Jensen Huang's opening GTC 2024 keynote is scheduled to happen tomorrow afternoon (13:00 Pacific time)—many industry experts believe that the NVIDIA boss will take the stage and formally introduce his company's B100 "Blackwell" GPU architecture. An enlightened few have been treated to preview (AI and HPC) units—including Dell's CEO, Jeff Clarke—but pre-introduction leaks have not flowed out. Team Green is likely enforcing strict conditions upon a fortunate selection of trusted evaluators, within a pool of ecosystem partners and customers.

Today, a brave soul has broken that silence—tech tipster, AGF/XpeaGPU, fears repercussions from the leather-jacketed one. They revealed a handful of technical details, a day prior to Team Green's highly anticipated unveiling: "I don't want to spoil NVIDIA B100 launch tomorrow, but this thing is a monster. 2 dies on (TSMC) CoWoS-L, 8x8-Hi HBM3E stacks for 192 GB of memory." They also crystal balled an inevitable follow-up card: "one year later, B200 goes with 12-Hi stacks and will offer a beefy 288 GB. And the performance! It's... oh no Jensen is there... me run away!" Reuters has also joined in on the fun, with some predictions and insider information: "NVIDIA is unlikely to give specific pricing, but the B100 is likely to cost more than its predecessor, which sells for upwards of $20,000." Enterprise products are expected to arrive first—possibly later this year—followed by gaming variants, maybe months later.

Speculative NVIDIA GeForce RTX 50-series "GB20X" GPU memory interface details appeared online late last week—as disclosed by the kopite7kimi social media account. The inside information aficionado—at the time—posited that the "memory interface configuration of GB20x (Blackwell) is not much different from that of AD10x (Ada Lovelace)." It was inferred that Team Green's next flagship gaming GPU (GB202) could debut with a 384-bit memory bus—kopite7kimi had "fantasized" about a potentially monstrous 512-bit spec for the "GeForce RTX 5090." A new batch of follow-up tweets—from earlier today—rips apart last week's insights. The alleged Blackwell GPU gaming lineup includes the following SKUs: GB202, GB203, GB205, GB206, GB207.

Kopite7kimi's revised thoughts point to Team Green's flagship model possessing 192 streaming multiprocessors and a 512-bit memory bus. VideoCardz decided to interact with the reliable tipster—their queries were answered promptly: "According to kopite7kimi, there's a possibility that the second-in-line GPU, named GB203, could sport half of that core count. Now the new information is that GB203 might stick to 256-bit memory bus, which would make it half of GB202 in its entirety. What this also means is that there would be no GB20x GPU with 384-bit bus." Additional speculation has NVIDIA selecting a 192-bit bus for the GB205 SKU (AKA GeForce RTX 5070). The GeForce RTX 50-series is expected to arrive later this year—industry experts are already whispering about HPC-oriented Blackwell GPUs being unveiled at next week's GTC 2024 event. A formal gaming family announcement could arrive many months later.

According to TPU's SSD database, the Microsoft Z1000 M.2 22110 form factor solid-state drive launched back in 2020—last week, well-known hardware tipster, yuuki_ans, leaked a set of photos and specifications. Their March 7 social media post showcases close-ups of a potential enterprise product—sporting a CNEX Labs CNX-2670AA-CB2T controller, Toshiba BiCS4 96-layer eTLC NAND flash dies and 1 GB Micron MT40A1G8SA-075:E DDR4 RAM cache. The mysterious storage device appears to be an engineering sample (PV1.1)—an attached label lists a possible manufacturing date of May 18, 2020, but its part number and serial code are redacted in yuuki's set of photos. PCIe specifications are not disclosed, but experts reckon that a 4.0 standard is present here (given the prototype's age).

