News: Technology News

At long last, Nvidia and AMD GPU street prices are beginning to drop

Tue, 25 Jan 2022 03:24:33 +0000

Looks like gaming’s (almost) back on the menu

We’re not out of the woods yet — not even close — but it looks like the prices of Nvidia and AMD GPU prices may finally be coming down. Tom’s Hardware in the US and 3DCenter.org in Germany have been charting eBay and local retail prices, respectively, and they’re each seeing the same thing: a substantial dip for nearly every new graphics card that Nvidia and AMD make.

Want an Nvidia RTX 3080? Just two months ago, that might have cost you $1,773 on the street — over two and a half times the manufacturer suggested retail price. As we reported in November with our own chart, that was typical of the hottest graphics cards, and Tom’s Hardware shows things got slightly worse in December. But in January, those prices have dipped 11 percent to just under $1,600 on average.

The RTX 3080 isn’t alone: most every other RTX 3000 and AMD Radeon RX 6000 graphics card dipped between around 5 and 10 percent, with the RX 6900 XT being the sole exception whose price went up.

Mind you, Tom’s Hardware also shows the volume of sales went down considerably on eBay, and some cards were barely trading to begin with: just nine units of the Radeon RX 6800 changed hands in a week. It’s possible prices are coming down because some people are giving up, unwilling to pay scalper fees.

Or, perhaps it has to do with the nosedive that cryptocurrency has taken recently. It’ll be interesting to see if the recent slump drives GPU prices down dramatically since they won’t be nearly as valuable to miners now. Miners will often sell large quantities of graphics cards when they can’t put them to work. This batch of eBay data is from last week, so it doesn’t contain the full impact of crypto quite yet.

But 3DCenter.org shows the dip isn’t just happening when GPUs are sold on the secondhand market, but at German retailers as well:

Chart by 3DCenter.org

Between these two reports, it feels like a good omen — even if you’ll still pay more than double MSRP for an RTX 3060 Ti right now.

While we haven’t seen any major indications that supply has caught back up to demand (these GPUs remain incredibly hard to find at anything save exorbitant prices), Nvidia and AMD have been repeatedly signaling that they expect supply to improve in the second half of 2022.

On the console front, the PS5 and Xbox Series X are also seeing their secondhand eBay prices sinking. I ran some eBay numbers for the past three months, and both Sony and Microsoft’s flagship consoles have dropped $100, from an average price of $800 to an average of around $700. Here are the charts, in case you’re curious.

PS5 average eBay sale price, last 90 days

Screenshot by Sean Hollister / The Verge

Xbox Series X average eBay sale price, last 90 days

Screenshot by Sean Hollister / The Verge

At long last, Nvidia and AMD GPU street prices are beginning to drop

Latest Intel Arc GPU leaks: 3070 Ti-ish speeds, 5 different options for laptops

Mon, 24 Jan 2022 22:26:22 +0000

Intel's stab at the dedicated GPU market still looks promising.

Intel's upcoming Arc GPUs.

Intel

Intel hasn’t said much about its upcoming Arc dedicated GPUs since announcing their branding and a handful of architectural details a few months ago, but recent leaks have given us some indications of what we can expect when it comes to performance and to the GPUs that Intel is planning for laptops later this year.

Of the leaks, the one about the laptop Arc models is more concrete. A slide originally leaked on Twitter outlines a total of five different GPU models for laptops, ranging from a couple of slow-but-better-than-integrated options at the bottom all the way to a potential high-end GeForce or Radeon competitor

Potential configuration options for Intel's laptop Arc GPUs.

@9550pro on Twitter

The best of the GPUs includes 512 of Intel’s GPU execution units (EUs) attached to 16 GB of 16 Gbps video memory using a 256-bit interface; that wide a memory interface and that much memory suggests a high-end GPU that’s trying to compete with GeForce 3070- and 3080-series and Radeon 6800- and 6900-series products. The middle two GPU options—one 384 EU model with 12 GB of RAM connected to a 192-bit interface and one 256 EU model with 8 GB of RAM and a 128-bit interface—are reminiscent of the specs for Nvidia's mainstream RTX 3060 and 3050 laptop GPUs. The two low-end models, which connect to 4 GB of RAM with a 64-bit memory interface, seem poised to compete with GPUs like Nvidia's GeForce MX series or the beefed-up RDNA2 integrated GPUs in AMD's upcoming Ryzen 6000 laptop processors.

The slides’ use of “recommended” implies that laptop makers will have some room to tweak these options, most likely by using more or less (or faster or slower) RAM. This would be par for the course for the sometimes-confusing mobile GPU market, where the “same” model GPU can perform differently in different laptops depending on the specific hardware configurations, cooling systems, and power consumption settings that laptop makers choose. It's also difficult to draw conclusions on these GPUs' performance using just these on-paper numbers.

That leads us to the other recent Arc story: some SiSoftware benchmarks purporting to show an Arc desktop GPU's performance surfaced last week, pointing to a 512 EU model that was roughly competitive with an Nvidia RTX 3070 Ti (albeit with more impressive-looking numbers for GPU computing tasks than for gaming). Assuming Intel gets close to RTX 3070-tier performance with that desktop part, it's not unreasonable to assume 3060-ish and 3050-ish performance targets for the more modest 384 and 256 EU products. That said, these numbers are (at best) an unverified performance preview using non-final hardware and drivers in a single benchmark, so we shouldn't draw too many conclusions from those numbers in isolation.

Intel's Arc GPUs were originally supposed to begin appearing in the first quarter of 2022, though references to "Q1" have since been removed from Intel's website. Some laptop announcements from CES earlier in January mentioned Arc GPUs, but with no specs or performance numbers included, and Intel hasn't been forthcoming with specifics. The GPU shortage is still bad enough that even decidedly mediocre products are being bought as fast as the GPU companies can make them, so chances are that Intel's GPUs will sell well even if they're objectively not all that impressive. They just have to be released first.

Latest Intel Arc GPU leaks: 3070 Ti-ish speeds, 5 different options for laptops

Google is reportedly planning a next-gen Chromecast with Google TV

Mon, 24 Jan 2022 22:23:29 +0000

The obvious upgrades would be more storage and AV1 support.

9to5Google reports that Google is prepping a sequel to the Google Chromecast with Google TV. Last year, Google changed the high end of the Chromecast line from a dead-simple, streaming-only video device to a full-blown Android streamer with installable apps, a navigable UI, and a physical remote. The move was effectively a merger of Google's two TV products, the Chromecast and Android TV, with the revamped, Android TV-based software being rebranded "Google TV."

9to5Google says the next-generation version of the device is codenamed "Boreal" and was spotted in some documentation next to "Sabrina," the code name for the current Chromecast with Google TV (which 9to5Google was also the first to discover). The report doesn't have any details about what we can expect from the new Chromecast, but the current device has some glaring shortcomings that will hopefully be fixed.

The biggest problem with the current Chromecast? You really have to wonder if it was actually designed from the ground up to run Android. The device has a measly 8GB of storage for the entire OS and all your apps and updates. Even $100 Android phones have 64GB of storage now, and 8GB isn't enough for even light app usage. Some Android games are exceeding 10GB these days, so you can't install them on the new Chromecast, even before half the storage is reserved for the base OS.

The other problem with the current dongle is the lack of AV1 support. AV1 is Google's latest video codec, building on the success of VP8 and VP9. AV1's superior compression and royalty-free licensing have earned it the support of Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Microsoft, Samsung, Intel, Facebook, Arm, Hulu, and a ton of other companies. Google is having YouTube lean so heavily into AV1 that it is building custom AV1 transcoders for its server farms. As deals with YouTube hardware partners are renegotiated, Google is making AV1 hardware support a component of the deal; this was reportedly one of the issues in the Google v. Roku battle.

Google's own Chromecast with Google TV doesn't support AV1, though. There's a good chance Google will fix that problem with the new generation, since using an older codec just produces more bandwidth costs, and that means more money out of Google's pocket. We can only guess when this device will come out. We'll probably hear more about it at Google I/O in May.

Update: More Details

A new Protocol report adds a bit more detail to the Boreal story, saying it's a low-end device that only supports 1080p playback. The site pegs the device as having an Amlogic S805X2 CPU with a Mali-G31 GPU, which would give it AV1 support. There's no word on if it's also packing more storage. 8GB isn't enough storage even for a low-end Android device.

Google is reportedly planning a next-gen Chromecast with Google TV

Microsoft Weekly: Activision acquisition, forced updates, and Google Play on Windows

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

If you closely follow the Microsoft-verse, you know that this was the busiest week of the year so far in terms of the flow of news. This is due to a major acquisition, several Windows updates, and an interesting endeavor from Google. It's possible that you might have missed some events that transpired over the past few weeks, but fret not, we will cover them in our weekly digest for January 15 - January 21.

