GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, and hardware solutions, is proud to announce the launch of X3D Turbo Mode, a revolutionary BIOS feature designed to maximize gaming performance on X870E, X870, and 600 series motherboards with AMD Ryzen 7000 X3D and Ryzen 9000 series processors.⁠

GIGABYTE X3D Turbo Mode is a cutting-edge BIOS feature that pushes the boundaries of gaming performance. Empirical testing demonstrates that this innovative BIOS feature delivers tangible benefits to gamers, with performance increases of up to 35% for incoming Ryzen 9000 X3D processors and an astounding 20% for Ryzen 9000 non-X3D processors. Moreover, X3D Turbo Mode's unique optimization parameters allow even Ryzen 9000 non-X3D processors to achieve similar gaming performance levels as their Ryzen X3D counterparts. Experience smoother gameplay, higher frame rates, and reduced latency by GIGABYTE's BIOS wizardry-X3D Turbo Mode.

Gainward is thrilled to announce the arrival of the Python III Series, a revolutionary new graphics card series boasting the mighty GeForce RTX 40 SUPER architecture in a remarkably SFF-ready design. The Python III shatters the stereotype that high-end graphics cards require bulky cases. This design packs the power of the GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER, RTX 4070 Ti SUPER, RTX 4070 SUPER into a compact size, measuring just 294 x 116 x 49.5 mm. This makes Python III the perfect choice for gamers and creators who craft powerful Small Form Factor (SFF) PCs.

Building an SFF PC offers multiple benefits. It not only saves valuable space, but also enhances the overall aesthetic of your setup. The portability of SFF PCs allows you to take your gaming and creative endeavors on the go. Most importantly, you can enjoy all these benefits without compromising performance. The Python III series features a triple-fan cooling system specifically designed for optimal performance within the SFF form factor. This ensures your graphics card remains cool and delivers peak performance even during demanding tasks. With its unmatched performance in a remarkably SFF-ready form factor, the Python III empowers users to build the ultimate compact PC without sacrificing power.

Palit Microsystems Ltd, a leading graphics card manufacturer, is proud to announce the SFF-Ready GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER, RTX 4070 Ti SUPER, RTX 4070 SUPER Infinity 3 Series. This series combines high-end performance with a compact design that is perfect for SFF (Small Form Factor) builds.

A New Era of SFF Power: The Infinity 3 Series
SFF builds are gaining popularity for good reasons. They save space, reduce clutter, and offer more portability. The Palit Infinity 3 Series is designed with this goal in mind - to deliver the power of a high-end GPU within a form factor that fits into compact PC cases. The GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER, RTX 4070 Ti SUPER, RTX 4070 SUPER Infinity 3 lineup is SFF-Ready for compact builds.

With the PhaseSheet PTM, Thermal Grizzly Holding GmbH presents an electrically non-conductive thermal pad based on a phase change material (PCM). With PhaseSheet PTM, Thermal Grizzly closes the gap between traditional thermal paste and thermal pads based on graphene or carbon thermal pads. This means that the respective advantages in terms of application and thermal conductivity can be combined in one product.

PhaseSheet PTM is a thermal pad that has been optimized for applications where maintenance cycles are subject to long intervals. It is more durable than traditional thermal conductive pastes, but not as durable as KryoSheet, for example, which is virtually maintenance-free. The maximum thermal conductivity of PhaseSheet PTM develops and stabilizes after around ten thermal cycles above 60 degrees Celsius.

ASRock, the leading global motherboard, graphics card and mini PC manufacturer, today launched their first blower series graphics cards -- ASRock Radeon RX 7900 XTX Creator 24 GB and ASRock Radeon RX 7900 XT Creator 20 GB graphics cards.

ASRock Radeon RX 7900 Creator series graphics cards are powered by the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX and Radeon RX7900 XT GPUs. Both of these two cards are supporting multi-GPU collaborative computing, and designed for multi-card parallel computing for better performance. Radeon RX 7900 Creator series graphics cards are featuring a VAPOR-CHAMBER heatsink, efficiency blower fan and 2-slot thickness. Furthermore, thanks to the single horizontal 12V-2x6 power connector, installing a couple of ASRock Radeon RX 7900 Creator series graphics cards becomes much easier due to fewer power cords.

