Thanks for the detailed information obtained by The Verge, today we confirm previously leaked details as Sony gears up to unveil the highly anticipated PlayStation 5 Pro, codenamed "Trinity." According to insider reports, Sony is urging developers to optimize their games for the PS5 Pro, with a primary focus on enhancing ray tracing capabilities. The console is expected to feature an RDNA 3 GPU with 30 WGP running BVH8, capable of 33.5 TeraFLOPS of FP32 single-precision computing power, and a slightly quicker CPU running at 3.85 GHz, enabling it to render games with ray tracing enabled or achieve higher resolutions and frame rates in select titles. Sony anticipates GPU rendering on the PS5 Pro to be approximately 45 percent faster than the standard PlayStation 5. The PS5 Pro GPU will be larger and utilize faster system memory to bolster ray tracing performance, boasting up to three times the speed of the regular PS5.

Additionally, the console will employ a more powerful ray tracing architecture, backed by PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR), allowing developers to leverage graphics features like ray tracing more extensively. To support this endeavor, Sony is providing developers with test kits, and all games submitted for certification from August onward must be compatible with the PS5 Pro. Insider Gaming, the first to report the full PS5 Pro specs, suggests a potential release during the 2024 holiday period. The PS5 Pro will also feature modifications for developers regarding system memory, with Sony increasing the memory bandwidth from 448 GB/s to 576 GB/s, enhancing efficiency for an even more immersive gaming experience. To do AI processing, there is an custom AI accelerator capable of 300 8-bit INT8 TOPS and 67 16-bit FP16 TeraFLOPS, in addition to ACV audio codec running up to 35% faster.

Reuters has conducted an interview with Adam Badowski and Michał Nowakowski—Joint Chief Executive Officers at CD Projekt. The news agency wanted to find out more about the current roster of projects in development across the Polish gaming group's globally-scattered studios. The Boston branch of CD Projekt Red has started work on a Cyberpunk 2077 sequel—codenamed "Orion"—as revealed by Igor Sarzyńsk (Narrative Director) earlier this month. The sequel's scope could grow beyond a single-player campaign—Nowakowski mentioned in the Reuters interview that multiplayer elements are under consideration by "Orion's" design team, but he declined to elaborate any further. CD Projekt Red downed tools on Cyberpunk 2077's multiplayer aspect around launch time (December 2020), and instead focused on improving the game's core functionality. A "triple-A" multiplayer spin-off was teased a few years ago, but abandoned at some point in favor of a new "more systematic, agile approach."

Badowski stated that "Orion" is still in a conceptual phase of development, and its team is expected to grow over the course of 2024—he anticipates around eighty members of staff by the end of the year. The North American team appears to be on a recruitment drive, while the European "Orion" gang is not expected to expand as quickly. The priority for CD Projekt's Warsaw studio is "Polaris" AKA the next mainline Witcher title—Badowski elaborated on their hiring goals in Poland: "we'd like to have around 400 people working on the project by the middle of the year." The joint-CEOs want "Polaris" entering into a full production stage in 2024—industry analysts predict a 2026 or 2027 launch window. Reuters brought up the obligatory question about artificial intelligence's place in CDPR operations—Nowakowski responded with: "We think that AI is something that can help improve certain processes in game production, but not replace people." When grilled about lessons learned from launch day disasters, Badowski stated that his company's production pipelines have undergone a positive overhaul: "We believe that in the future we'll avoid a premiere like the one we faced with Cyberpunk 2077"

Yesterday, Intel unveiled its latest Xeon data center processors, codenamed Emerald Rapids, delivering the new Xeon Platinum 8592+ flagship SKU with 64 cores and 128 threads. Packed into its fresh silicon, Intel promises boosted performance and reduced power hunger. The comprehensive tech benchmarking website Phoronix essentially confirms Intel's pitch. Testing production servers running the new 8592+ showed solid gains over prior Intel models, let alone older generations still commonplace in data centers. On average, upgrading to the 8592+ increased single-socket server performance by around 23.5% compared to the previous generation configs of Sapphire Rapid, Xeon Platinum 8490H. The dual-socket configuration records a 17% boost in performance.

