Intel and 2K Games are teaming up to launch the Intel Builder Bundle, featuring the highly anticipated Sid Meier's Civilization VII. Starting today, gamers who purchase qualifying Intel Core Ultra processors (series 2) or Intel Core desktop processors (14th Gen) from participating sellers will be eligible to receive a digital copy of Civilization VII to play when the game launches on February 11, 2025.

"It's hard to come up with franchises in the PC gaming industry more iconic than Sid Meier's Civilization, and Intel is thrilled to continue its years-long partnership with 2K Games and Firaxis on the series' latest installment. Whether it's a marathon session with friends or just 'one more turn' before logging off, gamers around the world can depend on Intel Core and Core Ultra processors to deliver the best Civilization experience on a PC."

• Roger Chandler, VP and GM, Enthusiast and Workstation PC, Intel

Supermicro, Inc. (SMCI), a Total IT Solution Provider for AI/ML, HPC, Cloud, Storage, and 5G/Edge, is showcasing the latest solutions for the retail industry in collaboration with NVIDIA at the National Retail Federation (NRF) annual show. As generative AI (GenAI) grows in capability and becomes more easily accessible, retailers are leveraging NVIDIA NIM microservices, part of the NVIDIA AI Enterprise software platform, for a broad spectrum of applications.

"Supermicro's innovative server, storage, and edge computing solutions improve retail operations, store security, and operational efficiency," said Charles Liang, president and CEO of Supermicro. "At NRF, Supermicro is excited to introduce retailers to AI's transformative potential and to revolutionize the customer's experience. Our systems here will help resolve day-to-day concerns and elevate the overall buying experience."

Supermicro, Inc. a Total IT Solution Provider for AI/ML, HPC, Cloud, Storage, and 5G/Edge is commencing shipments of max-performance servers featuring Intel Xeon 6900 series processors with P-cores. The new systems feature a range of new and upgraded technologies with new architectures optimized for the most demanding high-performance workloads including large-scale AI, cluster-scale HPC, and environments where a maximum number of GPUs are needed, such as collaborative design and media distribution.

"The systems now shipping in volume promise to unlock new capabilities and levels of performance for our customers around the world, featuring low latency, maximum I/O expansion providing high throughput with 256 performance cores per system, 12 memory channels per CPU with MRDIMM support, and high performance EDSFF storage options," said Charles Liang, president and CEO of Supermicro. "We are able to ship our complete range of servers with these new application-optimized technologies thanks to our Server Building Block Solutions design methodology. With our global capacity to ship solutions at any scale, and in-house developed liquid cooling solutions providing unrivaled cooling efficiency, Supermicro is leading the industry into a new era of maximum performance computing."

We have already confirmed that Intel is continuing the development of Arc gaming GPUs beyond the current Xe2 "Battlemage" series, with the new Xe3 "Celestial" architecture in the works. However, thanks to PCWorld's The Full Nerd podcast, Tom Petersen of Intel confirmed that the Xe3 IP has been finished, and the hardware teams are already working on the next Xe4 "Druid" GPU IP. "Our architects are way ahead of us, and they are already working on not the next thing but the next thing after the next thing," said Petersen, adding: "The way I would like to comment is our IP that's kind of called Xe3, which is the one after Xe2, that's pretty much baked, right. And so the software teams have a lot of work to do on Xe3. The hardware teams are off on the next thing, right. That's our cadence, that we need to keep going."

The base IP of next-generation Xe3 "Celestial" GPUs is done. That means the basic media engines, Xe cores, XMX matrix engines, ray tracing engines, and other parts of the gaming GPU are already designed and most likely awaiting trial fabrication. The software to support this Xe3 is also being developed while Intel's team is working on enabling more optimizations for the Xe2 "Battlemage" architecture, which we previewed recently. We assume that Intel's Xe GPU will now follow a stricter cadence of releases, with SKUs getting updated much faster, given that a lot is prepared for the future.

