Sparkle has announced the Titan OC graphics card, becoming the company's flagship Intel Arc A770 16 GB graphics card. It stands out with its 16 GB onboard memory, factory-overclocked GPU and memory, and an advanced cooling system for additional overclocking potential. After Sparkle's re-entry into the graphics card market, it unveiled a series of Intel Arc-based products. The Arc A770 Titan, in particular, showcases the company's technological advancements. The Sparkle Intel Arc A770 Titan OC Edition features Intel's ACM-G10 GPU with a base clock of 2300 MHz, which is a significant increase from Intel's stock 2100 MHz, and boasts a 16 GB memory with a 17.5 GT/s data transfer rate.

The card has two eight-pin auxiliary PCIe power connectors, yielding a 650-watt PSU requirement, and an expansive triple-fan cooling system for optimal performance even under heavy loads. A unique feature is the ThermalSync thermal sensor atop the cooler, which adjusts the LED light bar's color based on temperature, making it easier for users to monitor. When Intel discontinued its Limited Edition Arc A770 16 GB graphics card, there was a gap in the market for a high-performance graphics card to rival offerings from ASRock and Acer. Sparkle hasn't revealed the pricing for its Intel Arc A770 Titan OC Edition GPU.

Samsung Semiconductor introduced its 990 PRO Flagship PCIe Gen 4 SSD range a year ago, with 1 TB and 2 TB models available day one on launch. The South Korean company also teased a 4 TB variant for release in 2023—recent activity on social media indicates that the higher capacity model will be coming soon (but no firm date was touted): "You wanted it so badly, we had no choice but to deliver. The 4 TB 990 PRO by Samsung SSD is coming. Same blazing-fast storage with double the max capacity for gaming, video, 3D editing, and more. Stay tuned for more details."

According to Samsung's specification sheet, the 990 Pro 4 TB is due to arrive in two forms—a plain drive (MZ-V9P4T0BW) with a simple/thin graphene heat spreader and a fancier version sporting an aluminium heatsink (MZ-V9P4T0CW). The latest marketing blurb continues to place emphasis on the 990 Pro M.2 2280 drives being ideal candidates for upgrading the PlayStation 5's (PCIe 4.0) internal storage—we will have to wait closer to launch time for the 4 TB variant's MSRP, although its eventual pricing is most likely going to target enthusiast PC users. The 2 TB model (w/ heatsink) is currently available for $149.99 (down from the original launch value of $309.99) at the time of writing.

Lightelligence, the global leader in photonic computing and connectivity systems, today announced Photowave, the first optical communications hardware designed for PCIe and Compute Express Link (CXL) connectivity, unleashing next-generation workload efficiency.

Photowave, an Optical Networking (oNET) transceiver leveraging the significant latency and energy efficiency of photonics technology, empowers data center managers to scale resources within or across server racks. The first public demonstration of Photowave will be at Flash Memory Summit today through Thursday, August 10, in Santa Clara, Calif.

From the cloud, to the edge, to the enterprise, data center architects are deploying higher levels of flash to unlock the potential of AI, object storage, file sharing and more. At the same time, they are laser-focused on controlling spend and must find solutions to help them manage, scale and utilize storage assets more efficiently. This is driving a growing trend to disaggregate and share NVMe flash over fabric (NVMe-oF) for improved performance, availability and flexibility of storage resources.

Helping customers simplify NVMe/NVMe-oF storage deployment, Western Digital (NASDAQ: WDC) today announced its enhanced OpenFlex Data24 3200 NVMe-oF JBOF/Storage Platform along with the next-generation RapidFlex A2000 and C2000 NVMe-oF fabric bridge devices (FBDs), and the new Ultrastar DC SN655 PCIe Gen 4.0 dual-port NVMe SSD. These new storage solutions are enabling an ecosystem, providing more flexibility and choice for simplifying NVMe and NVMe-oF deployment for customers. Western Digital is now the only company with vertical integration capabilities targeting both ends of the Ethernet wire to deliver solutions where data travels from the server initiator to the storage target.

MaxLinear, Inc., a leader in data storage accelerator solutions, today announced the production-release of the OCP 3.0 storage accelerator adapter card for Panther III. The ultra-low latency accelerator is designed to quicken key storage workloads, including database acceleration, storage offload, encryption, compression, and deduplication enablement for maximum data reduction. The Panther III OCP card is ideal for use in modern data centers, including public to edge clouds, enterprise data centers, and telecommunications infrastructure, allowing users to access, process, and transfer data up to 12 times faster than without a storage accelerator. The OCP version of the card is available immediately with a PCIe version available in Q3 2023.

