AMD today announced its Ryzen PRO 7040 line of processors for the all-important commercial notebook segment. A commercial notebook is a class of notebook that are purchased in large quantities by businesses or government organizations, to be handed out to their employees. The key distinction from consumer notebooks is their in-built security and remote-management features that let the organization remotely handle user credentials, securely store company data, and remotely deploy software updates. Most importantly, the organization maintains ownership over the device and can remotely de-activate it at whim. This is a particularly important market segment for both AMD and Intel (which sells 13th Gen Core vPro processors). AMD's launch today includes Ryzen PRO 7040 series mobile processors for both the 15 W to 28 W ultraportable, and 35 W to 55 W thin-and-light (mainstream) commercial notebook form-factors.

At the heart of the Ryzen PRO 7040 series processors is the 4 nm "Phoenix" silicon, which combines the "Zen 4" microarchitecture for the CPU, with RDNA3 graphics architecture for the iGPU, and introduces the Ryzen AI on-die accelerator based on the Xilinx-designed XDNA architecture, to the commercial notebook segment. The silicon physically features an 8-core/16-thread "Zen 4" CPU, with several processor models boosting to the 5.00 GHz-mark. Each core has 1 MB of dedicated L2 cache, and the eight cores share a 16 MB L3 cache. The iGPU meets full DirectX 12 Ultimate logo requirements, and features 12 RDNA3 compute units, which work out to 768 dual issue-rate stream processors, 24 AI Accelerators (intrinsic to RDNA3 and not related to Ryzen AI); and 12 Ray Accelerators, besides 48 TMUs and industry-leading 32 ROPs. AMD is backing the iGPU on these processors with AMD Software PRO (the same class of drivers as Radeon PRO GPUs), which come with superior support from AMD, and special packages for remote deployment by organizations.

In addition to the Ryzen PRO 7045 series mobile processors for commercial notebooks, AMD announced the Ryzen PRO 7000 processors for commercial desktops. These are desktops deployed by medium-large businesses and enterprises in their offices, which remain connected to the enterprise network at all times, and require remote management and security features. This particular segment is addressed by Intel using its 13th Gen Core vPro processors. The Ryzen PRO 7000 processors are based on the Socket AM5 platform, which is ready for next-generation connectivity. AMD is also introducing a new motherboard chipset to go with these processors, although they are compatible with consumer AMD 600-series chipset motherboards.

The Ryzen PRO 7000 series processor models being launched today are based on the "Raphael" MCM, which depending on the model, comes with one or two 5 nm "Zen 4" CCDs, and a 6 nm I/O die. What makes these processors especially formidable compared to past attempts by AMD at commercial desktop processors, is that while the previous-generation chips were based on monolithic APU dies for their integrated graphics; these chips are based on the full-featured MCM for this generation, with integrated graphics as standard. AMD's decision to make integrated graphics standard should prove particularly helpful for adoption in the commercial desktop space.

Samsung Electronics today announced the global launch of the Odyssey OLED G9 gaming monitor (G95SC model), which has been enhanced with next-level AI upscaling technology. Building on the success of last year's Odyssey OLED G8 (G85SB), the new monitor joins the lineup to open a new era of OLED gaming. "Last year, Samsung addressed the demands and expectations of even the most experienced gamers with the launch of the Odyssey OLED G8," said Hoon Chung, Executive Vice President of the Visual Display Business at Samsung Electronics. "With the introduction of the Odyssey OLED G9, equipped with unrivaled picture quality, we are excited to offer our customers these powerful gaming monitors and raise the bar for OLED gaming."

Measuring 49 inches in size with a 1800R curvature, the Odyssey OLED G9 is the first OLED monitor to offer Dual Quad High Definition (DQHD; 5,120 x 1,440) resolution with a 32:9 ratio. The large and wide screen ratio enable users to lose themselves in super-ultrawide vistas—equivalent to two QHD screens side by side. At the same time, its rapid 0.03 ms gray-to-gray (GtG) response time and 240 Hz refresh rate offer players a competitive edge.

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.

