AMD succeeded in delivering on its backwards-compatibility promise for the 3rd generation Ryzen processors on motherboards based on AMD 300-series and 400-series chipsets. This promise was very close to being derailed suggests a community thread on MSI forums. According to MSI representatives active on the forum, the capacity of the SPI flash EEPROM chip that stores the motherboard UEFI firmware is woefully limited to cram in the AGESA ComboAM4 1.0.0.3a microcode on many of its motherboards.

The company had to make several changes to its UEFI BIOS package that's currently being circulated as a "beta," to accommodate support for 3rd generation Ryzen processors along with AGESA ComboAM4 1.0.0.3a. First, it had to kick out support for A-series and Athlon processors based on the 28 nm "Bristol Ridge" silicon. Second, it had to [and this is a big one], kick the RAID module, breaking SATA RAID on many of its motherboards. Third, it had to replace its feature-rich Click BIOS 5 setup program with a barebones "GSE Lite" Click BIOS program, which lacks many of the features of the original program, and comes with a dull, low-resolution UI. This program still includes some essential MSI-exclusive features such as A-XMP (which translates Intel XMP profiles to AMD-compatible settings), Smart Fan, and M-Flash.

The leading global motherboard manufacturer, ASRock, is pleased to officially announce the launch of the new AMD X570 motherboard series, previewed during Computex 2019. The series offers ten motherboard models for every role from affordable performance to gaming to content creation to power users. ASRock's X570 boards get the most from the next generation PCIe 4.0 interface and from the newest, most powerful AM4 processors, including the AMD Ryzen 2000 and 3000 Series. These new boards continue the tradition of trusted ASRock names such as Taichi and Phantom Gaming.

The new design for ASRock's X570 motherboards is a huge step forward. ASRock has combined both aesthetics and functionality to create a board that not only looks fascinating, with its bold angular lines, but performs as good as it looks. The stunning full coverage aluminum heatsink cools and protects the PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSDs as well as the chipset. The neatly designed color LED system is eye-catching but also classy. If you need even more enhanced RGB effects, you can customize your PC with Polychrome SYNC full-color RGB LED lighting, which provides both 3-pin addressable RGB headers and traditional 4-pin RGB LED headers which allow users to connect RGB strips directly to the motherboard and sync their lighting system using the app provided.

Spire's gamer-centric brand, X2 Products, unveiled the CoolStorm T402B Spider Red CPU cooler. Featuring a conventional tower-type design, the cooler features an all-black aluminium fin-stack, complete with black anodized heat-pipes. The cooler's four 6 mm-thick copper heat-pipes make direct contact with the CPU at the base, conveying heat through the fin-stack. The fin-stack has jagged edges to increase turbulence and heat-dissipation. Ventilating it is a 120 mm fan that has two red plastic accents along the black fan-frame. The impeller isn't illuminated.

The fan features a hydraulic bearing that's rated for 100,000 hours, takes in 4-pin PWM input, spins between 800 to 2,000 RPM, and pushes between 10 and 45.21CFM of air, with a noise output ranging between 20 to 33 dBA. The cooler can handle thermal loads of up to 135 W, and hence gives HEDT sockets a miss. The only CPU socket types it supports are AM4, AM3(+), FM2(+), and Intel LGA115x. With its fan in place, the cooler measures 123 mm x 73 mm x 156.5 mm (WxDxH), and weighs a little over 250 g. Backed by a 2-year warranty, it is priced at USD $45.

ASUS today rolled out an entry-level mini-ITX motherboard for the AMD socket AM4 platform, the Prime A320I-K. Based on the AMD A320 chipset, the board supports 1st and 2nd generation Ryzen processors out of the box, including the 8-core models. The tiny A320 chipset is tucked away behind a metal heatspreader underneath the M.2-2280 slot. The board draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX and 8-pin EPS connectors, conditioning it with a 6-phase VRM that makes do without a heatsink.

