Gigabyte has reportedly requested that reviewers refrain from revealing too much about newly refreshed motherboards—TPU's Darksaber was invited to take a closer look at "next generation motherboards" in late August, but representatives were cautious to mutter anything too obvious or specific about Intel's oft-leaked Raptor Lake Refresh/14th Gen Core CPU lineup. Fast forward to recent happenings—VideoCardz believes that Gigabyte had prepped a bunch of new motherboard products to showcase in parallel with Team Blue's September Innovation event—many expected to see Raptor Lake Refresh unveiled to a great degree, but an official announcement was instead relegated to a 12-second long livestreamed segment.

The Taiwanese computer hardware manufacturer/distributor has allegedly manoeuvred to avoid breaking its partner's embargoes—VideoCardz stated: "Consequently, Gigabyte had to request reviewers to conceal any details pertaining to the new CPU series on the packaging and motherboards they had received as initially intended." Their report includes various pieces of evidence (screenshots and video captures)—focusing on a slightly rejigged AORUS Z790 Master X motherboard, which seems to sport "Core 14th gen processors" livery.

Intel's Core i5-14600K CPU was benchmarked mid-September, courtesy of ECSM getting their hands on some engineering samples—these examples were put under strain through Cinebench R23, Cinebench 2024, and CPU-Z suites. The ever reliable Benchleaks has kept track of mid-range Raptor Lake Refresh processor leaks—late last week they pointed to a new entry on Geekbench Browser. PC hardware news outlets have reported that reviewers now possess pre-release silicon, so we should be expecting an increase in leaky activity over the next fortnight—Intel's official embargo will likely be lifted on the 14th Gen Core launch day (October 17). Team Blue's Core i5-14600K has popped up a few times via Geekbench 6.2 results—TestKT's build was running on stock settings, and hit a maximum clock of 5.3 GHz (K and KF variants), with an ASUS Z790 TUF PLUS motherboard accompanied by 32 GB of DDR5-5200 memory, while an anonymous bencher fielded a system sporting a Gigabyte Z790 AORUS Master X mainboard and 48 GB DDR5-7600 RAM. The latter had some overclocking on the go; Geekbench 6.2 stats reported clocks reaching 5.7 GHz on the Core i5-14600K.

TestKT's stock 14600K achieved scores of 2819 in single-threaded, and 16666 multi-threaded. Their 14600KF scored 2779 and 16707 (respectively) on the same ASUS platform. The unnamed Gigabyte system wielder tallied 2861 (SC) and 17974 (MC) on an overclocked 14600K. VideoCardz noted that: "this represents a minor increase in single-core performance and approximately an 8% improvement in multi-threaded performance." They brought in a previously leaked higher-end CPU for comparative purposes: "Since the latter score is using the same (Gigabyte) system as in the Core i7-14700KF Geekbench leak, we can now conclude that Core i7 CPU will be at least 8% and 18% faster respectively than the Core i5 SKU. That's, of course, assuming both scores were using OC settings." We will have to wait until the publication of official reviews to find out whether these figures were produced on finalized silicon.

Lenovo unveils a selection of IdeaPad Chromebook Plus laptops, bringing together elevated hardware components with AI-powered tools for more productivity, creativity, and ease of use.

Lenovo's lineup of IdeaPad Chromebook Plus laptops continues the legacy of showcasing the ideal balance of value and performance, the ability to do more from anywhere, and reliability for peace of mind. Now equipped with more exclusive tools and premium services, the new selection of laptops comes with File Sync to access Google Drive files offline, a 1080p webcam with AI-powered video calling tools for crystal clear video conferencing, and other advanced features including the AI-powered Google Photos Magic Eraser that easily removes unwanted distractions from photos.

ASUS today announced ASUS Chromebook Plus CX34, a compact, lightweight and cost-effective all-rounder 14-inch laptop that's ideal for users seeking enhanced productivity and creativity on the go. Chromebook Plus laptops offer up to double the speed, double the memory, and double the storage—and Chromebook Plus CX34 is the very first Chromebook Plus from ASUS. ASUS Chromebook Plus Enterprise CX34 built with ChromeOS business device manageability will be released this year mid-November.