Regulatory filings by PC OEM major Acer, with the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC), drop some of the first references to three upcoming performance-segment graphics card SKUs by AMD. These include the Radeon RX 7900, the Radeon RX 7800, and the Radeon RX 7700. Acer is an AMD Radeon add-in board partner under its Acer Predator brand, which makes graphics cards not just for Predator and Nitro gaming PCs, but also graphics cards for the retail channel.

At this point, there are no specs known for the three, not even their memory sizes. It would be interesting to see how AMD slots the three into its product stack, particularly the RX 7900. The company currently has three RX 7900 series SKUs—the flagship RX 7900 XTX, and the second-best RX 7900 XT, but then the SKU next to this is the RX 7900 GRE, which saw a worldwide launch. Then there are the RX 7800 and RX 7700, which are pretty straightforward to predict. The RX 7800 will slot in between the RX 7700 XT and RX 7800 XT, and will probably feature a 256-bit wide memory interface with 16 GB of memory, much like the RX 7800 XT; whereas the RX 7700 will be positioned below the RX 7700 XT. It wouldn't surprise us if AMD further cuts down the memory interface to 160-bit (10 GB).

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, and hardware solutions, released the GIGABYTE exclusive groundbreaking AI TOP Utility. With reinvented workflows, user-friendly interface, and real-time progress monitoring, AI TOP Utility provides a reinventing touch of local AI model training and fine-tuning. It features a variety of groundbreaking technologies that can be easily adapted by beginners or experts, for most common open-source LLMs, in anyplace even on your desk.

GIGABYTE AI TOP is the all-round solution for local AI Model Fine-tuning. Running local AI training and fine-tuning on sensitive data can relatively provide greater privacy and security with maximum flexibility and real-time adjustment. Collocating with GIGABYTE AI TOP hardware and AI TOP Utility, the common constraints of GPU VRAM insufficiency when trying to execute AI fine-tuning locally can be addressed. By GIGABYTE AI TOP series motherboard, PSU, and SSD, as well as GIGABYTE graphics cards lineup covering NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 Series, AMD Radeon RX 7900 Series, Radeon Pro W7900 and W7800 series, the size of open-source LLM fine-tuning can now reach up to 236B and more.

Made for your best gaming moments: The spacious Rebel C80 RGB ATX case combines a striking front-panel design with plenty of space for high-end hardware. A good airflow is ensured thanks to the perforated paneling combined with up to eleven fans or two radiators, while the detachable mounting frame and mounting bracket facilitate the installation of components. A graphics card holder and modern connections for smartphones and tablets are also included!

Deep Insights
Apart from the eye-catching front panel, the Rebel C80G RGB is equipped with a screwless side panel made of tempered glass to showcase the installed hardware and bring high-end components full into view.

BIOSTAR, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, storage devices, and IPC products, is excited to introduce the all-new BIAST-PAT industrial motherboard solution. The BIAST-PAT motherboard is expertly designed to meet the diverse needs of System Integration (SI) businesses and industry professionals seeking to build robust, efficient, and future-proof systems for business and industrial applications. It is a highly versatile platform, perfectly suited for applications in AIOT machines, automation systems, edge computing devices, HMI machines, and digital signage.

The BIOSTAR BIAST-PAT motherboard, with its robust wide temperature and broad voltage support, is engineered to excel in a variety of demanding environments, making it a prime choice for numerous outdoor applications. Its design incorporates M.2 Key-M, Key-B, and Mini-PCIe slots, offering exceptional versatility in connectivity options. This compatibility extends to Hailo AI acceleration cards, further enhancing its edge AI utility.

