At Computex 2017, ASUS showcased the first Ryzen-powered laptop, which the company had already teased a while back. The STRIX brings to an end a period of lacking competition in the laptop space; before this, if you wanted a high-performance gaming (or even professional-grade) laptop, you went with one with an Intel processor inside, or not at all. AMD is back in the fold, and Ryzen was the one who rose to the challenge.

The ROG STRIX GL702ZC packs a Ryzen 7 1700 8-core, 16-thread CPU; the absence of an X there isn't a typo, considering AMD themselves say the company's XFR (eXtended Frequency Range) is meant to accelerate CPU speeds under the right thermal conditions (and headroom), which a laptop almost surely wouldn't have.) This is a full desktop CPU (and I stress, an 8-core, 16-thread one) running inside a laptop. And this laptop dresses itself fully in red, with the graphics workhorse being an RX 580. The RX 580 is a great 1080p card, so it will feel right at home on the ROG STRIX GL702ZC's 17.3", 1080p IPS panel with FreeSync support. Let's just hope this is the first in a wave of AMD-powered laptops. We'll be here to see what happens with Ryzen-based APUs closer to the end of the year.

SiSoft Sandra is one of the best (and more common) sources for details on upcoming, as-of-yet-unreleased hardware details and characteristics. Now, details on one of Intel's upcoming Skylake-X parts have surfaced, which gives us some details on what are likely final specifications, considering how close we are to X299's accelerated release.

The processor in the spotlight is one of Intel's 10-core processors, the Core i9 7900X (which is erroneously reported by the software as the Core i7 7900X), Intel's 10-core CPU. While initial reports pegged this CPU at as running at clock speeds of 3.30 GHz base and with 4.30 GHz Turbo Boost, it would seem Intel's release silicon will leverage much higher stock speeds, with the reported values on this SiSoft report being a staggering 4.0 GHz base, and 4.5 GHz Turbo Boost. These are extremely high clock speeds for a ten-core part, but all the other details about the Core i9 7900X check out: there are 14,080 KB (13.75 MB) of shared L3 cache, 1 MB L2 cache per core (for a total of 10 MB), as well as a 175 W TDP. This difference in clock speeds (especially when you compare it to Ryzen's much lower clock speeds) are probably an indicator of not only architectural differences between both designs, but a statement on Intel's fabrication process capabilities. And as an added bonus, check the motherboard that was used: a juicy, as-of-yet-unknown, X299 Gigabyte AORUS Gaming 7. Two details of this magnitude in a single screenshot? It's clearly a case of having your cake and eating it too.

PC cooling and peripherals innovator CRYORIG announces their collaboration project with NZXT, the software controlled RGB LED H7 Quad Lumi will be releasing this June. The H7 Quad Lumi is based on CRYORIG's award winning H7, the H7 Quad Lumi features a total of four 6 mm high-end copper heatpipes, NZXT CAM Powered Lumi Lighting System as well as a new QF120 1.600 RPM LED fan. Co-developed with NZXT, CRYORIG has managed to add a built-in RGB LED controller directly into the H7 Quad Lumi. Running on NZXT's CAM, the H7 Quad Lumi can independently control the logo and base lighting of the heatsink through CAM software and smartphone app.

AMD's Jim Anderson has just confirmed reports about AMD's high-performance, enthusiast-level performance CPUs with up to 16 cores and 32 threads. These Threadripper CPUs will be available this summer.

It seems that Intel's accelerated released schedule for its upcoming HEDT platform is starting to slowly bear fruits, with many details leaking through the cracks almost non-stop during the last few days (and before you ask, yes, I did have more links to show you.)

These should be two of the top performing processors in Intel's line-up, and the i9 7900X (10-core) and 7920X (12-core) have been tested on integer and floating point calculations. The 10-core i9-7900X (3.1 GHz base frequency, no Turbo listed)) scores 107 points in single-core benchmarks, and 1467 points in the multi-core test. The 12-core, 2.9 GHz base frequency 7920X, however, scores a head-scratchingly-higher 130 points in the same single-threaded benchmark, despite carrying the same architecture at... hmm... lower clocks. Maybe this processor's Turbo is working as expected, up to 3.25 GHz (average), and that's the factor for the higher single-core performance?

