One of the most debated questions surrounding AMD's AM4 platform has been the lack of support for AMD's Ryzen 5000-series CPUs on the company's 300-series chipsets. Now, in an interview with Tom's Hardware, AMD's Corporate VP and GM of the Client Channel business, David McAfee, has thrown some cautious words into the hellish debate on platform fragmentation (some even say artificial segmentation). "It's definitely something we're working through," David said. "And it's not lost on us at all that this would be a good thing to do for the community, and we're trying to figure out how to make it happen." It's not a promise, but it seems that AMD is indeed contemplating solutions that would enable first-generation AM4 chipsets to support AMD's latest Ryzen 5000 series CPUs.

The problem has mostly to do with storage space: there are only so much available bits to be used in AM4 motherboards' 16 MB SPI ROM, the read-only memory bank that stores BIOS configurations and the necessary instructions for processor support. As AM4 is one of the longest-lived consumer platforms ever, the number of CPUs has ballooned, which has led to difficult decisions as to which CPUs to support. However, some more creative board partners have resorted to interesting techniques that allowed them to free up space in the SPI ROM that could be used to add support for otherwise incompatible CPUs, such as simplifying the BIOS GUI and falling back on more traditional text-based UIs. That and other practices resulted in a number of vendors adding support for AMD's Ryzen 5000 chips on the most entry-level A320 motherboards, which left consumers that had opted for the more technically accomplished X370 motherboards high and dry - barring a few lucky, ASRock-toting exceptions.

The recently announced AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT only features a PCIe 4.0 x4 interface according to specifications and images of the card published on the ASRock site. This is equivalent to a PCIe 3.0 x8 link or a PCIe 2.0 x16 connection and is a step down from the Radeon 6600 XT which features a PCIe 4.0 x8 interface and the Radeon 6700 XT with a PCIe 4.0 x16 interface. This fact is only specified by ASRock with AMD, Gigabyte, ASUS, and MSI not mentioning the PCIe interface on their respective pages. The RX 6500 XT also lacks some of the video processing capabilities of other RX 6000 series cards including the exclusion of H264/HEVC encoding and AV1 decoding.

AMD is designing its upcoming Socket AM5 platform to be a "long-lived platform," not unlike AM4. CEO Dr Lisa Su, responding to a question on the longevity of AM5, by Paul Alcorn from Tom's Hardware, said that she's very happy with AM4 being the company's long-lived desktop socket; and while she doesn't have an exact number of years to share, one could expect AM5 to be a "long-lived platform" of a similar kind.

AMD Socket AM4 was debuted alongside the company's very first Ryzen processors, in March 2017. It has remained AMD's mainstream desktop socket for close to five years; and AMD continues to launch new products for the socket. Even in 2022, the company is expected to give the socket its swansong, with the Ryzen 5000X3D processors. AM4 was designed keeping in mind dual-channel DDR4 and up to 28 lanes of PCIe Gen 3 (later Gen 4) in mind. The change to Socket AM5 is driven by next-generation I/O, namely DDR5 memory (four 40-bit channels), and PCIe Gen 5.

Corsair is readying a gaming device it calls "Xenomorph." At this point we don't know its exact form-factor, but given its display resolution of 2560 x 1600 pixels, and the fact that desktop monitors with it are hard to come by; this is very likely a 16-inch gaming notebook with a 16:10 display with that resolution. A UserBenchmark submission sheds light on the hardware specs of the device, which includes an AMD Ryzen 6000 series "Rembrandt" mobile processor. Built on the 6 nm node, "Rembrandt" combines an 8-core/16-thread "Zen 3+" CPU with an iGPU based on the latest RDNA2 graphics architecture. The iGPU features 768 stream processors, full DirectX 12 Ultimate support, including ray tracing; and the ability to share rendering workloads with an RDNA2-based discrete GPU, such as the Radeon RX 6800M.

