Building on the success of its yearly ‘Wrapped’ feature, which gives subscribers a visualisation of their listening data, Spotify has launched ‘Only You’ – an in-app experience with listening statistics and personalised playlists.
‘Only You’ includes information such as ‘Your artist pairs’, highlighting a user’s diverse tastes; ‘Your Song Year’, showing favoured musical time periods and ‘Your Time of Day,’ which hones in on the artists are preferred at particular times of the day.
As well as individual stats, ‘Only You’ has some quirkier personalisation features including ‘Your dream dinner party,’ which prompts users to pick three artists they’d invite to a dinner party with Spotify then creating a mix for each artist. There’s also ‘Your Audio Birth Chart,’ showing users their ‘Sun artist’ (the person they listened to the most over the past six months), their ‘Moon artist’ (the artist that shows off their emotional side), and their ‘Rising artist’ (a recent discovery). Once created, both the ‘Audio Birth Chart’ and ‘Dream Dinner Party’ playlists will update daily.
While this kind of individual curation is the type of thing that we already expect from Spotify, by letting users share their statistics the streaming service could help bolster waning subscription numbers as the rate of new sign-ups slows with the end of the lockdown entertainment boom. According to Bloomberg, during the 2020 ‘Wrapped’ season Spotify’s stock rose by 16 per cent, so it stands to reason the company would hope to replicate some of that buzz year-round.
To try ‘Only You’, head to Spotify.com/OnlyYou or open the app where the experience will autoplay.
Alongside ‘Only You’, Spotify is also rolling out a feature called ‘Blend’, which lets two people merge their musical tastes into one shared playlist that gets updated daily.
To use ‘Blend’, just select ‘Create Blend’ in the ‘Made For You’ hub and then tap ‘Invite’ to generate an invitation that can be shared with another user with any tier of Spotify subscription.
‘Blend’ is currently in beta and only available on iOS and Android mobile.
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Read our Spotify review
Spotify HiFi is missing something – but will it matter?
As reported by Phoronix, AMD is focusing on expanding its SmartShift ecosystem to support operating systems beyond Windows 10. AMD has released two patches this week that continue adding support of SmartShift’s features to the Linux ecosystem. That’s excellent news for Linux buyers who want to use AMD’s shiny new PowerShift notebooks.
SmartShift was released last year by AMD (with only one laptop, the G5 SE) as a way to further improve notebook performance and efficiency when using AMD CPUs and discrete GPUs together. The technology aims to turn both the CPU and GPU into one cohesive system, allowing both chips to dynamically share power depending on the workload at hand.
At Computex this year AMD showed off its second wave of SmartShift laptops (like the new ROG Strix G15 Advantage) based on the all-new RX 6000M GPUs and Ryzen 5000 mobile CPUs, plus new enhancements for the Smartshift technology. This aggressive push for SmartShift adoption shows us that AMD is really focused on bringing this technology out in full force. And the push to expand adoption to Linux users seems to be part of that, despite the fact that those users make up a part of the notebook segment.
Just a few days ago on May 30th, AMD released a patch to Linux which allowed support for SmartShift when a discrete Radeon GPU was detected in a notebook with SmartShift Support.
Today, another patch was released, further adding support for Smartshift’s features. This patch exposes SmartShift’s power-share info to the user-space via sysfs, meaning Linux can now monitor SmartShift’s behavior and judge to see if the system is working as intended or not.
Another patch was released as well, adding controllability of SmartShift’s power-sharing parameters to Linux, meaning the OS or possibly a user can control how much power goes to the CPU or the discrete GPU.
With all this effort, it seems AMD is preparing to make SmartShift a mainstream technology, with not only Linux support, but also a wide variety of notebook support coming in the not-so-distant future. Some serious questions remain, though, like when we’ll see the tech in more than a handful of laptop models.
And for those AMD-based models to expand, the company will need to assure its partners that it can pump out a substantial and consistent amount of its current-gen CPUs and brand-new mobile GPUs. In the current climate of high demand for desktop graphics cards, chip shortages, and TSMC’s production pushed to its limits, the only thing certain seems to be uncertainty.
Riot is bringing its tactical shooter Valorant to mobile devices. There aren’t a lot of details yet — such as when it will launch, on what hardware, or how it will differ from the main game — but Riot says the new version will simply be called Valorant Mobile.
The developer claims that the PC version of the game, which launched last year, currently averages 14 million monthly players. Valorant is also coming off of its biggest competitive tournament to date, with an event in Iceland, and Riot says that more than 1 million concurrent viewers tuned in to the finals on May 31st.
The news shouldn’t be too surprising. Earlier this year, Riot made a similar move with League of Legends, launching a mobile-focused spinoff called Wild Rift. Meanwhile, some of the most popular shooters in the world have moved to smartphones as well; PUBG Mobile and Call of Duty Mobile are both huge hits, and a smartphone iteration of Apex Legends is also on the way.
It also sounds like Riot is looking to build out Valorant in other ways. Without getting into details, aside from the mobile version, the developer says that it is “preparing to expand the franchise in order to bring Valorant to more players around the world.” Again, this would be following the League of Legends playbook, which currently has expanded into everything from comic books to digital card games to an upcoming animated series on Netflix.
E-commerce site Etsy, best known for selling handmade and vintage wares, is buying up a cooler, younger rival, UK-based secondhand shopping app Depop.
