Amid all the attention the next-generation "Lion Cove" P-cores powering the upcoming "Lunar Lake" and "Arrow Lake" microarchitectures get as they compete with AMD's "Zen 5," it's easy to lose sight of the next-generation "Skymont" E-cores that will feature in both the upcoming Intel microarchitectures, and as standalone cores in the "Twin Lake" low-power processor. Pictures from an Intel presentation, possibly to PC OEMs, got leaked to the web. These are just thumbnails, we can't see the whole slides, but the person who took the pictures captioned them in a now-deleted social media post on the Chinese microblogging platform Weibo.

And now, the big reveal—the "Skymont" E-core is said to offer a double-digit IPC gain over the "Crestmont" E-core powering the current "Meteor Lake" processor, which in itself posted a roughly 4% IPC gain over the "Gracemont" E-cores found in the "Raptor Lake" and "Alder Lake" microarchitectures. Such an IPC gain over "Gracemont" should make the "Skymont" E-core match the IPC of the "Sunny Cove" or "Willow Cove" P-cores powering the "Ice Lake" and "Tiger Lake" microarchitectures, respectively, which were both within the 90th percentile of the AMD "Zen 3" core in IPC.

According to the report from Volksstimme.de, Intel has delayed its Magdeburg fab construction until 2025 due to difficulties in acquiring suitable land. The company had initially planned to begin construction in 2024, but the process has been slowed significantly due to the availability of suitable land. The Magdeburg plant is a significant investment for Intel, with the company planning to invest around €30 billion in the facility. The plant is expected to create thousands of jobs and play a crucial role in the company's European expansion plans. However, the delay in construction is likely to impact these plans and may result in a longer timeline for the plant's completion.

The delay is attributed to the difficulty in finding suitable land for the plant. Intel's original plan of producing a factory on the land concluded that there was humus-rich black soil up to 40 cm in the ground, which would get removed for usage by agricultural fields in Germany. However, now the top layer of black soil, which needs to be excavated, is measured up to 90 cm in depth, which doesn't allow fab construction to start and requires the removal of the soil in order to satisfy the safety regulations. This useful soil has to be extracted first before being "contaminated" with concrete and other types of foundation soils like gravel. The state of Saxony-Anhalt postponed the construction until the required soil was removed and regulations were met. This will supposedly happen by the end of 2024, and construction will start in 2025.

Intel released the Arc GPU Graphics Drivers 101.5534 Beta, the latest version of its graphics drivers for Arc graphics cards and integrated graphics. This release brings optimization for F1 24 and MultiVersus, which should improve performance across the line. The company didn't specify its performance improvement numbers. Besides these, the drivers lack the usual load of bug fixes for games or applications, but Intel took the opportunity to list out several issues it identified since the last driver release, so you know the company is working on them. Grab the drivers from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: Intel Arc GPU Graphics Drivers 101.5534 Beta

Colorful Technology Company Limited, a leading brand in gaming PC components, gaming laptops, and Hi-fi audio products, is excited to announce its participation at COMPUTEX 2024 from Jun 4 to Jun 7, 2024. COLORFUL Technology will be exhibiting its latest and upcoming products at the booth L0417a located at 4F, Hall 1 of the Nangang Exhibition Center. This year, COLORFUL Technology will expand its popular Vulcan, Neptune and Mini Series to more than just graphics cards and will include other PC components to complete a full gaming PC. COLORFUL will also be introducing new liquid cooling for the COLORFUL iGame GeForce RTX 4090 Vulcan LAB.

Featuring the themed gaming PCs launched and launching this year which includes the COLORFIRE MEOW and iGame ULTRA gaming PC Sets. Upcoming Vulcan, and MINI Series gaming PCs. The Vulcan Series consists of new concept products which will include a motherboard, DDR5 memory, chassis, peripherals, PSU, and liquid cooler featuring Asetek pump technology. The iGame Z790D5 Vulcan is designed to be a high-end motherboard. COLORFUL is already preparing a new Vulcan motherboard to the next-generation Intel Core processors.

An AMD Ryzen 9000 "Granite Ridge" desktop processor engineering sample with a maximum boost frequency of 5.80 GHz was found to offer an astonishing 19% higher single-threaded performance increase over an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X. "Granite Ridge" is codename for the Socket AM5 desktop processor family that implements the new "Zen 5" CPU microarchitecture. The unnamed "Granite Ridge" processor comes with an OPN code of 100-0000001290. Its CPU core count is irrelevant, as the single-threaded performance is in question here. The processor boosts up to 5.80 GHz, which means the core handling the single-threaded benchmark workload is achieving this speed. This speed is 100 MHz higher than the 5.70 GHz that the Ryzen 9 7950X processor based on the "Zen 4" architecture, boosts up to.

