Sony today via a livestream finally showcased their hardware design for the next generation of consoles, and let's get one thing right out of the way: the company will be launching two console versions. This is a relatively unexpected twist - unexpected, because if anything, we were expecting two new consoles from Microsoft (remember the Lockhart rumors?), not from Sony. However, the PS5 will be eventually launching in two versions - a mainline console, and an all-digital spinoff.

For now, details are all but absent - the only thing we know for sure is that the digital version of the PS5 won't be carrying a 4K BluRay player. That will undoubtedly reduce the final pricing of the digital version compared to the mainline console. It's unclear whether this console has some sort of streaming integration with a service such as PS Now, offloading games processing to the cloud. If it doesn't, though, and if the only hardware difference between the two versions is the presence of the 4K BluRay player, we're likely talking about a $100/€100 difference - tops. Remember that the Xbox One S, which currently retails for around $250, too possesses a 4K Blu Ray player, so there's only so much that can be recouped from cutting that particular hardware piece. As you might've guessed by now, pricing is still being manifested as if it were a unicorn.

ASUS today announced the all-new ASUS - Google Meet hardware kit, a smart video-conferencing solution that enables stunning HD visuals. The original ASUS - Google Meet hardware kit first launched in 2014, delivering a simple and intuitive video-conferencing solution. After the success of this product, ASUS is excited to continue working with Google on a redesigned hardware kit that delivers an enhanced user experience.

The new ASUS - Google Meet hardware kit includes the compact ASUS - Google Meet Compute System, which is designed with a magnetic chassis for easy installation and the ports all on one side for efficient cable management, while the slim design allows for installation in environments with restricted access. To ensure long-term reliability under prolonged use, the newly designed Meet Compute System is built and tested to exceed industry requirements.

NVIDIA today launched the NVIDIA Mellanox ConnectX -6 Lx SmartNIC—a highly secure and efficient 25/50 gigabit per second (Gb/s) Ethernet smart network interface controller (SmartNIC)—to meet surging growth in enterprise and cloud scale-out workloads.

ConnectX-6 Lx, the 11th generation product in the ConnectX family, is designed to meet the needs of modern data centers, where 25 Gb/s connections are becoming standard for handling demanding workflows, such as enterprise applications, AI and real-time analytics. The new SmartNIC extends accelerated computing by leveraging software-defined, hardware-accelerated engines to offload more security and network processing from CPUs.

EIZO Corporation (TSE: 6737) today announced the release of the ColorEdge CS2740, a 27-inch, 4K UHD (3840 x 2160) monitor for creative work, complete with USB Type-C connectivity. Whether it be photography, video editing, or design, this monitor provides everything to keep imagination flowing.

The ColorEdge CS series is a range of monitors that include many of the advanced features of EIZO's professional ColorEdge CG series, while also meeting the varying needs and budgets of hobbyists and prosumers. The ColorEdge CS2740 is the first in the CS series to implement 4K UHD resolution, which is four times the size of Full HD (1920 x 1080). The remarkable detail ensures that high resolution content is displayed crisply. The monitor also boasts a pixel density of 164 ppi for 4K image display that has never looked smoother. Alphanumeric characters and contours are distinguished with excellent sharpness, so users can check even the finest details without needing to zoom in.

Hardware-accelerated ray tracing and variable-rate shading will be the design focal points for AMD's next-generation RDNA2 graphics architecture. Microsoft's reveal of its Xbox Series X console attributed both features to AMD's "next generation RDNA" architecture (which logically happens to be RDNA2). The Xbox Series X uses a semi-custom SoC that features CPU cores based on the "Zen 2" microarchitecture and a GPU based on RDNA2. It's highly likely that the SoC could be fabricated on TSMC's 7 nm EUV node, as the RDNA2 graphics architecture is optimized for that. This would mean an optical shrink of "Zen 2" to 7 nm EUV. Besides the SoC that powers Xbox Series X, AMD is expected to leverage 7 nm EUV for its RDNA2 discrete GPUs and CPU chiplets based on its "Zen 3" microarchitecture in 2020.

