EVGA designed an enthusiast segment AMD X670E chipset motherboard for the Socket AM5 platform, which never made it to the mass market. It had even planned to give the board its coveted Classified brand, and sell as the X670E Classified. Prototypes of this board fetched over $1,300 in auction. The board is built in the E-ATX form-factor like most of the EVGA Classified series motherboards; and packs a powerful CPU VRM, besides several overclocker-friendly features, such as top-oriented DDR5 memory slots, side-facing I/O (including power inputs), and in general, a decluttered layout that won't get in the way of extreme cooling solutions.

There were four such prototypes with Jiacheng Liu, a hardware enthusiast, each of which went under the hammer. The only trouble with these prototypes is that they're bare—they don't include heatsinks for the CPU VRM or the chipset, let alone heatsinks for the two M.2 Gen 5 NVMe slots that don't eat into the Gen 5 x16 PEG. Another problem with these boards is that they're not supported by EVGA, and only come with their initial BIOS that supports Ryzen 7000 "Zen 4" processors, but not the upcoming Ryzen 9000 "Zen 5." We doubt if these even support the Ryzen 7000X3D series, which is probably the main reason the boards didn't fetch way more than $1,300 a piece at the auctions. Enthusiasts might still figure out a way to BIOS-mod and encapsulate the latest AGESA.

Noctua, known for air cooling solutions, revealed a prototype for a "liquid" cooling product at Computex. However, this "liquid" cooler has no pump, Noctua's design aims to provide effective cooling without it. We got the chance to see it during our visit to the Noctua Computex booth, and we can say that even in its early prototype stage, it looks good.

Instead of a traditional pump, Noctua's design uses a two-phase thermosiphon. This technology works by heating a fluid, causing it to evaporate and circulate through density differences. The evaporated fluid moves through a vapor tube to a condenser, where it cools down and returns to liquid form. The liquid then flows back to the evaporator, and the cycle repeats.

ID-COOLING, a brand focusing on desktop cooling solutions, showcased today their latest developments at Computex 2024.

HUNTER DUET GOLDEN LINING (HUNTER GDL) (Prototype)
Featuring dual water flow circulations with two 360 mm radiators, HUNTER DUET GDL aims to provide the best cooling performance for enthusiasts and overclockers with hassle-free all-in-one cooling solution. The mixture of stealthy black and bold golden offers unique visual effects. Features: Dual water flow circulations, 2 x 360 mm radiators, high-performance Gen 7 pump, 5C temperature drop compared to a single 360 mm AIO

Inside the G.Skill booth at Computex 2024, we spotted three new case models. The first case that draws attention is a prototype/concept, named Project Alpha it comes with unique shapes and ATX/BTX form factor conversion on the fly. The next two cases are Mid-towers, G351 and M5 Vision respectively, both supporting EATX, ATX, Micro-ATX, Mini-ITX motherboards and featuring large glass panels with a note about G351 wooden front connectors panel that make it look more stylish.

Alongside full support for water cooling systems (360 / 260 / 240 / 140 / 120), you can fit 9 fans on G.Skill G351 and a whooping 11 fans on M5 Vision. We cannot say for sure when and if the Project Alpha concept case will be available, the other two should arrive in stores later this year.More pictures follow.

Here at Corsair's Computex suite, we saw a unique prototype of a modular sim racing cockpit and this is not surprising since we know Corsair to have intentions of entering the world of sim racing. This hybrid racing frame offers great adjustability, allowing easy changes between a semi-reclined position for Formula racing and an upright position for GT-style racing. It's perfect for fans who enjoy different types of racing.

Made with a strong steel frame, the cockpit can handle intense racing with high-torque wheelbases and heavy-duty pedals. The design reduces flex and increases stability, providing an immersive experience that makes users feel like real drivers.

Shipping manifests appear to be great sources of pre-release information—only a few hours ago, the existence of prototype AMD "Strix Point" and "Fire Range" mobile processors was highlighted by hardware sleuth harukaze5719. A related leak has appeared online fairly quickly after the discovery of laptop-oriented "Zen 5" chips. momomo_us joined in on the fun, with their exposure of speculated desktop silicon. Two brand-new AMD OPN codes have been linked to the upcoming "Granite Ridge" series of AM5 processors.

