With the new Ryzen 9000 Series, led by the flagship Ryzen 9 9950X, AMD is introducing the new X870 and X870E motherboard chipsets. These are expected to launch alongside the new Zen 5 CPUs in July, with several board partners on board (heh) to deliver the latest in AM5 platform technology. So, what's new?

With X870 and X870E, USB 4 and PCIe Gen 5 storage and graphics are now standard. More importantly, for PC gamers and enthusiasts, X870 introduces and expands AMD EXPO memory overclocking to support faster DDR5 speeds.

"We learned some lessons with the 600 Series [of motherboards]; memory technology has come a lot further, so we should be able to clock a little higher." Unfortunately, no specifics, supported overclocked speeds, or timings were given - this will come later.

AMD's AI processing for laptops and portable devices is leveling up big time with the new Ryzen AI 300 Series, powered by Zen 5, XDNA 2, and RDNA 3.5 graphics. Described as the 'World's Best Processor for Copilot+ PCs,' they launch in July with two models - the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 and the Ryzen AI 9 365.

Yes, the new naming for AMD's SoCs is real and works like this: Ryzen AI is the new brand name denoting a powerful dedicated NPU (here, it's the third-gen XDNA 2), 300 is the series, and the 9 HX stuff is the model info that AMD traditionally puts at the end of Ryzen CPU model naming.

With AMD's third-generation XDNA 2 NPU technology, Ryzen AI 300 Series processors are Copilot+ ready. The impressive 50 TOPS of AI performance push them past the Snapdragon X Elite, Intel's next-gen Lunar Lake, and Apple's M4 chips. This is a massive increase from the 10 TOPS for the Ryzen 7040 Series and 16 TOPS for the Ryzen 8040 Series.

At Computex 2024, AMD has formally announced its next-generation desktop CPUs, the new Ryzen 9000 Series, which will launch in July with four models. Powered by the next-gen Zen 5 architecture, AMD noted in its presentation to the press that this was more than a "trivial update" for Zen but a "sweeping update" with advances that deliver 2X data and instruction bandwidth and, of course, big performance gains for AI.

AMD says there's an average 16% IPC uplift compared to Zen 4, with the chart outlining the improvement across a range of gaming, rendering, and other CPU workloads. Far Cry 6 sees a 10% uplift on the low-end, and Octane and Cinebench R23 are in the middle with 16% and 17%, respectively. On the high-end, you've got Blender with an impressive 23% uplift and Geekbench 5.4 with a massive 35%. Zen 5 is a definite step up from Zen 4.

The four models that are set to debut in July are AM5 ready: the flagship AMD Ryzen 9 9950X, Ryzen 9 9900X, Ryzen 7 9700X, and Ryzen 5 9600X. One of the other big things with Zen 5 is that the performance increases come with an improvement in power efficiency, with the Ryzen 9 9950X (16 Cores/32 Threads) featuring a 170W TDP, which is on par with the Zen 4 Ryzen 9 7950X.

Computex 2024 - ID-COOLING has some fantastic new products being shown off this year at Computex 2024, starting with the prototype HUNTER DUET GOLDEN LINING (HUNTER GDL).

The new ID-COOLING prototype HUNTER GDL cooler features dual water flow circulations with not one, but two 360mm radiators. The new HUNTER DUET GDL aims to provide the best cooling performance for enthusiasts and overclockers, with the hassle-free all-in-one cooling solution.

HUNTER DUET GOLDEN LINING (HUNTER GDL) prototype:

In a new interview with Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick, we get to find out about the PC version of GTA 6... but we're also teased with GTA 7, which is probably another 10+ years away.

The interview took place during the TD Cowen 52nd Annual Technology, Media & Telecom Conference, the host of TD Cowen estimated that since its launch, GTA V has made $10 billion in bookings. Zelnick agreed, saying it was close, adding it's "simple math," and then into GTA 6.

Zelnick was asked: "When you think about GTA VI and what you've seen they're working on, are you confident that this franchise can take another leap forward in terms of its revenue and its reach?" In response, the Take-Two CEO said: "The world is a different place than when we did launch GTA V. What came before at that point was IV, we had some downloadable add-on content, there was no online version".