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of premium gaming hardware, today launched the cutting-edge AMD Radeon PRO W7000 series workstation graphics cards, including the flagship GIGABYTE Radeon PRO W7900 Dual Slot AI TOP 48G as well as the GIGABYTE Radeon PRO W7800 AI TOP 32G. Powered by AMD RDNA 3 architecture, these graphics cards offer a massive 48 GB and 32 GB of GDDR6 memory, respectively, delivering cutting-edge performance and exceptional experiences for workstation professionals, creators and AI developers.⁠⁠

GIGABYTE stands as the AMD professional graphics partner in the market, with a proven ability to design and manufacture the entire Radeon PRO series. Our dedication to quality products, unwavering business commitment, and comprehensive customer service empower us to deliver professional-grade GPU solutions, expanding user's choices in workstation and AI computing.

ASUS launched the Prime Series of GeForce RTX 40-series "Ada" graphics cards that meet NVIDIA's new SFF-Ready specification that sets 304 mm x 151 mm x 50 mm (length x height x thickness) as the maximum dimensions for a graphics card to qualify. What's interesting, is that NVIDIA intended for the SFF-Ready standard to apply to performance-segment and enthusiast-class GPUs (RTX 4070 SUPER and up), however, ASUS has designed the Prime series for the RTX 4060 Ti, RTX 4070, and RTX 4070 SUPER; there are no cards in the series based on the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER or the RTX 4080 SUPER, yet.

ASUS is using a common board design for its RTX 4070 SUPER, RTX 4070, and RTX 4060 Ti Prime series graphics cards, which measures 269 mm x 120 mm x 50 mm, while the heatsink and PCB underneath the cooler shroud may vary between the RTX 4070/SUPER and the RTX 4060 Ti cards. The cooler uses a trio of 70 mm fans to ventilate an aluminium fin-stack heatsink, much of the airflow from the third fan goes through the heatsink and back out from a large cutout in the backplate. The RTX 4070 and RTX 4060 Ti cards use single 8-pin PCIe power inputs, while the RTX 4070 SUPER uses a 16-pin 12VHPWR input. There are a total of six SKUs, two per GPU, one of which sticks to the NVIDIA reference clock speeds, and the other being an OC SKU with a minor factory overclock.

GIGABYTE showed off a trio of new or recently announced graphics cards based on the GeForce RTX 40-series GPUs. The lineup is led by the RTX 4080 SUPER AORUS Xtreme Ice, a limited edition, bleeding edge product that the company has serial numbered each card with. The card features some very premium materials in its board design that both look good and are very sturdy. The card also features GIGABYTE's highest factory overclock for the RTX 4080 SUPER.

Next up, is the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER AI TOP. The company just announced the new AI TOP ecosystem of first-party generative AI tools, AI assistants, and hardware certified to accelerate AI, and this graphics card is one of them. It features a lateral-blower cooling solution. The idea behind this is so you could install many of these cards in a desktop or workstation to build a rendering or acceleration farm. The company also unveiled an AI TOP branded AMD TRX50 workstation motherboard, which should be a perfect pairing for this card. Lastly, there are a few recently announced cards, the RTX 4070 SUPER Eagle OC Ice, and the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX Gaming OC.

ASRock is ready with the first Radeon RX gaming graphics card to feature a modern 12V-2x6 power connector, replacing the up to three 8-pin PCIe power connectors it took, to power a Radeon RX 7900 series graphics card. The ASRock RX 7900 series WS graphics cards are also the first 2-slot RX 7900 series graphics cards. They target workstations and GPU rendering farms that stack multiple graphics cards into 4U or 5U rackmount cases, with no spacing between 2-slot graphics cards. ASRock is designing cards based on both the RX 7900 XT, and the flagship RX 7900 XTX.

The ASRock RX 7900 series WS graphics cards appear long and no more than 2 slots thick. To achieve these dimensions, a lateral-flow cooling solution is used, which combines a dense aluminium or copper channel heatsink with a lateral blower. Remember we said these cards are meant for workstations or rendering farms? So the noise output will be deafening, at least up to datacenter standards. The most striking aspect of these cards of course is their 12+4 pin ATX 12V-2x6 power input, which is capable of drawing 600 W of continuous power from a single cable. It's located at the card's tail-end, where it would have been an engineering challenge to put three 8-pin connectors.

