AMD on Tuesday released the AMD Software Adrenalin 22.7.1 drivers, which include several major updates to the feature-set. To begin with, AMD has significantly updated its OpenGL ICD (installable client driver), which can have an incredible 79 percent increase in frame-rates at 4K with "Fabulous" settings, as measured on the flagship RX 6950 XT, and up to 75 percent, as measured on the entry-level RX 6400. Also debuting is AMD Noise Suppression, a new feature that lets you clear out your voice-calls and in-game voice-chats. The software leverages AI to filter out background noises that don't identify as the prominent foreground speech. Radeon Super Resolution support has been extended to RX 5000 series and RX 6000 series GPUs running on Ryzen processor notebooks with Hybrid graphics setups.

Besides these, Adrenalin 22.7.1 adds optimization for "Swordsman Remake," support for Radeon Boost plus VRS with "Elden Ring," "Resident Evil VIII," and "Valorant." The drivers improve support for Windows 11 22H2 Update, and Agility SDK 1.602 and 1.607. A few more Vulkan API extensions are added with this release. Among the handful issues fixed are lower-than-expected F@H performance on RX 6000 series, Auto Undervolt disabling idle-fan-stop; "Hitman 3" freezing when switching between windows in exclusive fullscreen mode; blurry web video upscaling on certain RX 6000 series cards, and Enhanced Sync locking framerates to 15 FPS with video playback on extended monitors.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Software Adrenalin 22.7.1

Once again the Eurasian Economic Commission has been helpful by sharing the model names of multiple upcoming graphics cards from both AMD and NVIDIA, which was dug up by @harukaze5719. This time around it's AFOX, a fairly minor graphics card manufacturer based out of Hong Kong that has submitted products for trademark registration. If these are the final product names or not, it's not clear and there are some "irregularities" in the submission as well, but we'll get to that in a second. Looking at the AMD cards, all the model names are as expected, ranging from the Radeon RX 7500 to the RX 7900XT in even steps of 100, with non XT and XT models for each SKU.

On the NVIDIA side we have the RTX 4050 to the RTX 4090TI, again with even steps, but of 10 this time and TI models of all cards, which seems a bit odd on the lower-end. However, AFOX has also registered trademarks for four RTX 30x0 Super cards, suggesting that NVIDIA might refresh its lineup of Ampere cards before it launches the 4000-series. This is obviously just an indication of things that may happen and should be taken with a fair helping of salt.

Courtesy of Planet 3DNow! we now have an idea when AMD might be launching the Ryzen 7000-series of CPU's, as the site posted about an upcoming AMD event called Meet the Experts on Twitter. The event registration page reads "Supporting the recent launch of AMD Ryzen 7000 Series processors," which suggests that the new Ryzen 7000-series is likely to launch on or before the 4th of August. The event takes place at 11:00 in the morning, CDT (Central Daylight Time) or 16:00 UTC.

The event will showcase motherboards from AMD's partners and representatives from ASRock, ASUS, Biostar, Gigabyte and MSI will be attending the online event. There's still no mention of the B650E chipset, but apparently X670E and X670 products will be shown, but not even B650 at this point. Based on the short summary blurb, we're also likely to see a PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSD being shown off. AMD will obviously have a separate launch event for the Ryzen 7000-series, but if that will take place on the same day, or on a different date, is unknown at this point.

Sapphire introduced one of the first Radeon RX 6500 XT graphics cards in the retail channel to feature 8 GB of video memory, double that of the 4 GB standard for the SKU. The Sapphire Pulse RX 6500 XT 8 GB resembles the company's standard Pulse RX 6500 XT in design. At this point it's unclear how Sapphire went about deploying 8 GB of memory with the RX 6500 XT, given its narrow 64-bit GDDR6 memory interface.

Sapphire probably used four 16 Gbit memory chips, with two chips piggybacking a 32-bit memory channel. This would finally put the metal backplate to some use, as two of the chips could be located on the reverse side of the PCB. The memory ticks at the same 18 Gbps speed as the standard RX 6500 XT. The card's typical board power is increased to 130 W, up from the 107 W AMD reference. This is probably because the added memory chips, as well as slightly increased clock speeds of 2685 MHz (game clock), vs. 2615 MHz reference. The company didn't announce pricing or availability, but is planning a global launch for this card.

