Tag: AMD

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT are now official: prices and release date

AMD’s response to Nvidia’s RTX 5000 graphics cards will arrive next week, and its new GPUs have an aggressive price compared to the direct competition, Nvidia’s RTX 5070 Ti. The AMD Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT will go on sale on March 6 for $549 and $599, respectively, a day after the RTX 5070 arrives. Nvidia’s models, on the other hand, cost $549 for the RTX 5070 and $749 for the RTX 5070 Ti. AMD claims that both offer “4K gaming at a 1440p price,” although for […]

AMD’s response to Nvidia’s RTX 5000 graphics cards will arrive next week, and its new GPUs have an aggressive price compared to the direct competition, Nvidia’s RTX 5070 Ti.

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The AMD Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT will be available for sale on March 6 for $549 and $599, respectively, one day after the RTX 5070 arrives. The Nvidia models, on the other hand, cost $549 for the RTX 5070 and $749 for the RTX 5070 Ti.

AMD claims that both offer “4K gaming at a 1440p price,” although it is making some unusual comparisons: according to AMD, the 9070 XT is on average 51% faster than an RX 6900 XT at 4K settings, and 26% faster than a four-year-old RTX 3090 at the same settings.

A competitive price and a perfect release date to make an impact

Although leaks had suggested that the price of AMD’s 9070 could start at $649, AMD surprised everyone today with suggested retail prices of $549 for this card, placing it on par with Nvidia’s RTX 5070, which costs $549.

The 9700 XT at $599 could even challenge Nvidia’s $749 price for its RTX 5070 Ti, as long as AMD has managed to deliver performance that can challenge these two cards from the RTX 50 series.

We won’t know the complete answer until the reviews of AMD’s cards appear next week, as well as the reviews of Nvidia’s RTX 5070. However, AMD is giving some hints about the performance in which their 9070 series cards might fit.

With an official power of 220 watts, AMD’s director of graphics product management, Scott Olschewsky, claims that the 4nm monolithic chip is “the most efficient GPU we have built.”

Each card also offers 16 GB of GDDR6 memory, DisplayPort 2.1a and HDMI 2.1b ports, and they are PCIe 5.0 cards, although your motherboard does not necessarily need a new 5.0 slot or benefit from one. They will use standard 8-pin PCIe power connectors.

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And even if you’re not a fan of AI, AMD will put that hardware to use in games with FSR 4, which comes with a new AI enhancement algorithm for its super resolution technology that will run exclusively on these RDNA 4 cards and newer.

New EU regulations provoke a debate over the “ridiculous” packaging of CPUs

Recientemente, ha surgido un intenso debate en la comunidad de PC sobre las nuevas regulaciones de la Unión Europea destinadas a prohibir el empaquetado considerado “ridículo” en productos como los procesadores Intel Core i9 y AMD Ryzen Threadripper. Un usuario de Reddit, redmera, fue uno de los primeros en destacar este cambio. Sin embargo, la afirmación de que los fabricantes de CPU tendrían que eliminar los enfriadores de stock parece ser una exageración derivada de una mala interpretación de las nuevas regulaciones. Según el nuevo proyecto regulatorio PPWR, los componentes que son parte integral de […]

Recently, an intense debate has arisen in the PC community regarding the new regulations from the European Union that seek to ban packaging deemed “ridiculous” for products such as Intel Core i9 and AMD Ryzen Threadripper processors.

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A Reddit user, redmera, was one of the first to highlight this change. However, the claim that CPU manufacturers would be required to eliminate stock coolers seems to be an exaggeration stemming from a misunderstanding of the new regulations.

According to the new PPWR regulation project, components that are an integral part of a product should not be considered packaging if they are necessary for the containment and preservation of the product.

Dissipators and huge cases for CPUs, are they the enemy of Europe?

This suggests that stock coolers, which are crucial for the functionality of processors, will continue to be included in most products. Although exceptions like Intel’s K chips may not include coolers, it is unlikely that we will see the elimination of this practice for most CPUs on the market.

The decision by Intel and AMD to update their packaging is largely due to reducing costs and minimizing shipping waste. Traditional packaging methods have become inefficient and expensive.

The evolution towards more functional designs has led to significant improvements in stock coolers, which now offer sufficient performance for most users, including small form factor (SFF) PC setups.