Storage connectivity on the A320I-K includes four SATA 6 Gbps ports, and an M.2-2280 slot with PCI-Express 2.0 x4 and SATA 6 Gbps wiring from the SoC. The board's lone expansion slot is a PCI-Express 3.0 x16. USB connectivity includes six USB 3.1 gen 1 ports, four on the rear-panel and two via headers; and four USB 2.0 ports, of which two are via headers. Display connectivity includes one each of DisplayPort and HDMI. Networking is care of a single 1 GbE interface driven by a Realtek RTL8111H controller, and the onboard audio solution is an entry-level Realtek ALC887. We expect the Prime A320I-K to be priced around $60.

Intel is embattled in the client-segment desktop processor business, with AMD's imminent launch of its 3rd generation Ryzen desktop processors. Intel's 9th generation Core processors may lose their competitiveness to AMD's offerings, and are expected to get relieved by the company's "Ice Lake" desktop processors only in 2020. Until then, Intel will market its processors through price-cuts, promotions, bundles, and focusing on their gaming prowess. The company will refresh its HEDT (high-end desktop) processor lineup some time in Q3-2019. According to Taiwan-based industry observer DigiTimes citing sources in the motherboard industry, Intel's immediate response to 3rd generation Ryzen will be a series of price-cuts to products in its client-segment DIY retail channel.

According to these sources, prices of 9th generation Core processors could be cut by a minimum of 10 percent, and a maximum of 15 percent, varying by SKUs. This could see prices of popular gaming/enthusiast SKUs such as the Core i9-9900K, the i7-9700K, and the i5-9600K, drop by anywhere between $25 to $75. AMD is launching the Ryzen 9 3900X to compete with the i9-9900K, the Ryzen 7 3800X to compete with the i7-9700K, and the Ryzen 5 3600X to take on the i5-9600K. The three SKUs, according to AMD's internal testing, match the Intel chips at gaming, and beat them at content-creation tasks. At the heart of 3rd generation Ryzen processors is AMD's new Zen 2 microarchitecture, which brings significant IPC gains. AMD is also increasing core-counts on its mainstream desktop platform with the introduction of the Ryzen 9 family of 12-core and 16-core processors in the AM4 package.

Japanese cooling expert Scythe announces a special edition of the Mugen 5 CPU Cooler as part of the ASUS TUF Gaming Alliance series. Outstanding performance with overclocking potential, high cooling efficiency and an exceptionally sophisticated heatsink design are just three of the many advantages the Scythe Mugen series has to offer. Mugen 5 TUF Gaming Alliance incorporates all the features of the acclaimed series and combines them with the unique TUF Gaming Alliance design along with exclusive RGB illumination. For an even more convenient installation, Scythe has implemented the third revision of its Hyper Precision Mounting System for Mugen 5 TUF Gaming Alliance.

The new Mugen 5 TUF Gaming Alliance CPU Cooler features a carefully designed top-cover, which incorporates the unique patterns as well as logo of the TUF Gaming Alliance series from ASUS . The large and translucent surface area in the top-plate is fitted with RGB LEDs. This illumination is further enhanced thanks to the new Kaze Flex 120 RGB fan, offering rich colors and versatile effects. Kaze Flex 120 utilizes eight RGB LEDs inside the ring around the fan motor for consistent and bright illumination. Users are able to take full control of the RGB settings by connecting the fan directly to a RGB-enabled motherboard. This way it is possible to synchronize the colors and effects using the Asus Aura or other compatible RGB systems.

Thermaltake is on a drive to rehash many of its older CPU cooler designs with touches of modernity, such as addressable-RGB LED lighting and newer fans with improved bearings. The latest such effort is the UX200 ARGB Lighting. The cooler is based on a tower-type heatsink in which the fins get narrower towards the bottom of the fin-stack, to improve clearance with your motherboard's VRM and M.2 slots. The aluminium fins and copper heat-pipes are anodized black. The four 6 mm-thick copper heat-pipes make direct contact with the CPU at the base, conveying heat through the fin-stack. The aluminium base has some finnage of its own.

The cooler is ventilated by a 120 mm fan that has 15 addressable-RGB LEDs studded into the bore of the frame, with a silicone diffuser spreading their light. The lighting takes in standard 3-pin ARGB input. The fan itself takes in 4-pin PWM input, features a hydraulic bearing that's rated for 30,000 hours, and spins between 300 to 1,500 RPM, pushing up to 43.34 CFM of air, with a noise output of up to 26.33 dBA. The cooler is designed to handle thermal loads of up to 130W, although it only supports mainstream-desktop CPU socket types, which include LGA115x and AM4. The company didn't reveal pricing.

