Latest News - Page 525

Intel has been in hot water lately, and it seems a fresh pan of boiling water has just been thrown on the company, as its CEO and CFO have now been wrapped up in a new class-action lawsuit.

The class-action lawsuit was filed in northern California Wednesday, with the Construction Laborer's Pension Trust of Greater St Louis alleging that Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger and Intel CFO David Zinsner mislead of hoodwinked investors about the health of its foundry business, or Intel's fabrication labs that are being constructed in various locations around the world.

The company has poured billions of investors' money into developing these foundry labs in the following locations: Arizona, Ohio, New Mexico, Ireland, Germany, and Israel. According to the plaintiffs, Intel's CEO and CFO made misleading statements to investors between January 25 and August 1, 2024. These statements allegedly misrepresented the overall health of these foundries, which artificially raised share prices.

A new report from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has revealed more details about Apple's upcoming M4 Mac Mini, with the report stating Apple is about to make its biggest design change to its smallest computer offering.

According to the report, Apple's upcoming M4 Mac Mini will arrive in at least three different models, each sporting at least three USB-C's on the back, an HDMI port, and a power cable. In terms of design, Gurman was told the M4 Mac Mini is "essentially an iPad Pro in a small box," and the box will measure around 1.4 inches in height, making it the smallest desktop computer Apple has ever offered.

As for specifics about the M4 chip, reports indicate it will arrive with a powerful new CPU that has four performance cores and 6 efficiency cores. Additionally, the M4 is reportedly 50% faster than the M2. The new chip will also come with a 10-core GPU, Dynamic Caching, and hardware ray-tracing - all of which will be 4x faster than the M2 iPad Pro. As for the Neural Engine, reports indicate it will be a 16-core design that is capable of 38 trillion operations per second, which is 60x faster than Apple's first Neural Engine.

AMD's new Zen 5-based Ryzen 9000 series "Granite Ridge" desktop CPUs are slowly finding their way out into the wild, and now we've got the first delidded Ryzen 9000 series CPU... which didn't go as expected.

ASUS China manager Tony Yu delidded the AMD Ryzen 9000 series CPU, which involves removing the IHS (integrated heat spreader) so you can use higher-end forms of thermal paste like liquid metal. Not just that, but you can reduce CPU temperatures when stressing out your CPU under stronger workloads, but how did it go?

Tony Yu shared his Ryzen 9000 series CPU delidding story on social media platform Bilibili, where he said he had the "world's first" Zen 5 delidded CPU that was a complete failure. The on-board I/O die was cracked, which means the processor was useless afterwards. Parts of the cracked die were found on the IHS as well as on the chip itself, showing just how big the mistake was for Tony.

AMD's new Ryzen AI 300 series "Strix Point" APUs are floating out into the market inside of new laptops, but Mini-PCs based on Strix Point APUs won't be unleashed until October.

AOOSTAR has said that it will be as early as October until we see Mini-PC systems based on the AMD Ryzen AI 300 series "Strix Point" APUs. The manufacturer already has the motherboard ready to handle Strix Point, but they're still waiting for the APU itself for testing.

An AOOSTAR representative said: "Strix Point's mini computer will not be available until October at the earliest. Although the motherboard is ready, we have not yet provided the CPU for testing".

SK hynix has announced it has signed a non-binding preliminary memorandum of terms with the U.S. Department of Commerce.

The South Korean memory giant will receive up to $450 million in proposed direct funding and access to proposed loans of up to $500 million as part of the CHIPS and Science Act, which will go towards its investment to build a production base for semiconductor packaging in Indiana, USA.

Not only that, but SK hynix also plans to seek from the US Department of Treasury a tax benefit equivalent of up to 2% of the qualified capital expenditures through the Investment Tax Credit program. SK hynix has said that it "deeply appreciates" the US government's support, and that it will comply with the requirements for the remaining procedures until the proposed funding is finalized.

Elon Musk's X has filed a lawsuit against multiple major companies, alleging they conspired to boycott the social media network, having a negative impact on its revenue. Elon Musk said he tried peacefully to sort this out for two years, but "now, it is war".

X CEO Linda Yaccarino highlighted the negative effects of the advertising boycott on free speech, with the lawsuit filed in Texas, looking to address the financial and operational damages that X has gone through.

X filed a lawsuit against a global cabal of advertisers and many major companies, including the likes of Mars and CVS Health, with the social media network accusing the companies of unlawfully conspiring to boycott X, causing it to lose revenue. X filed the lawsuit in the federal court in Texas against the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), Unilever, and Danish renewable energy company Orsted.

Intel is reportedly outsourcing more of its chips to TSMC on its new 3nm process node, with 3nm backend design outsourced and increased advanced packaging and testing by Taiwanese companies.

In a new report from UDN, we're hearing that Intel is outsourcing more of its chips to TSMC as well as Taiwanese companies including Egis, Shichixin, and KYEC. UDN reports that none of the Taiwanese companies commented on the rurmors, but Intel has been expanding its outsourcing to TSMC fo a while now.

