Intel has reportedly chosen the TSMC 4 nm EUV foundry node for its next generation Arc Xe2 discrete GPUs based on the "Battlemage" graphics architecture. This would mark a generational upgrade from the Arc "Alchemist" family, which Intel built on the TSMC 6 nm DUV process. The TSMC N4 node offers significant increases in transistor densities, performance, and power efficiency over the N6, which is allowing Intel to nearly double the Xe cores on its largest "Battlemage" variant in numerical terms. This, coupled with increased IPC, clock speeds, and other features, should make the "Battlemage" contemporary against today's AMD RDNA 3 and NVIDIA Ada gaming GPUs. Interestingly, TSMC N4 isn't the most advanced foundry node that the Xe2 "Battlemage" is being built on. The iGPU powering Intel's Core Ultra 200V "Lunar Lake" processor is part of its Compute tile, which Intel is building on the more advanced TSMC N3 (3 nm) node.

AMD Ryzen 8000G desktop APUs combine "Zen 4" CPU cores with a powerful iGPU based on the RDNA 3 architecture, and are the first desktop processors to pack an NPU with 16 TOPS of performance on tap. These Socket AM5 processors based on the "Hawk Point" silicon have been on a downward price trend. Last month, the top Ryzen 7 8700G asked for $299 compared to its $329 launch price; and the 6-core Ryzen 5 8600G went for $199, down from its $229 launch price. This month, the downward pricing trend continues.

According to the latest prices charted on B&H Photo, the Ryzen 7 8700G is now just $269, a $60 cut from its launch price; while the Ryzen 5 8600G faces its biggest ever cut, sending it all the way down to $152, a $77 or a 33% reduction from its launch price. At this price, the 8600G is a formidable processor, with a 6-core/12-thread CPU based on the "Zen 4" architecture (all 6 of which are full-sized "Zen 4" cores); a 16 TOPS NPU, and a Radeon 760M iGPU with 8 compute units (512 stream processors). The Ryzen 5 8500G based on the "Phoenix 2" silicon, with a combination of 2 "Zen 4" and 4 "Zen 4c" cores, is now priced at $139, a $40 cut from its original.

Intel has released its latest version of Arc GPU Graphics drivers for A-series discrete GPUs and Arc Graphics iGPUs, version 101.5594 Beta. The new drivers bring a fix for Citrix Workspace application on both Intel Arc A-Series and Intel Core Ultra CPU with Intel Arc GPUs that have exhibited sluggish behavior when interacting with a virtual desktop.

Unfortunately, there are no further fixes or optimizations as the previous Arc GPU Graphics drivers version 101.5593 Beta already brought optimizations for Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail and The First Descendant games. There are still plenty of known issues on Intel Arc A-Series graphics products including ones with games like No Man's Sky, Enshrouded, Doom Eternal and application like Topaz Video AI. There are also known issues with Intel Arc Control Studio as well with corruption of the recording file when the mouse cursor is enabled during HDR capture and issues with schedule updates for drivers.

DOWNLOAD: Intel Arc GPU Graphics Drivers 101.5594 Beta

TSMC has commenced mass-production of chips for Intel on its 3 nm EUV FinFET foundry node, according to a report by Taiwan industry observer DigiTimes. Intel is using the TSMC 3 nm node for the compute tile of its upcoming Core Ultra 300 "Lunar Lake" processor. The company went into depth about "Lunar Lake" in its Computex 2024 presentation. While a disaggregated chiplet-based processor like "Meteor Lake," the new "Lunar Lake" chip sees the CPU cores, iGPU, NPU, and memory controllers sit on a single chiplet called the compute tile, built on the 3 nm node; while the SoC and I/O components are disaggregated the chip's only other chiplet, the SoC tile, which is built on the TSMC 6 nm node.

Intel hasn't gone into the nuts and bolts of "Arrow Lake," besides mentioning that the processor will feature the same "Lion Cove" P-cores and "Skymont" E-cores as "Lunar Lake," albeit arranged in a more familiar ringbus configuration, where the E-core clusters share L3 cache with the P-cores (something that doesn't happen on "Lunar Lake"). "Arrow Lake" also features a iGPU based on the same Xe2 graphics architecture as "Lunar Lake," and will feature an NPU that meets Microsoft Copilot+ AI PC requirements. What remains a mystery about "Arrow Lake" is the way Intel will go about organizing the various chiplets or tiles. Reports from February 2024 mentioned Intel tapping into TSMC 3 nm for just the disaggregated graphics tile of "Arrow Lake," but we now know from "Lunar Lake" that Intel doesn't shy away from letting TSMC fabricate its CPU cores. The first notebooks powered by "Lunar Lake" are expected to hit shelves within Q3-2024, with "Arrow Lake" following on in Q4.

