Thanks to the TMTPost interview with the Global Vice President and China President of ASML, Shen Bo, the Dutch semiconductor equipment manufacturer has revealed that around 1,400 of its deep ultraviolet (DUV) lithography and metrology machines are currently installed in China. The company is expected to achieve a global output of 600 DUV equipment units by the end of 2025. Shen Bo stated that the company aims to install 500-600 units of DUV machinery in China by late 2025 or early 2026. The growth in ASML's Chinese revenues was notably high, with China contributing 46% of the company's system sales in 3Q 2023, representing an 82% revenue increase from the previous quarter.

China plans to build 25 12-inch wafer fabs in the next five years, covering logic wafers, DRAM, and MEMS production. ASML currently has a substantial presence in China, with 16 offices, 12 warehouses, distribution centers, development centers, training centers, and maintenance centers. The company employs over 1,600 people for its China operations. Despite the export restrictions imposed by the US government, ASML anticipates that the new measures will have little impact on its financial outlook for 2023 as it strives to meet the growing demand for semiconductor manufacturing equipment in the global market.

Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp (YMTC), China's biggest NAND flash memory manufacturer, has successfully raised billions of US Dollars in new capital to adapt to challenging US restrictions. According to the report from Financial Times, YMTC, which was added to a trade blacklist in December and barred from procuring US equipment to manufacture chips, exceeded its funding target. However, the exact amount remains undisclosed. The capital increase became necessary due to YMTC's substantial spending on finding alternative equipment and developing new components and core chipmaking tools. This financing round was oversubscribed by domestic investors, reflecting support for YMTC amid tightening US restrictions.

Last year, YMTC managed to raise 50 billion Chinese Yuan or about 7 billion US Dollars for equipment. Spending it all on the supply chain, the company is now looking to bolster its offerings with additional equipment for its memory facilities. One of the investors in the funding rally for YMTC has made a statement for Finanical Times: "If Chinese companies have equipment that can be used, [YMTC] will use it. If not, it will see if countries other than the US can sell to it. If that doesn't work, YMTC will develop it together with the supplier." This statement indicates that the company is looking into several options, where one is simply developing its custom machinery with the suppliers.

NVIDIA is reportedly rushing shipments of GeForce RTX 4090 GPUs to China in anticipation of expected export restrictions. We have already reported that NVIDIA might be canceling 5 billion US Dollars worth of orders. The US government will require an export license for shipping RTX 4090s to China, effectively restricting sales to the country. NVIDIA's add-in-board (AIB) partners are reportedly working at full capacity to produce as many RTX 4090 products for the Chinese market as possible before the potential restriction on November 17. While it remains unclear whether the export restrictions will ultimately be implemented, the anticipation of such measures has prompted NVIDIA and its partners to accelerate their production.

The Tweet that feeds this information is coming from Zed Wang, a well-known hardware leaker with historically accurate insights into NVIDIA's operations, who claims that "NVIDIA has been shipping tons of AD102 for AICs this week to manufacture as much RTX 4090 as possible before the original restriction date of RTX 4090 in China. It is still unclear whether the restriction will become true or not. But all AICs are at their full power in producing RTX 4090, regardless of that."

The U.S. Commerce Department seems to have thrown a big spanner into the NVIDIA machinery, by informing the company that some US$5 billion worth of AI chip orders for China falls under the latest US export restrictions. The orders are said to have been heading for Alibaba, ByteDance and Baidu, as well as possibly other major tech companies in China. This made NVIDIA's shares drop sharply when the market opened in the US earlier today, by close to five percent, dropping NVIDIA's market cap below the US$1 Trillion mark. The share price recovered somewhat in the afternoon, putting NVIDIA back in the trillion dollar club.

Based on a statement to Reuters, NVIDIA doesn't seem overly concerned, despite what appears to be huge loss in sales, with a company spokesperson issuing the following statement "These new export controls will not have a meaningful impact in the near term". The US government will implement these new export restrictions from November, which obviously didn't give NVIDIA much of a chance to avoid them and it looks as if the company is going to have to find new customers for the AI chips. Considering the current demand for NVIDIA's chips, this might not be too much of a challenge for the company though.

