Today, in the year 2000, AMD shipped an undisputable processor milestone, its 1 GHz Athlon CPU. Thus, the Gigahertz PC era was born. AMD scored marketing gold ahead of its powerful rival Intel. PC industry heavy hitters of the time, Compaq and Gateway, were key partners, and the first pre-built 1 GHz system deliveries began the following week.

Tom’s Hardware had previewed the new Athlon K7 processors back in August 1999 and reviewed a 1.1 GHz model in August 2000. Neither of these milestone chips made it into our five best AMD CPUs of all time feature, though.

AMD’s Athlon 1 GHz press release, which we are grateful is preserved by CPU Shack, was triumphant. The firm’s chairman and CEO at the time, W.J. Sanders III, likened the 1 GHz feat to aviation science’s breaking of the sound barrier. “Just as the achievement of Chuck Yeager signaled the beginning of a new era in aviation, the 1 GHz processor ushers in a new era of information technology,” said Sanders, heralding the new levels of CPU processing power. “AMD plans to lead in the gigahertz era.”

It also managed to get industry analyst quotes comparing the 1 GHz Athlon launch to man’s first steps on the moon, the breaking of the four-minute-mile athletics record, and the conquering of Everest.

Enough of the marketing bombast, what about the AMD Athlon 1 GHz specs? The first AMD Athlon processors would debut in June 1999. Over their production history, they would progress from 500 MHz to 1.4 GHz, FSB speeds from 100 to 133 MHz, and tech nodes from 250 nm to 180 nm. These K7 chips would also be made available in Slot A, Socket A, and Socket 563 platforms.

The specific 1 GHz barrier-breaking chip is thankfully cataloged by TechPowerUp. From the site's database, we can see it was a Slot A model with a bundled cooler, produced on the 180 nm process and packing 22 million transistors. Its clock speed was the magic 1,000 MHz, and it had a base clock of 100 MHz with a 10.0x multiplier. It drew 1.8V for a TDP of 65W. Of course, it was a single-core processor, before the days of hyperthreading, and came with a 128KB L1 Cache, and 512KB L2 cache. The first gigahertz Athlon's tray price at launch was $1,299.

Intel caught off guard

Intel was caught with its pants down by the AMD 1 GHz processor shipment announcement. The iconic PC chipmaker had been boasting about its breaking of the Gigahertz barrier for over a year, citing public demos of the 0.25 micron Pentium III processor pushing beyond this milestone.

AMD’s shipping announcement prompted Intel to paper launch its 1 GHz Pentium III chip (Tray price $990) two days later. However, it was plagued by supply issues for months. Contemporary reports suggest Intel planned to ramp volume in Q3 2000, which would give AMD quite a lot of time to make merry with its 1 GHz Athlon.

Although AMD makes CPUs, GPUs, and now FPGAs, it's really the first one on that list that has been the core of AMD's business and identity for much of its history. Though AMD and its CPUs were frequently in underdog status in the Intel vs AMD war, today it looks less and less true, and it's definitely thanks to a string of great CPUs the company has made recently, getting AMD back to where it was on its legendary streak in the 2000s and helping it score top ranks in our list of the Best CPUs for gaming.

Given that AMD has been making competitive CPUs for over two decades now, it's not easy to choose just five that have been great — there have been numerous models that perform well in our CPU benchmarks. We considered the competitiveness and reputation of not only individual chips, but their wider CPU family as well. We've ranked our five choices from bottom to top and ended with an honorable mention.

5 — Athlon XP 1800+: A revolution in performance and nomenclature

AMD was founded in the same year as Intel, but early on, it was clear that Intel was the leading figure in the emerging semiconductor industry. In fact, much of AMD's early success rested on partnering with Intel, where AMD acted as a second source for Intel CPUs. When Intel first introduced its x86 processors and got IBM to use them in its legendary Personal Computer (AKA the PC), IBM stipulated that Intel had to team up with another manufacturer to ensure there was enough supply. Intel chose AMD, which would end up being incredibly consequential.

AMD went from a second source to a fully independent CPU manufacturer after a legal battle against Intel that ultimately resulted in AMD's acquisition of equal rights to the x86 architecture. Though AMD started out with clones of Intel CPUs, it eventually moved on to making its own custom architectures with K5 and later K6. However, the company couldn't catch up with Intel's top-end Pentium series with these architectures.

The third try was the charm for AMD with its K7 architecture, which powered AMD's original Athlon CPUs. These new AMD chips outright beat Intel's Pentium III processors, and not only that, they were even faster at the same clock speed. Back in those days, frequency was usually the only thing that mattered as long as CPUs had plenty of cache, but AMD's K7 showed architectural design mattered, too. The K7 was so potent because it could also scale to high frequencies, and AMD reached the 1 GHz mark before Intel, all thanks to the K7 and the Athlon.

When Intel introduced its Pentium 4 CPUs to retake the crown, it didn't follow AMD's lead but rather doubled down on high clock speeds and lower instructions-per-clock (IPC). K7 had plenty of gas left to meet Intel's new NetBurst architecture, though, and AMD's brand-new Athlon XP CPUs really cemented the fact that the Athlon would remain a contender for first place for a long time. The initial flagship, the Athlon XP 1800+, won most benchmarks against Intel's 2 GHz Pentium 4 chip in our review, and this was despite Intel striking back with both a new architecture and higher frequencies.

Athlon XP was also a turning point in how CPUs were named. By this point, K7 had gained so much of its performance lead thanks to architectural innovations that the 1800+ could beat the 2 GHz model of the Pentium 4 despite only having a clock speed of 1.5 GHz. AMD decided that it would be shooting itself in the foot if it continued to differentiate and name CPUs based solely on clock speed. The model names of Athlon XP CPUs were based on how closely they performed to competing Intel models, with 1800+ meaning it was about equivalent to a 1.8 GHz Pentium 4.

In the end, K7 and Athlon carried AMD for four years, albeit with several updates and upgrades. Athlon XP gradually lost its supremacy as Pentium 4 continued to get faster models with ever higher clock speeds, but nevertheless, it was competitive and built on top of the original Athlon CPUs to deliver AMD a fairly long period of victory. It's quite rare nowadays that a single architecture can stay viable for such a long amount of time, and K7 was uniquely potent despite its age.

4 — Ryzen 7 7800X3D: The ultra-efficient and better-value gaming flagship

Today, AMD enjoys a position that isn't unlike the one it had in the classic Athlon days. Arguably, its Ryzen 7000 CPUs are in the lead in several key categories over Intel's competing 14th-Gen and Core Series 1 chips, and this is just the continuation of a mostly uninterrupted streak of wins. Ryzen 7000, like Athlon XP, was built on top of the achievements of its predecessor, and much of the strength of Ryzen 7000's Zen 4 architecture is thanks to Zen 3.

AMD introduced some key innovations with its Zen 3 architecture for the Ryzen 5000 series and Epyc Milan server CPUs. It featured one unified block of L3 cache for more consistent core-to-core latencies and 20% higher IPC, both of which were good but expected improvements. However, there was one addition AMD didn't utilize immediately: data links that enabled a secondary chip full of nothing but cache to be placed on top of the CPU chiplets. It was already known that more cache was always better, but how much better could a CPU really be if it was just beefed up with more cache?

The Ryzen 7 5800X3D proved cache could add tons of performance to a CPU. Released a year and a half after the debut of Ryzen 5000, the 5800X3D was almost identical to the regular 5800X but came with 64MB of L3 cache. It punched way above its weight against the Ryzen 9 5950X and Core i9-12900K in games, often matching and sometimes beating both. Unfortunately, it was more of a proof-of-concept, as (at the time) it was the only Ryzen 5000 CPU with 3D V-Cache, had reduced clock speeds, and was on the soon-to-be-phased-out AM4 socket.

Ryzen X3D really hit its stride with the Ryzen 7000 series, and AMD wasted no time and resources for its second generation of Ryzen X3D CPUs in 2023. This time around, AMD launched a full lineup: the Ryzen 9 7900X3D and 7950X3D to start off with, followed by the Ryzen 7 7800X3D a couple of months later. Launching these chips very early into Ryzen 7000's life span made a really big difference, as you wouldn't be left wondering if it was worth buying a 7000X3D chip if the next generation was just around the corner.

Of the three 3D V-Cache chips launched, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D at the bottom is arguably the best of all. Sure, it only has eight cores, and it also has the lowest clock speeds of the bunch; the 7900X3D and the 7950X3D can achieve much higher clock speeds by utilizing their second chiplet that doesn't have a cache chiplet installed on the top. However, its gaming performance speaks for itself, and in our review it edged just a tiny bit ahead of the much more expensive 7950X3D. Plus, this power-efficient CPU was capped out at a mere 65 watts.

Although the 7800X3D can certainly be overkill for gaming, it's undeniably a great CPU overall. It has great performance and power efficiency and can beat much more expensive CPUs in gaming. Today, the 7800X3D retails for about $400, far cheaper than the Ryzen 9 7950X3D at $650 and the Core i9-14900K at $550. It's just an obvious choice for anyone who wants as many frames as possible, and it's super efficient as a bonus. 3D V-Cache is certainly a trendsetter for gaming CPUs, and it looks like increasing L3 cache will become a common strategy in the future.

3 — Ryzen 7 1700: AMD's triumphant return to competition

The first half of the 2010s saw AMD enter a depressing decline. Its fortunes had turned for a variety of reasons since the heyday of Athlon 64 in the mid-2000s, leading to worsening finances thinly spread across both its CPU and GPU projects. AMD was back to firmly being in second place with its Phenom CPUs, and the succeeding generations of Bulldozer-based FX processors put to rest any ideas of AMD being remotely competitive with Intel at the cutting edge. In 2015, many predicted that AMD would go bankrupt.

Despite it all, AMD still planned for a future where the company could get back on its feet, launch competitive CPUs, and even beat Intel. The Bulldozer architecture was more or less scrapped in favor of something that was both traditional and also radical. This new architecture would follow Intel's lead on high single-threaded performance and simultaneous multi-threading. It would also be capable of serving nearly the entire CPU market with just a single chip. Codenamed Zen, AMD hoped this would be the CPU that could revive the company.

It wasn't just AMD that had lots of hope for Zen. Despite Intel's performance lead, the PC gaming community had soured on the blue team due to increasingly poor generational gains. AMD leaned into this negativity and turned it into hype for its upcoming Zen-based gaming CPUs. No expense was spared; AMD titled its late 2016 reveal for Ryzen "New Horizon," got Geoff Keighly to open the livestream, and brought in dozens of journalists for the CPU's early 2017 launch. People were excited, but it could be a double-edged sword if Ryzen didn't impress.

On launch day, it was clear that the Ryzen 1000 was not perfect. The flagship Ryzen 7 1800X could certainly deliver a 60 FPS gaming experience, but Intel's competing 7th Gen CPUs could do better than that. But if people were looking for a value champion, the Ryzen 7 1700 was the ultimate chip. For a mere $330, you could buy a CPU rivaling Intel's high-end desktop class Core i7-6900K in almost anything multi-threaded. The 6900K retailed for $1,100 and required a super-expensive motherboard, making the 1700 the obvious choice. The 1700 was also good enough for gaming, didn't consume much power, and could be overclocked for more speed.

The real genius behind first-generation Zen wasn't merely that it was close to catching Intel but that it rethought the way processors were made. The traditional way to tackle the processor market was to take an architecture and make a few different chips based on it to cover the needs of every segment. Instead, AMD designed a single Zen CPU that could be connected to other CPU chips on a single package. Not only was it economical, but it made it very easy to make big CPUs. Of course, AMD didn't abandon its APUs and made one or two other Zen chips with integrated graphics; otherwise, its product stack was based on a single chip.

Before Zen, AMD's largest server CPU had 16 cores. By putting four Zen CPUs on a single package, AMD could boost this up to 32. It also got back into the high-end desktop arena with 16-core Threadripper CPUs. The turnaround for AMD was nothing short of a miracle. You could finally buy a good AMD CPU, and the mood for CPUs became far more optimistic than in the past five years.

2 — Athlon 64 3000+: Putting NetBurst and Itanium into early retirement

Although the K7-powered Athlon was wildly successful for AMD, the gap between it and Intel's newer Pentium 4 chips grew as Intel outpaced AMD in the clock speed race. More than that, 64-bit computing was emerging, and Intel had beaten AMD to it with its Itanium server CPUs. However, Pentium 4 was a power hog, and Intel had abandoned its x86 architecture with Itanium. Itanium could not natively run the 32-bit, x86 software that dominated the landscape, 

AMD seized on Intel's weaknesses with its K8 architecture. The company doubled down on its balanced approach to clock speed and IPC and ensured K8 had decent efficiency. When it came to support for 64-bit computing, AMD didn't follow Intel's lead and make its own custom architecture. Instead, AMD just made a 64-bit version of x86 and called it AMD64. To be clear, it wasn't hard to do this, but Intel decided against it because x86 had issues. But to AMD, making AMD64 was easy and could utilize the vast library of x86 programs.

The launch of the AMD64-powered K8 architecture was a two-pronged attack, starting with Opteron server CPUs in April 2003. The new AMD64 server chips performed very well against Intel's x86 Xeons, based on the same silicon as its Pentium 4 processors. In September came the Athlon 64, and although it mostly just caught up to Intel in performance and price, it nevertheless brought AMD back to parity alongside introducing 64-bit for regular PCs.

While the flagship Athlon 64 FX-51 and Athlon 64 3200+ weren't that impressive for price and performance, the Athlon 64 3000+ was, at last, what people were waiting for. For just $218, the world of 64-bit computing was open for many, and the market took note. HP discontinued its Itanium workstations in late 2004, which effectively killed Itanium workstations as HP was the last to distribute them. At the start of 2005, Microsoft then killed its Itanium version of Windows, the first 64-bit Windows OS. An AMD64 version was launched just a few months later.

At this point, Itanium was effectively dead, and Pentium 4 was Intel's last bastion. Unfortunately for the company, Intel's gamble on increasing frequency rather than IPC proved to be a fatal error, and it discovered too late that its plans for 10 GHz were very impossible. Intel even had problems launching a 4 GHz Pentium 4, which was eventually canceled. Intel had to settle for a 3.8 GHz model in late 2004 that only matched AMD's flagship Athlon 64 FX-55, with a much higher power draw. It was the end of the road for NetBurst-powered Pentium 4 CPUs.

Given that Itanium is dead and the AMD64 instruction set eventually came to be called x86-64, it's safe to say AMD won this round. However, AMD wouldn't get to reap the financial rewards of its technological victory. From 2002, Intel had been giving generous deals and rebates to OEMs like Dell and HP as long as they didn't do any or merely limited business with AMD. Intel was sued and fined internationally, though notably wriggled out of a $1 billion fine by the European Union. Ultimately, AMD's business suffered greatly and wouldn't recover for about two decades.

1 — Ryzen 9 3950X: The mouse eats the elephant

Ryzen got AMD back on the board, but its first- and second-generation products didn't exactly return AMD to the Athlon days. When Intel launched its 9th-Gen CPUs in late 2018, AMD no longer had a core count advantage and was behind in everything but value. Instead of incrementally upgrading Ryzen, AMD invested its limited resources into Zen 2, a big generational leap the company hoped could compete with Intel's upcoming 10nm Cannon Lake CPUs.

Intel launched its first 10nm CPU in 2018, the Core i3-8121U, and one thing was clear: 10nm was a disaster. The node was already three years late, but the low-end and poor-performing 8121U was the best Intel could do. Zen 2 was designed to maybe match Cannon Lake and even utilized TSMC's cutting-edge 7nm node, but the actual competition would be aging 14nm CPUs based on 2015's Skylake architecture. Going into 2019, people weren't wondering if AMD would win; they were wondering by how much.

Zen 2 was, in many ways, an upgraded Zen, featuring beefier cores with 15% more IPC and twice the L3 cache. Though these were pretty big improvements, they weren't the star of the show; chiplets were the big-ticket feature introduced with Zen 2. Each Zen 2 CPU had two different types of chiplets: a compute chiplet with the CPU cores, and an I/O chiplet with connectivity hardware and other functions. Chiplets reduced the redundancy seen in original Zen CPUs and allowed AMD to push core counts even more.

Thanks to chiplets, AMD could offer more cores than ever before. Equipped with 16 cores running at high clock speeds, the Ryzen 9 3950X was practically an HEDT CPU, and it steamrolled the Core i9-9900K in multi-threaded workloads. AMD even caught up in gaming, which had been a safe category for Intel CPUs for many years. 9th-Gen CPUs had very little reason to exist from this point on. The 3950X and its 12-core sibling, the 3900X, even threatened Intel's HEDT CPUs, which could only boast features like having more PCIe lanes.

Zen 2 was an even bigger threat in HEDT and servers. For these segments, Threadripper and Epyc CPUs were equipped with a massive I/O die and up to eight chiplets, for a total of 64 cores. Even Intel's flagship 28-core Xeons looked ancient next to AMD's new 64-core CPUs, which were faster and significantly more efficient. The Threadripper 3990X was almost twice as fast as Intel's competing Xeon W-3175X, which had been about 70% faster than the Threadripper 2990WX.

By the end of the Zen 2 generation in late 2020, AMD had more market share than ever since 2007. In respect to performance and efficiency, Intel remained in dead last until late 2021, with its launch of 12th Gen Alder Lake CPUs. That's two and a half years spanning two generations of Ryzen CPUs and three generations of Intel CPUs where AMD was largely the better choice. It wasn't an Athlon moment for AMD; it was better than that.

Honorable mention — Bobcat and Jaguar

Much of AMD's success story is rooted in how it overcame its financial crisis in the 2010s, which could have potentially led to bankruptcy. AMD had an acute disadvantage in both CPUs and GPUs, which effectively made up all of its business. However, throughout these hard years, there was one product line that AMD could rely on: its big cat APUs, primarily Bobcat and Jaguar. These were essentially AMD's only consistently successful processors until Zen came out in 2017.

While AMD and Intel had traditionally competed in the desktop, laptop, and server markets, in the 2010s, the two attempted to expand into a fourth area: low-power computing. This included stuff like smartphones, appliances, mini-PCs, and tablets. You've probably heard of Intel's Atom CPUs, which tried (and failed) to conquer Arm. AMD, too, had its own version of Atom, though with far less ambitious plans and aimed to merely compete in laptops, tablets, and tiny PCs.

When Bobcat, AMD's first-ever APU, first came onto the scene in 2011, AMD's Bulldozer CPUs were losing on all fronts. Unlike its siblings in other markets, Bobcat could totally beat Intel's competing CPU, the Atom. The E-350 was miles ahead of the Atom 330, with AMD gaining the lead in both single- and multi-core performance. In integrated graphics, the E-350 was twice as fast, and there was basically no contest there. Bobcat could scale to a much higher power draw than Atom, making the AMD APU much faster, yet it was still just as efficient, if not more.

AMD sold millions upon millions of Bobcat chips, easily making it the company's most-sold processor in the Bulldozer era. By 2013, it had apparently sold 50 million units. That was, of course, thanks to Bobcat's super-low price, but nevertheless, it was a wildly successful product, finding use in mini-PCs and laptops alike.

Bobcat was replaced with Jaguar, which had the distinction of being the APU of choice for the PS4 and Xbox One. An all-AMD console gaming solution was very appealing since it had both high-performance CPU and GPU technology, and Jaguar avoided the clunky dual-vendor solution in the PS3 and Xbox 360. As for PCs, Jaguar was pretty much on par with Intel's Ivy Bridge, even though Jaguar was on 28nm and Ivy Bridge was on 22nm, which is a big deal for efficiency.

Although these APUs are largely remembered as poor performers and largely uninteresting, they were also AMD's most successful products for several years. They weren't designed to be fast but power-efficient, and that's what made them so successful. These APUs gave AMD the lifeline that it desperately needed, especially the consistent income from Jaguar-powered console sales. Bobcat and Jaguar really ought to be remembered as the products that saved AMD's bacon when its desktop, laptop, and server CPUs couldn't.

• MORE: Best CPUs for Gaming
• MORE: CPU Benchmark Hierarchy
• MORE: AMD vs Intel

AMD today announced its new series of Ryzen and Athlon 7020C chips, porting its Zen 2 architecture to a 6-nanometer process specifically for Chromebooks. AMD says its next set of chips focuses on laptops priced between $300 and $500.

AMD suggests its new processors will allow up to 19.5 hours of battery life on upcoming laptops. The company says the Athlon chips are being used to target the education market, while the Ryzen lineup is meant for mainstream business and consumer Chromebooks.

There are two Athlons, the Silver 7120C and Athlon Gold 7220C. The Silver has two cores and two threads, while the Gold doubles the thread count. Both start at 2.4 GHz, but the Athlon Gold boosts up to 3.7 GHz and has 5MB cache, while the Silver boosts up to 3.5 GHz and has 3MB of cache.

Both Ryzen options offer four cores, eight threads, and 6MB of cache. The Ryzen 3 starts at 2.4 GHz and boosts up to 4.1 GHz, while the Ryzen 5 begins at 2.8 GHz and boosts up to 4.3 GHz. The entire lineup has a 15W TDP and uses integrated Radon 610M graphics based on RDNA 2.

In its own benchmarks, AMD compared its Ryzen 3 7320C to a Ryzen 3 3250C, its previous Zen 2 processor. Note that AMD skipped its Ryzen 5000C series, which used Zen 3 (and also had more cache). The Zen 3-based AMD Ryzen 3 5425C would have been comparable, but the company chose not to use that. AMD claims the 7320C in a Dell Latitude Chromebook 3445 is 28% better than the 3250C (in an Asus Chromebook Flip CM5) on Geekbench 5 single-core, 135% better on multi-core, 46% better on the Kraken Javascript benchmark, along with several other improvements in the slide below. AMD is also claiming a 60% battery improvement at 17.1 hours.

