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Leaked AMD "Sound Wave" Arm-based APU Linked to "Microsoft Surface (2026)" Lineup

Late last month, data miners unearthed a wide variety of unannounced AMD Ryzen processor IPs. A "Sound Wave" product category received less attention, but Team Red's curious codename has reemerged in the middle of May. Thanks to fresh Kepler L2 theorizations, this mysterious mobile APU family has a potential end destination. Leaks from 2024 suggested that company engineers were working on an unusual Arm-based processor branch. AMD is cozily well-versed in all things x86, but an alleged present day diversification—into Arm (x64) territories—has confounded a fair few industry watchdogs.

In a tangential conversation—forking off from speculative "Zen 6" and PlayStation 6 APU chatter—Kepler L2 reckons that Team Red "Sound Wave" chips will be deployed in 2026, possibly within a refreshed Microsoft Surface lineup. Current-gen Arm-based offerings—leveraging Qualcomm Snapdragon X processors—have generated mixed user impressions (press and public alike). Microsoft and Qualcomm's "Windows on Arm" (WoA) platform partnership was elevated earlier on in May (with cheaper options), but troublesome hardware-to-software compatibility issues have reportedly caused some rifts in this relationship. As of last week, evaluators seemed to be poking around with NVIDIA's rumored Arm-based "N1" chip series on Windows. In theory, AMD's futuristic "Sound Wave" designs could do battle with (claimed) Team Green and MediaTek collaborative efforts.

AMD Teases "Not Available For Purchase" Radeon RX 9060 XT Reference Card Design

In an almost uncanny case of recent history repeating itself, AMD has kicked off another RDNA 4 new product teaser campaign. Today's reminder—regarding Jack Huynh's upcoming Computex presentation—included a promotional render of a stubbier dual-fan Radeon RX 9000 Series card design. Casting our memories back to late January (2025), Team Red rolled out an ill-timed advertisement—not long after the official delay of Radeon RX 9070 XT and non-XT cards. Despite denying the existence of "Made-By-AMD" (MBA) reference designs, AMD staffers were likely enraged by Chinese black market channel offerings of alleged "real deal examples." Days after first wave RDNA 4's March 6 global launch, a triple-fan specimen was outed.

Throughout early Q2, insiders and members of the Chiphell forum have played around with Radeon RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 MBA cards. The latter unit (see photo below) seems to utilize a dual-fan configuration in a fairly long enclosure format. Team Red's latest promo post likely points to a forthcoming unveiling of Radeon RX 9060 XT partner models, but curious industry observers will be wondering whether the shorter reference design actually exists in real life. As per usual, a tiny disclaimer claims otherwise: "Artistic Render. Not Available For Purchase." So far, leaks have suggested the presence of Acer, ASUS, GIGABYTE, and XFX custom options during introductory proceedings. Today's refresher outlined upcoming new product categories and partner contributions: "join AMD on May 21 as we reveal what's next in gaming, AI PCs, and more. (Our) SVP and GM of Computing and Graphics Group, along with industry leaders and partners showcase what is built to power the next level."

AMD & HUMAIN Reveal Formation of $10 Billion Strategic Collab, Aimed at Advancing Global AI

AMD and HUMAIN, Saudi Arabia's new AI enterprise, today announced a landmark agreement to build the world's most open, scalable, resilient, and cost-efficient AI infrastructure, that will power the future of global intelligence through a network of AMD-based AI computing centers stretching from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the United States. As part of the agreement, the parties will invest up to $10B to deploy 500 megawatts of AI compute capacity over the next five years. The AI superstructure built by AMD and HUMAIN will be open by design, accessible at scale, and optimized to power AI workloads across enterprise, start-up and sovereign markets. HUMAIN will oversee end-to-end delivery, including hyperscale data center, sustainable power systems, and global fiber interconnects, and AMD will provide the full spectrum of the AMD AI compute portfolio and the AMD ROCm open software ecosystem.

"At AMD, we have a bold vision to enable the future of AI everywhere—bringing open, high-performance computing to every developer, AI start-up and enterprise around the world," said Dr. Lisa Su, Chair and CEO, AMD. "Our investment with HUMAIN is a significant milestone in advancing global AI infrastructure. Together, we are building a globally significant AI platform that delivers performance, openness and reach at unprecedented levels." With initial deployments already underway across key global regions, the collaboration is on track to activate multi-exaflop capacity by early 2026, supported by next-gen AI silicon, modular data center zones, and a developer-enablement focused software platform stack built around open standards and interoperability.