Variable-rate shading (VRS) is an API-level feature that lets GPUs conserve resources by shading certain areas of a scene at a lower rate than the other, without perceptible difference to the viewer. Microsoft developed two tiers of VRS for its DirectX 12 API, tier-1 is currently supported by NVIDIA "Turing" and Intel Gen11 architectures, while tier-2 is supported by "Turing." The current RDNA architecture doesn't support either tiers. Hardware-accelerated ray-tracing is the cornerstone of NVIDIA's "Turing" RTX 20-series graphics cards, and AMD is catching up to it. Microsoft already standardized it on the software-side with the DXR (DirectX Raytracing) API. A combination of VRS and dynamic render-resolution will be crucial for next-gen consoles to achieve playability at 4K, and to even boast of being 8K-capable.

An independent study conducted by the European Hardware Association (EHA) has revealed that AMD now ranks higher than Intel in the CPU space. While we have seen this as recently as last week, where we reported on top sellers across some Amazon webstores in Europe, with AMD scoring most of the top sellers in both Germany and the UK, this is the first time a comprehensive study has put some verifiable, science-generated numbers for us to see.

According to the EHA, 60% of the European PC enthusiasts (in a sample of 10,000 respondents) showed a strong sentiment towards AMD as their favored manufacturer of CPUs, and would choose any sort of system with an AMD CPU over an Intel one (including APU, AMD + Radeon graphics cards and AMD + NVIDIA graphics cards). This is a far cry from the same time around last year, where AMD only held 40% of a similar sample's preferred buying intention, and up from the 50% shown in the same study, carried out in 2H2019. The same survey also shows a slightly increased preference for AMD's graphics cards, with the 1H2019 showing 19% preference compared to 23% in this latest study.

Intel's STrategic Offensive Research & Mitigations (STORM) department, which the company set up back in 2017 when it learned of side-channel attack vulnerabilities in its CPUs, have penned a paper detailing a proposed solution to the problem. Intel's offensive security research team counts with around 60 workers who focus on proactive security testing and in-depth investigations. Of that group, STORM is a subset of around 12 individuals who specifically work on prototyping exploits to show their practical impact. The solution proposed by this group is essentially a new memory-based hardware fix, going by the name of SAPM (Speculative-Access Protected Memory). The new solution would implement a resistant hardware fix in the CPU's memory that essentially includes blocks for known speculative-access hacks, such as the ones that hit Intel CPUs hard such as Meltdown, Foreshadow, MDS, SpectreRSB and Spoiler.

For now, the proposed solution is only at a "theory and possible implementation options" level. It will take a long time for it to find its way inside working Intel CPUs - if it ever does, really, since for now, it's just a speculative solution. A multitude of tests have to be done in order for its implementation to be approved and finally etched into good old silicon. Intel's STORM says that the SAPM approach would carry a performance hit; however, the group also calculates it to be "potentially lesser" than the current impact of all released software mitigations. Since the solution doesn't address every discovered side-channel attack specifically, but addresses the type of back-end operations that concern these attacks, the team is confident this solution would harden Intel CPUs against (most of) both known and not-yet-known speculative execution hacks.

AMD has completed design phase of its "Zen 3" architecture and rumors are already appearing about its details. This time, Hardwareluxx has reported that AMD could bake a four-way simultaneous multithreading technology in its Zen 3 core to enable more performance and boost parallel processing power of its data center CPUs. Expected to arrive sometime in 2020, Zen 3 server CPUs, codenamed "MILAN", are expected to bring many architectural improvements and make use of TSMC's 7nm+ Extreme Ultra Violet lithography that brings as much as 20% increase in transistor density.

