The long-awaited 3rd of November is here with the latest AMD Radeon RX 7000-series GPUs launch. More good news is that EK, the premium water-cooling gear manufacturer, is ready with EK-Quantum Vector² water blocks for the reference models of the new AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX GPUs. The new Radeon graphics cards come with a special memory cache dies (MCD) next to the main chip - Graphics Compute Die (GCD). The cooling engine has been modified to cool the MCDs as well, aside from the usual GPU components that are also being cooled, like the VRM, VRAM, Voltage Controllers, and the chip die.

The new Radeon RX 7900 XTX GPUs have GCD that is manufactured in a cutting edge 5 nm process, allowing 54% improvement of performance per watt. While the GPU is efficient, it does still use more power than the previous generation. At 355 W total board power that is packed in a smaller package than ever, with 300 mm² GCD that contains 165% more transistors per mm² than the previous generation. Overall these GPUs feature 58 billion transistors for 61 TFLOPs of performance.

AMD on Thursday launched the Radeon RX 7900 XTX and RX 7900 XT RDNA3 graphics cards. With these, the company claims to have repeated its feat of a 50+ percent performance/Watt gain over the previous-generation, which propelled the RX 6000-series to competitiveness with NVIDIA's fastest RTX 30-series SKUs. AMD's performance claims for the Radeon RX 7900 XTX put the card at anywhere between 50% to 70% faster than the company's current flagship, the RX 6950 XT, when tested at 4K UHD resolution. Digging through these claims, and piecing together relevant information from the Endnotes, HXL was able to draw an extrapolated performance comparison between the RX 7900 XTX, the real-world tested RTX 4090, and previous-generation flagships RTX 3090 Ti and RX 6950 XT.

The graphs put the Radeon RX 7900 XTX menacingly close to the GeForce RTX 4090. In Watch_Dogs Legion, the RTX 4090 is 6.4% faster than the RX 7900 XTX. Cyberpunk 2077 and Metro Exodus see the two cards evenly matched, with a delta under 1%. The RTX 4090 is 4.4% faster with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II (2022). Accounting for the pinch of salt usually associated with launch-date first-party performance claims; the RX 7900 XTX would end up within 5-10% of the RTX 4090, but pricing changes everything. The RTX 4090 is a $1,599 (MSRP) card, whereas the RX 7900 XTX is $999. Assuming the upcoming RTX 4080 (16 GB) is around 10% slower than the RTX 4090; the main clash for this generation will be between the RTX 4080 and RX 7900 XTX. Even here, AMD gets ahead with pricing, as the RTX 4080 was announced with an MSRP of $1,199 (exactly 20% pricier than the RX 7900 XTX). With the FSR 3.0 Fluid Motion announcement, AMD also blunted NVIDIA's DLSS 3 Frame Generation performance advantage.

Although we're over a month away from any kind of actual availability of AMD's just announced Radeon RX 7900 cards, ASUS has already shown off what is the first custom Radeon RX 7900-series cards. The two cards are the TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7900 XTX and unsurprisingly the TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7900 XT. ASUS has gone for what the company calls a 3.63-slot design and the TUF cards appear to be a fair bit taller than the AMD reference designs. ASUS has gone with larger fans, which requires a bigger cooler shroud and the company claims they provide 13.8 percent more airflow and an eight percent increase in static pressure compared to its last gen—presumably Radeon RX 6900—cards, while maintaining the same noise level.

ASUS claims to have added wider vents on the backplate to help improve airflow and to have increased the total heat dissipation area by 22.8 percent, whatever that actually means, as ASUS didn't show off the rear of its cards. The TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7900 XTX sports three 8-pin power connectors and has a 17+4 power stage design. Unlike AMD's reference cards, the ASUS TUF cards won't have a USB-C port at the rear, as the company has gone for three DP 2.1 ports and one HDMI 2.1 port. ASUS didn't reveal clock speeds and the remaining specs are as announced by AMD.