The $1.6 billion acquisition lets Etsy access Depop’s young and growing userbase. Etsy says more than 90 percent of Depop’s users are under 26, meaning they mostly belong to Gen Z, while Etsy’s own users are firmly millennial, with a median age for sellers of around 39. Etsy claims that Depop is the 10th most visited shopping site for Gen Z consumer in the US.
“We are simply thrilled to be adding Depop — what we believe to be the resale home for Gen Z consumers — to the Etsy family,” Etsy chief executive Josh Silverman said in a press statement. “Depop is a vibrant, two-sided marketplace with a passionate community, a highly-differentiated offering of unique items, and we believe significant potential to further scale.”
Depop, founded in 2011, shares Etsy’s love of secondhand clothing. But while Etsy’s brand leans more towards the vintage and cosy, Depop’s is more fashionable. Depop’s revenues doubled last year to $70 million, with most of this income derived from sales commissions.
While Etsy will get access to Depop’s users, Depop itself will be able to draw on Etsy’s experience to scale internationally. “Many of the challenges that we are going through as a business are things that Etsy has gone through before,” Maria Raga, Depop’s chief executive, told The Financial Times. “Etsy has made massive improvements in terms of search and discovery, and this is something that we can definitely learn from.”
The acquisition is the latest sign of activity in the secondhand clothing market, though things are not exactly stable. Depop rivals Poshmark and Thredup, for example, have both seen market caps soar on successful IPOs only to fall again when financial earnings revealed widening losses amid sales growth. And Etsy itself has seen its shares drop from a pandemic high as global lockdowns begin to lift and physical retailers reopen. Grabbing Depop seems like a way to reduce that exposure and access a mobile-first userbase.
The Rimac C_Two concept has evolved into a production-ready electric hypercar called the Nevera, and it’s still just as absurd as it was three years when it first broke cover at the 2018 Geneva Motor Show.
Powered by a 120kWh battery pack, the Nevera uses four electric motors — one for each wheel — to put down an almost unbelievable 1.4MW of power, which Rimac says is roughly equivalent to 1,914 horsepower. The quad-motor setup can push the car to 60 miles per hour from a standstill in just 1.85 seconds. It has a top speed of 258 miles per hour.
What’s more, Rimac says one of the things it worked on over the last three years was improving the battery pack’s liquid cooling system, meaning drivers can use that peak power for longer before the batteries start to complain.
To make sure drivers have a fighting chance at controlling that amount of power, Rimac developed a new all-wheel torque vectoring system that basically acts as both an electronic stability and traction control system. The software can make “over 100 calculations per second to tailor the level of torque to achieve the desired driving style,” Rimac says in the press release for the Nevera. Braking in a car like this is also important, and Rimac has designed the Nevera to be able to dynamically adjust the balance of the braking force between the friction brakes in the wheels and the regenerative braking made possible by the electric motors.
Image: Rimac
Image: Rimac
Image: Rimac
Image: Rimac
Image: Rimac
Image: Rimac
Image: Rimac
Image: Rimac
Image: Rimac
Image: Rimac
Image: Rimac
Image: Rimac
Image: Rimac
Image: Rimac
Image: Rimac
Image: Rimac
If that’s not enough, Rimac has developed an “AI driving coach” feature that leverages the Nevera’s 12 ultrasonic and six radar sensors, as well as 13 cameras to help “optimize and enhance the driver’s on-track performance.” It does this by providing track-specific audio and visual cues for when to brake for, where to turn into, and when to accelerate out of a corner.
Of course, very few people will have to worry about whether they can properly pilot a Nevera. Rimac is only making 150 of them, and they’ll each start around $2.4 million.
A big part of that price tag is Nevera’s lavish tech. The monocoque is the largest single carbon fiber piece in the automotive industry, according to the company, dramatically cutting weight and improving safety. The H-shaped battery pack is structurally integrated into that monocoque, too, keeping the center of gravity low and adding to the overall structural stiffness. To keep the ride smooth, the Nevera has a double wishbone suspension that uses electronically controlled dampers, which also makes for easy ride height adjustments.
Inside the cockpit, there are three screens: a driver display, a horizontal touchscreen in the center console, and a passenger display. There’s also an accompanying mobile app, which offers live track data, and the ability to download telemetry so drivers can analyze their performance.
The other part of the price tag is that Rimac will customize basically every other aspect of the Nevera hypercar for buyers:
No two Neveras will leave the Rimac factory looking the same or bearing the same specification, thanks to customers’ ability to choose from a comprehensive range of bespoke trims and material options. In addition to the company’s premium individual personalization program, Rimac will offer its flagship in various editions: GT, Signature, Timeless or the customers can choose to go Bespoke.
Each buyer will even be “invited to Croatia to design his or her car to their exacting requirements,” Rimac says.
As if that isn’t enough to convince someone to pony up $2 million and change, the company says founder Mate Rimac will personally test each Nevera that gets built.
The funny thing about a car like the Nevera is that it’s not alone. There is a growing stable of absurdly priced electric hypercars that can make nearly 2,000 horsepower. Lotus has the Evija, while Pininfarina has the Battista. (There are a few hybrid options in this class, too.) What’s made Rimac unique is that it really was a sort of go-it-alone effort, one that Mate Rimac built from the ground up.
That said, Mate Rimac says in the press release for the Nevera that it “is the car I had in mind when I embarked on the ‘impossible’ journey ten years ago.” His company now has backing from Porsche, which is reportedly working with Rimac to make electric hypercars for the German automaker’s sibling brand, Bugatti. Hyundai has also tossed Rimac some coin. While the Nevera looks like a truly thrilling electric hypercar, the most exciting thing about what Rimac’s been doing for the last decade might be whatever comes next.
