Mini PC specialist GMKtec recently launched the EVO-X3, heralding it as a “next-gen AI workstation,” with early access registration beginning tomorrow (Monday, June 22). The firm also took to social media this weekend to show that the successor to the GMKtec EVO-X2, which we reviewed in February, had earned AMD CEO Lisa Su’s signature of approval. This is not entirely surprising, as so did the X2. So, let’s take a closer look at the new GMKtec EVO-X3.

Actually, the tech specs of the EVO-X3 aren’t very different from its predecessor. We can say with certainty that its design has been thoroughly revamped, though. Look at the difference between the generations. This is a good thing, as most of our reviewers ‘Cons’ regarding the EVO-X2 were drawn from its design and build. Specifically we grumbled about the cheap-feeling case, tricky internal access, and fan noise. A smart redesign would have addressed all these points, but we’d have to get some hands-on time with the new revision to be sure it delivers more than a cosmetic change.

The new GMKtec EVO-X3 is again built around the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 'Strix Halo' processor. Interestingly, a switch to the Ryzen AI Max+ 495 'Gorgon Halo' must have been deemed counterproductive. Many tech enthusiasts were underwhelmed by the AMD Ryzen AI 400 series refresh, too. We also know there are two launch configurations, both with 128GB of LPDDR5X-8000 RAM, but one having a 2TB SSD, the other 4TB. The machine is advertised as featuring two M.2 2280 PCIe Gen4x4 slots for up to 8TB of SSD storage.

As hinted above, the big change between generations appears to be in the build. GMKtec now boasts of the “silent triple fan thermal system” which makes the whole unit somewhat like a triple fan graphics card in a steel wrapper. GMKtec says that “The system is engineered to balance performance, efficiency, and thermal stability, making it suitable for continuous professional workloads across AI and creative scenarios.”

For ports, we note the EVO-X3 packs in an OCuLink connector, USB4 for data, power delivery and video out, and HDMI 2.1 video out. Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 are also on board. There are also a few USB-A ports, an Ethernet jack, and a headset jack.

Prices up, a lot

The GMKtec EVO-X2 launched at $1,499 as tested with 64GB RAM and 1TB SSD. Today, EVO-X2 machines with this configuration are currently being sold for $1,999 on Amazon.com. However, the GMKtec EVO-X3 entry price is far steeper, admittedly with more RAM and storage. It is advertising the 128GB RAM and 2TB SSD version at $3,600, and the 128GB RAM plus 4TB storage version at $3,849. Both of those are said to be pre-launch discounted prices. Signing up for the early access registration can get you an additional $20 off those marked-down prices.

GMKtec told us that the pre-launch is live tomorrow, with purchased units being sent out from July 6.

A lucky HVAC technician seems to have stumbled upon the PC of former AMD CEO Rory Read while at a customer's house. The client apparently ran a computer shop back in the day, so they had a bunch of unused equipment in the basement, which somehow included this PC. The case is doused in various signatures, including one from Dr. Lisa Su, accompanied by a message that reads "To Rory - All the Best from Team AMD."

I think i have Rory Read's (former CEO of AMD) PC from r/Amd

We looked at Dr. Lisa's signature on special edition Ryzen chips from a few years ago, and it matches the signature on the PC, but of course, there's no way to officially verify the authenticity. Looking at the case itself, it's a Xigmatek XEN6329 Mini-ITX chassis that currently goes for over $1,000 on the aftermarket. Moreover, the hardware inside looks quite dated, with the GPU likely being an ITX variant of the R9 285 from Sapphire.

That card came out in 2014, so it lines up with Read's tenure at AMD, and further suggests this computer was a parting gift from the higher-ups. For some reason, it was never used because it's completely dust-free and in new condition even after twelve years. The OP explained that the box still had all the packing materials intact and that the computer even came with a wrapped Windows 8.1 CD that was never touched.

Comment from r/Amd

The leading theory in the comments inferred that Read pawned off the PC at a computer shop, where it sat for years before being salvaged. Or perhaps it was sent for a repair, setup, or some maintenance before he decided to use it, although this seems less likely. Being a high-level executive, there's a chance he simply never looked for it again. Speaking of which, it's important to know the lore behind this PC's potential recipient to understand its value.

Rory Read was the head of AMD between 2011 and 2014, responsible for leading a course-correction that navigated the company through its darkest times. AMD had just suffered a disastrous launch in the form of its Bulldozer CPU architecture that fell flat against Intel's offerings, and the chipmaker had basically no stake in mobile computing during its biggest boom.

Read came in and secured partnerships with both Sony and Microsoft for their next-gen consoles — a partnership that still runs to this day. He also brought legendary chip architect Jim Keller back to AMD to work on the Zen architecture alongside Mike Clark. He then recruited Dr. Lisa Su in 2012 and personally mentored her to eventually take over the company, believing that an engineer needs to lead AMD long-term.

Read's job was only to stabilize the falling tower, stop the bleeding, if you will, and never to actually run the company long-term. He's known as a sort of turnaround specialist in the industry, having previously performed similar duties at IBM and Lenovo. In a way, he paved the way for AMD's incredible comeback, positioning the chipmaker perfectly for a resurgence under another competent leader.

Coming back to the PC itself, it includes signatures from other AMD executives of that era, such as Mark Papermaster, Rajan (Raj) Naik, Devinder Kumar, Colette LaForce, John Byrne, and Darrell Ford. That seems like way too much effort for someone trying to fake a collectible. Therefore, even though we can't be certain, this is one of the coolest pieces of PC industry memorabilia, one that shows the intersection between business and engineering.

The Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) has appointed a new Board of Trustees, including AMD's chief executive, Lisa Su, and leaders from some of Abu Dhabi's most influential AI and investment entities. Khaldoon Khalifa Al Mubarak, chief executive officer and managing director of Mubadala Investment Company (which controls AI firm G42 and contract chipmaker GlobalFoundries), now chairs the board, which has expanded to nine members, reports MiddleEastNews.

The new Board of Trustees includes business, high-technology, and academic leaders. It also contains trustees with stronger ties to Abu Dhabi's executive and investment leadership, signaling a shift towards deeper integration with the emirate's economic and technological initiatives.

The restructuring marks the departure of key figures involved since the university's formal establishment in 2019 and the incoming of new people, such as Lisa Su and Khaldoon Khalifa Al Mubarak. In addition, the new board includes:

• Peng Xiao (chief executive of G42, a major UAE-based AI company)
• Daniela Rus (director of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL))
• Eric Xing (an American computer scientist specializing in machine learning, computational biology, and statistical methodology, one of the founders of MBZUAI)
• Martin Edelman (a lawyer specializing in real estate and corporate mergers and acquisitions transactions)
• Jassem Mohamed Bu Ataba Al Zaabi (the Chairman of the Department of Finance – Abu Dhabi)
• Saif Saeed Ghobash (Secretary General of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council)
• Rima Al Mokarrab Al Muhairi (Executive Director of the Strategic Affairs Unit of the Executive Affairs Authority (EAA) and the chairman of Tamkeen).

Lisa Su, CEO of AMD, is the most noticeable addition to the board, whose influence in the global semiconductor industry is well recognized. She led AMD's transformation from an underdog CPU developer into a leading supplier of CPUs for client and data center computers. Her appointment certainly raises MBZUAI's global visibility and strengthens its connection with the semiconductor and AI hardware industries.

For Su, serving on the same board with the head of G42 and Abu Dhabi politicians potentially means finding additional markets for the company's AI hardware — Instinct MI GPUs — that yet have to gain traction in the industry and compete for head-to-head against Nvidia's Hopper and Blackwell GPUs.

The MBZUAI board restructuring ensures the university remains a key player in Abu Dhabi's long-term vision for AI-driven economic growth while maintaining strong ties to global technology advancements.

The emirate recently committed $3.54 billion to integrating AI into government systems, reinforcing its focus on digital transformation. Additionally, MGX — Abu Dhabi's $100 billion AI investment fund — shares four board members with MBZUAI (Khaldoon Khalifa Al Mubarak, Peng Xiao, Martin Edelman, and Jassem Mohamed Bu Ataba Al Zaabi), further linking the university to the region's AI industry.

Dr. Ann B. Kelleher, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Foundry Technology Development of Intel, received the Dr. Lisa Su Woman of Innovation Award this week from the Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA). Dr. Kelleher was presented the award at the GSA’s Women in Semiconductor Hardware (WISH) conference, becoming the third recipient of the award.

The Dr. Lisa Su Woman of Innovation Award is a capstone award from the GSA’s Women’s Leadership Initiative, awarded to female members of the semiconductor industry for “exceptional dedication and exceptional contributions to the development, innovation, growth and long-term opportunities for the semiconductor industry.” 

First awarded to its namesake—Lisa Su, CEO and President of AMD—in 2021, the WOI Award finds a worthy holder in Kelleher, who has been an essential part of Intel’s technical development and growth over the last few years. Dr. Ann Kelleher joins Dr. Su and Rani Borkar, corporate VP of Microsoft’s AHSI, as the only women to hold the Women of Innovation Award.

Kelleher currently holds a position as executive VP and GM of Intel’s Foundry wing, but has had extensive impact across the corporation. First joining Intel in 1996, Dr. Kelleher began as a process engineer in Ireland. After 10 years in management in Ireland, a position gained after a short time with Intel, Kelleher moved across the pond to Arizona. Kelleher managed Intel’s Fab 12 and Fab 11X in Arizona and New Mexico before managing all of them as the General Manager of all Intel fabs in 2011. Kelleher then became the head of foundry technology development in 2015, a seat she has held since. Since working on Intel’s 200mm and 300mm technologies, Kelleher has built a robust career at Intel, contributing to worldwide manufacturing operations, corporate services, and technical development. Kelleher has a PhD, MSc, and Bachelor's in electrical and electronics engineering.

Dr. Kelleher was given the Lisa Su Award in large part due to her contributions to helping grant opportunities to marginalized groups in the semiconductor field. “I am honored to receive this recognition for semiconductor innovation from the Global Semiconductor Alliance,” said Kelleher at the WISH conference. “Progress in driving Moore’s Law is a team sport involving thousands of people across the industry, and it’s a privilege to be in a position to expand opportunities for women and other diverse groups to make an impact in our field.” The WOI award joins Kelleher's International Semiconductor Executive Summits Hall of Fame award in her trophy case.

Back in the day, the bulk of AMD's business was client CPUs for midrange PCs, but today, most of AMD's money comes from its sales of EPYC processors for data centers. To that end, AMD had every right to call itself a data center company for quite some time. Yet, this week, Lisa Su, chief executive of the chip designer, formally said (via SeekingAlpha) that AMD is now a 'data center first' company.

"In our last quarter, I think data center was over 50% of our revenue," said Lisa Su at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia And Technology Conference. "So, we really are a data center-first company."

Indeed, last quarter, AMD's data center revenue reached $2.834 billion, significantly higher than the performance of the company's client and gaming business, which posted $1.492 billion and $648 million in sales, respectively. AMD's data center business accounted for 48% of the company's revenue, though its EPYC CPU is its main product and source of revenue and income.

"It has been really exciting to see kind of how the datacenter market has grown for us as a business," Su added. "When you think about where we started, the data center business, as you said, we had a low single-digit share. It was a similar percentage of our revenue. In our last quarter, I think data center was over 50% of our revenue. So, we really are a datacenter first company."

When a company says that one of its businesses is clearly ahead of the other and essentially demonstrates that the entire company's focus is on this business, it is time to ask whether other business units have been put on the back burner. Given AMD's slow progress in graphics, we can draw certain conclusions.

However, underlying architectures and business decisions define the success of companies like AMD, Intel, and Nvidia. On the CPU side, AMD uses a unified Zen microarchitecture. On the GPU side, it is blending RDNA (graphics) and CDNA (compute) into UDNA, which may mean that graphics will no longer be a second-class citizen at AMD. What business decisions AMD will make with its products going forward is something only time will tell, though.

AMD CEO Lisa Su welcomed Silo AI co-founder Peter Sarlin and the entire team on X after the chip company formally completed its acquisition. Silo AI, one of the largest private AI labs in Europe, specializes in creating AI tech for huge enterprise customers, like Allianz, Philips, Rolls-Royce, and Unilever. Furthermore, the Silo AI team has created multilingual open-source Large Language Models (LLMs) that help others build AI tech based on local languages.

AMD says that Silo AI's expertise will help further its commitment to deliver end-to-end AI solutions based on open standards and in strong partnership with the global AI ecosystem. "AI is our number one strategic priority, and we continue to invest in both the talent and software capabilities to support our growing customer deployments and roadmaps," noted AMD Artificial Intelligence Group (AIG) Senior Vice President Vamsi Boppana.

"The Silo AI team has developed state-of-the-art language models that have been trained at scale on AMD Instinct accelerators and they have broad experience developing and integrating AI models to solve critical problems for end customers," added Boppana. "We expect their expertise and software capabilities will directly improve the experience for customers in delivering the best performing AI solutions on AMD platforms."

The Silo AI acquisition has been in the works since early last month, but it isn't the only investment that Team Red has been making in AI. Over the past year, the company has spent over $125 million acquiring other AI startups, including Mipsology and Nod.ai, to help expand its AI capability on the software side.

This is a crucial move for AMD, as Nvidia is currently dominating the hardware side of the AI business, with almost 98% data center GPU market revenue share in 2023. There have even been accusations that Team Green's AI research team scraped 'A Human Lifetime' of videos per day to train its in-house model.

We can also say that one of the more important developments here is Silo AI's work on open-source AI. Hugging Face CEO Clément Delangue said, "Open-source AI is the foundation of AI development." This is already apparent in some Chinese AI models built off open-source code that can match existing American chatbots in benchmarks.

Although Nvidia seems to be winning the AI race at the moment, these acquisitions could help AMD get a foothold, at least on the software side. And if it could entice companies to build upon the open-source AI tech that the Silo AI team could build for AMD, then it might also propel sales of AMD Instinct AI chips.

Just after Computex 2024, AMD CEO Lisa Su sat down with Stratechery to conduct an extended interview about solving hard problems throughout her career— including her time at IBM and contributing to the legacy of PlayStation from both there and AMD afterward. As she notes, "I've been working on PlayStation for a long time, if you think about it. PlayStation 3, 4, 5...[like the common thread] across multiple companies, yes."

Now, even if you're familiar with the PlayStation 3 and its nature as being difficult to program thanks to its IBM PowerPC-based Cell processor, you most likely didn't know Lisa Su had any involvement with it before this week. Details are few and far between, but we did manage to find the earliest statement where pre-AMD CEO Lisa Su commented on the matter.

According to Lisa Su, then-Director of Emerging Products at IBM in 2001, "We [IBM] started with a clean sheet of paper and sat down and tried to imagine what sort of processor we'd need five years from now." The decision that IBM, Sony, and Toshiba made was to create a CPU with an extreme focus on parallelization. 

Today, that approach is fairly common through multicore CPUs, Simultaneous Multi-Threading (SMT, or Hyper-threading under Intel marketing), and even dedicated Efficiency cores, but SMT wouldn't emerge until 2002, and the first consumer multicore CPUs from AMD and Intel wouldn't be seen until 2005. And, of course, the first-ever multicore was released by IBM for workstation and server use in 2001— the same year they were planning the PS3's Cell processor.

The interviewer points out that Sony's PlayStation 3 is viewed as one of its least successful consoles, which is true. The PlayStation 3 pretty much lost the generation handily to Nintendo's cheap, casual-friendly Wii and Microsoft's less powerful but easier Xbox 360. The complexity of the architecture meant that cross-platform games didn't always perform as well as they should on PS3, though as developers (particularly first-party devs) mastered the hardware, it did result in the most visually stunning console games of the latter half of the generation being Sony exclusives, like Uncharted 3 and its ilk.

Lisa said, "The Cell processor was extremely ambitious at that time, thinking about the type of parallelism it was trying to get out there. Again, I would say, from a business standpoint, it was certainly successful. As you rank things, I think history will tell you that there may be different rankings."

"My perspective is, the console era has gone through phases [...] but once you went to HD, you had tremendous increase in cost of asset creation, you had developers heavily motivated to support multiple processors, you had game engines coming along. Suddenly, no one wanted to go to the burden of differentiating on the Cell; they just wanted to run on the Cell," Su explained.

Interestingly, the seventh generation of home consoles (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii/Wii U) also marks a shift in AMD's allegiances to console manufacturers. AMD produced graphics chips for both Nintendo and Xbox, and all three console manufacturers used the PowerPC CPU architecture. But come to the eighth-gen (PS4, XB1, Switch), both Xbox and PlayStation had switched fully to AMD-powered x86 CPU and GPU architecture. The Switch also saw Nintendo pivot to an Nvidia-powered SoC design (with Arm CPU cores) for their new hybrid console focus.

With the added context of this interview, one can't help but wonder if Lisa Su's unifying thread throughout the last three generations of PlayStation hardware isn't a coincidence. It could just be corporate happenstance, but going from a humble Product Director and Engineer working on the PS3 at IBM to Senior vice president (in 2012, CEO in 2014) at AMD, setting the future course of both PlayStation and Xbox hardware, is truly impressive. 

It's also a great win for AMD, in general, to provide the hardware behind the two biggest consoles on the market for two consecutive (and a third upcoming) console generations. No matter who wins between Sony and Microsoft and their console war, AMD wins, and that's the kind of thinking that earns you a CEO spot.

AMD CEO Lisa Su attended imec’s ITF World 2024 conference to accept the prestigious imec Innovation Award for innovation and industry leadership, joining the ranks of other previous honorees like Gordon Moore, Morris Chang, and Bill Gates. After accepting the award, Su launched into her presentation covering the steps that AMD has taken to meet the company’s 30x25 goal, which aims for a 30x increase in compute node power efficiency by 2025. Su announced that AMD is not only on track to meet that goal, but it also now sees a pathway to more than a 100x improvement by 2026 to 2027.

Concerns about AI power usage have been thrust into the limelight due to the explosion of generative AI LLMs like ChatGPT, but AMD had the vision to foresee problems with AI’s voracious power appetite as far back as 2021. Back then, AMD began work on its 30x25 goal to improve data center compute node power efficiency, specifically citing AI and HPC power consumption as a looming problem. (AMD set its first ambitious energy goal back in 2014 with its inaugural 25x20 goal to improve consumer processor power efficiency by 25x by 2020, which it exceeded with a 31.7x improvement.)

That problem has now come to the forefront. Generative AI is fueling the rapid expansion of data centers as the world’s largest companies vie for AI supremacy, but public power grids aren’t prepared for a sudden surge of power-hungry data centers, making power the new limiting factor. There are hard limits on the amount of power available to data centers as grid capacity, infrastructure, and environmental concerns limit the capacity that can be dedicated to both new and expanding data centers alike. In fact, many new data centers are being constructed next to power plants to ensure the supply of power, and the crushing demand has even reignited the push for nuclear Small Module Reactors (SMRs) to supply individual data centers. 

The problem is only intensifying as the compute required to train models increases. Su pointed out that the size of the first image and speech recognition AI models used to double every two years, largely matching the pace of advances in computing power over the last decade. The size of generative AI models is now growing at 20x per year, however, outstripping the pace of computing and memory advancements. Su said that while today’s largest models are trained on tens of thousands of GPUs consuming up to tens of thousands of megawatt-hours, rapidly expanding model sizes could soon require up to hundreds of thousands of GPUs for training, perhaps requiring several gigawatts of power to train a single model. That clearly isn’t tenable.

AMD has a multi-pronged strategy for improving power efficiency, consisting of a broad approach that expands beyond its silicon architectures and advanced packaging strategies to AI-specific architectures, system- and data center-level tuning, and software and hardware co-design initiatives.

Naturally, silicon is the bedrock. Su pointed to 3nm Gate All Around (GAA) transistors as AMD’s next step on the silicon roadmap to improve power efficiency and performance, along with a continued focus on advanced packaging and interconnects that enable more power-efficient and cost-effective modular designs. Advanced packaging plays a key role in scaling out designs to produce more horsepower within the constraints of a single chip package, and AMD employs a mix of 2.5D and 3D packaging to maximize the amount of compute-per-watt it can wring from each square millimeter of data center silicon.

Transferring data between server nodes and server racks consumes extra power due to longer distances, so optimizing for data locality can yield tremendous power savings. AMD’s MI300X is a great example of the efficiency wrung from making ever-larger chip packages — the chip wields 153 billion transistors spread across 12 chiplets paired with 24 HBM3 chips that provide 192GB of memory capacity, all of which is available to the GPU as local memory. Paired with power- and performance-optimized infinity Fabric interconnects between the in-package units, the extreme compute and memory density keeps more data close to the processing cores, thus reducing the amount of energy required to transfer data.

