Details of ASUS' upcoming Prime N100I-D D4 Mini-ITX motherboard has made an appearance in official pictures posted over at Fanlesstech, although the board was apparently shown at Computex. The interesting part here is that it's under ASUS' Prime branding, which suggests that this will be a retail product, rather than something that would only be available to OEM partners. The Intel Processor N100 is a quad core 3.4 GHz chip based on Intel's Alder Lake-N and it has a 6 W TDP, which means it can be passively cooled.

Although the SoC supports DDR4 and DDR5 memory, at least for this specific SKU, ASUS went with DDR4 support in the shape of a single SO-DIMM slot which accepts up to 3200 MHz memory. The board also sports a single PCIe 3.0 x2 M.2 slot, an M.2 slot for an optional WiFi module, a PCIe 3.0 x1 slot and a single SATA connector and a USB 3.0 header. The odd thing here is that the SoC supports a total of nine PCIe lanes, but ASUS only appears to have made use of four of them. Around the back is a pair of 10 Gbps USB Type-A ports, a pair of 5 Gbps USB Type-A ports and two USB 2.0 ports, a PS/2 port, a serial port, a D-Sub VGA connector, a DisplayPort and an HDMI port of unknown version—although the SoC supports DP 1.4 and HDMI 2.1—a Gigabit Ethernet jack and three audio jacks.

Intel Graphics today released the latest version of Arc GPU Graphics Drivers. Version 101.4499 beta adds optimization for F1 23, Aliens: Dark Descent, Forever Skies, and Counter Strike 2. There are major performance uplifts to be had. Counter Strike 2 sees up to 8% uplift at 1440p with high settings, and up to 10% at 1080p with Very High settings. F1 23 players can expect up to 33% uplift at 1080p with Ultra High settings and RT on, and an 18% uplift with RT off; and a 27% uplift at 1440p with high settings. Intel also updated its Destiny 2 optimization, with a neat 11% uplift to be had at 1080p with the highest settings. An error or black screen seen on applications embedding WebView2 frames, has been fixed.

DOWNLOAD: Intel GPU Graphics Drivers 101.4499 Beta

The U.S. Patent Office tribunal has ruled in favor of Intel Corp in a significant $2.2 billion case against VLSI Technology LLC. Intel's bid to nullify a patent that constituted $1.5 billion of a $2.18 billion verdict it previously lost to VLSI in 2021 was accepted. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board invalidated the computer chip-related patent and another VLSI patent, accounting for the rest of the Texas federal court verdict. An Intel spokesperson expressed their satisfaction with the decision, criticizing the invalidated VLSI patents as "low-quality."

VLSI, the company holding the patent that has filed several infringement lawsuits against Intel, retains the option to appeal both decisions to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. In a separate case last year, VLSI secured a verdict worth $949 million against Intel in Texas. VLSI is a subsidiary of Fortress Investment Group, which is managed by investment funds from SoftBank Group. The patent board proceeding was initiated by South Dakota-based Patent Quality Assurance LLC, while another patent from the $2.18 billion verdict was contested by OpenSky Industries LLC. Despite initial sanctions for attempting to extort both Intel and VLSI, OpenSky was permitted to continue the proceeding with Intel at the helm.

ASUS today announced ProArt Station PD500TE, an all-new tower PC meticulously designed to deliver seamless professional content creation. Powered by an up to 13th Generation Intel Core i9-13900 CPU and NVIDIA RTX A4000 graphics, plus support for NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 graphics cards, PD500TE delivers robust and stable performance for processor-intensive tasks like video editing and 3D modelling. This latest addition to the popular ProArt Station lineup also has a new thermal design for efficient, quieter cooling.

To maximize its creator-friendly credentials, PD500TE has undergone an extensive Independent Software Vendor (ISV) certification process to assure compatibility with leading creative tools. It also features customizable ASUS Lumiwiz LED indicators, a power-button shield to prevent accidental shutdowns, and even rendering-progress email notifications.

