The NAND Flash industry benefitted from strong demand for PCs and servers in 2Q20 as the COVID-19 pandemic caused a demand surge for cloud services and technologies that are related to working from home, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. This, in turn, kept demand high for SSDs. However, the smartphone and consumer electronics markets had not recovered from the impact of the pandemic. The demand for these products therefore declined compared to the previous quarter. In 2Q20, total NAND Flash bit shipment and ASP both experienced a minor increase of about 3% QoQ, while NAND Flash revenue reached US$14.5 billion, a 6.5% increase QoQ.

AMD's recent announcement of its Ryzen 4000G and Ryzen PRO 4000G series desktop processors lacked a key detail - pricing, possibly because it's irrelevant to end users as the processors are sold only in the OEM channel. momomo_us secured a slide (possibly by AMD's channel marketing), which puts out SEP (suggestive) pricing per chip in n-unit tray quantities. Apparently, the Ryzen 7 PRO 4750G, and its energy-efficient -GE variant, are priced at USD $309. The Ryzen 5 PRO 4650G/GE comes with a $209 price, and the Ryzen 3 PRO 4350G/GE at $149.

Prices of the other parts in this slide appear to be stuck at their respective launch-time SEP pricing, since all of the price-cuts AMD implemented appear to be unofficial, and specific to retailers and regions. AMD also updated its familiar-looking processor-to-chipset compatibility slide with the inclusion of the new 4000G series. Apparently the new processors only work with AMD 500-series chipsets, such as the B550, X570, and the commercial-segment exclusive PRO565 chipset. This is strange since "Renoir" is now confirmed to lack PCIe gen 4.0, and only spares gen 3.0 x8 for PEG, which means 400-series chipsets are excluded due to ROM size limitations to squeeze in AGESA microcode supporting several generations of processors and microarchitectures. Interestingly, AMD assured customers of Ryzen 4000-series compatibility with 400-series chipsets. Perhaps they were only referring to the "Zen 3" based "Vermeer" processors, as the slide shows.

AMD today announced its 4th Generation Ryzen 4000G and Ryzen PRO 4000G desktop processors for pre-built OEM desktops. The company also expanded its entry-level Athlon 3000G series and debuted the Athlon PRO 3000G series. The Ryzen 4000G and PRO 4000G mark the Socket AM4 desktop debut of the 7 nm "Renoir" silicon, which combines up to 8 CPU cores based on the "Zen 2" microarchitecture, with a Radeon Vega 8 iGPU. These processors benefit from the 65 W TDP and increased power limits of the desktop platform to dial up CPU- and iGPU engine clock speeds significantly over the Ryzen 4000U and 4000H mobile processors based on the same silicon. The new Athlon 3000G-series and Athlon PRO 3000G-series parts are based on a 12 nm die that has "Zen+" CPU cores.

All of the processor models announced today are OEM-only, meaning that you'll only find them on pre-built consumer- and commercial desktops by the likes of HP, Lenovo, Dell, etc. Not even the system-integrator (SI) channel (eg: Maingear, Origin PC, etc.,) gets these chips. OEMs will pair these processors with motherboards based on the AMD B550 chipset, although the chips are compatible with the X570 chipset, too. The Ryzen PRO 4000G processors are targeted at commercial desktops that are part of large business environments, and launches along with the new AMD PRO565 chipset. Since they are OEM-only, the company did not reveal pricing for any of these chips. They did however mention that for the DIY retail channel, they do plan to update their product stack with processors that have integrated graphics at a later time (without going into specifics of the said time).

The Polaris architecture was debuted by AMD in the RX 400 series almost 4 years ago, since then AMD has released two new generations of graphics processors, Vega and Navi. It seems that the Polaris architecture will be living on a bit longer with the release of the ASUS Phoenix Radeon 550 2GB GPU, based on the Polaris 12 GPU.

This product may seem familiar and that's because ASUS released the Phoenix Radeon RX 550 back in 2017, the new Phoenix Radeon 550 uses a different memory configuration of 2 GB GDDR5 / 64-bit / 6 Gbps which is a significant step down from the 2/4 GB GDDR5 / 128-bit / 7 Gbps of the Phoenix Radeon RX 550 especially considering that card was released 3 years ago. This new card seems to have been available to OEM's for some time and is only now making it's way to retail at a hopefully cheap price.

