According to the well-known hardware leaker @momomo_us, HP is preparing the launch of its next-generation Omen 17 gaming laptops. And with a new generation of chips coming to consumers, HP accidentally made some information about laptop SKUs public. Four models are listed, and they represent a combination of Intel's 13th-generation Raptor Lake mobile processors with NVIDIA's Ada Lovelace RTX 40 series graphics cards for the mobile/laptop sector. The four SKUs are: CM2007NQ/CM2005NQ with Core i7-13700HX & RTX 4060 8 GB; CM2001NQ with Core i7-13700HX & RTX 4070 8 GB; CK2007NQ/CK2004NQ with Core i7-13700HX & RTX 4080 12 GB; CK2001NQ with Core i7-13700HX & RTX 4090 16 GB.

The most exciting find here is the appearance of the xx90 series in the mobile/laptop form factor, which has not been the case before. The GeForce RTX 4090 laptop edition is supposedly equipped with 16 GB of VRAM, and the GPU SKU should be a cut-down version of AD102 GPU adjusted for power and clock constraints so it can run within a reasonable TDP. With NVIDIA seemingly giving its clients an RTX 4090 SKU option, we have to wait and see what the CUDA core counts are and how clocks scale in a more restricted laptop environment.

Intel Core i9-13900K processor has just been launched, and overclockers worldwide got their hand on a few samples to make history. According to the HWBot submission, a Swedish overclocker named "elmor" has pushed Intel's top-end consumer SKU to a fantastic 8.812 GHz. For more than eight years, the record for the single-highest overclocking speed was held by AMD FX-8370, from the now-bygone era of AMD Black Edition processors. The overclocking attempt was performed using liquid nitrogen (LN2) that cools the chip using its −195.8 °C temperature. Pushing core voltage to 1.850 Volts and VCCIN to 2 Volts, multiplier set to x88, and a bus speed of 100.15 MHz. In addition to the Core i9-13900K CPU, elmor used ASUS ROG Maximus Z790 APEX motherboard and 32 GB DDR5 GSKILL memory running at 4808 MT/s.

As a reminder, the FX-8370 CPU was holding the number one sport for eight years with a speed of 8.722 GHz. Beating the FX-8370 by just 90 MHz, it will be interesting to see if any of the upcoming CPU SKUs can match this overclocking record, and we are curious if any contender will come to beat elmor's current record.

Intel's upcoming 13th generation of Core processors, codenamed "Raptor Lake," is supposed to arrive in the coming days. Apparently, one user pre-ordered the CPU and got it delivered to their home. Pictured below is the box of Intel Core i9-13900KF CPU. This SKU comes without integrated graphics and boasts eight P-cores with 16 E-cores on board. This is supposed to boost performance, along with the higher frequencies Raptor Lake is advertised to bring. The user even showed screenshots of proof that the software recognizes this upcoming model, so the information seems legit. In the screenshots below, we see that the P-cores of this SKU is reaching 5.5 GHz clock speeds. We are yet to see how much this silicon is capable of; however, the frequency alone looks promising.

Yesterday Intel announced its 13th generation Raptor Lake processor lineup. The top-of-the-line model, Core i9-13900KS, features eight P-cores and 16 E-cores for a total of 24 cores in the SoC. However, that may not represent the maximum for Raptor Lake, as there appears to be another segment equipped with a Raptor Lake processor with 34 cores. According to findings of Tom's Hardware, the Intel Innovation event in San Jose had a surprise for everyone, as there was a booth to display Raptor Lake silicon wafers. After closer examination, the wafer had cutouts for dies that contained as many as 34 cores.

With all cores being the same size, it is assumed that those are P-cores interconnected on a mesh, unlike the traditional ring bus that the rest of Raptor Lake processors use. On the back of the wafer was a label stating, "Raptor Lake-S, 34 core". This suggests that the CPU is perhaps a part of the HEDT offerings that Intel will soon update with the 13th generation designs and that the company showcased a production wafer for those SKUs. We expect to hear more about this unknown 34-core configuration sometime in the future as the new Intel Core generation begins its rollout.

Today, Intel introduces a new processor for the essential product space: Intel Processor. The new offering will replace the Intel Pentium and Intel Celeron branding in the 2023 notebook product stack.