The Chinese semiconductor industry is advancing, and interestingly, it is growing rapidly under sanctions, even with the blacklisting of companies by the US government. China's semiconductor industry is mainly represented by companies like Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) and Huawei Technologies, who are leading the investment and progress in both chip manufacturing and chip design. According to the latest interview with Bloomberg, former TSMC Vice President Burn J. Lin said that the US government and its sanctions can not stop the advancement of Chinese semiconductor companies. Currently, Lin notes that SMIC and Huawei can use older machinery to produce more advanced chips.

Even so, SMIC could progress to 5 nm technology using existing equipment, particularly with scanners and other machinery from ASML. Development under sanctions would also force China to experiment with new materials and other chip packaging techniques that yield higher performance targets. SMIC has already developed a 7 nm semiconductor manufacturing node, which Huawei used for its latest Mate 60 Pro smartphone, based on Huawei's custom HiSilicon Kirin 9000S chip. Similarly, the transition is expected to happen to the 5 nm node as well, and it is only a matter of time before we see other nodes appear. "It is just not possible for the US to completely prevent China from improving its chip technology," noted Burn J. Lin.

The Moore Thread's MTT S80 discrete graphics card is now available as part of a special 11-11 (Single's Day) promotion in China, for the equivalent of USD $164, making it both the world's first PCIe Gen 5 gaming graphics card, and the most affordable one to feature 16 GB of memory. Moore Thread's is a Chinese GPU manufacturer that has been aiming to build a contemporary GPU to grab a slice of the entry-mainstream gaming market in China for a few years now.

Much of the PC gaming scene in China doesn't involve AAA productions in need of the fastest GPU out there, but rather GPUs from the mainstream performance tier—Moore Thread's knows this, and has been reinventing many wheels in the absence of the kind of graphics IP cross-licensing entanglement that exists among NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel. The company's fastest GPU is the MTT S80 launched in late 2022, which has the bragging rights to be the world's first with a PCI Express Gen 5 bus interface. Does it need this kind of bandwidth? We honestly don't know, after seeing how sensitive to PCIe interface and resizable-BAR even mainstream Intel GPUs can be. At launch the performance level of the MTT S80 made it more of a novelty than anything, with performance barely matching a Radeon RX 6400, making it about as fast as the iGPU of AMD's Ryzen 5000G "Cezanne" desktop APUs. This is just enough for China's homebrew MOBAs and MMORPGs that are designed to maximize market reach, and hence tend to contain a lot of pre-baked content.Image Courtesy: Expreview

According to Kyodo News, Japanese chip manufacturer Kioxia and its U.S. counterpart Western Digital are reportedly on the verge of finalizing a merger agreement, aiming to create the world's largest producer of memory chips. The merger plan involves establishing a holding company to consolidate their operations for producing NAND flash memory chips, with the announcement reportedly coming this month. The merged entity is expected to be listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange in the United States. As the global semiconductor market contends with competitive pressures and fluctuating demand, the merger is seen as a strategic move to enhance the combined market position of both companies.

Western Digital shareholders are anticipated to hold a majority stake in the new entity, with Kioxia's shareholders, including Toshiba Corporation, owning the remaining stake. The move is poised to give the newly formed company a combined market share of 35.4 percent in NAND memory chips as of March, surpassing South Korea's Samsung, the current leader, with 34.3 percent. However, the merger's ultimate approval hinges on regulators' decisions, including those in China, as semiconductors have become increasingly integral to global economic security. Major Japanese banks, including MUFG Bank and the state-backed Development Bank of Japan, are contemplating loans of up to approximately 1.9 trillion yen (about $12.7 billion) to facilitate the merger.