"In an era where the amount of data generated exceeds new storage installations by multiple fold, Panther III helps reduce the massive storage gap while improving TCO per bit stored," said Dylan Patel, Chief Analyst at SemiAnalysis.

PCI-SIG today announced the formation of a new workgroup to deliver PCI Express (PCIe) technology over optical connections. The PCI-SIG Optical Workgroup intends to be optical technology-agnostic, supporting a wide range of optical technologies, while potentially developing technology-specific form factors.

"Optical connections will be an important advancement for PCIe architecture as they will allow for higher performance, lower power consumption, extended reach and reduced latency," said Nathan Brookwood, Research Fellow at Insight 64. "Many data-demanding markets and applications such as Cloud and Quantum Computing, Hyperscale Data Centers and High-Performance Computing will benefit from PCIe architecture leveraging optical connections."

We witnessed an exciting concept during the Computex 2023 show in late May. ASUS has developed a GPU without an external power connector called GC_HPWR. Unlike current solutions, this connection type doesn't require additional cables. Using the GC_HPWR means that power is being supplied directly from the motherboard and that these special-edition GPUs also require special-edition motherboards. Thanks to the latest information from the Bilibili content creator Eixa Studio, attending Bilibili World 2023 exhibition in Shanghai, China, we have information that ASUS is preparing mass production of these zero-cable GPU solutions. Scheduled to enter mass production in Fall, ASUS plans to deliver these GPUs and accompanying motherboards before the year ends.

Additionally, it is worth noting that the motherboard lineup is called Back To Future (BTF), and the first GPU showcased was the GeForce RTX 4070 Megalodon. The PSU connectors are placed on the back side of the BTF board, while the CG_HPWR connector sits right next to the PCIe x16 expansion slot and looks like a PCIe x1 connector. You can see images of both products below.

Solidigm over the weekend announced the Solidigm D5-P5336 line of enterprise SSDs. The company earns bragging rights for having the highest capacity among production SSDs, with these coming in capacities of up to 61.44 TB—an incredible amount of storage that HDDs have yet to catch up to. These drives are targeted at the data-center, where they not just replace HDDs due to their sheer density, but also provide the advantage of responsive flash storage. The drives aren't gunning to top SSD performance charts, the design goal is simply capacity and reliability. The D5-P5336 series feature enterprise-grade QLC NAND flash memory that's been extensively tested for reliability and write endurance.

The Solidigm D5-P5336 series comes in three data-center relevant form-factors—15 mm-thick U.2, 7.5 mm-thick E3.S, and the E1.L (ruler) form-factor. Capacities start at 7.68 TB for the U.2 and E3.S models, and 15.36 TB for the E1.L. The maximum capacity on offer is 61.44 TB for the U.2 and E1.L form-factors, and 30.72 TB for the E3.S. Among the capacity variants are 15.36 TB, 30.72 TB, and 61.44 TB. The drives use a proprietary controller that takes advantage of the PCI-Express 4.0 x4 host interface, and NVMe 1.4c protocol. The star attraction, however, is the 192-layer 3D QLC NAND flash memory made in-house by Solidigm.

A relatively new player in the water cooling industry, Comino, has recently introduced its latest product: a water block for the NVIDIA H100 PCIe accelerator card. The new block provides full coverage with cooling to the GPU, GDDR, and VRM. In the design, Comino only used non-corrosive materials such as copper, stainless steel, aluminium, and Plastic. The core of the block uses copper, while the frame and backplate use aluminium. The company claims that at a coolant temperature of 20°C, the temperature of the GH100 chip with Comino water blocks will be 30º-40°C.

Comino uses "deformational cutting" technology to create a copper fin as thin as 0.1 mm with a 0.1 mm channel and 3 mm height. In Comino water blocks, micro fins are optimized for a low-pressure drop with a thickness of 0.25 mm, channel - 0.25 mm, and 2.7 mm height. The block itself is a single-slot solution with fitting adapters on the back and a 90º adapter option for workstation implementation. More information is available on the Comino website. You can see the images below.

In the world of modern embedded computing, motherboards and systems are equipped with numerous M.2 and Mini-PCI Express sockets. These sockets provide ideal homes for networking communication adapters and solid-state drives (SSDs), including NVMe-compatible SSDs. With an abundance of sockets, embedded systems now have unparalleled connectivity and storage options.