"Whether for work or play, the importance of the PC has only become more apparent as the torrid pace of technological development continues to shape the world. Intel is committed to driving innovation to benefit users, and our entry-level processor families have been crucial for raising the PC standard across all price points. The new Intel Processor branding will simplify our offerings so users can focus on choosing the right processor for their needs." -Josh Newman, Intel vice president and interim general manager of Mobile Client Platforms

The demand for data is insatiable, from 5G to the cloud to smart cities. As a society we want more autonomy, information to fuel our decisions and habits, and connection - to people, stories, and experiences.

To address these demands, the cloud infrastructure of tomorrow will need to handle the coming data explosion and the effective processing of evermore complex workloads … all while increasing power efficiency and minimizing carbon footprint. It's why the industry is increasingly looking to the performance, power efficiency, specialized processing and workload acceleration enabled by Arm Neoverse to redefine and transform the world's computing infrastructure.

Although this information hasn't been verified yet, it looks very plausible, but there are also some crucial bits missing. However, we now appear to have the full list of Intel Core 13000-series CPUs, that ranges from the Core i9-13900KF to the Core i3-13100. The information comes via Bilibili and should as such be taken with a grain of salt, but there are no big surprises here, except possibly the fairly low base clocks for some of the Core i9-13900K and KF SKUs, which sits at 3 GHz, compared to 3.2 GHz for the 12th gen equivalents.

What the leaker doesn't appear to have gotten hold of, is the boost frequency for the CPUs, possibly because Intel has kept it away from its partners so far. Earlier rumours have suggested boost speeds of 5.5 GHz or potentially even higher for a future KS SKU. Thanks to Intel adding additional E-cores into the mix, even the lower-end Core i5 CPUs will get four to eight E-cores this time around, whereas the 12th gen CPUs only offered E-cores on the Core i5-12600K and KF. Sadly the Core i3-13100 still gets to make do with only four P-cores. Intel is expected to reveal its 13th gen Core CPUs on the 27th or 28th of September.

With Intel Raptor Lake-S desktop processors around the corner, we see an ever-increasing number of entries to the popular synthetic benchmark databases. Yesterday we had an Intel Core i5-3600K CPU, while today, we are presented with Core i7-13700K SKU. The new 13th generation Core i7-13700K CPU features eight P-cores and eight E-cores. Compared to the 12th generation Core i7-12700K, this is a step up with eight P-cores and four E-cores. According to Geekbench 5 benchmark, the new Qualification Sample (QS) of Core i7-13700K CPU was running at the minimum clock of 5.289 GHz, maximum clock of 5.381 GHz, and average speed of 5.36 GHz. It was tested on the same configuration as yesterday's i5 SKU with ASRock Z690 Steel Legend WiFi 6E motherboard with 32 GB of DDR4 memory.

As far as the results are concerned, the 13th gen i7-13700K SKU scored 2090 points in the single-core test, while the multi-core score totaled 16542 points. If we compare this to the 12th gen i7-12700K CPU that it replaces, the new model leads by about 10% and 17% in single-core and multi-core tests, respectively.

According to the latest report from Nikkei Asia, Intel will raise its CPU pricing structure starting this fall. Citing concerns of increased electricity, raw materials, and labor costs, Intel has informed its clients that the company will add additional overhead to its existing pricing structure to make up for that difference. The report indicates that most of its microprocessors and peripheral chip products will be affected. However, the main target of the inflating costs is the company's Core and Xeon processor families. If you are wondering just how much will this price hike be, the current speculations point to anywhere from a 10 to 20 percent increase.

Of course, this information should be taken with a grain of salt. However, it is quite possible to see this price hike in the upcoming fall season, and we have to wait and see if it plays out.

Intel's upcoming family of Arc Alchemist mobile graphics cards is just around the corner, and we are already starting to spot the company's reference systems utilizing the latest dedicated graphics. Thanks to the findings of @momomo_us, we have information that Intel is readying the NUC X15 laptop reference system codenamed "Alder Country." There are two SKUs, LAPAC71G and LAPAC71H, each with similar CPU and GPU configurations. Carrying an Intel Core i7-12700H processor with 14 cores and 20 threads, the CPU is paired with either Arc A550M on the LAPAC71G SKU or Arc A730M on LAPAC71H SKU.

