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All new? A lot of information about the Rocket Lake-S processors has already been made public, and now we make our own contribution. Whether or not Intel manages to overcome the 2-core deficit with its top-end model? Moreover, we also got our hands on the fastest 6-core chip from the new generation. Read our review to learn what kind of performance the new chips offer and whether or not AMD needs to start preparing for the worst.

Chinese memory module producer Jiahe Jinwei is among the first to receive DDR5 chip shipments from Micron for implementation. SK Hynix and Samsung are expected to begin shipping their DDR5 chips soon, as well. By the end of 2021, we should be seeing a decent selection of DDR5 modules for the Intel Alder Lake-S processors.

Apple has booked TSMC’s initial production of the first next-generation 4 nm process node wafers according to Digitimes. The first chips to roll off the production line will be destined for Apple’s Mac line, which of course includes its MacBook Pro models and iMacs.

A TechTuber has offered up some staggering guesses for the potential performance of future M1 Apple Silicon SoCs. With an M1Z chip defeating a Ryzen Threadripper 3990X in Geekbench multi-core and an M1P part surpassing a GeForce RTX 3080 in OpenCL, it seems AMD and Nvidia will also be joining Intel in facing the Apple SoC threat.

Xiaomi's bumper launch of today (March 29, 2021) mainly focused on its new Mi 11-series Android phones. However, it also introduced a number of new products that could be used alongside them, one of which is the new Mi AX9000 router. Its new, gamer-geared design gives it 12 antennae in total, and integrates a top-end Qualcomm chipset for tri-band Wi-Fi 6 speeds and specs.

The South Korean hardware manufacturer EmTek has released unusual-looking graphics cards before, but the GeForce RTX 3060 MIRACLE will take some beating. While its dual fan design is regular for a GeForce RTX 3060, its honeycomb and bee-inspired design is more playful than many contemporary graphics cards. It remains to be seen how useful obscuring one intake fan will be, though.

ASUS has unveiled the GeForce RTX 3060 Phoenix, a tiny GA106-based card that has one fan. The RTX 3060 Phoenix is just 177 mm long, but it is a 2.5-slot card being 51 mm wide.

The long-awaited Cyberpunk 2077 Patch 1.2 is almost here, and CDPR has confirmed that it will feature nearly 300 fixes for its triple-A title. Patch 1.2 will also enable ray tracing for AMD graphics cards, such as the Radeon RX 6700 XT and RX 6800 XT.
Updated: Patch 1.2 is now live on consoles and PC, where it is a 34 GB download.

MSI will be showcasing how its latest Intel Z590 and B560-series motherboards can help push the performance of Intel's 11th gen Rocket Lake processors in productivity, gaming, and content creation via a virtual live event on March 31. Viewers of the livestream will also be able to take part in contests and win exciting prizes.

A discovery by a Hardwareluxx forum member seems to indicate that NVIDIA might have scrapped plans for using the GA102-250 in the RTX 3080 TI and, instead, repurpose it as GA102-300 for the RTX 3090. This still leaves the possibility of a GA102-225 with 12 GB GDDR6X VRAM launching as the RTX 3080 Ti some time in May.

An intriguing Unreal Engine comparison featuring a whole range of high-powered processors has been carried out by Puget Systems, with the very expensive AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro 3995WX coming out on top. The test also featured the Zen 3 Ryzen 9 5950X, AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper 3990X, and even a Comet Lake Intel Core i9-10900K.

ZA/UM's remarkably political RPG is set to receive a major upgrade on March 30th. The Director's Cut of Disco Elysium will include new narrative content as well as full voice acting, fleshing out hundreds of thousands of lines of in-game text.

The idea of Discord being bought out by Microsoft in a billion-dollar deal has mostly been dismissed as clickbait fuel - until now. The Wall Street Journal has reported that the Redmond giant and chat-service stalwart are indeed in "advanced" talks concerning a potential acquisition. Therefore, the latter may not be merely trying to ramp up for a potential IPO after all.

According to a new rumour, NVIDIA plans to release two GeForce RTX 3070 Ti cards in May, both with GDDR6X VRAM. Apparently, NVIDIA has developed 8 GB and 16 GB SKUs that can reach 21 Gbps. The GeForce RTX 3070 Ti is expected to launch in May with NVIDIA's GA104-400 GPU.

ViewSonic has introduced five VX18 series gaming monitors with 165 Hz refresh rates and 1 ms response times. The series ranges from the 24-inch and 1080p VX2418-P-MHD to the 32-inch and curved VX3218-PC-MHD. All five gaming monitors rely on ViewSonic's SuperClear VA panels that provide high contrast ratios and wide colour space coverages.

