At IFA 2022, MSI introduces its latest products, tailor-made for gamers, creators, and professionals, to the world. From gaming laptops, desktops, and components, to business monitors, industrial computers, and automotive and commercial solutions, MSI is revealing the most powerful, capable new products, covering every need and every aspect of technology.

Exhibition Date: Sep 2nd - Sep 6th, 2022
Opening Hours: 10:00 AM - 06:00 PM
Location: Stand 102, Hall 11.2 @ Messe Berlin, Germany
"IFA 2022 is one of the world's most important consumer electronics trade shows. After years of virtual and distanced living, MSI is especially well-prepared to support all industries and professions with our innovations and solutions, to help them adapt to new ways of working, living and entertaining," said Sam Chern, MSI Marketing Vice President.

AMD today announced the Ryzen 7000 series "Zen 4" desktop processors. These debut the company's new "Zen 4" architecture to the market, increasing IPC, performance, with new-generation I/O such as DDR5 and PCI-Express Gen 5. AMD hasn't increased core-counts over the previous-generation, the Ryzen 5 series is still 6-core/12-thread, the Ryzen 7 8-core/16-thread, and Ryzen 9 either 12-core/24-thread, or 16-core/32-thread; but these are all P-cores. AMD is claiming a 13% IPC uplift generation over generation, which coupled with faster DDR5 memory, and CPU clock speeds of up to 5.70 GHz, give the Ryzen 7000-series processor an up to 29% single-core performance gain over the Ryzen 5000 "Zen 3."

At their press event, AMD showed us an up to 35% increase in gaming performance over the previous-generation, and an up to 45% increase in creator performance (which is where it gets the confidence to stick to its core-counts from). The "Zen 4" CPU core dies (CCDs) are built on the TSMC 5 nm EUV (N5) node. Even the I/O die sees a transition to 6 nm (N6), from 12 nm. The switch to 5 nm gives "Zen 4" 62 percent lower power for the same performance, or 49% more performance for the same power. versus the Ryzen 5000 series on 7 nm. The "Zen 4" core along with its dedicated L2 cache is 50% smaller, and 47% more energy efficient than the "Golden Cove" P-core of "Alder Lake."

Possible launch SEP pricing of AMD's Ryzen 7000 series "Zen 4" desktop processors leaked to the web by Wccftech, which appear to be similar to those of the Ryzen 5000 "Zen 3" at launch. AMD will launch a slim set of four SKUs in its first round of these processors—the flagship Ryzen 9 7950X (16-core/32-thread), followed by the second-best Ryzen 9 7900X (12-core/24-thread), the Ryzen 7 7700X (8-core/16-thread), and the mid-range Ryzen 5 7600X (6-core/12-thread).

Apparently, the series debuts with the Ryzen 5 7600X at $299, or the same SEP of the Ryzen 5 5600X at launch. The Ryzen 7 7700X launches at $449. The Ryzen 9 7900X comes in at $549, and the flagship Ryzen 9 7950X at $799, which again, is identical to that of the 5950X. Besides processors, motherboard vendors are expected to launch their first Socket AM5 motherboards, debuting with the AMD X670E and X670 chipsets. There's talk of mid-range chipsets such as the B650 and B650E, but we haven't seen any confirmed products show up on motherboard vendors' websites, yet. Pre-launch pricing for the X670E and X670 put them at a significant premium over the current Socket AM4 flagship boards based on the X570. Besides processors and motherboards, we could see announcements from memory vendors launching their first DDR5 memory products to feature AMD EXPO technology.

AMD's upcoming launch of Ryzen 7000 series processors will bring an entirely new AM5 platform that will enable newer technologies and protocols. We have DDR5 memory and PCIe 5.0 connection with everything at level five. However, the upcoming chipsets AMD has designed to work alongside the new processors will be available in several variants. There will be regular X670 and B650 versions that support either a PCIe 5.0 GPU or a PCIe 5.0 M.2 NVIMe SSD. Today, we got a confirmation that not only the big X670 chipset has an "E" or "Extreme" version, but its smaller brother B650 as well. With X670E and B650E, users get both PCIe 5.0 connectivity for their GPU and M.2 NVIMe SSD. For more information, we have to wait for AMD's official launch information later today.

