Sony has announced that it has shipped 7.8 million PS5 consoles since the release of their latest generation gaming system on November 12th. These 7.8 million consoles were sold at the tune of 4.5 million consoles in 2020 (remember that 2020 only starts in November 12th for this matter), and the remaining 3.3 million units were shipped in the three first months of 2021. This places PS5 launch sales higher than PS4's (and obviously higher than the ill-fated release of the PS3). You might think there's a decrease in momentum in sales, but part of that lower average monthly console sales likely comes from the fact that Sony had more PS5 stock at launch (in a veritable stockpile) than the current production output is capable of processing on a monthly basis.

Sony also announced that they have increased the number of PS Plus subscribers to 47.6 million, up 14.7 percent YoY. These numbers mean that Sony too had a very significant first quarter, and great YoY growth. The company announced that its Game & Network Services segment, which includes its PlayStation business, broke revenue ($25.03 billion) and operating profit ($3.22 billion) records for the 2020 financial year. Just keep those PS5 rolling off the presses, Sony. There's much more money to be made here, and many more consumers to make happy.

HyperX, the gaming division of Kingston Technology Company, Inc. and brand leader in gaming and esports, today announced that HyperX Predator DDR4 memory was used to set a new overclocking world record for the fastest DDR4 memory frequency at 7200 MHz. The world record for highest frequency was set by the MSI OC Team in Taiwan using a HyperX 4600 MHz Predator DDR4 8G module (part number: HX446C19PB3K2/16) on an MSI MEG Z590 UNIFY-X motherboard using an 11th Gen Intel Core i9-11900KF @ 3.50 GHz CPU. The record breaking frequency is posted on HWBOT, the site for PC enthusiasts looking for news, tips and information on overclocking, benchmarks and competitions. The valid CPU-Z screenshot can be found here.

"HyperX is thrilled to be part of this breakthrough in DDR4 overclocking history, with HyperX Predator memory used to set two world records within the past month," said Kristy Ernt, DRAM business manager, HyperX. "Our HyperX engineers continue to focus on improving high-speed yields to get faster products in the hands of our customers and push previously unattainable performance records."

AMD via its official YouTube channel shared a video of two of its Epyc chips destroying Cinebench's R23 benchmark, setting a new world record in the process. The record-setting feat was achieved with two off-the shelf Epyc 7763 CPUs - the ones with 64 physical CPUs and 128 threads of Zen 3 IPC. The system, which was built on top of a reference server motherboard and paired with server-grade aircooling, reached a grand total of 113,631 points - completing the benchmark run is around ten (10) measly seconds and soaring through the previous record-holder, a heavily overclocked Ryzen Threadripper 3990X (105,170 points).

The AMD system crushes the closest-priced Intel Xeon CPUs in performance - a dual Intel Xeon Platinum 8380 (Ice Lake-SP generation) configuration reached a comparably paltry 74,630 points - and AMD wins in the price-performance ratio again, with each of its Epyc 7763 CPUs costing $7,890 compared to $8,100 for each of the Intel Xeon platinum 8380. AMD's name of choice for their server-grade CPUs offering up a justification for its admittedly 15-year-old naming scheme. Catch the AMD video after the break.

Worldwide sales of semiconductor manufacturing equipment surged 19% from $59.8 billion in 2019 to a new all-time high of $71.2 billion in 2020, SEMI, the industry association representing the global electronics product design and manufacturing supply chain, reported today. The data is now available in the Worldwide Semiconductor Equipment Market Statistics (WWSEMS) Report.

For the first time, China claimed the largest market for new semiconductor equipment with sales growth of 39% to $18.72 billion. Sales in Taiwan, the second-largest equipment market, remained flat in 2020 with sales of $17.15 billion after showing strong growth in 2019. Korea registered 61% growth to $16.08 billion to maintain the third position. Annual spending also increased 21% in Japan and 16% in Europe as both regions are recovering from the contraction in 2019. Receipts in North America decreased 20% in 2020 following three years of consecutive growth.

Research and development spending by semiconductor companies worldwide is forecast to grow 4% in 2021 to $71.4 billion after rising 5% in 2020 to a record high of $68.4 billion, according to IC Insights' new 2021 edition of The McClean Report—A Complete Analysis and Forecast of the Integrated Circuit Industry. Total R&D spending by semiconductor companies is expected to rise by a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.8% between 2021 and 2025 to $89.3 billion.