AMD today launched its Ryzen AI 300 series mobile processors, codenamed "Strix Point." These chips implement a combination of the AMD "Zen 5" microarchitecture for the CPU cores, the XDNA 2 architecture for its powerful new NPU, and the RDNA 3+ graphics architecture for its 33% faster iGPU. The new "Zen 5" microarchitecture provides a 16% generational IPC uplift over "Zen 4" on the backs of several front-end enhancements, wider execution pipelines, more intra core bandwidth, and a revamped FPU that doubles performance of AI and AVX-512 workloads. AMD didn't go in-depth with the microarchitecture, but the broad points of "Zen 5" are detailed in our article for the Ryzen 9000 "Granite Ridge" desktop processors. Not only is AMD using these faster "Zen 5" CPU cores, but also increased the CPU core count by 50%, for a maximum of 12-core/24-thread.

The "Strix Point" monolithic silicon is built on the 4 nm foundry node, and packs a CPU core complex (CCX) with 12 CPU cores, four of these are "Zen 5," which can achieve the highest possible boost frequencies, the other eight are "Zen 5c" cores that feature an identical IPC and the full ISA, including support for SMT; but don't boost as high as the "Zen 5" cores. AMD is claiming a productivity performance increase ranging between 4% and 73% for its top model based in the series, when compared to Intel's Core Ultra 9 185H "Meteor Lake" processor. The iGPU sees its compute unit (CU) count go all the way up to 16 from 12 in the previous generation, and this yields a claimed 33% increase in iGPU gaming performance compared to the integrated Arc graphics of the Core Ultra 9 185H. Lastly, the XDNA 2 NPU sees more that triple the AI inference performance to 50 AI TOPS, compared to the 16 TOPS of the Ryzen 8040 "Hawk Point" processor, and 12 TOPS of Core Ultra "Meteor Lake." This makes the processor meet Microsoft's Copilot+ AI PC requirements.

ASUS today announced the ROG Ally X, its ambitious new handheld game console that's a step up from the ROG Ally that the company launched last year. The ROG Ally X is powered by the same AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme processor as the ROG Ally, but with 50% more unified memory—now up to 24 GB of LPDDR5X-7500, which runs at an 18% higher speed than the 16 GB LPDDR5-6400 of the original. The designers also implemented an M.2-2280 NVMe SSD slot, which opens the console up to the widest possible selection of NVMe SSDs. The console includes a 1 TB drive, which is double that of the 500 GB that the ROG Ally comes with. The company has also significantly upgraded the thermal solution of the console with a larger fan, and better thermal venting, which offers 6°C lower gaming temperatures.

Perhaps the biggest feature upgrade is the battery, which is 80 Wh, a 100% increase from the 40 Wh of the original ROG Ally. This may not be a linear 100% increase in battery life from the ROG Ally (due to the various hardware upgrades), but should still pose significant improvements to it. Other hardware updates include USB4, which includes DisplayPort passthrough from the iGPU; besides a separate USB 3.2 Gen 2 type-C. The console supports USB-PD with 140 W fast-charging, and is paired with a first-party GaN-based 140 W fast-charger. Dimensions are similar to those of the ROG Ally, except for 4 mm added thickness, and 70 g added weight (608 g vs. 678 g). Available from July, the ROG Ally X is priced at $799, and includes a 3-month Xbox Game Pass. We went hands on with the console at ASUS's pre-Computex event. Stay tuned for several more announcements form the company in the coming days.

NVIDIA is eying a comeback to the client processor business, reveals a Bloomberg interview with the CEOs of NVIDIA and Dell. For NVIDIA, all it takes is a simple driver update that exposes every GeForce GPU with tensor cores as an NPU to Windows 11, with translation layers to get popular client AI apps to work with TensorRT. But that would need you to have a discrete NVIDIA GPU. What about the vast market of Windows AI PCs powered by the likes of Qualcomm, Intel, and AMD, who each sell 15 W-class processors with integrated NPUs capable of 50 AI TOPS, which is all that Copilot+ needs? NVIDIA held an Arm license for decades now, and makes Arm-based CPUs to this day, with the NVIDIA Grace, however, that is a large server processor meant for its AI GPU servers.

