Quote:Even though it may feel like just yesterday that the Zen 2-powered chips in the Ryzen 3000-series processors came out, we're already catching plenty of wind that Zen 3 is well on its way, which shouldn't be all too surprising given that AMD does its best to maintain annual updates to its CPU lineup. Today, we caught a whiff of Zen 3 microcode being added to the Linux kernel, as spotted by hardware leaker Komachi.

Quote:The AMD Ryzen 5 1600 was the first Ryzen chip to receive the 12nm makeover, and the hexa-core processor will reportedly not be the last either. According to a tip from VideoCardz, the Ryzen 3 1200 appears to be following suit.

Similar to the Ryzen 5 1600's case, the renewed Ryzen 3 1200 is tagged with the "AF" suffix. This change should be reflected in the processor's OPN (Ordering Part Number) as well. The original Ryzen 3 1200 is tagged with the YD1200BBM4KAE OPN tray number, while the AF version carries the YD1200BBM4KAF identifier.

Gigabyte's CPU support list (pictured below) shows that the Ryzen 3 1200 has the B1 stepping, and the Ryzen 3 1200 AF is on the B2 stepping. The AF variant doesn't require a firmware update to play nice with existing AM4-based motherboards either.

Quote:ADM shared a new roadmap for CPUs and GPUs. We see that the company will have Zen 4 processors based on the 5nm process in-market by the end of 2022. In the interim, we'll get Zen 3 on 7nm, presumably an enhanced "+" type revision. AMD hasn't specified if it will switch to the EUV 7nm from TSMC yet, but we expect further clarity on these topics as the event unfolds.
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AMD has shipped more than 260 million Zen cores since the launch in 2017. That rate is doubling every two years.

Papermaster said the company is working together with TSMC on 5nm for Zen 4 processors. He also said the company planned for "our competitor" (Intel) to continue to retain the lead in process tech, but the company unexpectedly took the lead over Intel. However, the company still plans to fight off Intel as if it were to reemerge with a process node advantage. According to Intel's latest statements, that won't happen anytime soon. Intel doesn't think it can match TSMC's process tech until 2021, and won't beat it until Intel hits 5nm at an unspecified date. That means AMD has plenty of breathing room.

Quote:In either case, we'll get fourth-gen Ryzen chips with the Zen 3 architecture by the end of 2020, which aligns with AMD's current release cadence for desktop processors. The company says the first Zen 3 chips will land during the tail end of 2020, but the chips will be "fully in the market" for all segments by the end of 2021.

Quote:Update 3/10/2020: Since we've published this article we've spotted AMD Ryzen 4000 laptops from Asus on Newegg Canada as well. They're listed with a release date of March 16.

Original article:

AMD announced its new Ryzen 4000 H-Series high-performance laptop CPUs in January, and ever since it's been a waiting game for devices sporting them. But the wait is over -- at least in China. Spotted by hardware leaker @Momomo_US, Amazon China has now listed three Asus gaming laptops with the new chips.
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Contrastingly, AMD has not officially announced the Ryzen 7 4800HS chip yet, so there is no product page for it on AMD's website yet nor did the Amazon pages reveal any details.

We have previously suspected that the Ryzen 7 4800HS is a more power-efficient chip than the 4800H, and others too expect it to be a more efficient chip with a 35W TDP. This wouldn't come as a surprise, given the slimmer form factor of the Zephyrus notebooks over the TUF laptop.

Quote:With each passing year, PCs are becoming more and more power-efficient. They squeeze more computation-per-watt out of each new generation of CPU and GPU. Now, AMD is saying we can look forward to a whopping 18 hours out of its next-gen Ryzen 4000 APU on at least one laptop model.

AMD’s VP of computing and graphics, Rick Bergman, dropped the nugget of information at a recent financial analyst briefing, according to PCWorld. Bergman said that “we’ve moved all the way up to as much as 18 hours with our new Ryzen product.”

Quote:AMD earlier this week trimmed prices of its retail 3rd generation Ryzen desktop processors in the US, through promotions exclusive to Newegg and Amazon. The company is also including 3-month Xbox Game Pass subscriptions with select models.

Quote:DigiTimes' sources claimed that AMD's original plan was to reveal Ryzen 4000-series (codename Vermeer) desktop processors at Computex 2020 in May. But Computex has been pushed to September, due to the coronavirus pandemic. There are murmurs that the Taiwanese show might even be cancelled this year, depending on how the pandemic progresses. Nevertheless, DigiTimes' sources claim that AMD will unleash its new army of Ryzen 4000-series chips after August or September.

Vermeer is rumored to take advantage of AMD's next-generation Zen 3 microarchitecture. Given AMD's relationship with TSMC, the chipmaker will likely continue to leverage the foundry's production capabilities for these chips, except this time around, AMD could exploit TSMC's enhanced 7nm process node.

It's not confirmed yet, but we expect the new 7nm chips to slot perfectly into the existing AM4 CPU socket. As it stands, Vermeer will usher in the new 600-series chipsets but should be compatible with prior chipsets. Logically, some features will not be available.

Quote:One month ago, AMD released a new Ryzen chipset driver that had a few issues during installation. Then, last week the company dropped a new version that was supposed to fix these problems, which for the most part it did. However, it turns out that this new driver created other problems for some users, as spotted by members of the ComputerBase forum.

Although we haven't experienced any issues on our own systems, it appears that the new installer, despite running successfully, doesn't always update the GPIO driver to the latest version. There are also reports of increased CPU power consumption and incorrect operating voltages, along with other issues with Ryzen Master.
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The AMD Ryzen Chipset Driver in question is version 2.04.04.111, which is built for AMD chipsets ranging from the A320 series up to X570 on the mainstream platform, as well as A399 and TRX40 Threadripper platforms. You can find the download page here. You'll have to fill in your system's details, and if you're having problems, look for the "previous drivers" link hidden below, skipping versions 2.04.04.111 and 2.03.12.0657.

Quote:AMD is reportedly looking to launch their B550 mainstream motherboards this coming June 16th, with an announcement being pegged for May 21st. WCCFTech, quoting industry sources, says these motherboards will now finally be released to the public, nearly a year after the launch of AMD's Ryzen 3000 series and accompanying X570-based motherboards. This will mark the first time PCIe 4.0 will be available in a mainstream-geared platform and chipset; until now, users looking for more cost-effective builds to support their Ryzen CPUs had to make do without PCIe 4.0 support with a motherboard from previous generations, since the feature was only available on the (more expensive) X570 motherboards.

The B550 chipset should thus become the new choice for users looking to build new systems on a budget; and part of the reason for AMD delaying the launch of this chipset as much as it has could certainly be an effort to increase revenues due to the X570's higher ASP. It's expected that B550 motherboards will be had for higher pricing than AMD's previous mainstream B450 motherboards, though, due to increased costs with improved I/O and the additional requirements for PCIe 4.0 wiring. Considering AMD's X570-based motherboards can be had from the $150 barrier upwards, it's likely (via an educated guess only) that B550 will occupy the $90-$150 range.

Quote:AMD could spring a major suprise with pricing of its 3rd generation Ryzen 3 "Matisse" quad-core desktop processors we detailed recently. According to pricing put out by Komachi Ensaka, the Ryzen 3 3300X could start at a price of USD $120, and the Ryzen 3 3100 at $104. Even if these are 1,000-unit tray prices, or pre-tax cost prices to retailers, which you mark up by 20 percent, you're still looking at no more than $144 for the 3300X, and no more than $125 for the 3100. This would allow AMD to engage in a price-war against Intel's 10th generation Core i3 line of 4-core/8-thread processors. AMD also appears to be careful not to cannibalize the 3300G and 3400G APUs, which command sub-$150 price points. There's still no word on when AMD plans to launch these chips.

