Tipsters have noticed that ASUS is preparing a new high-end laptop with an unannounced AMD processor—the upcoming ROG Strix SCAR 17-inch model (G733PYV-LL046W,) will apparently sport a Ryzen 9 7945HX3D APU (with 128 MB of L3 cache). The inclusion of "X3D" in the processor's name has generated a lot of interest, given that Team Red's 3D V-Cache technology has existed mainly within mainstream desktop-oriented Ryzen 7000 and 5000 processor lineups. This leaked dual-CCD APU is probably being lined up to take on upper-echelon Intel Raptor Lake-HX processors, as well as refreshed variants.

The leak indicates that this APU will likely sit at the top of the Zen 4-based Dragon Range-H lineup—being a 5.4 GHz max. boost clock, 16-core/32-thread CPU, with a configurable TDP (between 55 W and 75 W) and Radeon 610M iGPU. The host ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 17 laptop is no slouch thanks to some very generous hardware specifications, including a mobile NVIDIA RTX 4090 GPU, 32 GB of DDR5 memory, 2 TB SSD, and a 17.3" 240 Hz IPS display. Listed at 5599 AUD (~$3800) on Computer Alliance, or £3904.79 (~$5000) chez Lamba-Tek, you would expect the best possible performance for those prices. The two online retailers have not confirmed any concrete release dates for the high-end ASUS laptop.

A significant Sony Project Q leak has revealed an alleged prototype running on an undisclosed version of the Android operating system—the remote play-oriented handheld device was first revealed in late May's PlayStation showcase, but Sony's games division has so far kept stum about the Q's means of operation. Zuby_Tech has (prematurely) pulled back the curtain by uploading various images and video footage of a working unit.

A very simple version of Android seems to be displayed on the device's 8-inch 1080p LCD screen (a protective film is still attached), with a prominent QR code featured on its home window. The streaming device has the potential to be quite flexible, in terms of functionality, thanks to Sony's apparent wise choice of operating system selection. Zuby_Tech also took the time to open up their sample unit—without the screen in place, there appears to be not much going on inside there. Previous rumors have the Project Q accessory costing somewhere in the $200-300 region, with a battery life of 3-4 hours—this could be a tough one to market and sell, even to the most ardent of PlayStation platform supporters.

As we get closer to a possible late summer/early autumn release window for mid-range AMD Radeon RX 7000-series gaming graphics cards, more leaks have emerged from sources in Asia. Benchlife believes that "in addition to Radeon RX 7900 GRE, AMD and its AIB partners are also preparing two Navi 32 chip graphics cards such as Radeon RX 7800 XT and Radeon RX 7700 XT, which are expected to be available in early September." Previous leaks have indicated that a September launch is planned, albeit with the RX 7800 XT SKU being based on a heavily modified Navi 31 GPU.

Two non-XT units have recently emerged via leaked benchmark results, so there could be a good number of options lined up for a third quarter 2023 launch. Jon Peddle Research (JPR) has added their two cents, by reconfirming that Team Red could be showcasing mid-range models at a late summer trade fair: "AMD is rumored to announce two new 7000-series AIBs at Gamescom in late August. The leaks suggest that AMD is behind NVIDIA in terms of AIBs and has open slots in its SKU lineup. The leaked benchmark data (see below) indicates that the RX 7800 and RX 7700 may compete with the RTX 4070 and RTX 4060 Ti, respectively." JPR proposes that AMD is preparing at least two mid-range models for launch, although this could increase to five. If a mysterious fifth candidate does exist outside of the oft mentioned RX 7700, RX 7700 XT, RX 7800 and RX 7800 XT SKUs, where would it be placed in the hierarchy? We can exclude the RX 7900 16 GB GRE GPU since it seems to be a Chinese market exclusive, with performance estimated to be just below RX 7900 XT standards.

According to various news sources, CEOs from Intel, NVIDIA and Qualcomm have been holding meetings with representatives of the US government—with the topic of discussion reportedly being the escalation of semiconductor import restrictions placed on China. AMD was notably absent from Monday's proceedings, due to Dr. Lisa Su attending to business matters in Taiwan. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, National Economic Council director Lael Brainard and National Security Council director Jake Sullivan were alleged to have met with industry leaders.

