MSI is set to launch its most advanced AM5 motherboard to date: the MEG X870E GODLIKE. This flagship model is designed to support AMD's Ryzen 9000 series processors and beyond. The MEG X870E GODLIKE boasts an impressive 28-phase power delivery system with 110 A power stages, surpassing its predecessor's capabilities. This robust VRM design ensures a stable power supply even for the most demanding scenarios of next-generation CPUs. The motherboard's E-ATX form factor provides ample space for its array of features, including support for DDR5 memory speeds exceeding 8000 MT/s and a capacity of up to 256 GB. Connectivity is a strong suit for this motherboard, featuring eight USB Type-C ports with varying speeds of up to 40 Gbps. Storage options include five M.2 slots (two PCIe Gen 5 and three Gen 4) and four SATA III ports.

For graphics, the board offers two PCIe Gen 5.0 slots. MSI has also included several user-friendly features, such as EZ M.2 and PCIe release mechanisms, making component installation and removal a breeze. The M.2 slots are equipped with MSI's Shield Frozr heatsinks, ensuring optimal thermal performance for NVMe SSDs. Perhaps most intriguing is the inclusion of an additional 8-pin power connector, specifically designed to support future multi-GPU setups like NVIDIA's anticipated RTX 50 "Blackwell" series. While pricing details are yet to be announced, the MEG X870E GODLIKE is expected to carry a premium price tag, reflecting its top-tier status in MSI's lineup. With the high-end power delivery setup, overclockers will find this motherboard interesting, and users are planning to upgrade to next-generation RTX 50 series GPUs. Availability is also unknown as of time of writing.

A shipping manifest has revealed a new 96-core Ryzen Threadripper CPU codenamed "Shimada Peak." This processor is expected to incorporate Zen 5 CPU cores and maintain a configuration similar to AMD's current Zen 4 Threadripper flagship. The new CPU will likely be compatible with existing DDR5 HEDT motherboard platforms like TRX50 and WRX90. Its architecture appears to mirror that of AMD's previous 96-core Threadripper and EPYC models, featuring twelve 8-core CCDs and a single IO die. These similarities suggest that the primary change lies in the CCDs.

The Shimada Peak series is unlikely to debut in the near future. Given that the previous generation launched in October 2023 after a considerable delay, a similar timeline may apply here. AMD has remained silent regarding its Threadripper roadmap. Reports suggest AMD is preparing to unveil multiple products soon, the lineup is said to include the Ryzen AI 300 PRO, EPYC Turin, and Instinct MI325X. Following this, the next major showcase is expected to be CES. At this event, Kraken or Strix Halo are anticipated to make an appearance.

AMD's Ryzen processors have received a significant performance upgrade, thanks to the recent Windows 11 24H2 update. This development addresses initial disappointments with the Ryzen 9000 "Zen 5" series performance, particularly in gaming applications. The update, which improves branch prediction capabilities, has resulted in substantial gains for both the Ryzen 9000 "Zen 5" and Ryzen 7000 "Zen 4" CPU lineups. According to tests by Hardware Unboxed, Ryzen 9000 "Zen 5" CPUs have shown double-digit performance increases across multiple game titles, a boost typically seen only between generational upgrades.

Interestingly, contrary to AMD's initial claims, the performance gains are not limited to the Zen 5 architecture. The Ryzen 7000 "Zen 4" processors have also benefited from the update, with minimal performance differences observed between comparable Zen 5 and Zen 4 models after the update. This development marks a crucial turning point for AMD, addressing earlier criticisms and narrowing the gap between reported and expected performance figures. As users install the Windows 11 24H2 update, they can expect enhanced gaming experiences across a wide range of titles, highlighting the complex interplay between hardware capabilities and software optimization in modern computing. Below are the results from Hardware Unboxed benchmarks.

Demonstrating the depth and breadth of its technologies at Hot Chips 2024, Intel showcased advancements across AI use cases - from the data center, cloud and network to the edge and PC - while covering the industry's most advanced and first-ever fully integrated optical compute interconnect (OCI) chiplet for high-speed AI data processing. The company also unveiled new details about the Intel Xeon 6 SoC (code-named Granite Rapids-D), scheduled to launch during the first half of 2025.