Powerful, portable and primed to push productivity further, ASUS Chromebook Plus CX34 sports a stylish and durable design that weighs a mere 1.44 kg and is packed with features to help users achieve more. These include AI-powered tools and apps powered by an up to Intel Core i7 processor, as well as a 180° lay-flat hinge, expansive 5.7-inch touchpad, fast, stable WiFi 6 and up to 10-hour battery life to enable energetic individuals to power through everyday work and play. The all-new laptop is available in Pearl White or Rock Grey colorways, exuding understated modern style.

Acer today launched the company's first Chromebook Plus laptops, the Acer Chromebook Plus 515 and Acer Chromebook Plus 514, debuting with Google's Chromebook Plus initiative that offers a new tier of Chromebook performance, emphasizing better hardware designs with upgraded displays and cameras, and paired with new productivity, creativity, and multimedia capabilities.

The Acer Chromebook Plus 515 and Acer Chromebook Plus 514 both have the hardware and technology features customers need to stay productive, entertained and connected. These new models are powered by modern high-performance processors, and high-resolution IPS displays and 1080p crystal clear cameras flanked by narrow bezels to keep the focus on the vibrant visuals.

ASUS today announced that the official signing ceremony with Intel Corporation, marking the handover of the Intel Next Unit of Computing (NUC) product lines, has been successfully completed. ASUS will now manufacture and sell Intel NUC 10th to 13th generation systems product lines, and will develop future NUC systems. Intel NUC solutions are small-form-factor devices or compute elements that are customizable and ideal for business, edge computing, and gaming environments.

A smooth transition
Following the official handover from Intel, ASUS kicked-off its NUC business and started to take orders for NUC 10th to 13th generation systems on September 1. The new business is generating a wide variety of exciting opportunities for the company and the transition has progressed smoothly for NUC customers. The vision of the newly established ASUS NUC BU is to provide the most impactive edge computing with comprehensive commercial and AIoT solutions that can sustain the industry and businesses.

Square Enix has released Forspoken Version Update Patch 1.22, making it the first game to officially support the AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution 3. In addition to FSR 3 support, the new Forspoken Version Update Patch 1.22 also adds the Native AA quality mode options and fixes some issues with save data between the main game and DLC.

According to the release notes, the update will not come to the PlayStation 5 version, and the Microsoft Store version will be updated as soon as the patch is approved. Surprisingly, Square Enix describes the AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution 3 as technology that "combines temporal upscaling and frame generation to deliver significantly higher performance," and says that the frame generation is enabled separately from upscaling and is available when using AMD Radeon RX 5000 Series, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 20 Series, and Intel Arc 7 Series or newer GPUs. It is left to be seen if these will indeed work on Intel Arc series GPUs, as it was never officially confirmed by AMD.

Intel Foundry Services (IFS) today announced that it will commence mass-production on its first silicon fabrication node that leverages extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography, Intel 4. On September 29, the Intel 4 node will start rolling at the company's facility in Leixlip, Ireland, dubbed Fab 34. CEO Pat Gelsinger, Dr. Ann Kelleher, general manager of Technology Development at Intel, and Keyvan Esfarjani, chief global operations officer, will be present at a ceremony commemorating production of the first wafers.

Intel 4 is an advanced foundry that leverages EUV, and offers both transistor densities and electrical characteristics comparable to TSMC's 5 nm-class and 4 nm-class foundry nodes. Among the first chips to be built are the compute tiles of the company's Core "Meteor Lake" processors, which contain their next-generation CPU cores. Compared to the current Intel 7 node, Intel 4 offers double the area scaling for logic libraries, a 20% iso-power improvement, and introduces the new metal-insulator-metal (MIM) capacitor.

