The escalating challenges in acquiring high-performance x86 servers have prompted Chinese data center companies to accelerate the shift to Arm-based system-on-chips (SoCs). Investment banking firm Bernstein reports that approximately 40% of all Arm-powered servers globally are currently being used in China. While most servers operate on x86 processors from AMD and Intel, there's a growing preference for Arm-based SoCs, especially in the Chinese market. Several global tech giants, including AWS, Ampere, Google, Fujitsu, Microsoft, and Nvidia, have already adopted or developed Arm-powered SoCs. However, Arm-based SoCs are increasingly favorable for Chinese firms, given the difficulty in consistently sourcing Intel's Xeon or AMD's EPYC. Chinese companies like Alibaba, Huawei, and Phytium are pioneering the development of these Arm-based SoCs for client and data center processors.

However, the US government's restrictions present some challenges. Both Huawei and Phytium, blacklisted by the US, cannot access TSMC's cutting-edge process technologies, limiting their ability to produce competitive processors. Although Alibaba's T-Head can leverage TSMC's latest innovations, it can't license Arm's high-performance computing Neoverse V-series CPU cores due to various export control rules. Despite these challenges, many chip designers are considering alternatives such as RISC-V, an unrestricted, rapidly evolving open-source instruction set architecture (ISA) suitable for designing highly customized general-purpose cores for specific workloads. Still, with the backing of influential firms like AWS, Google, Nvidia, Microsoft, Qualcomm, and Samsung, the Armv8 and Armv9 instruction set architectures continue to hold an edge over RISC-V. These companies' support ensures that the software ecosystem remains compatible with their CPUs, which will likely continue to drive the adoption of Arm in the data center space.

Without fanfare, Intel has launched two new mobile GPUs in the shape of the Arc A570M and the A530M. The Arc A570M gets 16 Xe Cores and 256 execution units, as well as four render slices and 16 RT units. The lower-end Arc A530M gets to make do with 12 Xe cores, 192 execution units, three render slices and 12 RT units, which is a smaller cut than the model name suggests. What's interesting to note here is that the Arc A570M appears to have identical hardware specs to the Arc A550M that launched in the second quarter of 2022, although as we'll see, the clock speeds and TGP differ between the parts. The Arc A570M supports 8 GB of GDDR6 memory, the same as the Arc A550M, with the Arc A530M supports 4 or 8 GB of GDDR6.

Both the Arc A570M and the A530M will get a GPU clock speed of 1,300 MHz, which is a significant boost from the Arc A550M which is plodding along at a mere 900 MHz in comparison. This makes the two newcomers Intel's third highest clocked mobile GPUs, with only the Arc A770M and Arc A370M being clocked higher. The downside of this is an increase in TGP, where the Arc A550M had a fairly reasonable TGP of 60 Watts, the Arc A530M has a TGP range of 65 to 95 Watts, while the Arc A570M extends this to 75-95 Watts. The rest of the specs appear to carry over from the Arc A550M, so the new GPUs will support up to four displays via eDP, DP 2.0 or HDMI 2.1 and the full set of video encoders and decoders are also supported. The new additions are still made using TSMC's N6 node, so what we're looking at are most likely just optimised silicon here, which has led Intel to be able to boost the clock speeds while maintaining acceptable thermals.

Intel Graphics today released the latest version of the Intel Arc GPU Graphics drivers. Version 101.4577 WHQL comes with support for the new Arc A570M and A530M mobile GPUs. Besides this, the drivers fix an issue with F1 23 where notebooks with certain Arc A-series mobile GPUs experience an application crash. Grab the drivers from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: Intel Arc GPU Graphics Drivers 101.4577 WHQL

The LTX Event has returned in its annual two-day form in beautiful Vancouver after the COVID break. With blistering temperatures outside, it was great to see the turnout and having it come out of the four-year pause that the pandemic demanded. Compared to 2019, where there was a handful of brands, and the 2023 location has moved slightly, from the older Canada Place convention center, to its newer, adjacent building. At roughly USD $40 for a visitor's day pass, one could argue that it isn't even that cheap, but even so upon arriving there on Saturday, there was a line running along the entire length of the building for visitors to enter with a pre-purchased pass in hand.Just like in 2019, the event is propped up around several core pillars. There are interactive events like a case toss competition, live stage shows with various topics, a LAN party section, as well as an ever greater mix of brands to allow excited end-users to get an up close look at featured products and even try them out. The entire event also provides brands the ability to sponsor various sections, while others have focused on booth space for exposure and interactivity.