"Across consumer and enterprise AI usages, Intel continuously delivers the platforms, systems and technologies necessary to redefine what's possible. As AI workloads intensify, Intel's broad industry experience enables us to understand what our customers need to drive innovation, creativity and ideal business outcomes. While more performant silicon and increased platform bandwidth are essential, Intel also knows that every workload has unique challenges: A system designed for the data center can no longer simply be repurposed for the edge. With proven expertise in systems architecture across the compute continuum, Intel is well-positioned to power the next generation of AI innovation." -Pere Monclus, chief technology officer, Network and Edge Group at Intel.

Ola, an Indian automotive company, is venturing into AI chip development with its artificial intelligence branch, Krutrim, planning to launch India's first domestically designed AI chip by 2026. The company is leveraging ARM architecture for this initiative. CEO Bhavish Aggarwal emphasizes the importance of India developing its own AI technology rather than relying on external sources.

While detailed specifications are limited, Ola claims these chips will offer competitive performance and efficiency. For manufacturing, the company plans to partner with a global tier I or II foundry, possibly TSMC or Samsung. "We are still exploring foundries, we will go with a global tier I or II foundry. Taiwan is a global leader, and so is Korea. I visited Taiwan a couple of months back and the ecosystem is keen on partnering with India," Aggarwal said.

A critical security flaw known as "Sinkclose" (CVE-2023-31315) has been identified in all AMD processors dating back to 2006, potentially affecting hundreds of millions of devices worldwide. This vulnerability allows malicious actors to exploit the chip architecture, leading to unauthorized access to sensitive data. Researchers Enrique Nissim and Krzysztof Okupski, researchers from the security firm IOActive, have revealed that the vulnerability can be exploited through various methods, enabling attackers to extract confidential information from affected systems, including passwords and personal data. The issue is especially concerning, given that it is present in all AMD CPUs made in the last 18 years and their widespread use in both consumer and enterprise environments. However, to exploit this vulnerability, an attacker must possess access to system's kernel. Downloading of malware-infused files can trigger it, so general safety measures are recommended.

The Sinkclose method exploits a little-known capability in AMD processors called TClose. This name is a blend of "TClose" and "Sinkhole," with the latter referring to a previous vulnerability found in Intel's System Management Mode in 2015. AMD chips employ a protective mechanism named TSeg, which blocks operating systems from accessing a specific memory area reserved for System Management Mode (SMM), known as System Management Random Access Memory (SMRAM). However, the TClose feature is designed to maintain backward compatibility with older hardware that might use the same memory addresses as SMRAM. It does this by remapping memory when activated. The security experts discovered that they could manipulate this TClose remapping function using only standard operating system permissions. By doing so, they could deceive the SMM into retrieving altered data, enabling them to redirect the processor and run their own instructions with the high-level privileges of SMM. This technique essentially allows attackers to bypass standard security measures and execute malicious code at one of the most privileged levels of the processor, potentially compromising the entire system.

Primate Labs, the developer behind the popular Geekbench benchmarking suite, has launched Geekbench AI—a comprehensive benchmark tool designed to measure the artificial intelligence capabilities of various devices. Geekbench AI, previously known as Geekbench ML during its preview phase, has now reached version 1.0. The benchmark is available on multiple operating systems, including Windows, Linux, macOS, Android, and iOS, making it accessible to many users and developers. One of Geekbench AI's key features is its multifaceted approach to scoring. The benchmark utilizes three distinct precision levels: single-precision, half-precision, and quantized data. This evaluation aims to provide a more accurate representation of AI performance across different hardware designs.

In addition to speed, Geekbench AI places a strong emphasis on accuracy. The benchmark assesses how closely each test's output matches the expected results, offering insights into the trade-offs between performance and precision. The release of Geekbench AI 1.0 brings support for new frameworks, including OpenVINO, ONNX, and Qualcomm QNN, expanding its compatibility across various platforms. Primate Labs has also implemented measures to ensure fair comparisons, such as enforcing minimum runtime durations for each workload. The company noted that Samsung and NVIDIA are already utilizing the software to measure their chip performance in-house, showing that adoption is already strong. While the benchmark provides valuable insights, real-world AI applications are still limited, and reliance on a few benchmarks may paint a partial picture. Nevertheless, Geekbench AI represents a significant step forward in standardizing AI performance measurement, potentially influencing future consumer choices in the AI-driven tech market. Results from the benchmark runs can be seen here.

