Intel's third overclocker-friendly SKU from its 7th generation Core "Kaby Lake" processor family, the Core i3-7350K, is shaping up to be an interesting option for gaming PC builds. It may be a dual-core chip, which at $177 is within striking-range of the current $189 Core i5-6400 quad-core chip, but the lack of two cores appears to be more than made up for by its significantly higher clock speeds, even in multi-threaded benchmarks. The i3-7350K is clocked at 4.00 GHz, out of the box. It's also the only Core i3 desktop SKU to feature Turbo Boost, with a frequency of 4.20 GHz. It chip comes with an unlocked base-clock multiplier, letting you overclock it with ease.

A PC enthusiast with access to a Core i3-7350K sample put it through Geekbench, where it scored 5,137 points in the single-threaded tests, and 10,048 in multi-threaded tests. Here's where it gets interesting - the Core i5-6400 quad-core chip scores 3,686 points (single-threaded), and 9,982 points (multi-threaded. The i5-6400 is clocked at a mere 2.70 GHz, with 3.30 GHz Turbo Boost. Even the higher clocked i5-4670K "Haswell" quad-core chip (3.40 GHz core, 3.80 GHz Turbo Boost) doesn't manage to beat the i3-7350K, with 4,361 points (single-threaded), and 10,036 points (multi-threaded).

NVIDIA accused Intel of cheating in its ISC 2016 presentation, particularly in a performance-related slide, in which it claimed that its "Knights Landing" Xeon Phi HPC processor provides faster training of neural nets than NVIDIA "Maxwell" GPUs. In a slide, Intel claimed that a Xeon Phi HPC processor card is 2.3 times faster at training deep-learning neural nets, and 38 percent better scaling across nodes, than NVIDIA "Maxwell" GPUs, which triggered a swift response from the GPU maker, which made significant investments in deep-learning technologies over the past three years.

NVIDIA argued that Intel is using the classic technique of running outdated benchmarks to test its neural net training speeds. The company says that if Intel used the latest version of the same benchmark (Caffe AlexNet), the "Maxwell" GPU will be found to be 30 percent faster than the Xeon Phi at training neural nets. NVIDIA also notes that "Maxwell" is only its previous-generation part, and a "Pascal" based HPC processor would easily be 90 percent faster than the Xeon Phi. More importantly, NVIDIA notes that Intel compared 32 of its new Xeon Phi servers against four-year-old Nvidia Kepler K20 servers being used in ORNL's Titan supercomputer. The latest "Pascal" GPUs leverate NVLink to scale up to 128 GPUs, providing the fastest deep-learning solutions money can buy.

Today FinalWire released an update to the PC editions of its award-winning system information software. Version 5.70 comes with new multi-threaded ray tracing benchmarks, which fully utilize the latest instruction set extensions (AVX, AVX2, FMA). The new floating point tests use more realistic workloads and put more intensive load on the CPU.

The new AIDA64 edition is now capable of displaying hardware monitoring information on RGB LED backlit mice and provides information on the Vulkan capabilities of the latest AMD and NVIDIA graphics processors. Additionally, it can now read and display sensor readings for Corsair AXi power supply units.DOWNLOAD: FinalWire AIDA64 v5.70

Intel's next major CPU architecture, codenamed "Skylake," could be classified as the company's 6th generation Core processor family. It will succeed the brief stint Core "Broadwell" will have at the market, with no major chips for PC enthusiasts to look forward to. The Core i7-6700K appears to be the flagship product based on the Skylake-D silicon, succeeding the i7-4770K and i7-4790K. The Core i5-6600K will succeed the i5-4670K and i5-4690K.

The i7-6700K is a quad-core chip, with HyperThreading enabling 8 logical CPUs. Its nominal clock will be 4.00 GHz, with a rather shallow 4.20 GHz Turbo Boost frequency. It will feature an 8 MB L3 cache, and an integrated memory controller that supports both DDR4 and DDR3 memory types. This makes Skylake a transition point for the mainstream PC market to gradually upgrade to DDR4. You'll have some motherboards with DDR3 memory slots, some with DDR4 slots, and some with both kinds of slots. The resulting large uncore component, and perhaps a bigger integrated GPU, will result in quad-core Skylake parts having TDP rated as high as 95W, higher than current Haswell quad-core parts, with their 88W TDP.

