According to a recently published help guide, spotted by the X/Twitter user @harukaze5719, NVIDIA has addressed reported stability problems users are experiencing with Intel's latest 13th and 14th generation Raptor Lake Core processors, especially the high-performance overclockable K-series models. In a recent statement, NVIDIA recommended that owners of the affected Intel CPUs consult directly with Intel if they encounter issues such as system instability, video memory errors, game crashes, or failures to launch certain applications. The problems seem particularly prevalent when running demanding workloads like gaming on Unreal Engine 5 titles or during shader compilation tasks that heavily utilize the processor and graphics capabilities. Intel has established a dedicated website to provide support for these CPU instability cases. However, the chipmaker still needs to issue a broad public statement and provide a definitive resolution.

The instability is often attributed to the very high frequencies and performance the K-series Raptor Lake chips are designed to achieve, which are among the fastest processors in Intel's lineup. While some community suggestions like undervolting or downclocking the CPUs may help mitigate issues in the short term, it remains unclear if permanent fixes will require BIOS updates from motherboard manufacturers or game patches.

Update: As the community has pointed out, motherboard makers often run the CPU outside of Intel's default spec, specifically causing overvolting through modifying or removing power limits, which could introduce instabilities into the system. Running the CPU at Intel-defined specification must be assured with a BIOS check to see if the CPU is running at specified targets. Intel programs the voltage curve into the CPU, and when motherboard makers remove any voltage/power limits, the CPU takes freedom in utilizing the available headroom, possibly causing system instability. We advise everyone to check the power limit setting in the BIOS for the health of their own system.

DFI, the world's leading brand in embedded motherboards and industrial computers, is thrilled to announce two of the world's first Industrial MicroATX motherboards to support Intel Core 12th, 13th, and 14th (Alder Lake-S, Raptor Lake-S and Raptor Lake-S Refresh) Gen Processors. "With support for the latest Intel Core processors and features including dual GPU slots and dual 10GbE ports, RPS310 and ADS310 represent a significant leap forward in innovation for industrial and medical computing, empowering manufacturing and healthcare professionals to achieve new levels of efficiency," said Jarry Chang, General Manager of Products Center at DFI.

RPS310
Featuring dual PCIe x16 Gen 4 GPU slots, addresses key challenges for Factory Automation professionals working in Smart manufacturing field, enabling improved visualized data, complex imagery processing and quality monitoring in automated production lines. RPS310 is also perfect for medical professionals to analyze Medical imaging data with unprecedented image quality and efficiency, improving diagnosis accuracy on MRIs and CT Scanners and X-rays.

Intel has decided to discontinue its entire 13th Gen Raptor Lake lineup of overclockable "K-series" CPU SKUs. According to an official product change notice, the company will stop accepting orders for chips like the Core i9-13900KS, Core i9-13900K, Core i9-13900KF, Core i7-13700K, Core i7-13700KF, Core i5-13600K, and Core i5-13600KF after May 24th, 2024. Final shipments to vendors are targeted for June 28th. After those dates, availability of the unlocked Raptor Lake processors will rapidly diminish as the remaining inventory gets sold off, possibly at inflated prices due to shortages. This discontinuation comes just over a year after Raptor Lake's launch in late 2022, which delivered additional performance improvements over the previous Alder Lake generation.

Raptor Lake brought higher clocks, more cache, additional efficiency cores, and enough muscle to compete with AMD's Ryzen 7000 CPUs in many workloads. Interestingly, Intel has not yet discontinued Alder Lake, suggesting those 12th-generation chips may still be available for some time. While the death of the overclockable Raptor Lake K-series CPUs is unfortunate for enthusiasts, there is an upside—it paves the way for Intel's current generation Raptor Lake refresh, 14th generation Core processors, to clear inventory before the next-generation processors arrive. The 15th generation "Arrow Lake" Core Ultra 2 series of processors could be teased at the upcoming Computex event in June.

