An AMD Ryzen 9000 "Granite Ridge" desktop processor engineering sample with a maximum boost frequency of 5.80 GHz was found to offer an astonishing 19% higher single-threaded performance increase over an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X. "Granite Ridge" is codename for the Socket AM5 desktop processor family that implements the new "Zen 5" CPU microarchitecture. The unnamed "Granite Ridge" processor comes with an OPN code of 100-0000001290. Its CPU core count is irrelevant, as the single-threaded performance is in question here. The processor boosts up to 5.80 GHz, which means the core handling the single-threaded benchmark workload is achieving this speed. This speed is 100 MHz higher than the 5.70 GHz that the Ryzen 9 7950X processor based on the "Zen 4" architecture, boosts up to.

The single-threaded benchmark in question is the CPU-Z Bench. The mostly blurred out CPU-Z screenshot that reveals the OPN also mentions a processor TDP of 170 W, which means this engineering sample chip is either 12-core or 16-core. The chip posts a CPU-Z Bench single-thread score of 910 points, which matches that of the Intel Core i9-14900K with its 908 points. You've to understand that the i9-14900K boosts one of its P-cores to 6.00 GHz, to yield the 908 points that's part CPU-Z's reference scores. So straight off the bat, we see that "Zen 5" has a higher IPC than the "Raptor Cove" P-core powering the i9-14900K. Its gaming performance might end up higher than the Ryzen 7000 X3D family.Many Thanks to TumbleGeorge for the tip.

BoostR is an Indiegogo crowdfunded project that seeks to integrate a multi-functional I/O dock with an external GPU. It's a rather brilliant idea—the dock draws connectivity from a USB4 (40 Gbps) connection, which it uses to connect an AMD Radeon RX 7600M GPU, an M.2-2280 NVMe SSD slot, a 1 GbE networking interface, an SD 4.0 card reader, and a bunch of USB 3.2 downstream ports.

The device comes with a power brick, and by default draws 100 W for all its functions, including the eGPU. You can boost the power limit to 120 W, which should improve the GPU's performance. The GPU puts out a couple of HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 2.0 connectors. BoostR was briefly available on Indiegogo at an early-bird price of $499, at which it would undercut the Ayaneo OneXGPU, a similar contraption of an eGPU+M.2+port dock that's priced at $699. One area where the BoostR has an edge over the OneXGPU is its 120 W mode that give the GPU improved boost frequency residency. It remains to be seen what the regular price of BoostR will be, but the company is offering a 5% discount on the final price if you sign up for their newsletter.

AMD's next-generation Ryzen 9000 series "Granite Ridge" desktop processors based on the "Zen 5" microarchitecture, is rumored to launch in late-July, 2024, according to multiple sources in the ChipHell tech forums. The first four SKUs in the processor series will include one each of 16-core, 12-core, 8-core, and 6-core, spanning the Ryzen 9, Ryzen 7, and Ryzen 5 series, just like the company's Ryzen 7000 series debut. The company could unveil these processors in its 2024 Computex keynote address early next month, talking about their features and performance in broad strokes, while we get technical previews in the run-up to the late-July launch.

A late-July launch of the Ryzen 9000 series "Granite Ridge" processors should also mean that the various motherboard manufacturers will showcase their upcoming motherboards based on the AMD X870 desktop chipset at Computex. Ryzen 9000 series are built in the existing Socket AM5 package, and should be compatible with existing AMD 600-series chipset motherboards. In fact, most motherboard vendors have already released UEFI firmware updates that include Ryzen 9000 series processor compatibility. Those buying a Ryzen 9000 series processor with an AMD 600-series chipset motherboard can simply take advantage of the USB BIOS Flashback feature that's available on most motherboards, including the entry-level ones.

