Items tagged with (nasdaq:amd)
November 5 will here in a jiffy, and so will a bevy of post-embargo benchmark scores and reviews. While we sit back and wait, the folks at SiSoftware have put together a Ryzen 9 5950X 'review' of sorts, based on scores uploaded to its SANDRA benchmarking database, and like everything else we have seen up to this point, it crushes the competition. Not that anyone should be surprised. The Ryzen 9 5950X is a 16-core/32-thread hunk of heavy metal with a 3.4GHz base clock and 4.9GHz max boost clock. It also has 64MB of L3 cache and 8MB of L2 cache, and a 105W TDP. And of course it is based on AMD's latest Zen 3 architecture, which the company claims delivers a 19 percent IPC improvement over Zen 2....
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Earlier this week, AMD officially announced its brand-new Radeon RX 6800 Series of graphic cards. Unlike in previous generations, however, AMD is looking to compete toe-to-toe with NVIDIA at the high-end (in this case, GeForce RTX 30 Ampere). AMD's high-end strategy revolves around three SKUs: Radeon RX 6800, Radeon RX 6800 XT, and Radeon RX 6900 XT. We already know that AMD will be selling its own cards directly, but third-party manufacturers have also lined up to deliver their own custom cards based on the new GPUs. The first up is MSI, which has revealed its RX 6800 XT Gaming X Trio. This is a massive triple-slot graphics card with three cooling fans. And as you might expect...
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AMD this week unveiled its Radeon RX 6000 series, culminating in the Radeon RX 6900 XT, a beastly card that is supposed to give NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3090 a run for the money. We shall see. What also remains to be seen is if AMD opens up custom designs from its add-in board (AIB) partners for its flagship Big Navi GPU. During the launch event, AMD made no indication that companies like Gigabyte and others would be afforded the opportunity of offering custom variants, which typically include factory overclocks and fancy cooling solutions, among other bells and whistles. But it is still early in the game, so let's not rule out the possibility. According to Andreas Schilling at hardwareLUXX, AMD's...
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AMD is tired of playing second fiddle to the competition and is making a spirited run for the performance crown, both in CPUs (Ryzen 5000 series, or Zen 3) and GPUs (Radeon RX 6000 series, or RDNA 2). At the very least, things are about to get very interesting. Coming along for the ride is EKWB, a stalwart in the liquid cooling business, which is teaming up with AMD to release some specially designed water blocks and cooling products. Frank Azor, one of the co-founders of Alienware who joined AMD as its chief architect of gaming solutions last year (and who we spoke with a few months on our 2.5 Geeks Podcast), gave EKWB a shout out during the Radeon RX 6000 series launch even yesterday. The image...
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Zen 3 is a force to be reckoned with, assuming the various benchmark leaks are even remotely accurate. Not that we are surprised—Zen 2 is one heck of a CPU architecture, so it stands to reason that Zen 3 will be as well. How much better is the question, and some newly leaked scores for a Ryzen 9 5950X may help answer it. This is another validated CPU-Z benchmark run, like the one from earlier this week that highlighted the performance of the Ryzen 7 5800X. To recap, it put the smack down on both Intel's Comet Lake CPUs, and AMD's own Ryzen 3000 series. Or to be more specific, it's single-threaded score came in 11 percent higher than an Intel Core i7-10900K, and 24 percent higher than the...
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Back in September, AMD used Fortnite to tease the then-upcoming RDNA 2 Radeon RX 6000 GPUs. Now that the cards have been announced, AMD has updated the Fortnite maps to showcase both the AMD Ryzen 5000 series and the latest Radeon cards. AMD will also be hosting streamers from today until November 13th to celebrate AMD’s accomplishments this month. Diving into Fortnite, AMD has provided some images of what to expect when you get in. Previously, the teaser was the AMD Battle Arena map and an Easter egg to get to a floating version of the AMD Radeon RX 6000 series GPU. While the Battle Arena remains, AMD has split apart the GPU to show the whole thing off through a parkour map. If you...
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Earlier this month, AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su took to the stage and officially unveiled the company’s high-performance Zen 3-based Ryzen 5000 series processors. Towards the end of that event, Dr. Su also snuck in a few juicy tid-bits of information regarding the company’s upcoming high performance RDNA 2-based Radeons, often referred to as “Big Navi”. After that initial sneak peek, which showed a Radeon RX 6000 series card trading blows with a GeForce RTX 3080, some speculated that AMD may have been playing coy and holding something back for today’s bigger reveal, which had already been scheduled weeks prior. It turns out that’s exactly what happened, as Dr. Su and...
