MAINGEAR, the leader in premium-quality, high-performance, custom PCs, today announced the launch of its latest lineup of Pro Series Workstation PCs, meticulously engineered and configurable with the industry's most powerful components, to cater to the diverse needs of professionals across multiple industries.

Ideal for game developers, photo editors, graphics designers, videographers, 3D rendering artists, music producers, CAD engineers, data scientists, and AI/Machine Learning developers, the MAINGEAR ProWS Series introduces a range of desktop workstations crafted to crush the most intensive tasks, elevate productivity and streamline workflow.

Rapidus Corporation, a company involved in the research, development, design, manufacture, and sales of advanced logic semiconductors, today announced an agreement with Tenstorrent Inc., a next-generation computing company building computers for AI, to jointly develop semiconductor IP (design assets) in the field of AI edge devices based on 2 nm logic semiconductors.

In addition to its AI processors and servers, Tenstorrent built and owns the world's most performant RISC-V CPU IP and licenses that technology to its customers around the world. Through this technological partnership with Rapidus, Tenstorrent will accelerate the development of cutting-edge devices to meet the needs of the ever-evolving digital society.

During its Ignite conference, Microsoft introduced a duo of custom-designed silicon made to accelerate AI and excel in cloud workloads. First of the two is Microsoft's Azure Cobalt 100 CPU, a 128-core design that features a 64-bit Armv9 instruction set, implemented in a cloud-native design that is set to become a part of Microsoft's offerings. While there aren't many details regarding the configuration, the company claims that the performance target is up to 40% when compared to the current generation of Arm servers running on Azure cloud. The SoC has used Arm's Neoverse CSS platform customized for Microsoft, with presumably Arm Neoverse N2 cores.

The next and hottest topic in the server space is AI acceleration, which is needed for running today's large language models. Microsoft hosts OpenAI's ChatGPT, Microsoft's Copilot, and many other AI services. To help make them run as fast as possible, Microsoft's project Athena now has the name of Maia 100 AI accelerator, which is manufactured on TSMC's 5 nm process. It features 105 billion transistors and supports various MX data formats, even those smaller than 8-bit bit, for maximum performance. Currently tested on GPT 3.5 Turbo, we have yet to see performance figures and comparisons with competing hardware from NVIDIA, like H100/H200 and AMD, with MI300X. The Maia 100 has an aggregate bandwidth of 4.8 Terabits per accelerator, which uses a custom Ethernet-based networking protocol for scaling. These chips are expected to appear in Microsoft data centers early next year, and we hope to get some performance numbers soon.

Zero ASIC, a semiconductor startup, came out of stealth today to announce early access to its one-of-a-kind ChipMaker platform, demonstrating a number of world firsts:

• 3D chiplet composability enabling billions of new silicon products
• Fully automated no-code chiplet-based chip design
• Zero install interactive RTL-based chip emulation
• Roadmap to 100X reduction in chip development costs

"Custom Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) offer 10-100X cost and energy advantage over commercial off the shelf (COTS) devices, but the enormous development cost makes ASICs non-viable for most applications," said Andreas Olofsson, CEO and founder of Zero ASIC. "To build the next wave of world changing silicon devices, we need to reduce the barrier to ASICs by orders of magnitude. Our mission at Zero ASIC is to make ordering an ASIC as easy as ordering catalog parts from an electronics distributor."

DRY STUDIO, a startup consumer technology brand that aims to bring advanced niche designs to global users at an approachable price, is releasing its first product with the Indiegogo launch of the new Black Diamond 75. As the world's first mechanical gaming keyboard with leaf spring mount, the Black Diamond 75 will bring a striking balance between esports capability and typing experience to the masses, with features such as low-latency 2.4G and an ID design inspired by the Lamborghini Aventador "Black Diamond". The Base Bundle is priced at 240 USD, and the Advance Bundle is priced at 295 USD. Early customers can get 15% off by taking advantage of the 48 hours Indiegogo Early Bird discounts.