Twitter said Tuesday it will start adding full-screen ads to Fleets, its disappearing tweets that sit in a row at the top of users’ mobile Twitter interface. Introduced last November, the Fleet format — a clone of Instagram and Snap’s Stories — has apparently been successful enough that Twitter now wants to try to make money from it.
“Fleet ads are full-screen billboards for advertisers,” Twitter senior product manager Justin Hoang and global product marketing manager Austin Evers wrote in a post announcing the ads. It’s partnering with a “handful” of advertisers in what it calls an “experiment,” making the Fleet ads visible to a limited group of US users on iOS and Android.
The ads support images and video in 9:16, and videos can be up to 30 seconds long. Brands can choose to add a “swipe up” call-to-action and will be able to access standard Twitter ad metrics, including impressions, profile visits, clicks, website visits, and other information.
Example of a Fleet ad from Wendy’s.Image: Twitter
In April, Twitter reported that its ad revenue grew 32 percent year over year to $899 million, and total ad engagement rose 11 percent. Expanding its ads beyond users’ timelines, where people can easily scroll past without engaging, seems like the logical next step. Instagram, after all, has had ads in its Stories since 2017 and started putting ads in its TikTok clone Reels last month.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said during April’s Q1 earnings call with analysts that the company was still learning about who uses Fleets. “We started this product not to build a storage product within Twitter, but to solve the problem of people not wanting to tweet because they appear to be staying around too long,” he said, adding “we certainly have seen a different audience than we normally see, but we still have much to learn and a lot to figure out in terms of like, where it goes from here.”
Twitter is planning to closely study how vertical full-screen ads perform, not just for Fleet ads but possible future iterations of other full-screen formats, according to Hoang and Evers.
“We also believe that ads should be non-intrusive and bring value to people, so we’re focused on learning more about how people feel about and engage with this new placement,” the blog post states, adding that the company is planning to launch more Fleet updates soon to stickers and backgrounds.
Twitter has been on a tear announcing new features this spring, updating its warnings for potentially offensive tweets, improving its photo cropping algorithm to allow “taller” images, adding the ability for Android users to search their direct messages, and rolling out a Tip Jar feature for donations.
Twitter also acquired Scroll, the $5-per-month subscription service that removes ads from participating websites. And its long-awaited paid subscription service Twitter Blue may be coming soon as well.
Samsung could enable HDR10+ for gaming, according to a German blog post spotted by HDTVtest. The article claims Samsung executives are working with ‘various unnamed studios’ to set up a steady supply of HDR10+ titles.
The HDR10+ format was created by Samsung and is a competitor to Dolby Vision. Like Dolby Vision, HDR10+ is all about adding dynamic metadata to the HDR signal to deliver more detail. Unlike Dolby Vision, companies don’t need to pay a fee to license HDR10+.
The report doesn’t reveal whether Samsung is planning to bring the technology to games consoles or reserve it for mobile devices such as the HDR10+- supporting Samsung Galaxy S21.
However, it’s interesting to note that Dolby Vision is supposed to be exclusive for the Xbox Series X and S for the next two years. Could Samsung be working with Sony to bring HDR10+ gaming to the PS5? It’s certainly a possibility.
The Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S systems have supported Dolby Atmos since launch, with Dolby Vision support expected later this year. Microsoft recently announced a Dolby Vision HDR test program for Alpha Ring members ahead of ‘general availability’.
Only a handful of titles make use of Dolby Vision HDR (Gears 5, Halo: The Master Chief Collection and Borderlands 3 are the biggies) but last month Microsoft revealed plans for a major push into Dolby Vision gaming.
If the rumours are true, HDR10+ for gaming could bring better contrast and more vibrant colours to your favourite titles, although you’ll still need a compatible 4K TV.
AMD is partnering with Samsung to provide RDNA 2 graphics technology for an Exynos mobile system-on-chip, potentially giving a boost to GPU performance in flagship Samsung phones. The announcement was made today at Computex Taipei.
There aren’t many details on the chip or which products it’ll be used in, but AMD describes the chip as a “next-generation Exynos SoC,” and says Samsung will provide further information later in 2021. The GPU will use AMD’s RDNA 2 architecture, enabling features like ray tracing and variable rate shading. AMD says it’ll make its way to “flagship mobile devices.”
“The next place you’ll find RDNA 2 will be the high-performance mobile phone market,” AMD CEO Lisa Su said on stage. “AMD has partnered with industry leader Samsung for several years to accelerate graphics innovation in the mobile market, and we’re happy to announce that we’ll bring custom graphics IP to Samsung’s next flagship mobile SoC with ray tracing and variable rate shading capabilities. We’re really looking forward to Samsung providing more details later this year.”
Exynos is the brand name that Samsung uses for its own in-house processors. In the US and certain other markets, Samsung’s flagship Galaxy phones ship with Snapdragon SoCs from Qualcomm, while the rest of the world gets Exynos chips. The Exynos models are generally regarded as slightly less performant than their Qualcomm equivalents, but it was seen as a surprise when Samsung decided to switch to the Snapdragon variant of the Galaxy S20 in its home market of South Korea.
Whether AMD’s mobile solution will provide tangible benefits over Qualcomm’s Adreno GPUs is unknown. But by throwing out buzzwords like ray tracing and lending its latest RDNA 2 architecture, AMD is certainly setting expectations high for future Samsung devices.