Vastarmor Updates its Radeon RX 9070 XT Super Alloy Design with Zany Rainbow "Ultra" Edition

Roughly a month ago, Vastarmor debuted its "Super-less" Radeon RX 9070 XT Alloy SKU. The Chinese manufacturer's barebones spin-off—derived from a triple-fan flagship design—was stripped of fancy ARGB trimmings. Additionally, this sober-looking alternative option was deemed unworthy of sporting 3.1 GHz boost clock credentials—instead, making do with a mere 3010 MHz setting. A brand-new "Super Alloy Ultra" model retains elite-tier membership; as demonstrated by a recently published specification sheet. The Vastarmor design team has opted into using a louder and wider color palette; clearly demonstrated by their fresh RX 9070 XT Super Alloy Ultra's zany pearlescent rainbow-spectrum shroud setup. Unfortunately, this bright aesthetic treatment did not extend to the new flagship's backplate. The AIB's Super Alloy White option was appropriately decorated; on the front and back. Vastarmor's latest offering is not expected to break retail barriers beyond Chinese markets. ASRock's premium Radeon RX 9070 XT Taichi OC card is—perhaps—the closest to being a visually "eccentric" option for global audiences. Fittingly, its factory overclocked talents include a 3.1 GHz boost clock.

AMD Ryzen AI Max "Strix Halo" APUs Reportedly On Sale as Individual Parts in China

Officially, AMD Ryzen AI Max "Strix Halo" mobile processors are only available in complete systems—e.g. laptops, notebooks, and mini desktop PCs. Upon learning about this release status, DIY enthusiasts were left disappointed. After all, these impressively potent all-in-one solutions have picked up considerable praise pre- and post-launch. Team Red's "Strix Halo" flagship—the Ryzen AI Max+ 395—is the subject of much online debate, but cost of entry is steep. Under normal circumstances (i.e. no leveraging of promotional discounts), potential buyers are looking at $2000+ pre-built systems.

Separate BGA packages have turned up for sale in China—specifically on Goofish; Alibaba's second-hand trading platform. A past weekend VideoCardz investigative piece covered these curiosities. At this stage in time, viable custom motherboard designs are not yet widely distributed—effectively making individual "Strix Halo" units expensive paperweights. At the time of writing, seller "The Eraser in My Mind" offers the best Ryzen AI Max+ 395 deal: 3998 RMB (~$555 USD). This Suzhou-based trader also lists Ryzen AI Max PRO 390, and 380 SKUs. Product descriptions indicate that some of these processors are already powering mysterious handheld gaming devices (likely regional exclusives). Four Goofish accounts are displaying the same set of images; distinctive Team Red branding and "Made in Taiwan" tags are clearly visible across specimens—mostly mounted on plastic transport trays.

MiTAC Computing Deploys Latest AMD EPYC 4005 Series Processors

MiTAC Computing Technology Corp., a subsidiary of MiTAC Holdings Corp. and a leading manufacturer in server platform design, introduced its latest offering featuring the AMD EPYC 4005 Series processors. These updated server solutions offer enhanced performance and energy efficiency to meet the growing demands of modern business workloads, including AI, cloud services, and data analytics.

"The new AMD EPYC 4005 Series processors deliver the performance and capabilities our customers need at a price point that makes ownership more attractive and attainable," said Derek Dicker, corporate vice president, Enterprise and HPC Business, AMD. "We're enabling businesses to own their computing infrastructure at an economical price, while providing the performance, security features and efficiency modern workloads demand."

AMD Splits Instinct MI SKUs: MI450X Targets AI, MI430X Tackles HPC

AMD is gearing up to expand its Instinct MI family in the latter half of 2026 with two purpose‑built UDNA‑based accelerators. These new models, MI430X UL4 and MI450X, will cater respectively to high‑precision HPC tasks and large‑scale AI workloads. The MI430X UL4 is designed for applications that rely heavily on double‑precision FP64 floating‑point performance, such as scientific simulations, climate modeling, and others. It features a large array of FP64 tensor cores, ensuring consistent throughput for tightly coupled compute jobs. Because a dedicated UALink switch from partners like Astera Labs or Broadcom won't be available at launch, AMD has chosen a four‑GPU point‑to‑point mesh configuration for the MI430X UL4. This limited scale‑up approach keeps latency low and synchronization tight, making it ideal for small cluster deployments. On the AI side, the MI450X embraces Ethernet‑based Ultra Ethernet for scale‑out.

With UEC‑ready switches already on the market, this open‑standard networking solution lets users build expansive AI farms across dozens or even hundreds of nodes. By relying on established Ethernet technology instead of the new UALink ecosystem, AMD provides customers with immediate, hardware‑accelerated networking for both inference and training. While UALink promises an open, vendor‑neutral accelerator-to-accelerator fabric, its progress has been slow. Committee reviews and limited investment in switch silicon have delayed switch availability. Broadcom, viewed as the primary UALink switch supplier, has been cautious about its commitment, given expected lower volumes compared to Ethernet alternatives. AMD's acceleration segmentation addresses these realities. The MI430X UL4 delivers high‑precision compute in compact GPU meshes. The MI450X offers large‑scale AI connectivity via Ethernet. Should UALink switch development catch up in the future, AMD could revisit native GPU‑to‑GPU fabrics.

