Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from TechPowerUp!

From all of us here at TechPowerUp, we wish you and your loved ones a Merry Christmas and a Prosperous 2024! 2023 really blew by as civilization and society fully returned to normal with renewed spirits and determination. We hope and pray that this holds, and that together we make 2024 even better for everyone! It's been an equally eventful year for technology, hardware, and gaming, and we can't wait to tell you all about it, in our upcoming Holiday feature looking back into the year in tech!
Monday, December 25th 2023

Today's Reviews

Cooling
CPU Coolers
Desktop PC
Gaming PC
Headphones
Input Devices
Memory
Monitors
PSUs
Speakers
SSD

Now, Enable FSR 3 in FSR 2 Games with New Leaked Mod

AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) is easy to integrate with games, which also makes the tech a hot commodity within the modding community. LukeFZ figured out a way to get any game with a working FSR 2 implementation to be modified to support FSR 3, which should bring features such as improved image quality among the quality presets; and frame generation. LukeFZ has been behind several such game mods, some free and some paid, one of his community members leaked a bundle of all his paid mods, including one that modifies any game to take advantage of FSR 3. Called simply the FSR2FSR3 mod by LukeFZ, this mod is tested to work correctly on the following games: The Last of Us Part I, Dead Space (2023), Hogwarts Legacy, MS-Man Remastered, UNCHARTED: Legacy of Thieves, HITMAN World of Assassination, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, Remnant II, Cyberpunk 2077, Alan Wake 2, Dying Light 2, Watch Dogs: Legion, Metro Exodus Enhanced, STAR WARS Jedi: Survivor, Ready Or Not, and Assassin's Creed Mirage. You can find the mod in the source link below.

Rigetti Launches the Novera QPU, the Company's First Commercially Available Quantum Processor

Rigetti Computing, Inc. (Nasdaq: RGTI) ("Rigetti" or the "Company"), a pioneer in full-stack quantum-classical computing, announced today the launch of its Novera QPU, a 9-qubit quantum processing unit (QPU) based on the Company's fourth generation Ankaa -class architecture featuring tunable couplers and a square lattice for denser connectivity and fast 2-qubit operations. The Novera QPU is manufactured in Rigetti's Fab-1, the industry's first dedicated and integrated quantum device manufacturing facility.

The Novera QPU includes all of the hardware below the mixing chamber plate (MXC) of a dilution refrigerator. In addition to a 9-qubit chip with a 3x3 array of tunable transmons, the Novera QPU also includes a 5-qubit chip with no tunable couplers or qubit-qubit coupling which can be used for developing and characterizing single-qubit operations on a simpler circuit. In addition to the 9-qubit and 5-qubit chips, Novera QPU components include:

ASUS Intros China-exclusive Radeon RX 7900 GRE TUF White

ASUS over the weekend introduced the China-exclusive Radeon RX 7900 GRE TUF Gaming White graphics card. The card shares a lot in common with the other RX 7900 series TUF Gaming custom-design cards, but swaps out the gunmetal-gray cooler shroud and backplate combo for one that's matte white. The whitewash even extends to the impellers of the three Axial Tech fans. The PCB remains black, but due to the 3-D design of the shroud and backplate, is largely concealed. The card draws power from a pair of 8-pin PCIe power connectors, and uses a 14-phase VRM to condition it for the "Navi 31 XL" ASIC.

The Radeon RX 7900 GRE (golden rabbit edition) is based on a "Navi 31 XL," a unique package that combines the 5 nm graphics compute die (GCD) of "Navi 31," with the 4-MCD (memory cache die) setup of the smaller "Navi 32" package. AMD designed this primarily to drive the mobile RX 7900 series SKUs, but it found its way to the desktop platform to fill the gap between the RX 7800 XT and RX 7900 XT, and possibly undercut the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti. It is configured with 80 out of 96 available compute units on the GCD, giving it 5,120 stream processors, 160 AI accelerators, and 80 Ray accelerators, the Infinity Cache size is reduced to 64 MB, since there are only 4 MCDs, driving its 256-bit memory bus that handles 16 GB of 18 Gbps GDDR6 memory (576 GB/s bandwidth).

Global PC Shipments Forecast to Recover in 2024 After Unprecedented Slump in PC Demand, According to IDC

With shipments totaling 68.5 million units in the third quarter of 2023, the global PC market managed to outperform expectations. But that volume was still down 7.2% compared to the same quarter in 2022, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker. Despite the PC market surpassing initial forecasts, both driving and inhibiting factors influenced this performance. First, the increased volume can partly be attributed to inventory restocking, mostly on the consumer side. Second, there was a notable effort to address anticipated cost escalations, such as expected increases in India import duties. Although these duties were later suspended, such concerns nonetheless led to the channel absorbing more units than likely necessary. Finally, further tightened IT budgets led business PC units to underperform against an already conservative commercial forecast.

Given current conditions and a tenuous macroeconomic environment, IDC has lowered its forecast for the worldwide PC market. 2023 shipment volume is now expected to decline 13.8% compared to 2022, which itself declined 16.6% over the previous year. Two consecutive years of double-digit year-over-year drops is an unprecedented trend in the PC market but will likely contribute to a recovery thereafter. Despite the short-term challenges, IDC continues to expect a market rebound in 2024 and beyond with many factors converging within the next two years.
A few of the main drivers include:

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 50 Series "Blackwell" On Course for Q4-2024

NVIDIA's next-generation GeForce RTX 50-series "Blackwell" gaming GPUs are on course to debut toward the end of 2024, with a Moore's Law is Dead report pinning the launch to Q4-2024. This is an easy to predict timeline, as every GeForce RTX generation tends to have 2 years of market presence, with the RTX 40-series "Ada" having debuted in Q4-2022 (October 2022), and the RTX 30-series "Ampere" in late-Q3 2020 (September 2020).

