The Ryzen 5 5300G is a rumored upcoming Zen 3 APU from AMD which has recently been spotted in engineering sample form. The new processor was recently listed on eBay with designation 100-000000262-30_Y, and while the processor is now sold out it has already been benchmarked and detailed. The Ryzen 5 5300G is the successor to the OEM exclusive Ryzen 3 4300G and consumer Ryzen 3 2300G processors and should offer significant performance improvements with the introduction of Zen 3 cores. The 5300G includes four cores and eight threads with a potential 3.5 GHz base clock and no reported boost clocks however this is subject to change with the official release.

The processor was put to the test with CPU-Z single-threaded performance showing the CPU bringing a 10.4% improvement over the 4300G while in multi-threaded bringing a 7.9% uplift. In Cinebench R15 the 5300G beats the Ryzen 3 Pro 4350G by 16.7% and the Intel Core i3-10100 by 11.6%. We only got two gaming benchmarks for Battlefield 4 and Battlefield V with the processors onboard Vega graphics performing admirably in both providing 29 FPS in Battlefield V at 1080p high settings. When played with less demanding graphics settings or with older games we see some impressive numbers with up to 95 FPS on Battlefield 4 at 1080p low settings.

Players can experience modern day warfare in Battlefield 3 and Battlefield 4 or the WWI and WWII battles of the past in Battlefield 1 and Battlefield V respectively. Players can also fight for humanity as Commander Shepard in Mass Effect 3 or visit new worlds as Sara or Scott Ryder in Mass Effect Andromeda. In addition, players can play as iconic Star Wars characters and with the incredible Star Wars vehicles in Star Wars Battlefront I and Star Wars Battlefront II.

Last Friday, the Command & Conquer Remastered Collection was the second new EA game to launch on Steam to great success, reaching the top game globally on Steam best-selling charts during its launch weekend. Last weekend, EA games also had five games appear in the top 10 of the Steam best-selling charts with their first wave of titles released on Steam last Thursday, giving players the opportunity to explore the fantastical worlds of the BioWare award-winning Role-Playing Games - Dragon Age : Inquisition and Dragon Age II and experience high-speed, white-knuckle driving action in Need for Speed Heat, Need for Speed: Rivals and Need for Speed (2016). Players can also battle it out in the wacky, fun and over-the-top shooter, Plants vs Zombies: Battle for Neighborville, or play from a selection of the bold and innovative games from EA's indie development partners like Unravel, Unravel II, Fe and Sea of Solitude.

French tech print magazine "Canard PC" is ready with early benchmarks of an AMD Ryzen 8-core processor. The scan of a page from its Ryzen performance review article got leaked to the web, revealing three key performance takeaways. In the first selection of tests, Canard PC put Ryzen through synthetic CPU-intensive tests that take advantage of as many CPU cores/threads as you can throw at them. These include the likes of H.264 and H.265 video encoding, WPrime, Blender, 3DSMax 2015, and Corona. Ryzen was found to be faster than the quad-core Core i7-6700K, and the six-core i7-6800K, but somewhere between the i7-6800K and the eight-core i7-6900K.

The next selection of tests focused on PC gaming, with a list of contemporary AAA titles, including "Far Cry 4," "Battlefield 4," "The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt," "Anno 2070," "GRID: Autosport," and "ARMA III." Here, the Ryzen sample was found to be underwhelming - it was slower than the Core i5-6600 quad-core chip clocked at 3.30-3.90 GHz; but faster than the i5-6500, clocked at 3.20-3.60 GHz. The fastest chip in the table is the i7-6700K (4.00-4.20 GHz). The reviewer still notes that Ryzen has a decent IPC gain unseen from the AMD stable in a while.

AMD has halted optimizations for its Mantle 3D graphics API, for current and future graphics cards. The cards will retain Mantle API support at the driver-level, to run existing Mantle applications, but will not receive any performance optimizations from AMD. Launched around 2013, Mantle had a short stint with AAA PC games, such as Battlefield 4, Thief, Sniper Elite III, and Star Citizen, offering noticeably higher performance than DirectX 11. The API improves the way the CPU-end of 3D graphics rendering is handled, particularly with today's multi-core/multi-threaded processors, bringing about significant increases to the number of draw-calls that can be parsed by a GPU.