AMD today announced the Radeon RX 7900 XTX and Radeon RX 7900 XT gaming graphics cards debuting its next-generation RDNA3 graphics architecture. The two new cards come at $999 and $899—basically targeting the $1000 high-end premium price point.Both cards will be available on December 13th, not only the AMD reference design, which is sold through AMD.com, but also custom-design variants from the many board partners on the same day. AIBs are expected to announce their products in the coming weeks.The RX 7900 XTX is priced at USD $999, and the RX 7900 XT is $899, which is a surprisingly small difference of only $100, for a performance difference that will certainly be larger, probably in the 20% range. Both Radeon RX 7900 XTX and RX 7900 XT are using the PCI-Express 4.0 interface, Gen 5 is not supported with this generation. The RX 7900 XTX has a typical board power of 355 W, or about 95 W less than that of the GeForce RTX 4090. The reference-design RX 7900 XTX uses conventional 8-pin PCIe power connectors, as would custom-design cards, when they come out. AMD's board partners will create units with three 8-pin power connectors, for higher out of the box performance and better OC potential. The decision to not use the 16-pin power connector that NVIDIA uses was made "well over a year ago", mostly because of cost, complexity and the fact that these Radeons don't require that much power anyway.

AMD today is expected to launch its next-generation RDNA3 graphics architecture and next-generation Radeon RX 7000-series graphics cards, along with new gaming technologies as part of the company's "together we advance_gaming" event, unfurled by CEO Dr Lisa Su. In this live-blog we track the various announcements made in the event.20:01 UTC: AMD's roadmap is supremely busy:20:02 UTC: "today it's all about gaming"

Here's the first picture of the "Navi 31" GPU at the heart of AMD's fastest next-generation graphics cards. Based on the RDNA3 graphics architecture, this will mark an ambitious attempt by AMD to build the first multi-chip module (MCM) client GPU featuring more than one logic die. MCM GPUs aren't new in the enterprise space with Intel's "Ponte Vecchio," but this would be the first such GPU meant for hardcore gaming graphics products. AMD had made MCM GPUs in the past, but those have been packages with just one logic die, surrounded by memory stacks. "Navi 31" is an MCM of as many as eight logic dies, and no memory stacks (no, those aren't HBM stacks in the picture below).

It's rumored that "Navi 31" features one or two SIMD chiplets dubbed GCDs, featuring the GPU's main number crunching machinery, the RDNA3 compute units. These chiplets are likely built on the most advanced silicon fabrication node, likely TSMC 5 nm EUV, but we'll see. The GDDR6 memory controllers handling the chip's 384-bit wide GDDR6 memory interface, will be located on separate chiplets built on a slightly older node, such as TSMC 6 nm. This is not multi-GPU-a-stick, because both SIMD chiplets have uniform access to the entire 384-bit wide memory bus (which is not 2x 192-bit but 1x 384-bit), besides the other ancillaries. The "Navi 31" MCM are expected to be surrounded by JEDEC-standard 20 Gbps GDDR6 memory chips.

With Core Storm and Core Wind, Alphacool offers new complete water cooling kits that include all components for building a performance-oriented CPU cooling system. With the included mounting hardware, the CPU cooler is compatible with popular mainstream sockets from AMD and Intel. Even AMD's newest AM5 socket can be water-cooled with the Core Wind or Core Storm sets without any difficulties.

The sets are not only aimed at beginners, but also at enthusiasts. The selected components are optimally matched and come from Alphacool's DIY program. Thanks to the included quick-connect coupling, the loop can be easily expanded with additional components such as radiators, GPU coolers or sensors without having to drain or rebuild the water loop.

AMD has dropped the price on most of its Ryzen 5000-series CPUs on its official web store and some models have been discounted by as much as US$250 over the MSRP. However, the most interesting discount here might be the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, which has been discounted from US$449 to US$329, which makes it a pretty good deal for anyone considering getting what is one of the best CPUs out there for gaming.