Microsoft x Activision

The biggest news of the week was undoubtedly Microsoft's announcement that it is buying games publisher Activision Blizzard in an all-cash deal worth a whopping $68.7 billion. This gives the company ownership of multiple studios including Treyarch, Raven Software, and Infinity Ward, as well as several popular IP including Call of Duty, Overwatch, World of Warcraft, and Diablo, among others. The deal has been approved by the respective board of directors of both parties but is yet to go through shareholder and regulatory nods, something Microsoft hopes to finalize before July 2023. This acquisition adds 10,000 more employees to Microsoft's workforce and makes it the third-largest game company globally in terms of revenue, behind Tencent and Sony.

Given the scale and nature of the transaction, there was obviously lots of excitement and concerns in the gaming sphere and outside of it. For starters, the president of the World Bank criticized Microsoft for spending billions of dollars in a western game company instead of using it to solve the problems of developing countries.

Meanwhile, the newly appointed CEO of Microsoft Gaming Phil Spencer stated that he would love to leverage from this deal and revive dormant Activision Blizzard IPs such as Hexen, much to the delight of the game's fans. Both Spencer and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella also penned separate memos to their staff following the announcement of the acquisition. The former focused on the added value to Game Pass - which is now 25 million subscribers strong - while the latter also noted the move as a bet on the metaverse; whatever that may be.

Microsoft has clearly stated that until the deal finalizes sometime next year, both companies will continue to operate independently, but once the acquisition is complete Activision will report to Microsoft. One thing that is still pending an official and explicit confirmation from Microsoft is regarding the fate of Activision's current and problematic CEO Bobby Kotick. There have been reports that the executive will depart once the transaction is complete - likely with a golden parachute - but nothing can be said for certain yet given the dynamic and incomplete nature of the situation. While we're talking about Kotick, the executive also revealed that EA was also considering consolidating with Activision at one point but that plan didn't go through because the merger didn't align with the long-term vision of the latter.

Finally, when we're talking about this whole deal, it's important to talk about all the uncertainty this means for Sony as well. The acquisition itself wiped off $20 billion from the company's market cap within a day, with Sony also issuing a reminder to Microsoft to honor contractual agreements by ensuring that Activision games are multi-platform. In response, Phil Spencer confirmed his desire to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation, but given the vague wording of the statement, who knows what will happen once the current contractual agreements eventually expire? Only time will tell.

Some optional and forced Windows updates

There was tons of news surrounding Windows updates this week too. Microsoft released an out-of-band (OOB) update for several editions of Windows to fix issues that emerged after this month's Patch Tuesday. These included Windows Server domain controller boot loops, virtual machine start failure inside Hyper-V, and a Resilient File System (ReFS)-formatted removable media mount failure bug. You can read all about the OOB patch here.

Microsoft also rolled out Windows 11 build 22538 to the Dev Channel this week. This fixes Explorer.exe crashes, improves Voice Access, and makes some changes to Settings app, among many other things. There are lots of other changes, improvements, and known issues packed inside the build so do check out all the details here. As has become common practice now, Microsoft also released build 22538.1010 (KB5010882) to the Dev Channel, just to test its servicing pipeline.

While we're talking about Windows builds, it would be worth it to have a look at what we should expect next too. Leaked screenshots of some Microsoft documentation for developers indicates that third-party Widgets could be coming soon to Windows 11. Those who tinker with Windows builds have also noted that build 22538 contains unfinished code for narrower Taskbar implementations as well as a revamped Task Manager.

Finally, it's important to give Windows 10 some attention too. Microsoft has announced that it will force update Windows 10 20H2 PCs that are approaching the end of their servicing to Windows 10 21H2 in a bid to test its Machine Learning (ML)-assisted Windows Update Rollout model. Find out all the details here if you fear it affecting your machine.

Google Play Games on Windows

Google's solution to play Android games on Windows PCs with Play services enabled is now in beta in three countries, namely Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea. Given the beta nature of the program, there are some hardware and software requirements that you should fulfill and signing up currently only enrolls you in a waitlist, with an invite coming later if you make the list.

This is certainly an interesting situation for Microsoft since it has already partnered with Amazon to bring Android apps to Windows 11 through the Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA). Google's homebrew solution - while still limited to just games currently - can be seen as a tough competitor to Microsoft's offering, given that fact that it also supports Windows 10 and empowers users to seamlessly sync progress across different devices, thanks to Google Play. It remains to be seen which service will be preferred by users, but we'll know more as the situation unfolds and Google's program expands to more countries in the coming months.

Since we are talking about Google, it's okay to segue to the Chromium project which has reportedly disabled the ability to remove default search engines from Chromium browsers such as Edge. That said, this has led to issues in the web browsing experience for a lot of users so it may be making a return soon.

And if you're a Microsoft Edge user or have your own website, you should know that Microsoft has introduced two new flags in the browser to ensure that version 100 of the browser coming this year does not cause unintended behavior. Finally, web apps can now use protocol handlers in Microsoft Edge too.

Dev Channel

DevToys v1.0 has landed, promises to be a "Swiss Army knife for developers"
Hitman Trilogy, Death's Door, R6 Extraction, Danganronpa, and more have hit Xbox Game Pass
Halo Infinite's new Cyber Showdown event has begun alongside shop price reductions
Microsoft now restricts XLM macros in Excel by default
Arm and Microsoft have jointly announced the first silicon offering support for the Morello prototype architecture

Under the spotlight

This week, I talked about some of the positives as well as the negative implications and ramifications that may come from Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard. While the clear advantages include a boost to Game Pass and cloud gaming, as well as potentially better games thanks to the increased workforce having shared access to more technologies, there are some not-so-good things to keep an eye on as well. Read more of my thoughts here.

Logging off

As we close off this week, it's important to bring your attention to Google's request for a robust framework governing the EU-US data transfer network. The company is urging governments to take action on this as it potentially faces being blocked (in the worst case) in some European countries like Austria and the Netherlands, which have cited concerns about their local Google Analytics data being accessed by U.S. intelligence agencies. A framework, if designed, would have impacts on every global company which deals with data in the EU and the U.S., so definitely keep an eye on this front.

Microsoft Weekly: Activision acquisition, forced updates, and Google Play on Windows

Nvidia RTX 3050 is here to save budget gamers as it's purportedly really bad at mining

Fri, 21 Jan 2022 21:17:25 +0000

The upcoming GeForce RTX 3050, the budget gaming graphics card from Nvidia, is reportedly a really poor Ethererum (ETH) miner according to a report from fellow outlet VideoCardz. The site says that its sources in China informed it about this information which gamers will certainly be pleased to hear.

Although it is not officially called a Lite Hash Rate (LHR)-based GPU, it looks like the RTX 3050 will, under the hood, run the LHR algorithm as the ETH mining hash rate of the card reportedly drops from around 20 down to just 12.5 MH/s within seconds, as soon as the LHR algorithm detects the mining software. The site has provided the following image to show this.

The purported RTX 3050 here is also seen to consume around 73W of power making it pretty inefficient for mining.

A Chinese Twitter user @wxnod has also provided a screenshot of mining output that purportedly belongs to the GeForce RTX 3050. In this case, the GPU does 13.66MH/s at 57W after hardware tweaking and optimizations, says VideoCardz.

So, despite having 8GB of VRAM, the GeForce RTX 3050 could be unattractive to miners making it potentially more readily available for gamers, which is also assuming scalpers don't buy it up anyway. The card is priced at an MSRP of $249 and the poor mining performance could make the Radeon RX 6500 XT a tough sell due to the 6500 XT's hardware limitations.

Source and image: VideoCardz

Nvidia RTX 3050 is here to save budget gamers as it's purportedly really bad at mining

The reviews are in: AMD’s mining-averse RX 6500 XT also isn’t great at gaming

Fri, 21 Jan 2022 21:14:14 +0000

But buying a GPU is so hard that even a bad graphics card is better than none.

The Sapphire AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT, yet another GPU that you probably won't be able to buy.

Sapphire

When AMD announced its budget-friendly RX 6500 XT graphics card at CES early this month, the company suggested that the product had been designed with limitations that would make it unappealing to the cryptocurrency miners who have been exacerbating the ongoing GPU shortage for over a year now. But now that reviews of the card have started to hit, it's clear that its gaming performance is the collateral damage of those limitations.

Reviews from Tom's Hardware, PCGamer, TechSpot, Gamers Nexus, and a litany of other PC gaming YouTube channels are unanimous: the RX 6500 XT is frequently outperformed by previous-generation graphics cards, and it comes with other caveats beyond performance that limit its appeal even further. (Ars hasn't been provided with a review unit.)

The core of the problem is a 64-bit memory interface that limits the amount of memory bandwidth the card has to work with. Plus, the card has only 4GB of RAM, which is beginning to be a limiting factor in modern games, especially at resolutions above 1080p. Many tests saw the RX 6500 XT outperformed by the 8GB variant of the RX 5500 XT, which launched at the tail end of 2019 for the same $199 (and you could actually find and buy it for that price).

The hardware limitations also make the GPU's support for hardware-accelerated ray-tracing nearly useless. Tom's Hardware says that in the titles that are playable at all with ray-tracing enabled, the settings have to be turned down low enough that games don't actually look that much better. The RX 6000-series' ray-tracing performance lags behind the Nvidia RTX 3000 series across the lineup, but it's especially disappointing here.

The Asus Dual Radeon RX 6500 XT OC Edition. You can't buy this one, either.