When the world was hit by the Covid-19 virus health crisis in 2020, wary semiconductor suppliers kept a lid on R&D spending increases, even though total semiconductor industry revenue grew by a surprising 8% in the year despite the economic fallout from the deadly pandemic. Semiconductor R&D expenditures as a percentage of worldwide industry sales slipped to 14.2% in 2020 compared to 14.6% in 2019, when research and development spending declined 1% and total semiconductor revenue fell 12%. Figure 1 plots semiconductor R&D spending levels and the spending-to-sales ratios over the past two decades and IC Insights' forecast through 2025.

AMD's Radeon RX 6800 XT graphics card debuted yesterday and in the overall test results, we saw that it runs just a few percent behind NVIDIA's direct competitor - GeForce RTX 3080. However, when it comes to overclocking and world records, the card has just set one. Popular extreme overclocker Alva Jonathan aka "LUCKY_NOOB", has managed to overclock the Radeon RX 6800 XT GPU and set a new world record with the card. Paired with LN2 cooled Ryzen 9 5950X clocked at 5.4 GHz, the graphics card was cooled by... air cooler? Indeed it was. Lucky has managed to clock the RX 6800 XT at 2650 MHz using the reference air cooler. With that system, he managed to score 47932 points in 3DMark FireStrike.

The overclocker has modified 3DMark's tessellation to presumably give the Radeon card more performance, so the score isn't valid on the official 3DMark charts. What gives the overclocker an idea of a world record is the fact that HWBOT actually accepts those numbers, which ranks it higher than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 graphics card that scored 47725 points. Despite the modifications, it is impressive to see AMD's card rank that high, and as more overclockers are getting their hands on these cards, it is a question if we are going to see the 3 GHz barrier broken by a Radeon card.

[Update, September 29, 2020: We now have a good first look at the card courtesy the man himself. It confirms what we already knew, with a 360 mm AIO cooler and a flip-up OLED screen paired to the flagship offering from EVGA this generation.]

It's only been moments after the RTX 3090's release, but professional overclockers are already unleashing the power available on NVIDIA's GA-102 chip by resorting to exotic cooling techniques. Renowned overclocker Vince "K|NGP|N" Lucido, who works in close proximity with NVIDIA AIB EVGA, tamed the RTX 3090's temperature by resorting to liquid nitrogen. This, alongside tweaks to Vcore (1069 mV) allowed the card to reach a startling 2.58 GHz core clock (a staggering 52.2% increase over NVIDIA's base clock), and 10.750 MHz (21.5 Gbps) memory clocks on the GDDR6X subsystem, which in itself is a 10.3% increase over reference clocks.

The 16.673 3D Mark Port Royal score was achieved with a fully custom design made by EVGA with Vince Lucidos' input. This über 3090 ultimately delivered a performance increase of around 30% more than the stock RTX 3090 would be able to, which isn't a bad equilibrium between the core and memory clock increases. Some might say this is the performance delta one would expect between the 3090 and the 3080 (an overall 40% performance increase, considering the 3090 is already an average of 10% faster than the 3080 at stock clocks).

A new HWBot entry has proven what some thought impossible years ago: AMD apparently features the best memory controller in the x86 consumer space. A user going by the alias Bianbao XE achieved a 6,666 MHz frequency on a single stick of Crucial Ballistix Max. The stick's original rating is for a mere 2,666 MHz - doesn't that put things in perspective?

Another thing that puts things into perspective is that the support for such an overclocking feat was a ROG Strix B550-I Gaming motherboard (min-ITX means smaller tracing distance between CPU and memory, and thus higher signal integrity) paired with none other than AMD's Ryzen 7 4700GE 'Renoir'. The APU was underclocked and overvolted - a technique that aimed to increase stability of the memory controller whilst also reducing operating temperatures (balancing the higher voltage and lower frequency). Of course, memory timings were loosened to achieve this feat (timings of 30-27-27-58 aren't what you'd usually like to see), but then again, this wasn't meant to power the utmost memory performance - only the highest frequency. And that was definitely achieved.

Intel Optane persistent memory (PMem), in combination with Intel's open-source distributed asynchronous object storage (DAOS) solution, sets a new world record, soaring to the top of the Virtual Institute for I/O IO-500 list. With just 30 servers of Intel Optane PMem, Intel's DAOS solution defeated today's best supercomputers and now ranks No. 1 for file system performance worldwide. These results validate the solution's delivery as having the most performance of any distributed storage today. They also demonstrate how Intel is truly changing the storage paradigm by providing customers the persistence of disk storage with the fine-grained and low-latency data access of memory in its Intel Optane PMem product.

