An engineering sample of AMD's never-released Ryzen 9 5900X3D has surfaced on the Chinese forum Chiphell, and it looks quite different from the prototype AMD has shown before. The 12-core, 24-thread Zen 3 chip carries the code 100-000000652 and reports 128 MB of L3 cache, split as 96 MB on one CCD and 32 MB on the other. That means only one of its two six-core chiplets has the 64 MB 3D V-Cache stack. The Ryzen 9 5900X3D and 5950X3D prototypes that AMD showed to Gamers Nexus in 2023 had cache stacked on both CCDs, for 192 MB in total. The single-stack layout apparently lets the chip clock higher. CPU-Z screenshots from the owner show it running at around 4.7 GHz with a 105 W TDP, while the dual-stack 5900X3D topped out at a 4.4 GHz boost.

Getting it to boot took some effort, though. The sample reportedly refuses to work on current BIOS versions and only started with an older one carrying SMU firmware 56.70.0. The owner has apparently asked ASRock to add support in a newer BIOS. At retail, the Zen 3 X3D lineup started with the eight-core Ryzen 7 5800X3D in 2022 and never included a dual-CCD chip. Interestingly, the one-CCD approach seen here is the same one AMD later used for its Ryzen 9 X3D chips on AM5, before the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition put cache on both chiplets this year. AMD hasn't confirmed anything about this sample, of course, but it's interesting to see from an archival standpoint.

AMD is preparing to launch its "Medusa Point" APU in early 2027. However, more benchmarks are emerging to showcase what the actual SoC can do as AMD and its OEM partners test the chip. In the latest Geekbench v6 run, AMD's 10-core, 20-thread "Zen 6" chip appeared with the AMD Engineering Sample number 100-000001713-21_N, achieving a 2,300 single-core and 13,002 multicore score while officially running at only a 2.4 GHz base frequency. In real-world operation, it ran within the range of 2.0-2.1 GHz during the benchmark. The most surprising factor is that this "Medusa Point" test system can match a 10-core, 20-thread AMD Ryzen AI 9 365 "Strix Point" APU that operates at more than double the frequency. When comparing the two, "Medusa Point" scores slightly lower in single-core performance, while the multicore score is surprisingly higher.

This phenomenon could be attributed to the fact that the "Zen 6" cores in the "Medusa Point" APU are much better performing and more optimized for the workloads that Geekbench tests. The IPC improvement target from "Zen 5" in "Strix Point" to the newest "Zen 6" could be a high single-digit to low double-digit gain on average. It is likely that the combination of new instructions and IPC improvements is what is pushing "Medusa Point" so high. Since the new APU also appeared in firmware running AVX-VNNI in FP16 precision, we might be seeing these workloads getting accelerated thanks to the lower precision of the floating-point operations. For now, the situation remains a mystery, at least until more benchmarks are available in the coming months. AMD is expected to launch this new APU around CES 2027, so we still have a lot of time before official and third-party benchmarks are released.

Since the introduction of Intel's brand-new "Panther Lake-H" mobile processor series, the flagship Arc B390 integrated graphics solution has received the lion's share of media attention. The impressive 12 Xe3-core iGPU is reserved for Core Ultra 300 series X9 and X7 models—likely a sore point for budget-conscious prospective buyers. When considering Team Blue's (roughly) "20% upcharge for a generational leap," customers seek current-gen solace elsewhere (AMD Radeon 890M). Fortunately, the step-down Arc B370 model seems to be relatively performant. The (presumably) much cheaper in-house alternative has been test driven by Notebookcheck. A preview report, published on February 13, provides an initial look at the 10 Xe3-core contender, that was onboard a Core Ultra 5 338H engineering sample. The German publication noted that the 12-core (4P + 8E) processor test subject ran with a "steady power limit of 35 watts." When comparing the Arc B370 to its more capable sibling, Notebookcheck outlined key points of interest: "the maximum GPU clock is also slightly lower at 2.4 vs. 2.5 GHz. Just like models (armed with) the Arc B390 GPU, the Core Ultra 5 338H is only available with soldered RAM (up to 8533 MHz)."