TrendForce reports that from 2023 to 2027, the global ratio of mature (>28 nm) to advanced (<16 nm) processes is projected to hover around 7:3. Propelled by policies and incentives promoting local production and domestic IC development, China's mature process capacity is anticipated to grow from 29% this year to 33% by 2027. Leading the charge are giants like SMIC, HuaHong Group, and Nexchip, while Taiwan's share is estimated to consolidate from 49% down to 42%.

Expansion predominantly targets specialty processes such as Driver ICs, CIS/ISPs, and Power Discretes, with second and third-tier Taiwanese manufacturers at the forefront
Within the Driver IC sector, the spotlight is on high voltage (HV) specialty processes. As companies aggressively pursue the 40/28 nm HV process, UMC currently dominates, trailed by GlobalFoundries. Yet, SMIC's 28HV and Nexchip's 40HV are gearing up for mass production in 4Q23 and 1H24, respectively—narrowing their technological gap with other foundries. Notably, competitors with similar process capabilities and capacities, such as PSMC, and those without twelve-inch factories like Vanguard and DBHitek, are poised to face challenges head-on in the short term. This trend may also have long-term implications for UMC and GlobalFoundries.

Today, the US authorities published the updated version of the advanced computing and semiconductor manufacturing equipment rule, imposing additional restrictions on export of advanced chip manufacturing technology. These regulations will become effective after a period of 30 days. Given the length and complexity of the regulations, ASML will need to carefully assess any potential implications. However, as to our business, from the information we received, it is our understanding that the new regulations will be applicable to a limited number of fabs in China related to advanced semiconductor manufacturing.

These export control measures will likely have an impact on the regional split of our systems sales in the medium to long term. However, we do not expect these measures to have a material impact on our financial outlook for 2023 and for our longer-term scenarios for 2025 and 2030, as communicated during our Investor Day in November 2022. ASML will seek further clarification from the US authorities on the scope of these new regulations. ASML is fully committed to comply with all applicable laws and regulations including export control legislation in the countries in which we operate.

Baidu, Inc., a leading AI company with strong Internet foundation, today hosted its annual flagship technology conference Baidu World 2023 in Beijing, marking the conference's return to an offline format after four years. With the theme "Prompt the World," this year's Baidu World conference saw Baidu launch ERNIE 4.0, Baidu's next-generation and most powerful foundation model offering drastically enhanced core AI capabilities. Baidu also showcased some of its most popular applications, solutions, and products re-built around the company's state-of-the-art generative AI.

"ERNIE 4.0 has achieved a full upgrade with drastically improved performance in understanding, generation, reasoning, and memory," Robin Li, Co-founder, Chairman and CEO of Baidu, said at the event. "These four core capabilities form the foundation of AI-native applications and have now unleashed unlimited opportunities for new innovations."

The downward spiral for PC shipments continued during the third quarter of 2023 (3Q23) as global volumes declined 7.6% year over year with 68.2 million PCs shipped, according to preliminary results from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker. Though demand and the global economy remain subdued, PC shipments have increased in each of the last two quarters, slowing the rate of annual decline and indicating that the market has moved past the bottom of the trough.

PC inventory has also become leaner in the past few months and is near healthy levels in most channels. However, downward pressure on pricing persists and will likely remain an issue within the consumer and business sectors. While most of the top 5 vendors experienced double-digit declines during the quarter, Apple's outsized decline was the result of unfavorable year-over-year comparisons as the company recovered from a COVID-related halt in production during 3Q22. Meanwhile, HP's growth was largely due to the normalizing of inventory.

During the China Chip Storage Future 2023 Storage Industry Trend Summit, Yingren Technology, widely recognized as InnoGrit outside of China, announced the initiation of mass production of its enterprise-level YR S900 PCIe 5.0 SSD controller. Marking a significant breakthrough, the YR S900 stands as China's first domestic PCIe 5.0 SSD controller. Operating on an open-source RISC-V architecture, the YR S900 is engineered to align with U.S. export restrictions, ensuring a seamless design and manufacturing process of the SSD controller. While Yingren Technology remains discreet about the specific process node to produce the YR S900, it's known that the controller embodies a versatile design, with compatibility extending to mainstream NAND from eminent manufacturers, and exhibits an impressive synergy with NAND from Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp (YMTC).

