AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) today announced that it has received a perfect score on the Human Rights Campaign Foundation's 2017 Corporate Equality Index (CEI), naming it a "Best Place to Work for LGBT Equality". The CEI is a benchmarking tool that rates corporate equality policies and practices for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) employees including equal employment opportunity policies, non-discrimination protections, and benefits.

"At AMD we believe that creating an inclusive environment where every employee is empowered to bring their diverse set of perspectives to the table each day is the key to bringing out the best, most innovative ideas," said Ruth Cotter, chief human resources officer and senior vice president of Corporate Communications and Investor Relations at AMD. "We are proud of the progress we have made to achieve our CEI score and to be named alongside other leading companies as we collectively pursue equality for everyone in the workplace."

AMD's December 13th "New Horizon" event is supposedly (and expectedly) a pivotal moment for the company - a celebration of sorts for the impending launch of their ZEN-based microprocessors. The event, which will be presented mainly by Gametrailers TV-based journalist Geoff Keighley, is now turning up to be a Summit Ridge celebration of sorts as well.

According to recent reports, a small number of motherboard manufacturers should also be in attendance at the event, showing-off their AM4-compatible motherboards based on the top-of-the-line X370 chipset. The X370 is the most advanced version of the Zen-compatible chipsets and is expected to provide extensive overclocking features and up to two third-generation PCIe x16 lanes for multi-GPU systems. Below the X370, the B350 and A320 take over the role of the mid-range and entry-level chipsets respectively. The new chipsets are expected to bring native M.2 NVMe & SATA Express connectivity, PCIe gen 3, DDR4 memory compatibility and USB 3.1 Gen2 to the company's high-end desktop platform for the very first time.

AMD's next-generation ZEN processor family is bound for a grand entrance this December, with the company planning a special media event that will be live-streamed to the public. Called "New Horizon," AMD is designing the event to be an "exclusive advanced preview" of the processor ahead of its Q1-2017 scheduled launch. The preview will see eSports and Evil Geniuses legend PPD put "Zen" through its paces, according to its announcement. With this AMD appears to be showing off the chip's advanced gaming capabilities. " If you're serious about gaming, this is an event you do not want to miss," AMD's announcement signs off. The event stream goes live on the 13th of December, at 15:00 CST (21:00 hrs UTC).

Here are some of the first pictures of an AMD socket AM4 APU being de-lidded. De-lidding is the process of removing the IHS (integrated heatspreader), the metal plate covering the CPU die. Some PC enthusiasts remove the IHS to improve heat-transfer between the CPU and extreme cooling solutions, such as LN2/dry-ice evaporators. Overclocker Nam Dae Won, with access to a couple of socket AM4 chips (most likely 7th generation A-series "Bristol Ridge" APUs), de-lidded the chips, revealing a large rectangular die. AMD is using high-quality TIM between the die and the IHS, which could either be solder or liquid metal. There's also a clear picture of the underside pin-grid of the AM4 chip, which has a central cutout that lacks any SMT components. Socket AM4 has 1,331 pins.

AMD today released the Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.11.5 Hotfix, highlighting improved support for Watch Dogs 2, as well as the addition of a new AMD CrossFire profile for Dishonored 2 under DirectX 11.

As for other important tidbits, this release fixes instances of flickering on The Division and Battlefield 1, both occurring when using AMD Crossfire technology. As always, you can grab the drivers right here at TechPowerUp - just follow the links below.Download: AMD Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.11.5 Hotfix for Windows 10 64-bit | Windows 10 32-bit | Windows 8.1 64-bit | Windows 8.1 32-bit | Windows 7 64-bit | Windows 7 32-bit

XFX today unveiled single-slot Radeon RX 460 Core Edition graphics cards. Available in 2 GB and 4 GB variants, the cards feature a single-slot cooling solution that uses a dense aluminum channel heatsink that's ventilated by a single 70 mm fan. A high-quality aluminum cooler-shroud runs the entire length of the PCB. Display outputs include one each of dual-link DVI, HDMI 2.0b, and DisplayPort 1.4 connectors. The cards stick to AMD reference clock speeds of 1090 MHz core, 1220 MHz Boost, and 7.00 GHz (GDDR5-effective) memory. The pricing is not known at the moment.