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Today is the big day for AMD's RDNA 2 architecture. The company is set to launch its next-generation Radeon RX 6000 Series of graphics cards that will replace the current RDNA-based Ryzen RX 5000 Series. Needless to say, gamers are eager to see what AMD has in store, and you'll be able to get a [virtual] front row seat to the company's event today to announced the new graphics cards. The event will kick off at 12pm ET, and you can catch it via the YouTube embed below: AMD is promising a 50% performance-per-watt boost with RDNA 2 over RDNA and we're expecting very competitive performance against NVIDIA's newly-launched GeForce RTX 30 Series graphics cards. Recently leaked...
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Are we enjoying the Chip Wars of 2020 yet? Things are just getting started, folks. AMD is talking a big game about Zen 3 and its Ryzen 5000 series, which will debut to retail next week. More than just lip service, multiple leaks suggest AMD has a real winner on its hands. This is evidenced yet again in a validated CPU-Z run underscoring the potential performance of the Ryzen 7 5800X. The Ryzen 7 5800X is one of four announced Zen 3 processors for the consumer desktop segment. It is only second from the rear, ahead of one other CPU and behind two higher end models, yet appears to pack quite the punch. Before we get to the performance figures and how it compares to Intel, let's have a quick rundown...
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The best thing to ever happen to AMD was not the introduction of Zen or getting into discrete graphics. As great as those have both been to AMD, the company's best move was naming Dr. Lisa Su as president and CEO six years ago this month. If at this point anyone still needs more proof, they need only look at AMD's third quarter earnings report, which reflects yet another stellar quarter under Dr. Su's leadership. By singling out Dr. Su, I mean no disrespect to AMD's talented engineers, its marketing people, or anyone else. They have all played an important role in AMD's turnaround and continued success. But it starts with leadership, and Dr. Su has expertly navigated AMD into relevance and, more...
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NVIDIA already came out and launched its GeForce RTX 30 series, consisting initially of the GeForce RTX 3090, GeForce RTX 3080, and GeForce RTX 3070, two of which we have already ran through the benchmark ringer, with superb performance. The ball is now in AMD's court to respond. That response will come in the form of Big Navi, and some supposedly early benchmarks look promising, at least in rasterized graphics. AMD will officially step into the next-gen GPU ring with its Radeon RX 6000 series, launching next week. Ahead of the launch, AMD teased the performance of its Big Navi offering when announcing its Zen 3 CPUs, showing off a bit of Borderlands 3 gameplay running at a 4K resolution, along...
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In absolutely no uncertain terms, AMD claims its Ryzen 5000 desktop processors are the fastest gaming CPUs in the world," a distinction that Intel has held onto for a long time. The company is also claiming a hefty 19 percent IPC (instructions per clock) uplift over its Zen 2 stack. If you are worried it is just a bunch of lip service, you might be encouraged by PassMark's updated CPU Mark rankings, which show Zen 3 sitting on top in single-threaded performance. More specifically, the lowest end (so far) Zen 3 CPU, the Ryzen 5 5600X, leads the way with the highest benchmark score, as of this writing. AMD's other Zen 3 CPUs will undoubtedly leapfrog the Ryzen 5 5600X once they find their way to...
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Blockchain is back, and cryptocurrency is coming up again. Earlier this week, PayPal announced that it would accept cryptocurrency payments, which gave Bitcoin a bump in price. With AMD Radeon RX 6000 "Big Navi" cards coming soon, there could be a new rush to mine cryptocurrency. The fine folks at Phoronix, however, have discovered something called “navi10 blockchain SKU” in the AMD Linux drivers hinting at older hardware purpose-built for mining. When Bitcoin and Ethereum peaked several years ago, it lead to a mass frenzy of graphics cards for mining. At that time, GPU manufacturers started to produce display-less GPUs for cryptocurrency mining. These GPUs would, in theory,...
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If you are not already dreaming and drooling about the prospect of building a high-end PC around AMD's flagship Ryzen 9 5950X processor, some newly leaked benchmarks might just do it. Over on Geekbench (where else?), there exists a handful of benchmark runs showing the mighty processor nudging a little past 5GHz. The Ryzen 9 5950X is a decked out slice of silicon constructed with 16 physical CPU cores and 32 threads of computing muscle. It has a 3.4GHz base clock and up to a 4.9GHz boost clock, plus 64MB of L3 cache, 8MB of L2 cache, PCIe 4.0 support, and all of the performance benefits of AMD's fancy Zen 3 CPU architecture. AMD's rated max boost clock does not factor in its Precision Boost Overdrive...