Perhaps the biggest change we could see is the addition of four-way SMT that should allow a CPU to have four virtual threads per core that will improve parallel processing power and enable data center users to run more virtual machines than ever before. Four-way SMT will theoretically boost performance by dividing micro-ops into four smaller groups so that each thread could execute part of the operation, thus making the execution time much shorter. This being only one application of four-way SMT, we can expect AMD to leverage this feature in a way that is most practical and brings the best performance possible.

The US Trade Representative on Friday granted a reprieve to the increased tariffs being levied at China-imported electronic goods. The exemption, valid for one year until 20th August 2020, includes some products that will be welcome to PC hardware enthusiasts, including motherboards, graphics cards, desktop cases, "mouse input devices" valued over $70, "trackpad input units" valued at over $100, and power supply units that output more than 500 W.

The exempts have come as fruits of requests from US stakeholders in the hardware space; should imports be available only from China (meaning there are no alternate sources of said materials) or if the tariff could cause "severe economic harm", a temporary reprieve on the levies could be sought. And so the exempts were requested, and now granted. Prices paid before the announcement of the reprieve that included the added tax penalties are final; the exemption is only valid for orders after September 20th. This means the 25% increased rates (itself an increase on the initial 10%) on the tax basis are now frozen when it comes to the aforementioned hardware. This means companies no longer have to scramble to source their manufacturing to countries other than China, and that prices increased for end consumers on the basis of the tax increase are now meritless.

ORIGIN PC is celebrating its 10th anniversary of building world class high-performance custom PCs for gamers, enthusiasts, and professionals with a one-of-a-kind gaming system showcasing the best of PC gaming and console gaming. The system is called Big O, which combines a high-powered gaming PC with an Xbox One X, PlayStation 4 Pro, and Nintendo Switch inside a modified ORIGIN PC GENESIS chassis. This build is a throwback to the original award-winning Big O system built in the early years of ORIGIN PC's history that at the time combined a powerful gaming PC with an Xbox 360.

By using their case modding and PC building expertise, the ORIGIN PC team spent countless hours testing, designing, and building the modern Big O as a stunning technical showpiece. With inspiration from previous custom builds, the Big O offers an incredible hardline liquid cooling solution for the Intel Core i9-9900K CPU and NVIDIA TITAN RTX GPU, which also extends to the Xbox One X and PlayStation 4 Pro. As for the Nintendo Switch, the team built a custom dock in the front panel of the Big O using the original hardware in order to retain the complete "docking" capabilities of the system. Thus the Nintendo Switch can be docked for full screen gameplay or removed to take gaming on the go.

Previously, we have reported that major OEMs are looking and exploring for ways of moving production outside of China, into other Asian countries, because of tariffs imposed by US-China trade war and rising labor costs. The original report from Nikkei specifically indicated that Microsoft will move its Xbox and Surface manufacturing to Thailand and Indonesia, while the production in China would stop.

However, Tom's Hardware had a conversation with Microsoft regarding the situation and the outcome was contradictory to the report of Nikkei. Microsoft told Tom's Hardware "that there currently aren't any plans to do so", which means that current manufacturing facilities are there to stay. We still don't know how will the rest of OEMs react or comment, but HP also said to Tom's that it shares industry concerns and will not comment any further to the rumors, adding that tariffs are hurting consumers.

MSI's CEO Charles Chiang, quoted by Tom's Hardware at COMPUTEX 2019, laid out what we were already seeing with motherboard designs from all vendors of AMD's X570-based motherboards: pricing is likely increasing across the board, and AMD's market positioning won't be of the alternative, lower-value brand.