NVIDIA already made client processors under the Tegra brand targeting smartphones, which it winded down last decade. It's since been making Drive PX processors for its automotive self-driving hardware division; and of course there's Grace. NVIDIA hinted that it might have a client CPU for the AI PC market in 2025. In the interview Bloomberg asked NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang a pointed question on whether NVIDIA has a place in the AI PC market. Dell CEO Michael Dell, who was also in the interview, interjected "come back next year," to which Jensen affirmed "exactly." Dell would be in a front-and-center position to know if NVIDIA is working on a new PC processor for launch in 2025, and Jensen's nod almost confirms this

Minisforum has unveiled a game-changing device that blurs the lines between tablets and laptops: the Minisforum V3. Today, the V3 laptop has hit the Minisforum store. This innovative 3-in-1 tablet is powered by the high-performance AMD Ryzen 7 8840U processor, offering a unique blend of portability and computing power. Unlike its traditional Mini PC design, Minisforum has adopted the popular form factor of Microsoft Surface and Lenovo Yoga tablet PCs with the V3. This versatile device can be a handheld tablet, a laptop with an included magnetic attachable keyboard, or a solo kickstand. At the heart of the Minisforum V3 lies the 8-core, 16-thread Ryzen 7 8840U processor, capable of delivering exceptional performance for demanding tasks. The tablet features a stunning 14-inch 2560 x 1600 IPS screen with a 165 Hz refresh rate and 100% DCI-P3 color gamut coverage, making it an ideal choice for creative professionals and content creators.

The V3's standout feature is its advanced cooling system, which allows the Ryzen 7 8840U and onboard Radeon 780M iGPU to operate at a stable 28 watts. This ensures smooth and efficient performance even under heavy workloads, making it a reliable device for all your tasks. The tablet's screen boasts a remarkable 500 nits of brightness, and its high color gamut coverage makes it perfect for professionals who require accurate color representation. Minisforum has priced the V3 competitively at $1199 at the pre-sale offering, making it an attractive option for those seeking a powerful and versatile device that can adapt to various scenarios. This primary option includes 32 GB of RAM and 1 TB SSD for storage. For early birds, Minisforum offers a V Pen, tempered glass screen protector, and laptop sleeve as a gift. Here is the link to the Minisforum V3 store.

Intel on Wednesday released the XeSS 1.3 performance enhancement, which works with Intel Arc "Alchemist" discrete GPUs, and Intel Arc iGPUs powering the Core Ultra "Meteor Lake" processors. The new super sampling technology brings several under-the-hood improvements to the upscaler, which improves image quality at a given resolution. Intel leveraged this improved upscaler to rework the resolution-scale of each performance preset, thereby improving performance per preset; while also introducing new presets at both ends of the resolution scale. The company released the XeSS 1.3 SDK on GitHub, so developers can begin exploring the tech and implementing it on their games.

The XeSS 1.3 update is predicated on an improved upscaler. Intel says that it has updated the AI models with new optimizations, and additional pre-training, particularly with difficult to upscale elements (such as meshes, as in textures with a lot of alpha pixels). The updated upscaler offers better reconstruction of detail, better AA, less ghosting, and improved temporal stability. Intel then used this up change the resolution scale across all its presets as detailed in the table below. It introduced the new Ultra Performance preset that does a 3.0x resolution scale, something that didn't exist in the previous versions of XeSS. On the other end of the spectrum is Native AA, a mode that has zero upscaling, but just the full application of the upscaler as a varnish—this is essentially Intel's take on DLAA.

Qualcomm claimed that most Windows games will run (via emulation) on its upcoming series of ARM-based Snapdragon X Elite processors—during a "Windows on Snapdragon, a Platform Ready for your PC Games" presentation at the recently concluded GDC 2024 event. Issam Khalil (principal engineer) did not mention specific titles, but divulged that the Snapdragon Studios division has spent time working through "top games" on Steam. Qualcomm laptop-oriented Adreno GPU design is being hyped up as demonstrating an "80% performance uplift versus AMD's Radeon 780M iGPU," but the overall Snapdragon X Elite package is often compared to Apple's M3 chipsets (also ARM-based).