The long form factor and presence of a CNEX Labs controller suggest that Microsoft has readied a 960 GB capacity model for usage in data servers. Unoccupied spaces on the board provide evidence of different configurations. Extra BGA mounting points could introduce another DRAM chip, and there is enough room for additional capacitors—via solder pads on both sides of the Z1000's PCB. It is speculated that 2 TB and 4 TB variants exist alongside the leaked 960 GB example—a "broad portfolio" of finalized Z1000 products could be in service right now, but the wider public is unlikely to see these items outside of Microsoft facilities.

Phil Spencer, CEO of Microsoft Gaming, has insisted (on multiple occasions) that leaked Xbox product roadmaps are not a true representation of currently in-progress hardware at the company's Redmond, Washington headquarters. Internal documentation (from 2022) suggested that Microsoft had long term plans for physical media-less next-gen Xbox consoles, as well as a 2024 launch of an "adorably all-digital" Xbox Series X refresh. Early February news reports suggested that a few retail outlets had stopped selling Xbox physical media, due to low sales and a perception that Microsoft's console ecosystem prioritizes digital purchases. Spencer addressed ongoing rumors during a discussion with Game File: "We are supportive of physical media, but we don't have a need to drive that disproportionate to customer demand...We ship games physically and digitally, and we're really just following what the customers are doing. And I think our job in running Xbox is to deliver on the things that a majority of the customers want. And right now, a majority of our customers are buying games digitally."

Exputer's eXtas1s—a tipster specializing in all things Xbox, Bethesda and Activision Blizzard—reckons that the aforementioned Xbox Series X refresh is due to launch this summer: "Microsoft is currently working to release a white-colored Xbox Series X with no disc reader, sources close to eXputer have revealed...This all-digital console is expected to be released sometime between the upcoming months of June and July, but there are chances for a slight delay on that front as well." Allegedly, confidential footage has been distributed within insider networks. The Exputer report suggests that the proposed digital refresh could be "$50 to $100" cheaper than the current MSRP of $499.99 for an Xbox Series X 1 TB model. An improved heatsink and modernized wireless network card are mentioned as possible internal upgrades. Games industry watchdogs reckon that Microsoft is attempting to compete with Sony's digital-only PlayStation 5 models—the Xbox Series S is not considered to be a direct competitor here, due to its lesser specifications.

Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree is the second chapter to the feverishly popular fantasy action RPG by Hidetaka Miyazaki, with world-building by George RR Martin. Publisher Bandai Namco is going to publish its first gameplay trailer later today. A reliable source with franchise leaks, billbil-kun, claims that the the game releases on June 21, 2024. It's likely that this date is part of the gameplay reveal trailer which the studio is posting today. The trailer is said to contain some three minutes of gameplay footage captured within engine.
We will update this story with more insights when the trailer comes out.

DigiTimes Asia has reached out to insiders at fabrication toolmakers in an effort to delve deeper into claims made by industry analysts at the start of 2024—both SemiAnalysis and China Renaissance have proposed that TSMC is unlikely to adopt High-NA EUV production techniques within a five year period. The latest news article explores a non-upgrade approach for the next couple of years: "TSMC has not placed orders for high-numerical aperture (High-NA) extreme ultraviolet (EUV) tools and is unlikely to use the technology in 2 nm and 1.4 nm (A14) process manufacturing." Intel Foundry Services (IFS) will be one of the first semiconductor manufacturers to go online with ASML's latest and greatest machinery, although no firm timeframes have been confirmed. Team Blue's Taiwanese rival (and occasional business partner) is seemingly happy with its existing infrastructure, but industry watchdogs propose that cost considerations are key factors behind TSMC's cautious planning for the next decade.

The DigiTimes insider sources believe that TSMC will not budge until at least 2029, possibly coinciding with a 1 nm production node—analysts at China Renaissance reckon that High-NA EUV machines could be delivered in the future when facilities are readied for an "A10" codenamed process. TSMC published a very ambitious "transistor count" product timeline in early January (see below)—the first "1 nm" products are supposedly targeted for a 2030 rollout, but this schedule could change due to unforeseen circumstances. Intel is expected to "phase in" its fanciest ASML gear collection once the 18A process becomes old hat—Tom's Hardware thinks that 2026 - 2027 is a feasible timeframe.

