Another busy week in hardware news as we settle into the month of May. We have substantial news items from Intel, as the company continues to explore fab options in Europe. Additionally, Intel is ratcheting up its fab investments, and possibly looking to sell off its Sport Technology Group, which is home to its True View tech. Rounding-out the headline stories is IBM announcing a breakthrough in “2nm” semiconductors using nanosheet FETs. 

In slightly lesser news, TSMC is deploying AMD’s Epyc CPUs in the data centers that not only power its R&D, but its manufacturing as well -- a bragging point for AMD, to be sure. There’s also news regarding Arm, Sony, Steam, and more. 

At GN, we recently reviewed Cooler Master’s MF700 case, in addition to reviewing the Phanteks P360A case. Spoiler alert: Only one of those cases impressed us. We also dove into a decade’s worth of GPU data from AMD and Nvidia to discuss price creep, release patterns, and greed.

Lots of news to cover this week, including an interesting -- and surprising -- use of Intel’s Atom CPUs. We also have some commentary to add regarding the AMD “Warhol” rumor that ran rampant this past week. There’s news on the DDR5 front, as the new memory is nearing mass production and market-ready status, and we have something of an update on the Chia cryptocurrency story from last week. There’s plenty more, with news from AMD, Google, and Microsoft. 

At GN, we recently released a pair of videos diving into the AMD-based AYA NEO: one where we looked at performance and benchmarks, and another where we tore the unit down for analysis. Outside of hardware and gaming, GN has been involved in some environmental initiatives as well, such as this rain garden we recently helped fund.

News article and video below, per the usual.

This week, we see VESA issue a rare press release squashing a run-away rumor claiming a new VESA DisplayHDR 2000 specification. We also have new developments regarding the potential Nvidia-Arm deal, as the UK is becoming increasingly more scrutinous of the deal, now citing national security concerns. AMD also finally got around to releasing its big Radeon Software update, after delaying it out of the usual end-of-year/holiday release window. There’s plenty more to go over, of course, like RTX 3070 Ti rumors.

At GN, we recently dove into the dangers of using cheap cables, and documented the various fire hazards and false marketing therein. We also looked at how Intel has become AMD, in a sense, and looked at Intel’s Phantom Canyon NUC11PHKi7C.

This week, we have several news items anchored by fairly substantial announcements from both AMD and Nvidia. Nvidia kicked off its GTC 2021, and with it, had several key announcements, including its first data center CPU. AMD, for its part, announced a new line up of Zen 3 APUs.

In other news, Intel has stayed in the news cycle with commentary on Nvidia's latest products, as well as expressing its intent to manufacture silicon for the automotive industry. There’s also news from Atari, Nvidia commenting on GPU supply issues, an RX 580 scam, and more.

At GN, we recently announced our newest modmat: The GamersNexus “Volt” Series Modmat, which you can grab over at the GN store.  

News article and video embed follow below, as usual.

This week, we have headlining news regarding AMD research that outlines some security implications regarding Predictive Store Forwarding on Zen 3 CPUs. For the time being, it mostly seems to be a non-issue, unlike the Spectre variants that have hit Intel CPUs hard. Also in AMD news is another patent filed that expands on AMD’s research into GPU chiplets, and is seemingly an improvement over the previous patent we saw earlier this year.

There’s also news regarding a massive haul of smuggled GPUs that were seized in Hong Kong, some discussion on Lenovo using AMD’s PSB feature on its servers and workstations, some commentary on a potential X570S chipset, and more. 

At GN, we recently benchmarked Intel’s UHD 750 and UHD 630 IGPs and compared them to the low-end Nvidia GT 1030. We also reviewed the Arctic Freezer 50 CPU cooler, and detailed some of its pressure and assembly weaknesses. 

Video embed and article follow below, as usual.