AOC's AGON line of PC monitors has been increasingly added to by the company - which usually signifies strong sales and brand recognition. In trying to cater to an even more diverse consumer base, AOC has now added a new offer to their AGON line of gaming monitors: the AG251FZ.

The AG251FZ 25" is a 16:9 ratio monitor, which comes in at the still-dominating 1920*1080 resolution, sporting a TN-type panel with a 1ms Grey-to-grey response time which allows it achieve a 240Hz refresh rate. The panel offers 16.7 million colors, brightness of 400cd/m2, contrast ratio of 1000:1, and pretty decent viewing angles of 170/160. On top of that, the monitor also includes AMD's royalty-free FreeSync (active from 48Hz towards the 240Hz maximum refresh rate), with 1x HDMI 2.0 and 1x DisplayPort 1.2a adaptive sync compatible inputs, as well as more legacy 1x DVI and 1x VGA inputs. The monitor also features a connectivity hub, sporting 4 x USB 3.0, Audio out/in, and Microphone in/out ports.

A spectacular rumor doing rounds has AMD sign 2016 off with a new high-end graphics card launch. The company could launch the Radeon RX 490 by the end of the year, according to an Guru3D report. This SKU could either be based on the larger Vega 10 silicon, or be a dual-GPU on a stick graphics card based on a pair of Polaris 10 "Ellesmere" chips. The former seems more likely as multi-GPU support among recent AAA game launches is dwindling. Earlier this year, AMD inadvertently leaked the SKU name Radeon RX 490 on its website.

If the Radeon RX 490 is based on the Vega 10, then it could feature 4,096 stream processors based on the "Vega" architecture, 256 TMUs, 64 ROPs, and a 4096-bit HBM2 memory interface, holding 8 GB or 16 GB of memory, with a memory bandwidth of 512 GB/s. If instead it is a dual-GPU card based on Polaris 10, then you could be looking at 2x 2,304 stream processors, and 16 GB of GDDR5 memory across two 256-bit wide memory interfaces.

HIS, a leading manufacturer of AMD graphics cards, is set to offer a slim solution to the RX 460 series: the HIS RX 460 Slim-iCooler OC 4GB. HIS will be the first board partner to offer a single slot RX 460 which carries a condensed version of their in-house 'iCooler'. The RX 460 Slim-iCooler OC can maximize your rig's performance by providing the possibility for gamers to upgrade their rig without compromising space.

Carrying the product code HS-460R4TCNR, the card features a metallic fan shroud, a strong lion image and does not require the use of a 6-pin PCI-E power connector. The Slim-iCooler utilizes 0dB technology, where the 50mm fan will only start to spin up when the GPU temperature reaches 60 Degrees C. The GPU boasts a modest factory overclock and runs at 1220 MHz while the memory speed is unchanged at 7 Gbps.

As it stands there is no word on pricing or availability, and the product page is currently inaccessible. A cached version can be found here.

The folks over at 3dcenter.org have compiled comprehensive historical GPU AIB market share data for our digestion. While we recently reported on Q3'16 and its comparison to the quarter before and the same period last year, this information spans a near 14 year quarter-on-quarter time frame. The compilers have quite helpfully included points of reference along the timeline which highlight the two major GPU manufacturers milestone desktop product line debuts.

It is worth noting that their exact numbers differ slightly to the ones Jon Peddie Research provided as 3dcenter have also cited the work of Mercury Research, which appears more conservative. The figures provided in their own graph split the difference between the two sources to give us a more impartial look at the market.

So everyone wants to crash at your place to watch the latest shows on your 4K Ultra HD TV, you can even "chill" with that special someone, if you can take your eyes off 4K content; and it turns out you even spent $500 on buying a new 4K monitor for your PC, because you demand no less than 3840 x 2160 pixels in front of your face; and among the first things you do (besides heading over to Interfacelift for some great wallpapers), is Netflix. Only Netflix has other ideas.

Apparently, you need a 7th generation Core "Kaby Lake" processor (or possibly AMD's upcoming "ZEN" processor), Windows 10 operating system, and Microsoft Edge web-browser to get 4K to work right on your PC, according to a Tom's Hardware report. Two factors could be pushing these steep-requirements - HEVC CODEC hardware acceleration, and hardware-level DRM features being introduced with "Kaby Lake." HEVC could prove crucial for Netflix as streaming 4K in existing H.264 format could quadruple bandwidth consumption over Full HD. HEVC encoding lets Netflix minimize the bitrate greatly. For Netflix's DRM component to access the CPU's hardware DRM features, it needs Windows 10, older versions of Windows won't work. If these requirements aren't met, Netflix will simply play your content in Full HD. No soup for you.