Quote:The AMD Ryzen 3 1200 CPU has been a value bargain for years now. It's reportedly been undergoing a transformation from its original 14nm Zen design to 12nm and the Zen+ architecture. Initial rumors of these first-gen chip makeovers showed up in December last year.

Now, as per German hardware publication ComputerBase, the 12nm Zen+ Ryzen 3 1200 has hit shelves at a German retailer for €54.73 or about $60.

That's not a lot of money for a quad-core CPU, especially considering that next to the improved architecture, AMD has kept the specifications for the chip identical. It still runs at the same 3.1 GHz base clock with a boost clock of 3.4 GHz, and it maintains the same 65W TDP.
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If you want to know which part you're buying, be on the lookout for part number YD1200BBM4KAFBOX for the new version. The old 14nm Ryzen 3 1200 was listed as YD1200BBM4KAEBOX. The boxed version comes with the Wraith Stealth cooler included as standard.

Quote:We're on the cusp of Intel's Comet Lake launch, but AMD fired a preemptive strike today on the low end with its new Ryzen 3 3300X and Ryzen 3 3100 processors. These new quad-core eight-thread processors fill the gap left in AMD's Ryzen 3000 lineup and address Intel's looming Core i3 lineup. Given the value-centric nature of these new overclockable chips, they'll need a new cheaper motherboard ecosystem to go along with them. To that effect, AMD also announced the long-anticipated B550 chipset that will bring the mainstream an affordable path to the PCIe 4.0 interface.
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Both chips come with a capable Wraith Stealth cooler and will be available in May 2020.

AMD also announced that B550 motherboards, which will support the PCIe 4.0 interface present on the new Ryzen 3 models, will land June 16, 2020. AMD was light on details about the new motherboards, though we do know they will come from OEMs like ASRock, Asus, Gigabyte and MSI, among the other usual players. The company expects over 60 models to come to market, and we've already seen a few examples leak out over the last several months.

Quote:While the Ryzen 3 3300X isn't expected until May 21 and the Ryzen 3 3100 on June 16, hardware sleuth @TUM_APISAK has dug up Geekbench submissions for both processors.

The Ryzen 3 3300X scored 5,874 points in the single-core test and 20,948 points in the multi-core test on Geekbench 4. The software reported a memory speed of 1,863 MHz, which we suspect should be 3,733 MHz. This means that there was probably some hardcore memory tuning in the background and that the Ryzen 3 3300X was overclocked.

The Intel Core i7-7700K, which was Intel's last quad-core flagship, scored 5,816 points and 20,329 points in the single-core and multi-core tests, respectively.To be fair, the i7-7700K was paired with DDR4-3200 RAM, while the Ryzen 3 3300X was working with DDR4-3733 memory. Depending on the memory speed, the scale can tip to either side.

But ultimately, it looks like the Ryzen 3 3300X's performance is on par with the i7-7700K, based on these early benchmark results. However, we'll have to hold off on making final judgments until we get to evaluate the AMD chip ourselves.

The Ryzen 3 3100 showed up in the more recent Geekbench 5 benchmark. The quad-core processor put up single-and multi-core scores of 1,141 points and 4,928 points, respectively. The Core i7-7700K scored 1,284 points and 5,168 points in the single-and multi-core tests, respectively. The Core i7-7700K was up by 12.5% in single-threaded performance and 4.9% in multi-threaded performance.

Based on Geekbench alone, the Ryzen 3 3100 seems to offer performance that nears that of the Core i7-7700K performance at a very attractive price point. But, again, we won't know for sure until we do our own testing.

Quote:AMD has announced its Ryzen 3 "Matisse" quad-core desktop processors, with two SKUs in the pipe, the $99 Ryzen 3 3100 and the $120 Ryzen 3 3300X. Both are 4-core/8-thread parts spaced apart by clock-speeds, or so we thought. According to an alleged AMD presentation slide leaked to the web, the differentiation between the two runs deeper than that. Both chips are based on the "Matisse" multi-chip module, with a single 8-core "Zen 2" chiplet that has four disabled cores. How AMD goes about disabling these cores appears to be the secret sauce behind the "X" on the 3300X.

Inside each "Zen 2" chiplet, the 8 cores are spread between two 4-core CCX (compute complexes). On the 3100, AMD disabled two cores per CCX, and halved the 16 MB L3 cache per CCX. So it ends up with a 2+2 core CCX configuration, 8+8 MB of L3 cache adding up to 16 MB. The 3300X takes the more scenic route. An entire CCX is disabled, all four cores are part of the same CCX. This design lowers inter-core latency among the cores, and more importantly. gives each of the four cores access to 16 MB of shared L3 cache. And then there's the speed-bump. This goes a long way in explaining how the 3300X is shown within striking distance of the Core i7-7700K in leaked Cinebench scores, and could provide a formidable gaming processor in the lower end.

Quote:Gamers Nexus has received an internal roadmap from an insider in the tech industry that purportedly outlines AMD's plan to support DDR5 memory and the USB 4.0 interface starting from 2022.

Roadmaps are great as they tell us what we to expect from a company in the near future. However, we should still approach them with a bit of caution since not everything that's inside the roadmap is written in stone. Companies often modify their roadmaps as time progresses, and with the current coronavirus pandemic disrupting the hardware world, there's no telling if the alleged AMD roadmap will pan out as planned.

Barring any setbacks, 2022 will be the year that AMD introduces support for DDR5 and USB 4.0 on its desktop offerings. The processors will leverage the Zen 4 microarchitecture, meaning they should retain support for the PCIe 4.0 interface. Don't expect to see PCIe 5.0 for at least another couple of years. The platform will seemingly arrive with native support for USB 4.0 though.

AMD's latest roadmap show that the fourth-generation EPYC (codename Genoa) processors, which will be produced on the 5nm process node, are scheduled for 2022. Things are still a bit blurry on the mainstream side, though. The current Ryzen 3000-series (codename Matisse) is based on Zen 2 while the upcoming Ryzen 4000-series (codename Vermeer) is rumored to be on Zen 3. The reasonable assumption is that the Ryzen 5000-series should exploit the Zen 4 microarchitecture — that is, of course, assuming AMD doesn't roll out anything in between the Ryzen 4000-and 5000-series.

Quote:Today we have AMD's Ryzen 5 3500X, a processor that AMD designed specifically for the Chinese OEM and system integrator (SI) market, in for testing to determine if it can compete with the best CPUs for gaming or best CPUs for desktop applications. With six cores and threads, the Ryzen 5 3500X stands out among AMD's third-gen Ryzen stack as the only model without simultaneous multi-threading (SMT).
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The AMD Ryzen 3500X stands as the lone Ryzen 3000-series processor to come without threading, but the tradeoffs associated with that distinction are clear. We measured higher performance in many of our gaming benchmarks, but performance will vary based upon the game, so it can also result in lower performance in some titles.

While disabling threading isn't a panacea that boosts performance in all games, it does have a universal impact on performance in threaded workloads. As we have seen throughout our test suite, the AMD Ryzen 3500X's disabled threading feature resulted in substantially lower performance in threaded applications compared to other 3000-series Ryzen processors.
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While OEM systems without a discrete graphics card make up the bulk of the market, Intel's newfound practice of selling graphics-less F-series models to increase its output creates a rare opening for AMD to gain some penetration. That comes as a faster, but slightly pared-back model with a lower price point than the 9400F. And make no mistake, despite what we see in the grey market, AMD is almost certainly significantly undercutting the 9400F's pricing in volume sales.

AMD accomplished that goal; the Ryzen 5 3500X beats the Core i5-9400F in nearly all of our tests in both gaming and productivity applications. However, while this low-cost chip with superior performance makes sense for the target market, it isn't as good of a fit for the retail side. Especially in light of AMD's looming Ryzen 3 launch.