SPARKLE Intel Arc B-Series Graphics Card offer offers high-resolution gaming with Intel XeSS AI upscaling, ray tracing, and 8K media support, plus accelerated AI features for enhanced creation and editing through Intel AI Playground.

SPARKLE, an Intel official AIB partner, is announcing:

SPARKLE Intel Arc B580 TITAN OC - with Limited GPU Holder
The SPARKLE Intel Arc B580 TITAN OC debuts with 12 GB GDDR6 memory and advanced TORN Cooling 2.0 featuring triple AXL fans, a 2.2-slot design, and a full-metal backplate. With a boost clock of 2740 MHz and 200 W power consumption, it delivers top-tier gaming performance.
A blue breathing light effect adds elegance, while a limited SPARKLE GPU Holder completes this powerhouse package. The TITAN Series continues its legacy of performance and style.

Acer today announced an expansion to its gaming portfolio with the new Nitro Intel Arc B-Series graphics cards, aimed at DIY gamers seeking high-performance gaming and content creation upgrades for their PC setups.

The Nitro Intel Arc B570 OC 10 GB and Nitro Intel Arc B580 OC 12 GB graphics cards, with clock speeds up to 2,740 MHz and up to 12 GB GDDR6 memory, offer gamers an immersive experience and access to the latest AI technologies via the Intel AI Playground application. These graphics cards are equipped with Acer's advanced FrostBlade cooling systems to ensure peak performance.

Today, Intel announced the new Intel Arc B-Series graphics cards (code-named Battlemage). The Intel Arc B580 and B570 GPUs offer best-in-class value for performance at price points that are accessible to most gamers, deliver modern gaming features and are engineered to accelerate AI workloads. The included Intel Xe Matrix Extensions (XMX) AI engines power the newly introduced XeSS 2, comprised of three technologies that together increase performance, visual fluidity and responsiveness.

"The new Intel Arc B-Series GPUs are the perfect upgrades for gamers. They deliver leading performance-per-dollar and great 1440p gaming experiences with XeSS 2, second-generation ray tracing engines and XMX AI engines. We're delighted to be joined by more partners than ever so that gamers have more choice in finding their perfect design." -Vivian Lien, Intel vice president and general manager of Client Graphics[Editor's note: Our preview of the Arc Battlemage Series is now live]

ASRock, the global leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, mini PCs, gaming monitors and power supply units, today launches the all-new Intel Arc B-Series graphics cards, including Steel Legend and Challenger products based on Intel Arc B580 and Intel Arc B570 Graphics, which are born to shine your PC builds!

Based on the latest Xe2-HPG architecture, Intel Arc B-Series GPUs are designed for high performance gaming at 1440p and 1080p with AI upscaling and ray tracing. They are equipped with cutting-edge features: Intel Xe Super Sampling technology (XeSS), which takes your gaming experience to the next level with AI-enhanced upscaling for higher performance and high image fidelity. Intel XeSS Frame Generation and Intel Xe Low Latency technologies make your games play smoother and more responsive. Intel Xe Matrix eXtensions (XMX) AI engines accelerate AI-enhanced gaming, creation, and media generation. The Advanced Media Engine accelerates your content creation with two full-featured media transcoders to speed up the media exporting across the most popular formats including AV1.

FunkyIT scored an ASRock Arc B580 Steel Legend 12 GB "Battlemage" graphics card that they previewed on their channel. The card appears fairly large, considering that Intel is positioning the B580 to be an upper-mid range GPU, if we go by the naming convention of the previous "Alchemist" generation, and the A580. The ASRock Steel Legend product features a large, aluminium dual fin-stack cooler featuring a trio of fans, and what looks like a metallic, dual-tone cooler shroud and backplate combo. The PCB underneath is a little over half the length of the card, which means nearly half the heatsink's airflow passes through the card and out large cutouts in the backplate.