ASUS today announced ESC N8-E11, its most advanced HGX H100 eight-GPU AI server, along with a comprehensive PCI Express (PCIe) GPU server portfolio—the ESC8000 and ESC4000 series empowered by Intel and AMD platforms to support higher CPU and GPU TDPs to accelerate the development of AI and data science.

ASUS is one of the few HPC solution providers with its own all-dimensional resources that consist of the ASUS server business unit, Taiwan Web Service (TWS) and ASUS Cloud—all part of the ASUS group. This uniquely positions ASUS to deliver in-house AI server design, data-center infrastructure, and AI software-development capabilities, plus a diverse ecosystem of industrial hardware and software partners.

AMD is finally coming around to the idea of a 6-core processor with 3D Vertical Cache technology, only this time it's for the older Socket AM4 platform. The new Ryzen 5 5600X3D could be positioned competitively against the lower end of Intel's 13th Gen Core i5 processor series, so it could attract a class of DIY gaming PC builders that can take advantage of cheap Socket AM4 motherboards and DDR4 memory to build formidable mainstream gaming PC builds.

The Ryzen 5 5600X3D is based on the same "Vermeer" 3DV cache MCM as the 5800X3D. It is a 6-core/12-thread processor with a base frequency of 3.30 GHz, and 4.40 GHz boost, which are both 100 MHz less than those of the 5800X3D. The processor gets the full 96 MB of last-level cache (that's 32 MB of on-die L3 cache + 64 MB of 3DV cache), which the 5800X3D offers. It bears the OPN "100-000001176." The company didn't reveal pricing, but given that the 5800X3D can be had for as low as $290, the 5600X3D could possibly target a $200-225 price, making it an attractive option, given that you can pair it with even cheap B450 chipset motherboards priced well under $100, and 32 GB of DDR4 memory that can be had around the $60-mark. The 5600X3D could also provide an affordable upgrade path to those still on the AM4 platform, with Ryzen 3000-series processors.

Hardware tipster momomo_us has once again discovered unannounced AMD gear - today's tweet points to a pair of Ryzen Threadripper 7000 CPU families. Team Red's "Storm Peak" processors received some attention at the tail end of May, thanks to CPUID releasing version 2.06 of CPU-Z which contained newly updated "preliminary support" for the Ryzen Threadripper 7000 series. Industry experts anticipate that this Zen 4-based product range will shake up the workstation and HEDT markets upon arrival - with predictions of a Q3 2023 launch window. According to the leaked listings posted by momomo_us on social media—future workstation PCs will be catered for with AMD's PRO "79x5WX" family, and HEDT systems will be best served by non-PRO "79x0X" variants.

Prior leaks allege that the Ryzen Threadripper PRO 7905WX "workstation" range will be compatible with AMD's SP5 socket. This high end platform should support 8-channel DDR5 memory, and be capable of running up to 128 PCIe Gen 5 lanes and 8 PCIe Gen 3 lanes, although it lacks CPU and memory overclocking functions. In contrast the Ryzen Threadripper 7900X HEDT range is expected to offer full overclocking support for CPU and memory—but tipsters reckon its appeal could be limited by the platform's SP6 socket being restricted to 4-channel DDR5 memory configurations and a maximum 64 PCIe Gen 5.0 lanes—as seen on AMD's EPYC 8004 "Siena" family.

According to a new research report from the analyst firm Jon Peddie Research, unit shipments in the add-in board (AIB) market decreased in Q1 2023 by -12.6% and decreased by -38.2% year to year. Intel increased its add-in board market share by 2% during the first quarter.

The percentage of AIBs in desktop PCs is referred to as the attach rate. The attach rate grew from last quarter by 8% but was down -21% year to year. Approximately 6.3 million add-in boards shipped in Q1 2023. The market shares for the desktop discrete GPU suppliers shifted in the quarter, as AMD's market share remained flat from last quarter. Intel, which entered the AIB market in Q3'22 with the Arc A770 and A750, gained 2% in market share, while Nvidia retains its dominant position in the add-in board space with an 84% market share.