Asus

The card's four-lane PCI Express 4.0 interface also poses a problem. When it has a PCIe 4.0 connection to work with, the RX 6500 XT seems fine, and even high-end cards don't generally need all the bandwidth that the typical 16-lane connection provides. But it causes problems for PCs that use PCI Express 3.0; TechSpot's review found that using a PCIe 3.0 connection with the RX 6500 XT knocked off 10–15 percent of the card's already lackluster performance. And PCIe 3.0 systems aren't ancient history: Intel's 10th-generation Core chips, any Ryzen processors still running in a 300- or 400-series motherboard, and the Ryzen 5000G processors with integrated graphics all use PCI Express 3.0 and are still being sold at most retailers. These are exactly the kinds of older and cheaper PCs that budget-minded gamers are more likely to be using, limiting the RX 6500 XT's appeal among what ought to be its target audience.

Even for people who don't play games, the RX 6500 XT cuts some corners that make it less useful. The GPU only supports a total of two displays, down from the more typical four. The GPU's video encoding and decoding capabilities have also been cut down—the card can't decode AV1 video streams, which means it won't be able to handle 4K video streams from a growing number of streaming services (AV1 support is one issue at the heart of the recent Roku-Google dust-up). And the card can't encode either H.264 or H.265 video streams, features that help reduce the load on your CPU if you're streaming live video.

The absurdly over-cooled Gigabyte Gaming OC Radeon RX 6500 XT costs $300, $100 more than the RX 6500 XT's MSRP. You can't buy it.

Gigabyte

By way of explanation, an AMD staffer has indicated that the Navi 24 GPU at the heart of the RX 6500 XT was intended for use in laptops, where lower amounts of VRAM, 64-bit memory interfaces, and other limits are still common; these laptops also almost always include an Intel- or AMD-integrated GPU that could handle the missing video encoding and decoding capabilities. But Navi 24 was retooled for release on desktops, where its limitations have become more apparent.

Unfortunately, the realities of today's GPU market are such that an RX 6500 XT at its $200 list price could still be a decent buy for someone on a budget or someone who can live with mediocre performance until the GPU market cools down (whenever that is—the GPU makers themselves have given incorrect estimates about the issue so many times that it's clear no one actually knows for sure). Nvidia's years-old, low-end GeForce GTX 1650 goes for around $300 when you can find it, and the RX 6500 XT beats it by a fair margin most of the time.

It is, of course, currently impossible to find an RX 6500 XT at its retail price unless you live near a Micro Center or some other brick-and-mortar store that doesn't sell GPUs online. So it goes.

The reviews are in: AMD’s mining-averse RX 6500 XT also isn’t great at gaming

Intel says Ohio “megafab” will begin making advanced chips in 2025

Fri, 21 Jan 2022 21:11:06 +0000

Intel will start with two fabs, but it has space for eight.

Intel's rendering of its two new leading-edge processor factories planned to be built outside Columbus, Ohio.

Intel

Intel announced the location of its megafab today, a 1,000-acre parcel on the outskirts of the Columbus, Ohio, metro area. The semiconductor manufacturer plans to break ground on two leading-edge fabs by the end of the year and enter production in 2025.

“This is all part of the strategy that our CEO Pat Gelsinger announced back in March,” Intel Senior Vice President Keyvan Esfarjani told Ars.

“We are starting with two fabs, and that’s all in line with the growing demand for what the industry needs,” he said. “It’s also critically important for the balance of the supply chain around the world.”

Though the company will start with two fabs, the massive site gives Intel “optionality,” said Esfarjani, who oversees manufacturing, supply chain, and operations for the company worldwide. There’s room for up to eight fabs, “but we have space to do even more,” he said. If the entire site gets built out, Intel could spend as much as $100 billion on the Ohio site alone.

Intel's "megafab" will be located outside of the Columbus suburb of New Albany.

Google Maps/Aurich

Esfarjani said that Intel spent about nine months evaluating 35–40 locations across the US before settling on the New Albany parcel. The scale of the project demanded an entirely new site, he said. “All of our sites within the company, whether it’s in Oregon, New Mexico, or Arizona—we are essentially at the level where it’s not going to have enough footprint, enough space where you want to grow for those mega scales.”

Gelsinger is betting that Intel can regain the lead in semiconductor manufacturing by making not just its own chips but chips for other companies, too. Traditionally, Intel has designed and manufactured chips for itself, but the success of foundries like TSMC, which focuses on making chips for others, has pushed Intel to open its fabs. In theory, making more chips will allow Intel to master new processes faster while giving it more cash to invest in the research and development of more advanced nodes. The new Ohio site will give Intel significant new manufacturing capacity, which Esfarjani said would be available to foundry customers, depending on demand.

The Intel site as it looks today.

Intel

While the company considered hundreds of variables, a few key factors helped influence the decision. First, Intel needed a location with the resources to support facilities of this size. The company required somewhere with ample land, water, and power. Second, it needed a metro area that could help supply enough technicians and engineers to run the fabs. And lastly, Intel was looking for state and local governments that would be eager to welcome the sites. (Amazon’s recent struggles with its HQ2 no doubt crossed Intel executives' minds.)

“Out of all the options, Ohio—no brainer. It came to the top,” Esfarjani said. The farm fields around Columbus provided space to build and expand, while the region’s temperate climate offers a steady supply of water. (Esfarjani pointed out that the company recycles 95 percent of its water.) The state is also among the nation’s top 10 electricity producers, though nearly all of the power is generated by burning natural gas and coal. Intel intends for the site to be run on 100 percent renewable power, which will require the state to add significant wind and solar installations. “Part of why we are so anxious to move forward in announcing this project is so that we can formalize those engagements and get those agreements under way,” Esfarjani said.

Intel will also be working with The Ohio State University and nearby community colleges to ensure a steady supply of technicians and engineers. Though the company isn’t releasing details of its educational plans yet, it did say it will spend $100 million supporting educational institutions, students, and the NSF to develop a pipeline for semiconductor jobs.

Next-gen lithography

The fabs are slated to open in the second half of 2025 and will support Intel’s then-current leading-edge process, which is likely to be Intel 18A. The node is expected to use gate-all-around transistors, which the company calls RibbonFET, and will be the first to use high-numerical aperture extreme ultraviolet lithography, also known as high-NA EUV.

Currently, only Netherlands-based ASML produces an EUV machine of any kind, and its high-NA EUV tools are expected to start making chips at the end of 2025, in line with Intel’s Ohio plans. Numerical aperture describes the ability of the system’s lenses to gather light and print finer features, and while the high-NA EUV isn’t ready for commercial production, it promises a 70 percent improvement in resolution. One of the biggest changes will be to the mirrors, which are made by Carl Zeiss. Because no material can be made transparent enough for EUV, today’s EUV scanners use mirrors instead of lenses. They’re made of alternating layers of molybdenum and silicon and are polished to a precision measured in atoms. For high-NA EUV, Zeiss will need to do that with larger, asymmetrical mirrors.

An aerial rendering of Intel's two new Ohio fabs.

Intel

Intel missed out on the first wave of EUV—competitor TSMC operates a majority of the EUV machines in existence, with Samsung using most of the rest—but it has placed an early bet on high-NA EUV in the hopes that it will be able to leapfrog the competition when the industry enters the 2 nm node (what Intel calls 20A).

Earlier this week, Intel announced that it had submitted an order for the first production-ready high-NA EUV machine from ASML, due for delivery in 2025. It won’t be cheap—the Dutch company has said the first machines will cost “significantly” more than $340 million, more than double the cost of today’s EUV scanners. A fab running at full capacity will use more than a dozen of those machines.

Costly endeavor

Propping up a new leading-edge fab is costly no matter where it’s built, but the Semiconductor Industry Association, a trade group, estimates that building and running a fab in the US costs 25–50 percent more than elsewhere. That's why the SIA, Intel, and others have been pushing for Congress to pass the CHIPS for America Act, a $52 billion incentive to make more semiconductors in the US. Given today’s announcement, it’s no surprise that Ohio’s congressional delegation last week urged House and Senate leaders to fully fund the legislation.

Intel estimates that building the two fabs will create 7,000 construction jobs, and once they’re up and running, the company will employ 3,000 people directly. Thousands more will likely follow as suppliers, including Applied Materials, LAM Research, Air Products, and Ultra Clean Technology, set up shop nearby.

If the CHIPS Act is passed and funded, Esfarjani hinted that Intel’s plans for the site could be accelerated. “We’re very encouraged to see the bipartisan support for the CHIPS for America Act,” he said. “Partnership at not just the state level, but more importantly at the federal level, is going to be a strong catalyst to move a project like this forward even faster.”

Intel says Ohio “megafab” will begin making advanced chips in 2025

Dragon Age 4 reportedly won’t launch in 2022

Fri, 21 Jan 2022 21:07:30 +0000

According to a pair of reports from some of the industry’s most reliable insiders, Dragon Age 4 is still over a year away, so maybe don’t board the hype train just yet.