QNAP Systems, Inc., today launched the TS-h1290FX NAS. Providing QNAP's first PCIe 4.0 and U.2 NVMe/SATA all-flash NAS in a tower form factor, the TS-h1290FX excels in the most demanding work environments such as collaborative high-resolution video workflows. Featuring AMD EPYC 8/16-core processors, built-in 25GbE and 2.5GbE connectivity, PCIe Gen 4 expansion, and up to petabyte-scale storage capacity, the TS-h1290FX tackles data-intensive and latency-sensitive applications, such as large media file transfer, real-time editing of 4K/8K high-resolution media, online collaborative workflows, and virtualization applications.

"Modern businesses and studios shouldn't need to dedicate entire rooms to accommodate hot and loud servers, and that's where the TS-h1290FX comes in. Contained within a unique tower form factor and utilizing quiet cooling is exceptional performance driven by a server-grade processor, all-flash U.2 NVMe SSD storage, and QNAP's enterprise-grade QuTS hero operating system," said Jason Hsu, Product Manager of QNAP.

AMD is readying a Noise Suppression software to go with future updates to AMD Software Adrenalin. A rival to NVIDIA RTX Voice, the software cancels background noise both from your microphone, as well as from the person on the other side of the line, in a voice chat. It does so by isolating voices from sounds it interprets as background noise or sounds uncharacteristic of voices.

Much like NVIDIA, AMD is relying on a "real-time deep-learning algorithm" to identify and isolate human voices from an audio stream, although the company wouldn't say how the AI is being accelerated on the hardware. Since AMD Noise Suppression is being distributed through the Adrenalin package, it's reason to believe that you'll need an AMD Radeon GPU (either discrete or integrated), to use the software.

The newest addition to the Razer Blade laptop family, the Blade 14, is now available in the fan-favorite colorway Quartz. The Quartz edition will be available specifically on the Blade 14 model that features the NVIDIA GeForce 3070 Ti Laptop GPU alongside the AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX processor for the best balance between power and portability. Additionally, new models of both the Quartz and Black colorways. Existing Razer Blade 14 2022 models will require a software update to utilize these new features.

The updated USB C ports offer speeds up to 40 Gbps and allow for Thunderbolt functionality, meaning that the Blade 14 can be paired with external GPUs like the Razer Core X Chroma.

Today, Alienware reaches new milestones with the launch of the most powerful 17" AMD Advantage laptop, introduction of the standard-defying 480 Hz panel technology for the first time, and unveiling of our first-ever 16-inch Dell G Series laptop. We continue to hold true to the Alienware ethos of creating the apex gaming experience. These advancements are dedicated to making your images sharper, your gameplay smoother, and your experience more immersive through a perfect storm of industry leading gaming technology and iconic design.

For those who value raw power, the Alienware m17 R5 is the laptop for you. It claims the throne as the world's most powerful 17" AMD Advantage laptop, delivering truly remarkable performance. The m17 R5 is forged from a partnership with AMD that features AMD Ryzen 6000 series processors, AMD Radeon RX 6000 series graphics, and new AMD Smart Technologies. Today's update welcomes the new AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT 12 GB GDDR6 GPU to the configuration lineup.

Graphics card prices continue to fall in China with NVIDIA & AMD holding excessive stock of RTX 3000/RX 6000 cards without enough consumers interested in buying them. The companies have resisted pressure to lower the official MSRP of these cards with most retailers now offering discounts of between 5% and 30%. The largest drops are with flagship cards such as the NVIDIA RTX 3090 Ti which is now available for 9499 RMB (1415 USD) which is 38% below MSRP while the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT is 4999 RMB (744 USD) a 37.5% reduction. The prices for all graphics cards are now below MSRP with drops amounting to 20% on average for NVIDIA and 19% for AMD.

