Even though the global economy shows signs of recovery, worldwide shipments of traditional PCs dipped 2.4% year-over-year (YoY) to 68.8 million units, during the third quarter of 2024 (3Q24), according to preliminary results from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker. Factors including rising costs and inventory replenishment led to a surge in shipments in the previous quarter, resulting in a slightly slower sales cycle.

"Demand, without a doubt, has returned for PCs amongst consumers and commercial buyers," said Jitesh Ubrani, research manager with IDC's Worldwide Mobile Device Trackers. "However, much of the demand was still concentrated at the entry-level thanks to a recovering economy and the back-to-school season in North America. That said, newer AI PCs such as Copilot+ PCs from Qualcomm along with Intel and AMD's equivalent chips as well as Apple's expected M4-based Macs are expected to drive the premium segment in coming months."

Giga Computing, a subsidiary of GIGABYTE and an industry leader in generative AI servers and advanced cooling technologies, is exhibiting at Data Centre World 2024 to showcase advanced data center solutions that meet the demands of various scales of data centers and workloads. This year, Giga Computing is introducing a range of innovations focused on optimizing AI supercomputing, enhancing data center efficiency, and promoting sustainability. Central to the exhibit is the NVIDIA HGX H200 8-GPU G593-SD1 server with Direct Liquid Cooling (DLC), designed for high-performance AI workloads. Also featured are Rear Door Cooling Solutions in partnership with nVent, tailored for high-density HPC/AI environments, alongside Immersion Cooling Solutions powered by GIGABYTE, offering a sustainable, energy-efficient approach to modern data center cooling.

At booth U20, visitors can explore the full capabilities of these solutions, including the G593-SD1 server equipped with NVIDIA HGX H200 DLC, complemented by the nVent RackChiller CDU800, which delivers 800kW of cooling capacity. This combination allows data centers to operate at higher power densities while maintaining performance and reliability. For facilities not yet ready to fully transition to liquid cooling, GIGABYTE's advanced Cooling Solution, in partnership with nVent, offers an efficient alternative for high-performance workloads, such as those in HPC/AI environments. This solution is compatible with air-cooled systems like the 2U4N H263-S62, a high-density server powered by dual 5th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable Processors per node, which requires a 3000 W power supply. Additionally, GIGABYTE's G493-SB0 server, certified under NVIDIA-Certified Systems - OVX Servers and Data Center Servers, supports up to 8 dual-slot Gen 5 GPUs, making it ideal for AI training, inference, and visual computing.

MSI liquid coolers are fully compatible with Intel's Core Ultra Processors. As Intel's latest CPU approach promises unprecedented power and innovation, we understand that many users are looking into system upgrades. MSI liquid coolers are equipped to support this latest development, ensuring users are prepared for Intel's latest processors without the need for a complete liquid cooler replacement.

If you upgrade to Intel Core Ultra CPUs, consider MSI liquid coolers for a seamless transition. All MSI liquid coolers will support Intel's LGA1851 socket, which will be already prepared in the box for the MEG CORELIQUID S Series, MPG CORELIQUID D Series, MAG CORELIQUID M Series, MAG CORELIQUID R V2 Series, MAG CORELIQUID E Series, and MAG CORELIQUID I Series.

Kensington, a worldwide leader of desktop computing and mobility solutions for IT, business, and home office professionals, is greatly enhancing the visual productivity of MacBook users with today's launch of the SD5900T EQ Thunderbolt 4 Quad 4K 40 Gbps Dock with DisplayLink Technology.

Ideal for busy professionals juggling multiple tasks and projects, the powerful and stylish dock unlocks the full potential of the MacBook by providing support for up to four external displays, 40 Gbps data transfer speeds, up to 100 W (96 W certified) charging for the MacBook and connected accessories, and a 16-in-1 design. Optimized to support MacBook running macOS 11 or above, the SD5900T leverages the power of Thunderbolt 4 and DisplayLink technology to expand the user's visual workspace, boost productivity, and provide a future-proof solution for the MacBook workstation.

ViewSonic Corp., a global leader in visual solutions, unveils two new projectors - the X1-4K Pro and X2-4K Pro. Designed to elevate the console gaming experience, these projectors deliver images with QHD (1440p) resolution at a lightning-fast 120 Hz refresh rate, ensuring ultra-smooth gameplay and detailed visuals on a screen larger than 100 inches. Complementing the native 4K UHD visual performance, built-in Harman Kardon speakers provide cinema-quality sound, while the integrated Google TV provides seamless access to a broad spectrum of streaming options, creating a truly immersive and all-encompassing home entertainment experience.

"Compared to traditional gaming displays, projectors offer an unmatched immersive experience and greater setup flexibility, so it's no surprise that they're becoming increasingly popular in console gaming," said Dean Tsai, General Manager of Projector & LED Display Business Unit at ViewSonic. "Reflecting this trend, last year we introduced the world's first 'Designed for Xbox' gaming projectors, the X1-4K and X2-4K, which set new industry standards and have consistently received positive feedback from the market. We are now excited to launch their upgrades, the X1-4K Pro and X2-4K Pro. These models not only enhance visuals but also feature a built-in Google TV system, providing a comprehensive solution that caters to a wide range of home entertainment needs."

TSMC, the world leader in semiconductor manufacturing, is moving to production with NVIDIA's computational lithography platform, called cuLitho, to accelerate manufacturing and push the limits of physics for the next generation of advanced semiconductor chips. A critical step in the manufacture of computer chips, computational lithography is involved in the transfer of circuitry onto silicon. It requires complex computation - involving electromagnetic physics, photochemistry, computational geometry, iterative optimization and distributed computing. A typical foundry dedicates massive data centers for this computation, and yet this step has traditionally been a bottleneck in bringing new technology nodes and computer architectures to market.

Computational lithography is also the most compute-intensive workload in the entire semiconductor design and manufacturing process. It consumes tens of billions of hours per year on CPUs in the leading-edge foundries. A typical mask set for a chip can take 30 million or more hours of CPU compute time, necessitating large data centers within semiconductor foundries. With accelerated computing, 350 NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPU-based systems can now replace 40,000 CPU systems, accelerating production time, while reducing costs, space and power.