BIOSTAR, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, and storage devices, today announced its latest line-up of industrial motherboards and application systems. BIOSTAR's latest BIQ67-AHP, the BIW68-AHP, and the BIELK-PAT motherboards, with MT-J6412, and MT PRO-J6412 application systems are built to address various system integration and industrial needs, offering innovative features that ensure high performance, reliability, and longevity.

The BIQ67-AHP and BIW68-AHP motherboards are excellent for system integration, general industrial systems and GPU AI workstation. These allow businesses to have reliable computers that help stay up-to-date on customers' contact details, transaction history, accounts, communication, and business management on a reliable and efficient platform. Featuring Intel Q670 chipset and Intel W680 chipset respectively, the BIQ67-AHP and BIW68-AHP motherboards carry additional features and functionality such as DDR4 support up to 128 GB, dual Intel LAN, multiple PCI/PCIe slots, M.2 slots, USB 3.2, COM ports, and more. The BIELK-PAT motherboard, with its wide range temperature -40 °C ~ 85 °C and voltage support, is built to withstand and function optimally in diverse environments and outdoor applications. It is ideal for uses such as EV charging stations, kiosks, refrigerated factories, and is great for HMI applications for businesses of all sizes.

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, and hardware solutions, is pleased to announce its close collaboration with HWiNFO, a comprehensive system information and diagnostic tool. This partnership aims to enhance the accuracy of hardware information and diagnostics, while introducing innovative features to benefit computer enthusiasts and professionals alike.

HWiNFO, known for its detailed system information and diagnostic capabilities, has partnered with GIGABYTE to integrate their technologies and deliver more precise and comprehensive hardware information to users. By combining GIGABYTE's expertise in hardware manufacturing and HWiNFO's advanced diagnostics, users can now access a wealth of information about their computer components with unparalleled accuracy.

We're extreme optimists by the nature of our mission, but the response to the Framework Laptop 16 pre-order launch last week was beyond anything we could have imagined. We expected to sell the first five batches over the course of a few months. Instead, we sold through them in 12 hours. The currently open pre-order batch will ship in Q1 2024, and we're working with our suppliers to ensure we have the production capacity to avoid pre-order timing going deeper into 2024. AMD was also able to provide more game codes for Starfield Premium Edition to let us continue offering it for additional pre-orders that include a Radeon RX 7700S (while quantities last).

A couple of great write-ups and videos went live alongside the launch. First, Sean Hollister at The Verge shared his detailed thoughts from an exclusive hands-on with a pre-production Framework Laptop 16, stating "I am staggered that Framework 16 even exists". AMD also prepared a video featuring Frank Azor, Chief Architect of Gaming Solutions & Marketing, explaining how we partnered to make it exist! Watch this featurette below.

Eurocom has launched the C315 Blitz Superlaptop with 15.6" display, Intel Core i7 processor, Intel Iris Xe graphics, 16 TB storage, 64 GB DDR5 memory, up to 8 hrs of battery life in a robust and durable Titanium black aluminium case.

"The C315 Blitz 15.6" laptop is lightweight and heavy duty, with its durable aluminium body and 8 hours of battery life it is perfectly suited for corporate all-day, all-night computing." Mark Bialic, Eurocom President said. "The EUROCOM C315 Blitz is the ultimate laptop companion for professionals on the go."

IBM has launched a new tool to help enterprises track greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across cloud services and advance their sustainability performance throughout their hybrid, multicloud journeys. Now generally available, the IBM Cloud Carbon Calculator - an AI-informed dashboard - can help clients access emissions data across a variety of IBM Cloud workloads such as AI, high performance computing (HPC) and financial services.

