During Barclays 22nd Annual Global Technology Conference, Intel was a guest and two of the interim company co-CEOs Michelle Johnston Holthaus and David Zinsner gave a little update on the state of affairs at Intel. One of the most interesting aspects of the talk was Intel's upcoming "Panther Lake" processor—a direct successor to Intel Core Ultra 200S "Arrow Lake-H" mobile processors. The company confirmed that Panther Lake would utilize an Intel 18A node and that a few select customers have powered on Panther Lake on the E0 engineering sample chip. "Now we are using Intel Foundry for Panther Lake, which is our 2025 product, which will land on 18A. And this is the first time that we're customer zero in a long time on an Intel process," said interim co-CEO Michelle Johnston Holthaus, adding, "But just to give some assurances, on Panther Lake, we have our ES0 samples out with customers. We have eight customers that have powered on, which gives you just kind of an idea that the health of the silicon is good and the health of the Foundry is good."

While we don't know what ES0 means for Intel internally, we can assume that it is one of the first engineering samples on the 18A. The "ES" moniker usually refers to engineering samples, and zero after it could be the first design iteration. For reference, Intel's "Panther Lake-H" will reportedly have up to 18 cores: 6 P-cores, 8 E-cores, and 4 LP cores. The design brings back low-power island E-cores in the SoC tile. The P-cores use "Cougar Cove," which should have a higher IPC than "Lion Cove," while keeping the existing "Skymont" E-cores. The SoC tile may move from Arrow Lake's 6 nm to a newer process to fit the LP cores and an updated NPU. The iGPU is said to use the Xe3 "Celestial" architecture. With Arrow Lake-H launching in early 2025, Panther Lake-H likely won't arrive until 2026.

It's been public knowledge for a while now that Lenovo is planning an imminent successor to its Legion Go handheld that has proven rather popular among handheld gamers. Previous leaks and rumors indicated that the Legion Go S 8ARP1, as it will apparently be named, will be a more affordable version of the current Legion Go. Now, thanks to Roland Quandt, Windows Central, and WinFuture, more details about the upcoming Legion Go S have leaked, including images of the device, supposed specifications, and a potential price.

According to the leaks, the new affordable handheld gaming PC will feature some substantial hardware changes, including a slightly smaller eight-inch display, this time with a much lower 1920 × 1200p resolution and a slightly lower 120 Hz refresh rate. Gone, too, are the Nintendo Switch-style detachable controllers, with the Legion Go S instead featuring a white unibody design. What's more interesting than the leaked images of the Legion Go S or the hardware changes—detachable controllers or not, the Legion Go is still intended to be used as a handheld—is the new AMD APU that will seemingly power the Go S. The as-yet unannounced AMD Ryzen Z2G looks like it will be an odd core configuration featuring an AMD Radeon 680M iGPU and Zen 3+ cores. Ultimately, the APU seems like it will put the Legion Go S somewhere between the current-generation Legion Go and devices featuring the AMD Ryzen Z1 (non-extreme), which is a good place to be if Lenovo hopes to compete with the likes of the Steam Deck OLED, which will seemingly cost around the same as the Legion Go S, depending on which region you are in.

The search for a new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Intel has begun following Pat Gelsinger's departure on Monday. And it is not exactly an easy role to be filled. The tech giant's board is primarily considering external candidates to lead the company through one of its most challenging periods. Among the potential successors is Lip-Bu Tan, a former Intel board member and semiconductor industry veteran. Tan, who previously served as CEO of Cadence Design, left Intel's board in August 2023 after disagreements with Gelsinger over the company's strategic direction. Despite these past tensions, Intel's board has reportedly recently approached Tan to gauge his interest in the position. The search for new leadership is extremely difficult, considering the requirements and massive problems the new CEO would face.

Coming at a critical moment for Intel, which has experienced significant financial challenges under Gelsinger's tenure, the new CEO would need to get the Foundry business to pick up and maintain a solid product roadmap. The company's revenue dropped to $54 billion in 2023, marking a nearly one-third decline since Gelsinger took the helm in 2021. Analysts project Intel's first annual net loss since 1986 this year, with long-term signs of recovery. Gelsinger's exit, which came after the board presented him with the option to retire or be removed, reflects growing impatience with the pace of his ambitious turnaround strategy. The company has appointed CFO David Zinsner and senior executive Michelle Johnston Holthaus as interim co-CEOs while the search committee works to identify a permanent replacement.

Phanteks took the Computex 2024 show by force, showing off several new and improved cases, including the new Evolv X², the Eclipse G400A and G400N, which are successors to the P400 line, upgraded NV5 MKII and NV9 MKII cases, and the new Enthoo Pro II Server Edition XL case for the server market.