The YR S900 is a quad-channel controller, offering sequential read and write speeds peaking at 14 GB/s and 12 GB/s, respectively, and is equipped with InnoGrit's third-generation ECC engine to optimize 4K LDPC encoding and decoding. This collaboration with Kioxia's XL-Flash results in a low 4K random read latency of 10us, highlighting its potential to deliver higher data throughput, increased stability, and extended service life. The YR S900 encompasses a comprehensive feature set, including FDP, SR-IOV hardware virtualization, CMB, and a range of data encryption algorithms. While the mass production of the YR S900 underscores a monumental stride in SSD solutions within China, it remains to be seen whether adopting this new Chinese technology will enter markets beyond China.

The Chinese government introduced restrictions on the export of gallium and germanium (plus their chemical compounds)—both crucial materials in the computer chip manufacturing process—a couple of months ago. Big players within the semiconductor industry shrugged this off as a minor inconvenience, and simply shifted to more expensive sources. Prior to an August 1 implementation of new rulings, according to Reuters, China exported 36.48 metric tons of germanium, and 22.72 tons of gallium (starting January 2023). Customers were in a rush to acquire as much material as possible, before the "cut off" date—so 8.63 tons of germanium and 5.15 tons of gallium got shifted overseas throughout July.

Reuters has kept a watchful eye on the situation since then—its latest report states that "China's exports of germanium and gallium items plunged in August, the first month of the export controls, customs data showed on Wednesday (September 20)." A Ministry of Commerce spokesman, He Yadong, last week revealed that his department will be granting a limited number of export licenses to interested parties, on the condition that these local companies "meet relevant requirements." An undisclosed percentage of submitted applications have already received government approval. Signed paperwork reportedly gives the thumbs up to "dual use" purposes, implying that potential customers are in the military and civilian fields.

TPU staffers had a close-up look at cable-free graphics cards during proceedings at Computex 2023—where ASUS was showing off early examples of graphics cards without an external power connector. This new connection standard is called GC_HPWR. Said proprietary connector has been spotted once again, this time on finalized hardware—ASUS appears to be readying Back To The Future (BTF) edition product lines for launch in China. The first retail graphics card to adopt the GC-HPWR connector, as part of the "Advanced BTF" initiative is a custom design based on NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 4070 GPU. The ASUS GeForce RTX 4070 ATS BTF 12 GB edition card is set for a local release on September 15—there was no mention of a potential launch outside of the PRC, but we did see this "Megalodon" BTF card at Computex.

ASUS is indicating that it will be updating its China market-exclusive white TX series of GeForce cards with the new connector—marketing imagery has appeared online with a "coming soon" message for RTX 4060, 4060 Ti and 4070 models. A TUF series refresh is apparently in the cards—VideoCardz believes that these models will have a better chance of reaching global markets. The TUF Gaming B760M-BTF WIFI Micro-ATX motherboard, with all connectors positioned on the backside of the board is now visible on an ASUS Hidden Connector Design mini-site, sat next to a compatible A21 case. A TUF Gaming Z790 Concept board is teased in the Advanced tier with a matching GT502 Concept case.

According to the latest report from Nikkei, HP, the world's second-largest PC manufacturer after Lenovo, is making strategic shifts in its laptop production bases. In a move that reflects broader trends among tech giants, HP is collaborating with various Electronic Manufacturing Service (EMS) providers to move a significant part of its laptop production out of China to other countries such as Thailand, Mexico, and eventually Vietnam. For 2023 alone, the production outside of China is expected to range from a few million units up to 5 million, a noteworthy figure given HP's total global PC shipments of 55.2 million units. Commercial notebooks are slated for production in Mexico, catering to HP's primary market, North America, with consumer laptops made in Thailand. Additionally, a shift to Vietnam is on the horizon for 2024. Thailand's mature PC supplier ecosystem is anticipated to facilitate a smoother transition for HP.

