AMD (NASDAQ:AMD) today announced revenue for the second quarter of 2021 of $3.85 billion, operating income of $831 million, net income of $710 million and diluted earnings per share of $0.58. On a non-GAAP basis, operating income was $924 million, net income was $778 million and diluted earnings per share was $0.63.

"Our business performed exceptionally well in the second quarter as revenue and operating margin doubled and profitability more than tripled year-over-year," said AMD president and CEO Lisa Su. "We are growing significantly faster than the market with strong demand across all of our businesses. We now expect our 2021 annual revenue to grow by approximately 60 percent year-over-year driven by strong execution and increased customer preference for our leadership products."

The AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT is expected to launch on August 11th while the RX 6600 appears set for a release in September/October. The pricing for these cards was predicted to be under 400 USD and according to a recent report from Neowin that would appear to be the case. The report claims that the Radeon RX 6600 XT will come with an MSRP of 349 USD and the Radeon RX 6600 at 299 USD. These prices have not been confirmed but if they are true it would position the RX 6600 XT above the RTX 3060 at 329 USD. The Radeon RX 6600 XT is expected to offer superior raster performance to the RTX 3060 but will come with less video memory and have worse raytracing. These prices are only suggestions and other sources put the retail price for the RX 6600 XT at 588 USD or higher in Europe.

AMD's next generation RDNA3 graphics architecture generation could see a near-quadrupling in raw SIMD muscle over the current RDNA2, according to a spectacular rumor. Apparently, the company will deploy as many as 15,360 stream processors (quadruple that of a Radeon RX 6800), and spread across 60 WGPs (Workgroup Processors), and do away with the compute unit. This is possibly because the RDNA3 compute unit won't be as independent as the ones on the original RDNA or even RDNA2, which begins to see groups of two CUs share common resources.

Another set of rumors suggest that AMD won't play NVIDIA's game of designing GPUs with wide memory bus widths, and instead build on its Infinity Cache technology, by increasing the on-die cache size and bandwidth, while retaining "affordable" discrete memory bus widths, such as 256-bit. As for the chip itself, it's rumored that the top RDNA3 part, the so-called "Navi 31," could feature a multi-chip module design (at least two logic dies), each with 30 WGPs. Each of the two is expected to be built on a next-gen silicon fabrication node that's either TSMC N5 (5 nm), or a special 6 nm node TSMC is designing for AMD. Much like the next-generation "Lovelace" architecture by NVIDIA, AMD's RDNA3 could see the light of the day only in 2022.

On the road to its rumored August market availability, AMD could unveil its Radeon RX 6600 XT graphics card on July 30, at the ChinaJoy expo. The RX 6600 XT is a middle-of-the-market product that AMD likely expects to sell in heaps, in markets such as China. It competes with NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3060 series. According to VideoCardz, the RX 6600 XT could see a July 30 unveiling, which usually comes with some teasers as to what buyers can expect from the card; followed by an August 6 unboxing embargo. The card launches on August 11. The RX 6600 (non-XT) is expected to launch later, in September. The RX 6600 XT is based on the 7 nm "Navi 23" silicon, and is rumored to feature 2,048 stream processors across 32 RDNA2 compute units. It also comes with 8 GB of GDDR6 memory across a 128-bit wide memory bus, and 32 MB of on-die Infinity Cache memory. AMD is likely targeting the 1080p AAA and 1440p e-sports crowds with this card.

The AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT and RX 6600 are two upcoming mid-range graphics cards that appear set to launch on August 11th. The Radeon RX 6600 XT is expected to feature all 2048 Stream Processors of the Navi 23 GPU and will be paired with 8 GB of GDDR6 memory. The Radeon RX 6600 will feature the same Navi 23 GPU but with 1792 Stream Processors and will be paired with 4 GB or 8 GB of memory. The Navi 23 GPU is already present in the mobile RX 6600M and the workstation Radeon Pro W6600 which should give an indication of potential performance. We have limited information for the MSRP of the two cards but they will likely come in under 400 USD however final retail prices are unknown. The August 11th date is specifically stated to be the launch day so we will likely see an announcement in the coming weeks.

Update Jul 22nd: We have received an update from YouTuber Coreteks who claims that only the RX 6600 XT will launch on August 11th and that the RX 6600 has been delayed until September or October.

Puget Systems is a company that specializes in workstations and servers that are popular with the scientific community. The company just revealed that a majority of its systems shipped are now powered by AMD processors. These include Ryzen desktop or Ryzen Threadripper HEDT/workstation processors. "AMD has made enormous improvements to its CPU line year over year. In fact, more than 50% of our recommended systems are powered by AMD Ryzen
or Threadripper CPUs!," the company tweeted. The Ryzen Threadripper lineup has dominated the HEDT and workstation scene as all models support ECC memory, and the chips come in core counts of up to 64.

