Insider Gaming's Tom Henderson believes that Sony PlayStation leadership will tighten up development conditions, following recent leaks pertaining to the technological underpinnings of the heavily rumored "PS5 Pro" home console. An IGN report and another Henderson-authored article posit that last week's revelations are "legit," according to their respective networks of industry moles. Apparently top secret information was extracted from a technical document—reports suggest that Sony sent this paper to its third-party development partners, alongside a new batch of development kits.

Industry experts think that (slated) repercussions could affect smaller development houses—Henderson tweeted: "as expected, Sony has launched an internal investigation into the leaked documents on Trinity as it leaked during a third-party rollout...Not sure on the implications yet as I don't think they can catch one individual, but Sony could reduce its third-party developer pool for new tech as a result." Rumors of a "mid-gen hardware refresh" have been swirling for almost a year and a half, but PlayStation bosses seem to be rattled into action (this week). Microsoft maintained a cool exterior following the leak of next-gen Xbox details, but that information emerged from unredacted court documents. Phil Spencer and his colleagues claim that future Xbox product roadmaps are in constant flux.

Renowned PC hardware sleuth, momomo_us, has noticed that ZOTAC Gaming had recently revised its GeForce RTX 40-series SUPER press material with new information that details pricing for a slew of models. Their custom-designed SUPER Trinity Black Edition and Twin Edge 12 (non-OC) editions are designated as conforming to NVIDIA's official guide MSRPs—this will inevitably put pressure on competing AIB partners, who often add a little bit extra when charging for their stock-clocked models.

A handful of PC hardware publications have contacted ZOTAC regarding non-disclosed premium pricing of their overclocked range of Ada Lovelace-based SUPER GPUs, but the manufacturer is staying schtum for the moment. We will have to wait until NDAs expire, and a lifting of embargoes on reviewers + influencers. The latest information seems to confirm that ZOTAC will price their RTX 4070 SUPER 12 GB models—in Twin Edge or Trinity Black Edition guises—at the MSRP of $599. A single GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER Trinity Black Edition 16 GB is coming in at $799. ZOTAC's GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER Trinity Black Edition 16 GB is set at $999.

ZOTAC TECHNOLOGY Limited, a leading global manufacturer of innovation, announces the latest addition to the NVIDIA Ada Lovelace architecture lineup with the ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER, RTX 4070 Ti SUPER, and RTX 4070 SUPER.

The new GeForce RTX SUPER GPUs are the ultimate way to experience AI on PCs. Specialized AI Tensor Cores deliver up to 836 AI TOPS to deliver transformative
capabilities for AI in gaming, creating and everyday productivity. PC gamers demand the very best in visual quality, and AI-powered NVIDIA Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) Super Resolution, Frame Generation and Ray Reconstruction combine with ray tracing to offer stunning worlds. With DLSS, seven out of eight pixels can be AI-generated, accelerating full ray tracing by up to 4x with better image quality. The ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX 40 SUPER Series offers a wide range of design and form factors to gamers and hardware enthusiasts, improving the GPU's gaming performance, noise profile, durability, and thermal performance. The ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX 40 SUPER Series features the return of the ultimate AMP Extreme AIRO, the balanced Trinity, and compact Twin Edge GPU models.

EK, the leading computer cooling solutions provider, is introducing the EK-Pro GPU WB AMP/Trinity RTX 4090 Ni + Inox, an enterprise-grade full-cover water block designed specifically for the ZOTAC NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 AMP Extreme Airo, Trinity, and Trinity OC graphics cards.

The water block is meticulously crafted with a CNC-machined nickel-plated copper base and a laser-cut stainless-steel top, providing a durable and efficient liquid cooling solution. It effectively encompasses and cools the entire GPU, VRAM, and VRM components by channeling the cooling liquid directly over these critical areas to dissipate heat.

The White Edition model range expands with the Trinity OC White Edition. With its signature sleek design, the 40-Series Trinity OC White Edition GPUs walk the fine line between sophistication, minimalist design, and performance.