Cervoz recognizes this need and introduces a new industrial SSD perfectly suited for these boards and systems: the M.2 2242 PCIe Gen 3 x 2 (B+M Key) SSD, T421. This SSD is designed specifically for embedded motherboards and systems, making it a perfect fit for industrial applications ranging from retail and gaming solutions to embedded computing devices.

ADLINK Technology Inc., a global leader in edge computing, and a Titanium member of the Intel Partner Alliance, is proud to announce the launch of its latest MVP Series fanless modular computers—the MVP-5200 Compact Modular Industrial Computers and MVP-6200 Expandable Modular Industrial Computers—powered by 12/13th Gen Intel Core i9/i7/i5/i3 and Celeron processors. Featuring Intel R680E chipset and supporting up to 65 W, the computers can also incorporate GPU cards in a rugged package suitable for AI inferencing at the Edge, and can be used for but not limited to smart manufacturing, semiconductor equipment, and warehouse applications.

The MVP-5200/MVP-6200 series though expandable remains compact with support for up to 4 PCI/PCIe slots that allow for performance acceleration through GPUs, accelerators, and other expansion cards. Comprehensive modularized options and the ease of configuration can effectively reduce lead times for customers' diverse requirements. In addition, ADLINK also offers a broad range of pre-validated expansion cards, such as GPU, motion, vision, and I/O embedded cards, all can be easily deployed for your industrial applications.

ASUS Chinese GM—Tony Yu—has shown off a graphics card concept on Bilibili that has a rather unusual feature, a slot for an M.2 NVMe SSD. The card is based on NVIDIA's GeForce RT 4060 Ti GPU and although not all details are clear at this point in time, but ASUS is taking advantage of the unused PCIe lanes on the card, since the AD106 GPU only uses eight PCIe lanes, the PCIe connector on the card has space for a further eight lanes. In theory ASUS could have added a pair of SSDs, since there are a total of eight lanes available, but as this was just a proof of concept, they seemingly stuck with a single SSD.

It's unclear if ASUS relies on bifurcation or if the company has added some kind of bridge chip, but bifurcation makes more sense, as a bridge chip would add a lot more cost. The neat thing with the NVMe drive being on the GPU, is that it also connects to the heatsink of the graphics card, which means the cooling should be rather good. However, for this to work properly, the SSD would have to be mounted back to front compared to how it would be mounted on a motherboard. Based on the test results, the SSD runs at a cool 42 degrees C, even when the GPU is being stress tested. It's likely that this product will not make it to markets outside of China, if it's ever launched into retail.

The European brand expands its portfolio of PCIe Gen 4 x4 SSDs in M.2 format with a model dedicated to the PS 5 console. It is the IRDM PRO SLIM - ideal not only for gamers, but also professionals and enthusiasts.

The IRDM PRO SLIM is a twin model of the IRDM PRO M.2 SSD. Unlike its predecessor, the new drive is offered without a heatsink, making it 100% compliant with Sony's requirements for PlayStation 5 console drives. The technical parameters speak in favour of choosing an SSD from a European manufacturer. Maximum read and write speeds are 7000/6850 MB/s, respectively. The PCIe 4 x4 NVMe interface delivers twice the speed of older 3 x4 solutions. The memory speed is also influenced by DRAM buffer of up to 2 GB, thanks to which the drive works stably even under heavy use.

ASRock Industrial is introducing new choices in industrial motherboards powered by 13th Gen Intel Core Processors (Raptor Lake-S) with up to 24 cores and 32 threads that boost computer-intensive edge performance. They come equipped with Intel W680, Q670, and H610 chipsets, and offer support for up to DDR5-5600 memory modules and PCIe Gen 5, allowing expanded possibilities and seamless integration within industry-specific applications.

By harnessing the power of the 13th Gen Intel Core Processors, they leap up to 1.04x/1.34x/1.25x faster in single-thread, multi-thread, and CPU image classification inference performance, respectively, compared to the preceding 12th Gen Intel Core processors. The new 13th Gen Intel CPU motherboards with DDR5 support, available in Mini-ITX, Micro-ATX, and ATX form factors, have been specifically designed to cater to the unique requirements of the Edge AIoT applications in commerce, automation, robot, entertainment, and security industries.

