AMD released their Zen 2-based Ryzen 3000 processors in July this year, and they instantly became a smash hit with gamers, due to their solid performance, and good pricing. The company's flagship processor at this time is the Ryzen 9 3900X, priced at $500, featuring 12-cores/24-threads, with clocks reaching up to 4.6 GHz. Now BIOSTAR has posted an update to their motherboard CPU support list, which mentions a previously unannounced "Ryzen 9 3900", without the "X", running at 3.1 GHz base clock and having a TDP of 65 W (the 3900X has 105 W TDP).

It looks like the Ryzen 9 3900 non-X is a more power-efficient version of the 3900X with lower clocks. It's possible that it is made from chips that failed the clock-frequency certification for the 4.6 GHz boost clock of the 3900X, but that work fine otherwise. By dialing down the TDP of their chip, AMD could also build an interesting SKU for OEMs, that want to market the high core counts, but aren't willing to drive up the cost of their power and cooling setup.

AMD just released an update on their upcoming processor launches this year. First revealed at E3, just a few months ago, the Ryzen 9 3950X is the world's first processor to bring 16-cores and 32-threads to the consumer desktop space. The processor's boost clock is rated at "up to 4.7 GHz", which we might now actually see, thanks to an updated AGESA software that AMD released earlier this month. Base clock for this $749 processor is set at 3.5 GHz, and TDP is 105 W, with 72 MB cache. While AMD said "September" for Ryzen 9 3950X back at E3, it looks like the date got pushed back a little bit, to November, which really makes no difference, in the grand scheme of things.

The second big part of today's announcement is that AMD is indeed working on "Rome"-based third generation Threadripper processors (probably the industry's worst-kept secret), and that these CPUs will also be launching in November, right in time to preempt Intel from having any success with their upcoming Cascade Lake-X processors. Official information on AMD's new HEDT lineup is extremely sparse so far, but if we go by recent leaks, then we should expect new chipsets and up to 32-cores/64-threads.AMD's full statement is quoted below.

AMD will soon launch its budget CPU offerings from Ryzen 3000 series of CPUs to continue the tradition of covering all market segments. Today, Ryzen 5 3500X CPU has appeared in listing at Chinese retailer called JD which showed off CPU's pricing information and specifications. Coming in with a price tag of 1099 yuan (around $155), newly listed Ryzen 5 3500X is supposed to be a higher clocked variant of unannounced Ryzen 5 3500 CPU.

Featuring six cores and six threads, this CPU seems to have similar specs as Ryzen 5 3600 with the only difference being the disabled SMT support and slightly lower boost speeds. It has a 3.6 GHz base and 4.1 GHz boost frequency, all while having TDP of 65 Watts. Amount of L3 cache stays the same as its bigger, SMT enabled, variant which features 32 MB of GameCache. Additionally, JD also included some graphs where Ryzen 5 3500X was compared to Intel's i5-9400F CPU at various games, using NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1660 graphics card. Bellow are the benchmarks comparing the two CPU offerings:

After AMD's Ryzen 3rd generation launch many users have reported that they are not seeing the advertised boost clocks that AMD promises in their specifications. This has been an ongoing issue, with various tweaks tried, with limited success. This lead to serious allegations about "false advertising", and all AMD had to say up to this point was that these clocks are "up to".

AMD has now issued a statement regarding these lower than expected clock frequencies on Zen 2 processors, and it looks like there is indeed an underlying BIOS issue that's responsible. Let's hope that this new firmware gets released quickly and is able to restore faith in AMD's otherwise excellent track-record.

World famous overclocker Der8auer published his survey of boost clocks found on 3rd generation Ryzen CPUs. Collecting data from almost 3,000 entries from people around the world, he has found out that a majority of the 3000 series Ryzen CPUs are not hitting their advertised boost speeds. Perhaps one of the worst results from the entire survey are for the 12-core Ryzen 9 3900X, for which only 5.6% of entries reported have managed to reach the boost speeds AMD advertises. However, the situation is better for lower-end SKUs, with about half of the Ryzen 5 3600 results showing that their CPU is boosting correctly and within advertised numbers.

