AMD today released the latest version of its Radeon Software Adrenalin drivers. Version 21.6.1 beta introduce support for the upcoming FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) feature, AMD's answer to the NVIDIA DLSS. We also postedour in-depth review of FSR today. The driver release notes don't mention which exact titles support it at launch, so we'll probably have to wait until a formal launch of the feature. In addition, the drivers also introduce support for the Radeon RX 6800M mobile graphics, and optimization for "Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance."

Among the bugs fixed with this release are one which causes FreeSync to lock up during task-switching, an application crash with "Anno 1800" in DirectX 12 mode; AMD Cleanup Utility accidentally mopping up non-graphics AMD drivers (such as chipset, storage, etc.); lower than expected performance with "Destiny 2" on some products; and enabling raytracing in "Ring of Elysium" causing an application crash. Grab the drivers from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 21.6.1 beta
READ: Our review of AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution

The partnership between Samsung and AMD began in 2019 when the two companies announced that they would work together to integrate Radeon graphics IP in Samsung Exynos processors. We can see the results of this partnership with Dr. Lisa Su confirming at Computex that RDNA2 graphics will be integrated into the next flagship Samsung Exynos SoC. The RDNA2 GPU found in the upcoming mobile chip will include support for raytracing and variable-rate shading with a strong possibility that it will power the next Galaxy S series flagship. Samsung was initially expected to announce this new chipset in June however the event was postponed until July where the complete details and performance numbers will be unveiled.

Update Jun 22nd: The upcoming GPU is expected to be 30% faster than the current Mali-G78 GPU present in Galaxy S21 Ultra which should give it a comfortable lead of ~10% against the next generation Mali GPU. The GPU does appear to suffer from quite severe thermal throttling with a 20% performance drop after the second run and 30% on the third run. Samsung seems pleased with the collaboration and has engaged in talks with AMD to extend the contract for future GPU architectures.

AMD's next generation Ryzen Embedded V3000 system-on-chips aren't simply "Cezanne" dies sitting on BGA packages, but rather based on a brand new silicon, according to Patrick Schur, a reliable source with leaks. The die will be built on the more advanced 6 nm silicon fabrication node, whilst still being based on the current "Zen 3" microarchitecture. There are several things that set it apart from the APU silicon of the current-generation, making it more relevant for the applications the Ryzen Embedded processor family is originally built for.

Built in the FP7r2 BGA package, the V3000 silicon features an 8-core/16-thread CPU based on the "Zen 3" microarchitecture. There are also an integrated GPU based on the RDNA2 graphics architecture, with up to 12 CUs, a dual-channel DDR5 memory interface, a 20-lane PCI-Express 4.0 root complex, with up to 8 lanes put out for PEG; two USB4 ports, and two 10 GbE PHYs. AMD could design at least three SKUs based on this silicon, spanning TDP bands of 15-30 W and 35-54 W.

AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT Liquid Cooled (LC) edition is not officially available for the DIY market, as the card is exclusive to OEMs and system integrators, who can use the card in any of their selected systems, given the availability of course. In other words, the card is almost impossible to purchase on its own, unless it is from someone who removed it from a PC. However, it seems like a few retailers in India have been able to get their hands on a few of these cards and offer consumers to buy them individually without the need to purchase a whole system. Of course, you can expect this to come with a premium. Currently, retailers are offering the card at the price tag of around 223,020 rupees, which translates to 3,007 USD. We are not sure if any EU or American retailers will get their hands on just the card to compare prices.

AMD and Google Cloud today announced T2D, the first instance in the new family of Tau Virtual Machines (VMs) powered by 3rd Gen AMD EPYC processors. According to Google Cloud, the T2D instance offers 56% higher absolute performance and more than 40% higher price performance for scale-out workloads. The Tau VM family provides customers with a leading combination of performance, price, and easy integration. The T2D instances, using the leadership performance of 3rd Gen AMD EPYC processors, excels at workloads including web servers, containerized micro-services, data logging-processing, large scale Java applications and more.