The single-threaded benchmark in question is the CPU-Z Bench. The mostly blurred out CPU-Z screenshot that reveals the OPN also mentions a processor TDP of 170 W, which means this engineering sample chip is either 12-core or 16-core. The chip posts a CPU-Z Bench single-thread score of 910 points, which matches that of the Intel Core i9-14900K with its 908 points. You've to understand that the i9-14900K boosts one of its P-cores to 6.00 GHz, to yield the 908 points that's part CPU-Z's reference scores. So straight off the bat, we see that "Zen 5" has a higher IPC than the "Raptor Cove" P-core powering the i9-14900K. Its gaming performance might end up higher than the Ryzen 7000 X3D family.Many Thanks to TumbleGeorge for the tip.

Getac today announced the launch of its brand-new AI-ready S510 rugged laptop, enabling organizations across industries such as utilities, public safety, manufacturing and automotive to utilise the power of edge AI on a daily basis. The new S510 enables workers to capitalise on the significant productivity benefits of AI-based applications. An Intel Core Ultra 5/7 processor with Intel AI Boost and Intel Graphics put powerful performance at users' fingertips, while a dedicated Microsoft Copilot key quickly awakens AI capabilities whenever needed.

The S510 combines this innovative feature set with MIL-STD-810H and IP53 certifications, alongside 3ft (0.9 m) drop and vibration resistance, giving users the peace of mind they need to work with confidence. The S510 also boasts a 15.6-inch display with 1,000 nits of brightness and Getac sunlight readable technology for optimal versatility in a variety of light conditions. In addition, the device provides robust connectivity options including WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 as standard, with optional 4G-LTE and 5G Sub-6 capabilities to keep users connected.

Beijing has doubled down on its push for semiconductor self-sufficiency with the establishment of a new $47.5 billion investment fund to accelerate growth in the domestic chip sector. The fund, officially registered on May 24th under the name "China Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund Phase III", represents the largest of three state-backed vehicles aimed at cultivating China's semiconductor capabilities. The announcement comes as tensions over advanced chip technology continue to escalate between the U.S. and China. Over the past couple years, Washington has steadily ratcheted up export controls on semiconductors to Beijing over national security concerns about potential military applications. These measures have lent new urgency to China's quest for self-sufficiency in chip design and manufacturing.

With a war chest of 344 billion yuan ($47.5 billion), the "Big Fund" dwarfs the combined capital of the first two semiconductor investment vehicles launched in 2014 and 2019. Officials have outlined a multipronged strategy targeting key bottlenecks, focusing on equipment for chip fabrication plants. The fund has bankrolled major projects such as flash memory maker Yangtze Memory Technologies and leading foundries like SMIC and Huahong. China's homegrown chip industry still needs to catch up to global leaders like Intel, Samsung, and TSMC. However, the immense scale of state-directed capital illustrates Beijing's unwavering commitment to developing a self-reliant supply chain for semiconductors—a technology viewed as indispensable for economic and military competitiveness. News of the "Big Fund" sent Chinese chip stocks surging over 3% on hopes of fresh financing tailwinds.

ASUS today introduced the NUC 14 Performance, which as its name suggests, is geared for performance. This is essentially a twin of the ROG NUC, but without the flashy ROG styling, and a broader range of hardware options. The top-spec NUC 14 Performance combines an Intel Core Ultra 9 185H "Meteor Lake" processor, and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 desktop GPU, however other processor and graphics options include the Core Ultra 7 155H processor, and RTX 4060 desktop GPU. You can't opt out of a discrete GPU, for that you'll need to opt for the NUC 14 Pro+, which only packs a Core Ultra 185H, and presents its Arc iGPU, but the I/O of that NUC will be significantly different.

Back to the ASUS NUC 14 Performance, and the box measures 270 mm X 180 mm X 50 mm (WxDxH), weighing just 800 g. You're supposed to add your own memory and storage, the NUC features two DDR5 SO-DIMM slots supporting up to 64 GB of DDR5 memory; and an M.2-2280 slot with PCIe Gen 4 x4 wiring. Network connectivity includes Wi-Fi 6E + Bluetooth 5.3; 2.5 GbE wired LAN. The main high-bandwidth I/O connection is Thunderbolt 4 (40 Gbps), which doubles up as USB4 40 Gbps, with a USB-C port that also supports DisplayPort 1.4 passthrough from the discrete GPU; a couple of 10 Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, USB 2.0 ports for input devices, additional DP 1.4 ports from the GPU, and an HDMI 2.1. The NUC 14 Performance comes with a 330 W power brick. The company didn't reveal pricing, but pricing is expected in the USD $2,200 to $2,500 range.

