Extreme overclocking is an enthusiast discipline where overclockers try to push their hardware to extreme limits. Combining powerful cooling solutions like liquid nitrogen (LN2), which reaches sub-zero temperatures alongside modified hardware, the silicon can output tremendous power. Today, we are witnessing a custom XOC (eXtreme OverClocking) BIOS for the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti graphics card that can push the GA102 SKU to impressive 890 Watts of power, representing almost a two-fold increase to the stock TDP. Enthusiasts pursuing large frequencies with their RTX 3090 Ti are likely users of this XOC BIOS. However, most likely, we will see GALAX HOF or EVGA KINGPIN cards with dual 16-pin power connectors utilize this.

As shown below, MEGAsizeGPU, the creator of this BIOS, managed to push his ASUS GeForce RTX 3090 Ti TUF with XOC BIOS to 615 Watts, so KINGPIN and HOF designs will have to be used to draw all the possible heat. The XOC BIOS was uploaded to our VGA BIOS database, however, caution is advised as this can break your graphics card.

As AMD is preparing to launch a highly-anticipated refresh of the Radeon RX 6000 series, codenamed RX 6x50 XT series. Alongside AMD, add-in board partners (AIBs) will have their say as well, and today we get to take a look at the alleged specifications of Sapphire's highest-end upcoming products. According to Chiphell member RaulMee, who claims to possess the specification of the newest Sapphire models, we are expected to see a bit higher total board power (TGP) with the arrival of this refresh. First and foremost, the Sapphire RX 6950XT TOXIC is the fastest air-cooled model from Sapphire, with a boost clock of up to 2565 MHz (255 MHz over AMD's reference 2310 MHz model), carrying a TGP of 364 Watts in OC BIOS. Regular TGP for this model is 332 Watts with a boost speed of up to 2532 MHz. Please note that this includes the power output of GPU and memory.

Next up, we have Sapphire's RX 6950XT NITRO+ SKUs. The non-SE card is a minor improvement over the AMD Radeon RX 6950XT reference GPU and offers a Silent BIOS option. The RX 6950XT NITRO+ Special Edition can go up to 325 Watts and 2435 MHz with OC BIOS applied. Silent BIOS is also an option, and it lowers the TGP to 303 Watts and 2368 MHz. The alleged specification chart also carries Sapphires' RX 6750XT & 6650XT NITRO+ GPUs, of which you can check the clock speeds and TGPs below.

Intel is slowly transitioning its data center customers to a new processor generation called Sapphire Rapids. Today, thanks to the hardware leaker Yuuki_ans we have more profound insights into the top-end 56-core Sapphire Rapids processor and its power settings. According to the leak, we have information on either Xeon Platinum 8476 or Platinum 8480 designs that are equipped with 56 cores and 112 threads. This model was running at the base frequency of 1.9 GHz and a boost frequency of 3.3 GHz. Single-core can boost to 3.7 GHz if the report is giving a correct reading. Remember that this is only an engineering sample, so the final target speeds could differ. It carries 112 MB of L2 and 105 MB of L3 cache, and this sample was running with 1 TB of DDR5 memory with CL40-39-38-76 timings.

Perhaps the most exciting finding is the power configuration of this SKU. Intel has enabled this CPU to consume 350 Watts in PL1 rating, with up to 420 Watts in PL2 performance mode. The enforced BIOS power limit rating is set at an astonishing 764 Watts, which could happen with AVX-512 enabled. Final TDP ratings are yet to be disclosed; however, these Sapphire Rapids processors are shaping to be relatively power-hungry chips.

According to the latest investigation made by a German publication, Igor's Lab, AMD's Adrenalin GPU software could experience unexpected behavior when Ryzen Master software is integrated into it. Supposedly, the combination of the two would allow AMD Adrenalin GPU software to misbehave and accidentally change CPU PBO and Precision Boost settings, disregarding the user's permissions. What Igor's Lab investigated was a case of Adrenalin software automatically enabling PBO or "CPU OC" setting when applying GPU profiles. This also happens when the GPU is in the Default mode, which is set automatically by the software.