USB4 hasn't exactly taken off as yet, largely due to a shortage of devices in the market and with a limited number of device controllers, the competition in the market is also slow. With Thunderbolt compatibility, there are plenty of USB4 compatible hosts out there though, even though you only get 32 Gbps rather than 40 Gbps of data throughput when a USB4 device is connected to Thunderbolt 3 or 4, although Thunderbolt 5 will allow for the full 40 Gbps. A company called ADT-Link has launched a product it calls the UT3G which is pretty much a retail ready bridge solution that allows techies and tinkerers to try out whatever PCIe devices they have over USB4. The adapter has a full-length PCIe x16 slot, but it's limited to a four lane PCIe interface which is compatible with PCIe 4.0, albeit not at the full 64 Gbps that such an interface can deliver.

In addition to the USB4 Type-C port on the PCB there's a standard 24-pin ATX power supply connector for power, which means that this isn't really a portable solution. However, the company has tested the UT3G with various graphics cards from both AMD and NVIDIA to make sure you can use it as an external graphics card dock. The UT3G has also been tested to be compatible with Windows, Linux and macOS, although macOS is limited to AMD GPUs. The board is built around the ASMedia ASM2464PD USB4 to PCIe 4.0 bridge and this shouldn't come as a surprise, as so far this is the only such device controller. ADT-Link doesn't appear to be selling the UT3G to consumers, but it can be picked up online from DFRobot starting at US$129 for a single unit.

XFX earlier this month debuted the Phoenix Nirvana line of premium custom-design Radeon RX 7900 series graphics cards with the China-exclusive RX 7900 XTX Phoenix Nirvana. The company is expanding this lineup with two new models, both of which are draped in white. These are the company's first white-themed graphics cards. The lineup now includes the Radeon RX 7800 XT Phoenix Nirvana White, and the RX 7900 GRE Phoenix Nirvana White. Both cards appear to share a common board design, because the compacted "Navi 31" ASIC powering the RX 7900 GRE is pin-compatible with the "Navi 32" ASIC that the RX 7800 XT is based on. Since both GPUs feature a 256-bit GDDR6 memory interface, and a nearly identical typical board power value of around 260 W, AMD's board partners get to use their RX 7800 XT custom board designs for RX 7900 GRE products.

The XFX RX 7900 GRE Phoenix Nirvana White features a significantly different board design to the company's Merc 319 product that's available in the west. The heatsink is noticeably larger, the cooler shroud appears better ventilated, and XFX is using thicker 100 mm fans for higher static pressure than from the ones you find in the global Merc 319 card. The most striking design element of course is its color trim. White makes up the cooler shroud, the fan impellers, and the backplate. The heatsink protrudes out of the edges of the black PCB that's barely noticeable. The card is 33.7 cm long, and 5.9 cm-thick, with a 13.2 cm height. The RX 7900 GRE Phoenix Nirvana White comes with a hearty 6.7% factory overclock, with a 2394 MHz boost clock (vs. 2245 MHz reference); while the RX 7800 XT Phoenix Nirvana White ticks AMD reference 2430 MHz boost. Both these cards, unfortunately, are China-exclusive products, just like the RX 7900 XTX card XFX launched earlier this month.

ASUS introduced the Radeon RX 7900 XTX and RX 7900 XT DUAL OC graphics cards. The two join ASUS's rather slim RX 7900 series custom-design lineup, which until now only included the TUF Gaming OC products for the RX 7900 XT and RX 7900 XTX. ASUS's common board design for the cards it's launching, features a large cooler shroud, a tall, yet triple-slot board design, and a cooling solution that uses an aluminium fin-stack heatsink that uses no more than two Axial-Tech fans, hence the name DUAL OC. We've seen this exact board design on some of the RTX 30-series "Ampere" DUAL OC products, so ASUS may probably be carrying over the design, with suitable changes for compatibility with the "Navi 31" GPU.

