Lenovo has released a trio of new Windows 10 laptops based on new, 2nd generation AMD Ryzen PRO processors, in their famous ThinkPad form factor. There are two models that are part of the T series of ThinkPads, while one is part of X series. For reminding, the T series is the flagship line that offers the best balance between ruggedness, features, processing power, and portability in a 14 or 15-inch unit, while the X series focuses on portability.

The new ThinkPads use the second generation of AMD Ryzen PRO processors, which are 12nm improvements of the previous 14nm Ryzen Family. They carry the 3000 name branding but are similar to the 2000 series of desktop CPUs.

ASRock has announced BIOS updates for AMD X470/B450/X370/B350 and A320 series motherboards to support the soon to be released new AMD Ryzen processors. The latest BIOS update will be available for download from specific product pages on ASRock website or simply update through ASRock APP Shop. The latest BIOS for each motherboard are listed as below. BIOS are expected to be released in May.

We've all taken a look at AMD's March 2019 product roadmap, which showed us the upcoming 2019 tech the company would be bringing to the table in its "non-stop product momentum". However, it seems that this non-stop product momentum might be coming to an unexpected twist of fate that might delay it from entering the last station - the Zen 2-based Threadripper. In the company's latest May earnings call roadmap, the company silently removed the Zen 2 Threadripper from its product roadmap - where it used to sit right after the launch of Zen 2-based Ryzen products for consumers, is now just a big crop of the space it occupied.

This might mean many things, and a mistake on someone's part while cropping the PowerPoint slide could be the only thing going on here. However, the best and most plausible speculation that can be entertained when one considers this is simple - a supply problem. With the 7 nm node being the newest, most dense fabrication process possible, and with AMD having to share TSMC's 7 nm wafer production with a number of high profile companies - such as Qualcomm, for instance - may mean that supply is simply too tight to support Zen 2-based products across so many product stacks - Ryzen and Epyc - at the same time.

As the world becomes more and more centered on data, as well as its processing and storage, increased memory density across products is becoming more of a necessity. It seems that out of this necessity and a need to streamline its memory production towards favoring denser outputs, Samsung is killing of the famous B-die chips, which were - and still are - part of a love affair with any enthusiast's Ryzen desktop.

Memory compatibility issues with the first gen Ryzen took a while to dissipate, and didn't vanish entirely; however, overclockers quickly found that the most stable and overclockable memory ICs all were of the Samsung B-die type. Now, the company has updated its product catalogue to reflect EOL (End of Life) status for B-dies, replacing it with denser M-Die and A-Die products. M-dies were supposed to bring 32 GB densities to a single rank of memory - and have apparently been siphoned off to server applications and left out in the cold for consumer purchase), while the new A dies increase memory density per IC, meaning less of these are necessary to achieve the same final memory footprint. Whether or not these will feature the same Ryzen compatibility and overclockability as their B-die predecessors is unknown at this point, but it would make a lot of enthusiasts slightly unhappy - and increase the value of B-die offerings in any sort of discerning second-hand market - if they did not.

Remember to bring your osmosis process to the table here, as a good deal of salt is detected present in this story's environment. Some online webstores from Vietnam and Turkey have started listing AMD's 3000 series CPUs based on the Zen 2 architecture. The present company stands at a Ryzen 9 3800X, Ryzen 7 3700X, and Ryzen 5 3600X, and the specs on these are... Incredible, to say the least.

The Ryzen 9 3800X is being listed with 32 threads, meaning a base 16-core processor. Clock speeds are being reported as 3.9 GHz base with up to 4.7 GHz Turbo on both a Turkish and Vietnamese etailer's webpages. The Turkish Store then stands alone in listing AMD's Ryzen 7 3700X CPU, which is reported as having 12 cores, 24 threads, and operating at an extremely impressive 4.2 GHz base and 5.0 GHz Boost clocks. Another listing by the same website, in the form of the Ryzen 5 3600X, details the processor as having 8 physical cores and running at 4.0 GHz base and 4.8 Boost clocks.