AMD Radeon "GFX13+" Target Found in Code Update; Linked to UDNA/RDNA 5 Architecture

Closer to the start of 2025, Kepler L2 shared "PlayStation 6" inside track info. The venerable leaker—of mostly AMD behind-the-scenes details—theorized that Sony's sixth-gen home console was based around an early fork that branched off from a mysterious "GFX13" GPU architecture. Earlier today, this target identifier has appeared again. Kepler L2's latest investigations have pulled the "GFX13+" target from kernel-level codebase updates. Data miners have often pulled compelling pre-release tidbits from official repositories; AMD's software engineering team open-source developments are quite visible. Over a year ago, similar detective work connected the "GFX12" IP to RDNA 4—nowadays, better known as the Radeon RX 9000 graphics card family. Despite Team Red's official insistence that RDNA 4 was a priority on desktop platforms, supposed discrete mobile variants were leaked last month. In addition, RDNA 3.5 seems to be a mainstay for at least another generation of integrated graphics solutions.

Looking beyond these current-gen graphics architectures, AMD leadership has already previewed a "unified" path forward. Last September's announcement revealed the convergence of RDNA (gaming) and CDNA (enterprise) GPU technologies: dubbed "UDNA." Present day leaks do mention a far out "RDNA 5" line (also "Navi 5x"), but in the same sentence as "UDNA." Kepler L2 commented on the (screen captured) presence of "ENABLE_WAVEFRONT" and "ENABLE_WAVEGROUP" kernel code properties: "I think it's related to SWC (Streaming Wave Coalescer/pseudo out-of-order execution). Each SIMD takes multiple wave32/wave64 (a wavegroup) as inputs and reorders the work items of each wave to reduce execution divergence." Fresh rumors suggest the distant RDNA 5/UDNA avenue being good enough to expand into higher-end gaming card territories. So far, RDNA 4 has hit a ceiling with Navi 48 GPU-powered Radeon 9070 XT offerings.

AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT "Updated" Spec Leak Indicates PCIe 5.0 x16 Interface

Late last week, Amazon's prematurely published product pages provided an early insight into XFX's alleged implementation of a 3320 MHz boost clock—90 MHz above AMD's speculated reference setting for not-yet-official Radeon RX 9060 XT 16 GB and 8 GB graphics cards. A couple of hours ago, momomo_us shared a fresher set of leaked specifications. The tenured PC tech industry observer outlined two separate tranches of unnamed hardware clocks—presumably linked to factory overclocked Radeon RX 9060 XT variants: "up to 3320 MHz, Game: 2780 MHz" and "up to 3290 MHz, Game: 2700 MHz." As interpreted by VideoCardz, these numbers align with older RDNA 4 rumors—previously, insiders claimed that Team Red's Navi 44 GPU was capable of clocking higher than the larger "Navi 48" sibling. According to their investigative article: "new information (indicates) that the RX 9060 XT's game clock is actually higher than the boost clock of the RX 9070 (non-XT)...The highest boost clock reported for the RX 9060 XT so far is 3320 MHz, which significantly exceeds the RX 9070 XT's 3100 MHz found on its fastest variants."

The latest momomo_us bulletin contains mostly repeated information, but graphics card analysts were confounded by the mentioning of a PCIe 5.0 x16 bus Interface. Prior disclosures have theorized the utilization of PCIe 5.0 x8; as listed within TechPowerUp's GPU database entry. VideoCardz weighed in with some credence: "small GPUs like Navi 44 typically don't require wider interfaces, as performance gains are minimal. However, with PCIe 5.0, using only 8 lanes would result in slightly reduced performance on PCIe 4.0 systems, something already seen with the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB variant. By choosing a wider interface, AMD may be attempting to avoid similar issues." Leading up to AMD's debuting of first wave RDNA 4 gaming cards, opposing speculators fought over the company's selection of PCIe 4.0 or PCIe 5.0 standards. A public delivery of finalized Radeon RX 9060 XT specifications is likely due on May 21, during Computex 2025.

ASRock Rack Announces Support for AMD EPYC 4005 Series Processors

ASRock Rack Inc., the leading innovative server company, today announced support for the newly launched AMD EPYC 4005 Series processors across its extensive lineup of AM5 socket server systems and motherboards. This announcement reinforces ASRock Rack's commitment to delivering cutting-edge performance, broad platform compatibility, and long-term value to customers in data centers, growing businesses, and edge computing environments.