By employing technologies like TSV and HKHG, Samsung is now able to up the DDR5 module capacity to 512 GB. These modules are designed for data centers and are twice as fast as any current DDR4 solutions. Desktop versions with more "down to earth" capacities should also be available towards the end of the year.

Panasonic announces three OLED TV models that come with the 48-inch size option. These keep the HCX Pro AI Processor and custom color profiles from the flagship JZ2000 screens, but also come with Game Mode Extreme that lowers input lag down to 2.5 ms for 60 Hz signals.

A surprising piece of Steve Jobs memorabilia has changed hands for a six-figure USD sum at a London auction. Rather than being an original Apple-1 or anything like that, it consists of a printed sheet of paper, filled out by the iconic Apple executive by hand in 1973. If nothing else, the document underpins Jobs' interest in computing even way back then.

Chipsee has developed new add-ons for the Raspberry Pi Computer Module 4, including one that turns it into an all-in-one PC. The so-called All-In-One Pi supports VESA desktop mounts in two colours. There is also an Industrial Pi board that utilises the Compute Module 4 as a 7-inch tablet with optional 4G connectivity.

The Apple M1 8-core chip has finally managed to leapfrog the Intel Core i7-11700K in PassMark’s CPU Mark chart for single-thread performance in desktop processors. This leaves only the top-end Rocket Lake i9-11900K ahead of the Apple Silicon. While the i9-11900K has an MSRP of US$539, an M1 Mac mini with 8 GB RAM and 256 GB storage costs from US$699.

MSI has confirmed that it plans to increase the price of its graphics cards at a recent investor meeting. The company hasn't specified which GPUs will be subject to the price hike, but we can reasonably assume that the entirety of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3000 and AMD Radeon RX 6000 series will be affected.

The fifth beta version of macOS 11.3 supposedly contains hints about the direction of the iMac, Apple's all-in-one desktop computer series. So far, references to two new iMacs have been found, both presumably running Apple Silicon ARM SoCs. Other exciting upgrades are due this year too, including a redesign for the series.

A new report says that Nvidia has delayed the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti launch date to mid-May. No reason has been cited, but it is safe to assume that it has something to do with the global semiconductor shortage. This will inadvertently affect the GeForce RTX 3070 Ti's release, too.

Mechanical engineer Pim de Groot (@mifune) created a USB-C that seemingly brings back the bad old days of USB adapters that don't fit into ports the first (or second!) time.

Looks like Intel does not really want to sever all ties with Apple, even after denigrating the new M1-powered Macs in its quite aggressive ad campaign released last week. With the introduction of its IDM 2.0 strategic plan that includes a Foundry Service program for fabless companies in the U.S. and Europe, Intel hopes to regain Apple's trust by offering to produce future ARM-based M processors. It remains to be seen how Intel is going to match TSMC's 3 nm and 2 nm nodes.

Modder nicobellic300901 released "Grainy SSR Begone" for Cyberpunk 2077. The mode leverages the Reshade platform to intelligently denoise low-resolution SSR reflections in the game for enhanced visuals, without the performance hit of "Psycho" quality RTX effects.

It appears Apple has been further reducing its current iMac offerings by removing two storage configurations from the purchase options. While this could indicate an upcoming unveiling of an iMac range featuring M-series Apple Silicon, the continuing worldwide chip shortage could force further hardware delays.

In his keynote for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ International Reliability Physics Symposium, SK Hynix CEO Seok-Hee Lee talks about the inevitable convergence of memory and logic, the CXL standard that could replace PCIe as a faster link between CPU and graphics cards or smart memory interfaces, plus the road to 600-layer NAND chips.

The graphics card shortage has led to another curious product launch. Now, Palit has unveiled a new version of the GeForce GTX 1050 Ti, which it first released in 2016. Worse still, the Pascal-based card is no cheaper than it was when Palit released it four years ago.

An Intel Core i9-11900K processor has appeared in an unboxing video a week before its official sale date of March 30. Fortunately for the top-end Rocket Lake-S part, the hottest thing in the clip is the packaging. The angular shape of the i9-11900K’s box is surprisingly appealing.

Game Director Hugo Martin and Executive Producer Marty Stratton have confirmed that DOOM Eternal will continue to receive updates throughout the year. They could include the addition of raytracing, new Master Levels, next-generation console improvements, and Invasion Mode.

With the same looks, the Thor 380, 400, and 401 RGB mechanical keyboards by Genesis are set apart by the switches inside. The first one uses Otemu Blue, the second employs Kailh RED, and the Genesis 401 RGB sports Kailh Brown switches. The prices are 59,80 EUR (~US$71) for the 380 and 69,80 EUR (~US$83) for the 400 and 401.