Pictures of a made-by-AMD (MBA) Radeon RX 6600 XT OEM graphics card hit the web. This particular card has all the signs of an MBA card, including the AMD logo near the PCIe fingers, and barcode stickers of the font used by PC Partner, the OEM that makes MBA cards. This isn't necessarily the reference card whose renders are floating on the web, but one that AMD supplies to pre-built desktop manufacturers.

The compact card appears roughly 18-20 cm in length, is dual-slot, and uses a single 8-pin PCIe power input. Its cooling solution uses an aluminium mono-block heatsink that's ventilated by a pair of 80 mm fans. The person with access to this sample put out performance numbers from the internal benchmark of a game popular in China, called Ludashi, as well as how it compares to other graphics cards in this test. The results are interesting. The RX 6600 XT apparently beats or matches the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, which means it should have a comfortable lead over the RTX 3060, at least in this test. AMD is expected to launch the RX 6600 XT in the retail channel, on August 11, 2021.

With qualification samples of the upcoming Intel Core i9-12900K "Alder Lake-S" processors and companion Socket LGA1700 motherboards hitting the black-market, expect a deluge of benchmarks on social media. One such that stands out makes a fascinating claim that the i9-12900K beats AMD's current flagship Ryzen 9 5950X processor at Cinebench R20, which has been AMD's favorite multi-threaded benchmark. At stock speeds, with liquid cooling, the i9-12900K allegedly scores 810 points in the single-threaded test, and 11600 points in multi-threaded.

To put these numbers into perspective, a retail Ryzen 9 5950X scores 641 points in the single-threaded test, and 10234 points in multi-threaded, in our own testing. The i9-12900K is technically a 16-core processor, just like the 5950X, but half its cores are low-power "Gracemont." The "Alder Lake-S" chip appears to be making up ground on the single-threaded performance of the "Golden Cove" P-core, that's a whopping 25% higher than the "Zen 3" core on the 5950X. This is aided not just by higher IPC, but also the max boost frequency of 5.30 GHz for 1~2 cores, and 5.00 GHz "all-core" boost (for the P-cores).

ZOTAC USA Inc., a manufacturer of innovative hardware solutions, is excited to announce the market launch of the newest addition to the popular MEK gaming desktop series. Introducing the MEK HERO PC Gaming series - bringing PC gamers a high-performance gaming desktop with hassle-free operation and unrivaled quality.

Powered by ZOTAC and exclusive for the United States, the MEK HERO series features ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX 30 series graphics, AMD's latest Ryzen 5000 series processors, and EK liquid cooling. "The MEK HERO is an advanced extension of our hardcore gaming line," said Gary Lau, President of ZOTAC USA Inc. "It's designed to meet the demands of modern games from fast-paced FPS to immersive simulations, and our component partners help us achieve our goal to build a hassle-free high-performance gaming PC with unparalleled stability and compatibility," he explained.

GIGABYTE rolled out the X570S Gaming X motherboard, expanding its line of AMD X570S motherboards that debuted in June with a trio of AORUS Gaming and AERO series products. The Gaming X sticks to GIGABYTE's main brand, and is usually priced below its AORUS Gaming models. Built in the ATX form-factor, the board draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX and single 8-pin EPS connectors. It uses a 6-layer PCB for better memory and PCIe signalling. A 14-phase (12+2 phase) VRM powers the CPU, with an enlarged MOSFET heatsink. The AMD X570S chipset is cooled by a fanless heatsink.

The AM4 socket is wired to a PCI-Express 4.0 x16 slot, and M.2 NVMe slot with PCI-Express 4.0 x4 wiring. There are two additional M.2 NVMe slots wired to the X570S chipset, both capable of PCI-Express 4.0 x4. Other expansion slots include a PCI-Express x16 (Gen 4 x2 electrical), and two Gen 4 x1 slots. USB connectivity includes two 10 Gbps USB 3.2 ports on the rear panel, one of which is type-C; and seven 5 Gbps USB 3.2 ports, from which four are on the rear panel, one is an internal type-C port, and two ports via headers. The sole network interface is a 2.5 GbE, driven by a Realtek 8125B controller. The 8-channel onboard audio is basic Realtek ALC892 fare. The board comes with out-of-the-box support for Ryzen 5000 "Vermeer," and Ryzen 5000G "Cezanne" processors, besides Ryzen 3000 series. The company didn't reveal pricing, but we expect this to go for well under $180.