ICONIC WHITE
Gracefully pure and beautifully elegant, the ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX 40 Series White Edition GPUs are the culmination of sleek design and the allure to build the desirable. The White Edition series walk the fine line between sophistication and function, expressing the pure essence of clean design overlaying the raw performance underneath.

The Newegg PC Building Contest finals were held in Taipei, on April 22nd. This isn't a typical e-sports event, or even an overclocking/benchmarking contest, but one with a very simple premise—build an operable PC using the parts of your choice, within a time-limit. The finals saw the top-5 contestants from a pool of 50 make their way to Taipei, and for the final event, the time set was just 1 hour. That seems like an eternity for someone used to building PCs, but this isn't a mom-and-pop Dell you're building—a fully fledged high-end gaming desktop with certain mandatory components to have (although the choice of make of the components is up to you). You're supposed to assemble the desktop and bring it up to an operable state.

Neo Forza became the DDR5 memory and SSD manufacturer of choice for most of the finalists. Three out of five finalists chose Neo Forza Trinity DDR5-7200 memory, and all five of them chose Neo Forza NFP455 NVMe Gen 4 SSD. While the winner put together the build in 37 minutes, the slowest of the five made it in just under the hour. They stated that the build was "stressful" and they never thought it could get so nerve-racking to put together a simple PC. Meanwhile, Neo Forza celebrated its unexpected claim to fame for being the memory vendor of choice among the finalists. "We were humbly overwhelmed as the event, inadvertently, showed Neo Forza as a preferred choice by experienced pro-users for DRAM and SSD in PC builds suitable for gaming, content-creation, streaming and 3D rendering," the company commented.

ZOTAC Technology Limited, a leading global manufacturer of innovation, announces the latest addition to its next-generation graphics card line-up, built on the powerful NVIDIA Ada Lovelace architecture. The GeForce RTX 4070 GPU includes all the advancements of the NVIDIA Ada Lovelace architecture, including the new standards in gaming such as DLSS 3 neural rendering and real-time ray tracing technologies. Starting at $599 USD, the GeForce RTX 4070 runs most modern games at over 100 frames per second at 1440p resolution.

The 4070 series carries over the aerodynamic-inspired design and many key innovations introduced in previous 40-series cards, which improves gaming performance, airflow, cooling performance, noise mitigation and durability. The ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX 4070 features 12 GB GDDR6X ultra-fast memory and will come in 3 models: AMP AIRO, Trinity, and Twin Edge OC.

Now even more compatibility for Geforce RTX 40XX GPUs! Alphacool expands the range for active water cooling of Nvidia's Geforce RTX 4080 and 4090 graphics cards with the new and innovative Eisblock Aurora coolers.

Compared to the previous model of the cooler, several optimizations have been made, which perfectly dissipate the enormous waste heat of the new graphics card generation. The modified fin structure enables a very good water flow and increases the cooling surface at the same time. The modification of the jet plate with revised inflow engine furthermore perfects the distribution of the water on the cooling fins. The chrome plating of the copper base over the entire surface not only provides resistant protection against acids, scratches and damage, but also achieves a beautiful homogeneity and special shine.

With the new Aurora Vertical GPU Mount, Alphacool now offers the possibility to install the graphics card vertically inside compatible PC cases, whether they're air or liquid cooled. In addition, the mount features 11 digitally addressable 5V RGB LEDs that create a unique, very classy looking illumination. The digital aRGB LED lighting can be controlled either with a digital RGB controller or a digital RGB capable motherboard.

There is more new blood within the Ice Block range! In the future, Zotac RTX 3070Ti AMP Holo, Trinity and Trinity OC can also be water-cooled with Alphacool's Eisblock Aurora Acryl GPX custom cooler.

EK, the leading computer cooling solutions provider, is introducing another addition to the EK-Quantum Line. EK-Quantum Vector Trinity RTX 3080/3090 active backplate is made to complement the existing EK-Quantum Vector Trinity RTX 3080/3090 water blocks and actively cool the backside of ZOTAC Trinity GeForce RTX 3080 and 3090 GPUs.