Reuters has been informed this week by a trusted insider source that the higher-ups at Intel Corporation are holding talks with Japan's SoftBank about becoming a possible anchor investor in the latter's initial public offering (IPO) of Arm. The British semiconductor and software design company was wholly acquired by the Japanese multinational investment holding firm in 2016. This was followed by a failed takeover bid by NVIDIA—six years later. Arm is aiming to sell its shares via Nasdaq in Q3 or Q4 2023, with a goal of raising around $8 - $10 billion. It also formulated plans to adjust pricing models earlier this year, with news reports labelling the strategic act as an attempt to rake in more royalties.

Intel and Arm have already formed a relationship in recent times—thanks to the development of the former's low-power compute system-on-chips (SoCs). These are set to be built on Intel Foundry's 18A process. The two companies have signed a multi-generation agreement to collaborate on the design of a series of mobile chipsets as an opening product range—diversified options will follow in the future. Arm is rumored (according to Reuters) to be working on its own proprietary chip, but the deal with Intel allows it to use its partner's "open system foundry model."

Intel's marketing machine is not always all-encompassing with new product launches—case in point the recent whisper quiet appearance of a trio of "Arizona Beach" Atom SKUs on the market. It took a ServeTheHome reader to inform the publication about edge-based solutions becoming available to clients—mosty notably Silicom's Valencia Network Appliance. Ark site information from 2022 suggested that Team Blue launched its Arizona Beach series last summer, but zero marketing (at their end) has resulted in publications only taking notice a year later. Silicom started advertising its Valencia network models just before Christmas.

The Intel Atom C1100 (dual-core), C1110 (quad-core), and C1130 (octa-core) have been compared to the Alder Lake-N series—at first glance somebody could assume that the new platform is related to older E-core solutions. The site is already familiar with the previous generation since a staffer recently reviewed a Fanless Intel N100 Firewall. The top-end C1130 has a TDP rating of 32 W which comes as mild surprise—this is an Intel 7 part with a 2.5 GHz base and turbo frequency clock, alongside 6 MB L3 cache and 4 MB L2 cache. ServeTheHome compiled their own spec infographic of the Atom SKUs side-by-side, and soon discovered key selling points: support for dual-channel LPDDR5 memory and PCIe Gen 4 in "either 1x x16 + 1x x4 or 2x x8 + 1x x4 configurations." They conclude that the new Atom series has the potential to become an excellent platform for low-power edge devices, the author also hopes that a Mini-ITX option will turn up eventually.

With the launch of 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors in January 2023, Intel delivered significant advancements in performance with industry-leading Intel accelerator engines and improved performance per watt across key workloads like AI, data analytics, high performance computing (HPC) and others. The industry has taken notice: 4th Gen Xeon has seen a rapid ramp, global customer adoption and leadership performance on a myriad of critical workloads for a broad range of business use cases.

Today, after weeks of rigorous and comprehensive head-to-head testing against the most comparable competitive processors, Intel is sharing compelling results that go far beyond simple industry benchmarks.

Intel Arc graphics have dedicated AI hardware built-in. Leveraging those capabilities for gaming gets the most performance possible out of Arc GPUs, and that's exactly what Xe Super Sampling does. Let's look closer: when you turn on XeSS, every frame the GPU renders starts at a lower size than your target resolution. That smaller image renders quickly, then XeSS steps in. XeSS uses a trained AI model combined with motion vectors and frame history to intelligently upscale frames to full HD, 1440p, or 4K. Got all that? The sausage-making can get pretty technical, but the important thing is turning XeSS on scales games to high resolutions faster than traditional rendering could.

FPS numbers aren't the only thing we're increasing: over fifty games now include XeSS, from the biggest franchises to your niche favorites. When we launched the Intel Arc A750 and A770, we showed how XeSS works to boost FPS in nine popular games with over a dozen more on the way. Now with our high-performance desktop GPUs out for half a year, our game developer friends have helped deliver even more AI-fueled upscaling to over fifty new and existing games. A full list of every game and demo with XeSS included is at the bottom of this article.

