ASUS has apparently begun listing motherboards on the as-of-yet-unreleased, as-of-yet-undetailed AMD A520 chipset. Lower in the chipset rung than AMD's X570 and B550 chipsets, the A520 is expected to not offer any dedicated PCIe 4.0 lanes by itself - at most, motherboards will support the same 20 PCIe 4.0 lanes offered by AMD's CPUs, with the rest I/O being PCIe 3.0-based in order to further cut platform and chipset costs.



All of the A520 chipset motherboards listed by ASUS seem to be in the mATX form-factor - which again makes sense, as having the most basic chipset in order to cut costs and then using the same PCB real-estate as more expensive chipset solutions doesn't seem like a wise choice. The listed motherboards are the

PRIME A520M-A; PRIME A520M-E; PRIME A520M-K; TUF GAMING A520M-A; and TUF GAMING A520M-PLUS. As you can see, these motherboards are set in the ASUS TUF and Prime product lines - there's no mention of any Strix-branded products.

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MSI Announces Upgrade Program for Z490 Motherboards - Will Offer Up To $50 Steam Wallet
MSI has announced that it is running an upgrade program for its Z490 motherboards. The program is valid for motherboards purchased from May 6th through June 15th. This program will essentially see you being rewarded with a Steam wallet code worth $50 should you purchase a new MSI Z490 motherboard to replace the old (or maybe just last-generation) motherboard you own from Intel. To this effect, MSI is requiring users to register their new motherboard online, take a picture of the boards' serial number, and upload another picture with your new motherboard and old one side by side - the ultimate shame towards your old, trusty piece of hardware.



The promotion applies to select MSI motherboards, with rewards being tiered according to the expense you had on the new MSI board. As such, users who acquired MSI's MEG Z490 GODLIKE or MEG Z490 ACE will be rewarded with $50 back. Users who purchased the cheapest Z490 motherboard, the MPG Z490

GAMING PLUS, however, will only see a $10 credit. Interestingly, MSI has included both its own, pre-Z490 motherboards as eligible for the upgrade program... As well as ASUS'. And that's it. No other manufacturers' boards are being accepted. Make of that what you will.

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NVIDIA and HiSilicon Enter Top 10 Semiconductor Suppliers List
HiSilicon, a subsidiary company of Huawei, has officially entered the top 10 list of the semiconductor suppliers in the first quarter of 2020. This is a very important milestone for HiSilicon, as this shows just how big demand there is for its chips. Starting from smartphone chips going inside Huawei phones, server processors, and telecommunication equipment, HiSilicon has been busy pumping out designs at a very high rate. And now, thanks to the report of IC Insights, we have information that HiSilicon has become one of the biggest players in the industry.



Ranked at number 10 spot, HiSilicon is the first company from China that has entered this list. At the number nine spot is NVIDIA, which is also a new entry to the list. Thanks to the growth of 37% for the quarter, NVIDIA can hold number nine spot. In total, the top 10 of the semiconductor suppliers have climbed 16% on year in the first quarter of 2020, which is a very impressive result, counting in the current pandemic in the world.
Top 10 Semiconductor Suppliers TSMC Sales to HiSilicon

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AMD Coming Around to Launching the Radeon RX 5600M and RX 5700M?
AMD is finally coming around to launching the Radeon RX 5600M and RX 5700M based on its 7 nm "Navi 10" silicon. The company has, until now, only shipped mobile GPUs using the smaller "Navi 14" chip. A scoop by Komachi Ensaka points to an upcoming notebook combining a Ryzen 4000-H processor an "Navi-10M" GPU. With the right combination of clock speeds and memory configuration, the RX 5600M could offer performance rivaling (or beating) the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti (mobile), and possibly on par with the RTX 2060 (mobile). The RX 5700M could compete with the upcoming RTX 2060 Super (mobile) and RTX 2070 (mobile). The RX 5600M could be a particularly important solution, as its desktop compatriot is designed for higher refresh-rate 1080p gaming. Much of the gaming notebook scene still revolves around 1080p, with innovations in the areas of refresh rates.



AMD gave both the RX 5600M and RX 5700M identical GPU core configurations to their desktop variants. The RX 5600M has 2,304 stream processors, 144 TMUs, 64 ROPs, and a 192-bit GDDR6 memory interface holding 6 GB of memory; while the RX 5700M tops it with 256-bit wide memory bus and 8 GB of memory. Both the RX 5700M and RX 5600M are configured with 12 Gbps memory frequency. The RX 5600M ticks at 1190 MHz (game), and 1265 MHz (boost), while the RX 5700M does 1620 MHz (game) and 1720 MHz (boost). Coming back to Komachi's leak about the Renoir + Navi 10M notebook, we predict a working implementation of AMD SmartShift technology. The company even made marketing graphics of this.