The card draws power from a pair of 8-pin PCIe power connectors, a combination rated for up to 375 W power delivery. Previous leaks suggest that the ASRock B580 Steel Legend features RGB lighting in the form of a large Steel Legend ornament on top of the card, and the three fans each feature RGB LED lighting. FunkyIT also showed off the retail box of the card. There's no change in the Intel Arc main branding, but attention is given to the Intel XeSS technology logo, which mentions "AI Upscaling." The XMX cores, which are the main AI acceleration hardware on discrete Arc GPUs, get their own separate branding on the box. Intel isn't just going after gamers, but also creators, and AI acceleration markets. "Play, Create, Generate," reads the box.

ASUS today announced its groundbreaking next-generation infrastructure solutions at SC24, featuring a comprehensive lineup powered by AMD and Intel, as well as liquid-cooling solutions designed to accelerate the future of AI. By continuously pushing the limits of innovation, ASUS simplifies the complexities of AI and high-performance computing (HPC) through adaptive server solutions paired with expert cooling and software-development services, tailored for the exascale era and beyond. As a total-solution provider with a distinguished history in pioneering AI supercomputing, ASUS is committed to delivering exceptional value to its customers.

Comprehensive Lineup for AI and HPC Success
To fuel enterprise digital transformation through HPC and AI-driven architecture, ASUS provides a full lineup of server systems that are powered by AMD and Intel. Startups, research institutions, large enterprises or government organizations all could find the adaptive solutions to unlock value and accelerate business agility from the big data.

The 64th edition of the TOP500 reveals that El Capitan has achieved the top spot and is officially the third system to reach exascale computing after Frontier and Aurora. Both systems have since moved down to No. 2 and No. 3 spots, respectively. Additionally, new systems have found their way onto the Top 10.

The new El Capitan system at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, U.S.A., has debuted as the most powerful system on the list with an HPL score of 1.742 EFlop/s. It has 11,039,616 combined CPU and GPU cores and is based on AMD 4th generation EPYC processors with 24 cores at 1.8 GHz and AMD Instinct MI300A accelerators. El Capitan relies on a Cray Slingshot 11 network for data transfer and achieves an energy efficiency of 58.89 GigaFLOPS/watt. This power efficiency rating helped El Capitan achieve No. 18 on the GREEN500 list as well.

MSI previously gave us a teaser of what to expect from its upcoming Claw 8 AI+ gaming handheld with Intel's Lunar Lake Core Ultra CPUs, calling it "the most advanced 8-inch gaming handheld in the market," but a recent CES listing has divulged more details about the upcoming challenger to the likes of the Lenovo Legion Go. For starters, the upgraded battery capacity has been revealed, along with an estimated battery life and performance figures. Supposedly, more information will be revealed about the Claw 8 AI+ at CES 2025, which starts on January 7, 2025.

According to the CES page, the new MSI Claw 8 AI+ will have an 8-inch display and an 82 WHr battery, which will supposedly be able to deliver "4+ hours of gameplay for AAA titles." However, these manufacturer claims are generally to be taken with healthy helpings of salt, especially in when it comes to claims as nebulous as "AAA titles" without any proposed quality settings, specific games, or frame rates. Regarding the display, it wouldn't be surprising to see MSI use the same display as the one found in the Lenovo Legion Go, since there is a somewhat limited selection of 8-inch displays for handheld gaming devices. The MSI Claw 8 AI+ will also use Intel's 2nd-generation ARC iGPUs in conjunction with AI-enhanced graphics, which should provide a healthy uptick in both performance and efficiency, with the CES listing touting 48 TOPS of compute power.