NVIDIA's roadmap for 2024 sees a Q1 debut of the RTX 40-series SUPER, with three high-end SKUs refreshing the upper half of the RTX 40-series. The MLID report goes on to speculate that the generational performance uplift of "Blackwell" over "Ada" will be smaller still, than that of "Ada" over "Ampere." With AI HPC GPUs outselling gaming GPUs by 5:1 in terms of revenues, and AMD rumored to be retreating from the enthusiast segment for its next-gen RDNA4, we get to see why this is the case.
Sunday, December 24th 2023

This Week in Gaming (Week 52)

As we enter the last week of the year, as well as the Christmas and New Years period, we also have the slowest week of new game releases of the entire year. That said, there are still some new games being released, whether they're worth your Christmas money or not, is an entirely different story. Here's looking forward to many new, great game releases in 2024.

Sealed Gate / Monday 25 December
Sealed Gate is a medieval fantasy game where players are immersed in a huge and interesting world full of dangers and mysteries. The game has various systems such as combat system, crafting, professions, magic system, resource extraction system and much more. The combat system is based on dynamic real-time battles where players can choose between different fighting styles using weapons and magic in combination with each other. Crafting allows players to create various items using resources found during the exploration of the world, such as weapons, armor and tools.
Saturday, December 23rd 2023

Five Leading Semiconductor Industry Players Incorporate New Company, Quintauris, to Drive RISC-V Ecosystem Forward

Semiconductor industry players Robert Bosch GmbH, Infineon Technologies AG, Nordic Semiconductor ASA, NXP Semiconductors, and Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., have formally established Quintauris GmbH. Headquartered in Munich, Germany, the company aims to advance the adoption of RISC-V globally by enabling next-generation hardware development.

The formation of Quintauris was formally announced in August, with the aim to be a single source to enable compatible RISC-V-based products, provide reference architectures, and help establish solutions to be widely used across various industries. The initial application focus will be automotive, but with an eventual expansion to include mobile and IoT.

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Friday, December 22nd 2023

Today's Reviews

Cases
Cooling
Headphones
Motherboards
Mouse
Notebooks
PSUs
SSD
HIFIMAN Svanar Wireless TWS ANC Earphones Review

HIFIMAN Svanar Wireless TWS ANC Earphones Review

HIFIMAN aims to break the boundaries of wireless audio with the Svanar Wireless. This flagship TWS set of earphones uses a proprietary dynamic driver as well as an industry-first implementation of an R-2R DAC and amplifier inside with the goal of putting out sound comparable to wired IEMs, not just other wireless earphones.

ASUS Teases 4K 240 Hz ROG Gaming Monitor with 1080p 480 Hz Mode

Just like LG and HP, ASUS is gearing up to launch a dual mode 4K 240 Hz / 1080p 480 Hz OLED monitor and the company has released a little teaser ahead of the official CES 2024 reveal of the monitor. The display will unsurprisingly fall under ASUS' ROG brand and will be known as the ROG Swift OLED PG32UCDP and spec wise it appears to use the same OLED panel as LG's 32GS95UE and possibly HP's Omen Transcend, since all three monitors should feature the dual mode option of 4K 240 Hz or 1080p 480 Hz. ASUS claims that the PG32UCDP is "the world's first dual-mode gaming monitor" which we've already seen isn't the case, but it's still the matter of who will be first to offer their displays in the retail market.

Interestingly, ASUS announced the similar ROG Swift OLED PG32UCDM at Gamescom 2023, which was said to offer a QD-OLED display with a 4K resolution and a 240 Hz refresh rate. The PG32UCDM appears to lack the 1080p 480 Hz mode though, but with only one letter difference in the model name, potential buyers are going to have to pay close attention so they don't end up with the wrong display. We're going to have to wait for a release and review of the displays before we'll know which one is the better of the two ASUS models.

SUNON: Pioneering Innovative Liquid Cooling Solutions for Modern Data Centers

In the era of high-tech development and the ever-increasing demand for data processing power, data centers are consuming more energy and generating excess heat. As a global leader in thermal solutions, SUNON is at the forefront, offering a diverse range of cutting-edge liquid cooling solutions tailored to advanced data centers equipped with high-capacity CPU and GPU computing for AI, edge, and cloud servers.

SUNON's liquid cooling design services are ideally suited for modern data centers, generative AI computing, and high-performance computing (HPC) applications. These solutions are meticulously customized to fit the cooling space and server density of each data center. With their compact yet comprehensive design, they guarantee exceptional cooling efficiency and reliability, ultimately contributing to a significant reduction in a client's total cost of ownership (TCO) in the long term. In the pursuit of net-zero emissions standards, SUNON's liquid cooling solutions play a pivotal role in enhancing corporate sustainability. They o ff er a win-win scenario for clients seeking to transition toward greener and more digitalized operations.

VIA Labs VL832 USB4 Device Achieves USB-IF Certification

VIA Labs, Inc. (VLI), a leading supplier of USB4, USB 3.2, and USB Power Delivery Controllers, today announced that the VL832 USB4 Endpoint Device Controller achieved USB4 certification from the USB Implementor's Forum (USB-IF). VIA Lab's VL832 supports USB 40 Gbps operation and is now listed on the USB-IF Integrator's List under TID: 10033.