It seems Microsoft has begun the long process of phasing out 32-bit support for Windows 10 beginning with version 2004, all new OEM Windows 10 systems will be required to use 64-bit builds and Microsoft will no longer release 32-bit builds for OEM distribution. This will not affect those of you running 32-bit versions of Windows 10 who will continue to receive updates and Microsoft plans to continue to sell 32-bit versions of Windows 10 through retail channels for the foreseeable future. This is likely just the first step in what will probably be a multi-year project to gradually phase out 32-bit support as more consumers and businesses switch to 64-bit systems.

AMD's upcoming Ryzen 4000 series "Vermeer" lineup of CPUs based on the new Zen 3 core is slated to launch sometime in late 2020, and we have information about the chipset support of 4th generation of Ryzen CPUs. The laptop manufacturer XMG, known for its crazy Apex 15 laptop with 16 core AMD Ryzen 3950X CPU inside, has posted a Reddit thread about its new laptop. In the thread, XMG has listed specifications of the laptop, and in one point it mentions support for Ryzen 4000 series of CPUs. XMG has written that the B450 motherboards will be supporting the next generation CPUs simply by microcode updates AMD will push to OEMs. XMG uses the B450 chipset in its laptops, so they are presumably going to offer some configurations with Ryzen 4000 CPUs in the future. This information is good news for everybody who has a motherboard with a B450 chipset as they can get a bit more mileage out of it.

"Nothing Really Ends" is the title of a song from dEUS, a Belgian "art-rock" band. And it would seem this applies all too well to the world of technology too. Intel has issued a Product Change Notification (PCN) which has changed the previously dead and buried, Haswell-era, 22 nm Pentium G3420 from its "Discontinued" status back to a worded "canceling this Product Discontinuance completely per new roadmap decision and enabling the product long term once again." Which means the Pentium G3420 will have a new lease of life, and will be available to customers until May 2020, with final shipments on December of the same year.

This is clearly an attempt from Intel to increase part availability for OEMs and system manufacturers, who have already been quoted as considering AMD due to both increases in performance and efficiency in their processors, as well as constrained supply from Intel, with giant Dell already having pointed the finger at Intel as a cause for their lower than expected revenue.

The add-in board market increased in Q3'19 by 42% from last quarter, with over $2.8 billion dollars of AIBs shipped. Nvidia increased its market share to 73% in Q3. The last fiscal quarter was transitional for Nvidia as older products made their way through the channel allowing the company to ramp up production and ship more new products at the end of the quarter. Nvidia not only boosted their market share but they raised the overall AIB market. Their channel inventory is now reported as healthy says the company. Nvidia's RTX line is doing well and represents 66% of its gaming revenue.

Quarter-to-quarter graphics add-in board shipments increased by 42.2% and increased by 6.2% year-to-year. The market shares for the desktop discrete GPU suppliers shifted in the quarter, Nvidia significantly increased market share from last quarter, while AMD increased share year-over-year.

Intel is partnering with MediaTek on the development, certification and support of 5G modem solutions for the next generation of PC experiences. As part of the partnership, Intel will define a 5G solution specification, including a 5G modem to be developed and delivered by MediaTek. Intel will also provide optimization and validation across the platform and lend system integration and co-engineering support to further enable its OEM partners.

"5G is poised to unleash a new level of computing and connectivity that will transform the way we interact with the world. This partnership with MediaTek brings together industry leaders with deep engineering, system integration and connectivity expertise to deliver 5G experiences on the next generation of the world's best PCs." -Gregory Bryant, Intel executive vice president and general manager of the Client Computing Group.

AMD (NASDAQ:AMD) today announced revenue for the third quarter of 2019 of $1.80 billion, operating income of $186 million, net income of $120 million and diluted earnings per share of $0.11. On a non-GAAP(*) basis, operating income was $240 million, net income was $219 million and diluted earnings per share was $0.18.

"Our first full quarter of 7 nm Ryzen, Radeon and EPYC processor sales drove our highest quarterly revenue since 2005, our highest quarterly gross margin since 2012 and a significant increase in net income year-over-year," said Dr. Lisa Su, AMD president and CEO. "I am extremely pleased with our progress as we have the strongest product portfolio in our history, significant customer momentum and a leadership product roadmap for 2020 and beyond."