As a reminder, Intel already made such NUC X15 reference laptop designs with Tiger Lake processors. However, they came with NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 graphics instead of Intel Arc Alchemist. Implementations of NUC X15 appeared with partners such as ADATA XPG Xenia laptop. We could expect to see more OEMs adapt Alder Country if the performance of Arc Alchemist graphics proves good.

AMD's RDNA3 graphics IP is just around the corner, and we are hearing more information about the upcoming architecture. Historically, as GPUs advance, it is not unusual for companies to add dedicated hardware blocks to accelerate a specific task. Today, AMD engineers have updated the backend of the LLVM compiler to include a new instruction called Wave Matrix Multiply-Accumulate (WMMA). This instruction will be present on GFX11, which is the RDNA3 GPU architecture. With WMMA, AMD will offer support for processing 16x16x16 size tensors in FP16 and BF16 precision formats. With these instructions, AMD is adding new arrangements to support the processing of matrix multiply-accumulate operations. This is closely mimicking the work NVIDIA is doing with Tensor Cores.

AMD ROCm 5.2 API update lists the use case for this type of instruction, which you can see below:

rocWMMA provides a C++ API to facilitate breaking down matrix multiply accumulate problems into fragments and using them in block-wise operations that are distributed in parallel across GPU wavefronts. The API is a header library of GPU device code, meaning matrix core acceleration may be compiled directly into your kernel device code. This can benefit from compiler optimization in the generation of kernel assembly and does not incur additional overhead costs of linking to external runtime libraries or having to launch separate kernels.

rocWMMA is released as a header library and includes test and sample projects to validate and illustrate example usages of the C++ API. GEMM matrix multiplication is used as primary validation given the heavy precedent for the library. However, the usage portfolio is growing significantly and demonstrates different ways rocWMMA may be consumed.

Intel is slowly transitioning its data center customers to a new processor generation called Sapphire Rapids. Today, thanks to the hardware leaker Yuuki_ans we have more profound insights into the top-end 56-core Sapphire Rapids processor and its power settings. According to the leak, we have information on either Xeon Platinum 8476 or Platinum 8480 designs that are equipped with 56 cores and 112 threads. This model was running at the base frequency of 1.9 GHz and a boost frequency of 3.3 GHz. Single-core can boost to 3.7 GHz if the report is giving a correct reading. Remember that this is only an engineering sample, so the final target speeds could differ. It carries 112 MB of L2 and 105 MB of L3 cache, and this sample was running with 1 TB of DDR5 memory with CL40-39-38-76 timings.

Perhaps the most exciting finding is the power configuration of this SKU. Intel has enabled this CPU to consume 350 Watts in PL1 rating, with up to 420 Watts in PL2 performance mode. The enforced BIOS power limit rating is set at an astonishing 764 Watts, which could happen with AVX-512 enabled. Final TDP ratings are yet to be disclosed; however, these Sapphire Rapids processors are shaping to be relatively power-hungry chips.

Encoding video is one of the significant tasks that modern hardware performs. Today, we have some data of AMD and NVIDIA solutions for the problem that shows how good GPU hardware encoders are. Thanks to Chips and Cheese tech media, we have information about AMD's Video Core Next (VCN) encoder found in RDNA2 GPUs and NVIDIA's NVENC (short for NVIDIA Encoder). The site managed to benchmark AMD's Radeon RX 6900 XT and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 GPUs. The AMD card features VCN 3.0, while the NVIDIA Turing card features a 6th generation NVENC design. Team red is represented by the latest work, while there exists a 7th generation of NVENC. C&C tested this because it means all that the reviewer possesses.

The metric used for video encoding was Netflix's Video Multimethod Assessment Fusion (VMAF) metric composed by the media giant. In addition to hardware acceleration, the site also tested software acceleration done by libx264, a software library used for encoding video streams into the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC compression format. The libx264 software acceleration was running on AMD Ryzen 9 3950X. Benchmark runs included streaming, recording, and transcoding in Overwatch and Elder Scrolls Online.Below, you can find benchmarks of streaming, recording, transcoding, and transcoding speed.