Built on the AMD 'Zen 5' architecture, the AMD EPYC 4005 Series features up to 16 SMT-enabled cores and supports DDR5 memory speeds up to 5600 MT/s, delivering class-leading performance per watt within constrained IT budgets. As AI becomes embedded in everyday business software, AMD EPYC 4005 Series CPUs provide the performance headroom needed for AI-enhanced workloads such as automated customer service and data analytics while maintaining the affordability essential for small businesses. The series expands the proven AMD EPYC portfolio with solutions purpose-built for growing infrastructure demands.

US Senators Push to Geotrack High-End GPUs in New Chip Security Bill

US lawmakers are moving forward with a proposal requiring high-performance graphics cards and AI processors to carry built-in geotracking technology to keep sensitive chips out of hostile hands. Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas introduced the Chip Security Act on May 12, 2025. Under this legislation, the Commerce Department would have the authority to mandate location-verification features in any device subject to US export controls, with manufacturers given six months after enactment to comply. The bill applies to a broad set of products classified under export control classification numbers 3A090, 4A090, 4A003.z, and 3A001.z. That includes everything from advanced AI accelerators and rack-scale servers to certain gaming graphics cards like NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 5090. Manufacturers would be required to embed hardware or firmware capable of reporting each device's physical location back to a centralized registry maintained by the Commerce Department.

Exporters must also notify the Bureau of Industry and Security immediately if a unit is diverted, tampered with, or appears at an unauthorized location. To keep pace with evolving security threats, the legislation calls for a joint one-year study by the Commerce Department and the Department of Defense on potential new tracking and safeguard mechanisms. Following that, the two departments would conduct annual reviews for three years. If they determine that additional measures are warranted, they would have two years to draft and finalize rules that outline new requirements and present a detailed implementation roadmap to Congress. NVIDIA has noted that its current architectures are not built for post-sale tracking, and adding such a capability could delay product launch schedules and increase development costs. AMD and Intel are likely to face similar obstacles, as integrating secure location-verification may require redesigning sensitive intellectual property and altering established supply-chain processes.

Supermicro Announces New MicroCloud Servers Powered by AMD EPYC 4005 Series Processors

Supermicro, Inc., a Total IT Solution Provider for AI, Cloud, Storage, and 5G/Edge, is announcing that a number of Supermicro servers are now shipping with the latest addition to the AMD based EPYC 4000 series CPUs, the AMD EPYC 4005 Series processors. These servers are optimized to deliver a powerful balance of performance density, scalability, and affordability. Supermicro will feature its new Supermicro MicroCloud multi-node solution, a 10-node CPU and a 5-node CPU + GPU version, in a 3U form factor, ideal for organizations seeking to optimize space, energy, and cost of their IT infrastructure. Supermicro's MicroCloud product family targets dedicated hosting markets where sharing the chassis, power, and cooling are desired while still maintaining physical separation.

"Supermicro continues to deliver first-to-market innovative rack-scale solutions for a wide range of use cases, with the addition of our new Supermicro MicroCloud multi-node solution that feature the latest AMD EPYC 4005 Series processors, designed to optimize the needs of on-premises or cloud service providers who need powerful but cost-effective solutions in a compact 3U form factor," said Mory Lin, Vice President, IoT/Embedded & Edge Computing at Supermicro. "These servers offer up to 2080 cores on a standard 42U rack, greatly reducing data center rack space and overall TCO for enterprise and small medium businesses."

MSI Introduces Server Platforms with AMD EPYC 4005 Processors for SMB Workloads

Today, MSI announced a lineup of entry-level servers and server motherboards powered by AMD EPYC 4005 Series Processors. Featuring up to 16 cores based on the Zen 5 architecture, these platforms deliver the performance, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness that small businesses, new business owners, and system integrators need to build reliable infrastructure, all within limited IT budgets and space footprints.

"We see this launch as a way to make enterprise-grade compute more accessible to smaller organizations," said Danny Hsu, General Manager of MSI's Enterprise Platform Solutions. "By pairing AMD EPYC 4005 Series Processors with MSI's proven hardware design, we're delivering practical, scalable server solutions built for real-world business scenarios—from private cloud and storage to web hosting and office IT systems."

