Microsoft has today published another article on its Xbox Wire blog, dedicated to all the news regarding the Xbox consoles and its ecosystem. In the light of yesterday's launch of AMD Radeon RDNA 2 graphics cards, Microsoft has congratulated its partner and provider of processors SoCs for their next-generation consoles. Besides the celebrations and congratulations, Microsoft has proceeded to show off what the Xbox Series X and Series S consoles are capable of, and how they integrate the RDNA 2 architecture. The company notes that there are hardware accelerated DirectX Raytracing, Mesh Shaders, Sampler Feedback, and Variable Rate Shading units built-in, so game developers can take advantage of it.

Another interesting point Microsoft made was that "Xbox Series X|S are the only next-generation consoles with full hardware support for all the RDNA 2 capabilities AMD showcased today." What this translates into is that Microsoft is the only console maker that uses the full RDNA 2 potential. This could leave Sony out in the dark with its PlayStation 5 console, meaning that it does not support all the features of AMD's new GPU architecture. There are not any specific points, however, we have to wait and see what Sony has left out, if anything.

After thoroughly appetizing us with its "Where Gaming Begins: Episode 1" event announcing the Ryzen 5000 series "Zen 3" processors that offer up to 19% IPC gains, in the second Episode, we see the company announcing its next-generation Radeon RX 6000 "Big Navi" graphics cards based on the RDNA2 graphics architecture that introduce full DirectX 12 Ultimate readiness, including real-time raytracing hardware. In the run up to the RX 6000, NVIDIA is already reportedly preparing product-stack updates. In this liveblog, we uncover what has NVIDIA riled up, and whether AMD can pull off better pricing and availbility than the RTX 30-series.Update 15:59 UTC: It is time! Welcome to the Radeon RX 6000 Series live blog.Update 16:01 UTC: AMD CEO Dr Lisa Su takes centerstage, fresh off a good quarterly results announcement, and that big Xilinx acquisition announcement.

In its latest earnings call, Seagate, a manufacturer of high-capacity drives, has revealed several interesting points about its upcoming releases of next-generation hard drives. More specifically, the company has disclosed a shift to a new generation of HDDs based on so-called heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) technology. This technology is set to bring many improvements compared to the one currently used by Seagate's rivals like Western Digital. The rivaling company uses energy-assisted perpendicular magnetic recording (ePMR) and microwave-assisted (MAMR) technologies and it already has a 20 TB drive in the offering. Seagate announced that they will unveil a 20 TB HDD in December this year, with the use of HAMR technology, which will bring many improvements like better speed and more efficient disk read/write.

"We remain on track to ship 20-TB HAMR drives starting in December, which is an important milestone, as we believe HAMR technology will be the industry's path to scaling a real density and increasing drive capacities," said Dave Mosley, CEO of Seagate. "Seagate will be the first to ship this crucial technology with a path to deliver 50-TB HAMR drives forecast in 2026."

Since AMD announced its next-generation Ryzen 5000 series desktop processors based on Zen 3 core, everyone has been wondering how the new processors perform. For a detailed review and performance numbers, you should wait for official reviews. However, today we have the scores of Ryzen 5 5600X CPU. Thanks to the popular hardware leaker @TUM_APISAK, the Ryzen 5 5600X performance numbers in the SiSoftware Sandra benchmark suite have been leaked. When digging under the hood, the new Ryzen CPU contains six of Zen 3 cores with 12 threads, paired with as much as 32 MB of level three (L3) cache. These cores are running at 3.7 GHz base frequency, while the boost speeds are reaching 4.6 GHz.

In the test results, the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X CPU has scored Processor Arithmetic and Processor Multi-Media scores of 255.22 GOPS and 904.38 Mpix/s. These scores are not much on their own until we compare them to some of the Intel offerings. When compared to the Intel Core i5-10600K CPU, which is likely its targeted competing category, it scores 224.07 GOPS and 662.33 Mpix/s for Processor Arithmetic and Processor Multi-Media tests respectively. This puts the AMD CPU ahead 13.9% and 36.5% in these tests, indicating the possibility of Zen 3. Another important note here is the thermal headroom both of these CPUs run. While the Intel model is constrained withing 125 W TDP, the AMD model runs at just 65 W TDP. This could be an indication of the efficiency that these new processors harness.

Intel's next-generation Pentium Gold and Celeron entry-level processors based on the "Tiger Lake" microarchitecture could finally receive the AVX2 instruction set. Intel had segmented AVX and AVX2 to be exclusive to the Core and Xeon brands, with the Pentium Gold and Celeron products based on the same microarchitectures to artificially lack these instructions.