The headline of this post makes it seem a touch more innocuous than the story may lead to, at least if you believe the rumor mills abound. There has been an ongoing issue with AMD systems using Ryzen CPUs and the HTC Vive wireless adapter (powered by Intel WiGig) to where the systems have frozen or even had a BSOD. HTC acknowledged this as early as Nov, 2018, noting that they have seen this with a subset of Ryzen-based motherboards when the PCIe wireless adapter is installed and running. It took until last week to get a solution of sorts, and unfortunately reports from users indicate this is not a true fix for everyone.

The hotfix update 1.20190410.0 was made available April 25 to attempt to combat this issue, which was garnering a lot of attention in the VR-community on whether there was more Intel could be doing to help AMD customers. This hotfix update is available automatically once an end user with the Vive wireless adapter checks for an update, and HTC acknowledge that they continue to test this, as well as partner with Intel and AMD to help resolve this once and for all. In the meantime, users report mixed success to date, including some we know personally as well, and it remains a thorn in the side of wireless VR to get to the PC successfully.

AMD today announced revenue for the first quarter of 2019 of $1.27 billion, operating income of $38 million, net income of $16 million and diluted
earnings per share of $0.01. On a non-GAAP(*) basis, operating income was $84 million, net income was $62 million and diluted earnings per share was $0.06.

"We delivered solid first quarter results with significant gross margin expansion as Ryzen and EPYC processor and datacenter GPU revenue more than doubled year-over-year," said Dr. Lisa Su, AMD president and CEO. "We look forward to the upcoming launches of our next-generation 7nm PC, gaming
and datacenter products which we expect to drive further market share gains and financial growth."

As we gear up for launch of AMD-s Ryzen 3000 series, details are bound to come up with increasing frequency. One of the latest, regarding AMD's in-house developed X570 chipset, which brings a renewed feature set to the AM4 platform, pertains to its PCIe lanes. AMD has included a grand total of 40 PCIe 4.0 lanes on the chipset, which will be distributed between PCIe uplink, USB 3.1 Gen2, USB 2.0 and SATA, as the spec sheet below (which may not be real) indicates. That's a whole load of bandwidth for the PC platform, not counting those PCIe lanes that are to be provided by the Ryzen CPUs.

It seems AMD will be using PCIe support level as a differentiator factor for its chipsets. The X570 is reported to be the only chipset to feature PCIe 4.0 support, while all other chipsets below it (B550 and so on) will only support PCIe 3.0. These lower-end chipsets should be manufactured by ASMedia.

Here are two of the first high-resolution pictures of the Ryzen 7 2700X 50th Anniversary Edition commemorative processor by AMD. It turns out we were right in guessing that it has special markings on the IHS (integrated heatspreader). Turns out, you get a facsimile of AMD CEO Lisa Su's signature, in addition to the AMD-50 logo above the main Ryzen logo. The box itself sees black replace gray as the primary color, and gold replacing auburn/orange in most places except the main Ryzen logo on the front face. A Wraith Prism RGB cooling solution is included, just like normal 2700X PIB packages. Early listings of the processor pinned its price around USD $340, a premium over the $295 price the Ryzen 7 2700X is typically going for.

At the Taiwan Embedded Forum, AMD announced the Ryzen embedded product family is growing with the new AMD Ryzen Embedded R1000 SoC. Building upon the success of the Ryzen Embedded V1000 SoC, the AMD Ryzen Embedded R1000 SoC provides embedded customers with dual core, quad-threaded performance, as well as the ability to run fanless, low power solutions for 4K displays; while providing leading-edge security features. The AMD Ryzen Embedded R1000 is perfect for applications in digital displays, high-performance edge computing, networking, thin clients and more.

Customers like Advantech, ASRock Industrial, IBASE, Netronome, Quixant and others are already working on Ryzen Embedded R1000-based products. As well, Atari© is using the high-performance Vega 3 graphics and 'Zen' CPU architecture in the AMD Ryzen Embedded R1000 SoC to power the upcoming Atari VCS game system.

It has come to our attention that MSI Customer Support has regrettably misinformed an MSI customer with regards to potential support for next-gen AMD CPUs on the MSI X370 XPOWER GAMING TITANIUM motherboard. Through this statement we want clarify the current situation.