Reference laptops—running early Snapdragon X Elite silicon—have been distributed to favored partners. A semi-public showcase—recorded by Devin Arthur—revealed some promising gaming performance credentials on one of these devices. The self-proclaimed "Snapdragon Insider" was invited to the company's San Diego, California headquarters—Arthur happily reported that a red "23 W Snapdragon X Elite model" was demoing: "Baldur's Gate 3 running at 1080p hovering around 30 FPS, which is perfectly playable!" Specific visual settings were not listed in Arthur's substack article, or showcased during his brief video recording—but Qualcomm's claims about the Adreno GPU beating Team Red's best iGPU could be valid. Windows Central reckons that Control and Redout 2 have been demoed on Snapdragon X Elite devices.

AMD's Beijing AI PC Innovation Summit served as introduction point for a Chinese market launch of "Hawk Point" Ryzen 8040 mobile series and 8000G desktop processors—news coverage has, so far, focused on that rollout as well as a teasing of next-gen "Strix Point" processors. HXL/9550pro has put a spotlight on an easy-to-miss presentation slide—their social media post revealed the existence of new budget-friendly Ryzen 8000F CPUs. Team Red seems to be preparing two China-exclusive SKUs: Ryzen 7 8700F and Ryzen 5 8400F—not many details were revealed on-stage, so reporters have played a guessing game with speculated technical information. Industry experts believe that the 8700F is an iGPU-less version of AMD's "Hawk Point" Ryzen 7 8700G APU—utilizing the same 8 core and 16 thread configuration, but missing the Radeon 780M integrated graphics solution.

The lower-end SKU is a more perplexing product, since AMD did not elaborate much during "budget" product unveilings—VideoCardz put its thinking hat on for this one: "meanwhile, the 8400F might be harder to guess, as the name sits between 8500G and 8300G, both featuring vastly different configurations. An educated guess would be 6 cores and 12 threads, possibly with two Zen 4 and four Zen 4c cores." The "F" model suffix gained attention last year—courtesy of Team Red's Ryzen 5 7500F CPU. This iGPU-less "Raphael" Zen 4 SKU was initially released as a Chinese market exclusive, but eventually headed West as an option for system integrators.

MeLE, designers of mini PCs, and industrial PCs, unveiled the Fanless Stick PC PCG02 Pro. Measuring 146 mm x 61 mm x 20 mm (LxWxH), this thing is about the size of two smartphones duct-taped together, but weighing as much as one (since there's no battery inside). Under the hood is an Intel N100 "Alder Lake-N" processor, which features one "Gracemont" E-core cluster for a 4-core/4-thread CPU, and an Intel Xe LP-based iGPU with 24 execution units. The N100 in the MeLE PCG02 Pro is wired to 8 GB or 16 GB of LPDDR4X-4266 memory. Storage is in the form of 128 GB or 256 GB of eMMC. The device comes with Windows 11 Home single language pre-installed.

The Fanless Stick PC PCG02 Pro comes with an impressive set of connectivity for its size. Networking options include Wi-Fi 5 ac + Bluetooth 5.1, and a 1 GbE wired Ethernet. Display outputs include two HDMI 2.1, which can power a pair of 4K Ultra HD displays at 60 Hz, each. USB connectivity includes two USB 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps) type-A ports; and a USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) type-C. There is a second type-C port used for power input through any USB PD 3.0 source that can deliver 25 W. A power adapter is included. Depending on the memory- and storage size opted for, the Fanless Stick PC PCG02 Pro is priced between USD $270 to $290. It can power a range of applications between home-entertainment (it's completely fanless), through digital signage, or even most office applications.

Intel is rumored to be preparing to tease its Core Ultra 2-series "Arrow Lake" processor at the 2024 Computex, which gets underway this June. The series itself isn't expected to launch before Q4-2024, but Computex is the only major global event between June and January for Intel to unveil or tease its next-generation processor, so here we are. At this point we don't know which exact platform of "Arrow Lake" Intel is planning to tease—whether these are the mobile variants, or the Socket LGA1851 desktop "Arrow Lake-S." An unveiling of the latter would almost definitely entail PC motherboard vendors being allowed to show off their first compatible motherboards at Computex—the perfect platform for them to do so.

