Considering Sony's recently announced price hike for the PS5 (in whatever soil lies outside the U.S.), the question remained whether Microsoft would follow suit. Sony's claimed reasons for the price hike, stemming from rising inflation and increased production costs, are certainly general and actual enough that they could be true for any business. Yet it seems that Microsoft is either not operating in the same global landscape as Sony - or perhaps the company is merely more willing to shoulder the additional costs so as not to increase pricing.

Speaking with Windows Central, Microsoft clarified that "We are constantly evaluating our business to offer our fans great gaming options. Our Xbox Series S suggested retail price remains at $299 (£250, €300) the Xbox Series X is $499 (£450, €500)." Which is actually a great thing, especially considering that gamers around the world are still underserved in the amount of available PS5 and Xbox consoles that have been made available to buy. The Xbox stock situation has improved faster than that of the PS5, but there are still millions of gamers who haven't been able to get their hands on one or the other - and those still waiting for a PS5 console for no fault of their own are now dealing with increased pricing on an almost 2-year-old console.

Intel today launched its Arctic Sound M line of data-center GPUs. These are not positioned as HPC processors like the "Ponte Vecchio," but GPUs targeting cloud-compute providers, with their main applications being in the realm of visual processing, media, and AI inferencing. Their most interesting aspect has to be the silicon, which are the same 6 nm "ACM-G11" and "ACM-G10" chips powering the Arc "Alchemist" client graphics cards, based on the Xe-HPG architecture. Even more interesting is their typical board power values, ranging between 75 W to 150 W. The cards are built in the PCI-Express add-on card form-factor, with their cooling solutions optimized for rack airflow.

The marketing name for these cards is simply Intel Data Center GPU Flex, with two models being offered: The Data Center GPU Flex-140, and Flex-170. The Flex-170 is a full-sized add-on card based on the larger ACM-G10 silicon, which has 32 Xe Cores (4,096 unified shaders), whereas the Flex-140, interestingly, is a low-profile dual-GPU card with two smaller ACM-G11 chips that each has 8 Xe Cores (1,024 unified shaders). The two chips appear to be sharing a PCIe bridge chip in the renders. Both models come with four Xe Media Engines that pack AV1 encode hardware-acceleration, XMX AI acceleration, real-time ray tracing, and GDDR6 memory.

Intel Arc A580 is an upcoming entry-mainstream desktop graphics card based on the Xe-HPG "Alchemist" graphics architecture, and positioned between the A380 and A750. Based on the larger 6 nm DG2-512 silicon than the one powering the A380, the A580 is endowed with 16 Xe Cores, or double the SIMD muscle of the A380, with 2,048 unified shaders. The card enjoys 8 GB of GDDR6 memory across a 128-bit bus, which at 16 Gbps data-rate produces 256 GB/s bandwidth.

A leaked Ashes of the Singularity benchmark database entry reveals that the A580 scores roughly 95 FPS at 1080p on average, with 110 FPS in the normal batch, around 102 FPS in the medium batch, and around 78 FPS in the heavy batch. The benchmark used the Vulkan API, and an unknown 16-thread Intel processor with 32 GB of memory. These scores put the A580 roughly at par with the GeForce RTX 3050 "Ampere" in this test, which would make it a reasonable solution for playing popular online games at 1080p with medium-high settings, or AAA games at medium settings.

Intel Arc Alchemist graphics cards span both gamer and creator/professional user market sector, where we witnessed Intel announce gamer and pro-vis GPU SKUs. Today, we are seeing the usage of the flagship Arc Alchemist SKU called A770 in Blender rendering with ray tracing enabled. The GPU is designed to have a DG2-512 GPU with 512 EUs, 4096 Shading Units, 16 GB of GDDR6 memory, and 32 Xe cores for ray tracing, be a powerhouse for games, and handle some professional software as well. At SIGGRAPH 2022, Bob Duffy, Intel's Director of Graphics Community Engagement, showcased a system with Arc A770 GPU running Blender Cycles with ray tracing and denoising.