In either case, you can score the AMD Ryzen 3500X through various resellers for pricing that fluctuates wildly between $190 to $240. The 3500X ships from Asia, so be prepared to spend some extra cash on shipping, too. The AMD Ryzen 3500X would make a nice pairing with a previous-gen B-series motherboard, but you'll lose support for PCIe 4.0 in exchange. AMD is on the cusp of releasing its B460 lineup of motherboards, but the new AMD Ryzen 3 3300X and 3100 both arrive with that launch, too. If you're looking for a value chip, the new Ryzen 3 CPUs look like the processors to beat.

Overall, the Ryzen 5 3500X is a solid chip that's certainly interesting and would be a nice addition for a collector. Still, enthusiasts should stick with AMD's retail models for the best mix of price and performance.

Quote:One of the perks of AMD's Ryzen processor line is unlocked base-clock multiplier across the board, even with its upcoming $99 Ryzen 3 3100 quad-core processor. _rogame unearthed a Futuremark SystemInfo database submission confirming a 4.50 GHz all-core overclock, achieved on an inexpensive ASUS TUF Gaming B450M-Pro motherboard, with 16 GB of dual-channel DDR4-3200 memory. Also, SMT is left untouched, as the processor has all 8 logical processors (threads) enabled. Just to show this isn't a one-off, another FM database submission shows a 4.40 GHz all-core OC on the Ryzen 3 3100, with a similarly inexpensive MSI B450M Bazooka Plus motherboard, and 16 GB of dual-channel DDR4-3000 memory. The unlocked multiplier appears to add tremendous value to this two-figure chip.

Quote:At stock settings, the Ryzen 3 3300X offered nearly identical gaming performance (based on a geometric mean of our benchmark suite) to the Ryzen 5 3600, and actually squeaked past it in our 99th percentile measurements. If you're interested solely in gaming, the Ryzen 3 3300X takes the shine off of purchasing the Ryzen 5 3600, even though the 3600's twelve threads would come in handy for multi-tasking, streaming, and/or recording. We do have to keep in mind that the performance deltas are slim as we reach the top of the chart, so any of these chips could push a mid- or low-end graphics card along quite nicely. As usual, any extra performance matters if you plan on upgrading to the next-gen GPUs like AMD's Big Navi and Nvidia's Ampere.

The Ryzen 3 3300X also exhibited a great balance of performance in both lightly- and heavily-threaded applications throughout our benchmark suite. If you don't frequently use heavy productivity applications, you shouldn't be left wanting. The Ryzen 3 3100 isn't nearly as agile because its single-thread performance holds back some applications that require snappy responsiveness, like web browsers and office applications.
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The industry has come a long way in a few short years. Now you can get what used to be flagship-class $350 performance for a mere $120 with the Ryzen 3 3300X. That's a value that's hard to beat, and we don't think Intel's looming Comet Lake will change the calculus much, especially in light of Core i3's slightly higher pricing. But we'll find out soon enough, and since most people looking at the Ryzen 3 3300X will want a B550 motherboard to go with it, waiting for our Comet Lake benchmarks makes sense.

The Ryzen 3 3300X certainly sets a new bar for low-end gaming processors. Suddenly, they don't seem so low-end after all. High-end chips like the Ryzen 9 3900X and Ryzen 9 3950X might make a bigger splash, delivering new tiers of performance, but budget shoppers will find a lot to like in AMD's new Ryzen 3 processors.

Quote:When AMD launched Ryzen in April 2017, it declared it would support Socket AM4 at least through 2020. Many fans read this as a promise that AMD would support the same motherboard chipsets for the duration of the AM4 socket. That difference of interpretation has caused some confusion about what kind of support matrix AMD would offer for Ryzen motherboards as the CPU family evolved.

With the launch of the B550, AMD is making a break between current and future CPU support. The following chart explains which motherboards support which CPUs, now and in the future:
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AMD may not have promised to provide chipset support through 2020, but plenty of people heard the statement that way. So, did the company provide the upgrade path it implied existed? I would argue yes.

In April 2017, a top-end Ryzen system consisted of an X370 motherboard and an eight-core Ryzen 7 1800X CPU. Today, just over three years later, that same motherboard is likely capable of stepping up to a Ryzen 9 3950X. In well-threaded tests, the 3950X can hit over 2x the speed of the 1800X. Even in single-threaded tests, the 3950X is often 1.25x – 1.35x faster than the 1800X.

None of this automatically makes a 3950X a great upgrade for an 1800X owner — if you don’t have any workloads that can scale up to 12-16 cores, you aren’t going to see the same benefit as someone who does.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a motherboard deploy with support for, say, dual-core CPUs, only to add support for quad-core or even six-core chips as those solutions became available, so I can’t say that Ryzen 7 delivers a completely unprecedented upgrade. But it’s certainly one of the best overall upgrade values that we’ve historically seen. Realistically, I’d expect an X370 system rebuilt on Ryzen 9 3950X to still be an effective performer in 4-6 years. Desktops don’t age like they used to — I’m typing this on a Core i7-4960X that’s continued to provide perfectly adequate performance for gaming and desktop work. Even if a person swaps out in 2024, that’s a seven-year lifespan for the AMD system.

Granted, it is a little annoying to have to keep track of all the different support diagrams, so make certain you know what you are getting into before you buy. It’s not clear how many more product cycles we’ll see on AM4, but the relatively slow rate at which desktops age makes this much less of an issue than it used to be.

Quote:Gigabyte Japan has confirmed via Twitter that the Ryzen 5 1600 AF is compatible with X570 motherboards. Consequently, the Ryzen 3 1300 AF is also supported.

Quote:After receiving withering criticism from its passionate fan base and casual users alike, AMD has reversed its decision to not enable Zen 3 and Ryzen 4000 compatibility with existing B450 and X470 motherboards. Instead, AMD will enable support through optional AGESA code that it will supply to motherboard vendors. However, multiple caveats apply. Here's AMD's quick breakdown, and we also have the full announcement at the end of the article:

Quote:The latest AMD rumor-mill buzz suggests that the Red Team is secretly rewarming two Ryzen 3000-series (codename Matisse) processors to contest the latest Intel Comet Lake army.

The Ryzen 7 3800X and Ryzen 7 3700X are the two potential Zen 2 candidates that could undergo the refresh treatment. If there is a tiny bit of credence in the rumors, AMD will market the rewarmed parts as the Ryzen 7 3850X and Ryzen 7 3750X with the latter having already surfaced in AMD's Product Master guide since last year. In other words, the Ryzen 7 3850X and Ryzen 7 3750X would just be higher-binned variants of their vanilla counterparts.

Keeping our expectations within rational limits, the new chips won't deviate from the eight-core, 16-thread design. These will still be leveraging the Zen 2 microarchitecture and 7nm FinFET process node. The optimizations will likely come in form of a small speed bump on the base and/or boost clocks. A 100 MHz increase sounds reasonable or maybe even 200 MHz if you want to be overly optimistic.

Quote:AMD's 3rd generation Ryzen "Matisse Refresh" processors surfaced on the Futuremark online database, as dug up by TUM_APISAK, where someone with access to them allegedly posted some performance numbers. Interestingly, the clock-speeds as read by the Futuremark SystemInfo module appear very different from what were previously reported. The 3800XT is shown featuring a 3.80 GHz nominal clock, boosting up to 4.70 GHz, while the 3900XT has a 3.90 GHz nominal clock, boosting up to the same 4.70 GHz as the 3800XT. APISAK reports that the 3800XT scores 25135 points in the FireStrike physics test.

