PowerColor, a leader in innovative graphics card solutions, is proud to announce the launch of its latest marvel in the gaming world: the PowerColor RX 7900 XT Hellhound - Spectral White Edition. Following the overwhelming success of the 7800 XT Spectral White model, this new release brings the same unique design elements to the powerful Radeon 7900 XT series.

Spectral White Edition: A Symphony in White
The RX 7900 XT Hellhound Spectral White Edition is a testament to PowerColor's commitment to exceptional design and engineering. It features an all-white PCB, heatsink, and cooling solution, setting a new benchmark in graphics card aesthetics. This card is not just a performance powerhouse; it's a statement piece for any gaming setup, offering a pristine, unified look that white PC build enthusiasts will adore.

NVIDIA's latest RTX 40 series graphics cards feature impressive new technologies like DLSS 3 that can significantly enhance performance and image quality in games. However, owners of older 20 and 30 series NVIDIA GeForce RTX cards cannot officially benefit from these cutting-edge advances. DLSS 3's Frame Generation feature, in particular, requires dedicated hardware only found in NVIDIA's brand new Ada Lovelace architecture. But the ingenious modding community has stepped in with a creative workaround solution where NVIDIA has refused to enable frame generation functionality on older generation hardware. A new third-party modification can unofficially activate both upscaling (FSR, DLAA, DLSS or XeSS) and AMD Fluid Motion Frames on older NVIDIA cards equipped with Tensor Cores. Replacing two key DLL files and a small edit to the Windows registry enables the "DLSS 3" option to be activated in games running on older hardware.

In testing conducted by Digital Foundry, this modification delivered up to a 75% FPS boost - on par with the performance uplift official DLSS 3 provides on RTX 40 series cards. Games like Cyberpunk 2077, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and A Plague Tale: Requiem were used to benchmark performance. However, there can be minor visual flaws, including incorrect UI interpolation or random frame time fluctuations. Ironically, while the FSR 3 tech itself originates from AMD, the mod currently only works on NVIDIA cards. So, while not officially supported, the resourcefulness of the modding community has remarkably managed to bring cutting-edge frame generation to more NVIDIA owners - until AMD RDNA 3 cards can utilize it as well. This shows the incredible potential of community-driven software modification and innovation.

The Manjaro Linux team exhibited Orange Pi Neo gaming handhelds at the annual FOSDEM event this past weekend. Attendees were welcomed to play around with early examples at the KDE booth in Brussels, Belgium—Orange Pi expressed its ambition (last year) to expand its single-board operation into the flourishing handheld gaming PC market. According to past reports, the Neo was teased throughout 2023—so it was not surprising to witness working prototypes in the hands of open-source enthusiasts in recent days. Orange Pi has selected AMD's Ryzen 7 7840U "Phoenix" APU—a laptop/notebook processor that is emerging as the de facto choice for many handheld gaming systems. The most globally available mainstream Windows 11 options—ASUS ROG Ally and Lenovo Legion Go—sport Ryzen Z1 and Ryzen Z1 Extreme SoCs, that are eerily similar in design to the popular Ryzen 7 7840U chip.

Orange Pi and Manjaro are targeting a late 2024 launch (according to Android Pimp)—this could place the Neo alongside potential next-generation devices with upgraded internals. Neo's unique selling point seems to be a slimmer (than normal) profile—the "ultra slim and small" handheld's dimensions are 259 mm x107 mm x 19.9 mm, coupled with a 7-inch FHD+ LCD screen (1920 x 1200, WUXGA, 16:10, 500 nits peak Brightness, 120 Hz Refresh Rate). A proper D-pad design and "YXBA" button layout indicate that a retro gaming-oriented playerbase is being targeted, although twin hall-effect sticks and linear triggers bring things firmly into the 2020s tech-wise.