Black Diamond 75 design philosophy
Placing emphasis on creating a keyboard with a unique and fierce shape, the Black Diamond 75 takes its inspiration from the modified all-carbon Lamborghini Aventador - the MANSORY Carbonado - also known as the "Black Diamond". A combination of real carbon fiber (Carbon) or anodized silver aluminium (Mithril) and hand-polished PMMA acrylic with increased hardness are used to realize stunning supercar aesthetics while providing durability that users have come to expect from mechanical gaming keyboards.

HYTE, the PC components, peripherals, and lifestyle brand of iBUYPOWER, today, unveiled the new limited-edition Mori Calliope Y40 case and accessory bundle, in collaboration with hololive English, represented by the VTuber agency COVER Corporation.

HYTE's third case collaboration with hololive English and illustrator Rosuuri, depicts the famous VTuber, Mori Calliope, along with her mascot Death Sensei and scythe, Ricky, on the front and side panels of its Black Y40 PC case. Mori Calliope appears on the main side panel floating above a large skull hand, holding Ricky, surrounded by thorns, roses, and souls of the underworld reaching for her. On the front tempered glass, Mori Calliope appears in a closeup holding Death Sensei with her name in Japanese script descending the panel.

LASER IN ON THESE NOVELTIES - With an entrancing aesthetic that blends elements of vaporwave, cyberpunk, and outrun, GMK Laser is one our bestselling keycap sets of all time. It's easy to see why—and it's hard to get enough. Whether you have the set or not, you may find yourself wanting a little more Laser for your setup. Enter the Drop + MiTo GMK Laser Novelty Keycap Set.

Originally an available add-on kit for its namesake set, this Laser-focused collection of keycaps is now debuting in a standalone run to satisfy Laser fans new and old. Quickly scan the legends, and you'll find no shortage of thematic novelties, such as the iconic outrun sun, a sports car, a bowl of ramen, several different hazard signs, and much more. You'll also see arrow keys and a WASD cluster, both in alternate colorways from the GMK Laser's original Base Kit. If you're in search of the complete Laser look, this is the set to set your sights on.

AMD and its board partners have finally debuted Radeon RX 7600 graphics cards this week, and hardware enthusiasts were somewhat pleased about Team Red's last minute adjustment to the lineup's MSRP - rumors had to pointed to an expected $299 base price, but the monolithic RDNA 3 Navi 33 XL GPU (6 nm) card hit the market with a starting SEP of $269/€299.99. Buyer perception is difficult to gauge, but recent GPU product launches have indicated that folks are simply not rushing to the store to pick up the latest and greatest from AMD and NVIDIA alike.

A major Spanish e-tailer, CoolMod, is reported to be the first European store to offer a custom Radeon RX 7600 card at a discounted price of €259.94 ($279) which includes VAT - having adjusted the figure a mere day after the official launch - resulting in a saving of €40 (13% reduction). The ASRock Challenger OC 8 GB model was announced yesterday, alongside its Steel Legend and Phantom Gaming siblings - the latter has been reviewed by TPU's W1zzard. His assessment concludes: "At its price point, the RX 7600 offers virtually the same price/performance as the RX 6600 XT ($250), which makes it a tough sale, especially when you factor in price increases for custom designs. While AMD does have some technological improvements like HDMI 2.1, DisplayPort 2.1 and AV1 video encode/decode, I think none of these are relevant in this segment, at least not to the majority of potential customers; NVIDIA has the DLSS 3 carrot to dangle in front of gamers. The RX 7600 should really be $199 or $229 to make it an interesting option."

The first-ever custom set for our first-ever custom profile, MT3 /dev/tty is a collection of keycaps that invoke old-school computing and retro typing. Now, this trailblazing throwback set is returning for a third round—with a few updates worth mentioning. Those include expansions to the Base Kit, Triumph Kit, and Lost and Found Kit, as well as several small legend refinements across the set. As always, you'll find a satisfying spread of beige-grays with occasional splash of color, depending on which kit you choose.