We are well aware that NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER graphics cards are next up on the review table (January 31)—TPU's W1zzard has so far toiled away on getting his evaluations published on time for options further down the Ada Lovelace SUPER food chain. This process was interrupted briefly by the appearance of custom Radeon RX 7600 XT models, but today's attention soon returned to another batch of GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER cards. Reviewers are already toying around with driver-enabled GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER sample units—under strict confidentiality conditions—but the occasional leak is expected to happen. The appropriately named Benchleaks social media account has kept track of emerging test results.

The Geekbench Browser database was updated earlier today with premature GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER GPU test results—one entry highlighted by Benchleaks provides a quick look at the card's prowess in three of Geekbench 5.1's graphics API trials: Vulkan, CUDA and OpenCL. VideoCardz points out that all of the scores could be fundamentally flawed; in particular the Vulkan result of 100378 points—the regular (non-SUPER) GeForce RTX 4080 GPU can achieve almost double that figure in Geekbench 6. The SUPER's other results included a Geekbench 5 CUDA score of 309554, and an achievement of 264806 points in OpenCL. A late morning entrant looks to be hitting the right mark—an ASUS testbed (PRIME Z790-A WIFI + Intel Core i9-13900KF) managed to score 210551 points in Geekbench 6.2.2 Vulkan.

Best Buy Canada's site listed—by mistake—an entry for a Version 2.0 of Sony's venerable PlayStation 5 DualSense controller—the retailer proceeded to remove the leaked information and imagery, but several news outlets have preserved crucial details. The nixed page advertised a yet to be released "PlayStation 5 V2 DualSense Wireless Controller," that looks identical in appearance to Version 1.0—it even shares the same pricing of CA$89.99. Hooray for no price hiking, if this info is indeed accurate. A couple of internet sleuths have noticed that a Swiss retailer has listed V2 controllers (in white or camo)—these web pages became active back in December 2023.

The standout revelation from this leak appears to be much improved battery life—the Best Buy Canada website entry mentioned V2 being capable of lasting 12 hours on a single charge. Folks familiar with the current PS5 DualSense controller are accustomed to around six hours of usage, before a wired recharge session is required. The listing also outlined a Dual Sense charging station being bundled with Sony's V2 game controller. The sleuths also noted that the next iteration has an advertised weight of 280 g—CFI-ZCT1W AKA "V1" comes in at 360 g. Several online publications have contacted Sony PlayStation for a comment on the situation.

TSMC has gained the Taiwanese government's approval to invest $4.5 billion in its main North American manufacturing hub—Fab 21 is located in the greater Phoenix area. Mass production at the Arizona foundry has been delayed into 2025 due to behind-schedule equipment installations and various workforce-related issues, but a limited trial run is reported to begin early next year. Mid-last month, the TSMC executive board sought approval from Taiwan's Investment Commission for an additional overseas spend (the Arizona operation is registered as a subsidiary company).

This request was approved by the commission yesterday (September 18)—a $3.5 billion cash injection was already given the thumbs-up back in March. Exact areas of expenditure have not been declared to the public, but Taiwanese media outlets believe that the second phase of funds will be marked for working capital expenses at the North American division. Short-term business costs include the purchase of inventory (e.g raw materials), day-to-day operating expenses and resolvement of short-term debts. Mark Liu, TSMC's chairman, recently expressed optimism about goings-on at Arizona's Fab 21—mentioning significant progress made over the spring and summer period.

A comprehensive leak of documents—from a FTC versus Microsoft case—has exposed short and long-term plans in the world of Xbox. It seems that a relatively mild refresh of current generation Xbox Series X and S is lined up for the second half of 2024, but presentation material (dated April 2022) also reaches far into the future with strategies for next-gen gaming hardware. The bigwigs at Xbox were projecting a "full convergence" of their proprietary "xCloud" gaming platform and physical console hardware to deliver "cloud hybrid games" for 2028—schemes and priorities could have shifted in the interim, given various legal challenges and takeover bids.

