GIGABYTE Technology, an industry leader in high-performance servers and workstations, today announced participation in the global AI conference, NVIDIA GTC, and will share an AI session and other resources to educate attendees. Additionally, with the release of the NVIDIA L4 Tensor Core GPU, GIGABYTE has already begun qualifying its G-series servers to support it with validation. Last, as the NVIDIA OVX architecture has reached a new milestone, GIGABYTE has begun production of purpose-built GIGABYTE servers based on the OVX 3.0 architecture to handle the performance and scale needed for real-time, physically accurate simulations, expansive 3D worlds, and complex digital twins.

NVIDIA Session (S52463) "Protect and Optimize AI Models on Development Platform"
GTC is a great opportunity for researchers and industries to share what they have learned in AI to help further discoveries. This time around, GIGABYTE has a talk by one of MyelinTek's senior engineers that is responsible for the research and development of MLOps technologies. The session demonstrates an AI solution using a pipeline function to quickly retrain new AI models and encrypt them.

Apple's engineering team is rumored to be adjusting performance targets set for its next generation mobile SoC - the A17 Bionic - due to issues at the TSMC foundry. The cutting edge 3 nm process is proving difficult to handle, according to industry tipsters on Twitter. The leaks point to the A17 Bionic's overall performance goals being lowered by 20%, mainly due to the TSMC N3B node not meeting production targets. The factory is apparently lowering its yield and execution targets due to ongoing problems with FinFET limitations.

The leakers have recently revealed more up-to-date A17 Bionic's Geekbench 6 scores, with single thread performance at 3019, and multi-thread at 7860. Various publications have been hyping the mobile SoC's single thread performance as matching that of desktop CPUs from Intel and AMD, more specifically 13th-gen Core i7 and 'high-end' Ryzen models. Naturally the A17 Bionic cannot compete with these CPUs in terms of multi-thread performance.

NVIDIA today announced Google Cloud is integrating the newly launched L4 GPU and Vertex AI to accelerate the work of companies building a rapidly expanding number of generative AI applications. Google Cloud, with its announcement of G2 virtual machines available in private preview today, is the first cloud services provider to offer NVIDIA's L4 Tensor Core GPU. Additionally, L4 GPUs will be available with optimized support on Vertex AI, which now supports building, tuning and deploying large generative AI models.

Developers can access the latest state-of-the-art technology available to help them get new applications up and running quickly and cost-efficiently. The NVIDIA L4 GPU is a universal GPU for every workload, with enhanced AI video capabilities that can deliver 120x more AI-powered video performance than CPUs, combined with 99% better energy efficiency.

ASUS today announced its participation in NVIDIA GTC, a developer conference for the era of AI and the metaverse. ASUS will offer comprehensive NVIDIA-certified server solutions that support the latest NVIDIA L4 Tensor Core GPU—which accelerates real-time video AI and generative AI—as well as the NVIDIA BlueField -3 DPU, igniting unprecedented innovation for supercomputing infrastructure. ASUS will also launch the new ProArt Studiobook Pro 16 OLED laptop with the NVIDIA RTX 3000 Ada Generation Laptop GPU for mobile creative professionals.

Purpose-built GPU servers for generative AI
Generative AI applications enable businesses to develop better products and services, and deliver original content tailored to the unique needs of customers and audiences. ASUS ESC8000 and ESC4000 are fully certified NVIDIA servers that support up to eight NVIDIA L4 Tensor Core GPUs, which deliver universal acceleration and energy efficiency for AI with up to 2.7X more generative AI performance than the previous GPU generation. ASUS ESC and RS series servers are engineered for HPC workloads, with support for the NVIDIA Bluefield-3 DPU to transform data center infrastructure, as well as NVIDIA AI Enterprise applications for streamlined AI workflows and deployment.

Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger has issued the news, via a tweet, of Raja Koduri's departure from the silicon giant. Koduri, who currently sits as Executive Vice President and Chief Architect, will be leaving the company at the end of this month. This ends a five year long tenure at Intel, where he started as Chief Architect back in 2017. He intends to form a brand new startup operation that will focus on AI-generative software for computer games. His tweeted reply to Gelsinger reads: "Thank you Pat and Intel for many cherished memories and incredible learning over the past 5 years. Will be embarking on a new chapter in my life, doing a software startup as noted below. Will have more to share in coming weeks."

Intel has been undergoing numerous internal restructures, and Koduri's AXG Graphics Unit was dissolved late last year. He was the general manager of the graphic chips division prior to its split, and returned to his previous role as Chief Architect at Intel. The company stated at the time that Koduri's new focus would be on: "growing efforts across CPU, GPU and AI, and accelerating high-priority technical programmes."

AT&T Corp. and NVIDIA today announced a collaboration in which AT&T will continue to transform its operations and enhance sustainability by using NVIDIA-powered AI for processing data, optimizing service-fleet routing and building digital avatars for employee support and training. AT&T is the first telecommunications provider to explore the use of a full suite of NVIDIA AI offerings. This includes enhancing its data processing using the NVIDIA AI Enterprise software suite, which includes the NVIDIA RAPIDS Accelerator for Apache Spark; enabling real-time vehicle routing and optimization with NVIDIA cuOpt; adopting digital avatars with NVIDIA Omniverse Avatar Cloud Engine and NVIDIA Tokkio; and utilizing conversational AI with NVIDIA Riva.

"We strive each day to deliver the most efficient global network, as we drive towards net zero emissions in our operations," said Andy Markus, chief data officer at AT&T. "Working with NVIDIA to drive AI solutions across our business will help enhance experiences for both our employees and customers." "Industries are embracing a new era in which chatbots, recommendation engines and accelerated libraries for data optimization help produce AI-driven innovations," said Manuvir Das, vice president of Enterprise Computing at NVIDIA. "Our work with AT&T will help the company better mine its data to drive new services and solutions for the AI-powered telco."

Chinese board partner Maxsun announced today their new flagship product line dubbed Mega Gamer GPU (MGG) which packs five fans onto RTX 40 series GPUs. The first card to receive this new branding is NVIDIA's RTX 4070 Ti which Maxsun suggests will come with a healthy factory overclock, but they have not yet elaborated on complete specifications. The five fan array isn't the only unique aspect of this new lineup as the overall visual design features a striking rounded shroud with a large magnetically attached top-facing RGB LED panel. The fan arrangement appears at first to be a traditional set of three downward facing ~100 mm fans, but a glance toward the top of the card reveals the last two ~40 mm fans flanking either end. These fans are configured as exhaust fans for the finstack, likely intended to assist in pulling heat up and away from the card instead of blasting it down into the motherboard. The 40 mm fan toward the front of the card appears as though it may actually provide some benefit as it sits directly above the forward VRM to the left side of the GPU die.

For those of you that remember the bygone era of 2012 you'll likely have a light bulb going off in the memory department since this is not the first GPU to pack an excessive amount of fans. Some of Gigabyte's Super Overclock series of GPUs featured five 40 mm fans on a bulky triple-slot design, specifically their GeForce GTX 680 Windforce 5X SOC and exceptionally limited Radeon HD 7970 SoC. Unlike Maxsun's MGG design, these designs arranged all of the fans along the top edge in a "pull" configuration to force air up through the dense fin stack and away from the motherboard. Similarly to Maxsun's MGG these were overclocked cards with a considerably unique visual aesthetic.

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. announced the new Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 Mobile Platform—delivering premium experiences brand new to the Snapdragon 7-series. Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 provides exceptional CPU and GPU performance fueling swift, nonstop gaming, dynamic low-light photography and 4K HDR videography, AI-enhanced experiences and high-speed 5G and Wi-Fi connectivity.