Der8auer carefully selected the results that went into the survey, where he discarded any numbers that used either specialized cooling like water chillers, Precision Boost Overdrive - PBO or the results which were submitted by "fanboys" who wanted to game the result. Testing was purely scientific using Cinebench R15 and clock speeds were recorded using HWinfo (which got recommendation from AMD), so he could get as precise data as possible.

AMD is preparing to surprise Intel with its 3rd generation Ryzen Threadripper processors derived from the "Rome" MCM (codenamed "Castle Peak" for the client-platform), that features up to 64 CPU cores, a monolithic 8-channel DDR4 memory interface, and 128 PCIe gen 4.0 lanes. For the HEDT platform, AMD could reconfigure the I/O controller die for two distinct sub-platforms within HEDT - one targeting gamers/enthusiasts, and another targeting the demographic that buys Xeon W processors, including the W-3175X. The gamer/enthusiast-targeted processor line could feature a monolithic 4-channel DDR4 memory interface, and 64 PCI-Express gen 4.0 lanes from the processor socket, and additional lanes from the chipset; while the workstation-targeted processor line could essentially be EPYCs, with a wider memory bus width and more platform PCIe lanes; while retaining drop-in backwards-compatibility with AMD X399 (at the cost of physically narrower memory and PCIe I/O).

To support this diverse line of processors, AMD is coming up with not one, but three new chipsets: TRX40, TRX80, and WRX80. The TRX40 could have a lighter I/O feature-set (similar to the X570), and probably 4-channel memory on the motherboards. The TRX80 and WRX80 could leverage the full I/O of the "Rome" MCM, with 8-channel memory and more than 64 PCIe lanes. We're not sure what differentiates the TRX80 and WRX80, but we believe motherboards based on the latter will resemble proper workstation boards in form-factors such as SSI, and be made by enterprise motherboard manufacturers such as TYAN. The chipsets made their way to the USB-IF for certification, and were sniffed out by momomo_us. ASUS is ready with its first motherboards based on the TRX40, the Prime TRX40-Pro, and the ROG Strix TRX40-E Gaming.

Gears 5, the next upcoming installment in the Gears of War series of video games, is launching this September 10th. In anticipation, developer The Coalition has announced the games' close partnership development with AMD, optimizing it for the company's cadre of GPU and CPU solutions. The game will make extensive use of Asynchronous Compute - one of AMD's most relevant technologies in gaining the upper hand against NVIDIA on performance terms. According to the developer, post-processing effects are being run exclusively on Asynchronous Compute, which means that the games' rendering is being run as close to a clockwork as possible. FidelityFX also makes an appearance again, as one of the latest AMD technologies for improving visual fidelity and sharpness. Multithreaded Command Buffering is the technical implementation for a system that improves AMD's Ryzen CPUs' processing of the game, specifically geared towards taking advantage of that CPU architecture's strong points.

The game seems to be a pretty scalable affair, with minimum requirements making do with just 2 GB of VRAM and an AMD RX 560 or NVIDIA GTX 1050. The ideal system requirements, however, call for a much beefier setup, with an AMD Radeon VII or NVIDIA RTX 2080 being called for, including 16 GB of system memory and a whopping 100 GB+ install footprint - preferably on an SSD. The game, like Gears of War 4, has been developed with the PC market in mind - there are more than 35 different graphical options for users to tweak. Here's hoping the games' writing is as much a technical achievement as its engine development seems to be.

It is no secret that AMD has made a huge success with its long awaited "Zen" CPUs and returned to PC market stronger than ever. Intel however has neglected AMD's presence and only recently admitted what an impact AMD made. At this year's Gamescon, Intel started a new campaign against AMD with a point that Intel's CPUs are still better performers with "real world benchmarks" backing that claim.

"A year ago when we introduced the i9 9900K," says Intel's Troy Severson, "it was dubbed the fastest gaming CPU in the world. And I can honestly say nothing's changed. It's still the fastest gaming CPU in the world. I think you've heard a lot of press from the competition recently, but when we go out and actually do the real-world testing, not the synthetic benchmarks, but doing real-world testing of how these games perform on our platform, we stack the 9900K against the Ryzen 9 3900X. They're running a 12-core part and we're running an eight-core," he adds. "I'll be very honest, very blunt, say, hey, they've done a great job closing the gap, but we still have the highest performing CPUs in the industry for gaming, and we're going to maintain that edge."

