As it turned out that ASUS ROG Ally handheld console is not actually an April Fools' Day prank, more details have started to appear about this Steam Deck competitor, and these first details look pretty promising. According to the Dave2D video, showing the prototype unit in full details, the ASUS ROG Ally will indeed be based on a 4 nm custom AMD APU, featuring Zen 4 CPU and RDNA3 iGPU, so we are most likely looking at a custom AMD Phoenix APU.

The video had a few nice pictures of the pre-production PCB as well as the cooling setup as well as details on the screen, and some performance of the ASUS ROG Ally. The ROG Ally measures at 280 x 133 x 39 mm and weighing 608 grams. This makes it shorter, narrower, thinner, as well as lighter, compared to the Steam Deck. It also comes with 7-inch display, but this time around, it is a 500 nits, 1920x1080 resolution, 16:9 aspect ratio, display with a 120 Hz refresh rate and 5 ms response time, which makes it much better compared to the Steam Deck.

Update: LinusTechTips is the second one to get access to ASUS ROG Ally prototype and has provided a bit more details on specifications, performance, and other things about the upcoming handheld console.

While AMD has yet to officially launch the 7040 Series Phoenix APUs, yet another SKU has been spotted online, the 6-core/12-thread AMD Ryzen 5 7540U. Based on AMD's Zen 4 architecture and featuring RDNA3 iGPU, this SKU will join the recently spotted Ryzen 5 7640U and the Ryzen 7 7840U.

It is not clear how many SKUs will AMD actually have in the Ryzen 7040 U-Series, but so far three SKUs have leaked online. The earlier slide, which mentioned the Ryzen 7040 Series, put it in the thin and light segment with TDP ranging from 15 W to 28 W. Bear in mind that AMD will also have the 7040 series non-U Phoenix APUs that will fit the 35 W - 45 W "thin enthusiast" HS-series segment. There is also the "ultra enthusiast" HX-series segment with the recently launched 7045 Series Dragon Range APUs.

Benchmark results for Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 SoC appeared on Geekbench Browser early yesterday morning, under the designation Snapdragon 8cx Next Gen. This chipset is tipped to be a successor to the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3, which was launched at the end of 2021 as the world's first 5 nm Arm-based SoC for Windows laptops. A tipster on Twitter has highlighted the very underwhelming results posted by the next gen chipset, and these figures would indicate that an engineering sample was the test subject, not final silicon. The 8-core Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 is shown to outperform its supposed successor, and the clock frequencies for the latter appear to be lower than anticipated.

The Geekbench 5 database entry for Snapdragon 8cx Gen 4 also reveals details about its specifications - a 12-core configuration that is split into eight performance cores and four power-efficiency ones. The base core frequency is listed as being 2.38 GHz, and the benchmark was completed under a Balanced Power plan in Windows 11 Home Insider Preview. 16 GB of RAM was used in the test kit, although earlier leaks have indicated that the chipset can support up to a maximum of 64 GB LPDDR5 RAM.

According to the latest leak, AMD's upcoming Phoenix accelerated processing units (APUs) could feature a hybrid design, featuring Performance and Efficiency cores. While there are no precise details, the latest AMD processor programming guide, leaked online, clearly marks these as two types of cores, most likely standard Zen 4 and energy-efficient Zen 4c cores.

These two set of cores will features a different feature set, and the latest document gives software designers guidelines. Such hybrid CPU design, similar to ARM's BIG.little architecture, will allow AMD to be more competitive with Intel's similar P- and E-core design, allowing it to achieve certain performance levels while also maintaining power efficiency.

