Learn more about AMD

Western Digital is holding a huge promotion that will give its Twitch channel viewers the opportunity to win numerous prizes, including a CPU from the brand-new AMD Ryzen 5000 Series. The 12 Days of WD_BLACK event commences on Thursday December 10 to coincide with The Game Awards 2020. Zen 3-based Ryzen 5000 chips have been notoriously difficult to obtain so far.

The new AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics card has been popping up in various reviews, and in one particularly grueling test the Navi 21 part showed off its exemplary average power consumption in gaming. The RX 6900 XT consumed more than 50 W less than the rival Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 FE and 25-30 W less than the RTX 3080 FE.

Global shortage of GDDR6 is a dominant factor in the supply shortages being faced by AMD Radeon RX 5000, RX 6000, NVIDIA RTX 3070, and RTX 3060 Ti GPUs with the situation likely to improve only around February 2021. The RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 cards with GDDR6X memory are somewhat less-impacted, but limited production from Samsung Foundry means that their availability is questionable at least till end of Q3 2020.

Lenovo's 14-inch notebook features a powerful Ryzen 7 4700U APU with NVMe SSD and offers decent battery life. Noise and temperature emissions are fairly low for a device this thin.

The Ryzen 9 5900HX has hit Geekbench, confirming several aspects of the upcoming Zen 3 and Cezanne APUs. The 8-core APU will be part of a new series for AMD, and one that may overclockable.

Launched earlier this year with a starting price tag of US$539, the AMD Athlon Silver 3050e-powered Lenovo ThinkCentre M75n Nano IoT ultra-slim desktop PC was designed to fit on the back of ThinkVision T/P series monitors and its price exceeded US$500. Fortunately, those interested can get it now for just US$179.

AMD could be offering several Navi 23 and Navi 24 mobile GPUs with a sub-100 W TGP target to power gaming laptops next year. Navi 23 may be offered in three TGP variants topping at 90 W while Navi 24 will come in two SKUs — one with a cTGP up to 50 W and another, a low-power variant at 25 W TGP.

Several Asus ROG Zephyrus configurations powered by AMD Ryzen 9 5900HS and 5900HX APUs have surfaced online. The 5900HX could be an unlocked overclockable variant of the 5900H. The configs also list NVIDIA's upcoming mobile RTX 30 Ampere GPUs including the mobile RTX 3080, RTX 3070, and RTX 3060 Max-Q along with a Quadro RTX 3000 SKU.

Geekbench entries pertaining to upcoming Microsoft Surface products have surfaced online. The Surface Laptop 4 is expected to be powered by an AMD Ryzen Renoir custom APU and the scores seem to reflect the improved performance compared to the previous generation. An entry for a likely Surface Pro 8 device powered by the Core i7-1185G7 is also seen.

It is quite ironic how AMD's Smart Access Memory (aka Resizable BAR) could help Intel and Nvidia regain some lost market shares. AMD offered to help its competitors with the Resizable BAR feature, yet Team Red may have hit a stone wall with the SAM support for Ryzen 3000 and older Zen-based CPUs. On the other hand, Intel-based motherboards supporting 6-year-old CPUs from the Haswell era have no problem benefiting from the Resizable BAR feature, and Nvidia is soon adding support for it, as well.

The AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT is almost here, and it has shown that it can pretty much match NVIDIA's best efforts in Ashes of the Singularity. The RX 6900 XT gets within 3 FPS of the GeForce RTX 3090, despite being a third cheaper than NVIDIA's premier card.

The test results are irrelevant due to the processor being locked at low frequencies, but we do get to see how the upcoming Cezanne APU differs from the Renoir predecessor spec-wise. It looks like the base clocks are receiving a 300 MHz bump and we might see a similar bump for the boost clocks. Furthermore, the L3 cache was doubled from 8 MB to 16 MB.

Although apparently slower than both the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 and RTX 3080 by 19% and 4%, the upcoming AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT (apparently a reference design board was used in the tests) is around 13% faster than the RX 6800 XT and no less than 35% faster than the RX 6800. However, it seems like the retail version will be faster.