BIOSTAR finalized the design of its flagship Socket AM5 motherboard, the X670E Valkyrie. While the PCB design appears identical to the board BIOSTAR showed at Computex 2022, there are some aesthetic improvements, such as some ARGB lighting elements with acrylic diffusers on the large VRM heatsink and the chipset heatsink. The board draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX, and two 8-pin EPS connectors. Powering the CPU is a 22-phase VRM that uses 105 A DrMOS. The Socket AM5 is wired to four DDR5 slots, two PCI-Express 5.0 x16 slots (x16/NC or x8/x8), and a couple of M.2 Gen 5 slots.

Storage options on the BIOSTAR X670E Valkyrie include two M.2 slots with PCI-Express 5.0 x4 wiring, two additional M.2 slots with PCI-Express 4.0 x4 wiring, and six SATA 6 Gbps ports. Besides the Gen 5 x16 slots from the CPU, there's one PCI-Express 4.0 x16 (electrical x4) slot wired to the chipset, and an M.2 E-key slot for the WLAN card. There's no WLAN module included with the board, but there's preparation that includes two coaxial antenna jacks, and a cable leading up to the M.2 E-key slot. Wired networking comes from a 2.5 GbE interface powered by an Intel i225 controller. The board is expected to go on sale alongside Ryzen 7000 series processors, in September.

ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) today announced the latest gaming gear at Gamescom 2022, including the AMD X670E series motherboards, AIO coolers, PSU, displays, networking products, and peripherals. Along with these products, ROG released its first music single Reality, with vocals by renowned voice actor and musician Troy Baker, more commonly known for his roles in video games like The Last of Us and Uncharted series. An anime-inspired interactive 360° music video featuring the song is available on YouTube.

ROG Swift OLED PG42UQ / PG48UQ: The 42-inch ROG Swift OLED PG42UQ is designed for immersive desktop gaming and features 4K visuals at an overclocked 138 Hz refresh rate. The OLED panel ensures the deepest hues, as well as vibrant colors thanks to a 98% DCI-P3 color gamut and Delta E < 2 color difference. An ultrafast 0.1 ms (GTG) response time ensures great viewing and gaming experiences. The larger, 48-inch ROG Swift OLED PG48UQ is ideal for those looking to play their games on an even bigger scale. ROG OLED monitors include a custom heatsink that offers more surface area for heat exchange, resulting in up to 8% lower operating temperatures compared to ROG monitors without a heatsink to ensure better OLED performance and longevity.

ASUS today announced a new generation of AMD-based motherboards to accompany the ROG Crosshair X670E Extreme and support the latest Ryzen 7000 processors: the ROG Crosshair X670E Hero, the ROG Strix X670E-E Gaming WiFi, and the TUF Gaming X670E-Plus WiFi. Introducing the new generation of AMD ROG motherboards: the X670E series. Featuring support for DDR5 memory modules and PCIe 5.0 devices, the ROG Crosshair X670E Hero, ROG Strix X670E-E Gaming WiFi, and TUF Gaming X670E-Plus WiFi is equipped with improved bandwidth capabilities, stability, and overall connectivity.

All three boards feature the latest ASUS Q-Design innovations. The ROG Crosshair X670E Hero and ROG Strix X670E-E Gaming WiFi includes the PCIe Q-Release button, a feature that lets users release their graphics card from the PCIe slot with one press. In addition, all three featured motherboards will include the single-sided Q-DIMM latching design to ensure ease of installation and allowing memory sticks to hold firmly in place. Lastly, the boards include the M.2 Q-latch, allowing users to secure or loosen an M.2 drive with just their fingertips.

