ASRock Launches Passively Cooled Radeon RX 7900 XTX & XT Cards for Servers
As sales of GPU-based AI accelerators remain as strong as ever, the immense demand for these cards has led to some server builders going off the beaten path in order to get the hardware they want at a lower price. While both NVIDIA and AMD offer official card configurations for servers, the correspondingly high price of these cards makes them a significant financial outlay that some customers either can't afford, or don't want to pay.
Instead, these groups have been turning to buying up consumer graphics cards, which although they come with additional limitations, are also a fraction of the cost of a "proper" server card. And this week, ASRock has removed another one of those limitations for would-be AMD Radeon users, with the introduction of a set of compact, passively-cooled Radeon RX 7900 XTX and RX 7900 XT video cards that are designed to go in servers.
Without any doubts, ASRock's AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX Passive 24GB and AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT Passive 20GB AIBs are indeed graphics cards with four display outputs and based on the Navi 31 graphics processor (with 6144 and 5376 stream processors, respectively), so they can output graphics and work both with games and professional applications. And with TGPs of 355W and 315W respectively, these cards aren't underclocked in any way compared to traditional desktop cards. However, unlike a typical desktop card, the cooler on these cards is a dual-slot heatsink without any kind of fan attached, which is meant to be used with high-airflow forced-air cooling.
All-told, ASRock's passive cooler is pretty capable, as well; it's not just a simple aluminum heatsink. Beneath the fins, ASRock has gone with a vapor chamber and multiple heat pipes to distribute heat to the rest of the sink. Even with forced-air cooling in racked servers, the heatsink itself still needs to be efficient to keep a 300W+ card cool with only a dual-slot cooler – and especially so when upwards of four of these cards are installed side-by-side with each other. To make the boards even more server friendly, these cards are equipped with a 12V-2×6 power connector, a first for the Radeon RX 7900 series, simplifying installation by reducing cable clutter.
Driving the demand for these cards in particular is their memory configuration. With 24GB for the 7900 XTX and 20GB for the 7900 XT is half as much (or less) memory than can be found on AMD and NVIDIA's high-end professional and server cards, AMD is the only vendor offering consumer cards with this much memory for less than $1000. So for a memory-intensive AI inference cluster built on a low budget, the cheapest 24GB card available starts looking like a tantalizing option.
Otherwise, ASRock's Radeon RX 7900 Passive cards distinguish themselves from AMD's formal professional and server cards by what they're not capable of doing: namely, remote professional graphics or other applications that need things like GPU partitioning. These parts look to be aimed at one application only, artificial intelligence, and are meant to process huge amounts of data. For this purpose, their passive coolers will do the job and the lack of ProViz or VDI-oriented drives ensure that AMD will leave these lucrative markets for itself.
GPUs
Posted by The Techinical Support
TSMC: Performance and Yields of 2nm on Track, Mass Production To Start In 2025 
In addition to revealing its roadmap and plans concerning its current leading-edge process technologies, TSMC also shared progress of its N2 node as part of its Symposiums 2024. The company's first 2nm-class fabrication node, and predominantly featuring gate-all-around transistors, according to TSMC N2 has almost achieved its target performance and yield goals, which places it on track to enter high-volume manufacturing in the second half of 2025.
TSMC states that 'N2 development is well on track and N2P is next.' In particular, gate-all-around nanosheet devices currently achieve over 90% of their expected performance, whereas yields of 256 Mb SRAM (32 MB) devices already exceeds 80%, depending on the batch. All of this for a node that is over a year away from mass production.
Meanwhile, average yield of a 256 Mb SRAM was around 70% as of March, 2024, up from around 35% in April, 2023. Device performance has also been improving with higher frequencies being achieved while keeping power consumption in check.
Chip designer interest towards TSMC's first 2nm-class gate-all-around nanosheet transistor-based technology is significant, too. The number of new tape-outs (NTOs) in the first year of N2 is over two-times higher than it was for N5. Though with that said, given TSMC's close working relationship with a handful of high-volume vendors – most notably Appe – NTOs can be a very misleading figure since the first year of a new node at TSMC is capacity constrained, and consequently the bulk of that capacity goes to TSMC's priority partners.
Meanwhile, there were considerably more N5 tapeouts in its second year (some where N5P, of course) and N2 promises to have 2.6X more NTOs in its second year. So the node indeed looks quite promising. In fact, based on TSMC's slides (which we're unfortunately not able to republish), N2 is more popular than N3 in terms of NTOs both in the first and the second years of existence.
When it comes to the second year of N2, in the second half of 2026 TSMC plans to roll out its N2P technology, which promises additional performance and power benefits. N2P is expected to improve frequency by 15% - 20%, reduce power consumption by 30% - 40%, and increase chip density by over 1.15 times compared to N3E, significant benefits to move to all-new GAA nanosheet transistors.
