PowerColor inadvertently released the first pictures of its AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT Red Devil graphics card. These pictures confirm that the RX 7800 XT is based on a maxed out version of the "Navi 32" GPU, and not the compact "Navi 31" powering the limited edition RX 7900 GRE. The "Navi 32" is a chiplet-based GPU, just like the "Navi 31," albeit smaller. Its 5 nm GCD (graphics compute die) physically features 60 RDNA3 compute units, which work out to 3,840 stream processors, 120 AI accelerators, 60 Ray accelerators, 192 TMUs, and possibly 128 ROPs. This GCD is surrounded by four 6 nm MCDs (memory cache dies), which each has a 16 MB segment of the GPU's 64 MB Infinity Cache memory, and make up its 256-bit GDDR6 memory interface.

The specs sheet put out by PowerColor confirms that the RX 7800 XT maxes out the "Navi 32," enabling all 60 CUs, and the chip's full 256-bit memory interface, to drive 16 GB of memory. The RX 7800 XT uses 18 Gbps memory speed, and hence has 576 GB/s of memory bandwidth at its disposal. The PowerColor RX 7800 XT Red Devil has dual-BIOS, and assuming the "standard/silent" BIOS runs the card at AMD reference clock speeds, we're looking at Game clocks of 2210 MHz, and 2565 MHz boost. The Red Devil draws power from a dual 8-pin PCIe power connector set up (375 W max); the cooler is visibly smaller than the one on the company's RX 7900 series Red Devil cards. A 16+2 phase VRM powers the card. With pictures of the card out, we expect a global product launch within the next 30 days.

PowerColor has today revealed the Red Devil Radeon RX 7900 GRE 16 GB graphics card, which appears to look like a slimmer version of its existing siblings—the more powerful Red Devil RX 7900 XT and 7900 XTX. We have experienced a steady flow of news relating to AMD's new Golden Rabbit Edition GPU—with benchmark results released by review outlets in China, as well as a closer look at an unshrouded example. It was previously reported that Team Red would not be producing a reference model—VideoCardz now believes that XFX will be announcing itself as the primary manufacturing partner for said card.

Sapphire's custom equivalent was leaked earlier this week—a NITRO+ Lite-esque shroud design was unboxed and photographed ahead of today's official reveal. At the time of writing Sapphire has not published a product page for its brand new RX 7900 GRE model, but retail units are available to buy from their official store on JD.com. This NITRO+ variant is going for 5499 RMB (~$769), roughly $27 on top of AMD's official MSRP. PowerColor has not announced any pricing for the Red Devil RX 7900 GRE, but it has the same clock speeds—2050 MHz (game) & 2395 MHz (boost)—as the NITRO+. VideoCardz stated that these factory produced settings: "likely represent the highest configuration suggested by AMD."

AMD's China exclusive Radeon RX 7900 GRE has been put through its paces by Expreview and the US$740 equivalent card should in short not carry the 7900-series moniker. In most of the tests, the card performs like a Raden RX 6950 XT or worse, with it being beaten by the Radeon RX 6800 XT in 3D Mark Fire Strike, even if it's only by the tiniest amount. Expreview has done a fairly limited comparison, mainly pitching the Radeon RX 7900 GRE against the Radeon RX 7900 XT and NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 4070, where it loses by a mile towards AMD's higher-end GPU, which by no means was unexpected as this is a lower tier product.

However, when it comes the GeForce RTX 4070, AMD struggles to keep up at 1080p, where NVIDIA takes home the win in games like The Last of US Part 1 and Diablo 4. In games like F1 22 and Assassin's Creed Hall of Valor, AMD is only ahead by a mere percentage point or less. Once ray tracing is enabled, AMD only wins in F1 22 and it's by less than one percent again and Far Cry 6, where AMD is almost three percent faster. Moving up in resolution, the Radeon RX 7900 GRE ends up being a clear winner, most likely partially due to having 16 GB of VRAM and at 1440p the GeForce RTX 4070 also falls behind in most of the ray traced game tests, if only just in most of them. At 4K the NVIDIA card can no longer keep up, but the Radeon RX 7900 GRE isn't really a 4K champion either, dropping under 60 FPS in more resource heavy games like Cyberpunk 2077 and The Last of Us Part 1. Considering the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti only costs around US$50 more, it seems like it would be the better choice, despite having less VRAM. AMD appears to have pulled an NVIDIA with this card, which at least performance wise, seems to belong in the Radeon RX 7800 segment. The benchmark figures also suggests that the actual Radeon RX 7800 cards won't be worth the wait, unless AMD prices them very competitively.