Although AMD has not as yet announced its B650E chipset, rumour about such a chipset started before Computex. To date, no specific motherboard models have been mentioned by model name, but courtesy of Videocardz, we now have a list of several upcoming models from ASRock. The company has already announced its X670E range of motherboards, which consists of five models, of which four can already be seen on the ASRock website. ASRock appears to be planning five B650E boards, plus another six B650 SKU's. The company also appears to be the OEM for NZXT's second AMD motherboard, which appears to be called the N7-B65XT, which might also be a B650E based board.

Unfortunately we don't know any of the technical details about the upcoming B650/B650E boards from ASRock, but the model names give away that two of the five B650E boards will be Mini-ITX boards. It doesn't look like ASRock will be offering a high-end B650E model, but at least there will be an upper mid-range Steel Legend board. ASRock will also have a couple of mATX B650 boards, one should be a more gaming focused mid-range model, with the other being what appears to be a fairly basic model. One peculiar addition is a B650 SKU with the prefix LiveMixer, which is a new series from ASRock as far as we're aware. ASRock doesn't appear to be offering any X670 motherboards at all, at least not based on the current information.

ViewSonic Corp., a leading global provider of visual solutions, announces an expansion of its gaming line with the launch of the new ViewSonic OMNI gaming monitor, the VX2418C. This 24-inch curved screen monitor features native 1080p resolution, an ultra-fast refresh rate, 1 ms response time and AMD FreeSync Premium technology. The OMNI VX2418C is a feature-rich gaming monitor with a great price point. The OMNI VX2418C comes with a 165Hz refresh rate and a 1ms (MPRT) response time, making it ideal for both esports professionals and aspiring gamers. AMD FreeSync Premium technology seamlessly synchronizes the frame rate output, effectively eliminating screen-tearing and stuttering for smooth gameplay. The Full HD, 1080p VA panel, 1500R curve and exclusive ViewMode presets are ideal for console gaming and ensure incredible image quality that will make even a casual gamer feel like a pro.

"We've seen great momentum in esports and an increase in demand as new tech hardware is being developed that compliment the OMNI line. With ViewSonic OMNI monitors, we're offering a line of products that can hit great price points while still providing the features, technologies, and functionalities that aspiring gamers and esports players demand," said Jeff Muto, Business Line Director at ViewSonic. "The OMNI VX2418C gaming monitor delivers smooth gameplay and amazing responsiveness that lets aspiring gamers upgrade their set up without breaking the bank."

RansomHouse, a newly established group aimed at monetizing stolen data, claims to own more than 450 Gb of data coming from AMD. The RansomHouse group is structured as the middleman and makes sure that hackers and victims negotiate to get the funds to hackers and data back to victims. It is claimed that the leaked AMD data contains network files, system information, and AMD passwords. This could be a very dangerous data breach, as inter-company passwords are used to access confidential files and personal information. The group notes that they own 450 Gb or gigabits of data, which translates into 56.25 GB or gigabytes of stolen data. We are not yet sure if the Gb notation is misspelled. It is claimed that AMD's poor security practices like using "password" passwords lead to the data breach, and no special ransomware software was used.

Tom's Hardware reached out to AMD for a statement, and got the following response:

AMD Representative for Tom's HardwareAMD is aware of a bad actor claiming to be in possession of stolen data from AMD. An investigation is currently underway.

Intel is preparing to launch its next-generation desktop platform codenamed Rocket Lake-S. According to the presentation held by Intel today in Shenzen, China, we have official information regarding some of the platform features that Raptor Lake is bringing. Starting with memory support, Raptor Lake is still carrying the transitional DDR4 and DDR5 support, as the full swing towards DDR5 is still in progress. Unlike the previous generation Alder Lake, which brought DDR5-4800 support, Raptor Lake's integrated memory controller can drive DDR5 modules with a 5600 MT/s configuration. As DDR4 support remains, it is limited to 3200 MT/s speed.

