The year of Ryzen has turned out to be a very good year indeed. AMD’s new architecture only had some minor set backs to overcome, but now it’s poised to be the competitive champion of the PC market. I’m going to let you google the Threadripper reviews this time, because I’m going to focus on some incredible firsts that basically sum up how great this release is and why Threadripper is demolishing competition. For starters…. Holy Cats! Intel has dominated this chart for ages now, yet there’s a Threadripper at the very top!!! AMD is at the top of the charts!!!!! Wow! I’m sure Intel is working hard to dethrone that, but for the time being, AMD is at the top of the PassMark chart and that’s pretty incredible. However, shock and awe is just beginning….. Are we really seeing this!?! Was that Nvidia congratulating AMD!?!?!?!?!?! What’s going on? Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria! Did we ever see a day where Nvidia and AMD acted…. cordially to each other? But it didn’t end there…… AMD just high-fived Nvidia!!!!!! I’m not saying the future won’t have some sort of confrontation again, it’s just weird to see what what was thought as mortal enemies having such a great exchange. I remember during my sales years that I was told to essentially hate my competition. I think we can prove that you don’t have to hate someone to be competitive with them (all ...

Most driver releases are copy and paste ordeals, but this one is a bit bigger than that. Radeon continues to take feedback and make it reality, which is why their driver landscape is better than it’s ever been. With one great new feature and one huge throwback setting added in this update, you should definitely download this driver if you own compatible AMD GPUs. The new feature I want to point out is Enhanced Sync. This allows you to exceed your monitors refresh rate, but not have the tearing that typically comes with that. V-Sync is also supposed to help, but the input lag can be extremely noticeable, except with the possibility of Triple-Buffering, but not all games have that feature. This is similar to Nvidia’s Fast Sync, but the ability to decrease stutter below the refresh rate is something unique to Radeon. The throwback feature that I’m super glad is back is Color Saturation. All my life, I’ve used a tiny saturation boost to make the colors pop on all of my screens and remember discovering that I couldn’t find the setting anymore. Not only is it back, but all of the additional settings are completely incorporated into Radeon settings now. It turns out that AMD can bring in the new and the nostalgic feelings in one, simple driver update. It’s a bit surprising that it releases as a second driver version this month, but hey, I’m not complaining. Check out the release notes below because there is far more going on than the two...

Introduction Liquid cooling is all the rage with these kids today, but back in my day…. Ah who am I kidding? I’ve mostly experienced the ease and simplicity of CLC units myself. While I firmly believe that aluminum rads and integrated pumps have their clear performance limits, CLCs offer a simple, yet fairly safe alternative to air cooling while giving consumers a huge variety in aesthetic design. The only problem is that these units have primarily catered to cooling the CPU. NZXT is trying to change that with their Kraken G12 cooling bracket. Even though it isn’t a full closed loop cooler, it’s supposed to easily adapt the Kraken (an other) coolers to be used on a graphics card instead of your CPU. The concept is great and I suspect we’re getting closer to an age where extra cooling isn’t going to net near as much of a benefit on a 95W CPU as it is on a massive 300W GPU. Before we move on, let’s take a quick look at NZXT’s company values. 13 YEARS OF SUCCESSFUL SERVICE CORE VALUES These are the principles that inspire our creativity, drive our decision-making, and guide us in bringing you the best PC gaming products possible. PURSUE PASSION WE ARE A COMPANY OF GAMERS CREATING THE BEST PRODUCTS FOR GAMERS. REVEL IN THAT. FOSTER COMMUNITY WORK AMONG FRIENDS. LISTEN TO AND SUPPORT OUR USERS. BOTH ENSURE OUR CONTINUED SUCCESS. DEMONSTRATE COURAGE GO BEYOND WHAT’S EXPECTED. DO NOT COMPROMISE OR FEAR MAKING MISTAKES. BE HUMBLE...

