Schenker Technologies GmbH's e-commerce platform, bestware.com, is now offering Intel's NUC X15 Laptop Kit with Core i7-12700H and dedicated Arc A730M graphics card, in addition to the laptops of the two own brands XMG and SCHENKER. The base configuration of the 2 kg light and well-equipped 15.6-inch notebook is available at a reduced price of €899 (~$963) for a limited time at launch.

Intel NUC X15 Arc combines Core i7-12700H with Arc A730M
Measuring 358.26 x 235 x 22.2 mm and weighing just 2 kg, the 15.6-inch Intel NUC X15 Arc positions itself among the light and slim laptops in its performance class. The display lid and top shell of the black chassis are aluminium; only the bottom shell and the display frame use plastic. Despite its compactness, the NUC 15 Arc offers high performance. Intel pairs a Core i7-12700H with 14 cores (6 performance, 8 efficiency cores) and 20 threads with a dedicated graphics card from its own Arc portfolio: The Arc A730M offers a generous 12 GB of GDDR6 memory and operates at a TGP of 75 watts.

GIGABYTE, the world's leading computer brand, is excited to announce its gaming sub-brand AORUS' presence at Gamescom 2023 in Cologne, Germany. Under the exciting theme of AORUSVERSE, AORUS is set to showcase its latest cutting-edge technology, including state-of-the-art motherboards, powerful gaming and creator laptops, PC systems, and stunning 4K gaming monitors. Attendees can expect an immersive journey into the vast gaming world of AORUSVERSE.

As a true gaming heaven, the AORUS booth will be brimming with the latest gaming hardware for enthusiasts to explore. The centerpiece of the exhibit will be the highly-anticipated Z790 X series motherboards, with the enthusiast-grade Z790 MASTER X leading the way to power Intel's next-generation processor. Additionally, AORUS will proudly unveil the Red Dot Design Award 2023 award-winning M6 wireless gaming mouse, allowing attendees to get a hands-on experience with this exceptional peripheral.

TSMC (TWSE: 2330, NYSE: TSM), Robert Bosch GmbH, Infineon Technologies AG (FSE: IFX / OTCQX: IFNNY), and NXP Semiconductors N.V. (NASDAQ: NXPI) today announced a plan to jointly invest in European Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (ESMC) GmbH, in Dresden, Germany to provide advanced semiconductor manufacturing services. ESMC marks a significant step towards construction of a 300 mm fab to support the future capacity needs of the fast-growing automotive and industrial sectors, with the final investment decision pending confirmation of the level of public funding for this project. The project is planned under the framework of the European Chips Act.

The planned fab is expected to have a monthly production capacity of 40,000 300 mm (12-inch) wafers on TSMC's 28/22 nanometer planar CMOS and 16/12 nanometer FinFET process technology, further strengthening Europe's semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem with advanced FinFET transistor technology and creating about 2,000 direct high-tech professional jobs. ESMC aims to begin construction of the fab in the second half of 2024 with production targeted to begin by the end of 2027.

Semiconductor industry players Robert Bosch GmbH, Infineon Technologies AG, Nordic Semiconductor, NXP Semiconductors, and Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., have come together to jointly invest in a company aimed at advancing the adoption of RISC-V globally by enabling next-generation hardware development.

Formed in Germany, this company will aim to accelerate the commercialization of future products based on the open-source RISC-V architecture. The company will be a single source to enable compatible RISC-V based products, provide reference architectures, and help establish solutions widely used in the industry. Initial application focus will be automotive, but with an eventual expansion to include mobile and IoT.

Sony has implemented a time limited price reduction for its PlayStation 5 Standard/Disc Edition console in Spain, Portugal, France and Italy—according to billbil-kun (writing for Dealabs magazine) the time limited summer promotion is going to reach Germany, Great Britain and the United States shortly. The campaign has been running since mid-July, and customers in eligible regions have (so far) enjoyed a €75 reduction, bringing the standard PS5 model's price down to as low as €450 (~$498). Dealabs believes that that some of these regional offers have already ended (as of July 24).

The article seems to source some insider information, with very specific discount figures presented for the next batch of participants—German customers are set to get the aforementioned standard European €75 reduction, bringing the PS5's price down to €474.99 (from €549.99). UK gamers get £75 off, so £404.99 total (reduced from £479.99). US folks are lined up for a less generous $50 cut—due to Sony not implementing PS5 price increases for that market—resulting in $449.99 (instead of $499.99). Billbil-kun reckons that the following retail outlets will be taking part in the campaign's next phase: PlayStation Store/PlayStation Direct, Amazon, MediaMarkt, Target and GAME UK. The timing of these temporary cuts could point to Sony responding to Microsoft's unpopular decision to jack up asking prices for the Xbox Series X console, as well as Game Pass subscription fees.