For the first time in its storied legacy, John Marston's beloved journey can be experienced on PC in stunning, new detail, with both Red Dead Redemption and its iconic zombie-horror companion story, Undead Nightmare, arriving to PC on October 29. In collaboration with Double Eleven, this new version adds PC-specific enhancements including native 4K resolution at up to 144hz on compatible hardware, monitor support for both Ultrawide (21:9) and Super Ultrawide (32:9), HDR10 support, and full keyboard and mouse functionality.

There's also support for NVIDIA DLSS 3.7 and AMD FSR 3.0 upscaling technologies, NVIDIA DLSS Frame Generation, adjustable draw distances, shadow quality settings, and more. Check out the new trailer above and stay tuned for more details, including information later this week on how to pre-purchase Red Dead Redemption and Undead Nightmare at the Rockstar Store, Steam, or the Epic Games Store.

More than 600 games and applications feature RTX technologies, and each week new games integrating NVIDIA DLSS, NVIDIA Reflex and advanced ray-traced effects are released or announced, delivering the definitive PC experience for GeForce RTX players. This week the FragPunk beta kicks off, with DLSS 3 and a suite of ray-traced effects, Simulakros and Starship Troopers: Extermination launch with DLSS 3, and the much-anticipated SILENT HILL 2 arrives with day-one support for DLSS Super Resolution. Additionally, you can check out a new DLSS 3 performance video showcasing God of War Ragnarök running on GeForce RTX, and a new one-of-a-kind LEGO Fortnite inspired RTX PC featuring a GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER.

ORICO, a leading innovator in data storage solutions, is proud to introduce 5Big DAS Storage System Solution with 110 TB big capacity and 40 Gbps transfer speed storage system. Boost the unprecedented productivity of professionals, like video audio editors, content creators and filmmakers. Support personal or big team video audio projects that generate extensive data. As a video audio creator in pre-production and post-production, the volume of data can be overwhelming and scattered, from raw footage to final edits, sound files to special effects. And losing the valuable datasets means losing everything. Large, reliable and centralized storage ensures that all these assets are secured and easily accessible.

This system has 5 push-pull bays compatible with 2.5"/3.5" SSDs or 3.5" HDDs. Single bay supports up to 22 TB drive. Provide a total 110 TB lossless data backup and access area, specially tailored for high frame rate video projects and environments requiring high data completeness. It means you can get a storage space the same as: 55 x 2 TB laptop / 440 x 256 GB phone / 11,264 x 10 GB Blu-ray movie / 3,844,778 x 30 MB lossless music, or 23,068,672 x 5 MB HD photo. This system supports up to 3-devices daisy chain. You can get a total of 330 TB capacity available for the next project. On the other hand, it enables data recovery and 7 RAID modes (RAID 0, 1, 3, 5, 10, JOBD, Normal). Backup and redundancy measures ensure data security and reliability.

At an industry event in Austin today, Thundercomm announces RUBIK Pi, the first Pi built on Qualcomm SoC platforms for developers. RUBIK Pi is an innovative tool that aims to lower the barriers application development with AI inference, allowing developers to access high-performance, easy-to-deploy AI R&D tools.

The Pi product is a must-have for electronics enthusiasts and developers. It can be seen as a microcomputer, integrating a processor, memory, storage, and various interfaces on a credit card-sized board. Thundercomm, a world-leading IoT product and solution provider, building on its expertise in ICT technologies and developer workflows, launched RUBIK Pi, aiming to create the most user-friendly AI R&D tools.

Apacer is thrilled to unveil its latest advancements in data security, reliability, and integrity for casino gaming systems in the Global Gaming Expo at the Expo Hall, taking place from October 8th to 10th, 2024. We invite you to visit us at booth 5221 to explore our state-of-the-art SSD and DRAM solutions, meticulously designed to address the demanding needs of the gaming industry.

At G2E 2024, Apacer will highlight a range of innovative products tailored to the unique requirements of gaming applications:

ENDORFY, the European manufacturer of CPU coolers, power supplies, PC cases and lifestyle products, has announced that, according to the latest information from Intel, its current range of CPU coolers, including the Spartan 5-series, Fera 5-series, Fortis 5-series, and Navis F-series, will be compatible with the upcoming Intel LGA 1851 socket, designed for the Core Ultra 200 processors. This compatibility ensures that customers upgrading their systems can continue using their existing ENDORFY coolers, offering excellent thermal performance and noise reduction without the need for replacement.

The new LGA 1851 socket has more pins than its predecessor (1851 vs. 1700) while maintaining the same mounting dimensions as LGA 1700. This cross-compatibility enables ENDORFY coolers to integrate seamlessly with the latest Intel hardware. With Arrow Lake processors expected to deliver significant performance improvements, ENDORFY coolers are ready to handle the increased thermal demands, ensuring optimal system performance and stability.

Intel's Arrow Lake-S launch line-up has been confirmed courtesy of serial leaker @9550pro on X/Twitter and although the leaked Intel product slide doesn't contain any real surprises by now, it does confirm that Intel will launch five different SKUs later this month. The Core 200S-series should be unveiled on Thursday by Intel, but retail availability isn't expected until the 24th of October. The Initial five CPU SKUs will be the Core Ultra 9 285K, the Core Ultra 7 265K and 265KF and finally the Core Ultra 5 245K and 245KF. As noted earlier today in the performance leak of the Core Ultra 9 285K, the entire Arrow Lake-S series will lack Hyper-Threading in favour of more E-cores. The Core Ultra 9 285K features eight Lion Cove P-cores and 16 Skymont E-cores, followed by the Core Ultra 7 265 SKUs which retain the Lion Cove core count, but ends up with only 12 Skymont cores. Finally, the Core Ultra 5 SKUs have six Lion Cove P-cores and eight Skymont E-cores. All the upcoming SKUs feature Intel's Thermal Velocity Boost, a feature that used to be exclusive to the Core i9 tier of CPUs in the past, but only the Core Ultra 9 and Ultra 7 SKUs support Intel Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0. The Core Ultra 9 and Ultra 7 SKUs have a maximum TDP of 250 W, with the Core Ultra 5 SKUs peaking at 159 W. All five processors have a base power of 125 W.