HP's reconfiguration of manufacturing locations aligns with similar initiatives by other tech giants. Dell, for example, is also reducing its reliance on Chinese-made chips and aims to manufacture at least 20% of its laptops in Vietnam this year. Apple has likewise commenced MacBook production in the same country. Several factors are driving these relocations, with rising manufacturing costs in China, including labor recruitment challenges and increased labor costs, being key among them. Geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and China also weigh in on these decisions, especially since the U.S. is a crucial market for both HP and Dell. Despite the diversification, HP reaffirms its commitment to continue operations in China, particularly in Chongqing, a significant laptop production hub since 2008.

An unreleased NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 SUPER Founders Edition graphics card was last spotted just over a year ago. A fortunate member of the Chinese NGA discussion board provided a close-up shot of a shroud bearing "super." A new leak gives us a full view of the RTX 3090 SUPER FE with prominent branding—KittyYYuko declared: "WTF, I have indeed heard of this leak before" upon posting this discovery to social media.

According to ITHome, the example from last year appeared to be a publicly released variant of "an unpackaged GeForce RTX 3090 Ti," and the latest finding seems to be identical. A seller, tbNick_dn86z, has created an entry for his GeForce RTX 3090 SUPER Founders Edition card with a value of 9999 RMB (~$1370) on Xianyu (Taobao's second hand market)—it is advertised as being "original and not modified, with a pure black casing." When confronted about identifying any apparent differences between the SUPER and officially launched Ti version, tbNick_dn86z confirmed that they are largely the same (minus external branding)—a matching device ID is shared across both variants.

Vastarmor has updated their Alloy graphics card cooling solution with the introduction of customized Radeon RX 7800 XT and RX 7700 XT models—the Chinese manufacturer is keeping things local, so their latest products are unlikely to reach retailers outside of the PRC. This small sticking point has not deterred TPU's GPU database curator—entries have been created for both cards. 4499 RMB (~$612) bags you Vastarmor's Radeon RX 7800 XT Alloy, while their Radeon RX 7700 XT Alloy starts at 3999 RMB (~$545). The two Navi 32 chiplet-based cards appear to share the exact same shroud design and triple-fan setup.

Vastarmor's robust cooling system relies on a 100 + 90 + 100 mm fan array with a somewhat unique visual twist—RGB enthusiasts will be stoked to know that lighting has been integrated into each individual fan. VideoCardz digs the resultant effects: "as the fans spin, gamers will be treated to the mesmerizing sight of what can be described as RGB rings, hopefully nothing too hypnotic." The new Alloy cards arrive with factory set overclocks—providing a rough 5 to 6% climb over AMD's reference figures. Vastarmor has their Radeon RX 7800 XT model configured with 1624/2254/2565 MHz (base/game/boost). The Radeon RX 7700 XT Alloy's spec sheet states 1784/2276/2600 MHz.

Yesterday we pre-announced that we're developing an SD Expansion Card. Normally we don't announce a product until we've fully locked the feature-set, brought up the necessary suppliers and manufacturing environment, completed most of the engineering and a substantial level of testing and validation, and are on a high confidence path to a specific release date at a specific price. This is because development of brand new products requires charting a course into the unknown. We set a target for what the product will be from the start, but as we proceed and learn, we often need to adjust the schedule, scope, and cost, and sometimes even need to outright pause or cancel development. Announcing just before shipping is how most companies operate to reduce churn and public uncertainty, but it means the product development process ends up extremely opaque.

We decided we're going to treat this one product on our roadmap a little differently. A full-size SD Expansion Card is consistently the most requested Expansion Card by the community, which makes it a great one to open up. We're just at the start of the process now, and Hyelim on our Marketing team is creating a new YouTube series to share updates and insights as we go through the New Product Introduction (NPI) process. Take a look at the first video (below) and let us know what you think as we complete (or don't complete) the product.