AMD's 4 nm "Phoenix" silicon could serious turn the company's fortunes around in the ultra-thin notebook space. The 28-Watt Ryzen 7 7840U surfaced on Cinebench R23 screenshots, where it is shown beating the previous-generation 55 W flagship, the Ryzen 9 6900HX. If this is any indication of performance across the board, then the 15-28 W models of Ryzen 7040-series "Phoenix" could unleash an open-season against competing 15-28 W-category 13th Gen Core processors that have lower P-core counts, such as 2P+8E. The 7840U has all eight "Zen 4" CPU cores enabled, along with a fast RDNA3 graphics architecture based iGPU. In the screenshot, the 7840U is shown with a Cinebench R23 multi-threaded score of 14285 points, a score that is higher than that of the "Zen 3+" based 6900HX "Rembrandt," and a touch below the 45 W Core i7-12800H, which means it could have the upper hand over several 13th Gen and 12 Gen SKUs in the 15-28 W category.

If you were one of those that were waiting with bated breath for AMD's Zen 4 based "Phoenix" line-up of mobile CPUs, you're going to be waiting a little longer. Late on Friday afternoon AMD announced that they have delayed the launch of their Ryzen Mobile 7040HS series of CPUs, pushing the expected launch window from late March to some time in April. Speculation abound as to why this may be, but the direct correspondence from AMD's PR department is sparse:

To align with platform readiness and ensure the best possible user experience, we now expect our OEM partners to launch the first notebooks powered by Ryzen 7040HS Series processors in April.

As a refresher on the "Phoenix" line of CPUs these are the next-generation Zen 4 based monolithic SoCs built on TSMC's 4 nm process first announced back in January. These chips feature up to 8 Zen 4 cores with turbo clocks reaching 5 to 5.2 GHz, an RDNA3 based integrated GPU with clocks as high as 3 GHz, and AMD's first AI coprocessor dubbed Ryzen AI. Despite being Zen 4 these SoCs are still using PCI-E Gen 4 but are not hamstrung by a lack of lanes like some previous generations. We've already seen substantial leaks over the past few days hinting at the performance of these chips which suggests they will offer good competition to Intel's shipping 13th Gen Raptor Lake mobile offerings.

Phoenix Technologies, a leading independent firmware supplier for PCs and computing devices, has launched FirmGuard, a cyber security product to address firmware vulnerability. Firmware is the software that connects a device's microchips to the operating system.

Phoenix Technologies is the first UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) vendor to offer an enterprise cyber security product. FirmGuard is a cloud-based service, which has been initially targeted at managed service providers (MSPs). It will also be offered to large enterprise and government organizations.

AMD is preparing to update its mobile sector with the latest IP in the form of Zen4 CPU cores and RDNA3 graphics. According to Red Gaming Tech, we have specifications of upcoming processor families. First, we have AMD Dragon Range mobile processors representing a downsized Raphael design for laptops. Carrying Zen4 CPU cores and RDNA2 integrated graphics, these processors are meant to power high-performance laptops with up to 16 cores and 32 threads. Being a direct competitor to Intel's Alder Lake-HX, these processors also carry an interesting naming convention. The available SKUs include AMD Ryzen 5 7600HX, Ryzen 7 7800HX, Ryzen 9 7900HX, and Ryzen 9 7980HX design with a massive 16-core configuration. These CPUs are envisioned to run along with more powerful dedicated graphics, with clock speeds of 4.8-5.0+ GHz.

Next, we have AMD Phoenix processors, which take Dragon Range's design to a higher level thanks to the newer graphics IP. Having Zen4 cores, Phoenix processors carry upgraded RDNA3 graphics chips to provide a performance level similar to NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3060 Max-Q SKU, all in one package. These APUs will come in four initial configurations: Ryzen 5 7600HS, Ryzen 7 7800HS, Ryzen 9 7900HS, and Ryzen 9 7980HS. While maxing out at eight cores, these APUs will compensate with additional GPU compute units with a modular chiplet design. AMD Phoenix is set to become AMD's first chiplet design launching for the laptop market, and we can expect more details as we approach the launch date.