Finally, for those companies that need the best in performance, power, and density, TSMC is poised to offer their A16 process in 2026. That node will also bring in backside power delivery, which will add costs, but is expected to greatly improve performance efficiency and scaling.
Semiconductors
The AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 Review: Unleashing Zen 5 and RDNA 3.5 Into Notebooks During the opening keynote delivered by AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su at Computex 2024, AMD finally lifted the lid on their highly-anticipated Zen 5 microarchitecture. The backbone for the next couple of years of everything CPU at AMD, the company unveiled their plans to bring Zen 5 in the consumer market, announcing both their next-generation mobile and desktop products at the same time. With a tight schedule that will see both platforms launch within weeks of each other, today AMD is taking their first step with the launch of the Ryzen AI 300 series – codenamed Strix Point – their new Zen 5-powered mobile SoC.
The latest and greatest from AMD, the Strix Point brings significant architectural improvements across AMD's entire IP portfolio. Headlining the chip, of course, is the company's new Zen 5 CPU microarchitecture, which is taking multiple steps to improve on CPU performance without the benefits of big clockspeed gains. And reflecting the industry's current heavy emphasis on AI performance, Strix Point also includes the latest XDNA 2-based NPU, which boasts up to 50 TOPS of performance. Other improvements include an upgraded integrated graphics processor, with AMD moving to the RDNA 3.5 graphics architecture.
The architectural updates in Strix Point are also seeing AMD opt for a heterogenous CPU design from the very start, incorporating both performance and efficiency cores as a means of offering better overall performance in power-constrained devices. AMD first introduced their compact Zen cores in the middle of the Zen 4 generation, and while they made it into products such as AMD's small-die Phoenix 2 platform, this is the first time AMD's flagship mobile silicon has included them as well. And while this change is going to be transparent from a user perspective, under the hood it represents an important improvement in CPU design. As a result, all Ryzen AI 300 chips are going to include a mix of not only AMD's (mostly) full-fat Zen 5 CPU cores, but also their compact Zen 5c cores, boosting the chips' total CPU core counts and performance in multi-threaded situations.
For today's launch, the AMD Ryzen AI 300 series will consist of just three SKUs: the flagship Ryzen AI 9 HX 375, with 12 CPU cores, as well as the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 and Ryzen 9 365, with 12 and 10 cores respectively. All three SoCs combine both the regular Zen 5 core with the more compact Zen 5c cores to make up the CPU cluster, and are paired with a powerful Raden 890M/880M GPU, and a XDNA 2-based NPU.
As the successor to the Zen 4-based Phoenix/Hawk Point, the AMD Ryzen AI 300 series is targeting a diverse and active notebook market that has become the largest segment of the PC industry overall. And it is telling that, for the first time in the Zen era, AMD is launching their mobile chips first – if only by days – rather than their typical desktop-first launch. It's both a reflection on how the PC industry has changed over the years, and how AMD has continued to iterate and improve upon its mobile chips; this is as close to mobile-first as the company has ever been.
Getting down to business, for our review of the Ryzen AI 300 series, we are taking a look at ASUS's Zenbook S 16 (2024), a 16-inch laptop that's equipped with AMD's Ryzen AI 9 HX 370. The sightly more modest Ryzen features four Zen 5 CPU cores and 8 Zen 5c CPU cores, as well as AMD's latest RDNA 3.5 Radeon 890M integrated graphics. Overall, the HX 370 has a configurable TDP of between 15 and 54 W, depending on the desired notebook configuration.
Fleshing out the rest of the Zenbook S 16, ASUS has equipped the laptop with a bevy of features and technologies fitting for a flagship Ryzen notebook. The centerpiece of the laptop is a Lumina OLED 16-inch display, with a resolution of up to 2880 x 1800 and a variable 120 Hz refresh rate. Meanwhile, inside the Zenbook S 16 is 32 GB of LPDDR5 memory and a 1 TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD. And while this is a 16-inch class notebook, ASUS has still designed it with an emphasis on portability, leading to the Zenbook S 16 coming in at 1.1 cm thick, and weighting 1.5 kg. That petite design also means ASUS has configured the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 chip inside rather conservatively: out of the box, the chip runs at a TDP of just 17 Watts.
CPUs
TSMC: Performance and Yields of 2nm on Track, Mass Production To Start In 2025
In addition to revealing its roadmap and plans concerning its current leading-edge process technologies, TSMC also shared progress of its N2 node as part of its Symposiums 2024. The company's first 2nm-class fabrication node, and predominantly featuring gate-all-around transistors, according to TSMC N2 has almost achieved its target performance and yield goals, which places it on track to enter high-volume manufacturing in the second half of 2025.