A disappointing Furmark score leaked out late last year, but it is reassuring to see the B370 performing admirably a few months later. Notebookcheck's tester observed this model being: "beaten by the Arc B390 in the synthetic benchmarks, but the power limits also play a role here...The results of the Arc B370 are very promising in general and there is a big advantage over previous iGPUs from Intel (Arc Graphics 140V/140T) as well as AMD (Radeon 890M)." Their 3DMark/Time Spy graphics chart shows the Core Ultra 5 338H engineering sample's Arc B370 iGPU scoring 5933 points. The B390 managed 6679 points, when evaluated on an ASUS ExpertBook Ultra B9406CAA test platform. When analyzing performance at lower TDP values, Notebookcheck noticed that the Arc B370's performance being "virtually identical to the Arc B390 at 20 Watts, while the deficit is just 6 % at 35 Watts." Further comprehensive tests are expected in the coming weeks, as Intel's Core Ultra 5 338H heads to retail in finalized form.

ChintzyPC, a new member of the TechPowerUp community, has kindly shared their experience of picking up an unreleased "Ampere" generation engineering sample. Their forum debut appeared in the form a very in-depth exploration of NVIDIA's very rare GeForce RTX 3080 Ti 20 GB model. Late last year a scruffy yet fairly official-looking ASUS ROG Strix non-Ti variant turned up via the Chinese second-hand market. Fortuntely, ChintzyPC has acquired a comparatively pristine example of Team Green's Founders Edition design. GA102 GPU-based GeForce RTX 3080 Ti and 3080 (non-Ti) 20 GB cards are unusual prospects, given that NVIDIA has not officially disclosed the existence of these past-gen models. TechPowerUp's GPU database lists the former, with a release date of January 2022 and a $1199 (USD) MSRP, but the GeForce RTX 3080 (non-Ti) 20 GB SKU remains unregistered.

ChintzyPC recounted an acquaintance's purchasing of two "3080 Ti 20 GB Engineering Samples" via a local seller, to the tune of $200 per unit. Surprisingly, the cards turned up in formal packaging, complete with a sticker that bears model codes, serial numbers, and barcodes. They note that not much confidence was inspired when the vendor disappeared soon after processing their friend's orders. ChintzyPC's write-up details a "mix of teardown notes, benching results, and general observations, while figuring out what exactly this thing is and how it behaves." After initial tinkering sessions, ChintzyPC concluded that their latest curio is an: "unreleased (GeForce) RTX 3080 Ti 20 GB engineering sample with GA102-250 on a hybrid (RTX) 3090-style PCB. 320-bit bus, requires patched driver. Gaming performance sits around a GeForce RTX 3080 (non-Ti) 12 GB. Compute workloads crash. Overclocks normally but firmware is heavily locked down. Very strange card, (but) a fun one to dig into...In case anyone wonders (whether) there is an uploaded version of this VGA BIOS, (it is available) here (through TPU's collection)." A commenter (Dr. Do) and VideoCardz reckon that only a limited batch of retail-grade MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Ti 20 GB cards seeped out via back channel avenues in 2021—only within Russian territories.

Samsung presented its brand-new Exynos 2600 application processor just before Christmas—this big announcement followed many months of leaks, throughout 2025. Weeks later, a mysterious follow-up model—dubbed "Exynos 2700" by South Korean industry insiders—was tentatively linked to an allegedly more refined 2 nm GAA node process. Officially, Samsung has opted into using its own foundry's SF2 production line for the imminent Exynos 2600 SoC-powered Galaxy S26 smartphone series. Lately, the more advanced "SF2P" node process has been uttered in the same sentence as possible AMD, Qualcomm, and Tesla chip making deals. The South Korean megacorporation is very likely keen to drum up interest from new and returning clients, and their latest Exynos mobile chip is being used as a proof of concept for the regular SF2 node (2 nm GAA), along with proprietary "Heat Path Block" technology.

Unsurprisingly, as the Exynos 2600 AP closes in on its release period, pre-launch samples have posted benchmark data. Last week, TechPowerUp covered this next-gen chip's Geekbench 6 OpenCL score of 24,964 points—achieved by the onboard Xclipse 960 iGPU (aka "JUNO"). Earlier today, a slightly mysterious "Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. Full Android on S5E9975 ERD" test device posted a not-so-impressive OpenCL score of 15618, in Geekbench 6.2.2 for Android AArch64. A Geekbench browser database entry details a 10-core processor candidate that packs a Samsung Xclipse 970 integrated graphics solution. Presumably, the numerical model climb—from 960 going up to 970—implies the "S5E9975 ERD" validation platform hosting an "Exynos 2700" mobile chipset. At first, Ice Universe—a self-described tech expert of global renown—was excited by the seemingly premature appearance of an "Exynos 2700" engineering sample. A lower than expected benchmark score was blamed on the test setup being an "ERD engineering board."