Report: Customers Show Little Interest in AMD Instinct MI325X Accelerators

AMD's Instinct MI325X accelerator has struggled to gain traction with large customers, according to extensive data from SemiAnalysis. Launched in Q2 2025, the MI325X arrived roughly nine months after NVIDIA's H200 and concurrently with NVIDIA's "Blackwell" mass-production roll-out. That timing proved unfavourable, as many buyers opted instead for Blackwell's superior cost-per-performance ratio. Early interest from Microsoft in 2024 failed to translate into repeat orders. After the initial test purchases, Microsoft did not place any further commitments. In response, AMD reduced its margin expectations in an effort to attract other major clients. Oracle and a handful of additional hyperscalers have since expressed renewed interest, but these purchases remain modest compared with NVIDIA's volume.

A fundamental limitation of the MI325X is its eight-GPU scale-up capacity. By contrast, NVIDIA's rack-scale GB200 NVL72 supports up to 72 GPUs in a single cluster. For large-scale AI inference and frontier-level reasoning workloads, that difference is decisive. AMD positioned the MI325X against NVIDIA's air-cooled HGX B200 NVL8 and HGX B300 NVL16 modules. Even in that non-rack-scale segment, NVIDIA maintains an advantage in both raw performance and total-cost-of-ownership efficiency. Nonetheless, there remains potential for the MI325X in smaller-scale deployments that do not require extensive GPU clusters. Smaller model inference should be sufficient for eight GPU clusters, where lots of memory bandwidth and capacity are the primary needs. AMD continues to improve its software ecosystem and maintain competitive pricing, so AI labs developing mid-sized AI models may find the MI325X appealing.

XFX & Acer Radeon RX 9060 XT Graphics Cards Leaked by Retailers - Starting at "$450"

As reported last week, webstores have mistakenly listed unannounced board partner Radeon RX 9060 XT graphics cards. At the time, only model names and identifiers (SKUs) were inadvertently leaked out—roughly a fortnight ahead of a speculated official unveiling at Computex 2025. By the end of last week, VideoCardz had picked up fresh intel from its readership—Amazon had published XFX Swift Radeon RX 9060 XT 16 GB GDDR6 (triple-fan) and 8 GB GDDR6 (dual-fan) pre-launch prices and basic specifications. These NDA-busting pages have been removed, but the online publication has preserved crucial details. AMD's alleged reference boost clock for this GPU class is 3230 MHz, but XFX is reportedly tuning matters up to 3320 MHz. Considering that Swift is XFX's casual/entry-level product grade, higher end options could be overclocked beyond that figure.

Amazon.com revealed (likely placeholder) prices: $519.99 for the XFX Radeon RX 9060 XT OC 16 GB Gaming Edition (triple fan), and $449.99 for its twin-fan sibling. Team Red is expected to introduce official guide prices (MSRP) next week; possibly during a May 21 presentation. As discussed by VideoCardz, the leaked XFX numbers are a tad too steep—relative to main competition; NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 5060 Ti family. Starting at $429 for 16 GB GDDR7 VRAM, and $379 for 8 GB GDDR7 VRAM. momomo_us has gathered additional evidence of Radeon RX 9060 XT custom card prices; the intrepid industry watcher pointed out an unnamed Swiss e-tailer's listing of two Acer Nitro SKUs. The overclocked 16 GB and 8 GB models were inadvertently marked with 556.70 and 508.30 CHF (respectively) price tags, including regional VAT. Converting to (USD) ~$660 and ~$603, respectively. VideoCardz noted that these offerings are about 20 - 27% cheaper than Acer's already launched Radeon RX 9070 (non-XT) cards.

AMD EPYC "Venice" Leak: 2 nm Zen 6 and Zen 6c to Offer Up to 256C/512T and 1 GB of L3 in a Single Socket

AMD is preparing to set a new data-center performance bar with its upcoming 6th-generation EPYC "Venice" processors, built on the latest "Zen 6" and "Zen 6C" core designs and the industry's first 2 nm-class node from TSMC. Leaked engineering diagrams and forum reports suggest Venice will offer additional core scalability, memory capacity, and cache productivity for demanding server workloads. At the heart of the Venice platform lies a multi-chip module design featuring up to eight Core Complex Dies (CCDs) arrayed around one or more central I/O dies (IODs). In its Zen 6 configuration, each CCD houses 12 "classic" cores, yielding a maximum of 96 cores and 192 threads per socket. The cache per CCD is rumored to reach 128 MB of shared L3, double that of its predecessor, delivering up to 1 TB of L3 cache in a fully populated eight-CCD package.