Users that don't want to play the silicon lottery game have been using services that offer pre-binned and pre-overclocked chips for a while now. Silicon Lottery is one of the most well known players in this game, but German retailer Caseking is now offering the same for AMD's latest Ryzen 3000 processors. AMD's work on automatic overclocking and boost clocks for their Ryzen chips has rendered manual overclocking almost (read: almost) obsolete, and in some cases it may even be detrimental to the CPU's performance to set a manual overclock that overrides AMD's boost clock algorithm. This is because AMD's boost increases speed on a single core, with subsequent cores being clocked slightly lower according to their capabilities. In effect, this means that manually overclocking all cores to, say, 4.0 GHz can sometimes render lower performance in particular tasks, since the all-core overclock is, by necessity, handicapped by the least-overclockable core.

Caseking's offerings have been pre-overclocked, and are guaranteed to hit stable overclocks at the claimed frequency, thus saving users from getting a "bad" overclocker CPU from AMD. Caseking's offerings have been tested by their own King Mod team and overclocking superstar Roman "der8auer" Hartung, with Prime95 26.6 software being used to test the overclocked chips' stability with a FFT length of 1344 for at least one hour. This practice is backed by a two-year limited warranty on the CPU. Sadly, most CPUs are out of stock at the moment, so keep on checking availability, unless one of the offerings is exactly up your alley.

AMD's latest AGESA update, which is being seeded to motherboard manufacturers, culls efforts to implement support for PCIe 4.0 in boards not carrying the latest X570 chipset. Some motherboard manufacturers had enabled support for the new standard on existing B450 and X470 motherboards - some with limited support, as was the case on some of ASUS' motherboards, others with full support. However, these efforts from motherboard manufacturers went against AMD's strategy with their X570 platform - all in all, these "rogue additions" reduced one additional feature of new X570 motherboards over their older counterparts.

The new AGESA code carries the part number AM4 1.0.0.3 ABB, and will likely be reflected in manufacturers' release notes for new BIOS versions that incorporate the code - and remove added PCIe 4.0 functionality. Other changes in this AGESA code release include fixes for Destiny 2 gamers' woes, which were having a hard time getting the game to run properly on Ryzen 3000 processors. If you're an avid Destiny 2 player and want PCIe 4.0 support, you'll likely be reminded of Rick and Morty's pickle episode. If not, you can always defer these AM4 1.0.0.3 ABB updates, if your system is behaving properly.

According to VideoCardz'es sources at ASUS, they have received confirmation that ASUS is working on new motherboards for AMD's unannounced chipset offerings, X590 and possibly even X599. In ASUS'es internal documentation two motherboards are appearing with X590 name, PRIME X590-PRO and ROG STRIX X590-E.

These motherboards are named similarly as the current offering from ASUS, the PRIME X570-PRO and ROG STRIX X570-E Gaming, so even though that we don't know if these models will ever hit the market, there is great possibility. Additionally, there is another chipset refresh coming, but now for the HEDT space. ASUS is working on ZENITH II EXTREME, an update to first ZENITH EXTREME motherboard (based on X399 chipset), which is expected to feature updated X599 chipset and should support new ThreadRipper 3000 series of CPUs. For now, we don't have any details of either two chipsets nor the improvements they will bring.

AMD (NASDAQ:AMD) today announced revenue for the second quarter of 2019 of $1.53 billion, operating income of $59 million, net income of $35 million and diluted earnings per share of $0.03. On a non-GAAP basis, operating income was $111 million, net income was $92 million and diluted earnings per share was $0.08.

"I am pleased with our financial performance and execution in the quarter as we ramped production of three leadership 7nm product families," said Dr. Lisa Su, AMD president and CEO. "We have reached a significant inflection point for the company as our new Ryzen, Radeon and EPYC processors form the most competitive product portfolio in our history and are well positioned to drive significant growth in the second half of the year."