As quoted, Chiang said that ""Lots of people ask me, what do you think about today's AMD? I say today's AMD is completely different company compared to two, three, five years ago. They have nice technology and they are there to put the higher spec with the reasonable pricing. But right now they say, "Hey Charles, let's push to marketing to the higher [end]. So let's sell higher-pricing motherboards, higher-spec motherboards, and let's see what will happen in the market. So I don't think that AMD is the company that wants to sell low cost here, low cost there." Which does make sense: AMD isn't in the position of the underdog anymore -at least technology and product-portfolio wise when it comes to consumer CPUs. With better products, comes a desire for higher margins, and a change in direction for a company that was basically forced to almost cut itself out of the market in terms of profits with its previous, non-competitive CPU designs.

Considering your reaction, you certainly remember Crytek's Neon noir raytracing scene that we shared with you back in march. At the time, the fact that raytracing was running at such mesmerizing levels on AMD hardware was arguably the biggest part of the news piece: AMD's Vega 56 graphics card with no dedicated raytracing hardware, was pushing the raytraced scene in a confident manner. Now, Crytek have shared some details on how exactly Neon noir was rendered.

The AMD Radeon Vega 56 pushed the demo at 1080p/30 FPS, with full-resolution rendering of raytraced effects. Crytek further shared that raytracing can be rendered at half resolution compared to the rest of the scene, and that if they did so on AMD's Vega 56, they could push a 1440p resolution at 40+ FPS. The raytraced path wasn't running on any modern, lower-level API, such as DX12 or Vulkan, but rather, on a custom branch of Crytek's CryEngine, version 5.5.

A report from Tom's Hardware.de claims that multiple industry sources have confirmed that NVIDIA will stop offering higher-binned, differentiated A-dies of their Turing silicon. If you'll remember, the company introduced specific A-binned chips for AIB partners to ship with factory overclocks to customers, due to their higher overclockability - and likely, better power consumption profile - when compared to non A-binned dies. This practice was reserved to the company's best, though, in the form of the TU104-400A-A1 die (compared to the TU104-400-A1 dies used in non-overclocked versions of AIB graphics cards). The company is now seemingly killing this practice by offering a one-off Turing die with no such limitations.

This move by NVIDIA - on which we reported firsthand here at TPU - was likely a solution to somewhat less than ideal yields for its TU-104 chips, ensuring partners could provide the best experience to users who were willing to pay the most. The fact of the matter is that AIB partners were locked out of overclocking non-A dies should they acquire them (which were going for less than their higher-binned A-cousins), though the end-user would not see such a limitation - besides the one imposed by the expectedly less capable dies present on those non factory-OC'd cards.

Steam's latest hardware survey has been released, and while there is no real head scratching changes, it does continue to give us a glimpse into current market trends. In regards to CPU adoption, both six-core and eight-core processors now account for 12.2% and 2.2% respectively. Looking at just Windows data shows six-core processors gained a bit over 2% market share in 3 months. Meanwhile, eight-core offerings saw a market share increase of roughly 0.5%. Speaking of processors, Intel still dominates the market capturing an 82% share. AMD, while competitive in many tasks besides gaming still only has an 18% share. Looking at the data would lead one to believe AMD is gaining back market share; however looking at previous hardware surveys their current share is mostly holding steady. Considering Intel still offers better gaming performance for the time being its unlikely AMD will make any real gains in the Steam hardware survey until gaming performance reaches true parity.

Looking at graphics cards, NVIDIA still reigns supreme holding the same 75% market share they have been clutching for quite some time. AMD, on the other hand, continues to struggle, holding a paltry 15% share with Intel and their integrated graphics still managing to hold a 10% share. Considering AMD's only release as of late was the Radeon VII it is not all that surprising to see no change here. That said, NVIDIA's dominance is indeed not a good thing as it means competition is minimal, and pricing is likely to remain high. Right now according to the Steam hardware survey, NVIDIA currently holds the first 12 spots in regards to today's most popular graphics cards, which combine for a 52.8% share. The most popular of these being the GTX 1060. You have to go all the way down to 13th place to find an AMD graphics card which just so happens to be the Radeon RX 580 with its 1.1% share. To find the next AMD graphics card you have to go all the way down to 19th where the companies Radeon R7 Graphics holds steady at 0.87%. Hopefully, AMD's upcoming Navi graphics architecture can bring them back to prominence and drive more competition.