"Snapdragon is synonymous with premium mobile experiences. Today's launch of the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 illustrates our ability to bring some of the most in-demand flagship features to our Snapdragon-7 series—making them accessible to more people," said Christopher Patrick, senior vice president and general manager of mobile handsets, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. "We are committed to delivering the most innovative solutions to meet the needs of consumers, our customers, and the industry at large."

GIGABYTE AORUS invites gamers and fans to attend AORUSVERSE, a vast gaming universe packed with the latest AORUS gaming hardware and gears, at PAX EAST 2023. The triumphant return to Boston will also feature fun activities and exciting esports challenges throughout the booth, where visitors can get their hands on the latest tech and participate in various events to win prizes.

At AORUSVERSE, attendees can explore the 2023 gaming laptop lineup, featuring the flagship AORUS 17X and 15X. These laptops are powered by the latest Intel 13th gen CPU and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 laptop GPU, delivering a giant leap in gaming performance. They also come with QHD displays with up to 240 Hz refresh rates for a smooth and fluid gameplay. For those looking for a balance of performance and portability, the non-X variants, AORUS 17 and 15, will also be available onsite for attendees to test personally.

Supermicro, Inc., a Total IT Solution Provider for Cloud, AI/ML, Storage, and 5G/Edge, is announcing the latest addition to its revolutionary ultra-high performance, high-density petascale class all-flash NVMe server family. Supermicro systems in this high-performance storage product family will support the next-generation EDSFF form factor, including the E3.S and E1.S devices, in form factors that accommodate 16- and 32 high-performance PCIe Gen 5 NVMe drive bays.

The initial offering of the updated product line will support up to one-half of a petabyte of storage space in a 1U 16 bay rackmount system, followed by a full petabyte of storage space in a 2U 32 bay rackmount system for both Intel and AMD PCIe Gen 5 platforms. All of the Supermicro systems that support either the E1.S or E3.s form factors enable customers to realize the benefits in various application-optimized servers.

Giga Computing, a subsidiary of GIGABYTE and an industry leader in high-performance servers, server motherboards, and workstations, today announced two new workstation motherboards, GIGABYTE MW83-RP0 and MW53-HP0, built to support the Intel Xeon W-3400 or Intel Xeon W-2400 desktop workstation processors. The new CPU platform, developed on the Intel W790 chipset, is the first workstation platform in the market that supports both DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 technology, and this platform excels at demanding applications such as complex 3D CAD, AI development, simulations, 3D rendering, and more.

The new generation of Intel "Sapphire Rapids" Xeon W-3400 & W-2400 series processors adds some significant benefits to its workstation processors when compared to the prior gen of "Ice Lake" Xeon W-3300 processors. Like its predecessor, the new Xeon processors support up to 4 TB of 8-channel memory; however, the new Xeon CPUs have moved to DDR5, which is incredibly advantageous because of the big jump in memory bandwidth performance. Second, higher CPU performance across most workloads, partially due to the higher CPU core count and higher clock speeds. As mentioned before, the new Xeon processors support PCIe Gen 5 devices and speeds for higher throughput between CPU and devices such as GPU.

AMD today announced the appointment of five technical leaders to the role of AMD Corporate Fellow. These appointments recognize each leader's significant impact on semiconductor innovation across various areas, from graphics architecture to advanced packaging. "David, Nathan, Suresh, Ben and Ralph - whose engineering contributions have already left an indelible mark on our industry - represent the best of our innovation culture," said Mark Papermaster, chief technology officer and executive vice president of Technology and Engineering at AMD. "Their appointments to Corporate Fellow will enable AMD to innovate in new dimensions as we work to deliver the most significant breakthroughs in high-performance computing in the decade ahead."

Appointment to AMD Corporate Fellow is an honor bestowed on the most accomplished AMD innovators. AMD Corporate Fellows are appointed after a rigorous review process that assesses not only specific technical contributions to the company, but also involvement in the industry, mentoring of others and improving the long-term strategic position of the company. Currently, only 13 engineers at AMD hold the title of Corporate Fellow.

