Although it has been rumoured for a little while now that AMD might be launching Ryzen 5000XT CPUs, that rumour just got some added fuel to the fire courtesy of @CodeCommando_ on X/Twitter. The leaker provided a somewhat pixelated screenshot of two new AM4 CPUs, namely the Ryzen 9 5900XT and the Ryzen 7 5800XT. This is one less CPU compared to the Ryzen 3000XT series that AMD launched in 2020 and it looks like the benefits on offer are similar as well. Both chips are 105 Watt parts and have a maximum boost speed of 4.8 GHz, but this is where the similarities end. The Ryzen 9 5900XT has a rather odd SKU name, as it has the same max boost clock as the Ryzen 9 5900X, but the same core and cache count as the Ryzen 5950X.

The Ryzen 7 5800XT on the other hand is a pretty straightforward 100 MHz higher clock speed SKU over the Ryzen 7 5800X, which makes one wonder why AMD even bothered. According to VideoCardz, we're looking at a US$359 MSRP for the Ryzen 9 5900XT, with the Ryzen 7 5800XT coming in at US$249, making both a potentially interesting enough upgrade option for someone that is still using an older AM4 CPU. The pricing and CPU details are said to have been revealed at a pre-Computex media briefing, so it's highly likely that the information is correct. Both chips are said to hit retail in July.

A few months ago, AMD has launched its highly anticipated Ryzen 7000 series of processors based on Zen 4 architecture. However, the company only launched the "X" SKUs (example being 7900X) for now, while the remaining ones are awaiting a launch date. Today, we have information from VideoCardz that confirm AMD's new launch on January 10th, when team red plans to update its remaining processor family with Ryzen 7000 series non-X SKUs. There will be three initial models to choose from Ryzen 9 7900 (12C/24T), Ryzen 7 7700 (8C/16T), and Ryzen 5 7600 (6C/12T). These SKUs follow the traditional Zen 4 path; however, the only distinction from their "X" counterparts is the reduced TDP to 65 Watts, down from up to 170 Watt TDP in some of those models.

A leaked slide from AMD's product presentation regarding these SKUs is a comparison between AMD's own Ryzen 9 5900X and Ryzen 9 7900, where the Zen 4 variant successfully beat the older SKU by a significant percentage. Pricing and further details are listed on the slides below.

PC Canada has drawn first blood in registering pricing for AMD's upcoming Ryzen 7000 series, the successor to the successful 5000 series. As spotted by renowned leaker momomo_us and shared on Twitter, the specialist retailer based in Canada listed pricing for the Ryzen 7 7600X, 7700X, 7900X and 7950X CPUs. The pricing, if representative, shows an average increase that averages to 10%-12% across SKUs when compared to the previous generation Ryzen. The prices could be placeholders based on the retailers' own expectations, so this information should be taken with a grain of salt (or two).

After conversion from CAD to US dollars, pricing settles at $340 for the Ryzen 7 7600X ($299 for the 5600X at launch, for a 13% premium); $494 for the Ryzen 7 7700X (against the later-released, $299 Ryzen 7 5700X for a 65% premium); $625 for the Ryzen 9 7900X ($549 for the launch Ryzen 9 5900X, for a 13% increase) and finally, the Ryzen 9 7950X for $906 (against the Ryzen 9 5950X's $799 asking price, for another 13% premium).

Akasa, a leading provider of active cooling solutions, has released their latest AIO watercoolers under the SOHO range. These coolers come with addressable RGB lighting and premium SOHO AR fans to light up your PC and accentuate its best features. The cooler is compatible with the latest LGA 1700 processors from Intel (e.g. Intel Core i9 12900K) and AMD's AM4 processors (e.g. AMD Ryzen 9 5900X).

Create your unique aesthetic using the Dusk Black or Dawn White editions of Akasa's SOHO 240 AIO watercooler. The sleek, clean design provides a great base for a stealthy build, or use the high-performance SOHO AR12 fans (included) to add splashes of colour and highlights. With over 16 million combinations of colours, the aRGB can bring your build to life; the lights are compatible with all major RGB software such as Gigabyte RGB Fusion, MSI Mystic Light, ASUS AURA, ASRock Polychrome and Razer Chroma RGB. A convenient controller is included in the package, which can be used to sync the lighting effects together.

