Today, AMD announced it will showcase automotive innovation at CES 2024 and expand its portfolio with the introduction of two new devices, the Versal AI Edge XA adaptive SoC and Ryzen Embedded V2000A Series processor. The devices underscore AMD automotive technology leadership and are designed to serve key automotive focus segments including infotainment, advanced driver safety and autonomous driving. Working alongside a growing automotive partner ecosystem, AMD will demonstrate at CES 2024 the broad range of capabilities and applications for these new devices in automotive solutions available today and in the future.

Versal AI Edge XA adaptive SoCs add an advanced AI Engine, enabling the devices to be further optimized for numerous next-generation advanced automotive systems and applications including: forward cameras, in-cabin monitoring, LiDAR, 4D radar, surround-view, automated parking and autonomous driving. Versal AI Edge XA adaptive SoCs are also the first AMD 7 nm device to be auto-qualified, bringing hardened IP and added security to automotive applications where safety is paramount.

MINISFORUM unveiled a high-end tablet convertible based on the Windows 11 x64 platform. Called simply the V3 AMD Tablet, this 3-in-1 convertible can be used as a 14-inch tablet, or combined with a dock that adds a keyboard, trackpad, and a stand. The tablet measures 318 mm x 213.8 mm x mm 9.8 mm (WxDxH), weighing 946 g. Its 14-inch 16:10 aspect-ratio display offers a 2560 x 1600 pixels resolution, with 165 Hz refresh rate, 100% DCI-P3 coverage, and 500 nits maximum brightness. This display is backed by a sensitive touchscreen that supports MPP 2.6 SLA and sensitivity suitable for a natural handwriting stylus.

Connectivity includes Wi-Fi 6E with Bluetooth 5.3, a USB-C V-Link (DP in), two 40 Gbps USB4, a fingerprint reader, and 4-pole headset jack. Under the hood, the MINISFORUM V3 is powered by an AMD Ryzen 7 8040U series "Hawk Point" processor, paired with 32 GB of LPDDR5-6400 memory, and a 2 TB M.2 Gen 4 NVMe SSD. The SoC has a 28 W configured TDP, and MINISFORUM has innovated a four flat copper heatpipe, dual fan cooling solution. The tablet also has a 4-speaker setup and multi-directional microphone. The front camera is 2 MP with full Windows Hello compatibility, while the rear cam is 5 MP. Powering it all is a 50.82 Wh battery, and a 65 W USB-PD power source over a type-C connector. Windows 11 Pro 23H2 with Ryzen AI enablement comes pre-installed. The company didn't reveal pricing.

Hot on the heels of yesterday's leak revealing that the Ryzen 5 8600G Socket AM5 desktop APU features a Radeon 760M iGPU with 8 CU, we're getting to know that the top of the line Ryzen 7 8700G comes with the maxed out Radeon 780M. The 8700G is a Socket AM5 APU based on the 4 nm "Hawk Point" or "Phoenix" silicon (unclear at this point).

The Ryzen 7 8700G features an 8-core/16-thread CPU based on the "Zen 4" microarchitecture, with a base frequency of 4.20 GHz, and a maximum boost frequency of 5.10 GHz. Each of the 8 CPU cores features a 1 MB L2 cache, and they share a 16 MB L3 cache. The Radeon 780M iGPU features 12 compute units (CU), amounting to 768 stream processors. The iGPU engine clock boosts up to 2.90 GHz. While all Ryzen 7000 desktop processors come with integrated graphics, AMD does not consider them to be APUs—processors with overpowered iGPUs that can be used for entry-level gaming besides high-resolution entertainment.

Intel Core Ultra "Meteor Lake" mobile processor may be the the company's most efficient, but isn't a generation ahead of the 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" mobile processors in terms of performance. This isn't just because it has an overall lower CPU core count in its H-segment of SKUs, but also because its performance cores (P-cores) actually post a generational reduction in IPC, as David Huang in his blog testing contemporary mobile processors found out, through a series of single-threaded benchmarks. Huang did a SPECint 2017 performance comparison of Intel's Core Ultra 7 155H, and Core i7-13700H "Raptor Lake," with AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS, 7840H "Phoenix, Zen 4," and Apple M3 Pro and M2 Pro.