Today is an eventful day in the tech world, with two high-impact leaks already offering themselves up to our scrutiny. We had previously covered AMD's upcoming HEDT platform, based on the company's new X399 chipset, as having a quite distinctive lineup of processors, with not only 16 and 12-core offerings hot on foundries presses', but also some 14-core, 28-thread chips as well. Now, a leak has apparently revealed the entire Ryzen HEDT platform, whose processor marketing name, Ryzen 9, sounds really close to Intel's Core i9.

AMD's offerings look to offer an edge at least on core-count, with the Red team's top offerings, the Ryzen 9 1998X and Ryzen 9 1998, bringing in a game-changer 16 cores and 32 threads to the table. Perhaps even more importantly, we have to mention that the 1998X (these names, if true, are quite a mouthful, though) achieves a 3.5 GHz base, 3.9 GHz boost clock, which owes nothing to AMD's Ryzen 7 1800X consumer flagship CPUs. Rumors of AMD's frequency demise on higher core-count Ryzen CPUs have been greatly exaggerated, it would seem. And did I mention that these chips are coming with a TDP of 155 W - 5 W lower than Intel's purported 12-core, i9-7920X offering? Consider that for a moment.

Intel's upcoming Coffee Lake architecture, which is now all but confirmed to have been pulled forward by the company in an attempt to staunch the bleeding incurred from AMD's recently launched, table-turning Ryzen processors, has reared its head in SiSoftware. In some benchmarks, what is identified as a 6-core, 6-thread CPU from Intel surface, with a clockspeed @ 3.5 GHz, 1.5 MB L2 cache (256 Kb per core) and 9 MB L3 cache. This L3 cache is quite puzzling, considering how Intel's Kaby Lake architecture features 2 MB of L3 cache per core. If Coffee Lake were to keep most of Kaby Lake's design - which it will - then this chip should feature something along the lines of 12 MB L3 cache. The reduced amount of cache seems to scream at a disabled chip, but this could also be a case of a reporting error.

According to DigiTimes, sources among Taiwan-based PC vendors have indicated that Intel's upcoming Basin Falls platform, which includes Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X processors on a new X299 chipset, will be unveiled at Computex 2017 (May 30th, June 3rd), in Taipei - two months earlier than expected. This move comes accompanied by an accelerated launch of the Coffee Lake microarchitecture, which still uses the 14 nm process, to August 2017 from an initial January 2018 launch. If true, this is big in a number of ways - that Intel would bring forward a product launch 4 months has some interesting implications - or at least, confirmations.

Remember that Coffee Lake is supposed to carry an increased number of cores in its mainstream designs. And we all know how Intel's line-up has almost been torn apart by Ryzen's aggressive core and thread-count, with AMD offering more cores and threads than Intel at virtually all price-points. And even if an argument is made regarding Intel's better gaming performance, that's one scenario out of many. Future proofing, professional work, multimedia, all of these assert AMD's dominance in a pure price-performance ratio. I, for one, would gladly give up some FPS in some games and accept an increased number of cores than go the other way around (especially with AMD's platform support and the number of patches that have increased game performance on Ryzen CPUs.)

In an interesting report that would give some credence to reports of AMD's take on the HEDT market, it would seem that some Ryzen chips with 12 Cores and 24 Threads are making the rounds. Having an entire platform built for a single processor would have always beenludicrous; now, AMD seems to be readying a true competitor to Intel's X99 and its supposed successor, X299 (though AMD does have an advantage in naming, if its upcoming X399 platform really does ship with that naming scheme.)

Some rumors and whispers have been making the rounds lately, regarding a HEDT platform incoming from AMD. This platform (built upon a new X399 chipset planned exclusively for it) would use a cut-down version of the Naples-based server SP3 socket called SP3r2. SP3r2 and the new chip will reportedly offer quad channel memory support, pitting them directly in competition with Intel's HEDT lineup in terms of memory bandwidth.

Reportedly, engineering samples of the 180W 16-core Ryzen currently run at 3.1 GHz Base, 3.6 GHz Boost clocks, which leads towards performance in the level of two Ryzen 7 1700 chips. If the rumors are true and such a platform is in development, then we will surely hear of some more chips designed for it. Going through the trouble of creating a new chipset and platform for a single CPU model doesn't seem likely. Perhaps some 12-core and 20-core chips are lurking just below the surface?