Last Friday, we reported ASMedia working on new-generation socket AM4 motherboard chipsets that succeed the AMD B450 and A320, which could hopefully offer significantly cheaper alternatives to boards based on the feature-rich AMD X570 chipset. The DigiTimes story we cited was updated to clarify that the chipset only supports PCI-Express gen 3.0, and not the newer PCI-Express gen 4.0. There are two distinct ways of interpreting this information.

One, that motherboards based on B550 and A520 completely lack PCIe gen 4.0, including the main PCI-Express x16 (PEG) slot and the M.2 slot wired to the AM4 SoC; and two, that only the downstream PCIe lanes and the chipset bus are PCIe gen 3.0, while the main PEG slot and M.2 slot from the SoC remain gen 4. We lean toward the latter interpretation being more plausible, that AMD B550 and A520 motherboards will at least feature one PCI-Express 4.0 x16 slot, and one M.2 slot that has PCI-Express 4.0 x4 wiring from the AM4 SoC; while the ASMedia chipset is connected to the SoC over PCI-Express 3.0 x4, and downstream PCIe lanes put out by the chipset are gen 3.0, too. These ASMedia-sourced AMD 500-series chipset motherboards could also implement the latest PCB, CPU VRM, and memory wiring specifications released by AMD that enable CPU and memory overclocking levels unattainable on motherboards based on older chipsets.

Thermaltake today rolled out one of the first few low-profile top-flow air CPU coolers that feature addressable-RGB lighting, the UX100 ARGB. The cooler features a classic "fin bunch" design, in which radially-projecting aluminium fins bunch up at the center to form the base. A 120 mm fan is suspended along a shroud over this fin-bunch, which features a silicone LED diffuser along the bore of the shroud.

There are 15 aRGB LEDs studded into this diffuser, which take in 3-pin standard input for addressable-RGB control via software. The fan features a hydraulic bearing, takes in 3-pin DC input, spinning at 1,800 RPM, pushing 38.82 CFM of air, with a noise output of 26.92 dBA. The cooler measures 122.3 mm x 122.3 mm x 66.1 mm, and can handle thermal loads of up to 65W. Among the CPU socket types supported are AM4 and LGA115x (no HEDT sockets supported). The company didn't reveal pricing.

ASUS today expanded its ROG Strix LC line of all-in-one liquid CPU coolers with a new top variant that comes with a large 360 mm x 120 mm radiator for better cooling. The ROG Strix LC series had debuted in May with 120 mm and 240 mm variants. ASUS bundles three of the same 120 mm fans it includes with the pricier Ryuo series, which take in 4-pin PWM input, spin between 800 to 2,500 RPM, pushing up to 80.95 CFM of air, with a noise output of up to 29.7 dBA, each. Characteristic to the ROG Strix LC series, the pump-block features spirally-projecting RGB LED diffusers along the sides, and an illuminated ROG logo on top. All lighting is controlled by addressable-RGB (ASUS Aura Sync RGB). The cooler supports nearly all modern CPU socket types, including AM4, LGA115x, and LGA2066. The pump-block supports the Asetek-standard AIO CLC retention module AMD Ryzen Threadripper processors include in their PIB packages.

AMD Ryzen 3000 "Matisse" processors are multi-chip modules of two kinds of dies - one or two 7 nm 8-core "Zen 2" CPU chiplets, and an I/O controller die that packs the processor's dual-channel DDR4 memory controller, PCI-Express gen 4.0 root-complex, and an integrated southbridge that puts out some SoC I/O, such as two SATA 6 Gbps ports, four USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports, LPCIO (ISA), and SPI (for the UEFI BIOS ROM chip). It was earlier reported that while the Zen 2 CPU core chiplets are built on 7 nm process, the I/O controller is 14 nm. We have confirmation now that the I/O controller die is built on the more advanced 12 nm process, likely GlobalFoundries 12LP. This is the same process on which AMD builds its "Pinnacle Ridge" and "Polaris 30" chips. The 7 nm "Zen 2" CPU chiplets are made at TSMC.

