Intel's freshly uploaded fourth-quarter 2024 "CEO/CFO earnings call comments" document has revealed grand CPU-related plans for 2025 and beyond. One of Team Blue's interim leaders—Michelle Johnston Holthaus—believes that "Nova Lake" processors (a next-generation client family) will arrive in 2026, following a comprehensive rollout of "Panther Lake" CPU products. This official timeline matches previously leaked and rumored development schedules—most notably, in a shipping manifest that was discovered last week. In recent times, industry watchdogs have linked "Nova Lake" to Intel's own 14A node and a TSMC 2 nm process node. Additionally, tipsters pointed to an apparent selection of Coyote Cove performance cores and Arctic Wolf efficiency-oriented cores.

Following yesterday's official announcements, a leaker shared several insights—theorized core configurations and manufacturing details were posted on the Hardware subreddit. Community members were engaged in a debate over Intel's "killing of Falcon Shore," but a plucky contributor—going under the moniker "Exist50"—redirected conversation to all-things "Nova Lake." They believe that Intel has shifted all "compute dies to TSMC" for manufacturing, after a change in plans—initial designs had the "8+16 die" on TSMC's N2P, and the "4+8 die on Intel 18A." Exist50 seemed to have inside track knowledge of product ranges: "Nova Lake (NVL) has a unified HUB/SoC die across mobile and desktop. So yeah, the baseline there is 4+8+4. But there's at least one more die for mobile." The flagship desktop (NVL-S or NVL-SK) chip's configuration could feature as many as sixteen performance cores and thirty-two efficiency cores, due to tile reuse—2x (8P+16E). Exist50 advised Intel CPU enthusiasts to forgo current generation offerings. "Nova Lake" should be: "quite a jump from Arrow Lake (ARL) in terms of MT performance, to say the least. I think anyone who buys ARL will end up regretting it, big time!"

Japan's Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun newspaper believes that Rapidus will be installing a grand total of ten "extreme ultraviolet (EUV) exposure tools" at two cutting-edge semiconductor production sites. Government subsidies have assisted in boosting Japan's semiconductor industry to new highs—Rapidus is reportedly catching up with the likes of TSMC. Its 2 nm-class process node could be up and running by 2027, at the currently under-construction Innovative Integration for Manufacturing One (IIM-1) facility. This location welcomed its first ASML NXE:3800E EUV lithography machine last December—this occasion marked the debut deployment of said technology in Japan.

The Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun report cites statements made by Rapidus CEO, Atsuyoshi Koike—according to the boss, ten new machines will be distributed across two fabrication facilities: at the aforementioned IIM-1, as well as IIM-2. The second location is expected to come online not long after the completion of IIM-1. It is not clear whether the foundries will be installing more examples of ASML's NXE:3800E model, and an exact timeframe was not disclosed. An older Nikkei article suggests that a trial run—utilizing 2 nm generation gate-all-around (GAA) technology—will begin around April (2025) at the primary Rapidus fab. A theorized schedule proposes that initial samples are due for shipment to Broadcom (in the USA) by mid-year.

Huawei's Ascend 910C AI chip was positioned as one of the better Chinese-developed alternatives to NVIDIA's H100 accelerator—reports from last autumn suggested that samples were being sent to highly important customers. The likes of Alibaba, Baidu, and Tencent have long relied on Team Green enterprise hardware for all manner of AI crunching, but trade sanctions have severely limited the supply and potency of Western-developed AI chips. NVIDIA's region-specific B20 "Blackwell" accelerator is due for release this year, but industry watchdogs reckon that the Ascend 910C AI GPU is a strong rival. The latest online rumblings have pointed to another major Huawei customer—DeepSeek—having Ascend silicon in their back pockets.

DeepSeek's recent unveiling of its R1 open-source large language model has disrupted international AI markets. A lot of press attention has focused on DeepSeek's CEO stating that his team can access up to 50,000 NVIDIA H100 GPUs, but many have not looked into the company's (alleged) pool of natively-made chips. Yesterday, Alexander Doria—an LLM enthusiast—shared an interesting insight: "I feel this should be a much bigger story—DeepSeek has trained on NVIDIA H800, but is running inference on the new home Chinese chips made by Huawei, the 910C." Experts believe that there will be a plentiful supply of Ascend 910C GPUs—estimates from last September posit that 70,000 chips (worth around $2 billion) were in the mass production pipeline. Additionally, industry whispers suggest that Huawei is already working on a—presumably, even more powerful—successor.