VIA Lab VL832's USB-IF Certification represents a key milestone in the USB4 ecosystem. The certified USB4 device controller with an integrated USB 3.2 USB 10 Gbps Hub, USB 2.0 Hub, and DisplayPort output, provides essential connectivity for peripheral devices such as multi-function adapters and docking stations. In USB4 40 Gbps mode, VL832 supports full DisplayPort HBR3 bandwidth (32.4 Gbps), and the USB 20 Gbps hub can enable multiple USB 10 Gbps devices to operate at full performance on supported host platforms. Both metrics are double what was previously possible using DisplayPort Alternate Mode, which is limited to 2-lanes of DisplayPort when supporting USB 3.2 functionality.

IBM Demonstrates a Nanosheet Transistor that Loves 77 Kelvin—Boiling Point of Nitrogen

IBM, at the 2023 IEEE International Electron Device Meeting (IEDM), demonstrated a concept nanosheet transistor that posts a near 100% performance improvement at the boiling point of nitrogen, of 77 Kelvin (-196 °C). Given how relatively industrialized and scaled out the manufacture, safe transport, storage, and use of liquid nitrogen is, this development potentially unlocks a new class of chips that attain top performance under liquid nitrogen cooling. Think a new generation of AI HPC accelerators that can instantly double their performance under LN2, provided a new kind of cooling solution is developed for data-centers.

Nanosheet transistors are the evolutionary next step to FinFETs, which have been driving semiconductor foundries since 16 nm, which could see their technical limits met at 3 nm. Nanosheets are expected to make their debut with 2 nm-class nodes such as the TSMC N2 and Intel 20A. At an operating temperature of 77 K, IBM's nanosheet device is claimed to offer a near doubling in performance, due to less charge carrier scattering, which results in lower power. Reducing scattering reduces resistance in the wires, letting electrons move through the device more quickly. Combined with lower power, devices can drive a higher current at a given voltage. Cooling also results in greater sensitivity between the device's on and off positions, so it takes lesser power to switch between the two states, resulting in lower power. This lower power means that transistor widths can be lowered, resulting in higher transistor densities, or smaller chips. As of now IBM is wrestling with a technical challenge concerning the transistor's threshold voltage, a voltage which is needed to create a conducting channel between the source and the drain.

ASRock Motherboards First to Support Microsoft Dynamic Lighting for Native Control across the Window OS and Apps

ASRock has announced its motherboards as the first to support Microsoft's Dynamic Lighting feature, offering users a native RGB lighting synchronization experience directly from generic Windows 11 OS. ASRock leads the industry in supporting Microsoft's Dynamic Lighting feature, a pioneering step in motherboard RGB lighting synchronization support.

To enable the Dynamic Lighting feature, users are required to update their Windows 11 OS to the 23H2 version and install the Beta firmware which can be downloaded from the ASRock official website. Once activated, users can control the motherboard LED lighting, RGB gaming mice, keyboards, and other RGB lighting devices via Windows 11 OS.

ASRock Launches Linux Version of AI QuickSet Software Tool

Leading global motherboard manufacturer, ASRock, just released the Microsoft Windows 10/11 64-bit version of the AI QuickSet software tool, which can help users quickly download, install and configure artificial intelligence (AI) application has aroused widespread response. Today it launches the Linux version of the AI QuickSet software tool, allowing Linux platform users quickly experience the fun of richer artificial intelligence (AI) applications!

The Linux version of ASRock AI QuickSet software tool supports Ubuntu 22.04.3 Desktop (64-bit) operating system. It uses the Docker software to simplify the installation and configuration process of artificial intelligence (AI) applications while maintaining a clean user operating environment. With the powerful computing capabilities provided by ASRock's AMD Radeon RX 7900 series graphics cards and AMD ROCm software platform, it supports more open-source artificial intelligence (AI) applications and optimizes their operating performance, including Image/Manga Translator, Stable Diffusion CLI & web UI image generation tool, Text generation web UI (the AI chat tool using Meta Llama 2 language model), and Ultralytics YOLOv8 object detection and image segmentation model, that provide Linux users with richer artificial intelligence (AI) application experience.

NVIDIA to Reveal New AI Innovations at CES 2024

In the lead-up to next month's CES trade show in Las Vegas, NVIDIA will unveil its latest advancements in artificial intelligence - including generative AI - and a spectrum of other cutting-edge technologies. Scheduled for Monday, Jan. 8, at 8 a.m. PT, the company's special address will be publicly streamed. Save the date and plan to tune in to the virtual address, which will focus on consumer technologies and robotics, on NVIDIA's website, YouTube or Twitch.

AI and NVIDIA technologies will be the focus of 14 conference sessions, including four at CES Digital Hollywood, "Reshaping Retail - AI Creating Opportunity," "Robots at Work" and "Cracking the Smart Car." And throughout CES, NVIDIA's story will be enriched by the presence of over 85 NVIDIA customers and partners.

Starfield Played By 13 Million Players and Bethesda Promises Updates Every Six Weeks Next Year

Bethesda has released its "end of the year update" for Starfield, as well as shared some statistics from the game, including the fact that it has been played by 13 million players. In addition, Bethesda has also promised updates every six weeks, starting in February next year.

While the published statistics do not give a lot of details and those 13 million players do not translate to actual sold games, mostly due to the Xbox Game Pass, it does have some fun facts, including that the game has over 22 million days played, with 40 hours as an average playtime per player, and that players have visited nearly 2 billion planets. As of February next year, Bethesda's new updates for Starfield will include everything from quality-of-life improvements to content and feature updates. Bethesda has also promised the all new gameplay options, as well as the official mod support with the launch of Creations. The first major expansion for the game, Shattered Space, is also under development and more information should be available next year.

Steam Winter Sale Kicks Off With Some Great Deals

Steam has launched its Winter Sale 2023, which runs from December 21st to January 4th, offering some impressive deals on popular games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Diablo 4, Hoghwarts Legacy, Alan Wake 2, Assassin's Creed Mirage and others.