Here are some of the first purported benchmarks of NVIDIA's upcoming flagship graphics card, the GeForce GTX TITAN-X. Someone with access the four of these cards installed them on a system driven by a Core i7-5960X eight-core processor, and compared its single-GPU and 4-way SLI performance on 3DMark 11, with its "extreme" (X) preset. The card scored X7994 points going solo - comparable to Radeon R9 290X 2-way CrossFire, and a single GeForce GTX TITAN-Z. With four of these cards in play, you get X24064 points. Sadly, there's nothing you can compare that score with.

NVIDIA unveiled the GeForce GTX TITAN-X at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2015. It was just that - an unveiling, with no specs, performance numbers, or launch date announced. The card is rumored to be based on the GM200 silicon - NVIDIA's largest based on the "Maxwell" architecture - featuring 3072 CUDA cores, 192 TMUs, 96 ROPs, and a 384-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, holding 12 GB of memory. The benchmark screenshots reveal core clock speeds to be around 1.00 GHz, and the memory clock at 7.00 GHz.

Here are some of the first pictures of an AIC partner branded NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 graphics card, the Galaxy GTX 970 GC. Spotted across Chinese PC enthusiast forums and social networks, the latest set of leaks cover not just pictures of what the GTX 970 looks like, but also what's under its hood. To begin with, Galaxy's card appears to be built for the high-end market segment. A meaty twin-fan aluminium fin-stack heatsink, coupled by a spacey backplate cover a signature Galaxy blue PCB, holding NVIDIA's new GTX 970 GPU, and 4 GB of GDDR5 memory. The card appears to feature a high-grade VRM that draws power from a combination of 8-pin and 6-pin PCIe power connectors.

Eurocom has benchmarked the M4, the world's most powerful 13.3" QHD+ notebook. It is equipped with a breathtaking 3200x1800 QHD+ display, an Intel Core i7 Extreme Processor and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860M graphics. Eurocom has benchmarked and stress tested the M4 to exemplify the performance that is squeezed into its ultra portable chassis. The 5,760,000 pixels of the 13.3" 3200x1800 QHD+ display are powered by the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860M graphics with 2GB DDR5 VRAM, 640 CUDA Cores, with a GPU core able to run at up to 1029MHz +boost.

Powered by a full line of 4th Generation Intel Core i7 processors utilizing the Intel HM87 Express Chipset including the Intel Core i7-4940MX Processor Extreme with 4 cores and 8 threads running at 3.1 GHz (up to 4 GHz max turbo frequency) with 8 MB L3 cache. The integrated Trusted Platform Module 1.2 from Infineon Technologies ensures that digital certificates, passwords and keys are made more secure from software attacks and physical theft. TPM provides the ability for a computing system to run applications more secure and allows secured remote access to perform electronic transactions and communication more safely. The increased security, brought on by the TPM 1.2 can save organizations in IT management costs.

Eurocom has added the AMD Radeon HD 8970M to the Ivy Bridge based Racer 2.0 VGA upgradeable laptop. The addition of the MXM 3.0b spec AMD Radeon HD 8970M offers gamers and enthusiasts a new level of ultra high performance graphics to upgrade their existing Racer 2.0 or configure into their new system. Eurocom is always striving to allow upgradeability of legacy systems to allow customers the opportunity to upgrade their system to improve performance and life span. Eurocom engineers have recently finished stress testing and verifying the performance and operation of the 8970M in the Racer 2.0.

The AMD Radeon HD 8970M GPU has 1,280 compute cores running at 850MHz with 4 GB GDDR5 memory running at 1200MHz. With full DirectX 11.1 support, the 8970M offers a great gaming experience for all PC titles. AMD App Acceleration uses GPU compute to accelerate and improve image quality, video playback and overall computing performance. "At Eurocom, we have offered fully upgradeable notebooks to our clients for many years because we believe very strongly in the long term benefits it offers our clients; VGA upgradeability allows users to extend lifespan of their equipment without compromising performance " Mark Bialic, Eurocom President.

While Intel's quad-core Haswell architecture based 4th generation Core processors are already out there dominating benchmark charts (even if only by a small margin) and scoring new accolades in power efficiency, the dual-core Core processors have been left in the dark. At least, in the desktop segment. Not anymore though, as PC Games Hardware managed to score a sample of the energy efficient Core i5-4570T, a dual-core Haswell based processor for the desktop with a very impressive, and low, 35W TDP only.