Outpost: Infinity Siege developers recommend underclocking Intel's current and previous flagship desktop processors, the Core i9-14900K and i9-13900K, to prevent the game from crashing. This recommendation goes out to those with a GeForce RTX 4090 paired with either a Core i9-13900K or i9-14900K, we're fairly sure that the recommendation even extends to those with i9-14900KS and i9-13900KS. Team Ranger, the developers of the game, just released their second patch in just a week following the game's launch. In the patch notes, they ask users to use Intel Extreme Tuning Utility (XTU), to lower the P-core clock speeds down to at least 5.00 GHz (maximum boost). This development closely follows a February 2024 report which says that game stability issues of high-end "Raptor Lake" processors are linked to power limit unlocks.

EK, the leading computer cooling solutions provider, is happy to announce that the latest generation of its TEC solutions - the EK-Quantum Delta² TEC - a CPU water block for extreme cooling made in collaboration with Intel, is now unlocked for the 14th generation of Intel Core desktop CPUs. EK is thankful to Intel for collaborating to bring this extreme cooling technology to the market.

EK is now taking over and continuing support for the 14th generation with the EK Delta² TEC Integrated Intel Cryo Cooling Technology software.

China's homegrown Loongson 3A6000 CPU shows promise but still needs to catch up AMD and Intel's latest offerings in real-world performance. According to benchmarks by Chinese tech reviewer Geekerwan, the 3A6000 has instructions per clock (IPC) on par with AMD's Zen 4 architecture and Intel's Raptor Lake. Using the SPEC CPU 2017 processor benchmark, Geekerwan has clocked all the CPUs at 2.5 GHs to compare the raw benchmark results to Zen 4 and Intel's Raptor Lake (Raptor Cove) processors. As a result, the Loongson 3A6000 seemingly matches the latest designs by AMD and Intel in integer results, with integer IPC measured at 4.8, while Zen 4 and Raptor Cove have 5.0 and 4.9, respectively. The floating point performance is still lagging behind a lot, though. This demonstrates that Loongson's CPU design can catching up to global leaders, but still needs further development, especially for floating point arithmetic.

However, the 3A6000 is held back by low clock speeds and limited core counts. With a maximum boost speed of just 2.5 GHz across four CPU cores, the 3A6000 cannot compete with flagship chips like AMD's 16-core Ryzen 9 7950X running at 5.7 GHz. While the 3A6000's IPC is impressive, its raw computing power is a fraction of that of leading x86 CPUs. Loongson must improve manufacturing process technology to increase clock speeds, core counts, and cache size. The 3A6000's strengths highlight Loongson's ambitions: an in-house LoongArch ISA design fabricated on 12 nm achieves competitive IPC to state-of-the-art x86 chips built on more advanced TSMC 5 nm and Intel 7 nm nodes. This shows the potential behind Loongson's engineering. Reports suggest that next-generation Loongson 3A7000 CPUs will use SMIC 7 nm, allowing higher clocks and more cores to better harness the architecture's potential. So, we expect the next generation to set a bar for China's homegrown CPU performance.

Simply NUC, Inc, a leading mini PC solutions company, announced they are taking orders for their brand-new Emerald 2 NUC. As the successor to Emerald, Emerald 2 features Intel's latest 13th Gen Raptor Lake processors and Iris Xe graphics to provide a powerful computing performance. From home office to remote deployments to digital signage, Emerald 2 is designed to be used across many different computing applications.

"We are delighted to launch Emerald 2 as the latest addition to our exceptional lineup of mini PCs," said Jonny Smith, CEO of Simply NUC. "Following the remarkable success of Emerald, we are confident that Emerald 2 will exceed customers' expectations by delivering outstanding computing performance, an immersive visual experience, and versatile connectivity options."