The Asian Games 2022 athletic event was originally set to take place last September—officials have rescheduled proceedings to later this month (opening September 23, closing October 8). Gunnir has prepared new versions of its existing Arc A770 & A750 Photon OC graphics cards in celebration of e-sports competitions being added to the roster at XIX Asian Games, Hangzhou. The Chinese hardware manufacturer has produced an extensive portfolio of Intel Alchemist-based discrete solutions, so it is not surprising to see slightly revised designs being issued to tie-in with a significant multi-sport tournament.

Gunnir's Photon OC White Edition shroud has been updated with the official Asian Games emblem as well as wavy graphic patterns—their retail packaging shares similar revisions, giving off some very calming vibes. According to product listings on JD.com, the A750 8 GB model currently sells for 1699 RMB (~$232), while the range-topping A770 16 GB variant is available to pre-order at 2399 RMB (~$328). The latest Intel and Gunnir collaboration is not likely to reach Western shores—Team Blue's Chinese operation announced (last month) that it was the official graphics processor supplier for this month's Hangzhou Asian Games. We expect only the most hardcore of GPU collectors to import these curiosities from Joybuy/Jingdong (JD).

EXP Review reported on Sapphire selling a new special edition Radeon RX 7600 8 GB graphics card on China's JD.com online store—the custom design sports a very loud orange shroud replete with cat, dog, crocodile, sloth and rabbit graphics. It appears to be a slight reworking of Sapphire's Pulse RX 7600 OC 8 GB card, albeit with a fancy paint job that looks to celebrate the upcoming launch (September 20) of "Party Animals," a physics-based brawler/party game.

The Party Animals edition card is retailing for 2199 RMB (~$301), which is 200 RMB (~$27) more expensive than the standard Pulse/Platinum version—with identical base, game and boost clock speeds. A digital copy of the game is bundled with each purchase, as well as an exclusive in-game "Rocket" skin for the Nemo dog character. Sapphire's colorful Radeon graphics card is currently not in stock—we are not certain whether this lack of availability is down to popularity or a supply shortage, since it is difficult to ascertain information from the JD.com listing. EXP Review acknowledges that Sapphire launched this special edition product with little fanfare in China, so it remains to be seen whether any examples will reach Western outlets.

The Republic of Gamers (ROG) department at ASUS started to tease its lineup of official Evangelion tie-in products in late July, with a ROG Strix customized NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 card attracting some attention thanks to its very prominent red and black aesthetic. The marketing spiel revealed that: "the EVA Editions of the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4090 come equipped with a myriad of performance-enhancing ASUS features, such as Axial-tech fans with reverse rotation and 0 dB technology, an exclusive vapor chamber design, top-shelf power delivery and a sleek metal exoskeleton for maximized rigidity. The expertly engineered fan shroud and right-hand side of the card now sport an EVA-02 color theme, and Asuka art takes over the backplate."

The ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4090 OC EVA-02 Edition was shown off at last month's Gamescom trade fair in Germany, but PC hardware enthusiasts in China will be getting first dibs on retail units. As reported by ITHome and VideoCardz, units can be pre-ordered via JD.com, with shipments starting tomorrow (September 5). The special edition livery and pack of themed accessories will set you back 17,999 RMB (~$2475) in the region. ASUS ROG has not revealed pricing for Western territories.

ITHome has picked up on interesting retail activity in China, where AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT graphics cards are deeply discounted. This seems to correspond to a possible discontinuation of Team Red's Navi 23 XT GPU—a Board Channel source stated: "AMD factory has stopped production of a certain GPU. At the present time, shipments from all AIB brands have stopped with inventory being cleared. AMD has stopped production for the Radeon RX 6650 XT, and nearly all brands will have their inventory cleared by the end of September." Board partners in China appear to running sales promotions, with cards reduced from an original MSRP of 3099 RMB ($425) down to as low as 1739 RMB (~$240), although these adjusted prices are mostly hovering around the 2000 RMB (~$275) mark.