"The recent IO-500 results for DAOS demonstrate the continuing maturity of the software's functionality enabled by a well-managed code development and testing process. The collaborative development program will continue to deliver additional capabilities for DAOS in support of Argonne's upcoming exascale system, Aurora," said Gordon McPheeters, HPC systems administration specialist at the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility.

TEAMGROUP is proud to announce that T-FORCE broke the world record again. T-FORCE laboratory worked with the overclocker, LeeGH, using T-FORCE XTREEM ARGB DDR4 3200 MHz CL14 memory modules to win the world record on well-known overclocking platform, HWBOT. T-FORCE XTREEM ARGB DDR4 3200 MHz CL14 memory modules achieved the highest read/write speed of 136,678 /104,643 MB/s of quad channel kit as the world record currently.

T-FORCE laboratory and the overclocker LeeGH worked together on AIDA64, one of the significant overclocking competitions, reaching read/write speed of 136,678/104,643 MB/s as the world record currently with ASUS ROG Rampage VI Extreme Encore motherboard and X299 chipset. Meanwhile, the achievement was listed on HWBOT, an ultimate overclocking challenge site. The extremely high-speed performance of T-FORCE XTREEM ARGB has been witnessed by overckockers from all over the world.

Being the latest flagship and limited motherboard, the Z490 AQUA has been pleased all gamers and PC enthusiasts since its announcement. The cutting edge performance and design of Z490 AQUA push Intel 10th Gen Core CPU to 4 global first place benchmark results. The well-known overclocker, Splave achieves four Global First Places with Z490 AQUA and Intel Core i9-10900KF CPU. Our platform completed the wPrime 1024M benchmark in 35.562 seconds, which wins the Global First Place. Find the HWBot submission here.

On the GPUPI for CPU benchmark, best record is one minute and 25.015 seconds, made by using Z490 AQUA with Intel Core i9-10900KF. (Check new record here on HWBot). Splave takes a huge lead by scoring 9108 marks on Intel Core i9-10900KF with the ASRock Z490 AQUA, and captured the 1st place in the Intel 10th Gen Core CPU category (HWBot submission). In conjunction with Intel Core i9-10900KF with the ASRock Z490 AQUA, Splave creates a new record of 42.17 points on Cinebench-R11.5 and wins the Global First Place (submission).

MSI, the world-leading motherboard manufacturer, proudly announces MEG Z490 GODLIKE and MEG Z490I UNIFY have achieved the brand new overclocking scores on both processor and DDR4 memory frequency with Intel 10th Gen Core processors for socket 1200.

MEG Z490 GODLIKE, a new flagship motherboard which is compatible with recently launched Intel 10th Gen processors, is built to deliver unbelievable performance including impressive overclocking scores. Extreme overclocking is made possibly with an aggressive MSI VRM design built with 16 phases 90 A CPU power, combining dual 8-pin power connectors, exclusive Mirrored Power Arrangement and Core Boost Technology to reach the extreme overclocking record.

Lenovo Group today announced robust results for its full fiscal year and Q4, demonstrating the company's position of strength amid unprecedented global transformation. Despite a fiscal year full of macro-economic and industry challenges, the company delivered full-year revenue exceeding US$50 billion (US$50.7 billion) for the second consecutive year. Profitability remained a strength, with historical high pre-tax income of US$1.02 billion, up almost 19% year-on-year. Full-year Net Income was US $665 million, up 12% year-on-year.

Basic earnings per share for the full year were 5.58 US cents or 43.61 HK cents, and for the fourth quarter the figure was 0.36 US cents or 2.80 HK cents. Lenovo's Board of Directors declared a final dividend of 2.77 US cents or 21.50 HK cents per share for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2020.

Steam, an online platform for gaming, has seen some incredible numbers in terms of usage last night. Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic and the fact that many people are in quarantine/self-isolation mode, the number of concurrent users of the platform has skyrocketed. Beating all the previous records of 18 million and 20 million concurrent users, Steam saw as much as 23 million concurrent users last night. Precisely 23,572,311 of users online, setting a new record-high number. The most played games were Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2, and PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. For more statistics, please see here.

AMD veterans yesterday must've sneakily left their respective offices yesterday for a well-deserved rest and a glass of champagne - and if they didn't, they deserved it. The company yesterday broke their previous all-time stock pricing record achieved way back in June 2000, at $47.50 per share, when it traded at $49.10 per share yesterday.

