Is Nvidia performing on new budget graphics cards to hit AMD where it hurts?

Budget battlefield

While we’re all eagerly awaiting the reveal of the high-end Nvidia RTX 3080 graphics card, which can likely blow us all away later this year, it seems that Nvidia is additionally planning on updating its GTX 1650 range of affordable cards – likely during a bid to attack arch-rival AMD during a market it’s usually strongest in.

You see, while Nvidia is that the undisputed king of high-end and enthusiast GPUs, when it involves budget and cheaper graphics cards, AMD is gaining market share. The budget and mid-range markets are huge, so it is sensible that Nvidia wouldn’t want to neglect them and permit AMD to dominate there.

The rumors emerge from a post on the AIDA64 website which mentions to previously-unannounced variants of the affordable Nvidia GTX 1650 – the GeForce GTX 1650 TU116 and GeForce GTX 1650 TU106.

These would apparently join last year’s GeForce GTX 1650 and therefore the GeForce GTX 1650 GDDR6.

New silicone

If the post is correct, it means Nvidia might be getting to release a GTX 1650 using the TU116 die, which is found within the likes of the GTX 1650 Super and GTX 1660 Super. this might bring a transistor count of 6.6 billion, compared to the 4.7 billion of the prevailing GTX 1650 GPUs.

Meanwhile, the second new GTX 1650 will apparently use the TU106 die, which is especially interesting as that’s the die found within the likes of the RTX 2060 Super and RTX 2070 – two costlier GPUs from Nvidia that feature Tensor and RT cores for advanced ray tracing lighting effects, which are usually exclusive to Nvidia’s RTX 20-series GPUs.

If there's getting to be a GTX 1650 model with the TU106 die, does meaning Nvidia is bringing ray tracing to a reasonable GTX GPU?


We’re not too sure, but stranger things have happened. If these rumors are true, then as Tom’s Hardware points out, it might be Nvidia clearing out excess dies and leftover silicone.

If Nvidia can use those dies to return up with products to hit AMD where it hurts – within the budget and affordable market – then all the higher.




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Microsoft and Intel’s relationship on “shaky ground”

A new report suggests that Microsoft could be considering moving from Intel to AMD to power its next lineup of the Surface device after apparently becoming increasingly disappointed by Intel’s products.

This move would be a major blow for Intel – and a big win for its competitor AMD. For the past five years, all of Microsoft’s Surface products have run on Intel processors, but as Brad Sams – noted Microsoft expert at Petri.com – alleges, insiders at Microsoft have described the company’s relationship with Intel as “being on shaky ground,” leading to the company looking to “diversify away from a purely-Intel lineup” for its next-generation Surface products.

According to Sams, Microsoft is experimenting with using AMD and ARM chips, with prototype devices having already been made.

A prototype Surface Laptop is apparently using a 12nm AMD Picasso SoC (system on chip). Meanwhile, a new Surface Pro prototype is said to be using a Qualcomm Snapdragon chip.

It seems that Microsoft is working with Qualcomm to build its own ARM chip, code-named Excalibur, that is said to work better on Windows 10.

This sounds similar to the situation with Apple, which is said to be dropping Intel in favor of its own ARM-based processors.

The rumors – and remember, these are just rumors at the moment – do make sense. Microsoft has established relationships with both AMD and Qualcomm – the former making the chips for the upcoming Xbox Scarlett console, the latter working with Microsoft on Windows on Snapdragon devices – so it’s not unthinkable that the company would be looking to work with them on new Surface devices.

Falling out with Intel

The fact that Microsoft is apparently looking at other CPU makers after falling out with Intel is something we suggested might happen after a string of bad news about Intel.

According to Sams, the reason why Microsoft and Intel’s relationship has soured is because of disappointing product releases by Intel.

As Sams states, “With Skylake, Microsoft got burned by the immaturity between Windows and the chips which resulted in faulty hardware and a serious black eye to the brand’s high-quality reputation.” Skylake is the name for Intel’s sixth-generation Core processors, and while they generally performed well, they were also victim to high-profile security flaws, including Meltdown and Spectre.

However, Microsoft won’t be completely dropping Intel from its devices, according to Sams. Intel’s brand power is still strong enough to shift products, and it looks like there will be an Intel-powered Surface Pro 7, as well as new versions of the Surface Book and as well.



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New rumor puts paid to older speculation of a summer launch

A new report alleges that AMD’s next-gen 7nm Navi GPUs won’t emerge until October of this year, which is later than the previous speculation that pointed to a summer release.

