The mysterious Zen 6 "Morpheus" processor architecture was leaked accidentally by an AMD engineer's LinkedIn profile—news outlets picked up on this information last April. Naturally, Team Red's next priority is Zen 5—the latest reports suggest that two different chiplet designs are penciled in for mass production within the second quarter of 2024. Last September, insiders claimed that a proposed EPYC 9006 "Venice" CPU series was based on the sixth-gen microarchitecture. Everest/Olrak_29 has revealed various bits of speculative material regarding futuristic "Ryzen Client" processor designs since the start of 2024.

The latest postings to social media posit that AMD has selected an RDNA 5-based integrated graphics solution (possibly occupying a tile), thus "skipping RDNA 4" on their "Medusa" lineup of Ryzen Client processors. Leaked Microsoft documents revealed that its Xbox hardware design division was considering RDNA 5 for next-gen console specs. Medusa's CPU aspect is allegedly populated by Zen 6 "Morpheus" cores—as claimed in a January tweet. A new package design was also riffed on at the time: "Yes, I have teased this before...Medusa will use 2.5D interconnect with a much higher bandwidth," instead of a "traditional" multi-die design. Industry speculation has AMD's Zen 6 client architecture linked to a loose 2025/2026 launch window.

Japan's Jiji news agency has cottoned onto a major computer memory industry rumble—a Friday Reuters report suggests that Kioxia has offered an olive branch to SK Hynix, perhaps in a renewed push to get its proposed (and once rejected) merger with Western Digital over the finishing line. The South Korean memory manufacturing juggernaut took great issue with the suggested formation of a mighty Japanese-American 3D NAND memory chip conglomerate—SK Hynix's opposition reportedly placed great pressure on Western Digital (WD), and discussions with Kioxia ended last October.

Kioxia is seemingly eager to resume talks with WD, but requires a thumbs up from SK Hynix—according to Jiji's insider source(s), the Tokyo-headquartered manufacturer is prepared to offer its South Korean rival a nice non-volatile memory production deal. Kioxia's best Japanese 3D NAND fabrication facilities could play host to SK Hynix designs, although it is too early to tell whether this bid has been accepted. The Yokkaichi and Kitakami plants are set to receive a 150 billion yen Government subsidy—Kioxia and WD's joint venture is expected to move into cutting-edge semiconductor production. The Japanese government is hoping to secure its native operations in times of industry flux.

We are likely to see even more Intel Core i9-14900KS pre-release leaks as its rumored mid-March launch window approaches—hardware sleuth, momomo_us, has spent the weekend following any Team Blue breadcrumb trails. Their latest discovery points to "BX8071514900KS" and "CM8071504820506" product codes, and two listings on PC21 France's web shop. Intel seems to be offering its upcoming limited edition Raptor Lake Refresh über-flagship unit in two different guises—the first being a traditional boxed package, and the second appears to be a tray option (for system integrators). As pointed out by VideoCardz, it is not unusual to see OEM parts reach retail channels—similar cases have leaked in the past. The no frills tray choice: "offers a more cost-effective option for users who don't require fancy packaging or bundled coolers, making it a budget-friendly choice for the new CPU."

The Core i9-14900KS is far from being a wallet friendly prospect, yet the untimely listings indicate that the OEM option shaves off a grand total of €16 (~$17.25) when lined up against its fancy boxed sibling. The French retailer states that both items are on order, with zero stock in their warehouses. The boxed Core i9-14900KS seems to cost €768.34 (~$828) including taxes, while the tray variant's entry indicates a charge of €752.62 (~$811), with VAT factored in. These leaked prices are subject to change—perhaps the current figures are based on a distributor's pre-launch estimation. PC21 France does not display any pricing for the already released Core i9-14900K and 14900KF SKUs, but VideoCardz has checked other retail listings in the country—they reckon that the gulf between "K" and "KS" is €146 (best case scenario).

Murmurings of a delayed Nintendo "Switch 2" release schedule appeared online earlier this week—Brazilian games journalist, Pedro Henrique Lutti Lippe, made claims during an "OX do Controle" videocast—based on insider information. Additionally, he broke the bad news on social media: "Nobody wants to hear this, but this one is pretty intense. After consulting five sources from three different continents, all echoing basically the same thing, we can reveal (that) the launch of the Switch's successor should only happen in 2025." Several global news outlets have performed their own investigations, following up on OX do Controle's declaration.