Across industries, enterprises are embracing modernization by leveraging hybrid cloud and AI to digitally transform with resiliency, performance, security, and compliance at the forefront, all while remaining focused on delivering value and driving more sustainable business practices. According to a recent study by IBM, 42% of CEOs surveyed pinpoint environmental sustainability as their top challenge over the next three years. At the same time, the study reports that CEOs are facing pressure to adopt generative AI while also weighing the data management needs to make AI successful. The increase in data processing required for AI workloads can present new challenges for organizations that are looking to reduce their GHG emissions. With more than 43% of CEOs surveyed already using generative AI to inform strategic decisions, organizations should prepare to balance executing high performance workloads with sustainability.

EK, the renowned premium liquid cooling solutions manufacturer, introduces a brand-new high-performance CPU water block explicitly made for Intel LGA 1700 socket-based CPUs. This CPU block features a high-flow cooling engine and a dense microfin design that allows ample cooling even for the overclocked Intel Core i9-13900K processor.

This is a dedicated enterprise-grade water block developed for Intel Core consumer processors based on the LGA 1700 socket. It features two standard G1/4" threaded ports on the top and is built with performance, reliability, serviceability, and no compromises in mind. This liquid cooling solution is intended for desktop PCs, workstations, and taller server racks. The water block's top is CNC-machined from durable black POM Acetal, while the hold-down bracket is made of laser-cut stainless steel.

IBASE Technology Inc. (TPEx: 8050), a leading provider of industrial computing solutions, unveils the SI-624-AI industrial AI computer, which won the Embedded Computing Design's Embedded World 2023 Best in Show Award in Germany. This recognition highlights the exceptional performance and innovation of the rugged system in the field of AI deep learning.

The SI-624-AI is designed to meet the demands of high-speed multiple tasks for artificial neural network applications. Powered by the 12th Gen Intel Core CPU and incorporating the NVIDIA Ampere Architecture MXM GPU, this cutting-edge system delivers image processing capabilities that enable real-time analysis of visual data, enhancing automation, quality control, and overall production efficiency for AIoT applications in smart factory, retail, transportation or medical fields. It is suitable for use as a digital signage control system in mission-critical control rooms in transportation networks, smart retail, healthcare, or AI education where remote AI data analysis capabilities are required.

Recent rumors suggested that Intel contemplated a price hike across all of its Core processors. This speculation originated from a forum staff member from PCGH who claimed to have received related information indicating a possible correspondence from Intel to its wholesalers about an impending price rise. In response to these rumors, Intel confirmed to HardwareLuxx that it has no plans to increase processor prices currently. The company stated that the Recommended Customer Price (RCP), which is generally quoted in US dollars for 1,000 unit prices as per their Ark database, will persist unchanged. Intel clarified that it hadn't shared such news with its customers or partners, nor was it considering a price change for its CPU portfolio at the moment.

The speculated price increase was reportedly associated with Intel's ongoing and planned factory constructions and company restructuring, according to PCGH. The need to refinance the 'fabs' was cited as the primary reason. Presently, Intel is streamlining its expenses, shutting down multiple smaller business areas, and investing significantly with state aid. However, it is doubtful that these reasons would be expressed in a wholesaler letter as grounds for price hikes. The PC market is currently sluggish, and though an uplift is predicted for the second half of this year, most segments of the PC market are still witnessing double-digit percentage reductions. In such a scenario, where buyers are becoming increasingly price-sensitive, and the market is trying to rebound, a price rise could be counterproductive.

Intel's Alchemist engineering team has been working on improving its open-source Vulkan drivers for Linux—recent coverage from Phoronix shows that Team Blue's hard work is paying off, especially in the area of gaming performance. The site's founder, Michael Larabel, approves of the latest Mesa work produced by Intel engineers, and has commended them on their efforts to better the Arc Graphics family. His mid-month testings—on a Linux 6.4-based system running an Intel Arc A770 GPU—demonstrated a "~10% speed-up for the Intel Arc Graphics on Linux." He has benchmarked this system again over the past weekend, following the release of a new set of optimizations for Mesa 23.3-devel: "The latest performance boost for Intel graphics on Linux is by supporting the I915_FORMAT_MOD_4_TILED_DG2_RC_CCS modifier. Indeed it's panning out nicely for furthering the Intel Arc Graphics Vulkan performance."