AMD may have an Apple M1 competitor in the works. Rumor is that there are two versions of this chip being developed, with and without integrated RAM. It is possible that AMD could be looking to revive its K12 Core design or improve on it with newer Cortex designs to exploit the highly lucrative ARM market.

One of AMD's fastest mobile CPUs can only be found on a select few laptops. Thankfully, these same laptops are frequently on sale to be much cheaper than their Intel equivalents.

The Legion 5 (AMD) has Renoir-based processors and an up to 144 hertz (Hz) FHD display. It is now on the OEM's Indian-division webstore, although not in its top Ryzen 7 4800H-powered SKU. It goes for a price translating to ~US$1408, although a coupon brings this price down by about $400.

Asus is already offering public beta BIOS versions supporting the Resizable BAR feature on most of its Intel Z490, H470 and B460 motherboards, while the BIOS versions supporting AMD's SAM for older X470 and B450 models is still restricted to private testers.

A set of AIB BIOSes accessed by Igorslab indicate that board partner Radeon RX 6700 XT could leverage the 7nm process to hit significantly higher clocks than existing Big Navi cards, meaning near-3 GHz overclocks on air cooling could become a reality.

RAM and storage may be low, but the performance-per-dollar for this deal is insane no matter how you spin it. $450 for a decent 1080p gaming laptop will appeal to a lot of budget and casual gamers.

Cyber Monday sales are live and promise some of the best discounts of the year. We list the 10 best laptop deals you can snag right now that promise a great feature set and performance to boot, for a steal.

The new Vermeer CPU from AMD, the Ryzen 5 5600X, has made a strong showing in the latest Mindfactory CPU sales data that covers Black Friday. The Zen 3 chip joins 12 other AMD processors in outselling every single Intel part on the list. Additionally, 2,290 units of the top-selling Ryzen 5 3600XT were purchased in comparison to just 290 Intel Core i5-10400F processors.

The ThinkPad E15 Gen.2 features a new more compact design and offers more performance thanks to an AMD CPU. The IPS display is still very dim and the underside still gets very hot under load.

AMD is struggling to fulfill orders for the new Radeon RX 6800 XT and RX 6800 desktop graphics cards. A leaked delivery situation form that allegedly comes from the Danish retailer Proshop details the dire straits Team Red appears to be in terms of delivering the RX 6800 XT and RX 6000. Just 0.47% of customers can expect to receive a Navi 21 card.

Instead of paying budget prices for budget laptops, users might want to consider paying just a bit more for higher quality and longer-lasting models. One of Lenovo's flagship AMD ThinkPad business laptops is down to affordable levels without needing to sacrifice processor performance.

We have taken a look at the 13.3-inch subnotebook Lenovo IdeaPad S540. We were once again surprised by the currently outstanding performance of the Ryzen processors. Thanks to this, the laptop received a very good rating despite the manufacturer having cut a few cut corners.

Select X470 and B450 motherboards from ASRock and Gigabyte are already getting beta BIOS versions supporting the Ryzen 5000 CPUs with SAM function. MSI and Asus are also offering unofficial BIOS updates for testers. However, these are not stable versions by any means, so users are advised to wait for the official AGESA V2 1.1.0.0 BIOS releasing in January.

Until Intel can offer an octa-core U-series vPro CPU with Iris Xe graphics, the AMD Ryzen 5 Pro 4650U or Ryzen 7 Pro 4750U will be the fastest options available on any ultra-thin business laptop without question.

ASRock has released a new set of mini-PCs, and ones that it claims to be the thinnest of its kind. The Mars 4000U will be available with up to the AMD Ryzen 7 4800U and will support dual-channel DDR4-3200 RAM, along with Wi-Fi 6 and multiple storage types.

Intel has gone after AMD and its Ryzen 4000 APUs, but its tale of throttling and unrepresentative laptop reviews has not won us over. Instead, it muddies the waters of which benchmarks we should trust and AMD's decision to allow OEMs to configure the performance of its APUs on battery power.