AMD also provided a fascinating technical insight to the making of the "Matisse" MCM, particularly getting three highly complex dies under the IHS of a mainstream-desktop processor package, and perfectly aligning the three for pin-compatibility with older generations of Ryzen AM4 processors that use monolithic dies, such as "Pinnacle Ridge" and "Raven Ridge." AMD innovated new copper-pillar 50µ bumps for the 8-core CPU chiplets, while leaving the I/O controller die with normal 75µ solder bumps. Unlike with its GPUs that need high-density wiring between the GPU die and HBM stacks, AMD could make do without a silicon interposer or TSVs (through-silicon-vias) to connect the three dies on "Matisse." The fiberglass substrate is now "fattened" up to 12 layers, to facilitate the inter-die wiring, as well as making sure every connection reaches the correct pin on the µPGA.

AMD X570 is the company's first in-house design desktop motherboard chipset for the AM4 platform. The company sourced earlier generations of chipset from ASMedia. A chipset in context of the AM4 platform only serves to expand I/O connectivity, since an AM4 processor is a full-fledged SoC, with an integrated southbridge that puts out SATA and USB ports directly from the CPU socket, in addition to LPCIO (ISA), HD audio bus, and SPI to interface with the firmware ROM chip. The X470 "Promontory Low Power" chipset runs really cool, with a maximum TDP of 5 Watts, and the ability to lower power to get its TDP down to 3W. The X570, on the other hand, has a TDP of "at least 15 Watts." A majority of the X570 motherboards we've seen at Computex 2019 had active fan-heatsinks over the chipset. We may now have a possible explanation for this - there are just too many things on the chipset.

According to AMD, the X570 chipset by itself can be made to put out a staggering twelve SATA 6 Gbps ports (not counting the two ports put out by the AM4 SoC). A possible rationale behind this may have been to enable motherboard designers to equip every M.2 slot on the motherboard with SATA wiring in addition to PCIe, without needing switches that reroute SATA connection from one of the physical ports. It's also possible that AMD encouraged motherboard designers to not wire out SATA ports from the AM4 SoC as physical ports to save costs on switches, and dedicate one of them to the M.2 slot wired to the SoC. With the two SATA ports from the SoC out of the equation, and every other M.2 slot getting a direct SATA connection from the chipset, motherboard designers can wire out the remaining SATA ports as physical ports, without spending money on switches, or worrying about customer complaints on one of their drives not working due to automatic switching. This is an extreme solution to a rather simple problem.

Enermax launched over a dozen new product lines and dozens more individual SKUs this Computex. This article part of a 3-part series that covers their exhaustive booth, beginning with fans, and CPU coolers. At the heart of the company's cooling portfolio this year is the new SquaRGB, a new line of case/radiator fans introduced this February, characterized with an RGB LED diffuser design that supposedly looks like a square with two curved sides. With sizes ranging from 120 mm to 140 mm and 200 mm, Enermax used these fans in nearly all their new products, including standalone fan sets, CPU coolers (both air and liquid types), and pre-installed in their new cases. The bore of the fan-frame is still circular, and the irregular shape surrounding the bore funnels air into the impeller.

Chinese DIY and AIO liquid cooling components vendor Bykski brought its largest ever collection of new products to Computex, this year. These include nine new CPU water blocks, ten new radiators of various sizes, five new full-coverage VGA water blocks, monoblocks, pumps, reservoirs, pump+reservoir combi-units, and two new AIO CLC CPU coolers. Bykski's collection of CPU water blocks now includes three new models purpose-built for AMD TR4 socket, and six blocks that support LGA2066, LGA1151, and AM4. A few of these, under the CU-RA brand, combine the beauty of RGB LED embellishments, with the brains of an integrated monitoring component. Part of the block's acrylic top, the component features an LCD display and sensors that detect coolant temperature, base temperature, and coolant pressure. Data is put out both as absolute values and as graphical histograms. This sensor unit is also sold as a standalone fitment to one of your coolant lines, to detect coolant temperature and pressure.