Intel's relatively new lineup of Arc B-series "Battlemage" desktop graphics cards consists of B580 and B570 GPUs—these affordable models have been warmly welcomed by reviewers and customers alike. PC hardware enthusiasts—with larger wallets—will be pondering over possible future launches of mid-tier or higher-end SKUs. Industry insiders have not picked up on much chatter regarding possible successors to Team Blue's mid-range Arc "Alchemist" A770 and A750 GPUs. The speculation machine has been fired up again, following the appearance of three new "Battlemage" PC IDs. Intel's Linux kernel has been updated with these new additions—as discovered by Tomasz Gawroński (aka GawroskiT), earlier today.

A brief sentence outlines "3 new PCI IDs for BMG," with no further or follow-up information included. Several industry watchdogs believe that Intel's graphics hardware division has moved on from creating new Xe2 "Battlemage" products—Team Blue representatives have officially admitted that their Xe3 "Celestial" architecture is complete, and its engineers have already started work on the Xe4 "Druid" GPU IP. Instead, the three new identifiers could be linked to a late December leak. At the time, Quantum Bits claimed that Arc B580 variants with larger pools of VRAM were in the pipeline—these "Arc Pro" cards are supposedly workstation-oriented models. Insiders reckon that a product launch is planned for later in 2025.

Qualcomm's Snapdragon X2 processor family was outed last autumn—online sources revealed an Iceland-themed "Project Glymur" moniker, as well as the "SC8480XP" SKU codename. At the time, leakers suggested that Qualcomm engineers had started testing early samples around July/August—further speculation pointed to "Snapdragon X Elite Gen 2" chipsets being evaluated on desktop platforms.

Yesterday, Everest (aka Olrak29_) discovered another SKU—their social media post included an intriguing screenshot, extracted from a shipping manifest. The image's contents reveals the existence of an "Ultra Premium" model, with part number: X2-000-096. Qualcomm has publicly acknowledged that it is working on successors, for launch in 2025—its third generation of "Oryon" CPU cores are lined up for inclusion in the next-gen AI PC project. Second-gen "Oryon" cores are reserved for smartphone platforms. The leaked "Ultra Premium" chip could sit in a new product tier—possibly positioned above the already established high-end "Elite" range.

Intel executives are reportedly dealing with a major challenge that affects its portfolio of European manufacturing facilities—a recent RTÉ News article placed focus on Team Blue's Fab 34 site, located in Leixlip, Ireland. Energy costs are climbing across the globe, but inside sources believe that company leaders have expressed concern regarding the cost of powering the Irish facility. Last week's report posits that senior Intel figures are committed to keeping Fab 34 alive for a while—seemingly unaffected by a widespread cost-cutting initiative—this high-volume production site remains: "critical to its European operation for at least the next seven years."

Intel is reportedly already engaged in talks with the Irish government—likely negotiating over strategies that will lower its local energy bills in County Kildare. Additionally, other channels are—supposedly—being explored via the EU Chips Act. RTÉ News gathered comments from unnamed senior sources at the recently concluded Davos World Economic Forum—one individual stated that Ireland's (advantageous) lower labor costs are sharply offset by the higher cost of energy. The report claims that Team Blue: "estimates that in Ireland energy costs are 15 cent per kilowatt-hour, around double that in other markets where Intel operates." Fab 34's operating costs have been compared to similarly-equipped facilities in the USA and Israel. Executive sources believe that Ireland-specific problems stem from infrastructure backlogs in the renewable sector, and the fixed cost of delivering energy from offshore wind farms—the latter tends to pass expenses on to customers.

AMD Radeon engineers are spending newly allocated extra time on optimizing their upcoming FidelityFX Super Resolution 4 (FSR 4) technology—industry watchdogs believe that a finalized version will launch alongside the initial lineup of RDNA 4 graphics card, now scheduled for release in March. Recently, David McAfee—Vice President and General Manager of Ryzen and Radeon products—revealed that his colleagues were working hard on maximizing performance and enabling "more FSR 4 titles." Insiders have started theorizing about how the current landscape of FSR 3.1-compatible games will translate with next-gen "AI-driven" upscaling techniques—several outlets believe that a freshly patched PC version of The Last of Us Part I is paving the way for eventual "easy" updates.