You may recall that last month, references to Navi graphics cards were uncovered in the source code of macOS, and this underlined previous buzz from the graphics grapevine which was hopeful for a July launch.

That said, going back further to a leaked roadmap from AMD, this suggested that Navi would pitch up in the second half of 2019, so October is still in line with this.

• Here’s our full AMD Radeon VII review
• Or should you upgrade to a GeForce RTX 2080?
• And don’t forget that Intel may soon jump into the GPU arena

The October date comes from sources who apparently spoke to French tech site Cowcotland, not the most renowned source of accurate rumors – although it did recently chip in with some interesting info on the availability of the Radeon VII in France. Still, we should take this speculation with a very hefty pinch of the white stuff.

However, it does make some kind of sense, and not just because it ties up with the aforementioned leaked roadmap.

We just mentioned the availability of the Radeon VII, which is AMD’s first 7nm graphics card – though note that it’s still based on the current-gen Vega architecture, not Navi – and stock of that GPU is very thin on the ground, at least going by what we heard during the launch last week, and from what we can observe now.

For example, in the UK, there are still some Radeon VII cards available at the main stockist, Overclockers UK, but the caveat is the remaining Gigabyte and MSI models are priced at an eye-watering £799.99 – so it seems that folks aren’t quite prepared to pay this much.

All the other cheaper cards – pitched as low as £649.99 in the case of Sapphire – sold out within a few hours of the launch (we were watching, and indeed that Sapphire Radeon VII was sold out almost immediately).

Pop on over to Newegg in the US and every single Radeon VII GPU is sold out (they are all priced at the same $699.99, which is the recommended price tag).

By all accounts, there were only 20 Radeon VII cards in the whole of France at launch, as Cowcotland reported last week.

Production problems?

Anyway, the point to bear in mind here is that there are seemingly clear issues with Radeon VII production, and a lot of that may be down to the Lunar New Year holiday in China, which sees the big manufacturing factories close.

And catching up with rebalancing Radeon VII supply and demand could take its toll on the production schedule for next-gen Navi graphics cards. Particularly when there’s another potential force to consider here, namely that Navi GPUs may also be used outside of the PC arena in next-gen consoles (according to the rumor mill, anyway), thus exerting more pressure on the supply chain.

As ever, we will just have to see how things pan out, although, given all this, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the rumored Navi GPUs which are in the pipeline get delayed until much later in 2019.

Note that the Navi graphics cards we are expecting to see this year will be more budget-friendly mid-range models, with the high-end efforts aimed at the likes of enthusiasts and hardcore gamers not expected to turn up until 2020.

We are expecting to see four models later this year – Navi 16, Navi 12, Navi 10 and Navi 9 – according to the info turned up by digging through the macOS Mojave source code.



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AMD’s next HEDT chips

Now that AMD is on the verge of revealing its 7nm next-generation processors, what will the future look like for Threadripper 3rd Generation – its next line of HEDT processors?

Now that AMD Ryzen is nearly two years old at this point, and we’ve seen Team Red come out with winning CPU after winning CPU, we’ve been asking ourselves where things go from here.

AMD is on the verge of launching its 7nm Zen 2 architecture, according to its own roadmap and CES 2019 plans, which should drastically improve both performance and efficiency and deliver some of the best processors we’ve seen yet. And, while this is definitely exciting news for users looking for the Ryzen 3rd Generation processors, we’re more interested in the next line of Threadripper chips.

With chips like the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX, AMD blew the lid off of what to expect from HEDT – or high-end desktop – processors. With AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3rd Generation, we’re expecting to see even more cores, performance and value.

Cut to the chase

• What is it? AMD’s next line of HEDT processors 
• When is it out? Likely Summer 2019
• What will it cost? TBD

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3rd Generation release date

While AMD hasn’t come out and announced the release date for its next Threadripper chips, the last two Threadripper generations have been pretty consistent, so we have a basis for speculation.

Both the original Threadripper and Threadripper 2nd Generation launched in August of 2017 and 2018, respectively. We’re fairly sure that AMD is going to follow the same general release schedule this time around, but, obviously, we don’t know that for sure.

AMD’s latest roadmap shows its Zen 2 architecture launching in 2019 – with a likely reveal at CES 2019. If AMD does reveal Zen 2, along with Ryzen 3rd Generation at CES, it’s likely that we’ll see Threadripper 3rd Generation at Computex 2019, with a release date following in the following months.

We’ll update this article as soon as we hear more substantial rumors about the release date.

