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Asus has introduced a new member to the Zephyrus family with the Zephyrus G GA502. The GA5002 aims to bring the Zephyrus series to a wider audience and is powered by the AMD Ryzen 7 3550H CPU and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti GPU to offer a high-performant combination for multitasking and gaming while still being easier on the battery life.

Another limited edition product has been unearthed that will be seemingly part of AMD’s 50th anniversary celebrations. A red version of the great value for money Radeon VII desktop graphics card has made an appearance, although it looks likely at the moment the only differences with the regular card will be design-based rather than performance-based.

AMD has posted a tweet on its Ryzen Twitter account showing what can be done with just one Ryzen Threadripper 1950X HEDT chip and four Radeon RX Vega 64 LC graphics cards. The builder of the custom desktop PC setup has called his system “RippinRed 2.0”, and it also features 32 GB RAM, a motherboard from Gigabyte, and four monitors from Dell and Acer.

Gigabyte Japan has announced the upcoming launch of the X470 Aorus Gaming 7 WiFi-50 motherboard. The board will be released domestically on April 26 for about 35,000 yen including taxes (~US$310). It’s not yet known if the Taiwanese manufacturer will be bringing the limited edition motherboard to other markets.

The next pitched battle between Sony and Microsoft in their console wars is starting to heat up. The latest news to surface is courtesy of some Microsoft insiders who say that the next-gen flagship Xbox will be more advanced than the Sony PlayStation 5.

AMD’s Radeon VII, RX Vega 64 LC, and RX Vega 64 have managed to defeat Nvidia’s top-end GeForce RTX hardware, the RTX 2080 and RTX 2080 Ti, in a World War Z GPU benchmark. In one specific test, the Radeon VII was measured offering an eye-popping average rate of 192 FPS compared to the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti’s best effort of 160 FPS.

Two images of one of AMD’s upcoming Picasso range of desktop APUs have been leaked online. The pictures themselves don’t reveal very much, apart from the fact that AMD is likely preparing to finally release the desktop APU counterparts of the Picasso mobile APUs that were released earlier this year. The APU in question is believed to be the Ryzen 3 3200G.

Images of the components for the upcoming GPD Win Max handheld gaming PC have been leaked. The pictures show that an embedded chip from AMD’s Ryzen V1000 series has been chosen to power the device. It also seems that GamePad Digital (GPD) has decided to change the device’s name from Win 2 Max to simply Win Max.

The iBOX-R1000 from ASRock is the first mini PC to integrate the new Ryzen R1606G / R1505G embedded dual-core CPUs with Vega 3 iGPUs. It comes with up to 32 GB DDR4-2400 RAM and supports one 2.5-inch SATA SSD / HDD. This mini PC is designed for digital signage, arcade gaming and gambling, kiosks, IoT gateways and thin client terminals.

The Zen 2-based Ryzen, EPYC and Threadripper chipsets should make for exciting launches soon. This is because their state-of-the-art 7nm architectures should deliver performance improvements in many areas compared to their Zen+ predecessors. However, it appears that the Zen 3s of the future are shaping up to be even better already.

Atari announced this week that the Atari VCS would switch to an AMD Ryzen Embedded R1000 APU, officially ditching the Bristol Ridge A10 it had planned to use last year. While the R1000 will bring better performance and support for modern features (like 4K video playback), it brings a heavy negative to the effervescent console - delays.

A record for an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 GPU has been added on UserBenchmark’s database, and there is convincing evidence pointing to this being the mobile version of the upcoming graphics card. The average bench score of 45.6% put the hardware in 71st position in UserBenchmark’s ranking, sandwiched neatly between an old AMD R9 280X and an even older Nvidia GeForce GTX 690 (SLI disabled).

AMD Ryzen 3000 for laptops has been announced a few months ago and the PC OEMs are starting to release more and more new laptops with these CPUs. Now, two new Lenovo ThinkPad laptops are listed on the website of the manufacturer. With the new Ryzen 3000 processors, the business laptops ThinkPad E495 and ThinkPad E595 are the direct successors of the E485 and E585.

Asus has added the FX95DD laptop to its Chinese website as part of its FX/ZX series of computers. The device will feature a Zen+ Picasso AMD Ryzen 7 3750H APU in combination with the Pascal-based Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 GPU. The notebook, which is known locally as the Flying Fortress, is currently being offered for presale orders.

AMD has introduced two embedded processors as part of the new Ryzen R1000 series. The models are the Ryzen Embedded R1606G and the slightly lower-specced Ryzen Embedded R1505G. Both chips come with two cores and four threads. Strangely enough, it seems the two embedded chips were compared against each other on 3DMark 11 back in October 2018.