GIGABYTE Technology, Giga Computing, a subsidiary of GIGABYTE and an industry leader in high-performance servers, server motherboards, and workstations, today announced ahead of exhibiting at the OCP Global Summit new OCP ORv3 based solutions, including ones designed for GPU centric workloads in immersion cooling. The new GIGABYTE products include a 2OU node tray, TO25-BT0, and compute nodes: TO25-S10, TO25-S11, TO25-S12, TO25-Z10, TO25-Z11, and TO25-Z12. For immersion cooling server deployments with ORv3 specifications are the new GPU servers: TO15-S40, TO15-S41, and TO15-Z40.

Our commitment to support Open Compute Project's designs dates back almost a decade starting with our OCP v1.0 products, and now we are releasing some well-designed, in demand ORv3 products. Through discussions with several customers, we decided to move forward with the development of these configurations. These designs check the boxes for specifications that are required," said Vincent Wang, Sales VP at Giga Computing. "We will continue supporting ORv3 specifications and we have more products on the horizon in Q1 2024.

The corporate world of semiconductor companies has seen some restructuring lately, and today, we learn that Ryan Shrout of Intel is leaving the company. Most recently serving as Senior Director of Client Segment Strategy, CCG at Graphics and AI Group, Ryan Shrout joined Intel over four years ago. Mr. Shrout started at the company as Chief Performance Strategist in 2018, and later, in 2020, he changed his role to Senior Director of Technical and Competitive Client Marketing. After that, he made a switch and was Senior Director of Gaming, Graphics, and HPC Marketing (AXG Marketing). His most recent role was relatively short-lived, only lasting for three months.

Many people in the community may know Mr. Shrout from his time at PC Perspective, which he founded and managed as Editor-in-Chief in 1999. However, today, on his Twitter/X profile, we're learning that he is departing Intel to take on another role. "Fall is a season for change! Yesterday was my last day at Intel. I'm going to take a couple weeks with the family then I'm excited to talk about what's next," the post stated. With such extensive experience in the PC industry, we are eager to see where Mr. Shrout lands next.

Intel's forthcoming Core Ultra 7 1002H "Meteor Lake" mobile CPU has been sighted a few times, thanks to samples turning up on the Geekbench Browser database. We are months away from the official launch day—December 14—but multiple models have been leaking out since late summer. Team Blue has used different designations for evaluation and qualification silicon—we can assume that another Ultra 7 165H appearing online (courtesy of Geekbench 6.1 tests) has concreted that nomenclature as the finished/final article. Model codes and hierarchy information were not made available at Intel Innovation 2023 (last week), where Team Blue reps discussed Meteor Lake's AI-crunching capabilities.

Leaked information shows the Core Ultra 7 1002H being nigh identical in terms of specifications (16 cores/22 threads) and engineering platform (MTL-P). Benchmarked results between the engineering sample (1002H) and Core Ultra 7 165H are pretty close—respectively: 2439 versus 2502 (single-core) and 12668 versus 12545 (multi-core). We are seeing a slight improvement in single-threaded performance, but the prototype edges out its newer counterpart by 123 points. Both units were benched on an "Intel Corporation Meteor Lake Client Platform," using balanced power plans in Windows 11 (Pro and Enterprise, respectively).

Symantec, a division of Broadcom Inc., is partnering with Google Cloud to embed generative AI (gen AI) into the Symantec Security platform in a phased rollout that will give customers a significant technical edge for detecting, understanding, and remediating sophisticated cyber attacks.

Symantec is leveraging the Google Cloud Security AI Workbench and security-specific large language model (LLM)--Sec-PaLM 2-across its portfolio to enable natural language interfaces and generate more comprehensive and easy-to-understand threat analyses. With Security AI Workbench-powered summarization of complex incidents and alignment to MITRE ATT&CK context, security operations center (SOC) analysts of all levels can better understand threats and be able to respond faster. That, in turn, translates into greater security and higher SOC productivity.