Primate Labs has released the newest update to its cross-platform CPU and GPU benchmark that measures your system's performance, Geekbench 6.1. The latest version brings new features and improvements, including the upgrade to Clang 16, an increased workload gap that should minimize thermal throttling on some devices, as well as introduces support for SVE and AVX 512- FP 16 instructions, and support for fixed-point math. The update also improves multi-core performance.

These changes result in Geekbench 6.1 single-scores to be up to 5 percent higher and multi-core scores up to 10 percent higher, compared to Geekbench 6.0 scores. Due to these differences, Primate Labs recommends that users do not compare scores between Geekbench 6.0 and Geekbench 6.1. Geekbench 6.1 is also a recommended update, according to Primate Labs.

Competition in the handheld gaming PC space is heating up yet again with AYA NEO releasing more teaser material for its upcoming NEXT II model - an estimated late 2023 launch is touted. This model was first revealed last year, with the company choosing to drip feed information since then. We know that it will sport an 8-inch IPS display and be powered by an AMD Ryzen 7000 series APU, plus an unspecified discrete GPU. The ASUS ROG Ally handheld is similarly equipped with AMD mobile chipsets (albeit in slightly "Z1" and "Z1 Extreme" customized forms), but an integrated GPU takes care of graphics processing. In contrast the AYA NEO NEXT II has been designed to temper an APU and dGPU combination that can pull up to 100 W of power, so this package will offer far less portability when compared to the competition.

AYA NEO appears to be branching out in the creation of larger handheld gaming computers - the NEXT II is the chunkiest example so far - with more sizable options marked for release in the future. Comparisons to Valve's Steam Deck have been made due to AYA NEO's debuting of touchpads for this model - yet this new contender is a different beast thanks to a more traditional control layout and the system's reliance on a power outlet being nearby to sustain lengthy gaming sessions. The "semi-portable" nature of the NEXT II (plus proposed successors) is a curious prospect - will its unparalleled performance potential be enough to attract buyers or will its appeal be limited by being anchored to indoor environments?

AMD made its upcoming Ryzen 8000 CPU series official earlier this week during a "Meet the Experts" presentation - a roadmap demonstrates that this next-generation "Zen 5" + "Navi 3.5" mainstream desktop processor lineup is expected to arrive in 2024. Leaked information (from last month) points to "Granite Ridge" being AMD's codename for the upcoming processor product range, with high-end examples maxing out at 16 CPU cores across two CCDs. Benchleaks has recently spotted a pair of curious looking AMD engineering samples - entries have appeared on the einstein@home and LHC@home distributed computing platforms.

The mystery SKU seems to be a prototype CPU model that sports 8 cores and 16 threads - the AMD product number (OPN) for this unit is "00-000001290-11_N" which does not correspond to anything currently on the market. A Family ID of 26 is specified - Benchleaks theorizes that this number assignment is "Zen 5" specific - given that the existing Family 25 (19H) identifier was assigned to Zen 3 and 4. It should be noted that one of AMD's alleged test systems appears to have been running unreleased graphics hardware - a non-specific Radeon unit (with 12 GB of VRAM) is mentioned within einstein@home's information dump, this could be a potential mid-range RX 7000-series card. A Radeon RX 7900 GRE GPU with an unusually low video memory allocation of 16 GB is listed in LHC@home's entry.

YEYIAN Gaming, a leading global designer and manufacturer of innovative pre-built gaming PCs, peripherals, and computer components, is thrilled to announce the launch of four new RTX 4060 Ti GPU gaming desktop PC models: YARI II 27F0B-46T1N, YARI II 24F0B-46T1N, SHOGE 560XB-46T1U, and SHOGE 240FOB-46T1U. These models are part of the YARI II and SHOGE series, designed to deliver unparalleled gaming performance and reliability for content creators and pro gamers.

Four gaming desktops are powered by the latest NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti graphics cards, which are based on the ultra-efficient NVIDIA Ada Lovelace architecture and offer an immersive, AI-accelerated gaming experience, including upgraded ray tracing and DLSS 3 technologies. The gaming desktops also feature the best-in-class components for both Intel and AMD platforms, as well as Core i7 and AMD Ryzen 5 processors, the NVMe M.2 SSDs, the DDR5/DDR4 memory modules, and come with Windows 11 Home pre-installed. Cooling performance is enhanced by RGB illuminated system fans and CPU AIO water-cooling for excellent system thermal performance under the most demanding of system loads.