Both noted leaker Tom Henderson and GamesBeat journalist Jeff Grubb have stated in corroborating reports that Dragon Age 4 is still a long way away, with Henderson stating that according to his sources, there’s “no chance,” that BioWare’s Dragon Age 4 will release this year.

Similarly, Grubb has previously stated that their “sources familiar with the fantasy role-playing adventure confirm the game is on track for release in 2023,” so we might not even be hearing anything new about the game until later on this year, potentially during E3, Summer Games Fest, or The Game Awards.

To make sure that EA actually has a blockbuster release to look forward to this year, beyond a meagre drip-feed of content into Battlefield 2042, Criterion’s next Need for Speed game will reportedly fill the void left by Dragon Age 4.

That’s according to Tom Henderson, once again, who stated that “EA is expecting Need for Speed by Criterion Games to release in September/October 2022.” Henderson also reports that development on this game was paused in the summer of 2021, due to Criterion Games needing to help with the development of Battlefield 2042.

As if Henderson hadn’t leaked enough of EA’s lineup already, he went on to claim that “things are set in motion to reveal the next Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order game by Respawn Entertainment.” Henderson reports that “a May 4th reveal now seems incredibly likely,” and that the game will launch in Q4 of this year.

Dragon Age 4 reportedly won’t launch in 2022

Xbox To Buy Activision Blizzard

Thu, 20 Jan 2022 17:25:40 +0000

Xbox has announced a deal to buy Activision Blizzard, the company behind Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and many other major gaming franchises – coming in at a stupefying $68.7 billion.

Announced on Xbox Wire, the deal means Xbox will soon own the likes of Call of Duty, Warcraft, Overwatch, Diablo, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, and much more. CEO of Microsoft Gaming Phil Spencer announced that all Activision Blizzard companies would report to him after the deal is closed.

No timescale has been given for how long the deal will take to close, and it's likely that the deal will be examined as to whether it creates a monopoly before it's formally approved. Spencer confirmed that Activision Blizzard would continue to run as an independent company until the deal is complete.

As expected, Spencer says Xbox will include "as many Activision Blizzard games as we can" in the Xbox Game Pass services. No word has been made about turning the likes of Call of Duty or other mega-franchises into Xbox exclusives, but with the likes of Bethesda's Starfield becoming a first-party exclusive, it feels more than possible.

Source

Silicon-based qubits take a big leap forward

Thu, 20 Jan 2022 03:13:28 +0000

The race to scale quantum-computing hardware gains another option.

A representation of the two phosphorus nuclei (Q1 and Q2) with the electron (Q3) that helps mediate their interactions.

Tony Melov / UNSW

Over the last few years, the big question in quantum computing has shifted from "can we get this to work?" to "can we get this to scale?" It's no longer news when an algorithm is run on a small quantum computer—we've done that with a number of different technologies. The big question now: When can we run a useful problem on quantum hardware that clearly outperforms a traditional computer?

For that, we still need more qubits. And to consistently outperform classical computers on complicated problems, we'll need enough qubits to do error correction. That means thousands of qubits. So while there's currently a clear technology leader in qubit count (superconducting qubits called transmons), there's still a chance that some other technology will end up scaling better.

That possibility is what makes several results being published today interesting. While there are differences among the three results being announced, they all have one thing in common: high-quality qubits produced in silicon. After all, if there's anything we know how to scale, it's silicon-based technologies.

Quality issues

The idea of crafting qubits out of silicon has some history, and we've made progress with the technology in the past. That's because making qubits from silicon is relatively easy when using techniques developed for the semiconductor industry. For example, the intentional contamination called "doping" that is used to tweak the properties of silicon could also be used to embed atoms that can act as qubits. Similarly, our ability to place wiring on silicon can be used to make structures that create quantum dots where an individual electron can be controlled.

The best part is that these approaches require very little space to implement, meaning we could potentially squeeze a lot of qubits onto a single silicon chip. That's a big contrast to alternative technologies like transmons and trapped ions, both of which are bulky enough that the companies working with them are already talking about (or even implementing) spreading processors across multiple chips.

The problem so far has been that silicon-based qubits are rather error-prone. Ultimately, we want to use groups of these individual qubits as a single logical qubit that implements error correction. But if errors occur faster than they can be corrected, this won't be possible. And so far, silicon-based qubits are definitely on the wrong side of that error threshold.

High-quality dots

Two papers take a similar approach to improving the performance of qubits based on quantum dots. One is from a group of researchers based at the Delft University of Technology, and the other is primarily from Japan's RIKEN, with some collaborators at Delft. Both groups used silicon with wiring on it to create a quantum dot that trapped a single electron. The spin of the trapped electron was used as the basis for the qubit. And both groups took a similar approach, testing their gate under a wide range of conditions to identify the ones that tended to produce errors and then operating the qubit in a way that avoided those errors.

In the work at Delft, entangling the two qubits was done by manipulating the quantum dots so that the wave functions of the trapped electrons overlapped. After optimizing the use of the hardware, the researchers found that both the single-qubit and two-qubit gate operations have a fidelity rate of over 99.5 percent. That's above the threshold needed for getting the most commonly considered form of quantum error correction to work.

To show that the qubits are actually useful, the researchers use their two-qubit setup to calculate the ground state energy of molecular hydrogen. This calculation is relatively easy to do on classical hardware, so the results could be checked.

The RIKEN group did something similar and generally found that speeding up operations had a major effect on error rates. Again, managing this problem produced gates with a fidelity of 99.5 percent, well above the threshold needed for error correction. To show that the gates worked, the team implemented a couple of quantum computing algorithms and showed that they were completed with a success rate in the area of 97 percent.

Going nuclear

Electrons aren't the only things in silicon with a spin; given the right isotope, the nucleus of the atoms can have a spin as well. And that's what a group from Australia's University of New South Wales focused on in a separate paper.

Atomic nuclei are largely shielded from the environment by the shells of electrons that surround them. This makes them relatively stable repositories of quantum information, which tends to decay due to environmental interactions. Indeed, nuclear spins are often viewed as a great way of creating quantum memory. But their isolation also makes it harder to interact with the spins in the first place, which can make manipulating nuclear qubits a challenge.

To work around this issue, the team embedded phosphorous atoms in silicon and then entangled the nucleus of two of those atoms with an electron. For a single nucleus, this resulted in impressive fidelity, reaching up to 99.95 percent. This figure dropped once operations and readout were included, but it still stayed above 98.9 percent. The problems here seem mostly related to the shared electron, so that is something that can potentially be addressed by focusing on its behavior.

To show this idea worked, the team applied a series of operations to the qubit and then reversed the entire process. It ended up back in its initial state about 90 percent of the time.

Future prospects

So what does it mean to have two functional qubits at a time when a competing technology offers over 100? That all depends on what comes next. It should be relatively easy to create larger arrays of the sorts of qubits used in these experiments and see how having nearby devices influences their behavior. It should be equally easy to see whether connections can be established across the array quickly enough that larger algorithms can be implemented before fidelity issues reassert themselves.

Usefully, both of the papers point out how to characterize these devices to optimize performance. But there's a great deal of engineering needed before we even get to those measurements.

The group working on nuclear spins, in contrast, is already looking at different ways of scaling. The researchers note that heavier elements (like tin or iodine isotopes) provide additional accessible spin states, such that six qubits could be stored in just two atoms. These spin states can also be controlled electronically, which would considerably simplify the system.

In these systems, things like entanglement can potentially be mediated by shifting the electron to different pairs of nuclear qubits. And in some circumstances, the electron itself could contribute another qubit toward the total needed for error correction. Again, all this looks very promising, but we'll need to see how quickly the system's potential to scale translates into actual scaling.

Nature, 2022. Summary with links to papers: 10.1038/d41586-022-00047-0 (About DOIs).

Silicon-based qubits take a big leap forward

Google fixes white noise issue on Home and Nest that was causing people to lose sleep

Wed, 19 Jan 2022 21:26:12 +0000

A few days ago, reports emerged that Google has apparently changed the white noise produced by its Google Assistant Smart Display devices and speakers such as Nest and Home. While the sound is meant to be ambient so that people can be facilitated in sleeping or studying, the new white noise was reportedly having the opposite effect.

As 9to5Google points out, there had been tons of complaints from irate customers in Nest forums, with people claiming that the new white noise is at a different pitch, muffled, and quiet. People also noted that instead of looping after every one hour, it now loops after 10 minutes. Many reports even claimed that their toddlers who previously used to sleep due to the white noise produced by the speakers can't do so any more and are demanding that their parents fix the issue.

Fortunately, after days of fielding complaints, Google has finally fixed the issue plaguing its customers with a company representative responding to the forum thread and saying:

Thanks for your feedback here! There was an issue impacting our white noise experience. It’s fixed now and working as it previously did.

It's unclear as to why the white noise audio files were replaced by inferior alternatives but now that a fix is out, Google Nest and Home customers will be able to breathe a sigh of relief instead of trying to find white noise generators online.

Google fixes white noise issue on Home and Nest that was causing people to lose sleep

Intel is making a specialized crypto-miner chip called "Bonanza Mine"

Wed, 19 Jan 2022 21:16:11 +0000

Fresh out of the rumor mill, it looks like Intel is creating a chip that specializes in crypto mining. Called "Bonanza Mine", team blue could be presenting the new processor at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC 2022) which is scheduled between 20th and 24th February.