A leaked Intel documentation we reported on a few days ago covered the Arrow Lake-S platform and some implementation details. However, there was an interesting catch in the file. The leaked document indicates that the upcoming 15th-Generation Arrow Lake desktop CPUs could lack Hyper-Threading (HT) support. The technical memo lists Arrow Lake's expected eight performance cores without any threads enabled via SMT. This aligns with previous rumors of Hyper-Threading removal. Losing Hyper-Threading could significantly impact Arrow Lake's multi-threaded application performance versus its Raptor Lake predecessors. Estimates suggest HT provides a 10-15% speedup across heavily-threaded workloads by enabling logical cores. However, for gaming, disabling HT has negligible impact and can even boost FPS in some titles. So Arrow Lake may still hit Intel's rumored 30% gaming performance targets through architectural improvements alone.

However, a replacement for the traditional HT is likely to come in the form of Rentable Units. This new approach is a response to the adoption of a hybrid core architecture, which has seen an increase in applications leveraging low-power E-cores for enhanced performance and efficiency. Rentable Units are a more efficient pseudo-multi-threaded solution that splits the first thread of incoming instructions into two partitions, assigning them to different cores based on complexity. Rentable Units will use timers and counters to measure P/E core utilization and send parts of the thread to each core for processing. This inherently requires larger cache sizes, where Arrow Lake is rumored to have 3 MB of L2 cache per core. Arrow Lake is also noted to support faster DDR5-6400 memory. But between higher clocks, more E-cores, and various core architecture updates, raw throughput metrics may not change much without Hyper-Threading.

ASUS finalized its adoption of the Intel Next Unit of Computing (NUC) product lines at a special autumn 2023 handover event. A post-ceremony statement outlined the company's vision going forward: "ASUS kicked-off its NUC business and started to take orders for NUC 10th to 13th generation systems on September 1. The new business is generating a wide variety of exciting opportunities for the company and the transition has progressed smoothly for NUC customers. The vision of the newly established ASUS NUC BU is to provide the most impactive edge computing with comprehensive commercial and AIoT solutions that can sustain the industry and businesses." Just over a week ago, TechPowerUp was granted access to next generation NUC devices at CES 2024—including ROG NUC, as well as NUC 14 Pro and NUC 14 Pro+ models. Many folks in attendance noticed a complete absence of NUC Extreme products at the ASUS Las Vegas showroom.

Online publication, Fudzilla, has investigated this matter—Fuad Abazovic (Editor-in-Chief) managed to chase down an ASUS spokesperson. It seems that the Taiwanese manufacturer is integrating some if its best known branding into the NUC ecosystem, and Team Blue nomenclature is on the chopping block: "the company won't have an update to the NUC Extreme 7.5 liter device. The Raptor Canyon remains the last NUC of its kind, as ASUS has ROG Strix systems in the same ballpark. Fudzilla already covered the announcement of the NUC and NUC pro, and the ROG NUC. We were assured that the 2.5L ROG NUC will remain the fastest gaming-oriented device and that, at this plan, the company doesn't plan to develop the successor of NUC Extreme 7.5 liter. ASUS has announced ROG Strix G16CHR, its 7.5-liter desktop that comes with an air and water cooler and hosts up to Intel Core i7-14700KF Processor 3.4 GHz (33M Cache, up to 5.5 GHz, 20 cores), NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB GDDR6X 3x DP, 2x HDMI, and up to 64 GB RAM in 4x DDR5 U-DIMM slots."

Intel is reportedly bringing Application Optimization (APO) to its 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake" and 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" processors after all, PC Gamer reports. APO is currently restricted to 14th Gen Core i9 and Core i7 "Raptor Lake Refresh" processors, and the upcoming 14th Gen HX Core i9 and Core i7 mobile processors based on this silicon. An extension of the Dynamic Tuning Technology (DTT), APO is an application-specific scheduler optimization that makes hardware resources of Intel's Hybrid processors "correctly" available to the application. This requires Intel to study the application itself, and validate its optimization on a per-processor model basis (which is Intel's explanation as to why it isn't available across all its Hybrid processors). On optimized games—of which there are currently 7—APO is found to offer frame rate uplifts ranging between 10% to 16%. At this point we don't know exactly which other 12th and 13th Gen processors Intel plans to extend APO to, but it's likely only to the Unlocked K or KF SKUs, as PC Gamer notes.