Alterations can happen without user knowledge. If a user applies custom voltage and frequency settings in BIOS, Adrenalin software can and sometimes will override those settings to set arbitrary ones, potentially impacting the CPU's stability. The software can also alter CPU power limits as it has the means to do so. This problem only occurs when AMD CPU is combined with AMD GPU and AMD Ryzen Master SDK is installed. If another configuration is present, there is no change to the system. There are ways to bypass this edge case, and that is going back to BIOS to re-apply CPU settings manually or disable PBO. A Reddit user found that creating new GPU tuning profiles without loading older profiles will also bypass Adrenalin from adjusting your CPU settings. AMD hasn't made comments about the software, and so far remains a mystery why this is happening.

Intel made great efforts to prove its abilities as a market leader by releasing the latest Intel Core i9-12900KS Processor for Alpha DIY gamers and extreme enthusiasts who seek the best gaming performance. This special edition processor is based on the robust Intel Core i9-12900K architecture, a halo processor with even more performance with increased clock speeds and power limit.

The current MSI 600-series motherboards natively support Intel Core i9-12900KS Processor, but if you want to unleash even more performance, MSI provides the dedicated BIOS for this power-hungry monster. Currently, you can find the dedicated BIOS for selected Z690 motherboards, MSI will release more 600-series motherboards continuously.

AMD recently announced the latest "Zen 3" and "Zen 2" new processors are coming to the market very soon for DIY users, which includes the ground-breaking AMD 3D V-Cache technology processor, the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D. Moreover, the mainstream Ryzen 7 5700X, Ryzen 5 5600, Ryzen 5 5500, Ryzen 5 4600G, Ryzen 5 4500, and Ryzen 3 4100 are all here for different levels of system builds.

MSI is committed to deliver gamers and creators the best experiences. This is why BIOS update is always great for most users. The latest AMD AGESA COMBO PI V2 1.2.0.6c BIOS was released for some MSI 500- and 400-series motherboards. The purpose of AGESA 1.2.0.6c is not only for better compatibility but also for maximizing AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D performance. For the older 300-series motherboards, we will release the AGESA COMBO PI V2 1.2.0.6c beta BIOS by the end of April. Please refer to the following chart for more information.

BIOSTAR, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, and storage devices today, announces product support for the latest AMD Ryzen 5000/ 4000 series processors. With the announcement of AMD's latest Ryzen 5000/ 4000 series processors, the industry is abuzz with the search for viable motherboards that support these latest chips. AMD's latest processors, engineered on their groundbreaking ZEN 2 and ZEN 3 architectures, are built to perform, catering to a wide range of use cases.

BIOSTAR proudly presents the first batch of motherboards ready to support the latest AMD Ryzen 5000/4000 series processors. Addressing the high demand of the mid-range market first, BIOSTAR launches a comprehensive BIOS update for the B550, A520, B450, and A320 motherboards, that makes them compatible with the latest AMD Ryzen 5000/ 4000 series processors.

ASUS today announced BIOS support and updates for a variety of motherboards supporting the new AMD Ryzen 5000 and 4000 series CPUs. Matching the new Ryzen 7 5800X3D, which has a dedicated 96 MB L3 cache, AMD has released AGESA version 1.2.0.6b to improve system performance. Many ASUS 500, 400, A320 and X370 series motherboards already have BIOS updates with this new AGESA version. Other compatible models will receive corresponding BIOS updates by March 25th.

All CPUs in this series are recognized by ASUS mainboards of the 400 and 500 series via existing BIOS updates - also with AGESA version 1.2.0.6b. The updates can be downloaded from the ASUS support website. Previous generation ASUS motherboards will receive support for these new CPUs according to the table below:

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, and hardware solutions, today announced X570, B550, A520, X470, B450, and A320 motherboards can support the newly launched Ryzen 5000 and Ryzen 4000 series processors without updating BIOS. Users can customize their system according to personal budget, performance request, and accustomed configuration to enjoy the full advantages of GIGABYTE motherboards.