Recent reports suggest that AMD's Zen 5 desktop processors may soon receive a significant power upgrade. The upcoming AGESA 1.2.0.1A Patch A is rumored to increase the default power limits (TDP) from 65 W to 105 W for certain models, specifically the 8-core Ryzen 7 9700X and the 6-core Ryzen 5 9600X. This development comes as a surprise given that the first reviews of the Ryzen 9000 series were published just last week, with lower power consumption praised as a major advantage over previous generations. The potential TDP increase, while not as high as the 120 W initially rumored for the 9700X, still represents a substantial boost in power allocation.

The rationale behind this significant TDP increase appears to be addressing the lower than expected performance of the Ryzen 7 9700X and Ryzen 5 9600X compared to their predecessors. Initial testing showed that both CPUs performed similarly to earlier models, especially in gaming scenarios, with notable improvements only visible when using Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO). Even at 65 W, the Ryzen 7 9700X struggled to outpace the 7800X3D in gaming performance, highlighting the need for improved power delivery.

In a recent report by Mercury Research, AMD has shown significant progress in the CPU market during Q2 2024, particularly in the data center and laptop segments. AMD's most notable achievement comes in the server CPU space, where it now holds 24.1% of the market, a 5.6% increase year-over-year, and a 0.5% increase from the previous quarter. This growth is particularly impressive in terms of revenue, with AMD capturing 33.7% of server CPU revenue despite its lower unit share. This suggests that AMD's high-end EPYC processors carry premium prices in the data center market and are most of the unit volume. AMD has also made advancements in the laptop CPU segment, reaching a 20.3% market share. This represents a 1% increase from the previous quarter and a 3.8% rise year-over-year. The company's success in laptops can be attributed to solid demand for its existing products, propelled by Intel's reported supply issues with Meteor Lake processors.

However, AMD experienced a slight setback in the desktop CPU market, losing a 1% share to Intel quarter-over-quarter. AMD now controls 23% of this segment, compared to Intel's 77%. This dip may be due to AMD's preparation for the launch of its new Zen 5-based CPUs in August. Despite AMD's gains, Intel maintains its overall dominance in the CPU market. In the total client PC space, Intel holds a 78.9% market share, with AMD at 21.1%. Intel still holds the majority of revenue and market share on all fronts. However, AMD is executing well, and Intel's financial troubles could be a setback for team blue. More competition at every front is great to see, and we are curious to look at the data from upcoming quarters and analyze how well both of companies perform.

In the age of AI, computing power has become a vital component for driving innovation. For most industries, using professional-grade workstations as the computing engine enables efficient computing and infinite creativity. A workstation is a multi-purpose computer that supports high-performance computing in a distributed network setting. It excels at graphics processing and task parallelism, making it suitable for a wide range of AI applications as well as common visual design tasks.

For example, the workstation can fully meet the requirements for multi-task processing, such as 3D modeling, large-scale industrial drawing, advertising rendering output, non-linear video editing, file rendering production and acceleration, and so on. The computer can also perform effectively in a wide range of model loadings and professional software, as well as remote system maintenance and monitoring in unsupervised settings, which has the potential to revolutionize the application domain.

Intel has officially started shipping the "0x129" microcode update for its 13th and 14th generation "Raptor Lake" and "Raptor Lake Refresh" processors. This critical update is currently being pushed to all OEM/ODM partners to address the stability issues that Intel's processors have been facing. According to Intel, this microcode update fixes "incorrect voltage requests to the processor that are causing elevated operating voltage." Intel's analysis shows that the root cause of stability problems is caused by too high voltage during operation of the processor. These increases to voltage cause degradation that increases the minimum voltage required for stable operation. Intel calls this "Vmin"—it's a theoretical construct, not an actual voltage, think "speed for an airplane required to fly". The latest 0x129 microcode patch will limit the processor's voltage to no higher than 1.55 V, which should avoid further degradation. Overclocking is still supported, enthusiasts will have to disable the eTVB setting in their BIOS to push the processor beyond the 1.55 V threshold. The company's internal testing shows that the new default settings with limited voltages with standard run-to-run variations show minimal performance impact, with only a single game (Hitman 3: Dartmoor) showing degradation. For a full statement from Intel, see the quote below.

Intel recently announced it would offer an extra two-years warranty on its 13th and 14th gen Core CPUs, but it now seems like not all PC makers will follow suit. The Verge contacted 14 major PC makers and got a very mixed response when they asked if these companies would offer extended warranties on systems sold with said processors. It's important to keep in mind that OEM CPUs only come with a 12-month warranty, whereas retail box CPUs from Intel come with a three-year warranty. As such, most PC makers ought to extend the warranty in their systems by a further two years, as per Intel's new warranty terms and some are indeed doing this, while others appear not to.