Chipmakers have expressed worry about new restrictions coming into effect within the next couple of week—the latest negotiations could have touched on some sort of provision for leading silicon manufacturers. The US government believes that by limiting China's access to cutting-edge technology, it will bolster national security interests—with the Chinese military not being able to develop competitive defense systems. The Semiconductor Industry Association stated on Monday that: "overly broad, ambiguous and at times unilateral restrictions risk diminishing the US semiconductor industry's competitiveness, disrupting supply chains, causing significant market uncertainty and prompting continued escalatory retaliation by China." Intel, NVIDIA and Qualcomm did not provide any comments to press outlets following the conclusion of their meetings with senior government officials. It is speculated that Qualcomm is set to lose the most trade following the implementation of stricter rules—Bloomberg proposes that 60% of the firm's business revenue comes from Chinese territories.

A new entry has appeared on the Geekbench Browser database—very early this morning—apparently pointing to the lowest model sitting within the ranks of Intel's Alder Lake-N CPU series. According to leaked Geekbench 6.1 test results, as spotted by Benchleaks, the evaluated system was running on an "Intel N50" processor. This truly entry-point 6 W TDP SoC seems to feature two Gracemont efficiency cores with a 997 MHz base clock and a boost capability of 3.4 GHz. You are not getting any hyper-threading here. The integrated GPU is reported to sport 16 Execution Units—the more powerful N200, Core i3-N305 and Core i3-N300 Alder Lake-N siblings have double that count (32 EUs).

The benchmarked N50 system achieved overall scores of 1054 (single core) and 1388 (multi-threaded). Geekbench Browser states that the tested build had 8 GB of RAM (single channel), with the OS being Microsoft Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC (64-bit) on a balanced power plan. VideoCardz was somewhat impressed with the plucky 6 W TDP chip offering comparable performance to decade old CPUs, albeit with a much lower power draw. The N50's single core result positions it closer to Intel fourth Gen Core Haswell mobile processors or first generation Ryzen CPUs, but the multi-core score is a bit of letdown—perhaps comparable to Intel Core 2 and AMD FX series models.

A flurry of DMCA take down notices, on Activision's part, have brought even more attention to an alleged Call of Duty internal alpha test. Leakers have been talking about Modern Warfare III being the likely candidate for a new CoD release this year, following a planned premium expansion for MW II morphing into a full-fledged sequel. Activision has been busy scrubbing the internet clean of screenshots sourced from the alleged "Hailström" test build, but issued copyright strike messages contain references to the next entry in the series. Targeted tipsters have been warned about activity that has resulted in: "leaked content from unreleased video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3" appearing on social media and other gaming community hubs.

The publisher has semi-acknowledged that the cat is out of the bag, and yesterday addressed the fan base with a simple query: "Let's get this out of the way...Should MW II Operators, Weapons and Bundles carry forward into Call of Duty 2023?" This official tweet was shared by the Sledgehammer Games account—this Activision-owned studio is rumored to be the primary development house working on Modern Warfare III, with other Call of Duty-oriented outfits providing additional support. Call of Duty: Vanguard (2021) was Sledgehammer's third fully developed entry in the blockbuster (and highly contested) series.

A set of intriguing 3DMark Time Spy benchmark results have been released by hardware leaker All_The_Watts!!—these are alleged to have been produced by prototype Radeon RX 7700 and Radeon RX 7800 graphics cards (rumored to be based on variants of the Navi 32 GPU). The current RDNA 3 lineup of mainstream GPUs is severely lacking in middle ground representation, but Team Red is reported to be working on a number of models to fill in the gap. We expect a number of leaks to emerge as we get closer to a rumored product reveal scheduled for late August (to coincide with Gamescon).

The recently released 3DMark Time Spy scores reveal that the alleged Radeon RX 7700 candidate scored 15,465 points, while the RX 7800 achieved 18,197 points—both running on an unspecified test system. The results (refer to the Tom's Hardware-produced chart placed below) are not going to generate a lot of excitement at this stage when compared to predecessors and some of the competition—evaluation samples are not really expected to be optimized to a great degree. We hope to see finalized products with decent drivers putting in a good appearance and performing better later on this year.