100-000001404-01 is likely an eight-core/ sixteen-thread "Zen 5" Ryzen CPU with a 170 W TDP—a stepping designation, B0, indicates engineering sample status. The other listing, 100-000001290-21, seems to be an A0-type engineering sample—leaked info suggests that this a six-core/twelve-thread (105 W TDP) next-gen mainstream desktop processor. AMD is likely nearing the finish line with its Ryzen 9000-series—a new generation of chipsets, including X870E, is reportedly in the pipeline. Additionally, VideoCardz posits that a refresh of 700-series boards could be on the cards. "Granite Range" CPUs are expected to retain the current-gen 6 nm client I/O die (cIOD), as sported by "Raphael" Ryzen 7000-series desktop processors.

Playtron is new a startup company put together by Kirt McMaster—former CEO plus co-founder of CyanogenMod—and a couple of industry veterans. Sean Hollister, senior editor and founding member of The Verge, has gained exclusive access to early Playtron material. The firm's logically named PlaytronOS is a Linux-based platform, compatible with ARM and x86 architectures—according to official hype material it is a "light weight gaming OS optimized for a new generation of powerful handheld gaming PCs… and beyond. Play all your games from every store… Steam… Epic and more." Hollister indicated that he was "cautiously optimistic" about Playtron's future prospects, following discussions conducted with development partners, and rifling through internal project documentation.

The Verge report stated that: "Playtron is coming out of stealth with $10 million in funding, roughly 18 employees, and a plan to challenge Microsoft, Valve, and Apple for the next hundred million gamers." The startup has presented lofty ambitions—their operating system (currently in Alpha) is said to run on all of the available mainstream portable gaming platforms. By the end of 2024: "you will...be able to install Playtron on your favorite handheld PC for the best gaming experience ever." McMaster and his colleagues are preparing "native devices" for an estimated launch in 2025—The Verge's exclusive coverage features an official mock-up of a 5G-enabled alternative to Valve's popular Steam Deck family.

GPTshop.ai is building prototypes of their "ultimate high-end desktop supercomputer," running the NVIDIA GH200 "Grace" CPU for AI and HPC workloads. Michael Larabel—founder and principal author of Phoronix—was first allowed to "remote access" a GPTshop.ai GH200 576 GB workstation converted model in early February—for the purpose of benchmarking it against systems based on AMD EPYC Zen 4 and Intel Xeon Emerald Rapids processors. Larabel noted: "it was a very interesting battle" that demonstrated the capabilities of 72 Arm Neoverse-V2 cores (in Grace). With this GPTshop.ai GH200 system actually being in workstation form, I also ran some additional benchmarks looking at the CPU capabilities of the GH200 compared to AMD Ryzen Threadripper 7000 series workstations."

Larabel had on-site access to two different Threadripper systems—a Hewlett-Packard (HP) Z6 G5 A workstation and a System76 Thelio Major semi-custom build. No comparable Intel "Xeon W hardware" was within reach, so the Team Green desktop supercomputer was only pitched against AMD HEDT processors. The HP review sample was configured with an AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 7995WX 96-core / 192-thread Zen 4 processor, 8 x 16 GB DDR5-5200 memory, and NVIDIA RTX A4000 GPU. Larabel said that it was an "all around nice high-end AMD workstation." The System76 Thelio Major was specced with an AMD Ryzen Threadripper 7980X processor "as the top-end non-PRO SKU." It is a 64-core / 128-thread part, working alongside 4 x 32 GB DDR5-4800 memory and a Radeon PRO W7900 graphics card.

Smartphone chipset industry watchdogs believe that the Samsung 3 nm GAA process did not meet customer expectations, due to alleged yield issues. TSMC is seemingly victorious in this segment, as reports suggest that a next-generation 3 nm node production goal of "100,000 monthly wafers by the end of 2024" has been set. Three days ago, Samsung Foundry revealed that it is working on a very advanced SF2 GAAFET process—press outlets in South Korea propose that the manufacturing giant is hoping to outmuscle its main rival in a future 2 nm node category. Tuesday's press introduction stated that a development partnership is set: "to deliver optimized next generation ARM Cortex -X CPU developed on Samsung Foundry's latest Gate-All-Around (GAA) process technology."

