Intel has announced new plans that would see the integrated GPUs on their processors used to scan for malware and viruses, something that will improve both performance and battery life on some PCs.

Rick Echevarria, Intel's platform security division VP explains: "With Accelerated Memory Scanning, the scanning is handled by Intel's integrated graphics processor, enabling more scanning, while reducing the impact on performance and power consumption. Early benchmarking on Intel test systems show CPU utilization dropped from 20 percent to as little as 2 percent".

Intel's new Threat Detection Technology is available on Intel's 6th/7th/8th gen processors, where it will move virus scanning abilities to the GPU, offloading it from the CPU. Right now virus scanners use the CPU to detect memory-based attacks, but entire system performance drops because of this. The company is hoping that offloading virus scanning to the integrated GPU that performance and power consumption will improve, as most PCs aren't using on-board GPUs to their full potential at all times. Might as well make use of that unused GPU power.

Microsoft has teamed with Intel on the initiative at first, with changes coming to the Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) later this month. Intel on the othe hand is working with anti-virus companies so that they can take advantage of the silicon-level changes to virus scanning, so that their software offloads everything to the integrated GPU.

NVIDIA could most likely feel the voodoo doll that AMD has of them being poked and prodded overnight, with AMD coming out with a body slam against the GeForce Partner Program, or GPP.

For those who don't know the GPP is a new program that will see AMD add-in board partners who make both GeForce and Radeon graphics card need to have a very fine line between Radeon and GeForce. For the last few years we've seen AIB partners market GeForce and Radeon graphics cards in the same brands like ROG by ASUS, but now that the cat is out of the bag with AREZ, things are going to heat up.

We all knew it was coming with a bunch of rumors flying through the internet, but now it has been 100% confirmed: ASUS has given up their ROG brand for Radeon graphics cards by introducing their new AREZ brand.

AREZ is derived by Ares, the Greek god of War, with ASUS explaining in their press release: "AREZ-branded graphics cards are built using industry-leading automated manufacturing to provide AMD gamers and enthusiasts with superior cooling technology and a robust software ecosystem".

This pretty much confirms that ASUS has dropped the Republic of Gamers brand from Radeon graphics cards, which will be reserved for NVIDIA's GeForce GTX line of products. ASUS is expected to sell multiple different cards in the AREZ brand that include Expedition, Phoenix, Strix (non-ROG), and Dual.

The upcoming AREZ series of graphics cards from ASUS is becoming more and more real as the days fly past, with VideoCardz the first to report on it, and now updating the story with new information.

ASUS has a website dedicated to the new AREZ series of Radeon graphics cards, with the new series being an answer to the upcoming GeForce Partner Program, or GPP by NVIDIA. This means that ASUS can't have Radeon cards inside of their gaming brand (ROG) and instead will have to have a watered down name for Radeon gaming graphics cards (AREZ).

What do you think of the news?

TweakTown has been the first with most of the next-gen Navi GPU architecture news, where a few months ago now I wrote that sources of mine had said that Vega was such a "disaster" that the RTG team "don't know where they're going forward" and that Navi will be "just as bad" as Vega.

Well, now Chris Hook has left the company along with Raja Koduri - both from the Radeon team in architecture and marketing, respectively. On top of that, we have fresh rumors from Fudzilla that AMD's next-gen Navi GPU will offer GTX 1080 / Radeon RX Vega 64 performance and that it will replace the RX 580 as a mainstream gaming card in 2019.

None of this is new, as I reported about this months ago but the rumors are fresh again and most tech media is picking it up so I thought I would cover it and give it a bit of an injection of reality.

AMD is losing key staff left, right and center, but one of the best guys in the industry is now gone from Team Red: Chris Hook. Hook joins major talent like Raja Koduri that have abandoned the what seems to be sinking ship that is Radeon.

Hook took to his Facebook page to announce the news, but had briefed some of the press before hand. I have been in contact with Chris for years now, he is a good friend of mine and it is sad to see him depart AMD, but I believe he will be landing on his feet very soon with some exciting news to share.

On his FB post, Hook said:

Hi Everyone, As some of you know, I made the decision recently to leave AMD to pursue a new role outside the company (which I start at the end of April). AMD has been a great company to work for, and I owe a tremendous amount to them both professionally and personally. Changing jobs was an incredibly hard decision to make since I've been with AMD/ATI since I was still in my late 20s, which is so long ago that ATI still had a smoking room, there was only one TV in the office (a small 14" black and white version we crowded into a room to watch 9/11 on), transistor size was still measured in microns, and 320Ã-240 was considered 'high res'.

TweakTown was the world exclusive with news that AMD was preparing a rebranded Radeon RX 500X series, and here we are: a full confirmation that AMD has simply rebranded the RX 500 series, with the 'new' RX 500X series.

AMD is simply rebranding their entire lineup of Polaris-based RX 500 series cards, the same cards that they released last year that were tweaked RX 400 offerings. The RX 500X series the same RX 500 series cards that AMD will now be giving to system builders, OEMs, and mobile platforms. AMD is simply refreshing the brand for OEMs and notebooks.

The deal here with the rebranded Radeon RX 500X series is that AMD is ensuring that the RX 500X series cards are using the latest hardware and driver revisions for Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition for 2018. It might not be a big deal to gamers because this isn't a new card, but this means a lot to OEMs selling Radeon.

I've been reporting for a while now that there will be no new graphics card launches in 2018, and it seems this is still correct. AMD has rebranded the RX 500 into RX 500X, so all roads still lead to Navi for Q2 2019.

I had an interesting conversation with someone a couple of days ago regarding the future of Intel, AMD, NVIDIA and the future of GPU technology going into the 2020s.

What was confirmed on that phone call was that Intel is serious about entering the gaming graphics card market, something the company confirmed in February. More so since Raja Koduri left AMD to get inside Intel (pun intended), as well as a few other key staff and news coming in the next few months. We're in for a big ride.

My sources have said that Raja is "building a great team", that Intel wants to take big bold risks by thinking big and courageous. Raja and Intel want to drive these people hard and that they're 100% in it, with Raja wanting to bring people in to win with Intel now that he's outside of the downward spiral with AMD and their non-direction-no-action-at-all with Radeon.

AMD is forging ahead with its next-next-gen Zen CPU architecture, with lead Zen architect Mike Clark confirming that AMD is now working on the "Zen 5" CPU microarchitecture.

The news comes directly from a one-year-later video from AMD about their Ryzen CPU, right before the new Ryzen 2000 series processors launch on April 19. AMD hosted a panel with the top brass behind Ryzen, with people from both their CPU engineering and marketing departments.

VideoCardz reports that "manufacturers often skip 4 due to its meaning in Chinese culture. It's an unlucky number because it's homophonous to the word 'death'. Something that AMD surely does not want to be associated with Zen architecture". Interesting.

How many graphics cards are required for a full-on Star Wars flight simulator in 4K real-time? LOTS.

Disney's upcoming Star Wars flight simulator is part of their new Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge experience, and is currently powered by 8 x NVIDIA Quadro P6000 graphics cards, which are available on Amazon for $4700 each. Adding up 6 of them together, we have a grand total of a wallet-busting $37,600 just for the graphics cards alone.

In the shaky cam video above, the Star Wars flight simulator was running in real-time powered by 8 x NVIDIA Quadro P6000 graphics cards.