Benchlife claims to have obtained full specifications of Intel's upcoming 14th Gen Core series—the site kicked things off by releasing details of a trio of Raptor Lake Refresh K-series SKUs earlier today. Insiders have seemingly divulged fairly comprehensive specs for i9-14900K, i7-14700K, and i5-14600K desktop CPUs. The expected lineup-wide implementation of greater clock speeds (+200 MHz) is present on these examples according to the leaked info—i9-14900K is reportedly capable of boosting up to 6.0 GHz (via Thermal Velocity tech), while its Core i7 and Core i5 siblings are said to be hitting 5.6 GHz and 5.3 GHz (respectively).

The Core i7-14700K seems to be the only rumored model to receive a core count increase—the listed 8P+12E configuration is decked out with more Gracemont efficiency cores when compared to the 13th Gen equivalent's makeup (i7-13700K, 8P+8E). This grants a slightly increased pool of Intel's "Smart Cache"—33 MB instead of the previous gen model's 30 MB. These 125 W TDP "K" SKUs are expected to arrive mid-October alongside "KF" models (lacking iGPUs). The 65-W non-K lineup could be presented at the next CES, and launched in January 2024.

A reference to an unreleased Radeon RX 7900 GRE GPU specced with 16 GB of VRAM appeared on distributed computing platforms last month. The unusual GRE acronym was a little bit puzzling, but ITHome has recently discovered that this could be the successor to an older GME (Golden Mouse Edition) card. AMD's Radeon RX 590 GME design was released back in March of 2020 to celebrate the year of the Rat or Mouse.

The Chinese zodiac sign for 2023 is the rabbit, hence AMD preparing a Golden Rabbit Edition (GRE) for that territory. ITHome proposes that this Radeon RX 7900 non-XT model could field a cut-down version of Team Red's Navi 31 GPU—with its Compute Unit count possibly reduced slightly below the standard 84 CUs, while an allocation of 16 GB of GDDR6 video memory gets coupled to a 256-bit interface (down from the XT's 20 GB and 320-bit). The short report does not provide any release date information or detailed specifications/features, but we can assume that the GRE is highly likely to arrive within the year it is intended to commemorate.

Sparkle presented a pair of custom Intel Arc A380 and A310 cards[/url] at last month's Computex expo—reaffirming its commitment to presenting the full lineup of Arc GPUs. It is now reported that these "Industrial Low-Profile" cooled units will form the company's "GENIE" series. Sparkle's triple-fan TITAN series is comprised of Arc A770 and A750 GPUs, while the dual-fan ORC is formed solely of an A750. ELF is a single fan design A380 card.

The aforementioned GENIE models are both one slot designs with single fans and a low profile shrouds that only covers part of the PCB (comparable to the reference card). The A380 unit offers 8 Xe-Cores with 6 GB GDDR6 96-bit memory, while the lesser A310 gets 6 Xe-Cores and 4 GB of GDDR6 64-bit memory. The leaked presentation slide does not show any release date information, but reasonably final looking hardware making an appearance at Computex 2023 suggests that the GENIE series is not too far off from reaching retail.

As reported by Phoronix—references to GFX1150 & GFX1151 targets have been added to the AMDGPU LLVM backend/compiler, which seems to indicate that these are upcoming AMD APU models. AMD engineers have made to reference to GFX1150 as "Strix1" (full codename: Strix Point) in the past according to several sites, but the recent leak has GFX1151 mentioned for the first time.

Previous reports suggest that Team Red could be developing two Strix/Zen 5/RDNA 3.5 APUs with AI engine enhancements for laptops—a discovery of two separate GFX targets suggests that we are likely looking at different 12-core and 16-core models. The former is said to be a monolithic design with a TDP going up to 54 W. The 16-core "Strix Halo" (also known as "Starlak") is a very different type of product with leaks suggesting that it will have a maximum TDP of 120 W, and be based on a chiplet design. Zen 5 processor products are expected to arrive in the second half of 2024—with Granite Ridge filling in the desktop platform segment.