AMD's upcoming Ryzen AI "Strix Point" mobile processor family will see a product launch in August 2024, with availability ramping up by October, a representative of mini PC manufacturer AOOSTAR has revealed. This would mean that at Computex next month, the company will use its Keynote address to unveil the processors, highlight their various new features, particularly the "Zen 5" microarchitecture, and perhaps even talk about performance in broad strokes, but specific processor models will launch in August, along with a few notebook product announcements.

AMD's upcoming Ryzen AI "Strix Point" processor will feature a significantly faster 50 AI TOPS-class NPU to power Microsoft Copilot+ certified devices; increased CPU performance from the new "Zen 5" architecture, and faster graphics from the new RDNA 3+ iGPU, besides support for faster memory speeds, new power management features, and updated platform and display I/O. "Strix Point" is far from being the only mobile processor family from AMD based on "Zen 5," there's also the Ryzen 9000 "Fire Range" family of high core-count mobile processors meant for gaming notebooks; and the "Strix Halo" meant for high-performance ultraportables.

USB4 hasn't exactly taken off as yet, largely due to a shortage of devices in the market and with a limited number of device controllers, the competition in the market is also slow. With Thunderbolt compatibility, there are plenty of USB4 compatible hosts out there though, even though you only get 32 Gbps rather than 40 Gbps of data throughput when a USB4 device is connected to Thunderbolt 3 or 4, although Thunderbolt 5 will allow for the full 40 Gbps. A company called ADT-Link has launched a product it calls the UT3G which is pretty much a retail ready bridge solution that allows techies and tinkerers to try out whatever PCIe devices they have over USB4. The adapter has a full-length PCIe x16 slot, but it's limited to a four lane PCIe interface which is compatible with PCIe 4.0, albeit not at the full 64 Gbps that such an interface can deliver.

In addition to the USB4 Type-C port on the PCB there's a standard 24-pin ATX power supply connector for power, which means that this isn't really a portable solution. However, the company has tested the UT3G with various graphics cards from both AMD and NVIDIA to make sure you can use it as an external graphics card dock. The UT3G has also been tested to be compatible with Windows, Linux and macOS, although macOS is limited to AMD GPUs. The board is built around the ASMedia ASM2464PD USB4 to PCIe 4.0 bridge and this shouldn't come as a surprise, as so far this is the only such device controller. ADT-Link doesn't appear to be selling the UT3G to consumers, but it can be picked up online from DFRobot starting at US$129 for a single unit.

Merely two weeks ago, we published a story on AMD possibly preparing a new processor naming scheme for its ultraportable segment next-generation processors. Today, various trustful Chinese sources reported that AMD changed its mind again, that the Ryzen AI 100 series naming scheme was dropped, and now we should prepare for the Ryzen AI 300. If this turns out to be true, then AMD Strix Point will launch as Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 and Ryzen AI 9 365 (assuming AMD does not change the naming scheme again).

AMD has quietly added some interesting codenames to its ROCm hardware support list. The biggest surprise is the appearance of "RDNA 4" and "Navi 44" codenames, hinting at a potential successor to the current RDNA 3 GPU architecture powering AMD's Radeon RX 7000 series graphics cards. The upcoming Radeon RX 8000 series could see Navi 44 SKU with a codename "gfx1200". While details are scarce, the inclusion of RDNA 4 and Navi 44 in the ROCm list suggests AMD is working on a new GPU microarchitecture that could bring significant performance and efficiency gains. While RDNA 4 may be destined for future Radeon gaming GPUs, in the data center GPU compute market, AMD is preparing a CDNA 4 based successors to the MI300 series. However, it appears that we haven't seen all the MI300 variants first. Equally intriguing is the "MI300X1" codename, which appears to reference an upcoming AI-focused accelerator from AMD.

While we wait for more information, we can't decipher whether the Navi 44 GPU SKU is for the high-end or low-end segment. If previous generations are for reference, then the Navi 44 SKU would target the low end of the GPU performance spectrum. The previous generation RDNA 3 had Navi 33 as an entry-level model, whereas the RDNA 2 had a Navi 24 SKU for entry-level GPUs. We have reported on RDNA 4 merely being a "bug correction" generation to fix the perf/Watt curve and offer better efficiency overall. What happens finally, we have to wait and see. AMD could announce more details in its upcoming Computex keynote.