Many portable PC enthusiasts welcomed Dell's very recent restoration of familiar XPS model naming convention; replacing generically confusing "Premium" monikers. Unfortunately, back-dated leaks still mention the latter—as evidenced by one of Olrak29's latest shipping manifest discoveries. A November 20 entry lists a Dell 16 Premium model powered by NVIDIA's still-in-progress N1X system-on-a-chip. According to leaks from last year, this "Grace Blackwell" APU utilizes twenty Arm CPU cores and an iGPU specced with 48 compute units. Hopeful Team Green supporters looked forward to a possible official unveiling at last week's CES trade event, but an eventual non-showing (occupying second place on TPU's top five) led to much disappointment.

Apparently, the GB10 Superchip forms the basis of N1 and N1X SoCs—the same tech has been deployed in NVIDIA's extremely expensive DGX Spark AI mini desktop PC. For the moment, Qualcomm's mainstream Snapdragon X chips are keeping Arm-based solutions alive on Windows 11 Arm with Copilot+. A July 2025 rumor posited that teething problems had prompted a major delay of the N1-series project, with a revised launch period supposedly marked down for late 2026. The November shipping manifest mentions an "ES2" designation, likely implying that Dell was playing around with N1X engineering samples.

Late last month, an unreleased "Xeon 696X" processor was spotted in the SiSoftware Official Benchmark Ranker database. A recent uptick in "Granite Rapids-WS" leaks—including a long SKU stack—hints at an imminent launch. The latest leak, found within the PassMark CPU benchmark archive, seemingly reaffirms the Xeon 696X model's existence. Unfortunately, today's diagnostic points to a lower than anticipated core count: 32 instead 64. Based on older information, this appears to be a major mistake (on the PassMark side). Last month's SiSoftware-based info dump described a sample that leveraged 64 cores and 128 threads.

x86deadandback's initial social media post highlighted the PassMark suite's error. According to a quick benchmark score comparison (courtesy of Wccftech), the forthcoming sub-flagship workstation processor does better than the current "Sapphire Rapids-WS" range topper (Xeon W9-3595X) in multicore scenarios. A disappointing single-core tally likely comes from the next-gen candidate being disadvantaged as an early engineering sample. A rough equivalent from the Red Team—Ryzen Threadripper PRO 9985WX—enjoys a leading position on the comparative chart.

NVIDIA's "Ampere" generation of GeForce RTX graphics cards continues to attract buyers, albeit mostly across used markets. Certain discerning gaming GPU enthusiasts often consider newer "Ada Lovelace" and "Blackwell" architectures to be too expensive. Seninno, an AI PC hardware enthusiast, attempted to strike the right balance between price and past-gen performance. His mid-November video report focused on an unusual custom GeForce RTX 3080 card. Under normal circumstances, owners of RTX 30-series sub-flagships could play around with 10 GB of GDDR6X VRAM. Another unusual 20 GB example has come to light—courtesy of Seninno's search for a bargain. Historically, a handful of variants—mostly made by MSI—have turned up via used product channels in China. Seninno's video report delves into his acquiring of an ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3080 20 GB card.

Weeks after performing an extensive teardown, Seninno's discovery gained wider press coverage—yesterday's Uniko's Hardware article weighed in on debates over the card's origins. Could it be an engineering sample, an OEM release, or a previous owner's modification project? The YouTuber stated: "I found it (for sale in a) Chinese flea market, I've never seen this model, and I can't found any info online, so I decided to try it, but the condition wasn't great, or I would've kept it." An inspection of printed material pointed to a fairly official looking "STRIX-RTX3080-20G" code. A "10DE 2206 -1043 87AA" device ID was detected by GPU-Z, with a "20480 MB" memory size. Seninno was not impressed with the card's scuffed condition, both externally and internally—it was likely hooked up to a crypto mining rig in the past—and aims to return it to an unnamed vendor. Upon examining the deshrouded card, he reckoned that the memory modules were intact and original, but there was evidence of thermal paste reapplications and screws being removed, and not replaced.