The Vive Cosmos was not the only major announcement coming out of HTC's Vive business unit at CES this year. While that has massive mainstream appeal, the company was quick to let us know that it was still to early to comment further than what has already been covered in the aforelinked news post. Instead, they invited us to their suite to take a closer look at the Vive Pro Eye- one of the few things that really stood out for us at the trade show.

The Vive Pro Eye is, as the name would suggest, a new SKU with integrated eye tracking in the Vive Pro HMD. Working together with Tobii, the Vive Pro Eye allows for a more natural control mechanism within VR via eye controls, which in turn means a revamped menu navigation system is possible. This allows for increased accessibility to end users with disability, more optimization on VR performance, and detailed analysis of VR experiences for both the client and the businesses alike. Read past the break for a breakdown of our experience with the Vive Pro Eye, and the various demos on hand to showcase the feature.

FIDO 2 has been making the rounds for a while as a hardware solution that replaces the dated usage of passwords. Via a hardware token, users with a FIDO 2-enabled drive are able to skip manual introduction of any authentication in both Windows (version 1809 and up) or any supporting website (with a browser that supports the FIDO 2/WebAuthn API. It basically creates a security key using cryptography, where the user only has to press a button on the security key to log into a website. Microsoft has partnered with Yubico for a while now on developing this security mechanism, and the company's FIDO 2 keys are now compatible with the OS.

It has been been making the rounds now on various forum sites (including our own TPU) that problems have been cropping up for users of NVIDIA's Turing-based architecture graphics cards. The reports, which are increasing in number as awareness of the issue increases, vary in their manifestation, but have the same result: "crashes, black screens, blue screen of death issues, artifacts and cards that fail to work entirely," as reported by the original Digital Trends piece.

Of course, at the time, problems with the source for the information were too great to properly discern whether or not this issue stood beyond the usual launch issues and failures that can (and will happen) to any kind of hardware. The fact that people with negative experiences would always be more vocal than those without any problem; the fact that some accounts on the reported forums were of doubtful intent; and that the same user could be posting across multiple forums would always put a stop to any serious measurement of the issue. Now, though, NVIDIA has come out with a statement regarding the issue, which at least recognizes its existence.

Some experts say that the console and PC will be irrelevant very soon: cloud gaming services will make dedicated and powerful hardware unnecessary, but Sony doesn't seem to agree. Kenichiro Yoshida, CEO of Sony, doesn't, and in an interview with the Financial Times he has made it clear that there will be a new PlayStation, although he has not confirmed whether the name of that console will be PlayStation 5.

John Kodera, president of Sony Interactive Entertainment, mentioned months ago in The Wall Street Journal how the company was working on new developments in this area. In fact he mentioned to analysts and investors that in March 2021 PlayStation would "crouch down once" to grow further in the future.

EA-DICE, in an interview with Tom's Hardware, put out some juicy under-the-hood details about the PC release of "Battlefield V." The most prominent of these would be that the commercial release of the game will slightly dial back on the ray-tracing eye-candy we saw at NVIDIA's GeForce RTX launch event demo. DICE is rather conservative about its implementation of ray-tracing, and seems to assure players that the lack of it won't make a tangible difference to the game's production design, and will certainly not affect gameplay (eg: you won't be at a competitive disadvantage just because a squeaky clean car in the middle of a warzone won't reflect an enemy sniper's glint accurately).

"What I think that we will do is take a pass on the levels and see if there is something that sticks out," said Christian Holmquist, technical director at DICE. "Because the materials are not tweaked for ray tracing, but sometimes they may show off something that's too strong or something that was not directly intended. But otherwise we won't change the levels-they'll be as they are. And then we might need to change some parameters in the ray tracing engine itself to maybe tone something down a little bit," he added. Throughout the game's levels and maps, DICE identified objects and elements that could hit framerates hard when ray-tracing is enabled, and "dialed-down" ray-tracing for those assets. For example, a wall located in some level (probably a glass mosaic wall), hit performance too hard, and the developers had to tone down its level of detail.