Intel in its 2024 International CES presentation, unveiled its two new upcoming client microarchitectures, "Arrow Lake" and "Lunar Lake." Michelle Johnston Holthaus, EVP and GM of Intel's client computing group (CCG), in her keynote address, held up a next-generation Core Ultra "Lunar Lake" chip. This is the Lunar Lake-MX package, with MOP (memory on package). You have a Foveros base tile resembling "Meteor Lake," with on-package LPDDR5x memory stacks. With "Lunar Lake," Intel is reorganizing components across its various Foveros tiles—the Compute and Graphics tiles are combined into a single tile built on an Intel foundry node that's possibly the Intel 20A (we have no confirmation); and a smaller SoC tile that has all of the components of the current "Meteor Lake" SoC tile, and is possibly built on a TSMC node, such as N3.

"Lunar Lake" will pick up the mantle from "Meteor Lake" in the U-segment and H-segment (that's ultraportables, and thin-and-light), when it comes out later this year (we predict in the second half of 2024), with Core Ultra 2-series branding. Intel also referenced "Arrow Lake," which could finally bring light to the sluggish pace of development in its desktop segment. When it comes out later this year, "Arrow Lake" will debut Socket LGA1851, "Arrow Lake" will bring the AI Boost NPU to the desktop, along with Arc Xe-LPG integrated graphics. The biggest upgrade of course will be its new Compute tile, with its "Lion Cove" P-cores, and "Skymont" E-cores, that possibly offer a large IPC uplift over the current combination of "Raptor Cove" and "Gracemont" cores on the "Raptor Lake" silicon. It's also possible that Intel will try to bring "Meteor Lake" with its 6P+8E Compute tile, Xe-LPG iGPU, and NPU, to the LGA1851 socket, as part of some mid-range processor models. 2024 will see a Intel desktop processor based on a new architecture, which is the big takeaway here.

Intel Core Ultra "Meteor Lake" mobile processor may be the the company's most efficient, but isn't a generation ahead of the 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" mobile processors in terms of performance. This isn't just because it has an overall lower CPU core count in its H-segment of SKUs, but also because its performance cores (P-cores) actually post a generational reduction in IPC, as David Huang in his blog testing contemporary mobile processors found out, through a series of single-threaded benchmarks. Huang did a SPECint 2017 performance comparison of Intel's Core Ultra 7 155H, and Core i7-13700H "Raptor Lake," with AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS, 7840H "Phoenix, Zen 4," and Apple M3 Pro and M2 Pro.

In his testing, the 155H, an H-segment processor, was found roughly matching the "Zen 4" based 7840U and 7840HS; while the Core i7-13700H was ahead of the three. Apple's M2 Pro and M3 Pro are a league ahead of all the other chips in terms of IPC. To determine IPC, Huang tested all processors with only one core, and their default clock speeds, and divided SPECint 2017 scores upon average clock speed of the loaded core logged during the course of the benchmark. Its worth noting here that the i7-13000H notebook was using dual-channel (4 sub-channel) DDR5 memory, while the Core Ultra 7 155H notebook was using LPDDR5, however Huang remarks that this shouldn't affect his conclusion that there has been an IPC regression between "Raptor Lake" and "Meteor Lake."

At the 2023 International CES, Intel had announced its 65 W (locked) 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" desktop processors, but the star of the show then was the enthusiast-segment Core i9-13900KS Limited Edition processor. A picture of what is allegedly the i9-14900KS, suggests that Intel might repeat its last year's CES announcements, with the i9-14900KS. Last time around, they had the claim to launch the world's first 6 GHz processor, something that is also the latest maximum boost frequency of the current i9-14900K, so it remains to be see what the i9-14900KS brings to the table. A 6 GHz all-core boost for the P-cores, or a speed bump that lets it finally beat the $350 Ryzen 7 7800X3D at gaming? We'll find out next week in Vegas.

