Latest News - Page 623

AMD's next-generation Zen 5-powered Ryzen 9 9950X processor is reportedly 46% faster in multi-threaded Cinebench R24 benchmarks, according to the very latest leaks.

We have some new benchmarking numbers of a 16-core, 32-thread Zen 5 processor that should arrive as the Ryzen 9 9950X processor later this year. The purported Ryzen 9 9950X processor has been benchmarked in Cinebench R24, comparing single-thread and multi-thread benchmarks against the Ryzen 9 9900X (12C/24T) and the current-gen Ryzen 9 7950X and Ryzen 9 7900X.

The new Zen 5-powered Ryzen 9 9950X and Ryzen 9 9900X processors have also been tested against Intel's latest Core i9-14900K, Core i7-14700K, and Core i5-14600K processors. It's a fantastic spread of some of the most powerful, latest processors on the market.

Google has slapped down $1 billion to construct two new cables designed to link the US and Japan. These cables are called Proa and Taihei.

According to the announcement, the new cables will be subsea and will be built by Japanese tech giant NEC Corp. More specifically, the company has planned to route Japan, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), and then Guam, with reports indicating that Google is already working on the Taiwan-Philippines-US (TPU) cable system, which will also be getting an extension to CNMI. Current plans for the TPU system are in the name - connect Taiwan, the Philippines, and the United States, with estimates putting its completion sometime in 2025.

As for Taihei, this cable system will be a direct connection between Hawaii and Japan. Moreover, Google has planned an extension of its Tabua cable system to Hawaii on its way to from the US to Fiji and Australia. The Tabua cable is being built by SubCom. Google has also said it will be constructing an interlink cable between Hawaii, the CNMI and Guam to "connect the transpacific routes, improving their reliability and reducing latency for users in the Pacific Islands and around the world."

We reviewed the Razer BlackShark V2 Pro in 2023, concluding that "as a wireless gaming headset, it excels in all areas, from sound quality to the on-ear preset options to the build quality and comfort." Today, Razer is introducing a new headset version designed specifically for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series console hardware.

The original Razer BlackShark V2 Pro was compatible with PlayStation hardware; however, as Xbox uses its own specialized wireless protocol for audio, you'd need this new version of the Razer BlackShark V2 Pro so you can switch from PC to Xbox and back again without skipping a beat. So, for full compatibility, you'd want the new Razer BlackShark V2 Pro for Xbox, available now with an MSRP of $199.99 USD.

Interestingly, Razer has announced that the audio has been tuned for "competitive console gaming," so the out-of-the-box sound profile might differ from the PC-first version we reviewed. The new sound profile was created in collaboration with esports pros like Hakis (Alliance) and Shotzzy (OpTic Gaming).

Apple has issued a threat notification to users in 92 countries, warning them that they may have been an individual target of mercenary spyware attacks.

The company took to its support blog to explain its threat notifications are designed to inform users they may have been individually targeted by mercenary spyware attacks because of who they are or what they do. Notably, Apple states these attacks are "vastly more complex than regular cybercriminal activity and consumer malware" as mercenary spyware groups have "exception resources," and they target a small number of specific individuals and their devices.

Additionally, Apple says these mercenary groups apply "millions of dollars" to their hacking ventures, and they only have a "short shelf life," which makes them very hard to detect/prevent. Apple says that historically, these attacks can be traced back to state-sponsored groups or private companies performing the attacks on behalf of the state, and since 2021, the company has notified users in over 150 countries.

Owners of certain generations of high-end CPUs are reporting an increasing frequency of game crashes, which are now being investigated by the manufacturers.

Intel has announced it's investigating recent reports of game crashes for owners of Intel's latest 13th and 14th Gen Core i9 desktop processors. The owners of these CPUs are saying that games such as The Finals, Fortnite, Tekken 8, Hogwarts Legacy, Remnant 2, Alan Wake 2, Horizon: Zero Dawn, The Last of Us Part 1, and Outpost: Infinity Siege are crashing unexpectedly. According to reports from The Verge and Ars Technica, Intel initially believed it was an "isolated issue" but now has escalated it to a potentially more widespread problem.