AMD will now focus on DirectX 12 and Vulkan (OpenGL successor by Khronos Group). Why the company effectively killed its own 2-year old and promising 3D API is anyone's guess. We postulate that Mantle could have been used by AMD to steer Microsoft to introduce vital bare-metal optimizations it reserved for the console, to the PC ecosystem with DirectX 12. It appears to have served that purpose, and as if to hold up to its end of a bargain, AMD 'withdrew' Mantle. DirectX 12 will feature a super-efficient command-buffer that scales across any number of CPU cores, and will have huge increases in draw-calls over DirectX 11. The new API makes its official debut with Windows 10, later this month. AMD's Graphics CoreNext 1.1 and 1.2 GPUs support DirectX 12 (feature level 12_0), as do rival NVIDIA's "Maxwell" GPUs. The company will continue to nurture Mantle as an "innovation base" for its upcoming tech, such as LiquidVR.

Earlier today, AMD reportedly showed its industry partners (likely add-in board partners) a presentation, which was leaked to the web as photographs, and look reasonably legitimate, at first glance. If these numbers of AMD's upcoming flagship product, the Radeon R9 390X WCE (water-cooled edition) hold up, then it could spell trouble for NVIDIA and its GeForce GTX TITAN X. To begin with, the slides confirm that the R9 390X will feature 4,096 stream processors, based on a more refined version of Graphics CoreNext architecture. The core ticks at speeds of up to 1050 MHz. The R9 390X could sell in two variants, an air-cooled one with tamed speeds, and a WCE (water-cooled edition) variant, which comes with an AIO liquid-cooling solution, which lets it throw everything else out of the window in psychotic and murderous pursuit of performance.

It's the memory, where AMD appears to be an early adopter (as its HD 4870 was the first to run the faster GDDR5). The R9 390X features a 4096-bit wide HBM memory bus, holding up to 8 GB of memory. The memory is clocked at 1.25 GHz. The actual memory bandwidth will yet end up much higher than the 5.00 GHz 512-bit GDDR5 on the R9 290X. Power connectors will be the same combination as the previous generation (6-pin + 8-pin). What does this all boil down to? A claimed single-precision floating point performance figure of 8.6 TFLOP/s. Wonder how NVIDIA's GM200 compares to that. AMD claims that the R9 390X will be 50-60% faster than the R9 290X, and we're talking about benchmarks such as Battlefield 4 and FarCry 4. The expectations on NVIDIA's upcoming product are only bound to get higher.

ASUS today announced Strix GTX 960, an all-new gaming graphics card packed with exclusive ASUS technologies, including DirectCU II for cooler, quieter and faster performance for incredible action gaming, and 0dB fan technology for totally-silent light gameplay. The new card features feature exclusive ASUS Super Alloy Power components for enhanced durability and cooling, and GPU Tweak with XSplit Gamecaster for overclocking and online streaming that's as simple as it is flexible. Strix GTX 960 comes equipped with a DisplayPort interface to support connections up to 4K/UHD (ultra-high definition) resolution.

Strix GTX 960 is factory-overclocked at 1291 MHz and has a 1317 MHz boost clock speed in OC Mode that delivers stunning gaming performance. Strix GTX 960 provides 12% faster gameplay in Assassin's Creed Unity and Battlefield 4, and runs the 3DMark 11 (Extreme) benchmark at 1920 x 1080 Full HD resolution 6.5% faster than reference designs. It is fitted with 2 GB of high-speed GDDR5 video memory that races along at boosted speeds of up to 7200 MHz.

LG Electronics (LG) today announced plans to introduce the world's first 21:9 "UltraWide" gaming monitor compatible with AMD FreeSync technology for fluid motion during fast gameplay.

The new monitor headlines LG's expanded lineup being unveiled next week at the 2015 International CES and further solidifies the company's leadership in the growing 21:9 segment, which caters to the digital imaging, business professional and gaming markets. Based on IDC's Worldwide Quarterly PC Monitor Tracker, LG is the world sales leader in this monitor segment over the last seven fiscal quarters (as of the third quarter of 2014) with a market share of 77.3 percent of the world's 21:9 monitors.