Aetina Corporation, a leading provider of AI solutions for the creations of different types of vertical AI, will showcase its new embedded computers, AI inference platforms, GPUs, AI accelerators, and edge devices management software at upcoming Embedded World 2023. Aetina provides different types of form factors based on GPUs or ASICs, such as MXMs, graphic cards, and edge computing systems. The MXMs that are powered by NVIDIA Ampere architecture-based GPU offer extra computing power to existing AI systems, ensuring low-latency data analytics tasks. The MXMs and systems that are built with ASICs, on the other hand, are ideal for the creation of any specific applications or AI systems that involve multi-inference processes.

As an Elite member of the NVIDIA Partner Network, Aetina offers a variety of edge computing systems and platforms powered by the NVIDIA Jetson edge AI and robotics platform. Aetina's newly released embedded computers are built with the Jetson Orin series SoMs—Jetson AGX Orin, Jetson Orin NX, and Jetson Orin Nano ; these small-sized systems and platforms, supporting different peripherals, can be easily integrated into larger AI-powered systems while also being able to function as a standalone AI computer.

There have already been rumors that NVIDIA plans to introduce new GPU variants to some of its RTX 40 series graphics cards, namely the RTX 4070 and the RTX 4080, but now, a fresh RTX 4090 Founders Edition has been spotted with an updated AD102-301 GPU. According to the previous reports, an updated GPU was needed in order to enable a new voltage comparator circuit on the board. The same reports suggested that it could result in cheaper boards, lower build cost, and thus a lower price, but so far, there are no significant price changes for the RTX 40 series.

While there were no reports that the GeForce RTX 4090 will be on the update path, an updated GeForce RTX 4090 has been shipped to Redditor "cavityserach123." The card in question keeps the same Device PCI ID in GPU-Z, but the Sub ID has been changed, suggesting that it won't be possible to flash it with the BIOS of the previous AD102-300 based RTX 4090.

NVIDIA's presence in high-performance computing has steadily increased, with various workloads benefiting from the company's AI and HPC accelerator GPUs. One of the important markets for the company is China, and export regulations are about to complicate NVIDIA's business dealing with the country. NVIDIA's major partners in the Asia Pacific region are Inspur and Huawei, which make servers powered by A100 and H100 GPU solutions. Amid the latest Biden Administration complications, the US is considering limiting more export of US-designed goods to Chinese entities. Back in 2019, the US blacklisted Huawei and restricted the sales of the latest GPU hardware to the company. Last week, the Biden Administration also blacklisted Inspur, the world's third-largest server maker.

In the Morgan Stanley conference, NVIDIA's Chief Financial Officer Colette Cress noted that: "Inspur is a partner for us, when we indicate a partner, they are helping us stand up computing for the end customers. As we work forward, we will probably be working with other partners, for them to stand-up compute within the Asia-Pac region or even other parts of the world. But again, our most important focus is focusing on the law and making sure that we follow export controls very closely. So in this case, we will look in terms of other partners to help us." This indicates that NVIDIA will lose millions of dollars in revenue due to the inability to sell its GPUs to partners like Inspur. As the company stated, complying with the export regulations is the most crucial focus.

After GUNNIR showed the same product back in January, ADLINK is now offering both Intel Arc A-series GPUs in MXM form factor. The MXM (Mobile PCI Express Module) is a standardized form factor that is used mostly in laptops and some small form factor PCs. Product pages confirm that ADLINK offers both the Intel Arc A370M and the Intel Arc A350M in MXM form factor.

According to specifications The ADLINK MXM-AXe, as the product is called, is MXM 3.1 Type A based on Intel Arc GPU, packing 8 Xe-cores, 128 Execution Units, 4 GB of GDDR6 memory, and TDP of 35-50 W, which is pretty much standard for the Arc A370M GPU. The company also offers the same product with A350M GPU with TDP of 25-35 W. With decent power efficiency, full AV1 hardware encoding, and support for up to four 4K displays, such a GPU would be perfect for small form factor machines, and could be even a decent upgrade for some laptops.