Unfortunately, AMD's discounted deal appears to have been very popular and as such the Ryzen 7 5800X3D is currently sold out. It's unclear if AMD will add more stock at the same price point, but what is clear is that the Ryzen 7 5800X3D is a popular CPU, especially at what now appears to be the right price point. As mentioned, AMD has discounted its entire lineup of Ryzen 5000-series CPUs, so if you've been on the fence whether to upgrade or not, now might be a good time to do so. That said, most online retailers appear to be offering the same CPUs at the same, or at least almost the same price, making the Ryzen 7 5800X3D the only real bargain to be had, if it comes back in stock. Unfortunately, AMD hasn't discounted its CPUs in other regions, so if you're outside of the US, you're not going to see any special deals if you visit the AMD web store.

AMD (NASDAQ:AMD) today announced revenue for the third quarter of 2022 of $5.6 billion, gross margin of 42%, operating loss of $64 million, net income of $66 million and diluted earnings per share of $0.04. On a non-GAAP(*) basis, gross margin was 50%, operating income was $1.3 billion, net income was $1.1 billion and diluted earnings per share was $0.67.

"Third quarter results came in below our expectations due to the softening PC market and substantial inventory reduction actions across the PC supply chain," said AMD Chair and CEO Dr. Lisa Su. "Despite the challenging macro environment, we grew revenue 29% year-over-year driven by increased sales of our data center, embedded and game console products. We are confident that our leadership product portfolio, strong balance sheet, and ongoing growth opportunities in our data center and embedded businesses position us well to navigate the current market dynamics."

Intel's upcoming Sapphire Rapids processors have faced multiple delays over the past few years. Built on Intel 7 manufacturing process, the CPU is supposed to bring new advances for Intel's clients and significant performance uplifts. However, TrendForce reports that the mass production of Sapphire Rapids processors will be delayed from Q4 of 2022 to the first half of 2023. The reason for this (yet another) delay is that the Sapphire Rapids MCC die is facing a meager yield on Intel 7 manufacturing technology, estimated to be at only 50-60% at the time of writing. Economically, this die-yielding percentage is not profitable for Intel since many dies are turning out to be defective.

This move will stop many OEMs and cloud service providers (CSPs) from rolling out products based on the Sapphire Rapids design and will have to delay it until next year's mass production. On the contrary, AMD is likely to reap the benefits of Intel's delay, and AMD's x86 server market share will jump from 15% in 2022 to 23% in 2023. Given that AMD ships processors with the highest core counts, many companies will opt for AMD's solutions in their data centers. With more companies being concerned by their TCO measures with rising energy costs, favors fall in the hand of single-socket servers.

AMD on Monday issued a statement refuting reports of performance deltas noticed for its Ryzen 7000-series "Zen 4" desktop processors observed between Windows 11 and Windows 10 operating systems when gaming. The company said that while it is investigating the reports, it has not been able to reproduce these performance deltas, and maintains that Ryzen 7000 series should perform consistently between both operating systems. Architecturally, "Zen 4" isn't different from "Zen 3" with the exception of its AVX-512 ISA that even Windows 10 supports. Windows 10 has awareness for "Zen 4" multi-core topology since it isn't any different from Ryzen 5000 "Vermeer." AMD stated that it continues to work with game developers to ensure their titles are optimized for Ryzen processors.The statement from AMD on the matter follows.

Some AMD Ryzen 5 7600X 6-core/12-thread processors could be made with dual-CCD "Raphael" packages, reveals a de-lidding feat by der8auer. This is functionally the same processor as a single-CCD package, all 6 CPU cores are located on just one of the two CCDs; while the other CCD is completely disabled. This wouldn't be the first time that AMD carved out low core-count SKUs using dual-CCD MCMs, we've seen instances of such dual-CCD Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 7 processors from past generations, such as the Ryzen 3000 "Matisse" and Ryzen 5000 "Vermeer." Normally, the Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 7 SKUs are based on a single-CCD package, with the substrate physically lacking a second CCD. The IHS is small and sturdy enough to not need the second CCD as a structural support. This leads us to speculate that the 7600X is being harvested out of dual-CCD packages that have been produced surplus to demand.

Here's what is possibly the very first picture of an AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX RDNA3 graphics card. AMD engineering samples and prototypes tend to use red color PCBs, which is what this card is. It reveals what could be the final design of the reference cooling solution for the card, and it seems to match the teasers the company put out in its Ryzen 7000-series launch event.