Minisforum have recently published a press release teasing an upcoming mini PC based on the AMD B550 platform and configurable with up to a Ryzen 9 5900X in addition to lower-tier processors such as the 5600X, 5700G, and 5600G. The PC will also feature a dedicated graphics card however the specific model was not named by the company with the only provided details being a power budget for the entire device between 120 W to 1000 W and dimensions of 16.65 cm x 15.8 cm x 6.7 cm. The company has also published images of the device showing the rear connectivity which includes 2.5 GbE Ethernet, x4 USB 3.0 Type-A, x2 USB Type-C, x2 HDMI, x1 DisplayPort, and separate headphone/microphone jacks. The device will ship with a 120 W gallium nitride charger and use liquid metal for cooling. The complete press release can be found below.

It's not every day that a software company that specializes in benchmarking software decides to compile the performance data of unreleased products found in their online database, but this is what SiSoftware just did for the Intel Core i9-12900K. So far, it's a limited set of tests that have been run on the CPU and what we're looking at here is a set of task specific benchmarks. SiSoftware doesn't provide any system details, so take these numbers for what they are.

The benchmarks consist of three categories, Vector SIMD Native, Cryptographic Native and Financial Analysis Native. Not all tests have been run on the Core i9-12900K and SiSoftware themselves admit that they don't have enough data points to draw any final conclusions. Unlike other supposedly leaked benchmark figures, the Core i9-12900K doesn't look like a clear winner here, as it barely beats the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X in some tests, while it's beaten by it and even the Core i9-11900K in other tests. It should be noted that the Core i9-11900K does use AVX512 where supported which gives it a performance advantage to the other CPUs in some tests. We'll let you make up your own mind here, but one thing is certain, we're going to have to wait for proper reviews before the race is over and a winner is crowned.

Update: As the original article was taken down and there were some useful references in it, you can find a screen grab of it here.

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

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

AMD has today updated its Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition version 21.5.1 drivers, bringing many features on board as well as fixing a lot of issues that have appeared in the past. Starting with support for the Resident Evil Village PC game, AMD promises to deliver up to 13% better frame rate at 4K maximum settings, while using the Radeon RX 6800 XT graphics card. The comparison was conducted with a reference to the previous driver, 21.4.1, which didn't allow the card to reach as high FPS as it is now possible with the proper support for the game. Another game that is added to the support list is Metro Exodus PC Enhanced Edition. Some fixes have been implemented, as the incorrect performance metrics that may have incorrectly reported temperatures on Ryzen 5 1600 series processors. For a detailed list of bug fixes, please take a look at the list below.DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition 21.5.1

Intel is planning to debut its 11th Generation Core "Rocket Lake-S" desktop processor family with a fairly large selection of SKUs, according to leaked company slides shared by VideoCardz, which appear to be coming from the same source as an earlier report from today that talk about double-digit percent gaming performance gains over the previous generation. Just the Core i9 and Core i7 series add up to 10 SKUs between them. These include unlocked- and iGPU-enabled "K" SKUs, unlocked but iGPU-disabled "KF," locked but iGPU-enabled parts, and locked and iGPU-disabled "F" parts.

With "Rocket Lake-S," Intel appears to have hit a ceiling with the number of CPU cores it can cram onto a die alongside an iGPU, on the 75 mm x 75 mm LGA package, while retaining its 14 nm silicon fabrication node. Both the Core i9-11900 series and the Core i7-10700 series are 8-core/16-thread parts, with an identical amount of cache. They are differentiated on the basis of clock speeds as tabled below, and the lack of the Thermal Velocity Boost feature on the Core i7 parts. The Core i5 series "Rocket Lake-S" parts are reportedly 6-core/12-thread.

It's only tomorrow that reviewers will take the lids off AMD's latest and greatest Navi-powered graphics cards, but it's hard to keep a secret such as this... well... secret. Case in point: Videocardz has accessed some leaked slides from the presentation AMD has given to its partners, and these shed some light on what raytracing performance users can expect from AMD's RX 6800 XT, the card that's meant to bring the fight to NVIDIA's RTX 3080 graphics card. AMD's RDNA2 features support for hardware-accelerated raytracing from the get go, with every CU receiving on additional hardware piece: a Ray Accelerator. As such, the RX 6800 XT, with its 72 enabled CUs, features 72 Ray Accelerators; the RX 6800, with its 60 CUs, features 60 of these Ray Accelerators.