An intriguing Intel Core Ultra 9 386H mobile processor has turned up on Geekbench Browser, as spotted by early morning risers. Today's reports have focused on details produced by an "Acer Predator PHN16S-I51" test subject; presumably a next-gen Helios gaming laptop. The plucky system—sporting 64 GB of memory—was put through the Geekbench 6.50 wringer, running a Windows 11 Pro 64-bit OS combined with a Balanced power plan. Fundamental frequencies and core counts were leaked at the start of this month: 4 P-Cores, 8 E-Cores, 4 LPE-Cores. Presently, this supposed 16-core engineering sample (ES) has racked up impressive single and multicore scores: 2849 and 15434 (respectively). According to Notebookcheck, this data places the Ultra 9 386H ES chip just above the performance range of Team Blue's current-gen "Arrow Lake-H" Core Ultra 9 285H APU.

Crucially, this forthcoming premium component surpasses AMD's Ryzen AI Max+ 395 "Strix Halo" SoC (by a small margin) in single-core performance stakes. Team Red's mobile 16-core Zen 5 flagship remains top of the multicore table. Intel's Core Ultra 300 family is pencilled in for an official launch at CES 2026, but a plethora of leaks have disclosed all manner of pre-launch material. Late last week, photos of an alleged Core Ultra 3 "Panther Lake-H" qualification sample ended up online, alongside CPU-Z-generated diagnostics.

Newly surfaced images have revealed pre-release validation hardware for Intel's upcoming "Panther Lake-H" mobile processor line, giving us some of the first concrete looks at the company's newest CPU. The photographs show a development system running on Intel's internal reference board, featuring a ten-core processor sample from what we assume is the Core Ultra 3 family paired with 16 GB of LPDDR5X memory. These qualification units, marked as early A0-stepping silicon, confirm Intel continues to target a public launch around CES 2026 and Q1 2026 release, while offering rare insight into how the chipmaker refines its architectures before production begins.

The CPU features a hybrid design with two high-performance cores, four standard efficiency cores, and four additional low-power efficiency cores, creating a 2P+4E+4LPE configuration. This CPU tile is connected to four Xe3 graphics cores. The board is equipped with four 4 GB SK Hynix LPDDR5X modules, which operate at 7,467 MT/s, slightly below the memory support targets of Panther Lake. Testing shows clock speeds of approximately 3.0 GHz for the base frequency and 3.2 GHz for the boost frequency. The multi-tile die assembly is mounted on a BGA substrate and includes an internal device identifier, indicating its use in Intel's qualification labs rather than as a retail product.

Not too long ago, Storm City Retro's Ebay store listed an unusual Steam Deck model—the original asking price was $2999.99, although potential buyers were allowed to bid with "best offers." The sales page was titled: "Early Valve Engineering 34 Prototype Steam Deck 256 GB, Tested, Please Read!" Gary_the_mememachine—a member of the Steam Deck subreddit—reported an eventual successful transaction, on April 8. The seller—a "primarily online" Kirkland, Washington-based retro video specialist—managed to attract a buyer; who apparently bagged "Engineering Sample No. 34" for a cool two thousand bucks. Given the presence of a sticker that states "not for resale," Valve is likely not enthused by the appearance of pre-commercial phase hardware via second hand channels. The company's Bellevue HQ is located not too far away from Storm City Retro's placement; both being in the Greater Seattle (Pacific NW) area. Kotaku reached out to its contacts at Valve, but a spokesperson has not provided a comment regarding the alleged leak of an AMD "Picasso" APU-powered engineering sample.

Handheld gaming device experts have analyzed saved screenshots and photos; prototype number 34 seems to of February 2020 vintage. It was compared to various "officially revealed" prototype units—as seen in an informative infographic. An exact match was not found in this compilation, but it is obvious that No. 34 differs greatly—externally and internally—when lined up against final retail models. In 2022, Pierre-Loup Griffais—one of the architects of SteamOS—provided some insight about a similar looking proto device: "the best part is that they (mostly) all still boot, serving as an exciting reminder of how far things have come since. This one has a Picasso APU, at about half of the GPU power of the final Deck. The flatter ergo was an interesting experiment and taught us a ton about comfort." The Steam Deck LCD model launched back in early 2022, with a custom 7 nm AMD Ryzen "Aerith" APU onboard—utilizing Zen 2 + processor cores and RDNA 2 graphics architecture. An OLED refresh arrived over a year later with a die shrink; now 6 nm. Team Red had kindly prepared a more efficient Ryzen "Sephiroth" mobile processor design.