Su said that while hardware optimizations are important, AMD’s work on hardware and software co-optimization also yields impressive results. Using lower-precision numerical formats boosts power efficiency and performance, so designing in specific hardware acceleration is important for continued scaling. As you can see in the slides above, moving to lower-precision formats like FP4 drastically increases the FLOPs per Joule of consumed energy – compared to FP32, FP8 delivers a 15x increase in power efficiency while FP4 delivers around a 30x improvement.

Lower precision results in lower accuracy, but Su highlighted that advanced quantization techniques have helped address that issue. In fact, even MXFP6 can produce similar accuracy to FP32, with a drop off only seen at MXFP4 with a few of the different models, while others are still just as accurate. Work continues on improving the accuracy of low precision formats, so we could even see MXFP4 become just as accurate as FP32 across many more models in the future.

Overall, Su said that AMD has exceeded the industry’s rate of progress on power efficiency per node as the company remains on pace to meet its 30x power efficiency improvement. Su expects that trend to continue, saying, “With this type of innovation, based on what we see today, we think we can do better than that. We are on track to do greater than 100 times by the time we get up to 2026 and 2027. And there's much, much more we can do in this area.”

Imec’s event had a strong roster of presenters from multiple semiconductor companies, like ASML, TSMC, Intel and SK hynix, among others, and many of the speakers echoed Su’s sentiments that data center power consumption, and the environmental ramifications associated with it, are becoming a first-order problem.

Su noted that continuing the pace of power efficiency improvements will take an industry-wide effort. “We have the opportunity to drive that ecosystem by bringing many different capabilities and many different expertise’s together. I think that's the key for the next generation of innovation,” Su said.

“We're all experts in certain areas, but when we bring process folks, packaging folks, hardware designers, architects, software's models and systems designers together, we can get that holistic design capability that really bend the curve of innovation going forward,” Su said.

Producing processors is also a carbon and water-intensive process, so sustainability was a key topic at the event. Su didn’t touch on the company’s progress in reducing its carbon footprint, but the company recently outlined its achievements in that area in a blog post, saying that leveraging chiplet-based architectures has saved ~50K metric tons of CO2e in 2023 simply by yield improvements that ultimately reduce the number of wafers it needs to fab. That single year’s C02e savings was equivalent to AMD’s entire operational footprint for the entire year of 2022, highlighting that AMD is tackling environmental challenges from multiple angles.

Earlier this week it was revealed that Intel’s CEO Pat Gelsinger earned a big rise in compensation in 2023. However, the extra millions mean Gelsinger is still only receiving approximately half the total compensation AMD CEO Lisa Su receives, reports MarketWatch. We don’t have the final 2023 figures for Nvidia’s Jensen Huang yet, but impressive stock gains have already propelled the leader of the green team into becoming the world's 21st richest person.

Gelsinger’s compensation details came from Intel’s 2024 proxy statement, which came out on Thursday. The financial documents showed the Intel CEO enjoyed a 45% rise in total compensation from $11.61 million in 2022, to $16.86 million in 2023.

Overall, this seems fair if we look at Intel's stock performance over the same period. During 2023 Intel stock gained over 90% in value. But 2022 wasn’t such a good year, with Intel stock dropping nearly 20%, and Gelsinger’s compensation fell a similar amount compared to the previous year.

AMD also released a proxy statement last week. According to the statement, the CEO, Dr Lisa Su, received $30.35 million in total compensation in 2023. This amounts to basically the same as her 2022 compensation. However, it remains about 80% ahead of the Intel CEO’s annual compensation.

Stock makes a big difference

All the total compensation figures we have highlighted include a mix of a base salary, stock awards and options, plus other bonuses and incentives. Both the above CEO total compensation figures are boosted significantly by stock awards. For example, Gelsinger’s 2023 salary was ‘just’ $1.07 million, but he earned $12.43 million in stock awards. Meanwhile, Su’s 2023 salary was $1.2 million, but she got $27.69 in stock and options, among other bonuses and incentives.

The (green) elephant in the room

By now you might be wondering about how Jensen Huang has fared in terms of his total compensation for 2023. Sadly, the full figures for the last fiscal year haven’t yet been published by Nvidia. 

We know that the year previously, Huang’s total compensation was $21.36 million, and we know Nvidia stock went up an amazing 239% over the course of last year. In brief, Huang probably had a decent total compensation uplift in 2023, we are just waiting on the official figures for full and confirmed details.

AMD CEO Lisa Su has stepped in to soothe the publicly voiced concerns of George Hotz's AI server startup Tiny Corp. The company has been preparing its new TinyBox server for release but has been experiencing issues with its Radeon RX 7900 XTX-powered systems and is now asking for AMD to open source its GPU firmware. Several Tweets by Tiny Corp expressed frustration with bugs in AMD's AI acceleration toolkit and provocatively tagged rivals like Intel and Nvidia. Lisa Su noticed the commotion and personally assured Tiny Corp. that the “team is on it” to fix the issues, though she didn't explicitly promise to open source the firmware. 

Tiny Corp is a startup that maintains the tinygrad neural network framework. Its new TinyBox servers are designed to offer PetaFLOPS-class performance for AI by using affordable consumer-class GPUs, thus providing big savings over a data center-class kit. These systems leverage the Radeon RX 7900 XTX GPUs and AMD's open-source stack for GPU compute, ROCm. ROCm support for AMD's consumer GPUs is still somewhat new, having been initiated late last year, but apparently, there are a few bugs to be ironed out with the 7900 XTX's firmware. 

Tiny Corp’s dissatisfaction with its Radeon-based solution appeared to come to a head on Tuesday. The Tiny Box development team was initially happy to say they received updated firmware from AMD. They also congratulated the company for being responsive and making “big strides” on its drivers.

Things soon turned sour, though, as the updates from AMD apparently didn’t iron out all the important wrinkles. A follow-up Tweet on Tuesday again highlighted “serious driver issues” before pleading for open-source firmware. This became a recurring theme with tweets issued late Tuesday/early Wednesday morning. With pre-order customers already lined up and production beginning in earnest, the Tweets became increasingly desperate.

A furious thread of Tweets from the server startup opened with an incendiary blast about bugs, asking AMD to “fix their basic s*t.” Tiny Corp also complained that “we are not AMD’s QA team” before stating that the Radeon RX 7900 XTX driver is unfit for its customers.

It is about now that the person in control of Tiny Corp’s social media accounts started publicly musing about giving up on AMD’s platform and adopting Intel GPUs / software. A septet of Acer BiFrost Arc A770 cards were bought up as alternatives during Tiny Corp’s seemingly live-Tweeted stream of consciousness. Tiny Corp also mentioned Nvidia GeForce GPUs but admitted the Nvidia P2P problem with consumer cards would not be unblocked by the Green team to pacify a server startup.

This is where Lisa Su piped up with a very promising response. “Thanks for the collaboration and feedback. We are all in to get you a good solution,” wrote the iconic AMD leader. “Team is on it.”

Thanks to the unsubtle Tiny Corp, we can also be quite sure we will learn about the company's call with AMD later today, during which it appears the company will ask AMD to open source part of its firmware. 

You can now learn the results of that call in our follow-up article here.

AMD engineers also seem to be very fond of Taiwan’s potato-chip-like Guai Guai (乖乖) snacks. At a meeting with the AMD team in Taiwan last summer, AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su proudly held a large special edition pack of Guai Guai featuring her caricature. In the same picture, we see another exec holding a standard-size AMD Ryzen co-branded packet. These AMD-branded snacks are now available for sale online in Taiwan, while other versions are handily available in convenience stores across Taiwan.

Last week we reported on TSMC’s recent release of Guai Guai co-branded chips, but tech titans like AMD and Microsoft have also sought to leverage the power of superstition, using this lucky charm to ensure their products always run smoothly.

It turns out that semiconductor engineers working at the industry’s cutting edge are a superstitious bunch. In our previous report, we highlighted Taiwan’s Guai Guai culture, but it is worth outlining again. It is very common on this tech-saturated island for engineers and machine operators to place a pack of this snack food on top of or near a crucial device. Doing so ensures the operation will run smoothly, according to tech folklore.

A Wikipedia entry about Guai Guai culture notes that this snack food doesn’t just get placed next to computer machinery to work its lucky magic. It has become a regular feature in police stations, tool booths, hospitals, theaters, various government offices, and more.

Microsoft is also claimed to have partnered with Guai Guai for a special edition Peacock rice puff. That might have been a mistake, as no one seems to use that snack for good luck. Moreover, the superstition dictates that Guai Guai's coconut cream variety (green pack) is the only really lucky one as its green color ensures your machinery will always be running with a green light.

On the back of the green pack, the mascot holds a green light sign with the (machine-translated) words saying, “Green Jin Shun, obediently, give me the green light and keep going!”

Guai Guai snack specifications

The green pack of Guai Guai is a puffed corn snack created in a similar way to Cheetos in the US or Wotsits in the UK. However, these are cream coconut flavor and a little larger with a firmer outer shell. A 52g pack costs TWD$25 (USD$0.80) in convenience stores. Other Guai Guai flavors we have seen include Chinese Five Spice (yellow pack) and Spicy (red pack).

Guai Guai cream coconut flavor is a baked product with ingredients as follows: corn, sugar, cream, coconut powder, whole milk powder, whey powder, coconut oil, salt, and calcium carbonate.

Guai Guai deployed at Tom's Hardware

Before we go, readers might be interested to know I've begun deploying Guai Guai packs next to computers used to write Tom’s Hardware articles here in Taiwan. If the idea is good enough for TSMC, AMD, Microsoft, and others, it should have some tech merit. Perhaps we should also look at adding Guai Guai enhanced test results in upcoming device and component benchmarks…

AMD chief executive Lisa Su along with two others notified Cisco that they would like to leave its board of directors. Su joined Cisco's board of directors in early 2020, but a lot of things have happened since then, which might be a reason why she decided to quit.

"On October 4, 2023, M. Michele Burns, Roderick C. McGeary, and Dr. Lisa T. Su each notified Cisco Systems, Inc. of their respective decision not to stand for re-election at Cisco's 2023 annual meeting of stockholders," Cisco's filing with SEC reads (via Don Clark). "Ms. Burns, Mr. McGeary, and Dr. Su will continue to serve as directors until the 2023 Annual Meeting." 

Neither disclosed reasons for leaving Cisco's board of directors, and we can only speculate about their intentions.

Of the three, Lisa Su is the only leader of high-technology company. When she joined Cisco's board-of-directors in 2020, AMD was beginning to recapture market share in PCs and servers from Intel and expansion prospects were rather foggy. But over the course of three years AMD got a lot bigger. 

The company purchased Pensando for $1.9 billion in 2022 to gain data processing units (DPUs), a type of processors that enables connectivity in datacenters and somewhat competes against Cisco's datacenter connectivity products. In addition, AMD recently launched its EPYC 8000-series 'Siena' processors that target communications and edge servers, thus also encroaching on Cisco's offerings. As a result, Su has at least two conflicts of interests when it comes to Cisco. 

Keep in mind that at this point that this is mere speculation. Before joining Cisco's board, Su left the board of Analog Devices.

While the Chinese market still has access to the best graphics cards, acquiring AI accelerators is getting more challenging due to ever-tightening U.S. export restrictions. Intel and Nvidia have already been forced to defeature some of their AI GPUs / AI accelerators to comply with the regulations to export to China, and according to AMD, it is following suit.

"China is a very important market for us, certainly across our portfolio. As we think about certainly the accelerator market, our plan is to, of course, be fully compliant with U.S. export controls. But we do believe there's an opportunity to develop products for our customer set in China, that is looking for AI solutions, and we'll continue to work in that direction," stated AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su during the company's latest earnings call.

Su didn't detail AMD's plan, but the chipmaker would likely have to alter some of the company's Instinct MI series accelerators, such as the latest Instinct MI300 scheduled for a Q4 launch.

Although the U.S. has placed strict export regulations on GPU exports to obstruct China's efforts in AI development, chipmakers, such as Nvidia and Intel, have overcome the obstacle by defeaturing their existing products to conform to the export controls. The current rules state that the chip-to-chip data transfer rate must not exceed 600 GB/s. However, that may change, as the U.S. government is mulling new restrictions for AI chip exports to China.

Last year, Nvidia de-optimized its A100 (Ampere) for the Chinese market, slashing the interconnect from 600 GB/s to 400 GB/s to commercialize it as the A800 in China. Not so long ago, the chipmaker ran the same play and hobbled the H100 (Hopper) GPU, turning it into a H800 for export to China. The same H800 is fetching significant sums of money in China, selling for up to $70,000 apiece. Intel wasn't left behind, either. The chipmaker abruptly canceled its Data Center GPU Max 1350 only to launch a Max 1450 for "different markets." Recently, Intel released a cut-down version of its Gaudi 2 AI accelerator for Chinese customers.

The AI boom will continue for a while, so AMD would be foolish not to hop on the wave. Take Nvidia, for instance: Thanks to its AI business, Nvidia recently became the first chipmaker to surpass the $1 trillion market cap. According to Nvidia's Q1 FY2024 financials, 60% of its revenue came from selling data center products, including accelerators for AI and HPC. It's natural that AMD would want to snatch a piece of that AI revenue.

We don't think AI will have the same gold rush effect as cryptocurrency had on graphics cards. Although we're already seeing early signs of AI companies buying up large amounts of gaming graphics cards, it likely won't turn into another graphics card shortage. AMD may be late to the AI party, but plenty of AI business still needs to be done.

During AMD's quarterly earnings call today, there was plenty of talk about AI. More interesting to gamers is that AMD is apparently finally ready to release the middle-ground RX 7800/7700 series of GPUs to compete with the best graphics cards. At least, that's our take based on what was said and what we know of the AMD RDNA 3 architecture.

CEO Lisa Su stated, "In gaming graphics, we expanded our Radeon 7000 GPU series in the second quarter, with the launch of our mainstream RX 7600 cards pertaining to gaming. We're on track to further expand our RDNA 3 GPU offerings with the launch of new enthusiast class Radeon 7000-series cards in the third quarter."

We've already seen some hints of what might be coming with the RX 7900 GRE, a Navi 31-based chip that only has four MCDs (Memory Cache Dies) instead of the usual six MCDs and features a smaller package. It's reportedly drop-in compatible with the anticipated Navi 32 package, which will fill in the gap between the RX 7600 and the RX 7900 XT/XTX GPUs.

The news of the new graphics chips comes amid a rather poor quarter for graphics card sales. As we noted already, AMD's gaming segment revenue totaled $1.6 billion, down 4% on the year and 10% from the prior quarter. AMD cited lower sales of its gaming GPUs as the primary reason for the slump, while semi-custom sales to Microsoft and Sony remained brisk. The group posted a $225 million operating margin, up 11% year over year.

AMD has continued servicing the upper mainstream / lower high-end market with its previous generation RDNA 2 architecture and RX 6000-series GPUs since last year. While it released the top RX 7900 XTX and XT last December, and later delivered a budget mainstream RX 7600 in May, the expected RX 7800 and 7700 cards have yet to appear. Much of that was likely due to the existing inventory of RX 6800/6900 class GPUs, which overlap the performance segment where the new chips are expected to land.

We've been hearing rumblings of Navi 32 and RX 7800/7700 class chips for a while now, though there have been few definitive leaks. We still don't have official specifications, for example, nor do we have an exact release date. However, we now have a clear deadline for the launch of the cards. Q3 means the RX 7800/7700 should launch either this month or next.

Normally, AMD and Nvidia stagger the releases of new products, starting with higher-end offerings. If it follows that pattern, we'll likely get RX 7800 (XT) this month, followed by RX 7700 (XT) next month. Note that AMD did say new "cards" were coming in Q3, so there should be more than a single new GPU in the next two months.

How much will the new GPUs cost, and how fast will they be? Those are the most important questions, and AMD isn't spilling the beans just yet. Based on where the RX 7600 and 7900 GPUs land in our GPU benchmarks hierarchy, we expect a new RX 7800-class GPU will roughly match or exceed the existing RX 6950 XT, while a new RX 7700-class GPU will slightly outpace the RX 6750 XT. That's because the RX 7600 beats the RX 6650 XT, despite otherwise similar specs.

With the RX 7900 XT starting at $779.99, it's a safe bet that the 7800-class model will initially land around the $600 range. That could be the official MSRP, but as we saw with the 7600, online prices quickly corrected to bring the base price down to $257.99, from the official $279.99 launch MSRP. If the 7800 trades blows with an RX 6950 XT, we wouldn't expect gamers to pay extra for the card. Logically, the RX 7700-class card would then fill in the gap and probably have around a $450 MSRP, which could correct to a lower price depending on how things pan out.

We'll have to see what AMD does with reference cards. The previous generation RX 6000-series had reference models for the RX 6700 XT and above, but AMD created a reference RX 7600 this time. It would make sense for AMD to offer 7700- and 7800-class reference designs as well, but we've seen Nvidia skip certain models, and AMD may take a similar approach.

AMD announced its earnings today, notching a slight beat over its Q2 projections, taking the stock up 4% in after-hours trading. AMD CEO Lisa Su also announced that the company had seen its AI engagements increase 7x during the quarter as companies either initiated or expanded existing Instinct Accelerator programs for AI workloads. The company also announced that its hotly-anticipated MI300A and MI300X GPU is on track for a Q4 launch and already sampling to HPC, Cloud, and AI providers, providing the company with a fresh round of products to challenge Nvidia, the overwhelming leader for AI workloads. 

AMD's revenue weighed in at $5.4 billion, down 18% from a year ago, with a gross margin of 46%, an operating loss of $20 million, and net income of $27 million. AMD provided a lower-than-expected guide for the third quarter, tempering the positive news. 

AMD's consumer chips raked in $998 million during the quarter, down 54% year-over-year as the chip glut, which also impacted Intel's sales during the quarter, continues. Like Intel, AMD also says it has seen PC market conditions improve as its revenue increased 35% over the prior quarter. Much of that gain comes from increased Zen 4 Ryzen 7000 processor sales. AMD posted a $69 million operating loss for this segment, but the company expects this segment to return to profit next quarter and post double-digit revenue growth. 

AMD's gaming segment revenue totaled $1.6 billion, down 4% on the year and 10% from the prior quarter. AMD cited lower sales of its gaming GPUs as the primary reason for the slump, while semi-custom sales to Microsoft and Sony remained brisk. AMD says it will launch new enthusiast-class Radeon 7000 GPUs in the third quarter. The group posted a $225 million operating margin, up 11% year over year. 

AMD says its data center revenue dropped 11% year-over-year to $1.3 billion as sales of its third-gen EPYC Milan cooled due to a weak market. That was partially offset by sales of the pricier fourth-gen EPYC Genoa models, so revenue for this segment grew by 2% over the prior quarter. AMD's data center group posted $147 million in operating income for the quarter, which is markedly better than Intel's data center performance this quarter, which saw its data center group losing $200 million.

Su said she expects fourth-gen EPYC sales to increase by double digits in the next quarter and also signaled that the company sees creating China-optimized AI products, which are meant to conform to US sanctions, as an opportunity. 

AMD expects $5.7 billion (+/- $300M) in the next quarter, a 2.5% gain year over year, and margins to weigh in at 51%. 

AMD transferred production of virtually all of its substantial products to TSMC in the recent years and it is in no hurry to add other manufacturing partners, according to Lisa Su, chief executive officer of AMD, who recently visited Taiwan. Despite rumors that AMD might shift some of its orders to Samsung Foundry, the head of AMD does not seem to be ready to make any concrete comments on the matter. 

"We typically do not publicly comment on the details of specific products and orders, but TSMC is an important partner," Su said in Taiwan when asked to comment on the rumors about working with Samsung Foundry, according to a report by BusinessKorea. "The Instinct MI300, a world-class accelerator for generative AI that AMD plans to launch later this year, has high complexity."

While on paper fabless chip designers can work with multiple foundries, this is usually associated with a lot of curbs. First, modern process technologies from different contract chipmakers are not compatible — a 5nm-class chip made by TSMC has to be redesigned to be produced at Samsung Foundry. When we are dealing with complex products such as AMD's Instinct MI300, such redesign costs may get too high. 