Although it does not offer free games, like it is the case with Epic Games Store Holiday Sale or GOG's Winter Sale, Steam might have the cheapest price on some games that you might have missed. There are plenty of titles on the list with discounts from 30, up to 75 percent, and it might be the perfect time to get some games that you might have missed.

New Chinese Online Gaming Regulations Send Tencent, NetEase, and Other Gaming Stocks Crashing

China, earlier today, brought into effect new online gaming and gambling regulations, which aim to curb down the time spent by gamers online, and remove all incentives to play daily, by regulating the way games reward gamers to play daily or often, causing them to spend more time and money online. The announcement sent shockwaves through the financial markets, causing investors to drain about $80 billion in value from two the leading online gaming stocks, Tencent and NetEase. The regulations essentially set spending limits for online games, by spelling out the exact ways in which game studios can monetize their online experiences and play reward systems. Tencent lost about 16% in share price, while that of NetEase crashed by 25%. Prosus, which owns a 26% stake in Tencent, slid by 14.2% in the markets. This is expected to have an effect on Western markets that open for trading in a bit.

HP OMEN Transcend OLED Monitor Detailed Ahead of CES 2024

Hot on the heels of LG's UltraGear 4K OLED monitor with Dual-Hz feature, specifications and pictures of the upcoming HP OMEN Transcend 4K OLED monitor have leaked online. It will come with 32-inch 4K OLED panel with 240 Hz refresh rate and peak brightness of 1000 nits in HDR mode. The monitor will feature HP's Omen Tempest Cooling Tech to mitigate the risk of burn-in problems, as well as support for AMD FreeSync and Dolby Vision.

The rest of the known specifications, reported by Windows Report, include KVM switch, a feature that is quite popular in monitors these days, as well as HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 2.1 support. It also includes several other USB Type-C and Type-A ports. The monitor is expected to be the star of HP's OMEN CES 2024 lineup.

Microsoft Pulls the Plug on Windows Mixed Reality, Reportedly Downsizing VR Division

Microsoft is discontinuing Windows Mixed Reality. This was discovered when the company added it to a list of deprecated Windows features. The Windows Mixed Reality platform, along with its accompanying Mixed Reality Portal app, and Mixed Reality for Steam VR, are on the list. For now it is deprecated, and Microsoft says that it will be removed in a future release of Windows. Mixed Reality was released in 2017, during the thick of the VR craze in the tech industry, a time when Facebook, having acquired Oculus, and betting big on the Metaverse, an endeavor that cost the company over $20 billion since. Mixed Reality served as a gateway to games and apps in the VR space. The company developed its own HoloLens Mixed Reality headset rivaling Oculus Rift, and got its OEM partners, such as Acer, Dell, Lenovo, ASUS, and HP, to invest in ones of their own. In all this, it doesn't look like Microsoft is winding down its enterprise-focused HoloLens 2 headset just yet.

ASUS BIOS Update Improves Intel Core Ultra 155H "Meteor Lake" Performance/Watt

UltrabookReview, which recently took the ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED UX3405 for a spin, noticed something interesting with the Intel Core Ultra 155H "Meteor Lake" processor powering it—apparently Intel is still working with its device partners to improve performance and efficiency, and a UEFI firmware update (BIOS update) from ASUS improves the processor's performance/Watt. The reviewer compares the notebook with its original BIOS version 201, to the updated version 203, and notices improvements in performance/Watt at 28 W. The firmware apparently updates the notebook's power management. The improvements are most apparent with Cinebench R23, where the best-run score with the original 201 firmware was 12357 points, and the updated 203 firmware was 13873 points (a 12.25% improvement). You can catch the review in the source link below.

Samsung and Naver Developing an AI Chip Claiming to be 8x More Power Efficient than NVIDIA H100

Naver, the firm behind the HyperCLOVA X large language model (LLM), has been working with Samsung Electronics toward the development of power-efficient AI accelerators. The collaboration brings Naver's expertise with Samsung's vast systems IP over silicon design, the ability to build complex SoCs, semiconductor fabrication, and its plethora of DRAM technologies. The two recently designed a proof of concept for an upcoming AI chip, which they iterated on an FPGA. Naver claims the AI chip it is co-developing with Samsung will be 8 times more energy efficient than an NVIDIA H100 AI accelerator, but did not elaborate on its actual throughput. Its solution, among other things, leverages energy-efficient LPDDR memory from Samsung. The two companies have been working on this project since December 2022.

Autistic Lapsus$ Hacker Who Leaked GTA 6 Clips Sentenced to Life in a Hospital

18-year old Arion Kurtaj from Oxford, UK, was a key member of the international hacking gang Lapsus$, which, among several cases of cyber crime against tech giants, has been behind the recent leak of the Grand Theft Auto VI video clips, ahead of the official trailer by Rockstar Games. Over the years, Lapsus$ hit big tech companies, including Rockstar Games, NVIDIA, and Uber, with their exploits assessed to have caused these companies about $10 million in losses. In an interesting twist to the case, the Kurtaj was deemed by doctors unfit to stand trial as he is severely autistic, and so the jury in the case was asked to determine only whether or not he committed the acts of cyber crime, and not if he did so with criminal intent.

The judge hearing the case said Kurtaj's skills and desire to commit cyber crime meant he remained a high risk to the public. While on bail from his previous arrest for hacking NVIDIA and UK telecommunication giants EE and BT, and in police protection in a hotel, Kurtaj pulled off his most daring hack of breaching Rockstar Games, using only an Amazon Firestick, his hotel's TV, and a mobile phone. He stole 90 clips of unreleased footage from gameplay of Grand Theft Auto VI. He also broke into Rockstar's internal Slack channel, threatening to leak the game's source code if the studio didn't contact him within 24 hours. He was immediately re-arrested and in lock-up until his trial. Rockstar Games told the court that it cost the company $5 million to recover from the hack, in staff billable hours.