TSMC states that 'N2 development is well on track and N2P is next.' In particular, gate-all-around nanosheet devices currently achieve over 90% of their expected performance, whereas yields of 256 Mb SRAM (32 MB) devices already exceeds 80%, depending on the batch. All of this for a node that is over a year away from mass production.
Meanwhile, average yield of a 256 Mb SRAM was around 70% as of March, 2024, up from around 35% in April, 2023. Device performance has also been improving with higher frequencies being achieved while keeping power consumption in check.
Chip designer interest towards TSMC's first 2nm-class gate-all-around nanosheet transistor-based technology is significant, too. The number of new tape-outs (NTOs) in the first year of N2 is over two-times higher than it was for N5. Though with that said, given TSMC's close working relationship with a handful of high-volume vendors – most notably Appe – NTOs can be a very misleading figure since the first year of a new node at TSMC is capacity constrained, and consequently the bulk of that capacity goes to TSMC's priority partners.
Meanwhile, there were considerably more N5 tapeouts in its second year (some where N5P, of course) and N2 promises to have 2.6X more NTOs in its second year. So the node indeed looks quite promising. In fact, based on TSMC's slides (which we're unfortunately not able to republish), N2 is more popular than N3 in terms of NTOs both in the first and the second years of existence.
When it comes to the second year of N2, in the second half of 2026 TSMC plans to roll out its N2P technology, which promises additional performance and power benefits. N2P is expected to improve frequency by 15% - 20%, reduce power consumption by 30% - 40%, and increase chip density by over 1.15 times compared to N3E, significant benefits to move to all-new GAA nanosheet transistors.
Finally, for those companies that need the best in performance, power, and density, TSMC is poised to offer their A16 process in 2026. That node will also bring in backside power delivery, which will add costs, but is expected to greatly improve performance efficiency and scaling.
Semiconductors
The AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 Review: Unleashing Zen 5 and RDNA 3.5 Into Notebooks During the opening keynote delivered by AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su at Computex 2024, AMD finally lifted the lid on their highly-anticipated Zen 5 microarchitecture. The backbone for the next couple of years of everything CPU at AMD, the company unveiled their plans to bring Zen 5 in the consumer market, announcing both their next-generation mobile and desktop products at the same time. With a tight schedule that will see both platforms launch within weeks of each other, today AMD is taking their first step with the launch of the Ryzen AI 300 series – codenamed Strix Point – their new Zen 5-powered mobile SoC.
The latest and greatest from AMD, the Strix Point brings significant architectural improvements across AMD's entire IP portfolio. Headlining the chip, of course, is the company's new Zen 5 CPU microarchitecture, which is taking multiple steps to improve on CPU performance without the benefits of big clockspeed gains. And reflecting the industry's current heavy emphasis on AI performance, Strix Point also includes the latest XDNA 2-based NPU, which boasts up to 50 TOPS of performance. Other improvements include an upgraded integrated graphics processor, with AMD moving to the RDNA 3.5 graphics architecture.
The architectural updates in Strix Point are also seeing AMD opt for a heterogenous CPU design from the very start, incorporating both performance and efficiency cores as a means of offering better overall performance in power-constrained devices. AMD first introduced their compact Zen cores in the middle of the Zen 4 generation, and while they made it into products such as AMD's small-die Phoenix 2 platform, this is the first time AMD's flagship mobile silicon has included them as well. And while this change is going to be transparent from a user perspective, under the hood it represents an important improvement in CPU design. As a result, all Ryzen AI 300 chips are going to include a mix of not only AMD's (mostly) full-fat Zen 5 CPU cores, but also their compact Zen 5c cores, boosting the chips' total CPU core counts and performance in multi-threaded situations.
For today's launch, the AMD Ryzen AI 300 series will consist of just three SKUs: the flagship Ryzen AI 9 HX 375, with 12 CPU cores, as well as the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 and Ryzen 9 365, with 12 and 10 cores respectively. All three SoCs combine both the regular Zen 5 core with the more compact Zen 5c cores to make up the CPU cluster, and are paired with a powerful Raden 890M/880M GPU, and a XDNA 2-based NPU.
As the successor to the Zen 4-based Phoenix/Hawk Point, the AMD Ryzen AI 300 series is targeting a diverse and active notebook market that has become the largest segment of the PC industry overall. And it is telling that, for the first time in the Zen era, AMD is launching their mobile chips first – if only by days – rather than their typical desktop-first launch. It's both a reflection on how the PC industry has changed over the years, and how AMD has continued to iterate and improve upon its mobile chips; this is as close to mobile-first as the company has ever been.
