A significant fix has been submitted to the Linux kernel 6.13-rc1 that addresses prolonged boot times affecting older AMD processors, specifically targeting "Zen 1" and "Zen 2" architectures. The issue, which has been present for approximately 18 months, could cause boot delays ranging from several seconds to multiple minutes in extreme cases. The problem was discovered by a Nokia engineer who reported inconsistent boot delays across multiple AMD EPYC servers. The most severe instances showed the initial unpacking process taking several minutes longer than expected, though not all boots were affected. Investigation revealed that the root cause stemmed from a kernel modification implemented in June 2023, specifically related to CPU microcode update handling.

The technical issue was identified as a missing step in the boot process: Zen 1 and Zen 2 processors require the patch buffer mapping to be flushed from the Translation Lookaside Buffer (TLB) after applying CPU microcode updates during startup. The fix, submitted as part of the "x86/urgent" material ahead of the Linux 6.13-rc1 release, implements the necessary TLB flush for affected AMD Ryzen and EPYC systems. This addition eliminates what developers described as "unnecessary and unnatural delays" in the boot process. While the solution will be included in the upcoming Linux 6.13 kernel release, plans are in place to back-port the fix to stable kernel versions to help cover most Linux users on older Zen architectures.

Creative Technology today proudly unveils its latest True Wireless Stereo (TWS) earbuds and headphones, the Creative Zen Air SXFI and Creative Zen Hybrid SXFI, designed to transport users into the immersive world of Super X-Fi. With a simple tap, users can expand their soundstage and be engulfed in every detail of their preferred content across platforms like Netflix, Spotify, and YouTube, all powered by the built-in SXFI technology. Boasting additional features such as Adaptive Hybrid ANC and Ambient mode, Bluetooth 5.3, low-latency of up to ~100 ms, the Creative Zen Air SXFI and Creative Zen Hybrid SXFI are poised to redefine how users engage with their favorite content.

Renowned for its ability to recreate the expansive soundstage of a high-end multi-speaker surround system, Super X-Fi now shines in the latest Creative Zen Air SXFI and Creative Zen Hybrid SXFI, enriching users' listening experience with spatial audio. With Super X-Fi activated, users can transcend the boundaries of traditional stereo sound, immersing themselves in a three-dimensional audio world teeming with heightened realism and depth. Whether it's the thunderous roar of a cinematic explosion, the subtle rustle of leaves in a forest, or the precise positioning of footsteps in a game, Super X-Fi delivers unparalleled spatial accuracy and depth, allowing users to truly feel like they're part of the action.

On February 26, 2024, AMD received new research related to an industry-wide DRAM issue documented in "ZENHAMMER: Rowhammering Attacks on AMD Zen-based Platforms" from researchers at ETH Zurich. The research demonstrates performing Rowhammer attacks on DDR4 and DDR5 memory using AMD "Zen" platforms. Given the history around Rowhammer, the researchers do not consider these rowhammering attacks to be a new issue.

Mitigation
AMD continues to assess the researchers' claim of demonstrating Rowhammer bit flips on a DDR5 device for the first time. AMD will provide an update upon completion of its assessment.

AMD has been on a roll ever since it launched its first generation Zen core, which brought a much-needed performance and efficiency boost that finally brought a level of competitiveness against Intel's offerings. Years of iterations and design improvements have only increased AMD's value proposition towards consumers and businesses. A testament to that fact is that AMD in Q1 2022 hit its largest market share in history.

According to market analysis firm Mercury Research, AMD's offerings have continued to claw back market share from Intel, despite its strong recovery in performance and efficiency metrics following the debut of the 12th Gen Intel CPU family, Alder Lake. The firm places AMD's overall x86 market share for 1Q 2022 (including IoT and SoCs such as the ones found in the latest gaming consoles) at a record-breaking 27.7%, up 2.1% QoQ and a staggering 7% YoY. The server side of the equation has seen less stellar gains, but still increased by 0.9% QoQ, and 2.7% YoY, achieving a high of 11.6% share against Intel's decades-long market stranglehold.

