AMD's upcoming Ryzen 4000 series "Vermeer" lineup of CPUs based on the new Zen 3 core is slated to launch sometime in late 2020, and we have information about the chipset support of 4th generation of Ryzen CPUs. The laptop manufacturer XMG, known for its crazy Apex 15 laptop with 16 core AMD Ryzen 3950X CPU inside, has posted a Reddit thread about its new laptop. In the thread, XMG has listed specifications of the laptop, and in one point it mentions support for Ryzen 4000 series of CPUs. XMG has written that the B450 motherboards will be supporting the next generation CPUs simply by microcode updates AMD will push to OEMs. XMG uses the B450 chipset in its laptops, so they are presumably going to offer some configurations with Ryzen 4000 CPUs in the future. This information is good news for everybody who has a motherboard with a B450 chipset as they can get a bit more mileage out of it.

AMD today announced in the form of a blog post that its upcoming graphics cards based on RDNA 2 architecture will feature support for Microsoft's latest DirectX 12 Ultimate API. "With this architecture powering both the next generation of AMD Radeon graphics cards and the forthcoming Xbox Series X gaming console, we've been working very closely with Microsoft to help move gaming graphics to a new level of photorealism and smoothness thanks to the four key DirectX 12 Ultimate graphics features -- DirectX Raytracing (DXR), Variable Rate Shading (VRS), Mesh Shaders, and Sampler Feedback." - said AMD in the blog.

Reportedly, Microsoft and AMD have worked closely to enable this feature set and provide the best possible support for RDNA 2 based hardware, meaning that future GPUs and consoles are getting the best possible integration of the new API standard.

Taking aim at Creators, Gamers and other DIY-ers, Fractal Design today launched an innovative, small form factor chassis through close collaboration with Intel. "We were very excited about partnering with Intel in developing this case," says Fractal Design founder Hannes Wallin. "It inspired us to take on a project that challenges the convention that elegant design can't be combined with flexible functionality, and we're very happy with the result."

Available today, the Era ITX is the next generation of Mini-ITX case design. This compact chassis is free from the configuration limitations traditionally associated with small form factor systems. This unique product brings the perfect combination of elegant design and technical engineering to PC hardware innovation. Era's design presents a surfaced, aluminium exterior that is paired with top inserts ranging from wood to tempered glass. This combination of materials along with a variety of colorways presents a spectrum of choices to the user.

We've just posted our Fractal Design Era case review.

Marvell today announced OCTEON TX2, the latest family of infrastructure processors targeting a wide variety of wired and wireless networking equipment including switches, routers, secure gateways, firewall, network monitoring, 5G base stations, and smart network interface controllers (NICs). Massive increases in data traffic coupled with escalating requirements for end-to-end security are intensifying the need for highly scalable compute platforms with integrated workload-optimized hardware accelerators to meet performance, power and total cost of ownership requirements. Building on five generations of the industry's most scalable and widely adopted infrastructure processor platform, the OCTEON TX2 family is enabled by a broad software ecosystem including a feature-rich software development kit (SDK) and virtualization support, delivering a unique combination of performance and programmability. The OCTEON TX2 portfolio extends Marvell's industry-leading performance and scalability, delivering a 2.5x improvement over the previous generation and scaling up to 200 Gbps of packet processing throughput.

Logitech G, a brand of Logitech and Herman Miller, today announced an exclusive partnership to research, design, and manufacture the next generation high-performance furniture solutions for gamers. Both companies bring years of design and engineering expertise in their respective fields, and combined will address the needs of esports athletes, gamers, and streamers.

"At Herman Miller, we have a rich history of designing solutions to support people wherever they live and work," said Tim Straker, Herman Miller's Chief Marketing Officer. "We're excited to combine our ergonomic, research-driven approach with Logitech G's excellence in technology and innovation. Together, we'll develop high-quality solutions that provide gamers and esports athletes with the utmost support and comfort."

Lenovo announced today the latest additions to the ThinkPad portfolio: the new T series, X series and L series are built leveraging the core tenets of design, innovation and quality. Focused on providing a broad customer choice and a smarter workforce experience, the updated ThinkPad portfolio delivers modern IT solutions with emerging technology features to meet the needs and desires of end users. Innovations across the range include Modern Standby, Wake on Voice, WiFi 6, Dolby Audio Speaker System and Dolby Vision, plus customers can optimize select models with either 10th Gen Intel Core vPro processors or the next generation AMD Ryzen 4000 PRO Mobile processors. Lenovo will be the first PC vendor to offer the AMD Ryzen PRO 4000 Mobile processors.