One of the slides points to Microsoft getting the technical nitty-gritty sorted by CY2023—with two main options presented for consideration: a licensed ARM 64 design or a "Zen 6-based" AMD 64 processor. The next-gen Xbox's GPU aspect could incorporate a Navi 5 design (RDNA 5)—weighing up either a co-operation with AMD, or an IP license of said graphics architecture. VideoCardz theorizes that: "the latter option seems more likely if the ARM 64 chip is chosen over the Zen 6 APU." A key goal in this area seems to be an implementation of "Next-Gen DirectX Ray tracing" and "ML-based Super Resolutions" features. A Neural Processing Unit (NPU) is marked as a key provision for the 2028 console—granting some nice-to-have perks including: latency compensation, frame rate interpolation and various enrichments of the user experience.

A hefty information dump—originating from documents relating to a Microsoft vs. FTC legal case—has revealed plans (dated April 2022) for an upcoming refresh of current generation Xbox Series X and S consoles. Microsoft Gaming's head honcho, Phil Spencer, dismissed the need for a mid-gen refresh of the more powerful model—his summertime 2023 declaration came after the rumor mill coughed up speculative details of Sony working on a more potent PlayStation 5. The leaked roadmap and slides points to a refreshed Xbox Series X console lined up for launch in October 2024. The new cylindrical design is codenamed "Brooklin" and features an all-digital entertainment scheme—internal upgrades include a 2 TB SSD, plus support for Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2. An "improved sustainability story" suggests that the refresh will consume less power.

A 6 nm die shrink of the current Xbox Series X "Scarlett" APU with Zen 2/RDNA2 setup is reportedly in the cards. It seems that Microsoft is not preparing something that could compete with a theoretical "PlayStation 5 Pro." The leaked roadmap states that Brooklin's projected MSRP is $499—so no price hike over the original. The refreshed Xbox Series S—codenamed "Ellewood"—retains the existing Series S aesthetic, along with its entry-level $299 price tag. Microsoft's roadmap has it launching earlier than "Brooklin"—August 2024. Internal storage is set at 1 TB, and an updated southbridge grants support for Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2. A low-power standby mode is said to consume only 20% of the current gen model's sleepy intake. The 2022 roadmap also mentions a refreshed "Sebile" Xbox controller, with the aim to get it launched by May 2024, so several months before the projected arrival of revised X and S consoles.

TSMC's Japanese facilities are set to fabricate "mature-technology chips" (28 nm and 22 nm) once construction at the site concludes next year—this $8.6 billion fab on Kyushu Island is proving to be a promising prospect for company leadership back in Taiwan. A Reuters report suggests that more ambitious plans are afoot for Japan as a key production base—two anonymous insiders claim that problems encountered at the Arizona plant have caused a shift in focus onto other global TSMC sites.

There is potential for further expansion and upgrades in Kikuyo, Kumamoto Prefecture—TSMC has reportedly taken an "increasingly optimistic view" of Japan's work culture, relatively cheap-to-build facility and a co-operative government. A smooth ramp-up of the first fabrication facility is the primary goal in 2024, but adjusted plans could add more capacity. The insiders think that a second site is also a possibility, with consideration for more advanced chip making.

DigiTimes Asia has picked up on some intriguing insider information—their source claims that Apple could be pivoting hardware development in the direction of lower-cost portable personal computer solutions. Their current "budget-friendly" champ is the M1 SoC-equipped MacBook Air (of 2020 vintage), starting at $999 for mortals—education incentives can lower that entry price down to $899. The gigantic American multinational technology company debuted a 15‑inch MacBook Air M2 model this year, but sales figures have allegedly not met projected targets. The DigiTimes report indicates that Apple engineers are preparing new hardware for a different market segment—education was mentioned earlier—Google and its partners remain dominant here with cost effective Chromebooks.