AMD recently declared that its Radeon RX 7000 desktop lineup is now complete, following the unveiling of mid-range RX 7800 XT and RX 7700 XT cards at last week's Gamescom trade fair in Cologne, Germany. Their low-to-mid tier Radeon RX 7600 card, based on the Navi 33 XL GPU, is the sole successor to multiple RDNA 2 predecessors (RX 6600, 6600 XT & 6650 XT). AMD and its board partners are likely prioritizing larger scale RDNA 3 production, so the latest batch of GPU industry insider information is not all that surprising. Tom's Hardware points out that: "there is hardly any point for AMD to continue production of Navi 23. The company's RDNA 3-based Navi 33 GPU integrates 13.3 billion transistors, has 2048 SPs, and performs better than its direct predecessor. Meanwhile, it has a smaller die size (204 mm² vs 237 mm²) and is made on TSMC's N6 process technology (as opposed to N7 in the case of Navi 23), so it may well be cheaper to produce."

Liu Qingfeng, the founder and chairman of Chinese AI firm iFlytek (or HKUST Xunfei according to ITHome) shared his opinions of incoming Huawei GPU technology at this year's Yabuli Entrepreneurs Forum. His team has been collaborating with key figures at the multinational technology corporation on a product that he reckons is just as capable as NVIDIA's very mature A100 tensor core accelerator. Liu referred to the model as a "compute GPU" which implies that this is an all-new product—Huawei has kept quiet on the AI hardware front since the 2019 launch of its Ascend 910 AI accelerator, so the iFlytek presentation has hinted about Huawei's ambitions to take on Team Green within the Chinese deep learning and artificial intelligence market sector.

Chinese board partner Maxsun introduced its flagship—Mega Gamer GPU (MGG)—GeForce RTX 40-series lineup earlier this year, debuting with an RTX 4070 Ti card, and then an RTX 4080 MGG OC 16G model. The rather unique looking cooling solution attracted some attention at the time—a traditional set of three 100 mm fans was augmented with two additional 40 mm "Air Burst" units in a flanking position, acting as exhausts as for the finstack. Earlier today Maxsun revealed the range topping RTX 4090 MGG OC 24G model via a video uploaded to their Weibo channel.

The new headliner looks to be fitted with the same shroud design as seen on the already released RTX 4080 MGG OC 16G model, which includes a somewhat gimmicky magnetically detachable large top-facing RGB LED panel, dubbed "MGG LED Ambient Kit." Thankfully Maxsun has put the work into creating a robust cooling solution, with a vapor chamber capable of meting out 7000 mm² of heat dissipation. Their GeForce RTX 4090 MGG OC 24G model's TDP has been rated at 450 W TDP, with a factory overclock providing a 2580 MHz boost clock. As reported by VideoCardz, Maxsun seems to be sticking to a Chinese market launch for the moment—the company's international AliExpress store has not been updated with a listing for the range topping Mega Gamer GPU.

Yeston is reported to be returning to an older Sakura cooler design for its forthcoming AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT and 7700 XT custom graphic cards, as well as a new GeForce RTX 4070 model. The Chinese brand continues to distinguish itself from other graphics card manufacturers with bold aesthetics and bright pastel colors, which also extends to its choice of printed circuit boards. The yet-to-be-released Sakura RX 7800 XT & RX 7700 XT models are set to be the first Navi 32 silicon-based cards to sport white PCBs and I/O brackets. The Yeston design team has made adjustments to the original cooling solution's dimensions—the updated Sakura shroud is now longer (by 3.4 cm) and a bit chunkier (refer to their diagram below) with larger cooling fans attached—VideoCardz posits that the "diameter increased from 83 mm to 91 mm."

Yeston has not published full details about specs, pricing or regional availability for their latest RDNA 3 cards—it has been quite difficult to procure their very unique looking cards outside of the company's home base of China, although Newegg has reportedly managed to sell price-inflated stock of older models in North America. We expect to see more information disclosed by Yeston closer to AMD's officially mandated launch date of September 6 for the much needed mid-range Radeon RX 7000-series entries.