Kepler_L2—an almost endless fountain of Team Red-related insider knowledge—picked up on a past weekend VideoCardz report, and proceeded to add some extra tidbits via social media interaction. They started off by claiming that Team Red's: "RDNA 4 driver replaces FSR 3.1 DLL with FSR 4." When queried about the implication of said development, Kepler believes that all FSR 3.1 game titles will become ready to support FSR 4 on day one. The upgrade process—possibly achieved through a driver-level DLL swap—is reportedly quite easy to implement. According to the insider: "yeah, it should just work."

Gplay.BG's YouTube channel uploaded a fascinating video feature over the past weekend—providing another look at PowerColor's Radeon RX 9070 XT Red Devil special edition retail package. The Bulgarian retailer's CEO—Ivan Hinov (aka DonBrutar)—appeared to have a sealed box in-hand. Gplay's presentation implies that they have joined the ranks of other European shops having RDNA 4-based cards in-stock, although VideoCardz reckons that special/limited edition Red Devil bundles (of recent generations) are normally distributed to media outlets. Hinov repeatedly referred to one of VideoCardz's recent news articles—regarding a speculated AMD Radeon RX 9070 GPU series launch window. Industry insiders reckon that AMD had—initially—formed a release strategy focusing on late January, possibly on the 23rd. The new cards will be launched around March time, according to an official Team Red statement.

Gplay's video provides some extra insight on this topic—Hinov confirms (in a roundabout way) that his company received information about a January release window, prior to Team Red's announcing of a postponement. The VideoCardz insider network discovered possible launch MSRPs of: "around $899 for the RX 9070 XT, and $749 for the non-XT." Interestingly, Gplay's chief commented on these rumors during his comparison segment: "delay of the Radeon RX 9070 (non-XT) and Radeon RX 9070 XT has created uncertainty. These cards were expected to launch at prices significantly higher than the Radeon RX 7800 XT and close to the Radeon RX 7900 XT, which makes little sense. For example, the Radeon RX 9070 XT was rumored to cost 500 BGN (~$269 USD) more than the RX 7900 XT while offering only marginally better performance. This pricing strategy was a clear mistake."

Late last week, the official PowerColor website was updated with dedicated product pages for their Radeon RX 9070 XT Hellhound and Reaper custom designs going live. As expected, a bare minimum of information is displayed alongside multiple promo images—we witnessed this exact same pattern with the Red Devil's official listing, half-way through January. AMD's board partners are seemingly keeping quiet about first wave RDNA 4 hardware specifications—TechPowerUp and other tech news outlets have, so far, ascertained the fundamentals from leaks and accidental listings.

An extensive hands-on experience—at CES—was covered in our news section, but PowerColor's showroom representatives were not overly chatty when asked about under-the-hood details. Allegedly, the company's Radeon RX 9070 (non-XT) Reaper model has turned up at a British e-tailer's warehouse—printed SKU info indicated the presence of 16 GB VRAM. Judging from photos and renders, the Navi-48 GPU-based Hellhound and Reaper are relatively svelte when compared to the chunkily-proportioned (triple-slot) Red Devil. The new Hellhound model occupies the middle of PowerColor's graphics card product stack—this dual-slot design features a smattering of RGB lighting and a dual BIOS switching system, the latter implies that a factory overclock has been implemented. The slightly smaller (SFF-friendly) affordable-tier Reaper card is reportedly specced with reference clocks—looking at photos, there is no physical mode switcher present on this design. The barebones Reaper aesthetic does not encompass fancy integrated lighting systems—anti-RGB champions will find this choice most pleasing.