The star of the show is definitely the new Evolv X², a case that Phanteks says is redefined to fit modern consumer needs. It certainly has the modern and refined aesthetic to appeal to the wider audience, with brushed aluminium interior panels and full front to side glass panel. Some of the key features include integrated cable management, key fan positions to cool down and show off most hardware components, as well as support for rear-connector mainboard, something that most modern motherboards will have.

Intel is quietly working on second generation Arc GPUs—we have not heard much about Xe2 "Battlemage" since CES 2024. Back in January, Tom "TAP" Petersen—an Intel fellow and marketing guru—casually revealed during an interview conducted by PC World: "I'd say about 30% of our engineers are working on Battlemage, mostly on the software side because our hardware team is on the next thing (Celestial)...Battlemage has already has its first silicon in the labs which is very exciting and there's more good news coming which I can't talk about right now." Intel appears to be targeting a loose late 2024 launch window; Petersen stated that he would like to see second generation products arrive at retail before CES 2025's commencement. The SiSoftware Sandra database was updated around mid-March with two very intriguing new Intel GPU entries—test systems (built on an ASUS PRIME Z790-P WIFI mainboard) were spotted running graphics solutions "equipped with 20 Xe-Core (160 EU) and 24 Xe-Cores (160 EU)."

Michael/miktdt commented on the freshly discovered database entries: "some smaller versions are on Sisoft...I guess they are coming. Single-float GP Compute looks quite good for just 160 VE/192 VE. Doesn't tell much about the release though, I guess anything between Q4 2024 and Q2 2025 is a possibility." Both models seem to sport 11.6 GB VRAM capacities—likely 12 GB—and 8 MB of L2 cache. Wccftech has guesstimated potential 192-bit memory bandwidth for these speculative lower-level GPUs. Team Blue has a bit more tweaking to do—based on leaked figures—but time is on their side: "the performance per core for Alchemist currently sits an average of 16% faster than the alleged Battlemage GPU which isn't a big deal since driver-level optimizations and final silicon can give a huge boost when the retail products come out."

Mobile tech tipster, Revegnus, has highlighted an interesting Samsung presentation slide—according to machine translation, the company's electronics division is already responding to an anticipated growth of "client-side large language model" service development. This market trend will demand improved Universal Flash Storage (UFS) interface speeds—Samsung engineers are currently engaged in: "developing a new product that uses UFS 4.0 technology, but increases the number of channels from the current 2 to 4." The upcoming "more advanced" UFS 4.0 storage chips could be beefy enough to be utilized alongside next-gen mobile processors in 2025. For example; ARM is gearing up "Blackhawk," the Cortex-X4's successor—industry watchdogs reckon that the semiconductor firm's new core is designed to deliver "great Large Language Model (LLM) performance" on future smartphones. Samsung's roadmap outlines another major R&D goal, but this prospect is far off from finalization—their chart reveals an anticipated 2027 rollout. The slide's body of text included a brief teaser: "at the same time, we are also actively participating in discussions on the UFS 5.0 standard."

Seasonic introduced a new 12V-2x6 modular PSU cable model late last year—at the time, interested parties were also invited to Beta test early examples. Finalized versions have been introduced, via a freshly uploaded YouTube video (see below) and a dedicated product page. The "H++" connector standard—part of a new ATX 3.1 specification—is expected to replace the troubled "H+" 12VHWPR design. The PC hardware community has engaged in long-running debates about the development and rollout of a danger/peril-free alternative. PCI-SIG drafted the 12V-2x6 design last summer.

Seasonic's introductory section stated: "with the arrival of the new ATX 3 / PCIe 5.0 specifications, some graphic cards will now be powered by the new 12V-2x6 connector. Offering up to 600 W of power, the Seasonic native 12V-2x6 cable has been crafted with high quality materials, such as high current terminal connectors and 16 AWG wires to ensure the highest performance and safety in usage." The new cables are compatible with Seasonic's current ATX 3.0 power supply unit range—including "PRIME TX, PRIME PX, VERTEX GX, PX, GX White and Sakura, FOCUS GX and GX White" models. Owners of older Seasonic ATX 2.0 PSUs are best served with an optional 2x8-pin to 12V-2x6 adapter cable—although 650 W rated and single PCIe connector-equipped units are not supported at all. Two native cable models, and a non-native variant are advertised in the manufacturer's video.