According to the report coming from Bloomberg, European Union has approved as much as 8.1 billion Euros (about 8.6 billion USD) for research of advanced semiconductors. Accompanied by the 13.7 billion Euros in private funds, the total investment for boosting domestic semiconductor manufacturing in the EU is almost 22 billion Euros. As part of the European CHIPS Act, the project aims to develop Europe as the world's semiconductor powerhouse, with as much as 20% of all semiconductors produced in the EU by 2030. This ambitious goal is backed by state subsidies, as well as investors creating private pools of funds to aid companies in creating semiconductor manufacturing facilities on European soil.

This Important Project of Common European Interest (IPCEI) on Microelectronics and Communication Technologies is an essential step for Europe's semiconductor independence. Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton noted, "In a geopolitical context of de-risking, Europe is taking its destiny into its own hands. By mastering the most advanced semiconductors, the EU will become an industrial powerhouse in markets of the future." Companies like Intel, Infineon, STMicroelectronics, GlobalFoundries, and Wolfspeed announced European investments, with TSMC considering a production facility in Germany. German Economy Minister Robert Habeck has noted that Germany has 31 projects in 11 regions, adding, "We can thus increase resilience across Europe in this important field and secure value creation and jobs."

According to The Financial Times, the German Finance Minister—Christian Lindner—is not interested in giving Intel more money than already agreed upon. Lindner stated to the news outlet that "There is no more money available in the budget," and went on to say "We are trying to consolidate the budget right now, not expand it." This is bad news for Intel, as the company was hoping to get a total of €10 billion in subsidies from the German government for its new fab in Magdeburg.

Now it looks like Intel will have to make do with the already promised €6.8 billion that the German government has already agreed upon. Intel was hoping to get some additional funds due to higher energy and construction costs, which appears to be something the company now has to cover out of its own pocket. Considering the estimated cost for the first plant in Magdeburg is estimated at €17 billion, it seems only fair that Intel should cover most of the cost of its new fab. Intel is planning to invest around US$88 billion in Europe over the next few years, which includes further expansions to its fab in Ireland, a packaging and assembly plant in Italy and an R&D facility in France.

ASUS today announced ESC N8-E11, its most advanced HGX H100 eight-GPU AI server, along with a comprehensive PCI Express (PCIe) GPU server portfolio—the ESC8000 and ESC4000 series empowered by Intel and AMD platforms to support higher CPU and GPU TDPs to accelerate the development of AI and data science.

ASUS is one of the few HPC solution providers with its own all-dimensional resources that consist of the ASUS server business unit, Taiwan Web Service (TWS) and ASUS Cloud—all part of the ASUS group. This uniquely positions ASUS to deliver in-house AI server design, data-center infrastructure, and AI software-development capabilities, plus a diverse ecosystem of industrial hardware and software partners.

According to a new research report from the analyst firm Jon Peddie Research, unit shipments in the add-in board (AIB) market decreased in Q1 2023 by -12.6% and decreased by -38.2% year to year. Intel increased its add-in board market share by 2% during the first quarter.

The percentage of AIBs in desktop PCs is referred to as the attach rate. The attach rate grew from last quarter by 8% but was down -21% year to year. Approximately 6.3 million add-in boards shipped in Q1 2023. The market shares for the desktop discrete GPU suppliers shifted in the quarter, as AMD's market share remained flat from last quarter. Intel, which entered the AIB market in Q3'22 with the Arc A770 and A750, gained 2% in market share, while Nvidia retains its dominant position in the add-in board space with an 84% market share.

Primate Labs has released the newest update to its cross-platform CPU and GPU benchmark that measures your system's performance, Geekbench 6.1. The latest version brings new features and improvements, including the upgrade to Clang 16, an increased workload gap that should minimize thermal throttling on some devices, as well as introduces support for SVE and AVX 512- FP 16 instructions, and support for fixed-point math. The update also improves multi-core performance.

These changes result in Geekbench 6.1 single-scores to be up to 5 percent higher and multi-core scores up to 10 percent higher, compared to Geekbench 6.0 scores. Due to these differences, Primate Labs recommends that users do not compare scores between Geekbench 6.0 and Geekbench 6.1. Geekbench 6.1 is also a recommended update, according to Primate Labs.