Samsung Electronics, a world leader in advanced semiconductor technology, today announced its latest foundry technology innovations and business strategy at the 7th annual Samsung Foundry Forum (SFF) 2023. Under the theme "Innovation Beyond Boundaries," this year's forum delved into Samsung Foundry's mission to address customer needs in the artificial intelligence (AI) era through advanced semiconductor technology.

Over 700 guests, from customers and partners of Samsung Foundry, attended this year's event, of which 38 companies hosted their own booths to share the latest technology trends in the foundry industry.

Seagate Technology Holdings today introduced the next generation of SSD technology to its lineup, the FireCuda 540. The PCIe Gen 5 NVMe SSD delivers unparalleled performance to gamers, creators, and tech enthusiasts - adding the fastest speeds and endurance to the company's line of PC storage products.

Seagate's fastest and highest performance M.2 2280 SSD, the FireCuda 540 delivers sequential read speeds of up to 10,000 MB/s and sequential write speeds of up to 10,000 MB/s. Built for sustained, pro-level gaming and accelerated content creation, the new drive performs up to 50% faster than Gen 4 M.2 NVMe drives and 17 times faster than SATA-based SSDs. With the latest 3D TLC NAND technology and built with a Seagate-validated E26 controller, the FireCuda 540 provides the most advanced speed and durability - allowing users to push limits when gaming or creating content. Plug-and-play compatible with all PCIe Gen 5 motherboards and backwards compatible with PCIe Gen 4, the drive is accessible and ready for trailblazing.

NVIDIA's compute and AI-oriented H100 GPU is supposedly getting an upgrade. The H100 GPU is NVIDIA's most powerful offering and comes in a few different flavors: H100 PCIe, H100 SXM, and H100 NVL (a duo of two GPUs). Currently, the H100 GPU comes with 80 GB of HBM2E, both in the PCIe and SXM5 version of the card. A notable exception if the H100 NVL, which comes with 188 GB of HBM3, but that is for two cards, making it 94 GB per each. However, we could see NVIDIA enable 94 and 64 GB options for the H100 accelerator soon, as the latest PCI ID Repository shows.

According to the PCI ID Repository listing, two messages are posted: "Kindly help to add H100 SXM5 64 GB into 2337." and "Kindly help to add H100 SXM5 94 GB into 2339." These two messages indicate that NVIDIA could prepare its H100 in more variations. In September 2022, we saw NVIDIA prepare an H100 variation with 120 GB of memory, but that still isn't official. These PCIe IDs could just come from engineering samples that NVIDIA is testing in the labs, and these cards could never appear on any market. So, we have to wait and see how it plays out.

ASRock Rack, the leading innovative server company, today announced its support of 4th Gen AMD EPYC processors with AMD "Zen 4c" architecture and 4th Gen AMD EPYC processors with AMD 3D V-Cache technology, as well as the expansion of their new products ranging from high-density storage, GPU, multi-nodes servers all for the new AMD processors.

"4th Gen AMD EPYC processors offer the highest core density of any x86 processor in the world and will deliver outstanding performance and efficiency for cloud-native workloads," said Lynn Comp, corporate vice president, Server Product and Technology Marketing, AMD. "Our latest family of data center processors allow customers to balance workload growth and flexibility with critical infrastructure consolidation mandates, enabling our customers to do more work, with more energy efficiency at a time when cloud native computing is transforming the data center."

PCI-SIG is pleased to share the PCI Express (PCIe) 7.0 specification, version 0.3 is now available to members. Version 0.3 of the specification indicates that the first review draft of the specification is complete and has received work group approval. This is an important milestone for PCI-SIG, demonstrating we are on plan for a full specification release in 2025.

The PCIe 7.0 specification is targeted to support emerging applications such as 800 G Ethernet, AI/ML, Cloud and Quantum Computing; and data-intensive markets like Hyperscale Data Centers, High-Performance Computing (HPC), Edge and Military/Aerospace.

ASUS today announced ESC N8-E11, its most advanced HGX H100 eight-GPU AI server, along with a comprehensive PCI Express (PCIe) GPU server portfolio—the ESC8000 and ESC4000 series empowered by Intel and AMD platforms to support higher CPU and GPU TDPs to accelerate the development of AI and data science.