AMD also compares the Ryzen 3 7320C to the MediaTek Kompanio 1380 in an Acer Chromebook Spin 513. Here, AMD claims its chip is 15% faster in Geekbench multi-core and 16% faster in single-core, as well as 20% faster on the Octane 2.0 browser benchmark. In addition, AMD alleges 28% extra battery life over the Kompanio.

Lastly, AMD compared to an Intel Core i3-N305 (in an HP Chromebook MT7921), a 15W, 8-core, 8-thread chip on Intel 7 that Intel released earlier this year. Here, AMD says that it's on average 15% faster, including being 2% faster on PC Mark Video Editing, 7% faster on Kraken 1.1 and 42% faster on PCMark Photo Editing.

The new Ryzens and Athlons use RDNA 2-based Radon 610M and can hook up to three 4K monitors at 60 Hz. For connectivity, it uses Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.2.

AMD's partners are announcing new laptops powered by these chips today, including the Dell Latitude 3445 Chromebook and Asus Chromebook CM34 Flip (CM3401), with other designs coming from Acer and ECS, with Best Buy on board to sell them.

You can see the full slide deck, including testing notes, below.

AMD quietly divulged 31 new CPU vulnerabilities in a January update, spanning its Ryzen chips for consumers and the EPYC data center processors. The vulnerability update also includes a list of AGESA versions, with mitigations for the impacted processors. AMD revealed the vulnerabilities in a coordinated disclosure with several researchers, including teams from Google, Apple and Oracle, which gave the company time to develop mitigations prior to the public listings. However, AMD didn't announce the vulnerabilities with a press release or other outreach — it merely posted the lists — so we're working to tease out the details and will update when we have more information. 

AMD has listed the various AGESA revisions it has issued to its OEMs to patch the vulnerabilities (AGESA code is used to build BIOS/UEFI code). However, the availability of new BIOS patches with the new AGESA code will vary by vendor. That means you'll have to check with your motherboard or system vendor to see if it has posted new BIOS revisions with the correct AGESA code.

AMD tells us that it typically issues its vulnerability disclosures twice a year, in May and November, but chose to release some in January due to the relatively large number of new vulnerabilities and the timing of the mitigations. It isn't clear yet if there will be performance penalties as we've seen with other mitigations, like Spectre and Meltdown.

As we've seen at times with older systems, some might not be updated. It also appears that some impacted models don't yet have mitigations.

The vulnerabilities include three new variants for the consumer-geared Ryzen desktop PC, HEDT, Pro, and Mobile processors. One of the vulnerabilities is listed as high severity, while the other two are ranked as Medium or Low severity. These vulnerabilities can be exploited through either BIOS hacks or an attack on the AMD Secure Processor (ASP) bootloader.

The vulnerabilities span the Ryzen 2000-series Pinnacle Ridge desktop chips, along with the 2000- and 5000-series APU product lines that come with integrated graphics (Raven Ridge, Cezanne). In addition, AMD's Threadripper 2000- and 3000-series HEDT and Pro processors are also impacted, along with numerous Ryzen 2000-, 3000-, 5000-, 6000- and Athlon 3000-series mobile processors. 

AMD has also listed 28 vulnerabilities for its EPYC processors, four of which are high severity. Three of the high-severity variants enable arbitrary code execution through various attack vectors, while one allows writing data to certain regions that can lead to loss of data integrity and availability. Researchers also unearthed 15 other vulnerabilities ranked as medium severity and nine low-severity vulnerabilities.

AMD's chips have long been known for having fewer known vulnerabilities than Intel's models. However, it's hard to ascertain if the initially limited discoveries in AMD processors were due to a security-first approach to hardened processor design, or if researchers and attackers merely focused on Intel's processors due to their commanding market share: Attackers almost always focus on the broadest cross-section possible.

As such, AMD's recent success in clawing away market share from Intel, especially in the security-focused data center market, will find researchers turning their eyes more toward AMD's architectures in search of potential security gaps. AMD has also had several other new vulnerability disclosures in the recent past, including a Meltdown-esque variant that requires software re-coding, along with Hertzbleed and Take A Way.

We're following up with AMD regarding several of the listings, as it appears that some processors don't have mitigations yet. Also, we're keen to learn more about any possible performance penalties.

Earlier this year it transpired that in 2023, Intel intends to cease using its Celeron and Pentium brands for entry-level notebook CPUs. Instead, Intel will use the 'Intel Processor' branding. With 2023 being mere weeks away, it is about time for one of the first Intel Processor-badged CPUs to allegedly get tested. For now take the test results with a pinch of salt until they are verified.

The first Intel Processor product to hit Primate Labs' Geekbench 5 database appears to be the Intel N95 (via @Benchleaks), which seems to be one of the entry-level Alder Lake-N CPUs featuring four Atom-class energy-efficient cores based on the Gracement microarchitecture. The processor features a 1.70 GHz base clock, a 2.80 GHz boost clock, 2MB of L2 cache, and 6MB of L3 cache, based on the entry in the Geekbench database. This is not the first time when an Alder Lake-N CPU gets benchmarked, but this is the first time when we see a quad-core Alder Lake-N. 

 Since the Intel N95 is an entry-level product with only four efficient cores and rather low frequencies, it was certainly not designed to offer breakthrough performance. Therefore, it is not surprising that it ranked substantially slower than Intel's eight-core Core i3-N305 'Alder Lake-N' processor. Yet, it stacks up very well against Intel's existing Celeron 7305 CPU with one high-performance and four energy-efficient cores that operate at 1.10 GHz.

While we yet have to determine how exactly Intel intends to position its N95 processor, we also included scores obtained on AMD's entry-level Athlon Gold 7220U CPU with two Zen 2 cores at 2.40 GHz ~ 3.70 GHz and with a 4MB of L3 cache for comparison. Evidently, the Athlon Gold 7220U shows better GeekBench 5 scores than Intel's N95, though we should bear in mind that AMD's lowest-end next-generation Athlon will be the dual-core Athlon Silver 7120U (which yet has to get benchmarked). 

Even though Geekbench 5 is not exactly the best way to estimate performance of a CPU in real-life applications, it should be noted that it can still be used to find out how processors stack up against each other. 

Meanwhile, keep in mind that for now we are dealing with pre-production Alder Lake-N hardware and it might be too early to draw any conclusions about performance of these CPUs.

A new benchmark result from SiSoftware has shown off an unreleased Ryzen 7000 mobile processor that is packing AMD's previous-generation Zen 3 architecture instead of Zen 4. The Ryzen 5 7530U processor features six cores with SMT and 16MB of L3 cache.

The new chip is part of AMD's new mobile CPU strategy that will incorporate three different Zen architectures into the Ryzen 7000 series lineup, including Zen 2, Zen 3 and Zen 4, to target different performance tiers and price brackets within the mobile space.

AMD announced this along with a new naming scheme for Ryzen 7000 mobile processors a few months ago, making the cryptic numbering system much easier to decipher. 

For instance, with the Ryzen 5 7530U; the 7 notes the portfolio model year of the chip (Ryzen 7000 series, 8000 series, 9000 series, etc.) so you know how old or how new the CPU is.

The following number in the lineup denotes the Ryzen market segment, whether it's a Ryzen 3, 5, 7 or 9 part or a Athlon Silver or Gold SKU. Numbers 1 and 2 stand for the Althon parts, numbers 3 and 4 for Ryzen 3, numbers 5 and 6 for Ryzen 5, number 7 for Ryzen 7, number 8 for Ryzen 7 or Ryzen 9 parts, and number 9 features Ryzen 9 parts only.

The next number is one of the most important numbers to pay attention to, as it denotes what CPU architecture the chip is using. 1 stands for Zen 1 and Zen+, 2 for Zen 2, 3 for Zen 3 and Zen 3+, 4 for Zen 4, 5 for Zen 5 etc. In the case of the Ryzen 5 7530U, we can tell it's a Zen 3 part based on the number 3.

The final number in the sequence will only feature a 0 or a 5, with 0 representing a lower model within the segment or 5 for an upper model. Then there's the lettering at the very end, with HX standing for 55W+ parts, HS for 35W+ parts, U for 15-28W parts, C for 15-28W SKUs, andr ultra-efficient 9W chips.

Zen 3 In Ryzen 7000 Should Be Better Than Zen 3 In Ryzen 5000

All we know about the actual chip is that it will feature six cores, 12 threads, 3MB of L2 cache, and 16MB of L3 cache. Operating with a 2GHz base clock. What we don't know is if the 7530U will be operating on Zen 3 or Zen 3+, the latter of which is a more efficient version of Zen 3.

Unfortunately, we don't have any other SiSoftware results to compare against, but we don't expect performance to remain perfectly linear with other Zen 3 and Zen 3+ Ryzen 5 SKUs. Since AMD is reusing these older CPU architectures for Ryzen 7000, expect AMD to enhance these chips with new features and potentially higher clock speeds.

Just because AMD is using older CPU architectures doesn't mean the chips will be as fast or as slow as older generation models operating on the same CPU architecture.

AMD can do a lot of tweaking to the chips, including boosting clock speeds with newer TSMC nodes that are backward compatible with the same CPU architectures. It can also add new features, such as DDR5 support to older architectures, thanks to AMD's chiplet designs.

A great example of this is AMD's new entry-level optimized Mendocino architecture which takes AMD's Zen 2 CPU architecture and enhances it with new features, including RDNA 2 graphics, LPDDR5 memory support, and TSMC's 6nm node that improves transistor density by 18%. We don't know how much additional performance 6nm will provide, but expect an improvement in power consumption, performance, or both.

Back at Computex, AMD announced its "Mendocino" APUs, meant to increase the company's presence in mid-to-low-end laptops. Today, the company has provided plenty more details of the chips, now dubbed the AMD 7020 series, which includes two Ryzen processors and an Athlon Gold chip. All will use AMD's Zen 2 architecture on a six-nanometer platform. 

The first laptops with the new chips will be released in Q4 of this year.

The chips come with a slew of new features that AMD claims will boost performance on what it calls the "everyday laptop" — the type of notebook you go into a brick and mortar store to get on a tight budget, particularly when you're largely focused on web browsing. AMD is promising longer battery life and faster performance than the notebooks on the market today.

The new chips, the Ryzen 3 7320U, Ryzen 5 7520U and Athlon Gold 7220U, will use the Zen 2 architecture with up to 4 cores and 8 threads, LPDDR5 memory and AMD Radeon 610M graphics based on RDNA 2.

AMD is estimating up to 12 hours of battery life on 7020 series systems, partially thanks to "Dedicated video and audio playback hardware for low-power optimization." That number is based on estimates using engineering samples with a video playback test. 12 hours on a budget notebook would indeed be impressive, and mean far less charging. Of course, only time and testing will tell how close reality comes to AMD’s estimations.

The company also claims the 7020 series will make budget notebooks boost faster, with support for ball grid array (BGA) NVMe SSDs. AMD compared the Ryzen 3 7320U to an Intel Core i3 1115G4, an 11th Gen "Tiger Lake" processor running on Intel's 10nm SuperFin process, which AMD claims is a strong representation of what you can find in "everyday laptops" in stores today. The company claims its Ryzen 3 is up to 31% faster in PCMark 10 productivity, up to 58% faster in Cinebench R23's multi-threaded test and up to 80% faster in 7-Zip. AMD also suggests that its chip allows for software to launch 31% faster, per the PCMark 10 "App Start" test. AMD tested its Ryzen 3 with 4GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD to the Intel chip with 8GB of RAM but a paltrier 256GB SSD.

That performance differential with 4GB of RAM is impressive, and AMD says the chips support LPDDR5. In this case, we don't know what kind of RAM the Intel laptop was using.

The graphics on board the 7020 series chips are AMD's integrated Radeon 610M graphics. These use RDNA 2 tech and have AV1 decode support, and will allow for up to four displays to be powered at once. In fact, AMD claims you could use these graphics for gaming at 60 frames per setting at 720p.

AMD didn't list the exact settings for its testing, but in some footnotes, it said it tested on a reference board using the Athlon 7220U CPU, Radeon 610M, 4GB of RAM and a 1TB NVMe SSD. The company claims "League of Legends" ran at 84.34 fps, "CounterStrike: Go" ran at 97.28 fps and "DOTA 2" played at 61.23 fps. No further details on the Radeon 610M were provided.

The company is also touting that the 7020 series will feature a Bio USB channel, alongside support for Microsoft's Pluton processor for more security.

Earlier this month, AMD shook up the model numbers for its mobile Ryzen processors. It clarified there that the first digit, in this case a seven, stands for the model year of 2023. (Since these 7000 series chips are coming out in 2022, we must presume AMD is taking notes from car manufacturers). The other notable number is the third digit. That "two" is for Zen 2. Many will criticize AMD for using the 7000 series with an old architecture, but we've yet to see how AMD will market this in big box stores.

AMD says the first three laptops to include the 7020 series processors will be the Lenovo Ideapad 1, HP 17-inch Laptop PC and Acer Aspire 3. No pricing was given, but these devices should launch in Q4 2022. The company also showed an Asus logo, but didn't name a machine.

In the past few years, AMD has become a significantly more popular name in laptops, with more designs than ever. Will that translate to the low end, where older Intel (and some AMD) platforms have dominated? We'll find out later this year.

AMD is changing up the model numbers for its mobile processors, with a new naming system designed to better explain the chip's release year, architecture, TDP and more.

It will begin in 2023 and move forward. AMD's new naming system consists of four digits and at least one letter, which isn't a change from the existing system. But Robert Hallock, director of technical marketing at AMD, wrote in a blog post that "[o]ur current naming system for Ryzen Mobile Processors was at an end. It simply could not accommodate the influx of new SOCs in new categories we're developing."

The short answer here is that bigger numbers means more powerful processors. But each digit has a meaning, should you want to dig in.

In this system, the first digit stands for the year the chip was released. Next gen's 7000-series processors will be the 2023 system, followed by 8000-series in 2024 and so on. The second number details which product line it falls in, ranging from Athlo Silver (1) to Ryzen 9 (9). There is some doubling up in there. An x8xx processor, for instance, could be a Ryzen 7 or a 9, while x7xx is also a Ryzen 7, and x9xx is a Ryzen 9.

The third numeral is the architecture. The number "5," for instance, will use Zen 5, "4" is Zen 4, and so on. The last number is either a 0 or 5 — a lesser or greater model. This will be important in cases where the architecture number doesn't specify different versions of an architecture, like Zen 3 vs. Zen 3+. The letter (or letters) refer to the TDP, ranging from the fanless "e" series at 9W up to HX at 55W or more. We've included AMD's full graphic above.

That third digit, to many, may be most important. You can have two 7000-series chips, but one could use Zen 1 and the other could use Zen 4. That's a key number to look for when buying a laptop.

In this case, a hypothetical Ryzen 9 7955HX would be the most powerful 2023 mobile processor, with Zen 5 and a 55W or higher TDP, while you could still have a slightly lower power Ryzen 9 7955HS. It's easy to see how this could build forward.

This also makes it, to some degree, ways to tell which of the new series of CPUs a processor will fall in. AMD is making these changes ahead of its "Mendocino" launch, which it says is for "everyday computing." That will use the Zen 2 process, which you can tell from the name. This tops out at 7045 with "Dragon Range." 

Hallock wrote that this new naming scheme has been "smoke-tested… against a 5-year time horizon." Desktop processors, however, will have no changes, and will continue as they have since Ryzen was launched with the 1000 series.

High-end desktop (HEDT) processors first emerged in 2003 when competition between AMD and Intel intensified as a result of the Athlon 64 launch. Ironically, HEDT CPUs are now disappearing from the market as competition between AMD and Intel is more intense than ever, according to Puget Systems, a boutique workstation maker. 

The situation may change in the coming months, but for now many HEDT users have to get regular desktop CPUs or pay extra for top-of-the-range workstation offerings as AMD does not seem to produce Ryzen Threadripper 3000X-series products any longer.

HEDT Origins

Historically, HEDT processors from AMD and Intel were aimed at demanding gamers as well as professionals and, to meet their needs, they used silicon and packaging originally designed for server-grade CPUs, which is why they could offer not only higher performance, but also additional features (extra PCIe lanes, higher memory capacity). Unlike server chips, these processors featured considerably higher frequencies yet carried lower price tags because they lacked symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) support. After all, all that gamers needed was single-thread performance and high clocks along with large caches did the job, not SMP. 

Following AMD's unexpected release of its first Ryzen Threadripper CPUs with up to 32 cores in 2017, classification and positioning of HEDT chips changed drastically as gamers demanded processors with high clocks and maximum single-thread performance, whereas professionals wanted CPUs with as many cores as possible as well as rich I/O capabilities.

Oxymoron: Outdated HEDT Platforms

Nowadays there are formally several types of CPUs for high-end desktops and workstations from AMD and Intel. 

AMD offers Ryzen Threadripper for the so-called extreme workstations that need loads of cores at frequencies above and beyond default clocks and Ryzen Threadripper Pro for machines that need up to 2TB of memory and are not designed for overclocking. 

At present, AMD is the only one to offer 64-core CPUs for extreme and traditional workstations, which is perhaps why its platform for extreme HEDTs is still based around Ryzen Threadripper 3000X-series CPUs that are powered by its Zen 2 microarchitecture from 2019. Meanwhile, these CPUs are currently the most popular workstation/HEDT processors among buyers of Puget Systems.

With Intel, the situation is more complicated. For the highest-end dual-socket workstation the company offers its very expensive Xeon Scalable processors that support plenty of memory and have many PCIe lanes. For single-socket machines, the company has Xeon W-3300 series CPUs that top at 38 cores and are based on the Ice Lake microarchitecture from 2019. 

For enthusiast-grade workstations/desktops Intel has its Core X (Core Extreme) lineup that was released in 2019 and belongs to the Cascade Lake family of CPUs. For now, Intel has nothing to offer against AMD's Ryzen Threadripper series as far as core count is concerned.

As surprising as it may sound, of all HEDT platforms available today, only AMD's Ryzen Threadripper Pro 5000WX-series is based on an up-to-date microarchitecture (Zen 3), whereas the remaining platforms are all powered by outdated microarchitectures and, in some cases, lack modern I/O support. To make the matters even stranger, Ryzen Threadripper Pro 5000WX is currently only available from Lenovo.

AMD's Ryzen Threadripper 3000X: The Departing Workstation King

While AMD's Zen 2-based Ryzen Threadripper 3000X-series CPUs are not single-thread performance champions, their 64 Zen 2 cores coupled with 128 PCIe 4.0 lanes offer incredible value for workstation users, which is why they have been the most popular workstation-grade processors at Puget since mid-2020. 

There is a problem with these CPUs though: there is a major shortage of AMD's Ryzen Threadripper processors on the market in general as it looks like AMD is winding down production of its Threadripper 3000X/ Pro 3000WX products, and it is nearly impossible for system makers to get them directly from the company. Meanwhile, third-party resellers sell AMD's Ryzen Threadripper 3970X and 3990X CPUs with a $1,000 - $4,000+ markup over list prices, which makes workstations based on them uncompetitive.

"Crazy-high listings like that indicate to me that there are only a small number of these chips left on the market, and so those who have remaining stock are driving up prices to maximize their profits before they are gone," wrote William George, a product development specialist for Puget Systems. "Since the market price of Threadripper chips is rising, not lowering, I feel pretty confident in suggesting that they are no longer being manufactured." 

To make the matters worse for Puget, prices of Intel's Xeon W-3300 are high, whereas their performance and value proposition are not as high as those of AMD's platform (when chips are bought directly from the company), which is why the share of Xeon W-based machines in Puget's sales is only about 4.3%.

Desktop CPUs Challenge HEDT Parts

But in addition to HEDT processors for workstations, both AMD and Intel offer advanced desktop CPUs with up to 16 cores based on their contemporary microarchitectures and up to 128GB of memory support. These CPUs are good enough for the vast majority of games (as they can barely use more than 16 cores) and many workstation workloads (after all, not everyone does final rendering every day, but fast storage and modern I/O are required all the time). To that end, many traditional workstation clients opt for parts like AMD's Ryzen 9 5950X or Intel's Core i9-12900KS. 

Both AMD's Ryzen 9 5950X or Intel's Core i9-12900KS are essentially cherry-picked desktop parts that are relatively easy to make and bin. They are still expensive enough to bring substantial profits to their respective suppliers and they are sold in very high volumes to different audiences.  

By contrast, HEDT parts use server-grade silicon that can be sold at a higher price once qualified for AMD EPYC or Intel Xeon products, so making HEDT CPUs when demand for server-class hardware is skyrocketing and manufacturing capacity is limited is not particularly logical from earnings and profitability points of view. Furthermore, even Ryzen Threadripper Pro parts are sold with a considerable markup. As a result, in some cases AMD and Intel may be more inclined to sell cherry-picked unlocked desktop parts or Xeon/Pro parts instead of HEDT processors.

No Way Out?

While, for some workloads, the 24 threads or 32 threads offered by regular desktop parts is enough, many workstation workloads need those 64 cores/128 threads and 256GB of memory, so workstation users have to opt for far more expensive AMD's Ryzen Threadripper Pro 3000WX/5000WX or Intel Xeon W-3300-series processors. 

Puget Systems hopes that once AMD starts volume shipments of its Ryzen Threadripper Pro 5000WX processors, prices of these parts may stabilize and/or get lower. Of course, it would have been better for system integrators and users if AMD released its Ryzen Threadripper 5000X or 6000X non-Pro parts, but now AMD is comfortable with its 64-core workstation-bound AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro 5995WX parts that are sold with a considerably larger margin. 