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3rd Generation

Now, so far ahead of AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3rd Generation’s launch, we don’t have any official pricing information, but we can look at past generations to get an idea of what AMD’s next HEDT chips will cost.

The original lineup of Threadripper topped out with the $999 (£999, AU$1,439) AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X, but the second generation introduced surprisingly lower priced replacements. There were also two higher specced – and higher priced – additions. We believe Threadripper 3rd Generation will follow the latter model.

The prices of AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2nd Generation chips are as follows: 

• Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX: $1,799 (£1,639, AU$2,679)
• Ryzen Threadripper 2970WX: $1,299 (£1,159, AU$2,039)
• Ryzen Threadripper 2950X: $899 (£809, AU$1,415)
• Ryzen Threadripper 2920X: $649 (£583, AU$1,019)

AMD could very well surprise us and introduce an even higher-end SKU, but we don’t think that’s likely. Stay tuned, and we’ll update this page as soon as we hear any Threadripper 3rd Generation price information.

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3rd Generation specs


With AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3rd Generation, we expect to see a huge bump in core counts, efficiency and per-core performance with Threadripper 3rd Generation. If you need a refresher on last year’s Threadripper lineup’s specs they’re as follows:

• Ryzen Threadripper 2920X: 12-cores, 24-threads, clocked at 3.5GHz to 4.3GHz
• Ryzen Threadripper 2950X: 16-cores, 32-threads, clocked at 3.5GHz to 4.4GHz
• Ryzen Threadripper 2970WX: 24-cores, 48-threads, clocked at 3.0GHz to 4.2GHz
• Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX: 32-cores, 64-threads, clocked at 3.0GHz to 4.2GHz

We’re sure that with the move to 7nm, AMD is going to massively improve specs. But, with Threadripper 3rd Generation, or Castle Peak, rumors are thin on the ground. However, there is plenty of buzz about the AMD Ryzen 3000 series, not to mention the 64-core AMD Epyc server CPU.

There is already speculation that suggests there will be a 16-core, 32-thread Ryzen 3000 CPU, with higher instructions per clock (IPC) than previous processors. That’s double what the Ryzen 7 2700X features, and if AMD is able to do the same with Threadripper – we could see a 64-core HEDT chip.

It wouldn’t even be the first 64-core processor in AMD’s lineup. AMD recently showed off its latest Epyc processors, based off its Rome microarchitecture, with up to 64-cores.

If AMD is able to bring those high core counts to Castle Peak HEDT processors, we could see AMD absolutely dominate Intel’s Basin Falls Refresh. And, if Intel can’t answer with anything but 14nm silicon, AMD might claim the HEDT throne like it did when it topped Intel’s mainstream sales.



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Five new CPUs listed so far

On top of a full range of Ryzen 3rd Generation desktop processors, it looks like AMD already has a few mobile CPUs inside upcoming laptops.

Hexus spotted Geekbench results for three different AMD Ryzen 3000 Series Picasso APUs fitted inside two classified HP laptops. First up is the HP Laptop 17-ca1xxx equipped with an AMD Ryzen 5 3500U, which is listed as a 2.1GHz quad-core processor featuring eight threads and Radeon Vega Mobile Gfx integrated graphics.

A second HP Laptop 17-ca1xxx showed up in GeekBench’s records twice but equipped with a different AMD Ryzen 3 3300U CPU. It seems to be a small step behind the chip listed above as it only has 4-cores, 4-threads running at 2.1GHz with Radeon Vega Mobile Gfx integrated graphics.

Lastly, the HP Laptop 14-cm1xxx showed up with a 2.6GHz MD Ryzen 3 3200U that appears to be a dual-core processor featuring 4 threads and Radeon Vega Mobile Gfx integrated graphics.

Geekbench results are always a little shaky, but TUM_APISAK also corroborated the report by tweeting out the same processor names along with a two additional chips.

Interestingly, the serial leaker noted there will be a high-end Ryzen 7 3700U CPU equipped with 4-cores, 8-threads running between 2.2GHz and 3.8GHz base and boost frequencies, respectively. The 300U was also listed as an extremely low-end 300U chip that might be destined for the first AMD-powered Chromebooks.

Digging into the details listed on the GeekBench results seem to reveal that upcoming Picasso APUs will pair 12nm FinFET Raven Ridge CPUs with Vega GPUs. So these chips may technically be part of an extended Ryzen 2nd Generation family due to its use of the 12nm Zen+ architecture.

At CES 2019, we fully expect AMD will announce its hotly anticipated 7nm Zen 2 architecture that should be the foundation of the company’s next Ryzen 3rd Generation and Ryzen Threadripper 3rd Generation processors.