CORSAIR, a world leader in enthusiast components for gamers, creators, and PC builders, today launched the much anticipated latest addition to its award-winning memory line-up, DOMINATOR TITANIUM DDR5 memory. Built using some of the fastest DDR5 ICs alongside patented CORSAIR DHX cooling technology for improved overclocking potential, DOMINATOR TITANIUM continues the DOMINATOR legacy with a stunning design and blazing performance.

Sporting an elegant, fresh new aesthetic and built using premium materials and components, DOMINATOR TITANIUM DDR5 memory will be available for both Intel and AMD platforms, supporting Intel XMP 3.0 when paired with 12th and 13th-Gen Core processors or AMD EXPO for Ryzen 7000 CPUs. These technologies enable easy overclocking in just a couple of clicks on compatible platforms.

Samsung Electronics, a world leader in advanced memory technology, today announced that it has developed the industry's first Low Power Compression Attached Memory Module (LPCAMM) form factor, which is expected to transform the DRAM market for PCs and laptops - and potentially even data centers. Samsung's groundbreaking development for its 7.5 gigabits-per-second (Gbps) LPCAMM has completed system verification through Intel's platform. Historically, PCs and laptops have conventionally used LPDDR DRAM or DDR-based So-DIMMs. While LPDDR is compact, it's permanently attached to the motherboard, making it challenging to replace during repairs or upgrades. On the other hand, So-DIMMs can be attached or detached easily but have limitations with performance and other physical features.

LPCAMM overcomes the shortcomings of both LPDDR and So-DIMMs, addressing the increased demand for more efficient yet compact devices. Being a detachable module, LPCAMM offers enhanced flexibility for PC and laptop manufacturers during the production process. Compared to So-DIMM, LPCAMM occupies up to 60% less space on the motherboard. This allows more efficient use of devices' internal space while also improving performance by up to 50% and power efficiency by up to 70%. LPDDR's power-saving features have made it an attractive option for servers, since it could potentially improve total cost of operation (TCO) efficiency. However, using LPDDR can create operational difficulties such as the need to replace the entire motherboard when upgrading a server's DRAM specifications. LPCAMM offers a solution to these challenges, creating significant potential for it to become the solution of choice for future data centers and servers.

Intel did put a small spotlight on its upcoming 14th Gen Core "Raptor Lake Refresh" processor series at last week's Innovation event. This very brief aspect of their presentation has received only minor press coverage (in retrospect) since Team Blue did not do a great deal to publicize their "next-gen" release. In a pre-keynote segment on the second day of proceedings, an on-the-floor demonstration focused on AI-related virtual production methods. Craig Raymond, a Team Blue Technologist, showcased a workstation rig that deals with "meta-human" avatar plug-in for Unreal Engine.

Raymond pointed to a PC tower positioned under the work desk and introduced it as "running on our Raptor Lake Refresh right here," he continued: "so, we're showing off some of our brand new hardware for the first time, that is pre-launch, so we're giving everyone a first peek on what that really looks like." A grand total of 12 seconds was dedicated to 14th Gen Core during the second day livestream. They quickly moved onto previewing a Thunderbolt 5-equipped laptop that sat in the demo room. Intel is likely lining up a proper reveal of Raptor Lake Refresh SKUs closer to the expected October 17 launch of higher-end K and KF variants.

Andreas Schilling, editor at Hardwareluxx, noticed some interesting looking Intel Meteor Lake-related merchandise very recently—last week's Innovation event served as a proper public unveiling of the next generation mobile processor series, scheduled to launch on December 14. Team Blue showcased their new advanced disaggregated chiplet design during a keynote presentation, but did not provide a comprehensive breakdown of upcoming SKUs and feature sets. A couple of clues were presented in plain sight (see below)—Schilling reckons that some tongue-in-cheek marketing was in effect: "Intel is leaking with its own swag. We know there will be different configurations of the compute, I/O and graphics tiles with Meteor Lake. The GPU will use 8 or 4 Xe cores it seems."