The status of Intel "Meteor Lake-S" (MTL-S) desktop processors was the subject of much speculation throughout 2023—by September of that year, Team Blue leadership projected an upcoming launch in 2024. Technically, Meteor Lake was deployed to "sort-of desktops" platforms—albeit in mini-PCs that utilized Core Ultra mobile chips. Industry moles insisted that Intel was still actively engaged in production of MTL-S samples in late 2023. According to a recent ITHome report, those insider tales turned out to be legitimate. On Monday (March 24), the online publication revealed the existence of a mysterious "Q46W" engineering sample—courtesy of Kyoka (a trusted source). A CPU-Z diagnostic revealed the unannounced CPU's turboboost capability reaching 4.5 GHz, while base frequency sat at the 2.8 GHz mark.

According to ITHome's investigative piece, Team Blue: "tested a very special desktop processor: it uses the Meteor Lake architecture, has 6 performance cores and 8 energy efficiency cores (6P+8E), but the performance cores (P-cores) do not support Hyper-Threading. The production date of the product in hand is the 51st week of 2023, which is obviously later than the time when Meteor Lake-S was reported to be cancelled for external sales. From this situation, 'Q46W' may be a development test processor for FCLGA1851 platform or the 800 series chipset. Kyoka believes that the processor should be in the ES2 stage." A Xianyu seller—tbNick_3u8k4—is reportedly offloading a surprising quantity of "Intel Confidential Q46W" processors, allegedly manufactured back in early 2024. Photos show tray-mounted units available for sale on Taobao's second hand market platform. tbNick_3u8k4 mentions that this particular batch of Q46W chips "requires a special motherboard to light up," suggesting that readily available Intel 800 Series chipset-based models are not fit for purpose.

A mysterious GameSir wireless gaming controller appeared online late last year, courtesy of video footage uploaded by an unidentified tester. The presence of a Steam logo on the leaked device's central "home/guide" button sent speculation activities into overdrive. The so-called GameSir "Steam Deck Controller" was linked back to a teased Xbox-licensed G7 Pro wireless controller—both designs seem to share a white/gray aesthetic and control layout. At CES 2025, TechPowerUp staffers were fortunate enough to experience hands-on time with GameSir's upcoming Xbox-branded flagship model. Curious visitors did not spot any sign of Steam/Valve-related products at the company's Las Vegas booth. Game Tech Talk—a YouTube channel that covers the latest in handheld gadgets—managed to conduct an interview with Betta; GameSir's CEO. Their virtual discussion was uploaded two (or so) days ago; the 28-minute video explores current and forthcoming products.

When asked about the unannounced "G7 Pro Valve Edition" (aka unofficial Steam Deck Controller), Betta admitted that he was behind last year's leak. This guerilla marketing tactic produced a lot of reactions and feedback from the hardcore gaming controller community; all taken onboard by the young entrepreneur. Betta said that his personal prototype was "hacked together" in order to provide proof of concept to Valve, although he states that GameSir only has a loose relationship with the House of Half-Life. The G7 Pro controller served as a basic foundation for the Steam-oriented variant—with added motion controller capabilities, capacitive stick technology, independently addressable back buttons, and integration into Valve's operating "ecosystem." The fledgling project awaits an official signing-off—with agreements over licensing, branding, software support, etc.—but a firm connection between the two parties is not yet established. Apparently, there were brief interactions during January's CES event. Betta believes that: "people at Valve are pretty hard to reach." GameSir leadership is "figuring out" a plan; they hope to form a direct connection to Valve HQ in the near future.

An unnamed Intel Core Ultra "Arrow Lake-S" desktop processor engineering sample (ES) made it to the hands of someone willing to post its CPU-Z Bench screenshot. The processor allegedly scores a whopping 1143.2 points in the CPU-Bench single-thread benchmark; and 12922.4 points in the multithreaded benchmark. When compared with the internal Intel Core i9-13900K reference scores of CPU-Z, the single-thread benchmark score is a staggering 26.71% increase over that of the i9-13900K (902 points); while the multithreaded score is 22% lower.

Since we don't know which processor model this "Arrow Lake-S" ES is, we have no way of telling if it is the top SKU with its rumored 8P+16E core configuration, or a mid-tier Core i5 SKU with the expected 6P+8E configuration. The single-threaded test only loads one P-core, and here the IPC of one of the chip's "Lion Cove" P-cores is able to trounce one of the "Raptor Cove" P-cores of the i9-13900K reference score. You also have to understand that the Hyper-Threading plays no role in this thread. Where it could play a role is the multithreaded test. "Lion Cove" lacks HTT support unlike "Raptor Cove," and the i9-13900K is a 24-core/32-thread processor. It's important to note here, that "Arrow Lake" doesn't just have up to 8 "Lion Cove" P-cores, but also up to 16 "Skymont" E-cores that Intel claims to have achieved a massive IPC gain over its predecessor, bringing its IPC in the league of past-generation P-cores such as the "Raptor Cove" or "Golden Cove."