Update 11:45 UTC: [Editor's note: The official MSRP from AMD appears to be US$649 for this card, which is more reasonable, but the performance still places this in in a category lower than the model name suggests.]

A Newegg product page popped up last week, giving us a first glimpse at ASRock's Phantom Gaming Arc A770 16 GB graphics card. The e-tailer had no stock available on July 20, but the listing included an asking price of $329.99 (MSRP is $349). The Taiwanese manufacturer was radio silent at the time—no press material was released, and their own website was not updated with a product page for the 16 GB variant of its existing custom Alchemist design.

The ASRock Arc A770 Phantom Gaming 16 GB OC model's page is now live and fully accessible, and Newegg appears to have units in stock. TPU has not received any fresh PR material, so ASRock is seemingly taking a quiet approach to their new product's launch. The spec sheet shows that the card's memory clock comes in at 17.5 Gbps, which makes it a good alternative to Intel's recently discontinued A770 Limited Edition. It joins Acer's competing Predator BiFrost model in an exclusive club—these are the only 16 GB A770 custom design graphics cards available in the West.

Without a formal announcement, or even a product page on its website, ASRock has quietly released a 16 GB version of its Arc A770 Phantom Gaming graphics card. The company's A770 lineup has just the one model—the Phantom Gaming OC, with 8 GB of 16 Gbps GDDR6 memory across the GPU's 256-bit memory interface. The new 16 GB model would be among very few of its kind being released by Intel's board partners, in an attempt to make the A770 an attractive option for those in the market for 1080p thru 1440p capable graphics cards.

Intel's reference designs for the Arc 7 series included the A770 Limited Edition, a card with 16 GB of 17.5 Gbps GDDR6 memory, while the plan originally was for 8 GB of 16 Gbps memory to be the standard memory configuration for the A770. It remains to be seen if the new ASRock Phantom Gaming OC is using 17.5 Gbps memory, or 16 Gbps. The only other 16 GB A770 custom design graphics card available in the West has to be the Acer Predator Arc A770 BiFrost 16 GB. The ASRock A770 16 GB PG was discovered on US retailer Newegg, where it was listed for $329.

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.

XPG, the e-sports arm of ADATA, the world's leading memory brand, specializes in creating high-performance and stunningly designed e-sports products for e-sports enthusiasts, technology-minded gamers, and overclockers. XPG today announced the launch of LANCER BLADE RGB DDR5 and LANCER BLADE DDR5 memory, emphasizing its low-profile heatsink design, freeing motherboard assembly from heatsink height, and providing a profile that is perfect for small cases with limited space. The XPG LANCER BLADE series includes two models with top speeds of 6000MT/s and 6400MT/s.

By utilizing high-quality carefully selected Hynix chips, these memory modules are low latency and easy to overclock while allowing gamers to enable a hassle-free speed boost with one-click overclocking. At the same time, The XPG LANCER BLADE series supports Intel XMP 3.0 and AMD EXPO and is compatible with the latest Intel and AMD platforms, ensuring excellent memory stability and a smoother operating experience when multitasking or running large-scale applications. In addition, the XPG LANCER BLADE series adopts a high price-performance strategy, combined with excellent operation and quality, it is definitely the foremost choice when gamers upgrade their systems.