Intel has hyped up Meteor Lake's integrated GPU chiplet as having "performance parallelism and throughput, ideal for AI infused in media, 3D applications and the render pipeline." VideoCardz had this to say about the Alchemist-derived setup: "This integration of Xe-LPG architecture is expected to deliver a 2x performance boost compared to the existing Xe-LP architecture found in Raptor Lake. Intel put a lot of emphasis on supporting 10 W gaming with this architecture, potentially opening a new competing front versus AMD RDNA 3 in handheld." The Meteor Lake "swag" hints that at least two different configurations are in the works, with 8 or 4 Xe-Cores (as printed on the two pieces of merch). Intel's Meteor Lake SKU hierarchy could consist of models with varying levels of iGPU potency, since the chiplet design provides a great deal of flexibility.

BIOSTAR, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, and storage devices today, is excited to unveil the brand-new H610MS and H610MHD D5 motherboards designed to supplement the needs of modern day professionals and home users seamlessly. Built based on Intel H610 single-chip architecture, ready for 12th and 13th Gen Intel Core Processors, these motherboards are ideal for the working professional, making tasks such as web browsing, emailing, and document management a breeze. For the home user, it delivers an unparalleled experience whether watching movies on Netflix, listening to music, gaming, or even for HTPC uses like streaming, live TV recording, and more.

The H610MS motherboard supports the robust DDR4 memory modules. Users can utilize 2 DIMM slots with a capacity of up to 64 GB. Meanwhile, the H610MHD D5 motherboard is designed to handle the latest DDR5 memory modules across a similar 2-DIMM configuration of up to 96 GB of Memory, ensuring users have a breadth of choices for their distinct build preferences. These motherboards are brimming with cutting-edge features tailored to modern computing demands. Each board seamlessly supports USB 3.2 Gen 1, ensuring rapid data transfers and connectivity. Additionally, they are primed for the future with support for both PCIe 4.0 and PCIe 3.0 interfaces, offering enhanced versatility for expansions. Furthermore, they are equipped to accommodate the blazing speeds of PCIe 3.0 M.2 drives with a bandwidth of 32 Gb/s, catering to users who seek swift storage solutions.

PC World's senior editor, Mark Hachman, managed to corner an important Team Blue staffer during this week's Innovation 2023 event, where Core Ultra "Meteor Lake" processors were presented in an official manner. This CPU family is set to arrive on December 14, but starting out only in mobile form—past leaks have yoyo-ed between rumored plans for desktop variants being alive or getting canned entirely. Michelle Johnston Holthaus—executive vice president and general manager of the Client Computing Group at Intel Corporation—confirmed to PC World in a video interview that Meteor Lake desktop SKUs are scheduled for launch next year. She elaborated on this slightly surprising declaration: "I want one processor family top to bottom for both segments, doesn't everybody?"

Exact details regarding release timings were not disclosed, but previous leaks have indicated that the rest of Intel's 14th Gen Core/Raptor Lake Refresh desktop lineup is due in early 2024—a product launch of 65 W TDP-rated SKUs could coincide with CES 2024. A "Meteor Lake-S" desktop CPU series is speculated to be placed mid-year, while the Arrow Lake generation is believed to be slated for late 2024. Reports have suggested that Meteor Lake has been delayed numerous times due to developmental setbacks—a leaked presentation slide seemed to show MTL-S SKUs (on socket LGA1851) being limited to 35 and 65 W TDPs, thus restricting the range to Core i3 and i5 product lines. Intel's new naming scheme—for the Meteor Lake generation—will assign "Core Ultra 5" instead of "Core i5" if new models land in the "Premium" processor bracket. We are not entirely sure where the future equivalent to "Core i3" will stick in the lower-end hierarchy, but the revised naming system suggests that it will only exist within Intel's "Mainstream" tier—so just a plain "Core 3," without any mention of Ultra performance or feature set.