In 2024, the tech industry remains steadfastly focused on AI, with the continued rollout of advanced AI chips leading to significant enhancements in processing speeds. TrendForce posits that this advancement is set to drive growth in both DRAM and NAND Flash across various AI applications, including smartphones, servers, and notebooks. The server sector is expected to see the most significant growth, with content per box for server DRAM projected to rise by 17.3% annually, while enterprise SSDs are forecast to increase by 13.2%. The market penetration rate for AI smartphones and AI PCs is expected to experience noticeable growth in 2025 and is anticipated to further drive the average content per box upward.

Looking first at smartphones, despite chipmakers focusing on improving processing performance, the absence of new AI functionalities has somewhat constrained the impact of AI. Memory prices plummeted in 2023 due to oversupply, making lower-priced options attractive and leading to a 17.5% increase in average DRAM capacity and a 19.2% increase in NAND Flash capacity per smartphone. However, with no new applications expected in 2024, the growth rate in content per box for both DRAM and NAND Flash in smartphones is set to slow down, estimated at 14.1% and 9.3%, respectively.

Changwang has released an interesting looking Mobile on Desktop (MoDT) Mini-ITX motherboard in China—as spotted by HXL—for AMD Ryzen 7000 series mobile processors. The manufacturer has chosen to forego with a short plus catchy model name—Changwang's product page lays out the basic facts within the board's title. This a 170 x 170 mm compact form factor board that is NAS and storage oriented—with an AMD FP8 socket that accommodates Zen 3+ "Rembrandt" and Zen 4 "Phoenix" processors. At present, the only available options to purchase are Ryzen 7 7840HS configurations (with or without an air cooler). The specification sheet lists other processor options, including the recently launched "Hawk Point" Ryzen 7 8845HS model, as well as Ryzen 9 7940HS, Ryzen 7 7735HS (Zen 3+ Rembrandt), and Ryzen 5 7640HS.

You are limited to SODIMM (up to 5600 MT/s with the 7840HS config), due to Changwang choosing a mobile processor platform for a compact desktop motherboard that offers little in terms of upgradability. As pointed out by Tom's Hardware: "These motherboards with integrated Ryzen 7000 "Phoenix" processors might have been pretty killer a few months ago, but just days ago, AMD launched its Ryzen 8000G series APUs for the desktop, which use the same Phoenix chip that the Ryzen 7040HS chips use. Ryzen 8000G chips are a little faster, more customizable, and can be installed and upgraded like regular desktop chips, which are all significant points against Changwang's motherboard...However, when it comes to price, Changwang has the advantage. With a cost of 2888 RMB or about $400, the Ryzen 7 7840HS-equipped board looks pretty decent. A Ryzen 7 8700G retails for $329, and the cheapest AM5 Mini-ITX boards cost $130 at minimum (and come with the A620 chipset)." The Changwang board also offers an unprecedented number of interface options—its unique selling points include support for nine SATA drives, four 2.5 Gbit NICs, Thunderbolt 4, USB 4, PCIe Gen 4x4, etc.

AMD is readying the new 800-series motherboard chipset to launch alongside its next-generation Ryzen 9000 series "Granite Ridge" desktop processors that implement the "Zen 5" microarchitecture. The chipset family will be led by the AMD X870E, a successor to the current X670E. Since AMD isn't changing the CPU socket, and this is very much the same Socket AM5, the 800-series chipset will support not just "Granite Ridge" at launch, but also the Ryzen 7000 series "Raphael," and Ryzen 8000 series "Hawk Point." Moore's Law is Dead goes into the details of what sets the X870E apart from the current X670E, and it all has to do with USB4.

Apparently, motherboard manufacturers will be mandated to include 40 Gbps USB4 connectivity with AMD X870E, which essentially makes the chipset a 3-chip solution—two Promontory 21 bridge chips, and a discrete ASMedia ASM4242 USB4 host controller; although it's possible that AMD's QVL will allow other brands of USB4 controllers as they become available. The Ryzen 9000 series "Granite Ridge" are chiplet based processors just like the Ryzen 7000 "Raphael," and while the 4 nm "Zen 5" CCDs are new, the 6 nm client I/O die (cIOD) is largely carried over from "Raphael," with a few updates to its memory controller. DDR5-6400 will be the new AMD-recommended "sweetspot" speed; although AMD might get its motherboard vendors to support DDR5-8000 EXPO profiles with an FCLK of 2400 MHz, and a divider.