Intel has been struggling with its own advanced processes and is still a year away from its Intel 18A node coming online, with its GPUs and new CPUs being outsourced to TSMC in the next 12-18 months. Intel's new Core Ultra 200 series "Arrow Lake" CPUs are being outsourced to TSMC, with its next-generation Falcon Shores AI chip also being fabbed at TSMC and will be entering mass production on TSMC's 3nm process node in 2025.

Intel is reportedly gearing up to launch its next-generation Arc Battlemage "Xe2" GPUs for Q4 2024, with a promised 50% performance improvement over the current-gen Arc Alchemist.

The company recently held a conference in China in partnership with ASUS, talking about its next-generation products including upcoming CPUs and GPUs. The new products are designed for the DIY "client" segment, with Battlemage "Xe2" expected later this year.

In a post on Weibo, we're hearing that Intel will introduce its next-generation Arc Battlemage "Xe2" GPUs in Q4 2024. We already know that Intel's new Xe2 GPU architecture delivers 50% more performance, with big architectural changes like new Ray Tracing Units, VCC support, and more.

There are rumors, or speculation, that Rockstar's highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto 6 could see its planned 2025 release delayed to the following year. 'Highly anticipated' is putting it lightly; Grand Theft Auto 6 is on track to become the most successful game launch ever. The good news is that it's still on track for 2025, with publisher Take-Two narrowing the release window.

During Take-Two Interactive's latest quarterly financial earnings call, CEO Strauss Zelnick confirmed that Rockstar and Grand Theft Auto 6 "will deliver an unparalleled entertainment experience" when it launches for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S in Fall 2025.

This puts the release sometime during September, October, and November next year. Grand Theft Auto 5 has sold over 200 million copies to date, so undoubtedly, every other developer and publisher will be looking to avoid the exact launch date for GTA 6 when that's finally revealed.

God of War Ragnarok's PC launch is right around the corner. The highly anticipated sequel will arrive on September 19, 2024, on Steam and the Epic Games Store. PC development is being handled by the game's original developer, Santa Monica Studio, with assistance from the Vancouver-based Jetpack Interactive. We now have the full PC hardware specs and requirements for the game.

Covering 1080p, 1440p, and 4K with different visual quality settings, Santa Monica Studio confirms that its specs do not include or require upscaling technology to hit the targets. This is unlike Ubisoft's recent PC requirements for Star Wars Outlaws, where the publisher received some negative feedback for 'forcing' upscaling even at 1080p.

God of War Ragnarok will support NVIDIA DLSS 3.7, AMD FSR 3.1, Intel XeSS 1.3, and Frame Generation for all PC gamers, boosting performance and fidelity at higher resolutions when using the Ultra settings or those playing on Ultrawide displays.

Square Enix has confirmed that its latest RPG epic, Final Fantasy 16, was coming to PC; however, the development team was focused squarely (heh) on the PlayStation 5 launch ahead of the game's June 2023 release. As for a specific release date or window, PC fans have had to play 'wait-and-see' until the studio and producer Yoshi-P felt the PC version was ready to unleash.

The release could be right around the corner, thanks to some old-fashioned internet sleuthing. Fans on Reddit have found multiple mentions of the game in NVIDIA's latest Game Ready 560.81 WHQL driver for GeForce RTX graphics card owners.

And that's multiple because not only is "ffxvi.exe" listed under a game profile for Final Fantasy XVI, but also "ffxvi_demo.exe" - indicating that Square Enix is planning on releasing a playable slice of the RPG for all PC gamers to try out.

If you've ever bought a power supply (PSU) for your PC, you're probably familiar with the various 80 PLUS ratings with different tiers like Silver, Gold, Platinum, and Titanium. The whole' 80 PLUS' label refers to independent testing and certification that the power supply has at least 80% efficiency at different load levels. There's a lot more to it than that, but most PSUs on the market carry one of the many different 80 PLUs certification stickers.

Corsair has now stated that it's moving away from the 80 PLUS certification for the more detailed power supply certification that comes from Cybenetics. According to Corsair, modern power supplies require more detailed certification that expands beyond efficiency.

However, Corsair says that Cybenetics' efficiency profiles and testing better reflect real-world usage. "Cybenetics' testing methodology produces thousands of data points across all loads," Corsair writes. "Rather than the handful of measurements produced during 80 PLUS testing, ensuring more accurate results."

Intel has just launched the A760A, a discrete GPU made for cars, something the company announced today at its AI Cockpit Innovation Experience event.

The new A760A GPU isn't quite new, as it's a rebrand of a GPU already on the market, but now aimed at the automotive market. Intel says its new A760A GPU will deliver "next-level, high-fidelity experiences' for vehicles.

The A760A has higher performance compared to integrated graphics on other Intel processors that were made for vehicles, called SDV SoCs. Intel says its new A760A is an easy drop-in upgrade for car manufacturers that already have vehicles powered by SDV processors, allowing for performance upgrades without a platform change.

Update: I received an email from Intel PR saying that even with Innovation 2024 being postponed, that its next-gen Arrow Lake CPUs are still on track for a Q4 2024 release. You can read the updated version with the full comments here.