The RX 6800 XT was tested in five titles: Battlefield V, Call of Duty MW, Crysis Remastered, Metro Exodus and Shadow of the Tomb Raider. At 1440p resolution with Ultra Settings and DXR options enabled according to the game, AMD claims an RX 6800 XT paired with their Ryzen 9 5900X can deliver an average of 70 FPS on Battlefield V; 95 FPS on Call of Duty MW; 90 FPS in Crysis Remastered; 67 FPS in Metro Exodus; and 82 FPS in Shadow of the Tomb Raider. These results are, obviously, not comparable to our own results in previous NVIDIA RTX reviews; there's just too many variables in the system to make that a worthwhile comparison. You'll just have to wait for our own review in our normalized test bench so you can see where exactly does AMD's latest stand against NVIDIA.

Corsair updated its Vengeance A-series pre-built gaming desktop line with the mighty A7200. This tower-type desktop packs next-gen hardware. At its heart is an AMD Ryzen 9 5900X "Zen 3" 12-core processor, paired with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 "Ampere" graphics card. Besides the 4000D case, several other bits are made by Corsair, including 32 GB (2x 16 GB) of Vengeance RGB Pro DDR4-3200 memory, 1 TB Force MP600 PCIe Gen 4 NVMe SSD, an H100i RGB Pro XT AIO CLC cooling the 5900X, and a latest-revision RM750W PSU powering it all. You can also opt for a cheaper configuration that combines a Ryzen 7 5800X 8-core processor with GeForce RTX 3070 graphics. and 16 GB of dual-channel DDR4-3200 memory.

AMD sent ripples in its late-October even launching the Radeon RX 6000 series RDNA2 "Big Navi" graphics cards, when it claimed that the top RX 6000 series parts compete with the very fastest GeForce "Ampere" RTX 30-series graphics cards, marking the company's return to the high-end graphics market. In its announcement press-deck, AMD had shown the $579 RX 6800 beating the RTX 2080 Ti (essentially the RTX 3070), the $649 RX 6800 XT trading blows with the $699 RTX 3080, and the top $999 RX 6900 XT performing in the same league as the $1,499 RTX 3090. Over the weekend, the company released even more benchmarks, with the RX 6000 series GPUs and their competition from NVIDIA being tested by AMD on a platform powered by the Ryzen 9 5900X "Zen 3" 12-core processor.

AMD released its benchmark numbers as interactive bar graphs, on its website. You can select from ten real-world games, two resolutions (1440p and 4K UHD), and even game settings presets, and 3D API for certain tests. Among the games are Battlefield V, Call of Duty Modern Warfare (2019), Tom Clancy's The Division 2, Borderlands 3, DOOM Eternal, Forza Horizon 4, Gears 5, Resident Evil 3, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and Wolfenstein Youngblood. In several of these tests, the RX 6800 XT and RX 6900 XT are shown taking the fight to NVIDIA's high-end RTX 3080 and RTX 3090, while the RX 6800 is being shown significantly faster than the RTX 2080 Ti (roughly RTX 3070 scores). The Ryzen 9 5900X itself is claimed to be a faster gaming processor than Intel's Core i9-10900K, and features PCI-Express 4.0 interface for these next-gen GPUs. Find more results and the interactive graphs in the source link below.

It would seem that a number of players have received their Zen 3 samples, considering the amount of performance leaks that have surfaced just in the past two days. The new AMD Zen 3 processors carry a huge weight on their shoulders - demonstrating AMD's touted leadership in CPU performance in all metrics, whilst justifying their increased pricing against Zen 2 offerings. Many rivers of ink (and some tears) have flown in regards to pricing of the new AMD processors, so it all pertains to performance considerations on whether that pricing is justified or not.