A set of newly leaked benchmarks has revealed the performance capabilities of NVIDIA's upcoming RTX 5080 GPU. Scheduled to launch alongside the RTX 5090 on January 30, the GPU was spotted on Geekbench under OpenCL and Vulkan benchmark tests—and based on the performance, it might not make it among the best graphics cards. The tested device was an MSI-branded RTX 5080 labeled as model MS-7E62. This setup had AMD's Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor, which many consider one of the best CPUs for gaming. It also included an MSI MPG 850 Edge TI Wi-Fi motherboard and 32 GB of DDR5-6000 memory.

The benchmark results show that the RTX 5080 scored 261,836 points in Vulkan and 256,138 points in OpenCL tests. Compared to the RTX 4080, its previous version, the RTX 5080 has a 22% boost in Vulkan performance and a small 6.7% gain in OpenCL. Reddit user TruthPhoenixV found that on the Blender Open Data platform, the GPU got a median score of 9,063.77. This score is 9.4% higher than the RTX 4080 and 8.2% better than the RTX 4080 Super. Even with these improvements, the RTX 5080 might not outperform the current-gen top-tier RTX 4090. In the past, NVIDIA's 80-class GPUs have beaten the 90-class GPUs from the previous generation, but these early numbers suggest this trend might not continue for the RTX 5080.

A brave Vietnamese high-end GPU enthusiast uploaded photo evidence of a freshly made purchase—COLORFUL's iGame GeForce RTX 5080 Ultra W OC model—onto the NVIDIA subreddit. Undoubtedly, a retailer in the Southeast Asia region had thrown caution to the wind and let stock prematurely float onto shelves. The plucky customer claimed that the transaction had taken place around a week ago—so well in advance of the official January 30 launch. The original post and several photos have been deleted, but several news outlets have preserved these details. The buyer alleges that they handed over $1400 for this "beautiful" triple-slot custom design—emblazoned with a funky graffiti-inspired lighting system and street art graphics.

The $401 upcharge above baseline MSRP ($999 in the U.S.) indicates that COLORFUL has outfitted this particular model with a beefy cooling solution and other premium features (e.g. stainless steel I/O plate with an attached one-click overclocking button). This custom GeForce RTX 5080 "Blackwell" GPU-based model was added to a working PC build—one photo shows off a B650 motherboard—but the lucky owner will have to deal with a lack of publicly released drivers. Fortunately, they have skipped ahead a step—less fortunate day one customers (across the globe) are seemingly faced with an incoming storm at retail.

B&H Photo Video—a Manhattan, NY-based electronics retailer—has leaked out a possible late March launch date for AMD's opening salvo of RDNA 4 graphics cards. Four ASUS Radeon RX 9070 series SKUs are currently visible (via a search) on the shop's webstore—all listings sport a tag stating: "pre-order starts at 09:00 a.m ET, Sunday Mar 23." VideoCardz reckons that the product pages have been freshly updated—changing the previously listed date: January 23. Officially, Team Red has moved its Radeon RX 9070 XT and Radeon RX 9070 (non-XT) launch windows into March, but a specific date was not set.

B&H's listings could contain placeholder information—product launches and opening of pre-orders do not (under normal circumstances) occur over weekends. In this case, potentially on a Sunday. The New York City retailer has prepared very basic product pages for two TUF Gaming cards and two PRIME models—names and SKU codes appear to correspond with previous leaks. Artline, a Ukrainian PC hardware store, opened up an ASUS TUF GAMING Radeon RX 9070 XT OC package. MyGear took similar steps with a PRIME Radeon RX 9070 model.

PC hardware enthusiasts located in Germany, Poland and the United Kingdom have stumbled upon amusingly out-of-date AMD Radeon RX 9070 series GPU advertising. Earlier today, examples were presented on the Radeon subreddit—the social media-sourced announcements provide another look at Team Red's new reference design (Made-By-AMD/MBA) for the RDNA 4 generation, but the accompanying text (translated to English) implies that gamers can "play now" on not-yet-released Navi 48 GPU-based hardware. AMD has officially delayed its launch of Radeon RX 9070 XT and Radeon RX 9070 (non-XT) cards into March, but older leaked information pointed to a possible January 23 (today) rollout.