The new launched AMD processors include Ryzen 7 5700X, Ryzen 5 5600, Ryzen 5 4600G and Ryzen 5 5500, Ryzen 5 4500, Ryzen 3 4100, bring users more comprehensive options with various performance and pricing segment. To fully support and unleash all advantages of the new processors, GIGABYTE X570, B550, A520, X470, B450, and A320 motherboards are shipped to market with the latest BIOS. Users can either get the optimal performance by X series motherboards with Ryzen 7 5700X processors, or build a price-competitive platform of A series motherboards with Ryzen 3 4100 processors.

While NVMe storage devices offer significant performance and reliability advantages over their platter-based counterparts, many Linux and VMware based applications continue to rely on older SAS & SATA solutions due to the ready availability of firmware level RAID storage and native driver support. This combination greatly simplifies the kernel update process while minimizing downtime. RAID solutions with native driver support will be treated as embedded devices, and do not need to be updated separately to comply with the kernel change.

The SSD6200 product family was designed to address these concerns. The NVMe RAID capability is integrated at the firmware level, and functions independent of the host. In addition, SSD6200 series controllers are natively supported by all major Virtualization platforms, such as VMware, Microsoft Hyper-V and Proxmox, and all current versions and distributions of Windows, Linux and FreeBSD operating systems. This native, In-Box driver support ensures administrators are free to update the Kernel, apply patches, or download and install scheduled updates whenever the need arises, using standard operating procedures. No work-arounds, no hassles, no surprises.

When Intel announced the company's first hybrid design, codenamed Alder Lake, we expected to see more of such design philosophies in future products. During Intel's 2022 investor meeting day, the company provided insights into future developments, and a successor to Alder Lake is no different. Codenamed "Raptor Lake," it features a novel Raptor Cove P-core design that is supposed to bring significant IPC uplift from the previous generation of processors. Using Intel 7 processor node, Raptor Lake brings a similar ecosystem of features to Alder Lake, however, with improved performance across the board.

Perhaps one of the most exciting things to note about Raptor Lake is the advancement in core count, specifically the increase in E-cores. Instead of eight P-cores and eight E-cores like Alder Lake, the Raptor Lake design will retain eight P-cores and double the E-core count to 16. It was a weird decision on Intel's end; however, it surely isn't anything terrible. The total number of cores now jumps to 24, and the total number of threads reaches 32. Additionally, Raptor Lake will bring some additional overclocking improvement features and retain socket compatibility with Alder Lake motherboards. That means that, at worst, you would need to perform a BIOS update to get your previous system ready for new hardware. We assume that Intel has been working with software vendors and its engineering team to optimize core utilization for this next-generation processor, even though they have more E-cores present. Below, we can see Intel's demonstration of Raptor Lake running Blender and Adobe Premiere and the CPU core utilization.

Intel's Alder Lake processors have two types of cores present, with two distinct sets of features and capabilities enabled. For example, smaller E-cores don't support the execution of AVX-512 instructions, while the bigger P-cores have support for AVX-512 instructions. So Intel has decided to remove support for it altogether not to create software errors and run into issues with executing AVX-512 code on Alder Lake processors. This happened just months before the launch of Alder Lake, making us see some initial motherboard BIOSes come with AVX-512 enabled from the box. Later on, all motherboard makers pulled the plug on it, and it is a rare sight to see support for it.

However, it seems like MSI is unhappy with the lack of AVX-512, and the company is reenabling partial support for it. According to Xaver Amberger, editor at Igor's Lab, MSI reintroduces selecting microcode version with its MEG Z690 Unify-X motherboard. There is an option for AVX-512 enablement in the menu, and it is indeed a functional one. With BIOS A22, MSI enabled AVX-512 instruction execution, and there are benchmarks to prove it works. This shows an advantage of 512-bit wide execution units of AVX-512 over something like AVX2, which offers only 256-bit wide execution units. In applications such as Y-Cruncher, AVX-512 enabled the CPU to reach higher performance targets while consuming less power.

One of the most debated questions surrounding AMD's AM4 platform has been the lack of support for AMD's Ryzen 5000-series CPUs on the company's 300-series chipsets. Now, in an interview with Tom's Hardware, AMD's Corporate VP and GM of the Client Channel business, David McAfee, has thrown some cautious words into the hellish debate on platform fragmentation (some even say artificial segmentation). "It's definitely something we're working through," David said. "And it's not lost on us at all that this would be a good thing to do for the community, and we're trying to figure out how to make it happen." It's not a promise, but it seems that AMD is indeed contemplating solutions that would enable first-generation AM4 chipsets to support AMD's latest Ryzen 5000 series CPUs.

