Over the past weekend Jukanlosreve declared via social media that Samsung's: "Exynos 2600 (mobile SoC) is definitely back, and it will be used in the Galaxy S26 series. But the chip volume is so limited that it'll likely be similar to the Exynos 990 situation. I'm not sure if SF2 is actually any good." Mid-way through March, the keen observer of semiconductor industry conditions posited that Samsung's Foundry business could abandon a 1.4 nm (SF1.4) process node. SF2 (aka 2 nm GAA) seems to be in a healthier place, according to insiders—thanks to rumored assistance from an external AI-specialist partner. The development of next-generation flagship Exynos smartphone processors are allegedly closely tied with Samsung Foundry's 2 nm GAA manufacturing process.

As alluded to by Jukanlosreve's recent prediction, the statuses of leaked 2 nm-based "Exynos 2600" and "Exynos 2500" chips were often questioned by industry watchdogs in the past. The latter is purportedly destined for rollout in forthcoming affordable "Galaxy Z Flip FE" models, albeit in mature 4 nm form. Vhsss_God—another source of inside track info—has weighed in on the topic of Samsung's next-gen chipset roadmap. Compared to Jukanlosreve's musings, their similarly-timed weekend projection seemed to be quite fanciful: "exclusive leak...Samsung doesn't want to use Exynos or Qualcomm Snapdragon chips anymore. S26 line is targeted to launch with the new Samsung developed chip (2 nm)—formerly referred to as Exynos 2600. (The company) will try its hardest to ditch Snapdragon on the entire Galaxy line next year." Perhaps there is too much of a negative stigma attached to Samsung's long-running chipset nomenclature, but the majority of foundry moles continue to label incoming designs as Exynos processors.

Digital Chat Station (DCS)—a tenured leaker of Qualcomm pre-release information—has shared new "Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 2" chipset details. Earlier today, their Weibo feed was updated with a couple of technological predictions. The announced smartphone chip's "SM8850" identifier was disclosed once again, along with the repeated claim that Qualcomm has selected a 3 nm "N3P" node process. Industry watchdogs expect to see the San Diego-headquartered fabless semiconductor designer introduce its next-generation flagship smartphone SoC in October. The current-gen Snapdragon 8 Elite platform was unveiled last Fall; sporting cutting-edge "Oryon" (aka Phoenix) processor cores and an integrated Adreno 830 graphics solution. DCS reckons that the natural successor will reuse a familiar "2 + 6" core configuration; comprised of two prime "big performance" units, and six "normal" performance-tuned units. An Adreno 840 iGPU was listed as DCS's final point of conjecture.

The incoming "Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 2" chipset was mentioned in the same sentence as rumored "Pegasus" cores (Phoenix's sequel)—slightly far-fetched rumors from 2024 suggested Qualcomm's upgraded processor architecture being tested at maximum frequencies of 5.0 GHz (on performance cores). As pointed out by Wccftech, Gen 1's performance cores run at 4.47 GHz (by default). In today's follow-up post, DCS claimed that Qualcomm's: "self-developed CPU architecture is now in the second generation, with a performance setting of over 380 W+." Industry watchdogs reckon that the "Snapdragon 8 Elite 2" chip will be capable of recording 3.8+ million point tallies in AnTuTu V10 gauntlets, thanks to the alleged utilization of ArmV9 architecture. DCS theorized that the speculated "SM8850" SoC will support ARM's Scalable Matrix Extension 1 (SME 1) and Scalable Vector Extension 2 (SVE2) instruction sets.

Intel GPU enthusiasts have been waiting patiently for news regarding higher-end models; ever since the launches of wallet-friendly Arc Xe2 "Battlemage" B580 and B570 graphics cards. As the cliché goes; recent silence has been deafening—we last heard about a speculative expanded lineup of B-series SKUs around late January. At the time, three mysterious "Battlemage" PCI identifiers turned up online; courtesy of Tomasz Gawroński's detective work. Opinions were split about the exact nature of these leaked "BMG" IDs; one camp envisioned Team Blue having professional variants of their existing B580 in the pipeline—presumably with generously specced pools of 24 GB VRAM onboard. A more optimistic group posited that Intel's Arc Xe2 desktop gaming family would welcome more potent "B750, B770," and (maybe) "B780" SKUs.

Yesterday, Tomasz Gawroński (aka GawroskiT) interacted with another notable source of inside track information: Jaykihn (jaykihn0). Plenty of Team Blue-related "scoops" have emerged via Jaykihn's social media channel; mostly predictions regarding upcoming desktop, mobile and enterprise CPUs. Their latest leak indicates Intel's alleged abandoning of a high-end/larger "BMG-G31" GPU die in 2024; within the third quarter of that year. Insiders have long insisted that the Arc Xe2 "Battlemage" project navigated choppy waters during development; hence the appearance of endless theories about the whole caboodle being called off. Jaykihn clarified that he believes that a "retail" launch of "BMG-G31" dGPUs will no longer take place. Many watchdogs will assume that a gap will be filled by forthcoming Arc Xe3 "Celestial" discrete GPUs. Jaykihn stated that they have no fresh insights into how that project is going.