The Japanese DIY PC market has developed a strong appetite for AMD Ryzen processors, with PC Watch reporting sales data aggregated by BCN across leading retailers. In the DIY space, AMD processors now hold a monstrous 68.6 percent market share. Data was collected from Amazon Japan, Bic Camera, EDION, etc., and distributors who supply to brick-and-mortar PC hardware stores. AMD's market share started its upward trend from September 2018, when it stood at 20 percent, propelled mainly by shortages of Intel processors in the DIY channel, overpricing of Intel processors, discounts on AMD 2nd generation Ryzen processors; and the recent introduction of 3rd generation Ryzen processors which are both priced reasonably and outperform Intel at every price-point.

AMD's problem area continues to be OEMs and the pre-built PC market, which makes up a bulk of processor sales for Intel. Despite the upperhand with pricing, performance, and efficiency, the company isn't able to match Intel in design-wins. Intel is able to retain its stranglehold over the OEM space with volume pricing and prioritizing the OEM channel over the DIY retail channel. In Japan, pre-built desktops and notebooks with AMD processors make up a paltry 14.7 percent of the market, although that number is still crawling upward. Perhaps AMD needs faster processor models with integrated graphics to appease OEMs?

Silicon Lottery, a company specializing in the process called binning which involves testing of CPUs for particular features (overclocking potential in this case), has released its portfolio of 3rd generation of Ryzen CPUs. As of now, they are offering only Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 9 models, covering Ryzen 7 3700X, 3800X and Ryzen 9 3900X. Ryzen 9 3950X is said to be introduced in September and that is the date Silicon Lottery will reveal the information about overclocking potential of that model and frequencies they have achieved. Mid range Ryzen 5 models should be added at later date as well.

Today an overclocking utility for AMD Ryzen CPUs called "Work Tool" has been updated with new features. The tool enables per-CCX overclocking, which is said to enable additional overclocking performance if one CCX is more capable than the other, so the whole CPU doesn't have to run at the speed of a slower CCX to be stable. The tool has been released by user shamino1978 on Overclock.net forums.

The reason for overclocking Ryzen CPUs on per CCX basis is because if you want to overclock a single core inside a CCX, the second core must run at a 1 GHz difference, meaning that if one core is OC'd to 4.5 GHz, the second core must run at 3.5 GHz. Such design is to be blamed on CPU's internal clock divider. However, you can use the Work Tool to do individual CCX overclocking and gain additional performance. Additionally, the tool has been updated to support tweaking of voltage aka VID. There are two versions of the tool, one which is smaller and has less features and one which can tweak the voltages. The smaller version is available here, while the bigger, more capable version is available here.

BIOSTAR formally (officially) enabled PCI-Express gen 4.0 support for four of its socket AM4 motherboard models based on the AMD X470 and B450 chipsets, through BIOS updates. The updated BIOS lets you use PCI-Express gen 4.0 graphics cards on the topmost PCI-Express x16 slot, and the M.2 NVMe slot that's directly wired to the AM4 SoC. The expansion slots that are wired to the chipset are still restricted to PCIe gen 2.0. You will need a 3rd generation Ryzen "Matisse" processor for PCI-Express gen 4.0. Among the motherboards that receive PCIe gen 4.0 support through BIOS updates are the AB45C-M4S (B450MH), the AB35G-M4S (B45M2), the AX47A-A4T (X470GT8), and the AX47A-I4S (X470GTN). The links lead to the BIOS image files on BIOSTAR website, which you use at your own risk.

The latest version of AGESA ComboAM4 microcode that enables 3rd generation Ryzen support on AMD 400-series chipset motherboards has been deemed buggy and pulled from motherboard vendors. AGESA ComboAM4 1.0.0.3ABA (not to be confused with 1.0.0.3AB that's being widely distributed), was originally released to fix an application crash noticed with "Destiny 2." The microcode inadvertantly destabilizes PCI-Express on motherboards, with users of ASUS motherboards complaining of stability issues with the latest BIOS updates that include 1.0.0.3ABA.