An engineering sample of AMD's next-generation Ryzen "Phoenix Point" mobile processor has been powered up, and made its first appearance on the Geekbench user-database. "Phoenix Point" is a monolithic silicon mobile processor built on the TSMC N5 (5 nm EUV) process, featuring "Zen 4" CPU cores, and a significantly faster iGPU based on the RDNA3 graphics architecture; along with a DDR5/LPDDR5 memory interface, and PCI-Express Gen 5.0 capability. An engineering sample with an 8-core/16-thread CPU, with the OPN code "100-000000709-23_N," hit the radar. AMD could debut Ryzen "Phoenix Point" in the first quarter of 2023, possibly with an International CES announcement.

AMD's next-generation Ryzen 7000-series "Phoenix" mobile processors are all the rage these days. Bound for 2023, these chips feature a powerful iGPU based on the RDNA3 graphics architecture, with performance allegedly rivaling that of a GeForce RTX 3060 Laptop GPU—a popular performance-segment discrete GPU. What's more, AMD is also taking a swing at Intel in the CPU core-count game, by giving "Phoenix" a large number of "Zen 4" CPU cores. The secret ingredient pushing this combo, however, is a large cache.

AMD has used large caches to good effect both on its "Zen 3" processors, such as the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, where they're called 3D Vertical Cache (3D V-cache); as well as its Radeon RX 6000 discrete GPUs, where they're called Infinity Cache. The only known difference between the two is that the latter is fully on-die, while the former is stacked on top of existing silicon IP. It's being reported now, that "Phoenix" will indeed feature a stacked 3D V-cache.

AMD is planning a massive integrated graphics performance uplift for its next-generation Ryzen 7000U mobile processors. Codenamed "Phoenix," this SoC will feature a CPU based on the "Zen 4" microarchitecture with a higher CPU core count than the Intel alternative of the time; and an iGPU based on the RDNA3 graphics architecture. AMD is planning to endow this with the right combination of a CU count and engine clocks, to result in performance that roughly matches the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Laptop GPU, a popular performance-segment discrete GPU for notebooks, according to greymon55. Other highlights of "Phoenix" include a DDR5 + LPDDR5 memory interface, and PCI-Express Gen 5. The SoC is expected to be built on the TSMC N5 (5 nm) process, and debut in 2023.

AMD has confirmed its revamped APU strategy will be delivered throughout three different APU line-ups come 2023. While Raphael will take care of AMD's hopes in the desktop space, the company is readying a new, "Dragon Range" lineup of "pinnacle gaming"-oriented APUs, leveraging the company's upcoming Zen 4 architecture, DDR5, and PCIe 5. Dragon Range APUs will feature the "highest core, thread, and cache ever for a mobile gaming CPU" - although AMD stopped just short of confirming exactly what "highest" translates to. To aid in its extreme gaming aspirations, TDP for Dragon Range is set at 55 W - they thus "largely exist in the space where gaming laptops are plugged in the majority of the time," according to AMD director of technical marketing Robert Hallock.

Another APU family, Phoenix, will be aimed at thin and lights with a penchant for gaming. Phoenix too will leverage AMD's Zen 4 core, DDR5 memory subsystem, and PCIe 5 interfaces. Being aimed at thin and lights, Phoenix APUs are set for a 35 W - 45 W operating range. Interestingly, AMD didn't share any other details - more crucially, the graphics architecture that's to be employed in these high-performance APUs.

As we await the update of AMD's highly anticipated 6000 series Rembrandt APUs based on Zen 3 cores and RDNA2 graphics, we are in for a surprise with information about the next generation, more than a year away, of Ryzen 7000 series mobile processors based on Zen 4 architecture. Codenamed Raphael-H, it co-exists with the upcoming lineup of Phoenix APUs, which come after the 6000 series Rembrandt APU lineup. This mobile variant of the forthcoming desktop Raphael processors features as many as 16 cores based on Zen 4 architecture. What is so special about the Raphael-H is that it represents a mobile adaptation of desktop processors, and we are not sure how it will be different from the Phoenix APUs. However, we assume that Phoenix is going to feature a more powerful graphics solution.