Shipping manifests have served as fairly reliable sources of pre-launch information—Everest (aka Olrak29) has discovered many juicy details in recent times. Their latest sleuthing session—combing through NBD documents—has indicated AMD's (alleged) prepping of a larger socket design for next-generation mobile processors. A leaked document alludes to the existence of various "MEDUSA01" jig and block "FP10" socket validation parts. Current-generation Ryzen AI "Strix Point" 300 series APUs utilize the FP8 socket format. Based on the "MEDUSA01" shipping manifest, it seems that a successor will arrive with a larger footprint—measurements of 25 mm x 42.5 mm are repeated throughout the leaked description list. Industry watchdogs surmise that "Medusa Point's" BGA FP10 socket will be approximately 6% larger than its predecessor.

Mid-way through last month, insider theorizations pointed to "Medusa Point" being a chiplet-based design. A "single 12-core Zen 6 CCD" was linked to a TSMC 3 nm-class node, with "N4P" reportedly selected for a separate mobile client I/O die. Readily available 4 nm Ryzen AI "Strix Point" processors are monolithic in nature. Initial inside track info mentioned RDNA 4 technology in the same equation as "Medusa Point," but recent Team Red's recent-ish targeting of "GFX1153" places RDNA 3.5 as the de facto choice.

The status of Intel "Meteor Lake-S" (MTL-S) desktop processors was the subject of much speculation throughout 2023—by September of that year, Team Blue leadership projected an upcoming launch in 2024. Technically, Meteor Lake was deployed to "sort-of desktops" platforms—albeit in mini-PCs that utilized Core Ultra mobile chips. Industry moles insisted that Intel was still actively engaged in production of MTL-S samples in late 2023. According to a recent ITHome report, those insider tales turned out to be legitimate. On Monday (March 24), the online publication revealed the existence of a mysterious "Q46W" engineering sample—courtesy of Kyoka (a trusted source). A CPU-Z diagnostic revealed the unannounced CPU's turboboost capability reaching 4.5 GHz, while base frequency sat at the 2.8 GHz mark.

According to ITHome's investigative piece, Team Blue: "tested a very special desktop processor: it uses the Meteor Lake architecture, has 6 performance cores and 8 energy efficiency cores (6P+8E), but the performance cores (P-cores) do not support Hyper-Threading. The production date of the product in hand is the 51st week of 2023, which is obviously later than the time when Meteor Lake-S was reported to be cancelled for external sales. From this situation, 'Q46W' may be a development test processor for FCLGA1851 platform or the 800 series chipset. Kyoka believes that the processor should be in the ES2 stage." A Xianyu seller—tbNick_3u8k4—is reportedly offloading a surprising quantity of "Intel Confidential Q46W" processors, allegedly manufactured back in early 2024. Photos show tray-mounted units available for sale on Taobao's second hand market platform. tbNick_3u8k4 mentions that this particular batch of Q46W chips "requires a special motherboard to light up," suggesting that readily available Intel 800 Series chipset-based models are not fit for purpose.

Square Enix's long-running Front Mission franchise was set to expand with an all-new entry—Front Mission 2089: Borderscape—first revealed back in April 2022. The Japanese multinational publisher announced BlackJack Studio as their chosen development partner on this fledgling project, destined for launch on mobile platforms (Android and iOS). Months later, this collaboration was terminated. Video game news outlets have picked up on a new-ish lawsuit; filed on March 13 in a Seattle, Washington court. Contained information indicates that Square Enix ended a licensing agreement and canceled development in October 2022. The 26-page legal document alleges that HK Ten Tree Limited (aka BlackJack Studio) had produced a "Front Mission-style" game that reuses assets from the shelved "2089: Borderscape" title.

BlackJack's Mecharashi IP is advertised on Steam as a: "mecha-themed tactical turn-based game. The game adopts a Front Mission-style combat system, where you can assemble mechas however you want, equip a wide selection of weapons, and choose your favorite pilots to engage in battle." According to the latest reports, Mecharashi/Metal Storm has already launched in China and Japan—a Western release is "coming soon." Square Enix seems intent on preventing the game from reaching a wider audience. According to Polygon, the Japanese video game giant has: "sent multiple DMCA takedown notices to get the game removed from storefronts; it was removed from Steam, but is back after a counter-claim was submitted. Square Enix said it also filed a lawsuit in Japanese court." Additionally, Square is seeking "maximum statutory damages of $150,000 for each copyright infringed." The Front Mission IP lives on in the shape of remakes—under license, Forever Entertainment S. A. developed and published Front Mission 1st: Remake (2022). Front Mission 2: Remake arrived roughly a year later, with Storm Trident S.A. taking care of development duties. Front Mission 3: Remake was unveiled last year at the Tokyo Game Show 2024.

