The leading global motherboard manufacturer, ASRock, proudly announces its comprehensive new range of motherboards featuring Intel Z690 chipset, a brand new LGA1700 socket platform to pair with latest 12th Generation Intel CoreTM Processors, opening endless possibility with PCI Express 5.0 and DDR5 high speed memory.

Z690 Taichi
Designed for premium user who is looking for uncompromised performance, ASRock Z690 Taichi is definitely the way to go, this motherboard has been given 20 phase Dr.MOS design featuring the latest SPS (Smart Power Stage) technology for a smoother and neater power to the CPU with enhanced performance and OC capability. To pair with the latest and greatest performance from the 12th Generation Intel CoreTM Processors, the Z690 Taichi is also capable of supporting the newest DDR5 DRAM module, the reinforced DIMM slot is surfaced mounted onto the motherboard to give better physical strength as well as a more stable memory signal, with this superior revolutionary design, it is able to dramatically overclock DRAM module up to insane frequency.

Microsoft and AMD on Thursday released software updates that fix the two performance issues affecting AMD Ryzen processors with Windows 11. The two issues were abnormally high L3 cache latency, and a broken "Preferred Cores" system. The companies had assessed that the issues impact performance of Ryzen processors on Windows 11 by as much as 15%.

The two issues are fixed in separate methods. The L3 cache latency bug is improved through a Windows Update patch, which has been released now as an Update Preview (an Update Preview is not a "beta," but a software update released ahead of its designated "patch Tuesday"). The Update Preview is chronicled under KB5006746, and Windows 11 systems updated with this, get their OS build version set as "build 22000.282." The next update restores the Preferred Cores mechanism that leverages UEFI-CPPC2. This update comes in the form of an AMD Chipset Software update. You'll need to download and install both of the following:

DOWNLOAD: Windows 11 October 21, 2021 Update Preview KB5006746 | AMD Chipset Driver Software 3.10.08.506

Contract prices of NAND Flash products are expected to undergo a marginal drop of 0-5% QoQ in 4Q21 as demand slows, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. Hence, the current cyclical upturn in NAND Flash prices will have lasted for only two consecutive quarters. Looking ahead, NAND Flash suppliers' capacity expansion plans will be affected by the outlook on future trends and the supply of other non-memory components. At the same time, attention will have to be paid to the demand projection. At the moment, NAND Flash suppliers appear likely to downsize their capacity expansion activities for 2022, resulting in a 31.8% YoY increase in NAND Flash bit supply next year. Annual bit demand, on the other hand, is projected to increase by 30.8% YoY. With demand being outpaced by supply and competition intensifying among suppliers for higher-layer products, the NAND Flash market will likely experience a cyclical downturn in prices in 2022.

Today, we got ahold of the first picture showing Intel's upcoming Z690 chipset, the highest-end chipset offering for the Alder Lake lineup of processors. From previous leaks, we have concluded that Intel has enabled the Z690 chipset to be a very powerful offering. Featuring support for running either DDR4 or DDR5 memory, the Z690 chipset will allow motherboard AIBs to offer motherboards with both the new and current DDR standards, easing the transition to the new DDR5 memory. As far as PCIe connectivity, this high-end chipset produces 12 PCIe Gen5 lanes, along with 16 PCIe Gen3 lanes. This is, of course, just an addition to the 16 PCIe Gen5 lanes that the Alder Lake processor provides, enabling a wide portfolio of PCIe lanes for connecting SSDs and graphics cards.

Below, you can see the Z690 chipset image (热心市民描边怪 image), compared to the Z590 (AnandTech image) chipset, where there is a clear difference in size. The new Z690 chipset seems quite a lot bigger, and that is really not a surprise given the new technology stack that it brings.

BIOSTAR, a leading brand of motherboards, graphics cards, and storage devices, today announced product support for the latest AMD Ryzen 5000G series Cezanne processors. AMD's next-generation Ryzen 5000G series desktop processors codenamed "Cezanne" are ready to invade the global market. The new 5000G series processors are based on Zen 3 architecture, AMD's Ryzen 5000 series of desktop APUs based on the Zen 3 CPU and Vega GPU microarchitectures succeeding the Ryzen 4000 "Renoir" series.