As you may remember, "Llano" was somewhat of a disappointment for AMD, to put it mildly. Production issues with partner Global Foundries meant that Llano's roll-out was affected and extended beyond its predicted time-frame. This, in conjunction with other various factors, such as lack of product appeal over disappointing performance and the usual competition from Intel, forced AMD to pull in its second-generation "Trinity" APU too soon. By the time production finally caught up, it ended up overproducing relative to diminishing demand, which resulted in unsold inventory, thus forcing an inventory write-down of "Llano" chips valued at around $100 million. This reduced the company's worth by nearly that much overnight, and tanked the value of the AMD stock. This, of course, didn't sit well with investors.

The as-of-yet ongoing securities fraud lawsuit over AMD's "Llano" APUs has just achieved a milestone, in having been authorized by the Court to proceed as a class action. The Court's decision doesn't imply that the defendants (Rory P. Read, Thomas J. Seifert, Richard A. Bergman, and Dr. Lisa T. Su) did anything wrong. The defendants have not been ordered to pay any money, no settlement has been reached, no money is available as of now and there is no guarantee that there will be in the future.

AMD is readying a new graphics card promotion for Holiday 2016. The company is planning to give away game keys to "Sid Meier's Civilization VI" with both the 4 GB and 8 GB variants of its Radeon RX 480 graphics cards. Available through participating retailers, and in select markets, the promotion will be applicable to both the reference and custom-design graphics cards. Sapphire, for example, is giving away keys to the game with both its NITRO+ and reference-design RX 480 cards. Purchase receipts for the cards will come with special promotion codes that can be redeemed on the AMD Rewards website to enable the game directly to your Steam account. The 6th edition of the smash-hit turn-based strategy game, "Civilization VI" takes advantage of DirectX 12 through its latest patch, the Radeon RX 480 meets or exceeds its recommended system requirements.

Jon Peddie Research (JPR), the graphics and multimedia industry's research and consulting firm, announced estimated PC graphics add-in-board (AIB) shipments and suppliers' market share for Q3'16. The last two quarters have seen both NVIDIA and AMD release and expand a new AIB line-up, the former launching the GeForce 10 series, powered by "Pascal" GPU's and the latter releasing the Radeon 400 series, powered by "Polaris" GPU's.

JPR's AIB Report tracks PC add-in graphics boards (AIBs), which carry discrete graphics chips. AIBs are used in desktop PCs, workstations, servers, and other devices such as scientific instruments. They can be factory installed or sold directly to customers as aftermarket products. In all cases, AIBs represent the higher end of the graphics industry using discrete chips and private high-speed memory, compared to the integrated GPUs in CPUs or SOCs that share slower system memory.

AMD FirePro and Radeon Pro graphics empower content creators and designers at many levels, from casual makers and students all the way up to seasoned professionals and enterprise workstation users. It's not just hardware, though, that lets professionals unleash their creativity; powerful software is critical too, and today we are introducing the first of many Radeon Pro Software releases.

The Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Driver 16.Q4 is designed to address the specific needs of enterprise users and also will support the upcoming release of AMD's next-generation of professional graphics, the Radeon Pro WX series.

AMD's first desktop processors based on the "ZEN" micro-architecture will be priced above the fastest socket AM4 part currently in production, the A12-9800 APU. While AMD hasn't started selling the A-series socket AM4 APUs in the retail channel, the top-end A12-9800, which is faster than the A10-7870K from its previous-generation, is expected to be priced at least the same ($160) or higher. This would mean that even the cheapest ZEN part, under the ZEN SR3 series, likely quad-core; could be priced above $160.

Two key slides from a presentation AMD intended for Chinese distribution channels, was leaked to the web by ChipHell tech forum members, revealing that ZEN parts will be priced in a segment "above" RMB ¥1,500 (USD $218), assuming that that's a price inclusive of all taxes. The company also put out some performance numbers for the A8-9600 "Bristol Ridge" socket AM4 APU, keeping the "Godavari" A8-7650K as baseline, compared to the Intel Core i3-6100 "Skylake" processor. The A8-9600 was shown to be faster in most tests.