AMD has refreshed its "Game On" promotion with Resident Evil 4 Remake - buyers are encouraged to consider Team Red's Radeon RX 7000 and 6000 series graphics cards. A free copy of this year's remaster of Capcom's original 2004 gory survival horror experience is bundled with the purchase of a qualifying product, before a July 1 deadline. AMD has also extended its existing bundle of Star Wars Jedi Survivor and AMD Ryzen 7000-series CPUs until June 30. Campaign material has also appeared (see below) boasting that Resident Evil 4 is best experienced on Radeon RX hardware.

Team Red has, thankfully, not limited their Resident Evil 4 + Radeon RX promo to its latest 7000-series/RDNA 3 graphics card models (not a lot of choice there!) - the full list also includes previous generation 6000-series/RDNA 2 offerings. AMD's website mentions the following valid products: RX 6600S, RX 6650 XT, RX 6700M, RX 6700, RX 6700 XT, RX 6750 XT, RX 6800, RX 6800S, RX 6850M XT, RX 6800 XT, RX 6900 XT, RX 6950 XT, RX 7600, RX 7600M XT, RX 7600S, RX 7700S, RX 7900 XT, and RX 7900 XTX. Certain laptops equipped RX 6000 or RX 7000 GPUs also qualify for this new promotion.

A SemiAnalysis report sheds light on just how much smaller the "Zen 4c" CPU core is compared to the regular "Zen 4." AMD's upcoming high core-count enterprise processor for cloud data-center deployments, the EPYC "Bergamo," is based on the new "Zen 4c" microarchitecture. Although with the same ISA as "Zen 4," the "Zen 4c" is essentially a low-power, lite version of the core, with significantly higher performance/Watt. The core is physically smaller than a regular "Zen 4" core, which allows AMD to create CCDs (CPU core dies) with 16 cores, compared to the current "Zen 4" CCD with 8.

The 16-core "Zen 4c" CCD is built on the same 5 nm EUV foundry node as the 8-core "Zen 4" CCD, and internally features two CCX (CPU core complex), each with 8 "Zen 4c" cores. Each of the two CCX shares a 16 MB L3 cache among the cores. The SemiAnalysis report states that the dedicated L2 cache size of the "Zen 4c" core remains at 1 MB, just like that of the regular "Zen 4." Perhaps the biggest finding is their die-size estimation, which puts the 16-core "Zen 4c" CCD just 9.6% larger in die-area, than the 8-core "Zen 4" CCD. That's 72.7 mm² per CCD, compared to 66.3 mm² of the regular 8-core "Zen 4" CCD.

Micron Technology, Inc., (Nasdaq: MU) today announced volume production availability of high-capacity 96 GB DDR5 RDIMMs in speeds up to 4800MT/s, which have double the bandwidth compared to DDR4 memory. By unlocking the next level of monolithic technology, the integration of Micron's high-density memory solutions empowers artificial intelligence (AI) and in-memory database workloads and eliminates the need for costly die stacking that also adds latency. Micron's 96 GB DDR5 RDIMM modules are qualified with 4th Gen AMD EPYC processors. Additionally, the Supermicro 8125GS - an AMD-based system - includes the Micron 96 GB DDR5 modules and is an excellent platform for high-performance computing, artificial intelligence and deep learning training, and industrial server workloads.

"Delivering high-capacity memory solutions that enable the right performance for compute-intensive workloads is essential to Micron's role as a leading memory innovator and manufacturer. Micron's 96 GB DDR5 DRAM module establishes a new optimized total cost of ownership solution for our customers," stated Praveen Vaidyanathan, vice president and general manager of Micron's Compute Products Group. "Our collaboration with a flexible system provider like Supermicro leverages each of our strengths to provide customers with the latest memory technology to address their most challenging data center needs."
"Supermicro's time-to-market collaboration with Micron benefits a wide variety of key customers," said Don Clegg, senior vice president, Worldwide Sales, Supermicro. "Micron's portfolio of advanced memory and storage products, aligned with Supermicro's broad server and storage innovations deliver validated, tested, and proven solutions for data center deployments and advanced workloads."