However, Intel is not in the data center market by itself. AMD's 64-core offering that Xeon Platinum 8592+ is competing with is AMD EPYC 9554. The Emerald Rapids chip is faster by about 2.3%. However, AMD's lineup doesn't stop at only 64 cores. AMD's Genoa and Genoa-X with 3D V-cache top out at 96 cores, while Bergamo goes up to 128 cores. On the power consumption front, the Xeon Platinum 8592+ was pulling about 289 Watts compared to the Xeon Platinum 8490H average of 306 Watts. At peak, the Xeon Platinum 8592+ CPU managed to hit 434 Watts compared to the Xeon Platinum 8490H peak of 469 Watts. This aligns with Intel's claims of enhanced efficiency. However, compared to the 64-core counterpart from AMD, the EPYC 9554 had an average power consumption of 227 Watts and a recorded peak of 369 Watts.

Hardware leaker, YuuKi_AnS, has briefly turned their attention away from all things Team Blue—their latest leak points to upcoming server-grade processors chez AMD. A Zen 6 core-based 9006 EPYC CPU series, codenamed "Venice," is expected to arrive within two to three years along with an all-new SP7 socket—this information seems to have been sourced from an unnamed server manufacturer's product roadmap. A partial view of said slide also reveals forthcoming equipment powered by Intel "Falcon Shore" and NVIDIA "Blackwell" GPU technologies.

As reported a couple of months ago, older insider info has AMD using "Weisshorn" as an in-house moniker for Zen 6 "Morpheus" architecture, destined for Venice CPUs—alleged to form part of a 2025/2026 EPYC lineup. YuuKi_AnS proposes that these will utilize either 12-channel or 16-channel DDR5 memory configurations—thus providing plenty of bandwidth across hundreds of Zen cores. Altogether very handy for cloud, enterprise, and HPC workloads—industry experts reckon that 384-core counts are feasible on single packages. Naturally, a Team Red timeline dictates that Zen 5 "Nirvana" is due before Zen 6 "Morpheus," so EPYC 9005 "Turin(-X)" and 8005 "Turin-Dense" lineups are (allegedly) up for a 2024-ish launch window on SP5 (LGA-6096) and SP6 (LGA 4094) socket types.

DigiTimes has been informed that many of TSMC's customers are likely to postpone usage of the foundry's 3 nm process node into 2024 or beyond, due to a slowdown in the PC hardware market - insider sources suggest that AMD will be sticking with 4 nm and 6 nm nodes for many of its future CPU lineups. The next generation Zen 5-based family is expected to launch in 2024 - which aligns with information issued by AMD via financial reports - a roadmap (based on DigiTime's findings) points to AMD offering a range of mainstream desktop (Granite Ridge) and laptop/mobile CPUs (Fire Range).

No high-end desktop (HEDT) options are marked for release in 2024, and DigiTimes reckons that AMD is planning to release Zen 5-based Ryzen Threadripper processors in the following year. The codename for the Ryzen Threadripper 8000-series seems to be "Shimada Peak" and industry experts think that these HEDT CPUs will eventually succeed the Threadripper "Storm Peak" 7000 family (due for launch later in 2023) - a shared socket design is also a likelihood due to AMD wanting to stretch out the lifespan of mounting connection standards by avoiding costly decisions - their sTRX4/SP3r3 socket only survived for one generation.

Rumors have circulated about a secret development at Sony's PlayStation division - a handheld games console is apparently in the works, but it was previously thought to be a cloud gaming device (similar in function to the Logitech G Cloud). This week, Insider Gaming has published an article that outlines insider information about a Sony project that is identified by the codename "Q Lite". Insider Gaming understands that this handheld will only offer Remote Play, and it will be entirely dependent on the PlayStation 5 games console as a host system. Sony has been touting this remote play feature via plenty of advertising in recent times - it is encouraging its PS4 and PS5 userbase to utilize the PS Remote Play app on compatible platforms including PC, Mac, Android and iOS devices.

The Q Lite is speculated to offer an adaptive streaming system with resolutions going up to 1080p and a maximum of 60 frames per second. This new gaming handheld requires an uninterrupted connection to the internet in order to function via remote play with the PlayStation 5. The inside source claims that the Q Lite prototype unit shares aesthetic elements with the official PlayStation 5 controller, although it will be larger in size - in order to accommodate a generous 8-inch touchscreen LCD system, placed in a central position. The insider mentioned that adaptive triggers and internal haptic feedback motors are notable features, as well as traditional fitting being multiple loudspeakers, volume controls and an audio input jack.