Apple's iPad family offers some "wallet friendly" alternatives for students, but industry experts note that ChromeOS-based laptops are easier to use for educational tasks and iPads: "cannot compete with Chromebooks on price." An all-new lower tier MacBook lineup—sitting below their Air range—is supposedly already in development, with a launch window projected for the second half of 2024 (lead time is said to be around nine months). A more competitive retail price is achievable due to the use of "cheaper material for the laptop's metal outer shell, and cheaper mechanical components."

AMD's Zen 4 high-end desktop (HEDT) family could be closing in on a launch window—AsRock's European office has registered a number of motherboards with the EEC, and KOMACHI_ENSAKA spotted a model sporting a TRX50 chipset sitting in the middle of mainstream gaming Lightning and Riptide offerings. The "TRX50 WS" seems to be the first sighting of an AMD Threadripper 7000 "Storm Peak" series workstation board. TRX50 is presumably the logical successor to Team Red's existing TRX40 platform—the latter supports third generation (Zen 3) Ryzen Threadripper 5000 "Chagall" processors. AMD has not publicly published any details regarding next-gen Threadripper and Threadripper Pro product lineups, but several leaks have pointed to the new HEDT platform arriving within the second half of 2023.

A mid-August Geekbench database entry outed the AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 7995WX—this 96 core/192 thread CPU scored 2095 points in single-core tests, and 81408 multi-core points—these results have it positioned as one of the fastest processors submitted to Geekbench. The test system was running Geekbench v5.5 for Linux (Ubuntu 22.04 LTS). It is speculated that four (or more) models could be released with differing core counts: 16, 32, 64 and 96—please refer to the VideoCardz authored chart (below). Past rumors have SP5 and SP6 socket types linked to the "Storm Peak" family, with the introduction of DDR5 memory standard to Threadripper.

PerformanceDatabases has uncovered details relating to an alleged engineering sample of AMD's Ryzen 8000 "Strix Point" APU—likely insider sourced CPU-Z screengrabs from early last month revealed that the upcoming Zen 5-based laptop chip (in their words): "is built on a 4 nm Process and features the Big.Little CPU architecture with 4 Performance Cores and 8 Efficiency Cores. Both the P and E-Cores support hyper-threading. On the P-Core and E-Core, the L1 Data cache is 48 KB, while the L1 instruction cache is 32 KB. Each P Core boasts 1 MB of cache, and with E-Cores, it looks like there are 4 in a group, sharing 1 MB of L2 Cache. This setup is quite similar to Intel's design. Keep in mind, it's still in the engineering sample (ES) stage, so there's more to come. We'll keep you posted on any further updates!"

Another "AMD Strix - Internal GPU" example emerged late last week, this time in the form of a leaked HWInfo64 screen grab with some information completely covered up—the visible parts seems to point to this "Strix Point" APU featuring a core configuration as seen in the earlier leak, along with 1024 unified shaders. We can presume that the sampled Zen 5-based mobile APU possessing 16 RDNA 3.5 compute units (16 × 64 = 1024). Other details include a 45 W TDP rating, and the socket type being FP8 (as utilized by current Ryzen 7040U and 7040H(S) mobile SoCs). The 512 MB GDDR6 memory configuration is very likely an error—according to HWInfo64, the tested system was fitted with 32 GB of LPDDR5 memory. "Strix Point" looks to be the logical successor (in 2024) to AMD's current "Phoenix" lineup of mobile processors, as featured in gaming handhelds and laptops. PC hardware enthusiasts are expressing excitement about the upcoming APU series wielding impressive iGPU performance, with the potential to rival modern discrete mobile solutions.