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."

ASUS today announced the refreshed Vivobook 16 OLED (M1605), a slim-and-light laptop featuring up to an AI-enabled AMD Ryzen 7000 H-Series processor, and expertly engineered for everyday entertainment and productivity. Perfect performance is delivered by up to an AMD Ryzen 7000 H-Series processor with 16 GB RAM and up to a 1 TB SSD. Quiet and efficient cooling is provided by the dual-vented cooling system with two heat pipes and an IceBlade fan. The long-lasting up to 70 Wh battery gives users more freedom, and there's up to WiFi 6E for ultrafast connectivity.

This latest model features a superb OLED NanoEdge Pantone Validated display with 3.2K resolution, a 120 Hz refresh rate and a 0.2 millisecond response time - plus an 16:10 aspect ratio display for an extended view. The NanoEdge OLED displays offer up to a 1.000,000:1 contrast ratio with a screen-to-body ratio of up to 86.5%. It also benefits from TÜV Rheinland low blue-light certification to ensure eye comfort during long viewing sessions. The eye-catching slim and lightweight design is finished in a selection of on-trend colors. The 180° lay-flat hinge allows easy collaboration and sharing, and the comprehensive I/O capabilities include up to a USB-C 3.2 Gen 1 port with Power Delivery, two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports, a USB 2.0 port, an HDMI output, and an audio combo jack.

Tyan, subsidary of MiTAC, showed off their new range of AMD EPYC based servers with a distinct focus on compute density. These included new introductions to their Transport lineup of configurable servers which now host EPYC 9004 "Genoa" series processors with up to 96-cores each. The new additions come as 2U servers each with a different specialty focus. First up is the Transport SX TN85-B8261, aimed squarely at HPC and AI/ML deployment, with support for up to dual 96-Core EPYC "Genoa" processors, 3 TB of registered ECC DDR5-4800, dual 10GbE via an Intel x550-AT2 as well as 1GbE for IPMI, six PCI-E Gen 5 x16 slots with support for four GPGPUs for ML/HPC compute, and eight NVMe drives at the front of the chassis. An optional more storage focused configuration if you choose not to install GPUs is to have 24 total NVMe SSDs at the front soaking up the 96 lanes of PCI-E.

AMD has recently released the latest version of its Adrenalin graphics drivers. The headline piece of information from their release notes is the introduction of support for the retail version of Diablo IV - due for a full worldwide launch tomorrow. AMD has introduced new performance optimizations for Microsoft Olive DirectML pipeline for Stable Diffusion 1.5 on AMD Radeon RX 7900 series graphics - they claim that this improvement will boost performance by an average of twofold over the previous software driver version (23.5.1).

Team Red has not provided a list of new fixes for Adrenalin 23.5.2 WHQL, but they do note several known/existing issues - including a situation where high idle power has been experienced by users (on occasion) who have selected high-resolution and high refresh rate displays on Radeon RX 7000 series GPUs. Owners of the same GPU series have also reported of suboptimal performance or occasional stuttering in certain virtual reality games or applications. RuneScape players have intermittently encountered application crashes on some AMD Graphics Products (an example being the Radeon RX 5700 XT). A number of DaVinci Resolve Studio users have reported crashes and driver timeouts during playback of AV1 video content. Finally intermittent corruption may be discovered after switching windows during Nioh 2 game sessions on some AMD graphics cards, including the Radeon RX 6800 XT.DOWNLOAD: AMD Software Adrenalin 23.5.2 WHQL

AMD in one of its Meet the Experts presentations to the retail channel vendors, confirmed that the next-generation "Zen 5" architecture will see its desktop part branded under the Ryzen 8000 series. The company has known to skip a thousand-number sequence each generation for its mainstream-desktop series, the way it skipped Ryzen 4000 series nomenclature between the "Zen 2" based Ryzen 3000 "Vermeer" and "Zen 3" based Ryzen 5000 Vermeer; and more recently, between "Vermeer" and the "Zen 4" based Ryzen 7000 "Raphael," which makes this an interesting development. AMD's next-generation mainstream-desktop processor is expected to be codenamed "Granite Ridge," it will feature up to 16 "Zen 5" CPU cores across up to two CCDs. The processor I/O (and its 6 nm cIOD) is expected to be largely carried over, except that it could be upgraded with support for higher DDR5 memory speeds.