Getting down to business, for our review of the Ryzen AI 300 series, we are taking a look at ASUS's Zenbook S 16 (2024), a 16-inch laptop that's equipped with AMD's Ryzen AI 9 HX 370. The sightly more modest Ryzen features four Zen 5 CPU cores and 8 Zen 5c CPU cores, as well as AMD's latest RDNA 3.5 Radeon 890M integrated graphics. Overall, the HX 370 has a configurable TDP of between 15 and 54 W, depending on the desired notebook configuration.
Fleshing out the rest of the Zenbook S 16, ASUS has equipped the laptop with a bevy of features and technologies fitting for a flagship Ryzen notebook. The centerpiece of the laptop is a Lumina OLED 16-inch display, with a resolution of up to 2880 x 1800 and a variable 120 Hz refresh rate. Meanwhile, inside the Zenbook S 16 is 32 GB of LPDDR5 memory and a 1 TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD. And while this is a 16-inch class notebook, ASUS has still designed it with an emphasis on portability, leading to the Zenbook S 16 coming in at 1.1 cm thick, and weighting 1.5 kg. That petite design also means ASUS has configured the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 chip inside rather conservatively: out of the box, the chip runs at a TDP of just 17 Watts.
CPUs
![](https://twitter.com/share?url=https://compbuddey.blogspot.com/2024/08/asrock-launches-passively-cooled-radeon_4.html&text=ASRock Launches Passively Cooled Radeon RX 7900 XTX & XT Cards for Servers <p align="center"><a href="https://www.anandtech.com/show/21491/asrock-launches-passively-cooled-radeon-rx-7900-xtx-and-xt"><img src="https://images.anandtech.com/doci/21491/ASRock-Launches-AMD-Radeon--RX-790-0-Passive-Series-Graphics-Cards-678_575px.jpg" alt="" /></a></p><p><p>As sales of GPU-based AI accelerators remain as strong as ever, the immense demand for these cards has led to some server builders going off the beaten path in order to get the hardware they want at a lower price. While both NVIDIA and AMD offer official card configurations for servers, the correspondingly high price of these cards makes them a significant financial outlay that some customers either can't afford, or don't want to pay.</p>
<p>Instead, these groups have been turning to buying up consumer graphics cards, which although they come with additional limitations, are also a fraction of the cost of a "proper" server card. And this week, ASRock has removed another one of those limitations for would-be AMD Radeon users, with the introduction of a set of compact, passively-cooled Radeon RX 7900 XTX and RX 7900 XT video cards that are designed to go in servers.</p>
<p>Without any doubts, ASRock's <a href="https://www.asrock.com/Graphics-Card/AMD/Radeon%20RX%207900%20XTX%20Passive%2024GB/">AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX Passive 24GB</a> and <a href="https://www.asrock.com/Graphics-Card/AMD/Radeon%20RX%207900%20XT%20Passive%2020GB/">AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT Passive 20GB</a> AIBs are indeed <em>graphics</em> cards with four display outputs and based on the Navi 31 graphics processor (with 6144 and 5376 stream processors, respectively), so they can output graphics and work both with games and professional applications. And with TGPs of 355W and 315W respectively, these cards aren't underclocked in any way compared to traditional desktop cards. However, unlike a typical desktop card, the cooler on these cards is a dual-slot heatsink without any kind of fan attached, which is meant to be used with high-airflow forced-air cooling.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.anandtech.com/show/21491/asrock-launches-passively-cooled-radeon-rx-7900-xtx-and-xt"><img alt="" src="https://images.anandtech.com/doci/21491/ASRock-Launches-AMD-Radeon--RX-790-0-Passive-1_575px.jpg" /></a></p>
<p>All-told, ASRock's passive cooler is pretty capable, as well; it's not just a simple aluminum heatsink. Beneath the fins, ASRock has gone with a vapor chamber and multiple heat pipes to distribute heat to the rest of the sink. Even with forced-air cooling in racked servers, the heatsink itself still needs to be efficient to keep a 300W+ card cool with only a dual-slot cooler – and especially so when upwards of four of these cards are installed side-by-side with each other. To make the boards even more server friendly, these cards are equipped with a 12V-2×6 power connector, a first for the Radeon RX 7900 series, simplifying installation by reducing cable clutter.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.anandtech.com/show/21491/asrock-launches-passively-cooled-radeon-rx-7900-xtx-and-xt"><img alt="" src="https://images.anandtech.com/doci/21491/ASRock-Launches-AMD-Radeon--RX-790-0-Passive-2_575px.jpg" /></a></p>
<p>Driving the demand for these cards in particular is their memory configuration. With 24GB for the 7900 XTX and 20GB for the 7900 XT is half as much (or less) memory than can be found on AMD and NVIDIA's high-end professional and server cards, AMD is the only vendor offering consumer cards with this much memory for less than $1000. So for a memory-intensive AI inference cluster built on a low budget, the cheapest 24GB card available starts looking like a tantalizing option.</p>