However, a few companies appear to be offering up to a five-year warranty for the CPU in their system and these companies include Digital Storm, Falcon Northwest iBuyPower and Maingear, so kudos to them for going the extra mile. Corsair and Origin PC—which belongs to Corsair—are offering four years warranty, which is still pretty decent. This is followed by Puget Systems which will offer three years and finally we have Asus and HP which both will offer another two years of warranty, which is in line with what Intel has promised. Dell and its Alienware subsidiary hasn't promised any extended warranties, but will replace faulty CPUs under Intel's extended warranty and will cover any costs related to replacing the CPU, suggesting that they are offering a two-year extension as well.

Intel today announced that its lead products on Intel 18A, Panther Lake (AI PC client processor) and Clearwater Forest (server processor), are out of the fab and have powered-on and booted operating systems. These milestones were achieved less than two quarters after tape-out, with both products on track to start production in 2025. The company also announced that the first external customer is expected to tape out on Intel 18A in the first half of next year.

"We are pioneering multiple systems foundry technologies for the AI era and delivering a full stack of innovation that's essential to the next generation of products for Intel and our foundry customers. We are encouraged by our progress and are working closely with customers to bring Intel 18A to market in 2025." -Kevin O'Buckley, Intel senior vice president and general manager of Foundry Services

Intel's 5th generation Xeon Scalable processors codenamed Emerald Rapids, have been shipping since late 2023 and are installed at numerous servers today. However, Emerald Rapids appears to possess more performance and efficiency tricks than it initially revealed at launch. According to the report from Phoronix, reporting on a Linux kernel patch sent to the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML), there is a chance for up to 38% performance increase while using up to 18% less power on all Intel 5th generation Xeon machines. Thanks to Canonical (maker of Ubuntu Linux) engineer Pedro Henrique Kopper, who explained the patch on the LKML, we found out that changing a single line of code yielded this massive increase.

Ubuntu Linux, as well as many other distributions, ship with Energy Performance Preference (EPP) for Emerald Rapids with a "balance_performance" value of 128. However, changing the value to 32 now yields a massive performance improvement alongside using less power. The EPP "balance_performance" is the default out-of-the-box setting for many Linux distributions. Users manually setting the "performance" mode in the EPP are not expecting any increase from this patch, as the "balance_performance" mode had issues balancing power and efficiency. Introducing this new setting yields more performance for machines that run at default settings, and this is especially important for data centers where the need for lower power and increased performance is constantly surging. Especially at hyperscalers like Amazon, Google, and Meta, which may run tens of thousands of these CPUs at default settings to keep them stable and well-cooled, who can now enjoy a massive performance increase with less power consumed.Below, you can see the patch quote as well as more performance/power measurements.

In a conversation with Intel's CEO Pat Gelsinger, industry analyst Patrick Moorhead revealed that Intel's Meteor Lake CPU platform suffers from some production issues. More specifically, Intel has been facing some yield and/or back-end production issues with its Meteor Lake platform, resulting in a negative impact on Intel's margins when producing the chip. The market is showing great demand for these chips, and Intel has been forced to run productions of "hot lots"-- batch production of silicon with the highest priority that gets moved to the front of the production line so they can get packaged as fast as possible. While this is a good sign that the demand is there, running hot lots increases production costs overall as some other wafers have to go back so Meteor Lake can pass.

The yield issues associated with Meteor Lake could be stemming from the only tile made by Intel in the MTL package: the compute tile made on the Intel 4 process. Intel 4 process is specific to Meteor Lake. No other Intel product uses it, not even the Xeon 6, which uses Intel 3, or any of the upcoming CPUs like Arrow Lake, which uses the Intel 20A node. So, Intel is doing multiple nodes for multiple generations of processors, further driving up costs as typical high-volume production with a single node for multiple processors yields lower costs. Additionally, the company is left with lots of "wafers to burn" with Intel 4 node, so even with Meteor Lake having yield issues, the production is ultimately fine, while the operating costs and margins take a hit.

Intel Corporation today reported second-quarter 2024 financial results. "Our Q2 financial performance was disappointing, even as we hit key product and process technology milestones. Second-half trends are more challenging than we previously expected, and we are leveraging our new operating model to take decisive actions that will improve operating and capital efficiencies while accelerating our IDM 2.0 transformation," said Pat Gelsinger, Intel CEO. "These actions, combined with the launch of Intel 18A next year to regain process technology leadership, will strengthen our position in the market, improve our profitability and create shareholder value."