As such, we're looking at boost speeds of up to 5.7 GHz for the Core Ultra 9, 5.5 GHz for the Core Ultra 7 and 5.2 GHz for the Core Ultra 5 processors. The Core Ultra 5 has the highest base frequency of the three SKUs with the P-cores clocking in at 4.2 GHz and the E-cores at 3.6 GHz. The Core Ultra 7 follows at 3.9 GHz for the P-Cores and 3.3 GHz for the E-cores and finally the Core Ultra 9 has a base frequency of 3.7 GHz for the P-Cores and 3.2 GHz for the E-cores. Intel has upped the JEDEC memory support to DDR5-6400, which is an 800 MHz jump in the officially supported memory speed from its 14th Gen Core i processors. Up to 192 GB of RAM is supported, which is the same as the previous generation of desktop CPUs from Intel. The IGP sports four Xe-cores across the board of the K SKU CPUs, with a base clock of 300 MHz and a boost clock of up to 2 GHz, although the Core Ultra 5 SKUs end up with an IGP that only boosts to 1.9 GHz. All SKUs also feature a third generation NPU capable of 13 TOPS, which is a lot weaker than the mobile Core Ultra 200V Lunar Lake CPUs which have an NPU capable of up to 48 TOPS, depending on the SKU. As this leak appears to be from the same original source as the performance figures that leaked earlier, we'd assume the information is correct, especially as it lines up with earlier leaks, but it should still be taken with a pinch of salt until everything has been confirmed by Intel.

After Apple, we just learned that AMD is the next company in line for US-based manufacturing in the TSMC Arizona facility. Industry analyst Tim Culpan reports that TSMC's Fab 21 in Arizona will soon be producing AMD's high-performance computing (HPC) processors, with tape out and manufacturing expected to commence on TSMC's 5 nm node next year. This move comes after previously reported Apple's A16 SoC production, which is already in progress at the facility and could see shipments before the end of this year, significantly ahead of the initially projected early 2025 schedule. The production of AMD's HPC chips in Arizona marks a crucial step towards establishing an AI-hardware supply chain operating entirely on American soil, which is expected to further expand with Intel Foundry and Samsung Texas facility.

Making HPC processors domestically serves as a significant milestone in reducing dependence on overseas semiconductor manufacturing and strengthening the US's position in the global chip industry. Adding to the momentum, TSMC and Amkor recently announced a collaboration on advanced packaging technologies, including Integrated Fan-Out (InFO) and Chip-on-Wafer-on-Substrate (CoWoS), which are vital for high-performance AI chips. However, as Amkor facilities are yet to be built, these chips are going to be shipped back to Taiwan for packaging before being integrated into the final product. Once the Amkor facility is up and running, Arizona will become the birthplace of fully manufactured and packaged silicon chips.

MSI is thrilled to announce a new collaboration with S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl, introducing four limited edition products: GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER 16G GAMING SLIM STALKER 2 EDITION, CLUTCH GM41 LIGHTWEIGHT WIRELESS STALKER 2 EDITION, VIGOR GK41 STALKER 2 EDITION, and FORCE PRO WIRELESS STALKER 2 EDITION. These exclusive products combine cutting-edge performance and immersive S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2-themed designs to enhance your gaming experience. Additionally, customers who purchase these limited-edition products will also be eligible to redeem S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl through MSI's Member Center, granting access to the full game and enhancing their overall gaming experience.

GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER 16G GAMING SLIM STALKER 2 EDITION
Powered by the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER 16G, this slimmer variant of the GAMING series offers high performance with ray tracing and DLSS support. TRI FROZR 3 thermal design keeps it cool and quiet during intense gaming.

Super Micro Computer, Inc., a Total IT Solution Provider for AI, Cloud, Storage, and 5G/Edge, announces the launch of a new, versatile, high-density infrastructure platform optimized for AI inferencing at the network edge. As companies seek to embrace complex large language models (LLM) in their daily operations, there is a need for new hardware capable of inferencing high volumes of data in edge locations with minimal latency. Supermicro's innovative system combines versatility, performance, and thermal efficiency to deliver up to 10 double-width GPUs in a single system capable of running in traditional air-cooled environments.

"Owing to the system's optimized thermal design, Supermicro can deliver all this performance in a high-density 3U 20 PCIe system with 256 cores that can be deployed in edge data centers," said Charles Liang, president and CEO of Supermicro. "As the AI market is growing exponentially, customers need a powerful, versatile solution to inference data to run LLM-based applications on-premises, close to where the data is generated. Our new 3U Edge AI system enables them to run innovative solutions with minimal latency."

ARCTIC is expanding its range of fans for servers and workstations. In addition to the 40 mm and 80 mm models, two powerful 120 mm versions with different speed ranges are now also available. The S12038 fans offer an excellent combination of cooling performance, durability and energy efficiency. The importance of energy efficiency in data centers is growing worldwide and increasingly becoming the focus of legislators. Since this year, operators have had to publish their energy consumption. In the future, guidelines for sustainability and energy efficiency are also expected. The use of the S12038 server fans helps to reduce energy consumption.

Exceptionally energy-efficient thanks to motor optimization. For the same performance, the S12038-8K consumes 22 % less than the next best competitor, improving the energy efficiency of the server. The new 120 mm fans are available in two versions: the 4K version with 600 to 4000 rpm and the 8K version with 800 to 8000 rpm. This wide range - optionally PWM or voltage-controlled - makes it possible to adapt the fans to the specific requirements of different server and workstation setups. With their high static pressure and powerful airflow, they are the ideal all-rounders for demanding server environments and are suitable for use as both radiator and rack fans for server cases from 3U.

ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) and ASUS Metaverse today announced the release of the SL@SH206 Web3 project, which creates a gamified experience and Web3 community where players can explore the virtual world and unleash their creativity. The AI-generated stories are supported by cloud technology from Taiwan Web Service Corporation (TWSC), a subsidiary of ASUS. SL@SH206 is targeting users worldwide and is expected to support both Chinese and English languages.

Innovative Web3 gaming ecosystem
SL@SH206 is the first step in collaboration on virtual experiences between ASUS Metaverse and the ROG brand; it is built using Web3 technology that immerses players in a cyberpunk world. Players take on the role of an amnesiac robot, ZEI-6, in a society where humanity has sought refuge in the virtual world. Through AI-generated content and a gamified experience, they will gradually uncover the secrets of the SL@SH206 world. Along the way, players can discover various virtual objects, trigger game events, and be able to get SL@SH206 digital collectibles by completing missions. Additionally, players can join the official Discord community, where they can interact and participate in mini-games to accumulate points and earn valuable rewards.