The confusing thing is the timeline of these processors. First comes the Rembrandt APUs (6000 series) and then both the Raphael-H and Phoenix mobile processors. AMD could disable iGPU on mobile Raphael-H designs. However, that is just a guess. We have to wait to find out more in the upcoming months.

As the leading brand in enthusiastic graphics market, Gainward proudly presents two new Phoenix series for GeForce RTX 30 Series - Gainward GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Phoenix and Gainward GeForce RTX 3070 Ti Phoenix. These new Phoenix GeForce RTX 30 Series Series are powered by NVIDIA Ampere architecture with 2nd gen Ray Tracing cores, 3rd gen Tensor cores and new streaming multiprocessors, bringing stunning visuals, amazingly fast frame rates, and AI acceleration to games and creative applications. It brings you up to 1.9X performance-per-watts over the previous generation.

Gainward GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Phoenix and Gainward GeForce RTX 3070 Ti Phoenix come with new Phoenix cooler design. Fabricating ARGB lighting capability, by using the latest Expertool utility, it provides customized lighting effect to suit gamers own style while gaming.

ASUS has recently launched their first Ampere Series Phoenix card with the GeForce RTX 3060 Phoenix (PH-RTX3060-12G). The Phoenix features a 2.5 slot design with a single fan and measures just 17.7 x 12.8 x 5.1 cm which makes it the shortest Ampere GPU from ASUS. The card features the NVIDIA standard 1777 MHz boost clock but can be configured with the bundled ASUS software for 1807 MHz. The Phoenix includes three DisplayPort 1.4a connectors and one HDMI 2.1 along with a single 8-pin power connector. The card is now available to purchase from select retailers but official pricing and availability have not been released.

Yuri "1usmus" Bubliy released the latest major version of Clock Tuner for Ryzen (CTR), the definitely utility designed for overclocking and memory tuning of AMD Ryzen processors. The app simplifies the myriad of performance-related settings on the AMD platform, and gives professional overclockers the fine-grained control they want. The latest version 2.00 available for download on TechPowerUp today, adds support for Ryzen 5000 series "Vermeer" desktop processors based on the "Zen 3" microarchitecture, and Ryzen 4000G series "Renoir" desktop APUs. This should particularly come as a boon for memory overclockers looking to pair a Ryzen 7 Pro 4750G with a 1-DPC motherboard such as the MSI B550 Unify-X, to chase down AMD memory OC and latency records.

Next up, we see additional diagnostic and tuning modes. The app adds an in-built monitoring utility, so you don't need to run Ryzen Master on the side. The new "Phoenix" feature restores the app's working state following an application crash, reboot, or BSOD. The new Hybrid OC feature lets you combine the accuracy of manual OC, with the efficiency of PBO (Precision Boost Overdrive), so your processor isn't locked at a high clock speed, only to get power/thermal throttled when you need it to run at its manual OC clocks. The app improves the Initial Frequency Smart Offset feature. Profile management has been improved. A host of stability issues and bugs with the application have been fixed.

DOWNLOAD: Clock Tuner for Ryzen (CTR) 2.0 by Yuri Bubliy

NUVIA, a leading-edge silicon design company, today announced the close of its Series B funding round, raising $240M. The funding round was led by Mithril Capital in partnership with Sehat Sutardja and Weili Dai (founders of Marvell Technology Group), funds and accounts managed by BlackRock, Fidelity Management & Research Company LLC., and Temasek, with additional participation from Atlantic Bridge, Redline Capital, Capricorn Investment Group, Dell Technologies Capital, Mayfield, Nepenthe LLC and WRVI Capital. The closure of NUVIA's Series B round builds on a $53M Series A round, raised in November 2019. NUVIA was founded in February 2019 by John Bruno, Manu Gulati and Gerard Williams, with the vision to create the world's leading server processor.