Second, fabless chip developers tend to reuse IP across different product lines to save costs and usage of multiple foundries limits this capability or at least reduces its appeal. Third, when you buy in huge volumes from one supplier, you are going to enjoy various benefits, including tailoring of process technologies for your needs and discounts. Of course, some companies — such as Qualcomm — can afford to work with multiple contract chipmakers and benefit from it, but this is because they buy huge amount of chips from everyone. 

"We will continue to work with our Taiwanese partners because we cannot launch this product without good partners like TSMC," Su added, underlining the importance of TSMC for the company. 

However, Su sounded less resolute when she visited Tokyo later that week. 

The head of AMD told Nikkei that the company would "consider other manufacturing capabilities" besides TSMC to produce its chips to "ensure that we have the most resilient supply chain."

Meanwhile, TSMC is building up fabs in the U.S. and Japan, which will inevitably ensure resiliency of its supply chain. Therefore, AMD may not be exactly inclined to work with TSMC's rivals like Samsung Foundry and Intel Foundry Services for the reasons mentioned above. At least for now.

CEOs from the US semiconductor industry have met with senior US government economics and national security figures on Monday. The topic under discussion was the growing strictness of sanctions placed on China, meaning chipmaker sales to the nation would encounter friction.

According to reports from Reuters, Bloomberg and Forbes , the CEOs from Intel, Nvidia, Qualcomm and others, met in person with officials from the Biden administration. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, National Economic Council director Lael Brainard and National Security Council director Jake Sullivan formed part of the delegation. Apparently, representatives of the tech CEOs have been strongly lobbying against trade curbs and barriers. In respect of trade restrictions things could get worse as new, stronger measures are set to be applied from the US in the coming weeks.

We don't have any press released or statements about the meeting to refer to, but we can make some educated guesses about the direction of the talks. Back in October, the US Commerce Department issued updated rules about the sales of certain tools and chips to China, and those are about to be enacted. The economics and security officials from the government would therefore surely be putting their case to the CEOs. Meanwhile, the likes of Gelsinger, Huang, and Amon would be looking for exporting "wriggle room", so they don't have to intentionally decimate their China business operations.

Potential Business Impacts

Of the three tech titans mentioned above, it looks like Qualcomm could potentially be the most adversely affected by strengthened restrictions implemented by the US. Bloomberg says that 60% of Qualcomm's business revenue comes from the region. On the other hand, Qualcomm chips seem to be largely sold into less-strategic areas. In other words it is the powerful AI accelerating chips, which are suspected as being useful for China's military developments, which are more the focus of the latest bout of trade restrictions. For Nvidia, about 20% of revenue is currently generated by sales in the region.

Also on Monday, the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) called on the US and Chinese governments to cease the escalation of trade and technology export restrictions and to instead smooth relations through dialog. It previously voiced concerns about these measures in January.

Where was the AMD CEO?

Readers may have noticed that AMD's CEO, Dr Lisa Su, was conspicuous by her absence from the high level meeting. However, she is currently a long way from the US, in the midst of a business trip to Taiwan.

Just like other large chip designers, AMD has already started to use artificial intelligence for designing chips. In fact, Lisa Su, chief executive of AMD, believes that eventually AI-enabled tools will dominate chip design as the complexity of modern processors is increasing exponentially.

Su, believes that AI will dominate certain areas of chip design, she said at the 2023 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) held in Shanghai. She also emphasized the need for interdisciplinary collaboration to enable better hardware design in the future, reports DigiTimes.

Previously both Jensen Huang, chief executive of Nvidia, and Mark Papermaster, chief technology officer of AMD, noted that chip development is an ideal application for AI. AMD is already utilizing AI in semiconductor design, testing, and verification. The company also has the intention to leverage generative AI more broadly in future chip design applications.

At AMD, AI is already in chip design, particularly in the 'place and route' stage, where sub-blocks of chip designs are positioned and optimized for better performance and lower energy consumption, Papermaster told Tom's Hardware in May. AI's ability to continuously iterate and learn from patterns greatly accelerates the process of achieving an optimized layout, thereby increasing performance and energy efficiency. Papermaster said that AI will even expand into more important aspects of chip design, like microarchitecture designs, particularly after certain hurdles are overcome to protect IP.

AI is also already employed in verification suites to reduce the time needed to detect bugs during the chip's development process, from conception to the verification and validation phases. Furthermore, AI assists in generating test patterns. With billions of transistors in a chip design, ensuring comprehensive test coverage is essential to guarantee that the product is flawless upon leaving the manufacturing floor. AI's ability to learn from each successive run, identify gaps in test coverage, and adjust the testing focus accordingly, significantly speeds up the process and enhances test coverage.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly playing a pivotal role in supporting and assisting chip designs. All three leading makers of electronic design automation (EDA) tools — Ansys, Cadence, and Synopsys — offer AI-enabled software to their clients, although Synopsys seems to be a bit ahead of its competitors when it comes to AI-enabled tools.

Earlier this year Synopsys launched Synopsys.ai, the first end-to-end AI-driven EDA solution. This enables developers to use AI throughout all stages of chip development, from architecture to design and manufacturing.

We already knew that Nvidia Founder and CEO Jensen Huang and AMD President and CEO Dr. Lisa Su were related somehow. It is also a matter of record that they were both born in Tainan, Taiwan. Now we have a much clearer picture of how closely related the pair of PC tech titans are, thanks to the work of senior media person and family heritage researcher Wu Jia Jin, host of Jin Chat.

Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang's fame has skyrocketed in recent months. His newfound 'rock star' like fame, as witnessed by thronging crowds at the recent Computex 2023 show, is most apparent in his country of birth, Taiwan. Is it because of the success story of Nvidia, the business focus of ordinary Taiwanese news broadcasts, or that Nvidia burst through the $1 trillion valuation milestone? It is probably a mix of these things, and now it means Huang is getting a lot more media coverage, both business and personal.

Circling back to Huang's family connection with AMD boss Lisa Su, back in 2020, we thought that they weren't very close relatives. Reinforcing this belief, Lisa Su told CTA boss Gary Shapiro in a Masters of Leadership webinar that she and Huang were "distant relatives, so some complex second cousin type of thing." The truth may be they are quite a lot closer than that. Imagine if one of your cousins has a child — that is basically the relationship between Huang and Su, if the published family tree is accurate. We would thus say they are pretty close relatives, and it isn't that complex to understand.

Su may have felt the relationship was more distant and complex due to how close, or distant, certain segments of the family were. Remember that Jensen Huang's grandfather (Su's great-grandfather) had at least 12 children, which would imply lots and lots of cousins not added to the family tree. Moreover, we know that Huang's family emigrated to Oregon, US, when he was just four years old. Similarly, Su's family emigrated to the US when she was just three years old. There isn't just the likelihood of a great mass of relatives which are hard to keep track of, the family was also scattered geographically wide when the CEOs were at a very young age.

So, how would we describe the relationship between Nvidia's Huang and AMD's Su? In English family relationship terminology, they could be described as first cousins once removed. Su could also say that Huang is her second uncle. However, the naming of relatives in Mandarin Chinese and Taiwanese Hokkien is much more complex, depending on the male/female branch of the family tree, gender, birth order, and so on.

Other than the pinning down of the precise family relationship between Huang and Su, the precipitated media reports recount the respective CEO's life stories. They aren't quite rags-to-riches tales, but they apparently worked very hard to get where they are today; they didn't inherit these tech empires.

Lastly, it is amusing to see how the Chinese language media frames this family tree story. Some reports claim to have now discovered the true relationship between "the godfather of AI and …the queen of semiconductors."

A video game was being created where players could build and benchmark their own Best CPUs and run an entire microchip processing company in a turn-based style strategy game. The game could have been big among tech enthusiasts but the game was never developed beyond its pre-alpha stage. However, a pre-alpha demo of the game has been published on YouTube showing us the potential this game could have had.

The demo shows us the fundamental portions of the game, including the CPU-building aspects and some of the game's business management aspects as well. At the start, you create the name of your semiconductor company and then choose your CEO. The demo gives you the option to choose one of five of some of the most well-known semiconductor CEOs of all time, including Lisa Su, Jensen Huang, Jim Keller, Dirk Meyer, and even Gordon Moore — the creator of "Moore's Law".

Afterward, the game jumps into a points-based leveling system where you can choose the strengths of your particular company. The demo is limited to 9 different statistical strengths including logical optimization, teamwork, R&D Gain rate, error correction, and more. Players have 47 points in total which can be divided between the 9 categories to change their company's strengths and weaknesses.

Finally, the game enters the CPU-building phase where players can create their own CPU designs by adding, connecting, and moving several different components inside their CPU. In the pre-alpha demo, players have access to 7 components, including a controller, imc-read, decoder, int add, int mul, imc-write, and bus, and can add as many components as they want to the chip.

Chip performance will be dictated by how many components are being used, and how they are wired together. Once the chip is complete, players can choose to benchmark the chip, mass produce it and humorously leak the chip's details to the press if so desired.

The limited CPU building and company management game mechanics was the full extent of the demo, apparently, this game was supposed to go much deeper involving full-blown company management with NPCs, and compete with other corporations to be the best microprocessing manufacturer in the world.

The building portion would be also much bigger, apparently the CPU building aspect of the game is based on the Von Neumann architecture, which encourages adding more ALUs and developing higher timings for the FPUs to improve performance and efficiency. The CPU builder would also have many more abilities, including creating multi-core processors and creating GPUs as well.

It's unfortunate this game never made it out of its pre-alpha development phase. We don't know what happened to the game or the developers behind it, but it's easy to assume that money problems or public attraction were the main issues.

The event has concluded, and you can see our overview with the live blog below, However, here are links to our deeper coverage of each topic:

AMD Expands MI300 With GPU-Only Model, Eight-GPU Platform with 1.5TB of HBM3

AMD EPYC Genoa-X Weilds 1.3 GB of L3 Cache, 96 Cores

AMD Details EPYC Bergamo CPUs With 128 Zen 4C Cores, Available Now

AMD Intros Ryzen 7000 Pro Mobile and Desktop Chips, AI Comes to Pro Series

AMD is holding its Data Center and AI Technology Premiere today, June 13, 2022, at 10 am PT here in San Francisco -- which is now. We're here to cover the event live and bring you the news as it happens as AMD CEO Lisa Su takes to the stage to reveal AMD's new AI-focused silicon.

AMD has already said that it will reveal its EPYC Bergamo chips at the event. These chips come with up to 128 cores, an innovation that's enabled by the company's new 'Zen 4c' efficiency cores. These new cores are optimized for density through several techniques, yet unlike Intel's competing efficiency cores, retain support for the chips' full feature set.

AMD is also expected to announce its Instinct MI300 accelerators. This data center APU blends a total of 13 chiplets, many of them 3D-stacked, to create a chip with twenty-four Zen 4 CPU cores fused with a CDNA 3 graphics engine and 8 stacks of HBM3. Overall the chip weighs in with 146 billion transistors, making it the largest chip AMD has pressed into production. This chip is designed to compete with Nvidia's Grace Hopper. 

Other expected announcements include the debut of the company's Genoa-X processors, which use 3D-Stacked L3 cache to boost performance in technical workloads, much like the existing Milan-X processors. We also expect news about the company's first teleco-optimized chips, Sienna, and perhaps an update on the company's next-gen Zen 5 'Turin' data center chips.

We're now seated and ready for the show to begin in less than ten minutes. 

AMD CEO Lisa Su has come on stage to introduce the company's new products, noting that she will introduce a range of new products including CPUs and GPUs. 

Lisa Su is outlining AMD's progress with its EPYC processors, particularly in the cloud with instances available worldwide. 

Lisa Su touts that AMD EPYC Genoa offers 1.8x the performance of Intel's competing processors in cloud workloads, and 1.9X faster in enterprise workloads. 

The vast majority of AI runs on CPUs, and AMD says it has a commanding lead in performance over competing Xeon 8490H, offering 1.9X more performance. Su also touted a 1.9X efficiency advantage.

Here we can see AMD's AI benchmarks relative to Intel's Sapphire Rapids Xeon.

Dave Brown, the VP of AWS's EC2, came on stage to talk about the cost savings and performance advantages of using AMD's instances in its cloud. He provided several examples of customers that benefited from the AMD instances, with workloads spanning from HPC to standard general-purpose workloads. 

Amazon announced that it is building new instances with AWS Nitro and the fourth-generation EPYC Genoa processors. The EC2 M7a instances are available in preview today, offering 50% more performance than M6a instances. AWS says they offer the highest performance of the AWS x86 offerings. 

AMD will also use the EC2 M7a instances for its own internal workloads as well, including for chip-designing EDA software.  

AMD also announced that Oracle with have Genoa E5 instances available in July.

Lisa Su has now transitioned to talking about cloud-native processors, explaining that they are throughput-oriented and require the highest end density and efficiency. Bergamo is the entry for this market, and uses up to 128 cores per socket with a consistent x86 ISA support. The chip has 83 billion transistors and offers the highest vCPU density available. 

The Zen 4c core offers higher density than standard Zen 4 cores, yet maintains 100% software compatibility. AMD optimized the cache hierarchy, among other trimmings, for a savings of 35% on the die area. The CCD core chiplet is the only change. 

Here is the die breakdown. 

The core is 35% smaller than standard Zen 4 cores. 

Here is a diagram of the chip package. 

Bergamo is shipping now to AMD's cloud customers. AMD also shared the following performance benchmarks. 

A Meta representative joined Lisa Su on the stage to talk about the company's use of AMD's EPYC processors for its infrastructure. Meta is also open-sourcing its AMD-powered server designs. 

Meta says that it has learned that it can rely upon AMD for both chip supply and a strong roadmap that it delivers on schedule. Meta plans to use Bergamo, which offers 2.5X more performance than the previous-gen Milan chips, for its infrastructure. Meta will also use Bergamo for its storage platforms. 

Dan McNamara, AMD's SVP and GM of the Server Business Unit, has come to the stage to introduce two new products. Genoa-X will add more than 1 GB of L3 cache with 96 cores. 

Gen0a-X is available now. Four SKUs, 16 to 96 cores. SP5 socket compatibility, so it will work with existing EPYC platforms. 

McNamara showed performance benchmarks of Genoa-X against Intel's 80 core Xeon. 

Here we can see a comparison of Genoa-X against an Intel Xeon with the same number of cores. 

A Microsoft representative joined McNamara on the stage to show Azure HPC performance benchmarks. In just four years, Azure has seen a 4X improvement in performance with the EPYC processors. 

Azure announced the general availability of its new HBv4 and HX-series instances with Genoa-X, and new HBv3 instances. Azure also provided benchmarks to show the performance gains, which top out at 5.7X gains 

AMD's Sienna is optimized for Telco and Edge workloads but comes to market in the second half of the year. 

AMD's Forrest Norrod, MD's executive vice president and general manager of the Data Center Solutions Business Group, has come to the stage to share information about how the data center is evolving. 

Citadel Securities has joined Norrod on the stage to talk about their shift in workloads to AMD's processors, powering a 35% increase in performance. They use over a million concurrent AMD cores. 

Citadel also uses AMD's Xilinx FPGAs for its work in financial markets with its high frequency trading platform. It also uses AMD's low-latency solarflare networking.

AMD purchased Pensando to acquire DPU technology. Norrod explained how AMD is using these devices to reduce networking overhead in the data center. 

AMD's P4 DPU offloads networking overhead and improves server manageability. 

AMD's Pensando SmartNICs are an integral part of the new data center architectures. 

The next step? Integrating P4 DPU offload into the network switch itself, thus providing services at the rack level. This comes as the Smart Switch they've developed with Aruba Networks. 

Lisa Su has come back to the stage to talk about AMD's broad AI silicon portfolio, including the Instinct MI300

Lisa Su outlined the massive market opportunity for the AI market driven by large language models (LLMs), causing the TAM to grow to around $150 billion. 

AMD Instinct GPUs are already powering many of the world's fastest supercomputers. 

AMD President Victor Peng came to the stage to talk about the company's efforts around developing the software ecosystem. That's an important facet, as Nvidia's CUDA software has proven to be a moat. AMD plans to use an 'Open, Proven, and Ready' philosophy for its AI software ecosystem development, which Peng is in charge of. 

Peng showed some of AMD's latest hardware efforts. 

AMD's ROCm is a complete set of libraries and tools for its optimized AI software stack. Unlike the proprietary CUDA, this is an open platform.

AMD is continually optimizing the ROCm suite. 

PyTorch is one of the most popular AI frameworks in the industry, and they've joined Peng on the stage to talk about their collaboration with ROCm. The new PyTorch 2.0 is nearly twice as fast as the previous version. AMD is one of the founding members of the PyTorch Foundation. 

Here are details of PyTorch 2.0. 

AMD is shifting to talking about AI models, with Hugging Face joining Peng on the stage. AMD and Hugging Face announced a new partnership, optimizing their models for AMD CPUs, GPUs, and other AI hardware. 

Lisa Su has returned to the stage, and now we expect to learn about the biggest announcement of the show: The Instinct MI300. This is for training larger models, like LLMs behind the current AI revolution. 

SU is talking about the Instinct roadmap, and how the company previewed the MI300 with the CDNA 3 GPU architecture paired with 24 Zen 4 CPU cores, tied to 128GB of HBM3. This gives 8x more performance and 5x higher efficiency than the MI250. 

146 billion transistors across 13 chiplets. 

There will be a GPU-only MI300, the MI300X. This chip is optimized for LLMs. this delivers 192GB of HBM3, 5.2 TB/s of bandwidth, and 896 GB/s of Infinity Fabric Bandwidth. 

And here's new chip. 153 billion transistors all in one package with 12 5nm chiplets. 

MI300X offers 2.4X HBM density than the Nvidia H100 and 1.6X HBM bandwidth than the H100, meaning that AMD can run larger models than Nvidia's chips. 

Lisa Su conducted a demo of the MI300X running a Hugging Face AI model. The LLM wrote a poem about San Francisco, where the event is taking place. This is the first time a model this large has been run on a single GPU. A single MI300X can run a model up to 80 billion parameters. 

This allows fewer GPUs for large language models, thus delivering cost savings. 

SU also announced the AMD Instinct Platform, which has 8 MI300X in an industry-standard OCP design, offering a total of 1.5TB of HBM3 memory. 

MI300A, the CPU+GPU model, is sampling now. The MI300X and 8-GPU Instinct Platform will sample in the third quarter, and launch in the fourth quarter. 

Lisa Su wrapped up the presentation. Here's a few more wrap up slides. Stay tuned for our ongoing coverage over the coming hours. 

The event has concluded, and you can see our overview with the live blog below, However, here are links to our deeper coverage of each topic:

AMD Expands MI300 With GPU-Only Model, Eight-GPU Platform with 1.5TB of HBM3

AMD EPYC Genoa-X Weilds 1.3 GB of L3 Cache, 96 Cores

AMD Details EPYC Bergamo CPUs With 128 Zen 4C Cores, Available Now 

AMD Intros Ryzen 7000 Pro Mobile and Desktop Chips, AI Comes to Pro Series

Update 5/12/2023, 4:40am PT: We've now added analysis from Dean McCarron of Mercury Research in the relevant areas below. 

Original article 5/10/2023, 8:20am PT :

The Mercury Research CPU market share results are in for the first quarter of 2023. Although the extreme turbulence in the bottoming PC market continues, signs of recovery appear to be emerging. Though the data is still muddled due to an ongoing inventory correction, this month's numbers show that Intel has lost sub-single-digit percentage points of share in the three major categories — desktop PC, mobile, and data center — therefore maintaining more than 80% of unit share in each of those categories. That's actually a surprisingly resilient unit share considering it has been six years since AMD launched its incredible comeback with its first-gen Ryzen PC chips back in 2017. Moreover, another report indicates that Intel and AMD's revenue share of the segments is also shifting as we emerge from the worst CPU downturn in history.

Mercury Research's last few CPU market updates came amidst shocking market declines and inventory corrections that measured as the largest the firm has recorded in 30 years, ultimately forcing the chipmakers to under-ship demand to balance out overstocked inventories. That continued in the first quarter, which was the worst the firm has recorded since 1993. As such, we have to take the unit share data during these last few periods with some salt because the vendors were under shipping to different degrees and at different times, thus blurring the actual share values.

The industry is still mired in the same downturn, but most project that the PC market hit bottom during the last quarter and will stabilize and return to moderate growth through the back half of the year. In fact, AMD CEO Lisa Su recently commented that "[..], we believe the first quarter was the bottom for our client processor business," signaling that perhaps the worst of the turbulence has passed for AMD's consumer PCs business. Su's comments came as AMD announced a 64% decline in consumer chip sales and lost money for the first time in years.