Shipping manifests appear to be great sources of pre-release information—only a few hours ago, the existence of prototype AMD "Strix Point" and "Fire Range" mobile processors was highlighted by hardware sleuth harukaze5719. A related leak has appeared online fairly quickly after the discovery of laptop-oriented "Zen 5" chips. momomo_us joined in on the fun, with their exposure of speculated desktop silicon. Two brand-new AMD OPN codes have been linked to the upcoming "Granite Ridge" series of AM5 processors.

100-000001404-01 is likely an eight-core/ sixteen-thread "Zen 5" Ryzen CPU with a 170 W TDP—a stepping designation, B0, indicates engineering sample status. The other listing, 100-000001290-21, seems to be an A0-type engineering sample—leaked info suggests that this a six-core/twelve-thread (105 W TDP) next-gen mainstream desktop processor. AMD is likely nearing the finish line with its Ryzen 9000-series—a new generation of chipsets, including X870E, is reportedly in the pipeline. Additionally, VideoCardz posits that a refresh of 700-series boards could be on the cards. "Granite Range" CPUs are expected to retain the current-gen 6 nm client I/O die (cIOD), as sported by "Raphael" Ryzen 7000-series desktop processors.

Last week, AMD's Ryzen 8000GE desktop APU lineup appeared online—four lower power (TDP of 35 W) SKUs are set to join the already released 65 W TDP AM5 "Hawk Point" family. GucksTV has acquired a flagship 8000GE model, albeit in engineering sample form—a Hong Kong-based Ebay Store lists "AMD Ryzen 7 8700GE ES Tray" processors. At the time of writing only one unit remains in stock, priced at $298.99 with the option for free international delivery. The "hugohk" shop appears to specialize in supplying all sorts of Team Red engineering sample CPUs. GucksTV's German language video review pitches the Ryzen 7 8700GE engineering sample against the finalized retail release Ryzen 7 8700 APU.

AMD has not made any official release date announcements regarding the leaked Ryzen 8000GE range, but VideoCardz believes that "expectations are high that these variants will hit the market soon through system integrators." The GucksTV comparison video shows that: "On average, the single-core of 8700GE performance drops by 5%, while multi-core is 17% below 8700G. For graphics, that's a 23% average drop in performance while requiring 52% less power." The reviewer noted that his engineering sample was not allowing access to memory OC profiles, until a motherboard BIOS update was implemented (most likely via Beta firmware)—granting 6400 MT/s instead of the normal JEDEC rate of 5200 MT/s. The test platform utilized an ASRock A620I Lightning WiFi Mini-ITX mainboard—finalized Ryzen 7 8700GE APUs could be ideal candidates for usage in quiet/low temperature compact form factor systems.

HXL (@9550pro) has highlighted an intriguing pinned post on the Chinese Zhihu community site—where XZiar, a self described "Central Processing Unit (CPU) expert," has shared a very fuzzy/low quality screenshot of a Windows Task Manager session. The information on display indicates that a "Genuine Intel(R) 0000 1.0 GHz" processor was in use—perhaps a very early Lunar Lake (LNL) engineering sample (ES1). XZiar confirmed the pre-release nature of the onboard chip, and teased its performance prowess: "It's good to use the craftsmanship that others have stepped on. It can run 2.8 GHz with only A1 step, and it is very smooth."

The "A1" designation implies that the leaked sample is among the first LNL processor prototypes to exit manufacturing facilities—Intel previewed its "Lunar Lake-MX" SoC package to press representatives last November. XZiar's followers have pored over the screenshot and ascertained that the leaked example sports a "8-core + 8-thread, without Hyperthreading, 4P+4LPE" configuration. Others were confused by the chip's somewhat odd on-board cache designations—L1: 836 KB, L2: 14 MB and L3: 12 MB—XZiar believes that prototype's setup "is obviously not up to par," when a replier compares the spec to an N300 series processor. It is theorized that Windows Task Manager is simply not fully capable of detecting the sample's full makeup, but XZiar reckons that 12 MB of L3 cache is the correct figure.