Peter "Shamino" Tan from ASUS commented that the company was under a tight schedule to push 1.0.0.3ABA out as BIOS updates, and didn't have the time to properly validate it. "We just got told to pull (was undergoing validation prior) 1003 ABA version," he said, adding the root cause of the problem being "that PCIE speed of BXB-C downgraded from gen4 to gen2,..." He comments "so its not surprising that bugs emerge since the source has hidden bugs that only gets unraveled with thorough testing. combine that with trying to get firmwares out in a tight time frame, kinda damn if you do (release firmware quickly) and damn if you dont (dont release firmware quickly) situation." It's interesting to note that in their BIOS update change-logs, quite a few motherboard vendors omit the full version string of AGESA. You may encounter ComboAM4 1.0.0.3AB being referred to simply as "AGESA ComboAM4 1.0.0.3."

Thermaltake, the leading PC DIY premium brand for Cooling, Gaming Gear and Enthusiast Memory solutions announced that their liquid and air cooling solutions are able to help gaming enthusiasts, streamers, overclockers, and content creators break their processing limits by achieving maximum heat transfer and thermal dissipation with the all-new Ryzen 3000 series processors. All coolers are 3rd Gen Ryzen series processor ready. Choose from Thermaltake's strong lineup of liquid and air coolers.

PATRIOT and Viper Gaming, a global leader in performance memory, SSDs, gaming peripherals, and flash storage solutions, announced the release of a new addition to their Viper 4 series line today. The Viper 4 DDR4 Blackout series is designed to be a PC-Build-friendly with a potential for overclocking and more extensive compatibility across various Intel and AMD platforms. The whole new matte-black heat spreader design covers a high-quality black PCB and offers a stylishly understated memory kit designed for PC enthusiasts, modders, and system builders. The Viper 4 Blackout series is available in frequencies of 3000 MHz up to 4000 MHz and is fully compatible with the latest 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen Desktop Processors and AMD X570 motherboards.

The all-black color theme matches any high-end system component from motherboards and graphics cards down to gaming cases and system coolers. The Viper Gaming team was inspired to create this highly tweakable memory kit in a sleek and stylish matte black aluminum heat spreader, and 100% compatible with current JEDEC memory standards.

Today, AMD announced the global availability of its new leadership PC gaming platform based on AMD Radeon RX 5700 series graphics cards and 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen Desktop Processors, as well as AMD Ryzen 3000 Series Processors with Radeon Graphics (APUs). Together, these offerings take gaming performance, immersive experiences, and visual fidelity to new heights.

AMD Radeon RX 5700 series graphics cards redefine what is possible in 1440p gaming. Built on the ground-breaking all-new AMD RDNA gaming architecture and 7nm process technology, the new graphics cards deliver superior visual fidelity, lightning-fast performance and advanced features to power the latest AAA and eSports titles. Starting today, AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT and RX 5700 graphics cards are available on AMD.com and from leading etailers and retailers for $399 and $349 USD SEP, respectively, and the 50th Anniversary Edition Radeon RX 5700 XT graphics card is available while supplies last for $449 USD SEP from AMD.com and JD.com.

The leading global motherboard manufacturer, ASRock, is pleased to officially announce the launch of the new AMD X570 motherboard series, previewed during Computex 2019. The series offers ten motherboard models for every role from affordable performance to gaming to content creation to power users. ASRock's X570 boards get the most from the next generation PCIe 4.0 interface and from the newest, most powerful AM4 processors, including the AMD Ryzen 2000 and 3000 Series. These new boards continue the tradition of trusted ASRock names such as Taichi and Phantom Gaming.

The new design for ASRock's X570 motherboards is a huge step forward. ASRock has combined both aesthetics and functionality to create a board that not only looks fascinating, with its bold angular lines, but performs as good as it looks. The stunning full coverage aluminum heatsink cools and protects the PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSDs as well as the chipset. The neatly designed color LED system is eye-catching but also classy. If you need even more enhanced RGB effects, you can customize your PC with Polychrome SYNC full-color RGB LED lighting, which provides both 3-pin addressable RGB headers and traditional 4-pin RGB LED headers which allow users to connect RGB strips directly to the motherboard and sync their lighting system using the app provided.