The Core Ultra "Arrow Lake" retains a Foveros Tiled (chiplet) construction of "Meteor Lake," but with advancements to the chip's Compute tile, which is built on the Intel 20A foundry node, and rocks new "Lion Cove" P-cores and "Skymont" E-cores; an updated I/O tile, and an iGPU based on the updated Xe-LPG+ graphics architecture. Since the processor now serves practically all PCH functions, the mobile "Arrow Lake" is a single-chip solution, whereas the desktop "Arrow Lake-S" is expected to remain 2-chip. There will be more I/O from the CPU, though, which is why the socket has 151 more pins than the LGA1700.

Over the weekend, there have been a series of leaks from sources such as Golden Pig Upgrade, and High Yield YT, surrounding Intel's next-generation desktop processor, the Core Ultra 2-series "Arrow Lake-S." The lineup is likely to continue the new client processor naming scheme Intel introduced with the Core Ultra 1-series "Meteor Lake" on the mobile platform. "Arrow Lake-S" is rumored to debut the new Socket LGA1851, which retains cooler-compatibility with LGA1700. Although Intel has nucleated all I/O functions of the traditional PCH to "Meteor Lake," making it a single-chip solution on the mobile platform; and although the mobile "Arrow Lake" will continue to be single-chip; the desktop "Arrow Lake-S" will be a 2-chip solution. This is mainly because the desktop platform demands a lot more PCIe lanes, for a larger number of NVMe storage devices, or high bandwidth devices such as Thunderbolt and USB4 hubs, etc.

Another key finding in this latest series of leaks, is that unlike "Meteor Lake," the desktop "Arrow Lake-S" will do away with low-power island E-cores located in the SoC tile of the processor. All CPU cores are located in the Compute tile, which is expected to be built in the Intel 20A foundry node—the company's first node to implement GAAFETs (nanosheets), with backside power delivery; as well as an advanced 2nd generation EUV lithography. Intel's 1st Gen EUV is used on the current FinFET-based Intel 4 and Intel 3 foundry nodes.

Toward the end of 2024, Intel will update its client processor product stack with the introduction of the new "Arrow Lake" microarchitecture targeting both the desktop and mobile segments. On the desktop side of things, this will herald the new Socket LGA1851 with more SoC connectivity being shifted to the processor; and on the mobile side of things, there will be a much-needed increase in CPU core counts form the current 6P+8E+2LP. This low maximum core-count for "Meteor Lake" is the reason why Intel couldn't debut it on the desktop platform, and couldn't use it to power enthusiast HX-segment mobile processors, either—it had to tap into "Raptor Lake Refresh," and use the older 14th Gen Core nomenclature one last time.

All hopes are now pinned on "Arrow Lake," which could make up Intel's second Core Ultra mobile lineup; its first desktop Core Ultra, and possibly push "Meteor Lake" to the non-Ultra tier. "Arrow Lake" carries forward the Xe-LPG graphics architecture for the iGPU that Intel debuted with "Meteor Lake," but there's a key difference between the desktop- and mobile "Arrow Lake" chips concerning this iGPU, and it has not just to do with the Xe core counts. It turns out, that while the desktop "Arrow Lake-S" processor comes with an iGPU based on the Xe-LPG graphics architecture; the mobile "Arrow Lake" chips spanning the U-, P-, and H-segments will use a newer version of this architecture, called the Xe-LPG+.

Intel appears to working on an intriguing next generation adaptive sharpening filter—as revealed in mid-week published patch notes. Lunar Lake's display engine seems to be the lucky recipient here—its Xe2 "Battlemage" graphics architecture is expected to debut later this year. Second generation Intel Arc integrated graphics solutions have been linked to mobile Lunar Lake (LNL) processors—driver enablement was uncovered by Phoronix last September. The notes reveal that Team Blue is exploring a more intelligent approach to improving visual enhancements across games and productivity applications.

Author, Nemesa Garg (an engineer at Intel India) stated: "Many a times images are blurred or upscaled content is also not as crisp as original rendered image. Traditional sharpening techniques often apply a uniform level of enhancement across entire image, which sometimes result in over-sharpening of some areas and potential loss of natural details. Intel has come up with Display Engine based adaptive sharpening filter with minimal power and performance impact. From LNL onwards, the Display hardware can use one of the pipe scaler for adaptive sharpness filter. This can be used for both gaming and non-gaming use cases like photos, image viewing. It works on a region of pixels depending on the tap size."