"At Google Cloud, our customers' compute needs are evolving," said Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud. "By collaborating with AMD, Google Cloud customers can now leverage amazing performance for scale-out applications, with great price-performance, all without compromising x86 compatibility." "We designed 3rd Gen AMD EPYC processors to meet the growing demand from cloud and enterprise customers for high-performance, cost-effective solutions with optimal TCO," said AMD President and CEO Dr. Lisa Su. "We work closely with Google Cloud and are proud they selected AMD to exclusively power the new Tau VM T2D instance which provides customers with powerful new options to run their most demanding scale-out workloads."

AMD's DLSS competitor FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) is going to be launched in a mere five days, on June 22nd. When AMD announced the technology last month, they used Godfall as a showcase for the improved performance characteristics of the technology, which should aid (particularly) in raytracing.enabled games. Being open source, AMD's FSR also supports NVIDIA's graphics cards, meaning that any game that bakes in support for the technology can be taken advantage of by PC players irrespective of GPU brand.

In the meantime, the launch titles for FSR have become known, and there are seven of them, though they're relatively small hitters (Anno 1800 is one of the supported games at launch). However, support for FSR is expected to launch in the near future for 12 more games, including heavy-hitter Baldur's Gate III, DOTA 2, Far Cry 6, Myst, Resident Evil Village and Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodhunt. Besides these closer-to-the-horizon games, a number of developers have announced they're working on integration FSR on their workflows, including Crystal Dynamics, Focus Home Interactive, Capcom, Ubisoft, Unity, Electronic Arts & Dice... A total of 44 developers in all, Of course NVIDIA's DLSS supports much more games - but remember it has two years in the market going for it, and remember that DLSS 1.0 wasn't all that good. So comparisons with NVIDIA's solution and claims of failure or disappointment on AMD's technology might be slightly too early judgments, especially considering how this tech has also been announced to be supported by Microsoft's Xbox Series X|S consoles.

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, and hardware solutions announced the launch of the newest X570S AORUS series motherboards primed to unleash the potential of the recently released AMD Ryzen 5000 series desktop processors with enhanced DrMOS direct power design and 6 layers and above ultra cool PCB for higher stability. The whole series equip with a brand new passive chipset thermal design and up to four sets of high thermal efficiency armored PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots with M.2 Thermal Guard III, which ensures effective heat dissipation of full operation on chipsets and 7000 MB/s high speed operating on NVMe SSDs without throttling by overheating. The brand new X570S series motherboards kick off the PCIe 4.0 era with extensive feature sets.

The flagship X570S AORUS MASTER motherboard is fitted with a 16-phase direct digital power design for the more solid power management and optimized overclocking performance. With advanced heat dissipation technology of Fins-Array II Stacked Fins Heatsink, Direct Touch Heatpipe II and Smart Fan 6, GIGIABYTE X570S motherboards can maintain cool and high performance under high loading operation. Furthermore, GIGABYTE Active OC Tuner technology integrated in select motherboards to provide a more flexible performance improvement.

A leaked SKU sheet posted to Twitter by VideoCardz confirmed that AMD is indeed positioning the Radeon RX 6900 XT Liquid Cooled (LC) as a SKU separate from the RX 6900 XT. The finalized specs reveal that the card features Game Clocks of 2250 MHz, compared to 2015 MHz of the stock (air-cooled reference) RX 6900 XT; while the memory now operates at 18 Gbps (GDDR6 effective), compared to 16 Gbps on the reference card. This gives the GPU a memory bandwidth of 576 GB/s, compared to 512 GB/s on the reference. To support these, the TBP (total board power) value is increased by 10%, and is now at 330 W, compared to 300 W on the reference RX 6900 XT. The RX 6900 XT LC lugs an all-in-one, closed-loop, liquid cooling solution, while drawing power from the same two 8-pin PCIe power connectors as the original RX 6900 XT.