The name "Xenomorph" sparks a lot of speculation, mainly around the form-factor. Could this be a gaming notebook with a killer hardware feature such as an integrated touchscreen? Something with a foldable screen? A convertible that turns into a tablet? Another possibility is a device that looks otherworldly enough to be a tribute to HR Giger, the artist who created the Xenomorph alien. We don't know if Xenomorph is an internal codename, or an actual product name, as that might require some legal understanding with 20th Century Fox.

Thermaltake, the leading PC DIY premium brand for Cooling, Gaming Gear, and Enthusiast Memory solutions, is elated to present new custom cooling products, including a new cooling kit, a liquid cooling system dashboard for monitoring, and three new water blocks. Thermaltake strives to provide a better and more user-friendly cooling experience to all PC enthusiasts and DIY cooling lovers by providing a wide range of cooling components. This time, Pacific TF3 Liquid Cooling Dashboard, Pacific W8 CPU Water Block Full Copper, Pacific W9 CPU Water Block Acrylic, Pacific MX2 CPU Water Block, and Pacific CLM360 Ultra Liquid Cooling Kit were presented at the 2022 Thermaltake Expo January Virtual Exhibition.

The Pacific TF3, a 3-in-1 system monitoring dashboard, allows users to monitor the system's liquid pressure, liquid temperature and chassis ambient temperature simultaneously. Inspired by mechanical watches, the pointer-design display shows the results vividly at a glance, and can be synchronized with the TTG RGB PLUS 2.0 Software to show real-time status and to control its digital RGB backlight. The detection range of fluid temperatures is from 0°C to 99°C (32°F to 210°F), and there is also a warning alert for abnormal temperature and high-pressure changes.

From its inception, Lenovo Legion wanted to make the modern gaming experience immersive, as well as more inclusive. At CES 2022, Lenovo Legion once again delivers on its pursuit of unyielding play and productivity to gamers of every generation and content creators, who can now all universally enjoy premium entertainment and play from home battle stations, dorms, esports arenas - or practically anywhere, and look good doing it too.

Lenovo's first batch of 2022 battle-ready PCs, monitors, accessories and gamer-focused software and services unveiled today, which include the powerful 16-inch Lenovo Legion 5i Pro and Lenovo Legion 5 Pro laptops and the polished 15-inch Lenovo Legion 5i and Lenovo Legion 5 laptops. The new gaming laptops come available with Windows 11 gaming performance, next-gen AMD Ryzen processors, or latest 12th Gen Intel Core processors and up to latest fully powered NVIDIA GeForce RTX Laptop GPUs. Inspired by gamer research, these new devices celebrate 'magical minimalism' design and denote a leap towards a contemporary aesthetic with purposeful detailing like an uncluttered wordmark, expressive venting, and immersive lighting. A top-placed camera bump with eShutter kill switch and rear port protection convey a sleek look of power and performance that helps to create a more inclusive experience focused on player enjoyment and winning, not labels. Paired with exclusives beloved by Legion fans such as the advanced thermals of next-level Legion Coldfront 4.0, the hair-trigger speeds and improved ergonomics of Legion TrueStrike keyboard, and optimized tuning via Lenovo Vantage for gaming.

BIOSTAR, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, and storage devices, today introduced the new BIOSTAR AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT graphics card. The new BIOSTAR Radeon RX 6500 XT graphics card is built on the breakthrough AMD RDNA2 gaming architecture, engineered to deliver incredible gaming performance with remarkable efficiency.

The BIOSTAR Radeon RX 6500 XT graphics card is designed to make incredible 1080p gaming experiences for popular AAA and esports titles accessible to more gamers. It offers high-bandwidth, low-latency AMD Infinity Cache and high-speed 4 GB GDDR6 memory, as well as support for AMD Smart Access Memory technology, AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution upscaling technology, Variable Rate Shading (VRS) and other advanced features that provide visually stunning, high-refresh rate gaming experiences.

AMD already declared the CPU core counts of its EPYC "Genoa" and "Bergamo" processors to top out at 96 and 128, respectively, a core-count believed to have been facilitated by the larger fiberglass substrate of the next-gen SP5 CPU socket, letting AMD add more 8-core "Zen 4" chiplets, dubbed CPU complex dies (CCDs). Until now, AMD has used the chiplet as a common component between its EPYC enterprise and Ryzen desktop processors, to differentiate CPU core counts.