This marketing campaign has seemingly kicked off prematurely—perhaps initiated by mistake. VideoCardz reached out to retail sources for comment—their report indicates that promotional material was ready to go, but embargoes are reportedly still in place. They reckon that a basic specification teaser could emerge online in the near future. Board partners have already distributed products across retail networks, and finalized units have been unboxed—today's advertised claim of "immediate availability" is no longer valid, but many folks hoped for a pre-January 30 kick-off. NVIDIA will be launching its GeForce RTX 50 series at the end of this month, but industry soothsayers believe that things will not go smoothly.

Intel's Core Ultra 3 205 processor's spec sheet appeared online for a short period of time—members of the Team Blue subreddit discovered an official product page (now removed) and other related details. In part, discussion focused on the alleged lower-end "Arrow Lake-S" (ARL-S) desktop CPU being "reserved for OEMs." Previously, this SKU's existence was leaked out at various points back in 2024. VideoCardz has kindly preserved the latest set of information, prior to its removal from Intel's official web presence—showing a potential new addition to the Core Ultra 200S (Series 2) lineup.

The Core Ultra 3 205 model appears to slot into a segment previously occupied by (now retired) budget-oriented Pentium and Celeron products—based on the specification sheet listing of a 57 W TDP (aligning with past ratings). The Maximum Turbo Power limit is 76 W. Team Blue has inadvertently revealed that this is an eight-core processor, comprised of four Lion Cove P-Cores and four Skymont E-Cores—so 8 (4P + 4E). The performance-oriented cores can (Max Turbo) boost up to 4.9 GHz, while the efficiency-focused units are capable of reaching up to 4.4 GHz. The on-board AI Boost NPU is rated for a peak rating of 13 TOPS (Int8). The Core Ultra 3 205's GPU seems to only utilize two out of the four available Arc Xe-LPG cores. The product page mentioned that the Core Ultra 3 205 is due for launch in Q1 2025, although the "Market Status = Launched" segment adds to the confusion surrounding this now de-listed SKU.

Reports from last November suggested that Samsung Electronics had semi-abandoned its second-generation 3 nm Gate-All-Around (GAA) process, due to missed production goals. Disappointing production yields—as low as 20%—have been floated by industry insiders, they believed (at the time) that the South Korean's foundry teams had simply moved onto developing a next-gen 2 nm manufacturing process. A freshly published news article, courtesy of Business Korea, provides further evidence of a shift to 2 nanometer processes—Samsung's S3 plant in Hwaseong is reportedly in the process of being upgraded (from 3 nm GAA). Insiders believe that new equipment will be installed across the existing production line, requiring a small-scale investment of funds.

The Pyeongtaek 2 (P2) plant is supposedly being prepared for a 1.4 nm test line—targeting a manufacturing capacity of 2000 to 3000 wafers per month. Inside track information suggests that trials will begin within the year. Business Korea's report suggests that Samsung has halved its foundry facility investment budget for 2025—around 5 trillion won, instead of last year's 10 trillion won. The article puts a spotlight on alleged "sluggish customer orders"—the primary factor behind Samsung's decision to slash its chip-making budget by 50%. Competition is fierce at this point in time—TSMC leads the way with its cutting-edge technologies. Taiwan's premier foundry has attracted many high-profile clients away from rival manufacturers. In contrast, industry watchdogs believe that Samsung's struggles have caused "big tech" customers to seek alternate channels.

NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 50 Series of "Blackwell" GPUs are set to launch at the tail end of this month, but market conditions are not looking favorable for day one customers. Recent news articles have highlighted alleged regional supply issues, and industry insiders believe that it will be very difficult to obtain the two higher-end models (RTX 5090 and RTX 5080). Monday's report posited that delays could result in stock not turning up until a month after Team Green's official kick-off on January 30. VideoCardz has pointed to a root cause; Team Green's alleged late issuing of finalized BIOSes—board partners were reportedly not able to prepare stock until very late in 2024.

Unfortunately, further disappointing disclosures have trickled out mid-week—PowerGPU's social media account sent out a stern warning: "the launch of the RTX 5090 will be the worst when it comes to availability. Already being told to expect it to be that way for the first three months." Benchlife piled on with more bad news—their report suggests that problems will emerge further down in Team Green's "Blackwell" product stack: "we can confirm that there are not many supplies on the market. This is mainly due to some communication issues between NVIDIA and AIC partners, as well as the Spring Festival Factors are expected to improve in February. In addition, we expect to see the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti starting to appear on the channel in mid-to-late February. As for the $549 GeForce RTX 5070, we may have to wait until early March."

