The Moore Threads MTT S80 first attracted wider media attention last summer due to it being introduced as the world's first PCIe Gen 5 gaming graphics card. Unfortunately, its performance prowess in gaming benchmarks did not match early expectations, especially for a 200 W TDP-rated unit with 4096 "MUSA" cores. Evaluators discovered that driver issues have limited the full potential of MTT GPUs—it is speculated that Moore Threads has simply repurposed existing PowerVR architecture under their in-house design: "Chunxaio." The Chinese firm has concentrated on driver improvements in the interim—mid-February experimentations indicated 100% performance boosts for MTT S80 and S70 discrete GPUs courtesy of driver version 240.90. Germany's ComputerBase managed to import Moore Threads MTT S80 and S30 models for testing purposes—in an effort to corroborate recently published performance figures, as disclosed by Asian review outlets.

The Moore Thread MTT S80—discounted down to $164 last October—was likely designed with MMO gamers in mind. VideoCardz (based on ComputerBase findings) discussed the card's struggles when weighed against Team Red's modern day integrated solutions: "S80 falls short when compared to the Ryzen 5 8600G, featuring the Radeon 760M iGPU with RDNA 3 graphics. A geometric mean across various titles reveals the S80's lag, but there are exceptions, like DOTA 2, where it takes the lead in framerate. It's clear that MTT GPUs (have a) less emphasized focus on supporting AAA titles." ComputerBase confirmed that DirectX 12 API support is still lacking, meaning that many popular Western games titles remain untested on the Moore Threads MTT S80 graphics card. The freshly launched entry-level MTT S30 card produced "1/4 of the performance" when compared to its flagship sibling.

Colorful has prepared a small selection of custom GeForce RTX 4060 Ti and GeForce RTX 4060 (non-Ti) graphics cards in celebration of the Chinese New Year (February 24). Its high-end iGame Series has been updated with "Loong Edition" models—all of these cards are overclocked straight out of the factory. The Colorful English language site has sub-brand product entries for a GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB option, as well as the usual GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8 GB, plus GeForce RTX 4060 8 GB cards. 2024's zodiac animal is the Wood Dragon, so Colorful has adorned their limited edition "Loong" cards with this fearsome yet wise mythical creature—the graphic spreads across shrouds and backplates, and even features prominently on the special iGame packaging/outer box.

Colorful has a history of producing iGame Series GeForce RTX graphics with different designs—the standard "Ultra White" cooling solution design has been updated a few times in the recent past (as reported by VideoCardz). Referring to TPU's well maintained GPU database, we see the latest "Year of the Dragon" models joining the already established ranks of last year's "Wushan Five Elements Customized Editions" and iGame RTX 4060 Ti "Fog Hill of Five Elements" Customized Edition OC (in collaboration with Samsara Animation Studio). The Colorful iGame Loong Edition cards have prices listed at 3799 RMB (~$536) for the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB option, 3449 RMB (~$487) for the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8 GB, and 2699 RMB (~$381) for the GeForce RTX 4060 8 GB. Sales are region restricted to China—this is Colorful's modus operandi, so buyers outside of China will have to jump through a few extra import hoops.

NVIDIA could be adjusting its enterprise-grade GPU production strategies for the Chinese market, according to an article published by MyDriver—despite major sanctions placed on semiconductor imports, Team Green is doing plenty of business with tech firms operating in the region thanks to an uptick in AI-related activities. NVIDIA offers two market specific accelerator models that have been cut down to conform to rules and regulations—the more powerful and expensive (250K RMB/~$35K) H800 is an adaptation of the western H100 GPU, while the A800 is a legal market alternative to the older A100.

The report proposes that NVIDIA is considering plans to reduce factory output of the A800 (sold for 100K RMB/~$14K per unit), so clients will be semi-forced into purchasing the higher-end H800 model instead (if they require a significant number of GPUs). The A800 seems to be the more popular choice for the majority of companies at the moment, with the heavy hitters—Alibaba, Baidu, Tencent, Jitwei and ByteDance—flexing their spending muscles and splurging on mixed shipments of the two accelerators. By limiting supplies of the lesser A800, Team Green could be generating more profit by prioritizing the more expensive (and readily available) model.