Paradox Interactive and Double Eleven have announced Prison Architect 2, the 3D successor to their prison management simulator. The game offers deeper simulation, greater player control, an inhabitant behavior system and creative options to define the next generation of management gameplay. Prison Architect 2 launches on March 26 on Steam, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5 for a suggested retail price of $39.99 / £34.99 / €39.99. Enterprising Architects can pre-order Prison Architect 2 on PC today.

Prison Architect 2 offers advanced simulation systems, enabling players to construct intricate compounds with a high degree of creative freedom in a 3D environment. From building elaborate structures to managing inmates' needs while maintaining the facility's financial stability, Prison Architect 2 expands gameplay and creative tools across the board, for an engaging sandbox experience. The game also introduces a connection system between the prisoners, who will make friends or enemies with each other, impacting who they will hang out, partner or fight with. Prison Architect 2 brings prison construction and management gameplay to a new level by entering the third dimension and bringing deeper simulation than ever before.

Valve has not kept the prospect of a Steam Deck successor very secret—their Proton-based handheld gaming system will eventually become a "multi-generational product." Gabe Newell (going back to early 2022) outlined some initial ambitions for the second iteration, with a teaser: "what are the capabilities that mobile gives us, above and beyond what you would get in a traditional desktop or laptop gaming environment?" One of the project's main architects, Pierre-Loup Griffais, has discussed the prospect of a "Steam Deck 2" with The Verge and CNBC—his team's progress hinges on striking an optimal balance between performance and power efficiency (on battery). The follow-up is not arriving any time soon, despite rival companies preparing alternative portable gaming experiences—Griffais said: "I don't anticipate such a leap to be possible in the next couple of years."

Steam Deck, in its current form, seems to be the main priority for the immediate future. Griffais was a keynote speaker at Tokyo Game Show 2023, so communicated with Verge via email: "It's important to us that the Deck offers a fixed performance target for developers, and that the message to customers is simple, where every Deck can play the same games. As such, changing the performance level is not something we are taking lightly, and we only want to do so when there is a significant enough increase to be had...but we're still closely monitoring innovations in architectures and fabrication processes to see where things are going." Griffais re-confirmed this stance in an interview with CNBC (at TGS 2023)—Valve wants more gamers to adopt the platform before a push into next-gen—with improved user interfaces, more development partners and an ironing out of supply chain issues: "We're looking at this performance target that we have as a stable target for a couple years."

In the weeks leading up to Gamescom 2023 all sorts of Nintendo-related rumors started to spew forth—the boldest being a public unveiling of their much anticipated Switch successor during the conference segment. This did not transpire—of course—with Nintendo choosing to showcase existing games and hardware on the trade fair floor in Germany. Post-event murmurs proposed another highly unlikely circumstance—claims posted to social media and on forums pointed to a top secret demo session of "Switch 2" hardware occurring "behind closed doors" at Gamescom, with an elite set of development teams in attendance. These rumblings were largely dismissed due to unsubstantiated information coming from less than reliable sources.

Eurogamer and Video Games Chronicles (VGC) reached out to their cadre of industry insiders to find out more—newly published articles seem to align with recent leaks. The former understands that: "Developer presentations for Switch 2 took place behind closed doors, with partners shown tech demos of how well the system is designed to run. One Switch 2 demo is a souped up version of Switch launch title Zelda: Breath of the Wild, designed to hit the Switch 2's beefier target specs. (To be clear, though - this is just a tech demo. There's no suggestion the game will be re-released." An insider familiar with the games industry in Spain alleged, a few months ago, that Switch 2 development kits had been delivered to a notable local development partner.

Logitech International announced today that Bracken Darrell, president and chief executive officer (CEO), will be departing the Company to pursue another opportunity. Darrell's resignation as president, CEO, and as a member of Logitech's board of directors is effective today, but he will remain with the company over the coming month to ensure a seamless transition. In line with the board's established succession planning process, board member Guy Gecht will step into the role of interim CEO while a global search of internal and external candidates is conducted.

"As an experienced CEO, and member of Logitech's board since 2019, Guy has a deep understanding of Logitech and its strategy, and is well-placed as interim CEO to oversee the continued execution of the company's strategy," said Wendy Becker, Logitech's chairperson of the board. "We thank Bracken for his leadership during an exciting era of transformation at Logitech. Over his ten years as CEO, Bracken oversaw a period of consistent growth and helped to transform Logitech into an award-winning design company known for its unparalleled product innovation. We wish him well in the future and look forward to identifying his successor."