A Sedaily article posits that the company's cutting-edge manufacturing tech has already attracted interest from notable parties: "Samsung Electronics is taking advantage of these advantages to win orders for the 2 nm project. Samsung Electronics took its first step by winning an order to produce a 2 nm AI accelerator from Preferred Networks (PFN), Japan's largest AI company. Qualcomm, the world's largest system semiconductor design company, has entered into discussions with Samsung Electronics' System LSI Division, which designs high-performance chips, to produce 2 nm prototypes." December 2023 news reports suggested that Samsung leadership was considering a 2 nm wafer price discount—in order to stay competitive with competing foundry services. It is possible that Qualcomm is evaluating the 2 nm SF2 GAAFET process for a distant Snapdragon 8 "Gen 5" chipset, while Samsung LSI could be working on a 2 nm "Exynos 2600" SoC design.

ARM's in-progress fifth generation "Blackhawk" Cortex design is allegedly going through a troubled phase of development, according to Chinese insider sources. A Revegnus (@Tech_Reve) social media post highlights ongoing issues: "It's reported that the Cortex X5 architecture is underperforming compared to expectations. It's speculated that the high-frequency power consumption has surged explosively. Therefore, if performance is reduced for lower power consumption, the Geekbench 6 multi-core score of Dimensity 9400 may not achieve a score of 9,400 points." A recent Moor Insights & Strategy analysis piece proposed that "Blackhawk" would become "the most powerful option available at launch" later this year—mobile chipsets leveraging ARM's Cortex-X5 design are touted to face tough next-gen competition from Qualcomm and Apple corners.

Revegnus pulled in a rival SoC: "While Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 is seen to have minor issues, there is no evidence to support this claim. There might be a problem with low-frequency power consumption not showing clear superiority over ARM's middle cores." Qualcomm's next flagship model is performing admirably according to insiders—an engineering sample managed to score 10,628 points in alleged Geekbench 6 multi-core gauntlets. Late last month prototype clocks were leaked—Digital Chat Station claimed that a Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 High-Performance "Big" core was capable of reaching 4.0 GHz. Prior to the latest news, MediaTek's Dimensity 9400 SoC was observed achieving ~10,000 multi-core Geekbench 6 scores—leaked CPU cluster details present a single "Big" Cortex-X5 unit operating alongside three Cortex-X4 cores.

Cooler Master's research and design team seems to be up to all sorts of shenanigans lately—company representatives at CES 2024 had the joyful experience of hyping up a curiosity/prototype bearing the moniker "Project VGA Cooler." It certainly is a tough sell to explain to punters how an aftermarket part can usurp the performance offered by a manufacturer's standard fitting of triple-fan arrays on already pricey custom high-end GeForce RTX 40xx cards. The plucky Project VGA Cooler was showcased in white or dark silver forms, accompanied by twin Mobius 120 mm fans. The spec sheet states that these utilize special loop dynamic bearings, although we are not certain whether the special Mobius fans are customized for this project specifically.

TPU staff witnessed an ASUS GeForce RTX 4090 TUF graphics card getting the refit treatment—its original triple-fan array was removed, and the experimental aftermarket part was attached to the TUF's remaining heatsink and shroud. Cooler Master's demonstration proceeded smoothly, but this publication questions whether these prototype GPU cooling units are truly prepared for a universal fit across a wide variety of expensive current generation GeForce RTX models, or Radeon RX equivalents. Cooler Master's design team likely has to be careful in choosing specific or popular GPU models, once "Project VGA Cooler" exits the conceptual phase of development and approaches final retail form.

Patriot Memory brought their latest ware to the 2024 International CES that use recent advancements in tech on both the SSD and memory fronts. On the SSD front, this year sees 14 GB/s capable PCIe Gen 5 NVMe SSDs thanks to Phison's E26 Max14um controller; and a new crop of USB4 portable SSDs; while the memory front sees DDR5 speeds go far north of DDR5-6000, thanks to on-module CKDs. Patriot showed us examples of each.

First up, there's the Patriot Viper PV573 Gen 5 NVMe SSD. This thing comes in capacities of up to 4 TB, and combines a Phison E26 Max14um controller with Micron's latest B58R TLC NAND flash chips that offer 2400 MT/s per flash channel. The controller also gets some incremental thermal optimizations, which means the cooling solution for the PV573 is a 16.5 mm-tall fan-heatsink. The drive offers up to 14 GB/s sequential reads, with up to 12 GB/s sequential writes. There's also a slightly de-rated version of this drive, the Viper PV553, which has the same combination of controller and NAND flash, but with transfer speeds of up to 12.4 GB/s reads, with up to 11.8 GB/s writes.