He apologized for the limited selection of games, due to: "the Intel Linux graphics driver still not having sparse support in place, but at least that will hopefully be here in the coming months when the Intel Xe kernel driver is upstreamed. Another recent promising development for the Intel open-source graphics driver support is fake sparse support to at least help some games and that code will hopefully be merged soon." First up was Counter-Strike: Global Offensive—thanks to the optimized Vulkan drivers it: "enjoyed another nice boost to the performance as a result of this latest code. For CS Linux gamers, it's great seeing the 21% boost just over the past month."

According to a post by Twitter/X leaker @g01d3nm4ng0, it looks like Intel has no intention of giving its 14th gen Core i3 processors more than four cores. We'd take this leak with the usual helping of seasoning, but the leaker does provide details on what is expected to be most of Intel's non-K SKU 14th gen lineup, including clock speeds. If correct, then most of the 14th gen Core processors will see a 200 MHz boost speed clock increase over their 13th gen counterparts, with the exception of the Core i5-14400 which only gets a 100 MHz increase.

The non-K CPUs follow a familiar pattern to previous generation Intel chips, with the Core i9 and Core i7 parts being 200 MHz slower than their K SKU variants, with the Core i5 being 100 MHz slower. The only other noteworthy piece of information in this leak, is that the Core i7-14700 gets the same extra four E-Cores, just as its K SKU variant, or four more E-Cores than the Core i7-13700. At this point in time it's just plain weird that Intel hasn't added E-Cores to its Core i3 range of desktop chips, as even the lowest-end Core i5 SKU sports six P-Cores and four E-Cores since the 13th gen, so the Core i3 should be a 4+4 chip by now, but it seems like Intel has other plans for the i3-14100/F.

Today, Intel announced a strategic collaboration agreement with Ericsson to utilize Intel's 18A process and manufacturing technology for Ericsson's future next-generation optimized 5G infrastructure. As part of the agreement, Intel will manufacture custom 5G SoCs (system-on-chip) for Ericsson to create highly differentiated leadership products for future 5G infrastructure. Additionally, the companies will expand their collaboration to optimize 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors with Intel vRAN Boost for Ericsson's Cloud RAN (radio access network) solutions to help communications service providers increase network capacity and energy efficiency while gaining greater flexibility and scalability.

"As our work together evolves, this is a significant milestone with Ericsson to partner broadly on their next-generation optimized 5G infrastructure. This agreement exemplifies our shared vision to innovate and transform network connectivity, and it reinforces the growing customer confidence in our process and manufacturing technology," said Sachin Katti, senior vice president and general manager of the Network and Edge group at Intel. "We look forward to working together with Ericsson, an industry leader, to build networks that are open, reliable and ready for the future."

According to a short article released by ITHome, Machenike, a popular Chinese PC hardware company displayed several interesting Intel CPU-based systems at the Bilibili World exhibition (in Shanghai). The manufacturer confirmed (to the reporter) that their next generation hardware will be hitting the market within the next three months, which coincides with the rumored launch of Intel 14th Gen Core Raptor Lake-Refresh desktop K-series SKUs.

Exhibited material implied that Machenike's upcoming PCs—arriving in the form of a "LIGHT-05" desktop tower, mini models and laptops—could be among the first batch of systems to support PCIe Gen 5 storage (as standard). Potential buyers could be attracted to next-gen machines offering access to faster NVMe SSD, on top of rumored higher core counts provided by the Raptor Lake Refresh. ITHome believes that a number of the mini-PCs at Machenike's booth were already running on Raptor Lake Refresh or (Core rebrand) Meteor Lake processors.

Intel has published a preview article covering its new AVX10 ISA (Instruction Set Architecture)—the announcement reveals that both P-Cores & E-Cores (on next-gen processors) will be getting support for AVX-512. Team Blue stated: "Intel AVX10 represents a major shift to supporting a high-performance vector ISA across future Intel processors. It allows the developer to maintain a single code-path that achieves high performance across all Intel platforms with the minimum of overhead checking for feature support. Future development of the Intel AVX10 ISA will continue to provide a rich, flexible, and consistent environment that optimally supports both Server and Client products."