The RX 7900 XTX cooling solution design builds on that of its predecessor. The card itself has 3 slots thick, but slightly longer than the RX 6900 XT. The aluminium fin-stack heatsink is bulkier than the one on the RX 6900 XT cooler, and appears to be bursting out of the vents. It stretches out to the edges of the cooler shroud. The bulge toward the tail-end could be housing the tips of the heat-pipes. The prototype card has two 8-pin PCIe power inputs. There's no backplate, because the PCB has several headers in place for diagnostics and developmental use by AIBs and OEMs.

AMD's next-generation Radeon RX 7000-series graphics cards based on the RDNA3 graphics architecture, are expected to launch in early-December 2022, according to greymon55, a reliable source with AMD leaks. The cards will be unveiled at a media event to be held on November 3, 2022, with market availability following a month after (between 1st to 5th December). The company is expected to take a top-down product-stack release cycle similar to that of NVIDIA, with the release of two of its top SKUs, the Radeon RX 7900 XTX and the RX 7900 XT. Both these cards are based on the 5 nm Navi 31 MCM GPU. This will be AMD's first client-graphics MCM GPU with more than one logic die. The company has a decade of experience with MCMs, but past generations have been one logic die surrounded with on-package HBM. Navi 31 has on-package logic chiplets, but discrete GDDR6 memory, like most other GPUs in the market today. It's rumored that the company is targeting a 100% performance uplift over the previous-generation, which means team-red is on the prowl to compete with NVIDIA's fastest SKUs, including the RTX 4090 and upcoming RTX 4080.

Cougar today introduced the Envision, a high-resolution game capture and streaming box. The Envision supports display passthrough of resolutions as high as 4K at 60 Hz, or 1440p at 144 Hz; which recording video at resolutions of up to 4K @ 30 FPS, or 1440p @ 60 FPS. An interesting feature here is support for AMD FreeSync, so your HDMI 2.0 passthrough can retain support for the technology. Besides the passthrough, the box connects to your PC over a 5 Gbps USB 3.1 Gen 1 connection, with a type-C connector out of the box (which is how it sends video back to software for recording or streaming). Most popular streaming software are supported. The company didn't reveal pricing.

ASUS Turkey has jumped the gun and revealed ASUS' upcoming Zenbook 14 laptop, which in itself might not be a big deal, but the UM3402 as the specific model is known as, will apparently be available with an AMD Ryzen 7 7730U CPU. As AMD has as yet to unveil such a CPU, it appears that ASUS Turkey has gotten ahead of things. A quick search for the Zenbook 14 SKU in question reveals that the current UM3402 model has a Ryzen 5825U processor.

The remaining specs appear identical to the current model, but this is clearly not a typo, as the CPU SKU is mentioned at multiple points on the product page. Based on AMD's CPU model name "decoder", the Ryzen 7 7730U is based on a Zen 3 or a Zen 3+ core that sits in the 15-28 W TDP range. According to Videocardz, it will be using an AMD Vega based GPU. Beyond that, we don't know any specifics about the CPU, but one thing that stands out and may or may not be correct, is that the Zenbook 14 is only listed as supporting two USB 3.2 10 Gbps USB-C ports, rather than USB4, which seems a bit odd. Then again, this is a lower-tier CPU, so it's possible that this is the reason for lack of USB4 support. The fact that ASUS has moved to an IPS based display, from an OLED display on the current UM3402 SKU, also suggests that this might be a cheaper model in ASUS lineup.

Over the past few weeks, the legal dispute between Arm Ltd. and Qualcomm Inc. has been warming up the eyes of the entire tech community. However, as per the latest court filing, Arm could change its licensing strategy and shift its whole business model into a new direction that would benefit the company directly. Currently, the company provides the intellectual property (IP) that chip makers can use and add to designs mixed with other IPs and custom in-house solutions. That is how the world of electronics design (EDA) works and how many companies operate. However, in the Qualcomm-Arm legal battle, Qualcomm's counterclaim has brought new light about Arm's plans for licensing its hardware designs past 2024.