We've known for a while that the Z890 will be Intel's next-generation high-end desktop motherboard chipset for the Core Ultra "Arrow Lake-S" desktop processors in the LGA1851 package, and that Intel's first wave of processors and motherboards will target PC enthusiasts like they usually do—with just the unlocked K/KF processor SKUs and motherboards based on the Z890. We are now learning that the B860 will indeed be the company's mid-tier chipset for the processor. MSI has registered at least four motherboard models based on the B860, which showed up on Device Report.

These four motherboard models are the MPG B860M Edge Ti WiFi, the MPG B860I Edge WiFi, the MAG B860 Tomahawk WiFi, and the MAG B860M Mortar WiFi, with MSI internal product numbers 7E38, 7E39, 7E40, and 7E43, respectively. There's no word on whether B860 will even be available when the processors debut. Going by past trends, the mid-tier chipset and 65 W-class processor SKUs usually come out in the Q1 following a new processor generation launch, which means we could see these sometime early-2025. The B860 will lack CPU overclocking capabilities, and probably feature a narrower chipset bus, and fewer PCIe general purpose lanes than the Z890. As for MSI's Z890 motherboard lineup, there are at least eight models recorded—the MEG Z890 GODLIKE, the MEG Z890 Ace, MEG Z890 Unify-X, MPG Z890 Carbon WiFi, MPG Z890 Edge Ti WiFi, MPG Z890I Edge Ti WiFi, MAG Z890 Tomahawk WiFi, and the PRO Z890-P WiFi.

TerraMaster, a professional brand focused on providing innovative storage products for homes and businesses, recently introduced the F2-424, a new upgrade of F2-423. The brand-new F2-424 adopts the Intel Celeron N95 4-core 4-thread processor, 8GB DDR5 memory, two 2.5GB network ports, two M.2 NVMe sockets, and adds a USB Type-C host interface and a USB Type A interface, achieving a 40% improvement in overall performance compared to the previous generation.

The F2-424 will come with the new generation TOS 5.1 operating system and can be smoothly upgraded to the TerraMaster TOS 6 operating system in the nearly future. With its robust features and state-of-the-art technology, the F2-424 NAS redefines data storage and management for both personal and business users.

Intel has validated and optimized its AI product portfolio across client, edge and data center for several of Microsoft's Phi-3 family of open models. The Phi-3 family of small, open models can run on lower-compute hardware, be more easily fine-tuned to meet specific requirements and enable developers to build applications that run locally. Intel's supported products include Intel Gaudi AI accelerators and Intel Xeon processors for data center applications and Intel Core Ultra processors and Intel Arc graphics for client.

"We provide customers and developers with powerful AI solutions that utilize the industry's latest AI models and software. Our active collaboration with fellow leaders in the AI software ecosystem, like Microsoft, is key to bringing AI everywhere. We're proud to work closely with Microsoft to ensure Intel hardware - spanning data center, edge and client - actively supports several new Phi-3 models," said Pallavi Mahajan, Intel corporate vice president and general manager, Data Center and AI Software.

Following the success of the de next form factor, which included the world's smallest single board computers to host Intel Core and AMD Ryzen V2000 Series processors, AAEON has announced de next brand's first edge system, the de next-TGU8-EZBOX. Mirroring its record-breaking SBC counterparts, the de next-TGU8-EZBOX is the world's smallest edge PC with an embedded Intel Core processor, measuring just 95.5 mm x 69.5 mm x 42.5 mm with a heatsink, and 95.5 mm x 69.5 mm x 45.4 mm with an active cooler. The system is suitable for edge computing and IoT gateway solutions, especially in scenarios with there is limited space. Furthermore, the benefits that come with fanless heat dissipation, such as low noise and protection against dust, will appeal to customers in both the digital signage and industrial markets.

The system retains many of the I/O features of its board counterparts, including multiple high-speed interfaces for industrial-grade performance. Two LAN ports, operating at both 2.5GbE and GbE speeds, are conveniently grouped together with two USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports and one HDMI 1.4b port for easy interface access during operation.

