According to HKEPC, AMD is set to introduce two versions of the A620 chipset for its lower-end motherboards, providing a lower barrier of AM5 entry for users on a smaller budget. As the new source notes, AMD is going to use its Promontory 21 (PROM21) module for A620 motherboards, the same one used on B650 and X670 models. However, for the first time, we are hearing about Promontory 22 (PROM22), a module that will allow A620-based motherboards to start at 125 US dollars—a promise made by AMD in its marketing slides (which you can see below). Two A620 chipsets will enable users to choose basic functionality or some additional features on a reasonable budget.

With PROM21 going inside all chipset SKUs, it carries silicon functionality disabled by AMD to create different categories. However, the PROM22 is a new silicon that doesn't need bells and whistles of the high-end boards inside a feature-deprived chipset like A620. This drives down AMD's costs, making it easier for vendors to adjust pricing. We have to wait for the launch and see how much of this will be fulfilled, so stay tuned for further updates.

AMD possibly has a straightforward path to increasing the performance of the "Navi 31" RDNA3 GPU to power future high-end SKUs, according to semiconductor engineer Tom Wassick. The GPU's main SIMD machinery is located in the Graphics Compute Die (GCD) built on the 5 nm EUV foundry process, surrounded by six Memory Cache Dies (MCDs) built on 6 nm, which each contain GDDR6 memory controllers, and a 16 MB segment of the GPU's 96 MB Infinity Cache memory.

In microscopic observations, Wassick noticed structures on the MCD which he thinks look like an array of through-silicon vias (TSVs), of the kind used in "Zen 3" and "Zen 4" CCDs, to wire out stacked 3D Vertical Cache memory on the L3D (L3 cache die). If the theory holds up, it could be possible for AMD to increase the L3 cache segment size per MCD from 16 MB, and the GPU's overall Infinity Cache memory size. With its RDNA2 graphics architecture (RX 6000 series), AMD significantly enlarged on-die caches on its GPUs, particularly the last-level L3 cache, even giving them the special branding of "Infinity Cache," claiming that they had a big impact in lubricating the memory sub-system, letting GPUs with 256-bit memory buses compete with NVIDIA GPUs with wider 320-bit to 384-bit interfaces.

AMD Radeon RX 400 series and RX 500 series graphics cards based on the "Polaris" graphics architecture are simply unable to run "Forspoken," as users on Reddit report. The game has certain DirectX 12 feature-level 12_1 API requirements that the architecture does not meet. Interestingly, NVIDIA's "Maxwell" graphics architecture, which predates AMD "Polaris" by almost a year, supports FL 12_1, and is able to play the game. Popular GPUs from the "Maxwell" generation include the GeForce GTX 970 and GTX 960. Making matters much worse, AMD is yet to release an update to its Adrenalin graphics drivers for the RX Vega, RX 5000, and RX 6000 series that come with "Forspoken" optimization. Its latest 23.1.2 beta drivers that come with these optimizations only support the RX 7000 series RDNA3 graphics cards. It's now been over 50 days since the vast majority of AMD discrete GPUs have received a driver update.

Intel's server processor lineup led by the 4th Gen Xeon Scalable "Sapphire Rapids" processors face stiff competition from AMD 4th Gen EPYC "Genoa" processors that offer significantly higher multi-threaded performance per Watt on account of a higher CPU core-count. The gap is only set to widen, as AMD prepares to launch the "Bergamo" processor for cloud data-centers, with core-counts of up to 128-core/256-thread per socket. A technologically-embattled Intel is preparing quick counters as many as three new server microarchitecture launches over the next 23 months, according to Intel, in its Q4-2022 Financial Results presentation.