Intel on Wednesday held a pre-launch round-table with HotHardware, in which it made several performance disclosures of its upcoming Core "Meteor Lake" mobile processor, comparing it with the current U-segment chips based on the 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake," and competing AMD Ryzen 7040 "Phoenix." In these, the company is claiming that its next-generation iGPU based on the Xe-LPG graphics architecture, armed with 128 EU, is significantly outperforming the Radeon 780M RDNA3 iGPU of the Ryzen 7040, while its CPU is ahead in multi-threaded performance.

In its comparison, the company picked the Core Ultra 7 165H, a middle-of-the-market performance segment part in the 28 W class. This is compared to the Core i7-1370P "Raptor Lake," and the AMD Ryzen 7 7840U. The company also dropped in the fastest Windows-ready Arm chip in the market, the Qualcomm 8cx Gen 3. In the 33 games that the 165H was compared to the 7840U, the Intel iGPU is shown posting performance leads ranging between 3% to 70% over the Radeon 780M, in 23 out of 33 games. In one of the games, the two perform on par with each other. In 9 out of 33 games, the Radeon 780M beats the Intel Xe-LPG by 2% to 18%. The iGPU of the 165H packs 8 Xe cores, or 128 EU (1,024 unified shaders). The Radeon 780M is powered by 12 RDNA3 compute units (768 stream processors).

MINISFORUM released the AR900i, an MoDT (mobile on desktop) motherboard in the Mini-ITX form factor that comes with a hardwired Intel Core i9-13900HX mobile processor and a pre-installed cooling solution. The board is priced at $560 on Amazon, with a limited-period $70-off coupon. This is good value, considering that the i9-13900HX is a maxed-out "Raptor Lake" based mobile processor that features all 8 P-cores, all 16 E-cores, and all 36 MB of shared L3 cache physically present on the "Raptor Lake" silicon. The P-cores boost up to 5.40 GHz, and the E-cores up to 3.90 GHz. The only catch with this processor compared to something like a desktop i9-13900, is its power specs that were originally designed for the power constraints of notebooks, with 55 W base power, and 157 W of maximum turbo power, compared to 225 W of the socketed i9-13900.

Since the Core i9-13900HX is a mobile BGA1964 package that remains hardwired to the board, it is not upgradable. MINISFORUM has designed a cooling solution specific to the processor, which uses a large aluminium fin-stack heatsink that relies on an 80 mm case fan for ventilation. There's a secondary fan-heatsink that provides cooling to two M.2-2280 slots north of the processor. Each of these two M.2 slots has a PCI-Express 5.0 x4 wiring, and using either of them subtracts 8 PCIe lanes from the board's sole expansion slot, a PCI-Express 5.0 x16. The board features an M.2 E-key slot that you can pair with your own WLAN card, it comes with provision for dual-MIMO ready antennas. The processor is wired to two DDR5 SO-DIMM slots supporting up to 96 GB of memory. The board draws power from a 24-pin ATX and a single 8-pin EPS, which should prove sufficient for this processor.

The Chinese chipmaker Loongson has launched its newest desktop processors, the 4-core, 8-thread 3A6000 series, based on the company's LoongArch microarchitecture. We have previously reported that the company wants to match Intel's "Willow Cove" and AMD's Zen 3 instruction per clock (IPC) levels with its 3A6000 CPU series, and today we have the first preview of the performance. Powered by the LA664 cores, 3A6000 is built on a 14/12 nm manufacturing process, with clock speeds going from 2.0 to 2.5 GHz and power consumption of up to 50 Watts. It features 256 KB of L2 cache and 16 MB of L3 cache in total.

While several hardware partners are announcing new Loongson-powered solutions, ASUS China's "Uncle Tony" managed to get his hands on one of them and overclocker the CPU to 2.63 GHz on air cooling. In overclocking tests using liquid nitrogen cooling, a 3A6000 processor reached 3.0 GHz, though there are indications that there is still overhead. In standard out-of-the-box configuration, the 3A6000 performs similarly to Intel's Core i3-10100 four-core CPU, an achievement for Loongson but still behind Intel's latest offerings that clock nearly twice as high. This rapid development of Loongson IP has led to a massive performance increase, matching the IPC of modern CPUs. We are still left to see more information about these 3A6000 series SKUs; however, early benchmarks suggest a significant improvement. You can see the CPU benchmarks below, which include UnixBench and SPEC CPU 2006.