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MSI Rolls Out MEG Infinite X 10th and MAG Infinite S Gaming Desktops
MSI expanded its lineup of gaming desktops to be refreshed with 10th generation Intel Core processors, with the high-end MEG Infinite X 10th, MAG Infinite S, and MAG Infinite 10th. The company had, earlier this week, announced the refreshed Codex R and MEG Trident X with the new chips. The new MEG Infinite X features Intel's new flagship Core i9-10900K 10-core processor, paired with an Intel Z490 chipset motherboard, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Super graphics, and empty memory- and storage- options. You add your own memory - up to 128 GB of dual-channel DDR4-2933 across four DIMM slots; and your own storage - two M.2-2280 NVMe PCIe slots, two 2.5-inch SATA, and one 3.5-inch SATA drive bays. The MAG Infinite S and MAG Infinite 10th share the same chassis, but use Core i7-10700 8-core processors, and GeForce RTX 2060 graphics. The company didn't reveal pricing.

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EA Confirms its Games Will Receive Free Patches for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X Compatibility
EA has confirmed that it's existing games for Xbox One and Playstation 4 will receive free patches to upgrade them for next-generation consoles. The PS5 and Xbox Series X both feature ways to play current-generation games, both consoles will attempt to automatically boost games up to 4k resolution. While these options ensure broad inter-generation compatibility issues can arise from game limitations, this is where manual patches come in allowing developers to take advantage of the extra performance and radically overhaul their games.



Electronic Arts CFO Blake Jorgensen confirmed in a recent earnings call that EA would not charge consumers for these patches. "As usual, we have presented the quarterly phasing of our net bookings in our earnings presentation. Note that this year, the phasing includes the effect of revenue recognition from the games we are launching for the current generation of consoles that can also be upgraded free for the next generation."

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Microsoft Announces Xbox Game Pass May Game Changes
Microsoft has recently announced all the game arrivals and departures coming to Xbox Game Pass for PC & Xbox this month. PC gamers are receiving Halo 2 Anniversary, Final Fantasy IX, Streets of Rage 4, and Endless Legend while console gamers are getting Red Dead Redemption 2, DayZ, Final Fantasy IX, Streets of Rage 4, and Fractured Minds.



The over 10 million subscribers' strong service will also lose several games this May 15th for both PC and Xbox. PC users will lose Imperator: Rome, Rise of the Tomb Raider, The Banner Saga, West of Loathing and Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus while console users will lose Grand Theft Auto V, Black Desert, Doom, Lego Ninjago Movie Video Game, Mega Man Legacy Collection 2, Metal Gear Survive, The Banner Saga, Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus.

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Google Stadia Controller Gains Wireless Support on PC
The Google Stadia controller launched alongside Google Stadia 6 months ago and was touted as the controller for all platforms with integrated ultra-low latency features. However, PC users could not take advantage of the ultra-low latency features which connects the Stadia controller directly to your Wi-Fi router. PC users have instead had to connect their controller to their PC with a USB Type-C cable. Some users report that this will increase compatibility on obscure systems by offloading the input handling to Stadia's servers.



"Starting this week, you can now use the Stadia Controller to play wirelessly on your laptop and desktop. You no longer need to connect your Stadia Controller physically to your computer to play your favorite games. You'll be able to link your Stadia Controller and Stadia.com through your Wi-Fi network and play without a USB-C cable connection."

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(PR) Acer Reports Q1 2020 Financial Results
Acer Inc. announced the financial results for the first quarter of 2020: consolidated revenues were NT$48.85 (USD$1.6) billion; gross profits were NT$4.95 (USD$0.16) billion with 10.1% margin; operating income was NT$19 (USD$0.63) million; earnings before tax was NT$780 (USD$26) million; and net income was NT$558 (USD$18.6) million with earnings per share (EPS) of NT$0.18 (USD$0.006).



Consolidated revenues in March grew 114% month-on-month, achieved by the velocity of actions to capture the rise in demands due to work-from-home and online learning needs. For example, the PANAM operations scored a record first-quarter in revenues over several years.

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Windows 10 Game Mode Negatively Impacts "Call of Duty: Warzone" Performance
The "Game Mode" toggle Microsoft introduced with Windows 10 Fall Creators Update (1709), is designed to improve gaming performance by prioritizing system resources for the game at the expensive of background processes, and preventing Windows Update from performing any automatic tasks (such as GPU driver updates, which would most certainly ruin your game). With "Call of Duty Warzone," however, this toggle appears to be having the opposite effect.



The Game Mode toggle reportedly causes Warzone to stutter, and sometimes even freeze. Apparently Windows 10 doesn't recognize it as a game. The issue affects users of both AMD and NVIDIA graphics hardware. It has so far been reproduced on the likes of the GTX 1080 Ti, GTX 980, RX 5700 XT, RX 570, RX 480, and R9 290. For now there's no workaround other than to simply disable Game Mode in Windows Settings. Find it in the "Gaming" section.

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