On March 29th, the United States announced another round of updates to its export controls, targeting advanced computing, supercomputers, semiconductor end-uses, and semiconductor manufacturing products. These new regulations, which took effect on April 4th, are designed to prevent certain countries and businesses from circumventing U.S. restrictions to access sensitive chip technologies and equipment. Despite these tighter controls, TrendForce believes the practical impact on the industry will be minimal.

The latest updates aim to refine the language and parameters of previous regulations, tightening the criteria for exports to Macau and D:5 countries (China, North Korea, Russia, Iran, etc.). They require a detailed examination of all technology products' Total Processing Performance (TPP) and Performance Density (PD). If a product exceeds certain computing power thresholds, it must undergo a case-by-case review. Nevertheless, a new provision, Advanced Computing Authorized (ACA), allows for specific exports and re-exports among selected countries, including the transshipment of particular products between Macau and D:5 countries.

At Embedded World 2024, Enclustra will showcase limitless potential to innovate the next big thing with over 20 FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) embedded system on module (SoM) technology solutions. Starting with unveiling Pluto, its tiny titan at 30 x 30 mm, the new coin-sized SoM with the strength of AMD Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC, features ultra-compact embedded intelligence and portability, accelerating development of compact and portable low-power applications in industrial, healthcare, and security. Pluto's miniature form factor and high processing power are ideal for real-time video processing in medical smart glasses, VR, environmental monitoring, drones, autonomous navigation, and artificial intelligence inference.

"Enclustra leverages strategic partnerships with AMD, Altera and Microchip to provide customers with a comprehensive ecosystem of cutting-edge FPGA solutions optimized for performance and cost. We integrated their technology into our Pluto SoM, enabling unparalleled processing power and efficiency in a compact form factor," said Philipp Baechtold, CEO of Enclustra GmbH. "The future is bright for innovation with FPGA embedded chip technologies, creating life-saving, life-changing, and dream-making solutions."

AMD "Zen 5" CPU microarchitecture will introduce a significant performance increase for AVX-512 workloads, with some sources reported as high as 40% performance increases over "Zen 4" in benchmarks that use AVX-512. A Moore's Law is Dead report detailing the execution engine of "Zen 5" holds the answer to how the company managed this—using a true 512-bit FPU. Currently, AMD uses a dual-pumped 256-bit FPU to execute AVX-512 workloads on "Zen 4." The updated FPU should significantly improve the core's performance in workloads that take advantage of 512-bit AVX or VNNI instructions, such as AI.

Giving "Zen 5" a 512-bit FPU meant that AMD also had to scale up the ancillaries—all the components that keep the FPU fed with data and instructions. The company therefore increased the capacity of the L1 DTLB. The load-store queues have been widened to meet the needs of the new FPU. The L1 Data cache has been doubled in bandwidth, and increased in size by 50%. The L1D is now 48 KB in size, up from 32 KB in "Zen 4." FPU MADD latency has been reduced by 1 cycle. Besides the FPU, AMD also increased the number of Integer execution pipes to 10, from 8 on "Zen 4." The exclusive L2 cache per core remains 1 MB in size.Update 07:02 UTC: Moore's Law is Dead reached out to us and said that the slide previously posted by them, which we had used in an earlier version of this article, is fake, but said that the information contained in that slide is correct, and that they stand by the information.

PowerColor, a leader in graphics card innovation, is thrilled to unveil its latest creation - the PowerColor Hellhound RX 7800 XT Sakura Edition. Leveraging the advanced AMD RDNA architecture and building on the Hellhound series' acclaim, this edition introduces a fresh aesthetic twist to the graphics card world.

Sakura Edition - Grace and Performance
The market has seen its share of themed graphics cards, but the Hellhound RX 7800 XT Sakura Edition stands apart with its all-white design accented by subtle pink details. This design choice not only maintains the card's sleek and unified appearance but also introduces a touch of grace, reminiscent of cherry blossoms. PowerColor's dedication to this theme is evident in every aspect of the card, from an all white PCB to the uniquely white heatsink and cooler design with adorned with pink accents.