On every kit, your fingertips will be treated to our exclusive MT3 profile, which features scooped keycap tops and a sculpted shape between rows to create a vintage typing feel with a modern flourish. (After all, "tty" stands for "teletype" or "teletypewriter"—and the entire name is a subtle nod to a certain file type for Linux users.) There's never been a better time to type /dev/tty.

VideoCardz seems to be getting the scoop on all sorts of custom design Radeon RX 7600 graphics cards - this weekend it revealed factory overclocked models from ASRock and ASUS, only a couple of days prior to the expected product launch. The hardware news site was tipped off to the presence of boxed Sapphire PULSE cards sitting in an unnamed retail store's stockroom almost two weeks ago, and photos of actual hardware emerged two days later.

From the looks of things, Sapphire has chosen to update its dual-fan PULSE card design for the new Radeon GPU generation, but ASRock and ASUS have taken the easier path - the latest photo leaks indicate that both companies have opted to reuse cooling solutions from their older RDNA2 models. ASRock is reintroducing the Phantom Gaming OC and Challenger OC card designs as part of its RX 7600 GPU lineup, and ASUS is recycling its ROG STRIX and Dual cooler designs - these were previously slapped onto their Radeon RX 6650 XT offerings (launched back in 2022).

Ampere Computing today announced a new AmpereOne Family of processors with up to 192 single threaded Ampere cores - the highest core count in the industry. This is the first product from Ampere based on the company's new custom core, built from the ground up and leveraging the company's internal IP. CEO Renée James, who founded Ampere Computing to offer a modern alternative to the industry with processors designed specifically for both efficiency and performance in the Cloud, said there was a fundamental shift happening that required a new approach.

"Every few decades of compute there has emerged a driving application or use of performance that sets a new bar of what is required of performance," James said. "The current driving uses are AI and connected everything combined with our continued use and desire for streaming media. We cannot continue to use power as a proxy for performance in the data center. At Ampere, we design our products to maximize performance at a sustainable power, so we can continue to drive the future of the industry."

Introducing three new officially licensed keycaps - one does not simply type into Mordor. You need the right artisan keycap to make it happen. Try the new Drop + The Lord of the Rings Mordor Artisan Keycap—featuring three entrancing exclusives inspired by Mordor's most menacing icons. Three for the Elven-kings under the sky, seven for the Dwarf-lords in halls of stone, nine for Mortal Men, doomed to die—and three for Drop, on our dark throne in the Land of Mordor, where the Shadows type.

We speak not of rings, but of keycaps. Forged in secret by the skilled hands at Dwarf Factory, a new line of artisan keycaps has fallen over the free lands of our Mech Keys community. It's the Drop + The Lord of the Rings Mordor Artisan Keycap—featuring three entrancing artisan keycaps inspired by Mordor's most menacing icons. Adorn your keyboard with The Eye of Barad-dûr, Morgul Fellbeast, and Sauron The Dark Lord. Because we could all use a little more Mordor.

An intriguing entry has appeared on the Geekbench Browser site, the information was uploaded with a timestamp from this morning (11:07 am on April 20 to be specific) pointing to a mobile ASUS device that was tested in GeekBench 5. The archived info dump reveals that the subject matter of the benchmark was the ASUS ROG Ally handheld gaming console, which has received a lot of attention in recent weeks - with it being touted as a very serious alternative to Valve's Steam Deck, a handheld gaming PC that is quite popular with enthusiasts. The ROG Ally will need to offer a potent hardware package if it stands to compete directly with the Steam Deck, and the latest information confirms that this new contender is very promising in that department. Geekbench 5 awarded an impressive OpenCL score of 35498 to the RC71L variant of the ROG Ally, an RC71X-assigned model is known to exist but details of its exact nature have not been revealed. This particular ROG Alloy unit was running Windows 11 Home (64-bit) under the operating system's performance power plan.