As the leading brand in enthusiastic graphics market, Gainward proudly presents the new Phoenix series for NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series - Gainward GeForce RTX 3090 Phoenix "Golden Sample" and Gainward GeForce RTX 3080 Phoenix "Golden Sample". These new Phoenix GeForce RTX 30 Series are powered by the NVIDIA Ampere architecture with 2nd gen Ray Tracing cores, 3rd gen Tensor cores and new streaming multiprocessors, bringing stunning visuals, amazingly fast frame rates, and AI acceleration to games and creative applications. It brings you up to 1.9X performance-per-watts over the previous generation.

Gainward GeForce RTX 3090 Phoenix series and Gainward GeForce RTX 3080 Phoenix series come with new Phoenix cooler design. Fabricating ARGB lighting capability, by using the latest Expertool utility, it provides customized lighting effect to suit gamers own style while gaming. With whole new thermal design - low acoustic level even under heavy-loading gaming environment, "Zero RPM" feature as well as highly protective double-side die casting design, that gives users a truly trust to the product.

Last year, in November of 2019, a startup company called NUVIA Inc. broke out of the stealth mode and decided to reveal itself to the public. Focused on "re-imagining silicon", the company is led by some of the brightest minds in the semiconductor industry. Some people like Gerard Williams III, the CEO of the company, previously served as a chief CPU architect at Apple and has spent over 10 years at Arm before that. Others like Manu Gulati and John Bruno serve as senior vice presidents of silicon and system engineering respectively. Together, their people are forming a company full of well-known industry names. Of course, there are more and you should check out this page.

NUVIA Inc. promises to deliver only the best performance and "re-imagine silicon" as they say. Today, we got some bold claims from the company regarding the performance of their upcoming Phoenix SoC. Using Geekbench 5, the company has provided some simulated results of how the Phoenix SoC will perform. Being that it runs on Arm ISA, the SoC can run at very low power and achieve good performance. NUVIA has run some simulations and it expects its Phoenix SoC to be 40-50% faster in single-threaded performance than Zen 2/Sunny Cove at just a third of the power, 33% of the percent of power to be precise. In the graph below, NUVIA has placed its SoC only in 5 W range, however, the company said that they have left the upper curve to be disclosed at later date, meaning that the SoC will likely compete in high-performance markets and at higher power targets. While these claims are to be taken with a grain of salt, it is now a waiting game to see how NUVIA realizes its plans.

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.

CES might be over, but our coverage from the event continues. TechPowerUp prides itself on visiting a lot of brands, big and small, and bringing to you our first-hand account of everything new. EK Waterblocks, or simply EKWB henceforth, had a large room in the Mandalay Bay with a big open window spanning the room, which made for challenging photography, but a well-laid out open plan made it easy for us to go over the various product segments they had to display. This post will go briefly over them, but keep in mind that nearly all products showcased do not have set retail availability info just yet.

The very first thing that caught our eyes was their new line of AIO cooling solutions, now simply called EK-AIO. These are the successors to the EK-MLC Phoenix, and the EK-Predator from before, both of which did not really change the status quo of the pre-filled AIO CPU cooling market. EK hopes that the new series, of which again they are working to finalizing the design before committing to a release window and pricing information, will change this. As with most of their new products, the EK-AIO coolers integrate RGB support with 9 dRGB LEDs in the pump/block and more on the EK-Vardar RGB fans that are used on the radiator itself. The EK-AIO series is planned to come in 120/240/360 mm radiator size options, with 1/2/3 fans respectively. Read past the break for more from the Slovenian watercooling brand.

ASUS today announced GeForce GTX 1650 graphics cards, adding new products into the ROG Strix, Dual, and Phoenix lineups. Based on the GeForce GTX 1650 GPU, these new graphics cards leverage the impressive performance of the Turing architecture to provide a strong foundation for AAA 1080p gaming, or a plug-and-play upgrade for aging systems.

EK Waterblocks had been the subject of more than one article over the recent months here at TechPowerUp, wherein we broke news about top management (at the time) having parted ways with the company and this in turn led to speculation about how this would affect the indubitable leader in market share when it comes to DIY watercooling today. Perhaps they felt as much, and had an entire suite full of products to show off at Computex this year. The products showcased here, and in another separate news post upcoming, are a mixture of updates to existing product lines as well as expansion of said lineups to offer customers more options from the company than before.