Intel updated its ARK product information database with entries for "Tiger Lake" based Pentium Gold and Celeron products. The page for the Pentium Gold 7505 and Celeron 6305, mention support for AVX2 besides SSE4. Both are mobile chips with 15 W TDP, and are built on the same 10 nm SuperFin process as the rest of the 11th Gen Core "Tiger Lake" processor family.

AMD is announcing its next-generation Ryzen 5000 series desktop processors in the Socket AM4 package. These 7 nm processors see the implementation of the company's new "Zen 3" microarchitecture, and are expected to push the performance envelope. AMD CEO Dr Lisa Su takes centerstage in a pre-recorded launch event stream which we are live-blogging. These are facts as they appear, along with our analysis.Update 16:01 UTC: Looks like this is a pre-recorded stream made to look live (a premiere).

Editor's Note: This is written by Arm vice president and general manager Paul Williamson.

Over the last year, I have been inspired by the innovators who are dreaming up solutions to improve and enrich our daily lives. Tomorrow's mobile applications will be even more imaginative, immersive, and intelligent. To that point, the industry has come such a long way in making this happen. Take app stores for instance - we had the choice of roughly 500 apps when smartphones first began shipping in volume in 2007 and today there are 8.9 million apps available to choose from.

Mobile has transformed from a simple utility to the most powerful, pervasive device we engage with daily, much like Arm-based chips have progressed to more powerful but still energy-efficient SoCs. Although the chip-level innovation has already evolved significantly, more is still required as use cases become more complex, with more AI and ML workloads being processed locally on our devices.

AMD earlier today made public its YouTube live-stream link for its next-generation Ryzen desktop processor. Its title reads "Where Gaming Begins | AMD Ryzen 5000 Series Desktop Processors." This confirms the Ryzen 5000 series nomenclature for the company's Socket AM4 desktop processors based on the "Zen 3" architecture, based on a multi-chip module codenamed "Vermeer." This would effectively make these chips "5th Generation Ryzen." Rumors of the 5000 series nomenclature first surfaced in mid-September, when the running theory was that with the "Zen 2" based "Renoir" taking up many of the model numbers in the 4000 series (eg: 4700G, 4750G, etc.,) AMD would want to segment its next-generation chips in a higher number series. The AMD Ryzen 5000 series "Zen 3" launch event is set to go live in under 13 hours from now.

As we are nearing the launch of AMD's highly hyped, next-generation RDNA 2 GPU codenamed "Big Navi", we are seeing more details emerge and crawl their way to us. We already got some rumors suggesting that this card is supposedly going to be called AMD Radeon RX 6900 and it is going to be AMD's top offering. Using a 256-bit bus with 16 GB of GDDR6 memory, the GPU will not use any type of HBM memory, which has historically been rather pricey. Instead, it looks like AMD will compensate for a smaller bus with a new technology it has developed. Thanks to the new findings on Justia Trademarks website by @momomo_us, we have information about the alleged "infinity cache" technology the new GPU uses.

It is reported by VideoCardz that the internal name for this technology is not Infinity Cache, however, it seems that AMD could have changed it recently. What does exactly you might wonder? Well, it is a bit of a mystery for now. What it could be, is a new cache technology which would allow for L1 GPU cache sharing across the cores, or some connection between the caches found across the whole GPU unit. This information should be taken with a grain of salt, as we are yet to see what this technology does and how it works, when AMD announces their new GPU on October 28th.

Coreteks, in a video presentation on Sunday, released what is possibly the very first picture of the AMD "Big Navi" GPU silicon, which could power the company's next-generation Radeon RX 6000 series flagship graphics card. The grainy, blurry-cam picture reveals a mostly square package with a large, rectangular die at its center, which Coreteks estimates to be 536 mm² in die-area, with 29 mm x 18.5 mm (LxW) dimensions. The channel used an unusual method for measuring the die size. The chip is rumored to feature around 80 compute units based on the RDNA2 graphics architecture, which includes fixed-function hardware for real-time raytracing, as RDNA2 is designed to meet DirectX 12 Ultimate logo requirements. We'll know more about the chip in the run up to its October 28 unveiling.

The idea of working and learning from home, which at one point felt temporary, has for many of us started to feel more permanent. Even as some people in cities around the world return to work and schools in person, many others have found themselves reorganizing homes to create makeshift offices and classrooms. Whether your commute is across the house or across town, the PC continues to play an integral role in keeping all of us connected to our work, school, and lives - and each person in the household needs one.