During the GTC 2022 keynote, NVIDIA announced its newest addition to the accelerator cards family. Called NVIDIA H100 accelerator, it is the company's most powerful creation ever. Utilizing 80 billion of TSMC's 4N 4 nm transistors, H100 can output some insane performance, according to NVIDIA. Featuring a new fourth-generation Tensor Core design, it can deliver a six-fold performance increase compared to A100 Tensor Cores and a two-fold MMA (Matrix Multiply Accumulate) improvement. Additionally, new DPX instructions accelerate Dynamic Programming algorithms up to seven times over the previous A100 accelerator. Thanks to the new Hopper architecture, the Streaming Module structure has been optimized for better transfer of large data blocks.

The full GH100 chip implementation features 144 SMs, and 128 FP32 CUDA cores per SM, resulting in 18,432 CUDA cores at maximum configuration. The NVIDIA H100 GPU with SXM5 board form-factor features 132 SMs, totaling 16,896 CUDA cores, while the PCIe 5.0 add-in card has 114 SMs, totaling 14,592 CUDA cores. As much as 80 GB of HBM3 memory surrounds the GPU at 3 TB/s bandwidth. Interestingly, the SXM5 variant features a very large TDP of 700 Watts, while the PCIe card is limited to 350 Watts. This is the result of better cooling solutions offered for the SXM form-factor. As far as performance figures are concerned, the SXM and PCIe versions provide two distinctive figures for each implementation. You can check out the performance estimates in various precision modes below. You can read more about the Hopper architecture and what makes it special in this whitepaper published by NVIDIA.

NVIDIA has today announced its Grace CPU Superchip, a monstrous design focused on heavy HPC and AI processing workloads. Previously, team green has teased an in-house developed CPU that is supposed to go into servers and create an entirely new segment for the company. Today, we got a more detailed look at the plan with the Grace CPU Superchip. The Superchip package represents a package of two Grace processors, each containing 72 cores. These cores are based on Arm v9 in structure set architecture iteration and two CPUs total for 144 cores in the Superchip module. These cores are surrounded by a now unknown amount of LPDDR5x with ECC memory, running at 1 TB/s total bandwidth.

NVIDIA Grace CPU Superchip uses the NVLink-C2C cache coherent interconnect, which delivers 900 GB/s bandwidth, seven times more than the PCIe 5.0 protocol. The company targets two-fold performance per Watt improvement over today's CPUs and wants to bring efficiency and performance together. We have some preliminary benchmark information provided by NVIDIA. In the SPECrate2017_int_base integer benchmark, the Grace CPU Superchip scores over 740 points, which is just the simulation for now. This means that the performance target is not finalized yet, teasing a higher number in the future. The company expects to ship the Grace CPU Superchip in the first half of 2023, with an already supported ecosystem of software, including NVIDIA RTX, HPC, NVIDIA AI, and NVIDIA Omniverse software stacks and platforms.

[Editor's note: We have posted our HYTE Y60 review here.]

HYTE, the new PC components, peripherals, and lifestyle brand of iBUYPOWER, today launched the new Y60 mid-tower PC case. Taking a new angle on design, the Y60 boasts a style unlike any other case available on the market.

The uniquely constructed Y60 ATX case features a three-part, bezel-less, tempered glass front and side panel that provides an unobstructed internal view from a left, right, or center orientation. When the glass panels are removed, chamfered molding on the ceiling and floor of the case draw the eye inward, creating a modern aesthetic and allowing the system to be displayed in an open-air format. Users will have the option to choose from three colorways, white and black, black and black, and red and black, to best fit the aesthetic of their setup.

ASRock Industrial launches a new range of industrial motherboards powered by 12th Gen Intel Core Processors (Alder Lake-S) with up to 16 cores and 24 threads, supporting the new Intel 600 Series W680, Q670, and H610 chipsets. Featuring high computing power with performance hybrid architecture and enhanced AI capabilities, rich IOs and expansions for up to quad displays 4K@60 Hz, USB 3.2 Gen2x2 (20 Gbit/s), triple Intel 2.5 GbE LANs with real-time TSN, multi M.2 Key M, ECC memory, plus TPM 2.0, and wide voltage support. The new series covers comprehensive form factors, including industrial Mini-ITX, Micro-ATX, and ATX motherboards for diverse applications, such as factory automation, kiosks, digital signage, smart cities, medical, and Edge AIoT applications.