Introduction It’s time to get back into the graphics foray and we have the perfect head-to-head match up to start it. While top-of-the-line cards are great to drool over, the vast majority of users are squarely in a budget realm when shopping for a GPU upgrade (more on that in the conclusion, however). AMD decided to focus more on this sector of buyers when they released Polaris, the GPU found in their flagship RX 400 and 500 series cards. Needless to say, we need to see how they measure up in gaming performance to see if Radeon is succeeding in this bracket. We also have to point out another new thing that’s happened with Polaris. Gigabyte has been doing graphics cards for a while, but they recently switched a lot of their gaming components to their Aorus branding. It started with motherboards and Nvidia based GPUs, but now they’ve include the RX 500 series with the Aorus line as well. I’ve been a huge fan of the new designs under Aorus so let’s find out if their GPUs hold up just as well. GIGABYTE shares the same passion for gaming as all gamers. Therefore we have extended the premium gaming brand – AORUS, the pinnacle of our hardware excellence, to provide a full spectrum of innovative gaming products that deliver the ultimate performance and exemplify PC’s capability of bringing gamers unprecedented delights. We continue to participate in global gaming events, connect with the community and actively listening to gamers’ desires in ...

As one would expect, a huge passion of PureOC is overclocking. Needless to say, we certainly have plans to get the absolute most our of AMD’s Ryzen CPUs, but the motherboard landscape is such that improvements and bug fixes are still in the works. In the meantime, we have a quick video showing what we’ve found out about the new architecture and we even have a strong recommendation on which company is doing the best with the motherboard design at this point. Check it out and stay tuned for more news and reviews! Once again, The Hardware Hound thanks EpicGear for sponsoring his channel. Check out PureOC’s reviews of the Defiant and MorphaX below. EpicGear Defiant MMS Mechanical Keyswitches Gaming Keyboard Review EpicGear Morpha X Modular Gaming Mouse Review

We have a couple of updates from AMD that seemed like a good idea to post. For starters, AMD released yet another driver update with improvements and fixes, living up to the promises of more releases. I’ve been really happy with the driver game over the last year or two. The other thing that might effect some of you is that Apple now has Radeon Pro 500 Series Graphics in the updated iMac to help with content creators. Check out the press releases below for full details! Radeon Pro 500 Series for iMac: Powerful Performance for Breathtaking 5K Computing — Brisk creative applications, smooth and responsive high-end gaming, and exquisite VR experiences all made possible by Radeon Pro 500 series graphics, available in Apple’s updated iMac— SUNNYVALE, Calif. — June 05, 2017 — Today AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) unveiled the high-performance, power-efficient Radeon™ Pro 500 series graphics, fueling beyond-UHD creativity in All-In-One computing. Available in the updated 21.5- and 27-inch iMac, Radeon Pro 500 series graphics enable extraordinary computing experiences, including stunning gaming, immersive VR on select models*, and fluid content creation with exceptional performance and support for GPU acceleration across a range of creative applications on the Mac platform, such as Adobe Premiere® Pro, After Effects, and Photoshop® and the Foundry Nuke, Mari and Modo. Moreover, Radeon Pro 500 series provides accelerated performance for the Radeon™ ProRender photorealistic ...

That title is fun right? Yesterday AMD had it’s Financial Analyst Day which turned out to be quite the product announcement. Zen was a pretty disruptive release and it seamed to prompt Intel to add more core options to their X299 platform releasing sometime this year. It looks like AMD doesn’t want to be outdone though, so they’re releasing a monstrous 16 core, 32 thread chip that will thoroughly compete with Intel’s enthusiast offerings, but there might be some slightly disappointing news from yesterday as well. Technical details are pretty scarce right now, but PCWorld as an excellent slide showing the major highlights of yesterdays event. We only know the core and thread count of Threadripper for the time being, but seeing as how it’s based on Zen architecture, it will most likely have super competitive TDP and multi-threading performance numbers. AMD also announced Epyc, which looks like it will have 32 cores and 64 threads. This is completely designed for the enterprise market though, since it appears to have lower clockspeeds as well. The other fun announcements were related to Vega, but gaming seems like a minor focus in comparison to the professional uses mentioned during the FAD. This where things get a bit murky. It’s looking more and more like AMD isn’t releasing a card that directly tackles the GTX 1080 Ti initially. While Vega, labeled Frontier Edition, has high levels of compute power, Raja had a straightforward menti...