Nixxes and Insomniac yesterday published their official PC specification requirements for the Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart port (arriving on July 26). The announcement was made via a post on the game's Steam store page, but the two teams decided to remove it soon after (perhaps the information was released too early). Several news sites were quick enough to note that the PC version of Ratchet & Clank: Rift will be the first DirectStorage 1.2 game with support for GPU decompression. Senior Lead Programmer Richard van der Laan stated (in the now deleted update): DirectStorage ensures quick loading times and GPU decompression is used at high graphics settings to stream assets in the background while playing. Traditionally, this decompression is handled by the CPU, but at a certain point there is an advantage to letting the GPU handle this, as this enables a higher bandwidth for streaming assets from storage to the graphics card. We use this to quickly load high-quality textures and environments with a high level of detail.

His colleague, Principal Programmer Alex Bartholomeus, also chipped in with: "For Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart on PC, we added adaptive streaming based on live measurement of the available hardware bandwidth. This allows us to tailor the texture streaming strategy for the best possible texture streaming on any configuration." The most surprising aspect gleaned from the PC specification sheet is the minimum performance requirement (720p @ 30 FPS) of a hard disk drive (HDD) acting as the main storage device, although they would prefer that you go with a more modern storage option. A solid-state drive (SSD) is deemed necessary for the "Recommended" tier at 1080p/60 FPS. This is quite amusing considering that Insomniac's creative director, Marcus Smith, once said (in an official PlayStation showcase video) that Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart's dimensional rift hopping "would not have been possible without the Solid State Drive of the PlayStation 5."

YouTuber RedGamingTech has put together a list of leaked Intel 14th Gen Core SKUs—they claim that this information was compiled from various tipsters and inside sources. Raptor Lake Refresh is perhaps not a very exciting prospect—i.e. a mild upgrade—for current owners of 13th Gen Core CPUs on the LGA 1700 platform, but upcoming mid-range SKUs could offer a nice performance uplift for those still on 12th Gen silicon (or older) thanks to higher core counts. According to RedGamingTech's list, the refreshed Core i7 series (14700, -K &-F) sports 20 cores and 28 threads, while Core i5 14600 SKUs are rumored to feature 16 cores and 24 threads. Prospective budget-conscious customers are likely to be enthused by Core i3 SKUs getting a refresh with new 6-core/12-thread configs.

Chinese tech tipster Golden Pig Upgrade has turned its attention to Intel's Meteor Lake processor series—they believe that hardware partners are putting qualification samples (QS) through the ringer. The short Bilibili social media post proposes that these laptop-oriented prototypes sport six high-performance Redwood Cove cores running at 4.80 GHz, eight energy-efficient Crestmont cores, as well as two low-power Crestmont cores. Apparently the unit's TDP can be adjusted—starting at 20 W, and going up to 65 W. Golden Pig Upgrade was also informed about a Core Ultra 9 model capable of hitting 5.0 GHz (or greater) maximum CPU clocks.

The qualification sample's integrated graphics processing unit is reportedly based on the Xe-LPG architecture—some experts reckon that this could offer performance (4.5 FP32 TFLOPS) comparable to Arc A380 or A370M discrete solutions. The sampled iGPU could feature up to 128 execution units (so equivalent to 1024 stream processors, as well as 8 Xe clusters)—insider sources allege that units can boost to a maximum of 2.2 GHz. It will be interesting to observe how this will stack up against AMD's Radeon 780M iGPU—which is theoretically in a similar ballpark (4.3 FP32 TFLOPS).

The AMD Ryzen 5 7500F CPU has been popping up via various leaks—with no official announcements made despite photos, basic specifications and benchmark results appearing online. Tom's Hardware could not extract a comment directly from Team Red, so it pivoted to inside sources instead to find out more about the mysterious Zen 4 iGPU-less processor. The news site discovered that this model is very likely going to be a Chinese market exclusive—insiders reckon that it will be released closer to the end of this month. Retailers and e-tailers in the region are getting first dibs, with the Ryzen 5 7500F also made available to SIs (system integrators), so pre-built computers featuring this AM5 CPU could be released soon after.