CableMod Recalls 12VHPWR v1.0 and v1.1 Angled Adapters

CableMod issued a safety recall of its 16-pin 12VHPWR angled adapters, versions 1.0 and 1.1. The company cites safety issues behind the recall. This includes both the company's 90° angled, and 180° hard connectors. The company observed that the contact points in the male connector is improper, causing it to overheat and melt into the GPU. The safety issue only affects CableMod's hard adapters, and not its angled cables. Owners of these cables are advised to stop using the adapters immediately, and contact CableMod to be part of the recall, and further service recovery options.

ENERMAX Introduces The StarryKnight SK30 V2 Airflow Mid-Tower PC Case with USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type C

ENERMAX, an industry-leading force dedicated to designing high-performance computer hardware and cooling solutions, today announced the new StarryKnight SK30 (SK30 V2) mid-tower PC case, a follow-up and upgrade of its last-generation SK30 PC case.

The SK30 V2 comes with three pre-installed 140 mm and one 120 mm ENERMAX SquA RGB ADV fans with PWM function. The SquA RGB ADV fan, as one of ENERMAX's most powerful ARGB fans, delivers 40% stronger airflow than other regular-case fans with an enlarged blade surface. The combination of air-inlet and vortex-frame design will not only bring in more air but also direct and concentrate airflow across the system's components.

Streacom Announces SG10 Fanless Gaming PC Case

The SG10 is an ambitious product designed to push the boundaries of fanless technology and create a gaming case capable of cooling high-performance CPUs and GPUs without the use of fans. This project collaboration between Streacom and Calyos is also aimed at showcasing the application of loop heat pipe technology in PC cooling and represents the first step in creating a viable mainstream high-performance solid-state alternative to water cooling solutions.

The spiritual successor to the SG10 began life as a Kickstarter project launched by Calyos as the NSG S0, and whilst having extensive expertise in cooling, the additional challenges of consumer product manufacturing proved to be a stumbling block. A search ensued to find a partner with suitable experience to get the project back on track, and with experience in both case manufacturing and fanless cooling, Streacom was the natural fit. As can be understood just by glancing at the image, the SG10 represents a complete redesign of the NSG S0. Not a single asset or component was carried over from the original case. This includes the Evaporator that pumps the coolant around the loop and the Condenser that radiates the heat, both core components that make this performance possible. Everything has been entirely re-engineered and improved far beyond the original specification and performance.

NVIDIA GeForce NOW Gets 12 New Titles This Week

Time to gear up, hunters - Capcom's Monster Hunter: World joins the GeForce NOW library, bringing members the ultimate hunting experience on any device. It's all part of an adventurous week, with nearly a dozen new games joining the cloud gaming service.

A Whole New World
Join the Fifth Fleet on an epic adventure to the New World, a land full of monstrous creatures, in the acclaimed action role-playing game (RPG) Monster Hunter: World. It's the latest in the series to join the cloud, following Monster Hunter Rise. Members can unleash their inner hunter and slay ferocious monsters in a living, breathing ecosystem. Explore the unique landscape and encounter diverse monster inhabitants in ferocious hunting battles. Hunt alone or with up to three other players, and use materials collected from fallen foes to craft new gear and take on bigger, badder beasts. Step up to the Quest Board and hunt monsters in the cloud at up to 4K resolution and 120 frames per second as an Ultimate member - or discover the New World at ultrawide resolutions. Members don't need to wait for downloads or worry about storage space, and can take the action with them across nearly all devices.

AMD Ryzen 7 5700 Socket AM4 Processor Sneaks Out

AMD is preparing to update its desktop processor lineup not just with new Ryzen 8000G series APUs for the Socket AM5 platform, but also a handful new SKUs for AM4. Possible pricing of many of these chips is detailed in our recent report. Among the chips listed is a mysterious new Ryzen 7 5700 Socket AM4 processor. Although we don't have its pricing, AMD sneakily put up its product information on its website. On the product page, the company says that the product came out in April 2022, but it never did, at least not in the retail channel.

The Ryzen 7 5700 is an 8-core/16-thread processor that lacks integrated graphics, and yet is based on the 7 nm "Cezanne" monolithic silicon, with similar clock speeds to the Ryzen 7 5700G APU. Think of this as the 5700G with its iGPU disabled. The chip comes with a CPU base frequency of 3.70 GHz compared to the 3.80 GHz of the 5700G, although the two have an identical maximum boost frequency of 4.60 GHz. Each of the eight "Zen 3" CPU cores has 512 KB of dedicated L2 cache, and share a 16 MB L3 cache. The processor's TDP is set to 65 W, and the retail package includes a Wraith Stealth cooling solution. One pitfall of choosing the 5700 over something like the 5700X would be its lack of a PCIe Gen 4 interface (it's limited to the older Gen 3), which would mean a slower NVMe storage sub-system.
Thursday, December 21st 2023

Today's Reviews

Cases
Cooling
CPU Coolers
Headphones
Keyboards
Monitors
Mouse
NAS
SSD
Pwnage StormBreaker Review - Magnesium Mouse

Pwnage StormBreaker Review - Magnesium Mouse

Made of Magnesium, the right-handed ergonomic StormBreaker is exceptionally light at just 51 g. Another novelty is the sensor position being adjustable to one's liking. In addition, it comes with PixArt's PAW3395 sensor, Omron switches for the main buttons, 4000 Hz wireless polling, and up to 120 hours of battery life.