As we continue to expand our Surface family of devices with the new Surface Laptop Go and updates to Surface Pro X, our goal is to design a Surface for every person, work style and location. To give every person in your household or organization a laptop that's not just something you need to use, but something you want to use. A virtual office you want to be in, a virtual classroom that engages you to learn, a place you can play your favorite game or watch a movie - with a bright vibrant screen, a fluid and comfortable keyboard, high quality cameras and mics, and the versatility of touch screens.

The Alliance for Computing at Extreme Scale (ACES), a partnership between Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories, announced the details of a $105 million contract awarded to Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) to deliver Crossroads, a next-generation supercomputer to be sited at Los Alamos.

"This machine will advance our ability to study the most complex physical systems for science and national security. We look forward to its arrival and deployment," said Jason Pruet, Los Alamos' Program Director for the Advanced Simulating and Computing (ASC) Program.

In the latest episode of "next-generation gaming issues", the Xbox Series X console pre-order has also seen its stock depleted from all online merchants. Following issues with both the RTX 3080 and PS5 supplies, now it's the time for Microsoft to be in the spotlight, as the question of low stock or fundamentally impressive demand arises once again. This is likely an answer we won't ever have; however, it also has to be said that there is plenty of time for stocks to be replenished for both Microsoft's Xbox Series X and Sony's PlayStation 5 before their respective launches. I wouldn't worry too much for now.

At the same time as Xbox Series X pre-orders made stock go the way of the dodo, the usual scalpers have already surfaced on the common secondhand marketplaces, looking to sell their "pre-order" confirmed consoles for prices that usually sit around at double the MSRP (set at $499 by Microsoft). Remember to not let yourself be a part of this chain; save yourself money, and be part of the solution to scalpers by not engaging with their offerings. You still have time to secure your console.

AMD uses offbeat codenames such as the "Great Horned Owl," "Sienna Cichlid" and "Navy Flounder" to identify sources of leaks internally. One such upcoming product, codenamed "Navy Flounder," is shaping up to be a possible successor to the RX 5500 XT, the company's 1080p segment-leading product. According to ROCm compute code fished out by stblr on Reddit, this GPU is configured with 40 compute units, a step up from 14 on the RX 5500 XT, and retains a 192-bit wide GDDR6 memory interface.

Assuming the RDNA2 compute unit on next-gen Radeon RX graphics processors has the same number of stream processors per CU, we're looking at 2,560 stream processors for the "Navy Flounder," compared to 80 on "Sienna Cichlid." The 192-bit wide memory interface allows a high degree of segmentation for AMD's product managers for graphics cards under the $250-mark.

ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) today launched a collaboration with ACRONYM, a leading technical apparel design agency, to create a special edition ROG Zephyrus G14 gaming laptop that melds top-of-the-line hardware with a radical new vision for what technology can be. Available for sale worldwide starting today, this device is based on a design concept grounded in Errolson Hugh's vision of a more empowered user: not just a gamer, but a thinker and a creator.

ACRONYM 's co-founder Errolson Hugh has been a pioneer in the technical apparel industry since the company's founding in 1994. In the 26 years since, their agency has built an extensive design portfolio dedicated to fusing singular style with the latest technology. Whether they're designing product lines for Nike and Arc'Teryx, virtual video game gear for Square Enix / EIDOS, or creating clothing under their own flag, ACRONYM has a proven track record as a visionary in the apparel industry with a commitment to sourcing top notch materials to create utilitarian designs that go far beyond style.

AMD is allegedly preparing to market its next-generation Socket AM4 desktop processors based on the "Vermeer" MCM, under the Ryzen 5000 Series. The "Vermeer" MCM implements the company's "Zen 3" microarchitecture in the client segment. It features up to two 7 nm-class CPU complex dies with up to 8 cores, each, and a refreshed cIOD (client IO die). AMD has allegedly improved the cIOD with a new memory controller and several new toggles that improve memory bandwidth. The cIOD combines a PCI-Express Gen 4 root complex with a dual-channel DDR4 memory controller. With "Zen 3," AMD is also introducing an improved boosting algorithm, and an improved SMT feature.

Coming back to AMD's rumored nomenclature, and we could see the company bumping up its processor model numbers to the 5000 series for equivalent core-counts. For example, the Ryzen 9 5900X is a 12-core/24-thread part, much like the 3900X; whereas the Ryzen 7 5800X is an 8-core/16-thread part. This flies in the face of rumors that AMD could take advantage of the 8-core CCX design of the "Zen 3" microarchitecture by carving out 10-core parts using two CCDs with 5 cores enabled, each. The reason AMD is skipping the 4000 series numbering with "Vermeer" probably has something to do with "Renoir" taking up many of the 4000-series model numbers. "Renoir" is based on "Zen 2," and recently made its desktop debut, albeit as an OEM-exclusive. The company is planning to introduce certain 4000G series models to the DIY retail segment. AMD is expected to announce its first "Zen 3" client-segment processors on October 8, 2020.