ITHome has picked up on interesting retail activity in China, where AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT graphics cards are deeply discounted. This seems to correspond to a possible discontinuation of Team Red's Navi 23 XT GPU—a Board Channel source stated: "AMD factory has stopped production of a certain GPU. At the present time, shipments from all AIB brands have stopped with inventory being cleared. AMD has stopped production for the Radeon RX 6650 XT, and nearly all brands will have their inventory cleared by the end of September." Board partners in China appear to running sales promotions, with cards reduced from an original MSRP of 3099 RMB ($425) down to as low as 1739 RMB (~$240), although these adjusted prices are mostly hovering around the 2000 RMB (~$275) mark.

AMD recently declared that its Radeon RX 7000 desktop lineup is now complete, following the unveiling of mid-range RX 7800 XT and RX 7700 XT cards at last week's Gamescom trade fair in Cologne, Germany. Their low-to-mid tier Radeon RX 7600 card, based on the Navi 33 XL GPU, is the sole successor to multiple RDNA 2 predecessors (RX 6600, 6600 XT & 6650 XT). AMD and its board partners are likely prioritizing larger scale RDNA 3 production, so the latest batch of GPU industry insider information is not all that surprising. Tom's Hardware points out that: "there is hardly any point for AMD to continue production of Navi 23. The company's RDNA 3-based Navi 33 GPU integrates 13.3 billion transistors, has 2048 SPs, and performs better than its direct predecessor. Meanwhile, it has a smaller die size (204 mm² vs 237 mm²) and is made on TSMC's N6 process technology (as opposed to N7 in the case of Navi 23), so it may well be cheaper to produce."

Lenovo's Legion Go handheld gaming system was uncovered by Windows Report over a week ago following a series of minor leaks emerging throughout the summer. Key points of discovery included an AMD Ryzen Z1 APU, detachable Joy-Con-esque controllers and Windows 11 being the operating system of choice. The news site has today divulged even more details, thanks to a trusted anonymous source sending in an official product press release. It seems that Lenovo is planning to unveil the Go and matching accessories (AR glasses & headphones) at next month's IFA 2023 trade fair in Berlin. The handheld gaming device could launch in early October, with the base model starting at $799 (MSRP).

According to the leaked document, Lenovo's Legion Go is specced with an 8.8 inch, 2560 x 1600 pixel 144 Hz refresh rate IPS LCD touchscreen display—its maximum brightness is allegedly rated at 500 nits. AMD's Ryzen Z1 Extreme APU—that debuted with the ASUS ROG Ally—appears to run the show. The leak also indicates that 16 GB of LPDDR5X-7500 memory is soldered to the Go's mainboard, alongside a user-replaceable PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 2242 SSD. The document infers that Lenovo is prepping variants with 256 GB, 512 GB, and 1 TB SSD storage configurations.

AMD is aiming to launch its Ryzen 8000 desktop CPUs, codenamed "Granite Ridge," at some point next year. The next generation Zen 5 core microarchitecture is expected to arrive alongside (Navi) RDNA 3.5 iGPU cores according to the last batch of Team Red product roadmaps. Today, hardware tipsters Olrak29_ and Kepler_L2 have made claims on social media that part of the Ryzen 7000 CPU legacy will continue with the succeeding desktop processor lineup—we already know that Granite Ridge will exist as a Socket AM5 package, but today's leak proposes that these next-gen chips are lined up to utilize the same IO die as sported by AMD's current Zen 4 desktop family.

These new rumors suggest that the "reused" Ryzen 7000 IOD (I/O Die) chiplet will grant the familiar allocation of 28 PCIe Gen 5 lanes, memory controllers, USB functions, plus RDNA 2 iGPU cores. Wccftech points out that: "...interestingly, AMD lists the Ryzen 7000 "desktop" CPUs with Navi 3.0 support whereas the Radeon 710M iGPU in fact is based on the RDNA 2 graphics core. The next-gen lineup was mentioned to support the newest RDNA 3.5 GPU core which will be coming to the Strix APU family next year but that isn't the case either." The article proposes that "RDNA 3.5 GPU cores on the AM5 platform" could arrive with the advent of upcoming Ryzen APUs—namely 6 nm Rembrandt (6000G) and 4 nm Phoenix (7000G) desktop solutions.