G.SKILL International Enterprise Co., Ltd., the world's leading manufacturer of extreme performance memory and gaming peripherals, is thrilled to announce the availability of the latest Trident Z Royal Elite memory series, along with the introduction of new high-speed, low-latency performance memory specifications at DDR4-4000 CL14-15-15-35 and DDR4-3600 CL14-14-14-34. Built with Samsung 8 Gb B-die ICs to achieve these incredibly low latency timings, these new DDR4 memory specifications are the ideal choice for building a powerful workstation or the ultimate gaming system.

G.SKILL is dedicated to developing high-speed, low-latency memory kits for high performance PC systems, and achieving an extremely low CL14 latency on high-speed dual-ranked memory modules is no easy feat. Created with Samsung B-die ICs, G.SKILL is launching the incredible DDR4-4000 CL14-15-15-35 memory specification with 16 GB modules for a 32 GB (16 GB x2) kit capacity. Below is a screenshot showing the memory kit on the ASUS ROG STRIX Z590-E GAMING WIFI motherboard with the Intel Core i7-11700KF processor.

The rumor mill keeps crushing away; in this case, regarding AMD's plans for their next-generation Zen designs. Various users have shared pieces of the same AMD roadmap, which apparently places AMD in an APU-focused landscape come their Ryzen 7000 series. we are currently on AMD's Ryzen 5000-series; Ryzen 6000 is supposed to materialize via a Zen 3+ design, with improved performance per watt obtained from improvements to its current Zen 3 family. However, Ryzen 7000-series is expected to debut on AMD's next-gen platform (let's call it AM5), which is also expected to introduce DDR5 support for AMD's mainstream computing platform. And now, the leaked, alleged roadmaps paint a Zen 4 + Navi 2 APU series in the works for AMD's Zen 4 debut with Raphael - roadmapped for manufacturing at the 5 nm process.

The inclusion of an iGPU chip with AMD's mainstream processors may signal a move by AMD to produce chiplets for all of its products, and then integrating them in the final product. You just have to think about it in the sense that AMD could "easily" pair one of the eight-core chiplets from the current Ryzen 5800X, for example, with an I/O die (which would likely still be fabricated with Global Foundries) an an additional Navi 2 GPU chiplet. It makes sense for AMD to start fabricating GPUs as chiplets as well - AMD's research on MCM (Multi-Chip Module) GPUs is pretty well-known at this point, and is a given for future development. It means that AMD needed only to develop one CPU chiplet and one GPU chiplet which they can then scale on-package by adding in more of the svelte pieces of silicon - something that Intel still doesn't do, and which results in the company's monolithic dies.

MSI, a world-leading motherboard manufacturer, announces the release of AGESA COMBO PI V2 1.2.0.1 beta BIOS for its AMD 500 series motherboards to add SMART ACCESS MEMORY support to AMD RYZEN 3000 desktop processors. Now both RYZEN 5000 and RYZEN 3000* desktop processors support SMART ACCESS MEMORY. AGESA COMBO PI V2 1.2.0.1 BIOS also improves L3 Cache bandwidth in AIDA64 for RYZEN 5000 desktop processors.

SMART ACCESS MEMORY is an innovative feature that allows the system to access the full capacity of the VRAM on the graphics card. Compare to the current solution which has a 256 MB access limitation, this feature will provide the users a better gaming experience.

ZenTimings by Ivan Rusanov is a tiny (< 500 KB download) app that lets you monitor your machine's memory timings in a really neat user-interface. The app works with all generations of AMD Ryzen processors, as well as Athlon processors based on the "Zen" microarchitectures. Besides timings, you also get basic info about the main clock domains that affect memory, such as memory clock (DDR), MCLK, UCLK, FCLK; relevant voltage readouts. This simple app is completely free, and open-source, if you'd like to inspect the code. The latest version v1.2.2 adds PHYWRD, PHYWRL, PHYRDL and PowerDown reading, DRAM and VTT readings, and the latest AMD "Dali" APUs. If you like the app, consider contributing to Rusanov on his website, in the source link below.