AMD has introduced the Ryzen Embedded 8000 Series processors, the first AMD embedded devices to combine NPUs based on the AMD XDNA architecture with traditional CPU and GPU elements, optimized for workload versatility and adaptability targeting industrial AI applications. Embedded solution engineers and developers can harness the processing power and leadership features for a variety of industrial AI applications including machine vision, robotics, and industrial automation. AI is widely used in machine vision applications today to enhance quality control and inspection processes.

AI can also help robots make real-time, route-planning decisions and adapt to dynamic environments. In industrial automation, AI processing helps intelligent edge devices perform complex analysis and decision-making without relying on cloud connectivity. This allows for real-time monitoring, predictive maintenance, and autonomous control of industrial processes, enhancing operational efficiency and reducing downtime.

AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) was notified on March 27, 2024, of an unsolicited "mini-tender" offer by Tutanota LLC ("Tutanota"). Pursuant to the offer, which is dated March 18, 2024, Tutanota is offering to purchase up to 150,000 shares of AMD common stock at $200.00 per share, which represents approximately 0.009283% of AMD's outstanding shares. The offer price of $200.00 per share is conditioned on, among other things, the closing price per share of AMD common stock exceeding $200.00 per share on the last trading day before the offer expires. This means that unless this condition is waived by Tutanota, AMD stockholders who tender shares in the offer will receive a below-market price. Tutanota can extend the offer for successive periods of 45 to 180 days until the market price of AMD common stock exceeds the offer price, in which case payment would be delayed beyond the scheduled expiration date of Friday, April 19, 2024.

AMD does not in any way recommend or endorse the Tutanota offer because the offer requires that the closing price for AMD common stock exceed the offer price, and the offer price is subject to numerous additional conditions, including Tutanota obtaining financing for the offer. There is no guarantee the conditions of the offer will be satisfied. AMD is in no way associated with Tutanota, the "mini-tender" offer or the offer documentation. "Mini-tender" offers seek less than 5% of a company's outstanding shares thereby avoiding many procedural and disclosure requirements of the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") because they are below the SEC's threshold to provide such disclosure and procedural protections for investors.

AMD's Instinct family has welcomed a new addition—the MI388X AI accelerator—as discovered in a lengthy regulatory 10K filing (submitted to the SEC). The document reveals that the unannounced SKU—along with the MI250, MI300X and MI300A integrated circuits—cannot be sold to Chinese customers due to updated US trade regulations (new requirements were issued around October 2023). Versal VC2802 and VE2802 FPGA products are also mentioned in the same section. Earlier this month, AMD's Chinese market-specific Instinct MI309 package was deemed to be too powerful for purpose by the US Department of Commerce.

AMD has not published anything about the Instinct MI388X's official specification, and technical details have not emerged via leaks. The "X" tag likely implies that it has been designed for AI and HPC applications, akin to the recently launched MI300X accelerator. The designation of a higher model number could (naturally) point to a potentially more potent spec sheet, although Tom's Hardware posits that MI388X is a semi-custom spinoff of an existing model.

AMD's entry-level Radeon RX 7600 GPU launched last May—critical reception was lukewarm, and Team Red enthusiasts found more compelling "budget" options within the preceding RDNA 2 generation. AMD's board partners rolled out customized Radeon RX 7600 8 GB cards—as planned—but the reference design was a scarcity around launch time. As pointed out by TPU's resident graphics card reviewer extraordinaire, W1zzard, a "Made by AMD" (MBA) model was lined up for direct sale via official AMD online stores, "as well as through its board partners, with minimal re-branding." Plans were (apparently) scuppered by a discovery of 8-pin power cable insertion issues—review outlets informed AMD about these problems prior to launch.

According to a fresh VideoCardz report, AMD has started to offer its Radeon RX 7600 reference design through official European channels: "despite the initial promise of offering the RX 7600 directly to gamers through their webstore, AMD has struggled to generate significant interest in the card nearly a year after its launch. Furthermore, there hasn't been a substantial change in pricing, with the card still retailing at $269 (in the US). Turns out, the Radeon RX 7600 MBA is now available in Germany." Several European shop portals display prices of €295 (~$318) and €300 (~$324)—at the time of writing. Potential customers will have to weigh up the benefit of AMD's extra time spent on ironing out the reference design's past issues, versus market-tested + custom-cooled partner models.