The subnotebook should feel right at home for multimedia playback, classrooms, browsing, emailing, and the occasional travel especially since it doesn't rely on slower Intel Atom or Celeron solutions.

The XFX Speedster MERC319 AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT BLACK features a dual-BIOS design with overclocked speeds of up to 1925 MHz (base clock), 2110 MHz (game clock), and 2360 MHz (boost speed), all alongside 16 Gbps GDDR6 memory. Sadly, this new graphics card is not in stock yet, but it should become available soon.

We have not yet seen any mini-ITX platforms with Threadripper support, but ASRock is now doing us one better with its proprietary Deep mini-iTX form-factor motherboards supporting server-grade AMD EPYC Rome CPUs with up to 64 cores and 128 threads.

The first Radeon RX 6900 XT from a board partner is here and is by ASRock. The card is merely a reference AMD design by another name though, with no ASRock branding or customisations to speak of. Custom RX 6900 XT cards should arrive after December 8, if there are any.

Apple is rumoured to be gearing to release a new 16-inch MacBook Pro 16, and the machine may have some special AMD hardware up its sleeve. Supposedly, the laptop will be the first to feature the Radeon RX 6700 and RX 6700 XT, albeit mobile versions of the rumoured desktop GPUs.

The new Zen3 cores from the upcoming Ryzen 5000 mobile APUs seem to be more proficient at single-core tasks, as the Ryzen 7 5800U shows 20% higher single-core scores compared to the Ryzen 7 5700U model that integrates Zen2 cores. However, the Zen3 cores do not offer any significant benefits in multi-core tests, with only 2.6% performance uplift.

Down from its original launch price of $630 USD, the Inspiron 15 5505 is our next Holiday highlight sale because of its fast processor performance relative to the low asking price. This is Dell's latest budget laptop that should easily outperform any other in its sub $500 range.

AMD may have an answer to the RTX 3060 Ti, along with other budget cards from NVIDIA. Apparently, AMD is gearing to release the RX 6700 and RX 6700 XT, which will both use its Navi 22 GPUs. The cards will have 12 GB of GDDR6 VRAM too and may arrive as early as January 2021.

ASUS has registered multiple Radeon RX 6900 SKUs with the EEC in Russia, raising the possibility of AMD announcing a cheaper alternative to the RX 6900 XT. The RX 6900 has been listed seven times, all with 16 GB of VRAM. If it is an error, then the listing should mean that ASUS is planning to release plenty of RX 6900 XT SKUs, at the very least.

Instead of using the potentially more harmful method involving raised voltages, the latest Ryzen 5000 desktop CPUs make it easier for users to obtain impressive overclocking results through undervolting. This way, users do not need sophisticated cooling solutions, and can just utilize regular AIOs. However, there is greater variance between samples, as well, so it all is more dependent on the luck of the draw.

The EliteMini UM700 from MINISFORUM offers an AMD Ryzen 7 3750H APU, up to 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB of storage and a plethora of I/O. The EliteMini UM700 can be ordered now for US$539.

AMD's 7nm Big Navi architecture continues to impress with strong overclock scaling. Overclocker Takukuo managed to push the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT to a remarkable 2.8 GHz under LN2, just 10 percent short of the world record for GPU clock speeds.

HP's latest mid-range convertible laptop comes with one of the fastest U-series CPUs available for a fair price without needing to cut RAM or storage in the process.

Business laptops are known for their good keyboards, numerous connections, and high reliability - but unfortunately, also for their often below-average LCDs, a stereotype that HP regrettably reinforces with the AMD Ryzen 4000 EliteBook 835 G7.

AMD's Scott Herkelman hinted that the company is working to offer an open implementation of super-sampling in partnership with Intel and NVIDIA that works across PCs and consoles unlike NVIDIA's proprietary DLSS. He also said that ray tracing performance of current Radeon RX 6000 cards will improve with time. Further, Frank Azor added that AMD will look into the possibility of enabling Smart Memory Access with non-500-series chipsets as well.