Microsoft launched its Majorana 1 chip—the world's first quantum processor powered by a Topological Core architecture—last month. The company's debuting of its Majorana design was celebrated as a significant milestone—in 2023, an ambitious roadmap was published by Microsoft's research department. At the time, a tall Majorana particle-based task was set: the building of a proprietary quantum supercomputer within a decade. Returning to the present day; outside parties have criticized Microsoft's February announcements. The Register published an investigative piece earlier today, based on quotes from key players specializing in the field of Quantum studies. Many propose a theoretical existence of Majorana particles, while Microsoft R&D employees have claimed detection and utilization. The Register referred back to recent history: "(Microsoft) made big claims about Majorana particles before, but it didn't end well: in 2021 Redmond's researchers retracted a 2018 paper in which they claimed to have detected the particles."

As pointed out by Microsoft researcher Chetan Nayak; their latest paper was actually authored last March 2024, but only made public in recent weeks. Further details of progress are expected next week, at the American Physical Society (APS) 2025 Joint March Meeting. The Register has compiled quotes from vocal critics; starting with Henry Legg—a lecturer in theoretical physics at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. The noted scholar believes—as divulged in a scientific online comment—that Microsoft's claimed Quantum breakthrough: "is not reliable and must be revisited." Similarly, collaborators from Germany's Forschungszentrum Jülich institute and the University of Pittsburgh, USA released a joint video statement. (Respectively) Experimental physicist Vincent Mourik and by Professor Sergey Frolov outlined: "distractions caused by unreliable scientific claims from Microsoft Quantum."

According to a Reuters technology report, Meta's engineering department is engaged in the testing of their "first in-house chip for training artificial intelligence systems." Two inside sources have declared this significant development milestone; involving a small-scale deployment of early samples. The owner of Facebook could ramp up production, upon initial batches passing muster. Despite a recent-ish showcasing of an open-architecture NVIDIA "Blackwell" GB200 system for enterprise, Meta leadership is reported to be pursuing proprietary solutions. Multiple big players—in the field of artificial intelligence—are attempting to breakaway from a total reliance on Team Green. Last month, press outlets concentrated on OpenAI's alleged finalization of an in-house design, with rumored involvement coming from Broadcom and TSMC.

One of the Reuters industry moles believes that Meta has signed up with TSMC—supposedly, the Taiwanese foundry was responsible for the production of test batches. Tom's Hardware reckons that Meta and Broadcom were working together with the tape out of the social media giant's "first AI training accelerator." Development of the company's "Meta Training and Inference Accelerator" (MTIA) series has stretched back a couple of years—according to Reuters, this multi-part project: "had a wobbly start for years, and at one point scrapped a chip at a similar phase of development...Meta last year, started using an MTIA chip to perform inference, or the process involved in running an AI system as users interact with it, for the recommendation systems that determine which content shows up on Facebook and Instagram news feeds." Leadership is reportedly aiming to get custom silicon solutions up and running for AI training by next year. Past examples of MTIA hardware were deployed with open-source RISC-V cores (for inference tasks), but is not clear whether this architecture will form the basis of Meta's latest AI chip design.

An alleged AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT graphics card has posted an overall score of 7931 points in a Furmark v2.5 OpenGL test session. Earlier today, Tomasz Gawroński shared a hastily prepared screenshot, accompanied by his observations: "I found an AMD (RDNA 4) Radeon RX 9070 XT GPU and Ryzen 9 9950X3D CPU with hacked drivers. Device ID (1002-7550) matches the recently leaked Geekbench entry. There are multiple benches with 9950X3D on Furmark. Scores are impressive: 41-48% higher than Radeon 7800 XT." VideoCardz believes that the Furmark leak points to the true potential of Team Red's upcoming Navi 48-based graphics cards. Recent Geekbench results—reportedly produced by Radeon RX 9070 XT and 9070 (non-XT) pre-release samples—have indicated underwhelming performance; closer to previous-gen mid-range levels.

The "hacked" Radeon RX 9070 XT sample's Furmark tally—of 7931—places it higher than previously perceived; when compared to Team Red's middle-to-high range portfolio of RDNA 3 offerings. VideoCardz posited that the leaked candidate's score: "puts it almost at the Radeon RX 7900 XTX's level, faster than the Radeon RX 7900 XT, RX 7900 GRE, and over 50% higher than the 7800 XT. Based on rumors we heard this week, AMD is said to be claiming over ~40% higher performance at 4K (games) than the 7900 GRE, so this would be in line with these claims."