EK-Quantum Vector Trinity RTX 3080/3090 active backplate links the water block and active backplate part with a new terminal, which replaces the stock terminal that comes with your water block. This way, the whole enclosure requires only one inlet and one outlet, removing unnecessary additional tubing and reducing clutter. It is the ultimate aesthetic and performance solution that finds your GPU sandwiched between two water blocks, allowing maximum cooling.

Zotac has today surprised us and decided to bring additional SKUs to the GeForce family of RTX 3080 and RTX 3070 graphics cards. Coming in special, white aesthetics, Zotac decided to give customers a unique choice for their next builds. Starting with the lower-end GeForce RTX 3070 Twin Edge OC White Edition, the company implements a dual-fan design with a shorter PCB. The GPU is factory overclocked to 1740 MHz, which represents a mere 1.7% clock increase, however, users will of course push it more. Besides the slight increase in boost frequency, the card has the same specifications as the regular RTX 3070 card.

Next up is the Zotac GeForce RTX 3080 Trinity OC White Edition graphics card. Featuring a triple-fan 2.5 slot body, the card is paired with white aesthetics just like its smaller brother. It has a pre-applied factory overclock of 1740 MHz frequency for boost speed, which also represents a modest 1.8% increase. This card also bumps up the required power connectors to dual 8-pin ones. The TGP of the cards is 220 W for the RTX 3070 model and 320 W for the RTX 3080.More pictures follow:

The Alliance for Computing at Extreme Scale (ACES), a partnership between Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories, announced the details of a $105 million contract awarded to Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) to deliver Crossroads, a next-generation supercomputer to be sited at Los Alamos.

"This machine will advance our ability to study the most complex physical systems for science and national security. We look forward to its arrival and deployment," said Jason Pruet, Los Alamos' Program Director for the Advanced Simulating and Computing (ASC) Program.

Here's the first render of a finished custom-design GeForce RTX 3090 graphics card, courtesy of a leak by HD Tecnologia. The ZOTAC GeForce RTX 3090 Trinity Holo is shown featuring a conventional axial-flow fan-heatsink design. The card is taller than standard by a good inch or so, over 2 slots thick, and appears to feature an acrylic diffuser with RGB LED elements. The RGB embellishments cover both sides of the card.

A recurring theme with "Ampere" cards appears to be thicker-than-standard backplates. On this card, the backplate looks chunky, with RGB elements all over. As for the cooling solution, it features a triple-fan setup ventilating a large heatsink, and possibly a baseplate underneath. We can see the new-generation multi-GPU connector. Variable fan-speeds for individual fans could be a new design trend with this generation. More renders of the RTX 3090 Trinity Holo surfaced, revealing three 8-pin PCIe power connectors. Renders of the RTX 3080 Holo by ZOTAC also surfaced, revealing a smaller product design with just two fans, and two 8-pin PCIe power inputs. A see-through render shows that NVIDIA is planning to use two grades of the same GA102 silicon on both the RTX 3090 and RTX 3080, differing in core-configuration, memory bus, and clock speeds.Update Aug 30th: VideoCardz scored a family shot of possibly all of ZOTAC's upcoming custom RTX 30-series board designs.

As you may remember, "Llano" was somewhat of a disappointment for AMD, to put it mildly. Production issues with partner Global Foundries meant that Llano's roll-out was affected and extended beyond its predicted time-frame. This, in conjunction with other various factors, such as lack of product appeal over disappointing performance and the usual competition from Intel, forced AMD to pull in its second-generation "Trinity" APU too soon. By the time production finally caught up, it ended up overproducing relative to diminishing demand, which resulted in unsold inventory, thus forcing an inventory write-down of "Llano" chips valued at around $100 million. This reduced the company's worth by nearly that much overnight, and tanked the value of the AMD stock. This, of course, didn't sit well with investors.

The as-of-yet ongoing securities fraud lawsuit over AMD's "Llano" APUs has just achieved a milestone, in having been authorized by the Court to proceed as a class action. The Court's decision doesn't imply that the defendants (Rory P. Read, Thomas J. Seifert, Richard A. Bergman, and Dr. Lisa T. Su) did anything wrong. The defendants have not been ordered to pay any money, no settlement has been reached, no money is available as of now and there is no guarantee that there will be in the future.