The GeForce Rewards program is part of the GeForce Experience and NVIDIA App (which is still in Beta), and on June 4, if you log in, you'll be able to redeem three months of PC Game Pass. This is the Windows PC version of the popular Xbox Game Pass subscription service, which offers gamers access to a library of over 130 games to download and play.

PC Game Pass includes all first-party Xbox games, including the recently released Senua's Saga: Hellblade II, which looks incredible when running on a high-end GeForce rig. You've also got access to hits like Starfield, Forza Motorsport, Palworld, and more.

This free PC Game Pass access deal also applies to GeForce NOW subscribers, NVIDIA's cloud gaming platform that lets you stream PC games to any device with low latency and up to GeForce RTX 4080 levels of visual fiedlity. The PC Game Pass GeForce Reward starts on June 4, and here's how you claim it.

DLSS Ray Reconstruction, supported by all GeForce RTX GPUs, improves the image quality of ray-traced reflections and lighting with AI. The technology will be available in Star Wars Outlaws, which launches on August 30th. It adds detail and delivers a crisper image.

This is going to be a treat for Star Wars fans with GeForce RTX hardware, as the game features a range of RT effects, including ray-traced reflections, ray-traced shadows, NVIDIA RTX Direct Illumination (RTXDI), and ray-traced global illumination. The game looks stunning with max settings and DLSS 3.5 Ray Reconstruction, improving the image quality.

Star Wars Outlaws supports the entire line-up of in-game RTX technologies, including NVIDIA DLSS 3 Frame Generation (this is limited to the GeForce RTX 40 Series) and NVIDIA Reflex latency reduction. Plus, it will launch into GeForce NOW with GeForce NOW Ultimate subscribers getting access to all high-end RT visual features, including DLSS 3.5.

RTX Remix is designed to be a modding platform that enables the remastering of classic Direct X and Direct 9 games, and at Computex 2024 NVIDIA announced it was going open-source.

Remastered titles arrive with ray-tracing effects for a significant graphical improvement, NVIDIA DLSS 3.5 for a boost to performance, and various other upgrades. The remastering is achieved through the RTX Remix Toolkit app, which allows modders to make changes to game assets and materials. Additionally, NVIDIA announced it made RTX Remix Runtime open source last year, which gave modders the ability to expand game compatibility and rendering capabilities.

NVIDIA has now announced it will be making the RTX Remix Toolkit open source to further give customization power to modders. More specifically, modders will now be able to streamline how assets are changed and how scenes are altered. Additionally, NVIDIA has updated the list of supported file formats for RTX Remix's asset ingestor, while also adding to the RTX Remix's AI Texture Tools.

NVIDIA ACE technology first debuted at Computex last year with a demo showcasing an AI-powered digital human or NPC that you could interact with. The first demo took place in a futuristic bar. With your microphone, you could walk up to the AI NPC and interact with them using natural language. It is like talking to a character in an RPG, but without a dialogue wheel, you decide, choose, and ask what you want.

The demonstration was running on NVIDIA's powerful GPU hardware in the cloud at the time - the sort of data center rig created to run complex and sophisticated AI models. We've seen the technology evolve and improve in the past year. Still, this year's Computex 2024 NVIDIA ACE 'Covert Protocol' game tech demo (developed in collaboration with Inworld AI) will run locally on a GeForce RTX AI PC.

NVIDIA ACE technologies like Audio2Face and NVIDIA Riva automatic speech recognition can now run locally on devices with GeForce RTX hardware.

With AI capabilities coming to a range of new portable Copilot+ Windows 11 devices in the coming months, using hardware like the latest Arm-based Snapdragon X Elite processor - Microsoft has made it clear that to run its Copilot+ features locally, you'll need a processor with an NPU capable of 40 TOPS of AI performance, or Trillions of Operations Per Second.

Basically, a Windows PC with 40 TOPS of performance is AI ready. With AI features in Adobe, Blender, and other content creation tools, and even in PC games with tech like DLSS, a GeForce RTX graphics card offers a lot more AI power than 40 TOPS.

GeForce RTX owners have been using RTX AI-capable apps for a while now, which offer impressive tools and features. As part of its Computex 2024 presentation, NVIDIA has outlined the AI performance you can expect (in TOPS) for its entire GeForce RTX line-up across desktop and laptop GPUs. The current flagship GeForce RTX 4090 offers a whopping 'Up to 1321 TOPS' of AI performance - the equivalent of 33 Copilot+ AI PCs.