At this point, we are still performing extensive testing on our existing lineup of 300- and 400-series AM4 motherboards to verify potential compatibility for the next-gen AMD Ryzen CPUs. To be clear: Our intention is to offer maximum compatibility for as many MSI products as possible. Towards the launch of the next-gen AMD CPUs, we will release a compatibility list of MSI AM4 motherboards. Below is a full list of upcoming BIOS versions which include compatibility for the next-gen AMD APUs for our 300-Series and 400-Series AM4 motherboards based on the latest AMD Combo PI version 1.0.0.0. These BIOS versions are expected to be released in May this year.

AMD is celebrating its 50th Anniversary with a new commemorative special edition package of the Ryzen 7 2700X eight-core desktop processor. This package carries the PIB SKU number "YD270XBGAFA50." American online retailer ShopBLT had it listed for USD $340.95 before pulling the listing down and marking it "out of stock." The listing doesn't come with any pictures or details about the SKU, except mentioning that a Wraith Prism RGB CPU cooler is included (as it normally is for the 2700X PIB package).

Given that AMD hasn't changed the model number, we expect these processors to have the same specifications as regular Ryzen 7 2700X, but with some special packaging material, and perhaps some special laser engraving on the processor's IHS. AMD has used tin boxes in the past for its first FX-series processors, so the possibility of something similar cannot be ruled out. Since pricing of this SKU isn't significantly higher, we don't expect it to be of a higher bin (better overclockers) than regular 2700X chips. Based on the 12 nm "Pinnacle Ridge" silicon, the 2700X is an 8-core/16-thread processor derived from the "Zen+" architecture, with 3.70 GHz clock-speed, 4.30 GHz maximum Precision Boost, XFR, L2 cache of 512 KB per core, and 16 MB of shared L3 cache.

FinalWire over the past week posted the latest public beta of AIDA64, which adds support for the three key processor product lines based on AMD's "Zen 2" microarchitecture. The "Matisse" multi-chip module, which received extensive coverage over the past few weeks, will be AMD's main derivative of "Zen 2," designed for the client-segment socket AM4 platform, with up to 16 CPU cores, and the initial flagship product featuring 12 cores. "Rome" is AMD's all-important enterprise-segment MCM for the SP3 platform, with up to 64 CPU cores spread across eight 8-core chiplets interfacing a centralized I/O controller die with a monolithic 8-channel memory controller. It so happens that AMD also wants to update its Ryzen Threadripper line of high-end desktop processors, with "Castle Peak."

"Castle Peak" is codename for 3rd generation Ryzen Threadripper and a client-segment derivative of the "Rome" MCM with a reconfigured I/O controller die that has a monolithic 4-channel DDR4 memory interface, and an unspecified number of CPU cores north of 24. This is for backwards compatibility with the existing AMD X399 motherboards. AMD configures core-count by physically changing the number of 8-core chiplets on the MCM, in addition to disabling cores in groups of 2 within the chiplet. The company could scale core counts looking at its competitive environment. The monolithic quad-channel memory interface could significantly improve the chip's memory performance compared to current-generation Threadrippers, particularly the Threadripper WX series chips in which half the CPU cores are memory bandwidth-starved. The AIDA64 update also improves detection of existing Ryzen/EPYC processors with the K17.3 and K17.5 integrated northbridges.

DOWNLOAD: FinalWire AIDA64 Extreme 5.99.4983 beta

Well, that tweet that fans of the Borderlands seriesfeared meant platform exclusivity on PC actually manifested itself. Gearbox today announced that Borderlands 3, the hit sequel to one of the first loot-shooters, will indeed be releasing on September 13th for all platforms - but will be distributed exclusively on the PC digital platform via the EPIC Games Store. Other storefronts will have to wait until April 2020 to sell copies of the game.

The game will also feature optimized performance for AMD's CPU and GPU portfolio, with AMD aiding in performance optimizations for its Ryzen CPUs, current GPUs and, expectedly, next-generation Navi. The announcement trailer and 2K's press release points to a story-driven shooter, that Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford pitched (ahem) as "a love letter to fans of the series, but also as an ideal entry point for new players to jump-in alone or cooperatively, on or off-line, in the latest and greatest installment of the definitive best-in-class benchmark shooter-looter." The announcement trailer follows.