The Ukrainian Security Service (USS) have recently exposed a large illegal cryptocurrency mining operation in the city of Vinnytsia. The mining farm was illegally connected to the power grid stealing power so efficiency didn't appear to be a major concern. The SSU seized 3800 game consoles, 500 graphics cards, 50 processors, and various documents with information of the operation. This is the first time we have seen the PlayStation 4 being used to mine Cryptocurrency however the idea isn't insane with various older consoles having been programmed to do so. The PlayStation 4 features an AMD GPU with 18 Compute Units and roughly 1.84 TFLOPs of single-precision compute performance while the PlayStation 4 Pro offers 4.2 TFLOPs.

Update Jul 19th: We have learned that these PlayStation 4 consoles were not being used for cryptocurrency mining and instead were part of a FIFA bot farm creating and leveling up accounts that could later be sold.

Laptop manufacturer XMG Has recently reported that the supply of AMD Ryzen 5000 mobile processors has increased considerably in the past weeks with this availability expected to continue through the coming months. These supply improvements come after an ongoing period of global chip shortages which has resulted in price increases for various electronics devices. XMG also reports that the supply of components from Intel and NVIDIA is expected to remain stable but ICs from Realtek and Cypress continue to fluctuate in availability and pricing.

XMGThe availability of AMD's current mobile processors from the Ryzen 5000 series has improved significantly over the past few weeks. The coming months continue to promise a reliable CPU supply.

AMD today released the latest version of Radeon Software Adrenalin. Version 21.7.1 beta introduces optimization for F1 2021, with a 6% performance improvement seen at 4K UHD on an RX 6800 XT, over the previous drivers. Support is also introduced for the new Radeon RX 6700M and RX 6600M mobile GPUs.

Among the issues fixed are an Oculus service error preventing the Oculus Link setup from running on machines with RX 5000 and RX 6000 series graphics cards; lighting corruption noticed in Apex Legends with Radeon Boost enabled; AMD User Experience Program consuming abnormally high memory; driver version mismatch between Windows Store and AMD Support versions; high memory usage on some running 3DMark Time Spy; and an image corruption in Carrion with AF enabled.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 21.7.1 beta

AMD today in a blog post announced several updates to the FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) technology, its performance enhancement rivaling NVIDIA DLSS, which lets gamers dial up performance with minimal loss to image quality. To begin with, the company released the source code of the technology to the public under its GPUOpen initiative, under the MIT license. This makes it tremendously easy (and affordable) for game developers to implement the tech. Inspecting the source, we find that FSR relies heavily on a multi-pass Lanczos algorithm for image upscaling. Next up, we learn that close to two dozen games are already in the process of receiving FSR support. Lastly, it's announced that Unity and Unreal Engine support FSR.

AMD broadly detailed how FSR works in its June 2021 announcement of the technology. FSR sits within the render pipeline of a game, where an almost ready lower-resolution frame that's been rendered, tone-mapped, and anti-aliased, is processed by FSR in a two-pass process implemented as a shader, before the high-resolution output is passed on to post-processing effects that introduce noise (such as film-grain). HUD and other in-game text (such as subtitles), are natively rendered at the target (higher) resolution and applied post render. The FSR component makes two passes—upscaling, and sharpening. We learn from the source code that the upscaler is based on the Lanczos algorithm, which was invented in 1979. Media PC enthusiasts will know Lanczos from MadVR, which has offered various movie upscaling algorithms in the past. AMD's implementation of Lanczos-2 is different than the original—it skips the expensive sin(), rcp() and sqrt() instructions and implements them in a faster way. AMD also added additional logic to avoid the ringing effects that are often observed on images processed with Lanczos.

Valve today announced its first big splash into the console market with Steam Deck, a device out to eat the Nintendo Switch's lunch. The announcement comes as yet another feather in AMD's cap for its semi-custom SoC business, benefiting from being the only company with an x86-64 CPU license and having a cutting-edge graphics hardware IP. Built on the 7 nm node at TSMC, the semi-custom chip at the heart of the Steam Deck is designed for extended gameplay on battery, and is a monolithic silicon that combines CPU, GPU, and core-logic.

The yet-unnamed semi-custom chip features a 4-core/8-thread CPU based on the "Zen 2" microarchitecture, with a nominal clock speed of 2.40 GHz, and up to 3.50 GHz boost. The CPU component offers an FP32 throughput of 448 GFLOP/s. The GPU is based on AMD's latest RDNA2 graphics architecture—the same one powering the Xbox Series X, PlayStation 5, and Radeon RX 6900 XT—and is comprised of 8 RDNA2 compute units (512 stream processors). The GPU operates at an engine clock speed of 1.10 GHz to 1.60 GHz, with peak compute power of 1.6 TFLOP/s. The silicon uses a unified memory interface, and a cutting-edge LPDDR5 memory controller.