The new entry on Geekbench Browser shows that the Ally is packing an AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme APU, which appears to be a customized version of the Ryzen 7 7840U APU mobile platform chipset - previous rumors have indicated that the latter would be in the driving seat. Both Phoenix range SoCs share the basic 8 cores and 16 thread makeup, but the Z1 Extreme is capable of boosting up to 5.062 GHz from a base frequency of 3.30 GHz. AMD's Radeon 780M iGPU (RDNA 3) is expected to deal with the Ally's graphical aspect, but the benchmark info dump only provides scant details about the GPU (codenamed "gfx1103") - most notably the presence of six computer units, an 800 MHz max frequency, and access to 8.20 GB of video memory. Number crunching boffins have calculated that the Ally could field 768 FP32 cores, courtesy of the dual issue SIMD design inherent to RDNA 3.

According to The Information, Microsoft has been working on creating custom processors for processing AI with a project codenamed Athena. Based on TSMC's 5 nm process, these chips are designed to accelerate AI workloads and scale to hundreds or even thousands of chips. With the boom of Large Language Models (LLMs) that require billions of parameters, training them requires a rapid increase of computational power to a point where companies purchase hundreds of thousands of GPUs from the likes of NVIDIA. However, creating custom processors is a familiar feat for a company like Microsoft. Hyperscalers like AWS, Google, and Meta are already invested in the creation of processors for AI training, and Microsoft is just joining as well.

While we don't have much information about these processors, we know that Microsoft started the project in 2019, and today these processors are in the hands of select employees of Microsoft and OpenAI that work with AI projects and need computational horsepower. Interestingly, some projections assume that if Microsoft could match NVIDIA's GPU performance, the cost would only be a third of NVIDIA's offerings. However, it is challenging to predict that until more information is provided. Microsoft plans to make these chips more widely available as early as next year; however, there is no specific information on when and how, but Azure cloud customers would be the most logical place to start.

Resident TechPowerUp hardware database overseer T4C Fantasy has divulged some early information about a custom version of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti GPU card - Colorful's catchily named iGame RTX 4060 Ti Ultra White OC model has been added to the TPU GPU database, and T4C Fantasy has revealed a couple of tidbits on Twitter. The GPU has been tuned to have a maximum boost clock of 2580 MHz, jumping from a base clock of 2310 MHz. According to past leaks the reference version of the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti has a default boost clock of 2535 MHz, so Colorful's engineers have managed to add another 45 MHz on top of that with their custom iteration - so roughly 2% more than the reference default.

T4C Fantasy also confirmed that the Colorful iGame RTX 4060 Ti Ultra W OC will be appointed with 8 GB of VRAM, which also matches the reference model's rumored memory spec. T4C Fantasy points out that brands have the option to produce RTX 4060 Ti cards with a larger pool of attached video memory, but launch models will likely stick with the standard allotment of 8 GB of VRAM. The RTX 4060 Ti is listed as being based on the Ada Lovelace GPU architecture (GPU variant AD106-350-A1), and T4C Fantasy expects that Team Green will stick with a 5 nm process size - contrary to reports of a transition to manufacturing on 4 nm (chez TSMC foundries).

Who doesn't love more? Introducing the newest expansion to Xbox Elite Series 2 with Xbox Design Lab! There is an innate joy that comes with making something truly yours. Since fulfilling the top fan request last October by adding Xbox Elite Series 2 to Xbox Design Lab, we've been working hard to take things up a notch. We're thrilled to announce that a new range of colors are now available, giving you even more ways to make Xbox Elite Series 2 controllers your own.

You will now have the choice of 16 main colors for your top and back case, 12 colors for the ABXY buttons, 17 different accent colors for the paddles and D-pad, and 25 accent colors for the rest of the controller. With vibrant hues like Garnet Red, Glacier Blue, and Deep Pink, to a stealthier option like the new black-out ABXY buttons, there are literally billions of possibilities for personalizing our most advanced controller. Xbox Elite Series 2 with Xbox Design Lab includes customization options that are unique to the controller; options like adjusting the color of the thumbstick rings and base for a subtle pop of color, or metallic triggers and D-Pads that give the controller a premium feel.