NVIDIA is reported to be taking a hands off approach prior to the launch of its GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB GPU next week—rumored to take place on July 18. Murmurs from last week posited that add-in card (AIC) partners were not all that confident in the variant's prospects, with very little promotional activity lined up. NVIDIA itself is not releasing a Founders Edition GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB model, so it will be relying on board partners to get custom design units sent out to press outlets/reviewers. According to Hardware Unboxed, as posted on Twitter earlier today, no hardware will be distributed to the media: "Now there's no official review program for this model, there will be no FE version and it seems that NVIDIA and their partners really don't want to know about it. Every NVIDIA partner I've spoken to so far has said they won't be providing review samples, and they're not even sure when their model will be available."

Their announcement continued: "So I don't know when you'll be able to view our review, but I will be buying one as soon as I can. I expect coverage will be pretty thin and that's probably the plan, the release strategy here is similar to that of the RTX 3080 12 GB." TPU can confirm that test samples have not been sent out by NVIDIA's board partners, so a retail unit will be purchased (out of pocket) for reviewing purposes. Previous reports have theorized that not many custom models will be available at launch, with the series MSRP of $499 not doing it many favors in terms of buyer interest. MSI has prepared a new white GAMING X design for the 16 GB variant, so it is good to see at least one example of an AIB putting the effort in...but it would be nice to get a press sample.

With the launches of GeForce RTX 4060 and Radeon RX 7600, the Intel Arc 7-series finds itself being a tough sell, pushing Intel Arc board partners such as Acer to clear out their inventory at deep discounts. The Acer Predator Arc A770 BiFrost graphics card sees its price slashed to $281, down from its $399 launch price. The premium custom-design card features a unique lateral+axial air based cooling solution that's studded with RGB lighting. The Acer Predator BiFrost is also one of the very few custom-design A770 cards to feature 16 GB of 17 Gbps GDDR6 memory, much like the Intel Limited Edition reference-design, most other custom-design cards come with 8 GB of 16 Gbps GDDR6 memory.

NVIDIA add-in card (AIC) partners are reported to be taking a nonchalant approach to producing new custom designs for NVIDIA's upcoming launch (July 18) of the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB graphics card. The RTX 4060 Ti 8 GB variant arrived back in late May to yet another lukewarm reception for the Ada Lovelace generation—Team Green's board partners are likely anticipating that the 16 GB model's MSRP of $499 is not going to generate enough interest or buzz within the PC gaming hardware community.

MSI could be going against the grain with the introduction of a new custom design for the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB GPU—in the form of its GAMING X Slim White model—as discovered by hongxing2020. This appears to be a white alternative to the company's GAMING TRIO X cooling solution—with a (slightly) slender redesign and RGB lighting strips placed in different positions, although the pale aesthetic does not extend to the PCB and heatsink fins. MSI's fancy GAMING X liveries usually add some extra expense to base prices (+$60 for the RTX 4060 Ti 8 GB Gaming X Trio), so this new white model could be sold for more than $559.

NVIDIA is preparing the launch of its third and final RTX 4060-series graphics card SKU, the GeForce RTX 4060 16 GB, for July 18, 2023. Going by past convention, reviews of the RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB graphics card priced at its steep $499 MSRP, will go live on June 17, and those priced above the MSRP on July 18, alongside market availability. The RTX 4060 Ti is essentially a memory variant of the RTX 4060 Ti. It offers 16 GB of video memory across the card's 128-bit wide memory interface.

According to the specs-sheet put out by NVIDIA on the May 18 launch date for the RTX 4060 series, besides memory size, there are no other differences between the RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB, and the current RTX 4060 Ti 8 GB. In particular, there is no change in the core-configuration or clock-speed, since the shader compute throughput of both models is listed at the same 22 TFLOPs. Even the memory speed is the same, at 18 Gbps (GDDR6-effective), at which the GPU has 288 GB/s of memory bandwidth at its disposal. It will be interesting to see the performance impact of 16 GB memory.

Harukaze5719 has brought attention to a curious registration of unreleased AsRock graphics cards at the Eurasian Economic Commission (ECC) regulatory office. The self-described (South) Korean PC Tech enthusiast has found out that ASRock is likely preparing for an imminent launch of custom design AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT PG 16 GB and RX 7800 XT PGW 16 GB models.