Eurogamer reached out to its network of "trusty" insiders—their Friday evening update stated that: "(we) can now corroborate the earlier reports/whispers that the Switch 2, once destined for release later in 2024, is now set for Q1 2025...The console's launch moving into early next year—but still within the coming financial year—is designed to ensure Switch 2's launch line-up features as many titles as possible, Eurogamer understands." Video Games Chronicle's Andy Robinson has similarly checked in with his pool of industry spies: "VGC has heard from multiple sources who said Nintendo has told publishers its next console will now launch in Q1 2025. According to the sources, third-party game companies were recently briefed on an internal delay in Nintendo's next-gen launch timing, from late 2024 to early the following year. One publishing source suggested the delay was so that Nintendo could prepare stronger first-party software for the console. It's possible the next-gen Nintendo console will now follow a similar timeline to the Switch, which was released in March but announced the previous year."

HXL (@9550pro) has highlighted an intriguing pinned post on the Chinese Zhihu community site—where XZiar, a self described "Central Processing Unit (CPU) expert," has shared a very fuzzy/low quality screenshot of a Windows Task Manager session. The information on display indicates that a "Genuine Intel(R) 0000 1.0 GHz" processor was in use—perhaps a very early Lunar Lake (LNL) engineering sample (ES1). XZiar confirmed the pre-release nature of the onboard chip, and teased its performance prowess: "It's good to use the craftsmanship that others have stepped on. It can run 2.8 GHz with only A1 step, and it is very smooth."

The "A1" designation implies that the leaked sample is among the first LNL processor prototypes to exit manufacturing facilities—Intel previewed its "Lunar Lake-MX" SoC package to press representatives last November. XZiar's followers have pored over the screenshot and ascertained that the leaked example sports a "8-core + 8-thread, without Hyperthreading, 4P+4LPE" configuration. Others were confused by the chip's somewhat odd on-board cache designations—L1: 836 KB, L2: 14 MB and L3: 12 MB—XZiar believes that prototype's setup "is obviously not up to par," when a replier compares the spec to an N300 series processor. It is theorized that Windows Task Manager is simply not fully capable of detecting the sample's full makeup, but XZiar reckons that 12 MB of L3 cache is the correct figure.

XFX is reported to be updating its existing Speedster QICK 319 RX 7800 XT Core Edition model—VideoCardz has discovered a pale variant, imaginatively dubbed as the "White Edition." The article does not disclose their source of information and photos, but a quick Google search reveals that Bermor Techzone (BTZ), a Philippines-based e-tailer, has the white version in stock—their listing indicates a price of ₱30,900 (~$552), with no added premium over the existing black model. VideoCardz believes that this is XFX's first foray into white RDNA 3 territories, perhaps in reaction to rival graphics card manufacturers offering a growing pool of almost colorless options.

A SNOW WOLF variant of the Radeon RX 6750 GRE 10 GB card was added to XFX's Chinese product lineup last October, marking the release of their first ever white design deployed on an AMD GPU. We hope to see alternative color options rolled out further up in XFX Radeon RX 7000-series hierarchy, but the QICK 319's treatment does not extend to its PCB (judging from the leaked photos)—fellow Team Red Navi hardware-specialist PowerColor has this market segment cornered it seems. VideoCardz reckons that an official unveiling of XFX's Radeon RX 7800 XT Speedster QICK 319 "white subvariant" is "imminent."

Intel's 14th Generation "Raptor Lake Refresh" processor series debuted in "enthusiast" SKU form last October—Team Blue's official product unveiling was less than surprising, since multiple SKUs and specifications had been leaked throughout mid-to-late 2023. The true top-of-the-pile Intel Core i9-14900KS SKU was first linked to a possible announcement at January's CES trade show, but did not appear in any of last year's leaked product lists. Team Blue proceeded to introduce its 14th Gen "mainstream" 65 W SKUs to the crowd in Las Vegas, but the leaked Core i9-14900KS model did not pop up, contrary to tipster claims—Intel had a history of presenting "KS" variants during January showcases.

