AMD has designed a physically smaller version of its 4 nm "Phoenix" mobile processor silicon. The chip could power lower-end mobile SKUs in the Ryzen 3 and Ryzen 5 series, and it's likely that it could make it to Socket AM5, where it will power Ryzen 3 and lower-end versions of Ryzen 5 desktop processors. Built on the same 4 nm foundry process as the standard "Phoenix" silicon, the so-called "Phoenix 2" or "PHX2" die physically features a 6-core/12-thread CPU based on the "Zen 4" microarchitecture, and a physically smaller iGPU with just two WGPs (workgroup processors), or 4 CU (compute units), which work out to 256 stream processors. This iGPU is based on the same RDNA3 graphics architecture as the iGPU powering the regular "Phoenix" silicon.
The PHX2 die likely retains the I/O of the regular "Phoenix," including a dual-channel (4 sub-channel) DDR5 and LPDDR5 memory interface, and a 24-lane PCI-Express Gen 4 root complex. These changes result in a die that appears to be around three-quarters the size of the regular "Phoenix," with a die-area of around 137 mm². The smaller die will save AMD big on costs and yields. At this time, there are at least two processor models reported to be based on this die, the Ryzen 5 7540U and Ryzen 3 7440U. Both are 15 W to 28 W class mobile processors aimed at thin-and-light notebooks.
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ASUS has a GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Card with an M.2 SSD Slot
ASUS Chinese GM—Tony Yu—has shown off a graphics card concept on Bilibili that has a rather unusual feature, a slot for an M.2 NVMe SSD. The card is based on NVIDIA's GeForce RT 4060 Ti GPU and although not all details are clear at this point in time, but ASUS is taking advantage of the unused PCIe lanes on the card, since the AD106 GPU only uses eight PCIe lanes, the PCIe connector on the card has space for a further eight lanes. In theory ASUS could have added a pair of SSDs, since there are a total of eight lanes available, but as this was just a proof of concept, they seemingly stuck with a single SSD.
It's unclear if ASUS relies on bifurcation or if the company has added some kind of bridge chip, but bifurcation makes more sense, as a bridge chip would add a lot more cost. The neat thing with the NVMe drive being on the GPU, is that it also connects to the heatsink of the graphics card, which means the cooling should be rather good. However, for this to work properly, the SSD would have to be mounted back to front compared to how it would be mounted on a motherboard. Based on the test results, the SSD runs at a cool 42 degrees C, even when the GPU is being stress tested. It's likely that this product will not make it to markets outside of China, if it's ever launched into retail.
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GoDeal24 Announces Big Summer Sale: Great Discounts on Genuine Software
Summer is here, and so is affordable next-gen gaming hardware, so it's time to build! Give your Summer gaming PC built the GoDeal24 advantage, with Genuine Software at discounted prices, saving you serious cash that you can spend on faster hardware. Get Genuine Windows 11 Pro at just $10.25. Office 2021 Professional Plus can be had at just $24.25. Combine the two at just $32.99. Check out great deals on other editions of Windows and Office to save even more!
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Buy Windows 11 Pro + Office 2021 Professional Plus at $32.99 | Buy Windows 10 Pro + Office 2021 Professional Plus at $29.70 | Buy Windows 11 Pro + Office 2019 Professional Plus at $28.68 | Buy Windows 10 Pro + Office 2019 Professional Plus at $25.68 | Buy Project 2021 Professional at $25.70 | Buy Visio 2021 Professional at $22.97
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Check out great deals on system utilities.Read full story
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This Week in Gaming (Week 27)
With this week being the 4th of July in the US, it appears that we don't have too many game releases to look forward to, but we managed to dig out a few new releases regardless. This week's AA title comes from Japan, with all that that entails. The rest of this week's releases include some strategy, some shooting, some tagging, some climbing, some darkness and some fear, so make of that what you want. To our US readers, enjoy your holiday this coming week.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie / This week's AA title / Friday 7 July
What destinies await these three fateful figures? Use the Crossroads system to switch between Rean Schwarzer, Lloyd Bannings, and the masked figure "C", and determine the fates of key characters and locations within Zemuria. Dive into refined tactical combat with new features such as United Front, and discover new allies and challenges within the halls of the True Reverie Corridor!
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(PR) AAEON Shows Off New MIX-Q670D1 Thin Mini-ITX With Quad 4K Display, AI, and 5G Capabilities
AAEON, a leading producer of industrial motherboards, has released the MIX-Q670D1, a low-profile, expandable Mini-ITX motherboard supporting both 12th and 13th Generation Intel Core processors. Despite its low 18.3 mm vertical profile, the MIX-Q670D1 is compatible with 21 CPUs across the 12th and 13th Generation Intel Core lines, and can support CPUs up to 65 W. Powered by a 12 V DC input, the MIX-Q670D1 offers a considerably higher maximum single-core frequency of 5.2 GHz when compared to the 3.0 GHz provided by previous DC-powered Mini-ITX boards.