While we don't have any comparable data to showcase, the system managed to produce a decent rendering in Blender 3.3 LTS release, using Intel's oneAPI. The demo scene had 4,369,466 vertices, 8,702,031 edges, 4,349,606 faces, and 8,682,950 triangles, backed by ray tracing and live denoising. We are yet to see more detailed benchmarks and how the GPU fares against the competition.

Intel has today unveiled another addition to its discrete Arc Alchemist graphics card lineup, with a slight preference to the professional consumer market. Intel has prepared three models for creators and entry pro-vis solutions, called Intel Arc Pro graphics cards. All GPUs are AV1 accelerated, have ray tracing support, and are designed to handle AI acceleration inside applications like Adobe Premiere Pro. At the start, we have a small A30M mobile GPU aimed at laptop designs. It has a 3.5 TeraFLOP FP32 capability inside a configurable 35-50 Watt TDP envelope, has eight ray tracing cores, and 4 GB of GDDR6 memory. Its display output connectors depend on OEM's laptop design.

Next, we have the Arc A40 Pro discrete single-slot GPU. Having 3.5 TeraFLOPs of FP32 single-precision performance, it has eight ray tracing cores and 6 GB of GDDR6 memory. The listed maximum TDP for this model is 50 Watts. It has four mini-DP ports for video output, and it can drive two monitors at 8K 60 Hz, one at 5K 240 Hz, two at 5K 120 Hz, or four at 4K 60 Hz refresh rate. Its bigger brother, the Arc A50 Pro, is a dual-slot design with 4.8 TeraFLOPs of single-precision FP32 computing, has eight ray tracing cores, and 6 GB of GDDR6 memory as well. It has the same video output capability as the Arc A40 Pro, with a beefier cooling setup to handle the 75 Watt TDP. All software developed using the OneAPI toolkit can be accelerated using these GPUs. Intel is working with the industry to adapt professional software for Arc Pro graphics.

The second company to launch an Intel Arc A380 graphics card is somewhat surprisingly, if already rumoured, ASRock. The card in question goes under the somewhat awkward name of Intel Arc A380 Challenger ITX 6GB OC or A380 CLI 6GO for short. Unlike the Gunnir card, this is a rather compact, Mini-ITX friendly card that measures 190 x 124 x 39 mm and sports a single fan. Despite its diminutive size, it's still a dual slot card and ASRock outfitted it with a single 8-pin PCIe power connector, just as Gunnir did with its card.

The base frequency is somewhat higher at 2250 MHz vs. 2000 MHz for the Gunnir card, although ASRock doesn't mention the boost clock on its website. As the name implies, the card comes with 6 GB of GDDR6 memory with a rated data rate of either 15 or 15.5 Gbps, as both numbers are mentioned by ASRock, still on a 96-bit bus. The card has a single HDMI 2.0b port and three DisplayPort 2.0 ports with DSC. The card obviously has a PCIe 4.0 x8 interface as well. ASRock has implemented a 0dB mode where the fan stops spinning during low loads. According to Videocardz, the ASRock Intel Arc A380 Challenger ITX 6GB OC is already on sale in the PRC for the equivalent of US$192.

NVIDIA's upcoming GeForce RTX 40 series Ada Lovelace graphics card lineup is slowly shaping up to be a significant performance uplift compared to the previous generation. Today, according to a well-known hardware leaker kopite7kimi, we are speculating that a mid-range AD104 SKU could match the performance of the last-generation flagship GeForce RTX 3090 Ti graphics card. The full AD104 SKU is set to feature 7680 FP32 CUDA cores, paired with 12 GB of 21 Gbps GDDR6X memory running on a 192-bit bus. Coming with a large TGP of 400 Watts, it should have a performance of the GA102-350-A1 SKU found in GeForce RTX 3090 Ti.

Regarding naming this complete AD104 SKU, it should end up as a GeForce RTX 4070 Ti model. Of course, we must wait and see what NVIDIA decides to do with the lineup and what the final models will look like.

Sapphire introduced one of the first Radeon RX 6500 XT graphics cards in the retail channel to feature 8 GB of video memory, double that of the 4 GB standard for the SKU. The Sapphire Pulse RX 6500 XT 8 GB resembles the company's standard Pulse RX 6500 XT in design. At this point it's unclear how Sapphire went about deploying 8 GB of memory with the RX 6500 XT, given its narrow 64-bit GDDR6 memory interface.