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. today announced the Snapdragon X60 5G Modem-RF System, its third-generation 5G modem-to-antenna solution (the Snapdragon X60). Snapdragon X60 features the world's first 5-nanometer 5G baseband and is the world's first 5G Modem-RF System to support spectrum aggregation across all key 5G bands and combinations, including mmWave and sub-6 using frequency division duplex (FDD) and time division duplex (TDD), providing ultimate operator flexibility to uplift 5G performance utilizing fragmented spectrum assets. This 5G modem-to-antenna solution is designed to enhance the performance and capacity for operators worldwide while increasing average 5G speeds in mobile devices. Snapdragon X60 is engineered to accelerate network transition to 5G standalone mode through support for any key spectrum band, mode or combination, along with 5G Voice-over-NR (VoNR) capabilities.

AMD today announced that it has joined the Blockchain Game Alliance (BGA) and forged partnerships with leading technology providers to help promote the development and proliferation of new blockchain-powered gaming platforms.

The Blockchain Game Alliance is committed to driving awareness and adoption of blockchain technologies within the game industry, providing an open forum for individuals and companies to share knowledge and collaborate, create common standards, establish best practices, and network. As the first major hardware manufacturer to join the BGA, AMD plans to enable alliance members with efficient and high-performance computing technologies for next-generation blockchain-based gaming platforms that could potentially transform the way games are created, published, purchased and played.

Intel is partnering with MediaTek on the development, certification and support of 5G modem solutions for the next generation of PC experiences. As part of the partnership, Intel will define a 5G solution specification, including a 5G modem to be developed and delivered by MediaTek. Intel will also provide optimization and validation across the platform and lend system integration and co-engineering support to further enable its OEM partners.

"5G is poised to unleash a new level of computing and connectivity that will transform the way we interact with the world. This partnership with MediaTek brings together industry leaders with deep engineering, system integration and connectivity expertise to deliver 5G experiences on the next generation of the world's best PCs." -Gregory Bryant, Intel executive vice president and general manager of the Client Computing Group.

According to the findings of a Chiphell user called "wjm47196", AMD is supposedly going to host an event at CES 2020 to showcase its next generation of Radeon graphics cards. Having seen huge success with its first-generation "RDNA" GPUs, AMD is expected to showcase improved lineup utilizing new and improved RDNA 2 graphics card architecture.

Judging by the previous information, second generation of RDNA graphics cards will get much-needed features like ray tracing, to remain competitive with existing offers from NVIDIA and soon Intel. Supposed to be built using the 7 nm+ manufacturing process, the new GPU architecture will get around 10-15% performance improvement due to the new manufacturing process alone, with possibly higher numbers if there are changes to the GPU core.

According to the sources over at Igor's Lab, NVIDIA could launch its next generation of GPUs, codenamed "Ampere", as soon as first half of the 2020 arrives. Having just recently launched GeForce RTX Super lineup, NVIDIA could surprise us again in the coming months with replacement for it's Turing lineup of graphics cards. Expected to directly replace high-end GPU models that are currently present, like GeForce RTX 2080 Ti and RTX 2080 Super, Ampere should bring many performance and technology advancements a new graphics card generation is usually associated with.

For starters, we could expect a notable die shrink to take place in form of 7 nm node, which will replace the aging 12 nm process that Turing is currently being built on. This alone should bring more than 50% increase in transistor density, resulting in much more performance and lower power consumption compared to previous generation. NVIDIA's foundry of choice is still unknown, however current speculations are predicting that Samsung will manufacture Ampere, possibly due to delivery issues that are taking place at TSMC. Architectural improvements should take place as well. Ray tracing is expected to persist and get enhanced with possibly more hardware allocated for it, along with better software to support the ray tracing ecosystem of applications.

Intel is slowly realizing plans to "one up" its GPU game starting from first 10 nm Ice Lake CPUs that feature Gen11 graphics, equipping users of integrated GPUs with much more performance than they previously got. Fortunately, Intel doesn't plan to stop there. Thanks to the recent pull request found on GitLab Mesa repository, we can now expect to receive biggest GPU performance bump in over a decade with the arrival of Gen12 based GPUs, found on next generation Tiger Lake processors.