A fascinating theory that hit the rumor-mill, indicates that the company might leverage 5 nm (TSMC N5) carve out larger CCDs with up to 16 "Zen 4" CPU cores. Half of these cores are capped at a much lower power budget, essentially making them efficient-cores. This is a concept AMD appears to be carrying over from its 15-Watt class mobile processors, which see the CPU cores operate under an aggressive power-management. These cores still turn out a reasonable amount of performance, and are functionally identical to the ones on 105 W desktop processors with a relaxed power budget.

MSI, a leading brand in True Gaming hardware, is proud to officially announce the MSI AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT MECH 2X graphics cards. The new graphics cards are designed to make incredible 1080p gaming experiences for popular AAA and e-sports titles accessible to more gamers than ever. Built upon the breakthrough AMD RDNA 2 gaming architecture, AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT graphics cards are engineered to deliver great gaming performance with remarkable efficiency. They offer high-bandwidth, low-latency AMD Infinity Cache and high-speed GDDR6 memory. They also support Microsoft Windows 11 and Microsoft DirectX 12 Ultimate, AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) upscaling technology and other advanced features that provide visually stunning, high-refresh rate gaming experiences.

The MECH series makes its return with the MSI Radeon RX 6500 XT MECH 2X graphics card, now enhanced with the acclaimed MSI TORX FAN 3.0. The performance-focused MECH design provides the essentials to accomplish any task, whether it's for work or play. A powerful cooling system, a reinforcing backplate with a brushed finish, and a rigid industrial design make the MECH card suitable for any PC build.

ASRock, the leading global motherboard, graphics card and mini PC manufacturer, today announced the new Phantom Gaming and Challenger series graphics cards based on AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT GPUs.

Built on the 6 nm manufacturing process and the breakthrough AMD RDNA 2 gaming architecture, the new ASRock graphics cards are designed to make incredible 1080p gaming experiences for popular AAA and e-sports titles accessible to more gamers. They offer high-bandwidth, low-latency AMD Infinity Cache and high-speed 4 GB GDDR6 memory. They also support Microsoft Windows 11 and Microsoft DirectX 12 Ultimate, AMD Smart Access Memory technology, AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution upscaling technology and other advanced features that provide visually stunning, high-refresh rate gaming experiences.

Lenovo is thrilled to announce a new series of ThinkPad laptops featuring stunning progressive designs that break the mold and introduce new colors and materials for our premium business laptop portfolio. The all-new ThinkPad Z13 and Z16 embark on a contemporary design philosophy targeting a different business user audience. The new striking design reflects changing attitudes towards technology, its impact on the environment and the origins of raw components. Not only is the design meant to provide individualistic premium color accents such as bronze and arctic grey, but it also features more sustainable materials such as recycled aluminium, or recycled black vegan leather. Sustainability extends to the packaging which is made from 100% recyclable and compostable bamboo and sugarcane, and the AC power adapter uses 90% Post-Consumer Content (PCC).

The Ryzen 3000XT line of processors were the kind of stop-gap products that make people wary of stop-gap products, and AMD plans to remedy this. The new Ryzen 7 5800X3D is an upcoming Socket AM4 processor designed with the singular purpose of matching the Intel Core i9-12900K "Alder Lake" processor at gaming performance, so Intel doesn't have free reign until much later in the year, when AMD debuts "Zen 4" and AM5. It's also a means for AMD to signal consumers as well as investors to the sheer engineering depth the company enjoys these days.

The Ryzen 7 5800X3D isn't a a 5800X with an insane CPU overclock that throws efficiency out of the window. In fact, it has lower clocks! Instead, it leverages a new feature addition AMD did to its existing "Zen 3" microarchitecture, called 3D Vertical Cache. This is basically 64 MB of fast SRAM physically stacked on top of the CPU core die (CCD), giving it 96 MB of last-level cache. The company has already debuted this with its EPYC "Milan-X" enterprise processors, and the Ryzen 7 5800X3D would be the first client-segment product with this CCD.