Samsung Electronics is grappling with significant challenges in its semiconductor division, particularly in its memory and foundry businesses. The company's top management, led by DS Division Vice Chairman Jeon Young-hyun, recently issued a public apology for the division's underwhelming performance. The tech giant's struggles are best seen in its advanced 3 nm Gate-All-Around (GAA) FET node, which reportedly yields only 10-20% of working silicon. This low yield rate has made potential customers hesitant to partner with Samsung, dealing a blow to its foundry business. Samsung Securities projects a 500 billion won (approximately $385 million) loss this year for Samsung Foundry and the LSI division combined. In the global foundry market, Samsung's position has weakened considerably. The company currently holds just 11.5% of the market share in Q2, while industry leader TSMC dominates with a commanding 62.3%. This disparity has led to speculation about the possible spinoff of Samsung Foundry, as the company reevaluates its strategy in the advanced semiconductor manufacturing sector.

Memory unit, one of Samsung's biggest assets, is slowly being one-upped by SK Hynix, which could overtake Samsung as the number one memory maker thanks to strong HBM demand. The management's apology acknowledges the concerns raised about the company's technological competitiveness and future prospects. Vice Chairman Jeon emphasized the need to restore fundamental competitiveness in technology and quality, which he described as the company's "lifeblood." Despite these challenges, Samsung's leadership remains optimistic about turning the crisis into an opportunity. They have pledged to focus on long-term solutions, invest in pioneering technologies, and foster a culture of innovation and open communication within the organization. As one of only three companies left in the advanced semiconductor manufacturing field, alongside TSMC and Intel, Samsung's ability to overcome these hurdles will be crucial not only for the company but for the entire industry.

Plasma 6 has come into its own over the last two releases. The wrinkles that always come with a major migration have been ironed out, and it's time to start delivering on the promises of the new Qt 6 and Wayland technology platforms that Plasma is built on top of. One of the outstanding issues has been to make Plasma a more artist-friendly environment by providing full support for the hardware that creative people need to get their work done.

For Digital Artists
Plasma 6.2 includes a smorgasbord of new features for users of drawing tablets. Open System Settings and look for Drawing Tablet to see various tools for configuring drawing tablets.

The 2024 International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) has named three groundbreaking laptops—Cyborg 14 AI, Stealth 18 AI Studio, and Titan 18 HX—as "Featured Finalists" for their outstanding innovation and design. These laptops, each representing the cutting edge of gaming technology, push the boundaries of user experience with their unique aesthetics and high-performance capabilities.

The Cyborg 14 AI offers a visually striking fusion of biological and mechanical elements, The 14-inch compact and lightweight body echoes the convenience of gaming on-the-go. The Stealth 18 AI Studio, modeled after stealth combat aircraft with top-tier gaming performance, precisely carried out the task, where thin meets powerful. The Titan 18 HX, MSI's flagship gaming laptop shares a kindred spirit with hardcore gamers. The voracious gaming appetites with PC specifications and high-grade thermal efficiency by all means sets the bar extraordinarily high.

AMI, the global leader in Dynamic Firmware for worldwide computing, has partnered with Samsung Electronics, the global leader in consumer technology, to create an enhanced joint security solution available in Samsung's Galaxy Book PCs. Alongside Samsung's multi-layer security platform Samsung Knox, AMI's Tektagon - the industry-leading Platform Root of Trust firmware security solution - is now integrated into Samsung PCs including the Galaxy Book5 Pro 360, Galaxy Book4 Pro, Galaxy Book4 Pro 360, and Galaxy Book4 Ultra.

Through this collaborative partnership, AMI's Tektagon seamlessly integrates with Samsung Knox to ensure that confidential and sensitive data stays safe at every layer of the device through real-time threat detection and collaborative protection, while providing the highest level of security against firmware-injected malware to help prevent ransomware and denial of service attacks.

Intel has released the latest version of its Arc GPU Graphics drivers, the version 101.6083 Beta. The new driver update brings Game On support on Intel Arc A-series GPUs and Intel Core Ultra CPUs with Intel Arc GPUs for Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred Expansion, DRAGON BALL: Sparking! ZERO, and Silent Hill 2 games, increases performance in games like God of War Ragnarök, as well as fixes an issue seen in FC25, where Arc A-series GPUs may exhibit intermittent green corruption in the game menu and during gameplay.

According to Intel's release notes, the new driver update improves performance in God of War Ragnarök game by up to 9 percent average at 1080p resolution with Ultra settings and up to 34 percent average at 1440p resolution with Ultra settings. There are still several known issues which will hopefully be fixed with the next WHQL driver update.

DOWNLOAD: Intel Arc GPU Graphics Drivers 101.6083 Beta

The Chinese tech press is abuzz with slides allegedly from Intel's pre-launch press-deck for the Core Ultra 2-series "Arrow Lake-S." The most sensational of these are Intel's first-party performance claims for the top Core Ultra 9 285K model. There's good news and bad news. Good news first—Intel claims to have made a big leap in energy efficiency with "Arrow Lake," and the 285K should offer gaming performance comparable to the current Core i9-14900K at around 80 W lower power draw for the processor. But then there in lies the bad news—despite claimed IPC gains for the "Lion Cove" P-core, and rumored clock speeds being on par with the "Raptor Cove" P-cores on the i9-14900K, the 285K is barely any faster than its predecessor in absolute terms.

In its first party testing, when averaged across 12 game tests, which we used Google optical translation to make out the titles of, Intel used performance numbers of the i9-14900K as the mean. The 285K beats the i9-14900K in only four games—Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2, Age of Mythology Retold, Civilization VI: Gathering Storm, and F1 23. It's on-par with the i9-14900K in Red Dead Redemption 2, Total War: Pharaoh, Metro Exodus, Cyberpunk 2077, Black Myth: Wukong, Rainbow Six Siege. It's slower than the i9-14900K in Far Cry 6, FF XIV, F1 24, Red Dead Redemption 2. Averaged across this bench, the Core Ultra 9 285K ends up roughly on par with the Core i9-14900K in gaming. Intel also compared the 285K to AMD's Ryzen 9 9950X, and interestingly, even the Ryzen 9 7950X3D.