AMD's December 2023 launch of new Instinct series accelerators has generated a lot of tech news buzz and excitement within the financial world, but not many folks are privy to Team Red's MSRP for the CDNA 3.0 powered MI300X and MI300A models. A Citi report has pulled back the curtain, albeit with "projected" figures—an inside source claims that Microsoft has purchased the Instinct MI300X 192 GB model for ~$10,000 a piece. North American enterprise customers appear to have taken delivery of the latest MI300 products around mid-January time—inevitably, top secret information has leaked out to news investigators. SeekingAlpha's article (based on Citi's findings) alleges that the Microsoft data center division is AMD's top buyer of MI300X hardware—GPT-4 is reportedly up and running on these brand new accelerators.

The leakers claim that businesses further down the (AI and HPC) food chain are having to shell out $15,000 per MI300X unit, but this is a bargain when compared to NVIDIA's closest competing package—the venerable H100 SXM5 80 GB professional card. Team Green, similarly, does not reveal its enterprise pricing to the wider public—Tom's Hardware has kept tabs on H100 insider info and market leaks: "over the recent quarters, we have seen NVIDIA's H100 80 GB HBM2E add-in-card available for $30,000, $40,000, and even much more at eBay. Meanwhile, the more powerful H100 80 GB SXM with 80 GB of HBM3 memory tends to cost more than an H100 80 GB AIB." Citi's projection has Team Green charging up to four times more for its H100 product, when compared to Team Red MI300X pricing. NVIDIA's dominant AI GPU market position could be challenged by cheaper yet still very performant alternatives—additionally chip shortages have caused Jensen & Co. to step outside their comfort zone. Tom's Hardware reached out to AMD for comment on the Citi pricing claims—a company representative declined this invitation.

QNAP Systems, Inc., a leading computing, networking, and storage solution innovator, today introduced the TS-h3077AFU, a highly reliable 30-bay SATA 6 Gb/s all-flash SSD NAS with a ZFS-based operating system, cutting-edge AMD Ryzen Embedded 7000 Series processors and integrated AMD Radeon Graphics. With up to 1.6M/1.2M iSCSI 4K random read/write IOPS, DDR5 RAM, built-in dual-port 10/2.5 GbE, upgradability to 100 GbE, PCIe Gen 4 expandability, and scalability to petabyte-scale storage, the TS-h3077AFU meets uncompromising performance demands in 4K/8K video workflows, storage centers, and virtualization. The QuTS hero operating system also features ZFS data reduction and SSD optimization, ensuring the utmost performance, lifespan, and efficiency from all-flash investments.

"The TS-h3077AFU redefines the landscape of storage solutions, offering not just capacity but also efficiency and performance for the most demanding business environments. Its capabilities in graphics processing, connectivity, and reliability, provided by the powerful AMD Ryzen Embedded 7000 Series Processor, position it as a game-changer in the industry," said Meiji Chang, General Manager of QNAP.

Raytheon, an RTX business, has been awarded a $20 million contract through the Strategic and Spectrum Missions Advanced Resilient Trusted Systems (S2MARTS) consortium to develop a next-generation multi-chip package for use in ground, maritime and airborne sensors. Under the contract, Raytheon will package state-of-the-art commercial devices from industry partners like AMD to create a compact microelectronics package that will convert radio frequency energy to digital information with more bandwidth and higher data rates. The integration will result in new system capabilities designed with higher performance, lower power consumption and reduced weight.

"By teaming with commercial industry, we can incorporate cutting-edge technology into Department of Defense applications on a much faster timescale," said Colin Whelan, president of Advanced Technology at Raytheon. "Together, we will deliver the first multi-chip package that features the latest in interconnect ability - which will provide new system capabilities to our warfighters."