AMD's Zen 4 based systems are still in development, however, the company is already distributing firmware to give the new core design proper support once it arrives. By doing this, software providers are already able to distribute software with support for Zen 4 architecture. One of those examples is HWiNFO, popular monitoring, and diagnostics tool. In the pre-release of its upcoming version 7.05, which you can already download, the tool lists "Enhanced early support of some Zen4-based systems". This means that the software would likely be capable of monitoring a few components of the Zen 4 system, as the temperature for example. While we are not sure what the "enhanced" really means, only time will tell, as we await the launch of AMD's next-generation systems. You can download the pre-release 7.05 version of HWiNFO here, and you can check out the changelog below.

PowerColor's website has begun showing what is very likely the made-by-AMD (reference design) Radeon RX 6900 XT LC graphics card, as discovered by momomo_us. It bears the PowerColor SKU "AXRX 6900XT 16GBD6-MW2DHC," compared to the air-cooled reference version's SKU of "AXRX 6900XT 16GBD6-M2DHC." The webpage doesn't include any pictures. Some of the oldest leaks of the reference RX 6900 XT LC also pointed to a Sapphire branded card, which means a retail launch through AIB partners cannot be ruled out; as an SI or OEM-only launch would be handled by AMD, without involving AIBs.

The Radeon RX 6900 XT LC features a factory-fitted all-in-one liquid cooling solution, and possibly the new "XTXH" variant of the "Navi 21" silicon, which is able to sustain up to 10% higher engine clocks than the stock RX 6900 XT. AMD has reportedly gone a step further, and also given the LC version 15% faster memory, running at 18.48 Gbps data-rate, and so its performance could be very interesting to see. Some early testing is already out.

An HP Omen 16 gaming notebook powered by AMD Radeon RX 6600M graphics, was compared with those based on the GeForce RTX 3060 Laptop GPU, and the RTX 3050 Ti Laptop GPU. The RX 6600M was found to post significantly better performance/Watt (total graphics power/TGP) than the RTX 3050 Ti Laptop GPU, and go on to perform in the same league as the RTX 3060 Laptop GPU. The RX 6600M trades blows with the RTX 3060 Laptop GPU across a wide variety of games at 1080p, although the NVIDIA chip has an upper hand with 1440p. The RTX 3060 Laptop GPU also owns raytracing performance. The crypto-currency mining hash-rate of the RX 6600M is significantly lower than the RTX 3060 Laptop GPU. These numbers show that for for mainstream gaming notebooks with 1080p 60 Hz displays, the RX 6600M provides a formidable alternative to the RTX 3060 Laptop GPU.More numbers follow.

AMD is innovating its own x86 hybrid processor technology formulated along the Arm big.LITTLE hybrid CPU core topology that inspired Hybrid processors by Intel. Under this, the processor has two kinds of CPU cores with very different performance/Watt bands—one kind focuses on performance and remains dormant under mild processing loads; while the other hand handles most lightweight processing loads that don't require powerful cores. This is easier said than done, as the two kinds of cores feature significantly different CPU core microarchitectures, and instruction sets.

AMD has filed a patent describing a method for processing workloads to be switched between the two CPU core types, on the fly. Unlike homogenous CPU core designs where workload from one core is seamlessly picked up by another over a victim cache like the L3, there is some logic involved in handover between the two core types. According to the patent application, in an AMD hybrid processor, the two CPU core types are interfaced over the processor's main switching fabric, and not a victim cache, much in the same way as the CPU cores and integrated GPU are separated in current-gen AMD APUs.

Today we've got the first genuine piece of information that confirms AMD's MCM approach to CDNA2, the next-gen compute architecture meant for ML/HPC/Exascale computing. This comes courtesy of a Linux kernel update, where AMD engineers annotated the latest Linux kernel patch with some considerations specific for their upcoming Aldebaran, CDNA2-based compute cards. Namely, the engineers clarify the existence of a "Die0" and a "Die1", where power data fetching should be allocated to Die0 of the accelerator card - and that the power limit shouldn't be set on the secondary die.