A bit late to the game compared to its competitors, MSI has finally published its product pages for three of its upcoming X670 and X670E motherboards. The three models are the MEG X670E ACE, the MPG X670E Carbon WiFi and the Pro X670-P WiFi. Earlier todaywe got a first hint with regards to the pricing of a couple of these boards and now we have most of the technical details with regards to the boards themselves. As with all other boardmakers, MSI hasn't revealed any information with regards to memory clocks and obviously no details about which CPUs will be supported. We already had a pretty good idea what to expect from these boards based on the details MSI released at Computex, but features like the power design weren't revealed at the time, nor did we get a very good look at the board.

The MEG X670E ACE appears to be MSI's high-end board for those that aren't interested in spending a small fortune on the Godlike board and it should cater to just about all needs. The board has a 22+2+1 phase power design and MSI is using a heatpipe as well as a stacked fin-array heatsink and a MOSFET backplate to help cool the oversized power circuitry. Other features include 10 Gbps Ethernet, although there is only one Ethernet interface, a DisplayPort 1.4 compatible USB-C 10 Gbps port (which was said to be DP 2.0 compliant at Computex), as well as two 20 Gbps USB-C ports around the back. USB4 is nowhere to be seen, but is most likely related to ASMedia being late to the game with its host controller. MSI has gone for a design where the x16 PCIe 5.0 lanes from the CPU are split between the first two PCIe x16 slots and the third slot is using four lanes of PCIe 5.0 from the CPU. The final four PCIe 5.0 lanes from the CPU are for one of the M.2 NVMe slots and the board has a further three M.2 PCIe 4.0 slots. On top of that, MSI also includes an M.2 Xpander-Z Gen5 Dual add-in card that can accept a further two PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSD at the cost of eight PCIe lanes from the GPU.

ASRock is bringing as many as five motherboard models based on the AMD X670E chipset, for upcoming Ryzen 7000-series Socket AM5 processors. The lineup includes the twins X670E Taichi and X670E Taichi Carrara at the top; followed by the X670E Steel Legend, X670E Pro RS, and the X670E Phantom Gaming Lightning. The X670E Taichi/Carrara feature a mammoth 26-phase VRM, which going by the trends, could use 90 to 105 A power-stages. You get two PCi-Express 5.0 x16 slots (x8/x8 with both populated), at least two Gen 5 M.2 slots wired to the SoC, additional Gen 5 M.2 slots from the chipset, and a plethora of connectivity options.

What sets the two Taichi boards apart is the Carrara does away with the matte-black "gearwheel" design theme, and instead features a white marble appearance. It's not known if the marble pattern is a print, or if ASRock used actual stone. ASRock has been trying to upmarket its Steel Legend SKUs for the past couple of generations, and it appears like the X670E Steel Legend will be the third-based board from the series, with no PG Velocita SKU in sight. You get just the one PCI-Express 5.0 x16, at least two Gen 5 M.2 slots, a couple of Gen 4 M.2 slots, and fairly premium connectivity, including WLAN.

GIGABYTE today showed off its upcoming AMD X670E and X670 chipset-based Socket AM5 motherboard lineup for the Ryzen 7000-series "Zen 4" desktop processors due to launch in September. Given AMD's push for PCI-Express Gen 5 connectivity beyond just the PEG slot, the new X670E chipset, with multiple Gen 5 M.2 slots, covers the upper end of the GIGABYTE AORUS motherboard series, with the X670E AORUS Xtreme and the X670E AORUS Master. The lower-end of the lineup is based on the X670, with the AORUS Pro and AORUS Elite tiers.

Both the X670E and X670 offer at least one PCI-Express 5.0 x16 slot (which can be further split into two x8 Gen 5 slots); and at least one PCI-Express 5.0 x4 M.2 NVMe slot wired to the AM5 processor. The X670E is differentiated in having an additional Gen 5 M.2 slot that is wired to the SoC, besides downstream Gen 5 PCIe connectivity from the chipset. The AORUS Xtreme leads the pack with a monstrous 18-phase VRM that uses 105 A DrMOS, an 8-layer PCB, four Gen 5 M.2 slots, the highest-grade onboard audio with ESS-made headphones DAC, AQuantia 10 GbE, WiFi 6E, and a plethora of overclocker-friendly features.