Team Blue's marketing team has kicked into hype mode—Meteor Lake is launching at the tail end of 2023—with a shift in naming conventions comes another rebranding of internal technologies. The previously identified versatile processing unit (VPU) is now going under a different moniker: "Intel will usher in the age of the AI PC with the upcoming Intel Core Ultra processors, code-named Meteor Lake, featuring Intel's first integrated neural processing unit, or NPU, for power-efficient AI acceleration and local inference on the PC. Intel confirmed Core Ultra will launch Dec. 14." Michael Larabel, principal author at Phoronix, has noticed that newly updated versions of the Linux kernel have the "IVPU" accelerator driver bundled in. This will: "support Meteor Lake's VPU/NPU, while a patch is pending to extend that support for next-generation Arrow Lake processors."

In his opinion, there are some shared aspects across the two CPU generations: "Intel's Arrow Lake NPU appears very similar to that of Meteor Lake with the driver enablement coming down to adding new PCI IDs...(with) this patch adding the new Arrow Lake PCI IDs to the existing Meteor Lake driver code paths for this DRM accelerator driver is all that's needed to enable the VPU." Team Blue jumped two generations ahead at this week's Innovation event—Lunar Lake showed up in a live demo. Larabel believes that this late 2024 CPU family will revolve the dial to a greater degree: "The VPU/NPU with Lunar Lake brings more significant changes with the open-source driver changes already underway there. With Lunar Lake is the new VPU4 IP and the Linux 6.6 kernel with its updated IVPU driver already has initial support there."

YuuKi_AnS has brought renewed attention to an already leaked Intel "Emerald Rapids" processor—the 5th Gen Xeon Platinum 8580 CPU was identified with 60 cores and 120 threads in a previous post, but a follow up has appeared in the form of an engineering prototype (ES2-Q2SP-A0). Yuuki noted: "samples are for reference only, and the actual performance is subject to the official version." Team Blue has revealed a launch date—December 14 2023—for its 5th Gen Xeon Scalable processor lineup, so it is not surprising to see pre-release examples appear online a couple of months beforehand. This particular ES2 SKU (on A0 silicon) fields an all P-Core configuration consisting of Raptor Cove units, with a dual-chiplet design (30 cores per die). There is a significant bump up in cache sizes when compared to the current "Sapphire Rapids" generation—Wccftech outlines these allocations: "Each core comes with 2 MB of L2 cache for up to 120 MB of L2 cache. The whole chip also features 300 MB of L3 cache which combines to offer a total cache pool of 420 MB."

They bring in some of the competition for comparison: "That's a 2.6x increase in cache versus the existing Sapphire Rapids CPU lineup and while it still doesn't match the 480 MB L3 cache of standard (AMD) Genoa or the 1.5 GB cache pool of Genoa-X, it is a good start for Intel to catch up." Team Blue appears ready to take on AMD on many levels—this week's Innovation Event produced some intriguing announcements including "Sierra Forest vs. Bergamo" and plans to embrace 3D Stacked Cache technology. Yuuki's small batch of screenshots show the Xeon Platinum 8580 CPU's captured clock speeds are far from the finished article—just a touch over 2.0 GHz, so very likely limited to safe margins. An unnamed mainboard utilizing Intel's Eagle Stream platform was logged sporting a dual-socket setup—the test system was running a grand total of 120 cores and 240 threads!

The European Commission has re-imposed a fine of around €376.36 million on Intel for a previously established abuse of dominant position in the market for computer chips called x86 central processing units ('CPUs'). Intel engaged in a series of anticompetitive practices aimed at excluding competitors from the relevant market in breach of EU antitrust rules.

With today's decision, we are re-imposing a €376.36 million fine on Intel for having abused its dominant position in the computer chips market. Intel paid its customers to limit, delay or cancel the sale of products containing computer chips of its main rival. This is illegal under our competition rules. Our decision shows the Commission's commitment to ensure that very serious antitrust breaches do not go unsanctioned. - Commissioner Didier Reynders, in charge of competition policy

SK hynix announced on September 22 that it showcased its latest memory technologies and products at Intel Innovation 2023 held September 19-20 in the western U.S. city of San Jose, California. Hosted by Intel since 2019, Intel Innovation is an annual IT exhibition which brings together the technology company's customers and partners to share the latest developments in the industry. At this year's event held at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center, SK hynix showcased its advanced semiconductor memory products which are essential in the generative AI era under the slogan "Pioneer Tomorrow With the Best."