A WCCFTech report presents screenshots of Cinebench R20 single-thread performance scores of the 3900XT, where it is shown beating the i9-10900K (in a single-threaded test). The 3800XT is within striking distance of the i9-10900K in this test, and beats the i7-10700KF. This single-threaded performance figure suggests that AMD's design focus with "Matisse Refresh" has been to shore up single-threaded and less-parallelized application performance, in other words, gaming performance.

Quote:MSI confirmed that AMD's "Zen 3" processor support will be added to the company's AMD 400-series chipset motherboards, including the non-MAX SKUs that only have 16 MB EEPROM chips. Marketing Director Eric van Beurden in an MSI Insider video presentation confirmed that with the non-MAX motherboards, "Zen 3" support will be added as AMD planned to go about doing so (i.e. add "Zen 3" support by cutting out support for older processors and slimming down the UEFI setup program down to the GSE Line Click BIOS program, which may not correspond with your motherboard's original feature-set). On the other hand, the MAX SKUs, with their 32 MB EEPROMs will receive "Zen 3" support painlessly, meaning that the board may retain support for some, if not all, older processor generations, and retain their original feature-rich UEFI setup programs.

Quote:Back in January, news hit that TSMC was investing heavily in its 5nm process, and the latest report from DigiTimes appears to suggest that those efforts will soon pay off.

The report claims that TSMC will push launch volume production of products on its 5nm Plus FinFET process to Q4 2020, and that we can believe. However, the report also claims that AMD's next-generation of CPUs, the Ryzen 4000 Vermeer series that comes with the Zen 3 architecture, will be built on this node. But we're not so sure.
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We don't believe that with 5nm investments having started at the beginning of this year that TSMC will be ready to take on a new line of AMD's processors at 5nm within the same year -- the process normally matures with mobile processors before moving on to PC processors.

Moreover, even AMD has stated that the upcoming Zen3 CPUs will be based on the 7nm process, and we doubt that the company would push itself and its manufacturing partner TSMC through a roadmap change to 5nm this close to the launch -- AMD plans to release Zen 3-based CPUs by the end of the year.

Quote:Earlier this week, we brought you a report about codenames of AMD processors that won't launch before 2022. It referenced "Raphael" being distant 5 nm "Zen 4" based successor to today's "Matisse." At the time, the codename for the 2021 release of AMD's mainstream desktop processor wasn't known. We're now getting a pointer as to what it is - "Warhol."

Named after American artist and filmmaker Andy Warhol, this processor combines CPU chiplets based on the "Zen 3" with a cIOD that retains PCI-Express gen 4.0, just like "Vermeer," but still qualifies as a new generation (and not a refresh). What's more, "Warhol" apparently sticks to a 7 nm-class silicon fabrication process. This means that "Warhol" could see AMD innovate on other fronts, such as leveraging an even more advanced version of TSMC's 7 nm node (such as N7+), to increase core counts over the chiplet that makes it to "Vermeer, "Genesis Peak," and "Milan."

Quote:French retailer Materiel.net listed the upcoming AMD Ryzen 9 3900XT, Ryzen 7 3800XT, and Ryzen 5 3600XT desktop processors. The 3900XT is listed at 499€, the 3800XT at 459€, and the 3600XT at 319€, inclusive of VAT. These prices could be opportunistic, and set entirely by the retailer to win some attention toward pre-orders. A VideoCardz report points to the possibility of the XT series SKUs being nominally pricier than the current prices of the 3900X, 3800X, and 3600X. The 3600XT is reported as being exactly $28 pricier than the 3600X, which would put its price back at $250, given the $220-ish running rate for a 3600X. Unless AMD is beating Intel at gaming performance, the company could price the 3900XT and 3800XT competitively against the i9-10900K and i7-10700K, respectively (and not exactly match them). AMD is expected to announce its 3rd generation Ryzen "Matisse Refresh" Ryzen XT desktop processors in mid-June, with availability expected in early-July, 2020.

Quote:Update 6/11/2020 8:10am PT:

AMD issued a statement today to Tom's Hardware regarding a feature from software vendor HWinfo that exposes that motherboard vendors have developed firmwares that misreport key power telemetry data to Ryzen processors. As covered in the article below, the developers stated this could have an impact on processor longevity. Here's AMD's statement:

"We are aware of the reports claiming that select motherboards may be under-reporting certain power telemetry data that could alter the performance and/or behavior of AMD Ryzen processors under certain conditions. We are looking into the accuracy of these reports.
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"We want to be clear with our customers: AMD Ryzen processors contain a diverse array of internal safeguards that operate independently of external data sources. These safeguards enforce the safety and reliability of the processor during stock operation. Based on our initial assessment, we do not believe that altering external telemetry in the manner described by those public reports would have a material impact on the longevity or safety of a user's processor."
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Original Article:

Unbeknownst to you, your motherboard may be silently killing your Ryzen processor faster than expected. HWinfo introduced a new feature today that the vendor says exposes that some X570 motherboard vendors are clandestinely misreporting key measurements to AMD's Ryzen processors, thus boosting performance. Unfortunately, this tactic is similar to overclocking, but occurs at stock settings. As a result, the chip draws more power and generates more heat, thus potentially reducing the lifespan of Ryzen chips – but all without the user's knowledge.
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The Stilt's post is worth reading over for the details, but here's a nice summation from the report:

"In short: Some motherboard manufacturers intentionally declare an incorrect (too small) motherboard specific reference value in AGESA. Since AM4 Ryzen CPUs rely on telemetry sourced from the motherboard VRM to determine their power consumption, declaring an incorrect reference value will affect the power consumption seen by the CPU. For instance, if the motherboard manufacturer would declare 50% of the correct value, the CPU would think it consumes half the power than it actually does.

"In this case, the CPU would allow itself to consume twice the power of its set power limits, even when at stock. It allows the CPU to clock higher due to the effectively lifted power limits; however, it also makes the CPU run hotter and potentially negatively affects its life-span, the same ways as overclocking does. The difference compared to overclocking or using AMD PBO, is that this is done completely clandestine and that in the past, there has been no way for most of the end-users to detect it, or react to it." [Emphasis added]

HWinfo's new tool provides a means for users to determine if their motherboard is lying to their Ryzen chips with the rationale that, "Since at least two of the largest motherboard manufacturers still insist on using this exploit to gain an advantage over their competitors despite being constantly asked and told not to, we thought it would be only fair to allow the consumers to see if their boards are doing something they're not supposed to do."

Quote:First, the rumors that AMD would move Zen 3 to 5nm have been disproven by a slide from AMD:

As expected, Zen 3 is a 7nm chip, while Zen 4 is 5nm. With a typical one-year cadence between launches and with Zen 3 expected to launch around Q4, we should, therefore, expect a late 2021 / early 2022 debut for Zen 4. The roadmap document implies a launch before 2022, but an early 2022 debut at or around CES would still satisfy the document well enough.

Quote:Amazon Italy (via Reddit) has just spilled the beans on AMD's looming Ryzen 3000-series XT processors. According to the listings, AMD will officially announce the Zen 2 refresh chips on June 16 with a tentative release date of July 7.

Rumors suggest that AMD will unleash three Ryzen 3000-series XT parts. Thus far, Amazon Italy has revealed the Ryzen 9 3900XT and Ryzen 5 3600XT. Only the rumored Ryzen 7 3800XT is missing.

According to the Amazon Italy posting, the Ryzen 3000-series XT parts will retain the same recipe as the current Ryzen 3000-series (codename Matisse) processors. The chips will arrive with identical cores, threads, and cache as their vanilla counterparts. The most notable improvement lies in the faster clock speeds. In other words, the XT models appear to just be higher-binned chips than the non-XT SKUs, though it's possible AMD has some other surprises in store. For instance, the company moved to the 12nm node with second-gen Zen processors, yielding impressive performance gains through a combination of enhancements to the chips, like improved cache latency borne of faster speedpaths. It isn't immediately apparent if those types of changes could come to the XT models, but it wouldn't be without precedent.