Interesting information from the leaked slide points out that support for CPU-attached NVMe storage remains PCIe Gen4. While AMD will provide an AM5 socket with CPU-attached NMVe storage on PCIe Gen5 protocol, Intel is taking a step back and holding on to Gen4. The CPU is outputting 16 PCIe Gen5 lanes on its own. Motherboard vendors for the upcoming 700-series boards for Raptor Lake can still provide a PCIe Gen5 NVMe slot; however, it will have to subtract eight Gen5 lanes from the PCI Express Graphics (PEG) slot and route them to NVMe storage. As our testing shows, this will affect GPU's performance by a few percent. AMD's upcoming AM5 platform has no such issues, as the CPU provides both the PEG and CPU-attached NVMe storage with sufficient PCIe Gen5 bandwidth.

QNAP Systems, Inc., a leading computing, networking, and storage solution innovator, today launched the TS-h1290FX NAS. Providing QNAP's first PCIe 4.0 and U.2 NVMe/SATA all-flash NAS in a tower form factor, the TS-h1290FX excels in the most demanding work environments such as collaborative high-resolution video workflows. Featuring AMD EPYC 8/16-core processors, built-in 25 GbE and 10GbE connectivity, PCIe Gen 4 expansion, and up to petabyte-scale storage capacity, the TS-h1290FX provides up to 816K/318K iSCSI 4K random read/write IOPS for tackling data-intensive and latency-sensitive applications, such as large media file transfer, real-time editing of 4K/8K media, and virtualization applications.

"Modern businesses and studios shouldn't need to dedicate entire rooms to accommodate hot and loud servers, and that's where the TS-h1290FX comes in. Contained within a unique tower form factor and utilizing quiet cooling is exceptional performance driven by a server-grade processor, all-flash U.2 NVMe SSD storage, and QNAP's enterprise-grade QuTS hero operating system," said Jason Hsu, Product Manager of QNAP, adding "the TS-h1290FX is a remarkable storage solution that provides exceptional power to deal with the modern demands of businesses and studios - including high-resolution media editing and online collaborative workflows."

Handheld portable consoles now enable a new way for people to play PC games, with flexibility. More and more brands have entered this market with constant evolution of the devices. AOKZOE, an emerging gaming&tech company in Shanghai, has now announced the world's first AMD 6800U console AOKZOE A1. In addition to A1's superior performance, the design details and console features will also surprise you.

AOKZOE will be the first to bring the portable console with AMD Ryzen 7 6800U to mass production. The much anticipated 6800U powered console will surely bring advancement to the gaming experience. With the combination of AMD Ryzen 7 6800U, the Radeon 680M graphics, along with LPDDR5X memory, AOKZOE A1 is able to deliver Elden Ring at 60 FPS and Forza over 100FPS in the official video demo.

NVIDIA is reportedly looking to reduce orders for 5 nm wafers from TSMC as it anticipates a significant drop in demand from both gamers and crypto-currency miners. Miners are flooding the market with used GeForce RTX 30-series graphics cards, which gamers are all too happy to buy, affecting NVIDIA's sales to both segments of the market. Before the crypto-currency crash of Q1-2022, NVIDIA had projected good sales of its next-generation GeForce GPUs, and prospectively placed orders for a large allocation of 5 nm wafers from TSMC. The company had switched back over to TSMC from Samsung, which makes 8 nm GPUs from the RTX 30-series.

With NVIDIA changing its mind on 5 nm orders, it is at the mercy of TSMC, which has made those allocations (and now faces a loss). It's incumbent on NVIDIA to find a replacement customer for the 5 nm volumes it wants to back out from. Chiakokhua (aka Retired Engineer), interpreted a DigiTimes article originally written in Chinese, which says that NVIDIA has made pre-payments to TSMC for its 5 nm allocation, and now wants to withdraw from some of it. TSMC is unwilling to budge—it could at best hold off shipments by a quarter to Q1-2023, allowing NVIDIA to get the market to digest inventory of 8 nm GPUs; and NVIDIA is responsible for finding replacement customers for the cancelled allocation.

AMD is looking to expand its Socket AM4 Ryzen 5000X3D processor lineup, according to Greymon55, a reliable source with AMD rumors. The current Ryzen 7 5800X3D 8-core processor was well received by the tech-press for its 3D Vertical Cache innovation that significantly improved gaming performance, putting it in the same league as Intel's fastest 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake" processors, despite being based on the older "Zen 3" microarchitecture. AMD uses the same 8-core 3DV Cache chiplet (CCD) in its EPYC "Milan-X" enterprise processors. This lineup could see an expansion, with announcements expected in July.