No specifications were found in the ECC registration, so it is too early to confirm whether the leaked RX 7800 XT series is based on AMD's RDNA 3 Navi 31 or Navi 32 GPU. Igor Lab's simulated a hypothetical version via the benchmarking of a workstation Radeon Pro W7800 (Navi 31) 32 GB graphics card. Model codes (registered on May 18 2023) indicate that the two AsRock Radeon RX 7800 XT models could sport the company's Phantom Gaming (PG) triple-fan cooling solution, possibly available in a standard shade or a (PGW) white option.

The Moore Threads MTT S80 gaming-oriented graphics card has been tested mostly by Chinese hardware publications, but Japan's PC Watch has managed to get hold of a sample unit configured with 16 GB GDDR6 (14 Gbps) for evaluation purposes and soon published their findings in a "HotHot REVIEW!" The MTT S80 GPU appears to be based on PowerVR architecture (developed by Imagination Technologies), but official Moore Threads literature boasts that their own Chunxaio design is behind all proceedings with 4096 "MUSA" cores. The GPU's clock speed is set at 1.8 GHz, and maximum compute performance has been measured at 14.2 TFLOPS. A 256-bit memory bus grants a bandwidth transfer rate of 448 GB/s. PC Watch notes that the card's support for PCIe Gen 5 x 16 (offering up to 128 GB/s bandwidth) is quite surprising, given the early nature of this connection standard.

Moore Threads has claimed in the past that their cards support Direct X, but PC Watch has discovered that the S80 does not work with DX12, and their tests also demonstrated significant compatibility issues under DX11—with plenty of system freezes and error messages logged. The reviewer(s) had to downshift in some cases to DX9 game environments, in order to gather reliable/stable data. TPU's GPU-Z utility is shown to have no registration information for the S80, and it cannot read the GPU's clock. PC Watch compared their sample unit to an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti graphics card—the entry level 2016-era GPU managed to best the newer competition in terms of in-game performance and power efficiency.

An AMD Navi 32 die was belatedly observed in a Forbes video feature on the company's CEO and President Lisa Su—this small tidbit fired up the PC hardware community once again with speculation about why Team Red has not yet released proper mid-range RDNA 3 game-oriented models. A handful of news sites have recently reported that a Navi 32 GPU sits at the heart of AMD's fairly new workstation-grade AMD Radeon Pro W7800 32 GB GDDR6 graphics card, but fact checkers have quickly pointed out that the $2499 (MSRP) product is actually based on Navi 31. Sites have theorized about the makeup of a possible "Radeon RX 7800" GPU and assumed that a similarly named/numbered workstation model would offer a preview of things to come.

Igor Wallossek (of Igor's Lab fame) has conducted an interesting investigation into this matter. He has put a Radeon Pro W7800 test unit through its paces as a gaming card, but the high-end nature of the Navi 31 GPU leads him to believe that the performance level on tap would be roughly equivalent to a hypothetical "RX 7800 XT." Igor assumes that his simulated gaming card will have access to a smaller pool of VRAM (16 GB instead of 32 GB)—he achieves this via the memtestcl program, since "RDNA 3 no longer allows us to emulate the cards directly." He also sets provisions for differing power consumption due to the workstation card being an efficiency-focused product: "The Radeon Pro W7800 has a TBP of 260 watts, my own extrapolation results in a TBP of around 270 watts for the RTX 7800XT based on the efficiency values of the other two Navi 31 cards."

AMD's RDNA3 Navi 32 GPU is reportedly in the works, but PC hardware enthusiasts are getting frustrated with the lack of announcements in regards to Team Red's supposed mid-to-high level "Radeon RX 7700 & 7800 series" card offerings. Current generation options are only available in the form of pricey flagship models - RX 7900 XT and XTX, as well as the recently released lower end RX 7600, with nothing classed as brand new appearing in the middle ground. Notable AMD board partner Sapphire Technology is also getting impatient with this situation and has decided to dip back into RDNA2—technology news site ITHome has discovered that the company is releasing another Radeon RX 6750 XT 12 GB GDDR6 card. This third variant follows previously issued NITRO+ and Pulse models.