Extreme performance enabled for personal computing with up to 8 cores fueled by the world's most advanced 7 nm processor core technology, the AMD Ryzen 5000 G-series desktop processors with Radeon graphics deliver ultra-fast responsiveness and multi-threaded performance for any use case.

MediaTek today announced the new Dimensity 920 and Dimensity 810 chipsets, the latest additions to its Dimensity 5G family. This debut gives smartphone makers the ability to provide boosted performance, brilliant imaging and smarter displays to their customers.

Designed for powerful 5G smartphones, the Dimensity 920 balances performance, power and cost to provide an incredible mobile experience. Built using the 6nm high-performance manufacturing node, it supports intelligent displays and hardware-based 4K HDR video capture, while also offering a 9% boost in gaming performance compared to its predecessor, the Dimensity 900.

We've known since last week that AMD's upcoming desktop processor socket, AM5, will be a land-grid array (LGA), much like Intel's desktop sockets; and today we have a first-look at what the land-grid will look like, courtesy of ExecutableFix, who first broke news of AM5 being an LGA of 1,718 pins. Below is a render of the AM5 contact pad (the underside of the processor). The 1,718 contacts span across the fiberglass substrate, with no socket island in the middle for ancillaries. All electrical ancillaries are located on the obverse side of the substrate, surrounding the die(s). The substrate area will remain 40 mm x 40 mm, so the processor package will be roughly of the same size as AM4. In comparison, Intel's upcoming LGA1700 package is expected to measure 37.5 mm x 45 mm (a rectangular substrate).

ExecutableFix put out a handful more details about the I/O of this socket. Apparently, AM5 is a pure-DDR5 platform, with no backwards compatibility with DDR4. The socket features a dual-channel DDR5 memory interface. The PCI-Express interface is PCI-Express 4.0, with the socket putting out 28 lanes in total. 16 of these go to the PEG slot(s), four to an M.2 NVMe slot, and possibly the remaining eight as chipset bus. Considering these are Gen 4, the next-generation X670 (X570 successor) chipset could have double the chipset-bus bandwidth compared to Intel Z590. A typical Socket AM5 chip, such as "Rembrandt," could feature a TDP of 120 W, going up to 170 W, according to the source.

The X570S is a new motherboard series from AMD which offers fanless chipset cooling for silent operations. The new motherboard series features an optimized chipset with power-saving features to achieve the fanless design. While there are currently a few passive X570 boards they come at a high price so these new X570S boards will be a welcome addition. MSI is reportedly planning to release eight new X570S motherboards to replace their high-end and mainstream X570 offerings. The MSI X570S Carbon appears to be a complete redesign rather than a chipset swap with larger heatsinks, increased SATA ports, and various other improvements.

AMD seems to be preparing a chipset refresh, and this time, it is coming straight from the top-end market. When the company launched its high-end X570 chipset, it brought the PCIe 4.0 support, which many praised due to its capability to handle much faster NVMe drives. However, it seems like the company is not satisfied with that and it needs to release an updated chipset version called X570S. According to a popular hardware leaker, TUM_APISAK, we have discovered that GIGABYTE is preparing X570S Aorus Pro AX motherboard that will use the refreshed chipset. GIGABYTE already listed several Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) listings, so the new chipset is sure to hit the market, just at an unknown time.

The S denotes the word silent, meaning that these updated chipsets are capable of working with passive cooling and possibly having a lower TDP compared to 11 and 15 Watts of the X570 chipsets for consumer and enterprise motherboards, respectively. The test was conducted using AMD's newly announced Ryzen 7 5700G processor. The 5000-series of APUs are so far limited to OEMs, so one would guess that GIGABYTE itself made the leak by using a public entry of CPU-Z validation.