In his testing, the 155H, an H-segment processor, was found roughly matching the "Zen 4" based 7840U and 7840HS; while the Core i7-13700H was ahead of the three. Apple's M2 Pro and M3 Pro are a league ahead of all the other chips in terms of IPC. To determine IPC, Huang tested all processors with only one core, and their default clock speeds, and divided SPECint 2017 scores upon average clock speed of the loaded core logged during the course of the benchmark. Its worth noting here that the i7-13000H notebook was using dual-channel (4 sub-channel) DDR5 memory, while the Core Ultra 7 155H notebook was using LPDDR5, however Huang remarks that this shouldn't affect his conclusion that there has been an IPC regression between "Raptor Lake" and "Meteor Lake."

LG Electronics (LG) is introducing the company's 2024 OLED TV lineup, taking home entertainment experience to a new level. Powered by the company's latest AI processor with 4-fold higher AI performance, these new additions to the OLED lineup deliver unparalleled viewing experiences with even more vibrant, lifelike picture quality.

Driven by a customer-centric approach, LG's "Sync to You, Open to All" vision expresses the company's aim to create personalized experiences for every lifestyle, with products that are accessible to all. To this end, LG's webOS smart TV platform provides tailored solutions and services with an expanded ecosystem featuring extended connectivity, offering unique encounters as a media and entertainment platform company to provide the ultimate TV experience for all.

Samsung Electronics America today announced new Odyssey OLED gaming monitors debuting at CES 2024, the world's biggest tech event owned and produced by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), in Las Vegas next week. The new OLED models deliver the performance and visual clarity gamers look for in their monitors, and include the Odyssey OLED G9 (Model Name: G95SD), Odyssey OLED G8 (Model Name: G80SD), and the Odyssey OLED G6 (Model Name: G60SD).

The Odyssey OLED G9 is a 49" curved ultra-wide gaming monitor with DQHD (5,120×1,440) resolution and a 32:9 aspect ratio and other upgraded features. The Odyssey OLED G8 is the first flat 32-inch Samsung OLED gaming monitor with 4K UHD (3,840×2,160) resolution and a 16:9 aspect ratio. Both monitors have a 240 Hz refresh rate and 0.03 ms GTG response time. The Odyssey OLED G6 is a 27" QHD (2,560×1,440) monitor which supports a 16:9 aspect ratio, 360 Hz refresh rate and 0.03 ms GTG response time.

According to the latest round of reports, AMD has decided not to include China in the initial global launch of its upcoming Radeon RX 7600 XT graphics card. The RX 7600 XT, featuring 16 GB of memory and based on AMD's next-generation RDNA 3 architecture, was expected to launch soon at a price of around $300. However, the company is currently re-evaluating its Chinese GPU launch strategy due to the runaway success of its existing Radeon RX 6750 Golden Rabbit Edition (GRE) series in the region. The RX 6750 GRE cards with 10 GB and 12 GB configurations retail between $269-$289 in China, offering exceptional value compared to rival NVIDIA RTX models. AMD seems hesitant to risk undercutting sales of its popular RX 6750 GPUs by launching the newer 7600 XT.

While the RX 7600 XT promises more raw performance thanks to advanced RDNA 3 architecture, 6750 GRE, with its RDNA 2 design, seemingly remains efficient enough for most Chinese mainstream gamers. With the RX 6750 GRE still selling strongly in China, AMD has postponed the RX 7600 XT introduction for this key market. Final launch timelines for the 7600 XT in China and globally remain unconfirmed by AMD at time of writing. The company appears to be treading cautiously amidst the shifting competitive landscape.

AMD's upcoming Ryzen 5 8600G Socket AM5 desktop APU will feature the truncated Radeon 760M integrated graphics, and not the previously believed Radeon 780M, or the full iGPU configuration present on the silicon. At this point, there are still conflicting reports on which exact silicon the Ryzen 8000G desktop APUs are even based on, with some of the older reports and Geekbench detecting 8600G engineering samples to be based on "Phoenix," and some of the newer reports suggesting that it's based on "Hawk Point." Both "Phoenix" and "Hawk Point" are nearly identical, except for the latter to feature a faster NPU.