Sources have indicated that this new model is called the "Overseas Edition," so it is possible that it will be getting international distribution. Sapphire's custom card has not hit the South East Asia market yet, and the company has not created (at the time of writing) an entry for it on their website or product catalog. ITHome reckons that the Radeon RX 6750 XT Overseas Edition will likely get a retail release to coincide with this week's 618 shopping festival. The card seems to offer a marginal performance advantage (0.9% factory set overclock) over AMD's reference specs—with a 2623 MHz boost clock. It shares the same features as its NITRO+ sibling—namely a Dual BIOS switch and two power connectors.

The price of GDDR6 memory has continued to fall sharply - over recent financial quarters - due to an apparent decrease in demand for graphics cards. Supply shortages are also a thing of the past—industry experts think that manufacturers have been having an easier time acquiring components since late 2021, but that also means that the likes of NVIDIA and AMD have been paying less for VRAM packages. Graphics card enthusiasts will be questioning why these savings have not been passed on swiftly to the customer, as technology news outlets (this week) have been picking up on interesting data—it demonstrates that spot prices of GDDR6 have decreased to less than a quarter of their value from a year and a half ago. 3DCenter.org has presented a case example of 8 GB GDDR6 now costing $27 via the spot market (through DRAMeXchange's tracking system), although manufacturers will be paying less than that due to direct contract agreements with their favored memory chip maker/supplier.

A 3DCenter.org staffer had difficulty sourcing the price of 16 Gb GDDR6 VRAM ICs on the spot market, so it is tricky to paint a comparative picture of how much more expensive it is to equip a "budget friendly" graphics card with a larger allocation of video memory, when the bill-of-materials (BoM) and limits presented by narrow bus widths are taken into account. NVIDIA is releasing a GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB variant in July, but the latest batch of low to mid-range models (GeForce RTX 4060-series and Radeon RX 7600) are still 8 GB affairs. Tom's Hardware points to GPU makers sticking with traditional specification hierarchy for the most part going forward: "(models) with double the VRAM (two 16 Gb chips per channel on both sides of the PCB) are usually reserved for the more lucrative professional GPU market."

Chips and Cheese published their very in-depth review of AMD's Radeon RX 7600 GPU last weekend - a team member (Jiray) took it upon themselves to actually buy the card, since a sample unit was not supplied for evaluation. The site's exploration of this graphics processing unit on an architectural level revealed a couple of positive aspects - which comes as a minor surprise since the Radeon RX 7600 received a generally lukewarm reception upon launch at the end of last month. Thanks to the Radeon RX 7600's Navi 33 XL GPU being a monolithic chip it seems to outpace—in terms of cache and memory latency performance—chiplet-based designs as featured in the vastly more powerful (and expensive) Radeon RX 7900-series cards.

Factoring in the smaller space that the RDNA 3 Navi 33 die occupies - it seems that it gains an advantage over the flagship card. Chips and Cheese reports that AMD's RX 7900 XTX takes up to 58% longer to access and pull data from its pool of Infinity Cache, when contrasted with the recently released sibling. The RX 7600 GPU exhibits 15% lower VRAM latencies compared to the RX 7900 XTX when retrieving data from the onboard GDDR6 VRAM chiplets. The review points to a greater disparity between current high-end and mid-range cards when looking back at equivalent models from the preceding generation: "The difference is especially large with RDNA 3. With RDNA 2, the RX 6900 XT had 151.57 ns of Infinity Cache latency compared to 130 ns on the RX 6600 XT, or a 16.5% latency penalty for the larger GPU." Chips and Cheese reckons that AMD's Navi 31's "chiplet configuration may be causing higher latency."

Neo Forza, a Taiwanese brand entity under Goldkey Technology Corporation, had a booth at Computex 2023, where the company showed its next-generation memory and storage products. Starting off, the company presented its DDR5 memory kits running at 8000 MHz speeds, indicating the maturity of DDR5 and that we are way past the initial 4800 MHz speeds at launch. The demonstrated kit was a part of the company's TRINITY lineup, which was displayed in white. For demo purposes, the kit was configured as two 16 GB DIMMs.