The 4th Gen Xeon Scalable "Sapphire Rapids," with a core-count of up to 60-core/120-thread, and various application-specific accelerators, witnessed a quiet launch earlier this month, and is shipping to Intel customers. The company says that it will be joined by the Xeon Scalable "Emerald Rapids" architecture in the second half of 2023; followed by "Granite Rapids" and "Sierra Forest" in 2024. Built on the same LGA4677 package as "Sapphire Rapids," the new "Emerald Rapids" MCM packs up to 64 "Raptor Cove" CPU cores, which support higher clock-speeds, higher memory speeds, and introduce the new Intel Trust Domain Extensions (TDX) instruction-set. The processor retains the 8-channel DDR5 memory interface, but with higher native memory speeds. The chip's main serial interface is a PCI-Express Gen 5 root-complex with 80 lanes. The processor will be built on the last foundry-level refinement of the Intel 7 node (10 nm Enhanced SuperFin); many of these refinements were introduced with the company's 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" client processors.

EK, the premium water-cooling gear manufacturer, is launching the EK-Quantum Vector² water block for the ASUS TUF models of the new AMD Radeon RX 7900 GPUs. This water block has been engineered to fit both versions of these GPUs, the XTX and the XT. The EK-Quantum Vector² TUF RX 7900 XTX D-RGB is a fully EK-Matrix7 compatible liquid cooling solution engineered exclusively for ASUS TUF Radeon RX 7900 XT and XTX GPUs. It encompasses a Vector² series water block and a black-anodized aluminum backplate in the same package. Like the rest of the Vector² series water blocks, its looks are dominated by minimalistic straight lines and the backplate coming around the side of the GPU to cover the PCB in its entirety.

What differs from all other Vector² water blocks is that the cooling engine for this water block has been rotated by 90°, making the fins perpendicular to the die. For optimal delta, the coolant flows over the Graphics Core Die first and Memory Cache Die after. Consequently, all MCDs get the same coolant temperature thanks to the high-precision 3D-machined acrylic jet insert.

AMD today released the Adrenalin 23.1.2 drivers exclusively for the Radeon RX 7900 series, making it the third straight driver of the kind. There has been no new driver for older GPUs, including the RX 6000 series, including the 7-month old RX 6950 XT, since December 8, 2022 (48 days now), which means the overwhelming majority of AMD Radeon users don't yet have optimization for games such as Forspoken and Valhiem. The latest 23.1.2 drivers only work with the RX 7900 XT and RX 7900 XTX. These introduce day-zero optimization for "Forspoken," and a handful background improvements for the Vulkan API. AMD fixed the "Delayed Write Failed" error noticed on Windows 11 22H2; less than expected performance with "SpaceEngine," and flickering issues noticed with "Emergency 4."

DOWNLOAD: AMD Software Adrenalin 23.1.2 for RX 7900 Series

From today, until the first of April, AMD will bundle a game code for Star Wars Jedi: Survivor with all of its Ryzen 7000-series CPUs. The promotion appears to be largely global, but limited to certain retailers, so if your favourite shop doesn't offer the bundled game code, you might have to look elsewhere. AMD offers a list on its website with participating retailers and in the US and Canada, this only appears to be Amazon and Newegg, whereas it varies much more widely in other parts of the world.

Oddly enough, many large retailers in various countries are missing and several countries are absent too, especially in Europe, for no apparent reason. What's even stranger, is that AMD doesn't appear to be offering the game code bundle through its own online shop, at least not in Europe. We should also point out that Star Wars Jedi: Survivor doesn't launch until the 17th of March, so if you jump the gun now, you're going to have to wait a few weeks before you'll be able to play the game.

Noctua today presented the latest addition to its successful NH-L9 series of low-profile CPU coolers: At a height of only 37 mm, the new NH-L9a-AM5 and NH-L9a-AM5 chromax.black are an excellent choice for quiet, ultra-compact HTPCs or Small Form Factor (SFF) systems using AMD's latest, AM5-based Ryzen processors.

"AMD's just-released 65 W Ryzen CPUs are ideal for building small yet highly powerful systems, and our new NH-L9a-AM5 is the perfect cooler to match", explains Roland Mossig (CEO). "It can easily cool the new 7900, 7700 and 7600 at ultra-quiet fan speeds and offers plenty of headroom if customers want to push them beyond 65 W - we've actually been running up to 130 W on the Ryzen 7950X and 7900X!" Since the original NH-L9a coolers for AM3 and AM4 have received more than 100 awards and recommendations from international hardware websites and magazines, the new AM5 revision builds on the same proven heatsink design to provide excellent low-profile cooling performance for AMD's latest Ryzen processors.