Additionally, CPUs such as the i9-13900KF, i9-14900KF, i9-13900KS, and i9-14900KS may fall victim to the same issues, considering they are all the same basic silicon. Furthermore, user reports indicate that the i7-13700K and i7-14700K series may also be affected.

The next wave of powerful AI-powered chatbots is only just around the corner as Meta and OpenAI prepare for the release of GPT-5 and Llama 3, the large language models that power popular AI tools such as ChatGPT.

The underpinning technology powering popular AI tools such as ChatGPT and DALL-E will soon be getting an upgrade, according to recent reports citing progress updates from Meta and OpenAI, the two tech giants leading the charge when it comes to AI development.

Meta's president of global affairs Nick Clegg said the company is currently preparing to release Llama 3 to the public "Within the next month, actually less" and that this next-generation of Llama will arrive with a suite of new features that Meta promises will be much more impressive than the current model.

Microsoft has fixed a record-number of security vulnerabilities in an April 9, 2024 update that the company has classified as critical.

The 147 security vulnerabilities have now been fixed, with three of them being in Microsoft Defender for IoT, and all but two of them considered "high risk". The company says that none of the security vulnerabilities have been exploited, and it hasn't provided any details on the vulnerabilities themselves.

According to reports the large number of the vulnerabilities that are now patched are in response to a number of Remote Code Activation (RCE) exploits found in the OLE DB driver for SQL Server (38), DHCP and DNS servers (9) and SFB vulnerabilities within Secure Boot (24).

Intel is well aware that it faces multiple obstacles in its course to becoming the biggest in the semiconductor foundry industry; where we're hearing Intel is talking to Taiwan-based factories that have worked with TSMC, to help its Intel Foundry business.

In a new report from DigiTimes, the outlet says that the strength of Intel's R&D power shouldn't be underestimated. The R&D technology -- including ASML's bleeding-edge EUV lithography machine delivered to its US operations at the cost of $380 million and split into a new Intel Foundry business -- is as good as and even ahead of TSMC with some of its revolutionary, innovative technologies.

The hurdles that Intel faces are a few: companies don't have the same trust in Intel to fab their chips as they do with TSMC, with high manufacturing costs, yield rates, efficiency, and on-schedule in terms of mass production aren't close to what TSMC is, and has been capable of over the years.

With all the big tech companies investing billions in AI data centers, research, and the creation of generative AI models and tools, many are looking to create their own hardware as an alternative to NVIDIA's chips - while competing with AMD, Intel, and new AI-chip players like Microsoft.

Google is entering the race with its own arm-based processor designed for the AI market. Like Google's tensor processing units (TPUs), which developers can access only via Google Cloud, the Arm-based CPU called Axiom will apparently deliver "superior performance to x86 chips."

How much extra performance? According to Google, Axiom offers 30% better performance than "general purpose Arm chips" and 50% better performance than "current generation x86 chips" as produced by Intel and AMD.

Blizzard games like World of Warcraft and Diablo have been prominent in China for several years, thanks to a deal made with local publishing and gaming giant NetEase to bring its popular games and franchises to the country. However, the deal between the two expired in 2023, with Blizzard and NetEase pointing the finger at each other - citing the other party as the reason for the agreement not being renewed.

It got so heated that NetEase employees tore down a World of Warcraft statue at its offices, with both companies suing each other. Well, it looks like time heals all wounds - or a change in management does. With Microsoft now in charge of Activision Blizzard and its properties, a new deal has been struck to bring Blizzard Entertainment games like Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo back to China this summer.

As part of the new deal, both parties have also agreed to explore bringing NetEase titles to Microsoft Xbox and other gaming platforms in the West.