According to @momomo_us, Intel has discontinued its Cryo Cooling Technology as of July 1, 2023, marking the end of one of the tech industry's few sub-ambient cooling options. The technology, which could chill CPUs to 0 degrees Celsius to enhance performance, accompanied Intel's processors from the 10th-generation Comet Lake to the 13th-generation Raptor Lake. Despite its innovative approach to boosting CPU performance, the cooling solution was not widely embraced. The discontinuation comes just before the arrival of the 14th Generation Raptor Lake Refresh, which will not support the Cryo Cooling tech. Intel plans to maintain updates for the existing Cryo Cooling hardware until December 31, 2023.

This specialized cooling method did see some use in products like the Cooler Master MasterLiquid ML360 Sub-Zero and the EKWB EK-QuantumX Delta TEC waterblocks. Interestingly, the technology has managed to work even with non-Intel CPUs, which famous overclocker der8auer managed to get up and running on AMD's Ryzen 9 5950X. Some modifications were in place, but it was possible to do so. The likely reason for shutting down the cryo cooling project is the need for more financial sense to continue to pursue this technology and the effort to keep the cost of R&D down and make funds available for other projects at Intel's laboratories.

EK, the leading manufacturer of premium liquid cooling gear, is excited to announce full compatibility of the EK-Nucleus AIOs with the recently unveiled Intel 14th Gen Raptor Lake Refresh CPUs and the upcoming new Z790 motherboards. The Raptor Lake refresh series CPUs feature faster cores that can go up to 6 GHz for improved multi-tasking, gaming, streaming, and more. It is paramount to have a good cooling solution for the CPU to reach these high frequencies through Thermal Velocity Boost. EK's Nucleus AIOs are ready for that task with their ample radiator surface, powerful fans for heat dissipation, and potent pumps to circulate the warmed coolant.

EK-Nucleus AIOs
The coldplate that comes in contact with the CPU IHS is made of copper to enhance the thermal transferring characteristics. It has a dense stack of microfins that boost the thermal transfer area between the copper base and coolant, ensuring unparalleled cooling. These AIOs feature a straightforward installation procedure, powerful and daisy-chainable FPT fans optimized for radiators, strong pumps, diamond-cut fittings, sleeved tubing, and more. The versatile Nucleus All-in-One CPU cooling solutions come in various models - with and without D-RGB when it comes to lighting, in white and black color, and 360 mm and 240 mm variations in terms of size.

EK, the leading manufacturer of premium liquid cooling gear, is excited to announce full compatibility of the EK-Quantum Velocity² D-RGB 1700 and Magnitude 1700 water blocks with the recently unveiled Intel 14th Gen Raptor Lake Refresh CPUs and the upcoming new Z790 motherboards. The Raptor Lake refresh series CPUs feature faster cores for improved multi-tasking, gaming, streaming, and more - up to 6 GHz, with an unmatched overclocking experience. Of course, a capable cooling solution is paramount for the CPU to boost to these high frequencies. This is where EK's Quantum water blocks come in.

The EK-Quantum Velocity² water blocks mark the first EK product series to feature EK-Matrix7 compatibility. Since its launch, this innovative product has garnered multiple design and performance accolades. These water blocks use a socket-specific cooling engine to ensure the best performance and optimal flow with low restrictions on every platform. Since the Z790X platform is based on the LGA1700 socket, the EK-Quantum Velocity² 1700 water blocks are fully compatible with the CPU socket and IHS geometry of Intel 14th Gen Core CPUs. The same goes for the EK-Quantum Magnitude 1700, which fits the Raptor Lake Refresh CPUs perfectly.