AMD’s Ryzen release has been picked apart pretty well now, but it still stands as a solid release from team Red. Performance has been under the microscope so much, that power efficiency could get overlooked. Part of that is the fact that Intel doesn’t offer the wide range of variety in core counts that Ryzen has right now, but the other part is the fact that the wait for Intel competition has been long as well. However, with Skylake X about to release on the X299 platform, it strange to say that Intel looks like they’re struggling with power efficiency compared to AMD. WCCFTech has more info on the upcoming chips from Intel, including TDP ratings. I still can’t wrap my head on around the 7740K that is supposedly the “fastest” chip in the Kaby Lake lineup. When you go down the chart, the specs are identical accept for the socket type. Oh, and it somehow has a higher TDP in spite of having the same clockspeeds and L3 Cache. Moving on to the new i9 chips though, their TDPs range from 140W to 160W. This seems to show us two really important things about Intel. The great news is that Intel hasn’t been holding back single-thread performance for the purpose of squeezing the market dry. Their IPC architecture is truly a marvel. The bad news is that Intel could’ve been offering more cores to buyers way before now. Considering the flagship gives us 12 cores and 24 threads pretty easily, it’s hard to imagine why mainstream has bee...

The debate of AMD vs Intel vs Nvidia is an age old one that will probably never cease. As long as there’s innovation in the PC market, there’s bound to be a new top dog in the fight. Intel still has the IPC lead in processing and Nvidia is killing it in performance and energy efficiency with their GPUs. So why, when given a sizeable budget and asked by my friend to build a PC, would I go all out with an AMD base? Check out the video for the full answer because the Red side seems to be offering one of the best, non-compromised experiences we’ve ever seen from them. As always, remember that experiences vary and feel free to add your thoughts to the equation by heading over to the PureOC forums!

AMD has released driver 17.5.1 with performance improvements for “Prey.” Check out below for more about the driver, a link to the download page, and performance graphs. Radeon Graphics is the ultimate weapon in the fight for survival from day 0 in Bethesda’s new sci-fi thriller, ‘Prey’, with the Radeon Software Crimson ReLive 17.5.1 driver. Players gaming on Radeon will benefit from smooth gameplay as they shape the future of humanity on a Talos I space station overrun with alien mimics in a complex, lifelike environment. Here is our latest competitive performance at a glance: Up to 5% faster performance using Radeon Software 17.5.1 with Prey DirectX 11 on the 8GB Radeon RX 580 than with Radeon Software 17.4.4 Up to 78% faster performance using Radeon Software 17.5.1 with Prey DirectX 11 on 4GB Radeon RX 570 multi-GPU than with 4GB Radeon RX 570 single-GPU Up to 42% faster performance using Radeon Software 17.5.1 with Prey on the Radeon RX 570 (4GB) with Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050Ti (4GB) on NV 381.89 with DirectX 11 at 1920×1080 (1080p) For more details, please check out the performance charts below. You can download Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition 17.5.1 here for the best experience on Talos I with Radeon.

Introduction AMD has officially shaken up the CPU market in a great way with Ryzen. While I know some of you wanted to see Intel brought to their knees with every single benchmark, the reality is we now have a clear picture of what the strengths and weaknesses are in the industry. Single-thread performance has certainly improved well over the past 5 years, but quality measures and multi-threaded ceilings needed a shot in the arm. The Ryzen 7 series does an amazing job of opening up professional performance to a wider audience of PC buyers. That leaves us answering the question of exactly how Ryzen 5 fits in the market. In fact, we’re only going to worry about tackling that question in this review. I’ve been squeezing everything I can in trying to complete review content, but life is catching up with me and I have to slow my pace down slightly. There’s just too many fun things to test and not enough time to do it, at least in fast of a time frame as I would like. While this focus will be on Ryzen 5 performance, I’ll be adding two more reviews down the road with one focusing solely on the newly designed Wraith Coolers performance and another focused entirely on overclocking guides and performance for the Ryzen 7 and 5 lineups. Let’s begin with a look into the philosophy behind AMD’s CPU designs, then we’ll start looking at the details of the 1600X and 1500X.  