Starting Q3 2024 in time for the holiday season, Intel's upcoming client processors (code-named Lunar Lake) will power more than 80 new laptop designs across more than 20 original equipment manufacturers, delivering AI performance at a global scale for Copilot+ PCs. Lunar Lake will get the Copilot+ experiences, like Recall, via an update when available. Building on the success of Intel Core Ultra processors and with the addition of Lunar Lake, Intel will ship more than 40 million AI PC processors this year.

"With breakthrough power efficiency, the trusted compatibility of x86 architecture and the industry's deepest catalog of software enablement across the CPU, GPU and NPU, we will deliver the most competitive joint client hardware and software offering in our history with Lunar Lake and Copilot+," said Michelle Johnston Holthaus, Intel executive vice president and general manager of the Client Computing Group.

TrendForce reports that the three largest DRAM suppliers are increasing wafer input for advanced processes. Following a rise in memory contract prices, companies have boosted their capital investments, with capacity expansion focusing on the second half of this year. It is expected that wafer input for 1alpha nm and above processes will account for approximately 40% of total DRAM wafer input by the end of the year.

HBM production will be prioritized due to its profitability and increasing demand. However, limited yields of around 50-60% and a wafer area 60% larger than DRAM products mean a higher proportion of wafer input is required. Based on the TSV capacity of each company, HBM is expected to account for 35% of advanced process wafer input by the end of this year, with the remaining wafer capacity used for LPDDR5(X) and DDR5 products.

Intel's upcoming Falcon Shores GPU is shaping up to be a powerhouse for AI and high-performance computing (HPC) workloads, but it will also be an extreme power hog. The processor, combining Gaudi and Ponte Vecchio successors into a single GPU, is expected to consume an astonishing 1500 W of power - more than even Nvidia's beefy B200 accelerator, which draws 1000 W. This immense power consumption will require advanced cooling solutions to ensure the Falcon Shores GPU operates efficiently and safely. Intel's partners may turn to liquid cooling or even full immersion liquid cooling, a technology Intel has been promoting for power-hungry data center hardware. The high power draw is the cost of the Falcon Shores GPU's formidable performance promises. Intel claims it will deliver 5x higher performance per watt and 5x more memory capacity and bandwidth compared to its Ponte Vecchio products.

Intel may need to develop proprietary hardware modules or a new Open Accelerator Module (OAM) spec to support such extreme power levels, as the current OAM 2.0 tops out around 1000 W. Slated for release in 2025, the Falcon Shores GPU will be Intel's GPU IP based on its next-gen Xe graphics architecture. It aims to be a major player in the AI accelerator market, backed by Intel's robust oneAPI software development ecosystem. While the 1500 W power consumption is sure to raise eyebrows, Intel is betting that the Falcon Shores GPU's supposedly impressive performance will make it an enticing option for AI and HPC customers willing to invest in robust cooling infrastructure. The ultra-high-end accelerator market is heating up, and the HPC accelerator market needs a Ponte Vecchio successor.

ORIGIN PC, a leader in custom high-performance systems, today launched their latest laptops - the EON16-SX, NSX-16, NSL-14, and NSL-16. For gamers, the EON16-SX offers powerful 40-Series performance and the latest in processing efficiency with an Intel Core Ultra processor. Professionals have a much broader selection of workstation laptops moving forward with the introduction of the brand new NSX-16, NSL-14, and NSL-16 laptops. Designed for the Generation of AI, the new Intel Core Ultra processors also feature a built-in NPU and Intel AI Boost. Experience improved productivity, efficiency, and performance with AI-acceleration that can be used for video editing, multi-tasking, and more. All four of the new laptops meet MIL-STD-810H-SPEC standards, meaning they have passed extensive stress tests including extreme temperatures, humidity, shock, and more. Durable and powerful, yet completely portable, ORIGIN PC is proud to announce the newest editions to their world-class lineup of custom PCs.

The brand new EON16-SX and NSX-16 laptops are a fusion of high-performance and fully portable design. While only 4.29 lbs light and 0.77 inches thin, they offer high-performance via quality hardware like an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070, DDR5 memory, and a spacious amount of high-speed SSD storage. Both laptops are also designed with a 16" 240 Hz 2560x1600 display, providing an expansive view of games, videos, and software. The two new laptops also take advantage of NVIDIA Optimus which automatically switches between the high performance dedicated GPU and power-efficient integrated GPU to maximize power efficiency. Packed with the latest technology, they boast a generous battery lifespan of 4 hours and 40 minutes. Customize the EON16-SX or NSX-16 with up to 64 GB of DDR5 memory and 16 TB of SSD storage, while also accessing a wide array of connectivity options.