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, and hardware solutions today announced the new series of AIO liquid coolers - AORUS WATERFORCE SERIES, which come in 3 radiator sizes and fans corresponding to those different radiator dimensions. The new AIO coolers are available in 360 mm, 280 mm and 240 mm sizes to cater various needs. AORUS WATERFORCE SERIES support all modern and upcoming high performance multi-core CPU sockets. Besides the high compatibility with a multitude of builds, AORUS WATERFORCE SERIES inherit the advanced functions and designs from WATERFORCE X SERIES including the 330 degrees manually rotatable cap design that allows users to rotate the cap to adjust your preferred angle, the 7.8 mm Tube Diameter that improves the water flow by 37% and it's engineered with ceramic axis to optimize durability and heat-dissipation. The leading graphene Nano lubricant bearing with ultra-low friction and noise which reduces the carbon deposit while extending the life of the fan. According to the above, AORUS WATERFORCE SERIES provide enhanced heat-dissipation and durability. Even with 240 mm radiator, AORUS WATERFORCE delivers efficient heat-dissipation when running all-cores at 5.1 GHz on 8 cores pairing stress test with Intel Core i9-11900K processor.

We have recently seen several reputable rumors confirming that AMD's Zen 4 Raphael desktop processors will be limited to 16 cores with 2 compute units. There were previous rumors of a 24 core model with 3 compute units however that now seems unlikely. While the core counts won't increase some skews may see a TDP increase up to 170 W which should offer some performance uplift. AMD is expected to debut their 5 nm Zen 4 Raphael desktop processors in 2022 which will come with support for PCIe 5.0 and DDR5. The processors will switch to a new AM5 LGA1718 socket and will compete with Intel's Alder Lake-S successor Raptor Lake which could feature 24 cores.

AMD is preparing to launch the Ryzen Threadripper 5000 "Chagall" HEDT processors in August 2021, according to a MoePC report, confirming a rumor from April 2021. These chips will arrive in core-counts of up to 64, spanning two CPU socket types—sTRX4 (Ryzen Threadripper) and sWRX8 (Ryzen Threadripper PRO), and compatible with existing motherboards that run Ryzen 3000 Threadrippers, requiring a UEFI firmware update. Nearly every retail sTRX4 motherboard we've come across features USB BIOS Flashback, letting you update the firmware of an off-the-shelf motherboard without needing to install a compatible processor.

What's new with the Ryzen Threadripper 5000 is the new "Zen 3" CCDs, which place all 8 CPU cores of the die into a single CCX, sharing a unified 32 MB L3 cache. The I/O is identical to the previous generation, with the sTRX4 chips featuring quad-channel DDR4 interface, and sWRX8 ones featuring 8-channel, both with ECC; and up to 88 PCI-Express Gen 4 lanes. AMD also slightly increased the xGMI2 bandwidth to 18 GT/s, from 16 GT/s on the Ryzen Threadripper 3000 series.Many Thanks to DeathtoGnomes for the tip.

Indian PC components retailer PrimeABGB started listing pre-built desktops based on the AMD 4700S Desktop Kit, a PC motherboard based on harvested PlayStation 5 SoCs with their iGPUs disabled. These are semi-custom SoCs originally bound for Sony, which didn't make the cut, as their iGPUs were found defective.

It appears like the desktop PrimeABGB is selling for the equivalent of $600, is integrated in-house by the retailer, and the other parts that make up the build are certainly of a comparable quality to the ones large OEMs cram in their $600 desktops. These include a SilverStone Sugo 13 Mesh case, an Antec Atom 450 W PSU, a 120 GB SATA 6 Gbps SSD, and a GeForce GT 710 handling graphics on par with basic iGPU solutions. What you're getting, though, is an 8-core/8-thread "Zen 2" CPU that's highly capable for productivity tasks, and hardwired 16 GB memory.

Here's the first picture of EVGA's very first AMD chipset-based product, the EVGA X570S DARK motherboard! "The red pill," said Vince "K|ngp|n" Lucido, sharing this picture on Facebook. Designed for leaderboard-topping overclocking through and through, this board sets its intentions with the 90° rotated CPU socket that's optimized for extreme cooling, 1 DIMM per channel memory (two memory slots), a PCB that looks like it's at least 10-layer, and a high-grade CPU VRM. Power inputs appear to include a 24-pin ATX, two 8-pin EPS, and one 6-pin PCIe power. Expansion slots include two PCI-Express 4.0 x16 (x8/x8 with both populated, spaced 2 slots apart); and just the one x1 slot. Connectivity includes two wired Ethernet interface, Wi-Fi + Bluetooth, 20 Gbps USB 3.2 x2, and 8-channel HD audio.