Wow! Biostar is getting pretty serious about their motherboards and if community response is any indication, they may have a huge win on their hands here. It looks like they released two versions sporting the mini ITX form factor in the X370GTN and B35oGTN. Based on the questions I’ve seen, it looks like several people will be excited to have a mini ITX board to pair with Ryzen and the fact that these belong to the Racing series is a nice bonus. The only mystery left is why Biostar chose to release two chipset versions of what appears to be the same board. http://www.biostar-usa.com/app/en-us/mb/result.php?model[]=879&model[]=878& If you follow the link above, you’ll notice I ran a comparison of the two boards. The only difference I can find is the chipset. Personally, I feel like several companies are missing out on the true opportunity of the X370 and B350 chipsets. B350 is like it’s bigger brother in almost every way, but it doesn’t multiple graphics card configurations. That’s the only major difference. What this means is that the B350 can offer quality overclocking and high end board features while still maintaining smaller form factors and better cost efficiency. In other words, X370 should only be on full ATX motherboards with the intention to Crossfire or SLI, while B350 should be more of the mainstream chipset, offering options for good overclocking, but also relegating itself to the mATX or mini ITX form factors. I’m su...

It looks like the GPU wars are about to heat up again! I know the big reveal we’re waiting for is Vega, but those of you wanting to see Polaris refined before jumping in have good news with the Release of the 500 Series. Based on a quick look at reviews, it looks like the Polaris refresh has boosted clockspeeds and smoothed out performance, but it does use a bit more power and still doesn’t have a ton of overclocking headroom. On the other hand, Radeon is doing a great job of showing off other beneficial features. In the slide presentation, Radeon Relive, Chill and FreeSync are all pointed out. Having used Relive to do some video capture myself, I can say it worked really well in helping me grab a section of gameplay for one of my videos. Chill definitely helped idle down my R9 290s and FreeSync is so affordable, it’s really hard for me not to recommend an AMD GPU based on the monitor pairings alone. There are a ton of details so check out the press release info below, not only for the 500 series but also the new driver, as well a gallery of the slide presentation. RadeonTM RX 500 Series: The Most Compelling Graphics Card Upgrade Yet Designed with the perfect balance of performance and features for the 9 out of 10 gamers that play on outdated graphics cards SUNNYVALE, Calif. — April 18, 2017 — Today AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) introduced the RadeonTM RX 500 series, a new line of graphics cards featuring a powerful combination of improved game performance, high...

AMD published its latest drivers, Radeon Software Driver 17.4.2 and Radeon Pro Software Driver 17.4.2, designed specifically for the release of Windows 10 Creators Update by Microsoft. Windows 10 empowers the creator in all of us to dream big. The Creators Update not only spurs creativity in 3D and mixed reality, letting professionals add upcoming Windows Mixed Reality apps to their workflows – but also enables every gamer to be a broadcaster while getting the most amount of performance out of their Radeon graphics card. The Creators Update has new features for gamers and professional alike, including: Gamers: Improved High Dynamic Range (HDR) Support: With new games supporting HDR and the future release of Radeon FreeSync 2 monitors, HDR is becoming a standard. Delivering lifelike gaming with vibrant colors, HDR shows more detail and realistic lighting effects without compromising shadows. With Windows 10 Creators Edition, HDR can now be enabled within all applications. Windows Game Mode: Designed to give the best performance and gaming consistency while using Windows 10, Game Mode allocates more CPU and GPU resources to the application in the foreground, leading to a 2 to 5 percent increase in performance. Games will also still be compatible when in full screen, borderless full screen or windowed mode. Professionals: More Robust Security: The Windows 10 creator update adds new tools designed to keep sensitive IP secure on your workstation, including the new Windows De...

MAN! They got me good!!! This could very well be one of the best implemented April Fool’s jokes I’ve been taken by, ever! I’ve been planning this article for five days!!!! Hats off to WCCFTech for a great joke, kinda mad at myself for getting had, and we’ll catch ya later. =D (Here’s an excerpt of what I had begun writing…) “A few days back, some slides for AMD’s upcoming Vega architecture leaked, pointing to a few interesting details about what to expect. Needless to say, a lot of this looks really exciting, especially considering that Nvidia has offered strong competition on their end. The slide deck is posted below, but I want to point out a few details on what I’m expecting from the info that was presented. The first informational slide points to 2x faster performance than the competition. That is one heck of a bold claim and one that can easily over-hype what’s actually going on. If I was to guess based on the game titles presented, this is probably performance related specifically to the Vulkan API……” http://wccftech.com/vega-teaser-slides-leak-nda/