Shipping manifests appear to be great sources of pre-release information—only a few hours ago, the existence of prototype AMD "Strix Point" and "Fire Range" mobile processors was highlighted by hardware sleuth harukaze5719. A related leak has appeared online fairly quickly after the discovery of laptop-oriented "Zen 5" chips. momomo_us joined in on the fun, with their exposure of speculated desktop silicon. Two brand-new AMD OPN codes have been linked to the upcoming "Granite Ridge" series of AM5 processors.

100-000001404-01 is likely an eight-core/ sixteen-thread "Zen 5" Ryzen CPU with a 170 W TDP—a stepping designation, B0, indicates engineering sample status. The other listing, 100-000001290-21, seems to be an A0-type engineering sample—leaked info suggests that this a six-core/twelve-thread (105 W TDP) next-gen mainstream desktop processor. AMD is likely nearing the finish line with its Ryzen 9000-series—a new generation of chipsets, including X870E, is reportedly in the pipeline. Additionally, VideoCardz posits that a refresh of 700-series boards could be on the cards. "Granite Range" CPUs are expected to retain the current-gen 6 nm client I/O die (cIOD), as sported by "Raphael" Ryzen 7000-series desktop processors.

Ryan McCurdy, President of Lenovo North America, revealed ambitious forward-thinking product roadmap during an interview with CRN magazine. A hybrid strategic approach will create an anticipated AI fast lane on future hardware—McCurdy, a former Intel veteran, stated: "there will be a steady stream of product development to add (AI PC) hardware capabilities in a chicken-and-egg scenario for the OS and for the (independent software vendor) community to develop their latest AI capabilities on top of that hardware...So we are really paving the AI autobahn from a hardware perspective so that we can get the AI software cars to go faster on them." Lenovo—as expected—is jumping on the AI-on-device train, but it will be diversifying its range of AI server systems with new AMD and Intel-powered options. The company has reacted to recent Team Green AI GPU supply issues—alternative units are now in the picture: "with NVIDIA, I think there's obviously lead times associated with it, and there's some end customer identification, to make sure that the products are going to certain identified end customers. As we showcased at Tech World with NVIDIA on stage, AMD on stage, Intel on stage and Microsoft on stage, those industry partnerships are critical to not only how we operate on a tactical supply chain question but also on a strategic what's our value proposition."

McCurdy did not go into detail about upcoming Intel-based server equipment, but seemed excited about AMD's Instinct MI300X accelerator—Lenovo was (previously) announced as one of the early OEM takers of Team Red's latest CDNA 3.0 tech. CRN asked about the firm's outlook for upcoming MI300X-based inventory—McCurdy responded with: "I won't comment on an unreleased product, but the partnership I think illustrates the larger point, which is the industry is looking for a broad array of options. Obviously, when you have any sort of lead times, especially six-month, nine-month and 12-month lead times, there is interest in this incredible technology to be more broadly available. I think you could say in a very generic sense, demand is as high as we've ever seen for the product. And then it comes down to getting the infrastructure launched, getting testing done, and getting workloads validated, and all that work is underway. So I think there is a very hungry end customer-partner user base when it comes to alternatives and a more broad, diverse set of solutions."

Two of AMD's upcoming mobile processors that implement the "Zen 5" microarchitecture, "Strix Point" and "Fire Range," were spotted in shipping manifests. These are prototypes moving between AMD and its OEM partners. The manifest explicitly mentions a "Fire Range" 16-core processor sample with 55 W TDP, another "Fire Range" chip with an 8-core configuration and the same 55 W power; and a trio of "Strix Point" processors with a 28 W power design. Two of these are Ryzen 9 SKUs, and one of them is a Ryzen 7.

VideoCardz has the OPN codes for the samples being moved. The Ryzen 7 "Strix Point" sample bears 100-0000001335. One of the two Ryzen 9 "Strix Point" chips bears 100-000000994. The 16-core "Fire Range" is marked 100-000001028, while the 8-core "Fire Range" is 100-000001029. "Strix Point" will be AMD's most imporant mobile processor silicon, as this will be the one with a "Zen 5" CPU core count relevant to the notebook market, pack an RDNA 3+ iGPU, and that alleged 40 TOPS+ XDNA 2 NPU that can run Microsoft Copilot locally. A step up from this will be "Strix Halo," with a higher CPU core count, a much larger iGPU designed for performance-segment gaming. "Fire Range" is essentially a low Z-height BGA version of the "Granite Ridge" chiplet processor that has up to two "Zen 5" CCDs and an I/O die.