AMD Radeon Anti-Lag+ is making a comeback with the game that caused it go away in the first instance—Counter Strike 2. The technology is undergoing a rebranding as Anti-Lag 2, to reflect the several under-the-hood changes made by AMD. AMD Radeon Anti-Lag+ was supposed to be AMD's answer to NVIDIA Reflex, a whole-system latency reduction technology that wouldn't just benefit competitive online games such as Counter Strike 2; but also form an essential component of FSR 3 Frame Generation. The technology briefly launched last year before gamers started noticing that the tech would trigger anti-cheat mechanisms in online games, such as the VAC that polices CS 2, forcing AMD to withdraw the technology, and for Valve to manually detect and restore thousands of gamer accounts.

It seems AMD has fixed the way Anti-Lag+ works with the new Anti-Lag 2 technology. The company in particular is testing its stability with Counter Strike 2, so you don't get banned again by VAC. The company worked with Valve to release an update to the game so it supports the tech, and released a special AMD Software Adrenalin Anti-Lag 2 Preview driver based on the recent 24.5.1 version. You'll need the latest patch to CS 2, and this driver to experience the "technical preview" of Anti-Lag 2. The company also released a technology brief of Anti-Lag 2. The most important change with Anti-Lag 2 that sets it apart from the failed Anti-Lag+, is that it is not a driver-based solution, but rather a game engine-based one. This is why you'll need the latest update to CS 2, because it contains the Anti Lag 2 code.

AMD's future "Zen 6" CPU microarchitecture is rumored to cram up to 32 cores per CCD (CPU complex die), or the common client/server chiplet with the CPU cores, according to Kepler_L2, a reliable source with hardware leaks. At this point it's not clear if they are referring to the regular "Zen 6" CPU core, or the physically compacted "Zen 6c" core meant for high core-count cloud server processors. The current pure "Zen 4c" CCD found in EPYC "Bergamo" processor packs 16 cores across two 8-core CCX (CPU core complexes) that share a 16 MB L3 cache among the 8 cores within the CCX. The upcoming "Zen 5c" CCD will pack 16 cores, but in a single 16-core CCX that shares 32 MB of L3 cache among the 16 cores for improved per-core cache access. "Zen 6" is expected to double this to 32 cores per CCD.

The 32-core CCD powered by "Zen 6" (likely Zen 6c), might take advantage of process improvements to double the core-count. At this point, it's not clear if this jumbo CCD features a single large CCX with all 32 cores sharing a large L3 cache; or if it's using two 16-core CCX that shares, say, 32 MB of L3 cache among the 16 cores. What's clear with this leak, though, is that AMD is looking to continue ramping up CPU core counts per socket. Data-centers and cloud customers seem to love this, and AMD is the only x86 processor maker in a serious competition with Arm-based server processor manufacturers such as Ampere, to increase significantly increase core counts per socket with each generation.

GIGABYTE Technology, Giga Computing, a subsidiary of GIGABYTE and an industry leader in AI servers, server motherboards, and workstations, today announced its support of AMD EPYC 4004 Series processors on AM5 socket servers and server motherboards for entry-level enterprise customers. This will require a BIOS update, which will come pre-installed in the near future.

The new AMD EPYC 4004 platform, built on the AM5 socket, delivers enterprise-grade features that allow small businesses and cloud services to have dependable daily operations with minimal downtime. For reliability and manageability, the platform has been validated for compatibility with server operating systems: Ubuntu, RHEL, and Windows Server. By doing so IT administrators can better control and monitor systems, as well as protect businesses against cyberthreats.