Apple's unannounced M4 MacBook Air family is likely reaching market availability status at some point next month. Last December, slimline notebook enthusiasts started hearing about an updated lineup; macOS's Sequoia 15.2 update reportedly referenced upcoming MacBook Air M4 13-inch and 15-inch models. An early sample unit—named "Mac16,12"—has participated in a Geekbench 6.4.0 (macOS AArch64) gauntlet; results appeared online yesterday. The alleged "MacBook Air 13" candidate posted an overall Metal score of 54,806, and an overall OpenCL tally of 36,305. The two separate Geekbench Browser entries confirm that the sampled device makes use of a 10-core M4 processor, with Cluster 1 containing four performance cores. Cluster 2 consists of six power efficiency-oriented cores. Base frequency is listed at 4.41 GHz; reportedly the highest recorded for an M4 SoC. Said chip accessed 24 GB of unified memory, during its macOS 15.2 (Build 24C2101)-based test session.

Notebookcheck and Wccftech compared the aforementioned data points with slightly older M4-equipped hardware, including a premium model. Both outlets observed a "measly" five percent performance difference. Elaborating on their findings, Notebookcheck stated: "as always, we would recommend taking early benchmark results with a healthy amount of skepticism for the time being. With that being said, the MacBook Air 13 benchmarked falls about 5% short of the median Geekbench OpenCL and Geekbench Metal results we achieved so far when benchmarking the M4 versions of Apple's Mac Mini and MacBook Pro 14." The rumored next-gen MacBook Air is expected to operate with a fan-less cooling system—press outlets reckon that the MacBook Pro's air-cooled operation puts it at a slight advantage (in benchmarks).

Over the past three weeks, press outlets and the buying public have levelled heavy criticism at NVIDIA board partners. The launches of three GeForce RTX 50-series "Blackwell" GPUs have—so far—been problematic; based on news reports and community feedback. Prior to release (on February 20), VideoCardz anticipated major price fluctuations for an all-custom portfolio of GeForce RTX 5070 Ti graphics cards. The publication did not hold back with its targeting of ASUS; one of Team Green's big time AIBs. Only a small selection of baseline MSRP ($749) conformant models were available on day one, and VideoCardz posited that manufacturers would implement price hikes soon after launch. A follow-up report continues their investigation into a lack of baseline MSRP options, as well as so-called "fake promotions."

VideoCardz repeated its belief that ASUS will jack-up the asking price for its PRIME GeForce RTX 5070 Ti model. When looking at Newegg's listing of baseline MSRP cards, the intrepid investigator stumbled up another notable absence: "we wrote three articles about the ASUS RTX 5070 Ti PRIME model not being listed as an MSRP card by retailers, which finally led ASUS to intervene (most likely for a limited time) to sell this card at the promised price. What we can immediately notice is the lack of the VENTUS 3X model from MSI, which was basically 90% of the MSRP card review coverage yesterday, as NVIDIA had no Founders Edition card for this launch and relied on board partners. In fact, the VENTUS 3X non-OC is not even included in the official launch, meaning that the card you saw yesterday in reviews is simply not available anywhere." It should be noted that TechPowerUp received an MSI GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Ventus 3X OC sample unit for evaluation purposes (review guide pricing was $749); Newegg lists this particular model with a current $829.99 price point, but stock is unavailable (at the time of writing).

The late 2024 news cycle suggested that Samsung's semiconductor business was going through tough times. Alleged yield problems—affecting the 3 nm Gate-All-Around (GAA) process—were highlighted last November. Fast-forward to January 2025; the South Korean megacorp has launched its cutting-edge Galaxy S25 smartphone series. The entire lineup of newly unveiled flagship smartphones contains Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Elite mobile chipsets; the Southern Californian chip designer is reportedly pulling in a tidy sum from this partnership. Fresh reports from South Korean news outlets indicate that Samsung System LSI employees have received an "encouraging" email from their boss, regarding current production predicaments.

Businesskorea and Sedaily reports include quotes extracted from the (apparently) leaked internal memo. LSI division president, Park Yong-in, reportedly stated: "we are currently in a situation where we have to develop two flagship products at the same time." Both articles allege that Samsung's semiconductor teams are expected to "cultivate roots and withstand storms." Industry watchdogs believe that the aforementioned "flagship products" are the Exynos 2500 mobile chipset, and Samsung Electronic's next-gen Galaxy S26 smartphone family. Earlier this month, we heard whispers about the much-delayed in-house chip design being readied (with a 2 nm process) for a possible late 2025 launch, inside unannounced Galaxy Z Flip 7 and Fold 7 devices. Park disclosed anticipated incoming obstacles in 2025: "last year's business division profit was higher than expected, but this was a temporary phenomenon...Looking at the entire business division, there will be monthly surpluses and deficits." Last month, inside sources proposed the notion that foundry investments were slashed in half.