YuuKi_AnS has brought renewed attention to an already leaked Intel "Emerald Rapids" processor—the 5th Gen Xeon Platinum 8580 CPU was identified with 60 cores and 120 threads in a previous post, but a follow up has appeared in the form of an engineering prototype (ES2-Q2SP-A0). Yuuki noted: "samples are for reference only, and the actual performance is subject to the official version." Team Blue has revealed a launch date—December 14 2023—for its 5th Gen Xeon Scalable processor lineup, so it is not surprising to see pre-release examples appear online a couple of months beforehand. This particular ES2 SKU (on A0 silicon) fields an all P-Core configuration consisting of Raptor Cove units, with a dual-chiplet design (30 cores per die). There is a significant bump up in cache sizes when compared to the current "Sapphire Rapids" generation—Wccftech outlines these allocations: "Each core comes with 2 MB of L2 cache for up to 120 MB of L2 cache. The whole chip also features 300 MB of L3 cache which combines to offer a total cache pool of 420 MB."

They bring in some of the competition for comparison: "That's a 2.6x increase in cache versus the existing Sapphire Rapids CPU lineup and while it still doesn't match the 480 MB L3 cache of standard (AMD) Genoa or the 1.5 GB cache pool of Genoa-X, it is a good start for Intel to catch up." Team Blue appears ready to take on AMD on many levels—this week's Innovation Event produced some intriguing announcements including "Sierra Forest vs. Bergamo" and plans to embrace 3D Stacked Cache technology. Yuuki's small batch of screenshots show the Xeon Platinum 8580 CPU's captured clock speeds are far from the finished article—just a touch over 2.0 GHz, so very likely limited to safe margins. An unnamed mainboard utilizing Intel's Eagle Stream platform was logged sporting a dual-socket setup—the test system was running a grand total of 120 cores and 240 threads!

AMD made its upcoming Ryzen 8000 CPU series official earlier this week during a "Meet the Experts" presentation - a roadmap demonstrates that this next-generation "Zen 5" + "Navi 3.5" mainstream desktop processor lineup is expected to arrive in 2024. Leaked information (from last month) points to "Granite Ridge" being AMD's codename for the upcoming processor product range, with high-end examples maxing out at 16 CPU cores across two CCDs. Benchleaks has recently spotted a pair of curious looking AMD engineering samples - entries have appeared on the einstein@home and LHC@home distributed computing platforms.

The mystery SKU seems to be a prototype CPU model that sports 8 cores and 16 threads - the AMD product number (OPN) for this unit is "00-000001290-11_N" which does not correspond to anything currently on the market. A Family ID of 26 is specified - Benchleaks theorizes that this number assignment is "Zen 5" specific - given that the existing Family 25 (19H) identifier was assigned to Zen 3 and 4. It should be noted that one of AMD's alleged test systems appears to have been running unreleased graphics hardware - a non-specific Radeon unit (with 12 GB of VRAM) is mentioned within einstein@home's information dump, this could be a potential mid-range RX 7000-series card. A Radeon RX 7900 GRE GPU with an unusually low video memory allocation of 16 GB is listed in LHC@home's entry.

A researcher team operating out of the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) at the University of Chicago are developing a special type of material that is simultaneously capable of emitting fluorescent pattern and undergoing deformation via forced stretches or bends. This thin piece of experimental elastic can function as a digital display, even under conditions of great force - its creators claim that their screen technology material can be stretched to twice the original length without any deterioration or failures.

Sihong Wang (assistant professor of molecular engineering) has lead this research project, with Juan de Pablo (Liew Family Professor of Molecular Engineering) providing senior supervision. The team predicts that the polymer-based display will offer a wide range of applications including usage foldable computer screens, UI-driven wearables and health monitoring equipment. Solid OLED displays are featured in many modern devices that we use on a daily basis, but the traditional nature of that technology is not suitable for material flexibility due to inherent properties of "tight chemical bonds and stiff structures". Wang hopes to address these problems with his new polymer-type: "The materials currently used in these state-of-the-art OLED displays are very brittle; they don't have any stretchability. Our goal was to create something that maintained the electroluminescence of OLED but with stretchable polymers."

Benchmark results for Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 SoC appeared on Geekbench Browser early yesterday morning, under the designation Snapdragon 8cx Next Gen. This chipset is tipped to be a successor to the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3, which was launched at the end of 2021 as the world's first 5 nm Arm-based SoC for Windows laptops. A tipster on Twitter has highlighted the very underwhelming results posted by the next gen chipset, and these figures would indicate that an engineering sample was the test subject, not final silicon. The 8-core Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 is shown to outperform its supposed successor, and the clock frequencies for the latter appear to be lower than anticipated.