Earlier this week, some details, including the PCB layout of the MSI MEG X670E Godlike leaked, but now MSI has shared some additional details, including a picture of the board. In fact, MSI shared most of thespecs of the Godlike board during Computex, but the company didn't release a picture back then. However, now we know the power design, which consists of 24+2 phases and a 105 A power stage. MSI has also created its own screwless M.2 slots, as well as heatsinks, which simply clip in place after the SSD has been installed, although it doesn't appear the Godlike board has screwless heatsinks for more than one of M.2 drives.

Other features include 10 and 2.5 Gbps Ethernet, as well as AMD's RZ616 WiFi 6E module. MSI hasn't gone for USB4 from what we know and nothing was mentioned with regards to USB4 during the MSI presentation. MSI also seems to have skipped video outputs on this board, but it's possible that one of the USB-C ports will support display output, even though that wasn't the case back at Computex. As with many other X670E boards, the Godlike supports 60 W USB PD charging via the front USB-C port.

During AMD's Meet the Experts event, ASUS revealed more details about its ROG Crosshair X670E Extreme, a board the company revealed during Computex, but didn't show the rear I/O of. However, ASUS also unveiled the ROG Crosshair X670E Hero, a board the company hadn't shown off prior to the AMD event. Both boards will feature a pair of USB4 ports, with both ports supporting DisplayPort Alt Mode. Both boards feature a further two USB-C ports, plus seven plus USB-A ports. The Extreme features 10 Gbps and 2.5 Gbps Ethernet, whereas the Hero gets to make do with 2.5 Gbps Ethernet, although it gains an HDMI output. Both boards have a full set of audio jacks and WiFi 6E support, as well as a rear mounted clear CMOS and BIOS FlashBack button.

Taking a closer look at the Hero board, it has two PCIe x16 PCIe slots, plus a single, open-ended PCIe x1 slot. The board supports four M.2 NVMe slots for SSDs and comes with a PCIe 5.0 card for a fifth drive. It also has what appears to be six SATA ports, a front header for a 20 Gbps USB 3.2 2x2 USB-C port that also supports up to 60 W USB PD and Qualcomm Quick Charge 4+. The Hero board will be kitted out with an 18 phase power design, with the Extreme getting a 22 phase design, both with a 110 Ampere power stage. ASUS has moved its audio solution to the ALC4082 USB based audio codec and at least the Extreme will have an ESS ES9218 audio codec. ASUS is also bringing over the Q-Release solution for graphics cards to these boards, as well as the Q-Latch for M.2 SSDs.

A possible PCB layout diagram of the ASUS ROG Crosshair X670E APEX motherboard was leaked to the web. We could tell it's the APEX, looking at its 1DPC (one DIMM per channel) memory layout. The ROG APEX line of motherboards are geared toward extreme overclocking, with 1DPC being the best possible memory topology. We could make out several features from this diagram. The board draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX, two 8-pin EPS, and a 6-pin PCIe. A mammoth 26-phase VRM powers the CPU. The board appears to have its power connectors and onboard buttons angled sideways, making it most suitable for bench rigs.

The AMD Socket AM5 is wired to two DDR5 DIMM slots (one DIMM per channel, with two sub-channels, each); and a PCI-Express 5.0 x16 slot. This splits to a second slot in x8 mode. The third slot is electrical x8, and wired to the X670E chipset. While there are three M.2 slots onboard, this is likely Gen 4 x4. The board's main Gen 5 M.2 slots are located on an included DIMM.2 daughterboard that inserts into a proprietary slot next to the DIMM slots. It's likely that the board offers USB4 connectivity, besides SupremeFX HD audio, Wi-Fi 6E, 2.5 GbE, and an abundance of USB 3.x connectivity in various forms.