Razer, the leading global lifestyle brand for gamers (Hong Kong Stock Code: 1337), is kicking off 2022 with new Razer Blade gaming laptop models including the Razer Blade 14, Razer Blade 15, and Razer Blade 17. The world's fastest laptops for gamers and creators are equipped with the recently announced NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series Laptop GPUs, up to an RTX 3080 Ti, making the new Blades better than ever, now shipping with Windows 11. All new Razer Blade gaming laptops now also include groundbreaking DDR5 memory, providing blistering clock speeds up to 4800 MHz, an increase in frequency by up to 50% compared to the previous generation.

"The Razer Blade series continues to be the best gaming laptop by providing desktop-class performance on-the-go," says Travis Furst, Senior Director of Razer's Systems business unit. "Additionally, we've enabled creators to work anywhere with gorgeous displays, available NVIDIA Studio drivers, and up to 14-Core CPUs. Users will have the ability to choose any model or configuration that best fits their gaming or creating needs, while getting the latest and greatest in graphics, memory and processing technology."

Although physically away from the 2022 International CES, AMD is hosting a virtual press event to announce many new consumer products. The year's biggest tech-show allows AMD to talk about its latest, and next-generation architectures, the products it has in store for 2022, as well as introduce new technology. We expect the company to unveil "Zen 4" from a consumer perspective, its next-generation mobile processors, and much more. Stay tuned as we live-blog the event as it unfolds.15:01 UTC: Straight away we see some big new model names:15:02 UTC: CEO Dr Lisa Su takes centrestage.

AMD is planning to crash Intel's big 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake-P" mobile processor launch with its own next-gen launch, the Ryzen 6000 mobile processor series. These chips are the company's first built on the TSMC N6 (6 nm) silicon fabrication process, and combine up to 8 "Zen 3+" CPU cores, with a next-generation iGPU based on the RDNA2 graphics architecture. The company has given the Media CoreNext and Video CoreNext engines incremental updates, according to a leaked slide scored by VideoCardz.

Ryzen 6000 "Rembrandt" processors come with hardware-accelerated decode of the AV1 video format. The Display CoreNext (display I/O engine) now supports DisplayPort 2.0, complete with DSC, UHBR10, HDR10+, and variable refresh-rate. The HDR pipeline has awareness for the various display panel types, including OLED and mini-LED. The iGPU on "Rembrandt" features up to 12 compute units (768 stream processors). It remains to be seen if Ray Accelerators are featured, as that would make this the first iGPU (on the PC platform) with DirectX 12 Ultimate support.

In a few hours, AMD is about to hold its CES press conference, but details of its Ryzen 6000 series Mobile CPUs have made their way online and it looks like anyone considering a new laptop this year, should be in for quite a treat. AMD's CEO, Lisa Su already teased the company's new CPU on social media yesterday, but obviously provided no further details, but courtesy of a leak from VideoCardz, we now have what looks like the full specs.

AMD is apparently planning no less than eight H-series consumer SKUs, plus another two U-series consumer SKUs at launch, plus the rumoured 5x25U Zen 3 based additions, which adds a further three SKUs. The new H-series processors will range from Ryzen 5 to 9 and will have max boost speeds ranging from 4.5 to 5 GHz, which confirms earlier rumours about these chips supporting very high clock speeds. All of the new CPU SKUs will feature 19 or 20 MB of L2 plus L3 cache and with the exception of the three Zen 3 based chips, all of the new processors will be manufactured at 6 nm.

AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) and Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ: XLNX) today released the following statement related to the status of global regulatory approvals for AMD's proposed acquisition of Xilinx. "We continue making good progress on the required regulatory approvals to close our transaction. While we had previously expected that we would secure all approvals by the end of 2021, we have not yet completed the process and we now expect the transaction to close in the first quarter of 2022. Our conversations with regulators continue to progress productively, and we expect to secure all required approvals."

There are no additional changes to the previously announced terms or plans regarding the transaction and the companies continue to look forward to the proposed combination creating the industry's high-performance and adaptive computing leader.