PlayStation 5-related rumors have been flowing over the past week—Zuby_Tech was reportedly the main source responsible for leaking out Project Q footage, but the tipster has turned to his attention to an alleged new version of the host system. Yesterday's tweet makes reference to a refreshed PlayStation 5 model—the "CFI-1300 series"—with a revised 5 nm APU. The late-2020 launch model (CFI-1200) sported a 7 nm chipset, while 2022's die shrink granted the CFI-1202 series with a 6 nm SoC.

The tipster thinks that Sony will be dropping the PS5's liquid metal cooling system for its next iteration, thanks to a central 5 nm part offering greater efficiency and reduced thermal output. Previous reports have predicted that this refreshed "modular model" is marked for a late 2023 release window. Sony has been running a summer price reduction campaign—could this marketing incentive be clearing the way—i.e selling off older stock—in anticipation of the refreshed model's arrival? "CFI-1300" should not be confused with the heavily rumored PlayStation 5 Pro variant—Insider Gaming's Tom Henderson has reiterated multiple times that this major hardware upgrade is still a long way off from launching.

AMD's Chinese office has announced that company representatives will be present at this year's ChinaJoy event—their Weibo social media account confirmed that: "from July 28th to July 31st, 2023, in Hall E6 of Shanghai New International Expo Center, super hardcore and mega cool AMD hardware will be on the scene, bringing you a fast and fun gaming experience. We are looking forward to meeting you!" ITHome thinks that the timing of this announcement points to a possible official unveiling of the Radeon RX 7900 GRE (Golden Rabbit Edition) on the showroom floor.

The publication has cited a tip provided by the one and only momomo_us—the Chinese market exclusive Golden Rabbit Edition will be released tomorrow, which lines up with ChinaJoy 2023's kick off time. Recent leaks have revealed that the 84 Compute Units + 16 GB configured graphics card is a new SKU, sitting below the RX 7900 XT in Team Red's Radeon RDNA 3 hierarchy. It seems to be "built on the mysterious Navi 31 + Navi 32 hybrid GPU." Additionally, ITHome reports that AMD has partnered up with ASUS, and will be exhibiting ROG Moba 7 Plus series laptops (sporting Ryzen Dragon Range APUs) at the Shanghai event.

Apple introduced its 15‑inch MacBook Air at June's WWDC23 event—the giant multinational technology had taken feedback from its customer base, and followed through by rolling out a larger version of the existing M2-based 13-inch model. That appeasement could be a wasted effort, given the latest rumors emerging from Asia. DigiTimes has gathered information from sources within Apple's supply chain—they claim that "the 15-inch MacBook Air...reportedly didn't meet customer demand expectations. There are even calls for the supply chain to put shipments on hold."

The 15-inch MacBook Air's shipment volume for July is reportedly 50% short of the company's original projection, with a broad downturn in the global notebook market factoring in as a reason for sluggish sales. The model's $1299 starting price appears to be quite reasonable at first glance, but the entry point only gives you a spec consisting of non-upgradable 8 GB (unified) RAM and 256 GB solid state storage. A discerning buyer is semi-forced to shell out closer to $2000 for a more competitive configuration, comparable to the closest Window 11 slimline laptops. The high asking prices, on top of a mixed reception around launch time have done the 15-inch MacBook Air few favors. Apple enthusiasts are probably saving up and waiting for the arrival of upcoming M3 chipset-equipped models. DigiTimes reckons that an "upcoming announcement" regarding a next-gen MacBook Pro is due very soon.

According to a short article released by ITHome, Machenike, a popular Chinese PC hardware company displayed several interesting Intel CPU-based systems at the Bilibili World exhibition (in Shanghai). The manufacturer confirmed (to the reporter) that their next generation hardware will be hitting the market within the next three months, which coincides with the rumored launch of Intel 14th Gen Core Raptor Lake-Refresh desktop K-series SKUs.