In this merge request, Francisco Jerez, member of Intel's open source Linux graphics team, stated the following: "Gen12 is planned to include one of the most in-depth reworks of the Intel EU ISA since the original i965. The encoding of almost every instruction field, hardware opcode and register type needs to be updated in this merge request. But probably the most invasive change is the removal of the register scoreboard logic from the hardware, which means that the EU will no longer guarantee data coherency between register reads and writes, and will require the compiler to synchronize dependent instructions anytime there is a potential data hazard..."

NETGEAR, Inc., the leading provider of mesh WiFi systems that power smart homes, today announced the worldwide release of Orbi WiFi 6 Mesh System an innovative solution that delivers a new standard for wireless networks.

This next generation Orbi Mesh WiFi System is designed for the connected world of today and the future. Households now have a multitude of always-on and always-connected smart home devices many of which are running high-bandwidth applications like streaming 4K/8K Ultimate HD connections across multiple screens. The Orbi WiFi 6 mesh system has the capacity to support the traffic generated by the multitude of connected devices that are in the home today and for years to come. Similar to the difference experienced between driving on a congested four-lane highway compared to that of a sixteen-lane superhighway, WiFi 6 provides more streams so there is an increased capacity for more traffic ensuring that the fastest high-speed WiFi connected devices are not stalled by the slower ones.

TE Connectivity, the maker of various kinds of connectivity solutions for computer systems, has released its latest iteration of the LGA socket for the next generation of Xeon Scalable CPUs. Being validated by Intel, the LGA 4189-4 and LGA 4189-5 are going to power the next generation of 10 nm Xeon CPUs, based on the Ice Lake architecture, and up to 56-core 2nd generation Xeon Scalable CPUs. While there are two models of the socket, TE Connectivity didn't reveal what the differences are between them. Socket P4 (LGA 4189-4) and P5 (LGA 4189-5) also feature exactly the same pin count, 0.9906 mm hex pitch and 2.7 mm SP height, so we can only speculate that the "4" or "5" in the revision is supposed to indicate details like higher power delivery capability or support for Ice Lake CPUs.

In addition to providing a new socket for Ice Lake, these sockets have support for PCI-Express Gen 4.0 and eight-channel memory (supported memory configurations are vendor dependent), meaning that we are getting two more memory channels than previous Xeon CPUs with a faster and newer PCIe standard.

GIGABYTE, a leading server systems builder which recently released a total of 17 new AMD EPYC 7002 Series "Rome" server platforms simultaneously with AMD's own official launch of their next generation CPU, is proud to announce that our new systems have already broken 11 different SPEC benchmark world records. These new world records have not only been achieved against results from all alternative processor based systems but even against competing vendor solutions using the same 2nd Generation AMD EPYC 7002 Series "Rome" processor platform, illustrating that GIGABYTE's system design and engineering is perfectly optimized to deliver the maximum performance possible from the 2nd Generation AMD EPYC.

Tech Journalist Brad Sams, who first reported on Halo: The Master Chief Collection coming to the PC platform before its official announcement, has spilled the beans on another juicy detail regarding the Halo universe: that Microsoft will use this E3 2019 to showcase the first gameplay for the game. This isn't news, really - after last year's tease, it was expected that gameplay would be available this year to whet gamers' appetites. However, the fact that Halo Infinite will be running in the PC platform is newsworthy, since this is quite the departure from previously-known Microsoft, which seemed to relegate its PC gaming ambitions to other developers.

Now, with Microsoft vouching to treat the PC platform as the gaming juggernaut it is, and the already-known information that 343 Industries' (the current Halo developers) Slipspace engine would treat PC gamers with the latest technology in terms of graphics presentation, PC has become the defacto platform of choice to showcase Halo's next-gen visuals (whilst using an Xbox One controller, by the way). This likely only happens because Microsoft isn't ready to completely pull the wraps on the next-generation Xbox; or it could serve as a show of good faith from the company when it comes to PC gaming. Whatever the reason for Microsoft's decision, this seems like a great time to be a PC - and Halo - fan.

