rather if the right GPU is installed in the machine. After redeeming the game, however, you are free to uninstall GeForce Experience, or even change your graphics card. The game is handled by the DRM platform its developers intended (Steam, UPlay, Origin, etc.). We tested how game code trading works under the new system.

Crosshair is the brand that kicked off ASUS' coveted Republic of Gamers (ROG) series. The NVIDIA nForce chipset based ROG Crosshair socket AM2 motherboard was the board to have, in AMD's hayday as the leader in CPU performance. Over the years, the Crosshair brand received lesser love from ASUS, as AMD's chipset releases became infrequent, due to the company's slower CPU product development cycle than Intel. With the new socket AM4 platform and its companion AMD X370 chipset for the high-end segment, ASUS is back with a Crosshair branded motherboard, the ROG Crosshair VI Hero. It's interesting that ASUS chose not to give it the "Formula," "Extreme" or "Apex" extensions, and instead with the "Hero" extension it reserves for the $200-230 ROG branded boards.

Nevertheless, the ROG Crosshair VI Hero looks to be one of the most elaborately designed socket AM4 motherboards, and will compete with the likes of the Aorus AX370 Gaming 5 and the MSI X370 XPower Gaming Titanium. Built in the ATX form-factor, the Crosshair VI Hero draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX, 8-pin EPS, and 4-pin ATX power connectors, and conditions it for the CPU with a 12-phase VRM. The board features a "monochromatic design," so you can deck it up with your own LED lighting. It does feature RGB LED headers, with support for ASUS Aura Sync platform. The board has its own diagnostic LEDs that guide you through the POST sequence. Besides the ROG stylized chipset and CPU VRM heatsinks, the board features plastic I/O shield covers that run the length of the board.

AMD is reportedly providing platform (chipset) drivers for its upcoming socket AM4 platform, for the ageing Windows 7 operating system. This is noteworthy as rival Intel isn't providing Windows 7 drivers for its 200-series chipset, which drives the Core "Kaby Lake" processors, and the onboard graphics of Core "Kaby Lake" processors. Graphics drivers by AMD could power integrated graphics cores of the 7th generation A-series "Bristol Ridge" APUs, and the three socket AM4 chipsets - A320, B350, and X370.

Noctua today presented three special-edition models of its award-winning quiet CPU coolers. The new SE-AM4 versions of the NH-D15, NH-U12S and NH-L9x65 are dedicated premium-quality solutions for the new AM4 socket of AMD's upcoming Ryzen architecture. Whereas the NH-L9x65 SE-AM4 is tailored for compact systems and the NH-U12S SE-AM4 offers an excellent balance of performance and compatibility, the NH-D15 SE-AM4 provides maximum cooling performance for overclockers and silent enthusiasts.

"AMD's Ryzen architecture promises exciting possibilities for various applications and the NH-D15, NH-U12S and NH-L9x65 are some of our most popular models, so it was a natural choice to create dedicated special editions for the new platform," says Roland Mossig (Noctua CEO). "Each of these coolers has received more than 100 awards and recommendations from international websites and magazines, so we're confident that the SE-AM4 special editions will be a great choice for anything from compact ITX builds to overclocked gaming rigs."

AMD recently shared their FY 2016 results - which beat expectations and showed a company poised for either a big return to form (or a monumental backflip) solely on the success or failure of its two upcoming products for the CPU and graphics space, Ryzen and Vega.

Share value is based on both tangible and intangible characteristics of the company it's based upon, and in this case, AMD seems to have garnered even more attention after its solid FY 2016 execution, building confidence and expectation on its upcoming product launches. As we speak, AMD's shares have increased by 16.3% up to $12.06 a share, increasing its market cap up to $10.93B.

It's always a dance between rumours, expectations and "theorycrafting" when it comes to the launch of any particularly exciting product. And with AMD's Ryzen chips currently being the most hotly anticipated development (and product launch) in the hardware world, well, let's just say that anticipation is really building up to enormous levels, with any possible details surrounding AMD's line-up being the cause, in some cases, of heated debate.

Case in point: with AMD's CCX (CPU Complex) being indivisible, this would mean a blow not only to budget-conscious consumers, but also to AMD's ability to engender its product line. Flexibility has always been the name of the game with AMD (discounting their CMT-based Bulldozer and derived architectures), with the company offering triple-core processors in the past (and weren't those the good old days of processor unlocking). However, now reports have come in that Ryzen's CCX are actually divisible, which could open up possibilities for some theoretically value-breaking hexa-core Ryzen chips.

On January 24, 2017, AMD filed a complaint against several prominent tech companies, requesting that the ITC commence an investigation pursuant to Section 337. The basis for the complaint: some of these companies (namely, LG, MediaTek, VIZIO, and Sigma) unlawfully import into or sell inside the U.S. products which infringe on AMD's graphics intelectual property - namely, on U.S. Patent Nos. 7,633,506 (the '506 patent), 7,796,133 (the '133 patent) and 8,760,454 (the '454 patent) (collectively, the "asserted patents".

According to the complaint, these patents generally relate to architectures for graphics processing unit (GPU) circuitry. The '506 patent relates to "a graphics processing architecture that enables a large amount of graphics data to be rendered to a frame buffer". The '133 patent relates to specialized "texture" processing circuitry that is employed by GPUs. Lastly, the '454 patent relates to a "unified shader" hardware architecture for GPUs. The complaint specifically refers to various televisions and smartphones, specifically, towards the graphics processing systems within those televisions and smartphones - as infringing products.

AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) today announced revenue for the fourth quarter of 2016 of $1.11 billion, operating loss of $3 million and net loss of $51 million, or $0.06 per share. Non-GAAP(1) operating income was $26 million, non-GAAP(1) net loss was $8 million and non-GAAP(1) loss per share was $0.01.

"We met our strategic objectives in 2016, successfully executing our product roadmaps, regaining share in key markets, strengthening our financial foundation, and delivering annual revenue growth," said Dr. Lisa Su, AMD president and CEO. "As we enter 2017, we are well positioned and on-track to deliver our strongest set of high-performance computing and graphics products in more than a decade."

TechPowerUp today released the latest version of GPU-Z, its popular graphics subsystem information, monitoring, and diagnostic utility, which no PC enthusiast can leave home without. Version 1.17.0 comes with support for new graphics chips, and a host of stability and usability improvements. To begin with, it comes with full support for Intel "Kaby Lake" and "Apollo Lake" HD Graphics (integrated graphics). It also comes with support for NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050, GTX 1050 Mobile, GP104-based GTX 1060, and GP104-based Quadro Mobile.

GPU-Z 1.17.0 also comes with some user-interface changes, including display of Core architecture codename for Intel iGPUs, UEFI support being shown as available for Intel iGPUs newer than "Sandy Bridge" architecture, fixed ROP count on AMD "Beema" iGPU, and fixed values for Intel "Bay Trail" silicon to be 22 nm silicon process, and DirectX 11 as maximum API support. Grab GPU-Z from the link below.DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z 1.17.0