TAITRA, the governing body behind the annual Computex trade-show held in Taipei each June, announced that AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su will host a keynote address which promises to be as exciting as her CES keynote. It is revealed that Dr. Su will simultaneously launch or unveil at least four product lines. High up the agenda is AMD's highly anticipated 3rd generation Ryzen desktop processors in the socket AM4 package, based on "Zen 2" microarchitecture, and a multi-chip module (MCM) codenamed "Matisse." This launch could be followed up by a major announcement related to the company's 2nd generation EPYC enterprise processors based on the "Rome" MCM.

PC enthusiasts are in for a second major announcement, this time from RTG, with a technical reveal or unveiling of Radeon "Navi," the company's first GPU designed from the ground up for the 7 nm silicon fabrication process. It remains to be seen which market-segment AMD targets with the first "Navi" products, and the question on everyone's minds, whether AMD added DXR acceleration, could be answered. Lastly, the company could announce more variants of its Radeon Instinct DNN accelerators.

Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) announced today that the 2019 COMPUTEX International Press Conference will be held with a Keynote by AMD President and CEO Dr. Lisa Su. The 2019 COMPUTEX International Press Conference & CEO Keynote is scheduled for Monday, May 27 at 10:00 AM in Room 201 of the Taipei International Convention Center (TICC) in Taipei, Taiwan with the keynote topic "The Next Generation of High-Performance Computing".

"COMPUTEX, as one of the global leading technology tradeshows, has continued to advance with the times for more than 30 years. This year, for the first time, a keynote speech will be held at the pre-show international press conference," said Mr. Walter Yeh, President & CEO, TAITRA, "Dr. Lisa Su received a special invitation to share insights about the next generation of high-performance computing. We look forward to her participation attracting more companies to participate in COMPUTEX, bringing the latest industry insights, and jointly sharing the infinite possibilities of the technology ecosystem on this global stage."

AMD today released their latest Radeon Software Adrenaline 2019 Edition drivers. This latest beta, version 19.2.3, brings with it support for AMD Ryzen mobile processors with Vega graphics which see up to a 10% performance boost on average versus the 17.40 launch drivers. Titles included in the performance testing were; Destiny 2, Shadow of War, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Civilization 6, and the Witcher 3. Furthermore, various eSports title have seen performance gains of up to 17%, again when compared to the older 17.40 launch drivers. The games AMD used for testing were; Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Fortnite, Player Unknown's Battleground, and World of Warcraft. The only other performance gains specifically mentioned in this driver release is a 3% boost in Dirt Rally 2 on the Radeon RX Vega 64.

AMD has fixed a few issues with this release as well including player character outlines being stuck on screen after being revived in Battlefield V being the most significant fix. Otherwise, all other fixes or changes are related to AMD software or features such as ReLive wireless VR, FreeSync, and fan tuning. That said, a few prominent issues remain some of which have been around for some time like mouse lag on multi-monitor systems when one display is turned off. Other problems include Radeon WattMan not applying settings changes on the AMD Radeon VII. Meanwhile, the performance metrics overlay may fluctuate giving inaccurate readings on the previously mentioned Radeon VII. For full details, you can check the changelog after the break.DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 19.2.3

AMD's Ryzen 3000 series is one of the most hotly anticipated hardware launches in recent times. I'd say that the hype surrounding AMD's processor launches, unlike Intel's, has become vested with an actual enthusiasm that is likely in our nature - to see the underdog come out with innovative products that reverse market expectations. AMD's processor launches have seen hype levels rivaling - and even surpassing, all of this anecdotally, of course - some GPU launches. It makes sense for AMD to embrace every opportunity it gets to build hype around its products - and it seems the company will be doing just so at GDC 2019, which will run from March 18th through March 22nd.