Intel today announced its future Intel Xeon Scalable processor family (codename Cooper Lake) will offer customers up to 56 processor cores per socket and built-in AI training acceleration in a standard, socketed CPU as part of its mainline Intel Xeon Scalable platforms, with availability in the first half of 2020. The breakthrough platform performance delivered within the high-core-count Cooper Lake processors will leverage the capabilities built into the Intel Xeon Platinum 9200 series, which today is gaining momentum among the world's most demanding HPC customers, including HLRN, Advania, 4Paradigm, and others.

"The Intel Xeon Platinum 9200 series that we introduced as part of our 2nd Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processor family generated a lot of excitement among our customers who are deploying the technology to run their high-performance computing (HPC), advanced analytics, artificial intelligence and high-density infrastructure. Extended 56-core processor offerings into our mainline Intel Xeon Scalable platforms enables us to serve a much broader range of customers who hunger for more processor performance and memory bandwidth."
-Lisa Spelman, vice president and general manager of Data Center Marketing, Intel Corporation

During its second quarter earnings call, Intel announced that it has started shipping of 10th generation "Core" CPUs to OEMs. Making use of 10 nm lithography, the 10th generation of "Core" CPUs, codenamed Ice Lake, were qualified by OEMs earlier in 2019 in order to be integrated into future products. Ice Lake is on track for holiday season 2019, meaning that we can expect products on-shelves by the end of this year. That is exciting news as the 10th generation of Core CPUs is bringing some exciting micro-architectural improvements along with the long awaited and delayed Intel's 10nm manufacturing process node.

The new CPUs are supposed to get around 18% IPC improvement on average when looking at direct comparison to previous generation of Intel CPUs, while being clocked at same frequency. This time, even regular mobile/desktop parts will get AVX512 support, alongside VNNI and Cryptography ISA extensions that are supposed to bring additional security and performance for the ever increasing number of tasks, especially new ones like Neural Network processing. Core configurations will be ranging from dual core i3 to quad core i7, where we will see total of 11 models available.

The Japanese DIY PC market has developed a strong appetite for AMD Ryzen processors, with PC Watch reporting sales data aggregated by BCN across leading retailers. In the DIY space, AMD processors now hold a monstrous 68.6 percent market share. Data was collected from Amazon Japan, Bic Camera, EDION, etc., and distributors who supply to brick-and-mortar PC hardware stores. AMD's market share started its upward trend from September 2018, when it stood at 20 percent, propelled mainly by shortages of Intel processors in the DIY channel, overpricing of Intel processors, discounts on AMD 2nd generation Ryzen processors; and the recent introduction of 3rd generation Ryzen processors which are both priced reasonably and outperform Intel at every price-point.

AMD's problem area continues to be OEMs and the pre-built PC market, which makes up a bulk of processor sales for Intel. Despite the upperhand with pricing, performance, and efficiency, the company isn't able to match Intel in design-wins. Intel is able to retain its stranglehold over the OEM space with volume pricing and prioritizing the OEM channel over the DIY retail channel. In Japan, pre-built desktops and notebooks with AMD processors make up a paltry 14.7 percent of the market, although that number is still crawling upward. Perhaps AMD needs faster processor models with integrated graphics to appease OEMs?

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

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

AMD today announced revenue for the first quarter of 2019 of $1.27 billion, operating income of $38 million, net income of $16 million and diluted
earnings per share of $0.01. On a non-GAAP(*) basis, operating income was $84 million, net income was $62 million and diluted earnings per share was $0.06.

"We delivered solid first quarter results with significant gross margin expansion as Ryzen and EPYC processor and datacenter GPU revenue more than doubled year-over-year," said Dr. Lisa Su, AMD president and CEO. "We look forward to the upcoming launches of our next-generation 7nm PC, gaming
and datacenter products which we expect to drive further market share gains and financial growth."

Supplies of Intel processors will worsen in the second quarter of 2019 according to Taiwan-based industry observer DigiTimes. In a research-based report covering not just the DIY channel, but also the OEM channel focusing on notebook manufacturer, DigiTimes notes that heading into Q2, growth in demand for entry-level portables such as Chromebooks based on entry-level Intel processors, and mainstream notebooks powered by Core i3 processors, which make up the largest demographic of PC consumers in the market.