In a couple of days, AMD will be co-hosting its Meet the Experts event with several Taiwanese motherboard makers, which are said to be showing off their upcoming X670/X670E motherboards during the event. However, courtesy of multiple sources, we already have a preview of MSI's upcoming MEG X670E Godlike motherboard. MSI itself has posted a teaser on bilibili in the PRC, which shows off the four M.2 slots the board will have, of which three supports the new-ish, slightly wider 25 mm M.2 form factor, compared to the more common 22 mm width for M.2 drives. Note that MSI writes that all four M.2 slots are PCIe 5.0, but it appears that only one of the slots is actually PCIe 5.0, with the other three being PCIe 4.0. Courtesy of Wccftech, we also have the PCB layout and Videocardz got their hands on most of the specs for the board.

The PCB layout was also annotated by @harukaze5719 to make it easier to see what some of the parts are. The board will apparently have a 24+2+1 power phase layout. It also has two additional power inputs via standard 6-pin PCIe type connectors, one for USB-PD and one that provides extra power for the PCIe slots. The board has a total of three PCIe 5.0 slots, with the first two slots sharing bandwidth and the third slot being a x4 slot that is also connected to the CPU. The board will also have eight SATA ports, two internal USB-C ports, as well as a rear one and a pair of modules around the back of which at least one should be WiFi. The board also has two Ethernet ports, one 10 Gbps and one 2.5 Gbps, at least five USB-A ports, nine fan/pump headers, a POST80 debug LED display and space for some overclocking friendly features. The 24-pin ATX power connector appears to be right-angled. Expect this to be a very premium product price wise, most likely well north of US$800.

Courtesy of Planet 3DNow! we now have an idea when AMD might be launching the Ryzen 7000-series of CPU's, as the site posted about an upcoming AMD event called Meet the Experts on Twitter. The event registration page reads "Supporting the recent launch of AMD Ryzen 7000 Series processors," which suggests that the new Ryzen 7000-series is likely to launch on or before the 4th of August. The event takes place at 11:00 in the morning, CDT (Central Daylight Time) or 16:00 UTC.

The event will showcase motherboards from AMD's partners and representatives from ASRock, ASUS, Biostar, Gigabyte and MSI will be attending the online event. There's still no mention of the B650E chipset, but apparently X670E and X670 products will be shown, but not even B650 at this point. Based on the short summary blurb, we're also likely to see a PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSD being shown off. AMD will obviously have a separate launch event for the Ryzen 7000-series, but if that will take place on the same day, or on a different date, is unknown at this point.

An AMD engineering sample CPU with the model name 100-000000593-20_Y has appeared in a couple of graphics rendering tests, paired with an NVIDIA RTX A4000 GPU. The CPU appears to be a 6-core Ryzen 7000-series chip that was fitted to a Gigabyte X670E Aorus Master motherboard. Based on the leaked information that was dug up by @TUM_APISAK, it has a clock speed of 4.4 GHz, but little else is known about the CPU. Basemark might not be the most widely used test out there and both the tests that were run, were GPU rendering tests. However, courtesy of @harukaze5719, we have some graphs comparing the alleged Ryzen 7000-series CPU with a Ryzen 9 5950X which is using the same GPU.

The first test is an OpenGL test where the 6-core CPU beats the 16-core CPU by a not insignificant 9.5 percent overall, but by more than 11 percent when it comes to the minimum frame rate in the benchmark. This is a significant performance lead, although in the Vulcan test, the difference is somewhat smaller with a 7 percent lead for the 6-core CPU. It's unclear how well these tests scale with more CPU cores, so we wouldn't read too much into either of these benchmark results, but it seems like AMD's Zen 4 architecture will deliver on what AMD has promised based on these early tests. We've independently verified that the numbers are in the ballpark of the engineering samples that AMD's partners have today, which means that these numbers haven't been faked in any way. Keep in mind that AMD is still working on its AM5 platform and it's still early days. We understand that AMD has recently fixed a few platform bugs that would've been showstoppers if AMD had launched the AM5 platform with them still present.