GeForce RTX 5070 Ti graphics cards are due to hit international markets this Thursday (February 20), only in custom design form. NVIDIA will not be rolling out a Founders Edition model for this mid-to-high GPU product tier. Yesterday, an NDA-busting leak emerged online; hinting at a mixed bag of synthetic benchmark scores. When compared to new-gen and past-gen siblings, the incoming GB203 GPU-based family's "price-to-performance ratio" was greeted with plenty of online community skepticism. Considering that only a minority of AIB companies are reportedly engaged in the supply of cheaper offerings, the early outlook for overall GeForce RTX 5070 Ti launch pricing is generating further dissatisfaction. Team Green's first wave of "Blackwell" gaming GPUs launched late last month, straight into chaotic market conditions.

At CES 2025, NVIDIA set a baseline MSRP of $749. Fresh reports suggest that hardware review outlets will be delivering comprehensive verdicts tomorrow. VideoCardz believes that the lifted review embargo will be "exclusively for MSRP cards," based on information gleaned from their network of press contacts. The GPU specialist publication has kept tabs on fluctuating GeForce RTX 50-series prices for a while—several recent reports have levelled criticism at prominent Team Green board partners; namely ASUS and MSI. Plenty of venom was directed at the former, due to last month's launch of the: "GeForce RTX 5080 PRIME non-OC model at MSRP, and it was covered in the first reviews...Except, it was increased by 26% the following week. This way, ASUS has cheated the system and got both the early coverage and was still able to sell cards at a higher price." VideoCardz predicts a similar pattern for this week's release of custom GeForce RTX 5070 Ti designs, in particular ASUS PRIME and TUF Gaming SKUs. Their latest report directed additional ire toward the source of all things Blackwell: "unless NVIDIA has no problem with this, this is not how MSRP cards should be announced. It is very misleading for customers and puts reviewers in a very bad light. Their conclusions might be completely different if the card is said to cost much more."

Retailers are set to open up pre-order floodgates for upcoming GeForce RTX 50-series laptops on February 25, as we learned earlier this week. According to a new DigiTimes report, the launch of mobile devices—sporting Team Green "Blackwell" GPUs—is expected to be "significantly delayed." A loose March launch window was teased during Jensen Huang's keynote presentation at CES 2025, but supply chain insiders have claimed that high-end RTX 50 laptops were "originally planned to be launched in January 2025." Additionally, they surmise that mid-range and low-end offerings are postponed to April. DigiTimes believes that the rumored postponements have surprised supply chain moles; Team Green is not known to delay product launches. Extenuating circumstances are cited as the reason behind alleged deferred release windows, but insiders have not yet determined the extent of lengthened launch parameters.

An anonymous source stated: "NVIDIA, which has never been late in the past, also encountered this situation. It is probably related to NVIDIA's full sprint to AI servers. Even though there are differences in server and PC chip design and manufacturing processes, the company's resource allocation may still affect the debugging efficiency of new products." Other insiders have murmured about GeForce RTX 50-series mobile GPU performance not meeting expectations. Rumors have swirled about problems with early sample units; most notably the encountering of major screen issues when the "hardware is turned on." Laptop/notebook supply chain insiders reckon that manufacturers have anticipated a healthy level of growth in 2025—thanks to the emergence of new NVIDIA graphics cards—but targets have been reduced, due to anticipated delays. Optimistic industry chatter predicts higher education students and esport enthusiasts driving unit sales upward, following a stagnant 2024 market.

AMD's Radeon RX 9070 GPU series is due for release next month; a specific date has not been set, but we will likely find out more through official channels at the end of this month. Team Red and its board partners have chosen to remain silent on the subject of RDNA 4's technical makeup; post-CES 2025, hardware news outlets have relied on a steady trickle of Radeon RX 9070 XT and RX 9070-related leaks. Very basic sleuthing pointed to pools of 16 GB VRAM for both models, while insiders kept on mentioning an unannounced "Navi 48" GPU. The latest—courtesy of HKEPC—seems to confirm that the Radeon RX 9070 XT will utilize the aforementioned new RDNA 4 Navi chip. Earlier today, a screenshot was uploaded to social media—the leaker shared graphics card information displayed in a TechPowerUp GPU-Z (v2.62) session. Despite patch notes not disclosing compatibility, the latest version of GPU-Z is seemingly able to identify key aspects of the alleged "RX 9070 XT (Navi 48)" sample.