Sapphire probably used four 16 Gbit memory chips, with two chips piggybacking a 32-bit memory channel. This would finally put the metal backplate to some use, as two of the chips could be located on the reverse side of the PCB. The memory ticks at the same 18 Gbps speed as the standard RX 6500 XT. The card's typical board power is increased to 130 W, up from the 107 W AMD reference. This is probably because the added memory chips, as well as slightly increased clock speeds of 2685 MHz (game clock), vs. 2615 MHz reference. The company didn't announce pricing or availability, but is planning a global launch for this card.

Today, Alienware reaches new milestones with the launch of the most powerful 17" AMD Advantage laptop, introduction of the standard-defying 480 Hz panel technology for the first time, and unveiling of our first-ever 16-inch Dell G Series laptop. We continue to hold true to the Alienware ethos of creating the apex gaming experience. These advancements are dedicated to making your images sharper, your gameplay smoother, and your experience more immersive through a perfect storm of industry leading gaming technology and iconic design.

For those who value raw power, the Alienware m17 R5 is the laptop for you. It claims the throne as the world's most powerful 17" AMD Advantage laptop, delivering truly remarkable performance. The m17 R5 is forged from a partnership with AMD that features AMD Ryzen 6000 series processors, AMD Radeon RX 6000 series graphics, and new AMD Smart Technologies. Today's update welcomes the new AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT 12 GB GDDR6 GPU to the configuration lineup.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, today announced that it has begun sampling the industry's first 16-gigabit (Gb) Graphics Double Data Rate 6 (GDDR6) DRAM featuring 24-gigabit-per-second (Gbps) processing speeds. Built on Samsung's third-generation 10-nanometer-class (1z) process using extreme ultraviolet (EUV) technology, the new memory is designed to significantly advance the graphics performance for next-generation graphics cards (Video Graphics Arrays), laptops and game consoles, as well as artificial intelligence-based applications and high-performance computing (HPC) systems.

"The explosion of data now being driven by AI and the metaverse is pushing the need for greater graphics capabilities that can process massive data sets simultaneously, at extremely high speeds," said Daniel Lee, executive vice president of the Memory Product Planning Team at Samsung Electronics. "With our industry-first 24 Gbps GDDR6 now sampling, we look forward to validating the graphics DRAM on next-generation GPU platforms to bring it to market in time to meet an onslaught of new demand."

Remember that Limited Edition card that Intel was teasing at the end of March? Well, it turns out that it could very well be the Arc A750 card, at least based on a quick appearance of a card in Gamer Nexus' review of the Gunnir Arc A380 card. For a few seconds in the review video, Gamers Nexus was showing off a card that looked nigh on identical to the renders Intel showed back in March. There was no mention of any specs or anything else related, except that Gamer Nexus has tested the card and that it will presumably be getting its own video in the near future based on what was said in the video.

Based on leaked information, the Arc A750 GPU should feature 24 Xe cores, 3072 FP32 cores and it's expected to be paired with 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus. For reference, the Arc A380 features eight Xe cores, 1024 FP32 cores and the cards ship with 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 96-bit bus. In related news, Intel is said to be touring some gaming events in the US promoting its yet unavailable Arc graphics cards. LANFest Colorado is said to be the first stop, so if you're planning on attending, this could be your first chance to get some hands-on time with an Arc graphics card.

Palit Microsystems Ltd, the leading graphics card manufacturer, announced the GeForce GTX 1630 Dual Series graphics cards. Palit GeForce GTX 1630 is fabricated with the breakthrough graphics performance of the NVIDIA Turing architecture. Offering 1.17x better performance than GTX 1050, and with performance on par with GTX 1050 Ti, the new GeForce GTX 1630 comes with even advanced specs and features, including faster GDDR6 memory, DX12 support, and plentiful video CODEC supports for broadcasting. The GeForce GTX 1630 is a smarter choice for gamers and creators who are looking for entry level graphics card.