Although AMD has not as yet announced its B650E chipset, rumour about such a chipset started before Computex. To date, no specific motherboard models have been mentioned by model name, but courtesy of Videocardz, we now have a list of several upcoming models from ASRock. The company has already announced its X670E range of motherboards, which consists of five models, of which four can already be seen on the ASRock website. ASRock appears to be planning five B650E boards, plus another six B650 SKU's. The company also appears to be the OEM for NZXT's second AMD motherboard, which appears to be called the N7-B65XT, which might also be a B650E based board.

Unfortunately we don't know any of the technical details about the upcoming B650/B650E boards from ASRock, but the model names give away that two of the five B650E boards will be Mini-ITX boards. It doesn't look like ASRock will be offering a high-end B650E model, but at least there will be an upper mid-range Steel Legend board. ASRock will also have a couple of mATX B650 boards, one should be a more gaming focused mid-range model, with the other being what appears to be a fairly basic model. One peculiar addition is a B650 SKU with the prefix LiveMixer, which is a new series from ASRock as far as we're aware. ASRock doesn't appear to be offering any X670 motherboards at all, at least not based on the current information.

Slowly but surely, we're getting more and more details about upcoming AM5 motherboards and ASRock has put up a very spec light page for its upcoming X670E Pro RS motherboard. Not much has changed since the Computex reveal, but the product page did contain a couple of extra board shots as well as a look at the rear I/O. This time around the M.2 WiFi card slot is also populated, suggesting that there will be a WiFi version of this model shipping. The board has a single "Blazing" M.2 slot for a PCIe 5.0 SSD as well as what should be three PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots, of which two come with a shared heatsink and one has no heatsink at all. The final M.2 slot is limited to PCIe 3.0. As this is an X670E board, the PCIe x16 slot is of course PCIe 5.0.

Other features include Realtek's Dragon branded 2.5 Gbps Ethernet controller that has some gaming specific software. It appears that ASRock has trimmed the audio jacks to a bare minimum, with only a line out, a mic in and an optical S/PDIF being connected to the Realtek ALC897 audio codec. The board also has a single USB-C port around the back, although it's at least a USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 port (20 Gbps). There are a total of five USB-A 3.2 ports, of which one is capable of 10 Gbps speeds, with the other delivering 5 Gbps. There are also four USB 2.0 ports, a DP and HDMI port, as well as a UEFI/BIOS update button around the back. Other expansion options include an internal USB-C header and two PCIe x1 slots of unknown type, as well as six SATA ports and two USB 3.x type headers. This should be one of the more affordable X670E motherboards when the AM5 platform launches later this year.

It would appear that we're slowly getting closer to the launch of AMD's AM5 platform, as ASRock just put up its first X670E motherboard on its website. The page still has very limited information and there's only a single picture of the motherboard, which is the same one that the company shared at Computex. However, we now get a few more details with regards to what to expect in terms of additional features. For starters, ASRock has gone for a 26-phase SPS Dr.MOS power design, which should be plenty even for the most avid overclocker. The board has a pair of PCIe 5.0 x16 slots that operate in dual x8 mode when both slots are used. In addition to this there are four M.2 slots, where ASRock has decided to call the CPU connected slot for Blazing, as it's PCIe 5.0, whereas the three PCIe 4.0 slots are using the Hyper name the company has used so far.