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While some voices suggest that forcing consumers to purchase heatsinks separately could be beneficial for environmental regulation, it could also increase packaging and shipping costs. Ultimately, including stock heatsinks not only enhances the consumer experience but also contributes to improving sustainability in the tech sector.

Intel presents the graphics cards that will compete with Nvidia and AMD in the entry-level range: “A good GPU for only $249”

Intel’s new Battlemage GPU line, which includes the budget-friendly Arc B580 and B570 graphics cards, aims to capture the entry-level GPU market. These are the graphics cards that modest gamers buy to enjoy their favorite games without needing 4K or Raytracing. This new line claims to be 24% faster than the previous generation A750 GPU. Perhaps the most important aspect of Intel’s cards is their memory, with 12 GB of memory on the high end compared to 8 GB of the […]

The new Intel Battlemage GPU line, which includes the budget Arc B580 and B570 graphics cards, aims to capture the entry-level GPU market. These are the graphics cards that modest gamers buy to enjoy their favorite games without the need for 4K or Raytracing.

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This new line claims to be 24% faster than the previous generation A750 GPU. And perhaps the most important aspect of Intel cards is their memory, with 12 GB of memory at the high end compared to the 8 GB of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060.

Furthermore, the company claims that the B580 will have 20 Xe2 cores (with a graphics architecture similar to Intel’s Lunar Lake CPUs), five render slices, 20 ray tracing units, and a clock speed of 2.67 GHz. It also has a memory bandwidth of 456 GB/s and a power consumption of 190 W.

Everything we know about the new Intel Arc B580 and B570 graphics cards

It uses the old PCIe 4.0 x8 connection, so any owner of an older PC model won’t have to worry about switching to PCIe 5.0. The Limited Edition model presented by Intel also includes a single 8-pin power connection.

Intel faced its latest cards against the 4060 and AMD RX 7600, which were released in the spring of 2023. However, Intel’s goal is its performance per price. Intel says the Arc B580 starts at 250 dollars. For that price, Intel claims it has better ray tracing performance compared to the mid-range offerings from Team Red or Team Green.

Intel’s gaming benchmarks tell an interesting story. Team Blue claims that you will get 10% more performance in games than with the 4060. That could mean an average difference of about 15 frames in a game like Control or place a game like Hogwarts Legacy and Cyberpunk 2077 above 60 FPS, surpassing the popular RTX 4060.

That doesn’t mean it always wins. Intel’s benchmarks show that the Nvidia card still won in games like Gears of War 5 and Counter-Strike 2. That was on a PC setup with an Intel Core i9-14900K CPU.

The A750 hit the market for just under 300 dollars, which makes the price of the B850 even more attractive. Even so, we would have liked to see benchmark tests between AMD and Intel offerings, but we will have to wait for the reviews.

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The Intel Arc B580, the most impressive one, will be available starting December 13 for 249 dollars, while the Intel Arc B570, priced at 220 dollars, won’t arrive until January 16. Until then, proceed with caution, but it’s always good news to have new graphics cards entering the market.

AMD focuses on AI and combating Nvidia's expansion… by laying off 4% of its workers?

Focus on AI and stop making high-end graphics cards, those are the messages given by AMD a month ago to update their current status and their medium-term goal of competing with Nvidia in artificial intelligence and increasing their market share in the gaming GPU sector. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is going to lay off 4% of its global workforce, about 1,000 employees, while directing its resources towards the development of AI-focused chips. This is a strategic shift for AMD to confront the leadership […]

Focusing on AI and stopping the production of high-end graphics cards, those are the messages given by AMD a month ago to update their current status and their medium-term goal of competing with Nvidia in artificial intelligence and increasing their market share in the gaming GPU sector.

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Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is going to lay off 4% of its global workforce, about 1,000 employees, while directing its resources towards the development of AI-focused chips. This is a strategic shift for AMD to counter Nvidia’s leadership in the sector.

“As part of aligning our resources with our greatest growth opportunities, we are taking a number of specific actions that will unfortunately result in the reduction of our global workforce by approximately 4%,” reported CRN citing an AMD spokesperson.

“We are committed to treating the affected employees with respect and assisting them in this transition,” added the spokesperson in a message quite empty of meaning. However, it is still unclear which departments will suffer the majority of the layoffs.