AMD today introduced the Radeon PRO V710, the newest member of AMD's family of visual cloud GPUs. Available today in private preview on Microsoft Azure, the Radeon PRO V710 brings new capabilities to the public cloud. The AMD Radeon PRO V710's 54 Compute Units, along with 28 GB of VRAM, 448 GB/s memory transfer rate, and 54 MB of L3 AMD Infinity Cache technology, support small to medium ML inference workloads and small model training using open-source AMD ROCm software.

With support for hardware virtualization implemented in compliance with the PCI Express SR-IOV standard, instances based on the Radeon PRO V710 can provide robust isolation between multiple virtual machines running on the same physical GPU and between the host and guest environments. The efficient RDNA 3 architecture provides excellent performance per watt, enabling a single slot, passively cooled form factor compliant with the PCIe CEM spec.

Logitech announced the launch of POP Icon Keys, an innovative, eye-catching new keyboard designed to express yourself and boost productivity. POP Icon Keys personalizes the workspace with its bold design and features that marry style with unparalleled functionality.

"At Logitech, we believe you should get the style and design you want at your workspace without compromising on productivity and comfort," said Art O'Gnimh, general manager in the personal workspace division at Logitech. "POP Icon Keys delivers a brilliant typing experience and smart productivity shortcuts, in a carefully crafted standout design."

TCL, a pioneer in display across feature-rich smartphones, tablets, and connected devices, today showcased its latest 5G AI CPE device and 5G RedCap Family products at the Broadband World Forum 2024, part of Network X, held from 8-10 October in Paris, France. The event featured the AI-driven 5G CPE TCL LINKHUB 5G HH516, a device enhancing user experiences with advanced AI technology, and the TCL LINKPORT IK511, the industry's first 5G RedCap USB Dongle for consumer & M2M scenarios. These recent releases highlight TCL router's commitment to 'Connect the Unconnected and Create Seamless Connection' by leveraging its technological prowess and supporting global 5G adoption with a diverse range of products.

"With over two decades of experience in cellular technology, TCL continues to forge paths in 5G connectivity by broadening access to advanced network technologies through our innovative product offerings," said Jesse Wu, General Manager of Smart Connected Device Business Unit at TCL. "Entering the 5G RedCap market is a strategic move to address the burgeoning demand for enhanced 5G capabilities in a variety of consumer and industrial applications."

Patriot Memory, a leading manufacturer of high-performance gaming memory modules, SSDs, flash memory, and gaming peripherals, today announced the launch of its latest innovation under the Viper Gaming brand: the Viper PV573 PCIeGen5 x4 M.2 2280 SSD. This product reinforces Patriot's leadership in cutting-edge technology, pushing speed boundaries beyond its predecessor, the PV553.

The Viper PV573 SSD utilizes advanced 3D NAND vertical stacking technology, significantly enhancing storage density while reducing power consumption and delivering faster read and write speeds. This innovation also improves durability, making it a reliable choice for users with demanding storage needs. With capacity options of up to 4 TB, the Viper PV573combines powerful performance in a compact, portable form factor, achieving the perfect balance of high capacity and efficiency within a small footprint.

It's finally here! ASUSTOR NAS devices with AMD Ryzen CPUs have finally launched! With four to ten drive bays; the Lockerstor Gen3 series arrives with both flexibility and performance. The Lockerstor Gen3 series is designed for extreme performance while maintaining extreme efficiency. In a first for ASUSTOR, the Lockerstor Gen3 features a Quad-Core AMD Ryzen Embedded SoC that boosts to 3.8 GHz. Take advantage of four to ten drive bays, and four M.2 slots for NVMe SSDs that use PCIe 4.0, dual 10GbE, dual 5GbE, and dual USB4. 16 GB of ECC DDR5-4800 memory that's expandable to 64 GB. This combination of powerful hardware is not only faster, but sets the new performance standard.

The AMD Ryzen V3C14 SoC is built on a 6 nm process for maximum performance and efficiency. At a 25 W maximum TDP, it achieves energy savings even when crunching high-performance tasks. All Lockerstor Gen3 devices are equipped with dual 10GbE and dual 5GbE network ports, with single-port 10 GbE read/write speeds reaching up to 1176 MB/s and 1018 MB/s, while SMB multi-channel performance using RAID 5 can reach up to 2005 MB/s and 1090 MB/s respectively.

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang will be leading the keynote address at the coveted 2025 International CES in Las Vegas, which opens on January 7. The keynote address is slated for January 6, 6:30 am PT. There is of course no word from NVIDIA on what to expect, but we have some fairly easy guesswork. NVIDIA's refresh of the GeForce RTX product stack is due, and the company is expected to either debut or expand its next-generation GeForce RTX 50-series "Blackwell" gaming GPU stack, bringing in generational improvements in performance and performance-per-Watt, besides new technology.

The company could also make more announcements related to its "Blackwell" AI GPU lineup, which is expected to ramp through 2025, succeeding the current "Hopper" H100 and H200 series. The company could also tease "Rubin," which it referenced recently at GTC in May, "Rubin" succeeds "Blackwell," and will debut as an AI GPU toward the end of 2025, with a 2026 ramp toward customers. It's unclear if NVIDIA will make gaming GPUs on "Rubin," since GeForce RTX generations tend to have a 2-year cadence, and there was no gaming GPU based on "Hopper."

NVIDIA and Foxconn are building Taiwan's largest supercomputer, marking a milestone in the island's AI advancement. The project, Hon Hai Kaohsiung Super Computing Center, revealed Tuesday at Hon Hai Tech Day, will be built around NVIDIA's groundbreaking Blackwell architecture and feature the GB200 NVL72 platform, which includes a total of 64 racks and 4,608 Tensor Core GPUs. With an expected performance of over 90 exaflops of AI performance, the machine would easily be considered the fastest in Taiwan.

Foxconn plans to use the supercomputer, once operational, to power breakthroughs in cancer research, large language model development and smart city innovations, positioning Taiwan as a global leader in AI-driven industries. Foxconn's "three-platform strategy" focuses on smart manufacturing, smart cities and electric vehicles. The new supercomputer will play a pivotal role in supporting Foxconn's ongoing efforts in digital twins, robotic automation and smart urban infrastructure, bringing AI-assisted services to urban areas like Kaohsiung.