If you've been waiting for more details about AMD's next mobile platform, then you're in luck, as the motherload has dropped today, with lots of details about the new Rembrandt APU's that are launching next year. Not only has a picture of the first motherboard, with adhering laptop showed up, but we also have a mostly complete block diagram and a list of expected SKU's, even though not all SKU models are revealed as yet.

AMD's Rembrandt APU will be its first APU with PCIe 4.0 support, which in itself might not be worth the wait, but if paired with the right GPU, this might help increase the performance somewhat compared to the previous generation of APUs from AMD. The bigger news is USB4 support, plus a new GPU which we so far don't know too much about, but it's speculated that it'll be called Radeon RX 680M and should offer 12 compute units. DDR5 memory support is also expected, so Rembrandt clearly has a new memory controller, since the APU is still based on the Zen 3 architecture.

The image upscaling wars keep grassing, with AMD and NVIDIA claiming as many integrations as possible for their respective FSR (FidelityFX Super Resolution) and DLSS (Deep-Learning Super Sampling) technologies in a bid to achieve maximum market share for their respective technologies. While the entire world was now focusing on Intel's own addition to the image upscaling wars with its XeSS (XE SuperSampling) tech, AMD is apparently looking to introduce a new upscaling tech as early as January 2022. Enter Radeon Super Resolution (RSR).

Right off the bat, do not expect RSR to be AMD's answer to the perceived image quality advantage of NVIDIA's deep-learning-powered DLSS compared to AMD's more open (and cross-hardware compatible) FSR. Instead, AMD seems to be targeting RSR as a game-agnostic upscaling solution that's based on FSR, but which can be enabled at the Radeon driver level for any game that supports exclusive full-screen rendering. AMD is seemingly moving its image upscaling technique further up in the graphics pipeline, which should impact upscaling quality (as there's less information for the image upscaler to work with). What this does enable, however, is an agnostic solution that can be deployed in any game - provided you're rocking one of the two rumored architectures that will support RSR (RDNA and RDNA2, in the form of AMD's RX-5000 and RX-6000 series). Considering the expected release of RSR, it's likely that AMD will have an official announcement around CES 2022, despite the fact that the company won't be physically present due to COVID-19 and logistics concerns.

AMD's first GPU built on the N6 (6 nm) silicon fabrication process isn't some big RX 7000 series behemoth, but the smallest chip from the Navi 2x GPU family, codenamed Navi 24. Based on the same RDNA2 graphics architecture as the rest of the RX 6000 series, the Navi 24 physically packs 1,024 stream processors across 16 compute units (8 WGPs), and on the RX 6500 XT, reportedly comes with 4 GB of memory across a 64-bit wide memory bus. The chip also packs a tiny 16 MB Infinity Cache. VideoCardz scored the first renders of the upcoming Radeon RX 6500 XT and RX 6400, which are based on the Navi 24. The RX 6500 XT features a full-height, 2-slot board design that uses a simple aluminium monoblock fan-heatsink. The RX 6400, on the other hand, is not just low-profile (half-height), but also single-slot.

Update Dec 28th: Unless we're mistaken, the SMDs near the PCIe interface in those renders seem to suggest that the GPU features a PCIe x4 interface. This should offer sufficient bandwidth for a GPU in this segment, and should help lower the pin-count of the GPU, as well as board costs.

Highly considered by the masses as the best budget-friendly performer, BIOSTAR's A320MH motherboard finally gets a BIOS update to support AMD's 5000 series processors. BIOSTAR A320MH users now have the opportunity to upgrade their systems to the latest AMD's 5000 series processors and get a significant boost in performance and productivity out of their systems. With BIOSTAR's official BIOS patch version A32ESB17, users can upgrade to a range of new processors like the Ryzen 7 5800X.

We can see many motherboard manufacturers follow BIOSTAR's approach providing a new version of BIOS for their A320 motherboards to support AMD Zen 3 processors. This move is undoubtedly a great boon for users of the A320MH motherboard extending the product use cycle even further. Ryzen 5000 series supporting processors list for A320MH motherboard. It is important to note that the updated AMD Ryzen 5000 series is only supported but does not include the 5000G series APU. This is because of limitations of BIOS ROM capacity; the updated Bristol Ridge processor will no longer be supported.

