Apple yesterday announced its M1 Ultra processor. It is designed to be one of the most powerful solutions ever envisioned for desktop users, and it leverages some of the already existing technologies. Essentially, the M1 Ultra chip combines two monolithic dies containing M1 Max designs. They are stitched together to create one massive chip behaving in a rather exciting way. To pair the two M1 Max dies together, Apple has designed a package called UltraFusion, which is a die-to-die interposer with more than 10,000 signals. It provides 2.5 TB/s low latency inter-processor bandwidth and enables seamless sharing of information across two dies.

What is more interesting is that this approach, called multi-chip module (MCM) design philosophy, allows the software to view these two dies as a single, unified processor. Memory is shared across a vast pool of processor cache and system memory in a single package. This approach is software agnostic and allows hardware to function efficiently with loads of bandwidth. Apple notes that no additional developer optimization is required for the new processor, and the already-existing stack of applications for M1 Max works out-of-the-box. Talking about numbers, the M1 Ultra chip has a potential main memory bandwidth of 800 GB/s, with up to 128 GB of unified system memory. We are yet to see how this design behaves as the first Mac Studio units start shipping, so we have to wait for more tests to check these claims out.

Elden Ring launched in late February to rave critic and consumer reviews. The game is an excellent showcase of From Software's gaming design ethos, but ultimately proves that the company's rendering engine still requires work after years of installments due to widely-reported stuttering issues - irrespective of hardware configuration. A fix for Elden Ring's stuttering issues has surfaced on late Monday - courtesy of Valve and its Proton wrapper, and only applicable to the Steam Deck. In a way, this turns Steam Deck into the smoothest device to play Elden Ring on.

The issue with Elden Ring's stuttering has been linked to the games' continuous shader loading. Apparently, Elden Ring allows users to enter its vast open-world without pre-compiling the required shaders (something that we've seen other games do through usually lengthy boot-up processes) for the specific hardware. This forces the game to constantly compile shaders as they're required (due to world loading, animation loading, among other triggers), which is responsible for the stuttering issues gamers on PC have been encountering.

It seems that someone at Intel forgot to press "post" on the company's promised day-0 driver update for one of this year's most anticipated games - Elden Ring. The company previously announced a partnership with Elden Ring developer FromSoftware in the development of an updated driver that wold give Intel-based Elden Ring players streamlined performance and a (hopefully) bug-free experience when it comes to graphics rendering. But Elden Ring's launch day of February 24th has come and gone - and Intel is mum on where exactly its updated driver lies. For now, the latest available Intel graphics driver stands at version 101.1121 - released in November last year.

It may be the case that the driver development hit an unexpected snag, or perhaps Intel has simply opted to delay the driver's launch until there are actually some discrete-level graphics cards available for purchase - the company's initial Arc Alchemist lineup is expected to be announced and launched later this month. That would make sense - especially considering how a driver update this close to release might include some interesting data on the upcoming graphics cards that could be pursued by data miners. Even so, it doesn't seem like a good PR move for Intel to have loudly promised an updated driver and then fail to release it - especially as Intel's uphill battle in the discrete GPU market is just beginning. Perhaps the driver developers are having too much fun with the critically and consumer-acclaimed latest installment from FromSoftware?

At Intel's 2022 Investor Meeting, Chief Executive Officer Pat Gelsinger and Intel's business leaders outlined key elements of the company's strategy and path for long-term growth. Intel's long-term plans will capitalize on transformative growth during an era of unprecedented demand for semiconductors. Among the presentations, Intel announced product roadmaps across its major business units and key execution milestones, including: Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics, Intel Foundry Services, Software and Advanced Technology, Network and Edge, Technology Development, More: For more from Intel's Investor Meeting 2022, including the presentations and news, please visit the Intel Newsroom and Intel.com's Investor Meeting site.

Intel's Arc Alchemist discrete lineup of graphics cards is scheduled for launch this quarter. We are getting some performance benchmarks of the DG2-512EU silicon, representing the top-end Xe-HPG configuration. Thanks to a discovery of a famous hardware leaker TUM_APISAK, we have a measurement performed in the SiSoftware database that shows Intel's Arc Alchemist GPU with 4096 cores and, according to the report from the benchmark, just 12.8 GB of GDDR6 VRAM. This is just an error on the report, as this GPU SKU should be coupled with 16 GB of GDDR6 VRAM. The card was reportedly running at 2.1 GHz frequency. However, we don't know if this represents base or boost speeds.