Tianbo has prepared a very an intriguing Cyberpunk 2077-themed Mini PC for the Chinese gaming hardware market—the JD.com listing (as reported by VideoCardz) showcases black and white enclosures with a sci-fi aesthetic and plenty of RGB lighting courtesy of the slimline internal cooling solution's illuminated 9 cm fan. It is not immediately clear whether CD Projekt and R. Talsorian Games have jointly approved the GOD88 Mini PC's prominent usage of their Cyberpunk title/logo/font. The specification sheet and accompanying imagery place emphasis on the Cyber GOD88's APU of choice: an AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS mobile processor—this sits at second place within Team Red's recently launched 8040 "Hawk Point" series, their Ryzen 9 8945HS chip takes principal position here.

The GOD88's Ryzen 7 8845HS APU is no slouch when compared to the Ryzen 9 sibling—it runs the same 8-core/16-thread configuration, with a 5.1 GHz max boost (only trailing behind by 100 MHz). The spec sheet mentions a configurable TDP of 35 - 54 W. Tianbo's Mini PC is sold as a barebones system, according to the JD.com product page—customers are expected to plug in their own choice of RAM and storage. Dual-channel DDR5-5600 memory is supported, while the cramped interior can accommodate a single full-sized M.2 2280 PCIe 4×4 SSD. The Tianbo GOD88 "High Performance" Cyberpunk Mini PC will be open to pre-orders (via JD.com) on February 5—barebones pricing is set at 2688 RMB (~$378.50).

Everyone's favorite PC hardware tipster, momomo_us, has spotted a bunch of interesting SKUs registrations—the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) portal is normally a good source of pre-release information. ASUS appears to have submitted (on January 30) a wide range of AMD and Intel chipsetted mainboards with the Customs Union of Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Russia. The presence of Pro WS X690E-SAGE SE and Pro WS X690E-SAGE SE WIFI models attracted the most attention—fellow tipster HXL/@9550pro proposed that AMD's incoming X690 tech could be an X670 offshoot. They made reference to an AORUS BIOS screenshot showing a "common options" setting for AM4 generation X570 and X590 chipsets. The latter was a workstation solution that never reached finalized retail form.

Team Red has not officially announced the X690 chipset, so we know little else beyond this week's SKU filings. ASUS has produced a number of Pro Workstation Series for AMD platforms—the most recent examples being very fancy WRX90 and TRX50 motherboards for the mighty "Storm Peak" Threadripper 7000 processor family. VideoCardz reminds us that ASUS has not updated its Ryzen and Ryzen PRO "consumer and business" mainboard product range since the X570 days, so it is encouraging to see some potential new AM5 options on the horizon. On occasion, EEC SKU registrations do not lead to finalized retail products, so plans are subject to change.

It seems that AMD and its board partners are continuing to rollout new custom graphics cards based on the formerly China market exclusive Radeon RX 7900 GRE 16 GB GPU—PowerColor unleashed its fiendish flagship Red Devil model as one of last September's launch options. Their Chinese website has been updated with another Navi 31 XL entry—Hellhound Radeon RX 7900 GRE OC. This design sits below the Red Devil in the company's graphics card product and pricing hierarchy; providing excellent cooling performance with fewer frills. The latest custom RX 7900 GRE card borrows PowerColor's existing demonic dog design from the mid-tier Hellhound RX 7800 XT and RX 7700 XT models. The Hellhound enclosure deployed on Radeon RX 7900 XTX and RX 7900 XT GPUs is a much chunkier affair.

The PowerColor Hellhound Radeon RX 7900 GRE OC has also popped up on a couple of UK and mainland Europe price comparison engines (published 2024-01-30), so it possible that a very limited release could occur across a small smattering of countries and retail channels—Proshop Denmark seems to be the first place with cards in stock, pricing is €629.90 (~$682) at the time of writing. The Radeon RX 7900 GRE (Golden Rabbit Edition) GPU sits in an awkward spot between the fancier Navi 31 options, and Navi 32 siblings—AMD and its AIB partners have reduced MSRPs in Europe, possibly in reaction to the recent launch of NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 40 SUPER series. We are not sure if this initiative has boosted the RX 7900 GRE's popularity in this region, since very few outlets actually offer the (XFX-produced) reference model or Sapphire's Pulse custom design.