The problem has mostly to do with storage space: there are only so much available bits to be used in AM4 motherboards' 16 MB SPI ROM, the read-only memory bank that stores BIOS configurations and the necessary instructions for processor support. As AM4 is one of the longest-lived consumer platforms ever, the number of CPUs has ballooned, which has led to difficult decisions as to which CPUs to support. However, some more creative board partners have resorted to interesting techniques that allowed them to free up space in the SPI ROM that could be used to add support for otherwise incompatible CPUs, such as simplifying the BIOS GUI and falling back on more traditional text-based UIs. That and other practices resulted in a number of vendors adding support for AMD's Ryzen 5000 chips on the most entry-level A320 motherboards, which left consumers that had opted for the more technically accomplished X370 motherboards high and dry - barring a few lucky, ASRock-toting exceptions.

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, and hardware solutions today announced AORUS RGB DDR5 6000 MHz 32 GB Memory Kit, which uplift frequency to 6000 MHz with RGB lighting for performance boost and striking accents. Enhanced by DDR5 XMP Booster and XMP 3.0 User Profile of GIGABYTE Z690 motherboards, and copper-aluminium heat spreaders with nano-carbon coating thermal design, the new memory kit promises the next-level performance with stability while dissipating heat efficiently under high-speed operation.

AORUS RGB DDR5 6000 MHz 32 GB Memory Kit features high clock speed and low power consumption by two 16 GB DDR5 XMP 6000 MHz dual-channel designs with 40-40-40-76 timings, which fit the support of DDR5 memory on Intel Z690 platform. Along with GIGABYTE Z690 AORUS motherboards, AORUS RGB DDR5 6000 MHz 32 GB memory kit can enable "DDR5 XMP Booster" function which detect the brand of memory IC in the BIOS setting to allow users to choose promptly from multiple built-in memory overclocking profiles, boosting the native DDR5 or XMP DDR5 memory speed. Furthermore, "XMP 3.0 User Profile" enables users to create and store XMP profiles of their own to unleash the extreme performance of memories.

BIOSTAR today, introduces the SMART UPDATE utility tool for users to update their BIOS and essential motherboard drivers hassle-free. Initially supporting the 600 series and above motherboards, BIOSTAR's new SMART UPDATE tool makes updating BIOS and system drivers a breeze for even the less tech-savvy users. One-click update has never been a more appropriate description for any utility software, with a single click of the mouse, users can download and install official drivers, BIOS, and new driver updates from BIOSTAR's official website. The BIOSTAR Smart Utility tool along with complete installation instructions can be found at the link below.

With Intel's Alder Lake processors released, the company introduced a rather interesting concept of mixing high-performance and high-efficiency cores into one design. This hybrid approach combines performance P-cores based on Golden Cove architecture with high-efficiency E-cores based on Gracemont design. While Intel dedicated a lot of effort to optimizing software for Alder Lake, there are sometimes issues that persist when playing older games. At the heart of ADL processors, a thread scheduler decides which task is running on P or E-cores and ensures the best core gets selected for the job.

However, many users know that E-cores can be recognized as another system by DRM software and cause troubles on the latest 12th Generation machines. GIGABYTE has designed a software tool for its Z690 motherboards to fix this issue, which allows on-demand enablement of E-cores. Users can easily "park" or "unpark" E-cores and enable some older game titles to run efficiently with the help of P-cores. This DRM Fix Tool is a lightweight utility that unfortunately runs exclusively on GIGABYTE motherboards. It is less than a megabyte in size and requires no particular installation. However, it is an excellent addition to GIGABYTE's customers, and all that it needs is the latest BIOS update to run. Here you can download the tool, and below, you can see the list of the latest BIOS versions of GIGABYTE Z690 motherboards that support this tool.

