The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced its selection of Intel as one of 15 organizations tasked with developing high-performance, energy-efficient cooling solutions for future data centers. The award, announced in May, is part of the COOLERCHIPS program - Cooling Operations Optimized for Leaps in Energy, Reliability, and Carbon Hyperefficiency for Information Processing Systems - supported by DOE's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). Intel's project, anticipated to be a three-year agreement with $1.71 million in funding, will enable the continuation of Moore's Law by allowing Intel to add more cores and transistors to its highest performance processors, while managing the heat on future devices.

Tejas Shah, principal engineer and lead thermal architect for Intel's Super Compute Platforms Group said: "Immersion cooling is used for its simplicity, sustainability and ease of upgrades. This proposal will enable two-phase immersion cooling to align with the exponential increase in power expected by processors over the next decade."

Tech tipster momomo_us yesterday spotted that ASRock Rack had listed a new and interesting looking motherboard on its product website, albeit in a "preliminary" category—so pricing and availability have "to be determined" status currently. The W790D8UD-1L1N2T/BCM is a new addition to the company's selection of compact workstation boards, but it distinguishes itself by being the first example of a W790 chipset Deep Micro ATX mainboard with platform support for Intel's latest "Sapphire Rapids" Xeon W-2400 and W-3400 processors. The single E-type socket (LGA 4677) looks absolutely huge relative to the overall dimensions of its surroundings (264 × 266 mm). The Deep Micro ATX form factor is exclusive to AsRock Rack so it could be tricky to build with a W790D8UD-1L1N2T/BCM board, given that mainstream PC cases may not provide full compatibility with this proprietary configuration.

ASRock Rack W790D8UD-1L1N2T/BCM is capable of running up to 56 cores (the minimum being 6) and 2 TB of DDR5-4800 modules (eight DIMM slots) with a peak bandwidth of 307.2 GB/s, via the platform's advanced memory subsystem. Sapphire Rapids Xeon W processors can control up to 112 PCIe Gen 5 lanes (W-3400) and 64 PCIe Gen 5 lanes (W-2400). Tom's Hardware has kindly collated the rest of the specifications into sentence form: "As for the physical connectivity, the motherboard is equipped with four PCIe x16 slots, one M.2-2280 slot with a PCIe 4.0 x4 interface attached to the W790 PCH, and two OCuLink connectors for SSDs. Network connectivity includes two 10GbE ports controlled by Broadcom BCM57416, a GbE connector managed by the Intel I226, and another GbE handled by the Intel I210. In addition, it has a dedicated GbE port for remote management with the support of Aspeed AST2600 BMC, that is handled by the Realtek RTL8211F. The board also has an SPI connector for TPM modules, USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports, a COM port, and a D-Sub VGA display connector."

We've made some serious claims around Framework Laptop 13 battery life improvements with the new 13th Gen Intel Core version, and now it's time to put the product to the test! We've hosted a YouTube livestream to test the battery life of the Framework Laptop 13 (13th Gen Intel Core) vs the Framework Laptop 13 (12th Gen Intel Core). The livestream started at 6 am PT yesterday (June 14) and ran until the batteries died. Both systems were set up to be a typical Performance configuration, and both were running a 1080p video in a loop in Windows 11. Full system specs are listed below, and in the YouTube description.

The two key factors to the improved battery life with the latest Framework Laptops are the new 61 Wh Battery included on i7 configurations, offering 11% greater capacity, and the designed-in efficiency improvements that 13th Gen Intel Core processors deliver.

Today, Intel announced the release of its newest quantum research chip, Tunnel Falls, a 12-qubit silicon chip, and it is making the chip available to the quantum research community. In addition, Intel is collaborating with the Laboratory for Physical Sciences (LPS) at the University of Maryland, College Park's Qubit Collaboratory (LQC), a national-level Quantum Information Sciences (QIS) Research Center, to advance quantum computing research.

"Tunnel Falls is Intel's most advanced silicon spin qubit chip to date and draws upon the company's decades of transistor design and manufacturing expertise. The release of the new chip is the next step in Intel's long-term strategy to build a full-stack commercial quantum computing system. While there are still fundamental questions and challenges that must be solved along the path to a fault-tolerant quantum computer, the academic community can now explore this technology and accelerate research development."—Jim Clarke, director of Quantum Hardware, Intel

Intel today announced its first major branding change for its client-segment Core desktop and mobile processor family in over 15 years (since the introduction of the very first Core "Nehalem"). "Core" still remains Intel's main client-segment processor brand, but the way the company draws its processor model numbers, is being significantly changed. The company is also introducing the Core Ultra brand of premium processors. The new nomenclature also sees Intel discontinue the use of "generations" within the SKU name.

The current Intel naming scheme sees the company mention processor generation before the main brand Core. For example, the 13th Gen Core is Intel's current line of client-segment products. Right next to Core, Intel places the brand extension "i" followed by the product tiering number 3, 5, 7, or 9. The product model number follows, and even this model number tends to begin with the processor generation. For example, the "i9-13900" already conveys that it is a processor from Intel's 13th Gen Core family. This is where Intel is making its two main changes.

To help bridge the growing gap between modern systems and the legacy technology still in use around the world, global industrial computing specialists, OnLogic (www.onlogic.com), have released the Helix 511 Edge Computer. Designed for use in manufacturing, automation, energy management, and other edge and IoT applications, the Helix 511 easily interfaces with on-site systems thanks to a broad selection of modern and legacy connectivity options.

"We frequently have conversations with customers who are struggling to update their technology infrastructure simply because they can't connect existing systems to newer, more powerful and more capable devices," says OnLogic Product Manager, Hunter Golden. "The embedded computing space has traditionally lagged behind when it comes to adopting new technologies. We want to shift that paradigm while still allowing innovators to access and exchange data with their existing equipment. In many cases, you don't need to rip and replace everything, you just need a Helix 511."

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