AMD CEO Lisa Su revealed two key new processors during the company’s Computex 2021 keynote. The $359 Ryzen 7 5700G and $259 Ryzen 5 5600G APU, both of which come to market August 5, 2021, will plug two glaring gaps in the company’s Ryzen 5000 product stack that currently leads our list of Best CPUs.
The new Cezanne chips mark the first new APUs for desktop PCs that you’ll be able to buy at retail since AMD launched the Zen+ “Picasso” models back in 2019. AMD did bring a refresh of those chips to market as the oft-maligned Ryzen Pro “Renoir” series, but in a disappointment to enthusiasts, those chips were destined for professional users and thus not available at retail.
In fact, AMD actually brought the very chips it’s announcing today to OEM systems a few months ago, meaning we already know most of the details about the silicon. The Cezanne APUs, which come with Zen 3 execution cores paired with the Radeon Vega graphics engine, feel like they’re a bit late to retail. The company’s first salvo of Ryzen 5000 processors delivered a stunning blow to Intel as it took the unequivocal lead in desktop PCs, but AMD’s pivot to premium pricing left it exposed with two massive gaps in its product stack. Unfortunately for AMD, Intel’s Rocket Lake blasted in a few months ago and plugged those gaps.
Now AMD’s retort comes as retail availability of a few of the Cezanne chips, though it’s noteworthy the company is still holding back several of its lower-end models from the retail market. Given the ongoing graphics card shortages, these newly revamped APUs are a welcome sight for the gaming market and serve as AMD’s “non-X” chips that traditionally offer more attractive price points at a given core count. That is if AMD can keep them in stock, of course. Let’s take a closer look.
AMD Ryzen 5000 ‘Cezanne’ G-Series Specifications
The Ryzen 5000G lineup spans from four to eight cores, but AMD is only bringing the eight-core 16-thread Ryzen 7 5700G and six-core 12-thread Ryzen 5 5600G to retail, while the Ryzen 3 5300G remains relegated to the OEM-only market (at least for now). AMD also isn’t bringing the 35W GE-Series models to retail, either, as it continues to focus on premium chips during the ongoing global semiconductor shortage.
AMD Ryzen 5000 G-Series 65W Cezanne APUs
CPU
Price
Cores/Threads
Base / Boost Freq.
Graphics Cores
Graphics Frequency
TDP
Cache
Ryzen 7 5800X
$449
8 / 16
3.8 / 4.7 GHz
N/a
N/a
105W
32MB (1×32)
Core i7-11700K (KF)
$374 – $349
8 / 16
3.6 / 5.0
UHD Graphics 750 Xe 32EU
125W
16MB
Ryzen 7 5700G
$359
8 / 16
3.8 / 4.6
RX Vega 8
2100 MHz
65W
20 MB
Ryzen 5 5600X
$299
6 / 12
3.7 / 4.6 GHz
N/a
N/a
65W
32MB (1×32)
Core i5-11600K (KF)
$262 (K) – $237(KF)
6 / 12
3.9 / 4.9
UHD Graphics 750 Xe 32EU
125W
12MB
Ryzen 5 5600G
$259
6 / 12
3.9 / 4.4
RX Vega 7
1900 MHz
65W
19 MB
Ryzen 5 3600
$200
6 / 12
Core i5-11400 (F)
$182 – $157
6 / 12
2.6 / 4.2
UHD Graphics 750 Xe 24EU
65W
12MB
Ryzen 3 5300G
N/a
4 / 8
4.0 / 4.2
RX Vega 6
1700 MHz
65W
10 MB
The 65W eight-core 16-thread Ryzen 7 5700G comes with a 3.8 GHz base, 4.6 GHz boost, and eight Radeon Vega CUs that operate at 2.0 GHz.
The Ryzen 7 5700G addresses the ~$350 price point to plug the sizeable gap between the $449 Ryzen 9 5800X and $299 Ryzen 5 5600X. That big gap left Intel’s Core i7-11700K with plenty of room to operate, but AMD says the new 5700G will plug that gap with CPU performance that slots in perfectly between the other Ryzen 5000 parts, not to mention the strengths borne of the integrated Vega graphics engine.
The 65W six-core 12-thread Ryzen 5 5600G comes with a 3.9 GHz base, 4.4 GHz boost, and seven Radeon Vega CUs that operate at 1.9 GHz.
The 5600G slots in at $259 to plug the gap between the $299 Ryzen 5 5600X and, well, the remainder of AMD’s sub-$299 product stack. AMD’s Ryzen 5 3600 is the only real relevant contender in this price range, and it launched two years ago with the Zen 2 architecture. The 3600 isn’t competitive with Intel’s Rocket Lake Core i5-11600K or -11400, leaving Intel plenty of room to roam uncontested in the budget market (as you can see in our Core i5-11400 review).
Based on suggested pricing, the 5600G contends with the Core i5-11600K and doesn’t do much to address the current value budget champ, the Intel Core i5-11400. That’s largely because AMD has decided not to include the 65W Ryzen 3 5300G, which it ships into the OEM market, in this round of chip releases. It also has yet to release the GE-series chips listed in the table below. AMD hasn’t indicated when the Ryzen 3 or GE-Series Cezanne chips will come to market.