The Palit GeForce GTX 1630 Dual Series brings a compact yet performance-focused design that maintains the essentials to accomplish gaming and multimedia tasks at hand. Coming in 170 mm in length, the model supports Mini-ITX form factor, perfect for mini PC lovers. Equipped with 0 db Tech, the fans will stop when under relatively light workload, eliminating noises when active cooling is unnecessary.

Intel is preparing to enter the professional visualization graphics card market with its upcoming Arc Pro series. This would put it in competition with graphics cards from NVIDIA and AMD, such as the Radeon Pro W-series, and RTX A-series. At least two SKUs have been confirmed in SiSoft SANDRA screenshots, the Arc Pro A40, and Arc Pro A50. Both appear to be based on the smaller 6 nm ACM-G10 silicon that physically features 1,024 unified shaders across 128 execution units (EU), or 8 Xe Cores, and up to 6 GB of GDDR6 memory across a 96-bit wide bus.

Intel could take a swing at entry-level pro-vis solutions from AMD and NVIDIA, such as the Radeon Pro W6400, Pro W6500M, NVIDIA RTX A2000, etc. There could be a design focus on multiple display connectivity options, as the cards could be targeted at commercial environments where workstations feature multiple high-resolution displays. The company could also develop mobile variants of these SKUs for mobile workstations. Intel could extensively advertise the media-acceleration and AI capabilities of the Xe-HPG architecture, including hardware-accelerated AV1 encode, and AI neural-net building, training, and inference acceleration. Another key differentiator for these cards could be validation by leading content-creation software vendors; and an elevated support level by Intel.

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1630 is set to be officially unveiled tomorrow as a successor to the GTX 1050 Ti with Colorful already listing one such model on their website. The GTX 1630 will be an entry-level card featuring a TU117-150 GPU with 512 CUDA cores running at 1785 MHz paired with 4 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 64-bit memory bus for a total bandwidth of 96 GB/s. The leaked Colorful GTX 1630 BattleAx features a dual-fan cooling solution, triple display connectors, and an additional 6-pin power input essentially copying the company's GTX 1650 model. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1630 will be available from multiple board partners when it launches tomorrow and could reportedly retail for ~150 USD according to some Chinese retailers.

According to TrendForce research, despite the significance of peak season and rising DDR5 penetration, the 3Q22 DRAM market still succumbed to the negative impact of weak consumer electronics demand resulting from the Russian-Ukrainian war and high inflation, which in turn led to an increase in overall DRAM inventory. This is the primary reason for a 3-8% drop in DRAM prices in 3Q22 and a more than 8% pricing dip in certain DRAM products for PCs and smart phones cannot be ruled out.

In terms of PC DRAM, sustained weakening of demand has led to PC OEMs adjusting their annual shipment targets and also caused DRAM inventories to soar rapidly. In 3Q22, PC OEMs remain focused on adjusting and destocking DRAM inventories, making a rebound in purchasing momentum unlikely. At the same time, since the overall DRAM industry remains oversupplied, even if PC demand is sluggish, suppliers still experienced difficulties in reducing their PC DRAM supply, resulting in a slight quarterly increase in the number of supplied bits. Therefore, PC DRAM pricing is forecast to drop by 3~8%

The GUNNING A380 Photon OC appears to be the first custom variant of the recently released Intel Arc A380 graphics card. The card features an upgraded dual-fan cooling solution and aluminium block heatsink along with a single 8-pin power connector. The card is equipped with 6 GB of GDDR6 memory running at 15.5 Gbps which is a slight downgrade from the reference that runs at 16 Gbps. The performance should however be higher than the reference model with an increased maximum clock speed of 2450 MHz and a 92 W power draw. The A380 Photon includes four display outputs with 3x DisplayPort and 1x HDMI 2.0 and will be available as part of pre-built systems initially. The company also teased an upcoming flagship Arc graphics fan with a triple-fan cooling setup that could possibly be based on the A770 or A780.

Intel officially launched the Arc A380 "Alchemist" entry-mainstream desktop graphics card in China, priced at RMB ¥1,030, including VAT, which roughly converts to USD $153. The Arc A380 "Alchemist" is based on the Xe-HPG graphics architecture, and the smaller DG2-128 (ACM-G11) silicon, which is built on the TSMC N6 (6 nm) silicon fabrication process.