This confirms that Aldebaran will be made of at least two CDNA2 compute dies, and as (almost) always in computing, one seems to be tasked with general administration of both compute dies. It is unclear as of yet whether the HBM2 memory controller will be allocated to the primary die, or if there will be an external I/O die (much like in Zen) that AMD can leverage for off-chip communication. AMD's approach to CDNA2 will eventually find its way (in an updated form) for AMD's consumer-geared next-generation graphics architecture with RDNA3.

The latest Tesla Model S comes with an infotainment system with serious gaming capabilities. EV manufacturers have turned their attention to making the infotainment systems of their vehicles a lot more capable, as they look to give car owners something to do whilst their vehicle fast-charges—a concept pioneered by the Honda e.

The new Model S infotainment system is a proper x86 PC powered by AMD Ryzen and custom AMD Radeon graphics. The GPU in particular, is based on the new "Navi 23" silicon powered by RDNA2 technology, and Elon Musk claims that the console offers performance rivaling a PlayStation 5 (which also uses an RDNA2-based graphics processor). The gaming-capable infotainment system is part of the $130,000 Plaid variant on the Model S. Its main touchscreen pivots into landscape mode. Meanwhile, images of a Tesla-branded game controller not unlike the one a PS5 comes with, surfaced on Reddit. It's unconfirmed if one of these comes included with the car, but it would make sense for a console-like controller to be the input device for games on this infotainment system, as a tablet-like touch interface would be sub-optimal with the fixed location of the screen.The recording of the Model S Plaid launch event follows.

AMD via its official YouTube has shared a video that goes into slightly more detail on their usage of V-Cache on the upcoming Zen 3+ CPUs. Firstly demoed to the public on AMD's Computex 2021 event, the 3D V-Cache leverages TSMC's SoIC stacking technology, which enables silicon developments along the Z axis, instead of the more usual footprint increase along the X axis. The added 3D V-Cache, which was shown in Computex as being deployed in a prototype Ryzen 9 5900X 12-core CPU, adds 64 MB of L3 cache to each CCX (the up-to-eight-cores core complex on AMD's latest Zen design), basically tripling the amount of L3 cache available for the CPU. This, in turn, was shown to increase FPS in games quite substantially (somewhere around 15%), as games in particular are sensitive to this type of CPU resources.

The added information explains that there is no usage of microbumps - instead, there is a perfect alignment between the bottom layer (with the CCX) and the top layer (the L3 cache) which enables the bonding process to occur naturally via the TSVs (Through Silicon Vias) already present in the silicon, in a zero-gap manner, between both halves of the CPU-cache sandwich. To enable this, AMD flipped the CCX upside down (the core complex now faces the bottom of the chip, instead of the top), shaved 95% of the silicon on top of the upside-down core complexes, and then attaches the 3D V-Cache chips on top of this formation. This also has the added bonus of decreasing the distance between the L3 cache and the CCX (the distance between both in the Z axis is around 1,000 times smaller than if the L3 cache was deployed in the classical X axis), which decreases power consumption, temperatures, and latency, allowing for further increases to system performance. Look after the break for the full video.

AMD's third smallest silicon based on the RDNA2 graphics architecture, the Navi 23, has more transistors than its largest GPU based on RDNA, the Navi 10. This according to a leak detailing key physical specs of the silicon. The Navi 23 silicon will feature in the desktop Radeon RX 6600 series, mobile Radeon RX 6600M series, and the Radeon Pro W6600. The Navi 23 silicon has a transistor count of 11.06 billion, compared to 10.3 billion on the Navi 10 silicon that powers the Radeon RX 5700 XT, and has a die size of approximately 237 mm², compared to 251 mm² of the older chip.