During AMD's annual shareholder meeting today, AMD president and CEO Dr. Lisa Su confirmed the launch of next-generation AMD Ryzen, EPYC CPUs and Navi GPUs for the third quarter of this year. The expected products are going to be manufactured on TSMC's 7 nm process and will be using new and improved architectures.

Ryzen 3000 series CPUs are rumored to have up to as much as 16 cores in Ryzen 9 SKUs, 12 cores in Ryzen 7 SKUs and 8 cores in Ryzen 5 SKUs. EPYC server CPUs will be available in models up to 64 cores. All of the new CPUs will be using AMD "Zen 2" architecture that will offer better IPC performance and, as rumors suggest for consumer models, are OC beasts. Navi GPUs are the new 7 nm GPUs that are expected to be very competitive both price and performance wise to NVIDIA's Turing series, hopefully integrating new technologies such as dedicated Ray Tracing cores for higher frame rates in Ray Tracing enabled games. No next generation ThreadRipper launch date was mentioned, so we don't yet know when and if that will that land.

Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) announced today that the 2019 COMPUTEX International Press Conference will be held with a Keynote by AMD President and CEO Dr. Lisa Su. The 2019 COMPUTEX International Press Conference & CEO Keynote is scheduled for Monday, May 27 at 10:00 AM in Room 201 of the Taipei International Convention Center (TICC) in Taipei, Taiwan with the keynote topic "The Next Generation of High-Performance Computing".

"COMPUTEX, as one of the global leading technology tradeshows, has continued to advance with the times for more than 30 years. This year, for the first time, a keynote speech will be held at the pre-show international press conference," said Mr. Walter Yeh, President & CEO, TAITRA, "Dr. Lisa Su received a special invitation to share insights about the next generation of high-performance computing. We look forward to her participation attracting more companies to participate in COMPUTEX, bringing the latest industry insights, and jointly sharing the infinite possibilities of the technology ecosystem on this global stage."

We knew this was coming, especially after Google's teaser from earlier this month. Project Stream was a proof-of-concept in collaboration with Ubisoft, to see whether AAA gaming was possible over the internet. Things were smooth most of the time in our own experience, but there remained questions over how the concept would translate over to a finished product, especially with infrastructure challenges on the client side of things. Google's keynote at GDC just wrapped up, and the main focus was Stadia- the now named cloud gaming service borne out of Project Stream.

Stadia is built with instant access in mind. An example demo came in the form of Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed Odyssey, which was used in the public test before. It is integrated with partner YouTube channels such that a trailer for a supported game would have an option to play said game, which would then launch immediately. Stadia is built with support from a wide partner network including AMD, Unity, id Software, and more, with details seen past the break.

NVIDIA will implement the 7 nanometer EUV (extreme ultraviolet) lithography to build its future generation of GPUs slated for 2020, according to Japanese publication MyNavi.jp. The GPU giant could be among the first customers besides IBM, to contract Samsung for 7 nm EUV mass-production of GPUs. IBM will use the Korean semiconductor giant for manufacturing Z-series processors and FPGAs. Samsung announced in October 2018 that it will begin risk-production on its 7 nm EUV node in early-2019.

An earlier report from 2018 also forecast NVIDIA implementing 7 nm DUV (deep ultraviolet) node of TSMC for its 2019 GPU lineup. With news of the company now working with Samsung on 7 nm EUV for 2020, this seems less likely. It's possible that NVIDIA could somehow split its next generation GPU lineup between TSMC 7 nm DUV and Samsung 7 nm EUV, with the latter being used for chips with higher transistor-counts, taking advantage of the node's higher deliverable transistor densities.

It was about 6 months ago that we posted a news story about how a Lenovo representative mentioned that the successor to NVIDIA's GeForce 10-series of GPUs would be named the 11-series. Fast forward in time, we know how that turned out with the recently announced RTX 20-series instead. The rumor mill has not taken a break over the holidays, however, with consistent postings and speculation online about how NVIDIA will announce not only the RTX 2060 at CES 2019, but also a whole new GTX 11-series accompanying it that is aimed to meet gaming needs without real-time ray tracing support and at a lower price point respective to the equivalent RTX SKU.