Vastarmor's Radeon RX 7900 XTX Super Alloy custom model was revealed a while back (four months ago according to VideoCardz)—for whatever reason, it has taken a long time for finalized units to reach retail outlets in China. A newly discovered JD.com listing reveals an interesting price point of 6799 RMB (~$940)—given the Radeon RX 7900 XTX GPU's age at this point in time, Vastarmor has implemented quite a steep discount over the launch MSRP for Chinese markets (7999 RMB). The premium tier ARGB-appointed "Super Alloy" models sport substantial custom cooling solutions—clearly designed to temper higher boost clocks. VideoCardz has looked at the best Navi 31-based cards on the field: "(Vastarmor's latest) is actually among the fastest models on the market. Currently, the highest boost clock for RX 7900 XTX is 2680 MHz, and it can be found on models like ASRock Taichi, Aqua, PowerColor Liquid Devil, or Sapphire Nitro+."

The RX 7900 XTX Super Alloy is one of the largest high-end gaming graphics cards out there—it is a triple-slot, 330 mm x 134 mm x 69 mm design. Strangely, Vastarmor's reference specced RX 7900 XTX Starry Sky model also sports a similarly-proportioned cooling solution. ZOTAC's Prime Gamer Force (PGF) OC design remains triumphant in terms of stupendous dimensions—check out these digits: 381 mm (L) x 154 mm (W) x 74 mm (D)! ZOTAC PGF cards are Chinese market exclusives—much like Vastarmor's best offerings—only the most hardcore/deep-pocked enthusiasts outside of the PRC will be importing these vast gaming hardware delights.

ZOTAC TECHNOLOGY, a global company focused on innovation, announces three brand-new series of compact form-factor mini AI PCs powered by cutting-edge processors. These mini AI PCs, powered by Intel and AMD processors with dedicated Neural Processing Units (NPU), let users embrace the next generation of computing empowered by Artificial Intelligence.

Accelerated with embedded NPUs within Intel Core Ultra and AMD Ryzen Processors, the brand-new AI PC ZBOX lineup brings the power of Artificial Intelligence to the desk, allowing users to jumpstart their productivity or creativity with AI-powered acceleration. ZBOX's signature lightweight form factor chassis coupled with next-gen hardware create a new generation of versatile, capable personal computers that are smarter to use and even easier to set up.

Colorful Technology Company Limited, a leading brand in gaming PC components, gaming laptops, and Hi-fi audio products, proudly presents the CVN B650M GAMING FROZEN motherboard. This motherboard is our first AMD AM5 motherboard that supports the AMD Ryzen 7000 Series and the latest AMD Ryzen 8000 Series processors that feature the groundbreaking AMD Ryzen AI technology as well as support for AVX-512.

The CVN B650M GAMING FROZEN supports the latest AMD Ryzen 8000G Series APUs with AMD Ryzen AI technology. It also supports the AMD Ryzen 7000 and AMD Ryzen 7000 X3D Series processors with 3D V-Cache Technology, as well as support for the future AM5 processors. AMD Ryzen AI brings the power of personal computing closer to you on an AI PC, unlocking a whole new level of efficiencies for work, collaboration, and innovation so that you can stay connected better with the world around you.

Microsoft, Intel, and AMD are attempting to jumpstart demand in the PC industry again, under the aegis of the AI PC—devices with native acceleration for AI workloads. Both Intel and AMD have mobile processors with on-silicon NPUs (neural processing units), which are designed to accelerate the first wave of AI-enhanced client experiences on Windows 11 23H2. Microsoft's bulwark with democratizing AI has been Copilot, as a licensee of Open AI GPT-4, GPT-4 Turbo, Dali, and other generative AI tools from the Open AI stable. Copilot is currently Microsoft's most heavily invested application, with its most capital and best minds mobilized to making it the most popular AI assistant. Microsoft even pushed for the AI PC designator to PC OEMs, which requires them to have a dedicated Copilot key akin to the Start key (we'll see how anti-competition regulators deal with that).