AMD has published a blog post about its latest AMD Ryzen AI 300 series processors, claiming they are changing the game for portable devices. To back these claims, Team Red has compared its Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor to Intel's latest Core Ultra 7 258V, using the following games: Assassin's Creed Mirage, Baldur's Gate 3, Borderlands 3, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, Cyberpunk 2077, Doom Eternal, Dying Light 2 Stay Human, F1 24, Far Cry 6, Forza Horizon 5, Ghost of Tsushima, Hitman 3, Hogwarts Legacy, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Spider-Man Remastered, and Tiny Tina's Wonderlands. The conclusion was that AMD's Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, with its integrated Radeon 890M graphics powerhouse, outperformed the Intel "Lunar Lake" Core Ultra 7 258V with Intel Arc Graphics 140V by 75% on average.

To support this performance leap, AMD also relies on software technologies, including FidelityFX Super Resolution 3 (FSR 3) and HYPR-RX, to unlock additional power and gaming efficiency. FSR 3 alone enhances visuals in over 95 games, while HYPR-RX, with features like AMD Fluid Motion Frames 2 (AFMF 2) and Radeon Anti-Lag, provides substantial performance boosts across thousands of games. The company has also compared its FSR/HYPR-RS combination with Intel's XeSS, which is available in around 130 games. AMD claims its broader suite supports 415+ games and is optimized for smoother gameplay. The AFMF 2 claims support with thousands of titles, while Intel's GPU software stack lacks a comparison point. Of course, these marketing claims are to be taken with a grain of salt, so independent testing is always the best to compare the two.

ASUS today announced its groundbreaking next-generation infrastructure solutions at SC24, featuring a comprehensive lineup powered by AMD and Intel, as well as liquid-cooling solutions designed to accelerate the future of AI. By continuously pushing the limits of innovation, ASUS simplifies the complexities of AI and high-performance computing (HPC) through adaptive server solutions paired with expert cooling and software-development services, tailored for the exascale era and beyond. As a total-solution provider with a distinguished history in pioneering AI supercomputing, ASUS is committed to delivering exceptional value to its customers.

Comprehensive line-up for AI and HPC success
To fuel enterprise digital transformation through HPC and AI-driven architecture, ASUS provides a full lineup of server systems that powered by AMD and Intel. Startups, research institutions, large enterprises or government organizations all could find the adaptive solutions to unlock value and accelerate business agility from the big data.

MSI, a leading global provider of high-performance server solutions, is excited to showcase its comprehensive lineup of motherboards and servers based on the OCP Modular Hardware System (DC-MHS) architecture at the OCP Global Summit from October 15-17 at booth A6. These cutting-edge solutions represent a breakthrough in server designs, enabling flexible deployments for cloud and high-density data centers. Featured innovations include CXL memory expansion servers and AI-optimized servers, demonstrating MSI's leadership in pushing the boundaries of AI performance and computing power.

DC-MHS Series Motherboards and Servers: Enabling Flexible Deployment in Data Centers
"The rapidly evolving IT landscape requires cloud service providers, large-scale data center operators, and enterprises to handle expanding workloads and future growth with more flexible and powerful infrastructure. MSI's new rage of DC-MHS-based solutions provides the needed flexibility and efficiency for modern data center environments," said Danny Hsu, General Manager of Enterprise Platform Solutions.

Flex today announced new reference platforms for liquid-cooled servers, rack, and power products that will enable customers to sustainably accelerate data center growth. These innovations build on Flex's ability to address technical challenges associated with power, heat generation, and scale to support artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC) workloads.

"Flex delivers integrated data center IT and power infrastructure solutions that address the growing power and compute demands in the AI era," said Michael Hartung, president and chief commercial officer, Flex. "We are expanding our unique portfolio of advanced manufacturing capabilities, innovative products, and lifecycle services, enabling customers to deploy IT and power infrastructure at scale and drive AI data center expansion."

Jabil Inc. announced today that it is expanding its server portfolio with the J421E-S and J422-S servers, powered by AMD 5th Generation EPYC and Intel Xeon 6 processors. These servers are purpose-built for scalability in a variety of cloud data center applications, including AI, high-performance computing (HPC), fintech, networking, storage, databases, and security — representing the latest generation of server innovation from Jabil.