When it comes to actual performance, the DG2-512EU GPU managed to score 9017.52 Mpix/s, while something like NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti managed to get 8369.51 Mpix/s in the same test group. Comparing these two cards in floating-point operations, Intel has an advantage in half-float, double-float, and quad-float tests, while NVIDIA manages to hold the single-float crown. This represents a 7% advantage for Intel's GPU, meaning that Arc Alchemist has the potential for standing up against NVIDIA's offerings.

What seems to be one of the best supported products by NVIDIA, is getting yet another update in the shape of the Shield Software Experience Upgrade 9.0, which brings Android 11 to the NVIDIA Shield devices. The fact that Android 11 is only arriving around the same time Android 12 is landing on most phones is a different matter, but the OS isn't the only update you're getting if you own a Shield device. NVIDIA has added support for aptX, something that should please users of compatible headsets, as it's so far the most common higher-end Bluetooth audio solution, although LDAC was already supported.

NVIDIA has also updated its GeForce Now game streaming software and is pushing its new RTX 3080 to those of us that have been unlucky enough to not be able to get one at MSRP. There are also updates for the Apple TV and Google Play Movies and TV apps, where the latter gets Dolby Vision support. US owners of a Shield TV device are also getting six months of Peacock Premium for free, but a Google account is required to take advantage of this offer. There are several other minor updates and fixes as well, such as an option to automatically disconnect Bluetooth devices when the Shield TV is put to sleep and a new energy saver setting.

AMD released the year's first Radeon Software Adrenalin software update. Version 22.1.1 comes with optimization for "Monster Hunter Rise," and "God of War," with up to 7% performance increase measured at 4K Ultra settings with the RX 6900 XT, compared to the previous 21.12.1 drivers. A handful issues were also fixed. To begin with, high idle memory clocks noticed on machines with multiple high-resolution monitors, has been fixed. Power Tuning components of a saved tuning profile not correctly loading following a Radeon Software update, has been fixed. Visual corruption noticed with "Halo Infinite" when zoomed-in, on machines with products such as the RX 5600 XT, has been fixed. Flickering noticed in "Fortnite" with RX 6000 series graphics cards in DirectX 12 mode with Radeon Boost enabled, as been fixed. Grab the drivers from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 22.1.1

Today as part of CES 2022, Intel demonstrated advancements and momentum with Mobileye, progress toward discrete graphics leadership and the launch of the newest members of the 12th Gen Intel Core family. With these milestones, Intel furthers its commitment to enable the industry and its customers and partners to harness the technology superpowers - ubiquitous computing, cloud-to-edge infrastructure, pervasive connectivity and artificial intelligence - at the heart of the digital transformation.

During the Intel news conference, Gregory Bryant, executive vice president and general manager of the Client Computing Group, was joined by Lisa Pearce, vice president of the Visual Compute Group, and Prof. Amnon Shashua, Mobileye CEO, to share Intel's progress across multiple strategic businesses. "The Intel execution engine is back. From advancing the PC to high-performance graphics to autonomous driving solutions, Intel and Mobileye are proud to create new ecosystems and opportunities across multiple industries," Bryant said. "Together with our partners and customers, we are driving new innovation across products, platforms and services, and delivering on our vision of enabling world-changing technology that improves the lives of every person on the planet."

Some of you might remember Intel's Upgrade Service, aka software locked CPUs that launched back in 2010 with the Pentium G6951 that could have an extra 1 MB of cache and Hyper-Threading unlocked for a mere $50. Well, it seems like Intel is working on something similar, but for Xeon CPUs this time around, although the exact details aren't clear as yet.

Phoronix spotted a Linux patch on GitHub for something called Intel Software Defined Silicon or SDSi for short. It's clear that it's for Xeon CPUs and the GitHub page mentions that SDSi "allows the configuration of additional CPU features through a license activation process." There's very little to go by beyond this, but it's not hard to draw parallels with Intel's Upgrade Service from last decade, just this time Intel is targeting its business customers rather than consumers.

ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) today announced an all-new gaming peripherals lineup that channels the minimalist feel of monochrome through a striking Moonlight White color scheme. The ROG Strix Scope NX TKL 80%, tenkeyless mechanical RGB gaming keyboard, ROG Strix Impact II ambidextrous gaming mouse, ROG Strix Go Core gaming headset and ROG Cetra II Core in-ear gaming headphones are all now available in North America in this stunning colorway.

ROG has a long history of weaving Aura Sync into a huge ecosystem of devices to let gamers shine a light on their personalities through their gear - but many players also seek a minimalist look. That's why the ROG color palette is expanding to include the Moonlight White series, providing a commanding counterpart to the signature red-and-black color scheme.

AMD today released the latest version of Radeon Software Adrenalin. Version 21.8.1 Beta comes with support for the Radeon RX 6600 XT graphics card (which we reviewed here). It also fixes an issue with "The Medium" that caused the game to crash while running FrameView. The company also identified a handful issues, some even specific to the RX 6600 XT, such as inaccurate point-lights in "Control," and driver timeouts observed in "Horizon Zero Dawn" with RX 6700 XT, and less specifically on RX 500 series products with simultaneous gaming+streaming. Grab the driver from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 21.8.1 Beta

Worldwide revenues for the artificial intelligence (AI) market, including software, hardware, and services, is estimated to grow 15.2% year over year in 2021 to $341.8 billion, according to the latest release of the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Semiannual Artificial Intelligence Tracker. The market is forecast to accelerate further in 2022 with 18.8% growth and remain on track to break the $500 billion mark by 2024. Among the three technology categories, AI Software occupied 88% of the overall AI market. However, in terms of growth, AI Hardware is estimated to grow the fastest in the next several years. From 2023 onwards, AI Services is forecast to become the fastest growing category.

Within the AI Software category, AI Applications has the lion's share at nearly 50% of revenues. In terms of growth, AI Platforms is the strongest with a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 33.2%. The slowest will be AI System Infrastructure Software with a five-year CAGR of 14.4% while accounting for roughly 35% of all AI Software revenues. Within the AI Applications market, AI ERM is expected to grow slightly stronger than AI CRM over the next five years. Meanwhile, AI Lifecycle Software is forecast to grow the fastest among the markets within AI Platforms.

If you even came across a PC system that had a problem with its Ram, there are high chances that you have used PassMark Software MemTest86 software for testing and revealing DRAM errors. The software uses a chain of algorithms, including SIMD and row hammer tests, to try to test if the memory is in a good shape or it has some problems. PC builders have used the software for years to detect and isolate any potential Ram issues that occurred. Today, makers of MemTest86, PassMark Software, previewed initial support for DDR5 memory in their internal software builds. That means that by the time DDR5 memory hits the consumer market, we will have software for testing any possible defective Ram.

The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, today announced an intent to form the Open 3D Foundation to accelerate developer collaboration on 3D game and simulation technology. The Open 3D Foundation will support open source projects that advance capabilities related to 3D graphics, rendering, authoring, and development. As the first project governed by the new foundation, Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS) is contributing an updated version of the Amazon Lumberyard game engine as the Open 3D Engine (O3DE), under the permissive Apache 2.0 license. The Open 3D Engine enables developers and content creators to build 3D experiences unencumbered by commercial terms and will provide the support and infrastructure of an open source community through forums, code repositories, and developer events. A developer preview of O3DE is available on GitHub today. For more information and/or to contribute, please visit: https://o3de.org

3D engines are used to create a range of virtual experiences, including games and simulations, by providing capabilities such as 3D rendering, content authoring tools, animation, physics systems, and asset processing. Many developers are seeking ways to build their intellectual property on top of an open source engine where the roadmap is highly visible, openly governed, and collaborative to the community as a whole. More developers look to be able to create or augment their current technological foundations with highly collaborative solutions that can be used in any development environment. O3DE introduces a new ecosystem for developers and content creators to innovate, build, share, and distribute immersive 3D worlds that will inspire their users with rich experiences that bring the imaginations of their creators to life.

Microsoft seems to be throwing its hat in the image upscale battle that's currently raging between NVIDIA and AMD. The company has added two new job openings to its careers page: one for a Senior Software Engineer and another for a Principal Software Engineer for Graphics. Those job openings would be quite innocent by themselves; however, once we cut through the chaff, it becomes clear that the Senior Software Engineer is expected to "implement machine learning algorithms in graphics software to delight millions of gamers," while working closely with "partners" to develop software for "future machine learning hardware" - partners here could be first-party titles or even the hardware providers themselves (read, AMD). AMD themselves have touted a DirectML upscaling solution back when they first introduced their FidelityFX program - and FSR clearly isn't it.