Perhaps it is fitting that Lenovo provides more fuel to this fire once again, with a listing of a mobile GeForce GTX 1160 (N18E) graphic solution on their upcoming Legion Y530 and Y7000P laptops. VideoCardz.com was quick to capture a screenshot of the specs listing, seen below, that describes it as a "next generation GPU", albeit with an asterisk hinting that the specification may not be final. Indeed, Lenovo has since changed the description on that product page to remove all signs of said 11-series mobile GPUs, and the LaptopMedia specs database for the Legion Y530 also now mentions a "GTX 2060" with 6 GB of VRAM instead. The only thing we know for sure is that we are not sure of anything, and it may well be that a GeForce 11-series, if it even exists, is a mobile-only platform. Hopefully CES will shed more light on this matter, and stay tuned for our coverage of the event accordingly.

Maxsun may not be much of a household name in territories outside China, as the western market penetration isn't the most relevant within NVIDIA's partners. That said, the company does enjoy the status of NVIDIA AIB, so they're privy to details on next-gen products - especially when they are, allegedly, so close to a reveal and launch.

Maxsun showcased their take on NVIDIA's next generation (you can find the ending of that very word in the photo of the presentation slide) products with a 3D render of what could very well be their finalized next-gen graphics card's looks - and part of their premium, iCraft segment. The ubiquitous RGB is there, as always, pandering to the majority of users' lighting requirements. The graphics card presents a dual-slot, triple-fan solution, and there doesn't seem to be a DVI connector, nor an SLI termination, for that matter. The card also seems to have a single 8-pin power connector, and the GeForce branding is clear. Sadly, the render doesn't specify the model it pertains to - it would be great to finally have some closure on the 1100, 2000 series' debates.

Micron Technology, Inc. today announced volume production on its 8 GB GDDR6 memory. Built on experience and execution for several generations of GDDR memory, GDDR6 - Micron's fastest and most powerful graphics memory designed in Micron's Munich Development Center - is optimized for a variety of applications that require high performance memory, including artificial intelligence (AI), networking, automotive and graphics processing units (GPUs). Additionally, Micron has worked with core ecosystem partners to ramp GDDR6 documentation and interoperability, enabling faster time to market for designs.

"Micron is a pioneer in developing advanced high bandwidth memory solutions and continues that leadership with GDDR6. Micron demonstrated this leadership by recently achieving throughput up to 20 GB/s on our GDDR6 solutions," said Andreas Schlapka, director, Compute Networking Business Unit, Micron. "In addition to performance increases, Micron has developed a deep partner ecosystem to enable rapid creation of GDDR6 designs, enabling faster time to market for customers looking to leverage this powerful new memory technology."

NVIDIA HGX-2 , the first unified computing platform for both artificial intelligence and high performance computing. The HGX-2 cloud server platform, with multi-precision computing capabilities, provides unique flexibility to support the future of computing. It allows high-precision calculations using FP64 and FP32 for scientific computing and simulations, while also enabling FP16 and Int8 for AI training and inference. This unprecedented versatility meets the requirements of the growing number of applications that combine HPC with AI.

A number of leading computer makers today shared plans to bring to market systems based on the NVIDIA HGX-2 platform. "The world of computing has changed," said Jensen Huang, founder and chief executive officer of NVIDIA, speaking at the GPU Technology Conference Taiwan, which kicked off today. "CPU scaling has slowed at a time when computing demand is skyrocketing. NVIDIA's HGX-2 with Tensor Core GPUs gives the industry a powerful, versatile computing platform that fuses HPC and AI to solve the world's grand challenges."

Intel's next generation "Ice Lake" processor could integrate a significantly faster integrated graphics solution (iGPU), if a SiSoft SANDRA online database entry is to be believed. A prototype "Ice Lake" chip was benchmarked, with its iGPU being described by the database as "Intel UHD Graphics" based on the company's Gen 11 graphics architecture, which succeeds the current Gen 9.5 architecture implemented on "Coffee Lake" and "Kaby Lake." This iGPU is endowed with 48 execution units (EUs), which work out to 384 unified shaders; against 24 EUs and 192 shaders on Intel UHD 620. SANDRA also describes the iGPU as being able to share up to 6 GB of memory from the system memory; and featuring 768 KB of dedicated cache. Its reference clock is 600 MHz, double that of the UHD 620, although its boost clock remains a mystery. "Ice Lake" is being built on Intel's new 10 nm+ silicon fabrication process, so it's understandable for the company to significantly enlarge its iGPU.