Tom Petersen, NVIDIA's director of technical marketing, in a webcast with HotHardware, expressed confidence in the value of its RTX 20-series graphics cards - but threw a wrench on consumers' pricing expectations, set by NVIDIA's own MSRP. That NVIDIA's pricing for their Founder's Edition graphics cards would give partners leeway to increase their margins was a given - why exactly would they sell at lower prices than NVIDIA, when they have increased logistical (and other) costs to support? And this move by NVIDIA might even serve as a small hand-holding for partners - remember that every NVIDIA-manufactured graphics cad sold is one that doesn't go to its AIB's bottom-lines, so there's effectively another AIB contending for their profits. This way, NVIDIA gives them an opportunity to make some of those profits back (at least concerning official MSRP).

Thermaltake, a leading premium gaming tower manufacturer, announced the immediate availability of Thermaltake Level 20 XT Cube Chassis. The level 20 XT has a unique flat motherboard design that puts components on display from any angle, and a split-level design that separates cooling, PSU and hardware components in the upper and lower sections. The Level 20 XT takes our latest case innovations and wraps them in an ultra-modern style that's utterly unique in the case market today.

Level 20 XT supports up to E-ATX motherboards, CPU coolers up to 250mm in height, VGA lengths up to 400mm and PSU sizes up to 220mm in length. The XT also supports up to 480mm radiators, with mounting positions along the top, the front, or along either side in the lower compartment.

The ongoing US-China trade-war is going to jack up prices of PC hardware and other electronics products made in China (PRC). This will also affect prices of products made by American companies that are manufactured in China. A new tranche of goods and services prescribes a 25 percent import tariff on "electronic integrated circuits: processors and controllers," "electronic integrated circuits: memories," "electronic integrated circuits: amplifiers," "electronic integrated circuits: other," which about covers all PC hardware. This tariff takes effect on August 23, 2018.

A component costing $100 at a US port, could be inflated to $125 before Federal and State taxes are applied, not to mention costs of the rest of the supply-chain, leading up to your retailer and their margins. Not all PC hardware is made in China. Goods imported from Taiwan (ROC), South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia (the other known countries where PC hardware is manufactured), remains unchanged. China remains America's biggest source of electronics imports.Many Thanks to Flyordie for the tip.

As independent third-party experts in the software quality assurance and testing industry for over 20 years, QA Consultants has conducted over 5,000+ mission-critical projects and has extensive testing experience and depth in various industries. Based in Toronto, Ontario, QA Consultants is the largest on-shore software quality assurance company, with a 30,000 sq. ft., industry-grade facility called The Test Factory.

NVIDIA has reportedly briefed its add-in card (AIC) partners about its upcoming GeForce product family, codenamed "Turing," and bearing a commercial nomenclature of either GeForce 11-series, or GeForce 20-series. This sets in motion a 2-3 month long process of rolling out new graphics cards by board partners, beginning with reference-design "Founders Edition" SKUs, followed by custom-design SKUs. Sources tell Tom's Hardware Germany that AIC partners have began training product development teams. NVIDIA has also released a BoM (bill of materials) to its partners, so aside from the ASIC itself, they could begin the process of sourcing other components for their custom-design products (such as coolers, memory chips, VRM components, connectors, etc.).

The BoM also specifies a timeline for the tentative amount of time it takes for each of the main stages of the product development, leading up to mass-production. It stipulates 11-12 weeks (2-3 months) leading up to mass-production and shipping, which could put product-launch some time in August (assuming the BoM was released some time in May-June). A separate table also provides a fascinating insight to the various stages of development of a custom-design NVIDIA graphics card.