This morning, an official Yeston social media account boasted about receiving a brand new Navi 48 GPU-equipped model: "🌸got my Sakura Atlantis RX 9070 XT today!! It's shiny!🧜‍♀️" This message was accompanied by four photos, showcasing the card in an outdoor setting. This particular custom design (with white PCB and I/O bracket) was first revealed around mid-January—also via a photo shoot, albeit indoors—with the full moniker: "Radeon RX 9070 XT-16G Sakura Atlantis." Many press outlets jumped onto the presence of "16G" in that name—indicating 16 GB of VRAM—a specification point that AMD was reportedly wanting hidden from public view. Unlike certain Team Red board partners, Yeston has not set up a dedicated product page for the new Sakura Atlantis.

A March launch window has been set—made official by AMD's David McAfee—for the Radeon RX 9070 XT and Radeon RX 9070 (non-XT). VideoCardz has observed a slow-down in promotional activities from AIBs over the past couple of days—bizarrely, GIGABYTE has chosen to scrub all Radeon RX 9000 series products from its website. Hardware Busters believes that AMD will be taking notes during the GeForce RTX 5070 GPU's launch week—they allege that the gathering of performance data (from NVIDIA hardware) is crucial in revising strategies for the March launch of RDNA 4 cards. In the meantime, Yeston will likely continue to post pretty pictures of its cute Sakura Atlantis design—also lined up for attachment on their upcoming "Blackwell" GPU-equipped lineup.

An industry mole—familiar with internal NCSOFT activities—believes that three game development projects have been cancelled: Pantera, H, and J. Past speculation has pointed to "Project H" being an announced Horizon MMO title—based on evidence that emerged shortly after the announced formation of a "strategic global business partnership" between Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) and NCSOFT (back in 2023). Reportedly, Jim Ryan—the now former CEO and chairman of SIE—spearheaded PlayStation's concerted push into multi-faceted "live service" development cycles. Industry oracle, Jason Schreier, questioned the prioritization of "games as a service"—his late 2023 predictions seem very prescient, when looking at the present day landscape.

Last week, reports suggested two unannounced Sony-owned live-service games being placed on the proverbial chopping board. Bluepoint's much rumored "God of War" project was quietly canned according to Schreier's Bloomberg column, as well as a mysterious Bend Studios-produced title. NCSOFT's Project H—also known as "Skyline"—appears to be the victim of an internal "feasibility review." Target platforms were reported to be PC and mobile—therefore placing Project H/Skyline in a separate tranche; distinct from another online-oriented Horizon game. Franchise originator—Guerrilla Games—is reportedly still toiling away (with Bungie's guidance) on an upcoming multiplayer-focused release for PlayStation 5 home consoles.

A pre-launch unboxing the ASUS TUF GAMING Radeon RX 9070 XT OC graphics card model has been shared and documented online—courtesy of a video uploaded to social media over the past weekend. Artline, a computer hardware retailer based in Ukraine, seems to have at least one model in their possession—similarly, stock (from other brands) has been distributed across supply networks to locations around Europe.

AMD and its retail partners are reportedly at loggerheads over proposed launch pricing strategies—the first wave of RDNA 4-equipped products appear to be ready for launch, but debates over "excessive wholesale costs" could delay matters. VideoCardz has reached out to its contacts across distribution and insider networks—they believe that an official AMD announcement could be delivered at some point this week. Team Red representatives recently teased a forthcoming special launch event, but chose to not divulge a specific start date.

Noted technology tipster, Kepler L2, believes that the Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) engineering team has finalized the design of a PlayStation 6 (PS6) system-on-chip (SoC)—insider information was shared on the NeoGAF forum (a popular computer game discussion board) late last week. It would be natural to assume that Sony's gaming division is deep into the process of developing a follow-up to its PlayStation 5 home console, but Kepler L2's fresh revelation points to surprisingly advanced progress. Insider sources point to the PS6's chip design being: "complete and in pre-silicon validation already, with A0 tapeout scheduled for late this year."