Due to technical issues (E-core related), Intel decided to disable AVX-512 for Alder Lake and Raptor Lake client-oriented CPU lineups. AMD has recently adopted the fairly new instruction set for its Ryzen 7040 mobile series, so it is no wonder that Team Blue is attempting to reintroduce it in the near future—AVX-512 was last seen working properly on Rocket and Tiger Lake chips. AVX10 implementation is expected to debut with Granite Rapids (according to Longhorn), and VideoCardz reckons that Intel will get advanced instructions for Efficiency cores working with its Clearwater Forest CPU architecture.

Intel today released the Arc GPU Graphics Drivers 101.4576 beta. These drivers do not introduce Game On (day-zero) optimizations or improvements for any new games, but address a couple of glaring issues. "Remnant 2" exhibits texture corruption during gameplay, which has been fixed. In a similar light, "World War Z" exhibits flickering textures during gameplay, which has been fixed. Intel also identified a few more issues with this release, as detailed in the release notes, below.

DOWNLOAD: Intel Arc GPU Graphics Drivers 101.4576 beta

According to a report published by Bloomberg, the German government has formed plans to create €20 billion ($22 billion) of investments to aid in the growth of local semiconductor manufacturing. The article proposes that the organization is racing to bolster the country's technology sector, and is attempting to secure essential supplies of components. Various geopolitical issues have complicated matters in recent times. Funding will be made available to German and international companies, from Germany's (now diversified) Climate and Transformation reserve, over the next four years. The finance ministry responded to Bloomberg's query, and stated: "The draft for the economic plan 2024 and the financial plan until 2027 for the Climate and Transformation Fund are currently being prepared...This process has not yet been completed." Germany's economy ministry did not provide a statement/response to Bloomberg's queries.

Around 75% of the fund is reportedly set aside for multinational semiconductor firms including Intel Corporation (USA) and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC). Bloomberg believes that Team Blue is due an allocation of €10 billion for investments in its new production facility, located close to Magdeburg, Germany. The government is allegedly deep into talks with TSMC regarding the foundation of a proposed €10 billion production base in the Dresden area—the likes of BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen AG would benefit greatly with quicker access to (localized) microcontrollers manufacturing facilities. The government could subsidize half of that total investment (€5 billion). Infineon is possibly in line to receive a €1 billion aid package, since it is building a new fab location in Dresden.

The Intel Arc A580 GPU was revealed alongside its Alchemist siblings—A380 A750 and A770—last year, but remains the only one out of that lineup to not have reached the retail market. Things have been quiet on the Intel Arc 5-series "Advanced Gaming" front for a while now—TechPowerUp's GPU-Z utility was updated with support for the A580 last September, and an evaluation sample was benched in Ashes of the Singularity a month prior to that. A supposed sample Intel Arc A580 was recently tested via a Vulkan-based renderer in GFXBench 5.0, perhaps not the best platform to gauge PC performance on.

Has an owner of a rare curiosity unit chosen to bench the unreleased GPU, or is a manufacturer evaluating a sample with a very delayed product launch in mind? The test results are not all that impressive, with the A580 performing poorly compared to the range-topping Arc A770 (placed in Intel's "high performance gaming" tier), although it does much better than the A380 (not a big boast). The likely prototype nature of the evaluated card or immature state of drivers could be to blame for shortcomings in GFXBench 5.0.

An MSI Arc A310 4 GB Low Profile 2X graphics card is now available to purchase at a couple of Russian PC hardware retailers (for roughly $140), and a local YouTuber has already produced a quick unboxing video. Intel's board partners have been sluggish in adopting lower-end Alchemist GPU variants, with only a handful of companies bothering to produce cards based on the Arc A310 (DG2-128).

Sparkle displayed an unnamed super compact model at Computex 2023, and presentation slides have recently revealed that their "Industrial Low-Profile" series will be introduced under the GENIE moniker, comprised of single slot/fan A310 and A380 variants. Sparkle has not outlined a possible Western release for these budget cards, and other manufacturers have been reluctant to move beyond the Chinese OEM market. The Gigabyte A3 series is reportedly a Russian market exclusive for the moment, so it will be interesting to see if MSI is only targeting that territory with its competing dual fan design Arc A310 4 GB Low Profile model.

