AMD has one of the best CPUs for gaming with its current-gen Zen 4-based Ryzen 7 7800X3D processor, but we're now expecting next-gen Zen 5-based Ryzen 9000 series, which will have SKUs that will be powered with 3D V-Cache technology.

But now AMD has spoken with PCGamer about some new CPUs, with AMD's senior technical marketing manager Donny Woligroski saying: "The X3D stuff, we have a lot to say about it. The best part about it is we're not just resting on laurels. We're improving what we can do with X3D, it's really exciting and I'm super looking forward to talking to people about that. It's not like, hey, we've also added X3D to a chip. We are working actively on really cool differentiators to make it even better. We're working on X3D, we're improving it".

If you were expecting to see AMD do what it did last time: slapping second-gen 3D V-Cache to its CPUs this time around, you'd be wrong. AMD has been making improvements to 3D V-Cache, and it seems that we're going to see just what those improvements are -- sorry, 'really cool differentiators' -- when the next-gen Zen 5-based Ryzen 9000 series X3D processors launch.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 will require an absolutely bonkers amount of SSD space on the Xbox Series X/S consoles, requiring a huge 309.8GB of storage.

The news comes from an early spotting of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 on the Xbox Store, showing that it requires exactly 309.8GB of space. Frankly, I'm not surprised... we saw a few years ago that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare was consuming 200GB+ and then 250GB+ on the PC before some changes were made, but now we're talking about 300GB... one-third of the 1TB SSD inside of the Xbox Series X/S consoles.

The president of SK hynix and the chairman of SK Group met with TSMC chairman and CEO C.C. Wei to discuss, and solidify their partnership in the AI semiconductor business in Taipei, just two months after SK hynix and TSMC shook hands on next-gen HBM4 memory and next-gen semiconductor packaging technology.

The two technology leaders discussed the progress and details of their on-going partnership, with TSMC contract manufacturing SK hynix's HBM memory chips, which are the key part to NVIDIA's dominance in the AI GPU market with its Hopper H100, H200, and Ampere A100 series AI GPUs.

Under the agreement announced back in April 2024, the two companies promised to use TSMC's advanced manufacturing process in the base die of next-gen HBM4 memory, which will enter mass production in 2025, one year ahead of schedule.

Those desperate to witness the launch of next-gen graphics cards from AMD and NVIDIA may not want to hear the latest chatter from the GPU grapevine, as it points to delays with both Blackwell and RDNA 4.

As VideoCardz noticed, Tweakers has posted two reports on both next-gen GPU ranges sharing what's been gleaned from talking to connected sources at Computex, though we should add you must grab handfuls of seasoning to go with these assertions.

The first report was about AMD, and also Intel's, next-gen GPUs, and claims that both RDNA 4 and Battlemage won't be out until 2025, or this is the most likely case. Both ranges should debut at CES 2025, or that's the strongest possibility, according to Tweakers - though an announcement could be made late in 2024.

Windows 11 has a new preview out in the Canary channel and it makes some very useful changes on the accessibility front.

Build 26231 ushers in Voice Access for Narrator (Windows 11's screen reading tool), meaning that users can dictate text to their PC, and then have it read back to them.

Microsoft is also introducing voice commands for Narrator that include turning on the feature, and instructions to make the speed of reading faster, or to 'read the next line' or a selected piece of text.

Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown is out on the PC early today, with a new PC demo being posted to Steam and playable through to June 17 at 10AM Pacific Time. Check it out:

NACON and KT Racing announced the release date of Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown last week, where it'll hit the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S consoles and PC on September 12. We now have the PC system requirements, which are very hefty if you plan on playing the game at 4K 60FPS.

NVIDIA has been dominant for years, but in a new report from analyst firm Jon Peddie Research (JPR) we're seeing the AIB GPU market is absolutely dominated by NVIDIA with 88% market share, AMD with just 12%, leaving Intel with exactly 0% market share.

JPR's report states that in Q1 2024, 8.7 million units were shipped, down from 9.5 million units in Q4 2023. The market share for desktop discrete GPU suppliers "shifted" in the quarter, with NVIDIA's market share growing since last quarter by 8%, while AMD's share decreased by 7%.

Intel entered the AIB market in Q3 2022, close to two years ago now, with its Arc A770 and Arc A750 graphics cards, but they "remained flat" says JPR as the company "has yet to gain significant traction in the add-in board market". Meanwhile, NVIDIA holds a dominant 88% of the market.

Micron is taking a big HBM memory chip business opportunity according to new reports, where the US-based company plans to secure 20-25% of the HBM3E market share by August 2025.

HBM is one of the hottest markets right now thanks to the insatiable demand for more and more AI GPU computing power, with HBM makers like SK hynix, Samsung, and Micron all fighting over each other to be the best. As it stands, SK hynix is far out in the lead, but Micron is making progress, and so too is Samsung which is now working with AMD on providing its HBM3E for their new Instinct MI325X AI accelerator which sports 288GB of HBM3E memory.

Micron said the progress in its HBM3E could be contributed through its advanced packaging and design capabilities, as well as the integration of its own processes. Micron is also working on next-generation HBM4 memory, which we'll see debut in 2025 and beyond for next-gen AI GPUs.

Not many gamers of today remember how much the industry was changed by 3dfx in the 90s, but now we've got a modder who has developed a PCB that features the VSA-100 chip, the chip that powered the Voodoo4 graphics card back in the day.

The 3dfx Voodoo4 graphics card was released 24 years ago, designed for power efficiency in a market that was quickly adapting to the mega-success of 3dfx at the time (NVIDIA and ATi, which was later acquired by AMD). Modder "sdz" talked about this modding experience on the Vogons forums, going through the steps and issues that he came across during the custom modification of the Voodoo4 GPU.

The modder created a working Voodoo4 GPU for laptops through a nifty MXM connector, designing the custom MXM carrier and using an FPGA to setup the required hardware and software connections, which is paramount in using older hardware like this. The new Voodoo4 GPU inside of a laptop was made to work with Windows XP, which was an operating system released closer to when 3dfx was still around.

AMD announced its new Instinct MI series AI accelerators at Computex 2024 earlier this week, but now we're hearing the company is cozying up to Samsung to get its fix of HBM memory for its upcoming AI accelerators.

During AMD's Computex 2024 keynote speed, CEO Dr. Lisa Su met with Seoul Economic Daily to talk about their HBM collaboration with South Korean giant Samsung. Samsung has now been confirmed to provide AMD with its fifth-generation HBM memory, also known as HBM3E.

On the same day, AMD announced its upcoming Instinct MI325X AI accelerator, which will feature a monster 288GB of HBM3E memory, that we now know will be provided by Samsung. Back at ISSCC 2023, the world's largest semiconductor technology conference held in San Francisco, California, AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su announced it was working with Samsung on developing HBM-PIM (processing-in-memory).