The A380 desktop GPU is endowed with 8 Xe Cores, or 128 EU (execution units), which work out to 1,024 unified shaders. The chip features a 96-bit wide GDDR6 memory interface, running 6 GB of memory. Despite these hardware specs, you get full DirectX 12 Ultimate capability, including ray tracing, and the XeSS performance enhancement. There are also several content-creation accelerators, including Intel XMX, and AV1 hardware-encode capabilities.

Sapphire formally launched its Radeon 6700 series graphics card. The AMD Radeon 6700 is an odd-ball SKU that doesn't yet feature in the company's retail product stack, but is yet being released to retail by Sapphire. So far we've not come across any other board partner with this SKU. The 6700 is unique in its branding—there's neither "RX" nor "XT" in the model name, it's called simply the "Radeon 6700."

Carved out from the same 7 nm "Navi 22" silicon as the RX 6700 XT and RX 6750 XT; the 6700 has 36 out of 40 compute units enabled, working out to 2,304 stream processors, and 144 TMUs. The card is endowed with 10 GB of 16 Gbps GDDR6 memory across a 160-bit wide memory interface. Sapphire has two cards in its lineup, one is an unnamed base model that sticks to the "reference" specs, and a factory-overclocked Pulse 6700 card.

AMD is likely preparing to launch a new mid-range graphics card SKU positioned between the Radeon RX 6650 XT and the RX 6700 XT, the new RX 6700 (non-XT). It doesn't seem like the RX 6700 is an OEM-exclusive designed to get rid of silicon. Pictures surfaced of a Sapphire branded custom-design card, complete with box-art designed to woo customers in stores. It also doesn't appear to be a China-exclusive SKU, since Sapphire tends to put Chinese-language branding on its box-art, which is missing here.

The RX 6700 is configured with 2,304 stream processors across 36 RDNA2 compute units, out of the 40 physically present on the "Navi 22" silicon. The memory is an interesting piece of specs, with the RX 6700 coming with 10 GB standard—presumably over a 160-bit wide GDDR6 memory bus. This means five 16 Gbit (2 GB) GDDR6 memory chips. The engine clocks are reportedly 2330 MHz game clock, and 2495 MHz boost; and 16 Gbps memory speed. The cards' board-design is standard Sapphire fare, with nothing that stands out from the current RX 6700 XT Pulse and base-model custom cards from the company. One interesting thing to point out, though, is a single 8-pin connector on the base-model custom card (225 W maximum power capability including the PCIe slot), which should put the typical board power around 200 W. The cards are reportedly launching in Europe on June 9, priced around 569€ including taxes.

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1630 graphics card is set to be launched on May 31st according to a recent report from VideoCardz. The GTX 1630 is based on the GTX 1650 featuring a 12 nm Turing TU117-150 GPU with 512 CUDA cores and 4 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 64-bit memory bus. This is a reduction from the 896 CUDA cores and 128-bit memory bus found in the GTX 1650 however there is an increase in clock speeds with a boost clock of 1800 MHz at a TDP of 75 W. This memory configuration results in a maximum theoretical bandwidth of 96 GB/s which is exactly half of what is available on the GDDR6 GTX 1650. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1630 may be announced during NVIDIA's Computex keynote next week.

AMD has historically thrown brute memory bus width at solving memory-management problems in its graphics architectures, but the Infinity Cache technology launched with RDNA2 proved to be a game changer, as GPUs with narrow 256-bit memory interfaces could compete with NVIDIA's offerings that have 384-bit wide memory interfaces and faster GDDR6X memory types. It looks like the competition between NVIDIA "Ada" and AMD RDNA3 graphics architectures is about to heat up, as rumors are emerging of AMD giving its biggest next-gen ASIC, the "Navi 31," a 384-bit wide memory interface.