<p>Otherwise, ASRock's Radeon RX 7900 Passive cards distinguish themselves from AMD's formal professional and server cards by what they're <em>not</em> capable of doing: namely, remote professional graphics or other applications that need things like GPU partitioning. These parts look to be aimed at one application only, artificial intelligence, and are meant to process huge amounts of data. For this purpose, their passive coolers will do the job and the lack of ProViz or VDI-oriented drives ensure that AMD will leave these lucrative markets for itself.</p>
</p> GPUs){kind=link}
![](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https://compbuddey.blogspot.com/2024/08/asrock-launches-passively-cooled-radeon_4.html&media=https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_vSoSqJfeqqek7nztnovyDLFDGTPc9fGGTI9PL-H_mbIbHVLBwT7bdEyyeGDlXesJVGl984zsRsX22R5likJa-trszirB9PM8LMFMtiZcVn1D3y9IhQeLw4aQRwwFWmfjFdgdA3dX37m92iI57VBqIldmQSdIFWH2BOjsL5sRlgvPKvrrS8llBFV33tLoZymUmcc5ZG4m6wjJuXjQ&description=ASRock Launches Passively Cooled Radeon RX 7900 XTX & XT Cards for Servers <p align="center"><a href="https://www.anandtech.com/show/21491/asrock-launches-passively-cooled-radeon-rx-7900-xtx-and-xt"><img src="https://images.anandtech.com/doci/21491/ASRock-Launches-AMD-Radeon--RX-790-0-Passive-Series-Graphics-Cards-678_575px.jpg" alt="" /></a></p><p><p>As sales of GPU-based AI accelerators remain as strong as ever, the immense demand for these cards has led to some server builders going off the beaten path in order to get the hardware they want at a lower price. While both NVIDIA and AMD offer official card configurations for servers, the correspondingly high price of these cards makes them a significant financial outlay that some customers either can't afford, or don't want to pay.</p>
<p>Instead, these groups have been turning to buying up consumer graphics cards, which although they come with additional limitations, are also a fraction of the cost of a "proper" server card. And this week, ASRock has removed another one of those limitations for would-be AMD Radeon users, with the introduction of a set of compact, passively-cooled Radeon RX 7900 XTX and RX 7900 XT video cards that are designed to go in servers.</p>
<p>Without any doubts, ASRock's <a href="https://www.asrock.com/Graphics-Card/AMD/Radeon%20RX%207900%20XTX%20Passive%2024GB/">AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX Passive 24GB</a> and <a href="https://www.asrock.com/Graphics-Card/AMD/Radeon%20RX%207900%20XT%20Passive%2020GB/">AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT Passive 20GB</a> AIBs are indeed <em>graphics</em> cards with four display outputs and based on the Navi 31 graphics processor (with 6144 and 5376 stream processors, respectively), so they can output graphics and work both with games and professional applications. And with TGPs of 355W and 315W respectively, these cards aren't underclocked in any way compared to traditional desktop cards. However, unlike a typical desktop card, the cooler on these cards is a dual-slot heatsink without any kind of fan attached, which is meant to be used with high-airflow forced-air cooling.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.anandtech.com/show/21491/asrock-launches-passively-cooled-radeon-rx-7900-xtx-and-xt"><img alt="" src="https://images.anandtech.com/doci/21491/ASRock-Launches-AMD-Radeon--RX-790-0-Passive-1_575px.jpg" /></a></p>
<p>All-told, ASRock's passive cooler is pretty capable, as well; it's not just a simple aluminum heatsink. Beneath the fins, ASRock has gone with a vapor chamber and multiple heat pipes to distribute heat to the rest of the sink. Even with forced-air cooling in racked servers, the heatsink itself still needs to be efficient to keep a 300W+ card cool with only a dual-slot cooler – and especially so when upwards of four of these cards are installed side-by-side with each other. To make the boards even more server friendly, these cards are equipped with a 12V-2×6 power connector, a first for the Radeon RX 7900 series, simplifying installation by reducing cable clutter.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.anandtech.com/show/21491/asrock-launches-passively-cooled-radeon-rx-7900-xtx-and-xt"><img alt="" src="https://images.anandtech.com/doci/21491/ASRock-Launches-AMD-Radeon--RX-790-0-Passive-2_575px.jpg" /></a></p>
<p>Driving the demand for these cards in particular is their memory configuration. With 24GB for the 7900 XTX and 20GB for the 7900 XT is half as much (or less) memory than can be found on AMD and NVIDIA's high-end professional and server cards, AMD is the only vendor offering consumer cards with this much memory for less than $1000. So for a memory-intensive AI inference cluster built on a low budget, the cheapest 24GB card available starts looking like a tantalizing option.</p>