According to TrendForce's latest survey of the server market, many cloud service providers (CSPs) have begun large-scale investments in the kinds of equipment that support artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. This development is in response to the emergence of new applications such as self-driving cars, artificial intelligence of things (AIoT), and edge computing since 2018. TrendForce estimates that in 2022, AI servers that are equipped with general-purpose GPUs (GPGPUs) accounted for almost 1% of annual global server shipments. Moving into 2023, shipments of AI servers are projected to grow by 8% YoY thanks to ChatBot and similar applications generating demand across AI-related fields. Furthermore, shipments of AI servers are forecasted to increase at a CAGR of 10.8% from 2022 to 2026.

EK, the premium water-cooling gear manufacturer, is launching a new distro plate for the Lian Li O11D XL chassis. The distro has a built-in EK-Quantum Lumen screen, a 7" IPS monitor that can be seen from the front of the case. It is designed to provide advanced water cooling with the latest 3rd-generation SATA-powered D5 pump, removing the need for additional 4-pin Molex cables. The Reflection² series distribution plates are EK-Matrix7 compliant.

The EK-Quantum Reflection² PC-O11D XL D5 PWM D-RGB - Screen Edition is a custom water-cooling reservoir, routing, and pump solution that seamlessly fits into the front of the case showing off a beautiful 7" IPS screen with an aluminum frame. This waterway is also equipped with six innovative push-in ports that come with female G1/4" threaded adapters. The idea is that users can easily assemble the whole radiator + fittings + tubing combo and use these push-in adapters to simply slide it into the distribution plate. The bottom radiator is mounted via a special metal bracket.

Late on Friday in a newsroom posting by Intel's Interim GM Jeff McVeigh a roadmap uplift was quietly revealed. Rialto Bridge, the process improved version of Ponte Vecchio currently shipping under the Max Series GPU branding, has been pulled from the roadmap in favor of doubling down on the future design code-named Falcon Shores. Rialto Bridge was first announced last May at SC22 as the direct successor to Ponte Vecchio, and was set to begin sampling later this year. In the same post Intel also cancelled Lancaster Sound, their Visual Cloud GPU meant to replace the Arctic Sound Flex series of GPUs based on similar Xe cores to Arc Alchemist. In its stead the follow-up architecture Melville Sound will receive focused development efforts.

Falcon Shores is described as a new foundational chiplet architecture that will integrate more diverse compute tiles, creating what Intel originally dubbed the XPU. This next architectural step would combine what Intel is already doing with products such as Sapphire Rapids and Ponte Vecchio into one CPU+GPU package, and would offer even further flexibility to add other kinds of accelerators. With this roadmap update there is some uncertainty as to whether the XPU designation will make the transition as it is notably absent in the letter. It is clear though that Falcon Shores will directly replace Ponte Vecchio as the next HPC GPU, with or without CPU tiles included.

AMD has released its latest Adrenalin drivers for Radeon graphics cards. With support dating back to RX 400, the latest Adrenalin 23.3.1 WHQL drivers bring a lot of improvements to the table, as well as support for Halo Infinite Ray Tracing Update and Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty game. Most importantly, the new driver has a series of fixes, including intermittent driver timeout, system freeze, or BSOD, with the latest Radeon RX 7000 series. Problems in games such as Premium Gold Packs in EA SPORTS FIFA 23 and Dying Light 2 lighting effects corruption have been fixed. As far as Radeon RX 6000 series goes, this driver release manages to fix corruption in certain scenes with ray tracing enabled observed in the Returnal game. Check the list below for the entire set of changes.Download: AMD Radeon Graphics Drivers 23.3.1 WHQL here.