AMD Ryzen 5000 GE-Series 35W Cezanne APUs
CPU
Cores/Threads
Frequency (Up to) Boost / Base
Graphics Cores
Graphics Frequency
TDP
Cache
Ryzen 7 5700GE
8 / 16
3.2 / 4.6
RX Vega 8
2000 MHz
35W
20 MB
Ryzen 5 5600GE
6 / 12
3.4 / 4.4
RX Vega 7
1900 MHz
35W
19 MB
Ryzen 3 5300GE
4 / 8
3.6 / 4.2
RX Vega 6
1700 MHz
35W
10 MB
Of course, integrated graphics are the big attraction for APUs. AMD continues to pair its APUs with the Vega graphics architecture, just as it did with the 4000-series APUs. AMD reworked the architecture for its last go-round — the revamped RX Vega graphics delivered up to ~60% percent more performance per compute unit (CU) than its predecessors, which equated to more graphics performance from fewer CU. We aren’t sure if AMD has made a similar adjustment this time around, but we’re sure to learn more as we get closer to launch.
As with all Ryzen 5000 processors, Cezanne fully supports overclocking, which includes memory, graphics and CPU cores. AMD also says that the auto-overclocking Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) and adaptive offset features are also supported. The Cezanne chips drop into the same motherboards as the current-gen Ryzen 5000 processors, so X570, B550, X470 and B450 are all supported. As with the other Ryzen models, memory support weighs in at DDR4-3200, though that does vary by DIMM population rules.
(Image credit: AMD)
The new APUs hail from the Ryzen 5000 Mobile family (deep dive here), so they have physically identical silicon that has been transitioned from the FP6 BGA-mounted arrangement found in laptops to the AM4 socket on desktop PC motherboards. AMD then simply tunes the silicon for the more forgiving power limits and thermal conditions of the desktop, meaning that it can uncork the power settings and be more aggressive with boosting activity while being less aggressive with power-sharing/shifting between the CPU and GPU units.
The Zen 3 architecture grants higher L3 cache capacities than we’ve seen with AMD’s past APUs. For instance, the eight-core 16-thread Ryzen 7 5700G now has 20MB of L3 cache compared to its eight-core predecessor that came with 12MB. These are the natural byproducts of the Zen 3 architecture and should benefit general iGPU performance, too.
However, in contrast to the existing Ryzen 5000 chips for the PC, the APUs come as a single monolithic die. That results in a less cache than we see with the chips without integrated graphics, like the eight-core Ryzen 5 5600X. The 5600X comes with 32MB of L3 cache, which is significantly more than the 16MB of L3 cache found on the eight-core Ryzen 7 5700G. We’ll be sure to poke and prod at the cache when the silicon lands in our labs.
Additionally, the 5000G chips have the same I/O controller on the SoC as the mobile parts, so the chips are limited to 24 lanes of PCIe 3.0, as opposed to the 24 lanes of PCIe 4.0 found on the other Ryzen 5000 parts. This comes as the tradeoff of bringing the mobile architecture to the desktop PC, with AMD’s initial decision to stick with PCIe 3.0 for its mobile parts largely being driven by battery life concerns.
AMD Ryzen 5 5700G Gaming and Productivity Benchmarks
(Image credit: AMD)
AMD shared a surprisingly slim selection of its own benchmarks to compare the Ryzen 5 5700G with Intel’s Core i7-11700. AMD’s test notes are also lacking. As with all vendor-provided benchmarks, you should view these with the requisite amount of skepticism.
As expected, AMD’s benchmarks show notable performance advantages across the board, especially when gaming on the 5700G’s Radeon Vega 8 graphics compared to the -11700’s UHD Graphics 650 with the Xe architecture. AMD’s last batch of 5000G comparative benchmarks were much more expansive when it compared Cezanne to the Comet Lake chips, but the Rocket Lake comparisons are far more limited. We’ll suss all that out in the review.
Ryzen 5000G Pro Series Desktop Processors
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(Image credit: AMD)
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AMD also released its Ryzen 5000G Pro series today. As you can see in the slides above, aside from a few extra professional features, they’re identical to the client chips.
Thoughts
Overall the Cezanne desktop APUs look promising, and AMD’s pricing goes a long way to addressing the notable price gaps that come from its lack of value “non-X” chips with the Ryzen 5000 generation, an exclusion that has received plenty of criticism from the enthusiast community.
AMD’s timing for desktop APUs could be a bit better — Intel’s value Rocket Lake chips have been on the market for several months, and the continuing chip shortage coupled with cryptomining has destroyed any chance of scoring a reasonably priced GPU, at least for now. That means a chip with competitive 1080p gaming performance will be a hit with enthusiasts looking to wait out the current GPU crisis.
That said, we’re still seeing a complete lack of AMD’s cheap chips on the market, so the company’s decision to keep the Ryzen 3 and 35W GE-Series models off the retail market is disappointing. It makes good business sense given the state of the market (AMD sells every single high-end chip it punches out), but we’d like to see some improvement on the lower end of the market.
The Ryzen 5000G chips come to market on August 5, 2021. As you can imagine, we’ll have the full story when reviews arrive near that same time.
AMD introduced its new Radeon RX 6000M-series laptop graphics at Computex, during a keynote by AMD’s CEO, Dr. Lisa Su. The new mobile graphics lineup is made up of the top-end AMD Radeon RX 6800M, a mid-range RX 6700M and the entry level RX 6600M. For now at least, the GPUs are being paired in systems from laptop vendors with AMD’s Ryzen processors for what the company calls “AMD Advantage.”