Today at Microsoft Build, AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) showcased its latest end-to-end compute and software capabilities for Microsoft customers and developers. By using AMD solutions such as AMD Instinct MI300X accelerators, ROCm open software, Ryzen AI processors and software, and Alveo MA35D media accelerators, Microsoft is able to provide a powerful suite of tools for AI-based deployments across numerous markets. The new Microsoft Azure ND MI300X virtual machines (VMs) are now generally available, giving customers like Hugging Face, access to impressive performance and efficiency for their most demanding AI workloads.

"The AMD Instinct MI300X and ROCm software stack is powering the Azure OpenAI Chat GPT 3.5 and 4 services, which are some of the world's most demanding AI workloads," said Victor Peng, president, AMD. "With the general availability of the new VMs from Azure, AI customers have broader access to MI300X to deliver high-performance and efficient solutions for AI applications."

Today, TYAN, a leading server platform design manufacturer and a MiTAC Computing Technology Corporation subsidiary, introduced its latest offering: affordable and high-performance servers and motherboards powered by the new AMD EPYC 4004 Series CPUs. "The new AMD EPYC 4004 Series CPUs, along with our strong ecosystem of technology partners, bring enterprise solutions to a traditionally underserved market and ensure that small and medium businesses have access to highly-performant technologies that help them stay competitive," said John Morris, corporate vice president, Enterprise and HPC Business Group, AMD. "The AMD EPYC 4004 CPUs fill an important market gap, providing cost-optimized solutions with enterprise-grade dependability, scalability and security in cost-optimized system configurations that make sense for smaller businesses and dedicated hosters."

AMD EPYC 4004 Series processors complement the broad AMD EPYC processor offering, extending the established high performance, highly efficient "Zen4" core architecture into an expanded range of entry level system designs desired by small business customers as well as regional hosted IT services providers. With new low core count CPU offerings and TDP ranges as low as 65 W, attractively priced server systems featuring AMD EPYC 4004 Processors deliver the strong performance, scalability and dependability needed by growing businesses and 24x7 hosted services. With an optimized, single-socket package, 2 channels of DDR5 memory and up to 28 lanes of Gen 5 PCIe connectivity, these servers offer a compelling balance of performance and scalability in an affordable, easy-to-deploy, easy-to-manage package.

Supermicro, Inc., a Total IT Solution Provider for AI, Cloud, Storage, and 5G/Edge, is announcing additions to the AMD based H13 generation of CPU Servers, optimized to deliver an outstanding balance of performance and efficiency and powered by the AMD EPYC 4004 Series processors. Supermicro will feature its new MicroCloud multi-node solution, which supports up to ten nodes in a 3U form factor. This very high-density option is designed for cloud-native workloads.

"Supermicro continues to offer innovative solutions for a wide range of applications, and with this new entry, based on the AMD EPYC 4004 processor, we can address the needs of on-premises or cloud service providers who need a cost-effective solution in a compact form factor," said Charles Liang, president and CEO of Supermicro. "In a single rack, 160 individual nodes can be made available for cloud-native applications, which reduces real estate need and decreases a data center TCO."

ASRock Rack Inc., a leading innovative server company, announces its support for the new AMD EPYC 4004 Series CPUs. The latest BIOS updates for all ASRock Rack AM5 socket products are now available online, ensuring that ASRock Rack motherboards for AMD EPYC 4004 CPUs are ready to support the new processors.

The AMD EPYC 4004 Processors utilize the AM5 socket and feature from 4 to 16 SMT-capable (Simultaneous Multithreading), energy-efficient "Zen 4" processor cores, enabling needed performance in cost-efficient system designs. ASRock Rack launched a complete range of boards and systems based on AM5 socket and pioneered equipping the servers with IPMI since 2022. Now, with the launch of AMD EPYC 4004 Processors, ASRock Rack releases the new BIOS for these servers to leverage AMD official server-grade features such as the support of Windows Server 2022; RHEL 8 and 9; Ubuntu 22.04 and 24.04.