Shortly after the launch of its Catalyst 14.9 WHQL driver, AMD released a follow-up Catalyst 14.9.1 Beta driver, to address some immediate issues found with the driver. It addresses an intermittent black-screen or BSOD issue caused after driver installation of Catalyst 14.9 WHQL, Catalyst Control Center crash, random crash when enabling or disabling 4-way CrossFireX, and Battlefield 4 instability on systems with 4-way CrossFireX. It also fixes a system crash issue found with Sniper Elite III, on systems with 4-way CrossFireX.DOWNLOAD: AMD Catalyst 14.9.1 beta for Windows 8.1/7/Vista 64-bit | Windows 8.1/7/Vista 32-bit

AMD released a WHQL-signed version of its Catalyst 14.4 software suite, its first in four months (the previous one being 13.12 WHQL). The driver builds on the Catalyst 14.4 Release Candidate the company shipped out a little earlier this month, to lend immediate support for Radeon R9 295X2, which hit the shelves on the 21st. The four highlights of Catalyst 14.4 include support for the R9 295X2, CrossFire frame-pacing improvements for a number of games, full support for OpenGL 4.4 API, and bug-fixes for AMD Mantle API.

Among the games AMD worked to improve CrossFire performance of, include Crysis 3, which sees improved frame-pacing; Far Cry 3, which sees improved 3-GPU and 4-GPU scaling; Anno 2070, which sees an overall CrossFire scaling improvement of 34 percent; Titanfall, which sees reduced game flickering an micro-stutter; and Metro: Last Light, which sees 10 percent improvement in CrossFire scaling. The driver also addresses bugs related to 3x1 Eyefinity setups using three Ultra HD displays. For gamers running Battlefield 4 with its Mantle renderer, AMD addressed the performance slowdown seen when switching windows using Alt+Tab; and fuzzy textures when playing the game on rotated displays.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Catalyst 14.4 WHQL for Windows 8/7/Visa 64-bit | Windows 8/7/Vista 32-bit | Windows XP 32-bit and 64-bit

AMD launched Catalyst 14.2 Beta v1.3, the second major public release of its software suite this year. The driver brings stability and performance improvements to Mantle, and comes in time for Thief, the second AAA game title that supports Mantle and AMD TrueAudio. The driver also corrects frame-pacing for dual-graphics in non-XDMA (classic CrossFire) setups, at resolutions above 2560 x 1600 pixels. The installer now re-integrates AMD Gaming Evolved app by Raptr, which optimizes games for your hardware at the click of a button.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Catalyst 14.2 Beta v1.3

The change-log follows.

Here it is, the first public beta of AMD Catalyst 14.1, featuring Mantle, AMD's 3D graphics API designed to rival Direct3D and OpenGL. The driver enables the Mantle renderer on Battlefield 4, which is known to enhance performance on certain GPUs based on AMD's Graphics CoreNext micro-architecture. The driver can't be installed as an upgrade to an existing driver, which must be cleanly uninstalled first. In addition to Mantle, Catalyst 14.1 beta resolves rendering issues on a boat-load of games.

If Battlefield 4 crashes as soon as you go to options, disable your integrated graphics in BIOS or device manager.DOWNLOAD: AMD Catalyst 14.1 beta 1.6

The change-log follows:

After last minute hiccups, AMD managed to release Catalyst 14.1 beta to the press. The driver brings along the first release of Mantle, AMD's ambitious 3D graphics API to rival Direct3D and OpenGL. Installing the driver was less than straightforward. We couldn't just install the driver over our Catalyst 13.12 WHQL installation like we normally do. A driver cleanup and reinstalling did the trick. Catalyst 14.1 beta enables the 3D renderer option in Battlefield 4, which lets you choose between DirectX 11.1 and Mantle.