Products that garnered the most interest were HBM3, which supports the high-speed performance of AI accelerators, and DDR5 RDIMM, a DRAM module for servers with 1bnm process technology. As one of SK hynix's core technologies, HBM3 has established the company as a trailblazer in AI memory. SK hynix plans to further strengthen its position in the market by mass-producing HBM3E (Extended) from 2024. Meanwhile, DDR5 RDIMM with 1bnm, or the 5th generation of the 10 nm process technology, also offers outstanding performance. In addition to supporting unprecedented transfer speeds of more than 6,400 megabits per second (Mbps), this low-power product helps customers simultaneously reduce costs and improve ESG performance.

Fans of Team Blue's Alchemist graphics architecture were slightly disappointed by no new discrete Arc GPU products showing up at this week's Innovation event—where product presentations focused heavily on the CPU-side of things. There was a small hope of Intel's Arc A580 GPU making an appearance at Intel's California gig, following alleged pre-release samples getting benchmarked over the summer. This was the first sign of activity in a year—the three other first generation Alchemist SKUs (A380, A750 and A770) have been released into the wild.

The whole series suffered numerous delays, and launched to a mixed reception late last year. Intel engineers have produced plenty of driver updates and software improvements at an admirable rate throughout 2023. We have not heard much about Alchemist+ since springtime—leaked presentation slides indicated that a refreshed generation was marked for launch around the third and fourth quarters of this year. Given that Team Blue did not showcase Arc "1.5" cards during their Innovation show, we can assume that deadlines have been missed yet again. Battlemage has been spotted most recently—in the form of a BMG G10 GPU sitting in plain sight during a press tour of Intel's Malaysian facility. It will be interesting to find out whether this fully next-generation series has been prioritized.

Intel is reportedly settling for 6P+4E as the CPU core configuration for its upcoming Core i5-14400 and i5-14400F desktop processors. That's 6 performance cores or P-cores, and 4 efficiency cores or E-cores. Two distinct engineering samples of the i5-14400 were spotted in the wild, one of which had a 6P+4E configuration, and the other believed to be with 6P+8E, like the rest of the 14th Gen Core i5 series. There are two distinct steppings of the i5-14400 among the engineering samples, besides the core-configuration, B0 and C0.

What differentiates B0 from C0 is the specific die they're based on. B0 is the larger "Raptor Lake-S" die that physically has 8 P-cores and 16 E-cores, which has been significantly cut down to achieve the 6P+4E configuration; whereas C0 is the die the "Alder Lake-S" top-spec processor models were based on, which physically have an 8P+8E configuration. Both B0 and C0 Core i5-14400/F processors have 6P+4E. The P-cores on both steppings, including B0, are configured with 1.25 MB of dedicated L2 cache, the E-core clusters on both each have 2 MB of L2 cache; and both get 20 MB of shared L3 cache, and 65 W of processor base power. The Core i5-14400 and i5-14400F succeed a long line of successful processor models for Intel, positioned around or below the $200 mark.

Durabook, an innovator in purpose-built, rugged computing solutions, today announced the launch of the next-generation S15 Semi-Rugged Laptop equipped with the latest Intel 12th Gen Alder Lake platform. The combination of this powerful CPU, coupled with a comprehensive set of connectivity options, security support, and its capability for further expandability makes this semi-rugged laptop with its large screen the perfect support for professional field services personnel running ever more sophisticated applications in challenging conditions.

The laptop's 15.6" Full HD display may be the first thing to turn the head of a field service professional, but the CPU performance of the S15 Semi-Rugged Laptop with Intel Core i7 and i5 processors that are up to 206% faster than previously is an eye-opener. Looking past the handsome rugged exterior, at the Intel Iris Xe Graphics package, ultra-reliable connectivity, and the ability to operate as a workstation configured with up to three storage drives, this is the ideal rugged laptop for field services workers.