DOWNLOAD: BIOSTAR A320MH BIOS Update

AMD in its 8-K filing with the SEC, disclosed that it has updated its wafer supply agreement (WSA) with GlobalFoundries. Under the latest agreement, AMD commits to buy $2.1 billion worth wafers from GlobalFoundries between 2022 and 2025. The previous version of the WSA saw commitments up to 2024, and wafers worth $1.6 billion. The update hence adds another year and $500 million worth supply.

AMD currently sources 12 nm and 14 nm wafers from GlobalFoundries, which go into making cIOD and sIOD components in its processors, and motherboard chipsets. The move to extend the WSA indicates that the company may continue to use 12 nm-class I/O dies in its processors for the foreseeable future. It will be very interesting to see if 12 nm-class I/O dies make it to next-generation products such as "Genoa" and "Rapael," which integrate the latest IP blocks such as PCI-Express Gen 5 root-complexes, DDR5 memory controllers, and 3rd Gen Infinity Fabric. Processors with 12 nm I/O dies, such as "Milan" and "Vermeer" could be retired only by 2023-24, as AMD will use 2022 to spread across its next-gen product launches.

There has been some discussion as to whether or not AMD would launch any Zen 3 based Threadripper processors or not, considering that the desktop processors have been out for well over a year by now. According to igor's Lab, we now know that AMD is very close to launching some new 5000-series Threadripper Pro CPU's—codename Chagall—that fits into AMD's sWRX8 socket, which is intended for high-end workstations and servers.

It appears AMD is planning to launch five new CPUs, namely the 5995WX, 5975WX, 5965WX, 5955WX and 5945WX. All of the CPUs appear to have a maximum, single core boost clock of 4550 MHz and range from 12 to 64 cores, with a TDP of 280 W and a power range of 170 to 260 Watts. Up to eight channels of DDR4 3200 MHz is supported and up to 128 PCIe 4.0 are expected to be featured as well. For those hoping there would be an HEDT version, we have bad news, as based on what we've found out independently and the information provided by igor's Lab, there won't be any HEDT Chagall CPUs, at least not at this point in time. This means that the upgrade path for sTRX4 motherboards ended up being as bad as for the older TR4 motherboards, as AMD has now abandoned two HEDT platforms in a row.

As the year ends, one of the biggest consumer trade shows, CES, is on the horizon, and manufacturers are ready to present the work that will become real throughout the year. AMD will offer a keynote at the CES 2022 press conference, and we expect to hear more about the upcoming Zen3 processors with 3D V-cache stacked in them. However, what is interesting is that we may listen to more details about Zen4 core. In an exclusive interview conducted by Antony Leather, Forbes contributor and the person behind CrazyTechLab, AMD CTO Mark Papermaster started the hype machine by sharing that AMD will announce some Zen4 core details at the CES 2022 conference.

AMD CTO Mark PapermasterWith regards to the upcoming generation - I point to CES in January. We're excited to be revealing some additional details on our new product launches that will deliver phenomenal experiences and as we've said, later in the year as it progresses we'll share more detail on Zen 4 with some mentioned at CES and more announcements on it over the course of 2022. It will be a very exciting year for AMD.

The new normal ushered in by the pandemic will not only become the driving force of digital transformation but will also continue to drive the server market in 2022, according to TrendForce's investigations. It is worth noting that potential unmet demand in 2021 and the risk of future server component shortages will become medium and long-term variables that influence the market. Analyzing the shipment volume of completed servers, a growth rate of approximately 4-5% in completed server shipments is expected next year with primary shipment dynamics remaining concentrated in North American data centers with an annual growth rate of approximately 13-14%. From the supply chain perspective, the ODM Direct business model has gradually replaced the business model of the traditional server market, giving cloud service providers the ability to respond quickly to market changes. However, based on the unpredictability of the market, TrendForce assumes two forecasts for server growth trends. One, the supply situation of key components is effectively improved. Two, the supply situation of key components is exacerbated.