Today, Inflection AI and Intel announced a collaboration to accelerate the adoption and impact of AI for enterprises as well as developers. Inflection AI is launching Inflection for Enterprise, an industry-first, enterprise-grade AI system powered by Intel Gaudi and Intel Tiber AI Cloud (AI Cloud), to deliver empathetic, conversational, employee-friendly AI capabilities and provide the control, customization and scalability required for complex, large-scale deployments. This system is available presently through the AI Cloud and will be shipping to customers as an industry-first AI appliance powered by Gaudi 3 in Q1 2025.

"Through this strategic collaboration with Inflection AI, we are setting a new standard with AI solutions that deliver immediate, high-impact results. With support for open-source models, tools, and competitive performance per watt, Intel Gaudi 3 solutions make deploying GenAI accessible, affordable, and efficient for enterprises of any size." -Justin Hotard, Intel executive vice president and general manager of the Data Center and AI Group

MSI is thrilled to introduce the MS-CF17, a powerful 3.5" Single Board Computer (SBC) tailored for a wide range of industrial applications. Powered by Intel 13th Gen Raptor Lake-P processors, the MS-CF17 is ideal for use in industrial automation, edge computing, digital signage, and transportation systems. The MS-CF17 is designed to excel in harsh environments, offering fanless operation and a wide temperature range (-40°C to 70°C). This makes it perfect for settings where reliability and performance are crucial, such as in factory automation or outdoor digital signage installations. The board supports up to 32 GB of DDR5 memory and features built-in Intel Iris Xe graphics engine, making it suitable for graphics-intensive tasks like advanced imaging systems and AI-driven analytics.

Connectivity options are abundant, with four 2.5G LAN ports, four HDMI ports supporting quadruple independent displays, M.2 M key PCIe Gen 4 for storage and M.2 B/E key slots for expansions, allowing for seamless integration into complex systems. This flexibility makes the MS-CF17 a go-to solution for applications requiring high-speed data processing, multi-display setups, and real-time analytics. Additionally, the onboard TPM 2.0 provides enhanced security, crucial for applications where data protection is paramount.

Leading IPC provider AAEON today announced the release of two new Panel PCs: the ACP-2106, which features a 10" WXGA screen, and the ACP-2076, equipped with a 7" WSVGA Projected Capacitive Multi-Touch screen. Compared to its previous Panel PC offerings, both the ACP-2106 and ACP-2076 offer substantial improvements in processing power, with a choice of either the Intel Processor N50 or Intel Processor N97 CPU. Moreover, both new additions to the range support up to 32 GB of DDR5, compared to the 8 GB of DDR3L offered by the previous generation. With these improvements, the ACP-2106 and ACP-2076 are clearly designed for use in more advanced and taxing industrial and commercial applications, with retail and industrial automation thought to be primary target markets.

The ACP-2076 grants users a 7" display with 1024 x 600 resolution, while the ACP-2106's 10" screen offers a slightly higher resolution of 1280 x 800. Both PCs are also equipped with an HDMI 1.4b port, making them suitable for applications that require dual-display capabilities, such as smart kiosks. Both models also provide wide viewing angles and high brightness levels, with the ACP-2076 achieving 320 cd/m² and the ACP-2106 reaching 300 cd/m², ensuring consistent visibility in a variety of environments.

Some of the first images of a de-lidded Intel Core Ultra 9 285K "Arrow Lake-S" processor surfaced on the web, confirming a disaggregated chiplet-based processor design. Intel pivoted to chiplet based processors with its Core Ultra "Meteor Lake," allowing it to build specific IP blocks of the processor on different foundry nodes, ensuring the ones that don't need the most advanced nodes can make do with slightly older ones, thereby maximizing Intel's yields for that advanced node. The die shot reveals a similar level of disaggregation to "Meteor Lake" than that of the more recent Core Ultra 200V "Lunar Lake" mobile processor.

With "Lunar Lake," Intel had re-aggregated a few things. "Lunar Lake" only has two tiles—SoC tile and I/O tile. The 3 nm SoC tile contains the CPU complex, a large iGPU, and a large 40 TOPS-class NPU, all sharing die-space with the memory controllers, and PCIe root complex. The smaller 6 nm I/O tile contains the PHYs of the various I/O interfaces. The "Arrow Lake" chip appears to have a similar degree of disaggregation as "Meteor Lake." We can spot at least five tiles sitting on top of the Foveros base tile. The picture has no annotation for the various tiles, but recent reports by Moore's Law is Dead and Jay Kihn shed some light on what these could be.

Following Epic Games's recent victory over Apple, which effectively forced the iPhone maker to allow third-party apps on iOS in the EU, the game developer and distributor has won a similar case against Google, except in the US, this time. The ruling places several restrictions on what Google can and can't do when it comes to the Android operating system and how it positions its own apps and services on Android phones, including prohibiting Google from paying device manufacturers to include its Play software on their devices and forcing developers to use Google's payment platform.

The ruling (PDF) and its consequent restrictions will start on November 1, 2024, will last three years, and Google isn't particularly happy about the mandated changes, having already confirmed that it will appeal the decision, citing security concerns and arguing that the order would negatively affect developers: "these changes would put consumers' privacy and security at risk, make it harder for developers to promote their apps, and reduce competition on devices."

Greenliant is now sampling high-endurance EnduroSLC NVMe M.2 2242 and 2280 ArmourDrive EX Series solid state drives (SSDs), providing 75,000 and 150,000 program-erase (P/E) cycles. Operating between -40 and +95 degrees Celsius, NVMe M.2 ArmourDrive EX Series SSDs offer high reliability and long-term support required by leading customers in aerospace and defense, industrial, transportation and networking.

Greenliant is also sampling upgraded NVMe M.2 2242 / 2280 ArmourDrive PX Series SSDs with high-quality industrial 3-bit-per-cell (TLC) 3D NAND that support 5,000 P/E cycles. Optimized for high performance and low power consumption, both EX and PX series products provide the convenience of removability. Offered from popular 2280 (GLS88AS) to small 2242 (GLS88CS) form factors and available in a wide range of capacities, these single-sided, thin-profile SSDs are ideal for space-constrained designs.