Amazon Italy didn't specify the base clocks, but we do have the boost clocks for comparison. The Ryzen 9 3900XT appears to come with a 4.7 GHz boost clock, which is 100 MHz faster than the Ryzen 9 3900X. The same improvement is present with the Ryzen 5 3600XT, as the six-core chip flaunts a 100 MHz higher boost clock than its counterpart.

Despite the higher boost clocks, the Ryzen 9 3900XT and Ryzen 5 3600XT respect the same TDP (thermal design power) as the normal Ryzen offerings. That would be 105W for Ryzen 9 3900XT and 95W for the Ryzen 5 3600XT.

Quote:HWinfo claims that X570 motherboards from a variety of manufacturers are guilty of underreporting power to Ryzen CPUs so the chips will go faster at stock settings, but at the possible expense of chip longevity. It doesn't appear that AMD condones the misreporting. However, in response, AMD said that it was investigating the issue, but it doesn’t believe the chips will suffer excessive wear during the warranty period. So, after we wrote an article about the software vendor’s claims and its new feature (designed to detect the problem), we set out to determine if the new test was accurate and if there was any imminent danger to the health of Ryzen CPUs from motherboard makers cooking the books.

After testing three different X570 motherboards, using a variety of settings, cooling solutions and even firmware, we found that, while HWinfo does shine a light on some issues, it can output inflated values that aren't representative of actual power misreporting. Of the three motherboards -- an ASRock X570 Taichi, MSI X570 Godlike and an Gigabyte X570 Aorus Master, only the Taichi showed a huge delta between reported and actual power that resulted in increased performance. Those settings resulted in higher clock rates, voltages, and heat output. And that issue, which happened with the reviewer BIOS, largely disappeared once we installed the latest firmware. The remaining relatively small power variances of 10 to 15 percent are easily explained by factors such as VRM variations, though.
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AMD's statement seemingly confirms that it wasn't aware of the manipulations. It will be interesting to see if motherboard makers end the practice, or if AMD finds that because the adjustments don't impact longevity in a meaningful way, the practice can continue. We'll keep an eye on newer BIOS releases as they trickle out for any significant changes to power telemetry reporting.

Quote:AMD in an official briefing call with us confirmed that the company's "Zen 3" client processors are on-track for launch within 2020. This refutes rumors that "Zen 3" based Ryzen processors had been delayed to 2021 in favor of giving the upcoming Ryzen 3000XT reign over the rest of the year. The call was chaired by AMD's client-segment product managers who were speaking purely in context of their product segment, which is how we deduce that they were referring to "Vermeer" and not [just] "Milan." They were responding to speculation that "Zen 3" has been delayed to 2021, forcing AMD to refresh its existing IP.

In the call, AMD told us that the information about "Zen 3" launching in 2020 is not under embargo, and so here we are. An AMD spokesperson told us that "the rumor on Zen 3 delay is inaccurate." AMD recently also refuted rumors of "Zen 3" being based on 5 nm, by putting out microarchitecture roadmap slides on the occasion of a recent investor relations event, which reaffirmed "Zen 3" as a 7 nm-class microarchitecture.

Quote:Historically, AMD motherboards have been less expensive than the equivalent Intel products. It’s one of the ways AMD has consciously attempted to position itself as offering a better value proposition than Intel. Buy an AMD motherboard, and you’ll not only save money on the initial purchase, but you’ll also be able to upgrade it for a longer period of time.

Right now, however, this equation has been flipped on its head, at least if you want a smaller-than-typical motherboard. We compared pricing on AMD’s AM4 chipsets going back to the original Ryzen launch against Intel’s LGA 1200 and LGA 1151 prices on 300-series motherboards. Comparing in this fashion allowed us to control for the impact of recent launches, and hopefully, offers a broader window into what people may be choosing to buy if coronavirus-related shortages are causing production problems for any specific motherboard. (Note: All data was gathered from Newegg, and only in-stock products were used for direct price comparisons.)
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In mini-ITX, the gap between Intel and AMD motherboard pricing is even larger.

Fun Fact: While writing this story, I discovered Asus actually built a mini-DTX motherboard. DTX is an AMD standard alternative introduced some 13 years ago. It is not widely advertised or supported, to put it mildly.

The cheapest Intel mini-ITX board for LGA 1151 is the Gigabyte H310N, at $89. The cheapest LGA 1200 board is the Asrock B460M-ITX/AC, at $95.

The cheapest AMD AM4 mini-ITX board is supposed to be an Asrock A320M-ITX, at $99. The cheapest mini-ITX motherboard you can actually buy, however, is the Asrock X570 Phantom Gaming ITX/TB3, at $240. There are so few AMD AM4 mini-ITX motherboards in stock, I can’t really give you a meaningful 15th board price. The Asrock X570 Phantom Gaming ITX/TB3 is the 10th board on Newegg’s list as it is, and the 14th board costs $400. The 15th is not in stock. The 10th Intel board is the Asrock Z490M-ITX/ac LGA 1200, at $160.

These are large enough gaps to represent material differences in CPU price points. The $20 gap for cheap mATX boards isn’t much, but the 15th board gap is $56 for the LGA 1200 and $61 for the LGA 1151. There’s a $43 gap in the 10th position.

In mini-ITX, an X570 is a whopping $145 more expensive than an LGA 1200, and availability is so poor, we’re limited to a bare few comparison points. But the price difference between the two motherboards is less than the price gap between, say, a Core i5-10600K (6C/12T, 4.1GHz base, 4.8GHz boost, $285) and the Core i7-10700K (8C/16T, 3.8GHz base, 5.1GHz boost, $409).

Here’s what that means, in AMD-versus-Intel terms. Instead of comparing the 3700X ($273) against the Core i5-10600K ($285), you could argue it’s now fair to compare the 3700X against the Core i7-10700K, on the basis of overall system cost. The 3700X + Asrock X570 motherboard discussed above adds up to $513. The 10700K + Asrock B460M is $504.

There are basically two reasons why AMD boards might be running expensive. First, it’s possible that some coronavirus-related inventory issues have resulted in better Intel board availability than AMD availability. We only see real gaps in mATX and mini-ITX. If manufacturers have cut back on building boards that AMD buyers don’t choose all that often, it would explain the limited inventory and high prices.

Second, it’s possible that strong AMD retail demand is emptying store shelves as quickly as parts can be gotten. Our retail sales data arguably supports this trend. The reason I’m not sure it’s true is that I’m not sure how many desktop owners have begun preferencing mATX or mini-ITX over full-sized ATX motherboards. If most desktop builders still build with ATX, then we’d expect the impact of any shortage to be most visible in that segment. The fact that we’re seeing it in mATX and mini-ITX could reflect diminished production of those parts as opposed to extreme demand. It’s also possible both explanations are in play.

Regardless, it’s something to keep in mind when evaluating whether to buy AMD or Intel. Motherboard prices have historically favored AMD, and overall upgrade paths still do, but the current situation in mini-ITX and mATX boards rewards a more careful consideration of the market.

Quote:The Ryzen XT lineup arrives to do battle with Intel's Comet Lake, but while the new chips do provide measurable performance gains over their predecessors, you'll need to run very specific workloads to justify the increased costs associated with the cooler-less Ryzen 9 3900XT and Ryzen 7 3800XT. That's complicated by the fact that the existing X-series models already retail at great price points, giving AMD plenty of competition from within its own ranks.
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If gaming is your primary focus, you'll be better served with less expensive Ryzen alternatives, like the Ryzen 7 3700X or the Ryzen 5 3600X that currently retail for $270 and $249, respectively. Those chips come with bundled coolers that can save you money on an aftermarket cooler, and they offer the lion's share of XT's performance at far lower price points. Intel's ~$275 Core i5-10600K is also a solid gaming option that currently leads our list of Best CPUs.