It is interesting how Microsoft posted these job openings in June 30th - a few days after AMD's reveal of their FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) solution for all graphics cards - and which Microsoft themselves confirmed would be implemented in the Xbox product stack, where applicable. Of course, that there is one solution available already does not mean companies should rest on their laurels - AMD is surely at work on improving its FSR tech as we speak, and Microsoft has seen the advantages on having a pure ML-powered image upscaling solution thanks to NVIDIA's DLSS. Whether Microsoft's solution with DirectML will improve on DLSS as it exists at time of launch (if ever) is, of course, unknowable at this point.

Sony Interactive Entertainment ("SIE") announced today that SIE has completed the acquisition of Nixxes Software B.V. ("Nixxes"), an industry-leading Dutch studio with more than 20 years of experience in game development and optimization. Based in Utrecht, Netherlands, effective immediately, Nixxes will join PlayStation Studios Technology, Creative & Services Group to provide high quality in-house technical and development capabilities for PlayStation Studios.

"I highly respect Nixxes and am excited for this very experienced team to become part of the world-class development community at SIE," said Hermen Hulst, Head of PlayStation Studios. "They have a passion for improving games and for delivering the best possible experience for gamers. Nixxes will be a strong asset for everyone across PlayStation Studios, helping our teams focus on their most important goal, which is to create unique PlayStation content at the best possible quality."

As most of the DOOM Eternal fans are informed, on June 29th, the latest installment in the DOOM series of games, DOOM Eternal, will be receiving a huge upgrade coming to all PC gamers. For the first time, PC players will get to experience NVIDIA's best pieces of technology, coming in a form of raytracing and NVIDIA Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS). To celebrate that, the folks over at Bethesda Softworks and id Software have partnered with NVIDIA to launch a limited edition DOOM Eternal bundle. Called the "DOOM Eternal GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Limited Edition Demon Slayer Bundle", it will be a very scarce bundle made only in 300 copies.

Containing NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3080 Ti graphics card, the bundle is all about performance. However, what makes it special and different from buying a regular card is that it includes some additional products. For starters, the bundle includes Titanium Slayer Collectible mini-figure with matching aesthetics of the GPU, making it a real collectible item. Next up is a Titanium DOOM Eternal-GeForce RTX t-shirt, and an exclusive "DOOM Eternal: The Ancient Gods" oversized 15.75-inch x 35.44-inch mouse pad. Additionally, a $100 Bethesda Store credit and DOOM Eternal Deluxe Edition game code is included as well. Together, it forms a bundle that is limited to 300 pieces and costs 1450 USD. To join the raffle to purchase this bundle, you can enter here for North America, and here for Europe. Unfortunately, people from other regions can not enter. The raffle starts today, June 23, 2021, 5:00 AM (MST), and ends on July 7, 2021, 11:59 PM (MST). Winners will be announced on July 8th.

Today, Mr. Raja Koduri, senior vice president, chief architect, and general manager of Architecture, Graphics, and Software at Intel, has teased Intel's upcoming Xe-HPG (DG2) gaming GPU on Twitter. Sharing a die shot of Intel's Xe-HPG design with 512 Execution Units (EUs), Mr. Koduri has highlighted the progress that the company is currently going through. The Xe-HPG will represent the company's efforts of going into a very competitive discrete GPU market, dominated by a duopoly of AMD and NVIDIA. The Xe-HPG design pictured below is representative of a maxed-out SKU with 512 EUs, translating into 4096 shading units. This model is expected to be paired with 16 GB of GDDR6 memory.

"From jittery journeys to buttery smooth" - it is quoted in a Tweet of Mr. Koduri. This doubles down on the efforts Intel is putting into creating a GPU and the difficulties that the company is facing. It is also noted that there remains a lot of work in form of driver coding and a lot of game optimizations, which are very important for the new GPU. You can check out the complete Tweet below.