Today an article was posted on Intel's internal employee-only portal called "Circuit News". The post, titled "AMD competitive profile: Where we go toe-to-toe, why they are resurgent, which chips of ours beat theirs" goes into detail about the recent history of AMD and how the company achieved its tremendous growth in recent years. Further, Intel talks about where they see the biggest challenges with AMD's new products, and what the company's "secret sauce" is to fight against these improvements.The full article follows:

El Chapuzas Informático has posted an early review of the AMD Ryzen 5 3600 which was tested on a Gigabyte Aorus Gaming 7 WiFi motherboard, G.Skill FlareX DDR4 @ 3200 MHz and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti FE graphics card. Looking at the data presented, it becomes clear the performance on offer if real looks to be quite impressive. The site compared AMD's latest offering to the Intel Core i9-9900K and the AMD Ryzen 7 2700X with the Ryzen 5 3600 typically slotting in between the two and in some cases beating both. This is interesting to note as the Ryzen 7 2700X offers similar clock speeds to the Ryzen 5 3600 but the former has a 2C/4T advantage. Even so, the newer AMD CPU tends to outpace the Zen+ based Ryzen 7 2700X in multiple tests. In Cinebench R15, for example, the Ryzen 5 3600 had the lead in single-core performance while multi-core was held by the Ryzen 7 2700X. Cinebench R20 roughly mimics these results as well.

While memory latency was quite high 80.5 ns, it didn't seem to impact performance to any serious degree. In fact, in wPrime 2.10 32M running on a single core showed the Ryzen 5 3600 coming in just behind the Intel Core i9-9900K while being faster than the previous generation Intel Core i7-8700K, i7-8600K, and AMD Ryzen 7 2700X and 1700X. That said, the previous generation Ryzen processors were far slower here were as the Intel chips were still competitive. In the multi-core test, the Ryzen 7 2700X took a slight lead while the Ryzen 7 1700X was a bit slower than the Ryzen 5 3600. One interesting quirk of note was the lack of write speed on the memory with the Ryzen 5 3600 only hitting 25.6 GB/s which is quite a drop from the 47 GB/s seen on the Ryzen 7 1700X and Ryzen 7 2700X. However this could be due to the X470 motherboard being used or maybe an issue with sub timings on the memory, something that will need to be verified in future reviews.

GIGABYTE today officially launched its latest addition to the Aorus series of motherboards, made for the new generation of Ryzen 3000 series processors. The "Master" as it is called, is an impressive feat of engineering designed to handle even the most power-hungry Ryzen CPUs like the 16 core Ryzen 9 AMD recently showcased.

For starters, the board is featuring twice the amount of copper wires usually needed to implement a PCIe connection, which means less information loss on PCB. It has a 14 direct phases of Infineon digital IR 3556 PowIRstage MOSFETs VRMs that are capable of delivering 50A each, which means that the VRM is capable of delivering up to 700A of current, providing additional headroom for CPU overclock. To handle the large amount of VRMs effectively, the board is equipped with beefy heatsinks and a heat pipe that has direct contact with VRMs. Sandwiches between the heatsink and the board is a new generation of thermal pads designed by LAIRD, with 1.5 mm thickness and 5 W/mK thermal conductivity.

ASUS today rolled out an entry-level mini-ITX motherboard for the AMD socket AM4 platform, the Prime A320I-K. Based on the AMD A320 chipset, the board supports 1st and 2nd generation Ryzen processors out of the box, including the 8-core models. The tiny A320 chipset is tucked away behind a metal heatspreader underneath the M.2-2280 slot. The board draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX and 8-pin EPS connectors, conditioning it with a 6-phase VRM that makes do without a heatsink.

Storage connectivity on the A320I-K includes four SATA 6 Gbps ports, and an M.2-2280 slot with PCI-Express 2.0 x4 and SATA 6 Gbps wiring from the SoC. The board's lone expansion slot is a PCI-Express 3.0 x16. USB connectivity includes six USB 3.1 gen 1 ports, four on the rear-panel and two via headers; and four USB 2.0 ports, of which two are via headers. Display connectivity includes one each of DisplayPort and HDMI. Networking is care of a single 1 GbE interface driven by a Realtek RTL8111H controller, and the onboard audio solution is an entry-level Realtek ALC887. We expect the Prime A320I-K to be priced around $60.