G.SKILL International Enterprise Co., Ltd., the world's leading brand of performance overclock memory and PC components, is announcing the release of Ripjaws M5 RGB, a high-performance RGB DDR5 memory series designed for the latest DDR5-enabled Intel platforms. At launch, initial specifications will be offered up to DDR5-6400 CL32-39-39-102 96 GB (2x48GB). Available in matte black or matte white aluminium heatspreaders and features customizable RGB lighting, the Ripjaws M5 RGB is an ideal memory kit for a wide variety of PC builds and themes.

Designed for Stylish Performance
Available in matte white or matte black aluminium heatspreaders and standing at 41 mm tall, the Ripjaws M5 RGB series is designed for a minimalistic look and features customizable RGB lighting to match a wide variety of PC build themes.

Intel has prepared the Core Ultra 5-238V, a Lunar Lake-MX CPU that integrates 32 GB of LPDDR5X memory into the CPU package. This new design represents a significant departure from the traditional approach of using separate memory modules, promising enhanced performance and efficiency, similar to what Apple is doing with its M series of processors. The Core Ultra 5-238V is the first of its kind for Intel to hit mass consumers. Previous attempt was with Lakefield, which didn't take off, but had advanced 3D stacked Foveros packaging. With 32 GB of high-bandwidth, low-power LPDDR5X memory directly integrated into the CPU package, the Core Ultra 5-238V eliminates the need for separate memory modules, reducing latency and improving overall system responsiveness. This seamless integration results in faster data transfer rates and lower power consumption with LPDDR5X memory running at 8533 MT.

Applications that demand intensive memory usage, such as video editing, 3D rendering, and high-end gaming, will be the first to experience performance gains. Users can expect smoother multitasking, quicker load times, and more efficient handling of memory-intensive tasks. The Core Ultra 5-238V is equipped with four big Lion Cove and four little Skymont cores, in combination with seven Xe2-LPG cores based on Battlemage GPU microarchitecture. The bigger siblings to Core Ultra 5, the Core Ultra 7 series, will feature eight Xe2-LPG cores instead of seven, with the same CPU core count, while all of them will run the fourth generation NPU.

Today, Intel announced Thunderbolt Share, a new software solution enabling PC-to-PC experiences that fundamentally change the way users interact with two PCs. Thunderbolt Share is offered with select PCs and accessories with Thunderbolt 4 or Thunderbolt 5 ports, enabling responsive screen-sharing and fast PC-to-PC file transfers for more flexible and productive workflows.

"We are excited to continue to lead the industry in connectivity solutions with Thunderbolt technology. Thunderbolt Share delivers on our aspiration to bring innovative solutions to the market and deliver new experiences for users to get the most out of their PCs. Now users can seamlessly access one PC from another at Thunderbolt technology speeds. It truly changes how users can be more productive and efficient," said Jason Ziller, Intel vice president and general manager of the Client Connectivity Division.

Intel is readying the new N250 "Twin Lake" line of low-power processors that succeed the N200 series "Alder Lake-N" series. These are chips built on the latest process node Intel is using for its Core and Xeon processors, but only features E-cores (efficiency codes) from the latest microarchitecture. Chips from the N200 series are popular with low-cost notebooks, thin-clients, embedded systems, kiosks and point-of-sale terminals, NAS, and consumer electronics. "Twin Lake" is codename for the new processor series, these are likely monolithic processor dies that use a client ringbus layout, and one E-core cluster that makes up the compute muscle.

While "Alder Lake-N" is powered by "Gracemont" E-cores, the new "Twin Lake" chips are expected to feature "Skymont" E-core clusters. Intel is expected to debut "Skymont" E-cores with its upcoming Core Ultra 200V series "Lunar Lake-MX" mobile processors. "Skymont" is technically two generations ahead of "Gracemont," as Intel introduced the "Crestmont" cores with its current Core Ultra 100 "Meteor Lake" processor family. Not a lot is known about "Skymont" at this point, except that it's expected to feature IPC increases, and perform close to Intel's P-cores from 3-4 generations ago, such as the "Willow Cove" cores powering the 11th Gen Core "Tiger Lake" processors, looking at past trends of the "Gracemont" core performing similar to a "Skylake" core with HTT disabled.