Another major disclosure is the very first mention of "Navi 3.5" This implies an incremental to the "Navi 3.0" generation (Radeon RX 7000 series, RDNA3 graphics architecture), which could even be a series-wide die-shrink to a new foundry node such as TSMC 4 nm, or even 3 nm; which scoops up headroom to dial up clock speeds. AMD probably finds its current GPU product stack in a bit of a mess. While the "Navi 31" is able to compete with NVIDIA's high-end SKUs such as the RTX 4080, and the the company expected to release slightly faster RX 7950 series to have a shot at the RTX 4090; the company's performance-segment, and mid-range GPUs may have wildly missed their performance targets to prove competitive against NVIDIA's AD104-based RTX 4070 series, and AD106-based RTX 4060 series; with its recently announced RX 7600 being based on older 6 nm foundry tech, and performing a segment lower than the RTX 4060 Ti.

ENERMAX came to the Computex 2023 in full force, showcasing a wide range of new products including new PSUs with ATX 3.0 certification, as well as the new LIQTECH and LIQMAXFLO AIO liquid CPU coolers with new pump design.

ENERMAX definitely had a lot to show at the Computex 2023 event and there were some rather unique and innovative new products on display, including the PLATIMAX GEMINI, a PSU that meets both ATX 3.0 and Intel's new ATX12VO (12 V-only) standards. PLATIMAX GEMINI is an 80 Plus Platinum 1200 W power supply, that surpasses efficiency standards of the ATX12VO standard. ENERMAX also had the who new REVOLUTION D.F. X PSU lineup that is ATX 3.0 and PCIe 5 ready with a native 600 W 12VHPWR cable and an extra dual 8-pin to 12VHPWR 600 W cable, and features new patented Dust-Free Rotation (D.F.R) technology, a new feature that promises to significantly reduce the accumulation of dust around the fan blades. It also features an ARGB side panel with 14 built in lighting modes, and an RGB control button. ENERMAX was showcasing the SPLAVE X REVOLUTION D.F. X PSU, a special edition 1200 W PSU designed in cooperation with a well-known overclocker Splave.

Regular readers of TPU might remember our in-depth USB4 article that we posted almost a year ago, but since then, very little has happened and ASMedia has as yet to make its ASM4242 USB4 host controller available to its partners and then ASM2464 USB4 to PCIe 4.0 bridge was suffering the same fate until May this year, when it was released to ASMedia's customers. It turns out most of it is related to USB-IF certification and the USB4 design documentation, as the certification wasn't quite ready for a third party host controller and the design documents were—shall we say—less than complete and relied too heavily on the Thunderbolt 3 spec. This meant that ASMedia had to retest and redo a lot of work they had done, due to a certain spec donator having assumed that other companies knew how it had designed its Thunderbolt products.

The good news is that we should see the ASM4242 in the market before the end of this year and ASMedia is busy testing it and its ASM2464 with a wide range of products to make sure compatibility is as good as possible. In the company suite at Computex, ASMedia was showing the ASM2464 connected to Apple's M2 silicon, as well as Intel's latest CPUs with integrated Thunderbolt 4 support. There had been some performance related issues from Apple's side, but this has apparently been resolved in a recent update from Apple. As far as Intel is concerned, there are no compatibility issues with the 13th and possibly 12th gen mobile chips, but older Thunderbolt hardware might require a firmware update, which may or may not exist. Older Intel hardware also doesn't perform as well as its most recent solutions, but it doesn't mean there will be compatibility issues outright. As for AMD, ASMedia informed TPU that there were no issues, since AMD has a USB4 implementation in its mobile products that follow the USB-IF spec.