If true, it could see the introduction of SKUs such as the Ryzen 5 5600X3D, Ryzen 9 5900X3D, or perhaps even the 5950X3D, with the latter two featuring a mind-boggling 200 MB of Total Cache (L2+L3). This would provide a tempting upgrade path to everyone with a Socket AM4 platform, now that AMD has extended official "Zen 3" support to even the oldest AMD 300-series chipset motherboards. There is yet another rumor that predicts AMD could develop certain "Zen 4" SKUs on the AM4 package, which sees a "Zen 4" CCD paired with a current-gen cIOD that has DDR4 and PCIe Gen 4 connectivity. Regardless of which rumor is true, AMD's support for AM4 isn't ending anytime soon.

AMD today released AMD Software Adrenalin 22.6.1 Legacy. This is a special branch of AMD software designed for older GPUs based on the Graphics CoreNext architecture—Fury series, 300 series, 200 series, and HD 7000/8000 series. The driver only supports Windows 10 64-bit, there's no official support for Windows 11. Legacy branch drivers correct outstanding bugs, security vulnerabilities, and some other software-level updates, but the company doesn't advertise any new game-specific optimizations. This is probably because these GPU generations fall outside the minimum system requirements of the latest games. Still, if you'd like to reminisce with an older GPU you have lying around, or want to build a period-specific project (2010 to 2015); here's your chance. If however, you're looking for the regular Adrenalin 22.6.1 WHQL drivers for the latest GPUs, check out this page.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Software Adrenalin 22.6.1 Legacy

Last week, AMD announced that its Ryzen Threadripper Pro 5900WX-series of processors were going to be available from more OEMs, with an eventual retail version of the three models going to be available. Now the company has shared the retail pricing for the new workstation processors and it would appear that AMD's HEDT platform has become unobtanium for most consumers, after having been one of the cheapest platforms out there only a couple of generations ago. According to Tom's Hardware, whom AMD shared the pricing with, the Ryzen Threadripper Pro 5965WX, the 24 core, 48 thread entry level model, will start at US$2,399, which is more than a 32 core, 64 thread Threadripper 3970X, which has a retail price of US$1,999.

A step up is the 32 core, 64 thread Threadripper Pro 5975WX for US$3,299 and at the top of the stacks, sits the 64 core, 128 thread Threadripper Pro 5995WX for the hefty price of US$6,499. All three models have 128 PCIe lanes and a 280 W TDP. AMD seems to have decided to cash in on its core and thread advantage over Intel, as Intel's highest-end workstation chip is the Xeon W-3375, with 38 cores and 76 threads, which comes in at US$4,499, but only has half the PCIe lane count and a much smaller cache. That said, Intel is expected to launch its 4th generation of Xeon W processors, codenamed Sapphire Rapids later this year, which is expected to feature a 56 core, 112 thread SKU, which should bring some competition to AMD in this market segment.

With the new VIA 15 Pro, SCHENKER has put together a unique overall package: The 1.45 kg ultrabook integrates AMD's efficient eight-core Ryzen 7 5700U, a 15.6 inch WQHD IPS display and two freely accessible and upgradeable M.2 SSD and RAM slots - a combination that is usually only found in significantly heavier gaming laptops with dedicated graphics cards. Unlike these, however, the VIA 15 Pro features AMD's energy-efficient, integrated Radeon graphics unit. With this outfit, the ultrabook is aimed at developers, programmers, and creative professionals, among others. The all-round office laptops SCHENKER WORK 15 and WORK 17 are also being updated with Intel's Alder Lake-P processors.

One of the most striking features of the SCHENKER VIA 15 Pro is a performance-enhanced AMD Ryzen 7 5700U with eight cores and 16 threads: instead of running the CPU with a TDP of 15 watts, which is common in the ultrabook sector, it can operate permanently at 35 watts in the highest performance profile ("enthusiast") - this way, it outperforms the majority of ULV processors and achieves a multi-score of 3937 points in Cinebench R20. The laptop's dual-fan cooling system was adopted from the 2020 predecessor model of the VIA 15 Pro, so it is designed for less efficient CPUs from the 54 watt TDP class and therefore guarantees superior and quiet cooling. Those who require somewhat less performance may select the medium performance profile ("balanced") for particularly quiet operation. Switching is possible in real time at the touch of a button via a keyboard shortcut.