For customers prioritizing raw thread count over per-core performance, the Zen 6C variant pushes the envelope to 256 "dense" cores and 512 threads by leveraging a leaner core design and higher CCD count. Despite the density boost, each Zen 6C core maintains 2 MB of L3 cache, preserving latency benefits even at scale. Memory bandwidth also receives a major uplift: Venice will support both 16-channel (SP7) and 12-channel (SP8) DDR5 configurations, accommodating up to 6 TB of system RAM per socket. The number of PCIe Gen 5 lanes is still unknown, but it could be well over 128 lanes, which the past 5th-generation EPYC CPUs had. Thermal and power targets differentiate the two sockets: SP7 models are expected to reach TDPs around 600 W, up from 400 W on current Zen 5 chips, while SP8 parts aim for 350-400 W to suit more moderate-density racks. This tiered approach will let hyperscalers and enterprise customers balance performance, efficiency, and cooling infrastructure, especially at the scale that hyperscalers have. A projected launch date is scheduled for late 2025 or early 2026.

Gigabyte X870 / B850 Aorus Stealth Ice Pioneering a New Era of RC PC Building Experience

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, the world's leading computer brand, continues to redefine DIY PC building with its innovative Project STEALTH, first introduced in 2022. The Project STEALTH concept was the industry's pioneer in adopting reverse-connector motherboards for a cleaner, more streamlined assembly. Now, responding to the growing demand for all-white and cableless PC builds, GIGABYTE launches the STEALTH ICE Series, featuring the AMD X870 and B850 chipset motherboards.

Beyond aesthetics and easier assembly, GIGABYTE ensures that the Project STEALTH build is highly compatible. In addition to supporting its own chassis lineup (GIGABYTE C500P STEALTH Series), GIGABYTE has partnered with over 10 renowned case manufacturers, including Corsair, Cooler Master, Fractal Design, Phanteks, and more, to provide reverse-connector-ready cases across more than 25 models. This makes the GIGABYTE Project STEALTH Series the most compatible, the most widely supported and flexible solution in the market for cableless PC builds.

Tech YouTuber Highlights ASRock X870 Motherboard's "Killing" of His Ryzen 9 9950X CPU

Unlucky owners of AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D processors have encountered major problems that largely involve ASRock motherboards. Throughout early 2025, user feedback provided insight into numerous cases of "catastrophic CPU failures." Members of the official ASRock subreddit have kept track of these unfortunate incidents; now closing in on 200 documented "murdered" specimens. Industry watchdogs reckon that even more disagreements—involving the Zen 5-based 9000X3D series and ASRock B- and X- (AM5) boards—exist outside of this community-aggregated log. At the end of February, ASRock pushed out an important BIOS update—this fix did not resolve all problems. Over a month later, AMD weighed in with their findings—in response, ASRock released another update.

Evidently, Ryzen 7 9800X3D products continue to perish—Tech YES City's Bryan Bilowol has added Team Red's Ryzen 9 9950X model to the mix. The tech YouTuber was surprised by the death of his example; apparently caused by an ASRock X870 Steel Legend mainboard. Standard "Granite Ridge" processors—that lack 3D V-Cache—have received less attention, but observers believe that these non-X3D options are still vulnerable. Bilowol did not personally experience the moment of catastrophe—instead, a friend was borrowing an affected PC build. As demonstrated in a new Tech YES City video post-mortem, the completely dead CPU sported some worrying gray marks. Tech YES City has a fairly large audience, so ASRock leadership will likely be cursing after noticing another uptick in public scrutiny. Past reports have pointed out the manufacturer's belief that too much "misinformation" is being spread. Bilowol surmised that the company is keeping this issue: "under the radar—they seem to be hoping that the issue will just go away." Despite collaborating with ASRock for over a decade, Tech YES City will not pull any punches—await for more gory details in upcoming follow-up investigations.

Hygon Prepares 128-Core, 512-Threaded x86 CPU with Four-Way SMT and AVX-512 Support

Chinese server CPU maker Hygon, which owns a Zen core IP from AMD, has put a roadmap for C86-5G, its most powerful server processor to date, featuring up to 128 cores and an astonishing 512 threads. Thanks to a complete microarchitectural redesign, the new chip delivers more than 17 percent higher instructions per cycle (IPC) than its predecessor. It also supports the AVX-512 vector instruction set and four-way simultaneous multithreading, making it a strong contender for highly parallel workloads. Sixteen channels of DDR5-5600 memory feed data-intensive tasks, while CXL 2.0 interconnect support enables seamless scaling across multiple sockets. Built on an unknown semiconductor node, the C86-5G includes advanced power management and a hardened security engine. With 128 lanes of PCIe 5.0, it offers ample bandwidth for accelerators, NVMe storage, and high-speed networking. Hygon positions this flagship CPU as ideal for artificial intelligence training clusters, large-scale analytics platforms, and virtualized enterprise environments.