Intel today launched its 12th Gen Core Processors with vPro. Released across the company's mobile and desktop product lines, these processors are targeted at pre-built commercial desktops and commercial notebooks that companies typically issue their employees, which come with a host of security and remote-management features suitable to a large corporate environment. With this generation, Intel is bringing vPro to even more market segments, including ultraportables designed under the Intel Evo banner; a new breed of enterprise-grade Chromebooks for businesses built entirely on the Chrome OS platform and cloud-based apps; and for the first time, an SMB version of vPro called vPro Essentials, which will make it to entry-level Core i5 processors with vPro.

Security, Productivity, and Future-readiness form the three areas in which Intel innovated for 12th Gen Core processors with vPro. The company added new capabilities for Threat Detection Technology, which can detect ransomware and supply-chain attacks, and can work with various endpoint security software. Intel Hardware Shield technology prevents attacks from "below" the software (below ring-0, or at the firmware, microcode, or hardware levels). This is achieved through hardware-accelerated virtualization and encryption of the entire software environment. Hardware-based protections extend to vPro Enterprise for Chrome.

China is reacting to new outbreaks of the Omicron variant of the Coronavirus with partial lockdowns. This could further delay the availability of laptops with 12th Gen Intel Core processors and NVIDIA's Ti graphics cards, which debuted at the beginning of the year. The first factories have already been closed in Suzhou in the east of the country. Supply chain and logistics bottlenecks, a shortage of certain chip types and price increases are already on the horizon.

When Intel announced the company's first hybrid design, codenamed Alder Lake, we expected to see more of such design philosophies in future products. During Intel's 2022 investor meeting day, the company provided insights into future developments, and a successor to Alder Lake is no different. Codenamed "Raptor Lake," it features a novel Raptor Cove P-core design that is supposed to bring significant IPC uplift from the previous generation of processors. Using Intel 7 processor node, Raptor Lake brings a similar ecosystem of features to Alder Lake, however, with improved performance across the board.

Perhaps one of the most exciting things to note about Raptor Lake is the advancement in core count, specifically the increase in E-cores. Instead of eight P-cores and eight E-cores like Alder Lake, the Raptor Lake design will retain eight P-cores and double the E-core count to 16. It was a weird decision on Intel's end; however, it surely isn't anything terrible. The total number of cores now jumps to 24, and the total number of threads reaches 32. Additionally, Raptor Lake will bring some additional overclocking improvement features and retain socket compatibility with Alder Lake motherboards. That means that, at worst, you would need to perform a BIOS update to get your previous system ready for new hardware. We assume that Intel has been working with software vendors and its engineering team to optimize core utilization for this next-generation processor, even though they have more E-cores present. Below, we can see Intel's demonstration of Raptor Lake running Blender and Adobe Premiere and the CPU core utilization.

Cincoze's latest DI-1100 series of compact, high-performance, and power-saving rugged embedded industrial computers with rich interface options is receiving a warm welcome in the smart factory industry. The DI-1100 series is ideal for autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), ensuring on-time delivery of components to the production line or goods to warehouse racks, and suitable for 24/7 operation in outdoor remote monitoring systems. These diverse applications are crucial to all smart factories looking to reduce personnel, control costs, increase shipments, and implement outdoor monitoring.

Structurally, there are three major parts to an AMR: the hardware, the software, and the user interface. The robot's hardware consists of the mechanical design, sensors, motion control, and the computer. The computer is the most critical part for integration because it must serve as the robot's center and interface with various devices and software interfaces. For this application, it is essential to choose a high-performance, power-saving, and compact rugged industrial embedded computer with diverse I/O. Cincoze's latest DI-1100 series uses a high-performance 8th Gen quad-core Intel Core i7/i5/i3 (Whiskey Lake-U) CPU and supports one DDR4 2400 MHz SO-DIMM up to 64 GB to meet the high-efficiency computing requirements for real-time dynamic detection, obstacle detection, and multitasking.