With AMD's Ryzen 5000 series of processors, you needed 400 or 500 series chipset to run the latest generation. However, some reports of users enabling their Ryzen 5000 series processors to run on some 300 series chipset motherboards. And this made everyone curious if AMD's partners will ever bring proper firmware support to run Ryzen 5000 processors on AMD 300 series chipsets. According to today's round of news, ASUS and GIGABYTE have released a firmware update for their A320 boards that enabled Ryzen 5000 processors to run at their total capacity.

Added support means if you have a system with an A320 chipset and plan to upgrade your processors, you may not need to buy a whole new platform for the Zen3-based processors, and you could update your BIOS version to the latest version and perform an upgrade. Check your board's BIOS version and see if you are eligible for an upgrade on ASUS and GIGABYTE websites.

BIOSTAR, a leading brand of motherboards, graphics cards, and storage devices, today announced product support for the latest AMD Ryzen 5000G series Cezanne processors. AMD's next-generation Ryzen 5000G series desktop processors codenamed "Cezanne" are ready to invade the global market. The new 5000G series processors are based on Zen 3 architecture, AMD's Ryzen 5000 series of desktop APUs based on the Zen 3 CPU and Vega GPU microarchitectures succeeding the Ryzen 4000 "Renoir" series.

Extreme performance enabled for personal computing with up to 8 cores fueled by the world's most advanced 7 nm processor core technology, the AMD Ryzen 5000 G-series desktop processors with Radeon graphics deliver ultra-fast responsiveness and multi-threaded performance for any use case.

ASUS has begun rolling out BIOS updates that add motherboard support for Windows 11 even for processor families that Microsoft said would be left out of their latest Windows OS. Ever since the introduction of Windows 11, the message around specific hardware requirements has been difficult to pinpoint, as the company struggles to send a clear message on exactly which users should be looking to update their hardware - and which should not. ASUS' new BIOS updates will certainly add to the stirring pot, as they are being touted to enable Windows 11 support for Intel CPU families that Microsoft doesn't officially (yet) support for the OS release: Skylake (6th Gen) and Kaby Lake (7th Gen). According to Microsoft, only 8th Gen (Coffee Lake) and later Intel CPUs are supported by Windows 11.

The new BIOS updates typically activate TPM on the users' machine, should it be off at the BIOS level. ASUS has already released beta BIOS versions that introduce support for Windows 11 on Z270, H270 and B250 motherboards, and launched a hub page with compatibility status for a number of its motherboard releases. According to the company in the respective motherboard support pages, "The following motherboards are compatible with Windows 11 under current testing. The upgrability [sic] is subject to the support from operation system or 3rd party drivers availability." Which of course means that even if ASUS has gotten preview versions of Windows 11 to run on systems with this hardware, there's no way to know if the final, retail Windows 11 version will actually offer support for these CPUs. Of course, driver compatibility is also in question, since nothing guarantees Windows 11 to competently manage your hardware on the basis of Windows 10-bound driver packages.

Since the end of 2020, TEAMGROUP has been at the forefront of next-generation DDR5 development, working closely with motherboard manufacturers to perform extensive validation testing. Whether it is the testing and research of DDR5's new PMIC architecture or XMP overclocking parameters, the company has achieved very fruitful results. Today TEAMGROUP is launching its brand new DELTA DDR5 Memory Series, the first DDR5 modules to be equipped with RGB lighting effect, providing gamers who enjoy visual flair with both next-level speed and eye-pleasing illumination.

The T-FORCE DELTA RGB DDR5 continues the design language of the DELTA DDR4 Series by maintaining the ultra-large spreader with wide-angled RGB edges and a minimalist geometrical surface. The overall look is further enhanced by its sleek stealth-fighter-inspired design. In addition, the color and flashing speed of each RGB LED used in DELTA RGB DDR5 can be independently controlled, offering more freedom to customize lighting effects than a typical RGB DDR4 memory. Currently samples have been sent to ASUS, GIGABYTE, MSI, ASROCK, BIOSTAR and other motherboard manufacturers for lighting tests. Players will be able to easily customize their own dazzling RGB effects through the manufacturers' lighting software.