Meta has just teased its next-gen AI chip -- MTIA -- which is an upgrade over its current MTIA v1 chip. The new MTIA chip is made on TSMC's newer 5nm process node, with the original MTIA chip made on 7nm.

The new Meta Training and Inference Accelerator (MTIA) chip is "fundamentally focused on providing the right balance of compute, memory bandwidth, and memory capacity" that will be used for the unique requirements of Meta. We've seen the best AI GPUs on the planet using HBM memory -- with HBM3 used on NVIDIA's Hopper H100 and AMD Instinct MI300 series AI chips -- with Meta using low-power DRAM memory (LPDDR5) instead of server DRAM or LPDDR5 memory.

The social networking giant created its MTIA chip was the company's first-generation AI inference accelerator that the company designed in-house for Meta's AI workload in mind. The company says that their deep learning recommendation models are "improving a variety of experiences across our products".

AMD has already confirmed it has refreshed variants of its Instinct MI300 series AI and HPC processors in the second half of this year, with a tweaked Instinct MI350X featuring ultra-fast HBM3E memory.

AI GPU competitor NVIDIA has its current Hopper H100 AI GPU with HBM3 memory, while its newly announced H200 AI GPU features ultra-fast HBM3E memory -- the world's first AI GPU with HBM3E memory. The next-gen Blackwell B200 AI GPU ships with ultra-fast HBM3E memory as standard.

Market research firm TrendForce recently teased AMD's new Instinct MI350X. The firm says the new Instinct MI350X will feature chiplets made on TSMC's newer 4nm process node, which is an enhanced version of TSMC's 5nm-class process node. The new TSMC N4 process node will allow AMD to choose between increasing performance or lowering power consumption on its tweaked Instinct MI350X over the MI300 series AI GPU.

Google Vids is the company's latest productivity app. It is part of the Google Workspace productivity suite, which includes Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drive, Meet, and more. Per the name, it's all about video, with the Gemini AI-powered tool set to make video editing, creation, and writing a breeze.

As it's part of Google Workspace, one example of how it could be used would be to create a tutorial or sales-focused video using existing Google Docs or Slides. With Gemini, it can generate a script and a short video that users can then edit to change various aspects of the creation. As a tool, it's designed to streamline the video creation process so you can put something together without knowing much, if anything, about video editing.

As a work-centric app, Google Vids is an extension of productivity apps like PowerPoint and Slides - bridging the gap from presentation or pitch to video. As a part of Google Workspace, it can draw assets and data from Google Drive, letting you add voiceover, music, and AI-generated art.

Corsair has teamed with Chinese company Yeston on some new Sakura-themed Vengeance DDR5 memory, check it out:

The new Corsair Vengeance DDR5 memory was spotted on Corsair's China Weibo account, showing off the new DDR5 memory modules with Sakura-themed flowers and anime-inspired characters dressed in beautiful bridal gowns. Each side of the Sakura-themed Vengeance DDR5 memory is styled differently, with one side featuring chibi stylings and the other having a more typical Japanese animation.

Inside, they're regular Corsair Vengeance DDR5 memory that will work with either AMD Ryzen 7000 series "Zen 4" processors or Intel 12th Gen, 13th Gen, and 14th Gen CPUs if you've got the right motherboard ready for DDR5 memory. Corsair's new Sakura-themed Vengeance DDR5 memory seems only available in China for now, but hopefully, they make it across the pond.

Intel has just unveiled a range of new Meteor Lake-PS processors, designed for edge computing, featuring Arc graphics, and an NPU for AI workloads. Intel announced its new Meteor Lake processors on the new LGA 1851 socket at its Vision 2024 event.

The new Meteor Lake-PS processors are aimed at customers in retail, education, industrial, kiosk, and smart point-of-sale systems for brick-and-mortar stores, among others. Edge computing is a gigantic business for Intel, with over 90,000 deployments worldwide.