It's been a long time coming for AMD, and irrespective of any brand loyalty, it certainly pays, as a consumer and as an enthusiast, to see a company that nearly went bankrupt in 2016 - who had to sell and then lease back their own headquarters for a quick cash infusion, spin-off its manufacturing division in a change of strategy that couldn't have been easy on morale - achieve such a colossal feat. Even more impressive this is should you even be considering the blue behemoth the company actually has to contend with - a $260.35B Intel who, by both happenstance and poor CPU execution vision, is being fired upon on all markets by comparative David AMD, today valued at $51.07B. Here's hoping all AMD employees got their well-deserved party and standing ovation from each other. None of them - not even Lisa Su - achieved this alone.

MSI today announced that their in-house overclocker Kovan Yang has broken the world overclocking record for DDR4 memory. The record-breaking feat was achieved with a pair of HyperX Predator DDR4 memory modules paired with MSI's MPG Z390I GAMING EDGE AC motherboard, with a little help from liquid nitrogen cooling.

The overclock was achieved with some compromises: the Intel Core i9-9900K processor that powered the system was running in a pared-down configuration with only a pair of active cores, and the DDR4 memory was working in single-channel mode with a single 8 GB stick and highly relaxed timings of 31-63-6363-2. While this isn't usable in your regular machine, that's not the point of these extreme overclocking feats, anyway. The goal is to showcase component quality and stability whilst working way beyond specifications.

Ballistix, Micron's gaming memory brand, is now the official overclocking world record holder. Overclockers used the Ballistix Elite 3600MT/s to set a new overclocking record for the fastest DDR4 memory frequency at a blistering 5726 MT/s. That's 79 percent faster than the max JEDEC DDR4 speed of 3200 MT/s and 115 percent faster than the 2666 MT/s considered mainstream today.

How's that for a speed run? Yes, this record is a big, big, (big, big) deal to us here at Ballistix. But we care just as much about how we earned the top mark. We're proud that we were able to use the same CAS latency - CL24 - used by most of the previous record holders. In addition, we set the record using the same production module of the Ballistix Elite 3600 available to gamers today.

ADATA Technology, a leading manufacturer of high-performance DRAM modules, NAND Flash products, and mobile accessories today announces that the XPG Overclocking Lab (XOCL) has overclocked the SPECTRIX D60G RGB DDR4 memory module to a frequency of 5634 MT/s, a new record. The previous record was 5608 MT/s. The milestone was achieved with an Intel Core i9 chipset and MSI MPG Z390I GAMING EDGE AC motherboard in an LN2-cooled configuration. The results have been certified and published on HWBOT.

The D60G is built with high-quality chips and a metal heat sink for excellent signal integrity, reliability, and stability, which effectively extends the lifespan of the memory module. What's more, Intel Extreme Memory (XMP) 2.0 profiles make overclocking a snap and enhance system stability. Instead of adjusting individual parameters in BIOS, users can do it right through their PC's operating system.

TEAMGROUP is proudly announcing the T-FORCE has done to the apex again, work with world's Korean renown overcloker, SAFEDISK, by using the T-FORCE XTREEM DDR4 4500 MHz modules all the way grabbed the world record of SUPER PI 32m calculation, successfully beat all the powerful professional overclockers from HWBOT and all over the world. This excellent performance of T-FORCE XTREEM made the possibility of completion on SUPER PI 32m calculation within 4 minutes and 5 seconds which is unbelievably amazing!

SUPER PI is a significant DRAM module overclocking benching application, also a way to check the overall module specification stability. This time T-FORCE understands need to show the high performance and stability in front of all the users. Thus works with SAFEDISKset up the test environment including T-FORCE XTREEM DDR4 4500 MHz module, Intel Core i9 9900K "Coffee Lake Refresh" CPU and ASUS ROG Maximus IX Apex motherboard. Without a doubt, the world record has been posted at HWBOT and all over the public platform in front of everyone to be the witness of all this awesome performance record from T-FORCE module.

The upcoming EVGA Z390 DARK is designed from the ground up to be the world's best overclocking motherboard. Need proof? The EVGA Z390 DARK was recently used by Finland Overclocker, Juhani Luumi AKA LUUMI to set a brand new CINEBENCH 8-Core CPU World Record. Armed with an Intel Core i9-9900K, and EVGA Z390 DARK Motherboard and Liquid Nitrogen Cooling, LUUMI was able to clock his CPU to nearly 7GHz and achieve a score of 3142 cb. A new CINEBENCH 8-Core CPU World Record!