During Intel's earnings, company CEO Pat Gelsinger also pointed to signs of improvement in the client PC space, saying, "We are seeing increasing stability in the PC market with inventory corrections largely proceeding as we had expected." Like AMD, Intel's message of hope came as it posted devastating results — last week, it reported its largest loss in history as sales plunged 36%.

However, things still aren't too encouraging in the near term for the server market, with Lisa Su commenting that AMD expects demand to remain mixed for now, with some recovery in the second half of the year. Intel's Gelsinger also echoed that sentiment, saying, "However, the server and networking markets have yet to reach their bottoms as cloud and enterprise remain weak."

Here we can see another important metric — x86 PC and data center revenue share — posted to Twitter by independent semiconductor analyst Sravan Kundojjala. This data is composed of Intel and AMD's reported earnings for each segment, but Kundojjala warns that there is still "a lot of noise in this data" due to shipments and inventories during the ongoing correction. As you can see, AMD's peak of 21.9% of PC revenue occurred back in the second quarter of 2022, while its data center peak of 30.3% revenue share happened in the fourth quarter.

We asked Intel for a comment on the general state of the market. "Intel is seeing increasing stability in the data center and PC markets. We remain confident in our growth projections as the market recovers over the second half of 2023. Our client computing business continues to execute on its roadmap as we ramp Meteor Lake production ahead of its 2H 2023 launch," an Intel representative responded. "[..] with a strengthening roadmap and excellent execution, we believe you will see our market share grow as we deliver process and product leadership to the market. Demand for 4th Gen Intel Xeon processors continues to be strong [..]."

But while AMD remains a threat to Intel's market share and continues to chip away slowly, it is even more of a threat to Intel's margins. Intel has been forced to price aggressively in both PCs and the data center to staunch its share losses, which impacts profitability — as is painfully clear with the company's historically low margins over the last several quarters. AMD also just launched its Ryzen 7000X3D chips, which take the lead in gaming over Intel's competing Raptor Lake chips. While those 7000X3D chips are comparatively expensive and will likely ship in much lower volumes, AMD's ability to now claim it has the best CPU for gaming will restrict Intel's ability to command premium pricing for its competing chips.

Other forces are also in play. Arm remains a persistent threat to both Intel and AMD, but its initial bullrush into the PC unit share has seemed to cool a bit as it lost 1.3 percentage points in the fourth quarter of 2023. However, that bounced back to 14.8% of share in the first quarter, a record high for Arm. Apple's M-series processors have rapidly gained a foothold in the market. As such, despite much lower shipments recently, we should expect Arm to continue to chew away share from x86 in the client market over the longer term.

As a reminder, the Mercury numbers track the chips the CPU makers sell-in to the supply chain, not the sell-through that occurs at retail. The chipmakers continue to sell lower amounts of CPUs into the supply chain to help balance the overstock conditions, so the numbers don't currently accurately reflect the number of units sold through to consumers.

The raw numbers from the Mercury Research report are broken down by segment in the tables and sections below. We've also added McCarron's observations below. 

Desktop PC Market Share Q1 2023: AMD vs Intel

"AMD gained a small amount of desktop client CPU share; both Intel and AMD experienced declines in shipments, but AMD's declines were slightly smaller than Intel's resulting in a small share gain," said McCarron.  

Notebook / Mobile Unit Market Share Q1 2023: AMD vs Intel

"Intel gained a small amount of share in overall client processors and in mobile CPUs during the quarter, and share is up more strongly compared to a year ago," said McCarron. "Part of this was driven by a surprise uptick in entry-level mobile CPUs (mostly notebook Celeron processors, but Intel's new "Intel Processor" branded N100 CPUs also showed signs of growth.) The gains here appear to be associated with growth of Chromebook PCs after a nearly two year long decline in shipments -- we also believe a resurgence in Chromebooks helped ARM's business as well. The increase in Intel's entry-level mobile CPUs offset some of their other declines and enabled slightly higher growth than AMD experienced, resulting in mobile and client share gains."

Server Unit Market Share Q1 2023: AMD vs Intel

"AMD also gained a slight amount of share in servers for the quarter, but both Intel and AMD saw steep declines in server processor shipments," said McCarron.

AMD bases its server share projections on IDC's forecasts but only accounts for the single- and dual-socket market, which eliminates four-socket (and beyond) servers, networking infrastructure, and Xeon D's (edge). As such, Mercury's numbers differ from the numbers cited by AMD, which predicts a higher market share. Here is AMD's comment on the matter: "Mercury Research captures all x86 server-class processors in their server unit estimate, regardless of device (server, network or storage), whereas the estimated 1P [single-socket] and 2P [two-socket] TAM [Total Addressable Market] provided by IDC only includes traditional servers."

Arm vs x86 Consumer Market Share Q1 2023

"Our estimate for ARM PC client share (including Chromebooks and Apple's M-series based Macs with X86 desktop and mobile CPUs in the total client size estimate) is 14.8 percent, a record high for ARM client processor share. [...]While Apple's ARM-based Mac business was lower than last quarter, a rise in ARM-based Chromebook volume (and a decline in X86 PC client shipments) resulted in a higher market share for ARM," said McCarron.

Overall x86 Market Share Q1 2023: With IoT and Semi-Custom, AMD vs Intel

"For all-inclusive share, which counts not only PC client CPUs and servers but also IoT and semi-custom products used in items like gaming consoles, AMD gained 3.3 points of share in the first quarter of 2023 to reach 34.6 percent. Here Intel's much lower IoT shipments and a surge in AMD's reported semi-custom business resulted in an increase that favored AMD, especially on year as AMD's console gaming business increased compared to a year ago," said McCarron. 

"Overall share excluding IoT and semi-custom products did not change compared to last quarter -- while shares of the different segments changed, overall they balanced out and there was no appreciable shift in total share," said McCarron.

When AMD's chief executive Lisa Su said last week that the company was on track to release its mainstream Radeon RX 7000-series graphics cards this quarter, she never said exactly when this would happen. But it appears that AMD's Radeon RX 7600-series graphics cards may be closer than we think as boards are already being listed in Asia. Soon, the RX 7600 will face off against the best graphics cards.

Right now, someone in Singapore is selling Sapphire's Radeon RX 7600 Pulse 8GB GDDR6 graphics card for S$545 (around $410, though it is unclear whether the price includes taxes) on Carousell, an online marketplace, as discovered by @Komachi_Ensaka. The advertisement claims that the stock arrives on May 26, 2023, which suggests that the seller expects to have multiple boards in a little more than a couple of weeks from now.

VideoCardz has received images of Sapphire's Radeon RX 7600 Pulse 8GB GDDR6 graphics board on a store shelf. The package reveals that the GPU features 32 RDNA 3 compute units (2048 stream processors) and 32MB of Infinity Cache. There is no word about the availability date of the product, but the card will reportedly cost $249, which contradicts to information from Carousell — but that could just be an attempt to capitalize on early demand.

In any case, the picture itself points to the fact that Sapphire, which is one of AMD's closest partners, has already started to ship its boards to retailers and it is only a matter of time before these parts are available worldwide.

AMD's Radeon RX 7600-series graphics cards are expected to be based on the Navi 33 GPU. It's hard to estimate performance of the vanilla Radeon RX 7600 and compare it to that of Nvidia's yet-to-be-released GeForce RTX 4060-series graphics boards, but we certainly expect these product families to compete against each other. Based on what we've seen from the RX 7900 XT versus the RX 6900 XT, if the RX 7600 sees a similar improvement in performance, it would only be around 25% faster than the existing RX 6600. We'll find out in the next month or so it seems.

We're dealing with unofficial information about Radeon RX 7600 availability date and contradictory information when it comes to its pricing, so obviously take all of this with a grain of salt. Still, it's evident that at least some of Sapphire's retail partners have already gotten their Radeon RX 7600 products, so it's logical to expect boards to hit the market rather sooner than later.

Lisa Su, chief executive of AMD, this week confirmed that the company is on track to release its mainstream graphics cards based on its RDNA 3 architecture this quarter. Lisa did not specify which products AMD plans to launch, but it is reasonable to expect cheaper Radeon RX 7000-series products to hit the market in the next few months.

"We are on track to expand our RDNA 3 GPU portfolio with the launch of new mainstream Radeon RX 7000-series GPUs this quarter," Su said at the earnings conference call with analysts and investors.

AMD's high-end RDNA 3-based Radeon RX 7900 XTX and Radeon RX 7900 XT, which belong to the best graphics cards available today, have been on the market for over four months now. At $999 and $899, these boards look to be pretty competitive against competing offerings from Nvidia in numerous games, but they are quite expensive for average gamers. The 7900 XT price has also dropped to $799 of late, in part due to competition with Nvidia's RTX 4070 Ti. Regardless, while AMD may earn a lot per board sold, their volumes are not high.

Based on data from Jon Peddie Research, AMD's share of the discrete graphics card market for desktops reached 11% in Q4 2022, an indicator that the company's high-volume GPUs were not particularly popular among graphics cards manufacturers and PC OEMs. By contrast, Nvidia dominated the market with an 84% share.

To perhaps grab some market share back, it's nearing time for AMD to release its Radeon RX 7600-, Radeon RX 7700-, and Radeon RX 7800-series graphics cards. These will invariably cost less than the premium Radeon RX 7900-series, and will hopefully offer higher performance than the company's RDNA 2-based Radeon RX 6000-series cards that are now over two years old.

The question is whether the upcoming mainstream RX 7000-series parts will offer a better value than the existing RX 6000-series GPUs. The RX 6950 XT for example can now be picked up for just $599, and in non-ray tracing games it delivers performance roughly on par with the RTX 4070 Ti and RTX 3090, and not far below the RX 7900 XT. What will a mainstream RX 7600 XT offer, in terms of price and performance? That remains to be seen.

Interestingly, a newly discovered AMD ROCm 5.6 pull request contains a number of AMD's yet-unreleased graphics cards based on the company's Navi 31, Navi 32, and Navi 33 GPUs. These are designed for premium, high-end, performance mainstream, mainstream, and entry-level segments. If the model numbers are not placeholders for later use, we could see the Radeon RX 7800 XT, 7700 XT, 7600 XT, and 7500 XT for desktop computers as well as the Radeon RX 7600M XT, 7600M, 7700S, and 7600S for laptops in the coming months.

While Su confirmed plans to expand the company's RDNA 3-based portfolio shortly, she did not reveal when exactly the chip designer plans to start sales of the new Radeon RX 7000-series products. The company also did not provide any guidance regarding sales of its discrete GPU offerings in Q2, so it's unclear whether it expects to sell a lot of its mainstream RDNA 3-based offerings during the quarter.

AMD on Tuesday posted its first quarterly loss in years due to weak sales of processors for client PCs. Overall, AMD's chip sales dropped 64%. AMD's data center and gaming hardware shipments remained strong and were flat year-over-year, which is quite an achievement given the slowing purchases of servers and weak demand for gaming hardware among consumers. While AMD's management expects the CPU market to start recovering in the second half of the year, the company's outlook for Q2 is not that optimistic.

Mixed Bag

In the first quarter of FY2023, AMD's revenue amounted to $5.353 billion, which is a 9% decrease compared to the same period in the previous year and a slight decrease compared to the previous quarter. Unfortunately, the company slipped into the red with a $139 million net loss as compared to a $786 million net income in Q1 FY2022. Additionally, AMD's gross margin decreased from 48% in Q1 FY2022 to 44% in Q1 FY2023.

"We executed very well in the first quarter as we delivered better than expected revenue and earnings in a mixed demand environment," said AMD Chair and CEO Dr. Lisa Su.

Indeed, AMD's results were a mixed bag as all of the company's business units except its Client Computing business remained more or less flat compared to the first quarter of FY2022, and even remained profitable. In fact, AMD's Data Center unit even managed to modestly increase its revenue, yet its profitability declined.

"Our strategically important Data Center and Embedded segments contributed more than 50% of revenue in the first quarter," said AMD EVP, CFO, and Treasurer Jean Hu. 

Consumer CPU Sales Nosedive, Data Center Hardware Remains Strong

AMD's Client Computing business unit earned $739 million in revenue in Q1 FY2023, a 65% drop from the same quarter in the previous year. The unit lost $172 million, which is in stark contrast to the $625 million profit it posted in the same quarter a year ago. For years, AMD's main source of revenue was from selling CPUs and chipsets for client PCs, but for the second quarter in a row, this unit suffered from a revenue decline and bled money. As it turns out, AMD's client PC business suffered more from the soft PC market than Intel's client computing group, which Q1 sales dropped 36% year-over-year.

"As we stated on our last earnings call, we believe the first quarter was the bottom for our client processor business," said Su. 

By contrast, AMD's Gaming Business unit's revenue in the first quarter reached $1.757 billion, down 6% year-over-year, which looks like a strong result given the ongoing turmoil. System-on-chips for Microsoft's and Sony's game consoles accounted for the lion's share of AMD's gaming business and increased YoY. Meanwhile, sales of discrete Radeon graphics processors dropped year-over-year. Still, they grew quarter-over-quarter as the company ramped up shipments of its Radeon RX 7900-series graphics offerings and offered its previous generation Radeon RX 6000-series products at competitive prices. Despite challenges, the division remained profitable and posted a net income of $314 million (down 12% YoY). 

"Semi-custom SoC revenue grew year-over-year as demand for premium consoles remain strong following the holiday cycle," said Su. "In gaming graphics channels sell through over Radeon RX 6000 and Radeon RX 7000 series GPUs increased sequentially. We saw strong sales of our high-end Radeon RX 7900 XTX GPUs in the first quarter, and we are on track to expand our RDNA 3 GPU portfolio with the launch of new mainstream Radeon RX 7000- series GPUs this quarter."

In Q1 2023, AMD's Data Center Business generated $1.295 billion, which is almost flat compared to the same quarter in the previous year ($1.293). Meanwhile, the profitability of the unit decreased 65% year-over-year and totaled $148 million, which is not surprising as large cloud services providers are reconsidering their server purchases these days, and therefore AMD and other players have to offer them better pricing to keep volumes high.

It is noteworthy that when compared to Intel's data center and AI group, AMD's server business performed somewhat better as it remained flat. By contrast, the blue company posted a 39% revenue drop for its data center parts. 

AMD's Embedded Business, which mostly sells products developed by Xilinx and some CPUs designed by AMD, reported earnings of $1.562 billion and profits of $798 million, a positive highlight in AMD's financial report. 

Cautious Outlook

AMD expects its revenue in the second quarter to stay more or less flat with the first quarter and total around $5.3 billion ± $300 million. 

Such a cautious outlook is a bit surprising as AMD is ramping up production and sales of its Ryzen 7000-series processors for laptops, with its Phoenix chips already on the way to OEMs, and these units tend to be sold at a premium, so the company expects its client PC revenue to be up quarter-over-quarter. In addition, the company is on track to release its new Radeon 7000-series graphics processors in Q2, which are also expected to boost sales of the company's gaming hardware, but this might be offset by weaker sales of console SoCs.

Furthermore, AMD plans to formally introduce its EPYC 'Bergamo' CPUs for cloud data centers and EPYC 'Genoa-X' for high-performance technical computing applications. While ramps of server CPUs tend to be slow, these parts will still allow AMD to increase its sales of data center hardware slightly. 

"For the second quarter, we expect sequential growth in our Data Center and Client segments offset by modest declines in our Gaming and Embedded segments," said AMD's chief financial officer. "We remain confident in our growth in the second half of the year as the PC and server markets strengthen and our new products ramp."

 Meanwhile, AMD remains optimistic about strong demand for its products in the second half and beyond. For example, the firm expects its data center sales to beat 2022 this year. 

"Looking longer term, we have significant growth opportunities ahead based on successfully delivering our roadmaps and executing our strategic datacenter and embedded property have priorities led by accelerating adoption of our AI products," Su said.

AMD has announced that it has chosen a new Senior Vice President and General Manager, Computing and Graphics. Jack Huynh will take up this important role, stepping into AMD veteran Rick Bergman’s shoes, who is said to be retiring. Importantly Bergman will stay on for the next quarter to ensure a smooth handover. We note that Huynh has yet to update his LinkedIn and social media profiles with the new position.

While some may not be familiar with Huynh, he has a long track record at AMD, having served at the company for nearly a quarter of a century. Importantly, his most recent position was as Senior Vice President & General Manager, Semi-Custom Group at AMD – a vibrant and very successful arm of AMD.

“Under Jack’s leadership, AMD has strengthened our position as the leading provider of custom solutions for gaming,” said AMD Chair and CEO Dr. Lisa Su. She thinks that, going forward, Huynh will deliver on the potential of “strong long-term growth opportunities” for AMD’s Computing and Graphics business. It was hinted that Huynh will expand AMD graphics adoption across broader markets, and this is certainly one way in which he could make an impact in his new role.

If you take a look at Huynh’s social media profiles it is easy to see that he is a an enthusiastic lover of technology who has the ability to take his “dreamer, designer and builder,” spirit and apply it to make other people’s tech dreams real.

Rick Bergman’s retirement marks the end of this executive’s 30 years + tech industry career. He has had a remarkable career, with a strong graphics flavor. Early on he worked at companies like S3 Graphics, TI and IBM. Those who remember ATI graphics pre-AMD takeover (pre-2006) days, might recall Bergman was the Canadian firm’s senior vice president and general manager of the ATI PC Group. After the AMD takeover, Bergman remained in various SVP roles stewarding the graphics operations.

In 2011, Bergman left AMD to work as the president and CEO of Synaptics. However, he was tempted back to AMD under the management of Dr Lisa Su in 2019, to take up the position of EVP Computing and Graphics at AMD.

AMD certainly needs a shot in the arm of its consumer graphics cards business. The most recent Steam Survey shows AMD’s share dropping from 14.9 to 10.8%, with Nvidia on a rampage. Can this be turned around in the coming months with the enthusiasm and expertise of Huynh, and the arrival of the mainstream RDNA 3 graphics cards? We hope so, for competition’s sake.

Sony became AMD's largest customer last year, accounting for 16% of the company's revenue as its PlayStation 5 increased its lead over competitors. Sravan Kundojjala, a semiconductor industry analyst, noted that if Xilinx results are excluded, Sony accounts for 20% of AMD's revenue, probably making it the company's largest customer in recent history. 

Indeed, the gaming business unit was AMD's largest revenue generator, which indicates that sales of system-on-chips for Microsoft's Xbox Series X|S consoles were also strong. AMD sold Sony some $3.776 billion worth of chips for PlayStation 5 game consoles in 2022, which accounted for 16% of the company's revenue for the year, according to the company's filing with the SEC. 

Sony confirmed at CES that it had sold over 30 million PlayStation 5 game consoles. VGChartz estimates that by now, life-to-date sales of PS5 exceeded 31.77 million units. Microsoft’s Xbox Series X|S consoles are by far not as successful as Sony’s systems, with LTD shipments of around 20.68 million units, according to VGChartz. 

In fact, AMD's gaming business unit — which sells discrete graphics processors for desktop graphics cards and notebooks as well as SoCs for game consoles — earned $6.805 billion in earnings and $953 million in profits last year and was the company's main source of revenue. Keeping in mind that in recent quarters the unit sales of AMD's standalone GPUs have declined (based on data from Jon Peddie Research), consoles SoCs accounted for the lion's share of AMD's gaming business unit revenue. 

"Gaming revenue declined 7% year-over-year to $1.6 billion [in Q4 2022] as lower gaming graphics sales more than offset higher semi-custom revenue," said Lisa Su, chief executive of AMD, at the company's most recent earnings call (via SeekingAlpha). "Semi-custom SoC revenue grew year-over-year as demand for game consoles remained strong during the holidays. Gaming graphics revenue declined year-over-year as we further reduced desktop GPU downstream channel inventory." 

But AMD's earnings from PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S|X SoCs will likely decline in 2023 and onwards since sales of consoles usually peak in their third year and platform holders tend to renegotiate components pricing after that. Therefore, AMD's gaming revenue is set to drop in 2023 compared to 2022. 

"Given where we are in the cycle, we would expect gaming to be down on a year-over-year basis," said Su.  

Analysts and investors tend to praise AMD's data center EPYC processors as they have been the company's key profit driver for about six years now. In 2022, AMD's data center unit earned $6.043 billion in revenue and was behind the company's gaming unit ($6.805 billion) as well as client computing group ($6.201 billion). Yet, based on softening demand for the PC and game console cycle, it looks like AMD's data center business will become the company's main source of revenue in 2023.