AMD lays off 4% of its workforce

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— TechCrunch (@techcrunch.com) November 13, 2024, 18:15

Net profits, business growth, and layoffs: AMD cannot justify this 4% cut

The latest layoffs were announced at the same time as the quarterly earnings of AMD reflected solid results: a strong increase in revenue, as well as in net profit.

However, in a deeper analysis, the third-quarter results showed both strengths and challenges: while total revenue increased by 18% to $6.8 billion, gaming chip revenue plummeted 69% year-over-year, and embedded chip sales fell 25%.

In her recent earnings call, AMD CEO Lisa Su emphasized that the data centers and AI business is now fundamental to the company’s future, and expects a 98% growth in this segment for 2024.

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Lisa Su attributed the recent revenue increases to orders from customers like Microsoft and Meta, which are now adopting AMD’s MI300X GPUs for internal workloads.

The tech sector only knows how to lay off, with Intel leading the way, a company that has already eliminated approximately 15,000 positions as part of its restructuring efforts (and cost savings, of course).

AMD's market share skyrockets amid Intel scandal

AMD has gained 5.7 percentage points of market share in the x86 desktop CPU market in the third quarter compared to the second, the largest quarterly share gain since 2016, when they began announcing their Ryzen architecture. It also represents an incredible ten percentage point improvement over the previous year. AMD also achieved a strong increase in revenue share, jumping 8.5 percentage points from the previous quarter, indicating that it is selling its high-end CPU models well. During the quarter, AMD launched its new Ryzen 9000 series processor family […]

AMD has gained 5.7 percentage points of market share in the x86 desktop CPU market in the third quarter compared to the second, the largest quarterly share gain since 2016, when they began announcing their Ryzen architecture.

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It also represents an incredible improvement of ten percentage points compared to the previous year. AMD also achieved a strong increase in revenue share, jumping 8.5 percentage points from the previous quarter, indicating that it is selling its high-end CPU models well.

During the quarter, AMD launched its new family of Ryzen 9000 series processors amid a scandal related to the stability issues of Intel’s Raptor Lake chips, which generated a wave of negative press for the company over several months, and inventory adjustments for one of Intel’s clients.

AMD close to controlling a third of the CPU market

AMD now controls 28.7% of the desktop processor market. AMD also continued to gain share in the laptop and server markets, although its gains on the desktop side were the most impressive, according to Mercury Research.

In the third quarter of 2024, Intel maintained a strong leadership in the client PC market, with 76.1% of the market in terms of units, while AMD had a smaller share of 23.9%.

However, the dynamics do not favor Intel, as AMD gained 2.9 percentage points (pp) quarter over quarter and 4.6 pp year over year, which represents significant achievements. Intel, of course, will continue to lead the client PC market for the foreseeable future.

AMD’s biggest breakthrough in the third quarter was, of course, gaining 5.7 percentage points of unit share in the desktop x86 CPU market. The company now controls 28.7% of the market, which is a huge increase of 9.6 percentage points compared to the same quarter of the previous year, probably the highest share the company has had in at least 15 years. AMD’s revenue share in the desktop CPU market also increased by 7.7 percentage points year-over-year, reaching 27.3%.

Intel’s share in desktop computers dropped to 71.3%. Dean McCarron, from Mercury Research, explains that the cause of this decline was an inventory correction at one of its clients. If this is true, Intel’s share could recover in the fourth quarter of 2024.

AMD could be the big surprise at CES 2025 and Nvidia knows it

AMD could go all out during CES 2025 next January. According to a well-known leaker from the Chiphell forums, AMD is preparing a bunch of consumer products, from more X3D CPUs for desktop computers to chips for portable devices and RDNA 4 graphics cards. This powerful rumor comes from Zhangzhonghao, a leaker known for discussing new releases in advance. Starting with laptops, it is said that AMD will launch the new generation of Kraken APUs along with Ryzen AI Max (or Strix Halo) and, finally, the Fire range CPUs. Everything that […]

AMD could give it all during CES 2025 next January. According to a well-known leaker from the Chiphell forums, AMD is preparing a bunch of consumer products, from more X3D CPUs for desktop computers to chips for portable devices and RDNA 4 graphics cards.