Gigabyte Technology, one of the top global manufacturers of motherboards, graphics cards, and hardware solutions, announces today the latest BIOS of B560 AORUS motherboards. Enhanced by the 12+1 phases DrMOS power stage with 60 Amps for each and full coverage VRM thermal design, B560 AORUS motherboards can support Intel Core i9 11900K (F) series processors overclocking to all cores 5.1 GHz. The exclusive anti-interference design of memory circuit enables DDR4 speed raising up to XMP 4800 MHz, and overclocking performance boost to DDR4 5300 MHz. which demonstrates GIGABYTE's strong R&D strength and persistence in quality. Users can enjoy the performance boost of time-limited overclocking by simply updating to the latest BIOS to meet their special needs.1

Intel B series chipset motherboards have been always excluded from overclocking due to the product positioning. Although the memory XMP overclocking is unlocked on 500 series, the processor frequency can only reach up to 4.8 GHz by Turbo Boost. Thanks to the efforts of Gigabyte's R&D team, the processor can be overclocked to 5.1 GHz and maintain low temperature under the Prime95 no AVX burn-in test. This powerful performance benefits from the top-quality materials of GIGABYTE AORUS motherboards and product design capabilities, which include 12+1 phases/ 60Apms DrMOS power stage, 6 layers 2Oz ultra-cool PCB, full-covered VRM thermal design, and the latest Smart Fan 6 technology for temperature control. These features allow processors to have a stable and pure power supply under ultra-high frequency operation, providing the most solid backing for the CPU limited-time overclocking.

With the launch of its 500 series chipsets, Intel has officially laid the groundwork for the launch of its Rocket Lake-S CPU lineup. And with the new platform, there are some new features to be expected. The surprising news today is that Intel has enabled memory overclocking on a non-Z chipset like the upcoming H570 and B560 chipsets designed for mid-range motherboards that provide a budget option compared to the Z series that is designed for overclocking. The H570 and B560 chipsets now only lack the support for CPU overclocking, however, with Intel's history of limiting any overclocking exclusively to Z chipsets, this represents good progress nonetheless. However, for any frequencies above 2666 MHz, you need to use a Core i5 processor and above. The Core i3 and Celeron models are not going to support any higher speeds than 2666 MHz.

As the launch of Intel's 500 series chipsets is getting near, we are starting to see more motherboards appear and get leaked. Today, thanks to the folks over VideoCardz, we have the first pictures of MSI's upcoming Z590 motherboards, with the latest designs and ideas from the company. Pictured below are MSI's trio of motherboards including MSI MEG Z590 GODLIKE, MPG Z590 Gaming Carbon WiFi, and MAG Z590 Tomahawk WiFi boards. The first in line is the MEG Z590 GODLIKE motherboard, a top tier, flagship design made with E-ATX standard in mind. It is supposed to bring all of the platform features to the table while being the best for overclocking due to its 20 (18+1+1) VRM phases.

Next up are the MPG Z590 Gaming Carbon WiFi and MAG Z590 Tomahawk WiFi designs, which should represent a bit cut-down GODLIKE variants. We don't have the exact specifications, so we need to wait for the official announcement.

Here's the first picture of GIGABYTE's next-generation flagship Socket LGA1200 motherboard based on Intel Z590 chipset, with out-of-the-box support for 11th Gen Core "Rocket Lake" desktop processors, the Z590 AORUS Xtreme. Featuring the company's most premium component selection, the board pulls power from a combination of 24-pin ATX and two 8-pin EPS power connectors, conditioning it for the CPU using a massive 21-phase VRM. The only expansion slots on this board are three PCI-Express x16, from which at least two are wired to the CPU (Gen 4.0 x16 or Gen 4.0 x8/x8 with Rocket Lake, Gen 3.0 with Comet Lake); with the third slot being wired to the PCH. Underneath the cladding are three M.2 NVMe slots, from which one is Gen 4.0 x4, and wired to the CPU, while the others are wired to the PCH.

The GIGABYTE Z590 AORUS Xtreme reportedly one-ups the current generation with new connectivity that includes Wi-Fi 6E (802.11ax over 6 GHz radio band), and Thunderbolt 4. The board also features 20 Gbps USB 3.2x2 ports, and wired networking options that include 10 GbE and 2.5 GbE. The board will also be among the first to feature the latest Realtek ALC4080 audio CODEC that replaces the ALC1220 as the company's most premium CODEC. The main stereo channel on the board will still be pulled by an ESS Sabre Reference DAC. We should learn more about this board around mid-January, when Intel is expected to allow its motherboard partners to announce their Intel 500-series chipset products.