The Geekbench 5 database entry for Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 also reveals details about its specifications - a 12-core configuration that is split into eight performance cores and four power-efficiency ones. The base core frequency is listed as being 2.38 GHz, and the benchmark was completed under a Balanced Power plan in Windows 11 Home Insider Preview. 16 GB of RAM was used in the test kit, although earlier leaks have indicated that the chipset can support up to a maximum of 64 GB LPDDR5 RAM.

AMD is slowly gearing up to launch the latest 7000 series Ryzen processors codenamed "Raphael." Thanks to the famous hardware leaker @9550pro on Twitter, we have evidence of B650 motherboards for the next-generation hardware. According to the image posted by the leaker, it appears like AMD's Ryzen 7000 series Raphael processor is running on MSI's MAG B650 motherboard at a very high voltage of 1.5 Volts VCore. While we don't know the exact SKU running here, we see a note referring to it as an Engineering Sample, meaning that this is not a final product. It is expected to see the new AM5 platform make a debut alongside DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 technology, so we have to wonder what the B650 chipset can support.

A rather big chunk of Intel Core i5-12400 "Alder Lake" engineering samples (ES) hit eBay. The i5-12400 is an upcoming mid-range processor Intel is planning to release in Q1-2022. The 6-core/12-thread processor only features 6 "Golden Cove" performance cores, and lacks Efficiency cores (which is probably a good thing for gamers). Each of the six cores has 1.25 MB of L2 cache, while they share an 18 MB L3 cache.

VideoCardz warns that the ES chips out in the wild could be riddled with compatibility issues with Z690 motherboards that are in the market. Apparently, there are two revisions of i5-12400 unreleased doing rounds, C0 and B0, with the former being a QS or qualification sample, and the latter an ES or engineering sample. The two differ in maximum boost frequency—4.40 GHz vs. 4.00 GHz. They also differ with S-SPEC codes of QXDY and QYHX. Even with production versions of firmware and Intel ME, retail Z690 motherboards don't seem to guarantee compatibility with these samples. You are probably better off waiting for retail versions of these chips.

Intel's upcoming Alder Lake-S processors are going to be the company's first attempt at delivering heterogeneous core solutions, combining low-power and high-performance IPs in a single chip. Another important milestone that these processors will reach is DDR5 memory adoption, the first of its kind on consumer platforms. Today, thanks to CapFrameX, a monitoring tool that also hosts a database of benchmark runs, we have a piece of recorded information coming from a test system equipped with an Intel Alder Lake-S processor. The tested system spotted an engineering sample of the Alder Lake-S lineup, clocked at just 2.2 GHz. The core count and core configuration remained unknown.

Alongside the upcoming CPU, the system is composed of NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3080 GPU and DDR5 memory running at 4800 MHz. There were four sticks present, each having 8 GB capacity. The leaked system was running the DOTA 2 game at an average of 119.98 FPS, which doesn't mean much, given that we don't know which settings were applied and what was the resolution. There is a chart showing the gaming frame rate and frame time, which could be interesting to look at. However, the only new information we have come to know is that the Alder Lake-S is already capable of playing games and the ecosystem support should be very good at launch.

Intel's upcoming Alder Lake generation of processors is going to be the first iteration of heterogeneous x86 architecture. That means that Intel will for the first time combine smaller, low-power cores, with some big high-performance cores to provide the boost to all the workloads. If a task doesn't need much power, as some background task, for example, the smaller cores are used. And if you need to render something or you want to fire up a game, big cores are used to provide the power needed for the tasks. Intel has decided to provide such an architecture on the advanced 10 nm SuperFin, which represents a major upgrade over the existing 14 nm process.

Today, we got some information from Igor's Lab, showing the leaked specification of the Intel Core-1800 processor engineering sample. While this may not represent the final name, we see that the leaked information shows that the processor is B0 stepping. That means that the CPU will see more changes when the final sample arrives. The CPU has 16 cores with 24 threads. Eight of those cores are big ones with hyperthreading, while the remaining 8 are smaller Atom cores. They are running at the base clock of 1800 MHz, while the boost speeds are 4.6 GHz with two cores, 4.4 GHz with four cores, and 4.2 GHz with 6 cores. When all cores are used, the boost speed is locked at 4.0 GHz. The CPU has a PL1 TDP of 125 Watts, while the PL2 configuration boosts the TDP to 228 Watts. The CPU was reportedly running at 1.3147 Volts during the test. You can check out the complete datasheet below.