In general, the situation with HEDT processors will likely change when Intel rolls-out its Alder Lake-X/Sapphire Rapids-X platform later in 2022 or in 2023, but now that there is essentially a monopoly on the market of workstation and high-end desktop CPUs, prices of such CPUs will hardly get any lower, which is why many people will opt for 'regular' 16-core desktop-grade CPUs.

AMD introduced its new Ryzen 5000 C-Series processors today, bringing the company's Chromebook CPU family up to speed with the Zen 3 architecture and 7nm process. The four new 15W chips deliver up to eight x86 cores, a first for Chromebooks, and come armed with the Radeon RX Vega graphics engine with up to eight GPU cores. Despite a high-performance focus for what have traditionally been low-power Chromebooks, AMD claims its chips provide up to almost twice the battery life of Intel's competing Tiger Lake models.

AMD plans for the 5000 C-Series to address a new higher-tier class of Chromebooks replete with the highest-end accommodations, like premium screens and designs, while the company's existing 3000 C-Series chips will continue to address mainstream and entry-level tiers.

AMD's first foray into tailor-made CPUs for Chromebooks came back in 2020 with the Ryzen and Athlon 3000 C-Series chips that wielded the first-gen Zen architecture and the 14nm process, so today's step up to Zen 3 and 7nm marks a big step forward for all facets of performance and power consumption and efficiency.

As before, most of the 15W Ryzen 5000 C-series chips come as rebranded versions of AMD's other mobile products, in this case, the Ryzen 5000 U-series, with AMD's rationale for the new branding being a clear separation of the Windows- and Chromebook-branded chips.

We do see slight differences in clock rates between the Chromebook-optimized variants and their U-series siblings, with 100 MHz higher CPU boost frequencies traded for a 100 to 200 MHz reduction in peak GPU clock rates. However, the Ryzen 3 5125C stands as an exception - there doesn't appear to be a dual-core quad-thread counterpart in the existing Ryzen 5000 U-series lineup.

As with all vendor-provided specs, take these with a grain of salt. We've included the test notes at the end of the album for your perusal.

Naturally, the jump up to eight cores will drastically improve performance in threaded workloads, while Zen 3's IPC gains will offer tangible advantages over AMD's Ryzen and Athlon 3000 C-Series chips in single-threaded work. The Radeon RX Vega graphics engine also touts the same optimizations for 7nm as we see with the laptop chips, so it will provide huge gains over 3000C's older 14nm Vega.

Against its own Ryzen 7 3700C, AMD touts that the Ryzen 7 5825C delivers a 67% increase in the web browser Webxrt 3 benchmark, indicative of performance trends in single-threaded work. AMD also claims a 107% improvement in the Geekbench 5 multi-threaded test, but this benchmark isn't really indicative of performance in real-world multi-threaded workloads, so take that with an extra helping of salt. Finally, given that most games played on a Chromebook will be in the browser, AMD claims an 85% improvement in the web browser-based Motion Mark benchmark (this shouldn't be considered a good litmus test for intense graphics work, though).

We have yet to see Intel's Alder Lake -N variants come to the Chromebook market, so AMD squares off with Tiger Lake. AMD compared the 5825C to the Intel i7-1185G7, claiming a 7% advantage in Webxprt 3, 25% advantage in the threaded Geekbench 5 sub-test, and a 10% advantage in the Motion Mark benchmark. We should expect this comparison to change drastically when Intel's Alder Lake-N arrives at an unspecified date. 

Perhaps most important for what has traditionally been a low-power segment with generous battery life, AMD claims the Ryzen 5 5525C provides up to 94% more battery life than the Intel i5-1135G7 in the CrXPRT2 battery life benchmark (CrXPRT is a Chromebook-specific benchmark from Principled Technologies).   

AMD's Ryzen 5000 C-Series has the same security features as its Pro series lineup, including secure boot, AMD secure processor, and support for Google's TPM management.

AMD touts the 14" clamshell HP Elite C645 G2, which launches today, as an example of the higher-end offerings enabled by its new chips, while the Acer Chromebook Spin 514, also announced today, represents a premium 14" 2-in-1 convertible. Both come powered by AMD's flagship Ryzen 7 5825C.

AMD's initial entrance into the Chromebook market with the Ryzen and Athlon 3000 C-Series back in 2020 couldn't have come at a more opportune time, but not for the best reasons: Back then, we were in the opening stages of the pandemic and the resultant lockdowns. That series of unfortunate events pushed schooling back to the home for many students, resulting in an unprecedented surge in Chromebook sales.

Naturally, Chromebook sales have plummeted by 69% year-over-year (per IDC) as the worst of the lockdowns recede in most regions, but AMD's decision to enable a higher-tier of Chromebook could be lucrative moving forward — extracting more margin from what has historically been a low-margin segment makes plenty of good business sense. These higher-end chips will also be needed to fend off Intel's x86 Alder Lake-N chips, not to mention the Arm competition from Qualcomm and Mediatek, over the coming year.

Centaur Technology announced its CNS x86 core back in 2019. Unfortunately, it never made it to the market, officially, at least, because the company was sold to Intel last year. However, Twitter user Brutus recently snagged a Centaur CHA processor from a liquidation auction and put it through its paces. The user's benchmarks provide us with a quick look at what the chip could have been if the project had come to fruition.

For those of you that don't know or remember Centaur Technology, it used to be the x86 R&D arm of VIA Technologies. Centaur Technology had been a subsidiary of VIA Technologies since 1999 before the latter offloaded part of the former's engineering personnel to Intel for a whopping $125 million in 2021.

Centaur Technology started development on CHA in 2016. The chip wields the company's CNS cores along with an AI co-processor, has AVX-512 support, and presumably offers similar performance to Intel's Haswell processors at the time. The chipmaker designed CHA for TSMC's 16nm process node and envisioned the processor for the server market. The last forecast for CHA production was 2020, but the project is probably dead by now.

Brutus' Centaur chip, which carries the CentaurHauls codename, has eight CNS cores at 2.2 GHz and 16MB of L3 cache. The frequency is static. The Geekbench 5 submission revealed that the processor seemingly resides in a socket similar to Intel's LGA2011 socket. It explains why the CHA looks shockingly identical to Intel's Core X-Series HEDT chips and even has four DDR4 memory channels at its disposal.

Brutus shared multiple benchmarks of the Centaur CNS, but we could only find comparable results for some of them. Therefore, we picked the Cinebench R23 and Geekbench 5 results and compared them to the data from our sister site AnandTech and the Geekbench 5 database, respectively.

Centaur CNS Benchmarks

*Data obtained from Anandtech's CPU benchmark database.

In Cinebench R23, the Centaur CNS's single-core performance was equal to AMD's Athlon II X2 250, a low-end chip that dates back to 2009 on the extinct K10 cores. On the other hand, multi-core performance was similar to Intel's Core i5-6600 (Skylake) from 2015.

If you prefer Geekbench 5 as a reference point, the Centaur CNS performed roughly in the same alley as AMD's Bulldozer-powered FX-8150 in single-core performance. However, regarding multi-core performance, the Centaur CNS was just a hairline from the Ryzen 5 3400G, a more or less modern chip that leverages Zen+ cores.

By now, it should be clear that the Centaur CNS isn't a powerhouse and not a gaming chip. However, for the curious, Brutus discovered that the Centaur CNS was on par with quad-core, eight-thread Haswell chips in Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Unfortunately, the reviewer didn't have any luck with Minecraft. Power consumption wasn't horrible, either. According to Brutus, the Centaur CNS returned with a reported power draw of 65W approximately.

It would be foolish to think that VIA Technologies would resurrect the Centaur CNS for the retail market. However, that doesn't mean that it's gone for good. Although VIA Technologies sold its Centaur division, the company retained the x86 license and other CPU-related patents. In addition, VIA Technologies is in a joint venture with Chinese chipmaker Shanghai Zhaoxin Semiconductor Co., so it wouldn't shock us if some remnants of the Centaur CNS made their way into Zhaoxin's next-generation x86 processors, such as the KaiXian KX-7000 series.

AMD's recently released AGESA 1.2.0.5 code for modern AMD Ryzen and Athlon CPUs has been plagued with issues. According to multiple reports, BIOS updates packing the new AGESA code have been prone to serious problems, including CPU performance losses, memory instability, overclocking bugs, and much more.

As a reminder, AGESA code is used to create a BIOS. According to complaints on Reddit, multiple Ryzen users have noted their CPU performance has dropped with the new AGESA code in benchmarks such as Geekbench 5 and Cinebench R20. Some also report higher CPU temperatures and possible WHEA 19 errors when compared to the previous AGESA 1.2.0.3c patch.

But the problems get worse -- according to DeskModder, AGESA 1.2.0.5 is prone to serious PBO and memory bugs as well. High-frequency memory kits such as DDR4 3600MHz are no longer running stably with a rated XMP profile for some users.

The news outlet also confirmed further Reddit reports about reduced CPU performance, with CPU frequency drops of up to 100MHz in single-core and multi-core workloads. Additionally, 5900X and 5950X users have complained about the 2nd CCD "collapsing" with the new AGEA update.

Overclocking capabilities have also been handicapped in 1.2.0.5, with certain voltage values being more limited than before. AMD's PBO menu was also trimmed down with fewer customizations, according to Deskmodder.

DeskModder notes that most of these issues have been a problem since AGESA 1.2.0.4 -- with the exception of the CPU-related performance bugs. Somehow, AGESA 1.2.0.5 inherited all the issues found in the previous version while adding bugs of its own.

Thankfully it appears some motherboard manufacturers are acting proactively. According to ComputerBase, Asus completely halted official BIOS updates to AGESA 1.2.0.5 and will be skipping it in favor of AGESA 1.2.0.6b.

However, most motherboard manufacturers, including Biostar, Gigabyte, and MSI, still have official AGESA 1.2.0.5 BIOS updates available on their respective websites.

If you are an AMD Ryzen owner, we would highly recommend staying away from both AGESA 1.2.0.4 and 1.2.0.5 BIOS updates if at all possible. For now, it appears that 1.2.0.3c is the latest stable AGESA code until AGESA 1.2.0.6b patches arrive which should hopefully fix all these problems.

 An extensive review has appeared online claiming to share benchmarks and other technical details of an unannounced AMD Renoir APU. The subject of the review, published on Yandex Zen, is the AMD Athlon Gold Pro 4150GE, which we reported on ten days ago when a leaked benchmark result surfaced on CPU-Z.

Now we have many more tests and comparisons to chew over, assuming the review from author 'Another Crimea' is genuine, and a conclusion that the new Athlon Gold Pro 4150GE could be a "budget hit," as long as folk can find one, and gets widespread official distribution at a more agreeable price.

To establish a foundation of key tech specs before we go on, the 4150GE features a 4C/4T CPU with base/boost clock speeds of 3.3/3.8 GHz, 4MB L3 cache, and it mixes these with a Radeon Vega GPU with five GPU cores for 320 stream processors running at 1.5 GHz. The 7nm package has a modest 35W TDP, according to the source.

To test the unannounced AMD Renoir APU, the reviewer tested it with appropriately priced components like a budget Gigabyte B450 motherboard, the AMD Wraith Stealth cooler, dual channel DDR4-3000 RAM, and a PCIe Gen 3 SSD boot drive with Windows 10 installed. The author ran the unannounced Athlon against the publicly known quantity that is the Ryzen 3 1300X. They said they thought this was an interesting direct comparison to make as it was supported by the same platform and the 1300X was "the fastest quad-core of the Zen generation." Of course, take all the results with a grain of salt.

The first test runs were done in CPU-Z, so we have a comparison to the leaks 10 days ago. Today's review subject did a little better than the one documented last week scoring 463.8 and 1,846.5 in 1T and nT tests, respectively. The previously unearthed results were 460 and 1785 in 1T and nT tests, respectively – better but not too different, considering all the other variables at play.

Moving along, the reviewer worked their way through the likes of AIDA 64, Fritz Chess, NovaBench, Geekbench 5, Passmark CPU Mark, Blender, various 3DMark components, various Cinebench releases and more. The author was specific about cooling, stating that the 'stock' cooler performed ably with this 35W APU, and in a 26 degrees Celsius room, the CPU never exceeded 53 degrees Celsius. Some extra tests were done with a modest overclock of the CPU cores, to 4.1GHz.

The all-important conclusion of the review, after picking through all the test scores and comparisons, was that this quad-core is a winner if you want to upgrade an older AM4 platform. The AMD Athlon Gold Pro 4150GE left behind the likes of the Intel Core i3-9100 (4C/4T), but newer Intel chips will be better in both 1T and nT workloads. However, the 4150GE with its built-in Radeon graphics could be a better choice with its CPU/GPU performance balance, for some home/office users.

Hopefully, this new Athlon APU signals AMD putting some more efforts into the low-to-mid end of the market. The appearance of this new Athlon might add a spring to the step of an AMD motherboard owner looking for a budget segment modern upgrade. Intel's CES 2022 ADL-S launches certainly don't shy away from mass market  pricing, so this can make AMD's offerings more competitive on the cheap.

The Athlon APU reviewed cost the equivalent of $144 via China's Alibaba but it is noted the sole seller has upped the sell offer to about $175. These prices might be OK to an interested enthusiast, but would not likely appeal to a lot of upgraders looking sideways at the likes of the perky Core i3-12100 with 4C/8T and a suggested retail price of $125 (though it would require a new motherboard for AM4 stalwarts). 

AMD has largely abandoned the budget CPU segment, but it's beginning to look like that could change soon with the emergence of its yet-to-be-announced Athlon Gold Pro 4150GE 'Renoir' APUs. A new benchmark result has emerged that indicates the 4150GE's official launch is approaching. AMD's Pro variants are traditionally aimed at entry-level business and enterprise PCs, but AMD also releases non-Pro models for the retail market. That means the company could soon address the lower end of the market (sub-$200) that it has abandoned with its recent product lineups.

When AMD released its codenamed Renoir and Cezanne APUs based on its Zen 2 and Zen 3 microarchitecture in 2020 and 2021, respectively, it didn't try to address the lower end of the market with those parts. The company was in a particularly good competitive position (and still is), so it prioritized the production of higher-end models Ryzen-branded models to bolster its earnings and profitability. But as competition on the desktop market is heating up, the company seems to be getting ready to launch its cheaper Athlon Gold-badged Renoir products. 

@Tum_Apisak has found the first CPU-Z benchmark for AMD's upcoming Athlon Gold Pro 4150GE processor. The CPU is based on the Renoir design and features four cores operating at up to 3800 MHz, a 4MB L3 cache, and a built-in Radeon Vega GPU with 320 stream processors. Based on the CPU-Z benchmark, the part scores 460 single-thread points and 1785 multi-thread points, which is competitive with Intel's Core i3-10100F and the i3-9100F. 

The chip will be compatible with AM4 motherboards (assuming it has the right BIOS). Meanwhile, like all AMD Pro APUs and CPUs, the Athlon Gold Pro 4150GE will support all of AMD's enterprise-grade security, reliability, and manageability features, so the part will sell at a relative premium compared to standard chips.

The CPU-Z entry isn't the only evidence that the Athlon Gold Pro 4150GE is incoming. A couple of weeks ago, prolific leaker @ExecuFix published an image of the processor, indicating the chips are indeed floating around at PC makers and/or distributors.

TechEpiphany has decided to install AMD's Ryzen 9 5950X on one of the cheapest A320 chipset motherboards on the market, the Asus A320M-K. Thanks to new official support for Ryzen 5000 series on select A320 motherboards, AMD's flagship Ryzen 9 5950X CPU appears to be perfectly happy living in the A320 motherboard with reported CPU clock speed spikes 5 GHz thanks to the enablement of PBO.

A single core out of a 16-core processor boosting to 5 GHz looks good and all. However, the more affordable 300 series motherboards have modest power delivery subsystems that may not extract the full performance of a high-end chip, such as the Ryzen 9 5950X. For example, multi-core performance could vary by 20% to 30% on a budget A320 motherboard compared to a higher-end motherboard.

This configuration is possible only because Asus gives its A320 motherboards full Ryzen 5000 series support with a new BIOS and the latest AGESA code, version 1.2.0.3C. We reported on this two months ago, noting that Gigabyte and Asus, in particular, have begun delivering new BIOS updates to A320 boards to support AMD's latest Ryzen 5000 series processors.

More specifically, the BIOS name containing the new AGESA code is version 5862, and it came out in November of last year. Patch notes indicate that the updated AGESA code adds support for new processors and drops Bristol Ridge 7th Gen A-series and Athlon X4 series CPU support entirely to make that happen. Strangely, the CPU support list does not reflect any updates to show Ryzen 5000 series support, and the patch notes don't indicate Ryzen 5000 processors, in particular. However, we're confident Asus is talking about Ryzen 5000 support, as they are the newest processors AMD currently makes.

For some reason, this phenomenon is only happening on A320 chipset motherboards for the time being, as motherboard makers haven't enabled Ryzen 5000 support on more appropriate chipsets such as B350 and X370.

But, there is still hope; yesterday, we reported that AMD is not giving up supporting 300 series chipset motherboards just yet. AMD's corporate VP, David McAfee, notes he and the engineering team are hard at work trying to figure out a way to get Ryzen 5000 support on 300 series boards and how to get the chips running smoothly at the same time.

Due to the age of 300 series motherboards, getting Ryzen 5000 to perform well is not an easy task. There are several blockers in place, including IRM definitions and current capabilities from the motherboards VRM -- which for most 300 series boards, is notably weaker than that of B550 and X570 boards. As a result, the boards can't deliver enough power to Ryzen 5000 chips to perform adequately on 500 series boards.

AMD also notes 300 series motherboards lack support in its engineering validation coverage matrix. As a result, AMD does not test 300 series boards when producing a new AGESA code to push out to motherboard manufacturers. Meaning, all the system stability of the new code falls exclusively on the motherboard makers themselves if they are patching 300 series boards to the more recent version.

Due to this, we would recommend you use caution when taking advantage of Ryzen 5000 series support on A320. There is a higher chance of bugs occurring on these older motherboards. Keep in mind that most A320 motherboards have vastly weaker power delivery setups than B350 and X370 chipset motherboards (let alone 500 series). Running a Ryzen 9 5950X at its maximum power rating could be dangerous.

To avoid this, be sure to do research and make sure your specific A320 motherboard has a beefy VRM system to handle Ryzen 5000 -- or at the very least, turn the eco mode on if necessary.

One of AMD's yet unreleased Athlon Gold 4000G series (Renoir) APUs, the Athlon Gold Pro 4150GE, has appeared at online retailer AliExpress. As Komachi_Ensaka tweeted, the new chip is available for $118.29 -- discounted from $168.99. Unfortunately, the listing shows only one CPU remains in stock, so it wouldn't be surprising to see this listing disappear once someone picks it up.

The seller notes that the CPUs are used and not brand new products. The chips also come from various locations, including China, Malaysia, Vietnam, Costa Rica, and more. If we had to guess from this information, the seller has probably acquired engineering samples of the product.

The seller also released a CPU-Z snapshot, showcasing critical specifications of the CPU. The CPU appears to have a base clock of 3.3 GHz and 4MB of L3 cache, along with four cores and four threads.

This listing is super interesting because AMD has not officially launched any new Athlon Gold CPUs with the 4000G series branding just yet. There have also been no rumors about a new Athlon refresh from AMD, making this new listing very intriguing to see.

The Athlon Gold 3000G lineup currently consists of the quad-core (4 threaded) Athlon Gold 3150 GE, 3150G, and dual-core 3050 GE. In addition, Pro equivalents, such as the Athlon Gold Pro 3150G, Pro 3150GE, and Pro 3125GE, are also available. However, these parts are outdated as they utilize Zen+ cores and launched over a year ago. So it makes sense that AMD would be refreshing the Athlon series under the 4000G series branding to remain competitive in the entry-level segment. In addition, Intel has prepared new Alder Lake-based Pentiums and Celerons that may launch relatively soon.

Since this new Athlon Gold Pro 4150GE uses the 4000G series branding, we suspect that this chip features AMD's more contemporary and much faster Zen 2 cores. Unfortunately, we have no idea or hints of when AMD will announce the Athlon Gold 4000G chips. The only other indication of AMD re-using its 4000G series branding in new CPUs is the rumors revolving around Renior-X, including refreshed versions of the Ryzen 3 3100 and Ryzen 3 3300X under the 4000G series lineup to fend off the forthcoming Alder Lake's Core i3 SKUs. These new Athlon chips could be under that Renoir-X umbrella as well, but it's only a wild guess at this point.

AMD's Ryzen 5000 (Vermeer) processors aren't officially supported on AMD 300-series motherboards. However, motherboard manufacturers, including Asus and Gigabyte have deployed new firmwares for A320 motherboards to support the Zen 3 chips, some of the best CPUs for gaming that you can buy today.

Some users have gotten Zen 3 to work on X370 motherboards through the usage of bootleg firmwares. The problem with modified firmwares is that there is no guarantee of full system stability, and on many occasions, the firmwares are only available for a select number of models from a certain vendor. Official Zen 3 support on the A320 chipset opens the door for motherboard owners to upgrade to AMD's latest and greatest processors. More importantly, consumers can sleep better at night knowing that they're not running firmware that they downloaded from the Internet that has been altered by unknown entities.

Now that Asus and Gigabyte have released the first firmwares for A320 motherboards, we suspect that other brands will likely follow suit. Whether they have AMD's blessing to do so is another story. We've reached out to the chipmaker to inquire whether the company has changed its stance on Zen 3 and 300-series motherboards.

The AM4 socket is one of the most long-lived sockets on the market that houses multiple generations of AMD processors. A320 motherboards typically come with very limited capacity BIOS chips. Manufacturers have to drop support for some of the older Ryzen parts in order to usher in support for Zen 3. For example, the Asus and Gigabyte removed support for AMDs 7th Generation A-series and Athlon X4 series (Bristol Ridge) processors. 