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In exactly one week from now, AMD will unveil its Radeon RX 6000 series lineup, whatever that might ultimately consist of, finally putting to rest the bulk of related rumors and leaks. All we can say for 100 percent certainty right now is that the new cards will be based on AMD's RDNA 2 graphics architecture. That said, a roundup of leaks suggest the highest-end variants will be monster GPUs. Let's hope that is true, because we sorely need some competition in the high-end GPU space. For the past several years, NVIDIA has dominated the sector, with Pascal, Turing, and now Ampere. NVIDIA's latest generation GeForce RTX 30 series is a formidable lineup, setting a high bar for AMD to meet, exceed,...
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NVIDIA’s problems with supplying ample GeForce RTX 30 Series Ampere graphics cards to customers have been well-documented on this site. CEO Jensen Huang indicated "the demand issue is that it is much greater than we expected - and we expected really a lot” and that "demand will outstrip all of our supply through the year." AMD has obviously been paying close attention to this whole debacle and doesn’t want a repeat with its two major product launches that are incoming. The company’s Ryzen 5000 family of Zen 3 processors are launching on November 5th and the company is announcing the Radeon RX 6000 Series on October 28th (with a later...
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Halloween is right around the corner, but even closer is the official launch of AMD's highly anticipated Radeon RX 6000 series, based on the company's second generation Radeon DNA (RDNA 2) graphics architecture. Our questions will finally be answered. For example, will it have a 320W TBP (total/typical board power) rating as freshly rumored? Power envelopes are always interesting, in part because higher powered parts typically produce more heat and require burlier cooling setups, to run at their advertised and/or optimal speeds. Sometimes companies take a brute force approach to obtaining higher clockspeeds (and better performance) by going nuts with the power requirements. The topic also gets...
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November will be here before we know it, and with it comes the retail availability of AMD's latest generation Ryzen 5000 series, based on Zen 3. Then we will have a clear picture of whether the new chips truly deliver upon AMD's claimed 19 percent IPC (instructions per clock) uplift over Zen 2. As we wait, more slightly-early benchmarks have emerged, at a familiar place—the Geekbench database. We have high hopes for Zen 3, based on what AMD is claiming, combined with the spattering of leaked benchmarks that have emerged since the Ryzen 5000 series was officially announced. We always have to take such things with a big pinch of salt, though generally, the closer to retail availability we...
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Yesterday, we brought you news about the upcoming Ryzen 5000 family of APUs that will find their way into laptops starting early next year. What we also learned is that despite the fact that AMD has taken steps to align its APU and CPU family with the 5000 Series branding, things are still going to be a bit complicated going forward. While we initially thought that the Ryzen 5000 family was only going to include processors with Zen 3 architecture, it seems as though AMD will be sneaking in Zen 2-based processors as well. We only detailed the Ryzen 5 5600U yesterday (Zen 3/Cezanne), but now we've got a full rundown of six processors that include a mixture of Zen 3/Cezanne and...
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We are just 10 days away from AMD's Radeon RX 6000 "Big Navi" reveal. As a result, the gaming community is waiting with bated breath to get a look at the next-generation flagship graphics card family and what kind of performance it will bring to the table. When AMD announced its Ryzen 5000 series of Zen 3 enthusiast processors earlier this month, it gave us just a little taste of what to expect with regards to performance. At 4K resolutions, the unnamed Radeon RX 6000 card that Dr. Lisa Su discussed easily outpaced the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti and was within striking distance of the $699 GeForce RTX 3080. But AMD appears to have something potentially...
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You have questions, I have questions, we all have questions about AMD's recently announced Ryzen 5000 series, and specifically regarding how actual performance stacks up with the company's claim of a 19 percent IPC (instructions per clock) uplift over the Ryzen 3000 series. Reliable answers will have to wait until the reviews are posted. Waiting is hard, though, and while caution should be taken when looking at unofficial benchmark runs, there is another set of interesting results to digest, this time within SiSoftware's SANDRA database. This latest round of leaked data follows the recent discovery of Zen 3 benchmark results within the Cinebench R20 database, which we wrote about earlier this...
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One of the last places you would expect to see a Ryzen 5000 series desktop processor is inside a Mac system. Apple is even shifting away from x86 processors altogether, having announced plans to phase out its use of Intel CPUs in favor of its own custom processors based on ARM. So what is this business about a an alleged Mac system running a Ryzen 9 5950X CPU appearing in Geekbench all about? That is a wonderful question, and rather than drag out the suspense, we will go ahead and say we do not know for sure. We have some ideas, though, one of which is a nifty Hackintosh setup. It could also be a clever fake with some fancy editing by whoever is behind this, but where is the fun in that? This...
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