The product pages of the upcoming AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D and Ryzen 7 7800X3D "Zen 4" processors went online, which say that the two chips are unlocked for overclocking. This normally implies that the processor has an unlocked base-clock multiplier, which makes it easy to overclock. The previous-generation Ryzen 7 5800X3D processors came with locked base-clock multipliers, making them complicated to overclock. Both the 16-core/32-thread 7950X3D and the 8-core/16-thread 7800X3D come with a TDP rating of 120 W, which for the 7950X3D is significantly lower than the 170 W that the 7950X is rated at. It's also worth noting that the T-junction max (TJmax) value is lower, at just 89°C, compared to 95°C of the 7950X and 7700X.

Slated for a February 2023 market release, the two chips introduce stacked 3D vertical cache technology (3DV cache). The 7800X3D comes with 64 MB of 3DV cache stacked on top of the 32 MB of on-die L3 cache, taking its L3 cache size to 96 MB, and total cache (L2+L3) to 104 MB. On the other hand, the 7950X3D and the 12-core/24-thread 7900X3D only come with the 3DV cache memory on one of the two "Zen 4" CCDs. The first CCD has 96 MB of L3 cache (including the 3DV cache), while the second CCD is a standard "Zen 4" CCD with just 32 MB of on-die L3 cache. For these chips, the L3 cache adds up to 128 MB, and total cache to 140 MB for the 7900X3D, and 144 MB for the 7950X3D.Update Jan 24th: AMD updated their product pages to remove this field altogether. It looks like we'll have to wait a bit for AMD to finalize its specs.

AMD announced that its adaptive computing technology is powering leading mobility supplier DENSO Corporation's next-generation LiDAR platform. The new platform will enable over 20X1 improvement in resolution with extremely low latency for increased precision in detecting pedestrians, vehicles, free space and more. The DENSO LiDAR platform, targeted to begin shipping in 2025, will leverage the AMD Xilinx Automotive (XA) Zynq UltraScale+ adaptive SoC and its functional safety suite of developer tools to enable ISO 26262 ASIL-B certification.

DENSO is using the AMD XA Zynq UltraScale+ multi-processor system-on-a-chip (MPSoC) platform in its Single-Photon Avalanche Diode (SPAD) LiDAR system, which generates the highest point-cloud density level of any LiDAR system on the market today. Point-cloud density describes the number of points within a given area and is analogous to image resolution, where richer data ensures that crucial decision-making details are captured.

AMD's Radeon RX 7900 XTX RDNA3 graphics card does cross the 3 GHz engine clocks barrier, but not in gaming use-cases, finds a ComputerBase.de article, in which the German publication compares the overclocking experience between the RX 7000-series RDNA3 and NVIDIA RTX 40-series "Ada" architectures. The RX 7900 XTX was found to hit engine clock speeds as high as 3455 MHz, but when handling the Blender rendering benchmark, and not typical gaming workloads.

The GPU could even be pushed to 3548 MHz with a power-draw of around 400 W, but it wasn't stable, the article notes. The top frequencies the GPUs could hit with gaming workloads were around 2.90 GHz. We could be happening with games is that more of the GPU's hardware resources are tapping into its power-limit (such as the memory controllers, caches, and other special SIMD functions, which could be impacting the engine clock boosting headroom. ComputerBase.de used a Sapphire RX 7900 XTX NITRO+ custom-design graphics card in its testing, which comes with three 8-pin PCIe power connectors, and a higher overclocking headroom than what the reference-design cards are capable of.

Even more performance for RTX 4080 Suprim/Strix and RX 7900XT (X) GPUs! Alphacool presents new and innovative solutions for active water cooling of NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 4080 as well as AMD Radeon RX 7900XT (X) graphics cards with the Eisblock Aurora coolers.