It's 31st, and Catalyst 12.5 WHQL is nowhere in sight. According to an article by Benchmarks3D, you should give up on it, for AMD is calling quits with the monthly driver update cycle. However, AMD will focus on a staggered driver update cycle that will address issues with games as they crop up. In other words, end-users could end up seeing new drivers as hotfixes more often, depending on launches of games and new Radeon hardware, but that could also mean long periods of lull when there are no major issues to address, or no new hardware to improve drivers for.

NVIDIA's big GeForce GTX 680 launch is just around the corner, but performance figures are already trickling in. Last week, we were treated to a wide range of benchmarks covering a single GeForce GTX 680. Today, VR-Zone posted a performance-preview of the GeForce GTX 680 in 2-way SLI configuration. A set of two GTX 680 cards were put through 3DMark 11 in Entry, Performance, and eXtreme presets. It should be noted here, that the GTX 680 cards were clocked at 1150 MHz core, and 1803 MHz (7.20 GHz effective) memory.

In the Entry preset, GTX 680 2-way SLI scored E22878; it scored P16860 in Performance preset; and X6243 in eXtreme. 2-way SLI of GTX 680 should be fit for 2560x1440/1600 resolution gaming. The rest of the test-bench consisted of Intel Core i7-3930K six-core processor clocked at 5.00 GHz, with 16 GB of quad-channel DDR3-2133 MHz memory, and ASUS ROG Rampage IV Extreme motherboard.

For skeptics who refuse to believe randomly-sourced bar-graphs of the GeForce GTX 680 that are starved of pictures, here is the first set of benchmarks run by a third-party (neither NVIDIA nor one of its AIC partners). This [p]reviewer from HKEPC has pictures to back his benchmarks. The GeForce GTX 680 was pitted against a Radeon HD 7970, and a previous-generation GeForce GTX 580. The test-bed consisted of an extreme-cooled Intel Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition processor (running at stock frequency), ASUS Rampage IV Extreme motherboard, 8 GB (4x 2 GB) GeIL EVO 2 DDR3-2200 MHz quad-channel memory, Corsair AX1200W PSU, and Windows 7 x64.

Benchmarks included 3DMark 11 (performance preset), Battlefield 3, Batman: Arkham City, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Lost Planet 2, and Unigine Heaven (version not mentioned, could be 1). All tests were run at a constant resolution of 1920x1080, with 8x MSAA on some tests (mentioned in the graphs).More graphs follow.

Not quite two weeks ago, we reported on leaked pictures of AMD's upcoming Radeon HD 7770 mid-range graphics card based on the new Southern Islands architecture and listed its basic specs. Well, the leaks keep coming and bigpao007 of ChipHell has leaked more pictures with some benchmarks to go with them. The test setup consisted of an Ivy Bridge ES CPU - Core i5-3550K at 3.3Ghz and Z77 chipset-based motherboard. The driver used was the AMD Catalyst 8.940 RC2, giving the following 3DMark benchmark results:

Previous preliminary reports have suggested that the forthcoming Ivy Bridge CPUs will have single threaded performance on par with the existing Sandy Bridge CPUs and will mainly deliver improvements to power consumption and integrated graphics - nothing for PC enthusiasts to get excited about. However, in leaked documents sent to partners, Intel have now revealed official performance figures for IB and they look rather good. They've produced a raft of benchmarks, which reveal improvements such as 56% in ArcSoft Media Expresso, 25% in Excel 2010 and a 199% gain in the 3D Mark Vantage GPU benchmark. Unfortunately, they haven't released any benchmarks based on high performance 3D games, but it's probably safe to say that they will be similarly improved. Now, on to the benchmarks, which compare their new 3.4 GHz i7-3770 (4 cores + HT) with the current 3.4 GHz i7-2600, also with 4 cores + HT:

Just a handful of days ahead of Sandy Bridge-E's launch, a Chinese tech website, www.inpai.com.cn (Google translation) has done what Chinese tech websites do best and that's leak benchmarks and slides, Intel's NDA be damned. They pit the current i7-2600K quad core CPU against the upcoming i7-3960X hexa core CPU and compare them in several ways. The take home message appears to be that gaming performance on BF3 & Crysis 2 is identical, while the i7-3960X uses considerably more power, as one might expect from an extra two cores. The only advantage appears to come from the x264 & Cinebench tests. If these benchmarks prove accurate, then gamers might as well stick with the current generation Sandy Bridge CPUs, especially as they will drop in price, before being end of life'd. While this is all rather disappointing, it's best to take leaked benchmarks like this with a (big) grain of salt and wait for the usual gang of reputable websites to publish their reviews on launch day, November 14th. Softpedia reckons that these results are the real deal, however. There's more benchmarks and pictures after the jump.