AMD will be hosting a time slot at GDC 2019 in San Francisco. Hosted by Ken Mitchell, the presentation that has been slotted in to GDC's panels is titled ""AMD Ryzen Processor Software Optimization (Presented by AMD)". As the announcement reads, this presentation is meant to "Learn about the Ryzen line up of processors, profiling tools and techniques to understand optimization opportunities, and get a glimpse of the next generation of "Zen 2" x86 core architecture. Gain insight into code optimization opportunities and lessons learned with examples including C/C++, assembly, and hardware performance-monitoring counters." So no, there won't be any architecture deep dives. But there will be some new information - and we all know that speculating and running through the breadcrumb trail is a huge part of the fun.

Sometime mid-2019, AMD will launch its 3rd generation Ryzen "Zen 2" processors with core counts of up to 16 cores in the AM4 package. These processors will launch alongside the new AMD 500-series desktop chipset family, led by the X570. AMD assures backwards compatibility of these processors with older chipsets provided motherboard vendors support their customers with BIOS updates. You'll probably need a 500-series chipset motherboard to use PCI-Express gen 4.0 connectivity, while older chipsets will limit connectivity to gen 3.0 (not that there are any GPUs that use gen 4.0).

ASRock is developing as many as nine motherboard models based on the AMD X570, according to a list scored by VideoCardz. These include the X570 Phantom Gaming X and X570 Taichi leading the top-end; X570 Phantom Gaming 6, X570 Phantom Gaming 4, and X570 Extreme4 covering the mid-range, and the entry-level of the lineup consisting of the X570 Pro4/R2.0 and X570M Pro4/R2.0.

A new development could shake up our expectations on AMD's new Ryzen 2 CPUs, which if true, could mean that previous rumors of much increased core-counts at the top of AMD's offerings were true. User TUM Apisak, who has been involved in multiple information leaks and scouting for the hardware world, has digged enough to find a submitted UserBenchmark that screams of a 12-core, 24-thread AMD Matisse part (an engineering sample at that, so keep your hats on for the presented clock speeds).

The benchmark list the used CPU via product code 2D3212BGMCWH2_37 / 34_N (H2 is indicative of a Matisse CPU The benchmark is listing a base clock speed of 3.4 GHz and an average boost clock speed of 3.6 GHz. The rest of the system specs are very, very basic, with 4 GB of 1333 MHz DDR4 memory being used on a new AMD platform, based on the Myrtle-MTS based chipset. The processor is listed having a 105 watts TDP and 32 MB of L3 cache.

G.SKILL International Enterprise Co., Ltd., the world's leading manufacturer of extreme performance memory and gaming peripherals, is excited to announce a new memory specification of DDR4-3466 CL18-22-22-42 with 32GB (4x8GB) capacity configuration at 1.35V for the high performance AMD Ryzen Threadripper processor and X399 platform. This memory kit will join the G.SKILL "Trident Z RGB (for AMD)" series, also known as the TZRX models.

Previously, the highest DDR4 speed available for the AMD X399 platform from G.SKILL was DDR4-3200. G.SKILL is now expanding the specifications to DDR4-3466 under the quad-channel configuration. This kit has been validated with the ASUS ROG ZENITH EXTREME ALPHA motherboard and AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2950X processor, as shown in the screenshots below.

While AMD has enjoyed tremendous success in regards to their Ryzen, Threadripper, and EPYC processors penetration into the mobile market has been a bit slow. However, judging by the number of systems on display at CES 2019 that is about to change. Models from Honor, Acer, Samsung, Lenovo, Dell, ASUS, and HP. The one that immediately caught our eye was the Acer Nitro 5 which packs an AMD Ryzen 5 2500U CPU and an AMD Radeon RX 560X GPU. It also comes configured with 8 GB of memory, 256 GB SSD, IPS display and a backlit keyboard. Overall it looks to be a reliable entry level gaming system.

Next up was Dell's two offerings which were the Inspiron 5000 15 and 5000 14 2-in-1. The Inspiron 5000 15 was equipped with a 4c/8t Ryzen 5 3500U with Radeon Vega 8 graphics (512 shaders). It was also fully kitted out with 32 GB of DDR4 memory, 512 GB SSD, and a 1TB HDD making it an excellent option for productivity and heavy multitasking. Meanwhile, the 2-in-1 was equipped with a Ryzen 7 3700U which is a 4c/8t processor with Vega 10 graphics (640 shaders). It also came loaded with 16 GB of DDR4, 2 TB HDD and a 256 GB SSD giving it plenty of memory and storage space considering its more compact size.