Intel is reportedly settling for 6P+4E as the CPU core configuration for its upcoming Core i5-14400 and i5-14400F desktop processors. That's 6 performance cores or P-cores, and 4 efficiency cores or E-cores. Two distinct engineering samples of the i5-14400 were spotted in the wild, one of which had a 6P+4E configuration, and the other believed to be with 6P+8E, like the rest of the 14th Gen Core i5 series. There are two distinct steppings of the i5-14400 among the engineering samples, besides the core-configuration, B0 and C0.

What differentiates B0 from C0 is the specific die they're based on. B0 is the larger "Raptor Lake-S" die that physically has 8 P-cores and 16 E-cores, which has been significantly cut down to achieve the 6P+4E configuration; whereas C0 is the die the "Alder Lake-S" top-spec processor models were based on, which physically have an 8P+8E configuration. Both B0 and C0 Core i5-14400/F processors have 6P+4E. The P-cores on both steppings, including B0, are configured with 1.25 MB of dedicated L2 cache, the E-core clusters on both each have 2 MB of L2 cache; and both get 20 MB of shared L3 cache, and 65 W of processor base power. The Core i5-14400 and i5-14400F succeed a long line of successful processor models for Intel, positioned around or below the $200 mark.

Microsoft has scheduled a special product announcement event for next week—Germany's WinFuture has likely spoiled all mystery ahead of time by revealing two next generation Surface devices. It was already speculated that Microsoft would exhibit a bunch of new portable Windows PCs at the upcoming September 21 New York City-based shindig, but this week's leak treats us to photos and initial specifications for the Laptop Studio 2 and Laptop Go 3. The former retains its predecessor's 14.4-inch 3:2 format display, with a 2400×1600 resolution and 120 Hz refresh rate. Under-the-hood improvements for the Surface Laptop Studio 2 include a jump up to 13th Gen Intel Core Raptor Lake CPUs (from 11th Gen Tiger Lake)—WinFuture reckons that two options are lined up: Core i7-13700H and and Core i7-13800H. The Surface Laptop Studio 2's discrete graphics solution is speculated to be a mobile NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 or RTX 4060 GPU.

A base model could rely on an iGPU based on Intel Iris Xe graphics architecture. 64 GB of LPDDR5X memory is believed to exist with some configurations, which is a nice upgrade (albeit probably a very pricey option) over the previous generation's 16 or 32 GB RAM offerings. The leaked photos indicate that a Micro-SD slot and USB Type-A connector are new additions for 2023's model. The WinFuture article presents some prices—€2249 (~$2400) for the basic iGPU model, mid-tier with RTX 4050: €2729 (~$2915), and €3199 (~$3415) for an almost top flight model sporting 32 GB RAM and RTX 4060. The Surface Laptop Go 3, meanwhile, looks a little less exciting—it is said to get a CPU bump up to Intel Core i5-1135G and Core i5-1235U processors. Otherwise it looks largely similar to its previous-gen sibling. The leak did not include images of a reported Surface Go 4, but WinFuture expects it to be presented next week, powered by an Intel N200 SoC.

According to VideoCardz, we can look forward to Intel launching its next gen Core processor in the middle of next month, or at least some of them will launch then. As always when it comes to Intel and product launches, it appears to be a staggered launch, but this time around it's getting a bit strange. We checked with our sources to see if the proposed date by VideoCardz was indeed correct and were told that motherboards should be available later this month, largely due to Intel not offering a new chipset for the 14th Gen Core processors. This means the motherboard makers are free to launch their refreshed board for the the 14th Gen Core processors pretty much as they please.

The first CPUs that should launch are said to be the Core i9-14900K, Core i7-14700K and Core i5-14600K, as well as their KF counterparts. Advertising for these CPUs will kick off on the 16th of October followed by sales and reviews on the 17th of October, according to VideoCardz. The remaining Raptor Lake refresh CPUs are said to launch sometime in early 2024, most likely with a CES announcement followed by availability sometime in the first quarter. However, it appears that Intel will officially announce the Raptor Lake refresh processors during Intel Innovation 2023, which kicks off next week, on the 19th of September. Early performance leaks suggest that those with a recent CPU won't be overly tempted by these new chips from Intel and most consumers are better off waiting for Intel's move to a new socket next year, if they're looking at getting a new Intel based system.