The card's name is obscured, but HKEPC and several press outlets believe that it is the genuine article. The fundamental details appear to be: 16 GB GDDR6 VRAM (Hynix-made), a 256-bit memory bus, 4096 stream processors, and a boost clock reaching a maximum frequency of 3.1 GHz. Older leaks have indicated that the first wave of RDNA 4 cards will make do with PCI-Express 4.0 x16 interfaces, but the GPU-Z screenshot shows a PCI-Express 5.0 x16 bus interface (detection could be bugged). The driver version was identified as Adrenalin 24.30.01.05. The unnamed card appears to feature a steep factory overclock; industry experts reckon that the sample could be a very high-end AIB model. Past reports suggest that PowerColor's Radeon RX 9070 XT Red Devil card is capable of boosting up to 3060 MHz. HKEPC uploaded another incriminating screenshot; showcasing performance results produced by Capcom's Monster Hunter Wilds PC performance benchmark tool. The test system—featuring Intel's Core Ultra 9 285K CPU and 48 GB of RAM—scored 36102 points and achieved a maximum frame rate of 211.71 FPS at 1080p, with "Very High" profile settings. The leaker confirmed that FSR and Frame Generation were enabled during the benchmark session.

Unannounced Intel processor families have emerged online over the past week—one source, Jaykihn, has unearthed a treasure trove of speculative mobile SKUs. Today's discovery pushes into the enterprise market segment; focusing on Team Blue's "Granite Rapids-W" (GNR-W) platform, likely equipped with Redwood Cove cores. The latest leak suggests an upcoming emergence of "Mainstream" and "Expert" workstation-oriented product tiers, allegedly prepared with the company's rumored W890 motherboard chipset. Past generations of "Xeon W" HEDT processor families have rolled out with entry-level and high-end offerings.

The leaker reckons that the mainstream Intel Granite Rapids-W "Xeon W" lineup will arrive with 4-channel memory support and 80 PCIe Gen 5 Lanes. Team Blue's higher-end "Expert" tier is anticipated with 128 PCIe Gen 5 lanes and 8-channel memory support. In addition to leaking processor information, Jaykihn outlined basic details regarding the W890 chipset—they believe that board designs will have access to 24 PCIe Gen 4 lanes, as well as 8 Gen 4 lanes for Intel's proprietary link (DMI) between northbridge and southbridge. The leaker did not divulge details of upcoming socket types—Team Blue is notorious for its elaborate rollout out of multiple LGA platforms.

Going back a year, we started hearing about an OpenAI proprietary AI chip project—this (allegedly) highly ambitious endeavor included grand plans for a dedicated fabrication network. TSMC was reportedly in the equation, but indirectly laughed at the AI research organization's ardent requests. Fast-forward to the present day; OpenAI appears to be actively pursuing a proprietary GPU design through traditional means. A Reuters exclusive report points to 2025 being an important year for the company's aforementioned "in-house" AI chip—the publication believes that OpenAI's debut silicon design has reached the finalization stage. Insiders have divulged that the project is only months away from being submitted to TSMC for "taping out." The foundry's advanced 3-nanometer process technology is reported to be on the cards. A Reuters source reckons that the unnamed chip features: "a commonly used systolic array architecture with high-bandwidth memory (HBM)...and extensive networking capabilities."

Broadcom is reportedly assisting with the development of OpenAI's in-house design—we heard about rumored negotiations taking place last summer. Jim Keller's tempting offer—of creating an AI chip for less than $1 trillion—was ignored early last year; OpenAI has instead assembled its own internal team of industry veterans. The October 2024 news cycle posited that former Google TPU engineers were drafted in as team leaders, with a targeted mass production window scheduled for 2026. The latest Reuters news article reiterates this projected timeframe, albeit dependent on the initial tape going "smoothly." OpenAI's chip department has grown to around forty individuals with recent months, according to industry moles—a small number relative to the headcounts at "Google or Amazon's AI chip program."

Bloomberg's Mark Gurman believes that Apple's headset design department has cancelled a long-gestating project. Development of the company's augmented reality (AR) smart glasses—allegedly codenamed "N107"—ceased not long ago, according to the journalist's insider network. At first, Apple's augmented reality engineering team supposedly envisioned the (regular/normal-sized) glasses being powered via a direct connection to a wearer's iPhone. Gurman reckons that the smartphone-connected system was a mega-drainer of batteries, due to the onboard chipset being a bit of a power hog. Apple proceeded to experiment with a glasses-linked up-to-Mac concept—reportedly, company leadership canceled the project after rejecting the inelegant personal computer-powered solution.

Apple's AR smart glasses could have competed with a similar next-gen offering, upon a rumored 2027 launch—Meta's "Orion" solution is still in a concept phase. Leaked feature set information indicates functionality akin to Xreal's One AR series, albeit with a required connection to a compatible Mac computer. The Apple headset department has struggled (allegedly) with the development of various concepts—going far back as 2017, according to several of Gurman's reports. Two years ago, he heard whispers about the AR/VR team labelling their N107 project as a "hopeless" prospect. By Mid-2024, industry leaks indicated an end of development for the "expensive Vision Pro 2" mixed reality headset.