As we inch ever closer to AMD's Zen launch, more and more information seems to be slipping through the cracks. This time, MAXSUN, an AMD China partner (poised to provide customers with AM4 platform motherboards) is the source of the proverbial leak, with information that, if true, is sure to stir the pot of bubbling Zen excitement even more.

According to MAXSUN, Zen's initial release date is pegged for January 17th, which, if true, would probably mean a product announcement around CES 2017 (scheduled from the 5th of January through the 8th) - at the same time as Intel is expected to fully unveil their Kaby Lake parts. The company also reports a second release window at March 2017, which lends further credence to AMD's expected staggered launch of Zen-based processors, first for the High-Performance-Desktop (HEDT) market, and trickling down from there. MAXSUN also confirms the pricing scheme we reported yesterday, with regards to the companies' SR7 processors (the top-of-the-line parts in the Zen line-up, and whose naming scheme I think isn't the final one) - the company states these are expected to be priced at around 1500-2000 Yuan SKU ($250-$300).

High-dynamic range or HDR is all the rage these days as the next big thing in display output, now that hardware has time to catch up with ever-increasing display resolutions such as 4K ultra HD, 5K, and the various ultra-wide formats. Hardware-accelerated HDR is getting a push from both AMD and NVIDIA in this round of GPUs. While games with HDR date back to Half Life 2, hardware-accelerated formats that minimize work for game developers, in which the hardware makes sense of an image and adjusts its output range, is new and requires substantial compute power. It also requires additional interface bandwidth between the GPU and the display, since GPUs sometimes rely on wider color palettes such as 10 bpc (1.07 billion colors) to generate HDR images. AMD Radeon GPUs are facing difficulties in this area.

German tech publication Heise.de discovered that AMD Radeon GPUs render HDR games (games that take advantage of new-generation hardware HDR, such as "Shadow Warrior 2") at a reduced color depth of 8 bits per cell (16.7 million colors), or 32-bit; if your display (eg: 4K HDR-ready TV) is connected over HDMI 2.0 and not DisplayPort 1.2 (and above). The desired 10 bits per cell (1.07 billion colors) palette is available only when your HDR display runs over DisplayPort. This could be a problem, since most HDR-ready displays these days are TVs. Heise.de observes that AMD GPUs reduce output sampling from the desired Full YCrBr 4: 4: 4 color scanning to 4: 2: 2 or 4: 2: 0 (color-sub-sampling / chroma sub-sampling), when the display is connected over HDMI 2.0. The publication also suspects that the limitation is prevalent on all AMD "Polaris" GPUs, including the ones that drive game consoles such as the PS4 Pro.

PowerColor unveiled the Radeon RX 470 Red Dragon V2 4 GB graphics card (model: AXRX470 4GBD5-3DHDV2/OC). A cost-effective variant of the original RX 470 Red Dragon, this card features a simpler single-fan cooling solution. The cooler features an aluminium fin-heatsink milled from a single chunk of metal; with a copper core, and two copper heat pipes that make direct contact with the GPU, quickly pushing heat to the edges of the heatsink. This heatsink also makes contact with the VRM MOSFETs. A single 100 mm fan ventilates the heatsink.

The PowerColor Radeon RX 470 Red Dragon V2 is factory-overclocked, with engine clocks up to 1206 MHz, and 6.60 GHz (GDDR5-effective) memory; which are the same as the original (dual-fan) RX 470 Red Dragon. The card features 4 GB of GDDR5 memory across the chip's 256-bit wide memory interface. Based on the Polaris 10 "Ellesmere" silicon, the Radeon RX 470 features 2,048 stream processors, 128 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. The card draws power from a single 6-pin PCIe power connector. PowerColor could price this card around the $170 mark.

AMD today released Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.11.4, the latest version of its comprehensive Radeon GPU software suite. Version 16.11.4 comes with optimization for "Sid Meier's Civilization VI," the season's smash-hit turn-based strategy title. The drivers also address a minor visual corruption noticed on "Titanfall 2" rendered by Radeon R9 Fury series GPUs, when inside a titan. The drivers fix a bug with playback issues noticed on H.264 video-playback in web-browsers, when the GPU is also rendering games or other content in the background. Grab the drivers from the links below.DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.11.4 for Windows 10 64-bit | Windows 10 32-bit | Windows 8.1 64-bit | Windows 8.1 32-bit | Windows 7 64-bit | Windows 7 32-bit

Recent reports peg AMD's upcoming line of microprocessors based on Zen micro-architecture as being labelled SR3, SR5 and SR7 for different hardware tiers (with the SR3 being the lowest-performing, and SR7 being, naturally, the highest-performing). A recent post on Chip Hell claims that a leaked slide from an AMD presentation give us these insights, with further information on pricing: it's shown in the roadmap that all Zen SR (Summit Ridge) processors will sell for higher than RMB 1500 ($220).