Both the RX 7900 XTX and RX 7900 XT DUAL OC cards feature a milder factory overclock compared to the company's TUF Gaming OC products. The RX 7900 XTX DUAL OC does 2455 MHz Game clock (compared to 2365 MHz reference); while the RX 7900 XT DUAL OC offers 2075 MHz Game clocks compared to 2025 MHz AMD reference. It's also interesting to note here, that the RX 7900 XTX/XT DUAL OC cards feature a significantly different board design than the RX 7900 GRE DUAL OC, which features a design closer to that of the RX 7800 XT DUAL OC. Both the RX 7900 XT DUAL OC and RX 7900 XTX DUAL OC feature triple 8-pin PCIe power connectors, and display I/O that includes three DisplayPort 2.1, and one HDMI 2.1. Besides the minimal RGB, the cards offer dual-BIOS, with the Q-BIOS running them at reference speeds, and with a tighter fan curve. The card measures 32.3 cm in length, 14.7 cm in height, and is no more than 3 slots thick. The company didn't reveal pricing.

A majority of TechPowerUp readers that play at the 4K Ultra HD resolution (3840 x 2160) say that they have graphics cards with 16 GB or higher video memory. In March, we ran a front-page poll asking our readers who play at the top 16:9 resolution how much video memory the graphics hardware in their machines had. Options included 6 GB or less, 8 GB, 12 GB, 16 GB, or more than 16 GB. There was also a control option just to gauge what percentage of the respondents do not play at 4K, which got 39.4% of the vote, and a technical majority, although not a part of our analysis. 32,296 responded to the poll.

What's interesting here, is that "More than 16 GB" and 16 GB take the #2 and #3 spots, respectively. So, 35.1% of our survey respondents say they have hardware with 16 GB or greater than 16 GB of video memory. 11% responded that their graphics card has 12 GB of memory; closely followed by 8 GB at 10.1%, and just 4.4% say their graphics cards have 6 GB or less amount of video memory. The biggest takeaway from this poll is the confirmation that 16 GB or more indeed is the video memory size today's gamers think they need to play the latest games at 4K.

AMD has released the latest version of Adrenalin Edition graphics drivers, version 24.4.1 WHQL. It includes support for the upcoming Manor Lords game, as well as add performance improvements for HELLDIVERS 2 game, and adds AMD HYPR-Tune support to Nightingale and SKULL AND BONES games. New drivers also expand Vulkan API extensions support with VK_KHR_shader_maximal_reconvergence and VK_KHR_dynamic_rendering_local_read, as well as include support and optimizations for Topaz Gigapixel AI application, versions 7.1.0 and 7.1.1, with new "Recovery" and "Low Resolution" AI upscaling features.

New AMD Software Adrenalin Edition 24.4.1 WHQL drivers come with several fixes, including performance improvements for HELLDIVERS 2, fix for intermittent application crash in Lords of the Fallen on Radeon RX 6000 series graphics cards, various artifact issues in SnowRunner and Horizon Forbidden West Complete Edition on Radeon RX 6800 and Radeon RX 6000 series graphics cards, fix for intermittent application crash or driver timeout in Overwatch 2 when Radeon Boost is enabled on Radeon RX 6000 and above series graphics cards, intermittent crash while changing Anti-Aliasing settings in Enshrouded on Radeon 7000 series graphics cards, and various application freeze or crash issues with the SteamVR while using Quest Link on Meta Quest 2 or when screen sharing with Microsoft Teams.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Software Adrenalin 24.4.1 WHQL

The biggest benefit of the GeForce RTX 4060 "Ada" being based on the tiny AD107 silicon, and needing just four memory chips, is its tiny PCB footprint. This allows low-profile RTX 4060 graphics cards, as board partners found out. The GALAX RTX 4060 low-profile graphics card just made its debut in the Japan—a huge market for SFF and low-profile desktop PC hardware. The card is 18.2 cm long, and is exactly 6.9 cm tall, or what constitutes half-height. The card is 2 slots thick, and uses an aluminium fin-stack cooling solution that uses a trio of 40 mm fans.