An email that has supposedly come from MSI’s German-language tech support team has stated that the company will not be offering support for AMD’s upcoming line of Ryzen 3000 Matisse desktop processors on older motherboards (300-series). However, there has not been an official statement from the Taiwanese company in regard to this issue yet.
MSI has issued a press release stating there will be support for compatible 300-series motherboards.

Mark Cerny, lead architect behind the PlayStation 4, has confirmed several details about the specifications of Sony's next-generation console. The PlayStation 5, as it is rumored to be called, will run on an AMD APU consisting of a 7 nm Zen 2-based CPU and a Navi-based GPU that will support real-time ray tracing and 8K resolutions. The PS5 will also include a lightning-fast SSD that should drastically cut down on load time.

The refreshed models are coming next month with a handful of internal updates to improve both performance and security including Sure Sense, Sure View Gen3, brighter displays, and 8th gen ULV Intel Core with vPro. The designs and sizes are otherwise exactly the same as last year's models.

Alleged specifications for “AMD Navi” have been posted online. The new information offered seems to correspond with existing rumors about the Radeon RX 3080 Navi 10 graphics solution. Apparently, the performance of the Navi GPU places it between AMD’s Vega 56 and Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1080, but the supposed price is much cheaper than Nvidia’s product.

AMD will soon be celebrating its 50th anniversary in business, and it seems Sapphire Technology wants to highlight the achievement by releasing a gold-colored Nitro+ Radeon RX 590 desktop graphics card. The special edition card has a boost clock rate of 1560 MHz and is fitted with 8 GB GDDR5 memory (2100 MHz clock that utilizes a 256-bit interface).

A piece of leaked marketing material purportedly from Gigabyte has led to considerable speculation about what could occur on the date mentioned on it. The image pertains to the gaming-related Aorus sub-brand, with some believing it will lead to an announcement of the X570 motherboards and possibly even a reveal of AMD’s Ryzen 3000 series.

AMD will soon be celebrating 50 years since its formal incorporation, and to celebrate this fact it appears there will be a 50th Anniversary Edition of the Ryzen 7 2700X processor. It’s not known if the special edition of the CPU will differ from the Pinnacle Ridge chip that was originally released in April of last year.

The next generation of AMD cards based on the Navi architecture could be unveiled at Computex this year. However, according to some other rumors, they could also have their own dedicated release event on July 7 this year. It would be a good choice of date, as the potential success of Navi hangs on its state-of-the-art 7nm nature.

The ConceptD line from Acer has been revealed, and it includes three new laptops: The Acer ConceptD 9, the Acer ConceptD 7, and the Acer ConceptD 5. The notebooks are aimed at creatives and designers, and the high-end ConceptD 9 can be configured with a 9th Gen i9 processor and a GeForce RTX 2080 graphics solution.

The future of Microsoft PCs such as the Surface Pro may yet be Qualcomm-based. A new report on the development of Windows on ARM includes references to several prototypes from this line with Snapdragon processors rather than those from Intel. Therefore, this prospect may now be more feasible than ever.

Sales data from Mindfactory, a large German computer hardware retailer, has shown that CPUs from AMD are outselling Intel’s processors by more than two to one. Leading the charge for the red team are two CPUs from the Zen+ Pinnacle Ridge series: The mainstream Ryzen 5 2600 and the performance-orientated Ryzen 7 2700X.

A short video uploaded by UDOO on YouTube has shown that the UDOO BOLT single-board computer is now being shipped to early-bird backers. The little board made some waves with claims that it was faster than a MacBook Pro 13 and Microsoft Surface Pro 2017 m3. Apparently, it can even work well when connected to a GeForce RTX 2080 Ti graphics card.

Alleged details of the PlayStation 5 console have been posted online. The incredible claimed specifications include 8K upscaling, 2 TB storage utilizing NAND, 24 GB GDDR6 RAM, VR, ray tracing, backwards compatibility and more. There’s also mention of the widely believed custom AMD Ryzen CPU and the Navi GPU – that apparently offers 14 teraflops of compute performance.

An engineering sample processor has turned up on Twitter with the codename “ZG16702AE8JB2_32/10/18_13F8”. Fortunately, a little bit of light has been shed on what this mystery processor could be, and it is claimed that it is actually AMD’s custom chip Gonzalo, which is expected to appear in the next-generation consoles from Microsoft and Sony.

A new Chromebook featuring APUs from AMD’s Picasso range of processors might be in the works. A device with the codename “Zork” has been unearthed that apparently utilizes a Chrome OS board called “Trembyle”. Data management commits have been spotted that link Zork with Picasso – which means a Chromebook with an AMD Ryzen 5 3500U inside could be in development.