Next up, Neo Forza has showcased its next-generation PCIe Gen 5 NVMe SSD. Running at x4 lanes of the new PCIe 5.0 protocol, the 2 TB SSD was spotted running at 10 GB/s speeds in both read and write tasks set by CrystalDiskMark benchmark. Interestingly, the SSD also boasted a massive heatsink, as shown below.

Anacomda, a Taiwanese memory, storage, and accessories maker, had a booth at Computex 2023, where the company presented the new DDR5 memory kits with speeds ranging up to 7000 MHz. Starting off, we have the model called "Standard," which is just a standard DDR5 UDIMM memory kit available as 8 and 16 GB DIMM, in 2x 8 GB and 2x 16 GB capacities. Running at 4800 MHz, the standard kit has a CAS latency of 40, with a running voltage set to 1.1 Volts. Next is the KingSnake Overclocking UDIMM, which is, as the name suggests, a kit optimized for overclocking. Available in frequencies of 5600/6000/6200/7000 MHz, these memory modules run at 1.25 or 1.45 Volts at CAS latencies of 40 and 36. They also come in 16 GB and 32 GB capacities.

Last but not least, there is an ET (EryxTataricus) unbuffered UDIMM kit that is basically an RGB version of KingSnake, with all the same features except the inclusion of RGB lighting capable of syncing with all modern motherboard RGB software.

ASUS today announced the all-new 14-inch, 16:10 Chromebook CM34 Flip, delivering an exquisite blend of powerful performance and versatility to empower both work and study. This stylish laptop features up to an AMD Ryzen 5 7520C processor, and WiFi 6 and a long-lasting battery, so it's well-equipped to breeze through everyday tasks anywhere.

The versatile 360° ErgoLift hinge means Chromebook CM34 Flip has the flexibility to function in a diverse array of modes, while the optional garaged stylus enables intuitive input to jot down notes or capture ideas. To top it all off, military-grade durability, one-touch fingerprint unlock and a physical webcam shutter for instant privacy offer peace of mind—at home, in the office or classroom, or exploring the world.

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of premium gaming hardware, today launches NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB, GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8 GB and GeForce RTX 4060 8 GB series graphics cards powered by NVIDIA ADA Lovelace architecture. GIGABYTE offers a wide range of graphics cards, including the AORUS and GIGABYTE series, to cater to the diverse needs of gamers. These cards are designed to meet the demands of gamers seeking the ultimate in performance and stunning aesthetics, as well as those who prioritize fundamental performance and durability. These graphics cards will enhance the gaming experience for a vast number of gamers.

The GeForce RTX 4060 family is designed to deliver incredible performance for mainstream gamers and creators at 1080p resolution at 100 frames per second with Ray Tracing and DLSS 3. The GeForce RTX 4060 product family delivers all the advancements of the NVIDIA Ada Lovelace architecture—including DLSS 3 neural rendering, third-generation ray tracing technologies at high frame rates, and an eighth generation NVIDIA Encoder (NVENC) with AV1 encoding.

Last year, Crucial canned its Ballistix brand of gaming focused memory, but it seems like the company still wants to offer its customers a more premium product, as Crucial has just introduced its new Pro series of memory products. Crucial will offer its new Pro series in both DDR5 and DDR4 flavours at either DDR5-5600 or DDR4-3200 speeds. It should be noted that the DDR4 modules still rely on a green PCB, while the DDR5 modules get the same black PCB as Crucial's regular DDR5 modules. Beyond the heatsink, there isn't much that differs between the Pro series and Crucial's regular modules, but there is one thing that might matter to potential buyers.