URCDKeys heralds Autumn 2024 with a brand-new software sale that lets you prepare a gaming PC build for the Winter. Get Genuine Windows 11 Pro at just $20. The most powerful productivity suite, Office, starts at $26 for Office 2016 Professional Plus, with the most advanced Office 2021 Professional Plus going for $86. Save more in combos of your preferred editions of Windows and Office. URCDKeys is also listing useful enterprise tools such as Visual Studio 2022 and SQL Server 2019. Do check them out at heavily discounted prices, to help your business save more.

Buy Windows 10 Pro at $14 | Buy Windows 11 Pro at $20 | Buy Windows 10 Home at $13 | Buy Windows 11 Home at $24

Buy Windows 10 Pro 2-PC at $26 | Buy Office 2016 Professional Plus at $26 | Buy Office 2019 Professional Plus at $47 | Buy Office 2021 Professional Plus at $86 | Buy Office 2019 Home and Student at $49 | Buy Office 2019 Home and Business for Mac at $78

Buy Windows 10 Pro + Office 2016 Professional Plus at $40 | Buy Windows 10 Pro + Office 2019 Professional Plus at $58

Buy Visual Studio 2022 Enterprise at $95 | Buy SQL Server 2019 Standard 2-core at $87 | Buy SQL Server 2022 Standard 16-core at $158

Super Flower, a leader in high-performance power supply units (PSUs), is thrilled to announce the launch of a full product lineup that extends beyond their renowned PSUs. This comprehensive expansion includes air coolers, water coolers, case fans, and chassis, aiming to provide PC enthusiasts with a broader range of components that deliver both performance and aesthetic appeal. The new products are designed to meet the diverse needs of gamers, content creators, and tech enthusiasts who seek reliable, high-quality solutions for their custom builds.

Leading the lineup is the Leadex III ATX 3.1, available in 650 W, 750 W, 850 W, 1000 W, and 1300 W configurations. This PSU exemplifies Super Flower's commitment to excellence, offering unmatched performance, efficiency, and safety for even the most demanding systems. Its advanced features cater to gamers and power users alike, ensuring stability and reliability under intense loads.

According to the latest PassMark benchmarks, the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K is the highest-performing single-thread CPU. The benchmark king title comes as PassMark's official account on X shared single-threaded performance number, with the upcoming Arrow Lake-S flagship SKU, Intel Core Ultra 9 285K, scoring 5,268 points in single-core results. This is fantastic news for gamers, as games mostly care about single-core performance. This CPU, having 8 P-cores and 16 E-cores, boasts 5.7 GHz P-core boost and 4.6 GHz E-core boost frequencies. The single-core tests put the new SKU at 11% lead compared to the previous-generation Intel Core i9-14900K processor.

However, the multithreaded cases are running more slowly. The PassMark multithreaded results put Intel Core Ultra 9 285K at 46,872 points, which is about 22% slower than the last-generation top SKU. While this may be a disappointment for some, it is partially expected, given that Arrow Lake stops the multithreaded designs in Intel CPU families. From now on, every CPU will be a combination of P and E-Cores, tuned for efficiency or performance depending on the use case. It is also possible that the CPU used inn PassMark's testing was an engineering sample, so until official launch, we have no concrete information about its definitive performance comparison.

Supermicro, Inc., a Total IT Solution Provider for Cloud, AI/ML, Storage, and 5G/Edge, is announcing a complete liquid cooling solution that includes powerful Coolant Distribution Units (CDUs), cold plates, Coolant Distribution Manifolds (CDMs), cooling towers and end to end management software. This complete solution reduces ongoing power costs and Day 0 hardware acquisition and data center cooling infrastructure costs. The entire end-to-end data center scale liquid cooling solution is available directly from Supermicro.

"Supermicro continues to innovate, delivering full data center plug-and-play rack scale liquid cooling solutions," said Charles Liang, CEO and president of Supermicro. "Our complete liquid cooling solutions, including SuperCloud Composer for the entire life-cycle management of all components, are now cooling massive, state-of-the-art AI factories, reducing costs and improving performance. The combination of Supermicro deployment experience and delivering innovative technology is resulting in data center operators coming to Supermicro to meet their technical and financial goals for both the construction of greenfield sites and the modernization of existing data centers. Since Supermicro supplies all the components, the time to deployment and online are measured in weeks, not months."

Recent reports from South China Morning Post unveil developments in China's semiconductor industry, with significant progress in two critical areas: advanced memory chips and silicon photonics. These breakthroughs mark important steps in the country's pursuit of technological self-reliance amid global trade tensions. In Wuhan, a startup called Numemory has unveiled a new storage-class memory (SCM) chip. The "NM101" chip boasts an impressive 64 GB capacity, far surpassing the megabyte-range offerings currently dominating the market. This novel chip blends the strengths of traditional DRAM and NAND flash storage, delivering rapid, non-volatile, persistent memory ideal for server and data center applications. The NM101's design prioritizes high capacity, density, and bandwidth while maintaining low latency. These characteristics make it particularly well-suited for data centers and cloud computing infrastructures. Initial reports suggest that storage devices incorporating this SCM technology can write an entire 10 GB high-definition video file in a mere second.

Concurrently, another Wuhan-based institution, JFS Laboratory, has achieved a milestone in silicon photonics research. The state-backed facility successfully merged a laser light source with a silicon chip, a feat previously unrealized in China. This innovation in silicon photonics leverages light signals for data transmission, potentially circumventing the looming physical constraints of traditional electric signal-based chip designs. This accomplishment is viewed as addressing a crucial gap in China's optoelectronics capabilities, which used to lag behind Western chip designers and startups. Using silicon photonics, infrastructure scale-out can be sustained on a much larger scale without significant power consumption increase. While these developments represent significant progress, it's important to note that bridging the gap between laboratory breakthroughs and mass-produced, commercially viable products remains a substantial challenge. The path from research success to market dominance is often long and complex, requiring sustained investment and further technological refinement.