Cooler Master, the global frontrunner in PC components and peripherals, proudly reveals the triumphant entries of the Case Mod World Series 2022. This annual contest, which began in 2009, continues to captivate the imagination with trailblazing custom PC creations from artists across the globe.

This year's winner of the Best Tower Mod category is Timeplay who wowed the judges with a breathtaking Cosmos C700M mod that redefined the classic Full Tower case in an ITX form factor. In the Best Scratch Build category, Keir Graham took home the top honors with his PowerCore build—a remarkable custom liquid-cooled system that showcased both intricate detail and ingenious design.

MSI, a leading manufacturer of PC hardware, announces the "Make Your Play" promotion, starting from March 3rd, 2023 (00:01 local time) to April 30th, 2023 (23:59 local time). In the end of 2022, MSI hit a new flagship model in the market - MEG Trident X2 13th desktop which leads the gaming desktop to the next level. In order to honor our customers who purchased MEG Trident X2 13th, MSI provides 30 pcs special gifts as a customized side panel for free!

The MEG Trident X2 13th was born for enthusiastic gamers who are looking for a powerful and well-designed system. With a view to serve our top customers, MSI wants to provide a premium service that gamers can not only personalize the shortcuts on their personal HMI 2.0, but also get a unique customized side panel in the world to enjoy the gameplay.

The four major North American cloud service providers (CSPs) have made cuts to their server procurement quantities for this year because of economic headwinds and high inflation. Turning to server OEMs such as Dell and HPE, they are observed to have scaled back the production of server motherboards at their ODM partners. Given these developments, TrendForce now projects that global server shipments will grow by just 1.31% YoY to 14.43 million units for 2023. This latest figure is a downward correction from the earlier estimation. The revisions that server OEMs have made to their outlooks on shipments shows that the demand for end products has become much weaker than expected. They also highlight factors such as buyers of enterprise servers imposing a stricter control of their budgets and server OEMs' inventory corrections.

iBUYPOWER, a leading manufacturer of high-performance custom gaming PCs, today announced the new RDY Ouro Kronii system featuring the special edition Y60 Ouro Kronii PC case.

"It's been an incredible journey collaborating with Kronii and hololive Engish," said King Perez de Tagle, Marketing Executive Producer of HYTE and iBUYPOWER. "It's about time The Warden of Time gets a high-performance gaming PC and the RDY Ouro Kronii limited edition systems are ready to ship. stay tuned for even more!" The RDY Ouro Kronii will boast the latest Intel Core i9 13900K or KF CPU, NVIDIA RTX 4070 Ti GPU, Z790 motherboard, and the custom Y60 Ouro Kronii PC case. The RDY Ouro Kronii will provide users with maximum performance in virtually any application with reliable components and iBUYPOWER's expert assembly.

Eiswolf 2 AiO - now also for custom designs of RTX 4080/4090 and RX 7900XT/XTX GPUs! Alphacool presents additional innovative solutions for cooling Nvidia's Geforce RTX 4080 and 4090 and AMD's RX 7900XT/XTX graphics cards.

The enormous waste heat of the new graphics card generation is excellently dissipated with these coolers. The very good water flow and the large cooling surface are due to the particularly filigree fin structure. The jet plate with revised inflow engine also distributes the water perfectly on the cooling fins. The complete chrome plating of the cooler not only provides resistant protection against acids, scratches and damage, but also achieves a beautiful homogeneity and remarkable shine. The Aurora design of the cooler is kept visually calm and simple. This is evident not only in the cooler's design, but also in the wonderfully even lighting achieved via digitally addressable RGB LEDs.