We run a broad spate of applications that span from the mundane to the professional. Still, we didn't record many outstanding performance gains that justify the 3900XT and 3800XT's pricing (or lack of bundled coolers) for most day-to-day desktop PC applications. The chips are measurably faster in some tests, but in many cases, the deltas are slight and fall close to the standard deviation of the benchmarks.

Our frequency measurements exposed strong potential with the 3900XT and 3800XT's single-threaded boost clocks, but real-world testing didn't register as much of a benefit. Motherboard and firmware differences can have an impact, but the X570 platform is fairly mature, and any big advances on the optimization front will likely benefit the X-series models, too.

We did see slightly improved performance with the auto-overclocking PBO feature, but gains remain small and AMD says we shouldn't expect higher frequencies from manual overclocking, either.

Performance in the Puget Sound Adobe benchmark suite was by far the highlight of our testing, and it's clear that XT's performance optimizations benefit those types of mid-threaded workloads. If you're already planning on buying an aftermarket cooler, the Ryzen 3900XT and 3800XT make a good fit for those types of applications. Time is money for professionals and semi-pro creators alike, and those users will benefit most from the advantages the XT series bring to the table.

Overall, the Ryzen XT series does provide another option for discerning shoppers that know their workload, particularly those that frequently use applications that benefit. Still, most will be better served with AMD X-series processors or Intel alternatives.

Quote:According to Rick Bergman, AMD's executive vice president of Computing and Graphics, AMD will launch Zen 3 processors for the client market this year. Bergman made the important announcement in the closing lines of a corporate blog post he penned today.
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Bergman does narrow things down to the client (consumer) market but doesn't specify exactly where the 7nm Zen 3 client chips will debut. The Zen 3 chips could land on the desktop PC platform in the form of the long-awaited Ryzen 4000 'Vermeer' processors, or they could come to laptops as a fast follower to the company's Ryzen Mobile chips. AMD's latest mobile processors are just now taking hold in the market and have finally gained some traction, but a quick follow-up would cement AMD's position as a serious contender in the mobile segment that comprises 60% of the consumer x86 market. Intel has its promising Tiger Lake mobile chips launching this year, too, so it would be a good time for a new line of Zen 3 mobile chips to counter Intel's 10nm assault.

However, launching a new Ryen 4000 (codenamed 'Vermeer") desktop PC chip could cement AMD's ever-growing success there, too, and render the Ryzen XT models as a mere stop-gap between big product launches. We're left to speculate for now, but it's clear that AMD has more in store for us as we enter the latter half of the year.

Quote:Igor's Lab today reported the discovery of two new ordering part numbers (OPNs): 100-000000065-04_ 46/36 _Y and 100-000000061-06_ 49/37 _Y. They are reportedly for for models with 16 CPU cores and should be the descendant of the Ryzen 9 3950X. The highest clocked engineering sample seemingly has a 3.7 GHz base clock and 4.9 GHz boost clock. For reference, the Ryzen 9 3950X sports a 3.5 GHz base clock and 4.7 GHz boost clock. If Igor's Lab's report is correct, we're looking at 5.7% and 4.3% improvements on the base and boost clocks, respectively.

We still don't know how AMD will market its forthcoming Zen 3 offerings. The chipmaker currently use the Ryzen 3000-series (Matisse) for its mainstream chips and the Ryzen 4000-series (Renoir) for APUs. Of course, this all lends confusion for the uninitiated. If AMD decides to unify both naming schemes, then the Ryzen 9 3950X's successor should be the Ryzen 9 4950X. But if AMD looks to avoid confusion with its APU lineup, a Ryzen 9 5950X is also possible.

Quote:Over at Igor's Lab, sources have indicated that the upcoming Ryzen 9 4950X will have a boost frequency of 4.8 GHz, which is seriously impressive given that it's expected to be a 16-core, 32-thread part. As with any leaked information, we do have to take it with a grain of salt, though, and preliminary specs are always subject to change.

The information comes from an OPN code Igor managed to get his hands on, which reads "100-000000059-52_48/35_Y." Decoding that, the 35 at the end signifies the 3.5 GHz base clock, with 4.8 telling us the boost clock is 4.8 GHz.

Reports indicate that this also pertains an engineering sample of the 16-core part, making it the successor to the 3950X, likely to be called the 4950X -- unless AMD jumps straight to the 5000 nomenclature for the Zen 3 "Vermeer" parts, in which case it will likely be called the 5950X. A move such as this wouldn't be all too surprising given that the current 4000-series chips are APUs based on the Zen 2 architecture.
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But, we do have to play the devil's advocate. There is nothing here to prove that this product actually exists, or that this OPN belongs to a 16-core Zen 3 part. With many CPU leaks, we often have an entry in a digital databank to prove that a test was actually run on the hardware, but all we have to go by with this leak is an OPN code from a source we cannot confirm.

Quote:As spotted by patent sleuth @Underfox3, AMD has field a patent for a technique that speeds the transfer of threads between high-performance cores and smaller low-performance cores in a big.LITTLE-esque hybrid computing architecture. As with all patent filings, this doesn't assure that AMD will bring a hybrid computing device to market, but it certainly shows the company is busy researching hybrid architectures.

Quote:ASUS today has seemingly confirmed platform support of AMD's A520 chipset for the upcoming Zen 3-based CPUs. An official ASUS slide showcases the A 520 covering the latest Renoir-based CPUs (Ryzen 4000G, based on Zen 2), alongside upcoming Cezanne (Ryzen 5000G, based on Zen 3), and Vermeer (Ryzen 4000 or 5000 series, based on Zen 3 with actual series nomenclature being up in the air).

The good news end there, as the same ASUS slide may have just dropped a bomb on consumer expectations for their current platform support. Initially, the AMD B450 and X470 chipsets weren't going to support Zen 3-based CPU solutions; however, following considerable community backlash, AMD made the decision to offer support for these platforms via a vendor-specific BIOS update. This update might entail curbed support for older AMD Zen architectures, but would at least allow for an upgrade path for users interested in keeping their AM4, current-gen motherboards. ASUS doesn't seem to be offering such Zen 3 support for its X470 and B450 motherboards, though. We will have to see if this is an ASUS-specific decision or if something is indeed afoot in the world of AMD future proofing.

Quote:AMD today announced its entry-level A520 desktop chipset for 3rd Gen Ryzen "Matisse" processors, and possible readiness for Athlon and Ryzen 4000G processors based on the "Renoir" silicon. Much like the B550, it lacks support for Ryzen 3 3200G and Ryzen 5 3400G processors based on the "Picasso" silicon, as well as older 2nd- and 1st Gen Ryzen processors. The A520 succeeds the A320 chipset, and enables motherboards priced deep under the $100-mark, close to the $50 magic figure. The ASMedia-sourced chipset has quite a few similarities with the B550, but one big segmentation - complete lack of PCIe Gen 4.

Motherboards based on the AMD A520 completely lack PCIe Gen 4 support, even with a Ryzen 3000 "Matisse" processor. Even the PCI-Express x16 and M.2 NVMe slots wired to the AM4 SoC are limited to PCIe Gen 3. On the B550, these two slots run at Gen 4 speeds when paired with a capable processor. Much like the B550, the downstream (general purpose) PCIe lanes from the chipset run at PCIe Gen 3 speeds, although unlike the B550, the chipset only puts out 6 lanes. Other platform I/O includes up to five 10 Gbps USB 3.2 ports (includes two from the AM4 SoC), two 5 Gbps USB 3.1 ports, four SATA 6 Gb/s (AHCI-only) ports, and six USB 2.0 ports. At launch, A520 motherboards only support Ryzen 3000 "Matisse" processors, with support planned for 4000G "Renoir" processors when they launch in the retail channel, and future "Zen 3" processors, through firmware updates.