Built on the same 7 nm silicon fabrication node as the other RDNA2 chips, Navi 23 physically features 32 compute units, working out to 2,048 stream processors. Other specs include 128 TMUs, and possibly 32 ROPs. The RDNA2 compute unit features Ray Accelerators, so the chip has 32 of them. The memory sub-system is interesting. The memory bus width is 128-bit, addressing GDDR6 memory, but this interface is cushioned by 32 MB of on-die Infinity Cache memory. This cache could be contributing significantly to the chip's overall transistor count. The chip features PCI-Express 4.0 host interface, although there's no clarity on whether this is PCI-Express 4.0 x8 or x16.Many Thanks to DeathtoGnomes for the tip

EK, the leading computer cooling solutions provider, is launching the new EK-Quantum Vector Nitro+ water block made for the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ version of the AMD Radeon RX 6800XT and RX 6900 XT graphics cards. This 2nd-generation EK-Quantum Vector water block implements an Open Split-Flow cooling engine design, which proved to be a superior solution for GPU water blocks. It is characterized by low hydraulic flow restriction, meaning it can be used with weaker water pumps or pumps running on low-speed settings and still achieve top performance. The jet plate and the fin structure geometry have been optimized to provide even flow distribution with minimal losses and optimal performance when used in any given coolant flow orientation, unlike some currently available products on the market.

The base of the block is CNC-machined out of nickel-plated electrolytic copper, while its top is CNC-machined either out of glass-like cast Acrylic or durable black POM acetal. The watertight sealing is ensured by high-quality EPDM O-rings, while brass standoffs are already pre-installed and allow for a safe and easy installation procedure.

Intel's strategy toward increasing CPU core counts could be to dial up the counts of smaller low-power CPU cores, according to a "Moore's Law is Dead" leak about the next-generation "Raptor Lake" mainstream processor. The chip is said to have 8 larger high-performance cores, and a whopping 16 low-power cores. The eight bigger performance cores will be "Raptor Cove," the successor to "Golden Cove," featuring higher IPC and more instruction sets, although the report only references this as an enhancement to "Golden Cove." The sixteen smaller low-power cores, however, are expected to remain "Gracemont," carried over from "Alder Lake-S." The "Raptor Lake-S" processor is slated for a Holiday 2022 release, and being touted as a competitor to AMD's "Zen 4" based desktop processor.

AMD today announced the AMD Radeon PRO W6000 series workstation graphics, delivering exceptional performance, stability and reliability for professional users. The new graphics products were designed and optimized to power demanding architectural design workloads, ultra-high resolution media projects, complex design and engineering simulations, and advanced image and video editing applications.

Built on award-winning AMD RDNA2 architecture, the foundation of next generation, high-powered PCs, laptops and many of today's game consoles, the new product line features the AMD Radeon PRO W6800, the fastest AMD RDNA workstation graphics card ever. It also includes the AMD Radeon PRO W6600 graphics card, meticulously engineered for ultra-high performance workflows, and the AMD Radeon PRO W6600M GPU, designed to power professional mobile workstations.

Last week,we have covered the leak of AMD's upcoming Raphael processor integrated heat spreader (IHS), which featured a rather unique design. While we have made speculations as to why the design was made like that, it seems that we now have an answer to the question. It was previously believed that the unique IHS design was there to protect a double-substrate design, like Intel designed with Skylake-X. However, thanks to the updated design by ExecutableFix, we now know that AMD's design choice for Raphael is based on the simple fact that the IHS needs those cutouts for capacitors, as this seems to be the only place to have them.

As you can see below, there was no room on the LGA side, where the LGA pads are placed, and a lot of speculation suggested that capacitors were placed under the IHS or in IHS cutouts. The latter has proven to be the case according to this leak. You can check out some of the updated renderings in the images below.

Microsoft has recently confirmed that AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) technology will be coming to Xbox Series X/S. The new feature is AMD's response to NVIDIA's DLSS 2.0 AI processing found in RTX series graphics cards. The two technologies both aim to increase frame rates in select titles with various upscaling technologies without a significant reduction in visual quality. AMD boasts compatibility with a wider set of graphics cards including older NVIDIA GTX 10 series cards while also making the technology open-source. AMD will launch FidelityFX Super Resolution for select PC games on June 22nd which will show if they can hope to compete with the well-established DLSS 2.0. Microsoft has confirmed that they will bring the technology to their Xbox Series X/S consoles running custom AMD processors.