Although we've known most of the details of AMD's I/O die in its Zen 4 processors, until now, AMD hadn't shared a die shot of the cIOD, but thanks to its ISSCC 2023 presentation, we not only have a die shot of the cIOD, but some friendly people on the internet have also made annotations for us mere mortals. There are no big secrets here, but based on the annotations by @Locuza_ we now know for certain that it's not possible to use the current I/O die with three CCDs, as it only has two GMI3 interfaces, to which the CCDs are connected.

If you're wondering about the 2x 40-bit memory interface, it's for ECC memory support outside of the on-die ECC support of DDR5 memory. Also note that DDR5 memory is two times 32-bit in non ECC mode. That said, it's up to the motherboard makers to implement support for ECC memory, but it would appear all Zen 4 CPUs support it. The addition of a GPU, even a basic one like this, takes up a fair bit of space inside the cIOD, especially once you add things like video decoders/encoders and so on. In fact, it appears that the parts related to the GPU and video decoders/encoders take up at least a third of the space inside the I/O die, yet thanks to a significant die shrink from the Zen 3 era cIOD, it's physically smaller in the Zen 4 processors, while having an estimated 58 percent increase in transistors.

MSI, a leading innovator in computer hardware and peripherals, is proud to announce that its Gaming Desktops, equipped with GeForce RTX 40 Series GPUs, not only deliver gamers the power they desire, but also provide creators with the many benefits of the NVIDIA Studio platform. These systems ensure outstanding graphics performance and, when used with NVIDIA Studio Drivers, deliver exceptional reliability to meet the needs of creators and designers.

When gamers aren't experiencing ultra-high FPS gaming with the lowest latency, the latest NVIDIA GeForce RTX graphics cards provide users with the ultimate graphics performance to bring their creative vision to life. MSI Gaming Desktops with GeForce RTX GPUs have access to an exclusive suite of free software: NVIDIA Broadcast, Canvas and Omniverse.

Jon Peddie Research reports that the growth of the global PC-based graphics processor unit (GPU) market reached 64.2 million units in Q4'22 and PC CPU shipments decreased by -35% year over year. Overall, GPUs will have a compound annual growth rate of 0.19% during 2022-2026 and reach an installed base of 3,013 million units at the end of the forecast period. Over the next five years, the penetration of discrete GPUs (dGPUs) in PCs will grow to reach a level of 32%.

Year to year, total GPU shipments, which include all platforms and all types of GPUs, decreased by -38%, desktop graphics decreased by -24%, and notebooks decreased by -43%—the largest decrease since its peak in 2011. AMD's overall market share percentage from last quarter increased 0.4%, Intel's market share decreased by -1.1%, and Nvidia's market share increased 0.68%, as indicated in the following chart.

For more than a decade, Intel and its partners have been on a mission to virtualize the world's networks, from the core to the RAN (radio access network) and out to the edge, moving them from fixed-function hardware onto programmable, software-defined platforms, making networks more agile while driving down their complexity and cost.

Now operators are looking to cross the next chasm in delivering cloud-native functionality for automating, managing and responding to an increasingly diverse mix of data and services, providing organizations with the intelligence needed at the edge of their operations. Today, Intel announced a range of products and solutions driving this transition and broad industry support from leading operators, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and independent software vendors (ISVs).

AMD and Arm have been gaining up on Intel in the server CPU market in the past few years, and the margins of the share that AMD had won over were especially large in 2022 as datacenter operators and server brands began finding that solutions from the number-2 maker growing superior to those of the long-time leader, according to Frank Kung, DIGITIMES Research analyst focusing primarily on the server industry, who anticipates that AMD's share will well stand above 20% in 2023, while Arm will get 8%.

Prices are one of the three major drivers that resulted in datacenter operators and server brands switching to AMD. Comparing server CPUs from AMD and Intel with similar numbers of cores, clockspeed, and hardware specifications, the price tags of most of the former's products are at least 30% cheaper than the latter's, and the differences could go as high as over 40%, Kung said.