The chip is entitled "Bonanza Mine: An Ultra-Low-Voltage Energy-Efficient Bitcoin Mining ASIC" and brings Intel into direct competition with the likes of Bitmain and MicroBT, which are market leaders for bitcoin mining application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) for the first time.

The demand for crypto mining has driven up the prices of graphics processing units a lot, including Intel's, so much that it is one of the reasons for the ongoing chip shortage. The company has also placed the first order in the industry for High-NA EUV tools that will help it achieve its fabrication goals in the coming years, as it moves on to the 18A technology.

Unlike its competitor Nvidia, Intel says that it does not plan to add ether mining limits on its newly announced ARC GPUs. Intel had also discussed its plans about researching and manufacturing specialized hardware for crypto mining purposes during a live stream on Dr. Lupo's YouTube channel.

Source: WCCFTECH

Intel is making a specialized crypto-miner chip called "Bonanza Mine"

Intel has placed an order for the next-gen High-NA EUV tools to fabricate 1.8nm chips

Wed, 19 Jan 2022 21:13:49 +0000

With the ongoing chip shortage that will take a couple of more years to recover from, Intel is making itself clear that it has understood the importance of manufacturing high-quality processors. Its rivals Samsung and TSMC were the first to adopt extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography technology. Now, Intel is making sure that it is the first to adopt the second generation of the EUV tools by ASML featuring a 0.55 NA (high-NA) that provides higher resolution and productivity. Intel, along with ASML, has announced that Team Blue has placed the order for the industry's first High-NA tool.

ASML President and CTO Martin van den Brink said:

“Intel’s vision and early commitment to ASML’s High-NA EUV technology is proof of its relentless pursuit of Moore’s Law. Compared to the current EUV systems, our innovative extended EUV roadmap delivers continued lithographic improvements at reduced complexity, cost, cycle time and energy that the chip industry needs to drive affordable scaling well into the next decade."

Intel plans to start high-volume manufacturing (HVM) in 2025, which is also when the company will be using its 18A (1.8nm) fabrication technology. To do so, Intel has been experimenting for quite a while when it first obtained ASML's Twinscan EXE:5000, which was the industry's first EUV scanner with a 0.55 numerical aperture. Today, the company ordered ASML's next-generation High-NA tool, the Twinscan EXE:5200.

Photo: ASML

The new tools are important for a higher resolution that enables the manufacturing of smaller transistors with higher transistor density. The High-NA scanners not only gave a completely different optics design but also promise to officer significantly faster reticle and wafer stages and higher productivity.

"Intel's focus is to stay at the forefront of semiconductor lithography technology and we’ve been building our EUV expertise and capacity over the last year," said Dr. Ann Kelleher, executive vice president and general manager of Technology Development at Intel. "Working closely with ASML, we will harness High-NA EUV's high-resolution patterning as one of the ways we continue Moore's Law and maintain our strong history of progression down to the smallest of geometries."

Intel has placed an order for the next-gen High-NA EUV tools to fabricate 1.8nm chips

Microsoft's acquisition of Activision: The good, the bad, and the ugly

Tue, 18 Jan 2022 22:53:09 +0000

In a major and surprise announcement today, Microsoft revealed that it is acquiring troubled publisher Activision Blizzard in a massive deal worth $68.7 billion. Although the deal is supposed to be completed at the end of fiscal year 2023, the announcement has obviously sparked a lot of discussion surrounding its nature and its impact.

While the news is still fresh for our readers, I would like to take a look at some aspects of the potential outcome of this deal, categorized as the good, the bad, and the ugly. As usual, it is important to note that these are my own thoughts so you may not agree with some or all of it. With that out of the way, let's begin!

Xbox Game Pass (Good)

The most immediate positive impact will likely be felt by Game Pass subscribers, who currently number at over 25 million. Microsoft has already committed to bringing Activision's catalog of games to its Game Pass service in a recent announcement, saying that:

Upon close, we will offer as many Activision Blizzard games as we can within Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass, both new titles and games from Activision Blizzard’s incredible catalog.

Based on the statement above, it's crystal clear that Activision games are definitely coming to Game Pass, and this does not only apply to upcoming titles but old ones as well. This is a major win for subscribers of the service as they will be able to play Activision games on day one. While Game Pass is obviously not free, it's arguably a better alternative to paying AAA prices of $60 or $70 in one go.

And then there's the matter of cloud gaming as well. Once again, Microsoft has explicitly noted this as a driving force behind the acquisition, saying that:

The fantastic franchises across Activision Blizzard will also accelerate our plans for Cloud Gaming, allowing more people in more places around the world to participate in the Xbox community using phones, tablets, laptops and other devices you already own.

Provided that all goes well, you'll be able to play Activision games on more platforms than before, even when you're on the go.

While all of this is good news for gamers, the realization of this potential for expansion is great for Microsoft too. The company will likely see major spikes in Game Pass subscribers as more Activision games land on its service, which will drive revenue as well. The deal is a win-win for Microsoft and Game Pass subscribers overall.

Increased potential for renewal of old IP (Good)

Perhaps an understated and potential advantage of this acquisition is also the increased chances or reigniting interest in older but beloved intellectual property (IP). While people are more familiar with recent Activision works such as Call of Duty and Overwatch, the company has been involved in game development and publishing since the 1990s.

Although Microsoft obviously hasn't confirmed any such plans yet, this deal going through in the coming months could also mean the return of older IPs owned by Activision. Provided that copyright and IP negotiations go well, who knows if we see a new entry in the Spyro, Prototype, Blur, and Guitar Hero franchises.

I know some of the aforementioned titles aren't likely considering that Microsoft has competing games in the same genre and I'm not sure if Activision still owns the IPs. But I just want to emphasize on the fact that Activision may have written off some IP a few years back and stopped development on it, but that doesn't mean that someone at Microsoft still doesn't have faith in it. Nothing can be said for sure but the possibilities are certainly exciting.

Collaboration (Good)

With this acquisition, Microsoft is also absorbing over 10,000 Activision Blizzard employees, which means that they will become a part of the company. Considering that the Redmond tech firm has over 100,000 employees with likely thousands involved in the Xbox side of things, there's huge opportunity for the two parties to be collaborating together to make better games.

With Microsoft's maturity in the Azure space, it's possible for Activision to leverage from the company's cloud expertise to offer better online experiences and perhaps even cloud-powered games. This is something that Sega is already considering so it's a no-brainer for Activision games at this point. Both companies likely use a diverse technology stack and toolset and could help each other out in more ways than one. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has hinted at this possibility, saying that:

Gaming is the most dynamic and exciting category in entertainment across all platforms today and will play a key role in the development of metaverse platforms. We’re investing deeply in world-class content, community and the cloud to usher in a new era of gaming that puts players and creators first and makes gaming safe, inclusive and accessible to all.

Personally, I'm not a huge fan of the metaverse and have not been sold on the idea yet, but my main take from the statement above is that the two parties will be sharing knowledge and technology to hopefully create better experiences for their customers.

Uncertainty for PlayStation gamers (Bad)

Talking about to the elephant in the room, which is the uncertainty this deal means for PlayStation gamers. Frankly speaking, there is no knowing which way this could go yet. When Microsoft acquired ZeniMax Media back in September 2020, there was lots of speculation around whether this also means that new games from the publisher would be exclusive to Xbox. Microsoft later confirmed that this would be the case, leaving PlayStation gamers out in the cold.

Then there are also those pointing at Microsoft's continued support for Minecraft on PlayStation, despite the acquisition of Mojang in 2014.

All in all, the general consensus right now based on some statements by Microsoft personnel seems to be that some titles will come to PlayStation, while others won't:

All in all, the situation is very uncertain right now for PlayStation gamers. Microsoft probably didn't spend billions of dollars to continue making games for PlayStation, similar to the nature of its deal with Bethesda. While Microsoft may continue supporting existing titles and maybe even release more in the short-term, PlayStation gamers should be prepared to try out other platforms if they want to play Activision games in the future.

Potential for monopoly (Bad)

While the completion of this deal makes Microsoft the third largest company in the global gaming space in terms of revenue, behind Tencent and Sony, many think that this is paving the way for Microsoft to become a monopoly, and that is obviously not something that is desirable, regardless of the company being discussed.

These are the same concerns that were raised when Microsoft acquired a bunch of developers under the ZeniMax umbrella and these are the same concerns now that Microsoft is purchasing a trove of developers under Activision Blizzard. Although Microsoft is a long way off from becoming a monopoly in the gaming space, the potential of this happening is definitely something that needs to be discussed at some point, given how it is acquiring major game firms left and right.

Having a monopoly has tons of negative impacts including reduced competition, restricting customer sovereignty, setting up walled gardens, and more. Although we likely won't see this happening with this particular purchase, it's definitely something that regulators will be looking at considering the financial value and impact of the deal.

