NVIDIA could attempt to steal the limelight from AMD's 2017 "Capsaicin & Cream" launch event for its Ryzen desktop processors, slated for February 28, with a parallel GeForce GTX event along the sidelines of the 2017 Game Developers' Conference (GDC). At this event, the company is expected to launch its next enthusiast-segment graphics card, the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti. This could at least be a paper-launch, with market availability following through in March.

While the GTX 1080 Ti is a graphics card, and Ryzen a processor (they don't compete), NVIDIA's choice of launch-date could certainly steal some attention away from AMD's big day. Besides launching Ryzen, it wouldn't surprise us if AMD teases its upcoming Radeon "Vega" graphics cards a little more. The GeForce GTX 1080 Ti is expected to be based on the same "GP102" silicon as the company's flagship TITAN X Pascal graphics card, and could be positioned very close to the USD $1,000 mark, given that NVIDIA priced the TITAN X Pascal at a wallet-scorching $1,199.

A number of sites have been reporting on some leaked (as in, captured from Futuremark's database) scores on AMD's upcoming CPUs. Now, some benchmarks seem to have surfaced regarding not only the company's 8-core, 16-thread monsters, but also towards its sweet-spot 6-core, 12-thread CPUs and its more mundane 4-core offerings.

Taking into account some metrics (which you should, naturally, take with some grains of salt), and comparing Intel's and AMD's Ryzen offerings on 3DMark's Fire Strike Physics scores, we can see that a $389 Ryzen 7 1700X (8 cores, 16 threads) at its base clock of 3.4 GHz manages to surpass Intel's competing (in thread count alone, since it retails for $1089) 6900K running at its base 3.2 GHz frequency - with the Ryzen processor scoring 17,878 points versus the 6900K's 17,100. Doing some fast and hard maths, this would mean that if the R7 1700X was to be clocked at the same speed as the 6900K, it would still be faster, clock for clock (though not by much, admittedly). We don't know whether Turbo was disabled or not on these tests, for either AMD's or Intel's processor, so we have to consider that. However, if Turbo were enabled, that would mean that the R7 1700X's clockspeed would only be 100 MHz higher than the 6900K's (3.8 GHz max, vs 3.7 GHz max on the Intel CPU).

BIOSTAR is proud to announce the newest entry in its RACING Series family of high-performance motherboard with its debut entry for AMD with the BIOSTAR RACING X370 and B350 motherboard line up. Featuring the latest 2nd-generation RACING Series technology, the race to the future has just become more intense with support for the new AMD RYZEN processors.

True to the legacy of the BIOSTAR RACING series, the new motherboards for the Super 5 concept as well as the BIOSTAR's revolutionary VIVID LED Armor and 5050 LED Fun Zone. In conjunction with this are BIOSTAR's new improvement to component stability and performance with its new feature of Digital Power+ for overclocking and M.2 Cooling Protection. Also debuting with this model is the FLY.NET network performance software that works in tandem with the new DRAGON gaming LAN solution designed for gamers that want absolute network performance without lag when every second counts.

At the International Solid-State Circuits Conference held earlier this month, some solid information has come to surface on a subject near and dear to many enthusiast hearts right now: AMD's upcoming Ryzen CPU line.

As far as credibility, the information comes in fairly convincing form. AMD's claims are backed with die shots of actual AMD Ryzen cores and further supported by more shots of their CCX (core complex) modules. From these shots, we can guess at several things, and further more see evidence for several of their claims.

It all seems to go back to AMD these days, doesn't it? If it isn't the company's upcoming Ryzen CPUs that stand in the limelight (a rare thing nowadays, with a seemingly neverending amount of leaks around them and the accompanying AM4 platform), it's the company's Vega graphics architecture that makes waves with new info or new leaks.

Now, reports are coming in (with solid imagery at that) regarding a collaboration between Arkane and AMD, marrying Arkane's promising new IP, Prey, and AMD's upcoming Vega architecture. This may sound like an interesting, if not at all important, piece of information. But digging deeper, this is probably indication of Vega's expected launch window. Considering that AMD's woman of the moment, Lisa Su, has previously placed Vega's launch in Q2 2017 (spanning April, May, and June), and adding 1+1, this places AMD's Vega launch before Prey's - after all, it wouldn't make much sense to market a game as being optimized for a given architecture.... If users can't actually use it.

As an avid reader and story addict, I admit that Arkane's take on the world of Dishonored in its second iteration left me a little underwhelmed (though the worldbuilding, gameplay and art direction were simply sublime). However, judging from Prey's trailers and some hands-on impressions running the world wide web, it looks as if Arkane has again hit the proverbial nail in the head. And from what AMD promises, Vega will be here to power it when it launches on May 5th.

Not to be outdone by AMD, and making sure to keep the landscape populated with enough green, NVIDIA has announced its presence in the upcoming GDC 2017. Could this be the choice battleground for an announcement regarding the (now) almost mythical GTX 1080Ti?

Let's see what the company has to say: "You're invited to attend the GeForce GTX gaming celebration! Come join us for an evening of awesome PC gaming, hardware, tournaments and of course free food, drinks and a few other amazing surprises. Doors will open at 6:30 PM and the event will start promptly at 7 PM. The celebration will take place in downtown San Francisco, CA."

Let's just say that the company has history of announcing its top-of-the-line Ti models on GDC (much like it did with 2015's GTX 980 Ti), and that NVIDIA closes their announcement with a very tentative (if generic) "You won't want to miss this". And with rumors of AMD being prepared to show off its Vega architecture on the same day, as well as the expected release of its highly anticipated Ryzen CPUs, February 28th is looking out to be one of the best days of the year for enthusiasts.

The leaks and details regarding AMD's Ryzen processors just don't seem to - and really won't - stop these days. Now, it's the enclosing piece of cardboard in which these processors will ship that's made the rounds, and AMD seems to have continued with an understated look to its overall box design.

The box art was posted through a listing of AMD's upcoming Ryzen processors on a Thailand-based retail outlet, alongside pre-order pricing (which seems to carry a slight premium (for example: a Ryzen 7 1800X is listed at 18,790 Baht, which would roughly amount to $537, a little higher than the reported $499). But a picture is worth a thousand words, and as such, I'll just leave you with those.

AMD has announced that they will be holding a Capsaicin Event at GDC 2017 on February 28th. Named "Capsaicin & Cream", this event could serve as a playground for its highly-awaited Ryzen launch, whilst allowing AMD to pair a showcase of its new CPUs (and thus borrowing some of the hype) with some tentative tasting of its upcoming graphics products.

The will be split up in two sections: first up is a Livestream (much like AMD's previous New Horizon celebration), taking place between 10.30am and 11.30pm PST, a " feature-packed show highlighting the hottest new graphics and VR technologies"; secondly, AMD will be hosting a private developers session, running between 2.30pm and 5pm PST, "with a special talk featuring Unity and Epic", followed by a private, GDC-attendees-only afterparty.

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.