The prices are $400 for the RX Vega 56, $500 for the RX Vega 64, and we think $600 for the liquid-cooled RX Vega 64 Aqua. AMD’s launching these with different bundles for their other products as well, but we’ll talk about that momentarily. Today, we’re providing details on the RX Vega specifications, pricing, and other preliminary information (like TDP/TGP) for the GPU. We’ll have a separate content piece coming out shortly that provides a deeper dive on the Vega GPU architecture.

The RX Vega 64 flagship launches at $500 for the reference card – and so likely the range is $500 to $600 for AIB partner models, which would include your standard Strix, Twin Frozr, Windforce, and other coolers. Liquid-cooled models will clock higher by way of reduced power leakage, as we previously showed, though air cooled models can also accomplish this to some lesser but non-trivial extent. AMD’s liquid-cooled model did not carry a standalone price, but had a bundle price of $700 for the card with various discounts for other parts. More on that later.

GamersNexus today received word from a manufacturer (that asked to remain unnamed) that AMD’s Threadripper CPUs will include Asetek retention kits in the retail packaging for the product, though a cooler itself will not be included; at least, not in the initial launch of Threadripper products. From what we’ve seen of AMD’s unveiled box, it’s clear that no cooler is included, but the Asetek retention kit will permit all Asetek-made CLCs to mount Threadripper at launch. This would include popular products like the NZXT Kraken series, EVGA CLC series, and about half of Corsair’s coolers (the other half being CoolIT-made). The H100iV2 and H115i are included in the list of Asetek-made Corsair coolers, for clarity.

This week's hardware news recap covers rumors of Corsair's partial acquisition, HBM2 production ramping, Threadripper preparation, and a few other miscellaneous topics. Core industry topics largely revolve around cooler prep for Threadripper this week, though HBM2 increasing production output (via Samsung) is also a critical item of note. Both nVidia and AMD now deploy HBM2 in their products, and other devices are beginning to eye use cases for HBM2 more heavily.

The video is embedded below. As usual, the show notes rest below that.

Specs and prices for AMD’s upcoming Ryzen Threadripper CPUs have been announced, as well as a general release date. The 12C/24T 1920X and 16C/32T 1950X will be available worldwide starting in “Early August,” with prebuilt Alienware systems available for preorder starting July 27th. According to AMD:

“Both are unlocked, use the new Socket TR4, have quad-channel DDR4, and feature 64 lanes of PCI Express. Base clock on the Ryzen Threadripper 1950X 16-core product is 3.4 GHz with precision boost to 4.0 GHz. On the Ryzen Threadripper 1920X 12-core product, the base clock is 3.5 GHz with precision boost to 4.0 GHz.”

As an aside, manufacturers informed GamersNexus at Computex that board release dates are targeted for August 10. It’s possible that this date has changed in the time since the show, but that seems to be the known target for Threadripper.

Our hardware news round-up for the past week is live, detailing some behind-the-scenes / early information on our thermal and power testing for the i9-7900X, the Xbox One X hardware specs, Threadripper's release date, and plenty of other news. Additional coverage includes final word on Acer's 21X Predator, Samsung's 64-layer NAND finalization, Global Foundries' 7nm FinFET for 2018, and some extras.

We anticipate a slower news week for non-Intel/non-AMD entities this week, as Intel launched X299/SKY-X and AMD is making waves with Epyc. Given the command both these companies have over consumer news, it's likely that other vendors will hold further press releases until next week.

Find the show notes below, written by Eric Hamilton, along with the embedded video.

Our initial coverage of the Gigabyte X399 Aorus Gaming 7 motherboard provided a first look at boards outfitted for AMD’s new Threadripper CPU. We’re now moving to ASUS to look at the Zenith Extreme motherboard, for which ASUS provided significantly fewer details than other motherboard vendors. Still, we were able to get a hands-on look and figure out a few of the basics.

The ASUS Zenith Extreme is AMD’s flagship X399 motherboard – pricing TBD, as AMD has not yet finalized socket and chipset prices – and will likely ship in August. As we understand it, Threadripper’s launch should be August 10th, which is around when all the motherboards would theoretically ship. Mass production is targeted for most boards in mid-August.

Following AMD’s Computex press conference, we headed over to the Gigabyte suite (after our X299 coverage) to look at the X399 Aorus Gaming 7 motherboard. The new Gigabyte X399 Gaming 7 board is one of two that we’ve seen thus far – our ASUS coverage is next up – and joins the forces of motherboards ready for AMD’s Threadripper HEDT CPUs.

The Gigabyte X399 Aorus Gaming 7 motherboard sockets Threadripper into AMD’s massive socket, dead-center, and uses three Torx screws to get at the LGA pin-out. The CPUs will provide 64 PCIe lanes, as we’ve already reported, with 4x PCIe Gen3 lanes reserved for high-speed transport between the CPU and chipset. The other 60 are assignable at the motherboard manufacturer’s will; in this case, Gigabyte willed for an x16/x8/x16/x8 full-length PCIe slots, with an additional 3x M.2 (x4) slots. That immediately consumes all 60 lanes, with the remaining 4 reserved for the chipset communications.