The new edge-focused Meteor Lake CPUs are the first to debut using the new LGA 1851 socket, which will be used on the next-gen Core Ultra 200 "Arrow Lake-S" processors on the desktop late this year. The company has unveiled 9 new Meteor Lake-PS processors so far, with five of those being Meteor Lake-PS 15W chips, with four Meteor Lake-PS 45W processors.

Intel's upcoming LGA 1851 socket has been teased, shown off in the flesh at Embedded World 2024 this week.

Intel introduced new Meteor Lake and Raptor Lake Refresh processors that were designed for socketed systems operating on the edge, which will see the birth of the LGA 1851 socket for Meteor Lake, something that the company had planned, but delayed, and now it's here.

The new LGA 1851 socket will be for both mobile and desktop platforms, where on the desktop side of things we'll have the new Core Ultra 200 "Arrow Lake-S" series processors, while Meteor Lake-PS chips will also use the new LGA 1851 socket. The new LGA 1851 socket was shown on a new motherboard at Embedded World, spotted by our friends at ComputerBase.

We still aren't sure of what naming scheme AMD might go for with its next-gen Zen 5 processors, but it appears to be the case that Team Red has plumped for Ryzen 9000.

Although we should make it clear that this is far from confirmation, but nonetheless, the sighting of the Ryzen 9000 family, made by leaker HXL on X (formerly Twitter), is a telling one. The Ryzen 9000 name is mentioned in an AMD chipset driver from ASUS.

This was the favorite choice between the potential options bandied about via the rumor mill, which were that AMD could stick with Ryzen 8000, but was more likely to switch to Ryzen 9000 (to make the distinction between the APUs and mobile CPUs already released with the former brand).

Intel has recently held its Vision Keynote where the company's CEO Pat Gelsinger touched on the current state of the technology industry and how AI will be implemented into businesses and companies around the world.

Gelsinger took to the stage and began his discussion by describing this as the age of AI, and how he believes that in the not-so-distant future AI tools will begin interacting with other AI tools to complete tasks, which will result in entire departments becoming automated by AI bots. Gelsinger added that expanding this idea of having AI-automated departments may even result in the very first one-person, billion-dollar company, which is referred to as a "Unicorn".

As you can probably imagine, Gelsinger touted the power of Intel powering the mass adoption of AI throughout businesses and even at home, even going as far to say that he calls this the age where every company becomes an AI company, which will drive the semiconductor TAM [total addressable market] from approximately $600 billion to more than $1 trillion by the end of the decade.

There's been some fresh chatter on the grapevine regarding AMD's incoming Strix Point APUs, and if the rumor is right, then you can thank AI for these chips being a bit less powerful than they otherwise would have been for other tasks outside of artificial intelligence workloads.

How does that work exactly? Well, Wccftech noticed a post over on the Anandtech forums, in which Uzzi38 - a regular name on the hardware leaking scene - dropped something of a bombshell regarding AMD readjusting its priorities with Strix Point due to the importance of AI.

In short, the original plan was changed to make room for a massive AI Engine block (AIE), which meant a large System-Level-Cache (SLC) that was originally set to be part of the APU got dropped.

The timeline for TSMC to work on the mass production of 2nm and 1.4nm chips has now been determined, according to a new report from MacRumors, which cites DigiTimes.

TSMC, the world's largest chipmaker, has reportedly nailed down its timelines for future chips that will likely be heading straight to Apple products. According to the publications, the time frames for mass production of the 2nm node and 1.4nm node have been determined, and that trial production of the 2nm node will begin sometime in the second half of 2024.

The reports also state the company's new plant in Arizona will be bolstering the 2nm production efforts, and in 2028, TSMC's facilities in Taiwan will shift production efforts to the 1.4nm node. If history is anything to tell by, TSMC's next-generation chips are likely headed straight to Apple as the company's 3nm node with the A17 Pro chip can be found in the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, which means Apple is likely to follow the same path with future generations of the iPhone, and then trickle down the chips into its other products such as its iPads and Macs.