These are the first laptop GPUs from AMD that use its RDNA 2 architecture, with Infinity Cache for higher memory bandwidth, low power consumption (AMD claims near 0 watts at idle) and high frequencies even when the system is running at low power. The company is claiming up to 1.5 times performance over last-gen RDNA graphics and up to 43% lower power consumption.
AMD Radeon RX 6800M
AMD Radeon RX 6700M
AMD Radeon RX 6600M
Compute Units
40
36
28
Game Clock
2,300 MHz
2,300 MHz
2,177
Memory
12GB GDDR6
10GB GDDR6
8GB GDDR6
Infinity Cache
96MB
80MB
32MB
AMD Smart Access Memory
Yes
Yes
Yes
AMD Smart Shift
Yes
Yes
Yes
Power Targets
145W and above
Up to 135W
Up to 100W
Resolution Targets
1440p
1440p/1080p
1080p
The most powerful of the new bunch is the AMD Radeon RX 6800M, which will be available starting June 1 in the Asus ROG Strix G15 Advantage Edition. It has 40 compute units and ray accelerators, along with a 2,300 MHz game clock, 12GB of GDDR6 memory and a 96MB cache. It will also be compatible with AMD SmartShift and Smart Access Memory.
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(Image credit: AMD)
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(Image credit: AMD)
AMD compared the ROG Strix G15 with the RX 6800M and a Ryzen 9 5900HX to a 2019 MSI Raider GE63 with a 9th Gen Intel Core i7 processor and an RTX 2070, claiming up to 1.4 times more frames per second at 1440p max settings in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Cyberpunk 2077, 1.5 times the performance in Dirt 5 and 1.7x more frames while playing Resident Evil: Village.
In closer comparisons, to an RTX 3070 (8GB) and RTX 3080 (8GB), AMD claimed its flagship GPU was typically the top performer – within a frame or so – in several of those games, as well as Borderlands 3 and Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, though it’s unclear which settings and resolutions were used for these tests.
Unlike Nvidia, AMD isn’t aiming for 4K gaming. The most powerful of the cards, the RX 6800M, aims for a power target of 145W and above and is designed for 1440p.
(Image credit: AMD)
The middle-tier AMD Radeon RX 6700M is designed for 1440p or 1080p gaming, depending on the title. It has 36 compute units with a 2,300 MHz game clock, 10GB of GDDR6 RAM and an 80MB infinity cache, as well as the same support for SmartShift and SAM. AMD says these will ship in laptops “soon.’ It also said that the GPU will allow for 100 fps gaming at 1440p and high settings in “popular games,” though didn’t specify which games it was referring to.
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(Image credit: AMD)
The RX 6600M sits at the bottom of the stack for gaming at 1080p. AMD compared it to an RTX 3060 (6GB) on 1080p max settings, and found that it led in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Borderlands 3 and Dirt 5. It was five frames behind in Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War in AMD’s tests, and there was a one-frame difference playing Cyberpunk 2077. Like the RX 6800M, the 6600M will start shipping on June 1.
(Image credit: AMD)
AMD Advantage Laptops
AMD is now referring to laptops with both AMD processors and graphics as offering the “AMD Advantage.” The company says these designs should offer great performance because of power sharing between the CPU and GPU.
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(Image credit: AMD)
AMD says its technologies can achieve up to 11% better performance in Borderlands 3, 10% in Wolfenstein Young Blood, 7% in Cyberpunk 2077 and 6% in Godfall.
(Image credit: AMD)
Additionally, the company says AMD Advantage laptops will only have “premium” displays — either IPS or OLED, but no VA or TN panels. They should hit or surpass 300 nits of brightness, hit 144 Hz or higher and use AMD FreeSync.
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Each laptop should come with a PCIe NVMe Gen 3 SSD, keep the WASD keys below 40 degrees Celsius while gaming and allow for ten hours of video on battery. (AMD tested this with local video, not streaming.)
(Image credit: AMD)
The first of these laptops is the Asus ROG Strix G15, with up to a Ryzen 9 5900HX and Radeon RX 6800M, a 15-inch display (either FHD at 300 Hz or WQHD at 165 Hz) with FreeSync Premium, liquid metal for cooling both the CPU and GPU along with a vapor chamber. It will launch in mid-June.
(Image credit: AMD)
The HP Omen 16 will also come with a 165 Hz display with up ao a Ryzen 9 5900Hx and AMD Radeon RX 6600M for 1080p gaming. It will launch sune on JD.com, then become available worldwide.
(Image credit: AMD)
In June, we should see more releases from HP, Asus, MSI and Lenovo.
, AMD has finally introduced FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR), the company’s upscaling technology to rival Nvidia’s machine learning-powered DLSS. It was introduced during AMD chief executive Dr. Lisa Su’s virtual keynote address at Computex, which is being held online this year. The new feature will launch on June 22.
AMD promises that FSR will deliver up to 2.5 times higher performance while using the dedicated performance mode in “select titles.” At least ten game studios will integrate FSR into their games and engines this year. The first titles should show up this month, and the company also detailed FSR’s roots in open source. The feature is based on
AMD’s OpenGPU suite
.
(Image credit: AMD)
FSR has four presets: ultra quality, quality, balanced and performance. The first two focus on higher quality by rendering at closer to native resolution, while the latter two push you to get as many frames as possible. FSR works on both desktops and laptops, as well as both integrated and discrete graphics.