We already know about AMD Ryzen 7 8700G APU's enjoyment of overclocked memory—early reviews demonstrated the graphical benefits granted by fiddling with "iGPU engine clock and the processor's memory frequency." While gamers can enjoy a boosted integrated graphics solution that is comparable in performance 1080p stakes to a discrete Radeon RX 6500 XT GPU, AI enthusiasts are eager to experiment with the "Hawk Point" pat's Radeon 780M IGP and Neural Processing Unit (NPU)—the first generation Ryzen XDNA inference engine can unleash up to 16 AI TOPs. One individual, chi11eddog, posted their findings through social media channels earlier today, coinciding with the official launch of Ryzen 8000G processors. The initial set of results concentrated on the Radeon 780M aspect; NPU-centric data may arrive at a later date.

They performed quick tests on AMD's freshly released Ryzen 7 8700G desktop processor, combined with an MSI B650 Gaming Plus WiFi motherboard and two sticks of 16 GB DDR5-4800 memory. The MSI exclusive "Memory Try It" feature was deployed further up in the tables—this assisted in achieving and gauging several "higher system RAM frequency" settings. Here is chi11eddog's succinct interpretation of benchmark results: "7600 MT/s is 15% faster than 4800 MT/s in UL Procyon AI Inference Benchmark and 4% faster in GIMP with Stable Diffusion." The processor's default memory state is capable of producing 210 Float32 TOPs, according to chi11eddog's inference chart. The 6000 MT/s setting produces a 7% improvement over baseline, while 7200 MT/s drives proceedings to 11%—the flagship APU's Radeon 780M iGPU appears to be quite dependent on bandwidth. Their GIMP w/ Stable Diffusion benchmarks also taxed the integrated RDNA 3 graphics solution—again, it was deemed to be fairly bandwidth hungry.

GPD has disclosed to ITHome that a specification refresh of its Win Max 2 handheld/mini-laptop gaming PC is incoming—this model debuted last year with Ryzen 7040 "Phoenix" APUs sitting in the driver's seat. A company representative provided a sneak peek of an upgraded device that sports a Team Red Ryzen 8040 series "Hawk Point" mobile processor, and a larger pool of system memory (32 GB versus the 2023 model's 16 GB). The refreshed GPD Win Max 2's Ryzen 7 8840U APU was compared to the predecessor's Ryzen 7 7840U in CPU-Z benchmarks (standard and AX-512)—the results demonstrate a very slight difference in performance between generations.

The 8040 and 7040 APUs share the same "Phoenix" basic CPU design (8-cores + 16-threads) based on the prevalent "Zen 4" microarchitecture, plus an integration of AMD's Radeon 780M GPU. The former's main upgrade lies in its AI-crunching capabilities—a deployment of Team Red's XDNA AI engine. Ryzen 8040's: "NPU performance has been increased to 16 TOPS, compared to 10 TOPS of the NPU on the 'Phoenix' silicon. AMD is taking a whole-of-silicon approach to AI acceleration, which includes not just the NPU, but also the 'Zen 4' CPU cores that support the AVX-512 VNNI instruction set that's relevant to AI; and the iGPU based on the RDNA 3 graphics architecture, with each of its compute unit featuring two AI accelerators, components that make the SIMD cores crunch matrix math. The whole-of-silicon performance figures for "Phoenix" is 33 TOPS; while 'Hawk Point' boasts of 39 TOPS. In benchmarks by AMD, 'Hawk Point' is shown delivering a 40% improvement in vision models, and Llama 2, over the Ryzen 7040 "Phoenix" series."

AMD Socket AM4 continues to be relevant even in 2024, nearly seven years since its introduction, with the company announcing several new processor models at CES. AMD has extended Ryzen 5000 series "Zen 3" support across all three desktop chipset series, including the oldest AMD 300-series, and since all Socket AM4 motherboards feature USB BIOS Flashback, users have the full spread of Socket AM4 processors to upgrade to. The Ryzen 7 5800X3D continues to be a popular final upgrade destination for gamers on Socket AM4 who may have spent a pretty penny building a high-end gaming desktop in 2020-21. The 5800X3D offers gaming performance comparable to an Intel Core i9-12900K "Alder Lake," despite being based on the older "Zen 3" microarchitecture, since it enjoys a large 96 MB L3 cache, thanks to AMD's innovative 3D Vertical Cache technology. The 5800X3D commands a $360 street price, which may be a little steep for some users, and so AMD is increasing choice, with the introduction of the new Ryzen 7 5700X3D.