A 2019 refresh of the 14-inch Honor MagicBook is going to be released on April 17, according to a Chinese retailer. The main difference between the upcoming version and the 2018 laptop is a processor upgrade: Last year’s AMD MagicBook variant came with a Ryzen 5 2500U, whereas the 2019 model will be fitted with a Ryzen 5 3500U APU.

2019 is already shaping up to be a good year for AMD. The 7 nm chips are currently manufactured by TSMC on the new EUV lithography, and the red team has considerably increased its chip orders, as the launch dates are looming. Intel, on the other hand, is faced with weakened investor confidence and could lose important market share in the mainstream CPU and server sectors.

AMD has taken a bite out of Intel’s overall share in Steam’s monthly survey in the PC processor usage category. The red team was up to 18.1% for March, rising 0.5% from 17.6% for February. AMD took share away from Intel for systems running Windows, but the latter chipmaker gained a little for computers operating on Linux.

The March 2019 Steam Hardware & Software Survey has been posted by the software distribution platform, and as usual things look rosy for Nvidia in the video card usage category. Three of the top six places in terms of percentage increase over the month are occupied by GeForce RTX 20 series products, with last month’s missing RTX 2060 now taking the top spot.

A screenshot of information concerning three processors has surfaced that seems to reveal that AMD is preparing to release some new embedded SoCs. The screenshot was taken from a Futuremark database, with the information being spotted and shared by Tum Apisak. The three mysterious chips have the driver names Cato SoC and Radeon RX 350 Series.

We have reviewed the Lenovo ThinkPad E485. Of this model, we received not only one, but two review samples. As in many cases, both review samples had different LCD panels. Unfortunately, one panel is much darker than the other one.

The new mobile Zen+ Ryzen 7 Pro 3700U (4.0/2.3 GHz) will be just marginally faster than the outgoing Zen Ryzen 7 2700U (3.8/2.2 GHz). When compared to the Intel Core i7-8650U, however, AMD is promising up to 258 percent faster graphics performance in certain applications. More significant gains in CPU performance are not expected until the "proper" third generation Zen 2 series refresh.

According to a new report by DigiTimes, the uptake of 7nm chips from TSMC was at its lowest 2019 ebb in the first quarter of this year (1Q2019). However, the company expects its orders to push its relevant processes to their full capacity in 3Q2019. The firm has also started using the improved EUV method for the production of 7nm dies.

A blog called ServertheHome has drawn on the latest leaks and info on EPYC Rome to conclude that it could have between 128 and 160 PCIe lanes. By contrast, the competing Intel Xeon Platinum 9200 solution may have only 80. On top of that, the Xeon's lanes may be Gen3, whereas Rome is likely to have Gen4.

The latest version of HWiNFO is available for download, and it now offers support for AMD Navi and Intel Emmitsburg. The inclusion of preliminary support for Navi points to the fact that the much-anticipated range of GPUs should be soon with us. There is also mention of Intel Emmitsburg, which could be related to an upcoming PCH.

The WIN 2 Max is rumored to get a few improved specs, including a higher-resolution 1280 x 800 screen, a new AMD APU with integrated Radeon graphics that can be overclocked for improved performance or underclocked for extended battery life, and a keyboard with bigger keys. The model is expected to launch in late 2019.

A recent post made on Dell’s blog has revealed that the manufacturer has started to incorporate AMD’s Picasso range of mobile APUs into its Inspiron lineup. The Inspiron 15 5000 (5585) with a second-generation Ryzen CPU is now available to select on Dell’s online configurator, with shoppers being able to choose from three processor options.

The codename given to an AMD engineering sample processor has been leaked online and has already sparked considerable speculation as to what it could be. A breakdown of the name seems to point at the chip being a desktop APU from the Picasso range based on the Zen+ microarchitecture. This series currently consists of just mobile processors.

The Kaby Lake G CPUs with integrated AMD RX Vega graphics seemed to be exactly what budget gaming laptops needed, but the initial supply and the 14 nm CPU shortages lead to very limited support from laptop OEMs. Surprisingly enough, when no one seemed to be giving these CPUs a chance anymore, the Kaby Lake G processors are now expected to make a return in select Acer Aspire 7 notebooks.

The Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) has announced that AMD’s CEO, Dr. Lisa Su, will be delivering the opening keynote at Computex 2019. The keynote has been scheduled for May 27, and it seems like this could be the ideal setting for Su to show off AMD’s anticipated Radeon Navi GPU series. It’s also been speculated that she could launch the Ryzen 3000 series at the same time.