A pertinent concept to this report is supply-gap, the percentage difference between demand and supply. A positive supply-gap indicates demand exceeding supply and shortages. Leading notebook vendors HP, Dell, and Lenovo, reported supply-gaps of 5% going into Q3-2018, which severely impacted their bottom-lines. The companies waded through Q4 with 4-5%. DigiTimes reports that even Apple wasn't spared from shortages in "Amber Lake" processors. "In the first quarter of 2019, the Core i5 processors featuring Coffee Lake architecture are now having the worst supply shortfall. Some of the demand for Intel's entry-level Atom processors has turned to AMD, while some others have opted for Core i3 processors," the report reads. AMD's market-share among OEMs increased from 9.8% in Q1-2018 to 15.8% in Q1-2019.

Intel Corporation today reported fourth-quarter and full-year 2018 financial results. The company also announced that its board of directors has approved a five percent increase in its cash dividend to $1.26 per-share on an annual basis. The board declared a quarterly dividend of $0.315 per-share on the company's common stock, which will be payable on March 1 to shareholders of record on February 7.

"2018 was a truly remarkable year for Intel with record revenue in every business segment and record profits as we transform the company to pursue our biggest market opportunity ever," said Bob Swan, Intel CFO and Interim CEO. "In the fourth quarter, we grew revenue, expanded earnings and previewed new 10nm-based products that position Intel to compete and win going forward. Looking ahead, we are forecasting another record year and raising the dividend based on our view that the explosive growth of data will drive continued demand for Intel products."

During our visit with Toshiba at CES 2019, we were shown not only new technologies that they will be rapidly deploying but a large number of SSDs for various market segments. The biggest draw was their 96-layer BiCS Flash with 4-bit-per-cell quadruple-level cell (QLC) technology. Toshiba is now pushing the boundary for capacity as a single chip device can reach 1.33 Tb (Terabits) while a single package device with 16-dies stacked architecture can reach 2.66 TB. That said, they are already sampling their 1 TB NVMe single package BG4 series SSDs to PC OEM customers in limited quantities.

These latest drives with their new BiCS FLASH technology incorporate everything into a tiny SSD that offers class-leading storage with sequential read performance reaching up to 2250 MB/s. Random read performance can also hit exceptional levels reaching up to 380,000 IOPS. For now, these BG4 based drives are targeted at ultra-thin PC notebooks, IoT embedded systems and will be made available in four capacities including; 128 GB, 256 GB, 512 GB and finally 1 TB. To meet expected demand, Toshiba will also be opening a facility in Japan dedicated to this latest technology in order to bring even higher capacities per NAND module.

Taiwanese OEM CJSCOPE has outed a tease for their upcoming HX 970 GX laptop, featuring an Intel 9th gen processor and NVIDIA's RX 2080 graphics card in an MXM form-factor. The Mobility version of the RX 2080 will feature the same 2944 CUDA cores, but an up to 1847 MHz core clock - better binning in the mobile versions of these chips, likely.

Other options given by CJSCOPE in configuring the laptop include the Mobility 2070 and 2060. The Mobility RX 2070 follows the desktop version in CUDA cores (2304) and slightly increases the maximum Boost clock to 1710 MHz, while the RX 2060 Mobility reduces the amount of CUDA cores from the prospective 1920 found in the (unreleased) desktop version to 1536 (a 20% reduction in computational resources). The marketing materials also state that the RTX 2060 should be available on January 15th.

URCDKeys is a sensational new deep-discount online software license store. The store is selling two of its most popular products among TechPowerUp readers, at an unbeatable discount of up to 92% off the regular online price. Windows 10 Pro is a recommended flavor of Windows 10 for PC enthusiasts as it gives you greater control thanks to Group Policy Editor, and other administrative tools. URCDKey is selling the OEM license key to Windows 10 Pro for USD $14.86, which further goes down to $11.81 when you apply a TechPowerUp-exclusive coupon at checkout.

Your Windows 10 PC is incomplete without Microsoft Office, and URCDKey is stocked with Office 2016 Professional lifetime global license keys for just $38.02, with a further 20% off for TechPowerUp readers, making the effective price you pay just $30.42. That's a fraction of the price you'd pay for an annual subscription of Office 365. This deal is particularly useful for students, so they don't have to shell out $100 every two semesters.

Buy Windows 10 Pro OEM from URCDKeys | Buy Office 2016 Professional Plus from URCDKeys

Exclusive Discount for TechPowerUp readers: Don't forget to use coupon-code TP20 at checkout for an additional 20% off on the already discounted prices!

