Hardware
HW News - Intel Xe GPUs Progressing, Partner RX 6000 Release Timing, More Intel Rocket Lake-S Details
By Steve Burke & Eric HamiltonHardware news this week leads into a major launch sequence from AMD. We've been busy covering GPUs for about a month now, but that'll soon switch over to AMD Ryzen 5000 CPU coverage as the 5950X, 5900X, 5800X, and 5600X come to market. More on that in a few days. For now, we'll be covering Intel's Xe GPU progress updates, AMD RX 6000 partner GPU timeline expectations, some additional Rocket Lake-S details, a Corsair water block launch, and more.
The show notes follow the video embed, as always.
HW News - RIP New RTX Models, AMD Supercomputer, Intel Selling Off NAND Business
By Steve Burke & Eric HamiltonThis hardware news episode was filmed prior to the AMD news update, which we covered in full depth on the YouTube channel over here: AMD RX 6900 XT, 6800 XT, & 6800 Specs. We won't be going back over that announcement in this content, so you can check out the full RX 6000 details in that fully dedicated piece with additional AMD Q&A. In this one, we'll be talking RTX models being canceled or pushed back, AMD supercomputer pushes, Intel selling off part of its business, and more.
HW News - NVIDIA Rumored to Consider 7nm, RAM Price Down-Trend, ASUS Gundam PC Parts
By Steve Burke & Eric HamiltonIt’s been something of a busy week in hardware and enthusiast related news this past week, even with Apple’s iPhone event and Amazon’s glutenous Amazon Prime Day sales seemingly dictating part of the news cycle. Still, we’ve got a few stories worth talking about, and as ever, we’ve been busy with other coverage here at GN.
It looks like EVGA is among the first vendors to attempt to address the power limit issue for overclockers looking to push the RTX 3080 ever further, as the company has released a new beta VBIOS that raises the power target. Additionally, there are the usual rumblings in the memory market about price drops, a China-designed 7-nm class chip, an interesting vector supercomputer headed for Japan, and Gundam parts branded by ASUS.
At GN, we’ve been continuing our RTX 30-series coverage with a review and teardown of the ASUS RTX 3080 TUF OC, and we looked at Nvidia’s Reflex suite, including its Latency Analyzer and Reflex Low Latency Mode.
As usual, find the news recap and video embed below.
HW News - RTX 30 Inventory Details, New RTX GPU, Intel Rocket Lake, & MSI's eBay Cards
By Steve BurkeHardware news this past week has been busy, with the main coverage being AMD's Zen 3 CPUs (5000 series, like the 5950X, 5900X, 5600X, and 5800X), which we covered in a news piece previously. Following that, for this news recap, we've been updated on the MSI "scalping" story, RTX 3080 and 3090 inventory numbers for a European retailer, and how EVGA is still getting through day-one orders for the RTX 3080. Additional stories include Intel's quasi-announcement of Rocket Lake's timelines, NVIDIA's A6000 and A40 GPU specs, and Razer's cringe-worthy credit card.
HW News - AMD Ryzen C-Series CPUs, GDDR6X Thermals, Amazon Game Streaming
By Eric HamiltonEven with Nvidia's RTX 30-series launches the past couple of weeks, it has still been busy on fronts outside of new GPUs. We’ve been exhaustively testing the various aspects of the RTX 3080 and 3090 and have been diving into enthusiast overclocking.
Outside of that, we’ve got plenty of hardware and industry news to cover, offering some additional reporting and analysis on Nvidia’s botched launches and Microsoft's titanic ZeniMax/Bethesda buyout. We also have some news regarding Nvidia’s use of Micron’s GDDR6X memory and why it opted to keep clock rates modest -- for now.
We also have some information on AMD’s new Ryzen and Athlon 3000 C-series CPUs, Intel still shipping secret products to Huawei (with a license), Western Digital forming new business units internally, and the arrival of Amazon’s new Luna game streaming service. News article and video embed follow below, as usual.