MSI, a leading global server provider, today announced the availability of high-performance server platforms supporting AMD EPYC 4004 Processors for small and medium businesses and regional-hosted IT service providers to deliver essential security capabilities and energy efficiency. "Businesses across all scales are discovering the advantages of advanced computing, connectivity, and analytics capabilities as applications and services become more widespread," said Danny Hsu, General Manager of Enterprise Platform Solutions. "MSI server platforms, supporting AMD EPYC 4004 Processors, empower our customers to implement high-performance computing with cost-effective, ease of deployment, and manageability features. This capability addresses challenges such as system costs, limited IT expertise, and other infrastructure constraints that were previously prohibitive."

"The new AMD EPYC 4004 Series CPUs, along with our strong ecosystem of technology partners, bring enterprise solutions to a traditionally underserved market and ensure that small and medium businesses have access to highly-performant technologies that help them stay competitive," said John Morris, corporate vice president, Enterprise and HPC Business Group, AMD. "The AMD EPYC 4004 CPUs fill an important market gap, providing cost-optimized solutions with enterprise-grade dependability, scalability and security in cost-optimized system configurations that make sense for smaller businesses and dedicated hosters."

According to the Taiwan Central News Agency AMD is considering opening up an R&D center in Taiwan. AMD is said to have applied with the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) as part of Taiwan's "A+ global R&D and innovation partnership program" to set up a new R&D facility. The government partnership program covers three types of fields, namely AI, new-generation semiconductors including high-power and high-frequency ICs, and new 5G network structures and it's aiming for both local and international businesses to set up new R&D centers. AMD has yet to announce any plans about the potential R&D center and the MOEA has declined to share any details with local media in Taiwan.

However, an unnamed source with inside knowledge in the matter has revealed that AMD is looking at investing around NT$5 billion (~US$155 million), based on the application. The same source also mentioned that the MOEA has stipulated conditions that AMD has to meet, which among other things involves working with local IC design companies to help further develop Taiwan's IC design industry, working with local companies to produce servers with AI chips and working with local universities to cultivate talent. Furthermore, the MOEA is said to have asked AMD to recruit at least 20 percent of its R&D centre workforce from outside of Taiwan, to avoid competing with local companies for staff. AMD could be making an announcement about the R&D center at Computex, but it's worth keeping in mind that these things take time. Back in 2021, NVIDIA announced that it would set up an R&D center in Taiwan, but with a much bigger budget of NT$24.3 billion plus a government subsidy of a further NT$6.7 billion. NVIDIA has as yet to announce the opening of its Taiwan R&D center.

AMD today introduced the EPYC 4004 line of server processors in the Socket AM5 package. These chips come with up to 16 "Zen 4" CPU cores, a 2-channel DDR5 memory interface, and a 28-lane PCIe Gen 5 I/O, and are meant to power small-business servers, as well as cater to the dedicated web-server hosting business that generally attracts client-segment processors. This is the exact segment of market that Intel addresses with its Xeon E-2400 series processors in the LGA1700 package. The EPYC 4004 series offers a superior support and warranty regime compared to client-segment processors, besides ECC memory support, and AMD Secure Processor, and all of the security features you get with Ryzen PRO 7000 series processors for commercial desktops.

AMD's offer over the Xeon E-2400 series is its CPU core count of up to 16, which lets you fully utilize the 16-core limit of the Windows 2022 Server base license. The EPYC 4004 series is functionally the same processor as the Ryzen 7000 "Raphael" except for its ECC memory support. This chip features up to two 5 nm "Zen 4" CCDs with up to 8 cores, each; and an I/O die that puts out two DDR5 memory channels, and 28 PCIe Gen 5 lanes. Besides today's processor launch, several server motherboard vendors are announcing Socket AM5 server boards that are rackmount-friendly, and with server-relevant features.