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This powerful rumor comes from Zhangzhonghao, a well-known leaker who talks about new releases in advance. Starting with laptops, it is said that AMD will launch the new generation of Kraken APUs along with Ryzen AI Max (or Strix Halo) and, finally, the Fire range CPUs.

Everything AMD could present at CES 2025

There are many different product ranges, so to refresh the memory, Kraken Point is expected to be the successor to the current AMD Ryzen 8040 series. Leakers claim it will come with up to four standard Zen 5 cores and four Zen 5c cores, as well as RDNA 3.5 graphics with up to eight compute units (CU).

The Strix Halo processors are more on the higher end of the scale, and AMD might launch three CPUs for laptops to start with, all under the Ryzen AI Max umbrella: The Ryzen AI Max+ 395 with 16 cores, the Ryzen AI Max 390 with 12 cores, and finally, the Ryzen AI Max 385 with eight cores.

All of them will offer integrated RDNA 3.5 graphics. The Fire range is the successor to the Dragon range and will basically be the laptop version of the desktop Zen 5 CPUs, aimed at high-performance laptops for gamers. Zhangzhonghao also claims that AMD will simultaneously introduce X3D CPUs for laptops.

Those who are on the hunt for the best gaming laptops will be able to rely on a mix of new chips, such as the Ryzen Z2, the Ryzen Z2 Extreme, and the Ryzen Z2G.

Graphics cards are no surprise: AMD is said to launch RDNA 4 GPUs during CES 2025. For some time, it has been said that AMD will let Nvidia dominate the high-end market and will stick to mid-range GPUs with this generation. This could mean a flagship RX 8800 XT, but we will have to wait to see it.

Finally, the Zen 5 X3D CPUs. AMD itself confirmed that it will present a new Ryzen 9000X3D CPU on November 7, but did not specify which model it would be exactly. However, most sources expect it to be the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, and this leak only confirms it. AMD will follow it with the Ryzen 9 9900X3D and the Ryzen 9 9950X3D at CES 2025.

AMD is betting everything in 2025 with its new business line focused on AI and its changes in consumer hardware. We will see what happens.

AMD will once again be in charge of the new generation of consoles: agreement with Sony for the PlayStation 6

A week ago, Sony announced its long-awaited PlayStation 5 Pro, a mid-generation console that boasts a more powerful graphics chip, more memory bandwidth, and an architecture better prepared for ray tracing. Of course, the entire SoC is handled by AMD, as it has been for the last two generations (since PS4 and Xbox One). And from what we have learned now, AMD will once again be the company responsible for bringing the next PlayStation 6 to life, which is logical given the excellent results they have delivered over the past 11 years. In terms of […]

A week ago, Sony announced its long-awaited PlayStation 5 Pro, a mid-generation console that boasts a more powerful graphics chip, increased memory bandwidth, and an architecture better suited for ray tracing. Of course, the entire SoC is handled by AMD, as it has been for the last two generations (since PS4 and Xbox One).

And from what we have learned now, AMD will once again be the company responsible for bringing the next PlayStation 6 to life, which is logical given the excellent results they have delivered over the past 11 years. In terms of APUs (a chip that integrates CPU + GPU) AMD has been years ahead of Intel.

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A Reuters report that has just been published focuses on Sony’s plans beyond the new $700 system this fall, stating that the battle to secure a contract to manufacture the next chip, the one that will power the next PlayStation 6, came down to AMD versus Intel, with the red company ultimately winning.

Why Sony Chose AMD Over Intel

According to Reuters, since AMD manufactures the chip for the PS5 and PS5 Pro, maintaining backward compatibility in a possible move was part of months of discussions in 2022 between Sony and Intel executives and engineers.

However, Intel’s offer was blocked because they couldn’t agree on the profit Intel would receive from each chip they designed, as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) was responsible for the manufacturing process.

In addition to the recent embarrassment caused by the Raptor Lake CPU failure, Intel has been a bystander in the rise of AI chips and has ceded the manufacturing of some next-generation technologies to TSMC while it attempts to rebuild its capabilities.

The chip manufacturing division also accumulated losses of 7 billion dollars last year, and last month the company announced 15,000 layoffs. Meanwhile, its upcoming chip plant in Ohio has been delayed, although it has managed to secure Microsoft as a customer for its advanced 18A chip process.