SK hynix unveiled and demonstrated a prototype of AiMX (Accelerator-in-Memory based Accelerator), a generative AI accelerator card based on GDDR6-AiM, at the AI Hardware & Edge AI Summit 2023 held September 12-14 at the Santa Clara Marriott, California.Hosted annually by the UK marketing firm Kisaco Research, the AI Hardware & Edge AI Summit brings together global IT companies and high-profile startups to share their developments in artificial intelligence and machine learning. This is SK hynix's third time participating in the summit.

At the event, the company showcased the prototype of AiMX, an accelerator card that combines multiple GDDR6-AiMs to further enhance performance, along with the GDDR6-AIM itself under the slogan of "Boost Your AI: Discover the Power of PIM (Processing-In-Memory) with SK hynix's AiM (Accelerator in Memory)." As a low-power, high-speed memory solution capable of handling large amounts of data, AiMX is set to play a key role in the advancement of data-intensive generative AI systems. The performance of generative AI improves as it is trained on more data, highlighting the need for high-performance products which can be applied to an array of generative AI systems.

Yesterday we pre-announced that we're developing an SD Expansion Card. Normally we don't announce a product until we've fully locked the feature-set, brought up the necessary suppliers and manufacturing environment, completed most of the engineering and a substantial level of testing and validation, and are on a high confidence path to a specific release date at a specific price. This is because development of brand new products requires charting a course into the unknown. We set a target for what the product will be from the start, but as we proceed and learn, we often need to adjust the schedule, scope, and cost, and sometimes even need to outright pause or cancel development. Announcing just before shipping is how most companies operate to reduce churn and public uncertainty, but it means the product development process ends up extremely opaque.

We decided we're going to treat this one product on our roadmap a little differently. A full-size SD Expansion Card is consistently the most requested Expansion Card by the community, which makes it a great one to open up. We're just at the start of the process now, and Hyelim on our Marketing team is creating a new YouTube series to share updates and insights as we go through the New Product Introduction (NPI) process. Take a look at the first video (below) and let us know what you think as we complete (or don't complete) the product.

When PlayStation VR2 released earlier this year, it offered players a chance to experience virtual game worlds bristling with detail and immersive features. PS VR2 was the culmination of several years of development, which included multiple prototypes and testing approaches. To learn more, we asked PS VR2's Product Manager Yasuo Takahashi about the development process of the innovative headset and PlayStation VR2 Sense Controller, and also gained insight into the various prototypes that were created as part of this process.

PlayStation Blog: When did development for the PS VR2 headset start?
Yasuo Takahashi: Research on future VR technology was being conducted even prior to the launch of the original PlayStation VR as part of our R&D efforts. After PS VR's launch in 2016, discussion around what the next generation of VR would look like began in earnest. We went back and reviewed those R&D findings and we started prototyping various technologies at the beginning of 2017. Early that same year, we began detailed conversations on what features should be implemented in the new product, and which specific technologies we should explore further.

Gamers Nexus recently visited AMD's headquarters in Austin, Texas—a previous video documented company employees discussing the history of Zen CPUs, and the showcasing of historical prototypes including (unreleased) Ryzen 9 5950X3D and 5900X3D models. The YouTube channel promised that more AMD HQ tour footage would be shared over the next couple of weeks—their latest upload has (host) Steve Burke talking to representatives from various internal labs.

A notable detail extracted from Team Red's thermal laboratory was an old heat spreader concept for Zen 4 processors—the team evaluated whether a concealed vapor chamber would offer improved cooling performance versus conventional metal solutions. Their tests determined that the extra cost (not disclosed) required to integrate a vapor chamber was not worth the resultant 1°C temperature difference, when lined up against a traditional metal design IHS. AMD confirmed that the concept was not developed further since prototype chips were also found to generate heat exceeding expected normal levels, under continuous long-term workload conditions.