Industry experts have analyzed PlayStation development cycles of days past—history has demonstrated a pattern of the A0 tapeout phase reaching completion around two years before the rollout of finalized products at retail. Kepler L2 reckons that this pattern will be repeated—indicating a possible launch of PlayStation by 2027. The rumored PS6 chipset has been linked to AMD's "gfx13" target—everyone's favorite Team Red tipster posits that Sony engineers are working with a "fork" of this next-gen "UDNA" graphics technology. The rumor mill has generated additional PS6 SoC-related internet chatter—last Friday, Chiphell alleged a possible adoption of Team Red's X3 V-cache technology.

A moderator on the PC Games Hardware (PCGH.de) discussion board had disclosed worrying details regarding stock limitations—presumably affecting the upcoming GeForce RTX 50 series launch in Germany. In turn, this disclosure was picked up by PCGH's new department. The predicted circumstances will—reportedly—make matters most difficult for customers looking to acquire higher-end "Blackwell" GPUs. The forum moderator gathered damning evidence from his network of contacts: "I was able to learn from well-informed dealer circles, the available contingent of graphics cards will be extremely limited! This applies in particular to the GeForce RTX 5090. Accordingly, NVIDIA determines where and who exactly will offer graphics cards at market launch. B2B dealers and the entire local wholesale trade, which primarily also works with business customers, will most likely come away empty-handed."

A bit of humor was sprinkled in with this informative post—the moderator joked about customers resorting to "cheerful" repetitive pressings of their F5 keys. They posit that the online buying experience for flagship Blackwell GPUs will be tiring and frustrating: "...so anyone who wants to get a GeForce RTX 5090 or GeForce RTX 5080 at market launch will have to queue digitally at the end customer dealers together with waiting (private) customers. Scalpers and bots will probably also get involved here. The quantities that can be purchased are likely to be limited to a maximum of one unit." Several stores are listed as being prime sources of stock (see below)—they reckon that the likes of Amazon will be not be receiving initial batches. "Second, third, or even fourth" waves of stock are anticipated, with some retailers set to act as resellers—inevitably opening the door to predicted price gouging. It is not clear whether these alleged restrictions will come into effect in markets beyond German borders—additionally, the VideoCardz insider network has not discovered any behind-the-scenes information regarding Team Green's launch period supply strategy.

Yesterday, Nintendo officially unveiled its Switch 2 handheld via a first look video presentation. Featured content did not come as a surprise to many gaming enthusiasts—a steady flow of leaks have already revealed outer and inner workings. Earlier today, the Digital Foundry team has offered their collective opinion on Nintendo's formal announcement. Their roundtable discussion first focused on the Switch 2's physical appearance—mainly a showcased physical increase in size, when lined up against the preceding (standard) model. Conversation quickly moved onto technical matters—a topic that Nintendo normally avoids discussing. The video presentation included in-game footage of a next-gen Mario Kart title—Oliver Mackenzie (a contributing DF video producer/writer) was not impressed by this short demo's visual fidelity. He noted an absence of DLSS image enhancement—surprising, given that the rumored NVIDIA Tegra T239 SoC is capable of deploying this graphics technology.

John, Rich and Oliver then moved onto discussing recently leaked clock speeds and performance figures (in handheld and docked modes)—overall, they reckon that these numbers seem fitting for a hybrid system. They noticed that the handheld GPU clock was lower than expected—based on their judgement of the Switch 2's fairly capable integrated cooling solution. In the past, Digital Foundry theorized that the NVIDIA-designed Tegra T239 will be an 8 nanometer part—rumored to be built on Samsung 8 nm DUV foundry node. Newer gaming community-generated proposals have suggested a shift to Samsung's 5 nm EUV node—mostly based on the chipset's physical footprint. In sharp contrast, the Digital Foundry guys are sticking with their 8 nm theory. Richard Leadbetter (DF's founder) has previously attempted to simulate Switch 2-esque performance on readily available Ampere-based hardware—he could revisit and perform tests on a laptop that sports Team Green's GeForce RTX 2050 mobile GPU. He believes that the leaked CPU and GPU clocks (across both modes) present plausible evidence of 8 nm-level performance, cross-referenced with his team's past analysis of the system's PCB. Debates will inevitably rage on, but Rich insists that the end result will be an example of "Occam's razor." The Tegra T239's four (long alleged) Cortex A78 cores appeared to be running at a higher frequency in portable mode than in docked—suggesting some unknown factors; perhaps a switching on or off of cores (situation dependent). Leadbetter and Co. will be looking forward to getting a proper hands-on experience at Nintendo's April to June launch events.