During the weekend days Futuremark has updated most of its benchmarks, including 3DMark03, 3DMark05, 3DMark06, 3DMark Vantage, PCMark05 and PCMark Vantage. These patches update the system information detection component to the latest version for each of the benchmark products listed. This fixes numerous issues related to hardware detection in the testing tools. The updates are available now as separate small patches and will soon be available as full installer packages, downloadable through Futuremark's mirror sites. Please note, that benchmark scores after installing of these updates won't change at all.

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ASUS, the world's leading producer of motherboards, today put world record-breaking power into the hands of AMD Phenom II users with the launch of the ROG (Republic of Gamers) Crosshair III Formula. Based on the AMD Socket AM3 platform, the Crosshair III Formula harnesses its full complement of ROG-exclusive features and technologies to unleash the full overclocking potential of Phenom II processors-enabling budget-conscious enthusiasts and gamers to enjoy extreme levels of performance at an affordable mid-price point.

In response to AMD's Barcelona benchmarks Intel demoed its V8 platform. Two quad core Xeons at 3GHz with 16GB RAM score an impressive 4933 pixels per second in POV-Ray. In comparison AMD's quad quad core Barcelona (16 cores total) score just over 4000 pixels per second. Even though AMD did not mention the clockspeed and said the final version will run faster AMD still uses 16 cores while Intel uses 8. Of course Barcelona is not yet a final product, Intel is not impressed though.
Besides that Intel also demoed a Penryn which outperformed the current top of the line quad cores by 40%, quite impressive.

AMD is claiming that its new quad-core Barcelona processors could outshine Intel's Xeon processors by as much as 50% in floating-point performance, as well as having a 20% advantage when it comes to integer performance. However, despite this claim, the actual benchmarks for the SPECcpu2006 test seem difficult to come across on AMD's website - despite AMD supposedly giving a link - so it's difficult to verify at present.

Luckily, it's much easier to find the results comparing AMD's new Opteron 2222 processor and Intel's 3.0GHz Xeon 5160. These show AMD enjoying greater performance by as much as 15% in some SPUCcpu2006 tests, which it credits to its Direct Connect Architecture and DDR2 memory. Obviously it would be a good idea to take these results with a pinch of salt considering they come directly from AMD, but Barcelona certainly looks promising. Read on for the complete press release.

Fuad has word that the upcoming K10 server processor codenamed Barcelona is 50 percent faster in specfp_rate2000 then Intel's quad core Kentsfield. As the CPU speed was not disclosed it will be near the stated 2.5GHz which applies for its fastest desktop counterpart, the Agena FX. The slowest Agena's will however start at 1.9GHz and will have the 95W TDP for sure.

Our last findings on how fast R600 cards perform in 3DMark06 caused a lot of buzz. Let's see how the following tidbit shapes up:
The VR-Zone has some numbers they couldn't keep for themselves regarding a Radeon X (sorry...), HD 2900 XT coupled with a Core 2 Extreme QX6700 (quad core) processor. They say with the latest 8.361-RC4 drivers they got around 12K with that R600XT card which is faster 2000 points higher than the scores from FX57.net. They price of this card will be 399USD which would be quite a bargain.

Forum user sdscsv from the PCOnline forum has posted pictures of his 8600 GTS card, as well as some benchmarks:

The first major DirectX10 title from EA, Crysis, is a game I'm sure a lot of us are looking forward to. The folks over at Hardspell managed to get a pre-release copy of Crysis, on Windows Vista using drivers that aren't available to the public yet. These preliminary benchmarks certainly don't look too good. A system that we'd call overkill high-end simply choked on Crysis. The system was running a QX6700, 2 G80's, dual raptors in RAID 0, 4GB low latency RAM, and a PhysX card.

• At 1024x768, Crysis ran at 44 FPS average, with a mininum of 33 FPS and a maximum of 69 FPS.
• At 1280x1024, Crysis ran at 37 FPS average, with a minimum of 17.3 FPS, and a maximum of 52 FPS.
• At 2560x1600 Crysis ran at a whopping 1.7 FPS average, with a minimum of .2 FPS, and a maximum of around 5 FPS.

Again, neither Crysis or the official NVIDIA driver has been released, and games with the PhysX card enabled have noticeably lower FPS than the non-PhysX counter-part.