In its own tests using Gearbox Software’s Godfall (AMD used the
Radeon RX 6900 XT
,
RX 6800 XT
and
RX 6700 XT
on the game’s epic preset at 4K with ray tracing on), the company claimed 49 frames per second at native rendering, but 78 fps using ultra quality FSR, 99 fps using quality, 124 fps on balanced and 150 fps on performance.
(Image credit: AMD)
But FSR works on other hardware, including Nvidia’s graphics cards. AMD tested one of Nvidia’s older (but still very popular) mainstream GPUs, the GTX 1060, with Godfall at 1440p on the epic preset. It ran natively at 27 fps, but at 38 fps with quality mode on — a 41% boost. In fact, AMD says that FSR, which needs to be implemented by game developers to suit their titles, will work with over 100 CPUs and GPUs, including its own and competitors.
(Image credit: AMD)
We’ll be able to test FidelityFX Super Resolution when it launches, starting with Godfall on June 22, so keep an eye out for our thoughts. While the performance gains sound impressive, we’re also keen to check out image quality. We’ve been fairly impressed by
Nvidia’s DLSS 2.0
, but the original DLSS implementation was far less compelling. It seems as though AMD aims to provide similar upscaling but without all the fancy machine learning.
Su’s keynote included other graphics announcements, such as the launch of the
Radeon RX 6800M, RX 6700M and RX 6600M mobile GPUs
based on RDNA 2, as well as a handful of new APUs.
AMD has announced its long-awaited Radeon RX 6000M series of mobile GPUs, featuring its RDNA 2 architecture.
Today’s release consists of three chips: the RX 6800M (configurable at 145W and above), the RX 6700M (up to 135W), and the RX 6600M (up to 100W). AMD says the flagship 6800M delivers the fastest AMD graphics for laptops yet; it claims the 6800M will run modern AAA games at frame rates that are comparable to or better than those of Nvidia’s mobile RTX 3080. It’s also purported to outperform Nvidia’s chip while gaming on battery.
AMD says the RX 6700M will deliver up to 100fps “in popular games” at 1440p resolution. The 6600M is better for “epic 1080p gaming.” Keep an eye out for independent reviews of these chips in the coming weeks for better idea of the performance you can expect from each one.
The 6000M series will be available starting on June 1st.
Radeon RX 6000M series
GPU
Power target
Compute units / ray accelerators
Game clock (MHz)
Memory (GDDR6)
Infinity cache
GPU
Power target
Compute units / ray accelerators
Game clock (MHz)
Memory (GDDR6)
Infinity cache
Radeon RX 6800M
145W and above
40
2300
12GB
96MB
Radeon RX 6700M
Up to 135W
36
2300
10GB
80MB
Radeon RX 6600M
Up to 100W
28
2177
8GB
32MB
AMD also announced AMD Advantage, a new “design framework initiative” meant to encourage OEMs to include certain features on their AMD-powered systems, and to indicate to consumers which Ryzen- and Radeon-powered laptops AMD thinks are the best. It appears to be a similar idea to Intel’s Evo program, but it’s just for gaming laptops, and the standards look much more stringent. It AMD Advantage laptops are expected to include the following:
AMD Ryzen 5000 mobile processors, Radeon 6000 graphics and Radeon software
Support for AMD’s Smart Acess Memory and Smart Shift technology
A display that reaches at least 300 nits of brightness, covers either 100 percent of the sRGB gamut or 72 percent of the NTSC gamut, has at least a 144Hz refresh rate and low latency, and supports AMD Freesync
At least one NVME PCIE Express Gen 3 SSD
The ability to maintain a surface temperature under 40 degrees Celsius on the WASD keys
Over 10 hours of video playback on battery
It’s unclear how many laptops will actually meet all of these standards. Forty degrees Celsius is close to as hot as keyboards commonly get in the center. But there aren’t too many gaming rigs that reliably break 10 hours of video playback on battery, and plenty of the best gaming laptops out there max out below 300 nits of brightness. That said, all kinds of Intel Evo-certified laptops also don’t meet all the Evo requirements in my testing — units and methodologies can vary.
The first AMD Advantage laptop to be announced is Asus’ new ROG Strix G15. This can be configured with up to a Ryzen 9 5900Hx, a Radeon RX 6800M, and a 15-inch WQHD 165Hz display with 3ms response time. The G15 will be available at Best Buy in June.
AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su is set to deliver the Computex 2021 “AMD Accelerating – The High-Performance Computing Ecosystem” keynote tonight, May 31, 2021.
Due to the global pandemic, Computex is an all-virtual event, but the activities, such as the AMD keynote, are scheduled to occur on Taipei time. As such, you can watch AMD’s keynote live here at 7pm PT, 10pm ET in the video embedded below. We’ll also have all of our normal coverage after the event.
AMD hasn’t given us any solid clues about what we can expect to see tonight. However, we do know that recent rumors have suggested a new lineup of Radeon RX 6000 mobile GPUs, and perhaps we could hear about the company’s obviously pending Threadripper lineup. We could also see new CPU and GPU roadmaps, so anything is possible.
Here’s the press release announcing the keynote:
TAIPEI, Taiwan–(BUSINESS WIRE)–TAITRA (Taiwan External Trade and Development Council) announced today that Dr. Lisa Su, President and CEO of AMD, is invited back to deliver a keynote address at COMPUTEX 2021. This digital keynote will be on Tuesday, June 1, at 10:00 AM Taipei time, with the keynote theme “AMD Accelerating – The High-Performance Computing Ecosystem.”