The C86-5G is the culmination of five years of steady development. The journey began with the C86-1G, an AMD-licensed design that served as a testbed for domestic engineers. It offered up to 32 cores, 64 threads, eight channels of DDR4-2666 memory, and 128 lanes of PCIe 3.0. Its goal was to absorb proven technology and build local know-how. Next came the C86-2G, which kept the same core count but introduced a revamped floating-point unit, 21 custom security instructions, and hardware-accelerated features for memory encryption, virtualization, and trusted computing. This model marked Hygon's first real step into independent research and development. With the C86-3G, Hygon rolled out a fully homegrown CPU core and system-on-chip framework. Memory support increased to DDR4-3200, I/O doubled to PCIe 4.0, and on-die networking included four 10 GbE and eight 1 GbE ports. The C86-4G raised the bar further by doubling compute density to 64 cores and 128 threads, boosting IPC by around 15 percent and adding 12-channel DDR5-4800 memory plus 128 lanes of PCIe 5.0. Socket options expanded to dual and quad configurations. Now, with the C86-5G, Hygon has shown it can compete head-to-head with global server CPU leaders, putting more faith in China's growing capabilities in high-performance computing.

AMD Releases Software Adrenalin 25.5.1 WHQL Drivers

AMD has released its latest version of the AMD Software Adrenalin drivers, version 25.5.1 WHQL. The latest graphics drivers update brings official support for AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE graphics card, as well as new game support for Doom: The Dark Ages and F1 25 games. AMD also added new game support for AMD FSR 4 in several games, including Ghost of Tsushima, Frostpunk 2, Everspace 2, Fort Solis, Warhammer 40,000: Darktide, The Finals, and Influx Redux, as well as expanded HYPR-RX Support to new games.

The new drivers update also added Vulkan 1.4 API support with support for several new Vulkan API extensions. AMD also fixed several issues including intermittent application crash or driver timeout in Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition and Civilization VII with Anti-Lag enabled, system crash due to a memory leak when using SteamVR on some Radeon graphics cards, including Radeon RX 9000 series, and some issues with driver installation.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Software Adrenalin 25.5.1 WHQL

Mysterious Radeon RX 7300 GPU Info Spotted in AIDA64 Extreme Release Notes

Last August, the rumor mill indicated a possible arrival of Radeon RX 7400 and RX 7300 graphics cards—potentially distributed through OEM channels. Going further back—during the early days of RDNA 3—insiders posited that true entry-level models were on the way; sitting below the already lowly Radeon RX 7600 model in Team Red's "Navi 33" GPU-based stack. Around mid-2023, Kepler_L2 envisioned humble "Navi 33 Ultra Lite with 4 CUs" designs. Currently, TechPowerUp's database alludes to a "never released" Radeon RX 7500 XT card, but AMD's (presumably less potent) RX 7400 and RX 7300 options were not deemed worthy of similar treatment.

To the surprise of many industry watchdogs, quite fresh AIDA64 Extreme (beta) release notes—version: 7.65.7415 beta (May 05, 2025)—mention "AMD Radeon RX 7300 (Navi 33)" GPU information. VideoCardz highlighted this discovery with a quick investigative piece; they did not find any official listings of this mysterious identifier. Two other RDNA 3 era models were present in the latest AIDA64 update: an already launched "Radeon Pro W7700 (Navi 32)" card and 2024's "Radeon RX 7800M (Navi 32)" mobile solution. Despite the upcoming launch of lower end RDNA 4 graphics cards, Team Red and a couple of its board partners are still pushing out "new" Navi 33 GPU-based cards—most notably Chinese market exclusive Radeon RX 7650 GRE custom models. In theory, a large surplus of "Hotpink Bonefish" GPU dies would require depletion in 2025.

Retail Listings of ASUS TUF Gaming, PRIME, & DUAL Radeon RX 9060 XT SKUs Appear Online

As we draw closer to a rumored May 21 unveiling of AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT graphics cards, an uptick in accidental retail listings is expected. Earlier this week, a Brazilian shop inadvertently broke official guidelines by their revealing of a lone GIGABYTE Gaming OC 16 GB SKU. Keen watchers of new product registrations have already shared multiple instances of pre-release information—around late March, ASUS logged unannounced TUF Gaming, PRIME and DUAL Radeon RX 9060 XT models in South Korea. A series of leaks have outlined 16 GB and 8 GB GDDR6 VRAM configurations; with the latter's release status being in contention (up until last week).

As unearthed by momomo_us, ASUS seems to be readying 16 GB and 8 GB-based SKUs for an imminent launch. Four upcoming product identifiers were scraped from an unnamed retail outlet's webshop: TUF Gaming RX 9060 XT OC 16 GB, PRIME RX 9060 XT OC 16 GB, PRIME RX 9060 XT OC 8 GB, and DUAL RX 9060 XT 8 GB. Confusingly, the ASUS "twin fan" DUAL tag is applied to all identifiers—perhaps an error, or an indication of an (unlikely) all dual-fan cooled lineup. VideoCardz believes that this latest leak only represents a partial selection; past RRA registrations pointed to the existence of additional non-overclocked models.