The Ryzen 5 8600G is configured with a 6-core/12-thread CPU based on the "Zen 4" microarchitecture, with 1 MB of L2 cache per core, and 16 MB of shared L3 cache. The CPU base frequency is set to a healthy 4.35 GHz, and maximum CPU boost frequency of 5.00 GHz. These CPU clocks are very similar to those of the mobile Ryzen 5 7640H (which has a base frequency of 4.30 GHz, but the same 5.00 GHz boost), but in case of the 8600G, the 65 W TDP and possible 90 W PPT should help with boost frequency residency. The Radeon 760M gets 8 out of 12 RDNA3 compute units physically present on the silicon, giving it 512 stream processors. Geekbench detects an engine clock (GPU clock) of 2.80 GHz, compared to the 2.60 GHz of the Radeon 760M on the Ryzen 5 7640H. The 8600G ES was running on an MSI MEG X670E Ace motherboard, with 32 GB of dual-channel DDR5-6000 memory.

AMD's small Radeon RX 7000M and RX 7000S lines of mobile GPUs based on the latest RDNA 3 graphics architecture includes just five SKUs, spanning the "Navi 31" and "Navi 33" chips. The RX 7000M series only has enthusiast-segment RX 7900M series based on the "Navi 31," and the RX 7600M series based on the "Navi 33," leaving a vast gap that the company plans to fill with RX 7800M series and RX 7700M series SKUs based on the "Navi 32," referred to internally as "Cuarzo Verde." The GPU is meant to be hardwired onto the mainboards of gaming notebooks, however, AMD hands out reference-design MXM boards to OEMs. These were sniffed out in a public shipping manifest harukaze5719 on Twitter.

The "Navi 32" package is roughly similar in size to the compacted "Navi 31" package powering the RX 7900M series. It has a physically smaller 5 nm GCD with 60 compute units compared to the 96 on the "Navi 31" GCD; and is surrounded by four 6 nm MCDs, which give it 64 MB of Infinity Cache, and a 256-bit GDDR6 memory bus. With this, AMD has the option of not just carving out RX 7800M series and RX 7700M series SKUs, but also RX 7900S series SKUs within its segment aimed at gaming-grade ultraportables. We could see some product announcements to this effect Q1 2024, alongside some new desktop SKUs.

Chinese x86 CPU developer Zhaoxin is working on adding support in the Linux kernel for scheduling optimization on its processors featuring "preferred cores." Similar to asymmetric core designs from Intel and AMD, Zhaoxin's chips may have specific higher-performance cores the OS scheduler should target for critical workloads. To enable this, Zhaoxin has proposed Linux patches leveraging existing ACPI functionality to indicate per-core differences in max frequency or capabilities. The CPUfreq driver is updated to reflect this, allowing the scheduler to favor the designated high-performance cores when assigning threads and processes. This ensures tasks can dynamically take advantage of the faster cores to maximize performance. The approach resembles tuned scheduling, aware of core topology and heterogeneity already found in Intel and AMD processors.

Zhaoxin's patches don't specify which existing or upcoming CPUs will expose preferred core hints. The company likely wants the functionality in place for future server-class products where asymmetric designs make sense for efficiency. The new code contribution reflects Zhaoxin's broader upstreaming effort around Linux kernel support for its Yongfeng server CPU family. Robust open-source foundations are crucial for gaining developer mindshare and data center adoption. Adding sophisticated features like preferred core scheduling indicates that Zhaoxin's chips are maturing from essential x86 compatibility to more refined performance optimization. While still trailing Intel and AMD in cores and clocks, closing the software ecosystem and efficiency gap remains key to competitiveness. Ongoing Linux enablement work is laying the groundwork for more capable Zhaoxin silicon.

GIGABYTE released UEFI firmware (BIOS) updates for its Socket AM5 motherboards encapsulating the AMD AGESA ComboAM5 PI 1.1.0.1a microcode. This latest version of AGESA has sparked speculation that some of AMD's upcoming Ryzen 8000G desktop APUs are in fact based on the newer "Hawk Point" silicon, and not "Phoenix." AMD released its Ryzen 8040 series "Hawk Point" mobile processors earlier this month, with a faster NPU that results in an up to 40% increase in AI interference performance over that of "Phoenix." "Hawk Point" is essentially identical to "Phoenix," including its first generation XDNA architecture based NPU, however the NPU's clock speed has been dialed up. If AMD is building some of its Ryzen 8000G desktop APU models on "Hawk Point" instead of "Phoenix," then we have our first solid hint that AMD is bringing Ryzen AI to the desktop platform, and that the Ryzen 8000G will end up being the first desktop processors with an NPU.