The board also has eight SATA ports, two Thunderbolt 4 ports, which apparently are USB4 certified as well and a header for a USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 (20 Gbps) case mounted port. Furthermore the board has five rear USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) USB-A ports around the back, plus three USB 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps) ports and a further four via headers, as well as a single HDMI port of unknown version. ASRock has gone for an Intel Killer E3100G 2.5 Gbps Ethernet controller and an Intel Killer AX1675X WiFi 6E and Bluetooth card, with the combo having Killer DoubleShot Pro support. Finally audio is via a Realtek ALC4082 USB connected audio codec and an ESS Sabre 9218 DAC. Overall this looks like a pretty kitted out board without too much excessive bling and will hopefully be priced accordingly.

There has been a fair bit of confusion about AMD's upcoming AM5 platform when it comes to connectivity and we're going to break things down and explain what the difference is between the B650 and X670 boards. We're also going to cover the processor connectivity, since that's an integral part of any motherboard these days. All the information in this article is based on what we've been told by various sources during Computex.

Although there was a leak with a partial picture of the ASRock X670E Taichi board just days before Computex 2022 kicked off, it was hard to draw any real conclusions from it. The company has revealed more details about it, alongside the X670E Taichi Carrara, X670E Steel Legend and the X670E Pro RS. Let's start with the plain X670E Taichi, since this was the board that leaked. As is obvious now, the board doesn't feature a fan on the chipset heatsink, but rather a set of cogs, something we've seen before from ASRock. The board has very limited expansion options when it comes to PCIe slots, with a pair of x16 slots, which are sharing the 16 PCIe 5.0 lanes from the CPU and that's it. ASRock has gone for four M.2 slots, of which one is PCIe 5.0, most likely the one next to the memory slots. Interestingly, ASRock has kitted out the X670E Taichi with Thunderbolt 4, which means we're looking at an Intel chip here and there should also be support for USB4 and the two ports are located around the back of the board.

Biostar is seemingly trying to become more competitive in the consumer motherboard market and although the company has some catching up to do with the tier one motherboard brands, the company has put out some more interesting products in the past couple of years. Its VX670E Valkyrie motherboard seems to sit near the middle of the X670E models that have been announced so far, although it's a little bit hard to tell, as the company only provided partial specs. As this is an AMD X670E based board, the PCIe x16 slot is using PCIe 5.0, although it's multiplexed with the second x16 slot, which means if both slots are used, the bandwidth drops down to eight lanes per slot. The board layout doesn't suggest any PCIe 5.0 M.2 slots, but as this is mandatory on X670E board, we have to presume that the M.2 slot right below the x16 PCIe slot, is the PCIe 5.0 one. The board has a further three M.2 slots, as well as what appears to be an empty M.2 E-keyed slot for a WiFi/Bluetooth module.

Other features listed by Biostar includes 2.5 Gbps Ethernet via a Realtek chip, HDMI and DisplayPort outputs, six SATA 3 ports, one rear and one front header for USB Type-C Gen 3.2 2x2 (20 Gbps) ports, as well as Realtek based audio and a pair of ARGB headers. The board also has a debug LED and a few buttons and switches for resetting the CMOS, and powering the board on. Interestingly, Biostar also provided figures for the memory clock speed, as the company listed support for up to four sticks of DDR5 memory at 5600 MHz plus. AMD has already demoed higher memory clocks of 6000 and even 6400 MHz during its keynote, as supported by the footnotes that went alongside it, suggesting that this might just be a placeholder. Intel officially only supports 4800 MHz DDR5 memory, but speeds in excess of 6000 MHz doesn't appear to be an issue with the right motherboard and CPU combination. We'll have to wait and see what the official figures will be from AMD.

The long awaited AMD AM5 platform is finally debut! ASRock reveals a series of motherboard based on the revolutionary AMD X670 chipset including X670E Taichi, X670E Steel Legend for the high end and enthusiasts & X670E PRO RS for the mainstream. The new motherboards are equipped with many exciting features and new technology such as PCIe 5.0 & DDR5 capability, the insane IO capability including the support of Thunderbolt 4.0 has pushed the X670 platform even further into high end desktop category, ASRock went all out on the VRM design too, with total of 26 phases SPS Dr.MOS design on the X670E Taichi, it is the most powerful AM5 product ASRock can offer, and on top of that, there's a special edition motherboard X670E Taichi Carrara to celebrate the 20th birthday of ASRock!