HW News - Bethesda Sells to Microsoft, NVIDIA Changing SLI, TSMC 5nm Fully Claimed
By Eric HamiltonThe past week has been filled with RTX 3000-series coverage on the YouTube channel, including a world record-setting livestream with liquid nitrogen. Now, though, it's time to go through the hardware news over the past 10 days or so. We'll be talking about the recent Bethesda/Microsoft acquisition, NVIDIA attempting to buy ARM (and, unrelatedly, change SLI support), and 5nm capacity at TSMC. Show notes to follow, along with the embedded video.
HW News - AMD Zen 3 & RDNA2, RTX 3080 Binning, Liquid-Cooled Silicon, & Xbox Series X & S Specs
By Eric HamiltonIt’s been another busy week in hardware news as we move closer towards an official GPU launch (RTX 3000). As an update, NVIDIA has moved the review embargo lift (and we're able to tell you about it) from Monday the 14th to Wednesday the 16th. RTX 3080 reviews will go live on Wednesday. The date was moved because of global shipping delays causing some other regions (outside North America) to receive cards late for reviewers; in effort to keep it fair between reviewers around the world, NVIDIA pushed its review embargo date back. On a similar note, AMD finally decided to let us know when we’ll see “Big Navi” (RDNA 2) and Zen 3. There’s also a bit of speculation on possible price changes for AMD’s upcoming GPUs, in light of Nvidia’s emerging RTX 3000 series.
Elsewhere, Microsoft finally ended its game of chicken with Sony by revealing prices for its upcoming consoles, so the ball is firmly in Sony’s court. We also have some hardware specs on the now-confirmed Xbox Series S that will launch alongside the Xbox Series X.
Rounding-out the news for this week, there’s some interesting research being done on the possibility of embedded liquid cooling, some news surrounding Western Digital’s “5400 RPM-class” designation, and the return of Cryorig. As usual, the news article and video embed follow below.
HW News - Steam Says No One Uses AMD or RTX 20 GPUs, NVIDIA Gaining Power, 15.3TB SSDs
By Eric HamiltonThis week’s news was mainly anchored by Nvidia’s GeForce event, where the RTX 3000-series of graphics cards were officially unveiled. Intel also made some waves this past week with its own Tiger Lake CPU announcement, and both Intel and Nvidia have undertaken some rebranding efforts. Additionally, we’ve rounded up some new information regarding Nvidia’s RTX 3000-series announcement that focuses on some finer details for this generation.
We also have some news regarding what may be some interesting PC specific optimizations for the new Marvel Avengers game, the latest Steam Hardware survey, a $4000 SSD, and more. At GN, we recently covered the NVIDIA RTX 30-series cooler common questions and custom cards coming out. Also, we just received new stock for our GN Tear-Down Toolkit over at the GN Store.
News article and video embed follow below, as usual.
NVIDIA RTX 3090, 3080, & 3070 Specs, Price, Release Date, & Cooler
By Steve Burke & Eric HamiltonAfter months of persistent leaks, rumors, and speculation, NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 3000 GPUs were announced officially today. We now have first-party information from NVIDIA discussing the RTX 3000-series specifications.
This includes news on the cooler design, as well as a bit of information on power and PCB design. We also have some hard specs on the initial SKUs that were announced -- which are the NVIDIA RTX 3090, RTX 3080, and RTX 3070. There’s also some somewhat useful (if early) performance charts to go over, gaming news, and more. We’ve already published a video on this announcement on our channel, embedded below, but this written version accompanies it for supplemental information and an article recap.
HW News - RAM & SSD Prices Falling, RTX 3090 Alleged Photos, TSMC Makes One Billion 7nm Chips
By Eric HamiltonThis week’s news was highlighted by Hot Chips 32 (2020), which brought plenty of information that we’ll disaggregate below. Another point of interest is AMD launching its budget A520 chipset, but we already have a video and article dedicated to that topic, so we'd point you to that for more information (it’s linked below). Also of importance is Nvidia’s second quarter earnings, DRAM and NAND prices seemingly on the decline, and Internet Explorer being put out to pasture.
Recently at GN, we took a look at the CPU that almost killed AMD, reviewed one of the worst cases we’ve ever seen, and took a look at AMD’s A520 chipset. We also posted a fun and simple science expeirment demonstrating how not to install AIO liquid coolers. The news article and video embed are below, as usual.
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