TSMC has hit a jackpot with its newer nodes like 7 nm and now 5 nm, as the company is working with quite good yields. To boast, TSMC has seen all of its capacity of 7 nm being fully booked by customers like AMD, Apple, and NVIDIA. However, it seems like the company's next-generation 5 nm node is also getting high demand. According to the latest report from DigiTimes, TSMC's N5 5 nm node is fully booked to the end of 2020. And the biggest reason for that is the biggest company in the world - Apple. Since Apple plans to launch the next-generation iPhone, iPad, and Arm-based MacBook, the company has reportedly booked most of the 5 nm capacity for 2020, meaning that there are lots of chips that Apple will consume. TSMC can't be dependent only on one company like Apple, so the smaller portion of capacity went to other customers as well.

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated, is powering better-than-ever virtual reality (VR) gameplay and experiences with the launch of Oculus Quest 2, the first-to-launch VR device powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 Platform. Oculus Quest 2 is a culmination of years of collaboration between Qualcomm Technologies and Facebook to create the most advanced and immersive gaming VR experiences for consumers to-date.

Purpose-built for extended reality (XR), the Snapdragon XR2 Platform unlocks staggering improvements including twice the CPU and GPU performance compared to its predecessor which powers the original Oculus Quest headset. The Snapdragon XR2 Platform delivers significant performance enhancements in Oculus Quest 2 including:

SiFive, Inc., the leading provider of commercial RISC-V processor IP and silicon solutions, today announced that Dr. Yunsup Lee, CTO of SiFive, and Dr. Krste Asanovic, Chief Architect of SiFive, will present at the technology industry's premier processor conference, the Linley Fall Virtual Processor Conference. The conference will be held on October 20th - 22nd and 27th - 29th, 2020 and will feature high-quality technical content from leading semiconductor companies worldwide.

"Industry demand for AI performance has skyrocketed over the last few years driven by rapid adoption from the data center to the edge. This year's Linley Fall Processor Conference will feature our biggest program yet and will introduce a host of new technology disclosures and product announcements of innovative processor architectures and IP technologies," said Linley Gwennap, principal analyst and conference chairperson. "In spite of the challenges posed by the pandemic, development of these technologies continues to accelerate and we're excited to be sharing these presentations with a global audience via our live-streamed format."

According to the latest information coming directly from CD Projekt RED, we are finding out that Witcher 3, one of the most popular releases from CDPR, is going to be ported to the next-generation console lineup by 3rd party studio. Here you can read the message CDPR passed in its H1 conference call:

CD Projekt president Adam KicinskiRegarding The Witcher 3 and its next-gen version: this project is developed outside, with our proven partner who had delivered the 4K version of The Witcher 3 and The Witcher 3 for Switch, so they already know our technology very well. We asked them to prepare the next-gen port, and as I said during my presentation, we expect a full next-gen experience, with great next-gen features, but it doesn't interfere with the next-gen development of CP, which is being done internally by the CP team, and we're confirming that CP will be released in the next-gen version. Well we have to differentiate two things: the current version, which will be released in November, will be playable from the beginning when next-gen consoles are released; you will be able to play the current-gen version on next-gen from day 1. And you can expect a bit higher quality than on the current-gen. However, the full-blown next-gen version is planned for next year and it will be developed internally.

NETGEAR, Inc., the leading provider of networking products that power businesses both large and small, today announces the addition of WiFi 6 to the Orbi Pro portfolio. The Orbi Pro WiFi 6 (SXK80) Tri-band Mesh System is an industry leading tri-band WiFi 6 (802.11ax) multi-node mesh system designed to grow with small businesses and home offices as the need to expand their area of network coverage increases. It is comprised of a single router and a single satellite, and can expand to support up to 6 satellites (wireless nodes).

The Orbi Pro WiFi 6 Tri-band Mesh System provides the latest generation of WiFi technology to deliver increased capacity, advanced security and enhanced speed for employees, customers and guests of small businesses and small office environments. In an era where business is widely being conducted remotely while other members of the household are also dependent on connectivity, this new addition to the Orbi Pro family can also address the demand for separate and secure WiFi networks when working from home. Featuring the latest WiFi data security standard, WPA3, along with 4 SSIDs and VLAN support, the Orbi Pro WiFi 6 Mesh System provides a secure network while also isolating connections for separate activities, making it the ideal solution for today's work from home paradigm.