Skin temperature-aware power management (STAPM), is a 2014 feature introduced by AMD for its mobile processors that gets the on-die power management logic to take into account not just the processor's own temperatures (measured via on-chip thermal diodes); but also the physical surface temperature of the laptop itself, by reading off temperature probes mounted on the laptop chassis. This ensures that laptops don't get uncomfortably hot for the user, and the processor could do its bit to bring temperatures down. Every desktop APU released by AMD since 2014 has been a case of mobile processor silicon being adapted for the desktop platform by simply disabling certain I/O interfaces and features irrelevant to desktops, such as battery management GPIO, LPDDR memory interfaces, image processing, sensor suite, etc. One such feature is STAPM.

Gamers Nexus discovered that when creating the Ryzen 8000G desktop APUs, AMD forgot to properly disable STAPM, and this has been impacting the processor's CPU and iGPU boosting behavior under heavy load, where temperature-triggered clock speed throttling is engaged undesirably. AMD confirmed the Gamers Nexus discovery, and stated that it can be fixed through a motherboard UEFI firmware (BIOS) update; and that it will work with its desktop motherboard partners to get these out. The highest performance delta observed by GN between an 8000G processor with STAPM and one with its STAPM disabled (probably using an AMD CBS setting); is 16%; and so those with 8000G processors may want to look out for firmware updates from their motherboard vendors.

MAINGEAR, the leader in premium-quality, high-performance gaming PCs, announces its 2024 preconfigured MG-1 gaming PCs, featuring the latest NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40-Series SUPER GPUs. Designed to redefine the gaming experience, these newly announced pre-configured systems, starting at $1,199, offer enhanced performance, diverse options, more memory, larger SSD capacities, and can be had with Windows 11 Pro.

"Refreshing the MG-1 Series to feature the latest gaming hardware and components represents our ongoing commitment to delivering cutting-edge gaming experiences. With the latest Intel & AMD processors, NVIDIA GPUs, including the new SUPERs, and a broader range of options in the MG-1, MAINGEAR continues to set the standard for gaming excellence." - Wallace Santos, CEO of MAINGEAR.

AMD today announced revenue for the fourth quarter of 2023 of $6.2 billion, gross margin of 47%, operating income of $342 million, net income of $667 million and diluted earnings per share of $0.41. On a non-GAAP basis, gross margin was 51%, operating income was $1.4 billion, net income was $1.2 billion and diluted earnings per share was $0.77. For the full year 2023, the company reported revenue of $22.7 billion, gross margin of 46%, operating income of $401 million, net income of $854 million and diluted earnings per share of $0.53. On a non-GAAP(*) basis, gross margin was 50%, operating income was $4.9 billion, net income was $4.3 billion and diluted earnings per share was $2.65.

"We finished 2023 strong, with sequential and year-over-year revenue and earnings growth driven by record quarterly AMD Instinct GPU and EPYC CPU sales and higher AMD Ryzen processor sales," said AMD Chair and CEO Dr. Lisa Su. "Demand for our high-performance data center product portfolio continues to accelerate, positioning us well to deliver strong annual growth in what is an incredibly exciting time as AI re-shapes virtually every part of the computing market."

Lenovo (HKSE: 992) (ADR: LNVGY) has today announced that the General Purpose Partition of the MareNostrum 5, a new pre-exascale supercomputer running on Lenovo's HPC infrastructure, has been classified as the top x86 general-purpose cluster on the recently published TOP500 list of the most powerful supercomputers globally.

Officially inaugurated at Barcelona Supercomputing Center on December 21st, MareNostrum 5 has been built for the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU). The pre-exascale supercomputer will bolster the EU's mission to provide Europe with the most advanced supercomputing technology and accelerate the capacity for artificial intelligence (AI) research, enabling new scientific advances that will help solve global challenges. It aims to empower a wide range of complex HPC-specific applications, from climate research and engineering to material science and earth sciences, adeptly handling tasks that extend beyond the capabilities of cloud computing.