Despite its limited PCB real-estate, the low-profile GALAX RTX 4060 wires out four display connectors—two each of DisplayPort 1.4 and HDMI 2.1a. The card draws power from a single 8-pin PCIe power connector at the tail-end of the card (so you might need a little extra clearance there). The most striking aesthetic aspect of the card is its all-white PCB, which combined with the white cooler shroud and fans, contrast the fin-stack heatsink. Out of the box, the card comes with its full-height bracket, which can be replaced with the included low-profile bracket. GALAX isn't the only brand with low-profile RTX 4060 cards, there are also such cards from ASUS and GIGABYTE.

All-in-one computers are often traditionally seen as lower-powered alternatives to traditional desktop workstations. However, a new offering from Alafia AI, a startup focused on medical imaging appliances, aims to shatter that perception. The company's upcoming Alafia Aivas SuperWorkstation packs serious hardware muscle, demonstrating that all-in-one systems can match the performance of their more modular counterparts. At the heart of the Aivas SuperWorkstation lies a 128-core Ampere Altra processor, running at 3.0 GHz clock speed. This CPU is complemented by not one but three NVIDIA L4 GPUs for compute, and a single NVIDIA RTX 4000 Ada GPU for video output, delivering a combined 28,416 CUDA cores for accelerated parallel computing tasks. The system doesn't skimp on other components, either. It features a 4K touch display with up to 360 nits of brightness, an extensive 2 TB of DDR4 RAM, and storage options up to an 8 TB solid-state drive. This combination of cutting-edge CPU, GPU, memory, and storage is squarely aimed at the demands of medical imaging and AI development workloads.

The all-in-one form factor packs this incredible hardware into a sleek, purposefully designed clinical research appliance. While initially targeting software developers, Alafia AI hopes that institutions that can optimize their applications for the Arm architecture can eventually deploy the Aivas SuperWorkstation for production medical imaging workloads. The company is aiming for application integration in Q3 2024 and full ecosystem device integration by Q4 2024. With this powerful new offering, Alafia AI is challenging long-held assumptions about the performance limitations of all-in-one systems. The Aivas SuperWorkstation demonstrates that the right hardware choices can transform these compact form factors into true powerhouse workstations. Especially with a combined total output of three NVIDIA L4 compute units, alongside RTX 4000 Ada graphics card, the AIO is more powerful than some of the high-end desktop workstations.

The expansion of AI technology affects not only the production and demand for graphics cards but also the electricity grid that powers them. Data centers hosting thousands of GPUs are becoming more common, and the industry has been building new facilities for GPU-enhanced servers to serve the need for more AI. However, these powerful GPUs often consume over 500 Watts per single card, and NVIDIA's latest Blackwell B200 GPU has a TGP of 1000 Watts or a single kilowatt. These kilowatt GPUs will be present in data centers with 10s of thousands of cards, resulting in multi-megawatt facilities. To combat the load on the national electricity grid, US President Joe Biden's administration has been discussing with big tech to re-evaluate their power sources, possibly using smaller nuclear plants. According to an Axios interview with Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, she has noted that "AI itself isn't a problem because AI could help to solve the problem." However, the problem is the load-bearing of the national electricity grid, which can't sustain the rapid expansion of the AI data centers.

The Department of Energy (DOE) has been reportedly talking with firms, most notably hyperscalers like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, to start considering nuclear fusion and fission power plants to satisfy the need for AI expansion. We have already discussed the plan by Microsoft to embed a nuclear reactor near its data center facility and help manage the load of thousands of GPUs running AI training/inference. However, this time, it is not just Microsoft. Other tech giants are reportedly thinking about nuclear as well. They all need to offload their AI expansion from the US national power grid and develop a nuclear solution. Nuclear power is a mere 20% of the US power sourcing, and DOE is currently financing a Holtec Palisades 800-MW electric nuclear generating station with $1.52 billion in funds for restoration and resumption of service. Microsoft is investing in a Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) microreactor energy strategy, which could be an example for other big tech companies to follow.

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.