The Alphacool Eisblock Aurora Acryl GPX for the reference design with backplate for AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics cards is a complete redevelopment of the previous Alphacool graphics card water coolers. No technical compromises were made, but the entire technical know-how flowed into the development and implementation. Style meets performance!

The water flow inside the cooler has also been optimized. All important components such as the voltage transformers and the memory are now significantly better and more effectively cooled by the water. All this ensures a significant increase in cooling performance. The design is new and special attention was paid to the lighting. The addressable digital RGB LEDs are embedded directly into the cooling block and run along the entire cooling block. The effect is an illumination of the entire cooling block. The aRGB LEDs used here give the cooler its very own visual touch.

MSI, a world-leading gaming brand, announces the all-new AMD-powered gaming laptop, Delta 15 and the revamped Alpha 15/17, equipped with the AMD Ryzen 5000 H Series Mobile Processors and the up to latest AMD Radeon RX6700M Series Mobile Graphics. MSI continues to fulfill the diverse demand of gaming and leverage the strength in the AMD product line.

Delta 15 and Alpha 15/17 all come with the latest Radeon RX6000M Series Mobile Graphics, 1.5x faster performance compared to previous generations AMD graphics. * Powered by the AMD Radeon RX 6700M, Delta 15 provides ultra-high frame rates, while the Alpha 15/17, equipped with the AMD Radeon RX 6600M, delivers 1080p gaming at max settings.

AMD is allegedly preparing for an August 2021 debut of its Radeon RX 6600 XT graphics card in the retail segment, according to tech YouTuber Coreteks. Released exclusively as custom-design cards, through the company's AIB partners, the card will reportedly come with an MSRP price of USD $399, or roughly $100 less than that of the RX 6700 XT (which is being scalped for north of $800). The lack of a reference-design (MBA) model in the retail channel means that the card will not be sold through the AMD website.

The Radeon RX 6600 XT will reportedly be based on the 7 nm "Navi 23" silicon, although it remains to be seen if it maxes the silicon out. 8 GB will be the standard memory amount, across a 128-bit wide GDDR6 memory interface, cushioned by a 32 MB Infinity Cache. As for performance, Coreteks predicts that the RX 6600 XT will perform ±5% of the RX 5700 XT and the GTX 1080 Ti, which could make it a formidable card for AAA gaming at 1080p, or at 1440p with FSR.

Valve has released its Steam Hardware Survey results for the month of June, and as always, it is a pretty good indication of the gaming market and market trends, showing us just how well the companies providing hardware are doing. On the CPU front, there are two companies constantly fighting for market domination: Intel and AMD. A bit over a month ago, we reported that AMD made serious progress in taking the market share away from Intel, using its latest Ryzen 5000 series of processors. However, this time, the effect seems to be reversed by its competitor, Intel.

All the gains AMD has made in the past few months have been sort of "erased" by Intel, as team blue managed to get back to a point where AMD now holds 28.41% of the CPU market, while Intel is back to over 70% share, more specifically 71.58%. What this means is that there are some fluctuations happening right now, and we are eager to see more reports to analyze in what direction is the market moving and how the two competing companies are performing. AMD seems to be held back by their ability to produce enough CPUs, while Intel is happily filling that void, fueled by a more aggressive pricing strategy.

Intel is slowly preparing to launch its 4th generation of Xeon Scalable processors, with it being the first arrival of the 10 nm designs to the server market. Codenamed Sapphire Rapids, these processors are expected to bring much-needed IPC and platform improvements so Intel can keep up with AMD's EPYC processors. Today, we are getting some first performance results as well as some information about a specific 20 core, 40 threaded Intel Xeon Sapphire Rapids SKU. In a leaked Geekbench 4 submission, the latest Xeon processor was tested and we get to see even more details about the processor.

Featuring 20 cores and 40 threads, the CPU has a base clock speed of 1.5 GHz. It features as much as 40 MB of L2 cache and 75 MB of L3 cache spread across the die. The system was tested on an Intel reference platform called VulcanCity, with this configuration carrying 32 GB of DDR5 memory. The reported results of the benchmarks that this processor went through are not very impressive. These numbers are easily beaten by AMD Ryzen 9 5950X, however, this is only an engineering sample with low clock speed and it could be possible that Geekbench is not optimized to run on this processor. You can check out some of the performance numbers below, and see the submitted results here.