ASRock also announces a selection of fascinating new motherboard such as B660/H610M-ITX/eDP, a whole new concept of customization by allowing an actual monitor panel can be mounted on the side of the computer chassis, ASRock is now working closely with chassis manufacture such as, Cooler Master, InWin, Thermaltake and Silver Stone to make this revolutionary concept happen, opens up countless possibility to personalizing your own PC. Also, the Z690 PG Riptide NFT Edition, a very first motherboard, was co-designed by thousands of people from the communities. Moreover, a high-end work station motherboard WRX80 Creator giving uncompromised performance for all kinds of content creation.

Computex 2022 is what's being referred to as a hybrid show and although most of the motherboard manufacturers chose not to exhibit this year, Gigabyte was at the show and we got to take a closer look at its new AM5 motherboards. Gigabyte was only showing four models, but on the plus side, the staff at the booth was more than happy to share details about the boards with us. The four boards on display were the X670E Aorus Xtreme, the X670E Aorus Master, the X670E Aero D and the X670 Aorus Pro AX. Note that these were early board revision and the E is missing in the model name from three of the models, which suggests that AMD hadn't informed the board makers about this distinction between its chipsets until earlier this month when rumours about it started to appear online.

Gigabyte will have a full lineup of boards coming later this year when AMD launches its AM5 platform, although based on the information we were given, the majority of its boards will be based on the B650 chipset. We should point out that there will be high-end B650 motherboards that will be priced similar to lower-end X670 models, which means that buying AM5 motherboards will be highly dependent on what features you favour. Unfortunately no B650 motherboards were on display and we won't be sharing any details of these models at this time. As for the X670E versus X670 chipsets, as there are of course two per board, it seems like the difference comes down to PCIe 5.0 or PCIe 4.0 for the x16 PCIe slot as the major differentiator between Gigabyte's different SKUs.

AMD today unveiled its next-generation Ryzen 7000 desktop processors, based on the Socket AM5 desktop platform. The new Ryzen 7000 series processors introduce the new "Zen 4" microarchitecture, with the company claiming a 15% single-threaded uplift over "Zen 3" (16-core/32-thread Zen 4 processor prototype compared to a Ryzen 9 5950X). Other key specs about the architecture put out by AMD include a doubling in per-core L2 cache to 1 MB, up from 512 KB on all older versions of "Zen." The Ryzen 7000 desktop CPUs will boost to frequencies above 5.5 GHz. Based on the way AMD has worded their claims, it seems that the "+15%" number includes IPC gains, plus gains from higher clocks, plus what the DDR4 to DDR5 transition achieves. With Zen 4, AMD is introducing a new instruction set for AI compute acceleration. The transition to the LGA1718 Socket AM5 allows AMD to use next-generation I/O, including DDR5 memory, and PCI-Express Gen 5, both for the graphics card, and the M.2 NVMe slot attached to the CPU socket.

Much like Ryzen 3000 "Matisse," and Ryzen 5000 "Vermeer," the Ryzen 7000 "Raphael" desktop processor is a multi-chip module with up to two "Zen 4" CCDs (CPU core dies), and one I/O controller die. The CCDs are built on the 5 nm silicon fabrication process, while the I/O die is built on the 6 nm process, a significant upgrade from previous-generation I/O dies that were built on 12 nm. The leap to 5 nm for the CCD enables AMD to cram up to 16 "Zen 4" cores per socket, all of which are "performance" cores. The "Zen 4" CPU core is larger, on account of more number-crunching machinery to achieve the IPC increase and new instruction-sets, as well as the larger per-core L2 cache. The cIOD packs a pleasant surprise—an iGPU based on the RDNA2 graphics architecture! Now most Ryzen 7000 processors will pack integrated graphics, just like Intel Core desktop processors.