AMD is one of the world’s biggest computer chip companies, best known for its fierce competition with Intel. It’s a rivalry that really kicked off in the early 2000s when AMD’s Athlon and Opteron processors saw great success. While AMD has often struggled to keep up with Intel, its latest Ryzen Zen 3 and Zen 4 CPUs are some of the most competitive chips it has produced in years. AMD also acquired ATI in 2006, a 3D graphics card company. It now produces a variety of Radeon GPUs that compete with Nvidia’s GeForce line of graphics cards. AMD also produces the chips found in the latest PS5 and Xbox Series X / S consoles and re-entered the server market with its Epyc brand in 2017.
AMD CEO Lisa Su is back in Taiwan to deliver the latest on AMD’s chips in an AI era. Nvidia has already hinted that AMD’s Strix CPUs are about to launch, but rumors have also revealed AMD could unveil its new Ryzen 9000 series desktop CPUs. AMD’s Computex keynote kicks off at 9:30PM ET / 6:30PM PT / 2:30AM UK (June 3rd). You can tune in below.
The Ultra Accelerator Link (UALink) Promoter Group, will work to create an open standard to help AI accelerators “communicate more effectively” within data centers and boost performance. Other members include AMD, HP, Broadcom, and Cisco — but not Nvidia, which has AI chip-linking tech of its own.
Because it sure didn’t paint a rosy picture of gaming in the Q1 2024 earnings call — “The demand has been quite weak,” said AMD CFO Jean Hu. AMD’s gaming biz was down 48 percent year over year on both semiconductor (PS5, Xbox, Steam Deck etc) and GPU sales, and it’s forecasting a “significant double digit percentage” decline for the rest of the year too.
AMD also says an AI PC refresh cycle will help PCs return to growth in 2024, and that 150 software vendors will be developing for AMD AI PCs by year’s end. The company’s top priority is ramping AI data center GPUs, though, which are “tight on supply.” New AI chips are coming “later this year into 2025,” too.
JEDEC Solid State Technology Association has released details about its new standard, which it says is better positioned to handle the demands of gaming, networking, and AI.
JESD239 GDDR7 is the first JEDEC standard DRAM to use the Pulse Amplitude Modulation (PAM) interface for high frequency operations. Its PAM3 interface improves the signal to noise ratio (SNR) for high frequency operation while enhancing energy efficiency. It also says GDDR7 has double the bandwidth over GDDR6, up to 192 GB/s per device, and double the number of channels.
We don’t expect to see GDDR7 out in the world until Nvidia and AMD release next-gen GPUs, which could come before the end of 2024 but is a long way from being confirmed.
[www.jedec.org]
Despite an AMD deal to support FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) upscaling, Starfield launched with an FSR 2 implementation that lagged behind the newer approach that adds frame generation for smooth gameplay.
Bethesda already rolled out support for Nvidia’s DLSS frame generation, and says the FSR 3 update will ship later this month. It’s beta testing the tech next week, along with a FormID change that should “improve stability for saves that have visited many locations.”
Sony shipped 10 million PS5s in just five months last year, and Xbox hardware sales were up 3 percent last quarter. But AMD, whose gaming business provides their chips, is forecasting a “significant double-digit percentage” decline in gaming revenue now that we’re in “the fifth year of what has been a very strong gaming cycle.”
We won’t hear from Sony again till Valentine’s Day, but Microsoft just confirmed: next quarter, Xbox hardware revenue will decline year-over-year.
Microsoft has internally suggested the next gen of consoles might arrive in 2028.
While that doesn’t quite tell us how well AMD’s competing with Nvidia in the AI gold rush, AMD CEO Lisa Su says she’s not sitting back: “The demand for compute is so high that we are seeing an acceleration of the roadmap generations here.”
She confirmed Zen 5 CPUs are still on track for this year, with server chips in second half. Acer, Asus, HP, Lenovo, MSI, and “other large PC OEMs” will begin putting Ryzen 8000 notebooks on sale in February.
Last week’s Intel earnings suggested the tide had turned, and AMD’s Q4 and FY23 agree: PC sales are getting back to where they should be.
It was a crummy year for Ryzen CPUs, losing $46M on 25 percent lower revenue, but things changed last quarter: AMD chips sold 62 percent better YoY for $55M in operating profit. Radeon GPU sales were up too.
Meanwhile, Microsoft saw “PC market unit volumes were at roughly pre-pandemic levels.”
AMD is axing the stream-and-monitor-your-own-PC-games feature, and its announcement made me laugh:
For users that game remotely with AMD Link, one important announcement is that AMD is ending support for the AMD Link software application
No kidding! Did you use it? I preferred the hardware-agnostic Steam Link, but there’s also Moonlight and Parsec. Nvidia also axed its similar GameStream feature in 2022.
Monday was quite the whirlwind! Let’s take a step back and recap all of the fun surprises:
• Apple dropped the launch date for the Vision Pro.
• Both LG and Samsung are getting into transparent TVs.
• Samsung’s Ballie AI robot now doubles as a projector.
• MSI has a new Steam Deck competitor called the Claw.
• Nvidia revealed its RTX 4080 Super and RTX 4070 Ti Super.
• Intel and AMD showed off new chips.
• There are a lot of new laptops (and I mean a lot).
There’s still more to come! Stay tuned to The Verge for more CES coverage from the show floor.
AMD is returning to CES 2024 this year to talk about AI PCs. Rumors suggest there could be some new Ryzen mobile chips, potentially a new AM4 processor, and even a new Radeon RX 7600 XT GPU. AMD’s event kicks off at 8AM PT / 10AM ET / 3PM GMT today, and you can watch the whole thing below. Stay tuned to The Verge for all the latest news from AMD.
The gorgeous X-ray-like close-up photos in this video are from Fritzchens Fritz — I’ve introduced you to his work before. You can also go straight to his Flickr page if you don’t have time for video. I particularly like this shot.
The video also shows how much smaller the Steam Deck OLED’s die-shrunk Sephiroth chip is — no die shots of that one yet, though.
Blowing the hidden fuse doesn’t necessarily void their warranty; while damage caused by overclocking won’t be covered, “other unrelated issues could still qualify for warranty repair / replacement,” the company says in a statement confirming the fuse to Tom’s Hardware.
GPD, a boutique handheld PC maker that’s been kicking around long before the Steam Deck, is now pointing the finger at AMD for failing to deliver an entire batch of 7840U chips for its Win Max 2.
Practically every PC gaming handheld maker save Valve uses this chip or derivatives. Maybe a shortage? Bad blood? We’ve asked AMD to comment. Ayaneo has a clamshell coming out too...