In order to dissipate the enormous waste heat of the new graphics card generations in the best possible way, numerous optimizations were implemented on the water cooler compared to the previous models of these coolers. The fin structure has been modified and allows an optimal water flow while increasing the cooling surface. The modified jet plate with improved inflow engine ensures the best possible distribution of water on the cooling fins. The fully chrome-plated copper base is resistant to acids, scratches and damage. In addition, the chrome plating provides homogeneity and shine that cannot be achieved by nickel plating.

Cooler Master at the 2023 International CES showed off the Cooling X, a patent-pending unique desktop PC architecture by the company where the liquid cooling of the CPU and GPU isn't confined to a couple of closed loop AIOs, but rather a giant liquid-cooling loop that even involves the side-panels of the case itself, that double up as additional heat-dissipation surfaces. Notice how some compact fanless cases use extruded-aluminium body panels that double up as heatsinks, to cool the hot components? The Cooling X re-imagines this, where instead of dissipating heat from a heatpipe, the extruded-aluminium body panels have coolant channels, so some of the heat from the liquid-cooling loop is dissipated. These panels supplement a conventional liquid-cooling radiator that's located along the rear panel, which has active ventilation. The liquid-cooling loop cools the processor and GPU.

For its compact dimensions of just 266 mm x 149 mm x 371 mm (LxWxH), the Cooling X prebuilt packs some mighty high-end hardware—an AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 16-core processor, and a Radeon RX 6800 XT GPU up to 64 GB of dual-channel DDR4-3200 memory, two 2 TB M.2 NVMe SSDs, and a homebrew 850 W 80 Plus Gold SFX power supply. For now Cooling X is just a codename, and Cooler Master intends to take this concept forward with high-performance gaming/creator prebuilt desktops sold under its own marquee.

Minisforum introduced a new variant called HX99G in its Neptune portfolio today. It is an upgraded version of the first member, the HX90G (5900HX processor + RX6600M GPU), which was announced in May 2022 before going up for sale in September 2022. The Neptune HX99G looks practically identical to the HX90G. Measuring 205 x 203 x 69 mm (8.1" x 8" x 2.7"), both models feature 45 watts, 8-cores/16-threads graphics and the same laptop-class discrete GPU. However, it updates the Ryzen 9 5900HX with a faster Ryzen 9 6900HX and replaces the two DP ports with two speedier USB4 ports.

R9 6900HX integrates all eight cores based on the Zen 3+ microarchitecture. It's clocked at 3.3 (guaranteed base clock) to 4.9 GHz (max boost). Ryzen 6000 brings a slew of technological advancements, like support for USB 4, PCI-E Gen 4, DDR5-4800MT/s, WIFI 6 and Bluetooth 5.2. The other AMD performance component is the RDNA 2 graphics architecture Radeon RX 6600M (GDDR6 8 GB) with a TDP of up to 100 watts. Users can expect to utilize the full performance of this dedicated GPU to handle professional-class photo and video editing as well as content creation. Also, this GPU packs enough firepower to hit 60 frames per second at 1080p (depending on the specific game and settings).

Synology today announced the new 2-bay Synology DiskStation DS723+, the smallest expandable option in its lineup of all-in-one solutions for home offices and small businesses. Powered by the versatile Synology DiskStation Manager (DSM) operating system, the DS723+ offers comprehensive solutions to protect and manage business data, easily collaborate on documents, access files remotely, and monitor physical assets, all within a compact desktop format.

"This new unit delivers impressive performance and capability for its size," said Michael Wang, Product Manager at Synology. "With its extremely compact form factor, it will certainly appeal to those that have smaller storage requirements but don't want to give up on the convenience of centralized storage and the possibility to scale in the future."