According to a recent MyDrivers news piece, graphics card models based on AMD's China-exclusive Radeon RX 6750 GRE GPU are "selling like hotcakes" in the region. Team Red's Radeon RX 6750 GRE was released last October, and made available in two memory configurations: 10 GB with a recommended starting price of 2219 RMB (~$312), and 12 GB going for 2379 RMB (~$335). Industry experts were surprised to hear about the mid-range Navi 22 (RDNA 2) GRE card becoming a popular choice in mainstream and budget-conscious gaming circles—as of early January, AMD has taken the unusual step of delaying its Radeon RX 7600 XT launch in China.

Chinese hardware news outlets are reporting that the 12 GB variant is selling for as low as 2239 RMB (~$315) at select retail sites—customers are reported to be snapping these cards up due to an irresistible "price-to-performance ratio," despite onboard technology being almost three years old. AMD is reported to be implementing a "strict" price control policy to prevent unbalanced supply conditions—Wccftech suggests that adjustment "instructions" have been sent out to AIB partners. The MyDrivers article points out that the policy adjustments will take time to stabilize Radeon RX 6750 GRE prices—the aforementioned 2239 RMB shop offers were still live late last week (report is dated January 26).

BIOSTAR, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, and storage devices today, announces that its AMD AM4 series motherboards are now compatible with the latest AMD Ryzen 5000 series processors.With the official unveiling of the Ryzen 8000 Series desktop processors, AMD has further enhanced its Ryzen 5000 Series, first released in 2020, by introducing four new processors. These additions include the Ryzen 7 5700X3D, Ryzen 7 5700, Ryzen 5 5600GT, and Ryzen 5 5500GT, all built on AMD's efficient Zen 3 architecture. This expansion of the Ryzen 5000 Series offers users a broader range of options, from high-end to mainstream, demonstrating AMD's dedication to diversifying its CPU offerings.

The AMD Ryzen 7 5700X3D and Ryzen 7 5700 processors are equipped with advanced technologies like AMD StoreMI, which enhances storage performance by combining SSDs and HDDs into a more efficient, single-tiered storage system. Additionally, they support AMD Ryzen VR-Ready Premium technology, offering greater immersion in virtual reality, even on older hardware. This combination of StoreMI and VR-Ready Premium technology ensures these processors deliver high storage efficiency and an enhanced VR experience, making them suitable for a wide range of demanding applications.

Entry level discrete GPUs are in trouble, as the first reviews of the AMD Ryzen 7 8700G desktop APU show that its iGPU is capable of beating the discrete GeForce GTX 1650, which means it should also beat the Radeon RX 6500 XT that offers comparable performance. Based on the 4 nm "Hawk Point" monolithic silicon, the 8700G packs the powerful Radeon 780M iGPU based on the latest RDNA3 graphics architecture, with as many as 12 compute units, worth 768 stream processors, 48 TMUs, and an impressive 32 ROPs; and full support for the DirectX 12 Ultimate API requirements, including ray tracing. A review by a Chinese tech publication on BiliBili showed that it's possible for an overclocked 8700G to beat a discrete GTX 1650 in 3DMark TimeSpy.

It's important to note here that both the iGPU engine clock and the APU's memory frequency are increased. The reviewer set the iGPU engine clock to 3400 MHz, up from its 2900 MHz reference speed. It turns out that much like its predecessor, the 5700G "Cezanne," the new 8700G "Hawk Point" features a more advanced memory controller than its chiplet-based counterpart (in this case the Ryzen 7000 "Raphael"). The reviewer succeeded in a DDR5-8400 memory overclock. A combination of the two resulted in a 17% increase in the Time Spy score over stock speeds; which is how the chip manages to beat the discrete GTX 1650 (comparable performance to the RX 6500 XT at 1080p).