AMD approved hefty six-figure bonuses for several top execs earlier this month — at least four AMD VPs and the CEO, Dr. Lisa Su, will pocket substantial annual cash bonuses. In contrast, Intel’s diligent team faces painful salary cuts and suspended bonuses despite the bullish statements from Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger in 2022 when he talked about AMD being in the rear-view mirror.

Dr. Su received the biggest performance bonus — nearly a million dollars ($918,800) — for steering the red team’s ship through choppy waters to enjoy the success we continue to see. The four VPs named in the SEC filing will receive bonuses between $300,000 and $375,000. One of the VPs most readers will be familiar with is Mark Papermaster, the CTO, and ELVP of Technology and Engineering.

As for Intel, the company faces mounting difficulties highlighted during its most recent catastrophic quarter. In brief, mid-level and higher-ranked execs face pay cuts between 5 and 15%, with Pat Gelsinger taking a 25% cut. Wage raises and bonuses are out of the picture for these same execs, but hourly employees will still receive bonuses.

AMD and Intel target many of the same markets, but some key differences exist in the company operations and structures. First, Intel’s foundry business weighs heavily on its finances and fortunes, and it is busy restructuring and making massive investments around the globe to boost its manufacturing reach and prowess. For instance, Intel's planned $40 billion in investments for the new Arizona and Ohio fabs come as the company's first-quarter revenue dropped 40%, meaning that extraordinary actions must be taken.

Recessionary forces are also in the driver's seat (war, Covid hangover, etc.), affecting the entire industry. Nevertheless, several computer business leaders and industry insiders see a turn for the better in the second half of this year.

Compared with Intel, AMD doesn’t have as much of a semiconductor manufacturing burden. It is more nimble and light after divesting manufacturing operations and the massive investments needed to build and maintain a competitive foundry business. On the flip side, when the boom comes, AMD chipmaking partners will make hay and demand higher prices for their in-demand services.

For Intel employees currently enduring pay cuts, subsidies from multiple governments worldwide should help make the largest Intel investments successful in their respective locations. Intel also cut its long-standing dividend to free more cash for investment amidst its belt-tightening exercises, and also recently told employees that it will reverse its pay cuts later this year. That means that, as the cycle turns, the lean times could be followed by times of plenty, especially if Intel's drastic turnaround plan, which includes a pivot to the IDM 2.0 model, comes to fruition. 

At the ISSCC 2023 earlier this week, AMD discussed the future of computing over the next decade. CEO Dr. Lisa Su was the lead presenter and showed that AMD has performed admirably in supercomputer, server, and GPU performance trends over the last few decades. However, probably more interesting are the well-crafted plans that show how AMD aims to keep the pedal to the metal and use advanced technologies to counteract the tapering off of semiconductor process shrink benefits.

In the above performance slides, AMD claims it has successfully doubled mainstream server performance every 2.4 years since 2009. However, it doesn’t share any projections with respect to this market. AMD is confident to peer further into the future with its GPU performance trends (slide 2 in the gallery above). Here you can see that it claims to have doubled GPU performance every 2.2 years since 2006. The chart shows this trend is locked in until at least 2025.

AMD's supercomputer performance is the most successful in terms of advances over time, with the last chart above showing that, since the late 90s, AMD processors have been instrumental in doubling supercomputer performance every 1.2 years. Moreover, AMD predicts we will reach Zetascale supercomputer performance in approximately a decade. AMD also took time to highlight efficiency gains, and the intense battle to keep Moore’s Law alive as logic density tapers off.

Generously, AMD laid out some of its key plans which will help it drive forward with efficiency and performance gains over the coming decade. Advanced packaging is going to be a strong driver of both performance and efficiency, according to AMD. We have already seen some of the results of AMD traveling down this path with the use of chiplets and 3D V-Cache, and it will continue.

Some advanced packaging avenues which will be explored include the integration of 3D CPU & GPU silicon “for next-level efficiency.” Additionally, AMD reckons that “even tighter integration of compute and memory” will result in higher bandwidth with lower power. AMD will also target processing in memory. A slide shared at ISSCC showed a processor with an HBM module stacked on top. AMD says that if key algorithmic kernels can be executed in memory, that takes significant burden and latency out of the system.

Another big target for efficiency savings, and thus potential performance boosts, are chip I/O and communications. Specifically, using optical communications tightly integrated with the compute die is expected to provide a worthwhile efficiency boost.

AMD also took some time to boast about the AI performance gains which have been delivered by its processor portfolio over the last decade. The presentation discussed some use cases for AI computing and highlighted the potential performance gains AI can deliver for simulations.

Of course, AMD isn’t alone in looking at the benefits of advanced packaging, chiplets, die stacking, in-memory computing, optical computing, and AI acceleration. It is good, though, to see that it has solid plans for fierce competition with rivals, and to produce ever faster and more efficient chips for PC enthusiasts.

AMD published its financial results for the fourth quarter and full year of 2022. Due to strong demand for AMD's data center EPYC processors, the company posted an all-time record revenue for the full year. Meanwhile, sales of consumer CPUs and GPUs declined significantly in the fourth quarter, which clearly limited the company's growth in Q4.

Record Year, Not-So-Record Quarter

AMD's Q4 2022 revenue totaled $5.6 billion, up 16% year-over-year and flat with Q4 2022. Meanwhile, the company's net income collapsed to $21 million, 98% lower than in the same period a year ago. As for gross margin, it dropped to 43% from 50% in Q4 2021.

As for the full year 2022, AMD earned $23.601 billion, up a whopping 44% from $16.434 billion in 2021. This was the highest yearly result that AMD has ever posted, yet it could have been higher if demand for consumer processors and graphics cards had been stronger in the third and fourth quarters.  

"2022 was a strong year for AMD as we delivered best-in-class growth and record revenue despite the weak PC environment in the second half of the year," said AMD Chair and CEO Dr. Lisa Su. "We accelerated our data center momentum and closed our strategic acquisition of Xilinx, significantly diversifying our business and strengthening our financial model. Although the demand environment is mixed, we are confident in our ability to gain market share in 2023 and deliver long-term growth based on our differentiated product portfolio." 

Because of softening PC market, the year 2022 was somewhat of a mixed bag for AMD since demand for its products met expectations in the first half, but demand for consumer PC hardware dropped sharply in the second half, affecting the full-year results.

Data Center Hardware on the Rise, Consumer Hardware Sales Craters

Consumer CPUs and chipsets used to be AMD's bread and butter some five or six years ago, but that is no longer true. In Q4, the revenue of AMD's Client Computing Business dropped to $0.903 billion, or 51% year-over-year. The business unit lost $152 million, whereas in the same quarter a year before, it posted a $530 million profit.

Perhaps the most alarming detail about AMD's consumer CPU business is that in a quarter when the company introduced its brand-new Ryzen 7000-series processors, the average selling prices of its CPUs were flat year-over-year, suggesting tepid sales of the latest parts. 

When it comes to AMD's Gaming Business, there was a mixed bag again. On the one hand, the unit earned $1.6 billion in revenue (down 7% year-over-year) and $266 million in profits (down from $407 million in Q4 2021). But on the other hand, this strong result was achieved primarily because AMD managed to sell loads of system-on-chips for consoles, whereas the sales of its graphics processors for discrete desktop PC GPUs were down year-over-year.

Having earned $1.7 billion in revenue, an increase of 42% year-over-year, AMD's Datacenter Business was the main source of income for the company in Q4 2022, outstripping the Gaming and Embedded businesses. Despite lower margins (27% in Q4 2022 vs 32% in Q2 2022), the group's operating income totaled $444 million, up from $369 million in the same period a year before. 

As for AMD's Embedded Business — which mostly sells products designed by Xilinx and some chips designed by AMD — posted earnings of $1.4 billion and earned $699 million in profits, marking another bright spot in AMD's financial report.

Cautious Outlook for Q1, Lack of Outlook for Whole 2023

AMD expects its first-quarter revenue to be approximately $5.3 billion (±$300 million), a decline of about 10% YoY mainly because of lower consumer CPU and gaming GPU and SoCs sales. The company expects shipments of its data center solutions, such as EPYC CPUs and Pensando DPUs, FPGAs, and embedded products to continue increasing. 

Meanwhile, just like some other high-tech companies, AMD didn't provide an outlook for the whole year due to a lack of proper visibility for the second half of 2023. 

AMD CEO Lisa Su will take to the CES 2023 stage tonight in Las Vegas at 6:30 pm PT to fill us in on the company's newest products. AMD is largely expected to reveal a slew of new Ryzen 7000 processors, including the hotly-anticipated X3D models that use the radical new L3 cache stacking tech to deliver explosive gains in gaming performance. These chips are expected to help AMD retake the gaming crown from Intel's Raptor Lake processors. 

AMD is also expected to give us an update on several of its other technologies, like the rumored reveal of a new line of Dragon Range laptop processors, but anything goes in Vegas. Who knows, we might even hear about a new line of Ryzen Threadripper processors. 

Pull up a seat to see our live coverage as Lisa Su's keynote progresses. You can also follow along and watch the keynote video live here on YouTube. 

UPDATE: AMD has made several big announcements so far, which we've covered here: 

AMD Instinct MI300 Data Center APU Pictured Up Close: 13 Chiplets, 146 Billion Transistors

AMD Unveils Three Ryzen 7000X3D V-Cache Chips, Three New 65W Non-X CPUs, Too

AMD Brings Chiplets, Zen 4, RDNA 3 and XDNA AI to Laptops: 5nm Dragon Range and 4nm Phoenix Arrive

AMD Launches RX 7600M GPUs: Mobile RDNA 3 With RTX 3060 Performance

The show is still live, so check for updates below as well. 

AMD always draws a crowd -- there are currently over 5,000 people watching the livestream with 20 minutes to go before showtime. 

The show has begun, just a few minutes late, with a pre-recorded intro video. 

The head of the Consumer Technology Association, the group behind CES, Gary Shapiro, is making a short introductory speech to welcome AMD CEO Lisa Su to the stage. 

Lisa Su has taken to the stage after a short intro video that focused on the 'AMD, Together We Advance' branding. 

Su said she is ready to dive right into the new products that cover gaming, AI, sustainable computing, and other areas. 

Su is beginning with AI, which she says is the most important megatrend in tech, allowing us to make predictions about future outcomes. 

Lisa Su described the company's new XDNA architecture which encompasses the AI technology that the company purchased with Xilinx. AMD will use XDNA in its Ryzen Mobile 7040 series chips first. The new engine is called "Ryzen AI" and delivers up to 12 TFLOPS of performance. 

The 7040 processors, codenamed Phoenix, come with the Zen 4 CPU architecture and RDNA 3 graphics engine. It has 25 billion transistors. 

AMD presented benchmarks that show the 7040 series has a faster AI engine than the Apple M2 processors, and mentioned that Intel doesn't have an inbuilt AI engine to compare to. AMD also showed the Ryzen system being 35% faster than Apple and 45% faster than Intel's chips in Blender. 

Su says the 7040 series offers up to 40 hours of battery life. 

Su said that the company will need deep partnerships to develop the AI ecosystem. She invited Microsoft EVP Panos Panay to the stage to talk about the collaboration between the two companies. He complimented her jacket profusely, drawing laughter from the crowd and Lisa Su.  

Panoy discussed the partnership and other initiatives that AMD and Microsoft have worked on together, like bringing the Pluton security chip to AMD's processors. 

Panoy demoed some of the software that Microsoft has developed to use AMD's new Ryzen AI engine. That includes features in Microsoft Studio, like portrait blur, eye contact, and auto framing, all of which requires trillions of operations per second. These functions can run on the AI engine at milliwatts of power. This doesn't drain the battery while keeping the CPU and GPU free for more important work.

Lisa Su prompted Panos to tell us what the future of AI might look like. He says that AI will redefine what we do with Windows, but that it requires new compute capabilities and an operating system that blurs the line between the edge and the cloud. And with that, Panos took his leave from the stage. 

Su switched gears to talk about hybrid and remote work, with more than 80% of employees wanting to work from home, while more than half say that connectivity issues limit their work. AMD is working on making hybrid work 'frictionless.' Lisa Su called Enrique Lores, the CEO of HP, to the stage to talk about their efforts in this area. 

Yes, we're also ready for the talk to turn back to more new silicon. 

Lores says that 50% of the workforce will be freelancers in five years. Interesting.

HP announced its Dragonfly Pro laptop today, and it's powered by AMD and targeted for remote freelance workers. This laptop delivers 40% higher Passmark scores than Apple's M1, according to HP. 

Now Lisa Su is switching gears to gaming. Su says there are 3.2 billion gamers in the world, and most play on PCs and consoles. AMDs CPUs and GPUs power all sorts of gaming products, including handhelds, consoles, PCs, and even cars. 

Su introduced the new Ryzen 7450X CPUs, the first chiplet-based processors for laptops. They have up to 16 cores and 32 threads with the Zen 4 architecture and RDNA 2 graphics. These are basically Ryzen 7000 desktop CPUs crammed into a laptop form factor. 

The 79450HX offers up impressive gains over the previous-gen. 

AMD introduced the Radeon RX 7600M XT mobile laptop graphics. Up to 26% faster framerates than the competition, according to AMD. These come to market in February. 

Matt Zielinski from Lenovo came to the stage to talk about their partnership. 

Lenovo is unveiling its first Legion Pro Series laptops tomorrow with the 7045HX processors. He says it is the most powerful gaming laptop Lenovo has ever created. 

Lisa is moving on to desktop CPUs now! She's talking about the Ryzen 7000X3D processors. AMD is bringing 3D V-Cache to Ryzen 7000 processors. This tech stacks more L3 on top of the chip to boost gaming performance. 

The Ryzen 7 7700X3D delivers on average up to 15% more gaming performance than the 5800X3D. 

AMD is also bringing V-Cache to Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 9 processors, with the 16-core Ryzen 9 7950X3D coming with 16 cores and 32 threads. The Ryzen 9 7900X will have 12 cores and 24 threads. 

We now have an article on the site covering the 3D V-Cache chips. AMD is also launching the locked 65W Ryzen 7000 CPUs, three models, and low-cost budget motherboards. You can read about all of that here. 

Lisa Su is now talking about how computing can help to revolutionize health care and other fields through adaptive computing. 

Here are the details on the new Ryzen 7000 65W CPUs. These three new 65W Ryzen 7000 “non-X” models span the Ryzen 5 to Ryzen 9 families, thus providing a new lower level of entry to the AM5 platform to address some of the pricing issues associated with the company’s new AM5 platform. These chips will arrive January 10.

Lisa Su pivoted to the metaverse now, bringing Magic Leap CEO Peggy Johnson to the stage. AMD's chips power the Magic Leap devices. Though Magic Leap never lived up to the hype, it is now used in several scenarios, like surgery. 

Magic Leap 2 uses a custom processor from AMD paired with some of the company's own IP, thus creating the most advanced augmented reality system in the industry, at least according to Magic Leap. 

Former NASA astronaut Dr. Cady Coleman has come to the stage to talk about AMD's efforts in space, largely through its Xilinx arm. In the meantime, here's something about chips:

Here is some more info on the AMD mobile chips. 

Here's a die shot of the Ryzen 9 7950X3D. We took this pic during a briefing earlier today.  

Here are even more chips we pictured earlier today. I wrote labels for the chips you might not recognize. 

AMD is back on track, talking about its datacenter CPUs.

AMD launched its fourth-gen EPYC Genoa CPUs last November, which we reviewed here. Su touted its 300 world records and amazing power efficiency. 

Lisa Su says that 5 AMD servers can replace 15 Intel servers, thus saving incredible amounts of power. There are over 15 million servers worldwide. If they were all EPYC, they would save 52 billion k/Wh of power, and 26 million tons of C02. 

Su is announcing the company's new Alveo V70 inference accelerator. This is a Xilinx product. 

Lisa Su talked about how AMD now powers the fastest supercomputers in the world. AMD has now developed the first chip with both CPU and GPU and memory all into a single chip, the MI300. This has the CDNA3 architecture paired with 24 Zen 4 cores, all paired with 128GB of HBM3 memory. AMD is using 3D stacking to connect multiple GPU and CPU die together. 

Su showed us the chip, it's a beast! I held this chip earlier today and have other pics. This has 146 billion transistors. 

MI300 can reduce the time it takes to train the largest models, like ChatGPT, from months to weeks. This chip will launch in the second half of 2023. 

Lisa Su thanked the audience and closed the show. 

That's all, folks! Be sure to check out our writeups above. 

Nvidia may have fired the first salvo in the latest next-generation GPU battle with the RTX 4090. But the card's impressive performance aside, things haven't gone particularly smoothly, with melting power adapters and the "unlaunching" of the 12GB RTX 4080. Now it's time for AMD's return volley, in the form of its RDNA 3 architecture and Radeon 7000 cards which will vie for a slot in your next PC, as well as placement on our Best Graphics Cards page. 

PowerColor gave us a tease yesterday, with its Tweet of a glowing Red Devil logo, surrounded by what is likely an angular backplate. But at AMD's "together we advance_gaming" event in Las Vas Vegas, which will be live-streamed on YouTube, the company is set to announce its next generation of graphics cards, promising "new levels of performance, efficiency and functionality to gamers and creators."

Our team is on the ground at the event, as well as following along back at the office with a mechanical keyboard and a comfy 4K display. Stay tuned as we find out what AMD has in store and how competitive its new cards will be as it faces stiff headwinds from rising production costs, Intel's own Arc lineup, and Nvidia's advancements, like DLSS3 and third-generation ray tracing hardware. Time will tell where Radeon 7000 lands on our GPU hierarchy. But after years of extremely high prices and hard-to-find hardware, it's exciting just to know we'll soon have new (and hopefully more affordable) gaming hardware to run our favorite games.

AMD's event is set to start at 1 p.m. PT / 4 p.m. ET, so keep it locked here for the latest updates.

Lisa Su takes the stage, welcomes everyone, and we're off and running. Seems AMD is, as always, quite busy.


"We're in the midst of introducing actually four new architectures to the market across more than a dozen products… We started with the Ryzen 7000 launch in September… Next week, we're going to bring Zen  to high-end server processors. And then soon after that to notebook PCs. And we also have our Zen 4 core optimized for Cloud Native Computing and our next-gen DNA architecture that we're going to launch in 2023. But of course, today, it's all about gaming."

"When you look through 2025, we're expecting 3.5 billion gamers in the world."

There's a lot to aim for when your customer base is half of the planet. 

Talking about chiplets, and this is the first chiplet-based gaming GPU. Like with Ryzen 7000, this offers a modular approach. Graphics compute die is 5nm, containing "all of the high performance compute in the GPU." Sharder, display engine, and a new media engine. The other die is memory cache, built on a 6nm process. This includes the memory subsystem's GDDR6 controllers and up to 96 megabytes of infinity cache.

"As a result, we have just incredible capability with more than 61 teraflops of compute… We also have the world's best chiplet interconnect to enable 5.3 terabytes per second of peak bandwidth."

24GB of GDDR6. "When you put that together, we have 58 billion transistors in this design, which gives us just an incredible amount of gaming performance." 

54% gen over gen improvement in performance per watt.

Radeon RX 7900 XTX with 24GB and 7900 with 20GB officially announced. Hopefully, they won't have to unlaunch one of those. 

Going a bit deeper into the RDNA 3 compute die. New display engine and dual media engine. 165% more transistors per square mm.

"We've used 5nm to the fullest."

Dual issue SIMD units and a 2.7x increase in AI performance.

50% more performance per compute unit.

Displayport 2.1! You know they like sticking that to Nvidia. Up to 165 Hz at 8K. Jarred needs a new monitor. 

Scott Herkelman talks performance. RTX 7900 XTX is up to 1.7 times faster than previous flagship. 355W, 2.3GHz clock, and it doesn't look TOO big. 

7900XT, 84 CUs, 2GHz clock and 20GB of DDR6. "There's no need for a new power adapter. We made it as easy as pulling out your old card and putting in a new one."

Scott is of course calling out DisplayPort 2.1 and other things aimed at making Nvdia look bad. Teased a Samsung 8K monitor, which we should see at CES early next year. 

DirectX ray tracing coming to Halo Infinite. DXR coming with season 3.

Talking games now, which of course all looks great here. But time and testing will tell how things look and run compared to the competition. 

FSR3, to of course compete with DLSS3. I sense Jarred will be busy testing and comparing soon. As always, so much depends on how widespread these features are and, superficially, if they're offered on the games you want to play.