ECS at its Computex 2019 booth showed off its next generation of LIVA branded mini PCs and a new AMD platform SFF desktop. We begin with the retro-looking SF110-A320, an SFF desktop measuring 205 mm x 176 mm x 33 mm (WxDxH), with an AM4 socket, and the ability to power 35W TDP APUs. Its mainboard is driven by an AMD A320 chipset. We know that the A320 supports 12 nm Ryzen 3000-series "Picasso" APUs. It's quite possible that these desktops could ship with them, particularly their low-TDP variants. The iGPU of these chips are wired out to two DisplayPorts, an HDMI, and a D-sub (VGA) output. You drop in your own DDR4 SO-DIMM modules, an M.2-2280 SSD, or 2.5-inch SATA drive. Networking options include 802.11ac WLAN, Bluetooth 4.2, and 1 GbE wired networking. ECS includes a 90W power-brick.

The company also showed off its latest LIVA Z3 Plus series mini PCs that appear to be ready for 10th generation Core "Ice Lake-U" SoCs, although the company won't mention it. There are two physical variants of the Z3 Plus, a shorter one that lacks a 2.5-inch drive bay, making you rely entirely on an M.2-2280 slot for internal storage (PCIe + SATA); and a taller variant with an additional 2.5-inch drive bay with SATA 6 Gbps. The shorter variant measures 117 mm x 128 mm x 37 mm (WxDxH), and the taller one about 47 mm in height. Both variants ship with 120W power bricks, take in two DDR4 SO-DIMM modules, one M.2-2280 SSD, and put out connectivity that includes HDMI and mDP display outputs, dual 1 GbE wired + 802.11ac + Bluetooth 4.2 networking, and four USB 3.1 gen 2 ports, from which one is a type-C.

This shouldn't really need to be spelled out, but AMD clarified that you can't have PCI-Express gen 4.0 running an upcoming Ryzen 3000 "Matisse" processor on older socket AM4 motherboards based on AMD 300-series and 400-series chipsets, and that the processor's PCIe root-complex will run at PCI-Express gen 3.0 speeds. AMD's official reason for this is that the older motherboards can't guarantee reliable signaling needed for PCI-Express gen 4.0 and hence the company decided to blanket-disable PCIe gen 4.0 for the older platforms. This statement was put out by Robert Hallock, senior technical marketing head for CPUs and APUs, on Reddit.

Unofficially, though, we believe there are technological barriers standing in the way of PCI-Express gen 4.0 on the older motherboards, the least of which are the lack of external PCIe gen 4.0-certified re-driver/equalizer components, and lane-switching on boards that split one x16 PEG link to two x8 links. There may be other less technical issues such as PCI-SIG certification for the older platforms. Intel faced a similar challenge with its 3rd generation Core "Ivy Bridge" processors, which introduced PCI-Express gen 3.0 to the mainstream desktop platform, and were backwards-compatible with Intel 6-series chipset (eg: Z68 Express). The older 6-series motherboards could only put out PCIe gen 2.0 with the newer processors.

We were pleasantly mistaken when we thought ASRock would stop at the X570 Phantom Gaming X or the X570 Taichi for AMD's new "Valhalla" enthusiast desktop platform. It turns out that they have a roughly-$1,000 monster motherboard in the pipes, called the X570 Aqua. Pictured below, the board is based on a slight variation of the X570 Phantom Gaming X PCB. The biggest change of course is the aluminium shroud that covers most of the board's front side. There's also a metal back-plate.

Beneath the metal shroud is what gives the board its name: a massive liquid-cooling monoblock that cools not just your processor (including heavyweights such as overclocked Ryzen 9 3900X chips), but also the CPU VRM, and the feisty AMD X570 chipset. The coolant channel first goes over the CPU through a large micro-fin lattice, then onto the X570 chipset, and finally over the CPU VRM on its way out. Much like the Phantom Gaming X, this board features daisy-chained dual-channel DDR4 memory slots designed to make the most OC out of 2-module setups.