Crucial has added support for AMD EXPO and Intel XMP 3.0 to its Pro series of modules. In the case of AMD EXPO this only applies to DDR5 modules, whereas the DDR4 modules support Intel XMP 2.0, in this case a feature its standard DDR4 modules lack. This should make it easier for end users to take advantage of the extra performance offered by some of these modules. That said, as Crucial has stuck to JEDEC timings, taking the Pro DDR5-5600 UDIMM kit as an example, you end up with timings of 46-46-45-45 at 1.1 Volts, where competing products have timings in the range of 36-36-36-36, although usually at 1.25 Volts or higher. Even as far as JEDEC timing goes, Crucial has chosen the middle ground for DDR5 5600, as there is a timing option from JEDEC that supports 40-40-40-40, which would make more sense for a more premium product. Price wise, a 32 GB kit with two 16 GB modules of DD5-5600 modules carries an $11 price premium over Crucials standard modules, with a retail price of US$114.99 versus US$103.99, but there are better options out there at this price point.

AMD's marketing department this week continued its battle to outwit arch rival NVIDIA in GPU VRAM pricing wars - Sasa Marinkovic, a senior director at Team Red's gaming promotion department, tweeted out a simple and concise statement yesterday: "Our @amdradeon 16 GB gaming experience starts at $499." He included a helpful chart that lines up part of the AMD Radeon GPU range against a couple of hand-picked NVIDIA GeForce RTX cards, with emphasis on comparing pricing and respective allotments of VRAM. The infographic indicates AMD's first official declaration of the (last generation "Big Navi" architecture) RX 6800 GPU bottoming out at $499, an all time low, as well as hefty cut affecting the old range topping RX 6950 XT - now available for $649 (an ASRock version is going for $599 at the moment). The RX 6800 XT sits in-between at $579, but it is curious that the RX 6900 XT did not get a slot on the chart.

AMD's latest play against NVIDIA in the video memory size stake is nothing really new - earlier this month it encouraged potential customers to select one of its pricey current generation RX 7900 XT or XTX GPUs. The main reason being that the hefty Radeon cards pack more onboard VRAM than equivalent GeForce RTX models - namely the 4070 Ti and 4080 - therefore future-proofed for increasingly memory hungry games. The latest batch of marketing did not account for board partner variants of the (RDNA3-based) RX 7900 XT GPU selling for as low as $762 this week.

If something seems too good to be true, then it often is and the earlier rumoured price point of the "vanilla" ASUS ROG Ally at US$499.99 was apparently one such instance. Pricing information from serial Twitter leaker SnoopyTech suggests it will instead be priced at US$599.99, which seems a lot more realistic. Aside from using the 6-core CPU with a more limited GPU, the cheaper ROG Ally will also see its internal storage cut in half to 256 GB, compared to 512 GB for the "Extreme" version.

The rest of the specs appear to be identical, with both models sporting 16 GB of LPDDR5 memory, the 7-inch, 120 Hz 1080p display and possibly even the same 40 Whr battery pack. At US$70 more than the equivalent Steam Deck, it might be a tough sell, especially as it's only US$100 to upgrade to the fully featured version, a much smaller cost increase compared to each of the Steam Deck SKUs, where you're looking at spending more to get more. It could simply be that this is a sales tactic by ASUS, to push most of its potential customers to buy the more expensive model.

Gunnir unveiled its top-end Intel Alchemist card closer to the start of this year - and this week the Chinese company has started selling a white edition of the Arc A770 Photon 16G OC graphics card. It has been reported that this is a world first - no other Alchemist card on the market features a custom cooler finished in white. Gunnir's standard Photon OC model - fitted with a dark gray-ish triple-fan design - has been available for a few months, and a snazzy blue Flux OC model also exists but is restricted to 8 GB VRAM.

Regardless of color choices, Gunnir's range topping Photon OC cards feature the best mainstream graphics hardware that Team Blue has to offer - namely an Alchemist SKU as seen in the (reference design) Arc A770 Limited Edition 16 GB model. Intel's board partners are having a tough time shifting their Arc lineup of graphics cards - discerning customers are wary of relatively immature architectures - and Gunnir has chosen to introduce a seasonal price cut across the Alchemist range. The promotion offers Chinese customers (via Gunnir's JD.com store) discounts on A380 (max. 33%), and A770 (max. 13%) GPUs.