We began our look with the new Velocity CPU block. Those who kept up with the subject would remember EK recently admitted they could have, and should have, done better with their offering for AMD's sTR4 socket (Threadripper platform) and had recently shown off a new cold plate design to improve on thermal performance. The new Velocity sTR4 takes advantage of this new cold plate and is available in three different top offerings of acetal with a frosted plexi lining to diffuse lighting by the side, a polished plexi top, and a full nickel-plated brass metal top- all of which use the same nickel-plated copper cold plate. Indeed, the Velocity tagline is now used for their entire range of new CPU blocks that share a similar ID for the smaller CPU sockets as well, with a cold plate that looks similar to that of the older Supremacy EVO but we will definitely take a closer look in upcoming reviews. EK did tell us that the new Velocity CPU blocks are one-piece blocks not meant to be taken apart and customized for different socket types. There are a lot of smaller aesthetic changes here including beveled edges, corner cutouts and arrows to indicate the recommended plumbing layout. One other interesting thing to point out here is that EK also designed a cold plate variation to be used with delidded Intel mainstream CPUs via a small circular section jutting outwards as seen in the images below. All of the new Velocity CPU blocks also come with a new mounting plate that supposedly improves on both looks and material strength. Oh, all of these also have RGB lighting incorporated even with the metal top version- the revised EK badge on these blocks is backlit after all.

Here are some of the first pictures of GIGABYTE's upcoming B150N Phoenix mini-ITX motherboard for socket LGA1151 processors. Positioned between its mainline 100-series N products, such as the H170N-WiFi and its more premium Z170-based ones; this distinctively branded board features an orange+black color scheme (probably signifying the legend of the Phoenix?). Its PCB is a slight variation on that of the H170N-WiFi, although the two aren't identical.

The B150N Phoenix takes input from a combination of 24-pin ATX and 8-pin EPS power connectors, with a simple 5-phase VRM conditioning it for the CPU. The CPU socket is wired to two DDR4 DIMM slots, and a PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slot. An mPCIe 3.0 x1 slot wired to the PCH, drives the board's included WLAN+Bluetooth card. Modern connectivity includes USB 3.1 (one each of type-A and type-C ports), six other USB 3.0 ports (four on the rear panel, two by header), gigabit Ethernet, and 8-channel HD audio. Display outputs include HDMI and DVI. Four SATA 6 Gb/s ports and a 32 Gb/s M.2 slot (reverse side of the PCB) make up for the storage connectivity. The company didn't disclose pricing.

As the leading brand in enthusiastic graphics market, Gainward proudly presents the brand-new GeForce GTX graphics - base on the next generation MAXWELL architecture, GeForce GTX 980 Ti Phoenix "Golden Sample". Gainward GeForce GTX 980 Ti Phoenix "Golden Sample" is the most advanced graphics cards, is accelerated by the groundbreaking NVIDIA Maxwell architecture to deliver an unbeatable 4K and virtual reality experience. With 2816 NVIDIA CUDA cores running at 1.152GHz base clock (1.241GHz boost clock) and 6 GB 384 bits memory with 3500MHz memory clock speed, it has the horsepower to drive whatever comes next. It offers Gainward GeForce GTX 980 Ti Phoenix "Golden Sample" up to 11%+ more performance than reference board.

A brand new cooler design for Gainward GeForce GTX 980 Ti Phoenix "Golden Sample" is to offer hard core gamers an excellent thermal solution for high end graphics. Its triple fans and very low thermal resistance for GPU and PWM components provides that Gainward GeForce GTX 980 Ti Phoenix "Golden Sample" can run very stable under heavy loading environment and still have room for extra over-clocking. With "Zero RPM fan design", all three fans can be stop until the GPU temperature raises to 60°C or above. It doesn't introduce any noise while light loading operation.