Tom's Hardware believes that the: "Ryzen 5 7500F is very similar to the Ryzen 5 7600 and will operate with a 65 W TDP, and thus have slightly lower boost clock speeds than the 7600." It suspects that a recently published benchmark showing that single-core performance edges past the Ryzen 5 7600X (105 W TDP) is not all that accurate—these results should be "taken with a grain of salt." According to their verified sources, the Ryzen 5 7500F should "perform slightly slower than the regular 65 W Ryzen 5 7600 (non-X)." The article presents some hope that AMD is simply market testing the CPU prior to a possible USA rollout, but insiders indicate that company plans have the Ryzen 5 7500F marked for launch in China only.

The Puget Systems benchmark database outed AMD's Ryzen 5 7500F 6-core/12-thread processor last week—industry experts proposed that it was the first example of a Ryzen 7000 SKU with a disabled iGPU. A South Korean retailer indicated unit pricing of around $170-180, with a possible local launch date on July 7. It seems that retail units have not hit the market (at the time of writing), but Geekbench 6.1 results have since appeared online. According to an entry on the Geekbench database—that was spotted by Olrak29 earlier today—the Ryzen 5 7500F has a base clock of 3.7 GHz. It can boost up to 5.0 GHz on a single core, while all cores can reach a maximum of 4.8 GHz. The listing confirms that this new SKU sits firmly in the AMD "Raphael" CPU family.

The processor was tested on a system running Microsoft Windows 11—partial specifications of the evaluation build include an ASUS TUF Gaming A620M-PLUS WIFI motherboard and 32 GB of DDR5-6000 RAM. The tested Ryzen 5 7500F CPU achieved scores of 2782 points (single-core) and 13323 points (multi-threaded), which places it slightly ahead of the Ryzen 5 7600X in multi-thread performance. It trails slightly behind with its single-core result, but these figures are impressive considering that the Ryzen 5 7500F will likely be offered at a more budget friendly price when compared to its closest iGPU-enabled siblings.

Golden Pig Upgrade, a Chinese PC hardware content creator, has issued more Intel-related insider info via their Bilibili page. Their short post claims that the Intel 14th Gen Core-HX series (aka enthusiast grade laptop Raptor Lake Refresh SKUs) will be based on 8P+16E die configurations, said to replace all previously reported 8P+8E and 6P+0E setups. This improved HX lineup could provide a nice upgrade over equivalent 13th Gen Core units, with larger L2 cache allocations and increased core counts.

A few examples are mentioned—the upcoming Core i7-14650HX sports an 8P+8E configuration, granting two extra performance cores when compared to the current gen equivalent 13650HX (6P+8E). The Core i5-14500HX could stick with the same configuration (6P+8E) as seen on the older 13500HX, but Golden Pig Upgrade believes that the former will be upgraded with a larger pool of L2 cache. Previous leaks have already pointed out higher-end 14th Gen Core i9 SKUs being based on the 8P+16E die configuration, with the possible offering of higher clocks and support for faster memory speeds. The Raptor Lake Refresh desktop lineup is expected to debut around mid-October, but insider information regarding HX has not yet pinpointed a firm launch period for high-end 14th Gen Core laptop/mobile SKUs.

Chinese tech tipster Enthusiast Citizen (ECSM) has once again posted about upcoming Intel CPU product launches—according to an inside info post (published via Bilibili), Team Blue has possibly scheduled their Raptor Lake Refresh/14th Gen Core K-series for a release window around the 42nd week of 2023 (October 17 - 23). ECSM posits that non-K models will arrive during the first week of 2024, coinciding with January's CES trade event. The Core i7-14700K model is said to feature a new configuration of 8 Performance and 12 Efficiency cores, and current LGA1700 motherboards will most likely require a firmware upgrade to run this specific SKU.