Meanwhile, Intel just announced its 10nm Sunny Cove architecture

Radeon Software’s biggest upgrade in years

AMD Radeon Software has seen several annual updates over the last few years, however, Adrenalin 2019 Edition is bringing some of the biggest and most unique features we’ve seen yet, particularly introducing VR and game streaming to your phone.

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 2019 Edition’s single biggest feature has to be ReLive for VR, which essentially lets players stream VR games running on their PC to a phone-powered VR headset (i.e. Google Daydream View and Samsung Gear VR) and standalone VR headsets (i.e. the Oculus Quest and HTC Vive Focus).

This all might sound bananas, but it really works well. During a short demo, we hardly experienced any lag or slowdown in frame rate that would have caused us a bout of nausea. Instead, we were able to freely look around just as if we were playing VR games with a traditional headset hooked up directly to a PC.


By linking AMD’s Radeon Software on PCs with the Radeon ReLive VR app on phones and standalone VR headsets, players can access their full catalog of Steam VR games.

Of course, visuals take a small tick down, as they’re tuned for low-latency and to ensure a seamless experience. At the same time, the program utilizes low-level hardware acceleration to optimize streaming from your PC to a mobile VR headset.

Not only does this give users a great way of experiencing completely wireless VR, they can also experience more high-end VR games that were typically locked to the PC. It’s especially important to give PC-based VR games another place to live, as there seems to be no new Oculus Rift in sight and companies are now focused on introducing more standalone headsets.

The AMD Link app will only initially available on the Google Play Store and HTC Viveport marketplace, but AMD also plans to release its app on the Oculus Store soon.


Game streaming finally arrives

At long last, Adrenalin 2019 Edition also introduces game streaming. Players will now be able to use their AMD Link app on iOS and Android smartphones to play games running on their PC through their phone.

What’s more, players can expect up to 4K resolutions at 60 frames per second (fps) with low-latency while gaming on their tablets and phones. AMD claims its game streaming solution is even up to 44% faster than (unspecified) competitive solutions.

To get started, users simply need to pair up the AMD Link app with their PC and – presto – they’ll be able to launch games with just a tap. The interface will introduce on-screen controls, but users will also be able to hook up their phone to a Bluetooth controller.

Outside of gaming, AMD Link will also allow users to streaming their PC desktop, which will come in handy if you ever need to remote into your PC or just stream 4K video from your PC.


Live streaming for pros

Aside from VR and game streaming, Adrenalin 2019 Edition is also enhancing the way you can live stream broadcast to an audience. To this end, AMD is introducing a new Scene Editor to ReLive that allows users to pull in multiple recording sources and add graphics to create a dynamic streaming overlay. With the added ability to transition between scenes using hotkeys or the Radeon Overlay, this is essentially AMD’s version of OBS or XSplit for the Twitch broadcasters out there.

ReLive has also received a few other smaller improvements including high-quality audio recording with support for multi-channel audio (i.e. all your teammates talking), in-game replay as well as easy GIF creation and sharing.

Everything else

There are almost too many Adrenalin 2019 Edition improvements to mention, and as much as we’d like to spend all day writing about them, here's a list of the rest of the most important upgrades:

• Installer: streamlined with a simple one-click install process.
• Project ReSX: delivers improved FPS performance and 99th percentile frame times for popular PC eSports games to ensure a faster click-to-response time.
• Game Advisor: in-game performance testing that recommends quality setting changes to improve the performance or increase image quality.
• Radeon Wittman: improved performance with auto-GPU overclocking and undervolting, memory overclocking and application-bound tuning. fan speed control and unlocked DPM state customization for Radeon RX Vega-series graphics cards.
• Radeon Chill: up to 20% greater power savings in games such as Fortnite, Overwatch and PUBG.
• FreeSync 2 HDR: improved auto-tone mapping for a more detailed picture across the frame and different levels of lighting across the frame.
• Virtual Super Resolution: enhanced detail on ultra-wide 21:9 monitors
• Radeon Overlay: added WattMan access while in-game and expanded performance metrics display.
• AMD Link: added voice control, Radeon WattMan access, Enhanced Performance Metrics access and live stream editing to create playback videos.
• Up until now, we've always felt that AMD's Radeon Software had it bit more polish than Nvidia's GeForce Experience – but not nearly as many features. With Adrenalin 2019 Edition, it now seems AMD may have even surpassed Nvidia's software suite for the time being.

Meanwhile, the war of the best graphics cards rages on.