<p>Otherwise, ASRock's Radeon RX 7900 Passive cards distinguish themselves from AMD's formal professional and server cards by what they're <em>not</em> capable of doing: namely, remote professional graphics or other applications that need things like GPU partitioning. These parts look to be aimed at one application only, artificial intelligence, and are meant to process huge amounts of data. For this purpose, their passive coolers will do the job and the lack of ProViz or VDI-oriented drives ensure that AMD will leave these lucrative markets for itself.</p>
</p> GPUs){kind=link}
![](https://web.whatsapp.com/send?text=ASRock Launches Passively Cooled Radeon RX 7900 XTX & XT Cards for Servers <p align="center"><a href="https://www.anandtech.com/show/21491/asrock-launches-passively-cooled-radeon-rx-7900-xtx-and-xt"><img src="https://images.anandtech.com/doci/21491/ASRock-Launches-AMD-Radeon--RX-790-0-Passive-Series-Graphics-Cards-678_575px.jpg" alt="" /></a></p><p><p>As sales of GPU-based AI accelerators remain as strong as ever, the immense demand for these cards has led to some server builders going off the beaten path in order to get the hardware they want at a lower price. While both NVIDIA and AMD offer official card configurations for servers, the correspondingly high price of these cards makes them a significant financial outlay that some customers either can't afford, or don't want to pay.</p>
<p>Instead, these groups have been turning to buying up consumer graphics cards, which although they come with additional limitations, are also a fraction of the cost of a "proper" server card. And this week, ASRock has removed another one of those limitations for would-be AMD Radeon users, with the introduction of a set of compact, passively-cooled Radeon RX 7900 XTX and RX 7900 XT video cards that are designed to go in servers.</p>
<p>Without any doubts, ASRock's <a href="https://www.asrock.com/Graphics-Card/AMD/Radeon%20RX%207900%20XTX%20Passive%2024GB/">AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX Passive 24GB</a> and <a href="https://www.asrock.com/Graphics-Card/AMD/Radeon%20RX%207900%20XT%20Passive%2020GB/">AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT Passive 20GB</a> AIBs are indeed <em>graphics</em> cards with four display outputs and based on the Navi 31 graphics processor (with 6144 and 5376 stream processors, respectively), so they can output graphics and work both with games and professional applications. And with TGPs of 355W and 315W respectively, these cards aren't underclocked in any way compared to traditional desktop cards. However, unlike a typical desktop card, the cooler on these cards is a dual-slot heatsink without any kind of fan attached, which is meant to be used with high-airflow forced-air cooling.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.anandtech.com/show/21491/asrock-launches-passively-cooled-radeon-rx-7900-xtx-and-xt"><img alt="" src="https://images.anandtech.com/doci/21491/ASRock-Launches-AMD-Radeon--RX-790-0-Passive-1_575px.jpg" /></a></p>
<p>All-told, ASRock's passive cooler is pretty capable, as well; it's not just a simple aluminum heatsink. Beneath the fins, ASRock has gone with a vapor chamber and multiple heat pipes to distribute heat to the rest of the sink. Even with forced-air cooling in racked servers, the heatsink itself still needs to be efficient to keep a 300W+ card cool with only a dual-slot cooler – and especially so when upwards of four of these cards are installed side-by-side with each other. To make the boards even more server friendly, these cards are equipped with a 12V-2×6 power connector, a first for the Radeon RX 7900 series, simplifying installation by reducing cable clutter.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.anandtech.com/show/21491/asrock-launches-passively-cooled-radeon-rx-7900-xtx-and-xt"><img alt="" src="https://images.anandtech.com/doci/21491/ASRock-Launches-AMD-Radeon--RX-790-0-Passive-2_575px.jpg" /></a></p>
<p>Driving the demand for these cards in particular is their memory configuration. With 24GB for the 7900 XTX and 20GB for the 7900 XT is half as much (or less) memory than can be found on AMD and NVIDIA's high-end professional and server cards, AMD is the only vendor offering consumer cards with this much memory for less than $1000. So for a memory-intensive AI inference cluster built on a low budget, the cheapest 24GB card available starts looking like a tantalizing option.</p>
<p>Otherwise, ASRock's Radeon RX 7900 Passive cards distinguish themselves from AMD's formal professional and server cards by what they're <em>not</em> capable of doing: namely, remote professional graphics or other applications that need things like GPU partitioning. These parts look to be aimed at one application only, artificial intelligence, and are meant to process huge amounts of data. For this purpose, their passive coolers will do the job and the lack of ProViz or VDI-oriented drives ensure that AMD will leave these lucrative markets for itself.</p>
</p> GPUs | https://compbuddey.blogspot.com/2024/08/asrock-launches-passively-cooled-radeon_4.html){kind=link}