Quote:As reported by Guru3D, Yuri "1usmus" Bubliy, the creator of DRAM Calculator for Ryzen, is cooking up a new piece of free software for AMD Ryzen owners. The ClockTuner for Ryzen (CTR) aims to extract extra performance out of your Zen 2 processor while decreasing its power consumption.

The CTR software is designed to exploit AMD's chiplet design, so first-gen Zen owners are out of luck for this one. Thus far, CTR supports the Ryzen 3000-series (codename Matisse) and Ryzen Threadripper 3000-series (codename Castle Peak) processors. The author says CTR will be compatible with AMD's future Zen 3 chips as well because the Zen 3 microarchitecture also allows individual voltage and frequency adjustment for each core.

There is no black magic involved with CTR. The software essentially undervolts the individual CCXes (Core Complex) inside the processor, which reportedly helps the chip run faster and cooler while also drawing less power. According to the creator, all the energy-saving features remain intact. It sounds like a complicated process, but 1usmus has automated the entire operation. And best of all, CTR will be completely free for anyone to use.

CTR will work with any AMD motherboard regardless of the brand, and is even compatible with motherboards that don't allow CCX modifications. Apparently, CTR uses low-level SMU access that permits it to bypass any obstacles that the motherboard or processor have in place.
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While CTR appears to deliver promising results, it remains to be seen whether the benefits are perceptible in a real-world scenario. Fortunately, we won't have to wait long to find out as 1usmus expects to launch CTR next month.

Quote:Just a few days ago, a listing for the Ryzen 5 3500X popped up on Newegg.com for $269.99. It is imported directly from Hong Kong by an e-retailer called Corn Electronics. If you want your very own, make sure you get it fast as this listing expires on September 17. The Ryzen 5 3500X launched nearly a year ago featuring six cores and six threads, a 3.6GHz base clock, and a boost clock of 4.1GHz. Unfortunately, the 3500X was limited to OEMs, and being a China-only exclusive made it almost impossible to get your hands on one. The actual MSRP is unknown due to it being an OEM SKU; however, a year ago, you could grab it for $154 on some Chinese retailer sites.

We reviewed the Ryzen 5 3500X several months ago and praised it's overall good performance for the price (we paid $190 for our sample on the grey market). Its lack of SMT made it a solid gaming CPU at the time, handily beating out the Core i5-9400F in several gaming titles. However, it's lack of SMT means it is severely hampered in threaded applications. Should you buy the 3500X today? Unless you're a CPU collector, definitely not. For the price of $269.99, it isn't competitive in any way, shape, or form. For context, AMD's new Ryzen 5 3600XT is $20 cheaper than the 3500X listed on Newegg.com. Unfortunately, Corn Electronics probably had to inflate prices to cover shipping and other costs related to importing this unit to the United States. If the price was more ideal at $150, I bet it would make a great CPU for budget PC builders, especially when the 3500X's closely related brother, the Ryzen 3 3300X, is nowhere to be seen on store shelves. Again, if you want a 3500X as a collector's item, grab it soon as the listing will only last until September 17.

Quote:AMD is allegedly preparing to market its next-generation Socket AM4 desktop processors based on the "Vermeer" MCM, under the Ryzen 5000 Series. The "Vermeer" MCM implements the company's "Zen 3" microarchitecture in the client segment. It features up to two 7 nm-class CPU complex dies with up to 8 cores, each, and a refreshed cIOD (client IO die). AMD has allegedly improved the cIOD with a new memory controller and several new toggles that improve memory bandwidth. The cIOD combines a PCI-Express Gen 4 root complex with a dual-channel DDR4 memory controller. With "Zen 3," AMD is also introducing an improved boosting algorithm, and an improved SMT feature.

Coming back to AMD's rumored nomenclature, and we could see the company bumping up its processor model numbers to the 5000 series for equivalent core-counts. For example, the Ryzen 9 5900X is a 12-core/24-thread part, much like the 3900X; whereas the Ryzen 7 5800X is an 8-core/16-thread part. This flies in the face of rumors that AMD could take advantage of the 8-core CCX design of the "Zen 3" microarchitecture by carving out 10-core parts using two CCDs with 5 cores enabled, each. The reason AMD is skipping the 4000 series numbering with "Vermeer" probably has something to do with "Renoir" taking up many of the 4000-series model numbers. "Renoir" is based on "Zen 2," and recently made its desktop debut, albeit as an OEM-exclusive. The company is planning to introduce certain 4000G series models to the DIY retail segment. AMD is expected to announce its first "Zen 3" client-segment processors on October 8, 2020.

Quote:In a surprise move, as spotted by VideoCardz, Asus has refreshed its entire B450 product stack with several updates to keep them relevant for the current Ryzen 3000 series and new Ryzen 5000 series CPUs coming soon.

The main upgrades include higher memory OC support, a larger firmware/BIOS chip (most likely 32MB), which allows more CPUs to be supported in BIOS without sacrificing BIOS quality or features, and upgraded connectivity such as USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports instead of Gen 1. Finally, a couple of the refreshed models include upgraded power delivery systems with more phases.
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The changes are a welcome sight to those which require a cheap AMD motherboard, capable of running future Ryzen processors without too many bells and whistles. The higher B450 boards like the STRIX could be a tough sell, however, with entry-level and mid-range B550 boards already under $150. It all comes down to PCI-E Gen 4.0 and how badly you need it, which is a big deal now with new Gen 4.0 capable graphics cards and NVMe SSDs growing in popularity. Availability for these boards is unknown at this time.

Quote:With AMD expected to announce its 5th Generation Ryzen "Vermeer" desktop processors next week, the rumor-mill is grinding the finest spices. This time, an alleged CPU-Z Bench score of a 12-core/24-thread Ryzen 9 5900X processor surfaced. CPU-Z by CPUID has a lightweight internal benchmark that evaluates the single-threaded and multi-threaded performance of the processor, and provides reference scores from a selection of processors for comparison. The alleged 5900X sample is shown belting out a multi-threaded (nT) score of 9481.8 points, and single-threaded (1T) score of 652.8 points.

When compared to the internal reference score by CPUID for the Ryzen 7 3700X 8-core/16-thread processor, which is shown with 511 points 1T and 5433 points nT, the alleged 5900X ends up with a staggering 27% higher 1T score, and a 74% higher nT score. While the nT score is largely attributable to the 50% higher core-count, the 1T score is interesting. We predict that besides possibly higher clock-speeds for the 5900X, the "Zen 3" microarchitecture does offer a certain amount of IPC gain over "Zen 2" to account for the 27%. AMD's IPC parity with Intel is likely to tilt in its favor with "Zen 3," until Intel can whip something up with its "Cypress Cove" CPU cores on the 14 nm "Rocket Lake-S" processor.

Quote:AMD recently announced their first Ryzen 5000 series chips catering to the high-end market. AMD announced the Ryzen 5 5600X, Ryzen 7 5800X, and Ryzen 9 5900X with the bold claim of gaming supremacy. These chips came with price increases across the board over their predecessors being priced at 299 USD for the Ryzen 5 5600X, 449 USD for the Ryzen 7 5800X, and 549 USD for the 5900X. The AMD Ryzen 5 5600 which is expected to offer the best price to performance was not announced at the event to the disappointment of many wanting to upgrade their Ryzen systems.