A few weeks ago, we spotted an Intel Core Ultra 7 1003H Meteor Lake-P processor in the wild, running a PugetBench set of benchmarks. Today, we are in luck as there is another Meteor Lake-P processor running in the wild, spotted by @InstLatX64 on Twitter. Called Intel Core Ultra 7 1002H, the CPU represents a similar SKU to the previously discovered 1003. Also, having 16 cores in total, they are split into two categories: 6 Performance cores, and ten Efficient cores, two of which are on the SoC die, divided from the remaining eight on the compute die. Interestingly, only P-cores feature 2-way hyperthreaded, so 12 threads from P-cores and ten threads from E-cores combine into 22 threads.

What we don't know is the frequency of this chip and the position it plays in the Meteor Lake-P family of processors. The screenshot states a potential base clock of 3000 MHz; however, it could be an early engineering sample chip, so we have to wait for the final design. With 1003H having exactly the same core/thread number, we expect that the newly discovered 1002H has potentially lower clocks and TDP to match.

Intel is in the process of discontinuing its eleventh generation Tiger Lake-U CPU lineup according to the company's own Product Change Notification (PCN) system. Team Blue's database points to the final batch of (x86 Willow Cove architecture) processors getting shipped out on December 29, with an October 2023 cutoff point for last orders. These 11th Gen Core units (with Iris Xe iGPUs) have been part of laptops, mobile devices and small-form-factor (SFF) systems since launching in 2020. Intel started the end-of-life (EOL) for more powerful variants (some Tiger Lake-H models and the entire Tiger Lake-B range) back in April of this year.

Tiger Lake was an early example of a 10 nm++ SuperFin product, with improved production yields leading to the creation of high performance gaming laptop CPUs (the aforementioned H and B models), alongside the basic low power U-series. Intel has also added Tiger Lake-H35 models to the discontinuance list (totaling 42 models), and a trio of 500-series chipsets that were designed to accommodate their embedded 11th generation processor family: RM590E, HM570E and QM580E. Plenty of Tiger Lake-based stock still exists on the market, but Intel will be very keen to clear that excess - in favor of making way for its 12th and 13th generation product ranges.

GIGABYTE Technology, one of the top global manufacturers of motherboards, graphics cards, and hardware solutions, has released the Beta BIOS update for Intel 700/600 series motherboards to strengthen support for the new generation Intel Core processors. GIGABYTE has been working closely with Intel to provide users with optimal performance, compatibility, and user experiences. Along with the upcoming new generation Intel Core processors, GIGABYTE's R&D team has developed and validated the Beta BIOS code exclusively for Z790/B760/Z690/B660/H610 motherboards. This ensures a seamless platform upgrade for users once the new processors hit the market.

Users can easily update the BIOS with the latest Beta BIOS file using GIGABYTE's ＠BIOS, Q-Flash, or Q-Flash Plus technology. For the most recent Beta BIOS update, please visit the official GIGABYTE website. For more information, please visit the official GIGABYTE website.

Today, Intel introduced the Intel Arc Pro A60 and Pro A60M as new members of the Intel Arc Pro A-series professional range of graphics processing units (GPUs). The new products are a significant step up in performance in the Intel Arc Pro family and are carefully designed for professional workstations users with up to 12 GB of video memory (VRAM) and support for four displays with high dynamic range (HDR) and Dolby Vision support.

With built-in ray tracing hardware, graphics acceleration and machine learning capabilities, the Intel Arc Pro A60 GPU unites fluid viewports, the latest in visual technologies and rich content creation in a traditional single slot factor.

AAEON's UP brand, known for its sophisticated developer board range, have announced the release of the UP Squared i12, the smallest developer board with 12th Generation Intel Core /Celeron Processor 7000 Series Processors. The 85.6 mm x 90 mm form factor is the latest to move into its third generation, and much like recent releases from the brand's UP Xtreme and UP Squared Pro collections, the UP Squared i12 displays a number of distinct upgrades on its predecessor.

With 12th Generation Intel Core processors and onboard LPDDR5 on such a tiny board, the UP Squared i12 targets a number of key markets with its potential to be deployed as a low-cost, space-efficient, and high-performance foundation for developers to work with. AAEON believe the greater bandwidth speed offered by the board's LPDDR5 will be beneficial to projects in the smart retail space, being particularly suited to applications such as frictionless shopping and intelligent vending machines.