DOWNLOAD: ZenTimings by Ivan Rusanov v1.2.2The change-log follows.

An investigative, generation-upon-generation review from golem.de paints an extremely impressive picture for AMD's efforts in iterating upon their original Zen architecture. While the first generation Zen achieved a sorely needed inflection point in the red team's efforts against arch-rival Intel and its stranglehold in the high-performance CPU market, AMD couldn't lose its vision on generational performance improvements on pain of being steamrolled (pun intended) by the blue giant's sheer scale and engineering prowess. However, perhaps this is one of those showcases of "small is nimble", and we're now watching Intel slowly changing its posture, crushed under its own weight, so as to offer actual competition to AMD's latest iteration of the Zen microarchitecture.

The golem.de review compares AMD's Zen, Zen+, Zen 2 and Zen 3 architectures, represented by the Ryzen 7 1800X, Ryzen 7 2700X, Ryzen 7 3800X and Ryzen 7 5800X CPUs. Through it, we see a generational performance increase that mostly exceeds the 20% performance points across every iteration of Zen when it comes to both gaming and general computing workloads. This generational improvement hits its (nowadays) most expressive result in that AMD's Ryzen 7 5800X manages to deliver 89% higher general computing, and 84% higher gaming performance than the company's Zen-based Ryzen 7 1800X. And this, of course, ignoring performance/watt improvements that turn the blue giant green with envy.

When AMD introduced its Smart Access Memory (SAM) technology, it was used as one of the key advertising points for its 5000 series of Ryzen processors based on Zen 3 architecture. At the time of launch, it was believed that only the latest generation of Ryzen processors can support it and only AMD GPUs can see a benefit in performance. However, later on, many of the motherboard makers have been playing with BIOS updates and have found a way to enable resizable BAR, the technology used for SAM, on non-AMD platforms. Today, thanks to the Reddit user Merich98 we have found out that ASUS has enabled resizable BAR support via BIOS update.

The user has used BIOS version 2409, released just a few days ago, on ASUS B450-PLUS motherboard. The feat is no extraordinary because it works on a B450 motherboard, it has been supported for a long time, but rather the feat is impressive because it works with the first generation AMD Ryzen 7 1700 processor. This contradicts the theory that SAM only needs 5000 series AMD Ryzen processors to run. However, the gains were not that great. On average, the average frame rate number has increased by a small +0.839%. This could be attributed to some margin of error, so it seems like SAM is not giving much performance uplift in this case.

AMD Project Quantum has been quite a mysterious product. While we knew that is was an ITX sized, water-cooled case that would feature an Intel CPU with AMD GPU, we never knew if it was coming or not. Featuring a unique, two-chamber design, AMD managed to develop two sections, where one is used for all the compute components, and the other one contains the radiator and fan for dissipating the heat produced by the compute chamber. Four years ago, we got the news that the project isn't dead and that it will get an update with AMD's upcoming Zen CPU and Vega GPU back then. However, since that announcement, there was no word on it.

Until today. Thanks to a Twitter user PeteB(@Pete_2097) who found a newly listed patent, the hope of Project Quantum is not yet dead it seems. On September 15th, AMD filed a patent for the Project Quantum, now protecting the unique design and possibly saving it for some time in the future. It is almost certain that the company has not abandoned the project, and it could be just waiting for the right time to launch it.