AMD's RDNA3 graphics IP is just around the corner, and we are hearing more information about the upcoming architecture. Historically, as GPUs advance, it is not unusual for companies to add dedicated hardware blocks to accelerate a specific task. Today, AMD engineers have updated the backend of the LLVM compiler to include a new instruction called Wave Matrix Multiply-Accumulate (WMMA). This instruction will be present on GFX11, which is the RDNA3 GPU architecture. With WMMA, AMD will offer support for processing 16x16x16 size tensors in FP16 and BF16 precision formats. With these instructions, AMD is adding new arrangements to support the processing of matrix multiply-accumulate operations. This is closely mimicking the work NVIDIA is doing with Tensor Cores.

AMD ROCm 5.2 API update lists the use case for this type of instruction, which you can see below:

rocWMMA provides a C++ API to facilitate breaking down matrix multiply accumulate problems into fragments and using them in block-wise operations that are distributed in parallel across GPU wavefronts. The API is a header library of GPU device code, meaning matrix core acceleration may be compiled directly into your kernel device code. This can benefit from compiler optimization in the generation of kernel assembly and does not incur additional overhead costs of linking to external runtime libraries or having to launch separate kernels.

rocWMMA is released as a header library and includes test and sample projects to validate and illustrate example usages of the C++ API. GEMM matrix multiplication is used as primary validation given the heavy precedent for the library. However, the usage portfolio is growing significantly and demonstrates different ways rocWMMA may be consumed.

AMD today released the latest version of AMD Software Adrenalin. Version 22.6.1 WHQL adds support for Windows 11 22H2. It also adds optimization for F1 2022. Among the issues fixed are a performance drop noticed when playing "Fortnite" with multi-threaded rendering and DirectX 11 API; a stuttering issue noticed in "Overwatch" with cards such as the RX 6700 XT; higher than expected CPU usage with Instant Replay; and missing fan-tuning options on graphics cards such as the RX 590. Grab the drivers from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Software Adrenalin 22.6.1 WHQL

AMD has recently released new chipset drivers for Ryzen processors on a wide range of platforms including A320, B350, X370, B450, X470, X399, A520, B550, X570, TRX40, and WRX80 that are running Windows 10 & 11. The new drivers include additional program support, display & airplane mode notifications, Ryzen 9 Mobile improvements, and various bug fixes. This latest release also sees the introduction of six new drivers including official USB 4.0 support, the complete changelog and download link can be found below.

Download: AMD Ryzen Chipset Drivers (4.06.10.651)

Valve, handlers of the world's most popular digital games store and manufacturers of the Steam Deck, have announced that they've been able to more than double weekly production of the handheld console. Due to the production "picking up", as Valve says it, the company expects to double the number of handhelds shipped each week. This is especially good news for users that were expecting to receive their devices in the 3Q - shipments for these particular orders will begin on June 30th.

Valve doesn't make it clear what exactly was bottlenecking production. Manufacturing and logistics have been showing signs of normalization following a couple of years with snag after snag due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the recent war in Ukraine. Overwhelming demand for graphics chips across the product spectrum may have pushed Valve to accept a smaller pie of AMD chips than the company would like to, and might be one of the reasons the company was forced to extend deliveries of pre-orders for the device.

AMD has recently released two new plugins for Unreal Engine 4 and 5 that help developers easily add support for FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) 2.0 to their games. The first FSR 2.0 games only started to arrive this month but with over 20 titles already announced to be receiving the technology we expect that this latest development will greatly increase that number. AMD joins NVIDIA in offering Unreal Engine plugins to simplify the implementation of their respective temporal upscaling solutions with AMD claiming that adding FSR 2.0 support only takes days for games that already use motion vectors. AMD has published developer guides on how to install and use the plugins on which can be found below.