AMD is expected to be building at least two APU models based on the "Hawk Point" silicon, the Ryzen 7 8700G, and the Ryzen 5 8600G. The lower models, namely the 8500G and Ryzen 3 8300G, are expected to be based on the smaller "Phoenix 2" silicon, with a hybrid CPU that combines two "Zen 4" cores with up to four "Zen 4c" cores. The "Zen 4c" cores may feature an identical instruction set architecture (ISA) and IPC to the regular "Zen 4" cores, but have tighter Vcore limits, and operate at lower clock speeds. This makes the two available "Zen 4" cores the de facto "performance" cores, and AMD flags them as UEFI CPPC "preferred cores," ensuring the OS guides a bulk of its processing traffic to them. Both "Phoenix" and "Hawk Point" feature an identical CPU setup, with up to eight "Zen 4" cores.

AMD released its latest PMC (power management controller) driver patches for the Linux kernel, which reference a yet unreleased "Family 1Ah" processors. Phoronix believes this is the first reference to AMD's next generation "Zen 5" microarchitecture in the PMC driver. We've already seen AMD EPYC "Turin" server processors based on "Zen 5" in the flesh, and it's likely that AMD is handing these out to some of its biggest data-center customers for testing and evaluation, before giving them some final touches and green-lighting mass-production in 2024. The patches themselves are barely two new lines of code, and talk about a new sleep state called "s2idle." This is a software-defined system sleep state. The EPYC "Turin" processor comes in two packages, one with up to 128 "Zen 5" cores, and another with up to 192 "Zen 5c" cores for cloud applications.

During the recent IEDM conference, TSMC previewed its process roadmap for delivering next-generation chip packages packing over one trillion transistors by 2030. This aligns with similar long-term visions from Intel. Such enormous transistor counts will come through advanced 3D packaging of multiple chipsets. But TSMC also aims to push monolithic chip complexity higher, ultimately enabling 200 billion transistor designs on a single die. This requires steady enhancement of TSMC's planned N2, N2P, N1.4, and N1 nodes, which are slated to arrive between now and the end of the decade. While multi-chipset architectures are currently gaining favor, TSMC asserts both packaging density and raw transistor density must scale up in tandem. Some perspective on the magnitude of TSMC's goals include NVIDIA's 80 billion transistor GH100 GPU—among today's largest chips, excluding wafer-scale designs from Cerebras.

Yet TSMC's roadmap calls for more than doubling that, first with over 100 billion transistor monolithic designs, then eventually 200 billion. Of course, yields become more challenging as die sizes grow, which is where advanced packaging of smaller chiplets becomes crucial. Multi-chip module offerings like AMD's MI300X and Intel's Ponte Vecchio already integrate dozens of tiles, with PVC having 47 tiles. TSMC envisions this expansion to chip packages housing more than a trillion transistors via its CoWoS, InFO, 3D stacking, and many other technologies. While the scaling cadence has recently slowed, TSMC remains confident in achieving both packaging and process breakthroughs to meet future density demands. The foundry's continuous investment ensures progress in unlocking next-generation semiconductor capabilities. But physics ultimately dictates timelines, no matter how aggressive the roadmap.

Even as NVIDIA inches close to the launch of its RTX 40-series SUPER graphics cards in January, AMD could be preparing a product stack update of its own. While NVIDIA's refresh focuses on the higher end of its lineup, AMD looks to spread out more into the mainstream-performance segments. A regulatory filing with the Eurasian Economic Commission mentions the terms "RX 7600 XT," "RX 7700," and "RX 7800," which fill gaps between the RX 7600, RX 7700 XT, and RX 7800 XT.

There exists a rather big gap between the $230 Radeon RX 7600 and the $450 RX 7700 XT, which AMD is looking to fill with the RX 7600 XT and RX 7700 (non-XT). How AMD goes about carving out these two will be interesting to see. The RX 7600 already maxes out the 6 nm "Navi 33" silicon that it's based on, which means to create the RX 7600 XT, AMD might have to tap into the larger (and much more expensive) "Navi 32" MCM. There is a vast gap between the 32 CU (compute units) available to the RX 7600, and the 54 CU that the RX 7700 XT has (while the silicon itself has 60). Besides CU count, AMD has other levers, such as the MCD (memory cache die) count, which could be down to just 2 for the RX 7600 XT, or 3 for the RX 7700. The Radeon RX 7800 is a different beast. AMD faced quite some flack for positioning the RX 7700 XT within $50 of the RX 7800 XT, and now the former can be had for a street price of roughly $430. To be able to squeeze the RX 7800 between the two, AMD might need to widen the gap by pushing the RX 7700 XT down.