Frank Azor takes the state to talk more about software and the overall experience. AMD Adrenalin is "your hub for just about everything."

AMD HYPR-RX mode to combine AMD's software features to provide a simple, one-click experience so you can just sit down and get in the game. Coming early next year.

RDNA 3 Media engine promises up to 7x speed improvements. Another interesting thing to test. 

AMD Advantage desktops. A new way for AMD to push their key components together. 

Scott is back. Seems like we are about to find out pricing and availability.

December 13th, 2022 for both cards.
$899 for the XT and $999 for the XTX. Depending on how the cards compare to the 4080 and 4090, Nvidia may have to rethink pricing. 

For all those who haven't jumped on an RTX 4090 yet, these cards at the very least will give gamers something to think about. No need for a brand-new PSU or a four-pin adapter with possible electrical connector issues, and these cards look like they'll fit in a lot more cases. If the 7900 cards are at all competitive and, at least as importantly, if they stay at those prices and there is enough stock, these cards will likely sell well.

But as much as I like the below-$1,000 prices, both AMD and Nvidia are (for now at least), only catering to the extreme high end of the market. I hope to see some new and more reasonably affordable cards by the time CES comes around again early next year.

Hey, I can dream. 

AMD on Tuesday revealed its financial results for the third quarter of 2022. The company's revenue totaled $5.6 billion primarily because of weak sales of AMD's CPUs and GPUs for the client segment. Meanwhile, sales of AMD's data center products set another record as demand for EPYC CPUs, Pensando DPUs, as well as Xilinx field programmable gate array products remained strong.

"Third quarter results came in below our expectations due to the softening PC market and substantial inventory reduction actions across the PC supply chain," said Dr. Lisa Su, the head of AMD. "Despite the challenging macro environment, we grew revenue 29% year-over-year driven by increased sales of our data center, embedded and game console products. We are confident that our leadership product portfolio, strong balance sheet, and ongoing growth opportunities in our data center and embedded businesses position us well to navigate the current market dynamics."

Strong Data Center and Gaming Revenue

AMD's Q3 2022 revenue reached $5.565 billion, up 29% year-over-year but down $985 million compared to the previous quarter. The company's gross margin dropped to 42%, down from 48% in the same quarter a year ago. As for net income, it cratered to $66 million from $923 million in Q3 2022, whereas the company's earnings per share declined to $0.04, down from $0.75 a year ago. AMD stressed that its profitability decreased due to the amortization of Xilinx acquisition-related intangible assets and increased R&D investments, partially offset by a $135 million tax benefit in the quarter.

Demand for client processors and chipsets got significantly lower in the third quarter, which is why AMD's Client Computing revenue fell to $1.022 billion in Q3 2022, or a whopping 40% year-over-year. In addition, the company's client business unit lost $26 million during the quarter as the company's clients were trying to clear out inventory. Therefore AMD needed to offer specific incentives to sell products sitting in the company's stock.

AMD's Gaming business — which includes client GPUs and console system-on-chips — continued to demonstrate mixed results during the quarter. The business unit earned $1,631 billion during the third quarter, up 14% year-over-year. But AMD's Gaming BU thrived not because demand for its Radeon RX 6000-series graphics processors was particularly strong but because Microsoft and Sony prepared for the holiday season and bought a boatload of system-on-chips for their Xbox and PlayStation game consoles in Q3 2022.

AMD's Datacenter business unit has been the company's main success story in recent years. The third quarter was not an exception; the BU's sales totaled $1,609 billion, up 45% year-over-year, whereas its operating income topped $505 billion, a 64% YoY increase. It is particularly important that while AMD began shipments of its next-generation EPYC 'Genoa' processors to select customers in Q3, those volumes were barely significant. The company said that its Datacenter business unit was supply constrained during the quarter and that in Q4 2022, those constraints will be less severe, allowing the company to grab some additional market share from its arch-rival Intel.

AMD's Embedded business, which sells products developed by AMD and various solutions designed by Xilinx, earned $1.3 billion, up 1,549% year-over-year since in Q3 2021, AMD's Embedded BU only sold the company's CPUs and GPUs, which are not particularly popular.

Cautious Outlook

Although AMD is optimistic about the performance of its data center and embedded businesses in the fourth quarter, it does not expect much from Q4 2022. First, the fundamental weakness of the client PC market will hardly let the company sell loads of its client CPUs. Meanwhile, sales of console SoCs will be down sequentially. Higher sales will unlikely offset them if AMD's discrete graphics processors as the company typically ramp up its GPUs very slowly.

For Q4 of 2022, AMD expects revenue to be approximately $5.5 billion ± $300 million, an increase of around 14% YoY and flat sequentially. For the full year 2022, AMD projects revenue to be approximately $23.5 billion ± $300 million, an increase of about 43% over the previous year, primarily driven by the success of AMD's data center and embedded products.

Lisa Su, AMD's chief executive, and other company C-level execs plan to visit Taiwan in late September – early November to discuss collaboration with local partners. Among the companies, AMD's management intends to meet are Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., chip packaging specialists, and big PC makers.

Lisa Su plans to discuss future collaboration with TSMC's chief executive CC Wei during her visit. Among the topics is the usage of TSMC's 'N3 Plus' fabrication node (probably N3P) and N2 (2nm-class) manufacturing technology, reports DigiTimes citing sources with knowledge of the matter. In addition, the two companies' chief executives will discuss plans for upcoming orders, which include technologies that are either available or set to become available in the short-term future.

AMD's impressive success in recent years is enabled mainly by TSMC's ability to produce chips in high volume using its highly competitive process technologies. To continue its spree of screaming success, AMD must ensure sufficient allocation at TSMC and early access to the foundry's latest process design kits (PDK). TSMC will start volume production of chips on its N2 node sometime in the second half of 2025, so it is about time for AMD to start talking about the usage of N2 for its 2026 products and beyond.

In addition to advanced TSMC's semiconductor manufacturing technologies, AMD's future success will depend on advanced chip packaging technologies as the company (like other designers of chips) will extensively use multi-chiplet chip packaging technologies.

So, AMD's Lisa Su will also discuss collaboration with TSMC, Ase Technology, and SPIL on the advanced packaging front. At present, AMD already uses TSMC's 3D SoIC (system on integrated chips) platform, such as CoWoS (chip on wafer on the substrate) packaging technology, as well as Ase's fan-out embedded bridge (FO-EB) packaging method for some of its products, according to DigiTimes. However, in the future, usage of innovative packaging will only increase, which is why AMD needs to negotiate allocation and prices well in advance.

In addition to longer-term plans, AMD's C-level executives will discuss more down-to-earth things like supplies of sophisticated printed circuit boards (PCBs) used for its CPUs (which is one of the factors that restrains AMD server CPU shipments) as well as provisions of Ajinomoto build-up films (ABF) for these PCBs with partners like Unimicron Technology, Nan Ya PCB and Kinsus Interconnect Technology.

Finally, AMD's executives will meet with Asus and Acer, two large PC makers from Taiwan with close ties with the American chip designers, and ASMedia, which develops chipsets for the red company.

AMD CEO Lisa Su and a host of other executives will take to the stage tonight at 7 PM ET to announce the Zen 4 family of Ryzen 7000 processors during the company's "together we advance_PCs" livestream. These new chips bring several big advancements, including support for DDR5 memory and the PCIe 5.0 interface, not to mention blisteringly-high clock speeds that are rumored to top out at 5.7 GHz. In addition, AMD has also added integrated graphics to its mainstream Ryzen lineup for the first time.

We expect AMD to make several key announcements, including pricing, availability, and the full specifications of the Ryzen 7000 lineup, along with other new details about the new Socket AM5 motherboard ecosystem. We added updates as the show progressed, but you can also watch the video yourself in the embed above.

You can also see our other coverage with the full lineup and details in the AMD Launches Zen 4 Ryzen 7000 CPUs article. 

• $699 Ryzen 9 7950X, 16 cores, 32 threads, 4.5 / 5.7 GHz base/boost
• $549 Ryzen 9 7900X, 12 cores, 24 threads, 4.7 / 5.6 GHz base/boost
• $399 Ryzen 7 7700X, 8 cores, 16 threads, 4.5 / 5.4 GHz base/boost
• $299 Ryzen 5 7600X, 6 cores, 12 threads, 4.7 / 5.3 GHz base/boost

AMD CEO Lisa Su began the show by describing how the company touches billions of users' lives every day. That will continue with four new architectures that the company will launch over the next several quarters. That includes Zen 4, Zen 4C, RDNA3, and its XDNA architecture. 

Lisa Su outlined the company's goals for its Ryzen 7000 processors, including support for PCIe 5.0 and DDR5 memory. AMD exceeded its goals for the Zen 4 core, so the company is revising its initial projection of up to 10% IPC improvement to 13%. 

AMD has also increased peak clock speeds to 5.7 GHz, an 800 MHz improvement over the prior generation processors. 

Lisa Su says the Ryzen 9 79750X is the fastest gaming CPU in the world and that it delivers up to 60% more compute performance. 

Lisa Su demoed the Ryzen 9 7950X running the vray rendering benchmark 62% faster than Intel's flagship Core i9-12900K, but at 47% better performance per watt. 

Su also announced three other processors: the Ryzen 9 7900X, Ryzen 7 7700X, and the Ryzen 5 7600X.

AMD says the Ryzen 5 7600X delivers up to 5% more gaming performance than the Core i9-12900K. Here we can also see the full lineup of Ryzen 7000 processors. 

AMD CTO Mark Papermaster has taken to the stage. 

Papermaster outlined several new improvements, including 13% IPC increase, new front-end design, support for AVX-512, and the 5nm process node. 

AMD tuned the Zen 4 architecture to expose the higher frequencies available with the TSMC 5nm process node. AMD also worked with TSMC to develop a semi-custom N5 process node that delivers enhanced performance. 

AMD measured the 13% IPC improvement with a wide range of workloads, including gaming. Naturally, the IPC improvement varies by workload, but it measures at 13% overall. 

Zen 4 is an iterative improvement over Zen 3. AMD widened the front end and improved branch prediction, delivering up to 60% of the IPC gain. AMD also doubled the L2 cache and the op-caches. 

AMD added support for AVX-512, but made special accommodations to prevent this from resulting in reduced frequencies. To combat that problem, AMD uses a 'double-pumped' AVX-256 implementation. 

AMD worked closely with TSMC to tune its architecture for the TSMC 5nm node. The result is an N5 node that has several advantages, including a more robust 15-layer metal stack. 

AMD also reduced the die area despite these enhancements. 

AMD touted 62% lower power consumption gen-over-gen and 49% more performance at the same power. 

AMD has improved performance and power efficiency significantly. The N5 process delivers even larger performance gains with the lower-power 65W models.

The AMD Zen 4 core is 54% smaller than Intel's Alder Lake chips. It is also 47% more efficient. 

AMD will bring its 3D V-Cache models to market later this year. The company also has its stripped-down Zen 4c core coming to market for data centers early next year.

Zen 5 is a new ground-up redesign; it will arrive in 2024.  

AMD says Zen 4 remains on schedule and proves the company can execute to schedule. Papermaster says there will be no letup in AMD's cadence of innovation. 

AMD's David McAfee has come to the stage. He's here to talk about the AM5 platform, but started by recapping the successes of the AM4 ecosystem. 

AM4 has supported five CPU architectures across four nodes. Overall, it has supported 125 processors and 500 had different motherboard designs. 

The AM5 platform takes over with its 1718-pin LGA socket. AMD has increased power delivery to 230W to deliver improved performance in threaded applications. It also supports PCIe 5.0 and DDR5. 

The X-series motherboards arrive in September, while the value-centric B-series boards arrive in October. AMD also announced new B650 Extreme motherboards that have more PCIe 5.0 connectivity than the standard B650 models. 

PCIe 5.0 SSDs will come to market in October. 

AMD is moving to DDR5 with AM5, and it will no longer support DDR4. AMD feels that the higher performance and capacity are worth the upgrade. 

EXPO DDR5 modules have new profiles that enable one-click overclocking. This is much like XMP. There will be 15 kits available at launch. Speeds top out at DDR5-6400. 

Motherboards will start at $125. AMD will support the AM5 platform through at least 2025. That means it will be long-lived like AM4. 

Lisa Su is back on stage, giving an overview of the performance claims. But there's more...

Lisa shared pricing for the Ryzen 7000 processors, ranging from $699 to $299. The chips are available on September 27. 

Lisa Su teased a GPU with the RDNA 3 architecture. The GPU has 5nm chiplets and delivers 50% more performance per watt than the existing Radeon GPUs.

Su showed a demo of the RDNA 3 GPU running with a Ryzen 9 7950X. There are no performance metrics, but the demo shows the GPU running the highly anticipated title Lies of P from Neowiz.

Lisa Su wrapped up the livestream and thanked the audience. 

An AMD Ryzen 7 7700X is the latest CPU benchmarked in Cinebench R20 by Chinese leaker Extreme Player. The upcoming Ryzen 7000 chip appears to perform 23% better than the Ryzen 7 5800X in the 1T test, and 32% faster in the multithreaded test. 

Note that this is an unverified leak, and the tester admits the Ryzen chip is an Engineering Sample (which seems correct based on the CPU image), so things could get better by launch/availability. 

The alleged 7700X (codename: Raphael) chip will feature AMD's latest Zen 4 cores and be manufactured on TSMC's N5 process, in 8C /16T configuration. In the video, Extreme Player helps put some of the benefits of the Ryzen 7000 chip’s new technologies into comparable performance data.

Here's how the alleged 7700X Cinebench R20 scores stand up against other chips that have been put through Extreme Player's lab (and a 5800X from Anandtech), from Twitter user Harukaze :

*Based on Tom's Hardware testing 

In the above tabulated results we've included a Cores / Threads column to help clarify what's behind the great nT test scores from Intel CPUs. 

A screenshot of the Cinebench R20 results tab in Extreme Player's video shows that the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X ran all eight SMT cores at 4.5 GHz during the benchmarking session.

AMD has scheduled its Together We Advance_PCs event for Monday, August 29. At this event, AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su and CTO Mark Papermaster will discuss the Ryzen 7000 series and "present details on the latest Zen 4 architecture."  

Based on a product library slip earlier this summer, we expect the launch lineup will consist of the Ryzen 9 7950X, Ryzen 9 7900X, Ryzen 7 7700X, and Ryzen 5 7600X.

In the meantime, check out everything we know about AMD's upcoming Ryzen 7000 processors — benchmarks, price listings, and more. 

AMD has officially named the date for the launch of its next-generation Ryzen 7000 processors in a press release published today. AMD will detail the highly anticipated Ryzen 7000 series processors at the event starting 7pm ET on Monday, August 29. AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su and CTO Mark Papermaster will present the live-streamed event and be joined by several other AMD executives.

The upcoming event has been dubbed “together we advance_PCs” by AMD’s marketing department. AMD has used the “together we advance_” theme since early summer, and you might have seen _automotive, _AI, _data centers, _entertainment, _supercomputers, and _gaming suffixes during other recent PR blitzes.

Though we refer to the next-gen Ryzen processors as ‘Ryzen 7000 processors’, interestingly, AMD doesn’t use this naming scheme anywhere in its press release. Rather it says that the AMD executive team “will present details on the latest ‘Zen 4’ architecture.” That doesn’t mean AMD will surprise us with a new naming convention, though, as it has previously shared stacks of slides mentioning that the “Ryzen 7000 Series” would come this Fall.

AMD didn't give away a lot in its event announcement; it is short and highlights only a couple of technical advances that will turn up alongside the first Zen 4 processors. Specifically, it mentions the Zen 4 architecture, AM5 socket, DDR5, and PCIe 5.

We already enjoyed an extensive official AMD AM5 motherboard event, where all the important partners revealed considerable detail about their upcoming X670 and X670E motherboards. So please follow that link for a hefty slice of motherboard tech coverage with specifics from AMD partners like Asus, Gigabyte, and MSI.

For all we know about AMD’s upcoming Ryzen 7000 Series processors – a mix of official info, leaks, and spills – you should head over to our frequently updated AMD Zen 4 Ryzen 7000 Specs, Release Date, Benchmarks, and More feature. We have all sorts of information about the Ryzen 7000 series processors there, including a table of expected SKUs pitted against Intel’s upcoming Raptor Lake CPUs.

Purported pricing has also recently emerged via a Canadian retailer. PC components are often very price sensitive due to fierce competition unless something distorts the market (e.g., cryptomining), so pricing will be key. 

You can watch AMD’s “together we advance_PCs” event live on the AMD YouTube channel. In addition, a replay of the livestream will be made available a few hours after the event concludes at both AMD.com/Ryzen and on YouTube.

Hardware blogger YuuKi_AnS has published a picture of AMD's 96-core EPYC 9000-series processor marked with an actual model number rather than an 'engineering sample' label. The image may indicate that AMD has begun shipping at least some of its next-generation EPYC processors codenamed Genoa to partners, which means that their formal launch is looming.

The processor in question is AMD's EPYC 9654, featuring 96 cores, based on the Zen 4 microarchitecture, and carrying 384MB of L3 cache, as some previous leaks indicate (albeit they cover the model 9654P). But the key thing about the picture is that the CPU on its SP5 carrier frame sits on a tray pallet. Vendors usually utilize tray pallets to ship chips in volumes. By contrast, engineering samples arrive in special boxes, yet the case of EPYCs is still on a carrier frame.

AMD yet has to confirm that it had initiated commercial shipments of its EPYC 9000-series processors with Zen 4 cores to partners, but a tray pallet may be an indicator that at least some of AMD's partners are getting the new CPUs in volumes. Moreover, it makes Yuuki_AnS think that these CPUs might formally debut along with AMD's upcoming Ryzen 7000 processors based on the same microarchitecture this September.

While we do not know AMD's plans, we that the company would steal the thunder of a 96-core server part by formally unveiling it alongside its desktop part with up to 16 cores for gamers and enthusiasts.

These EPYC 9654 CPUs shipping on tray pallets might be of production quality and manufactured in volume. Still, AMD may not be inclined to reveal them before its partners among server makers are ready with actual machines. Meanwhile, some operators of hyperscale datacenters may still deploy new 96-core EPYCs ahead of other companies as they always want to take advantage of the latest and greatest technology.

While formally AMD's next-generation EPYC will land in the second half of 2022, at the most recent conference call with analysts and investors, AMD's chief executive Lisa Su indicated that these parts would ramp in Q4, which makes their formal introduction in September a bit premature.

"We see Genoa coming in towards the end of the year [and] into 2023," said the head of AMD (via SeekingAlpha). […] "We expect to ramp production [of Genoa] in the fourth quarter and then into the first half of next year.

Prominent tech players AMD, Intel and Nvidia have been slowing the pace of new hires as a cost-cutting measure that'll allow them to better weather the ongoing economic downturn. According to Planet3DNow!, who scoured open hiring positions available on all three players' websites, there's been a reduction in available positions at all three companies. This signals that they are trying not to increase their operating expenses in such a cloudy economic environment.

AMD's hiring reduction is easily the least significant, likely reflecting the company's stellar Q2 results, which led to a 70% increase in revenue and locked approximately $447 million in profits. This is a company whose execution (since being helmed by Lisa Su) has placed it on a clearly upwards trajectory. And with such strong results, it's not surprising that the company is focusing on capturing additional talent that will help it deliver in the coming years. 

The company's 4% reduction in open hire positions in the last week could simply mean that AMD filled some of the previously available ones. But, at the same time, AMD is now in the top spot for open positions, beating both Intel and Nvidia with its 2,701 work offers.

Out of all three, Nvidia's slowdown is the most significant: the company's available positions have been reduced by 68% since May 7th, with 18% of that contraction happening in the last week alone. This led the company's open positions to fall from a high of 3,555 just four months ago down to just 1,114 at the time of writing - less than two-thirds of its high.

The company already confirmed a slowdown in hiring back in May. However, being a multibillion-dollar company, Nvidia didn't want to place itself in what could be seen as a vulnerable position by investors. The company claimed it was simply allowing more time to "better onboard thousands of recent hires."

Those hires may take a bit longer to acclimate than expected.

As for Intel, the company's hiring slowdown is even more conspicuous. In addition, the company recently delivered an eye-opening $500 million loss for Q2, almost mirroring AMD's earnings. This prompted CEO Pat Gelsinger to admit to the company's execution flaws with the promise of future improvements.