Our first (subjective) impression, is that we couldn't tell the difference. Our Radeon R9 290 already offered frame-rates well above 60 FPS (1920 x 1080, Ultra, 4x MSAA), on Direct3D, and so we never really stood to gain anything that makes the game more playable than it already was. What could have been interesting, was to see how Mantle makes the lives of R9 270X owners better, who could see frame-rates drop below 60 FPS at our settings. According to a change-log of the driver posted by Guru3D, AMD hasn't optimized Mantle for any of the Graphics CoreNext (GCN) based GPUs other than Radeon R9 290 series, R9 260X, and A-Series "Kaveri" APUs.

As mentioned in our older article from Thursday, AMD discovered a major bug with its Catalyst 14.2 driver at the last minute, which threw a wrench in the works at the company. The driver was originally slated to come out in sync with DICE' update of Battlefield 4 on Thursday. AMD now tells us that their teams have been working overnight to fix the driver, and should have their next status update for us by mid-afternoon EST (New York time), later today. That update doesn't necessarily mean a driver release at that point in time, and so AMD might be forced to label it Catalyst 14.2 beta, keeping up with its calendar-based driver version naming. Catalyst 14.1 beta was expected to ship the first public distribution of Mantle, AMD's ambitious 3D graphics API to rival Direct3D and OpenGL.

AMD also mentioned a 24 hour exclusive period for press to evaluate the driver before public release, so it looks like your download will be at least 36 hours away.

Along with its highly anticipated game patch that includes an AMD Mantle renderer for Battlefield 4, DICE posted numbers from its own testing, pointing out the performance difference between DirectX 11.1 and Mantle. DICE put Battlefield 4 through three test scenarios, entry-level gaming, mainstream gaming, and enthusiast gaming. The entry-level test-bed comprised of an AMD A10-7850K APU, with its integrated Radeon R7 200 series GPU (512 stream processors, 720 MHz GPU clock). This is a CPU and GPU limited scenario, in which the game was tested at 1280 x 720 pixels resolution. DICE notes that with Mantle, the game yielded about 14 percent higher frame-rates.

Next up, is mainstream gaming. The test-bed runs an AMD FX-8350, which offers roughly the same gaming CPU performance as a Core i5-3570K. A Radeon HD 7970 is in charge of graphics, and the game is run at 1920 x 1080 pixels resolution, with 1x MSAA and "Ultra" preset. DICE found that the setup yields about 26 percent higher frame-rates. Lastly, there's the enthusiast test-bed, running an Intel Core i7-3960X CPU, and dual Radeon R9 290X (CrossFire) graphics. The resolution stayed at 1920 x 1080, settings at "Ultra" preset, but the anti-aliasing was cranked up to 4x MSAA. The result? A stunning 58 percent higher frame-rates. It's important to note here that in addition to settings, the other thing that's not constant between the three setups is the test scene. Even if DICE' assessment is most generous towards AMD's claims, there really does seem to be a performance increment on offer, with Mantle. Can't wait to check it out for ourselves. For more details and notes from the developer, check out the source link.

DICE, developers of the smash-hit online multiplayer FPS of the season, Battlefield 4, rolled out its promised game update that lends it support for AMD Mantle API. The low-overhead 3D graphics API, according to leaked documents we've seen, is claimed to improve performance of the game by up to 45 percent in CPU-limited scenarios. By that token, we imagine the performance increment in GPU-limited scenarios to be different. The game patch is only half of the story. The other half is the API itself, which will be distributed by AMD, in its Catalyst software suite. The first public release of Mantle will be part of Catalyst 14.1 beta, which will be rolling out a little later this week. Stay tuned for our comprehensive DirectX 11.1 vs. Mantle testing, starring a Radeon R9 290.

New week, new driver from NVIDIA, this time a beta build that brings some fresh SLI and 3D Vision profiles and includes the recently-released GeForce Experience version 1.8.2 and the new PhysX System Software v9.13.1220. The GeForce 334.67 includes support for the GeForce 8, 9, 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600 and 700 Series desktop cards and the ION and ION LE GPUs.