A Japanese seller active on Yahoo Auctions has been listing PlayStation 5 prototypes consoles—their time limited (24 hour) offerings have probably been implemented to dodge the wrath of Sony Corporation's legal team. A "Prototype 2—not for sale" devkit was made available last week and eventually sold for around $5500 (JP¥ 800,000). A "Prototype 1" unit was purchased for JP¥551,000 (~$3810) over the weekend, and another auction was created this morning—the unmarked system started off at JP¥600,000 (~$4150). The seller has gained some notoriety within the enthusiast scene, due to their acquisition of other rare bits of hardware, including PSP development kits.

It is believed that these PS5 prototypes pre-date the devkit that leaked prior to PlayStation 5's official launch, so hardcore collectors could be enticed by the prospect of owning unusual items. Sony's very thorough tracing system will likely result in these units being unusable, but members of the gaming community are puzzled by the corporation's lack of action—given the seller's ability to acquire and sell all sorts of PlayStation development equipment, with vintages from over a decade ago.

Leaked photos of a cinder block-sized NVIDIA flagship graphics card cooler appeared online over a week ago, with speculation pointing to it originating from an extremely powerful RTX-40 series GPU—perhaps a theoretical GeForce RTX 4090 Ti or something codenamed TITAN ADA. The pictured prototype outsizes several existing reference designs—its substantial bulk could be enough to tame the fully unlocked potential of Team Green's already large AD102.

Last week's photos have been traced back to the source—as reported by Wccftech, it seems that a seller on the Chinese Taobao Goofish platform is attempting to flog the unit for roughly $122,750 (888,888 RMB). The seller/site member "Hayaka" is apparently open to accepting offers from the highest bidder, but the prospective buyer will not be getting their hands on any working hardware—the listing is for the cooler alone. No GPU or PCB is included according to the provided information, so the winner will be procuring a very expensive (albeit highly unique) mantelpiece.

What's New: As part of a collaboration with Intel and Dell Technologies, the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) and the Cambridge Open Zettascale Lab plan to build a "digital twin" of the Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (STEP) prototype fusion power plant. The UKAEA will utilize the lab's supercomputer based on Intel technologies, including 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors, distributed asynchronous object storage (DAOS) and oneAPI tools to streamline the development and delivery of fusion energy to the grid in the 2040s.

"Planning for the commercialization of fusion power requires organizations like UKAEA to utilize extreme amounts of computational resources and artificial intelligence for simulations. These HPC workloads may be performed using a variety of different architectures, which is why open software solutions that optimize performance needs can lend portability to code that isn't available in closed, proprietary systems. Overall, advanced hardware and software can make the journey to commercial fusion power lower risk and accelerated - a key benefit on the path to sustainable energy."—Adam Roe, Intel EMEA HPC technical director

AMD today announced the AMD Versal Premium VP1902 adaptive system-on-chip (SoC), the world's largest adaptive SoC. The VP1902 adaptive SoC is an emulation-class, chiplet-based device designed to streamline the verification of increasingly complex semiconductor designs. Offering 2X the capacity over the prior generation, designers can confidently innovate and validate application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) and SoC designs to help bring next generation technologies to market faster.

AI workloads are driving increased complexity in chipmaking, requiring next-generation solutions to develop the chips of tomorrow. FPGA-based emulation and prototyping provides the highest level of performance, allowing faster silicon verification and enabling developers to shift left in the design cycle and begin software development well before silicon tape-out. AMD, through Xilinx, brings over 17 years of leadership and six generations of the industry's highest capacity emulation devices, which have nearly doubled in capacity each generation.

Gamers Nexus has uploaded a video feature dedicated to the history of AMD's Zen CPU architecture—editor-in-chief and founder Stephen Burke ventured to Team Red's Austin, Texas-based test and engineering campus. Longer and more in-depth coverage of his lab tour will be released at a later date, but today's upload included an interesting segment covering unreleased hardware. The Gamers Nexus crew spent some time looking at several examples of current and past generation AMD 3D V-Cache CPUs. Prototype Ryzen 7000-series Zen 4 designs were shown off by principal engineer Amit Mehra and technical team member Bill Alverson. They also brought out older 5000-series Zen 3 units that never reached retail—the 16-core Ryzen 9 5950X3D was demonstrated as having a 3.5 GHz base clock, and it can boost up to 4.1 GHz. The 12-core Ryzen 9 5900X3D had 3.5 GHz base and 4.4 GHz boost clocks.