PowerColor started its online marketing campaign for new Reaper graphics card family earlier this week—a rendered scythe graphic was posted on social media along with this cryptic message: "The Reaper has arrived. Everything is under your control. Will you be the Reaper or the one reaped?" The Taiwanese graphics cards company has already unveiled its opening salvo of new RDNA 4-based card designs—on the internet and in real life. For example, PowerColor's Radeon RX 9070 XT Reaper model was on display at CES 2025—where TechPowerUp spent a couple of minutes with an SFF-form-factor-friendly demonstration sample. Since then, more photo evidence has been posted on the AMD subreddit—a UK retailer appears to have units in-stock at their warehouse.

Team Red is seemingly operating in silent mode—they have not revealed concrete details about the upcoming launch of Radeon RX 9070 XT and Radeon RX 9070 (non-XT) GPUs. Preliminary specification leaks and photos of boxed retail units have turned up this week—with yesterday's Reddit post indicating that Scan UK has received a big cardboard box containing PowerColor Radeon RX 9070 Reaper cards. Industry watchdogs reckon that AMD is still forming a release strategy—with board partners and retail/e-tail outlets waiting on and seemingly ready to receive new or finalized instructions.

Unannounced AMD Threadripper 9000 "Shimada Peak" processor SKUs have once again appeared on leaked shipping manifests—a 96-core variant was uncovered under similar circumstances last summer. The latest discovery—courtesy of reliable investigator Everest/Olrak_29 combing through info published on NBD—reveals a Zen 5-based product stack that lists 16, 32, 64 and 96-core models. Until now, industry watchdogs have not spotted evidence of 32-core and 64-core SKUs—alongside prior leaks that only mentioned 16-core and 96-core parts.

Team Red has not officially announced that it is working on a follow-up to its current generation Zen 4-equipped Threadripper 7000 "Storm Peak" CPU series, but tipsters believe that fundamental similarities—based on leaked core counts and specifications—position "Shimada Peak" as the logical/inevitable successor. Speculation points to all the leaked Threadripper 9000 HEDT processors having a TDP rating of 350 W. Industry insiders propose that the highest-end variant—sporting 96 cores and 192 threads—will contain 12 CCDs (eight cores per CCD), 32 MB L3 cache (per CCD), and a lone I/O die. Wccftech theorizes that the 32-core model will be specced with four CCDs, while "the 64-core variant will come with eight CCDs." Insiders have whispered about a possible "later in 2025" launch window for "Shimada Peak."

AMD's Radeon RX 6750 GRE GPU is an (RDNA 2) Chinese market exclusive—Board Channels members reckon that this model is facing imminent discontinuation. The "GRE" affix denotes "Golden Rabbit Edition." Western graphics card enthusiasts will be familiar with this slightly odd moniker due to Radeon RX 7900 GRE-based (RDNA 3) cards heading to European and North American territories around early 2024. Sadly, this mid-to-high tier GPU is rumored to be reaching an end-of-life (EOL) phase—the latest speculation now points to Team Red's Radeon RX 6750 GRE being quietly withdrawn from China's PC hardware market.

Two Radeon RX 6750 GRE Navi 22-based SKUs—with 10 GB or 12 GB video memory configurations—were created specifically to fill a gap not occupied by AMD's Radeon RX 7600 XT model. The affordable-tier Golden Rabbit Editions are said to be highly popular with Chinese system integrators and budget-minded gamers, but Team Red and its board partners have (apparently) declared that the 10 GB variant is now discontinued. A Board Channel member posited that an "inventory digestion phase" is already underway, with an end date set in March. AIBs are reportedly waiting on "replacement plans from February to March." The Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB variant is reported to be sticking around for the moment, but a new candidate could be appearing in the near future. VideoCardz believes that AMD is considering a rollout of the—not yet announced and oft-delayed—Radeon RX 7650 GRE as a potential modernized substitute.