The compromise of not having support for five-year-old processors is one that many A320 owners should be able to live with. Once you go Zen 3, the odds are that you're never looking back.

AMD has announced that all of its WIndows 11-compatible processors can suffer from reduced performance in some applications when used with the new operating system, with extreme outliers in eSports gaming titles resulting in up to a 10-15% reduction. For applications, AMD says that the performance impact weighs in at 3–5%. A software update and a Windows Update are in the works to address the issues, with both expected to arrive in October 2021 (this month).

The errors impact every Ryzen CPU supported in Windows 11. That means all Zen+, Zen 2 and Zen 3 CPUs that comprise the Ryzen 2000, Ryzen 3000, Ryzen 4000, and Ryzen 5000 processors. In addition, select AMD EPYC processors for data centers, along with some newer Athlon chips, are also impacted. You can see the full list here, but suffice it to say that every AMD chip on our Best CPUs for gaming list is included.

AMD's advisory says that the issue boils down into two categories. First, the measured and functional L3 latency can increase by ~3X, meaning you can see the impact with measurement utilities and that it results in real performance degradation in games and applications. The bug impacts applications that are sensitive to memory subsystem latency, causing a 3–5% reduction in performance. This issue also causes the 10–15% performance reduction outliers in games "commonly used for eSports," which isn't surprising given that games tend to be extremely sensitive to memory and cache latency.

Additionally, AMD's "preferred core" feature, which directs single-threaded applications to the fastest two cores on the chip, also might not work as expected. This would primarily impact performance in lightly-threaded applications. AMD says this performance reduction may be more noticeable in chips with more than eight cores and a >65W TDP rating.

We reached out to AMD on the matter, and the company says that it doesn't have more information to share. However, the advisory says that AMD and Microsoft are "actively investigating these known issues for resolution via software updates" and that AMD will update its advisory when they are available. AMD also advises that its customers experiencing the issues can "continue to use a supported version of Windows 10," which implies that it might not be wise to upgrade to Windows 11 until the issues are patched.

Notably, this issue seems to be separate from the performance issues surrounding Microsoft's recommended VBS and HVCI security settings that have caused an outcry. We put those issues to the test earlier this week.

AMD says it expects a Windows update to resolve the L3 cache issues, while a software update will remediate the problem with the UEFI CPPC2 preferred core technology. Both are expected to arrive this month. We'll update you as we learn more.

• Measured and functional L3 cache latency may increase by ~3X. 
• Applications sensitive to memory subsystem access time may be impacted.
• Expected performance impact of 3-5% in affected applications, 10-15% outliers possible in games commonly used for eSports.
•  
• UEFI CPPC2 (“preferred core”) may not preferentially schedule threads on a processor’s fastest core.
• Applications sensitive to the performance of one or a few CPU threads may exhibit reduced performance.
• Performance impact may be more detectable in >8-core processors above 65W TDP.

Retailers in Nagoya, Japan have been going out of their way to find ways to distribute AMD's Zen CPUs. A Twitter user called Nullpo_x3100 today shared a photograph of a vending machine that's part of a lottery distribution system for Ryzen chips.

The machine showcases a bunch of Ryzen 5 5000 Zen 3 and Ryzen 5 3000 Zen 2 boxes, suggesting you could get one of AMD's best CPUs for Gaming; however, the boxes have nothing to do with what's inside. Instead, the boxes are filled with chips using the original Zen or Zen 2 architecture, as well as Intel Athlon, Pentium and Celeron CPUs. It seems that this has been designed as a clever way for vendors to offload used CPUs. A Zen 2 chip seems to be the best option available. 

Based on the translated Twitter comments, the vending machine is actually a lottery system based on tickets. And it's more complex than it seems at first glance. You have to insert a 1,000 yen bill (roughly $10) to get a ticket. There's a 1-in-30 chance that the ticket will unlock a Zen 2 CPU. 

You can see the machine in action via the video below: 

This does open up a new avenue for frustration, though. Could you imagine buying a number of tickets until you finally get your Ryzen CPU only to watch it get stuck against the glass? Sounds like a hardware nightmare to us.

Of course, this does bring about some questions regarding gambling and PC hardware. Considering the state of the market, however, shopping from traditional retailers is dependent on chance too. For example, there's the Newegg Shuffle, where you can enter to win a chance to buy a low-stocked PC part and often at inflated prices. 

Perhaps we'll soon see a vending machine full of AMD RX 6000 or Nvidia RTX 30-series graphics cards surfaces too. We've seen stranger occurrences already.

Japan is one of the world's most technologically advanced countries and one of the hallmarks for completely automated shopping. There are numerous stores where people can grab necessities, pay, and walk out without ever interacting with another human being. Their vending machine game is also advanced, with all types of drinks, like iced coffees, and even face masks available.

However, a CPU vending machine is on a different level. And judging from the Twitter comments, they're not common, even in Japan. Several users showed surprise at this turn of affairs in PC hardware, with several others inquiring as to the stores' location. 

AMD's Zen 3-based Ryzen 5000 (Vermeer) processors are among the best CPUs currently on the market. However, it would seem that the chipmaker has an excess of leftover Zen 2 dies as a new USB-IF listing (via Komachi_Ensaka) has exposed three unreleased Zen 2 processors.

The submission mentions the Athlon Gold 4100GE, Ryzen 5 4500 and Ryzen 3 4100 processors with the A1 revision. We don't know for certain if the trio of AMD chips are wielding Zen 2 cores. Since AMD's utilizing the Ryzen 5000 branding for Zen 3 products, it's unrealistic to think that the chipmaker would use Zen 3 outside of the moniker.

Given the model names, the unannounced AMD processors could be a refresh of their Ryzen 3000 counterparts. There's also the possibility that processors may be special SKUs for OEMs, and we know how AMD likes producing custom-tailored chips for its partners.

Starting with the Athlon Gold 4100GE, the processor could be a follow-up for the Athlon Gold 3150GE, which is an OEM APU. AMD's Athlon Gold SKUs feature integrated Vega graphics solutions so the Athlon Gold 4100GE shouldn't be an exception. While we don't know the core count or clock speeds for the APU, the GE denomination tells us that the Athlon Gold 4100GE is restricted to a 35W TDP (thermal design power).

On the other hand, it's reasonable to assume that the Ryzen 5 4500 and Ryzen 3 4100 are the direct successors to the Ryzen 5 3500 and Ryzen 3 3100, respectively. For reference, the Ryzen 3 3500 is a hexa-core chip, while the Ryzen 3 3100 is a quad-core part. Both feature Zen 2 cores, adhere to a 65W TDP and lacks integrated graphics. We suspect that the Ryzen 5 4500 and Ryzen 3 4100 will inherit the majority of their predecessors' traits, but plausibly sport higher clock speeds.

It's unknown when AMD submitted the entry to the USB-IF, but it's more than enough evidence that the chipmaker has been preparing the three processors. Perhaps, the chipmaker will launch them silently soon, but only time will tell.

If you're still on a PC that predates 2005, you might be in some trouble. Google is preparing to change its Chrome browser's minimum CPU requirements to include the SSE3 instruction set in the near future. That means processors older than the Intel Core 2 Duo and AMD Athlon 64 will no longer support the browser, as anything older lacks the SSE3 instruction set.

In the future, Google wants to use more modern instruction sets with Chrome (specifically SSSE3; not to be confused with SSE3), and in doing so they are forced to increase the instruction set requirements to SSE3. Google also looked at the number of Chrome users running non-SSE3 capable processors and the population was small enough for them to make the change.

This news isn't that surprising. If you are still working on a system that predates 2005, it's amazing your system runs at all in the first place. The only real population that will be affected by this change is the retro community, which is already incredibly small, and frankly, they already know the potential problems they'll encounter trying to run modern software.

We don't know if this change will affect Chromium-based browsers like Edge, but it seems very likely that it will. Hope for older PCs isn't lost, however, as Mozilla Firefox has no current plans of making SSE3 a system requirement, so you can always fall back to that web-browser if needed.

SFF builder Shuttle has a new Ryzen-based SFF barebones PC ready for the European market; the XPC slim DA320. Measuring in at just 1.3 liters the DA320 is one of the smallest SFF units you can buy which supports Ryzen based processors. Luckily the unit features a lot of connectivity support, so you sacrifice very little with the DA320's ultra-small form factor.

For CPU support, the DA320 supports all Ryzen 2000 series and 3000 series APUs, as well as AMD's budget Athlon 2000 series APUs. For memory, the SFF unit can run up to 2933 MHz DDR4 (1.2v) RAM with a maximum capacity of 32GB (16GB per DIMM). For storage, you have options for both SATA based and NVMe M.2 based drives, along with space for a single 2.5 inch SATA drive.

Unfortunately, the DS320 does not come with built-in WiFi support, instead, there's an additional M.2-2230E slot on the motherboard that supports M.2 based WiFi cards.

For connectivity, there are a plethora of options; in the front, you get four USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports, an SD card reader, plus a microphone and headphone jack. In the rear, there are dual Gigabit Ethernet LAN ports alongside four more USB ports; two USB 3.2 Gen 1 and two USB 2.0 ports. Surprisingly you also get a couple of D-Sub RS232 serial COM ports, which are useful for industrial applications.

For display outputs, there are three in total; two DisplayPort 1.4 connectors and a single HDMI 2.0 connector. All connectors can be used simultaneously for a triple monitor setup thru AMD's Vega integrated graphics.

If you want to order the DA320, you'll have to buy it from European retailers as that is the only area where Shuttle sells its barebones PCs. Currently, the XPC Slim DA320 can be found at Reichelt - a German retailer site for 235 Euros, approximately $284.

We had a chance to talk with AMD CEO Lisa Su to discuss its future plans and how it plans to address several new challenges in 2021. The discussion took place in a roundtable format. While we're not allowed to post the full transcript, we do have plenty of new information to share about the company's challenges in 2021, like the ongoing chip shortages that Su says will persist until the second half of the year, rising prices due to tariffs, the company's progress on the GPU side of its business, its Xilinx acquisition, and the quest for more cores. Su’s comments have been edited for clarity. (We also have an interview with Intel CEO Bob Swan.)

AMD's progress throughout 2020 has been nothing short of phenomenal: The company launched its new line of Zen 3-powered Ryzen 5000 desktop CPUs that have finally taken the performance crown from Intel for the first time since the Athlon 64 days, and the company's Radeon 6000 GPUs have given the company it's best competitive footing against Nvidia's gaming GPUs in the last six years. 

AMD has also made momentous progress in the laptop market, with its Ryzen 4000 Mobile processors powering their way to its highest notebook market share in its history. We expect that momentum to accelerate with the Ryzen 5000 Mobile processors the company launched today. Things are humming along on the datacenter side of its business, too, as it continues to chew away market share from Intel, and the recent launches of the new Microsoft Xbox Series X|S and Sony PS5 signals plenty of demand in 2021.

But even though AMD is firing on all cylinders as it enters 2021, plenty of challenges, many of them unprecedented, loom ahead. Here are Lisa Su’s explanations of how the company is addressing those problems, and where it sees new opportunities in 2021.

Chip Shortages to Improve 

The PC market grew faster in 2020 than it has in the last decade, with demand spurred by a shift to working from home during the most unprecedented pandemic to grip the globe in modern times. But while the PC industry is in the midst of record demand, factors related to both the US-China trade war and the pandemic have roiled supply chains across the globe, strangling supply. Like many other companies, AMD has seen rolling shortages of its products as a result, and exasperated customers have been unable to buy both CPUs and GPUs for the last several months.

Lisa Su discussed the timeline for a recovery, saying, "Paul, we are shipping a lot of parts. Volumes are continuing to increase, and that's across gaming graphics as well as CPUs. We expect that to continue to happen through 2021. I think there will be tightness, certainly through the first half of the year, but we continue to ship more into our OEM partners, as well as our general partners, to increase the overall supply. We completely [understand] why consumers want more, and so it's very high on the priority list to have supply catch up to demand." Su also clarified that the company isn’t prioritizing OEM customers over the PC builders. Instead, the company is prioritizing in real time to balance supply.

"I do want to be very specific, and I want to say to our fans and enthusiasts: I get it, I completely understand that there's a huge desire for more Ryzen 5000 and Radeon 6000 graphics cards," she said. "What I can tell you is we've shipped a lot into the channel, but it takes some time for it to work itself through, and that was some of the logistics I was talking to you about. There will be more; you will continue to see refreshes as we go into the first quarter and into the first half. I will say that it will still be tight. But there is a lot of product coming to the market, and we appreciate that there's so much interest and desire for these products. And we look forward to getting more into the hands of our users."

AMD and Nvidia seem to have been disproportionately impacted by the shortages, partially due to their respective rollouts of incredibly powerful chips that have spurred demand, but that’s led to questions about whether the companies’ status as fabless chipmakers contributes to the supply issues. Su commented, "I would say we're very happy with our manufacturing strategy and our manufacturing partners. I think it's been a competitive advantage for us. There is tightness in the supply chain, particularly around some of the consumer PC products. I think that's really a result of the overall demand environment, and not necessarily any issues from a manufacturing standpoint, as it relates to semi's."

Reports of ABF substrate shortages, a key commodity in chip manufacturing that impacts nearly every chip made for PCs, have been prevalent over the last few months. The shortage seems to have impacted a broad cross-section of the industry, even impacting chip supply for auto manufacturers that idled several manufacturing plants last week.

"I think it's fair to say you've seen some reports of substrate shortages," Su said. "And we also see tightness in the substrate market. I think, again, this is more a function of the demand that has outstripped overall worldwide capacity. You do see that more capacity is being invested in coming online, including AMD investments, but it takes some time to get that online. I think the industry is overall reacting quite broadly, because it is across the industry, by ensuring that we put more capacity online. I expect that that will continue to happen in 2021."  

Those same shortages may have an impact on some of the most important products AMD has helped to bring to market this year: The Microsoft Xbox Series X|S (see where to buy the Xbox Series X) and Sony PS5 (see where to buy Sony PS5). However, those consoles have generated an unprecedented amount of demand, which contributes to the ongoing shortages.

"We're really thrilled with how the console launches went," Su said. "You've heard separately from Sony, and Microsoft, their discussions about sort of the size of the launch and the reception of the products. From our standpoint, if you think about it, with just the amount of new hardware that had to come into place, and the millions and millions of units of both consoles, or all three consoles, frankly, that needed to ship. I think it actually came together very nicely."

"In terms of what have we learned? We have learned that there's higher demand than we thought, and we're trying to put more capacity in place for that. But we're very, very happy with the launches, and very happy with the partnership with both Sony and Microsoft […] We believe that this is a big cycle. And that says a lot about just how much technology we've been able to integrate into the console form factor."

US-China Trade War and Tariffs 

Even as the industry was already in the midst of supply shortages, several key tariffs, which come as a result of the US-China trade war, expired at the beginning of the year. That led several third-party graphics card makers (AIBs) to announce price hikes, but at least for now, those price increases seem to have come to Nvidia’s graphics cards while AMD remains unaffected.

Su acknowledged the tariff issues, saying, "As we came into the new year, there were some changes in tariffs policies. We have spent quite a bit of time to ensure that we have a very flexible supply chain, so I don't think that's a significant issue as it relates to AMD."

In terms of the supply and demand disparities that have resulted in price hikes, regardless of the impact of the tariffs, Su said:

"I will say, more broadly, that we're very committed to trying to keep the GPU pricing as close to suggested pricing as possible from an overall fairness standpoint. One of the things we’ve done, for example, is that typically for when we start our GPU launches, we will have our own Radeon Graphics MBAs [Made By AMD cards], and then we phase those out and go to AIBs [third-party GPUs]. We actually aren’t phasing out our MBAs with the purpose of trying to ensure that, as stock becomes available, we will offer them on amd.com at suggested pricing. And we’ll encourage our partners to do that as well.

"I will say that there are some COVID related logistics and other commodity components that have increased in pricing. And I think some of that is what's going through. And, again, these are things that we're living within the current situation that hopefully, as we get to a more normal environment in the second half of the year, we'll see some improvements."

GPU Progress 

AMD has made tremendous progress on the GPU front. However, the newly-released ‘Cezanne’ Ryzen 5000 Mobile processors still come with the company’s previous-gen Vega graphics instead of its newer solutions. That’s led to some speculation that AMD is design-resource limited, but Su says the decision was more about assuring the correct product timing.

"[…]When we think about product cadences and roadmap cadences, for example, one of the things that was very important to us with Cezanne was actually shipping and production early in 2021,” she said."And the reason for that is, if you think about the entire OEM cycle, we have a whole bunch of platforms that will now launch throughout the first half of 2021. And that's a nice way to build cadence."

"As it relates to a choice on, do we put the latest generation graphics or not? I really think it's really a choice. And it's a matter of the timing of where we want to be on that particular cadence. So nothing fundamental, and we’re not design resource-limited. It’s more on the notion of what we think is needed at any given point in time. Some people might have expected that we would have left Renoir in the marketplace a little bit longer because it's, frankly, a fantastic product. But we thought that there would be high demand for Zen 3 in the normal form factor, and so we prioritized the Ryzen 5000 series."

AMD continues to forge ahead, even as it has lost key executives like Raja Koduri, to expand its competitive stance.

"I have to say; I'm very proud of our engineering teams on the CPU side. Mark Papermaster, Mike Clark, and the team have just done a phenomenal job on a very ambitious up roadmap, and the team has executed very well,” she said. “We also know, though, that we're as good as our current architecture. And so, as excited as we are about Zen 3, and getting it out into the marketplace, all of the focus is on Zen 4 and Zen 5 and ensuring that those are also extremely competitive.

"On the GPU side, I’m very pleased with the work that David Wang and the team have done. Our focus from an engineering side is to set up long-term roadmaps, and we're looking at a five-year roadmap and how to pick the right mix. You have to take some risks to get the innovation where it needs to be. But you also want to be very predictable about when the products are going to come out. It’s really that give-and-take of the bets you make. And how do you make sure that you track progress? 

"But I think we have a very strong team on both the CPU and the GPU side. And our aspirations are continuing. I know many of you asked me about our progress on GPU architecture. But I'm extremely happy with the progress we've made with RDNA2 in terms of performance per watt and overall performance, and there’s a lot of focus on our RDNA3, and beyond, to ensure that we continue to drive those leading architectural capabilities."

2021 Goals and Xilinx 

Su explained that AMD’s three key goals for 2021 revolve around overall customer adoption, particularly in the enterprise and commercial markets (with a heavy focus on the server market), establishing a steady supply of processors, and closing its pending $35 billion Xilinx acquisition.

AMD’s Xilinx acquisition is a needed step to broaden the company’s portfolio and addressable markets. Still, many have opined that an acquisition of this size could serve as a distraction for AMD that might hamper its steady string of on-time execution. Su explained that the company has a solid plan to remain on track:

"Well, we are continuing to stay laser-focused on execution. So I want you all to know that is ‘job one’ overall. I think we do have a very talented management team, and I think we have the desire to have a much bigger footprint in this industry,” she said. “And so Xilinx is the right next step for us. I'm quite confident that we can both execute on the base AMD business, as well as bring over Xilinx. The fact that Victor Peng, the current CEO of Xilinx, will join us is part of that strategy to ensure a seamless transition. These are the things that leaders have to do. We have to expand and scale, and we have the capability to do that. I very much think that we can do both."

More Cores 

AMD’s disruptive impact on the CPU market has been propelled by a pretty simple philosophy: More of everything. That approach has manifested itself primarily in the company’s push to higher core counts, forcing Intel to follow along in order to remain competitive. That trend has decelerated with the company’s latest Zen 3 processors, though, which come with the same core counts found with their predecessors. 

This raises questions about whether it’s feasible to infuse more cores within the electrical and thermal confines of today’s systems, or if software even requires a jump to higher core counts. Su says that AMD will continue to expand core counts in the future:

“If you look at what we've done between Zen 2 and Zen three, as well as between the second- and third-generation EPYC and Ryzen 4000  and 5000, we really focused on increasing single-threaded performance, as well as Improving some of the latencies and overall systems, such that we've gotten tremendous gen-on-gen performance within the same process technology,” she said. 

“So, all of that is in 7nm products, and we’ve probably been able to increase performance by 20%+, depending on which metric you're looking at. There will be more core counts in the future. I would not say that somehow 64 cores is the limit, but I think they will come as we scale other parts of the system, as well.”

Jim Keller, a famed chip architect with notable stints at Intel, AMD, and Tesla, has joined AI chip startup Tenstorrent as President, CTO, and board member. Keller previously worked with Tenstorrent founder Ljubisa Bajic at AMD and personally provided the first funding for the startup.     

Keller is known as a leader of transformational efforts during his storied past at several leading semiconductor firms, with his most recent position at Intel following the same trajectory. Keller joined Intel in 2018 and, in tandem with Raja Koduri and Murthy Renduchintala, was responsible for designing a new six pillar strategy meant to help the company recover from an extended period of roadmap delays. 

In a move seen by many as a sign that Intel's efforts to get back on track had stalled, Keller left Intel for personal reasons in June 2020 with plans to serve a six-month stint as a consultant to help the company transition to a new leadership team. Shortly thereafter, Intel announced that its 7nm process was delayed to such an extent that, for the first time, the company might have to turn to outside foundries to help produce its core logic devices. Keller's former boss, Murthy Renduchintala, was ousted a few days later.  

With Keller's six-month consulting agreement with Intel now apparently over, he has now joined the Tenstorrent team. The AI chip startup, based in Toronto, Canada, is designing new Grayskull inference processors for image recognition and voice processing tasks. Tenstorrent's approach melds high-performance inference processors with a new approach that uses AI to optimize low-level software functions, thus unlocking higher levels of speed and efficiency in an approach known as Software 2.0. 