AMD is reported to be reissuing its old Zen+ (12 nm) tech in order to meet demand for cheaper, lower-end systems in China, according to information released by Board Channels this week. The insider source claims that a new production order has been placed for Ryzen 3000G series APUs (requesting up to 30,000 units) and these processors are likely to be sold as part of hardware bundles with (similar vintage) low-end AM4-based motherboards - for example the B450 and A320 series, these older boards are still popular budget choices in China and readily available. The leak does not mention whether AMD is choosing to issue completely new hardware or if it is simply reproducing its 2019-era SKUs.

AMD released two Ryzen 3000G models back in 2019 - the 3400G and 3200G, both are quad-core Picasso APUs although the latter is lacking in simultaneous multithreading. It is not clear whether the super low budget AMD Athlon 3000G model will be included as part of the alleged 30K unit order. The 3000G series' onboard iGPUs (based on AMD's first generation Vega architecture) are likely preferred by the budget-conscious buyer since a discrete graphics card is not an essential part of builds intended for an office setting or a simple/functional home computer setup.

AMD is late in releasing its Phoenix Zen 4 lineup of mobile APUs - the original April launch has been missed, and laptops bearing Ryzen 7000HS & H-series are expected to arrive at some point this month. Preview hardware has made its way into the hands of testers, and one particular outlet - Golden Pig Upgrade, a content creator on the Chinese Bilibili video site - has performed benchmark tests. He seems to be the first reviewer to get hands-on time with AMD Ryzen 7040 Phoenix APUs, and his findings point to class leading performance results in terms of graphical capabilities - the 7840HS (packing a Radeon 780M RDNA3 iGPU) is compared to the Rembrandt-based 7735H, as well as a pair of Intel Raptor Lake CPUs - the 13700H and 13500H models.

AMD's newest Phoenix APU is the group leader in GPU performance stakes, but the jump up from the last-gen Rembrandt (RDNA2 iGPU) chip is not all that significant. VideoCardz reckons that the Radeon 780M integrated GPU is roughly equivalent to an NVIDIA GeForce MX550 dGPU and not far off from a GeForce GTX 1650 Max-Q graphics card (in terms of benchmark performance). According to AMD's internal documentation the RDNA 3 core architecture utilized in Phoenix APUs is referred to as "2.5" so this perhaps explains why the 780M is not doing laps around its older silbing(s).

TikTok's parent company ByteDance has recently begun hiring chip designers to help develop specialized processors for fields where they haven't been able to find existing suppliers. The company is looking to design chips that are optimized for hosting their video, information, and entertainment apps without any plans to sell these processors to other companies. This latest announcement follows various other Chinese companies such as Alibaba and Baidu in developing custom processors to decrease their reliance on foreign companies and improve performance in specific tasks. The initial job listings only include 31 openings for positions such as experts, specialists, and interns with more staff likely required in the future.

The semiconductor manufacturing industry is a cutthroat competition mostly played between established forces. One need only look to AMD's decision to spin-off its manufacturing arm to create Global Foundries to see how even a grand company can hit manufacturing issues (though not only manufacturing issues hit AMD at that time, obviously) can threaten to shutter operations. Intel's recent issues with 10 nm and 7 nm fabrication also come to mind. as such, it comes at no great surprise that Chinese company Wuhan Hongxin Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (HSMC) has reportedly run out of cash. What's a little more surprising is how this company was actually backed by the Chinese government, and yet it still failed - proof of the semiconductor industry's technical and investment liquidity requirements.

HSMC back in 2017 announced plans to bring online a manufacturing plant in the central Chinese province of Hubei. The aim was to manufacture 14 nm and 7 nm chips as early as 2019/2020, funded by a $20 billion loan and numerous funding rounds. HSMC's ex-CEO Chiang Shang-yi (who previously served as former head of R&D at TSMC) said to EETimes that "Investors ran short of cash." And that was it for the company's aspirations. The company has now been absorbed by the municipal government in the central Chinese province of Hubei, and what will come of that (and the company's future) remain uncertain.

Chinese chipmaker Hygon began mass-producing its first x86 processors codenamed "Dhyana" based on AMD's "Zen" micro-architecture. The processor is the fruition of a deal AMD entered with a Chinese state-owned company back in mid-2016. As part of this deal, a company called Haiguang Microelectronics Company (HMC), in which AMD has a 51 percent stake, would license the "Zen" architecture to another company called Hygon (Chengdu Haiguang Integrated Circuit Design Co.), in which AMD owns a 30 percent stake. Hygon would then design "Dhyana," and a third entity (likely TSMC or some other Chinese foundry), would contract-manufacture the chip.