ASUS is one of the few HPC solution providers with its own all-dimensional resources that consist of the ASUS server business unit, Taiwan Web Service (TWS) and ASUS Cloud—all part of the ASUS group. This uniquely positions ASUS to deliver in-house AI server design, data-center infrastructure, and AI software-development capabilities, plus a diverse ecosystem of industrial hardware and software partners.

ASUS today announced the TUF Gaming AS1000, a portable high-performance M.2 NVMe 1 TB SSD with innovative cooling features to ensure ultrafast data transfers. TUF Gaming AS1000 uses a USB-C 3.2 Gen 2x1 connection and is compatible with PCs, laptops, and the latest gaming consoles. This SSD has been subjected to stringent durability testing to ensure stored data is well-protected from everyday spills and knocks. Plus, bundled NTI Backup Now EZ software (valued at up to US$35.99) allows for easy data backup and recovery.

Military-grade toughness
The TUF Gaming AS1000 has been subjected to a rigorous battery of durability tests, including the U.S-military-grade MIL-STD-810H drop test and IP68 water-and-dust-resistance tests. Devices were dropped from various heights, submerged in water, and exposed to dust and dirt to ensure toughness, making the TUF Gaming AS1000 more than capable of withstanding accidental bumps, knocks, and spills.

Today, Intel introduced the Intel Arc Pro A60 and Pro A60M as new members of the Intel Arc Pro A-series professional range of graphics processing units (GPUs). The new products are a significant step up in performance in the Intel Arc Pro family and are carefully designed for professional workstations users with up to 12 GB of video memory (VRAM) and support for four displays with high dynamic range (HDR) and Dolby Vision support.

With built-in ray tracing hardware, graphics acceleration and machine learning capabilities, the Intel Arc Pro A60 GPU unites fluid viewports, the latest in visual technologies and rich content creation in a traditional single slot factor.

Neo Forza, a Taiwanese brand entity under Goldkey Technology Corporation, had a booth at Computex 2023, where the company showed its next-generation memory and storage products. Starting off, the company presented its DDR5 memory kits running at 8000 MHz speeds, indicating the maturity of DDR5 and that we are way past the initial 4800 MHz speeds at launch. The demonstrated kit was a part of the company's TRINITY lineup, which was displayed in white. For demo purposes, the kit was configured as two 16 GB DIMMs.

Next up, Neo Forza has showcased its next-generation PCIe Gen 5 NVMe SSD. Running at x4 lanes of the new PCIe 5.0 protocol, the 2 TB SSD was spotted running at 10 GB/s speeds in both read and write tasks set by CrystalDiskMark benchmark. Interestingly, the SSD also boasted a massive heatsink, as shown below.

2023. There are three cases that Lian Li is presenting: O11D EVO XL, O11D EVO RGB, O11 Vision, and SUP 01. Starting off with the O11D EVO XL, it is a versatile e-ATX case designed to house cutting-edge hardware, with the added flexibility of being set up in a reverse configuration. This case allows for placing a GPU next to the motherboard, either upright or flipped, in either standard or reverse setups. It is also equipped with an adaptable I/O module that can be mounted at various points for optimal user-friendliness. Furthermore, the O11D XL comes with a detachable support column on the front left, providing unimpeded visual access to the case's interior. It also boasts a motherboard tray that can be adjusted in height for three different cooling arrangements, even accommodating up to three 420 radiators simultaneously.

During Computex 2023, EK Water Blocks, a company known for making all kinds of liquid cooling solutions, showed off a concept case in partnership with InWin. Called 977EK, the concept case is a pre-production model that centers around the idea of a brushed aluminium shell combined with tempered glass panels. The case is made out of the internal structure, and for the outside, the two brushed aluminium sheets meet in the back and at the bottom of the case, removing the visible lines of the 4 mm thick aluminium sheets meeting, improving aesthetics. On the sides, the case carries two tempered glass panels held by thumb screws in the corners. An odd shape perforates the top part of the aluminium sheet.

The internal structure is interesting, as the case is built for water cooling of the system. While the motherboard tray can support any format from Mini-ITX to E-ATX, the tray itself can be rotated, reversed, and removed entirely based on user preference. For radiator setup, the 977EK concept case can accommodate up to 420 mm radiators with 45 mm thickness at both the top and bottom of the chassis. Additionally, the case has support for 350 mm GPU, 7 or 8 PCIe slots (depending on the configuration), a PSU of 160 mm length, and an option for either one 3.5-inch drive bay or two 2.5-inch bays. The final production case will see some changes, as EK notes; however, they won't be too significant.