“Software 2.0 is the largest opportunity for computing innovation in a long time. Victory requires a comprehensive re-thinking of compute and low level software,” Keller said. “Tenstorrent has made impressive progress, and with the most promising architecture out there, we are poised to become a next gen computing giant.”

Keller had previous jobs at Tesla, where he served as the Vice President of Autopilot and Low Voltage Hardware, helped architect the Zen microarchitecture while he was AMD's corporate vice president and chief cores architect, and is also famous for designing AMD's successful K7 (Athlon) and K8 architectures. AMD's canceled K12 uArch was another of Keller's more famous projects, and he has also worked for Apple, helping develop the A4 and A5 processors.

Keller is known for relatively short tenures at companies, typically leading turnaround efforts for roughly three years before moving on to other challenges. His time at Intel, where he served as Intel's senior vice president in the Technology, Systems Architecture and Client Group and general manager of the Silicon Engineering Group, was notably shorter at roughly two years. 

AMD's vaunted Zen microarchitecture and the TSMC 14nm process have finally made their way into Chromebooks in the form of the company's new Ryzen and Athlon 3000 C-Series processors. These new chips stretch up to quad-core, eight-thread Zen+ designs paired with the Vega integrated graphics engine.

To address the full breadth of the fast-growing Chromebook market, the new C-series chips join the Athlon A-series processors that come with the 28nm process and Bristol Ridge architecture.

AMD aims the Ryzen C-Series processors at higher-end Chromebooks that require more processing heft and come with modern amenities, like Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth. However, the Ryzen C-series processors are rebadged versions of the Ryzen 3000U series of chips, with AMD's rationale for the new branding being a clear separation of the Windows- and Chromebook-branded chips.

The Ryzen 7 3700C slots in as the flagship C-series part with four threaded 12nm Zen+ cores that operate at a base frequency of 2.3 GHz and boost to 4.0 GHz. The chip comes with the 10 Vega CUs (compute units), 6MB of cache, and respects a 15W TDP envelope. The Ryzen 3 3250C slots in as the dual-core quad-thread variant with a higher 2.6 GHz base than the flagship model, but a lower 3.5 GHz boost frequency. This chip comes with 3 Vega CUs and 5MB of cache.

AMD also launched two 15W Athlon 3000 C-series processors. The Athlon Gold 3150C comes with dual threaded cores that operate at a 2.4 GHz base and boost to 3.3 GHz. This chip comes with 5MB of cache, and 3 Vega CUs clocked at 1100 MHz. The Athlon Silver 3050C comes with two cores sans threading, has a 2.3/3.2 GHz base/boost, 5MB of cache, and 2 Radeon Vega CUs clocked at 1100 MHz.

AMD shared benchmarks for its Ryzen 3000 C-series processors compared to the A6-9220C processor. AMD's benchmarks outline impressive gen-on-gen performance gains, but as with all vendor-provided benchmarks, we should take these figures with a grain of salt. Notably, AMD didn't include competing Intel processors in its performance summary. AMD says it will share comparative data against Intel and other processors in the future. 

While the Chromebook market, which serves education, enterprise, and consumer markets, isn't the flashiest segment, AMD's initial A-Series A4 and A6 processors established a beachhead in the then-nascent market back in 2019. That paid off as Intel was beset by shortages that found it focusing on high-end chips and neglecting low-end, low-profit products. Meanwhile, AMD had plenty of supply as Intel ceded ground, and that paid off for AMD with a new market that generated plenty of sales, contributing to large share gains in the mobility space. 

Despite a competitive market dominated by the likes of Intel's Atom, Nvidia's Tegra, and Mediatek solutions, AMD has increased its share in the growing Chromebook market from 8% in 2019 to 21% in 2020. AMD also says this segment has an 8% CAGR. 

AMD says it will have six new design wins in 2020 from the likes of HP, ASUS, and Lenovo, that leverage the new Ryzen and Athlon C-Series models. The Bristol Ridge A-Series chips will co-exist with the C-Series in the market, largely to serve fanless and low-power 6W designs, and AMD already has eight design wins for those chips. 

Twitter user Coelacanth's Dream has stumbled upon a HP Pavilion x360 Convertible laptop that houses an unannounced Tiger Lake processor. The Intel Pentium Gold 7505 appears to be a dual-core chip that's designed for the entry-level mobile devices.

Next Wednesday is going to be an exciting day as Intel will finally take the wraps of the much-awaited 11th Generation Tiger Lake chips. The processors are the first to come out of the chipmaker's 10nm SuperFin cooking oven. With a combination of Willow Cove cores and Xe LP graphics, Intel intends to use Tiger Lake to strengthen its grip on the laptop market. 

It'll be an interesting rumble in the laptop space as Tiger Lake will eventually go up to face AMD's Ryzen 4000-series (codename Renoir) APUs. While we wait for the big fight, the Pentium Gold 7505 is here today to gives us a sneak peek of what's in store for us.

Geekbench 5 has the Pentium Gold 7505 as a dual-core processor with four threads. The 10nm chip reportedly features a 2 GHz base clock and 3.48 GHz boost clock. The Pentium Gold 7505 is equipped with 1.25MB of L2 cache per core, which confirms its validity as a Tiger Lake part. The processor is member of the U-series family, meaning its TDP (thermal design power) should be 15W.

Given its attributes, the Pentium Gold 7505 should compete with AMD's Athlon Gold 3150U. As per the Geekbench 5 results, the Pentium Gold 7505 completely crushes the Athlon Gold 3150U. The dual-core Tiger Lake could even give the Ryzen 3 4300U a run for its money. For reference, the Ryzen 3 4300U is a four-core, four-thread 15W processor that flexes a 2.7 GHz base clock and 3.7 GHz boost clock.

Regardless of the clockspeed handicap, the Pentium Gold 7505's single-core performance is in the same alley as the Ryzen 3 4300U, according go the Geekbench 5 results for the AMD chip. Ultimately, the Ryzen 3 4300U comes out on top in multi-core performance, and it's hard not to considering that the 7nm part has twice the cores of the Pentium Gold 7505.

In a move to expand its penetration into the massive pre-built system market, AMD announced that its opening salvo of the hotly-anticipated Ryzen 4000 'Renoir' desktop APUs are aimed directly at OEM builders. That means these Zen 2 chips won't be found in the retail market and won't contend for our list of Best CPUs. Instead, they'll be available only for pre-built systems from OEMs. AMD says it will deliver unspecified next-gen APUs for the DIY market (400- and 500-series motherboards) at an undetermined time. AMD also announced the Athlon 3000 G-Series chips and the Ryzen Pro 4000 G-series of processors for the professional market.

The Ryzen 4000 'Renoir' G-Series chips leverage the 7nm process and Zen 2 microarchitecture to deliver up to eight cores and 16 threads in a single Ryzen 7 APU, a doubling over AMD's previous limit of four cores with its Ryzen 5 3400G chips. There are six- and four-core models available, too, and all six models come with threading. AMD pairs the Zen 2 cores with reworked RX Vega graphics that deliver up to ~60% percent more performance per compute unit (CU) than their predecessors, which equates to more graphics performance from fewer CU. 

AMD bills the Ryzen 4000 G-Series processors as delivering a 25% increase in single-threaded performance and up to a 2.5X increase in multi-threaded applications over the prior-gen Picasso APUs, thus bringing enthusiast-class levels of performance to the OEM pre-built market. AMD's decision to use the Ryzen 4000 series for the OEM market (system integrators don't get the chips either) follows fast on the heels of the company's similar approach with its new Threadripper Pro chips that are exclusive to Lenovo workstations.

AMD's decision to launch within OEM-only systems will obviously disappoint many enthusiasts, especially in light of Renoir's promising performance that we've seen through a series of leaked benchmarks. However, AMD says that rough estimates put the OEM market as four to five times larger than the DIY/enthusiast market, so that's a key segment for the company as it works to claw more market share from Intel. Much of Intel's success in the OEM market stems from the integrated graphics units present on nearly all of its desktop chips, but now AMD's 4000 G-Series stretch up to eight Zen 2 cores to challenge Intel's higher-end models but come with much more powerful Vega graphics. AMD says that OEMs like Dell, HP, and Lenovo will announce systems soon, and those models will be available for purchase in August 2020. That said, 'OEM-only' chips often trickle out to the grey market, so we'll work on sourcing a few. On to the detailed specs. 

AMD Renoir Desktop APUs: Ryzen 7 4700G, Ryzen 5 4600G, Ryzen 3 4300G Specifications

AMD has shared a fraction of the technical information that it usually shares with the press, so details are slight at the time of publishing. We do know that the G-Series chips use the same monolithic die and architecture as the Ryzen 4000 H-Series laptop chips, with the only difference being TDP and tuning. AMD splits the Ryzen 4000 desktop Renoir APUs into both 65W and 35W versions, with the latter models designed to address thermally-constrained environments and small form factor builds. AMD's models generally have much lower power consumption metrics than Intel's models, especially due to the fact they don't come with a 12nm I/O die like the chiplet-based Ryzen 3000 models, which should be exceptionally attractive to OEMs. AMD isn't sharing pricing and insists these chips won't be available at retail, but we've already seen some early indications of tray pricing listings in Japan.  

AMD added a Ryzen 7 model to the APU lineup for the first time, with the 8-core 16-thread 4700G marking a new maximum core count for the family and coming with a 3.6 GHz base and 4.4 GHz boost clock. The new six-core 12-thread Ryzen 5 4600G surpasses the previous-gen quad-core eight-thread Ryzen 5 3400G in terms of cores and threads, but matches its predecessor's 3.7 / 4.2 GHz base/boost. The Ryzen 3 4300G rounds out the 65W Ryzen 4000 G-series family with four cores and eight threads that operate at a base/boost 3.8 / 4.0 GHz. AMD hasn't revealed whether or not the chips support overclocking, but that might come down to individual OEMs and what they choose to support.

As you'll notice, the 4000 series models come with fewer CUs than their predecessors - the Ryzen 7 4700G comes armed with 'only' eight CUs compared to the Ryzen 5 3400G's eleven. AMD claims it has managed to wring out ~60% more performance per Vega CU (as measured in Time Strike). For its H-Series laptop chips, AMD cited that improvement comes as a byproduct of a 25% increase to the peak graphics clock and 77% more memory throughput from the move to faster memory, but it's unclear if that same percentage of memory throughput improvement carries over to the desktop APUs. The desktop APUs support DDR4-3200, but AMD measured some of its gaming performance metrics with DDR4-3600, so how the company measures the CU improvements for the desktop APUs is unclear. We know the mobile APUs have two memory controllers, with each supporting 1x64 for DDR4, and 2x32 through virtual channels for LPDDR4x memory. The aggregate 4x32 LPDDR4x-4266 channels peak at 68.3 GB/s of throughput, while 2x64 DDR4-3200 peaks at a lower 51.2 GB/s.

As expected, the chips support a PCIe 3.0 x16 connection to the PEG slot, a x4 connection to the chipset, and a x4 connection to a storage device (M.2). AMD says it remained with PCIe 3.0 as it was baked in from the mobile chips to meet a certain power threshold, but it's noteworthy that those power thresholds are much higher for the desktop chips so there is room for a faster interface here. In the past, AMD and other semiconductor vendors have pointed out that the move to chiplet-based architectures is partially influenced by the difficulties associated with shrinking I/O interfaces to smaller nodes – the increased voltage required for external interfaces causes faster degradation/aging, so those interfaces are kept on older, more resilient nodes, like AMD's 12nm I/O die with its chiplet-based Ryzen 3000 chips. Still, it isn't clear if those challenges play a role here as well. AMD may have chosen to go with the PCIe 3.0 connection to eliminate the work involved with crafting on a new interface.

AMD shared some performance data that is included above (endnotes are also in the album). As always, take vendor-provided benchmarks with a grain of salt, but you might take these with a pinch more than usual: The desktop APUs support DDR4-3200, but AMD measured some of its gaming performance metrics with DDR4-3600. [EDIT: AMD reached out to us to clarify that the listing of DDR4-3600 was in error – the company says it conducted the tests at DDR4-3200. In either case, AMD has provided almost no data, aside from the erroneous listing, in regards to its test configurations.]

AMD also provides comparisons to Intel's 9th-gen processors instead of the 10th-gen models, but says it can't source Intel's 10th-gen chips for comparative testing. That's a bit suspect, though it wouldn't help Intel on the Time Spy results as only mobile 10th Gen Ice Lake chips use the newer Gen11 Iris Plus Graphics. We'll have to wait for Tiger Lake and Rocket Lake to see higher performance integrated graphics from Intel desktop processors.

AMD Athlon 3000 G-Series

AMD also updated its Athlon 3000 G-Series with three new models that come equipped with the 12nm Zen+ architecture and the Vega graphics architecture. AMD didn't share any specifics about the graphics engines, but we'll update as we learn more. As you can see, AMD has adopted Intel's 'Silver' and 'Gold' branding from the Pentium series for these new chips. 

AMD 'Renoir' Ryzen Pro and Athlon Pro 4000 Series

AMD also announced Ryzen Pro 4000 and Athlon G-Series for professional users. These models feature the same specifications as the desktop models but have multiple layers of security, including AMD memory guard that enables fully encrypted memory. The manageability feature includes tools for simplified deployments, long-term imaging (via stable drivers), extended software stability (18 months), and long-term availability of the chips (two years). AMD provided more benchmarks, but again, take vendor-provided performance results with a grain of salt. 

Thoughts

AMD's focus on OEM pre-built systems is important for the company as it looks to accelerate its rate of market share gains against Intel. AMD says the pre-built OEM market is roughly four to five times larger than the DIY/enthusiast segment (citing industry analysts), but the company hasn't enjoyed the same amount of success with OEM systems. Much of that disparity lies in the company's previous restriction of only having graphics-enabled chips with a maximum of four execution cores, but the Renoir series changes that paradigm. Renoir expands AMD's maximum core count to eight, allowing AMD to challenge all but Intel's ten-core Core i9-10900/K in pre-built systems that come without a discrete graphics card. 

Given the distribution of high-end vs. low-end pre-builts (ten-core pre-builts likely don't comprise a large portion of the sales mix), the Renoir series should be enough to challenge Intel in the vast majority of OEM systems. Given AMD's inherent advantages, like overwhelmingly faster integrated graphics, generally lower price points and much lower power consumption, the Renoir chips could be just the catalyst the company needs to take big strides in the high-volume and lucrative OEM market.

Let's just hope that OEMs pair the chips with capable coolers, motherboards, and dual-channel RAM to get the most out of the architecture. Given what we've seen from Renoir chips in leaked test results, they look exceptionally promising at their higher power rating. Naturally, that will lead to speculation that these chips could disrupt AMD's carefully manicured retail Ryzen 3000 stack, but at a lower price point than the XT- and X-series chips. That means the Renoir chips could be exceptionally potent at gaming with discrete GPUs, thus reducing the need for gamers to purchase more expensive Ryzen 3000 models. We'll see as systems filter out. 

AMD says that system integrators (which it defines as builders without a global presence) won't get the Ryzen 4000 G-Series chips for builds. However, leading OEMs like HP and Lenovo are expected to announce systems powered by the new chips soon. Those systems will be available in August 2020. 

As posted to the Chiphell forums by kthlon, a new mounting mechanism for Socket AM4 processors, including AMD's venerable Ryzen series, has appeared that prevents the processor from 'sticking' to the cooler when you remove it. Though the product hasn't made it to the U.S. market yet, it also comes in Noctua- and Thermaltake-compatible flavors.

While the AM4 socket is perhaps the longest-lived socket in x86 history, supporting more chips than we can recall from any other single socket, it does have one annoying tendency–When you remove a cooler, the chip can become stuck to the cooling plate due to a suction-like effect created by the thermal interface material (TIM). This results in the chip being pulled from the pin grid array (PGA) socket even though the socket arm is still firmly latched in a 'closed' position.

This problem isn't entirely dangerous if you notice the processor is stuck to the cooler (it certainly doesn't damage the socket or chip). Still, it could be dangerous if you didn't notice and sat the cooler/chip down on another surface, thus bending the pins. It also takes some patience to slide the 'stuck' processor off the edge of the cooling plate, and you risk getting TIM between the processors' pins.

Necessity is the mother of invention, though. As seen in the album above, the new ProArtist IFE2 cooler bracket is designed to completely eliminate the problem by firmly holding the processor in place via a secondary bracket that extends downward to surround the processor. A secondary mount installs over the IFE2 bracket so you can mount the cooler, but the net effect is that you can remove the heatsink without any chance of the processor coming along with it. 

The IFE2 bracket is sold as a stand-alone kit in China, but we can't find any listings for the product in the United States. According to a post by momomo_us, Noctua- and Thermaltake-compatible kits are available in China. 

You could theoretically use the bracket with other coolers, but compatibility with standard coolers might be a bit spotty due to varying standoff heights, so you'll need to make sure the cooler still has a good firm fit with acceptable mounting pressure. However, the bracket is also sold in bundles with some coolers, like ProArtist's Desserts 3, which we also can't find for sale in the western hemisphere. We wouldn't be surprised to see similar brackets eventually make their way to western shores, though.

Admittedly, removing a processor isn't a frequent task for 'normal' users unless they frequently swap processors or re-TIM the chip, and the problem is easy to fix: You can either twist the cooler as you remove it, or remove it while the chip is still warm. 

Yesterday, AMD disclosed the SMM Callout Privilege Escalation (CVE-2020-12890) vulnerability that affects the chipmaker's client and embedded APUs that came out between 2016 and 2019.

SMM Callout Privilege Escalation, which security research Danny Odler discovered, enables an attacker with physical or administrative access to the victim system to manipulate the AMD Generic Encapsulated Software Architecture (AGESA) microcode inside the motherboard's firmware. This allows for the execution of malicious code that's not detectable by the operating system. 

Luckily, this vulnerability can be mitigated with a simple microcode update, which seemingly doesn't bear a performance impact on the system. AMD has already distributed updated versions of its AGESA microcodes to its motherboard partners and will deliver the remaining versions by the end of this month. 

As usual, AMD recommends users to update their systems to the latest firmware once it's available.

Intel announced today that famed chip architect and lead silicon engineer Jim Keller will leave the company, effective today, due to unspecified personal reasons. Intel's press release clarifies that Keller will stay on with the company as a consultant for a six month period to help with the transition to a new leadership team. 

Keller is known as a leader of transformational efforts, and his depth of experience designing heterogeneous architectures played well to Intel's move towards multi-chip processor designs. In tandem with Raja Keller and Murthy Renduchintala, Keller was responsible for designing and aligning Intel's silicon portfolio under a new six pillar strategy that plays to the strengths of the company's IP.

Keller is known for relatively short stints at companies, typically leading turnaround efforts for roughly two years before moving on to other challenges. He served as Intel's senior vice president in the Technology, Systems Architecture and Client Group (TSCG) and general manager of the Silicon Engineering Group (SEG),

Given the long lead times in the chip design process and manufacturing, designs can take several years to come to market. That means that Keller's legacy will live on in a string of products that will mostly come to market long after his exit. For instance, his efforts on the Zen architecture didn't debut until he left the company.

Intel says that Keller will assist in a transition period over the next six months as it realigns its leadership under the following structure: 

·         Sundari Mitra, the former CEO and founder of NetSpeed Systems and the current leader of Intel’s Configurable Intellectual Property and Chassis Group, will lead a newly created IP Engineering Group focused on developing best-in-class IP.

·         Gene Scuteri, an accomplished engineering leader in the semiconductor industry, will head the Xeon and Networking Engineering Group.

·         Daaman Hejmadi will return to leading the Client Engineering Group focused on system-on-chip (SoC) execution and designing next-generation client, device and chipset products. Hejmadi has over two decades of experience leading teams delivering advanced SoCs both inside and outside of Intel.

·         Navid Shahriari, an experienced Intel leader, will continue to lead the Manufacturing and Product Engineering Group, which is focused on delivering comprehensive pre-production test suites and component debug capabilities to enable high-quality, high-volume manufacturing.

Jim Keller's hire was considered by many to be a coup for Intel, given that he has a long track record of success, including at Tesla, where he served as the Vice President of Autopilot and Low Voltage Hardware. Keller helped architect AMD's Zen microarchitecture while he was the company's corporate vice president and chief cores architect. Keller is also famous for designing AMD's successful K7 (Athlon) and K8 architectures. AMD's canceled K12 uArch was another of Keller's more famous projects, and he has also worked for Apple and helped develop the A4 and A5 processors.

12 Entry-level and budget-friendly A520 desktop chipset based motherboards have been registered by ASRock for regulatory approval at the EEC. As a successor to the previous entry-level A320 chipset, the A520 is designed with Ryzen 3 and Athlon processors in mind and comes with a number of compromises over more expensive, feature-rich motherboards. They lack CPU overclocking capabilities of more expensive boards, and there is no support for PCIe 4.0 so we have to rely on sixteen PCIe gen 3 lanes for graphics. I/O connectivity is also more limited than the higher-end counterparts with 4 SATA ports, and 9 USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports. All of the boards are expected to be Micro-ATX and Mini-ITX form factors.

These are the models revealed in the regulatory approval register.

• A520M Pro4
• A520M Pro4 R2.0
• A520M Pro4 R3.0
• A520M-HDV
• A520M-HDVP
• A520M-HDV R2.0
• A520M-HDV R3.0
• A520M-HVS
• A520M-HVS R2.0
• A520M-HVS R3.0
• A520M-ITX/ac
• A520M/ac

These newly registered boards are expected to arrive some time in Q3 2020 and will replace the older A320 chipset series of boards. If you're looking at building a gaming system, your best bet will be to stick with the new B550 chipset, or X570 for high-end systems as these platforms support PCI-Express 4.0 and overclocking. For general-purpose use, or very-tight budget builds, the A520 boards will be worth considering.