Intel released the Arc GPU Graphics Drivers 101.4382 Beta. Thesse come with performance optimization for "Diablo IV," "Street Fighter 6," and improvements for its previous optimization for "Total War: Warhammer III" (D3D11 mode) Mirror of Madness benchmark, with up to 4% improved framerates to be had at 1080p with Ultra settings. Among the issues fixed with this release include random Vulkan API applications experiencing crashes; an application crash of "The Last of Us Part 1," an application crash with Unreal Engine 5.2 Editor, and lower than expected performance in the Battle Hub benchmark of "Street Fighter 6." Grab the driver from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: Intel Arc GPU Graphics Drivers 101.4832 beta

ENERMAX came to the Computex 2023 in full force, showcasing a wide range of new products including new PSUs with ATX 3.0 certification, as well as the new LIQTECH and LIQMAXFLO AIO liquid CPU coolers with new pump design.

ENERMAX definitely had a lot to show at the Computex 2023 event and there were some rather unique and innovative new products on display, including the PLATIMAX GEMINI, a PSU that meets both ATX 3.0 and Intel's new ATX12VO (12 V-only) standards. PLATIMAX GEMINI is an 80 Plus Platinum 1200 W power supply, that surpasses efficiency standards of the ATX12VO standard. ENERMAX also had the who new REVOLUTION D.F. X PSU lineup that is ATX 3.0 and PCIe 5 ready with a native 600 W 12VHPWR cable and an extra dual 8-pin to 12VHPWR 600 W cable, and features new patented Dust-Free Rotation (D.F.R) technology, a new feature that promises to significantly reduce the accumulation of dust around the fan blades. It also features an ARGB side panel with 14 built in lighting modes, and an RGB control button. ENERMAX was showcasing the SPLAVE X REVOLUTION D.F. X PSU, a special edition 1200 W PSU designed in cooperation with a well-known overclocker Splave.

Sparkle already announced that it will be coming up with the Intel Arc graphics card lineup soon, and it came to the Computex 2023 show in force, showing some rather impressive graphics cards, including the Arc A770 Watercooling concept, a couple of custom TITAN OC Edition graphics cards, and the A370 MXM version.

Sparkle's Intel Arc lineup starts off with some industrial low-profile graphics cards based on Intel Arc A310 and Arc A380 graphics cards, as well as standard Mini-ITX size ELF series versions which will be based on the same GPUs. Sparkle is also working on an Intel Arc A370 MXM GPU for laptops, which is a nice surprise. The main part of the showcase were certainly Sparkle's Intel Arc ORC and TITAN OC Edition custom versions of the Intel Arc A750 and Arc A770 chips. The biggest surprise though was the custom Sparkle A770 Watercooling concept. Sparkle is definitely serious in joining the Intel Arc team with Acer, ASRock, GUNNIR, Gigabyte, MSI and others, so hopefully we'll see some of these graphics cards on retail/e-tail shelves soon.

Schenker XMG also unveiled the new PRO 16 Studio workstation laptop at the Computex 2023 event, which will be equipped with an Intel Core i9-13900H CPU and up to an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070. In addition, the company is announcing the new WORK Base series and Vision-series laptops that are available under the Schenker brand, introducing new form-factors and bringing several other updates.

The new XMG Pro 16 Studio promises to be quite a versatile workstation laptop aimed at content creators, using a 16:10 aspect ratio screen, and packing some serious power with Intel's Core i9-13900H CPU and up to an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 graphics card, as well as two DDR5 slots with DDR5-5200 support, and Thunderbolt 4. The XMG Pro 16 Studio also comes with NVIDIA Studio certification. Schenker also showed the efficient vapor chamber cooling that will be used in the XMG Pro 16 Studio. It also brings several upgrades compared to the current XMG Focus 16 laptop, which it can be compared to, at least performance-wise, including an additional USB-C power delivery, a Windows Hello camera, 2.5 Gbit LAN, longer battery life, and a slimmer aluminium body. Schenker notes that the XMG PRO 16 Studio should be available in Europe in late July or early August.