A moderator on the PC Games Hardware (PCGH.de) discussion board had disclosed worrying details regarding stock limitations—presumably affecting the upcoming GeForce RTX 50 series launch in Germany. In turn, this disclosure was picked up by PCGH's new department. The predicted circumstances will—reportedly—make matters most difficult for customers looking to acquire higher-end "Blackwell" GPUs. The forum moderator gathered damning evidence from his network of contacts: "I was able to learn from well-informed dealer circles, the available contingent of graphics cards will be extremely limited! This applies in particular to the GeForce RTX 5090. Accordingly, NVIDIA determines where and who exactly will offer graphics cards at market launch. B2B dealers and the entire local wholesale trade, which primarily also works with business customers, will most likely come away empty-handed."

A bit of humor was sprinkled in with this informative post—the moderator joked about customers resorting to "cheerful" repetitive pressings of their F5 keys. They posit that the online buying experience for flagship Blackwell GPUs will be tiring and frustrating: "...so anyone who wants to get a GeForce RTX 5090 or GeForce RTX 5080 at market launch will have to queue digitally at the end customer dealers together with waiting (private) customers. Scalpers and bots will probably also get involved here. The quantities that can be purchased are likely to be limited to a maximum of one unit." Several stores are listed as being prime sources of stock (see below)—they reckon that the likes of Amazon will be not be receiving initial batches. "Second, third, or even fourth" waves of stock are anticipated, with some retailers set to act as resellers—inevitably opening the door to predicted price gouging. It is not clear whether these alleged restrictions will come into effect in markets beyond German borders—additionally, the VideoCardz insider network has not discovered any behind-the-scenes information regarding Team Green's launch period supply strategy.

Apple's top-end M4 Ultra desktop-class chipset is allegedly going to feature on upcoming Mac Pro and Mac Studio refreshes—new product unveilings could be on the company's schedule (WWDC 2025). Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has divulged intriguing M4-series information within his latest newsletter. The M4 Ultra SoC—codenamed "Hidra"—was previously believed to be the most powerful processor option available on both next-gen Mac Pro and Mac Studio platforms. Now, Gurman believes that Apple engineers have created a distinct custom chipset design—exclusively designed for the Mac Pro workstation product stack—that sits above their M4 Ultra SoC.

Somewhat confusingly he suggests that "Hidra" is the codename for this top-of-the-line processor. Rumors swirled last month about the cancellation of an alleged "Extreme" model, so there is a degree of uncertainty surrounding unannounced M4 SKUs. Potential customers could choose Apple's (potentially) more powerful "Hidra-equipped" Mac Pro workstation over the highest-end M4 Ultra-based Mac Studio model. Industry experts propose that "Hidra" will arrive with an increased number of CPU and GPU cores—exceeding the M4 Ultra's speculated makeup of a 32-core CPU and an 80-core GPU.

A new security breach is trying to pump the brakes on Path Of Exile 2's overwhelmingly positive late 2024 launch, as a mysterious hack appears to be making the rounds in the new RPG, although the source of the vulnerability is yet to be identified. According to a growing number of posts on the Path of Exile 2 forum, subreddit, and even the game's Steam reviews, players are apparently logging into their PoE 2 accounts only to find that all their loot and gear they've now spent dozens or even hundreds of hours grinding for, has been removed from their accounts. The most alarming thing is that nobody seems to know how these hacks are happening. Some players say they changed their main email address and Steam login passwords days before they were hacked, and most seem to have no Steam 2FA requests, suggesting that there is either a security issue with the Path of Exile 2 game servers or there is some sort of session hijacking happening that is giving bad actors access to player accounts.

Until now, Grinding Gear Games, the developer behind Path of Exile 2, has not openly commented on the hacking incidents, with a single comment from the support team on the forum advising players to email support about it if they encounter such instances. According to the Steam review mentioning an account hacking incident, however, the player managed to track down the hacker on his own, subsequently contacted support and posted about it in the PoE 2 forum, and asked the moderator to assist in preventing the sale of the rest of his goods. This attempt was apparently enough to get the gamer's forum posts removed and put on probation. Meanwhile, the support request was met even more unkindly, with PoE 2 support going so far as to lock him out of his own account. He also isn't alone, with others in the Path of Exile 2 forum reporting that sharing the in-game name of their alleged hacker with support has led to their game account being locked.

A new rumor circulating via VideoCardz reveals alleged Cinebench R23 rendering scores for the upcoming AMD Ryzen 9 9800X3D CPU series. The lineup supposedly includes 8-core, 12-core, and 16-core models, all featuring Zen5 architecture and 3D V-Cache technology. The leak consists of Cinebench R23 benchmark scores, however, there are no screenshots, so it should be treated with caution as it comes from CodeCommando, a relatively new source with only one verified leak to his name—the Ryzen 9000 slides that emerged shortly before AMD's official announcement.