COMPUTEX displays will be digital this year, with keynotes and forums running on hybrid. “It has been a year unlike others. Technology has gotten us through some of the most challenging times,” said James Huang, TAITRA Chairman. “We will continue to transform our exhibition models and practices to meet the evolving needs of our exhibitors, visitors, and media, without losing the most essential element of a trade show – connection.”
Dr. Lisa Su is proud to join COMPUTEX once again in 2021. “The past year has shown us the important role high-performance computing plays in our daily lives – from the way we work to the way we learn and play. At this year’s COMPUTEX, AMD will share how we accelerate innovation with our ecosystem partners to deliver a leadership product portfolio,” said Dr. Lisa Su.
At the COMPUTEX | AMD CEO Keynote, Dr. Lisa Su will share the AMD vision for the future of computing, including details of the growing adoption of the AMD high-performance computing and graphics solutions, built for PC enthusiasts and gamers.
AMD is a leading player in creating world-class high-performance computing solutions, under the leadership of Dr. Lisa Su. Their technology sparks and creates ideas that transform our lives. “AMD is a star that continues to accelerate in the tech industry, and we are very excited that Dr. Lisa Su is joining COMPUTEX 2021. We can expect and look forward to exciting news that Dr. Su is bringing to COMPUTEX,” said James Huang.
And with that, pull up a seat for the show, and stay tuned for our coverage afterward.
Intel briefly demoed an Alder Lake laptop at Computex 2021 and confirmed that the company already has mobile versions of its new hybrid chips shipping to its customers and partners. Ultimately the demo was little more than Intel showing the laptop playing back a video, but it is an important milestone because it confirms that the mobile Alder Lake variants are deep in the development process.
(Image credit: Intel)
It’s well known that Intel’s 12th-Gen Alder Lake will bring the company’s hybrid architecture, which combines a mix of larger high-performance Golden Cove cores paired with smaller high-efficiency Gracement cores, to desktop x86 PCs for the first time. However, Intel is going all-in: Intel will reunify its desktop and mobile lines with Alder Lake, bringing its new 10nm architecture and leading-edge connectivity options, like PCIe 5.0 and DDR5, to laptops.
We’ve already pieced together plenty of information about Alder Lake, which you can read here. Here’s the brief rundown:
Qualification and production in the second half of 2021
Hybrid x86 design with a mix of big and small cores (Golden Cove/Gracemont)
Up to 16 cores
10nm Enhanced SuperFin process
LGA1700 socket requires new motherboards
PCIe 5.0 and DDR5 support rumored
Five variants: -S for desktop PCs, -P for mobile, -M for low-power devices, -L Atom replacement, -N educational (probably Chromebooks)
Gen12 Xe integrated graphics
New hardware-guided operating system scheduler tuned for high performance
Intel hasn’t released the official specifications of the Alder Lake processors, but a recent update to the SiSoft Sandra benchmark software, along with listings to the open-source Coreboot (a lightweight motherboard firmware option), have given us plenty of clues to work with.
The Coreboot listing outlines various combinations of the big and little cores in different chip models, with some models even using only the larger cores (possibly for high-performance gaming models). The information suggests four configurations with -S, -P, -N, and -M designators, and an -L variant has also emerged:
Alder Lake-S: Desktop PCs (Both LGA and BGA models)
Alder Lake-P: High-performance notebooks
Alder Lake-M: Low-power devices
Alder Lake-L: Listed as “Small Core” Processors (Atom)
Alder Lake-N: Educational and consumer client (Chromebook-class devices)
Naturally, Intel didn’t divulge which flavor of the mobile processor it unveiled today, but it appears there will be four different flavors of the mobile devices to choose from. Intel divulged that Alder Lake laptops will come later this year, so we won’t have to wait long for further details.
A seven-year-old flaw in DRAM chips is making another comeback. Google revealed this week that it’s discovered a new technique, Half-Double, that can be used to exploit the Rowhammer bug thought to have been fixed with the release of DDR4.
Rowhammer was discovered in 2014 when researchers showed that it was possible to manipulate data stored in DDR3 memory by repeatedly accessing (“hammering”) a single row of memory cells to cause bit flips in adjacent rows.
Manufacturers responded with Target Row Refresh (TRR) mitigations, but in March 2020, researchers showed that it was possible to bypass those protections in a paper titled “TRRespass: Exploiting the Many Sides of Target Row Refresh.”
But TRRespass still operated under the assumption that Rowhammer attacks were only capable of affecting rows of memory adjacent to the row being hammered. Google said that doesn’t seem to be the case, which is where Half-Double comes in.
(Image credit: Google)
“Unlike TRRespass, which exploits the blind spots of manufacturer-dependent defenses, Half-Double is an intrinsic property of the underlying silicon substrate,” Google said. “This is likely an indication that the electrical coupling responsible for Rowhammer is a property of distance, effectively becoming stronger and longer-ranged as cell geometries shrink down. Distances greater than two are conceivable.”
Google said it’s been working with JEDEC, a trade group devoted to open standards for the semiconductor industry that counts more than 300 companies among its members, and “other industry partners” to work on solutions to Rowhammer.
“We are disclosing this work because we believe that it significantly advances the understanding of the Rowhammer phenomenon, and that it will help both researchers and industry partners to work together, to develop lasting solutions,” Google said. “The challenge is substantial and the ramifications are industry-wide. We encourage all stakeholders (server, client, mobile, automotive, IoT) to join the effort to develop a practical and effective solution that benefits all of our users.”
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