Today, AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) announced the first AMD Ryzen mobile processors and latest AMD Athlon mobile processors for Chromebook platforms, with up to 178% faster web browsing compared to the previous generation. Designed in collaboration with Google, the AMD Ryzen and Athlon 3000 C-Series Mobile Processor lineup introduces the first-ever "Zen" architecture-powered Chromebooks with systems from Acer, ASUS, HP, and Lenovo launching in Q4 2020. The AMD Ryzen 3000 C Series Mobile Processors offer up to 212% better performance for multitasking and content creation compared to the previous generation of AMD Chromebooks. With built-in AMD Radeon Graphics, AMD Ryzen 3000 C-Series Mobile processors include the most powerful graphics available in a Chromebook.

AMD has reportedly updated its Ryzen 3 1200 CPU with Zen+ architecture and is now offering it to consumers. Featuring a configuration of 4 cores with 4 threads, this CPU can operate anywhere from 3.1 GHz (base) to 3.4 GHz in boost frequency. Having originally launched in July of 2017, just under three years ago, AMD decided to refresh this CPU with Zen+ architecture, which brought improvements like a tiny IPC increase, better turbo boost speeds, faster caches and better memory controller for better support of faster DDR4 modules.

The new "Zen+" revision has the same specifications as the older model, however, the only difference is the newer 12 nm manufacturing process and some of the architecture changes of Zen+. The rest of the specifications like clock speeds are the same. The CPU is listed by a German supplier for €54.73 or about $60. This revision carries a different part number, under the code "YD1200BBM4KAFBOX", where the older 14 nm model was "YD1200BBM4KAEBOX".

AMD's resurgence is a well threaded story already. Missteps with their Bulldozer architecture, spinning-off of their manufacturing division off to a separate entity (Global Foundries), the investment in semi-custom solutions and the launch of Zen are well documented throughout numerous articles on this publication. As such, and considering AMD's current market position - one-upping Intel in all but the lightest-threaded tasks in both consumer and enterprise markets - the fact that Fortune named her "one of the most powerful women in business" should come as a surprise to, well, almost no-one.

The nomination is headed by comments on AMD's 23% revenue increase YoY, as well as the 66% increase in stock value after the launch of Zen 2-based products. The fact that Lisa Su is the only female leader in the semiconductor industry also doesn't go by unnoticed in the nomination.

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 Lisa Su at Computex 2019 confirmed to Tom's hardware that the company wasn't licensing anymore of its x86 IP portfolio to China-based companies. AMD entered a technology license agreement with China's Tianjin Haiguang Advanced Technology Investment Co. Ltd. (THATIC) in 2016. As part of the agreement to license its x86 and SoC IP for chip development, AMD received a cash infusion worth $293 million (plus royalties).

As a result, Chinese chipmaker Hygon started delivering their "Dhyana" CPUs, which looked like copies of AMD's Zen-based Epyc chips with added, Chinese-government approved cryptographic capabilities. AMD had to go through some hoops to get this deal done, but it did. However, now the technology refinement pipe is draining for the Chinese companies, as AMD won't be delivering its post-Zen updates to the core design. It remains to be seen if AMD's intellectual property was enough for Chinese companies to ignite their own in-country CPU development, or if the ongoing US-China trade war will keep on draining the company of CPU independence.

The folks over at Videocardz have treated us to a leak on MSI's upcoming X570 motherboards. The company's mid-tier MPG motherboards usually include the likes of the Gaming Carbon and Gaming Plus motherboards, and this round of motherboard development is no different. Both motherboards join leaked designs from other brands that showed active cooling being mounted on top of the chipset, a throwback to another era.

The leaked Gaming Plus is the lower-tier of the two leaked solutions of today, cutting on reinforcements on some expansion ports (such as the PCIe 16x slot). The Gaming Pro Carbon features a fancier design (with RGB lighting); the chipset hroud also serves as cooling for M.2 slots you can populate underneath (or so it seems). The Gaming Pro Carbon has more attention to detail on the placement of connectors such as SATA, and seems to have a slight advantage on the overall motherboard power delivery circuits, but these are just being eyeballed. One thing we can see is that while the Gaming Pro Carbon features MSI's Audio Boost feature, the Gaming Plus doesn't. Expect more details to be available closer to launch.