Alphacool is putting its hands on more exquisite - for the CPU cooling market - forms of cooling. The company has now launched their first foray into the compressor-based cooling market, with the Eiszeit 1500 W. As the name suggests, the Eiszeit delivers up to 1500 W cooling capability, much higher than most ordinary cooling solutions can handle. That is a mammoth cooling capacity, equaled by the Eiszeit's weight, which comes in at 29 Kg. But neither of these figures holds a candle to the Eiszeit's price - 960€, or around $1000.

The Eiszeit makes do with a pump of greater endurance and capacity than the usual D5 or DDC pumps, delivering a maximum flow-rate of 600 liters per hour from its 9-liter reservoir. The Eiszeit was designed to integrate well with Alphacool's existing cooling solutions. The Eiszeit uses standard G1/4" threads, also making it compatible with most liquid cooling setups in the market. The outgoing water temperature can be adjusted in 0.3 degrees Kelvin increments through the front display. There is also a built-in alarm, as well as a normal function indicator. The Eiszeit also features a convenient alarm for when temperatures fluctuate outside the normal parameters or when flow rate drops below a set minimum threshold.Source: AlphacoolThanks @Hood

AMD is now saying reports of poor thermal performance from the flagship Ryzen products can be attributed to a simple thing: Temperature Offsets. Apparently, to keep a "consistent fan policy," AMD has placed a 20C offset on the Ryzen 1700X and 1800X products, making them report temperature a good 20C above what the sensor reads. This interesting design choice may most assuredly be confusing to end users, but AMD is confident software will soon automatically adjust for this offset and report the true temperature when required.

In the same blog post detailing the changes on the 1700X and 1800X, AMD claims that temperature reporting "may be offset on certain CPU models so that all models on the AM4 Platform have the same maximum tCTL value." This could mean other future models would utilize a similar setup, so remember that moving forward with AMD's Zen-based lineup.

In a blog post that is sure to stun many users expecting a "thread scheduler patch" in modern Windows versions for AMD Zen-based CPUs, AMD has apparently investigated the reports of thread scheduling issues and found that "the Windows 10 thread scheduler is operating properly for "Zen," and we do not presently believe there is an issue with the scheduler adversely utilizing the logical and physical configurations of the architecture."

So, if you were expecting a Windows 10 or maybe even 7 patch to address some performance concerns, don't hold your breath. The company notes that they tested both Windows 10 and Windows 7 and they "do not believe there is an issue with scheduling differences between the two versions of Windows." In other words, 7 is already ok as far as scheduling, no patch required.

Power users sometimes really go the extra mile towards achieving the best performance on their hardware. And sometimes, this process includes delidding, as in, removing the processor's Integrated Heatspreader (IHS). This would allow for users to sometimes replace less than perfect TIM (Thermal Interface Material) companies use, achieving lower operating temperatures, and possibly even higher overclocks.

Well, you really shouldn't try to do so with AMD's Ryzen 7. The reason: attempting to delid said processors cost overclocking genius der8auer a grand total of 3 (three!) Ryzen 7 samples before he managed to do it without damaging the processor. This happens because contrary to other CPUs, AMD's Ryzen 7 IHS comes soldered to the chip, which obviously increases difficulty and risk of such a delidding process. Apparently, AMD did a pretty good job with the thermal interfaces of Ryzen 7 anyway - der8auer achieved only a 2ºC decrease in operating temperatures on the delidded Ryzen sample. Long story short: maybe it's not worth it. Especially if your cooling solution of choice isn't able to achieve proper contact with the CPU after the process. You can see a video of the direct cooling test, after the break.

ENERMAX announces a new compact CPU cooler ETS-N31 for mainstream processors. With TDP capacity up to 130W, ETS-N31 is a budget friendly CPU cooler with effective cooling performance for entry-level and mid-range systems, such as budget workstations or gaming PC with a dedicated video card.

Compatible with mainstream sockets, including the latest AMD AM4
ETS-N31 comes with flexible mountings for Intel LGA 775/1366/1150/1151/1155/1156, and AMD AM4/AM3/AM3+/AM2/AM2+/FM1/FM2/FM2+. Furthermore, ETS-N31 also includes 1-clip fan bracket to help facilitate the installation.

Proven cooling techniques included & perfect RAM compatibility
ETS-N31 harnesses proven cooling techniques, VGF (Vortex Generator Flow, patented), VEF (Vacuum Effect) and HDT (Heat-pipe Direct Touch) to enhance cooling performance. Besides, this compact side flow cooler featuring asymmetric heat pipe design offers best possible RAM compatibility.