Raja KoduriXe-HPG (DG2) real candy - very productive time at the Folsom lab couple of weeks ago. "From jittery journeys to buttery smooth" said @rogerdchandler - lots of game and driver optimization work ahead for @gfxlisa's software team. They are all very excited..and a little scared:)

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AMD today released the latest version of their Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition drivers. Version 21.5.2 features support for the impending release of Days Gone. It also adds support for Microsoft's Direct X 12 Velocity SDK - meant to make it easier and faster for game developers to implement Direct X 12 features onto their development pipeline.

The new drivers also feature support for Shader Model 6.6. This particular revision for Microsoft's Shader Model implements expanded atomic operations (64-bit), dynamic resource binding, derivatives and samples in compute shaders, packed 8-bit computations, and wave size. Read on after the break for fixed issues, and remaining issues that AMD is aware of. Follow the link below towards our very own download section.DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition 21.5.2 Beta

AMD has today updated its Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition version 21.5.1 drivers, bringing many features on board as well as fixing a lot of issues that have appeared in the past. Starting with support for the Resident Evil Village PC game, AMD promises to deliver up to 13% better frame rate at 4K maximum settings, while using the Radeon RX 6800 XT graphics card. The comparison was conducted with a reference to the previous driver, 21.4.1, which didn't allow the card to reach as high FPS as it is now possible with the proper support for the game. Another game that is added to the support list is Metro Exodus PC Enhanced Edition. Some fixes have been implemented, as the incorrect performance metrics that may have incorrectly reported temperatures on Ryzen 5 1600 series processors. For a detailed list of bug fixes, please take a look at the list below.DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition 21.5.1

SiFive, Inc., the industry leader in RISC-V processors and silicon solutions, today announced that Tenstorrent, an AI semiconductor and software start-up developing next-generation computers, will license the new SiFive Intelligence X280 processor in its AI training and inference processor. SiFive will deliver more details of its SiFive Intelligence initiative including the SiFive Intelligence X280 processor at the Linley Spring Processor Conference on April 23rd.

Tenstorrent's novel approach to inference and training effectively and efficiently accommodates the exponential growth in the size of machine learning models while offering best-in-class performance.

NVIDIA today announced NVIDIA AI Enterprise, a comprehensive software suite of enterprise-grade AI tools and frameworks optimized, certified and supported by NVIDIA, exclusively with VMware vSphere 7 Update 2, separately announced today.

Through a first-of-its-kind industry collaboration to develop an AI-Ready Enterprise platform, NVIDIA teamed with VMware to virtualize AI workloads on VMware vSphere with NVIDIA AI Enterprise. The offering gives enterprises the software required to develop a broad range of AI solutions, such as advanced diagnostics in healthcare, smart factories for manufacturing, and fraud detection in financial services.

Ethereum mining has been a crazy ride over the years. In recent times, it has become very popular due to a huge surge in Ethereum prices, following those of the main coin currently present on the market - Bitcoin. However, Ethereum miners use a customized PC stocked with many graphics cards to mine the Ethereum coin. Any other alternative is not viable and graphics cards have a high hash rate of the KECCAK-256 hashing algorithm. But have you ever wondered could you mine Ethereum on your shiny new Apple M1-equipped Mac? Our guess is no, however, there are still some people making experiments with the new Apple M1 processor and testing its capabilities.

Software engineer Yifan Gu, working for Zensors, has found a way to use Apple's M1 GPU to mine Ethereum. Mr. Gu has ported Ethminer utility to Apple's macOS for Apple Silicon and has managed to get GPU mining the coins. While technically it was possible, the results were rather poor. The integrated GPU has managed to get only 2 MH/s of mining power, which is rather low compared to alternatives (desktop GPUs). Being possible doesn't mean it is a good idea. The software will consume all of the GPU power and it will limit your work with the GPU, so it isn't exactly a profitable solution.

Addressing the demands of the modern data center, Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ: XLNX) today announced a range of new data center products and solutions, including a new family of Alveo SmartNICs, smart world AI video analytics applications, an accelerated algorithmic trading reference design for sub-microsecond trading, and the Xilinx App Store.

Today's most demanding and complex applications, from networking and AI analytics to financial trading, require low-latency and real-time performance. Achieving this level of performance has been limited to expensive and lengthy hardware development. With these new products and solutions, Xilinx is eliminating the barriers for software developers to quickly create and deploy software-defined, hardware accelerated applications on Alveo accelerator cards.