ECSM also seems to have insider information regarding motherboard chipsets for desktop Arrow Lake/15th Gen Core, although they cannot determine an accurate time frame for the (fully new) product launch. Intel Z890, B860 and H810 chipsets are named as possible upcoming candidates for proper next generation CPUs, with H870 allegedly dropped from development. ECSM claims that a competing AMD Zen 5 lineup is not arriving this year—prior insider information was perhaps fabricated. They believe that Storm Peak (Zen 4 Threadripper) is scheduled for Q4 2023, with two unnamed chipsets lined up to accompany this next-gen HEDT platform.

A tipster/YouTuber familiar with goings-on at Spanish development studios believes that next generation Nintendo development kits have arrived in the southern European country. Nash Weedle is reported to have a good track record with their predictions—most notably outing Madrid-based MercurySteam as a contract developer on the high profile Metroid Dread project. Weedle did not implicate this particular team with his social media declaration, but it is the only organization in the region that has assisted Nintendo EPD on multiple first-party titles.

A translation of Weedle's tweet states: "The Switch 2 development kit has arrived in Spain. The fact that a Spanish studio already has the kit, given Nintendo's private/secrecy policy, is a boost in their relations and indicates that we are in the last stages before the console's presentation." The relationship between the two companies could sour following these emerging leaks—Nintendo is notorious for its extremely guarded approach to software and hardware reveals. Company president, Shuntaro Furukawa, told shareholders (two months ago) that a Switch successor is marked for a vague launch somewhere in FY2024 - 2025.

Gigabyte has updated the CPU support list for its X570 AORUS XTREME motherboard, and the usual internet hardware sleuths spotted the addition of an intriguing unreleased AMD CPU—compatible with said board when updated to BIOS version F35. Team Red could be readying the quad-core/eight-thread "Cezanne" Ryzen 3 5100 processor for a forthcoming market launch—the AM4 platform and Zen 3 continue to live on—co-existing with the 7000-series lineup—the "Vermeer-X" Ryzen 5 5600X3D arrives later this week as a Micro Center retail exclusive, and another Cezanne-based unit (an eight-core Ryzen 7 5700) has been added to motherboard support lists.

The Ryzen 3 5100 and Ryzen 7 5700 CPUs were included in SKU manifests from last spring, but did not end up launching in 2022. Both appear to be monolithic die APUs with their iGPUs disabled—the Cezanne CPU microarchitecture is based on TSMC's 7 nm process node. Other news sources posit that these processors have occasionally cropped up as OEM parts on e-commerce platforms, but AMD has (so far) kept very quiet about possible retail releases.

American online retailer, Newegg, has perhaps jumped the gun a little by readying CPU listings for an "AMD Starfield Game Bundle Promotion." The store page was noticed by some eagle-eyed folks over the weekend, and news sites were soon tipped off to the early announcement. AMD was revealed as Starfield's exclusive partner on PC last week, but upcoming promotions/bundles were not mentioned during presentation proceedings. Newegg's mini-site only functions as a promo product container (at the time of writing) for all available Ryzen 7000-series CPUs—individual SKU pages are void of any Starfield material, and the previous Star Wars Jedi: Survivor campaign ended on June 30.

The Newegg promo page includes everything in the mainstream Zen 4 lineup—from the entry-level Ryzen 5 7600 model going all the way up to the flagship Ryzen 9 7950X3D, but internet sleuths were unable to track down anything representing an equivalent campaign for AMD's latest Radeon RX graphics cards. Team Red's Zen 4 and RDNA 3 technologies got plenty of shout-outs in last week's partnership presentation: "Making this game even more special, is the close collaboration between Bethesda and AMD to unlock the full potential of Starfield. We have worked hand-in-hand with Bethesda Game Studios to optimize Starfield for both Xbox and PC with Ryzen 7000 series processors and Radeon 7000 series graphics. The optimizations both accelerate performance and enhance the quality of your gameplay using highly multi-threaded code that both Xbox and PC players will get to take advantage of."