G.SKILL International Enterprise Co., Ltd., the world's leading manufacturer of extreme performance memory and gaming peripherals, is thrilled to announce the achievement of a new overclocking world record for fastest memory frequency at DDR5-8888 CL88-88-88-88, in cooperation with ASUS. This amazing frequency speed was achieved by the extreme overclocker "lupin_no_musume" with G.SKILL Trident Z5 DDR5 memory, ASUS ROG Maximus Z690 APEX motherboard, and Intel Core i9-12900K processor. To see the moment this amazing overclocking world record was set, please click the following video link: https://youtu.be/OgQFbUOs6i8

DDR5-8888 CL88-88-88-88 - Pushing the Speed to the Limit
At the dawn of the DDR5 era, G.SKILL and ASUS have been constantly exploring the memory speed limitations of the latest Intel Z690 platform. Surpassing the previous DDR5-8704 world record in November 2021, a new memory frequency world record is achieved at DDR5-8888 under liquid nitrogen extreme cooling. The memory speed has been validated by CPU-Z. Please refer to the screenshot and validation link below: https://valid.x86.fr/qgvylc

Among the broad range of new game titles getting support, we are in for a surprise. NVIDIA yesterday announced a feature list of its upcoming game-ready GeForce driver scheduled for public release on January 14th. According to the new blog post on NVIDIA's website, the forthcoming game-ready driver release will feature an AI-enhanced version of Dynamic Super Resolution (DSR), available in GeForce drivers for a while. The new AI-powered tech is, what the company calls, Deep Learning Dynamic Super Resolution or DLDSR shortly. It uses neural networks that require fewer input pixels and produces stunning image quality on your monitor.

NVIDIAOur January 14th Game Ready Driver updates the NVIDIA DSR feature with AI. DLDSR (Deep Learning Dynamic Super Resolution) renders a game at higher, more detailed resolution before intelligently shrinking the result back down to the resolution of your monitor. This downsampling method improves image quality by enhancing detail, smoothing edges, and reducing shimmering.

DLDSR improves upon DSR by adding an AI network that requires fewer input pixels, making the image quality of DLDSR 2.25X comparable to that of DSR 4X, but with higher performance. DLDSR works in most games on GeForce RTX GPUs, thanks to their Tensor Cores.

AMD's Ryzen 7000 series of desktop processors based on the novel Zen 4 core architecture are scheduled to arrive in the second half of 2022. While we are not sure just how big the architectural differences will be going from Zen 3 (with or without 3D V-cache) to the new Zen 4 core, we have some leaked information that confirms the existence of two SKUs that reveal additional details about the processor configuration. In the MilkyWay@Home project, aiming to create a model of the Milky Way galaxy by utilizing countless PCs across the globe, we found two next-generation Ryzen 7000 SKUs. The MilkyWay@Home project isn't a benchmark. However, it is a valuable reference where the next generation processors appeared.

First in line is the 100-000000666-21_N CPU, a codename for an eight-core, sixteen-threaded design. This model should correspond to the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X CPU, a successor to the Ryzen 7 5800X model. Next in line is the 100-000000665-21_N CPU with 16 cores and 32 threads, a successor to the Ryzen 9 5950X named Ryzen 9 7950X. One important thing to note is that these new CPUs feature different level two (L2) cache configurations. With the previous generation 5000 series "Vermeer" processors, the L2 cache was locked at 512 KB per core. However, according to today's leak, the upgraded Zen 4 IP will bring 1024 KB of L2 cache per core, doubling the cache size at one of the fastest levels.

congatec - a leading vendor of embedded and edge computing technology - introduces the 12th Generation Intel Core mobile and desktop processors (formerly code named Alder Lake) on 10 new COM-HPC and COM Express Computer-on-Modules. Featuring the latest high performance cores from Intel, the new modules in COM-HPC Size A and C as well as COM Express Type 6 form factors offer major performance gains and improvements for the world of embedded and edge computing systems. Most impressive is the fact that engineers can now leverage Intel's innovative performance hybrid architecture. Offering of up to 14 cores/20 threads on BGA and 16 cores/24 threads on desktop variants (LGA mounted), 12th Gen Intel Core processors provide a quantum leap [1] in multitasking and scalability levels. Next-gen IoT and edge applications benefit from up to 6 or 8 (BGA/LGA) optimized Performance-cores (P-cores) plus up to 8 low power Efficient-cores (E-cores) and DDR5 memory support to accelerate multithreaded applications and execute background tasks more efficiently.