Bluesky Frame Rate Converter is a nifty little free utility that lets you change the frame-rate of video files. At an operational level, this is a DirectShow filter with its own little control panel. Its author clearly knows his way around GPU acceleration for video encode and decode, and regularly updates it with new features. Version 4.6.0, released on December 23, introduces support for AMD Fluid Motion Video technology, making it one of the first applications to do so. With this, you can double the frame-rates of your videos, taking advantage of AMD's new feature that can extend frame rate doubling via interpolation to video playback or transcoding. To use it, you'll need a Radeon RX 6000 or RX 7000 series GPU, Windows 11 or Windows 10, and Adrenalin 23.12.1 (or later) graphics drivers. You can find Bluesky Frame Rate Converter in the source link below.

ASUS updated its AMD Radeon graphics card lineup with the introduction of the Radeon RX 7800 XT Dual OC and RX 7700 XT Dual OC. This is an interesting development, given that the company only had TUF Gaming series custom-designs of the two GPUs at their early September 2023 launch. The company continues to lack any ROG Strix series products based on the RX 7800 XT, RX 7700 XT, and the RX 7900 series. The two new Dual OC series cards are positioned below the TUF Gaming products, and predictably, share a common board design for the RX 7800 XT Dual OC and the RX 7700 XT Dual OC.

The new Dual OC common board for the RX 7800 XT and RX 7700 XT is just about 2 slots thick (or 2.2 slots to be specific). It is 27.9 cm long, and 13.39 cm tall, or about an inch taller than what constitutes "full height." Its cooler features an aluminium fin-stack heatsink that's ventilated by two 100 mm Axial Tech fans backed by dual ball bearings, webbed impellers, and idle fan-stop. The card draws power from two 8-pin PCIe power connectors. With its OC Mode enabled (via software), the RX 7800 XT Dual OC offers a Game clock of 2254 MHz and 2565 MHz Boost clock (vs. 2124/2430 MHz reference). The RX 7700 XT Dual OC, on the other hand, offers 2239 MHz Game clock and 2599 MHz Boost clock with its OC Mode enabled (vs. 2171/2544 MHz reference). The company didn't reveal pricing.

AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) is easy to integrate with games, which also makes the tech a hot commodity within the modding community. LukeFZ figured out a way to get any game with a working FSR 2 implementation to be modified to support FSR 3, which should bring features such as improved image quality among the quality presets; and frame generation. LukeFZ has been behind several such game mods, some free and some paid, one of his community members leaked a bundle of all his paid mods, including one that modifies any game to take advantage of FSR 3. Called simply the FSR2FSR3 mod by LukeFZ, this mod is tested to work correctly on the following games: The Last of Us Part I, Dead Space (2023), Hogwarts Legacy, MS-Man Remastered, UNCHARTED: Legacy of Thieves, HITMAN World of Assassination, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, Remnant II, Cyberpunk 2077, Alan Wake 2, Dying Light 2, Watch Dogs: Legion, Metro Exodus Enhanced, STAR WARS Jedi: Survivor, Ready Or Not, and Assassin's Creed Mirage. You can find the mod in the source link below.

ASUS over the weekend introduced the China-exclusive Radeon RX 7900 GRE TUF Gaming White graphics card. The card shares a lot in common with the other RX 7900 series TUF Gaming custom-design cards, but swaps out the gunmetal-gray cooler shroud and backplate combo for one that's matte white. The whitewash even extends to the impellers of the three Axial Tech fans. The PCB remains black, but due to the 3-D design of the shroud and backplate, is largely concealed. The card draws power from a pair of 8-pin PCIe power connectors, and uses a 14-phase VRM to condition it for the "Navi 31 XL" ASIC.