The problem with Microsoft's tango with Intel and AMD to push AI PCs, is that Copilot doesn't really use an NPU, not even at the edge—you input a query or a prompt, and Copilot hands it over to a cloud-based AI service. This is about to change, with Microsoft announcing that Copilot will be able to run locally on AI PCs. Microsoft identified several kinds of Copilot use-cases that an NPU can handle on-device, which should speed up response times to Copilot queries, but this requires the NPU to have at least 40 TOPS of performance. This is a problem for the current crop of processors with NPUs. Intel's Core Ultra "Meteor Lake" has an AI Boost NPU with 10 TOPS on tap, while the Ryzen 8040 "Hawk Point" is only slightly faster, with a 16 TOPS Ryzen AI NPU. AMD has already revealed that the XDNA 2-based 2nd Generation Ryzen AI NPU in its upcoming "Strix Point" processors will come with over 40 TOPS of performance, and it stands to reason that the NPUs in Intel's "Arrow Lake" or "Lunar Lake" processors are comparable in performance; which should enable on-device Copilot.

AMD's next-gen EPYC Zen 5 processor family seems to be nearing launch status—late last week, momomo_us uncovered an unnamed motherboard's datasheet; this particular model will accommodate a single 9000-series CPU—with a maximum 400 W TDP—via an SP5 socket. 500 W and 600 W limits have been divulged (via leaks) in the past, so the 400 W spec could be an error or a: "legitimate compatibility issue with the motherboard, though 400 Watts would be in character with high-end Zen 4 SP5 motherboards," according to Tom's Hardware analysis.

AMD's current-gen "Zen 4" based EPYC "Genoa" processor family—sporting up to 96-cores/192-threads—is somewhat limited by its DDR5 support transfer rates of up to 4800 MT/s. The latest leak suggests that "Turin" is upgraded quite nicely in this area—when compared to predecessors—the SP5 board specs indicate DDR5 speeds of up to 6000 MT/s with 4 TB of RAM. December 2023 reports pointed to "Zen 5c" variants featuring (max.) 192-core/384-thread configurations, while larger "Zen 5" models are believed to be "modestly" specced with up to 128-cores and 256-threads. AMD has not settled on an official release date for its EPYC "Turin" 9000-series processors, but a loose launch window is expected "later in 2024" based on timeframes presented within product roadmaps.

On February 26, 2024, AMD received new research related to an industry-wide DRAM issue documented in "ZENHAMMER: Rowhammering Attacks on AMD Zen-based Platforms" from researchers at ETH Zurich. The research demonstrates performing Rowhammer attacks on DDR4 and DDR5 memory using AMD "Zen" platforms. Given the history around Rowhammer, the researchers do not consider these rowhammering attacks to be a new issue.

Mitigation
AMD continues to assess the researchers' claim of demonstrating Rowhammer bit flips on a DDR5 device for the first time. AMD will provide an update upon completion of its assessment.

AMD Socket AM4 platform gets yet another lease of life, as the company is planning another round of processor models for the platform. This was revealed by AMD in a meeting with its channel partners as part of the AMD Advantage Club event. The Ryzen 5000XT line of desktop Socket AM4 processors will be modeled along the Ryzen 3000XT series that formed the company's final refresh of the Ryzen 3000 "Zen 2" family before it launched the Ryzen 5000 series. The 3000XT series were criticized for being mere 100-200 MHz speed bumps that didn't offer tangible benefits over the parts they were replacing from the stack, but merely being a means for AMD to restore its presence at certain price-points. It remains to be seen what the 5000XT series looks like. In all likelihood, these will continue to be speed-bumps of the Ryzen 5000 "Vermeer" processors; but at attractive price-points. The slide revealing the 5000XT series also reveals two new SKUs—the Ryzen 7 8700F, and the Ryzen 5 8400F. Both are likely to be based on the 4 nm "Hawk Point" monolithic silicon, but with their iGPUs disabled.

George Hotz and his startup operation (Tiny Corporation) appeared ready to completely abandon AMD Radeon GPUs last week, after experiencing a period of firmware-related headaches. The original plan involved the development of a pre-orderable $15,000 TinyBox AI compute cluster that housed six XFX Speedster MERC310 RX 7900 XTX graphics cards, but software/driver issues prompted experimentation via alternative hardware routes. A lot of media coverage has focused on the unusual adoption of consumer-grade GPUs—Tiny Corp.'s struggles with RDNA 3 (rather than CDNA 3) were maneuvered further into public view, after top AMD brass pitched in.