Motherboard manufacturer ECS has silently expanded its AMD portfolio. The B450AM4-M motherboard (via Hermitage Akihabara) that attempts to be one of the best motherboards to consider for consumers with very tight budgets.

The B450AM4-M is a microATX motherboard that exploits AMD's budget B450 chipset. It has a modest power delivery subsystem that conforms to a 4+2-phase design and feeds the CPU with a single 4-pin power connector. The motherboard's full processor support list wasn't available at the time of writing, but the user manual states that the B450AM4-M supports 7th Generation A-series and Athlon APUs and processors up to the second-generation Ryzen 2000-series (Pinnacle Ridge) parts with a maximum TDP (thermal design power) of 95W. This effectively closes the door on the Ryzen 7 2700X, which is rated for 105W.

ECS equips the B450AM4-M with four slots that support up to DDR4--2666 memory modules. The motherboard can hold a maximum of 64GB of memory, but that will vary from processor to processor.

The B450AM4-M comes with different expansion slots that will surely satisfy the typical consumer. There's one PCIe 3.0 x16 slot, one PCIe 2.0 x16 slot wired at x4, one PCIe 2.0 x1 slot and even one PCI slot. Thanks to the presence of the two PCIe x16 slots, the B450AM4-M can accommodate up to two AMD Radeon graphics cards in a CrossFire setup.

For storage, the board offers a combination of four SATA III ports, which support RAID 0, 1 and 10 arrays, and one M.2 M-key slot that houses PCIe- and SATA-based drives up to 80mm in length. There's another M.2 slot, but it's a E-key format for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless cards only.

ECS' B450AM4-M also features four display outputs: one HDMI 1.4a port, one DVI-D port, one D-Sub port and one DisplayPort 1.2 output. Logically, you'll need to pair the motherboard with a APU to get an image from it.

The Realtek ALC662 audio codec delivers a 6-channel high definition audio experience. A Realtek ALC1304 amplifier integrated circuit accompanies the ALC662. Sadly, there's only one 3.5mm jack though that acts as a line-out, line-in and mic-in port. The single Gigabit Ethernet port is based on the Realtek RTL8111GN controller.

Despite the segment in which the  motherboard competes, the B450AM4-M isn't short of I/O connectors. The rear panel boasts a PS/2 combo port, two USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, four USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports and two USB 2.0 ports. In the event that you require more USB ports, the motherboard also sports one USB 3.2 Gen 1 header and two USB 2.0 headers. The list of headers also includes two serial port and one LPT headers as well as three 4-pin fan headers.

ECS hasn't announced the pricing or availability for the B450AM4-M motherboard.

AMD Ryzen 4000 mobile APUs already arrived this year, but according to a tweet from hardware detective @_rogame, it's possible we'll soon see AMD Ryzen 4000 APUs make their way to the desktop with AMD's Zen 2 microarchitecture. 

AMD has pretty much flushed out its processor product stack with 7nm parts. Only the desktop APU hasn't received the Zen 2 treatment. AMD's current desktop APUs, (codenamed Picasso), are still on the Zen+ microarchitecture and GlobalFoundries' 12nm manufacturing process. The transition to Zen 2 and the 7nm process node would bring some significant improvements to the segment.

The unidentified processor's core and thread count is currently unknown, but it reportedly runs within the 35W envelope. Given the TDP rating, it could be an Athlon or one of those Ryzen 3 or Ryzen 5 GE-series parts that are optimized for efficiency. For context, existing Ryzen desktop APUs span up to four cores, while Athlon chips are stuck at two cores. The hardware sleuth seemed to think that the processor could be the Ryzen 3 4200GE or Ryzen 3 4100GE.

According to the tweet, the CPU features a 3 GHz base clock with performance somewhere between a Ryzen 5 4600U and Ryzen 7 4700U. The hardware detective didn't share the exact design of the iGPU; however, it was seemingly operating with a 1.2 GHz clock speed. Graphics performance was allegedly slower than a Renoir chip with six Vega Compute Units (CUs).

The desktop AMD Ryzen 4000 APU was reportedly tested with a system using an AMD motherboard that appeared under the "Artic" codename, which could point to an unreleased chipset. The processor was paired with DDR4-3200 RAM, so there's no doubt that it's a desktop processor. In any case, the APU should be backwards-compatible with AMD's 300-and 400-series motherboards with a mere firmware update.

Biostar recently announced the A10N-9630E mini-ITX motherboard, and now it's adding the FX9830M micro-ATX board to its arsenal for those seeking an alternative with a bit more punch.

As spotted by Hermitage Akihabara, the FX9830M features a black design. AMD's FX-9830P (codename Bristol Ridge) APU is the heart of the motherboard. The APU's based on the Excavator microarchitecture and dates back to 2016. It also comes with an included factory CPU cooler, so you don't have to spend extra money to get an aftermarket one.

The FX-9830P has four CPU cores and four threads that ticks with a 3 GHz base clock and 3.7 GHz boost clock. The 28nm chip comes with a configurable TDP (thermal design power) that ranges between 25W and 45W. However, the FX-9830P typically operates within a 35W envelope. On the graphics side, the FX-9830P is equipped with the Radeon R7 integrated GPU, which consists of 512 shader units at 900 MHz.

The FX9830M has two DDR4 RAM slots and can hold up to 32GB with a maximum speed of 2,400 MHz. For storage, the motherboard provides four SATA III connectors, and a single M.2 PCIe 3.0 x2 port that accepts both PCIe-and SATA-based drives.

The FX9830M's Realtek RTL8111H controller provides internet connectivity, but there's only one Gigabit Ethernet port. The ALC887 audio codec is also from Realtek and supports 7.1-channel audio. Additionally, the motherboard supplies three 3.5mm audio jacks for connecting audio devices.

The FX9830M's rear panel also contains two PS/2 ports, one HDMI port, one VGA port, two USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports and two USB 2.0 ports. In the event that you need more USB ports, the motherboard sports one USB 3.2 Gen 1 header and one USB 2.0 header, which are good for two ports each.

The FX9830M isn't listed anywhere, so the motherboard's pricing is a mystery for now. For context, an Athlon 3000G APU and A320 motherboard combo will set you back about $110. For the FX9830M to really appeal to budget seekers, Biostar will need to sell it for below that price point.

AMD's website has added the Pro 500 as one of its specialized chipsets for small form factor (SFF) systems.

The A300 and X300 chipsets, which also target SFF systems, have been around for a while, but not many vendors have taken advantage of them. The ASRock DeskMini A300 is one of the handful systems that actually features an A300-based motherboard. It'll be interesting to see whether the Pro 500 chipset gains more favor from AMD's partners. Like the A300 and X300 chipsets, the Pro 500 chipset also lives on the existing AM4 platform. 

According to AMD's website, the Pro 500, as well as A300, are "geared toward practical consumer and commercial users who need a simple, small solution." Meanwhile, the X300 chipset targets enthusiasts and overclockers. 

In terms of similarities, the A300 and X300 chipsets support four USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports, two SATA ports, two M.2 ports and RAID 0 and 1 arrays. However, the A300 chipset only supports one PCIe 3.0 slot and doesn't allow for overclocking. The X300 chipset is a bit more generous in terms of features as it enables up to two PCIe 3.0 slots and overclocking. The PCIe 3.0 slots on both chipset operate at x8 with A-series and Athlon chips and at x16 with Ryzen chips.

Unfortunately, information on the Pro 500 chipset is pretty scarce. If we had to make a guess, we suspect the Pro 500 chipset is based on a similar design as AMD's high-end X570 chipset.

Additionally, Lenovo's IdeaCentre T540 and ThinkCentre M75s desktop PCs are listed as employing motherboards that are based on the AMD Pro 560 chipset.

It's uncertain if the Pro 560 is the same as Pro 500 AMD listed on it's website. However, the specifications for Lenovo's systems point to the usage of PCIe 3.0, so it appears that the Pro 560 chipset doesn't support the latest PCIe 4.0 standard.

Update 1/2/2020, 1pm PT: AMD has now also broken its intra-day record of $48.50 with a new peak of $49.10. 

Original Article:

AMD has broken its previous closing stock price record during today's intra-day trading. The previous closing record was set at $47.50, which was set on June 21, 2000. Of course, factors like inflation do apply, but regardless, this is an important hallmark for the company, which is trading at $47.62 at the time of writing. 

The new height reflects the market's growing confidence in AMD's portfolio of Zen 2-powered processors, which now challenge Intel in every single segment of the market they compete in, and confidence in the company's ability to deliver on its goals as it moves to future architectures, like Zen 3 and Zen 4.

Times have certainly changed for AMD compared to its last record stock price: In March 2000, AMD released the world's first 1GHz processor, the Athlon 1000, which competed directly with Intel's NetBurst architecture. Intel's competing processors weren't nearly as impressive in terms of pricing, power efficiency, or performance. AMD also had its first multiprocessor platform, the Athlon MP, in the works to challenge Intel in the data center.

AMD weathered several ups and downs in the following years, with a brief return to Wall Street's favor in 2006 when it peaked at ~$35, which came during the company's good years with its Opteron data center chips that granted the company ~25% of the data center market share in 2006 and 2007, the company's peak in that high-margin segment. Intel's new Core series turned the tide, which led to AMD's lackluster stock performance in the following years leading up to Bulldozer's ill-fated release in 2011, which sent the company on a long downward path that nearly ended in bankruptcy in 2016. 

Then Zen happened. AMD's Lisa Su was appointed CEO in 2014 and announced the pending arrival of the first Zen-based processors in August 2016, and the company revealed the finer details of the architecture a mere seven days later. That architecture has evolved quickly over the intervening years, allowing the company to leverage TSMC's 7nm process, which gives the company a density and efficiency lead over Intel's 14nm node, to great effect. 

Perhaps AMD's biggest potential lays in the high-margin data center, where the company is clawing back share, albeit slowly, from Intel with its new EPYC Rome processors. AMD is grappling with significant challenges satiating demand for its 7nm process, but company representatives have indicated that it has adjusted orders to increase output, which should help address supply issues moving into 2020. 

Intel, meanwhile, has also suffered from ongoing shortages of its 14nm processors and is struggling to transition to its 10nm process, leaving AMD an almost-perfect opening to gain market share.

AMD has hovered around its previous peak for several days, but a re-iteration of a buy rating from Nomura today, citing "gains from new products and increased ASPs, revenue growth, and operating leverage," helped push AMD over the top. 

AMD has led the S&P for two years and has strong momentum as it moves into 2020. We expect to learn more about the company's next steps at CES 2020, which begins next week. 

If you’re looking at Black Friday deals for your next build and find a good Ryzen 3000 deal, you may notice that not every motherboard with AMD’s AM4 CPU socket will work out of the box. So when you’re mixing and matching motherboards and processors, it’s important to ensure that the two will work together.

The issue is that while AMD is supporting its AM4 socket for the latest processors, some older motherboards need a BIOS update. Sometimes, to do that, you need another AM4-processor, creating an odd chicken and egg problem.  And it’s not fun to rip open your parts only to find out that you can’t use them together right away. 

Look for a Ryzen Ready badge

When buying a new motherboard, look for a badge that says “AMD Ryzen Desktop 3000 Ready” on it. These motherboards will work with the latest AMD Ryzen processors out of the box, no updates needed.

AMD has a matrix that shows which of its processors work with which motherboards, and which platforms definitely need an update. If you’re getting a Ryzen 3000-series processor, X570 motherboards should all just work. Older X470 and B450 as well as X370 and B350 motherboards will probably need BIOS updates, and A320 motherboards won’t work at all.

Check vendor descriptions and user comments

The stores selling the motherboard should list compatibility. (If they don’t, the matrix above is a good start). Local stores may open boxes and perform the upgrades, but it’s possible that online stores aren’t doing that. Many online stores will list a motherboard as “Ryzen 3000 compatible” but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it has been updated to the necessary BIOS version to enable that compatibility. So unless the description is crystal clear, user reviews may help.

If you check the user reviews, you may see users talking about whether the motherboard they bought needed a BIOS update to use Ryzen 3000 series CPUs. Of course, it’s possible that if a user said they needed a BIOS update in a comment from several weeks ago, that you won’t need one on a unit you buy today, but it’s safer to assume that the situation hasn’t changed.

Use BIOS Flashback

Some motherboards have the ability to update from a USB stick, which is called BIOS Flashback. You’ll have to check the instruction manual for your motherboard to see if this works. Others have an update button on the back, though you won’t find this on cheaper motherboards. But in either case, some motherboards don’t even need a CPU to update.

Consider AMD’s Short Term Loan Program

If you buy a motherboard and it hasn’t been updated, doesn’t support BIOS flashback or have a button to update without a chip, you’re not out of luck. AMD has a “short term processor loan boot kit.” That consists of a Athlon 200GE processor and a cooler for 10 days so that you can make the update and install your own CPU. You can find out more details, including how to sign up for the program, here.

This is the most complicated option, as it requires filling out a warranty claim, serial numbers and receipts. You’ll also lose some time on your build waiting for it to come in the mail. But it’s free, so it’s a good last-ditch option.

AMD announced today that it's started shipping its latest APU, the Athlon 3000G today for $49. The chip is the first Zen architecture-based product from AMD's Athlon line to to be unlocked.

AMD Athlon 3000G vs Athlon 200GE Specs

Just like its predecessor, the Athlon 200GE based on the Zen 1.0 architecture, Athlon 3000G continues to use the same dual-core/quad-thread configuration and is integrated with Radeon Vega 3 graphics. It also features the same 1MB of L2 and 4MB of L3 cache. Even the power envelope has remained 35W. The chip is also compatible with AM4 motherboards.

However, there have been some improvements as well. The new chip is built on the improved Zen+ architecture. It's also manufactured with a 12nm process, which has led to an increase in base clock frequency from 3.2 GHz to 3.5 GHz for the CPU and an extra 100 MHz for the GPU.

The other major difference is that Athlon 3000G can also be unlocked, something budget gamers will definitely appreciate. Its predecessor was locked, but some AMD partners offered ways to overclock it. However, these were eventually disabled via BIOS updates.

AMD-provided benchmarks claims that the Athlon 3000G offers a significantly better 720p budget gaming experience compared to Intel’s popular (and more expensive) $73 Pentium G5400, scoring about a 55% boost in frames per second in the tested games.

AMD said that the Athlon 3000G will start showing up on Internet retailers in the coming days for the “suggested” price of $49. That means it could be either slightly cheaper or slightly more expensive, depending on the retailers. But you may want to be on the lookout for a Black Friday deal for this processor too.

AMD might have announced the Athlon 3000G just last week, but apparently, the chipmaker isn't finished with the Athlon lineup just yet. A recent Geekbench listing points to an unreleased Athlon Gold 3150U APU, which is likely aimed at laptops. 

Interestingly, it appears that AMD will take a page out of Intel's marketing playbook for the upcoming CPU with integrated graphics. Intel uses the Gold and Silver monikers to segment its Pentium and Xeon CPU lines. This is the first time that we've seen an AMD processor with "Gold" in its model name.

AMD Athlon Gold 3150U Specs

*Specs in this row aren't confirmed by AMD.

Geekbench 4 detected the Athlon Gold 3150U as a Raven Ridge part. However, we have our doubts, since Geekbench 4 has been wrong in the past. If you look at the Athlon Gold 3150U listing carefully, you can spot the AMD Family 23 Model 24 Stepping 1 processor ID. This is the same ID as the Athlon 300U, which belongs to the Picasso family. The processor ID for Raven Ridge is AMD Family 23 Model 17 Stepping 0. Therefore, chances are that the Athlon Gold 3150U and Athlon 300U are siblings. Both processors even share identical specifications, based on the Geekbench listing. 

The Athlon Gold 3150U reportedly comes with two cores and four threads. The processor features a 2.4 GHz base clock and a turbo clock that scales up to 3.28 GHz; although, we suspect the we'll be seeing 3.3 GHz when the APU's actually released. The dual-core APU seemingly has 193KB of L1 cache, 1MB of L2 cache and 4MB of L3 cache.

On the graphics side, the Athlon Gold 3150U seems to sport AMD's Radeon Vega 3 graphics, meaning the APU has three GPU cores clocked at 1,000 MHz at its disposal.

Since the Athlon Gold 3150U and Athlon 300U have similar specifications, it's difficult to tell which is faster without knowing the former's all-core boost clock and TDP (thermal design power). However, a quick comparison on Geekbench 4  shows the Athlon Gold 3150U coming out on top. Apparently, it's up 3.3% faster in single-core workloads and 7.4% faster in multi-core workloads than the Athlon 300U.

AMD announced two third-generation Ryzen Threadripper HEDT (high-end desktop) processors today, along with the Ryzen 9 3950X mainstream desktop CPU and Athlon 3000G APU. Already we're seeing early benchmarks of the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3960X.

Four Threadripper 3960X results are currently in the 3DMark database. The 24-core, 48-thread processor was seemingly paired with Gigabyte's TRX40 Aorus Xtreme motherboard, 32GB of DDR4-3200 RAM from G.Skill and two different graphics cards, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 and an AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 with liquid cooling.

We'll be comparing these newfound benchmark results for the Threadripper 3960X to the Threadripper 2970WX its replacing and the Ryzen 9 3900X, AMD's current flagship consumer chip. The Threadripper 3960X's greatest competitor is the Intel Core i9-9900KS, a supremely fast gaming processor, and the Intel Core i9-9980XE, Intel's current-gen flagship HEDT part.

It's important to note that there are many more benchmarks results available for those competing chips. For this reason, we'll be using the average Physics score for each chip, which should be a pretty good indicator for comparison purposes. Regardless, don't forget that there are different systems involved and some are overclocked.

A quick glance at the results shows the Threadripper 3960X rising above the Threadripper 2970WX by fairly large margins. This is to be expected, considering that the Threadripper 3960X is the direct replacement for the Threadripper 2970WX. However, the Threadripper 3960X apparently lost to the Ryzen 9 3900X in the Fire Strike test. It redeemed itself in the Time Spy and Time Spy Extreme tests.

The Threadripper 3960X seemingly beat the Core i9-9900KS but fell behind the Core i9-9980XE in Fire Strike. AMD's 24-core offering  also looks like it squashed its Intel rivals in both Time Spy and Time Spy Extreme.

3DMark's Physic test is a decent way to explore a processor's performance, but it doesn't compare to an in-depth review evaluating the chip from different angles. Stay tuned to Tom's Hardware for just that.

Today AMD announced that its belated $749 Ryzen 9 3950X will barrel into the desktop PC market on November 25 with 16-cores and 32-threads for mainstream platforms. The company also dished fine-grained details, like cooling and motherboard requirements, for the new processors.

For heavier users that need more than the 3950X, AMD also revealed its new Threadripper 3000 lineup. The 24-core 48-thread Threadripper 3960X will come to market at $1,399, while the 32-core 64-thread Threadripper 3970X will debut at $1,999. Both come on November 25 and feature impressive base clocks, a 4.5 GHz boost, 72 usable lanes of PCIe Gen 4.0 connectivity, and 140MB/144MB of total cache, respectively. 

You'll need a new motherboard with the sTRX4 socket and TRX40 chipset for the new Threadrippers, which we'll cover in-depth on the following page.

AMD also announced the Athlon 3000G, a new Picasso APU with Radeon Vega graphics paired with the 12nm process and Zen+ architecture for a mere $49. The 3000G comes to market November 19 and is an iterative update to the company's Athlon 200GE. However, AMD officially unlocked overclocking this time around to please the value crowd. 

AMD's Ryzen 3000 processors need no introduction to enthusiasts: AMD has redefined our expectations for mainstream desktop chips with a new 7nm manufacturing process combined with the Zen 2 microarchitecture, while throwing in a healthy ration of industry-leading PCIe 4.0 connectivity just for good measure. Overall, the advantages of AMD's architecture brings lower pricing and power consumption paired with higher transistor density that allows AMD to cram more cores into a smaller package. Not to mention improved performance. 

AMD Ryzen 9 3950X Pricing and Specifications

Like the Ryzen 9 3900X, the 3950X wields two chiplets fused together via AMD's Infinity Fabric and an I/O die, with the primary difference being that the 3950X has all cores fully enabled. 

As AMD has already disclosed, the 16C/32T Ryzen 9 3950X easily outstrips Intel's halo 8C/16T Core i9-9900K, at least from a core count perspective, and drops into standard mainstream AM4 motherboards. Intel's next-gen Comet Lake series appears to top out at ten cores, so it looks like AMD will hold the core count advantage on the mainstream desktop for quite some time.

The Ryzen 9 3950X doesn't come with a bundled cooler, a first for a Ryzen mainstream processor, and requires beefy watercooling accommodations, which we'll cover below. 

The Ryzen 9 3950X features a 3.5 GHz base and 4.7 GHz boost clock, though like other Ryzen 3000 processors, it will come with a mix of faster and slower cores. This is AMD's premium silicon, though, so the 3950X features a 100 MHz higher boost clock than its lesser sibling, the 3900X. 

Like the 3900X, it also adheres to a 105W TDP envelope and comes armed with 64MB of L3 cache and 24 lanes of PCIe Gen 4.0. As expected with a core-heavy chip, AMD pared back the base clock to 3.5 GHz. 

The 3950X's $749 price point places it in a tier above Intel's current mainstream halo part, the $488 Core i9-9900K. Intel also has its Special Edition -9900KS on offer, but that chip is only available for a limited time so it doesn't fit into the long-term view. 