AMD is expected to offer either four-core or eight-core designs on their lineup (with eventual Simultaneous Multi Threading differentiation, like Intel does between their i5 and i7 lines) still being up in the air. And in what would mark a divergence from their recent movement in the GPU space, where AMD introduced their latest Polaris architecture at the highest-volume market of about $200, AMD's Zen efforts are expected to begin from the top, with the dubbed "SR7" enthusiast-grade products first, and trickling down the market scale eventually.

At SC16, AMD announced that Radeon GPU technology will be available to Google Cloud Platform users worldwide. Starting in 2017, Google will use AMD's fastest available single-precision dual GPU compute accelerators, Radeon-based AMD FirePro S9300 x2 Server GPUs, to help accelerate Google Compute Engine and Google Cloud Machine Learning services. AMD FirePro S9300 x2 GPUs can handle highly parallel calculations, including complex medical and financial simulations, seismic and subsurface exploration, machine learning, video rendering and transcoding, and scientific analysis. Google Cloud Platform will make the AMD GPU resources available for all their users around the world.

"Graphics processors represent the best combination of performance and programmability for existing and emerging big data applications," said Raja Koduri, senior vice president and chief architect, Radeon Technologies Group, AMD. "The adoption of AMD GPU technology in Google Cloud Platform is a validation of the progress AMD has made in GPU hardware and our Radeon Open Compute Platform, which is the only fully open source hyperscale GPU compute platform in the world today. We expect that our momentum in GPU computing will continue to accelerate with future hardware and software releases and advances in the ecosystem of middleware and libraries."

If AMD's plans come to fruition, the company's efforts with its Zen micro-architecture will bring it back towards competitiveness with Intel not only on consumer chips, but also on the enterprise segment. While the company's consumer efforts are, by and large, the most visible from a consumer standpoint, with great hopes being pinned on it as a means to inject some much-needed dynamism and innovation in the CPU landscape, the most important vector for AMD arguably stands with the enterprise segment - where margins are usually much greater than in the consumer market.

AKiTiO has introduced its new, Thunderbolt 3-powered external graphics box. Akin to Powercolor's Devil Box ($379), Razer's Core ($499) or ASUS' XG2, the AKiTiO Node is meant to house an external graphics card, delivering true discrete-graphics-class performance to your laptop, AIO or SFF PC. One thing the Node has going for it, though, is pricing: this eGFX Box comes in at only $299. At this price-point, the Node makes away with extra connectors found in some of its competitors, like Ethernet or USB 3.0, keeping it as simple and to-the-point as possible: the only port is for its Thunderbolt 3 connection.

The AKiTiO Node is 428mm long, 145 mm wide and 227 mm high, making it compatible with a variety of dual-slot, full-length AMD and NVIDIA graphics cards (up to 312 mm long, 170 mm high [with power cables] and 44 mm wide), and sports an upgradeable, integrated 400 W SFX PSU, as well as one 120 mm fan for extra cooling capability.

AMD on Monday announced their ROCm initiative. Introduced by AMD's Gregory Stoner, Senior Director for the Radeon Open Compute Initiative, ROCm stands for Radeon Open Compute platforM. This open-standard, high-performance, Hyper Scale computing platform stands on the shoulders of AMD's technological expertise and accomplishments, with cards like the Radeon R9 Nano achieving as much as 46 GFLOPS of peak single-precision performance per Watt.

The natural evolution of AMD's Boltzmann Initiative, ROCm grants developers and coders a platform which allows the leveraging of AMD's GPU solutions through a variety of popular programming languages, such as OpenCL, CUDA, ISO C++ and Python. AMD knows that the hardware is but a single piece in an ecosystem, and that having it without any supporting software is a recipe for failure. As such, AMD's ROCm stands as AMD's push towards HPC by leveraging both its hardware, as well as the support for open-standards and the conversion of otherwise proprietary code.