Intel is familiar with chip manufacturing problems since the company started the development of a 10 nm silicon semiconductor node. The latest node is coming years late with many IPs getting held back thanks to the inability of the company to produce it. All of Intel's chip production was historically happening at Intel's facilities, however, given the fact that the demand for 14 nm products is exceeding production capability, the company was forced to turn to external foundries like TSMC to compensate for its lack of capacity. TSMC has a contract with Intel to produce silicon for things like chipsets, which is offloading a lot of capacity for the company. Today, thanks to the exclusive information obtained by Reuters, we have information that a certain New York hedge fund, Third Point LLC, is advising the company about the future of its manufacturing.

The hedge fund is reportedly accounting for about one billion USD worth of assets in Intel, thus making it a huge and one influencing shareholder. The Third Point Chief Executive Daniel Loeb wrote a letter to Intel Chairman Omar Ishrak to take immediate action to boost the company's state as a major provider of processors for PCs and data centers. The company has noted that Intel needs to outsource more of its chip production to satisfy the market needs, so it can stay competitive with the industry. The poor performance of Intel has reflected on the company shares, which have declined about 21% this year. This has awoken the shareholders and now we see that they are demanding more aggressiveness from the company and a plan to outsource more of the chip production to partner foundries like TSMC and Samsung. It remains to be seen how Intel responds and what changes are to take place.

When AMD announced its 5000 series Ryzen processors, the company has noted that the new CPUs will be able to operate only on the 500 and 400 series chipsets, with a simple BIOS update. That means that millions of motherboards can install the latest CPUs with no problems. Today, we get to see something that is not a usual thing. ASRock has prepared a BIOS for its X370 Taichi motherboard, and it has been leaked at jzelectronic.de. The newly leaked BIOS is said to bring support for AMD's Ryzen 5000 series of processors codenamed Vermeer. Yes, you are reading that right. ASRock has found a way to bring Vermeer to the unsupported X370 platform.

Although impressive, you must note that the BIOS is in the alpha stage of development, which means that it is enriched with possible bugs and glitches, so it is not recommended for use for now. AMD is against this, and said for Tom's Hardware that "AMD has no plans to enable or support AMD Ryzen 5000 series on AMD 300 series chipsets." That means that ASRock has produced one-off software and it is still a question will the company further develop this new "P6.61" BIOS. You can download it at the jzelectronic.de website but proceed with caution.

When AMD introduced its Smart Access Memory technology, everyone was wondering will other GPU and CPU providers, namely Intel and NVIDIA, develop a similar solution to complement their offerings. The SAM technology is just AMD's way of naming PCIe resizable Base Address Register (BAR) technology, which has been present in PCI specifications for years as an optional feature. Why it's emerging now you might wonder. Well, the currently used PCIe revision has reached enough bandwidth on the bus to complement the complex data movement that GPU requires and now supports the use of the wider VRAM frame buffer.

It appears that not only AMD has this technology in its portfolio. ASUS has updated its BIOS firmware for its ROG Maximus XII Apex motherboard based on the Intel Z490 chipset, with some pretty interesting features. According to Tom's Hardware, we have information that the next release of BIOS firmware update 1003 for the ROG Maximus XII Apex motherboard will bring support for resizable BAR, making it a first on an Intel platform. For now, the beta 1002 BIOS supports it, however, a stable version will roll out in BIOS 1003. With the motherboard using PCIe 3.0 standard, a lower-bandwidth revision compared to AMD's platform, it will be interesting to see how resizable BAR is performing once the first tests come.

Update 09:45 am UTC: Chris Wefers, ASUS PR Germany, has announced that resizable BAR will be coming to all ASUS motherboards with Intel Z490/H470/B460 chipset, with alleged 13.37% performance increase in Forza Horizon 4, per ASUSes testing. You can see the test configuration in the image below.

ASRock announced a new partnership with Razer to develop the ASRock Taichi Razer Edition line of motherboards, the world's first motherboard that is natively integrated with Razer Chroma RGB lighting. Razer Chroma RGB is the world's largest lighting ecosystem for gaming devices which supports over 500 devices, 150 natively integrated games and over 15 million users worldwide. The integration with ASRock enables universal compatibility with thousands of addressable RGB (ARGB) components directly into the ecosystem.