Industry experts reckon that the current Raptor Lake Refresh flagship—Core i9 14900K—is getting some extra time in the spotlight, before its inevitable dethroning courtesy of a "Special Edition" sibling. BenchLife has reached out to its cadre of insiders, following yesterday's reports of a "gargantuan 409 W maximum package power draw." The alleged top dog 14th Gen Core part is perhaps only a month away from launch, as leaked by industry moles: "According to our reliable sources, Intel plans to launch the Intel Core i9 in mid-March 2024. 14900KS is a limited edition processor with a clock speed of 6.2 GHz, but we cannot confirm whether it will be sold to a specific system vendor or a specific channel."

Apple CEO, Tim Cook, discussed planned generative AI software features during an early February earnings call: "As we look ahead, we will continue to invest in these and other technologies that will shape the future. That includes artificial intelligence, where we continue to spend a tremendous amount of time and effort, and we're excited to share the details of our ongoing work in that space later this year." His "prepared" statement did not provide any specific insights into involved technologies, but many iPhone experts believe that the upcoming release of iOS 18 could be "the biggest update" in Apple mobile operating system history. The American multinational technology giant is seemingly taking a relaxed approach with internal artificial intelligence developments—rival smartphone maker, Samsung, has already jumped into the on-the-go AI deep end with its recently launched Galaxy S24 series. Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 (for Galaxy) chipset is ready to take on all sorts of artificial intelligence-augmented tasks, while a next-gen ARM Cortex-X "Blackhawk" unit (leveraging "great" LLM performance) is in the pipeline for a late 2024 rollout.

Taiwan's Economic Daily News has reached out to insider contacts, albeit on the hardware side of things—their sources reckon that Apple is working on next generation processors that sport "significantly upgraded Neural Engine performance with additional cores." Tipsters believe that plans for 2024 include an effort to "significantly strengthen the AI computing power of the (existing) M3 and A17 processors," while the true "new generation" M4 and Bionic A18 chipsets will be augmented with greater AI computing core counts. Taiwan's top foundry is reportedly in the mix: "Apple has strengthened the AI computing performance of mobile devices and greatly increased the computing power of its own processors, which has simultaneously increased its wafer investment in TSMC. According to industry sources, Apple's wafer production volume for TSMC's 3 nm enhanced version process this year is expected to increase by more than 50% compared with last year, making it firmly the largest customer of TSMC."

China's National Supercomputer Center (NUDT) introduced their Tianhe-3 system as a prototype back in early 2019—at the time it had been tested by thirty local organizations. Notable assessors included the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the China Aerodynamics Research and Development Center. The (previous generation) Tianhe-2 system currently sits in a number seven position of world-ranked Supercomputers—offering a measured performance of 33.86 petaFLOPS/s. The internal makeup of its fully formed successor has remained a mystery...until now. The Next Platform believes that the "Xingyi" monikered third generation supercomputer houses the Guangzhou-based lab's MT-3000 processor design. Author, Timothy Prickett Morgan, boasted about acquiring exclusive inside knowledge ahead of international intelligence agencies—many will be keeping an eye on the NUDT, since it is administered by the National University of Defence Technology (itself owned by the Chinese government).

The Next Platform has a track record of outing intimate details relating to Chinese-developed scientific breakthroughs—the semi-related "Oceanlight" system installed at their National Supercomputer Center (Wuxi) was "figured out" two years ago. Tianhe-3 and Oceanlight face significant competition in the form of "El Capitan"—this is the USA's prime: "supercomputer being built right now at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory by Hewlett Packard Enterprise in conjunction with compute engine supplier AMD. We need to know because we want to understand the very different—and yet, in some ways similar—architectural path that China seems to have taken with the Xingyi architecture to break through the exascale barrier."

Various news outlets have been keeping tabs on OpenAI's CEO—Sam Altman—the AI technology evangelist was reported to be pursuing an ambitious proprietary AI chip project in early 2024. Inside sources pointed to late-January negotiations with important investment personnel in the Middle East—many believe that OpenAI leadership is exploring the idea of establishing its own network of semiconductor production plants. Late last week, The Wall Street Journal followed up on last month's AI industry rumors: "(Altman) has another great ambition: raising trillions of dollars to reshape the global semiconductor industry. The OpenAI chief executive officer is in talks with investors including the United Arab Emirates government to raise funds for a wildly ambitious tech initiative that would boost the world's chip-building capacity, expand its ability to power AI." One anonymous insider reckons that "the project could require raising as much as $5 trillion to $7 trillion."