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., a global leader in wireless technology innovation, today announced the launch of the Qualcomm Networking Pro A7 Elite, a groundbreaking wireless networking platform set to transform how people will experience their networks with edge AI integration. Leveraging an AI co-processor with 40 TOPS of NPU processing power, the platform delivers elevated Wi-Fi 7 connectivity and networking performance, while also equipping connected devices with powerful and centralized generative AI processing capabilities.

This transformative integration of computing power into the network unlocks opportunities for operators and enterprises to deploy innovative applications and services in areas such as security and surveillance, energy management and automation, personalized virtual assistants, aging in place and health monitoring among others. Edge AI can enhance privacy by processing sensitive information on the gateway, while enabling personalization through contextualized understanding of the environment and immediacy through near real-time responses. This approach unlocks the power of advanced AI for more devices, even legacy ones, enabling a more reliable and harmonized user experience across connected devices.

High-resolution die-shots of the AMD "Zen 5" 8-core CCD were released and annotated by Nemez, Fitzchens Fitz, and HighYieldYT. These provide a detailed view of how the silicon and its various components appear, particularly the new "Zen 5" CPU core with its 512-bit FPU. The "Granite Ridge" package looks similar to "Raphael," with up to two 8-core CPU complex dies (CCDs) depending on the processor model, and a centrally located client I/O die (cIOD). This cIOD is carried over from "Raphael," which minimizes product development costs for AMD at least for the uncore portion of the processor. The "Zen 5" CCD is built on the TSMC N4P (4 nm) foundry node.

The "Granite Ridge" package sees the up to two "Zen 5" CCDs snuck up closer to each other than the "Zen 4" CCDs on "Raphael." In the picture above, you can see the pad of the absent CCD behind the solder mask of the fiberglass substrate, close to the present CCD. The CCD contains 8 full-sized "Zen 5" CPU cores, each with 1 MB of L2 cache, and a centrally located 32 MB L3 cache that's shared among all eight cores. The only other components are an SMU (system management unit), and the Infinity Fabric over Package (IFoP) PHYs, which connect the CCD to the cIOD.

Welcome to the first full week of October and another busy week of new game releases. This week's AAA release involves balls and dragons, but no need to worry, it's not an adult only game. This is followed by a co-op metroidvania game that actually appears to have a story, this week's remake which involves a ghost town on a hill, a shady parkour platformer, an old-school style JRPG, a turn-based RPG and finally a peaceful exploration game. Also out this week is the Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred DLC.

Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero / This week's AAA release / Friday 11 October
Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero takes the legendary gameplay of the Budokai Tenkaichi series and raises it to whole new levels. Become a super warrior and experience the earth-shaking, limit-breaking power of Dragon Ball battles! Engage in heart-pounding, high-speed 3D battles that stay true to the anime and video game series, with breathtaking visuals and authentic combat moves like beam clashes, rush attacks, movements too quick for the eyes to see, and planet-razing ultimate attacks. Steam link

ASRock has a pretty comprehensive lineup of upcoming Socket LGA1851 motherboards based on the top Intel Z890 chipset, which the company will launch alongside the new Intel Core Ultra 2-series "Arrow Lake-S" desktop processors later this month. The company's Z890 lineup has been leaked to the web by VideoCardz. The lineup covers nearly every brand extension by ASRock, addressing a wide category of PC users, from the entry level that just wants an office desktop to harness the CPU power of the new processors, to the two distinct classes of the enthusiast segment—one which overclocks, and the other that needs every possible premium I/O from this platform, with the bulk of the lineup targeting gaming PC builders across price-segments.

At the very top are ASRock Z890 Taichi OCF and the ASRock Z890 Taichi. The Taichi OCF is the spiritual successor to the OC Formula series by ASRock targeting professional overclockers. It has the strongest possible CPU VRM solution from the company, the largest selection of overclocker-friendly features, and a 1 DIMM per channel (1DPC) memory configuration, for the highest possible memory overclocks. The Taichi OCF has most if not all of the I/O goodies ASRock has to offer. For this, you'll have to seek out the regular ASRock Z890 Taichi, with its four DDR5 memory slots, nearly the same overclocking feature-set as the Taichi OCF, but some added toys, such as Thunderbolt 4. The Z890 Taichi Lite is an interesting product—it has nearly all features that place it into the high-end segment, such as that 8-layer PCB, a strong CPU VRM, and premium onboard audio, among others; but skips on the bulk of the dramatic flair of the Z890 Taichi.

Intel 13th Gen and 14th Gen Core processor models based on the 8P+16E "Raptor Lake" silicon are prone to an infamous bug that caused their performance and stability to irreversibly degrade over time due to excessive voltage. This was isolated to a faulty microcode. Intel responded to this by extending the warranty of affected processor models, and releasing a slew of CPU microcode updates encapsulated into motherboard UEFI firmware updates, through PC OEMs and motherboard vendors, with the latest such microcode update being 0x12B. There's good news—Intel extensively tested affected processor models and confirmed that the 0x12B microcode fixes this issue. It is crucial that you update your motherboard BIOS (UEFI firmware) to the latest version, which contains this microcode.

The Verge recently interviewed Intel spokesperson Thomas Hannaford on this topic, who stated that the company had identified four scenarios causing processors to irreversibly degrade, and had recommended mitigations to stable processors before the degradation set in, with the latest microcode update fixing all outstanding scenarios. If a processor is unstable (i.e. degradation has set in), the firmware update is of no use, and you should just get the processor replaced under warranty. Intel extended the warranty to cover even the very first purchases of affected processor models. "Yes, we're confirming this is the cause and that it is fixed," Intel spokesperson Thomas Hannaford tells The Verge.

The Epic Games free weekly game giveaways have been an easy way for PC gamers to pad out their game library with aging games and help Epic Games draw gamers to its store, which is commonly thought to be inferior to the likes of Steam due to a lack of features. Now Epic Games is bringing that same free game giveaway program to its mobile storefront for iOS (in the EU, at least) and Android.

Announced at a round table discussion at the Seattle Unreal Fest earlier this week, the free mobile game giveaway will launch in Q4, 2024, and the publisher will add third-party apps to its mobile store at the same time. Epic Games Store's general manager, Steve Allison, who announced the program, was pretty up-front about Epic's intentions with the game giveaway: "The free games program will launch in Q4 along with the [first] third-party apps showing up, and we're gonna have some awesome stuff for players that will also be awesome for developers because it'll help us scale really quickly."