AMD is preparing its Ryzen 5 7500F processor for a global launch according to reports from earlier today—Team Red's German operation has since informed local media outlets about its updated international release strategy for the iGPU-less Zen 4 desktop SKU. Markus Lindner, a regional company spokesman stated: "This processor model will be available starting July 23, 2023 at 9PM ET. It will be available in greater China as a processor-in-box, and in the rest of world as an option for select system builders."

Chinese reviewers have been getting hands-on experience with the Ryzen 5 7500F, with early reports pointing to impressive performance for its price point ($180) when lined up against competing Intel Core i5-13400 and i5-13400F CPUs. International buyers could express concern regarding AMD Germany's mentioning that availability will be somewhat limited to system integrators. Hopefully these "select system builders" will have good distribution links to retail outlets—70% of TPU quick poll participants expressed interest in seeing a western launch (prior to AMD's "global" announcement).

According to a report published by Bloomberg, the German government has formed plans to create €20 billion ($22 billion) of investments to aid in the growth of local semiconductor manufacturing. The article proposes that the organization is racing to bolster the country's technology sector, and is attempting to secure essential supplies of components. Various geopolitical issues have complicated matters in recent times. Funding will be made available to German and international companies, from Germany's (now diversified) Climate and Transformation reserve, over the next four years. The finance ministry responded to Bloomberg's query, and stated: "The draft for the economic plan 2024 and the financial plan until 2027 for the Climate and Transformation Fund are currently being prepared...This process has not yet been completed." Germany's economy ministry did not provide a statement/response to Bloomberg's queries.

Around 75% of the fund is reportedly set aside for multinational semiconductor firms including Intel Corporation (USA) and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC). Bloomberg believes that Team Blue is due an allocation of €10 billion for investments in its new production facility, located close to Magdeburg, Germany. The government is allegedly deep into talks with TSMC regarding the foundation of a proposed €10 billion production base in the Dresden area—the likes of BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen AG would benefit greatly with quicker access to (localized) microcontrollers manufacturing facilities. The government could subsidize half of that total investment (€5 billion). Infineon is possibly in line to receive a €1 billion aid package, since it is building a new fab location in Dresden.

Three leading European generative AI startups joined NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang this week to talk about the new era of computing. More than 500 developers, researchers, entrepreneurs and executives from across Europe and further afield packed into the Spindler and Klatt, a sleek, riverside gathering spot in Berlin. Huang started the reception by touching on the message he delivered Monday at the Berlin Summit for Earth Virtualization Engines (EVE), an international collaboration focused on climate science. He shared details of NVIDIA's Earth-2 initiative and how accelerated computing, AI-augmented simulation and interactive digital twins drive climate science research.

Before sitting down for a fireside chat with the founders of the three startups, Huang introduced some "special guests" to the audience—four of the world's leading climate modeling scientists, who he called the "unsung heroes" of saving the planet. "These scientists have dedicated their careers to advancing climate science," said Huang. "With the vision of EVE, they are the architects of the new era of climate science."

Galaxus, a German e-commerce store had a custom NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 graphics card available for purchase yesterday—VideoCardz picked up on this embargo busting listing yesterday evening, but the product page has been removed overnight. Fortunately a screenshot of the Palit Dual's premature retail appearance was kept for preservation purposes. The official launch of NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 (non-Ti) GPUs is scheduled for June 29, and European MSRP is set at €329 ($359). Galaxus had the custom Palit card priced at €339, so a €10 upcharge could be warranted if the included cooling solution is more robust than NVIDIA's reference design, or the extra expense covers the cost of more RGB lighting zones.

Palit revealed its RTX 4060 Dual and StormX series last month, with both variants being factory overclocked (OC). The (now redacted) Galaxus product page seemed to show a not yet announced Dual (non-OC) model, and a product code "NE64060019P1-1070D." Palit's press release from late May mentions that users can customize the Dual's cooler to some degree: "In light of the positive feedback from GamingPro Maker project, now the support is also enabled on the Palit GeForce RTX 40 Dual Series. Users can download the 3D files of the Dual cover and backplate from Palit website to paint or create add-on elements on it, and simply attach the 3D-printed cover to the shroud." It that unique selling point interesting enough to get prospective budget graphics card buyers to consider Palit's latest offering?

