AMD

ASRock – Smart Access Memory on AMD B450

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AMD’s requirements for Smart Access Memory are pretty simple. You need to own a Ryzen 5000 (Vermeer) processor, a Radeon RX 6000 (Big Navi) graphics card and a 500-series motherboard. However, ASRock’s latest firmware appears to defy the chipmaker’s conditions as the ASRock B450 Steel Legend motherboard is proof that the setting is available outside of 500-series motherboards.

Smart Access Memory isn’t a proprietary technology. In fact, Smart Access Memory is built upon the foundations of Resizable BAR (Base Address Register), a feature that’s part of the PCIe specification. Smart Access Memory is AMD’s unique fancy way of referring to the technology.

Read more @ Tom’s Hardware

AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT + RX 6800 Overclocking

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Overall there is some great performance gains to be had from overclocking both the Radeon RX 6800 XT and Radeon RX 6800 gaphics cards. I’m interested to see how custom solutions from the likes of MSI, SAPPHIRE, XFX, PowerColor, and others do — many of these have custom Radeon RX 6800 XT and Radeon RX 6800 cards on their way to me now.

Read more @ TweakTown

Zen 3 B450 Support Arrives for BIOSTAR, ASRock and ASUS

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AMD has officially stated that Ryzen 5000 support for the 400 series chipset will be coming in 2021, but that doesn’t appear to be the case anymore. Three companies have shared (so far) that they will support AMD’s new Ryzen 5000 series CPUs before 2021, BIOSTAR, ASRock, and ASUS. With Asrock already having beta BIOS’s ready for the shiny new CPUs.

To ensure compatibility, you’ll need a BIOS for your specific B450 motherboard that supports AGESA 1.0.8.1 at the very minimum. This AGESA code enables Ryzen 5000 Renoir compatibility. In order to get the full performance out of your Ryzen 5000 CPU you’ll need to make sure your B450 motherboard has a BIOS supporting AGESA 1.1.0.0 or greater.

Read more @ Tom’s Hardware

AMD Ryzen 5 5600X

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The Ryzen 5 5600X takes the mid-range by storm with six cores and twelve threads powered by the Zen 3 architecture fabbed on the 7nm process. That potent combination equates to a ~19% improvement in instruction per cycle (IPC) throughput, making the 5600X an easy choice for our list of Best CPUs. Other fine-grained improvements, like a vastly optimized boosting algorithm, improved memory overclocking, and reworked cache topology erases the last traces of Intel’s performance advantages while delivering a new level of power efficiency. In fact, as we’ll detail below, the Ryzen 5 5600X is the most power-efficient desktop PC chip we’ve ever tested. 

Read more @ Tom’s Hardware

AMD Precision Boost Overdrive 2 (PBO2) – Coming in December

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If you’ve already bought, or plan on buying, a Ryzen 5000 processor, AMD just made the deal a whole lot sweeter. AMD’s Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) introduced one-click hassle-free overclocking to the masses for the Ryzen lineup of processors. Still, while the tech boosts performance in multi-threaded workloads, it has long failed to benefit single-threaded workloads. That changes in December when AMD’s new Precision Boost Overdrive 2 (PBO2) lands in BIOS patches. The new PBO2 boosts single-threaded performance while retaining the benefits of the existing multi-core boosts, and even adds a little extra oomph there, too. 

Read more @ Tom’s Hardware

AMD Radeon RX 6800: Big Punches for $579

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We have some impressive power numbers, impressive thermal numbers, 16GB of RAM, HDMI 2.1 connectivity, Infinity Cache, kick ass performance at all resolutions — including 3440 x 1440, where I think the Radeon RX 6800 has an awesome and snuggly home. There are heaps of great 34-inch 21:9 ultrawide gaming monitors at 3440 x 1440 and 120/144/165Hz that would gel beautifully with the Radeon RX 6800.

Read more @ TweakTown

AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT: RDNA 2 Arrives

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Today’s the day for the Radeon crowd to dive into the first reviews of RDNA 2 cards from AMD, the Radeon RX 6800 and Radeon RX 6800 XT. We’ll keep this short and simple and load up the list of reviews we’ve been notified of so far:

AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT @ TweakTown
AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT & Radeon RX 6800 @ Hexus
AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT & Radeon RX 6800 @ @ Hot Hardware
AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT @ Guru3D
AMD Radeon RX 6800 @ Guru3D

AMD Ryzen 7 5800X

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Another thing to touch on with the 5800X is its placement in the market. AMD pushes it as a competitor to the Intel 10700K based on core count. When in reality, we must also look at its cost. At the time of writing, 5800X costs $449, and the 10700K costs $399. Intel more recently pushed 10850K to market to cover the transition to 10900K, with a price of $449. This pits the 10850K as a direct market competitor to the 5800X for users choosing a platform.

Read more @ TweakTown

AMD Ryzen 9 5950X

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Traditionally, this was a task handled by HEDT systems in the past, but since the launch of Zen 2+ and the 3950X, AMD has brought the ability to the mainstream platforms and continues it with the Ryzen 9 5950X.

As many of you know, the Ryzen 9 5950X is a 2x CCD 1x IOD chiplet design, the full Zen 3. It offers 16 cores and 32 threads with SMT supporting a base clock of 3.4GHz and a boost clock of 4.9GHz. 64MB of L3 cache is shared across all cores with 24 PCIe 4.0 lanes for support.

Read more @ TweakTown

ASUS ROG STRIX B550-I GAMING

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Starting at the top, the B550i Gaming currently supports Ryzen 3000 series, but ASUS does have plans to support Zen 3 with an upcoming BIOS update. As noted above, this motherboard is on the B550 chipset platform and, as such, supports DDR4 memory – 2133 JEDEC as a minimum with 5100+ speeds capable with overclocking.

Read more @ TweakTown