MicrosoftAt Xbox, we're excited by the potential of AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution technology as another great method for developers to increase framerates and resolution. We will have more to share on this soon,

To preempt NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3080 Ti launch, AMD had worked with its partners to release a refreshed Radeon RX 6900 XT based on a swanky new ASIC internally dubbed "XTXH." This is essentially the highest bin of the "Navi 21" silicon that allows 10% higher clock speeds over the standard RX 6900 XT. Our testing of one such card, the ASRock RX 6900 XT OC Formula, showed that the XTXH is able to trade blows with the RTX 3090, making it competitive with the RTX 3080 Ti. Interestingly, there seemed to lack a reference design "made by AMD" card based on this silicon. Turns out, AMD had other plans. This card was earlier believed to be the "Radeon RX 6900 XTX," when it was first leaked in April, but turns out, that AMD is allowing partners to simply call this the RX 6900 XT.

The reference design card uses a liquid-cooled design. The card itself is two slots thick, and about the size of the reference Radeon RX 6800, but two coolant tubes emerge from its top, which head to a 120 mm x 120 mm radiator. This is a purely liquid-cooled card, with no secondary air-based cooling, like the ASUS ROG Strix LC RX 6900 XT. The only sources of noise are the AIO pump-block, and the single included 120 mm fan. Besides 10% higher GPU clocks, the reference design card has an ace in the hole that custom-design XTXH cards lack—faster memory.

Today, Valve has updated its Steam Hardware Survey with the latest information about the market share of different processors. Steam Hardware Survey is a very good indicator of market movements, as it surveys users that are spread across millions of gaming systems that use Valve's Steam gaming platform. As Valve processes information, it reports it back to the public in a form of market share of different processors. Today, in the Steam Hardware Survey for May 2021, we got some interesting data to look at. Most notably, AMD has gained 0.65% CPU market share, increasing it from the previous 29.48% to 30.13%. This represents a major move for the company, which didn't own more than 30% market share with its CPUs on Steam Survey in years.

As the Steam Survey tracks even the market share of graphics cards, we got to see a slight change there as well. As far as GPUs go, AMD now holds 16.2% of the market share, which is a decrease from the previous 16.3%. For more details about Steam Hardware Survey for May 2021, please check out Steam's website here.

Enterprise SSD procurement has been rising on the back of growing server shipments since 2Q21, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. In particular, the share of 8 TB products in shipments of SSDs to data centers has shown the most noticeable growth, which is expected to persist through 3Q21. However, certain SSD components and parts may be in shortage due to insufficient foundry capacity. TrendForce is therefore revising the QoQ hikes in contract prices of enterprise SSDs for 3Q21 to 10-15% from the previous projection of 5-10%.

TrendForce further indicates that the high demand for enterprise SSDs in 3Q21 is attributed to several factors. First, North American cloud service providers (hyperscalers) have pretty much completed their inventory adjustments and now continue to expand their storage capacity. Second, the flow of incoming orders to traditional server brands is getting stronger over the quarters as government agencies and SMBs increase their budgets for IT infrastructure. Third, Intel and AMD are ramping up production for server CPUs based on their respective new processor platforms. Following the adoption of new CPUs, the overall demand for enterprise SSDs has also shifted to higher-density products because clients want to upgrade their computing power and storage capacity. Specifically, demand is mainly trending toward 4/8 TB SSDs since raising NAND Flash density can lower the cost of SSD deployment.

AMD has recently published a short video teasing the launch of their upcoming Radeon Pro W6800 and W6600 graphics cards. The short video gives us a view of the GPU shroud design and the inclusion of six Mini DisplayPort connectors which are standard features of the Radeon Pro series and lineup with leaks for the W6800. The campaign email sent by AMD also confirms these suspicions as the URL reads "consumer-radeon-pro-w6800-w6600-pre-announce", the two new graphics cards are expected to feature the 7 nm Navi 21 GPU also found in the RX 6800, 6800 XT, and RX 6900 XT.