The Radeon RX 7900 GRE (golden rabbit edition) is based on a "Navi 31 XL," a unique package that combines the 5 nm graphics compute die (GCD) of "Navi 31," with the 4-MCD (memory cache die) setup of the smaller "Navi 32" package. AMD designed this primarily to drive the mobile RX 7900 series SKUs, but it found its way to the desktop platform to fill the gap between the RX 7800 XT and RX 7900 XT, and possibly undercut the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti. It is configured with 80 out of 96 available compute units on the GCD, giving it 5,120 stream processors, 160 AI accelerators, and 80 Ray accelerators, the Infinity Cache size is reduced to 64 MB, since there are only 4 MCDs, driving its 256-bit memory bus that handles 16 GB of 18 Gbps GDDR6 memory (576 GB/s bandwidth).

Hot on the heels of LG's UltraGear 4K OLED monitor with Dual-Hz feature, specifications and pictures of the upcoming HP OMEN Transcend 4K OLED monitor have leaked online. It will come with 32-inch 4K OLED panel with 240 Hz refresh rate and peak brightness of 1000 nits in HDR mode. The monitor will feature HP's Omen Tempest Cooling Tech to mitigate the risk of burn-in problems, as well as support for AMD FreeSync and Dolby Vision.

The rest of the known specifications, reported by Windows Report, include KVM switch, a feature that is quite popular in monitors these days, as well as HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 2.1 support. It also includes several other USB Type-C and Type-A ports. The monitor is expected to be the star of HP's OMEN CES 2024 lineup.

AMD is preparing to update its desktop processor lineup not just with new Ryzen 8000G series APUs for the Socket AM5 platform, but also a handful new SKUs for AM4. Possible pricing of many of these chips is detailed in our recent report. Among the chips listed is a mysterious new Ryzen 7 5700 Socket AM4 processor. Although we don't have its pricing, AMD sneakily put up its product information on its website. On the product page, the company says that the product came out in April 2022, but it never did, at least not in the retail channel.

The Ryzen 7 5700 is an 8-core/16-thread processor that lacks integrated graphics, and yet is based on the 7 nm "Cezanne" monolithic silicon, with similar clock speeds to the Ryzen 7 5700G APU. Think of this as the 5700G with its iGPU disabled. The chip comes with a CPU base frequency of 3.70 GHz compared to the 3.80 GHz of the 5700G, although the two have an identical maximum boost frequency of 4.60 GHz. Each of the eight "Zen 3" CPU cores has 512 KB of dedicated L2 cache, and share a 16 MB L3 cache. The processor's TDP is set to 65 W, and the retail package includes a Wraith Stealth cooling solution. One pitfall of choosing the 5700 over something like the 5700X would be its lack of a PCIe Gen 4 interface (it's limited to the older Gen 3), which would mean a slower NVMe storage sub-system.

Courtesy of serial leaker @momomo_us we now have an indication on potential pricing for AMD's upcoming 8000G-series of APUs for the AM5 socket. The Ryzen 8000G-series APUs are expected to use the same CPU cores as AMD's Zen 4 based Ryzen 7000-series CPUs, but paired with a new I/O design in a monolithic die. The leaker has provided pricing from what is said to be three different shops and for three different SKUs, with the Ryzen 5 7600 as the reference point in all three cases. All three shops list the Ryzen 5 7600 at a higher price than Amazon, so it's unlikely that we're looking at MSRP pricing here.

The Ryzen 5 8500G has a price range of US$190-240, followed by the Ryzen 5 8600G which comes in at US$240-310 and finally the Ryzen 7 8700G which is listed at US$340-440. The price span is rather large, which makes it impossible to draw any conclusions of what the MSRP will be. Tom's hardware managed to dig up a pair of retailers, including what appears to be the one with the lowest pricing in the leak, which is DirectDial. The other retailer that Tom's Hardware located was Zones, but that pricing doesn't match any of the initial leaks, but are somewhat towards the higher numbers. AMD is expected to announce the new series of APUs at CES early next year.

AMD continues to release new Ryzen 5000 series processor models for the Socket AM4 platform to this day, with new processors expected to launch next month. That's over 6 years of longevity for the platform, considering that AMD has extended official Ryzen 5000 series support all the way back to its first line of AM4 motherboards based on the 300-series chipset. The company plans a similar longevity for Socket AM5. In an interview with Overclockers UK, AMD's client channel business head David McAfee said "I think that we certainly recognized that the longevity of the AM4 platforms was one of the biggest reasons that led to the success of Ryzen and as we think and as we think about the future, 2025 and beyond, that decision to move to a next-generation of socket is one that's going to be really thought through really really carefully. We know the impact that moving to a new socket brings and we want to stay on AM5 for as long as we possibly can. We are firmly committed to 2025 and beyond and we will see how long that promise lasts beyond 2025."