Zotac has displayed a couple of interesting mini PCs at the Computex 2023 show, including the ZBOX Pico PIA430AJ, the world's first solid-state active cooled mini PC, as well as a new Magnus One, packing an NVIDIA RTX 4070 graphics card, and a small Edge mini PCs with AMD's Ryzen 7 7840U APU.

While the new Magnus One ERP74070C looks quite impressive packing a 16-core Intel Core i7-13700 CPU and DLSS 3-capable GeForce RTX 4070 12 GB graphics card, all in 8.33 liters chassis, the star of the show was definitely the small ZBOX Pico. The new ZBOX Pico PI430AJ features the Frore Systems AirJet solid-state active cooling technology. Based on an Intel Core i3-N300 8-core chip, it is cooled by two of these solid-state coolers, allowing Zotac to make the ZBOX Pico even thinner and quieter. The new ZBOX Pico packs 8 GB of LPDDR5 on-board memory, has a single M.2 2280 NVMe PCIe 4 slot, three USB 3.2 Type-C ports, and all the usual connectivity, like the WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, Gigabit LAN, and HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.4 outputs. Zotac also showcased the new ZBOX Edge MA762 mini PC, which is based on AMD's Phoenix Ryzen 7 7840U 8-core APU with AMD Radeon 780M graphics, all packed in a 0.64 liters chassis. As far as we know, the Ryzen 7 7840U should also feature the XDNA AI Accelerator (Ryzen AI) as well, and it is the fastest Ryzen Phoenix U-series APU with 15-30 W TDP.

ASRock gave its Socket LGA1700 motherboard lineup, specifically those based on the Z790 chipset, a mid-lifecycle refresh with the introduction of four new motherboard models. These include the new Z790 Taichi Lite, Z790 Phantom Gaming Riptide WiFi7, Z790 Nova WiFi7, and the Z790 LiveMixer. The Z790 Taichi Lite heralds a new sub-brand in ASRock's motherboard product stack. This provides the core feature-set of the top Taichi, such as CPU VRM and overclocking capabilites, but tones down on the aesthetic, and some I/O connectivity. Interestingly, the Taichi Lite sticks with older WiFi 6E connectivity, besides a Killer 2.5 GbE + Intel 2.5 GbE wired network. The onboard audio solution is fairly slick, featuring a Realtek ALC4082 codec, an ESS Sabre 9218 DAC for the front-out, and WIMA audio capacitors.

In related news, ASRock also extended the Taichi Lite brand to the AMD platform, by debuting the B650E Taichi Lite, with a powerful CPU VRM that's comparable to that of the X670E Taichi, and a nifty I/O that includes WiFi 6E, Killer 2.5 GbE wired networking, and the same exact onboard audio solution as the Z790 Taichi Lite. The Z790 Phantom Gaming Nova is intended to be the most premium Phantom Gaming series motherboard in the product stack, although positioned a notch below the Z790 Taichi (although above the Z790 Taichi Lite on account of its features). You get the most powerful CPU VRM solution among the company's Phantom Gaming motherboards, a neat, illuminated common heatsink for M.2 drives other than the topmost Gen 5 (which gets a chunkier heatsink), and plenty of overclocker-friendly features. It has a more advanced set of network connectivity than the Taichi series, with 5 GbE wired networking, and the latest WiFi 7. Interestingly, the onboard audio is simpler, with just the ALC4082 handling all channels (no ESS DAC).

CORSAIR, a world leader in enthusiast components for gamers, creators, and PC builders, today announced the latest addition to its award-winning memory line-up, DOMINATOR TITANIUM DDR5 memory. Built using some of the fastest DDR5 ICs alongside patented CORSAIR DHX cooling technology for improved overclocking potential, DOMINATOR TITANIUM continues the DOMINATOR legacy with stunning design and blazing performance.

Sporting an elegant, fresh new design and built using premium materials and components, DOMINATOR TITANIUM DDR5 memory will be available for both Intel and AMD platforms, supporting Intel XMP 3.0 when paired with 12th and 13th-Gen Core processors or AMD EXPO for Ryzen 7000 CPUs. These technologies enable easy overclocking in just a couple of clicks on compatible platforms.