Alleged Ryzen 8000G AM5 APU Pricing Makes an Early Appearance

Courtesy of serial leaker @momomo_us we now have an indication on potential pricing for AMD's upcoming 8000G-series of APUs for the AM5 socket. The Ryzen 8000G-series APUs are expected to use the same CPU cores as AMD's Zen 4 based Ryzen 7000-series CPUs, but paired with a new I/O design in a monolithic die. The leaker has provided pricing from what is said to be three different shops and for three different SKUs, with the Ryzen 5 7600 as the reference point in all three cases. All three shops list the Ryzen 5 7600 at a higher price than Amazon, so it's unlikely that we're looking at MSRP pricing here.

The Ryzen 5 8500G has a price range of US$190-240, followed by the Ryzen 5 8600G which comes in at US$240-310 and finally the Ryzen 7 8700G which is listed at US$340-440. The price span is rather large, which makes it impossible to draw any conclusions of what the MSRP will be. Tom's hardware managed to dig up a pair of retailers, including what appears to be the one with the lowest pricing in the leak, which is DirectDial. The other retailer that Tom's Hardware located was Zones, but that pricing doesn't match any of the initial leaks, but are somewhat towards the higher numbers. AMD is expected to announce the new series of APUs at CES early next year.

Micron Technology, Inc. Reports Results for the First Quarter of Fiscal 2024

Micron Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: MU) today announced results for its first quarter of fiscal 2024, which ended November 30, 2023.

Fiscal Q1 2024 highlights
  • Revenue of $4.73 billion versus $4.01 billion for the prior quarter and $4.09 billion for the same period last year
  • GAAP net loss of $1.23 billion, or $1.12 per diluted share
  • Non-GAAP net loss of $1.05 billion, or $0.95 per diluted share
  • Operating cash flow of $1.40 billion versus $249 million for the prior quarter and $943 million for the same period last year
"Micron's strong execution and pricing drove better-than-anticipated first quarter financial results," said Micron Technology President and CEO Sanjay Mehrotra. "We expect our business fundamentals to improve throughout 2024, with record industry TAM projected for calendar 2025. Our industry-leading High Bandwidth Memory for data center AI applications illustrates the strength of our technology and product roadmaps, and we are well positioned to capitalize on the immense opportunities artificial intelligence is fueling across end markets."

MemryX Demos Production Ready AI Accelerator (MX3) During 2024 CES Show

MemryX Inc. is announcing the availability of production level silicon of its cutting-edge AI Accelerator (MX3). MemryX is a pioneering startup specializing in accelerating artificial intelligence (AI) processing for edge devices. In less than 30 days after receiving production silicon from TSMC, MemryX will publicly showcase the ability to efficiently run hundreds of unaltered AI models at the 2024 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas from Jan 9 through Jan 12.

MSI Titan 18 HX Will Be the World's First Laptop Featuring 18" 4K/120Hz Mini LED Display

Today, MSI - the premium laptop brand with luxurious aesthetic, extreme performance, and innovative technology, proudly announces that its brand-new flagship gaming laptop Titan 18 HX will be the world's first laptop featuring 18" 4K/120 Hz Mini LED display, which is also the most premium laptop display right now.

The 4K/120 Hz Mini LED display on Titan 18 is powered by AmLED technology from AUO, which promises super-bright backlighting, decent HDR performance and wide-enough color gamut. The peak brightness of the display is over 1000 nits, which is 2.5 times brighter compared to regular LCD and thanks to its Adaptive Control Technology, sharper image quality with less halo effect could be expected. The stunning peak brightness also brings exceptional HDR performance with 2M:1 contrast ratio. The Titan 18 has been certified as VESA DisplayHDR 1000 and guarantees immersive HDR experience in game or streaming.

Intel Should be Leading the AI Hardware Market: Pat Gelsinger on NVIDIA Getting "Extraordinarily Lucky"

Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger considers NVIDIA "extraordinarily lucky" to be leading the AI hardware industry. In a recent public discussion with the students of MIT's engineering school to discuss the state of the semiconductor industry, Gelsinger said that Intel should be the one to be leading AI, but instead NVIDIA got lucky. We respectfully disagree. What Gelsinger glosses over with this train of thought is how NVIDIA got here. What NVIDIA has in 2023 is the distinction of being one of the hottest tech stocks behind Apple, the highest market share in a crucial hardware resource driving the AI revolution, and of course the little things, like market leadership over the gaming GPU market. What it doesn't have, is access to the x86 processor IP.

NVIDIA has, for long, aspired to be a CPU company, right from its rumored attempt to merge with AMD in the early/mid 2000s, to its stint with smartphone application processors with Tegra, an assortment of Arm-based products along the way, and most recently, its spectacularly unsuccessful attempt to acquire Arm from Softbank. Despite limited luck with the CPU industry, to level up to Intel, AMD, or even Qualcomm and MediaTek; NVIDIA never lost sight of its goal to be a compute hardware superpower, which is why, in our opinion, it owns the AI hardware market. NVIDIA isn't lucky, it spent 16 years getting here.

Apple Wants to Store LLMs on Flash Memory to Bring AI to Smartphones and Laptops

Apple has been experimenting with Large Language Models (LLMs) that power most of today's AI applications. The company wants these LLMs to serve the users best and deliver them efficiently, which is a difficult task as they require a lot of resources, including compute and memory. Traditionally, LLMs have required AI accelerators in combination with large DRAM capacity to store model weights. However, Apple has published a paper that aims to bring LLMs to devices with limited memory capacity. By storing LLMs on NAND flash memory (regular storage), the method involves constructing an inference cost model that harmonizes with the flash memory behavior, guiding optimization in two critical areas: reducing the volume of data transferred from flash and reading data in larger, more contiguous chunks. Instead of storing the model weights on DRAM, Apple wants to utilize flash memory to store weights and only pull them on-demand to DRAM once it is needed.