The Ryzen 7 5700X3D is an 8-core/16-thread Socket AM4 processor, which is practically the same silicon as the 5800X3D, but with lower clock speeds, and more importantly a 30% lower price. While the 5800X3D commands $360 in the market, the new 5700X3D is coming in at an attractive $250. The 5700X3D comes with a base frequency of 3.00 GHz, and maximum boost frequency of 4.10 GHz. In comparison the 5800X3D has a 3.40 GHz base frequency, and 4.50 GHz boost. Both chips enjoy the same power limits, with a TDP of 105 W. The 5700X3D gets the same 96 MB of L3 cache that includes 64 MB of 3D Vertical Cache; and 512 KB of L2 cache per core. The I/O is identical, too, with a 24-lane PCI-Express Gen 4 interface, and dual-channel DDR4 memory, with DDR4-3600 being the sweetspot frequency.Update Jan 9th: AMD clarified the specs of the Ryzen 5 5500GT in an updated slide. It is indeed a 6-core/12-thread processor.

Intel in its 2024 International CES presentation, unveiled its two new upcoming client microarchitectures, "Arrow Lake" and "Lunar Lake." Michelle Johnston Holthaus, EVP and GM of Intel's client computing group (CCG), in her keynote address, held up a next-generation Core Ultra "Lunar Lake" chip. This is the Lunar Lake-MX package, with MOP (memory on package). You have a Foveros base tile resembling "Meteor Lake," with on-package LPDDR5x memory stacks. With "Lunar Lake," Intel is reorganizing components across its various Foveros tiles—the Compute and Graphics tiles are combined into a single tile built on an Intel foundry node that's possibly the Intel 20A (we have no confirmation); and a smaller SoC tile that has all of the components of the current "Meteor Lake" SoC tile, and is possibly built on a TSMC node, such as N3.

"Lunar Lake" will pick up the mantle from "Meteor Lake" in the U-segment and H-segment (that's ultraportables, and thin-and-light), when it comes out later this year (we predict in the second half of 2024), with Core Ultra 2-series branding. Intel also referenced "Arrow Lake," which could finally bring light to the sluggish pace of development in its desktop segment. When it comes out later this year, "Arrow Lake" will debut Socket LGA1851, "Arrow Lake" will bring the AI Boost NPU to the desktop, along with Arc Xe-LPG integrated graphics. The biggest upgrade of course will be its new Compute tile, with its "Lion Cove" P-cores, and "Skymont" E-cores, that possibly offer a large IPC uplift over the current combination of "Raptor Cove" and "Gracemont" cores on the "Raptor Lake" silicon. It's also possible that Intel will try to bring "Meteor Lake" with its 6P+8E Compute tile, Xe-LPG iGPU, and NPU, to the LGA1851 socket, as part of some mid-range processor models. 2024 will see a Intel desktop processor based on a new architecture, which is the big takeaway here.

Intel today concluded its client-segment processor launch series with the introduction of the new 14th Gen Core "Raptor Lake Refresh" desktop processor family with 65 W (non-K) models. These would fill the gaps between the various unlocked "K" 125 W SKUs Intel launched in October 2023. All processor models in the series come with base power values of 65 W, with maximum turbo power ranging between 110 W for the Core i3 4P+0E processors, to roughly 154 W for the Core i5 6P+8E processors, to 220 W for the Core i7 8P+12E processors, and as high as 225 W for the top Core i9 8P+16E models.

The Core i9-14900 and i9-14900F offer a maximum P-core boost frequency in line with their K and KF counterparts, of 6.00 GHz, although their base frequency is lowered in line with their reduced base power. The Core i7-14700 and i7-14700F tick at speeds of up to 5.60 GHz. The Core i9 and Core i7 series processor models make use of the "Raptor Lake Refresh" silicon that has 2 MB of L2 cache per P-core, 4 MB of L2 cache per E-core cluster, and up to 36 MB of L3 cache; while the 65 W Core i5 series is based on the smaller silicon that has 1.25 MB of L2 cache per P-core, 2 MB of L2 cache per E-core cluster, and up to 30 MB of L3 cache.

Intel's current generation mobile processor product stack is vast, to say the least. In Q4-2023, the company launched its Core Ultra "Meteor Lake" mobile processors spanning the U-segment (7 W to 28 W), and H-segment (35 W to 45 W). Today, the company capped the upper end of the stack with the 14th Gen Core HX-series mobile processors based on "Raptor Lake Refresh," which dial up core counts to 8P+16E. And now, the company is adding more choice to the U-segment with the Core Processor Series 1, based on a lower core-count variant of the "Raptor Lake Refresh" architecture.