The leading global motherboard, graphics card, and small form factor PC manufacturer, ASRock, has released the latest BIOS that support AMD Ryzen 5000 G-Series Desktop Processors with Radeon Graphics and AMD Ryzen 5000 Series Desktop Processors with PRO Technologies.

AMD Ryzen 5000 G-Series Desktop Processors with Radeon Graphics are the newest generation processors come with industry-leading 7nm technology, elevating processing performance to the next level. And now, ASRock 500-Series, B450 AMD Ryzen motherboards and X300 Mini PC are able to support both of them by updating the latest BIOS.

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, and hardware solutions, announced that the BIOS of their series motherboards, including Intel X299, C621, C232, C236, C246, 200, 300, 400, 500 lineups, as well as AMD TRX40, 300, 400, 500 motherboards are TPM 2.0 function ready, which can pass the upgraded Windows 11 OS. verification.

Windows 11 is the latest operating system from Microsoft, and features dozens of exciting new functions and Android APP support to effectively improve productivity, system security, and gaming performance. However, most of the users might be confusing that Windows 11 requires TPM 2.0 support means they need a TPM module on board for Windows 11 upgrade.

Yesterday, we reported the launch of Microsoft's next-generation Windows 11 operating system. Featuring a broad range of improvements that include the new and redesigned UI elements, 40% smaller updates, layouts, widgets, and a bunch of other stuff, existing Windows 10 users are wondering how and when they will be able to experience the new OS. The OS is coming later this year, with some preview beta builds supposed to arrive in the coming weeks. That means that a large portion of people is interested in trying out even the beta version. However, there is an important note about the new OS. When it officially comes out, all of the existing Windows 10 users can upgrade to Windows 11 for free, by just performing the software update.

To run the new OS, Microsoft lists a few new requirements like 4 GB of RAM, 64 GB of storage, 1+ GHz dual-core processor, and Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0. The TPM 2.0 needs to be physically present, however, it is often turned off in BIOS, so future users need to enable it in BIOS as well. For more details, please head over to Microsoft website to find greater details on the upgrade.

One of our readers sent in evidence that their Alienware m15 gaming notebook, which comes with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop discrete GPU, has fewer CUDA cores than it should. The user ran GPU-Z to discover that their GPU has 4,608 CUDA cores, as opposed to the 5,120 that's standard for this SKU. Elsewhere on the NotebookReview forums, an Alienware m15 owner discovered that the latest video BIOS restores the CUDA core count to 5,120. The stock m15 R4 BIOS runs the GPU with 4,608 CUDA cores, whereas the R4 BIOS was shown unlocking all 5,120 CUDA cores. They comment that this could be "VBIOS tomfoolery." It is possible to disable CUDA cores (below the hardwired count) using video BIOS. Perhaps this is an oversight by Dell, which will likely be fixed with BIOS updates.Screenshots courtesy: EepoSaurus on NotebookReview forums

German publication, Igor's LAB, has got ahold of some information regarding AMD's upcoming Radeon RX 6600 series graphics card. Based on the Navi 23 SKU, the GPU is supposed to satisfy all the entry-level needs one would expect from a GPU. That means light 1080p gaming and multimedia streaming. For starters, let's get into details of the die. Igor's LAB notes that the die size is 235.76mm2, with a 35x35 mm package. The die will be centered in a package with a 45-degree rotation, which you can see how it looks in the images below. Additionally, the Navi 23 GPU will have SKUs ranging from 65 Watts to 95 Watts of Total Graphics Power (TGP). As far as frequency goes, the card BIOS points to the maximum clock speed of 2350 MHz, which is lower than the rumored 2684 MHz.

When it comes to memory, the upcoming Navi 23 GPUs can be equipped with up to 16 GB of GDDR6 memory, however, it is most likely that the regular gamer version will come with 8 GB of VRAM, while the Radeon Pro models will use the full 16 GB limit. As far as interface is concerned, the Radeon RX 6600 series will be limited to PCIe 4.0 x8 connection, as the low-end GPU doesn't require a full x16 slot. With the bandwidth of the PCIe 4.0, only eight lanes are enough for this GPU. These cards are expected to hit the market sometime in June, and we are waiting for the official announcement.