"We've been so excited to make the ASRock Taichi Razer Edition debut. The sense of Razer sublimates it into a part of gamers' religion," said Chris Lee, general manager of ASRock motherboard business unit. "Razer knows well about elements gamers looking for and makes everything fall into place!"

Today, Intel has decided to surprise us and give an update to its upcoming CPU lineup for desktop. With the 11th generation, Core CPUs codenamed Rocket Lake-S, Intel is preparing to launch the new lineup in the first quarter of 2021. This means that we are just a few months away from this launch. When it comes to the architecture of these new processors, they are going to be based on a special Cypress Cove design. Gone are the days of Skylake-based designs that were present from the 6th to 10th generation processors. The Cypress Cove, as Intel calls it, is an Ice Lake adaptation. Contrary to the previous rumors, it is not an adaptation of Tiger Lake Willow Cove, but rather Ice Lake Sunny Cove.

The CPU instruction per cycle (IPC) is said to grow in double-digits, meaning that the desktop users are finally going to see an improvement that is not only frequency-based. While we do not know the numbers yet, we can expect them to be better than the current 10th gen parts. For the first time on the Intel platform for desktops, we will see the adoption of PCIe 4.0 chipset, which will allow for much faster SSD speeds and support the latest GPUs, specifically, there will be 20 PCIe 4.0 lanes coming from the CPU only. The CPU will be paired with 12th generation Xe graphics, like the one found in Tiger Lake CPUs. Other technologies such as Deep Learning Boost and VNNI, Quick Sync Video, and better overclocking tuning will be present as well. Interesting thing to note here is that the 10C/20T Core i9-10900K has a PL1 headroom of 125 W, and 250 W in PL2. However, the 8C/16T Rocket Lake-S CPU also features 125 W headroom in PL1, and 250 W in PL2. This indicates that the new Cypress Cove design runs hotter than the previous generation.

A German website, Heise.de, has discovered a bug in HDMI 2.1 chipset that causes black screen issues on specific hardware. On AV chipsets sourced by Panasonic, and used by Denon, Marantz, and Yamaha HDMI 2.1 AV receivers, the chipset experiences a specific issue of a black screen. More specifically, the bug happens once you connect Microsoft's newest console, Xbox Series X, or NVIDIA's Ampere graphics cards. When connecting these sources at resolutions like 4K/120 Hz HDR and 8K/60 Hz HDR to Panasonic HDMI 2.1 chipsets, the black screen happens. This represents a major problem for every manufacturer planning to use the Panasonic HDMI 2.1 chipset in its AV receivers, meaning that the issue has to be addressed. The Audioholics website has reached out to Sound United and Yamaha to see what their responses were, and you can check them out below.

In the anticipation of the AMD Ryzen 5000 series of CPUs launch based on Zen 3 architecture, AMD has just released the updated drivers for its chipsets. Covering a wide selection ranging from B350, A320, X370, X399, B450, X470, X570, B550, and TRX40 Chipset, the updated chipset drivers include some bug fixes and new features. Now there is an updated power plan for AMD Ryzen CPUs that coordinate with chipsets, which means that AMD engineers have developed a new plan for Windows 10 OS which provides the best performance and power usage. You can check out the fixes listed below and you can go to the download link to install the new drivers.Download: AMD Ryzen Chipset Driver 2.10.13.408.

Today there is some quite interesting information circulating the web regarding ASUS and its alleged decision. Going a few months back, AMD released a statement regarding the support for its upcoming Ryzen 5000 series CPUs and said that it should enable compatibility with the last-generation X470 and B450 chipset. That, however, has remained a bit of mystery. The update is baked-in with the BIOS, which every manufacturer, like MSI, ASUS, Gigabyte, etc. provides independently of AMD. So it is a manufacturer-dependant case, where if one vendor chooses not to provide support for 400 series chipsets, many motherboards will not support new CPU generation.

Update Oct 14th: ASUS has reached out to us and said that "ASUS will provide updated BIOS' for the X470 and B450 chipsets based on AMD's current release schedule of new AGESA code in January 2021. This original report was based on incorrect information." This means that the customer support case contained wrong information, and ASUS is going to support 5000 series Ryzen CPUs on 400 series chipsets. Please note that the information below is incorrect.