TSMC is reportedly in the equation—Altman allegedly conducted talks with top brass last month—their expertise in cutting edge fabrication techniques would be of great value, although it is somewhat futile to reveal too many industry secrets given the sheer scale of OpenAI's (reported) aggressive expansion plans. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) suggests that the embryonic venture is far more "open" than previously reported—a collaborative venture could be established once funding is secured, although Altman & Co. face "significant obstacles" en route. WSJ proposes that the somewhat OpenAI-centric fabrication network is best founded by a joint partnership—involving multiple investors, contract chip manufacturers (perhaps TSMC), and energy/power providers. OpenAI appears to be the "primary buyer" of resultant fabricated AI chips, with manufacturing services also offered to other clients. The scale of such an endeavor is put into perspective by WSJ's analysis (via inside sources): "Such a sum of investment would dwarf the current size of the global semiconductor industry. Global sales of chips were $527 billion last year and are expected to rise to $1 trillion annually by 2030. Global sales of semiconductor manufacturing equipment—the costly machinery needed to run chip factories—last year were $100 billion, according to an estimate by the industry group SEMI."

Attention is now turning to the late February Mobile World Congress (WWC) 2024 trade show—following journos recovering from their recent CES gauntlet-esque ordeals. An exclusive Windows Report piece proposes that Lenovo representatives will be heading to Barcelona with a very special next generation laptop in hand. The publication has a outed a number of upcoming portable devices, two weeks prior to Lenovo's intended showcase (February 26 - 29)—we witnessed a similar occurrence last year with WinFuture leaking Microsoft's September Surface refreshes. Six notebook refreshes (ThinkPad and ThinkBook) are mentioned in the latest report, as well as Gen 2 version of Lenovo's ThinkVision M14T portable monitor.

The alleged headliner seems to be a concept model, that slides into the company's ThinkBook range—Windows Report has leaked heavily watermarked images, but little in the way of technical specifications: "Lenovo's transparent laptop features a bezel-less design, with the display being completely see-through. The deck also seems completely transparent, with the main components being housed in and under the chin, which is the area that's not transparent. There's also a non-transparent slim frame that surrounds the entire deck, probably housing the ports." An anonymous source reckons that the transparent OLED ThinkBook runs on Windows 11, and Lenovo's tried and trusted design language is very apparent (when in use).

Last week SK Hynix revealed ambitious plans for its next wave of High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) products—their SEMICON Korea 2024 presentation included an announcement about cutting-edge HBM3E entering mass production within the first quarter of this year. True next-gen HBM development has already kicked off—TPU's previous report outlines an HBM4 sampling phase in 2025, followed by full production in 2026. South Korea's Pulse News believes that TSMC has been roped into a joint venture (with SK Hynix). An alleged "One Team" strategic alliance has been formed according to reports emerging from Asia—this joint effort could focus on the development of HBM4 solutions for AI fields.

Reports from last November pointed to a possible SK Hynix and NVIDIA HBM4 partnership, with TSMC involved as the designated fabricator. We are not sure if the emerging "One Team" progressive partnership will have any impact on previously agreed upon deals, but South Korean news outlets reckon that the TSMC + SK Hynix alliance will attempt to outdo Samsung's development of "new-generation AI semiconductor packaging." Team Green's upcoming roster of—"Hopper" H200 and "Blackwell" B100—AI GPUs are linked to a massive pre-paid shipment of SK Hynix HMB3E parts. HBM4 products could be fitted on a second iteration of NVIDIA's Blackwell GPU, and the mysterious "Vera Rubin" family. Notorious silicon industry tipster, kopite7kimi, believes that "R100 and GR200" GPUs are next up in Team Green's AI-cruncher queue.

Phoronix head honcho, Michael Larabel, has noticed another set of interesting updates for AMD Graphics on Linux—albeit in preparation for next generation solutions: "engineers on Monday (February 5) posted a few new patch series for enabling some updated IP (intellectual property) blocks within their open-source AMDGPU Linux kernel graphics driver. This new IP is presumably part of the ongoing hardware enablement work for their next-gen RDNA 4 graphics." Team Red GitHub patches for "GFX12" targets appeared online last November, again highlighted by Larabel's investigative work—AMD engineers appear to be quite determined with their open-source software endeavors, as seen in LLVM-Project notes regarding GFX1200's enablement.