Download: Windows 8.1/8/7/Vista 32-bit | Windows 8.1/8/7/Vista 64-bit | Windows XP 32-bit | Windows XP 64-bit

MSI once again made breakthroughs in cutting-edge gaming notebooks. MSI has always been developing high performance notebooks. Its latest gaming laptop-GX70 and GX60 Destroyer, offer game enthusiasts the best experiences of both performance and affordability. The MSI GX70 and GX60 Destroyer pack with the latest generation of AMD's extreme mobile graphics card R9-M290X, high performance AMD A10-5750M quad core APU architecture, built-in HD8650G performance-grade DirectX11 for superior video resolution, and the top 3-screen output experience Eyefinity.

With a special packing and a game bundled, the MSI GX70 and GX60 Destroyer come with a limited Battlefield 4 edition. Users can redeem a free Battlefield 4 game! With the A10-5750M processor and R9-M290X display card, the GX70 and GX60 Destroyer runs at 32 more Frames Per Second (FPS) even when at full HD and using Ultra settings in Battlefield 4 gaming, that giving you a smoother game and superior price to performance ratio.

In what could explain AMD's move to include copies of one of the most GPU-intensive games with its new A-Series APUs, the company revealed that Mantle, its ambitious attempt at a 3D graphics API to rival DirectX and OpenGL, "enables up to 45 percent faster performance" than DirectX in Battlefield 4, the only known game with planned support for Mantle, and one of the most popular PC games of the season. AMD's claims are so tall, that even a 512 stream processor-laden A10-7850K APU could offer acceptable frame-rates at 1080p, while a $299 Radeon R9 280X could run circles around a $650 GeForce GTX 780 Ti at this particular game. If anything, it could help Battlefield 4 become a potent tech-demonstrator for the API, selling it to the various game developers AMD has built strong developer relations with.

AMD announced its 2014 A-Series APU for the desktop platform, code-named "Kaveri," after the southern-Indian river. Built in the new FM2+ package, the APUs run only on socket FM2+ motherboards based on the AMD A88X, A78, and A55 chipsets; while the socket itself can seat older FM2 APU families, "Trinity" and "Richland." In many ways, the socket transition is similar to that of socket AM3+. "Kaveri" sees AMD integrate two of its newest CPU and GPU micro-architectures, "Steamroller" for CPU, and Graphics CoreNext 2.0 for the GPU. "Kaveri" is also built on newer generation 28 nm silicon fab process.

"Steamroller" is an evolution of the same modular CPU core design as its predecessors, "Piledriver" and "Bulldozer." AMD promises a 10 percent improvement in performance clock-by-clock, per core, which falls in line with AMD's normal scheme of annual incremental performance updates on its CPU micro-architectures. A "Steamroller" module is a combination of two 64-bit x86 cores, which feature dedicated and shared components. "Kaveri" has two such modules, and so physically, it features a quad-core CPU.

At its CES press-meet, AMD detailed the upcoming versions of Catalyst Software Suite, which will be unified to include graphics and system drivers for both discrete AMD Radeon GPUs, and integrated AMD A-Series APUs; and AMD core-logic (chipsets). The biggest takeaway from the presentation, by AMD's Terry "CatalystMaker" Makedon, is that the company will release the first Mantle and TrueAudio runtime environments with the upcoming Catalyst 14.1 Beta, due for later this month. Mantle is AMD's ambitious attempt at a 3D graphics API to rival Direct3D and OpenGL, that's optimized for its Graphics CoreNext micro-architecture; while TrueAudio is a positional audio DSP that promises to make games and movies sound more realistic.

Mantle promises "great" performance improvements in Battlefield 4, the only AAA game that we know of, to make use of the API. Mantle support was expected to be added to the game as an update around this time, but DICE' plans fell off the track with publisher EA coming down hard on the studio for shipping a game that's riddled with bugs. DICE will most likely have to fix most of its bugs for the retail DirectX 11.1 game, before EA allows it to toy with updates that add support for new and experimental APIs, let alone expansion packs. In related news, Catalyst 14.1 Beta will introduce additions to its frame-pacing fix, that will soon support Ultra HD displays, and Eyefinity setups on non-XDMA (pre R9 290 series) GPUs.