According to Dylan Patel of SemiAnalysis, who examined court documents, Arm will reportedly change terms to use its IP where the use of other IP mixed with Arm IP is prohibited. If a chip maker plans to use Arm CPU IP, they must also use Arm's GPU/NPU/ISP/DSP IPs. This would result in devices that utilize every design the UK-based designer has to offer, and other IP makers will have to exclude their designs from the SoC. By doing this, Arm directly stands against deals like the Samsung-AMD deal, where AMD provides RDNA GPU IP and would force Samsung to use Arm's Mali GPU IP instead. This change should take effect in 2025 when every new license agreement has to comply with new rules.

AMD released the latest version of AMD Software Adrenalin drivers. Version 22.10.3 beta comes with optimization for "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II" (2022), and support for Radeon Boost with Variable Rate Shading in "Dying Light 2." In addition, it fixes a launch-time game crash with "Elite Dangerous" on Radeon RX 6000-series GPUs; a persistent black screen when updating drivers or resetting graphics settings in Windows 11 version 22H2, and lower than normal performance with "Gotham Knights" on AMD processor-powered machines with GPUs such as the RX 6950 XT. Grab the driver from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Software Adrenalin 22.10.3 beta

AMD released the latest version of the AGESA microcode for Socket AM5 platform. The new version 1.0.0.3 most notably reintroduces a Precision Boost C-state limiter that [accidentally?] got removed with version 1.0.0.2. This limiter prevents the CPU cores from boosting above 5.50 GHz when more than 4 cores are active (i.e. experiencing heavy workload). SkatterBencher demonstrated how this affects performance on Ryzen 7000-series desktop processors.

NopBench, a utility developed by ElmorLabs, lets you figure out the maximum boost frequency obtainable as workload scales across available CPU cores (i.e. starting from 1-thread, to n-thread). NopBench invokes the NOP instruction, and measures the number of NOP instructions can be processed per second. To make the NOP throughput comparable among processors of different microarchitectures, an architecture-specific factor is used, which for "Raphael" is 2.5x. By comparing the NOP throughput of a Ryzen 9 7950X processor tested with AGESA 1.0.0.2 to 1.0.0.3 (ASUS ROG Crosshair X670E Extreme BIOS versions 0611 vs. 0705); SkatterBencher was able to confirm that that the boost limiter is back in place, and limits Precision Boost frequency to 5.50 GHz when the NopBench load exceeds 4 cores.

AMD just officially confirmed that its upcoming Radeon RX 7000 series next-generation graphics card will not use the 12+4 pin ATX 12VHPWR connector across the product stack. Scott Herkelman. SVP and GM of the AMD Radeon product group, confirmed on Twitter that the current RX 6000 series and future GPUs based on the RDNA3 graphics architecture, will not use this power connector. This would mean that even its add-in board (AIB) partners won't find the connector as a qualified part by AMD to opt for. This would mean that Radeon RX 7000 series will stick with 8-pin PCIe power connectors on the card, each drawing up to 150 W of power. For some of the higher-end products with typical board power of over 375 W; this will mean >2 8-pin connectors. AMD is expected to debut RDNA3 on November 3, 2022.

Minisforum has launched a new mini PC UM690 of its Venus Series. The new UM690 featuring AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX, AMD Radeon 680M Integrated Graphics, DDR5 dual-channel memory, PCIe 4.0 SSD, and the most advanced USB4 Type-C port. It is also their first mini PC with AMD 6000 series CPU.

Ryzen 9 6900HX is one of AMD's most powerful Ryzen 6000 processors, features 8 cores and 16 threads, with a maximum turbo clock of 4.90 GHz with a default TDP targeted at 45 W. The integrated GPU, Radeon 680M, based on RDNA2 architecture, has 12 CUs up to 2.4 GHz. Thanks to liquid metal and smart fan in thermal design, UM690 can run at low noise even in full speed. UM690 supports total up to 64 GB dual-channel DDR5-4800 MHz memory, also different types of storage expansions—1×M.2 2280 PCIe 4.0 SSD and 1×2.5 inch SATA HDD Slot (SATA 3.0 6.0 Gb/s 7 mm).