URCDKeys is a new online store for heavily discounted non-gaming software licenses, based in California, USA. The site is debuting its non-gaming software section with two massively discounted products that will help PC enthusiasts significantly cut costs of new PC builds. Windows 10 Pro is a more preferred variant of Windows 10 among enthusiasts, as it features significantly more management features over the Home variant. URCDKeys is selling globally-valid OEM licenses of Windows 10 Pro (license that is non-transferrable between systems), at USD $14.79, a massive 90% discount from market prices.

Crucial , a leading global consumer brand of Micron Technology for memory and storage upgrades, today announced a new 32GB Nonvolatile DIMM (NVDIMM) to help companies preserve critical data in the event of a system power loss and limit costly downtime. The first Crucial NVDIMM to operate at 2933 MT/s, the new module provides companies powerful and persistent memory performance while reducing the amount of NVDIMMs needed in a server.

In fast-paced business environments, sales and customer satisfaction are decided in milliseconds. Crucial NVDIMMs give organisations the advantage when data transactions hang in the balance by fusing memory with on-module NAND, providing near-instant access with data persistence. In the event of a system power loss, the NVDIMM would back up DRAM data to the NAND with help from an ultracapacitator, its backup power source. Crucial NVDIMMs are compatible with the latest 2.5 inch drive bay and HHHL PCIe AgigA Tech PowerGEM ultracapacitors, enabling continual power to up to four NVDIMMs during power loss until a backup is completed.

During testing for our Intel Core i9-9900K review we found out that new ASUS Z390 motherboards automatically install software and drivers to your Windows 10 System, without the need for network access, and without any user knowledge or confirmation. This process happens in complete network-isolation (i.e. the machine has no Internet or LAN access). Our Windows 10 image is based on Windows 10 April 2018 Update and lacks in-built drivers for the integrated network controllers.

Upon first boot, with the machine having no LAN or Internet connectivity, we were greeted by an ASUS-specific window in the bottom right corner of our screen, asking whether we'd like to install the network drivers and download "Armoury Crate". This got us curious and we scanned the system for any files that aren't part of the standard MS Windows installation. We discovered three ASUS-signed files in our Windows 10 System32 folder, which, so it seems, magically appeared on our harddrive out of thin air. Upon further investigation we also found a new, already running, system service called "AsusUpdateCheck."

Intel is hit by crippling inventory shortages for many of its fast-selling 8th generation Core desktop processor SKUs. A number of factors are contributing to these shortages, as we discussed in this article. A key short-term consequence of shortages in Intel's inventories is more uninitiated buyers discovering AMD processors, now that they've achieved the highest levels of competitiveness against Intel in over a decade. Stock market analyst firm Jefferies has raised AMD's outlook for Q4-2018, and projects that its $30 stock price could hit $36, by raising its target price.

OEMs are not happy with Intel. Haphazard roadmap and platform changes have forced them to revise their product designs way too frequently, and now they're faced with the prospect of a short-supply. A report from research firm Fubon predicts that by next year, 1 in every 3 personal computers sold by HP (Hewlett Packard) will run an AMD processor. "Fubon's report that Intel will undersupply the PC market between 4Q18 and 2Q19 leaves us with higher conviction that AMD will report improving revenue, pricing and margins near term, and that is positioned to take share in the high end PC MPU and server market long term," said stock market analyst Mark Lipacis. He predicts that AMD's CPU market-share climbing to 30% through next year (a very huge feat for AMD).

Samsung is ready with a 32 GB DDR4 UDIMM (unbuffered DIMMs) targeted at desktops. Dual-channel kits with these modules could let you max out the 64 GB memory limit of today's mainstream desktop processors, and 128 GB limits of Intel's Core X HEDT processors, with quad-channel kits. AMD's Ryzen Threadripper processors are advertised to support up to 2 TB of memory (including ECC support), so it should finally be possible to pack up to 256 GB of memory on Threadripper-powered machines.

The new M378A4G43MB1-CTD DDR4 UDIMM from Samsung is, unsurprisingly, a dual-rank module (x8 / x16 Organization or up to 2 ranks per DIMM and 2DPC configuration). It ticks at DDR4-2666 at a module voltage of 1.2 V. The module itself won't be much to look at, with a green PCB and bare-naked DRAM chips. It is is currently sampling to PC OEMs. It could also be possible for more popular memory manufacturers to get in touch with Samsung for the DRAM chips that make up this module. A single-rank variant of this module could finally make it possible for AMD Ryzen AM4 machines to have 32 GB of dual-channel memory at acceptably high memory clocks.