Intel and the German federal government have signed a revised letter of intent for Intel's planned leading-edge wafer fabrication site in Magdeburg, the capital of Saxony-Anhalt state in Germany. The agreement encompasses Intel's expanded investment in the site, now expected to be more than 30 billion euros for two first-of-a-kind semiconductor facilities (also known as "fabs") in Europe, along with increased government support that includes incentives, reflecting the expanded scope and change in economic conditions since the site was first announced.

Intel acquired the land for the project in November 2022, and the first facility is expected to enter production in four to five years following the European Commission's approval of the incentive package. Given the current timeline and scale of the investment, Intel plans to deploy more advanced Angstrom-era technology in the facilities than originally envisioned. The Magdeburg site will serve Intel products and Intel Foundry Services customers.

Intel has been planning to build its next-generation semiconductor manufacturing plant in Germany for a long time. Today, we have more information thanks to the Handelsblatt business and financial newspaper. According to the Handelsblatt, Intel is in talks with the German government to get as much as 9.9 billion Euros in state subsidies, a target price much higher than the previously agreed 6.8 billion Euros. Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck has been reportedly working intensively to get the amount of state aid for Intel to be this high. Intel's CEO Patrick Gelsinger is supposed to seal the deal on Monday when he will sign the agreement in the Chancellery.

As reported, the location of the next-generation facility will be Saxony-Anhalt, with the more precise location to be known on Monday. Also, we expect to hear what manufacturing node will the upcoming facility produce at the beginning.

According to the report coming from Bloomberg, European Union has approved as much as 8.1 billion Euros (about 8.6 billion USD) for research of advanced semiconductors. Accompanied by the 13.7 billion Euros in private funds, the total investment for boosting domestic semiconductor manufacturing in the EU is almost 22 billion Euros. As part of the European CHIPS Act, the project aims to develop Europe as the world's semiconductor powerhouse, with as much as 20% of all semiconductors produced in the EU by 2030. This ambitious goal is backed by state subsidies, as well as investors creating private pools of funds to aid companies in creating semiconductor manufacturing facilities on European soil.

This Important Project of Common European Interest (IPCEI) on Microelectronics and Communication Technologies is an essential step for Europe's semiconductor independence. Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton noted, "In a geopolitical context of de-risking, Europe is taking its destiny into its own hands. By mastering the most advanced semiconductors, the EU will become an industrial powerhouse in markets of the future." Companies like Intel, Infineon, STMicroelectronics, GlobalFoundries, and Wolfspeed announced European investments, with TSMC considering a production facility in Germany. German Economy Minister Robert Habeck has noted that Germany has 31 projects in 11 regions, adding, "We can thus increase resilience across Europe in this important field and secure value creation and jobs."

According to The Financial Times, the German Finance Minister—Christian Lindner—is not interested in giving Intel more money than already agreed upon. Lindner stated to the news outlet that "There is no more money available in the budget," and went on to say "We are trying to consolidate the budget right now, not expand it." This is bad news for Intel, as the company was hoping to get a total of €10 billion in subsidies from the German government for its new fab in Magdeburg.

Now it looks like Intel will have to make do with the already promised €6.8 billion that the German government has already agreed upon. Intel was hoping to get some additional funds due to higher energy and construction costs, which appears to be something the company now has to cover out of its own pocket. Considering the estimated cost for the first plant in Magdeburg is estimated at €17 billion, it seems only fair that Intel should cover most of the cost of its new fab. Intel is planning to invest around US$88 billion in Europe over the next few years, which includes further expansions to its fab in Ireland, a packaging and assembly plant in Italy and an R&D facility in France.

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."

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.

Lian Li has updated the impressive V3000 Plus case to a beautiful new white finish. The Lian Li V3000 Plus White is the ideal choice for the enthusiast who wants plenty of space to build a custom white gaming PC. Boasting an impressive ability to facilitate three different modes of interior layout, this case is an ideal foundation for a wide range of builds.

New Look for an Old Favorite
The Lian Li V3000 Plus White keeps the same outstanding styling found on its black counterpart. The V3000 Plus has kept the impressive glass panels on each side, but made them crystal clear, alongside changing the finish to a pure white. Thanks to these two factors combined, you can build a clean gaming PC that highlights your components.