![](mailto:?subject=ASRock Launches Passively Cooled Radeon RX 7900 XTX & XT Cards for Servers <p align="center"><a href="https://www.anandtech.com/show/21491/asrock-launches-passively-cooled-radeon-rx-7900-xtx-and-xt"><img src="https://images.anandtech.com/doci/21491/ASRock-Launches-AMD-Radeon--RX-790-0-Passive-Series-Graphics-Cards-678_575px.jpg" alt="" /></a></p><p><p>As sales of GPU-based AI accelerators remain as strong as ever, the immense demand for these cards has led to some server builders going off the beaten path in order to get the hardware they want at a lower price. While both NVIDIA and AMD offer official card configurations for servers, the correspondingly high price of these cards makes them a significant financial outlay that some customers either can't afford, or don't want to pay.</p>
<p>Instead, these groups have been turning to buying up consumer graphics cards, which although they come with additional limitations, are also a fraction of the cost of a "proper" server card. And this week, ASRock has removed another one of those limitations for would-be AMD Radeon users, with the introduction of a set of compact, passively-cooled Radeon RX 7900 XTX and RX 7900 XT video cards that are designed to go in servers.</p>
<p>Without any doubts, ASRock's <a href="https://www.asrock.com/Graphics-Card/AMD/Radeon%20RX%207900%20XTX%20Passive%2024GB/">AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX Passive 24GB</a> and <a href="https://www.asrock.com/Graphics-Card/AMD/Radeon%20RX%207900%20XT%20Passive%2020GB/">AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT Passive 20GB</a> AIBs are indeed <em>graphics</em> cards with four display outputs and based on the Navi 31 graphics processor (with 6144 and 5376 stream processors, respectively), so they can output graphics and work both with games and professional applications. And with TGPs of 355W and 315W respectively, these cards aren't underclocked in any way compared to traditional desktop cards. However, unlike a typical desktop card, the cooler on these cards is a dual-slot heatsink without any kind of fan attached, which is meant to be used with high-airflow forced-air cooling.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.anandtech.com/show/21491/asrock-launches-passively-cooled-radeon-rx-7900-xtx-and-xt"><img alt="" src="https://images.anandtech.com/doci/21491/ASRock-Launches-AMD-Radeon--RX-790-0-Passive-1_575px.jpg" /></a></p>
<p>All-told, ASRock's passive cooler is pretty capable, as well; it's not just a simple aluminum heatsink. Beneath the fins, ASRock has gone with a vapor chamber and multiple heat pipes to distribute heat to the rest of the sink. Even with forced-air cooling in racked servers, the heatsink itself still needs to be efficient to keep a 300W+ card cool with only a dual-slot cooler – and especially so when upwards of four of these cards are installed side-by-side with each other. To make the boards even more server friendly, these cards are equipped with a 12V-2×6 power connector, a first for the Radeon RX 7900 series, simplifying installation by reducing cable clutter.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.anandtech.com/show/21491/asrock-launches-passively-cooled-radeon-rx-7900-xtx-and-xt"><img alt="" src="https://images.anandtech.com/doci/21491/ASRock-Launches-AMD-Radeon--RX-790-0-Passive-2_575px.jpg" /></a></p>
<p>Driving the demand for these cards in particular is their memory configuration. With 24GB for the 7900 XTX and 20GB for the 7900 XT is half as much (or less) memory than can be found on AMD and NVIDIA's high-end professional and server cards, AMD is the only vendor offering consumer cards with this much memory for less than $1000. So for a memory-intensive AI inference cluster built on a low budget, the cheapest 24GB card available starts looking like a tantalizing option.</p>
<p>Otherwise, ASRock's Radeon RX 7900 Passive cards distinguish themselves from AMD's formal professional and server cards by what they're <em>not</em> capable of doing: namely, remote professional graphics or other applications that need things like GPU partitioning. These parts look to be aimed at one application only, artificial intelligence, and are meant to process huge amounts of data. For this purpose, their passive coolers will do the job and the lack of ProViz or VDI-oriented drives ensure that AMD will leave these lucrative markets for itself.</p>
</p> GPUs&body=https://compbuddey.blogspot.com/2024/08/asrock-launches-passively-cooled-radeon_4.html){kind=link}
Realtek Outlines SSD Controller Roadmap: High-End PCIe 5.0 x4 Platform in the Works 
While Realtek is best known in the enthusiast space for for its peripheral controllers such as audio codecs and network controllers, the company also has a small-but-respectable SSD controller business that tends to fly under the radar due to its focus on entry-level and mainstream drives. But Realtek's stature in the SSD space is on the rise, as the company is not only planning new PCIe Gen5 SSD controllers, but also their first high-end, DRAM-equipped SSD controller.