According to ServeTheHome, Intel has decided to discontinue its high-performance computing (HPC) product line, Ponte Vecchio, and shift its focus towards developing its next-generation data center GPU, codenamed Falcon Shores. This decision comes as Intel aims to streamline its operations and concentrate its resources on the most promising and competitive offerings. The Ponte Vecchio GPU, released in January of 2023, was intended to be Intel's flagship product for the HPC market, competing against the likes of NVIDIA's H100 and AMD's Instinct MI series. However, despite its impressive specifications and features, Ponte Vecchio faced significant delays and challenges in its development and production cycle. Intel's decision to abandon Ponte Vecchio is pragmatic, recognizing the intense competition and rapidly evolving landscape of the data center GPU market.

By pivoting its attention to Falcon Shores, Intel aims to deliver a more competitive and cutting-edge solution that can effectively challenge the dominance of its rivals. Falcon Shores, slated for release in 2025, is expected to leverage Intel's latest process node and architectural innovations. Currently, Intel has Gaudi 2 and Gaudi 3 accelerators for AI. However, the HPC segment is left without a clear leader in the company's product offerings. Intel's Ponte Vecchio is powering Aurora exascale supercomputer, which is the latest submission to the TOP500 supercomputer lists. This is also coming after the Rialto Bridge cancellation, which was supposed to be an HPC-focused card. In the future, the company will focus only on the Falcon Shores accelerator, which will unify HPC and AI needs for high-precision FP64 and lower-precision FP16/INT8.

Patriot Memory, a renowned name in performance memory and storage solutions, has teamed up with MSI, an innovator in gaming hardware, to unleash the Viper Xtreme 5 RGB DDR5 MPOWER Series - an extreme-speed DDR5 memory kit crafted for gamers, overclockers, and power users. This cutting-edge collaboration between the two brands combines blistering data rates up to 8000MT/s with massive 32 GB (16 GB x2) or 48 GB (24 GB x2) capacities. The Viper Xtreme 5 RGB DDR5 MPOWER series unleashes a torrent of memory bandwidth, turbocharging gaming rigs, content creation workstations, and other high-intensity applications demanding extreme responsiveness and throughput.

Optimized for Maximum Overclocking Potential
Intel XMP 3.0 certified for seamless plug-and-play overclocking on the latest Intel platforms, the Xtreme 5 RGB DDR5 MPOWER kit also integrates with MSI's user-friendly EZ Dashboard utility. This enables granular control over advanced timings and voltages to extract every last drop of performance.

Intel today released the latest version of the Arc GPU Graphics Drivers. Version 101.5518 beta comes with optimization for "Ghost of Tsushima: Director's Cut" and "Homeworld 3." The drivers also fix a couple of issues with this release. To begin with, lower than expected performance with "Dragon's Dogma 2" has been fixed on Arc A-series discrete GPUs. A bug that caused "Dead Space" to experience lower than expected performance on Core Ultra processors with Arc Graphics has been fixed. Grab the latest version of Intel Arc GPU Graphics Drivers from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: Intel Arc GPU Graphics Drivers 101.5518 Beta

A product roadmap leak at leading PC OEM Dell, disclosed the tentative launch dates of several future generations of processors by Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm. The slide was detailing hardware platforms for future revisions of the company's premium XPS notebooks. Given that Dell remains one of the largest PC OEMs, the dates revealed in the leaked slides are highly plausible.

In chronological order, Dell expects Intel's Core Ultra 200V series "Lunar Lake-MX" processor in September 2024, which should mean product unveilings at Computex. It's interesting to note that Intel is only designing "Lunar Lake" for the -MX memory-on-package segment. This chip squares off against Apple's M3, M4, and possibly even the M3 Pro. Intel also has its ambitious "Arrow Lake" architecture planned for the second half of 2024, hence the lack of product overlap—there won't be an "Arrow Lake-MX."

The 63rd edition of the TOP500 reveals that Frontier has once again claimed the top spot, despite no longer being the only exascale machine on the list. Additionally, a new system has found its way into the Top 10.

The Frontier system at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, USA remains the most powerful system on the list with an HPL score of 1.206 EFlop/s. The system has a total of 8,699,904 combined CPU and GPU cores, an HPE Cray EX architecture that combines 3rd Gen AMD EPYC CPUs optimized for HPC and AI with AMD Instinct MI250X accelerators, and it relies on Cray's Slingshot 11 network for data transfer. On top of that, this machine has an impressive power efficiency rating of 52.93 GFlops/Watt - putting Frontier at the No. 13 spot on the GREEN500.