Two principal techniques are introduced within this flash memory-informed framework: "windowing" and "row-column bundling." These methods collectively enable running models up to twice the size of the available DRAM, with a 4-5x and 20-25x increase in inference speed compared to native loading approaches on CPU and GPU, respectively. Integrating sparsity awareness, context-adaptive loading, and a hardware-oriented design pave the way for practical inference of LLMs on devices with limited memory, such as SoCs with 8/16/32 GB of available DRAM. Especially with DRAM prices outweighing NAND Flash, setups such as smartphone configurations could easily store and inference LLMs with multi-billion parameters, even if the DRAM available isn't sufficient. For a more technical deep dive, read the paper on arXiv here.

LIAN LI Introduces a New O11D with the O11D EVO RGB PC Cases

LIAN LI Industrial Co. Ltd., a leading manufacturer of chassis and PC accessories, launches the latest addition to its O11 series with the O11D EVO RGB. As the name suggests, the O11D EVO RGB has two built-in L-shaped RGB strips for beautifully accented lighting personalization. Inspired by the community feedback, the O11D EVO RGB includes multiple improvements such as a flexible motherboard adjustable to 2 positions, support for up to 420 mm radiator at the top, and a redesigned second chamber to provide more room and modularity for the cable management solution. The O11D EVO RGB is available in black and white at an MSRP of $159.99 and $169.99 respectively.

L-shaped Diffused RGB Light Strip Design on Top and Bottom
The LIAN LI O11D EVO RGB features two L-shaped diffused RGB strips on both the upper and lower panels. These two RGB strips can be easily adjusted using the buttons located on the main I/O panel, allowing for quick toggling between fourteen different modes. Users can also adjust brightness levels across five settings and choose from a diverse range of color options.

G.SKILL Announces WigiDash PC Command Panel, The Ultimate Widget Dashboard

G.SKILL International Enterprise Co., Ltd., the world's leading brand of performance overclock memory and PC components, is excited to announce WigiDash, a customizable and versatile widget dashboard device. The WigiDash PC Command Panel is designed to display up to 20 on-screen buttons or widgets in a 5x4 grid, allowing users to monitor system performance, control media playback, trigger actions through customized hotkey shortcuts, display useful information, and more on the 7-inch IPS touch panel display in 1024x600 resolution. With its highly customizable interface and assorted widget functions, WigiDash is set to redefine convenience of PC control and interaction for streamers, content creators, gamers, and PC enthusiasts.

WigiDash is designed for optimizing workflow and displaying system info on a touch panel display through hotkey and widget support, making this a versatile and adaptable command panel for the PC. Hotkeys can be customized to open programs, files, links, and trigger actions in the Windows OS, so the most frequently used shortcuts are accessible according to personal needs, and can be set up to switch depending on the application in focus. Furthermore, widgets can be included in the mix to display system performance information through third party software integration, such as HWiNFO and AIDA64 SensorPanel, or show useful information while gaming or working, including widgets for clock, timer/stopwatch, weather, and audio visualizer.

LG UltraGear Unveils World's First 4K OLED Gaming Monitor With Dual-Hz Feature

LG Electronics (LG) is set to unveil its latest lineup of UltraGear OLED gaming monitors, designed to provide superior gaming experiences. The expanded lineup includes the highly anticipated 32-inch 4K gaming monitor (model 32GS95UE), which boasts a 240 Hz refresh rate, an ultra-fast 0.03 ms Gray-to-Gray (GtG) response time, and LG's Dual-Hz feature and Pixel Sound technology. The company is also introducing stellar 39- and 34-inch models with ultra-wide curved screens: the 39GS95QE and the CES 2024 Innovation Award-winning 34GS95QE.

The groundbreaking 32GS95UE is the first UltraGear monitor equipped with the new Dual-Hz feature, allowing users to switch between 4K (3,840 x 2,160) at 240 Hz and Full-HD (1,920 x 1,080) at 480 Hz with one simple click. This time-saving innovation, easily managed via a hotkey or joystick's directional switch, lets users instantly apply the optimal combination of screen resolution and refresh rate for the genre of game they're playing. For fast-paced action titles and shooting games, users can select FHD 480 Hz, while visually rich story-driven games can be enjoyed in 4K 240 Hz.

BIOSTAR Introduces the MS-J6412 Fanless PC

BIOSTAR, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, and storage devices today, introduces the MS-J6412 application system engineered to cater to the growing demands of modern industrial computing, offering a fanless, embedded system solution that is ideal for a wide range of applications including Gateway, KIOSK Systems, Network Communication Devices, Gate Sensors, IoT Systems, and particularly, edge AI.

The MS-J6412 distinguishes itself with its remarkably compact design, measuring just 160x130x52mm, making it an ideal choice for workspaces where every square inch counts. Powered by the robust Intel Elkhart Lake SoC J6412 quad-core processor and support for DDR4 memory up to 32 GB, this system not only excels in conserving space but also delivers outstanding performance and capability, seamlessly blending spatial economy with computing power.

AMD to Support AM5 Platform with New Products Till 2025 and Beyond

AMD continues to release new Ryzen 5000 series processor models for the Socket AM4 platform to this day, with new processors expected to launch next month. That's over 6 years of longevity for the platform, considering that AMD has extended official Ryzen 5000 series support all the way back to its first line of AM4 motherboards based on the 300-series chipset. The company plans a similar longevity for Socket AM5. In an interview with Overclockers UK, AMD's client channel business head David McAfee said "I think that we certainly recognized that the longevity of the AM4 platforms was one of the biggest reasons that led to the success of Ryzen and as we think and as we think about the future, 2025 and beyond, that decision to move to a next-generation of socket is one that's going to be really thought through really really carefully. We know the impact that moving to a new socket brings and we want to stay on AM5 for as long as we possibly can. We are firmly committed to 2025 and beyond and we will see how long that promise lasts beyond 2025."