What better way to market the graphics processing prowess of your processor than bundling one of the most GPU-intensive games of the season with it? AMD is reportedly planning "Battlefield 4 Edition" packages of its A10 "Kaveri" APUs, which at slightly higher premiums than normal PIB packages, would give you Origin keys to Battlefield 4, much like a similar scheme with AMD's Radeon R9 290 series.

Such Battlefield 4 SKUs could involve at least two APU models, the A10-7850K, and A10-7700K. The two may meet the minimum system requirements of the game at resolutions of up to HD+ (1600 x 900 pixels). Speaking of A10-7850K, Japanese publication "Hermitage Akihabara" snapped a handful pictures and screenshots of the the chip. The first one below reveals the APU package, the following reveal the CPU-Z and GPU-Z screenshots, trailed by a quick run of Cinebench R15. AMD is expected to launch its "Kaveri" line of socket FM2+ APUs on January 13-14 globally.

Gigabyte joined the growing list of AMD Radeon add-in board partners to launch Radeon R9 270X graphics cards with double the standard memory amount. The GV-R927XOC-4GD, available in a standard edition and one with a Battlefield 4 Origin key, features 4 GB of GDDR5 memory across a 256-bit wide memory interface, clocked at 5.60 GHz, at which the GPU has 179 GB/s of memory bandwidth at its disposal. The card features a long, non-reference design PCB, and the company's new generation WindForce 3X cooler, which together give the card a high-end look when installed. 4 GB of memory makes the R9 270X meet the recommended system requirements of Battlefield 4.

The factory-overclocked card offers 1050 MHz base GPU clock, and 1100 MHz PowerTune Boost frequency. The card draws power from a pair of 6-pin PCIe power connectors, display outputs include a pair of dual-link DVI, and one each of HDMI 1.4a and DisplayPort 1.2. Based on the 28 nm "Curacao" silicon, the Radeon R9 270X features 1,280 GCN2 stream processors, 80 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. It features a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface. Its API support includes DirectX 11.2, OpenGL 4.3, and Mantle. Gigabyte didn't reveal pricing of the two.

Sapphire rolled out a variant of its Radeon R9 270X Dual-X graphics card with double the standard memory amount, at 4 GB, which makes the card meet the recommended system requirements of games such as Battlefield 4. The card features 4 GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 5.60 GHz (GDDR5-effective), across a 256-bit wide memory interface, churning out 179 GB/s of bandwidth. It's practically identical to the R9 270X Dual-X graphics card. The card features a non-reference design PCB, and the company's compact Dual-X cooling solution. The card could retail for a $30 to $50 premium over the $199 reference design when it hits western markets. Currently, it's restricted to markets in the greater China region.

Battlefield 4, one of this year's hottest PC titles is now bundled free with MSI Radeon R9 Battlefield 4 editions. With no less than 5 models to choose from anyone who has been waiting out now has no excuse to get the best of PC Gaming in their PC. With Battlefield 4 available on all MSI Radeon R9 Limited Edition graphics cards, gamers can enjoyed an optimized Battlefield 4 experience thanks to the integration of Mantle technology.

MSI's Radeon R9 GAMING models are equipped with the award winning Twin Frozr IV thermal design which efficiently reduce temperatures and noise provide the most pleasant gaming experience. Likewise, MSI's Gaming App allows you to simply overclock with the single push of a button to get even more performance out of your card.

Gigabyte rolled out Battlefield 4 special editions of several of its Radeon R9 200 series graphics card models, other than the R9 290 series. The packages of these cards include Origin keys to Battlefield 4. Among the cards launched are the GV-R928XOC-3GD-GA, based on the Radeon R9 280X, the GV-R927XOC-2GD-GA, based on the Radeon R9 270X, and the GV-R927OC-2GD-GA, based on the R9 270. The R9 280X and R9 270X cards stick to AMD reference clock speeds, while the R9 270-based card features a tiny 50 MHz OC. The R9 280X and R9 270X based models feature WindForce 450W triple-fan coolers; while the R9 270 card is based on a simpler WindForce 2X Triangle Cooling solution. Gigabyte didn't disclose pricing or availability.