Built with customization and innovation in mind, the design-ready J422-S and J421E-S servers will allow engineering teams to meet customers' specific requirements. By fine-tuning Jabil's custom BIOS and BMC firmware, Jabil can create a competitive advantage for customers by developing the server configuration needed for higher performance, data management, and security. The server platforms are now available for sampling and will be in production by the first half of 2025.

ASUS today announced its all-new line-up of Intel Xeon 6 processor-powered servers, ready to satisfy the escalating demand for high-performance computing (HPC) solutions. The new servers include the multi-node ASUS RS920Q-E12, which supports Intel Xeon 6900 series processors for HPC applications; and the ASUS RS720Q-E12, RS720-E12 and RS700-E12 server models, embedded with Intel Xeon 6700 series with E-cores, will also support Intel Xeon 6700/6500 series with P-cores in Q1, 2025, to provide seamless integration and optimization for modern data centers and diverse IT environments.

These powerful new servers, built on the solid foundation of trusted and resilient ASUS server design, offer improved scalability, enabling clients to build customized data centers and scale up their infrastructure to achieve their highest computing potential - ready to deliver HPC success across diverse industries and use cases.

Giga Computing, a subsidiary of GIGABYTE and an industry leader in generative AI servers and advanced cooling technologies, today announced its first wave of GIGABYTE servers for Intel Xeon 6 Processors with P-cores. This new Intel Xeon platform is engineered to optimize per-core-performance for compute-intensive and AI intensive workloads, as well as general purpose applications. GIGABYTE servers for these workloads are built to achieve the best possible performance by fine tuning the server design to the chip design and to specific workloads. ⁠

All new GIGABYTE servers support Intel Xeon 6900-series processors with P-cores that have up to 128 cores and up to 96 PCIe Gen 5 lanes. Additionally, for greater performance in memory intensive workloads, the 6900-series expands to 12 channel memory, and makes available up to 64 lanes CXL 2.0. Overall, this modular SOC architecture has great potential with the ability to leverage a shared platform for running both performance and efficiency optimized architecture.⁠

As AI continues to revolutionize industries, enterprises are increasingly in need of infrastructure that is both cost-effective and available for rapid development and deployment. To meet this demand head-on, Intel today launched Xeon 6 with Performance-cores (P-cores) and Gaudi 3 AI accelerators, bolstering the company's commitment to deliver powerful AI systems with optimal performance per watt and lower total cost of ownership (TCO).

"Demand for AI is leading to a massive transformation in the data center, and the industry is asking for choice in hardware, software and developer tools," said Justin Hotard, Intel executive vice president and general manager of the Data Center and Artificial Intelligence Group. "With our launch of Xeon 6 with P-cores and Gaudi 3 AI accelerators, Intel is enabling an open ecosystem that allows our customers to implement all of their workloads with greater performance, efficiency and security."

MSI, a leading global server provider, today introduced its latest server platforms, powered by Intel Xeon 6 processor with Performance Cores (P-cores). These new products deliver unprecedented performance for compute-intensive tasks, tailored to meet the diverse demands of data center workloads.

"The demand for data center performance has never been greater, driven by compute-intensive AI, HPC applications, and mission-critical database and analytics workloads," said Danny Hsu, General Manager of Enterprise Platform Solutions. "To meet these demands, IT teams need reliable performance across an increasingly diverse array of workloads." MSI's new server platforms, powered by Intel Xeon 6 processors, deliver high performance across a broad range of tasks, meeting diverse requirements for both performance and efficiency.

Giga Computing, a subsidiary of GIGABYTE and an industry leader in generative AI servers and advanced cooling technologies, today announced new flagship GIGABYTE G593 series servers supporting direct liquid cooling (DLC) technology to advance green data centers using NVIDIA HGX H200 GPU. As DLC technology is becoming a necessity for many data centers, GIGABYTE continues to increase its product portfolio with new DLC solutions for GPU and CPU technologies, and for these new G593 servers the cold plates are made by CoolIT Systems.