Such legal gymnastics is necessary to ensure AMD makes good on the $293 million it will take from the Chinese firms to license "Zen," while not breaching the x86 architecture cross-licensing agreement it signed with Intel, the core x86 IP owner. Chinese firms are going through all this trouble to build "Dhyana" instead of simply placing a large order of EPYC processors not just because they want more control over the supply and pricing of these chips, but probably also to ensure that China can keep an eye on all the on-die software that makes the processor tick, and weed out any backdoors to foreign governments (*cough*NSA*cough*).

Reports have started coming in that Microsoft has finalized its special, "non-spying" edition of Windows 10 for the Chinese government. In a joint-venture with China's own CTEC (China Electronics Technology Group), the Redmond-based company has apparently managed to deliver what they themselves thought impossible: a version of their operating system that doesn't spy on its users.

China's government previously banned Windows 8 and its derivatives, citing security concerns, and later launched an anti-monopoly probe against Microsoft. This meant that Microsoft was largely left out of China's huge state-backed enterprises in China - and one can imagine how lucrative a market this one is. Microsoft surely wouldn't be willing to allow such a chance of revenue to just jostle over to the Linux field, following the Chinese government's attempts to craft a custom OS (Kylin, which failed) and recent efforts with new NeoKylin initiative. Microsoft isn't willing to relent so as to what and how were features cut from their Windows 10 version that leads it to continue normal functions even without the heavily baked-in, essential, flaunted telemetry features. What is true, though, is that the company did say telemetry and data collection was so deeply embedded on their operating system that removing them would break it at a fundamental level which is, apparently, only the case if you don't have the money (or potential revenue) to pony up for a custom edition.

In another business-deal-gone-right for Advanced Micro Devices Inc. in chinese soil, the company is now going to provide China's Alibaba giant with server chips with which to power the company's cloud vision. Whilst Alibaba is most commonly known due to its e-commerce activities (through the Aliexpress and Taobao brands), the chinese company is diversifying, even going so far as entering the entertainment space. Now, Alibaba is bidding to carve itself an even larger piece of the cloud market from the likes of Microsoft's Azure and Amazon's Web Services.

The deal was announced this Friday at the Alibaba Computing Conference by Lisa Su (AMD's CEO) and Simon Hu (president of Alibaba Cloud, the chinese giant's cloud computing arm). Through it, AMD will see its Radeon Pro chips supporting and expanding upon the increasingly-in-demand cloud computing capabilities of the chinese company, which already powers around 35% of China's websites.

Over a thousand workers in Shenzhen, China went on strike against their employer Jingmo Electronics Corporation (JEC), which is a supplier for companies like Apple and IBM. According to China Labor Watch (CLW), a New York-based watchdog of labor rights in China, and an advocate of ethical consumerism, "the motivation behind the strike was the factory's decision to make workers work nightly overtime." CLW goes on to add that the workers had been asked to work from 6 PM to midnight and sometimes even up to 2 AM on top of the usual four to four and a half day shifts from 7 AM to 11.30 or 1 PM to 5 PM.

CLW goes on to add that the workers "commonly worked anywhere from 100 to 200 hours of overtime a month," but the factory refused to let them put the hours in at the weekend because under Chinese labour law JEC would have had to double the wages. Authorities dispatched several hundred riot policemen to tackle striking workers. CLW called upon Apple and IBM to assume responsibility of for these workers' dissatisfaction, and work with JEC to improve the working conditions in the factory. Responding to the strike, JEC agreed to cut the average overtime hours, and resume operations soon.

Just a handful of days ahead of Sandy Bridge-E's launch, a Chinese tech website, www.inpai.com.cn (Google translation) has done what Chinese tech websites do best and that's leak benchmarks and slides, Intel's NDA be damned. They pit the current i7-2600K quad core CPU against the upcoming i7-3960X hexa core CPU and compare them in several ways. The take home message appears to be that gaming performance on BF3 & Crysis 2 is identical, while the i7-3960X uses considerably more power, as one might expect from an extra two cores. The only advantage appears to come from the x264 & Cinebench tests. If these benchmarks prove accurate, then gamers might as well stick with the current generation Sandy Bridge CPUs, especially as they will drop in price, before being end of life'd. While this is all rather disappointing, it's best to take leaked benchmarks like this with a (big) grain of salt and wait for the usual gang of reputable websites to publish their reviews on launch day, November 14th. Softpedia reckons that these results are the real deal, however. There's more benchmarks and pictures after the jump.