Only AMD's top-of-the-line X370 chipset will support competing NVIDIA's SLI technology. AMD's next-in-line B350 eschews SLI support but retains CrossFire compatibility, while the low-end A320 chipset will offer no support for any such multi-GPU technologies. While this may seem a move by AMD to purposely gimp NVIDIA products on its platforms, it stands to reason that even enthusiasts tend to stay away from multi-GPU solutions and their associated problems. Besides, AMD will surely avoid any way of giving NVIDIA more funds than the company already has, by way of paying the "SLI Tax" on every chipset it ships. By limiting SLI support to its highest-end chipsets, AMD shaves some expenses from licensing efforts, whilst keeping SLI support to those that are, in truth, more likely to use them: power users, who will certainly spare no expense in springing to a X370-based platform.

As of now, some details remain unclear in the overall feature-set and compatibility differences between AMD's upcoming AM4 chipsets, but it would seem that only AMD's X370 chipset manages to leverage the full 20 PCIe lanes (18x if you run 2x SATA connections) delivered by AMD's Ryzen CPUs. This would look like a way for AMD to impose a "motherboard tax" on users, by limiting the number of PCIe lanes available on lower-end motherboards, and thus urging them to take the next step to their own X370. Apparently, PCIe lanes are not a differentiating factor between AMD chipsets (with X370, B350 and A320 all offering 4 native lanes), only their ability to access (or not) Ryzen's own 20.

Not much time until all of this is adequately cleared up, though.

AMD's Ryzen CPU has been a hot topic as of late, and certainly looks set to shake up the CPU world as we know it; however, it wasn't that long ago that we weren't calling it "Ryzen" at all, but merely referring to it by its codename, "Zen." What happened to that?

The "Zen" name was quite popular, and AMD claims to have made the name choice to emphasize the balance it struck between various design principles. It resonated with many enthusiasts to be sure. It was a far cry more popular than the line of "construction equipment" themed code-names that preceded it (though whether that had to do with actual performance of those products or their naming scheme itself is certainly up for debate).

Regardless, there is no denying the "Zen" name was well entrenched and already had its own level of pride built up around itself, so why dump it?

Intel's Atom CPU line may bring back ugly memories of the netbook era and slow, underpowered devices that were often jokingly compared to the compute power of a common potato, but this latest line of Atom CPUs appears to have evolved into something much different.

At the high end of the C3000 line, Intel is talking in terms of 16-core CPUs, and not 16-core weaklings either. The announcement includes some features borrowed from the coveted Xeon line, such as hardware virtualization, and RAS (reliability, availability, and serviceability) which is a tech designed for enterprise data needs.

Another day, another leak: the folks at XFastest have indeed been the fastest to leak images of an actual Ryzen 7 1700X processor, with pictures of the processor's IHS and pin area running rampant throughout the Internet (the Ryzen chip is located to the right in both pictures, with a sample of AMD's previous-generation FX CPUs on the left side for comparison sake).

While revealing shots may have their appeal, it's the benchmarking portion that most of us are expectant about. Until actual reviews are out, we're left nothing more than these leaks (which should be taken with appropriate amounts of salt). In this case, benchmarks of AMD's upcoming Ryzen 7 1700X have been released, showing just how the upcoming CPU delivers in 3D Mark Fire Strike, CPU Mark and Cinebench R15.

At the International Solid-State Circuits Conference held earlier this month, some solid information has come to surface on a subject near and dear to many enthusiast hearts right now: AMD's upcoming Ryzen CPU line.

As far as credibility, the information comes in fairly convincing form. AMD's claims are backed with die shots of actual AMD Ryzen cores and further supported by more shots of their CCX (core complex) modules. From these shots, we can guess at several things, and further more see evidence for several of their claims.

Alphacool presents the Eiswand ("Ice Wall"), a water cooling set for your CPU that can also be expanded on through its two quick-release connectors. For example, you could add one of the prefilled graphics card coolers in the Eiswolf GPX-Pro series, which would even add an extra pump to your system. You can find a fitting graphics card cooler using the configurator at www.hwconfig.com.