Slimbook Intros Kymera Black: High-Performance Linux PC for Gamers and Content Creators

Slimbook, a Linux hardware manufacturer based in Europe (Spain) unveiled Kymera Black, a highly configurable desktop computer designed for gamers, content creators and hardware enthusiasts. This latest model focuses on flexibility, performance and durability. Kymera Black comes with options for AMD or Intel processors, capable of housing up to the latest AMD Ryzen 9 or Intel Ultra 9 CPUs. It can support up to 192 GB of DDR5 RAM running at 6000 MHz, as well as a wide variety of storage options up to 4 TB NVMe 5.0 SSDs (NVMe 5.0 optional depending on motherboard) and 80 TB of HDD capacity. For networking, it can feature up to Wi-Fi 7 (depending on motherboard) and 2.5G Ethernet connectivity, and up to 1200 W Platinum power supply units.

This desktop PC features a matte black metal chassis with modular components, removable panels, and washable dust filters. The case uses a combination of tempered glass and metal side panels with an optional 8-inch front display to monitor system temperature, fan speed, and component performance in real time. In terms of software, the Kymera Black offers a wide selection of pre-installed Linux distributions. These include the Ubuntu-based Slimbook OS with GNOME or KDE Plasma, as well as Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu MATE, KDE neon, Debian, elementary OS, Pop!_OS, Linux Mint, Fedora, openSUSE, Manjaro, EndeavourOS, and Lliurex.

AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE Gets Reviewed - Gaming Perf. Comparable to RX 7900 GRE

AMD and a select bunch of its board partners are set to launch Radeon RX 9070 GRE 12 GB graphics card models tomorrow; starting as exclusives for China's PC gaming hardware market. Just before an unleashing of retail stock, local media outlets have published reviews—mostly covering brand-new ASUS, Sapphire, and XFX products. The RDNA 4 generation's first "Great Radeon Edition" (GRE) is positioned as a slightly cheaper alternative to Team Red's Radeon RX 9070 (non-XT) 16 GB model; 4199 RMB versus 4499 RMB (respectively, including VAT). In general, Chinese evaluators seem to express lukewarm opinions about the Radeon RX 9070 GRE's value-to-performance ratio. After all, this is a cut-down design—a "reduced" Navi 48 chip makes do with 3072 Stream Processors. The card's 12 GB of GDDR6 VRAM configuration is paired up with a 192-bit memory interface.

Carbon Based Technology's video review presented benchmark results that placed AMD's new contender on par with a previous-gen card: Radeon RX 7900 GRE 16 GB. Considering that this RDNA 3 era Golden Rabbit Edition (GRE) model launched globally with an MSRP of $549, its Navi 48 XL GPU-based descendant's ~$580 (USD) guide price appears to be mildly nonsensical. GamerSky pitched their ASUS ATS RX 9070 GRE MEGALODON OC sample against mid-range and lower level current-gen NVIDIA gaming products: ""through testing, we can find that at 4K resolution, the GeForce RTX 5070 12 GB performs the best, 5% higher than the ASUS RX 9070 GRE Megalodon. As the resolution decreases, its lead also decreases, and at 2K resolution it is only 2% higher. At 1080p resolution, the difference is only 1%. At the same time, compared with RTX 5060 Ti 16G, ASUS RX 9070 GRE Megalodon has a greater advantage. The performance of its competitor's RTX 5060 Ti 16G is only 77% of that of RX 9070 GRE at 4K and 2K resolutions. At 1080p, its performance increased slightly to 79%." AMD and involved AIBs could be testing the waters with an initial Chinese market exclusive release, but Western news outlets reckon that a more aggressive pricing strategy is needed for a (potential) proper global rollout of Radeon RX 9070 GRE cards.

AMD Reports First Quarter 2025 Financial Results

AMD today announced financial results for the first quarter of 2025. First quarter revenue was $7.4 billion, gross margin was 50%, operating income was $806 million, net income was $709 million and diluted earnings per share was $0.44. On a non-GAAP(*) basis, gross margin was 54%, operating income was $1.8 billion, net income was $1.6 billion and diluted earnings per share was $0.96.

"We delivered an outstanding start to 2025 as year-over-year growth accelerated for the fourth consecutive quarter driven by strength in our core businesses and expanding data center and AI momentum," said Dr. Lisa Su, AMD chair and CEO. "Despite the dynamic macro and regulatory environment, our first quarter results and second quarter outlook highlight the strength of our differentiated product portfolio and consistent execution positioning us well for strong growth in 2025."
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