Have you ever felt the need that your motherboard needs more ports? Different peripherals can occupy quite a lot of USB ports and almost fill up all of them quickly. That is where the Portwell PEB-9783G2AR motherboard comes into play. Being built on Intel's latest W480E/Q470E chipset designed to accommodate any 10th generation 10 core CPU with a TDP of up to 80 W, the board can run either a Xeon W CPU or regular Comet Lake-S Core CPU. However, what makes this board unique is not its chipset or anything, it is the number of USB ports present.

Portwell has put an astonishing 20 (you read that right) USB 3.1 Gen1 ports on the board, which you can run at a full 5 Gbit/s data signaling rate at the same time. The board doesn't use any splitting technology so you are getting the full bandwidth. To get that many ports to run at full capacity, Portwell has presumably re-routed chipset lanes for SATA 3 connectors and used them for USB ports, leaving only two SATA 3 ports. The board is built for the FlexATX form factor and features a sideways PCIe 3.0 port. Being built for Xeon, the board also features support for ECC memory and up to 128 GB of it. While the pricing is not yet available, you can get a quote on Portwell's website.

AMD's recent announcement of its Ryzen 4000G and Ryzen PRO 4000G series desktop processors lacked a key detail - pricing, possibly because it's irrelevant to end users as the processors are sold only in the OEM channel. momomo_us secured a slide (possibly by AMD's channel marketing), which puts out SEP (suggestive) pricing per chip in n-unit tray quantities. Apparently, the Ryzen 7 PRO 4750G, and its energy-efficient -GE variant, are priced at USD $309. The Ryzen 5 PRO 4650G/GE comes with a $209 price, and the Ryzen 3 PRO 4350G/GE at $149.

Prices of the other parts in this slide appear to be stuck at their respective launch-time SEP pricing, since all of the price-cuts AMD implemented appear to be unofficial, and specific to retailers and regions. AMD also updated its familiar-looking processor-to-chipset compatibility slide with the inclusion of the new 4000G series. Apparently the new processors only work with AMD 500-series chipsets, such as the B550, X570, and the commercial-segment exclusive PRO565 chipset. This is strange since "Renoir" is now confirmed to lack PCIe gen 4.0, and only spares gen 3.0 x8 for PEG, which means 400-series chipsets are excluded due to ROM size limitations to squeeze in AGESA microcode supporting several generations of processors and microarchitectures. Interestingly, AMD assured customers of Ryzen 4000-series compatibility with 400-series chipsets. Perhaps they were only referring to the "Zen 3" based "Vermeer" processors, as the slide shows.

MediaTek today announced the Dimensity 720, its latest 5G SoC that will give consumers access to premium 5G experiences on mid-tier smartphones. The Dimensity 720, is part of MediaTek's 5G chipset family that includes range of chipsets from Dimensity 1000 for flagship 5G smartphones to the Dimensity 800 and 700 series for more accessible 5G mid-tier devices.

"The Dimensity 720 sets a new standard, delivering feature-packed 5G experiences and technology to devices that are more accessible to mass market consumers," said Dr. Yenchi Lee, Deputy General Manager, Wireless Communications Business Unit, MediaTek. "This chip is highly power-efficient, has impressive performance and advanced display and imaging technologies. All of that combined will help brands usher in differentiated 5G devices for consumers around the globe."

Semiconductor manufacturing is a difficult process. Often when a new node is being developed, there are new materials introduced that may cause some yield issues. Or perhaps with 7 nm and below nodes, they are quite difficult to manufacture due to their size, as the transistor can get damaged by the smallest impurity in silicon. So manufacturers have to be extra careful and must spend more time on the development of new nodes. According to industry sources over at DigiTimes, we have information that Samsung is struggling with its 5 nm EUV node.

This unfortunate news comes after the industry sources of DigiTimes reported that Qualcomm's next-generation 5G chipsets could be affected if Samsung doesn't improve its yields. While there are no specific pieces of information on what is the main cause of bad yields, there could be a plethora of reasons. From anything related to manufacturing equipment to silicon impurities. We don't know yet. We hope that Samsung can sort out these issues in time, so Qualcomm wouldn't need to reserve its orders at rival foundries and port the design to a new process.