TSMC, a Taiwanese semiconductor giant, is reportedly talking to its partners to develop an $11 billion (€10 billion) factory in Germany with the help of a few European partners. Currently assessing the plant location for Saxony in Germany, the fab wouldn't only be exclusively made by TSMC but will bring in NXP, Bosch, and Infineon that, will create a budget of around 7 billion Euros, including state subsidies, while the total budget is leaning closer to 10 billion Euros in total. However, it is essential to note that TSMC is still assessing the possibility of a Europe-based plant altogether.

Asking for as much as 40% of the total investment to be European-backed subsidies, TSMC wants to create a European facility that will be focused on a growing sector--automotive. If approved in August, the TSMC plant will become the company's first European facility and will first focus on manufacturing 28 nm chips. As one of the first significant EU Chips Act €43 billion investment, it will heavily boost European semiconductor manufacturing.

Two years and a half into its storied career, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 GPU has finally dropped below MSRP in one European territory. German customers will be stoked to jump on e-tailer CaseKing's new offer - ZOTAC's Gaming GeForce RTX 3070 Twin Edge LHR graphics card is currently available for 449 EUR (not counting additional fees), so a saving of 50 Euros from the recommended retail price (499 EUR/$499). 3DCenter seems to be the first hardware news outlet to report on an RTX 3070 GPU dropping under RRP. The RTX 3070 and 3060 Ti models have been best sellers for NVIDIA (and board partners) since late 2020, yet buyers have long complained about unreasonable asking prices, and semi-generous discounts have been very late in arriving - just in time for the succeeding model.

3DCenter has created an overview of the graphics card market in Germany and Austria, and its findings for May 2023 indicate a trend where: "GPU prices in Euros have consistently dropped by ~10% since the end of January, in single cases up to 20%." The overview places the RTX 3070 8 GB in a price bracket position between AMD's Radeon RX 6750XT 12 GB and RX 6800 16 GB (non-XT) SKUs, which brings recent marketing strategies to mind - Team Red thinks that their cards offer the buyer more VRAM for their money when cross examined with the competition.

The host and producer, Geoff Keighley, has confirmed that Opening Night Live will be returning this August. Opening Night Live is the pre-show presentation or an opening show for Gamescom, held in Cologne, Germany.

The announcement comes as a welcomed news after E3 2023 cancellation and it appears that Gamescom 2023 will carry on the torch, as the last year show was the first in-person event since 2019. Opening Night Live last year was a big event, going for over two hours and featured more than 35 games. Geoff Keighley briefly tweeted that the show returns live on Tuesday, August 22nd and that he is "excited to be back in Cologne with the fans and industry, streaming video game news directly to you".

Amazon is today expanding its Luna cloud gaming service into three new territories - Canada, Germany and the United Kingdom. This is the first sign of the online retail giant's goal to broaden the service beyond the initial launch base in the USA. The company is clearly excited to offer their cloud games library to a larger customer base: "Gamers in the U.S. have been enjoying Luna for the past year and we're thrilled to expand the service, giving more customers the opportunity to play high-quality, immersive games without expensive gaming hardware or lengthy downloads."

These new territories have been granted access to Luna's full package which now consists of Ubisoft+, Jackbox Games, and Luna+ subscription services. The Luna app can be launched on 'select devices', which means a wide range of modern bits of kit can run it: Fire TV, Fire Tablets, Windows PCs, Chromebooks, Macs, iPhones, iPads, Android phones and tablets. Amazon confirmed that its Official Luna Wireless Controller is also being made available to customers in Canada, Germany and the United Kingdom - which is an exclusive item to the Amazon Store. It should be noted that you can run other compatible control devices via Bluetooth, including a wireless keyboard and mouse, as well as the Xbox One and PlayStation DualShock 4 gamepads.

It was only Monday this week that ASUS announced the official launch of the ROG Swift OLED PG27AQDM, but now retailers have started to put the display up for pre-order and it looks like for once, ASUS hasn't priced its products higher than the competition. In the US, it appears that the PG27AQDM will retail for US$999, which is the same price that LG is asking for its equivalent Ultragear OLED 27GR95QE-B. ASUS does claim to have higher typical brightness at 450 cd/m² vs a mere 200 cd/m² for the LG, yet somehow also claim to have half the power consumption.

A swift jump over the pond and the PG27AQDM looks a little less exciting, with it coming in at £1,098.95 in the UK and €1,299.99 in Germany and as much as 14,990 kr in Sweden, which puts all three nations at well over US$1,100 excluding any local VAT. That makes LG's Ultragear OLED the far more attractive option in Europe, as it's cheaper in all three countries by the equivalent of around US$100. For those still interested, the bad news is that the display won't arrive in retail until sometime in mid or end of April, depending on the country you live in.