AMD Socket AM5 is designed to deliver up to 230 W of package power, and has a contemporary I/O that includes a dual-channel DDR5 memory interface (4x 40-bit sub-channels); and 28 PCIe Gen 5 lanes (x16 PEG, two x4 NVMe, and x4 chipset bus), besides the usual SoC connectivity. With the upcoming Ryzen 8000G "Phoenix" APUs, we could expect to see that the socket even wires out modern display I/O such as DisplayPort 2.1 with USB type-C, and the bandwidth for 12-bit HDR up to 68 billion colors. AMD debuted Socket AM5 with the "Zen 4" microarchitecture, with "Zen 5" expected to launch in 2024. It's conceivable that the company's 2025 client architecture, "Zen 6," could also see its desktop presence on AM5, given that DDR5 memory and PCIe Gen 5 will remain relevant till at least that time.

Mini PC designer Geekom is bring three innovative desktops to the 2024 International CES, based on the very latest mobile processors by Intel and AMD. These boxes are hinged on MoDT (mobile on desktop) hardware, meaning that energy efficient mobile processors are crammed into compact desktop cases, and wired out with all the connectivity they can put out. The three mini PC models Geekom is launching includes the IT14 Pro, the A8 Max, and the APro8 Max. The Geekcom IT14 Pro comes in a 0.7-liter chassis (about the size of a NUC), and is powered by an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H "Meteor Lake" processor configured with 6P+8E+2LP cores, or 16-core/22-thread. The desktop relies entirely on the maxed out Arc iGPU with all its 8 Xe cores enabled (128 EU). The NPU is also enabled. The company didn't reveal the memory, storage, or WLAN configuration of this desktop, yet.

The A8 Max is based on a similar 1-liter class chassis, but uses an AMD Ryzen 7 8840HS or Ryzen 9 8940HS "Hawk Point" processor, both of which are 8-core/16-thread "Zen 4," and configured with the full Radeon 780M iGPU available (12 CU or 768 stream processors). The star attraction here is the updated Ryzen AI NPU, which drives up the AI inference performance of these chips to 39 TOPS, compared to 34 TOPS of the Intel "Meteor Lake" chips. The APro8 Max is a based on a physically larger chassis that looks a bit like a game console. It's based on mostly the same hardware as the A8 Max, but with an added Radeon RX 7600M XT discrete GPU, which should give it the ability to offer maxed out AAA gaming at 1080p, or power productivity workloads at 4K UHD. We shoud know more about these three in Vegas next month.

TrendForce reports that 3Q23 has been a historic quarter for the world's leading IC design houses as total revenue soared 17.8% to reach a record-breaking US$44.7 billion. This remarkable growth is fueled by a robust season of stockpiling for smartphones and laptops, combined with a rapid acceleration in the shipment of generative AI chips and components. NVIDIA, capitalizing on the AI boom, emerged as the top performer in revenue and market share. Notably, analog IC supplier Cirrus Logic overtook US PMIC manufacturer MPS to snatch the tenth spot, driven by strong demand for smartphone stockpiling.

NVIDIA's revenue soared 45.7% to US$16.5 billion in the third quarter, bolstered by sustained demand for generative AI and LLMs. Its data center business—accounting for nearly 80% of its revenue—was a key driver in this exceptional growth.

GIGABYTE Technology, a leading global powerhouse in motherboards, graphics cards, and cutting-edge hardware solutions, proudly announces that GIGABYTE DDR5 motherboards deliver breakthrough support for a memory capacity of single DIMM 64 GB with the latest Kingston FURY Renegade DDR5 memory. The 4DIMM model boosts the memory capacity up to 256 GB, while the 2DIMM model has a maximum capacity of up to 128 GB.⁠

With innovative layout design and top-notch components, GIGABYTE motherboards have played a leading role in memory performance. From the Intel 700 and 600 series to the AMD 600 series, GIGABYTE DDR5 motherboards will support a memory capacity of single DIMM 64 GB through BIOS update. The updated BIOS and memory support list will be available on the GIGABYTE official website, coinciding with the launch of the latest Kingston FURY Renegade DDR5 memory. Please stay tuned to the GIGABYTE official website for further information.