The Core Processor Series 1 follows the same nomenclature as the Core Ultra, where the "Ultra" denotes the latest "Meteor Lake" architecture. Processor model numbering and case badges are similar between Core Processor Series 1 and Core Ultra, except the lack of the "Ultra" brand extension. These chips are built on the monolithic "Raptor Lake Refresh" dies on the Intel 7 foundry node, and lack innovations such as the Low-power Island cores, 3D Performance Hybrid architecture, the all important AI Boost and on-silicon NPU; as well as that 2x faster Arc Xe-LPG integrated graphics, but use existing combinations of "Raptor Cove" and "Gracemont" CPU cores, along with older Xe-LP graphics with up to 96 EU; and a mostly similar I/O.

GIGABYTE Technology, a leading global powerhouse in motherboards, graphics cards, and cutting-edge hardware solutions, proudly unveils the world's first motherboard designed to seamlessly support the native USB-C 40 Gbps signal when paired with the cutting-edge AMD Ryzen 8000 series processors.

"We are thrilled to introduce a motherboard that not only supports the cutting-edge AMD Ryzen 8000 series processors but also incorporates advanced features that cater to the evolving needs of our users. This marks a significant leap forward in terms of performance, user-friendliness, and design aesthetics." Said Jackson Hsu, Director of the GIGABYTE Channel Solutions Product Development Division.

The AMD Socket AM4 platform is still alive and kicking, with AMD releasing new processor models in its 7th year. Many of these chips started selling online in Europe. The Ryzen 7 5700X3D is a slightly lower clocked version of the 5800X3D, which for many of those still on AM4 is the final upgrade to their platform. The 5800X3D may be based on the older "Zen 3" microarchitecture, but thanks to its 3D Vertical Cache technology, offers gaming performance comparable to the Core i9-12900K "Alder Lake," making even 7-year old AM4 gaming desktops contemporary. To cash in on this exact market, AMD released a more cost-effective option, the Ryzen 7 5700X3D.

The 5700X3D is an 8-core/16-thread Socket AM4 processor that features 96 MB of L3 cache thanks to the 3D V-cache technology, just like the 5800X3D, but comes with a maximum boost frequency of 4.10 GHz, compared to the 4.50 GHz of the 5800X3D. Store listings do not mention its TDP or base frequency. The 5700X3D is being listed at 271€ including taxes, or about 15-20% cheaper than the 5800X3D. A word of caution when choosing the 5700X3D would be its close to non-existent overclocking headroom, so this probably isn't a chip that you can manually overclock to performance levels of a 5800X3D while saving some 40€ on the side.

Mini PC designer Geekom is bring three innovative desktops to the 2024 International CES, based on the very latest mobile processors by Intel and AMD. These boxes are hinged on MoDT (mobile on desktop) hardware, meaning that energy efficient mobile processors are crammed into compact desktop cases, and wired out with all the connectivity they can put out. The three mini PC models Geekom is launching includes the IT14 Pro, the A8 Max, and the APro8 Max. The Geekcom IT14 Pro comes in a 0.7-liter chassis (about the size of a NUC), and is powered by an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H "Meteor Lake" processor configured with 6P+8E+2LP cores, or 16-core/22-thread. The desktop relies entirely on the maxed out Arc iGPU with all its 8 Xe cores enabled (128 EU). The NPU is also enabled. The company didn't reveal the memory, storage, or WLAN configuration of this desktop, yet.

The A8 Max is based on a similar 1-liter class chassis, but uses an AMD Ryzen 7 8840HS or Ryzen 9 8940HS "Hawk Point" processor, both of which are 8-core/16-thread "Zen 4," and configured with the full Radeon 780M iGPU available (12 CU or 768 stream processors). The star attraction here is the updated Ryzen AI NPU, which drives up the AI inference performance of these chips to 39 TOPS, compared to 34 TOPS of the Intel "Meteor Lake" chips. The APro8 Max is a based on a physically larger chassis that looks a bit like a game console. It's based on mostly the same hardware as the A8 Max, but with an added Radeon RX 7600M XT discrete GPU, which should give it the ability to offer maxed out AAA gaming at 1080p, or power productivity workloads at 4K UHD. We shoud know more about these three in Vegas next month.