The startup's social media feed is very transparent about showcasing everyday tasks, problem-solving and important decision-making. Several Acer Predator BiFrost Arc A770 OC cards were purchased and promptly integrated into a colorfully-lit TinyBox prototype, but Hotz & Co. swiftly moved onto Team Green pastures. Tiny Corp. has begrudgingly adopted NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 GPUs. Earlier today, it was announced that work on the AMD-based system has resumed—although customers were forewarned about anticipated teething problems. The surprising message arrived in the early hours: "a hard to find 'umr' repo has turned around the feasibility of the AMD TinyBox. It will be a journey, but it gives us an ability to debug. We're going to sell both, red for $15,000 and green for $25,000. When you realize your pre-order you'll choose your color. Website has been updated. If you like to tinker and feel pain, buy red. The driver still crashes the GPU and hangs sometimes, but we can work together to improve it."

Microsoft revealed that its DirectSR (Direct Super Resolution) API, which seeks to standardize super resolution-based performance enhancement technologies in games, has a hardware-independent default code path that is essentially based on AMD FSR 2.2, a Microsoft Dev Manager speaking at GDC has revealed. DirectSR provides a common set of APIs for game developers to integrate super resolution—so that developers don't have to separately implement DLSS, FSR and XeSS. Rather these upscalers, and others, can register themselves with the DirectSR API, and then get fed a dozen of input parameters that they may (or may not) use to improve the upscaling quality. Since AMD has open-sourced the code of FSR 2.2 on GPUOpen, and it is entirely shader-based, and doesn't use exotic technologies such as AI, Microsoft decided to use FSR 2.2 as the base algorithm for DirectSR. If other algorithms like DLSS are available on the user system, these can be activated by the user, too, of course, but supporting them requires no extra work from the developer side.Update 18:15 UTC: Updated the news post to make it clear that the FSR 2.2 code path is merely a default, and other upscalers are free to hook into DirectSR to provide upscaling.

According to a report by the Financial Times, China has banned the use of Intel and AMD chips in government computers. The decision, which aims to reduce reliance on foreign technology and boost domestic semiconductor production, is expected to have far-reaching implications for the global tech industry and geopolitical relations. The Chinese government has instructed PC suppliers to replace foreign-made CPUs with domestic alternatives in all government computers within the next two years. This directive is part of China's broader strategy to achieve self-sufficiency in critical technologies and reduce its vulnerability to potential supply chain disruptions or geopolitical tensions. The ban on Intel and AMD chips is likely to significantly impact the two companies, as China represents a substantial market for their products.

However, the move also presents an opportunity for Chinese semiconductor manufacturers like Loongson and Sunway to expand their market share and accelerate the development of their next-generation chip technologies. By reducing its dependence on foreign technology, China aims to strengthen its position in the global tech landscape and mitigate the risks associated with potential sanctions or export controls. As China pushes for self-sufficiency in semiconductors, the global technology industry will likely experience a shift in supply chains and increased competition from Chinese manufacturers. This development may also prompt other countries to reevaluate their reliance on foreign technology and invest in domestic production capabilities, potentially leading to a more fragmented and competitive global tech market.

Vastarmor is a relatively young graphics card manufacturer and AMD board partner (since the RDNA 2 days)—their Alloy product range was updated with new Radeon RX 7800 XT and RX 7700 XT triple-fan "PRO" models last September. VideoCardz has discovered a new dual-fan "non-PRO" white variant—the Vastarmor RX 7700 XT Alloy White 12 GB. TPU's GPU database entry lists a release date of August 25—according to the VideoCardz report, Vastarmor has not settled on final pricing or an official launch date. The standard black (with small red accents) RX 7700 XT Alloy model did reach Chinese retailers last year—the pale variant is predicted to cost about the same, or demand a slight premium over the black version.