Earlier today Nintendo released its financial/earning reports for the fiscal year ending March 2023, and company president Shuntaro Furukawa has briefed investors about sales forecasts, according to a report published by Bloomberg. Furukawa-san predicts that the Switch gaming console will only sell 15 million units over the next fiscal year - sales have been slowing down for a while according to Nintendo's figures, with almost 18 million units purchased throughout 2022-23. The numbers are still very impressive when you consider that Nintendo's flagship gaming platform has been on the market for just over six years - across that span of time, total unit sales have hit the 125.62 million mark.

Furukawa also informed shareholders about the prospect of a Switch console successor arriving within the next fiscal period - Bloomberg's article brings the bad news at this point - it seems that Nintendo is not anticipating a new hardware launch within that time frame. Nintendo's software release schedule - especially in regards to first party titles - looks very threadbare for the rest of the year. The much anticipated Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrives on Friday (May 12) followed by Pikmin 4 in July, but things look to be quiet after that - unless Nintendo has a few surprises lined up for June's preview event season. Rumors of a next generation Switch have been doing the rounds since 2020, back then a "Pro" model was often touted - fans later found out that Nintendo had simply refreshed the system with an OLED panel, some tweaks to chipset efficiency, and updated the docking system to modern output standards - this premium model hit the market in late 2021.

Intel has appointed Deepak Patil as the new corporate vice president and general manager of its Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics (AXG) group. Patil is set to succeed Raja Koduri in this leadership role - company CEO Pat Gelsinger was the first person to announce news (last month) of Koduri's departure from Intel. At the time of his leaving Team Blue, Koduri's official job title was "Executive Vice President and Chief Architect" so the wording of his successor's executive ranking is slightly different. Patil is the current chief technology and strategy officer at the Intel Data Center and AI Group, and was previously senior vice president at Dell APEX USA. He will be taking over directly from interim AXG division leader Jeff McVeigh.

The official Intel statement regarding its new leadership appointment states: "Intel will deliver competitive accelerated computing products and build scalable systems with easy-to-program software on a predictable cadence. Deepak Patil will serve as the CVP and General Manager of the Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics (AXG) group. Deepak recently held the position of DCAI Chief Technology and Strategy Officer. Having held senior engineering leadership positions across the high-tech industry, including being a founding member of Microsoft Azure and leading Dell's APEX as-a-service business, he understands the important role that software and open ecosystems play in enabling application developers and service providers to bring innovative solutions to market, at scale."

Early details of MediaTek's next generation mobile chipset have emerged this week, courtesy of renowned leaker Digital Chat Station via their blog on Weibo. The successor to MediaTek's current flagship Dimensity 9200 mobile chipset will likely be called "Dimensity 9300" - a very imaginative bump up in numbering - with smartphone brand Vivo involved as a collaborator. The tipster thinks that the fabless semiconductor company has contracted with TSMC for fabrication of the Dimensity 9300 chipset - and the foundry's N4P process has been selected by MediaTek, which could provide a bump in generational performance when compared to the older 4 nm and 5 nm standards used for past Dimensity SoC ranges. It should be noted that the current generation Dimensity 9200 chipset is presently manufactured via TSMC's N4P process.

MediaTek is seeking to turnaround its fortunes in the area of flagship mobile chipsets - industry watchdogs have cited a limited uptake of the Taiwanese company's Dimensity 9200 SoC as a motivating factor in the creation of a very powerful successor. Digital Chat Station suggests that the upcoming 9300 model will pack enough of a hardware punch to rival Qualcomm's forthcoming Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC - both chipsets are touted to release within the same time period of late 2023. According to previous speculation, Qualcomm has also contracted with TSMC's factory to pump out the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 via the N4P (4 nm) process.

Intel has decided to re-organize its Max series of Data Center GPUs (codenamed Ponte Vecchio), as revealed to Tom's Hardware this week, with a particular model - the Data Center Max GPU 1350 set for removal from the lineup. Industry experts are puzzled by this decision, given that the 1350 has been officially "available" on the market since January 2023, following soon after the announcement of the entire Max range in November 2022. Intel has removed listings and entries for the Data Center GPU Max 1350 from its various web presences.

A (sort of) successor is in the works, Intel has lined up the Data Center Max GPU 1450 for release later in the year. This model will have a trimmed I/O bandwidth - this modification is likely targeting companies in China, where performance standards are capped at a certain level (via U.S. sanctions on GPU exports). An Intel spokesperson provided further details and reasons for rearranging the Max product range: "We launched the Intel Data Center Max GPU 1550 (600 W), which was initially targeted for liquid-cooled solutions only. We have since expanded our support by offering Intel Data Center Max GPU 1550 (600 W) to include air-cooled solutions."