Leaker extraordinaire TUM_APISAK has leaked some benchmarks on AMD's upcoming Ryzen 9 5900X and 5950X CPUs - namely, in Geekbench 5. In this round of leaks - which are, admittedly, originating from two different systems), the 12-core, 24-thread AMD Ryzen 9 5900X scores 1605 points in single-core and 12869 in the Multi-core benchmarks. The 16-core, 32-thread Ryzen 9 5950X, on the other hand, scores 1575 points in single and 13605 points in Multi-core workloads. The Ryzen 9 5900X's higher base clocks may be responsible for the higher single-core score; however, the Ryzen 9 5959X pulls ahead - expectedly - in the Multi-core portion of the benchmark. Comparing scores between the Zen 3 5950X and the Zen-based 3950X (via AnandTech), which carry the same amount of cores, the 5950X offers a 18% and 12% advantage, respectively, in the single and multi-threaded tests - not a far cry from AMD's touted 19% IPC uplift.

Here's the first picture showing AMD's Ryzen 5000 series "Zen 3" desktop processors in the flesh. The first wave of Ryzen 5000 series for the retail channel include the Ryzen 5 5600X, the Ryzen 7 5800X, the Ryzen 9 5900X and the 5950X. All four chips are shown sitting on a tray. All four chips are compatible with existing Socket AM4 motherboards based on the AMD 500 series chipset motherboard with a BIOS update; and with the 400-series using a special beta BIOS which will be released in January 2021. The four should be available for purchase in the retail channel by November 5, 2020, with the 6-core/12-thread 5600X priced at USD $300, the 8-core/16-thread 5800X at $450, the 12-core/24-thread 5900X at $550, and the flagship 16-core/32-thread 5950X at $800.

AMD in its October 8 online launch event for the Ryzen 5000 "Zen 3" processors, provided a teaser of the company's next flagship graphics card slotted in the Radeon RX 6000 series. This particular SKU has been referred to by company CEO Lisa Su as "Big Navi," meaning it could be the top part from AMD's upcoming client GPU lineup. As part of the teaser, Su held up the reference design card, and provided three performance numbers of the card as tested on a machine powered by a Ryzen 9 5900X "Zen 3" processor. We compared these performance numbers, obtained at 4K UHD, with our own testing data for the games, to see how the card compares to other current-gen cards in its class. Our testing data for one of the games is from the latest RTX 30-series reviews, find details of our test bed here. We obviously have a different CPU since the 5900X is unreleased, but use the highest presets in our testing.

With "Borderlands 3" at 4K, with "badass" performance preset and DirectX 12 renderer, AMD claims a frame-rate of 61 FPS. We tested the game with its DirectX 12 renderer in our dedicated performance review (test bed details here). AMD's claimed performance ends up 45.9 percent higher than that of the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti as tested by us, which yields 41.8 FPS on our test bed. The RTX 3080 ends up 15.24 percent faster than Big Navi, with 70.3 FPS. It's important to note here that AMD may be using a different/lighter test scene than us, since we don't use internal benchmark tools of games, and design our own test scenes. It's also important to note that we tested Borderlands 3 with DirectX 12 only in the game's launch-day review, and use the DirectX 11 renderer in our regular VGA reviews.

With AMD expected to announce its 5th Generation Ryzen "Vermeer" desktop processors next week, the rumor-mill is grinding the finest spices. This time, an alleged CPU-Z Bench score of a 12-core/24-thread Ryzen 9 5900X processor surfaced. CPU-Z by CPUID has a lightweight internal benchmark that evaluates the single-threaded and multi-threaded performance of the processor, and provides reference scores from a selection of processors for comparison. The alleged 5900X sample is shown belting out a multi-threaded (nT) score of 9481.8 points, and single-threaded (1T) score of 652.8 points.

When compared to the internal reference score by CPUID for the Ryzen 7 3700X 8-core/16-thread processor, which is shown with 511 points 1T and 5433 points nT, the alleged 5900X ends up with a staggering 27% higher 1T score, and a 74% higher nT score. While the nT score is largely attributable to the 50% higher core-count, the 1T score is interesting. We predict that besides possibly higher clock-speeds for the 5900X, the "Zen 3" microarchitecture does offer a certain amount of IPC gain over "Zen 2" to account for the 27%. AMD's IPC parity with Intel is likely to tilt in its favor with "Zen 3," until Intel can whip something up with its "Cypress Cove" CPU cores on the 14 nm "Rocket Lake-S" processor.