AMD's recently added Ryzen 5 7500F for the AM5 socket was initially said to only be available in the PRC, but according to AMD, it will apparently be available globally. That said, AMD apparently only seeded review units to select Asian media, among them Quasar Zone in Korea, who put the six core, 12 thread CPU through its paces. Overall performance is very close to the Ryzen 5 7600, which isn't really all that strange, considering the two only differ by 100 MHz in both base and boost clock. In most of the benchmarks, the Ryzen 5 7500F is around two to three percent slower than the Ryzen 5 7600 on average.

When compared to the slightly more pricey Intel Core i5-13400, AMD falls behind multithreaded apps but comes out on top in most of the games tested, with the usual odd exception as would be expected. On average, the Ryzen 5 7500F is some 13 percent faster in the game benchmarks at 1080p, although this is using an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card. It even beats the overall much faster Intel Core i5-13500 in gaming by around nine percent on average. However, the Ryzen 5 7500F system loses out to the two Intel systems when it comes to power efficiency, drawing around 20 Watts more on average when gaming. At US$179.99 it seems like AMD finally has a budget friendly CPU for the AM5 platform, if you're willing to lose the integrated GPU. It's unknown when the CPU will be available outside of Asia at this point in time.

ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) today announced collaboration centered around EVA-02 and Asuka from the long-celebrated Evangelion anime series. PC DIY builders and anime lovers can now enjoy a second impact of premium ROG components and peripherals elevated by the classic EVA-02 red and orange colorway with a variety of custom Evangelion-themed decals and graphics. The new powerhouse arsenal includes a ROG Maximus motherboard, ROG Strix GeForce RTX graphics card, ROG Ryujin AIO cooler, ROG Hyperion gaming case, graphics card holder, peripherals and other gear.

ROG Maximus Z790 Hero EVA-02 Edition motherboard
This special version of the feature-packed ROG Maximus Z790 Hero arrives with EVA-02's signature red and orange theme, with traces of green. The backplate design comes with EVA-02 Beast Mode and Evangelion patterns, supporting this motherboard's immense power and control, as it takes 13th Gen Intel Core processors and DDR5 memory kit to the next level. And an A.T. Field design around the CPU socket and Polymo lighting on the I/O cover switches between Asuka and regular EVA-02 as another artistic flourish.

MSI, a world leader in high-performance and innovative computing solutions, has recently launched its Mini PC line-up, featuring the Cubi 5, Cubi N, PRO DP10, and PRO DP21 series. This array of minis caters to the requirements of the SMB, offices, hostels, restaurants, educational institutions, medical facilities, science labs, kiosks, and more. This collection of mini computers is designed with productivity in mind and featuring a miniature chassis, powerful processor options, exclusive software, and Thunderbolt 4, the Cubi and PRO DP series have raised the bar in terms of compact computing.

Unleashing Power in a Compact Package: Cubi 5 & Cubi N
The Cubi series offers remarkable power with a small footprint of only 0.66 liters, making it effortless to access high-performance capabilities at your fingertips. Equipped with up to the latest Intel Core i7 processors, the Cubi series boasts incredible performance that rivals many full-sized desktop computers. The Cubi 5 boasts a noteworthy feature: an extensive range of connectivity options. Despite its mini size, it offers an impressive selection of ports, such as Thunderbolt 4, USB-C, HDMI, and DisplayPort. In addition, Dual Ethernet ports on both Cubi series can improve network security by keeping the internet and intranet connections separate and preventing unauthorized access. It is also a reliable backup in case one port fails as the other one will be activated immediately.

Intel Graphics released the Arc GPU Graphics Drivers version 101.4575 that it originally released as a beta late last week, as a WHQL. What's interesting is that while the driver version number hasn't changed when compared to the 101.4575 beta drivers from last week, the new 101.4575 comes with a different change-log. It mentions Game On (day-one) optimization for "Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart," and "Remnant II," in addition to optimization for "Exoprimal" and "Jagged Alliance 3." that were announced last week. Besides this, the "fixed isses" and "known issues" lists between the beta and WHQL are identical.

DOWNLOAD: Intel Arc GPU Graphics Drivers 101.4575 WHQL