ASUS today announced a full lineup of new and upgraded PCs at the Built for Brilliance virtual launch event, including laptops featuring the power of 11th Generation Intel Core processors and the debut laptop verified as an Intel Evo platform laptop design. Groundbreaking laptops in the lineup include ZenBook Flip S (UX371), the world's thinnest OLED convertible laptop and the first ASUS laptop to be verified on the Intel Evo platform; ZenBook S (UX393), world's thinnest and lightest 3:2 3.3K laptop; ZenBook 14 (UX435EA/EG), the world's smallest 14-inch laptop with ScreenPad; ZenBook 14 Ultralight (UX435EAL/EGL), the lightest 14-inch ZenBook, weighing as light as 980 g; ZenBook Pro 15 (UX535), the world's smallest 15-inch 4K OLED laptop; and ExpertBook B9 (B9400), the world's lightest 14-inch business laptop. The 2020 PC lineup incorporates ASUS and industry leading-edge solutions to provide ultimate productivity and user experiences.

"ASUS is known for leading PC design and innovation. Year after year, ASUS is the first to provide new PCs with each new Intel generation," said ASUS co-CEO Samson Hu in his opening remarks at the event. "This year's lineup of laptops creates new experiences for users by placing cutting-edge technology at their fingertips. By empowering users with the latest display, audio, software and network connection technology, ASUS delivers incredible innovations and changes the way users relate to their devices."

Enjoy powerfully immersive entertainment and more productivity with this season's must-have tech devices that are more intuitive, packed with thoughtful design details, and oh so stylish. In time for great holiday gift giving, Lenovo is introducing a number of new premium consumer products aimed at enabling better, transformative user experiences including the Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i laptop with genuine leather cover, the versatile Lenovo Yoga 9i1 2-in-1 convertible laptop, and the stylish and savage Lenovo Legion Slim 7i1 gaming laptop.

Organize your busy life with the bold innovation of our top-of-the-line consumer PC sub-brand, Lenovo Yoga, designed to deliver refined craftsmanship, Windows 10, and stunning visuals for consumers with sophisticated taste. This new class of slim laptops that includes the ultra-slim Yoga Slim 9i laptop and the new 14-inch Yoga 9i convertible, also with a genuine leather cover option, were engineered to provide exceptional portability and stunning looks without compromising productivity, performance or long-lasting battery life.

The rumor mill has no weekend break, and it churned out photos of what appears to be an NVIDIA Founders Edition version of the upcoming GeForce RTX 3090 next to the equivalent FE RTX 2080, with the latter looking like a toy compared to the massive triple slotter. The cooler comprises of the same design we discussed in detail in June, with the unique obverse dual-fan + aluminium heatsink seen in the images below. We also covered alleged PCB photos, in case you missed them before, and all lines up with the most recent leaks. The only difference here is that pricing for the RTX 3090 FE is claimed to be $1400, a far cry from the $2000 mark we saw for certain aftermarket offerings in the makings, and yet significantly higher from the previous generation- a worrying trend that we eagerly await to see justified with performance, before we even get into case compatibility concerns with the increased length here. Either way, if the images below are accurate, we are equally curious about the cooling capability and how it affects partner solutions and pricing.

Intel in the opening presentation of the Hot Chips 32 virtual conference detailed its next-generation Xeon Scalable "Ice Lake-SP" enterprise processor. Built on the company's 10 nm silicon fabrication process, "Ice Lake-SP" sees the first non-client and non-mobile deployment of the company's new "Sunny Cove" CPU core that introduces higher IPC than the "Skylake" core that's been powering Intel microarchitectures since 2015. While the "Sunny Cove" core itself is largely unchanged from its implementation in 10th Gen Core "Ice Lake-U" mobile processors, it conforms to the cache hierarchy and tile silicon topology of Intel's enterprise chips.

The "Ice Lake-SP" die Intel talked about in its Hot Chips 32 presentation had 28 cores. The "Sunny Cove" CPU core is configured with the same 48 KB L1D cache as its client-segment implementation, but a much larger 1280 KB (1.25 MB) dedicated L2 cache. The core also receives a second fused multiply/add (FMA-512) unit, which the client-segment implementation lacks. It also receives a handful new instruction sets exclusive to the enterprise segment, including AVX-512 VPMADD52, Vector-AES, Vector Carry-less Multiply, GFNI, SHA-NI, Vector POPCNT, Bit Shuffle, and Vector BMI. In one of the slides, Intel also detailed the performance uplifts from the new instructions compared to "Cascade Lake-SP".