Creative Technology Ltd announced the Sound Blaster K3+ today. The compact and portable mixer is targeted at today's generation of online influencers and content creators, such as musicians, podcasters, live streamers, vloggers, and more. The K3+ captures the goodness of its predecessor, the Sound Blaster K3, while being enhanced further with additional features. Like its predecessor, Sound Blaster K3+ was developed in part by a number of broadcasters, singers, musicians, and audio engineers. Their feedback has allowed Creative to understand various recording needs, and has resulted in a practical, professional recording interface that boasts incredible connectivity options.

"We're proud to be part of that amazing journey in helping people to express themselves through the content they create," said Low Long Chye, General Manager of Creative. "The Sound Blaster K3+ is a full-fledged portable mixer with a wealth of features that allow any budding musician, comedian, live-streaming gamer or vlogger to customize their content and broadcast in amazing quality. And because it's so compact and easily powered via USB, they can broadcast live from almost anywhere with just a mobile phone, the book-sized K3+, and a USB powerbank."

IBM Research scientists have achieved a new world record in tape storage - their fifth since 2006. The new record of 201 Gb/in2 (gigabits per square inch) in areal density was achieved on a prototype sputtered magnetic tape developed by Sony Storage Media Solutions. The scientists presented the achievement today at the 28th Magnetic Recording Conference (TMRC 2017) here.

Tape storage is currently the most secure, energy efficient and cost-effective solution for storing enormous amounts of back-up and archival data, as well as for new applications such as Big Data and cloud computing. This new record areal recording density is more than 20 times the areal density used in current state of the art commercial tape drives such as the IBM TS1155 enterprise tape drive, and it enables the potential to record up to about 330 terabytes (TB) of uncompressed data on a single tape cartridge that would fit in the palm of your hand. 330 terabytes of data are comparable to the text of 330 million books, which would fill a bookshelf that stretches slightly beyond the northeastern to the southwestern most tips of Japan.

NVIDIA today reported record revenue for the second quarter ended July 30, 2017, of $2.23 billion, up 56 percent from $1.43 billion a year earlier, and up 15 percent from $1.94 billion in the previous quarter.

• Record revenue of $2.23 billion, up 56 percent from a year ago
• GAAP EPS of $0.92, up 124 percent from a year ago
• Non-GAAP EPS of $1.01, up 91 percent from a year ago
• Broad growth across all platforms
• GAAP earnings per diluted share for the quarter were $0.92, up 124 percent from $0.41 a year ago and up 16 percent from $0.79 in the previous quarter. Non-GAAP earnings per diluted share were $1.01, up 91 percent from $0.53 a year earlier and up 19 percent from $0.85 in the previous quarter.

A new DDR4 overclocking record was achieved by Australian overclocker "newlife", breathing new life towards Ryzen's memory frequency support. Don't just count your fireworks right now, though: while impressive the result came with some caveats in the form of the user's Ryzen 5 1400 CPU: it was down-locked to a paltry, performance-murdering 800 MHz.

After shipping with what could be considered by some as broken DDR4 memory support, AMD's Ryzen platform has in the meantime received the proper amount of care such a pivoting product for AMD should. A series of AGESA updates which improved AMD's performance in gaming, as well as DDR4 memory support have been under distribution since the platform's launch, and those updates have surely worked towards achieving this record today. The score was achieved with a single 8 GB G.Skill Trident Z E-die memory kit, which is usually rated for 3600 MHz frequencies (F4-3600C17-4GTZ), using 18-20-20-58-93-1 timings. This module was seated on a GIGABYTE AORUS AX370-Gaming K7 motherboard (F4 BIOS).

Intel today announced their quarterly earnings for Q4 of the 2016 fiscal year. The company set a new record for revenue for this quarter, coming in at $16.4 billion (up 10% from a year ago, which stood at $14.9B). For the year, Intel brought in $59.4 billion, up 7% from their 2015 results. Intel's gross margin fell, though, by 1.7 points down to a still hugely respectable 60.9%, with operating income of $12.9 billion, down 8% from a year ago. Net income was down 10% to $10.3 billion, and earnings per share fell 9% to $2.12. Intel announced a record annual cash flow from operations of $21.8 billion, with solid earnings with GAAP net income of $10.3 billion, and non-GAAP net income of $13.2 billion.

Leaving the corporate numbers talk behind us for a moment, this means that Intel managed to have another astounding year, with solid execution and even more solid margins and revenues. However, take a peek under the hood, and Intel's wins are based on consumer losses: lower volumes in almost all channels were offset by higher average selling prices (ASP), meaning that Intel is (like any company on the top would) keeping its revenue streams up by charging more for its products.