Chinese PC maker Zhongshan Subor believes that there is space for a class of devices between game consoles and gaming desktops, targeted at Chinese gamers that game a lot online, and won't mind a little productivity on the side. The same class of people are repulsed by the idea of gaming desktops from traditional OEMs, which tend to be overpriced; and don't want to burn their hands building their own PC. For them, there's a new console-desktop; which runs common PC OS, plays PC versions of games, and runs PC apps, while exhibiting some characteristics of a console (perhaps a dashboard, and a highly customized user-interface stack), called simply SUBOR.

A part of what makes SUBOR affordable compared to OEM gaming desktops is because every component is purpose-built, including the SoC at the heart of it. This semi-custom SoC is codenamed "Fenghuang." The chip is a cut above the one that powers the PS4 Pro or Xbox One X. It combines a 4-core/8-thread CPU based on AMD's latest "Zen" architecture, compared to the low-power "Jaguar" derivatives that power the fastest consoles. The CPU runs at up to 3.00 GHz of clocks, and has 4 MB of L3 cache. The GPU is equally impressive: based on "Vega," it packs 24 NGCUs, translating to 1,536 stream processors, and the latest feature-set, including DirectX 12 and Vulkan. The GPU engine ticks at up to 1.30 GHz. 8 GB of GDDR5 memory across a 256-bit wide interface, is hardwired to the SoC (no memory expansion). The SUBOR will be unveiled at China Joy 2018.

CTS-Labs the research group behind the AMD "Zen" CPU vulnerabilities, posted an addendum to its public-release of the whitepaper, in an attempt to dispel some of the criticism in their presentation in the absence of technical details (which they shared with AMD and other big tech firms). In their clarification whitepaper, quoted below, they get into slightly more technical details on each of the four vulnerability classes.

There has been recent press coverage regarding a potential security issue related to modern microprocessors and speculative execution. Information security is a priority at AMD, and our security architects follow the technology ecosystem closely for new threats. It is important to understand how the speculative execution vulnerability described in the research relates to AMD products, but please keep in mind the following:

• The research described was performed in a controlled, dedicated lab environment by a highly knowledgeable team with detailed, non-public information about the processors targeted.
• The described threat has not been seen in the public domain.

The "Zen" CPU micro-architecture seems to be turning AMD's fortunes as it reported its first black quarter in years. The 14 nm "Zeppelin" or "Summit Ridge" die is at the heart of this change. This 8-core CPU die is implemented on everything from performance mobile packages, to single-die mainstream-desktop socket AM4 under the Ryzen 3, Ryzen 5, and Ryzen 7-series, 2-die high-end desktop (HEDT) multi-chip modules under Ryzen Threadripper, and the 4-die enterprise multi-chip modules under the EPYC brand. The next logical step for AMD with its new "Zen" CPU IP was to fuse it with the "Vega" graphics architecture, and give its APU lineup a much needed overhaul. At the heart of this move is the new 14 nm "Raven Ridge" silicon.

While "Summit Ridge" is the combination of two "Zen" CCX (quad-core CPU complex) units making up an 8-core CPU die that lacks integrated graphics, the "Raven Ridge" silicon combines one "Zen" CCX with an integrated graphics core based on the "Vega" architecture. AMD's new Infinity Fabric interconnect ferries data between the CCX and the iGPU, and not an internal PCIe link. The CCX houses four "Zen" CPU cores with 64 KB of L1I cache, 32 KB of L1D cache, 512 KB of dedicated L2 cache, and 4 MB of L3 cache shared between the four cores.

AMD's Zen-based Ryzen and Threadripper have been said by the company as representing the "worst case scenario" of performance for their architecture. This is based on the fact that there are clear areas for improvement that AMD's engineers were keenly aware of even at the moment of Zen's tapping-out; inadvertently, some features or improvements were left on the chopping block due to time and budget constraints. As unfortunate as this is - who wouldn't love to have even more performance on their AMD processors - this also means AMD has a clear starting point in terms of improving performance of their Zen micro-architecture.