AMD for the past couple of weeks, has been releasing exclusive driver updates for the Radeon RX 7900 series, with which it hopes to iron out some glaring launch-time bugs for these cards. The latest from this driver branch is the Adrenalin 23.1.1 for RX 7900 series (these drivers won't work with older Radeon GPUs, for which drivers are released in the main trunk). AMD promised to release updates for all other GPUs. Version 23.1.1 addresses an intermittent driver timeout issue when applying Auto Overclock performance tuning; a driver timeout or crash may occur when playing "Valheim" with the Vulkan API, which has been fixed. With the latest "Witcher 3: Wild Hunt" update, a crash or driver timeout may occur with ray tracing enabled, which has also been fixed. Performance degradation observed after applying Factory Reset settings, has been fixed.

An AMD employee has confirmed on Reddit that a driver for owners of older graphics cards will be released soon.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Software Adrenalin 23.1.1 for Radeon RX 7900 series

At the 2023 International CES, ASUS ROG announced several of its upcoming gaming notebooks across several form-factors. ASUS was one of the very few gaming PC brands to show off upcoming products based on an AMD Ryzen 7000 series processors besides those based on 13th Gen Intel Core processors. The star-attraction is the ROG Flow Z13 (GZ301-2023), an ultraportable gaming tablet that folds into a notebook—a very rare device. It packs a 13-inch 16:10 ROG Nebula display with 2560 x 1600 pixels resolution, 165 Hz, 3 ms response time, and NVIDIA G-SYNC. Under the hood, the ROG Flow Z13 rocks an Intel Core i9-13900H 6P+8E processor, GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU with Advanced Optimus. The device puts out a 170° kick stand, and a detachable full-size keyboard.

The 2023 ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 is the company's fastest gaming notebook to be powered by an AMD processor. The 14-inch conventional form-factor notebook packs a 2560 x 1600 pixels mini-LED display with 165 Hz refresh-rate, 3 ms response time, 100% DCI-P3 coverage, and G-SYNC. The main muscle is an AMD Ryzen 7000 series processor (very likely from the "Phoenix Point" Ryzen 7045 series), and a GeForce RTX 4090 Laptop GPU. While not an AMD Advantage laptop, ASUS has given this its own in-house ROG Intelligent Cooling system that incorporates vapor-chamber base plates and liquid-metal TIM.

The online datasheets of some of the first AMD Ryzen 7040 series "Phoenix Point" mobile processors went live, detailing the processor's I/O feature-set. We learn that AMD has decided to give PCI-Express Gen 5 a skip with this silicon, at least in its mobile avatar. The Ryzen 7040 SoC puts out a total of 20 PCI-Express Gen 4 lanes, all of which are "usable" (i.e. don't count 4 lanes toward chipset-bus). This would mean that the silicon has a full PCI-Express 4.0 x16 interface for discrete graphics, and a PCI-Express 4.0 x4 link for a CPU-attached M.2 NVMe slot; unlike the "Raphael" desktop MCM and the "Dragon Range" mobile MCM, whose client I/O dies put out a total of 28 Gen 5 lanes (24 usable, with x16 PEG + two x4 toward CPU-attached M.2 slots).

Another interesting aspect about "Phoenix Point" is its memory controllers. The SoC features a dual-channel (four sub-channel) DDR5 memory interface, besides support for LPDDR5 and LPDDR5x. DDR5-5600 and LPDDR5-7600 are the native speeds supported. What's really interesting is the maximum amount of memory supported, which stands at 256 GB—double that of "Raphael" and "Dragon Range," which top out at 128 GB. This bodes well for the eventual Socket AM5 APUs AMD will design based on the "Phoenix Point" silicon. Older Ryzen 5000G "Cezanne" desktop APUs are known for superior memory overclocking capabilities to 5000X "Vermeer," with the monolithic nature of the silicon favoring latencies. Something similar could be expected from "Phoenix Point."