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AMD made huge waves in the server market with EPYC. Now the company has officially lifted the lid on the next-generation of EPYC processors featuring the Zen 2 microarchitecture. And they're processing monsters.

AMD has officially unveiled the next-generation of EPYC processors featuring the Zen 2 microarchitecture, and they look set to transform the server market once again.

AMD EPYC "Rome" processors will feature up to 64 Zen 2 cores by combining up to eight 7-nanometer chips with a 14-nanometer I/O die. According to AMD, these new chips will bring twice the performance and four times the floating-point power per socket compared to the current-generation EPYC chips.

This will make EPYC "Rome" the world's first 7-nanometer datacenter processor.

Along with up to twice the cores, EPYC "Rome" will be the first PCIe 4.0 capable x86 server CPU featuring 128 lanes allowing it to make full use of next-generation accelerators such as the Radeon Instinct MI60, hardware that's built around the Vega 7-nanometer GPU.


The new chips will also come with an eight-channel DDR4 memory controller capable of supporting up to 4TB of DRAM per socket.

Now, you might be thinking that all these improvements will require a socket upgrade. Fear not, because not only will the EPYC "Rome" chips be socket compatible with existing EPYC "Naples" silicon, but it will also be forward compatible with AMD's "Milan" CPUs that will use the Zen 3 microarchitecture.

This, AMD hopes, will ease the workload that both customers and server makers have to do to make the switch to the new silicon.

AMD is currently sampling EPYC "Rome" chips with customers, with the chips expected to launch sometime in 2019.

Build a monster $5,100 AMD Ryzen Threadrip



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The next generation of APUs is coming

Overturns Intel’s prototype 28-core monster, albeit not on a level playing field

AMD’s 32-Core

Starting today you can pre-order AMD's flagship Intel-beating 32-core, 64-thread 2nd-gen Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX from over 80 system integrators and retailers -- but it will cost you!

1. 32 cores/64 threads
2. 4.2GHz boost/3.0GHz base
3. 64MB L3 cache
4. 250W TDP
5. 64 PCIe Gen 3.0 lanes
6. Price: $1,799
7. Availability: Aug 13, 2018

1. 24 cores/48 threads
2. 4.2GHz boost/3.0GHz base
3. 64MB L3 cache
4. 250W TDP
5. 64 PCIe Gen 3.0 lanes
6. Price: $1,299
7. Availability: Oct 2018

1. 16 cores/32 threads
2. 4.4GHz boost/3.5GHz base
3. 32MB L3 cache
4. 180W TDP
5. 64 PCIe Gen 3.0 lanes
6. Price: $899
7. Availability: Aug 31, 2018

1. 12 cores/24 threads
2. 4.3GHz boost/3.5GHz base
3. 32MB L3 cache
4. 180W TDP
5. 64 PCIe Gen 3.0 lanes
6. Price: $649
7. Availability: Oct 2018

AMD 2nd-gen Ryzen Threadripper line

Threadripper 2990WX vs. Core i9-7980XE

2nd-gen Ryzen Threadripper availability

A teeny-tiny GPU architecture

AMD unveils seven new Ryzen PRO APUs, three for mobile space and four for the desktop, for the commercial users.

• Ryzen 7 PRO 2700U - 4C/8T, 10CUs, 3.8/2.2GHz, 12-25W
• Ryzen 5 PRO 2500U - 4C/8T, 8CUs, 3.6/2.0GHz, 12-25W
• Ryzen 3 PRO 2300U - 4C/4T, 6CUs, 3.4/2.5GHz, 12-25W

• Ryzen 5 PRO 2400G - 4C/8T, 11CUs, 3.9/3.6GHz, 65W
• Ryzen 5 PRO 2400GE - 4C/8T, 11CUs, 3.8/3.2GHz, 65W
• Ryzen 3 PRO 2200G - 4C/4T, 8CUs, 3.7/3.5GHz, 35W
• Ryzen 3 PRO 2200GE - 4C/4T, 8CUs, 3.6/3.2GHz, 35W

• Transparent secure memory encryption that's OS and application independent, requires no software modifications and has minimal performance overhead
• Secure boot process hardware-based root-of-trust
• Trusted application support, including real-time intrusion detection, whitelisted application support, and fTPM/TPM 2.0 support
• Secure production environment extending to the assembly line, along with tests to confirm the integrity of the hardware and software chain

AMD's first quarter highlights some major traction in the chipmaker's core markets.

AMD EPYC 7000 processors get a home inside Cray's new CS500 cluster systems.

The best motherboards to house your precious components.

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