Intel has been working on CXL, short for Compute Express Link gen 1, for over four years new. This new interconnect protocol was donated to a new consortium of tech companies for release as a the CXL 1.0 standard. Its protocol layer will pave the way for PCI-Express gen 5.0 to sustain its bandwidth growth target of being twice as fast as PCIe gen 4.0. CXL 1.0 is out to compete with other established PCIe-alternative slot standards such as NVLink from NVIDIA, and InfinityFabric from AMD. It has one killer advantage, though: the CXL 1.0 is pin-compatible and backwards-compatible with PCI-Express, and uses PCIe physical-layer and electrical interface.

This reduces hardware upgrade costs for data-centers. CXL maintains memory coherency between the CPU's memory-space and memory on installed devices. The CXL Consortium, or SIG, includes data-center and cloud-computing giants, including Alibaba, Cisco, DellEMC, Facebook, Google, HPE, Huawei, Microsoft, and of course Intel. CXL will be used bot as a socketed/slotted interface for add-on cards and GPU boards, and as an embedded interface. We estimate bandwidth of CXL to be 32 Gbps per lane, or four times that of PCIe gen 3.0, keeping in line with PCIe gen 5.0 bandwidth growth estimates.

Late January it was reported that Intel is looking to buy out Israeli networking hardware maker Mellanox Technology, in what looked like a cakewalk USD $6 billion deal at the time, which was a 35 percent premium over the valuation of Mellanox. Turns out, Intel hasn't closed the deal, and there are other big tech players in the foray for Mellanox, the most notable being NVIDIA. The GPU giant has reportedly offered Mellanox a competitive bid of $7 billion.

NVIDIA eyes a slice of the data-center networking hardware pie since the company has invested heavily in GPU-based AI accelerators and its own high-bandwidth interconnect dubbed NVLink, and now needs to complete its hardware ecosystem with NICs and switches under its own brand. Founded in 1999 in Yoqneam, Israel, Mellanox designs high performance network processors and fully-built NICs in a wide range of data-center relevant interconnects. Intel is by far the biggest tech company operating in Israel, with not just R&D centers, but also manufacturing sites, in stark contrast to NVIDIA, which opened its first R&D office in 2017 with a few hundred employees.

Update: NVIDIA's bid for Mellanox stands at $7 billion.

Last week was quite busy with news, and one thing that slipped through the cracks then was the announcement of ZOTAC's new NVLink bridging solutions. Marketed under the ZOTAC Gaming brand, these follow in line with other major NVIDIA add-in card (AIC) partners in providing an alternative to the first-party OEM offering, just in case you preferred a different aesthetic. These are available in either a 3-slot (74.5 x 75.5 x 25 mm) or a 4-slot (74.5 x 96 x 25 mm) spacing option, with backlighting support for the ZOTAC Gaming logo in the center that can be configured by their SPECTRA software lighting suite.

These NVLink bridges have not yet been made available for purchase in most regions, with expected retail availability ranging from December 14-20, but those in East Asia can already find them available for comparable prices as with other such options from MSI, ASUS, and GIGABYTE. ZOTAC also put out an unboxing video which gives a better look at the product relative to the renders below, for those interested.

NVIDIA today introduced NVIDIA TITAN RTX , the world's most powerful desktop GPU, providing massive performance for AI research, data science and creative applications. Driven by the new NVIDIA Turing architecture, TITAN RTX - dubbed T-Rex - delivers 130 teraflops of deep learning performance and 11 GigaRays of ray-tracing performance.

"Turing is NVIDIA's biggest advance in a decade - fusing shaders, ray tracing, and deep learning to reinvent the GPU," said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. "The introduction of T-Rex puts Turing within reach of millions of the most demanding PC users - developers, scientists and content creators."

It's been a busy past 48 hours at EVGA, with the launch of the B360 Micro motherboard, unveiling of the NVLink bridges, and now a teaser of what could very well be the company's Z390 DARK motherboard, targeted at professional overclockers. K|ngp|n shared this teaser image of the board on social media, revealing a socket LGA1151 motherboard that's laid out like an LN2 overclocker's dream - memory slots north of the CPU sockets, CPU VRM to its west and south, and power drawn from a combination of 24-pin ATX and two 8-pin EPS connectors angled away toward the east. A cluster of 7-segment LED displays put out diagnostic codes. The designers seem to have opted for an expensive 8~10-layer PCB that's rich in copper. We'll hear more about this beauty as the Z390 platform launches later this month.

EVGA unveiled the design of its NVLink bridges, closely following ASUS and GIGABYTE. Its design has the most pronounced C-shape among all aftermarket bridges, and four nearly independent RGB LED diffusers along the top shroud, which somewhat has the design language as its recent graphics cards. Like the others, the EVGA NVLink bridge could come in 3-slot (2 slots between cards) and 4-slot (3 slots between cards) sizes, and could be priced at $80, if not more.

After NVIDIA's own $80 NVLink bridge, and ASUS' slightly more functional ROG NVLink Bridge, it's becoming clear that at $80, or higher price than entry-level graphics cards and motherboards, NVIDIA is guiding its partners to make a business of selling $5 pieces of hardware at $80. The latest entry to this contempt toward gamers is GIGABYTE, with its Aorus-branded NVLink Bridge, available in 3-slot (2 slots between cards) and 4-slot (3 slots between cards) variants. The bridge is characterized by a less pronounced C-shape than NVIDIA's bridge, through not completely trapezoid like ASUS'. The Aorus logo is capable of 16.7 million color RGB LED illumination, which you control via GIGABYTE RGB Fusion software. Like every other 2-way NVLink bridge, this one will go for $80.