AMD is reportedly bringing back the "XTX" brand extension to the main marketing names of its upcoming Radeon RX 7000-series SKUs. The company had, until now, reserved the "XTX" moniker for internal use, to denote SKUs that max out all hardware available on a given silicon. The RX 7000-series introduce the company's next-generation RDNA3 graphics architecture, and will see the company introduce its chiplets packaging design to the client-graphics space. The next-generation "Navi 31" GPU will likely be the first of its kind: while multi-chip module (MCM) GPUs aren't new, this would be the first time that multiple logic chips would sit on a single package for client GPUs. AMD has plenty of experience with MCM GPUs, but those have been single logic chips surrounded by memory stacks. "Navi 31" uses multiple logic chips on a package; which is then wired to conventional discrete GDDR6 memory devices like any other client GPU.

The rumored Radeon RX 7900 XTX is features 12,288 stream processors, likely across two logic tiles that contain the SIMD components. These tiles are [for now] rumored to be built on the TSMC N5 (5 nm EUV) foundry process. The Display CoreNext (DCN), and Video CoreNext (VCN) components, as well as the GDDR6 memory controllers, will be built on separate chiplets that are likely built on TSMC N6 (6 nm). The "Navi 31" has a 384-bit wide memory interface. This is 384-bit and not "2x 192-bit," because the logic tiles don't have memory interfaces of their own, but rely on memory controller tiles shared between the two logic tiles, much in the same as a dual-channel DDR4 memory interface being shared between the two 8-core CPU chiplets on a Ryzen 5950X processor.

AMD is preparing to expand its Ryzen 7000-series "Zen 4" desktop processor series with new SKUs, one of which is the Ryzen 7 7700 (non-X). Given past trends with non-X SKUs for the Ryzen 5000-series, the 7700 is very likely an OEM-only SKU to be featured in pre-built desktops. The inclusion of an iGPU with the Ryzen 7000-series changes things dramatically for AMD, as it makes these processors suitable for even home- and commercial desktops that lack discrete graphics. The Ryzen 7 7700 has the same 8-core/16-thread configuration as the Ryzen 7 7700X, but likely lower clock-speeds, due to the lower power-limits. The chip has a TDP of 65 W, compared to the 105 W of the 7700X; which means its package power tracking (PPT) power limit will be closer to 90 W, than the 140 W of the 7700X. This will also significantly lower the cooling requirements for the processor, and OEMs could use cost-effective air coolers. The exact clock-speeds, though, remain under the wraps.

AMD appears to like to play coy when it comes to new product announcements, or at least the reveal of upcoming product announcements. Just as with its November 3rd event, the company has put out a miniscule teaser for its November 10th announcement of what the company is simply calling "the unveiling of our next-gen server processors" on Twitter. The event will kick off at 10 am Pacific time and it appears there will be a live stream, as AMD is inviting people to watch the event online. It's highly likely that we're talking about new EPYC parts here, as the event is called "together we advance_data centers".

Intel Core i9-13900K processor has just been launched, and overclockers worldwide got their hand on a few samples to make history. According to the HWBot submission, a Swedish overclocker named "elmor" has pushed Intel's top-end consumer SKU to a fantastic 8.812 GHz. For more than eight years, the record for the single-highest overclocking speed was held by AMD FX-8370, from the now-bygone era of AMD Black Edition processors. The overclocking attempt was performed using liquid nitrogen (LN2) that cools the chip using its −195.8 °C temperature. Pushing core voltage to 1.850 Volts and VCCIN to 2 Volts, multiplier set to x88, and a bus speed of 100.15 MHz. In addition to the Core i9-13900K CPU, elmor used ASUS ROG Maximus Z790 APEX motherboard and 32 GB DDR5 GSKILL memory running at 4808 MT/s.

As a reminder, the FX-8370 CPU was holding the number one sport for eight years with a speed of 8.722 GHz. Beating the FX-8370 by just 90 MHz, it will be interesting to see if any of the upcoming CPU SKUs can match this overclocking record, and we are curious if any contender will come to beat elmor's current record.