AMD Socket AM5 is designed to deliver up to 230 W of package power, and has a contemporary I/O that includes a dual-channel DDR5 memory interface (4x 40-bit sub-channels); and 28 PCIe Gen 5 lanes (x16 PEG, two x4 NVMe, and x4 chipset bus), besides the usual SoC connectivity. With the upcoming Ryzen 8000G "Phoenix" APUs, we could expect to see that the socket even wires out modern display I/O such as DisplayPort 2.1 with USB type-C, and the bandwidth for 12-bit HDR up to 68 billion colors. AMD debuted Socket AM5 with the "Zen 4" microarchitecture, with "Zen 5" expected to launch in 2024. It's conceivable that the company's 2025 client architecture, "Zen 6," could also see its desktop presence on AM5, given that DDR5 memory and PCIe Gen 5 will remain relevant till at least that time.

PlayStation 5 Achieves Milestone of 50 Million Units Sold to Consumers

Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) today announced the PlayStation 5 console (PS5) has surpassed 50 million units sold through to consumers, three years since its Nov. 2020 launch. Thanks to the support of PlayStation fans globally, the PS5 console has experienced strong momentum this year, driven by a slate of highly popular games and SIE's continued focus on bringing innovation to the gaming experience, including PS5 game streaming for PlayStation Plus Premium members.

"Achieving this PS5 sales milestone is a testament to the unwavering support of the global PlayStation community and their passion for the incredible experiences created by the talented developers from PlayStation Studios and our partners," said Jim Ryan, President and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment. "We're grateful for all of our players who have joined the PS5 journey so far, and we're thrilled that this is the first holiday season since launch that we have a full supply of PS5 consoles—so anyone who wants to get one can get one."

Geekom Readies Mini PCs Powered by Intel "Meteor Lake" and AMD "Hawk Point"

Mini PC designer Geekom is bring three innovative desktops to the 2024 International CES, based on the very latest mobile processors by Intel and AMD. These boxes are hinged on MoDT (mobile on desktop) hardware, meaning that energy efficient mobile processors are crammed into compact desktop cases, and wired out with all the connectivity they can put out. The three mini PC models Geekom is launching includes the IT14 Pro, the A8 Max, and the APro8 Max. The Geekcom IT14 Pro comes in a 0.7-liter chassis (about the size of a NUC), and is powered by an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H "Meteor Lake" processor configured with 6P+8E+2LP cores, or 16-core/22-thread. The desktop relies entirely on the maxed out Arc iGPU with all its 8 Xe cores enabled (128 EU). The NPU is also enabled. The company didn't reveal the memory, storage, or WLAN configuration of this desktop, yet.

The A8 Max is based on a similar 1-liter class chassis, but uses an AMD Ryzen 7 8840HS or Ryzen 9 8940HS "Hawk Point" processor, both of which are 8-core/16-thread "Zen 4," and configured with the full Radeon 780M iGPU available (12 CU or 768 stream processors). The star attraction here is the updated Ryzen AI NPU, which drives up the AI inference performance of these chips to 39 TOPS, compared to 34 TOPS of the Intel "Meteor Lake" chips. The APro8 Max is a based on a physically larger chassis that looks a bit like a game console. It's based on mostly the same hardware as the A8 Max, but with an added Radeon RX 7600M XT discrete GPU, which should give it the ability to offer maxed out AAA gaming at 1080p, or power productivity workloads at 4K UHD. We shoud know more about these three in Vegas next month.

Intel Core i3-14100 "Raptor Lake Refresh" Listed for $150

Intel's entry-level 14th Gen Core desktop processor, the Core i3-14100, got its first retailer listing, with ShopBLT putting it up for $150.24. The 4-core/8-thread chip that only has performance cores (P-cores), is based on the same H0 silicon that drives the Core i5-12600, which physically lacks E-cores. Intel has been reusing its "Alder Lake" silicon across the non-K variants of its 13th Gen and now 14th Gen Core i3 and Core i5 processor SKUs. One way to spot them is by the size of their dedicated L2 caches for the P-cores, which is 1.25 MB, compared to 2 MB on the 8P+16E "Raptor Lake-S" silicon used to carve out Core i7 and Core i9 SKUs across the 13th Gen and 14th Gen.

The Core i3-14100 offers a tiny speed bump over its predecessor, the i3-13100. With the base frequency set at 3.50 GHz, and boost frequency probably at 4.70 GHz, compared to the 3.40 GHz and 4.50 GHz of the i3-13100. Each of the four P-cores has 1.25 MB of L2 cache, and they share 12 MB of L3 cache. The chip gets the same I/O as the rest of the lineup, with a dual-channel DDR4/DDR5 memory interface, and PCIe connectivity that includes a Gen 5 x16, a CPU-attached Gen 4 x4 for NVMe slots, and a DMI 4.0 x8 chipset bus. The iGPU on offer is the UHD Graphics 730 based on Xe-LP, with 24 EU, compared to the 32 that's standard with higher 14th Gen Core desktop processor models. The chip has a processor base power of 60 W, and a possible maximum turbo power of 110 W. Intel is expected to announce its locked 14th Gen Core desktop processor lineup in January 2024, which should include the i3-14100, and its cheaper sibling, the i3-14100F, which lacks integrated graphics.
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