GIGABYTE displayed their latest motherboards and graphics cards at the 2023 International CES, covering their Socket LGA1700 Intel 700-series chipset; and Socket AM5 AMD 600-series chipset. The Z790 AORUS Tachyon is the company's top-grade LGA1700 motherboard targeting the professional overclocking crowd. The board is designed to chase down CPU and memory overclocking world records, featuring the company's most powerful CPU VRM solution, and a 1 DIMM-per-channel DDR5 memory setup that preferred by overclockers for supporting the highest memory overclocks with the tightest timings. There are several overclocker-friendly features besides the onboard buttons—dual-BIOS ROMs, angled connectors for bench cases, consolidated voltage measurement points, and a feature-packed BIOS setup program.

Over in the AMD side, GIGABYTE's top Socket AM5 motherboard is the X670E AORUS Xtreme, which is a feature-packed motherboard with possibly the strongest CPU VRM solutions in the market for Ryzen 7000 processors, and with the best VRM cooling. In addition to the PCIe Gen 5 M.2 slot wired to the AM5 SoC, you get additional Gen 5 slots that subtract from the x16 PEG slot. The AORUS Xtreme also has the most feature-rich BIOS available among GIGABYTE's AM5 lineup. The B650I AORUS Ultra is a premium Mini-ITX Socket AM5 motherboard based on the AMD B650 chipset. Despite its compact size, it gives you a PCI-Express 4.0 x16 PEG slot, a Gen 5 M.2 slot, and two additional Gen 4 M.2 slots, besides the latest wired- and wireless connectivity. We also snapped the B650 AERO G motherboard targeting creators, and the mainstream B650 AORUS Elite AX.

At the 2023 International CES, market leader Kingston expanded their FURY line of enthusiast-gaming PC memory with the introduction of several new DDR5 memory kits. The top-of-the-line FURY Renegade series comes in RGB and non-RGB trims, and with speeds of up to DDR5-7200 with Intel XMP 3.0 support. For the AMD crowd, the company showed off the FURY Beast RGB, which comes in speeds of up to DDR5-6000, and features AMD EXPO profiles along with extensive validation with Ryzen 7000 series processors.

For those still making the transition between DDR4 and DDR5, Kingston introduced the FURY Beast DDR4 RGB, which looks visually similar to their DDR5 FURY Beast, but comes with speeds of up to DDR4-3600, with validation on AMD Ryzen 5000 series processors. It also supports an Intel XMP 2.0 profile. For high-end gaming notebooks and SFF platforms, including the Intel NUC 12 Extreme, Kingston introduced the FURY Impact line of DDR5 SO-DIMM memory, which comes in speeds of up to DDR5-5600.

Here's the first look at the retail PIB package of an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D processor with 3D Vertical Cache technology. These chips come in box design that's distinct from the rest of the Ryzen 7000 lineup. Bright orange and silver accents make up the front face of the box, with "3D Vertical Cache technology" being mentioned prominently. With the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, the PIB package design was probably found to look too similar to the rest of the lineup and practically indistinguishable from those of the 5000G "Cezanne" desktop APUs, which is probably why AMD took this route.

It's very likely that we'll see Socket AM5 desktop APUs based on the "Phoenix Point" monolithic silicon later this year, with its 12 CU RDNA3 iGPU and 8-core/16-thread "Zen 4" CPU that has a 32 MB on-die L3 cache. These processors will have yet another distinguishable retail PIB packaging. AMD's then technical marketing director, Robert Hallock, assured us that the company will continue to invest in desktop APUs (processors with powerful iGPUs), despite Ryzen 7000 desktop processors coming with a low-power iGPU as standard.

MSI was conspicuous in its lack of a Radeon RX 7900 series RDNA3 graphics card when AMD launched these cards on December 13, 2022. The company later came out with a clarification that while it was skipping reference-design made-by-AMD (MBA) graphics cards under its marquee, it would release custom-design RX 7900 series cards in the first half of 2023 with some of the first cards being unveiled at CES. Well, here they are.