Specifications remain consistent across both—according to VideoCardz: "Vastarmor has verified that the card maintains a base clock of 1784 MHz, a game clock of 2276 MHz, and a boost clock that reaches up to 2600 MHz (an overclock of 2.2% for boost). Despite its compact size, measuring at 26.3 x 13.2 cm, the card demands three slots due to its thickness of 5.6 cm. Power-wise, it relies on standard 8-pin power connectors, installed in pairs." The factory-set overclocks are identical to the numbers designated to Vastarmor's RX 7700 XT Alloy PRO model, although their triple-fan design is slightly slimmer. The longer design accommodates a 90 mm fan, positioned between two 100 mm units.

Without making much noise, AMD lifted the memory overclocking limits of the Radeon RX 7900 GRE graphics card with its latest Adrenalin 24.3.1 WHQL drivers, TechPowerUp found. The changelog is a bit vague and states "The maximum memory tuning limit may be incorrectly reported on AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE graphics products."—we tested it. The RX 7900 GRE has been around since mid-2023, but gained prominence as the company gave it a global launch in February 2024, to help AMD better compete with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Super. Before this, the RX 7900 GRE had started out its lifecycle as a special edition product confined to China, and its designers had ensured that it came with just the right performance positioning that didn't end up disrupting other products in the AMD stack. One of these limitations had to do with the memory overclocking potential, which was probably put in place to ensure that the RX 7900 GRE has a near-identical total board power as the RX 7800 XT.

Shortly after the global launch of the RX 7900 GRE, and responding to drama online, AMD declared the limited memory overclocking range a bug and promised a fix. The overclocking limits are defined in the graphics card VBIOS, so increasing those limits would mean shipping BIOS updates for over a dozen SKUs from all the major vendors, and requiring users to upgrade it by themselves. Such a solution isn't very practical, so AMD implemented a clock limit override in their new drivers, which reprograms the power limits on the GPU during boot-up. Nicely done, good job AMD!

Dr. Lisa Su introduced AMD's "next-gen AMD Ryzen" processor series during a recent presentation at the Beijing AI PC Innovation Summit—this announcement confirms that Team Red's RDNA 3+ (AKA 3.5) graphics technology is destined to arrive (on board) with the launch of "Strix Point" processors. Product roadmaps remain unchanged—when compared to slides from last December—AMD still anticipates a 2024 launch window. China has been introduced to current-gen "Hawk Point" Ryzen 8040 mobile and 8000G (AM5) desktop processors—key AMD personnel presented a variety of products, including region-specific budget options.

David Wang, SVP of GPU Technology and Engineering R&D, covered the RDNA 3+ and XDNA 2 architectures (very briefly) during his on-stage appearance—he dedicated most of his attention to current-gen "Hawk Point" processors. The Strix Point integrated solution—a GFX1150 target—has been linked to "RDNA 3.5" for a while, a lot of this information was gleaned from publicly visible AMD patch notices. The latest Team Red software engineering activities indicate that Zen 5 CPU enablement is nearing a possible finish line.

AMD's Beijing AI PC Innovation Summit served as introduction point for a Chinese market launch of "Hawk Point" Ryzen 8040 mobile series and 8000G desktop processors—news coverage has, so far, focused on that rollout as well as a teasing of next-gen "Strix Point" processors. HXL/9550pro has put a spotlight on an easy-to-miss presentation slide—their social media post revealed the existence of new budget-friendly Ryzen 8000F CPUs. Team Red seems to be preparing two China-exclusive SKUs: Ryzen 7 8700F and Ryzen 5 8400F—not many details were revealed on-stage, so reporters have played a guessing game with speculated technical information. Industry experts believe that the 8700F is an iGPU-less version of AMD's "Hawk Point" Ryzen 7 8700G APU—utilizing the same 8 core and 16 thread configuration, but missing the Radeon 780M integrated graphics solution.

The lower-end SKU is a more perplexing product, since AMD did not elaborate much during "budget" product unveilings—VideoCardz put its thinking hat on for this one: "meanwhile, the 8400F might be harder to guess, as the name sits between 8500G and 8300G, both featuring vastly different configurations. An educated guess would be 6 cores and 12 threads, possibly with two Zen 4 and four Zen 4c cores." The "F" model suffix gained attention last year—courtesy of Team Red's Ryzen 5 7500F CPU. This iGPU-less "Raphael" Zen 4 SKU was initially released as a Chinese market exclusive, but eventually headed West as an option for system integrators.