For this year's Computex trade show, Realtek laid out a new SSD controller roadmap that calls for the company to release a trio of new SSD controllers over the next couple of years. First up is a new four-channel entry-level PCIe 4.0 controller, the RTS5776DL, which will be joined a bit later by a PCIe 5.0 variant, the RTS5781DL. But most interesting on Realtek's new roadmap is the final chip being planned: the eight-channel, DRAM-equipped RTS5782, which would be the company's first high-end SSD controller, capable of hitting sequential read rates as high as 14GB/second.
| Realtek NVMe SSD Controller Comparison | |||||||||
| RTS5782 | RTS5781DL | RTS5776DL | RTS5772DL | RTS5766DL | |||||
| Market Segment | High-End | Mainstream | Entry-Level | ||||||
| Error Correction | 4K LDPC | 2K LDPC | |||||||
| DRAM | DDR4, LPDDR4(X) | No | No | No | No | ||||
| Host Interface | PCIe 5.0 x4 | PCIe 5.0 x4 | PCIe 4.0 x4 | PCIe 4.0 x4 | PCIe 3.0 x4 | ||||
| NVMe Version | NVMe 2.0 | NVMe 2.0 | NVMe 2.0 | NVMe 1.4 | NVMe 1.4 | ||||
| NAND Channels, Interface Speed | 8 ch, 3600 MT/s |
4 ch, 3600 MT/s |
4 ch, 3600 MT/s |
8 ch, 1600 MT/s |
4 ch, 1200 MT/s |
||||
| Sequential Read | 14 GB/s | 10 GB/s | 7.4 GB/s | 6 GB/s | 3.2 GB/s | ||||
| Sequential Write | 12 GB/s | 10 GB/s | 7.4 GB/s | 6 GB/s | 2.2 GB/s | ||||
| 4KB Random Read IOPS | 2500k | 1400k | 1200k | - | - | ||||
| 4KB Random Write IOPS | 2500k | 1400k | 1200k | - | - | ||||
Diving a bit deeper into Realtek's roadmap, the RTS5776DL is traditional DRAM-less PCIe Gen4 x4 controller with four NAND chann... SSDs
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TSMC: Performance and Yields of 2nm on Track, Mass Production To Start In 2025
In addition to revealing its roadmap and plans concerning its current leading-edge process technologies, TSMC also shared progress of its N2 node as part of its Symposiums 2024. The company's first 2nm-class fabrication node, and predominantly featuring gate-all-around transistors, according to TSMC N2 has almost achieved its target performance and yield goals, which places it on track to enter high-volume manufacturing in the second half of 2025.
TSMC states that 'N2 development is well on track and N2P is next.' In particular, gate-all-around nanosheet devices currently achieve over 90% of their expected performance, whereas yields of 256 Mb SRAM (32 MB) devices already exceeds 80%, depending on the batch. All of this for a node that is over a year away from mass production.
Meanwhile, average yield of a 256 Mb SRAM was around 70% as of March, 2024, up from around 35% in April, 2023. Device performance has also been improving with higher frequencies being achieved while keeping power consumption in check.
Chip designer interest towards TSMC's first 2nm-class gate-all-around nanosheet transistor-based technology is significant, too. The number of new tape-outs (NTOs) in the first year of N2 is over two-times higher than it was for N5. Though with that said, given TSMC's close working relationship with a handful of high-volume vendors – most notably Appe – NTOs can be a very misleading figure since the first year of a new node at TSMC is capacity constrained, and consequently the bulk of that capacity goes to TSMC's priority partners.
Meanwhile, there were considerably more N5 tapeouts in its second year (some where N5P, of course) and N2 promises to have 2.6X more NTOs in its second year. So the node indeed looks quite promising. In fact, based on TSMC's slides (which we're unfortunately not able to republish), N2 is more popular than N3 in terms of NTOs both in the first and the second years of existence.
When it comes to the second year of N2, in the second half of 2026 TSMC plans to roll out its N2P technology, which promises additional performance and power benefits. N2P is expected to improve frequency by 15% - 20%, reduce power consumption by 30% - 40%, and increase chip density by over 1.15 times compared to N3E, significant benefits to move to all-new GAA nanosheet transistors.
Finally, for those companies that need the best in performance, power, and density, TSMC is poised to offer their A16 process in 2026. That node will also bring in backside power delivery, which will add costs, but is expected to greatly improve performance efficiency and scaling.
Semiconductors
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