Workplace allegations (Ugly)

Image via VGC

Perhaps the most problematic aspect of this deal is the active lawsuits and allegations against Activision Blizzard, all symbolized and perhaps even driven by CEO Bobby Kotick's lack of proper action. The company has has been in hot water recently due to workplace misconduct allegations, misogynist culture, and more. Multiple lawsuits have been leveled against the publisher and the most recent reports even indicate that almost 40 employees have exited the company since July 2021 and CEO Bobby Kotick's failure to take definitive action.

Until the acquisition is finalized in the next several months, Kotick will remain in charge at Activision. Considering that many consider him to be a negative influence at the company, this is not a good look for Microsoft, for now. While the Redmond tech giant has noted that Activision will report directly to Phil Spencer after the transaction is complete, the company is still keeping mum on whether Kotick will remain at the company or not. Personally, I want Kotick out as soon as possible and it would have been great to hear that he's stepping down as part of the deal, but that is unfortunately not the case.

Until Kotick remains at Activision and perhaps even after that, this dark cloud will continue to hang over Microsoft. Perhaps a silver lining in the cloud is that this acquisition will hopefully result in better workplace conditions for existing Activision employees, one thing is for certain: Microsoft will have to take care of this mess as soon as possible or be held accountable for not taking definitive action.

Microsoft's acquisition of Activision: The good, the bad, and the ugly

Microsoft is buying Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion

Tue, 18 Jan 2022 22:48:23 +0000

Activision Blizzard has been in hot water recently due to workplace misconduct allegations, misogynist culture, and more. Multiple lawsuits have been leveled against the publisher and the most recent reports even indicate that almost 40 employees have exited the company since July 2021 and CEO Bobby Kotick's failure to take definitive action.

In a massive surprise today, Microsoft has announced that it is buying Activision Blizzard in an all-cash deal worth $68.7 billion, with each share valued at $95. Until the transaction is finalized, both Microsoft and Activision will continue to operate separately. However, once the deal is done, Activision will report directly to Microsoft, or more specifically, Phil Spencer.

With the acquisition of Activision and its 10,000 employees across various studios, Microsoft will become the third-largest game company globally in terms of revenue. The Redmond tech firm will absorb all of Activision's IP including Call of Duty, Candy Crush, Overwatch, Diablo, and Warcraft. Xbox chief Phil Spencer had the following to say about the transaction:

Players everywhere love Activision Blizzard games, and we believe the creative teams have their best work in front of them. Together we will build a future where people can play the games they want, virtually anywhere they want.

Meanwhile, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick issued the following statement:

For more than 30 years our incredibly talented teams have created some of the most successful games. The combination of Activision Blizzard’s world-class talent and extraordinary franchises with Microsoft’s technology, distribution, access to talent, ambitious vision and shared commitment to gaming and inclusion will help ensure our continued success in an increasingly competitive industry.

Although the transaction has been approved by the board of directors of both companies, it will have to go through regulatory and shareholder approval, which is important considering the nature of the deal, its value, and potential antitrust concerns. This is supposed to happen at the end of fiscal year 2023.

It will be interesting to see how the transaction will change the landscape of gaming, if approved. After Microsoft acquired ZeniMax Media back in September 2020, it was confirmed that PlayStation would be missing out on future titles published by the company. It remains to be seen if this strategy will also hold true for the latest deal. For now, Microsoft has only vaguely noted that "Activision Blizzard games are enjoyed on a variety of platforms and we plan to continue to support those communities moving forward".

Microsoft is buying Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion

Intel Z790 and B760 motherboards for 13th gen Raptor Lake CPUs already listed on EEC

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

About three months ago, Intel launched its 12th Gen Core series Alder Lake-S desktop CPUs at the Innovation 2021 event. Alder Lake-S needs to be paired with socket LGA1700-based 600-series chipset motherboards. And while the same socket, also sometimes called LGA1800, is expected to be re-used for the succeeding 13th Gen Raptor Lake CPUs too, the chipset will be all-new 700-series ones.

Motherboard vendor Biostar looks like it has already started working on the next-gen boards and has applied for Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) certification. Twitter leakster @harukaze5719 has spotted a number of these motherboard models, Z790 and Z760, on the EEC portal.

The motherboard models are:

Z790 VALKYRIE
Z790GTA Z790A-SILVER
B760GTQ B760M-SILVER
B760GTN B760T-SILVER
B760MX5-E PRO
B760MX- PRO
B760MX-C
B760MX-E
B760MH

The next-gen Raptor Lake CPUs will reportedly feature a new Digital Linear Voltage Regulator (DLVR) power delivery system that is rumored to drop the power consumption of these 13th gen chips by up to 25% according to Intel's internal research data (via Underfox on Twitter). Thanks to this feature, despite a 21% lowering of voltage, the Raptor Lake architecture is expected to perform 7% better.

The leaked image above (via VideoCardz) shows this new DLVR feature listed alongside other new features like LPDDR5X support, improved CPU Cache for gaming, among others.

Source: EEC via @harukaze5719 (Twitter)

Intel Z790 and B760 motherboards for 13th gen Raptor Lake CPUs already listed on EEC

Dying Light 2 will be getting 5 years of post-launch content

Mon, 17 Jan 2022 21:33:41 +0000

In another attempt to get you to never stop playing Dying Light 2, Techland has announced that the game will be getting five years of post-launch content.

In a post on Twitter, Techland has revealed that after you’ve completed the full 500 hours of content within Dying Light 2, they want you to keep coming back to the game as it’ll be getting plenty of updates, just like its baby brother Dying Light.

“We guarantee to expand the world of Dying Light 2 Stay Human for at least 5 years post launch with new stories, locations, in-game events and all the fun stuff you love,” Techland revealed on Twitter, much to the delight of fans who’ve seemingly gotten over the daunting claimed 500 hours of playtime now that Techland has cleared things up.

Five full years of updates for a game may sound a little dubious from a studio that’s not butchering their game to sell it as a ‘Games as a Service’ title, but Techland has proved it’s possible as they’ve already done it once before.

After launching to only moderate success in 2015, the original Dying Light has been updated more times than we can count at this point to make it an exceptional zombie slaying romp with a mountain of content to enjoy. It’s even being worked on to this day, seven years after launch, as a next-gen patch is still in the works.

With the release of Dying Light 2 only a few short weeks away, it’s safe to say that the hype train is running at full steam, especially after the final Dying 2 Know stream, in which Techland debuted co-op gameplay, as well as a brief console comparison.

Dying Light 2 is currently planned to launch on February 4th 2022 for Xbox One, Xbox Series S|X, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC.

Dying Light 2 will be getting 5 years of post-launch content

Microsoft Weekly: Windows Server headaches, new builds, and retail enhancements

Sat, 15 Jan 2022 20:37:58 +0000

The second week of 2022 has gone by which means that it is time once again to recap everything that happened in the world of Microsoft in the past few days. This week, we have quite a lot of Windows updates content to go through - including some Windows Server concerns -, some Edge enhancements, and Microsoft's endeavors in the retail space, among many other things. Find out about all of this in our weekly digest for January 8 - January 14.

Windows updates... and headaches

This week was Patch Tuesday which means that there were updates available for all supported versions and SKUs of Windows.

Starting off with Windows 7 and 8.1, KB5009610 and KB5009624 were released, respectively. There are some minor improvements here and there but you are recommended to look at the known issues and their associated workarounds before you pull the trigger.

Meanwhile, Windows 10 received KB5009543 for versions 20H2, 21H1, and 21H2, bumping up the builds to 19042.1466, 19043.1466, and 19044.1466, respectively. This update fixes an issue related to Japanese Input Method Editors (IME) and enhances the overall OS security, but there are some known issues that you should check out too.

Windows 11 also received KB5009566, which essentially packs the same improvements as Windows 10 above. There is a known issue related to color rendering in image editing programs - which is something we provided coverage on -, but Microsoft is working on a fix.

While that is all fine and dandy, the situation was much more complicated on the Windows Server front. Windows admins are reporting major issues with multiple versions of the OS including domain controller boot loops, Hyper-V not starting, and Resilient File System (ReFS) volumes being inaccessible. Although there have been conflicting reports that Microsoft has pulled the January Patch Tuesday update causing the issues, the official communication Neowin has from the company so far is that an investigation is still going on. There's no knowing yet as to when a fix will be released.

Windows 11 builds

This week, Microsoft released Windows 11 builds to multiple Insider channels. The most notable one is build 22533 for the Dev Channel. It packs multiple changes including a new flyout UI for hardware indicators for volume, brightness, camera privacy, and more. You can now uninstall the Clock app and take advantage of the new Calls experience in the Your Phone app too. Thankfully, Microsoft has released ISOs for the build as well, but there are a number of known issues that you should be aware of before you update your machine.

In the same vein, Microsoft rolled out build 22000.466 to the Windows 11 Beta and Release Preview channels too. It contains a huge number of improvements including enhancements to the reliability of ARM64 applications, fixes for VPN profiles, and predictive pre-rendering in Microsoft Edge Internet Explorer mode, among many other things. Check out all the details here.

Talking about preview software, Microsoft Edge in Canary now has Thumbnail view for PDF files and Acrylic and Mica effects too. Version 99 of the browser recently hit the Dev Channel as well with a bunch of security enhancements that you can read more about here. Finally, Microsoft also released version 0.53.3 of PowerToys that fixes issues related to performance and crashing.