Comparing the results posted from CodeCommando with TechPowerUp review data of the previous generation, the picture presents itself in a promising way for the upcoming AMD CPUs. The Ryzen 9 9950X3D is around 10% faster in single-core and 17% faster in multi-core compared with Ryzen 9 7950X3D, while Ryzen 7 9800X3D seems to be 20% faster in single-core and 28% faster in multi-core than Ryzen 7 7800X3D. These initial benchmark results show notable performance gains for the 8-core SKU, with both X3D models demonstrating higher multi-core scores than their non-X3D counterparts. While the 9800X3D shows slightly lower single-core performance than the 8-core 9700X, it exceeds the 9700X in multi-core tests. This multi-core advantage likely comes from a higher TDP, though specific power specifications haven't been revealed yet.

Speculated lower-end Intel second generation Arc GPUs popped up via SiSoftware Sandra database entries around mid-March—evaluation samples are likely in the hands of trusted hardware partners. Yesterday, momomo_us happened upon another interesting shipping manifest, following a series of AMD-related leaks. The latest list reveals five "Battlemage" products—three utilizing the BMG-21 GPU, and the remaining two being based on the BMG-10 design. These identifiers have appeared in older leaks, although the latter has been viewed in place sight—chez Intel Malaysia's Failure Analysis Lab.

Previous leaks suggest that these second generation Arc models (Xe2) reside within a "High-Performance Graphics" (HPG) discrete GPU family—the Xe2-HPG BMG-10 range is likely targeting an "enthusiast" market segment, while the Xe2-HPG BMG-21 tier is rumored to offer mid-tier performance. Intel staffers have expressed confidence about a possible late 2024 launch window. Back in January, Tom "TAP" Petersen revealed that the Arc hardware team had already moved onto third-gen "Celestial" GPU endeavors: "I'd say about 30% of our engineers are working on Battlemage, mostly on the software side because our hardware team is on the next thing." The first-gen deck has not been cleared fully it seems—the Alchemist family could be joined by two new variants in the near future.

Last week SK Hynix revealed ambitious plans for its next wave of High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) products—their SEMICON Korea 2024 presentation included an announcement about cutting-edge HBM3E entering mass production within the first quarter of this year. True next-gen HBM development has already kicked off—TPU's previous report outlines an HBM4 sampling phase in 2025, followed by full production in 2026. South Korea's Pulse News believes that TSMC has been roped into a joint venture (with SK Hynix). An alleged "One Team" strategic alliance has been formed according to reports emerging from Asia—this joint effort could focus on the development of HBM4 solutions for AI fields.

Reports from last November pointed to a possible SK Hynix and NVIDIA HBM4 partnership, with TSMC involved as the designated fabricator. We are not sure if the emerging "One Team" progressive partnership will have any impact on previously agreed upon deals, but South Korean news outlets reckon that the TSMC + SK Hynix alliance will attempt to outdo Samsung's development of "new-generation AI semiconductor packaging." Team Green's upcoming roster of—"Hopper" H200 and "Blackwell" B100—AI GPUs are linked to a massive pre-paid shipment of SK Hynix HMB3E parts. HBM4 products could be fitted on a second iteration of NVIDIA's Blackwell GPU, and the mysterious "Vera Rubin" family. Notorious silicon industry tipster, kopite7kimi, believes that "R100 and GR200" GPUs are next up in Team Green's AI-cruncher queue.

Supply chain insiders have claimed that Intel is working on extending the lifespan of its LGA 1700 platform—a BenchLife report proposes that the "Bartlett Lake-S" processor family is due soon, courtesy of Team Blue's Network and Edge (NEX) business group. Only a few days ago, the rumor mill had placed "Bartlett Lake-S" CPUs in a mainstream desktop category, due to alleged connections with the Raptor Lake-S Refresh series—the former is also (supposedly) based on the Intel 7 processor process. BenchLife believes that DDR4 and DDR5 memory will be supported, but with no mention of possible ECC functionality. Confusingly, chip industry tipsters believe that the unannounced processors could be launched as 15th Gen Core parts.

BenchLife has a history of discovering and reporting on Intel product roadmaps—apparently Bartlett Lake-S can leverage the same core configurations as seen on Raptor Lake-S; namely 8 Raptor Cove P-Cores and 16 Gracemont E-Cores. An insider source claims that a new pure P-Core-only design could exist, sporting up to twelve Raptor Cove units. According to a leaked Bartlett Lake-S series specification sheet: "the iGPU part will use (existing) Intel Xe architecture, up to Intel UHD Graphics 770." The publication alludes to some type of AI performance enhancement as a distinguishing feature for Bartlett Lake-S, when lined up against 14th Gen Core desktop SKUs. Folks salivating at the prospect of a mainstream DIY launch will have to wait and see (according to BenchLife's supply chain insider): "judging from various specifications, this product belonging to the Intel NEX business group may also be decentralized to the consumer market, but the source did not make this part too clear and reserved some room for maneuver."