Instead, the Ryzen 9 3950X lines up against Intel's high end desktop Core i9 models, but the current-gen Skylake-X refresh products, like the Core i9-9920X and -9960X, aren't competitive at current pricing (though it does appear we will see price cuts on those models soon). 

That means we have to turn to Intel's Cascade Lake-X processors, which land later this month, for relevant comparisons. Oddly, Intel has left open a core-count gap in its HEDT lineup, so it doesn't have a 16C/32T chip that competes directly with the 3950X. 

The forthcoming 18C/36T Core i9-10980XE slots in at nearly $200 more than the 3950X, but comes with two more cores. AMD says that it fully expects the Ryzen 9 3950X to be competitive with Intel's new -10980XE, but Intel also has its 14C/28T -10940X at $784, which aligns neatly with the 3950X's pricing.  

AMD Ryzen 9 3950X Motherboard Requirements

The 3950X drops into the standard AM4 socket on X570, X470, and B450 motherboards, though it would be wise to assure the motherboard has adequate power circuitry. AMD says that the Ryzen 9 3950X has only been validated for its new 1.0.0.4B AGESA, which motherboard vendors are rolling out for existing motherboards (via a firmware update) over the course of this month. AMD strongly recommends that all users migrate to the new motherboard firmware revisions.

The new firmwares include many of the fixes we've seen for AMD's boost clock algorithms, along with even more refinements that reportedly include faster boot times. This new BIOS also unifies all the Ryzen models under the same codebase, so there won't be any more split support for some older models. 

AMD Ryzen 9 3950X Cooling Requirements

In a notable break from the Ryzen tradition, AMD isn't providing a bundled cooler for the Ryzen 9 3950X. AMD has sixteen 7nm cores and a 14nm I/O die operating under the same small heatspreader that debuted with the 8-core 14nm Ryzen models, so thermal density is a challenge even with the more efficient manufacturing process and soldered IHS. 

AMD recommends a minimum of a closed-loop (AIO) 280mm watercooler for the 3950X, though representatives stated that a 240mm water cooler could suffice.

As we've seen with the existing Ryzen 3000 models, AMD's opportunistic Precision Boost Overdrive algorithms offer more performance with better cooling, in effect overclocking themselves. Naturally, better cooling will also yield better manual and auto-overclocking with AMD's Precision Boost Overdrive feature. That means that beefier AIO radiators and custom loops will be a nice addition to 3950X systems. 

Power Consumption and New Eco-Mode Feature

AMD rates the 3950X with a 105W TDP, but as we know from our extensive testing, this number doesn't equate directly to actual power consumption. The Ryzen 9 3900X consumes up to 140W during heavy workloads, and we can expect a commensurate increase in power consumption that scales with the 3950X's four additional cores. 

However, the 7nm process enables incredible density and does afford power advantages, which AMD says equates to more than twice the performance-per-watt of Intel's Core i9-9900K and -9920X (measured at the wall). AMD also says a Ryzen 9 3950X system pulls 28W less than the Core i9-9900K. That's a notable claim because the -9900K has twice the number of cores. We'll be sure to put those power measurements to the test in our review. 

If you're looking to cram an incredible amount of horsepower into a small form factor build, like a Plexbox or DIY NAS, AMD is also rolling out a new Eco-Mode feature. This feature allows the processor to downshift from its rated TDP to the next lower 'grade,' meaning you can drop a 105W processor to 65W, or a 65W processor to 45W. AMD is making this feature available on all Ryzen models, and after the requisite firmware update, you can make the adjustments in either the BIOS or Ryzen Master. 

AMD claims the 65W mode on the 3950X offers 77% of the chip's full performance, but at a 44% power savings that results in a 7C reduction in temperatures. The easy-to-use feature should prove very handy for SFF enthusiasts, though making a few manual adjustments to the power thresholds would provide many of the same benefits. 

AMD Ryzen 9 3950X Gaming and Application Performance 

AMD shared several benchmark results, but as with all vendor-provided results, we should take these with a grain of salt.

AMD increased the 3950X's boost clock by 100 MHz over the 3900X, which equates to a slim 1% gain in single-threaded performance (as measured by Cinebench). The company also shared results that show the Ryzen 9 3950X providing comparable gaming performance to the Core i9-9900K in several game titles at the 1920x1080 resolution. However, you'll notice these are 'up to' frame rates, which means they are maximum values recorded with a GTX 2080, and not the average frame rate. That's misleading. [EDIT: AMD has confirmed that this in fact an average frame rate, and will provide further information to us about the conditions of the legalese tomorrow. As we know, AMD's Ryzen 3000 chips are more susceptible to performance variation (based on the chip you get) than other processors due to their mixture of faster and slower cores, with the latter not being a defined attribute. That could be the reason behind the 'up to' messaging. We'll update as necessary.]

The Ryzen 9 3950X really separates itself from the Intel comparables in AMD's application testing, which shows large gains over the Core i9-9900K and -9920X in a spate of heavily-threaded workloads. 

Let's take a look at the new Threadripper announcements on the following page. 

PAGE 1: AMD Unleashes the Cores

PAGE 2: Threadripper 3960X and 3970X, TRX40 Chipset, sTRX4 Socket

PAGE 3: AMD Athlon 3000G, Unlocking Overclocking on the Low End

AMD's original Threadripper launch upset the established paradigm of the high end desktop (HEDT) space, offering more cores for less money than Intel's competing products. The second-generation products improved upon that value proposition immensely, even by Intel's own admission, but the new Threadripper 3000 'Castle Peak' processors could catapult AMD far beyond Intel's reach.

That sounds like a bold prediction given that AMD isn't increasing core counts (at least not yet) beyond the 32 found on the previous-gen Threadripper 2990WX, but the real difference is in the architecture. The first-gen Threadripper models suffered from erratic performance trends due to their unique architecture, but those processors were based on the same design as the first-gen EPYC Naples data center processors. 

In contrast, the Threadripper 3000 processors are based on the EPYC Rome architecture (more information here), which is a phenomenal leap forward in almost every aspect. The EPYC Rome SoCs come with a unique design that consists of up to eight 7nm compute die with eight Zen 2 cores apiece, connected via the Infinity Fabric to a central 12nm I/O die that houses the memory and PCIe controllers. This new design eases many of the pain points of the previous-gen models, particularly in regards to providing consistent memory access to all compute die.

AMD isn't sharing details of the alterations it made to the Threadripper 3000 processors yet, but if the company employs the same design as Rome, it can tailor the number of compute chiplets, and the number of active cores, for each specific model. That means we could easily see 64-core Threadripper models in the future, though AMD might split these into a new workstation variant that has cropped up in leaks but still hasn't been officially announced.

Unlike the EPYC Rome processors, however, the new Threadripper processors are not backward compatible with the existing Socket TR4 found on X399 motherboards. Instead, AMD has created a new sTRX4 socket to provide expanded I/O functionality, so it may have made other changes to the design.

For now, AMD is withholding the finer details, but the company did share quite a bit of information about the new socket, motherboards, and processor.

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3960X and 3970X Price and Specifications

Just like the previous-gen models, AMD gears these chips for 'Creators' and heavy multi-taskers, and not specifically for the workstation market, which requires a specific RAS feature set. Also like their previous-gen counterparts, the Threadripper 3000 processors both feature more cores than any competing Intel HEDT processor.

The Threadripper 3970X weighs in with 32 cores and 64 threads for $1,999 and comes with 144MB of total cache (128MB L3). The chip itself exposes 88 lanes, but some of those are consumed by the new TRX40 chipset, leaving 72 usable PCIe gen 4.0 lanes for the end user. The PCIe 4.0 interface is a notable advantage of AMD's Ryzen desktop lineup, but it isn't as important as it is in the HEDT space where high-speed storage and networking devices are more likely to find their way into powerful systems. 

The 3970X features a 3.7 GHz base clock and 4.5 GHz boost. Both of these values are exceedingly high for AMD's high core-count models: For reference, the 32-core EPYC Rome models top out at a 2.8 GHz base and 3.4 GHz boost, signaling that AMD has made significant changes to tailor this chip for the consumer market. AMD isn't disclosing if these chips will also come with a mix of faster and slower cores. 

AMD didn't share the number on official slides but told us that the chip respects a 280W TDP. 

Stepping back a notch, the Threadripper 3960X offers up 24 cores and 48 threads that run at a 3.8 GHz base and 4.5 GHz boost, which is again significantly higher than its data center counterparts. This chip comes armed with 140MB of total cache, which might indicate that AMD adheres to the same chiplet provisioning design that it uses for the Rome processors (image to the right). This chip also exposes the same I/O accommodations as its sibling. 

The Threadripper 3000 processors support quad-channel DDR4-3200 memory, and we expect that to include ECC memory, though it isn't officially confirmed. 

The big takeaway is that after its gen-on-gen price cut with Cascade Lake-X, Intel doesn't have any processors for the HEDT market that weigh in at over $1,000, unless you count its $3,000 Xeon W-3175X that is absolutely not a standard HEDT product. 

AMD Threadripper 3000 TRX40 Motherboards and sTRX4 Socket

AMD promised forward compatibility with its AM4 socket until 2020, but never made that promise for the previous-gen Threadripper's TR4 (SP3) socket. That's a good thing because the new Threadripper processors require a new socket to handle the explosive growth of I/O connectivity. The socket is mechanically the same as the previous FCLGA 4094 interface, but AMD has juggled around the pin assignments to add more capabilities. 

Because the socket is mechanically the same, coolers designed for the TR4 socket are compatible. AMD says that any cooler that could satisfy the 250W TDP of older Threadripper processors will work fine with the 280W thermal dissipation from the Castle Peak chips. 

Along with the new socket comes a new chipset. The TRX40 benefits from twice the number of PCIe lanes from the processor and the move to PCIe 4.0 throughput, which now totals 16GB/s -- quadruple the bandwidth for the X399 platform. That will help with increasing data rates to bandwidth-hungry storage arrays hanging off the chipset. 

The TRX40 chipset is likely a 12nm version of the 14nm IOD chip inside the Threadripper processor, just like we see with the desktop platform, but AMD isn't sharing more details yet. 

We can see support for up to 12X USB 10Gbps ports, and that the platform exposes 72 PCIe 4.0 lanes. 

AMD Threadripper 3000 Performance

AMD provided a few benchmarks that show the Threadripper processors handily dispatching the $1,999 Core i9-9980XE in a series of heavily-threaded benchmarks, but it's notable that the real competitors, Cascade Lake-X, are not available on the market yet. 

PAGE 1: AMD Unleashes the Cores

PAGE 2: Threadripper 3960X and 3970X, TRX40 Chipset, sTRX4 Socket

PAGE 3: AMD Athlon 3000G, Unlocking Overclocking on the Low End

AMD Athlon 3000G Pricing and Specifications

AMD's Athlon 3000G rounds out AMD's APU stack, slotting in as the budget alternative to the Ryzen 3 3200G and Ryzen 5 3400G. 

The 3000G comes with Radeon Vega graphics paired with the 12nm process and Zen+ architecture for a mere $49. As an iterative update to its existing Athlon 200GE, the Athlon 3000G comes with the same dual-core quad-thread design with 1MB of L2 and 4MB of L3 cache. It also fits within the same 35W TDP envelope and follows the same motherboard support guidelines as its predecessor.

AMD did bump up the clock speeds, increasing the static base frequency to 3.5 GHz (no boost) and increasing the GPU clock speed by 100 Mhz. 

AMD previously provided all of its processors with an unlocked multiplier, meaning they were overclockable but broke that tradition with the Athlon 200GE, which came with a locked multiplier. AMD's motherboard partners allowed overclocking on the budget chips in spite of the restriction, even though that unsanctioned feature was later disabled in newer motherboard firmware revisions. 

Motherboard vendors don't have to break the rules this time around, though, as AMD is providing the processor with a fully unlocked multiplier, meaning overclocking is back on the menu provided you have a B-series motherboard, or better.

AMD Athlon 3000G Gaming Performance

As with the Athlon 200GE, AMD aims to enable a 'true playable' 720p gaming experience. This mostly consists of eSports-class games, like Fortnite and Rocket League. AMD provided a few benchmarks to back up those claims, and it goes without saying that these APUs easily beat the competing $73 Pentium G5400 in gaming. 

PAGE 1: AMD Unleashes the Cores

PAGE 2: Threadripper 3960X and 3970X, TRX40 Chipset, sTRX4 Socket

PAGE 3: AMD Athlon 3000G, Unlocking Overclocking on the Low End

AMD has already released a couple of desktop Picasso APUs, such as the Ryzen 3 3200G and Ryzen 5 3400G. However, there is only one desktop Athlon APU in the Picasso lineup, the Athlon Pro 300GE. According to a recent evidence, including a Gigabyte listing, the Athlon Pro 300GE looks like its getting a new sibling soon. 

Gigabyte marks the Athlon 3000G as a member of the Picasso family, meaning it's likely created with GlobalFoundries' 12nm manufacturing process and wields AMD's  Zen+ computing and Vega graphics microarchitectures.

Specs

*Specs in this row aren't confirmed. 

The Athlon 3000G (YD3000C6FHBOX) evidently sports two cores, four threads and coincides with what we'd expect from a budget APU. Like the existing Athlon Pro 300GE, the Athlon 3000G also seemingly has 1MB and 4MB of L2 and L3 cache, respectively. 

The mysterious chip reportedly operates at 3.5 GHz, which is 100 MHz faster than the Athlon Pro 300GE. Nonetheless, it conserves the same 35W TDP (thermal design power) design as the Athlon Pro 300GE. 

Gigabyte lists the Athlon 3000G with a iGPU (integrated graphics processing unit) that runs at 1,100 MHz. And tech distributor Arrow Electronics lists it with AMD's Radeon Vega 3 graphics solution. 

There is some more reason to believe AMD is working on a new Picasso APU. In June, ASRock also listed some unreleased AMD APUs, the Athlon 320GE and Athlon 300GE. Since AMD has announced the Athlon Pro 300GE, it's reasonable to think that it would launch a non-Pro version too.

When looking at both ASRock and Gigabyte's listings, the Athlon 3000G and the Athlon 320GE look like virtually the same chip . They share identical specifications and B1 revision. So, where does this leave us?  Perhaps AMD is rebranding the Athlon 320GE to the Athlon 3000G or it could be a completely new chip.

German PC manufacturer Cirrus7 has put up the company's latest fanless Incus A300 Mini-STX desktop for preorder. 

The Incus A300 only has enough space to accommodate a Mini-STX motherboard so options are very limited. The Incus A300 employs the ASRock A300M-STX, which is the same motherboard found inside the ASRock DeskMini A300. The Incus A300 is available in 35W and 65W CPU configurations. The 35W options include the AMD Athlon 200GE, AMD Athlon 240GE, AMD Ryzen 3 2200GE and AMD Ryzen 5 2400GE. If you're looking for a more powerful processor, the 65W options consist of the AMD Ryzen 3 3200G and Ryzen 5 3400G.

The 35W model measures 7 x 7.7 x 4.3 inches (178 × 195 × 108mm) and weighs 7.1 pounds (3.2kg). The 65W model's dimensions and weight are 7 x 7.7 x 5.5 inches and 9.3 pounds. The manufacturer describes the Incus A300 as having a passive aluminium housing with copper cores. The PC case's aluminum fins act like a passive heatsink and transfer heat away from the processor.

There are two SO-DIMM DDR4 memory slots on the ASRock A300M-STX motherboard. You can opt for 4GB or 8GB of DDR4-2666 CL19 memory or 16GB (2x 8GB) or 32GB (2x 16GB) of DDR4-3000 CL16 memory. Storage options include one M.2 SSD slot, which is passively cooled by the PC case, and two 2.5-inch SSD bays. You can purchase your storage from Cirrus7 or grab it later on from one of your preferred retailers.

The vendor also offers an optional VESA wall and screen bracket to mount the Incus A300 (cirrus7 didn't specify the measurements for the VESA mount). You can also buy the Intel Wireless-AC 9260 module to get wireless dual-band and Bluetooth 5 connectivity.

The Incus A300's front panel houses a large power button, one USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A and Type-C ports. Display outputs are HDMI, DisplayPort output and VGA connector. There are also one USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A port, USB 2.0 Type-A port and Ethernet port.

Price and Availability

The Incus A300 base model, which comes with the Athlon 200GE and 4GB of DDR4-2666 CL19 memory, retails for €368.91 (after applying the €50.42 pre-order coupon) and roughly translates to $405. The pre-sale discount is available until October 27, and cirrus7 will start shipping out orders on November 1.

AMD announced its Ryzen PRO lineup, which is tailored for professional users, with little fanfare today. The new lineup is now globally available and includes Ryzen 3000 series models with Radeon Vega graphics along with AMD Athlon PRO models. AMD also disclosed that HP and Lenovo have systems already in the works that should ship in the coming months. 

The new lineup includes 7nm desktop models in the Ryzen 9, 7, and 5 series, marking the debut of the 65W Ryzen 3900 PRO that recently popped up in recent listings from Biostar and the Eurasian Economic Commission (ECC). This same model should soon come to the mainstream desktop, too, as a non-pro variant.

AMD also announced Ryzen 5 PRO 3400G and 3400GE, along with Ryzen 3 3200G and 3200GE models that are all still fabbed on the 12nm process with the Zen+ architecture. A lone Athlon processor rounds out the product stack.

Ryzen 3000 Pro Series Lineup

*Specification is not confirmed

Like its more well-endowed counterpart the Ryzen 9 3900X, the Ryzen 9 3900 comes with 12 Zen 2 cores and 24 threads but drops down from the 3900X's 105W TDP to a mere 65W. This results in paring back the base/boost frequencies to 3.1/4.3 GHz, respectively. This should represent the same specs we will see from this non-X model when it comes to market for the mainstream desktop segment, which we imagine should be soon given that its counterpart has now debuted with the PRO series. This new chip will add an unprecedented amount of threaded compute horsepower for the SFF crowd.

The Ryzen 7 PRO 3700 comes with eight cores and 16 threads, along with identical specifications to AMD's mainstream 3700X model, albeit with the addition of features tailored for the professional market. We can say the same for the Ryzen 5 PRO 3600, which is largely identical to the Ryzen 5 3600.

Ryzen Pro Desktop Processors with Radeon Vega Graphics

The Ryzen 5 and 3 PRO 'Picasso' APUs recently came to light in a listing from motherboard-maker ASRock. These units are again very similar to their mainstream counterparts, thought the GE models slot in with a lower 35W TDP rating.

Athlon PRO Desktop Processor with Radeon Vega Graphics

A lone Athlon PRO 300GE model rounds out the new additions. This model adheres to a 35W TDP envelope and doesn't come with boost functionality, meaning it operates at a static 3.4 GHz on its two threaded cores. As expected for what should be an extremely price-sensitive part, it only comes with 3 Vega compute units (CU).

The Ryzen and Athlon PRO models come with features tailored for the professional market, like bolstered security and reliability features in AMD's GuardMI suite. That includes an on-die security processor and 'AMD Guard' full system memory encryption, along with AMD-certified support for ECC memory. These processors also feature longer warranties, among other features.

HP has two systems coming with the new processors:

• The HP EliteDesk 705 G5 Small Form Factor is the world’s first AMD desktop PC with dual-M.2 drive capability and delivers impressive value with powerful performance, expandability, manageability and resilient security for the modern workplace. The HP EliteDesk 705 G5 SFF will be available in September starting at $669 USD.
• The HP EliteDesk 705 G5 Desktop Mini is the smallest and most powerful AMD Ultra Small Form Factor (USFF) business-class PC. With many configurable options, and built-in security and manageability in a compact design, this desktop mini pairs with the HP Mini-in-One 24 Display to revamp the modern workplace. The HP EliteDesk 705 G5 DM will be available in November starting at $679 USD.

Lenovo also has several new systems in the works:

That heritage continues with the ThinkCentre M75s-1 small form factor (SFF) and M75q-1 Tiny form factor offering the latest Ryzen PRO processors, up to 12-cores on the SFF model.The clean and sleek look and feel is backed up with strong security and manageability features. New for 2019 AMD platforms is the Smart Power-On feature allowing users to mount the desktops in more flexible locations, such as a wall, under a desk or behind a monitor. Simply press ALT+P on the keyboard to power on the system. The M75q-1 Tiny also now includes a USB Type-C port and an HDMI port as standard and the option of two additional user-defined ports.

AMD announced the processors are available globally, but hasn't listed recommended pricing.

Control is both an excellent narrative game and a showcase of impressive graphical techniques that requires a rather strong GPU just to play at Medium Settings.

However, most of these effects can be disabled and the game allows lower Render Resolutions which are scaled back up using Temporal Scaling with rather impressive results both visually and in performance which begs the question: Can you run it on a system with integrated graphics?

Regrettably, at the moment it seems that a bug prevents Control from starting on integrated Intel HD GPUs. I tried the game on two laptops: a Xiaomi Mi Notebook Pro with a i5-8250U quad-core CPU configured to use its integrated UHD Graphics 620 and 8 GB of RAM and a Dell XPS 13 9360 from 2017 with an Intel Core i7-8550U, Intel UHD Graphics 620 and 8GB of RAM. In both cases, the game would boot into the menu using the latest driver but would crash back to desktop when trying to load any game chapter at any setting.

AMD Integrated graphics are another story. I saw great results on 720p using a Ryzen 3400G APU with Vega 11, which according to AMD are the best integrated graphics in the market. But what about something more entry level? How about a humble Athlon 200GE APU with integrated Vega 3 Graphics?

The good news is that, with this low-end hardware, I was able to hit a playable 30 FPS. Let's explore what it actually takes to get this game working on an entry-level PC.

Settings Screen

The settings screen for Control is thankfully straightforward, with very obvious options for lowering textures or disabling reflections and other effects.