Retailers rejoice

Microsoft revealed that its Cloud for Retail service will hit general availability on February 1. The cloud vertical offers purpose-built solutions for the industry, allowing companies to unify all their data sources to get a single view of the customer and then leverage from AI and the data at hand to make informed business decisions.

That's not all when it comes to the retail industry though. Microsoft partnered with Zebra to enable the general availability of the Teams Walkie Talkie app on a range of the latter's devices. Integration with Zebra Reflexis was enhanced too. Other enhancements in this domain include improvements to Viva apps and the availability of scheduled virtual queues in Teams. Find out all the important details here.

While we are talking about retail, do check out the new LTE-capable Matte Black Surface Go 3 that Microsoft revealed earlier this week. If reports are to be believed, Microsoft will be refreshing several Surface products in 2022 to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of the brand.

Dev Channel

Microsoft detailed a macOS TCC "powerdir" security flaw that leads to settings hack
Apple loses another key chip designer as Microsoft reportedly snags Mike Filippo
EzPC is Microsoft's latest attempt to enhance data security in AI model validation
Microsoft is introducing a new SSO service for Office Add-ins on the web

Under the spotlight

As discussed, Microsoft has finally updated the legacy volume flyout in its latest Dev Channel build for Windows 11. I shared some of my complaints about why such a minor and cosmetic change took Microsoft over a decade to implement. Read more of my thoughts here.

Logging off

This week's most interesting news item is about Samsung's breakthrough in Magnetoresistive Random Access Memory (MRAM) "brain-mimicking" technology. Up until now, MRAM has been difficult to utilize due to low resistance which makes it more power-hungry than other technologies. Samsung has now finally been able to overcome this hurdle, which is a major breakthrough. Find out all the details on this topic in our coverage here.

Microsoft Weekly: Windows Server headaches, new builds, and retail enhancements

Harken back to the late 1990s with this re-creation of the dialup Internet experience

Sat, 15 Jan 2022 05:47:28 +0000

Check out what happens when you try to visit modern websites using Windows 98.

A demonstration of the late 1990s dialup experience using nearly period-accurate hardware, connecting to modern websites using outdated browsers over a 31.2kbit/s dialup connection. Be forewarned: page loads are in real time.

We all found our coping strategies for riding out the pandemic in 2020. Biomedical engineer Gough Liu likes to tinker with tech—particularly vintage tech—and decided he'd try to recreate what it was like to connect to the Internet via dialup back in the late 1990s. He recorded the entire process in agonizing real time, dotted with occasional commentary.

Those of a certain age (ahem) well remember what it used to be like: even just booting up the computer required patience, particularly in the earlier part of the decade, when one could shower and make coffee in the time it took to boot up one's computer from a floppy disk. One needed a dedicated phone line for the Internet connection, because otherwise an incoming call could disrupt the connection, forcing one to repeat the whole dialup process all over again. Browsing the web was equally time-consuming back in the salad days of Netscape and Microsoft Explorer.

So much has changed since then, as the Internet has gone from a curiosity to a necessity, reshaping our culture in the process. As Liu noted on his blog:

The internet has become a vital part of our everyday lives, but the way we experience it now through broadband high-speed connections is not the way it was in my childhood. Back in the late 90’s to early 2000’s, I was dialling up from my Pentium 133MHz non-MMX machine equipped with 48MB of RAM running Windows 98SE (and later, Windows 2000 Professional). This experience was in itself, reflective of the fact that “always on” internet was not considered a necessity or normality—back then, “ttyt,” short for “talk to you tomorrow,” was a thing.

Liu needed to use a miniProxy to connect to modern websites.

YouTube/Gough Liu

The video opens by showing Liu's Techway Endeavor II computer (circa 1995) booting up, free of commentary for best dramatic effect. The tongue-in-cheek "credits" provide the basic specs: an Intel Pentium I 100 MHz CPU, 32MB of RAM, and Fujitsu 2.6GB hard drive, augmented with a Sony 3.5-inch floppy disk drive, and 65k voice modem. Featured software includes Microsoft Windows 98 SE, Netscape Communicator 4.8, and Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5.

Then come the telltale static sounds of dialing up to connect to the Internet, and voila! We're ready to start surfing with your blazing 31.2k connection. (As Liu explains, "56k is not possible because of the analog nature of the connection.") Here's where things get interesting. It's actually not possible to visit most modern websites directly because the changes in https protocols make it impossible to negotiate a common cipher. So Liu uses a miniProxy, which connects to the site in https, downloads the content, and sends it back to Liu's computer with all the links rewritten so they can go through the proxy.

It took 3 minutes and 27 seconds to download an executable file.

YouTube/Gough Liu

It takes a while to download a sample page from Slashdot, as the status bar at the bottom helpfully provides updates on our progress. "Web browsing technology has advanced quite dramatically over the years, and same with the html standards; things like CSS and certain sorts of Javascript were not around at the time that Navigator was, so the site loads up, but it looks very different from how you would experience it today in a modern browser," Liu says.

The rest of the journey includes a visit to the Australian Government Bureau of Meteorology (which still uses http), google.com, Wikipedia, xkcd ("we will be waiting a while for this comic"), and others, with everything loading in real time. It takes a full 3 minutes and 27 seconds to download an executable 120kB file for a simple software update. The whole video will make you grateful for all the technological advances over the last 20 years—especially for the comparatively vast amounts of bandwidth we enjoy today. Kids today don't know how good they have it.

Listing image by YouTube/Gough Liu

Harken back to the late 1990s with this re-creation of the dialup Internet experience

HWiNFO explains what AMD RAMP on next-gen Ryzen 7000 really is

Fri, 14 Jan 2022 19:32:19 +0000

Recently, a new AMD technology dubbed "RAMP" leaked when HWiNFO posted about the name of the tech on its website. It was a standard feature support addition which such hardware monitoring tools often do for new and upcoming features. The technology is listed in the upcoming changes of HWiNFO pre-release v7.17, Build 4660 and the release note reads:

Added preliminary support of AMD RAMP.

Although it was understandable that RAMP probably has to do with some form of clock boosting on AMD platforms, there was no confirmation on which component that was, like whether it was talking about the CPU or the memory or something else.

When inquired about the matter, HWiNFO provided the following statement to German outlet ComputerBase (Google translated to English):

AMD RAMP simply stands for "AMD Ryzen Accelerated Memory Profile" and is said to be able to accelerate the new DDR5 memory such as Intel XMP 3.0 beyond the well -known JEDEC standards.

Hence, RAMP or Ryzen Accelerated Memory Profile is basically like the AMD equivalent of Intel's Extreme Memory Profile (XMP) 3.0 for the upcoming DDR5 memory standard which is coming to AMD platforms on the next-gen Zen 4-based Ryzen 7000 series CPUs.

So in a nutshell, RAMP is the successor to the A-XMP or AMP (AMD Memory Profile) or DOCP (Direct Over Clock Profile) that currently exists on AMD boards.

Source: ComputerBase

HWiNFO explains what AMD RAMP on next-gen Ryzen 7000 really is

Puget data suggests Intel CPUs generally were more reliable than AMD's in 2019-21

Thu, 13 Jan 2022 21:18:43 +0000

At the end of last year, Puget Systems published a blog post titled "Most Reliable PC Hardware of 2021" and as is evident from it, the article talks about PC hardware reliability based on their failure rates. The piece covers processors, graphics cards, memory, and storage drives (SSDs/HDDs).

For the processor comparison, mainstream desktop CPUs, high-end desktop (HEDT) parts were considered. In the mainstream segment, AMD Ryzen 5000 series, Intel 10th gen Comet Lake, and 11th gen Rocket Lake were considered. Meanwhile, for HEDT, AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3000, Threadripper PRO, 10th gen Intel Core X, Intel Xeon W, and Xeon Scalable 2nd gen CPUs were used.

And according to Puget's data, it looks like the AMD processors were less reliable than Intel ones, as they tended to fail more often, though there was an exception as the figures also indicate that Intel's Rocket Lake parts had extremely high failures from the Intel camp.

AMD CPUs in general had higher failure rates than Intel, but we did see an oddly high rate of failures with Intel's consumer-oriented 11th Gen processors... which seems odd, especially next to the very low rates shown by the preceeding 10th Gen.

For those wondering about what the difference between a "Shop Failure" and a "Field Failure" is, the former includes parts that failed during testing and are similar to dead-on-arrival (DoA) components, while the Field Failure is a chip that failed after it was already shipped to a customer.

Source and image: Puget

Puget data suggests Intel CPUs generally were more reliable than AMD's in 2019-21

Apple loses another key chip designer as Microsoft reportedly snags Mike Filippo

Thu, 13 Jan 2022 21:16:16 +0000

It's probably safe to say that Apple hasn't had the best of the new year when it comes to its silicon designers. Recently, Jeff Wilcox left the company and rejoined Intel, and following that, today, a new report from Bloomberg says that ARM chip architect Mike Filippo, who had joined the Cupertino giant back in 2019, has also abandoned ship and has apparently been recruited by Microsoft.