Keeping the board slim while maintaining advanced functionality, the MIX-Q670D1 is equipped with an extensive set of internal connectors, including two pin headers for four USB 2.0, two COM port box headers, and an AAFP header for high-definition audio. With this configuration, the MIX-Q670D1 can take advantage of peripheral devices according to application needs, without taking up physical port space.
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(PR) Kontron Announces K3831-H Thin Mini-ITX H610 Motherboard for Intel 12th/13th Gen Processors
Kontron, a global leader in IoT/Embedded Computing Technology (ECT), presents the K3831-H Thin Mini-ITX, a newly developed motherboard - Made in Germany. The K3831-H offers the highest performance and functionality on a small as well as ultra-slim form factor and supports the Intel Core i3/i5/i7/i9 processors of the 12th and 13th generation. Despite the limited space and height, the K3831-H Thin Mini-ITX motherboard offers extensive connectivity options, including HDMI V2.0b, DisplayPort V1.4a, Dual Channel LVDS, Dual GbE LAN and 9x USB (2.0, 3.2 Gen 1 and 3.2 Gen 2). It is ideally suited for flat system solutions in the application areas of All-in-One and Tiny Box PCs, KIOSK systems and digital signage, among others.
The Thin Mini-ITX motherboard uses the latest DDR5 memory technology (max. 64 GB) for maximum system performance. The Intel UHD Graphics 7xx with Xe architecture support DPP, HDMI and LVDS and enable impressive visual presentation. The K3831-H offers an extended lifecycle of up to 5 years for long-term support and availability.
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Chinese Research Team Uses AI to Design a Processor in 5 Hours
A group of researchers in China have used a new approach to AI to create a full RISC-V processor from scratch. The team set out to answer the question of whether an AI could design an entire processor on its own without human intervention. While AI design tools do already exist and are used for complex circuit design and validation today, they are generally limited in use and scope. The key improvements shown in this approach over traditional or AI assisted logic design are the automated capabilities, as well as its speed. The traditional assistive tools for designing circuits still require many hours of manual programming and validation to design a functional circuit. Even for such a simple processor as the one created by the AI, the team claims the design would have taken 1000x as long to be done by humans. The AI was trained by observing specific inputs and outputs of existing CPU designs, with the paper summarizing the approach as such:(...) a new AI approach, which generates large-scale Boolean function with almost 100% validation accuracy (e.g., > 99.99999999999% as Intel) from only external input-output examples rather than formal programs written by the human. This approach generates the Boolean function represented by a graph structure called Binary Speculation Diagram (BSD), with a theoretical accuracy lower bound by using the Monte Carlo based expansion, and the distance of Boolean functions is used to tackle the intractability.
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Intel Pauses Some Sapphire Rapids Xeon Shipments Amid Hardware Bug
Intel's Xeon Sapphire Rapids processors have been coated with numerous delays, and today, we learn that the company is stopping shipment of certain SKUs, mostly driven by the discovery of a new bug. After plenty of delays, Sapphire Rapids has been shipping for a few months now. However, SemiAnalysis's Chief Analyst, Dylan Patel, tipped Tom's Hardware that certain SKUs haven't been shipping since June. What this translates into is the additional delays to the 4th generation Xeon Scalable line, which was already in a difficult position. Some estimates claimed that it did 12 steppings, meaning that it took 11 times to perfect the silicon for the mass production run. The impacted CPUs are models with up to 32 cores, based on MCC die. These SKUs represent a huge amount of the total Xeon volume.
Intel's spokesperson published the following statement for Tom's Hardware: "We became aware of an issue on a subset of 4th Generation Intel Xeon Medium Core Count Processors (SPR-MCC) that could interrupt system operation under certain conditions and are actively investigating. This issue was not observed when running commercially available software, and other 4th Generation Intel Xeon processor SKUs (i.e., XCC and HBM) have not exhibited the issue. Out of an abundance of caution, we did temporarily pause some SPR MCC shipments while we gained confidence in the expected firmware mitigation and expect to release remaining shipments shortly."
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(PR) ASML Issues Statement Regarding Dutch Export Control Regulations
Today the Dutch government has published the new regulations regarding export controls of semiconductor equipment. As announced earlier in March, the new export controls focus on advanced chip manufacturing technology, including the most advanced deposition and immersion lithography systems.
Due to these export control regulations, ASML will need to apply for export licenses with the Dutch government for all shipments of its most advanced immersion DUV lithography systems (TWINSCAN NXT:2000i and subsequent immersion systems). The Dutch government will determine whether to grant or deny the required export licenses and provide further details to the company on any conditions that apply.
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(PR) Football Manager 2023 Free Trial Available Now, Ends Next Monday