MSI, world leading in motherboard design, is pleased to announce the launch of 8 new AMD FM2+/FM2 socket based motherboards supporting the latest AMD Godavari APU. These new models are available in ATX, micro-ATX, and mini-ATX form factors and are backwards compatible with FM2 processors (Kaveri, Richland, Trinity, 6000 and 5000 series). MSI has packed these models with a rich blend of features and technologies, such as onboard LAN, PCI Express 3.0 x16, SATA 6Gb/s, USB 3.0 and multiple display support, offering the most stable and most cost-effective solution available.

CyberPower Inc., a global manufacturer of custom gaming PCs, gaming laptops, and performance workstations, today announced it is taking orders for its Trinity gaming PC, a striking new concept in gaming PC design that splits the common hulking tower enclosure into three distinct "blades."

The CYPOWERPC Trinity is both an exercise in radical case design and a case study on the benefits of component compartmentalization. While the case defies imagination, there is a method to the madness of segregating certain components from others in order to dissipate heat while not sacrificing performance.

Over-promising and under-delivering with its very first accelerated processing units (APU), codenamed "Llano," is coming back to haunt AMD, with a US District Court ruling that the company must face claims from investors over potential securities fraud. Launched in Q3-2012, AMD's A-series "Llano" APUs went largely unsold due to various factors including lack of product appeal, competition from Intel, forcing AMD to pull in its second-generation "Trinity" APU too soon. The related development first took shape in January 2014.

The swelling unsold "Llano" inventory forced an inventory writedown of $100 million, reducing the company's worth by nearly that much overnight, and tanking the value of the AMD stock. While AMD talked about the concept of an APU for years, Intel was the first to come out with a processor that integrates a graphics processor, with its Core i3 and Core i5 "Clarkdale" processors. The suit claims that AMD misrepresented production of "Llano" chips to its investors despite supply issues from its foundry partner GlobalFoundries, artificially inflating the value of the company in 2011-12. By the time production finally caught up, it ended up overproducing resulting in unsold inventory, and in consequence, the $100 million writeoff.

Intel Corporation todayannounced several new and enhanced technologies bolstering its leadership in high-performance computing (HPC). These include disclosure of the future generation Intel Xeon Phi processor, code-named Knights Hill, and new architectural and performance details for Intel Omni-Path Architecture, a new high-speed interconnect technology optimized for HPC deployments.

Intel also announced new software releases and collaborative efforts designed to make it easier for the HPC community to extract the full performance potential from current and future Intel industry-standard hardware. Together, these new HPC building blocks and industry collaborations will help to address the dual challenges of extreme scalability and mainstream use of HPC while providing the foundation for a cost-effective path to exascale computing.

SAPPHIRE Technology has just announced a new metal-cased model in its EDGE Series of mini-PCs targeted for use in professional AV solutions and as a Digital Signage player.

The SAPPHIRE EDGE DS8 is based on the powerful 4-core Trinity A8 accelerated processing unit (APU) from AMD, delivering excellent performance and high quality graphics, housed in a robust wall-mountable metal enclosure measuring only 168 mm x 235 mm by 46 mm thick. It is designed for 24/7 operation in the more demanding applications of ProAV installations, POS applications and especially as a Digital Signage player.

AMD announced its 2014 A-Series APU for the desktop platform, code-named "Kaveri," after the southern-Indian river. Built in the new FM2+ package, the APUs run only on socket FM2+ motherboards based on the AMD A88X, A78, and A55 chipsets; while the socket itself can seat older FM2 APU families, "Trinity" and "Richland." In many ways, the socket transition is similar to that of socket AM3+. "Kaveri" sees AMD integrate two of its newest CPU and GPU micro-architectures, "Steamroller" for CPU, and Graphics CoreNext 2.0 for the GPU. "Kaveri" is also built on newer generation 28 nm silicon fab process.