The new "IP block" updates included patches for the enabling ATHUB 4.1, LSDMA 7.0, IH 7.0, and HDP 7.0—presumably for next generation Radeon graphics solutions. Larabel provided a quick breakdown of these components: "ATHUB 4.1 is needed for clock-gating / power management features, LSDMA 7.0 is the latest IP for Light SDMA for general purpose System DMA (SDMA) on the GPU, IH 7.0 for the Interrupt Handler on the GPU, and HDP 7.0 for the Host Data Path support for CPU accessing the GPU device memory via the PCI BAR. As far as code changes, the big chunks of the work are from the auto-generated header files." He believes that AMD's engineers have largely moved on from current generation tasks: "The big version bumps for these IP blocks all the more are likely indicative of these bits being for next-gen RDNA 4 as opposed to further iterating on RDNA3 or similar." The patches could be merged into the upcoming Linux 6.9 release, possibly coinciding with a Radeon RX 8000 series rollout.

DigiTimes Asia has reached out to insiders at fabrication toolmakers in an effort to delve deeper into claims made by industry analysts at the start of 2024—both SemiAnalysis and China Renaissance have proposed that TSMC is unlikely to adopt High-NA EUV production techniques within a five year period. The latest news article explores a non-upgrade approach for the next couple of years: "TSMC has not placed orders for high-numerical aperture (High-NA) extreme ultraviolet (EUV) tools and is unlikely to use the technology in 2 nm and 1.4 nm (A14) process manufacturing." Intel Foundry Services (IFS) will be one of the first semiconductor manufacturers to go online with ASML's latest and greatest machinery, although no firm timeframes have been confirmed. Team Blue's Taiwanese rival (and occasional business partner) is seemingly happy with its existing infrastructure, but industry watchdogs propose that cost considerations are key factors behind TSMC's cautious planning for the next decade.

The DigiTimes insider sources believe that TSMC will not budge until at least 2029, possibly coinciding with a 1 nm production node—analysts at China Renaissance reckon that High-NA EUV machines could be delivered in the future when facilities are readied for an "A10" codenamed process. TSMC published a very ambitious "transistor count" product timeline in early January (see below)—the first "1 nm" products are supposedly targeted for a 2030 rollout, but this schedule could change due to unforeseen circumstances. Intel is expected to "phase in" its fanciest ASML gear collection once the 18A process becomes old hat—Tom's Hardware thinks that 2026 - 2027 is a feasible timeframe.

Supply chain insiders have claimed that Intel is working on extending the lifespan of its LGA 1700 platform—a BenchLife report proposes that the "Bartlett Lake-S" processor family is due soon, courtesy of Team Blue's Network and Edge (NEX) business group. Only a few days ago, the rumor mill had placed "Bartlett Lake-S" CPUs in a mainstream desktop category, due to alleged connections with the Raptor Lake-S Refresh series—the former is also (supposedly) based on the Intel 7 processor process. BenchLife believes that DDR4 and DDR5 memory will be supported, but with no mention of possible ECC functionality. Confusingly, chip industry tipsters believe that the unannounced processors could be launched as 15th Gen Core parts.

BenchLife has a history of discovering and reporting on Intel product roadmaps—apparently Bartlett Lake-S can leverage the same core configurations as seen on Raptor Lake-S; namely 8 Raptor Cove P-Cores and 16 Gracemont E-Cores. An insider source claims that a new pure P-Core-only design could exist, sporting up to twelve Raptor Cove units. According to a leaked Bartlett Lake-S series specification sheet: "the iGPU part will use (existing) Intel Xe architecture, up to Intel UHD Graphics 770." The publication alludes to some type of AI performance enhancement as a distinguishing feature for Bartlett Lake-S, when lined up against 14th Gen Core desktop SKUs. Folks salivating at the prospect of a mainstream DIY launch will have to wait and see (according to BenchLife's supply chain insider): "judging from various specifications, this product belonging to the Intel NEX business group may also be decentralized to the consumer market, but the source did not make this part too clear and reserved some room for maneuver."

Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) is preparing new semiconductor production lines at its Shanghai facilities according to a fresh Reuters report—China's largest contract chip maker is linked to next generation Huawei SoC designs, possibly 5 nm-based Kirin models. SMIC's newest Shanghai wafer fabrication site was an expensive endeavor—involving a $8.8 billion investment—but their flagship lines face a very challenging scenario with new phases of mass production. Huawei, a key customer, is expected to "upgrade" to a 5 nm process for new chip designs—their current flagship, Kirin 9000S, is based on a SMIC 7 nm node. Reuter's industry sources believe that the foundry's current stable of "U.S. and Dutch-made equipment" will be deployed to "produce 5-nanometer chips."