Colorful Technology Company Limited, professional manufacturer of graphics cards, motherboards and high-performance storage solutions is thrilled to introduce its latest product to gamers, enthusiasts, power users and system builders with the release of the COLORFUL first AMD X570-based motherboard. The new COLORFUL CVN X570 GAMING PRO V14 serves as a foundation for new AMD builds and supports AM4 socket processors including 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen desktop processors.

The CVN X570 GAMING Pro is ready for the future with support for AMD's new 7nm processor based on their Zen2 architecture, while still supporting both 2nd Gen and 1st Gen Ryzen products. This provides and easier and more cost effective upgrade path into the latest hardware. Making its debut is PCIe 4.0 on this motherboard giving it extra bandwidth for high-speed connections with devices. The motherboard also comes rich with USB connectivity including USB3.1 Gen2 and also features wireless LAN.

ASRock came to Computex 2019 with a fairly big selection of socket AM4 motherboards based on the AMD X570 chipset. The lineup is led by the X570 Taichi, launched as a single SKU and not differentiated into an "Ultimate" variant. ASRock retains the characteristic gearwheel style along the board's styling. Almost the entire bottom half of the board is covered by a metal shroud that spreads heat from the chipset heatsink, and three M.2 SSDs. The chipset heatsink's fan is concealed behind a grille to not look like an eyesore. New generation connectivity options from this board include 2.5 GbE wired + 2.4 Gbps 802.11ax WLAN, and USB 3.2 ports. The Taichi looks a little less understated than its predecessors, with more RGB LED embellishments.

We also spied the X570 Steel Legend, with its polarizing "urban camo" print, and bright metal meatsinks and I/O shrouds. The Steel Legend series motherboards command interesting sub-$200 price-points, and it will be interesting to see where this one lands. You get two M.2 NVMe slots, both with metal heatsinks, an M.2 E-key slot, open-ended x1 slots, and a reasonably powerful ALC1220-based onboard audio solution. We also spotted two Phantom Gaming products, the X570 Phantom Gaming X, and the X570 Phantom Gaming 4, with the Gaming X being the company's flagship X570 offering. This board maxes out the platform's connectivity with three M.2 NVMe slots, 802.11ax WLAN, 2.5 GbE wired networking, an additional 1 GbE interface driven by an Intel controller, USB 3.2, and a strong 16-phase VRM powering the AM4 socket. Like most other ASRock boards, the fan ventilating the chipset heatsink is concealed behind a grille.

ASUS at a private pre-Computex event gave us a closer look at a treasure of upcoming products. The star-attractions, however, were its AMD X570 motherboard family that's spread across nearly every brand: ROG Crosshair, ROG Strix, TUF Gaming, Prime, and for the very first time for the AM4 platform, the WS series. The crown jewel of course is the mini-ITX form-factor product, the ROG Strix X570-I Gaming. This board is quite an engineering feat considering the ≥15 Watts TDP of the X570 chipset, which requires active cooling in most cases. An intricate network of heatsinks suspended along heat-pipes leading up to a dense aluminium fin-stack ventilated by a 30 mm fan, cools both the chipset and CPU VRM. ASUS designed this board to handle even the 12-core Ryzen 9 3900X, but we don't expect too much overclocking headroom.

AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su at her 2019 Computex keynote address announced the 3rd generation Ryzen desktop processor family, which leverages the company's Zen 2 microarchitecture, and are built on the 7 nm silicon fabrication process at TSMC. Designed for the AM4 CPU socket, with backwards compatibility for older AMD 300-series and 400-series chipset motherboards, these processors are multi-chip modules of up to two 8-core "Zen 2" CPU chiplets, and a 14 nm I/O controller die that packs the dual-channel DDR4 memory controller and PCI-Express gen 4.0 root complex, along with some SoC connectivity. AMD claims an IPC increase of 15 percent over Zen 1, and higher clock speeds leveraging 7 nm, which add up to significantly higher performance over the current generation. AMD bolstered the core's FPU (floating-point unit), and doubled the cache sizes.