AMD is slated to deliver a "Zen 5" microarchitecture deep-dive at the Hot Chips 2024 conference, on August 25. The company is widely expected to either unveil or announce its next-generation processors based on the architecture, in its 2024 Computex keynote on June 3, so it remains to be seen if the deep-dive follows a product launch, or predates it. Either way, Hot Chips talks tend to be significantly more detailed than the product launch pre-briefs that we get; and so we hope to learn a lot more about the architecture.

A lot rides on the continued success of "Zen 5" to deliver a double-digit percentage IPC increase over its predecessor, while also introducing new microarchitecture-level features; and leveraging new foundry processes at TSMC, to deliver competitive processors to Intel. Unlike Intel, which has implemented hybrid CPU cores across its product stack, AMD continues to make traditional multicore processors, and refuses to level even the chips that contain regular and high-density versions of its "Zen 4" cores as "hybrid."

AMD on Monday said that its 2024 Computex Keynote address slated for June 3, will see a slew of next-generation product announcements. "Join us as Dr. Lisa Su delivers the Computex 2024 opening keynote and shares the latest on how AMD and our partners are pushing the envelope with our next generation of high-performance PC, data center and AI solutions," the brief release said.

AMD is widely expected to unveil its next-generation Ryzen 9000 "Strix Point" mobile processors for AI PCs capable of powering the recently announced Microsoft Copilot+, its next-generation Ryzen 9000 "Granite Ridge" desktop processors, its 5th Generation EPYC "Turin" server processors, and possibly even its next-generation Radeon RX RDNA 4 generation. At the heart of all its processor announcements is the new "Zen 5" CPU microarchitecture that's expected to introduce an over 10% IPC improvement with significant improvements in AVX512 performance over "Zen 4," which should benefit certain kinds of AI workloads.

TrendForce reports that the three largest DRAM suppliers are increasing wafer input for advanced processes. Following a rise in memory contract prices, companies have boosted their capital investments, with capacity expansion focusing on the second half of this year. It is expected that wafer input for 1alpha nm and above processes will account for approximately 40% of total DRAM wafer input by the end of the year.

HBM production will be prioritized due to its profitability and increasing demand. However, limited yields of around 50-60% and a wafer area 60% larger than DRAM products mean a higher proportion of wafer input is required. Based on the TSV capacity of each company, HBM is expected to account for 35% of advanced process wafer input by the end of this year, with the remaining wafer capacity used for LPDDR5(X) and DDR5 products.

With handheld gaming devices being all the rage these days, thanks to PC manufacturers getting into the form-factor; the conditions seem ripe for a new PlayStation handheld generation. Rumors of Sony working on a new gaming handheld first surfaced in February 2024 from a Moore's Law is Dead report, and now other leakers are resonating the theory. This is a fully fledged handheld console that runs games locally, unlike the PlayStation Portal, which was a cloud gaming endpoint device.

The PlayStation 4 debuted a decade ago, with SoC hardware specs that can easily be match by current-generation AMD Ryzen Z1 APUs, in handheld console power footprints; and the leakers tend to agree—the new handheld console will be able to play all the games from the PlayStation 4 library, besides its own unique crop of games that take advantage of certain handheld human interface features, such as a touchscreen, accelerometer, and gyro.

The latest update of Ghost of Tsushima lets you use DLSS 2 super-resolution and FSR 3 Frame Generation simultaneously, so you have the unique benefit of having the NVIDIA DLSS 2 handle super resolution and image quality, while letting the AMD FSR 3 nearly double frame-rates of the DLSS 2 output. All this, without the need for any mods, it's part of the game's original code. It's crazy when you think about it—you now have two performance enhancements running in tandem, with gamers reporting over 170 FPS at 4K with reasonably good image quality. This could particularly benefit those on older GeForce RTX 30-series "Ampere" and RTX 20-series "Turing" graphics cards, as those lack support for DLSS 3 Frame Generation.