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Although AMD has also been trailing behind Nvidia’s leadership in the AI chip and flagship GPU market, its data center products now represent more than half of its sales and they are going to focus on artificial intelligence for the future, as we mentioned a few days ago.

Why will AMD abandon the fight with Nvidia for gaming graphics cards?

For many of us, technology (or gaming in particular) is an all-out battle between AMD and Nvidia to create the best graphics card. And we, as enthusiastic gamers, argue in forums for our preferred brand. There was rarely a clear winner, but that was part of the magic.

Now, 20 years after this war began in stores and internet photos, AMD decides to withdraw from the battlefield… at least when it comes to high-end gaming graphics cards. Let’s explain it.

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AMD has spoken out to say that it now prioritizes AI chips over high-end GPUs for gamers. The company has just unveiled a new business strategy, in which it will merge its RDNA efforts for gaming graphics and CNDA for data centers into a single universal UDNA primarily aimed at AI.

In two interviews granted to Tom’s Hardware, AMD’s Chief Computing and Graphics Officer, Jack Huynh, doesn’t beat around the bush. With gaming graphics, he explains, the goal now is to increase scale and market share at lower prices, not flagship GPUs. It is clear that Nvidia has been dominating the market for years with an iron fist, hence the abandonment.

Pivot towards AI and say goodbye to the most demanding gamer

And yet, being the King of the Hill (as they say in the interview) is exactly what AMD wants to build for the AI data center, because that’s where AMD already has a substantial market share with its EPYC CPUs and believes it can grow by selling the best GPUs for data centers as well.

“Don’t worry, I love games. When I present myself to the board of directors, I say that gaming is a strategic pillar in my strategy,” Huynh told Tom’s Hardware later in the interview.

If this sounds vaguely familiar, it’s probably because AMD is following in the footsteps of its rival Nvidia, in more ways than one.

AMD is becoming an AI chip company, just like Nvidia, if we take a close look at their financial reports, which show that half of the company’s sales are now products for data centers.

Both companies have accelerated their businesses to launch new silicon architectures every year, much faster than before. In the Tom’s Hardware interview about AMD’s UDNA, Huynh now reveals that he also wants to pursue the success of Nvidia’s universal CUDA platform.

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As gamers, we like the idea of AMD leading the value-oriented GPUs, also known as dollar per performance. This is because GPUs were becoming excessively expensive and Nvidia is too comfortable with the entire graphics market.

AMD puts Intel in trouble by breaking power and performance barriers with its new CPU

The new star processor from AMD is drawing attention due to the power and efficiency it’s demonstrating in its initial tests. This chip, the AMD Threadripper Pro 7995WX from the Threadripper Pro 7000WX series, has shattered all existing records to date, previously held by the Intel Xeon W9-3495X.

As a result, everything indicates that AMD is currently set to lead the rankings among its most powerful CPUs. In this constant battle in the chip segment against Intel, this will momentarily boost its reputation against a brand that, with decades of history, has always been trustworthy for users.

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New performance heights in CPUs

Many years have passed since computer systems became part of the daily lives of millions of people, yet their evolution continues unabated. With increasingly optimized components, the implementation of multiple cores, and the constant technological advancements in the industry, the new AMD Threadripper Pro 7995WX stands as a new benchmark to surpass, for both future AMD and Intel CPUs, its main rival in this particular segment.

This AMD Threadripper Pro 7995WX boasts a standard performance of 2.5GHz and a peak performance of 5.1GHz, far surpassing the Intel Xeon W9-3495X, which has a base speed of 1.9GHz and a maximum of 4.8GHz—a notable achievement but one that falls short of what the impressive AMD CPU achieves.

CPU is not the same as GPU or NPU

Many times there are doubts about the functions carried out by CPUs, GPUs, and NPUs, the latter being more recent in the market compared to the previous chips. Well, a simple breakdown could be made: the CPU generally manages the system’s performance and must have enough capacity to support all kinds of programs and applications.

The GPU, on the other hand, specializes in graphical performance, being a fundamental component, especially for those involved in professional design or gaming. The NPU, however, incorporates a neural network that, through AI, streamlines various processes. Both the GPU and the NPU are important for a good PC, but the fundamental and irreplaceable piece is and will continue to be the CPU.

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