In a recent interaction with the community on Chinese social platforms, Tony Yu, better known as Uncle Tony and serving as the General Manager of ASUS China, shed light on several questions concerning ASUS's products. One question that captured attention was about the ROG Z790 APEX motherboard, a premium offering from ASUS designed explicitly for overclocking. Tony clarified that the motherboard is currently out of production as ASUS gears up to unveil an updated version. This move is in line with industry trends, with rivals like Gigabyte and MSI also refreshing their respective Z790 lineups. The updated motherboards from ASUS are expected to align with Intel's next-generation Core series known as Raptor Lake Refresh, featuring incremental improvements such as WiFi-7 standard integration, new color options, enhanced power delivery mechanisms, and advancements in memory overclocking capabilities.

Launched initially in November of the previous year with a price tag of $699, the ROG MAXIMUS Z790 APEX motherboard stood out for its superior features aimed at overclocking enthusiasts. These include 24 power supply modules, dual 8Pin power connectors, AI-driven overclocking technology, and support for DDR5 memory with speeds exceeding 8000 MT/s. It also offers a plethora of connectivity options, like five M.2 interfaces, a 2.5G network card, WiFi 6E, and USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Type-C, along with 60 W QC 4+ fast charging. This motherboard gained popularity in December when it was used to set a world record CPU frequency of 9008.82 MHz using an Intel i9-13900K processor. Looking forward, the next generation of Intel Core processors could enable even higher overclocking frequencies. Apart from this, Tony tantalizingly hinted that ASUS is experimenting with innovative design changes, such as introducing connectors on the reverse side of motherboards, although this feature may not debut in the APEX series.

Framework products are now available to order in three more countries: Italy, Spain, and Belgium! That includes Framework Laptop 13, Framework Laptop 16 pre-orders, and the range of modules and parts in the Framework Marketplace. We have Italian, Spanish, and Belgian keyboard layouts available as well. This brings the total number of countries we're in up to 12 (US, Canada, Germany, France, UK, Netherlands, Ireland, Austria, Australia, Italy, Spain, Belgium) and we're still on track to open ordering in Taiwan later this summer. We know there are more of you out there who want upgradeable, repairable, customizable products, and we're continuing to build the infrastructure to expand to more of the world. We prioritize countries based both on the operational complexity and on community interest. The best way to help us gauge demand is by signing up for the waitlist for your country.

13th Gen Intel Core now in stock
We've shipped out the last batch of pre-orders, and the Framework Laptop 13 (13th Gen Intel Core) is now in stock and shipping from inventory, including for shipments to the three new countries. This means after placing an order, your laptop will ship within five business days from our warehouse in Taiwan. If you're past the point of repair on your current system and are looking for a high-performance, upgradeable, repairable notebook, check out the reviews from The Verge, Tom's Guide, and Ars Technica to figure out if a Framework Laptop 13 is for you.

MSI has done it yet again, that is to leak Intel confidential information about upcoming products. In a live stream earlier today, the company put on a slide clearly marked "NDA, do not share!" which confirms the specs of some of Intel's upcoming 14th Gen Core CPUs, also known under the Raptor Lake-S Refresh code name. That said, the only thing that really needed confirmation that is on the slide is that the Core i7-14700K is getting an additional four E-cores.

That said, MSI does provide some insight on what to expect in terms of performance gain over the 13th Gen Core processors and it's not a whole lot. According to MSI, we should expect an average performance boost of around three percent compared to the same SKU from the previous generation. That's possibly one of the worst performance gains ever from Intel, generation to generation, although it is only a refresh, but the question is, why did Intel even bother? The Core i7-14700K does on average get a 17 percent performance boost in multi-threaded applications thanks to the extra E-cores, but this is hardly going to make anyone with a Core i7-13700K going to want to upgrade. Note that the video has been taken down by MSI as of the time of this article being posted.