According to new information from board partners, NVIDIA plans to release two new powerful Ampere-based GPUs within the next two months. The cards in question are the GeForce RTX 3070 Ti and GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, which should both offer better performance than the current RTX 3070 and RTX 3080.

A UserBenchmark listing of an upcoming HP EliteDesk 805 G8 has surfaced. The listing indicates the mini PC running an AMD processor but only the OPN code is shown. It is likely that this OPN code refers to the AMD Ryzen 7 Pro 5750G APU. The benchmark does not reveal any dGPU, which was offered optionally with the EliteDesk 805 G6 (GTX 1660 Ti).

Several key Alder Lake features have been highlighted via a new leak. This particular SKU will come with eight Golden Core and eight Gracemont cores that will offer up to 20% and 2X better single and multi-threaded performance. DDR5 and PCI Gen5 support is confirmed too, along with some key Intel 600 series chipset specifications.

Cyberpunk 2077 Patch 1.2 is slated to correct some of the often-overlooked, but annoying aspects of the game such as the police appearing out of thin air and vehicular controls. It will also let you remap the dash ability on your keyboard. The patch is expected to arrive sometime at the end of March.

According to industry observers, it will be the redesigned iMac and not the MacBook Pro 16 that will truly be able to unlock the full potential of an expected M1X Apple Silicon. Even with an updated cooling solution, thermal restrictions will prevent the MacBook Pro 16 from hitting the performance heights of a larger M1X iMac device.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild remains one of the most beautiful games even four years after its release. However, the Nintendo Switch's limited power holds the game back, from its resolution to its often low framerates. However, a new video now shows how the triple-A title could look if it had been paired with more powerful hardware, or hardware that is capable of playing it in 8K with ray tracing enabled.

Intel’s long-awaited Xe HPG (DG2) graphics cards for serious gamers appear to be close to launching. The company has teased a scavenger hunt for March 26 based on hidden code found in a recent teaser video pointing to a launch as soon as the end of the month.

NVIDIA's game-streaming service GeForce NOW has announced the end of one membership type and the beginning of another. At US$9.99, the new Priority subscription costs more, but is also slated to add more benefits such as RTX ON and DLSS support in compatible titles. However, those with the original Founder's membership have their pricing locked in.

LG has added a feature called Fine Tune Dark Areas to over 70 TVs as it aims to reduce raised black levels, especially on OLED panels. LG intends people to use the feature when using VRR on an enabled PC or games console.

AMD's Radeon RX 6000 series is not the best choice for crypto mining, with the RX 6900 XT only generating an ETH Hash rate of just over 60 MH/s. However, the company will not be making it any worse as NVIDIA has done with the RTX 3060.

LG added a few new sliders that are meant to fix the near-black gamma problems reported on last year's models. Thus, we have the Black Stabiliser and Fine Tune Dark Areas sliders that can deal with the elevated black, but we also see features like White Stabiliser for bright highlight details in HDR and a Prevent Input Delay toggle that helps reduce input lag with 60 Hz signals.

Intel recently unveiled yet another boost technology set to debut exclusively on its top-tier Rocket Lake S i9-11900K CPU. Adaptive Boost will allow the processor to hit up to 5.1 GHz on all cores, assuming cooling is up to snuff and temperatures are below 70 degrees C.

AMD plans to release its answer to Nvidia DLSS across all major gaming platforms, yet launch details are still sketchy. FidelityFX Super Resolution could be launched this year on PC at least, but AMD admits it is still pondering on which technique would best suit all gaming platforms.

Motorola has introduced a new PC-like desktop environment for its Moto Edge Plus flagship smartphone. The functionality dubbed ‘Ready For’ gives users the ability to plug in their smartphone to a keyboard, mouse and display similar to Samsung’s DeX environment.

AMD's cheapest RDNA 2 graphics card to date isn't entirely convincing in the first detailed tests. This is not due to the fact that the graphics card would not be good, but rather because Nvidia is represented in this price range with the GeForce RTX 3070.

Apple is currently transitioning from Intel processors to in-house chipsets based on the ARM architecture. The company has already moved three products over to Apple Silicon, and now Xcode has essentially confirmed that the iMac could soon follow suit. Rumour has it that the ARM-based iMac will feature a redesign too.

Thanks to the new UE4 DLSS plugin created in collaboration with Epic, game developers can now add DLSS support to their games in less than a day. The performance boost offered through the DLSS implementation can especially be seen in games with ray tracing enabled where the fps counts can be increased by 2.5X.