We've known since way back in August 2023, that AMD is rumored to be retreating from the enthusiast graphics segment with its next-generation RDNA 4 graphics architecture, which means that we likely won't see successors to the RX 7900 series squaring off against the upper end of NVIDIA's fastest GeForce RTX "Blackwell" series. What we'll get instead is a product stack closely resembling that of the RX 5000 series RDNA, with its top part providing a highly competitive price-performance mix around the $400-mark. A more recent report by Moore's Law is Dead sheds more light on this part.

Apparently, the top Radeon RX SKU based on the next-gen RDNA4 graphics architecture will offer performance comparable to that of the current RX 7900 XTX, but at less than half its price (around the $400 mark). It is also expected to achieve this performance target using a smaller, simpler silicon, with significantly lower board cost, leading up to its price. What's more, there could be energy efficiency gains made from the switch to a newer 4 nm-class foundry node and the RDNA4 architecture itself; which could achieve its performance target using fewer numbers of compute units than the RX 7900 XTX with its 96.

With the introduction of the new GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER at $599, prices of the regular GeForce RTX 4070 are on a downward trend, below even its $549 NVIDIA MSRP, and can be frequently found for as low as $534. This is applying pressure on the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT, which had originally debuted at $499, with custom design cards originally retailing for upward of $530. The availability of RTX 4070 around that price range has pushed some of these custom RX 7800 XT to below the $500, or down to the AMD MSRP of $499. One such example is the Gigabyte RX 7800 XT Gaming OC, which can be had bang on the AMD MSRP.

This has also had a cascading effect on the pricing of the Radeon RX 7700 XT, with custom design cards frequently trending below the company's $450 MSRP for this SKU. Gigabyte's RX 7700 XT Gaming OC is listed on Newegg for $439, while several other custom designs, such as the Sapphire Pulse, ASRock Challenger, and PowerColor Fighter are listed on the $449 MSRP—they were originally selling for around $470. Both the RX 7800 XT and RX 7700 XT are recommended by AMD for 1440p maxed out AAA gaming, and compete directly with the RTX 4070 series. The RX 7800 XT beats the RTX 4070, while the RX 7700 XT isn't too far behind it, while being significantly ahead of the RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB in performance.

AMD's next generation Ryzen mobile processor family is undergoing a significant re-positioning of IP within its product stack, as the company introduces the new "elite experience" segment. The "Fire Range" mobile processor is a direct successor to "Dragon Range" MCM, with two 8-core "Zen 5" chiplets. It is essentially a BGA package of the desktop "Granite Ridge" processor, and comes with up to 16 "Zen 5" cores, for flagship gaming notebooks and mobile workstations. A segment below the current "Dragon Range" is the current "Hawk Point" silicon, driving premium experiences. There is a rather large CPU performance gap between the two, as would be the case between the upcoming "Fire Range" and "Kraken Point," which is why AMD is creating the "elite experience" segment, and filling it with "Strix Halo" and "Strix Point," which will square off against Core Ultra 7 and Core Ultra 9 processors, as well as certain HX-segment 14th Gen Core mobile processors. "Strix Point" has a significant core-count increase to 12, along with a large iGPU. We've extensively covered "Strix Point" in our older article, but now we have more information on the elusive "Kraken Point."

"Kraken Point" is codename for AMD's next-generation monolithic mobile processor silicon being designed to power Ryzen processor SKUs competing against the bulk of Intel Core Ultra 5 and Core Ultra 7 SKUs. This chip will be built on a refined 4 nm EUV node by TSMC, and will be monolithic. Its most interesting aspect is the CPU complex. It reportedly features a combination of four regular "Zen 5" cores, and four "Zen 5c" low power cores. All eight cores will likely share a single CCX, which means they share a common L3 cache, which enables easy movement of threads between the two kinds of cores, without having to make round-trips to the DRAM.