Likely related, Intel's open positions decline too is significant; the company went from having almost double AMD's job offers in May (6,092 vs 3,439) to having 168 fewer (2,533 vs 2,701) at the time of writing. But there's a slight caveat to Intel's slowdown in hiring: it seems the company is more focused on acquisitions as of late, and that's where it might actually be redirecting its capital. 

And let's not forget the billions of dollars the company has committed to a series of new manufacturing facilities across the U.S. and Europe. It remains to be seen how - and if - Intel's open positions reduction will impact its factory expansions. However, one thing is sure: semiconductor manufacturers have been fighting for qualified workers for a while now.

It's almost certain that all three companies are shifting their hiring strategy towards retaining the talent they already have rather than onboarding new employees. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is primarily responsible for today's economic downturn, but tensions are high - and climbing higher - elsewhere. Taiwan, home to the world's leading semiconductor foundries thanks to TSMC, is in a seemingly precarious position with China. A Chinese missile and scores of military airplanes (numbering 22) violating Taiwanese airspace after U.S. House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit do little to assuage worldwide fears of conflict. Uncertainty breeds turmoil in the economy, and companies have to ensure they have sufficient capital to weather further economic spiraling. 

During the company's second-quarter 2022 earnings call, AMD CEO Lisa Su announced that the company's 5nm Ryzen 7000 processors, the first Zen 4 models to come to market, will arrive later this quarter. Su also announced that the company would launch its high-end RDNA 3 Navi 3X GPUs later this year and confirmed that its 5nm EPYC Genoa server chips are on track to ramp up this year.

AMD's results stand in stark contrast to Intel's recent earnings report. Intel reported that it had lost $500 million in the quarter — its first quarterly loss in decades — and announced that it had delayed the volume ramp for the Xeon Sapphire Rapids processors into next year, yet another devastating miss. Intel also announced that it is winding down its products based on Optane technology.

In contrast, AMD seems to be firing on all cylinders as it prepares to launch its Ryzen 7000 CPUs, RDNA 3 GPUs, and EPYC Genoa data center processors on schedule.

"Looking ahead, we're on track to launch our all-new 5nm Ryzen 7000 desktop processors and AM5 platforms later this quarter with leadership performance in gaming and content creation," Su said.

This means we could see AMD launch its Ryzen 7000 chips slightly ahead of its original prediction of a launch in the Fall. For the US, Fall begins on September 22 and ends on December 22, and an increasing number of reports indicate that Ryzen 7000 will purportedly launch on September 15. The chips certainly appear poised to compete with Intel's Raptor Lake, as evidenced by a Ryzen 7000 demo today. 

AMD's near-term sales outlook for its gaming GPUs is a bit cloudy, an understandable condition given the devastation in the crypto market and the resulting supply glut. But Su sees a silver lining, "While we expect the gaming graphics market to be down in the third quarter, we remain focused on executing our GPU roadmap, including launching our high-end RDNA 3 GPU later this year." This indicates the company is on-track with its GPU roadmap and will deliver Navi 3X on time.  

AMD's disclosures come during yet another incredible quarterly earnings report, with the company earning $6.6 billion, up 70% year-over-year, among many notable other accomplishments in the quarter. 

AMD CEO Lisa Su’s Zen 4 teaser of the Ryzen 7000 processors at Computex 2022 was impressive, but the news that the processors would feature ‘only’ a >15% improvement in single-threaded performance left some enthusiasts feeling a bit underwhelmed. During today’s Financial Analyst Day 2022, AMD clarified that it is targeting an 8 to 10% increase in IPC for the Zen 4 processors and that the company is targeting larger gains in single-threaded performance in some types of workloads.

AMD also clarified that Zen 4 processors would have >25% performance-per-watt and >35% overall performance improvements. The company says the Zen 4 chips will also have significant clock frequency improvements, which isn’t surprising given that it has already demoed a Ryzen 7000 processor running at 5.5 GHz on all cores (albeit not with all cores under load). Zen 4 will also have up to a 25% increase in memory bandwidth per core. AMD also made several other announcements today, which you can find listed at the end of the article.

AMD’s Zen 4 disclosures today help clarify the company’s performance targets after the initial reveal. AMD’s original projections of a >15% improvement in single-threaded work led to some consternation because single-threaded performance comes as a combination of both frequency and the all-important IPC (instruction per cycle) throughput, and the relatively low single-threaded performance threshold didn’t seem to leave much room for IPC improvement. However, AMD’s clarification that the IPC gain will range from 8 to 10%, dependent upon workload, is a bit more encouraging.

Whip in the company’s claims of significant frequency improvements for the 5nm Zen 4 processors, and we should see much larger gains than the baseline 15% gain in single-threaded performance in some types of workloads — remember, >15% is a “greater than” value.

AMD also shared a slide showing a greater than 25% performance-per-watt and greater than 35% gain in overall performance in a multi-threaded Cinebench benchmark. This benchmark used a 16-core 32-thread Ryzen 7000 desktop PC processor against the 16-core Zen 3 Ryzen 9 5950X. The slide is a bit misleading as it uses a non-zero axis that amplifies the gain, so keep that in mind. 

The Zen 4 processors will also support up to 25% more memory bandwidth per core, a marked increase that comes from both the step up to DDR5 and likely from widened pathways in the chip to deliver additional bandwidth to the cores. That will provide quite the uplift for the bandwidth-hungry AVX-512 extensions that AMD added for Zen 4. AMD isn’t sharing any new architectural details yet, so we’ll have to wait to learn more. Here's the rest of our coverage from today:

• AMD CPU Core Roadmap, 3nm Zen 5 by 2024, 4th-Gen Infinity Architecture
• AMD GPU Roadmap: RDNA 3 With 5nm GPU Chiplets Coming This Year
• AMD CDNA 3 Roadmap: MI300 APU With 5X Performance/Watt
• AMD’s Data Center Roadmap: EPYC Genoa-X, Siena, and Turin
• AMD Laptop, Desktop Roadmap: Zen 5 Strix Point, Granite Ridge in 2024

AMD CEO Lisa Su revealed more details about the upcoming Ryzen 7000 series processors and the 600-series motherboards, both of which will arrive in Fall 2022, today during the company's Computex 2022 keynote address. AMD demoed a 16-core Ryzen 7000 processor hitting an amazing 5.5 GHz during a gaming demo, and also completing a Blender render in 31% less time than Intel's flagship Core i9-12900K. As expected, we also learned plenty of new details about the 5nm Zen 4 Ryzen 7000 'Raphael' processors and the new wave of motherboards with the AM5 socket. 

The quick snap is that AMD claims the Ryzen 7000 processors will have >15% more single-threaded performance than their Zen 3 predecessors (not IPC), up to a 5GHz+ maximum boost frequency, come with integrated RDNA 2 graphics (a first), and will support only DDR5 memory. In addition, the chips have 5nm CPU chiplets for the cores, a 6nm I/O die, and twice the L2 cache (1MB) per core.

AMD splits the 600-series chipsets into a new X670E (Extreme) upper-tier in addition to the standard X670 and B650 swim lanes. The X670E motherboard will come with full support for PCIe 5.0, while the X670 and B650 will have varying levels of support for PCIe 5.0 or 4.0 (details below). AMD also revealed that the AM5 socket would support up to 170W of peak power, which will be helpful for high core-count models. The RDNA 2 engine also supports up to four display outputs, including HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 2 interfaces. 

Let's dive into the full details. (We've also embedded the keynote at the end of the article.) 

AMD 5nm Zen 4 'Raphael' Ryzen 7000 CPUs

The biggest news for the 5nm Zen 4 chips comes as a 15% or better improvement in single-threaded performance over the previous-gen Zen 3-powered Ryzen 5000 processors. AMD tells us that this comes as a mixture of instruction per cycle (IPC) and frequency improvements, but won't share the specific percentage each factor contributes until later. AMD says the chips will reach 'significantly above' a 5 GHz peak frequency and even demoed a 16-core model hitting 5.5 GHz. However, that comes with the standard caveat that this frequency only applies to a single core during a light bursty workload, just as we've seen with Zen 2 and Zen 3 processors.

That means the 15%+ figure isn't based solely on IPC improvements, but improved single-thread performance does boost performance across the board as it is amplified as workloads spread across the cores. To that effect, AMD also boosted the maximum power delivery of the AM5 socket (PPT) that will house the Ryzen 7000 chips to 170W, a 28W increase over the previous-gen AM4 socket's 142W peak. If AMD sticks to its standard use of PPT x 1.35x = TDP, that means we'll see AM5 socket chips top out at a 125W TDP. We'll dive into performance comparisons a bit further below, but it looks like we'll see a closer-than-expected race between Ryzen 7000 and Intel's Alder and Raptor Lake chips.

The Ryzen 7000 processors come with expanded instructions for AI acceleration, but AMD isn't sharing details yet. However, we know from the Gigabyte hack that Zen 4 supports AVX-512 instructions, so these are likely the unnamed instructions. If so, that oddly places Intel's chips at a disadvantage as they have disabled AVX-512 functionality due to the hybrid architecture.

AMD has also doubled the L2 cache per core to 1MB for Zen 4, giving the execution cores a heftier slab of near memory for workloads. However, with Intel's chips, we've seen larger L2 caches primarily benefit data center workloads. Larger L2 caches generally reduce L3 cache accesses (theoretically by ~40% in this case), which reduces contention on the fabric, thus enabling better scalability and performance in all-core workloads — as opposed to enabling big boosts to single-threaded work. This is to say there's a chance Zen 4's increased L2 capacity will pay off more handsomely for the EPYC Genoa server chips than it will for most desktop PC applications. 

Here we can see both a block diagram of the chip and a close-up of a bare Ryzen 7000 chip from the keynote. The chip houses two 5nm core chiplets, each sporting eight cores. AMD says these are based on an optimized version of TSMC's high-performance 5nm process technology, likely referring to N5, and they are placed much closer together than we've seen with previous Ryzen core chiplets. In addition, the actual pics show what appears to be a shim between the two core chiplets, which is likely to maintain an even surface atop the two dies. It is also possible that this close orientation is due to some type of advanced packaging interconnect between the two chips (CoWoS-R?), but that seems unlikely. AMD has surprised us before, though — time will tell.

The all-new I/O die comes with the 6nm process and houses the PCIe 5.0 and DDR5 memory controllers along with a much-needed addition for AMD — the RDNA 2 graphics engine. The new 6nm I/O die also has a low-power architecture based on features pulled in from AMD's Ryzen 6000 chips, so it has enhanced low power management features and an expanded palette of low-power states.

The Ryzen 7000 chips support up to 24 lanes of the PCIe 5.0 interface directly from the socket, and although the company hasn't divulged memory frequencies, the test notes include a benchmark with the 16-core chip running DDR5-6000 CL30. It's unclear if those are stock frequencies or XMP/overclock values (AMD tends to use XMP profiles for its benchmarks). AMD recently touted that it expects to have exceptional DDR5 overclockability, making the memory controllers sound impressive from afar. A newly-filed patent also points to a possible upcoming automatic memory overclocking feature.

AMD hasn't shared the specifics of its integrated GPU, but we have seen this iGPU in action running between 1,000 and 2,000 MHz in a recent benchmark submission. The RDNA 2 engine supports up to four display outputs, including DisplayPort 2 and HDMI 2.1 ports. All Ryzen 7000 chips will support some form of graphics, so it doesn't appear there will be graphics-less options, like Intel's F-series, for now. The integrated RDNA 2 engine will help address one of AMD's key weaknesses in the OEM market, not to mention be helpful for enthusiasts for troubleshooting or if they just need a basic display out.

Surprisingly, the new I/O die appears to have roughly the same area as the previous-gen 12nm I/O die. However, given that the 6nm die is far denser than the 12nm die from GlobalFoundries, meaning it has far more transistors, it's safe to assume the integrated GPU has consumed a significant portion of the transistor budget (possibly due in part to onboard iGPU cache).

The large 6nm die will inevitably add to cost, as 6nm will be far more expensive than the mature 12nm I/O die. If it's any consolation, the iGPU's close proximity to the DDR5 controllers also resident on the die should provide plenty of bandwidth from the main memory, though we'll have to wait to learn how many cores the graphics engine has. This iGPU engine appears to be for basic display capabilities only, so you shouldn't expect any meaningful gaming performance. 

Ryzen 7000's package looks busy with a full complement of capacitors spread out across the PCB. This eliminates the need for capacitors that face into the socket like the large arrays of capacitors we see spread among the LGA pads on Intel's processors (Ryzen 7000 pad image from @ExecuFix - not official from AMD).

Ryzen's capacitor arrangement necessitates the great-looking heatspreader (though it might be hard to clean). Still, it also likely eliminates any chance of AMD adding a third die to the chip, meaning these chips will probably top out at 16 cores and 32 threads, just like the previous-gen Ryzen 5000 series. AMD has told us that AM5 will be a similarly long-lived socket as we saw with AM4, so it's possible we could see higher core counts in this socket in the future. 

AMD Zen 4 'Raphael' Ryzen 7000: AMD Demos and Spitballing Performance

As with all vendor-provided benchmarks, you should approach these results with caution. AMD demoed a 16-core pre-production Ryzen 7000 chip running the Ghostwire: Tokyo game, and as you can see from the third image, the chip topped out at an incredible 5.52 GHz. That matches the current desktop PC frequency leader, the 5.5 GHz Intel Core i9-12900KS. Naturally, that comes with caveats: AMD only guarantees that its chips can reach the peak frequency on a single core, and this pre-production chip might not come to market with a 5.5 GHz spec. (It sure looks likely that it will, though.)

AMD also demoed its 16-core Ryzen 7000 chip, presumably with 32 threads, against the 16-core 24-thread Core i9-12900K in a Blender render (we included the test notes in the above album). The Ryzen 7000 processor completed the render of a Ryzen 7000 chip in 204 seconds, which is 31% less time than the 12900K's time of 297 seconds.

Blender supports AVX-512, and although we aren't sure the Ryzen 7000 desktop chips will come with the feature enabled, we do know the Zen 4 microarchitecture supports the instructions. This could contribute to AMD's lead over Intel in this benchmark, which would be an odd occurrence indeed: Intel pioneered the powerful AVX-512 but chose to disable it with the Alder Lake chips due to the complexities associated with scheduling work to the correct cores in the x86 hybrid architecture.

Additionally, although we know that the 5nm process should be more power-efficient than the 7nm process, it is possible that the higher 170W provided by the AM5 socket could help improve all-core performance here, specifically during an AVX-powered workload. (The 142W PPT limit hampered performance with the 12- and 16-core Ryzen 5900X and 5950X during all-core workloads.) AMD hasn't confirmed that Ryzen 7000 could take advantage of the additional power, though. It will be interesting to see comparisons of multi-threaded performance in a broader spate of benchmarks. Still, we also have to remember that Raptor Lake will come with four more e-cores and higher clock rates than the 12900K, so we expect the competition in threaded work to be much closer than we see here.

AMD also measured Ryzen 7000's +15% single-threaded performance improvement by putting an unnamed pre-production 16-core Zen 4 Ryzen 7000 processor, presumably the flagship, with DDR5-6000 memory up against the 16-core Ryzen 9 5950X with DDR4-3600 in a Cinebench R23 single-threaded test. Unfortunately, AMD didn't share any specific benchmark scores, but this does give us a basic idea of how the chips will fare against Intel's Alder Lake in this specific benchmark.

We're referencing our own test data below, but it tells us what we need to know. Intel's Alder Lake chips hold the lead in the Cinebench R23 single-threaded benchmark, and they also hold the overall lead in single-threaded performance against AMD's Ryzen 5000 chips. Below we've boiled this down into a head-to-head with the flagship Alder Lake Core i9-12900K against the Ryzen 9 5950X. 

According to our tests, the Core i9-12900K is roughly 16% faster than the Ryzen 9 5950X in the Cinbench R23 benchmark, and AMD claims its 16-core Ryzen 7000 model is 15% faster than the 5950X. That means the Zen 4 chips will likely pull to parity with Intel's Alder Lake in this benchmark.

Additionally, you can see that the Cinebench R23 result tracks well with our more expansive overall measurement of single-threaded performance that we use for our rankings in our CPU Benchmark hierarchy. This measurement encompasses performance in three single-threaded tests, and its similarity to the Cenbench scores suggests that Zen 4 could basically match Alder Lake in overall single-threaded performance.

Intel's Raptor Lake will come with the same Golden Cove architecture for its performance cores (P-cores) as we saw with Alder Lake, but we expect Intel to dial up the clock rates to boost performance. As such, we can expect quite a battle for single-threaded superiority between Ryzen 7000 and Raptor Lake.

• 2017: Zen 1 — +52% IPC
• 2019: Zen 2 — +16% IPC
• 2020: Zen 3 — +19% IPC
• 2022: Zen 4 — ? 

Seeing the TSMC 5nm process hit 5.52 GHz during the gaming demo was incredibly impressive, but AMD hasn't shared what percentage of its >15% single-threaded gain comes from either frequency or IPC. If AMD has its chip running at 5.5 GHz during its Cinebench R23 test we covered above, we could be looking at comparatively smaller single-digit IPC gains over Zen 3 than we're accustomed to seeing with new AMD architectures. 

That could mean a signficant slowing of IPC gains compared to the previous generations of Ryzen processors. Still, we have to remember that a myriad of other considerations, including power management and multi-core boosts, also impact overall performance heavily. Additionally, it isn't unheard of for AMD to tout higher performance numbers as it reaches final silicon (like with Zen 1's IPC measurements). In other words, we'll have to wait a bit longer for a clearer view of performance. As always, we won't know for sure until we snap the chips into the socket on our testbed. 

AMD 600-Series Chipset with AM5 Socket: X670E Extreme, X670, and B650 Motherboards

AMD's socket AM4 has soldiered on for five years across five CPU generations, four architectures, four process nodes, 125+ processors, and 500+ motherboard designs, so it's time for a new refreshed series of motherboards. 

The Raphael processors will drop into a new AM5 socket that supports both the PCIe 5.0 and DDR5 interfaces, matching Alder Lake on the connectivity front. This new socket marks a big departure for AMD — the company is moving from its long-lived Pin Grid Array (PGA) AM4 sockets to a Land Grid Array (LGA) AM5 layout. Despite the entirely different LGA1718 socket interface (1718 pins), the AM5 socket will still support AM4 coolers.

The Socket AM5 motherboards will offer up to 24 lanes of PCIe 5.0, the most PCIe 5.0 lanes direct from the socket in the industry. The chipset also supports up to 14 SuperSpeed USB ports up to 20Gbps and Type-C, along with support for Wi-Fi 6E with DBS and BlueTooth LE 5.2. AMD hasn't specified, but the Wi-Fi 6E support likely comes as a discrete chip from the company's initiative with MediaTek (Edit: we've since seen confirmation of this through various motherboard spec sheets). 

The X670E 'Extreme' chipset will support PCIe 5.0 for two graphics slots and one M.2 NVMe SSD port. This chipset is designed for motherboards that aim for extreme overclockability, carving out a new tier above AMD's standard lineup.

The X670 chipset powers the 'standard' high end motherboards and will come in multiple flavors with varying PCIe support. The M.2 port will support the PCIe 5.0 interface, but the first graphics slot can support either a peak of PCIe 4.0 or PCIe 5.0, which will vary by the motherboard. This offers a lower-cost sub-tier of PCIe 4.0 X670 motherboards.

The B650 chipset will support PCIe 5.0 for a single NVMe port, but only PCIe 4.0 for the graphics slot. This chipset also supports overclocking, but as per usual, you won't find as robust of power accommodations as you will with the more expensive boards. 

Socket AM5 motherboards support up to four display outs via HDMI 2.1 Fixed Rate Link (FRL) and Displayport 1.4 High Bit Rate 3 (HBR3) outputs, powered by the RDNA 2 graphics engine onboard the 6nm I/O die in the Ryzen 7000 processors. 

AMD is busy enabling the PCIe 5.0 SSD ecosystem with Phison, Micron, and Crucial. Crucial and Micron will have their first PCIe 5.0 SSDs in the market when AM5 motherboards arrive on the market. Additionally, the remainder of the names on the PCIe 5.0 ecosystem slide in the above album will use Phison PCIe 5.0 SSD controllers, meaning we'll soon see wide availability of even speedier drives.

That will come in handy for Ryzen 7000 systems — AMD claims a 60% performance gain in sequential read workloads with PCIe 5.0 SSDs. That is great for Microsoft's DirectStorage because it relies heavily upon sequential read throughput to reduce game loading times to roughly a second. 