To date, Intel has been promised almost €6.8 billion in subsidies from the federal German government, but apparently this isn't enough for Intel, as the company is now asking for an additional €3.2 billion, for a total of €10 billion is subsidies for its Magdeburg fab. The total investment in the fab in Magdeburg—which was announced back in March 2022—is said to be around €33 billion. In other words, Intel is asking Germany to pitch in almost a third of the cost for its shiny new fab. According to an Intel spokesperson quoted by the Register, Intel is worried about the current geopolitical situation and that the demand for semiconductors has declined, plus the fact that inflation has made everything much more expensive. Intel's Arizona fabs ended up costing an extra US$5 billion, which is about a third extra compared to the original cost estimate, so it's not hard to see why Intel is asking for more money here.

At the same time, the Vietnamese government jumped the gun and announced that Intel is looking at investing US$3.3 billion in the country, as part of an announcement of investments of a total of US$7.4 billion in Ho Chi Minh, by foreign companies. The additional US$4.1 billion investments apparently hinges on Intel's investment in the country, more specifically in the Saigon Hi-Tech Park. The official stance from Intel is that "Vietnam is an important part of our global manufacturing network, but we have not announced any new investments." It's unclear what the exact plans are, but Intel is said to have met up with government officials in Vietnam, according to Bloomberg. It's likely that it would be some kind of chip packaging facility, much like what Intel and AMD already has in Malaysia and China, among other places.

According to news out of Taiwan, TSMC will hold a ceremony to mark the official mass production start of its 3 nm node on the 29th of December. This is said to help "shatter doubts about de-Taiwanization" or in simpler terms, that Taiwan will lose its golden goose as TSMC invests abroad. The 3 nm fab—known as fab 18—is based in southern Taiwan's Tainan and the ceremony also marks the start of an expansion of TSMC's most advanced fab. TSMC is said to be kicking off its N3E node production sometime in the second half of 2023, followed by its N3P node in 2024, all of which should take place at fab 18, which also produces 5 nm wafers.

In related news, according to Reuters, a Japanese lawmaker from the ruling party has said that TSMC is considering a second plant in Japan, in addition to its current joint venture that is already under construction. TSMC's response to Reuters was that the company isn't ruling out Japan for future fabs, but that the company doesn't have any current plans. At the same time, TSMC is said to be sending executives to Dresden, Germany in early 2023, for a second round of talks about building a fab to help support the European auto industry, although this would be a 28/22 nm fab, which is far from cutting edge these days, although a lot more advanced than most fabs making chips for the auto industry.

AMD's next-generation Radeon RX 7900 high-end graphics cards are set to arrive next week and bring the new RDNA3 GPU architecture to the masses. However, it seems like the customers will have to fight for their purchase as the availability could be scarce at launch, leading to potentially increased prices with low stocks. According to Igor's Lab report, Germany will receive only 3,000 reference MBA (Made By AMD) units of Radeon RX 7900 series cards. In contrast, the rest of the EMEA region will receive only 7,000 MBA units. These numbers are lower than expected, so AIB partners may improve the supply once their designs hit shelves.

On the other hand, mainland China will not receive any MBA units of the new cards as a sign of increasing tension with Taiwan. Of course, AMD's board partners will supply their designs to China, and they are allowed to; however, it seems that only AMD is making a statement here. In addition to supply issues, the launch is rumored to be covered in BIOS issues such as memory leaks and the COVID-19 outbreak affecting production in closed factories. Of course, all of this information should be taken with a grain of salt, and we must wait for the official launch before making any further assumptions.

Intel and MediaTek today announced a strategic partnership to manufacture chips using Intel Foundry Services' (IFS) advanced process technologies. The agreement is designed to help MediaTek build a more balanced, resilient supply chain through the addition of a new foundry partner with significant capacity in the United States and Europe. MediaTek plans to use Intel process technologies to manufacture multiple chips for a range of smart edge devices. IFS offers a broad manufacturing platform with technologies optimized for high performance, low power and always-on connectivity built on a roadmap that spans production-proven three-dimensional FinFET transistors to next-generation breakthroughs.

"As one of the world's leading fabless chip designers powering more than 2 billion devices a year, MediaTek is a terrific partner for IFS as we enter our next phase of growth," said IFS President Randhir Thakur. "We have the right combination of advanced process technology and geographically diverse capacity to help MediaTek deliver the next billion connected devices across a range of applications."