Revised trade rulings have prevented ASML shipping advanced DUV machinery to mainland China manufacturing sites—SMIC workers have reportedly already repurposed the existing inventory of lithography equipment for next-gen pursuits. Burn Lin (ex-TSMC), a renowned "chip guru," believes that it is possible to mass produce 5 nm product on slightly antiquated gear (previously used for 7 nm)—but the main caveats being increased expense and low yields. According to a DigiTimes Asia report, mass production of a 5 nm SoC on SMIC's existing DUV lithography would require four-fold patterning in a best case scenario.

During a January 31 Earnings Call, Cristiano Renno Amon (President and CEO of Qualcomm) discussed the upcoming launch of his company's Snapdragon X Elite processor—an ARM-based SoC that is built "for AI" on next generation tablets, notebooks and ultra-slim laptops. The twelve onboard custom Oryon cores are part of a package that will become (in marketing terms): "the most powerful, intelligent, and efficient processor ever created for Windows in its class. With cutting edge responsiveness, navigate demanding multi-tasking workloads across productivity, creativity, immersive entertainment, and more..." Amon and his executive colleagues are targeting a middle-of-2024 launch of Snapdragon X Elite-powered devices, he also mentioned a next-gen version of Microsoft's operating system in the same sentence: "We're tracking to the launch of products with this chipset tied with the next version of Microsoft Windows that has a lot of the Windows AI capabilities. We're still maintaining the same date, which is driven by Windows, which is mid-2024, getting ready for back-to-school."

The rumor mill has "Windows 12" marked down for a summer 2024 launch period—last December, Taiwan's Commercial Times reported on a number sources within the PC manufacturing industry—alluding to a June release date. Intel Chief Financial Officer Dave Zinsner relayed a similar schedule to a Citi interviewer (reported by PC Gamer): "We actually think '24 is going to be a pretty good year for client, in particular, because of the Windows refresh. And we still think that the installed base is pretty old and does require a refresh and we think next year may be the start of that, given the Windows catalyst. So we're optimistic about how things will play out beginning in '24."

An MSI "Ruan Mei" special edition GeForce RTX 4090 SUPRIM X model has been teased by hongxing2020 on social media—it is not clear whether this is an intentional leak, given the formal office setting photographed in the background. Seemingly finalized retail packaging, heavily updated shroud plus backplate designs, and bundled poster and mousepad merchandise are emblazoned with a 5-star rated Honkai: Star Rail character. As noted by VideoCardz, the web link displayed on MSI's accompanying poster would indicate that the special green and gold special SUPRIM X model is destined for the Chinese PC hardware market—where miHoYo's Honkai games franchise is super popular.

The MSI GeForce RTX 4090 SUPRIM X "Ruan Mei" special edition's packaging does not make a distinction between the onboard GPU being a US sanction-compliant NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 D variant, or the original + uncompromised AD102-300-A1. Perhaps it is safe to assume that a first quarter 2024 launch model will sport ever so slightly downgraded internals—MSI has already prepared their standard silver range-topping GeForce RTX 4090 D SUPRIM X model for the region. A small batch of Ruan Mei limited editions could arrive at a later date, once the the standard card has cleared the way.

Crucial launched its Crucial T700 Gen 5 SSD family midway through last year—a "marquee product" within their (at the time) new Pro Series family—thanks to industry-leading performance. Micron's consumer brand boasted about the T700's technical prowess: "sequential read/write speeds (of) up to 12,400 MB/s and 11,800 MB/s respectively." The Micron 232-layer TLC NAND-equipped SSD range was leaked two months ahead of an eventual May 2023 launch, and history is seemingly repeating itself with a semi-related product in early 2024. Hardware sleuth, momomo_us, has uncovered Crucial T705 and T705 Limited Edition models—the latter appears to be outfitted with a special white variation of the company's "SSD5" corrugated passive heatsink design (as seen in W1zzard's T700 review). Crucial's "SSD3" model suffix indicates a barebones package—minus the chunky "premium" aluminium and nickel-plated copper heatsink.