AMD showed five of the upcoming flagship X670E motherboards, with offerings from MSI, ASRock, ASUS, Gigabyte, and Biostar. You can find spec sheets for these boards now at the respective websites. AMD also confirmed that the Ryzen 7000 chips also feature the SVI3 power infrastructure that supports more power phases from the motherboard and enables faster voltage response. 

AMD hasn't clarified its dual-chipset alignment yet, but recently leaked pictures of the MSI X670E motherboards and ASUS Prime X670-P Wi-Fi motherboards have confirmed many of the details we previously uncovered. According to our sources, AMD's mainstream B650 platform will come with a single chipset chip that connects to the Ryzen 7000 CPU via a PCIe 4.0 x4 connection, though documents we've seen say that a PCIe 5.0 connection is available on some AM5 processors.

Meanwhile, the enthusiast X670 platform employs two of these ASMedia chips (our sources confirm the chips are identical, not a north/southbridge-type arrangement), effectively doubling these connectivity options. These chipsets are daisy-chained together. This stands in contrast to AMD's approach with the current 500-series motherboards, which use different chips for the X- and B-series motherboards. The new approach will obviously provide cost and design flexibility advantages.

Finally, AMD has confirmed that the AM5 socket will only support DDR5 memory. The company says that DDR5 provides the extra performance to justify the cost, but we'll have to watch pricing closely. As we've reported, DDR5 pricing remains prohibitively expensive, but Micron expects PMIC/VRM supply to rebound in the second half of 2022, so we could see the situation improve as AMD's Zen 4 Ryzen 7000 processors come to market.

However, DDR5's more complex power circuitry and design mean that these modules will continue to command a premium over DDR4. DDR5 also has in-built ECC mechanisms for data at rest, which requires additional dies to provide the same memory capacity as DDR4. Though the pricing differences will become smaller over time, DDR5 will remain more expensive than DDR4, regardless of supply. We'll have to wait until closer to the launch to see how this impacts Ryzen 7000's platform costs. 

The 5nm Zen 4 Raphael Ryzen 7000 chips and the accompanying 600-series chipsets are due on the market in Fall 2022, so we won't have to wait long. 

Nvidia has announced the date and time for its Computex 2022 keynote. The Nvidia Keynote is scheduled for Monday, May 22 at 8:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. PDT (UTC -7). Six speakers have been lined up for the keynote. including Jeff Fisher, the senior vice president of GeForce. CEO Jensen Huang isn't among the listed speakers.

The press release confirms there will be some gaming content. "Nvidia will present how AI is powering the enterprise data center and the latest products and technologies for gamers and creators," says the Nvidia events page. That sounds like the main focus of the keynote will be on how AI can help in gaming and content creation. Has Nvidia found another killer application for its GPU Tensor cores in PC gaming?

The six presenters lined up for the one hour keynote on Monday, May 23 are: Ian Buck, vice president of accelerated computing; Brian Kelleher, senior vice president, hardware engineering; Ying Yin Shih, director of product management, accelerated computing; Michael Kagan, chief technology officer; Deepu Talla, vice president of embedded and edge computing; and Jeff Fisher, senior vice president of GeForce.

As well as AI gaming and content creation topics, the sextet are going to be talking about subjects as diverse as accelerated computing, data centers, and robotics – all with an AI flavor.

The official press release makes the keynote sound a little more interesting for PC enthusiasts. It quotes Jeff Fisher as saying there will be "Nvidia and our partners will be announcing new developments and products on both the enterprise and consumer fronts at the show."

Nvidia is following up the keynote with a presentation about Nvidia Omniverse and its use in creating digital twins and virtual worlds. This second event is on the Wednesday (May 25) and will be hosted by Richard Kerris, vice president of the Omniverse developer platform.

Nvidia will have a virtual booth at Computex. We don't have any information about a physical Nvidia booth at the Taipei-based show.

Last week AMD confirmed that CEO Lisa Su would present a keynote at Computex on Monday, May 23. AMD's keynote is called "Advancing the High-Performance Computing Experience."

AMD is reportedly preparing a new technology for its Ryzen processors called Smart Access Storage (SAS), according to a VideoCardz report,. The concept behind Smart Access Storage is similar to Smart Access Memory (SAM) but aims to accelerate storage performance instead of graphics performance.

DirectStorage is why Microsoft's current consoles, such as the Xbox Series X and S, can offer gamers lightning-fast loading times. However, DirectStorage, an application programming interface (API) part of the DirectX family, eventually made its way to the PC. According to Microsoft, DirectStorage can reduce CPU between 20% to 40% when paired with an NVMe SSD and Windows 11. Given the name, Smart Access Storage could be AMD's take on DirectStorage, much like Smart Access Memory was to PCI Express Resizable BAR.

Unfortunately, details on Smart Access Storage are still very slim. We're unsure how AMD will implement the technology or the level of similarities that it has with DirectStorage. According to VideoCardz's source, the feature may debut on Corsair's Voyager "AMD Advantage" gaming laptop. AMD Advantage is a term that refers to a device that leverages AMD Ryzen processors and Radeon graphics. The publication linked Smart Access Storage with a gaming laptop, so it's unknown if it's an exclusive mobile feature like AMD SmartShift. We hope not since Smart Access Storage could do a lot of good on desktops.

Luminous Productions, the developer behind Forspoken, demonstrated the power of DirectStorage at GDC 2022 with a complex scene consisting of up to 20,000 files (4.5GB). The test system with an M.2 and SATA SSD loaded the scene in 1.9 seconds and 3.7 seconds, respectively, whereas a conventional hard drive took 21.5 seconds. So Smart Access Storage could be a game changer for AMD, assuming that its performance is up in the same ballpark as DirectStorage and even more so since Intel doesn't have an answer for it.

The Corsair Voyager reportedly sports a Ryzen 9 6900HX chip and Radeon RX 6800M graphics card. VideoCardz believes that Corsair will unleash the gaming laptop in June, meaning we could learn more about the laptop and technologies at Computex 2022. In addition, AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su will keynote Computex 2022. We'll learn more about AMD's "next generation mobile and desktop PC innovations," so Smart Access Storage appears to be on the agenda.

Dr. Lisa Su, chief executive of AMD, will keynote the Computex 2022 tradeshow for the third time in a row, TAITRA, the organizer of the Computex tradeshow, and AMD announced today. The CEO of AMD will talk about the company's existing products, achievements, and innovations as well as will give a preview of some upcoming products and technologies.

Dr Su's keynote is called "AMD Advancing the High-Performance Computing Experience."

"High-performance computing plays such an essential role in our daily lives, and AMD is committed to always push the envelope on performance and innovation," said Dr. Lisa Su. "At this year's Computex, AMD will share how we accelerate innovation with our broad ecosystem of partners."

During the keynote the head of AMD plans to share some of the details for the company's "next generation mobile and desktop PC innovations." Keeping in mind that Dr Su already talked about the company's Ryzen 6000-series 'Rembrandt processor at CES, we would expect her to talk about next generation Zen 4-based products, which include Raphael, Dragon Range, and Phoenix. Also, we would expect AMD to talk about its next generation Radeon RX 7000-series GPUs based on the RDNA 3 architecture.

The most intriguing part about the keynote is that the company and its partners plan to "show breakthrough performance and leadership experiences for gamers, enthusiasts and creators" that are powered by cutting-edge CPUs, GPUs and software. At the very least, we would expect AMD's partners to showcase higher-end notebooks running Ryzen 6000 CPUs and Radeon RX 6000 GPUs, but since Dr Su plans to talk about next generation offerings, the demonstration might be considerably more exciting. 

Dr Su will deliver her keynote on Monday, May 23, at 2:00 PM (UTC+8), which is 10:00 AM EST. AMD and TAITRA yet have to announce where to watch the keynote, though a natural guess would be at AMD's channel at YouTube and over at various social networks.

Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger expects that chip shortages will continue through to 2024.

On an interview with CNBC's TechCheck, Gelsinger suggested that a lack of availability of tools to manufacture chips  would drag out shortages, making it harder to reach high demand.  

"That’s part of the reason that we believe the overall semiconductor shortage will now drift into 2024, from our earlier estimates in 2023, just because the shortages have now hit equipment and some of those factory ramps will be more challenged,” Gelsinger said on the TV interview.

A number of analysts had suggested that the end is near for the shortage with expanded wafer production and slightly less demand in the marketplace.

While Intel is the sole American company the makes its own processors, it still is reliant on outsourcing. Gelsinger famously made the decision to produce certain "leadership CPU products" in 2023 through TSMC.

Intel is also expanding its business with its Foundry services, making chips for other companies.

"We feel like we're better positioned than most," Gelsinger said in a separate interview with Bloomberg. "The combination of our internal capacity as well as our leverage of foundries — we're just better positioned, and that's part of the structural advantage that Intel has."

The news comes as Intel forecasted a lighter second fiscal quarter than investors expected.  The company's latest earnings beat expectations, but tempered the market, as shares fell during after-hours trading when the announcement was made.

In April, ASML, the world's largest maker of lithography scanners, said it could only fulfill 60% of orders for the chipmaking tools this year.  The company's chief executive warned that it couldn't keep up with demand from the companies that need its tools.

Intel is currently working on building a new "mega site" for manufacturing in Ohio, but its first fab isn't expected to go online until 2025. The company is also expected to open a site in Germany and is investing in its plants in Arizona.

Back in September, AMD CEO Lisa Su suggested that the chip shortage would start to resolve itself in late 2022, painting a rosier picture of the market. It's unclear if AMD's thoughts on the situation have changed since.

AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su will have a nanotechnology research facility at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) named in her honor. Building 12 at MIT is the home of MIT.nano, and on May 14, there will be a special ceremony to officially name it the Lisa T. Su Building. Dr. Su is an MIT alumna, and the MIT News blog reminds us that she previously made a gift of the building to the prestigious educational institution.

The AMD CEO's history is closely intertwined with MIT. Su began attending MIT in 1986 and pursued a degree in electrical engineering. She subsequently continued her academic career at MIT, completing a Masters and a Ph.D. there. It is notable that while pursuing her doctorate, she was one of the first researchers to look into the [then] new and unproven field of silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology. Su's work career spanned appointments at Texas Instruments, IBM, and Freescale, before joining AMD in 2012. She became president and CEO of AMD just two years later.

For a woman who has enjoyed many firsts in the semiconductor industry, it seems fitting that the MIT.nano building, which opened in 2018, will bear her name. With the Lisa T. Su Building established, she will follow in the hallowed footsteps of other MIT alumna to have their names enshrined this way. Other semiconductor leaders with buildings named for them at MIT include Ray Strata (Analog Devices), Morris Chang (TSMC), and Cecil Green (TI).

Dr. Su said that she is honored to have Building 12 bear her name. "My hope is that MIT.nano will enable and develop the best and brightest technologists and innovators in the future," said the AMD CEO. Since graduating from MIT, Su has remained closely involved with the institute, has participated in several alumni committees, and is currently a member of the MIT President's CEO Advisory Board. Su established the Lisa Su Fellowship Fund, which supports promising female graduate students studying nanotechnology, showing further benevolence to MIT and its students.

The Lisa T. Su Building is located at the center of the MIT campus, which is quite apt given that nanoscience and nanotechnology are considered to be central to the work of MIT. The building has been designed with expansive glass facades and you can learn more about its facilities, capabilities, and the works going on within in the video embedded above.

In recent years one of AMD's top priorities was its datacenter business powered by its highly competitive EPYC processors. To further boost the business , AMD acquired Xilinx, a leading developer of field programmable arrays (FPGAs). In another move to boost the company's datacenter business AMD announced [PDF] it had reached an agreement to buy Pensando, a designer of fully programmable processors in a deal valued at $1.9 billion. 

So what is a fully programmable processor and how different it is from an FPGA?
The answer is in proprietary software and hardware, it is both complex and easy. With an FPGA, you have a lot of flexibility for managing security networking or data processing, but for specific special-purpose tasks you need additional hardware. This is where Arm cores and fixed-function hardware comes in Xilinx FPGAs (and AMD now has Xilinx). With Pensando, AMD gets another type of IP: programmable processors and applicable software that can operate it.  

In fact, software is perhaps the key reason for the acquisition. AMD says that the solutions platform that it gets includes a "programmable packet engine and complete software stack that accelerates networking, security, storage and other services for cloud, enterprise and edge applications." 

AMD says that with the addition of Pensando, the company will have the capability to innovate at the "chip, software and platform level and deliver optimized solutions with unmatched performance and value for our cloud and enterprise customers." 

"The combination of our CPUs, GPUs, FPGAs, and adaptive computing engines with Pensando's packet processor and software technologies will enable AMD to offer a broad portfolio of compute engines that have been optimized for different workloads," a statement by AMD says. "We believe this is going to be a critical requirement to deliver the performance, power efficiency and capabilities required to power the next generation of accelerated data centers at scale."

While we can only speculate about the chip level innovation that AMD suggests, there is a clear strategic move on AMD's side: 

"To build a leading-edge data center with the best performance, security, flexibility and lowest total cost of ownership requires a wide range of compute engines," said Dr Lisa Su, chief executive of AMD. "All major cloud and OEM customers have adopted EPYC processors to power their data center offerings. Today, with our acquisition of Pensando, we add a leading distributed services platform to our high-performance CPU, GPU, FPGA, and adaptive SoC portfolio. The Pensando team brings world-class expertise and a proven track record of innovation at the chip, software and platform level which expands our ability to offer leadership solutions for our cloud, enterprise and edge customers." 

There are other reasons why AMD is particularly interested in Pensado, as it is interested in any other enterprise-related companies: margins, quotes, and allocations at foundries. 

Selling high-end CPUs for servers and desktops enables AMD to post a ~50% gross margin, something that is good enough to compare to other fabless companies, but not good enough to compare to firms like Nvidia. Datecenter products bring in higher margins and higher prices, which is why AMD wants Pensando.

CPU-Z has been officially updated to version 2.00, and with it comes support for a plethora of new CPUs and one new GPU. Most notably, AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D and Intel Core i9-12900KS support is here. These two new CPUs haven't been released yet, but promise to push the performance envelope of their respected architectures as high as possible.

The full details of version 2.00 can be found below. Other additions include support for several of Intel's P series and U series mobile Alder Lake processors, as well as the Intel Pentium 8500, 8505, and Celeron 7300 and 7305. 

Other additions include Intel's new mid-range and entry-level core i3 and i5 desktop processors such as the 12500, 12400, 12300, and 12100.

On the AMD side, preliminary support for AMD's Ryzen 6000 series mobile APUs has been added, along with the newly released Radeon RX 6500 XT desktop GPU (which we must say is late to the party).

• Intel Core i9 12900KS
• Intel Core i7-1280P/1270P/1260P, Core i5-1250P/1240P, Core i3-1220P (28W)
• Intel Core i7-1265U/1255U, Core i5 1245U/1235U, Core i3 1215U (15W)
• Intel Core i7-1260U/1250U, Core i5 1240U/1230U, Core i3 1210U (9W)
• Intel Pentium 8505, Celeron 7305 (15W)
• Intel Pentium 8500, Celeron 7300 (9W)
• AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D
• AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT
• Preliminary support of AMD Ryzen 6000 "Rembrandt" APUs

5800X3D & 12900KS

The Ryzen 7 5800X3D could be one of the last Zen 3 desktop CPUs to launch before Zen 4 arrives later in 2022. The 5800X3D improves on the already superb Zen 3 architecture by adding AMD's brand new 3D V-Cache technology to the chip, giving the speedy octa-core CPU an additional 32MB of L3 cache for a total of 96MB.

In a recent AMD press event, CEO Lisa Su gave a demonstration of its Ryzen 7 5800X3D running several games in comparison to a Ryzen 9 5900X, and more interestingly, Intel's current flagship Core i9-12900K.

According to AMD, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D offers a 1.2 to 1.4x average performance jump over its bigger brother, the Ryzen 9 5900X. When compared to the 12900K, the results were tied on three of the games, with the rest yielding a 1.1x to 1.2x performance improvement in favor of the 5800X3D.

Overall, AMD measured an average 15% gain in performance over its current Zen 3 CPUs. That's a rather impressive gain considering the 5800X3D has a 400MHz clock speed deficit compared to the stock 5800X.

However, pricing and availability remain unknown. Due to the additional material required to make 3D V-Cache a reality, we wouldn't be surprised to see the 5800X3D cost just as much as a 5900X. Plus, with Zen 4 just around the corner, the 5800X3D could be one of AMD's shortest-lived CPUs to date, with barely a couple of months in the limelight.

The Core i9-12900KS will be Intel's new flagship for the Alder Lake generation, with the S marking the chip as a special edition product. The only thing changing with the 12900KS is higher clock speeds with a supposed 3.4GHz base clock and 5.2GHz all-core boost clock on the P cores. That is a 200MHz improvement compared to the 12900K's base clock, and it can only do 5.2GHz on a single core.

According to recent reports we've covered, the performance of Intel's new special edition chip isn't that far off from its current 12900K twin, with 4% additional single-core performance and an 11% boost multi-core performance in a recent Geekbench 5 score.

Other limited edition or special edition parts such as the Core i7-8086K and Core i9-9900KS featured slightly higher clock speeds to earn their namesake, but the difference in performance was so slight compared to their vanilla parts that they barely mattered at all.

With Intel planning to launch the Core i9-12900KS soon, it'll be the first time that a special edition part has been released in two generations (the last being the Core i9-9900KS). Supposedly, Intel had plans to introduce a Core i9-10900KS Comet Lake CPU to the market during the Rocket Lake generation, but those plans never came to fruition.

AMD on Monday completed the acquisition of Xilinx, creating a company that can offer various types of compute devices, including CPUs, GPUs, and FPGAs. The move will help AMD to continue expanding its presence in the datacenter sector and offer unique solutions that will combine IP ingredients designed by the two companies. Interestingly, the first fruits of the deal are expected to materialize next year. 

AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su told analyst Patrick Moorhead that the first processor combining Xilinx technologies will arrive in 2023, which is in contrast to the company's previous integration efforts. After AMD bought ATI Technologies in 2006, it took the company five years to build its first accelerated processing units (which included AMD's x86 cores and ATI's GPU). This time AMD inked a long-term development pact with Xilinx and was able to work collaboratively even before the regulators approved the transaction. It remains to be seen what exactly AMD plans to offer, but it is reasonable to expect the new processor to feature AMD's x86 cores and Xilinx's programmable engines.  

The merger between AMD and Xilinx is one of the cases when the combined company represents more than the sum of its parts. AMD sells CPUs for client PCs and servers, graphics processors for client PCs and HPC/datacenters, semi-custom system-on-chips for game consoles, and semi-custom SoCs for embedded applications in the automotive and entertainment industries. AMD's products rarely overlap with those from Xilinx, which are used in aerospace, analytics, AI inference, automotive, communications, datacenter, HPC, industrial, and many other verticals.  

There are certain industries when AMD's high-performance CPUs or GPUs compete against Xilinx's FPGAs or special-purpose ASICs, but in most cases, AMD's CPUs and Xilinx chips/software can complement each other in one system. Now that AMD can offer CPUs, GPUs, FPGAs, and adaptive SoCs, its commercial platforms can become significantly more competitive. 

 "The acquisition of Xilinx brings together a highly complementary set of products, customers and markets combined with differentiated IP and world-class talent to create the industry's high-performance and adaptive computing leader," said Lisa Su, chief executive of AMD. "Xilinx offers industry-leading FPGAs, adaptive SoCs, AI inference engines and software expertise that enable AMD to offer the strongest portfolio of high-performance and adaptive computing solutions in the industry and capture a larger share of the approximately $135 billion market opportunity we see across cloud, edge, and intelligent devices." 

Of course, it will take time to integrate Xilinx into AMD and build platform offerings comprising both companies' hardware. But even the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step, which is what the two companies formally start today. Surprisingly, the two companies expect quite rapid progress in developing products encompassing IP from AMD and Xilinx, which is a result of collaborative work that spanned for well over a year. Meanwhile, AMD's and Xilinx's roadmaps will not be affected by the transaction, so all the products previously announced in one way or another will be developed and will come to market.

The Xilinx business will become AMD's Adaptive and Embedded Computing Group (AECG), led by former Xilinx CEO Victor Peng. As a result, Xilinx will maintain its leadership for at least a while. Furthermore, AMD's embedded business will cease to be a part of the company's enterprise and semi-custom unit and will merge into AECG, which might be good news as executives from the enterprise division will now spend more time on EPYC CPUs.