Team Red only sells one AM4 3D V-Cache model at the moment, in the form of its well received Ryzen 7 5800X3D CPU. It was released over a year ago, but recent price cuts have resulted in increased unit sales—system builders looking to maximize the potential of their older generation Ryzen 5000-series compatible mainboards are snapping up 5800X3Ds. AMD could be readying a cheaper alternative, with previous reports proposing that a "Ryzen 5 5600X3D" is positioned to take on Intel's 13th Gen Core i5 series (with DDR4). The unreleased Ryzen 9 5950X3D and 5900X3D have 3D V-Cache stacks on both of their CCDs (granting 192 MB of L3 cache), which is unique given that all retail 3D V-Cache CPUs (released so far) restrict this to a single CCD stack. Apparently AMD decided to stick with the latter setup due to it offering the best balance of performance and efficiency, plus gaming benchmarks demonstrated that there was not much of a difference between the configurations.

AMD made its upcoming Ryzen 8000 CPU series official earlier this week during a "Meet the Experts" presentation - a roadmap demonstrates that this next-generation "Zen 5" + "Navi 3.5" mainstream desktop processor lineup is expected to arrive in 2024. Leaked information (from last month) points to "Granite Ridge" being AMD's codename for the upcoming processor product range, with high-end examples maxing out at 16 CPU cores across two CCDs. Benchleaks has recently spotted a pair of curious looking AMD engineering samples - entries have appeared on the einstein@home and LHC@home distributed computing platforms.

The mystery SKU seems to be a prototype CPU model that sports 8 cores and 16 threads - the AMD product number (OPN) for this unit is "00-000001290-11_N" which does not correspond to anything currently on the market. A Family ID of 26 is specified - Benchleaks theorizes that this number assignment is "Zen 5" specific - given that the existing Family 25 (19H) identifier was assigned to Zen 3 and 4. It should be noted that one of AMD's alleged test systems appears to have been running unreleased graphics hardware - a non-specific Radeon unit (with 12 GB of VRAM) is mentioned within einstein@home's information dump, this could be a potential mid-range RX 7000-series card. A Radeon RX 7900 GRE GPU with an unusually low video memory allocation of 16 GB is listed in LHC@home's entry.

Renowned HDTVTest YouTube reviewer and presenter, Vincent Teoh, has been exploring the showroom floor at this year's Display Week trade symposium (in Los Angeles, CA). He was intrigued by some cutting-edge screen tech at BOE's booth and announced this discovery on Twitter yesterday evening: "Forget 8K. Here's the world's first 110-inch 16K display unveiled by BOE at Display Week 2023. LCD-based, max 400 nits. The resolution is unreal though, no visible pixels even right up close."

The demo unit appears to be a prototype - BOE Displays has not revealed any type of official product launch. Their giant screen is reported to be almost 2.8 meters wide in terms of diagonal length, and a specification sheet placed nearby lists a maximum 15360x8640 resolution paired with a 60 Hz refresh rate. The 16K display has a contrast ratio of 1200:1 and is capable of reproducing 99% DCI-P3 color coverage. We hope to view further reports from this tradeshow - hopefully a BOE rep will provide details about the required GPU power to run their monster LCD monitor.

RIKEN and Intel Corporation (hereafter referred to as Intel) have signed a memorandum of understanding on collaboration and cooperation to accelerate joint research in next-generation computing fields such as AI (artificial intelligence), high-performance computing, and quantum computers. The signing ceremony was concluded on May 18, 2023. As part of this MOU, RIKEN will work with Intel Foundry Services (IFS) to prototype these new solutions.

Nintendo hardware enthusiasts have been scouring the internet for more than two decades in search of special prototype Nintendo GameCube consoles - the Space World 2000 expo model has long been sought after by hardcore collectors. Nintendo revealed (at the time) its upcoming home console as well as the Game Boy Advance handheld system at their annual video game trade show held near Tokyo, or the company's hometown of Kyoto, Japan. Space World 2000 (Makuhari Messe, Chiba) would end up being the penultimate show, with Nintendo choosing to not continue with their regular consumer event post-2001.

Consolevariations, a gaming hardware database, this week reported via a blog post that an interesting GameCube prototype was up for sale, following a tip received on Discord, and it quickly became apparent that this slightly bashed and chipped example was indeed one of the very first models revealed to the public at Nintendo's Space World 2000 expo. Several preview units were also demoed on the showroom floor at the August 2001 event, but experts think that these were sourced from the previous year's batch.