Somewhat unexpectedly, QNAP has entered the high-end video production market with a couple of products that the company was demoing at Computex. First up is the TBS-574TX, which is a high-end, yet compact NAS with 10 Gbps Ethernet and Thunderbolt 4 support. However, what makes this device so unique, is that it features five hot-swappable E1.S drives, which means that video production companies can easily swap between different projects which can be put in cold storage when not worked on. The TBS-574TX is based around a 12th gen, 12 core Intel Core i5 CPU, although QNAP didn't specify the exact model, but it's likely to be a mobile part with native Thunderbolt 4 support. The CPU is paired with 16 GB of RAM, which should make this a fairly snappy NAS overall. QNAP will also offer E1.S to M.2 adapters, but the company is still working on how to implement these with a suitable cooling solution.

For companies that need something faster than 10 Gbps or even 25 Gbps networking to shuffle files around, QNAP also demoed the QSW-M7308R-4X—a model name that just rolls off your tongue—which features no less than four 100 Gbps ports and eight 25 Gbps ports. The key selling point of this fibre based switch is that it doesn't require any user configuration before it can be deployed in a network, even though it can be managed when needed. It also features quieter cooling fans than your average enterprise switch, plus it comes in a much more compact half width 1U form factor. QNAP will also launch the QSW-M3216R-8S8T later this year, which will be an updated version of its current 10 Gbps managed switches, but with around a US$100 lower price tag.

Regular readers of TPU might remember our in-depth USB4 article that we posted almost a year ago, but since then, very little has happened and ASMedia has as yet to make its ASM4242 USB4 host controller available to its partners and then ASM2464 USB4 to PCIe 4.0 bridge was suffering the same fate until May this year, when it was released to ASMedia's customers. It turns out most of it is related to USB-IF certification and the USB4 design documentation, as the certification wasn't quite ready for a third party host controller and the design documents were—shall we say—less than complete and relied too heavily on the Thunderbolt 3 spec. This meant that ASMedia had to retest and redo a lot of work they had done, due to a certain spec donator having assumed that other companies knew how it had designed its Thunderbolt products.

The good news is that we should see the ASM4242 in the market before the end of this year and ASMedia is busy testing it and its ASM2464 with a wide range of products to make sure compatibility is as good as possible. In the company suite at Computex, ASMedia was showing the ASM2464 connected to Apple's M2 silicon, as well as Intel's latest CPUs with integrated Thunderbolt 4 support. There had been some performance related issues from Apple's side, but this has apparently been resolved in a recent update from Apple. As far as Intel is concerned, there are no compatibility issues with the 13th and possibly 12th gen mobile chips, but older Thunderbolt hardware might require a firmware update, which may or may not exist. Older Intel hardware also doesn't perform as well as its most recent solutions, but it doesn't mean there will be compatibility issues outright. As for AMD, ASMedia informed TPU that there were no issues, since AMD has a USB4 implementation in its mobile products that follow the USB-IF spec.

In April, Intel Foundry Services (IFS) and Arm announced a multigenerational agreement to enable chip designers to build low-power compute system-on-chip (SoCs) on Intel technology. We are excited to provide our customers with the opportunity to design their mobile SoCs on Intel's leading-edge 18 A process technology paired with the latest, most powerful Arm CPU core—the recently launched next-generation Cortex-X4—for improved power and performance. This is a great sign of the momentum building around IFS, and it is part of the reason why I was eager to take on leadership of the organization in March. IFS is on a remarkable journey, and now that I've spent some time with the organization, I want to share more about why our mission is critically important for foundry customers around the world, for Intel and for me.

I first joined Intel in 1981 at the dawn of the PC era and returned in 2021 when our CEO Pat Gelsinger introduced Intel's IDM 2.0 strategy. In hearing his vision, I was motivated by the opportunity to help restore Intel's global leadership in the growing semiconductor industry. The global demand for semiconductors continues to see sustained, long-term growth, and the chip industry is expected to reach $1 trillion in sales by the end of the decade. This is an unprecedented opportunity. At the same time, 80% of the world's chip manufacturing capacity is concentrated in Asia, and many foundry customers are looking for more options.