According to a recent report AMD plans to release the Ryzen 5 5600 in early 2021 for 220 USD. This represents an 80 USD price cut over the Ryzen 5 5600X and a 20 USD price increase over the Ryzen 5 3600. This launch will likely coincide with BIOS updates for 400 series motherboards to support Ryzen 5000 chips. If AMD can match the performance of Intel's i5-10600K with the Ryzen 5 5600 they will likely have a very impressive value chip on their hands.

Quote:When we first talked about Zen 3 some months ago, one of the downsides to the chip was the limited backward compatibility for older motherboards. At the time, AMD indicated they would be able to support a few specific X470 motherboards in the equivalent of a beta-testing program. That guidance has since changed. Not only is X470 support coming to Zen 3, but AMD is also enabling the CPU on the B450 platform as well. Asus has confirmed this, with a specific statement on the topic:

Quote:The Ryzen 7 5800X is yet another compelling piece of AMD's Zen 3-powered 7nm silicon, delivering the types of generational performance gains that we've come to expect from Ryzen 5000 and easily outclassing Intel's price-comparable chips with a better balance of single-threaded and multi-threaded performance.

However, AMD increased the price for its eight-core Ryzen 5000 chips by $50 over the previous-gen processors, leaving the Ryzen 7 5800X susceptible to competition from within AMD's own product stack. AMD's excessively-large $150 gap between the Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 7 families also opens the door for the Core i7-10700K to slide in as a lower-priced and lower-performance alternative.
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The Ryzen 7 5800X suffers from a precarious pricing position, and the $150 no-mans-land between Ryzen 7 and 5 series leaves the door open for the Core i7-10700K to slot in as a value alternative between the 5800X and 5600X. The $374 Core i7-10700K brings solid gaming performance, you probably won't notice the difference between it and the 5600X if you have anything short of an RTX 3080, but the 10700K also adds a bit more threaded horsepower. The 10700K isn't as potent in threaded applications as the 5800X, but the $75 savings makes it a compelling value alternative if you're interested in more than just gaming.

AMD has redefined the market's mainstream segment to chips with 6 or 8 cores, but it has left little wiggle room for enthusiasts to step up to eight cores without a much higher price tag. AMD really needs the 'missing' Ryzen 7 5700X to plug the big pricing gap in its product stack. Such a chip would likely remove the Core i7-10700K from the conversation, not to mention make it more palatable to step up from Ryzen 5 to Ryzen 7.

Overall, we're impressed with the Ryzen 7 5800X's performance, but its price tag leaves a lot to be desired. Given the ongoing shortages, AMD can continue to charge a premium and sell every chip nearly immediately. However, as supply improves, the Ryzen 7 5800X's pricing could prove to be the Achilles heel for an otherwise stellar processor.

Quote:Recent reports of new Ryzen 5000 processors running on ASRock's A320 motherboard has generated plenty of excitement. Now, a new BIOS posted at jzeletronic.de enables support for AMD's Ryzen 5000 and Renoir processors on ASRock's X370 Taichi and Professional motherboards (via @komachi_ensaka). For those not in the know, AMD has expressly stated that support for Ryzen 5000 processors will not come to 300-series motherboards, making this an interesting development. We pinged AMD on the matter, and the company issued the following statement to Tom's Hardware:

"AMD has no plans to enable or support AMD Ryzen 5000 series on AMD 300 series chipsets."

Regardless, it appears this is the first publicly-available BIOS that enables Zen 3 support on an X370 motherboard (with serious caveats we'll outline below). AMD only officially supports the Ryzen 5000 models on 500-series motherboards for now, but the company is currently working to bring complete compatibility with 400-series motherboards in January 2021.

Quote:However, Intel does have competing models for the Ryzen 5 5600X. Our results show that AMD's Zen 3 microarchitecture simply outclasses Intel's Comet Lake chips at every price point they compete in, sealing AMD's dominance in desktop PCs.

As we can see in our charts above, AMD's advantage of a denser 7nm process node and more refined architecture pays big dividends. The Ryzen 5 5600X is faster than Intel's less-expensive Core i5-10600K across the board, setting a new bar for single-threaded and multi-threaded performance in the mid-range.

Looking across the full spate of Intel chips, the Ryzen 5 5600X beats all of the Intel processors in single-threaded performance - but that's with the 5600X at stock settings. Meanwhile, even overclocking Intel's priciest mainstream silicon, the Core i9-10900K, doesn't help against the Ryzen 5 5600X at stock settings. Overclocking AMD's chip only increases its lead.
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We can expect Intel to respond with lower pricing as Zen 3 availability improves, particularly over the holiday season. Until then, if you're looking for a lower-priced alternative to the Ryzen 5 5600X, we stick with our previous recommendation of the Ryzen 5 3600 (and even the 3600X if you catch it at a good price). We simply can't recommend any competing Comet Lake processor at current pricing.

Zen 3 has completely disrupted Intel's desktop PC chips at every price point it competes in, and we're excited to see what the future Ryzen 3 and APUs have in store. Not to mention next-gen Threadripper. Meanwhile, the Ryzen 5 5600X takes the throne as the no-compromise gaming chip for the mid-range.

Quote:AMD Ryzen 3000 "Matisse" processors based on the "Zen 2" microarchitecture, as well as older AMD processors based on "Zen+" and "Zen" microarchitectures, do not support the company's Smart Access Memory (SAM) feature being introduced with Radeon RX 6000 series graphics cards. SAM is essentially a branding of the Resizable Base-Address Register (Resizable-BAR) feature developed by the PCI-SIG; which enables a processor to see a graphics card's entire video memory as a single addressable block, rather than through 256-megabyte apertures. Apparently the PCI-Express root complex of Ryzen 5000 "Vermeer" processors introduce an instruction called full-rate _pdep_u32/64, which is required for resizable-BAR to work.

It gets more interesting—Intel processors have been supporting this feature since the company's 4th Gen Core "Haswell," which introduced it with its 20-lane PCI-Express gen 3.0 root-complex. This means that every Intel processor dating back to 2014 can technically support Resizable-BAR, and it's just a matter of motherboard vendors releasing UEFI firmware updates for their products (i.e. Intel 8-series chipsets and later). AMD extensively advertises SAM as adding a 1-2% performance boost to Radeon RX 6800 series graphics cards. Since this is a PCI-SIG feature, NVIDIA plans to add support for it on some of its GPUs, too. Meanwhile, in addition to AMD 500-series chipsets, even certain Intel 400-series chipset motherboards started receiving Resizable BAR support through firmware updates.

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

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

Quote:With the launch of the Ryzen 5000 series of processors, AMD has set a goal to put its Zen 3 cores everywhere. Starting from desktop, mobile, and soon server space, AMD is delivering its best products. However, AMD is also preparing to satisfy another segment. The OEMs are in need of processors that are specifically designed for their purposes and their clients, that don't require as many features as the desktop segment does. Usually, that means some overclocking capability is cut off. Today, thanks to the two hardware leakers Patrick Schur and Momomo_US we get to see the first sightings of AMD's upcoming Zen 3 offerings for OEMs.

The first in the lineup is the Ryzen 9 5900 processor. It features 12 cores with 24 threads, running at unknown frequencies for now. All we know is that the CPU is a bit lower-clocked than its 105 W "X" Ryzen 9 5900X variant. Unlike the "X" variant, this CPU is supposed to bring TDP down to 65 Watts. Another differentiator is the cache configuration. The Ryzen 9 5900 features 64 MB of L3 cache and 2 MB of L2 cache. The "X" version for desktops features 64 MB of L3, however, there is 6 MB of L2 cache present there. Next up comes the smaller eight-core variant - Ryzen 7 5800. Featuring 8 cores and 16 threads running at an also unknown frequency. The chip features a TDP of 65 Watts and cache configuration with 32 MB of L3 cache and 4 MB of L2, with the only difference from the Ryzen 7 5800X being the lower frequency.

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