The MSI Radeon RX 7900 XTX and RX 7900 XT Gaming Trio Classic gets the latter part of its name from the fact that MSI used the older Tri Frozr 2.0 cooling solution from the previous-generation of graphics cards (RX 6000 series and RTX 30-series), rather than the latest Tri Frozr 3.0 it unveiled with the RTX 40-series. This cooler also gets the slightly older TorX 4.0 fan compared to newer TorX 5.0 fans with the RTX 40-series. This cooler has dealt with 350 W-ish TDP cooling requirements of GPUs such as the RX 6950 XT or the RTX 3090, so we reckon they could suit the RX 7900 series. There's still a brand new custom-design PCB underneath it, which pulls power from a trio of 8-pin PCIe power connectors, and so we could expect a fairly good power-limit for these cards.

ASUS today announced the all-new TUF Gaming A16 Advantage Edition, an all-AMD gaming laptop with a redesigned chassis and an incredibly immersive 16-inch display. The TUF Gaming A15, A17, F15 and F17 laptops also make a triumphant return, sporting the latest silicon from AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA to power players into the next generation of gaming performance.

TUF A16 Advantage Edition announced
Built for serious gaming with subtle styling, the TUF Gaming A16 Advantage Edition is a sleek gaming laptop built to demolish the competition. Powered completely by AMD, the TUF Gaming A16 features up to an AMD Ryzen 9 Zen 4 processor and AMD Radeon RDNA 3 mobile graphics. "AMD and ASUS have partnered to deliver our latest 'Zen 4' and RDNA 3 technologies into the most innovative form factors," said Jason Banta, CVP and GM OEM PC. "The TUF Gaming A16 Advantage Edition delivers blistering gaming performance and outstanding power efficiency in a sleek portable chassis."

Today at CES 2023, HP Inc is announcing new products and solutions designed to recharge hybrid experiences so people can thrive in today's digital world. "Hybrid provides us with greater flexibility and freedom in our personal lives, but brings its own set of challenges for people to stay productive and connected to others," said Alex Cho, President, Personal Systems, HP Inc. "HP is taking the headache out of hybrid by delivering powerful and best-in-class ecosystem experiences and industry-leading innovations - including the new HP Dragonfly Pro portfolio for freelancers, the Poly Voyager Free 60 Series Wireless Earbuds for exceptional audio experiences, and the HP E-Series monitors to help take productivity to the next level - while ensuring we continue to advance our world's most sustainable PC portfolio."4

Powering Freelancers with HP Dragonfly Pro
The freelancer community continues to grow exponentially, and by 2027 freelancers will make up more than 50% of the total U.S. workforce. That's why HP is bringing the power of its award-winning Dragonfly brand to freelancers wanting elevated experiences in their hybrid lives. This group of consumers wants technology with the power they need for multitasking and heavy workloads, coupled with built-in support and services for peace of mind.

During its CES 2023 keynote, AMD announced its latest Instinct MI300 APU, a first of its kind in the data center world. Combining the CPU, GPU, and memory elements into a single package eliminates latency imposed by long travel distances of data from CPU to memory and from CPU to GPU throughout the PCIe connector. In addition to solving some latency issues, less power is needed to move the data and provide greater efficiency. The Instinct MI300 features 24 Zen4 cores with simultaneous multi-threading enabled, CDNA3 GPU IP, and 128 GB of HBM3 memory on a single package. The memory bus is 8192-bit wide, providing unified memory access for CPU and GPU cores. CLX 3.0 is also supported, making cache-coherent interconnecting a reality.

The Instinct MI300 APU package is an engineering marvel of its own, with advanced chiplet techniques used. AMD managed to do 3D stacking and has nine 5 nm logic chiplets that are 3D stacked on top of four 6 nm chiplets with HBM surrounding it. All of this makes the transistor count go up to 146 billion, representing the sheer complexity of a such design. For performance figures, AMD provided a comparison to Instinct MI250X GPU. In raw AI performance, the MI300 features an 8x improvement over MI250X, while the performance-per-watt is "reduced" to a 5x increase. While we do not know what benchmark applications were used, there is a probability that some standard benchmarks like MLPerf were used. For availability, AMD targets the end of 2023, when the "El Capitan" exascale supercomputer will arrive using these Instinct MI300 APU accelerators. Pricing is unknown and will be unveiled to enterprise customers first around launch.