An alleged T705 specification sheet was leaked to social media over the past weekend—courtesy of Deepbluen's response to the initial momomo_us post. Crucial seems to be targeting industry leading performance once more—their 2 TB T705 model leads the pack with 14,500 MB/s read and 12,700 MB/s write speeds. The capacity range topper (4 TB) trails a little bit behind at 14,100 MB/s read and 12,400 MB/s (respectively), with the 1 TB model exhibiting a relatively sluggish 13,600 MB/s read and 10,200 MB/s (respectively). The leaked sheet does not contain any details regarding Crucial's choice of controller, as well as DRAM cache numbers and endurance figures. We see a repeat of the T700's Micron 232-layer TLC NAND, but we will have to wait a little longer to find out whether Phison's E26 controller is making a comeback (with entailing potential technical issues).

AMD's December 2023 launch of new Instinct series accelerators has generated a lot of tech news buzz and excitement within the financial world, but not many folks are privy to Team Red's MSRP for the CDNA 3.0 powered MI300X and MI300A models. A Citi report has pulled back the curtain, albeit with "projected" figures—an inside source claims that Microsoft has purchased the Instinct MI300X 192 GB model for ~$10,000 a piece. North American enterprise customers appear to have taken delivery of the latest MI300 products around mid-January time—inevitably, top secret information has leaked out to news investigators. SeekingAlpha's article (based on Citi's findings) alleges that the Microsoft data center division is AMD's top buyer of MI300X hardware—GPT-4 is reportedly up and running on these brand new accelerators.

The leakers claim that businesses further down the (AI and HPC) food chain are having to shell out $15,000 per MI300X unit, but this is a bargain when compared to NVIDIA's closest competing package—the venerable H100 SXM5 80 GB professional card. Team Green, similarly, does not reveal its enterprise pricing to the wider public—Tom's Hardware has kept tabs on H100 insider info and market leaks: "over the recent quarters, we have seen NVIDIA's H100 80 GB HBM2E add-in-card available for $30,000, $40,000, and even much more at eBay. Meanwhile, the more powerful H100 80 GB SXM with 80 GB of HBM3 memory tends to cost more than an H100 80 GB AIB." Citi's projection has Team Green charging up to four times more for its H100 product, when compared to Team Red MI300X pricing. NVIDIA's dominant AI GPU market position could be challenged by cheaper yet still very performant alternatives—additionally chip shortages have caused Jensen & Co. to step outside their comfort zone. Tom's Hardware reached out to AMD for comment on the Citi pricing claims—a company representative declined this invitation.

An interesting Intel document leaked out last month—it contained detailed pre-release information that covered their upcoming 15th Gen Core Arrow Lake-S desktop CPU platform, including a possible best scenario 8+16+1 core configuration. Thorough analysis of the spec sheet revealed a revelation—the next generation Core processor family could "lack Hyper-Threading (HT) support." The rumor mill had produced similar claims in the past, but the internal technical memo confirmed that Arrow Lake's "expected eight performance cores without any threads enabled via SMT." These specifications could be subject to change, but tipster—InstLatX64—has uprooted an Arrow Lake-S engineering sample: "I spotted (CPUID C0660, 24 threads, 3 GHz, without AVX 512) among the Intel test machines."

The leaker had uncovered several pre-launch Meteor Lake SKUs last year—with 14th Gen laptop processors hitting the market recently, InstLatX64 has turned his attention to seeking out next generation parts. Yesterday's Arrow Lake-S find has chins wagging about the 24 thread count aspect (sporting two more than the fanciest Meteor Lake Core Ultra 9 processor)—this could be an actual 24 core total configuration—considering the evident lack of hyper-threading, as seen on the leaked engineering sample. Tom's Hardware reckons that the AVX-512 instruction set could be disabled via firmware or motherboard UEFI—if InstLatX64's claim of "without AVX-512" support does ring true, PC users (demanding such workloads) are best advised to turn to Ryzen 7040 and 8040 series processors, or (less likely) Team Blue's own 5th Gen Xeon "Emerald Rapids" server CPUs.

Everyone's favorite PC hardware tipster, momomo_us, has spotted a bunch of interesting SKUs registrations—the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) portal is normally a good source of pre-release information. ASUS appears to have submitted (on January 30) a wide range of AMD and Intel chipsetted mainboards with the Customs Union of Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Russia. The presence of Pro WS X690E-SAGE SE and Pro WS X690E-SAGE SE WIFI models attracted the most attention—fellow tipster HXL/@9550pro proposed that AMD's incoming X690 tech could be an X670 offshoot. They made reference to an AORUS BIOS screenshot showing a "common options" setting for AM4 generation X570 and X590 chipsets. The latter was a workstation solution that never reached finalized retail form.