Another next-gen Intel Xeon processor has been leaked by momomo_us via Twitter—the subject of the photograph appears to be a Granite Rapids-SP, alongside a new socket type; LGA 4710. These should not be confused with the recent appearance of a Granite Rapids-AP CPU plus LGA 7529 socket. The latest photo showcases two Intel CPUs with new integrated heat spreader (IHS) designs, both housed in carrier frames labeled "LGA 4710-2." The unit on the left seems to be similar in appearance to current-gen Sapphire Rapids-SP units, but the Xeon sitting on the right is getting most of the attention.

YuuKi_AnS (the leaker of last week's larger GNR-AP) pointed out that the smaller socket type is for a platform codenamed "Beechnut City," that is alleged to support Xeon GNR-SP CPUs. They provided a presentation slide of Intel's Beechnut City Main Validation Vehicle (MVV)—this mainboard appears to sport a dual-socket (2S) setup that can house Granite Rapids-SP Xeon CPUs (compatible with the LGA 4710-2 standard) with a maximum 350 W TDP. The spec sheet indicates that the board can support 8-channel DDR5 memory across 32 DIMM slots (DDR5-6400 1DPC / DDR5-5200 2DPC), as well as 88 PCIe Gen 5.0 lanes. The sixth generation Granite Rapids-SP & AP CPUs (based on "Intel 3" process node) are expected to launch in 2H 2024—following the Sierra Forest lineup.

Leaked photos of a cinder block-sized NVIDIA flagship graphics card cooler appeared online over a week ago, with speculation pointing to it originating from an extremely powerful RTX-40 series GPU—perhaps a theoretical GeForce RTX 4090 Ti or something codenamed TITAN ADA. The pictured prototype outsizes several existing reference designs—its substantial bulk could be enough to tame the fully unlocked potential of Team Green's already large AD102.

Last week's photos have been traced back to the source—as reported by Wccftech, it seems that a seller on the Chinese Taobao Goofish platform is attempting to flog the unit for roughly $122,750 (888,888 RMB). The seller/site member "Hayaka" is apparently open to accepting offers from the highest bidder, but the prospective buyer will not be getting their hands on any working hardware—the listing is for the cooler alone. No GPU or PCB is included according to the provided information, so the winner will be procuring a very expensive (albeit highly unique) mantelpiece.

Hardware leaker MEGAsizeGPU has uploaded photos of unreleased G.Skill DIMMs—they claim that the leaked hardware "is the world's first 24G*2 DDR5 expo module: F5-6000J4048F24GX2-TZ5NR." The next-gen Trident Z5 memory is said to be rated for a 6000 MT/s data transfer rate, and close-up shots of labels on heatsinks point to the sample units being non-binary 24 GB DDR5 memory modules that can support EXPO profiles for AMD's Ryzen 7000-series CPUs. MEGAsizeGPU claims that "6000 MHz is the sweetspot for Ryzen" (AM5).

Off-screen captures show a PC system booting up in DDR5-6000 mode—within a Windows OS environment, CPU-Z demonstrates that these new Trident Z5 modules are based on SpecTek-made 24Gb DRAM ICs (instead of binary 16Gb)—SpecTek is a division working under Micron Technology. G.SKILL will likely be selling non-binary Z5 memory in pairs, so we expect to see matched 48 GB dual-channel kits popping up on the market soon. MEGAsizeGPU did not mention anything about pricing or availability. Kingston debuted its own non-binary memory offerings at Computex 2023, but presentation material on hand did not mention whether their new models support AMD's Extended Profiles for Overclocking (EXPO).

Gematsu - a Japanese news site - has discovered that the Game Rating and Administration Committee of Korea uploaded its rating of an announced remake of Quake II (1997) on May 31—apparently "not suitable" for youths. This could repeat a pattern from 2021, where the same committee registered the original Quake's remastered version prior to an official unveiling at that year's livestreamed QuakeCon event.

QuakeCon 2023 is heading back to its roots—with a return to an in-person format "at the Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center in Grapevine, Texas from Thursday, August 10 through Sunday, August 13." It is quite possible that Quake II Remastered will get an unveiling at the late summer convention. It will be interesting to see how the upcoming remaster will sit beside the existing RTX version—the South Korean rating info mentions new online multiplayer options, 4K resolution plus widescreen support, as well as support for community modification.