"Second-quarter results were impacted by gross margin headwinds from the accelerated ramp of our AI PC product, higher than typical charges related to non-core businesses and the impact from unused capacity," said David Zinsner, Intel CFO. "By implementing our spending reductions, we are taking proactive steps to improve our profits and strengthen our balance sheet. We expect these actions to meaningfully improve liquidity and reduce our debt balance while enabling us to make the right investments to drive long-term value for shareholders."

Law firm, Abington Cole + Ellery, is investigating a potential class action lawsuit against Intel due to instability issues in their 13th and 14th Gen CPUs. Intel has acknowledged the problem, stating that elevated operating voltage caused by a microcode algorithm is resulting in instability. While Intel promises a patch, it won't prevent damage already done to affected chips.

Intel has offered to replace damaged CPUs, which could potentially undermine the basis for a lawsuit if the company is honoring this commitment effectively. However, user experiences with Intel's RMA service vary widely, with some reporting smooth replacements and others facing delays or complications. Intel claims to support all affected customers, including those with tray processors, but advises contacting system vendors for pre-built systems.

Official Ryzen 9000-series pricing has leaked just ahead of the launch, courtesy of Newegg and BestBuy in the US. Serial leaker @momomo_us over at X/Twitter managed to snap screenshots of the pricing before it was removed by the retailers. This might've been because of a mixup, since the Ryzen 9000-series was supposed to launch today, before being pushed back to the 8th and 14th of August respectively, depending on the SKU. Admittedly the pricing might still change, but it's highly likely that the leaked pricing is AMD's MSRP for the four new CPUs, as both of the retailers have listed identical pricing for the four SKUs.

The good news for prospective buyers of the new CPUs is that AMD has lowered the pricing across the board compared to the launch pricing for the Ryzen 7000-series, especially at the higher-end. The Ryzen 5 9600X should have an MSRP of US$279, followed by US$359 for the Ryzen 7 9700X. That's US$20 and US$40 lower than their Ryzen 7000-series counterparts respectively. The Ryzen 9 9900X should retail for US$449, followed by US$599 for the Ryzen 9 9950, both US$100 less than their Ryzen 7000-series counterparts. This could in part be due to the expected X3D parts coming at a later point in time and AMD now knowing it has to offer the non X3D SKUs for a more competitive price point.

Newegg Commerce, Inc., a leading global e-commerce company specializing in computers and consumer electronics, today announced that its CPU Trade-In program is now live on Newegg.com. As the latest addition to the GPU Trade-In program launched last year, Newegg's CPU Trade-In program enables customers to trade their used CPUs in exchange for credit toward an entirely new CPU from Newegg.

About the CPU Trade-In Program
A CPU, often referred to as the brain of a computer, enables PCs to process data and operations. When new units become available, users frequently opt to upgrade their system's CPU with newer, faster models capable of accommodating increasingly sophisticated software and programs. Newegg's trade-in program allows customers to trade in their existing aged CPUs for credit toward a new CPU.

Cixin Technology, a Chinese tech firm, has introduced the Cixin P1 (CP8180), the region's first AI-centric consumer processor. This new chip aims to disrupt domestic markets by capitalizing on the growing AI PC trend, featuring up to 45 TOPS. According to IT Home, Cixin needed 15 months of research and development, 4 months for production, and 3 months of testing for their first CPU.

The Cixin P1 utilizes ARM-based architecture, similar to Qualcomm's successful Snapdragon X Elite CPUs. Built on a 6 nm process, the chip boasts a 12-core ARM CPU configuration, with eight performance cores and four efficiency cores, with a maximum frequency of 3.2 GHz.

MaxLinear, Inc., a leading provider of data storage acceleration solutions for enterprise and data center applications, today announced it will demonstrate the advanced compression, encryption, and security performance of its storage acceleration solution, Panther III, at the Future of Memory and Storage (FMS) 2024 trade show from August 6-8, 2024. The demos will show that Panther III can achieve up to 40 times more throughput, up to 190 times better latency, and up to 1000 times less CPU utilization than a software-only solution, leading to significant cost savings in terms of flash drives and needed CPU cores.