Team Red has not officially announced the X690 chipset, so we know little else beyond this week's SKU filings. ASUS has produced a number of Pro Workstation Series for AMD platforms—the most recent examples being very fancy WRX90 and TRX50 motherboards for the mighty "Storm Peak" Threadripper 7000 processor family. VideoCardz reminds us that ASUS has not updated its Ryzen and Ryzen PRO "consumer and business" mainboard product range since the X570 days, so it is encouraging to see some potential new AM5 options on the horizon. On occasion, EEC SKU registrations do not lead to finalized retail products, so plans are subject to change.

Qualcomm and its smartphone manufacturer partners are reported to be in a rush to get the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chipset released later this year—Digital Chat Station believes that a pioneering mobile device could enter a mass production phase around September of this year. Prototype devices are allegedly up and running—the tipster's insider sources have alluded to engineering samples being capable of reaching 4.0 GHz clocks on a high-powered Big Core (Nuvia's Oryon or Phoenix). Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC was revealed last October, and working hardware is slowly trickling out via retail avenues in early 2024—Digital Chat Station does not provide any reasoning behind the race to get the successor across the finish line within the same year.

An unnamed smartphone manufacturer is said to have outfitted a "dual-curved screen" model with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chipset—Wccftech's report suggests that Xiaomi usually gets first dibs on cutting edge Qualcomm processor tech. The Nuvia engineering team has likely got their custom Oryon cores running to more than satisfactory levels—the article points out that: "a previous Geekbench 6 single-core and multi-core leak revealed that the (3 nm) Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 competes with Apple's M3 and is 46 percent faster than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 in multi-threaded workloads." Qualcomm is facing fierce flagship chip competition in 2024—MediaTek's Dimensity 9400 SoC could arrive at a cheaper price point, while offering comparable performance and efficiency.

Insider Gaming's Tom Henderson has managed to glean information from a recent Sledgehammer Games "Town Hall" meeting—his source(s) allege that the Activision subsidiary is set for some major restructuring. Last week, Microsoft announced widespread cuts across its Xbox and Activision Blizzard departments—according to Henderson's investigations: "30% of Sledgehammer Games staff have lost their jobs." An earlier version of his report outlines a return to a "Work From Home" model for the rest of 2024, given that the studio is allegedly vacating their current space (located in Foster City, California). He suggested that this is a temporary measure: "until a new office is found near its current location. It's expected that employees will be working from home until the end of 2024."

Insider Gaming claims that it sources have leaked Activision's future plans for their highly prized Call of Duty franchise—despite layoffs and adjusted work conditions, the company's top brass are sticking with a regular release schedule: It's a move that comes at an interesting time for Sledgehammer Games, as it it was also announced during the Town Hall that the studio would be the main developer for Activision's 2027 Call of Duty title. Infinity Ward will be heading Call of Duty 2026, understood to be in the Modern Warfare universe. Call of Duty 2025 is currently planned to be a semi-futuristic Black Ops 2 sequel under the codename Saturn."

Japan's PC_Focus social media account has shared some slightly damning insider information regarding the performance of Dragon's Dogma 2 on current generation consoles. Capcom's much anticipated action role player is scheduled for a March 22 multiplatform launch—encompassing versions for PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S. The upcoming sequel leverages the company's proprietary RE Engine (Reach for the Moon Engine)—contrary to widespread misinformation, "RE" does not stand for Resident Evil. A "Japanese insider" familiar with pre-release builds has relayed information to PC_Focus about Dragon's Dogma 2 running at "30 FPS on consoles." An IGN Japan weekend report is also cited—the publication confirms that the game "features only 1 save slot," with "auto and manual sharing the same slot."

Dragon's Dogma 2 Steam profile provides system requirements for PC platforms in "Minimum" and "Recommended" categories—as noted by Wccftech, both sheets list estimated performance for 30 FPS: "(for) minimum specs, the Steam page lists an AMD Ryzen 5 3600 CPU, which on paper, is roughly equivalent to the CPU inside the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series." Capcom has not divulged any official details regarding Dragon's Dogma 2's visual modes for games consoles—be it "Quality" or "Performance." We hope to see some clarification pop up in pre-release material leading up to the game's late March launch.