Interestingly enough, there are two settings for resolution. The first one sets the resolution of the game, while the second one sets the render resolution for 3D elements, similar to the resolution scaler present in so many modern games. However, Control uses a type of Temporal Scaling that can produce surprising results when scaling from a lower render resolution to a higher window resolution, maintaining a level of visual clarity while providing huge gains in performance.

Disabling Motion Blur

If you try playing the game at slightly lower than 30 FPS, you will likely notice the heavy motion blur applied to all elements when the camera moves, even on the lowest settings.

Apart from looking particularly dismal on low framerates, this motion blur had a small performance impact on my Vega iGPU every time the camera was moved.

Thankfully, the online community has noticed this problem and a mod already exists to disable the effect: https://files.sshnuke.net/ControlToggleMotionBlurWithF4.7z

This mod will only work on DX11 and all you need to do to install it is place the files in the installation folder. Once the patch is installed, you can disable motion blur in-game by pressing F4.

Custom Render Resolutions

The list of Render Resolutions to upscale from can be a bit bare (at least in the case of the integrated GPUs I tried), with 720p usually listed as the lowest possible.

In practice, this number can be customized to almost any 16:9 resolution with great results.

This can be done by navigating to the configuration file located on the game's install directory. The file is called Renderer.ini.

The lines m_iRenderResolutionX and m_iRenderResolutionY can be set to lower render resolutions with no major issues and loaded once the game starts.

On a static scene, the game could barely maintain 20 FPS on a render resolution of 720p.

Dropping it to 960x540 makes that 28 and surprisingly the game does not look as visually different as you would expect.

Still, this is not enough so I dropped as low as 578x432 to finally reach 36 FPS in the same scene.

While, on paper, the idea of rendering in such a low resolution seems very unappealing in practice the temporal scaling does phenomenal work reconstructing the scene. On closer inspection, a lot of effects such as shadows and reflections are rather noisy due to the low resolution but in movement, the game does not look as bad as you would think, only a little blurry.

And more importantly, with that resolution and motion blur disabled, the game is able to keep itself over 30 FPS even while in the midst of combat.

Control's fantastic story and gameplay is preserved even at such a low resolution. So, if you have a PC with integrated graphics, particularly AMD integrated graphics, these tweaks will let you enjoy what the game has to offer.

Image Credits: Tom's Hardware

MSI has announced 10 revised AMD 300-and 400-series motherboards that come with support for AMD's Ryzen 3000-series processors right out of the box. You can tell these new boards from the original versions by their MAX suffix.

Earlier this month, MSI started rolling out updated firmwares for numerous AMD 300-and 400-series motherboards so they could support the recently released Ryzen 3000-series CPUs. Many of the motherboards are using 16MB BIOS chips with limited capacity. Therefore, MSI made a few compromises, such as removing the eye candy from the BIOS interface while eliminating support for RAID arrays and A-series and Athlon Bristol Ridge APUs. 

The MAX motherboards reportedly feature 32MB BIOS chips, so MSI was able to restore the snazzy "Click BIOS 5" interface and RAID functionality. However, they still lack support for Bristol Ridge chips, which shouldn't be a big deal since we doubt many will be pairing a three-year-old APU with one of these modern motherboards. MSI has also promised support for any future AMD processors.

And while the original motherboards officially housed DDR4 memory modules up to 3,466 MHz, the latest MAX motherboards can support memory speeds up to 4,133 MHz. As usual, the motherboards are equipped with MSI's DDR4 Boost technology, and you can configure your memory kit to run at its advertised speed with the A-XMP function.

Unfortunately, MSI didn't list the availability for the MAX motherboards. However, the motherboard manufacturer has already listed a few of them on its website, so we expect the motherboards to hit the market very soon. It's unclear if the MAX variants will be more expensive than their non-MAX counterparts.

Motherboard manufacturer ASRock has listed the specifications for eight unnanounced AMD desktop APUs (Accelerated Processing Units) in the company's processor support list database. The next-generation APUs, codenamed Picasso, are set to replace the current Raven Ridge family.

Raven Ridge chips are based of the Zen CPU and Vega GPU microarchitectures. GlobalFoundries produces these parts with the 14nm manufacturing process. Picasso, on the other hand, is rumored to feature the updated Zen+ CPU microarchitecture while retaining the Vega GPU microarchitecture. GlobalFoundries will reportedly produce the Picasso chips on the 12nm node.

AMD has the habit of offering different variants of the same APU. The Pro variants reportedly comes with better chip quality and brings improved security and enterprise features and a longer warranty. Their performance should be near identical to their non-Pro counterparts.

The GE variants, on the other hand, perform slightly slower than the base models. The reason is because the GE variants focus heavily on being energy-efficient and adhere to the 35W TDP (thermal design power) envelope.

Ryzen 3 3200GE & Ryzen 5 3400GE

While AMD recently announced the Ryzen 3 3200G and Ryzen 5 3400G at E3, the chipmaker has yet to reveal the GE models. According to ASRock's data, the Ryzen 3 3400GE and Ryzen 5 3400GE brings minimum improvements over their predecessors. Basically, we're looking at a 100 MHz higher base clock.

Ryzen 3 Pro 3200G & Ryzen 5 Pro 3400G

AMD seemingly gives the Ryzen 3 Pro 3200G and Ryzen 5 Pro 3400G the same 100 MHz upgrade to their base clocks. The new chips retain the same core, L2 cache and TDP numbers.

Ryzen 3 Pro 3200GE & Ryzen 5 Pro 3400GE

When it comes to the Pro GE models, we continue to see the same 100 MHz increase in the base clocks.

Athlon 320GE & Athlon 300GE

Up to this point, the Athlon 300GE is the only Picasso chip to break the mold. The Athlon 300GE features a 200 MHz higher base clock than the existing Athlon 200GE. The Athlon Pro 300GE will also operate at the same 3.4 GHz base clock as the Athlon 300GE. Lastly, the Athlon 320GE shows a 100 MHz upgrade to the base clock in comparison to the Athlon 220GE.

Update, May 24, 2019 1:00pm PT: ECS has re-announced the Liva SF110-A320 for Computex 2019, and provided a new specifications table, which we've added below.

Original article, April 22, 2019 10:00am PT:

Elitegroup Computer Systems, better known as ECS, on Friday announced the new Liva SF110-A320 mini-PC with your choice of a 35W AMD Ryzen APU. 

Measuring 205 x 176 x 33mm, the ECS SF110-A320 is a 1-liter mini-PC roughly the size of a book. As the model number implies, the SF110-A320 features an AM4 motherboard based around the A320 chipset. According to the listing, it supports Ryzen 3 and Ryzen 5 APUs as long as they conform to the 35W envelope.

However, the quad-core Ryzen 5 2400GE and Ryzen 3 2200GE chips, as well as the latest dual-core Athlon 200GE and Athlon 220GE and 240GE CPUs meet the TDP (thermal design power) limit. While the listing only mentions Ryzen chips, it's possible the mini-PC may support these Athlon parts as well. See the relevant specs below: 

The ECS SF110-A320 features two DDR4 SO-DIMM memory slots that support a maximum capacity of 32GB and memory speeds of 2,666MHz and greater. However, there are only two storage options on this mini-PC. The M.2-2280 port can house M.2 SSDs up to 80mm, although ECS didn't specify whether it supports only SATA-based or PCIe-based M.2 SSDs or both. There's also a 2.5-inch hard drive bay in case you want to slap an old-school platter drive into the SF110-A320.

The ECS SF110-A320 has a total of six USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A ports and one USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-C port. The little guy has three display outputs: a D-Sub port, HDMI port and DisplayPort output. Internet connectivity comes in the form of a Gigabit Ethernet port and WiFi 802.11ac and Bluetooth 4.2 wireless connectivity. ECS also gives customers the option to add a RS-232 port or an additional DisplayPort output. The SF110-A320 carries a tiny 90W power supply that feeds of a DC 19V / 4.74A power adapter. It also supports a VESA mount.

ECS had not yet revealed availability or pricing for the SF110-A320 by the time of publication.

DeskMini A300 Design Features

Most of us can think of a few places where a tiny PC might come in handy. The first AMD-based Mini STX (a tiny 147x140mm motherboard form factor that supports socketed CPUs) desktop from ASRock, the DeskMini A300 offers users a combination of AM4 (Ryzen and presumably Athlon) processor support and relatively expansive storage in a reasonably priced package (about $140 / £151). Our biggest problem is figuring out which of those many places we’d like to put a compact PC would be best for this potentially fairly versatile AMD-based model.

Barebones PCs go back as far as any of us have been involved in the business. The combination of case, power supply, and motherboard was once used by discount merchants to foist their cheapest hardware upon value-seeking neophytes. Barebones systems eventually grew to encompass custom-designed high-end configurations, but the basic definition remains: You’ll have to pick your own processor, memory, and storage.

Roughly the size of a full-sized power supply, the DeskMini’s uncanny resemblance to a point of sale (POS) terminal boils down its shape, front-panel design, and mini VESA mount. The hardware gets a little more interesting, as there are no legacy serial or parallel ports for those old security dongles often required in the POS market. Builders instead get support for AMD’s AM4 CPUs up to 65W, along with whatever onboard graphics and memory support these CPUs provide. Of course, there being no room for a dedicated graphics card will cut down your CPU options quite a bit. Details on what's supported can be found in the specs table below.

ASRock DeskMini A300 Specifications

ASRock’s official dimensions don’t include the affixed security tabs, so our measurements differ from theirs. Another exception is that you may be seeing the price for the Wi-Fi version (A300W), since the more-basic version we tested wasn’t in stock at the time of this writing. The Wi-Fi version includes an Intel AC-3168 Wi-Fi module and installation hardware that the builder must install themselves, and likely adds $10 to the retail price.

Designed to lay either on its bottom or right side, the DeskMini A300 has only two USB ports on its front (one Type-C at 5Gb/s) and two on is back (one USB 2.0). The front panel also has the case’s only two audio jacks, headphone and microphone, while the back adds DisplayPort 1.2, HDMI 2.0, and a WUXGA-compliant analog video connection. An RJ-45 for Gigabit Ethernet, a power jack for the 19V adapter, a Kensington Lock slot, and two security cable tabs are also on the back, while the previously-mentioned mini VESA mount is found on its right panel.

ASRock says that its included CPU cooler is optional, but with only 46mm of mounting space (we measured 48mm with our CPU installed), alternatives are limited. Every kit we’ve seen has included this option, which has a 70x15mm fan with raised corners that extend frame depth to 20mm. Other system-specific small parts include four self-adhesive rubber feet that are sliced around the edges to peel away from the scrap and backing, to be fit on recesses on either of the two supported sides, and two SATA cables with special notebook-style motherboard ends.

The included AcBel 120W power adapter certainly shouldn’t become overloaded by a system that supports only a 65W CPU, two SATA drives, two SODIMMs, and two M.2 SSDs.

ASRock DeskMini A300 Enclosure

Photo Credits: Tom's Hardware

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Internal Hardware and Installation

Four screws secure the DeskMini A300’s motherboard tray and back panel to its outer casing, which slips off like a sleeve. Located directly behind an unused beep-code speaker header, a nine-pin header connects a proprietary cable for the power button and activity LEDs to the bottom-front corner of its A300M-STX motherboard.

Front-panel ports and jacks are permanently affixed to the A300M-STX motherboard. Other connectors include dual CPU fan headers in the lower-rear corner, a USB 2.0 header in the upper-front corner, dual SODIMM slots, a Key-E slot for notebook Wi-Fi modules, and a PCIe x4 M.2 slot for NVMe SSDs.

Buiders who would like to add a second M.2 drive will need to remove the motherboard, as its slot is located on the board’s underside and covered by the two 2.5-inch drive trays that are integrated with the motherboard tray. Motherboard removal is also required to access the screw holes of the two 2.5-inch drive trays that cover the second M.2 storage slot, though the proprietary SATA headers for the included 2.5” drive cables are accessible via the oval hole seen above.

Hoping to find some way to push our CPU past its stock settings, we attempted to install our lowest profile wide cooler, the Gamer Storm Gabriel by DeepCool. The heatsink only fits in the orientation shown, and its 20mm-thick fan was 13mm too thick to clear the casing, so we used the clip-on cooler provided within the DeskMini A300’s installation kit.

ASRock A300M-STX Motherboard Features

Photo Credits: Tom's Hardware

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DeskMini A300 Firmware and Test Hardware

Dwelling in the enthusiast market has given us little exposure to AMD’s A300 Promontory chipset, so we really didn’t know what to expect of overclocking functionality. The DeskMini A300 lacks any CPU multiplier control, but does allow full DRAM overclocking within the limits of the CPU and motherboard stability, and offers similar flexibility to the APU’s integrated Radeon RX Vega graphics controller.

The system’s A300M-STX motherboard has only two DRAM voltage settings, 1.35V and 1.20V. And while either of those would get our memory to its DDR4-3000 rating, neither of those settings would keep it stable at higher settings. We also tried DDR4-3800 and DDR4-4000 modules from G.Skill and Corsair to no avail, so this appears to be the limit of board stability. Similarly, our graphics processor topped out at 1500 MHz using 1.20V, where 1.25V couldn’t push it to our next-higher 1600 MHz setting.

Users unable to reach their desired DRAM overclock are welcomed in firmware to optimize timings instead, via the A300M-STX’s expansive Timing Configuration submenu.

The A300M-STX’s CBS menu is similarly lacking in overclocking features, but users can choose a few power settings to optimize for better performance or lower power use.

The motherboard’s “Tool” firmware menu provides SSD Secure Erase and Instant Flash firmware updating, and its H/W Monitor menu offers manual fan configuration in addition to the expected factory-programmed curves.

How We Test

Unable to match the DeskMini’s exact configuration for a performance comparison, we built our comparison system using ASRock’s own Fatal1ty B450 Gaming ITX/ac as the baseline motherboard, and the DeskMini’s tiny CPU heatsink and fan as the baseline cooler. Differences include the larger board’s larger DIMMs and PS2 form-factor (aka full ATX) power supply, the later being the lowest-capacity 80 Plus Gold rated unit we had on hand.

Test Hardware

Here’s how the DeskMini A300’s A300M-STX overclock settings compare to those of the B450 Gaming ITX/ac.

Photo Credits: Tom's Hardware

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Benchmark Results and Final Analysis

We tested both boards at DDR4-2400 defaults, then enabled XMP and tested again. Since the comparison B450 Gaming-ITX/ac’s modules had tighter DDR4-2933 timings, it was then manually configured to match the DeskMini A300’s DDR4-3000 16-18-18-43 configuration.

Synthetic Benchmarks

The DeskMini A300 and the B450 Gaming-ITX/ac run neck-and-neck through 3DMark at DDR4-2400, and again at DDR4-3000, with both showing noticeable improvements. Things also seem likewise competitive through a slew of Sandra tests and even Cinebench and Compubench, though the latter gets a bigger push from the faster memory setting.  PCMark’s Creative score is the one place the B450 Gaming-ITX/ac stands out, but it’s difficult to determine the cause since nothing is askew in other tests.

3D Games

The B450 Gaming-ITX/ac gets a slightly better DDR4-3000 bump in F1-2015, which could indicate the use of better advanced memory timings. Performance differentiation in other games is insignificant.

Timed Applications

Less time means better performance in our non-gaming workloads, where the DeskMini A300 stands up to its Mini-ITX cousin in most metrics and even wins a few. The B450 Gaming-ITX/ac stands out in our longest tests, 7-Zip and Handbrake, and that combination likely indicates that it’s holding the CPU closer to its max frequency a little longer.

Power, Heat and Efficiency

The DeskMini A300 draws much less power than the B450 Gaming-ITX/ac, but the greatest problem with the bigger systems score is that it starts out with very poor idle power. While that could indicate a board that doesn’t make effective use of AMD’s power-savings, the tendency for inefficiency to taper off under higher loads is more likely indicative of its power supply having poor low-load efficiency.

Thermal measurements are impacted by the DeskMini A300’s small enclosure, so we took it out and measured temperatures a second time, in open air.

The open-air comparison doesn't help the B450 ITX/ac’s temperatures; they aren’t lower at all. Instead, we see that the CPU appears to pull more power when installed in the Mini ITX board, which is then turned into heat. So maybe the power supply chosen for that board isn’t so bad at low loads.

Even with the smaller casing keeping the DeskMini A300 toasty under heavy loads, it draws far less energy than its larger cousin. Since performance differences were far smaller, the result is far greater efficiency. DDR4-3000 increased the DeskMini A300’s performance far more than its power draw, giving this configuration the greatest efficiency by a rather large margin.

Overclocking

Since the DeskMini A300 didn’t have the overclock settings of its B450 cousin, and since it couldn’t use the overclock settings it had for memory, we decided to see what we could do with the APU’s integrated Radeon RX Vega graphics instead. Remember from our firmware description that it topped out at 1500MHz, up 36% from the stock 1100MHz.

The one game and setting that least-needed the extra performance of an overclocked GPU got the most benefit from this experiment: F1 2015 at our Medium preset. Other benchmarks crave faster memory, which is rather unfortunate given the board’s inability to push any of our high-speed SODIMM memory past DDR4-3000.

In case you’re wondering, we didn’t have much luck overclocking the CPU on the B450 Gaming-ITX/ac either, though it did push its memory to the board’s DDR4-3466 setting at 1.35V, thereby increasing Sandra Memory Bandwidth from 33.8GB/s (DDR4-3000) to 38.9GB/s (DDR4-3466).

But What About Noise?

The DeskMini A300’s sole fan is the 70x15mm unit that came with its CPU cooler. Our meter read 46 decibels (A-weighted) at 1/4-meter, dropping only to 44.7 decibels when mounted inside the case. Subtract 12 decibels to get an approximate SPL for the industry-standard one-meter distance, and you’re looking at around 33db under heavy load. While systems like these rarely encounter a load high enough to force full fan RPM, that occasional high noise level could lead to occasional work disturbance.

Final Thoughts

Though it resembles something a store employee might use to check out paying customers, ASRock’s DeskMini A300 is designed for the improved performance and storage mandated by the consumer market. Unfortunately, the lack of any rear-panel audio jacks makes it more of a professional office system than a general purpose “home office” PC. The scarcity of rear-panel USB ports has a similarly negative impact on home users. Digital audio available through its integrated HDMI 2.0 support could instead make it an attractive set top box, but only if your loads are low enough to avoid turning its somewhat noisy fan up to eleven.

Photo Credits: Tom's Hardware

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Gigabyte is also participating in AMD's 50th-anniversary festivities with its X470 Aorus Gaming 7 WiFi-50 motherboard that joins the ranks of AMD's 50th Anniversary Ryzen 7 2700X processor and Sapphire's Radeon RX 590 graphics card.

The Gigabyte X470 Aorus Gaming 7 WiFi-50 is an ATX motherboard based on AMD's high-end X470 chipset. The typical black PCB is complemented by orange and silver accents and Gigabyte's usual RGB Fusion 2.0 multi-zone lighting. One of the neater aspects is the addition of a swappable overlay that rests beside the 24-pin power connector. Gigabyte provides the necessary files so you can design and 3D print your own Accent LED overlay to show off your individuality.

The Gigabyte X470 Aorus Gaming 7 WiFi-50 draws power from the 8-pin EPS power connector and an optional 4-pin power connector. The motherboard has a 10+2-phase power delivery subsystem with 10 power phases that feed up to 40A to the CPU, while the SoC (system-on-chip) or memory controller gets two power phases rated for 50A.

The motherboard has four DDR4 memory slots that can house dual-channel DDR4 memory kits up to 64GB and 3,600MHz data transfer rates. AMD Ryzen and Athlon Pro-series processor owners will be happy to know that the Gigabyte X470 Aorus Gaming 7 WiFi-50 supports ECC (error-correcting code) memory.

There are several storage options on the motherboard as well. For starters, you get six SATA III ports that are directly connected to the X470 chipset and support RAID 0, 1, and 10 arrays. For high-speed storage, the motherboard provides two M.2 ports, which are cooled by passive heatsinks. The M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 port can accommodate PCIe and SATA M.2 SSDs up to 110mm while the other M.2 PCIe 2.0 x4 port is limited to PCIe SSDs up to 80mm.

The board has three PCIe 3.0 x16 slots in total. However, only the first slot runs at x16 while the remaining two operate at x8 and x4, respectively. As a result, the motherboard supports two-way Nvidia SLI or AMD CrossFire configurations. For good measure, Gigabyte added two PCIe 2.0 x1 slots to the motherboard so you can add other PCIe devices that don't necessarily require a x16 connection.

As its name implies, the Gigabyte X470 Aorus Gaming 7 WiFi-50 comes with dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11ac and Bluetooth 5 connectivity. There is support for the 11ac 160MHz wireless standard and throughput of 1.73 Gbps. If you prefer an old-school wired connection, the motherboard has a conventional Gigabit Ethernet port as well.

The motherboard employs the Realtek ALC1220-VB codec, which is accompanied by an ES9118 SABRE HiFi SoC, TXC Oscillator, and audiophile-grade WIMA and Nichicon Fine Gold capacitors. The motherboard supports 7.1-channel audio and has five gold-plated analog audio jacks and an optical S/PDIF out connector.

USB connectivity on the Gigabyte X470 Aorus Gaming 7 WiFi-50 includes six USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports, one USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C port, one USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A port, and two USB 2.0 ports. Two of the USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports, which are colored in yellow, feature USB DAC-UP 2 technology, which compensates for voltage drops. These ports are perfect for connecting VR headsets, high-end earphones, gaming peripherals, and external hard drives or SSDs.

Gigabyte hasn't listed the availability or pricing for the X470 Aorus Gaming 7 WiFi-50. Since AMD's 50th anniversary is approaching on May 1, we expect the motherboard to arrive on shelves very soon.