This 50 percent increase in memory bus width, runs in concert with two associated rumors—one, that the company will use faster 20 Gbps GDDR6 memory chips; and two, that AMD may increase the size of the on-die Infinity Cache memory. Samsung is already mass-producing 20 Gbps and 24 Gbps GDDR6 memory chips. These are regular GDDR6 memory chips with JEDEC-standard signaling, and not GDDR6X, an exclusive memory type innovated by NVIDIA and Micron Technology, which leverages PAM4 signaling to increase data-rates. A theoretical "Navi 31" with 20 Gbps GDDR6 memory speeds would enjoy 960 GB/s of memory bandwidth, a massive 87.5 percent bandwidth increase over the RX 6900 XT. The on-die Infinity Cache operates at speeds measured in several TB/s. The increased bus width could also signal an increase in memory sizes, with the RX 6950 XT successor featuring at least 24 GB of memory.

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of premium gaming hardware, today announced GIGABYTE provides a variety of options to meet the needs of more customers. The AORUS series is recommended for enthusiasts who want the ultimate performance and a colorful RGB appearance. The GAMING OC series is the best choice of performance-minded gamers. The EAGLE series is the best choice for those who desire a unique design.

the breakthrough AMD RDNA2 gaming architecture, include process optimizations and software and firmware enhancements, and offer high-bandwidth, low-latency AMD Infinity Cache memory technology and ultra-fast 18 Gbps GDDR6 memory. They also support Microsoft Windows 11 and Microsoft DirectX 12 Ultimate, AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR), the forthcoming AMD FSR 2.0 and AMD Radeon Super Resolution upscaling technologies, as well as other advanced features that provide visually stunning, high-refresh rate gaming experiences.

TUL Corporation, a leading and innovative manufacturer of AMD graphic cards since 1997, is announcing today new additions to its AMD Graphics card lineup. With higher GPU clocks and faster memory, the latest AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT, AMD Radeon RX 6750 XT and AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT graphics cards will give gamers the extra edge on their favorite game titles.

The new graphics cards leverage the breakthrough AMD RDNA 2 gaming architecture, include process optimizations and software and firmware enhancements, and offer high-bandwidth, low-latency AMD Infinity Cache memory technology and ultra-fast 18 Gbps GDDR6 memory. They also support Microsoft Windows 11 and Microsoft DirectX 12 Ultimate, AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR), the forthcoming AMD FSR 2.01 and AMD Radeon Super Resolution upscaling technologies, as well as other advanced features that provide visually stunning, high-refresh rate gaming experiences.

With its desktop graphics card lineup still elusive, the company is planning a new entry-level SKU positioned below the Arc A380 and A350M. Called A310, this chip will be based on a heavily cut-down version of the DG2-128 (ACM-G11) silicon, and offer performance levels somewhere between the Iris Xe MAX (DG1) desktop discrete GPU, and the A350M, with the design goal being to compete with AMD's Radeon RX 6400 and NVIDIA's GTX 1650 in the entry-level space.

At this point the core configuration of the A310 is not known. It is speculated to feature 64 to 96 execution units (EU) out of the 128 present on the ACM-G11 silicon. 4 GB of GDDR6 memory across a 64-bit wide memory bus, could remain standard fare for this card. All of the media-acceleration features of "Alchemist" could be featured, including AV1 decode and encode. The A310 could make for a good combo with future Intel workstation or HEDT platforms with non-gaming visual requirements. The ACM-G11 is built on the 6 nm silicon fabrication process, and so the A310 could come with a low power footprint that doesn't need additional power connectors.

BIOSTAR, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, and storage devices, today announced the BIOSTAR AMD Radeon RX 6400 graphics card to unleash next-level gaming performance.

Built on the high-performance, energy efficient AMD RDNA gaming architecture, the BIOSTAR AMD Radeon RX 6400 graphics card features high-bandwidth, low-latency AMD Infinity Cache memory technology, 4 GB of high-speed GDDR6 memory and a boost clock of 2321 MHz. It also supports Microsoft Windows 11 and Microsoft DirectX 12 Ultimate, AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) and AMD Radeon Super Resolution (RSR) upscaling technologies, AMD Smart Access Memory technology, as well as other advanced features that provide visually stunning, high-refresh rate gaming experiences.