Exhibited material implied that Machenike's upcoming PCs—arriving in the form of a "LIGHT-05" desktop tower, mini models and laptops—could be among the first batch of systems to support PCIe Gen 5 storage (as standard). Potential buyers could be attracted to next-gen machines offering access to faster NVMe SSD, on top of rumored higher core counts provided by the Raptor Lake Refresh. ITHome believes that a number of the mini-PCs at Machenike's booth were already running on Raptor Lake Refresh or (Core rebrand) Meteor Lake processors.

Activision is reportedly putting Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 through its paces as an alpha test, and is struggling with the containment of leaks. DCMA takedowns have done little to stop the flow, and the publisher has started teasing the much anticipated 2023 CoD release. Licensing partners seem to be taking a lax attitude with regards to NDAs—new Monster Energy promotional material has been photographed in the wild. Revised energy drink brand packaging features a prominent series character—Captain Price—with the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III logo emblazoned atop the famous protagonist.

Monster Energy has a documented history of offering XP and accessory codes as part of video game tie-in offers, so that legacy is all but confirmed for continuation with this year's alleged mainline CoD entry. Sledgehammer Games is reportedly the main development house working on CoD:MWIII, and various news outlets have claimed that a November launch window is being targeted by the game's publisher. Activision has taken a good humored approach when dealing with the latest leak—their @CallofDuty social media account's response stated: "Whew. Mondays. Anyone have an energy drink they can spare?"

Insider Gaming's Tom Henderson has picked up some interesting insider knowledge about the long rumored PlayStation 5 Pro gaming console—his (side hustle) Key to Gaming article theorizes that a project codenamed "Trinity" has been in-progress since early 2022. Sony is apparently sticking to its tradition of using Matrix themed codenames for internal hardware projects—PlayStation 4 Pro was referred to as "Neo," and PlayStation VR's alias was "Morpheus." His inside sources claim that Sony has been showing off Trinity prototype units to game development studios, with refreshed dev kits lined up for the "majority" of interested parties by November 2023.

Henderson's sources provided scant info about Trinity's specs and performance goals: "Although the Pro's specs were difficult to pin down, (admittedly) due to my lack of technological prowess, sources have stated that Trinity with have 30 WGP and 18000mts memory. As for the consoles performance targets and as to be expected, the PlayStation 5 Pro will be targeting improved and consistent FPS at 4K resolution, a new "performance mode" for 8K resolution, and accelerated ray tracing. Whether or not a PlayStation 5 Pro console is desired enough in the current market remains to be seen, but as of writing, the PlayStation 5 Pro is in development and is targeting a November 2024 release date." The leaked information has been interpreted several ways by different outlets—mostly focusing on the improved AMD RDNA-powered GPU. I have included Zuba_Tech's updated spec sheet (see below), which seems to be a bit on the fanciful side of things (proposing 72 CUs). Others have theorized that the revised GPU could offer twice the performance of the base PS5 model's Oberon RDNA 2-based GPU (36 CUs).

AMD's CEO Lisa Su is reported to be visiting a number of companies in Taiwan this week—one of her objectives seems to be getting next generation AM5 desktop platforms prepped with USB4 support. Hardware news site MyDrivers believes that Asmedia played host to Team Red's leader at some point—this is a significant development given that this Taiwanese company specializes in making motherboard chipsets and USB controllers, although Su has allegedly met with other competing firms. Asmedia is reported to be a market leader in terms of implementing the latest USB4 tech, with certification awarded by the USB-IF Association.

Prior leaks have implied that the two companies are already involved with each other on a separate project—their collective goal being Thunderbolt 4 support on next-gen AMD platforms. The timing of this trip to Taiwan suggests that forthcoming AM5 motherboards offering USB4 support could be lined up for launch next year, alongside the "Zen 5" Ryzen 8000 CPU series. Boards based on current gen A620, B650 and X670 chipsets could be refreshed with the latest USB connectivity standard.