The report says that Mike Filippo will work with Microsoft's Rani Borkar, the Corporate Vice President for Azure Hardware Systems and Infrastructure, on Microsoft's in-house server chips for its Azure cloud offerings. The move, if true, should be in an effort to accelerate the progress Microsoft has made in this area. Its biggest cloud rivals Google and Amazon are already designing their in-house server processors and the Redmond giant probably doesn't want to be left far behind.

Back in 2020, rumors of Microsoft working on its own custom Azure and Surface ARM chips broke out, though the new hiring of Filippo appears to have more to do with its server efforts as there is no mention of Surface processors.

Back then Microsoft's Frank X Shaw had provided the following statement to Neowin:

Because silicon is a foundational building block for technology, we’re continuing to invest in our own capabilities in areas like design, manufacturing and tools, while also fostering and strengthening partnerships with a wide range of chip providers.

So while the company is planning to certainly add its own chips for Azure, it also does not look like the move will be an immediate threat to present server processor behemoths like AMD and Intel.

Source: Bloomberg

Apple loses another key chip designer as Microsoft reportedly snags Mike Filippo

Samsung was a no-show at its own SoC launch party today

Wed, 12 Jan 2022 20:35:25 +0000

Samsung was supposed to announce the brand new Exynos 2200 today. The new chipset was supposed to feature AMD's RDNA 2 architecture, along with an improved CPU. The only problem is that Samsung skipped the launch altogether.

Last month, Samsung confirmed that it will be launching a new Exynos SoC on January 11. In a now deleted tweet, Samsung said that it is “preparing another small gift for fans who love gaming. Early next year, fans can look forward to unwrapping another small but powerful gift from Exynos.” Furthermore, the Samsung Exynos's handle tweeted the following on 30th December.

According to Ice Universe, Samsung has reportedly postponed the Exynos 2200 launch to a later date. Currently there is no word on when the Korean giant is planning to unveil its new latest chipset.

The Exynos 2200 is rumoured to power the Galaxy S22 series in the international markets. As per the latest leaks, Samsung is planning to hold its Unpacked 2022 event in February, giving the company a small window of opportunity to launch the Exynos processor before the Galaxy S22 launch.

According to a separate set of rumours, Samsung may be planning to go with Qualcomm Snapdragon SoC globally for the Galaxy S22 series, making it a first in a long time. As for Exynos 2200, we are not sure if the SoC will be announced further down the line or if Samsung has cancelled it altogether.

Samsung was a no-show at its own SoC launch party today

PCI Express 6.0 spec is finalized, doubling bandwidth for SSDs, GPUs, and more

Wed, 12 Jan 2022 20:30:18 +0000

PCIe 6.0 will provide up to 256GB/s of bandwidth for next-gen servers and PCs.

The PCI Special Interest Group (PCI-SIG) has finalized version 6.0 of the PCI Express standard, the communication bus that lets all the stuff inside your computer communicate. The new version of the spec comes roughly three years after the PCI Express 5.0 spec was finalized, and version 6.0 once again doubles the bandwidth of a PCIe lane from 32GT/s (8GB/s in total, or 4GB/s in each direction) to 64GT/s (16GB/s, or 8GB/s in each direction). For a full 16-lane PCIe 6.0 connection, that's as much as 256GB/s of total bandwidth, compared to the 32GB/s or 64GB/s of now-common PCIe 3.0 and 4.0 connections.

Like past PCIe versions, PCIe 6.0 will "interoperate and maintain backwards compatibility" with all existing PCIe versions, so your PCIe 4.0 GPU or SSD will continue to work in a PCIe 6.0 slot and vice-versa. The PCI-SIG bragged about the specification's longevity in a blog post by PCI-SIG board member Debendra Das Sharma: "An interconnect technology is considered successful if it can sustain three generations of bandwidth improvement spanning a decade. PCIe architecture has far exceeded that mark."

PCI Express speeds compared. Note that these bandwidth numbers are bidirectional—if you're only sending or only receiving data, you'll only have half as much bandwidth.

PCI-SIG

To boost its speeds, PCIe 6.0 uses a new kind of signaling called "Pulse Amplitude Modulation 4" (PAM4), which allows for faster data transfers than the previous Non-Return-To-Zero (NRZ) signaling at the expense of a higher error rate. To compensate, PCIe 6.0 includes technologies like Forward Error Correction (FEC) to correct errors and Cyclic Redundancy Checking (CRC) to ask for packets to be retransmitted when errors can't be corrected. The PCI-SIG says that this combination of technologies should catch all errors without adding latency to the connection.

Consumer systems are just beginning to support PCI Express 5.0—Intel's 12th-generation Core processors provide 16 PCIe 5.0 lanes, and AMD plans to support PCIe 5.0 with its upcoming Zen 4 architecture and Ryzen 7000-series CPUs. For now, PCIe 4.0 remains the most-used version of the spec for high-end SSDs and current-generation GPUs, and most budget PCIe SSDs still use PCI Express 3.0, which is more widely supported by older systems and is still plenty fast for most things. The PCI-SIG recognizes in its PCIe 6.0 FAQ that the new spec's bandwidth isn't necessary for most consumer applications, pitching it instead as an upgrade for data centers and artificial intelligence and machine learning systems.

The PCI-SIG expects that PCIe 6.0 products will begin hitting the market within 12 to 18 months.

PCI Express 6.0 spec is finalized, doubling bandwidth for SSDs, GPUs, and more

Apple may be done with Intel Macs, but Hackintoshes can still use the newest CPUs

Tue, 11 Jan 2022 20:41:19 +0000

OpenCore project continues bridging the gaps between PCs and real Intel Macs.

Hackintoshes are PCs that run macOS, which means you can do whatever you want with the design.

Dan Counsell

Apple hasn't stopped selling Intel Macs just yet, but it's safe to say that we'll never see a Mac with one of Intel's 12th-generation Core processors in it. But that minor detail isn't stopping the Hackintosh community from supporting new Intel and AMD processors and platforms. The developers behind OpenCore, the most powerful and actively maintained bootloader for loading macOS on standard PC hardware, improved its Alder Lake support in this month's release, version 0.7.7. In a blog post over the weekend, the developers also detailed their efforts to update OpenCore and its associated software to work with Intel's Z690 chipset.

The key to building a functional Hackintosh is normally to build a PC that's as close as possible to actual Intel Mac hardware—most crucially, the CPU, GPU, and chipset. OpenCore's job is to bridge whatever gap is left between your PC and real Mac hardware so that macOS boots and works properly. It adds support for reading and booting macOS filesystems, loads kernel extensions to support additional hardware, tells macOS how to handle your system's audio outputs and USB ports, and spoofs hardware to take advantage of macOS's built-in support (if, for example, your PC has a GPU that is similar to but not quite identical to a GPU included in a real Intel Mac).

As OpenCore has developed and matured, it has gotten better at bridging larger and larger gaps between PC hardware and "real" Macs. It can get old versions of macOS like Tiger (10.4) and Snow Leopard (10.6) up and running on old hardware, and it can even be used to run newer macOS versions on real Macs that Apple has dropped from the official support list. It can even run macOS on AMD processors, albeit with some caveats for software that relies on Intel-specific functionality. The still-active Hackintosh Reddit community is full of people running macOS on all kinds of different hardware.

It's that sort of flexibility that will keep macOS working on 12th-generation Intel CPUs and the Z690 chipset. All of that said, running macOS on newer hardware isn't for the faint of heart, and some things just aren't going to work. Trying to use 12th-gen processors' new efficiency cores (or E-cores) can also cause general slowdowns because macOS doesn't know how to best distribute work between the different types of cores—macOS doesn't (and never will) support Intel's "Thread Director" technology, which needs to be baked into your operating system to get the best performance.

The GPUs from 11th- and 12th-generation Intel processors also won't work in Hackintoshes because they were never supported in real Macs, so you would need to rely on a dedicated AMD GPU to handle display output and other tasks (in real Intel Macs, even iMacs and MacBook Pros with dedicated GPUs still use the integrated Intel GPUs for video and photo encoding and decoding). Apple is still adding support for newer AMD GPUs in macOS releases, presumably so those cards can work in the Mac Pro—the Radeon RX 6900 series, 6800 series, and RX 6600 XT are all supported—but Apple could easily decide to stop supporting newer GPUs whenever it wants. And Nvidia GPUs aren't supported at all.

Though I wouldn't actually recommend running out and buying the parts for a Hackintosh at this point, the ability of OpenCore and its developers to get macOS running on all kinds of x86 hardware is a noteworthy technical achievement. The process could (and likely will) get more difficult to sustain as Intel's hardware moves even further away from what Apple uses in real Intel Macs. And once Apple decides to stop supporting its Intel Macs altogether, it's extremely unlikely that macOS will be able to run directly on any non-Apple hardware, Intel or otherwise. But at least for now, the Hackintosh

community is still going strong, and your 2022 Hackintosh doesn't need to be stuck with 2020's hardware if you don't want it to be.

Apple may be done with Intel Macs, but Hackintoshes can still use the newest CPUs