The Eiswand itself has two DC-LT low noise pumps built into its illuminated bottom. Even in the unlikely case that one of the two pumps fails, the cooling loop will continue to operate with only a marginal decrease in cooling performance. This means the Eiswand offers you enormous system stability.

The core component of the Eiswand is the 360mm full-copper radiator, which is equipped with six Eiswind fans. The fans' Push&Pull configuration gives you optimal cooling power. You can also use a Silent Adapter to severely restrict the pumps and fans, lowering the volume even more. Cooling power is only slightly reduced with the adapter.

Benchmarks have leaked on AMD's upcoming Ryzen CPUs, and if accurate, these are the ones that will change the name of the game from "Hype Train" to "Reality Check". Part of a verified Passmark entry, the test system consisted of an AMD Ryzen 8-core, 16-thread ES clocked at 3.4 GHz (which puts it closely on the Ryzen 7 1700X territory, though it isn't known whether Turbo to its rated 3.8 GHz was active or not), seated on an entry-level MSI A320 AM4 motherboard (absent of overclocking functionality) and 16GB of 2400MHz DDR4 memory.

The tests include integer math, floating point performance, prime numbers, encryption, compression, sorting, SSE performance and physics. The AMD Ryzen 7 1700X outperformed every other CPU in 5 out of the 8 tests, including Intel's fastest 8-core chip, the $1099 Broadwell-E i7 6900K. When put side by side against Intel's slightly less expensive $999 8 core extreme edition Haswell-E i7 5960X, Ryzen was faster in 6 out of the 8 tests. The 1700X showed particularly good performance in integer math and encryption, workloads typically associated with server workloads (and where the bulk of the profit is).

A Reddit user brought to the playing field the news that AMD's upcoming ZEN CPU's have surfaced in a "pre-order" form through AMD Shangai's official Taobao channel (though you should nevertheless take these with a measure of salt). Details on which CPU we are actually looking at here are still scarce, unfortunately, but the chip is listed at ¥1999.00 (roughly $295). While the chip's process is listed at the expected 14 nm, the base CPU frequency reads 4.2 GHz.

Looking at the supposed AMD Ryzen launch line-up, though, no model is listed at these clockspeeds. However, we should recall that AMD's Ryzen chip used on CES 2017 (an engineering sample) carried clockspeeds of 3.6 GHz base and 3.9 GHz boost, so it is certainly conceivable that newer, release steppings have bumped the frequencies to 3.9 GHz/4.2 GHz respectively (4.2 GHz base clock seems a little too much from what we've seen from the chip, but then again, we don't have any indication as to whether this is an 8-core, 16-thread or a 4-core, 8-thread part, so that should also be taken into account on our "theorycrafting"). We should now have a more firm launch window for Ryzen chips though: previous rumors have pegged the launch at March 2nd, but a February 28th launch window should now be considered to be correct. Can we just have these on our hands already?

Ashes of the Singularity seems to be the benchmark tool of choice for upcoming AMD products, for some reason; and it was once again used to benchmark an upcoming AMD Ryzen processor. The benchmark results were quickly deleted after they were posted, but the hardware enthusiast should never be underestimated, and timely screenshot skills always help keep alive these little slips of the trade.

Unlike some previous benchmark leaks of Ryzen processors, which carried the prefix ES (Engineering Sample), this one carried the ZD Prefix, and the last characters on its string name are the most interesting to us: F4 stands for the silicon revision, while the 40_36 stands for the processor's Turbo and stock speeds respectively (4.0 GHz and 3.6 GHz). This is the 8-core, 16-thread SMT-enabled monster of a processor that AMD will be bringing to the table in its uphill battle against Intel, with the Ryzen chip having achieved CPU Framerate scores of 81.4 (normal batch, 73.4 (medium batch) and 60.2 (heavy batch), paired with a Pascal-based NVIDIA Titan X (which would likely point towards the test having been done by an independent, off-AMD labs part).

The EVGA Closed Loop CPU Cooler (CLC) 120 and 280 have arrived. These new liquid coolers from EVGA give you incredible performance, low noise, robust software controls and RGB lighting.

Built to perform
The new cooling block offers improved flowrate and heat transfer surface area for incredible cooling efficiency.

Sync with your EVGA GeForce GTX Graphics Card
Link up your EVGA CLC cooler with select EVGA graphics cards, and match the colors directly from software. One button to control both RGB LED's! Color profiles even save to firmware.