Spanish website Informatica Cero have gotten their hands on what they say is an exclusive, real piece of information from inside AMD, which shows the company's CPU roadmap until 2019, bringing some new details with it. On the desktop side, there's mention of AMD's "Pinacle Ridge" as succeeding the current Zen-based "Summit Ridge" Ryzen CPUs in 2018. These leverage the same Summit Ridge architecture, but with a performance uplift; this plays well into those reports of 12 nm being used to manufacture the second-generation Ryzen: it's an AMD tick, so to say. As such, the performance uplift likely comes from increased frequencies at the same power envelope, due to 12 nm's denser manufacturing design.

It looks like AMD will combine its two latest intellectual properties, the "Zen" CPU micro-architecture, and the "Vega" graphics architecture into a single silicon after all, as reports citing leaked OpenCL tables confirm that the company's upcoming Ryzen "Raven Ridge" APU will feature graphics compute units (CUs) based on the "Vega" architecture. It's becoming increasingly clear, that "Raven Ridge" features a "Zen" CCX unit, and a "Vega" based graphics core with up to 12 NGCUs, making up 768 stream processors. The "Zen" CCX talks to the "Vega" graphics core using Infinity Fabric, the same interconnect used between two CCX units on the "Summit Ridge" silicon, and between two "Summit Ridge" dies on the Ryzen Threadripper MCM.

The "Raven Ridge" silicon will hence feature up to 4 CPU cores, with SMT enabling up to 8 threads, up to 8 MB of L3 cache, a "Vega" based graphics core with up to 12 NGCUs making 768 stream processors, a dual-channel DDR4 integrated memory controller, and the same integrated southbridge as "Summit Ridge," featuring two SATA 6 Gb/s ports, and USB 3.0 ports directly from the SoC. In addition, you get a PCI-Express 3.0 x16 interface for graphics, which can be split into two x8 for 2-way multi-GPU. The OpenCL listings speak about two distinct variants, one with 11 NGCUs, and another with 8. AMD plans to roll out the first "Raven Ridge" based products as Ryzen 5 series and Ryzen 7 series mobile APUs, with a desktop debut a little later.

MSI B350/A320 GAMING AND PRO SERIES MOTHERBOARDS FULLY SUPPORT THE NEW AMD RYZEN 3 PROCESSORS
MSI, world leading in gaming motherboards design, is pleased to announce that all its X370, B350 and A320 based GAMING & PRO Series motherboards support the all-new Ryzen 3 line of processors, out of the box.

Furthermore, by choosing MSI B350/A320 motherboards, one can get better performance and higher efficiency from AMD's newest Dual Core and Quad-core RYZEN offerings. MSI enabled world's first 1-second DDR4 performance and stability feature for AM4 based motherboards, A-XMP. By using A-XMP MSI AM4 motherboard owners can simply set their memory timings and speed to its optimal settings in a single click for the best performance and stability. A-XMP also enables support for higher rated DDR4 memory kits to work without any hassle. A-XMP is available in the BIOS, on all MSI AM4 motherboards.

MSI, world leading in motherboard design, launches five new ATX GAMING motherboards based on the AMD AM4 X370 and B350 chipset. These new GAMING models are positioned in the Performance GAMING segment, a series all about Gaming In style. Its new flagship is the X370 GAMING PRO CARBON AC with Mystic Light RGB, to fully customize its looks, but now also available with Intel WIFI AC. The new X370 and B350 GAMING motherboards all support the upcoming AMD RYZEN Series processors and 7th Gen A-series / Athlon Processors and are ready to fully utilize performance on AM4 with the exclusive MSI A-XMP feature, maximizing DDR4 speed & stability.