ASUS unveiled its new flagship motherboard for the AMD platform, designed with out-of-the-box support for 2nd gen Ryzen Threadripper WX and X processors, the Republic of Gamers (ROG) Zenith Extreme Alpha. This board features an updated design aesthetic that's aligned with the company's latest ROG Extreme motherboards on Intel Z390 motherboards. The underlying PCB layout is entirely new, and different from the original Zenith Extreme, as are the heatsinks and shrouds covering various parts of the board, including a portion of its reverse side.

The I/O shroud which runs the entire length of the board is contiguous with a large RGB LED studded shroud covering the board's two M.2-2280 NVMe slots between PCIe slots. You get a U.2 port, and additional M.2 NVMe slots through the DIMM.2 riser accessory that's included with the board. ASUS has designed the CPU VRM of this board. It's still 10-phase on paper, but uses a high-end controller; and is tuned for overclocking the beastly Threadripper WX processors. Another killer feature with this board is 10 GbE wired Ethernet, driven by an Aquantia AQC-107 controller. You still get a 1 GbE driven by an i211-AT. ASUS appears to have done some cost-cutting with the WLAN card, though, which now only supports up to 1.73 Gbps 802.11ac MU-MIMO, compared to the original Zenith Extreme's 802.11ad draft controller with 4600 Mbps top-speed. The onboard audio solution is unchanged.

CPUs or GPUs? Ryzen 3000 series up to 16 cores or keeping their eight? Support for raytracing? Navi or die-shrunk Vega for consumer graphics? The questions around AMD's plans for 2019 are still very much in the open, but AMD's Lisa Su's impending livestream should field the answers to many of these questions, so be sure to watch the full livestream, happening in just a moment.You can find the live stream here, at YouTube.

18:33 UTC: Looking forward, Lisa mentioned a few technology names without giving additional details: "... when you're talking about future cores, Zen 2, Zen 3, Zen 4, Zen 5, Navi, we're putting all of these architectures together, in new ways".

18:20 UTC: New Ryzen 3rd generation processors have been teased. The upcoming processors are based on Zen 2, using 7 nanometer technology. AMD showed a live demo of Forza Horizon 4, using Ryzen third generation, paired with Radeon Vega VII, which is running "consistently over 100 FPS at highest details at 1080p resolution". A second demo, using Cinebench, pitted an 8-core/16-thread Ryzen 3rd generation processor against the Intel Core i9-9900K. The Ryzen CPU was "not final frequency, an early sample". Ryzen achieved a score of 2057 using 135 W, while Intel achieved a score of 2040 using 180 W.. things are looking good for Ryzen 3rd generation indeed. Lisa also confirmed that next-gen Ryzen will support PCI-Express 4.0, which doubles the bandwidth per lane over PCI-Express 3.0. Ryzen third generation will run on the same AM4 infrastructure as current Ryzen; all existing users of Ryzen can simply upgrade to the new processors, when they launch in the middle of 2019 (we think Computex).Ryzen third generation uses a chiplet design. The smaller die on the right contains 8-cores/16-threads using 7 nanometer technology. The larger die on the left is the IO die, which consists of things like the memory controller and PCI-Express connectivity, to shuffle data between the CPU core die and the rest of the system.

AMD's Ryzen Notebook lineup seems to be very important to company, at least when going by how often it gets mentioned in the AMD financial analyst calls. That's why it's even more surprising that the driver situation for these products has been nothing but terrible. Some Ryzen Raven Ridge based notebooks haven't seen a single driver update since their release over a year ago, which is much worse than on any other notebook platform.

Users complained about this on Reddit, and AMD responded through an official account that the issue is that "drivers are typically tailored for specific OEM platforms", and that "releasing generic APU graphics drivers across all AMD Ryzen mobile processor-based mobile systems could result in less-than-ideal user experiences". AMD also made it clear that they will be working with OEMs to increase the release frequency of Ryzen Mobile graphics drivers, targeting two releases per-year in 2019.To me this explanation sounds like bs.