MaxLinear's Panther III creates a bold new product category for maximizing the performance of data storage systems - a comprehensive, all-in-one "storage accelerator." Unlike encryption and/or compression solutions, MaxLinear's Panther III consolidates a comprehensive suite of storage acceleration functions, including compression, deduplication, encryption, data protection, and real-time validation, in a single hardware-based solution. Panther III is engineered to offload and expedite specific data processing tasks, thus providing a significant performance boost, storage cost savings, and energy savings compared to traditional software-only, FPGA, and other competitive solutions.

Marvell Technology, Inc., a leader in data infrastructure semiconductor solutions, today launched the Marvell Structera product line of Compute Express Link (CXL) devices that enable cloud data center operators to overcome memory performance and scaling challenges in general-purpose servers.

To address memory-intensive applications, data center operators add extra servers to get higher memory bandwidth and higher memory capacity. The compute capabilities from the added processors are typically not utilized for these applications, making the servers inefficient from cost and power perspectives. The CXL industry standard addresses this challenge by enabling new architectures that can efficiently add memory to general-purpose servers.

With the PhaseSheet PTM, Thermal Grizzly Holding GmbH presents an electrically non-conductive thermal pad based on a phase change material (PCM). With PhaseSheet PTM, Thermal Grizzly closes the gap between traditional thermal paste and thermal pads based on graphene or carbon thermal pads. This means that the respective advantages in terms of application and thermal conductivity can be combined in one product.

PhaseSheet PTM is a thermal pad that has been optimized for applications where maintenance cycles are subject to long intervals. It is more durable than traditional thermal conductive pastes, but not as durable as KryoSheet, for example, which is virtually maintenance-free. The maximum thermal conductivity of PhaseSheet PTM develops and stabilizes after around ten thermal cycles above 60 degrees Celsius.

It's official, Intel will not issue a recall for its failing 13th and 14th gen CPUs, despite the problem being much bigger than initially thought. The company was approached by The Verge and the answers to the questions asked, are not looking great. First of all, it appears that at least all 65 W or higher base power Intel 13th and 14th gen CPUs are affected—regardless of SKU and lettering—by the so-called elevated Voltage issue. To be clear, it doesn't mean all these CPUs will start to fail and Intel claims that its microcode update will solve the issue for CPUs that haven't shown any signs of stability issues. However, Intel is not promising that the microcode update will solve the stability issues of CPUs that are experiencing problems, but rather state that "It is possible the patch will provide some instability improvements", but it's asking those with stability issues to contact customer support. The patch is on the other hand expected to solve it for new CPUs, but that doesn't help those that are already experiencing stability issues.

Intel does appear to be swapping out degraded chips, but there's no guarantee that the replacement CPUs will come with the microcode update installed, as Intel is only starting to apply it to products that are currently being produced. The company has also asked all of its OEM partners to apply the update before shipping out new products, but this isn't likely to happen until sometime in early to mid-August according to Intel. It's also unclear when BIOS/UEFI updates will be available for end users from the motherboard manufacturers, since this is the only way to install the microcode update as a consumer. Intel has not gone on record to say if it'll extend the warranty of the affected products, nor did the company provide any details about what kind of information consumers have to provide to their customer support to be able to RMA a faulty CPU. Intel will not halt sales of the affected CPUs either, which means that if you're planning to or are in the middle of building a system using said CPUs, you might want to wait with using it, until a BIOS/UEFI with the microcode update in it, is available for your motherboard. There are more details over at The Verge for those that want to read the full questions and answers, but it's clear that Intel isn't considering the issue as anything more than a regular support issue at this point in time.

Despite the postponement of the Ryzen 9000 launch announced by AMD on Wednesday, early engineering samples used by motherboard makers reached some users (mainly overclockers). As it is the case with a pre-launch sample of AMD's flagship Ryzen 9 9950X. This CPU is equipped with 16 cores, 32 threads, a base clock frequency of 4.3 GHz with a 5.7 GHz max boost, 80 MB cache (64 MB L3 + 16 MB L2), and a TDP of 170 W.

A user overclocked the 9950X sample to 5.953 GHz using an ASUS ROG Crosshair X670E motherboard equipped with 32 GB DDR5-6000 memory. (Note: There's no information on whether air or water cooling was used.) The user then posted new results in Geekbench 5 and Geekbench 6, which demonstrate impressive performance gains for the 9950X. It's worth noting that AMD also overclocked the processor to 6.6 and even 6.7 GHz, however, they used liquid nitrogen.