AMD unveiled three high-end SKUs for now, the $329 Ryzen 7 3700X, the $399 Ryzen 7 3800X, and the $499 Ryzen 9 3900X. The 3700X and 3800X are 8-core/16-thread parts with a single CPU chiplet. The 3700X is clocked at 3.60 GHz with 4.40 GHz maximum boost frequency, just 65 Watts TDP and will be beat Intel's Core i7-9700K both at gaming and productivity. The 3800X tops that with 3.90 GHz nominal, 4.50 GHz boost, 105W TDP, and beat the Core i9-9900K at gaming and productivity. AMD went a step further at launched the new Ryzen 9 brand with the 3900X, which is a 12-core/24-thread processor clocked at 3.80 GHz, which 4.60 boost, 72 MB of total cache, 105W TDP, and performance that not only beats the i9-9900K, but also the i9-9920X 12-core/24-thread HEDT processor despite two fewer memory channels. AMD focused on gaming performance with Zen 2, with wider FPU, improved branch prediction, and several micro-architectural improvements contributing to a per-core performance that's higher than Intel's. The processors go on sale on 7/7/2019.

AMD X570 is the company's first in-house design socket AM4 motherboard chipset, with the X370 and X470 chipsets being originally designed by ASMedia. With the X570, AMD hopes to leverage new PCI-Express gen 4.0 connectivity of its Ryzen 3000 Zen2 "Matisse" processors. The desktop platform that combines a Ryzen 3000 series processor with X570 chipset is codenamed "Valhalla." A rough platform diagram like what you'd find in motherboard manuals surfaced on ChipHell, confirming several features. To maintain pin-compatibility with older generations of Ryzen processors, Ryzen 3000 has the same exact connectivity from the SoC except two key differences.

On the AM4 "Valhalla" platform, the SoC puts out a total of 28 PCI-Express gen 4.0 lanes. 16 of these are allocated to PEG (PCI-Express graphics), configurable through external switches and redrivers either as single x16, or two x8 slots. Besides 16 PEG lanes, 4 lanes are allocated to one M.2 NVMe slot. The remaining 4 lanes serve as the chipset bus. With X570 being rumored to support gen 4.0 at least upstream, the chipset bus bandwidth is expected to double to 64 Gbps. Since it's an SoC, the socket is also wired to LPCIO (SuperIO controller). The processor's integrated southbridge puts out two SATA 6 Gbps ports, one of which is switchable to the first M.2 slot; and four 5 Gbps USB 3.x ports. It also has an "Azalia" HD audio bus, so the motherboard's audio solution is directly wired to the SoC. Things get very interesting with the connectivity put out by the X570 chipset.Update May 21st: There is also information on the X570 chipset's TDP.
Update May 23rd: HKEPC posted what looks like an official AMD slide with a nicer-looking platform map. It confirms that AMD is going full-tilt with PCIe gen 4, both as chipset bus, and as downstream PCIe connectivity.

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

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

Scythe announces the release of new dual-towers cooler, Fuma 2, the successor of the Fuma family. With enlarged fins of heatsink and two Kaze Flex 120 mm fans, Fuma 2 increases 15 percent cooling efficiency compared to the first version. Asymmetrical design and cutout allow unlimited access to RMA module, and HPMS III mounting system guarantees convenient and secure installation as well as perfect contact pressure of most modern sockets and platform. The Scythe Fuma 2 is now available in North America at an MSRP of USD $59.95.The specifications follow.

BIOSTAR,a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, and storage devices offers piece of mind for its customers, announcing the BIOSTAR AMD AM4 300-series and 400-series motherboardswill be compatible with upcoming 3rd Gen AMD RYZEN CPUs. BIOSTAR's engineering team have been working relentlessly prior to the availability of the upcoming CPUs to ensure BIOSTAR products keep their promise of ensuring customers get the best value without worrying about future upgrades.

Among the motherboard models eligible for BIOS update are: B350ET2, B350GT3, B350GT5, B350GTN, B450GT3, X370GT3, X370GT5, X370GT7, X370GTN, X470GT8, X470GTN, A320MD PRO, A320MH PRO, TA320-BTC, TB350-BTC, A320MY-Q7, A320MH, B45M2, B450MHC, B450MH, and Hi-Fi B350S1. You should be able to find the BIOS updates in the downloads section of the product pages of these motherboards on the BIOSTAR website.