XFX earlier this month debuted the Phoenix Nirvana line of premium custom-design Radeon RX 7900 series graphics cards with the China-exclusive RX 7900 XTX Phoenix Nirvana. The company is expanding this lineup with two new models, both of which are draped in white. These are the company's first white-themed graphics cards. The lineup now includes the Radeon RX 7800 XT Phoenix Nirvana White, and the RX 7900 GRE Phoenix Nirvana White. Both cards appear to share a common board design, because the compacted "Navi 31" ASIC powering the RX 7900 GRE is pin-compatible with the "Navi 32" ASIC that the RX 7800 XT is based on. Since both GPUs feature a 256-bit GDDR6 memory interface, and a nearly identical typical board power value of around 260 W, AMD's board partners get to use their RX 7800 XT custom board designs for RX 7900 GRE products.

The XFX RX 7900 GRE Phoenix Nirvana White features a significantly different board design to the company's Merc 319 product that's available in the west. The heatsink is noticeably larger, the cooler shroud appears better ventilated, and XFX is using thicker 100 mm fans for higher static pressure than from the ones you find in the global Merc 319 card. The most striking design element of course is its color trim. White makes up the cooler shroud, the fan impellers, and the backplate. The heatsink protrudes out of the edges of the black PCB that's barely noticeable. The card is 33.7 cm long, and 5.9 cm-thick, with a 13.2 cm height. The RX 7900 GRE Phoenix Nirvana White comes with a hearty 6.7% factory overclock, with a 2394 MHz boost clock (vs. 2245 MHz reference); while the RX 7800 XT Phoenix Nirvana White ticks AMD reference 2430 MHz boost. Both these cards, unfortunately, are China-exclusive products, just like the RX 7900 XTX card XFX launched earlier this month.

Sapphire today unveiled the Radeon RX 7700 XT Pure Frostpunk 2 Edition graphics card. The card is a branding collaboration with 11 bit Studios, which releases Frostpunk 2 this July. The city-building survival strategy game is one of this Summer's most anticipated game releases. Sapphire celebrates it with a variant of the RX 7700 XT Pure graphics card that has a game code for the Deluxe Edition of Frostpunk 2, a themed backplate, and some goodies in the box, including custom keycaps, and enamel pin badges. While the backplate is heavily themed on the game, the all-white cooler shroud, the white impellers for the three fans, and the rest of the card, sticks with the white color scheme that's characteristic of Sapphire's Pure brand. The card comes in a collector's edition box themed after the game.

Based on the 5 nm "Navi 32" silicon, the Radeon RX 7700 XT features 3,456 stream processors across 54 compute units. The GPU is based on the RDNA 3 graphics architecture, and AMD recommends it for 1440p gaming with maxed out settings. The card features 12 GB of 18 Gbps GDDR6 memory across a 192-bit wide memory interface, and features 48 MB of Infinity Cache memory. The card draws power from a pair of 8-pin PCIe power connectors. Display outputs include two each of DisplayPort 2.1 (featuring UHBR 13.5), and two HDMI 2.1 connectors. The card will release to market in July, probably alongside the game's July 25 release date, pricing isn't known yet (we asked Sapphire).

AMD earlier this month released documentation for the Micro Engine Scheduler (MES) firmware of its RDNA 3 GPUs. The MES is a hardware component that distributes graphics processing and general-purpose compute workloads among the main number-crunching machinery of the AMD GPU—the shader engines, which contain the compute units (CU), the indivisible SIMD muscle of the GPU with programmable shaders and certain kinds of specialized hardware, such as the AI Accelerator and Ray Accelerator. The MES is driven by a programmable firmware, which is what AMD released developer documentation of.

The decision to release MES documentation probably comes from the very top of AMD corporate management. In March, a controversy erupted when Tiny Corp, builders of AI compute servers and workstations, complained of issues testing the Radeon RX 7900 XTX graphics card with a ROCm compute stack, prompting a response from no less than CEO Dr Lisa Su. There were then calls to open-source the firmware, which AMD didn't agree to, probably since it treads on their core GPU hardware IP; but the company did the next best thing, by releasing detailed developer documentation for the MES firmware.