Phoronix has taken a short break away from monitoring the latest goings-on at AMD's software department—the site's editor-in-chief, Michael Larabel, took a moment to investigate patch notes relating to Intel's Xe and i915 Linux kernel graphics drivers. Earlier today, he noticed that "two additional PCI IDs" have been added to Team Blue's DG2/Alchemist family. This discovery prompted further sleuthing—after: "some searching and turning up hits within the Intel Compute Runtime code, 0x56BE is for an Intel Arc Graphics A750E variant and 0x56BF is for an Intel Arc Graphics A580E."

The aforementioned GPU identification codes seem to exist in gray area—the patch notes do not reveal whether these new variants are destined for desktop or mobile platforms. VideoCardz cited a remark made by "Bionic_Squash"—the reputable leaker reckons that the: "IDs are linked to Intel's Arc Embedded series. This family is tailored for industrial, business, and commercial applications, ranging from edge systems to powering large interactive screens." It is highly likely that Intel is paving the way for embedded/low-power variants of its existing Arc A750 and A580 GPUs. Tom's Hardware proposes that Team Blue is clearing out its inventory of remaining Alchemist silicon ahead of a successive generation's rollout—Battlemage is a major priority in 2024.

SPARKLE unveiled its low-profile series around mid-January—this lineup included an Intel Arc A380 GENIE dual-fan/dual-slot model and an Arc A310 ECO (single-slot, single-fan config) card. Compact device expert/YouTuber, ETA Prime, has uploaded a fascinating video that covers a modification project that involved a hybridization of SPARKLE's latest low-profile graphics cards and a Minisforum MS-01 test system. SPARKLE has released various models based on Intel's "Alchemist" Arc A380 6 GB GPU, but their PCB design is shared across a range of cooling options. ETA Prime could not source an aftermarket lower-profile cooler for his SPARKLE A380 GENIE, so he resorted to cannibalizing the A310 ECO model for relevant parts.

The ECO's single-slot cooling solution was not well proportioned enough to make contact with the SPARKLE A380 GENIE's VRM, so ETA Prime had to "add an aftermarket heatsink." He sold the remaining unneeded pieces—A310 board and GENIE cooler—to a friend for $60. The resultant hybrid—the "world's first-ever single-slot Intel Arc A380"—was bunged into the SFF Minisforum MS-01 test system. Notable specs included the Intel Core i9-13900H CPU and 32 GB of DDR5-5200 RAM. ETA Prime utilized Acer's Predator BiFrost graphics card utility to "trick" in a stable 54 W power limit. 60-ish FPS performance results—with low-to-medium settings at 1080p across a selection of games—were promising, especially for a restrictive small form factor build. ETA Prime hopes that SPARKLE will launch a smaller A380 model in the future—alternatively a specialist firm could produce a nice aftermarket copper part.

Graphics card enthusiasts with a thing for earthy green hues, will likely appreciate Manli's latest products—its Gallardo graphics card range has expanded with two new models. The Asian and European market-focused manufacturer has already unleashed "refreshed" models that utilize NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 40-series SUPER GPUs, but the newest entries sport a revised signature green flagship "Gallardo" design. VideoCardz has pored over the small details—it turns out that Manli has produced a slimmer profile: "perhaps something that is not obvious is that Manli has introduced the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER Gallardo already. The new version marks a second revision, featuring an entirely different aesthetic compared to its predecessor. The most important change is that it no longer occupies a 3.5-slot space." Manli has evidently put together a "much slimmer 2-slot version" under a "M3604+N693" moniker.

The non-Ti model is likely coming out soon, but Manli has not yet announced official pricing or launch date details for their newly redesigned Gallardo Ada Lovelace cards—official product pages were created last week. Despite flagship status, VideoCardz notes that Manli has not implemented any factory overclocking—the Gallardo range is often associated with: "system integrators like Sycom for further customization." The spec sheet advertises integrated LED lighting with seven available color cycles, four 6 mm copper heat pipes with segmented heatsinks, and a metal backplate for reinforcement and protective purposes.