G593 Series - Tailored Cooling
The GPU-centric G593 series is custom engineered to house an 8-GPU baseboard, and its design had foresight for both air and liquid cooling. The compact 5U chassis leads the industry in its readily scalable nature, fitting up to sixty-four GPUs in a single rack and supporting 100kW of IT hardware. This helps to consolidate the IT hardware, and in turn, decrease the data center footprint. The G593 series servers for DLC are in response to the rising customer demand for greater energy efficiency. Liquids have a higher thermal conductivity than air, so they can rapidly and effectively remove heat from hot components to maintain lower operating temperatures. And by relying on water and heat exchangers, the overall energy consumption of the data center is reduced.

Intel today launched its most efficient family of x86 processors ever, the Intel Core Ultra 200V series processors. They deliver exceptional performance, breakthrough x86 power efficiency, a massive leap in graphics performance, no-compromise application compatibility, enhanced security and unmatched AI compute. The technology will power the industry's most complete and capable AI PCs with more than 80 consumer designs from more than 20 of the world's top manufacturing partners, including Acer, ASUS, Dell Technologies, HP, Lenovo, LG, MSI and Samsung. Pre-orders begin today with systems available globally on-shelf and online at over 30 global retailers starting Sept. 24. All designs featuring Intel Core Ultra 200V series processors and running the latest version of Windows are eligible to receive Copilot+ PC features as a free update starting in November.

"Intel's newest Core Ultra processors set the industry standard for mobile AI and graphics performance, and smash misconceptions about x86 efficiency. Only Intel has the scale through our partnerships with ISVs and OEMs, and the broader technology ecosystem, to provide consumers with a no-compromise AI PC experience."
--Michelle Johnston Holthaus, Intel executive vice president and general manager of the Client Computing Group

Demonstrating the depth and breadth of its technologies at Hot Chips 2024, Intel showcased advancements across AI use cases - from the data center, cloud and network to the edge and PC - while covering the industry's most advanced and first-ever fully integrated optical compute interconnect (OCI) chiplet for high-speed AI data processing. The company also unveiled new details about the Intel Xeon 6 SoC (code-named Granite Rapids-D), scheduled to launch during the first half of 2025.

"Across consumer and enterprise AI usages, Intel continuously delivers the platforms, systems and technologies necessary to redefine what's possible. As AI workloads intensify, Intel's broad industry experience enables us to understand what our customers need to drive innovation, creativity and ideal business outcomes. While more performant silicon and increased platform bandwidth are essential, Intel also knows that every workload has unique challenges: A system designed for the data center can no longer simply be repurposed for the edge. With proven expertise in systems architecture across the compute continuum, Intel is well-positioned to power the next generation of AI innovation." -Pere Monclus, chief technology officer, Network and Edge Group at Intel.

Intel Corporation today reported second-quarter 2024 financial results. "Our Q2 financial performance was disappointing, even as we hit key product and process technology milestones. Second-half trends are more challenging than we previously expected, and we are leveraging our new operating model to take decisive actions that will improve operating and capital efficiencies while accelerating our IDM 2.0 transformation," said Pat Gelsinger, Intel CEO. "These actions, combined with the launch of Intel 18A next year to regain process technology leadership, will strengthen our position in the market, improve our profitability and create shareholder value."

"Second-quarter results were impacted by gross margin headwinds from the accelerated ramp of our AI PC product, higher than typical charges related to non-core businesses and the impact from unused capacity," said David Zinsner, Intel CFO. "By implementing our spending reductions, we are taking proactive steps to improve our profits and strengthen our balance sheet. We expect these actions to meaningfully improve liquidity and reduce our debt balance while enabling us to make the right investments to drive long-term value for shareholders."