The first CPU-Z test results of AMD's upcoming Ryzen 7 8700G were sniffed out by serial leaker @momomo_us on X/Twitter and the new APU is looking very promising performance wise. It ends up being neck and neck with yours truly own Ryzen 7 7800X3D with a small lead to the CPU over the APU in single-threaded performance, but in the multi-threaded test the APU manages to stay ahead of the CPU, if only just. Both AMD chips are still somewhat behind Intel's Core i7-12700KF, but it has an extra four threads, even though those threads are slower due to them being on the E-cores.

The Ryzen 7 8700G test system was using an ASRock B650 Pro RS motherboard and the APU was paired with 32 GB of DDR5-6400 memory with reasonably tight timings of 32-39-39-102. The tester relied on the integrated Radeon 780M graphics in the APU and the Windows 11 operating system was installed on a 500 GB Seagate BarraCuda 510 SSD. In the single-threaded test the Ryzen 7 8700G scores 675 points vs 683 for the Ryzen 7 7800X3D and in the multi-threaded tests it came in at 7318 vs 7301. Not bad for a 65 W TDP APU vs a 120 W TDP CPU. For comparison, the average for Intel's Core i7-12700KF is 7754 in the mutli-threaded test. Although CPU-Z is far from an exhaustive test, it does at least give us a first glimpse of what to expect from the new Zen 4 APUs from AMD in terms of performance and it looks like it's in line with its best Zen 4 CPUs.

Everest (@Olrak29_) has kept track of many AMD processor families over the past couple of years—his latest insight provides an early look at the alleged internal makeup of Team Red's "Kraken Point" APU series. The rumor mill has designated these next-gen mobile processors as 2025 follow-ups to the recently launched Ryzen 8040 "Hawk Point" family of mainstream laptop APUs. The tipster's initial social media post only mentioned the presence of both Zen 5 and Zen 5c cores within Kraken Point processors, but he later clarified that a total of eight cores would include four large units and four smaller types. TPU's past coverage of Kraken Point pointed to rumors of an 8-core, 16-thread configuration, but leaked slides (from late 2023) did not mention the integration of efficiency-tuned Zen 5c "Prometheus" cores, along with presumed Zen 5 "Nirvana" cores.

Everest's continuous flow of insider information reveals that "Kraken Point" shares many "Hawk Point" traits—four workgroup processors (WGP) could be present on final retail products, granting eight compute units (8 CUs in total). He responded to a query regarding AMD's choice of integrated graphics technology—the succinct answer being RDNA 3.5. Past leaks allege that XDNA 2 will drive the NPU side of things—offering a performance range of around 45 to 50 TOPS. The Kraken Point APU is believed to be sticking with a safe monolithic die design, manufactured on a non-specific 4 nm process. Team Red is rumored to be in TSMC's order books for all sorts of next generation silicon.

LaminiAI appeared to be one of the first customers to receive an initial shipment of AMD's Instinct MI300X accelerators, as disclosed by their CEO posting about functioning hardware on social media late last week. A recent Taiwan Economic Daily article states that the "MI300X is rumored to have begun supply"—we are not sure about why they have adopted a semi-secretive tone in their news piece, but a couple of anonymous sources are cited. A person familiar with supply chains in Taiwan divulged that: "(they have) been receiving AMD MI300X chips one after another...due to the huge shortage of NVIDIA AI chips, the arrival of new AMD products is really a timely rainfall." Favorable industry analysis (from earlier this month) has placed Team Red in a position of strength, due to growing interest in their very performant flagship AI accelerator.

The secrecy seems to lie in Team Red's negotiation strategies in Taiwan—the news piece alleges that big manufacturers in the region have been courted. AMD has been aggressive in a push to: "cooperate and seize AI business opportunities, with GIGABYTE taking the lead and attracting the most attention. Not only was GIGABYTE the first to obtain a partnership with AMD's MI300A chip, which had previously been mass-produced, but GIGABYTE was also one of the few Taiwanese manufacturers included in AMD's first batch of MI300X partners." GIGABYTE is expected to release two new "G593" product lines of server hardware later this year, based on combinations of AMD's Instinct MI300X accelerator and EPYC 9004 series processors.