"Steamroller" is an evolution of the same modular CPU core design as its predecessors, "Piledriver" and "Bulldozer." AMD promises a 10 percent improvement in performance clock-by-clock, per core, which falls in line with AMD's normal scheme of annual incremental performance updates on its CPU micro-architectures. A "Steamroller" module is a combination of two 64-bit x86 cores, which feature dedicated and shared components. "Kaveri" has two such modules, and so physically, it features a quad-core CPU.

MSI is pleased to announce a full line-up of FM2+ Military Class 4 motherboards featuring the new AMD A88X/A78/A55 chipset and FM2+ socket. These motherboards not only support the current FM2 Trinity and Richland APUs but are also ready for AMD's upcoming 4th generation Kaveri APU. AMD APUs are known for their excellent gaming and multi-media experience and support a wide range of display solutions.

4K UHD Output
Thanks to the AMD Kaveri APU and the MSI FM2+ motherboard native HDMI 1.4 connector it supports 4K resolutions (3840x2160) which provide much sharper and life-like images in combination with a 4K monitor.

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd., a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards, today announced its new FM2+ motherboard lineup supporting the forthcoming 'Keveri' AMD APUs with support for existing socket FM2 Trinity and Richland APUs.

GIGABYTE A88X motherboards feature a number of features and technologies and also include the first AMD G1-Killer gaming motherboard, the G1.Sniper A88X which includes GIGABYTE AMP-Up Audio, a range of advanced audio technologies that are designed to give audio enthusiasts and PC gamers more control over their motherboard audio than ever before. GIGABYTE A88X series motherboards also offer unique GIGABYTE features, including UEFI DualBIOS, Digital Power delivery, as well Triple Display support.

ASUS today announced the new A88XM-A and A55BM-A/USB3 motherboards, the first from any manufacturer to support new Socket FM2+ APUs (Accelerated Processing Units) from AMD. The A88XM-A with AMD A88X chipset and A55BM-A/USB3 with A55 chipset are both Micro-ATX motherboards for existing AMD 'Richland' and 'Trinity' FM2 APUs, and are hardware-ready for upcoming AMD 'Kaveri' FM2+ APUs that support DirectX 11.1 and PCI Express 3.0 natively. ASUS is committed to supporting the latest in PC technology. The new FM2+ motherboards offer customers the very latest in motherboard design, with the added flexibility of both backward and forward compatibility with AMD APUs.

With Microsoft readying a Release Preview of its upcoming Windows 8.1 operating system; AMD jumped in with a specialized Catalyst driver. Windows 8.1 features an upgraded display driver model, WDDM 1.3, which lets users take advantage of a few new features. GPUs based on AMD's Graphics CoreNext architecture will be supported by Windows 8.1 over WDDM 1.3, while older VLIW4 and VLIW5-based GPUs (Radeon HD 6000 series and older), will be supported over older WDDM 1.2 based drivers.

Windows 8.1 brings some enhancements to PC graphics, with support for Microsoft's own standardized wireless display technology; 48 Hz dynamic refresh rates for video playback, V-sync interrupt optimization, video conferencing acceleration, and a new instruction to the DirectX 11.1 API, named "tiled resources." Like the operating system itself, AMD's Windows 8.1 Preview Catalyst driver is a beta, and its use comes with no warranties. Microsoft expects to launch Windows 8.1 later this year, reportedly available as a free upgrade for current Windows 8 users.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Catalyst Windows 8.1 Preview Driver

Lists of AMD GPUs supported by WDDM 1.3 and WDDM 1.2 follow.

AMD's "Never Settle" bundles may be selling the company's discrete GPU lineup, but it's not leaving its APU lineup lying down. Starting next week, and running up to the end of Q3 2013, AMD will be bundling select A8 and A10 series desktop APUs with Origin-redeemable codes for SimCity, the season's hottest strategy game. Among the eligible models are A10-5800K, A10-5700, A8-5600K, and A8-5500. The freebie bears a staggering US $60 market value, tied with processors starting at $80, leading up to $130. In its marketing slide, AMD pointed out how the Radeon HD 7000D series graphics cores of these APUs outperform similarly priced Intel Core i3 chips by over 80 percent, in the game.