The United States has recently imposed several sanctions on technology exports to China. These sanctions are designed to restrict the transfer of specific technologies and sensitive information to Chinese entities, particularly those with ties to the Chinese military or government. The primary motivation behind these sanctions is to protect American national security interests, as well as to protect American companies from unfair competition. According to Financial Times, we have information that Chinese tech Giant, Alibaba, can not access Arm licenses for Neoverse V1 technology. Generally, the technology group where Neoverse V-series falls in is called Wassenaar -- multilateral export control regime (MECR) with 42 participating states. This agreement prohibits the sale of technology that could be used for military purposes.

The US argues that Arm's Neoverse V1 IP is not only a product from UK's Arm but a design made in the US as well, meaning that it is a US technology. Since Alibaba's T-Head group responsible for designing processors that go into Alibaba's cloud services can not use Neoverse V1, it has to look for alternative solutions. The Neoverse V1 and V2 can not be sold in China, while Neoverse N1 and N2 can. Alibaba's T-Head engineer argued, "We feel that the western world sees us as second-class people. They won't sell good products to us even if we have money."

Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud division is extensively developing custom Arm-based CPU solutions to suit its enterprise clients and is releasing new iterations of the Graviton series. Today, during the company re:Invent week, we are getting a new CPU custom-tailored to high-performance computing (HPC) workloads called Graviton3E. Given that HPC workloads require higher bandwidth, wider datapaths, and data types span in multiple dimensions, AWS redesigned the Graviton3 processor and enhanced it with new vector processing capabilities with a new name—Graviton3E. This CPU is promised to offer up to 35% higher performance in workloads that depend on heavy vector processing.

With the rising popularity of HPC in the cloud, AWS sees a significant market opportunity and is trying to capture it. Available in the AWS EC2 instance types, this chip will be available with up to 64 vCPU cores and 128 GiB of memory. The supported EC2 tiers that will offer this enhanced chip are C7gn and Hpc7g instances that provide 200 Gbps of dedicated network bandwidth that is optimized for traffic between instances in the same VPC. In addition, Intel-based R7iz instances are available for HPC users in the cloud, now powered by 4th generation Xeon Scalable processors codenamed Sapphire Rapids.

AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX and RX 7900 XT RDNA3 graphics cards debut on December 13, 2022. This is when you will be able to buy one, at an MSRP of $999 for the RX 7900 XTX, and $899 for the RX 7900 XT. These will, however, only be reference-design MBA (made by AMD) graphics cards sold though the company's various add-in board (AIB) partners. The non-reference (custom design) RX 7900 series reportedly releases to the market 1 to 2 weeks after December 13, according to a Board Channels report seen by Wccftech.

Unlike the NVIDIA Founders Edition graphics card that's sold exclusively under the NVIDIA marquee, AMD's reference-design cards are sold by its AIB partners, with minimal or nil partner branding on the cards. The after-sales support, including product warranties and other brand-specific inclusions, are handled by the AIBs themselves. Custom-design cards are those designed by the AIB partners, with customization extending to both the cooling solution and the PCB; and with some cards even featuring factory-overclocked speeds. These are the ones that could launch 1 to 2 weeks after December 13, which would put their launch anywhere between December 20 to 27 (our yikes go out to reviewers).

Rescale, the leader in high performance computing built for the cloud to accelerate engineering innovation, today announced it is teaming with NVIDIA to integrate the NVIDIA AI platform into Rescale's HPC-as-a-Service offering. The integration is designed to advance computational engineering simulation with AI and machine learning, helping enterprises commercialize new product innovations faster, more efficiently and at less cost.

Additionally, Rescale announced the world's first Compute Recommendation Engine (CRE) to power Intelligent Computing for HPC and AI workloads. Optimizing workload performance can be prohibitively complex as organizations seek to balance decisions among architectures, geographic regions, price points, scalability, service levels, compliance, and sustainability objectives. Developed using machine learning on NVIDIA architectures with infrastructure telemetry, industry benchmarks, and full-stack metadata spanning over 100 million production HPC workloads, Rescale CRE provides customers unprecedented insight to optimize overall performance.