Intel has postponed its upcoming Innovation 2024 event from September, and not just by a few days or weeks, or even months, but "until 2025" the company explained in an email.

The company explained: "after careful consideration, we have made the decision to postpone our Intel-hosted event, Intel Innovation in September, until 2025. For the remainder of 2024, we will continue to host smaller, more targeted events, webinars, hackathons and meetups worldwide through Intel Connection and Intel AI Summit ev ents, as well as have a presence at other industry moments".

Intel and its partners have begun rolling out the microcode update that will fix stability and degradation issues with 13th and 14th Gen Intel Core desktop CPUs. The update arrived slightly ahead of the 'mid-August' window, with new BIOS updates with the 0x129 microcode available for several motherboards.

ASUS motherboard owners were the first to be informed of the microcode's availability, and a BIOS update (still listed as BETA - via the ROG Forum) is available for Z790 motherboards. This covers the company's enthusiast and high-end boards in the ROG MAXIMUS and ROG STRIX line-ups, with ASUS noting that the BIOS update also improves 'system performance.'

MSI has also announced the first batch of BIOS updates for a range of its Intel boards, covering Godlike, Ace, Carbon, and Tomahawk models, with the new 0x129 microcode available now. ASRock is also listing BIOS updates for some of its motherboards.

Gamescom is the largest gaming event and conference in the world. Each year, Germany hosts over 100,000 fans, enthusiasts, media, and industry people for a week of gaming-related announcements and celebrations. Last year, AMD was on hand to announce two brand-new GPUs: the Radeon RX 7800 XT and the Radeon RX 7700 XT.

Although AMD hasn't teased something similar for Gamecom 2024, a new post by ASUS announcing that it has created a new custom limited-edition Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2-themed graphics card that there's an 'AMD Gamescom Event on August 23.'

The announcement doesn't specify what Radeon GPU this new limited edition card will be, so we can only guess it will be a flagship Radeon RX 7900 XTX. The teaser image does indicate that it will be based on the TUF Gaming design. As for AMD, hosting a 'Gamescom Event' does imply that the company has something to announce and that something could be new hardware from the Radeon team.

AMD has a new gaming bundle for those looking to pick up a new Ryzen CPU or Radeon GPU. Eligible customers will receive two new PC games to play - Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 and Unknown 9: Awakening. Both are visually impressive titles arriving later this year. However, the deal doesn't apply to AMD's new Zen 5 desktop Ryzen 9000 Series.

Eligible desktop products include any Ryzen 7000 Series CPU from the Ryzen 7 7700 and above or any Radeon RX 7000 Series GPU from the Radeon RX 7600 XT and above. The gaming bundle also applies to laptops, but these will need to include a Ryzen 7000 Series processor and a mobile Radeon RX 7600S or RX 7700S graphics card.

The deal is available to customers everywhere, including North American retailers such as Amazon and Newegg. For the games, hit the jump to check out trailers alongside the complete list of eligible products.

Hindsight is 20/20, and all that, but a new report at Reuters indicates that the Intel of 2024 could have been a very different company if it hadn't passed on the opportunity to invest in OpenAI. Citing "four people with direct knowledge," Intel discussed acquiring a 15% stake in OpenAI in 2017 and 2018.

Discussions and talks took place over several months, with the report stating that the then-CEO Bob Swan didn't see generative AI as becoming a significant thing in the market anytime soon, so it wouldn't be able to recoup its investment. That investment is rumored to have been worth $1 billion for 15% of the company.

Recent reports state that OpenAI is worth around $80 billion, so you can guess how this decision to turn down OpenAI is being viewed today.

Intel participated in a recent event in China with ASUS, where it discussed issues surrounding the current Raptor Lake generation of desktop CPUs and provided some new information on its next-gen Arrow Lake products, which will arrive later this year.

To get the current-gen stuff out of the way, Intel addressed the upcoming BIOS update for its 13th and 14th Gen Core CPUs, which will arrive in a matter of days. Designed to resolve stability issues and prevent damage to hardware, a representative from the company stated that the fix would not affect the K series' "turbo frequency" or overclocking capabilities.

For those who attribute Intel's recent CPU issues to models like the Cire i9 13900K being power-hungry and expecting the BIOS update to 'nerf' peak performance, this announcement does indicate that the problem isn't simply about the amount of power these CPUs draw. However, when discussing next-gen Arrow Lake, we learn these new CPUs will draw at least 100W less power when maintaining higher frequencies.

Regular PC users don't worry about RAID or data redundancy unless they are running a home server or NAS. However, its importance must be recognized in the enterprise space. Mitigating the risk of losing data - yeah, it's a must.

And for those with a RAID setup, the downside for enterprise isn't merely sacrificing capacity for storing data - the compute costs and DRAM bandwidth requirements are very real. With the rise of NVMe SSDs and increased read and write performance, RAID configuration and compute requirements can be the bottleneck in slowing down an entire system.

KIOXIA's RAID Offload data protection technology ensures that performance scales as the number of SSDs increases and more advanced storage solutions are added. Described as a "standards-based, host-orchestrated scale out and sustainable solution to offload RAID parity compute," it frees up CPU, memory, and cache resources.